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Archive for September 10th, 2012
Twenty more “Niles” needed to feed growing population-leaders
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 10th, 2012
Reuters: The world needs to find the equivalent of the flow of 20 Nile rivers by 2025 to grow enough food to feed a rising population and help avoid conflicts over water scarcity, a group of former leaders said on Monday. Factors such as climate change would strain freshwater supplies and nations including China and India were likely to face shortages within two decades, they said, calling on the U.N. Security Council to get more involved. "The future political impact of water scarcity may be devastating,"...
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EU raises fresh concerns over environmental impact of Shale Gas
Posted by BusinessGreen: James Murray on September 10th, 2012
BusinessGreen: The chances of the European Union taking tough new action to regulate controversial Shale Gas projects received a major boost late last week, with the publication of three new in-depth reports that raised serious concerns about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" as it is more commonly known.
The EU-commissioned reports from the EU Joint Research Centre and environmental consultancy AEA assessed the risks shale gas projects pose to the environment and human health,...
Climate change and forests — the big picture
Posted by Summit County Citizens Voice: None Given on September 10th, 2012
Summit County Citizens Voice: Colorado isn`t the only place that has seen major climate-related impacts to its forest ecosystems. During the past couple of decades, extensive forest death triggered by hot and dry climatic conditions has been documented on every continent except Antarctica and forest mortality due to drought and heat stress is expected to increase.
Most research to-date has been focused on local and regional impacts of forest mortality, but scientists are starting to grapple with the bigger picture of how widespread...
Butterfly decline blamed on soggy summer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 10th, 2012
Press Association: The wettest summer for a century has been blamed for a sharp decline in the number of butterflies in Britain.
A study of 223,000 butterflies and day-flying moths found the populations of 15 of the 21 species had fallen.
Eleven common butterfly types had decreased by more than a third compared with last year, according to the Big Butterfly Count 2012.
Butterfly Conservation said the heaviest rainfall over the summer months for 100 years was putting many already threatened species at risk....
Climate change hurting food production in temperate zone too
Posted by Cape Breton Post: Gwynne Dyer on September 10th, 2012
Cape Breton Post: It’s no surprise that we will have a record minimum of ice cover in the Arctic Ocean at the end of this summer melt season. It’s already down to around four million square kilometres, with at least a few more days of melting to go, but this is what you might call a “known unknown.”
Scientists knew we were losing the ice cover fast; they just didn’t know how fast.
I’m no fan of Don Rumsfeld, who helped lead the United States into the disastrous invasion of Iraq when he was George W. Bush’s defence...
United States: Hetch Hetchy Valley Measure Pits Bay Area Against Environmentalists
Posted by New York Times: Norimitsu Onishi on September 10th, 2012
New York Times: It is one of the oldest environmental battles in the United States, and it involves one of the country’s most famous national parks, one of its most liberal cities, leaders of Silicon Valley and a perennial source of conflict in California: water. In 1913, Congress approved the construction of a dam and an eight-mile-long reservoir, called Hetch Hetchy, in the northwest corner of Yosemite National Park to supply cheap water to San Francisco. But the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which submerged a valley...