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Archive for March 26th, 2013
Peru declares environmental state of emergency in its rainforest
Posted by Guardian: Dan Collyns on March 26th, 2013
Guardian: Peru has declared an environmental state of emergency in a remote part of its northern Amazon rainforest, home for decades to one of the country's biggest oil fields, currently operated by the Argentinian company Pluspetrol.
Achuar and Kichwa indigenous people living in the Pastaza river basin near Peru's border with Ecuador have complained for decades about the pollution, while successive governments have failed to deal with it. Officials indicate that for years the state lacked the required...
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Canada: Water escapes Suncor oil sands pond into Athabasca River
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 26th, 2013
Reuters: Contaminated water may have spilled into the Athabasca River from a broken pipe at Suncor Energy Inc's oil sands project in northern Alberta, sparking new fears about pollution of the river from the massive oil sands developments along its banks.
The Athabasca is the main source of drinking water for aboriginal and other communities downstream and has been the subject of several controversial reports on its water quality.
The province of Alberta's environment department said it does not yet...
Netherlands: Parts of Low Country Are Now Quake Country
Posted by New York Times: John Tagliabue on March 26th, 2013
New York Times: Jannes Kadyk’s modest brick home suffered more than $5,000 in damage. Bert de Jong’s more stately home will need about $500,000 to get back into shape.
Both houses, like thousands of others, were damaged during recent earthquakes that have shaken the flat farmland in this area dotted with villages and tucked up against the North Sea.
The quakes were caused by the extraction of natural gas from the soil deep below. The gas was discovered in the 1950s, and extraction began in the 1960s, but only...
Climate change is the risk that increases all others
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 26th, 2013
Wall Street Journal: On climate change
Climate change is the greatest risk we face. It's the great exacerbater. It exacerbates the risk of pandemics. It exacerbates the risks of water. It exacerbates the risk of conflict. Take a look at South Asia, where China owns the ice, India owns the water and has 21 dams, and Pakistan and Bangladesh are out of luck. Pakistan's entire food production is dependent on two other nuclear-armed countries.
I was the CEO of two public companies. When I'm looking at quarterly profits,...
Fierce northern winter linked to Arctic sea ice melt
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 26th, 2013
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: TONY EASTLEY: There's more evidence today of the retreat of sea ice in the Arctic.
Satellite pictures reveal the icy expanse reached its maximum size for the year on March the 15th yet the sea ice was the sixth lowest since satellite records began just over 30 years ago.
Climate scientists say the ice loss is contributing to the massive snowstorms and bitter weather experienced in North America and Europe.
Ashley Hall reports.
ASHLEY HALL: It's been a particularly fierce winter and spring...
Oklahoma Quake Tied to Wastewater Shows Oil Boom Impact
Posted by Bloomberg: Mark Drajem and Jim Efstathiou Jr. on March 26th, 2013
Bloomberg: A 2011 Oklahoma earthquake has been tied by researchers to the disposal of wastewater from oil production, the latest study suggesting the energy boom from advances such as fracking is increasing temblors.
A series of quakes in November 2011 followed an 11-fold bump in seismic activity across the central U.S., as disposal wells are created to handle the increase in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and gas, geologists at the University of Oklahoma, Columbia University and the U.S. Geological...
Governors Ask Obama to Weigh Climate Impact of Coal Ports
Posted by Bloomberg: Mark Drajem on March 26th, 2013
Bloomberg: President Barack Obama’s administration should weigh the climate-change impact of burning coal in Asia when considering whether to approve Pacific coal- export terminals, two Western governors said.
In a letter to the White House Council of Environmental Quality, the Democratic governors, John Kitzhaber of Oregon and and Jay Inslee of Washington, said the administration must expand its review of the projects and consider the carbon dioxide that would be released when the coal is burned for power....
Electricity for All but Those the Kariba Dam Displaced
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 26th, 2013
Inter Press Service: Indigenous people who were displaced from the Zambezi Valley almost six decades ago for the construction of the Kariba Dam say they have not benefited from the development they made way for.
The building of the Kariba hydroelectric dam was supposed to usher in a bright future for the people of Zambia and Zimbabwe who gave up their land for its construction.
Unfortunately, that future was for others and not the displaced and their descendants. Most of the villages to which some 57,000 people...
British butterflies suffer devastating year after 2012’s wet summer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 26th, 2013
Guardian: Fewer butterflies flew in British skies in the miserable summer of 2012 than for thousands of years, leaving several species in danger of extinction from parts of the country.
The country's most endangered butterfly, the high brown fritillary, saw its small population slump by 46%, while another rare species, the black hairstreak, fell by 98%, as 300,000 fewer butterflies were recorded on the wing compared with 2011.
The wettest ever year recorded in England was equally damaging for once common...
Tiny possum could be Australia’s first climate change victim
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 26th, 2013
Reuters: A one-degree rise in temperature could spell doom for a rare Australian possum within a decade, potentially making the tiny, long-tailed marsupial the continent's first victim of climate change, researchers said.
Mountain Pygmy Possums have been a part of the Australian ecosystem for more than 25 million years, but only 2,000-2,600 are believed to remain in the wilds of the Snowy Mountains, a range that extends between New South Wales and Victoria states.
"There's so many ways that a change...