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Archive for April 22nd, 2013
For development in Brazil, two crops are better than one
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 22nd, 2013
ScienceDaily: It's not just about agriculture. Growing two crops a year in the same field improves schools, helps advance public sanitation, raises median income, and creates jobs.
New research finds that double cropping -- planting two crops in a field in the same year -- is associated with positive signs of economic development for rural Brazilians.
The research focused the state of Mato Grosso, the epicenter of an agricultural revolution that has made Brazil one of the world's top producers of soybeans,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on For development in Brazil, two crops are better than onePower Plants Use Rivers For Cooling, But Cause Stress To The Environment
Posted by RedOrbit: Michael Harper on April 22nd, 2013
RedOrbit: When thermoelectric power plants convert water to steam to turn large turbines and create energy, they’re left with plenty of what’s known as “waste heat.” This waste heat has to go somewhere and either flows up into the atmosphere or back into the rivers or ponds where these factories source their fresh water.
To better understand where this waste heat goes and how it affects the environment, scientists from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and the City College of New York (CCNY) ran a pair...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Power Plants Use Rivers For Cooling, But Cause Stress To The EnvironmentCanada: Alberta’s ‘Dirty Oil’: Drillers, Opponents Square Off
Posted by CNBC: Anne Thompson on April 22nd, 2013
CNBC: At a public hearing this week in Nebraska, there's sure to be plenty of talk about the environmental impact of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that will bring oil from Hardisty, Alberta through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska to Steele City and then on to Gulf Coast refineries.
But the real environmental debate begins hundreds of miles north where the oil comes from, in Fort McMurray, Alberta--the unofficial capital of oil sands country.
At the end of March, I visited the oil sands operations....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: Alberta’s ‘Dirty Oil’: Drillers, Opponents Square OffEarth Day: Time to Recognize the Rights of Nature
Posted by CNBC: Terry Tamminen on April 22nd, 2013
CNBC: It's Earth Day 2013, and it's a good time to step back and see how we've been doing since the first one 1970. That's when 20 million people took to the streets to protest rivers on fire, DDT-poisoned birds, sewage on beaches and a devastating oil spill off the pristine Santa Barbara, Calif., coast. Soon after, many of our basic national environmental laws were passed in direct response to this massive grassroots movement.
Is there another wave of this activism coming?
Since those early days,...
Ark. Oil Spill Probe Falls to Understaffed Agency With Close Industry Ties
Posted by InsideClimate: Katherine Bagley on April 22nd, 2013
InsideClimate: Just a day after roughly one million gallons of heavy Canadian crude [3] oil spilled into Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board announced it was launching a formal investigation into the incident. It quickly set up shop in a local hotel and conducted dozens of interviews with pipeline workers, local officials and residents. It did field and laboratory analysis of the ruptured pipeline in its own labs. And its investigators pored over the responsible company’s...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Ark. Oil Spill Probe Falls to Understaffed Agency With Close Industry TiesWhy is Spain Pushing Back on Shale?
Posted by Forbes: Christopher Coats on April 22nd, 2013
Forbes: Spain pushed back against European shale with a local vote in the northern region of Cantabria mounted a vote against the practice of hydraulic fracking amid mounting concerns about its environmental impact.
While the vote is only a local effort, the region possesses the largest potential reserve of shale gas in the country, effectively removing the Spain’s surest bet for domestic production and outside investment from the table. In addition to hosting the largest potential reserves in Spain,...
Report: UK will need gas in the future – but must avoid ‘carbon lock-in’
Posted by BusinessGreen: None Given on April 22nd, 2013
BusinessGreen: The UK must continue its policy of closing coal-fired power stations to meet its climate targets and should switch plants to run on biomass or gas to reduce emissions over the coming decades.
Significant investments will also be needed in energy efficiency, nuclear and new renewable generation as well as carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, according to a major new report published today by Carbon Connect, an independent cross-party forum chaired by former Energy Minister Charles Hendry...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Report: UK will need gas in the future – but must avoid ‘carbon lock-in’Climate Change is Finally Real for the American People
Posted by Triple Pundit: Rosana Francescato on April 22nd, 2013
Triple Pundit: 2012 seems set to go down in history as the year in which climate change became real for the United States. Over a period of six months, New York City flooded, the biggest drought in half a century settled into the Midwest, and wildfires burned 9.3 million acres in one of the worst fire seasons ever recorded.
By July last year, over 40,000 daily heat records had been broken in the U.S.
The question now is whether last year’s epic run of epic events will lead to new momentum for climate solutions....
Human actions threaten the world’s pollinating insects
Posted by PlanetEarth: Tamera Jones on April 22nd, 2013
PlanetEarth: A combination of multiple, mostly man-made pressures are largely responsible for the continued global decline in honeybees, bumblebees, and other insect pollinators, say scientists. The oil-collecting bee Rediviva longimanus delves deep into the orchid Pterygodium schelpei to extract oil with absorbent hairs on its elongated front feet. It seems individual stresses like intensive farming, climate change, the spread of alien species and diseases are almost entirely to blame for pollinator losses....
Iceland Project Plays Dice With Nature, And Loses
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 22nd, 2013
Inter Press Service: Since the controversial Karahnjukar dam in East Iceland was brought into operation in 2006, conditions in the downstream Lagarfljot lake have become much worse, according to information gathered by the energy company Landsvirkjun. Some of the changes are irreversible, scientists say.
The information divulged by Landsvirkjun comes from a draft report that was presented to the local municipal council.
Lagarfljot lake is 92 km long and is actually a series of lakes with a river running through...