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Archive for March, 2013
Dead pigs washed up from Shanghai river number 6,000
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2013
Guardian: The number of pig carcasses recovered from a Shanghai waterway passes 6,000 on Wednesday. The animals were first found in the Huangpu River on Sunday and recovery workers are still removing bodies from the water. Though tests show there is no threat to health, discovery of the carcasses raises concerns over food safety and pollution
Ready for anything: County sets up climate change council
Posted by Wisconsin State Journal: None Given on March 13th, 2013
Wisconsin State Journal: Locusts aren't mentioned, but just about anything else that could cause calamity in Dane County is included in a new plan to make sure we're ready for weather extremes.
The Climate Change Action Council, the first of its kind in Wisconsin, was announced Wednesday by Dane County Executive Joe Parisi.
The council will make recommendations for changes or additional resources the county or public safety agencies need to be better prepared with changing climate that has taxed the capacity to respond....
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Ready for anything: County sets up climate change council350 Action Endorses Markey for U.S. Senate for His Opposition to Keystone XL
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on March 13th, 2013
EcoWatch: 350 Action, the political arm of 350.org, today announced that they will endorse Rep. Ed Markey for U.S. Senate in Massachusettes. This marks the first time that 350 Action has endorsed a candidate for office.
“Rep. Markey is the only candidate in this race who is taking a principled stand on the dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline,” said 350 Action executive director May Boeve. “In Congress, each candidate had his shot at opposing this boondoggle of a project, which, if approved, would mean...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on 350 Action Endorses Markey for U.S. Senate for His Opposition to Keystone XLNew Desalination Process Slashes Costs of Producing Fresh Water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2013
Yale Environment 360: Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest military contractors, has developed a process that company officials say significantly reduces the amount of energy needed to desalinate water, an innovation that could help communities worldwide tackle the growing threat of water scarcity. According to the U.S.-based company, the new process uses ultra-thin carbon membranes with holes large enough to allow water to pass through, but small enough to block the salt molecules in seawater, Reuters reports....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New Desalination Process Slashes Costs of Producing Fresh WaterChina: Dead pigs in Shanghai river: more than 6,000 carcasses found
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2013
Associated Press: Hundreds more dead pigs have been recovered from the Huangpu river, in Shanghai, following the discovery of more than 2,800 floating porcine carcasses in the water course earlier this week.
The find brings the total to more than 6,600 pig carcasses since last Friday.
The swollen, rotting, bodies in the Huangpu are causing anxiety for many residents, but officials said the water, extracted for tap supplies, remained safe.
A surge in dumping of dead pigs followed police campaigns against the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on China: Dead pigs in Shanghai river: more than 6,000 carcasses foundExtreme water in Earth’s interior
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Earth is the only known planet that holds water in massive quantities and in all three of the main phase states. But the earthly, omnipresent compound water has very unusual properties that become particularly evident when subjected to high pressure and high temperatures.
In the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a German-Finnish-French team published what happens when water is subjected to pressure and temperature conditions such as those found in the...
Preparing for drought cheaper than waiting for it – UN agencies
Posted by AlertNet: Megan Rowling on March 13th, 2013
AlertNet: U.N. agencies are calling on governments at a high-level meeting this week to start reacting more quickly to warnings of drought and put in place national policies to prepare for longer and worse droughts.
"In the next decade to come, drought will continue escalating in severity, in occurrence and in duration," Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), told AlertNet from the conference in Geneva. "Preparedness and risk management cost-wise are...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Preparing for drought cheaper than waiting for it – UN agenciesCanada playing US for fools on Keystone, opposition leader says
Posted by The Hill: Zack Colman on March 13th, 2013
The Hill: Canada’s opposition leader will visit Washington, D.C., this week to counter statements by Canadian officials in a recent lobbying blitz supporting the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.
The trip by Tom Mulcair, of Canada’s New Democratic Party, comes amidst a series of United States trips by Canadian officials to meet with Obama administration personnel and lawmakers about the pipeline.
According to Canada’s National Post, Mulcair’s message to the lawmakers and business executives with whom he...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada playing US for fools on Keystone, opposition leader saysSenate bill would boost funding for weather satellites
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2013
Climate Central: Key weather and climate satellites would get a boost under a new Senate spending proposal.
The $984 billion measure, which Senate Appropriations Committee leaders introduced late Monday, would fund the federal government from March 27 until Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year.
The bill would increase the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) budget for satellite procurement to $1.814 billion, $117 million more than the agency received last year. NOAA's overall budget...
Antibiotics; If we don’t stop handing out antibiotics like sweets, even a cut finger could soon be fatal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2013
Daily Mail: They are turning up in our water, on our skin, in our public loos and in the food we eat. They are potentially lethal bacteria that resist our best antibiotic drugs, and these new super-infections are emerging because we have created them - through our own hypochondria and ignorance. Yesterday, the chief medical officer for England, Professor Dame Sally Davies, warned that the growing scourge of antibiotic-resistant infections is set to cause a human catastrophe on the same scale as international...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Antibiotics; If we don’t stop handing out antibiotics like sweets, even a cut finger could soon be fatal