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Archive for March 2nd, 2010
Eating Appalachia: NASA satellite images reveal mountain cannibalism for coal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2010
Mongabay: New images released by NASA reveal the conversion of mountains and forests in southern West Virginia to a giant surface mine. The time-lapse shots from 1984 to 2009 show the process of mountaintop removal in Boone County, West Virginia. The images show forests being stripped, valleys filled, and giant craters excavated in the process of mining thin seams of coal at Hobet mine. "These natural-color (photo-like) images document the growth of the Hobet mine as it moves from ridge ...
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‘Climate Change is Killing People in Drylands”
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2010
InDepthNews: "Enhancing soils anywhere enhances life everywhere," says UN's top official Luc Gnacadja, who is tasked with combating land degradation and drought – not only in Africa, the most vulnerable continent, but all along the drylands belt running from Latin America through Sahel and Asia. Gnacadja is executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which along with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity ...
UN mulls global environment organization
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2010
Mongabay: Mass extinction, ocean acidification, deforestation, pollution, desertification, and climate change: the environmental issues facing the world are numerous and increasingly global in nature. To respond more effectively, the United Nations is considering forming a World Environmental Organization or WEO, similar to the World Trade Organization. The idea was first seriously considered at Copenhagen in December, but has taken a step forward at an annual meeting of the United Nation ...
EPA adds polluted NYC canal to Superfund list
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2010
Associated Press: For at least 120 years, city officials have been promising to do something about the oily, smelly mess that is the Gowanus Canal. Now, federal authorities will see if they can do a better job of cleaning up one of the city's most polluted waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday named the Brooklyn canal as a Superfund site, a distinction that allows the government to go after polluters and force them to pay for its restoration. The EPA has said the cleanup ...
Australia has hottest and driest summer on record
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2010
Mongabay: Western Australia endured its hottest summer on record, according to the state weather bureau. At 29.6°C, temperatures were 0.2°C warmer than the previous record, set in 1997-1998. Western Australia has been keeping state-wide temperature data since 1950. Perth, the state's capital, had its driest summer since record-keeping began in 1897. Only 0.2 millimeters of rain fell in between December and the end of February. Perth's average maximum summer temperature was 31.8°C, 1.5°C ...
Alberta works quietly to improve image of oil sands
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2010
ClimateWire: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) talked about tires on a recent Saturday. An Indiana congressman heard about engines days later. And in Wisconsin, the discussion centers on monster shovels that trundle through pit mines on tank treads. These aren't masculine chats about molded metal and mechanics. The unpublicized conversations are about oil. A specific sludge of lampooned and coveted crude: Canada's gooey bitumen from the Albertan "oil patch." The forested province is ...