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Archive for October 24th, 2011
Nebraska governor to consider legal challenge to Keystone XL pipeline route
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 24th, 2011
Reuters: Nebraska governor Dave Heineman said on Monday he will call a special session of the state legislature over TransCanada's proposed $7bn oil sands pipeline that would cross ecologically sensitive areas.
Heineman wants TransCanada to change the route of the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline away from Nebraska's Sand Hills region, which sits atop the Ogallala aquifer, one of the largest sources of water for farms in the central United States. He does not oppose the pipeline outright.
"I believe...
Posted in 
Russian Heat Wave Statistically Linked to Climate Change
Posted by Wired News: Brandon Keim on October 24th, 2011
Wired News: A new method of crunching climate data could make it possible to put a figure on climate change`s contribution to freak weather events, something that`s been difficult to do with empirical precision.
The debut subject: the Russian heat wave of July 2010, which killed 700 people and was unprecedented since record keeping began in the 19th century. According to the analysis, there`s an 80 percent chance that climate change was responsible.
"With climate change, it`s going to happen five times...
India is the most likely place for the seventh billionth child to be born
Posted by Guardian: Jason Burke on October 24th, 2011
Guardian: The Madanpur Khadr colony is a tenement slum on the southern outskirts of Delhi, the Indian capital. A decade ago there was nothing here but green fields, buffaloes wallowing, goats grazing and the odd small dwelling.
Now an estimated 40,000 people live in ramshackle, five-storey, brick and concrete homes, 10 to a room, without sewers or a clean water supply – and often without jobs.
No one knows exactly who will be the seventh billionth person on Earth, to be born on the last day of this month,...
NASA to launch new Earth-observing satellite
Posted by Associated Press: Alicia Chang on October 24th, 2011
Associated Press: After a five-year delay, an Earth-observing satellite will be launched to test new technologies aimed at improving weather forecasts and monitoring climate change.
The $1.5 billion NASA mission comes in a year of weather extremes from the Midwest tornado outbreak to the Southwest wildfires to hurricane-caused flooding in New England.
"We've already had 10 separate weather events, each inflicting at least $1 billion in damages," said Louis Uccellini of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration....
Study Offers New Insights Into Planting Flood-Tolerant Crops
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 24th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: Scientists say they have identified the molecular mechanism that enables plants to detect and cope with low oxygen levels that occur when roots or shoots are inundated with water, a development they say University of NottinghamWater added to the Arabidopsis plant could help farmers breed high-yield, flood-tolerant crops as flooding becomes more common globally. In a study published in Nature, scientists from the University of California, Riverside and the University of Nottingham in the UK describe...
Study: No evidence that climate change caused more severe floods in US
Posted by The Hill: Andrew Restuccia on October 24th, 2011
The Hill: A new study conducted by federal scientists found no evidence that climate change has caused more severe flooding in the United States during the last century.
But scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), who published their findings in the Hydrologic Sciences Journal Monday, said they will continue to examine the issue, noting that more research is necessary to better understand the relationship between climate change and flooding.
Scientists have long raised red flags about the impacts...
Population growth in Zambia: a view from the slums
Posted by Guardian: Georgina Smith on October 24th, 2011
Guardian: Three-week-old Mukuka Chanda is cradled in his grandmother's arms in George compound, Lusaka. He is one of 10 who live in a house of three small rooms. His grandmother, a widow, is HIV-positive and struggles to provide for the family.
Mukuka is born into the 64% of Zambia's population which live below the poverty line, and he, like the majority of Lusaka's residents, will start life in a slum area with poor access to water, sanitation, health care facilities and employment.
According to projections...
Report: Holding global warming to 2C increase still possible if nations act
Posted by Physorg: Bob Yirka on October 24th, 2011
Physorg: A new report published in Nature Climate Change, by an international group of scientists, suggests that the goal of holding the average global temperature increase (due mainly to carbon emissions) to 2° C, that the United Nations agreed on at separate meetings in 2009/10, can still be reached, but it's going to take an unprecedented effort by virtually all of the major countries of the world.
The group, comprised of European, Japanese, Chinese and Australian scientists and researchers, and led...
High in the sky, with a keen focus on changes below
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 24th, 2011
Daily Climate: The message on the monitors was clear: Nine images from satellites circling the top of the globe, each showing summer ice extent for a different year from 2002 to 2011, yet none coming close to the historic average.
Then the screens flickered, and up came nine snapshots of a dying Aral Sea from 2000 to 2009, the blue-green waters never wetting more than a portion of the dry lakebed.
Some of it is showing how beautiful the planet is. But some of it is giving people a new way of looking at something...
A Rise in Fungal Diseases is Taking Growing Toll on Wildlife
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Michelle Nijhuis on October 24th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: On the southeastern outskirts of Washington, D.C., inside the Smithsonian Institution’s cavernous Museum Support Center, one can see some frogs that no longer exist. Alcohol-filled glass jars hold preserved specimens of Incilius periglenes, the Monte Verde golden toad; the Honduran frog Craugastor chrysozetetes, which in life was olive-brown with purple palms and soles; its Costa Rican cousin, Craugastor escoces; and Atelopus ignescens, a black toad not seen in the wild for decades.
All of these...