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Archive for February, 2013
Is Fracking Wastewater Being Dumped into Coal Mines in Western Pennsylvania?
Posted by EcoWatch: Natasha Khan, PublicSource on February 15th, 2013
EcoWatch: In the January cold, Ken Dufalla’s hands, chapped and raw, shake as he grips a five-foot metal pole with a small, stained plastic container attached and dunks it into the icy, orange-colored water rushing into Ten Mile Creek.
Chuck Hunnell, an Izaak Walton League water tester, holds a container used to pull water from streams and mine discharges. Members of the conservation group voluntarily test water for contaminants. Photo by Natasha Khan
“Even the ice is turning color! You ever seen red...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Is Fracking Wastewater Being Dumped into Coal Mines in Western Pennsylvania?Why I Came to Washington to Protest the Keystone Pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 15th, 2013
Yale Environment 360: It’s not exactly as if hell has frozen over, for me, an oil and gas geologist to be protesting -- maybe even beyond the extent allowable by law – the folly of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. I’ve hugged a tree or two before, written some letters opposing this or that dam, mine, clear-cut, or whatnot. I’ve lived the last 26 years in the backwoods of northwest Montana, writing pretty little stories, poems and essays about the million-acre garden of the Yaak Valley, a lush wild rainforest of a place,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Why I Came to Washington to Protest the Keystone PipelineFifth of reptiles facing extinction
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 15th, 2013
BBC: The Zoological Society of London says nearly a fifth of the world's reptiles are facing extinction. In a study of reptiles including crocodiles, lizards, snakes, tortoises and turtles, researchers found that half of freshwater turtles are close to extinction while the jungle runner lizard may already have died out. Dr Monika Bohm, lead author of the paper written with the IUCN Species Survival Commission, spoke to BBC Radio 5 live Breakfast.
India’s rice revolution – audio slideshow
Posted by Guardian: Jim Powell and John Vidal. on February 15th, 2013
Guardian: Farmers in parts of India are breaking growing records, using less seed, less water, and compost as fertiliser. This ground-breaking method of cultivation, developed in Madagascar, is boosting yields and changing lives for the farmers. Norman Uphoff, professor at Cornell University, explains how it is done
Land rights activists angered as India’s forest act undermined
Posted by Guardian: Matthew Newsome on February 15th, 2013
Guardian: Land and tribal rights in India have been dealt a new blow after the government announced last week that major infrastructure projects will be exempt from obtaining consent for forest clearance from tribal communities living in the forest, a decision that undermines the importance of the country's Forest Rights Act.
Tribal and forest rights activists say the decision by India's ministers leaves village councils (gram sabhas) powerless to reject the building of roads, railways, transmission lines,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Land rights activists angered as India’s forest act underminedEnvironment Canada to report drop in pollutants amid pipeline debate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 15th, 2013
Globe and Mail: Ottawa is set to proclaim a dramatic decline in key pollutants like heavy metals and sulphur as it seeks to burnish its environmental record in the face of criticism at home and in the United States.
In a report to be released on Friday, Environment Canada says emissions of mercury and lead were down 23 per cent and 21 per cent respectively in 2011 from the previous year, while sulphur oxides were 7 per cent lower and nitrogen oxide was down 6 per cent. The 2011 report does not cover carbon dioxide...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Environment Canada to report drop in pollutants amid pipeline debateUnited Kingdom: Inside H&M’s design for a new water management strategy
Posted by BusinessGreen: Harry Stevens, GreenBiz.com on February 15th, 2013
BusinessGreen: H&M will design a new strategy that will fundamentally alter and improve the Swedish fashion company's management of water. The effects of the plan will impact water not only in its own operations, but will ripple through its supply chain as well. The World Wildlife Fund will help H&M develop the strategy as part of a three-year partnership. H&M and WWF have collaborated in the past on other programs, including the Better Cotton Initiative, but the two organisations have found that their most potent...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Inside H&M’s design for a new water management strategyFederal Charges Filed In Ohio Dumping Case
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 15th, 2013
National Public Radio: The owner of an oil and natural gas drilling company in Youngstown, Ohio, has been charged with violating the federal Clean Water Act. He's accused of dumping tens of thousands of gallons of drilling waste water into a storm sewer that eventually runs into a local river.
Climate Change’s Links to Conflict Draws UN Attention
Posted by Bloomberg: Flavia Krause-Jackson on February 15th, 2013
Bloomberg: Imagine India in 2033. It has overtaken China as the most populous nation. Yet with 1.5 billion citizens to feed, it’s been three years since the last monsoon. Without rain, crops die and people starve.
The seeds of conflict take root.
This is one of the scenarios Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, will present today to members of the United Nations Security Council in New York to show the connection between climate change and global security...
United Kingdom: After the horsemeat scandal, are you still a meat-lover?
Posted by Guardian: Nell Frizzell, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Felicity Lawrence and Steven Poole on February 15th, 2013
Guardian: Unless you've eaten a lukewarm, soil-like bowl of Beanfeast, cooked over a single gas ring stove on a windy beach in Scotland, you will never understand the drudgery of being a vegetarian in the 1990s.
Back when Portobello mushroom burgers and halloumi skewers sounded more like elocution exercises than dishes, I was being brought up by a vegetarian mother and, well, let's call him a hungry father. We rarely ate meat at home, choosing instead those delicious packets of Beanfeast, Quorn chunks and,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: After the horsemeat scandal, are you still a meat-lover?