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Archive for April 2nd, 2010
Build resilience to climate uncertainties through diversity, researchers urge
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Reuters: Farmers in the developing world have long struggled with the vagaries of weather, battling droughts, floods, storms and pest invasions brought on by changing conditions. In many ways, "climate change to us is nothing new," says Peter Hartmann, head of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, based in Ibadan, Nigeria. But what terrifies the longtime Nigerian researcher is how fast the changes are now coming. As the planet warms, he said, bands of heat, plant diseases ...
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Obama Stops In Massachusetts For Briefing On Floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Associated Press: Detouring from his schedule, President Barack Obama visited with emergency workers struggling against disastrous flooding in the Northeast on Thursday. Obama's helicopter landed at a county airport and the president's motorcade headed to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Framingham, about 20 miles west of Boston. White House officials said Obama was scheduled to meet with Gov. Deval Patrick and other officials between an afternoon rally for health overhaul ...
Countries Blame China, Not Nature, for Water Shortage
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
New York Times: In southern China, the worst drought in at least 50 years has dried up farmers' fields and left tens of millions of people short of water. But the drought has also created a major public relations problem for the Chinese government in neighboring countries, where in recent years China has tried to project an image of benevolence and brotherhood. Farmers and fishermen in countries that share the Mekong River with China, especially Thailand, have lashed out at China over four ...
Russia: Ecologists fear for Baikal as Putin saves factory
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Reuters: On the shores of Lake Baikal, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is held up as a savior and cursed as a scourge after allowing a Soviet-era paper mill to reopen beside the world's largest freshwater lake. Ecologists have branded Russia's most powerful man as the killer of Baikal, a 25-million-year-old lake believed by local tribes to be sacred, and have mustered thousands of people at protests calling for his resignation. Putin's opponents say he has misjudged the public ...
Snakes in the grass: Florida declares open season on Everglades intruders
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Guardian: Jeff Fobb freezes as he tries to sort through the noises rising from the swamp of the Everglades: the beating wings of an ibis, the scurrying of a lizard, the much louder splash of an alligator lowering itself into the water or, the sound he really wants to hear, the rustle of a large python in tall grass. "It sounds sort of like the wind, but more steady," says Fobb. He combs through the grass with a long metal hook. No snakes. But the pythons are out there, somewhere, and Florida is ...
Arch Coal sues EPA over veto of W.Va. mine permit
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Associated Press: A subsidiary of mining giant Arch Coal Inc. sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday over the planned veto of a water quality permit for West Virginia's largest surface mine. St. Louis-based Arch argues in the federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., that the EPA doesn't have the authority to revoke a Clean Water Act permit once it has been issued. The permit for the Spruce No. 1 mine was issued to Arch's Mingo Logan Coal three years ago. The EPA announced the veto ...
China: Cyber attacks against mine opponents in Vietnam, says Google
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Mongabay: Malicious software is being used to spy on critics of a controversial bauxite mine in Vietnam, reports Google. The software, which enables users to type in Vietnamese characters, carries spyware that allows outsiders to remotely access computers upon which it is installed. "These infected machines have been used both to spy on their owners as well as participate in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against blogs containing messages of political dissent," Neel Mehta, ...
Environmentalists blast Obama mining rule reversal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Associated Press: The same week President Barack Obama riled environmentalists with plans for offshore oil drilling, he faces criticism for signaling he will support a Bush-era policy criticized as giving mining companies unlimited access to public lands to dump toxic waste. The administration asked a federal judge Tuesday to dismiss a challenge by environmental and community groups to a rule that lifted a restriction on how much public land companies can use. The groups are also challenging a 2008 ...
E.P.A. Rules to Limit Water Pollution From Mining
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
New York Times: The Environmental Protection Agency issued tough new water quality guidelines on Thursday that could curtail some of the most contentious coal mining techniques used across Appalachia. In announcing the guidelines, Lisa P. Jackson, the agency's administrator, cited evolving science on the effects of mountaintop removal mining, an aggressive form of coal extraction that uses explosives and vast machinery to tear off hilltops to expose coal seams, dumping the resulting rubble into ...
EPA unveils new pollution limits that could curtail ‘mountaintop’ mining
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Washington Post: The Obama administration on Thursday imposed strict new environmental guidelines that are expected to sharply curtail "mountaintop" coal mining, a controversial practice that has enriched Appalachia's economy while rearranging its topography. The announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency ended months of bureaucratic limbo on the issue. It was hailed by environmentalists but condemned by coal industry officials, who said it would render a technique that generates about 10 ...