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Archive for June 11th, 2012
Appalachian activists get the coal shoulder in Washington D.C
Posted by Politico: Erica Martinson on June 11th, 2012
Politico: Appalachian activists looking for help fighting the coal industry got a hard lesson this week: Don’t expect much from Washington.
Federal agency employees who met with a slew of visiting activists explained that bitter partisanship, hostility from Congress and a morass of litigation have often tied their hands, some of the protesters said afterward.
“They want to do what needs to be done — they just feel like they’re being hamstrung and attacked by Congress,” said anti-mountaintop removal activist...
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Are we pushing the planet to brink of irreversible change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 11th, 2012
Scientific American: Roughly 10,000 years ago, the great sheets of ice that had covered much of the planet receded, triggering a wave of extinctions, ecological changes and, ultimately, the rise of human civilization. All those changes came about as roughly 30 percent of the planet's surface went from ice-covered to ice-free.
Since then, humans have transformed roughly 43 percent of the planet's surface to suit our need for food and shelter. Think: agriculture and cities.
Now scientists suggest that our ongoing...
Keystone XL: How Canada’s pipeline splits the US
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 11th, 2012
Toronto Star: Three years ago, when the Canadian pipeline people first came round Bob Math's cattle ranch in northernmost Montana, the conversation was brittle.
The TransCanada emissaries were pleasant enough. But it soon became apparent their Keystone XL pipeline was more than a proposal. They were talking fait accompli.
"It wasn't a request, it was an announcement: 'This is what we're going to do on your land,'' Math says of that initial overture to trench through his 600-head Black Angus operation tucked...
Great Bear Forest to Be Massive Carbon Offset Project
Posted by The Tyee: None Given on June 11th, 2012
The Tyee: In a young man's eyes the logging that laid waste to the coastal forest was akin to a military invasion.
Cameron Hill was barely a teenager when loggers descended onto Gitga'at First Nation territory in the early '80s, clear-cutting vast stands of old-growth cedar in the midst of what is now known internationally as the Great Bear rainforest.
"We still have huge blocks of our territory decimated from those clear cuts," says Hill, now 44, a band councillor and school teacher in the remote north...
‘Algal biofuels are no energy panacea’
Posted by SciDev.Net: Hoysall Chanakya on June 11th, 2012
SciDev.Net: Algal biofuels, like crops, demand land, water, fertilisers, pesticides and inputs that are costly for India, says Hoysall Chanakya
Of late, there is heady euphoria over 'green' algal biofuels that are dangled as a panacea for developing countries such as India. While it is true that algal biofuels can contribute to a fossil fuel-free future, the promises of runaway successes are unrealistic. Scientists and policy makers need to address several critical issues that raise doubts over the sustainability...
Sahel locust invasion threatens crops in Niger and Mali
Posted by Guardian: Celeste Hicks on June 11th, 2012
Guardian: Northern Niger and Mali – areas already hit by a devastating food crisis and civil conflict – are facing a new threat in the form of locusts. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is warning that swarms of locusts are moving south from Libya and Algeria, and that early rains across the Sahel have led to the sprouting of vegetation that the insects can feed on. The warning comes as farmers across the Sahel prepare to start their annual crop planting season in the hope that a good harvest could...
Climate change to warm Canada with increased temperatures of up to 2°C by 2020 and 4°C by 2050 – CNW Group
Posted by CNW: None Given on June 11th, 2012
CNW: Intact Financial Corporation and the University of Waterloo, along with more than 80 experts from across the country, today released the Climate Change Adaptation Project report, which provides a roadmap for adaptation in Canada. It projects rising temperatures across the country and substantial fluctuations in precipitation levels, all of which will leave a range of sectors, cities and rural regions in Canada vulnerable. City infrastructure, biodiversity, freshwater resources, Aboriginal communities...
Iraq ‘green belt’ front line in anti-desertification fight
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 11th, 2012
Agence France-Presse: Karbala, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad, is best known as the site of the shrines of Imam Hussein and Abbas, who are among the most revered figures in Shiite Islam, and sees millions of pilgrims visit every year.
But it is also the location of a six-year-old project aimed at fighting worsening desertification in Iraq: a “green belt”, or a 27-kilometre crescent lined with thousands of young trees in orderly patterns, irrigated by dozens of wells.
The area had been used as a military...