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Archive for April 1st, 2013
Honduras: Tegucigalpa Learns to Live with Climate Challenges
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 1st, 2013
Inter Press Service: In slums lining several hillsides in the Honduran capital, mitigation works are under way to protect the neighbourhoods from flooding and landslides, which completely obliterated several areas when Hurricane Mitch hit the country fifteen years ago.
Tegucigalpa, which covers nearly 1,400 square km and is home to over 1.3 million people, is one of the areas of Honduras most exposed to natural disasters. Geological faults have also been identified in some hillsides surrounding the capital, threatening...
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Warming May Mean More Toxic Algae Blooms for Lake Erie
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 1st, 2013
Climate Central: Toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie could come more often and be more intense in coming decades thanks in part to torrential rains intensified by global warming, according to a study published in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Heavy runoff from farmland, say the authors, can carry nutrient-rich fertilizer into the western part of the lake, triggering a population explosion of blue-green algae that pump poisons while they live and can rob the water of oxygen when they die...
Arkansas Oil Spill Raises Scrutiny of Pipeline Network
Posted by Bloomberg: Jim Snyder and Bradley Olson on April 1st, 2013
Bloomberg: An oil spill that fouled an Arkansas town is raising questions about the U.S. pipeline network and the safety of importing Canadian heavy crude, as President Barack Obama weighs whether to approve the Keystone XL project.
Environmental groups said the rupture of the Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) pipe on March 29 in Mayflower, Arkansas, shows why Obama should reject Keystone, which would be a major new conduit between the U.S. and Canada for a type of fuel critics say is more corrosive than more conventional...
Record-breaking 2011 Lake Erie algae bloom may be sign of things to come
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 1st, 2013
ScienceDaily: The largest harmful algae bloom in Lake Erie's recorded history was likely caused by the confluence of changing farming practices and weather conditions that are expected to become more common in the future due to climate change. Rather than an isolated, one-time occurrence, Lake Erie's monumental 2011 algae bloom was more likely a harbinger of things to come, according to University of Michigan researchers and colleagues from eight other institutions. The interdisciplinary team explored factors...
Health Questions Key to New York Fracking Decision, But Answers Scarce
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 1st, 2013
National Geographic: New York State's review of high-volume hydraulic fracturing has taken more than four years-and it's not over yet.
Right now, all eyes are on the state's health commissioner, Nirav Shah, who has said that he will tell Governor Andrew Cuomo within weeks whether the Department of Environmental Conservation's plan for "fracking" would be sufficient to protect human health. Then it's up to the governor to make a final decision on whether to permit the technique, which involves pumping large volumes...
Genetic Discovery May Allow Lettuce Growth Even in Hot Temperatures
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 1st, 2013
Yale Environment 360: A team of scientists has identified the specific gene in lettuce that causes the plant’s seeds to stop germinating in warm temperatures, a discovery they say could allow production of the food crop year-round even in the planet’s hotter regions. Writing in the journal The Plant Cell, the researchers say they identified a chromosome in the wild ancestor of commercial lettuce varieties that enabled seeds to germinate even in warm temperatures. When the chromosome was crossed with commercial varieties...
Research Finds Drier Climate Will Spread Diarrhea
Posted by Climate News Network: Alex Kirby on April 1st, 2013
Climate News Network: Diarrhea, which kills 1.5 million children annually, is likely to become more prevalent in many developing countries as the climate changes, a report says. But the authors found an unexpected twist in the way the climate is likely to affect the disease.
Kathleen Alexander, an associate professor of wildlife at Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment, says climate drives a large part of diarrhea and related disease, increasing the threat which a changing climate poses to vulnerable...
Antarctic thawing season keeps getting longer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 1st, 2013
LiveScience: More ice is melting for a longer period of time each year on the Antarctic Peninsula, new research shows. The area is warming more quickly than almost any other spot on Earth. Temperatures on this mountainous strip of land have risen by 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) since the 1950s, according to a news release from the British Antarctic Survey, whose scientists were involved in the research. The study, published today (March 27) in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface,...
Exxon oil spill in Arkansas seeps into Keystone debate
Posted by Globe and Mail: Paul Koring on April 1st, 2013
Globe and Mail: Thousands of barrels of Alberta oil-sands crude - the same stuff destined for the controversial Keystone XL project - spilled into a suburban Arkansas neighbourhood over the weekend after a much smaller, older pipeline ruptured, forcing the evacuation of dozens of homes.
Cleanup efforts were under way in Mayflower, Ark., a town of fewer than 2,000 just north of Little Rock, but the spill seems certain to seep into the deeply divisive debate over whether President Barack Obama should approve Keystone...
U.S. fracking helped kill off German solar firms: Bosch
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 1st, 2013
Reuters: Bosch, one of the world's largest auto parts suppliers, blames the U.S. fracking boom in shale gas for hurting demand for energy-efficient green technologies, its chairman told a German newspaper.
The Stuttgart-based company recently decided to discontinue its photovoltaic solar energy activities at the cost of roughly 3,000 jobs - due largely, but not entirely, to a glut in capacity built up in China.
"Photovoltaic is going through a unique transition. But you cannot entirely dismiss that...