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Archive for March 25th, 2014
Climate change will reduce crop yields sooner
Posted by Arizona State University: None Given on March 25th, 2014
Arizona State University: Results from a new study co-authored by Netra Chhetri, a faculty member at the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University, show global warming of only 2 degrees Celsius will be detrimental to three essential food crops in temperate and tropical regions. And beginning in the 2030s, yields from those crops will start to decline significantly.
"This study has been able to quantify the likely impacts of differing degrees of climate change on yields, by crop and by region,'...
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Canada: Inconvenient truth about oilsands and cancer
Posted by Delhi News: Lorne Gunter on March 25th, 2014
Delhi News: "Don't confuse us with facts.' That's what opponents of the oilsands seem to be saying about the latest report on alleged links between oilsands development and cancer among First Nations people in Northern Alberta.
Their next step will almost certainly be shooting the messenger, James Talbot, Alberta's chief medical officer of health. Watch for environmental activists and "green' politicians to start claiming Talbot is a puppet of the provincial government or "Big Oil.'
On Monday, Talbot released...
Future cost of water is no small change
Posted by Environmental News Network: Dr. Lynn A. Wilson on March 25th, 2014
Environmental News Network: Water scarcity was, until recently, considered by most of the developed world to be like James Hilton's Lost Horizon: "far away, at the very limit of distance." However, the convergence of aquifer depletion from increasing agricultural, industrial and municipal water use with more frequent and intense extreme weather events creates an urgency to develop new, reliable sources of fresh water to "drought-proof" communities through a combination of desalinization technologies, water recovery and reuse...
In California, Demand for Groundwater Causing Huge Swaths of Land to Sink
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2014
National Geographic: Extensive groundwater pumping is causing a huge swath of central California to sink, in some spots at an alarming rate, the U.S. Geological Survey reports.
With California in the throes of a major drought and demand for groundwater rising, officials and landowners are racing to respond to the process known as subsidence. Some areas of the San Joaquin Valley, the backbone of California's vast agricultural industry, are subsiding at the fastest rates ever measured, said Michelle Sneed, a U.S. Geological...
Senate hears pleas for gas exports to Europe
Posted by Associated Press: http://images.brisbanetimes.com.au/2014/03/25/5293095/ch_wide_browning-201403251 on March 25th, 2014
Associated Press: Calls to begin U.S. natural gas exports to Europe to counter Russian influence across the continent grew louder Tuesday amid concerns that Russia will move deeper into Ukraine. Lithuania's energy minister, Jaroslav Neverovic, pleaded in emotional terms for U.S. help, saying his country is "100 percent" dependent on Russia for natural gas and has to pay 30 percent higher prices for it than other countries in Europe. "This is not just unfair, this is abuse," Neverovic told the Senate Energy and Natural...
Weather extremes ‘consistent’ with man-made climate change: UN
Posted by Agence France-Presse: Jonathan Fowler on March 25th, 2014
Agence France-Presse: The Philippines' devastating Typhoon Haiyan and drought in Australia are among recent weather extremes consistent with man-made climate change, the UN's weather agency said Monday.
"Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change," Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meterological Organization (WMO), said as he released his agency's annual climate report.
"We saw heavier precipitation, more intense heat, and...
Evidence for human-induced climate change grows
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2014
Independent: No single weather event can prove or disprove climate change, but in its review of 2013 the world’s leading meteorological authority suggests that many of last year’s weather extremes are likely to have been heavily influenced by rising global temperatures.
In some ways 2013 was a typical year for the global weather. Heatwaves, cold snaps, violent storms, droughts and floods all played their part in shaping 2013 – as they do every year – but there is growing evidence that human activities are...
California drought is ready for a Silicon Valley moment – and futuristic farms
Posted by Guardian: Nicolette Hahn Niman on March 25th, 2014
Guardian: We are ranchers. And as ranchers in Northern California, we are intimately familiar with the impact of a drought as extreme as the one we are enduring right now – and how it affects the food you eat.
You’ve heard about the shorter showers, the intermittent toilet flushing. You’ve heard less about the expensive hay, being fed to fewer animals. But have you heard about the innovations that could reverse it all?
Indeed, how familiar are you with California’s water crisis, the worst in recorded...
UN: 13 of 14 warmest years on record in 21st century
Posted by Blue and Green: None Given on March 25th, 2014
Blue and Green: The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has revealed that 2001-2010 was the warmest decade on record, while 13 of the 14 warmest years in recorded history have occurred in the 21st century.
The WMO previously said that 2013 had been the sixth warmest year on record and stressed the dramatic impact that floods and droughts have had around the world.
The UN agency made it clear in its latest annual climate statement that there was “no standstill in global warming” and that each of the last...
United Kingdom: Fracking won’t crack our dependence on Russian gas imports
Posted by Guardian: John Sauven on March 25th, 2014
Guardian: As tensions with Russia intensify, government ministers and conservative commentators have increasingly sought to capitalise on the crisis to sell fracking to the electorate. Over the weekend, Conservative energy minister Michael Fallon argued that the UK should reduce its reliance on gas imports by fracking for shale gas in the UK. The foreign minister, William Hague, wrote in the Telegraph that we need to "develop indigenous European energy supplies … such as shale gas", while commentators including...