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UK floods: in defence of the Environment Agency

The flooding crisis has shone a spotlight on much that the government would prefer to remain hidden – not least the coalition’s quiet slashing of the Environment Agency budget. Despite advice in the wake of the 2007 floods to increase expenditure on flood defences, the government relied on its traditional mistrust of the public sector and the experts within it, and used the blunt instrument of cash limits. Prime minister David Cameron said money would be “no object” to dealing with the immediate impact of the floods and has finally announced that specialist flood defence jobs will not be cut in the short term.

Extreme Weather in parts of the world

Parts of the world have witnessed a series of extreme weather conditions in the first six weeks of 2014, continuing a pattern that was set in December 2013. Much of the United States of America has experienced cold waves and major winter storms, whilst California remains gripped by drought. The United Kingdom has seen its wettest December-January period on record, with severe, widespread and prolonged flooding. A combination of strong winds, storms and high tides caused damage and flooding in other coastal areas of Europe. There has been unusually heavy snowfall in the southern Alps.

Obama, Hollande call for “ambitious” global climate change deal

The presidents of the United States and France have called for a global pact to fight climate change in a joint op-ed published on Monday, the first day of a visit to Washington by French leader Francois Hollande. He and Barack Obama urged more clean energy partnerships to create jobs, as well as support for developing countries as they shift to low-carbon energy. “As we work toward next year’s climate conference in Paris, we continue to urge all nations to join us in pursuit of an ambitious and inclusive global agreement that reduces greenhouse gas emissions through concrete actions,” read the op-ed published in the Washington Post and Le Monde newspapers.

È ora di agire per il clima. Parola dell’IPCC

di Carlo Carraro

Come annunciato questa settimana dall’Organizzazione Meteorologica Mondiale, il 2013 è stato il sesto anno più caldo mai registrato, in linea con la tendenza al riscaldamento globale dell’ultimo secolo. Il 2013 è stato l’anno in cui si è registrata la più alta concentrazione di CO2 (anidride carbonica) in atmosfera: a maggio scorso, le misurazioni hanno rilevato una concentrazione di 400 ppm (parti per milione), livello mai raggiunto negli ultimi 3 milioni di anni.

With Climate Change, What’s Better For The Farm Is Better For The Planet

Climate change is no longer a doomsday theory about our distant future – it’s here. Farmers around the world are already dealing with more variable climates and dramatic weather events, like the drought in California and gigantic typhoons in Asia.

Penguins, Study finds Climate Change is another danger

Life has never been easy for just-hatched Magellanic penguins, but climate change is making it worse, according to a decades-long study of the largest breeding colony of the birds. The chicks are already vulnerable to predation and starvation. Now, the study at Punta Tombo, Argentina, found that intense storms and warmer temperatures are increasingly taking a toll. “Rainfall is killing a lot of penguins, and so is heat,” said P. Dee Boersma, a University of Washington scientist and lead author of thestudy. “And those are two new causes.”