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Archive for November 13th, 2012
United States: As Floods Recede, Brooklynites Fear Contamination
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 13th, 2012
New York Times: Since last month`s storm, Juan Falcon says he has been cutting through the wallboard in the basement of his two-story house to let the walls breathe and to block the advance of mold. The walls in the basement apartment occupied by his 29-year-old son are still damp from the four feet of water that flooded the neighborhood.
Mr. Falcon lives in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, near Newtown Creek and surrounding parcels that are undergoing a federal Superfund cleanup for pesticides, heavy metals,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on United States: As Floods Recede, Brooklynites Fear ContaminationItaly: Venice floods attributed to climate change
Posted by LA Times: Christopher Knight on November 13th, 2012
LA Times: As coastal areas of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut are just drying out from horrific flooding prompted by Hurricane Sandy, more watery disaster has struck 4,200 miles away in Italy. Following torrential rains, Venice is experiencing unusually bad flooding.
It's the fourth time floods have exceeded norms there since 2000.
One of the world's great artistic treasures, the low-lying city of lagoons on the Adriatic Sea experiences problems from high waters every winter. Especially around St....
Amid Energy Boom, Report Warns of Unsustainable Path
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on November 13th, 2012
Climate Central: The oil and natural gas boom in the U.S. is having far-reaching effects on the global energy landscape, according to the "World Energy Outlook' report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The report shows that the U.S. is likely to become the largest global oil producer by about 2020, overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia, although Saudi Arabia may reclaim that title soon thereafter.
Tower for drilling horizontally into the Marcellus Shale Formation for natural gas, from Pennsylvania...
Is Fracking Worth It? NY Elected Officials Say No
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 13th, 2012
EcoWatch: Today in Albany, NY Elected Officials to Protect New York held a press conference detailing the negative socio-economic impacts of fracking. They also announced that Elected Officials to Protect New York now represents more than 525 local elected officials from 61 counties, a landmark achievement that is indicative of their broad-based, non-partisan support from across New York State.
Elected Officials to Protect New York had previously written to Governor Cuomo on June 4 about the inadequacy...
Obama needs to face climate change, reject Keystone pipeline
Posted by Mother Nature Network: None Given on November 13th, 2012
Mother Nature Network: It will be painfully easy to tell if President Barack Obama is going to take a serious stab at doing something about climate change in his second term: the purest, starkest test he faces will be the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from the tar sands of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Last fall, his stance on the Keystone project exemplified his waffling and contradictory climate policy. Faced with a solid front of the nation's foremost Earth scientists explaining that tapping Canada's tar sands for...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Obama needs to face climate change, reject Keystone pipelineNine Arrested at Four Bank of America Branches in Coal Protest
Posted by EcoWatch: Rainforest Action Network on November 13th, 2012
EcoWatch: Nine people were arrested today in sit-ins at four different Bank of America locations across Charlotte, North Carolina. The activists were part of Rainforest Action Network’s campaign to confront the bank’s leading role in coal financing, which impacts the quality of air in North Carolina and contributes to global climate change pollution.
Among those arrested was Patricia Moore, 75, of Charlotte, a Bank of America family shareholder and grandmother concerned about the impact coal pollution is...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Nine Arrested at Four Bank of America Branches in Coal ProtestBelo Monte construction halts after protestors torch buildings at three construction sites
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 13th, 2012
Agence France-Presse: Work on Brazil's controversial $13 billion Belo Monte mega-dam ground to a halt Monday after protesters torched buildings at three dam construction sites over the weekend, the developer said.
Aerial of an area in Altamira, Para state, Brazil, in May 2012, that will be flooded by the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on the Xingu River. Work on Brazil's controversial $13 billion Belo Monte mega-dam ground to a halt Monday after protesters torched buildings at three dam construction sites over the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Belo Monte construction halts after protestors torch buildings at three construction sitesNew study suggests parts of the Northern Hemisphere depending on snowpack will get thirstier
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 13th, 2012
New York Times: The likelihood of unusually low-snowfall years increases over time in this animation of the data collected by the Stanford University professor Noah Diffenbaugh. As the colors move from blue to green to yellow to orange to red in coming decades, the likelihood of less snow increases.
The latest issue of the journal Nature Climate Change included what might be viewed as a scholarly good-news/bad-news riff on future supplies of fresh water around the world. The good news, as described here by my...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New study suggests parts of the Northern Hemisphere depending on snowpack will get thirstierItaly floods prompt fears for future of farming
Posted by Guardian: Tom Kington on November 13th, 2012
Guardian: The floods that have devastated Italy over the past week could become even more severe in the future, threatening food production and destroying the country's natural beauty, experts warn.
Storms have battered ancient towns and left large swaths of farmland in Tuscany under water, prompting a warning from the region's governor, Enrico Rossi, that "climate change is making us get used to ever more violent flooding".
Three people were found dead on Tuesday after their car fell from a collapsed...
2012 May Rank As 2nd Most Disastrous Year Since 1980
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on November 13th, 2012
Climate Central: With about six weeks remaining in the year, there have already been 11 natural disasters that have cost $1 billion or more in damage, bringing 2012 to second place on the list of top billion-dollar disaster years. The current record-holder is 2011, when there were 14 billion-dollar disasters. The widespread and intense drought -- which as of Nov. 6 still covered at least 60 percent of the lower 48 states -- and Hurricane Sandy are expected to go down in history as two of the most costly weather-related...