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Archive for December 16th, 2010
Canada: Ottawa too slow in planning for oilsands disasters
Posted by Postmedia News: Kelly Cryderman on December 16th, 2010
Postmedia News: Government oversight isn't keeping step with the rapid expansion of Canada's oilsands operations and assessments of new projects haven't properly taken into account disaster scenarios or overall impacts on the environment, according to an exhaustive review of Alberta's oilsands set to be released Wednesday.
There's a need for quicker land reclamation after bitumen has been taken out of the ground, and better monitoring of underground water systems and a growing stock of tailings ponds as intense...
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United States: Climate change: What might agriculture look like in 2100?
Posted by Fence Post: Bill Jackson on December 16th, 2010
Fence Post: Other changes Other changes in agriculture as a result of climate change seen by Otto Doering, a Purdue University agricultural economist and director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, include:
»Seed varieties. To produce high-yielding corps in more challenging weather conditions, farmers might have to choose varieties with better resistance traits and different maturity dates. Planting schedules also might have to be adjusted.
»Soil erosion. Much progress has been made on stemming...
German research protects the Amazon rainforest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 16th, 2010
Physorg: The forestry industry in a highly sensitive part of the Amazon rainforest has just become more sustainable thanks to the work of a team of researchers, including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. They produced an inventory of extensive forest areas, regularly flooded by the Amazon and Solimões rivers, and calculated the rates of growth and reproduction of individual species of trees. The Brazilian state of Amazonas has taken these findings as the basis for its new logging...
BP shares down 2.8 pct after US brings lawsuit
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 16th, 2010
Associated Press: Shares in BP PLC are down by 2.8 percent after the U.S. Justice Department announced it was suing the oil company and several other firms involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
BP stock was down 13 pence at 463.45 pence ($7.22) on the London Stock Exchange Thursday morning.
The U.S. government accuses the companies of disregarding federal safety regulations in drilling the well that blew out April 20, triggering a deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig and sending millions of gallons...
Poor flood defences threaten England’s food supplies
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 16th, 2010
Guardian: England's food supplies are under threat because farms and rural businesses are poor relations when it comes to funding flood and sea defences, a report says today.
The government's emphasis on protecting towns and cities will expose low-lying food-producing areas to flooding and salination, according to the Country Land and Business Association (CLA).
"Land managers need to be able to defend their properties ... even when the Environment Agency has withdrawn funding from what it regards as...
Officials Back Plan to Restore California Bay Delta
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 16th, 2010
New York Times: Federal and state officials said Wednesday that they supported construction of a massive structure around California’s environmentally crippled delta to make deliveries of fresh water to farms and cities more reliable.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said such a structure would divert water from north of the delta, where the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers meet, to water users in the Central Valley and in the southern part of California.
It would be accompanied by the restoration of “tens...
Desertification is greatest threat to planet, expert warns
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 16th, 2010
Guardian: Desertification and land degradation is "the greatest environmental challenge of our time" and "a threat to global wellbeing", according to the UN's top drylands official, Luc Gnacadja, who says people must be paid via global carbon markets for preserving the soil. The executive secretary of UN's Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), will today launch the UN decade for the fight against desertification in London.
"The top 20cm of soil is all that stands between us and extinction," he told...
Peat bogs and climate change: Wet, wet, wet
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 16th, 2010
Economist: RUSSIA does not normally spring to mind as being in the forefront of the fight against climate change. The citizens of Moscow, however, need no explanation of one aspect of the problem--the importance of wetlands. Earlier this year they had an abrupt and lethal lesson on the dangers of peat-bog fires. An unusually hot summer set such fires across the country and the peatlands around Moscow generated a smog that blanketed the city with carbon monoxide and soot. By August 9th the daily death rate had...
Feds sue BP, other companies for oil spill damages
Posted by on December 16th, 2010
Associated Press: A powerful plaintiff has joined the hundreds of people and businesses suing BP and other companies involved in the Gulf oil spill: the Justice Department.
The government, in an opening salvo in its effort to get billions of dollars for untold economic and environmental damage, accuses the companies of disregarding federal safety regulations in drilling the well that blew out April 20 and triggered a deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig. Wednesday's lawsuit is separate from a Justice Department...
Australia: Rising sea levels will swamp parts of Sydney
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 16th, 2010
Sydney Morning Herald: A NUMBER of Sydney suburbs will be inundated regularly because of climate change-driven sea-level rises, threatening homes and community infrastructure worth billion of dollars by the end of the century, new projections show. In the first detailed attempt to study the impacts of sea-level rises on low-lying coastal areas and help local government planning, the government has released high-resolution maps that show the areas in Sydney and the central coast most under threat from sea-level rises....