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Archive for September, 2011
Issa probes EPA’s role in limiting vehicles’ emissions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 30th, 2011
Washington Post: The House Oversight Committee is expanding its probe of the Obama administration's rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks, according to a letter it sent to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The investigation led by committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) reflects the ongoing battle between House leaders and the administration over the extent to which EPA can address climate change without congressional input.
In the 13-page letter committee sent...
A crucial moment in the planning debate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2011
Telegraph: When this newspaper began its campaign for the Government to rethink the draft National Planning Policy Framework, there had been precious little debate about what was, by any standards, an important subject. As the substantial number of letters we have received shows, there is considerable anxiety in the country over the implications of the new policy, in particular its "presumption in favour of sustainable development'. This has only been deepened by our exposure of the worrying extent to which...
Judge: work must halt on monster dam, Belo Monte
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2011
Mongabay: The decades-long fight over Brazilian megadam, the Belo Monte, has taken another U-turn after a judge ordered work to stop immediately since the dam would devastate vital fishing grounds for local people. In June the Brazilian government gave a go-ahead to the $11-17 billion dam, despite large-scale opposition from indigenous groups along the Xingu River and international outcry, including a petition signed by 600,000 people.
The judge, Carlos Castro Martins, ordered construction work by consortium...
4 Face-Offs With Fracking Regulators
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2011
New York Times: New York’s charged debate over the natural gas extraction process known as hydrofracking will soon move to the face-to-face stage. At hearings set for November, pro- and anti-drilling forces will get a chance to address state regulators directly. New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, which is tasked with regulating the drilling, has announced that it will hold public hearings in four places — New York City, Dansville, Binghamton and Loch Sheldrake — on its draft environmental impact...
Climate Change will Impede North-South Trade –
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2011
Inter Press Service: Climate change is increasingly playing a role in North-South trade, as carbon emissions are being used as an excuse to protect markets, with poorer countries likely to lose out.
A few months before the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa, there is little hope of a binding agreement on greenhouse gas emissions.
It is unlikely that the Kyoto Protocol, whose binding emission cuts for developed nations are set to lapse...
Aerosol particles dry out South Asian monsoons: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2011
Reuters: Summer monsoons that provide up to 80 percent of the water South Asia needs have gotten drier in the past half century, possibly due to aerosol particles spewed by burning fossil fuels, climate scientists said on Thursday.
Monsoon rains are driven by looping air circulation patterns over India, and the aerosols appear to have interfered with these patterns, researchers reported in the journal Science.
Between 1950 and 1999, the drying was most pronounced in central-northern India, with a 10...
A Pipeline Divides Along Old Lines: Jobs Versus the Environment
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2011
New York Times: The final days of rancorous public debate over a $7 billion oil pipeline that would snake from Canada through the midsection of the United States have taken on an unexpected urgency this week, as the economic and environmental stakes of the massive project snap into focus at a time of festering anxiety about the nation’s future. The round of public hearings by the State Department — stretching along the proposed pipeline route from a community college gymnasium here on Tuesday in eastern Montana,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on A Pipeline Divides Along Old Lines: Jobs Versus the EnvironmentThe Trouble With Health Problems Near Gas Fracking
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2011
National Public Radio: Susan Wallace-Babb lived on a ranch in Western Colorado. One summer night in 2005, she drove her truck down the road into a field out past her neighbors. She stepped out of her truck, felt woozy and immediately passed out.
"When she came to, she raced out of the area, called fire department officials and sought help. But it began a period of very intense, negative health effects for her," says ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten. "By the next morning, she felt intense nerve pain in her legs,...
Brazilian judge orders construction of Amazon dam to stop
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2011
Guardian: A Brazilian judge has ordered construction to be suspended on a controversial hydroelectric dam in the Amazon.
In his ruling, Judge Carlos Castro Martins said that all working on the Belo Monte dam that interfered with the natural course of the Xingu river should be halted because of the risk that fish stocks would be damaged.
The £7bn dam would reputedly be the third largest in the world, after China's Three Gorges and the Itaipu project on the Brazil-Paraguay border.
The injunction is...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Brazilian judge orders construction of Amazon dam to stopClimate change cost to Canada pegged at $billions, new research shows
Posted by News1130.com: None Given on September 29th, 2011
News1130.com: Climate change will be costing Canada and its people about $5 billion a year by 2020, a groundbreaking analysis for the federal government warns.
Costs will continue to climb steeply, to between $21 billion and $43 billion a year by the 2050s -- depending on how much action is taken on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, and how fast Canada's economy and population grow, the analysis says.
"Climate change will be expensive for Canada and Canadians," says the report from the National Roundtable...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change cost to Canada pegged at $billions, new research shows