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Archive for April 23rd, 2013
Court Backs E.P.A. Veto of Mining Permit
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 23rd, 2013
New York Times: The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to revoke a mining permit to protect streams and wildlife, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The decision was a victory for the agency, which in 2011 retroactively vetoed a permit granted by the Bush administration in 2007 to allow a subsidiary of Arch Coal of St. Louis to dump tons of mining waste into several West Virginia rivers and streams. The veto was declared illegal in a 2012 decision by Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Federal District...
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United Kingdom: Cuadrilla censured by advertising watchdog over fracking safety claims
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on April 23rd, 2013
Guardian: Cuadrilla, the only shale fracking company operating in the UK, has been slapped down by the advertising watchdog for claiming that it uses "proven, safe technologies".
The censure by the Advertising Standards Authority will force a significant watering down of some of the company's claims and is a further blow to Cuadrilla, which has halted fracking at all of its UK sites following a series of setbacks. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into deep wells...
Human extinction warning from Oxford
Posted by BBC: Sean Coughlan on April 23rd, 2013
BBC: What are the greatest global threats to humanity? Are we on the verge of our own unexpected extinction?
An international team of scientists, mathematicians and philosophers at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute is investigating the biggest dangers.
And they argue in a research paper, Existential Risk as a Global Priority, that international policymakers must pay serious attention to the reality of species-obliterating risks.
Last year there were more academic papers published...
Big ecosystem changes viewed through the lens of tiny carnivorous plants
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 23rd, 2013
ScienceDaily: The water-filled pool within a pitcher plant, it turns out, is a tiny ecosystem whose inner workings are similar to those of a full-scale water body.
Whether small carnivorous plant or huge lake, both are subject to the same ecological "tipping points," of concern on Earth Day--and every day, say scientists.
The findings are published in this week's issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In the paper, ecologists affiliated with the National Science Foundation...
Genetically engineered salmon company expects U.S. regulatory OK in 2013
Posted by Reuters: Carey Gillam on April 23rd, 2013
Reuters: AquaBounty Technologies Inc expects regulatory approval by the fourth quarter of this year to produce its controversial genetically engineered salmon, its chief executive said on Tuesday.
"There have been no new legal issues, no new regulatory issues, no new environmental issues raised," AquaBounty Technologies Chief Executive Ronald Stotish said on the sidelines of the BIO International Convention. "We should have approval before the end of the year."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration...
Court Orders EPA to Impose Power Plant Water Pollution Rule
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on April 23rd, 2013
Environment News Service: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must meet a court-ordered deadline to issue regulations that clean up power plant water pollution, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled today. The decision turns back an attempt by the utility industry to avoid the financial and operational burdens of the regulations.
On Friday, the EPA proposed a series of regulatory options for controlling pollution from power plants, such as mercury, arsenic, lead, and selenium, released into...
Will the U.S. Swing for the Climate Change Fences?
Posted by Huffington Post: Russ Blinch on April 23rd, 2013
Huffington Post: Rahm Emanuel, the former top aide in the White House, once advised a world struggling with a financial meltdown that it was not a good idea to let a serious crisis go to waste.
But this year, despite electoral momentum and tragedies by the handful, serious crises could go very much to waste for President Barack Obama. Could this mean the world will have to wait yet again for serious action to fight global warming? It depends.
The momentum to tackle a range of big issues -- including climate...
U.S. Regulator Lodges “Environmental Objections” to Keystone Plan
Posted by Inter Press Service: Carey L. Biron on April 23rd, 2013
Inter Press Service: Advocacy groups here are applauding the publication of new government concerns, formally expressed Monday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over a recent assessment of the environmental impact of a major oil pipeline that would run between Canada and the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Because the EPA will eventually have to sign off on any decision to approve the pipeline proposal, made by a Canadian company called TransCanada, this indication of the agency's strong reservations over the government's...
Less rainfall expected for the Hawaiian Islands
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 23rd, 2013
ScienceDaily: Almost imperceptibly, rainfall over the Hawaiian Islands has been declining since 1978, and this trend is likely to continue with global warming through the end of this century, according to a team of scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) and the University of Colorado at Boulder. This latest Hawaii rainfall study, published in the March 13, 2013, early online issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research, supports previous work conducted at the University of Hawaii. What has been...
Portugal: Wildfires can burn hot without ruining soil
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 23rd, 2013
ScienceDaily: When scientists torched an entire 22-acre watershed in Portugal in a recent experiment, their research yielded a counterintuitive result: Large, hot fires do not necessarily beget hot, scorched soil.
It's well known that wildfires can leave surface soil burned and barren, which increases the risk of erosion and hinders a landscape's ability to recover. But the scientists' fiery test found that the hotter the fire -- and the denser the vegetation feeding the flames -- the less the underlying soil...