FEDERAL REAL PROPERTY: GSA Should Better Target Its Use of Swap-Construct Exchanges, GAO-14-586. Published: Jul 24, 2014. Publicly Released: Aug 25, 2014: “The swap-construct approach can help GSA address the challenges of disposing of unneeded property and modernizing or replacing federal buildings, but various factors could affect future use of the approach. For example, swap-construct can require developers… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Category Archives: Climate Change
NOAA analysis reveals significant land cover changes in U.S. coastal regions
“A new NOAA nationwide analysis shows that between 1996 and 2011, 64,975 square miles in coastal regions — can area larger than the state of Wisconsin — experienced changes in land cover, including a decline in wetlands and forest cover with development a major contributing factor. Overall, 8.2 percent of the nation’s ocean and Great Lakes… Continue Reading
Record decline of ice sheets: scientists map elevation changes of Greenlandic and Antarctic glaciers
News release: “Bremerhaven, 20th August 2014. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), have for the first time extensively mapped Greenland’s and Antarctica’s ice sheets with the help of the ESA satellite CryoSat-2 and have thus been able to prove that the ice crusts of both regions momentarily decline… Continue Reading
Fiscal Policy to Address Energy’s Environmental Impacts – IMF
IMF Survey Magazine: “Fiscal policies should be center stage in getting energy prices to reflect the harmful and environmental side effects associated with energy use, according to a new report released by the IMF. Energy prices in many countries are wrong because they are set at levels that do not reflect environmental damage, notably climate change,… Continue Reading
Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters
“On August 6, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center released updated information on 2013 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters and several new tools to assist users in analyzing the data. These new features allow users to better explore the type, frequency and cost of U.S. billion-dollar events by state and year, from 1980 to 2013. Based on updated… Continue Reading
Making Farm Animal Rights A Fundamental Green Issue
“Conservation organizations have long sought to protect pandas, polar bears and pelicans, but the welfare of farm animals has largely been left to activist animal-welfare groups like the Humane Society of the United States, which calls itself “the nation’s largest and most effective animal protection organization.” For the past 10 years, the organization has been headed… Continue Reading
Groundwater Depletion During Drought Threatens Future Water Security of the Colorado River Basin
NOAA Earth Observatory: ” Long-term drought and aggressive seasonal wildfires have consumed property, lives, and farmland in the American West. The dry weather and blazes are battering regional economies and putting residents and agricultural businesses in several states on a path toward water restrictions. At least part of this story of water woes lies underground. The map above combines data… Continue Reading
Earth – an animated map of global wind and weather
a visualization of global weather conditions forecast by supercomputers updated every three hours ocean surface current estimates updated every five days ocean surface temperatures and anomaly from daily average (1981-2011) updated daily Author | Cameron Beccario@cambecc Free Version of Source | github.com/cambecc/earth Continue Reading
Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK
“The production of animal-based foods is associated with higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than plant-based foods. The objective of this study was to estimate the difference in dietary GHG emissions between self-selected meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK. Subjects were participants in the EPIC-Oxford cohort study. The diets of 2,041 vegans, 15,751 vegetarians,… Continue Reading
NOAA – Climate data from air, land, sea and ice in 2013 reflect trends of a warming planet
NOAA news release: “In 2013, the vast majority of worldwide climate indicators—greenhouse gases, sea levels, global temperatures, etc.—continued to reflect trends of a warmer planet, according to the indicators assessed in the State of the Climate in 2013 report, released online today by the American Meteorological Society. Scientists from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., served as… Continue Reading
Deep Decarbonization Pathways – Report
“The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) co-founded and lead the DDPP. Currently, the DDPP comprises 15 Country Research Teams composed of leading researchers and research institutions from countries representing 70% of global GHG emissions and different stages of development: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia,… Continue Reading
New NASA Images Highlight U.S. Air Quality Improvement
News release includes charts/graphics: “Anyone living in a major U.S. city for the past decade may have noticed a change in the air. The change is apparent in new NASA satellite images unveiled this week that demonstrate the reduction of air pollution across the country. After ten years in orbit, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite has… Continue Reading
