Climate Articles
Do You Read Banned Books?
Banned Books What do The Grapes of Wrath, Little Red Riding Hood, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary and Playboy have in common?
Every one of these works has been censored somewhere in the United States. Censorship comes in many forms. Whenever a school board librarian, newspaper editor, politician, or store owner tries to take away your right to decide what you want to see, hear or read, that is censorship.
In honor of Banned Books Week, which ends to tomorrow, October 3, take our quiz to see which of the following classic novels of the 20th century have also been banned or challenged.
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Author, journalist Susan Marks discusses U.S. water crisis
What impact does the United States' energy production have on water supplies? What can the federal government do to help solve water supply issues? During today's OnPoint, Susan Marks, author of the new book "Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America," explains how energy demand and water supply issues intersect. She discusses local and federal action to minimize water supply issues. Marks also explains how expanding the production of alternatives and renewables will affect the nation's water supply.
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River Deltas Sinking
A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder indicates most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking from human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk.
While the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report concluded many river deltas are at risk from sea level rise, the new study indicates other human factors are causing deltas to sink significantly. The researchers concluded the sinking of deltas from Asia and India to the Americas is exacerbated by the upstream trapping of sediments by reservoirs and dams, man-made channels and levees that whisk sediment into the oceans beyond coastal floodplains, and the accelerated compacting of floodplain sediment caused by the extraction of groundwater and natural gas.
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So Shall You Reap
Many farming communities think global warming won't hurt them. They're wrong.
You might think a little global warming is good for farming. Longer, warmer growing seasons and more carbon dioxide (CO2)-what plant wouldn't love that? The agricultural industry basically takes that stance. But global warming's effects on agriculture would actually be quite complicated-and mostly not for the better.
Based on rationales from "climate change isn't real" to "it will increase crop yields so it's a good thing" to "it will cost us money" most of the country's farming sectors along with their elected officials have staunchly opposed taking action to curb U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Even after securing several significant concessions-including an exemption from emission caps-congressional members from agricultural states mostly voted against the Waxman-Markey bill (a.k.a. the American Clean Energy and Security Act). But if people who work in agriculture are not worried about the effects of climate change on their livelihood, they should be. "The agricultural industry is really reading the science wrong here," says Nathanael Greene, director of renewable-energy policy at the Natural Resource Defense Council.
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Provocative New Study Warns of Crossing Planetary Boundaries
The Earth has nine biophysical thresholds beyond which it cannot be pushed without disastrous consequences, the authors of a new paper in the journal Nature report. Ominously, these scientists say, we have already moved past three of these tipping points.
Human civilization has had a stable childhood. Over the past 10,000 years, as our ancestors invented agriculture and built cities, the Earth remained relatively stable. The average global temperature fluttered slightly, never lurching towards a greenhouse climate or chilling enough to enter a new Ice Age. The pH of the oceans remained steady, providing the right chemical conditions for coral reefs to grow and invertebrates to build shells. Those species, in turn, helped support a stable food web that provided plenty of fish for us humans to catch. The overall stability of the past 10,000 years may have played a big part in humanity's explosion.
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Income Poverty Still Falling, but More Slowly
The share of people living in extreme poverty--on less than $1.25 a day--is expected to fall slightly this year, from 21.3 percent in 2008 to 20.7 in 2009, according to the latest Vital Signs Update. Despite these gains, the economic crisis is slowing recent progress in reducing the number of people around the world living in extreme poverty.
According to the latest Vital Signs poverty update:
* The global recession will cause anywhere from 55 million to 90 million more people to remain in poverty in 2009 than would otherwise have been the case.
* The number of chronically hungry people has already exceeded 1 billion in 2009, up from 850 million in 2007.
* By one estimate, agricultural productivity losses associated with climate change could increase the number of people suffering from malnutrition by 600 million by 2080.
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Lasers From Space Show Thinning Of Greenland And Antarctic Ice Sheets
ScienceDaily (Sep. 24, 2009) - The most comprehensive picture of the rapidly thinning glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has been created using satellite lasers. The findings are an important step forward in the quest to make more accurate predictions for future sea level rise.
Reporting this week in the journal Nature, researchers from British Antarctic Survey and the University of Bristol describe how analysis of millions of NASA satellite measurements* from both of these vast ice sheets shows that the most profound ice loss is a result of glaciers speeding up where they flow into the sea.
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Fast Antarctic Ice: Go, Speed Glacier, Go!
The seas are rising, and climate scientists say they'll keep rising as the globe continues to warm, causing all sorts of problems along tens of thousands of miles of coastline around the world. What the scientists can't say for sure, though, is how much sea levels will go up, or how fast. That's largely because nobody knows for sure how the vast ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica - especially the glaciers that flow down and into the sea - will respond.
But that's changing, thanks largely to ice-watching satellites peering down from space. One of them has just reported in - and the news isn't encouraging. According to a new report in Nature, glaciers are getting thinner all around the perimeter of Greenland, and in western Antarctica as well. It's not so much that they're melting, says lead author Hamish Pritchard, of the British Antarctic Survey; it's that their seaward motion is accelerating. And, says Pritchard, "that's a much more rapid way of losing ice than through melting alone."
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Dust storms spread deadly diseases worldwide
Dust storms like the one that plagued Sydney are blowing bacteria to all corners of the globe, with viruses that will attack the human body. Yet these scourges can also help mitigate climate change
Huge dust storms, like the ones that blanketed Sydney twice last week, hit Queensland yesterday and turned the air red across much of eastern Australia, are spreading lethal epidemics around the world. However, they can also absorb climate change emissions, say researchers studying the little understood but growing phenomenon.
The Sydney storm, which left millions of people choking on some of the worst air pollution in 70 years, was a consequence of the 10-year drought that has turned parts of Australia's interior into a giant dust bowl, providing perfect conditions for high winds to whip loose soil into the air and carry it thousands of miles across the continent.
It followed major dust storms this year in northern China, Iraq and Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, east Africa, Arizona and other arid areas. Most of the storms are also linked to droughts, but are believed to have been exacerbated by deforestation, overgrazing of pastures and climate change.
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Dust Bowl-ification hits Eastern Australia - next stop the U.S. Southwest.
Dust storms like the one that plagued Sydney are blowing bacteria to all corners of the globe, with viruses that will attack the human body. Yet these scourges can also help mitigate climate change
Huge dust storms, like the ones that blanketed Sydney twice last week, hit Queensland yesterday and turned the air red across much of eastern Australia, are spreading lethal epidemics around the world. However, they can also absorb climate change emissions, say researchers studying the little understood but growing phenomenon.
The Sydney storm, which left millions of people choking on some of the worst air pollution in 70 years, was a consequence of the 10-year drought that has turned parts of Australia's interior into a giant dust bowl, providing perfect conditions for high winds to whip loose soil into the air and carry it thousands of miles across the continent.
It followed major dust storms this year in northern China, Iraq and Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, east Africa, Arizona and other arid areas. Most of the storms are also linked to droughts, but are believed to have been exacerbated by deforestation, overgrazing of pastures and climate change.
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DUST OVER EASTERN AUSTRALIA
A powerful dust storm swept over eastern Australia on September 23, 2009, extending from Northern Queensland to Victoria across the eastern coast of Australia.
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*** MODIS(Aqua) image from Sep 24, 2009 (Posted on Sep 24, 2009 12:50 PM)
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*** MODIS(Terra) image from Sep 24, 2009 (Posted on Sep 24, 2009 11:30 AM)
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*** MODIS(Terra) image from Sep 23, 2009 (Posted on Sep 23, 2009 10:25 AM)
Saharan Dust over the Atlantic
A tan cloud of Saharan dust hangs over the North Atlantic Ocean in this photo-like satellite image from September 21, 2009. The image shows signs that the dust extends both west and north away from the coast and up into the atmosphere. The dust takes the shape of the wind, forming waves near the surface immediately offshore. This surface-level dust is veiled in a thin cloud of brown where dust has infiltrated higher into the atmosphere. This vertical distribution of dust creates the "X” in the plume near the center of the image: the top layer of dust is moving a different direction than the lower layer of dust.
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What can be done with wastewater?
Rapid expansion of gas drilling has led to problems with disposal, contamination
Workers at a steel mill and a power plant were the first to notice something strange about the Monongahela River last summer. The water that U.S. Steel in Clairton and Allegheny Energy in Greene County used to power their plants contained so much salty sediment that it was corroding their machinery.
Nearby residents saw something odd, too. Dishwashers were malfunctioning, and plates were coming out with spots that couldn't be rinsed off easily.
Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection soon identified the likely cause and came up with a quick fix. The Monongahela River, a drinking water source for 350,000 people, apparently had been contaminated by chemically tainted wastewater from the state's growing natural gas industry. So the DEP reduced the amount of drilling wastewater that was being discharged into the river and unlocked dams upstream to dilute the contamination.
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