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Archive for March 3rd, 2013
Australia: Climate change to blame for summer of extreme heat and damaging floods, report says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 3rd, 2013
AAP: CATASTROPHIC bushfires, damaging rain and the most intense heatwave on record this summer are just a taste of what climate change will bring, a new report says.
Climate Commissioner Will Steffen said the extreme weather of 2012/13 was climate change in action, and more events are on the way.
In his Climate Commission report, Angry Summer, released today, Prof Steffen also said Queensland's one-in-100-year flood was one part of a "very, very unusual summer".
"We've been storing extra heat...
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State Department opens door to Keystone XL Pipeline approval
Posted by Anchorage Daily News: Sean Cockerham and Erika Bolstad on March 3rd, 2013
Anchorage Daily News: The State Department announced Friday that construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline is unlikely to have a significant impact on climate change, a finding that could open the door for President Barack Obama to approve the controversial project.
The 1,700-mile pipeline would bring oil from the Alberta oil sands in Canada to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast. The Congressional Research Service has estimated that crude oil from the sands could produce 14 percent to 20 percent more planet-warming gases...
New study: ‘World can end poverty and limit warming’
Posted by Climate News Network: Alex Kirby on March 3rd, 2013
Climate News Network: Eradicating poverty by making modern energy supplies available to everyone is not only compatible with measures to slow climate change, a new study says. It is a necessary condition for it. But the authors say the plan to provide sustainable energy worldwide will not by itself be enough to keep the global average temperature rise below the widely accepted international target level of 2°C (3.6°F). While the plan can help measures to tackle climate change, it cannot achieve that by itself. The plan,...
Australia: Climate change factor in record hot days with more to come
Posted by Daily Telegraph: Matt Johnston on March 3rd, 2013
Daily Telegraph: AUSTRALIA'S record-breaking summer heatwave was made worse by climate change, the Climate Commission says.
And people should brace for more, and harsher, hot spells.
The Federal Government-funded commission will release a report today called The Angry Summer, which also warns of increasing flood risks.
The report says warmer and more moist conditions have caused weather patterns to change, and while Australia has always experienced extreme weather events, they were hitting harder and more...
Rail emerges as alternative to Keystone XL pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin on March 3rd, 2013
Washington Post: Even if foes of the Keystone XL pipeline block it, companies seeking to get Canada's oil sands to U.S. and world markets could travel the old-fashioned way: by rail.
While TransCanada has been trying to obtain a U.S. permit to build the 875-mile northern leg of its Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian and U.S. railroad companies have been busy installing new track and loading facilities to carry the oil sands crude from northern Alberta to refineries in the United States and Canada.
Rail shipments...
NY fracking health study news draws cheers, jeers
Posted by Associated Press: Mary Esch on March 3rd, 2013
Associated Press: While opponents of fracking are pleased at a report that Gov. Andrew Cuomo will wait for a Pennsylvania health study before deciding whether to allow drilling, landowners are preparing to sue New York over lost gas-leasing opportunities and an industry group warned Sunday that a business exodus from the state will worsen.
The Associated Press reported Saturday that Cuomo came close to approving a limited drilling plan for as many as 40 shale gas wells last month before environmentalist and former...
Wanted: A Bob Geldof for climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 3rd, 2013
New Scientist: EAST Africa is no stranger to crisis: who can forget the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s that killed about half a million people?
But the drought that struck in 2011 was different - it was caused, at least in part, by climate change, the first time a humanitarian disaster has been directly linked to global warming (see "Humanitarian disaster blamed on climate change"). It won't be the last.
If that wasn't bad enough, our climate now seems to have passed one of the abrupt changes known as...
Two Million People Hold their Breath Over Lake Malawi Mediation
Posted by Inter Press Service: Mabvuto Banda on March 3rd, 2013
Inter Press Service: - Over two million families who solely depend on Lake Malawi for their livelihoods are anxiously putting their hopes into an upcoming mediation between Malawi and Tanzania intended to put an end to a longstanding ownership dispute.
The mediation will start this month after both parties agreed in December to engage the assistance of the Forum for Former African Heads of State and Government, which is chaired by Mozambique's former President Joachim Chissano.
"After several attempts to settle...
After Keystone Review, Environmentalists Vow To Continue Fight
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 3rd, 2013
National Public Radio: If they can block the Keystone XL pipeline, they can keep Canada from developing more of its dirty tar sands oil. It takes a lot of energy to get it out of the ground and turn it into gasoline, so it has a bigger greenhouse gas footprint than conventional oil.
But the State Department report, which was released Friday, says Keystone won't have much of an impact on the development of that oil from Alberta, Canada.
Industry analyst Kevin Book of ClearView Energy Partners says that finding will...
Southern California wildfire fully contained
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 3rd, 2013
Reuters: Fire officials on Saturday said they had fully contained a wildfire that scorched the hills east of Los Angeles as record-setting dry weather parched Southern California.
The fire has burned about 310 acres in Riverside County, said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
It was fully contained by 6 p.m. local time, the Riverside County Fire Department said on its website.
The blaze broke out on Thursday afternoon in Jurupa Valley near the...