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Archive for December 26th, 2011
Antarctica’s moss ‘forest’ drying out
Posted by Australia Network News: None Given on December 26th, 2011
Australia Network News: Antarctica's green moss, likened by scientists to Australia's lush Daintree rainforest, is dying.
Professor Sharon Robinson is at Australia's Casey station studying changes in the local moss beds.
"In places where there's meltwater in the summer, so lakes and streams, you get mosses growing," Professor Robinson said. "Around the Casey region we have some of the best moss of anywhere on the continent of Antarctica, and it comes out as lush green."
Moss dying
But some of the moss has dried...
Weak Environmental Impact Studies for Mines
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 26th, 2011
Inter Press Service: The stiff local opposition to the Conga gold mining project in the northern Peruvian highlands region of Cajamarca revived a long-postponed debate in this country, on the weakness of environmental impact studies in the mining industry.
In response to the controversy, the country's new environment minister, Manuel Pulgar, announced a plan to address the problem. However, layoffs of several environmental experts in the ministry of mines who rejected flawed environmental impact assessments (EIAs)...
If You Care About Keystone and Climate Change, Occupy Exxon
Posted by Huffington Post: Paul Loeb on December 26th, 2011
Huffington Post: It seemed like the afterthought in the payroll tax cut extension fight, a small consolation prize to the Republicans on what should have been the easiest of bi-partisan votes. But the two-month clock is now ticking on whether Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada's environmentally disastrous tar sands. If we want him to make the right decision and deny the permit, maybe it's time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations. Of course we need to keep pressuring...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on If You Care About Keystone and Climate Change, Occupy ExxonThailand seeks flood prevention plan as Bangkok clean-up operation continues
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 26th, 2011
Guardian: Now the car parks have been cleared of crocodiles and the store room emptied of cobras, the managers at one of Thailand's biggest electronics companies have begun reclaiming their factory from Bangkok's worst flood in a century and wondering what more they can do to prevent the climate wreaking similar havoc in the future.
Cleaners scrub the floor with chemical cleaning agents, workers rip mouldy tiles from the ceilings and engineers try to salvage what equipment they can at the Hana Microelectronics...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Thailand seeks flood prevention plan as Bangkok clean-up operation continuesNASA: Climate Change May Flip 40% of Earth’s Major Ecosystems This Century
Posted by Think Progress: Rolf Schuttenhelm on December 26th, 2011
Think Progress: The results of studies that try to quantify the effects of climate change on biodiversity loss - which include damage to the micro scale level of subspecies and genetic variation - are perhaps most shocking.
When, however, you focus on the response to climate change at the macro level, the ecosystem level, you get a better understanding of what is one of the major drivers of that biodiversity loss: forced migrations. And even here, the numbers may be larger than one would expect, as a new assessment...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on NASA: Climate Change May Flip 40% of Earth’s Major Ecosystems This CenturyOn the environment, a “good” Obama and a “bad” Obama
Posted by Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Joel Connelly on December 26th, 2011
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: In cleaning up America's air and water, and safeguarding God's great out-of-doors, President Obama lacks a character trait loosely defined by Clinton-era Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt -- "music in his soul."
He is a bicyclist, but "green" to Obama is a golf course. He seems bound by the motto of reason-over-passion, while passion for the American earth has spawned one of America's enduring national movements.
Hence, the President's environmental record has inspired verbal sparring along...
Springtime for toxics
Posted by New York Times: Paul Krugman on December 26th, 2011
New York Times: Here’s what I wanted for Christmas: something that would make us both healthier and richer. And since I was just making a wish, why not ask that Americans get smarter, too? Surprise: I got my wish, in the form of new Environmental Protection Agency standards on mercury and air toxics for power plants. These rules are long overdue: we were supposed to start regulating mercury more than 20 years ago. But the rules are finally here, and will deliver huge benefits at only modest cost. So, naturally,...
Processing Plant Threatens Water in Capital
Posted by Inter Press Service: Mantoe Phakathi on December 26th, 2011
Inter Press Service: A multi-million dollar iron-ore reprocessing plant in the northern part of Swaziland, owned by Indian mining company Salgaocar, is threatening the water security of local communities and even the country’s capital city, Mbabane.
Residents here are worried that effluent from the mining factory, which is scheduled to start operating in January 2012 within a protected area inside the Malolotja Game Reserve, will contaminate the water quality of the nearby Hawane Dam.
The Swaziland Water Services...
Fukushima investigation reveals failings
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 26th, 2011
Associated Press: Japan's response to the nuclear crisis that followed the tsunami in March was confused and riddled with problems , a report has revealed.
The disturbing picture of harried workers and government officials scrambling to respond to the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was depicted in the report, detailing a government investigation.
The 507-page interim report, compiled by interviewing more than 400 people, including utility workers and government officials, found that authorities...
Canada: Pipeline projects still clogged
Posted by Province: Rebecca Penty on December 26th, 2011
Province: When U.S. policy analyst Michael Levi sat down last January to sketch out the top five issues to watch in 2011, the Keystone XL pipeline didn't make the cut.
"Shale gas was on my list, all sorts of other things were on my list," said Levi, director of energy security and climate change with the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
Levi called the widespread public interest in the 2,700-kilometre pipeline, which ended up dominating North American energy debate in 2011, "a surprising...