RSS Feed
Archive for October 19th, 2013
Calif. sees more fracking in offshore oil drilling than state officials believed, records show
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 19th, 2013
Associated Press: The oil production technique known as fracking is more widespread and frequently used in the offshore platforms and man-made islands near some of California’s most populous and famous coastal communities than state officials believed. In waters off Long Beach, Seal Beach and Huntington Beach — some of the region’s most popular surfing strands and tourist draws — oil companies have used fracking at least 203 times at six sites in the past two decades, according to interviews and drilling records...
Posted in 
Canada: Dozens Flee Homes After Fuel Train Cars Derail, Explode West of Edmonton
Posted by CBC: None Given on October 19th, 2013
CBC: A CN Rail train carrying liquefied petroleum gas and crude oil has derailed and exploded about 80 kilometres west of Edmonton, prompting an evacuation in the tiny community of Gainford.
Parkland County Emergency Services says it received a call about the accident involving a westbound train around 1 a.m. MT Saturday.
Firefighters block the highway near Gainford, Alta. as emergency crews battle a fire at the scene where 13 rail cars came off the tracks in an early-morning derailment. (Dan Riedlhuber/Reuters)...
Climatic tipping points, stories about our possible future
Posted by Guardian: John Abraham and Jeff Masters on October 19th, 2013
Guardian: How does one tell the most important story of our time--the emergence of our great Climate Disruption--without boring one's audience to tears, but at the same time, not resorting to over-hyped spinning of the science? "Tipping Points", a landmark 6-part TV series that begins airing at 9 pm EDT Saturday, October 19 on The Weather Channel, aims to do just that. "Tipping Points" follows a group of preeminent scientists as they venture off the grid to explore the perilous tipping points making our weather...
Iowa scientists: Climate change affecting farming
Posted by Associated Press: David Pitt on October 19th, 2013
Associated Press: More than 150 Iowa professors and climate researchers have signed on to a statement released Friday that says extreme weather patterns caused by climate change are affecting farming, and updated practices are needed to prevent soil erosion and adjust to the new reality.
"Every year, evidence has been building in Iowa and around the world that there are consequences to the continued release of large quantities of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere," said David Courard-Hauri, chairman of the...
Hurricane Sandy one year on: Stronger than the storm
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 19th, 2013
Economist: “NO ONE can ever replace what Pat Dresch has lost,” says Brad Gair, who heads the housing recovery operations set up by New York City after Hurricane Sandy. Mrs Dresch lost everything during last October’s hurricane. Her husband George and her 13-year-old daughter Angela were killed; she narrowly survived. Her house was destroyed by the storm surge. Since that awful night, she has been living in the rectory attached to her local church. She does not want to return to her house beside the sea at Tottenville....
Climate change threatens Nepali farmers’ livelihood and nation’s food security
Posted by ClimateWire: Coco Liu on October 19th, 2013
ClimateWire: Churamani Neupane thought he was going through a normal monsoon when heavy rain arrived in June. But three days later, he found "normal" no longer applied.
"My rice paddies had never been flooded before, but this time, they submerged into 2-meter-deep water," the 34-year-old farmer recalled of his first visit after the rain. "I was so stressed when I saw it, because much of my family's income relies on the rice sales."
The flood finally faded away one week later, but the problem it caused didn't....
Conflicts over water rise in Tanzania
Posted by Inter Press Service: Kizito Makoye on October 19th, 2013
Inter Press Service: Conflicts over water are increasing in the sprawling Pangani River Basin in northeastern Tanzania as farmers and herders jostle for dwindling water resources in the face of climate change.
Over the past decade, Maasai pastoralists from the northern areas of Moshi and Arusha have been streaming towards the basin with tens of thousands of their cattle in search of water and grazing pasture.
Hafsa Mtasiwa, the Pangani district commissioner, told IPS that the Maasais` traditional land was strained...
Chinese grain imports to strain world food supply
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 19th, 2013
Reuters: China's growing demand for grain imports will place new strains on a world food supply already stretched thin by plateauing farming yields, over-used aquifers and climate change, according to a leading expert on food security and water.
Lester Brown, founder and president of the Earth Institute and author of several books on food security, said during a teleconference this week that changing Chinese appetites and losses of farmland to industrialisation mean China will need to look abroad for an...
Thousands protest in Romania against shale gas, gold mine
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 19th, 2013
Reuters: Thousands of Romanians protested on Saturday against plans by U.S. energy group Chevron to explore for shale gas in a poor eastern region and a Canadian company's project to set up Europe's biggest open cast gold mine in a Carpathian town.
Plans by the leftist government of Prime Minister Victor Ponta to approve the tapping of natural resources in the European Union's second-poorest state have triggered nationwide protests since the start of September, throwing together local communities, environmentalists,...
Australia: Bushfires continue to rage across New South Wales – video
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 19th, 2013
Guardian: Hopes of rain that would diminish the severity of New South Wales's bushfires are lowered on Saturday as dry weather looks set to continue. Aorund 1,500 firefighters are battling 100 blazes in the state, which are being helped along by dry weather and strong winds. Around 200 properties have been destroyed in the Blue Mountains area