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Archive for October 1st, 2012
Oregon Activists Say No to Coal Exports
Posted by Sierra Club: None Given on October 1st, 2012
Sierra Club: Dead end.
That was the message the Portland City Council, the Metro and the city of The Dalles sent Big Coal last week after they all approved resolutions opposing coal exports through the Pacific Northwest without a full area-wide environmental review conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Portland`s council vote was just the latest example in a string of cities and municipalities demanding environmental reviews and putting the interests of communities and public health before Big Coal...
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Australia: Storms to starfish: Great Barrier Reef faces rapid coral loss: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 1st, 2012
Reuters: The world's largest coral reef - under threat from Australia's surging coal and gas shipments, climate change and a destructive starfish - is declining faster than ever and coral cover could fall to just 5 percent in the next decade, a study shows.
Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) in the northeastern city of Townsville say Australia's Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its coral in little more than a generation. And the pace of damage has picked up since 2006....
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Brink of Collapse
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 1st, 2012
Inter Press Service: Australia`s iconic Great Barrier Reef is dying, and little will be left less than 10 years. More than half of the coral in the 2,300 km long reef has died over the past 27 years, according to a scientific survey released Monday. Unless Australians act with urgency, only five to 10 percent of the 3,000 individual coral reefs off the eastern coast of Australia will remain, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We are losing an entire ecosystem in...
Climate change cripples forests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 1st, 2012
Science Codex: Combine the tree-ring growth record with historic information, climate records and computer-model projections of future climate trends, and you get a grim picture for the future of trees in the southwestern United States. That's the word from a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey, University of Arizona, and several other partner organizations.
Described in a paper published in Nature Climate Change this week, "Temperature as a potent driver of regional...
Climate change said threat to U.S. forests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 1st, 2012
United Press International: Forests in the U.S. Southwest could be crippled by climate change as rising drought brings stress and tree mortality, researchers say.
Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Arizona combined tree-ring growth records with historical information, climate records, and computer-model projections of future climate trends to forecast the future health of the region's forests.
Southwestern forests grow best when winters with high precipitation...
Climate change could cause some fish species to shrink by nearly 25%
Posted by Alaska Dispatch: Ben Anderson on October 1st, 2012
Alaska Dispatch: A new study that modeled the impact of climate change on more than 600 fish species says that most of those species could shrink by between 14 and 24 percent by the year 2050. Additionally, as the concentration of oxygen in the Earth’s waters decreases, some species may move away from equatorial waters toward the Arctic.
The study, conducted by researchers from the University of British Columbia, Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has broad implications...
Hollywood, Persian Gulf oil barons have common foe: fracking
Posted by MSNBC: John Carney on October 1st, 2012
MSNBC: Who would have thought that Hollywood environmentalists would find themselves aligned with Persian Gulf oil barons?
But the strange politics of energy have managed to bring the greens into line with the OPEC-member United Arab Emirates on the issue of fracking.
"Promised Land" is a new film starring and written by Matt Damon and John Krasinski, based on a story by San Francisco-based writer Dave Eggers. In the film, Damon and actress Frances McDormand play a team that shows a rural town hard...
Climate change affecting Ark. Post
Posted by Stuttgart Daily Leader: Sarah Morris on October 1st, 2012
Stuttgart Daily Leader: Water hyacinth has crowded the waterways at Arkansas Post National Memorial this summer and fall. Arkansas Post National Memorial Park Ranger Kirby McCallie said it’s just one example of the effect climate change has had on the national park. McCallie describes climate change as, basically, the long-term shift in the earth’s weather. This past year’s unusual weather conditions have allowed for untimely growth, such as with the water hyacinth. The non-native, free-floating perennial plant is a native...
Fish to Shrink By Up to A Quarter Due to Climate Change, Study Reveals
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 1st, 2012
Guardian: Global warming is likely to shrink the size of fish by as much as a quarter in coming decades, according to a groundbreaking new study of the world's oceans. The reduction in individual fish size will be matched by a dwindling of overall fish stocks, warned scientists, at a time when the world's growing human population is putting ever greater pressure on fisheries. "We were surprised as we did not think the effects would be so strong and so widespread," said Prof William Cheung from the University...
Iraq: Clean Water Act Inspires Water Advocates Worldwide
Posted by EcoWatch: Virginia Tice on October 1st, 2012
EcoWatch: When I tell people that I work for an Iraqi environmental non-profit organization, the first question I am invariably asked is, “Doesn’t Iraq have more important things to worry about than environmental protection?” To which I respond, “What could be more important to a country and people than water?” I say this not to minimize the myriad concerns in Iraq but only to put things in perspective: the awful threat of violence is sporadic and localized whereas the threat of cholera or typhoid from a drinking...