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Archive for February 19th, 2014
Court Strikes Down Nebraska Law That Allowed Keystone XL Pipeline
Posted by Omaha World-Herald: Joe Duggan on February 19th, 2014
Omaha World-Herald: A judge has declared unconstitutional a Nebraska law used to reroute the Keystone XL pipeline. Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie Stacy ruled Wednesday that the 2012 law improperly gave the governor authority to approve the pipeline route, said David Domina, an Omaha attorney who represented plaintiffs in the case. He said the ruling doesn't necessarily reset the clock on federal approval of the pipeline. President Barack Obama only has to decide whether to grant a permit to allow the pipeline...
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Some New York City streets closed due to falling ice, snow
Posted by Reuters: Victoria Cavaliere on February 19th, 2014
Reuters: New Yorkers got a reprieve from the relentless winter weather on Wednesday only to find that the season's wrath created a fresh menace of large chunks of snow and ice falling from skyscrapers to the sidewalks below. Several streets in Lower Manhattan around One World Trade Center, the city's tallest building, had to be closed when packs of snow and ice began to melt and fall from the 1,776-foot (541 meter) building, according to the city's Office of Emergency Management. Some of the falling icicles...
Steyer may spend $100 million to push climate cause in midterms, but polluters will spend more
Posted by Grist: Ben Adler on February 19th, 2014
Grist: After years of being outgunned by polluters and their allies, environmentalists have been celebrating the arrival of a savior: Tom Steyer, a Bay Area hedge-fund billionaire. Last year, he spent $11 million to help Democrat Terry McAuliffe get elected as Virginia governor, and millions more on anti-Keystone ads and the campaign to elect Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey to the Senate. And on Tuesday, The New York Times’ Nicholas Confessore reported, “He is rallying other deep-pocketed donors, seeking...
More sinkholes will open up across Britain as the effects of flooding continue
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 19th, 2014
Independent: A spate of sinkholes have opened up across the country as floodwater dissolves the underlying rock, while a “second wave” is likely to appear in the coming weeks as the rain stops and the ground begins to dry, the British Geological Survey warned yesterday.
The number of sinkholes reported has soared to six so far this month – many times more than the one to two that is typical across the whole of a normal year, experts said.
These have generally occurred as soluble rocks such as chalk, limestone...
Britons need to accept their new climate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 19th, 2014
New Scientist: IN THE crypt of Winchester Cathedral stands a sculpture of a featureless man contemplating water pooled in his cupped hands. When it rains, the crypt floods, so the man is partially submerged. That's fitting for a building whose bishop until AD 862, Saint Swithin, is associated in folklore with incessant rainfall. Last week, however, the water reached levels unmatched in recent memory, preventing anyone from visiting Antony Gormley's sculpture. Weeks of stormy weather have swollen the river Itchen...
86 flood warnings still in place southern and central England
Posted by Blue and Green: None Given on February 19th, 2014
Blue and Green: The Environment Agency has confirmed that a total of 86 flood warnings, two of them severe, remain across southern and central England, as the extreme weather begins to settle.
It added that river levels along the Thames, which rose to its highest level since 1883 last week, will remain high this week but gradually begin to drop. This is also the case for the Severn.
Of the 86 flood warnings, the two severe alerts are in the badly-hit south-west. This means there is a danger to life. Elsewhere,...
California faces the worst drought on record while ‘exporting water’ to China
Posted by Blue and Green: None Given on February 19th, 2014
Blue and Green: California is experiencing its worst drought in a century, which is putting at risk the survival of many species and damaging the economy.
Experts have warned that the lack of rainfall has already dried 95% of wetlands in California, causing the death or migration of many animal and bird species.
As the availability of watery spots decreases, waterfowl and other animals are forced to converge to the few that remain intact, increasing the threat of spreading parasites and diseases more easily....
Rachel Maddow Devotes Large Portion of Show to Hazards of Fracking
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on February 19th, 2014
EcoWatch: Yesterday, as reported on EcoWatch, the Center for Public Integrity, InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel released an investigative report and short film on how volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released during the fracking process are polluting the air in South Texas, home of the Eagle Ford Shale basin.
Last night, Rachel Maddow devoted an extended portion of her MSNBC show to the barrage of issues surrounding the fracking process. Maddow began with discussing the increasing number of earthquakes...
Report describes the unfathomable cost of inaction on rising seas
Posted by InsideClimate: John H. Cushman Jr. on February 19th, 2014
InsideClimate: The world needs to invest tens of billions of dollars a year in beefing up shoreline defenses against rising oceans or it will face mind-boggling costs in the decades to come, according to new research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. If nations don't build up dikes, levees and sea walls, harden existing infrastructure, and preserve natural sponges like wetlands and barrier islands--and if they also do nothing to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases that...
New Research Shows Tree Roots Regulate CO2, Keep Climate Stable
Posted by Climate News: Tim Radford on February 19th, 2014
Climate News: Trees have become a source of continuous surprise. Only weeks after researchers demonstrated that old forest giants actually accumulate more carbon than younger, fast-growing trees, British scientists have discovered that the great arbiters of long-term global temperatures may not be the leaves of an oak, pine or eucalyptus, but the roots.
The argument, put forward by a team from Oxford and Sheffield Universities in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, begins with temperature. Warmer climates...