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Archive for November 6th, 2014
No Recovery, But a Sliver of Drought Gain for Calif
Posted by Climate Central: Brian Kahn on November 6th, 2014
Climate Central: The phrase "abnormally dry' might conjure up a skin condition or your preferred type of martini. But it might just be the most positive words uttered in months about California's relentless drought. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday, a tiny sliver of the Golden State is no longer in drought, the first time that's happened since late April.
"Abnormally dry' is what the Drought Monitor uses to describe areas on the fringes of drought. This week's Drought Monitor shows a fraction...
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Is the world moving backwards on protected areas?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 6th, 2014
Mongabay: Protected areas are undoubtedly the world's most important conservation success story, and recent research shows that protected areas are effective-housing more biodiversity and greater abundances of species inside rather than out. But, despite this, progress on protected areas is stalling and in some cases even falling behind. According to a sobering new paper today in Nature, only 20-50 percent of the world's land and marine protected areas are meeting their goals, while the rest are hampered by...
New mindset needed to handle wildfire hazard
Posted by Daily Climate: Tim Radford on November 6th, 2014
Daily Climate: Towns, rural settlements and even whole societies will become increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic losses unless people learn to live with wildfire, rather than try to fight it.
But Max Moritz, of the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley, and research colleagues from the US and Australia report in Nature journal that they also found evidence from three continents suggesting that government policies can make things worse.
Fire-fighting strategies and land-use...