RSS Feed
Archive for December 24th, 2015
Exxon Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers 1970s, Too
Posted by InsideClimate: None Given on December 24th, 2015
InsideClimate: The American Petroleum Institute together with the nation's largest oil companies ran a task force to monitor and share climate research between 1979 and 1983, indicating that the oil industry, not just Exxon alone, was aware of its possible impact on the world's climate far earlier than previously known. The group's members included senior scientists and engineers from nearly every major U.S. and multinational oil and gas company, including Exxon, Mobil, Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco,...
Posted in 
Dating historic activity at Oso site shows recurring major landslides
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 24th, 2015
ScienceDaily: The large, fast-moving mudslide that buried much of Oso, Washington in March 2014 was the deadliest landslide in U.S. history. Since then, it's been revealed that this area has experienced major slides before, but it's not known how long ago they occurred. University of Washington geologists analyzed woody debris buried in earlier slides and used radiocarbon dating to map the history of activity at the site. The findings, published online in the journal Geology, show that a massive nearby slide...
Southwest’s Conifers Face Trial By Climate Change
Posted by Scientific American: Christopher Intagliata on December 24th, 2015
Scientific American: As you sit round the Christmas tree, consider the TLC you give O Tannenbaum: plenty of water and a relatively comfortable climate. Wouldn't want to dry out the tree, after all. Now consider that in the house we all live in—the planet—we’re hardly giving the same courtesy to your Christmas tree's wild cousins. (Who, I might add, are actually still alive.) As the planet warms, droughts are getting even drier—and they're getting hotter too. In fact it's getting so bad that researchers are now forecasting...
Paris climate goals mean emission need drop below zero
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 24th, 2015
ABC: If governments are serious about the global warming targets they adopted in Paris, scientists say they have two options: eliminating fossil fuels immediately or finding ways to undo their damage to the climate system in the future.
The first is politically impossible - the world is still hooked on using oil, coal and natural gas - which leaves the option of a major cleanup of the atmosphere later this century.
Yet the landmark Paris Agreement, adopted by 195 countries on Dec. 12, makes no reference...
With CO2 boost, marshes can rise to meet flood risks
Posted by Climate Central: John Upton on December 24th, 2015
Climate Central: In the race to keep their verdure heads above rising seas, marshes that protect coastal regions from floods, storms and erosion harbor the botanical equivalents of nitro boosters: rapid growth fueled by climate-changing pollution.
The same greenhouse gas that's doing most to warm the planet and uplift its seas can also work as a fertilizer. New research suggests that rising levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could help communities of marsh plants grow quickly enough to keep...
World ‘faces food shortages & mass migration’ caused global warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 24th, 2015
Independent: The world is facing a future of food shortages and mass migration as a consequence of widespread water shortages caused by global warming, the outgoing head of the World Meteorological Society has warned.
Michel Jarraud, the WMO’s Secretary-General, said of all the dangers posed by climate change – from increasingly intense storms and a growth in disease to rising sea levels that may submerge cities – the greatest threat is from dwindling water supplies.
About 1.6 billion people already live...
California snowpack exceeds average for first time in years
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 24th, 2015
LA Times: A series of powerful snowstorms in the Sierra Nevada has resulted in a small milestone in drought-stricken California: The snowpack is now higher than average for this time of year.
The storms, which are likely to continue into Friday, have fattened the mountain snowpack to levels California hasn't seen for two years, said Steve Nemeth, water supply forecaster for the state Department of Water Resources.
The announcement was welcome news to a state that has struggled with extremely dry conditions...
As Climate Change Imperils Winter, the Ski Industry Frets
Posted by InsideClimate: Katherine Bagley on December 24th, 2015
InsideClimate: The typical scene at New England ski resorts over Christmas vacation--madhouses filled with students as young as 2 or 3 packing onto bunny hills while parents head to higher elevations for their first runs of the season--has been replaced by a sobering reminder that climate change is already taking a bite out of winter.
Most mountains in the northeast this December are covered in brown, not white. Killington Ski Resort in central Vermont has 24 of its 155 trails open. Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine...
China waste site firm ‘urged stop work’ days before landslide
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 24th, 2015
Reuters: The firm managing a waste heap which collapsed and buried dozens of buildings in southern China was urged to stop work four days before the disaster, an executive with a government-appointed monitoring agency said on Thursday, citing safety concerns.
Two people died and more than 70 people were missing after Sunday's landslide at an industrial park in Shenzhen, a boomtown near Hong Kong, in China's latest industrial disaster. A man was pulled out alive from the rubble on Wednesday.
The man-made...
Malnutrition a Silent Emergency Papua New Guinea
Posted by Inter Press Service: Catherine Wilson on December 24th, 2015
Inter Press Service: High up in the mountainous interior of Papua New Guinea (PNG), the most populous Pacific Island state of 7.3 million people, rural lives are marked by strenuous work toiling land in rugged terrain with low access to basic services.
While more than 80 per cent of people are engaged in subsistence agriculture and village food gardens are visible across the landscape, widespread malnutrition, especially in children, is stubbornly evident.
Last year this under-reported health issue, which contributes...