East Bay residents to get steady diet of foul water – ‘The taste of drought’

By Rachel Swan8 May 2015 (SF Gate) – The acrid tap water that flowed for several days last month into thousands of East Bay homes, prompting a flurry of complaints about its bad taste and smell, will be making an extended comeback starting next week — perhaps through the year, or longer. California’s drought combined […]

Fresno water table has fallen 25 feet in seven years – ‘I like fish, but I’m not giving up my lawn for some smelt. Let those fish die up north. There’s a cycle of life.’

By Nelson D. Schwartz6 MAY 2015 FRESNO, California – When residents of this parched California city opened their water bills for April, they got what Mayor Ashley Swearengin called “a shock to the system.” The city had imposed a long-delayed, modest rate increase — less than the cost of one medium latte from Starbucks for […]

California forests have become net climate polluters – ‘The losses are outpacing the growth. The key element here is wildfire.’

By John Upton 29 April 2015 (Climate Central) – California introduced a world-leading carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program to drive down pollution rates after lawmakers approved an ambitious climate protection law in 2006. It also changed rules affecting utilities, spurring investments in some of the biggest solar power plants the world has yet seen. But an […]

Scientists to analyze ‘the Blob’ at Scripps Oceanography Workshop

30 April 2015 (Scripps Institution) – A workshop on an unusually warm pool of North Pacific Ocean water and associated conditions will take place May 5 and 6 at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Participants in the 2014-2015 Pacific Anomalies Science and Technology Workshop will include federal, non-federal, state and local scientists and […]

Graph of the Day: Change in debt-to-GDP ratio in advanced and developing nations, 2007-2014

February 2015 (McKinsey Global Institute) – A new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, Debt and (not much) deleveraging [pdf], examines the evolution of debt across 47 countries—22 advanced and 25 developing—and assesses the implications of higher leverage in the global economy and in specific sectors and countries. The analysis, which follows our July 2011 report […]

Report: Global emissions goals still aren’t enough to prevent dangerous warming

By Chelsea Harvey4 May 2015 (Washington Post) – When it comes to combating climate change, many scientists and policy makers focus on one major goal: cut carbon emissions enough to keep the planet’s average surface temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above its pre-industrial level. But a new analysis [pdf], published on Monday […]

California’s Ivanpah solar plant likely killed 3,500 birds in 1st year

By Chris Clarke22 April 2015 (KCET) – Some new figures have been published about the likely wildlife impact of a controversial solar facility in the Mojave Desert by biological consultants working on contract with the plant — and the numbers are startling. According to the firm H.T. Harvey and Associates, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating […]

Graph of the Day: U.S. children living in low-income and poor families, 2007-2013

By Yang Jiang, Mercedes Ekono, and Curtis SkinnerJanuary 2015 (NCCP) – Children under 18 years represent 23 percent of the population, but they comprise 33 percent of all people in poverty.1 Among all children, 44 percent live in low-income families and approximately one in every five (22 percent) live in poor families. Being a child […]

U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increase in past two years

By Perry Lindstrom20 April 2015 (EIA) – For the second year in a row, energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States have increased. However, unlike 2013, when emissions and gross domestic product (GDP) grew at similar rates (2.5% and 2.2%, respectively), 2014’s CO2 emissions growth rate of 0.7% was much smaller than the […]

5 canards in Rep. Lamar Smith’s Earth Day editorial on global warming

25 April 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – The Wall Street Journal continues its long tradition of printing editorials that reject the findings of climate science. On Earth Day 2015, we were treated to Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, rolling out some old denialist chestnuts, to criticize proposed […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial