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Archive for April 10th, 2013
Malawi: Want a Real Expert on Climate Change? Ask Those Worst-Hit
Posted by AlertNet: Megan Rowling on April 10th, 2013
AlertNet: Back in 2010, farmers in northern Malawi were advised to stop growing local maize varieties and switch to faster-maturing hybrids, to protect them from a shortening rainy season. Now, less than three years later, the government is urging them to start planting indigenous varieties again, alongside the newer ones, because researchers have found the local maize more resilient to weather extremes. Such stories hint at the difficulty of adapting to changing conditions that can be very hard to predict....
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Arctic vegetation spread could boost climate change
Posted by PhysOrg: Bill Steele on April 10th, 2013
PhysOrg: Changes in Arctic vegetation due to climate change have probably been underestimated, according to a new computer analysis which shows that tree and shrub cover in the region will increase more than previously expected, accelerating climate change and possible adverse effects on wildlife.
"Such widespread redistribution of Arctic vegetation would have impacts that reverberate through the global ecosystem," said Richard Pearson, a research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History's Center...
Cove Where Exxon Oil Has Been Found Is Part of Lake Conway
Posted by InsideClimate: Maria Gallucci on April 10th, 2013
InsideClimate: When ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline ruptured on March 29, the company announced that no oil had leaked into Lake Conway, a major recreational reservoir just nine-tenths of a mile from the spill site in central Arkansas. Some oil had spilled into a "cove adjacent to" the lake, the company said, but "Lake Conway remains oil free," according to news releases Exxon issued as recently as April 5 [3]. That position has sparked a debate over where Lake Conway—one of Arkansas' premier fishing spots—begins...
Alarm over vanishing frogs in the Caribbean
Posted by Huffington Post: Ben Fox and Ezequiel Abiu Lopez on April 10th, 2013
Huffington Post: A curtain of sound envelops the two researchers as they make their way along the side of a mountain in darkness, occasionally hacking their way with a machete to reach the mouth of a small cave.
Peeps, tweets and staccato whistles fill the air, a pulsing undercurrent in the tropical night. To the untrained ear, it's just a mishmash of noise. To experts tracking a decline in amphibians with growing alarm, it's like a symphony in which some of the players haven't been showing up.
In parts of...
Obama Budget Reduces Spending for Environmental Protection Agency
Posted by Dow Jones: None Given on April 10th, 2013
Dow Jones: The Obama administration's 2014 budget proposal for the Environmental Protection Agency totals $8.2 billion, or about 3.5% below the 2012 enacted level and almost 5% less than provided for under the 2013 continuing resolution. Most programs receive roughly similar funding levels as the last two years. The administration proposes cutting funds for grants to state-level environmental programs by about $465 million, or about 13%, compared with 2012 levels. The administration often proposes cuts in...
Report: 243 million Americans affected by weather disasters since 2007
Posted by Washington Post: Justin Grieser on April 10th, 2013
Washington Post: Drought, record heat and Hurricane Sandy were among the major weather-related disasters that affected the United States in 2012. But just how many Americans felt the impact of these events? A newly released report from the Environment America Research and Policy Center says 243 million people – nearly 80 percent of the U.S. population – live in counties that experienced at least one weather-related disaster since 2007.
The report, titled “In the Path of the Storm,” is based on six years of county-level...
Amid China air, water pollution, soil survey reveals century-old heavy metals
Posted by Reuters: David Stanway and Niu Shuping on April 10th, 2013
Reuters: Soil samples across China have revealed remnants of toxic heavy metals dating back at least a century and traces of a pesticide banned in the 1980s, an environmental official said on Wednesday, revealing the extent of the country's pollution problems.
Street-level anger over air pollution that blanketed many northern cities this winter spilled over into online appeals for Beijing to clean water supplies, especially after rotting corpses of thousands of pigs were found last month in a river that...
Niger: Access to Sanitation Still a Luxury for the Very Few
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 10th, 2013
Inter Press Service: About 20 communities in Tillabéri, west Niger, have been declared open defecation-free zones as across the country, very few people have access to proper sanitation.
The communities were part of a Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) project, launched in September 2010 in 32 villages in the region by the local office of the NGO Plan International.
Souley Hachimou, a sanitation technician in Niamey, the Niger capital, told IPS: "Open air defecation is a widespread hazard in Niger, especially...
Fracking does cause earthquakes – but you’ll hardly feel them
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 10th, 2013
Telegraph: The controversial technique blasts water into rocks to open up cracks and free up the shale gas, an energy source supporters say heat homes in Britain for 100 years.
Opponents say the process can open up faultlines and cause earthquakes.
But a new study, published in Marine and Petroleum Geology, found only three earthquakes that people can actually feel have been caused so far, out of hundreds of thousands of wells drilled since 1929.
Most of the tremors caused by fracking will be undetectable...
Nature reserves attract new species
Posted by BBC: Ella Davies on April 10th, 2013
BBC: The UK's nature reserves act as 'ecological welcome mats' to new species, according to scientists.
Since the 1960s, there has been a natural influx of wetland bird species from continental Europe.
Species such as whooper swans, Cetti's warblers and little egrets have used the nature reserves to colonise new areas of the UK, found the scientists.
The findings are published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
The effectiveness of the UK's Protected Areas, from...