RSS Feed
Archive for July 17th, 2010
United Kingdom: Families ‘must guard against floods as they do against fire’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
Western Mail: HOUSEHOLDS in Wales should prepare for the threat of flooding in the same way they guard against the risk of a fire, a draft government strategy document recommends. The growing danger of flooding in Wales is laid bare in a major consultation launched yesterday which makes clear that bold changes are needed in the way the nation guards against such disaster. It makes no secret of the fact that Wales cannot afford to carry on building ever-higher coastal defences and funds must ...
Posted in 
Rep. Markey Faults BP Along The Way
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
National Public Radio: Congressman Ed Markey has been one of the major critics of BP's efforts to contain the oil that, until late this week, was spreading into the Gulf of Mexico. Host Scott Simon talks with Markey, who chairs House committees on climate and energy and says BP should measure more precisely the amount of oil that has spilled into the ocean.
Brazil vows to continue clean energy push at summit
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Brazil hopes to demonstrate its commitment to renewable energy, which currently provides half the country's power, at a clean energy summit in Washington this week, Energy Minister Marcio Zimmermann said Saturday. "Brazil is committed to continuing its renewable energy grid and our plans for 2019 and 2030 maintain that characteristic," Zimmermann told AFP in an interview. Energy ministers or senior officials from 21 major economies -- who together account for 80 percent of the ...
Study quantifies potential impacts of climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
Denver Post: A new National Academy of Sciences study quantifies potential impacts of climate change -- linking reduced streamflow, rainfall and crop yields, and more wildfire damage to specific temperature increases. For example, for every 1.8 degrees of warming, Colorado can expect 5 percent to 10 percent less water in the Arkansas River and Rio Grande, the government-funded study found. The Colorado River Basin, which sustains people in seven western states, likely would see 6 percent ...
When a Billion Chinese Jump by Jonathan Watts | Book review
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
Guardian: It's always wise to be careful what you wish for. When China was poor and communist, its government disdained consumption and castigated the evils of capitalism, while in the west we argued that happiness lay in the joy of stuff. The good news is that China now agrees about the stuff, embracing a strange hybrid capitalism with distinctly Chinese characteristics. But that is also the bad news, as Jonathan Watts memorably explains in When a Billion Chinese Jump. When a Billion Chinese ...
Global temperatures rise to record levels
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
Reuter: The world is enduring the hottest year on record, according to a US national weather analysis, causing droughts worldwide and a concern for US farmers counting on another bumper year. For the first six months of the year, 2010 has been warmer than the first half of 1998, the previous record holder, by 0.03 degree Fahrenheit, said Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at the federal National Climatic Data Center. Period of a El Nino weather pattern is being blamed for the hot ...
Sorting Bangladeshi disasters from the fact or myth of climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
Australian: CAKED in sweat and slime, Mohamed Abdul Wozad pauses for breath before heaving another basket of river mud on his head, and starting up the slippery path towards the embankment above. A lifetime resident of Gabura Island in southwest Bangladesh, Wozad lives at the battlefront of global climate change, a 28sq km patch of damp earth clasped in the estuarine fingers of Bangladesh's sprawling river network. Bangladesh squeezes its roughly 160 million population into an area one-sixth the ...
Gulf well test could exceed 48 hours: BP executive
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
Reuters: A critical test on BP Plc's blown-out Gulf of Mexico oil well could last beyond the original 48-hour deadline as pressure continued to rise very slowly, a company executive said on Saturday. The pressure test is intended to show whether the blowout damaged the piping and cement inside the stricken well, which could allow oil and natural gas to leak out the sides and possibly breach the seabed. The 48-hour mark originally touted as the end of the test loomed Saturday ...
Gulf Gusher Capped, But Worries Remain
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
National Public Radio: SCOTT SIMON, host: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Scott Simon. The well in the Gulf of Mexico stopped spewing oil more than a day and a half ago, but officials aren't sure that they can keep it shut down. Tests of the well has given them ambiguous results. The concern is that now that the top of the well is closed off, oil could potentially cut a new path to the surface through rock and mud. NPR science correspondent Richard Harris joins us in our ...
Coast Guard Official: Battling ‘Blob’ Make Take Years
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 17th, 2010
National Public Radio: Host Guy Raz speaks with Commander Nathan Knapp of the U.S. Coast Guard about what the water looks like now that the leak has been stopped and what's next in the cleanup. Knapp is the deputy incident commander for operations based in Houma, La.