Mayor Bloomberg endorses Obama for his climate stance

ClimateWire: In the end, President Obama won the coveted endorsement of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But it wasn't Obama's visits or entreaties that sealed it. It was Hurricane Sandy's. Bloomberg endorsed Obama in an op-ed yesterday, arguing that Hurricane Sandy and other extreme weather events may not be directly caused by climate change, but that the risk that they are requires action by elected officials. Republican nominee Mitt Romney has backed off his previous pledges to act on climate change,...

URL: http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2012/11/02/2

"Climate services" go global

Nature: An international framework for providing information about how Earth's climate will affect everything from health to disaster planning is set to bring order to an area that has given some scientists cause for concern. The field of 'climate services' has boomed in recent years, with various organizations and individuals using climate models to advise policy-makers and local people on crop production, infrastructure planning and disease management. At the first ever 'extraordinary session' of the...

URL: http://www.nature.com/news/climate-services-go-global-1.11724
Enclosure: http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.7240.1351867361!/image/1.11724_CORBIS-42-16725265.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_300/1.11724_CORBIS-42-16725265.jpg

Climate change: Trees are invading mountain meadows

Summit County Citizen: As the Earth steadily warms, snowpacks are dwindling, especially in spring, leading to a longer growing season that enables trees to replace grasses and wildflowers by taking root in high mountain meadows. A new study by Oregon State University researchers suggests the tree invasion has been accelerating the past few decades, at least in the Pacific Northwest, where the scientists reported the results of a long-term monitoring project in Jefferson Park, a subalpine meadow complex in the central...

URL: http://summitcountyvoice.com/2012/11/03/global-warming-trees-are-invading-mountain-meadows/
Enclosure: http://summitvoice.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/meadow2.jpg?w=468&h=351

Can farms bounce back from superstorms like Sandy?

Mother Jones: Farmers have always lived with what the novelist Henry James called the "imagination of disaster"--the keen sense that there's always something, anything, that can go wrong. In that long interval between sowing tiny seeds and reaping valuable crops, droughts, floods, plagues of pests, tumbling trees, ravaging beasts--all threaten your livelihood and haunt your dreams. But the last seven years have been ridiculous. In 2005, the sixth-most powerful hurricane ever recorded blitzed into the Mississippi...

URL: http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/10/yet-another-landmark-storm-underscores-need-resilience-ag
Enclosure: http://mjcdn.motherjones.com/preset_16/7291764232_bfe8743818.jpg

Germany discusses national energy plan

New York Times: Chancellor Angela Merkel held talks on developing a nationwide strategy on renewable energy with the governors of Germany's 16 states on Friday, at a time when energy prices are rising and the opposition is critical of her government's efforts. Until now, each state has drawn up and worked from its own plan for the expansion of renewable resources in its territory, often in conflict with one another. On the federal side, there is no single leader for the project to increase reliance on renewable...

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/world/europe/germany-holds-talks-on-national-energy-strategy.html

Canada: Bioenergy program documentation lacking, auditor general says

Edmonton Journal: Alberta paid out $42 million in the last fiscal year to a half-dozen companies to encourage bioenergy production, but five failed to file required annual reports and the sixth submitted information showing it had not met requirements of the program. Without timely receipt and review of the reports, the Energy Department may lack the documentation it needs to assess whether objectives of the bioenergy producer credit program are being met, Auditor General Merwan Saher warned on Thursday. The...

URL: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/edmonton/Bioenergy%20program%20documentation%20lacking%20auditor%20general/7492362/story.html

Affects of climate change on New York City

Living on Earth: We revisit a Living on Earth documentary reported by John Rudolph in 2003 that examined storm surges and other potential effects of climate change on New York City. Then Klaus Jacob, senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, featured in the original story, talks to host Steve Curwood from his flooded home on the Hudson River. Transcript CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth, I'm Steve Curwood. Sandy the super-storm has dominated the news, but there is an election...

URL: http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00044&segmentID=3
Enclosure: http://www.loe.org/content/2012-11-02/climate-nyc.mp3

Cambodia approves plan to build profitable dam, displace 50,000+ peasants

Agence France-Presse: Energy-hungry Cambodia on Friday gave the green light to a multi-million dollar hydropower dam backed by companies from China and Vietnam that activists say will affect thousands of people. The Hydro Power Lower Sesan 2 project will invest $781.5 million to build a 400-megawatt hydroelectric dam on a tributary of the Mekong River in northern Stung Treng province, according to a government statement. The government did not name the Chinese and Vietnamese firms involved, but said solutions had...

URL: http://dgrnewsservice.org/2012/11/03/cambodia-approves-plan-to-build-profitable-dam-displace-50000-peasants/
Enclosure: http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/2012/thekamchayhy.jpg

U.S. disaster relief in a race against freezing cold

Reuters: Fuel supplies headed toward disaster zones in the U.S. Northeast on Saturday and a million customers regained electricity as near freezing temperatures threatened to add to the misery of coastal communities devastated by superstorm Sandy. President Barack Obama, neck-and-neck in opinion polls with Republican rival Mitt Romney three days before the general election, told emergency response officials to cut through government "red tape" and work without delay to help ravaged areas return to normal...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/04/us-storm-sandy-hurricane-idUSBRE89N16J20121104?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=20121103&t=2&i=670433351&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=700&pl=300&r=CBRE8A21B1K00

California also worries about extreme storms after Sandy

LiveScience: In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, researchers in California are grappling with their own questions about increasingly extreme weather. The Pacific Ocean isn't warm enough to produce a superstorm like Sandy on the West Coast, researchers say, but climate change could give rise to more frequent severe storms in the region. "We can see very big storms, and there are a couple of issues related to climate change to think about," said Roger Bales, director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI)...

URL: http://www.livescience.com/24508-california-extreme-weather.html

You will pay for hurricane Sandy – even if you live nowhere near it

Mother Jones: By now you've already heard about Hurricane Sandy. Or Frankenstorm. Or the Snowincane, if you prefer. As I write this, the storm is barreling toward the continental United States, promising to wreck havoc on the coastal Mid-Atlantic and New England. It's supposed to hit coastal Virginia, where I've spent quite a bit of time in the past few months reporting about sea level rise, storm surges, and efforts to make communities safer. You'll have to wait a bit longer for that piece, but in the mean...

URL: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/10/coastal-virginia-ready-monster-storm

Scientists believe climate change may have given Sandy more punch

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Whether climate change was responsible for changing Hurricane Sandy's path that sent it on a left turn into mid-Atlantic states and inland is open to scientific debate. Scientists remain uncertain whether melted Arctic ice caused the autumn high-pressure system in the North Atlantic, which sent Sandy westward, causing an estimated $50 billion in damage with the U.S. death toll topping 80. But climate-change scientists generally agree that the sea levels that have risen by a foot over the past...

URL: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/scientists-believe-climate-change-may-have-given-sandy-more-punch-660414/

Outsmarting the surge

Time: After Hurricane Sandy hurled the Atlantic at the Northeast coast on Oct. 29 and 30, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo returned from touring a shell-shocked New York City to face reporters. The storm surge had inundated lower Manhattan, Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn and Queens. It had obliterated the New Jersey shore. Across more than a dozen states, from North Carolina to Maine and as far west as Michigan, it left more than 50 people dead and more than 8 million without power, and it likely caused...

URL: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2128304,00.html
Enclosure: http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2012/1210/360_wsandy_1112.jpg

McKibben: Sandy 'moved the debate' on climate

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: As one of the nation's leading voices on the dangers of climate change, it was anticipated that environmental activist Bill McKibben would use the keynote speech at Washington University's Sustainable Cities Conference to connect the dots between between global warming and the havoc wrought by Hurricane Sandy. He wasted no time doing so. "For so long so many scientists have been predicting that this is precisely what would be happening," McKibben told a packed crowd at Graham Chapel on the...

URL: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/mckibben-sandy-moved-the-debate-on-climate/article_6fd97ebb-f491-5be5-a8bc-8e340b3d8d67.html
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A journalist’s call to arms on climate change

The World: For all of this seemingly interminable campaign season, it was the elephant in the room, the huge issue that no one--not the candidates and in large part not the media--was talking about. Until suddenly, catastrophically, it thrust itself into the campaign in a way that could even alter the outcome. No one can with certainty "blame" Hurricane/"Superstorm" Sandy on climate change. But as I said in my on-air interview this week with our host Lisa Mullins, climate change almost certainly aided and...

URL: http://www.theworld.org/2012/11/a-journalists-call-to-arms-on-climate-change/

This is the new normal, warn climate scientists

Sydney Morning Herald: HURRICANE Sandy was a bigger, fiercer and more damaging storm because of human-induced global warming, an analysis produced by Australia's Climate Commission has found. The burning of fossil fuels had made a material contribution to the atmospheric conditions that bred and sustained the storm, the report said, echoing international studies produced over the past few days. On Thursday the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, endorsed Barack Obama in the US presidential election, citing the...

URL: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/this-is-the-new-normal-warn-climate-scientists-20121102-28phb.html
Enclosure: http://media.smh.com.au/news/world-news/dramatic-vision-of-sandys-arrival-3763485.html

Research boss Wingham in trouble over British Antarctic Survey claim

Guardian: The research council chief who controversially tried to close down the British Antarctic Survey has been ordered to explain apparently inaccurate remarks to the Commons science select committee last week. MPs are concerned about the account given by Duncan Wingham, head of the Natural Environment Research Council, of personnel changes made at the BAS after preparations to close it were instigated this year. The closure plan – first revealed by the Observer – generated widespread hostility and...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/04/duncan-wingham-british-antarctic-survey
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/11/3/1351954828041/British-Antarctic-Survey-007.jpg

The science behind superstorm Sandy's crippling storm surge

Scientific American: Superstorm Sandy's surge halted a little more than a block from my home, mirroring almost precisely the border of two different nearby flood zones on New York City's evacuation map. Homes, stores and warehouses closer to the Gowanus Canal at the westernmost end of Long Island—one of the most polluted sites in the U.S. as a result of an industrial legacy paired with sewage overflows in heavy rains, qualifying its bottom muck, waters and adjacent land for Superfund designation—saw basements and lower...

URL: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-protect-new-york-city-from-storm-surges
Enclosure: http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/how-to-protect-new-york-city-from-storm-surges_1.jpg

Australia: Rising sea a threat to riverside homes

Sydney Morning Herald: WATER will swamp homes and businesses from Haberfield to Homebush as rising sea levels inundate the Parramatta River foreshore over the next century, a new analysis shows. The findings are critical as valuable river frontage becomes increasingly urbanised and former industrial sites are redeveloped into housing. Even under a limited sea level rise of 0.4 metres, predicted by 2050, the area of riverside land submerged every year would increase by 450 per cent on current levels. Once the sea...

URL: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/water-issues/rising-sea-a-threat-to-riverside-homes-20121102-28phj.html
Enclosure: http://images.smh.com.au/2012/11/03/3766568/art-Paramatta-620x349.jpg

United Kingdom: Forests, phone masts, roads – how our leaders scorn the countryside

Guardian: When the Conservative MP Oliver Letwin toured his West Dorset constituency last June, he was moved to describe the landscape for his website. "As I make my way on this gloriously sunny morning, dictating this article, I am reminded of the enormous responsibility placed upon us to be good stewards of this treasure and to hand it on undefiled to succeeding generations." Dictating, mind you, not writing. Nothing wrong in that: after all, he's a busy politician. But when you're writing, you have more...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/04/henry-porter-ash-trees-countryside-destruction
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2012/11/3/1351946622913/Ash-tree-Henry-Porter-010.jpg

United Kingdom: Ethical living: where are the incentives to go green?

Guardian: The dilemma I know I should be saving power, but going to all the effort to shave a few pounds off my electricity bill or to be called nominally "green'" isn't enough. When are there going to be some proper incentives? Kim, Essex Consider moving to France or the Isle of Wight. I'm not being facetious. In France they're aiming to be the first nation to allow consumers to sell "negawatts" of electricity back to the grid. Negawatts are theoretical units of power which represent energy saved as a...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/04/ethical-living-green-incentives
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2012/10/31/1351681521492/Electricity-pylons-green--008.jpg

Under pressure: the man who must rule on next UK airport

Guardian: Reclining in an office chair usually filled by the transport minister, Norman Baker, who is away for the day, Sir Howard Davies, 61 – former senior mandarin at the Treasury, one-time aide to Nigel Lawson, former director of the London School of Economics, head of the Financial Services Authority under Labour and now chairman of Phoenix Insurance – oozes the confidence of a man who has seen it all before. "It happened in the way these things do. Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, gave me a...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/03/next-uk-airport

Boris Johnson told to leave politics out of airport plans

Guardian: The head of the new commission deciding the future of Britain's airports has hit back at Boris Johnson for politicising the debate over the location of the country's major air hub. Sir Howard Davies, who launched his inquiry last week, says he wants a public debate first and foremost about the issues surrounding airports. Davies, a former head of the Financial Services Authority, was responding to attempts by the London mayor to ambush the launch of the three-year commission last Friday by...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/03/boris-johnson-airport-plans
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2012/11/3/1351969987756/Boris-Johnson-010.jpg

Huge scale of UK's 'dash for gas' revealed

Guardian: The amount of power expected to be generated from gas by 2030 has quadrupled in the last year, according to official projections that will infuriate green campaigners who are demanding greater use of renewable energy sources. They claim that the statistics, buried in recently published government documents, will leave the country unable to meet its carbon emission targets. The figures will reinforce the sense that chancellor George Osborne is winning his battle to downgrade the role of green energy...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/03/uk-dash-gas
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Columnist/Columnists/2012/11/3/1351959245391/George-Osborne-strongly-s-010.jpg

The Green Elephant in the Room

Huffington Post: As the New Jersey Shore's "surreality" show continues to unfold on TV, one cannot help but note all the ads on CNN and Fox News from those that likely helped make such epic storms possible, or -- at the very least -- helped to make them worse. Commercials from the oil and coal industry pepper the coverage like so many reminders of what is not being discussed by the mainstream news media: the role our dependence on fossil fuels is playing in this unfolding mega disaster. The numbers are staggering...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/betsy-rosenberg/climate-change-election-2012_b_2052398.html

Deciding Where Future Disasters Will Strike

New York Times: WE all have an intuitive sense of how water works: block it, and it flows elsewhere. When a storm surge hits a flood barrier, for instance, the water does not simply dissipate. It does the hydrological equivalent of a bounce, and it lands somewhere else. The Dutch, after years of beating back the oceans, have a way of deciding what is worth saving with a dike or sea wall, and what is not. They simply run the numbers, and if something is worth less in terms of pure euros and cents, it is more acceptable...

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/opinion/sunday/deciding-where-future-disasters-will-strike.html
Enclosure: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/11/04/sunday-review/04BRIDGE/04BRIDGE-articleLarge.jpg

Fight intensifies over NW coal exports

Associated Press: The progressive college town of Bellingham, Wash., is known for its stunning scenery, access to the outdoors and eclectic mix of aging hippies, students and other residents. But lately it's turned into a battleground in the debate over whether the Pacific Northwest should become the hub for exporting U.S. coal to Asia. Five ports proposed for Washington and Oregon could ship as much as 140 million tons of coal, mostly from the Rockies, where it could travel by rail through communities such as...

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49675553/ns/us_news-environment/
Enclosure: http://msnbcmedia2.msn.com/j/ap/northwest%20coal%20clash-1821443126_v2.grid-6x2.jpg

Amy Goodman, Paul Barrett and climate change

Record-Searchlight: There has been a break in the conservative business community and its name is BloombergBusinessweek. This magazine has just thrown out a challenge to their readers, to other business magazines, the corporate media including Fox News that is THE major source for lies about and denial of climate change, and the general population. The message? You are "Stupid" if you don't understand that global warming is real, is caused by human activity and is responsible for devastating superstorms like Sandy....

URL: http://blogs.redding.com/dcraig/archives/2012/11/amy-goodman-pau.html
Enclosure: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/2/its_global_warming_stupid_as_bloomberg

Did Climate Change Have A Role in Hurricane Sandy’s Unusual Track Into New Jersey?

ThinkProgress: We`re used to seeing hurricane-battered beaches and flooded cities in Florida, North Carolina, and the Gulf Coast. But to see these images from the Jersey Shore and New York City in the wake of Hurricane Sandy is a shocking experience. New Jersey only rarely gets hit by hurricanes because it lies in a portion of the coast that doesn`t stick out much, and is too far north. How did this happen? How was a hurricane able to move from southeast to northwest at landfall, so far north, and so late in hurricane...

URL: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/11/03/1125981/jeff-masters-why-did-hurricane-sandy-take-such-an-unusual-track-into-new-jersey/?mobile=nc
Enclosure: http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Picture-8.png

In Sandy's Wake, Insurance Industry Must Better Account For Climate Change, Critics Say

Huffington Post: In 2009, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a standard-setting and regulatory support body comprised of chief insurance regulators from all 50 states, reached a historic agreement. Beginning in 2010, the organization announced, insurance companies would be required to disclose, to regulators and investors, "the financial risks they face from climate change, as well as actions the companies are taking to respond to those risks." In a matter of months, that agreement fell apart....

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/03/hurricane-sandy-insurance_n_2068837.html

Gas Flaring is Wasting Fuel and Fueling Climate Change

Guardian: Gas flaring in 20 of the world's leading oil-producing countries contributes as much to climate change as a major economy like Italy, new estimates show. While flaring has been cut by 30 percent since 2005, $50 billion worth of gas is still wasted annually, the World Bank said. New satellite analysis of the flares -- that are a by-product of oil drilling and which commonly light the night skies in oil fields around the world -- suggests that bans and fines in some countries and the introduction...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/gas-flaring-is-wasting-fuel-and-fueling-climate-change-15163?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/10-26_guardianoilflares-425x255.png

Keep climate change in mind when voting Tuesday

Greenville News: Recently, Hurricane Sandy hit the United States as one of the most damaging storms ever. The atmosphere in the volume of an Irene or Sandy can hold over 20,000 trillion more gallons of water with a 1.5 degree increase in sea temperature. This summer is the hottest on record for our farmers. A drought is cutting yields and raising food prices. Rising food prices affect everyone who buys food. Since 1984, climate change has been a major issue in every presidential campaign but it was amazingly silent...

URL: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/needlogin?type=login&redirecturl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenvilleonline.com%2Farticle%2F20121103%2FOPINION%2F311030004%3Fodyssey%3Dmod%257Cmostcom%26nclick_check%3D1

Mitt Romney Climate Change Brush-Off Highlighted In New Ad

Huffington Post: Green advocacy groups on Saturday released an ad reminding voters in Ohio and Virginia that Republican nominee Mitt Romney has mocked President Barack Obama for promising in 2008 to try to slow climate change. The ad from the ClimateSilence.org campaign, which is led by Forecast the Facts and Friends of the Earth Action, will be funded with donations from supporters, who as of early Saturday afternoon had pledged $8,720. It shows Romney's comments at the Republican National Convention and then...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/03/mitt-romney-climate-change_n_2069003.html
Enclosure: http://youtu.be/XCcCq_SrXsI

Stop climate change: Move to the city, start walking

Salon: In 2001, Scott Bernstein, at the Center for Neighborhood Technology in inner-city Chicago, produced a set of maps that are still changing the way we think about our country. In these maps, remarkably, the red and the green switched places. This reversal, perhaps even more than the health discussion, threatens to make walkability relevant again. By red and green, I am referring to carbon emissions. On typical carbon maps, areas with the greatest amount of carbon output are shown in bright red,...

URL: http://www.salon.com/2012/11/03/stop_climate_change_move_to_the_city_start_walking/
Enclosure: http://media.salon.com/2012/11/walkable_city2_rect-460x307.jpg

Brooklyn's Sea Gate feels insult added to injury after Sandy's devastation

Guardian: The tiny Brooklyn enclave of Sea Gate has received relatively scant attention from the media and public officials in comparison to other areas hit hard by hurricane Sandy. On Friday, five days after the storm, mayor Michael Bloomberg and other politicians visited the area to survey the damage and promise more government relief. But for many Sea Gate residents Bloomberg's visit didn't come soon enough. "Why are we not on the map?" asked Jay Younger, a Sea Gate resident of over 25 years and owner...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/03/hurricane-sandy-brooklyn-sea-gate
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/11/2/1351892087473/IMG_0278.jpg

Strong Nor’easter targets devastated Northeast

Burlington Free Press: This is probably almost the worst possible news, but a nor`easter seems more and more likely to hit areas of the Northeast devastated by Superstorm Sandy. Destruction from Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey. A nor`easter threatens the state by Wednesday or Thursday. Though not nearly as powerful as Sandy, it could cause more damage The upcoming storm, set to hit Wednesday and Thursday, won`t be nearly as strong as Sandy. If forecasts hold, the size of the expected nor`easter under normal conditions...

URL: http://blogs.burlingtonfreepress.com/weather/2012/11/03/strong-noreaster-targets-devastated-northeast/
Enclosure: http://blogs.burlingtonfreepress.com/weather/files/2012/11/damage.jpg

Now, There's No Denying Climate Change

Huffington Post: Climate change is one of the defining issues of my generation. The era that I'm growing up in faces a predicament that couldn't have been foreseen a matter of decades ago. As a planet, we can no longer definitively say whether our Earth will be able to nurture our own futures or sustain the lives of our children and grandchildren. It's a scary thought that our planet could be destroyed in just a few generations and it's a concept that too many conservatives shy away from. Since I was in elementary...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chase-guttman/now-theres-no-denying-cli_b_2069032.html

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URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/partner/rich-hessler-solar/news/article/2012/11/nlp-solar-sales-training4?cmpid=rss

Listening to Hurricane Sandy: Climate Change Is Here

Huffington Post: Hurricane Sandy was a massive and deadly storm, extending more than 1,000 miles, bringing huge waves and more than 13 feet of water to parts of New York City. In Manhattan, floods swept away cars and overflowed subway stations. Along the Jersey Shore, homes, property, and businesses were washed away in just a few hours. More than 8 million people in the northeastern United States lost power. Tens of millions more have been affected. And, tragically at least 160 people lost their lives in total. Outside...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-andrew-steer/climate-change-hurricane-sandy-_b_2068961.html

Hurricane Sandy Strikes US East Coast; Is Global Warming Bringing Stronger Storms?

CNN: CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone, I'm Christiane Amanpour, and welcome to the special weekend edition of our program, where we bring you the big stories that we covered this week. There was, of course, only one story this week: the catastrophe known as Sandy that made headlines around the world as it moved violently north towards the United States, first claiming 67 lives in Haiti and Cuba before pounding the East Coast, up and down and inland as it took an unusual left turn. (BEGIN...

URL: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1211/02/ampr.01.html

Forest Carbon Prices Doubled In 2012

Ecosystem Marketplace: The price of forest carbon credits doubled in 2011, leading to a record market value of $237 million according to the latest Ecosystem Marketplace survey of forest carbon markets, Leveraging the Landscape: State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2012, released this morning. The report, which aggregates data from 451 individual forest carbon projects historically, was financially enabled by Premium Sponsors: the World Bank BioCarbon Fund and the Code REDD Campaign; Sponsors: Baker & McKenzie, Face the...

URL: http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/dynamic/article.page.php?page_id=9399&section=news_articles&eod=1
Enclosure: http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/reports/forestcarbon2012

Crisp: Denying climate change, other realities, costs dearly

MetroWest Daily News: I think that sportscaster Bob Costas pretty much got it right. He was on comedian Bill Maher's "Real Time" a few weeks ago, and the subject turned to the concussion crisis in the National Football League. A number of retired football players are suing the league for an alleged failure to protect them from the long-term consequences of the repeated blows to the head that professional players accumulate by the many thousands. The NFL and colleges have made belated and half-hearted efforts to deal...

URL: http://www.wickedlocal.com/medway/news/opinions/x1272750557/Crisp-Denying-climate-change-other-realities-costs-dearly

Climate change due after stormy election

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The trouble with naming giant storms is that sometimes the names don't fit their ferociousness. Such was the case with Sandy, which this week brought a great calamity of wind, rain and terror to the Eastern Seaboard. For this grim job, the name Sandy sounded too much like a bleached extra in an old surfing movie. I had a dog once named Sandy, which slobbered a lot but never did it all over New York City as this Sandy did. Igor or Boris would have been better names for this Frankenstorm. But what...

URL: http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/event/article/id/62638/group/Opinion/

Hurricane Sandy blows climate change back onto the presidential campaign

Christian Science Monitor: Until last week, climate change was pretty much a dormant issue in the presidential campaign. Except for environmental activists, hardly anybody was talking about it – certainly neither of the candidates in any sustained or substantial way. "Obama has been mostly climate-mum since 2009," observed Scott Rosenberg, executive editor of Grist, the environmental news and commentary web site. "Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has walked back from his carbon-cutting Massachusetts policies and embraced the current...

URL: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2012/1103/Hurricane-Sandy-blows-climate-change-back-onto-the-presidential-campaign
Enclosure: http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/1102-hurricane-sandy-climate-change.jpg/14211025-1-eng-US/1102-hurricane-sandy-climate-change.jpg_full_380.jpg

This Is What Climate Change Looks Like

Huffington Post: Did climate change cause Hurricane Sandy? That is the question everyone seems to be asking. Scientists are hard at work determining what percent of the storm's strength and breadth came from warming ocean waters caused by human activity. And while it deserves analysis and scientists need to continue studying attribution, it is the same question we asked about this year's drought and record heat along with the massive western wildfires. We asked it again in 2010 when global temperatures were the hottest...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lynn-englum/this-is-what-climate-chan_b_2064018.html?utm_hp_ref=green

Sandy, rising seas fuel future climate concerns

USA Today: Haven't we been here before? A hurricane devastates a major coastal city, and a debate over climate change comes in like the tide. Will the warnings about sea-level rise in the wake of Hurricane Sandy wash away like the concern seen after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005? Or has the tide finally risen too high to ignore? "Our climate is changing," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a political independent, in a statement on Thursday. Bloomberg endorsed President Obama's...

URL: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/vergano/2012/11/03/bloomberg-climate-sandy-sea/1677463/
Enclosure: http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/GenericImages/2012/10/31/sandy10310003-4_3_r560.jpg?f061b7ce9937c38b702e6f308816ac2a14e2a4ec

Bloomberg endorses Obama for a second term, climate change a focus

Reuters: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday endorsed President Barack Obama for a second term, citing the importance of his record on climate change, particularly in the aftermath of the devastating blow dealt to the New York area by storm Sandy. Bloomberg said Obama has taken significant steps to reduce carbon consumption, whereas Republican challenger Mitt Romney has backtracked on earlier positions he had taken as governor of Massachusetts to battle climate change. "Our climate is changing,"...

URL: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-01/news/sns-rt-us-usa-campaign-bloombergbre8a01g3-20121101_1_mayor-bloomberg-climate-change-endorsement
Enclosure: http://www.trbimg.com/img-5092d07a/turbine/sns-rt-us-usa-campaign-bloombergbre8a01g3-2012-001/600

How Arctic Sea Ice Loss Impacted Sandy

EcoWatch: As the East Coast begins efforts to recover from Hurricane Sandy, the devastating effects of climate change are impossible to miss. Bigger, more powerful storms. More rainfall and higher storm surge. These are exactly the sorts of impacts that climate scientists have been worried about for years. Global warming is putting hurricanes on steroids and we're beginning to see the effects. To make matters worse, record-low sea ice in the Arctic likely contributed to the weather conditions that transformed...

URL: http://ecowatch.org/2012/arctic-sea-ice-loss-impacted-sandy/
Enclosure: http://youtu.be/tqM4-dHSjSU

Can Hurricane Sandy Shed Light on Curbing Power Outages?

National Geographic: As Hurricane Sandy churned north and west over the Atlantic Ocean on its inexorable collision course with the U.S. East Coast, miles-long convoys of bucket trucks, aka cherry pickers, were already rumbling over interstate highways toward the anticipated strike zone, from as far away as Alabama and Texas. It was well understood that the superstorm's harm would reach far beyond whatever wreckage it left in its path. Sandy's impact would spread far, wide, and quickly through the electric power grid-a...

URL: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/11/121102-hurricane-sandy-power-outages/
Enclosure: http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/608/cache/energy-hurricane-sandy-power-grid_60862_600x450.jpg

Lessons in Resilience from Hurricane Sandy

New York Times: Following up on my post examining whether we`re stuck with "blah, blah, blah, bang" disaster planning, here`s a discussion of ways to plan and build with the worst in mind. First, I hope you`ll read "Hurricane Sandy's Real Lesson…will we learn it?" - a post by William H. Hooke, a senior policy fellow at the American Meteorological Society who`s made the transition to online communication with more facility than some people half his age. (His Twitter feed is at @AMSpolicy; I found the post via...

URL: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/lessons-from-sandy-building-with-resilience-in-mind/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Enclosure: http://youtu.be/As1WWF2cTT0

Climate Change Poll Finds Most Americans Unwilling To Pay Higher Energy Costs

Huffington Post: Only one in five Americans would be willing to pay significantly more for gas or electricity, even if they were assured that it meant solving the climate change crisis, according to a HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted this week. Most Americans, according to the survey, believe that climate change is occurring and that it causes serious problems, including more frequent and severe natural disasters. But only 21 percent said they would be willing to pay 50 percent more at the pump or for electricity...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/climate-change-poll-energy-costs_n_2067125.html
Enclosure: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/845448/thumbs/r-CLIMATE-CHANGE-POLL-large570.jpg?4

Sea-Level Rise Projections Ignored Critical Feedbacks, Researcher Says

Yale Environment 360: A U.S. researcher says projected sea-level rise over the next century has been underestimated because current models fail to consider several critical feedbacks that might accelerate rising seas in the coming decades. While the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that global sea levels could rise 0.2 to 0.5 meters by 2100, current projections suggest that seas could rise a meter or more. One of the factors ignored by earlier models, says University of Colorado geologist...

URL: http://e360.yale.edu/digest/sea-level_rise_projections_ignored_critical_feedbacks_researcher_says/3683/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29

Superstorm Sandy triggers climate blame game

BBC: The floodwaters whipped up by Hurricane Sandy have not yet receded but the temperature is rising on one of the toughest questions in modern science: whether we're getting more extreme weather because of global warming. Radical film-maker Michael Moore put it with characteristic bluntness. In a Tweet, he wrote: "Stop w/ the disaster porn and tell the America people the bitter truth: We have f***** up the environment & we are now paying the price." The governor of New York state, Andrew Cuomo,...

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20181266#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
Enclosure: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/63884000/jpg/_63884799_satimageapfnoaa.jpg

Unilever swaps earnings rat race for sustainability

Reuters: Around the time of the 2008 global financial meltdown, consumer products giant Unilever decided to make a dramatic shift in strategy, away from meeting investors' quarterly expectations to a long-range plan that treads lightly on the environment and supports social goals. Confident in profiting through doing good, the Anglo-Dutch maker of Dove soap, Ragu sauces and Lipton tea is working with the United Nations to save children's lives through handwashing and joining other corporations to stem...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/02/us-sustainbility-unilever-ceo-idUSBRE8A11FH20121102?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FbusinessNews+%28Business+News%29
Enclosure: http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20121102&t=2&i=670222962&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE8A11PZY00

How Solar Energy is Moving India Beyond Coal

EcoWatch: Building a movement around climate change requires fighting the strong forces of fossil fuel power. People's movements world over are taking to creative forms of protest in challenging the status quo. India has a history of peoples movements that have taken on big infrastructure projects impacting their way of life, and coal mines and power plants are a major driver behind a lot of these struggles in the country. The reasons are obvious given the hugely destructive impacts of coal on peoples health,...

URL: http://ecowatch.org/2012/india-moving-beyond-coal/
Enclosure: http://indiabeyondcoal.org/

Towns Fight Back Against Fracking Gold Rush

EcoWatch, Blue Ridge Press: A growing boom in natural gas drilling near homes and schools prompted the city of Longmont, Colorado to vote last July to bar new oil and gas permits in residential neighborhoods. The state quickly overturned the ordinance. Gov. John Hickenlooper said that letting it stand would "stir-up a hornet's nest," encouraging other Colorado towns to pass their own drilling rules. Longmont Mayor Dennis Coombs argued that communities have the right to restrict heavy industry in residential zones--including...

URL: http://ecowatch.org/2012/fighting-fracking-gold-rush/
Enclosure: http://ecowatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/fracking.jpg

Climate Change: Hurricanes and Typhoons Kill Mainly the Poor

News Junkie Post: While Hurricane Sandy ravaged the Caribbean and the US eastern seaboard, Typhoon Son-Tinh tore through the Philippines, China and Vietnam, killing more than 35 people. As expected from climate change predictions, floods were responsible for most of the damage to life and property. It should be noted however, that these ravages of climate change were, for the most part, unmitigated by social justice. Those who perished from the mudslides, floods and violent waves were caught by surprise or lacked...

URL: http://newsjunkiepost.com/2012/11/02/climate-change-hurricanes-and-typhoons-kill-mainly-the-poor/
Enclosure: http://newsjunkiepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Typhoon_SonTinh_Sanya_China1.jpg

Climate Change Takes US by Storm

ABQ Journal: Millions of victims of Superstorm Sandy remain without power, but they are not powerless to do something about climate change. The media consistently fail to make the link between extreme weather and global warming. Through this catastrophe, people are increasingly realizing that our climate has changed, and the consequences are dire. One meteorologist who defies the norm is Jeff Masters, who founded the weather blog Weather Underground. As Sandy bore down on the East Coast, I asked Masters...

URL: http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2012/11/02/opinion/climate-change-takes-us-by-storm.html

Climate makes late surge in US elections

BBC: In the wake of Storm Sandy, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has endorsed President Obama, saying he is best placed to tackle climate change. But is that the case? BBC Environment Reporter Matt McGrath looks at the climate policies of both candidates. For the vast majority of this presidential election campaign, the phrase "climate change" has been marked only by its absence. In the three debates between President Obama and his republican challenger, Mitt Romney, the issue wasn't discussed...

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20181029#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
Enclosure: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/63884000/jpg/_63884640_sandysatellite.jpg

Climate heckler disrupts Romney rally

The Hill: A protester who yelled, "Climate change caused Sandy" briefly disrupted a Mitt Romney rally Thursday. The man was tossed out of the event outside Richmond, while the pro-Romney crowd chanted "U-S-A! U-S-A!" Romney paused his speech while the man, who had a sign reading "End climate silence," was removed from the Doswell, Va., event. But the GOP nominee did not acknowledge the protester. "What about climate? That's what caused this monster storm," the protester yelled. A number of climate...

URL: http://thehill.com/video/campaign/265405-climate-heckler-disrupts-romney-rally
Enclosure: http://youtu.be/w8tcf6exeDw

China, India should cut tariff on eco-certified palm oil to boost demand, says RSPO official

Mongabay: China and India, the world's largest palm oil buyers, should reduce or eliminate an import tariff on eco-certified palm oil to boost demand for less-damaging production of the widely-used oilseed, said the President of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) during the body's tenth annual meeting in Singapore. As reported by Reuters, RSPO President Jan-Kees Vis said China and India could play a key role in encouraging more sustainable palm oil production. "You would only need to shave...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1102-vis-rspo-palm-oil-levy.html
Enclosure: http://mongabay-images.s3.amazonaws.com/12/1102palmoil.jpg

Where is the Green Party?

Al Jazeera: In the race for the White House, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have talked about sustainable development. Yet the Green Party ticket, whose stance on the issue outpaces those of both the Republican and Democratic parties, is virtually unknown by the vast majority of US voters. Romney, who has campaigned while standing in front of a coal mine in Ohio and enjoys support from the billionaire Koch brothers who made their fortune in oil, gas and chemicals, is the bane of many environmentalists....

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/09/201291972219590388.html
Enclosure: http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2012/9/19/201291982016451734_20.jpg

Sandy And Climate Change: West Virginia Leaders, Politicians Remain Silent

Huffington Post: Climate change has largely been placed on the back-burner by the national political conversation, and the same seems to be true amongst West Virginia politicians according to The Charleston Gazette. After the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy, Gazette reporters asked West Virginia office holders and candidates what could be done to prevent such damage in the future, only to receive the silent treatment. Only one West Virgina politician has responded on the issue of climate change: Rep....

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/west-virginia-leaders-politicians-silent-on-climate-change_n_2066296.html
Enclosure: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/845250/thumbs/r-SANDY-WVA-large570.jpg?4

Will Sandy be the Climate Change Wake-Up Call We Need?

Climate Central: Calling Hurricane Sandy a disaster almost underplays the enormous devastation wrought by this freakish monster of a storm. Four days after Sandy came ashore just south of Atlantic City, millions are still without power, gas stations are running out of fuel, and the death toll continues to rise. But for those of us who worry about climate change, Sandy might not have been an unmitigated disaster. The storm wasn't "caused' by climate change, as Climate Central and others made clear. But in at least...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/will-sandy-be-the-climate-change-wake-up-call-we-need-15199?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/blogs/11-2_gg_bayvillenysandy-425x284.png

Meet The Climate Change Denier Who Became The Voice Of Hurricane Sandy On Wikipedia

Popular Science: "All I am is a contributor. I have no title, I'm just a Joe Blow," says Ken Mampel, a currently unemployed 56-year-old living in Ormond Beach, Florida. He's also largely responsible for the Wikipedia article about Hurricane Sandy. If it isn't already, that article will eventually become the single most-viewed document about the hurricane. On the entire internet. In an unpaid but frenzied fit of news consumption, editing, correction, aggregation, and citation, Mampel has established himself as...

URL: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-11/wikipedia-sandy

Lack of Hurricane Warnings May Help Homeowners

Climate Central: Silver linings post Hurricane Sandy have been hard to find. But the decision by the National Weather Service not to issue hurricane warnings north of North Carolina, and to instead declare Hurricane Sandy a "post-tropical cyclone' mere hours before landfall near Atlantic City on Oct. 29, may have significant ramifications for homeowners and insurance companies. In four hard-hit states -- Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York -- the storm classification may save homeowners from having to...

URL: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/lack-of-hurricane-warning-for-sandy-may-help-homeowners-15198?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/10_31_12_andrew_mantaloking_bridge_NJNG-Scott_Anema-500x334.jpeg

The Sandy subway disaster creates a historic opportunity for New York

Guardian: A massive storm blows in from the Atlantic, bringing the commercial capital of the western hemisphere to a complete standstill. Ferries stop running, trains are immobilized, and in several boroughs, fires rage out of control. "New York", a reporter at the New York Times marvels, is as "completely isolated from the rest of the world as if Manhattan Island was in the middle of the South Sea." Seeing their city utterly paralyzed by an act of nature, officials who tour the blacked-out neighborhoods immediately...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/02/sandy-subway-disaster-creates-historic-opportunity
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/10/31/1351703043403/b21e4eb1-5f1b-4129-b685-7f56086afdfd-460.jpeg

The Biggest Threat to the Economy? Climate Change

Huffington Post: American voters' top concern this year, as it has been for some time, is the economy. That's no surprise. Climate change, on the other hand, doesn't even crack the electorate's top 10 most important issues. That's no surprise, either. Environmental issues don't loom large when Americans enter the voting booth. And that's a shame. Why? The biggest long-term threat to the U.S. economy isn't government over-regulation, high taxes, the deficit or even China--the issues candidates routinely...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/the-biggest-threat-to-the_1_b_2067118.html
Enclosure: http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2012-11-02-SandyDamage.jpg

HSBC bank funding large-scale rainforest destruction and invasion of indigenous lands in Borneo, alleges report

Mongabay: HSBC has earned tens of millions financing the destruction of rainforests and invasion of indigenous land in the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo, alleges an explosive new report from Global Witness. The report, titled In the Future There Will Be No Forests Left, says that HSBC has violated its own sustainability policies in providing financial services to companies linked to large-scale deforestation and "widely suspected of systematic bribery and corruption". Global Witness...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1102-hsbc-sarawak.html
Enclosure: http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/HSBC-logging-briefing-FINAL-WEB.pdf

Will Sandy change the climate change conversation?

LiveScience: If you were listening to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's press briefing Tuesday (Oct. 30) as New York City began to tally the damage from Hurricane Sandy, you may have been surprised by what you heard. "There has been a series of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement. That is a factual statement," Cuomo said. " Anyone who says there's not a dramatic change in weather patterns, I think, is denying reality." Yesterday he added, "I think part of learning from this is realizing...

URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57544267/will-sandy-change-the-climate-change-conversation/

A vote for a president to lead on climate change

Guardian: The floods and fires that swept through our city left a path of destruction that will require years of recovery and rebuilding work. And in the short term, our subway system remains partially shut down, and many city residents and businesses still have no power. In just 14 months, two hurricanes have forced us to evacuate neighborhoods - something our city government had never done before. If this is a trend, it is simply not sustainable. Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/02/vote-president-lead-climate-change
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/10/29/1351518095032/8c79becb-79e4-4663-99bf-acc423992b4e-460.jpeg

Sandy forces New York to consider all options in effort to make city safe

Guardian: The devastation wrought by Sandy is forcing New Yorkers to consider a whole host of measures – from fortress-like flood barriers to offering a buy-out to people living in flood-prone areas – to make the city safe from future storms. "We are vulnerable," the state's governor, Andrew Cuomo, told reporters this week. "Anyone who thinks there is not a dramatic change in weather patterns is deny reality. We have a new reality and old systems." New York, with its 520 miles of coastline, is second only...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/02/sandy-new-york-options-flood-safe
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/10/30/1351583629240/Yellow-cabs-line-a-flood--010.jpg

Swiss environmentalists force referendum on immigration

Reuters: Swiss environmentalists, tapping into unease about population levels in their landlocked nation at the heart of Europe, on Friday presented the government with 120,000 signatures to force a referendum on limiting immigration. Under the Swiss system of direct democracy, 100,000 signatures need to be collected to put a cause to a national vote. Referenda take place up to four times a year after the government sets dates for the voting. Ecopop, an organization which campaigns on environmental...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/02/us-swiss-population-idUSBRE8A10RD20121102?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29

Seeing Sandy From Space

National Public Radio: What does satellite imagery reveal about Hurricane Sandy? Owen Kelley at NASA is using satellite data to visualize the internal structure of the storm and Marshall Shepherd, president-elect of the American Meteorological Society and the director of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia, discusses what made this storm so unusual.

URL: http://www.npr.org/2012/11/02/164181611/seeing-sandy-from-space?ft=1&f=1025
Enclosure: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=164181611&m=164181602

Future Severe Weather Systems A Concern For California

redOrbit: In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, climatologists from the University of California at Merced are warning that the West Coast could be in line for a superstorm of its own. "We can see very big storms, and there are a couple of issues related to climate change to think about," said Roger Bales, director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced. "Most of our biggest storms are snow storms, which builds up snowpack in the mountains. The snowpack is a reservoir, storing water that will be...

URL: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112724830/california-severe-weather-110212/
Enclosure: http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2012/11/science-110212-006-617x416.jpg

A Post-Sandy Plan for Climate Change: Protect, Prepare, Prevent

Huffington Post: Sandy's destructive path has left a scar on our nation. Our hearts go out to the families of the more than 90 people killed, and to the Americans still struggling without power, food and water. But in Sandy's wake must be a wake-up call. Climate change is no longer some far off issue. It's at our doorstep right now. We must consider how to address the underlying factors that are fueling these extreme weather events. For a superstorm like Sandy to occur so late in the storm season, reach such...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-ed-markey/a-post-sandy-plan-for-cli_b_2066180.html

Intercropping 'boosts maize yields by 50 per cent'

SciDevNet: Growing leguminous trees on maize farms -- a form of agroforestry -- can boost and stabilise maize yields, a 12-year study in Malawi and Zambia has found. The researchers behind the study, from the Kenya-based World Agroforestry Centre and the University of Pretoria, South Africa, say this is the first analysis of long-term crop yield trends in cereal-legume agroforestry systems in Southern Africa. Maize is a common staple in the region and is grown in more than half of cultivated land in countries...

URL: http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/news/intercropping-boosts-maize-yields-by-50-per-cent-.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_climatechangeandenergy
Enclosure: https://www.agronomy.org/publications/aj/abstracts/104/5/1392

Geologist Proposes New Theory Behind Global Sea Level Rise

redOrbit: Global warming is causing sea levels to rise faster than previously expected and geologist Bill Hay from the University of Colorado Boulder has a theory to explain why. The most recent IPCC report released in 2007 projected a global sea level rise between 0.2 and 0.5 meters by 2100, but current sea level measurements meet or exceed the high end of that range. This suggests a rise of one meter or more by the end of the century. "What`s missing from the models used to forecast sea-level rise...

URL: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112724709/sea-level-rising-bill-hay-110212/
Enclosure: http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2012/11/science-110212-004a-617x416.jpg

As Storm Recovery Continues, Looking To The Future

National Public Radio: Communities along the East Coast are reeling from the impact of Hurricane Sandy, dealing with electric outages, flooded streets, damaged sewage plants and fractured transportation lines. Can cities rebuild stronger, more resilient infrastructure to weather the storms of the future?

URL: http://www.npr.org/2012/11/02/164181609/as-storm-recovery-continues-looking-to-the-future?ft=1&f=1025
Enclosure: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=164181609&m=164181600

Making climate taxes more palatable

ScienceDaily: A majority of Norwegians would accept increased climate taxes -- if the taxes are understood as targeting specific environmental purposes. Earmarking of the revenues could help to gain public acceptance for such taxes. It is difficult to find climate policy instruments that are both effective and have the backing of the general public. Economists and politicians prefer to avoid earmarking of tax revenues because it limits their ability to prioritise discretionary spending in the longer term....

URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121102084646.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

Let it snow - U.S. farms need recharged soil moisture after drought

Reuters: Drought-struck areas of the U.S. Plains winter wheat belt need a deluge of rain and snow this winter to fully recharge parched farmland, an unlikely scenario that means wheat, corn and soybean crops could face a rough new season. While the worst drought in roughly half a century is slowly loosening its grip on the United States, meteorologists and agronomists warn that the threat has not passed. Wheat farmers now sowing their last winter seeds, and corn and soybean growers making planting plans...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/02/us-usa-drought-crops-idUSBRE8A112T20121102?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29

Will Superstorm Sandy Finally Silence the Climate Science Deniers?

Huffington Post: "For us to say this is a once-in-a-generation, that it's not going to happen again, as elected officials that would be short-sighted. This city, this region, is very susceptible to coastal flooding. Part of learning from this is learning that climate change is a reality." -- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore showed us the possibility of superstorms and how, along with global warming one of these superstorms may one day flood a major U.S. city, New York City being...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-c-smith/will-superstorm-sandy-fin_b_2061589.html

Mexico Aims for 12 GW of Wind Power by 2020


Developers familiar with Mexico's rapid installation of wind power projects are predicting that the country can ramp up from 1,000 MW of current capacity to as much as 12 GW by 2020. The prediction was made at 19th Annual Border Energy Forum, organized here last week by the Texas Land Office, by Pablo Gottfried Blackmore, a member of the directors council of the Asociación Mexicana de Energía Eólica, the country's national wind trade group. Others at the forum, including Mannti Cummins, the wind energy director for American Shoreline Inc., also echoed bullish predictions for the country's wind potential.

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/11/mexico-aims-for-12-gw-of-wind-power-by-2020?cmpid=rss

Renewables Take On Fossil Fuels: Last Day to Vote for the Readers' Choice Award


Finalists have been chosen for the Projects of the Year Awards, and now it's time to cast your vote for the Readers' Choice Award. But this year is different.  Not only have we this year opened nominations to a global audience, Renewable Energy World North America is now co-located with Power-Gen International, which is where we will present the aw

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2012/11/renewables-take-on-fossil-fuels-vote-now-for-the-readers-choice-project-of-the-year-award?cmpid=rss

Biofuels: New Capital Structures Needed for New Times?


Inevitably – since Hallowe'en coincides with election time, there has been a lot of talk at ABM around the policy instruments by which renewable fuels might be advanced.

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/11/biofuels-new-capital-structures-needed-for-new-times?cmpid=rss

US-East Africa Geothermal Partnership Moving Forward with Industry Input


More than 20 US geothermal industry representatives participated in a September 30 US-East Africa Geothermal Partnership (EAGP) meeting in Reno, NV to provide input and feedback on activities to be included in the EAGP program.

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/11/us-east-africa-geothermal-partnership-moving-forward-with-industry-input?cmpid=rss

Mayor Mike Bloomberg (and Sandy) Make It Okay to Mention Solar and Climate Change…Again


It's devastating to see my hometown of New York so crippled by Hurricane Sandy. There are so many tragedies from this one event. Not only was there an estimated $50 billion in economic losses, but at least 38 people have died in the city alone. For these and other reasons, New York's billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg finally brought climate chang

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2012/11/mayor-mike-bloomberg-and-sandy-make-it-okay-to-mention-solar-and-climate-changeagain?cmpid=rss

Why the US Solar PV Industry Will Survive and Thrive


First – the photovoltaic industry is global and all regions participate in the good times and the hard times, though, not always at the same time and in the same way. For example, as demand side participants in Europe (installers, system integrators, et al) enjoyed serving the largest market for solar installations, the region's manufacturers steadily lost share. In the U.S., demand has soared (thanks in part to the grant in lieu of ITC, which expired at the end of 2011), while U.S. technology manufacturers are struggling, in some cases failing.

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/11/why-the-us-solar-pv-industry-will-survive-and-thrive?cmpid=rss

How Much Climate Change Was In Hurricane Sandy?

Discovery News: There is a lot of loosey-goosey talk (e.g., this NYT piece) about the connection between Hurricane Sandy and climate change. So here are some more assertive facts, with no hedging: Did climate change cause Hurricane Sandy? Absolutely not. Did climate change have anything to do with Sandy being as bad as it was? Absolutely so, say scientist bloggers whose bread and butter is understanding the physics of our atmosphere. What's more, there is very likely a connection with the storm track of Sandy...

URL: http://news.discovery.com/earth/sandy-and-the-record-arctic-sea-ice-melt-121102.html
Enclosure: http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef017d3d2ea012970c-800wi

Hurricane Sandy as Greek tragedy

Al Jazeera: Never has a hurricane been more aptly, if tragically, named than Sandy, the super-storm which has flooded New York City and battered much of the East Coast. At press time, the storm had killed at least 88 people and caused an estimated $32bn in damages to buildings and infrastructure - figures expected to increase in the coming days as emergency personnel pick through the wreckage - and left 8 million homes without electricity. Sandy is short for Cassandra, the Greek mythological figure who epitomises...

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/11/201211112721100722.html
Enclosure: http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2012/10/30/2012103012583408734_20.jpg

The Difference Between Air Conditioners and Dehumidifiers

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These two appliances are almost identical — except for where the heat is rejected

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There's [a great Patton Oswalt bit](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDCjIjsZp_Y) where he contemplates meeting George Lucas in 1996 (gotta love the oblique intros). After slobbering over the original Star Wars trilogy and just about suffering an aneurysm over a possible new trilogy, his enthusiasm tapers off dramatically. He finds out what the new movies will be about, namely all the background filler behind his favorite characters and moments — which he hasn't the palest interest in. To paraphrase, we don't care where the stuff we love comes from; we just love them.

URL: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/guest-blogs/difference-between-air-conditioners-and-dehumidifiers

India Catching Up In Solar Energy Development

Bernama: The rising cost of conventional power, largely driven by increasing raw material exports and the growing cost of putting up green-field facilities coupled with the steady decline in solar power costs could result in solar projects reaching grid parity by 2014, a new study by KPMG India has suggested. Grid parity is the point at which the cost of solar power equals the cost of utility power from conventional sources. "The positive feature of the last two years has been the development of capacity...

URL: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v6/newsindex.php?id=706531

United Kingdom: Just a small amount of rain could cause flooding this winter - Environment Agency

Telegraph: The wettest April to June on record, and further wet weather in July, September and October, has left river levels full, the ground saturated and groundwaters in some areas exceptionally high. The Environment Agency said the ground is so wet in some areas that just the average amount of rain for the season could cause flooding. The South West and North West, where rivers have already burst their banks, are most vulnerable to river flooding. Devon, Dorset and Hampshire are most vulnerable...

URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9649376/Just-a-small-amount-of-rain-could-cause-flooding-this-winter-Environment-Agency.html
Enclosure: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02386/summer-rain_2386296b.jpg

Election 2012: Where Romney and Obama Actually Stand on Global Warming

Pro Publica: In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy on Tuesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo linked the storm to a broader change in the weather. "I don't call it 'global warming' because you trigger a whole political debate," Cuomo said. "But the frequency of extreme weather is going way up." President Obama and Mitt Romney have been even more reluctant to utter the words "global warming." Neither candidate mentioned climate change over four presidential debates and none of the moderators asked about it - the...

URL: http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/election-2012-where-romney-and-obama-actually-stand-on-global-warming/Content?oid=2756356

10 questions on China's climate change risk

MarketWatch: China's position in a global ranking on climate change risk is not encouraging. The mainland scored third most at risk, behind only India and Indonesia in terms of vulnerability in a 2011 survey of G-20 countries by HSBC. Topping the list of concerns is a water shortage. At the time of the report nine mainland China provinces were classed as having extreme water-scarcity issues, while 11 more were classed as water inefficient. The later batch is clustered around China's north and southwest,...

URL: http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/11/02/10-questions-on-chinas-climate-change-risk/

India HFC-23 emissions may rise if CDM boon ends - former official

Reuters: Moves to curb offsets issued to emission reduction projects that destroy HFC-23 could result in a steep rise in emissions of the highly potent greenhouse gas as governments are unlikely to force or pay companies to destroy it instead, former Indian climate negotiator Prodipto Ghosh said Tuesday. Currently 19 plants that produce the refrigerant gas HCFC-22 earn carbon credits under the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism by destroying the waste gas HFC-23, a tonne of which has the same heat-trapping...

URL: http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/india-hfc-23-emissions-may-rise-cdm-boon-172235534.html

Climate change loads the dice against coastal metropolises

Financial Times: For me, the most poignant photograph of the destruction left by Hurricane Sandy was of the Fairway supermarket in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I used to shop there on weekends and, in the cafe at the back, next to two disused trams, would enjoy the vista of New York harbour and the Statue of Liberty. Watching the spirited New York response -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his sign-language interpreter, babies being ferried out of New York University hospital, locals braving the blackout on the Lower East...

URL: http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/climate-change-loads-the-dice-against-coastal-metropolises-1.1097131

China launches trade probes on EU solar products

Reuters: China said on Thursday that it would launch anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations into imported European Union solar-grade polysilicon, in the latest instance of tit-for-tat trade tensions in the global solar industry. The move comes as the EU's executive body mulls duties targeting Chinese solar producers, a probe launched in September after companies accused Chinese rivals of "dumping", or deliberately selling products for less abroad than at home. The Commerce Ministry, in two statements...

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/01/us-china-eu-solar-idUSBRE8A004820121101?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2Fenvironment+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Environment%29

Noxious weed fuels green-energy debate

Fuel Fix: In the race to convert crops into energy, all eyes are on giant reed, a fast-growing and hardy grass species found throughout Texas and the southern United States. Yet, the very qualities that make the species, also known as arundo donax, attractive to the federal government as a renewable fuel source make it a noxious weed, capable of choking native plants, clogging rivers and streams and draining wetlands. Some scientists and environmentalists say the ecological and economic risks are greater...

URL: http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/10/31/noxious-weed-fuels-green-energy-debate/

Wind Farm Operating Costs Fall 38% in Four Years, BNEF Says


The cost of running and maintaining wind farms has fallen 38 percent in four years as competition among contractors increased and turbine performance improved, bringing closer the day that the technology matches fossil fuel.

URL: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/11/wind-farm-operating-costs-fall-38-in-four-years-bnef-says?cmpid=rss

Timelapse of Hurricane Sandy Shows Birth and Death of Historic Storm

Yale Environment 360: As the storm that was Hurricane Sandy weakened over Pennsylvania, NASA released a timelapse animation of the lifespan of the massive storm, tracking its path from the Caribbean, where it developed, to its violent landfall on the mid-Atlantic coast of the U.S. The collection of images, taken by the NASA GOES-13 satellite from Oct. 23 to Oct. 31, illustrates the storm gaining intensity as it traveled north, at times reaching nearly 1,000 miles in width. When the storm reached the mid-Atlantic on Oct....

URL: http://e360.yale.edu/digest/nasa_storm_timelapse_video_shows_sandy_life/3681/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29
Enclosure: http://youtu.be/RhQktHY9aZg

The day Obama chose a strategy of silence on climate change

Guardian: The invitation to the White House in the spring of 2009 struck Barack Obama's allies in the environmental movement as a big moment: a clear sign that climate change was on his radar and that the president was eager to get to work. The event was indeed a turning point, but not the one campaigners expected. Instead, it marked a strategic decision by the White House to downplay climate change – avoiding the very word – a decision some campaigners on the guestlist say produced the strange absence...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/01/obama-strategy-silence-climate-change
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/10/31/1351685592732/Barack-Obama-016.jpg

California's New Solar-Wind Hybrid Power Plant Greens The Grid

Forbes: One of the raps against solar and wind power is that they're intermittent sources of energy, generating electricity only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining and thus creating potential headaches for grid operators who must keep the supply and demand for electrons in balance. One solution: The hybrid solar-wind power plant. This week EDF Renewable Energy officially unveiled the 140-megawatt Pacific Wind farm in the Tehachapi-Mojave region of Southern California and the nearby 143-megawatt...

URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddwoody/2012/11/01/californias-new-solar-wind-hybrid-power-plant-greens-the-grid/?ss=business:energy

America's nuclear safety under scrutiny after Oyster Creek's Sandy alert | Richard Schiffman

Guardian: We know the bad news about superstorm Sandy: the Jersey shore was devastated and many towns remain waterlogged. New York suffered a direct hit, with the city's mass transit system flooded and part-paralyzed for days to come. But there is good news, too, and that is all that it failed to do. Sandy did not kill hundreds – as Hurricane Katrina did in New Orleans in 2005 – thanks, in part, to timely evacuations and rescue efforts. And luckily, it did not trigger an even greater disaster at one of...

URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/01/nuclear-safety-oyster-creek-sandy-alert
Enclosure: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/11/1/1351789070956/oystercreek_460.jpg

Taking Home His Eighth-of-a-Cow

New York Times: I bought an eighth of a cow last weekend. The rancher, from western Washington state, drove into Seattle, where I live, with a truck of frozen packages – ground chuck, steaks, roasts. In a school parking lot, he stood in a pouring rain, coatless, and thanked the several dozen customers who had gathered for their meat pickups. Our support, he said – ragtag and soggy as it seemed to me - made an environmentally sustainable, local grass-fed beef industry possible. But as my wife and I waited under...

URL: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/taking-home-his-eighth-of-a-cow/
Enclosure: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/11/01/blogs/cattle/cattle-blog480.jpg

Three Ways to Adapt to Climate Change: Nearsighted, Farsighted and Misguided

Huffington Post: We who inhabit this planet's thin fickle atmosphere face two kinds of climate risks: today's and tomorrow's. For millennia, we've grappled with climate variability -- floods, droughts, cyclones, heat waves. Dealing with these risks is an unfinished agenda. Richer countries are more able to cope, but when disasters hit poor countries, people perish and economies buckle. Now these familiar risks are mutating in the face of human-caused climate change. Variability is becoming more intense. The five...

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kenneth-m-chomitz/climate-change_b_2057276.html

From 'fertilizer to fork': food accounts for a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions

Mongabay: Growing, transporting, refrigerating, and wasting food accounts for somewhere between 19-29 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions in 2008, according to a new analysis by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). In hard numbers that's between 9.8 and 16.9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, more than double the fossil fuel emissions of China in the same year. Over 80 percent of food emissions came from production (i.e. agriculture) which includes...

URL: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/1101-hance-agriculture-greenhouse-gases.html
Enclosure: http://s3.amazonaws.com/mongabay/papua/600/papua_0156.jpg

No deal on Antarctic reserves

BBC: Governments meeting in Australia have failed to reach agreement on new marine protected areas for the Antarctic ocean. They have deferred a decision until July 2013 when all the relevant science will be considered. Environmental groups have expressed deep concern about the lack of consensus on how to develop a network of protected zones. They blame Russia, China and Ukraine for blocking agreement. For the past two weeks the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources...

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20168508#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
Enclosure: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/63859000/jpg/_63859184_antarc2.jpg

Was Hurricane Sandy the 'Fat Tail' of Climate Change?

Wall Street Journal: Call them "black swans," "unknown unknowns," "fat tails," or "10-foot women." Whatever you call them, they're bizarre events. They shouldn't happen. Usually they don't happen, but every once in a while they do happen, and then their impact makes daily events mere noise. This week, one did happen. Sandy and its aftermath have all the characteristics that make fat tails such unique and frightening events. We thought we had seen it all. New York had been hit by storms before. Hurricane Irene...

URL: http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2012/11/01/was-hurricane-sandy-the-fat-tail-of-climate-change/

Haiti fears food shortages after hurricane

BBC: Fears are growing of food shortages in Haiti, after the strong winds and heavy rain of Hurricane Sandy caused extensive crop damage. Aid workers and officials are also warning that flooding could lead to a sharp rise in cholera cases. Sandy is blamed for some 70 deaths in the Caribbean. Of these more than 50 were in Haiti. In Jamaica and Cuba, which took direct hits from the hurricane, the clean-up is also continuing. Sandy, which was a category one hurricane when it clipped Haiti last...

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20151178
Enclosure: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/63828000/jpg/_63828376_63824123.jpg

Hurricane Sandy and the Case for Resilient Design

EcoWatch: While most of us in the Northeast were making last-minute preparations for the massive storm on Monday, I was sitting in Hartford's Bradley Airport, about to catch one of the last flights out before the airport closed down. Ironically, I was on my way to sunny Florida to give a long-planned keynote presentation on resilient design at the Sustainable Communities Workshop in Sarasota. Despite my pangs of guilt for leaving home and not being there to pull out my chainsaw should the need arise, getting...

URL: http://ecowatch.org/2012/hurricane-sandy-resilient-design/
Enclosure: http://ecowatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/sandy4.jpg

Hurricane Sandy: Costs to come

Economist: THE economic approach to global warming is relatively straightforward. The emission of greenhouse gases generates a negative spillover--global warming--that harms others. Someone driving a car emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which contributes to climate change, but because most of the cost of the car's contribution to warming will be felt by people other than the driver, he has an incentive to drive too much. Aggregate that decision to emit too much across all of the world's population,...

URL: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/10/hurricane-sandy
Enclosure: http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/2012/10/blogs/free-exchange/sol590.jpg