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Archive for January 18th, 2012
Breaking: White House Poised to Reject Keystone Pipeline
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on January 18th, 2012
Climate Central: BAccording to news reports, the Obama administration is expected to announce today that it is rejecting the permit application for the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline would have been built by the Canadian firm TransCanada to transport oil from Canadian tar sands in Alberta to refineries in Texas. Congress had mandated that the White House determine the fate of the pipeline by February 21, and this decision is not completely unexpected, since it did not give the Obama administration...
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China report spells out ‘grim’ climate change risks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 18th, 2012
Reuters: Global warming threatens China's march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government's latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself. The warnings are carried in the government's "Second National Assessment Report on Climate Change," which sums up advancing scientific knowledge about the consequences and costs of global warming for China -- the world's second biggest economy and the biggest...
Why east Africa’s famine warning was not heeded
Posted by Guardian: Hugo Slim on January 18th, 2012
Guardian: Natural sciences can predict certain things quite well once they have established particular natural laws. But political and social sciences are notoriously bad at it. This is not surprising. Human events are deeply unpredictable, so we tend not to be too hard on ourselves when we miss things like the Arab spring.
But should we be much harder on ourselves when we miss a famine? Surely, there is quite a lot of hard science in a famine – indicators of drought, rising food prices, distressed asset...
Obama set to reject Keystone oil pipeline: sources
Posted by Reuters: Jeff Mason on January 18th, 2012
Reuters: The Obama administration was poised on Wednesday to reject the Keystone crude oil pipeline, according to sources, a decision that would be welcomed by environmental groups but inflame the domestic energy industry.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the administration could announce its rejection of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline late on Wednesday. But State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said later that it has not made a decision on the proposed pipeline.
TransCanada...
United States: Obama administration to deny Keystone XL permit
Posted by LA Times: Neela Banerjee and Christi Parsons on January 18th, 2012
LA Times: The Obama administration has decided that it will not issue a permit before Feb. 21 for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, according to people with knowledge of the decision.
The announcement, which could come as early as Wednesday, comes in response to a 60-day deadline Congress imposed in late December on the decision-making process for the permit as part of a deal to extend a payroll-tax break and unemployment benefits for two months.
Today's decision, expected from...
Study: Global warming related sea level rise poses big threat to Washington, D.C
Posted by Washington Post: Andrew Freedman on January 18th, 2012
Washington Post: Inundation resulting from 0.1 meter (m), 0.4 m, 1.0 m, 2.5 m, and 5.0 m of sea level rise in Washington, D.C. (left maps); and a composite on right map (Risk Analysis)
Global warming-related sea level rise constitutes a major threat to the nation's capital, with the potential to inundate national monuments, museums, military bases, and parts of the Metro Rail system during the next several decades and beyond, according to a recent study published in the journal "Risk Analysis.' The study helps...
Where did winter go? Birds, bees and some Londoners are confused
Posted by ClimateWire: Jeremy Lovell on January 18th, 2012
ClimateWire: Bees are buzzing, flowers are blooming and trees are budding across southern England after a topsy-turvy 12 months, yet it is still mid-winter. While people scratch their heads over stark changes, woodpeckers are plunging into an abnormally early mating season.
The coldest December on record in 2010 was followed by the warmest and driest spring, bringing with it widespread drought that remains in force across many areas of southern and eastern England after the second warmest and driest autumn...
Obama administration rejects Keystone pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson on January 18th, 2012
Washington Post: President Obama, denouncing a "rushed and arbitrary deadline' set by congressional Republicans, announced Wednesday that he was rejecting a Canadian firm's application for a permit to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline, a massive project that would have stretched from Canada's oil sands to refineries in Texas.
Obama said that a Feb. 21 deadline set by Congress as part of the two-month payroll tax cut extension had made it impossible to do an adequate review of the project proposed by TransCanada,...
Follow the oil sands money trail
Posted by Financial Post: None Given on January 18th, 2012
Financial Post: Last week, on the eve of the environmental review for the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline project that would carry Alberta oil to Kitimat for export to Asia, Canada’s Minister for Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, expressed concern that foreign-funded environmentalists would jeopardize the review and block the pipeline. Oliver didn’t mention my name, but the research that raised concerns about the foreign funding of environmentalism in Canada is apparently mine.
For five years, on my own nickel,...
Obama’s Keystone pipeline rejection is hard to accept
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on January 18th, 2012
Washington Post: On Wednesday, the State Department announced that it recommended rejecting the application of TransCanada Corp. to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and Mr. Obama concurred. The project would have transported heavy, oil-like bitumen from Alberta -- and, potentially, from unconventional oil deposits in states such as Montana -- to U.S. refineries on the Gulf of Mexico coast.
Environmentalists have fought Keystone XL furiously. In November, the State Department tried to put off the politically...