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Archive for June, 2015
Despite Protests, Construction Controversial Hawaii Telescope Will Resume
Posted by Associated Press: Dan Joling on June 21st, 2015
Associated Press: The construction of a $1.4 billion telescope on land considered sacred by some Native Hawaiians will resume Wednesday, according to the nonprofit company behind the project.
Henry Yang, chairman of the Thirty Meter Telescope Observatory Board, in a statement said the board decided to move forward after more than two months of consultations.
"Our period of inactivity has made us a better organization in the long run," Yang said. "We are now comfortable that we can be better stewards and better...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Despite Protests, Construction Controversial Hawaii Telescope Will ResumeConstruction on Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea to resume Wednesday
Posted by Hawaii News: None Given on June 21st, 2015
Hawaii News: Construction on the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope project will resume on Wednesday, according to a statement released by the TMT International Observatory Board on Saturday.
“After more than two months of consultation, education, and dialogue with many stakeholders, we humbly announce that the TMT International Observatory Board has decided to move ahead to restart the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on the morning of Wednesday, June 24," said Henry Yang, Chair of the TMT International...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Construction on Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea to resume WednesdayThirty Meter Telescope construction on Mauna Kea to continue Wednesday
Posted by KHON: None Given on June 21st, 2015
KHON: The international board that oversees Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) gave the green-light to restart construction atop Mauna Kea on Wednesday, June 24.
“After more than two months of consultation, education, and dialogue with many stakeholders, we humbly announce that the TMT International Observatory Board has decided to move ahead to restart the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on the morning of Wednesday, June 24," said Henry Yang, Chair of the TMT International Observatory Board, in...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Thirty Meter Telescope construction on Mauna Kea to continue WednesdayOn Hawaii a big telescope stirs conflict
Posted by MarketPlace: Jeff Tyler on June 21st, 2015
MarketPlace: Spiritual and cultural values are clashing with scientific and economic considerations on the Big Island of Hawaii, where protesters want to stop development of a $1.4 billion observatory called the Thirty Meter Telescope.
The mountain of Mauna Kea rises almost 14,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, making it popular with astronomers. But the mountain also has religious and cultural importance for native Hawaiians. For two months, protesters have camped out on the mountain to block construction...
Earth science: New estimates of deep carbon cycle
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 21st, 2015
ScienceDaily: Over billions of years, the total carbon content of the outer part of the Earth -- in its upper mantle, crust, oceans, and atmospheres -- has gradually increased, scientists reported this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Craig Manning, a professor of geology and geochemistry at UCLA, and Peter Kelemen, a geochemistry professor at Columbia University, present new analyses that represent an important advance in refining our understanding of Earth's deep carbon...
Ghana destroys hundreds of homes in capital in bid to prevent floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2015
Reuters: Bulldozers razed hundreds of homes and businesses in the poor Sodom and Gomorrah neighborhood of Ghana's capital on Saturday so the authorities can start widening a lagoon to prevent a repeat of this month's deadly floods.
Some residents said security forces sprayed them with tear gas after they threw stones to protect their livelihoods from the bulldozers. By evening, thousands were stranded in the rain amid rubble and household goods strewn for more than a mile.
"What they have done is not...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Ghana destroys hundreds of homes in capital in bid to prevent floodsEarth stands on brink of its sixth mass extinction and fault is ours
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2015
Guardian: Life on Earth is in trouble. That much we know. But how bad have things become – and how fast are events moving? How soon, indeed, before the Earth’s biological treasures are trashed, in what will be the sixth great mass extinction event? This is what Gerardo Caballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues have assessed, in a paper that came out on Friday.
These are extraordinarily difficult questions. There are many millions of species, many elusive and rare, and inhabiting...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Earth stands on brink of its sixth mass extinction and fault is oursResidents Fight To Block Fracked Gas In New York’s Finger Lakes
Posted by National Public Radio: David Chanatry on June 20th, 2015
National Public Radio: New York state's Seneca Lake is the heart of the Finger Lakes, a beautiful countryside of steep glacier-carved hills and long slivers of water with deep beds of salt. It's been mined on Seneca's shore for more than a century. The Texas company Crestwood Midstream owns the mine now, and stores natural gas in the emptied-out caverns. It has federal approval to increase the amount, and it's seeking New York's OK to store 88 million gallons of propane as well. That's definitely not OK for a growing...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Residents Fight To Block Fracked Gas In New York’s Finger LakesFracking poses ‘significant’ risk to humans and should be temporarily banned across EU
Posted by Independent: Andy Rowell on June 20th, 2015
Independent: A major new scientific study has concluded that the controversial gas extraction technique known as fracking poses a “significant” risk to human health and British wildlife, and that an EU-wide moratorium should be implemented until widespread regulatory reform is undertaken.
The damning report by the CHEM Trust, the British charity that investigates the harm chemicals cause humans and wildlife, highlights serious shortcomings in the UK’s regulatory regime, which the report says will only get...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fracking poses ‘significant’ risk to humans and should be temporarily banned across EUClimate Change Impacts Western Wildfires
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2015
CBS: As ocean temperatures warm, rain and snowstorms become more intense, but may also come less often, according to distinguished senior science Dr. Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Those are changes the people who fight wildfires across the nation have noticed.
"The climate is changing. I mean if you look at the last 100 years the average temperature has increased, if you looked at the last 30 years the average temperature has increased," said Rod Moraga, a wildfire...