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Archive for December, 2013
Salford anti-fracking camp enjoys local support
Posted by Guardian: Helen Pidd on December 26th, 2013
Guardian: As the wind felled trees, flooded homes and cancelled ferries this week, much of the nation needed little excuse to stay indoors. But for a group of hardy anti-fracking protesters camped by the M62 on Barton Moss in Salford, near Manchester, going inside was not an option, explained Joe Boyd, a 40-year-old builder from Liverpool who was on not just his first demo but also his first real camping trip.
Before the storms hit the north, Boyd was already wrapped up warm: a coat, a fleece, two woolly...
Climate Change Threatens Peru’s Economic Progress As Amazon Becomes Net Emitter of CO2
Posted by Climate News Network: Alex Kirby on December 26th, 2013
Climate News Network: Peru is the country chosen to host the 2014 United Nations (UN) climate conference, a key meeting for trying to advance an ambitious plan to rein in greenhouse emissions which is planned for agreement in 2015.
Scientists think Peru`s role reversal from being a carbon sink to a net emitter of CO2 in 2012 is result of droughts in the western Amazon. Photo credit: tadd_debbie /Flickr
But the country has recently earned a rather more dubious distinction. In 2012, for the first time, the Peruvian...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Climate Change Threatens Peru’s Economic Progress As Amazon Becomes Net Emitter of CO2Five years after Tennessee coal-slurry disaster, EPA has produced no new rules
Posted by Grist: None Given on December 26th, 2013
Grist: Five years ago, in the dead of night, a torrent of more than a million gallons of slurry broke free from its holding place at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in Tennessee. The toxic stew of coal fly ash, which is produced when coal is burned, polluted waterways and 300 acres of land. The disaster triggered anger from residents and promises from the EPA to introduce new rules to prevent such accidents.
The anger is still there. But the government promises appear to have been broken. The...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Five years after Tennessee coal-slurry disaster, EPA has produced no new rulesWill Russia frack for oil?
Posted by Christian Science Monitor: Nick Grealy on December 26th, 2013
Christian Science Monitor: One of my stranger speaker invitations recently was earlier this month in Moscow to an Adam Smith conference on Russia EOR (enhanced oil recovery), where I found myself in the ironic position of giving a presentation to reassure the audience that fracking,for oil was safe.
Fracking is fracking and there is little or no difference between the methods used for gas or oil. Oil fracking in it’s modern form of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing using less chemicals than before was introduced...
Indian Leader Found in Reservoir
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 26th, 2013
New York Times: A Mapuche Indian leader who became the face of Chile’s environmental movement was found floating in a reservoir she spent a decade trying to prevent from being created, and the authorities said Wednesday that they were awaiting autopsy results although the death appeared accidental. The leader, Nicolesa Quintreman, 73, who was nearly blind, was found Tuesday, a day after she was reported missing. With her sister Berta, Ms. Quintreman became a national figure in Chile during protests against the construction...
Climate Change Roulette and Water Scarcity
Posted by EcoWatch: Suzanne York on December 25th, 2013
EcoWatch: A new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that climate change is likely to put 40 percent more people worldwide at risk of absolute water scarcity, due to changes in rainfall and evaporation.
Unsurprisingly, the study noted that “Expected future population changes will, in many countries as well as globally, increase the pressure on available water resources.”
With a mid-range United Nations...
Report puts $797 million price tag on Rim fire’s damage to benefits of nature
Posted by Modesto Bee: John Holland on December 25th, 2013
Modesto Bee: Until they burned, oaks and pines in the Rim fire area absorbed carbon dioxide and emitted oxygen, a useful service for the planet.
The massive blaze reduced the value of this function by as much as $797 million, according to an initial estimate by economists who specialize in accounting for "ecosystem services," or what nature provides to humans.
Before the giant fire started Aug. 17 in the Stanislaus National Forest, the growing vegetation stored carbon that otherwise would rise into the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Report puts $797 million price tag on Rim fire’s damage to benefits of natureU.S. court rejects BP bid to require proof of Gulf oil spill losses
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 25th, 2013
Reuters: BP Plc has failed to persuade a U.S. federal judge to require businesses seeking to recover money over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill to provide proof that their economic losses were caused by the disaster.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans said the British oil company would have to live with its earlier interpretation of a settlement agreement over the spill, in which certain businesses could be presumed to have suffered harm if their losses reflected certain patterns.
Barbier...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on U.S. court rejects BP bid to require proof of Gulf oil spill lossesGlaciologists Reveal Findings on Greenland Aquifer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 25th, 2013
Environmental News Network: When a Greenland aquifer was accidently discovered by glaciologists in 2011 during a snow accumulation study, little could be done to continue the study of the aquifer because their tools were not suited to work in an aquatic environment. So this past year, a team of glaciologists led another expedition to southeast Greenland in order to find out more about this liquid reservoir. Southeast Greenland is a region of high snow accumulation. Researchers now believe that the thick snow cover insulates...
Okra-homa: As climate warms, Midwest farmers plant Southern crops
Posted by Al Jazeera: None Given on December 25th, 2013
Al Jazeera: It's no longer as corny as Kansas in August. Now it's cotton, okra and sorghum.
The hotter summers and more intense and frequent droughts in the Midwest are forcing farmers here to forgo the plants of their grandparents' generation and look down South for inspiration.
"We kept trying to grow sustainable tomatoes, but it was so hot that the plants got stressed and they wouldn’t produce fruit," said Courtney Skeeba, who started Homestead Ranch in the small town of Lecompton, Kan., about a decade...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Okra-homa: As climate warms, Midwest farmers plant Southern crops