Pika driven from traditional habitat by warming trend

As temperatures have risen, populations of the American pika have moved from lower elevations to cooler climes upslope.

Enlisting Endangered Species As a Tool to Combat Warming
Environment 360
by todd woody

While a high-profile battle raged over listing the polar bear as a threatened species due to melting Arctic sea ice, U.S. environmentalists were quietly building a case to protect a critter closer to home, one whose existence also seems gravely threatened by a warming world.

A pocket-sized member of the rabbit family with a distinctive squeak and large ears that frame dark eyes and a button nose, the American pika lives on rocky slopes high in alpine mountain ranges from the Sierra Nevada to the Rockies. Sporting a thick gray-brown coat, the pika does not hibernate and so maintains a high internal temperature to survive frigid winters. Because it can’t turn off its heater, the animal can die in the summer if its body temperature increases by as little as 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 F).

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Paul Krugman: Who Cooked the Planet?

Op-Ed Columnist - Who Cooked the Planet? - NYTimes.com:

By Paul Krugman

July 25, 2010

"...[I]t wasn’t the science, the scientists, or the economics that killed action on climate change. What was it?

The answer is, the usual suspects: greed and cowardice.

If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow the money."

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Greenland glacier melt could contribute to rise in sea level

NASA eyeballs glacial melt in Greenland - Capital Weather Gang:

"...The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, one of the largest glaciers in Greenland, swiftly lost a 2.7-square mile chunk of ice between July 6 and 7, NASA announced late last week. The ice loss pushed the point where the glacier meets the ocean, known as the 'calving front,' nearly one mile farther inland in a single day. According to the space agency, the new calving front location is the farthest inland on record..."

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Photos Reveal Receding Himalaya Glaciers

Lens Blog - NYTimes.com:

7/16/10

New York Times

“...There’s a lot of people who either don’t understand climate change that well and the effects that it’s having, or they want to deny the effect it’s having. These pictures are worth a thousand words. We haven’t done anything to them except print them.”

David Breashears,, a senior fellow with the Center on U.S.-China Relations, referred to the exhibition, “Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya,” which opened this week at the Asia Society in Manhattan. Mr. Breashears is best known for directing the Imax film, “Everest.” In the exhibition, pictures taken as early as 1899 are placed alongside recreations by Mr. Breashears, who photographed the same places from precisely the same vantage, beginning in 2007."

See photos of receding glaciers

Polar bear in Yukon River may have hitched ride on melting ice

The Tundra Drums - Polar bear in Yukon River may have hitched ride on melting ice:

Published on July 22nd, 2010

By ALEX DEMARBAN

"...Residents in a lower Yukon River village far from typical polar bear habitat say they've seen plenty of bears, but nothing like the big, white beast that floated in the river on Tuesday.

Isaiah Charles, a state Department of Fish and Game technician, said he didn't believe the rumors that a polar bear had arrived near town, until his sister called from downriver and said she was watching it.

Charles, with his aunt and nephew in tow, jumped in a boat and traveled for 20 minutes from Emmonak. They saw the bear's head in the water.

'Sure enough it was a real polar bear,' he said. 'It was just hanging out on a sandbar, like, in the water just hanging out. It got maybe 40 yards away.'"

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The BP oil spill and religious environmental ethics

On Faith Panelists Blog: The BP oil spill and religious environmental ethics - Valerie Elverton Dixon:

Washington Post

BY VALERIE ELVERTON DIXON | JUNE 2, 2010; 6:07 PM ET

"...the tragedy of the BP oil spill is a moral crisis that is the result of human estrangement from the Divine, from each other and from nature. A holistic spiritual morality, an environmental ethics rooted in religion can help us find our way back to wholeness and to holiness."

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World still heading for 3 degree Celsius warming

AFP: World still heading for 3 degree Celsius warming: study:

"BONN — The world is careering towards three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by 2100 despite headline-making promises to curb carbon emissions, a study released at UN talks here said on Thursday.

'The current pledges and loopholes give us a virtual certainty of exceeding 1.5 C (2.7 F), with global warming very likely exceeding 2 C (3.6 F) and a more than 50-percent chance of exceeding 3 C (5.4 F) by 2100,' said Bill Hare of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Around 120 countries have signed up to voluntary action on greenhouse gases under last December's Copenhagen Accord, which aims to limit warming since pre-industrial times to 2.0 C.

Scientists caution there is no consensus on what is a safe level for warming, and some say a rise of even 2.0 C could still have far-reaching risks for ice and snow cover and rainfall patterns"

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Melting permafrost threatens Arctic housing projects

Melting permafrost threatens Arctic housing projects - CTV News:

"MONTREAL — An Arctic community that has seen its fire hall sink and roads buckle in the melting permafrost is now shifting future building projects away from town.

The effect of vanishing permafrost -- soil normally frozen year round -- is now being felt across Canada's North, and the Quebec village of Salluit is just one of many Arctic towns trying to adapt to an increasingly warmer climate.

Rising temperatures are being blamed for natural disturbances in the North, such as the rapidly eroding coastline of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., and unprecedented floods that knocked out two bridges in Pangnirtung, Nunavut.

Salluit even considered relocating the whole town. One of Quebec's northernmost communities, Salluit saw its local fire station sink into the softening ground a year after it opened.

Across town, paved roads have crumpled, foundations of buildings have cracked and now even summertime grave-digging isn't what it used to be."

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Voters to decide on California global warming law

This is so wrong.

The Associated Press: Voters to decide on California global warming law

(AP) – 6-23-10

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An initiative that seeks to suspend California's landmark global warming law until unemployment drops will appear on the November election ballot.

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen certified the initiative on Tuesday. It's the sixth proposition to qualify for the ballot.

The California Jobs Initiative seeks to delay the state's global warming law until the unemployment rate falls from its current rate of 12.4 percent to 5.5 percent or lower and stays there for a year.

The 2006 law seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California and impose new requirements on utilities, manufacturers and other businesses.

Oil companies funded the drive to put the initiative on the ballot. It is backed by business groups who say the law could cost jobs and lead to higher energy prices.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved."

Best Confession of the Month (so far)

Living Well, Living Green: Leilani Munter, Race Car Eco-ista:

cross-posted from Savings.com blog

"..Leilani Munter encapsulates the ecoista’s dilemma: It’s all well and good to want to live sustainably, until you work in an industry that doesn’t share your views.

What are you supposed to do, quit your job?

Leilani takes this concept to an extreme most of us can’t even imagine. That’s because she is--if you haven’t already guessed from the photos--a race car driver. Not just any race car driver, mind you, Leilani has serious on-track cred. She’s the fourth woman in history to race in the Indy Pro Series. She set the record for the highest finish for a female driver in the history of the Texas Motor Speedway when she finished fourth in 2006. Sports Illustrated named her one of the top 10 female racecar drivers in the world.

The girl really can’t drive 55. More like 200. But all that speed takes a serious environmental toll--and Leilani knows it. When I asked her what her eco-sin was she answered, “That’s easy: My race car.”

But Leilani also sees her profession as an opportunity to inspire positive change in the 100 million fans that make racing the number-one spectator sport in America. “If I was just another vegetarian, tree hugging, biology graduate asking people to give up meat and stop using plastic bags, I don’t know how many people would be listening to me,” Leilani told us. “But because I drive a race car, I have an ability to reach a new audience of people that most environmentalists are probably not talking to.”

In addition to talking the talk with 100 million people, Leilani walks it: The longtime vegetarian and self-proclaimed “Carbon-Free Girl” adopts an acre of rainforest for every race she runs. She regularly races in alternative fuel vehicles, like the Ford hydrogen fuel cell car she drove in last year’s VS Viking Rally in Norway. And she’s the first Ambassador of the National Wildlife Federation."

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Koch Industries top funder of Climate denial

Koch Industries top funder of Climate denial and Obstruction : Indybay (4/2/10)

"A new Greenpeace report uncovers the multimillion dollar funding and intense lobbying against climate science and climate action by Koch Industries, that eclipses the traditional funding for climate deniers from ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies."

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Putting a Price Tag on the Melting Ice Caps - TIME

Melting ice caps will wreck my home... and you're worried about how much it's going to cost YOU?

Rev. Paul R. Bear

Putting a Price Tag on the Melting Ice Caps - TIME:

"...Reports about the melting ice caps are distressing, but for the most part climate change remains abstract. The poor polar bear has been trotted out as the tangible face of global warming so often that we're beginning to see 'polar bear fatigue.' How about bringing the effects of Arctic melt close to home, as in what it will cost? A new study does just that, and the results are alarming, not just for Arctic dwellers but for all of us. According to lead author Eban Goodstein, Ph.D., over the next 40 years Arctic ice melt will take an economic toll of between $2.4 trillion and $24 trillion. Unless we change course — and fast."

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