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Archive for November 12th, 2015
TMT protesters will be told when work resumes
Posted by West Hawaii Today: Tom Callis on November 12th, 2015
West Hawaii Today: Thirty Meter Telescope opponents can expect to receive notice before contractors return to Mauna Kea later this month, according to a state Department of Land and Natural Resources spokesman.
But how that notice will be given and when remains to be seen.
After months of waiting due to protests, the TMT International Observatory announced Tuesday that a “small crew of local workers” will go to its construction site near the summit later this month to conduct “site preparation activities, starting...
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TMT: ‘Small Crew’ Headed to Mauna Kea
Posted by Big Island Now: Jamilia Epping on November 12th, 2015
Big Island Now: A Thirty Meter Telescope crew will soon make its way back up Mauna Kea. The news came Tuesday morning from the chair of the TMT International Observatory Board of Governors, Henry Yang.
“We would like to thank our many supporters in the community. Each of our partners remains committed to building the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawai’i,” said Yang. “In California, Canada, China, Japan, and India, work is being conducted to develop and build various components for the observatory, and we look forward...
Declining snowpacks may cut many nations’ water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 12th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Gradual melting of winter snow helps feed water to farms, cities and ecosystems across much of the world, but this resource may soon be critically imperiled. In a new study, scientists have identified snow-dependent drainage basins across the northern hemisphere currently serving 2 billion people that run the risk of declining supplies in the coming century. The basins take in large parts of the American West, southern Europe, the Mideast and central Asia. They range from productive U.S. farm land...
U.S. forecaster sees El Nino peaking in winter
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 12th, 2015
Reuters: A U.S. government weather forecaster on Thursday said that the El Nino weather phenomenon under way would likely peak during the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2015/2016 and taper off to neutral in late spring or early summer 2016.
The Climate Prediction Center (CPC), an agency of the National Weather Service, said the current El Nino conditions, which cause havoc with weather patterns, could rank among the three strongest since 1950.
The CPC broadly maintained its outlook for strong El Nino...
Cuomo Administration Denies Critical Certification at Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 12th, 2015
EcoWatch: Citing numerous environmental and public safety concerns, the New York Department of State (DOS) has filed an objection to Entergy’s request for a Coastal Consistency Determination for the Indian Point nuclear plant. This objection has the potential to block Entergy’s request for a 20-year extension of its operating license for the plant’s Unit 2 and Unit 3 reactors and require the closure of Indian Point as soon as next year.
In its objection, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration has highlighted...
Climate change, more driving time, less fishing time
Posted by Bangor Daily News: None Given on November 12th, 2015
Bangor Daily News: “Only an appreciation of nature as a collection of specific threatened habitats, rather than as an abstract thing that is ‘dying,’ can avert a complete denaturing of the world.”
This observation by writer Jonathan Franzen nicely captures the challenge of understanding climate change’s impacts on nature. As Franzen also notes, climate change is so big that it’s everybody’s -- and nobody’s -- problem. To initiate change, we need to understand its impacts on a human scale.
In an effort to communicate...
Controversial climate fund scrambles to fund its first projects
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on November 12th, 2015
InsideClimate: The main fund to help the world's poorest cope with climate change cleared an obstacle last week after an all-night negotiating session in Zambia settled on the first projects to receive $363 million. Projects include campaigns to rebuild Peruvian wetlands, provide off-grid solar in East Africa and expand Malawi's extreme weather warning systems.
The Green Climate Fund's job is to eventually deliver tens of billions of dollars promised to the poor nations, and is key to achieving a global agreement...
As CO2 passes 400ppm, what goes up might not come down
Posted by InsideClimate: Katherine Bagley on November 12th, 2015
InsideClimate: Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere once again exceeded 400 parts per million Monday, but this time they may never fall back down, according to scientists.
While not a tipping point that signals climate catastrophe, the 400 ppm mark is an important symbolic threshold in the fight against climate change. It represents a 43 percent jump in greenhouse gases since pre-industrial times and underscores governments' inaction and worsening global warming impacts.
Scientists at the Mauna...
Desertification: The people whose land is turning to dust
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 12th, 2015
BBC: The UN predicts over 50 million people will be forced to leave their homes by 2020 because their land has turned to desert. This is already happening in Senegal, writes Laeila Adjovi.
Cattle herder Khalidou Badara took me up a hill in Louga, northern Senegal, to describe to me how his area has changed.
"When I was a child, I did not even dare to walk up to here because the vegetation was so dense.
"But these past few years, the wind and sand have been taking over.
"There are almost no...
India’s rising tides and temperatures
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 12th, 2015
New York Times: Jordi Pizarro had hardly reached the muddy banks of Ghoramara Island when he stumbled across a family struggling to hold up the dikes that protected their rice paddy from the Bay of Bengal’s brackish waters. “The sea wall broke, and all the seawater came in,” he recalled. “It was a big shock for me, to see how powerful the nature is in front of me.” That family lost everything, their freshwater paddy submerged and ruined. When neighbors offered a patch of land to build another house, they, too,...