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Archive for December, 2013
UK’s Cameron to EU: Don’t stifle fracking with new laws
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 17th, 2013
Reuters: British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned the European Commission not to propose European Union-wide legislation to regulate the nascent fracking industry, saying such a move could create uncertainty and stifle investment. Rising energy bills are a big issue ahead of a 2015 election and Cameron is keen to tap Britain's large resources of shale gas to shore up the country's energy security as its North Sea oil reserves decline. In a letter to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on UK’s Cameron to EU: Don’t stifle fracking with new lawsTransCanada CEO: Company Considering Rail Bridge if Keystone XL Delays Continue
Posted by Financial Post: Claudia Cattaneo on December 17th, 2013
Financial Post: TransCanada Corp. could develop a rail bridge from Canada to Nebraska if the northern portion of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline continues to be held up by the U.S. government, president and CEO Russ Girling said Tuesday.
Supporters and foes of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline are bracing for the release of an environmental analysis from the U.S. government that could determine the US$5.4-billion project’s fate.
While the report isn’t the final step, it’s eagerly anticipated...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on TransCanada CEO: Company Considering Rail Bridge if Keystone XL Delays ContinueScientists Find Tiny Exfoliating Beads In Great Lakes Fish Guts
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 16th, 2013
National Public Radio: Tiny plastic beads used in some cosmetics and toothpaste are making their way into the bellies of fish in the Great Lakes, and it's raising concern among environmentalists. Dr. Sherri Mason, a chemistry professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia, has been researching the issue, and she joins Audie Cornish to explain what this means for the Great Lakes ecosystem.
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scientists Find Tiny Exfoliating Beads In Great Lakes Fish GutsSea levels expected rise two feet within the next 70 years and eight feet by 2200
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 15th, 2013
Daily Mail: Sea levels will rise two feet within just 70 years and eight feet by the year 2200, according to a new study which suggests hundreds of coastal cities face being wiped out within a matter of generations.
Scientists now claim we have awoken a 'sleeping giant' and that sea levels won't stop rising until they are between 25 to 30 feet higher than now.
Alarmingly those predictions are based on the assumption that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere remain at what they are today.
Threat:...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Sea levels expected rise two feet within the next 70 years and eight feet by 2200More than year after Sandy, Hoboken wants to be nation urban flood protection model
Posted by Associated Press: Katie Zezima on December 15th, 2013
Associated Press: This city was nearly swallowed by the Hudson River during Superstorm Sandy last year. Its electrical substation and most of its firehouses flooded, businesses and homes were submerged, and people were trapped in high-rises because elevators didn't work and lobbies were under water. Now, more than a year after the storm, Hoboken is looking to become a national flood mitigation model. Its mayor has become an advocate for better planning and more funding for flood-prone urban areas, and for changing...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on More than year after Sandy, Hoboken wants to be nation urban flood protection modelFuture far from great for Australia’s Barrier Reef
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 15th, 2013
Xinhua: As an Island continent, Australia's relationship to the ocean has defined it. The embrace of the pacific oceans from the savage beauty of the Southern sea to the tourist magnets of the Whitsunday islands, are never far from the nation's collective imagination.
Today, those oceans are under threat, none more so than the celebrated coral highways of the Great Barrier Reef.
In his latest book, Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a Hot World, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University...
White House delayed enacting rules ahead of 2012 election to avoid controversy
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 15th, 2013
Washington Post: The White House systematically delayed enacting a series of rules on the environment, worker safety and health care to prevent them from becoming points of contention before the 2012 election, according to documents and interviews with current and former administration officials.
Some agency officials were instructed to hold off submitting proposals to the White House for up to a year to ensure that they would not be issued before voters went to the polls, the current and former officials said....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on White House delayed enacting rules ahead of 2012 election to avoid controversyEvery “serious environmentalist” must support fracking? Seriously?
Posted by Grist: John Upton on December 15th, 2013
Grist: If you oppose fracking, then you are not a “serious environmentalist.”
So say U.C. Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller and his daughter Elizabeth Muller in a new opinion paper with a none-too-subtle title: "Why Every Serious Environmentalist Should Favor Fracking."
Until recently, Muller wasn`t much of an environmentalist himself. He was a prominent climate denier. But last year he wrote in The New York Times that he came to realize the error of his ways after an intensive review of the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Every “serious environmentalist” must support fracking? Seriously?‘This is not a good place to live’: inside Ghana’s dump for electronic waste
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 14th, 2013
Guardian: The orange flesh of a papaya is like an oval gash in the landscape at Agbogbloshie, Ghana's vast dumping site for electronic waste, where everything is smeared and stained with mucky hues of brown and sooty black. A woman kneels among the carcasses of discarded computer monitors, scooping the fruit's flesh for workers hungry from a morning's work scavenging to eat.
If the appliances at Agbogbloshie were not being dismantled – plucked of their tiny nuggets of copper and aluminium – some of them...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on ‘This is not a good place to live’: inside Ghana’s dump for electronic wasteStorm packing heavy snow bears down on Midwest, Northeast
Posted by Reuters: Victoria Cavaliere on December 14th, 2013
Reuters: The Midwest and East Coast braced for another round of wintry weather on Saturday as a massive storm spanning more than 1,000 miles promised heavy snow, slick roads and travel delays.
Even before snow began piling up, airlines reported weather-related delays and cancellations, with major airports in Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and Newark, New Jersey scrubbing dozens of flights, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and FlightStats.com.
The fast-moving snow storm will hit...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Storm packing heavy snow bears down on Midwest, Northeast