California governor orders mandatory water restrictions. ECHO LAKE, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Jerry Brown ordered officials Wednesday to impose statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time in history as surveyors found the lowest snow level in the Sierra Nevada snowpack in 65 years of record-keeping. Standing in dry, brown grass at a site that normally would be snow-covered this time of year, Brown announced he had signed an executive order requiring the State Water Resources Control Board to implement measures in cities and towns to cut the state's overall water usage by 25 percent compared with 2013 levels. The order will affect residents, businesses, other users and to some degree farmers.
"We're in a historic drought and that demands unprecedented action," Brown said at a news conference at Echo Summit in the Sierra Nevada, where state water officials found no snow on the ground for the first time in their April manual survey of the snowpack. View gallery Harvesting asparagus. Jerry BrownCalifornia. Green Cities of the Future | Green Cities Campaign. We stand at a crossroads… If the right investments are made in energy, transportation and green buildings, the cities of the future could look very different than the cities of today. Our communities could be cleaner and more sustainable. Our quality of life could be better. We face great challenges, for sure—a changing climate, a rapidly growing population, a scarcity of resources. The future is bright. What will this future look like? Check out some of today’s most innovative new green technologies Do you have a vision for how cities of the future might look?
Obama drives ahead on climate with government emissions cuts. WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama ordered the federal government on Thursday to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half over the next decade, driving his climate change agenda forward despite percolating challenges from Republican-led states. By curtailing pollution within the U.S. government, Obama sought to increase political pressure on other nations to deal seriously with climate change. The U.S. and other nations will soon announce how much they're willing to cut their national emissions as part of a global climate treaty to be finalized in December; scientists warn that if those pledges are too lax, the treaty could be too weak to stop the worst effects of global warming.
"We thought it was important for us to lead by example," Obama said at the Energy Department headquarters, where he toured a sprawling installation of solar panels on the building's roof. "These are ambitious goals, but we know they're achievable goals. " View gallery. Obama to unveil fracking rules - Elana Schor. The Obama administration is set to unveil the first major nationwide safety restrictions on fracking, touching off a fresh political confrontation between the president and his critics in Congress and the energy industry.
The Interior Department’s rules — expected to be released as soon as Friday — are the federal government’s most comprehensive foray to date toward regulating the technology at the heart of the U.S. oil and gas boom, addressing worries such as potential dangers to drinking water. They will also offer oil and gas supporters new room to accuse President Barack Obama of seeking to throttle fossil-fuel production, despite his repeated boasts about the nation’s booming energy supplies. Story Continued Below At the same time, the rules fall short of environmentalists’ biggest demands for oversight of fracking operations — let alone some groups’ calls for an all-out ban. But the liberal Center for American Progress says the regulations are an important step. 8 crazy new solar research breakthroughs. Researchers created solar powered leaves on 3D printed tree trunks, making a mini electric forest. Image: VTT We've said it before, and we'll say it again. 2015 is going to be a huge year for the solar industry.
A photovoltaic system is installed every four minutes in the US. There are now 142,000 jobs in the solar industry alone. Some experts are even saying that rooftop solar will reach grid parity in all 50 states by 2016. The research behind solar energy is booming, too. 1. Scientists at Harvard recently created a bionic leaf, which uses a catalyst to make sunlight split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then a bacteria engineered to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen into a liquid fuel called isopropanol.
Canadian Singles Find New Ways To Meet 2. 3D printed solar powered trees Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland created a solar powered electric forest with 3D printed trees. 3. Perovskites are materials with a specific crystalline structure. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Venice on the Charles? Boston’s solution to rising seas includes novel canal system in Back Bay Canals. Will the Innovation District be underwater? A sea level rise plan for Boston. This is a guest post from Gina Ford, a principal at Sasaki Associates. Sasaki is a Boston-based architecture and design firm working on projects that focus on the possible issues that could come with future rises in the sea level.
They are running an exhibit at District Hall through June 4. It’s hard to picture, but the potential danger is real: By 2050, there could be an additional two feet of water due to sea level rise, seven feet during a major storm, and 14 feet during a Category 3 hurricane. By 2100, sea levels are projected to elevate as much as six feet. All this means that the landscape of Greater Boston would be radically transformed. While there are many efforts underway in Boston to address sea level rise and increasingly destructive weather, none of them in isolation are sufficient to protect us from what is projected. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, we need the following four-point plan for dealing with sea level rise in Greater Boston: 1. 2. 3. 4.
MiniSite. Water Woes: Vast US Aquifer Is Being Tapped Out. Nearly 70 percent of the groundwater stored in parts of the United States' High Plains Aquifer — a vast underground reservoir that stretches through eight states, from South Dakota to Texas, and supplies 30 percent of the nation's irrigated groundwater — could be used up within 50 years, unless current water use is reduced, a new study finds. Researchers from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan., conducted a four-year study of a portion of the High Plains Aquifer, called the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides the most agriculturally important irrigation in the state of Kansas, and is a key source of drinking water for the region.
If current irrigation trends continue unabated, 69 percent of the available groundwater will be drained in the next five decades, the researchers said in a study published online today (Aug. 26) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Taking water measurements View gallery Water from the High Plains Aquifer irrigates a field of corn. Researchers find trash littering the ocean floor. Rapid retreat of Chile glacier captured in images. SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Researchers in Chile released a series of time-lapse photos Wednesday showing the dramatic retreat of a glacier in Patagonia.
The Jorge Montt Glacier is shrinking faster than any other in Chile, with its snout retreating 1 kilometer (more than a half mile) between February 2010 and January 2011, glaciologist Andres Rivera said. Rivera said that global warming is a factor and that the glacier also is melting especially quickly because it partly rests in the waters of a deep fjord. Researchers presented a video showing the glacier's yearlong retreat through a total of 1,445 time-lapse photos.
It's one of various similar projects by researchers around the world documenting the loss of glaciers. Rivera has studied dozens of glaciers as a researcher at the Center of Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile. "It was more or less clear that this was one of those retreating most quickly. It is a tidewater glacier that calves and releases icebergs as it advances into the fjord. How Hurricanes are Named. Satellite Photos - Japan Before and After Tsunami.
Reflections on a Thirsty Planet for World Water Day. The Mahanadi River in Orissa, India, ebbs to a trickle during the dry season. Photo credit: James P. Blair Water, I have learned, means different things to different people. To the novelist D. H. To the anthropologist Loren Eiseley, water was supernatural: “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” And to the ancient Greek poet Pindar, water was quite simply “the best of all things.” But for millions of people in the developing world – especially women and girls – water means a daily struggle to trek to a source, carry fifty pounds of it home, and then hope against hope that drinking it won’t make a family member sick or die. For millions of poor farmers, water means the difference between hunger and a full belly, and between a well-nourished child and one stunted from malnutrition. For river people around the world, who rely on fish for protein and income, water is home to the aquatic life that sustains them, day in and day out.
I ran some numbers. So let’s get started. Global warming presents historic disaster risk, report says. Mumbai is among the densely populated cities that scientists say is at great risk. (Photo: Getty Images) WASHINGTON — Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts, and heat waves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly weather disasters, an international panel of climate scientists said in a new report issued Wednesday.
The greatest threat from extreme weather is to highly populated, poor regions of the world, the report warns, but no corner of the globe — from Mumbai to Miami — is immune. The document by a Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists forecasts stronger tropical cyclones and more frequent heat waves, deluges, and droughts. The 594-page report blames the scale of recent and future disasters on a combination of man-made climate change, population shifts, and poverty.
"There are lots of places that are already marginal for one reason or another," Field said. Already, U.S. Some weather extremes aren't deadly, however. About Greenopolis. Greenopolis makes a very simple – yet powerful – promise to you, our user: We are about doing good. Specifically, our goal is to provide you with information and tools to: Help you to recycle easily Help to save our natural resources for our children’s children Track conservation through recycling and re-use Educate and reward conservation Through both our On-Line site of Greenopolis and our physical, On-Street presence of Greenopolis Recycling Kiosks, we allow our customers to do actual, “trackable” good for the planet. We also try to make your everyday life better by offering rewards for helping the world and changing the way we handle natural resource and recyclables. Our overriding desire is to actually make the world a better place rather than just pointing out problems.
Positive – We don’t want to fall into the trap of always trashing others and offering no real solutions. Learn more about Oceanopolis the Game! Teacher Guides By Film - Poisoned Waters | Teacher Center | FRONTLINE. 19 Climate Games that Could Change the Future « Climate Interactive — The Blog.