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Archive for June, 2015
EPA defends controversial biofuels program at Senate hearing
Posted by Reuters: Chris Prentice on June 19th, 2015
Reuters: The U.S. environmental regulator on Thursday defended its handling of the nation's controversial renewable fuels program at a congressional hearing, the first since its new biofuels targets last month provoked a furor among corn farmers and oil refiners.
At the hearing by the Senate subcommittee on regulatory affairs and federal management, U.S. lawmakers criticized the agency for years-long delays to quotas and for last month setting unattainable targets for the amount of corn-based ethanol and...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on EPA defends controversial biofuels program at Senate hearingChampioning environment, Francis takes aim global capitalism
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
New York Times: The encyclical on the environment that Pope Francis released on Thursday is as much an indictment of the global economic order as it is an argument for the world to confront climate change. It offers blistering criticism of 21st-century capitalism, expressing skepticism about market forces, criticizing consumerism and cautioning about the costs of growth. But where Francis’ environmental and economic agendas meet, he leaves something of a paradox, and ammunition potentially for both sides in the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Championing environment, Francis takes aim global capitalismThis Land Was Made for You and Me … And Fracking?
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on June 19th, 2015
EcoWatch: This week in Colorado, the BLM launched a scoping process—a “big picture” project evaluation designed to inform the public and solicit feedback before the agency drafts the RMP for Colorado’s Front Range. Sadly, BLM’s public process seems fatally flawed from the start. The seven scheduled hearings are far removed from the majority of Coloradans who will be affected by the new plans. For example, the BLM failed to schedule a scoping hearing in Denver, the state’s most populous city, which gets 40...
Alaska’s Heat Wave Ignites Fires as Glaciers Rapidly Melt
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on June 19th, 2015
EcoWatch: Climate change has caused Alaska’s glaciers to melt so quickly that a one-foot thick layer of water could completely cover the entire state of Alaska every seven years, according to a new study. Alaskan glaciers have lost 75 billion metric tons of ice every year from 1994 through 2013, The Washington Post's Chris Mooney reported from the study, which was recently accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. Mooney also reported...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Alaska’s Heat Wave Ignites Fires as Glaciers Rapidly MeltNOAA: Hottest Spring and Hottest Year to Date on Record
Posted by EcoWatch: Cole Mellino on June 19th, 2015
EcoWatch: This past May was the hottest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for May 2015 was the highest for May in the 136-year period of record, at 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F)," said NOAA. This breaks the previous record, which was set last May. Latest global temperature data are breaking records http://t.co/2KE9n5zs1X 2015 still hottest year to date...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on NOAA: Hottest Spring and Hottest Year to Date on RecordFossil fuel memes: oil spills are a beach
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
Guardian: Life on the beach isn’t always a vacation. Here are some postcards that nobody would want to send, courtesy of fossil fuels
Battle Over New Oil Train Standards Pits Safety Against Cost
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
National Public Radio: The federal government's new rules aimed at preventing explosive oil train derailments are sparking a backlash from all sides.
The railroads, oil producers and shippers say some of the new safety requirements are unproven and too costly, yet some safety advocates and environmental groups say the regulations aren't strict enough and still leave too many people at risk.
Since February, five trains carrying North Dakota Bakken crude oil have derailed and exploded into flames in the U.S. and Canada....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Battle Over New Oil Train Standards Pits Safety Against CostPope: Earth has turned into an “immense pile of filth”
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
CBS: In a sweeping environmental manifesto aimed at spurring concrete action, Pope Francis called Thursday for a bold cultural revolution to correct what he described as a "structurally perverse" economic system where the rich exploit the poor, turning Earth into an "immense pile of filth."
Francis framed climate change as an urgent moral issue to address in his eagerly anticipated encyclical, blaming global warming on an unfair, fossil fuel-based industrial model that harms the poor most.
Citing...
Pope Francis’ climate message yields little GOP response
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: Pope Francis' call for dramatic action on climate change drew a round of shrugs from congressional Republicans, while a number of the party's presidential candidates ignored it entirely.
"I don't want to be disrespectful, but I don't consider him an expert on environmental issues," said Texas Rep. Joe Barton, a senior Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, in a comment echoed by others in his party.
Even Capitol Hill's Catholic Republicans, despite their religion's reverence for the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Pope Francis’ climate message yields little GOP responsePope Francis: Protect the Climate as a ‘Common Good’
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on June 19th, 2015
Environment News Service: “The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all,” declares Pope Francis in his first major teaching on the environment, an encyclical letter released today. Pope Francis urges all human beings to change their behavior to protect the good resources we all hold in common – the climate, the oceans, biodiversity – “the planet, our common home.” “Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years. Yet we are called to be instruments of God...