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Archive for May 2nd, 2010
Australia: Farmers not sold on climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
Sun-Herald: AUSTRALIAN farmers are sceptical about climate change and many do not believe it will affect agriculture during their lifetimes, a report says. But the CSIRO research is calling on rural producers to increase their knowledge of the implications of global warming so they can make their farms more resistant to changing climatic conditions. The report, A Participatory Approach to Developing Climate Change Adaption Options for NSW Farming Systems, identifies ways farmers can ...
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New Cleanup Technique Holds Hope for Oil Spill Cleanup
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
New York Times: Officials in charge of the cleanup of a massive oil spill now approaching three Gulf Coast states said Saturday that a new technique in battling the leaks 5,000 feet beneath the sea showed promise. Among the various weapons employed against the gushing crude has been the distribution of chemical dispersants on the water's surface to break down the oil. The new approach involves the deployment of the dispersants underwater, near the source of the leaks. Officials said that in two ...
Coastal La. dilemma: Oil is essential; so is water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
Associated Press: Out where Louisiana ends and the Gulf of Mexico begins, it's hard to know which is king -- oil or fishing. Up and down four-lane La. Route 23, which runs between two protective earthen levees, aluminum skiffs share driveway space with pickups. Meanwhile, a sign outside the Fill-A-Sack convenience store in Boothville proudly advertises gas with "ZERO ETHANOL" -- a subtle homage to the oil industry's tank farms and refineries that line the roads between here and New ...
United States: US spill ‘threatens way of life’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
BBC: Later on Sunday, Louisiana's Republican governor will meet Mr Obama to discuss the disaster, for which the president has warned BP will be held ultimately responsible. Mr Jindal told a news conference on Saturday: "This oil spill threatens not only our wetlands and our fisheries, but also our way of life." Keeping up pressure on the British energy giant, Mr Jindal said he had still not received detailed plans from the firm on how it would stop the spill. As sheen from ...
EPA ramps up air quality monitoring for oil spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
Associated Press: The Environmental Protection Agency says it's stepping up air quality monitoring on the Gulf Coast. There are concerns that vapors from the oil and controlled fires might cause health problems for people living in the region. An oil smell could cause headaches or nausea, but EPA spokesman Dave Bary said Saturday there have been no confirmed reports of such problems. State health agencies are advising people having such symptoms to stay indoors and ventilate their homes with air ...
World leaders have failed to stem biodiversity loss: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
Agence France-Presse: World leaders have fallen short on a pledge to stem biodiversity loss and have instead allowed alarming declines in species populations, habitat conditions and other indicators, a study showed Thursday. Researchers looked at 31 indicators with global data covering the period 1970 to 2005, to gauge progress on achieving a goal set by world leaders in 2002 to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss. The goal was set in 2002 under the Convention for Biological Diversity ...
Tax on Oil May Help Pay for Gulf Spill Cleanup
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
New York Times: The federal government has a large rainy day fund on hand to help mitigate the expanding damage on the Gulf Coast, generated by a tax on oil for use in cases like the Deepwater Horizon spill. Up to $1 billion of the $1.6 billion reserve could be used to compensate for losses from the accident, as much as half of it for what is sometimes a major category of costs: damage to natural resources like fisheries and other wildlife habitats. Under the law that established the reserve, ...
Canada: Warmest April on record follows winters invisible drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
Record: The "invisible drought" is now easier to see. Waterloo Region -- and most of southern Ontario -- just finished the warmest April on record, after one of the driest winters in 70 years. The low water levels in rivers and creeks are more typical of midsummer than spring. Farmers are already irrigating parched fields to coax newly planted seeds to sprout. Allergy season arrived three weeks early, without any steady rains to clean the air. It's the opening weekend for Grand ...
BP Chairman Blames Failed Equipment For Oil Spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
National Public Radio: The chairman of oil giant BP defended his company's record Sunday and blamed "a failed piece of equipment" for the massive oil spill edging ever closer to the Gulf Coast, where President Obama was headed to assess firsthand the growing crisis. BP PLC chairman Lamar McKay told ABC's This Week that he can't say when the well a mile beneath the sea might be plugged. But he said he believes a dome that could be placed over the well is expected to be deployed in six to eight ...
Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2010
Guardian: Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter. The decline of the country's estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died ...