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Archive for August, 2012
As climate changes, sea-level rise a coastal concern
Posted by Tasley Eastern Shore News: None Given on August 20th, 2012
Tasley Eastern Shore News: Inch by inch along parts of the Atlantic Coast, global climate change is running in what scientists warn is geology’s version of fast-forward -- swamping and eroding beaches, wetlands and farm fields.
Shorelines from North Carolina to Boston are in a “hotspot” for sea-level rise and will see water levels rise at double the rate of most places on the planet, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The doubling is largely because of a geologic double whammy. Delaware also has the lowest average...
Canada: The corporate cock-up that’s refuelled the Canadian tar sands debate
Posted by Guardian: Colin Horgan on August 20th, 2012
Guardian: Let's say you want to convince an entire province that the pipeline you're planning to run through some of its most treasured natural areas is a great idea. Probably the last thing you'd want to do is suggest that you didn't know what those treasured natural areas look like. And, the chances are, if you did, you'd probably hope not many people heard about it or, say, spread it around on Facebook. Unfortunately for Enbridge, the company that hopes to run the Northern Gateway pipeline from northern...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Canada: The corporate cock-up that’s refuelled the Canadian tar sands debateThe Effect of Dams on Global Warming
Posted by Environmental News Network: David A Gabel on August 20th, 2012
Environmental News Network: A new study has revealed the under-appreciation that exists for the role dams play in climate change; how the reservoirs behind them can cause surges of greenhouse gases as the water levels go up and down. In a study of the water column at such a reservoir, marine scientists found an astonishing 20-fold increase in methane emissions as water levels were drawn down. Bubbles coming out of the mud and sediment at the bottom were chock full of this potent greenhouse gas.
The role of lakes, reservoirs,...
Pakistan women hard hit by climate change
Posted by The News International: None Given on August 20th, 2012
The News International: The adverse impacts of climate change are visible among women fold of the country who are fast becoming their victims in respect of resource wars and violence.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there is a common perception that "˜it is men who are the farmers'. Contrary to this perception, women in Pakistan produce 60-80 percent of food consumed in the house.
The phenomenon of climate change in the years 1999 and 2000 clearly indicated the vulnerability when thousands...
In Midst of a Drought, Trying to Keep Cargo Moving on the Mississippi
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 20th, 2012
New York Times: This ship is making sure that the Big River, shrinking under one of the worst droughts in modern history, stays deep enough. The Potter is scooping this stretch of the Mississippi River’s navigation channel just south of St. Louis, the ship’s 32-foot-wide head sucking up about 60,000 cubic yards of sediment each day and depositing it via a long discharge pipe a thousand feet to the side in a violent, muddy plume that smells like muck and summer. The Army Corps of Engineers has more than a dozen...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on In Midst of a Drought, Trying to Keep Cargo Moving on the MississippiCanada: Climate change: How Toronto is adapting to our scary new reality
Posted by Toronto Star: Jennifer Wells on August 19th, 2012
Toronto Star: Michael D'Andrea had no notion that August day just how wrathful the afternoon would turn, how calamitous, what an effect it would have on the city's future.
It was an off-duty day for the director of Toronto's Water Infrastructure Management, who had planned a pleasant Niagara-on-the-Lake getaway with his wife in what was a hot, dry summer.
"We had lunch, we walked by the lake,' D'Andrea recounts of the pretty afternoon. And then came the reckoning: "I looked toward Toronto and said, 'Oh my...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: Climate change: How Toronto is adapting to our scary new realityNew bird discovered in Colombia, imperiled by hydroelectric project
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2012
Mongabay: In a little-known dry forest in Colombia, scientists have discovered a new species of bird: the Antioquia wren (Thryophilus sernai). First seen in 2010, scientists photographed the new wren and recorded its vocalizations, from which they determined that the wren was brand new to science, according to a new paper in Auk.
"[It took] good ears and, good eyes, both in the correct moment and place," lead author Carlos Esteban Lara with the National University of Colombia told mongabay.com about the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New bird discovered in Colombia, imperiled by hydroelectric projectWeeds take root in crops, climate change, cuisine
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2012
CBS News: The dictionary definition of a weed: "A plant considered undesirable, unattractive, or troublesome, especially one growing where it is not wanted." (American Heritage Dictionary) They insult us by their very existence. They bring out the killer instinct in us. We wage chemical warfare against them, and they win. This story is about the survival of the fittest and who might that be? No doubt about it: Weeds. "This is an absolute enemy of the state; there's no question whatsoever," said Stanley Culpeper,...
Green groups worry Congress will cut land conservation program amid drought
Posted by The Hill: Zack Colman on August 19th, 2012
The Hill: Even as lawmakers fret this summer’s severe drought might cause another Dust Bowl, environmental groups are sounding alarms that Congress is slated to cut a program designed to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring in dry years. Both the House and the Senate aim to cut funding for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which pays farmers to take crop land out of production and instead use that acreage to plant trees and grass. Both the House and Senate versions of the five-year farm bill would...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Green groups worry Congress will cut land conservation program amid drought: We can’t hide from threat of rising sea
Posted by Delaware Online: None Given on August 19th, 2012
Delaware Online: No single storm, no single dry spell and no single flood makes the argument for climate change. There have always been freakish weather events.
To the contrary, it is the slow accumulation of data that should alarm us. We should worry about the succession of hotter than normal summers, the growing frequency of intense and unexpected thunderstorms, and the widespread flooding that keeps sweeping over farms and through small towns throughout the country.
More to the point, our concern should...