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Archive for September, 2015
Diverted groundwater near mines may cause trees die of thirst, study finds
Posted by Guardian: Gabrielle Chan on September 8th, 2015
Guardian: A new study has found open-cut mines that modify groundwater levels can affect trees and ecosystems several kilometres away from mine sites. The study has implications for the $1.2bn Shenhua Watermark coalmine and the federal government’s proposed “green lawfare” legislation which aims to limit the power of people to challenge projects unless they are directly effected. Sebastian Pfautsch, from the Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, was funded to examine eucalypts...
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Comments Off on Diverted groundwater near mines may cause trees die of thirst, study finds‘Rivers of acid’ in Zambian villages
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2015
BBC: Zambian villagers are taking a multinational copper mining firm to court in the UK, accusing it of poisoning their water. The BBC's Nomsa Maseko visited the area which has allegedly been polluted. Dressed in colourful sarongs and t-shirts, the women of Hippo Pool village collect their water on the banks of the Kafue River on Zambia's copper belt. As the sun sets and the weather starts to cool down, they carry the water in large buckets which they balance gracefully on their heads as they walk back...
Questions and answers about damaging oilfield wastewater
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2015
Sacramento Bee: As U.S. oil and gas production increased this past decade, so, too, did spills of salty oilfield wastewater that can foul the land, kill wildlife and threaten freshwater supplies. An Associated Press analysis of 11 states found more than 180 million gallons of wastewater spilled from 2009 to 2014. Questions and answers about this damaging byproduct of energy production:
WHAT IS IT?
Oilfield wastewater is the fluid that comes to the surface when oil and gas are pumped out of the earth. Some...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Questions and answers about damaging oilfield wastewaterUnited Kingdom: Influential shale gas body ‘is packed with pro-fracking supporters’
Posted by Independent: David Connett on September 7th, 2015
Independent: The European Ombudsman is to investigate allegations that an influential group examining shale gas development is packed with pro-fracking supporters.
The investigation into the European Commission’s Unconventional Carbon Extraction (UCE) group has been launched after it was claimed it is dominated by people with links to the oil and gas industry. According to the EC the group’s efforts are to be the “main source of independent knowledge about fracking and other unconventional oil and gas exploration”....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Influential shale gas body ‘is packed with pro-fracking supporters’Greenland fines Greenpeace for drilling rig stunts
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2015
Reuters: A Greenland court on Monday fined Greenpeace over $26,000 for disrupting oil drilling off the island's coast, the latest chapter in the environmental group's fight to stop industrial development in the Arctic. Greenpeace activists boarded or tried to board an exploration rig belonging to Cairn Energy three times in 2011. The Edinburgh-based company drilled five prospective wells that year but none found commercial quantities of hydrocarbons. Greenpeace's campaigns in the Arctic have run into trouble...
Role of fresh water lakes, reservoirs in the global carbon cycle
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 7th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Lakes make up less than 3 percent of the landscape, but they bury more carbon than all the world's oceans combined. In the global carbon cycle, fresh water lakes and reservoirs are hot spots of carbon cycling and important players in the global carbon cycle. Understanding that role, as well as the impacts of climate change on fresh water lakes and reservoirs, is central to the work of Kevin Rose, who recently joined the faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). With a focus on aquatic ecology...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Role of fresh water lakes, reservoirs in the global carbon cycleHow Climate Change is Behind the Surge of Migrants to Europe
Posted by Time: Aryn Baker on September 7th, 2015
Time: More than 10,000 migrants and refugees traveled to Western Europe via Hungary over the weekend, fleeing conflict-ravaged and impoverished homelands in the hope of finding a more secure life abroad. Even as Europe wrestles over how to absorb the new arrivals, human rights activists and migration experts warn that the movement is not likely to slow anytime soon. Intractable wars, terror and poverty in the Middle East and beyond will continue to drive the surge. One additional factor, say scientists,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on How Climate Change is Behind the Surge of Migrants to EuropeClimate Change: Mountain Ponds Dried Up in the Heat Leaves Amphibians Starving for Water
Posted by Nature World: None Given on September 6th, 2015
Nature World: Between less winter snowfall, increased evaporation and the lengthened period of drought occurring in the Pacific Northwest, amphibians are stressing as they lose their mountain pond habitats.
"We've seen that the lack of winter snowpack and high summer temperatures have resulted in massive breeding failures and the death of some adult frogs," Wendy Palen, co-author and associate professor at Canada's Simon Fraser University, said in a news release. "More years like 2015 do not bode well for the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate Change: Mountain Ponds Dried Up in the Heat Leaves Amphibians Starving for WaterEvacuation Order Lifted on First Town Near Fukushima
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on September 6th, 2015
Environment News Service: On Saturday, Naraha became the first town to allow evacuated residents to return after an earthquake and tsunami damaged the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant more than four years ago.
The accident caused a meltdown in two of the plant`s six reactors that released radiation over a wide area. The entire area of Naraha falls within the 20 kilometer exclusion zone imposed by the Japanese government around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
About 100 people, including government...
Putting Human Faces India Mega Problems
Posted by National Geographic: Simon Worrall on September 6th, 2015
National Geographic: The monsoon rains in the state of Maharastra are late. If it doesn't rain in the next fortnight, this boy's family will lose their crop of sugarcane.
Like China, India is a leviathan among the world's emerging economies. As with China, economic and social progress have come at a price: pollution, depleted natural resources, and overpopulation.
Presenting an overview of these issues in a country of 1.2 billion people, with a stunning diversity of landscapes, faiths, and ethnic groups, can be...