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Archive for March 2nd, 2013
Violence in Kenya’s Tana River Delta stems from natural resource conflict
Posted by Mongabay: Stephanie Jones on March 2nd, 2013
Mongabay: Since August 2012, Kenya's Tana River Delta has been besieged by civil conflict continuing into the New Year. The New York Times reported in January at least 200 people are dead and 36,000 displaced in increasingly violent skirmishes between the herders and farmers who share the delta of Kenya's largest river. Although the conflict began as an isolated dispute over water, both groups engaged in retaliatory attacks that have earned comparisons by major global media to the violence preceding Kenya's...
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Droughts and floods ‘will be common events in Britain’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2013
Guardian: Britain faces increasingly extreme weather conditions and urgently needs to improve its anti-flood defences and preparations for severe drought, says the Environment Agency.
Its stark conclusion follows detailed analysis of weather patterns, river levels and flooding events in 2012, which revealed that some areas suffered record levels of drought before facing some of the worst flooding ever.
Last year, flooding was recorded on 20% of days and drought on 25% of days, with rivers such as the...
Firefighters contain 80 percent of Southern California wildfire
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2013
Reuters: Fire officials on Saturday said they had contained 80 percent of a wildfire that scorched the hills east of Los Angeles as record-setting dry weather parched Southern California. About 310 acres in Riverside County have been burned by the wildfire, said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the State of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The flames were still raging at midday but the wildfire was expected to be fully contained by evening, state and local fire officials said. No injuries...
Keystone XL pipeline report slammed by activists and scientists
Posted by Guardian: Paul Harris on March 2nd, 2013
Guardian: Green activists and climate change scientists have slammed a new report from the Obama administration that raises no serious objections to building a massive and controversial oil pipeline.
The Sierra Club, one of the US's oldest and most respected environmental advocacy groups, attacked the State Department study into the proposed Keystone XL piepline – which will bring oil from Canadian tar sands deposits down to the Gulf of Mexico – as a "deeply flawed" analysis of the environmental consequences...
Spill in China Lays Bare Environmental Concerns
Posted by New York Times: Edward Wong on March 2nd, 2013
New York Times: The first warning came in the form of dead fish floating in a river. Then officials in this city got confirmation that a chemical spill had taken place at a fertilizer factory upstream. They shut off the tap water, which sent residents into a scramble for bottled water. In the countryside, officials also told farmers not to graze their livestock near the river. The spill, which occurred on Dec. 31, affected at least 28 villages and a handful of cities of more than one million people, including...
New York Fracking Reportedly Held As Andrew Cuomo, RFK Jr. Talk Health
Posted by Associated Press: Michael Gormley on March 2nd, 2013
Associated Press: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo came as close as he ever has to approving fracking last month, laying out a limited drilling plan for as many as 40 gas wells before changing course to await the findings of a new study after discussions with environmentalist and former brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy Jr., several people familiar with his thinking told The Associated Press.
The turning point, which could delay a decision for up to a year or longer, came in a series of phone calls with Kennedy. The two...
Glaciers in the Himalayas Are Retreating—But Why?
Posted by Climate News Network: Kieran Cooke on March 2nd, 2013
Climate News Network: One of the Climate News Network's editors, Kieran Cooke, was among a group of journalists recently investigating the impact of climate change in Nepal and the Himalayas. In the last of his reports from the region he describes the difficulties of establishing why so many of Nepal's glaciers appear to be shrinking.
Mohan Bdr. Chand is at the sharp end of glacier research. A climate researcher at Kathmandu University, Chand is carrying out vital field work, looking at high mountain glaciers as indicators...
Keystone XL: A Choice Between Big Oil or a Sustainable Planet
Posted by EcoWatch: Bill McKibben on March 2nd, 2013
EcoWatch: Last week Time Magazine declared that Keystone XL had become the Stonewall and the Selma of the climate movement--and today we got a reminder of just how tough those fights were, and how tough this one will be.
On a Friday afternoon, with Secretary of State John Kerry half a world away and D.C. focused on the budget fight, the State Department released a new environmental impact statement for the pipeline. Like the last such report, it found that approving a 800,000 barrel-a-day fuse to one of...
Climate change turns an already troubled ski industry on its head
Posted by High Country News: Greg Hanscom on March 2nd, 2013
High Country News: George Shirk sits in his office at the Mammoth Times on a Saturday afternoon, with his dog, Fido, who writes his own weekly column for the paper, curled up underneath the desk. Early December is the quiet time between the Thanksgiving and Christmas rushes at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, and Shirk, a 60-year-old news veteran with a sandy smoker's voice, has kindly agreed to give me an armchair tour of his adopted hometown.
Mammoth Lakes is perched in the Eastern Sierra, a half-day's walk from some...
Pakistan launches first national climate change policy
Posted by Reuters: Nita Bhalla on March 2nd, 2013
Reuters: Disaster-prone Pakistan has launched its first ever national policy on climate change, detailing how it plans to tackle the challenges posed by global warming, mitigate its risks and adapt key sectors of the country's economy to cope with its consequences.
Pakistan is highly vulnerable to weather-related disasters such as cyclones, droughts, floods, landslides and avalanches. Devastating floods in 2010 disrupted the lives of 20 million people - many more than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami - and...