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Archive for May 5th, 2015
Intense Wildfire Season Expected in West
Posted by Climate Central: Bobby Magill on May 5th, 2015
Climate Central: Amid one the West's worst droughts in centuries, more than 5,600 wildfires scorched more than 600,000 acres last year in California alone.
It could happen again.
With drought showing signs of worsening across the West and Upper Midwest, the Forest Service anticipates that it may spend up to $1.6 billion fighting wildfires in 2015, in a fire season that is expected to be worse than normal.
"We anticipate another active fire year, underscoring the need to reform our wildfire funding,' U.S....
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Pennsylvania: Fracking chemicals detected in drinking water, says report
Posted by Independent: Andrew Buncombe on May 5th, 2015
Independent: Residents in parts of Pennsylvania are confronting the danger that chemicals associated with fracking have seeped into drinking water.
A report published in an academic journal reported that an analysis of drinking water sampled from three homes in the state’s Bradford County, had found traces of chemicals commonly found in Marcellus Shale drilling fluids.
Tests shows the water in one household contained tiny amounts of 2-Butoxyethanol or 2BE, a common drilling chemical. Reports say the chemical...
Sarawak leader pledges no more logging, palm oil expansion
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 5th, 2015
Mongabay: Forest cover status in Sarawak, Sabah, and Brunei as of 2009, according to Bryan et al 2013.
Sarawak's leader has allegedly pledged to stop granting industrial timber and palm oil concessions in the Malaysian state's increasingly endangered rainforests, asserts the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF).
According to the Switzerland-based forest activist group, Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem told dinner guests at the Malaysian High Commission in London yesterday that he is working to transform...
Facing Future Storms: Poor Honduran Communities Unite to Protect Watersheds and Nature
Posted by Mongabay: Tiffany Roufs on May 5th, 2015
Mongabay: There hasn't been much good news out of Honduras recently. One of the poorest Latin American nations, it has been afflicted by a series of natural and political calamities. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch killed over 14,000 people, impacted a third of the population and did $3.8 billion in damage -- three-quarters of the nation's total GDP. Droughts followed, reducing corn and bean production by 50 to 70 percent in some years. In 2009, an elected President was overthrown by the military. And in 2014, hard...
Feds to require climate change plans for states seeking disaster relief
Posted by Hill: Lydia Wheeler on May 5th, 2015
Hill: A new Federal Emergency Management Agency policy requiring states to address climate change before they can become eligible for grant funding is drawing fire from congressional Republicans.
The regulations, part of a FEMA State Mitigation Plan Review Guide issued last month, are not set to take effect until next March. But lawmakers are demanding an explanation for the rules now.
In a letter to FEMA Administrator W. Craig Fugate, the lawmakers said they’re concerned that the agency’s decision...
How to break the political silence on the environment
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 5th, 2015
Guardian: A YouGov poll published last week found that 40% of voters wanted to hear more about the environment. They also wanted to hear more about education, pensions, foreign affairs and Europe. They have been disappointed.
It is too easy to blame this silence on the politicians. Political debate in Britain has largely been reduced to a hermetic conversation between party leaders no-one listens to anymore and editors who confuse news with entertainment. But environmentalists must also take some of the...
Ice cores show 200-year climate lag
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 5th, 2015
BBC: Scientists have found a 200-year lag time between past climate events at the poles.
The most detailed Antarctic ice core provides the first clear comparison with Greenland records, revealing a link between northern and southern hemisphere climate change.
Scientists found that abrupt and large temperature changes first occurred in Greenland, with the effect delayed about 200 years in the Antarctic.
The study appears in Nature journal.
The paper is the work of almost 80 authors and it is...
We’re in the Process of Decimating 1 in 6 Species on Earth
Posted by ClimateDesk: None Given on May 5th, 2015
ClimateDesk: The extinction rate is rising rapidly, a new study finds. And climate change is to blame.
A wood frog lays eggs on a pond surface. Many frogs like this are breeding earlier in the spring because of climate change. Mark Urban
Plants and animals around the world are already suffering from the negative impacts of manmade global warming--including shrinking habitats and the spread of disease. A great number are also facing the ultimate demise--outright extinction--among them the iconic polar bear,...
Fjords are unexpected natural allies against climate change: Study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 5th, 2015
Reuters: Fjords from Alaska to Norway soak up potentially damaging carbon from the atmosphere, making the steep-sided inlets an overlooked natural ally in offsetting man-made climate change, a study showed on Monday.
Fjords cover only 0.1 percent of the world's ocean surface but account for 11 percent of the organic carbon in plants, soils and rocks that gets buried in marine sediments every year after being washed off the land by rivers, it said.
The cliff-sided inlets, carved out by glaciers in successive...
Fracking Chemicals Found in Drinking Water, New Study Says
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on May 5th, 2015
EcoWatch: If you ask communities on the frontline of the fracking industry in the U.S. what their greatest concern is about the controversial technology, often the reply is the threat to their drinking water.
The fracking industry replies in the way it always does to these concerns: it downplays the risks with an arrogance that verges on indifference.
The standard reply from the industry is that fracking cannot contaminate water as the fracking rocks are normally thousands of feet below drinking aquifers...