Archive for November 25th, 2013

Exposed: fracking licenses granted in Bushmen’s reserve

Survival International: Large parts of Botswana`s Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) – home to Africa`s last hunting Bushmen – have been opened up to international companies for the controversial practice of 'fracking`, according to an investigation for the documentary film 'The High Cost of Cheap Gas` and British newspaper The Guardian. A leaked map shows that exploration concessions have been granted for half of the CKGR – a reserve larger than Switzerland – raising fears of land grabbing, a drop in water levels...

Arctic at risk from invasive species

Ecologist: As oceans continue to warm, the number of ships bearing invasive species will increase, and the number of species that may be able to survive in Svalbard will increase. More shipping is sailing through thawing Arctic waters, but while these northern routes might provide opportunities for tourism, mining and cutting down delivery times, the ships may also carry stowaways on board, introducing invasive species to pristine Arctic waters. These findings were recently published in the journal Diversity...

Shattered by Oil: Exxon Arkansas Spill and the People Left Behind, Part 1

InsideClimate: On March 29, 2013, an ExxonMobil oil pipeline that runs under a tiny residential neighborhood in Mayflower, Ark. split open and spilled 210,000 gallons of Canadian dilbit across backyards and streets and in waterways. InsideClimate News spent months reporting the spill [3] on the ground. In Part 1 of "Shattered by Oil" [4]—an ICN co-production with This American Land [5]—Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth McGowan [6] returns to Mayflower, Ark., to explore the fate of residents who are living with the...

A Neighborhood Shattered: Families Emptying Out of Oil-Hit Arkansas Town

InsideClimate: American property owners battling to stop energy companies from snaking oil pipelines across their lands need only look to Mayflower, Ark., for a window into what can go wrong when pipelines burst in backyards. Eight months after an ExxonMobil pipeline leaked Canadian oil across an Arkansas subdivision, a cloud of uncertainty looms large over the young families, singles and retirees who chose the affordable, decade-old Northwoods neighborhood to establish roots. Nearly half of them have put their...

For Better or For Worse – Fracking in the Rustic Karoo

Inter Press Service: To the casual passer-by, Petrus Kabaliso and his wife Cynthia present a disarmingly rustic sight, seated as they are under the shade of a date palm at a truck stop in the scorching Karoo desert, in South Africa`s Northern Cape province, a battered umbrella held jauntily over their heads. "We find it very hard to live here," Petrus, 59, tells IPS. "We find old metal, and sometimes the trucks that stop here leave bottles in the rubbish. We can change this for money, and buy pap [maize meal porridge]...

Freezing weather spreads as storm heads toward U.S. East Coast

Reuters: Thanksgiving travel may be snarled by a wintry storm system heading for the East Coast, bringing snow, sleet and rain to a region already plunged in to sub-freezing temperatures, the National Weather Service said Sunday. Forecasters warned the winter storm now in the Southwest could cause flight delays and icy roads for some of the millions of people traveling for the holiday, depending on the path it takes as it heads eastward. "There's still a whole lot of uncertainty," Lora Wilson, a National...