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Dog Meat Festival Goes On As Planned Despite Widespread Protest

2013-06-19T22:55:07Z

Despite widespread outrage, a dog meat festival in China will be going ahead as planned this week.

The festival, which kicks off on Friday, is an annual celebration that takes place in the city of Yulin in the Guangxi province. According to the Guardian, the event is considered an ancient summer solstice tradition by local residents. They are said to "cherish their city's dog-meat culture, which involves the mass consumption of dog-meat hot pot served with lychees and strong grain liquor."

Animal rights groups insist, however, the festival is cruel. Activists say about 10,000 dogs -- reportedly often transported and kept in inhumane conditions -- are killed during the festival every year; many are burned, electrocuted and skinned alive, according to reports.

"We have seen animals beaten just before being cooked," Du Yufeng, founder of Chinese animal rights group Boai Small Animal Protection Center, told the Agence France-Presse. "The more we inspect, the more cruelty we discover."

Throughout the past few years, activists like Du have tried to block the festival, appealing to the governments of China and the United States, among others. Some Chinese netizens have also taken to social networking sites to lambast the event.

But in spite of the widespread criticism, the festival has continued to take place annually -- and 2013 will not be an exception, according to reports this week.

Du says, however, that the Chinese government, in response to pressure from "online activism," will be sending a team to monitor the event this year for animal cruelty. The measure won't be enough, she says, but it's a start.

"I think the team will reduce the cruelty somewhat, but mostly on the surface," Du told the AFP.

As Yulin residents prepare for this Friday's festival, the South China Morning Post reports that some aren't too pleased with the bad press the city has been getting.

"It's unfair to call Yulin people brutal only because we have this tradition to eat dog meat. People who call us uncivilized and cruel should stop eating meat first," a local resident named Annie told the Chinese daily.

This isn't the first time that a dog meat festival has been slammed by animal lovers. In 2011, two such events -- one in South Korea and the other in Zhejiang Province, China -- were canceled in the wake of animal rights protests.

According to this Vimeo video description, Du Yufeng and other activists organized a protest at the 2012 Yulin Dog Meat Festival. Watch the clip of the protests here:

(WARNING: Some readers may find the content of the clip disturbing.)

Yulin Dog Meat Festival Protest, Guanxi, China, June 2012. from HandInHandWithAsia on Vimeo.

Will This Fishing Method Mean The End Of Bluefin Tuna?

2013-06-19T22:54:25Z

No fish has inspired as much controversy over the past several years as the bluefin tuna. Sushi lovers, especially in Japan, love the fish's fatty flesh and pay top dollar for prize cuts -- but environmentalists say that the world's hunger for o-toro has pushed the three species of bluefin around the world to the brink of extinction. Global fisheries managers have carefully negotiated the demands of these two wildly divergent (and highly vocal) constituencies by placing strict limits on fishing of bluefin tuna, and enforcing those limits to the best of their abilities.

Yet all their hard work is imperiled by two huge factors: illegal fishing and bycatch. Work has been done in recent years to prevent illegal fishing. But a big batch of data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this week [pdf] shows how big a problem bycatch remains.

Specifically, NOAA revealed that about a quarter of the United States' 2012 annual quota of about 1,000 metric tons of the fish was wasted on bluefin tuna that was accidentally caught in a practice known as pelagic longline fishing. Fishermen string miles of baited hooks along wires [pdf] strung between buoys in the open ocean, in an effort to catch swordfish and yellowfin tuna. But other species -- including bluefin tuna, but also turtles and dolphins -- sometimes take the bait and are caught as "accidental bycatch" by the pelagic longline fishermen. Bluefin tuna need to swim to breathe, so they sometimes die after being hooked in this process. According to the new NOAA data, these wasted tuna weighed a total of 239.5 metric tons in 2012, up about 70 percent from 2011.

This increase in accidental bycatch has prompted NOAA to suspend longline fishing for bluefin tuna for the remainder of 2013, starting on June 25. The restriction won't keep bluefin tuna from being accidentally caught by pelagic longline fishermen, whose activities are not being restricted -- rather, if they are caught, the fishermen are no longer allowed to keep them on board. They have to throw them back into the sea, dead or alive.

NOAA is expected to revise its regulations on bluefin tuna fisheries this summer. Its new rules may limit certain types of pelagic longline fishing that present a high risk of bluefin tuna bycatch.

Lou Leonard: The Amazing Race

2013-06-19T22:31:28Z

As Americans, we love reality TV. We particularly love shows that involve a race against time, creative problem solving and a big cash pay-off or other high stakes (like avoiding a tank full of spiders) waiting at the end. Week after week, these shows top the ratings and we root for our favorite people and teams.

We love these shows, but they aren't really about "reality." (I mean how often do you really bounce along the Big Balls above a mud pit on your way to work?)

But you know what is reality? New York preparing for another hurricane season with the "new normal" of more intense storms and a rising water line (an extra foot already, and growing). The West experiencing another season of super-charged wildfires. The Arctic disappearing before our eyes (80 percent of the summer ice was gone last year) and creating a wobbly jet stream driving crazy weird weather in the lower 48 states. If these impacts weren't enough, the World Bank just issued a report saying that the world is likely to cross the dangerous "2 degrees Celsius warming threshold" in less than 20 years which could trigger irreversible planetary impacts.

Okay, so the stakes are at least as high as a tank full of spiders and we've got an exciting race against time. But this isn't sounding fun yet; nobody likes a no-win scenario. But this isn't a no-win scenario; it's a win-win scenario.

What if I told you that the US economy would be on track to help the world avoid crossing the 2 degrees Celsius threshold, if US companies started an amazing race for climate profits? This race won't happen around the confusing streets of an exotic city, but inside the board rooms and under the factory floors of businesses across America. And the prize? Not a million dollars. But right now at least $190 billion with a B. Everyone who competes can win their share.

The network execs haven't bought my idea yet, but I assure you these riches are very real.

On June 18, World Wildlife Fund and CDP launched The 3% Solution, a story-filled, data-rich Rosetta stone for hidden corporate profit - $190 billion worth in 2020 or $780 billion over ten years. Companies can uncover this profit by reducing their emissions by, on average, 3 percent annually by 2020. The report provides 2 key tools to help intrepid business teams uncover these hidden savings:

A Carbon Profit and Target Calculator, which is their compass. It evaluates a company's sector market share, projected growth and carbon profit potential to create a company-specific target for reducing carbon and capturing profit; and
A Carbon Productivity Portfolio, which is their map. It includes a set of five actions that together create a pathway to maximizing carbon reductions and profit.

Okay, you say, energy efficiency theoretically can save money, but in practice companies can't wait 10 years for a return on investment and pie-in-the-sky projections don't always work in the real world. What if I told you that the innovations in this report are based on actions companies are already taking? Companies like General Electric, Coca-Cola, DuPont, Catalyst Paper - the list goes on.

These companies are moving because it makes business sense: The data shows that 79 percent of S&P 500 companies reporting to CDP see a higher return on actions to reduce carbon pollution than other investments. Many of these are high reward, low-risk investments. This isn't pie-in-the-sky; this is money-in-the-bank.

The best news for us at WWF is that we didn't have to cut any corners on what the best scientists say is needed to fight climate change: If companies fully realized these savings, the US corporate sector would reduce emissions enough to meet their fair share of 2020 targets needed to stay below 2 degrees Celsius and help protect New York and the farms of the Midwest from the worst impacts of climate change.

And while my reality show idea may not be quite ready for primetime, we are in a race against time. By waiting to act, companies are allowing these savings to go up in the smoke of a western wildfire. Even worse, waiting means that future action will need to be much more ambitious to stay within levels needed to avoid the worst climate impacts.

So next time you are sitting back in your comfy leather chair and watching your weekly dose of reality TV, take a minute to think about how you could make your business part of this very amazing race... a race to improve the bottom line and win the most important prize of all - a safer world for people and nature.

Joe S. Whitworth: Reaping the Whirlwind: Water War Along the California-Oregon Border

2013-06-19T22:16:09Z

Not clear how many HuffPosters go Biblical, but this one fits. With a fresh backdrop of unprecedented forest fires in the West, ferocious storms along the Eastern Seaboard (tornadoes attacking elsewhere), alternating drought and flood in the country's interior wreaking havoc on the Mississippi and the next of many rounds on its way, you can almost hear the booming voice indicting us with a good, "they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."

But before anybody cranks up the old Climate Deny Machine to deconstruct whether 19 of 20 scientists can agree these weather events are related, let's pivot to something that we definitively know humans made happen: a burgeoning water war along the Oregon-California border. As you read this, Oregon state employees are traveling across the Klamath Basin, shutting down the irrigation systems of ranchers and farmers to make sure that the Klamath Tribes get water they just found out they are legally entitled to.

This water war, pitting tribes and fish and wildlife against ranchers and farmers, is truly the result of human actions: in every sense, this environmental whirlwind was engineered by America legally, physically and economically. It is the obvious result of the application of a century-old water law that struggles to keep up with changing demands and modern priorities.

The law that allowed this war to start, called "Prior Appropriation," was drawn up to encourage the settling of a dry land for a nation in a hurry. Hastened by gold, railroads and Manifest Destiny in 1800s, we needed a practical and simple way to know who could use scarce water resources when. Prior Appropriation grew out of a time and place where the West seemed boundless. A world where no one could predict that someday in the future, just about every drop of water would eventually be promised to someone before it reached the ocean. Prior appropriation did just that: it allocated "water rights" to all comers on a first come first serve basis. And it over-allocated many: across the Western United States, more people hold water rights "on paper" than there is actual water in streams in a given year.

Despite the lack of water accounting, for a long time the system worked. Settlement grew. Agriculture grew. The desert literally bloomed. What didn't grow was the water budget. In fact, we have no more water on Earth today than we did when the planet opened for business. But in this country, our water is highly managed--it moves when and how we say it moves. The plumbing system of the American West has enough water in ditches, canals and reservoirs to put all of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and a chunk of Montana under a foot of water simultaneously.

Prior Appropriation creates clear winners and losers during times of water shortage. In dry years, those with older (aka "prior") water rights can tell those with younger water rights to shut off. And from this long-standing interpretation of water law came the current conflict in the Klamath. Before this year, most of the water right owners in the Klamath didn't know who had the prior rights and who had the less valuable junior rights. That is because the basin had not yet finalized their Water Rights in a process called "adjudication."

The Klamath water rights were finalized barely a month ago and this process once-and-for all legally determined who gets what water in dry years. It was through this process that the Klamath Tribes were awarded water rights with priority dates that go back to "Time Immemorial." That trumps every other water right holder's date in the Klamath Basin. As coincidence would have it, this year is off to a dry start. The Klamath Tribes have made a call on their water, shutting off an untold number of ranchers and farmers downstream, to ensure that they can use their water for traditional needs of fishing, hunting, and agriculture.

This has predictably upset the apple cart (quasi-Biblical) for those farming in the basin and tensions are as high as they have been since agriculture was shut off to help endangered salmon in 2001. Right now, for safety in the basin, watermasters (the state of Oregon employees who have to shut off junior users) have taken to going out in teams of two and notifying the sheriffs' office where they are headed. In a developed nation, that seems pretty wild.

To me, the real question has become: What events will jar us into realizing we need to shift our water management style? Our high capacity to ignore big, observable facts gives preference to how things used to be over how things ought to be--and that won't work on the road ahead. The environmental issues we will face will be violent, fast and unpredictable. Several factors will move beyond our control. But our water future is something within our control, and we should solve for that.

A pathway exists to achieve more optimized use of water, but it will look different than how we have done it in the past. We need to accurately quantify the annual water budget, leaving enough for streams and ecosystems to function properly. Then we need to allow the trading of water among uses to allocate the water to the most productive uses and users.

This won't be an easy transition. Some enviros will say that the market is no way to allocate a public resource like water; some ranchers and farmers will claim that family farms will be out-competed for water by bigger, more sophisticated agribusiness interests. Risks have to be managed, but such a sea-change in water management is not without successful precedent Instead of creating winners and losers according to whose great-great-great grandfather settled first, a system in Australia efficiently and fairly promotes economic and environmental gains, and ours should too. A race to produce more with less rather than a race to the bottom of the well is the better one to run.

Hunt For Missing Ship Continues

2013-06-19T22:03:52Z

FAIRPORT, Mich. (AP) — A wooden beam that has long been the focus of the search for a 17th century shipwreck in northern Lake Michigan was not attached to a buried vessel as searchers had suspected, but still may have come from the elusive Griffin or some other ship, archaeologists said Wednesday.

Shipwreck hunter Steve Libert discovered a 10.5-foot section of the timber jutting from the lake bed twelve years ago in an area where he was convinced that the Griffin, commanded by the French explorer Rene Robert Cavelier de la Salle, sank in 1679. French experts who inspected the beam in recent days said it appeared to be a bowsprit — a spur or pole that extends from a vessel's stem — that was hundreds of years old.

Crews have been digging beside the timber, where sonar readings indicated that one or more objects that together exceeded 40 feet long were submerged in mud. Libert and other expedition leaders believed they might be the hull of the Griffin, and that the excavation would find a connection between it and the presumed bowsprit.

But on Tuesday, as a diver was widening the pit, the timber began wobbling. Archaeologists and other expedition leaders decided to take it down instead of trying to stabilize it, fearing it was a safety risk. So the diver eased it to the lake bed after checking beneath and discovering that it wasn't attached to another object, but simply had been embedded in the tightly packed sediments.

Even though no other wreckage was found, project manager Ken Vrana said there's still a good chance it is located not far away. With the timber no longer in place, crews stepped up their dredging operation in hopes of reaching a hard surface that a probing device has indicated is 18 to 20 feet down.

"It could be that the ship is very close to this area, but it is impossible to say for sure at this point," said Michel L'Hour, director of France's Department of Underwater Archaeological Research and a shipwreck expert.

Meanwhile, expedition leaders were talking with state officials about what to do with the timber. Options include leaving it on the lake bottom — concealed to avoid theft or vandalism — or bringing it to shore, which would require expert preservation treatment.

U.S. Airports Face Increasing Threat From Rising Seas

2013-06-19T21:56:41Z

From Climate Central's Andrew Freedman:

When Hurricane Sandy struck New York City on October 29, 2012, the dark waters of Flushing Bay poured over the edges of LaGuardia Airport, flooding parts of the facility’s 7,000-foot long east-west runway, and damaging lighting and navigation systems. The floodwaters created an eerie image of jetways ending in water, as if they had been converted into boat ramps.

This was not the first time that LaGuardia suffered major flooding during a storm, nor will it be the last. Due to climate change-related sea level rise, LaGuardia and other coastal hubs throughout the U.S. face a growing risk of flooding during even modest storms.

What LaGuardia Airport could look like at high tide with 5 feet of sea level rise, an amount that could occur by 2100, according to some estimates. Click on the image to enlarge.
Credit: Nickolay Lamm/StorageFront interpretation of Climate Central data.

A draft federal assessment of climate change impacts, which was released on Jan. 11, named a dozen major U.S. airports as being particularly vulnerable to sea level rise-related flooding risks, including all three of the major New York-area airports. And just last week, a new report found that the New York metropolitan area may face a greater amount of sea level rise during the next several decades than was anticipated just a few years ago.

The region's two other major airports also experienced storm-surge flooding during Hurricane Sandy, albeit to a lesser degree. John F. Kennedy International Airport saw flooding from Jamaica Bay, and Newark (N.J.) International Airport was hit by the storm surge that coursed through New York Harbor and into Newark Bay, flooding the eastern sections of the busy international gateway, and parts of the neighboring port, where waters reached 4 feet above ground level.

All three hubs closed on Oct. 28, before the storm hit, causing a ripple effect of tens of thousands of flight cancellations around the world. Newark and JFK Airports were able to resume limited service on Oct. 31, while LaGuardia was the last to reopen at a reduced capacity a day later. According to FlightStats.com, more than 20,000 flights nationwide were canceled due to Hurricane Sandy with roughly half of those cancellations coming from the New York-area airports.

U.S. Airports Most Vulnerable to Sea Level Rise
San Francisco Int'l (SFO)

Oakland International (OAK)

Honolulu International (HNL)

New Orleans Louis Armstrong Int'l (MSY)

Tampa International (TPA)

Miami Int'l (MIA)

Ft. Lauderdale Int'l (FLL)

Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA)

Newark Liberty Int'l (EWR)

LaGuardia (LGA)

Philadelphia Int'l (PHL)

John F. Kennedy Int'l (JFK)

The trio of airports serve more passengers annually than any other metropolitan area in the world, other than London. Passenger traffic at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's four commercial airports — which includes the underutilized Stewart International Airport in Orange County, N.Y. — totaled 109.4 million in 2012. LaGuardia alone accounted for 25.7 million passengers during the year, with more than 1,000 daily landings and takeoffs, according to Port Authority figures.

The New York area's high-capacity airports may have been the first to get hit, but Hurricane Sandy should serve as a wakeup call to officials in charge of other low-lying airports across the country, since the latest climate science shows coastal airports face a growing danger from storm-surge impacts such as sea level rise. More flooding will cause more delays, potentially costing billions of dollars in the years ahead from lost revenue and storm cleanup operations. The impact of weather-related delays on air travel already costs more than $4 billion annually.

The threat isn't that sea level rise will gradually breach the defenses surrounding each airport. Instead, at least during the next few decades, scientists say that sea level rise will be more of an enabler of storm-surge flooding, making it easier for even minor storms to produce more damaging surges and flooding. And when powerful storms hit, the threat is multiplied since they likely will produce unprecedented surges, much as Hurricane Sandy did in New York.

According to the draft National Climate Assessment, 12 of the nation’s largest airports have at least one runway with an elevation within 12 feet of current sea levels. In addition to the three airports in and around New York, the other vulnerable airfields listed are in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Miami, San Francisco, Honolulu, New Orleans, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale and Oakland.

Those airports face critical challenges ahead, beginning with conducting risk assessments for long-lasting infrastructure, such as new terminals, runways, and maintenance facilities. Planners are studying options to better protect low-lying runways and airport buildings, such as navigation systems to allow aircraft to land in low visibility, and hardening or raising tank farms for storing aviation fuel.

Some, such as the managers of New York City's airports as well as San Fransisco and Oakland International Airports, have taken initial steps to assess their vulnerabilities, often in association with broader regional studies. Most, though, have not yet begun that work, putting them behind the curve.

The risk assessments that have been carried out so far are sobering, and once again, LaGuardia Airport is front and center.

One of the reports released on June 11 in conjunction with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $20 billion city-wide climate resilience proposal found that for LaGuardia Airport, at least, Sandy was not a worst-case scenario. The storm struck at low-tide along the western part of Long Island Sound, while it was high tide along the New Jersey coast and in other parts of New York City. LaGuardia flooded to a level of about 14 feet above Mean Lower Low Water, or about 9 feet above ground level.

A computer-model simulation from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., found that had the storm hit at LaGuardia’s high tide, which was just nine hours earlier, the floodwaters would have reached a height of up to 12 feet above ground level. That most likely would have breached the terminal buildings, leading to a longer and more expensive shutdown of the facility after the storm subsided.

What LaGuardia could look like at high tide with 12 feet of sea level rise, an amount that could occur by 2100, according to some estimates. Click on the image to enlarge.
Credit: Nickolay Lamm/StorageFront interpretation of Climate Central data.

Futhermore, a new analysis from the New York City Panel on Climate Change found that sea level in New York City may increase by as much as 11 inches by the 2020s, and more than 2.5 feet by the 2050s. That would dramatically boost coastal flooding risks, and render LaGuardia’s current levees useless against even minor storms.

"More and more of the City's airport infrastructure will be at risk as storm surges will move from flooding outlying runways to threatening the terminal buildings," said a transportation sector breakdown accompanying the report.

If sea level rise matches the high-end estimate of 31 inches by the 2050s, then today's 1-in-100 year flood, which has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year, may occur about five times more often.

While much of JFK Airport is outside of the city’s updated 100-year flood zone, as sea levels rise that is likely to change, the panel's report showed.

Since 1900, relative sea level has already risen by about 13 inches in New York City, due to manmade climate change and land-elevation shifts.

Climate studies examining Newark Airport have been more limited, since the climate assessments conducted by New York City have only focused on airports within its jurisdiction. The Port Authority, however, has found that Newark is also going to be at greater risk of storm-surge flooding as seas rise, but it is not considered to be as imperiled as LaGuardia. A 2012 New York State Climate Assessment also found that Newark is at slightly greater risk of flooding in severe storms compared to JFK.

What LaGuardia could look like at high tide with 25 feet of sea level rise, an amount that would require a worst-case scenario involving melting of large parts of Greenland and Antarctica. Click image to enlarge.
Credit: Nickolay Lamm/StorageFront interpretation of Climate Central data.

Klaus Jacob, an expert in natural disasters at Columbia University and an advisor to New York state as well as the city, said that in addition to considering the impacts of sea level rise on the airport grounds, officials also need to take into account the networks of access roads and public transportation systems that transport airport workers and passengers to and from the facilities.

For example, Jacob said that although JFK Airport itself has a lower risk of flooding in today's typical storms compared to LaGuardia, its access roads could flood more easily from heavy rains during storm situations, potentially leading to situations where passengers and airport workers are cut off from the airport.

“While the airport itself may not be jeopardized, the access to it may be jeopardized,” Jacob said in an interview. “The Federal Aviation Administration may not take note of that, but in terms of operations it may cause significant problems.”

On the opposite side of the country, there have been several studies looking at transportation infrastructure in the San Francisco Bay region, home to two major airports on the federal government's "most vulnerable" list: San Francisco International and Oakland International Airport.

According to one study published by the Adapting to Rising Tides Project, funded by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Services Center, general aviation facilities and runways at Oakland International Airport are likely to be inundated by new daily high tides with just 16 inches of sea level rise, which is within the range of most mid-century projections.

During a storm event, the airport could see flooding at a height of between 1 to 7 feet above ground level at various locations around the airport, including flooding of the longest runway, which is used by most jetliners. In addition, storm events coming on top of the 16 inches of sea level rise could render the main airport access roads impassable, the report found.

With 55 inches of sea level rise, which some studies project could occur by 2100 depending on how quickly the polar ice caps melt, the entire airport would be exposed to flooding during the daily high tide, the report found. That scenario would render the airport unusable on a regular basis unless new flood protection measures were in place.

Oakland International and San Francisco International Airport — the 7th-largest U.S. airport by passenger volume — were both built on land reclaimed from wetlands, and are about 10 feet above the current local sea level.

Climate change acts as a storm-surge risk magnifier in other locations, too, and not just in New York and the San Francisco Bay region. For example, Climate Central research shows that there is a greater than 30 percent chance that the water level will exceed 8 feet above the average local high-tide line at least once by 2030 in Washington, D.C., which would flood parts of Washington Ronald Reagan National Airport. And in Tampa, which is long overdue for a major hurricane strike, a Climate Central report says that there is a 40 percent chance that the water level, including the effects of a storm surge plus sea level rise, will top 5 feet above the average local high tide line at least once by 2030. That would flood part of Tampa-St. Petersburg International Airport, in addition to MacDill Air Force Base, home to the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East.

Solutions

Girding an airport against the threat of a damaging surge is not as easy as simply building a tall sea wall, since jetliners would have to be able to clear such a wall or levee when landing or taking off, Jacob said. One possible solution could be for the runways to be raised or partially elevated, in combination with the construction of a dike and levee system.

Jacob, who led part of a New York State sponsored assessment of sea level rise that was released in 2012, said he is unaware of any national or local strategic planning efforts underway by airport management agencies or regulators to prepare for sea level rise and increased risks of flooding, indicating that most of this work is just beginning to get underway in an ad hoc fashion.

Multiple phone calls and emails to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates New York’s airports, went unreturned. However, Port Authority documents indicate that the agency is aware of the risk posed by sea level rise, and is increasingly incorporating that into their planning procedures and existing sustainability policy.

Mayor Bloomberg's climate resilience plan includes working with non-city agencies such as the Port Authority to ensure they are including climate change-related threats, including sea level rise, into their capital projects.

The federal Transportation Research Board has also urged airport managers, such as the Port Authority, to include climate-change adaptation in long-term planning, given the long lifespan of infrastructure built today.

There are a handful of airports here and abroad providing inspiration. San Francisco airport officials have been discussing the possibility of extending the airport’s runways onto floating platforms to increase runway length. That may have an added benefit of allowing the runways to rise with the sea level. In addition, a partial seawall and planned levees around San Francisco International Airport are expected to give that airport additional protection during the next couple of decades, depending on the rate and extent of sea level rise.

In St. Paul, Minn., the airport has suffered from frequent flooding from the Mississippi River, having been inundated three times during the past 15 years. To prevent the recurrence of such flooding, the airport installed a modular floodwall, which can be easily added to when floods threaten. A similar modular system is planned for protecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan from flooding, and could be constructed low enough to avoid interfering with aircraft takeoffs and landings. Such a system, also known as an integrated flood-protection system, would function much like building blocks, with some permanent structures installed and other temporary measures that could be added before a storm strikes.

Other airports that have incorporated flood-protection measures include Raratonga Airport in the Cook Islands, which installed a wave-protection barrier, and Brisbane International Airport in Queensland, Australia, which uses a combination of strategies, including pumps and strategically elevated land.

Whatever the solutions may be, one thing is clear: the ocean increasingly wants to be another passenger coming into low-lying coastal airports, and it will be up to this generation of engineers and airport managers to keep the water out.

9 Mind-Blowing Marijuana Gadgets That Will Revolutionize Weed Smoking

2013-06-19T21:49:31Z

A gadget that turns any Starbucks venti cup into a bong, a power cleaner for resin-clogged pipes, and chewing gum that cures cotton mouth are among products that marijuana aficionados may see in their favorite head shops before the end of the year.

A flock of American businesses, seeking to take advantage of an investment rush into the marijuana industry, are behind a wave of new weed-smoking accessories designed to improve on such classic devices as the bong, the pipe and the one-hitter. The new so-called ganjapreneurs are hoping to capitalize on a speculative mania that cannabis industry insiders call a “green rush.”

“People have been trying to do this for a really long while and now is really the time,” said Ross Kirsh, owner at New York based Quark, which creates accessories used to store and display medical marijuana.

At two marijuana business networking conferences last week in New York, ganjapreneurs shook hands, smoked joints, made deals, and shared plans for profiting from the creeping legalization of pot. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana, and two states, Colorado and Washington, legalized recreational adult use of cannabis last year. The federal government still considers pot illegal to possess or use.

“There was a lot of uncertainty in this business in 2011," Kirsh said. "People were hesitant to see where business would go after what was a federal crackdown. But after legalization in Colorado and Washington, the attitude has completely changed.”

Los Angeles-based Royght! plans to sell a gadget that fits snugly atop the standard-issue wax-paper cups used by takeout restaurants. For $19.95, super-sized becomes super high.

Matt Luxton, the company’s 30-year-old owner, said he’s gone through 24 prototypes, but believes “lucky number 25” is ready for market. He said designing, manufacturing and -- particularly -- testing his product has been an eye-opening experience for him as an entrepreneur.

“One of the things we’ve found in testing is people like the ability to fill the cup up with whatever -– coffee, orange juice, vodka, Coca-Cola from the McDonald’s fountain -– and smoke through that,” Luxton said.

Click on the slideshow below to see eight other products likely to come out of the marijuana industry’s “green rush.”

Obama Climate Change Strategy Coming Soon

2013-06-19T21:41:52Z

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON, June 19 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will target carbon emissions from power plants as part of a second-term climate change agenda expected to be rolled out in the next few weeks, his top energy and climate adviser said on Wednesday.

Obama will take several steps to make tackling climate change a "second-term priority" that builds on first-term policies, Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, said at a forum sponsored by the New Republic magazine.

"In the near term we are very much focused on the power plant piece of the equation," she said.

On Wednesday in Berlin, Obama said the United States understood it had to do more to fight climate change and he pledged that more action was coming.

"Our dangerous carbon emissions have come down, but we know we have to do more. And we will do more," he said in a speech.

The president is expected to announce new U.S. measures to fight global warming in the coming weeks.

Zichal confirmed that an announcement is expected in weeks and highlighted moves that will shape Obama's agenda but not require new funding or legislation by Congress.

She said the administration plans to expand energy efficiency standards for appliances, accelerate clean energy development on public lands and use the Clean Air Act to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in the power and energy sectors.

The Environmental Protection Agency is working to finish carbon emissions standards for new power plants. It is then expected to tackle regulations on existing power plants.

Zichal said that part of the Democratic president's strategy will be to depoliticize the issue of climate policy, which led to bitter partisan fights during his first term.

One item off the agenda is a tax on carbon emitters, she said, a move strenuously opposed by many Republicans in Congress.

Zichal added that climate change is often a less divisive subject at the state level, with some Republicans setting policies that address climate change and attempt to reduce emissions.

"Washington needs to catch up to the rest of the nation on this issue," she said. "It's time to turn this issue from a red state-blue state issue into an American issue." (Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Ros Krasny and Xavier Briand)

Earthquake Rattles Chilean Capital

2013-06-19T21:35:07Z

SANTIAGO, Chile -- A magnitude-5.7 earthquake shook central Chile on Wednesday, causing buildings to sway in the capital but apparently causing no major damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at 17:29 p.m. local time and its epicenter was about 60 kilometers (37 miles) east-north-east of Los Andes, Chile.

Officials discarded the possibility of a tsunami and said there were no immediate reports of deaths or damages.

Chile is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake and the tsunami it unleashed in 2010 killed more than 500 people and destroyed 220,000 homes.

Obama Planning To Tackle Global Warming

2013-06-19T21:22:50Z

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is planning a major push using executive powers to tackle the pollution blamed for global warming in an effort to make good on promises he made at the start of his second term. "We know we have to do more – and we will do more," Obama said Wednesday in Berlin.

Obama's senior energy and climate adviser, Heather Zichal, said the plan would boost energy efficiency of appliances and buildings, expand renewable energy and use the Environmental Protection Agency's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate heat-trapping pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Zichal, speaking at a forum hosted by The New Republic in Washington, said that none of the proposals would require new funding or action from Congress. It has shown no appetite for legislation that would put a price on carbon dioxide after a White House-backed bill to set up a market-based system died in Obama's first term with Democrats in charge.

The plan, with details expected to be revealed in coming weeks, comes as Obama has been under increasing pressure from environmental groups and lawmakers from states harmed by Superstorm Sandy to cut pollution from existing power plants, the largest source of climate-altering gases. Several major environmental groups and states have threatened to sue the administration to force cuts to power plant emissions. And just last week, former Vice President Al Gore, a prominent climate activist and fellow Democrat, pointedly called on Obama to go beyond "great words" to "great actions."

It was unclear whether the White House's plans would include controls on existing power plants. An administration official, who wasn't authorized to comment on the plan by name, said the White House was still weighing it. But since the administration has already proposed action on future power plants, the law would likely compel it to eventually tackle the remaining plants, or it would be forced to through litigation.

Obama's remarks in Berlin echoed comments he made in his State of the Union and inaugural speeches this year.

"This is the global threat of our time," Obama said Wednesday. "And for the sake of future generations, our generation must move toward a global compact to confront a changing climate before it is too late. That is our job. That is our task. We have to get to work."

Some environmentalists who cheered those remarks when they were made months ago, criticized them Wednesday.

"President Obama deserves praise for including climate change among the long-term threats facing us all," said Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clear Air Policy, an environmentally friendly think tank. "But he should do more than talk about the problem. The president needs to put the full force of his office behind new regulations that will truly curb greenhouse gas emissions. For too long now, he has produced little action. I'm encouraged that he will finally act and not just ask."

Meanwhile, the environmental community is growing impatient.

"I really can't understand why they haven't moved forward on this more quickly, and we hope that turns around," said Nathan Wilcox of Environment America.

An orchestrated and well-publicized campaign to persuade Obama to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would carry oil extracted from tar sands in western Canada to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast, appears to be an uphill battle.

Opponents call the $7 billion project a "carbon bomb" that would carry "dirty oil" and exacerbate global warming. But the State Department in an environmental evaluation concluded that other means of transporting the oil would be worse from a climate perspective.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

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Follow Dina Cappiello's environment coverage on Twitter at www.twitter.com/dinacappiello

Arianna Huffington: Huffington This Week: Man vs. Nature

2013-06-19T21:12:45Z

In this week's issue, Tom Zeller looks at the American fishing industry and three different factors affecting it.

First, there's global warming. As ocean temperatures rise, research suggests many fish species are migrating into deeper waters, upsetting the normal patterns fishermen have relied on and throwing the marine ecosystem into flux. To compound the problem, the industry is facing a man vs. nature predicament where man's domination has, in a way, backfired. Our mastery of technology -- with methods like GPS and fish-finding sonar that make it easier and more efficient than ever to harvest fish -- has ravaged entire populations. As Tom puts it, "humans are extracting fish at a pace that exceeds the stock's natural ability to replenish its numbers."

Then, there are changes in policy. America's commercial fishing business employs more than a million people and generates more than $116 billion in annual sales. But the government has proposed cuts to the number of fish that can be harvested, so many fishermen will lose the work that has sustained them for decades. As Frank Mirarchi, a 69-year-old fisherman who has been harvesting cod and flounder in New England for nearly half a century, put it, "We're gonna lose a bunch of boats." Mirarchi's boat is named for his mother, Barbara L. Peters, and he expects he'll have to put it up for sale soon.

Elsewhere in the issue, Mallika Rao puts the spotlight on the rise of Braco, a Croatian healer whose method is simple and, some say, miraculously effective. His method? As Mallika writes, "All he does, to the delight of his followers, is gaze at them." Braco is part of a larger universe of healers of varying philosophies and practices, some of them bearing a resemblance to "celebrity fitness trainers, with products and regimens open to anyone willing to pay."

Still, Braco's followers swear to his legitimacy, from claims that he hails from Atlantis to elaborate attempts to place him in a tradition of transcendental gurus. These believers say Braco offers something -- "just the sight of him seeing you" -- all too rare in our world of digital distractions, serial multitasking and missed connections.

At a recent appearance, Braco gazed into an audience holding up photos of loved ones, many of them crying. One woman said the encounter made her "feel light and childlike and creative. To me, that's what Braco does. I've been carrying a heavy sack of stuff on me for ages now, and it started to drift away."

Finally, as part of our ongoing effort to reduce stress in our lives, including in our kitchens, we have a feature on how to keep cool while performing a notoriously delicate culinary task: poaching an egg!

This story appears in Issue 54 of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, in the iTunes App store, available Friday, June 21.

WATCH: CHP Copter Saves Teens From Cliff In Unbelievable Rescue

2013-06-19T21:00:10Z

SIERRA CITY, Calif. -- Two stranded teenage boys were plucked off a peak at an elevation of more than 8,000 feet by a California Highway Patrol helicopter amid gusty winds.

The boys had been climbing along a steep ridge before becoming stuck on a tiny plateau in the Sierra Nevada.

Austin Deschler, 16, said he and a 17-year-old friend had climbed to the spot to take a picture Saturday without realizing there was a sheer drop on the other side.

"As we went up there we made decisions to get up that made it so we couldn't get back," Deschler told Sacramento television station KXTV-TV. "We thought we could walk across the ridge, when we got up there and saw the other side it was heartbreaking – we actually almost cried ... That's when we realized, we're in trouble," Deschler said.

Hikers spotted the pair and called 911. The helicopter arrived as night was falling, but rescuers had nowhere to land near the boys.

In a dramatic rescue captured on video (on.news10.net/1aqMN8I), a harness was lowered to the boys from the helicopter, but it proved difficult with winds gusting over 20 mph.

"We had to make several attempts to get to them," said CHP Flight Officer David White, who led the rescue mission. "We lowered the hook a couple of times but the wind would blow us out of our position and we'd have to go back around and try it again."

Nearly four hours after they were first stuck, and with frightened parents watching, the boys were able to grab the hook from the helicopter and were hoisted to safety.

White said the rescue "was the most challenging that I've ever done in my 12 years in air operations."

Deschler called the experience "terrifying," and said he learned a key lesson.

"Stay on the trail," he said, "definitely stay on the trail."

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Information from: KXTV-TV.

Ex-BP Employees Face New Indictments

2013-06-19T20:59:15Z

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Justice Department prosecutors secured new indictments Wednesday against a former BP engineer and a former BP executive charged separately with obstructing probes of the company's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The new indictment of former BP executive David Rainey adds language alleging that he knew of the pending congressional investigation he is charged with obstructing. A federal judge had dismissed the obstruction of Congress charge from Rainey's original indictment, in part because it didn't contain that allegation.

U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt also ruled last month that the obstruction count must be dismissed because it wasn't clear that it applied to subcommittee investigations like the one at the center of Rainey's case. The new indictment specifically accuses Rainey of trying to obstruct an investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

A grand jury in New Orleans also issued a new indictment Wednesday against former BP engineer Kurt Mix, who is charged with deleting text messages about the company's spill response efforts to stymie a grand jury probe.

Mix's new indictment doesn't add any counts and makes few substantive changes. However, it contains a new allegation that he admitted to BP attorneys that he had deleted some texts and voicemails from his iPhone, including texts related to the company's blown-out Macondo well.

Mix's previous indictment claimed he received roughly 350 voicemails, including about 40 from a supervisor and approximately 15 from a contractor, and deleted all of them. The new indictment merely accuses him of deleting one voicemail from the supervisor, one voicemail from the contractor and one from a call that went through BP's general switchboard.

Mix, a resident of Katy, Texas, pleaded not guilty last year to two counts of obstruction of justice. His trial is scheduled to start Dec. 2.

Mix and Rainey are both scheduled to be arraigned on June 25 on the charges in their new indictments.

Kevin Grandia: [Infographic] Keystone XL Pipeline Means Less Jobs Than They Say

2013-06-19T20:33:25Z

The core talking points for the supporters of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline center around U.S. domestic energy security and economic growth. However, Keystone is an "export pipeline" that will take tar sands oil from Alberta and pump it down to a tax-free zone in Texas and out to foreign markets.

In other words, the EU, China and Latin America get the oil, the foreign-owned oil companies get the cash and North Americans get a few jobs and oil spills!

It's a complicated issue for sure, so I've tried to break out the main points in an infographic. Please feel free to download and share it, use it and tear it apart! All the information has been fact-checked and verified by energy policy experts.

Here is the high-resolution version for download.

Taking into account the fundamental data from the U.S. and global oil markets, the end location of the Keystone XL, the infrastructure being built at refineries processing the bitumen, and the commitment of oil companies to selling their product for the best price, it is easy to see Keystone XL offers greater energy security and economic growth, just not in America.

Europe and Latin America will have more energy security thanks to a massive fuel pipeline they can tap as long as they're willing to pay.

Additionally, oil companies will have a new bounty of profit to play with. Yes, some of that will fall back into American hands, but not as much as it would if the majority of the products to be processed in Port Arthur were sold in America, or if the refineries were not located in a Foreign Trade Zone and had to pay a tax on their products.

As for the promise of new jobs, there is a short-term influx on cash for constructing the pipeline, but the latest estimates find that there will only be about 35 permanent jobs over the long term. These pipelines, once built demand very little maintenance. That is, of course, until there is an oil spill.

In making the final decision on whether to approve the Keystone Xl pipeline, it comes down to whether President Obama is comfortable with making more cash for foreign oil companies that are already the most wealthy companies in the world, for the long-term pay off of 35 permanent jobs and the oil spills that will inevitably occur.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Obama To Unveil Big Climate-Change Plan

2013-06-19T20:28:34Z

President Obama is preparing a major policy push on climate change, including, for the first time, limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants, as well as expanded renewable energy development on public lands and an accelerated effort on energy efficiency in buildings and equipment, senior officials said Wednesday.