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Archive for March, 2013
Glaciers in the Himalayas Are Retreating—But Why?
Posted by Climate News Network: Kieran Cooke on March 2nd, 2013
Climate News Network: One of the Climate News Network's editors, Kieran Cooke, was among a group of journalists recently investigating the impact of climate change in Nepal and the Himalayas. In the last of his reports from the region he describes the difficulties of establishing why so many of Nepal's glaciers appear to be shrinking.
Mohan Bdr. Chand is at the sharp end of glacier research. A climate researcher at Kathmandu University, Chand is carrying out vital field work, looking at high mountain glaciers as indicators...
Keystone XL: A Choice Between Big Oil or a Sustainable Planet
Posted by EcoWatch: Bill McKibben on March 2nd, 2013
EcoWatch: Last week Time Magazine declared that Keystone XL had become the Stonewall and the Selma of the climate movement--and today we got a reminder of just how tough those fights were, and how tough this one will be.
On a Friday afternoon, with Secretary of State John Kerry half a world away and D.C. focused on the budget fight, the State Department released a new environmental impact statement for the pipeline. Like the last such report, it found that approving a 800,000 barrel-a-day fuse to one of...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Keystone XL: A Choice Between Big Oil or a Sustainable PlanetClimate change turns an already troubled ski industry on its head
Posted by High Country News: Greg Hanscom on March 2nd, 2013
High Country News: George Shirk sits in his office at the Mammoth Times on a Saturday afternoon, with his dog, Fido, who writes his own weekly column for the paper, curled up underneath the desk. Early December is the quiet time between the Thanksgiving and Christmas rushes at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, and Shirk, a 60-year-old news veteran with a sandy smoker's voice, has kindly agreed to give me an armchair tour of his adopted hometown.
Mammoth Lakes is perched in the Eastern Sierra, a half-day's walk from some...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change turns an already troubled ski industry on its headPakistan launches first national climate change policy
Posted by Reuters: Nita Bhalla on March 2nd, 2013
Reuters: Disaster-prone Pakistan has launched its first ever national policy on climate change, detailing how it plans to tackle the challenges posed by global warming, mitigate its risks and adapt key sectors of the country's economy to cope with its consequences.
Pakistan is highly vulnerable to weather-related disasters such as cyclones, droughts, floods, landslides and avalanches. Devastating floods in 2010 disrupted the lives of 20 million people - many more than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami - and...
State Dept: Build the Keystone pipeline or not, the oil sands crude will flow
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2013
Time: The State Department issued its long-awaited supplementary environmental impact assessment (SEIS) this afternoon on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would ship up to 830,000 barrels a day of Canadian oil sands crude to the U.S. The full report is some 2,000 pages long--and was released at the very end of the week, thanks very much, State Department--but you can boil it down to one sentence:
Approval or denial of any one crude oil transport project, including the proposed Project, remains unlikely...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on State Dept: Build the Keystone pipeline or not, the oil sands crude will flowVermont delegation calls for strict environmental review of tar sands
Posted by Burlington Free Press: Molly Walsh on March 2nd, 2013
Burlington Free Press: All three members of Vermont’s Congressional delegation are asking the federal government to require a strict environmental review should the owner of a New England oil pipeline seek to transport Canadian tar sands oil through its infrastructure in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
The request was made in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry dated Feb. 26 and signed by 18 members of Congress, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., U.S. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Vermont delegation calls for strict environmental review of tar sandsKeystone XL effect on environment seen as minimal, U.S. says
Posted by LA Times: Neela Banerjee on March 2nd, 2013
LA Times: A long-awaited State Department review of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline released Friday concludes that he project would have minimal impact on the environment, increasing the chances it could be approved in the coming months.
The State Department underscored that the study, a supplemental environmental impact statement, is a draft and that it does not offer recommendations for action on the $7-billion project, which would bring petroleum from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Keystone XL effect on environment seen as minimal, U.S. saysNew Obama admin. report on Keystone XL pipeline has enviros worried
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 2nd, 2013
Mother Jones: On Friday afternoon, the State Department released a draft of its much-anticipated new analysis of the environmental impact of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Although the report makes no firm statement one way or the other about whether the controversial pipeline from Canada to Texas should be approved, some of its conclusions have enviros worried that a greenlight is inevitable.
The administration has spent more than two years considering whether to approve the 1,600-mile pipeline that would...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New Obama admin. report on Keystone XL pipeline has enviros worriedState Dept. Keystone report plays down climate fears
Posted by Politico: Talia Buford and Darren Goode on March 2nd, 2013
Politico: The State Department’s long-awaited environmental report on the Keystone XL pipeline leaves President Barack Obama with no real scientific reason to reject the nation’s most fiercely debated energy project.
The sprawling 2,000-page report, released late Friday afternoon, doesn’t issue a clear yea or nay on a sprawling section of pipeline that would traverse from western Canada to Oklahoma. But the report’s key takeaways — including a conclusion that the project would have “no significant impacts...
US State Department says Keystone XL won’t impact global warming
Posted by Globe and Mail: Shawn Mccarthy on March 2nd, 2013
Globe and Mail: TransCanada Corp.'s proposed Keystone XL pipeline has cleared a significant political hurdle in the United States after a State Department assessment concluded the project would not contribute to the warming of the planet.
Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones cautioned that the department's report, released late Friday, does not provide a recommendation on the project. But activists who oppose the pipeline condemned the work as a "botch job" that unduly minimizes the environmental impacts,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on US State Department says Keystone XL won’t impact global warming