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Archive for January, 2013
Pakistan, UN seek to cut risk of glacial lake floods
Posted by AlertNet: Rina Saeed Khan on January 28th, 2013
AlertNet: Abdul Jabbar was in his house in the Bindu Gol valley of Pakistan's northern Chitral district when a glacial lake burst through the ridge holding it back high above.
"We felt the ground shaking and heard the roar of the water, and we ran out of our homes,' he said. The 2010 flood destroyed a few dwellings in his village of Drongagh, as well as many orchards, cultivated fields and water channels. "One person died in Shogram village when she chased after her livestock and was swept away by the water,'...
Big Cities Could Alter Weather Of Areas Over 1,000 Miles Away
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 28th, 2013
RedOrbit: Large metropolitan areas could be drastically impacting the weather where you live, even if they’re hundreds of miles away, researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO); the University of California, San Diego (UCSD); Florida State University (FSU); and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) claim in a new study.
The researchers, who report their findings in the journal Nature Climate Change, discovered that the heat generated by day-to-day human activities in large...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Big Cities Could Alter Weather Of Areas Over 1,000 Miles AwayBetter than Organic
Posted by Inter Press Service: Gunter Pauli on January 28th, 2013
Inter Press Service: While in the early nineties I still had to search half the world to find certified organic children's wear, today even mainstream shops carry organic clothing, especially for children.
I still have to pay a premium price like twenty years ago, but the products are easily available since an increasing number of brands pride themselves on offering natural products.
Whereas we have debated the use of biofuels that increase the cost of food, especially when subsidies divert corn from tortillas...
Climate change endangers elephants, study says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 28th, 2013
PhysOrg: By making new use of historical records, scientists have shown that climate change could have a greater impact on Myanmar's elephants' dwindling numbers than previously thought.
Hannah Mumby from the University of Sheffield, who led the study, found that the already endangered species faces further struggle as even the slightest temperature change can lower their chances of survival dramatically.
Climate change leaves the animals at risk of drought, disease and death as the heat causes freshwater...
Cargill Cattle Plant Closes, Global Warming contributing factor?
Posted by Triple Pundit: RP Siegel on January 28th, 2013
Triple Pundit: It sounds a bit like justice served, doesn't it? When Cargill announced the closing of its Plainview, Texas, cattle operation, they cited a record low cattle supply as the result of the region's severe drought. Though scientific models don't yet have the precision to directly tie a particular weather event, be it a storm or a drought, to global warming trends, there is plenty of evidence indicating that drought is clearly increasing as the result of the changing climate. More clear is the linkage...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Cargill Cattle Plant Closes, Global Warming contributing factor?Drill reaches deep Antarctic lake
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 28th, 2013
BBC: An American attempt to bore down into Lake Whillans, a body of water buried almost 1km under the Antarctic ice, has achieved its aim.
Scientists reported on Sunday that sensors on their drill system had noted a change in pressure, indicating contact had been made with the lake.
A camera was then sent down to verify the breakthrough.
The Whillans project is one of a number of such ventures trying to investigate Antarctica's buried lakes.
In December, a British team abandoned its efforts...
United Kingdom: Deadly fish removed from lakes
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 28th, 2013
BBC: Work to remove a deadly fish species from three lakes at the Millennium Coastal Park in Llanelli is entering the second phase.
Topmouth gudgeon arrived in the UK from Asia by accident a few years ago and carries a disease which can kill native salmon and trout.
Environment Agency Wales will use a chemical for the operation.
It says it is confident its eradication programme can rid Wales of the fish.
Two other lakes at the park were treated late last year and from next week, the agency...
Enbridge Resisting Final Clean-Up of Its Michigan Oil Spill
Posted by InsideClimate News: Lisa Song, InsideClimate News on January 28th, 2013
InsideClimate News: Two and a half years after the costliest oil pipeline spill in U.S. history, the company responsible for the disaster is balking at digging up oil that still remains in Michigan's Kalamazoo River. The cleanup has been long and difficult because the ruptured pipeline was carrying bitumen, a heavy oil from Canada's tar sands region. Bitumen is so thick that it can't flow through pipelines until it's mixed with liquid chemicals to form diluted bitumen, or dilbit. When more than one million gallons...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Enbridge Resisting Final Clean-Up of Its Michigan Oil SpillUnited Kingdom: Cumbria nuclear waste dump vote
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 28th, 2013
BBC: Britain needs to find a site for the long-term underground storage of high-level radioactive waste.
With some of it staying dangerous for up to 100,000 years, the government's agreed solution is to bury it - permanently.
Three Cumbria councils are due to vote on Wednesday on whether to proceed to the next stage in the process of investigating whether such a facility would be possible - and safe - in the county.
What does the government want to build?
The underground storage facility would...
Barge hits bridge, spills oil into Mississippi River
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 28th, 2013
Associated Press: A barge carrying 80,000 gallons of oil hit a railroad bridge in Vicksburg, Miss., on Sunday, spilling light crude into the Mississippi River and closing the waterway for eight miles in each direction, the Coast Guard said. A second barge was damaged.
Investigators did not know how much had spilled, but an oily sheen was reported as far as three miles downriver of Vicksburg after the 1:12 a.m. (2:12 a.m. ET) incident, said Lt. Ryan Gomez of the Coast Guard's office in Memphis, Tenn.
Authorities...