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Archive for the ‘Water Conservation’ Category
Encouraging Fracking, Britain Offers More Than 150 Sites for Exploration
Posted by New York Times: Stanley Reed on December 17th, 2015
New York Times: The British government, in an effort to stoke interest from energy companies in extracting fuels from shale rock, said on Thursday that it was offering licenses for oil and gas exploration on 159 tracts of land. The government said that 75 percent of the licenses being offered related to areas thought to contain shale gas or oil. Most of the blocks are in Northwest and Northeast England, and are believed to have substantial shale potential. “We need to get shale gas moving,” Britain’s energy minister,...
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Comments Off on Encouraging Fracking, Britain Offers More Than 150 Sites for ExplorationShould The World Emulate US Crop Insurance?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 17th, 2015
Inter Press Service: With the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events adversely affecting agricultural outputs and farmers' incomes, commercial crop insurance has been touted as the solution for vulnerable farmers all over the world. Financial and farm interests have been promoting US crop insurance as the solution. It is instructive to consider lessons from the 2012 drought. Driven by the expectation of high maize prices, owing to the maize bio-ethanol mandate introduced almost a decade ago, US farmers...
Droughts could kill many of the world’s trees
Posted by LiveScience: Tia Ghose on December 17th, 2015
LiveScience: Drought could kill vast swaths of forests around the world if global warming isn't contained, new research suggests.
That's in part because a fundamental structure found in trees may limit how much they can adapt to parched conditions.
What's more, climate predictions seem to suggest that droughts will be much more common in the United States, said William Anderegg, a biologist at Princeton University who studies forests and climate change. [Dry and Dying: Images of Drought]
"The droughts...
Polled Queenslanders want to phase out coal to save Great Barrier Reef
Posted by Sydney Morning Herald: Amy Remeikis on December 17th, 2015
Sydney Morning Herald: Queenslanders believe coal mining should be phased out to save the Great Barrier Reef, with concern over the impact mining is having on one of the world's greatest natural icons. But with Indian giant Adani moving forward with plans to build Australia's biggest coal mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin with the government's support, the state's reliance on coal as a commodity does not appear to be ending any time soon. The Essential Research poll, commissioned by environmental activists 350.org,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Polled Queenslanders want to phase out coal to save Great Barrier ReefInvestors put pressure on miners to respond to climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 17th, 2015
Reuters: An alliance of around 100 investors is calling on mining companies Anglo American Glencore and Rio Tinto to show that they are working to lessen the impact of climate change on their businesses.
The group of European fund managers and pension funds including Aviva, Amundi and Schroders, which together manage over $4 trillion in assets, will file shareholder resolutions to the firms this month, investor coalition "Aiming for A" said on Wednesday.
Shareholders will vote on the resolutions at...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Investors put pressure on miners to respond to climate changeUK to allow shale gas fracking beneath national parks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 17th, 2015
Reuters: British lawmakers on Wednesday voted in favor of the use of fracking to extract shale gas under national parks, weakening a decision against fracking in national parks made earlier this year and giving shale gas explorers access to more resources. Britain is estimated to have substantial amounts of gas trapped in underground shale rocks and Prime Minister Cameron has pledged to go all-out to extract these reserves, to help offset declining North Sea oil and gas output. But the use of fracking,...
New Research Suggests Warm Water ‘Blob’ Could Hurt Salmon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 17th, 2015
National Public Radio: New research from Oregon State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week suggests a large patch of warm water off the West Coast could harm future salmon runs in the Northwest.
The study compared the effect of cold and warm water conditions on the eating habits and overall health of juvenile Chinook salmon.
OSU senior faculty research assistant Elizabeth Daly and NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center researcher Richard Brodeur studied salmon data from 1981-1985...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New Research Suggests Warm Water ‘Blob’ Could Hurt SalmonGlobally, lakes warming at an alarming rate, study finds
Posted by OPB: Ashley Ahearn on December 17th, 2015
OPB: It's not in your head. Seattle`s Lake Washington is getting warmer and more comfortable to swim in every year. And it's not the only lake experiencing a rapid rise in temperature. For the first time, scientists have brought together a comprehensive data set from 235 lakes around the world, containing more than half of the world's fresh water. The study, which was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that globally, lake temperatures are rising more rapidly than ocean or air...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Globally, lakes warming at an alarming rate, study findsReport: Climate change could cost 11,000 outdoor jobs
Posted by Great Falls Tribune: None Given on December 17th, 2015
Great Falls Tribune: The cost of unabated climate change in Montana could be 11,000 jobs and $281 million in labor earnings by 2050, according to a new report that attempts to quantify its economic impacts on the state's outdoor economy, including hunting, fishing, skiing and snowmobiling.
The report, released Tuesday, was completed by Donovan Power Consulting, a Montana-based economic consulting firm headed by the former head of the economics department at the University of Montana, at the request of the Montana...
Greenland has lost a staggering amount of ice — and it’s only getting worse
Posted by Washington Post: Chris Mooney on December 17th, 2015
Washington Post: A massive new study by 16 authors has calculated just how much ice the Greenland ice sheet has lost since the year 1900. And the number, says the paper just out in the journal Nature, is astounding: 9,103 gigatons (a gigaton is a billion metric tons).
That’s over 9 trillion tons in total. And moreover, the rate of loss has been increasing, the research finds, with a doubling of annual loss in the period 2003 to 2010 compared with what it was throughout the 20th century.
The study was led by...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Greenland has lost a staggering amount of ice — and it’s only getting worse