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Archive for April, 2013
Canada: Don’t fret for the oil sands. We can afford new rules
Posted by Globe and Mail: Nicholas Rivers on April 6th, 2013
Globe and Mail: Thursday's report that the Alberta government will ramp up the stringency of its provincial climate change policy was almost certainly motivated at least in part by concerns over pipeline approval. If so, it wouldn't be the first time that outside events have led Alberta to enact new environmental regulations. The province's current flagship greenhouse gas policy, the Specified Gas Emitters Regulation, was born in 2007 out of a desire to supersede federal regulations that were expected at the time....
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Comments Off on Canada: Don’t fret for the oil sands. We can afford new rulesWhat’s next in the ongoing Keystone XL saga?
Posted by USA Today: Meg Handley on April 6th, 2013
USA Today: With the public comment period for the State Department's draft environmental statement drawing to a close, debate over the approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline has started heating up again, not least because of two recent spills involving Canadian crude oil.
Although the Obama administration seems to be leaning toward approving the pipeline, according to experts, navigating the political climate surrounding the issue promises to be difficult, especially with the president's comments...
Climate efforts threaten oilsands growth, memo told Natural Resources Minister
Posted by Vancouer Sun: None Given on April 6th, 2013
Vancouer Sun: The economic benefits to Canada from oilsands industrial expansion may be “considerably less” than what the Canadian government and industry representatives predict, if the planet collectively takes action to slash the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was told in an internal memo obtained by Postmedia News.
The document, sent by Oliver’s deputy minister Serge Dupont and released through access to information legislation, highlighted...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate efforts threaten oilsands growth, memo told Natural Resources MinisterBad weather hits British wheat crops
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 6th, 2013
BBC: Britain will become a net importer of wheat for the first time in a decade this year because of bad weather, the National Farmers' Union has said. NFU president Peter Kendall said more than two million tonnes of wheat had been lost because of last year's poor summer. The prolonged cold weather would also impact this autumn's harvest, he said. But he said the shortage was unlikely to affect the price of bread because of the global nature of the market. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme,...
Crops suffer in spring cold snap
Posted by Telegraph: Richard Gray, on April 6th, 2013
Telegraph: For signs of just how exceptionally cold this spring has been, look to the fields of rural Britain.
Farmers are reporting stunted crops and ground that is still to hard to drill at a time when wheat is normally growing vigorously, oil seed rape is preparing to bloom and foods such as peas and beans are being planted to ensure they are ready for harvest.
Temperatures over the past week fell to among the coldest seen in April for 96 years. Normally Britain enjoys an average temperature of 12...
Canada: Government wrong to pull out of Convention
Posted by Sudbury Star: David Suzuki on April 6th, 2013
Sudbury Star: The federal government recently pulled out of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. It's aimed at fighting drought, a problem that affects almost 30% of Earth's land surface and threatens the well-being of more than a billion people worldwide, including in our Prairie provinces. Every year, the cumulative effects of overgrazing, over-cultivation, deforestation, poor irrigation and increasing extreme weather events --including those that cause drought -- permanently degrade close to 10 million...
Soils in new forest could help offset climate change
Posted by ScienceBlog: None Given on April 6th, 2013
ScienceBlog: Surface appearances can be so misleading: In most forests, the amount of carbon held in soils is substantially greater than the amount contained in the trees themselves.
If you`re a land manager trying to assess the potential of forests to offset carbon emissions and climate change by soaking up atmospheric carbon and storing it, what`s going on beneath the surface is critical.
But while scientists can precisely measure and predict the amount of above-ground carbon accumulating in a forest,...
Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant leaking contaminated water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 6th, 2013
Reuters: As much as 120 tons of radioactive water may have leaked from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, contaminating the surrounding ground, Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Saturday.
The power company has yet to discover the cause of the leak, detected on one of seven tanks that store water used to cool the plants reactors, a spokesman for the company, Masayuki Ono, said at a press briefing.
The company plans to pump 13,000 cubic meters of water remaining in the tank to other...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant leaking contaminated waterUtah governor agonizing over Nevada’s water play
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 5th, 2013
Associated Press: Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday he was struggling over whether to let Las Vegas pump massive amounts of groundwater from the Nevada-Utah border.
Herbert promised a decision within weeks, while saying he was reluctant to sign an agreement with Nevada. If Herbert refuses to sign the pact, Las Vegas will grab the groundwater anyway, his lawyers say.
The water comes from an ice-age aquifer under 120-mile-long Snake Valley, which supports ranching and farming on both sides of the Utah-Nevada...
Peru bores through Andes to water desert after century of dreams
Posted by Reuters: Mitra Taj on April 5th, 2013
Reuters: Peru's Olmos Valley might be a desert now, with rare rains and rivers that trickle to life for just a few months a year, but a radical engineering solution for water scarcity could soon create an agricultural bonanza here.
Fresh water that now tumbles down the eastern flank of the Andes mountains to the Amazon basin and eventually the Atlantic Ocean will instead move west through the mountains to irrigate this patch of desert on Peru's coast. It will then drain into the Pacific Ocean.
The Herculean...
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