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Archive for February 17th, 2015
Climate change hampering world food production
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 17th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: The acceleration climate change and its impact on agricultural production means that profound societal changes will be needed in coming decades to feed the world's growing population, researchers at an annual science conference said.
According to scientists, food production will have to be doubled over the next 35 years to feed a global population of nine billion people in 2050, compared with seven billion today.
Feeding the world "is going to take some changes in terms of minimizing climate...
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Western forecast has megadrought on the horizon
Posted by Elko Daily Free Press: Editorial on February 17th, 2015
Elko Daily Free Press: In just the first six weeks of the new year, we’ve already seen nine record high temperatures. The weather has been unusually warm and dry across the West, while the folks back East are seeing one of their worst winters in history.
The pattern is pretty much a repeat of last winter, only more extreme. And extremes are what “climate change” is all about. That’s the accepted term for what used to be called “global warming,” a phenomenon most scientists believe is caused by human activity such as...
Could these big data projects fix climate change?
Posted by Fortune: None Given on February 17th, 2015
Fortune: Something’s up with the environment. Sea levels have risen nearly seven inches in the past 100 years, and Arctic ice sheets are shrinking at about 13% a decade, according to NASA. Meanwhile the earth’s surface temperature has been climbing steadily upward, says the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. But it’s also the era of using big data to find ways to solve environmental problems. Crunching data already helps with reducing traffic jams and lowering crime rates. So why not climate...
Interior Secretary vows to work on solutions for climate-threatened village
Posted by Anchorage Daily News: None Given on February 17th, 2015
Anchorage Daily News: In a whirlwind visit to Northwest Alaska on an unseasonably warm day, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Monday told residents of this climate-threatened village that she would work with them on their relocation efforts.
Jewell is in the Arctic region at the invitation of the Alaska Federation of Natives. The state’s most powerful Native organization had organized a retreat in the hub city of Kotzebue for its 37-member board and wanted Jewell to address climate change and other issues affecting...
Scientists sound storm warning on African climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 17th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: On a typical February day in West Africa, Cape Verdeans are taking time to cool down as the island nation is buffeted by a rare unseasonal downpour. For the scientists gathered in the archipelago’s capital Praia, however, the rain is a worrying portent of the changing climate to which Africa is becoming increasingly vulnerable. With each new decade the continent is witnessing more droughts, heatwaves and deadly floods like those that overwhelmed Malawi and Mozambique in January, according to experts...
Oil Train Derailments Renew Questions About Safety
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 17th, 2015
LA Times: The derailments this week of two trains carrying crude oil have raised new questions about the adequacy of federal efforts to improve the safety of moving oil on tank cars from new North American wells to distant refineries.
A 100-car, southbound CSX train derailed Monday in a West Virginia river valley, destroying a home and possibly contaminating the water supply for downriver residents. A thundering fireball rose hundreds of feet above the community amid an intense winter storm.
Back-to-back...
State Officials Misrepresent North Dakota’s Spill Problem
Posted by Inside Energy: None Given on February 17th, 2015
Inside Energy: On a muggy day in August, Daryl and Christine Peterson spent hours driving me along gravel roads through farmland damaged by wastewater spills in Bottineau County, North Dakota. Just south of the Canadian border in the central part of the state, Bottineau has been producing oil for decades, but has largely been left out of the state's most recent boom. Now, rusty pumpjacks and tanks rise above a green quilt of soybeans and wheat.
Daryl Peterson stopped the truck in the middle of a field. In front...
‘Anti-Petroleum’ Movement Growing Security Threat to Canada, RCMP Say
Posted by Globe & Mail: None Given on February 17th, 2015
Globe & Mail: The RCMP has labelled the "anti-petroleum" movement as a growing and violent threat to Canada's security, raising fears among environmentalists that they face increased surveillance, and possibly worse, under the Harper government's new terrorism legislation.
In highly charged language that reflects the government's hostility toward environmental activists, an RCMP intelligence assessment warns that foreign-funded groups are bent on blocking oil sands expansion and pipeline construction, and that...
Oklahoma’s Daily Small Quakes Raise Risk of Big Ones, Study Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 17th, 2015
Associated Press: Small earthquakes shaking Oklahoma and southern Kansas daily and linked to energy drilling are dramatically increasing the chance of bigger and dangerous quakes, federal research indicates.
This once stable region is now just as likely to see serious damaging and potentially harmful earthquakes as the highest risk places east of the Rockies such as New Madrid, Missouri, and Charleston, South Carolina, which had major quakes in the past two centuries.
Still it's a low risk, about a 1 in 2,500...
Extent of Stealth Fracking in Gulf of Mexico Revealed
Posted by Al Jazeera: None Given on February 17th, 2015
Al Jazeera: While a debate rages over the use of hydraulic fracturing to exploit fossil fuel reserves inland, the practice has quietly taken hold offshore, in the Gulf of Mexico.
Documents obtained by “Fault Lines” reveal that the world’s largest oil firms are now fracking in some of the Gulf’s deepest waters -- raising questions about how it is being regulated.
A list of about 100 well sites offers one of the first snapshots of the practice, which until just a couple years ago was unknown to the public....