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Archive for April, 2013
GOP Head of House Committee Tours Mayflower Oil Spill
Posted by InsideClimate: Drew Petrimoulx on April 22nd, 2013
InsideClimate: The head of a powerful congressional committee visited Mayflower Sunday to get a look at the community where a pipeline burst March 29th spilling thousands of barrels of crude oil. As head of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Congressman Bill Shuster (R-Hollidaysburg) oversees the nation's pipeline system that includes the 20-inch Pegasus line that that flows through Central Arkansas. "We'll figure out what happened and make sure they make corrections so it doesn't happen again,"...
Fracking ‘unlikely to give UK cheap gas’, report says
Posted by Independent: Tom Bawden on April 22nd, 2013
Independent: George Osborne's plan to deliver cheap energy by fostering a fracking revolution has been dealt a severe blow after an influential cross-party group of experts said any boom in shale gas production would be "unlikely to give the UK cheap gas". A nine-month inquiry chaired by former energy minister Charles Hendry, concludes that it is far too early to estimate the volume of shale gas contained in UK rocks and harder still to know how much of that it will be commercially viable to extract. Further...
Is Sustainability Even Possible?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 21st, 2013
Scientific American: Some questions to ponder on Earth Day: how much of an environmental problem is the growing human population? And is the problem too many people or the throwaway culture of too many things?
A new paper in the journal Science attempts to assess the burdens placed on people and the planet by individuals’ decisions to have large families and/or consume a lot.
A key factor in the creation of large families is young women without access to schools or family planning. So one way to address population...
Tim DeChristopher’s Peaceful Uprising
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on April 21st, 2013
EcoWatch: At a time when the debate over climate change is finally gaining post-election traction and hot topics such as fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline have captured public attention, the documentary Bidder 70 is poised to showcase a movement that has steadily gathered force, particularly among millenials, who harbor grave concerns for the increasingly perilous future. The feature-length documentary chronicles how renowned activist Tim DeChristopher’s civil disobedience blazed new opportunities for...
City tackles climate change head-on
Posted by La Crosse Tribune: None Given on April 21st, 2013
La Crosse Tribune: Most of the climate debate occurs at national and global levels. But local officials aren’t ignoring the phenomenon. La Crosse is working with climate scientists to develop ways to better prepare for more extreme weather and other effects attributed to climate change. The city also hosted last year a climate change workshop for city and county officials sponsored by the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts. The primary focus was to build consensus about pragmatic adaptations authorities...
Fuels battle heats up as Congress mulls law change
Posted by Des Moines Register: None Given on April 21st, 2013
Des Moines Register: The battle between U.S. ethanol producers and oil companies has reached a turning point, with the winners poised to gain an advantage over the future of the country’s energy mix and the losers forced to cede profits and jobs to their bitter rival.
Ground zero of the battle is the country’s Renewable Fuel Standard — an 8-year-old law that requires refiners to produce alternative fuels from corn, soybeans and other products in an effort to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil.
The drop...
Thirsty States Take Water Battle To Supreme Court
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 21st, 2013
National Public Radio: Tuesday, Oklahoma and Texas will face off in the U.S. Supreme Court. The winner gets water. And this is not a game.
The court will hear oral arguments in the case of Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, et al. The case pits Oklahoma against Texas over rights to water from the river that forms part of the border between them. Depending on how the court decides, it could impact interstate water-sharing agreements across the country.
Keeping Up With Texas
To understand what the fight...
Climate change may put Montana wineries on map
Posted by Spokesman Review: Rob Chaney on April 21st, 2013
Spokesman Review: Climate change warnings tend to focus on the losers, but Western Montana would come up a winery winner, according to a new scientific analysis of temperature trends.
“Winter temperatures have been a limit to vineyard growth in our state,” said Gary Tabor, director of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation in Bozeman and one of the co-authors of “Climate Change, Wine and Conservation” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “So as we see our temperatures not being as Montanan...
A West Coast Keystone pipeline?
Posted by San Francisco Chronicle: David R. Baker on April 21st, 2013
San Francisco Chronicle: Opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would bring oil from Canada`s tar sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast, runs high in California.
Laying pipe as part of a previous improvement project on the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain.
The proposed pipeline route doesn`t come anywhere near here. But many of California`s eco-conscious citizens oppose expanding tar sands production and aren`t shy about saying so. President Obama found that out earlier this month, when anti-Keystone...
Winemaking would suffer under climate change, study finds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 20th, 2013
Press-Enterprise: Grape growing in the Temecula Valley Wine Country and other prime wine-producing regions of California would wither by mid-century if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated and farmers don’t make significant adjustments to their crops, say the authors of a new climate change study.
Under a worst-case scenario, the area suitable for wine production in the Temecula region would shrink by more than half by 2050, according to the work by Conservation International and Environmental Defense Fund,...
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