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Archive for August, 2010
New bacteria degrades oil faster, in deep, cold water: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
AFP: A new species of bacteria found in the Gulf of Mexico degrades oil faster at deeper and colder depths than expected, scientists said Tuesday in a study that could explain how the BP oil spill has mostly disappeared. The bacteria not only speeds up the bio-degradation of crude oil, but does it without depleting vital oxygen levels in the water, said the scientists who analyzed in May a plume of oil at a depth of 1,000-1,200 meters (3,600-4,000 feet), extending 16 kilometers (10 miles) ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on New bacteria degrades oil faster, in deep, cold water: studyTime to blame climate change for extreme weather?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
New Scientist: IT IS time to start asking the hard questions. Countless people in flood-stricken Pakistan have lost families and livelihoods. Who can they hold responsible and turn to for reparations? Less than a decade ago, these questions would have been dismissed outright. "Many scientists at the time said that you can never blame an individual weather event on climate change," says Myles Allen of the University of Oxford. But a small meeting of scientists in Colorado last week - organised by the ...
GM salmon may go on sale in US after public consultation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
Guardian: US authorities today began the process to approve the first GM animal for human consumption. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a 60-day period of consultation and public meetings over whether to permit a GM strain of salmon to be eaten by humans, even though it has been called a "frankenfish" by critics. The approval process could take less than a year, and if it gets the green light the fish could be on the market in 18 months. Environmentalists and scientists ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on GM salmon may go on sale in US after public consultationFrance drains lake under glacier
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
BBC: French engineers are set to drain a lake that has formed under a glacier on Mont Blanc, and threatens to flood the St Gervais valley. The lake, which is said to contain 65,000 cubic metres (2.3m cubic ft) of water, was discovered last month during routine checks. The engineers plan to dig a hole into the ice and pump the water away. In 1892, water from an underground lake flooded the Saint Gervais valley, killing 175 people. The valley beneath Mont Blanc is a ...
US mounts global push for shale gas
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
AFP: The United States on Tuesday offered to help major economies such as China and India develop shale gas, a rapidly growing sector in North America which US officials bill as a clean alternative. Twenty nations held two days of talks in Washington in first-of-a-kind shale gas talks initiated by the United States, where some forecast that shale -- a miniscule presence a decade ago -- could dominate the gas market by 2030. Shale gas comes from deep reserves that were thought ...
Canada: Oilsands proposal draws protest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 24th, 2010
Montreal Gazette: A battle is brewing over a proposed oilsands project by a French-based company that has drawn more than two dozen opponents from Canada, the U.S. and France at today's deadline for submissions to a joint federal-provincial environmental review panel. While a wide range of environmental and faith-based groups, including an Anglican bishop from Atlantic Canada, are urging the panel to reject the Joslyn North Mine project in Alberta, officials from Total E&P Canada Ltd. say they are ...
800,000 Stranded By Floods In Pakistan, U.N. Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 24th, 2010
National Public Radio: About 800,000 people have been cut off by floods in Pakistan and are reachable only by air, the United Nations said Tuesday, adding it needs at least 40 more helicopters to ferry lifesaving aid to increasingly desperate people. The appeal was an indication of the massive problems facing the relief effort in Pakistan more than three weeks after the floods hit the country, affecting more than 17 million people and raising concerns about possible social unrest and political ...
Microbes ate BP oil deep-water plume: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 24th, 2010
Reuters: A Manhattan-sized plume of oil spewed deep into the Gulf of Mexico by BP's broken Macondo well has been consumed by a newly discovered fast-eating species of microbes, scientists reported on Tuesday. The micro-organisms were apparently stimulated by the massive oil spill that began in April, and they degraded the hydrocarbons so efficiently that the plume is now undetectable, said Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. These so-called proteobacteria -- Hazen ...
Pakistan floods: Deluges after the deluge
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 24th, 2010
Guardian: The Pakistani crisis is already one of the very first order. Some 20 million people have been left homeless, along a path of destruction of more than 600 miles. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has even compared the challenges the country now faces to those during the 1947 partition of the subcontinent in which around half a million people were killed in mass violence. It is small wonder that Pakistani president Asif Ali Zadari has said that it will take at least three years for the ...
India blocks Vedanta mine on Dongria-Kondh tribe’s sacred hill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 24th, 2010
Guardian: After years of controversy and confusion, Vedanta's project to mine bauxite on a forested hill considered sacred by an ancient tribe has been stopped by the Indian government. "There's no emotion, no politics, no prejudice," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said as he announced that Vedanta would not be allowed to mine in the Niyamgiri Hills of the eastern Orissa state. "I have taken this decision purely on a legal approach – laws are being violated." Trouble seems to be ...
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