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Archive for September, 2011
India: Landless Plan a Long March
Posted by Inter Press Service: Isolda Agazzi on September 13th, 2011
Inter Press Service: The Gandhian movement Ekta Parishad plans to organise a march for land rights in October 2012 in India, aiming to gather around 100,000 indigenous people, dalits and poor peasants. Support is shaping up around the world, at events such as an international mobilisation conference in Geneva Sep. 12-13.
"In India, a large number of adivasi (indigenous people) are pushed out of their land because of mining, huge dams, wildlife protection, industrialisation and tourism. Every time you have a new industry,...
Arctic ice melts to lowest level on record
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 13th, 2011
Guardian: Ice at the North Pole has melted to the lowest level since satellite observations began in 1972, meaning the Arctic is almost certainly the smallest it has been for 8000 years, polar scientists said.
If the trend continues, the Arctic will be largely ice-free in the northern summer 40 years earlier than anticipated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report.
Daily satellite sea ice maps released by Bremen University physicists show that with a week's further melt...
Canada: Alberta wants more oil sands pipelines
Posted by Financial Times: Ed Crooks on September 13th, 2011
Financial Times: Canada’s oil sands producers need to build at least two more pipelines the size of the controversial Keystone XL project if they are to meet their ambitious plans for growth, Alberta’s energy minister has said. Keystone XL, a planned 1,700-mile pipeline to carry diluted bitumen, or heavy oil, from Canada to refineries on the Texas coast, has faced opposition from environmental activists over the higher carbon dioxide emissions associated with oil sands compared with other forms of oil production....
Vancouver marks birth of Greenpeace 40 years ago
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 13th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: A simple phone call about dead sea otters washing up on the shores of Alaska after US nuclear tests lead to the birth of environmental organization Greenpeace four decades ago.
Irving Stowe and his wife, Dorothy, were so outraged by the news that they launched a petition from their home in Vancouver, on the Canadian west coast, and set up a group called "Don't Make A Wave."
Their daughter, Barbara Stowe, recalled the early beginnings of the group which eventually blossomed and grew into the...
Arctic ice cover hits historic low: scientists
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 12th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: The area covered by Arctic sea ice reached its lowest point this week since the start of satellite observations in 1972, German researchers announced on Saturday.
"On September 8, the extent of the Arctic sea ice was 4.240 million square kilometres (1.637 million square miles). This is a new historic minimum," said Georg Heygster, head of the Physical Analysis of Remote Sensing Images unit at the University of Bremen's Institute of Environmental Physics.
The new mark is about half-a-percent...
Chefs aim to save the world
Posted by Guardian: Giles Tremlett on September 12th, 2011
Guardian: They are more used to coming up with wild and wonderful recipes for their clientele in the world's leading restaurants. But now a gathering of top chefs has come up with a plan to save the planet, one dinner at a time, with an open letter to the next generation of cooks signed by the likes of Ferran Adriá and Heston Blumenthal.
The so-called G9 meeting of nine of the world's top chefs, took place in Lima, Peru, at the weekend, where they tried to define what they believe should be the role of...
Health Worries Stalk Neighborhoods in Detroit’s ‘Sacrifice Zone’
Posted by Greenwire: John Mcardle on September 12th, 2011
Greenwire: A fire at the Marathon Petroleum Corp. refinery here late last month caused little structural damage, but its timing could not have been worse for the plant's owner. The blaze, which was quickly extinguished by the refinery's emergency personnel, occurred on the morning that U.S. EPA and advocacy groups were touring the plant's industrial neighborhood as part of a national environmental justice conference at a downtown conference center. Billowing smoke from Marathon's gas flare safety system stood...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Health Worries Stalk Neighborhoods in Detroit’s ‘Sacrifice Zone’Uganda’s tea trade threatened by rising temperatures
Posted by SciDev.Net: Peter Wamboga-Mugirya on September 12th, 2011
SciDev.Net: Some of Uganda's most lucrative tea plantations could be "wiped off the map" under the 2.3 degree Celsius temperature rise predicted for 2050, a study has said.
Even with the expected one degree Celsius rise by 2020, the 60,000 small farmers who grow Uganda's high-quality tea could face a 30 to 48 per cent decline in output, scientists at the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) have said.
Yields are expected to shrink and optimum tea-producing zones will shift...
Natural Gas Exploration and Tea Party Politics Don’t Safely Mix
Posted by Yahoo!: Roy A. Barnes on September 12th, 2011
Yahoo!: Natural gas has been touted on a bipartisan level, but even this "wonder energy" has its drawbacks, especially in the area of global warming. According to the International Business Times, the National Center on Atmospheric Research cites that leakage of methane from natural gas that is 2 percent and above could prevent any real progress in addressing climate change. Leakage of methane from the shale gas industry has been as much as 7.9 percent per a Cornell University study, as reported by Fast...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Natural Gas Exploration and Tea Party Politics Don’t Safely MixAgency Takes New Approach To Save Everglades Land
Posted by National Public Radio: Greg Allen on September 12th, 2011
National Public Radio: In Florida, federal officials have released plans for a new wildlife preserve just south of Orlando. The Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge will include at least 150,000 acres, but there's a twist "” most of it will remain under private ownership.
Visitors mostly come to central Florida for its theme parks and beaches, but long before Walt Disney set his sights on the part of the state where he erected a castle at the Magic Kingdom, it was known for its lakes, rivers and grasslands....