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Archive for December, 2014
Here’s what will happen this century if don’t do anything about climate change
Posted by Fast Company: None Given on December 12th, 2014
Fast Company: Basically, a lot of death, both human and otherwise.
In case you haven't had a chance to read through the UN's huge recent report on climate change--over 2,000 pages long, and based on 9,200 peer-reviewed studies--a new interactive site called Global Weirding helps summarize how the planet may change over the rest of the century.
"The IPCC report is the most important report on climate change ever made--but it's also very, very inaccessible," says Tiina Ruohonen from CICERO, a Norway-based...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Here’s what will happen this century if don’t do anything about climate changeVulnerable nations urged to craft climate migration policy
Posted by Reuters: Megan Rowling on December 12th, 2014
Reuters: Countries vulnerable to extreme weather and rising seas should follow the example of small Pacific island states like Kiribati, and work out how to relocate threatened communities if there is no alternative, experts said at U.N. climate talks in Lima. "We now know that climate change is a driver of migration, and is expected to increase the displacement of populations," said Mary Robinson, U.N. special envoy for climate change. "This is an issue that doesn't get enough discussion," the former Irish...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Vulnerable nations urged to craft climate migration policyPeru’s melting glaciers a deadly threat as temperatures rise
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 12th, 2014
Reuters: High in the Peruvian Andes, the glacier-fed lake Laguna 513 brims with meltwater atop a populated valley in a region prone to earthquakes.
Scientists warn that if a giant chunk of ice from the Hualcan glacier breaks off it could trigger a tsunami-like wave in Laguna 513 and send a lethal torrent of water cascading down the valley.
It has happened before in the Andean nation. In 1970, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake shook ice blocks into highland lakes and unleashed an avalanche that buried the town...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Peru’s melting glaciers a deadly threat as temperatures riseKerry feels heat Keystone oil pipeline UN climate talk
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 12th, 2014
Reuters: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday urged countries at U.N. climate talks in Lima to move away from using fossil fuels while demonstrators gathered outside the meeting urged him to reject the Keystone oil pipeline.
"Coal and oil may be cheap ways to power an economy today... but I urge nations around the world: Look further down the road," he said.
As Kerry delivered a 30-minute speech trying to inject momentum into difficult UN climate negotiations, environmentalists stood outside...
Climate Change Too Fast for Ectotherms?
Posted by Nature World: None Given on December 11th, 2014
Nature World: Ecotherms like reptiles, amphibians and fish are normally able to adapt to changes in the climate, and have done so in the past, but this time around climate change may be moving too fast for these animals to keep up, a new study suggests.
Many animals can adapt to a warming world by modifying the function of their cells and organs in order to compensate for such environmental shifts. But with the overall global temperature expected to climb 3.6 degrees Celsius (38.5 Fahrenheit) by the end of...
Why Didn’t Toxic Waste Cause a Cancer Epidemic, Like We Expected in the 1970s?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2014
National Geographic: Like so many people who fear their health has been damaged by living near a hazardous waste site, the veterans of Camp Lejeune, a polluted Marine Corps base in Jacksonville, North Carolina, have had a long time to wait and stew.
For decades, until 1987, drinking water at the 244-square-mile (632-square-kilometer) coastal camp, home to 130,000 people, was contaminated with gasoline and cleaning solvents. The Environmental Protection Agency listed the camp as a Superfund site in 1989. (Read about...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Why Didn’t Toxic Waste Cause a Cancer Epidemic, Like We Expected in the 1970s?Oil pipelines are so last year, says Wall Street Journal
Posted by Grist: None Given on December 11th, 2014
Grist: What a difference a year makes. At the end of 2013, Keystone XL looked like a done deal. KXL South (a.k.a. the Gulf Coast Pipeline) was already built and weeks away from being turned on.
Now, a year later, that renowned pinko/green publication known as the Wall Street Journal writes that the fight against Keystone XL has been so successful that it`s become the training model for at least 10 other anti-pipeline fights. Seriously. There`s a slideshow and everything.
National groups provide access...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Oil pipelines are so last year, says Wall Street JournalCalifornia’s Drought: Don’t Blame Climate Change, NOAA
Posted by Nature World: None Given on December 11th, 2014
Nature World: The NOAA has just released a new report on the historic drought that has been affecting California for the last three years. Stunningly, investigators are saying that human-driven climate change is not to blame, and it is instead the consequence of natural phenomena.
That comes as a big surprise, even for experts, as the ongoing drought was recently revealed to be the worst the region has seen in more than a millennium, with 2014's summer being the driest seen in a whopping 1,200 years.
So...
Oil and Gas Industry Faces Its Methane Problem
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 11th, 2014
National Geographic: Seen with the naked eye, a natural gas facility's storage tanks and pipes appear fairly innocuous-boring, in fact. Switch to an infrared camera, and it looks like a five-alarm fire. Clouds of gas billow upward, spewing methane gas into the atmosphere.
This month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will decide on new rules aimed at the oil and gas industry's emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that often comes from leaky or inefficient equipment. But as the industry awaits possible...
Dried Out Amazon Could Speed Up Climate Change
Posted by Nature World: Jenna Iacurci on December 11th, 2014
Nature World: A new NASA-funded study has found that a dried out Amazon, which has experienced a decline in rainfall over the last decade, could speed up global climate change due to the subsequent drop in vegetation.
And global climate models predict that things are only going to get more arid for the region in the future.
The Amazon's tropical rainforests are one of the largest sinks for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) on the planet. They store an estimated 120 billion tons of Earth's carbon - that's...