Wednesday, August 3, 2016

From now on, every government agency will have to consider climate change

In the past several weeks alone, the Obama administration has made multiple new moves to fight climate change. The administration announced new steps to help fill U.S. roadways with electric vehicles. It ruled that greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft endanger human health and welfare. And on the international stage, it moved the world closer to a deal to phase out super-polluting HFCs, chemicals in refrigerants and other industrial substances that warm the climate.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/08/02/from-now-on-every-government-agency-will-have-to-consider-climate-change/?utm_term=.9d1dddbeca45
Article courtesy of The Washington Post by Chris Mooney

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Federal, state leaders pitch for California water tunnels

FRESNO, Calif. — Representatives of California Gov. Jerry Brown and the Obama administration began making their pitch for approval Tuesday to build a pair of massive water tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.  http://www.therepublic.com/2016/07/26/ca-california-giant-tunnels/
Article courtesy of The Republic by Scott Smith

Rising seas threaten to swamp U.S. military bases by 2050

Military bases along the East and Gulf Coast are at risk of losing large chunks of land as rising sea levels from man-made climate change swamp installations from New Hampshire to Florida.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/07/27/sea-level-rise-military-bases/87576456/
Article courtesy of USA Today by Doyle Rice

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Rotterdam offers burial at sea for greenhouse gases

A scheme to collect millions of tons of greenhouse gases and bury them under the North Sea off the coast of Rotterdam is Europe's best hope of showing it can make carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology work. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-carboncapture-idUSKCN0ZZ1K4
Article courtesy of Reuters by Barbara Lewis and Robert-Jan Bartenek

New York City hopes a 10-foot wall can save it from rising seas

In an effort to stave off another Sandy, the city is prepared to wall off one of its wealthiest areas, Lower Manhattan, from massive storms and rising seas. Rolling Stone’s Jeff Goodell writes that New York will break ground later this year on the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, a 10-foot-high reinforced wall that will run two miles along the East River.  http://grist.org/living/new-york-city-hopes-a-10-foot-wall-can-save-it-from-rising-seas/
Article courtesy of Grist by Katie Herzog

The Newest Way to Clean the Atmosphere? Make Bleach

Scientists from Cornell University developed a technique that sucks up CO2 from exhaust streams and generates useful electricity as a byproduct. The device they’ve built is a kind of electrochemical cell. Think of it as a building block of batteries: It knocks electrons out of aluminum, channels them away, and leaves behind a form of oxygen called a superoxide. In air that is made up of 80 percent CO2 and 20 percent regular oxygen (as opposed to the atmosphere, which is about 21 percent oxygen and 79 percent nitrogen), the superoxide grabs the CO2 and forms a type of bleach used by pharmaceutical and textile industries, as well as in antifreeze and plastics.   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/the-newest-way-to-clean-the-atmosphere-make-bleach
Article courtesy of Bloomberg by Eric Roston

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Some earthquakes on San Andreas fault are triggered by gravitational tug of sun and moon

The gravitational tug between the sun and moon is not just a dance of high and low tides: It can also trigger a special kind of earthquake on the San Andreas fault.  http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-la-me-earthquakes-tides-san-andreas-20160718-snap-story.html
Article Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times by Rosanna Xia