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Archive for December 10th, 2013
Mapping environmentalism’s road ahead
Posted by ClimateWire: Jason Plautz and Elana Schor on December 10th, 2013
ClimateWire: Conventional wisdom says environmentalism suffered a near-death experience in 2010, when a sweeping climate change bill ran aground in the Democratic-run Senate. But aspiring eulogists for the green movement have gotten ample material in the years before and since that failure.
Federal climate legislation is now an all-but-impossible goal. President Obama's attempt to curb carbon through executive branch power is challenged at every turn by industry opponents and combative Republicans.
The...
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Keystone Foe Added to Obama Inner Circle With Podesta
Posted by Bloomberg: Jim Snyder and Jim Efstathiou Jr. on December 10th, 2013
Bloomberg: John Podesta’s return to the White House, aimed at bolstering President Barack Obama, places an opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline within his circle just as the administration weighs whether to approve the project.
The Democratic veteran, who previously served as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, joins the administration as Obama’s approval ratings have fallen to all-time lows after the fumbled rollout of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. White House spokesman Jay Carney...
Canada: Neil Young confirms benefit concerts for oilsands fight
Posted by Guardian: Sean Michaels on December 10th, 2013
Guardian: Neil Young has announced four benefit concerts in aid of a Native Canadian group that are battling oil companies over Albertan tar sands. Accompanied by jazz singer Diana Krall, Young will raise funds toward the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation's legal challenge to Shell Canada's Jackpine Mine expansion.
The charity gigs will take place in Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary, from 12 to 19 January. Unlike Young's recent arena shows, these are large theatre concerts. Tickets cost between $55...
NSW bushfires: conservationists hopeful for healthy recovery wildlife
Posted by Guardian: Oliver Milman on December 10th, 2013
Guardian: Conservationists are hopeful that wildlife coped better with the NSW Blue Mountains fires than first feared after a koala was spotted in the upper reaches of the mountains for the first time in 70 years.
The koala was seen crossing the Great Western Highway near Wentworth Falls, which is 900m above sea level.
The sighting is the first of its kind in the upper Blue Mountains since the 1940s. It is thought that the koala, and others, managed to escape October's fierce bushfires, which burned...
California seeks to send water south via tunnel, restore depleted delta
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 10th, 2013
Reuters: California pledged on Monday to restore 80,000 acres of the depleted Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as part of a massive project to send fresh water from mountain streams in the north to farmers and residents in the parched south.
The $16 billion plan was released as the state struggles in what appears to be shaping up as its driest year on record, with some farmers and urban water districts promised just 5 percent of the water that they had requested for next year.
The ambitious program...
Study offers economical solutions for maintaining critical delta environments
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 10th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Formed at the lowest part of a river where its water flow slows and spreads into the sea, deltas are sediment-rich, biodiverse areas, a valuable source of seafood, fertile ground for agriculture, and host to ports important for transportation.
At least half of the deltas around the world are so-called "wave dominated deltas" -- open to the sea and under the impact of wave erosion. And many more deltas will come under wave dominance as dammed rivers carry less and less sediment. In a warming climate,...