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Archive for January 9th, 2016
Can Ohio avoid North Dakota’s fracking problems?
Posted by Sandusky Register: John Hageman on January 9th, 2016
Sandusky Register: The extensive Bakken oil play in North Dakota has been underway for about 10 years. Their small towns have experienced a variety of well-documented incidents and ongoing problems. While our states certainly differ with respect to geography, number of towns and population, will we be spared the same social and environmental problems as horizontal fracking operations expand here? While nuisance littering, pollution, animal poisonings and poaching are transient, other actions could leave permanent...
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Climate Change Could Cause Power Blackouts Worldwide
Posted by TakePart: None Given on January 9th, 2016
TakePart: The record heat waves and devastating droughts that accompany climate change could also hurt the world’s electricity production, according to a new study.
As temperatures warm and drought periods grow longer and more severe over the next 50 years, the water levels in rivers and lakes are expected to fall.
For 98 percent of the world’s power plants, that’s a problem that could result in a 30 percent decrease in electricity production in some months at most power stations.
Natural water flow...
Reforestation policies need to consider climate change, study finds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 9th, 2016
ScienceDaily: Study at the Polytechnic University of Valencia finds that local pine species are not necessarily the best option for repopulating burn sites. For the past six years, researchers at the Universitat Politènica de València (Polytechnic Univeristy of Valencia, UPV) have been studying the performance of twelve Aleppo pine varieties native to different regions of Spain in reforestation campaigns across three national forest areas. Different varieties or genotypes have different levels of resistance to...
Weather Extremes Slash Cereal Yields
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on January 9th, 2016
Climate News Network: Climate change may have already begun to take its toll of agriculture. New research suggests that drought and extreme heat in the last 50 years have reduced cereal production by up to 10%. And, for once, developed nations may have sustained greater losses than developing nations. Researchers have been warning for years that global warming as a consequence of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—in turn, a pay-off from increased fossil fuel combustion—will result in a greater frequency...
Conservation benefits of ecotourism: True or false?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 9th, 2016
ScienceDaily: Two Texas A&M University scientists highlighted the conservation benefits of ecotourism worldwide and said a recent research review citing the dangers of ecotourism to wildlife is premature and problematic. Dr. Lee Fitzgerald, a conservation biologist, and Dr. Amanda Stronza, an anthropologist, published a critique of a recent review in the scientific journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution that proposed tourism may increase the vulnerability of wildlife to predators. Ecotourists in the Peruvian...
Bushfire kills two in Australia’s south west; more towns evacuating
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 9th, 2016
Reuters: Two people have been killed, at least one other remains unaccounted for and more than 121 buildings have been destroyed by a bushfire that continues to burn out of control in Western Australia, police said on Saturday.
The remains of two men were found by authorities searching burnt-out buildings in the historic timber milling town of Yarloop, 120 km (75 miles) south of the capital, Perth, which was destroyed by the fire on Thursday, police confirmed. The men, both believed to be in their 70s,...
Kanuha Found Not Guilty Of Obstruction on Mauna Kea
Posted by Big Island Video News: None Given on January 9th, 2016
Big Island Video News: Kaho`okahi Kanuha was found not guilty by Judge Barbare Takase at the Third-Circuit District Court in Waimea.
Kanuha was charged with obstructing Thirty Meter Telescope crews on the Mauna Kea Access Road on June 24, 2015. He was one of 12 arrested on the mountain that day. Kanuha was a leader in the effort to block construction of the TMT which was granted the right to proceed with the project by the state. The $1.4 billion observatory was set to be located on the northern plateau of the Mauna...
New Orleans Prepares For Mississippi River Flooding
Posted by National Public Radio: Tegan Wendland on January 9th, 2016
National Public Radio: SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
All eyes in Louisiana are on the Mississippi River. Floods that swept the Midwest are headed south, and that will test the levee system in Louisiana. Tegan Wendland at member station WWNO reports that the Army Corps of Engineers has amped up its flood-fighting efforts to protect the city of New Orleans.
TEGAN WENDLAND, BYLINE: Nearly half of New Orleans is at or below sea level, so flooding isn't unusual. That's what the city is lined with flood walls and levees. Army Corps...
United Kingdom: Claims rises in flood defence spending ‘essentially meaningless’
Posted by Guardian: Henry Zeffman on January 9th, 2016
Guardian: Government claims that it increased spending on flood defences ahead of the wettest December on record are “essentially meaningless”, an independent adviser on climate change has said.
Daniel Johns, head of adaptation at the Committee on Climate Change, urged the government to commit to spending more on maintaining defences after weeks of heavy rain caused flooding across the UK.
The warning comes as water levels in north-east Scotland reached their highest levels in 45 years, causing further...
How huge gas leak turning California Porter Ranch into a ghost town
Posted by Newsweek: Alexander Nazaryan on January 9th, 2016
Newsweek: In the winter of 2008, a real estate column in the Los Angeles Times profiled Porter Ranch, a collection of subdivisions in the San Fernando Valley that feels utterly removed from the huge city on whose northern edge it lies. The neighborhood is “graced with lush parks,” the Neighborly Advice column gushed, and “attracts residents seeking sanctuary from the urban hubbub.” Toll Brothers, the upscale builder that has developed much of the land here, promises potential residents they will “relax in...