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Archive for May 4th, 2013
United Kingdom: How our fens were sacrificed for more farms
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
Independent: Very few parts of the British landscape have eluded great change in the past 1,000 years, but none of them have suffered a loss which can remotely compare to that of the fens of eastern England. These vast wetlands – at times desolate but always teeming with wildlife – once stretched from just above Cambridge to north Yorkshire.
But, at first gradually, and then systematically, they have been all but destroyed, the loss amounting, if you can credit such a figure, to around 3,500 square miles....
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on United Kingdom: How our fens were sacrificed for more farmsToxic Waste Sites Cause ‘Healthy Years of Life Lost’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Toxic waste sites with elevated levels of lead and chromium cause a high number of "healthy years of life lost" in individuals living near 373 sites located in India, Philippines and Indonesia, according to a study by a Mount Sinai researcher published online today in Environmental Health Perspectives.
The study leader, Kevin Chatham-Stephens, MD, Pediatric Environmental Health Fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, presented the findings today at the Pediatric Academic Societies...
To Silence Discontent, Chinese Officials Alter Calendar
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
National Public Radio: How do you prevent protests in China? Move the weekend.
That's the Orwellian step taken by local authorities in the southwestern city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. May 4 is a sensitive date commemorating an influential student movement in 1919. It's especially potent in Chengdu, where it marks the fifth anniversary of a protest against the construction of a $6 billion crude oil refinery and petrochemical facility in Pengzhou, 25 miles away.
As text messages circulated calling...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on To Silence Discontent, Chinese Officials Alter CalendarChinese River’s Fate May Reshape a Region
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
New York Times: From its crystalline beginnings as a rivulet seeping from a glacier on the Tibetan Himalayas to its broad, muddy amble through the jungles of Myanmar, the Nu River is one of Asia’s wildest waterways, its 1,700-mile course unimpeded as it rolls toward the Andaman Sea.
But the Nu’s days as one of the region’s last free-flowing rivers are dwindling. The Chinese government stunned environmentalists this year by reviving plans to build a series of hydropower dams on the upper reaches of the Nu, the...
California Wildfires May Be Controlled This Weekend, Official Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
New York Times: Wildfires gripping Ventura County, Calif., spread on Friday night but will most likely come under control during the weekend with the aid of favorable weather, a fire official said Saturday. The fires, which had forced evacuations and laid waste to thousands of acres of woodland, took hold late last week. They had spread to 28,000 acres, from 18,000 on Friday, Bill Nash, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department, said early Saturday. But 1,895 fire personnel had managed to contain about...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California Wildfires May Be Controlled This Weekend, Official SaysAwaiting Zuckerberg’s Response to Pro-Keystone XL Ads
Posted by EcoWatch: Conor Kennedy on May 4th, 2013
EcoWatch: Mark Zuckerberg has not yet issued any response to public criticism that his political action group, FWD.us, is funding advertisements supporting construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Gulf of Mexico. FWD.us, co-founded by Zuckerberg with additional donations from a host of his fellow Silicon Valley superstars, has right-wing and left-wing subsidiaries working on parallel tracks to pass bipartisan immigration legislation....
Hurricane Sandy’s Immense Energy Shook the U.S
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on May 4th, 2013
Climate News Network: Sandy, the superstorm that all but submerged New York, was powerful enough to set U.S. earthquake detectors quivering long before it hit the American coastline.
It stirred up Atlantic Ocean waves that slammed into each other, started to shake the sea floor and then shook the Midwestern states so vigorously that the storm's progress could be tracked by seismometer.
The windstorm-induced tremors were very tiny, and not unusual -- and say as much about the sensitivity of modern seismometers as...
Flood control with new hybrid grass
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
Living On Earth: The rainfall-runoff plots were engineered so the scientists could collect the rainfall that moved laterally along the soil above and near the surface. There is little opportunity for water to percolate deep into the soil (photo: Kit Macleod)
As the atmosphere heats up, flooding is on the rise throughout the world. Kit Macleod, a scientist at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, joins host Steve Curwood to discuss a new hybrid grass his team helped breed. It restructures soil to reduce runoff...
Nearly uncontrollable California wildfire grows, threatens 4,000 homes
Posted by CNN: Michael Martinez on May 4th, 2013
CNN: Firefighters and homeowners were anxiously awaiting to learn Saturday whether the emergence of cool ocean breezes and possible rain will weaken a Los Angeles-area wildlfire that has burned 28,000 acres in two days and now threatens 4,000 homes.
The weather change could be a mixed blessing, however, because a chance of isolated thunderstorms this weekend brings a risk of lightning sparking new fires, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
The Los Angeles area fire, based...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Nearly uncontrollable California wildfire grows, threatens 4,000 homesKeystone foes seek climate measures in case they lose
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
Bloomberg: President Barack Obama is being pressed by opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline to tie any approval to measures that would curb climate change, reflecting mounting pressure on the administration to mitigate the project’s impact if it goes forward.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, is among those who want to see new steps to limit greenhouse-gas emissions in the U.S. if TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s petition to build the $5.3 billion pipeline to carry tar-sands oil from Canada to...