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Archive for October 12th, 2012
Anthropogenic Methane Traced Back 2,000 Years
Posted by Environmental News Network: Allison Winter on October 12th, 2012
Environmental News Network: A new study suggests that human have been producing traceable amounts of atmospheric methane earlier than thought. The results will challenge global warming predictions, because what was assumed to be 'natural' levels of methane, have in fact been inflated by human activities since Roman times.
An international team of researchers looked at carbon isotopes in methane trapped in air bubbles from Arctic ice cores, to reveal the different levels and concentrations of methane.
"With our research,...
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Obama Administration Approves Roadmap for Solar Energy on Public Lands
Posted by Natural Resources Defense Council: Bobby McEnaney on October 12th, 2012
Natural Resources Defense Council: Today Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed a record of decision establishing a brand new program for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that will provide a comprehensive framework for managing the solar resources found on public lands in six southwestern states. This is a remarkable accomplishment as few Interior Secretaries have established original initiatives without a prior congressional order. No overriding regulation mandated the establishment of this program--although it was dictated by...
State of the Earth: Still Seeking Plan A for Sustainability
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 12th, 2012
Scientific American: The state of the planet is grim, whether that assessment is undertaken from the perspective of economic development, social justice or the global environment. What's known as sustainable development—a bid to capture all three of those efforts in one effort and phrase—has hardly advanced since it was first used in the 1980s and the world is hardly closer to eradicating extreme poverty, respecting the dignity and rights of all peoples or resolving environmental challenges, whether climate change or...
Occupy the Pipeline battles fracking threat in New York
Posted by Guardian: Naomi Wolf on October 12th, 2012
Guardian: I saw an odd sight on a quiet, West Village street in New York City on Saturday 6 October. A group of about 30 young women and men – all naked or topless – were dancing about, with their flesh painted green.
Patrick Robbins, a 26-year-old native of Brooklyn who works on sustainable development at Cooper Union, is the spokesperson for the group, Occupy the Pipeline. He explained the purpose of the protest-art show hybrid:
"[We're] protesting the pipeline's construction on New York City's West...
Pennsylvania Fracking Law Opens Up Drilling on College Campuses
Posted by Mother Jones: Sydney Brownstone on October 12th, 2012
Mother Jones: Last year, when Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett suggested offsetting college tuition fees by leasing parts of state-owned college campuses to natural gas drillers, more than a few Pennsylvanians were left blinking and rubbing their eyes. But it was no idle threat: After quietly moving through the state Senate and House, this week the governor signed into law a bill that opens up 14 of the state's public universities to fracking, oil drilling, and coal mining on campus.
For a system starved by budget...
Deepwater Horizon pipe ‘responsible for new oil slick in Gulf of Mexico’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 12th, 2012
Guardian: Government scientists have definitively linked a new oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico to the BP oil spill disaster of 2010.
A senior government scientist said the most likely source of the new oil is the mile-long length of pipe from the Deepwater Horizon rig, now lying in a crumpled loop on the ocean floor.
At worst, he said, the pipe was thought to contain some 1,800 barrels of oil – a minuscule amount compared with the 4.9m barrels that gushed into the ocean from BP's well during the 2010...
Stopping the Biggest Carbon Bomb on the Planet
Posted by EcoWatch: Bill McKibben on October 12th, 2012
EcoWatch: I haven`t written about the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline for a while, except to try and rally support for the brave people blockading construction along its southern portion. After more than two weeks in the trees of Texas, their dramatic action is drawing more and more attention, as they reveal the recklessness and heartlessness of a company like TransCanada--the kind that will call the cops to get a great-grandmother and arrest her for "trespassing" on her own land when she protests the pipeline...
Wildlife studies in mid-Atlantic seen as crucial to offshore wind industry’s future
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 12th, 2012
Greenwire: Each fall, the blackpoll warbler flies about 1,800 miles over the Atlantic -- potentially nonstop -- from the northeast United States to its winter home in South America.
Around the same time, the critically endangered right whale migrates from the Gulf of Maine, where it feeds, as far south as Florida to give birth.
The problem for biologists gathered at a conference here on offshore wind is not where the wildlife begins or ends its journeys -- it's how it gets there. The mystery could spell...
Panel: Extreme weather adds urgency on climate policy
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 12th, 2012
Climate Central: The recent rash of extreme weather and climate events -- droughts, heat waves, extreme precipitation -- has provided a greater impetus for taking action to reduce planet warming greenhouse gas emissions. But a lack of political will and the complexities of the climate system pose enormous obstacles, according to international development and climate scientists who spoke at a Columbia University forum on Thursday.
The gathering of United Nations advisers, climate experts, and international students...
Researchers find links between Arctic melting and summer floods and fires
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 12th, 2012
ClimateWire: A new weather pattern that sends blasts of warm southern air into the Arctic each June has fueled the recent, dramatic decline of the region's sea ice, according to a new government-funded study.
But that is not all it has done, the analysis suggests, linking the shifting summer winds to record thaws of the Greenland ice sheet, unusually wet European summers and Rocky Mountain wildfires.
Researchers say the switch from light, variable east-west winds to stronger, warmer blasts of southern air...