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Archive for June, 2015
US navy could create thriving biofuel hub in Queensland
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 13th, 2015
Guardian: The US navy could help create a thriving biofuels industry in regional Queensland, the state’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, says. Palaszczuk visited the Pentagon in Washington DC as part of her first trade mission as premier, where she met the navy’s top brass. A renewable energy policy has set a goal for half the navy’s energy needs to be met from alternative sources by 2020. The premier says that opens up opportunities for regional Queensland. “We saw the boom of the LNG industry – this...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on US navy could create thriving biofuel hub in QueenslandClimate change creating ‘longer, more intense’ fire seasons, warns interior secretary
Posted by Post-Intelligencer: Joel Connelly on June 13th, 2015
Post-Intelligencer: Climate change is a burning issue for the United States and particularly the American West, according to U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, whose department has to fight increasingly intense forest and range fires.
In a tweet Friday, Jewell warned: “Fire seasons are longer and more intense from climate change. They damage landscapes vital for wildlife and people.”
The 23,000-acre Taylor Bridge fire, east of Cle Elum, consumed forests and threatened homes in 2012. Fires on the east slope...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change creating ‘longer, more intense’ fire seasons, warns interior secretaryCalifornia curtails some longstanding water rights over drought
Posted by Reuters: Alex Dobuzinskis on June 13th, 2015
Reuters: California's water board, facing a devastating four-year drought, on Friday curtailed some longstanding water rights for agriculture and other uses in Northern and Central California for the first time in nearly 40 years, officials said. The curtailment affects more than 100 so-called senior water rights holders, including water districts and farmers of commodities such as almonds, pears and grapes, with most of those located near the Sacramento River, the State Water Resources Control Board said...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California curtails some longstanding water rights over droughtChina reaffirms 2030 climate commitments: State Council
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 13th, 2015
Reuters: China's Premier Li Keqiang reaffirmed the government's commitment to achieve peak carbon emissions by "around 2030", the State Council said in a statement issued late on Friday.
The statement contained no new commitments ahead of crucial climate talks scheduled to take place in Paris at the end of the year.
Li, at a meeting of the State Council's National Leading Group on Climate Change, also said it would impose a "tough limit" on the expansion of heavily polluting and energy-intensive industries....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on China reaffirms 2030 climate commitments: State CouncilRising seas, sinking peat to swamp Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 13th, 2015
Mongabay: With global sea levels going up at a rate of about 9 millimeters per year, the livelihoods of many coastal people in the world look increasingly threatened, especially in those parts of the world with limited financial or technical means to adapt. A rate of a thumb-width of water per year may not sound like much, but the half to one meter higher water levels mean that many coastal people will have to abandon their homes and fields before the end of the century.
Indonesia with its countless low-lying...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Rising seas, sinking peat to swamp Malaysian and Indonesian palm oilExxon must pay $1m 2011 spill into Montana’s Yellowstone river
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 13th, 2015
Guardian: US officials have rejected Exxon Mobil’s request to reconsider a $1m penalty imposed against the oil company over a 63,000-gallon crude spill into Montana’s Yellowstone river.
The US Department of Transportation on Friday ordered the Texas company to pay the penalty within 20 days at a hearing in Billings, Montana.
Safety regulators said Exxon Mobil failed to adequately heed warnings that its 20-year-old Silvertip Pipeline was at risk from flooding. They said the company lacked procedures to...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Exxon must pay $1m 2011 spill into Montana’s Yellowstone riverDrought forces cuts to some of California’s oldest water rights
Posted by Grist: None Given on June 13th, 2015
Grist: California water regulators Friday took a step that they haven`t taken since 1977: They cut water allocations to 114 senior water-rights holders in the state.
In fact, this action will probably have more impact than the 1977 cuts, because the state has a greater legal and practical power to demand restrictions.
The State Water Board issued a notice saying: "The State Water Board has been monitoring diversion records and flow conditions within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River watershed and Delta....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Drought forces cuts to some of California’s oldest water rightsPBS Sacred Site Documentary to Detail Roadmap Mauna Kea Victory
Posted by Indian Country: None Given on June 12th, 2015
Indian Country: This April, Craig Neff was among 31 Native Hawaiians and supporters from around the world who were arrested for blockading the construction crews headed to the summit of the sacred mountain Mauna Kea, where an international coalition of scientists and universities had been authorized by the state of Hawaii to build the massive, $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).
The wave of social media and news reports that followed the arrests represented a crescendo for the burgeoning movement to protect...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on PBS Sacred Site Documentary to Detail Roadmap Mauna Kea VictoryMLK Lessons for Hawaii: A Leader Who Can Unite Us
Posted by Civil Beat: Frank DeGiacomo on June 12th, 2015
Civil Beat: Hawaii has been blessed with a strong grassroots people’s movement of late. In no particular order, there has been a marriage equality movement, an anti-GMO movement, the Save Mauna Kea movement, and others.
Hawaii seems to be winning significant battles, yet losing the war against greed, corruption, and oppression overall.
Why is that?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -- George Santayana, 20th century American philosopher
In 1967, at Riverside Church in...
Oil bosses break long climate silence urgent initiative
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 12th, 2015
Reuters: For an industry used to cautious, long-term evolution, the speed at which leaders of Europe's biggest oil and gas companies moved to take a joint stand in the climate debate speaks volumes.
Discrete talks in the eyrie of Davos in January led to a spontaneous, light bulb moment on a stage in Oslo in February. The result: a joint statement two months later. The executives agreed they had to go public, and with alacrity.
Faced with growing pressure from shareholders, vocal divestment campaigns...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Oil bosses break long climate silence urgent initiative