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Archive for May, 2014
Ecuador: Permit Issued for Drilling in Amazon Reserve
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 23rd, 2014
Associated Press: Ecuador’s government has issued an environmental permit for oil drilling in a pristine Amazon reserve that President Rafael Correa initially offered to exempt from exploration if rich countries would pay his government. Mr. Correa abandoned that effort last year because of insufficient interest and has spurned pleas by environmentalists to spare the Yasuni reserve. This month, Ecuador’s electoral council declared invalid a petition seeking to prevent drilling in the 6,500-square-mile Amazon reserve....
Climate change: Republicans are in denial
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 22nd, 2014
USA Today: Not all that long ago, leading Republicans took strong positions on climate change. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, co-authored legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions. And former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee presented the fight against global warming as a religious cause. These days, it’s difficult to find a Republican candidate willing to speak out in favor of doing something. Anyone who does so risks defeat in GOP primaries, where ardent climate change...
UK fracking ‘could yield billion barrels’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 22nd, 2014
BBC: A government report on fracking is set to announce that a potentially huge supply of untapped energy is located below the surface of the earth in southern England.
The BBC understands that geological surveys suggest there are several billion barrels of oil trapped in shale rock beneath the Weald - an area spanning parts of Sussex, Hampshire and Kent.
EPA reaches deal with Duke Energy over coal ash spill
Posted by Guardian: Associated Press on May 22nd, 2014
Guardian: Federal environmental officials said Thursday that they have reached a deal with Duke Energy to clean up its mess from a massive coal ash spill into the Dan river.
The US Environmental Protection Agency announced it had finalized an enforceable agreement with the nation's largest electricity company over the February 2 accident. The spill coated 70 miles of the river in North Carolina and Virginia with toxic gray sludge.
EPA will oversee the cleanup in consultation with federal wildlife officials...
Drought: The Unlikely Solution to Cleaner Beaches
Posted by Nature World: None Given on May 22nd, 2014
Nature World: Ironically, one upside to the recent California drought is that it has resulted in cleaner and healthier water for beachgoers, a new report says.
Some 95 percent of California beaches earned A or B grades for water quality during the summer of 2013 - a 2 percent improvement from the previous year - according to the annual Beach Report Card released Thursday by the environmental group called Heal the Bay.
SFGate reported that the record-low rainfall means less dangerous bacteria and other pathogens...
Anti-Fracking Protests During President’s Visit to Cooperstown
Posted by Fox: None Given on May 22nd, 2014
Fox: Tourism is not the only industry promising an economic boost for our area. Fracking is another one--but it has battle lines drawn between those who support such drilling, and those who fear environmental damage. Those on both sides of the issue were in Cooperstown Thursday --hoping to catch the President's attention: We spoke with some anti-frackers, who take issue with the president's apparent support for fracking, as a needed energy source: "Perhaps by seeing this ground-swell of local ban...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Anti-Fracking Protests During President’s Visit to CooperstownIn ‘Pulse Flow,’ Colorado River Reaches Its Delta For First Time This Century
Posted by ThinkProgress: Ari Phillips on May 22nd, 2014
ThinkProgress: It would seem a mirage. A sliver of water pulsing unevenly through the desert, just barely reaching the Gulf of California. A small fraction of the flow it started out as 1,500-miles earlier at the headwaters of the Colorado River in the Rocky Mountains. On May 15, a high tide reunited the Colorado River and its final destination for the first time in 16 years after water demand and allocation has kept it back for most of the last 50 years. And for the next five years, at least, it will happen annually....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on In ‘Pulse Flow,’ Colorado River Reaches Its Delta For First Time This CenturyPope Francis: ‘if we destroy creation, creation will destroy us’
Posted by Blue and Green: Tom Revell on May 22nd, 2014
Blue and Green: Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic church, made a religious case for acting against climate change in front of a large crowd that had gathered in Rome on Wednesday. In a short address, the pope talked about the biblical story of creation, as it is told in the book of Genesis, and of “the beauty of nature and the grandeur of the cosmos”. Then, he spoke of “the risk of considering ourselves masters of creation”. “Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will, or, even less, is the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Pope Francis: ‘if we destroy creation, creation will destroy us’Write-down of two-thirds US shale oil explodes fracking myth
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 22nd, 2014
Guardian: Next month, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) will publish a new estimate of US shale deposits set to deal a death-blow to industry hype about a new golden era of US energy independence by fracking unconventional oil and gas.
EIA officials told the Los Angeles Times that previous estimates of recoverable oil in the Monterey shale reserves in California of about 15.4 billion barrels were vastly overstated. The revised estimate, they said, will slash this amount by 96% to a puny 600...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Write-down of two-thirds US shale oil explodes fracking mythWarm Pacific may paradoxically cause U.S. winter freeze: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 22nd, 2014
Reuters: Unusually warm western Pacific waters linked to global warming may be the paradoxical cause of a bone-chilling winter in parts of the United States this year, a scientific study said on Thursday.
The theory contrasts with other experts' views, including that the freeze was simply a freak natural event or that it was linked to a thawing of the Arctic in recent years that sent a blast of cold air south.
"People's reaction when they sit under 10 feet of snow is to say 'this cannot be man-made...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Warm Pacific may paradoxically cause U.S. winter freeze: study