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Archive for September, 2011
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...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Process Uses Plastic Bottles to Remove Arsenic from Drinking WaterEstimating 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....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Hundreds arrested during pipeline protest at White HouseOverfishing, 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...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Investment in pastoralists could help combat east Africa food crisisClimate change threatens mental health too: study; Droughts, floods have psychological impact
Posted by Daily News: Lindsay Goldwert on September 2nd, 2011
Daily News: Climate change doesn't just wreak havoc on your physical surroundings -- it affects your mental health too.
Flooding, drought and superstorms cause actual psychological fallout, according to Australian researchers.
"The damage caused by a changing climate is not just physical," they said in a report released this week by the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Sydney.
"Recent experience shows extreme weather events also pose a serious risk to public health, including mental health...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change threatens mental health too: study; Droughts, floods have psychological impactBrazilian Women Rise Above the Waters
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 1st, 2011
Inter Press Service: Almost a year and a half after floods wreaked havoc in a large part of the state of Rio de Janeiro, a group of women are struggling to rebuild their lives. They lost everything except their will to pick themselves up again and make the best of the aid they receive, to become self-sufficient again.
When Elisete dos Santos came home from work on the night of Apr. 5, 2010, the water was already up to her calves.
The storm had started in the morning and by four a.m. the following day the water...
For Protesters, Keystone Pipeline Is Line in Tar Sand
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 1st, 2011
National Public Radio: Dozens of environmental activists showed up in front of the White House Thursday to get arrested in a peaceful protest against a proposed oil pipeline that would cut across the American Midwest.
Organizers said that over the past 10 days, about 800 people have been handcuffed and bused off to a police station in this ongoing action.
At issue is a proposed pipeline that would connect oil resources in Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Texas coast. The 1,700-mile long Keystone XL, as it's...