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Archive for February, 2010
Algae to solve the Pentagon’s jet fuel problem
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 13th, 2010
Guardian: The brains trust of the Pentagon says it is just months away from producing a jet fuel from algae for the same cost as its fossil-fuel equivalent. The claim, which comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) that helped to develop the internet and satellite navigation systems, has taken industry insiders by surprise. A cheap, low-carbon fuel would not only help the US military, the nation's single largest consumer of energy, to wean itself off its oil addiction, ...
Russia: Protesters, supporters rally as Baikal mill to reopen
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 13th, 2010
Reuters: More than 2,000 people protested on Saturday at the decision to reopen a paper mill that was mothballed in 2008 over concerns it was polluting Lake Baikal. An equal number, including some bussed in by the authorities, rallied alongside them in the Siberian city of Irkutsk to hail the government's decision last month to restart Baikalsk Pulp & Paper Mill, restoring 2,000 jobs. The loss-making plant, which is the main employer for the 17,000 inhabitants of nearby town of ...
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Comments Off on Russia: Protesters, supporters rally as Baikal mill to reopenCanada: Tar sands snubbed by ‘green’ retailers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 13th, 2010
Toronto Star: Two trendy North American retail chains have washed their hands of Alberta's high-carbon oil sands, as environmentalists intensify a campaign to demonize the Canadian fuel. Organic food retailer Whole Foods Markets Ltd. and home furnishings chain Bed Bath and Beyond are believed to be the first major companies to stipulate to their fuel suppliers that they don't want gasoline refined from crude oil coming from the Alberta oil sands. Oil sands production is criticized by ...
Human error to blame for Indonesia’s mud volcano: scientists
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 12th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Scientists Friday unveiled fresh evidence that gas drillers were to blame for unleashing a mud volcano in Indonesia's East Java that claimed 14 lives and displaced tens of thousands of people. In a paper published by the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology, a group led by experts from Britain's Durham University said the new clues bolstered suspicions the catastrophe was caused by human error. The company being fingered for the disaster, drilling firm Lapindo Brantas, replied ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Human error to blame for Indonesia’s mud volcano: scientistsThe Day After Tomorrow Might Have Been Yesterday
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 12th, 2010
Inter Press Service: When the 2004 film "The Day After Tomorrow" depicted the northern United States buried under tens of feet of snow following an abrupt change in global climate patterns, it cemented the association in the public consciousness between climate change and extreme weather events. While the three feet or so of snowfall in Washington and throughout the mid-Atlantic U.S. coast this past week was a far cry from the tidal waves and walls of ice that haunted Jake Gyllenhaal and Dennis Quaid in ...
Investors urge companies to come clean over water risks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 12th, 2010
Business Green: The vast majority of companies operating in water intensive industries are failing to provide investors with adequate information on the water-related risks they face and in many cases have little idea how their supply chains could be impacted by water shortages. That is the stark conclusion of a major new report from sustainable investor group Ceres, financial services firm UBS and news agency Bloomberg, which yesterday warned many firms operating in water intensive industries have ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Investors urge companies to come clean over water risksUnited States: As politicians waffle on climate change, glaciers exit Glacier National Park
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 12th, 2010
Colorado Independent: As Denver Mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper waffles on climate change, the U.S. Geological Society is reporting that Montana`s Glacier National Park will be glacier-less in a decade. Scientists had previously estimated that the park`s signature glacier-grade ice fields would last until 2030. Glacier National Park, where glaciers are an endangered species. "The 2020 date is new. Dan Fagre, glacier-melting expert [for the USGS], took a close look at ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United States: As politicians waffle on climate change, glaciers exit Glacier National ParkBecoming vegetarian ‘can harm the environment’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 12th, 2010
Telegraph: It has often been claimed that avoiding red meat is beneficial to the environment, because it lowers emissions and less land is used to produce alternatives. But a study by Cranfield University, commissioned by WWF, the environmental group, found a substantial number of meat substitutes -- such as soy, chickpeas and lentils -- were more harmful to the environment because they were imported into Britain from overseas. The study concluded: "A switch from beef and milk to highly ...
Indonesia: New study links drilling to Indonesia mud volcano
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 12th, 2010
Reuters: A team of scientists said in a report on Friday that they had found the strongest evidence yet linking a devastating mud volcano in Indonesia to drilling at a gas exploration well by local energy firm PT Lapindo Brantas. Lapindo has denied triggering the disaster through its drilling activities, arguing the mud volcano near Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya was triggered by an earthquake. The hot mud started spewing from the East Java drilling site in 2006 and has now ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Indonesia: New study links drilling to Indonesia mud volcanoModels of sea level change during ice-age cycles challenged
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 12th, 2010
ScienceDaily: Theories about the rates of ice accumulation and melting during the Quaternary Period -- the time interval ranging from 2.6 million years ago to the present -- may need to be revised, thanks to research findings published by a University of Iowa researcher and his colleagues in the Feb. 12 issue of the journal Science. Jeffrey Dorale, assistant professor of geoscience in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, writes that global sea level and Earth's climate are closely linked. ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Models of sea level change during ice-age cycles challenged