RSS Feed
Archive for December 5th, 2012
Forecasting Denial: Why Are TV Weathercasters Ignoring Climate Change?
Posted by Rolling Stone: Jeff Goodell on December 5th, 2012
Rolling Stone: It's been a busy year for TV weathercasters: July was the hottest month ever recorded in the United States, unprecedented wildfires scorched the West, the worst drought in 50 years parched two-thirds of the county. Then, in October, Hurricane Sandy slammed into New York and New Jersey. Yet the cause of much of the meteorological mayhem -- global warming -- was rarely mentioned on air. The reason: There's a shockingly high chance that your friendly TV weatherman is a full-blown climate denier.
Take...
Posted in 
New Zealand: Climate change a threat to Otago waterways
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 5th, 2012
New Zealand Herald: Irrigators, power companies and mountaineers could all be affected if climate change leads to changes in snow levels.
New research from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) revealed that snow melting off the Southern Alps has a greater impact on North Otago waterways more than anywhere else in the South Island.
An assessment of 20 years of daily temperature and precipitation data from the Virtual Climate Station, showed that of the large rivers that reach the sea,...
In Arid West, Cheatgrass Turns Fires Into Infernos
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 5th, 2012
National Public Radio: Cheatgrass is about as Western as cowboy boots and sagebrush. It grows in yellowish clumps, about knee high to a horse, and likes arid land.
One thing cheatgrass does is burn - in fact, more easily than anyone realized. That's the conclusion from a new study that says cheatgrass is making Western wildfires worse.
Jennifer Balch used to start fires in the southern Amazon to understand how they burn. Now she's turned her attention to the American West, where big wildfires are on the rise. Instead...
Scientists to reveal full extent of Arctic ice loss amid climate change fears
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 5th, 2012
Guardian: The full extent of the extreme loss of Arctic ice cover is due to be revealed on Wednesday when a premier US science agency delivers its annual report on the polar region.
The report, overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), provides the most comprehensive review so far of a year of record-breaking and extreme weather events in the Arctic.
Some scientists have warned the changes in the Arctic recorded this year – particularly signs of thawing permafrost – could...
Dying aspen trees sound alarm for world’s forests
Posted by New Scientist: Bob Holmes on December 5th, 2012
New Scientist: They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but that's not true for the US's iconic aspen trees.
They appeared to survive a severe drought between 2000 and 2003, but it is now clear that it fundamentally weakened them. If the same is true for other tree species, climate change may be pushing many forests perilously close to a tipping point.
Ever since the drought in western North America, aspen trees have been dying at an alarming rate, a phenomenon now known as sudden aspen decline....
Fracking North Dakota
Posted by EcoWatch: James William Gibson, Earth Island Journal on December 5th, 2012
EcoWatch: In 1979, Brenda and Richard Jorgenson built a split level home in the midst of a large ranch outside the tiny town of White Earth, North Dakota. Richard’s family is from the area--his grandfather started homesteading on the plains in 1915--and the couple’s affinity for the area runs deep. They love the land they live on: the epic sky and seemingly endless grasses of the prairie, the White Earth River meandering through a tree-lined valley. For most of their lives the landscape of the region has been...
Landfill in Argentine Capital “Kills Slowly”
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 5th, 2012
Inter Press Service: "This isn't like a tsunami, which appears all of a sudden, but a silent enemy that kills you slowly, as you breathe and drink the water," says Hugo Ozores, who lives in González Catán, a working-class district in Greater Buenos Aires.
For the past decade, local residents in this district on the southwest side of the Argentine capital, which has a population of 300,000, have been complaining about health problems that they blame on a sanitary landfill in the area that receives 2,500 tons a day...
Mountain vulnerabilities, benefits need attention – experts
Posted by AlertNet: Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio on December 5th, 2012
AlertNet: The value of ecosystems services generated by mountain regions -- such as supplies of water crucial for sustainable development - must be recognised and incentives to protect them created, experts told a mountain conference at the Doha climate talks.
Gyan Chandra Acharya, UN Under Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, said there was a need for mountain countries to come together to push forward...