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Archive for September, 2011
The Arctic’s near-record sea ice low
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 23rd, 2011
Guardian: By early September, the area covered by sea ice in the Arctic Ocean was approaching a record low. On September 9, sea ice covered 4.33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles), US National Snow and Ice Data Center reported. The 2011 low is 2.38 million square kilometers (919,000 square miles) below the average minimum extent measured between 1979 and 2000. Late season melt or a shift in wind patterns could still decrease the sea ice extent before the winter freeze-up begins. Photograph:...
Is fracking environmentally friendly
Posted by Guardian: Andrew Simms and Rob Lyons on September 23rd, 2011
Guardian: Andrew Simms: 'Fracking represents real and substantial risks to people and the environment'
Shale gas and tar sands are big, sticky and controversial. Energy-intensive and messy to extract, the fossil fuel industry sees them as a buffer during the dying days of conventional cheap oil. In Canada, the debate has taken an almost hallucinatory turn, rightwing blow-hard political activists have begun promoting tar sands as "ethical oil". The intellectual gymnastics are achieved by implying that the...
Mongolia’s high plains herders warily eye coal truck
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 23rd, 2011
Reuters: A lone cement ribbon bisecting hundreds of miles of shale and scrub on the high plains of Mongolia's Gobi Desert may be a talisman or curse for nomadic herders that trace their lineage to the empire of Ghengis Khan.
Carved into the Gobi by the Hong Kong-listed Mongolian Mining Corporation (MMC), the 147-mile (245-km), two-lane road is due to open next month, allowing the company to speed up cargoes of coal to China from its expanding Ukhaa Khudag mine.
Ukhaa Khudag is not well-known but is...
German states block carbon capture law
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 23rd, 2011
Spiegel: The German government had hoped to push through a new law allowing the testing of underground greenhouse gas storage, in hopes of slowing climate change. But on Friday the country's states blocked the plans by rejecting the proposed bill. Germany could now face action by the European Union.
Plans in Germany to test underground carbon dioxide storage to combat global warming have been blocked by the country's upper legislative chamber. The Bundesrat, which represents the 16 federal states, rejected...
Hydrofracking Leases Subject of Regrets in New York
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 23rd, 2011
New York Times: Four years ago a man and a woman knocked on Katharine D. Dewart’s door, offering easy money for the use of her land.
Handing her a brochure that included serene before-and-after pictures, they explained that a natural gas company was seeking to drill somewhere on her 35 acres of wildflower fields surrounded by hemlock woods in this Tompkins County town near Ithaca.
Ms. Dewart, 68, served lemonade and signed, accepting $1,909 upfront and royalty payments of 12.5 percent of any sales of gas extracted...
United Kingdom: Nature Studies by Michael McCarthy: Betrayed by an act of despotism
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 22nd, 2011
Independent: Why should a government set up and pay for an independent organisation that is likely to criticise it? In terms of realpolitik, of course, there is no reason whatsoever, which is why in tyrannies such bodies do not exist.
Yet we have prided ourselves in Britain on being more than a tyranny, and so the arm's-length quango which can tell the truth to power has been a valued feature of our society, considering that governments of whatever complexion do not always know best and can act out of base...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on United Kingdom: Nature Studies by Michael McCarthy: Betrayed by an act of despotismUrban areas get ‘smart’ at Paris event
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 22nd, 2011
Independent: Cities throughout Europe are expected to follow Amsterdam's example and invest heavily in 'smart technologies' to improve the quality of the urban environment, according to a recent reports on ThomasNet and Environmental Technology. On Friday, September 23, the latest ideas and technologies in the field of Smart Cities will be discussed at an international conference and cultural festival Smart City hosted by the University of Paris. The Smart City event features installations, urban walks, conferences...
United States: Exxon says Mobile Bay leak caused by salt water line
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 22nd, 2011
Reuters: A salt water pipeline leak offshore Alabama has forced ExxonMobil to halt gas production in the Mobile Bay area of the Gulf of Mexico, the company said on Thursday.
A sheen was detected on the water on Tuesday night, one mile south of Dauphin Island where ExxonMobil runs a number of subsea natural gas pipelines, prompting the company to shut in 280 million cubic feet per day of natural gas production.
"ExxonMobil can confirm that a subsea pipeline that transports salt water produced from its...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United States: Exxon says Mobile Bay leak caused by salt water lineTribal leader to the UN: Indigenous peoples of the Amazon are in danger
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 22nd, 2011
Mongabay: Editor's note: the following statement was presented by Almir Surui Narayamoga of the Surui tribe to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on September 21, 2011. Translation by Rhett Butler.
Amazonian indigenous peoples and their traditional territories are living under constant threat.
Illegal deforestation - carried out by loggers, ranchers, miners and intruders on indigenous territories - destroys the forest trees, kills birds by destroying their nests, kills animals that live off the fruits...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Tribal leader to the UN: Indigenous peoples of the Amazon are in dangerUnited Kingdom: Fracking must be halted until we know more
Posted by Guardian: Caroline Lucas on September 22nd, 2011
Guardian: Cuadrilla Resources, the energy firm leading the controversial drilling for shale gas in the UK, has made its initial estimate of the size of gas reserves near Blackpool.
The company, whose investors include Lord Browne – a former BP chief and now the non-executive director tasked with recruiting business leaders into government departments – breathlessly announced that about 200tr cubic feet of shale gas is ripe for exploration via hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking', in this part of Lancashire....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Fracking must be halted until we know more