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Archive for October 22nd, 2010
Canada: Syncrude to pay C$3 million penalty over duck deaths
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
Reuters: Oil producer Syncrude Canada Ltd will pay a C$3 million ($2.9 million) penalty for negligence in the deaths of 1,600 ducks in a toxic waste pond, a case that fueled international concern about the environmental impact of developing Canada's oil sands. Most of the money will be contributed to wildlife and habitat conservation programs in northern Alberta. Alberta Provincial Court Judge Ken Tjosvold found Syncrude, one of Canada's largest oil sands producers, guilty in the deaths ...
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Himalayan climate change threatens regional stability. Can India help?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
Christian Science Monitor: New Delhi; Palo Alto and Orange, Calif. -- It is widely known from satellite imagery and on-the-ground intelligence that the Arctic and parts of the Antarctic polar ice caps are melting, and melting fast. But what both scientists and the public don't know enough about is the rapid melting of Earth's third large reservoir of snow and ice "" the glaciers of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. The regions surrounding the Himalayas – China, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and ...
Syncrude Canada fined C$3 million for 1,600 duck deaths
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
Reuters: Oil producer Syncrude Canada Ltd will pay a C$3 million ($2.9 million) penalty for negligence in the deaths of 1,600 ducks in a toxic waste pond, a case that fueled international concern about the environmental impact of developing Canada's oil sands. Most of the money will be contributed to wildlife and habitat conservation programs in northern Alberta. Alberta Provincial Court Judge Ken Tjosvold found Syncrude, one of Canada's largest oil sands producers, guilty in the deaths ...
Freshwater losses pose risks for food, health: U.N.
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
Reuters: Damage to rivers, wetlands and lakes threatens to destabilize the diversity of freshwater fish species, posing risks for food security, incomes and nutrition. Rivers and lakes are the source of 13 million metric tonnes of fish annually, which in turn provide employment to 60 million people, the study by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Fish Center showed. Fish from inland waters is also important for nutrition, especially in Africa and parts of Asia, by ...
Oil Sands Effort Turns on a Fight Over a Road
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
New York Times: As U.S. Highway 12 hugs the serpentine banks of the Clearwater and Lochsa Rivers here, road signs bear the silhouettes of the 19th-century explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, with Mr. Lewis pointing off into the distance. He is not pointing the way for big oil companies, says Lin Laughy, whose gravel driveway abuts the road. But to Mr. Laughy's dismay, international oil companies see this meandering, backcountry route as a road to riches. They are angling to use U.S. ...
The Diversity of Birds and Fishes
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
NYT: This is our third full day in our first camp. It is early afternoon. I am back from a walk along Trail 3, at 4.3 kilometers (2.7 miles) the shortest of the loop trails that the advance team has built for us. It took me only seven hours to walk that trail. Juan Diaz, my Peruvian counterpart from the Peruvian Andes Research Institute in Iquitos, and an old hand at these inventories is still out on Trail 2, where I have yet to go. Debby Moskovits chose to make the long trek out to Quebrada Lupuna, seven...
Take a deep breath: Air pollution is on the way down
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
Jerusalem Post: Unprecedented gov’t environmental survey brings some encouraging news on cleaner air and water reuse, but it’s not all happy reading.
The Environmental Protection Ministry released the first summary of Israel’s environmental issues by the numbers late Wednesday night – and it makes for a mixed read of improvements and deteriorations.
The report, entitled “The Environment in Israel – Indicators, Data and Trends, 2010,” outlines an unprecedented more than 100 measurements of environmental pollution,...
Drought May Threaten Much of the Globe by 2030
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
SustainableBusiness: The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades, according to a new study by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Aiguo Dai.
The detailed analysis concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely,...
South-east climate changing: CSIRO
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Scientists at the CSIRO in Canberra are warning recent rainfall in the nation's south-east is not indicative of likely rainfall in the future.
The CSIRO has put together a report for the South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative looking at the effects of climate variability and change on water resources in the south-east.
The report found that while natural fluctuations in rainfall are the biggest drivers in weather patterns, climate change will result in drier than average conditions in...
Climate change threatens Asian coastal megacities
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 22nd, 2010
International Business Times: If current climate change trends persist, Asia's coastal mega-cities will flood more often, on a larger scale, and ultimately hurt economic growth in the respective countries.
A study jointly undertaken by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the World Bank, determined that costs from major flooding events on infrastructure and the economy could run into the billions of dollars, with urban poor populations likely to be the hardest hit.
The...