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Archive for March 1st, 2010
Oil firms braced for anti-tar sand resolutions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
Business Green: British companies involved in the controversial extraction of oil from Canadian tar sands in Alberta are preparing themselves for a backlash from shareholders and environmentalists hell bent on highlighting their opposition to the plans. According to reports in The Observer yesterday, an increasingly vocal group of shareholders and environmentalists are planning to turn the forthcoming BP, Shell and Royal Bank of Scotland annual meetings into a referendum on these controversial ...
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United Kingdom: Thames Barrier closed again to protect capital
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
Press Association: The Thames Barrier was closed for the third time in two days today to protect London from a combination of high tides and swollen rivers following heavy rainfall over the weekend. But the Environment Agency said the risk of flooding across England and Wales was easing, and the number of flood warnings and watches in place is expected to decrease. The flooding risk rose after days of heavy rain swelled rivers and saturated the ground. A storm which left at least 51 people ...
Guyana bans gold mining in the ‘Land of the Giants’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
Mongabay: Guyana has banned gold dredging in the Rewa Head region after an expedition turned up unspoiled wilderness and mind-boggling biodiversity. The researchers, in just six weeks, stumbled on the world's largest snake (anaconda), spider (the aptly named goliath bird-eating spider), armadillo (the giant armadillo), anteater (the giant anteater), and otter (the giant otter), leading them to dub the area 'the Land of the Giants'. "During our brief survey we had encounters with wildlife that ...
Discovery in legumes could reduce fertilizer use, aid environment
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
ScienceDaily: Nitrogen is vital for all plant life, but increasingly the planet is paying a heavy price for the escalating use of nitrogen fertilizer. Excess nitrogen from fertilizer runoff into rivers and lakes causes algal blooms that create oxygen-depleted dead zones, such as the 6,000 to 7,000 square mile zone in the Gulf of Mexico, and nitrogen in the form of nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas. But new findings by Stanford researchers that reveal the inner workings of ...