submitted by Stella Tarnay

securityandsustainabilityforum.org - by Kristina Byrne - January 31, 2013

                          (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

submitted by Albert Gomez

energymanagertoday.com - by Linda Hardesty - March 15, 2013

Electricity rates for about 90,000 San Francisco ratepayers could almost double if the San Francisco Board of Supervisors goes forward with a deal for Shell Oil to provide 100 percent renewable energy for the city, according to NBC Bay Area.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has strongly criticized the scheme and even launched an online campaign “Stop the Shell Shock” where ratepayers can enter their kilowatt hours to calculate how much more they’ll have to pay.

PUC financial directors predict a maximum rate of .15 cents per kilowatt hour, about double the current rate of .0788 cents per kilowatt hour based on a report prepared for the city’s Rate Fairness Board in late January.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Samuel Bendett

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - February 18, 2013

Mounting scientific evidence indicates climate change will lead to more frequent and intense extreme weather that affects larger areas and lasts longer. We can reduce the risk of weather-related disasters, however, with a variety of measures. Experts say that a good strategy should include a variety of actions such as communicating risk and transferring it through vehicles such as insurance, taking a multi-hazard management approach, linking local and global management, and taking an iterative approach as opposed to starting with a master plan.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Albert Gomez

urbangreencouncil.org - February 2013

The greatest obstacle to a responsible approach to climate change mitigation is a sense that the problem is insoluble. Urban Green Council’s latest research report, 90 By 50, demonstrates that the emission reductions required are in fact possible using technologies that are known and in almost all cases currently available, and that the cost is manageable from a citywide perspective.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Document - 90 by 50 - NYC Can Reduce Its Carbon Footprint 90% By 2050
http://issuu.com/urbangreen/docs/90by50?mode=window

Study: 90 by 50 - NYC Can Reduce Its Carbon Footprint 90% By 2050 (56 page .PDF file)
http://www.urbangreencouncil.org/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=015U0000000nD3r

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - September 26, 2012

According to the July 2011 census, more than thirty-seven million people live in the state of California, increasing the pressure on the state’s water sources. Desalinating sea water as a solution to the scarcity of fresh water is not a new technology — it has been around for more than four decades — but it has more recently been considered as a way to address California’s chronic, and growing, water shortage.

The Seattle Times reports that the idea has run into problems, and rising construction costs, energy requirements for running desalination plants, and legal challenges have limited desalination in California to only one plant producing drinking water.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

economictimes.indiatimes.com - Reuters
September 26, 2012

(CLICK ON "READ MORE" AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST FOR LINKS TO THE REPORT )

LONDON: More than 100 million people will die and global economic growth will be cut by 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change, a report commissioned by 20 governments said on Wednesday.

As global average temperatures rise due to greenhouse gas emissions, the effects on the planet, such as melting ice caps, extreme weather, drought and rising sea levels, will threaten populations and livelihoods, said the report conducted by humanitarian organisation DARA.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Submitted by Samuel Bendett

Gizmodo.com - September 7th, 2012 - Brent Rose

We generally hear about drone aircraft killing people in war zones. But there's a reverse side to that narrative—an autonomous copter can drop medicine and supplies to people stranded after a natural disaster even when roads have been demolished. A humanitarian group called Ideate recently tested drones' viability as a real-world delivery vehicle in one of the harshest, most brutal environments imaginable—Burning Man.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

cnn.com - September 7th, 2012 - Lisa O'Neill Hill

huffingtonpost.com - September 5th, 2012 - Ronnie Cohen

U.S. health officials have sent warnings to 39 other countries that their citizens who stayed in Yosemite National Park tent cabins this summer may have been exposed to a deadly mouse-borne hantavirus, a park service epidemiologist said on Tuesday.

Of the 10,000 people thought to be at risk of contracting hantavirus pulmonary syndrome from their stays in Yosemite between June and August, some 2,500 live outside the United States, Dr. David Wong told Reuters in an interview.

Wong said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials notified 39 countries over the weekend, most of them in the European Union, that their residents may have been exposed to the deadly virus.

Image: Writing on the Wall flyer

submitted by Albert Gomez

cpsinet.org

Experts on New York City’s pioneering menu labelling bylaw will join local experts, policy-makers and health advocates in five Canadian cities to explore effective measures to equip restaurant customers with calorie and sodium information to guide their dining choices and motivate restaurant owners to make the offerings more nutritious. This is a must attend event for dietitians, health advocates, policy-makers, restaurant owners, researchers, journalists and others with an interest in the health and informed consumer choice for restaurant customers.

Writing on the Wall
Monday September 10, 2012 in Vancouver
Tuesday September 11, 2012 in Winnipeg
Wednesday September 12, 2012 in Toronto
Thursday September 13, 2012 in Ottawa
Friday September 14, 2012 in Halifax

Fees: Industry CAD$150, Non-Industry CAD$95 (plus tax)

(VISIT EVENT WEBSITE)

(REGISTER FOR EVENT)

submitted by Jerry Erbach

Ecocity Builders

Mission and Vision

Ecocity Builders reshapes cities for the long-term health of human and natural systems.

We develop and implement policy, design and educational tools and strategies to build thriving urban centers based on “access by proximity” and to reverse patterns of sprawl and excessive consumption.

Ecocity Builders and associates’ definition of “ecocity” is conditional upon a healthy relationship of the city’s parts and functions, similar to the relationship of organs in living complex organism. We are concerned with city design, planning, building, and operations in an integral way and in relation to the surrounding environment and natural resources of the region, utilizing organic, ecological and whole-systems lessons to actually reverse the negative impacts of climate change, species extinction and the destruction of the biosphere.

We believe the form of the city matters, that it is within our ability, and indeed crucial, to reshape and restructure cities to address global environmental challenges.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

submitted by Samuel Bendett

                                                          (CLICK HERE TO ENLARGE IMAGE)

Groundwater depletion has been most severe in the purple areas indicated on these maps of (A) the High Plains and (B) California's Central Valley. These heavily affected areas are concentrated in parts of the Texas Panhandle, western Kansas, and the Tulare Basin in California's Central Valley. Changes in groundwater levels in (A) are adapted from a 2009 report by the U.S. Geological Survey and in (B) from a 1989 report by the USGS.

Homeland Security News Wire - May 29, 2012

The U.S. food supply may be vulnerable to rapid groundwater depletion from irrigated agriculture; for example, from 2006 to 2009, farmers in the south of California’s Central Valley depleted enough groundwater to fill the U.S. largest man-made reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas — a level of groundwater depletion that is unsustainable at current recharge rates