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Archive for June, 2013
Dust Bowl Days Are Here Again
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 9th, 2013
Scientific American: Dear EarthTalk: Could it really be true that we are in the midst of the worst drought in the United States since the 1930s?—Deborah Lynn, Needham, Mass. Indeed we are embroiled in what many consider the worst drought in the U.S. since the “Dust Bowl” days of the 1930s that rendered some 50 million acres of farmland barely usable. Back then, drought conditions combined with poor soil management practices to force some 2.5 million Americans away from the Great Plains, only wreaking further havoc on...
Central Europe under water: Floods wreak havoc in Germany and Hungary
Posted by Independent: Tony Paterson on June 9th, 2013
Independent: Tens of thousands of people were being forced to evacuate their homes across swathes of Germany and Hungary today as further dramatic rises in the levels of the swollen Elbe and Danube rivers continued to cause some of the most devastating floods ever experienced in Central Europe.
In the east German city of Magdeburg, flood waters from the Elbe rose eighty centimetres higher than during Germany’s so called 2002 “flood of the century” today. Some 23,000 residents were forced to flee their homes...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Central Europe under water: Floods wreak havoc in Germany and HungaryClimate change impacting food supply in Ghana
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 9th, 2013
Times of India: Nearly 700,000 people in Ghana are staring at hunger as climate change has started taking a toll on food security in this West African nation of 25 million people, a survey shows. The phenomenon, according to an agrcultural expert, will further aggravate the frequency of droughts and storms which will affect food production.
"Severe warming, floods and drought may reduce crop yields. Livestock may be at risk, both directly from heat stress and indirectly from reduced quality of their food supply,...
Monsoon rains leave lasting traces in trees
Posted by Environment Health: Marissa Fessenden on June 9th, 2013
Environment Health: A tree's annual growth cycle creates a record of good seasons--and poor ones. Analyzing ring patterns in living and dead wood can help scientists date ancient ships or reconstruct changing climates.
In the U.S. Southwest researchers rely on tree rings to track changes in the seasonal monsoon rains that deliver about half of New Mexico and Arizona's precipitation. In the June issue of Scientific American Connie Woodhouse, associate professor in the School of Geography and Development at the University...
Waters Creep Higher in Budapest
Posted by New York Times: Palko Karasz and Melissa Eddy on June 9th, 2013
New York Times: This city’s embrace of the Danube, which normally bisects Budapest as a gently rolling swath of silver, turned threatening on Sunday when the river spilled over its banks and claimed the Hungarian capital as the latest victim of record floods in Central and Eastern Europe. An unusually wet spring has swollen the Danube, the Elbe and several of their tributaries across Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Hungary, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, disrupting rail and road...
China to build $17B worth of dams in Indonesian Borneo
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 9th, 2013
Mongabay: Two Chinese companies - China Power Investment Corporation and Anhui Conch Cement - will invest $17 billion in dams in North Kalimantan, Indonesia's newest province located on the island of Borneo, reports the Jakarta Globe.
The Indonesian government granted permission for the project on the Tayan River late last month. Indonesia’s Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik said the first phase of the project will break ground next year.
“Construction for the first phase will be completed...
Pakistan: Climate change may be making children sick
Posted by The News International: M. Waqar Bhatti on June 9th, 2013
The News International: Cases of vector-borne diseases have increased rapidly in the country this year, particularly in Sindh, and experts have linked this phenomenon to the irregular rain patterns
"This year, the rise in vector-borne diseases including diarrhoea, cholera, gastroenteritis, typhoid, and hepatitis is due to environmental factors and the effects of climate change," says Dr Iqbal Memon, renowned paediatrician and president of the Pakistan Paediatric Association.
Monsoon season in Pakistan normally starts...
Experts Urge Focus on Aquifers in Push for Water From Mexico
Posted by New York Times: JULIÁN Aguilar on June 8th, 2013
New York Times: As Texas lawmakers say farmers in the Rio Grande Valley are hurting because Mexico is not honoring a treaty on surface water delivery, experts caution that greater attention should be paid to water deep below the surface.
At least 20 aquifers stretch across the United States-Mexico border, said Gabriel Eckstein, a professor at the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law and the director of the International Water Law Project. Some are being mined at a record pace, he said.
"I know you have...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Experts Urge Focus on Aquifers in Push for Water From MexicoEight ways to solve world hunger
Posted by Guardian: Alex Renton on June 8th, 2013
Guardian: PREVENT LAND GRABBING An ugly side of current scares over future food supply is wealthy, land-poor states, like those in the Gulf and South Korea, acquiring tracts of undeveloped countries to use as allotments. It is a campaigning cause of the multi-charity IF campaign against hunger. Ethiopia, Sudan, Madagascar and Cambodia have been targeted and a total area the size of Spain may already have been acquired. Problem: Hard to police. Difficult to distinguish between genuine investment in Africa...
Climate science tells us the alarm bells are ringing
Posted by Washington Post: Michael Oppenheimer and Kevin Trenberth on June 8th, 2013
Washington Post: In a recent op-ed for The Post, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) offered up a reheated stew of isolated factoids and sweeping generalizations about climate science to defend the destructive status quo. We agree with the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that policy should be based on sound science. But Smith presented political talking points, and none of his implied conclusions is accurate. The two of us have spent, in total, more than seven decades studying Earth's climate,...