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Archive for January, 2015
Plunging Oil Prices Trigger Economic Downturn in Fracking Boom Town
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on January 3rd, 2015
EcoWatch: When fracking and horizontal drilling made the oil embedded in North Dakota‘s underground Bakken shale formation accessible for extraction, it touched off something akin to a gold rush in the state.
Oil production has grown 600 percent in the last decade. Small towns, called “man camps,” have sprouted with growing populations of oil field workers, bringing both increased economic activity and employment and increased crime and social problems such as sexual assaults. But plummeting oil prices...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Plunging Oil Prices Trigger Economic Downturn in Fracking Boom TownInterior Secretary criticizes fracking bans
Posted by Hill: Timothy Cama on January 3rd, 2015
Hill: Interior Secretary Sally Jewell criticized local and state bans on hydraulic fracturing, saying they create confusion for the oil and natural gas industries.
Jewell, who oversees the federal government’s various public land agencies, also said fracking bans often come as a result of what she sees as bad scientific decisions that incorrectly find safety or health problems associated with fracking, radio station KQED reported.
“I would say that is the wrong way to go,” Jewell told KQED Friday...
Canada: Layoffs loom in Alberta’s oil patch
Posted by Financial Post: Geoffrey Morgan on January 3rd, 2015
Financial Post: It`s been years since David Yager has seen multiple “For Sale” and “For Rent” signs in Fort McMurray, the northern Alberta city that is usually crawling with workers from across Canada looking to make a buck in the oilsands boomtown.
In times when the province’s unemployment rate plunged below 4%, workers paid exorbitant rents to live in Fort McMurray garages. In late December of this year, amid predictions of a spike in the province’s unemployment rate, bachelor suites in “Fort Mac” were being...
Viewpoint: Climate change is grave environmental threat
Posted by Pensacola News Journal: Jake Thompson on January 3rd, 2015
Pensacola News Journal: With the start of a new term, Gov. Rick Scott faces a fresh opportunity to confront the gravest environmental threat of our time: climate change.
But with Florida widely regarded as America’s ground zero for global warming, the state is moving in the wrong direction. State regulators recently acted to gut energy efficiency goals and end solar rebates.
That’s wrong. And so is the governor’s refusal to address climate change –despite a warning by the National Climate Assessment that Florida is...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Viewpoint: Climate change is grave environmental threatIs Lake Michigan Being Poisoned by Diabetes Drugs?
Posted by Nature World: None Given on January 3rd, 2015
Nature World: Water pollution is not exactly an underappreciated concern. For years state and federal officials have been working with experts to improve water quality, limit pollution, and test for potential consequences. However, it should go without saying that things can be overlooked. That appears to be the case concerning pollution from a common diabetic drug, which may now be poisoning fish in Lake Michigan.
That's at least according to a team of researchers with the School of Freshwater Sciences at...
United Kingdom: Hundreds homes to be wiped from the West map by floods
Posted by Western Morning News: None Given on January 1st, 2015
Western Morning News: Hundreds of homes are predicted to be wiped from the Westcountry map by flooding before the end of the century, previously unpublished figures show.
An estimated 7,000 properties around England and Wales will be sacrificed to rising seas over the next century, according to the Environment Agency.
Its analysis, based on current funding levels, projects that more than 800 will be lost over the next 20 years as coastlines erode because they are too costly to protect.
Thousands of high-value...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Hundreds homes to be wiped from the West map by floodsNew York’s ban on high-volume fracking rocks the foundations of ‘shale revolution.’
Posted by DC Bureau: None Given on January 1st, 2015
DC Bureau: Emboldened by mounting scientific evidence and shifting poll data, Gov. Andrew Cuomo veered sharply away from America’s conventional wisdom about the wonders of high-volume hydraulic fracturing of shale formations when he banned the practice in New York State on Dec. 17. While the oil and gas titans hope to contain the uprising to one state, the environmental advocates who masterminded it are quietly optimistic that it represents a tipping point, signaling impending decline for fossil fuels’ decades-long...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New York’s ban on high-volume fracking rocks the foundations of ‘shale revolution.’No Doubt It’s Climate-Change Drought, Scientists Say
Posted by Forbes: None Given on January 1st, 2015
Forbes: It was raining in San Francisco on the damp December morning that three scientists gathered at the offices of Climate Nexus to hold a press conference about the drought. It had been raining regularly for more than a week, in fact, and Stanford University had just recorded its rainiest day ever on campus. These three drought experts had gathered to swim upstream against all that rain and evaporate any false optimism it might be washing into California. “I’m happy to be here and see some rain here...
2014 was California’s hottest in 120 years
Posted by KPCC: None Given on January 1st, 2015
KPCC: With only hours remaining in 2014, government forecasters said California is set to have its warmest year in 120 years of recorded data.
"We are virtually certain that 2014 will be record warm for the state,' said Jake Crouch, a climate scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.
That statement comes as unusually frigid temperatures have hit Southern California, bringing with them a snowstorm that stranded more than a hundred motorists...
Scientist predicts mass exodus climate refugees Pacific Northwest
Posted by Global News: None Given on January 1st, 2015
Global News: According to several scientists, the Pacific Northwest is one of the safest places to live as far as climate change is concerned. Cliff Mass, an atmospheric science professor from the University of Washington, predicts the Pacific Northwest will be one of the best places to live as the earth warms from Global Warming. He foresees a mass exodus of climate change refugees.
On his blog , Mass details why so many people may be "forced" to move, and why the Pacific Northwest could fare better than...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scientist predicts mass exodus climate refugees Pacific Northwest