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Archive for May, 2013
Unraveling The Mystery Of A Rice Revolution
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 3rd, 2013
National Public Radio: It's a captivating story: A global rice-growing revolution that started with a Jesuit priest in Madagascar, far from any recognized center of agricultural innovation. Every so often, it surfaces in the popular media — in The Guardian, which earlier this year described farmers in one corner of India hauling in gigantic rice harvests without resorting to pesticides or genetic modification. Their secret? A "," or SRI, that the priest, Henri de Laulanié, who was French, 30 years ago. It's now promoted...
Climate Change is Already Affecting the Amazon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 3rd, 2013
Environmental News Network: Tribal groups in Earth's largest rainforest are already being affected by shifts wrought by climate change, reports a paper published last week in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. The paper, which is based on a collection of interviews conducted with indigenous leaders in the Brazilian Amazon, says that native populations are reporting shifts in precipitation patterns, humidity, river levels, temperature, and fire and agricultural cycles. These shifts, measured...
California wildfires strengthened by winds as hundreds are evacuated
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 3rd, 2013
Reuters: A fierce, wind-whipped brush fire spread on Friday along the California coast northwest of Los Angeles, threatening several thousand homes and a military base as more than 1,100 dwellings were ordered evacuated and a university campus was closed.
A force of more than 900 firefighters had managed by daybreak to carve containment lines around about 10% of the perimeter of the inferno, which has scorched some 10,000 acres of dry, dense brush and chaparral since erupting on Thursday morning.
Several...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on California wildfires strengthened by winds as hundreds are evacuatedBrazil: Tribesmen launch ‘occupy’ protest at dam site in the Amazon rainforest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 3rd, 2013
Mongabay: On Thursday roughly 200 indigenous people launched an occupation of a key construction site for the controversial Belo Monte dam in the Brazilian Amazon. The protestors, who represent communities that will be affected by the massive dam, are demanding immediate suspension of all work on hydroelectric projects on the Xingu, Tapajós and Teles Pires rivers until they are properly consulted, according to a coalition of environmental groups opposing the projects.
The protestors include members of the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Brazil: Tribesmen launch ‘occupy’ protest at dam site in the Amazon rainforestNASA: Warming Climate Likely Means More Floods, Droughts
Posted by on May 3rd, 2013
National Public Radio: The Earth's wettest regions are likely to get wetter while the most arid will get drier due to warming of the atmosphere caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, according to a new NASA analysis of more than a dozen climate models.
Scientists ran simulations of 14 different models, starting with CO2 concentrations at about 280 parts per million, which is similar to preindustrial levels but well below the 400 parts per million today. The amount of carbon dioxide was then bumped up by 1 percent...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on NASA: Warming Climate Likely Means More Floods, DroughtsClimate change creates maddening ‘weather whiplash’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 3rd, 2013
Discovery: The term "weather whiplash" is being invoked to describe the drought-flood cycles beginning to take over the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
The cause of the maddening weather extremes and their huge and varied consequences is none other than climate change, according to a new report by the climate science communication organization Climate Nexus, and backed by climate researchers.
"In some parts of the world, including the 1.2 million square miles comprising the Mississippi River Basin, climate...
On ‘Unburnable Carbon’ and the Specter of a ‘Carbon Bubble’
Posted by New York Times: Andrew C. Revkin on May 3rd, 2013
New York Times: A new buzz phrase in the push to limit greenhouse gas emissions is "unburnable carbon" - an effort to define and then wall off the portion of the world`s still-vast reserves of coal, oil or natural gas that might, if combusted, cause unacceptably costly or dangerous climate change. The effort builds, to a large extent, on studies aiming to create a "carbon budget" for the world`s nations - divvying up the amount of emissions (and thus fuels) below that threshold. The most notable paper, published...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on On ‘Unburnable Carbon’ and the Specter of a ‘Carbon Bubble’Fracking Divide: Simulating Gas Development in Colorado’s Wild Wild West
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on May 3rd, 2013
EcoWatch: Recently, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced they would temporarily suspend 25 oil and gas leases in the Thompson Divide, a wild swath of backcountry covering 221,500 acres of public land in western Colorado. Because the lease holders did not diligently develop these leases and are running out of time on their ten-year lease terms, they asked BLM for an extension. While this decision paused the clock on drilling for natural gas in this rugged portion of the White River National Forest,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fracking Divide: Simulating Gas Development in Colorado’s Wild Wild WestFill gaps in Keystone XL draft environment report or reject pipeline
Posted by Indian Country Today: None Given on May 3rd, 2013
Indian Country Today: Noting a lack of “critical information” about potential impacts to water supply, sacred sites and other aspects of tribal life governed by treaty and environmental stewardship, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has urged the U.S. government to either fill the gaps in its environmental assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline or reject it entirely. “While grateful for the opportunity to submit these comments, it is with great concern that NCAI submits our comments related to the proposed...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fill gaps in Keystone XL draft environment report or reject pipelineWater conservation becomes a higher priority in United Arab Emirates
Posted by New York Times: Sara Hamdan on May 3rd, 2013
New York Times: Running a farm is not easy in the Middle East, part of a region, along with North Africa, defined by the World Bank as the most water-scarce in the world. Farmers in Abu Dhabi are now working with the government on ambitious new plans to cut agricultural water use in half by 2014 to conserve water and ensure sustainability. According to the Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council, as reported last month by a local English-language newspaper, The National, the emirate annually uses 275 billion...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Water conservation becomes a higher priority in United Arab Emirates