Archive for August 30th, 2013

Report: Keystone XL Will Drive Oil Sands Growth, Boost Emissions

Hill: The Keystone XL pipeline will expand oil sands production in Canada by 36 percent, and therefore, ramp up carbon emissions, according to a report released Thursday by environmental groups. The groups said the report gives President Obama “all of the information he needs to reject” Keystone, as the president said in June he’d oppose the Canada-to-Texas pipeline if it “significantly exacerbates” carbon pollution. “The answer to the president’s Keystone XL climate challenge is clear: the Keystone...

Deep Ice Canyon Found Far Below Greenland Surface

Environment News Service: Using ice-penetrating radar, scientists have discovered a long, deep canyon that exists a mile beneath the Greenland ice sheet, data from a NASA airborne science mission and an international research team reveals. The scientific team identified a continuous bedrock canyon that extends from almost the center of the island and ends at its northern extremity in a deep fjord connecting to the Arctic ocean. The canyon looks like a winding river channel at least 460 miles (750 kilometers) long, making...

Yosemite wildfire still raging, keeps tourists away

Reuters: Fire crews battling to outflank a monster wildfire inside Yosemite National Park made headway on Friday in confining flames to wilderness areas but were powerless to salvage the region's sputtering tourist economy at the end of its peak summer tourist season. By morning, the tally of charred landscape from the so-called Rim Fire surpassed 200,000 acres, or nearly 315 square miles, three-quarters of that in the Stanislaus National Forest west of the park, fire officials said. But a second straight...

Kalamazoo pipeline protester could get two years in jail

Grist: One oil spill in his community was more than enough for Kalamazoo resident Christopher Wahmhoff. To protest Enbridge’s replacement of the pipeline that burst along a Michigan riverbank in 2010, Wahmhoff spent 10 hours of his 35th birthday inside the new pipe, slowing construction for a single day in June. Now Wahmhoff, a member of the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands, has been charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor, charges that could see him put behind bars for more than two years. “It...