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Archive for October 23rd, 2013
‘Learned helplessness’ leaves Australians in major cities unprepared to cope in natural disasters
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 23rd, 2013
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Emergency experts say a learned helplessness has left Australians in major cities unprepared to cope in natural disasters.
With the increasing impact of extreme heatwaves, storms, fires and floods, experts say traditional reliance on emergency services and recovery support such as cash handouts needs to be urgently reviewed if Australia is to better survive both the effects and escalating costs of such disasters.
Emergency expert Lewis Winter from Charles Sturt University says Australians need...
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Australian PM denies climate change link to bushfires
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 23rd, 2013
Agence France-Presse: Prime Minister Tony Abbott denied Wednesday that devastating bushfires in Australia were linked to climate change, accusing the United Nations climate chief of "talking through her hat" on the issue. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said Tuesday that while the latest fires raging west of Sydney could not yet be linked to global warming, there was "absolutely" a connection between wildfires and rising temperatures. "The official in question is talking through her hat," Abbott told radio station...
Cuba’s mangroves dying of thirst
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 23rd, 2013
Inter Press Service: In the 1960s, the Cuban government declared that storage of fresh water for times of drought or hurricanes was a matter of national security, and it began to dam up the country’s rivers. But that policy has claimed an unforeseen victim: mangroves.
The sea swallowed up the old road connecting Batabanó and Mayabeque beaches, in southwest Cuba. In the last 50 years, more than 100 metres of coastline have been lost in that area to the south of Havana. The weakened mangroves, which now receive hardly...
The United States of drought
Posted by Inter Press Service: Ramy Srour on October 23rd, 2013
Inter Press Service: As the planet heats up and larger populations demand larger water supplies, the United States will be left high and dry if it fails to address a worsening water shortage.
By 2060, the gap between water supply and demand could grow to nearly four billion cubic metres per year - 10 times the amount of water used by the desert-bound city of Las Vegas."If you go to the western U.S., people are still in that mindset of trying to withdraw as much water as they can, as long as they can pump faster than...
Swelling lakes pose threat to Tibet rails
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 23rd, 2013
Xinhua: Swelling lakes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a notable sign of global warming, are threatening the safety of the world’s highest railway, according to climate and ecological experts. One flooded lake is now only 8 kilometers away from a section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in the depopulated area of Hol Xil Nature Reserve, according to the latest satellite monitoring by the Qinghai Provincial Academy of Meteorological Sciences. Liu Baokang, engineer with the academy’s remote-sensing and ecological...
The grassroots battle against Big Oil
Posted by Nation: Wen Stephenson on October 23rd, 2013
Nation: One morning in mid-July, I drove north out of Houston at the crack of dawn, three hours up Highway 59 into the cleaner air and dense, piney woods of deep East Texas. It was Sunday, and I was on my way to church. I’d been up that way before: my father was born and raised in northeast Texas—in fact, my whole family is from Texas—and I’m no stranger to Bible Belt Christianity. But I’d never been to a church like the one where I was headed that morning: the small, progressive Austin Heights Baptist...
Biotech, farmer associations key for climate adaptation– panel
Posted by Reuters: Jake Lucas on October 23rd, 2013
Reuters: An increasingly extreme climate is presenting new challenges to farmers across the world, and biotechnology and greater collaboration will be two key ways of addressing them, a group of farmers from four continents said during an international roundtable.
"GE (genetic engineering) technology has a positive role to play in fighting climate change,' said Gilbert Arap Bor, a Kenyan farmer, business lecturer at the Catholic University of East Africa and one of five farmers taking part in the discussion...
Debris cover slowing melt of Pakistan’s Karakoram glaciers – scientist
Posted by Reuters: Rina Saeed Khan on October 23rd, 2013
Reuters: For the past several years, the large glaciers of Pakistan's Karakoram mountain range were thought to have been stable, with some even advancing slightly. But scientist Christoph Mayer, recently back from doing field studies on the glaciers, believes their future remains negative as the planet warms.
The phenomenon of these glaciers that appear not to have shrunk - at odds with the retreat of other mountain glaciers worldwide due to rising temperatures - has been dubbed the "Karakoram Anomaly'....
Hundreds Protest Tar Sands Pipeline as Expert Warns of 90 Percent Probability of Line 9 Rupture
Posted by EcoWatch: Derek Leahy on October 23rd, 2013
EcoWatch: The international pipeline safety expert who last August described Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline as “high risk for a rupture” now says the probability of Line 9 rupturing is “over 90 percent.”
“I do not make the statement ‘high risk for a rupture’ lightly or often," said Richard Kuprewicz in an interview with DeSmog Canada. "There are serious problems with Line 9 that need to be addressed.” Kuprewicz is a pipeline safety expert with over forty years of experience in the energy sector.
Hundreds...
Treaty to cut mercury pollution signed by 92 countries
Posted by SciDevNet: None Given on October 23rd, 2013
SciDevNet: A ground-breaking, legally-binding global treaty on reducing mercury pollution has been signed by 92 countries.
The treaty spells "the beginning of the end of mercury as a threat to human health and the environment', UN Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Achim Steiner, told a diplomatic meeting in Japan earlier this month (10-11 October) where the treaty was signed.
But much work remains to provide the funding and technical and scientific advice needed to implement the treaty,...