Climate Change Driven Drought a Driver of Syria Conflict says veteran foreign policy consultant William Polk in The Atlantic. Like the drought that motivated peasants in the French Revolution, the 6-year Syrian drought has sent failed farmers in futile search of gainful employment into cities, adding to the unrest fueling the current conflict. Continued global warming is predicted to increase the frequency, persistence and intensity of droughts - and resource wars - worldwide.
Courtesy of WorldPreservationFoundation.org
Australia: Solar Companies Install Rooftop Panels for Free, report Ben Cubby and Peter Hannam at the Sydney Morning Herald. Once installed, the homes get the energy free and the companies get back their investment by harvesting any extra energy produced, with homes paying off the investment in a few years. As 2012 ended, nearly 1,000,000 rooftop solar installations were operating in Australia. Way to go, Mate! Why don't we do that here in the US?
Credit Dennis Schroeder/NREL
For US Forests, Megafire Recovery To Be Slow Or None say experts, reports Mark Grossi at the Fresno Bee. Human forest mismanagement and global warming have created megafires that will make recovery slow or impossible for forests, like the 300+ square miles of California forest recently burned. The intense fires kill normally fire-resistant trees. Flammable chaparral shrubs replace them, which fuel future climate-driven fires.
Credit Matt Granz, courtesyTtwitter, Sacramento National Weather Service
Congressional Inaction Worsened CA Megafire say experts, reports Jonathan Kaminsky at Reuters. Controlled burns and forest thinning planned in the area of the Yosemite Rim Fire were not funded by Congress. The costly subsequent wildfire was fueled by the large fuel load remaining due to this failure. Another way that Congress manages to burn your taxpayer money!
'We Are Fighting For Survival,' Pacific Island Leaders Warn reports John Vidal at the Guardian. Pacific nations challenged world leaders recently to act on climate change, warning that their low-lying atolls are close to becoming uninhabitable because of rising seas and increasingly severe floods, droughts and storm surges. Island paradise lost?
Euakafa island,Tonga, credit Tau'olunga via wikimedia
Man-Made Climate Change Helped Set Stage For Wild 2012 Weather says a study of a dozen of 2012's wildest weather events, reports Seth Borenstein at the Associated Press. It found that man-made global warming increased the likelihood of about half of them, including Superstorm Sandy's devastating surge and shrinking Arctic sea ice.
Okay, I personally thickened the line to emphasize it, but you can make your very own global temperature graph here! You can use different reputable data sources and time frames, but it will show the same thing: the Earth is warming.
!!!! Want to Save Energy & Help the Planet? Check out these helpful EPA Climate Change youtubers here! !!!!
☼☼☼ On the Bright Side ☼☼☼
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OO New Car Engine Gains Fuel Mileage From Road Bumps
OO Energy Use Decline Due to Energy Efficiency Practices - from home insulation to more efficient appliances, despite proliferation of energy-sapping digital electronics.
OO Green Energy Storage Could Displace Gas Power Plants By 2050
Credit Phil Hollman via wikimedia
OO Virginia Utility Top Bidder For Offshore Wind Leases
OO Smart Meters Also Help Distribute Electricity
OO The 10 Cities That Are Leading The Way In Urban Sustainability
Copenhagen. Credit Freepenguin at wikimedia
OO Seeking Investments That Are Profitable And A Bit Green
OO A New Divestment Focus On Campus: Fossil Fuels
OO Mosaic, the Kickstarter of Crowdfunding Solar
Mosaic project, courtesy of Mosaic at joinmosaic.com
OO Climate Scientist Can Sue National Review For Defamation, Judge Rules
OO Sweden: Why Obama Calls It A Model For Energy Policy
Credit Tomas Castelazo via wikimedia
OO Latest Conservation Nudge: Tell People You're Watching Them - By simply sending a postcard informing households that they were in a study, researchers saw greater reductions in energy use in one month than the annual conservation goal of any state in the union.
OO Car-Sharing Gears Up In German Cities
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OO New Program Brings Solar To 25,000 Ethiopians Currently Without Electricity
OO US, China Agree To Work On Phasing Out Hydrofluorocarbons
Smog in the Forbidden City, Beijing. Credit Brian Jeffrey Beggerly via wikimedia
OO China Boosts Renewable-Energy Surcharge
OO China's Smog Focuses Public Attention On Emissions
OO US, China Strike New Climate Agreement At G-20 Summit
OO Britain: 'Run, Don't Walk': The School That Gets Pupils To Generate Electricity via kinetic floor tiles that translate motion into energy.
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The flag flies, May 21, 2013.
At Moore, OK, the day after a huge tornado demolished it. Credit Major Jon Quinlan/defenseimagery.mil
***** US Climate Change News *****
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OO US Secr. Of State Kerry: Climate Science 'Alarming', 'Irrefutable'
OO US Reactor Safety In Light Of Increasingly Costly Fukushima
OO What's Motivating Sport Fishermen To Become Climate Advocates? Declining habitat for their sport fish from global warming, as noted in a new report.
Wildfire in Bitterroot National Forest, 2000. Credit John McColgan via wikimedia
OO US Wildfires Pose A Major Threat To Our Clean Water
OO US and Europe May Face Off Over Reducing Airline Greenhouse Gas Emissions
OO Kansas: Just One Degree Of Warming Could Cut 20% Of Wheat Production
OO US Billionaire Businessman's Ad: Keystone Pipeline Is a Bad Deal - the US economy will pay, not profit from it.
☼☼☼Acting Like You Care: The XL Keystone pipeline will make possible far more climate change, but President Obama might okay it anyway. Credo, 350.org and others are asking people to stand up and be counted as nonviolent resisters or help in other ways. I did. If you ever wanted to do something big for your future, now's your chance - here. 
OO As Rooftop Solar Rises, FearfulUS Utilities Striking Back
OO Carbon Storage Studies Grapple With Politics, Geology
OO An Untold Story: Western Ranchers' Epic Battle Against Coal
OO Kentucky Nuns Say They Have No Faith In Fracking - Anywhere
OO US Refiners Don't Care If Keystone Gets Built Because planned expansion of existing railroads and pipelines will do the job. Is anyone planning on stopping this?
OO Fracking Practices To Blame For Ohio Earthquakes
Tiger mosquitoes can carry Dengue Fever and are now being found in the US. Credit James Gathany
OO Dengue Fever Reported In Florida, Linked To Climate Change
OO EPA Fines Shell More Than $1 Million For Pollution In Alaska Arctic
OO Michigan: New Gas Development Boom Unlikely - Study
OO Labor Day 2050: Global Warming And The Coming Collapse Of Labor Productivity Enjoy your BBQ while you can...
A storm surge during Hurricane Sandy. Credit Master Sgt. Mark C. Olsen, US Airforce, NJ National Guard via wikimedia
OO NOAA: Sea Level Rise To Make Sandy Storm Surges Normal On East Coast
OO Risk of Sandy-Level Flood in NYC Has Doubled Since 1950
OO 20,000 Gallons Of Water Stolen From School In Drought-Plagued California County
Credit Myrabella at wikipedia
OO Massachussetts: As Waters Warm, 40 Oyster Beds Closed After Illness Outbreak
Gopping It Up
OO Colorado: Republicans Out Of Step With Voters On Climate Change
OO GOP House Budget Threatens International Climate and Clean Energy Investment
OO Greenwashing Hypocrite Of The Year: CEO Of Anti-Science ExxonMobil Bemoans State Of Science Education
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Via the University of East Anglia Climate Change webpage
<<<< Climate Change Round the World >>>>
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OO UN Chief Scientist Urges Action On Climate Change - 'We Have Five Minutes Before Midnight'
OO Wildfires To Increase Worldwide With Climate Change
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OO US, China, G20 Countries Agree To Phase Down Potent Greenhouse Gas
OO Pacific Flights Fingered As A Big Climate Culprit - MIT Research from MIT found that trans-Pacific October flights create the highest amount of tropospheric ozone, a powerful global warming gas.
Credit wikimedia commons
OO Britain: Biofuel Project Funded By UK 'Leaves Africans Without Food'
OO Japan: Fukushima's Costly Radioactive Legacy Is Just Beginning
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OO Rising Anxiety As Climate Change Dominates 44th Pacific Islands Forum
OO Most Island States Have Yet To Contemplate The Possibilities Of Relocation
American Samoa beach. Credit Acepharma via wikimedia
OO Canada: Company At Centre Of Iron Dumping Scandal Stands By Its Convictions
OO World Bank Pilots Climate Insurance
Fracking Follies
OO Britain: Lord Stern - 'Baseless Economics'- Fracking Boom Won't Make Gas Cheaper
OO Fossil Fuel-Backed Group Is Behind The Latest Climate Change Denier Campaign
OO Protests Against Chevron Highlight Argentine Energy Woes
Pashmina goats in the Himalayas. Credit Koshy Koshy via wikimedia
OO Pashmina Wool Withers On The Roof Of The World - buy your shawls cheap while you can!
OO With Climate Change, Brazil Faces Drop in Crops
OO As Reservoirs Shrink And Climate Changes, Chile's Agriculture At Risk
Deforestation of Indonesian peatlands, which store huge amounts of carbon, if preserved. Credit Rhett Butler at www.mongabay.com
OO Palm oil now biggest cause of deforestation in Indonesia
OO Poll pinpoints public's climate fears
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Ten Global Warming Indicators. Credit NOAA
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(((((((( Seeking the Science ))))))))
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OO Study Reveals 'True' Material Cost of Development
OO Report: Climate Change Putting Fish At Risk
OO Scientists Call For Overhaul Of UN 'Blockbuster' Climate Reports - to focus more on policy.
Young asthma patient. Credit Jocelyn Angustino, FEMA photo library
OO What We're Seeing Now: Air Pollution And Climate Change
OO The Calm Before the Storm? Quiet August for Hurricanes - and there are reasons for it...
OO Report Ties Climate to 2012 Extreme Events, But Shows Hurdles
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@@@ Climate Change in the Media @@@
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Via Climate Nexus
OO @@ WEEKLY CLIMATE CHANGE VIDEO SERIES!! @@ Entitled "In Case You Missed It" via the good folks at Climate Nexus on Vimeo - select headlines delivered in less than 90 seconds with good graphics. Cool watching -- spread the word!!
@@ At Last, a Green Radio Show to counter the Lush Bimbaugh wasteland. Check out On the Green Front with Betsy Rosenberg at Progressive Radio Network to keep updated on climate change, and other green topics.
@@ Science Fiction Double Feature:
Dan Yergin's Industry-Funded Frack-Fest
& Mischa Barton's Zombie Fracking Movie
@@ Video: America's Dangerous Pipelines - the title says it all; compelling ....
To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!
Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by these wildflowers I photographed one summer. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you'd like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It's our way of letting Congress know there's a strong clean energy voting bloc out there. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.
