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Archive for November 4th, 2011
Yellowstone spill to cost Exxon $135M
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 4th, 2011
Associated Press: Exxon Mobil Corp. said Friday it expects to incur costs of about $135 million from an oil pipeline break beneath Montana's Yellowstone River that triggered a massive effort to limit damage to the scenic waterway.
The cost figure was released in response to a request from The Associated Press and is more than triple an earlier estimate. It includes for the first time the expense of replacing the section of broken pipeline with a new one buried more deeply beneath the river.
The company's 20-year-old...
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Canada: TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 4th, 2011
National Public Radio: In 2010, TransCanada completed a major pipeline — the Keystone — which runs from Alberta to Illinois. The company is now planning a second line, called the Keystone XL, that would run from Alberta to Nebraska with an extension from Oklahoma to the refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Seaways across Antarctica could open in 1000 years
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 4th, 2011
New Scientist: AS ANTARCTICA melts, seaways will open up across the western side of the continent, linking marine communities that have long been isolated from one another.
That's according to David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK, and colleagues, who have worked out where these seaways opened up during Antarctica's warmer past - and where they are likely to form again if melting continues.
Without its icy cover, much of west Antarctica would lie beneath sea level, partly because...
South Africa arrests two Thais, sees link to rhino poaching
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 4th, 2011
Reuters: South Africa's special police investigative unit on Friday arrested two Thai nationals suspected of having links to a rhino poaching syndicate in a crackdown on criminal gangs smuggling rhino horns to Asia, the Business Day reported.
The two men were arrested after their flight had landed from Thailand, the paper said. One of the men is said to already have a criminal record in South Africa for smuggling animal products such as lion bones. McIntosh Polela, spokesman for the special police unit,...
In Changing Ecosystems, Winners and Losers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 4th, 2011
New York Times: Two new peer-reviewed studies, one about forests and the other about oceans, predict that existing ecosystems will rearrange themselves over the next 70-plus years in response to global warming.
In one of the studies, to be published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment, scientists from Oregon, Montana and British Columbia write that northwestern forests removed from the climatic buffering effect of the Pacific Ocean will transform themselves to adapt to less rainfall as well as warmer...
Climate change causes tree ‘migration’
Posted by Earth Times: James Mathews on November 4th, 2011
Earth Times: Global warming is causing a strange phenomenon in tree species. The warming is causing certain species of trees to die out in regions that they have lived for hundreds of years. Insect attacks, the spread of diseases and even fire are causing these declines but are also allowing new species to move in and replace them, effectively causing a huge "migration". This is reshaping forests in a new survival of the fittest as conditions change. Scientists have outlined the impact of global warming upon...
Rhino poachers bring death toll in South Africa to record high
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 4th, 2011
Guardian: Rhino poaching in South Africa has hit an all-time high with 341 animals killed so far in 2011 – already a bigger death toll than in any previous year.
The total after 10 months surpasses the record total of 333 in the whole of 2010. It confirms a big upward surge in recent years: in 2007, only 13 rhinos were poached.
The animals are being hunted illegally at an average of more than one a day to supply the rhino horn market in the Far East, driven by a belief it can cure cancer.
But while...
Floods affect 1.6 mln Cambodians, Oxfam says outlook grim
Posted by AlertNet: Thin Lei Win on November 4th, 2011
AlertNet: Severe floods in impoverished Cambodia have killed 247 people, disrupted the lives of 1.6 million - more than one in 10 people - and affected three-quarters of the country, a United Nations' report says.
Flooding along the Mekong and other key rivers over the past two months has raised fears of food shortages and increased personal debt after more than 10 percent of the rice crop was destroyed.
This has left thousands of families without an income in a country of 14.7 million where close to...
Waterlogged Thailand will struggle to prevent future floods
Posted by Reuters: Robert Birsel on November 4th, 2011
Reuters: As waterlogged Thailand struggles to contain the worst floods in decades, it faces a simple truth: not a whole lot can be done to avoid a repeat disaster in the short term even with a new multi-billion dollar water-management policy.
City dwellers and farmers displaced since the floods began in July, killing 427 people, and foreign investors waiting to pump out factories could face the same thing when the rainy season rolls around again in the middle of next year.
But there are short-term steps...
Air Pollution Fertilizes Tropical Forests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 4th, 2011
redOrbit: Scientists braved ticks and a tiger to discover how human activities have perturbed the nitrogen cycle in tropical forests. Studies at two remote Smithsonian Institution Global Earth Observatory sites in Panama and Thailand show the first evidence of long-term effects of nitrogen pollution in tropical trees.
"Air pollution is fertilizing tropical forests with one of the most important nutrients for growth," said S. Joseph Wright, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in...