[GWSG] Costing species; how extinct?; ABC on slr; EU cc face; storm surge; corn to N; tornadoes & sst; vacant tropics

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Conserving threatened species would cost billions of dollars a year, but that is only a small fraction of the costs of loss in biodiversity if the species were allowed to disappear.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19912266  While the loss of species is absolute and strictly incapable of evaluation, we do face choices if we are to lessen the disappearance of forms of life, and the decisions may well be motivated by the economic considerations discussed in the article.  Yet the question of instituting payment for environmental services is vexed.  George Monbiot and others argue that economic considerations cannot but lead to destructive choices.   http://e360.yale.edu/feature/ecosystem_services_whats_wrong_with_putting_a_price_on_nature/2583/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YaleEnvironment360+%28Yale+Environment+360%29

2.  According to a British review, we know too little about how climate causes species to go extinct.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/17/climate-change-extinction?newsfeed=true

3.  ABC News has published a straight and useful story introducing planning for sea level rise.  It could have been a lot more hair rising, but then it could also have been vitiated by propaganda, as such stories commonly are among major US networks.  http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/10/sea-level-rising-toward-washington-and-other-cities/

4.  The European Union is rebranding their climate mitigation campaign to appeal to people’s vision of a future they would like to inhabit.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19868580  The EU goal is to reduce carbon emission by 80% or more by 2050.  http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/roadmap/index_en.htm

5.  Arguments for the correlation of hurricane strength with ocean surface warming have gone back only to the beginning of satellite date in the 1970’s, and have proven inconclusive.  Storm surge data goes back to the 1920’s and suggests a correlation.  http://www.climatecentral.org/news/new-evidence-that-hurricanes-are-tied-to-global-warming-15114?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climatecentral%2FdjOO+Climate+Central+-+Full+Feed

6.  Driven by climate-linked drought, the US Corn Belt is moving north.  http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/warming-climate-sends-us-corn-belt-north-20121016-27nkk.html

7.  A pattern of sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific is linked to violent outbreaks of tornadoes in the US.  The new study may help forecasters, though it addresses only one factor.  http://www.climatecentral.org/news/patterns-in-the-pacific-tied-to-violent-outbreak-of-tornadoes-15126

8.  The only time rising heat caused a major extinction event was 249 million years ago.  A rise of over 7° C  would again render the tropics uninhabitable for most life forms.  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22395-roasting-triassic-heat-exterminated-tropical-life.html?cmpid=RSS%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL%7Cclimate-change
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