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Archive for July, 2015
Climate catastrophes: worst-case scenarios
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 26th, 2015
Discovery: Climate change is a global reality. Extreme weather events are taking a toll on the daily lives of people around the world. If climate change is already fueling powerful storms, long-lasting droughts and more frequent floods, what will the future look like? James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who helped first raise awareness of the issue of climate change in his testimonies before Congress in 1988, sounded the alarm this week in a grim and controversial report that predicts catastrophic from...
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O’Malley doubles down ISIS-climate change connection
Posted by Des Moines Register: Grant Rodgers on July 25th, 2015
Des Moines Register: Martin O'Malley doubled down Saturday on a claim earning him some ridicule from Republicans: The threat of Islamic State terrorism and climate change are most likely linked.
The Democratic presidential hopeful told Iowans during a stop at Peace Tree Brewing Co. that the rise of the violent radical group was spurred by tensions from a major drought that hit Syria in 2007. The U.S. needs to focus its intelligence efforts on better predicting how natural disasters will affect countries and use its...
Study: Sandy caused record sea levels, $23 billion in damage in New York
Posted by Hill: Devin Henry on July 25th, 2015
Hill: Superstorm Sandy caused $23 billion in damage in New York state alone and delivered the highest water levels there on record, according to a new federal report.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said this week that the 2012 storm produced sea levels much higher than other historic storms to hit the New York region.
Peak storm tides from Sandy were more than 9.5 feet above sea level, according to the agencies' report.
On average, those tides were...
Get ready for climate change refugees
Posted by Dallas Morning News: Michael B. Gerrard on July 25th, 2015
Dallas Morning News: Toward the end of this century, if current trends are not reversed, large parts of Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Vietnam, among other countries, will be under water. Some small island nations, such as Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, will be close to disappearing entirely. Swaths of Africa from Sierra Leone to Ethiopia will be turning into desert. Glaciers in the Himalayas and the Andes, on which entire regions depend for drinking water, will be melting away. Many...
GAO Report Sees Climate Risks to Army Corps Projects
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 25th, 2015
Climate Central: Thousands of dams, levees, hurricane barriers and flood walls built across the country by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may be at risk from extreme weather and sea level rise driven by climate change, but the Army Corps has only just begun to assess how vulnerable they are and suffers from a lack of funding, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report. The Army Corps may not be the most prominent of federal government agencies, but the dams, levees and other infrastructure it...
‘Family of 5’ Primary Forests: A Snapshot What Remains
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 23rd, 2015
National Geographic: Here’s a fact that should be disturbing to anyone concerned about our imperiled forests:
The pace of deforestation has accelerated so rapidly over the past 200 years that today our planet harbors only one-quarter of its original old-growth forest--i.e., forest that has never been logged or cleared.
Using detailed satellite imagery and geographic information system technology, scientists have produced moment-in-time snapshots of these remaining forested regions.
The pictures are not pretty....
The Link Between Climate Change And ISIS Is Real
Posted by ThinkProgress: None Given on July 23rd, 2015
ThinkProgress: Democratic presidential candidate Martin O`Malley linked climate change to the rise of ISIS earlier this week. Conservatives pounced. Score this round for O`Malley.
For three years now, leading security and climate experts - and Syrians themselves - have made the connection between climate change and the Syrian civil war. Indeed, when a major peer-reviewed study came out on in March making this very case, Retired Navy Rear Admiral David Titley said it identifies "a pretty convincing climate fingerprint”...
Godfather of global warming’s frightening prediction is getting the cold shoulder
Posted by Mashable: None Given on July 23rd, 2015
Mashable: We're entering the final sprint toward one of the most consequential rounds of climate change negotiations in history, which will take place in Paris this December. Those talks have the goal of devising an international agreement that will limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels by 2100. Study after study has already found that this goal is going to be extremely difficult for the world to reach, in light of recent emissions trajectories...
B.C. fires: Christy Clark blames climate change for wildfire increase
Posted by CBC: None Given on July 23rd, 2015
CBC: B.C. Premier Christy Clark says wildfire seasons like the one the province is currently experiencing will become more common because of climate change.
"Climate change has altered the terrain. It's made us much more vulnerable to fire," said Clark.
"We have to be planning with the knowledge that this isn't going to be an unusual year."
The premier made the remarks at the site of the Westside Road fire near West Kelowna after flying over the area to view the damage.
There are 248 fires...
Nexen: It May Take Months Pinpoint Cause of Alberta Oil Spill
Posted by Reuters: Mike De Souza on July 23rd, 2015
Reuters: Finding the root cause of the oil-sands pipeline leak discovered earlier this month in northern Alberta, one of the biggest oil-related spills on land ever in North America, will likely take months, a senior Nexen Energy executive said on Wednesday.
Nexen, a subsidiary of China's CNOOC Ltd, is putting a higher priority on cleaning up the spill from its pipeline and investigating its cause than on restarting the Kinosis oil sands project where the spill took place, Ron Bailey, Nexen's senior vice...