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Archive for March 30th, 2015
Study finds econ costs climate change hugely underestimated
Posted by Mongabay: Morgan Erickson-Davis on March 30th, 2015
Mongabay: Look at most climate change projection graphs and you will see a smoothly rising red line of increasing temperature, melting ice and other impacts. But climate does not work that way. Studies of the paleoclimate record indicate that when heat energy is rapidly added to the atmosphere -- as humans are doing today -- the climate can experience “tipping points,” with abrupt shifts and potentially disastrous results.
Researchers who have studied economic climate change impacts have until recently...
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Nobody listened to them: fishing communities to be displaced by dams want say in their future
Posted by Mongabay: Ana Aranha and Jessica Mota on March 30th, 2015
Mongabay: The life of fisherman Rosinaldo Pereira dos Santos, generally known as Tatá, may take a very different direction from the one that the governments of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and President Dilma Rousseff have promoted through their social welfare programs. Living on the banks of the Tapajós River in the Brazilian Amazon, he has always had abundant food. Proof of this hangs on his living room wall: photographs of catfish bigger than him. But now Tatá may join the group of Brazilians who...
Climate change could disturb marine life for millennia
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: Climate change may lead to disturbances in marine life that will take thousands of years to recover from, not hundreds of years as previously thought, researchers said Monday.
The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is based on a section of fossilized ocean fauna found on the seafloor off the coast of California dating to between 3,400 and 16,100 years ago.
Researchers sliced up the sediment like a cake for a before-and-after glimpse of how creatures were affected by...
Warming Winters Not Main Cause of Pine Beetle Outbreaks, Study Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2015
Yale Environment 360: Milder winters can't be blamed for the full extent of recent mountain pine beetle outbreaks in the western United States, according to a new study by Dartmouth and U.S. Forest Service researchers. Winters have been warming across the western U.S. states for decades, as overall the coldest winter night has warmed by 4 degrees C since 1960. But that warming trend could only be the primary driver of increasing pine beetle outbreaks in regions where winter temperatures have historically killed most of...
Canada Pushes Ahead with Alternatives to Keystone XL
Posted by Climate Central: Bobby Magill on March 30th, 2015
Climate Central: A decision on whether to allow the Keystone XL Pipeline to be built in the U.S. could come at any time, but there are myriad other projects on the table designed to do exactly what Keystone XL was designed to do: transport Canadian tar sands oil to refineries.
Those pipelines, both in the U.S. and Canada, are being designed to move the oily bitumen produced from the tar sands to refineries in Texas and eastern Canada, and to ports on the Pacific Coast where the oil could be shipped to Asia.
Combined,...
Fossil fuel path is immoral and financially imprudent
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2015
Guardian: I am proud of the legacy of John D Rockefeller, who built the greatest fossil fuel enterprise in history. In his day, fossil fuel was a liberating force – it literally changed the face of the earth, freeing many people from toil. The family business is now philanthropy; at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which I chair, we use the money made from Standard Oil to advance social change that contributes to a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world.
But the key phrase in the encomium above is “in...
Antarctica’s ice shelves are thinning fast
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2015
LiveScience: Antarctica's floating ice collar is quickly disappearing in the west, a new study reports. In the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas — two of West Antarctica's melting hotspots — some ice shelves lost 18 percent of their thickness in the past decade, researchers said. The most dramatic shrinkage occurred in the Bellingshausen Sea's Venable Ice Shelf, which lost ice at an average rate of 118 feet (36 meters) per decade in the past 18 years. At that rate, the entire ice shelf could disappear within...
Chile desert rains sign of climate change, chief weather scientist says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2015
Reuters: The heavy rainfall that battered Chile's usually arid north this week happened because of climate change, a senior meteorologist said, as the region gradually returns to normal after rivers broke banks and villages were cut off. "For Chile, this particular system can only be possible in an environment of a changed climate," Deputy Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization Jeremiah Lengoasa told Reuters on a visit to Santiago on Friday. The intense rainfall that began Tuesday in...
Urban water future: Changing climate means changing water
Posted by Standard: None Given on March 30th, 2015
Standard: Editor's note: This is the final in a three-part series exploring the vital issue of Utah's urban water supplies. The first story delved into aging infrastructure and the second story addressed conservation efforts.
The T.W. Daniel Experimental Forest, located about an hour up Logan Canyon from Utah State University, is full of all kinds of shiny metal objects.
The metal feathers of rain gauge windscreens rattle with the breeze. Mylar insulation wraps trees, which helps measure sap flux and...
United Kingdom: Doctors and academics call for ban on ‘inherently risky’ fracking
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2015
Guardian: Fracking should be banned because of the impact it could have on public health, according to a prominent group of health professionals.
In a letter published by the British Medical Journal on Monday, 20 high-profile doctors, pharmacists and public health academics said the “inherently risky” industry should be prohibited in the UK.
“The arguments against fracking on public health and ecological grounds are overwhelming. There are clear grounds for adopting the precautionary principle and prohibiting...