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Archive for February, 2012
Climate change making Everest climb more dangerous
Posted by Globe and Mail: Michael Kesterton on February 28th, 2012
Globe and Mail: Climb Everest while you can
"If you've got 'summit Everest' on your bucket list, better get started now,' says Grist.org. "Apa Sherpa (a.k.a. 'Super Sherpa'), who's summited Mount Everest 21 times, tells Agence France-Presse that the trip up the mountain is getting increasingly dangerous as climate change sets in. As Himalayan glaciers melt, bare rock -- slippery, treacherous, more prone to rockfalls -- has replaced snow and ice. Apa Sherpa told AFP: 'Climbing is becoming more difficult because...
Canadian firm to proceed with southern leg of Keystone pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 28th, 2012
LA Times: The Keystone XL battle isn't over. The Canadian company behind the controversial pipeline announced Monday that it would proceed immediately with a shorter version of the project south of Oklahoma - even as it seeks a new permit for the segment through the northern U.S. Opponents immediately vowed to fight on both fronts.
"TransCanada is hell-bent on bringing tar sands, the world's dirtiest oil, through America to reach foreign markets. They can't wait for a fair, scientific environmental review...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Canadian firm to proceed with southern leg of Keystone pipelineExpect severe climate change, German envoy tells Nigerian farmers
Posted by Vanguard: Chris Ochayi and Funmi Olasupo on February 28th, 2012
Vanguard: German Ambassador to Nigeria, Mrs. Dorothee Janetzke-Wenzel, has declared that Nigeria will be affected by severe climate change than many other countries in Europe. Dorothee said this, yesterday, at a workshop on legal and regulatory frameworks for agricultural insurance reform in Nigeria for protecting Nigerian farmers from climate change in Abuja. She noted that the workshop was organised to find ways to ameliorate the impact of climate change in the country. Dorothee stressed further that...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Expect severe climate change, German envoy tells Nigerian farmersNatural Gas Our New Savior? Not So Fast . .
Posted by Climate Central: Mike Lemonick on February 28th, 2012
Climate Central: Remember how ethanol was going to save us? It was the perfect solution to not one, but two different problems. The first was energy security: since it's a type of alcohol distilled from home-grown corn, ethanol would replace the gasoline made from oil imported from Bad People in places like Iran. The second was climate change. Ethanol emits heat-trapping CO2 like gasoline does, but the corn sucks in CO2 while it's growing, so it's mostly a wash.
That was the sales pitch, anyway, and for a while,...
New research links crop disease and climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 28th, 2012
Physorg: "Currently, there is considerable debate about climate change adaptation and mitigation in relation to controlling crop disease, while also maintaining sufficient food production," said Professor Fitt, a leading authority on plant pathology. "Government policy and the agricultural industry need to prepare for the impacts of climate change particularly where food production is likely to be adversely affected. Strategies for adaptation to climate change are needed to maintain good disease control and...
Reduction In Carbon Emissions Attributed To Cheaper Natural Gas
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 28th, 2012
redOrbit: Lower emission from power plants in 2009 was driven by competitive pricing of natural gas versus coal
In 2009, when the United States fell into economic recession, greenhouse gas emissions also fell, by 6.59 percent relative to 2008.
In the power sector, however, the recession was not the main cause.
Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have shown that the primary explanation for the reduction in CO2 emissions from power generation that year was that...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Reduction In Carbon Emissions Attributed To Cheaper Natural GasCassava ‘best for climate change’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 28th, 2012
BBC: The cassava plant could help African farmers cope with climate change, a scientific report says.
"It's like the Rambo of the food crops," report author Andy Jarvis, of the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture, said.
He told the BBC: "Whilst other staples can suffer from heat and other problems of climate change, cassava thrives."
The root crop is already one of the most widely consumed staple foods on the continent.
But the report also stresses the need for more...
Obama angers green businesses with support for Keystone Plan B
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 28th, 2012
Business Green: President Barack Obama has angered green businesses and NGOs by throwing his weight behind a new plan that could see work start on the controversial KeystoneXL tar sands oil pipeline in the next few months, crushing hopes that the administration would permanently block the project.
Pipeline developer TransCanada announced yesterday it will start construction of the southern section of the pipeline, running from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas. It will also reapply for permission to construct...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Obama angers green businesses with support for Keystone Plan BEPA Chief Vows ‘Strong Science’ on Hydraulic Fracturing
Posted by The Hill: Ben Geman on February 28th, 2012
The Hill: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson is defending the rigor of the agency’s study of potential water contamination linked to the controversial natural-gas drilling method hydraulic fracturing.
From her testimony about EPA’s proposed budget to be delivered to a congressional panel Tuesday:
As I've mentioned before, natural gas is an important resource which is abundant in the United States, but we must make sure that the ways we extract it do not risk the safety of public...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on EPA Chief Vows ‘Strong Science’ on Hydraulic FracturingCanadian oil sands: Defusing the carbon bomb
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 28th, 2012
Nature: Environmentalists and many politicians have called the oil sands a planetary-scale threat as they fight to prevent further development of the resource. Andrew Weaver and Neil Swart, both climate scientists at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, listened to the rhetoric and decided to run some calculations. Because of the energy-intensive process for producing oil from this region, it is true that greenhouse gas emissions are higher than average. But their work underscores evidence that...