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Archive for October 7th, 2013
Drought is killing the world’s forests
Posted by University World News: None Given on October 7th, 2013
University World News: Every forested continent on Earth has suffered widespread droughts over the past 30 years that have killed tens of thousands of trees. Their scale, duration and “almost coordinated nature” across different continents is causing extreme alarm in ecological circles.
Derek Eamus, a lecturer at the University of Technology in Sydney, says Australia faced a seven-year eastern seaboard drought in the first decade of the 21st century while most of Western Europe was in drought in 2003. There the human...
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Canada: Enbridge to Argue for Reversal of Pipeline Running Through Ontario, Quebec
Posted by Canadian Press: Diana Mehta on October 7th, 2013
Canadian Press: Under fields, past homes and across waterways, a pipeline has run through one of Canada's most populous corridors for nearly four decades, quietly pumping oil between southern Ontario and Montreal.
While it hasn't generated much national attention in the past, Line 9 is now being thrust into the spotlight as the company that operates it seeks approval to reverse its flow and increase its capacity.
On one side of the debate that will take place before the National Energy Board in Montreal and...
Trees Might Store More Carbon Than Thought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 7th, 2013
RedOrbit: Examining a long-lived forest, researchers have found that Black Spruce trees, which dominate the northern forests of North America, succumb about five years after being weakened by environmental stresses. Without rejuvenating fire, the dead trees aren`t being replaced by new ones. The result will help researchers better understand how climate change affects the health of forests, and how forests affect the severity of climate change. The study also suggests trees might be storing more carbon than...
Fracking produces annual toxic waste water enough to flood Washington DC
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 7th, 2013
Guardian: Fracking in America generated 280 billion US gallons of toxic waste water last year - enough to flood all of Washington DC beneath a 22 feet deep toxic lagoon, a new report out on Thursday found. The report from campaign group Environment America said America's transformation into an energy superpower was exacting growing costs on the environment.
"Our analysis shows that damage from fracking is widespread and occurs on a scale unimagined just a few years ago," the report, Fracking by the Numbers,...
World Bank ‘gambling assets’ by investing in private water firms
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 7th, 2013
Guardian: Civil society groups are pressuring the World Bank to disinvest from private water companies, saying that privatising ownership and management of this natural resource has failed to improve access to clean drinking water.
The World Bank is subsidising private profiteering from an essential resource by lending public money to private corporations that manage or run water utilities but have failed to improve services, says Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a Boston-based advocacy group...
Canada: Enbridge ‘Line 9’ Protest Concert Draws 2,000 to Toronto
Posted by Metro: None Given on October 7th, 2013
Metro: Threatening skies and encroaching curtains of fog weren’t enough to deter upwards of 2,000 concerned Toronto residents from attending a protest concert against Enbridge’s “Line 9” oil pipeline proposal in North York’s Mel Lastman Square on Sunday afternoon.
Kingston roots-rocker Sarah Harmer, local singer/songwriter Hayden, Guelph’s Minotaurs and the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie performing with Toronto’s Sadies as his backing band, came out to add their voices to a growing chorus of worry across...
Michigan Fight over Kalamazoo River’s Dam Pits Enbridge, DNR Against Community
Posted by MLive: Rosemary Parker on October 7th, 2013
MLive: The Michigan Department of Natural Resources would like the Kalamazoo River to return to a free-flowing state. Enbridge, the Canadian pipeline company that leaked a million gallons of crude oil into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River in July 2010, would like to complete the conditions of its mandatory river clean-up. Smack dab in the way of those goals is a 174-year-old dam across the Kalamazoo River. The Ceresco Dam, originally built to power flour and saw mills in the early settlement about...