RSS Feed
Archive for March, 2011
Some populations of Fraser River salmon more likely to survive climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 31st, 2011
ScienceDaily: Populations of Fraser River sockeye salmon are so fine-tuned to their environment that any further environmental changes caused by climate change could lead to the disappearance of some populations, while others may be less affected, says a new study by University of British Columbia scientists.
The Fraser River is the longest river in British Columbia, flowing more than 2,000 kilometres through the province. It is known for its large salmon runs, where typically several million sockeye salmon...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Some populations of Fraser River salmon more likely to survive climate changeArgentina: Cutting-Edge Model of Coastal Protection
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 31st, 2011
Inter Press Service: Governments, environmentalists and private companies have just under four years to establish joint management of 43 protected areas on Argentina’s Atlantic coast, one of the world’s most productive and best preserved biomes.
From Punta Rasa in the eastern province of Buenos Aires to the Beagle Channel at the country’s southern tip, these protected areas make up a total of 1.6 million hectares, half sea and half land, along Argentina’s roughly 5,000 kilometres of Atlantic coastline.
Some of...
Scientists call for more robust measures to identify and protect endangered species
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 31st, 2011
Physorg: Conservationists may need to change their approach to protecting animals and plants from extinction if they are to successfully shield key species and habitats from the effects of global climate change, according to a new review in the journal Science.
Scientists and conservation organisations currently work out a species' extinction risk by determining how likely it is that climate change will make its habitat unsuitable. They then focus their efforts on protecting species whose location is threatened...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scientists call for more robust measures to identify and protect endangered speciesSubstance to Stop Oil From Sticking to Birds?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 31st, 2011
National Geographic: UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT:
A BIRD’S FEATHERS ENABLE IT TO FLY, FLOAT, AND REGULATE ITS BODY TEMPERATURE.
UNFORTUNATELY, FEATHERS ALSO ABSORB OIL, TAKING AWAY THESE CRUCIAL ABILITIES.
IMAGES LIKE THESE HAVE COME TO REPRESENT THE ENVIRONMENTAL TOLL OF OIL SPILLS, LIKE the Deepwater Horizon disaster that dumped nearly 5 million barrels into the Gulf of Mexico.
FOLLOWING THAT SPILL, RESPONDERS contained surface oil using booms, and tried to break the oil up using chemical dispersants. For the first...
Republicans in new push to drill in Alaska reserve
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 31st, 2011
Reuters: Not yet a year after the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, Republicans are renewing efforts to drill for oil and gas in a fiercely contested Alaskan wildlife refuge.
Moving one day after President Barack Obama's unveiled a plan to cut U.S. oil imports by a third over 10 years, Republicans will unveil a bill to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The bill would also force the Interior Department to hold lease sales for offshore areas, a Republican aide said.
The Republican bill...
U.S. Dropped Nuclear Rule Meant to Avert Hydrogen Explosions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 31st, 2011
New York Times: The Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania on Monday, 32 years to the day after an accident there. When hot fuel interacted with steam there, a reactor suffered a hydrogen blast.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has allowed reactors to phase out some equipment that eliminates explosive hydrogen, the gas that blew up the outer containments of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi in Japan. The commission says it judged that at the American plants, the containments were strong enough...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on U.S. Dropped Nuclear Rule Meant to Avert Hydrogen ExplosionsWill Rio+20 squander green legacy of the original Earth summit?
Posted by Grist: Jim Thomas on March 31st, 2011
Grist: I've got good news and bad news about the future of the planet.
Good news first. Next year, a honking big global Earth Summit is coming our way -- one with a proud heritage. Formally titled the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, the meeting is known as RIO+20 because it will come 20 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. That original Earth Summit (itself 20 years after the equally important Stockholm Convention on the Environment and Human Development) gave us an embarrassment...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Will Rio+20 squander green legacy of the original Earth summit?Pakistan: Mangroves: Save the ‘carbon sinks’ instead of letting them go down the drain, say experts
Posted by International Herald Tribune: Samia Saleem on March 31st, 2011
International Herald Tribune: Mangroves can serve as lungs for Karachi, where the scope of forestry is already very limited, said experts.
Around the world, environmentalists are now focusing on the role of mangroves as carbon sinks besides their ecological usefulness, natural beauty, ability to filter pollution, house fish nurseries and buffer shorelines against storms.
International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) climate change expert Saadullah Ayaz said that studies have shown that about one acre of mangrove...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Pakistan: Mangroves: Save the ‘carbon sinks’ instead of letting them go down the drain, say expertsUK carbon emissions edge up four per cent
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 31st, 2011
Business Green: The government has blamed last year's freezing temperatures for a 13.5 per cent rise in carbon emissions from households, which led to an increase in overall UK carbon emissions of just under four per cent.
The increase, confirmed today in statistics published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), is likely to heap further pressure on the the government to step up efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly after research this week revealed that the UK has dropped...
Could shale gas power the world?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 31st, 2011
Time Magazine: For more than a decade, Bonnie Burnett and her husband Truman have owned a second home in the hilly farmland of Bradford County, in northeastern Pennsylvania. It was a getaway for the Burnetts (who live three hours to the south, in Stroudsburg), a place to take their grandchildren for a swim in the wooded pond that lies just a few steps from their front door. "It used to be heaven here," says Bonnie. "We were going to move here to live."
The Burnetts say their plans changed when a natural gas...