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Archive for July, 2010
Sizzling Moscow shrouded in polluting smog
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2010
Associated Press: A cloud of harmful smog has enveloped Moscow, raising airborne pollutants to four times the norm, officials said Wednesday, and prompting doctors to urge residents to stay indoors as the city swelters in a record heat wave. Officials have said the smog, which has plunged the Kremlin and other famous landmarks into a dull haze for days, is the capital's worst since 2002. The cloud has drifted in from dozens of peat bog and forest fires in rural land south and east of the city, ...
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100 days of oil: Gulf life will never be the same
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2010
Associated Pres: A hundred days ago, shop owner Cherie Pete was getting ready for a busy summer serving ice cream and po-boys to hungry fishermen. Local official Billy Nungesser was planning his wedding. Environmental activist Enid Sisskin was preparing a speech about the dangers of offshore drilling. Then the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded off the coast of Louisiana, and in an instant, life along the Gulf Coast changed for good. Pete spends her days worrying that the fishing industry may ...
Russia: Pollution threat to deepest lake
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2010
BBC: The world's deepest and oldest lake, Lake Baikal, is at risk of being removed from the UNESCO World Heritage list. A Russian pulp and paper mill has been polluting the water for decades. Now, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is meeting in Brazil to discuss the effect of the plant's waste waters. There are fears the lake may end up on the endangered list or get struck off it altogether. Katia Moskvitch reports.
Sparks fly over study suggesting wildfires cut CO2
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2010
Conservation Magazine: Call it a hot topic. A study suggesting that intentional forest blazes could significantly cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from wildfires in the Western United States has prompted a piquant scholarly quarrel. The exchange highlights the challenge forest managers may face in balancing plans to use fire to restore forest ecosystems with efforts to curb carbon emissions. Forests have emerged as a key player in climate change because trees can suck huge amounts of CO2 out of the ...
Argentina, Uruguay strike deal over paper mill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Argentina and Uruguay have agreed to a joint environmental monitoring program along the shared Uruguay River, ending a seven-year pollution controversy over a Finnish paper mill on the Uruguayan side. "A chapter in hour history ends and a new era of cooperation begins," Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said at the signing ceremony in the presidential palace. The agreement, which calls for setting up a joint-scientific committee in 30 days to begin the monitoring work, ...
Company ramps up effort to clean Mich. river spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2010
Associated Press: Michigan's governor on Wednesday sharply criticized attempts to contain a large oil spill making its way down the Kalamazoo River after the company responsible for the spill said it had redoubled its efforts to clean up the mess. Gov. Jennifer Granholm called on the federal government for more help, saying resources being marshaled by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Enbridge Inc. are "wholly inadequate." Enbridge has been working to clean up the spill since it said its ...
Report: US faces climate change-driven water shortages
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2010
Energy Collective: As global warming accelerates, the world will become not only hotter, flatter, and more crowded but also thirsty, according to a new study that finds 70 percent of counties in the United States may face climate change-related risks to their water supplies by 2050. One-third of U.S. counties may find themselves at "high or extreme risk," according to the report prepared for the Natural Resources Defense Council by Tetra Tech, a California environmental consulting firm. "It ...
China Gorges flooding set to peak
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2010
BBC: China says flood waters at the Three Gorges Dam will peak within the next 24 hours, after torrential rain further up the Yangtze river over the weekend. More heavy rain is expected in parts of southern China from now until Thursday. News has only just emerged of a bridge collapse in Henan province on Saturday in which 33 people died and up to 21 are still missing. China suffers monsoon-type rains every year but this year's rainfall has been the heaviest in more than a ...
Climate Weapons: More Than Just a Conspiracy Theory?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2010
Ria Novosti: The abnormally hot weather in the central regions of Russia has already caused serious economic damage. It has destroyed crops on roughly 20% of the country's agricultural land lots, the result being that the food prices are clearly set to climb next fall. On top of that, fires are raging over peat lands around Moscow. These days, the majority of forecasts concerning the climate are alarming: droughts, hurricanes, and floods are going to be increasingly frequent and severe. Director of the ...
What BP knows about the size of Gulf disaster
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2010
Mother Jones: While BP publicly stuck to claims that its blow-out well was leaking at rate of 5,000 gallons of oil per day, the company was privately operating under the assumption that at least five times that amount was gushing into the Gulf, according to documents released today by congressional investigators. BP's internal estimate of 53,000 barrels per day is buried in one of the company's requests to use more than the maximum threshold of dispersants established by the EPA, which the Coast ...