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Archive for November 8th, 2015
Keystone XL Rejection: Indigenous Resistance Exults, Trudeau ‘Disappointed’
Posted by Indian Country: None Given on November 8th, 2015
Indian Country: Indigenous activists and environmentalists hailed President Barack Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday November 6, calling it a victory for Mother Earth and a step toward shutting down the Alberta oil sands entirely. “In the fight against Keystone XL our efforts as indigenous peoples, whether Lakota, Dakota, Assiniboine, Ponca, Cree, Dene or other, has always been in the defense of Mother Earth and the sacredness of the water,” said Tom Goldtooth, head of the Indigenous Environmental...
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Climate change threatens Pennsylvania’s forests
Posted by Citizens Voice: None Given on November 8th, 2015
Citizens Voice: The majestic forests that Pennsylvanians are familiar with today won’t be the forests that future generations know because of global climate change, says John Quigley, secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection. While outlining his agency’s agenda on a number of fronts last week, Quigley mentioned that several species of trees will disappear from the forests in the next 50 years as the earth’s temperatures warm: • Sugar maple trees, the source for Pennsylvania’s maple syrup crop, will...
Two years after typhoon Haiyan leaders duty to act on climate change
Posted by Guardian: Airah Cadiogan on November 8th, 2015
Guardian: In the small fishing town of Salcedo in the Philippines’ Eastern Samar province, fishermen and women have been struggling to feed themselves since Haiyan first made landfall 20km away on 8 November 2013.
Already among the poorest people in the country, their livelihoods were shattered when eight-metre high waves wrecked the coral reef near their area.
Related: Nepal earthquake: learn lessons or more will die in future disasters, warns expert
“Before Haiyan, we were able to catch enough fish...
Climate Change: Have We Already Gone Too Far?
Posted by Forbes: None Given on November 8th, 2015
Forbes: “America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” President Obama said from the White House after vetoing the Keystone XL Pipeline bill which would have allowed a Canadian company to build a 1,179-mile pipeline to transport 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast. “Frankly,” continued the President, “approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”
The Keystone rejection is an...
‘Life on planet at stake’ France warns as climate ministers meet
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 8th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: France`s top diplomat, who will preside over a year-end Paris summit tasked with inking a global pact to rein in global warming, warned Sunday of a looming planetary "catastrophe".
With the key UN conference just three weeks away, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also announced that Russia`s President Vladimir Putin would attend the November 30 opening.
Russia, a major oil producer, is seen as a deal-maker or breaker in the years-long attempt to negotiate the world`s first truly universal pact...
Taking a molecular approach to conserving freshwater biodiversity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 8th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Molecular ecologists have a key role to play in setting priorities for the conservation of aquatic biodiversity, according to a recent review paper published in the Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Sciences. By applying DNA sequencing and related tools, molecular ecologists can collaborate with other ecologists, especially in the fields of species distribution modelling and conservation planning, argues the paper's author, Jane Hughes, of the Australian Rivers Institute. "This approach...
Human-caused climate change increased severity of many extreme events in 2014
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 8th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Human activities, such as greenhouse gas emissions and land use, influenced specific extreme weather and climate events in 2014, including tropical cyclones in the central Pacific, heavy rainfall in Europe, drought in East Africa, and stifling heat waves in Australia, Asia, and South America, according to a new report released today. The report, "Explaining Extreme Events of 2014 from a Climate Perspective" published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, addresses the natural and...
Two dozen missing in vast mudflow of Brazil mine disaster
Posted by Reuters: Stephen Eisenhammer on November 8th, 2015
Reuters: Brazilian authorities late on Saturday were investigating a second suspected death after two dams at a major mine in the country's southeast burst and unleashed a massive mudflow that wreaked havoc across more than 80 km (50 miles).
A dozen residents of villages downstream from the burst dams remain missing, along with 13 workers from the mine. Officials warned of a higher death toll even as they struggle to find bodies probably swept away by the torrent.
One death from the disaster was confirmed...
Anger drives hunt ‘criminal’ water guzzler during California drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 8th, 2015
Guardian: Dean Gamburd has been a Bel Air resident all his life. Normally, he has nothing but good things to say about his neighbourhood, one of the most affluent in Los Angeles, where the streets are lined with opulent houses and well-tended flowerbeds. Jennifer Aniston, Nicolas Cage and Kim Kardashian have homes here. It’s a nice place to live.
But today Gamburd, a former firearms consultant in his 60s, is angry. Very angry. “It’s criminal,” he says, sitting at a table outside Starbucks. “There’s no other...