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Archive for April, 2010
Arctic thaw frees overlooked greenhouse gas: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 5th, 2010
Reuters: Thawing permafrost can release nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, a contributor to climate change that has been largely overlooked in the Arctic, a study showed on Sunday. The report in the journal Nature Geoscience indicated that emissions of the gas surged under certain conditions from melting permafrost that underlies about 25 percent of land in the Northern Hemisphere. Emissions of the gas measured from thawing wetlands in Zackenberg in eastern Greenland leapt 20 ...
BP shareholders at loggerheads over vote on tar sands development
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 4th, 2010
Guardian: Large shareholders will be pitted against each other this week in a row over oil giant BP's involvement with tar sands in a battle that is set to dominate this year's round of company annual meetings. A special resolution has been filed by 143 shareholders for BP's annual meeting on 15 April, demanding the company provide a full report by next year about the risks of its planned tar sands development in Canada. The Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) has sparked conflict ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on BP shareholders at loggerheads over vote on tar sands developmentAral Sea ‘one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 4th, 2010
Telegraph: Published: 12:00AM BST 05 Apr 2010 The sea which has shrunk by 90 per cent has ruined the once-robust fishing economy and left fishing trawlers stranded in sandy wasterlands. The sea shrank largely due to a Soviet project to boost cottong production in the arid region. Its evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles. Ban Ki-Moon toured the sea by ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Aral Sea ‘one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters’BP fights to limit controls on shale gas drilling
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 4th, 2010
Guardian: BP is lobbying on Capitol Hill against a federal US environmental agency being given jurisdiction over the use of a controversial method of extracting gas from shale deposits, ahead of an important meeting this week. The London-based oil company wants decisions on drilling techniques such as hydraulic fracturing – which uses high-pressure liquids to force fissures – to be taken at state level, rather than being left to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whose specialist ...
Oil spill pollutes tributary of China’s Yellow River
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 3rd, 2010
Agence France-Presse: A tributary of China's Yellow River has been polluted by an oil spill, state-run media reported Saturday, in the latest environmental accident to threaten the nation's drinking water. About 1,000 tonnes of oil sludge has contaminated farmland and the Luohe River in northern Shaanxi province after a recycling pool at a sewage treatment plant collapsed last Sunday, the China Daily said. More than 2,000 people have been scrambling to clean up the mess and eight containment belts ...
Australia appoints first population minister
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 3rd, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Saturday announced Australia's first population minister, citing concerns about sustainability as the number of people is tipped to balloon within decades. Rudd, who has previously talked of a "Big Australia", said the government needed to plan for an ageing and growing population which a recent report forecast would jump from 22 million to 35.9 million within 40 years. "Many Australians have legitimate concerns about the sustainability of the ...
New York Denies Indian Point Plant a Water Permit
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 3rd, 2010
New York Times: In a major victory for environmental advocates, New York State has ruled that outmoded cooling technology at the Indian Point nuclear power plant kills so many Hudson River fish, and consumes and contaminates so much water, that it violates the federal Clean Water Act. The decision is a blow to the plant's owner, the Entergy Corporation, which now faces the prospect of having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build stadium-size cooling towers, or risk that Indian Point's two ...
How to plan better for New England floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 3rd, 2010
Christian Science Monitor: As flood waters recede in rain-soaked New England, March's record-smashing storms highlight the need for planners in the region to place an increased emphasis on reducing flood risks and boosting their communities' resilience to floods. Focus not only should be placed on nuts-and-bolts, concrete-and-rebar projects such as upgrades to roads, bridges, culverts, and municipal drainage systems. Planners need to update the basic information on rainfall intensity they use to determine the ...
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 ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Build resilience to climate uncertainties through diversity, researchers urgeObama 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 ...