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Archive for June, 2014
New York Assembly Overwhelmingly Passes Fracking Moratorium
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on June 17th, 2014
EcoWatch: New York`s general assembly passed a moratorium on fracking Monday with a sensible question in mind--why rush?
"We have heard from thousands of residents across the state about many issues associated with hydrofracking, and prudent leadership demands that we take our time to address all these concerns," said New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. "We do not need to rush into this. The natural gas deposits within the Marcellus Shale are not going to go anywhere."
The assembly passed a three-year...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on New York Assembly Overwhelmingly Passes Fracking MoratoriumUN development goals must include climate change
Posted by RTCC: Joy Hyvarinen on June 17th, 2014
RTCC: This week the UN working group that is tasked with drafting a proposal for new global sustainable development goals (“SDGs”) is meeting in New York.
It is a critical meeting for global efforts to tackle climate change, in particular when it comes to helping the poor and vulnerable countries and communities that will take the hardest impacts from climate change.
There is a risk that the UN working group will decide that there is no need for a sustainable development goal on climate change and...
Fukushima operator struggles to build ice wall to contain radioactive water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 17th, 2014
Agence France-Presse: The operator of Japan's battered Fukushima nuclear power plant has said it is having trouble with the early stages of an ice wall being built under broken reactors to contain radioactive water.
Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) has begun digging the trenches for a huge network of pipes under the plant through which it intends to pass refrigerant.
This will freeze the soil and form a physical barrier that is intended to prevent clean groundwater flowing down mountainsides from mixing with contaminated...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fukushima operator struggles to build ice wall to contain radioactive waterSaving the world should be based on promise, not fear
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 17th, 2014
Guardian: If we had set out to alienate and antagonise the people we've been trying to reach, we could scarcely have done it better. This is how I feel, looking back on the past few decades of environmental campaigning, including my own.
This thought is prompted by responses to the column I wrote last week. It examined the psychological illiteracy that's driving leftwing politics into oblivion. It argued that the failure by Labour and Democratic party strategists to listen to psychologists and cognitive...
California wildfire threatens homes near Sequoia National Park
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2014
Reuters: A California wildfire that has already destroyed three structures and blackened some three square miles of forest land near Sequoia National Park was threatening 1,000 more homes on Monday, officials said. More than 1,100 firefighters were battling the so-called Shirley Fire, which erupted on Friday evening on the park's outskirts northeast of Bakersfield and prompted the evacuation of several foothill communities. The flames jumped containment lines on Saturday, fueled by high winds and dry brush,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California wildfire threatens homes near Sequoia National ParkOver 800 species added to IUCN threatened list, including 44 lemurs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2014
Mongabay: Experts have added 817 species to the threatened categories of the IUCN Red List in the latest update. Those added include 51 mammals-mostly lemurs-and over 400 plants. The new update finds that over 90 percent of lemurs and 79 percent of temperate slipper orchids are threatened with extinction.
"What was most surprising about this assessment was the degree of threat to these orchids," said Hassan Rankou, the IUCN Species Survival Commission's (SSC) Authority for the Orchid Specialist Group, "Slipper...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Over 800 species added to IUCN threatened list, including 44 lemursRegional U.S. accord signed to protect struggling Chesapeake Bay
Posted by Reuters: John Clarke on June 16th, 2014
Reuters: An agreement to restore the struggling Chesapeake Bay by protecting its vast drainage area was signed on Monday by officials that included governors from six U.S. states. The Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement is aimed at restoring and conserving the 64,000-square-mile (166,000-square-km) watershed that spans six states and the District of Columbia and drains into the bay, the biggest U.S. estuary. The accord updates an existing agreement and marks the first time that Delaware, New York and West...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Regional U.S. accord signed to protect struggling Chesapeake BayExploring Academia’s Role Charting Good’ Anthropocene
Posted by New York Times: Andrew C. Revkin on June 16th, 2014
New York Times: I spent the tail end of last week at the annual conference of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences, a young network of scholars and students aiming to foster collaborations among disciplines — from ecology to ethics — in studying, and improving, the human relationship to the environment. As the group explains on its website: [I]t is only through learning communities of the type proposed for A.E.S.S. that we can achieve ‘whole system’ environmental education and the creative...
Leaping Asian Carp Invasion a Growing Problem
Posted by Nature World: Jenna Iacurci on June 16th, 2014
Nature World: The invasive Asian carp, a species of fish not native to the United States, has become a growing problem in the Illinois River.
The fish, which can grow as much as 100 pounds, are so abundant that it seems that they have nowhere to go. They have taken to leaping from the water onto people's passing boats.
"It's like somebody set off an explosion under water. They're just everywhere. These fish are probably the equivalent of getting hit in the head with probably a brick or a bowling ball," fisherman...
30 Years of Oil Pollution Threatening Western Amazon
Posted by Nature World: Jenna Iacurci on June 16th, 2014
Nature World: The Western Amazon, an area of unparalleled biological and cultural diversity, may have been contaminated by widespread oil pollution over the last 30 years, according to a new study.
Most of the world's tropical rainforests are oil and gas goldmines. Oil production in the Western Amazon began in the 1920s and peaked in the 1970s, but current growing global demand is stimulating a renewed growth in oil and gas extraction - nearly 70 percent of the Peruvian Amazon was tapped for oil between 1970...