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Archive for November 1st, 2010
Clinton Facing Heat on Oil Sands Pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 1st, 2010
New York Times: Battle lines have been hardening over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline over the last couple of weeks. The pipeline, which will stretch from Alberta in Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast, would nearly double the United States’ capacity to import oil made from Canadian oil sands. Canadian oil sands are a plentiful and secure source of oil, but the extraction process is high in carbon dioxide emissions and takes a toll on pristine Canadian forest ecosystems.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham...
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Plant bank to preserve biodiversity of Pacific crops
Posted by SciDev.Net: Joel D. Adriano on November 1st, 2010
SciDev.Net: The giant swamp taro, the orange-fleshed Fe'i banana and a coconut that grows to half a metre in length are among the native crop species to be saved in a major project that has begun across small islands in the Pacific.
The Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees (CePaCT) is coordinating the project in which 1,000 unique varieties of staple fruit and vegetables from 7,500 Pacific islands are being collected to be grown in research institutes, with duplicates held at CePaCT.
The project is a response...
The Colorado River’s future
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 1st, 2010
New York Times: Last month, Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, committed $1.5 million to establish a study group focusing on the Colorado River basin. Modest as the dollar amount sounds, this is a very good investment. The study will be the first of three river basin studies — called the WaterSMART program — aimed at measuring the nation’s water demands and resources, including the potential impacts of climate change.
Starting with the Colorado River makes sense. Since 1922, its water has been allocated...
Hatch-22: the problem with the Pacific salmon resurgence
Posted by 360: Bruce Barcott on November 1st, 2010
360: The number of salmon in the Pacific Ocean is twice what it was 50 years ago. But there is a downside to this bounty, as growing numbers of hatchery-produced salmon are flooding the Pacific and making it hard for threatened wild salmon species to find enough food to survive.
In the American Northwest, the struggle to save endangered runs of salmon is one of the epic crusades of the contemporary conservation movement. Seventeen strains of Pacific salmon are currently listed as threatened or endangered....