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Archive for October, 2012
Wealthy nations, excluding U.S., pledge to double funds for biodiversity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2012
Mongabay: Although negotiations came down to the wire, nations finally brokered a new deal at the 11th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Hyderabad, India; at its heart is a pledge to double resources from wealthier countries to the developing world by 2015 to conserve embattled species and ecosystems. While no numbers were put on the table, observers say a doubling of current resources would mean around $10-12 billion a year. However, this amount is still far short of what scientists...
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Comments Off on Wealthy nations, excluding U.S., pledge to double funds for biodiversityALERT! Stop CNN the Coal News Network Fossil Fuel Greenwash, Abetting Climate Silence
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on October 22nd, 2012
TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!
CNN has jumped the shark and is no longer a reliable, independent news source, as it has become increasingly indebted to fossil fuel advertising, and greenwashes abrupt climate change. CNN coal funding in particular has resulted in infrequent and biased daily news coverage of ecological issues, and has abetted US Presidential candidates' silence on climate change. As currently funded, if CNN told the truth on abrupt climate change, global ecosystem collapse, and the role of fossil fuels in these crises; it is doubtful whether CNN would even exist after the coal and other fossil fuel industries pulled their advertising. CNN must indicate how they will change their business model to allow improved, propaganda free, and increased coverage of the huge amount of daily news regarding our fossil fuel addiction; North America's tar sands, coal and fracking ecocide; and the many looming global ecological emergencies.
Posted in Uncategorized Comments Off on ALERT! Stop CNN the Coal News Network Fossil Fuel Greenwash, Abetting Climate SilenceIs Ohio’s secret energy boom going bust?
Posted by Reuters: Edward McAllister and Selam Gebrekidan on October 22nd, 2012
Reuters: Dozens of wells drilled this year across rural Ohio are quietly pumping out the answer to the U.S. energy industry's most loaded question: Is the Utica shale formation, touted as a potentially $500 billion frontier, a boom or a bust?
Yet the answer is likely to remain concealed for some time.
More than a year after Chesapeake Energy Corp Chief Executive and top Ohio driller Aubrey McClendon declared the Utica to be "the biggest thing to hit Ohio since the plow," investors, landowners and even...
Fake ‘addendum’ by conservative group tries to undo federal climate report
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2012
Daily Climate: A new "addendum" to be released as soon as this week purports to update with the latest science a 2009 federal assessment on the impacts to the United States of climate change.
The addendum matches the layout and design of the original, published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program: Cover art, "key message" sections, table of contents are all virtually identical, down to the chapter heads, fonts and footnotes.
But the new report comes from the conservative Washington, D.C.-based Cato...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fake ‘addendum’ by conservative group tries to undo federal climate reportEl Salvador mulls total ban on mining
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2012
Mongabay: On hot days the broken stone and dried up silt from the San Sebastian mine in Eastern El Salvador bake in the sun. The slew of refuse is freckled with rock stained bright blue with cyanide, open to the elements that on rainier days will wash it downhill into the Rio San Sebastian below.
The openings of passages into the mine dot the mountainside, and further downhill a bright orange stream with a chemical stench flows into another. The American Commerce Group ceased operating here in 1999 but...
Haiti cholera ‘started at UN camp’
Posted by BBC: Mark Doyle on October 22nd, 2012
BBC: New evidence has emerged about the alleged role of United Nations troops in causing a cholera epidemic in the Caribbean nation of Haiti.
A top US cholera specialist, Dr Daniele Lantagne, said after studying new scientific data that it is now "most likely" the source of the outbreak was a camp for recently-arrived UN soldiers from Nepal - a country where cholera is widespread.
Dr Lantagne was employed by the UN itself in 2011 as one of the world's pre-eminent experts on the disease.
The new...
Australia: Climate change bill of $1b for suburbs
Posted by Age: Cameron Houston on October 21st, 2012
Age: WATERFRONT communities from Southbank to the Mornington Peninsula face a damage bill of more than $1 billion from severe storms and rising sea levels over the next 90 years, according to a confidential climate change report.
The report, by federal, state and local governments, warns that parts of Rosebud foreshore could be completely submerged by 2100 during coastal flooding, while residents around Elwood's canals face massive annual losses if government and local councils fail to act.
Maps...
The Energy Rush: After the Boom in Natural Gas
Posted by New York Times: Clifford Krauss and Eric Lipton on October 20th, 2012
New York Times: THE crew of workers fought off the blistering Louisiana sun, jerking their wrenches to tighten the fat hoses that would connect their cement trucks to the Chesapeake Energy drill rig — one of the last two rigs the company is still using to drill for natural gas here in the Haynesville Shale. At its peak, Chesapeake ran 38 rigs in the region. All told, it has sunk more than 1,200 wells into the Haynesville, a gas-rich vein of dense rock that straddles Louisiana and Texas. Fed by a gold-rush mentality...
Fears grow over Conservatives’ links to fossil fuel lobbyists
Posted by Guardian: Jamie Doward and Toby Helm on October 20th, 2012
Guardian: Government backing for new forms of gas extraction such as "fracking" are coming under acute scrutiny, after a sacked energy minister warned against "betting the farm" on them and green groups expressed alarm at links between the fossil fuel lobby and the Tories.
An Observer investigation has established that energy trading giant Vitol, whose boss has given more than £500,000 to the Conservatives, has emerged as a major shareholder in a company bringing "hydraulic fracturing", commonly known as...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fears grow over Conservatives’ links to fossil fuel lobbyistsDespite 2012 algae break feds invest in longterm Great Lakes controls
Posted by Great Lakes Echo: David Poulson on October 20th, 2012
Great Lakes Echo: Is it a political risk for an administration to spend nearly $6 million during an election year on a near-shore issue that was practically non-existent that same summer? Not when that issue is Great Lakes algae. The Obama administration spread about half that sum, or $3 million, among seven Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant recipients in Ohio and nearly as much to four in Michigan, mostly for nutrient-reduction projects aimed to help reduce algae. The administration’s support for addressing...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Despite 2012 algae break feds invest in longterm Great Lakes controls