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Archive for March 25th, 2013
Third Pole glaciers shrinking, affected by black carbon
Posted by China Daily: Wu Wencong on March 25th, 2013
China Daily: About 90 percent of glaciers in the Third Pole region are shrinking, accelerated by black carbon being transferred from South Asia to the Tibetan Plateau, a top scientist has warned.
The Third Pole region, which is centered on the Tibetan Plateau and concerns the interests of the surrounding countries and regions, covers more than 5 million square kilometers and has an average altitude of more than 4,000 meters.
The area has the largest number of glaciers outside the polar regions and exerts...
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Fracking Rules? Leave Them to the States
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2013
Wall Street Journal: On states regulating fracking
States have a greater interest in what is going to be in the best interest of their residents and businesses than the federal government does.
Last year, we passed a natural-gas act to protect communities. We now have the toughest environmental regulations in the country.
We have also increased the number of inspectors going out and looking at wells. These are people who live in those neighborhoods, who are going to be interested in making sure that the neighborhood...
For Engineers, Climate Failure Becomes an Option
Posted by Daily Climate: Jennifer Weeks on March 25th, 2013
Daily Climate: Civil engineers build rugged things designed to last for decades, like roads, bridges, culverts and water treatment plants. But a University of New Hampshire professor wants his profession to become much more flexible.
In a changing climate, civil engineer Paul Kirshen argues, facilities will have to adapt to changing conditions over their useful lives -- and, in some instances, be allowed to fail. A leading example of this approach: The Netherlands' Room for the River project: Decades of thinking...
Keystone Foes Downplay Senate Vote Hailed by Supporters
Posted by Bloomberg: Jim Snyder on March 25th, 2013
Bloomberg: Environmentalists reacted swiftly to downplay a bipartisan Senate vote backing the Keystone XL pipeline, which supporters said underscored widening political support for the project.
The Senate approved 62-37 language that encourages development of the $5.3 billion pipeline, which would link Alberta’s oil sands and refineries along the Gulf Coast. Seventeen Democrats joined all Senate Republicans on March 22 to add the pipeline amendment to the budget plan that is at odds with the House version....
UN report urges Africa’s leaders to put environmental health policies first
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2013
Guardian: In 2006, a ship chartered by Dutch-based commodities trader Trafigura illegally unloaded 500 tonnes of toxic waste in the ports of Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast. Local contractors then dumped the contents in town. More than 30,000 people are thought to have suffered illness as a result of the contamination.
In the oil-rich deltas of nearby Nigeria, some village water wells are tainted with benzene, a carcinogen, at levels 900 times above World Health Organisation limits.
The multifaceted...
US exports to heat British homes
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on March 25th, 2013
Guardian: Nearly 2m homes in the UK will be heated by shale gas from the US within five years, under a deal agreed on Monday that is likely to be the first time major exports of the controversial energy source are used in the UK.
The US government has kept a tight rein on exports since the shale gas boom started more than five years ago. But the deal struck by energy company Centrica marks the start of a new era in gas use in the UK, because it opens up the market to cheap supplies from the US, as North...
Water-sparing rice farming proves viable in Kenya
Posted by AlertNet: Isaiah Esipisu on March 25th, 2013
AlertNet: Faced with pressure on supplies of irrigation water due to climate shifts and an increasing population, rice farmers in four Kenyan irrigation schemes have adopted a new crop management system that allows them to grow their crops without flooding their paddies throughout the season.
The Kenyan government, through the Mwea Irrigation Agricultural Development Centre (MIAD), has borrowed a technique from India known as the system of rice intensification. It has proved to be an effective way of growing...
Climate change will bring greater extremes in weather
Posted by Independent: Martha Linden on March 25th, 2013
Independent: Climate change will bring greater extremes in weather, the Government's outgoing chief scientific adviser has warned as he called for urgent action to tackle global warming.
Professor Sir John Beddington said the effects of climate change on the weather were already being felt in the UK.
"In a sense we have moved from the idea of global warming to the idea of climate change, and that is rather important - yes, indeed, temperatures are increasing but the thing that is going to happen is that...
America’s Coastal Denial
Posted by Newsweek: Andrew Romano on March 25th, 2013
Newsweek: The sand was the thing we noticed first. Mostly because it hadn’t been there yesterday, or any day before yesterday, and now it was absolutely everywhere.
For the first 23 hours after the storm, we hadn’t been able to see much of anything at all. On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy had made landfall just south of Long Beach Island, New Jersey, the narrow strip of coastline where I spent my childhood summers and where my parents have lived, full time, for the past eight years. Now a day had passed,...
Prof Sir John Beddington warns of floods, droughts and storms
Posted by BBC: Pallab Ghosh on March 25th, 2013
BBC: The government's chief scientist has said that there is already enough CO2 in the atmosphere for there to be more floods and droughts over the next 25 years.
Prof Sir John Beddington said there was a "need for urgency" in tackling climate change.
He said that the later governments left it, the harder it would be to combat.
Prof Beddington made his comments in the final week of his tenure as the government's chief scientific adviser.
"The [current] variation we are seeing in temperature...