Climate Change

submitted by George Hurlburt

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Evolution in action: climate change, biodiversity dynamics and emerging infectious disease

rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org

zmescience.com - by Mihai Andrei - February 17, 2015

A new study has found that as the climate continues to warm, we will be dealing with more infectious and parasitic diseases. Ultimately, we’ll have to face numerouse separate epidemics caused by climate change, researchers say.

It seems like with climate change, it’s more an issue of what gets us first – will it be the drought, the rising sea levels or… the diseases?

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Image: Cattle roam dirt-brown fields on the outskirts of Delano, in California’s Central Valley. Scientists predict future droughts will be far worse than the one in California. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images

theguardian.com - February 12 2015 - Suzanne Goldenberg

The US south-west and the Great Plains will face decade-long droughts far worse than any experienced over the last 1,000 years because of climate change, researchers said on Thursday.

The coming drought age – caused by higher temperatures under climate change – will make it nearly impossible to carry on with current life-as-normal conditions across a vast swathe of the country.

New EPA standards will aim to significantly cut methane emissions from oil and gas sites in the U.S.

The Obama administration makes its latest move to take on climate change.

usnews.com - by Alan Neuhauser - January 14, 2015

In the Obama administration’s latest use of executive authority to address climate change, the White House announced plans Wednesday to impose new regulations on the oil and gas industry that would nearly halve methane emissions from wells, drill sites and pipelines in 10 years.

The new standards, to be developed by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act, would aim by 2025 to cut methane emissions by up to 45 percent from levels recorded in 2012. They would also slash the spread of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, key components of ground-level smog that have been linked to cancer, neurological conditions and other illnesses.

The UCL study used an economic model to determine what percentage of each region's fossil fuel reserves should be left untouched in order to meet climate goals. Reserves are defined as fuels that could be developed given current technology and economic conditions.
EMILY M. ENG, NG STAFF. SOURCE: C. MCGLADE AND P. EKINS. NATURE

New study says vast amounts of coal, oil, and gas must be left untouched to limit global warming.

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The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to
2 °C

Nature 517, 187–190 (08 January 2015) doi:10.1038/nature14016

nationalgeographic.com - January 7, 2015
by Christina Nunez

Canada's tar sands need to stay in the ground, the oil beneath the Arctic has to remain under the sea, and most of the world's coal must be left untouched in order to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2°C, a study released Wednesday says.