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Archive for March, 2010
‘Very dramatic’ changes in Greenland: ice loss spreads north
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 28th, 2010
Mongabay: Over the past ten years scientists have measured increasing ice loss along southern Greenland. Now a new study in Geophysical Research Letters shows that the ice loss has spread north with likely consequences for global sea level rise. Collecting data from NASA's satellite Gravity and Recovery Climate Experiment, known as GRACE, and GPS measurements of the bedrock on the edges of the ice sheet, the Denmark Technical Institute's National Space Institute in Copenhagen was able to show ...
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Russian protesters say factory to pollute world’s oldest lake
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 28th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Hundreds of people protested on Sunday in Moscow against the reopening of a factory environmentalists say will lead to waste being dumped into the world's oldest lake, a Greenpeace activist said. "The fate of (factory) workers must be decided while taking into account the fate of (Lake) Baikal -- and not that of the oligarchs," Russian writer Valentin Rasputin said in a message read out during the protest. Greenpeace activist Evgeny Usov put the number of protesters at nearly ...
Biblical plagues really happened say scientists
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 27th, 2010
Telegraph: Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based. But rather than explaining them as the wrathful act of a vengeful God, the scientists claim the plagues can be attributed to a chain of natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away. They have ...
Earth ‘entering new age of geological time’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 27th, 2010
Telegraph: Humans have wrought such vast and unprecedented changes on the planet that we may be ushering in a new period of geological history. Through pollution, population growth, urbanisation, travel, mining and use of fossil fuels we have altered the planet in ways which will be felt for millions of years, experts believe. It is feared that the damage mankind has inflicted will lead to the sixth largest mass extinction in Earth's history with thousands of plants and animals being ...
Russia: Protesters rally against Lake Baikal’s mill operations
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 27th, 2010
Reuters: Small protests took place across Russia Saturday against the reopening of a Lake Baikal paper mill over concerns it was polluting the world's largest freshwater lake. Around 200 people gathered in St. Petersburg, thousands of kilometers away from the lake, demanding to revoke the government's January decision to restart Baikal Paper Mill. Another 500 rallied closer to Baikal, which holds a fifth of the world's total surface fresh water, in the city of Ulan-Ude in the Buryat ...
Radioactive Leak Is Fixed at Vermont Nuclear Plant
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 26th, 2010
New York Times: The leak did not contaminate any drinking water, but it did cause a political uproar in Vermont; the State Senate overwhelmingly approved a measure last month that will force the plant to shut in 2012. Reversal is possible, but sentiment in Vermont is running firmly against the plant, which is in Vernon, near the Massachusetts border, because Entergy executives had assured state officials who asked about the potential for underground leaks that it had no pipes that could do ...
Bathing and showering: Under-appreciated sources of water pollution from medicines
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2010
ScienceDaily: That bracing morning shower and soothing bedtime soak in the tub are potentially important but until now unrecognized sources of the hormones, antibiotics, and other pharmaceuticals that pollute the environment, scientists reported at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco on March 24. The first-ever evaluation, they said, could lead to new ways to control environmental pollution from active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), which has been the source of ...
Big Oil seeks shale gas deal in climate bill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2010
Reuters: Three oil majors want U.S. senators crafting the climate bill to keep the federal government from regulating shale gas drilling methods that have made vast domestic reserves accessible but have been criticized for polluting water supplies. Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Joseph Lieberman, an independent, are hoping to release an outline of the climate bill next month. "Some of their staffers had asked the majors their views about what would be ...
China sandstorm fuels record pollution in HK, Taiwan
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Air pollution in Hong Kong and Taiwan soared to record levels as officials warned Monday of a public health menace from a toxic stew of particulates, fuelled by a massive sandstorm over Beijing. Readings of Hong Kong's Air Pollution Index were more than double the level at which the general public is advised to stay indoors. "Today's API is at record high levels," a spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Department told AFP. Hong Kong's famed skyline and harbour is ...
Ethiopia’s rush to build mega dams sparks protests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2010
Guardian: At the foot of a towering gorge slicing through southern Ethiopia the Omo river suddenly disappears into a tunnel bored into the rockface. Excavators claw at the soil and stone in the exposed riverbed beyond, where a giant concrete wall will soon appear in the ravine. At 243 metres the Gibe III dam will be the highest on the continent, a controversial centrepiece of Ethiopia's extraordinary multibillion-pound hydroelectric boom. The country that prides itself as "The Water ...