RSS Feed
Archive for July 14th, 2014
Arizona Enlists Beetle in Campaign for Water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 14th, 2014
New York Times: In this corner of America known for its vast landscapes, rugged mountains and deep river canyons, signs of the havoc created by the minuscule tamarisk beetle are everywhere.
For miles along the banks of the Colorado River, hundreds of once hardy tamarisk trees — also known as salt cedars — are gray and withered. Their parched branches look like victims of fire or drought.
But this is not the story of beloved trees being ravaged by an invasive pest — quite the opposite. Farmers, ranchers and...
Posted in 
Attack of the parasite plants: vines taking over forests in Panama
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on July 14th, 2014
Mongabay: A worrying trend has emerged in tropical forests: lianas, woody long-stemmed vines, are increasingly displacing trees, thereby reducing forests’ overall ability to store carbon.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Stanford University and the University of Pittsburgh, and led by Dr. Stefan A. Schnitzer, studied the impacts of liana-tree competition in central Panamanian treefall gaps. Treefall gaps, known as the “engines of regeneration” in tropical forests, are sites of high...
Military Bases Face Hurdle Climate Change Adaptation
Posted by Climate Central: Brian Kahn on July 14th, 2014
Climate Central: The Department of Defense has 7,600 military installations across all 50 states and 40 foreign countries. They perform diverse functions, but they have one thing in common: climate change could cost them big in the coming decades unless adaptation measures are taken soon.
The military has already taken some action. Planning for climate change impacts is being folded into base Master Plans around the world. And renewable energy projects have popped up on a few installations, reducing greenhouse...
Anti-fracking protesters arrested in U.S. capital
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 14th, 2014
Reuters: Two dozen protesters were arrested in Washington on Monday while demonstrating against hydraulic fracturing and the U.S. gas industry's push to sell "fracked" liquefied natural gas abroad. Protesters blocked entrances to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's headquarters for more than 90 minutes, holding signs calling the agency the "Fracking Expansion Rubberstamp Commission" and chanting "Wake up FERC." Some workers were forced to step over the protesters to access the government building's...
Rare Florida Forest to be Bulldozed and Turned into Wal-Mart
Posted by Nature World: None Given on July 14th, 2014
Nature World: A plot of Miami-Dade forest home to rare plants and endangered species is to be torn down to make way for a Wal-Mart, a move that's causing alarm among some environmentalists.
The University of Miami (UM) sold 88 acres of pine rockland to Ram, a Palm Beach County-based developer planning a 185,000-square-foot Wal-Mart, along with an LA Fitness, Chik-fil-A, Chili's and 900 apartments.
Though the company agreed to set aside 40 acres for a preserve, it's not nearly big enough to hold the vast...
‘Tornadoes of fire’ in NWT linked to climate change
Posted by CBC: None Given on July 14th, 2014
CBC: Climate change is responsible for more frequent and larger forest fires, such as the ones now plaguing the Northwest Territories, says an Edmonton professor.
“What we are seeing in the Northwest Territories this year is an indicator of what to expect with climate change,” says Mike Flannigan, a professor of Wildland Fire in the University of Alberta’s renewable resources department. “Expect more fires, larger fires, more intense fires.”
This weekend, the wildfires left a 13-kilometre-long scar...
Climate: Greenhouse gases drive Australia drying trend
Posted by Summit Voice: Bob Berwyn on July 14th, 2014
Summit Voice: Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and ozone depletion over Antarctica are the main drivers of the long-term decline in rainfall over southwestern Australia, federal scientists said in a weekend press release.
The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, are derived from a new high-resolution climate model that may help researchers identify more links between heat-trapping gases and regional climate trends, including here in the U.S.
"This is really the first study to explicitly...
Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition
Posted by New York Times: Gardiner Harris on July 14th, 2014
New York Times: He wore thick black eyeliner to ward off the evil eye, but Vivek, a tiny 1-year-old living in a village of mud huts and diminutive people, had nonetheless fallen victim to India’s great scourge of malnutrition.
His parents seemed to be doing all the right things. His mother still breast-fed him. His family had six goats, access to fresh buffalo milk and a hut filled with hundreds of pounds of wheat and potatoes. The economy of the state where he lives has for years grown faster than almost any...
Rising temperatures cause rising tensions
Posted by Wicked Local: Matthew Cappucci on July 14th, 2014
Wicked Local: In May, the U.S. Global Change Research Program issued its most recent report on climate change, illustrating just how severe the impacts will be on the United States in the not-so-distant future.
And while climate change has become as much a political debate as a global emergency, the urgency is becoming clear. According to the recently released 840-page report, the United States is already suffering considerable health and economic impacts from rising temperatures and sea levels.
...
Australia drying caused by greenhouse gases, study shows
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 14th, 2014
ScienceDaily: The agreement between observed and model simulated rainfall changes supports the idea that human activity contributed to the drying of southwestern Australia and that the drying will increase in the 21st century. Changes in fall-winter rainfall from observations (top panel) as compared to model simulation of the past century (middle panel), and a model projection of the middle of the 21st century. Credit: Graphic by NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory [Click to enlarge image]
NOAA scientists...