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Archive for July, 2010
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 ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on When a Billion Chinese Jump by Jonathan Watts | Book reviewGlobal 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 ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Sorting Bangladeshi disasters from the fact or myth of climate changeGulf 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.
Study says global warming will mean less water in rivers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 16th, 2010
Denver Post: A National Academy of Sciences study released this morning quantifies potential impacts of climate change - linking water in rivers, crop yields and wildfire damage to specific temperature increases. For example, for every 1.8 degrees of warming, Colorado can expect 5-10 percent less water in the Arkansas and Rio Grande rivers, the study found. The study on likely future effects of climate change also anticipates 5-10 percent less total rain in Colorado and other southwestern ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Study says global warming will mean less water in riversGreenpeace slams ‘destruction’ of the Spanish coast
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 16th, 2010
Agence France Presse: Environmental protection group Greenpeace criticised Friday the rapid building over of the Spanish coast, publishing pictures of former fishing villages swallowed up by urban encroachment. Between 1987 and 2005, more than 50,000 hectares (123,550 acres) of natural coastline had been given over to urban or commercial use and this "destruction" was continuing at a pace of 7.7 hectares a day, it said in a new report. Spain's economic crisis had seen no let up in the construction, ...