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Archive for January 24th, 2016
Is Climate Change Causing Frequent Blizzards?
Posted by Inquisitr: None Given on January 24th, 2016
Inquisitr: Travel bans have lifted, snowplows are running, and residents on the East Coast are beginning to dig themselves out from under the worst winter storm in years.
As the sky clears, residents are once again questioning why the number of blizzards is increasing and if it has something to do with climate change.
The answer: yes and no.
For anyone denying #climatechange because of #blizzard2016. pic.twitter.com/cnOCOqLlR2
-- T.J. Raphael (@TJRaphael) January 23, 2016
The number of blizzards...
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Why the rains failed – and why they may return
Posted by Guardian: Kate Ravilious on January 24th, 2016
Guardian: Traditionally the Sahel – a semi-arid strip of land, south of the Sahara Desert – is one of Africa’s most productive crop regions. But during the 1980s this region, which stretches from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, became better known for drought and famine. Thankfully the region has become wetter again, and now new research indicates that the return of the rains is most likely a beneficial side-effect of global warming.
Rainfall statistics show that between the 1950s and 1980s summer rainfall...
‘It’s all just poison now’: Flint reels as families struggle water crisis
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2016
Guardian: Annette Williams is careful to hold her granddaughter Sharell’s head at bath time, to keep the two-year-old from taking a gulp of toxic water. Though most people no longer drink what flows through Flint’s corroded pipes, many families have little choice but to bathe in it.
Related: 'Please do not drink the water': Flint in crisis – in pictures
Sharell has been sick for months – ear infections, skin rashes and coughs. Williams cooks all her meals using bottled water, and has taught the eldest...
Was 2015 a record wildfire year?
Posted by Washington Post: Darryl Fears on January 24th, 2016
Washington Post: Wildfires scorched a vast swath of the American wilderness last year. But whether the 10 million acres that burned is a record, as the Obama administration recently announced, or an exaggeration, as some environmentalists claim, is a source of heated debate in a long-running fight over how to manage the nation’s forests.
A network of about 30 small environmental groups that view wildfires as a natural part of the ecology – and think more should be allowed to burn – consider the U.S. Forest Service’s...
Deadly snowstorm buries much of East Coast
Posted by CNN: Joshua Berlinger, Eliott C. McLaughlin and Catherine E. Shoichet on January 24th, 2016
CNN: What a difference a day makes. Residents in many East Coast cities were digging out beneath blue skies on Sunday after whipping winds and a massive blizzard clobbered the region. But top officials warned that danger lingered even as the storm headed out into the Atlantic Ocean. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said that dropping temperatures still pose a risk. "We will see continued slick and dangerous roadways, so continue to stay off the road," she told reporters Sunday evening. Baltimore Mayor...
Two irrational responses to climate change: Witch hunts and denial
Posted by LA Times: Cynthia Barnett on January 24th, 2016
LA Times: In late August 1589, a dozen of the fittest ships in the Danish fleet set across a tempestuous North Sea to carry a 14-year-old princess bride to her new husband and new home. King James VI of Scotland had seen Anna of Denmark only in a miniature portrait before arranging a marriage by proxy in her country. Following her wedding-sans-groom in a palace by the sea, Anna boarded the ship of Danish Admiral Peter Munch to travel to her Scottish kingdom.
They met typical storms until close to Scotland,...
Rhino poaching stats ‘don’t reflect facts’
Posted by IOL: None Given on January 24th, 2016
IOL: The minister of environmental affairs described it as "great cause for optimism". But for rhino expert Tom Milliken, the slightly reduced rhino statistics reveal only how deeply poaching is entrenched.
On Thursday, the minister, Edna Molewa, announced that poachers had slaughtered 1 175 of the animals last year -- marginally down from the record 1 215 in 2014. This was the first decline in rhino poaching figures since 2007.
But Milliken, of Traffic, the global wildlife trade monitoring network,...
Massive blizzard paralyzes New York and Washington, 19 dead
Posted by Reuters: Barbara Goldberg and Idrees Ali on January 24th, 2016
Reuters: Millions of residents, business owners and workers began digging out on Sunday from a massive blizzard that brought Washington, New York and other northeastern U.S. cities to a standstill, killing at least 19 people in several states.
The storm was the second-biggest in New York City history, with 26.8 inches (68 cm) by midnight Saturday, just shy of the record 26.9 inches set in 2006, the National Weather Service said.
Thirteen people were killed in weather-related car crashes in Arkansas,...
Regulators approve health study on huge California gas leak
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2016
Reuters: Regional air quality regulators in California voted on Saturday to require the utility responsible for a ruptured underground pipeline in the Los Angeles area to underwrite an independent study on the health effects of a huge methane leak from the site.
The natural gas leak in Aliso Canyon, just outside the Los Angeles neighborhood of Porter Ranch, began on Oct. 23 and ranks as the worst ever in California.
Odorized methane fumes sickened scores of people and led to the temporary relocation...
?Stalled construction costs 30 Meter Telescope millions
Posted by Pacific Business: None Given on January 24th, 2016
Pacific Business: The team behind the $1.4 billion telescope project planned for Mauna Kea has invested $170 million to date for construction and manufacturing, according to Stone.
“We spent eight years now getting the permit, and on Dec. 2 it was invalidated,” he said. “We went through the process, did everything we were asked to do, and it turned out that that was evidently not the right process, so now we’re waiting on what the process needs to be.”
The Hawaii Supreme Court decided last month that the TMT...