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Archive for March, 2014
Australia: How severe is the drought in Queensland and New South Wales?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 12th, 2014
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Prime Minister Tony Abbott has announced a $320 million assistance package to support drought-hit farmers in New South Wales and Queensland.
Justifying the package, Mr Abbott said: "Drought of this severity is not the normal course of business. This is not just a once-in-a-decade drought. It's a once-in-a-quarter-century drought in many places. In some places, it's a once-in-a-century drought".
ABC Fact Check investigates whether the current drought really is a "once-in-a-quarter-century" drought...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Australia: How severe is the drought in Queensland and New South Wales?Clinton Keystone dodge prompts donors to rethink support
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 12th, 2014
Bloomberg: Wealthy Democratic environmentalists are considering withholding support for a 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential bid unless she reassures them about their top priority: Killing the Keystone XL pipeline.
“She’s kind of a closed book on the environment,” said Guy Saperstein, an Oakland-based venture capitalist and former president of the San Francisco-based Sierra Club Foundation. “I, for one, would not support her until she gives us more information.”
So far, Clinton has demurred on Keystone...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Clinton Keystone dodge prompts donors to rethink supportIndia’s diesel fumes impacting glacier melt in Himalayas
Posted by Climate News Network: Kieran Cooke on March 12th, 2014
Climate News Network: Being a traffic policeman in Kolkata is a life-threatening business. Not only are you at risk of being run over on the traffic-clogged roads and streets of this chaotic city of 14 million -- you're also more than likely to suffer from serious health problems due to some of the worst air pollution not just in India, but in the world.
According to a 2012 report by the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment on air quality in Kolkata, seven out of every 10 people in the city suffer from...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on India’s diesel fumes impacting glacier melt in HimalayasBenefits of climate change? ‘Completely wrong’
Posted by Financial Times: Pilita Clark on March 12th, 2014
Financial Times: The idea that the benefits of climate change will outweigh any risks is “completely wrong”, according to the government scientist who advises the cabinet on the latest state of knowledge on global warming. “Whilst there may be trivial benefits in some parts of the world for some of the time, the long-term direction for all of us is a negative direction,” said Sir Mark Walport, the UK’s chief scientific adviser. Sir Mark was responding to MPs’ questions in a Commons committee about claims by the...
Natural capital committee calls for economic value on nature
Posted by Blue and Green: Ilaria Bertini on March 12th, 2014
Blue and Green: The independent natural capital committee has said that too often the environment is taken for granted, and called for a 25-year-long natural capital plan so that Britain can enjoy the “economic and wellbeing benefits”.
Its latest State of Natural Capital report says the environment should be taken into account in long-term decision-making. It highlights natural capital as an important player in the UK’s economy and society.
Chair of the committee, the economist Dieter Helm, wrote in the report,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Natural capital committee calls for economic value on natureEuropean Parliament Takes Aim at Plastic Bags
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on March 11th, 2014
Environment News Service: Members of the European Parliament`s Environment Committee Monday approved a report for reducing the use of single-use lightweight plastic carrier bags. The report recommends a two-stage reduction target for plastic bags across the EU`s 28 Member States.
The report advances the MEPs` process of amending the law on packaging and waste to limit the negative impacts of plastic bags on the environment, based on a proposal by the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU government.
The...
In fracking, the energy business gets neighborly
Posted by Wall Street Journal: Russell Gold on March 11th, 2014
Wall Street Journal: It isn't just a radical fringe of Americans who worry about the environment—and energy executives finally seem to have noticed. A couple of years ago at the energy industry's massive annual gathering, IHS CERAWeek in Houston, the people who pull oil and natural gas out of the ground were largely dismissive of the public's concerns about hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, said Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. But this year, industry...
Farmed Salmon Threaten Wild Salmon Gene Pool
Posted by Nature World News: None Given on March 10th, 2014
Nature World News: Sterilizing farmed salmon is a good way to conserve the wild salmon gene pool, researchers say.
According to University of East Anglia researchers, farmed salmon are genetically different than wild salmon. However, they are just as fertile as their wild counterparts, meaning that they can invade wild salmon territory.
Millions of farmed salmon escape into the wild and they could deplete the salmon gene pool by mating with the wild population, researchers caution.
"Around 95 per cent of all...
United Kingdom: Fracking is no answer to ‘immediate dilemma’ of energy security
Posted by Guardian: Catherine Wigmore on March 10th, 2014
Guardian: Fracking might be a controversial proposition, but there is no need to panic just yet. It may be that shale is indeed the solution to our energy crisis, but many are unaware of the complex and tangled web of legal issues to be picked through before anyone puts a drill in the ground.
Fracking involves the extraction of methane gas from layers of shale by pumping high pressure water down a well. But shale gas stocks are legally owned by the Crown, and it is the Crown (via the Department for Energy...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Fracking is no answer to ‘immediate dilemma’ of energy securitySterilise farmed salmon to stop breeding with wild fish, researchers say
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 10th, 2014
Press Association: Farmed salmon should be sterilised to prevent them breeding with wild fish and introducing genetic weaknesses, experts have urged.
New research shows that while salmon bred in captivity for food consumption are genetically different from their wild relatives, they are just as fertile, potentially damaging wild populations if they escape and breed with them.
Millions of salmon escape from fish farms each year, and can get into wild spawning populations where they can reproduce and introduce...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Sterilise farmed salmon to stop breeding with wild fish, researchers say