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Archive for June 25th, 2012
New Jersey Senate Bans Treatment of Fracking Waste
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 25th, 2012
New York Times: New Jersey legislators approved legislation on Monday banning the treatment or storage of fracking waste in the state.
The natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is not taking place in New Jersey. But legislators and environmentalists are concerned about the state’s proximity to Pennsylvania, a shale gas fracking hot spot that sends some drill cuttings and waste water to nearby states, including New York, for processing and treatment. New York is also currently...
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Dams are ‘centerpiece of greenwashing’ in the Amazon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 25th, 2012
Mongabay: Brazil's ambitious plans to build 30 dams in the Amazon basin could trump the country's efforts to protect the world's largest rainforest, said a leading Amazon scientist speaking at the annual meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) in Bonito, Brazil.
Philip Fearnside of Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia in Manaus, warned that contrary to claims put forth by proponents, dams in the Amazon aren't a source of green energy. Nor do they offer good returns...
Climate Change: Waiting for a Catastrophic Wake-Up Call
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 25th, 2012
Inter Press Service: Disasters are the new midwives of history. But in order to play this role, they need to be catastrophic, like the accidents in Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 that led governments to suspend and even abolish their nuclear energy programs.
Awareness of environmental deterioration is awakened by major disasters like the one caused in Cuba by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Credit: Patricia Grogg/IPS
To spur real action on climate change, a disaster would have to be serious enough to change people's...
San Onofre nuclear plant’s uncertain future
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 25th, 2012
LA Times: These are dark days at the San Onofre nuclear plant just south of Orange County. Both of its reactors have been shut down for more than four months, when abnormal "thinning" was discovered in the tubes of recently installed steam generators. Neither reactor will come back on line this summer, and after that, it's still unclear whether one or both will be switched on again and if so, at full power or partial -- or whether they'll stay shut for the foreseeable future.
On Monday, the Nuclear Regulatory...
Colorado fire near Pikes Peak forces 11,000 from homes
Posted by Reuters: Keith Coffman on June 25th, 2012
Reuters: A fast-growing wildfire in Colorado forced 11,000 people from their homes at least briefly on Sunday and threatened popular summer camping grounds beneath Pikes Peak, whose vistas helped inspire the patriotic tune "America the Beautiful."
Live summit video from the 14,115-foot (4,302-metre) peak showed plumes of dark smoke billowing in the air, and a cog railway that ferries tourists up the side of the famous mountain was shut down because of the wildfires.
The blaze in the Pike National Forest,...
Scientists criticise lack of urgency in Rio+20 accord
Posted by SciDev.Net: Aisling Irwin on June 25th, 2012
SciDev.Net: The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) ended last Friday (22 June) with an international agreement on the need for all countries to commit themselves to achieving sustainable development.
The agreement immediately came under fire from several quarters for its lack of detail about how this will be done, and the absence of new financial commitments from the developed world.
Critics in the scientific and technical communities also said it lacked adequate recognition...
It’s Happening, but Not in Rio
Posted by New York Times: Jim Leape on June 25th, 2012
New York Times: For the past two weeks, representatives from around the world met here for Rio+20, the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, to define a global plan of action that would take humanity toward a cleaner, greener future. They failed. The text they agreed upon on Friday is a caricature of diplomacy. It “acknowledges” many challenges and “encourages” action, but there are few real commitments. We are living way beyond our means. We are using 50 percent more resources than the Earth can provide;...
Alaska Glacier Studied For Clues On Water Supply
Posted by National Public Radio: Annie Feidt on June 25th, 2012
National Public Radio: Anchorage is one of the few North American cities that depend on a glacier for most of their drinking water. The Eklutna glacier also provides some of the city's electricity, through hydro power. So a team of researchers is working to answer a very important question: How long will the glacier's water supply last?
To get that answer, those researchers have to shovel a lot of snow. "It gets to be the consistency of really strong Styrofoam once you get down, maybe six or eight feet," glaciologist...
Goodbye to Mountain Forests?
Posted by New York Times: Hillary Rosner on June 25th, 2012
New York Times: When the smoke finally clears and new plant life pokes up from the scorched earth after the wildfires raging in the southern Rockies, what emerges will look radically different than what was there just a few weeks ago. According to Craig Allen, a research ecologist with the United States Geological Survey in Los Alamos, N.M., forests in the region have not been regenerating after the vast wildfires that have been raging for the last decade and a half.
Dr. Allen, who runs the Jemez Mountains Field...