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Archive for June 16th, 2014
California wildfire threatens homes near Sequoia National Park
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2014
Reuters: A California wildfire that has already destroyed three structures and blackened some three square miles of forest land near Sequoia National Park was threatening 1,000 more homes on Monday, officials said. More than 1,100 firefighters were battling the so-called Shirley Fire, which erupted on Friday evening on the park's outskirts northeast of Bakersfield and prompted the evacuation of several foothill communities. The flames jumped containment lines on Saturday, fueled by high winds and dry brush,...
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Over 800 species added to IUCN threatened list, including 44 lemurs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2014
Mongabay: Experts have added 817 species to the threatened categories of the IUCN Red List in the latest update. Those added include 51 mammals-mostly lemurs-and over 400 plants. The new update finds that over 90 percent of lemurs and 79 percent of temperate slipper orchids are threatened with extinction.
"What was most surprising about this assessment was the degree of threat to these orchids," said Hassan Rankou, the IUCN Species Survival Commission's (SSC) Authority for the Orchid Specialist Group, "Slipper...
Regional U.S. accord signed to protect struggling Chesapeake Bay
Posted by Reuters: John Clarke on June 16th, 2014
Reuters: An agreement to restore the struggling Chesapeake Bay by protecting its vast drainage area was signed on Monday by officials that included governors from six U.S. states. The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement is aimed at restoring and conserving the 64,000-square-mile (166,000-square-km) watershed that spans six states and the District of Columbia and drains into the bay, the biggest U.S. estuary. The accord updates an existing agreement and marks the first time that Delaware, New York and West...
Exploring Academia’s Role Charting Good’ Anthropocene
Posted by New York Times: Andrew C. Revkin on June 16th, 2014
New York Times: I spent the tail end of last week at the annual conference of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences, a young network of scholars and students aiming to foster collaborations among disciplines — from ecology to ethics — in studying, and improving, the human relationship to the environment. As the group explains on its website: [I]t is only through learning communities of the type proposed for A.E.S.S. that we can achieve ‘whole system’ environmental education and the creative...
Leaping Asian Carp Invasion a Growing Problem
Posted by Nature World: Jenna Iacurci on June 16th, 2014
Nature World: The invasive Asian carp, a species of fish not native to the United States, has become a growing problem in the Illinois River.
The fish, which can grow as much as 100 pounds, are so abundant that it seems that they have nowhere to go. They have taken to leaping from the water onto people's passing boats.
"It's like somebody set off an explosion under water. They're just everywhere. These fish are probably the equivalent of getting hit in the head with probably a brick or a bowling ball," fisherman...
30 Years of Oil Pollution Threatening Western Amazon
Posted by Nature World: Jenna Iacurci on June 16th, 2014
Nature World: The Western Amazon, an area of unparalleled biological and cultural diversity, may have been contaminated by widespread oil pollution over the last 30 years, according to a new study.
Most of the world's tropical rainforests are oil and gas goldmines. Oil production in the Western Amazon began in the 1920s and peaked in the 1970s, but current growing global demand is stimulating a renewed growth in oil and gas extraction - nearly 70 percent of the Peruvian Amazon was tapped for oil between 1970...
So You Want to Change the World? Better Read This First
Posted by EcoWatch: Richard Heinberg on June 16th, 2014
EcoWatch: History is often made by strong personalities wielding bold new political, economic or religious doctrines. Yet any serious effort to understand how and why societies change requires examination not just of leaders and ideas, but also of environmental circumstances. The ecological context (climate, weather and the presence or absence of water, good soil and other resources) may either present or foreclose opportunities for those wanting to shake up the social world. This suggests that if you want...
Sea Rise Will Bring Severe Floods to Silicon Valley
Posted by Climate Central: Ngoc Nguyen on June 16th, 2014
Climate Central: Thirty-year-old Gustavo Leal remembers the floodwaters reaching the doorstep of his family home in East Palo Alto. "It was bad enough that you couldn't get out of your driveway,' he said.
Next time the floodwaters could swamp the entire house. That's the findings of a new study released today by Climate Central, a research and journalism organization.
In February 1998, an El Niño storm brought high-speed winds combined with abnormally high sea levels that wreaked havoc in the Bay Area. El Niño...
Vast ice structures discovered beneath Greenland ice sheet
Posted by Blue and Green: Tom Revell on June 16th, 2014
Blue and Green: Far beneath the flat, tranquil surface of northern Greenland’s ice sheet, scientists have discovered vast ice structures as tall as skyscrapers and as wide as the island of Manhattan.
The formations are caused when ice at the base of the glacier melts and refreezes over hundreds of years, in a process that may be quickening the glaciers’ slide into the sea.
Using radar from airborne surveys, researchers found that the structures, which cover about a tenth of northern Greenland, are made not...
Paying to save nature could mean a win for everyone
Posted by Marketplace: Sabri Ben-Achour on June 16th, 2014
Marketplace: Quite possibly, the gentle horseshoe crab has swum ashore during the full and new moons of May and June to spawn for 445 million years. Horseshoe crab like creatures were here when the dinosaurs appeared, and they were here after the dinosaurs disappeared. They survived ancient global warming and ice ages alike. And then people happened. “Over a hundred years ago, they were ground up and put on land as a fertilizer,” says Eric Hallerman, professor of fish conservation at Virginia Tech. In places...