Archive for September 27th, 2013

Water Wars: Egyptians Condemn Ethiopia’s Nile Dam Project

National Geographic: "Ethiopia is killing us," taxi driver Ahmed Hossam said, as he picked his way through Cairo's notoriously traffic-clogged streets. "If they build this dam, there will be no Nile. If there's no Nile, then there's no Egypt." Projects on the scale of the $4.7 billion, 1.1-mile-long (1.7-kilometer-long) Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam often encounter impassioned resistance, but few inspire the kind of dread and fury with which most Egyptians regard plans to dam the Blue Nile River. Egypt insists Ethiopia's...

Melting Arctic Permafrost Looms as Major Factor in Warming, Climate Change

Wunderground: A heavyweight boxer in the climate change match is missing from the fifth climate assessment report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Friday. Permafrost, which is frozen ground that doesn't melt during the summer, covers 24 percent of the land in the northern hemisphere. It also stores approximately 1.5 trillion tons of carbon – twice the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere. When the organic matter that makes up permafrost thaws, the carbon it contains...

UN Climate Change Report: Sea Level, Air Temperature To Rise

National Public Radio: The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its latest assessment today. This is the fifth since 1990. The reports project the rate of global warming, sea level rise and other expected effects that result largely from our use of fossil fuels, which puts billions of additional tons of carbon dioxide into the air every year.

Colorado Rivers Illustrate Realities of Extreme Weather Activated by Climate Change

EcoWatch: The river raced. I was standing near the bridge on College Avenue over the Cache la Poudre River in Fort Collins, CO. Due to the torrential rainstorms, the river had peaked about six hours earlier in the middle of the night, but it was still flowing about 100 times bigger than it usually does in September. A huge tree raged along in the floodwaters, smacked up against the bridge with a cracking sound, and then disappeared under the bridge. Spectators oohed and aahed–a couple dozen of us were watching,...

CO2 Reshaping the Planet, Meta-Analysis Confirms

Inter Press Service: Greenland will eventually truly become green as most of its massive ice sheet is destined to melt, the authoritative U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported Friday. The IPCC`s new 36-page summary of the latest science includes a warning that there is a 20-percent chance the massive Greenland ice sheet will begin an irreversible meltdown with only 0.2 degrees C of additional warming. That amount of additional warming is now certain. However, it would take 1,000 years for...

Humans Are Main Cause Of Climate Change, Says UN Report

RedOrbit: A new report by the UN-created Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that global warming is "unequivocal" and it is "extremely likely" that human activities are the main driver of this epic warming. "Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes," said the report, which was released Friday morning in Stockholm,...

Nine Arrested in Connection with Poisoning Elephants with Cyanide in Zimbabwe

Nature World: Several people have been arrested in connection with the cyanide poisoning of more than 80 elephants in Zimbabwe this month and other suspects are on trial in connection with the crime, according to local media. At least 87 elephants have died of poisoning this month at Hwange National Park, Africa's third largest wildlife sanctuary. Poachers had removed the tusks on each one of the carcasses. Wednesday, three poachers were convicted and sentenced to at least 15 years in prison for the illegal...

Keystone XL could crush endangered fox cubs in their own dens

Grist: Contrary to popular belief, environmentalists aren`t totally unconnected with reality. We realize, for instance, that we can get people up in arms about cute endangered species, but that no one cares if the Keystone XL pipeline is going to affect the American burying beetle. (Even if they are weird and bright orange and the largest beetle on the continent to collect dead birds, roll them up, and bury them next to their underground beetle nests.) The burying beetles, though, according to the State...

What the IPCC found: The big news from new climate assessment

Grist: It`s extremely likely that humans have been the dominant cause of global warming since the 1950s, according to a landmark report from the world`s top panel of climate scientists. And we`re failing in our efforts to keep atmospheric warming below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 Fahrenheit, which many scientists say is needed to avoid massive disruption. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conducted an epic review of climate research over the last three years. It is summarizing the most important...

The five worst effects of greenhouse-gas emissions

Globe and Mail: A major new report on climate change contains stark warnings about what continued greenhouse-gas emissions will do to the Earth. Among the findings of the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Temperatures will continue to rise around the world, with a high likelihood of more - and longer - heat waves. Some regions will likely experience more intense, longer droughts. Many areas will have heavier rain, with more parts of the world likely to experience monsoons....