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Read more about NOAA - State of the Climate in 2012
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Seaside Resorts Are Dumping Ground For Vulnerable People, Report Warns

Tue, 2013-08-06 15:34 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Margate has one of the highest shop vacancy rates

huffingtonpost.co.uk - August 5, 2013

Britain's once-proud seaside resorts have become 'dumping grounds' for hard-up people and benefit claimants, according to an influential think thank.

The Centre for Social Justice, founded by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, said former hotels were now used as cheap housing for vulnerable people in towns suffering from 'severe social breakdown'.

Towns like Blackpool and Margate were tourism hotspots in their heyday but as visitor numbers have dried up they are now racked with deprivation.

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Japan Nuclear Body Says Radioactive Water at Fukushima an Emergency

Tue, 2013-08-06 09:59 — Kathy Gilbeaux

(SEE IMPORTANT LINKS BELOW)

reuters.com - by Antoni Slodkowski and Mari Saito - TOKYO | Aug 5, 2013

(Reuters) - Highly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an "emergency" that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country's nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters.

Countermeasures planned by Tokyo Electric Power Co are only a temporary solution, he said.

Tepco's "sense of crisis is weak," Kinjo said. "This is why you can't just leave it up to Tepco alone" to grapple with the ongoing disaster.

"Right now, we have an emergency," he said.

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CLICK HERE - BMJ - Research - Probable person to person transmission of novel avian influenza A (H7N9) virus in Eastern China, 2013: epidemiological investigation

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H7N9 Bird Flu in China Likely Spread Between People, Researchers Find

Tue, 2013-08-06 09:30 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Luis Kun

bmj.com - nbcnews.com - reuters - by Kate Kelland
August 6, 2013

LONDON - The first scientific analysis of probable human-to-human transmission of a deadly new strain of bird flu that emerged in China this year gives the strongest evidence yet that the H7N9 virus can pass between people, scientists said on Wednesday.

Research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) analyzing a family cluster of cases of H7N9 infection in eastern China found it was very likely the virus "transmitted directly from the index patient (a 60-year-old man) to his daughter."

Experts commenting on the research said while it did not necessarily mean H7N9 is any closer to becoming the next flu pandemic, "it does provide a timely reminder of the need to remain extremely vigilant."

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Chapter 7. Grain Yields Starting to Plateau - Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity

Tue, 2013-08-06 09:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

earth-policy.org

Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity

Chapter 7. Grain Yields Starting to Plateau

by Lester R. Brown

From the beginning of agriculture until the mid-twentieth century, growth in the world grain harvest came almost entirely from expanding the cultivated area. Rises in land productivity were too slow to be visible within a single generation. It is only within the last 60 years or so that rising yields have replaced area expansion as the principal source of growth in world grain production.

Chapter 7. Grain Yields Starting to Plateau
http://www.earth-policy.org/books/fpep/fpepch7

Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity
http://www.earth-policy.org/books/fpep

( ALSO SEE - http://resiliencesystem.org/chapter-4-food-or-fuel-full-planet-empty-plates-new-geopolitics-food-scarcity )

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CLICK HERE - RESEARCH REPORT - Abstract - Changes in Ecologically Critical Terrestrial Climate Conditions

Today's Climate Change Proves Much Faster Than Changes in Past 65 Million Years

Mon, 2013-08-05 16:51 — Kathy Gilbeaux

NASA finds thickest parts of arctic ice cap melting faster. Image: Flickr/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

submitted by Neal Lipner

Climate change is occurring 10 to 100 times faster than in the past and ecosystems will find it hard to adjust

scientificamerican.com - by Anne C. Mulkern and ClimateWire - August 2, 2013

The climate is changing at a pace that's far faster than anything seen in 65 million years, a report out of Stanford University says.

The amount of global temperature increase and the short time over which it's occurred create a change in velocity that outstrips previous periods of warming or cooling, the scientists said in research published in today's Science.

If global temperatures rise 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next century, the rate will be about 10 times faster than what's been seen before, said Christopher Field, one of the scientists on the study. Keeping the temperature increase that small will require aggressive mitigation, he said.

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The Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House

Sun, 2013-08-04 23:01 — Maeryn Obley

chathamhouse.org

The Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House, headed by Professor David L Heymann CBE, examines key global health challenges and how they manifest themselves as foreign policy and international affairs problems. It seeks to help leaders around the world - in government, private foundations, international organizations and business - reach well-informed decisions that improve global health security. It does so by conducting independent research and analysis and facilitating dialogue between the international affairs and public health communities.

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(ABOUT THE CENTRE)

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When would global warming destroy life on Earth? Study hazards a guess.

Sun, 2013-08-04 20:35 — Maeryn Obley

This is a picture of the surface of Venus, which is hot enough to melt lead, thanks to a runaway greenhouse effect at some point in the planet's past. Two recent studies look at how such processes might occur. JPL/AP/File

Image: This is a picture of the surface of Venus, which is hot enough to melt lead, thanks to a runaway greenhouse effect at some point in the planet's past. Two recent studies look at how such processes might occur. JPL/AP/File

csmonitor.com - July 30th, 2013 - Pete Spotts

A runaway greenhouse effect – where a planet's atmosphere traps so much heat that temperatures rise to life-snuffing levels – may be easier to achieve than previously believed. And there may be more than one way to drive the increase.

Those are the implications of two recent studies looking at what planetary scientists describe as one of the fundamental processes that can render a planet uninhabitable.

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Seoul Employs Elderly To Tackle Phone Waste

Sat, 2013-08-03 22:26 — gl

submitted by Albert Gomez

An electronics waste handling facility called Seoul Resource Center in the northeast of the Seoul. Eco City

wsj.com - by Steven Borowiec - July 25, 2013

South Koreans are among the world’s most frequent phone upgraders, buying about 15 million new mobile phones each year

To tackle the issue of electronics waste, or e-waste, the Seoul city government is employing the elderly and low-income to breakdown and process parts with a program called Eco City.

“Our country lacks natural resources. We started this center after we realized that a lot of the kinds of things we need, like metals, were already in the country but were being thrown out,” Eco City Chief Executive Lee Dong-hyun said.

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Rising Sea Levels Could Submerge Substantial Parts of 1,700 U.S. Cities

Sat, 2013-08-03 19:56 — Kathy Gilbeaux

This may soon be what a day in the park looks like. Reuters/Jitendra Prakash

theatlanticcities.com - by Roberto A. Ferdman - July 30, 2013

Sea levels, as we know, are incredibly sensitive to rises in global temperatures. A study released earlier this month revealed that the increase of a mere degree celsius could lead global sea levels to rise by as much as two meters. But according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the implications are especially grim for the US. At the current rate of carbon emissions, over 1,700 cities, including New York, Boston and Miami, will be “locked in” by greenhouse gas emissions by this century’s end.

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