Archive for October, 2012

Denmark: What Copenhagen Can Teach Cities About Adapting To Climate Change

Forbes: The devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy has focused minds on the urgency of improving the climate resiliency of coastal cities exposed to the fury of extreme weather events and rising seas. Hard questions are being asked of city and state officials who did not heed warnings by scientists that New York City’s infrastructure was woefully unprepared for storm surges and floods. On July 2, 2011, a cloud burst inundated Copenhagen with 6 inches of rain in less than three hours, flooding cellars, streets,...

A tale of two New Yorks: Sandy splits city but its residents band together

Guardian: On the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Wednesday, 36 hours after the storm, New York seems in full swing. Booksellers are back out on Columbus Avenue, the movie theaters are open, the nail salons are full. The New York City Marathon – which passes through the Upper East Side and Central Park – will go ahead on Sunday, because nobody has anything better to do than clean up millions of paper cups trampled underfoot by runners blocking the avenues. But a few miles south, it's another city. There...

Ten Ways We Can Help Keep NYC From Drowning Under Water

Business Insider: The best scientific evidence shows that global climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas), which emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases act like a bubble around the Earth, trapping heat in, and in turn, causing temperatures to rise on the planet's surface. This phenomenon can be observed through shrinking glaciers, thawing of permafrost, rising sea levels and, yes stronger storms. Superstorm Sandy brought unprecedented...

Cuomo: ‘Climate change is a reality…we are vulnerable’

Albany Times Union: Gov. Andrew Cuomo doubled-down on his suggestion yesterday that climate change is responsible for the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, and said there should be more conversation about "a systemic solution long-term, because this is really a long-term issue.” “It’s a longer conversation, but I think part of learning from this is the recognition that climate change is a reality, extreme weather is a reality, it is a reality that we are vulnerable," Cuomo said. “Climate change is a controversial...

Climate Change Mitigation And Adaptation Equally Critical For Global Food Security

redOrbit: Two new reports on climate change and the food supply indicate, among other things, that over 18,000 megatons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere annually by agriculture and food production. Previous studies have examined the connection between agriculture and emissions, but the new report from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) performs that analysis on the entire food production infrastructure that accounts for up to 29 percent...

Rifts emerge over why Arabian cyclones are strengthening

SciDevNet: People living in countries around the Arabian Sea have been exposed to tropical cyclones that have been growing in strength since 1997, and hitting the area earlier than usual -- but scientists are still debating what is driving these changes. A study published in Nature last month (20 September) challenges previous conclusions that the stronger cyclones are being driven by man-made pollution, such as aerosol and sulphate emissions. Instead, it claims, the stronger cyclones are caused by an...

Climate change predictions foresaw Hurricane Sandy scenario for New York City

Washington Post: Hurricane Sandy's stunning storm surge practically marooned the Big Apple. But for years, forecasters saw this as a possibility in both the present and more distant future. In my somewhat whimsical post of February 9, 2011, I speculated about what life would be like during the year 2076, our tercentennial, both weatherwise and otherwise. I alluded to concerns over the threat of major storm surge flooding in New York City from a hurricane in an age of rising sea levels. (Also, see Part I of the...

Obama damned as regulator-in-chief as anger runs high in Ohio coal country

Guardian: It's the afternoon shift change at the Harrison Resources mine, and about 30 miners are heading home after 10 hours shovelling for coal on an exposed hilltop in eastern Ohio. The men are dressed in an unofficial uniform of jeans, T-shirt and hard hat, and they speak in unison, too, when asked about the presidential election, now less than a week away. "Obama's done more damage in the last three years than anyone in the last 50," said Brad Knight. "He and his advisers are a bunch of tree-huggers,...

The Frankenstorm and Climate Silence

Huffington Post: What is a Frankenstorm? A monstrous concoction of part-hurricane, part-nor'easter currently slamming itself against the eastern seaboard to the detriment of 60 million people. What is climate silence? The lamentable fact that neither Obama nor Romney mentioned a single word about climate change during the presidential debates or during their campaigns. What do they have in common? At the moment, nothing. But just maybe, that might change over the next few days. Perhaps the evacuation...

In New York, Rising Threats of Flooding Have Been Predicted for Years

Yale Environment 360: While climate experts hesitate to say Hurricane Sandy was caused by climate change, scientists for years have predicted that such devastating events would become increasingly common as sea levels rise and ocean temperatures become warmer. For more than a decade, reports have warned that climate change will likely trigger more intense hurricanes and more frequent and severe flooding in low-lying areas, such as occurred in parts of New York and New Jersey this week. And with sea levels projected to...