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Archive for September 5th, 2013
Shell to negotiate with Nigerians over oil spill compensation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 5th, 2013
Reuters: Compensation talks will begin in Nigeria on Monday between lawyers for Royal Dutch Shell and for 15,000 Nigerian villagers who say their livelihoods were destroyed by oil spills from pipelines operated by the company.
The Nigerians launched a suit against Shell at the High Court in London in March 2012, seeking millions of dollars in compensation for two oil spills in 2008 that polluted the waterways of the Bodo fishing communities in the Niger Delta.
The legal action is being closely watched...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Shell to negotiate with Nigerians over oil spill compensationAl Gore’s Incredible Shrinking Climate Change Footprint
Posted by BuzzFeed: Evan McMorris-Santoro, Ruby Cramer on September 5th, 2013
BuzzFeed: Last January, Al Gore took a boatload of scientists, donors, and celebrities to Antarctica to talk about climate change.
Richard Branson, James Cameron, Ted Turner, Tom Brokaw, and Tommy Lee Jones joined more than 100 other paying guests -- Gore`s handpicked best and brightest -- on the National Geographic Explorer, an ice-class 367-foot cruise ship, to see "up close and personal" the effects of a warming planet, courtesy of the former vice president`s environmental nonprofit, the Climate Reality...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Al Gore’s Incredible Shrinking Climate Change FootprintBP Wants To Halt Deepwater Horizon Claims Process
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 5th, 2013
National Public Radio: BP is fighting the settlement it agreed to last summer that let the oil company avoid thousands of potential lawsuits over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Just after the spill, when oil was still gushing into the Gulf, BP touted the $20 billion it set aside for claims. But now it says the claim process is corrupt and is hoping a court will overturn the settlement that established the claims fund.
Ending the claims would mean stopping a well-oiled machine.
According to Shandy Garr of Garden...
Study says climate change exacerbated half of recent extreme weather events
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 5th, 2013
Guardian: Half of last year's extreme weather – including the triple-digit temperatures of America's July heatwave – were due in part to climate change, new research said on Thursday.
The study, edited by scientists from Noaa and the UK Met Office, detected the fingerprints of climate change on about half of the 12 most extreme weather events of 2012.
The researchers said climate change helped raise the temperatures during the run of 100F days in last year's American heat wave; drove the record loss...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Study says climate change exacerbated half of recent extreme weather eventsFracking triggered more than 100 earthquakes in Ohio
Posted by Grist: John Upton on September 5th, 2013
Grist: A single fracking wastewater well triggered 167 earthquakes in and around Youngstown, Ohio, during a single year of operation. That’s according to a study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research by Won-Young Kim, a researcher at Columbia University. Earthquakes had never been recorded at Youngstown before 2010. Then, at the end of that year, frackers started pumping their waste from Marcellus Shale drilling projects into the 9,200-foot deep Northstar 1 injection well. Within two weeks,...
Alaska officials lobby Wal-Mart on salmon-critical move
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 5th, 2013
Reuters: Alaska officials lobbied Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Thursday to keep selling the state's wild-caught salmon despite their decision to drop an environmental certification label required by the world's largest retailer.
Any decision on salmon by Wal-Mart, the largest food seller in the United States, and by possibly other companies, could ripple through the grocery industry and potentially harm Alaska's fishing-dependant economy.
Alaskan fishing and policy officials were meeting with buyers at Wal-Mart's...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Alaska officials lobby Wal-Mart on salmon-critical moveSwapping Corn for Rice Benefits China’s Miyun Reservoir
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 5th, 2013
Yale Environment 360: After years of contamination and decreasing output, China's Miyun Reservoir is rebounding, say researchers from China and the U.S. Rice farming had contaminated and tapped the reservoir, which lies 100 miles north of Beijing and is the main water source for the city's 20 million inhabitants. But four years ago, the Chinese government began paying farmers to grow corn instead, which requires less water and leads to less fertilizer and sediment runoff than rice farming. Now, water quality tests show...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Swapping Corn for Rice Benefits China’s Miyun ReservoirWhite House reviewing U.S. 2014 biofuel targets
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 5th, 2013
Reuters: The Environmental Protection Agency has sent its proposal for U.S. biofuel use targets for 2014 to the White House for review, as the agency races to avoid the delays that plagued the renewable fuel program this year.
Next year's targets are due to be proposed this month and finalized in December. That timeline could slip, however, depending on the how long the White House's Office of Management and Budget takes to review the proposal it received late last week.
As oil refiners face soaring...
Canadian Govt Spent $120 Mil on Research for Enbridge
Posted by CBC: None Given on September 5th, 2013
CBC: Federal Green MP Elizabeth May is accusing the federal government of using tax dollars to support the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. May says her party has obtained documents showing $120 million in oil spill-related research is being carried out off the north coast, where Enbridge hopes to run oil tankers as part of its proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline project. Read more about the Northern Gateway Pipeline "The fact that the federal government is using our tax dollars to back stop Enbridge's...
Climate change a threat to freshwater fishing
Posted by Bangor Daily News: John Holyoke on September 5th, 2013
Bangor Daily News: A warming planet could have dire results for those who enjoy freshwater fishing, according to a National Wildlife Federation report that was released on Wednesday, and a leading Maine outdoor advocate worries that climate change may eventually cost the state its iconic brook trout population. Changes in habitat and ecosystems and severe weather events are among the threats, which the report predicted could cost states billions over the coming century. “The loss of recreational fishing opportunities...