RSS Feed
Archive for April 3rd, 2013
Why Everglades restoration really needs to be about adapting to climate change
Posted by WLRN: Tricia Woolfenden on April 3rd, 2013
WLRN: When the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) was approved in 2000, it was a historic move to "restore, protect and preserve" water resources in central and south Florida. The 30-year framework was designed with the ultimate goal of restoring historic water-flows to a "dying ecosystem." Project leaders and scientists are now focused on incorporating climate change adaptation into the plans and acknowledging that the Everglades will likely never look the way it once did.
"We were looking...
Posted in 
Sandbag season has Fargo, North Dakota, thinking of a better way
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 3rd, 2013
New York Times: Just last fall, the reservoirs and rivers here in the Red River Valley were so low from drought that Mayor Dennis R. Walaker of Fargo was concerned that the faucets and shower heads in his city would run dry. Now, Fargo residents are bracing for water that is expected to come rushing over those once-parched riverbanks. As winter’s bite gives way to spring sunshine, weather forecasters are predicting that this region will almost certainly face devastating floods for the fourth time in five years...
Researchers see link between deadly spread of diarrhea, more prolonged droughts in Africa
Posted by ClimateWire: Elizabeth Harball on April 3rd, 2013
ClimateWire: The mention of diarrhea is likely to elicit a vague squeamishness in the First World, where indoor toilets and clean water for washing are commonplace, but for thousands of children living in drought-plagued sub-Saharan Africa, the subject is one of life and death.
Although the illness is both easily preventable and treatable, World Health Organization data show that close to 920,000 people in the U.N. agency's Africa region died of diarrheal diseases in 2008. Nearly three-quarters of these deaths...
Antarctic ice grows as climate warms
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 3rd, 2013
New Scientist: Call it a tale of two poles. While sea ice in the Arctic is vanishing fast, the extent of Antarctic ice has increased. Good explanations for the growth of ice in the Southern Ocean have been hard to find, but now the problem may have been cracked. Counter-intuitively, it seems global warming may be cooling southern surface waters.
Nobody predicted that the fate of ice at each pole would take such different paths in just 30 years, with Arctic sea ice dropping more than 15 per cent, even as Antarctic...
Pre-Exxon spill poll shows support for Keystone
Posted by Politico: Darren Goode on April 3rd, 2013
Politico: A new poll shows broad support for the Keystone XL pipeline, but critics hope the widespread attention going to ExxonMobil’s oil pipeline rupture in Arkansas will change that.
Two-thirds of Americans want Keystone to be built, according to the survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. Only 23 percent of those polled oppose it.
Sizable majorities of both Republicans (82 percent) and independents (70 percent) want the pipeline built, as do 54 percent of Democrats, the survey found....
Conservation gets boost from new Landsat satellite
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 3rd, 2013
Mongabay: Efforts to monitor the world's forests and other ecosystems got a big boost in February with the launch of Landsat 8, NASA's newest earth observation satellite, which augments the crippled Landsat 7 currently orbiting Earth (technically Landsat 8 is still named the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) and will remain so until May when the USGS turns control of the satellite over to NASA).
Last week Landsat 8/LDCM sent back its first image, showing the meeting of the Great Plains with the Front...
The Drought Is Drying Up All Our Ethanol
Posted by Climate Desk: Tim McDonnell on April 3rd, 2013
Climate Desk: After getting slammed last summer, ethanol producers are hoping to catch a break--but their fate is far from settled.
Bill Pracht has bad memories of last summer. "The drought was so bad here that the corn was just decimated," he recalls of the farm country around Garnett, Kan., where he oversees East Kansas Agri-Energy, an ethanol plant. "Many fields were zero."
In August, corn prices hit their highest level ever, driven mainly by the severe drought that crippled America`s corn belt. By October,...
Australia has no choice but to change with the climate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 3rd, 2013
New Scientist: Australia has been warned: it's time to adapt to a changed climate. The extreme weather that has rocked the country over the last couple of years is a result of human-induced climate change, and will only get worse without immediate drastic action, according to the Climate Commission, an independent advisory body set up by the Australian government.
"Climate change is making many extreme events worse in terms of their impacts on people, property, communities and the environment," says climate...
Why Keystone XL Matters
Posted by EcoWatch: Wendy Abrams on April 3rd, 2013
EcoWatch: I`ve had many friends, even like-minded, eco-friendly friends, ask me, "Why is Keystone a big deal? Isn`t it just another pipeline?"
Keystone is a big deal, because it is not just another pipeline. It is the make-or-break piece of the puzzle for profitably exploiting the tar sands in Canada. Without the Keystone XL pipeline, tar sands will still be dug up; but with Keystone, the profits soar, making it a much more lucrative deal for the Canadian oil companies; and to maximize their profits, they...
GE Pushes Fracking Research With Lab in Bet on Shale Gas
Posted by Bloomberg: Tim Catts on April 3rd, 2013
Bloomberg: General Electric Co. (GE) will spend $110 million on a research lab in Oklahoma City to study ways to improve extraction of hard-to-reach oil and gas deposits, including hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.
The facility will hire as many as 125 engineers and scientists in the coming months and will eventually expand its research to more conventional drilling techniques, Chief Technology Officer Mark Little said in a telephone interview.
Oil and gas is GE’s fastest-growing segment,...