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Archive for April, 2011
The Worldwide ‘Thirst’ For Clean Drinking Water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 11th, 2011
National Public Radio: The typical American uses 99 gallons of water a day for activities like washing clothes, bathing, toilet-flushing and cooking. But that amount doesn't even come close to the amount of water used on a daily basis by electrical power plants.
Each day, coal, nuclear and natural gas plants use about five times the amount of water used on a daily basis by all American households combined "” including 250 gallons of water per American per day to generate our daily electricity usage.
"So your flat-screen...
Cerrado deforestation – video
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 11th, 2011
Guardian: The Cerrado, a savannah that covers more than one-fifth of Brazil, has experienced ongoing deforestation due to the expansion of soy agriculture, led by demand for soybean to produce feed for factory-farmed animals
Crops for animal feed destroying Brazilian savannah, WWF warns
Wooded grasslands of the Cerrado suffering ongoing deforestation as soy agriculture expands to feed growing demand for meat
Gas from ‘fracking’ worse than coal on climate: Study
Posted by Hill: Ben Geman on April 11th, 2011
Hill: Cornell University professors will soon publish research that concludes natural gas produced with a drilling method called “hydraulic fracturing” contributes to global warming as much as coal, or even more.
The conclusion is explosive because natural gas enjoys broad political support – including White House backing – due to its domestic abundance and lower carbon dioxide emissions when burned than other fossil fuels.
Cornell Prof. Robert Howarth, however, argues that development of gas from...
Study reveals cost of nitrogen pollution
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 11th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Nitrogen pollution costs Europe between 70 and 320 billion euros ($100bn-$460bn) per year in its impact on health and the environment, according to a major European study launched in Britain on Monday.
The first European Nitrogen Assessment, the result of a five-year research programme, found that the costs represented more than double the benefits for the continent's agriculture sector.
The ENA was to be launched Monday at a five-day international conference in Edinburgh.
The study was...
Britain’s taste for cheap food that’s killing Brazil’s ‘other wilderness’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 10th, 2011
Independent: An "upside-down forest" of small trees with deep roots, Brazil's wildlife-rich outback is home to a 20th of the world's species, including the spectacular blue and yellow macaw and giant armadillos.
Yet this vast wilderness -- as big the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain put together -- is being rapidly lost to feed the heavily carnivorous appetites of Britons and others.
What was, only a generation ago, an almost unbroken two million square kilometre mass of trees and bushes in central...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Britain’s taste for cheap food that’s killing Brazil’s ‘other wilderness’Hot, dry weather stokes raging Texas wildfires
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 10th, 2011
Associated Press: Firefighters from 25 states were battling more than a dozen blazes across much of West Texas on Sunday in what state forest service officials called the single worst fire day the state has ever seen.
A fast-moving wildfire had spread to more than 60,000 acres Sunday in Presidio County and Jeff Davis County, where it destroyed about 20 homes in Fort Davis, about 200 miles southeast of El Paso. Widespread electricity outages were reported after numerous power poles burned.
But the blaze that...
Bolivia enshrines natural world’s rights with equal status for Mother Earth
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 10th, 2011
Guardian: Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.
The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Bolivia enshrines natural world’s rights with equal status for Mother EarthNuclear power evokes nightmares, but coal poses greater risks to your health
Posted by Edmonton Journal: None Given on April 10th, 2011
Edmonton Journal: History suggests nuclear power rarely kills and causes little illness. That's also what engineers have concluded when they model scenarios for potential accidents at nuclear facilities such as this one, the San Onofre power plant in California.
Radioactive water is leaking into the sea, there's a little plutonium in the soil, and traces of nuclear fallout have been detected in places as far apart as Kuwait and Maryland. In a few parts of Japan, you're also not supposed to eat the broccoli or the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Nuclear power evokes nightmares, but coal poses greater risks to your healthIn Tennessee, heat waves diminish nuclear power output
Posted by Climate Central: Alyson Kenward on April 10th, 2011
Climate Central: On July 8, 2010, as the temperature in downtown Decatur, Alabama climbed to a sweltering 98°F, operators at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant a few miles outside of town realized they had only one option to avoid violating their environmental permit: turn down the reactors. For days, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which owns the nuclear plant, had kept a watchful eye on the rising mercury, knowing that more heat outside could spell trouble inside the facility. When the Tennessee River,...
Belo Monte Dam Faces Endless Hurdles and Controversies
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2011
Inter Press Service: The Xingu river flows around small isles and islands and across rapids and waterfalls in Brazil's Amazon jungle, and has a dramatically reduced flow during dry season. Navigating it presents constant hurdles and risks.
The project to build the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam along the Xingu in the northern state of Pará, in the eastern part of the rainforest, is facing a similar variety of obstacles.
The opposition is not limited to the usual complaints by local environmentalists and social activists....