Protesters clashed with police in Haimen last December during a protest against coal pollution.
People protesting against the building of a coal-fired power plant in a southern Chinese town threw bricks at police who fired volleys of teargas and detained dozens in the country’s latest environmental dispute, residents say. [Guardian]
A few computer models have conjured up a storm of epic proportions for the mid-Atlantic and/or Northeast next week. But before anyone presses the panic button, other models keep the storm out to sea. [Weather Gang]
Circumstantial evidence suggests that something new is underway. A variation of El Niño has been detected in the central Pacific, well away from the ocean’s eastern edge where it is normally born. This phenomenon, known as El Niño Modoki (Japanese for “looks like, but slightly different from”), causes unusual effects—including a lowering of tide heights, a strengthening of waves, and a tendency to make storms move south. [Economist]
Climate change never emerged as a topic in the three presidential debates, disappointing greens who say President Obama and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney have avoided discussing the issue. [The Hill]
Given the absence of the topic at the two preceding meetings between Obama and Romney, the close of Monday night’s event marked the first time in roughly a generation that climate change has failed to receive an airing at any of the presidential debates. [Huffington Post]
Nebraska agriculture faces serious consequences going into the 2013 growing season if drought conditions persist through the winter. [The Independent]
Across the nation’s Corn Belt, even as the worst drought in more than 50 years has destroyed what was expected to be a record corn crop and reduced yields to their lowest level in 17 years, farmland prices have continued to rise. [New York Times]
A study relating climate to conflict in East African nations finds that increased rainfall dampens conflict while unusually hot periods can cause a flare-up, reinforcing the theory that climate change will cause increased scarcity in the region. [Los Angeles Times]
More than two-thirds of UK citizens would rather have a wind turbine than a shale gas well near their home, according to a new opinion poll published on Tuesday. [Guardian]
Ikea Group, the biggest home- furnishings retailer, more than doubled planned spending on wind farms and solar parks to as much as $2 billion as increased use of renewable power protects it from volatile fossil-fuel prices. [Businessweek]
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
MUST SEE VIDEO: How Renewable Energy Will Save the Planet http://ecowatch.org/2012/renewable-energy-save-planet/
great messaging here
An additional roundup of energy and climate news for 10/23 is posted at http://www.marcaccicomms.com/news/energy-and-environment-news-roundup-10-23-12/
Grim Storm Scenarios Loom for Mid-Atlantic, Northeast Tropical Storm Sandy is expected to intensify to hurricane strength as it moves toward Jamaica, eastern Cuba, Haiti and the Bahamas by Wednesday and Thursday. But it’s what could happen after that that has some weather forecasters pondering some rather bizarre scenarios — think if a hurricane and nor’easter mated, possibly spawning a very rare and powerful hybrid storm, slamming into the Boston-to-Washington corridor early next week, with rain, inland snow, damaging winds, and potential storm surge flooding. http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/tropical-storm-could-threaten-east-coast-in-an-unusual-way-15145
Ag solutions for climate-nitrogen management in a hot, unpredictable world
CINCINNATI, OHIO– After this summer’s crippling drought killed crops and weakened livestock, new attention is being paid to agriculture and climate – both in developing ways farmers can cope with more unpredictable weather, and practices to reduce the release of greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide that worsen climate change.
On October 23 at 1pm, top USDA and academic researchers will address those issues in a special session of the Soil Science Society of America’s annual meeting. And they’ll take on a third, largely new aspect of climate change and agriculture: how nitrogen pollution compounds climate change, and vice versa. The work draws from a new special report to the United States’ National Climate Assessment published in the journal Biogeochemistry. http://www.whrc.org/news/pressroom/PR-2012-Davidson_AgSolutions.html
Scientists Eat Crow on Geoengineering Test. Me, Too
Harvard’s David Keith calls it the “goofy Goldfinger scenario” – a rogue nation, or even an individual, would conduct an unsupervised geoengineering experiment — and he confidently predicted in a story I wrote last month that it would never happen. http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/iron-dumping-leaves-geoengineers-with-egg-on-their-faces.-me-too-15147
There are only a few viable things we can do, when it comes to engineering and climate. Biochar production and large scale deployment in certain soils is on that list.
Iron fertilization is not on that list because the algae bloom has not been shown to carry carbon to the deep sea.
Climate change makes more shrew species, 70 genetic varieties October 23, 2012 Anyone who went outside this summer felt the effects of climate change. Now the Eurasian shrew, Sorex araneus, can say the same. A new study by P. David Polly of Indiana University found that climate change caused shrews to change, genetically, and eventually become different species. Using shrew DNA and fossils, he found that this change occurred over hundreds of thousands of years during repeated times of extreme cold, or glaciations.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-climate-shrew-species-genetic-varieties.html
Blond shrews are proliferating on Fox News, too. There are savage selective forces driving them to greater and greater ferocity. The risk of cannibalism is not to be underestimated.
This week The Climate Show brings you an all news special. We have wet summers for Europe, permafrost warming delivering a methane kick, La Niña driving floods that make sea level fall, a glacier calving in Antarctica, mammoths and sabre tooth tigers — all delivered with Glenn and Gareth’s inimitable panache (!). http://www.theclimateshow.com/the-climate-show-29-if-the-sun-dont-come-you
Re presidential candidates refusing to talk about climate change: These instructions came from each party’s political ops, who have tentacles to fossil fuel companies and the banks who profit from them.
The refusal to even talk about climate change is incredible, but… prior candidates in both parties talked about it, then did nothing when they got elected.
It’s time for action. Now.
The role of science advisers in disaster forecasting:
“The head of Italy’s disaster body, Luciano Maiani, has stepped down after seven colleagues were sentenced for their roles before the L’Aquila quake.
Six scientists and an ex-government official were convicted of multiple manslaughter for giving a falsely reassuring statement.
The 6.3 magnitude quake killed 309 people and left the city in ruins.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20039769
Increasing seabed temperatures make gas hydrate unstable in shallow Norwegian-Svalbard margin regions http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012JC008300.shtml
Could be a mega-tsunami from submarine landslip on the horizon.
Ocean warming of the last century cannot be explained by natural variability http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL053262.shtml
Adapting agriculture to climate change: a review http://www.springerlink.com/content/b10n5tp33428556t/
Joe Romm Interview about the challenges we face in light of the current Presidential campaign when it comes to messaging dangers and solutions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC_YqYQQsC8&feature=g-all-u
Obama and Romney ignore climate, could learn from Hillary Clinton http://grist.org/politics/obama-and-romney-ignore-climate-could-learn-from-hillary-clinton/
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Renewable Energy Is Key to U.S. Growth http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/robert-f-kennedy-jr-must-done-bolster-economy-141540811.html
An analysis of roughly 500 million years of fossil data for marine invertebrates reveals that ocean animals with small geographic ranges have been consistently hard hit — even when populations are large, the authors report. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121023204741.htm