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Archive for October 4th, 2013
College students worried about climate change hazards
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2013
ScienceDaily: College students are worried about climate change-related hazards, even if they're not worried about climate change, suggesting that the threat of climate change still seems theoretical to many, new University of Florida research shows.
A UF/IFAS study published online in September by the Journal of Environmental Management measures how worried students are about coastal calamities.
The study is a dissertation by former UF doctoral student Stuart Carlton, now a postdoctoral assistant at Purdue...
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US surpasses Russia as world’s top oil and natural gas producer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2013
Guardian: The US was on pace to achieve global energy domination on Friday, overtaking Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil and natural gas producer.
New estimates released on Friday by the Energy Information Administration showed America pulling ahead of both countries in oil and natural gas production for 2013.
The rise to the top was fuelled by new drilling techniques, such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which have unlocked vast quantities of oil and gas from shale rock...
This college freshman is suing Alaska over climate change
Posted by Salon: None Given on October 4th, 2013
Salon: Can individual states be held responsible for failing to do enough to stop climate change? University of Alaska Fairbanks freshman Nelson Kanuk thinks so, and the Alaska Supreme Court agreed to hear him out.
Kanuk, along with six others, first sued the state last year, when he was just a senior in high school. His small town, Barrow, is literally melting beneath his feet, and he alleged that the loss of permafrost should count as a natural resource - the same as other resources the state is required...
Of Goats And Gardens: Making Sense Of Urban Agriculture In LA
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2013
National Public Radio: Until recently, if you wanted to find out the rules for raising goats in Hollywood, bees in Bel Air or squash in a community garden in South Central Los Angeles, it would have been pretty tough - like standing in various lines at the DMV.
Enter a dedicated group of urban planning graduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles. In six months, they waded through the bureaucratic nightmare of urban agriculture laws, ordinances and regulations in each of LA county's 88 cities, using...
Radioactive Water From Fracking Found in Pennsylvania Creek According to Duke Study
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on October 4th, 2013
EcoWatch: A Duke University study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, found dangerously high levels of radiation in a creek near a drilling wastewater treatment facility in Pennsylvania.
The study, Impacts of Shale Gas Wastewater Disposal on Water Quality in Western Pennsylvania, was conducted over a period of two years from the summer of 2010 to the fall of 2012 and analyzed water samples discharged downstream of the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility into Blacklick...
US national parks hit by shutdown still open for drilling
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2013
ClimateWire: The image is tailor-made to stoke fury over the shuttered government: drillers pulling oil and gas from beneath national parkland that citizens are barred from entering. But what greens decry as painful fallout from this week's shutdown is happening on a smaller scale than some have argued.
Interviews with state regulators, environmentalists and local elected officials suggest that while oil and gas operations continue at Texas and Florida park sites closed to visitors this week, drilling appears...
Amphibians evolve resistance to popular pesticide
Posted by Mongabay: Bradley Fessenden on October 4th, 2013
Mongabay: Rachel Carson and, more recently, Sandra Steingraber have successfully drawn popular attention to the risks of pesticides on wildlife. Many of the environmental consequences of pesticides have now been well documented by scientists; however, studies investigating the evolutionary consequences of pesticides on non-target species are largely missing. Not surprisingly, most studies looking at how species evolve in response to pesticide-use have been on target species such as mosquitoes and crop pests,...
Harvard Won’t Divest Its $32.7B Endowment From Fossil Fuel Holdings
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2013
Bloomberg: Harvard University, the world’s richest school, won’t sell its investments in fossil-fuel companies amid pressure from students, President Drew Faust said in a letter released today.
“I do not believe, nor do my colleagues on the Corporation, that university divestment from the fossil fuel industry is warranted or wise,” Faust said in the letter, referring to Harvard Corporation, the school’s governing board. “The endowment is a resource, not an instrument to impel social or political change.”...
Let It Burn: Changing Firefighting Techniques for a Warming World
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2013
Time: We usually measure wildfires in acres burnt or the number of homes destroyed. But there`s a human toll to fires as well. So far this year 32 people have lost their lives fighting fires, the highest number in nearly 20 years--and the fire season isn`t done yet. More than half of those deaths occurred in a single incident, when all but one of a 20-man firefighting crew were killed during the Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona in June.
Those deaths were tragic and random, the result of an unpredictable...
US mining firm sues Canadian province over fracking rights
Posted by BusinessGreen: Danny Bradbury on October 4th, 2013
BusinessGreen: A US mining company is suing the Government of Quebec for violating free trade rules, after the Canadian province stopped it from fracking in its territory.
Lone Pine Resources of Delaware filed a claim to an international arbitrator last month after the Government of Quebec passed a bill revoking all fracking permits in its territory. The mining firm, which wants $250m in compensation, had spent millions of dollars in the five years leading up to the passing of the legislation to obtain mining...