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Archive for September, 2011
Appalachia faces steep coal decline
Posted by Associated Press: Dylan Lovan on September 28th, 2011
Associated Press: When business screeched to a halt at Jerry Howard's eastern Kentucky mine engineering company two years ago, he decided to call it quits after four decades in the coal industry.
"We were sort of forced out," Howard says of the former company, Walturn, where he was part owner.
Business owners like Howard, politicians and miners in the hilly coalfields of Central Appalachia blame the industry decline on tougher regulation from the Obama administration. They aren't as ready to talk about something...
India: Facing Climate Change With Flower Power
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2011
Inter Press Service: Gazalla Amin’s office on the outskirts of this city, capital of Jammu & Kashmir state, is redolent with the fragrance of lavender wafting up from heaps of the dried flowers in a corner bowl.
There is nothing fancy or feminine about the fragrance in her office. In her late forties Amin, a medical doctor by training, has broken into Kashmir’s male-dominated farming sector.
Amin is now leading frustrated farmers out of the conundrum of climatic uncertainties, lost crops, debt and poverty and setting...
New groups protest at shale gas
Posted by BBC: James Melley on September 28th, 2011
BBC: An increasing number of groups are being set up in the UK to oppose local plans to drill for shale gas.
The process, which is often called fracking, is controversial, with claims that it harms the environment.
Several groups of campaigners recently took part in a camp to protest against drilling in Lancashire, whilst a separate group marched against proposals in Cowbridge in South Wales.
But what is inspiring people that have not been involved in environment campaigns to start protesting...
Another Victim of Climate Change
Posted by Environment News Service: Zafar Iqba on September 28th, 2011
Environment News Service: Environmentalists are blaming climate change for the unprecedented massive monsoon rains in Pakistan, which so far this year have affected eight million people, claiming 350 lives and damaging 1.3 million homes. Over the past month, the country's southern region has received the highest monsoon rains ever recorded, local metrological experts confirm. In August, the southern parts of the country received 270 percent above-normal monsoon rains. And in September, the monsoons rains were 1,170 percent...
Carbon-Credits System Tarnished by WikiLeaks Revelation
Posted by Scientific American: Quirin Schiermeier on September 28th, 2011
Scientific American: As the world gears up for the next round of United Nations climate-change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in November, evidence has emerged that a cornerstone of the existing global climate agreement, the international greenhouse-gas emissions-trading system, is seriously flawed. Critics have long questioned the usefulness of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which was established under the Kyoto Protocol. It allows rich countries to offset some of their carbon emissions by investing...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Carbon-Credits System Tarnished by WikiLeaks RevelationShale rock gives Israel oil optimism
Posted by BBC: Daniel Estrin on September 27th, 2011
BBC: Prospectors in Israel say hundreds of feet below the ground lies shale rock that can be converted into billions of barrels of oil. But environmentalists say it's a disaster waiting to happen.
"This is the distinct smell I'm talking about when I talk about oil shale."
So says Texan oil man, Scott Nguyen, as he sniffs a handful of rock fragments - not back in Houston where he used to work for Shell - but in the lush Valley of Elah in central Israel, about 50lm (30 miles) from Jerusalem.
Mr...
How Climate Change Could Hurt Yellowstone National Park
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2011
New York Times: Before the end of the century, Yellowstone National Park could experience summers that feel like Los Angeles’s, according to a report released Tuesday. These warming temperatures will imperil everything from native cutthroat trout to aspen forests and the $700 million in annual economic activity that they and other gems in the park generate by attracting tourists, the report said.
The report, the first evaluation of how climate change will affect the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, is a joint project...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on How Climate Change Could Hurt Yellowstone National Park200 Million Depend on Melting Glaciers for Water
Posted by Inter Press Service: Fabíola Ortiz on September 27th, 2011
Inter Press Service: At least 200 million people in the world are in danger of being left without water, because they depend for their supply on glaciers that are melting, although paradoxically the process creates the illusion of plentiful water resources.
While the average global temperature has risen by 0.6 degrees Celsius in the last 100 years, the temperature of glaciers has increased by 1.5 degrees in just two decades.
Local communities, especially in the Himalayan and Andes mountain ranges, are the most...
Over 100 arrested as tar sands civil disobedience spreads to Canada
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2011
Mongabay: After two weeks of sustained protesting at the US White House against the Keystone XL pipeline, with 1,252 people arrested, civil disobedience has now spread to Canada, home of the tar sands. Yesterday, around 500 people protested in Ottawa against Canada's controversial tar sands; 117 were arrested as they purposefully crossed a barrier separating them from the House of Commons in an act of civil disobedience.
One of those arrested, Maude Barlow, chairperson of the environmental NGO Council of...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Over 100 arrested as tar sands civil disobedience spreads to CanadaArctic Ice Melt, Severe Summer Heat Signal Warmer Planet
Posted by Yahoo!: William Browning on September 27th, 2011
Yahoo!: To see signs of global warming, all humans have to do is head to one of the coldest places on the planet. The Arctic Ocean ice pack is at its second-lowest levels on record for summer ice melt. Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center revealed satellite data and mapping estimates just over 1.67 million square miles of the Arctic Ocean is covered in ice as of mid-September. That figure is just barely more than the 1.608 million square miles that was the lowest amount set in 2007.
For...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Arctic Ice Melt, Severe Summer Heat Signal Warmer Planet