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Archive for July, 2013
Climate change will cause Alaskan village to vanish under water within 10 years
Posted by Daily News: Carol Kuruvilla on July 30th, 2013
Daily News: Kivalina is home to about 400 Inupiat people. Scientists say the tiny Alaskan village is falling prey to the effects of climate change--and might be uninhabitable within the next 10 years.
The northwestern Alaskan village of Kivalina is perched on a remote and narrow strip of sand next to the frigid waters of the Chukchi sea. Its 400 residents are the descendants of an Iñupiat tribe.
And in just 10 years, these folk might just be America’s first climate change refugees.
The U.S. Army Corps...
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Leaked EPA document raises questions about fracking pollution
Posted by Grist: John Upton on July 30th, 2013
Grist: The EPA doesn`t seem very interested in finding out whether fracking pollutes groundwater. The latest indication of this emerged over the weekend in the Los Angeles Times.
Residents of the small town of Dimock in northeastern Pennsylvania have long been convinced that Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. was poisoning their drinking water by fracking the land around them. In July of last year, the EPA announced that although water from some local wells contained “naturally occurring” arsenic, barium, and manganese,...
Anti-Keystone activists keep the heat on
Posted by Grist: None Given on July 30th, 2013
Grist: Dozens of activists young, old, and in between walked 100 miles, from Camp David in Maryland to the White House, to call attention to their campaign for climate action and Keystone rejection. The Walk for Our Grandchildren, which wrapped up over the weekend, was one of many climate actions being coordinated all around the U.S. this summer.
Jay Mallin captured the highlights on video:
Some of the marchers also got themselves arrested at the D.C. office of Environmental Resources Management,...
The drying of the West
Posted by LA Times: William deBuys on July 29th, 2013
LA Times: John Wesley Powell, whose legendary descent of the Colorado River in 1869 brought the one-armed explorer fame and celebrity, worried about America's westward migration. The defining characteristic of Western lands was their aridity, he wrote, and settlement of the West would have to respect the limits aridity imposed. He was half right. The subsequent story of the West can indeed be read as an unending duel between society's thirst and the dryness of the land, but in downtown Phoenix, Las Vegas...
Olympic-size ‘North Pole Lake’ once again turns to ice
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 29th, 2013
Reuters: Images of a scientific observation buoy floating in what appeared to be an Arctic lake near the North Pole lit up the online world in the past week, sparking questions about whether this was a sign of global warming.
On Monday, the scientist who installed the buoy gave a succinct answer: No.
Also, the buoy was never quite at the North Pole, oceanographer James Morison said in a telephone interview. Its most recent location is about 300 miles away.
After about a week of being surrounded by...
Mining and metals firms reveal multi-million dollar water risks
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on July 29th, 2013
BusinessGreen: Mining and metals companies that are taking steps to reduce their expose to water-related risks such as drought and flooding are already performing better financially than their peers, according to a new analysis, which urges the industry to be more open about the environmental challenges it faces.
A report issued late last week by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Eurizon Capital, analysed the the water risks of 36 of the 57 mining and metals businesses in the Global 500 index.
All except...
Another View on Gas Drilling in the Context of Climate Change
Posted by New York Times: Andrew Revkin on July 29th, 2013
New York Times: I’ve received a “Your Dot” contribution on gas leaks and global warming from Louis A. Derry, an associate professor in the earth and atmospheric sciences department at Cornell University. It’s a critique of one element in “Gangplank to a Warm Future,” an Op-Ed article by Anthony R. Ingraffea, a professor of engineering at Cornell who is a prominent foe of expanded gas drilling using the bundle of methods commonly known as “fracking.” You’ll find it below. But first here’s a little context. In a...
Legal Battles Increase Over Pipeline Projects
Posted by National Public Radio: Mose Buchele on July 29th, 2013
National Public Radio: At Margaret O'Keefe's farm in East Texas, they grow high-quality Bermuda grass. The fields are flat and vibrant green, surrounded by woods of a darker, richer green. The family loves this land. O'Keefe inherited it from her mother, who divided it among eight children.
"She used to call it 'enchanted valley,' " O'Keefe says.
But her "enchanted valley" also lies in the path of the Crosstex NGL Pipeline.
That's a 130-mile underground pipeline to funnel natural gas liquids from Texas to processing...
Once Resilient, Trees In The West Now More Vulnerable To Fires
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 29th, 2013
National Public Radio: On any given day, there's a wildfire burning somewhere in the U.S. - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Many western forests have evolved with fire, and actually benefit from the occasional wildfire.
A nice little ground fire every few decades cleans house in the forest. It burns the grass and brush, and maybe some smaller trees - the "ladder fuels" that might carry a fire up into the tree canopy. Those canopy fires are the worst kind - they kill forests.
But scientists are discovering...
Researchers Take Closer Look at Link Between Permafrost Thaw and Greenhouse Gases
Posted by Nature World News: Tamarra Kemsley on July 29th, 2013
Nature World News: In a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers explain in greater detail than ever before how the thawing of the world's permafrost may result in a substantial release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and that crucial in predicting the overall effect of the process is the soil's water content.
Knowing this, the researchers argue, may lead to more accurate climate models in the future.
Permafrost, soil or rock that remains frozen all year round, occurs where...