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Archive for November 16th, 2012
Amid Climate Change Inaction in Washington, Activist Urges Americans To ‘Do The Math’
Posted by Huffington Post: Tom Zeller Jr. on November 16th, 2012
Huffington Post: Official shoulder-shrugging on climate change in Washington is no longer surprising to Bill McKibben, the environmentalist and tireless advocate for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. "It's true that D.C. hasn't yet caught on," he said in an email message Friday afternoon. "They're still in the grip of the fossil fuel industry."
The consequences of that grip are appearing increasingly dire. The International Energy Agency released its annual World Energy Outlook this week, for example. Among the...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Amid Climate Change Inaction in Washington, Activist Urges Americans To ‘Do The Math’Alaska’s Clash Over Salmon and Gold Goes National
Posted by National Geographic: Edwin Dobb on November 16th, 2012
National Geographic: After numerous skirmishes involving state petitions and legislative initiatives, lawsuits and public opinion campaigns, the battle may have reached the final stage, or at least a turning point in how Alaskans resolve disagreements over the exploitation of natural resources, long the backbone of the state economy.
Back in May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a draft assessment of the potential consequences of a Pebble mine-like development in the Bristol Bay watershed. Even under...
Climate Change panel chief says ‘not invited to COP18’
Posted by Gulf Times: None Given on November 16th, 2012
Gulf Times: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will not be attending the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18/CMP8) in Doha, chairman Dr Rajendra K Pachauri has said.
“For the first time in the 18 years of COP, the IPCC will not be attending, because we have not been invited,” he told Gulf Times in Doha.
COP18 is to be held from November 26 to December 7.
The IPCC, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, former vice president of...
Keystone pipeline gets political help ahead of protest
Posted by NBC: None Given on November 16th, 2012
NBC: A bipartisan group of senators on Friday urged President Barack Obama to quickly issue a permit for the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project environmental groups have vowed to keep fighting.
The senators -- nine Democrats and nine Republicans -- asked Obama to approve the pipeline because it will create jobs and reduce the need for oil from the Middle East. They were led by Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and powerful chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and John Hoeven, a North...
New film chases glaciers, with time-lapse photos
Posted by Reuters: Lindsay Claiborn on November 16th, 2012
Reuters: Al Gore won an Oscar with a documentary that used bar graphs and pie charts to illustrate climate change and the fate of the Earth.
Six years after Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," a new film, "Chasing Ice," goes beyond the data and the diagrams to document the disappearance of the world's glaciers with time-lapse photography.
Nature photographer James Balog has been capturing the grandeur of glaciers and ice floes since 2007. He started the Extreme Ice Survey the same year, which is considered...
Iran steps up pace and capacity of uranium enrichment, says IAEA report
Posted by Guardian: Julian Borger on November 16th, 2012
Guardian: Iran has expanded its enrichment capacity and is enriching uranium at a pace that would bring it to what Israel has declared an unacceptable red line in just over seven months, according to a report by the UN nuclear watchdog.
The International Atomic Energy Agency also found that Iranian technicians had removed the fuel rods from the country's only functioning nuclear power station at Bushehr, suggesting the new reactor has serious problems. Iran did not tell IAEA inspectors what those problems...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Iran steps up pace and capacity of uranium enrichment, says IAEA reportClimate change and global warming may be affecting NJ public water sources
Posted by Hunterdon Democrat: Renée Kiriluk-Hill on November 16th, 2012
Hunterdon Democrat: Climate change and global warming may be affecting our public water supply.
United Water New Jersey, which serves about 812,000 customers in the northern half of the state, detected a "large" algae bloom in a West Amwell Township reservoir for the first time and now plans to step up monitoring.
The West Amwell reservoir feeds the Lambertville public water system. Algae blooms are common in shallow reservoirs, said company spokesman Steve Goudsmith, but this was the first time a large bloom...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change and global warming may be affecting NJ public water sourcesIf Big Coal Can Phase Out Mountaintop Removal
Posted by EcoWatch: Jeff Biggers on November 16th, 2012
EcoWatch: Call it a moment of truth for Big Coal--and a small crack in the wall of denial for the U.S. Congress and the White House.
On the cliff of bankruptcy, St. Louis-based Patriot Coal Corporation agreed this week to a settlement to phase out its large-scale strip mining and mountaintop removal operations in central Appalachia. Even more importantly, Patriot became the first coal company to admit "our mining operations impact the communities in which we operate in significant ways, and we are committed...
Weather Service Halts Review of Its Work During Sandy
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on November 16th, 2012
Climate Central: Just days after commissioning a review of its performance during Hurricane Sandy, the National Weather Service (NWS) abruptly disbanded the review team Thursday, saying that "a larger, multi-agency review of this event may take place' instead. The agency gave no time frame on when another review team might be put in place, or what other agencies might be involved in such a review.
Consistent with its tradition of evaluating its performance following major and deadly weather events, the NWS had...
EPA turns down states’ request for ethanol waiver
Posted by Associated Press: Mary Clare Jalonick on November 16th, 2012
Associated Press: The Environmental Protection Agency has denied requests from several governors to waive production requirements for corn-based ethanol.
A renewable fuels law requires that 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol be produced by this year and 15 billion gallons be produced by 2015. That's good for corn farmers, but it's angered poultry, hog and cattle farmers. They say they've seen big jumps in corn-based feed costs as corn is diverted to make ethanol vehicle fuel.
States requesting the waiver say reduced...