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Archive for April, 2013
Canadian Lawyer Wants Climate Change Warning Labels On Gas Pumps
Posted by Triple Pundit: Gina-Marie Cheeseman on April 23rd, 2013
Triple Pundit: Climate change is a very real threat to humanity, as many scientists have warned us. A Canadian lawyer named Robert Shirkey wants all Canadians who pump gasoline to understand the threat of climate change. He started a campaign, ourhorizon.org that calls for labels to be put on gas pump nozzles. The campaign aims to get municipalities in Canadian provinces to pass legislation that require the labels.
There are 4,000 municipalities in Canada. The campaign`s website contains a database of municipal...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Canadian Lawyer Wants Climate Change Warning Labels On Gas PumpsClimate zones will shift faster as world warms
Posted by Nature: Amanda Leigh Mascarelli on April 23rd, 2013
Nature: Earth's regional climate zones will shift more quickly in response to warming as the globe grows hotter in coming decades, according to a study published online in Nature Climate Change on Sunday1. This is likely to make it harder for species to cope, raising the risk of extinction.
“If these changes are happening faster and faster, it means that the ecosystems have less and less time to adapt,” says Irina Mahlstein, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental...
Bangladesh focuses on adaptation as climate fears grow
Posted by RTCC: Ed King on April 23rd, 2013
RTCC: Climate adaptation planning is likely to become a priority for Bangladesh’s leaders as the hopes of keeping global temperatures within safe limits decrease.
The country is already one of the most vulnerable in the world to flooding and storm surges. Torrential rain last year left over 100 dead and 250,000 stranded.
And compared to the USA post Hurricane Sandy, it takes Bangladesh more time to ‘bounce back’ from extreme weather events, which the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report says will get...
We can save Iraq’s ‘Garden of Eden’
Posted by New Scientist: Fred Pearce on April 23rd, 2013
New Scientist: Engineer Azzam Alwash is intent on restoring the fabled Mesopotamian marshes in southern Iraq that Saddam Hussein tried to wreck
Some say the marshes of southern Iraq are the origin of the Garden of Eden story. Why did Saddam Hussein drain them?
He said it was to make dry land for agriculture. He dug canals and diverted the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, causing 90 per cent of the marshes to dry out. But really, he saw the Marsh Arabs who lived there, fishing, cutting reeds and tending water...
Genetic study finds salmon refuge
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 23rd, 2013
BBC: An area of coastal waters around North-West France has been identified as a site for a previously unknown ice-free refuge for salmon during the Ice Age.
Researchers said the isolated marine haven would help explain the "genetic mosaic" of British and Irish salmon.
They added that fish from this refuge bred with fish from the Iberian peninsula as they migrated into UK waters as the ice receded.
The findings have been published in the journal Heredity.
"There has been a lot of work done...
Pollution Is Radically Changing Childhood in China’s Cities
Posted by New York Times: Edward Wong on April 23rd, 2013
New York Times: The boy’s chronic cough and stuffy nose began last year at the age of 3. His symptoms worsened this winter, when smog across northern China surged to record levels. Now he needs his sinuses cleared every night with saltwater piped through a machine’s tubes. The boy’s mother, Zhang Zixuan, said she almost never lets him go outside, and when she does she usually makes him wear a face mask. The difference between Britain, where she once studied, and China is “heaven and hell,” she said. Levels of...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Pollution Is Radically Changing Childhood in China’s CitiesMississippi barge traffic snarled by floods, accidents
Posted by Reuters: Karl Plume on April 23rd, 2013
Reuters: Commercial shipping traffic was moving again on the Mississippi River south of St. Louis after a pair of barge accidents that forced the U.S. Coast Guard to close the waterway over the weekend, but navigation remained severely impaired further north.
Flooding following torrential rains across the central United States forced the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to close about a dozen locks on the Illinois River and the Mississippi River north of St. Louis late last week.
The U.S. Coast Guard will...
For development in Brazil, two crops are better than one
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 22nd, 2013
ScienceDaily: It's not just about agriculture. Growing two crops a year in the same field improves schools, helps advance public sanitation, raises median income, and creates jobs.
New research finds that double cropping -- planting two crops in a field in the same year -- is associated with positive signs of economic development for rural Brazilians.
The research focused the state of Mato Grosso, the epicenter of an agricultural revolution that has made Brazil one of the world's top producers of soybeans,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on For development in Brazil, two crops are better than onePower Plants Use Rivers For Cooling, But Cause Stress To The Environment
Posted by RedOrbit: Michael Harper on April 22nd, 2013
RedOrbit: When thermoelectric power plants convert water to steam to turn large turbines and create energy, they’re left with plenty of what’s known as “waste heat.” This waste heat has to go somewhere and either flows up into the atmosphere or back into the rivers or ponds where these factories source their fresh water.
To better understand where this waste heat goes and how it affects the environment, scientists from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and the City College of New York (CCNY) ran a pair...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Power Plants Use Rivers For Cooling, But Cause Stress To The EnvironmentCanada: Alberta’s ‘Dirty Oil’: Drillers, Opponents Square Off
Posted by CNBC: Anne Thompson on April 22nd, 2013
CNBC: At a public hearing this week in Nebraska, there's sure to be plenty of talk about the environmental impact of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that will bring oil from Hardisty, Alberta through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska to Steele City and then on to Gulf Coast refineries.
But the real environmental debate begins hundreds of miles north where the oil comes from, in Fort McMurray, Alberta--the unofficial capital of oil sands country.
At the end of March, I visited the oil sands operations....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: Alberta’s ‘Dirty Oil’: Drillers, Opponents Square Off