Archive for January 30th, 2012

Canada: A Vast Canadian Wilderness Poised for a Uranium Boom

Yale Environment 360: Until her semi-nomadic family moved into the tiny Inuit community of Baker Lake in the 1950s, Joan Scottie never knew there was a wider world beyond her own on the tundra of the Nunavut Territory in the Canadian Arctic. She didn’t see the inside of a school until she was a teenager and didn’t venture south until she was an adult. But that all changed in 1978, when a Soviet satellite carrying 100 pounds of enriched uranium for an onboard nuclear reactor crashed into the middle of the wilderness...

A Plea for Southern Treasures

New York Times: The Southern Environmental Law Center, a Virginia-based nonprofit legal advocacy group, has released its 2012 list of the top 10 endangered places in the Southeast, environmentally speaking. While the list changes from year to year, certain places like Chesapeake Bay remain a top concern - and issues like pollution from coal-fired power plants and the protection of public lands and old-growth forest are recurring themes. While the list only considers six states, the issues raised by each site resonate...

GOP aims to force Obama into Keystone decision all over again

Business Green: History has a habit of repeating itself, and as a result President Obama is unlikely to be surprised if he is forced to make yet another controversial decision on the future of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in the next few months. Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner yesterday provided fresh details on how the GOP aims to keep the debate on the future of the $7bn pipeline a live election-year issue, despite the President's decision earlier this month to reject the plans....

Fracking does not need more regulation, report says

EurActiv: There is no need for more environmental legislation in the case of shale gas exploration, at least until it reaches commercial scale, says a new study published by the European commission. The activities relating to exploration of shale gas are already subject to EU and national laws and regulations, says the report, carried out for the European commission by Belgian law firm Philippe & Partners. Water protection issues, for instance, which have been raised as an issue by shale gas detractors,...

Research shows climate change may shrink wheat crops

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: MARK COLVIN: New research predicts that climate change will have a far greater impact on wheat crops than expected. Scientists from Stanford University found that a two degree increase in temperatures would reduce the growing season by nine days, yielding 20 per cent less wheat. This could have a dire effect on global food security. Meredith Griffiths reports. MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: Wheat is the world's second biggest crop and provides a fifth of the world's protein. But it doesn't grow...

Climate-driven heat peaks may shrink wheat crops

Agence France-Presse: More intense heat waves due to global warming could diminish wheat crop yields around the world through premature ageing, according to a study published Sunday in Nature Climate Change. Current projections based on computer models underestimate the extent to which hotter weather in the future will accelerate this process, the researchers warned. Wheat is harvested in temperate zones on more than 220 million hectares (545 million acres), making it the most widely grown crop on Earth. In some...

UN maps ‘future worth choosing’

BBC: Growing inequality, environmental decline and "teetering" economies mean the world must change the way it does business, a UN report concludes. Health and education must improve, it says. Subsidies on fossil fuels should end, and governments must look beyond the standard economic indicator of GDP. The High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability was established in 2010 by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Its report will feed into discussions leading to the Rio+20 summit in June. It is being...

China Says It Averted Spread of Toxic Metal in River

New York Times: Officials in southern China appear to have averted environmental calamity by halting the spread of a toxic metal that had threatened to foul drinking water for tens of millions of people, the state media reported Monday. Officials said they had successfully diluted the concentration of cadmium, a poisonous component of batteries, that has been coursing down the Longjiang River in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The spill, which first occurred two weeks ago, prompted a rush on bottled water...