Climate Change

blogs.scientificamerican.com - by David Biello - April 23, 2013

In a draft assessment of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, consultants for the U.S. State Department judged that building it would have no significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Why? Because the analysts assumed the tar sands oil would find a way out with or without the new pipeline.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not agree.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

EPA Comment Letter: Department of State's Draft Supplemental EIS for the Keystone XL Project (April 22, 2013)       (7 Page .PDF report)

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions.

submitted by Stella Tarnay

noaa.gov - March 26, 2013

In partnership with State and Tribal agencies, the Obama Administration today released the first nationwide strategy to help public and private decision makers address the impacts that climate change is having on natural resources and the people and economies that depend on them. Developed in response to a request by Congress, the National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy is the product of extensive national dialogue that spanned nearly two years and was shaped by comments from more than 55,000 Americans.

Fish, wildlife, and plant resources provide important benefits and services to Americans every day, including jobs, income, food, clean water and air, building materials, storm protection, tourism and recreation. For example, hunting, fishing and other wildlife-related recreation contribute an estimated $120 billion to our nation’s economy every year, and marine ecosystems sustain a U.S. seafood industry that supports approximately 1 million jobs and $116 billion in economic activity annually. 

                            (LINKS TO STUDY ABSTRACT AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ARE BELOW)

Scientists look at an ice core from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide coring site.  Credit: Thomas Bauska, OSU

CNN - by Ben Brumfield - March 8, 2013

Global warming has propelled Earth's climate from one of its coldest decades since the last ice age to one of its hottest -- in just one century.

A heat spike like this has never happened before, at least not in the last 11,300 years, said climatologist Shaun Marcott, who worked on a new study on global temperatures going back that far.

"If any period in time had a sustained temperature change similar to what we have today, we would have certainly seen that in our record," he said.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Study Abstract - A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract

A National Guard truck drives through high water on Newark Street in Hoboken, N.J. Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012 in the wake of superstorm Sandy.  AP Photo / Craig Ruttle

nationalpost.com - by Kelly McParland - February 26, 2013

This has to be bad news for environmental activists everywhere: a massive international study, conducted in 33 countries over 17 years, shows that people just don’t care a lot about the environment.

. . . the lack of concern is itself reason for concern.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)