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Archive for August 13th, 2010
China launches emission-cutting factory closure programme
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 13th, 2010
Business Green: The Chinese government has published a list of more than 2,000 factories that it plans to force to close by the end of September as it attempts to make good on Premier Wen Jiabao's recent pledge to use an "iron hand" to tackle inefficient factories. The announcement comes just weeks after the International Energy Agency in Paris said that China has surpassed the United States last year as the world's largest consumer of energy - a status China disputed this week with the release of ...
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Biggest relocation in China since Three Gorges
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on August 13th, 2010
Independent (UK): China's growing thirst for water is driving one of the world's biggest mass relocations, with 440,000 people leaving their homes to make way for a huge man-made canal project to channel water to drought-prone Beijing. An advance party of 499 villagers were moved yesterday from their homes near Wuhan in Hubei province, China's heartland, in preparation for one of the biggest irrigation schemes in history. By the end of September, 60,000 people will have left the area. The ...
Iran’s first nuclear power plant set to open
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 13th, 2010
AFP: Iran is to launch its first nuclear power reactor next week, the Islamic republic and Russia which helped build the plant said on Friday after years of delays to the highly sensitive project. The United States said the announcement showed that Tehran no longer needed to pursue its controversial programme of uranium enrichment. "We are preparing to transfer the fuel inside the plant next week... Then we will need seven to eight days to transfer it to the reactor (core)," said ...
Great Lakes turn to bath water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 13th, 2010
Hamilton Spectator: The combination of an unseasonably mild winter and spring followed by a hot summer has led to record-breaking water temperatures in the Great Lakes. Lake Superior is a stunning 8 C above normal for this time of year -- and the big lake they call Gitche Gumee will get warmer still for another few weeks. "It's really remarkable," said Jay Austin, a professor at the University of Minnesota-Duluth's Large Lakes Observatory. "The surface waters on Superior at one site are ...
Pakistan floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 13th, 2010
Guardian: More than 1,500 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands stranded by flooding triggered by the annual monsoon rains. The floodwaters have washed away millions of hectares of crops, submerged villages and destroyed roads and bridges. Disease is spreading among Pakistani flood victims, and there have been warnings that dams in the south may burst
Australia: Climate change will cost us all
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 13th, 2010
Sydney Morning Herald: You don't have to be Lord Stern to see how the costs of climate change are already compounding and spiralling, out of control. Some costs are relatively benign - such as the devaluation of waterfront properties in Byron Bay as sea levels rise - a process starting in earnest whether estate agents like it or not. Other costs are terrible, such as the conservative $4.4 billion figure put on last year's Black Saturday fires by the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, including ...
Discovering The Secret, Speedy Life Of Plants
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 13th, 2010
NPR: Plants have a reputation for being sedentary, unmoving, planted. But some plants are moving so quickly, their motion is invisible to human eyes. Biologist Joan Edwards and physicist Dwight Whitaker broke out the high-speed cameras to capture the story of exploding peat moss.
Alabama sues BP for “catastrophic” Gulf oil spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 13th, 2010
Reuters: Alabama is suing BP Plc, Transocean and Halliburton for "catastrophic harm" caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the state's attorney general said on Friday. Alabama is the first state to sue BP for damage from the world's worst offshore oil spill. The decision stems from fear economic victims will be inadequately compensated and BP will shirk its financial responsibility, said Attorney General Troy King. "We are making this claim because we believe that BP has ...
Giant Greenland iceberg a climate ‘warning sign’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 13th, 2010
AFP: A giant iceberg that snapped away from Greenland last week is a signal that global warming is causing the island's continent-sized ice cap to melt faster than expected, scientists say. The 250-square-kilometre (100-square-mile) chunk, four times the size of Manhattan, broke away from the Petermann ice shelf on Greenland's northwestern tip. The breakoff -- the largest in the Arctic in half a century -- points to Greenland's worrying potential to stoke sea levels in the coming ...
Deepwater Horizon crisis may be over
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 13th, 2010
Guardian: Scientists pored over a series of pressure tests from BP's well in the Gulf of Mexico today, trying to discover whether engineers had unknowingly already sealed off the gusher for good. The tests could decide whether the official epitaph for the Macondo is written tomorrow or sometime next week, when crews were scheduled to complete two relief wells that officials have described as the last step in permanently securing the BP well. A decision to stop work on the relief wells ...