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Archive for January 1st, 2015
United Kingdom: Hundreds homes to be wiped from the West map by floods
Posted by Western Morning News: None Given on January 1st, 2015
Western Morning News: Hundreds of homes are predicted to be wiped from the Westcountry map by flooding before the end of the century, previously unpublished figures show.
An estimated 7,000 properties around England and Wales will be sacrificed to rising seas over the next century, according to the Environment Agency.
Its analysis, based on current funding levels, projects that more than 800 will be lost over the next 20 years as coastlines erode because they are too costly to protect.
Thousands of high-value...
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New York’s ban on high-volume fracking rocks the foundations of ‘shale revolution.’
Posted by DC Bureau: None Given on January 1st, 2015
DC Bureau: Emboldened by mounting scientific evidence and shifting poll data, Gov. Andrew Cuomo veered sharply away from America’s conventional wisdom about the wonders of high-volume hydraulic fracturing of shale formations when he banned the practice in New York State on Dec. 17. While the oil and gas titans hope to contain the uprising to one state, the environmental advocates who masterminded it are quietly optimistic that it represents a tipping point, signaling impending decline for fossil fuels’ decades-long...
No Doubt It’s Climate-Change Drought, Scientists Say
Posted by Forbes: None Given on January 1st, 2015
Forbes: It was raining in San Francisco on the damp December morning that three scientists gathered at the offices of Climate Nexus to hold a press conference about the drought. It had been raining regularly for more than a week, in fact, and Stanford University had just recorded its rainiest day ever on campus. These three drought experts had gathered to swim upstream against all that rain and evaporate any false optimism it might be washing into California. “I’m happy to be here and see some rain here...
2014 was California’s hottest in 120 years
Posted by KPCC: None Given on January 1st, 2015
KPCC: With only hours remaining in 2014, government forecasters said California is set to have its warmest year in 120 years of recorded data.
"We are virtually certain that 2014 will be record warm for the state,' said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.
That statement comes as unusually frigid temperatures have hit Southern California, bringing with them a snowstorm that stranded more than a hundred motorists...
Scientist predicts mass exodus climate refugees Pacific Northwest
Posted by Global News: None Given on January 1st, 2015
Global News: According to several scientists, the Pacific Northwest is one of the safest places to live as far as climate change is concerned. Cliff Mass, an atmospheric science professor from the University of Washington, predicts the Pacific Northwest will be one of the best places to live as the earth warms from Global Warming. He foresees a mass exodus of climate change refugees.
On his blog , Mass details why so many people may be "forced" to move, and why the Pacific Northwest could fare better than...
How Putin Forged a Pipeline Deal That Derailed
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 1st, 2015
New York Times: Barely two weeks after President Vladimir V. Putin annexed Crimea on one side of the Black Sea, he won a different prize on the other side. In Bulgaria’s Parliament, lawmakers gave initial passage to a bill clearing the way for a mammoth gas pipeline from Russia.
The pipeline, known as South Stream, was Mr. Putin’s most important European project, a tool of economic and geopolitical power critical to twin goals: keeping Europe hooked on Russian gas, and further entrenching Russian influence in...
Save civilization — grow topsoil
Posted by Producer: Jeffrey Carter on January 1st, 2015
Producer: Farmers need to move beyond conserving topsoil and start growing it, according to a Vermont grazier, educator and consultant. “The best we’ve been able to do is that we’re losing 10 times more soil than is being grown. At least, that’s the latest numbers I’ve seen,” Abe Collins told the Ecological Farmers of Ontario conference in Orillia in early December. Collins is part of a small group of agriculturalists who want to take that next step. He is co-founder of the Soil Carbon Coalition, a non-profit...
Rain Eases California Drought Anxiety, If Not The Actual Drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 1st, 2015
National Public Radio: The small city of Orange Cove, at the doorstep of the Sierra Nevada in central California, was suffering the brunt of the state's drought in April.
The rolling hills around the town are lined with citrus groves, and most people work on farms. As the irrigation canals dried up last summer, so did the economy.
"If there's no water, there's no work," Salvador Perez told NPR at the time.
Farm workers like Perez were being laid off as local farms ran out of water. Groves were pulled up as the...