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Archive for July 13th, 2012
United Kingdom: Hull flooding case study: ‘We were absolutely traumatised’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 13th, 2012
Guardian: We never dreamt of it happening to our home. It was devastation. We were out of our home for 10 months and your life just goes on hold until it is all sorted.
It began when we were at the dentist in the early morning. When we came back the police had closed the road and there was three feet of water in the street. The water was coming out of the manholes in the street. We'd had no warning.
The water was in the house for two to three days, even with the fire brigade using 10-inch pipes to pump...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on United Kingdom: Hull flooding case study: ‘We were absolutely traumatised’United Kingdom: Residents face devastation with neither flood defences nor respite from the rain
Posted by Guardian: Damian Carrington and Martin Wainwright on July 13th, 2012
Guardian: The river Yarrow has been a friend to Croston in Lancashire for centuries, with St Michael's church and its old school built close to the banks, along with the rectory, smithy and farms which saw no need to retreat to higher ground. But three times since 1987, the sought-after village near Preston has been swept by flooding, most recently in June when 70 houses were damaged, some very seriously, by a sewage-laced torrent.
Engineer Peter Thomas stands in the wreckage of his family's living room,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Residents face devastation with neither flood defences nor respite from the rainClimate change campaigners cautioned over reaction to extreme weather
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 13th, 2012
Guardian: Climate change contrarians will dig in even deeper if campaigners try to use recent extreme weather like wildfires, drought and heatwaves as a call to action, a Republican global warming heretic has warned.
Bob Inglis, a former South Carolina congressman behind a new global warming thinktank, is an endangered species as a Republican who believes in climate change.
The recent freak weather does provide powerful evidence of the dangers of climate change, and could break through the GOP's wall...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change campaigners cautioned over reaction to extreme weatherWolverines’ food caches at risk to warming
Posted by LiveScience: Wynne Parry on July 13th, 2012
LiveScience: Wolverines, bearlike members of the weasel family, seem to depend on spring snow cover, but it's not clear why.
Now, an international group of researchers has a new theory: Wolverines use snow like a refrigerator to preserve food during the lean, cold times after their young are born, they suggest.
The animals live in the northern parts of North America, Asia and Europe where resources can be scarce. Their vulnerability to warming landed them as a "candidate for protection" in 2010 under the...
Madagascar: Most endangered mammal? Probably lemurs
Posted by MSNBC: None Given on July 13th, 2012
MSNBC: Of all the world's animals living on the verge of extinction, Madagascar's lemurs are teetering closest to the brink. A new assessment of these primates reveals they are probably the most endangered group of vertebrates on Earth, beating out all other mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and bony fish for the dismal distinction.
Ninety-one percent of the 103 known lemur species are threatened, conservationists concluded this week at a workshop of the International Union for Conservation of Nature...
United States: Obama pumps $80m into Everglades as some environmentalists ponder motive
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 13th, 2012
Guardian: Senior loyalists in the Obama administration seized a valuable election-year opportunity to talk up the president's environmental credentials today as they announced an increase in funding to restore the Florida Everglades.
Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture, was one of several top officials chosen to front a press conference in Kissimmee trumpeting a further $80m investment in a project supporting farmers and ranchers who preserve land for agriculture and wildlife.
Claiming that President...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United States: Obama pumps $80m into Everglades as some environmentalists ponder motiveMore floods on the way for UK’s washout summer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 13th, 2012
Press Association: Warnings of yet more flooding have been issued, as some areas face downpours that could see almost a month's rain falling in just a few hours.
The Environment Agency said people across central and eastern England should remain on alert for possible floods as heavy thunderstorms were forecast for many areas on Friday and Saturday.
The Met Office has issued another severe weather warning of heavy rain for parts of the Midlands, southern and eastern England and Wales, forecasting that many areas...
Record Amount of Arctic Sea Ice Melted in June
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on July 13th, 2012
Climate Central: The Arctic melt season is well underway, and sea ice extent -- a key indicator of global warming -- declined rapidly during June, setting a record for the largest June sea ice loss in the satellite era. Sea ice extent is currently running just below the level seen at the same time in 2007, the year that set the record for the lowest sea ice minimum in the satellite era.
While the current rate of sea ice decline does not necessarily indicate that another record low will be set this year -- weather...
Poll Finds Most Americans Believe The World Is Warming
Posted by National Public Radio: Eyder Peralta on July 13th, 2012
National Public Radio: A Washington Post-Stanford University poll released today finds that most Americans believe the world is warming.
Here's how the Post wraps up the findings:
"Americans polled by The Post and Stanford do see climate change as occurring: Six in 10 say weather patterns around the world have been more unstable in the past three years than previously, a perception that's changed little since 2006. Nearly as many also say average temperatures were higher during the past three years than before that....
Survey: Americans Rank Last In Green Lifestyles, Don’t Feel Guilty
Posted by Forbes: None Given on July 13th, 2012
Forbes: If the stereotype of a typical American is an obese, SUV-driving, junk food-scarfing couch potato oblivious to the outsize environmental impact of his consumerist lifestyle, a new National Geographic survey of green attitudes and actions in 17 countries is not going to change many minds.
Americans came in dead last when it comes to sustainable behavior while feeling among the least guilty about their disproportionate consumption of the world’s resources, found the survey of 17,000 consumers in...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Survey: Americans Rank Last In Green Lifestyles, Don’t Feel Guilty