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Archive for August 31st, 2015
Pipeline Anxiety Spurs Alaska Plea for Obama Open Spigots
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 31st, 2015
Bloomberg: The U.S. agreed earlier this month to allow Royal Dutch Shell Plc to resume Arctic oil exploration, yet state officials say it may not be enough to save the 800-mile (1,300-kilometer) pipeline, Alaska’s economic lifeline for the past 40 years. Efforts to limit drilling and dwindling volumes on the line may eventually make it difficult to move crude at all.
“We have an oil pipeline that’s two-thirds empty,” Walker, a Republican-turned-independent, said in a telephone interview from Anchorage. “It’s...
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Even the Bottom of the Grand Canyon is Now Contaminated
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 31st, 2015
National Geographic: By almost any calculation, the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon is one of the most isolated places in the contiguous United States. Although about half a million people a year hike Grand Canyon trails, only a tiny fraction of them make the arduous trek to the bottom, almost a mile from the surface.
One might think that this inaccessibility protects the river's unique ecosystems. But that's wrong, says David Walters, lead author of new research conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey....
This new high tech network is recording climate data across Alaska
Posted by Fortune: Katie Fehrenbacher on August 31st, 2015
Fortune: Engineers are building a data and sensor network across remote and icy Alaska to record how the state is being transformed by climate change.
This week, President Obama is bringing some rare attention to how climate change is impacting Alaska, with a visit to the state and an official name change for the nation’s highest mountain. But much more quietly, an important sensor network is slowly being built across the state that collects crucial information about how the warming temperatures are transforming...
Climate Change Has The Earth In Hot Water
Posted by Forbes: James Conca on August 31st, 2015
Forbes: It is understandable that people discussing global warming focus on air temperatures. Lower atmospheric temperatures are shown on the news and weather reports every day. We walk around in the air. We breathe it in. We talk about how hot it’s been this summer, how warm last winter was, or how this is the hottest day on record.
But global warming is all about water. Water, not the atmosphere, drives the weather, and drives climate. The atmosphere is mostly affected by the water on Earth, not the...