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Archive for May 7th, 2015
Manitoba infrastructure won’t withstand climate change, expert says
Posted by CBC: None Given on May 7th, 2015
CBC: A water security expert says climate change will have dire consequences on Manitoba's infrastructure and consequently its economy, unless something changes.
Bob Sandford, EPCOR Water Security Research Chair at United Nations University, began working to help solve water-related climate issues in Manitoba a decade ago. His first focus was on Lake Winnipeg -- now his focus is the province's infrastructure.
"You see that there are larger changes to the hydrologic cycle that are causing more frequent...
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CO2 levels hit monthly average not seen for 2 million years
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 7th, 2015
Mongabay: For the first time in human history, carbon dioxide concentrations averaged out at 400 parts per million (ppm) worldwide in March, according to NOAA. Carbon dioxide concentrations have likely not hit such levels in two million years-long before Homo sapiens evolved.
"This marks the fact that humans burning fossil fuels have caused global carbon dioxide concentrations to rise more than 120 parts per million since pre-industrial times," said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse...
El Nino, Arctic ice melt could mean colder winter in Europe
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 7th, 2015
Reuters: Next winter in Europe could be colder and drier than the previous two mild winters, which drove down gas and power consumption, the chief meteorologist at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon said.
Two factors pointed to potentially chillier winter weather - an El Nino phenomenon that could warm sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, and the melting of the Arctic ice cap.
"If El Nino is strong in the middle of the Pacific it could mean colder weather in Europe than during recent winters, because...
Coal investments are increasingly risky say Bank of America
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 7th, 2015
Guardian: Coal mining companies pose an increasingly risky investment, according to the Bank of America, which has said it will continue to reduce its financing of the sector.
“The dynamics around coal are shifting,” said the bank’s new coal policy published on Wednesday, which cited pollution regulations, changes in economic conditions, increased competition from shale gas and renewable power.
Analysts from the thinktank Carbon Tracker warned recently that the coal sector in the US had entered a “structural...
Water in the bank: One solution for drought-stricken California
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Erica Gies on May 7th, 2015
Yale Environment 360: Saguaros and palo verde trees flourish in the Sonoran Desert northwest of Phoenix along the road to Hieroglyphic Mountains Recharge, one of the Central Arizona Project’s groundwater banking sites. The shallow ponds, fed at one end by a burbling fountain, may look static, but the water is percolating down through the soil at a rate of about 3 feet a day, replenishing underground aquifers.
The 38-acre Hieroglyphic site is part of a statewide water-banking effort in Arizona that has stored around...
Poor nations urged to push rich nations to pay for environmental damages
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 7th, 2015
Daily Times: Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Mushahidullah Khan expressed his resentment over non-serious attitude and response of the rich polluting countries in tackling global warming and extending financial and technical support to the poor countries boost their climate-resilience against unavoidable climate change.
Addressing the national consultative workshop on environment, climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, ozone depletion, urged the developing countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh,...
Die-off of millions of California trees concentrated in Sierra Nevada
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 7th, 2015
LA Times: Tom Coleman, forest entomologist for the U.S. Forest Service, discussed the issue Wednesday in an email exchange with the Los Angeles Times.
What part of the state has seen the most devastation in terms of tree life?
Currently, pine mortality is highest in the southern Sierra Nevada ... In mid-April, [U.S. Forest Service Biologist Jeffrey Moore] mapped an estimated 10.45 million dead trees during these surveys. In Southern California, the Mt. Pinos Ranger District of the Los Padres National...
California approves new uniform rules seawater desalination
Posted by Reuters: Sharon Bernstein on May 7th, 2015
Reuters: California water regulators on Wednesday adopted a new uniform permitting process for seawater desalination projects expected to expand in number as the drought-stricken state increasingly turns to the ocean to supplement its drinking supplies.
Action on the desalination rule, which puts key decisions for such plants in the hands of statewide regulators rather than regional boards, came a day after the same state body enacted sweeping cutbacks in water use by California's cities and towns.
The...
Canada political landscape undergoes seismic shift election in Alberta
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 7th, 2015
Guardian: Canada’s rockbound political landscape has undergone a seismic shift with the election of a leftwing government in oil-rich Alberta, the country’s wealthiest and – until now – most conservative province.
The once-marginal New Democratic Party swept to victory in the western province on Tuesday night, humiliating the Progressive Conservative party that has ruled the province since the first term of US president Richard Nixon.
“We made a little bit of history tonight,” the province’s New Democrat...
Brazil’s Climate Plans Stall as Historic Drought Hits Country
Posted by RTCC: Fabíola Ortiz on May 7th, 2015
RTCC: Brazil is no closer to revealing if and when it will announce what its contribution to a proposed UN climate deal will be.
Experts close to the country’s climate change policymakers have told RTCC there is a lack of urgency at the highest levels to deliver its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) for Paris.
An early warning that all was not well came in March, when president Dilma Rousseff fired key officials from the sustainable development secretariat of the ministry of strategic...