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Archive for June 21st, 2012
680,000 wells in US hold waste — with unknown risks
Posted by MSNBC: Abrahm Lustgarten on June 21st, 2012
MSNBC: Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation's geology as an invisible dumping ground. No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the rivers or onto the soil. But until recently, scientists and environmental officials have assumed that deep layers of rock beneath the earth would safely entomb the waste for millenia. Records from disparate corners of the United...
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United Kingdom: Scientists: climate change is causing decline of specialised plant species
Posted by Phys.Org: None Given on June 21st, 2012
Phys.Org: Climate change has impacted on upland plants and vegetation over the past half century, new evidence from north west Scotland has revealed.
Research funded by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has revealed for the first time the impacts of climate change on mountain landscapes.
The pioneering work was carried out bythe University of Aberdeenand supported by the Hutton Institute and Bergen University, Norway.
Dr Louise Ross ofthe University...
A jamboree that promises more than it can deliver
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 21st, 2012
Independent: The trouble with the Rio+20 UN conference, which began yesterday and ends tomorrow with more than 100 world leaders in attendance in the Brazilian city, is that it is a summit in search of a purpose.
Nobody really wanted it. There was no demand for it from the world community. It was merely an opportunity, 20 years on from the original Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, to mark the anniversary with a similar-sized international get-together which might, just might, lead to some positive...
An Energy Boom in Western Pennsylvania
Posted by New York Times: Jonathan Weisman on June 21st, 2012
New York Times: From his farm nestled far from the big cities, in the wooded hills above the Monongahela and Cheat Rivers, David Headley has not heard much about the battles in Washington over regulations that Republicans say are stifling a domestic energy revolution. At the ground level of that revolution Mr. Headley, a 53-year-old former body shop owner and unemployed bus driver, does not see any regulations at all. For three years, he and his wife, Linda, have wrestled with the land men, natural gas drillers...
Loss of Antarctic ice could trigger super-interglacial
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 21st, 2012
New Scientist: At least eight times in the last 2.8 million years, the Arctic experienced super-interglacials - periods in which summers there were 5 °C warmer than they are today.
Climate models cannot explain these unusually warm spells, but there could be an unexpected cause: the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS), on the other side of the planet. The sheet could collapse again as the world warms, perhaps heralding super-interglacial number nine.
The evidence for the super-interglacials comes...
Great Lakes cities smash long-time heat records
Posted by Great Lakes Echo: Jennifer Kalish on June 21st, 2012
Great Lakes Echo: The first five months of 2012 were the warmest on record for many Great Lakes cities.
“The Midwest and upper Midwest just experienced a spring that was literally off the charts,” said Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch at the National Climatic Data Center. “We literally had to rescale some of our charts to accommodate the warmth we saw this spring.”
Thirty-eight cities in the Great Lakes region knocked out serious long-standing heat records, according to the National Oceanic...
Shortages: Metals in demand
Posted by BBC: Roger Harrabin on June 21st, 2012
BBC: There was an outcry in the UK last month when metal thieves stole a plaque dedicated to two children killed by an IRA bomb attack in Warrington.
It was the latest in a pandemic of metals thefts: lead from church roofs, copper from railway cables.
Does this mean we're reaching a shortage of these metals? No - it just means they have attained a value that makes a low-risk crime worthwhile.
Will we suffer a shortage of metals as the world population grows and gets richer? That's a different...