RSS Feed
Archive for April 9th, 2013
Spring rains bring life to Midwest granaries but foster Gulf of Mexico ‘Dead Zone’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
ScienceDaily: The most serious ongoing water pollution problem in the Gulf of Mexico originates not from oil rigs, as many people believe, but rainstorms and fields of corn and soybeans a thousand miles away in the Midwest. An expert on that problem -- the infamous Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone' -- today called for greater awareness of the connections between rainfall and agriculture in the Midwest and the increasingly severe water quality problems in the gulf.
Keynoting a symposium at the 245th National Meeting...
Posted in 
Measuring microbes makes wetland health monitoring more affordable, says researcher
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Wetlands serve as Earth's kidneys. They filter and clean people's water supplies while serving as important habitat for many species, including iconic species like cattails, cranes and alligators. Conventional ecosystem health assessments have focused on populations of these larger species. However, the tiny, unseen creatures in the wetlands provided crucial indicators of the ecosystems' health in a study by University of Missouri Associate Professor of Engineering Zhiqiang Hu and his team.
Using...
U.S. Plains states brace for more wild weather
Posted by Reuters: Kevin Murphy on April 9th, 2013
Reuters: Residents of the central United States braced for a night of nasty weather on Tuesday, with high wind, rain, sleet, hail and possible tornadoes forecast from north Texas through Nebraska.
Meteorologists said the stormy weather would result from a clash of warm southern air with a cold air mass sweeping through eastern Colorado, where heavy snow in Denver closed the airport and forced the cancellation of 535 flights on Tuesday.
"These are a couple of last hurrahs for winter," said Mike July,...
Olympians to Obama: climate change is jeopardising winter sports’ survival
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
Guardian: Olympic medallists in snowboarding and skiing have called on Barack Obama on to save winter sports by taking ambitious measures against climate change.
In a letter to the White House, 75 champions, including pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones and Olympians Julia Mancuso and Lindsey Jacobellis said a run of record warm years and sporadic snowfalls jeopardised the survival of their sports and a winter tourism industry worth $12bn a year.
"As professional athletes, representing a community of 23 million...
Moniz backs natural gas ‘revolution’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
Associated Press: President Barack Obama's choice to lead the Energy Department pledged to increase use of natural gas Tuesday as a way to combat climate change even as the nation seeks to boost domestic energy production.
Ernest Moniz, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said "a stunning increase" in production of domestic natural gas in recent years was nothing less than a "revolution" that has led to reduced emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that cause global warming....
Energy Secretary Nominee Dodges Question On Gas Exports
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
National Public Radio: A U.S. Senate committee held a confirmation hearing for Ernest Moniz on Tuesday, who has been nominated to be the U.S. Energy Secretary. Moniz says he will retire from MIT, where he's a professor of physics and energy systems. He would advocate for the Obama administration's "all of the above" energy strategy, which calls for continued fossil fuels development and supports nuclear energy, wind and solar.
Keystone XL Pipeline Could Be Huge Boon For Canada
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
National Public Radio: Audie Cornish talks to Alberta Premier Alison Redford about the controversial Keystone XL pipeline proposed from the oil sands of her Canadian province through the United States.
Jury finds Exxon Mobil liable for $236.4 million in pollution suit
Posted by Reuters: Jason McLure on April 9th, 2013
Reuters: A New Hampshire jury on Tuesday found Exxon Mobil Corp liable for $236.4 million in a civil lawsuit that charged the oil company had polluted groundwater in the state with a gasoline additive used to reduce smog in the 1970s and 1980s.
Following a three-month trial, jurors deliberated less than two hours before finding that the world's largest publicly traded oil company acted negligently in contaminating the groundwater with the additive MTBE, said Jessica Grant, a lawyer who represented the...
U.S. agency overestimates output of advanced biofuels:Wynn
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
Reuters: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has consistently over-estimated the prospects for production of advanced biofuels from non-food crops, adding to the impression of a biofuel policy that is out of step with reality.
The U.S. renewable fuel standard requires fuel producers to blend a certain portion of biofuels with gasoline; the standard originated under the Clean Air Act and was expanded under the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007.
The law divides biofuels into advanced...
Judge: Feds violated law in Monterey oil leases
Posted by Associated Press: Garance Burke on April 9th, 2013
Associated Press: Federal land managers violated a key environmental law when they auctioned off the rights to drill for oil and gas on 2,500 acres of prime public lands in Monterey County, home to one of the largest deposits of shale oil in the nation, a judge ruled.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal said in a ruling posted Sunday that the Bureau of Land Management should have conducted a comprehensive environmental review of the potential impacts caused by fracking before accepting bids for the drilling rights,...