RSS Feed
Archive for February 26th, 2016
Vital to food output, bees and other pollinators at risk
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 26th, 2016
Reuters: Bees and other pollinators face increasing risks to their survival, threatening foods such as apples, blueberries and coffee worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year, the first global assessment of pollinators showed on Friday.
Pesticides, loss of habitats to farms and cities, disease and climate change were among threats to about 20,000 species of bees as well as creatures such as birds, butterflies, beetles and bats that fertilize flowers by spreading pollen, it said.
"Pollinators are...
Posted in 
Biggest methane leak US history at old Calif well
Posted by ClimateWire: Gayathri Vaidyanathan and Debra Kahn on February 26th, 2016
ClimateWire: Southern California Gas Co.'s Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility. The methane leak, plugged Feb. 12, is the biggest source of emitted gas in U.S. history, according to scientists. Photo courtesy of Flickr.
The well blowout in Aliso Canyon near Los Angeles was the largest methane leak in U.S. history and could cost the world more than $100 million in climate damage, experts said.
The well emitted 97,100 tons of methane over four months into the dry foothills just north of Los Angeles'...
Thailand plans steps worth $285 million to help drought-hit rice farmers
Posted by Reuters: Patpicha Tanakasempipat on February 26th, 2016
Reuters: Thailand, the world's second-biggest rice exporter, on Friday announced measures worth around $285 million to help farmers in the country who have been hit hard by a severe drought and low prices for their crop. The Southeast Asian nation is facing what some experts say is its worst drought in decades. While this has crimped rice output, it has not buoyed prices given huge stocks of about 12 million tonnes that Thailand is trying to offload, the legacy of a subsidy scheme undertaken by the previous...
Methane leak ‘largest in US history’
Posted by BBC: Matt McGrath on February 26th, 2016
BBC: A scientific analysis of a natural gas leak near Los Angeles says that it was the biggest in US history.
The Aliso Canyon blowout vented almost 100,000 tonnes of methane into the atmosphere before it was plugged.
The impact on the climate is said to be the equivalent of the annual emissions of half a million cars.
Researchers say it had a far bigger warming effect than the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
First detected on 23 October, the leak came from one of the 115 wells...
A chance for sphagnum is a chance for all
Posted by Guardian: Matt Shardlow on February 26th, 2016
Guardian: This fragile peat dome, halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, is lacerated with a grid of channels, ripped through the fibres of its dark earth.
On a cold wet February day, in a biting wind, the summit of Fannyside Muir is an impressively wide expanse of nodding heather plants, but the prominent leggy heather is not the architect of the bog. A closer look is needed to discern the construction team: the resident array of Sphagnum mosses – a scatter of tightly packed pink hummocks and, in a little...
Australia: Feral cats targeted to protect turtle hatchlings
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 26th, 2016
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Rangers and conservationists concerned for the welfare of turtle hatchlings have carried out a feral cat trapping program in Exmouth.
The Jurabi coastline, located on the point of the Cape Range National Park in Western Australia, is a major nesting ground for local turtle populations.
In a trapping program undertaken last week, seven cats were captured and destroyed using cages and soft jaw leg traps, designed to restrain the animals without causing any physical pain.
Department of Parks...
Zika Epidemic Offers Sanitation a Chance in Brazil
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 26th, 2016
Inter Press Service: Three decades of dengue fever epidemic did not manage to awaken a sense of urgency in Brazil regarding the need for improving and expanding basic sanitation. But the recent surge in cases of microcephaly in newborns, associated with the Zika virus, apparently has.
Both dengue and Zika are transmitted by the same vector, the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Back in the 1950s this kind of mosquito was supposedly eliminated in this country in a campaign against yellow fever.
But it made a comeback two...
Report says climate change will cut farm, ranch earnings
Posted by Great Falls Tribune: None Given on February 26th, 2016
Great Falls Tribune: A new report highlights economic threats faced by Montana's farmers and ranchers as average temperatures rise and growing conditions change.
The report, "The Impacts of Climate Change on Montana's Agriculture Economy," was completed for the Great Falls-based Montana Farmers Union, a 100-year-old statewide farmers group.
"You have to know what you're facing, and you need education from somewhere, which is why we've done some research to help people plan," said Chris Christiaens, project specialist...
Mountaintop mining, crop irrigation can damage water biodiversity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 26th, 2016
ScienceDaily: Aquatic life can suffer when high concentrations of dissolved salts enter freshwater ecosystems, a process known as salinization.
An international, multi-institutional team of researchers that includes a Virginia Tech graduate student recommends ways that humans can protect freshwater from salts in an article Friday (Feb. 26) in the journal Science.
The recommendations include the use of less water for agricultural practices, less salt for road de-icing, less discharge or sequestering salts...