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Archive for December 18th, 2013
Pakistan vies for international funds to preserve forests
Posted by Third Pole: None Given on December 18th, 2013
Third Pole: For two years Fazalur Rehman and other villagers have been fighting a determined court battle in the Chitral district of northwest Pakistan against the powerful logging industry. The band of villagers, who live on the fringes of the last remaining cedar forests in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, have been charged under the anti-terrorism act for obstructing deforestation by what they call the ruthless timber “mafia”, working with the government forestry department. Local villages also allege that...
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16 Arrested Blocking Tar Sands Megaload in Oregon
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on December 18th, 2013
EcoWatch: On Monday evening climate justice groups stopped a controversial shipment of equipment bound for the Alberta tar sands. Concerned citizens locked themselves to two disabled vehicles in front of the 901,000 pound load, blocking its route along highway 26 outside of John Day, OR. Police responded and arrested 16 at the two blockade sites.
A megaload hauling tar sands equipment heading to the Athabasca oil fields in Alberta, Canada. Photo credit Northern Rockies Rising Tide
Monday night’s action...
Rising sea levels torment coastal US
Posted by USA Today: Wendy Koch on December 18th, 2013
USA Today: One block from the beach on the narrow Willoughby Spit, Bob Parsons was watching the weather news on TV in November 2009 when brackish water suddenly oozed up through the floors of his home and poured in from the front and back doors.
He and his wife, Carole, lugged filing cabinets and a restored wingback chair upstairs but didn't have time to move the car, parked on the street-turned-waterway, The car was totaled, and the house needed thousands of dollars' worth of repairs. Since that storm,...
Iceland’s vanishing ice
Posted by Daily Climate: Cheryl Katz on December 18th, 2013
Daily Climate: A fierce wind shrieks down the glacier slope, flinging ice and grit like a weather-witch from an old Icelandic saga.
The 300-some glaciers that cover more than 10 percent of Iceland are losing about 11 billion tons of ice a year.
The glacier, Solheimajokull, a tongue of ice reaching toward Iceland's southeast coast, has become an apologue of climate change in recent years: Retreating an average of one Olympic pool-length every year for the past two decades due to climbing temperatures, warming...
Shale well depletion raises questions about oil boom
Posted by Fuel Fix: Collin Eaton on December 18th, 2013
Fuel Fix: The stubborn rock that the energy industry breached to unleash a nationwide oil and gas rush remains a worthy foe, as producers must turn their drills ever faster to keep the boom`s lifeblood flowing.
Engineers have long known that shale, the source rock that fed North American sandstone reservoirs for millennia, could never muster the natural pressure producers need to extract oil and gas. Its molecules are too tightly packed: Shale is about 1,000 times denser than brick, and so far, only hydraulic...
Southern Keystone oil shipments begin January
Posted by Fuel Fix: None Given on December 18th, 2013
Fuel Fix: TransCanada expects to begin shipping oil on the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline on Jan. 22, the company said Tuesday. The notices went out late Monday, TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said in an email. “This is another important milestone for TransCanada, our shippers and the refiners on the U.S. Gulf Coast who have been waiting for this product to arrive,” Howard said. “Providing this notice gives our customers time to ensure that they have the appropriate volumes of oil to move into...
West Africa Hopes New Hydropower Dams Will Cut Poverty, Climate Risk
Posted by AlertNet: Elias Ntungwe Ngalame on December 18th, 2013
AlertNet: West African states in the Niger River Basin are seeking to tackle climate risks and reduce poverty by constructing three hydropower dams in the next five years. In late November, the Council of Ministers of the Niger Basin Authority (NBA), meeting in Cameroon's capital Yaounde, endorsed an environmental and climate action plan for sustainable management of the scenic basin and its rich natural resources, which have come under threat from climate change. The projects include a 102 megawatt (MW)...
United Kingdom: Manchester fracking protesters park bus across IGas drilling site
Posted by Guardiak: None Given on December 18th, 2013
Guardiak: Anti-fracking protesters trying to stop an oil drilling operations in Salford have parked a bus across the site.
The campaigning group Platform said that there were five people locked to the bus, which is reportedly blocking the entrance at the Barton Moss site run by IGas.
The action follows a similar one on Monday, when protesters temporarily blocked the heavily fortified site by dumping a 17-metre wind turbine blade. The blade was subsequently removed.
Wednesday's protest comes as a government-commissioned...
Kakadu mine: risk of uranium leakage could be greater than thought
Posted by Guardian: Oliver Milman on December 18th, 2013
Guardian: The risk of uranium leakage from filtration systems used by facilities such as the Ranger mine in Kakadu could be greater than is currently acknowledged, with new research showing that the hazardous substance is far more mobile than previously thought.
A study published in Nature Communications found that seemingly immobile uranium particles "piggybacked' onto iron and organic material and flowed into a stream that joined a wetland in France.
The Australian Conservation Foundation said the...
Last Keystone Pipeline Holdouts Are in Nebraska, 27% Haven’t Signed Easements
Posted by Omaha World-Herald: Joe Duggan on December 18th, 2013
Omaha World-Herald: Nebraska now stands alone when it comes to landowners who have yet to sign easements for the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline. TransCanada Inc., the company that wants to build the 1,700-mile crude oil pipeline, announced recently that it has reached agreement with 100 percent of landowners in five of the six states on the project route. The remaining holdouts are in Nebraska. The company says it has agreed to easement terms with 73 percent of the private landowners in Nebraska. That equates to...