Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge: ‘Climate change is a national security threat’

By  Robert J. Vickers | rvickers@pennlive.com   25 February 2013 WASHINGTON (Penn Live) – Former Gov. Tom Ridge joined 37 prominent political figures at that U.S. Capitol Monday calling for policymakers to figure climate change into national security strategy and budget considerations. “The U.S. national security community, including leaders from the military, homeland security, and intelligence, […]

South Americans face deadly water battles – ‘The only thing the people want is water for families, but the mining companies want to take it. And soldiers will kill if you get in the way.’

By Michael Smith12 February 2013 (Bloomberg Markets Magazine) – People streamed into the central square in Celendin, a small city in the Peruvian Andes, the morning of July 3, 2012. They were protesting the government’s support for Newmont Mining Corp.’s plan to take control of four lakes to make way for a new gold and […]

Climate change melting glaciers in the Andes – ‘They will probably completely disappear within the coming decades’

By Jeremy Hance22 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – Glaciers are melting faster than ever in the tropical Andes, warns a new study published in The Cryosphere, which puts the blame for vanishing glaciers squarely on climate change. The study — the most comprehensive to date — found that since the 1970s glacier melt in the region […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of glacier retreat on Puncak Jaya, 1989 and 2009

Glaciers on Puncak Jaya, 1989   Glaciers on Puncak Jaya, 2009 Caption by Adam Voiland, with information from Michael Prentice, Lonnie Thompson, and Andrew Klein 1 September 2012 Tropical and glacier don’t seem like words that belong in the same sentence. But mountain peaks near the equator in South America, Africa, and tropical Asia have […]

Peru needs glacier loss monitoring: UN warning

By Roberto Cortijo 4 June 2012 Peru needs a permanent monitoring system to gauge Andean mountain glacier shrinkage caused by global warming and its effect on people who depend on the ice for water, UN experts warned. “We have spoken with Peruvian government institutions, and there is no sufficient monitoring system to tell us the […]

Peru water crisis 20 years early – ‘Already too late for most of the glaciers in the Andes’

By Stephen Leahy27 December 2011 UXBRIDGE, Canada (Tierramérica) – The water supplied by the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, vital to a huge region of northwest Peru, is decreasing 20 years sooner than expected, according to a new study. Water flows from the region’s melting glaciers have already peaked and are in decline, Michel Baraer, […]

Amphibians face ‘terrifying’ rate of extinction

By Camila Ruz, www.guardian.co.uk 16 November 2011 If the current rapid extermination of animals, plants and other species really is the “sixth mass extinction”, then it is the amphibian branch of the tree of life that is undergoing the most drastic pruning. In research described as “terrifying” by an independent expert, scientists predict the future […]

Indigenous people sound the alarm on climate change

By Brian Clark Howard, National Geographic News 11 October 2011 The air in the auditorium smelled faintly of burnt herbs. Josefina Lema Aguilar, a Kichwa elder from the mountains of Ecuador, lit a tiny sacred fire to bless last week’s conference on “Seeking Balance: Indigenous Knowledge, Western Science and Climate Change.” Dressed in traditional garb […]

Colombia loses its glaciers – ‘Everything is changing so fast that I’m not sure what’s normal anymore’

By John Otis, Global Post22 July 2011 NEVADOS NATIONAL PARK, Colombia — Every year, the magnificent glacier-topped mountains of Nevados National Park attract thousands of tourists. But the snow and ice caps — called “nevados” in Spanish — are melting so fast that officials may have to come up with a new name for the […]

2,300-year climate record suggests severe tropical droughts as northern temperatures rise

Contact: Morgan Kelly, mekelly@pitt.edu, 412-624-4356, Cell: 412-897-1400   11 May 2011 A 2,300-year climate record University of Pittsburgh researchers recovered from an Andes Mountains lake reveals that as temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rise, the planet’s densely populated tropical regions will most likely experience severe water shortages as the crucial summer monsoons become drier. The Pitt […]

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