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Archive for September, 2012
Encroaching Seas Pit Parking Against Preservation
Posted by Daily Climate: Jennifer Week on September 2nd, 2012
Daily Climate: A sign at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service visitor center here states a simple motto: "Where Wildlife Comes First." But many visitors never see the sign, or much wildlife. Cars stream past the center on hot summer days, headed for a mile-long public beach at the refuge's southern end. The prime goals are sand, surf, and a parking spot close to the water.
But sea-level rise threatens the refuge's future as a beach destination. It's on Assateague Island, a barrier island off the coasts of Virginia...
Raging Fire Season Highlights Human Cost of Firefighting
Posted by Climate Central: Michael Kodas on September 2nd, 2012
Climate Central: Earlier this month, a 20-year-old digging a fire line in the Idaho mountains was killed by a falling tree, making her the 12th person to die in forest firefighting operations around the country this year. When I attended her funeral a few days later, nearly 300 of her fellow U.S. Forest Service firefighters lined up outside Moscow, Idaho's, Church of the Nazarene in their flame-retardant work gear -- shirts the color of sunflowers tucked into rugged, jade-green pants -- and watched bagpipers and...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Raging Fire Season Highlights Human Cost of FirefightingIsaac Is Latest Blow to Swampy South Louisiana
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 2nd, 2012
New York Times: The end of the earth was farther away than usual. The only lights in the Venice marina were the full moon and the running lights on Acy Cooper’s shrimp boat, the Miss Marla Kay, one of a tiny fleet that had made the eight-hour trip down the Mississippi River on Friday. Mr. Cooper and the other shrimpers had weathered Hurricane Isaac on their boats outside of New Orleans. Their arrival here in Venice, the first time they have returned since the storm, roughly doubled the community’s population. All...
Men and Women Farming Together Can Eradicate Hunger
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 1st, 2012
Inter Press Service: Three years ago, the residents of the semi-arid Yatta district in Kenya's Eastern Province lived on food aid due to dwindling crops of maize that could not thrive because of the decreased rainfall in the area.
That was until a local bishop, trying to find ways to prevent mothers from forcing their teenage daughters into prostitution, changed everything.
Now, on a Saturday evening in the district's village of Makutano, Stephen Mwangangi, his wife, Margaret, and their two children pick bullet...
Climate change spawns salmon dilemma for San Joaquin River
Posted by Fresno Bee: Mark Grossi on September 1st, 2012
Fresno Bee: Skeptical farmers often ask a big key question about the $2 billion revival of the San Joaquin River and salmon runs: How can cold-water salmon possibly survive here as the climate heats up the river?
Prominent fishery biologist Peter Moyle replies that the San Joaquin will be an ideal place for salmon in the future. It will be a pipeline of chilly snowmelt from the high Sierra.
But for years, nobody has been able to settle that debate with science. Now, using a $1.5 million National Science...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change spawns salmon dilemma for San Joaquin RiverPrice of essentials rises by 10 per cent
Posted by Independent: Tom Bawden on September 1st, 2012
Independent: The G20 is under growing pressure to call an emergency food summit after the price of essentials jumped by ten per cent on average in July.
New research shows prices are at a record high following "an unprecedented summer of droughts and high temperatures". Cereal prices were particularly hard hit, with maize and wheat rising by a quarter and soybeans by 17 per cent, as poor weather decimated harvests in the US, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, according to the World Bank. The average global food...
Isaac remnants dumping heavy rain across Missouri, Illinois
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 1st, 2012
Reuters: The remnants of Hurricane Isaac were grinding slowing northward early on Saturday with its center now deep into Missouri and the heavy rain stretching for hundreds of miles east into Illinois amid reports of tornadoes and high winds, meteorologists said.
Drought-stricken areas of Missouri and Illinois were easily absorbing the rain Friday and the system was expected to soak the region deep into Sunday, said Jayson Gosselin, meteorologist with the National Weather Service's St. Louis-area office....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Isaac remnants dumping heavy rain across Missouri, Illinois