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Archive for July 28th, 2015
Oklahoma just recorded 40 earthquakes in a week
Posted by Grist: Katie Herzog on July 28th, 2015
Grist: Once known primarily as the home of tornados and the Hanson brothers, Oklahoma has a new claim to fame: earthquakes! We’ve told you about the state’s frightening trend before, but now it’s hit a new milestone: EcoWatch reports that Oklahoma has experienced 40 earthquakes in the past seven days. Just yesterday, five quakes measuring over 4.0 magnitude were felt in Oklahoma and surrounding states, which would seem shocking but the rate of earthquakes has increased so dramatically in recent years that...
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New Report Reveals The Severe Economic Impacts Climate Change Will Have In The South
Posted by ThinkProgress: Katie Valentine on July 28th, 2015
ThinkProgress: Climate change is set to hit the Southeast United States and Texas hard.
That`s the conclusion of a new report from the Risky Business Project, a nonprofit that focuses on the economic impacts of climate change. The report, which focused on 12 states - 11 states in the Southeastern United States plus Texas - found that the increased heat and humidity that these states are expected to experience as the climate changes will put the region`s recent manufacturing boom at risk.
"While the Southeast...
Walker puts EPA in the crosshairs
Posted by MSNBC: Steve Benen on July 28th, 2015
MSNBC: By Steve Benen Republican hostility for the Environmental Protection Agency isn’t exactly new, but it was nevertheless striking to see a leading Republican presidential candidate explain his plans yesterday to effectively eliminate most of the EPA’s responsibilities. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) talked to the conservative Washington Examiner yesterday, and began by talking generally about shifting powers from the federal to the state level on “everything from Medicaid to transportation, workforce...
New MIT study on the historical climate of the American West
Posted by Environmental News Network: Mit News on July 28th, 2015
Environmental News Network: All around the deserts of Utah, Nevada, southern Oregon, and eastern California, ancient shorelines line the hillsides above dry valley floors, like bathtub rings — remnants of the lakes once found throughout the region. Even as the ice sheets retreated at the end of the last ice age, 12,000 years ago, the region remained much wetter than it is today. The earliest settlers of the region are likely to have encountered a verdant landscape of springs and wetlands.
So just when and why did today’s...
Washington, DC sinking fast, adding to threat of sea-level rise
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2015
ScienceDaily: New research confirms that the land under the Chesapeake Bay is sinking rapidly and projects that Washington, D.C., could drop by six or more inches in the next century--adding to the problems of sea-level rise. This falling land will exacerbate the flooding that the nation's capital faces from rising ocean waters due to a warming climate and melting ice sheets--accelerating the threat to the region's monuments, roads, wildlife refuges, and military installations. For sixty years, tide gauges have...
Are massive wildfires the new normal?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2015
CBS: Tom Harbour of the U.S. Forest Service readily admits he doesn't know all that much about climate change.
But the folksy and plain-spoken Harbour knows plenty about fighting wildfires. And since he first joined the service in 1970 , Harbour, the agency's national director for fire and aviation management, has witnessed "longer seasons" and "bigger fires."
"When I started 45 years ago, the sense that we would have half-million acre fires in timber just was completely out of the question," Harbour...
Rain, storm surge combine to put US coasts at risk
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on July 28th, 2015
Climate Central: After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleanians thought they knew what areas were susceptible to flooding during a storm. So when Hurricane Isaac, a much weaker storm than Katrina, bore down on the city in 2012, those who live to the west of Lake Pontchartrain weren't worried, as they had been spared the raging waters that inundated so much of the city during Katrina.
As Hurricane Isaac dumped rain on the greater New Orleans area, the storm created a surge on Lake Pontchartrain that...
Takings arguments bubble up as California cuts water rights
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2015
Greenwire: In drought-stricken California, lawyers are asking a simple question with a complicated answer. Can the state take away water rights? At issue: the U.S. Constitution's 5th Amendment, which says no property shall be taken without just compensation. So if California gets more aggressive in requiring irrigation districts -- and particularly so-called senior rights holders, whose claim to divert and use water dates back more than a century -- to curtail water use, some property rights lawyers think...
There’s little incentive for L.A. renters to take shorter showers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2015
LA Times: When Emi Nakagawa rented a studio apartment in San Gabriel, she didn't think twice before jumping into the shower.
"There was no incentive" not to, she said, because Nakagawa, like the millions of Southern Californians who rent apartments, didn't directly pay for her water and never knew how much she used.
In the fourth year of drought, Californians are under orders to reduce their water consumption by 25%, but a new study suggests that apartment dwellers may not be doing their share.
About...
Atlantis awaits: Melting ice and rising water for coastal cities
Posted by Baltimore Sun: James Hansen on July 28th, 2015
Baltimore Sun: Our civilization is built on coastlines. Oceans were the first grocery stores, providing easy protein for early humans who learned to fish and gather shellfish and seaweed. Oceans were the first highways, enabling early exploration, commerce and migration. Oceans remain vital sources of food and trade, even as societies have grown and advanced. That's why three-fourths of the world's major cities are located on coasts.
But despite their many blessings, the Earth's oceans are becoming a curse....