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Archive for February, 2013
Historic, Crippling Blizzard May Strike New England
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 6th, 2013
Climate Central: A powerful storm is slated to plaster southern New England with blizzard conditions, hurricane-force winds, and coastal flooding, beginning on Friday and lasting through at least Saturday. Computer models that had been vacillating on whether the storm would take shape have now come into better alignment, although they still differ on crucial details that will affect snowfall totals in big cities such as Boston, Providence, and New York City. The National Weather Service has posted blizzard watches...
Study Downplays Risk of Catastrophic Amazon ‘Dieback’
Posted by Climate Central: Lauren Morello on February 6th, 2013
Climate Central: In a warming world, tropical forests may be hardier than previously thought.
For scientists who study the Amazon, the worst-case scenario has long been clear. As the planet warms, some models suggest, the rainforest will dry and die, sending a massive shot of carbon into the atmosphere to further warm the planet.
That risk now appears to be smaller than researchers feared, according to a study published Wednesday in Nature. It estimates that for every degree Celsius of warming, the Amazon and...
As Drought Intensifies, 2 States Dig In Over Water War
Posted by National Public Radio: Grant Gerlock on February 6th, 2013
National Public Radio: Epic water battles are the stuff of history and legend, especially in the West. And as a severe drought drags on in the Midwest, a water war is being waged over a river that irrigates agriculture in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas.
It's that last border crossing where this water war is under way. Kansas has gone to the Supreme Court to argue that Nebraska uses too much water from the Republican River, and that there's not enough left for Kansas farmers.
In Clifton, Kan., on the short end of the...
Bangladesh Waterkeeper Provides Hope for Revival of the Buriganga River
Posted by EcoWatch: Sudhirendar Sharma, The Hindu on February 6th, 2013
EcoWatch: South Asians share a common historical lineage, of revering and desecrating their rivers with equal impunity at the same time. No wonder, major rivers across the sub-continent are at various stages of neglect. Add legacy of failed institutions to this neglect and you get an all-pervasive picture of environmental callousness, of which polluted rivers are a sad reflection. Though millions depend on them, water courses seem to be nobody’s responsibility.
Buriganga is one such river, lifeline for...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Bangladesh Waterkeeper Provides Hope for Revival of the Buriganga RiverUnited Kingdom: Government to ignore European ban on neonicotinoid pesticides
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 6th, 2013
Independent: The British Government is completely free to ignore recommendations from European safety regulators that controversial nerve-agent pesticides should not be used on crops visited by bees, MPs were told.
Herman Fontier, head of the pesticides division of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), told a Parliamentary committee that his organisation’s recommendation two weeks ago that neonicotinoid pesticides, widely blamed for bee declines around the world, should be kept away from bees, was merely...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Government to ignore European ban on neonicotinoid pesticidesDumping of Toxic Fracking Wastewater Reaffirms Natural Gas Industry Free-for-All in Ohio
Posted by EcoWatch: Environment Ohio on February 6th, 2013
EcoWatch: A week after the dumping of at least 20,000 gallons of toxic and potentially radioactive fracking waste into a storm drain that empties into a tributary of the Mahoning River in Youngstown, Ohio, by Hard Rock Excavating, state regulators have yet to disclose information about the quantity of waste and the chemicals involved. Environmental advocates are urging the state to act quickly to prosecute the perpetrator and look beyond the one incident to take more aggressive steps to protect the state’s...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Dumping of Toxic Fracking Wastewater Reaffirms Natural Gas Industry Free-for-All in OhioLungs of the planet reveal their true sensitivity to global warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 6th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Tropical rainforests are often called the "lungs of the planet" because they generally draw in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. But the amount of carbon dioxide that rainforests absorb, or produce, varies hugely with year-to-year variations in the climate. In a paper published online Feb 6 2013 by the journal Nature, a team of climate scientists from the University of Exeter, the Met Office-Hadley Centre and the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, has shown that these variations reveal...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Lungs of the planet reveal their true sensitivity to global warmingScientists Find Life in the Cold and Dark Under Antarctic Ice
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 6th, 2013
New York Times: For the first time, scientists report, they have found bacteria living in the cold and dark deep under the Antarctic ice, a discovery that might advance knowledge of how life could survive on other planets or moons and that offers the first glimpse of a vast ecosystem of microscopic life in underground lakes in Antarctica. A network of hundreds of lakes lies sandwiched between the continent’s land and the ice that covers it, and scientists had thought that it could harbor life. The discovery is...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scientists Find Life in the Cold and Dark Under Antarctic IceSarah Palin’s Climate Change Sub-Cabinet Goes Dormant Under Alaska Governor Sean Parnell
Posted by Huffington Post: Amanda Terkel on February 6th, 2013
Huffington Post: Before she stepped onto the national stage, Sarah Palin was worried about the warming planet and what climate change was doing to her home state of Alaska. So in 2007, as governor, she established a Climate Change Sub-Cabinet to come up with ideas on "how Alaskans can save energy and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions."
But that project has gone dormant under the current governor, Republican Sean Parnell. According to newly released public records obtained by Public Employees for Environmental...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Sarah Palin’s Climate Change Sub-Cabinet Goes Dormant Under Alaska Governor Sean ParnellAmazon forest more resilient to climate change than feared – study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 6th, 2013
Reuters: The Amazon rainforest is less vulnerable to die off because of global warming than widely believed because the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide also acts as an airborne fertilizer, a study showed on Wednesday.
The boost to growth from CO2, the main gas from burning fossil fuels blamed for causing climate change, was likely to exceed damaging effects of rising temperatures this century such as drought, it said.
"I am no longer so worried about a catastrophic die-back due to CO2-induced climate...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Amazon forest more resilient to climate change than feared – study