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Archive for August 31st, 2010
Arctic ice: Less than meets the eye
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 31st, 2010
New Scientist: LAST September, David Barber was on board the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Amundsen (pictured), heading into the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. He was part of a team investigating ice conditions in autumn, the time when Arctic sea ice shrinks to its smallest extent before starting to grow again as winter sets in. Barber, an environmental scientist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, went to sleep one night at midnight, just before the ship was due to reach a region of very ...
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Oil sands polluting river with heavy metals, say researchers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 31st, 2010
Business Green: Scientists have published a study concluding that oil extraction and processing operations in the Alberta tar sands are polluting the nearby Athabasca river. The study, produced by University of Alberta biological scientists Erin Kelly and David Schindler, contradicts statements by the Albertan government, which has said that the controversial oil sands developments have no effects on the river. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study ...
Trouble In Paradise: Hawaii Waits For Drought Relief
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 31st, 2010
National Public Radio: Hawaii is suffering through an unprecedented drought -- El Nino conditions in the Pacific have added new misery to a half-century of declining rainfall on the tropical island chain. A two-year dry spell has fueled wildfires and destroyed crops from Oahu to the Big Island. Big Island resident Judy Hancock recalls the day a month ago that she told her husband that a nearby road, full of dry trees and plants, was at risk for a fire. Soon after that dinner-table conversation, ...
Zimbabwe: Climate change reality dawns on rural farmers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 31st, 2010
AllAfrica: Rural folk across Zimbabwe are beginning to experience the effects of climate change, with crop yields declining as prolonged droughts and erratic rains start taking their toll. The changing climatic patterns have resulted in food insecurity in some areas as the hectarage of land under the staple maize crop declines. This has prompted Government and its partners to go on campaigns encouraging planting of drought-resistant varieties such as small grains, in addition to adopting ...
Lenders Back Off of Environmental Risks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 31st, 2010
NYT: Blasting off mountaintops to reach coal in Appalachia or churning out millions of tons of carbon dioxide to extract oil from sand in Alberta are among environmentalists' biggest industrial irritants. But they are also legal and lucrative. A Massey Energy mountaintop site. Some lenders that previously extended credit have eliminated ties to the company. For a growing number of banks, however, that does not seem to matter. After years of legal entanglements arising from ...
Portugal’s Forests Losing Ability to Capture Carbon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 31st, 2010
Inter Press Service: Environmentalists are alarmed: fires have destroyed close to 100,000 hectares of forest in Portugal this summer, releasing one million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Worst of all, the forests are losing their ability to absorb carbon. Experts say the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted is not a major concern, compared to emissions in 2008 -- the latest year for which official statistics are available -- but stress that the fact that the forested area of the country ...