RSS Feed
Worries rising as Colorado River water runs low
Posted by Associated Press: Aaron Orlowski on March 12th, 2016
Associated Press: For the past five years, as the drought drained California’s water sources and depleted its reservoirs, Southern California water managers have relied increasingly on the region’s largest out-of-state water source: the Colorado River.
The river feeds the 242-mile Colorado River Aqueduct, which ends at Lake Mathews in Riverside County. The aqueduct is managed by the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles, a wholesaler that supplies 1.2 million acre-feet of Colorado River water to the Inland...
What Are Sanders And Clinton’s Positions On Fracking?
Posted by Quadrangle: None Given on March 12th, 2016
Quadrangle: Mr. Sanders, a USA senator from Vermont who addressed 2,400 people at a rally in downtown Toledo today, told The Blade that Mrs. Clinton supported trade policies that cost American jobs in cities like Toledo. "I do not want to deport family members either, Jorge", Clinton responded at the party's eighth presidential debate, attempting to shore up her "firewall" among minority voters.
The issue of what might be in the unreleased transcripts of speeches Hillary Clinton gave to major financial institutions...
United Kingdom: A pocket of acorns
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 12th, 2016
Telegraph: When he wasn't at sea blockading the French, Admiral Collingwood liked nothing better than walking out from his house in Morpeth, Northumberland, with a pocket full of acorns, which he would press into the soil at likely spots, in order to ensure that, years after he was gone, there would be full-grown oaks enough to build new ships of the line for the Royal Navy.
Today, our ships are no longer heart of oak, and thousands of our oaks are afflicted with a disease called acute oak decline. This...
Global Food Production Key Driver Greenhouse Emissions
Posted by Tech Times: Alyssa Navarro on March 12th, 2016
Tech Times: Although global food production, animal farming and waste disposal are key drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, they are often overlooked, a new study revealed. Scientists said other greenhouse gases are more abundant than carbon dioxide.
When it comes to climate change issues, the spotlight is always on the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. However, just focusing on CO2 means overlooking other aspects that drive the rise of global temperatures, a new study revealed.
This...
Five Years After Nuclear Disaster Fukushima Remains Highly Contaminated
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2016
Yale Environment 360: It has been five years since a powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. While a few towns closed after the disaster have reopened and some locals have returned, groundwater en route to the ocean, as well as nearby soils, remain highly contaminated with radioactive waste. Toxic water and soil that has been removed by the cleanup project’s 8,000 workers sit in a growing number storage tanks on the property, several of which...
Gold mining in Venezuela: “perfect storm” of illegality, deforestation and mafias
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on March 11th, 2016
Mongabay: The Nineties were a decade that stood out for Venezuelans, because they discovered that the were garimpeiros in the south of the country. These traditional miners from Brazil, drawn by the gold rush, had crossed the wide Amazonian border between the two countries digging ditches in the middle of the rainforest in order to extract the precious metal. These illicit activities affected the fragile equilibrium of the Amazonian ecosystem, the health and way of life of the local indigenous and Creole...
Panel: Finding climate fingerprints in wild weather is valid
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2016
Associated Press: Climate science has progressed so much that experts can accurately detect global warming's fingerprints on certain extreme weather events, such as a heat wave, according to a high-level scientific advisory panel.
For years scientists have given almost a rote response to the question of whether an instance of weird weather was from global warming, insisting that they can't attribute any single event to climate change. But "the science has advanced to the point that this is no longer true as an...
NOAA: Carbon Dioxide Levels ‘Exploded’ in 2015 Highest Since Ice Age
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on March 11th, 2016
EcoWatch: The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose 3.05 parts per million in 2015, the largest year-to-year increase ever recorded, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report finds.
It was the fourth year in a row that CO2 concentrations grew by more than 2 parts per million. “Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years,” a lead scientist at NOAA said.
Some of the spike in CO2 levels can be attributed to...
EPA Introduces New Climate Crackdown on Methane Emissions Amid U.S.-Canada Announcement
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on March 11th, 2016
EcoWatch: On the heels of President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau’s joint announcement on new climate measures, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will implement a rule to limit methane emissions from existing oil and gas facilities. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the agency will start work immediately on the regulations, meant to reduce methane emissions 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025. Obama and Trudeau focused on methane in their agreement, along with other...
Reptile fossil discovery ‘extraordinary’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2016
BBC: A newly discovered 250-million-year-old fossil reptile from Brazil gives an "extraordinary" insight into life just before the dinosaurs appeared.
At the time, the world was recovering from a massive extinction that wiped out most living species.
The reptile, named Teyujagua or "fierce lizard", is the close relative of a group that gave rise to dinosaurs, crocodiles and birds.
The fossil is "beautiful" and fills an evolutionary gap, say scientists.
Dr Richard Butler from the University...