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Archive for July, 2014
Struggling to rebuild the crashing Yukon River king salmon run
Posted by Alaska Dispatch: None Given on July 12th, 2014
Alaska Dispatch: When Stephanie Schmidt became Alaska’s Yukon River fishery research biologist in January 2012, she knew that all was not well along the sinuous length of the famed river. Chinook salmon numbers had been dwindling since 1998, and as a result, commercial harvest of the fish -- also called king salmon for their immense size and sumptuous meat -- was frequently halted. That didn’t help: The 2010 run was the second-worst in recorded history. 2011 was only a few fish better.
Faltering returns also hurt...
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Comments Off on Struggling to rebuild the crashing Yukon River king salmon runHuntington Lake summer fun drying up in California drought
Posted by LA Times: Diana Marcum on July 12th, 2014
LA Times: The water dropped another 2 feet the week of Don Winters' vacation.
Huntington Lake was at about a third of its normal level.
An island in the middle of the lake - a mini-hilltop of wildflowers that in other summers he'd paddled to in a canoe - was connected to shore by a bridge of land. It was a quick stroll from the new shoreline, now in the middle of where there used to be water.
But Winters, 65, never considered canceling his High Sierra vacation because of three years of California...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Huntington Lake summer fun drying up in California droughtNortheast Florida must prepare for rising sea levels
Posted by Florida Times-Union: None Given on July 12th, 2014
Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville is surrounded and bisected by water. So sea level rise ought to be raising concerns here. If tropical storms become stronger, the impacts could be severe. If flooding becomes more frequent, if rivers rise, the entire topography of Northeast Florida would be dramatically affected. Impacts of sea level rise can already be seen in Miami — tides backing up into the streets, salt water intrusion in the water supplies. Of course, Miami, having been created out of low lying areas, is especially...
Washington State, battling five wildfires, braces higher temperatures
Posted by Monitor: None Given on July 12th, 2014
Monitor: Potentially record-high temperatures this weekend threaten to complicate firefighting efforts in Washington State, where five wildfires already are raging.
Hot and dry weather forecast for this weekend could exacerbate the 28-mile Mills Canyon Fire and lead to additional wildfire outbreaks, officials warn. The coming heat wave could bring temperatures in the triple digits, National Weather Service’s Matt Fugazzi told The Seattle Times. The heat wave, coupled with dry conditions, could transform...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Washington State, battling five wildfires, braces higher temperaturesCoal-reliant Pennsylvania faces election showdown over EPA, natural gas and carbon trading
Posted by ClimateWire: Christa Marshall on July 12th, 2014
ClimateWire: The nation's third-largest carbon dioxide-emitting state is in the middle of a fierce election fight that could determine whether it stays on its current path of challenging U.S. EPA climate rules, or instead slows fossil fuel development and enters a regional carbon trading program.
In coal-reliant Pennsylvania, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett -- who has overseen the state's natural gas boom and called the EPA proposed carbon rule on existing power plants a "cap-and-trade tax" -- is facing a formidable...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Coal-reliant Pennsylvania faces election showdown over EPA, natural gas and carbon tradingWork begins on wall for 2 Sandy-devastated towns
Posted by Associated Press: Wayne Parry on July 12th, 2014
Associated Press: Two wealthy New Jersey shore towns that were among the hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy nearly two years ago began building a 4-mile-long steel wall Thursday, an expensive effort that the state says is needed to protect the communities but that some residents and environmentalists oppose.
State and local officials watched Thursday morning as the work began where the Atlantic Ocean tore through the sand and cut a channel into Barnegat Bay on the other side of the barrier island the communities share,...
Clearing way for conflict in Australia over farm land use
Posted by Sydney Morning Herald: Nicole Hasham on July 12th, 2014
Sydney Morning Herald: The irony might escape the uninitiated, but Bronwyn Petrie says thick clumps of eucalypts thriving on her Tenterfield farm do not mean the land is in rude health.
To the contrary, the trees block the rain and draw up so much moisture that the earth is withering away.
''There is this big myth that trees save the soil, but we know it`s time to thin trees when we start losing ground cover,'' Ms Petrie says.
However, laws protecting native bush mean not a single gum can be removed, she says....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Clearing way for conflict in Australia over farm land useNorth Carolina’s Outer Banks ‘ban’ rising seas
Posted by Sky News: Dominic Waghorn on July 12th, 2014
Sky News: Politicians in the United States have been accused of trying to make rising sea levels illegal. When scientists in North Carolina predicted global warming will cause a rise of at least a metre by the end of the century in the seas off the Outer Banks it caused uproar among businesses and property owners. The Banks are a 200-mile (320-km) long, narrow and very low-lying spit of land stretching into the Atlantic Ocean. They are hugely popular with holidaymakers and hugely vulnerable to global warming....
Don’t Call Them “Climate Deniers.” Call them “Climate Optimists.”
Posted by Mother Jones: Will Oremus on July 12th, 2014
Mother Jones: Las Vegas is parched. A 14-year drought has left Lake Mead, the local water source, dangerously low. It has dropped 100 feet in the past decade. If it drops 12 more feet, federal water rationing rules will kick in. Some climate scientists predict that will happen in the next year. And most believe the situation will only worsen over time.
The view from inside Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, however, is considerably rosier. That's where scientists, activists, and bloggers have assembled...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Don’t Call Them “Climate Deniers.” Call them “Climate Optimists.”NY High Court’s Local Ban Decision is No Basis Greenlighting Fracking
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 12th, 2014
Energy Collective: When the New York State Court of Appeals ruled last week that municipalities have the right to use their zoning codes to ban fracking, my reaction was one of intense relief and celebration. But I immediately became concerned that the pro-fracking elements would try to salvage something from their defeat by claiming that the decision somehow provided a justification for Governor Cuomo to greenlight fracking in the state. A column over the weekend by Fred LeBrun in the Albany Times Union made pretty...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on NY High Court’s Local Ban Decision is No Basis Greenlighting Fracking