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Archive for March 16th, 2015
Extreme weather new normal in Australia’s disaster-prone neighbourhood
Posted by Sydney Morning Herald: Matt Wade on March 16th, 2015
Sydney Morning Herald: If it seems to you that major humanitarian emergencies are happening more often, you're right. Extreme weather events like the one that devastated Vanuatu on Saturday are on the rise. Since 2000, the average number of climate-related disasters each year has been 44 per cent higher than between 1994 and 2000 and well over twice the level during the 1980s, a data-based managed by Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters shows.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon...
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Ban highlights climate risks as Vanuatu counts dead Cyclone Pam
Posted by Deutsche Welle: None Given on March 16th, 2015
Deutsche-Welle: Attending a UN disaster avoidance conference in Japan, Ban said islands and coastal nations needed "special attention." Before Pam struck Vanuatu late Friday, Pacific islands had repeatedly warned that climate change means higher weather risks.
"Climate change is intensifying the risks for hundreds of millions of people, particularly in small island developing states and coastal areas," Ban told the conference.
What we are discussing here is very real for millions," he said.
France, which...
Climate Change Continues, Impervious to Official Declarations
Posted by Inter Press Service: Roberto Savio on March 16th, 2015
Inter Press Service: The agreement was to block the rise in global temperature before 2020, and start a process for gradually reverting the climate to safe levels, to be concluded before 2050.
Well, in the last four years, we have already witnessed an increase in temperature by 1 degree, and there is only another 1 degree left before 2020.
The European Environment Agency (EEA), which publishes a report every five years, states that Europe needs "much more ambitious goals" if it wants to reach its declared targets...
Is Warming Arctic Behind Our Heat Waves?
Posted by Nature World News: None Given on March 16th, 2015
Nature World News: That's at least according to a study recently published in the journal Science, which details how Arctic warming is essentially putting the brakes on atmospheric circulation in mid-latitudes, leaving North America and Europe with uncharacteristically strong heat waves.
For instance, in 2003, west Europe was slammed with a wave that was associated with the deaths of nearly 70,000 people (heat stroke, wild fires, etc). In 2010, Russia was then affected by one that lasted a stunning six weeks, grave...
Australia: Greg Hunt details dumping ban w/in Great Barrier Reef marine park
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2015
Guardian: Greg Hunt, the federal environment minister, has released details of a new ban on dumping sediment within the entire 345,000 sq km Great Barrier Reef marine park.
The ban will cover existing and future “capital” dredging, which is the initial digging up of seabed sediment in an approved dredging project. But it does not cover maintenance dredging – which Hunt said was needed to avoid a “catastrophic” shipping accident – nor burying cables or pipelines.
There is one application to dredge and...
Memo exposes Bush’s new green strategy
Posted by Guardian: Oliver Burkeman on March 16th, 2015
Guardian: The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding "frightening" phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable.
The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has "lost the environmental communications battle" and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.
"The...
Boston gets most winter snow in its recorded history – 108.6 inches
Posted by Reuters: Elizabeth Barber on March 16th, 2015
Reuters: After hosting parades through snowy streets and weathering storms that snarled traffic and commerce over the last few months, Boston residents have seen the snowiest winter in the city's recorded history, the National Weather Service said.
Boston got 108.6 inches (275.8 cm) of snow over the winter, surpassing the city's previous 1995-1996 record of 107.6 inches. The new record was officially set at about 7 p.m. on Sunday, after a storm dropped 2.9 inches on the capital and largest city in Massachusetts....
Aid workers struggle with scale of Vanuatu disaster
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: Aid agencies said Monday (Mar 16) conditions in cyclone-ravaged Vanuatu were among the most challenging they have ever faced with fears of disease rife, as the Pacific nation's shocked president said climate change was partly to blame for the devastation.
Relief flights continued arriving in the battered capital Port Vila after Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam tore through on Friday night packing wind gusts of up to 320km/h.
But workers on the ground said there was no way to distribute desperately...