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Archive for January 7th, 2013
Mountains are only minor contributors to erosion and climate regulation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 7th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Though churning smokestacks, cud-chewing cows and gasoline-burning vehicles are contributing constantly to greenhouse gas emissions, there are also many processes that do the reverse, pulling molecules like carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. One of these is chemical weathering, which occurs when rock turns into soil. Carbon dioxide molecules and rain combine to dissolve rock, and the weathering products, including sediment, eventually make their way through waterways to the ocean where some become...
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Why Bark Beetles are Chewing Through U.S. Forests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 7th, 2013
Climate Central: The conifer forests of the North American west have been under a massive assault over the past decade by bark beetles: one species alone, the mountain pine beetle, has killed more than 70,000 square miles' worth of trees, equivalent to the area of Washington State, and two recent studies have shed some light on how climate change is helping fuel the assault, and what's likely to happen in a world that continues to warm.
The first, published in the journal Ecology, shows how intense drought can...
Supreme Court to Decide on Texans’ Bid for Oklahoma’s Water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 7th, 2013
New York Times: It was largely overlooked last year when Fort Worth, now boasting a population of 758,000, moved closer to overtaking San Francisco in population. Yet in some ways, the Texas city’s early-21st-century growth spurt recalls the issues that San Francisco faced a century ago: if Fort Worth doesn’t get more water, its opportunities for growth will diminish rapidly. As of the 2010 census, about 1.8 million people lived in Tarrant County, which surrounds Fort Worth — 25 percent more than a decade earlier....
Hobbled on Energy, India Ponders a Multitude of Dams
Posted by New York Times: Rachel Nuwer on January 7th, 2013
New York Times: As we noted here last week, over 600 million people lost power in India last summer, setting a modern record for the number of people affected by a blackout. Well before that, though, India’s government was grappling with growing pressure to increase the dependability of its electricity service -- for the growing numbers who have intermittent power and the 400 million who live without it.
As a solution, the government proposed constructing 292 dams throughout the Indian Himalayas -- roughly a...
The year ahead in Keystone XL: Climate worry introduces big unknown
Posted by InsideClimate News: Lisa Song on January 7th, 2013
InsideClimate News: After years of protests and lobbying, the Obama administration is expected to decide within months on the fate of the 1,200-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline. The State Department is finalizing a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for the project, which would ship tar sands oil from Canada, through America's heartland, and to the Gulf Coast via other pipelines. The agency will use the SEIS—expected any day now—to help determine whether the project is in the "national interest," a term...
Fracking Debate on NY Moratorium
Posted by EcoWatch: Democracy Now on January 7th, 2013
EcoWatch: The controversial use of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," that is behind the country`s natural gas boom has come under scrutiny in the new Hollywood drama, Promised Land, and met stiff resistance in New York state, where a four-year moratorium against the process could soon expire.
Democracy Now! hosted a 30-minute debate on fracking with two opponents and two supporters.
The discussion includes: Kate Hudson, watershed program director at Riverkeeper--New York`s Clean Water Advocate; Phelim...
What Promised Land Doesn’t Mention
Posted by EcoWatch: Ted Glick on January 7th, 2013
EcoWatch: Promised Land, the new movie starring Matt Damon, is a movie in part about fracking, the new and extremely problematic way of getting natural gas out of shale rock far below the earth’s surface. It’s a very good movie, with good acting, particularly by Damon in a very different role than, for example, his Jason Bourne trilogy. Instead of being a kick-ass former CIA assassin on a mission to reclaim his memory and the truth about what was done to him, in Promised Land Damon is a conflicted, conscience-stricken,...
Australia scorching, Gillard blames climate change
Posted by Deutsche Welle: None Given on January 7th, 2013
Deutsche Welle: Australian has been bracing for near-record temperatures, with bushfires ablaze in five out of six states. Police in Tasmania are still searching for those reported missing after fire swept across the island last week.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard warned Australians of high bushfire risks in coming days, highlighting global climate warming as the probable cause.
"We do know over time that as a result of climate change we are going to see more extreme weather events and conditions."
She urged...
United States: Gas Drilling Far From Imminent, but Debate Roils Otsego County
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 7th, 2013
New York Times: If Otsego County were Hollywood, then its debate over hydraulic fracturing, the contentious method of drilling for natural gas, would be resolved as it is in the movie “Promised Land,” which opened here over the weekend at the Southside Mall. That is, a good-looking representative of a villainous gas company would dupe the townspeople into selling him their mineral rights, only to repent after deciding that his employer was bad and fracking, as it is known, potentially worse. And this would win him...
Northern Gateway Pipeline Risk Assessment To Be Conducted by U.S. Coast Guard
Posted by Canadian Press: Dene Moore on January 7th, 2013
Canadian Press: Concerns south of the border over oil tanker traffic from British Columbia have spurred a U.S. Coast Guard review of proposed increases in Canadian oil exports. A legislative amendment proposed by Washington state Sen. Maria Cantwell and signed into law by President Barack Obama a couple of weeks ago gives the U.S. marine safety agency six months to conduct a risk assessment of the planned expansion of oil pipeline capacity to the West Coast. While several proposed projects would see oil from the...