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Archive for March, 2010
United States: Natural-gas development brings mixed impacts
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 14th, 2010
Daily Comet: The conveyances room of the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse used to bustle with abstractors researching potential lease properties for oil-and-gas companies. Today, the room is much quieter, and veteran abstractor David Toups spends less time there. Instead, he`s providing the same service from his office, looking at similar records electronically from north Louisiana parishes like Caddo and Red River. He estimates that 20 to 30 percent of his business is researching natural gas ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on United States: Natural-gas development brings mixed impactsUnited States: Is herbicide atrazine bad for you?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2010
Journal Star: The neighborhood where Tyrone Hayes grew up was developed by draining a swamp. He spent his youth fascinated with frogs, turtles, snakes and lizards that shared his stomping ground. Hayes graduated from Harvard University with a major in evolutionary biology, earned a Ph.D. at 24 and became the youngest tenured professor at the University of California-Berkeley. He became a world expert on frog development. Then he met atrazine, an herbicide used on more than 70 percent of ...
Climate Change Adds to Bird Stress
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2010
New York Times: Changes in the global climate are imposing additional stress on hundreds of species of migratory birds in the United States that are already threatened by other environmental factors, according to a new Interior Department report. The department's annual State of the Birds report shows that nearly a third of the nation's 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or suffering from population decline. For the first time, the report adds climate change to other factors threatening bird ...
Land loss, climate change endangering La. birds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2010
Daily Comet: The combined forces of climate change and land loss pose a major threat to Louisiana bird species, especially those that depend on the disappearing coast, according to a report released Thursday by a partnership of university bird researchers, federal agencies and environmental groups. The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change," released Thursday by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was prepared by a partnership of university bird researchers, federal agencies and ...
Zimbabwe: Farmers urged to adjust to changing weather patterns
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2010
Herald: Government has called on farmers to adjust to changing weather patterns and become more scientific in their approach to agriculture. In a speech read on his behalf by Mr Collins Mungate, a senior official in the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity, Minister Webster Shamu said Zimbabwe -- like all other countries in the region -- was affected by the effects of global warming and climate change. "Our rainfall pattern, amount and distribution of rain have changed ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Zimbabwe: Farmers urged to adjust to changing weather patternsLake Erie water quality worsening
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2010
Monroe News: Lake Erie was shrouded in fog Friday, but its future waters might be a muddier brown or an eerier bright green due to persistent pollution and climate change, experts suggest. The lake, especially its shallowest western basin bordering Monroe County and northwest Ohio, is suffering from farm-related and other runoff that threatens to return its health to that of the 1970s when it was written off as dead. "We don't want to be responsible for writing Lake Erie's obituary again," said ...
UN climate change claims on rainforests were wrong, study suggests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 13th, 2010
Telegraph: A new study, funded by Nasa, has found that the most serious drought in the Amazon for more than a century had little impact on the rainforest's vegetation. The findings appear to disprove claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could react drastically to even a small reduction in rainfall and could see the trees replaced by tropical grassland. The IPCC has already faced intense criticism for using a report by ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on UN climate change claims on rainforests were wrong, study suggestsALERT! Let Rainforest Action Network Know Global Ecological Sustainability Depends Upon Ending Old Forest Logging
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on March 13th, 2010
TAKE ACTION!
Rainforest Action Network [search] is a key supporter of failed Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) [search] efforts to sustainably log tens of millions of hectares of primary and old-growth forests for lawn furniture, toilet paper and other throw-away consumer items. As RAN celebrates its 25th anniversary, let them know old forests will never be fully protected as long as they and others unquestioningly support certified yet ecologically unsustainable first-time industrial primary rainforest logging. Demand RAN vigorously defend their support for first-time primary rainforest logging over an area two times as large as Texas, or resign from FSC immediately. Encourage RAN to spend the next 25 years working to protect and expand old forests to maintain a habitable Earth.
Posted in Uncategorized Comments Off on ALERT! Let Rainforest Action Network Know Global Ecological Sustainability Depends Upon Ending Old Forest LoggingNY water plan could cost power generators billions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 12th, 2010
Reuters: New York environmental regulators this week released a plan to protect aquatic life in the state's rivers that could cost power generators billions to upgrade their facilities. The plan, which still needs final approval, would affect most of the state's six nuclear power plants and several facilities powered by fossil fuels that use water for cooling. The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) wants the facilities to recycle and reuse the water in a closed-cycle cooling ...
Some see Clean Water Act settlement opening new path to GHG curbs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 12th, 2010
Greenwire: U.S. EPA settled a lawsuit yesterday by agreeing to use the Clean Water Act to address ocean acidification, a move that some see as opening a side door to federal curbs on greenhouse gases that scientists link to problems in the marine environment. The settlement with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity directly addresses EPA's failure to require Washington state to list its marine waters as impaired by rising acidity. The deal requires EPA to begin a rulemaking aimed at ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Some see Clean Water Act settlement opening new path to GHG curbs