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Archive for August 15th, 2015
The next drought: Water officials endorse a ‘less is more’ strategy for the future
Posted by LA Times: Peter King on August 15th, 2015
LA Times: Glimpses of California's water future:
A sprawl of sewage treatment plants, recharge basins and desalination facilities, stretching out across an industrial backlot near Rancho Cucamonga.
A collection of slender, solar-powered telemetry towers rising from an almond orchard in the San Joaquin Valley to bring high-tech efficiency to irrigation.
And, at a university research station near Irvine, three Potemkin Village-like suburban houses in a row, offering a new vision of the traditional lawn....
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NAU researchers look at fungi and climate change
Posted by Associated Presss: None Given on August 15th, 2015
Associated Presss: News may not be so gloomy for certain types of trees predicted to go extinct because of climate change.
Researchers at Northern Arizona University say a type of fungus that thrives on pine and juniper trees in the region helps them fend off drought.
Pinyon pine trees are predicted to go extinct by 2090 because of climbing temperatures and extended dryness. But the research by NAU professors, which links pests that feed off trees with how those trees fare during times of drought, may give hope...
China blast zone evacuated contamination fear; 104 dead
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 15th, 2015
Associated Press: New small explosions rocked a disaster zone in the Chinese port of Tianjin on Saturday as teams scrambled to clear dangerous chemical contamination and found several more bodies to bring the death toll to 104 in massive blasts earlier in the week.
Angry relatives of missing firefighters stormed a government news conference to demand any information on their loved ones, who have not been seen since a fire and rapid succession of blasts late Wednesday at a warehouse for hazardous chemicals in a...
Will El Niño 2015 rival the strongest year on record?
Posted by CNN: Brandon Miller and Nick Thompson on August 15th, 2015
CNN: If you don't know El Niño now, you will soon. The waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean are heating up, scientists say, building towards a strong El Niño event that could rival the intensity of the record 1997 event that wreaked weather-related havoc across the globe, from mudslides in California to fires in Australia. According to the latest forecast released Thursday by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, this year's El Niño is "significant and strengthening." "There is a greater than 90% chance...
Extreme weather poses risk more food shortages, civil unrest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 15th, 2015
Reuters: Global food shortages will become three times more likely as a result of climate change and the international community needs to be ready to respond to price shocks to prevent civil unrest, a joint US-British taskforce warned on Friday.
Rather than being a once-a-century event, severe production shocks, including food shortages, price spikes and market volatility, are likely to occur every 30 years by 2040, said the Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience.
With the world's...
How the loss of Indonesian mangrove forests is linked to climate change
Posted by Environmental News Network: Prodita Sabarini on August 15th, 2015
Environmental News Network: The loss of Indonesia's coastal mangrove forests for shrimp farming is a huge source of carbon emissions, writes Prodita Sabarini. But equally, a policy flip to preserve and recreate mangroves offers a major climate win. Mangroves are important because of their high rates of tree and plant growth, coupled with anaerobic, water-logged soils that slow decomposition, resulting in large, long-term carbon storage. Mangroves store three to five times more carbon than rainforest Preventing the loss of...
EPA Chief: ‘Holding Ourselves To A Higher Standard’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 15th, 2015
National Public Radio: NPR's Scott Simon asks EPA administrator Gina McCarthy about the toxins released into a Colorado river this week by an EPA contractor working on a shuttered gold mine.
Washing away the myth of mine safety
Posted by Commercial Appeal: Joel Reynolds on August 15th, 2015
Commercial Appeal: The definition of a mine, said Mark Twain, is a hole in the ground owned by liars. And this month the industry's biggest lie -- that it can be trusted with our water -- is once again on display as another mining disaster has spilled millions of gallons of toxic mining waste and chemicals into our streams, rivers and lakes.
On Aug. 5, at the abandoned Gold King mine in southwest Colorado, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup team inadvertently unleashed into a tributary of the Animas...
Rhode Island researchers study link between heat and health
Posted by WCVB: None Given on August 15th, 2015
WCVB: Researchers in Rhode Island are working with health departments in other states to figure out if the number of emergency room visits and heat-related deaths will increase in New England if temperatures rise due to climate change.
Based on their work so far, they think the numbers will go up.
The researchers are discussing their work with the Taunton, Massachusetts, office of the National Weather Service, which issues heat advisories and warnings for much of southern New England.
Glenn Field,...
How developing countries are paying a high price for the global mineral boom
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 15th, 2015
Guardian: A 200ft deep pit gapes where three years ago stood a mountain. Fields where small farmers planted rice and grew fruit are now an industrial site, and wooden houses in the old village of Didipio have been abandoned – the community moved to make way for a large-scale gold mine owned by a New Zealand company.
The Filipino mine, guarded by high fences and bitterly contested by the indigenous Bugkalot people who fear pollution, spills and ill-health, is just one of scores of major new gold and copper...