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Archive for September 2nd, 2011
U.S. Awash in Oil and Lies, Report Charges
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 2nd, 2011
Inter Press Service: With four times as many oil rigs pumping domestic oil today than eight years ago and declining domestic demand, the United States is awash in oil. In fact, the U.S. exports more oil than it imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration - and has done so for nearly two decades.
The country's oil industry is primarily interested in who will pay the most on the global marketplace. They call that "energy security" when it suits, but in reality it is "oil company security" through...
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EcoCommerce 101: adding an ecological dimension to the economy
Posted by Mongabay: RGabriel Thoumi on September 2nd, 2011
Mongabay: EcoCommerce 101: Adding an Ecological Dimension to the Economy provides a foundation for an analysis of environmental economics from the perspective of a theorist and a practitioner. The author, a fifth-generation farmer living in the USA with a background in economics, separates his book into three easy-to-read sections. Each section is filled with examples through which the reader can understand both the theory and the application of ecocommerce. By defining ecocommerce, as envisioned by the author,...
Millions hit by heavy floods in north and eastern India
Posted by Reuters: Nita Bhalla on September 2nd, 2011
Reuters: Surging flood waters in northern and eastern India have affected millions of people, forcing many from their homes as swollen rivers wash away roads and make rescue work difficult, government and aid officials said on Friday.
Aid workers said 5.2 million people are now affected, double the figure from 10 days ago, as tail-end seasonal monsoon rains sweep the heavily-populated states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Assam where 158 people have died in flooding incidents in the past three months.
"The...
Process Uses Plastic Bottles to Remove Arsenic from Drinking Water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 2nd, 2011
Yale Environment 360: U.S. researchers say they have developed a simple, inexpensive process that uses common plastic bottles to remove arsenic from drinking water, a problem facing nearly 100 million people in developing nations. In the process, pieces of plastic soda or water bottles are coated with cysteine -- an amino acid found in dietary supplements and foods -- and dropped into arsenic-contaminated water. After the mixture is stirred, the coated plastic bits grab hold of the arsenic like a magnet, stripping significant...
Estimating climate change’s effects on Gulf wetlands
Posted by Chemical and Engineering News: Kathleen O'Neil on September 2nd, 2011
Chemical and Engineering News: Coastal wetlands store nutrients such as organic carbon and nitrogen that feed the surrounding ecosystems. As the climate changes and sea levels rise, scientists expect these coastal wetlands will slowly disappear, washing away important nutrients. Now researchers estimate how much organic carbon and nitrogen Louisiana's wetlands could lose by 2050 (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es200909g).
These wetlands serve as significant carbon sinks: Plants pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,...
Fusion power: Next ITERation?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 2nd, 2011
Economist: AS THE old joke has it, fusion is the power of the future--and always will be. The sales pitch is irresistible: the principal fuel, a heavy isotope of hydrogen called deuterium, can be extracted from water. In effect, therefore, it is in limitless supply. Nor, unlike fusion’s cousin, nuclear fission, does the process produce much in the way of radioactive waste. It does not release carbon dioxide, either. Which all sounds too good to be true. And it is. For there is the little matter of building...
Hundreds arrested during pipeline protest at White House
Posted by USA Today: Wendy Koch on September 2nd, 2011
USA Today: Mary Mann, a 68-year-old grandmother from Atlanta, had never been arrested "” until this week in front of the White House.
"I'm tremendously concerned about our children," says the petite woman in sneakers and a floppy sun hat. She's holding a sign with a campaign appeal President Obama once made to free America from the "tyranny of oil."
Mann is one of 842 Americans who had been arrested through Thursday during a two-week protest — ending today — against a controversial U.S.-Canadian pipeline....
Overfishing, global warming cut tuna catch
Posted by Philippine Daily Inquirer: Kristine L. Alave on September 2nd, 2011
Philippine Daily Inquirer: Tuna catch in local waters is dwindling due to overfishing and the effects of global warming.
President Benigno Aquino on Friday sounded this alarm, saying tuna, a high-value catch and the source of livelihood for thousands of fishermen and major canneries in southern Philippines, is facing man-made and environmental threats.
"In recent years, the industry has suffered dwindling catches due to overfishing; and this has been further compounded by the existing ban by the Western and Central Pacific...
Global Warming Threatens Food Security
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 2nd, 2011
BuaNews: The food security threat posed by climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the African continent, says Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson.
"Africa has the responsibility to feed the world as well as its own African people, but we are faced with enormous climate change constraints such as severe drought, floods dreadful diseases.
"Climate change is a serious threat to the agricultural field in the African continent," Joemat-Pettersson told BuaNews...
Investment in pastoralists could help combat east Africa food crisis
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 2nd, 2011
Guardian: Governments need to build a coalition of support for pastoralists to tap their potential for economic development in east Africa, a top US official said on Thursday.
Jeff Hill, director for policy at USAid, the US development arm, said underinvestment in pastoralist communities in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya have contributed to the extreme levels of food insecurity in the Horn's dry lands.
"It is not drought, but vulnerability to drought that is eroding food security in these areas," Hill told...