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Archive for the ‘Water Conservation’ Category
Northeast U.S. Waters Warming Far Faster than Previously Thought, NOAA says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2016
Yale Environment 360: The ocean waters off the Northeastern United States may get even warmer, and this warming may occur twice as quickly as previously thought, according to a new study by researchers for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The findings, based on four global climate models, suggest that ocean temperatures in that region will rise three times faster than the global average. “Prior climate change projections for the region may be far too conservative,” said Vincent Saba, a NOAA fisheries...
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Comments Off on Northeast U.S. Waters Warming Far Faster than Previously Thought, NOAA saysFracking in Alberta: daily quakes and thirsty residents
Posted by Agence France-Presse: Duc Tué Dang on January 15th, 2016
Agence France-Presse: One earthquake is recorded on average each day in a western Canadian region where companies extract oil by fracking, according to statistics published by the Canadian province's energy regulatory agency.
The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) said Friday that in the last year alone, there were 363 tremors in and around Fox Creek, a small town of 2,000 inhabitants located 260 kilometers (160 miles) northwest of Edmonton.
Some days, seismic activity is higher, such as on September 11, 2015, when...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fracking in Alberta: daily quakes and thirsty residents‘Another Nail in the Coffin’: Obama Set to Overhaul Coal Leasing on Public Lands
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on January 15th, 2016
EcoWatch: The Obama administration announced today new rules for how the federal government manages and leases coal reserves on public lands. The move adds significant momentum to the growing campaign by climate activists to stop new fossil fuel extraction on public lands and calls to “keep it in the ground.”
White House set to issue major new rule on coal mining on public lands: https://t.co/K16t8HHD11 pic.twitter.com/DmgzvDeD2h
-- Wilderness Society (@Wilderness) January 15, 2016
“The only safe...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on ‘Another Nail in the Coffin’: Obama Set to Overhaul Coal Leasing on Public LandsSouth Africa suffers driest year on record in 2015
Posted by Reuters: Ed Stoddard on January 15th, 2016
Reuters: South Africa suffered its driest year on record in 2015, the national weather service said on Thursday, as a drought that has threatened the vital maize crop and hit economic growth showed no sign of abating.
Average rainfall was 403 mm, about a third less than the 608 mm annual average and the driest since records began in 1904, the service added.
The agricultural sector is being hammered by weeks of heat waves that have scorched grazing land, forcing livestock owners to kill or sell animals....
Agricultural expansion in Africa could cause climate change: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 15th, 2016
Xinhua: A newly released study by a Canadian scholar shows that rainfall and groundwater are crucial for crops in West Africa, yet agriculture may make droughts worse and lead to crop failure. Marc Parlange, a co-author of the study and a hydrology specialist and professor of civil engineering at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, discovered that a Burkina Faso savannah received more rainfall than nearby land cleared for agriculture, posing serious questions about the sustainability...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Agricultural expansion in Africa could cause climate change: studyMining company executives indicted in Brazil over country’s largest environmental disaster
Posted by Mongabay: Jenny Gonzales on January 15th, 2016
Mongabay: Yesterday, Brazil’s federal police in Minas Gerais charged Samarco CEO, Ricardo Vescovi De Aragao, for environmental crimes caused by the disruption of the Fundão tailings dam — Brazil’s largest environmental disaster. The Samarco and Vale mining companies were also indicted, as well as VogBR Recursos Hídricos e Geotécnica, responsible for signing the statement that declared the dam stable just last year. In a message to Mongabay, VogBR’s CEO, André Euzébio, cleared his company of any wrongdoing,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Mining company executives indicted in Brazil over country’s largest environmental disasterObama to Freeze New Coal Mines on Public Land
Posted by New York Magazine: Jonah Shepp on January 14th, 2016
New York Magazine: In his latest effort to secure his legacy as having actually done something about climate change, on Friday, President Obama will order the federal government to cease issuing new leases for coal mining on public land, an administration official tells the New York Times. Mining companies will still be allowed to exploit coal reserves that they have already leased, which the Times reports is enough to sustain current levels of production for 20 years, but the industry is facing hard times anyway....
Forest loss increased annually for 25 yrs at oldest Amazon mega-dam
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on January 14th, 2016
Mongabay: Researchers examining changes in forest cover encircling the Amazon’s oldest mega-dam have found that hundreds of square kilometers of forest have been lost each year of the dam’s 25-year history. The study, published in Applied Geography late in 2015, was undertaken by an international team from the US, Brazil, and the Netherlands. They describe the Tucuruí dam, constructed in the 1980s, as “an ideal case for understanding the long-term impact of mega-dams on rainforest loss.” Great rivers across...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Forest loss increased annually for 25 yrs at oldest Amazon mega-damGlobal warming likely to delay next ice age
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 14th, 2016
Agence France-Presse: Global warming is likely to disrupt a natural cycle of ice ages and contribute to delaying the onset of the next big freeze until about 100,000 years from now, scientists said on January 13. In the past million years, the world has had about 10 ice ages before swinging back to warmer conditions like the present. In the last ice age that ended 12,000 years ago, ice sheets blanketed what is now Canada, northern Europe and Siberia. In a new explanation for the long-lasting plunges in global temperatures...
Warming Could Mean Major Thaw For Alaska Permafrost
Posted by Climate Central: Andrea Thompson on January 14th, 2016
Climate Central: If you’d asked permafrost researcher Vladimir Romanovsky five years ago if he thought the permafrost of the North Slope of Alaska was in danger of substantial thaw this century because of global warming, he would have said no. The permanently frozen soils of the northern reaches of the state are much colder, and so more stable than the warmer, more vulnerable permafrost of interior Alaska, he would have said. “I cannot say it anymore” he told journalists last month at the annual meeting of the American...