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Archive for January, 2013
Canada: Is climate change putting Toronto’s infrastructure at risk?
Posted by CTV: None Given on January 30th, 2013
CTV: City hall’s parks and environment committee is debating a report Tuesday that paints a gloomy picture for Toronto’s existing and aging infrastructure.
The study examined the effect climate change will have on the city’s infrastructure in the decades to come.
In response to the study, some environmentalists are calling on the city to invest in a major overhaul of infrastructure, including roads, bridges, drainage and sewer systems, to prepare for and adapt to climate change projections and potentially...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Canada: Is climate change putting Toronto’s infrastructure at risk?Heavy rains in Australia leave four dead
Posted by New York Times: Matt Siegel on January 30th, 2013
New York Times: Punishing winds, torrential rains and powerful ocean swells have inundated large areas of Australia’s two most populous states, driving thousands of people from their homes and killing at least four people. The floods add one more blow to a barrage of bizarre and destructive weather in the country, which was in the grip of a searing four-month heat wave and scores of huge wildfires before the remains of Tropical Cyclone Oswald made landfall late last week. As the storm system crept south along...
Christie’s backing of federal shore rules raises worries
Posted by Philadelphia Inquirer: James Osborne on January 30th, 2013
Philadelphia Inquirer: Shore houses that have been in working-class families for generations will be abandoned. Property values will spiral downward, leaving Shore towns' budgets in tatters.
That is the dire scenario painted by a growing coalition of federal, state, and local officials along the Jersey Shore after Gov. Christie's announcement last week that New Jersey would adopt the federal government's preliminary floodplain maps - which would effectively require houses along large swaths of the Shore to be elevated...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Christie’s backing of federal shore rules raises worriesAustralia flooding: No end in sight to the devastation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 30th, 2013
Sydney Morning Herald: THE devastation caused by the cyclonic weather will continue for days, with thousands of homes inundated, entire communities isolated and the possibility that Brisbane could run out of drinking water.
Four people have died in the disaster, all in Queensland. A three-year-old boy hit by a falling gum tree while watching floodwaters in Brisbane is the latest victim.
His 34-year-old pregnant mother remained in a critical condition in hospital on Tuesday night with several broken bones and severe...
China’s coal use rivals rest of world combined – EIA report
Posted by US News and World Report: None Given on January 30th, 2013
US News and World Report: Since 2000, China has accounted for more than 80 percent of the global increase in coal use, according to the EIA.
China alone uses almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined, a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration noted Tuesday, and will likely dominate the coal market in 2013 thanks to the nation's increasingly ravenous demand for energy.
That bodes well for America's coal industry, experts say, which has languished in recent years as environmental regulations...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on China’s coal use rivals rest of world combined – EIA reportFeeding its people, India also confronts huge climate change challenge
Posted by Daily Climate: Kieran Cooke on January 30th, 2013
Daily Climate: India has to find a new model of development if the twin challenges of job creation and climate change are to be met, says an Oxford University academic, Barbara Harriss-White, of the Oxford Department of International Development.
"At present economic development in India is looked at very much in terms of catching up with Europe and East Asia", says Professor Harriss-White, a South Asia expert and part of an Oxford-based team investigating greenhouse gas emissions in India's informal economy...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Feeding its people, India also confronts huge climate change challengePakistan: Efforts on to improve climate change adaptation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 30th, 2013
The Nation: Director NDMA Brig Sajid Naeem has said that the government is working to improve climate change adaptation in the country to ensure that the risks faced by millions of poor and vulnerable communities across Pakistan are reduced, said press release issued here on Tuesday.
Addressing a seminar 'Building Resilience in the Indus Basin', organized by 'Save the Children' here, Brig Sajid said that Pakistan remains vulnerable to climate change and this vulnerability is likely to increase in the coming...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Pakistan: Efforts on to improve climate change adaptationState Dept’s Keystone XL Review Will Face EPA Scrutiny a Third Time
Posted by InsideClimate News: Lisa Song on January 30th, 2013
InsideClimate News: One of the biggest unknowns in the unfolding Keystone XL debate is the role the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency might play.
Because the Canada-to-Nebraska oil pipeline crosses an international border, the State Department, not the EPA, will decide whether to give the project the federal permit it needs. But the EPA can weigh in during the review, and its opinion will carry new weight now that the Obama administration has vowed to make climate change a national priority.
The EPA's position...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on State Dept’s Keystone XL Review Will Face EPA Scrutiny a Third TimeUnited Kingdom: Broadband an ‘excuse’ to build overhead cables in national parks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 30th, 2013
Telegraph: The Growth and Infrastructure Bill, due to pass through the House of Lords this week, is designed to kick-start the economy by making it easier to build roads, rail and warehouses in the countryside.
But hidden in the Bill is a clause that makes it easier to put in broadband infrastructure such as overhead cables, boxes and antennae in national parks.
Clause 8 removes the need for developers to seek approval from the relevant National Park Authority before building.
Lord Deben, a former...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Broadband an ‘excuse’ to build overhead cables in national parksIn Energy Taxes, Tools to Help Tackle Climate Change
Posted by New York Times: Eduardo Porter on January 30th, 2013
New York Times: To understand the complicated politics of climate change in the United States, you may want to talk to Pamela Johnson, president of the National Corn Growers Association’s Corn Board. She is concerned about the weather. The drought that parched the lower 48 states cut the harvest at her northern Iowa farm by about 40 bushels an acre. For the first time in memory, she says, she had to rely on the federally subsidized crop insurance program to stay afloat. And yet Ms. Johnson’s main concern, and...