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Archive for June, 2015
Rise In CO2 Could Restrict Growing Days for Crops
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on June 20th, 2015
Climate News Network: The positive consequences of climate change may not be so positive. Although plants in the colder regions are expected to thrive as average global temperatures rise, even this benefit could be limited.
Some tropical regions could lose up to 200 growing days a year, and more than two billion rural people could see their hopes wither on the vine or in the field. Even in temperate zones, there will be limits to extra growth.
Plants quicken, blossom and ripen as a response to moisture, warmth and...
When Did the End Begin?
Posted by Science for Us: None Given on June 20th, 2015
Science for Us: A while back, I got invited by an artist friend to her loft for a Sunday-afternoon discussion she was hosting on the Anthropocene. I RSVP’d “yes,” enthusiastically, even though I wasn’t precisely sure what the term meant. The definition I’d sort of assumed — the age in which mankind had managed to overwhelm the world — had come to me almost through osmosis, from having encountered the term in journals, magazines, song lyrics. It was like a song that had been playing on the radio so often that I could...
The shale industry could be swallowed by its own debt
Posted by Bloomberg: Asjylyn Loder on June 20th, 2015
Bloomberg: The debt that fueled the U.S. shale boom now threatens to be its undoing.
Drillers are devoting more revenue than ever to interest payments. In one example, Continental Resources Inc., the company credited with making North Dakota’s Bakken Shale one of the biggest oil-producing regions in the world, spent almost as much as Exxon Mobil Corp., a company 20 times its size.
The burden is becoming heavier after oil prices fell 43 percent in the past year. Interest payments are eating up more than...
Will Pope Francis Climate Encyclical Change the World?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2015
LiveScience: Pope Francis has drawn the world's attention with a new encyclical that urges action on climate change. But will it have an impact?
The papal letter, titled "Laudato si," or "On Care for Our Common Home," paints a bleak picture of Earth as sick and poisoned at almost every level.
"The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth," Pope Francis wrote in the document, which is typically sent to bishops of all Roman Catholic churches. [6 Unexpected Effects...
Earth entering sixth extinction phase
Posted by Independent: Rose Troup Buchanan on June 20th, 2015
Independent: The planet is entering a new period of extinction with top scientists warning that species all over the world are “essentially the walking dead” – including our own.
The report, authored by scientists at Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley universities, found that vertebrates were vanishing at a rate 114 times faster than normal.
In the damning report, published in the Science Advances journal, researchers note that the last similar event was 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs disappeared, most...
Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change an awe-inspiring document
Posted by Globe and Mail: Elizabeth Renzetti on June 19th, 2015
Globe and Mail: First, you have to consider the profound weirdness of the situation we find ourselves in. Here is an institution founded on the mystical precepts of virgin birth and transubstantiation, trying to prove to disbelievers the very science that has been staring us in the eye for decades. The Catholic Church, which still clings to miracles and exorcism and continues to turn mortals into saints, also acknowledges that climate change is man-made, empirically proven, and is devastating to the world - concepts...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change an awe-inspiring documentFirefighters battle massive blazes from Alaska to drought-hit California
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
Reuters: Firefighters were working on Friday to contain several massive wildfires raging from Alaska to drought-hit California that have forced hundreds of people to evacuate from their homes and damaged dozens of structures.
The so-called Lake Fire in a mountainous national forest outside Los Angeles had swelled to 11,000 acres (4,500 hectares) on Friday from 7,500 acres (3,000 hectares) the day before as it scorched old-growth timber on steep slopes and threatened some 150 structures, the San Bernardino...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Firefighters battle massive blazes from Alaska to drought-hit CaliforniaCalifornia water district challenges cutbacks in water for farms
Posted by Reuters: Sharon Bernstein on June 19th, 2015
Reuters: Sharon Bernstein
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California water district challenges cutbacks in water for farmsResearch roadmap traces the path to ‘smart’ fire fighting
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
ScienceDaily: When responding to the more than 1.2 million blazes reported annually, the nation's firefighters usually start with a dangerous disadvantage: They often lack critical information -- even something as basic as a floor plan -- that could be vitally important in mounting the most effective and safest attack. That information gap could be erased with today's communication, computing, sensor and networking technologies according to a new Research Roadmap for Smart Fire Fighting. Prepared by the National...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Research roadmap traces the path to ‘smart’ fire fightingLake fire in California burns over 11,000 acres
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
ScienceDaily: The Lake Fire located in San Bernardino National Forest was reported just before 4:00 p.m. on June 17. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. It is approximately 11,000 acres in size and burning in timber. It is currently 10 percent contained. There are approximately 150 structures threatened, however no structures are believed to be damaged or destroyed at this time. Big Bear High School faculty and students had to relocate their graduation ceremony due to the fire's proximity.
Making...