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Archive for October 21st, 2013
Oil and gas train runs off tracks, explodes in Canada — again
Posted by Grist: John Upton on October 21st, 2013
Grist: Firefighters did not bother battling the flames at the accident near Edmonton in Alberta. Instead, they allowed the propane that was leaking from ruptured rail cars to burn itself out. Nobody was hurt, but a nearby town was evacuated. From a weekend Globe and Mail report:
The train belongs to Canadian National Railway Co. It derailed in Gainford, a village about 90 kilometres west of Alberta’s capital, at around 1 a.m. MT Saturday. The train was en route to Vancouver from Edmonton.
Thirteen...
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The shale-gas boom won’t do much for climate change. But it will make us a bit richer.
Posted by Washington Post: Brad Plumer on October 21st, 2013
Washington Post: The shale-gas boom in the United States won't do much to cut U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions or tackle global warming. That's because, in addition to killing off coal-fired plants, cheap gas will also edge out cleaner energy sources like wind, solar, and nuclear.
On the other hand, the glut of natural gas from fracking will make the country a bit wealthier and clean up other air pollutants in the decades ahead.
Those are the conclusions of a big new report from Stanford's Energy Modeling Forum,...
Sandy A Warning Rising Seas Threaten Nuclear Plants
Posted by Climate Central: Bobby Magill on October 21st, 2013
Climate Central: As Hurricane Sandy barreled ashore a year ago, the storm forced the shutdown of several Northeast coastal nuclear power reactors, including the Oyster Creek plant on the Jersey Shore, which took the brunt of Sandy's huge storm surge. Another reactor at Indian Point Energy Center north of New York City shutdown because of power grid disruptions, and a third reactor in southern New Jersey shutdown when Sandy knocked out four of its circulating water pumps.
No nuclear power plant in Sandy's path...
Fracking linked to rape, meth addiction, and STDs
Posted by Grist: Holly Richmond on October 21st, 2013
Grist: Yet another reason to hate fracking: It’s connected with an increase in STDs, car crashes, drug-related crimes, and sexual assault in areas where the oil and gas industry sets up shop. Or in Vice-speak, fracking workers have “an insatiable appetite for raw sex and hard drugs." Writes Peter Rugh on Vice:
Critics of fracking have compared it to raping the Earth, but where drilling has spread, literal rape has followed. Violence against woman in fracking boomtowns in North Dakota and Montana has...
Australia: NSW government accused of climate change research cutbacks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 21st, 2013
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: ELEANOR HALL: As some question whether the extreme weather that's fuelling the Blue Mountains fires is linked to climate change, the New South Wales Government is being accused of dismantling the state's ability to investigate the issue.
A climate change scientist who was employed by the state government says the cuts have been deepest in a group assigned to investigate and prepare for the impacts of climate change.
Katie Hamann has our report.
KATIE HAMANN: When Greens MP Adam Bandt tweeted...
Australia: Scientists say climate change link to bushfires demands action
Posted by Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Tracy Bowden on October 21st, 2013
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: With claims that current climate policies would lead to more bushfires, Deputy Greens Leader Adam Bandt was accused of politicising the a natural disaster, but scientists say the link between global warming and fires is established and demands action.
Transcript
ANNABEL CRABB, PRESENTER: Behind the fire fronts, a secondary battle is underway, a political dispute about the links between climate change, extreme weather and bushfires.
Deputy Greens Leader Adam Bandt started it with a tweet...
In Canada’s Alberta province, oil sands boom is a two-edged sword
Posted by LA Times: Neela Banerjee on October 21st, 2013
LA Times: In the Cree language, the word "athabasca" means "a place where grass is everywhere." Here in Alberta, the Athabasca River slices through forests of spruce and birch before spilling into a vast freshwater delta and Lake Athabasca. But 100 miles upstream, the boreal forest has been peeled back by enormous strip mines, where massive shovels pick up 100 tons of earth at a time and dump it into yellow trucks as big as houses. The tarry bitumen that is extracted is eventually shipped to refineries,...
Why Is Exxon Taking Its Time Restarting Its Ruptured Dilbit Pipeline?
Posted by InsideClimate: Elizabeth Douglass on October 21st, 2013
InsideClimate: In the six months since an ExxonMobil pipeline unleashed Canadian oil in an Arkansas neighborhood, nearby residents have had much to endure—the muck and stench of heavy crude, lengthy evacuations, sickness and economic loss.
They've also been in the national spotlight, as the upheaval in tiny Mayflower, Ark., has come to symbolize the risks of aging and overlooked oil pipelines, especially when they're hundreds of mile long and carrying tar sands crude. From Illinois through Texas, many people...
Australia: As NSW burns, it’s time to talk about climate change
Posted by Bribane Times: Agnes Nieuwenhuizen on October 21st, 2013
Bribane Times: When is the right time to raise concerns about climate change? Apparently not during what every firefighter, commentator and journalist I have heard is calling the most sudden, rapidly spreading and ferocious fires they have encountered.
Of course Adam Bandt and others should be making the connection between climate change and these fires. And they should be doing this now when the evidence is before our eyes.
This is not showing disrespect or callousness. It is not making political capital...