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Archive for June, 2013
Floods cause chaos across Europe – in pictures
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 6th, 2013
Guardian: Rescuers help residents escape, as floodwater from the Elbe and Danube rivers continue to swamp swaths of Germany and the Czech Republic, with the highest water level expected to arrive on Friday
Vilsack: Climate change will soon affect agriculture
Posted by Des Moines Register: None Given on June 6th, 2013
Des Moines Register: U.S. farmers and ranchers must adapt or risk getting left behind as climate change becomes an increasingly influential part of the agricultural landscape, the head of the U.S. Agriculture Department said Wednesday.
During a speech in Washington, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said better technological advancements through products such as seed so far have been enough to maintain production levels despite more intense storms, forest fires and an increase in invasive species.
But Vilsack,...
United Kingdom: Locals can now veto windfarms: so what about fracking?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 6th, 2013
Guardian: Power to the people! That, say ministers, is what changes to windfarm rules announced on Thurday deliver. What they fail to say is it only applies to the minority of people who live in Conservative constituencies where the Tories feel compelled to out-loony the climate change deniers of UKIP. The majority of the British public who support renewable energy are left powerless.
But giving local communities a veto on wind farms raises an intriguing question: will the same apply to those who oppose...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on United Kingdom: Locals can now veto windfarms: so what about fracking?Japan: Water leak at Fukushima nuclear plant
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 6th, 2013
BBC: Radioactive water is leaking from a storage tank at Japan's Fukushima plant, its operator says.
Nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said a worker discovered the leak on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Tepco also announced that it had found radioactive caesium in ground water around the plant.
The plant was damaged in an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, and has been hit by several leaks and power failures in recent months.
Hundreds of huge water tanks have been constructed...
Canada Oil Output Will Double by 2030, if Pipelines Built
Posted by Bloomberg: Edward Welsch on June 6th, 2013
Bloomberg: Canada’s crude output will more than double to 6.7 million barrels a day by 2030, provided new pipelines such as Keystone XL are built to transport growing oil-sands production, an industry group representing the country’s petroleum producers said.
Crude from the oil sands, the largest component of Canadian output, will rise to 5.2 million barrels a day by 2030 from 1.8 million currently, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said in its 2013 annual forecast. The group boosted its overall...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada Oil Output Will Double by 2030, if Pipelines BuiltObama Dogged by Keystone XL Protesters on Bay Visit
Posted by San Francisco Chronicle: Joe Garofoli and Megan Messerly on June 6th, 2013
San Francisco Chronicle: President Obama swooped through Silicon Valley Thursday for two private fundraisers, dogged by protesters who urged him not to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project that would transport tar sands fuel across the United States.
Holding signs that said, "Stop the Keystone XL pipeline," and chanting "Hey Obama. We don't want no pipeline drama," more than 350 demonstrators from activist groups, including CREDO Mobile and the Sierra Club, gathered near the Palo Alto home of Flipboard...
First Amphibian Declared Extinct ‘Rediscovered’ in Israel’s Hula Valley
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2013
Yale Environment 360: A team of scientists says it has “rediscovered” in northern Israel the first amphibian declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a species of frog that turns out to be the only surviving member of an extinct genus of frogs. First discovered in Israel’s Hula Valley in the 1940s, the Hula painted frog was presumed gone when Hula Lake dried up in the late 1950s, and it was declared extinct in 1996. But since an individual frog was discovered during a patrol in Hula...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on First Amphibian Declared Extinct ‘Rediscovered’ in Israel’s Hula ValleyThe Devastating Legacy of Extreme Fossil Fuel Extraction
Posted by EcoWatch: Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance on June 5th, 2013
EcoWatch: Watch this powerful video from Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, Our Back is Against the Wall, featuring Ponca elders Carter Camp and Casey Camp-Horinek describing the devastating legacy of oil exploitation in their communities in present day Oklahoma. Expanding tar sands mining in Alberta, Canada, through the Keystone XL is the latest threat to indigenous sovereignty and traditional homelands.
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on The Devastating Legacy of Extreme Fossil Fuel ExtractionPakistan wilts under record heat wave
Posted by Reuters: Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio on June 5th, 2013
Reuters: Zulekhan Mumtaz has seen her livelihood as a seller of camel milk turn sour because of a brutal heat wave that left Pakistan sweltering for three weeks in May with temperatures up to 51 degrees Celsius. "My customers say they can no longer buy spoilt milk and squander their money,' the 31-year-old said, looking at the clotted yellow liquid. "How can I buy fodder for the camel and food for my two children if the heat wave damages my milk?' she asked, resting with her animal in the shade of a tree...
Fracking Creates Water Scarcity Issues in Michigan
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on June 5th, 2013
EcoWatch: Concerns about the impact to local groundwater by massive water use--on a scale never before seen in Michigan fracking operations--are coming to a head, as the plan for Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. to use 8.4 million gallons of water to fracture a single well has been stymied by a lack of water on site.
Instead, the company is trucking water--nearly 1 million gallons of it in just one week--from the City of Kalkaska’s water system to meet its needs. This one fracking operation today is using more...