Record Amount of Arctic Sea Ice Melted in June

Climate Central: The Arctic melt season is well underway, and sea ice extent -- a key indicator of global warming -- declined rapidly during June, setting a record for the largest June sea ice loss in the satellite era. Sea ice extent is currently running just below the level seen at the same time in 2007, the year that set the record for the lowest sea ice minimum in the satellite era. While the current rate of sea ice decline does not necessarily indicate that another record low will be set this year -- weather...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/record-amount-of-arctic-sea-ice-melted-in-june?utm-source=feedburner&utm-medium=feed&utm-campaign=Feed%3A+climatecentral%2FdjOO+Climate+Central+-+Full+Feed
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Climate science has Cold War roots

United Press International: Cold War research and the science used to track radioactivity and model nuclear bomb blasts are making contributions to climate science, researcher say. Climate science and nuclear weapons testing have a long and perhaps surprisingly intimate relationship, University of Michigan historian Paul Edwards writes in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. After the 2011 Fukushima disaster, for example, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization tracked the radioactive plume emanating from damaged...

URL: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/07/13/Climate-science-has-Cold-War-roots/UPI-13581342220049/

Survey: Americans Rank Last In Green Lifestyles, Don't Feel Guilty

Forbes: If the stereotype of a typical American is an obese, SUV-driving, junk food-scarfing couch potato oblivious to the outsize environmental impact of his consumerist lifestyle, a new National Geographic survey of green attitudes and actions in 17 countries is not going to change many minds. Americans came in dead last when it comes to sustainable behavior while feeling among the least guilty about their disproportionate consumption of the world's resources, found the survey of 17,000 consumers in...

URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddwoody/2012/07/13/survey-americans-rank-last-in-green-lifestyles-dont-feel-guilty/
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More floods on the way for UK's washout summer

Press Association: Warnings of yet more flooding have been issued, as some areas face downpours that could see almost a month's rain falling in just a few hours. The Environment Agency said people across central and eastern England should remain on alert for possible floods as heavy thunderstorms were forecast for many areas on Friday and Saturday. The Met Office has issued another severe weather warning of heavy rain for parts of the Midlands, southern and eastern England and Wales, forecasting that many areas...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/13/more-floods-uk-washout-summer
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United States: Obama pumps $80m into Everglades as some environmentalists ponder motive

Guardian: Senior loyalists in the Obama administration seized a valuable election-year opportunity to talk up the president's environmental credentials today as they announced an increase in funding to restore the Florida Everglades. Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture, was one of several top officials chosen to front a press conference in Kissimmee trumpeting a further $80m investment in a project supporting farmers and ranchers who preserve land for agriculture and wildlife. Claiming that President...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/13/obama-80m-everglades-environmentalists-question
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United Kingdom: Hull flooding case study: 'We were absolutely traumatised'

Guardian: We never dreamt of it happening to our home. It was devastation. We were out of our home for 10 months and your life just goes on hold until it is all sorted. It began when we were at the dentist in the early morning. When we came back the police had closed the road and there was three feet of water in the street. The water was coming out of the manholes in the street. We'd had no warning. The water was in the house for two to three days, even with the fire brigade using 10-inch pipes to pump...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/14/hull-flooding-case-study
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United Kingdom: Residents face devastation with neither flood defences nor respite from the rain

Guardian: The river Yarrow has been a friend to Croston in Lancashire for centuries, with St Michael's church and its old school built close to the banks, along with the rectory, smithy and farms which saw no need to retreat to higher ground. But three times since 1987, the sought-after village near Preston has been swept by flooding, most recently in June when 70 houses were damaged, some very seriously, by a sewage-laced torrent. Engineer Peter Thomas stands in the wreckage of his family's living room,...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/14/residents-await-flood-defences

Wolverines' food caches at risk to warming

LiveScience: Wolverines, bearlike members of the weasel family, seem to depend on spring snow cover, but it's not clear why. Now, an international group of researchers has a new theory: Wolverines use snow like a refrigerator to preserve food during the lean, cold times after their young are born, they suggest. The animals live in the northern parts of North America, Asia and Europe where resources can be scarce. Their vulnerability to warming landed them as a "candidate for protection" in 2010 under the...

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48178640/ns/us_news-environment/

Apple's Change Of Heart On Green Certification

National Public Radio: It's not often that one of the world's biggest companies says, "We goofed." But in a surprising turn of events Friday, Apple admitted it made a mistake in pulling out of an environmental rating system for computers and other electronics. The company said it would rejoin the so-called EPEAT certification system, placing all 39 of its originally certified products back on the list. The company is also requesting certification for more products, including its new MacBook Pro model. Apple's move...

URL: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/07/13/156690916/apples-change-of-heart-on-green-certification?ft=1&f=1025
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Climate change campaigners cautioned over reaction to extreme weather

Guardian: Climate change contrarians will dig in even deeper if campaigners try to use recent extreme weather like wildfires, drought and heatwaves as a call to action, a Republican global warming heretic has warned. Bob Inglis, a former South Carolina congressman behind a new global warming thinktank, is an endangered species as a Republican who believes in climate change. The recent freak weather does provide powerful evidence of the dangers of climate change, and could break through the GOP's wall...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/13/climate-change-campaigners-cautioned

Labels Matter: Apple Changes Its Mind About Green Distinction

Atlantic Wire: Apple's move to stop paying into EPEAT, taking the green distinction away from 39 of its computers, not only made thehippies of San Francisco mad, but it got enough "loyal customers" on the phone to make the company change its mind. "I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT," Apple senior vice president of hardware Bob Mansfield wrote in a statement on the company site. Though Apple promised that the company still cared about the environment,...

URL: http://news.yahoo.com/labels-matter-apple-changes-mind-green-distinction-184549412.html

Bill Clinton: cutting use of natural resources would help US economy

Guardian: Bill Clinton has warned that the US needs to cut its consumption of natural resources if it is to stave off the threats of climate change and rising prices. The former president said the economy of the world's biggest consumer would recover faster from the recession and financial crises if more effort was made to use resources sustainably. "We can grow even faster if we use less energy," said Clinton in a conversation with the Guardian at the Resource 2012 conference in Oxford on Friday evening....

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/13/bill-clinton-natural-resources-us

Waxman presses GOP for hearing on extreme weather, climate

The Hill: Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a top House Democrat, is urging the Energy and Commerce Committee's Republican majority to hold a hearing that explores links between climate change and extreme weather. The request, spelled out in a letter Friday, is a sign that Democrats and environmentalists hope to translate the recent record-setting heatwaves into political momentum for efforts to battle global warming. It asks Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) to convene a hearing "on the recent wildfires...

URL: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/237769-waxman-presses-gop-for-hearing-on-extreme-weather-climate

Like coffee and cocoa, bonds to get green certified

Reuters: Investors will soon be able to buy corporate bonds with a 'climate' certification, much as consumers with strong social and environmental convictions now buy coffee and chocolate products with labels such as Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance. Carrying such a certification will enable institutional investors and pension funds, which have been looking to make their portfolios green, quickly to identify environment-friendly bonds without having to do the due diligence themselves. The 'Climate...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/13/us-bonds-idUSBRE86C0U320120713?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29

Freak weather raises climate change debate

Financial Times: High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/52e6da1a-ccfe-11e1-92c1-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz20Wt1hnYN When Phillip Dugaw decided to escape the sweltering heat at home in Washington DC last weekend and fly down to the beach in South Carolina, he had no reason to expect...

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Drought Prompts Natural Disaster Declaration in 26 States

Climate Central: The most widespread drought in the U.S. since 1988 has prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to issue a natural disaster declaration for about 1,000 counties in 26 states, making farm operators eligible for low interest emergency loans. As of July 10, about 78 percent of the corn-growing region in the U.S. were experiencing some form of drought, and drought conditions have intensified in many corn-growing regions during the past several weeks. Bloomberg News characterized the natural...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/drought-prompts-natural-disaster-declaration-in-26-states?utm-source=feedburner&utm-medium=feed&utm-campaign=Feed%3A+climatecentral%2FdjOO+Climate+Central+-+Full+Feed
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Climate change 'may lead to collapse of Pacific corals'

SciDev.Net: Climate change may lead to the collapse of coral reef ecosystems in the Pacific, of the kind last seen 4,000 years ago, according to a study published in Science last week (July 5). Researchers found that coral reefs along the Pacific coast of Panama stopped growing for 2,500 years, or 40 per cent of their history, during a period of time that coincides with an increase in the strength and frequency of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) -- a fluctuation of the inter-tropical surface pressure...

URL: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/news/climate-change-may-lead-to-collapse-of-pacific-corals-.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_agricultureandenvironment
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German scientists concoct new coolant for electric cars

Reuters: Scientists in Germany have come up with a new fluid for cooling the expensive batteries in electric cars and thereby extending their life, another potential step in improving the cost efficiency of electric propulsion. The fluid, dubbed CryoSolplus, absorbs heat more effectively than either air or water and could allow for tighter packing of batteries under the hood, according to a team of researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology in Oberhausen. A...

URL: http://news.yahoo.com/german-scientists-concoct-coolant-electric-cars-160458347.html

Ravaged by fires, Western ranchers face "scary" summer

Reuters: It took less than an hour last month for a Montana wildfire to reduce Scott McRae's ranch to thousands of blackened acres devoid of the grasses that were to sustain hundreds of cattle. "That is 500 mouths to feed with nothing to eat in sight," said McRae, 53, co-owner of a family ranch founded in the 1880s in southeastern Montana. McRae is among scores of ranchers across the U.S. West whose grazing lands have been charred by blazes or ravaged by drought amid a regional shortfall of the alfalfa...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/13/us-usa-wildfires-cattle-idUSBRE86C0Y620120713?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29

Climate Change Ups Odds Of Heat Waves, Drought

National Public Radio: Reporting in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers write that extreme heat waves, such as the one last year in Texas, are 20 times more likely today than they were in the 1960s. NOAA climatologist Tom Peterson discusses what future climate change may bring.

URL: http://www.npr.org/2012/07/13/156731302/climate-change-ups-odds-of-heat-waves-drought?ft=1&f=1025

Alaska landslide is one of the largest ever recorded

MSNBC: A massive landslide sent tons of rock and debris tumbling more than five miles down a glacier in Alaska, the National Park Service reported in an event that could be yet another sign of a warming world. Located in a remote area of Glacier Bay National Park, the slide was so big it registered on earthquake monitors as a magnitude 3.4 event. Officials noticed the monitor blip on June 11 but it wasn't until July 2 that a pilot passing over the site took photos that showed just how large it was,...

URL: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/13/12722446-5-mile-long-landslide-in-alaska-national-park-tied-to-global-warming?lite
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UK nuclear authority takes ownership of German plutonium

Guardian: Britain risks being turned into a "nuclear laundry" by taking ownership of German plutonium in return for cash, the government was warned on Friday. The move came alongside confirmation that ministers were moving towards a controversial decision to build a new mixed oxide fuel (MOX) plant despite having just agreed to close an existing one which lost millions of pounds. Britain has the largest stockpile of plutonium in the world but has taken permanent control of a further 4 tonnes under a...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/13/uk-takes-ownership-of-german-plutonium
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In Iowa, hope fades as relentless drought devastates crops

Reuters: Bob Bowman runs his hand over a slender green corn leaf here on his Iowa farm, and sighs. "This corn should be as high as my head right now, and it is only waist high," he says, as a cool morning breeze belies the 90-degree Fahrenheit temperatures forecast to descend by afternoon in Welton, Iowa. "If we get rain real quick here, we might be down 25 percent," said Bowman of prospective losses from the persistent dryness. "If we don't get rain in the next two weeks, it will be a lot more serious."...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/12/us-usa-drought-iowa-idUSBRE86B1CK20120712

Natural gas drilling industry fights 'Gasland' with own film

Post-Gazette: The natural gas drilling industry has responded to Josh Fox and his infamous flaming tap water with a movie -- and flammable kitchen faucet -- of their own. "Truthland" -- a 34-minute film produced by the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Energy In Depth -- primarily was crafted in response to Mr. Fox's 2010 anti-drilling documentary, "Gasland." Its protagonist, Shelly Depue of Franklin, Susquehanna County, is depicted as a rural teacher and mother who sets out to find answers...

URL: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/marcellusshale/natural-gas-drilling-industry-fights-gasland-with-own-film-644514/

Texas Court Rules Air Deserves Same Protection As Water

Climate Central: A court ruling in Texas this week may have significant implications for groups seeking to use the courts to force individual states to act on climate change. Texas District Court Judge Gisela Triana ruled that the atmosphere is part of the "public trust,' which means it "must be protected for public use' under common law principles, according to the Associated Press. The Texas Environmental Law Center, along with the nonprofit organization Our Children's Trust, brought the case against the...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/potentially-landmark-court-decision-may-promote-greenhouse-gas-regulation-i?utm-source=feedburner&utm-medium=feed&utm-campaign=Feed%253A+climatecentral%252FdjOO+Climate+Central+-+Full+Feed
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Republican stalwart calls global warming 'a matter of fact', pushes for carbon tax

Mongabay: Former Secretary of State George Shultz is calling for a carbon tax to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption, according to an interview released today by Stanford University. Shultz, who served as secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan as well as a number of other roles under previous Republican administrations, is heading up the Hoover Institution's Task Force on Energy Policy will calls for boosting energy efficiency, reducing dependence on oil exports to improve...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0712-shultz-global-warming-is-real.html
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Shale will free US from oil imports, says ex-BP boss

BBC: The big growth in oil extracted from shale rock means the US will not need to import any crude within two decades, the former boss of BP has said. Lord Browne told a conference in Oxford the US would be "completely independent of imported oil, probably by 2030". He also said the amount of shale gas in the US was "effectively infinite". Shale oil and gas is extracted using a method called fracking, but the process has been controversial because of the environmental risks associated with it....

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18828714

Fukushima vs. Chernobyl: How Have Animals Fared?

New York Times: For a little bird, bee or butterfly trying to make it in the world, which is the worse place to land: Fukushima or Chernobyl? On the one hand, there's the risk from the release of radioactive materials that occurred in Japan just over a year ago. On the other, there's the threat of mutations from accumulated environmental contamination over the past quarter-century from the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine. Researchers set out to see whether these radionuclide-laden zones are equally detrimental...

URL: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/fukushima-vs-chernobyl-how-have-animals-fared/
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Eco-crime in EU booming, report says

Euronews: Mafia groups are making billions from environmental crime, new research has found. Dumping toxic waste, illegal logging and trafficking of endangered species are just some of the many crimes according to a report called 'Eco-Mafia 2012` by Legambiente. Other environmental groups also claim the EU is currently failing to tackle the issue seriously. Julian Newman, Campaign Director of the Environmental Investigation Agency, said: "The problem with these crimes is that they are often seen as low...

URL: http://www.euronews.com/2012/07/12/eco-crime-in-eu-booming-report-says/

Climate change scepticism could wipe out rural towns

Yahoo!7 News: A new report is warning hundreds of inland Australian towns could cease to exist by 2050 if locals do not adapt to climate change. The report studied 1,600 bush towns and found the ones with low education rates are least likely to make the decisions needed to adapt to a hotter future. But in many regional areas there is resistance to change because of lingering scepticism about climate change. The same scepticism means the research may not have much impact on the areas it targets. The...

URL: http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/local/14215433/climate-change-scepticism-could-wipe-out-rural-towns/
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United States: Kids claim win in legal fight over 'public trust.'

Greenwire: Children demanding that the federal and state governments take immediate action to combat climate change have won a first major battle in their national legal fight after a court in Texas ruled that the atmosphere is a public trust. The victory is likely to be limited, however, as Judge Gisela Triana of the state district court in Travis County also held that ongoing litigation on climate change regulations means Texas does not need to take immediate action. Our Children's Trust has filed separate...

URL: http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2012/07/12/3

Finding common ground in environmental discussions

National Public Radio: NEAL CONAN, HOST: Discussions about the environment can often get loud as politics and personal experience transform conversation into debate. Jonathan Foley, director of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, calls that Groundhog Day. Rather than rehash familiar arguments, he says, we need to reframe environmental issues and if there are areas of agreement between climate scientists and climate skeptics. In a piece at the institute's magazine, Momentum, Foley wrote maybe...

URL: http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156677236/finding-common-ground-in-environmental-debates
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Higher CO2 levels in atmosphere may speed soil emissions

ClimateWire: As higher levels of carbon dioxide permeate the Earth's atmosphere, scientists have long counted on forests -- which, as individual trees, grow larger in carbon-rich environments -- to soak up some of the excess. But after nearly a decade and a half of observing forest ecosystems in controlled settings, scientists now see evidence that elevating carbon levels may cause forests to release as much extra carbon as they absorb. That's because trees, as they grow larger, need to absorb higher doses...

URL: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=higher-co2-levels-atmosphere-speed-soil-emissions
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A Kick-Start for Phytoplankton

New York Times: Spurred by ocean currents, millions of microscopic plants, or phytoplankton, color the waters of the North Atlantic with strokes of blue, turquoise, green, and brown in the springtime. Every spring, the waters of the North Atlantic revive as the days lengthen and phytoplankton explode in number. For decades, scientists therefore thought they understood what sets off the annual phytoplankton bloom: spring sunshine. But a study published this month in Science upends the prevailing view, reporting...

URL: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/a-kick-start-for-phytoplankton/
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EU aims to reach airline emissions deal: Commission

Reuters: The European Union is "totally committed" to reaching a global deal on carbon emissions from airlines, the Commission said on Thursday as efforts resumed to defuse an international row over the issue. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) President of the Council Roberto Kobeh held talks in Brussels on Thursday. "The EU is very committed, totally committed, to reaching an agreement that fully respects...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/12/us-eu-airlines-carbon-idUSBRE86B0Y520120712
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Canadian farmers see silver lining in U.S., Europe's drought

Canadian Press: Drought conditions across large swaths of the United States and parts of Europe are raising concerns about a food-price shock later this year. But while consumers brace to pay more for everything from corn flakes to bread and beef, many Canadian farmers hope to reap rewards from historically high grain prices. "It's simple supply and demand," said Myron Krahm, vice-president of the Manitoba Corn Growers Association. "The U.S. being the largest corn producer in the world, if they are suffering...

URL: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canadian-farmers-see-silver-lining-in-us-europes-drought/article4413765/

Majority of Americans Believe Climate is Warming, Weather Less Stable

Yale Environment 360: The majority of Americans believe the climate is getting warmer and that global weather patterns are becoming more unstable, according to a new poll. In a poll conducted by the Washington Post and Stanford University last month, six in 10 respondents said that weather patterns have been more unstable during the last three years than in the past; almost as many respondents said that average temperatures had increased during the last three years. According to the poll, more than half believe that "a...

URL: http://e360.yale.edu/digest/majority_of_americans_believe_climate_is_warming_weather_less_stable/3547/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29

United States: The Long Shadow of the BP Oil Spill Keeps Killing Baby Birds

Atlantic: Two years after the BP oil spill, Louisiana is still grappling with its aftermath. I saw this firsthand during a recent visit to Cat Island, a barrier island in Plaquemeins Parrish. The oil spill killed the much of the vegetation that serves as a nesting ground for pelicans and other migrating waterfowl. Cat Island's mangrove forests used to be impenetrably dense. You can walk through them with little effort now. Most of the island is underwater. Tree roots used to prevent waves from sweeping away...

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/07/the-long-shadow-of-the-bp-oil-spill-keeps-killing-baby-birds/259705/
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Preventing Fires, Before Everything’s Aflame

Climate Central: Wildfires have been national news this summer. Massive, destructive burns in Colorado and New Mexico have emblazoned websites and TV screens across the country. But just as the monsoon rains roll into the Southwest bringing much needed moisture, the nation's gaze over the fires will move on, too. The wildfires are just the eye-catching flashpoint of a complex and ongoing process of forest management and restoration in the Southwest. Since the U.S. Forest Service began monitoring national forests...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/preventing-catastrophic-fires-what-goes-on-when-everythings-not-aflame?utm-source=feedburner&utm-medium=feed&utm-campaign=Feed%3A+climatecentral%2FdjOO+Climate+Central+-+Full+Feed

China finding ways to cut back on coal

Brisbane Times: CHINA'S hunger for Australian coal is likely to wane as it moves to a more energy-efficient economy, says Australia's leading climate change and China expert. Ross Garnaut, who led the government's review on climate change and served as ambassador to China in the 1980s, told an economics conference in Melbourne yesterday that China's ''quite radical'' efforts to tackle climate change and an ageing workforce had shown early signs of success - leading to a potentially dramatic impact on Australia's...

URL: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/china-finding-ways-to-cut-back-on-coal-20120711-21w91.html
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Biodiesel fraud cases leave industry reeling

Baltimore Sun: Biodiesel producers told a congressional panel Wednesday that they're struggling to stay afloat in the aftermath of fraud cases uncovered in Baltimore and Texas, and a spokesman for petroleum refiners faulted the Environmental Protection Agency for slow response to a crisis he said has cost the industry $200 million so far. Members of the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee pressed Environmental Protection Agency officials to work quickly to resolve problems caused by millions of...

URL: http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/blog/bs-gr-biofuel-hearing-20120711,0,7582718.story?track=rss

Climate: Skeptic group takes aim at journalists

Greenwire: A conservative group that has used public records requests in an attempt to publicize emails written by climate scientists has turned its attention to reporters who cover the environment. The American Tradition Institute (ATI), which has garnered attention for seeking emails written by climate scientist Michael Mann when he worked at the University of Virginia, is making similar Freedom of Information Act requests concerning email exchanges between scientists and reporters. The aim is to illustrate...

URL: http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2012/07/11/1

Climate change will unleash buried toxics

East Bay Express: Toxic sites ringing the San Francisco Bay tell the story of its recent past. Smelting plants, hazardous waste dumps, landfills, shipyards, fuel depots, and military bases recall an era when the bay was prized more for its tactical and commercial values than for its ecology. Most have been closed or removed, but their toxic legacy often remains intact, hidden just beneath the surface; long-buried chemicals, heavy metals, and hazardous waste still seep into the bay on a daily basis. The problem...

URL: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/climate-change-will-unleash-buried-toxics/Content?oid=3283672

Australia: Pols asked to scrap climate lessons

AAP: The Liberal National Party (LNP) annual convention will consider more than 100 resolutions, including the removal of "environmental propaganda" like climate change from Queensland schools. The conference, to be held on Friday and the weekend, will be the party's biggest meeting in Queensland and will feature 850 delegates and 1,100 attending a dinner on Friday night. The convention will hear 101 wide-ranging resolutions put forth from LNP branches across the state. The Noosa State Electorate...

URL: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8498405/newman-to-outline-lnp-future-at-convention

India has least eco impact but feels guilty: study

Agence France-Presse: Indian consumers feel the most guilty about their environmental impact even though they have a smaller average footprint than consumers in wealthy countries, a survey said Thursday. The 17-nation study by the Washington-based National Geographic Society found a "major disconnect" as consumers in rich nations had the least sustainable lifestyles but also felt the least guilty about their impact. The " Greendex" found that Indians had the most sustainable behavior, followed by Chinese and Brazilians....

URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/india-has-least-eco-impact-but-feels-guilty-study/articleshow/14857600.cms

The Connection Between Obesity and Climate Change

Subtitle:

Overweight people are disproportionate contributors to global climate change

Images:

[![][1]][2]

[Positive feedback loops][3] that reinforce global warming are scary. Here's an example of such a feedback loop: warmer temperatures melt Arctic sea ice earlier in the spring and reduce the size of the summer ice pack. Since the dark ocean has less reflectance than ice, a smaller ice pack means that more solar radiation is absorbed by the ocean every summer, further warming the planet.

[1]: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/blog-river/Obesity - Dospaz - cropped.jpg (Photo of customers at a fast food truck)
[2]: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/connection-between-obesity-and-climate-change
[3]: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060522151248.htm

URL: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/connection-between-obesity-and-climate-change

Post-Stanford poll finds more Americans believe climate change is happening

Washington Post: Most Americans say they believe temperatures around the world are going up and that weather patterns have become more unstable in the past few years, according to a new poll from The Washington Post and Stanford University. But they also see future warming as something that can be addressed, and majorities want government action across a range of policies to curb energy consumption, with more support for tax breaks than government mandates. The findings come as the federal government released...

URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/post-stanford-poll-finds-more-americans-believe-climate-change-is-happening/2012/07/12/gJQAh92wgW_story.html

Sea Level Rise: It Could Be Worse than We Think

Climate Central: A new analysis released Thursday in the journal Science implies that the seas could rise dramatically higher over the next few centuries than scientists previously thought -- somewhere between 18-to-29 feet above current levels, rather than the 13-to-20 feet they were talking about just a few years ago. The increase in sea level would largely come from the partial melting of giant ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica, which have remained largely intact since the end of the last ice age, nearly...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-level-rise-it-could-be-worse-than-we-think?utm-source=feedburner&utm-medium=feed&utm-campaign=Feed%3A+climatecentral%2FdjOO+Climate+Central+-+Full+Feed
Enclosure: http://www.climatecentral.org/images/sized/images/uploads/news/7-12-12_Mike_SeaIceBreakingUpNextToGlacier1-425x274.jpg

Ethanol 15: The View from the Road

New York Times: As I write in The Times, this week a gas station operator in Lawrence, Kan., just west of Kansas City, became the first in the nation to offer e15, the 15 percent ethanol blend that was approved in 2010 for some cars by the Environmental Protection Agency. The fuel is intended to be an alternative to e10, the blend that is now standard around most of the United States. The operator, Scott Zaremba, will probably be the second and third, too, as he expands it to more of his eight gas stations, which...

URL: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/ethanol-15-the-view-from-the-road/
Enclosure: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/14/business/ethanol/ethanol-blog480.jpg

United States: Schwarzenegger still a man of (environmental) action

Christian Science Monitor: Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is all about action, whether it's on a film set or working to terminate fossil fuels. "When I was governor, I believed in the important role government played in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, but I also knew that leadership was not going to come at a national level," now former Governor Schwarzenegger said in a statement to The Christian Science Monitor. This idea – that local and state-level efforts can more effectively combat climate change...

URL: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2012/0711/Schwarzenegger-still-a-man-of-environmental-action
Enclosure: http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/0711caschwarzeneggerr20/13105304-1-eng-US/0711CASchwarzeneggerR20_full_380.jpg

Brazil's Attempt at Distributed Generation: Will Net Metering Work?

![][1] On April 17, 2012, the Brazilian Federal Energy Regulatory Agency (ANEEL) enacted new rules aimed at reducing barriers for the incorporation of distributed power generation (DG Regulation) into utility procurement and into Brazil's distribution planning processes. To achieve the goal of enabling production of renewable energy on a broad scale but without reliance on long-distance transmission lines, the DG Regulation establishes the following measures:

[1]: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2012/7/13/body-brazils-attempt-at-distributed-generation-will-net-metering-work.jpg

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/07/brazils-attempt-at-distributed-generation-will-net-metering-work?cmpid=rss

Mobile Wave Power: Ship-Based Energy Offers Renewable Solutions

![][1] Ocean waves carry a lot of energy. And all of that energy, clean and relatively consistent, looks pretty good to a world that is continuing to search for ways to ramp up generation of electricity from carbon dioxide-free sources.

[1]: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2012/7/5/body-mobile-wave-power-ship-based-energy-offers-renewable-solutions.jpg

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/07/mobile-wave-power-ship-based-energy-offers-renewable-solutions?cmpid=rss

Thermal Scout Finds Trouble at Solar Plants

![][1] At a 20-megawatt concentrating solar power (CSP) plant, some 10,000 mirrors reflect sunlight onto 10,000 receiver tubes, each of which must operate efficiently to get the maximum impact from the sun.

[1]: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2012/7/13/body-thermal-scout-finds-trouble-at-solar-plants.jpg

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/07/thermal-scout-finds-trouble-at-solar-plants?cmpid=rss

Global fight for natural resources 'has only just begun'

Guardian: The global battle for natural resources – from food and water to energy and precious metals – is only beginning, and will intensify to proportions that could mean enormous upheavals for every country, leading academics and business figures told a conference in Oxford on Thursday. Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, who convened the two-day Resource 2012 conference, told the Guardian: "We are nowhere near realising the full impact of this yet. We have seen the...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/12/global-natural-resources-food-water?newsfeed=true

Poll: Most believe in climate change

Politico: A majority of Americans say they think climate change is real, according to a new poll on Friday. Six in ten believe weather patterns around the world have been more unstable in the last three years, The Washington Post/Stanford University poll found, and almost as many people said it has been hotter on average in that time than ever period. And as for what the two presidential candidates want to do about climate change, almost half of those polled say that President Barack Obama wants to take...

URL: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78469.html
Enclosure: http://images.politico.com/global/2012/07/120713_global_warming_ap_328.jpg

Solar companies demand £2.2m in damages after feed-in tariff cuts

Guardian: Three solar power companies have written to the government demanding £2.2m in damages which they say were caused by cuts in 2011 to the incentive scheme for solar, which resulted in a legal challenge that the government lost. Last October, ahead of schedule, the coalition cut in half payments for the feed-in tariff scheme which pays generators of small-scale energy such as solar panels. The cut led to a near 90% drop in installations. The companies, who have sent a "letter before claim" to...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/13/solar-damages-feed-in-tariff-cuts
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2012/3/5/1330946532027/A-worker-fits-solar-panel-007.jpg

Indigenous knowledge 'invaluable' for Andean adaptation

indigenous knowledge | food: In Eastern Africa, severe drought is causing massive famines. In the United States, temperature records are soaring due to one of the warmest winters in decades. From pine beetle infestations in the Rockies to thinning ice in the Arctic, the impacts of climate change are inescapable. Adapting to these changes is not an easy task. In addition to using modern science and engineering, we will need to draw on indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge. This knowledge is an invaluable and often overlooked...

URL: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/blogs/climate-conversations/indigenous-knowledge-invaluable-for-andean-adaptation/
Enclosure: http://www.trust.org/contentAsset/resize-image/46c4e088-e8e7-4df9-8449-c782ec0811ec/photowide/?w=460&vn=201207121633

Scientists slam Telegraph blogger's claims that climate change will be good for the Amazon

Mongabay: Recent blog posts on The Telegraph and the Register claiming that tropical rainforests like the Amazon are set to benefit from climate change are "uninformed" and "ridiculous" according to some of the world's most eminent tropical forest scientists. The posts, published Sunday and Monday by Tim Worstall, a Senior Fellow at London's Adam Smith Institute, asserted that a new Nature study indicates that "climate change will mean new and larger tropical forests." "We're told, endlessly, that climate...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0712-telegraph-poor-science-journalism.html
Enclosure: http://s3.amazonaws.com/mongabay/peru/600/peru_aerial_1847.jpg

Drought parches more of U.S. Midwest, crops suffer

Reuters: The worst drought in a quarter century tightened its grip on the Midwestern United States over the past week as sweltering temperatures and scant rainfall punished corn and soybean crops across the region, a report from climate experts said Thursday. Nearly two-thirds of the nine-state Midwest region was in some stage of drought in the week ended July 10, up from just over 50 percent a week earlier, according to the Drought Monitor, a weekly report on drought throughout the country compiled by...

URL: http://news.yahoo.com/drought-parches-more-u-midwest-crops-suffer-182019391.html

Still time to save most species in the Brazilian Amazon

Mongabay: Once habitat is lost or degraded, a species doesn't just wink out of existence: it takes time, often several generations, before a species vanishes for good. A new study in Science investigates this process, called "extinction debt", in the Brazilian Amazon and finds that 80-90 percent of the predicted extinctions of birds, amphibians, and mammals have not yet occurred. But, unless urgent action is taken, the debt will be collected, and these species will vanish for good in the next few decades....

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0712-hance-extinction-debt-brazil.html
Enclosure: http://photos.mongabay.com/j/wearn3HR.568.jpg

Natural gas boom could isolate US on climate change

The Hill: The domestic national-gas boom might thin the ranks of climate change advocates and put the United States at odds with the international community on the issue, an expert said Thursday. America's insistence that natural gas will play an important role in easing the effects of climate change runs counter to European views and will likely invite "friction," Michael Levi, program director on energy security and climate change with the Council on Foreign Relations, said during a discussion hosted...

URL: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/237601-natural-gas-boom-could-hurt-us-climate-change-efforts

EPA Moves to Cut Haze, Gets Hazed by States

New York Times: It`s high season in the nation`s national parks as millions of visitors come to see nature. If last year`s visitor figures hold up - and early indications suggest they will - nine million visitors will see the Great Smoky Mountains, the most visited national park. Three other parks - Grand Canyon (more than four million visitors in 2011) Yellowstone (about three million) and Acadia (more than two million) - combined will attract roughly the same number. National Park Service Great Smoky Mountains...

URL: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/de-hazing-the-lazy-days-of-summer/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Climate could kill you, Outback towns are told

Independent: Climate change could transform the Australian outback, wiping dozens of small towns off the map, according to a new report commissioned by the federal government. With many rural towns struggling to survive, climate change – expected to make much of inland Australia hotter and drier – could be the final straw, warns the report by the government's National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility. Not only will the changes affect quality of life, with summer temperatures becoming insufferable,...

URL: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-could-kill-you-outback-towns-are-told-7939597.html
Enclosure: http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article7939489.ece/ALTERNATES/w460/30-outbacktowns-alamy.jpg

Colorado’s ‘Most Destructive’ Fire Now Fully Contained

Climate Central: The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that the Waldo Canyon fire, the "most destructive' fire ever to rip through Colorado, was 100 percent contained. This does not mean that every blaze of the fire has been extinguished but means the fire's "boundaries are fully under control.' A spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service, Pat Collrin, said that some parts of the Waldo Canyon fire could continue to "burn until fall.' However, the smoke has cleared enough to inventory the unparalleled damage. After...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/colorados-most-destructive-fire-now-fully-contained?utm-source=feedburner&utm-medium=feed&utm-campaign=Feed%3A+climatecentral%2FdjOO+Climate+Central+-+Full+Feed
Enclosure: http://www.climatecentral.org/images/sized/images/uploads/news/7-12-12_AlexKasdin-Waldo-Canyon-fire-429x278.jpg

Retired U.S. military brass wage political battle for biofuels

Reuters: A coalition of retired U.S. military officers defended the Pentagon's plans to boost the use of more expensive biofuels, telling senators and their staff on Thursday that reduced dependence on oil from the Middle East would ultimately reduce costs and improve national security. The U.S. veterans were fighting efforts by some Republicans to stop the purchase of expensive biofuels and spending on biofuel refineries at a time when defense budgets face massive cuts. "A small investment in biofuels...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/13/us-usa-navy-greenfleet-idUSBRE86C00Y20120713?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29

Fighting for Reproductive Rights; Climate Change

CNN: CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour. Tonight, two life-and-death issues, each controversial. But where the facts are incontrovertible, first reproductive rights. One hundred thousand women die in childbirth every year because of unintended pregnancies. And the leading cause of death is that amongst teenagers worldwide. One simple remedy could cut this number by a third and that is contraception. Yet it's not available to 222...

URL: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1207/11/ampr.01.html

Deja vu: U.S. undergoes hottest 12 months on record...again and again

Mongabay: According to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Climatic Data Center, the last twelve months have been the warmest on record for the contiguous United States. This record, set between July 2011 through June 2012, beat the last consecutive twelve month record set only a month earlier between June 2011 and May 2012, which in turn beat the previous record holder, you guessed it: May 2011 through April 2012. June 2012, according to the NOAA, was the...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0712-hance-us-12-months-extreme.html
Enclosure: http://photos.mongabay.com/j/waldocanyon_ast_2012187.568.jpg

Despite moratorium, Indonesia failing to take action on illegal palm oil plantations

Mongabay: Indonesian authorities are failing to take action against a palm oil company that is operating illegally in Central Kalimantan, alleges a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telapak. The report, published Thursday, says that authorities have failed to conduct a criminal investigation into the illegal conversion of more than 23,000 hectares of peatland and peat forest by PT SCP, part of the BEST Group, despite being provided with "sufficient evidence" to do so. EIA and...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0712-eia-investigation-pt-best.html
Enclosure: http://photos.mongabay.com/12/0712eiamapfull568.jpg

Spurred by Record Heat, Drought Stretches Across U.S

Climate Central: Drought conditions have expanded and reached another record level for the 21st century as of Thursday, escalating concerns about the fate of the 2012 corn crop. As of Thursday morning, nearly 61 percent of the country was classified as being in at least moderate drought, up from about 56 percent just one week ago, which was the largest swath of the country to be affected by drought conditions since the Drought Monitor began in 2000. According to the weather summary accompanying the...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/spurred-by-record-heat-drought-grows-across-us/

Free markets solve climate-change threats

Newsday: A while back, in my neighborhood in the mountains west of Denver, a couple heard some strange sounds on their deck about 1 in the morning. They went out to investigate and found a mountain lion upside down with its legs around the neck and belly of a standing elk. Its teeth were sunk in the elk's jugular. One of these neighbors shouted something to the effect of, "Hey, cut that out!" and the mountain lion took heed. The creature let go, landed on its feet and scooted from sight while the elk jumped...

URL: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/ambrose-free-markets-solve-climate-change-threats-1.3834784
Enclosure: http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.3807725.1342132445!/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/display_600/image.JPG

Drought leads to declaration of natural disaster in 26 US states

Guardian: America declared a natural disaster in more than 1,000 drought-stricken counties in 26 states on Thursday. It was the largest declaration of a national disaster and was intended to speed relief to about a third of the country's farmers and ranchers who are suffering in drought conditions. The declaration from the US department of agriculture includes most of the south-west, which has been scorched by wildfires, parts of the midwestern corn belt, and the south-east. It was intended to free...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/13/drought-declaration-natural-disaster-states
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/7/13/1342136693237/Drought-in-Texas-008.jpg

Amazon's doomed species set to pay deforestation's 'extinction debt'

Guardian: The destruction of great swaths of the Brazilian Amazon has turned scores of rare species into the walking dead, doomed to disappear even if deforestation were halted in the region overnight, according to a new study. Forest clearing in Brazil has already claimed casualties, but the animals lost to date in the rainforest region are just one-fifth of those that will slowly die out as the full impact of the loss of habitat takes its toll. In parts of the eastern and southern Amazon, 30 years of...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/12/amazon-deforestation-species-extinction-debt
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/7/12/1342115625336/White-cheeked-spider-monk-008.jpg

Many Amazon extinctions yet to come, study finds

LiveScience: When species lose their natural habitat to deforestation and other causes, they don't immediately disappear. Instead, they gradually die off over several generations, racking up an "extinction debt" that must eventually be paid in full. New research shows that the Brazilian Amazon has accrued a heavy vertebrate extinction debt, with more than 80 percent of extinctions expected from historical deforestation still pending. Only on msnbc.com Redux Pictures file Women in the infantry? Bad idea, female...

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48165883/ns/us_news-environment/

Climate Change Deniers Resurface: Who Will You Believe?

Huffington Post: The temperature's cooling, the power is back on in Washington, D.C., the fires are almost out in Colorado and they've almost cleaned up from the flooding in Florida. So naturally, those who continue to deny (at the peril of the rest of us) the connection between climate change and extreme weather disasters are once again raising their heads and raising their voices. Sen. Jim Inhofe, the igloo-building, oil-state politician who recently authored a book proclaiming global warming is a hoax, used...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-keefe/climate-change-deniers-re_b_1667941.html?utm_hp_ref=natural-disasters

New Zealand Resists High Carbon Price, Plans Australia Link

Bloomberg: New Zealand is resisting higher carbon prices as a threat to its economic recovery, even as the government steps up plans to merge its emissions market with the two-week-old program in Australia. New Zealand will review its climate program in 2015, a year earlier than previously scheduled, to coincide with Australia's planned transition from a fixed-cost system to market-based pricing, Tim Groser, Minister for Climate Change Issues, said in an interview in Wellington. The country decided against...

URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-12/new-zealand-resists-higher-carbon-price-plans-link-to-australia.html

Solar companies demand £2.2m in damages from DECC over feed-in tariff fiasco

BusinessGreen: The fall-out from the government's controversial decision last year to cut solar incentives before the completion of a consultation on the proposed cuts looks set to rumble on, after three solar firms today approached the government to request damages totalling £2.2m. The companies are seeking compensation after the High Court, Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court all ruled this spring that the government's handling of the cuts to solar feed-in tariffs (FITs) was "unlawful and unfair". Prospect...

URL: http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2191194/solar-companies-demand-gbp22m-in-damages-from-decc-over-feedin-tariff-fiasco?WT.rss_f=Home&WT.rss_a=Solar+companies+demand+%C2%A32.2m+in+damages+from+DECC+over+feed-in+tariff+fiasco

Environmental Threats: Antarctica In Danger Of Climate Change, Ocean Acidification And More

Huffington Post: Antarctica and its surrounding waters are under pressure from a variety of forces that are already transforming the area, scientists warn. The most immediate threats are regional warming, ocean acidification and loss of sea ice, all linked to global levels of carbon dioxide. Sea ice cover, crucial to the survival of virtually every animal that lives on and near the continent, already has been reduced by warming, according to a new study published in the July 13 issue of the journal Science. Visits...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/environmental-threats-antarctica_n_1669023.html
Enclosure: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/684213/thumbs/o-ENVIRONMENTAL-THREATS-ANTARCTICA-570.jpg?1

The Natural Gas Boom: Doing More Harm Than Good?

National Public Radio: The United States is in the midst of a natural gas boom - about 200,000 gas wells have been drilled in the past decade. The boom has been fueled by the use of hydraulic fracturing - or fracking - which involves pumping a mixture of water and chemicals into the ground to get access to the gas. The rush to extract natural gas has helped the economy pick up in places like Pennsylvania, but it also has raised questions that scientists can't yet answer about potential health and environmental problems....

URL: http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156158754/the-natural-gas-boom-doing-more-harm-than-good?ft=1&f=1025
Enclosure: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=156158754&m=156689071

Study Shows Heat Waves More Common Due To Global Warming

redOrbit: While a new study warned about the increasing odds of heat waves sweeping the earth, it also suggested the controversial nature and political undertones of climate studies. The study, led by National Oceanographic and Atmospheric (NOAA) scientists and issued in coordination with the U.K. Met (Meterology) Office, said that global warming made the 2011 Texas heat waves from March through August 20 times as likely as they would have been in the 1960s. The report also noted that the unusually warm...

URL: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112655472/study-shows-heat-waves-more-common-due-to-global-warming/
Enclosure: http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2012/07/139975451-617x416.jpg

Erratic rainfall in Sri Lanka hitting rice crop, power production

AlertNet: When it is full, the Parakarama Samudaraya irrigation tank in Sri Lanka's North Central province is an impressive sight. With its waters gently lapping the shores, this ancient reservoir --which covers more than 20 sq km (8 sq miles) - lives up to its name, which means the Parakarama sea. But these days, it might as well be renamed the Parakarama puddle. The failure of seasonal rains has caused water levels to drop so badly that by the first week of July the reservoir was at less than 8 percent...

URL: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/erratic-rainfall-in-sri-lanka-hitting-rice-crop-power-production
Enclosure: http://www.trust.org/contentAsset/resize-image/34112f5b-21b8-46ba-ae9a-3f0b3dbf3a71/photowide/?w=460&h=318&vn=201207130005

The World’s Worst Ideas for Addressing Climate Change

Slate: Rupert Murdoch made waves on Twitter yesterday by dunking his toe into the climate change debate: Climate change very slow but real. So far all cures worse than disease. Shale gas huge breakthrough for US. Half carbon of coal and oil. David Roberts of Grist was incredulous: "Solar panels are worse than drought or rising sea levels?' Of course not. The problem is that we aren't building enough of them to significantly slow climate change. And we may not anytime soon, thanks in part to that...

URL: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/07/12/global_warming_solutions_that_really_are_worse_than_the_problem.html
Enclosure: http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/future_tense/2012/07/12/global_warming_solutions_that_really_are_worse_than_the_problem/141370508.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large.jpg

Choosing an Air Conditioner

Subtitle:

Understanding the options with room air conditioners, central air conditioners, and heat pumps.

Images:

[![][1]][2]

I have never owned an air conditioner, and I don't have any immediate plans to change that. But if I did, what would I look for?

For only occasional use and when you don't want to spend more than $1,000, the options are limited to room air conditioners, which are most commonly installed in windows. These cool the rooms in which they are installed, though in a small house or one that's very-well-insulated and tight, a single window unit may be able to cool much of the house.

[1]: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/blog-river/Daikin_TepferHouse_8761_MedRes.jpg (Daikin mini-split heat pump)
[2]: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/energy-solutions/choosing-air-conditioner

URL: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/energy-solutions/choosing-air-conditioner

Trade Contractor Management Systems

Subtitle:

Why you need one and what they are made of

Images:

[![][1]][2]

Before you commit to the time and energy required to put together a complete management system for your trade contractors, you may want to know what you will ultimately get out of it. A good system will help you get more consistent, high quality work, reduce confusion and problems, help new trade contractors get up to speed quickly, improve your back office operations, and avoid confusion throughout the company. Sound interesting?

[1]: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/blog-river/reviewing-construction-docs.jpg (Systems can save time)
[2]: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/business-advisor/trade-contractor-management-systems

URL: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/business-advisor/trade-contractor-management-systems

Young people suffering fuel poverty, says new research

Ecologist: The new report, entitled 'Significant invisibles: Energy vulnerability among young urban adults' is authored by Birmingham University research scientist, Dr Saska Petrova, who is based at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences where her special interest is in community transitions as they relate to natural resource management, energy consumption, social justice and governance. The UK Fuel Poverty Strategy 2001 defines fuel poverty as where households have to spend more than...

URL: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1481244/young_people_suffering_fuel_poverty_says_new_research.html

Senegal begins planting the Great Green Wall against climate change

Ecologist: Senegal's capitol city Dakar sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean on a peninsula. It's at least a thousand miles to the Sahara desert yet the air today is so thick with sand that the tops of buildings disappear in a sandy haze. It's the worst sand storm in a year and people here are worried that climate change will cause these events to be more common. Seasons are shifting across the region. In Senegal the rainy season used to start in July or August but now it doesn't start until September. Decreased...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/12/senegal-great-green-wall
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2012/7/12/1342102638249/Great-Green-Wall---Worker-008.jpg

IDB Approves $250M for Electricity Sector in Costa Rica

![][1] The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced it had approved $250 million in financing for Costa Rica's electricity sector. Nearly $98 million will go to the Reventazón Hydroelectric Project, and the remainder will go toward investments in improving state power company ICE's electricity generation, transmission, and distribution capacities. IDB aims to improve the quality of energy and improve coverage in rural areas, according to press.

[1]: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2012/7/12/body-idb-approves-250m-for-electricity-sector-in-costa-rica.jpg

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/07/idb-approves-250m-for-electricity-sector-in-costa-rica?cmpid=rss

Protecting Cleantech Software

![][1] Implementation and functionality of most new technology now depends on software. Software for renewable energy technology, often referred to as 'CleanTech', is no exception to this rule. For example, a consumer considering participation in a feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme will want to know if their property is in fact suitable for solar generation before committing time and money. Consumer software products have been developed to simulate location-specific suitability. One application, for example, allows users to locate their home on Google Maps, insert symbols representing the envisaged location of the panels and additional data such as the pitch of their roof and suspected sources of shadows, following which the software estimates the generation of solar electricity.

[1]: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2012/7/12/body-protecting-cleantech-software.jpg

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/07/protecting-cleantech-software?cmpid=rss

Wind Turbines Waste Much Less Energy than Fossil Fuels

![][1] Wind energy opponents who say that producing electricity using the power of the wind is not efficient would do well to take a look at a new graphic published on the Guardian's data blog using UK Government data. 'Up in smoke: how energy efficient is electricity produced in the UK?' shows that thermal sources of electricity – gas, coal, nuclear, was

[1]: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2012/7/12/body-wind-turbines-waste-much-less-energy-than-fossil-fuels.jpg

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2012/07/wind-turbines-waste-much-less-energy-than-fossil-fuels?cmpid=rss

Offshore Wind Farms in US Waters Would Generate Both US and Foreign Maritime Jobs

![][1] With no offshore wind energy farms yet built off U.S. coastlines, various states over the last few years have proposed offshore wind energy legislation as a future investment in renewable energy as well as a vehicle for American job creation. The immediate future of U.S. offshore wind farms may depend on whether Congress renews certain tax credit and federal loan guarantee programs. In the event that offshore wind farms move forward, it is likely that both U.S. maritime and foreign maritime workers will be involved in construction and maintenance.

[1]: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2012/7/12/body-offshore-wind-farms-in-u-s-waters-would-generate-both-u-s-and-foreign-maritime-jobs.jpg

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/07/offshore-wind-farms-in-u-s-waters-would-generate-both-u-s-and-foreign-maritime-jobs?cmpid=rss

Crowdsourcing, Limited Partnerships and Other Tools for Financing our Clean-Energy Future

![][1] At Clean Edge, we spend a great deal of time looking at innovative policy, business, and financing models that can support the broad and steady growth of solar, wind, energy efficiency, green buildings, and other clean-tech sectors. And in many ways, we believe it's no longer really an issue of technology development. Costs continue to come down across the clean-tech value chain while the industry, along with the products it offers, expands and matures.

[1]: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2012/7/12/body-crowdsourcing-limited-partnerships-and-other-tools-for-financing-our-clean-energy-future.jpg

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/07/crowdsourcing-limited-partnerships-and-other-tools-for-financing-our-clean-energy-future?cmpid=rss

NOAA Study: Climate change makes heat waves more likely

Minnesota Public Radio: The conventional wisdom has been that you can't pin one extreme weather event on climate change or "global warming." That may still be true, but we may have moved into a new era where climate change can be cited as having greatly increased the odds of extreme heat waves. A NOAA/UK Met Office study released this week brings climate perspective to 6 extreme weather events from 2011. The analogy of climate change to individual extreme weather events has been used many times to a baseball player...

URL: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/updraft/archive/2012/07/study_climate_change_makes_hea.shtml

At Kansas Station, E15 Fuel Reaches the Masses

New York Times: Intended as an additive to gasoline, ethanol in modern times was meant to stretch America's fuel supplies, much as a cook uses chicken stock to increase the volume of a soup. By federal mandate, ethanol makes up about 10 percent of most fuel that motorists buy at the pump. Unfortunately for ethanol makers, Americans are driving fewer miles and upgrading to more efficient cars — or to continue the analogy, eating less soup. So ethanol makers want to change the longstanding recipe, trying to persuade...

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/business/energy-environment/at-kansas-station-e15-fuel-reaches-the-masses.html
Enclosure: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/12/business/ETHANOL/ETHANOL-articleLarge.jpg

Plans to impose lower CO2 emissions 'good for drivers'

Independent: European plans announced yesterday would force car makers to cut carbon dioxide emissions by a third by the end of the decade, slashing fuel bills for car owners by up to £3,000 a year. In the latest prong of its attempt to hit climate change targets, the European Commission recommended cutting average emissions from new cars to 95 grams CO2 per km by 2020. The Commission said the proposals – which are likely to be resisted by Europe's automotive industry – would save car users hundreds of...

URL: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/motoring-news/plans-to-impose-lower-co2-emissions-good-for-drivers-7936425.html

Florida Just Says No To GM Mosquitoes

redOrbit: Florida residents are voicing their opposition to the release of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes by a British pest control company; despite the fact that the pesky critters were engineered to impede the spread of dengue fever. Dengue Fever, which comes from a virus spread by the bite of an infected mosquito, was first recognized in the 1950s, yet has become a leading cause of hospitalization and death among children in tropical Asian and Latin American countries. The incidence of dengue has...

URL: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112654584/florida-just-says-no-to-gm-mosquitos/

Pastures, not forest, are best place for oil palm expansion in Colombia

Mongabay: Colombia is targeting a six-fold increase in crude palm-oil production by 2020. Conservationists fear this may compromise the nation's natural ecosystems, but a new study suggests the impact may be minimized by limiting new oil palm plantations to certain areas of pasture land. "In the Latin American context, characterized generally by extensive and often under-productive pastures, the expansion of oil palm plantations can be accommodated with minimal impact on forest cover," explains study co-author...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0711-lark-palm-oil-colombia.html
Enclosure: http://s3.amazonaws.com/mongabay/sabah/600/sabah_0028.jpg

Debris from Japan tsunami extends 2,000 miles across Pacific

Guardian: Wreckage from Japan's devastating tsunami now stretches across a vast expanse of the North Pacific up to 2,000 miles wide, an ocean expedition has discovered. The first research vessel to journey into the debris field from last year's Japanese tsunami returned to port in Hawaii after 28 days at sea with new evidence of the wreckage now making its way to North American shores. "There is a huge plume. We estimate it's more than 1,000 miles wide, maybe almost 2,000 miles wide – and that debris...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/11/debris-japan-tsunami-pacific
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/7/11/1342033483981/Debris-from-the-Japanse-t-007.jpg

US drought threatens price of food as hot weather fries corn

Guardian: The worst drought to hit the United States in nearly 25 years is threatening to drive up food prices around the world. The price of corn, the staple crop of much of the midwest and the prairies, has risen by a third in the past month and rose again on Wednesday after a US government report said farmers would not yield as much from their parched fields as expected. Higher prices are likely to be passed on in the cost of hamburgers and steak and also affect a range of other foods such as corn flakes...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/11/us-drought-threatens-food
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2012/7/11/1342028170167/Barack-Obama-buys-corn-in-008.jpg

Extreme Weather Linked to Man-Made Global Warming: Now What?

Yahoo!: Climate change boosted the odds of the egregious weather that ran roughshodover the planet in 2011, according to a report released this week. The National Climactic Data Center's State of the Climate report, which was compiled by 48 scientists in 400 countries,found that the last 12 months in the mainland U.S. were the hottest since record keeping began in 1895. The kind of blistering heat we used to experience once every 20 years, will now occur every two. A heat wave in Texas is now 20 times...

URL: http://news.yahoo.com/extreme-weather-linked-man-made-global-warming-now-193845703.html

FAO Yields to Meat Industry Pressure on Climate Change

New York Times: Robert Goodland retired as lead environmental adviser at the World Bank Group after serving there for 23 years. His work was influential in my "We Could Be Heroes" column of May 15. The past year has been the warmest ever in the United States, with record heat sweeping across the country last week, causing at least 52 human deaths and also harming livestock. In fact, livestock are not only harmed by human-caused global-warming greenhouse gas, but also cause about 18 percent of it, according to...

URL: http://bittman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/fao-yields-to-meat-industry-pressure-on-climate-change/
Enclosure: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/07/11/opinion/cameroon/cameroon-blog480.jpg

Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru get big boost in deforestation tracking, biomass measurement

Mongabay: Efforts to rapidly and accurately track deforestation and forest degradation in Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru got a boost this week with a special technical training session organized by the Governors' Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF). The meeting, convened at Stanford University and Google's Silicon Valley campus, paired staffers from government agencies and NGOs in the four tropical countries with technical experts from the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), the Carnegie...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0711-gcf-redd-mrv-workshop.html
Enclosure: http://photos.mongabay.com/12/7011claslite.jpg

Enbridge says pipeline safe after NTSB blasts company

Reuters: Enbridge Inc, stung by a harsh rebuke from regulators over a 2010 spill that dumped more than 20,000 barrels of crude into a Michigan river system, has stepped up inspections and is confident its pipeline network is safe, the company's incoming chief executive said on Wednesday. Company President Al Monaco, slated to replace Pat Daniel as chief executive later this year, said Enbridge has boosted spending on safety inspections since the July 2010 spill in the Kalamazoo River. "We'll be spending...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-enbridge-spill-idUSBRE86A1DI20120711?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Enclosure: http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120711&t=2&i=629178935&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=460&pl=300&r=CBRE86A1OUW00

Climate Change Driving Salmon Evolution

Mother Jones: Pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha): NOAA | Fisheries ServiceTwo of our hottest-button topics--climate change and evolution--are now linked by genetic research on migrating salmon. The results, published in a new paper in the science journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, report on groundbreaking evidence that climate change is driving the evolution of pink salmon in Alaska. DNA data clearly show a genetic selection for earlier migrating fish during the last three decades. This is particularly...

URL: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/climate-change-clearly-driving-salmon-evolution
Enclosure: http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/pink_salmon.preview.jpeg

United States: How Climate Change Exacerbated the Drought

National Public Radio: Last year, Texas suffered the worst single-year drought on record. It resulted in nearly $10 billion dollars in losses to crops, livestock and timber in Texas, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In a new report from NOAA, "State of The Climate," the agency suggests that thanks to climate change, Texas is likely to see more extreme heat waves and dry spells like it did last year. Twenty times more likely, in fact. Computer simulations from scientists in...

URL: http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/07/11/how-climate-change-exacerbated-the-drought/
Enclosure: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/2011/webinar-briefing-slides.pdf

Government $1bn deal to controversial Petrogras deep-sea oil drilling

Guardian: The government has committed $1bn of taxpayer's funds to support deep-sea drilling in the south Atlantic, despite acknowledging that the controversial project has "significant potential" to damage the environment. Vince Cable's export credit guarantee department (ECGD) has agreed a $1bn (£637m) line of credit to help Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, drill for oil and gas. This will be in deeper water than the area in the Gulf of Mexico where an explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/11/petrogras-deap-sea-oil-drilling-funding
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2012/7/11/1342030738867/oil-drilling-spill-Atlant-008.jpg

Climate change increased the probability of Texas drought, African famine, and other extreme weather

Mongabay: Climate change is here and its increasing the chances for crazy weather, according to scientists. A prestigious group of climatologists have released a landmark report that makes the dramatic point that climate change is impacting our weather systems-and in turn our food crops, our economies, and even our lives-here-and-now. The new report in the American Meteorological Society is first of what is intended to be an annual offering that will attempt to tease out the connections between climate change...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0711-hance-attribution-report-2011.html
Enclosure: http://photos.mongabay.com/j/drought.map.us.568.jpg

Texas judge rules atmosphere, air to be protected like water, may aid climate change lawsuits

Associated Press: A Texas judge has ruled that the atmosphere and air must be protected for public use, just like water, which could help attorneys tasked with arguing climate change lawsuits designed to force states to cut emissions. The written ruling, issued in a letter Monday by Texas District Court Judge Gisela Triana, shot down arguments by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that only water is a "public trust,' a doctrine that dates to the Roman Empire stating a government must protect certain...

URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/texas-judge-rules-atmosphere-air-to-be-protected-like-water-may-aid-climate-change-lawsuits/2012/07/11/gJQAtqRodW_story.html

Honeywell to upgrade nuclear plant to improve safety

Reuters: Honeywell International Inc said it is evaluating upgrades to its Metropolis Works nuclear conversion plant, following a regulatory inspection that looked at preparedness for natural disasters such as strong earthquakes and tornadoes. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) inspected Honeywell's Metropolis Works in Illinois as part of a comprehensive assessment of all U.S. nuclear-related facilities in the wake of last year's Fukushima disaster in Japan. The company said it will not restart...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-honeywell-nuclearplant-idUSBRE86A1CS20120711?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29

Chevron Brazil spill report expected next week: regulator

Reuters: Brazil's oil regulator said on Wednesday it expects to release a report next week on the causes of a November oil spill in an offshore field operated by Chevron Corp, an accident that led to criminal charges and civil suits seeking nearly $20 billion in damages. The report from the ANP, as the regulator is known, is expected to provide the official government explanation of the accident, which spilled about 3,000 barrels of oil into the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Rio de Janeiro. The report...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-chevron-report-timing-idUSBRE86A14F20120711?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29
Enclosure: http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20120711&t=2&i=629129065&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE86A1ICD00