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Archive for January, 2014
Brown: Calif. comes back but challenged by drought
Posted by Associated Press: Juliet Williams on January 23rd, 2014
Associated Press: Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday delivered dual messages in his annual address to the Legislature: California's resurgence is well underway but is threatened by economic and environmental uncertainties.
Chief among those uncertainties is that the severe drought gripping the nation's most populous state and already forcing water cutbacks among farms and cities eventually could exact a financial toll on the state's improving finances.
In the State of the State address, Brown said it was not clear...
New river dolphin species discovered in Amazon for first time in 100 years
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 23rd, 2014
Independent: Scientists have discovered a new species of dolphin in the Amazon River system for the first time in almost 100 years – and say it should immediately be given endangered status.
Experts from the Federal University of Amazonas in Manaus, Brazil found that a small group of river dolphins, also known as botos, in the Araguaia basin were separated from other populations by only a narrow canal and series of rapids.
Upon closer inspection and after DNA testing, Tomas Hrbek and his team discovered...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on New river dolphin species discovered in Amazon for first time in 100 yearsTexas Landowners Keep Watchful Eye On Keystone KL Pipeline
Posted by National Public Radio: Mose Buchele on January 23rd, 2014
National Public Radio: Oil is now running through the southern part of the keystone XL pipeline. Supporters and opponents will be watching carefully to see what that could mean for the northern section of the project, that still awaits approval from the Obama administration.
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Texas Landowners Keep Watchful Eye On Keystone KL PipelineKenya Burns Indigenous People Out of Ancestral Lands
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on January 23rd, 2014
Environment News Service: The Kenyan government has sent Kenya Forest Service guards, with police support, to Embobut Forest in the Cherangany Hills to forcibly and illegally evict thousands of Sengwer indigenous people from their ancestral forest lands and burn their homes and belongings.
Cherangany Hills, rolling slopes in Kenya`s western highlands, are one of the country`s five main forests. In their forest glades high in the Cherangany Hills, Sengwer homes have been being torched for the last 10 days. Today the Administrative...
Greenland eyes mines as melting ice cap unlocks mineral riches
Posted by Reuters: Balazs Koranyi on January 22nd, 2014
Reuters: Greenland will push ahead with a uranium and rare earths mine despite the objections of its former colonial ruler and main benefactor as the melting of the polar ice cap unlocks the country's natural resources, its prime minister said. Arctic Greenland, with the lowest population density in the world, could open its first big iron ore mine in five years and award the first rare earths exploitation licence by 2017, hoping for riches that could attract thousands of workers and leave the locals in...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Greenland eyes mines as melting ice cap unlocks mineral richesBelieve it: Global warming can produce more intense snows
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 22nd, 2014
Mother Jones: We all remember "Snowmageddon" in February of 2010. Even as Washington, D.C., saw 32 inches of snowfall for the month of February--more than it has seen in any February since 1899--conservatives decided to use the weather to mock global warming. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe and his family even built an igloo on Capitol Hill and called it "Al Gore's New Home." Har har.
Yet at the same time, scientific voices were pointing out something seemingly counterintuitive, but in fact fairly simple to understand:...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Believe it: Global warming can produce more intense snowsA big fracking lie
Posted by Politico: BILL MCKIBBEN and MIKE TIDWELL on January 22nd, 2014
Politico: There, right on the Chesapeake Bay, the Obama administration wants to give fast-track approval to a $3.8 billion facility (12 times the cost of the NFL Ravens stadium) to liquefy gas from all across Appalachia. The new plant, proposed by Virginia-based Dominion Resources, would somehow be built right between a coveted state park and a stretch of sleepy beach communities, with a smattering of Little League baseball fields just down the road. Along the Chesapeake itself, endangered tiger beetles cling...
Australia should probably get used to these devastating heat waves
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 22nd, 2014
Atlantic: In the late 1990s, a particularly strong El Niño oscillation scourged the world with droughts, floods, and disruptions to the food supply. Carrying the energy equivalent of a million Hiroshima bombs, the titanic climate event was ultimately responsible for 23,000 deaths and at least $35 billion in damages.
In a scenario of unimpeded climate change, this kind of large-scale mayhem could become routine, according to distressing new research. Whereas the planet now receives an especially potent El...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Australia should probably get used to these devastating heat wavesOur national drought of climate change coverage
Posted by Nation: Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson on January 22nd, 2014
Nation: ncreasingly, it has become an article of faith among political leaders on the right that anthropogenic climate change is a “hoax” perpetrated on gullible Americans. To conservatives like Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, greedy scientists are spreading a phony tale of impending climatic disaster as part of some socialist takeover plot, all of it propelled along by a complicit “liberal media.” There are various reasons why this conspiracy theory is patently false; most notable among them is the overwhelming...
United Kingdom: Climate change not main cause of floods, scientists suggest
Posted by Telegraph: James Edgar on January 22nd, 2014
Telegraph: Climate change is not the main cause of floods, scientists have suggested.
The debate on whether recent floods were caused by global warming is a distraction from "the things we already know for certain', according to research.
Any links between climate change and flooding are "highly complex' and experts have struggled to make a case for the theory, a study has said, whereas human activity such as building on floodplains is known to make flooding worse.
The Prime Minister told MPs in the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Climate change not main cause of floods, scientists suggest