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Archive for February 20th, 2013
Nitrogen Pollution Soars in China
Posted by Scientific American: Jane Qiu on February 20th, 2013
Scientific American: Nitrogen-containing pollutants from agriculture, transport and industry in China has increased by more than half in 30 years, a study shows, adding to concerns about the country’s deteriorating environment.
“Rapid economic growth in China has driven high levels of nitrogen emissions in the past few decades,” says Zhang Fusuo, an agriculture researcher at the China Agricultural University in Beijing and a co-author of the study.
Once emitted into the air, key nitrogen pollutants — ammonia and...
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After China’s multibillion-dollar cleanup, water still unfit to drink
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 20th, 2013
Reuters: China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth.
China is promising to invest 4 trillion yuan ($650 billion) - equal to its entire stimulus package during the global financial crisis - on rural water projects alone during the 2011-2020 period. What's more, at least $200 billion in additional funds has been earmarked...
In Conservatives’ Canada, It’s Not Easy Being Green
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 20th, 2013
Inter Press Service: Canada`s police and security agencies think citizens concerned about the environment are threats to national security, and some are under surveillance, documents reveal.
The RCMP, the national police force, and Canada`s spy agency CSIS are increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organise petitions, protest and question government policies, said Jeffrey Monaghan, a researcher with the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University...
Day 3: Fracking Pipeline Protest Gains Momentum
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on February 20th, 2013
EcoWatch: Gifford Pinchot, from Orange County, NY, is staging a tree sit on a suspended platform to prevent clearcutting for construction of the Northeast Upgrade Project of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) between Foster Hill and Cummins Hill roads in Pike County, Pennsylvania, near the boarder of New Jersey. The Northeast Upgrade Project would transport Marcellus Shale gas from fracking wells along Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier. Fracking is a controversial method of extracting natural gas, as it has been...
Germany: Saving Heat from Going Down the Drain
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 20th, 2013
Inter Press Service: Whenever hot water from the kitchen tap or the bathroom shower goes down the plughole, a substantial amount of heat energy goes with it. In some German buildings this is being recovered and used to heat buildings in the winter and run air conditioning systems in the summer, representing a real energy-saver.
The energy, recovery of which allows reduction of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, flows in the drains. That is precisely where the city government of Fürth, in the southeastern...
Merkel warns of risks of fracking in Germany
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 20th, 2013
Reuters: Germany should tread carefully in developing hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to tap shale gas reserves, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday, in some of her first public comments on the controversial drilling technique.
Fracking has created a shale gas boom in the United States but it faces opposition in some European countries where critics say it could increase seismic risks and pollute drinking water.
"New deposits of gas could very probably be tapped in Germany with this technology...
Fort Collins Bans Fracking as Democracy Comes Alive in Colorado
Posted by EcoWatch: Gary Wockner on February 20th, 2013
EcoWatch: “If you don’t fight for what you want, you deserve what you get.” --Van Jones
Almost exactly nine months ago on May 22, 2012, I wrote an editorial in the Fort Collins Coloradoan newspaper, Fort Colllins Should Ban Fracking. And yesterday, on Feb. 19, a sharply divided Fort Collins City Council voted 5-2 to ban fracking in the City of Fort Collins.
Nine months ago the conversation around fracking was relatively new in Colorado and few people and environmental groups were directly addressing...
EPA Official Quits Amid E-Mail Scrutiny
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 20th, 2013
Washington Post: A senior Environmental Protection Agency official overseeing states in the West and Great Plains resigned Friday, amid intense congressional scrutiny over how EPA appointees have used personal e-mail addresses to conduct official business.
Region 8 administrator James Martin, whose office has jurisdiction over Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and 27 tribal nations, resigned "for personal reasons' according to EPA spokeswoman Alisha Johnson.
Former EPA administrator...
United States: Climate change a concern, not a priority to coastal leaders, survey finds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 20th, 2013
PhysOrg: Many Oregon coast public officials and community leaders believe their local climate is changing and that the change will affect their communities. But overall, they say, addressing the changing climate is not an urgent concern. These are among the findings of a survey by Oregon Sea Grant at Oregon State University. During 2012, Sea Grant surveyed coastal professionals such as city managers and planners, elected officials such as city council members and county commissioners, and other leaders...
Canada: Keystone XL will have ‘no impact on climate change’, TransCanada boss says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 20th, 2013
Associated Press: The company that wants to build a controversial oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas said on Tuesday said that shutting down the oil sands at its source would have no measurable effect on global warming.
"You could shut down oil sands production tomorrow and it would have absolutely no measurable impact on climate change," he said.
Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada's president for energy and oil pipelines, said opponents of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline have grossly inflated the likely impact...