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Archive for March, 2010
Ethiopia dam will not displace 200,000: builder
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2010
Reuters: The Italian firm building Africa's biggest hydropower dam in Ethiopia on Tuesday denied allegations that the dam would deprive 200,000 self-sufficient people of a living and make them dependent on aid. The ethnic rights group Survival International said last week that the dam would disrupt fishing and farming and displace more than 200,000 people, among them the Kwegu and Hamar tribes. "The project will not cause drought: the dam will not block the flow of water to the river ...
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Indonesia: Polluted rivers are a CO2 ticking time bomb
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2010
Jakarta Post: Nine of Indonesia's main rivers are contaminated with dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) due to the dumping of industrial chemicals and agriculture and domestic waste, a four-year study shows. There is a far higher percentage of CO2 in the nine rivers than in the atmosphere, the survey shows. "The rivers are far more polluted than the atmosphere," said Elvin Alrian, director of the climate change and air quality unit at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics ...
Gloom and Gaia
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 30th, 2010
BBC: The man who achieved global fame for his theory that the whole earth is a single organism now believes that we can only hope that the earth will take care of itself in the face of completely unpredictable climate change. Interviewed by Today presenter John Humphrys, videos of which you can see below, he said that while the earths future was utterly uncertain, mankind was not aware it had "pulled the trigger" on global warming as it built its civilizations. What is more, he ...
Last chance to save Bangladeshi forest: 90 percent of the Sal ecosystem is gone
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2010
Mongabay: Considered the most threatened ecosystem in Bangladesh, the moist deciduous Sal forest (Shorea robusta) is on the verge of vanishing. In 1990 only 10 percent of the forest cover remained, down from 36 percent in 1985 according to statistics from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). A new study in the online open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science looks at the threats posed to the Shal forest and ways in which it may still be saved. The Sal forest in central and ...
US proposes to veto mountaintop removal coal mine
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed an unprecedented veto to restrict or prohibit mining at a major proposed US mountaintop removal coal mining site. If the veto is finalized, it would invalidate a permit first issued in 2007 for the Army Corps of Engineers at the Spruce No. 1 surface mine in southern West Virginia. In explaining its decision, the EPA said Friday the Arch Coal Inc. mine would pollute surrounding water, fill over seven miles (11 kilometers) of ...
EPA to investigate environmental impact of BPA
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2010
Associated Press: The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it will investigate the impact of the chemical Bisphenol-A on the U.S. water supply and other parts of the environment. Federal regulators have been ramping up their scrutiny of the controversial plastic-hardener at the behest of scientists and activists who say it can interfere with infant growth and development. The EPA said in a statement it will begin measuring levels of BPA in drinking and ground water. More than 1 million ...
United States: Poplar project takes aim at waste, power
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2010
Missoulian: Heath Carey planted some 300 poplar trees last year on a couple of acres at Missoula's wastewater treatment plant. Carey, a University of Montana graduate student in resource conservation, said he poured just about everything he had into the impoverished soil besides tears, and maybe some of those, too. "I ran a stake through my face when I was planting trees," Carey said. The trees drink a small gulp of the effluent flowing from the treatment plant into the Clark Fork ...
China’s drought-stricken south may get rain in next two days
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 29th, 2010
Bloomberg: China's drought-stricken south may get relief from rain over the next few days as a lingering dry spell, blamed on climate change, leaves more than 18 million people facing water shortages. The drought is likely to continue despite efforts to seed clouds and showers that will accompany an east-moving cold front, the China Meteorological Administration said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Drizzle and sporadic rain may fall in parts of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi in the next two ...
Company seeks first U.S. oil sands project, in Utah
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 28th, 2010
Associated Press: An energy company with government approvals to launch the first significant U.S. oil sands project is trying to raise money to build a plant in eastern Utah that would turn out 2,000 barrels of oil a day. Earth Energy Resources Inc. has a state lease to work a 62-acre pit in Uintah County, where it has demonstrated technology that can extract oil out of sands using a proprietary solvent it calls environmentally friendly. But first, the Calgary, Alberta-based company says it ...
BPA not just in food and water, but all over the ocean
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 28th, 2010
Mongabay: Increasingly consumers are concerned about the chemical bisphenol A or more-widely known as BPA, which is present in certain plastics. The chemical is capable of leaching from plastic containers and liners into our food and drink. European, Canadian, and US governments have recently backtracked on longstanding arguments that BPA was not harmful and now warn that there is evidence that it is harmful to fetuses, infants, and maybe children and adults. Now, researchers announce a new place ...