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Archive for September, 2013
Is the water debate suffering from a language problem?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2013
Guardian: The conversation was turning grumpy. A colleague from the UK government summed it up: "It's an awful word. I wouldn't be sad if I never heard it again." The others around the table – from a broad sample of NGOs and consultancies – nodded in agreement.
We were talking about "the nexus". For those not in the know, this refers to the profound connections between growing enough food, meeting rising energy needs and ensuring sufficient water for people around the world.
There's a strong, though...
Pipeline Safety Chief Says His Regulatory Process Is ‘Kind of Dying’
Posted by InsideClimate: Marcus Stern and Sebastian Jones on September 11th, 2013
InsideClimate: Jeffrey Wiese, the nation's top oil and gas pipeline safety official, recently strode to a dais beneath crystal chandeliers at a New Orleans hotel to let his audience in on an open secret: the regulatory process he oversees is "kind of dying." Wiese told several hundred oil and gas pipeline compliance officers that his agency, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration [2] (PHMSA), has "very few tools to work with" in enforcing safety rules even after Congress in 2011 allowed it to impose...
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Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2013
Reuters: The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant said levels of tritium - considered one of the least harmful radioactive elements - spiked more than 15 times in groundwater near a leaked tank at the facility over three days this week.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said tritium levels in water taken from a well close to a number of storage tanks holding irradiated water rose to 64,000 becquerels per liter on Tuesday from 4,200 becquerels/liter at the same location on Sunday.
Tepco said...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Japan: Tritium levels spike at stricken Fukushima nuclear plantRomania: Occupy movement is dead – long live participatory democracy!
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2013
Ecologist: What is it with Canadian corporations and the destruction of natural ecosystems? It seems, not content with devastating an area of boreal forest the size of the UK to extract the dirtiest of oil beneath – the infamous tar sands of Alberta – another Canadian mining corporation, Gabriel Resources Ltd., is set to flatten four peaks of the Apuseni mountain range in Romania, the town of Rosia Montana and adjacent villages and leave in its wake a massive lake of toxic tailings including deadly cyanide....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Romania: Occupy movement is dead – long live participatory democracy!EU Lawmakers Reduce Use of Food-Based Biofuel
Posted by Associated Press: Juergen Baetz on September 11th, 2013
Associated Press: The European Parliament voted Wednesday to significantly reduce the amount of biofuels made from food crops by 2020 to counter concerns over the energy source's environmental and ethical sustainability.
Environmentalists argue biofuels made from sugar, corn or soybeans add as much or even more to greenhouse gas emissions as the fossil fuels they are meant to replace. Others are criticizing the burning of crops displaces food production and drives up prices for basic staples while there are still...
If You Want to Conserve Biodiversity, Protect Latin America
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2013
Inter Press Service: A team of scientists who analysed the richness of plant species around the world concluded that the ecosystems in need of immediate protection in order to meet the 2020 conservation goals set by the Convention on Biological Diversity are largely concentrated in Latin America.
Humanity`s life support system, which provides our air, water and food, is powered by 8.7 million different kinds of plants, animals and other living species. But those species are going extinct at an accelerating rate, representing...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on If You Want to Conserve Biodiversity, Protect Latin AmericaExxon Mobil unit charged for Pennsylvania fracking waste spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2013
Reuters: An Exxon Mobil Corp subsidiary is being charged by the Pennsylvania attorney general for spilling more than 50,000 gallons of wastewater at a natural gas well site in 2010. XTO Energy Inc, which was acquired by Exxon in 2010, is charged for spilling chemical-laced wastewater from a storage tank and into a local waterway, according to a statement from the Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Tuesday. State environmental inspectors found the water leaking from an open valve on a tank at an XTO water...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Exxon Mobil unit charged for Pennsylvania fracking waste spillMassive water discovery in Kenya’s desert
Posted by Guardian: Paula Kahumbu on September 11th, 2013
Guardian: UNESCO and the Kenya Government today announce the discovery of one of the worlds largest underground water aquifers in the desert north of Turkana, an area best known for fossils, famine and poverty. The finding by Radar Technologies International (RTI) was made using space based exploration technology called WATEX system. The largest aquifer at 250 billion cubic meters of water which is equivalent in volume to Lake Turkana one of the largest lakes in the Great Rift Valley, and 25 times greater...
Australia: NSW bushfires this week a taste of things to come
Posted by Guardian: Oliver Milman on September 11th, 2013
Guardian: New South Wales and Victoria have been warned to expect a fierce bushfire season, with the head of a government-funded research body warning that bushfire prospects are "as bad as we've seen in quite some time'.
Dr Richard Thornton, chief executive of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, told Guardian Australia that the fires that have raged in NSW this week are "unusually early' but are consistent with a heightened risk of bushfires in the state over the coming months....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Australia: NSW bushfires this week a taste of things to comeCanadian Neil Young on Oil Sands: ‘Fort McMurray Looks Like Hiroshima’
Posted by InsideClimate: Globe and Mail on September 11th, 2013
InsideClimate: Canadian rocker Neil Young is wading into the heated debate over the oil sands and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, warning of the health effects on First Nations peoples and the “wasteland” that is Fort McMurray.
Mr. Young, one of Canada's best-known singer-songwriters since the 1960s, told an event in Washington yesterday that he recently travelled to Alberta, where "much of the oil comes from, much of the oil that we're using here, which they call ethical oil because it's not from Saudi Arabia...
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