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Archive for November 14th, 2015
The planet’s future is in the balance. But a transformation is already under way
Posted by Guardian: Johan Rockström on November 14th, 2015
Guardian: We Homo sapiens got lucky. Very lucky. Back in the 1920s, when looking for a “safe” gas to use in refrigerators, chlorine was the element of choice in a new family of manmade chemical compounds – chlorofluorocarbons. In the 1970s, Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland discovered that while it was safe in our fridges, it was destroying the ozone layer, which is essential to protect all life on land.
Luck struck twice. Nasa scientists measuring ozone above Antarctica in the 1980s never...
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California governor extends water conservation order
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 14th, 2015
Reuters: California Governor Jerry Brown has extended his executive order requiring residents to conserve water as the state readies for a fifth year of drought.
The order gives state water officials greater authority to deal with drought conditions and to cope with potential winter storms from El Nino, a periodic warming of ocean surface temperatures. Brown's office announced the order on Friday.
Brown has ordered communities throughout the state to reduce water use 25 percent this year in the first-ever...
Bottoms up! Sewage dumped in Canada river used for drinking water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 14th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: A stench rises from Montreal`s sewers, where used condoms, soiled sanitary napkins and other stomach-churning waste floats in the fetid brown water.
That same foul mess this week began finding its way into Montrealers` water supply, after city officials began diverting one-third of the sewer`s contents into Canada`s St Lawrence River.
Officials on Wednesday began piping eight billion litres - equal to about 3,200 Olympic swimming pools - of raw sewage into the St Lawrence, one of the nation`s...
Global Warming Is Draining the Waters of Life
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on November 14th, 2015
Climate News Network: Up to two billion people who depend on winter snow to deliver their summer water could see shortages by 2060 as upland and mountain snowpacks continue to dwindle.
An estimated 300 million people could find, 45 years on, that they simply won’t have enough water for all their needs, according to new research.
Climate change driven by rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide-in turn, fed by human combustion of fossil fuels-may already be affecting global precipitation. Researchers have consistently...
How coastal real estate is being impacted by climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 14th, 2015
Toronto Star: The calm ocean view seems to lull Todd Putney into a trance as gentle waves wash over his feet and a rising tide slowly consumes his fold-up chair.
It’s a hypnotizing sight, one of the reasons Putney decided last year to purchase a beachfront property here. Interest rates were low, prices were reasonable. The timing was right.
“I always wanted a beach house,” said Putney. “At my age, I figured I couldn’t find a better opportunity.”
Yet the ocean’s powerful allure masks a reality that has...
Canada’s Trudeau Orders Tanker Ban on B.C. North Coast
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on November 14th, 2015
Environment News Service: Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today instructed his incoming cabinet members to work together to “formalize a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on British Columbia’s north coast.” In mandate letters to Transport Minister Marc Garneau and Hunter Tootoo, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard made public Friday, Trudeau says he expects the ministers to formalize the moratorium as a top priority. Environmentalists say the ban ends Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline...
Chinese Giant Salamander: millions farmed, nearly extinct in wild
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on November 14th, 2015
Mongabay: The Chinese Giant Salamander can grow to as much as a meter in length, but it is a mysterious and enigmatic creature threatened by over-exploitation, disease, and habitat loss.
Millions are being raised on farms, but the vast majority of breeding stock for those farms are either wild-caught, or first generation offspring of wild-caught animals. The wild salamander’s extinction would also likely spell doom for the farming industry.
Conservation programs are underway to save wild Chinese Giant...
Ambitious Plan Restore Wildlife In Argentina’s Iberá Wetlands
Posted by Huffington Post: Marina Aizen on November 14th, 2015
Huffington Post: Tucked away in the shelter provided by the meadow, Jurumina is fast asleep, coiled like a fireman’s hose. Even her long anteater snout seems made for putting out fires. But nothing seems to disturb her in the Iberá, a landscape shaped by estuaries that this creature blends so well into. Her natural connection to these bird-thronged surroundings is a picture postcard that, until recently, belonged to the realm of memory. For Jurumina’s species had been wiped out in this flood-prone land where camalotes...