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Archive for May 8th, 2013
Joe Biden kinda sorta maybe opposes Keystone XL pipeline
Posted by Grist: None Given on May 8th, 2013
Grist: Vice President Joe Biden told an activist on Friday that he doesn`t support the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, according to a post on the Sierra Club website.
While the veep was working the crowd at an event in South Carolina, Elaine Cooper got a moment with him:
I asked him about the administration’s commitment to making progress on climate and whether the president would reject the pipeline. He looked at the Sierra Club hat on my head, and he said “yes, I do - I share your views - but I am...
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New Yorkers Call on Gov. Cuomo to Protect Thriving Tourism Industry from Fracking
Posted by EcoWatch: New Yorkers Against Fracking on May 8th, 2013
EcoWatch: Outside the summit, New York state residents handed out literature to participants.
On the day of Governor Cuomo’s tourism summit, New York bed-and-breakfasts, wineries and other tourism-related businesses highlighted fracking’s incompatibility with upstate tourism and called on the governor to protect the state’s tourism industry by banning fracking. New Yorkers Against Fracking also announced a radio ad running in Albany, emphasizing the risks that fracking poses to the state’s rural tourism...
Criteria for ‘Red List’ of Endangered Ecosystems Released
Posted by LiveScience: Becky Oskin on May 8th, 2013
LiveScience: With many of the world's ecosystems threatened or endangered by human activities like logging and urbanization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published its criteria for a new "Red List" of endangered ecosystems today (May 8) in the journal PLOS ONE.
The list, which measures an ecosystem's risk of collapse, will be similar to the group's authoritative Red List of Endangered Species, which created internationally accepted criteria for assessing extinction risk.
"The...
Greenland’s Ice Loss Slows, But Still Won’t Save Coasts
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 8th, 2013
Climate Central: The flow of Greenland's glaciers toward the sea may have increased significantly in the past decade, but a new report in Nature finds that rate of increase is unlikely to continue. "The loss of ice has doubled in the past 10 years, but it's not going to double again,' said lead author Faezeh Nick, a glaciologist at the University Centre in Svalbard, in Longyearbyen, Norway, in an interview.
That conclusion, based on a new, sophisticated computer model, makes the worst-case scenario of sea level...
Nuclear plant spills radiation into Lake Michigan
Posted by Grist: None Given on May 8th, 2013
Grist: Last summer, a leaky tank led to the shutdown of the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan. So plant owner Entergy patched up the leak, fired back up the reactor, and hoped for the best.
Unfortunately, the best did not materialize.
The tank began leaking again. But no worries, thought the Einsteins at Entergy, it was only leaking a gallon a day. That was OK, they figured, because the NRC had allowed it to leak up to 38 gallons a day. As of Friday, they were still doing that whole "hoping...
Interior Secretary: Fracking Regulations Will Be Based on Best Science
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 8th, 2013
Reuters: The Obama administration's second attempt at writing regulations for hydraulic fracturing on public lands is not intended to appease either environmentalists or oil and gas drillers, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said on Tuesday.
Jewell told lawmakers at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing that the department was "very close" to unveiling the rules and reiterated a recent comment that the rules would be out in "weeks, not months."
Jewell was also pressed about the department's plans...
Academics warn Canada against further tar sands production
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 8th, 2013
Guardian: The Canadian government's promotion of the tar sands industry is setting the world on a course of catastrophic climate change, a group of climate scientists and economists have warned.
In a letter made available to the Guardian, the academics urged Canada's natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, to consider the consequences of his support for expanding Alberta's tar sands production.
Oliver has in recent months emerged as the main proponent for the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington and other...
5 things that probably aren’t killing honeybees – and 1 thing that definitely is
Posted by Mother Nature Network: None Given on May 8th, 2013
Mother Nature Network: You’ve probably heard that honeybees in America had a particularly difficult time this winter, with hive losses surpassing 50 percent in some areas. Colony collapse disorder or CCD is blamed for doubling or tripling the usual rate of winter hive die-offs, and years into the epidemic, scientists are still scrambling to understand the cause or causes. Linkages have been found between CCD and a number of factors, but a single, smoking, bee-killing gun remains elusive. Let’s take a look at some of...
Conservative newspaper declares love for Obama’s fracker-friendly ways
Posted by Grist: None Given on May 8th, 2013
Grist: Uber-conservative Beltway newspaper The Washington Examiner has revealed its secret crush on Barack Obama and his administration`s fracker-friendly ways.
It`s not often that the newspaper says anything nice about the president. The Examiner is owned by Philip Anschutz, an oil-drilling magnate, and the newspaper sometimes seems to exist only to beam its owner`s conservative views into the brains of D.C. insiders.
In March, for example, the paper`s editorial writers likened the president to "a...
Sandy Eco-Restoration Gets $1 Billion+ in Federal Grants
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on May 8th, 2013
Environment News Service: The Department of the Interior is releasing $475.25 million in emergency Hurricane Sandy disaster relief appropriations to 234 projects that will repair and rebuild parks, refuges and other Interior assets damaged by the storm.
Sandy struck the U.S. Atlantic coast on October 29, 2012, and affected 24 states, including the entire eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine and west across the Appalachian Mountains to Michigan and Wisconsin, with severe damage in New Jersey and New York. In New York...