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Archive for December, 2013
Obama’s New Special Adviser Is Outspoken Critic of Keystone XL
Posted by InsideClimate: John H. Cushman Jr. on December 11th, 2013
InsideClimate: By asking John Podesta to come to the White House as a special counselor at a time of turmoil and tough choices, President Obama has created an unusually close tie to an outspoken critic of the Keystone XL pipeline and the Canadian tar sands it would carry. Podesta is a Washington policy insider who was Bill Clinton`s chief of staff and whose Center for American Progress, or CAP, is an influential voice of liberalism. He has kept climate change high on his agenda for years and will continue to do...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Obama’s New Special Adviser Is Outspoken Critic of Keystone XLMelting Arctic sea ice could be altering jet stream
Posted by Ars Technica: Scott K. Johnson on December 11th, 2013
Ars Technica: The rapidly warming Arctic isn’t noteworthy only for its own sake. Changes there affect the rest of the planet in a number of ways. Recently, there has been a lot of interest in whether the dwindling Arctic summer sea ice could be weirding the weather in the mid-latitudes.
There have been a number of recent summer extremes--Russia’s hellish summer in 2010, the drought in the US last summer, a very wet 2011 in Korea and Japan, plus a streak of soggy summers in the UK. There have been suggestions...
Podesta to recuse himself from Keystone
Posted by Hill: Justin Sink on December 11th, 2013
Hill: Freshly minted White House counselor John Podesta will recuse himself from working on the approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline, an administration official told The New Yorker on Tuesday. “In discussions [with White House chief of staff] Denis [McDonough], John suggested that he not work on the Keystone Pipeline issue, in review at the State Department, given that the review is far along in the process and John’s views on this are well known,” the official said. “Denis agreed that was the...
Scientists Call For More Fracking Data Collection & Transparency
Posted by Climate Central: Bobby Magill on December 11th, 2013
Climate Central: A group of scientists and other academics investigating the environmental, climate change and social impacts of oil and gas development, particularly hydraulic fracturing, are calling for both state and federal governments and the oil and gas industry to be more transparent and provide more data about the energy drilling and production processes.
The scientists, each presenting at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco, said it is difficult to determine the effects of energy...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scientists Call For More Fracking Data Collection & TransparencyMapping environmentalism’s road ahead
Posted by ClimateWire: Jason Plautz and Elana Schor on December 10th, 2013
ClimateWire: Conventional wisdom says environmentalism suffered a near-death experience in 2010, when a sweeping climate change bill ran aground in the Democratic-run Senate. But aspiring eulogists for the green movement have gotten ample material in the years before and since that failure.
Federal climate legislation is now an all-but-impossible goal. President Obama's attempt to curb carbon through executive branch power is challenged at every turn by industry opponents and combative Republicans.
The...
Keystone Foe Added to Obama Inner Circle With Podesta
Posted by Bloomberg: Jim Snyder and Jim Efstathiou Jr. on December 10th, 2013
Bloomberg: John Podesta’s return to the White House, aimed at bolstering President Barack Obama, places an opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline within his circle just as the administration weighs whether to approve the project.
The Democratic veteran, who previously served as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, joins the administration as Obama’s approval ratings have fallen to all-time lows after the fumbled rollout of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. White House spokesman Jay Carney...
Canada: Neil Young confirms benefit concerts for oilsands fight
Posted by Guardian: Sean Michaels on December 10th, 2013
Guardian: Neil Young has announced four benefit concerts in aid of a Native Canadian group that are battling oil companies over Albertan tar sands. Accompanied by jazz singer Diana Krall, Young will raise funds toward the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation's legal challenge to Shell Canada's Jackpine Mine expansion.
The charity gigs will take place in Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary, from 12 to 19 January. Unlike Young's recent arena shows, these are large theatre concerts. Tickets cost between $55...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: Neil Young confirms benefit concerts for oilsands fightNSW bushfires: conservationists hopeful for healthy recovery wildlife
Posted by Guardian: Oliver Milman on December 10th, 2013
Guardian: Conservationists are hopeful that wildlife coped better with the NSW Blue Mountains fires than first feared after a koala was spotted in the upper reaches of the mountains for the first time in 70 years.
The koala was seen crossing the Great Western Highway near Wentworth Falls, which is 900m above sea level.
The sighting is the first of its kind in the upper Blue Mountains since the 1940s. It is thought that the koala, and others, managed to escape October's fierce bushfires, which burned...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on NSW bushfires: conservationists hopeful for healthy recovery wildlifeCalifornia seeks to send water south via tunnel, restore depleted delta
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 10th, 2013
Reuters: California pledged on Monday to restore 80,000 acres of the depleted Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as part of a massive project to send fresh water from mountain streams in the north to farmers and residents in the parched south.
The $16 billion plan was released as the state struggles in what appears to be shaping up as its driest year on record, with some farmers and urban water districts promised just 5 percent of the water that they had requested for next year.
The ambitious program...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California seeks to send water south via tunnel, restore depleted deltaStudy offers economical solutions for maintaining critical delta environments
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 10th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Formed at the lowest part of a river where its water flow slows and spreads into the sea, deltas are sediment-rich, biodiverse areas, a valuable source of seafood, fertile ground for agriculture, and host to ports important for transportation.
At least half of the deltas around the world are so-called "wave dominated deltas" -- open to the sea and under the impact of wave erosion. And many more deltas will come under wave dominance as dammed rivers carry less and less sediment. In a warming climate,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Study offers economical solutions for maintaining critical delta environments