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Archive for November 9th, 2012
U.S. Pledges Stronger Role in Stemming Global Trade in Wildlife
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 9th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: The Obama Administration has vowed renewed commitments to help stem the international trade in wildlife, including the use of U.S. intelligence agencies to track poaching of elephants, rhinos, and other animals in Africa and Asia. Speaking to a group of conservationists and diplomatic leaders on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said an expanding middle class worldwide has spawned a booming demand for rare species and animal parts that is being supplied by increasingly violent organized...
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SH+E to build desalination plant in Senegal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 9th, 2012
Reuters: German water treatment group SH+E is to build a 660 million euro ($840 million) desalination plant on Senegal's coast in what would be the first project of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa.
The project will be mostly funded by German and Turkish private investors and will produce 100,000 cubic meters of water, 400,000 KWh of electricity, and one tonne of salt per day, APIX, a Senegal government agency in charge of promoting private investment in the west African state, said on Friday.
APIX did...
UK faces higher risk of flooding and droughts as water crisis looms
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 9th, 2012
Environmental News Network: The risk of flooding and water shortage in 2013 has increased because the Government is too slow in changing the way we manage our water, environmental leaders warn. The authors of the Blueprint for Water report say that after two dry winters, it took Britain’s wettest ever summer to narrowly avert a serious drought. They warn that despite this summer’s flooding, another series of dry winters would put Britain right back under serious risk of drought. The group of 16 leading environmental organizations...
How to Improve Coastal Cities Climate Resilience: A Q&A with Cynthia Rosenzweig
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 9th, 2012
Scientific American: Climate scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig has been studying the impacts of global warming on New York City since the 1990s, and was part of a group that analyzed the unique risks faced by the Big Apple way back in 2001. The group's report predicted what a once-a-century superstorm like Hurricane Sandy proved: the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel between major boroughs flooded, La Guardia Airport runways were underwater, and so on.
More recently Rosenzweig helped chair the New York City Panel on Climate Change,...
Global warming likely to be at high end of forecast range
Posted by Summit Voice: None Given on November 9th, 2012
Summit Voice: By now, everybody knows the Earth is steadily getting warmer. The big unanswered question is just how much more temperatures will rise, and a new analysis by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggests the increases will be at the high end of predicted spectrum.
The key to the findings were accurate assessments of moisture processes in the atmosphere over the subtropics, according to NCAR scientists John Fasullo and Kevin Trenberth.
The seasonal drying in the subtropics...
Obama energy adviser says many uncertainties with Keystone XL pipeline
Posted by Calgary Herald: Tamara Gignac on November 9th, 2012
Calgary Herald: Newly-elected President Barack Obama will look to Canada for co-operation in implementing new policies to combat global warming, predicts a U.S. environmental expert.
The topic of climate change -- absent from much of the recent American election campaign -- appears to be back on Obama’s agenda after the president directly referenced global warming in Tuesday’s acceptance speech.
“We want our children to live in an America ... that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet,”...
Uganda to get Climate Change Policy
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 9th, 2012
Independent: The Climate Change Unit in the Ministry of Water and Environment is in the process of initiating a national Climate Change Policy before the end of the year according to a top Ministry of Water and Environment official.
The Climate Change Unit was created by the government in 2008 although it started work in 2009 following its endorsement by the Cabinet.
Paul Isabirye, the Co-ordinator of the Climate Change Unit and the national focal person for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate...
Sea level rise overflowing estimates
Posted by Science News: Tanya Lewis on November 9th, 2012
Science News: Sea levels may swell much higher than previously predicted, thanks to feedback mechanisms that are speeding up ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica.
Climate simulations need to take such feedbacks into account, William Hay, a geologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, told the Geological Society of America meeting in Charlotte, N.C., on November 4. So far the models haven’t incorporated such information because “it just makes them much more complicated,” he says.
Many scientists share...
Domestic Oil Boom, Climate Change Concern Could Derail Keystone XL Permit
Posted by Inside Climate News: None Given on November 9th, 2012
Inside Climate News: Less than a week after President Obama's re-election, environmental groups are again pressuring him to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. This time, they have a new argument: that the heavy Canadian crude oil the line would carry isn't necessary for energy security, because U.S. oil production is booming to record levels [3] even as consumption drops. "The environmental community has established the Keystone XL as a real priority," said Daniel Kessler, a spokesman for the climate action group 350.org...
South African court gives Thai rhino poacher record sentence
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 9th, 2012
Reuters: A South African court gave a Thai man a record 40-year jail sentence on Friday for an elaborate fraud to ship poached rhinoceros horns to Asia after the animals were killed in fake "hunts".
Chumlong Lemtongthai took advantage of the fact it is legal for foreigners to hunt rhinos in South Africa and ship horns overseas as personal trophies.
He paid Thai prostitutes about $800 dollars each to go to game farms, take a few shots with small-calibre rifles and then pose next to rhinos killed by someone...