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Archive for July 19th, 2012
Israel plans to revive ailing Jordan river
Posted by Reuters: Ari Rabinovitch on July 19th, 2012
Reuters: The River Jordan is neither deep nor wide these days.
The Biblical river, which has inspired countless spirituals and folk songs, is just a narrow stream in many parts - polluted and stagnant. But that's about to change.
Thanks to desalination and wastewater recycling, there is more fresh water to go around and the Jordan will slowly be returned to its former glory.
From a dusty overlook in 40 degree (104 degree farenheit) heat, Ramon Ben Ari, head of Israel's Southern Jordan Drainage Authority,...
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This is What the Beginning of the End of the Planet Feels Like
Posted by Huffington Post: Dion Rabouin on July 19th, 2012
Huffington Post: This summer 34,500 people were forced to evacuate their homes in my home state of Colorado. I watched as a dozen wildfires raged through the state with some contained in days or weeks, while others are still not extinguished.
The extremely hot weather, dry climate and dramatically reduced water supply that all led to the wildfires are part of a pattern that has been unfolding for more than a decade. In fact, the past 10 years have been unequivocally the hottest on record in the history of weather...
U.S. Navy’s “Great Green Fleet” debuts in Pacific
Posted by Reuters: Suzanne Roig on July 19th, 2012
Reuters: The U.S. Navy's "Great Green Fleet," a group of warships and fighter jets burning an expensive blend of biofuels and petroleum, made its operational debut on Wednesday as the Senate prepared for a political fight over the program's cost.
Dozens of F/A-18 Super Hornets and other aircraft powered by conventional jet fuel mixed with recycled cooking grease and algae oil screamed off the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz during international military exercises in the central Pacific....
For Ecuadorian village, a struggle to adapt to changing climate
Posted by McClatchy: Annika McGinnis on July 19th, 2012
McClatchy: Frosts aren't on time for the 960 people living in this tiny, remote village, hidden on a chilly, windswept mountain ridge in South America.
A minor problem? Maybe for some. But in the Andean community, 8,800 feet above sea level, frosts -- and their impact on crop cycles -- are kind of a big deal.
In this agricultural community, crops are planted during the full moon, a tradition meant to help ensure a full harvest. But these days, the harvests aren't as full.
Village residents say it's...
Massive iceberg breaks off Greenland glacier
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 19th, 2012
Agence France-Presse: A massive iceberg twice the size of Manhattan has broken off of a glacier in Greenland, according to NASA satellite imagery, in what could be the latest indication of global warming. The images released Wednesday show the massive chunk of ice breaking off of the Petermann Glacier on the northwestern coast of Greenland. The glacier produced a similar ice island twice as large in 2010. NASA said the crack in the glacier had been visible since 2001, and that its polar-orbiting Aqua satellite had observed...
Report: Generation X Doesn’t Care About Climate Change
Posted by U.S. News and World Report: Jason Koebler on July 19th, 2012
U.S. News and World Report: Even with most of the country mired in a historic drought, a spate of storms that left millions without power in the mid-Atlantic, and seemingly more frequent natural disasters, people have better things to worry about than global warming, according to a new study of Generation X-ers. And they're beginning to think about global climate change even less. Just two percent of those aged 37 to 40 said they follow climate change "very closely," a 50 percent drop from 2009. More than half said they follow...
Drought Puts Food at Risk, U.S. Warns
Posted by New York Times: Peter Baker on July 19th, 2012
New York Times: The Obama administration warned Wednesday that food supplies were at risk from the worsening drought afflicting more than half of the country and called on Congress to revive lapsed disaster aid programs. President Obama reviewed the situation with Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, who called it “the most serious situation” in about 25 years and added that he was praying for rain. “I get on my knees every day, and I’m saying an extra prayer now,” Mr. Vilsack told reporters at the White House...
United States: Two Years After Pact to Restore River, No Changes
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 19th, 2012
New York Times: Almost since the Bureau of Reclamation first began plumbing the Klamath River in 1906, creating a vast and fertile farming region out of arid southeastern Oregon and northeastern California, people have fought over what the river provides: water for farming, water to preserve one of the West Coast’s largest salmon runs and a source of hydroelectric power. Then, suddenly, a truce was announced. In February 2010, after five years of confidential negotiation, an unlikely alliance of American Indian...
United States: Mountaintop removal exports on the rise
Posted by Charleston Gazette: Ken Ward Jr. on July 19th, 2012
Charleston Gazette: As U.S. coal demand continues to drop, the share of mountaintop removal-produced coal that is exported overseas is on the rise, according to a report issued by Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee.
Exports still account for a relatively small percentage of U.S. and Appalachian coal markets, about 12 percent of all coal nationally and 11 percent of surface-mined coal in the region. But nationally the amount of coal shipped to foreign countries has doubled since 2009, to 107 million...
The Endless Summer
Posted by New York Times: Mark Bittman on July 19th, 2012
New York Times: Here’s what American exceptionalism means now: on a per-capita basis, we either lead or come close to leading the world in consumption of resources, production of pollutants and a profound unwillingness to do anything about it. We may look back upon this year as the one in which climate change began to wreak serious havoc, yet we hear almost no conversation about changing policy or behavior. President Obama has done nicely in raising fuel averages for automobiles, but he came into office promising...