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Archive for June 23rd, 2013
Caucasus farmers a picture of climate change
Posted by Climate News Network: Kieran Cooke on June 23rd, 2013
Climate News Network: IT HAPPENED AS Tigran Gasparian and his family were having lunch. A massive black cloud turned day to night in minutes. Then the hail hammered on the roof.
"It was deafening", says Tigran. "I've never seen anything like it. The winds swirled around -- like a tornado. It went on for 45 minutes. At the end the hail was falling in big pieces like bits of broken glass. We knew all our crops had been destroyed."
Farmers here have heard talk of climate change: many say the summers -- when temperatures...
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Climate change: the rain in Spain
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 23rd, 2013
Guardian: Weather is what happens. Climate is the sum of what happens, averaged over a generation or more. The unpromising start to the British summer, and the apparent recent trend towards cool, wet summers, are just that: an unpromising start, and an apparent trend. Neither is in itself an indicator of climate change. Rain in June does not mean that global warming is not happening. A succession of disappointing summers does not mean that in a warmer world Britain can expect mild winters and wet summers as...
Religions belatedly take up green movement
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 23rd, 2013
Reuters: Few religious communities have gone as far in fighting climate change as a church in Queensland, Australia, which has 24 solar panels bolted to the roof in the shape of a Christian cross.
"It's very effective. It's inspired some members of our congregation to install panels on their homes," Reverend David Lowry said of the "solar cross" mounted in 2009 on the Caloundra Uniting Church, which groups three Protestant denominations.
Many religions have been wary of moving to install renewable energy...
The threatening march of coffee rust
Posted by BurlingtonFreePress: Dan D’Ambrosio on June 23rd, 2013
BurlingtonFreePress: Ricardo Puente is a worried man.
The president of Apecafe in El Salvador, a cooperative formed in 1997 to represent more than 400 coffee farmers, Puente has had a front-row seat to “la roya,” the fungus that is devastating coffee plantations across Central America.
“We think outbreaks of violence and famine can occur in some cooperatives as a result of this situation,” Puente said in a recent interview from San Salvador, where Apecafe is headquartered. “The other issue is migration. People...
Melting ice pulls Norway closer to Asia
Posted by Agence France-Presse: Pierre-Henry Deshayes on June 23rd, 2013
Agence France-Presse: The town of Kirkenes in northernmost Norway used to be further away from Asia than virtually any other European port, but it suddenly seems a lot closer. The reason: Global warming.
Melting ice has opened up the Northern Sea Route along Russia's Arctic coastline, changing international trade patterns in profound ways -- even if so far it looks more like a sleepy county road than a busy, four-lane highway.
In a change of potentially revolutionary significance, the travel time between the Japanese...
Baucus bill calls for agencies to cooperate on global warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 23rd, 2013
Missoulian: Climate change is a bit like the weather: Everybody talks about it, but few can do anything to change it.
That’s the take-away from a federal Government Accountability Office report on how public land managers have tried to protect their resources from increasing temperatures, decreasing water supplies, wildfires and loss of habitat.
While it found the agencies were good at planning for changes on their lands, they weren’t specifically required to consider climate change as a factor.
“In...
How much is cheap meat really costing us?
Posted by ABC Environment: Michael Kirby on June 23rd, 2013
ABC Environment: A FEW DECADES AGO, meat in Australia was considered a luxury. Animals were farmed in the traditional way -- real farms, open pastures.
Today, around 95 per cent of meat chickens and pigs eaten in our country are factory farmed. Their value has dropped to the point where Australians treat cheap meat as an entitlement -- where it's not uncommon for people to consume meat three times a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Now, I am not obsessed about this issue, but it's not an extreme or outlandish...
California’s snow loss to hit winter sports, water supply
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on June 23rd, 2013
Climate News Network: By mid-century, the snow-capped mountains of Southern California will be a lot less snowy, according to a new study from the University of California Los Angeles.
The mountains beyond Pasadena, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Venice Beach and other iconic addresses will have 30 to 40 percent less snow on top and none at all at lower elevations. And by 2100, snowfall could be reduced to about a third of its level in 2000.
By mid-century, the snow-capped peaks of Southern California with have 30-40...
Dams threaten Mekong Basin food supply
Posted by Inter Press Service: Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau on June 23rd, 2013
Inter Press Service: The future of food security in the Mekong region lies at a crossroads, as several development ventures, including the Xayaburi Hydropower Project, threaten to alter fish migration routes, disrupt the flow of sediments and nutrients downstream, and endanger millions whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River basin`s resources. Running through China, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Laos, Thailand and Cambodia to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, this is Asia`s seventh longest transboundary river. An estimated...
In Colorado, wildfires may drive up costs of living in paradise
Posted by LA Times: Jenny Deam on June 23rd, 2013
LA Times: As five major wildfires rage at the onset of a fire season far from over, many in this state are saying the time has come to consider toughening building regulations and shifting some fire protection costs to those who live in danger zones. After the deadly 2012 Waldo fire — at the time the most damaging in state history, with 346 homes lost and two deaths — Gov. John Hickenlooper convened a task force to begin to look at ways to restrict or at least rethink how to build on forestland. Then the...