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Archive for May 26th, 2013
Water Waste May Leave Us Thirsty
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 26th, 2013
Scientific American: Since 1900, the U.S. has pulled enough water from underground aquifers to fill two Lake Eries. And in just the first decade of the 21st century, we've extracted underground water sufficient to raise global sea level by more than 2 percent. We suck up 25 cubic kilometers of buried water per year.
That's the message from the U.S. Geological Survey's evaluation of how the U.S. is managing its aquifers. Or mismanaging. For example: water levels in the aquifer that underlies the nation's bread basket...
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Attention to climate patterns is crucial
Posted by My Desert: K Kaufmann on May 26th, 2013
My Desert: The aftermath of the tornado that ripped though Moore, Okla., on Monday was both heart-rending and predictable.
As the nation sat stunned by television and online images of the mind-numbing destruction, President Barack Obama declared the city a major disaster area, offers of assistance flooded in and the inevitable question hit the Internet. What role, if any, did climate change play in the twister, which the National Weather Service first classified as an EF 4 tornado but later upgraded to an...
Australia: 400 native species in danger
Posted by Sydney Morning Herald: Andrew Darby on May 26th, 2013
Sydney Morning Herald: The emu-wren, with its delicate filagreed tail, would go. So too would the master of disguise, the ground parrot - victims of increased fire in Australia's south-east.
And the palm cockatoo could disappear from its tropical toehold.
They are among 396 native birds likely to suffer as a result of climate change, according to the first analysis of global warming's effects on Australian birds.
Of 1232 Australian bird species and subspecies, one-quarter would do badly when exposed to the effects...
Climate change drowning ‘Venice of Africa’
Posted by Times: None Given on May 26th, 2013
Times: He had kept his two wives and many of his 16 children with him long after the neighbours had fled, in the vain hope that his once-bustling, tenacious west African village could survive the remorseless advance of the Atlantic Ocean.
"My house used to be two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the sea. I could grow things here because there was fresh water which came from the river," Diagne said, surveying a stretch of wet sand and rubble which, until last year, had been his living room.
Doun Babe Dieye,...
Arkansas quake swarms rattle nerves, raise questions
Posted by CNN: Alan Duke on May 26th, 2013
CNN: Three dozen earthquakes over the past week in central Arkansas shook shelves, rattled nerves and prompted speculation about their cause.
"Are they being being triggered or are they natural? That's something we don't know," Arkansas Geological Survey scientist Scott Ausbrook said Sunday.
The chances of so many temblors in the region in such a short time are "Powerball kind of odds," Ausbrook said. "What was unusual was to have four different areas in the state to be active in the same week."...
Fracking: How risky for us?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 26th, 2013
LA Times: California is believed to have more than 15 billion barrels of oil locked within the rocks under the Central Valley that might be used to feed the nation's energy hunger -- if oil companies can free it with hydraulic fracturing. Fracking, as the practice is popularly called, has been going on in the state for years, but mostly in a remote oil field in Kern County. The prospect of extensive new fracking efforts in the 1,750-square-mile geological formation known as the Monterey Shale, which extends...
Climate change threatening future life
Posted by The Nation: Saul Landau on May 26th, 2013
The Nation: Climate change seems to have exacerbated the stupidity of US daily life, or maybe we’ve long suffered from the consequences of the capitalist mode of production, plus the negative spin offs from the massive US war machine. Both systems feed off nature, which cannot sustain their demands on it. For example, both systems emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide, the most significant greenhouse gas that gets burned in production and war, and gets pumped into the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning and other...