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Archive for July 3rd, 2013
Chicago’s energy deal: An “F” for fracking?
Posted by WBEZ: Chris Bentley on July 3rd, 2013
WBEZ: Curious Citizen Janice Thomson does not consider herself an environmentalist.
"Environmentalist has this different kind of connotation,' said the northsider. "I think of environmentalists as people who go hiking. And I don't. But I'm obviously concerned about impacts on our earth, our air, our ability to grow food.'
After five years living in Brussels, Belgium she got used to regular media coverage of climate change and renewable energy. Back in the U.S., even a record low in arctic sea ice...
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Flood insurance changes run into resistance
Posted by Associated Press: Andrew Taylor on July 3rd, 2013
Associated Press: Just a year after Congress imposed significant changes in the government's oft-criticized flood insurance program, howls of protest from homeowners facing higher premiums have coastal lawmakers pressing for delays that would preserve below-cost rates for hundreds of thousands of people in flood-risk areas. The government can't say how many people could confront higher premiums, but homeowners in places like Staten Island, N.Y., along the battered New Jersey coast and in low-lying areas of Louisiana,...
Australia terminates landmark REDD+ project in Borneo
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 3rd, 2013
Mongabay: Australia is ending its major forest restoration project in Indonesian Borneo, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Launched during the peak of excitement about the potential of forest conservation to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in 2007, the $47 million initiative aimed to restore 200,000 hectares of peatland that had been drained for the ill-conceived mega-rice project in the mid-1990s. The project, known as the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership (KFCP), would have re-flooded...
Unprecedented climate extremes marked last decade, says UN
Posted by Climate News Network: Alex Kirby on July 3rd, 2013
Climate News Network: If you think the world is warming and the weather getting nastier, you're right, according to the United Nations agency committed to understanding weather and climate. The World Meteorological Organization says the planet "experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes" in the ten years from 2001 to 2010, the warmest decade since the start of modern measurements in 1850. Those ten years also continued an extended period of accelerating global warming, with more national temperature records...
Oil spill stretches 10 miles down a river in Mississippi
Posted by Grist: John Upton on July 3rd, 2013
Grist: A 10-mile stretch of Mississippi`s Chickasawhay River was fouled by more than 200 barrels of oil after equipment at a drilling well malfunctioned.
The Wayne County News reported in an online video that cleanup efforts were complicated by the oil spill`s remote location. The U.S. EPA, Coast Guard, and state and local authorities have responded to the spill, the newspaper reported.
The spill was reported by Logan Oil on Thursday, and the emergency clean-up operations are expected to continue...
Is Climate Change Creating More Thunderstorms?
Posted by Daily Green: None Given on July 3rd, 2013
Daily Green: More intense thunderstorms combined with damaging winds are expected to occur because of climate change, according to speakers at the seventh European Conference on Severe Storms being held in Helsinki, Finland.
But because thunderstorms are small in size on the scale of existing climate models it is not possible to tell whether they will also lead to more tornadoes and larger size hail – two of the most damaging problems associated with severe storms.
In a warmer world, increases in surface...
Keystone XL Opponents Turn Focus to Local Governments
Posted by Associated Press: Grant Schulte on July 3rd, 2013
Associated Press: Frustrated with state and federal officials, opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline are turning to low-level county commissions and zoning boards in a new attempt to slow a project that has become a focal point of national battle over climate change.
Landowners and other opponents of the pipeline, which could carry 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Canadian tar sands to refineries on the Texas Gulf coast, are asking county commissions along the route to pass resolutions formally opposing the...
US EPA’s abandoned Wyoming fracking study: One retreat too many
Posted by Pro Publica: Abrahm Lustgarten on July 3rd, 2013
Pro Publica: When the Environmental Protection Agency abruptly retreated on its multimillion-dollar investigation into water contamination in a central Wyoming natural gas field last month, it shocked environmentalists and energy industry supporters alike.
In 2011, the agency had issued a blockbuster draft report saying that the controversial practice of fracking was to blame for the pollution of an aquifer deep below the town of Pavillion, Wy. -- the first time such a claim had been based on a scientific...
As Arizona fire rages, scientists warn of more unpredictable blazes
Posted by LA Times: Julie Cart on July 3rd, 2013
LA Times: Early morning is a frenetic time at a wildfire command post. Biologists, meteorologists, foresters and firefighters hustle into tents and grab laptops to review overnight reports, prepping for the day's assault. Fire behavior analysts run computer models that spit out information crucial to putting out the blaze: how many acres a fire will probably burn, in which direction and with what intensity.
In recent years, the models have been rendered practically obsolete, unable to project how erratic...
World Suffered Unprecedented Climate Extremes in Past Decade: WMO
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 3rd, 2013
Reuters: The world suffered unprecedented climate extremes in the decade to 2010, from heatwaves in Europe and droughts in Australia to floods in Pakistan, against a backdrop of global warming, a United Nations report said on Wednesday.
Every year of the decade except 2008 was among the 10 warmest since records began in the 1850s, with 2010 the hottest, according to the study by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The number of daily heat records far outstripped lows.
It said many extremes...