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Archive for December 15th, 2013
Sea levels expected rise two feet within the next 70 years and eight feet by 2200
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 15th, 2013
Daily Mail: Sea levels will rise two feet within just 70 years and eight feet by the year 2200, according to a new study which suggests hundreds of coastal cities face being wiped out within a matter of generations.
Scientists now claim we have awoken a 'sleeping giant' and that sea levels won't stop rising until they are between 25 to 30 feet higher than now.
Alarmingly those predictions are based on the assumption that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere remain at what they are today.
Threat:...
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More than year after Sandy, Hoboken wants to be nation urban flood protection model
Posted by Associated Press: Katie Zezima on December 15th, 2013
Associated Press: This city was nearly swallowed by the Hudson River during Superstorm Sandy last year. Its electrical substation and most of its firehouses flooded, businesses and homes were submerged, and people were trapped in high-rises because elevators didn't work and lobbies were under water. Now, more than a year after the storm, Hoboken is looking to become a national flood mitigation model. Its mayor has become an advocate for better planning and more funding for flood-prone urban areas, and for changing...
Future far from great for Australia’s Barrier Reef
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 15th, 2013
Xinhua: As an Island continent, Australia's relationship to the ocean has defined it. The embrace of the pacific oceans from the savage beauty of the Southern sea to the tourist magnets of the Whitsunday islands, are never far from the nation's collective imagination.
Today, those oceans are under threat, none more so than the celebrated coral highways of the Great Barrier Reef.
In his latest book, Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a Hot World, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University...
White House delayed enacting rules ahead of 2012 election to avoid controversy
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 15th, 2013
Washington Post: The White House systematically delayed enacting a series of rules on the environment, worker safety and health care to prevent them from becoming points of contention before the 2012 election, according to documents and interviews with current and former administration officials.
Some agency officials were instructed to hold off submitting proposals to the White House for up to a year to ensure that they would not be issued before voters went to the polls, the current and former officials said....
Every “serious environmentalist” must support fracking? Seriously?
Posted by Grist: John Upton on December 15th, 2013
Grist: If you oppose fracking, then you are not a “serious environmentalist.”
So say U.C. Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller and his daughter Elizabeth Muller in a new opinion paper with a none-too-subtle title: "Why Every Serious Environmentalist Should Favor Fracking."
Until recently, Muller wasn`t much of an environmentalist himself. He was a prominent climate denier. But last year he wrote in The New York Times that he came to realize the error of his ways after an intensive review of the...