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Archive for January, 2016
Agroecology in Africa: Mitigation the Old New Way
Posted by Inter Press Service: Frederic Mousseau on January 11th, 2016
Inter Press Service: Millions of African farmers don’t need to adapt to climate change. They have done that already. Like many others across the continent, indigenous communities in Ethiopia’s Gamo Highlands are well prepared against climate variations. The high biodiversity, which forms the basis of their traditional enset-based agricultural systems, allows them to easily adjust their farming practices, including the crops they grow, to climate variations. People in Gamo are also used to managing their environment...
British Columbia to oppose Kinder Morgan’s pipeline expansion
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 11th, 2016
Reuters: The British Columbia government said on Monday it will formally oppose the expansion of Kinder Morgan Inc's Trans Mountain pipeline to Canada's west coast, another blow to oil sands producers already reeling from a global crude price crash. Kinder Morgan wants to nearly treble Trans Mountain's capacity to carry 890,000 barrels per day of crude from landlocked Alberta, to Burnaby, British Columbia, where it can be loaded on to tankers and shipped to lucrative Asian refining markets. Alberta's carbon-intensive...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on British Columbia to oppose Kinder Morgan’s pipeline expansionGiant icebergs are slowing climate change, research reveals
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 11th, 2016
Guardian: Giant melting icebergs may be a symbol of climate change but new research has revealed that the plumes of nutrient-rich waters they leave in their wake lead to millions of tonnes of carbon being trapped each year. Researchers examined 175 satellite photos of giant icebergs in the Southern Ocean which surrounds Antarctica and discovered green plumes stretching up to 1,000km behind them. The greener colour of the plumes is due to blooms of phytoplankton, which thrive on the iron and other nutrients...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Giant icebergs are slowing climate change, research revealsThe solution for melting polar ice caps may be hiding in rainforest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 11th, 2016
Guardian: There was already dramatic evidence that our planet is undeniably warming before 30 December 2015, when the world heard that the ice at the North Pole was melting. (The temperature on 30 December 2015 was, by some reports, 33ºF [0.7ºC], 50ºF above average).
And yet one immediate, effective way to fight climate change and save polar ice caps is half a world away, in the tropics. Tropical forest conservation and restoration could constitute half of the global warming solution, according to a recent...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on The solution for melting polar ice caps may be hiding in rainforestHigh-stakes claims, hazy precedent steer Keystone XL lawsuit
Posted by EnergyWire: Ellen M. Gilmer on January 11th, 2016
EnergyWire: TransCanada Corp.'s attempt to resuscitate the Keystone XL pipeline promises a drawn out legal battle over President Obama's rejection of the long-embattled oil project.
The pipeline backer Wednesday lodged dual complaints challenging Obama's November rejection of the proposed oil pipeline. While one complaint seeks to recover sunk investments under the North American Free Trade Agreement (EnergyWire, Jan. 7), the other asks a federal court in Texas to declare that Obama was constitutionally out...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on High-stakes claims, hazy precedent steer Keystone XL lawsuitWildfires broke record in 2015 – scorching an area seven times the size of Toronto
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 11th, 2016
Vancouver Sun: Wildfires scorched a record amount of Canada’s national parks last year — the latest in a number of long, hot summers that have almost entirely depleted Parks Canada’s firefighting reserve. “We had a very busy fire year,” said director of fire management Jeff Weir. “We had more wildfires than normal and those fires burned larger areas than normal.” The agency’s annual fire report recorded 122 wildfires in 2015 that burned through 4,600 square kilometres — seven times the area of the city of Toronto....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Wildfires broke record in 2015 – scorching an area seven times the size of TorontoBattle over Dominion coal-ash ponds heads to state water board this week
Posted by Washington Post: Antonio Olivo on January 11th, 2016
Washington Post: After months of contentious debate, a state regulatory board will decide this week whether to allow Dominion Virginia Power to divert water from coal-ash ponds into a nearby creek after treating that water to remove pollutants. The battle pits environmentalists and local elected officials -- both Democrats and Republicans — against a politically powerful utility company that, critics say, has won too much leniency from the state. Advocates fighting Dominion’s proposal last year exposed the existence...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Battle over Dominion coal-ash ponds heads to state water board this weekBack to school for children displaced by LA-area gas leak
Posted by Reuters: Alex Dobuzinskis on January 11th, 2016
Reuters: In the latest disruption from the biggest methane gas leak in California history, nearly 2,000 Los Angeles children returning to class this week after winter break have been reassigned to schools outside the affected area over health concerns.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest public school system, announced the plan after students described headaches, bloody noses, nausea and breathing irritations.
Eleven-year-old Cameron Michaels said he suffered daily health...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Back to school for children displaced by LA-area gas leakGreenland’s sponge-like snow can no longer absorb meltwater, adding sea level rise
Posted by Christian Today: Andre Mitchell on January 11th, 2016
Christian Today: People already know that global warming triggered by man-made climate change is causing massive ice sheets in Greenland to melt, which in turn leads to the alarming rise of global sea levels.
Even worse than that, a team of international scientists recently found out that climate change has been hurting the world's biggest island more than previously imagined.
In their findings published last week on the scientific journal "Nature," the research team revealed that aside from melting ice sheets,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Greenland’s sponge-like snow can no longer absorb meltwater, adding sea level riseCanada: Global warming threatens the backyard rink
Posted by CBC: None Given on January 11th, 2016
CBC: A Canadian tradition, the backyard rink, may be in trouble in the coming years in much of the country, including P.E.I.
That's the conclusion of a group of geographers at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, which has been studying ice conditions in rinks since 2012.
They're the founders of Rink Watch, a website that allows people to pin their rinks on a map, and then update ice conditions all winter.
They've just crunched the first two years of data, along with global climate...