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Archive for January, 2011
There’s high ground to spare in the great deluge about climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 20th, 2011
Australian: Email Share Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Kwoff Add to Myspace Add to Newsvine What are these?
KNOW-it-alls acknowledge the unknowable only to then claim to know it all.
Elizabeth Farrelly's comforting words for flood victims in yesterday's The Sydney Morning Herald:
BUT although causality is ultimately unknowable, the near certainty is that these cataclysms are, in both frequency and magnitude, anthropogenic. As Gaia's warning they offer the profoundest reason for...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on There’s high ground to spare in the great deluge about climate changeUnited Kingdom: Flood defence spending: Where are the gaps?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 20th, 2011
Guardian: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, that is the government's cuts to flood and coastal defence spending. I need your help to reveal the impact the cuts will have on new defences because, as it stands, just weeks from the new financial year, no-one knows.
Below, I'll relate the farcical example of the funding for the proposed coastal defences in Felixstowe town and how the Prime Minister, David Cameron, appears to be more worried by flooding abroad than at home. But first let's consider the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Flood defence spending: Where are the gaps?Green group accuses Apple of lax supplier oversight
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 20th, 2011
Reuters: iPhone maker Apple was criticized by Chinese green groups for lax corporate oversight of its suppliers in China, leading to poor environmental and work safety standards that poisoned dozens of factory workers. Apple, which announced blockbuster profits and a dazzling outlook for iPhone and iPad sales earlier this week, continues to be dogged by accusations of aggressive pricing and secretive supply chain management in Chinese factories where they now assemble most of their products. "We've found...
Apple targeted over China production standards
Posted by Agence France-Presse: Joan Feng on January 20th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Chinese environmental groups on Thursday singled out Apple for failing to tackle concerns over pollution and the health of workers at plants making parts for trendy gadgets such as its iPhone.
In a new report, the groups said the US giant ranked last in a survey of how 29 multinational technology companies respond to inquiries about pollution and workplace health hazards at factories in their supply chain in China.
The study reflects over a year's work by more than 30 Chinese environmental...
Climate change could boost crops in US, China
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 20th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: A global population explosion combined with the steady effects of climate change are forecast to create a worldwide food shortage in the next 10 years, but the news is not all bad for some countries.
The United States, China, Ethiopia and parts of northern Europe are among the select few expected to be able to grow more crops as a result of changes in temperature and rainfall, according to a study released Tuesday.
However, those gains will not be enough to stave off an increase in world starvation...
State Planning Policy: incorporating climate change into flood estimates
Posted by Mondaq: Michael Walton and Nicole Whitby on January 20th, 2011
Mondaq: Introduction
Queensland is currently experiencing one of the wettest summers on record which, at the time of writing, shows no sign of relenting as the Bureau of Meteorology continues to issue flood warnings for heavy rain and flash flooding over much of northern and eastern Queensland.1
It is timely that the State government have sought to update State Planning Policy 1/03: Mitigating the Adverse Impacts of Flood, Bushfire and Landslide (the policy) and provide practical guidance...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on State Planning Policy: incorporating climate change into flood estimatesAustralia: QLD floods: don’t mention climate change (or the number of ‘tiny’ emissions from coal)
Posted by Crikey: None Given on January 20th, 2011
Crikey: Journalist Graham Readfearn writes: As the floods in Queensland and Victoria gushed through homes, businesses and streets leaving tragedy behind, all of that murky water and grime sent moral compasses and other measures of taste and decency spinning and cavorting in all directions.
What outrages you, or anyone else, depends on which way your moral, political or ideological compass tends to point. Talking about building dams or the role of climate change while people are suffering could enrage...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Australia: QLD floods: don’t mention climate change (or the number of ‘tiny’ emissions from coal)Major conservation biology textbook now free online
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 20th, 2011
Mongabay: A highly regarded conservation textbook is now available online for free. Conservation Biology for All, a book edited by Navjot S. Sodhi of the National University of Singapore and Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University, has been posted on mongabay.com, an environmental science and conservation news site, as a free download. Conservation Biology for All can be accessed at mongabay.com/conservation-biology-for-all.html. The authors, together with the publisher, Oxford University Press, expect open...
Prince Charles to challenge ban on farmland housing
Posted by Guardian: Robert Booth on January 19th, 2011
Guardian: He claims to be "the defender of nature", but Prince Charles was accused of hypocrisy after it emerged that he will challenge a decision preventing his Duchy of Cornwall property empire from building 2,000 homes over green fields.
The Duchy will attempt to resist Bath council's draft policy that would prevent, on environmental grounds, plans for what would be a highly profitable estate near the historic city. It wants to build on farmland that provides meat to local schools and villages in a scheme...
EPA Posts Frack Rules Without Explanation; Oil and Gas Industry Cries Foul
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 19th, 2011
Greenwire: Forget tedious public comment periods or dry Federal Register notices. U.S. EPA, it turns out, can change the rules simply by quietly posting new language on a back page of its website. That is what Matt Armstrong found out. A lawyer who closely follows the issue of "hydraulic fracturing," he was poking around on the EPA website last June and was stunned when he realized the agency had added new language requiring drillers to get permits if they are going to fracture with diesel fuel. "One day,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on EPA Posts Frack Rules Without Explanation; Oil and Gas Industry Cries Foul