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Archive for October 6th, 2010
How global warming will change Canada
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
Canadian Press: Great if you're a golfer or a cod, not so much if you're a skier or a salmon. A federal advisory panel has released a study showing how climate change could reshape the country's landscape. The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society show on a sliding scale how warming temperatures might affect different parts of the country. A two-degree rise in temperatures could melt half the summer Arctic sea ice, displace ...
Latin America needs to improve disaster risk management, bank says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
Reuters: Governments in Latin America and the Caribbean need to do more to reduce the adverse economic and social impacts of natural disasters and allocate more funding to better cope with and respond to catastrophes, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Unless governments focus more on disaster risk reduction, the region faces potentially crippling economic and social costs from natural disasters, including an expected increase in climate change-related disasters, according ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Latin America needs to improve disaster risk management, bank saysCoast Guard investigates oil on Lake Huron beach
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
AP: U.S. Coast Guard investigators are trying to determine the source of an oil spill that soiled a Lake Huron beach at Cheboygan State Park in Michigan. The spill was reported Tuesday afternoon, and cleanup crews were on the scene Wednesday. Oil covered a section of beach measuring about 25 yards by 300 yards. A sheen estimated at 5 yards by 300 yards was drifting offshore in Duncan Bay. Coast Guard Petty Officer George Degener says the spill isn't getting any ...
Louisiana revival: Eco-engineering on a giant scale
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
New Scientist: The bays and bayous of coastal Louisiana were in trouble even before the Deepwater Horizon disaster. How far should we go to return them to their former glory? STANDING knee-deep in the waters of Bay Jimmy in south-eastern Louisiana, Daniel Deocampo pours a bucket of clay mixed with seawater into the marsh. Oil swirls around our legs and the air reeks of burnt petroleum. With oil from BP's Deepwater Horizon spill sitting in the bay, the burning question is - remove the oil or wait for ...
Congo: further funding for the Grand Inga
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
Rainforest News: African Development Bank (AfDB) president Donald Kaberuka said that the financial institution would consider stumping up further funding to South African power utility Eskom, and that there was "no doubt" that the Grand Inga hydropower project would happen "soon". "What's important is South Africa, as the regional powerhouse, must have energy for its own economy - for its mining sector - but also to feed into the power pools of the region. If South Africa doesn't have enough power, it ...
Hungary: toxic sludge will take one year to clean up
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
Telegraph: Zoltan Illes, the environment minister, told the BBC the clean-up of the country's worst chemical accident would take at least one year and probably require technical and financial assistance from the European Union. The red tide, which inundated streets and homes after the walls of residue reservoir at an aluminium plant collapsed, has so far killed four people and injured 120, but the death toll is expected to rise. Six people are missing and another eight are in critical ...
Hungary crews search for missing after red mud spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
Reuters: Hungarian crews were working to prevent seepage from a sludge reservoir of an alumina plant in western Hungary on Wednesday as rescue units searched for missing people in a flooded village. Hungary declared a state of emergency in three counties on Tuesday, a day after a torrent of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant tore through local villages, killing four people and injuring 120. Three people were reported missing. Gyorgy Bakondi, head of the National Disaster Unit (NDU) ...
Australia: The Murray-Darling plan explained
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
ABC: What is the plan? The document being released on Friday October 8 is officially titled the Guide to the Proposed Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It is the first part of a three-stage process to address the problems that have plagued the system for years. The plan aims to restore flows to key environmental assets in the Murray-Darling Basin. It will set new limits for irrigators and other water users and establish where more water is needed if the system is to ...
US under fire for underestimating Gulf spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
AFP: President Barack Obama's administration initially underestimated the size of the BP oil spill, weakening public trust in the government, a report to an investigatory commission said Wednesday. The strongly worded report was written by staff researchers and presented to the national commission, which has been tasked by Obama with presenting findings by January 2011 on the world's worst-ever oil disaster. The report, which is not necessarily the view of the commission, found that ...
W.Va. Sues Obama, EPA Over Mining Coal Regulations
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 6th, 2010
Greenwire: West Virginia, at the direction of Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin, sued the Obama administration today to overturn new federal rules on mountaintop removal mining. The lawsuit, filed by the state Department of Environmental Protection, accuses U.S. EPA of overstepping its authority and asks the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia to throw out the federal agency's new guidelines for issuing Clean Water Act permits for coal mines. "Over the past year and a ...