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Archive for November 27th, 2012
Growth of Ethanol Fuel Stalls in Brazil
Posted by Scientific American: Claudio Angelo on November 27th, 2012
Scientific American: “A new moment for mankind.” That was how Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, described his country’s biofuel boom in March 2007. Back then, Brazil was the poster child of ethanol fuel, its output second only to that of the United States. Fermenting the sugars in the country’s abundant sugar cane produced a motor fuel that lowered carbon dioxide emissions, and many saw Brazil as a model for how the world could shed its addiction to oil, creating jobs along the way.
Five years...
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Hit by Drought, Mississippi River May Face More Challenges
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2012
New York Times: The drought of 2012 has already caused restrictions on barge traffic up and down the Mississippi River. But things are about to get a lot worse. As part of an annual process, the Army Corps of Engineers has begun reducing the amount of water flowing from the upper Missouri River into the Mississippi, all but ensuring that the economically vital river traffic will be squeezed even further. If water levels fall low enough, the transport of $7 billion in agricultural products, chemicals, coal and petroleum...
UN climate scientist: Sandy no coincidence
Posted by Associated Press: Karl Ritter on November 27th, 2012
Associated Press: Though it's tricky to link a single weather event to climate change, Hurricane Sandy was ''probably not a coincidence'' but an example of the extreme weather events that are likely to strike the U.S. more often as the world gets warmer, the U.N. climate panel's No. 2 scientist said Tuesday.
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the vice chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, predicted that as stronger and more frequent heat waves and storms become part of life, people will stop asking...
Local Opposition Rises Against Fracking Proposal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2012
Inter Press Service: Efforts to promote the use of hydraulic fracturing, a controversial method of obtaining oil and natural gas, face stiff opposition from researchers and citizens who say that in its present form, the technology`s risks far outweigh its worth.
Proponents argue that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as it is known, could make the United States energy independent, or perhaps even become an exporter. But critics voice serious concerns about water contamination, air and noise pollution, and other hazards...
Drought dents U.S. farm-sector income: government estimate
Posted by Reuters: Charles Abbott on November 27th, 2012
Reuters: U.S. farm income will drop by 3 percent this year, the result of surging production costs aggravated by crop losses that stemmed from the worst drought in half a century, the government said on Tuesday.
Even so, income would be close to the record high set in 2011, the Agriculture Department said. In a quarterly forecast, it said production costs would rise by 8 percent this year, outpacing a gain in crop and livestock income.
Feed costs are up 18 percent this year, the USDA said. Feed would...
Floods claim fourth life and leave worst insurance bills for five years
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2012
Guardian: Flooding in Britain has claimed a fourth life and brought misery to hundreds more homes, as torrential rain moves away into the North Sea leaving the worst insurance bills for five years in its wake.
Firefighters in the devastated centre of St Asaph, the small but historic north Wales community which was given city status by the Queen to mark her Diamond Jubilee, recovered the body of an elderly woman from her flooded house, one of 500 local properties damaged or evacuated.
The tragedy follows...
Experts: Melting permafrost being ignored at climate talks
Posted by NBC: Miguel Llanos on November 27th, 2012
NBC: All the back and forth over climate change negotiations hasn't dealt with a looming problem: melting permafrost could account for more than a third of all warming emissions by 2100, experts warned Tuesday, and yet nations haven't factored it into reduction targets.
"Permafrost is one of the keys to the planet's future because it contains large stores of frozen organic matter that, if thawed and released into the atmosphere, would amplify current global warming," U.N. Environment Program Director...
Report Says IPCC Needs to Address Melting Permafrost
Posted by Climate Central: Dan Yawitz on November 27th, 2012
Climate Central: The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released a report early Tuesday morning that recommended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) address the impact of warming permafrost and the large volume of methane and carbon dioxide that will be emitted from the ground if permafrost continues to melt. The report argues that these additional emissions should be considered in any international negotiation of emissions targets and discussion of climate change policy. The UNEP report,...
Vast emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from warming permafrost, not accounted for in climate pre
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2012
ScienceDaily: Permafrost covering almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere contains 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon, twice that currently in the atmosphere, and could significantly amplify global warming should thawing accelerate as expected, according to a new report released November 27 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Warming permafrost can also radically change ecosystems and cause costly infrastructural damage due to increasingly unstable ground, the report says. Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost...
A Closer Look at Aqueduct’s Forthcoming Global Water Risk Maps
Posted by World Resources Institute: None Given on November 27th, 2012
World Resources Institute: This story is part of the “Aqueduct Sneak Peek” series. Aqueduct Sneak Peek provides an early look at the Aqueduct team’s updated global water risk maps, which will be released in January 2013.
New reports and articles are increasingly pointing to water risk as one of the biggest issues associated with climate change, energy production, food security, and human health. In an effort to better understand how and where these water risks are emerging, WRI published the first-ever Aqueduct water risk...