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Archive for September, 2012
New UK Green Party Leader Reveals Her Strategy
Posted by Ecologist: Bibi van Der Zee on September 12th, 2012
Ecologist: The leadership election was, basically, a giant question to the membership. Where next? The ballot papers went out. The members voted. And Natalie Bennett, says Bibi van der Zee, appears to be the answer.
When Caroline Lucas stood down as leader of the Green Party in May, things were looking a little confused. The party was sitting on a string of successes -- an MP, two MEP, a city council -- that had seemed, for a while, to be moving towards a genuine breakthrough. But now momentum had stalled...
Arctic Ice At Lowest Level In Decades
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 12th, 2012
National Public Radio: Ice covering the Arctic Ocean is at its lowest levels in decades, or quite possibly centuries. The new low has smashed the previous record, set in 2007. Scientists blame a long-term warming trend in the Arctic, and say that the change could alter weather patterns throughout North America and Europe.
Something fishy California: rotten smell traced to Salton Sea
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 12th, 2012
Guardian: It smelled like rotten eggs, but the source of what California officials called a "very large and unusual odour event" has been traced to rotten fish.
The stench, which began on Sunday and spread throughout southern California, prompting hundreds of complaints and thousands of jokes, came from the inland lake known as the Salton Sea, air quality officials said on Tuesday.
The smell reached Los Angeles, 150 miles to the north, astounding experts who at first doubted it was scientifically possible...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Something fishy California: rotten smell traced to Salton SeaTree Deaths Linked to Climate Change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2012
Voice of America: Hot and dry conditions triggered by climate change are killing the world's trees, according to a new report which examines dozens of scientific articles on the subject.
Stanford University graduate student William Anderegg has seen this forest die-off firsthand.
His doctoral thesis documents the impact of drought on trembling aspen, the most common tree in North America.
"These are complete hillsides of trembling aspens that are dying off," Anderegg says. "And when the main tree in a forest...
Kenyan farmers cut tilling to raise yields, store carbon
Posted by AlertNet: Isaiah Esipisu on September 11th, 2012
AlertNet: In the west Kenyan village of Siilila, 27-year-old Geoffrey Wanjala and other members of his farmers' group are trying out a way of working the land that avoids ploughing and releasing the carbon dioxide stored in the soil. So far it is also cutting their costs and boosting yields.
Traditionally, farmers across Kenya till their land at least twice before planting, then weed it after their seeds have germinated. But the new method, known as conservation agriculture, aims to leave the land in its...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Kenyan farmers cut tilling to raise yields, store carbon2012 Has Had Most Extreme Weather On Record for U.S
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on September 11th, 2012
Climate Central: The first eight months of 2012 had the most extreme weather in U.S. since such record-keeping began in 1910, according to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). The Climate Extremes Index, or CEI, is used to track the highest and lowest 10 percent of extremes in temperature, precipitation, drought, and tropical storms and hurricanes across the lower 48 states. That the year-to-date was the most extreme on record should not come as much of a surprise, since the year to date was the hottest on record,...
NYC on rising seas: be resilient, not waterproof
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2012
New York Times: With a 520-mile-long coast lined largely by teeming roads and fragile infrastructure, New York City is gingerly facing up to the intertwined threats posed by rising seas and ever-more-severe storm flooding.
So far, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has commissioned exhaustive research on the challenge of climate change. His administration is expanding wetlands to accommodate surging tides, installing green roofs to absorb rainwater and prodding property owners to move boilers out of flood-prone basements....
Locusts threaten African Sahel food supply next year
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2012
Reuters: Locusts nesting in northern Mali and Niger threaten next year's food crop, the U.N.'s top aid official in the region said, after donors and governments across Africa's Sahel zone have contained a crisis caused by shortages this year.
Rains falling across the Sahel bode well for a healthy 2013 harvest but the pests, due to start moving across the region within weeks, add to long-term problems like high food prices and low production which must be tackled to end cyclical crises, David Gressly told...
Arctic Has Lost Enough Ice to Cover Canada and Alaska
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2012
Climate Central: The official end of the Arctic Ocean melt season could come any time now, but the sea ice that covers the North Polar region has already smashed the previous record low for end-of-summer ice area set in 2007.
Back then, a combination of warm temperatures and ice-dispersing winds left just 1.61 million square miles of ice cover -- but that meltback was surpassed in late August this year, and by now, the ice extent has dropped by more than 35 percent below the 2007 record, according to the National...
‘Alter lifestyle to counter climate change’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2012
Times of India: Environmentalist and alternative energy promoter Michael Mazgaonkar on Monday emphasized the need to change lifestyles in order to counter climate change effects. "While we are running out of our energy sources, the consequences of our modern day living are increasingly becoming alarming. Climate change is for real and unless we made conscious decisions to change our lifestyles, we would also be facing a Beijing-like situation where it rained 18 inches in 24 hours, killing 30 people, recently. We...