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Archive for November, 2013
Anti-fracking activists celebrate victory in a fourth Colorado city
Posted by Grist: John Upton on November 15th, 2013
Grist: It turns out that it was a clean sweep for opponents of fracking during last week`s elections in Colorado.
Voters in the city of Broomfield narrowly approved a five-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. The initial vote tally indicated that the ballot measure had failed by 13 votes, but by the end of an exhaustive recount on Thursday it was revealed it had actually succeeded by 17 votes. The result is expected to be legally certified today, but because the vote was so close there may still...
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Comments Off on Anti-fracking activists celebrate victory in a fourth Colorado cityTiny algae signal big changes for warming Arctic lakes
Posted by Mongabay: Molly Sharlach on November 15th, 2013
Mongabay: The mighty polar bear has long been the poster child for the effects of global warming in the Arctic, but the microscopic diatom tells an equally powerful story.
Diatoms are a type of algae that form the base of the food chain in watery habitats the world over. Disturbances among lake diatoms have exposed the impacts of rapid warming in the Hudson Bay Lowlands of eastern Canada, researchers reported Oct. 9 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
View of Hudson Bay from space. Red dot indicates...
Canada’s great inland delta: A precarious future looms
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Ed Struzik on November 15th, 2013
Yale Environment 360: Along the banks of the Quatre Fourches River, 125 miles downstream of Alberta’s massive tar sands development, Joe Wandering Spirit once lived in a single-room cabin with a crazy cat and a team of sled dogs that he kept tied up outside year-round.
As Wandering Spirit knows, living in the heart of the Peace-Athabasca Delta -- one of the world’s largest inland freshwater deltas -- has never been secure. In this 2,200-square-mile expanse of waterways and wetlands, seasonally meandering rivers and...
IEA: Tar sands export pipelines needed for Canada’s oil to boom
Posted by InsideClimate: John H. Cushman Jr. on November 15th, 2013
InsideClimate: Growth in the Canadian oil sands industry will depend on the construction of major new pipelines, including the disputed Keystone XL across the United States, according to a report by a prominent energy institute. The faster new pipelines are approved, the more rapid the increase in tar sands production over the next two decades, the International Energy Agency said in its annual World Energy Outlook [3], released on Nov. 12. Accelerated growth would mean a surge in global greenhouse gas emissions,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on IEA: Tar sands export pipelines needed for Canada’s oil to boomCleaning Up: China Reform Plan Tackles Pollution
Posted by Wall Street Journal: Wayne Ma and Brian Spegele on November 15th, 2013
Wall Street Journal: A number of episodes in recent months have added to growing public concern over the environment in China, including severe air pollution in January in Beijing and several other places, as well as the discovery of cadmium-tainted rice in supplies in the southern province of Guangdong. Environmental degradation is now seen as a threat to China's social instability and a key component in economic reform.
In the economic and political roadmap released Friday, China said it wants to introduce a system...
Canada: Quebec Government to Review Enbridge’s Line 9B Pipeline-Reversal Proposal
Posted by Gazette: Monique Beaudin on November 15th, 2013
Gazette: Nearly a year after it first promised to study the project, Quebec says it will hold public consultations on Enbridge's controversial Line 9B pipeline project.
A parliamentary commission will hold public hearings from Nov. 26 to Dec. 5, with a report to be submitted to the National Assembly by Dec. 6, Environment Minister Yves-François Blanchet said Wednesday.
Blanchet's announcement came just hours after the Ontario government said it planned to do its own study of another proposed pipeline...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: Quebec Government to Review Enbridge’s Line 9B Pipeline-Reversal ProposalAs Climate Warms American West, Iconic Trout In Jeopardy
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 14th, 2013
National Public Radio: In the mountain streams of the American West, the trout rules. People don't just catch this fish; they honor it. And spend lots of money pursuing it.
But some western trout may be in trouble. Rivers and streams are getting warmer and there's often less water in them. Scientists suspect a changing climate is threatening this iconic fish.
I joined two such scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey as they drove up a mountain road in Montana, in the northern Rockies, a place dense with stands...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on As Climate Warms American West, Iconic Trout In JeopardyMore Heat Waves, Drought, Sea Level Rise In Store For Southeast U.S.: Report
Posted by Weather Channel: Terrell Johnson on November 14th, 2013
Weather Channel: Southerners will see more drought, longer and more severe heat waves, and poorer air quality over the next 20 years and beyond, according to a new report on the impact of climate change in the Southeastern U.S.
Titled Climate of the Southeast United States: Variability, Change, Impacts and Vulnerability, the report is part of the U.S. National Climate Assessment and comes billed as the "most comprehensive look to date" at climate-related impacts across an 11-state region that stretches from the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on More Heat Waves, Drought, Sea Level Rise In Store For Southeast U.S.: ReportAustralia’s Politics of Global Warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 14th, 2013
New York Times: Huge clumps of strange, pink-stringed jellyfish drifted into the protected bay near my home in Sydney last year. Thousands swarmed under the surface, stinging indiscriminately. I swam through them in a full-body wet suit for several long months with my swimming group, wondering if warmer currents had changed the habitat patterns. Scientists are now talking about a peculiar “jellification” of the sea, prompted by climate change. We smeared ointments on our faces and packed antihistamines and creams...
Island biodiversity in danger of total submersion with climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 14th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Sea level rise caused by global warming can prove extremely destructive to island habitats, which hold about 20% of the world's biodiversity. Research by C. Bellard, C. Leclerc and F. Courchamp of the University of Paris Sud look at 3 possible scenarios, from optimistic to very pessimistic, to bring attention to the dangers in store for some of the richest biodiversity hotspots worldwide. The study was published in the open access journal Nature Conservation. Despite climate change having received...
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