Archive for March 16th, 2016

An Entire American Community Being Relocated Because Sea Level Rise

Posted by Gizmodo: None Given on March 16th, 2016
Gizmodo: Climate change is often seen as a problem for generations to come, but as our freakish winter weather has shown, we're already living the future we created. Need more proof? An entire Native American community is now going to be resettled, before it gets swallowed by the rising seas. The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians have called the Isle of Jean Charles-a tiny slip of land some 100 miles south of New Orleans-home for nearly 200 years. Tragically, they're now watching it disappear into the...
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‘Hottest month’ records don’t always matter – but February 2016 does

Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2016
Christian Science Monitor: Not only was it the hottest February on record, but it showed the biggest spike in temperature since scientists starting keeping track more than a century ago, according to NASA data. On Saturday, the Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies released a report showing February 2016 to be not just the hottest February on record, but the hottest seasonally-adjusted month since 1880. In other words, NASA tracks not only monthly temperatures, but how they compare to that month's long-term...
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On world water day, 650 million people can’t get a safe drink

Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2016
Reuters: Some 650 million people, or one in 10 of the world's population, do not have access to safe water, putting them at risk of infectious diseases and premature death. Dirty water and poor sanitation can cause severe diarrheal diseases in children, killing 900 under-fives a day across the world, according to United Nations estimates - or one child every two minutes. Among newborn babies, the World Health Organization says infections caused by a lack of safe water and an unclean environment cause...
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Before Flint, Lead-Contaminated Water Plagued Schools Across U.S

Posted by National Public Radio: Jennifer Ludden on March 16th, 2016
National Public Radio: At Southwest Baltimore Charter School, preparing lunch takes a few extra steps. "We don't use the water from the building for cooking, not at all," say cafeteria worker LaShawn Thompson, shaking her head. Her colleague, Christine Fraction, points to a large water bottle sitting on the counter of a stainless steel sink. "We having greens or something like that, we having vegetables, we'll just turn it over into the pan and then put in on the stove," she says. Throughout the school, water...
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Scientists help Vietnam’s rice farmers adapt to climate change, amid major drought

Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2016
IRIN: Scientists are developing more resistant varieties of rice to help farmers in Vietnam adapt to climate change, amid the country’s worst drought in 90 years. The drought, as well as the related flow of saltwater upriver, has destroyed 159,000 hectares of rice paddies and left almost one million people lacking drinking water, according to a new UN report. Another half million hectares are expected to be damaged by mid-year. In line with its work in other Asian countries, the Philippines-based...
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Climate variations analyzed 5 million years back in time

Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2016
Science Codex: When we talk about climate change today, we have to look at what the climate was previously like in order to recognise the natural variations and to be able to distinguish them from the human-induced changes. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have analysed the natural climate variations over the last 12,000 years, during which we have had a warm interglacial period and they have looked back 5 million years to see the major features of the Earth's climate. The research shows that not only...
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Photosynthesis more ancient than thought, and most living things could do it

Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 16th, 2016
ScienceDaily: Photosynthesis is the process by which plants, algae and cyanobacteria use the energy from the Sun to make sugar from water and carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen as a waste product. But a few groups of bacteria carry out a simpler form of photosynthesis that does not produce oxygen, which evolved first. A new study by an Imperial researcher suggests that this more primitive form of photosynthesis evolved in much more ancient bacteria than scientists had imagined, more than 3.5 billion years ago....
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