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Archive for November 1st, 2012
America’s nuclear safety under scrutiny after Oyster Creek’s Sandy alert | Richard Schiffman
Posted by Guardian: Richard Schiffman on November 1st, 2012
Guardian: We know the bad news about superstorm Sandy: the Jersey shore was devastated and many towns remain waterlogged. New York suffered a direct hit, with the city's mass transit system flooded and part-paralyzed for days to come.
But there is good news, too, and that is all that it failed to do. Sandy did not kill hundreds – as Hurricane Katrina did in New Orleans in 2005 – thanks, in part, to timely evacuations and rescue efforts. And luckily, it did not trigger an even greater disaster at one of...
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Taking Home His Eighth-of-a-Cow
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 1st, 2012
New York Times: I bought an eighth of a cow last weekend.
The rancher, from western Washington state, drove into Seattle, where I live, with a truck of frozen packages – ground chuck, steaks, roasts. In a school parking lot, he stood in a pouring rain, coatless, and thanked the several dozen customers who had gathered for their meat pickups. Our support, he said – ragtag and soggy as it seemed to me - made an environmentally sustainable, local grass-fed beef industry possible.
But as my wife and I waited under...
From ‘fertilizer to fork’: food accounts for a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 1st, 2012
Mongabay: Growing, transporting, refrigerating, and wasting food accounts for somewhere between 19-29 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions in 2008, according to a new analysis by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). In hard numbers that's between 9.8 and 16.9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, more than double the fossil fuel emissions of China in the same year. Over 80 percent of food emissions came from production (i.e. agriculture) which includes...
Plastic Pollution in Great Lakes Most Concentrated in the World
Posted by EcoWatch: James Dau on November 1st, 2012
EcoWatch: State University of New York researchers studied plastic pollution in the Great Lakes this summer aboard the U.S. Brig Niagara, discovering deposits of plastic in greater concentrations than recorded anywhere else on earth. Photo from Bill Edwards.
Plastic pollutants circulate in pockets of the Great Lakes at concentrations higher than any other body of water on Earth, according to a recent State University of New York study.
The study is the first to look at plastic pollutants in the Great...
Sandy’s Two-Fisted Attack: Water From Air And Sea
Posted by National Public Radio: Adam Cole and Helen Thompson on November 1st, 2012
National Public Radio: On Monday, Sandy brought heavy rain, winds and storm surges to the Northeast, causing widespread flooding and extensive damage to hundreds of communities, particularly in New Jersey and New York. But the drenching from all that water varied greatly by region. In areas south of Atlantic City, N.J., where the storm made landfall Monday night, the wind was pushing out toward the ocean. This prevented high storm tides along the Virginia, Maryland and Delaware coasts and in Chesapeake Bay. But the same...
Haiti fears food shortages after hurricane
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 1st, 2012
BBC: Fears are growing of food shortages in Haiti, after the strong winds and heavy rain of Hurricane Sandy caused extensive crop damage.
Aid workers and officials are also warning that flooding could lead to a sharp rise in cholera cases.
Sandy is blamed for some 70 deaths in the Caribbean. Of these more than 50 were in Haiti.
In Jamaica and Cuba, which took direct hits from the hurricane, the clean-up is also continuing.
Sandy, which was a category one hurricane when it clipped Haiti last...
Climate-change debate aside, Sandy inspires ‘resiliency planning’ for extreme weather
Posted by National Journal: Amy Harder and Coral Davenport on November 1st, 2012
National Journal: Did global warming cause Hurricane Sandy?
To government officials grappling with Sandy’s destruction and wondering how best to prepare for future extreme-weather events, the answer to that question does not matter.
At a press conference on Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo noted the urgency of protecting the Big Apple from extreme weather events, but he didn’t use the phrases "climate change" or "global warming."
“There have been a series of extreme weather events. That is not a political...
One-third of our greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture
Posted by Nature: Natasha Gilbert on November 1st, 2012
Nature: The global food system, from fertilizer manufacture to food storage and packaging, is responsible for up to one-third of all human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the latest figures from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a partnership of 15 research centres around the world.
In two reports published today1, 2, the CGIAR says that reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint is central to limiting climate change. And to help to ensure food security,...
Costing the Earth
Posted by New Scientist: Fred Pearce on November 1st, 2012
New Scientist: IN A rainforest in Guyana, two men are trying to sell rain. If you want, they will also sell you soil, biodiversity, nitrogen-fixing bacteria and all kinds of other things. Tempted? Thought not. But these men are not con artists. They are engaged in a serious experiment to save the planet: to see whether hard-nosed self-interest can succeed where altruism and politics are failing. The experiment, run by zoologist Andrew Mitchell of the University of Oxford and banker Hylton Murray-Philipson, takes...
‘Meteorological bomb’ or climate change? Experts eye Sandy’s cause
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 1st, 2012
Reuters: A huge storm barrels down on the United States, wreaking havoc with punishing winds, record flooding, heavy snowfall and massive blackouts. Is the main culprit climate change or a freak set of coincidences? Sandy wiped out homes along the New Jersey shore, submerged parts of New York City, and dumped snow as far south as the Carolinas. At least 50 people were reported killed in the United States, on top of 69 in the Caribbean, while millions of people were left without power. For full coverage,...