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Archive for April, 2010
Sinking Island Highlights Effects of Climate Change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 14th, 2010
Voice of America: Our planet is warming. Average global temperatures have climbed about one degree Celsius since the last century, and at an accelerated rate in recent decades. And scientists believe the global warming trend is responsible for an increased severity of droughts, floods, and storms across the globe, and slowly rising ocean levels. The serious consequences of earth's changing climate are the subject of three new documentary films, funded in part by the Pulitzer Center on ...
Judge warns EPA of contempt in Everglades case
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 14th, 2010
Associated Press: A federal judge threatened the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with contempt of court in a ruling Wednesday that accuses the agency of ignoring Clean Water Act requirements in Florida's Everglades. U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold ruled in 2008 that the EPA had turned a "blind eye" to Florida's Everglades cleanup efforts, while the state continued to violate its own commitment to restore the vast ecosystem. He ordered the EPA to review water pollution standards and timelines set ...
Greens launch NAFTA action on Canada oil sands
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 14th, 2010
Reuters: Environmental groups launched a complaint against Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement Wednesday, saying the country has failed to enforce anti-pollution rules governing its vast oil sands. In the latest move in a long-running campaign to highlight the impact of oil sands development, the submission by Environmental Defense Canada, Natural Resources Defense Council and three citizens charges that toxic tailings ponds are being allowed to leak and contaminate ground ...
The consequences of ignoring water risks in the US
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 14th, 2010
Business Green: Failure to address water risks and other critical issues posed by aging or inadequate infrastructure could further impede the US economy and America's attempts to regain global competitiveness on a number of fronts, a new study has warned. That is the conclusion of Infrastructure 2010: Investment Imperative, the fourth in an annual series of reports produced by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young that examine infrastructure trends around the globe. Earlier reports ...
Study Finds Benefits in Modified Crops but Warns of Overuse
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 14th, 2010
New York Times: Genetically engineered crops have provided "substantial' environmental and economic benefits to American farmers, but overuse of the technology is threatening to erode the gains, a national science advisory organization said Tuesday in a report. The report is described as the first comprehensive assessment of the impact of genetically modified crops on American farmers, who have rapidly adopted them since their introduction in 1996. The study was issued by the National Research ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Study Finds Benefits in Modified Crops but Warns of OveruseCanadian Ice Sheet Is Melting Rapidly, Study Shows
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 13th, 2010
Yale Environment 360: One of the largest ice sheets in Canada's high Arctic has been swiftly shrinking in recent decades as a result of warmer summers, according to a new study. The 895-square-mile ice cap on Devon Island, an uninhabited island in Baffin Bay, has declined steadily since 1985, according to analysis by scientists at the University of Calgary. Because the remote Arctic area is essentially a desert, with minimal annual S. Boon, L. CoplandResearchers collect data in 2008 precipitation, any increase of ...
Peruvian glacier split triggers deadly tsunami
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 13th, 2010
Guardian: A massive ice block broke from a glacier and crashed into a lake in the Peruvian Andes, unleashing a 23-metre tsunami and sending muddy torrents through nearby towns, killing at least one person. The chunk of ice, estimated at the size of four football pitches, detached from the Hualcan glacier near Carhuaz, about 200 miles north of the capital, Lima, on Sunday. It plunged into a lagoon known as lake 513, triggering a tsunami that breached 23 metre (75ft) high levees and damaged ...
Q & A: Farming Fish
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 13th, 2010
New York Times: Q. Why do ecologists seem to give the nod to farmed catfish and tilapia but not salmon? A. The ecological issues related to fish farming vary from freshwater to saltwater fish; from carnivorous species to noncarnivores; and from open pens to closed ponds and tanks, among many other factors. Farmed salmon, often raised in pens that are permeable by surrounding ocean waters and fed a diet rich in fish meal and fish oil, have been of special concern to critics like the World ...
China plans to curb foreign investment in polluting sectors
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 13th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: China said Tuesday it planned to curb foreign investment in polluting sectors and instead direct it into high technology and new energy. The State Council, the nation's cabinet, said in guidelines on its website that it aimed to "seriously restrict (foreign investment) in high energy, highly polluting... projects". It added that foreign investment in "high-end manufacturing, high-technology and service industries, and new energy and energy-saving environmental sectors" should ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on China plans to curb foreign investment in polluting sectorsWater Shortage Calls for Second Look at Indus Treaty
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 13th, 2010
Inter Press Service: Climate change and the probability that a current water shortage would worsen may make constantly bickering neighbours, India and Pakistan, take a closer look at a 50-year-old treaty under which they share rivers originating from the Himalayas. And while the latest official annual meeting regarding the treaty ended inconclusively in Lahore in March, experts say the two countries would do well to keep talking about the water resources they share. Danish Mustafa, a water ...