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No One Is Ready for Next Katrina
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on August 27th, 2015
Climate Desk: After the storm, after the flooding, after the investigations, the US came to realize that what happened to New Orleans on August 29, 2005 was not a natural disaster. The levee system built by the US Army Corps of Engineers had structural flaws, and those flaws were awaiting the right circumstances. In that way, what happened was all but inevitable.
And just as the storm is not to blame, New Orleans is not unique in its vulnerability. The city endured a lot of tsk-tsking in the aftermath of Katrina,...
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BP Oil Spill Happened 5 Years Ago Today. Still Paying the Price
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on April 20th, 2015
Climate Desk: The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico five years ago today, killing 11 men and sending nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the sea. After the well was finally plugged, the national media went home, but the story is still very much unfolding everywhere from federal courtrooms to Louisiana backyards.
Let`s have a look back at the nation`s worst-ever oil spill, by the numbers:
Deep Inside the Wild World of China’s Fracking Boom
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on September 18th, 2014
Climate Desk: ON A HAZY MORNING LAST SEPTEMBER, 144 American and Chinese government officials and high-ranking oil executives filed into a vaulted meeting room in a cloistered campus in south Xi’an, a city famous for its terra-cotta warriors and lethal smog. The Communist Party built this compound, called the Shaanxi Guesthouse, in 1958. It was part of the lead-up to Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, in which, to surpass the industrial achievements of the West, the government built steelworks, coal mines, power...
Antarctic Sea Ice Hits a Record Max, and That’s Not Good
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on September 18th, 2014
Climate Desk: For the third year in a row, the sea ice ringing Antarctica has set a new record. Its extent is the farthest now since observations began in the late `70s, and scientists say the growth is largely the result of climate change.
Antarctic sea ice melts during the early part of the year but typically packs it back on by September. The ice broke last year`s record for extent on Monday, according to a report in New Scientist. It`s the latest evidence of a small but significant growth trend of about...
US Sent Thousands of Sailors To Help With Fukushima Relief. Did Radiation Make Them Sick?
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on August 20th, 2014
Climate Desk: A $1 billion lawsuit accuses the Japanese nuclear energy company Tepco of lying about radiation levels.
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The article was reported by the Guardian`s Suzanne Goldenberg, and the video was produced by Climate Desk`s James West.
The first time it occurred to James Jackson that there could be lasting damage from his US Navy service during Japan`s tsunami and nuclear disaster came...
Withering Drought Still Plaguing Half of America
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on April 4th, 2013
Climate Desk: The $50 billion drought that bedeviled the country last Summer—the worst since the Dust Bowl of the 1930's—still has its fingers around half the country. And if predictions are to be believed, it’s only going to get worse for many in the coming months. Weekly drought figures released Thursday by the US Drought Monitor, a joint project of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the USDA and several other government and academic partners, show the situation has worsened slightly from...
This is What a Melting Glacier Sounds Like
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on February 7th, 2013
Climate Desk: If a glacier melts in the Arctic and there’s no one around, does it make a sound? Jonathan Perl thinks it does. The City College of New York musicologist was asked by climatologist Marco Tedesco to translate data records on Greenland’s melting ice into sound. The result is a series of “sonifications,” on display through next week at CCNY’s POLARSEEDS exhibit, that combine quantitative data with music to create an audio snapshot of climate change. Steady, long-term changes that are invisible to the...
Renewables in Bed With Natural Gas?
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on January 31st, 2013
Climate Desk: It`s no secret that environmentalists are going through a bit of an identity crisis when it comes to natural gas. Celebrities including Mark Ruffalo, Matt Damon, and Yoko Ono have aligned themselves with green groups like the Sierra Club to come out steadfastly against gas because of fracking, the drilling technique that harvests most of it, citing concerns about water and air contamination. Meanwhile others, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Environmental Defense Fund, have boosted...
Australia’s Climate Inferno “Encroaching on Entirely New Territory”
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on January 11th, 2013
Climate Desk: Australia`s top government-appointed climate commissioner says this week`s heatwave is occurring amid record-breaking weather around the world. "This has been a landmark event for me," Professor Tim Flannery told Climate Desk from his home in Melbourne. "When you start breaking records, and you do it consistently, and you see it over and over again, that is a good indication there`s a shift underway--this is not just within the normal variation of things."
Flannery is perhaps best known in the...
“Catastrophic” Heat Wave Burning up Australia
Posted by Climate Desk: None Given on January 8th, 2013
Climate Desk: Every Australian knows well the smell of burning Eucalyptus. As a kid, I remember filling bathtubs and hosing the house as embers flew overhead and the lawn turned grey with ash. The family photo albums practically lived for one month each summer in the back of the car.
So regular are fires across this big, dry place (the driest inhabited continent on earth) that they are given a season unto themselves--"bushfire season"--which kicks off late December and continues through the height of Summer...