Southern California marching toward fourth-driest year since 1877, firefighters deploying early – ‘People are going crazy now. When you’re a farmer in Central California, you watch the water as much as you watch your kids.’

By Hector Becerra19 April 2013 (Los Angeles Times) – Southern California is marching toward its fourth-driest year since 1877, and that has firefighters increasingly girded for battle. In the hills of Los Angeles County, tests show the brush is drying out at a significantly quicker rate this year because of the lack of rain. In […]

Struggling to force the Sahara back as climate change wreaks havoc in Senegal – ‘If this goes on, the village will have to move’

By Paul Cullen 15 April 2013 (Irish Times) – At first viewing here in the remote interior of Senegal, there are just three problems with the Great Green Wall, sub-Saharan Africa’s attempt to stop the continuing advance of the Sahara in its tracks. It isn’t great. It isn’t green. And for now, it doesn’t amount […]

Coal and cattle are most damaging businesses to nature

15 April 2013 (Reuters) – Coal-fired power generation in Asia and cattle ranching in South America are the most damaging businesses for nature with hidden costs that exceed the value of their production, a U.N.-backed report said on Monday. Global output of basic goods from cement to wheat caused damage totalling $7.3 trillion a year […]

Photo gallery: Kiribati enters the end game against climate change

By Mike Bowers and Bernard Lagan for the Global Mail 16 April 2013 (guardian.co.uk) – The waves are slowly seeping over the islands of the Pacific nation, which is at the frontline of the climate change-induced rise in sea levels striking low-lying nations all over the world Kiribati enters the end game against climate change […]

Rural Brazil lets another environmental murderer walk free – ‘The man was a monster’

By Paulo Padilha and Felipe Milanez 15 April 2013 (VICE) – The city of Marabá was founded on 6 April 1913, in the southeastern edge of the Amazon rainforest on a narrow strip of land where the rivers Tocantins and Itacaiunas meet. For the first several decades of its existence, the city’s economy was dependent […]

Severe weather ‘pushing millions’ into starvation – ‘The links between hunger, under-nutrition, and climate change are clear once we listen to the experiences of the poorest and most vulnerable people’

By Cormac Murphy15 April 2013 (Independent) – Severe weather patterns are “pushing millions” into starvation, former president Mary Robinson said, ahead of a major climate change conference at Dublin Castle. President Michael D Higgins officially opened the two-day gathering on Hunger, Nutrition and Climate Change this morning. The event was jointly organised by the Government […]

Extreme weather battering insurance firms’ bottom line – Ohio’s low premiums at risk as storms, droughts increase

BY Jon Chavez14 April 2013 (The Blade) – As a meteorologist for FirstEnergy Corp., Pete Manousos’ job is to keep the electric utility informed about any upcoming extreme weather that might cause outages, or hamper repair crews’ ability to restore power. But the last two years, that job has gotten harder and harder. “You have […]

New Zealand deforestation intentions soar with low carbon prices

By Brian Fallow  15 AprIL 2013 (New Zealand) – Deforestation intentions have soared as the emissions trading scheme, at least at current rock-bottom prices, is no longer seen as a barrier to switching to other land uses. A survey of large forest owners (with over 10,000 hectares) by Professor Bruce Manley of Canterbury University has […]

Wellington water ban lifted – New Zealand’s worst drought in over 30 years may cost $2 billion

9 April 2013 (APNZ) – Wellington’s water ban has been lifted almost four weeks since sprinklers fell silent across the capital. Regional authorities introduced a total ban on outdoor water use in mid-March after revealing there were only 20 days of water supply left. They also started drawing water from the Hutt River and urged […]

Florida algae bloom causes record manatee deaths –‘When algae blooms coincide with manatee movement, it results in catastrophic mortality’

By MICHAEL WINES6 April 2013 (The New York Times) – Florida’s endangered manatees, already reeling from an unexplained string of deaths in the state’s east coast rivers, have died in record numbers from a toxic red algae bloom that appears each year off the state’s west coast, state officials and wildlife experts say. The tide […]

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