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Archive for November, 2013
Little Preparation for a Great Disaster
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 12th, 2013
Inter Press Service: Despite the government's early warnings and evacuation of up to 800,000 people from vulnerable areas, the category 5 -- the highest level -- Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda to Filipinos) has left some communities and coastal zones in the central Philippine islands of Visayas in complete ruins.
Widely characterised as history's strongest-ever typhoon, Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines on Nov. 8, slightly weakening before claiming the lives of thousands of people and inflicting severe economic damage...
Tribal dispute puts Alaska village in limbo
Posted by Associated Press: Rachel D'oro on November 12th, 2013
Associated Press: The flood-prone village of Newtok near Alaska's storm-battered coast is running out of time as coastal erosion creeps ever closer to the Yup'ik Eskimo community.
As residents wait for a new village to be built on higher ground nine miles away, a dispute over who is in charge has led to a rare intervention by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which ruled that the sitting tribal council no longer represents the community of 350 as far as the agency is concerned.
Council leaders are appealing the...
Typhoon Haiyan Deadly Surge Noted in Warsaw Talks
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on November 11th, 2013
Climate Central: The devastation and mounting humanitarian crisis in the Philippines in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan is becoming more apparent with each passing hour, with the final death toll possibly climbing as high as 20,000 or more, making it the deadliest and most expensive natural disaster in that storm-prone country's history.
While Haiyan's winds have garnered most of the headlines, reports from the hardest-hit areas now indicate that it was likely the massive storm surge that caused the most damage...
From Philippines to Haiti, Disaster Recovery is a Way of Life
Posted by New York Times: Andrew C. Revkin on November 11th, 2013
New York Times: For many millions of people living in the planet’s poorest, most populous places, a state of recovery from what used to be called “natural” disasters has become the norm, not some exceptional circumstance. The central Philippines, now reeling from the impact of Typhoon Haiyan, a super storm if ever there was one, are just the latest place in which huge human losses follow a disaster that, in a rich country, would almost assuredly mainly exact a financial toll. See Keith Bradsher’s wrenching reports...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on From Philippines to Haiti, Disaster Recovery is a Way of LifeWhy Typhoon Haiyan Caused So Much Damage
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 11th, 2013
National Public Radio: The deadly typhoon that swept through the Philippines was one of the strongest ever recorded. But storms nearly this powerful are actually common in the eastern Pacific. Typhoon Haiyan's devastation can be chalked up to a series of bad coincidences.
Typhoons - known in our part of the world as hurricanes - gain their strength by drawing heat out of the ocean. Tropical oceans are especially warm, which is why the biggest storms, Category 4 and Category 5, emerge there. These storms also intensify...
Report on climate change depicts a planet in peril
Posted by LA Times: Tony Barboza on November 11th, 2013
LA Times: Climate change will disrupt not only the natural world but also society, posing risks to the world's economy and the food and water supply and contributing to violent conflict, an international panel of scientists says.
The warnings came in a report drafted by the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The 29-page summary, leaked and posted on a blog critical of the panel, has been distributed to governments around the world for review. It could change before it is released...
Tide turns on one front in Africa’s war against rhino poachers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 11th, 2013
Reuters: New infantry-style tactics of concealment and ambush by armed park rangers are credited with turning the tide in the war against poachers of the endangered rhino on one front, in South Africa's Madikwe Game Reserve.
The slaughter of rhinos - a creature regarded as an icon of African wildlife - for their horns to meet soaring demand in Asia has raised alarm bells among conservationists.
Since April, Madikwe rangers previously so under-equipped that they lacked even boots have been undergoing...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Tide turns on one front in Africa’s war against rhino poachersCanada: Is B.C. ducking questions about how LNG would affect carbon emissions targets?
Posted by Canadian Press: Dirk Meissner on November 11th, 2013
Canadian Press: Like the underground shale gas that Premier Christy Clark says will pave the way to a debt-free future, British Columbia appears caught between a rock and a hard place in balancing its hunger for a burgeoning liquefied natural gas industry and meeting its ambitious 2007 greenhouse gas pollution-reduction targets. If there is a definitive plan in place, the government isn’t laying it out yet: Natural Gas Development Minister Rich Coleman says the Liberals’ LNG economic plan, which includes a tax...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: Is B.C. ducking questions about how LNG would affect carbon emissions targets?Typhoon Haiyan: Philippines prepares climate change plans for worse to come
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 11th, 2013
Guardian: As one of the world's poorest and least developed countries, the Philippines is handicapped by a chronic lack of resources, poor or non-existent infrastructure, and a far-flung archipelagic geography when dealing with the natural catastrophes that regularly afflict it.
But hard-won experience is also forcing Filipino government administrators and agencies, and their international collaborators, to examine and create new strategies for disaster preparedness, response and mitigation that have important...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Typhoon Haiyan: Philippines prepares climate change plans for worse to comeMining Takes Bite Out of Guyana’s Amazon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 11th, 2013
Inter Press Service: Guyana is engaged in a balancing act to save its rainforest, regarded as a living treasure, from the destructive activities of miners digging their way to another kind of treasure buried beneath this fragile ecosystem.
Natural Resources Minister Robert Persaud warns that the country stands to lose about 20 million dollars from the forest conservation fund because it has lost more of the Amazon, mainly to gold and diamond mining."We are fighting for our land rights, we are fighting for our indigenous...