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Archive for March, 2010
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 ...
Massive Antarctic iceberg threatens ocean circulation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
New Scientist: The calving of a massive iceberg off east Antarctica last week has prompted fears that the event could alter the salinity of the surrounding ocean, with damaging effects on marine life and global ocean currents. The 860-billion-tonne berg, with a surface area of about 2500 square kilometres, had formed 50 per cent of a 100-kilometre tongue poking out of the Mertz glacier. Major fractures had been developing for years, so the break was anticipated, say Rob Massom and Neal Young ...
El Niño and a pathogen, not global warming, killed Costa Rican toad
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
ScienceDaily: Scientists broadly agree that global warming may threaten the survival of many plant and animal species; but global warming did not kill the Monteverde golden toad, an often cited example of climate-triggered extinction, says a new study. The toad vanished from Costa Rica's Pacific coastal-mountain cloud forest in the late 1980s, the apparent victim of a pathogen outbreak that has wiped out dozens of other amphibians in the Americas. Many researchers have linked outbreaks of the ...
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Comments Off on El Niño and a pathogen, not global warming, killed Costa Rican toadCosta Rica: Global warming didn’t kill the golden toad
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
Science NOW: The golden toad was last seen in 1989 in the Costa Rican cloud forest of Monteverde--and 5 years later, its disappearance was the first extinction to be blamed on humanmade global warming. New evidence, however, suggests that humans may not have been at fault after all. Here's the current line on what drove the golden toad extinct. As humans pumped carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, Costa Rican rainforests became hotter and dryer in the mid-1980s. These ...
Weed Killer Makes Male Frogs Lay Eggs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
National Geographic: The so-called pregnant man has company: One of the most common weed killers in the United States can make male frogs lay eggs, a new study says. Atrazine, widely used to kill pests on U.S. croplands, is an endocrine disruptor--a substance that interferes with animals' reproductive systems. Previous research has shown that atrazine can give male amphibians female characteristics: For instance, male frogs exposed to atrazine have lower testosterone levels, produce less sperm, and ...
Australia has hottest-ever summer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Western Australia has sweated through its hottest ever summer, recording average temperatures just shy of 30 degrees Celsius, officials said on Monday. Weather officials said the giant, dusty state roasted at an average of about 29,6 Celsius during the southern hemisphere summer, 0,2 degrees over the previous high in 1997-1998. The state capital Perth also endured its driest summer since records began in 1897, with just 0,2 millimetres of rain falling in December, January and ...
UK flood warnings remain as heavy rain eases
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
Guardian: Flood warnings remain in force today despite some respite from the deluge of rain that hit the UK over the weekend. The Environment Agency had 18 flood warnings in place this morning and 140 flood watches, although it said it was not expecting any flooding of property. The remaining risk of flooding – the warnings apply to north-east England, parts of East Anglia, and the river Arun in West Sussex – is posed by river water still running down after the weekend rainfall, the ...
How that cork in your wine bottle helps forests and biodiversity, an interview with Patrick Spencer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 1st, 2010
Mongabay: Next time you're in the supermarket looking to buy a nice bottle of wine: think cork. Although it's not widely known, the cork industry is helping to sustain one of the world's most biodiverse forests, including a number of endangered species such as the Iberian lynx and the Barbary deer. Spreading across 6.6 million acres in southern Europe (France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy) and northern Africa (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) oak cork trees Quercus suber are actually preserved and ...
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