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Archive for October 8th, 2012
Some plants in arid regions benefit from climate change, study finds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2012
PhysOrg: Dryland ecosystems cover 41% of the Earth's land surface. These ecosystems are highly vulnerable to global environmental change and desertification. But climate change seems to have a positive impact on some plants. A study involving the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock has come to this conclusion.
Using demographic methods, ecologist Roberto Salguero-Gómez investigates desert plants to find out how vulnerable they are to climate change. The results of his newest study...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Some plants in arid regions benefit from climate change, study findsScientists Close in on the Cause of Arctic Methane Leaks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2012
Climate Central: It's been called the Methane Bomb -- a stash of gas buried under the Arctic seafloor whose heat-trapping power is much greater, molecule for molecule, than the carbon dioxide people usually worry about. As climate change forces the Arctic to warm, experts warn that methane could escape, speeding global warming. They can't predict when the great escape might begin, however, or how fast it might proceed. They can't even rule out the possibility that it might have already started. So they've been cruising...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scientists Close in on the Cause of Arctic Methane LeaksWind farms on the bog of Ireland could provide UK electricity
Posted by Guardian: Rajeev Syal and Damian Carrington on October 8th, 2012
Guardian: Hundreds of wind farms could be built on the great bog of Ireland to generate electricity exclusively for the UK's national grid under plans being considered by ministers.
Element Power, the company behind the £5 billion proposals, hopes to build more than 700 turbines and transport power through two dedicated undersea cables across the Irish sea.
Company executives met Ed Davey, the cabinet minister in charge of climate change, and civil servants to discuss the plans this summer.
The plans...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Wind farms on the bog of Ireland could provide UK electricityWhy sea ice records are poles apart
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2012
New Scientist: September saw records for sea ice set at both ends of the Earth. Just a couple of weeks after Arctic ice reached a new low, a record high for sea ice extent was recorded around Antarctica. New Scientist puts these records in context.
Why are we seeing record highs and lows for sea ice at the same time?
When the Arctic experiences summer, it is winter in Antarctica. So when sea ice reaches its annual low in the north, every September, it is at its maximum extent in the south. Different processes...
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal and Upholds Clinton’s Roadless Rule
Posted by EcoWatch: Jim Lyons on October 8th, 2012
EcoWatch: The Supreme Court decision not to hear an appeal of the 10th Circuit Court decision upholding the Clinton administration’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule is a huge victory for wildlife. As a part of the team who helped establish the rule, I can say that the 11-year battle was well worth it.
The “roadless rule” was a directive from President Clinton to protect all remaining roadless areas on our national forests. Of the 192 million acres of national forests in the U.S., 58.5 million acres--or...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Supreme Court Rejects Appeal and Upholds Clinton’s Roadless RuleLiberia: Farmers Attribute Climate Change to Govt Concession Policies
Posted by The News: None Given on October 8th, 2012
The News: Local farmers across the country are blaming government's policies that allocated large-scale industrial mining, logging and agriculture concessions for climate change in the country. Participants at a recent workshop organized by Green Advocates with funding from the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) in Rivercess County southeast of Liberia have blamed current changes in their climatic conditions as well as the current rate of deforestation and forest degradation on an elitist-led massive land...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Liberia: Farmers Attribute Climate Change to Govt Concession PoliciesMalaysia: Indigenous blockade expands against massive dam in Sarawak
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2012
Mongabay: Indigenous people have expanded their blockade against the Murum dam in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, taking over an additional road to prevent construction materials from reaching the dam site. Beginning on September 26th with 200 Penan people, the blockade has boomed to well over 300. Groups now occupy not just the main route to the dam site, but an alternative route that the dam's contractor, the China-located Three Gorges Project Corporation, had begun to use.
"The major works on the construction...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Malaysia: Indigenous blockade expands against massive dam in SarawakCanada’s Caribou Preservation Plan at Odds with Oil Sands Activity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2012
Canadian Press: The federal government is promising to work harder to preserve habitat needed by Canada's vanishing woodland caribou.
In a document released late Friday afternoon, Environment Canada released the final version of long-awaited recovery strategy for the animals, which scientists believe could be wiped out from some areas within a generation.
The plan puts the emphasis on habitat restoration, saying that all caribou ranges should be at least 65 per cent undisturbed.
"For boreal caribou ranges...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada’s Caribou Preservation Plan at Odds with Oil Sands ActivityUnited Kingdom: Osborne offers tax breaks for shale gas
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2012
Independent: Britain will seek to open up its potential reserves of the emerging but controversial fuel, shale gas, with a "generous new tax regime", the Chancellor has revealed, in a promise which has dismayed environmentalists.
The pledge reinforced George Osborne's aim of making a "dash for gas" the main thrust of Britain's future energy policy, raising more concerns that the Coalition was moving away from its promise of being the "greenest government ever".
Mr Osborne's Liberal Democrat coalition partners...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Osborne offers tax breaks for shale gasFrack Mob Says No to Spectra Energy’s Radioactive Pipeline
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on October 8th, 2012
EcoWatch: On Oct. 6, fractivists painted their bodies green and choreographed a Frack Mob at the entrance to Spectra Energy`s radioactive pipeline construction site.
This Public Spectra-cle was a performance art statement about the public health and safety risk that the Spectra Energy Pipeline will bring to New York City if it is allowed to continue its construction on the site at the end of Gansevoort Street and the Hudson River.
We are using public spectacle as part of the direct action campaign to...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Frack Mob Says No to Spectra Energy’s Radioactive Pipeline