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Archive for September 10th, 2014
Rocky Mountain Forests Vanishing as Planet Heats Up
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on September 10th, 2014
Environment News Service: Climate change could kill up to 90 percent of the forests covering the Rocky Mountains, warned the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists today in a new study based in part on projections made by the U.S. Forest Service.
Extreme heat and drought, more and larger wildfires over a longer fire season, and beetle infestations have killed tens of millions of trees in the Rocky Mountains over the past 15 years, according to the study, "Rocky Mountain Forests at Risk."
Large wildfires, such as the...
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Climate change accelerating death Western forests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 10th, 2014
USA Today: The iconic pine and aspen forests of the Rocky Mountains are dying off at an alarming rate thanks to conditions exacerbated by climate change - drought, insect infestations and wildfires - a new report says.
Colorado alone could lose 45% of its aspen stands over the next 45 years, says the report released Thursday by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. Pine bark beetles alone have killed 46 million acres of trees across the west, an area nearly the size...
Report: Climate change transforming Rocky Mountain forests
Posted by Denver Channel: Phil Tenser on September 10th, 2014
Denver Channel: Climate change is forever altering forests in the Rocky Mountain region with wildfires, insects and unexplained tree die-off, according to a new report. Published Wednesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, the report is titled "Rocky Mountain Forests at Risk." It finds that climate changes are driving the "triple assault" that is threatening the landscapes of Rocky Mountain, Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks. Temperatures in the region have...
Climate change could ‘fundamentally alter’ US forest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 10th, 2014
Agence France-Presse: Wildfires, insects and drought are crippling forests in the western United States' iconic Rocky Mountains, scientists warned on Wednesday, urging more efforts to stop global warming.
"If left unchecked, the climate change that is driving this triple assault could fundamentally alter these forests as we know them," said the report by the Union for Concerned Scientists.
Researchers found that in the American West, "temperatures have risen on average about two degrees Fahrenheit (about one degree...
Tempers flare as mass flood evacuations begin in Kashmir
Posted by Reuters: Rupam lJain Nair on September 10th, 2014
Reuters: Floods that have killed 450 people in India and Pakistan began to recede on Wednesday giving rescue teams a chance to evacuate thousands of villagers stranded by the heaviest rainfall in 50 years in the heavily militarized and disputed region of Kashmir.
On the Indian side of the divided region, floods and landslides have cut off more than 1 million people from basic services, triggering a massive military rescue operation that has so far evacuated 80,000 from villages and city rooftops.
Tempers...
Climate Change Could Wipe Out Half Of All North American Bird Species
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 10th, 2014
RedOrbit: More than half of the bird species in North America, including the bald eagle and the official birds of eight US states, are being seriously threatened by global climate change, the National Audubon Society revealed in a new report published on Tuesday.
According to the study, 126 species will lose at least half of their current ranges by 2050, and will have no chance to relocate if global warming continues on its current trajectory. An additional 188 species will experience more than 50 percent...
How Hillary Clinton’s State Department sold fracking to the world
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 10th, 2014
Mother Jones: One icy morning in February 2012, Hillary Clinton's plane touched down in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, which was just digging out from a fierce blizzard. Wrapped in a thick coat, the secretary of state descended the stairs to the snow-covered tarmac, where she and her aides piled into a motorcade bound for the presidential palace. That afternoon, they huddled with Bulgarian leaders, including Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, discussing everything from Syria's bloody civil war to their joint search...
Climate change threatens loon, other Minnesota birds, Audubon study finds
Posted by Star Tribune: Jeff Strickler on September 10th, 2014
Star Tribune: As many as half of Minnesota’s bird species -- including the loon, the beloved state bird -- could disappear because of accelerated climate change.
It’s not the birds themselves that are endangered, it’s the places that they live -- the lakes, the forests, the grasslands -- that are at risk. As those areas disappear, so will the birds that nest there.
“In real estate, it’s ‘location, location, location,’ ” said Bob Janssen, the author of several books about birds in Minnesota. “The bird equivalent...
Hopes for a strong El Niño fade in California
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 10th, 2014
New York Times: Long-term weather forecasters say it is now unlikely that a strong El Niño will develop this fall, dimming hopes in California for heavy rains that might bring relief from a severe drought. In its latest monthly forecast, the federal Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Md., said that while there was still about a two in three chance that El Niño would develop, perhaps in the next two months, it would most likely be weak. This year, some scientists had said rising water temperatures and changing...
Politicians urged to preserve finite phosphorous supply
Posted by SciDevNet: None Given on September 10th, 2014
SciDevNet: Global policies are needed to promote technologies and farming practices that will help preserve phosphorous, a nutrient essential to increasing crop yields and ensuring food security, a conference has heard.
Phosphorous is commonly applied to crops in the form of phosphate fertilisers. But these are often inefficiently managed, Arno Rosemarin, senior research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told the Sustainable Phosphorous Summit 2014 last week (1-3 September) in Montpellier, France....