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Archive for November 5th, 2015
Scientists Have Figured Out Which Natural Disasters We Can Blame on Climate Change
Posted by New Republic: Tim McDonnell on November 5th, 2015
New Republic: Climate scientists are pretty good at figuring out the causes of long-term trends. We know that dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will make global temperatures rise over time. But pinning down the cause of any single weather event--a specific heat wave, hurricane, or drought--is much more challenging, since extreme things could still happen without global warming. That's why scientists are so reluctant to say that any particular event happened "because of" climate change.
Nevertheless,...
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Comments Off on Scientists Have Figured Out Which Natural Disasters We Can Blame on Climate ChangeReport: 14 wild weather events last year goosed by warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 5th, 2015
Associated Press: New scientific analysis shows the fingerprints of man-made climate change on 14 extreme weather events in 2014, hitting every continent but Antarctica.
Dozens of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and across the world examined 28 strange weather conditions last year to see if global warming partly increased their likelihood or their strength. In a series of papers in a 180-page, peer-reviewed report, the scientists spotted some effects of climate change in half...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Report: 14 wild weather events last year goosed by warmingAnthropogenic warming in west Pacific likely contributed to the 2014 drought in East Africa
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 5th, 2015
PhysOrg: It comes as no surprise to geographer Chris Funk that East Africa has been particularly hard hit with back-to-back droughts this year and last. In fact, he and colleagues at the UC Santa Barbara /U.S. Geological Survey's Climate Hazards Group (CHG) predicted the area's 2014 event based the increasing differential between extremely warm sea surface temperatures in the west and central Pacific Ocean. Now with the same data set, CHG scientists have confirmed not only that this temperature differential...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Anthropogenic warming in west Pacific likely contributed to the 2014 drought in East AfricaExxonMobil hit with climate change investigation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 5th, 2015
CNN: ExxonMobil is under investigation by the New York Attorney General for withholding information from both its shareholders and the public about the risks of climate change. In a statement on Thursday, ExxonMobil confirmed that it has received a subpoena requesting documents and information pertaining to climate change. ExxonMobil said it "unequivocally" rejected any accusations that it had hidden climate change research. "ExxonMobil has included information about the business risk of climate change...
Why the Paris climate summit will be a peace conference
Posted by Tom Dispatch: Michael T. Klare on November 5th, 2015
Tom Dispatch: At the end of November, delegations from nearly 200 countries will convene in Paris for what is billed as the most important climate meeting ever held. Officially known as the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP-21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the 1992 treaty that designated that phenomenon a threat to planetary health and human survival), the Paris summit will be focused on the adoption of measures that would limit global warming to less than catastrophic levels....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Why the Paris climate summit will be a peace conferenceNo Longer Willing to be Bullied and Fracked, How One Pennsylvania Town Fought Back
Posted by RINF: Lauren McCauley on November 5th, 2015
RINF: In defiance of a corporate lawsuit over a proposed fracking wastewater injection well, the citizens of Grant Township, Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening adopted the country’s first municipal charter establishing a local bill of rights—a document which codifies environmental and democratic rights, and bans such drilling activity as a violation of that pact. “The people of Grant Township spoke loud and clear: They have rights, and they will protect those rights,” said Chad Nicholson of the Community...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on No Longer Willing to be Bullied and Fracked, How One Pennsylvania Town Fought BackHuman-caused climate change increased severity of many extreme events in 2014
Posted by Science Blog: None Given on November 5th, 2015
Science Blog: Human activities, such as greenhouse gas emissions and land use, influenced specific extreme weather and climate events in 2014, including tropical cyclones in the central Pacific, heavy rainfall in Europe, drought in East Africa, and stifling heat waves in Australia, Asia, and South America, according to a new report released today. The report, “Explaining Extreme Events of 2014 from a Climate Perspective” published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, addresses the natural and...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Human-caused climate change increased severity of many extreme events in 2014Illegal marijuana farms continue threaten fishers in California
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 5th, 2015
ScienceDaily: The relatively rare, forest-dwelling fisher is increasingly becoming the innocent victim of illegal marijuana farms in forested lands in California. According to a recently published study in the journal PLOS One, researchers found that the annual rate of poisoning deaths of fishers (Pekania pennant) rose 233 percent compared to a study in 2012. The toxicants were discovered to be associated with illegal marijuana farms on public and tribal lands in Northern and Southern California.
Previous studies...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Illegal marijuana farms continue threaten fishers in CaliforniaClimate Change Threatens Flavour of Argentine Wine
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 5th, 2015
Inter Press Service: Purple garlic that is losing its color? More translucent wine? Climate change will also affect the flavours of our food in the absence of measures to mitigate the impacts of global warming, which are already being felt in crops that are basic to local economies, such as in the Argentine province of Mendoza.
An exposition by the National University of Cuyo (UNCuyo), during the Climate Change Forum held in October in Mendoza, the capital of the province of the same name, organised jointly with the...