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Archive for April, 2013
In the Northwest, Rising Coal Exports to Asia Stir Huge Fight
Posted by Seattle Times: Hal Bernton on April 29th, 2013
Seattle Times: At Spring Creek Mine, a broad black seam of coal, reaching depths of 80 feet, runs like a subterranean river through arid, sagebrush-covered hills.
This is a world-class seam formed from the remnants of ferns, grasses and other plants that flourished here more than 50 million years ago, when this part of Montana was a humid marsh.
Cloud Peak Energy, operators of this mine, and other companies have proposals that could eventually double the state's coal production -- part of the push...
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Residents concerned about health effects of hydrofracking
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 29th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Those living in areas near natural gas operations, also known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, are concerned their illnesses may be a result of nearby drilling operations. Twenty-two percent of the participants in a small pilot study surmise that hydrofracking may be the cause of such health concerns as sinus problems, sleeping difficulties, and gastrointestinal problems.
The findings will be presented at the American Occupational Health Conference on April 28 in Orlando, Florida.
Scientists...
Australia’s boom is anything but for its Aboriginal people
Posted by Guardian: John Pilger on April 28th, 2013
Guardian: Eleven miles by ferry from Perth is Western Australia's "premier tourist destination". This is Rottnest Island, whose scabrous wild beauty and isolation evoked, for me, Robben Island in South Africa. Empires are never short of devil's islands; what makes Rottnest different – indeed, what makes Australia different – is silence and denial on an epic scale.
"Five awesome reasons to visit!" the brochure says. These range from "family fun" to "historical Rottnest". The island is described as "a guiding...
Carbon bubble makes Australia’s coal industry ripe ‘for financial implosion’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2013
Guardian: Australia's huge coal industry is a speculative bubble ripe for financial implosion if the world's governments fulfil their agreement to act on climate change, according to a new report. The warning that much of the nation's coal reserves will become worthless as the world hits carbon emission limits comes after banking giant Citi also warned Australian investors that fossil fuel companies could do little to avoid the future loss of value.
Australia is already the globe's biggest coal exporter...
Leave It in the Ground, Climate Activists Demand
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2013
Inter Press Service: Nearly 70 percent of known reserves of oil, gas and coal must remain in the ground to avoid dangerous climate change. So why did the energy industry spend 674 billion dollars in 2012 looking for more?
A moratorium on investments new fossil fuel infrastructure is the obvious thing to do about this, said Asad Rehman, head of international climate at Friends of the Earth in the UK."It's bipolar"¦there is a complete lack of leadership." -- UCS's Alden Meyer
The United Nations is the place to get...
Plants moderate climate warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2013
ScienceDaily: As temperatures warm, plants release gases that help form clouds and cool the atmosphere, according to research from IIASA and the University of Helsinki.
The new study, published in Nature Geoscience, identified a negative feedback loop in which higher temperatures lead to an increase in concentrations of natural aerosols that have a cooling effect on the atmosphere.
"Plants, by reacting to changes in temperature, also moderate these changes," says IIASA and University of Helsinki researcher...
EPA methane report further divides fracking camps
Posted by Associated Press: Kevin Begos on April 28th, 2013
Associated Press: The Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much of a potent heat-trapping gas leaks during natural gas production, in a shift with major implications for a debate that has divided environmentalists: Does the recent boom in fracking help or hurt the fight against climate change?
Oil and gas drilling companies had pushed for the change, but there have been differing scientific estimates of the amount of methane that leaks from wells, pipelines and other facilities...
Plants help slow warming – but there’s a trade-off
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2013
New Scientist: The fragrant smell of the trees is one of the nicest things about taking a walk in the woods. But the organic compounds trees pump out don't just register well with our noses: they also help cool the climate by encouraging clouds to form.
As plants respire, they emit chemicals called volatile organic compounds. In the atmosphere, these VOCs can interact with other chemicals to form particle "seeds" that clouds can grow around. Climate models predict that the clouds seeded by plant respiration...
Plants slow climate change by forming cloud sunshade-study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2013
Reuters: Plants help to slow climate change by emitting gases as temperatures rise that lead to the formation of a sunshade of clouds over the planet, scientists said on Sunday. The tiny sun-dimming effect could offset about one percent of warming worldwide and up to 30 percent locally such as over vast northern forests in Siberia, Canada or the Nordic nations, they wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience. While proportionally small, some scientists said the study provided further evidence of the importance...
A possible new way to manage water and snow in thirsty California
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2013
Washington Post: Also critical is the snow's "albedo,' or reflective quality, which dictates how much sunlight it absorbs and helps determine how quickly it will turn to water. Albedo varies considerably; freshly fallen snow reflects 90 percent of the sunlight that hits it, while older snow, which forms larger crystals, reflects only 60 percent. Dust and black carbon carried to the snowpack by winds also can change the percentage. The spectrometer measures that as well.
The information is fed into powerful computers...