Archive for May 19th, 2013

Rising Temperatures in Europe Leave Ducks Grounded

Climate News Network: Most birds are acutely sensitive to changes in temperature. Scientists now say that changes in climate and warmer temperatures in parts of Europe have resulted in the migration patterns of certain birds being radically altered. A study looking at the migration patterns of three species of duck -- the goldeneye, goosander and tufted duck -- has found there has been a sharp decrease in the number of birds migrating south. Birds like this female goosander are migrating much less than before due...

Climate Change vs Terrorism and the Costs of Inaction

Energy Collective: At the turn of this century drought set in in the American Southwest, which persists to this day. Without water, all living things cease to exist. Even as the Southwest and other parts of the planet are parched by a warming planet, other parts are saturated by moisture that originally was evaporated from overheating dry latitudes and the oceans. The resultant storms and flooding also extinguishes lives. September 11, 2001, four passenger airliners carrying 227 passengers and crew were...

Tar sands exploitation would be game over climate, warns leading scientist

Guardian: Major international oil companies are buying off governments, according to the world's most prominent climate scientist, Prof James Hansen. During a visit to London, he accused the Canadian government of acting as the industry's tar sands salesman and "holding a club" over the UK and European nations to accept its "dirty" oil. "Oil from tar sands makes sense only for a small number of people who are making a lot of money from that product," he said in an interview with the Guardian. "It doesn't...

Rebuilding the coastline, but at what cost?

New York Times: When a handful of retired homeowners from Osborn Island in New Jersey gathered last month to discuss post-Hurricane Sandy rebuilding and environmental protection, L. Stanton Hales Jr., a conservationist, could not have been clearer about the risks they faced. “I said, look people, you built on a marsh island, it’s oxidizing under your feet — it’s shrinking — and that exacerbates the sea level rise,” said Dr. Hales, director of the Barnegat Bay Partnership, an estuary program financed by the Environmental...

Forget pipelines – Canada must prepare for a post-carbon world

Globe and Mail: The expansion of oil-sands operations and various pipeline proposals to get bitumen to market have incraseingly been topics of conversation in Canada, from debates in the House of Commons to discussions around the dinner table. Much of the discussion has focused around tangible things that we can see – devastation of the Alberta landscape from surface mining operations, pollution of downstream rivers, the threat of pipeline spills, and the danger of accidents involving supertankers along the British...

Clouds ‘Cool Earth Less Than Once Thought’

Climate News Network: Extra cloud cover caused by emissions of industrial pollutants is known to reduce the effects of global warming, but its impact in reducing temperatures has been over-estimated in the climate models, new research has found. This is particularly significant for China and India, because it has been believed that these two giant countries would be partly shielded from the effects of climate change by their appalling industrial pollution. The Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany believes...