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Archive for August, 2012
Republicans vow to end ‘war on coal’, torch green regulations
Posted by BusinessGreen: James Murray on August 30th, 2012
BusinessGreen: The extent to which the Republican Party plans to eviscerate US environmental protection rules and dramatically increase support for fossil fuel production was again laid bare this week, as the Platform document adopted at the GOP Convention reiterated the party's opposition to the low-carbon economy.
The document, which was formally adopted by the Convention earlier this week, makes only one mention of "climate change ", attacking the Obama administration for incorporating the topic in its most...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Republicans vow to end ‘war on coal’, torch green regulationsArctic Tipping Point: A North Pole Without Ice
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Fen Montaigne on August 30th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: As the northern summer draws to a close, two milestones have been reached in the Arctic Ocean -- record-low sea ice extent, and an even more dramatic new low in Arctic sea ice volume. This extreme melting offers dramatic evidence, many scientists say, that the region’s sea ice has passed a tipping point and that sometime in the next decade or two the North Pole will be largely ice-free in summer.
NASA and U.S. ice experts announced earlier this week that the extent of Arctic sea ice has dropped...
Indian monsoon consolidates revival in past week: Met office
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 30th, 2012
Reuters: India's monsoon rains were 6 percent above average in the past week, the weather office said on Thursday, the first time they have been heavier than average in the current rainy season that began in June, in what is turning out to be a drought year.
The crucial monsoon rains, vital for the 55 percent of Indian farmland without irrigation, are 12 percent short of average so far and threaten cereal and pulses production as drought continues in some areas of west and south India.
In the previous...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Indian monsoon consolidates revival in past week: Met officeAsia’s extreme storm season dominates climate talks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 30th, 2012
Agence France-Presse: Climate change negotiators meeting in Thailand say a string of extreme weather events around the world point to a need for urgent carbon emissions cuts. The week-long meeting in Bangkok, which was devastated by major floods last year, aims to prepare the ground for a meeting of ministers under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Doha starting in November. "This meeting opens in the immediate aftermath of a deadly typhoon in the Republic of Korea and a hurricane that hit near New Orleans...
In Drought, Should Corn Be Food Or Fuel?
Posted by National Public Radio: Conrad Wilson on August 30th, 2012
National Public Radio: Standing outside the Central Minnesota Ethanol Co-Op in Little Falls, Minn., there's not a lot going on. The pungent smell of fermentation that typically hangs in the air here is absent. And trucks piled high with corn are nowhere to be seen.
They're idled in part because of high corn prices. And it's unclear when that will change.
"Most of the industry is just breaking even in terms of profitability or actually running at slightly negative margins," says Geoff Cooper, vice president of research...
Water crisis will make Gaza strip ‘unliveable’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 30th, 2012
Guardian: The Gaza strip faces a water crisis that will soon make it "unliveable" unless plans for a $500m desalination plant are approved by banks, delegates at a water conference in Stockholm were told this week.
Water for the 1.6 million people – half of them children and two-thirds refugees – who live in just 365 sq km of land bordering the Mediterranean comes entirely from the shallow coastal aquifer shared between Gaza, Israel and Egypt, which is only partly replenished each year by rainfall. Decades...
The E.P.A. Can Fix the Chemical Flaw
Posted by New York Times: Christine Todd Whitman on August 30th, 2012
New York Times: SINCE Sept. 11, 2001, the American government, under two presidents, has taken unprecedented steps to ensure the safety of its citizens. Unfortunately, more than a decade later, a major flaw in our national security remains, leaving millions of Americans at risk. It’s a flaw that policy makers have known about for years but not yet done enough to fix. Hundreds of chemical plants and other facilities maintain large stockpiles of dangerous substances and are in or near major American cities like New...
Chile hails groundbreaking deep geothermal well
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on August 29th, 2012
BusinessGreen: Plans to build the first fully operational deep geothermal well in South America have taken a major step forward after developer GeoGlobal Energy (GGE) finished a test drilling programme in Chile.
GGE Chile, a subsidiary of Maryland-based GGE, confirmed this week that it has successfully completed an exploratory drilling program on the northwestern flank of the Tolhuaca mountain in southern Chile.
The company said it had demonstrated that the production and injection wells are capable of supporting...
Sweden to Fund Innovations in Water Sector
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 29th, 2012
Inter Press Service: When the international community was struggling to ward off a potential decline in development aid in early 2000, it came up with a novel idea: a proposal for "new and innovative sources of financing", including a tax on airline tickets and a levy on foreign exchange transactions.
The funding, mostly from the tax alone, first proposed at the 2002 U.N. conference on Financing for Development, has already generated over 11.7 billion dollars, according to the World Bank.
And now, the Swedish government...
Study: Climate change threatens Atlantic seashores
Posted by USA Today: Wendy Koch on August 29th, 2012
USA Today: Climate change is already hurting seven national seashores on the Atlantic Coast and threatens to submerge some of their land within a century, according to a report Wednesday by environmental groups.
In five of the seven parks, more than half of the land lies low enough (less than 3.3 feet) to risk becoming submerged by the year 2100, says the report by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Those parks include Fire Island in New York, Assateague Island...