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Archive for January 16th, 2012
La Nina ‘may abet’ flu pandemics
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 16th, 2012
BBC: La Nina events may make flu pandemics more likely, research suggests.
US-based scientists found that the last four pandemics all occurred after La Nina events, which bring cool waters to the surface of the eastern Pacific.
In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they say that flu-carrying birds may change migratory patterns during La Nina conditions.
However, many other La Nina events have not seen novel flu strains spread around the world, they caution.
So while the...
Revealed: Europe’s plan to penalise Canada’s tar sands goes Dutch
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 16th, 2012
Guardian: Following in the UK's footsteps, the Netherlands is now working to derail a European Commission proposal to officially designate fuels from Canada's vast tar sands fields as highly polluting and discourage their use.
A secret proposal, which I have seen, means that instead of companies being responsible for curbing the overall carbon emissions of the transport fuels they sell, countries would be responsible. That would lead to the ludicrous and legally laughable situation that when one company...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Revealed: Europe’s plan to penalise Canada’s tar sands goes DutchUK must rethink its unfailing support for Canada’s fossil fuels
Posted by Guardian: Kelly Rigg on January 16th, 2012
Guardian: If it's true that desperate times call for desperate measures, the Canadian government is acting like a junkie in need of a fix. As public hearings on the proposed Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline proposal got underway in British Columbia last week, natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, lashed out at "environmental and other radical groups" and "jet-setting celebrities." In an open letter, he accused them of being the stooges of foreign special-interest groups, opposing tar sands development...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on UK must rethink its unfailing support for Canada’s fossil fuelsRising carbon dioxide confuses brain signaling in fish
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 16th, 2012
ScienceNews: A new study may explain how rising carbon dioxide concentrations -- and the ocean acidification they induce -- can cause topsy-turvy changes in the behavior of fish. Like a flipped switch, the normal response of nerve cells can reverse as acidifying seawater perturbs how a fish regulates acids and bases in its body, including the brain.
“This could be a big deal,” says neurobiologist Andrew Dittman of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle....
Bulgarian protestors demand ban on shale gas
Posted by EurActiv: None Given on January 16th, 2012
EurActiv: Thousands of Bulgarians have protested against exploration for shale gas over fears it could poison underground water, trigger earthquakes and pose serious public health hazards.
Protestors rallied in more than six Bulgarian cities on Saturday (14 January) calling for a moratorium on 'fracking' - shale gas tests using hydraulic fracturing - and demanding a new law to ban unconventional drilling for gas in the country.
"I am opposed because we do not know what chemicals they will put in the...
China cancer village tests reach of law against pollution
Posted by Reuters: Sui-Lee Wee on January 16th, 2012
Reuters: Nothing in Wu Wenyong's rural childhood hinted he would end up on a hospital bed aged 15, battling two kinds of cancer.
Born to poor farmers in Xiaoxin, a dusty village of low brick houses in southwestern Yunnan province, he paddled in the Nanpan River as a child and later helped his parents tend rice.
About 3 km (two miles) from Wu's home stands a three-storey high hill of chromium slag produced from the Yunnan Luliang Peace Technology Company. The runoff from chromium-6, listed as a carcinogen...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on China cancer village tests reach of law against pollutionCanada faces legal challenge over Kyoto withdrawal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 16th, 2012
Reuters: The Canadian government's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol is illegal, alleges a suit to be filed in federal court by a law professor and former Canadian MP on Friday.
Daniel Turp, professor of law at the University of Montreal and former MP of the Bloc Québécois party, said Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has violated national law by withdrawing from the 1997 climate treaty last month without first consulting Parliament.
On December 12, Environment Minister Peter Kent announced...
United States: Michael Mann: The climate scientist who the deniers have in their sights
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 16th, 2012
Independent: He is one of the most vilified men in the highly vilified field of climate science, yet Professor Michael Mann is surprisingly jolly. Despite being the focus of a brutal campaign orchestrated by the fossil-fuel industry and senior politicians within the US Republican Party, Mann's cheery stoicism is positively infectious.
"I've been the focus for attack by those who deny the reality of climate change for so long that it almost seems like forever," the professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United States: Michael Mann: The climate scientist who the deniers have in their sights