RSS Feed
Archive for September 14th, 2010
South Africa: All Systems Go for Global Biodiversity Meeting
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 14th, 2010
BuaNews: Preparations are in full swing for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Rejoice Mabudafhasi jetting off to Gabon on Wednesday to consolidate the African position. African countries had decided to adopt a common position and to speak in one voice during the CBD scheduled for October in Japan. "It is important that we gain a political momentum in order to get common position in most of the issues to be discussed at ...
Posted in 
New rules slow Gulf drilling pace in shallow water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 14th, 2010
AP: The drilling moratorium enacted after the BP oil spill applies only to the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Yet energy exploration in the Gulf's shallow waters has come to a virtual standstill as drillers grapple with tougher federal rules since the spill. The pace at which regulators grant drilling permits in water less than 500 feet deep has slowed sharply this summer, an Associated Press analysis of government data shows. Just four out of 10 shallow-water drilling applications have been ...
Mosquito ecology ‘must advance’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 14th, 2010
BBC: We need to learn more about the ecology of malaria-spreading mosquitoes to capitalise on molecular biology's recent advances, a top scientist says. Charles Godfray, the British Ecological Society's president, said a lot was still unknown about Anopheles gambiae. Evidence of insects becoming resistant to current treatments meant new methods had to be explored, he said. But it required getting "into the field" to investigate the mosquitoes' ecology, he ...
EPA begins investigation into hydraulic fracturing
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 14th, 2010
Guardian: The US Environmental Protection Agency is investigating the hydraulic fracturing techniques used by mining companies to determine the controversial practice's effect on human health and the environment. The EPA has sent letters to nine companies known to employ the process, asking them to disclose the chemical composition of fluids used. The agency has also asked for information about the impacts of the chemicals on human health and the environment, along with data on standard ...
World pays high price for overfishing, studies say
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 14th, 2010
Reuters: Decades of overfishing have deprived the food industry of billions of dollars in revenue and the world of fish that could have helped feed undernourished countries, according to a series of studies released on Tuesday. The Canadian, U.S. and British researchers behind the studies also said that overfishing is often the result of government subsidies that would have been better spent conserving fish stocks. Fisheries contribute $225 billion to $240 billion to the world economy ...
How Peru’s wells are being sucked dry by British love of asparagus
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 14th, 2010
Guardian: Asparagus grown in Peru and sold in the UK is commonly held up as a symbol of unacceptable food miles, but a report has raised an even more urgent problem: its water footprint. The study, by the development charity Progressio, has found that industrial production of asparagus in Peru's Ica valley is depleting the area's water resources so fast that smaller farmers and local families are finding wells running dry. Water to the main city in the valley is also under threat, it says. It ...
Gulf Spill May Defy Darkest Predictions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 14th, 2010
New York Times: Marsh grasses matted by oil are still a common sight on the gulf coast here, but so are green shoots springing up beneath them. In nearby bird colonies, carcasses are still being discovered, but they number in the thousands, not the tens of thousands that have died in other oil spills. And at the mouth of the Mississippi River, the zone of severely oxygen-depleted water that forms every summer has reappeared, but its size does not seem to have been affected by the Deepwater ...
BP oil spill: Disaster by numbers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 14th, 2010
Independent: 11 platform workers were killed when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on 20 April. Their bodies have never been found, despite a three-day Coast Guard search operation. Seventeen others were injured. 36 The number of hours for which Deepwater Horizon burned before it sank on the morning of 22 April 2010. 4.9 million The total barrels of crude oil released before the leak was capped on 15 July. This makes Deepwater Horizon the biggest oil spill to have occurred in ...