RSS Feed
Archive for July 1st, 2012
Sea Turtles At Risk Due To Pollutants
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 1st, 2012
redOrbit: Researchers at NIST`s Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML) and four partner organizations have measured for the first time concentrations of 13 perfluoroalkyl compounds (PFCs) in five endangered species of sea turtles. While PFC toxicology studies have not yet been conducted on turtles, the levels of the compounds seen in all five species approach the amounts known to cause unfavorable health effects in other animals.
PFCs are man-made compounds that have many uses including stain-resistant coatings,...
Posted in 
Spanish forest fires rage out of control near Valencia
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 1st, 2012
Reuters: At least two thousand people have been evacuated from Spain's popular tourist region of Valencia as the worst forest fires in more than a decade raged out of control, causing a huge cloud of ash to pour into the country's third-largest city.
Media reports on Sunday said between 20,000 and 45,000 hectares (49,400 to 111,200 acres) of land had been destroyed in two forest fires around 30 kilometers (18 miles) to the west of Valencia on Spain's eastern coast.
No official estimates have been given...
Ranchers, farmers seeking solutions to U.S water worries
Posted by Reuters: Carey Gillam on July 1st, 2012
Reuters: Texas cattle rancher Gary Price knows what it is like to worry about water.
With 2,500 acres of rough range land situated about an hour south of Dallas, Price relies on rain-fed soils to provide the hearty grass forage he needs to fatten his cattle. When the animals are sold at grocery meat counters, every pound of flesh spells potential profit for Price's family.
"Ranching is really mostly about water and grass. So you've got to look at ways to control water," Price said in an interview at...
Blackfeet women join together to oppose oil, gas ‘fracking’
Posted by Missoulian: TRISTAN SCOTT on July 1st, 2012
Missoulian: On a recent flight over Divide Mountain, a snow-marbled peak that straddles the border between the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Glacier National Park, Lori New Breast crossed her fingers.
New Breast is an enrolled tribal member and the co-founder of Blackfeet Women Against Fracking, a coalition of women opposed to the rampant oil and gas exploration occurring on reservation lands. She is worried that the rolling foothills intersecting the Rocky Mountain Front could soon be bristling with oil...
Keystone XL pipeline expansion driven by oil-rich tar sands in Alberta
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 1st, 2012
Washington Post: Repairman Shawn Flett stood 30 feet above the ground on the deck of a truck the size of a house. He had just waved it gingerly into the repair shop as if guiding an airplane into a hangar. This is a beast of a machine, with 14-foot tires and weighing in at more than a million pounds. The truck burns 50 gallons of diesel an hour as it rumbles with 400-ton loads across the giant open-pit mines that have transformed a swath of Alberta’s vast northern forest into unsightly but lucrative sources of oil....
Fire in Colorado is 30 percent contained; National Guard troops deployed
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 1st, 2012
Associated Press: Making gains against the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history, crews kept a wary eye on weather Saturday that was becoming warmer and drier as National Guard troops were deployed to help local police get things back to normal. "The weather is making progress in a bad direction. Hotter, drier, with a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Winds will shift from one direction to another," said Incident Commander Rich Harvey. The 26-square-mile Waldo Canyon fire was 45 percent contained...
Forest Service ecologist expects California ‘super fires’
Posted by Sacramento Bee: Edward Ortiz on July 1st, 2012
Sacramento Bee: Intense and deeply destructive "super fires," like Colorado's current Waldo Canyon fire, which has claimed two lives and burned 350 homes, are almost assured in Northern California's future, according to a U.S. Forest Service scientist.
"Typically we're seeing an earlier fire season and that fire season is lasting longer," said Malcolm North, plant ecologist with the Pacific Southwest Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service. North works out of the station's Davis office.
The culprits, said...
Heat wave sets more all-time temperature records
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on July 1st, 2012
Climate Central: With widespread power outages still plaguing a multistate swath from Indiana to Virginia after the severe "derecho' event on Friday night, the late June heat wave continues to make headlines. Numerous all-time high temperature records were set on Saturday, with additional records expected to be set during the first few days of July.
Climate Central Record Tracker map showing some of the record temperatures set or tied on June 30, 2012.
Atlanta set an all-time high temperature record on Saturday...
In scorching heat, the US is burning
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 1st, 2012
Independent: America's torrid summer is coming to a boil. While wildfires have consumed hundreds of homes in Colorado, and threaten hundreds more, temperatures in the 40s were causing misery in the eastern and southern United States. The heat has claimed the lives of at least three young children.
The pain was compounded yesterday with violent storms battering the eastern side of the country, killing 12 more people as trees were uprooted and three and a half people million people were left without power. ...
Britain’s supply of green energy soars
Posted by Independent: Matt Chorley on July 1st, 2012
Independent: Britain is being powered by record levels of green energy, after a surprise increase in electricity generated from wind, sun and waves. Renewables accounted for 11 per cent of the UK's electricity in the first three months of 2012, compared with 7.7 per cent from January to March 2011. There were big rises in power from onshore wind farms, while generation from hydroelectric and bioenergy plants also rose sharply, putting Britain much closer to meeting its legally binding commitment to get 15 per...