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Archive for May, 2015
What does the future hold for Oregon’s family-owned forests?
Posted by INVW: Robert McClure and Ben DeJarnette on May 12th, 2015
INVW: Cary Renzema interrupts a stroll around his 50-acre forest to point out tiny purple petals peeking out from the forest floor. “Beautiful little orchids,” Renzema says. “Once you start looking, there are hundreds of those things around here.” For 13 years Renzema has studied this forest’s quirks and charms, explored its groves of cedar trees and patches of vine maple and wild rose about 25 miles west of Portland. Today, though, those sights are bittersweet. As part of a divorce settlement, he may...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on What does the future hold for Oregon’s family-owned forests?Sri Lanka first nation promise full protection of mangroves
Posted by New Scientist: Fred Pearce on May 12th, 2015
New Scientist: Sri Lanka has become the first nation to promise the comprehensive protection of all of its mangroves, as it launches a major replanting programme.
Hundreds of Sri Lankan coastal communities have been recruited for their conservation by the Small Fishers Federation - a local non-governmental organisation - with money from an NGO in California called Seacology.
The Sri Lankan government has promised to give all mangroves legal protection and provide rangers for coastal patrols, says Seacology's...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Sri Lanka first nation promise full protection of mangrovesWisconsin Sen. Tom Tiffany says asked governor DNR job cuts
Posted by Capital Times: Steven Elbow on May 12th, 2015
Capital Times: State Sen. Tom Tiffany has owned up to asking for job cuts to DNR scientists, who he has said focus too much on climate change.
On Friday’s Devil’s Advocate radio show, the Hazelhurst Republican said he asked Gov. Scott Walker and his staff to include a provision in the state budget axing approximately 17 positions from the Department of Natural Resources’ Science Services Bureau.
“Yes,” he said in responding to a question asking him if he requested the cuts.
Some observers believed Tiffany...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Wisconsin Sen. Tom Tiffany says asked governor DNR job cutsFBI Violated Its Own Rules While Spying on Keystone XL Opponents
Posted by Guardian: Adam Federman on May 12th, 2015
Guardian: The FBI breached its own internal rules when it spied on campaigners against the Keystone XL pipeline, failing to get approval before it cultivated informants and opened files on individuals protesting against the construction of the pipeline in Texas, documents reveal.
Internal agency documents show for the first time how FBI agents have been closely monitoring anti-Keystone activists, in violation of guidelines designed to prevent the agency from becoming unduly involved in sensitive political...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on FBI Violated Its Own Rules While Spying on Keystone XL OpponentsBP Wins Right to Appeal Some Gulf Spill Damages Claims
Posted by Reuers: Jonathan Stempel on May 12th, 2015
Reuers: A U.S. federal appeals court said on Friday BP Plc deserves the right to appellate review of some damage claims awarded to people and businesses in connection with the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans could help BP limit its payout to victims of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and caused the largest U.S. offshore oil spill.
BP originally expected to pay $7.8 billion to resolve claims...
As Andes Warm, Deciphering The Future for Tropical Birds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 12th, 2015
Yale Environment 360: Londoño, a Colombian biologist, has been searching painstakingly to find their nests. He’s located hundreds of them here on the Amazon flank of the Andes, though it’s taken him eight years. He has rigged each one with monitoring gear to collect data that will help him better understand how tropical birds will respond to global warming.
Climate change is expected to warm this region about 7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit in this century. Researchers have predicted that the warmer temperatures would force...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on As Andes Warm, Deciphering The Future for Tropical BirdsBrazil Pursues Illegal Miners on Indigenous Land
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on May 12th, 2015
Environment News Service: Federal Police officers from the states of Roraima, Rondônia, São Paulo, Amazonas, and Pará were marshaled Thursday to serve 313 warrants against people suspected of clandestine gold and gemstone mining on indigenous lands.
The law enforcement operation is chiefly aimed at illegal mining in the Yanomami indigenous reserve in Roraima, reports the state-run Agencia Brasil.
About 150 Federal Police are involved in serving the warrants, assisted by officers of the Brazilian Institute for the Environment...
British species facing their ‘biggest threat in a generation’, say leading nature groups
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 11th, 2015
Independent: British species and landscapes are facing their “biggest threat in a generation”, according to 100 leading nature groups which represent eight million people across the UK.
The Joint Links coalition, made up of organisations such as the WWF and the National Trust, warns that laws which have protected species and habitats for decades are now in danger of being watered down because of a European Commission “fitness check” on the Birds and Habitats Directives.
The directives give protected status...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on British species facing their ‘biggest threat in a generation’, say leading nature groupsWhy Food Companies Should Be More Afraid Of Water Scarcity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 11th, 2015
National Public Radio: America's biggest food production companies face a growing threat of water scarcity, according to a new report from Ceres, an environmental sustainability group.
Producing food, after all, requires more water than almost any other business on Earth. And the outlook isn't pretty: One-third of food is grown in areas of high or extremely high water stress, while pollution and climate change are further limiting supplies of clean water around the world.
And yet two-thirds of the 37 U.S. food companies...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Why Food Companies Should Be More Afraid Of Water ScarcityCarbon time-bomb Siberia threatens catastrophic climate change
Posted by Express: None Given on May 11th, 2015
Express: Experts have said thawing permafrost in little-known peat bogs in the frozen Russian wilderness could expedite the global warming process.
Vast swathes of marshland in Siberia are starting to emit greenhouse gases 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The threat comes from bogs around the size of mainland France which absorbed carbon dioxide over thousands of years before freezing over during the last Ice Age.
Now for the first time in 11,000 years, the thick permafrost...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Carbon time-bomb Siberia threatens catastrophic climate change