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Archive for June, 2014
Much of Minnesota Is Flooded as Swollen Rivers Overflow
Posted by New York Times: Julie Bosman on June 25th, 2014
New York Times: Minnesota was besieged on Tuesday by some of its most widespread flooding in years. Water spilled onto streets in downtown St. Paul, crops of soybeans and corn were damaged and a state of emergency was declared in 35 counties. The flooding spanned vast regions of the state, from the Canadian border to Iowa. It was the result of an unusually heavy snowpack from winter, combined with torrential rain this spring and early summer that had filled lakes and wetlands. A major storm that brought close to...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Much of Minnesota Is Flooded as Swollen Rivers OverflowMine: Protesters, investors urge PNC to abandon mountaintop-removal financing
Posted by Pittsburgh City Paper: Charlie Deitch on June 25th, 2014
Pittsburgh City Paper: Eileen Flanagan is no stranger to executives at PNC Bank.
Flanagan, of the Philadelphia-based environmental group Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT), appeared at an April PNC shareholder meeting in Tampa, and as recently as October, stood outside the bank's Downtown headquarters and bank branches with a single demand: Stop funding companies that engage in mountaintop-removal coal mining (MTR).
Now she and other environmentalists, including Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Mine: Protesters, investors urge PNC to abandon mountaintop-removal financingCarbon Cuts Now Won’t Stop Climate Change, but Could Limit Damage
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 24th, 2014
New York Times: Climate change is not an event in your children’s future. It is bearing down upon you now. And there is nothing you — or anyone else — can do to prevent the hit.
Over the next quarter-century, heat-related death rates will probably double in the southeastern states. Crop losses that used to happen only once every 20 years because of cataclysmic weather will occur five times as often.
This is our future even if every person on the planet abruptly stopped burning coal, gas, oil, wood or anything...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Carbon Cuts Now Won’t Stop Climate Change, but Could Limit DamageLoveland voters reject proposed fracking ban
Posted by KWGN: Stephanie Wolf on June 24th, 2014
KWGN: Loveland voters rejected a proposed two-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, Tuesday, according to unofficial election results.
In a press release, the City of Loveland said the measure to impose a two-year stay against the controversial process of forcing water, sand and chemicals deep into the earth to extract oil and gas was struck down by nearly a 1,000 vote margin - 10,844 votes were casted in opposition of the ban and 9,942 voted in favor.
Loveland is the sixth...
Australia: Kimberley traditional owners green light Buru fracking
Posted by Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Natalie Jones on June 24th, 2014
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A group of Kimberley traditional owners has agreed to allow oil and gas company Buru Energy to start fracking on its land.
The decision is in stark contrast to the 1970s where a clash between the Noonkanbah community and a different oil company led to riots and strikes.
Buru Energy wants to use hydraulic fracturing to test for tight gas flows in four wells, in the Kimberley's Canning Basin, east of Broome.
The plans were approved by the Department of Mines and Petroleum earlier this week....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Australia: Kimberley traditional owners green light Buru frackingHow Ford is motoring ahead with a water scarcity strategy
Posted by BusinessGreen: Matthias Krause on June 24th, 2014
BusinessGreen: For many companies, the cost of water—compared to the overall cost of production—hardly makes a blip on the radar screen. Yet clean water, or lack thereof, can cause a whole factory to suddenly have to shut down or, even worse, lead to a company losing its social license. In mid-June, Coca-Cola had to learn that the hard way when one of its bottling plants in India got shut down by the authorities because it was extracting too much groundwater. “The price of the water is not significant at the moment,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on How Ford is motoring ahead with a water scarcity strategyGrowing pains of China’s agricultural water needs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 24th, 2014
BBC: China's scarce water supply is being wasted as crops grown in water-stressed provinces are exported to wet, rainfall-rich areas, a study reports.
Farming accounts for about 65% of water use in China and the limited resource is coming under pressure from rapid urbanisation and industrialisation.
Officials have called the nation's water shortage a "grave situation" and called for strict water controls.
The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Water worries...
Is Water Scarcity Dampening Growth Prospects in the Middle East and North Africa?
Posted by Brookings: Julia Devlin on June 24th, 2014
Brookings: As turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa region mounts, concerns for water scarcity seem remote in light of deteriorating humanitarian and political circumstances. Yet, the roots of political rebellion in Syria are integrally linked with access to water resources[1] and rising water scarcity is viewed by some as the Achilles heel of higher growth prospects for the region as a whole.
Figure 1. Renewable Internal Freshwater Resources Per Capita, Select Countries (cubic meters)
Dwindling...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Is Water Scarcity Dampening Growth Prospects in the Middle East and North Africa?As Sea Levels Rise, Norfolk Is Sinking And Planning
Posted by National Public Radio: Yuki Noguchi on June 24th, 2014
National Public Radio: From the water's edge in Norfolk, Va., the U.S. naval base spans the whole horizon. Aircraft carriers, supply centers, barracks and admirals' homes fill a vast expanse.
But Ray Toll, a retired naval oceanographer, says the "majority of [the naval base], if not all of it" is at risk of flooding "because it's so low and it's flat."
The Norfolk-Hampton Roads area in Virginia is home to the largest naval operation in the world. This area is particularly vulnerable because the land is sinking as...
Bipartisan Report Tallies High Toll on Economy From Global Warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 24th, 2014
New York Times: More than a million homes and businesses along the nation’s coasts could flood repeatedly before ultimately being destroyed. Entire states in the Southeast and the Corn Belt may lose much of their agriculture as farming shifts northward in a warming world. Heat and humidity will probably grow so intense that spending time outside will become physically dangerous, throwing industries like construction and tourism into turmoil.
That is the picture of what may happen to the United States economy...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Bipartisan Report Tallies High Toll on Economy From Global Warming