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Archive for December 4th, 2012
More Climate Change Means More Disasters
Posted by Moscow Times: Julian Hunt and Johnny Chan on December 4th, 2012
Moscow Times: The devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy, 253 deaths and more than $50 billion in economic damage, is prompting renewed thinking about climate change and national security.
Within this broad-ranging debate, one particular issue that has grown in salience, post-Sandy, is whether climate change means storms will be more intense. The balance of risks is that they will, with the biggest threat from increased flooding caused by sea-level rises as well as increase in rainfall intensity and rainfall...
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Colombia’s Cloud Forests Imperiled by Climate Change, Development
Posted by Daily Climate: Autumn Spanne on December 4th, 2012
Daily Climate: Five hours by truck and mule from the nearest town, a rumbling generator cuts through the silent night to power large spotlights as botanists crouch and kneel on large blue tarps spread across a cow pasture. It's nearly midnight, and the team works urgently to describe every detail of the dozens of colorful orchids, ferns and other exotic plants they have collected that day in Las Orquídeas National Park, one of the single most biologically diverse places on the planet. For nearly two weeks, each...
South Africa deploys high-tech plane for rhino poaching fight
Posted by Reuters: Peroshni Govender on December 4th, 2012
Reuters: South Africa has taken its war against rhino poaching to the skies by deploying a high-tech, low-speed reconnaissance aircraft to detect illegal hunters before they strike.
"This is a war. You cannot take a stick to a gunfight," Ivor Ichikowitz, executive chairman of Africa's largest privately held defense firm, Paramount, said on Tuesday. Paramount manufactured the small, specialized plane donated to the South Africa National Park Service.
South Africa, home to nearly all the continent's rhinos,...
As people crowd into cities, they’re becoming more and more vulnerable
Posted by Fast Company: None Given on December 4th, 2012
Fast Company: It’s a troubling fact that more people are moving to cities just as those cities face bigger environmental dangers. Half the world already lives in a city, and by 2050, 75% of us will. In many cases, that growth is exacerbating the risks: for example, increasing carbon emissions while leaving infrastructure less able to cope with shocks such as flooding. Cities already use up to 80% of all the energy on the planet, and produce 75% of emissions, and those percentages are set to grow as the expansion...
United States: Groups Sue State Water Board for Delay of Agricultural Regulations
Posted by EcoWatch: California Coastkeeper Alliance on December 4th, 2012
EcoWatch: In recent years dozens of sea otters have washed ashore dead in Monterey County, California, killed by the toxic blue-green algae microcystis which blooms in nutrient enriched waters.
Last week, The Otter Project, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, San Luis Obispo Coastkeeper and California Sportfishing Protection Alliance sued the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) for delaying regulations to protect the public and environment.
In March of this year the Regional Water Quality Control Board...
Fracking Infrastructure = Paradise Lost
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on December 4th, 2012
EcoWatch: It’s a story of paradise lost for some Pennsylvania residents who are confronted with a natural gas transmission compressor station that has altered life in their rural towns. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network video highlights another one of the problems caused by the pipelines and the infrastructure used to transport shale gas. The Delaware River Basin Commission holds a public hearing tomorrow on the group’s petition that the agency begin regulating pipelines in the Delaware River watershed.
US energy revolution transforms climate debate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 4th, 2012
CNN: The last few years have seen the beginnings of an energy revolution in the U.S. The coming of shale gas and now shale oil has transformed not just its energy outlook, but also the climate change debate.
The game has changed: Energy independence, the goal first set by Nixon in the early 1970s, looks like being achievable, at least for the North American continent.
The game that has changed has profound implications for energy and climate policy.
To date it has been based upon two assumptions:...
Race Is On to Clean Up Hydraulic Fracturing
Posted by New York Times: Erica Geis on December 4th, 2012
New York Times: Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has raised fears around the world that the procedure needed to coax shale oil and gas out of tightly packed rock could cause pollution damaging to human health. The process uses huge amounts of water, and environmentalists, landowners and others worry that drinking-water supplies could be contaminated. “Our concern is with maintaining the quality of the water in our streams and preventing groundwater contamination,” said George Jugovic Jr., president of Citizens...
Q & A: How Many Pounds of Carbon Dioxide Does Our Forest Absorb?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 4th, 2012
New York Times: Q. My family owns a 40-acre woodlot of relatively mature deciduous trees. How many pounds of carbon dioxide does such a forest absorb in a typical year? And how many pounds of oxygen are emitted? A. “An approximate value for a 50-year-old oak forest would be 30,000 pounds of carbon dioxide sequestered per acre,” said Timothy J. Fahey, professor of ecology in the department of natural resources at Cornell University. “The forest would be emitting about 22,000 pounds of oxygen.” “Every little bit...
E.P.A. Rule Complicates Supreme Court Case on Logging Runoff
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 4th, 2012
New York Times: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. did not seem happy during a Supreme Court argument on Monday about whether the Clean Water Act applies to runoff from logging roads. The source of his frustration was a last-minute action from the Environmental Protection Agency that was expressly calculated to address the legal issues before the court. “Were you as surprised as we were?” Chief Justice Roberts asked a lawyer for the government, referring to a new regulation, issued Friday afternoon, that said permits...