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Archive for July, 2012
The Natural Gas Boom: Doing More Harm Than Good?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 12th, 2012
National Public Radio: The United States is in the midst of a natural gas boom - about 200,000 gas wells have been drilled in the past decade. The boom has been fueled by the use of hydraulic fracturing - or fracking - which involves pumping a mixture of water and chemicals into the ground to get access to the gas.
The rush to extract natural gas has helped the economy pick up in places like Pennsylvania, but it also has raised questions that scientists can't yet answer about potential health and environmental problems....
Alarming Decline in Sockeye Salmon
Posted by Discovery News: Emily Sohn on July 12th, 2012
Discovery News: Every year, millions of adult salmon return from the ocean to their home streams, where they lay eggs and produce the next generation of fish. But far fewer sockeye salmon are making it back to their freshwater mating grounds compared to a few decades ago, and that's seriously affecting population sizes of the species throughout the Northwest, from Alaska to Washington State.
The discovery suggests that changing ocean conditions may be making life harder for some groups of wild salmon -- possibly...
Deja vu: U.S. undergoes hottest 12 months on record…again and again
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 12th, 2012
Mongabay: According to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Climatic Data Center, the last twelve months have been the warmest on record for the contiguous United States. This record, set between July 2011 through June 2012, beat the last consecutive twelve month record set only a month earlier between June 2011 and May 2012, which in turn beat the previous record holder, you guessed it: May 2011 through April 2012.
June 2012, according to the NOAA, was the...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Deja vu: U.S. undergoes hottest 12 months on record…again and againScientists slam Telegraph blogger’s claims that climate change will be good for the Amazon
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on July 12th, 2012
Mongabay: Recent blog posts on The Telegraph and the Register claiming that tropical rainforests like the Amazon are set to benefit from climate change are "uninformed" and "ridiculous" according to some of the world's most eminent tropical forest scientists.
The posts, published Sunday and Monday by Tim Worstall, a Senior Fellow at London's Adam Smith Institute, asserted that a new Nature study indicates that "climate change will mean new and larger tropical forests."
"We're told, endlessly, that climate...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scientists slam Telegraph blogger’s claims that climate change will be good for the AmazonNatural gas boom could isolate US on climate change
Posted by The Hill: Zack Colman on July 12th, 2012
The Hill: The domestic national-gas boom might thin the ranks of climate change advocates and put the United States at odds with the international community on the issue, an expert said Thursday.
America's insistence that natural gas will play an important role in easing the effects of climate change runs counter to European views and will likely invite “friction,” Michael Levi, program director on energy security and climate change with the Council on Foreign Relations, said during a discussion hosted...
The World’s Worst Ideas for Addressing Climate Change
Posted by Slate: Will Oremus on July 12th, 2012
Slate: Rupert Murdoch made waves on Twitter yesterday by dunking his toe into the climate change debate:
Climate change very slow but real. So far all cures worse than disease. Shale gas huge breakthrough for US. Half carbon of coal and oil.
David Roberts of Grist was incredulous: "Solar panels are worse than drought or rising sea levels?'
Of course not. The problem is that we aren't building enough of them to significantly slow climate change. And we may not anytime soon, thanks in part to that...
Still time to save most species in the Brazilian Amazon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 12th, 2012
Mongabay: Once habitat is lost or degraded, a species doesn't just wink out of existence: it takes time, often several generations, before a species vanishes for good. A new study in Science investigates this process, called "extinction debt", in the Brazilian Amazon and finds that 80-90 percent of the predicted extinctions of birds, amphibians, and mammals have not yet occurred. But, unless urgent action is taken, the debt will be collected, and these species will vanish for good in the next few decades....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Still time to save most species in the Brazilian AmazonMany Amazon extinctions yet to come, study finds
Posted by LiveScience: Joseph Castro on July 12th, 2012
LiveScience: When species lose their natural habitat to deforestation and other causes, they don't immediately disappear. Instead, they gradually die off over several generations, racking up an "extinction debt" that must eventually be paid in full. New research shows that the Brazilian Amazon has accrued a heavy vertebrate extinction debt, with more than 80 percent of extinctions expected from historical deforestation still pending.
Only on msnbc.com Redux Pictures file Women in the infantry? Bad idea, female...
Colorado’s ‘Most Destructive’ Fire Now Fully Contained
Posted by Climate Central: Alex Kasdin on July 12th, 2012
Climate Central: The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that the Waldo Canyon fire, the "most destructive' fire ever to rip through Colorado, was 100 percent contained. This does not mean that every blaze of the fire has been extinguished but means the fire's "boundaries are fully under control.' A spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service, Pat Collrin, said that some parts of the Waldo Canyon fire could continue to "burn until fall.'
However, the smoke has cleared enough to inventory the unparalleled damage. After...
Drought parches more of U.S. Midwest, crops suffer
Posted by Reuters: Karl Plume on July 12th, 2012
Reuters: The worst drought in a quarter century tightened its grip on the Midwestern United States over the past week as sweltering temperatures and scant rainfall punished corn and soybean crops across the region, a report from climate experts said Thursday.
Nearly two-thirds of the nine-state Midwest region was in some stage of drought in the week ended July 10, up from just over 50 percent a week earlier, according to the Drought Monitor, a weekly report on drought throughout the country compiled by...