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Hunter Cutting

Eyewitness accounts - 0 views

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    a collection of eyewitness accounts of climate change published by the U.N. Foundation as a deck of playing cards
Hunter Cutting

Hurricane Agatha and hail in Guatemala: eyewitness account - 0 views

  • In Guatemala, the people first realized they were experiencing climate change after Hurricane Mitch left 12,000 people dead in 1998, says Naty Atz Sunc, the general co-ordinator for the Association of Community Development and Promotion (CEIBA). Since then Tropical Storm Stan in 2005 and Agatha in May have left thousands of people in temporary shelters. Although, there were storms before, what Guatemala is experiencing is much more extreme now, Sunc explained with Rachel Warden from Kairos translating. There has been devastating loss of crops, including grains and entire families have been displaced because of landslides. “For the first time, we’ve experienced hail in Guatemala,” she said.
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    Eyewitness account published in the Anglican Journal, reporting new weather extremes in Guatemala
Hunter Cutting

Nashville Flood: eyewitness account - 0 views

  • Four days after rainstorms pummeled my hometown, problems mount. Major portions of the city are still submerged beneath floodwaters. Thousands are displaced from their homes, the contents of their lives soaked, mud-caked and molding. Thousands more have no electricity or plumbing. The city faces severe drinking water shortages, with several water treatment facilities paralyzed.
  • in the coming months, as Nashvillians reflect on this shock, we may conclude that we've gotten a firsthand glimpse of the symptoms of a warming planet.
  • the unprecedented intensity of this storm -- which produced the largest volume of rainfall from a single storm on record in the state of Tennessee -- is closely tied to warming climate trends.
Hunter Cutting

Increasing fish stocks in northern North Sea: fisherman - 0 views

  • LIBERAL Democrat Fisheries spokesman and MSP for Orkney Liam McArthur is seeking assurances from the Scottish Government that fisheries scientists and others involved in establishing fish quotas do not penalise fishermen for stock reductions caused by climate change. Research by the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership shows climate change is causing some fish species’ distributions to move north, with some stocks having moved as much as 400 km north over the past 30 years.
  • McArthur said: “The reports from fishermen of increasing stocks of cod in the northern North Sea appear compatible with the results of this research. Indeed, the findings of this report further highlight how complex this issue really is.
Hunter Cutting

Russia declares state of emergency over wildfires driven by heatwave - 0 views

  • Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has declared a state of emergency in seven Russian regions because of wildfires fuelled by a heatwave. The death toll from the fires has risen to at least 34. The Russian emergencies ministry said 500 new blazes had been discovered over a 24-hour period, but most had been extinguished. Homes have been burnt in 14 regions of Russia, the worst-hit being Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh and Ryazan. The state of emergency was announced in a decree that also restricted public access to the regions affected. Moscow is again shrouded in smoke from peat and forest fires outside the city. The fires, caused by record temperatures and a drought, have affected cereal harvests, driving wheat prices up.
  • Russians are bracing themselves for another week of high temperatures, with forecasts of up to 40C (104F) for central and southern regions. Officials also expect stronger winds in some regions, which will fan the flames. By Sunday night, wildfires were still raging across some 128,000 ha (316,000 acres).
  • Thousands of people have lost their homes and nearly a quarter of a million emergency workers have been deployed to fight the flames. President Medvedev described the situation on Saturday as a "natural disaster of the kind that probably only happens every 30 or 40 years". Moscow doctors say the elderly and toddlers should wear gauze masks outdoors.
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  • The city of Kazan, on the Volga river east of Moscow, was also blanketed in smog on Monday, an eyewitness told the BBC. Marek Zaremba-Pike said Kazan's air "smells of burnt wood and tastes of dust". "Usually we can see the Kazan Kremlin very clearly, but visibility is poor. You can't see it at all, just the river bank." More famous for its bitterly cold winters, the giant country's European part normally enjoys short, warm summers. However July was the hottest month on record. In Moscow, which sees an average high of 23C in the summer months, recorded 37.8C last Thursday.
Hunter Cutting

New England fisheries hit hard by warming waters - 0 views

  • A 2007 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration looked at codfish catch records over four decades. It concluded what fishermen who know this cold-loving fish would have predicted: As the bottom water temperature increased, the probability of catching a cod decreased.
  • Last year, a federal effort to coordinate research, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, found ocean warming already was forcing a migration of some species.
  • "The northward shifts we have seen in the area are due in part to climate change. We are starting to see some of the effects of global climate change in our area," said Janet Nye, a NOAA researcher working out of Woods Hole, Mass. She studied historical fish records and found that of 36 northwest Atlantic species, almost half had moved northward in 40 years as water temperatures warmed. She predicted the traditional stocks of cold-water fish are likely to be replaced by croaker and red hake, fish normally found farther south.
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  • Many fishermen switched to lobster as winter flounder, a cold-water fish once abundant in fishing boat holds, declined. But lobster stocks are stressed in some areas now. Biologists on a multi-state Fisheries Commission committee have found that warmer waters, disease and fishing have depleted lobster stocks, and they recently recommended a five-year ban on lobstering from Cape Cod to Virginia.
  • "One of the grim realities of global warming is that it is bringing change to fisheries. There are going to be regime changes in the oceans and management is going to have to adapt to that,"
  • Greg Walinski believes he has seen first-hand the workings of warmer waters on fish stock. The 53-year-old Cape Cod fisherman used to hunt for large bluefin tuna. "In the '80s and '90s we would get 60 to 80 giant bluefin in a season," he said. "But we started to see less and less. It got to a point where it wasn't even worth going out. Most of the big fish are up in Canada," he said. "We get the little bluefin that used to be further south."
  • He switched to cod, but in what seems to be a repeat of the pattern, Walinski said he finds himself chasing the fish further and further out. He now travels 120 miles in a 35-foot boat - an arduous and somewhat dangerous commute - to reach Georges Bank for codfish.
  • regulators say they have seen little evidence of a similar rebound in cod on the George's Bank, and some other cold-water species, like winter flounder and pollock, remain low.
Hunter Cutting

Global warming makes climbing Everest harder: eyewitness account - 0 views

  • A Nepalese Sherpa who climbed Mount Everest for a record 20th time said Tuesday that the melting of glacier ice along its slopes due to global warming is making it increasingly difficult to climb the peak."The rising temperature on the mountains has melted much ice and snow on the trail to the summit. It is difficult for climbers to use their crampons on the rocky surfaces," Apa told reporters after flying to Katmandu on Tuesday.
  • Apa said when he first began climbing Everest, there was hardly any rocky surface on the trail to the summit. Now, he says, the trail is dotted with bare rocks.
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    as reported by the Associated Press
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