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Archive for June, 2012
More Big Wildfires May Be Future Norm for US
Posted by Wired News: Tim McDonnell and James West on June 12th, 2012
Wired News: For the past 30 years, residents of tiny Laporte, Colorado, near the Wyoming border have gathered inside Bob`s Coffee Shop to swap gossip over coffee and danishes near the dense pine forest of Lory State Park. But since the weekend, Bob`s has become a very different kind of social hub: a de facto refugee camp for homeowners fleeing what many here call the worst wildfire in decades.
From a booth just a mile and half from the fireline, Bob`s owner Chris McCullough in a phone interview on Monday...
The Fastest-Warming US State Is …
Posted by LiveScience: Jeanna Bryner on June 12th, 2012
LiveScience: Some U.S. states are feeling the heat of climate change more than others, finds a new analysis of temperature increases over the past 100 years.
The state that saw the highest temperature increase was Rhode Island, followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arizona and Maine.
Scientists from Climate Central, a research and public outreach organization, suggest natural climate variability along with atmospheric aerosols (that block incoming solar radiation) both play roles in the findings.
For...
Defining Green Economy May Stymie Rio Summit
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 12th, 2012
Inter Press Service: The thematic battle at the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Brazil next week will be primarily around the new concept of a "green economy" - and how best to define it.
"If the green economy is clearly defined in a way that supports sustainable development without resorting to market-based experiments or techno-fixes, this will be a success," Alex Scrivener, policy officer at the London-based World Development Movement (WDM), told IPS.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon...
Land grabs leave Africa facing ‘hydrological suicide’
Posted by AlertNet: Emma Batha on June 12th, 2012
AlertNet: A scramble for cheap African farmland by foreign investors threatens to leave millions of people without water and could ultimately drain the continent's rivers, a report warns.
"If these land grabs are allowed to continue, Africa is heading for a hydrological suicide," said the report's co-author Henk Hobbelink, coordinator of GRAIN, an organisation supporting small farmers.
Foreign governments and wealthy individuals are snapping up millions of hectares of land on the continent for large-scale...
Climate change will boost number of U.S. West’s wildfires
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 12th, 2012
Reuters: Climate change will make wildfires in the West, like those now raging in parts of Colorado and New Mexico, more frequent over the next 30 years, researchers reported on Tuesday.
More broadly, almost all of North America and most of Europe will see an increase in wildfires by the year 2100, the scientists wrote in the journal Ecosphere, a publication of the Ecological Society of America.
The U.S. Southwest - Arizona, New Mexico and Texas - is the fastest-warming region of the United States,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Climate change will boost number of U.S. West’s wildfiresExtended Forecast: Northern Hemisphere Could Be in for Extreme Winters
Posted by Scientific American: Mark Fischetti on June 12th, 2012
Scientific American: Meteorological summer has begun in the Northern Hemisphere, but what is happening right now in the arctic could dramatically affect the weather you confront come December. This past winter was the warmest in U.S. history whereas eastern Europe was stuck in a deadly deep freeze with snow piled up to the rooftops. The winter before, however, it was the U.S. that got clobbered. What's going on? What will happen this year? We may finally have some answers. A new analysis published today in Oceanography...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Extended Forecast: Northern Hemisphere Could Be in for Extreme WintersDrier summers in the Lower Mainland will require new ways to conserve water: Study
Posted by Vancouver Sun: Gordon Hoekstra and Jeff Lee on June 12th, 2012
Vancouver Sun: Drier summers in the Lower Mainland will require communities to find new ways to conserve water in the coming decades, says a major new study on climate change adaptation released Monday.
That water conservation could include porous parking lot surfaces and roads without curbs.
Both would allow water normally lost in storm sewers to replenish groundwater aquifers, said the 150-page report.
A porous asphalt parking lot uses larger pieces of gravel and less tar, which allows more water to...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Drier summers in the Lower Mainland will require new ways to conserve water: StudyWildfires engulf forests and homes in the west
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 12th, 2012
New York Times: A fast-growing wildfire raged through dry forests and hillside subdivisions in northern Colorado on Monday, charring homes and forcing hundreds of families to evacuate in the latest out-of-control blaze to scorch the parched West. The fire was probably sparked by a lightning strike on Saturday, officials said, and it quickly exploded in size. By Monday, it had burned across nearly 60 square miles in the mountains about 15 miles west of Fort Collins, a college town, destroying more than 100 structures...
The clean-up begins on China’s dirty secret – soil pollution
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 12th, 2012
Guardian: Nowhere is the global push to restore degraded land likely to be more important, complex and expensive than in China, where vast swaths of the soil are contaminated by arsenic and heavy metals from mines and factories.
Scientists told the Guardian that this is likely to prove a bigger long-term problem than air and water pollution, with potentially dire consequences for food production and human health.
Zhou Jianmin, director of the China Soil Association, estimated that one-tenth of China's...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on The clean-up begins on China’s dirty secret – soil pollutionDrought drives Tanzanian herders into conflict with farmers
Posted by AlertNet: Kizito Makoye on June 12th, 2012
AlertNet: Deadly conflicts are erupting in Tanzania's southeastern Rufiji valley, as farmers clash with pastoralists who are being pushed into the area by drought, seeking land and water for their animals.
Hundreds of herdsmen from the nearby regions of Iringa and Morogoro are streaming towards the Pwani (Coast) Region's Rufiji Delta with thousands of their cattle, officials say.
This movement is causing tensions between the livestock keepers, who are desperately searching for new pasture, and local...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Drought drives Tanzanian herders into conflict with farmers