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Archive for June 15th, 2011
United States: Actors join campaign against fracking
Posted by Independent: Jonathan Brown on June 15th, 2011
Independent: Leading actors including Ethan Hawke, Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana have joined the campaign against shale drilling by recording an online protest video in which they tell gas prospectors: "I love my New York water -- stop fracking with it."
Amid mounting concern over the controversial technology, which has been blamed for causing environmental degradation and contaminating water supplies, the stars are shown gargling, drinking, and taking a bath, to show their appreciation of their home state's...
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Arizona wildfire investigators question two people
Posted by Reuters: David Schwartz on June 15th, 2011
Reuters: Investigators probing the origins of Arizona's biggest wildfire on record are questioning two people in connection with an unattended campfire believed to have started the blaze, the U.S. Forest Service said on Wednesday.
The "two persons of interest" have not been publicly identified and are not under arrest, Forest Service spokesman Christopher Knopp said, declining to give further details of the investigation.
Meanwhile, ground crews battling the flames for an 18th day took advantage of...
Japan: Fukushima Workers Tackle Highly Radioactive Water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 15th, 2011
National Public Radio: Today, workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan tested out a system that will start cleaning up an enormous volume of radioactive water there.
The water has flooded many buildings at the complex, and it has seriously complicated efforts to bring the crisis there to an end. But it's also essential to keep the reactor cores from overheating.
In fact, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, has been pumping water continuously into the crippled nuclear plant, ever since...
Weather, economy may spur climate “tipping point”
Posted by Reuters: Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn on June 15th, 2011
Reuters:
Water filter campaign aims to cut emissions in W. Kenya
Posted by AlertNet: Isaiah Esipisu on June 15th, 2011
AlertNet: In the tiny west Kenyan village of Ejinja, eye-watering smoke emanates from Edith Adisa's grass-thatched kitchen. The choking pollution comes from the firewood the mother of three uses to boil water for her family and anyone else who might drop by.
"My house is close to the road. And in this part of the country, it is a common habit for thirsty people trekking along the road to ask for water from nearby homesteads like mine,' says Adisa. "Yet it's only fair that I offer them safe water.'
She...
Last chance to see: the Amazon’s Xingu River
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 15th, 2011
Mongabay: Last chance to see: the Amazon's Xingu River Early morning fishing on the Xingu River.
Not far from where the great Amazon River drains into the Atlantic, it splits off into a wide tributary, at first a fat vertical lake that, when viewed from satellite, eventually slims down to a wild scrawl through the dark green of the Amazon. In all, this tributary races almost completely southward through the Brazilian Amazon for 1,230 miles (1,979 kilometers)--nearly as long as the Colorado River--until...
Ethanol subsidies survive Senate vote, splinter GOP
Posted by National Public Radio: David Welna on June 15th, 2011
National Public Radio: Costly subsidies for homegrown fuel won a vote of confidence Tuesday on Capitol Hill. In a key test vote, the Senate blocked a measure that would have immediately ended both federal subsidies and protective tariffs for corn-based ethanol fuel.
The outcome showed the continued clout of farm states. But it also showed that most Senate Republicans are willing to get rid of at least one tax break.
Where senators stand on ethanol tax subsidies often has more to do with which state they're from than...
Arizona blaze part of new era – more big wildfires
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 15th, 2011
Associated Press: The fires searing parts of the West are an eerie echo of the past, a frightening reminder of a once terrible danger that had been held largely at bay for decades.
The number of large wildfires has been rising for roughly the past 25 years, and they are lasting longer amid fire seasons that also last longer.
Is it global warming? Experts won't say that, pointing instead to a variety of factors ranging from local weather to insect infestations to more people living and camping out in the woods....
Australia: Coal seam gas fight intensifies
Posted by Port Macquerie: Kate Prideaux on June 15th, 2011
Port Macquerie: THE fight intensifies to prevent coal seam gas mining in the Camden Haven.
The Camden Haven Anti Fracking Group will take its quest to prevent coal seam gas exploration in the valley to the next level with a public forum in Laurieton on Thursday next week.
The group is led by a member of Climate Change Australia Hastings Branch, Ian Oxenford.
It formed two weeks ago but has already had three meetings and organised T-shirts and stickers to promote its cause.
“It [coal seam gas mining]...
World urged to stop net desertification by 2030
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 15th, 2011
Reuters: The world should set a goal of halting net desertification by 2030 to stem annual losses of farmland equivalent to three times the size of Switzerland, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday. "Drylands are on the front line of the climate change challenges for the world," Luc Gnacadja, head of the Bonn-based U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), told the Reuters Global Energy and Climate Summit. Drylands account for about 41 percent of the world's land area -- ranging from deserts...