• Farm animal disease to increase with climate change

    Researchers looked at changes in the behavior of bluetongue — a viral disease of cattle and sheep — from the 1960s to the present day, as well as what could happen to the transmission of the virus forty years into the future; they found, for the first time, that an outbreak of a disease could be explained by changes to the climate

  • Disappearing La Niña blamed for U.S. disastrous weather since January

    La Niña and El Niño are opposite extremes of a great Pacific oscillation; every two to seven years, surface waters across the equatorial Pacific warm up (El Niño) and then they cool down again (La Niña); each condition has its own distinct effects on weather; La Niña was strong in December, but disappeared in January, leaving nothing to constrain the jet stream; the jet stream took advantage of the new freedom — with disastrous results for the weather

  • Official dispels government green procurement regulation myths

    The U.S. government owns or manages one in five acres in the United States, and is the largest domestic user of electricity; it is also one of the largest consumers of resources in the United States, purchasing on average $535 billion worth of goods each year; In 2009 President Obama issued an executive order requiring that all government agencies establish and implement plans to increase their environmental performance; speaking at the 2011 Security Industry Association’s (SIA) Government Summit to an audience of security professionals, a government official sought to clarify myths surrounding the government’s new green procurement regulations and assured government service providers that the rules would not drastically affect a company’s existing practices

  • China deploys drought relief team to country's north

    China’s northernmost provinces are still suffering from a prolonged drought that has been the country’s worst in fifty years; in the northern provinces and the autonomous regions of inner Mongolia more than 11.67 million people and 3.62 million livestock have been affected by the drought; nearly six million acres of the region’s crops have also been hit hard by the drought; the government has declared it a level-four emergency, the highest level, and is launching a full out emergency response plan to aid the beleaguered region

  • Record rise in sea level in two millennia

    An international research team of scientists has shown that the rate of sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years and that there is a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level

  • New tool predicts drought

    Knowing when to instigate water saving measures in dry times will be easier from now on, following a breakthrough in drought prediction: an Australian researcher has developed a way to predict droughts six months before they begin

  • Strong 1Q growth for U.S. solar power, more expected

    The United States showed strong first quarter growth in solar panel capacity, increasing installations by 66 percent; the increase in solar capacity is due largely to falling panel prices and developers taking advantage of government incentives that were set to expire in 2010; analysts expect solar panel growth to increase throughout the year

  • Mississippi River floods to cause large Gulf of Mexico dead zone

    Hypoxia, which creates oceanic dead zones, is caused by excessive nutrient pollution, often from human activities such as agriculture, which results in too little oxygen to support most marine life in bottom and near-bottom water; scientists are predicting the dead zone area in the Gulf could measure between 8,500 and 9,421 square miles, or an area roughly the size of New Hampshire; the largest hypoxic zone measured to date occurred in 2002 and encompassed more than 8,400 square miles

  • Arizona wildfire now largest in state's history

    The Wallow wildfire in Arizona has continued to burn out of control and is now the largest fire in Arizona’s history; on Tuesday firefighters in Arizona reported that they had 18 percent of the fire contained; so far the blaze has burned 479,407 acres in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona; officials have evacuated thousands of residents from mountain towns and are urging residents to stay clear as the smoke has created dangerous air conditions

  • Report warns falling crop yields could spell disaster

    A recent study found that as temperatures continue to rise the geographical range of staple crops like corn and beans will become increasingly limited, potentially resulting in massive food shortages; there are currently fifty-six million people who lack food security as temperatures are expected to rise above 86° Fahrenheit; at that temperature, beans are no longer a viable crop, while rice and corn yields suffer

  • Virtual water would not remedy global fresh water shortage

    More than 80 percent of humanity currently lives in regions where water security is threatened, meaning that as the global population grows against a finite volume of freshwater, a more equal distribution of water use between countries will be needed; virtual water — that is, the amount of water it takes to produce goods or a service — has been suggested as a possible solution to this growing problem by using virtual water values to inform international trade deals; a new study suggests that it may not be as revolutionary as first thought

  • Climate change and cities: a wake-up call

    More than half the world’s population live in cities, many of which are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change; cities, however, are also emerging as the innovative “first responders” in dealing with climate change; climate change will stress cities in many ways — there will be more heat waves, threatening the health of the elderly and infirm; droughts will also become more commonplace in many cities, while in coastal communities too much water may be the problem, due to sea-level rise and more extreme coastal flooding

  • Deadly tornado kills four in Massachusetts

    On Wednesday, as many as seven tornadoes tore through Massachusetts resulting in the state’s first twister related deaths in sixteen years; the tornadoes touched down in the western and central part of the state, but hit Springfield, located ninety miles west of Boston, the hardest; more than forty people have been admitted to hospitals after sustaining injuries from the tornado and four people have been confirmed dead so far; emergency responders are currently picking through the wreckage to rescue any survivors trapped in the rubble

  • Ports unprepared for increase in Katrina-like storms

    A recent report by Stanford University researchers found that the majority of seaports around the world are unprepared for rising sea levels and increasingly violent storms; a majority of ports surveyed listed sea level rise and increasing extreme storms as some of their top concerns; only 6 percent of respondents said they have plans to build hurricane barriers in the next ten years, and less than 18 percent said they had plans to build dikes or other storm protection structures; to ease uncertainty among port authorities, researchers developed a computer model to provide cost estimates that take into account a port’s specific location as well as the cost of labor, materials, and equipment for fortifying a structure against rising sea levels

  • Former world leaders say global water crisis must be addressed

    In March 2008, the U.K. intelligence services, in a report to then-prime minister Gordon Brown, warned that the deteriorating fresh water situation around the world would soon lead not only to tensions over water between states, but to “water wars”; world leaders, at least former world leaders, agree that the global water situation is dire, and twenty of them, led by Bill Clinton, meet to discuss solutions