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Archive for September, 2010
Northeast India tourism drooping in rising heat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
Reuters: This northeast Indian highland city, known as the Scotland of the East, has long been a pleasantly cool summer holiday destination for travelers fleeing Indian's boiling plains. But Shillong now finds its fortunes fading as record heat creeps into India's northeast highlands. Disappointed tourists, stunned by the unexpectedly sweltering conditions, are canceling holidays. And hotel owners are rushing to install air conditioning, fans and refrigerators in an attempt to placate ...
United States: Las Vegas’s Worried Water Czar
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
NYT: The water managers of the Colorado basin can be categorized several ways. Upper Basin and Lower Basin. Technicians, lawyers. Holders of senior water rights and owners of junior rights. But the basic divide is between optimists and pessimists -- those who think the river`s flow will keep pace with the rich past, and those that don`t. Pat Mulroy, the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, serving Las Vegas and its suburbs, is a pessimist. She had expected the ...
Poor sanitation breeds disease and exploitation in Kenya’s slums
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
IRIN: Poor sanitation, lack of water and related disease outbreaks are making the lives of the residents of the sprawling Korogocho slums in Nairobi even harder. "The lack of water and improper waste disposal are a big threat to our lives due to the risk of water-borne diseases," Nancy Wangari, a community health worker and village elder in Korogocho, told IRIN. "The threat of typhoid, cholera and other diseases from poor sanitation is real." Although some pay-toilets have been set ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Poor sanitation breeds disease and exploitation in Kenya’s slumsPennsylvania struggles to enact natural gas tax
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
Reuters: Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's plan to tax natural gas production in one of America's biggest fields faces serious if not fatal opposition from Republicans who differ on the rate of the tax and how to use the revenue. Rendell wants to tax drillers in the booming Marcellus Shale 5 percent of the value of gas at the wellhead plus 4.7 cents per thousand cubic feet of gas produced, in line with neighboring West Virginia. Republicans seek a much lower tax rate that Rendell has ...
Old trees may soon meet their match
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
New York Times: For millenniums, the twisted, wind-scoured bristlecone pines that grow at the roof of western North America have survived everything nature could throw at them, from bitter cold to lightning to increased solar radiation. Living in extreme conditions about two miles above sea level, they have become the oldest trees on the planet. The oldest living bristlecone, named Methuselah, has lived more than 4,800 years. Now, however, scientists say these ancient trees may soon meet their ...
GM maize ‘has polluted rivers across the United States’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
Independent: An insecticide used in genetically modified (GM) crops grown extensively in the United States and other parts of the world has leached into the water of the surrounding environment. The insecticide is the product of a bacterial gene inserted into GM maize and other cereal crops to protect them against insects such as the European corn borer beetle. Scientists have detected the insecticide in a significant number of streams draining the great corn belt of the American ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on GM maize ‘has polluted rivers across the United States’ALERT! Urge Forest Stewardship Council to Stop Greenwashing Industrial Primary Forest Logging
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on September 28th, 2010
TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and its members, certifiers and suppliers must commit to ending the certification of primary forest timbers [search], falsely implying it is sustainable to log 500 year old trees for toilet paper, lawn furniture and other consumer items. Please participate in EI's on-going global campaign to end primary forest logging, and to protect and restore old forests, as keystone responses to abrupt climate change, biodiversity loss and global ecosystem collapse. Please take action to ensure FSC stops certifying primary forest logging; even as together we continue to successfully confront rapacious logging companies and their government enablers - 4 major victories in last months alone!
Posted in Uncategorized Comments Off on ALERT! Urge Forest Stewardship Council to Stop Greenwashing Industrial Primary Forest LoggingClimate change mars achievements in water, sanitation: Hasan Mahmud
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2010
Daily Star: Climate change is threatening to bring down all the previous achievements of Bangladesh in water and sanitary sectors and making it harder to meet the millennium development goal. State Minister for Environment and Forest Dr Hasan Mahumud said it yesterday at a dialogue calling to integrate climate change issues with relevant sectors including water and sanitary, agriculture, health, education and industry for sustainable water resource management stating Bangladesh as the most ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change mars achievements in water, sanitation: Hasan MahmudEnbridge gradually restarts Michigan oil pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2010
AP: After a two-month shutdown, oil flowed Monday through a pipeline that leaked more than 800,000 gallons of oil in southern Michigan this summer, with some of it polluting a major river. Enbridge Inc. confirmed the gradual restart of the pipeline running between Griffith, Ind., and Sarnia, Ontario, was under way in a short statement released Monday evening. The pipeline had been shut down since the company reported a massive oil leak July 26. An estimated 820,000 to 1 million gallons ...
Ohio farms more at risk as world warms, expert says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2010
Dayton Daily News: Ohio should start preparing now for a hotter planet that puts a top industry, agriculture, at risk, according to the state's climatologist. Ohio State University geography professor and State Climatologist Jeffrey Rogers said weather extremes that already have hit Ohio are leading indicators of climate change. The state climatologist, an unpaid position, is designated by the federal government as the person to keep track of the state's climate data. Agriculture is estimated to be ...