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Archive for March 17th, 2015
Food concerns mount in Vanuatu after monster cyclone
Posted by Reuters: Stephen Coates on March 17th, 2015
Reuters: International aid agencies ramped up appeals for cyclone-hit Vanuatu on Wednesday, warning that the powerful storm which affected more than two-thirds of the South Pacific island nation had wiped out crops and destroyed fishing fleets, raising the risk of hunger and disease.
Residents of the southern island of Tanna said food and basic supplies were running low while relief workers were still battling to reach many islands pummeled by Cyclone Pam's gusts of more than 300 kph (185 mph) on Friday...
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Include Climate Change in Disaster Planning, FEMA Says
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on March 17th, 2015
Climate Central: Federal funds that help communities brace for emergencies will stop being provided to states if they ignore threats posed by climate change in their disaster planning.
States publish reports every five years or so detailing their vulnerability to natural disasters, such as floods, storms and wildfires, and how they plan to protect themselves and recover after them. Such plans are needed in order to qualify for a share of nearly $1 billion in Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants provided every year...
California, Quebec Teaming Up On Climate Change
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on March 17th, 2015
Climate Central: California raised $630 million by selling pollution allowances one Wednesday last month, each of them entitling the buyer to harm the climate with a ton of carbon dioxide. Most of the money that was raised during the quarterly allowance auction will be used to reduce customers' electricity bills; the rest will go to environmental projects. That same Wednesday, the Canadian province of Quebec raised $150 million doing the exact same thing.
The timing was no coincidence. The auction was held jointly....
Oregon gov declares drought emergency as snow pack levels drop
Posted by Reuters: Shelby Sebens on March 17th, 2015
Reuters: Oregon Governor Kate Brown declared a drought emergency on Tuesday in two rural Oregon counties, with more expected in the coming weeks, as the state suffers abnormally low snow pack levels.
The declarations in Oregon come as much of the U.S. West grapples with severe drought conditions.
Last week Washington state Governor Jay Inslee declared a drought emergency across three regions of that state. And California is in its fourth year of a drought that has forced sharp cutbacks in irrigation...
Japanese tsunami debris still washing on U.S. shore
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2015
Reuters: Debris from Japan's 2011 tsunami will continue to litter the North American coastline over the next three years, with everything from refrigerators to lumber and sports balls still floating offshore in the Pacific, an expert said on Tuesday.
About one million tons of debris was still lingering in the Pacific Ocean four years after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded in Japan, set off a series of massive tsunami waves that devastated a wide swathe of Honshu's Pacific coastline...
Humanity at ‘five to midnight’ on climate: EU official
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: Time is running out for the world to achieve a climate change agreement, the president of the European Parliament said Tuesday ahead of a key United Nations meeting in Paris later this year.
"We have to recognise that it is five minutes to midnight, and that the goals we have defined are not European, American or Chinese," Martin Schulz told reporters during a visit to China.
"Whoever is responsible has to understand that the fight against climate change is a fight for the survival of humanity,"...
Pakistan: Women Turn Drought into Lesson on Sustainability
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 17th, 2015
Inter Press Service: When a group of women in the remote village of Sadhuraks in Pakistan's Thar Desert, some 800 km from the port city of Karachi, were asked if they would want to be born a woman in their next life, the answer from each was a resounding "˜no'. They have every reason to be unhappy with their gender, mostly because of the unequal division of labour between men and women in this vast and arid region that forms a natural boundary between India and Pakistan. "South Asian countries need to realise the tremendous...
A second giant blob of Antarctic ice is getting ready drown us
Posted by Grist: None Given on March 17th, 2015
Grist: Remember when we found out last year that the West Antarctic ice sheet had started to collapse, that the collapse more or less can’t be stopped, and that it will eventually result in 10 to 15 feet of sea-level rise? Now we have some more bad news of that caliber.
An enormous glacier, one on the other side of the continent from the ailing ice sheet, is doing pretty much the same thing, researchers have discovered. Chris Mooney reports for The Washington Post:
The findings about East Antarctica...
Permaculture Film Offers Bold New Solution in Regenerative Agriculture
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on March 17th, 2015
EcoWatch: Everywhere you hear that we need to minimize our footprint and reduce our impact. But what if we turned that kind of thinking on its head? What if, as Bill McDonough says, instead of trying to be “less bad,” we try to be “more good.” What if our footprints became beneficial? What if we could meet human needs while increasing the health and well-being of our planet? This is the premise of a new movie Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective, which will have its worldwide digital premiere on Earth Day,...
Obama gets real about climate deniers with Vice
Posted by Grist: None Given on March 17th, 2015
Grist: President Barack Obama told Vice in an interview released on Monday that it was "disturbing" that the chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works denied the existence of climate change.
Obama was referring to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who threw a snowball on the Senate floor earlier this month to make his case that climate change isn`t real. Even though Inhofe cited record-low temperatures across the country as evidence that climate change was overplayed, the country has actually...