As politicians debate climate change, our forests wither

By Sophie Quinton, staff reporter (politics) for National Journal15 June 2012 DILLON, Colorado – Dan Gibbs keeps dead beetles in the back of his beat-up Chevy Silverado. He has a wooden block with beetles impaled on it, each insect about the size of a grain of rice. He’s got vials of embalmed beetles and their […]

North Carolina Senate approves law that denies sea-level science

[Next up: Outlawing hurricanes.] [UPDATE: Here’s the language of the bill: From House Bill 819 (Proposed Senate Committee Substitute H819-CSLH-38 [v.18]): “The Division of Coastal Management shall be the only State agency authorized to develop rates of sea-level rise and shall do so only at the request of the Commission. These rates shall only be […]

Graph of the Day: Asia Coal Imports, 1980-2009

Today, close to 99% of the coal mined in the Powder River Basin is consumed in domestic U.S. coal markets. However, a depressed domestic market and increased foreign demand, especially from the Pacific Rim, has piqued the interest of the largest U.S. coal producers in potential export markets. Chris Ruppel, an energy analyst at Execution, […]

Europe climate change to hit Scandinavia and south hardest

3 May 2012 (AFP) – Global warming in Europe this century will mostly affect Scandinavia and the Mediterranean basin, the European Environment Agency warned on Thursday. “The highest warming is projected over the eastern Scandinavia, and southern and south-eastern Europe,” experts at the agency said in comment accompanying a series of maps posted on the […]

Nuclear, coal power face climate change risk as cooling water becomes becomes scarce

By David Fogarty; Editing by Ed Davies3 June 2012 SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Warmer water and reduced river flows will cause more power disruptions for nuclear and coal-fired power plants in the United States and Europe in future, scientists say, and lead to a rethink on how best to cool power stations in a hotter world. […]

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 […]

Warming Arctic tundra producing pop-up forests – ‘Change is far greater than we expected’

By ANDREW C. REVKIN3 June 2012 Even as insect infestations and other factors accompanying warming have led to the “browning” of some stretches of boreal forest between temperate regions and the Arctic tundra, the tundra appears to be greening in a big way, various studies have shown. The newest such work, focused on scrubby windswept […]

Irish Sea level to rise 47cm by end of century

By Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent2 June 2012 THE IRISH Sea’s level will rise by almost half a metre by the end of the century, according to new research published by NUI Galway’s Ryan Institute. More extreme coastal flooding will occur in Dublin and other vulnerable urban areas in Ireland and Britain, and sea surface temperatures […]

Oklahoma not Texas, had hottest U.S. summer ever recorded in 2011 – ‘Warmer than all those summers that they experienced during the Dust Bowl’

1 June 2012, TULSA, Oklahoma (AP) – Oklahoma and Texas have argued for years about which has the best college football team, whose oil fields produce better crude, even where the state border should run. But in a hot, sticky dispute that no one wants to win, Oklahoma just reclaimed its crown. After recalculating data […]

Return of rain reignites Australia water wars between farmers and conservationists

2 June 2012 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Rivers are flowing again, but so is the friction over water rights among states and between farmers and conservationists, writes David Humphries. The last time we dropped in on the Kennedys, their cotton property Whitegates resembled a setting for The Grapes of Wrath. Dust into dust, and under […]

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