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Archive for January 26th, 2014
Taking Stock Of The Northern Plains Oil Boom
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 26th, 2014
National Public Radio: Beginning next week, NPR News will be taking an in-depth look at the unprecedented oil drilling boom happening on the Northern Plains, where the state of North Dakota has fast become one of the nation's most productive drilling regions. NPR's Kelly McEvers talks with NPR reporter Kirk Siegler, back from a recent reporting trip in North Dakota for the series.
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Indigenous Kenyans evicted in the name of ‘conservation’
Posted by New Internationalist: None Given on January 26th, 2014
New Internationalist: Kenyan security forces have been burning hundreds of homes – belonging to some of the country’s oldest hunter-gatherers – in the last fortnight, in the name of ‘conserving forest biodiversity’ and safeguarding the area’s water catchment area for urban access.
The Kenya Forest Service Guard, along with riot troops armed with AK-47 machine guns, began razing the thatched homes of the Sengwer community, estimated at 15,000, after a government deadline for eviction of the Embobut Forest community...
United Kingdom: Ttruth about David Cameron fracking fairytale
Posted by Guardian: Chris Huhne on January 26th, 2014
Guardian: Davos tends to turn the hardest of heads. During the annual meetings, where businesses pay big bucks to rub shoulders with political leaders and thinkers, a contagious aura of smugness fills this Alpine valley like a fog, killing much sense of reality.
Politicians need a quick corridor story to sell their country's virtues, and David Cameron has landed on a peculiarly ill-informed one. Most narratives are falsifiable only with the passage of time, but Cameron's story is demonstrably a fairytale...
United Kingdom: Fracking firms ‘should pay £6bn year tax to compensate for climate change’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 26th, 2014
Guardian: Shale frackers operating in Britain should be paying £6bn a year in taxes by the middle of the 2020s to compensate for the damage wreaked on the environment, according to a study from Cambridge University.
The government has made clear drillers such as Cuadrilla Resources and IGas should provide sweeteners to local communities affected by their activities but it would also be right for shale gas producers to pay for contributing to global warming, argues Chris Hope, a parliamentary adviser and...
Climate change: Rainforest absorption CO2 becoming erratic
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 26th, 2014
Independent: Tropical rainforests are becoming less able to cope with rising global temperatures according to a study that has looked back over the way they have responded to variations in temperature in the past half a century.
For each 1C rise in temperature, tropical regions now release about 2 billion extra tonnes of carbon-containing gases – such as carbon dioxide and methane – into the atmosphere, compared to the same amount of tropical warming in the 1960s and 1970s, the study found.
Rising levels...
Climate Change Brings New Risks to Greenland
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 26th, 2014
Guardian: When the world's miners, oil-workers, construction teams and industrialists descend on Greenland over the next few years to dig below the rapidly retreating icecap for its ores, hydrocrabons and minerals, no one will watch with more concern -- or confidence -- than Prime Minister Aleqa Hammond.
Climate change is placing Greenland at the heart of 21st century geopolitics. As the ice retreats, it is moving from being a non-player in global affairs to the center of a new international resource rush....
Fracking in Western North Carolina? Unlikely but still unsettling
Posted by Citizen-Times: John Boyle on January 26th, 2014
Citizen-Times: Just the mere mention of the word gets people riled up.
Fracking.
Technically called “hydraulic fracturing,” the chemical-intense method of extracting natural gas from deep rock grabs people’s attention, especially here in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina. And especially when a high-ranking N.C. Department of Environment & Natural Resources official mentions at a public meeting “a possible basin,” including natural gas, in WNC.
Several of you good readers have asked me why...
Australia’s firefighters battle fatigue during long season
Posted by Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Natalie Whiting on January 26th, 2014
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: BRENDAN TREMBATH: It's been a harrowing bushfire season in Australia with two deaths and more than 200 homes lost.
In the central west of New South Wales, four firefighters were taken to hospital yesterday after rolling a tanker on the way back from a fire.
An investigation will be conducted to determine if fatigue was the cause.
Natalie Whiting reports.
NATALIE WHITING: It's been a busy fire season across Australia.
For fire-fighters in New South Wales, things got off to an early...
‘Blame changing landscapes for flood risk, not global warming.’
Posted by NGR Guardian: None Given on January 26th, 2014
NGR Guardian: MAJOR flood events occur around the world every year, but with international loss databases documenting increased incidents of flooding, more material loss and greater fatality rates are these events on the increase, and are they getting worse? A new study published in Hydrological Sciences Journal examines the key reasons for increasing frequency and severity of floods; considering whether this is due to improved reporting by the media, an increasing and expanding global population, or whether...
Combatting sea level rise requires complex policy planning
Posted by South Coast Today: Ariel Wittenberg on January 26th, 2014
South Coast Today: Pressure for governments to find new ways to combat climate change is rising with the tide.
That's the subject of a book by UMass Dartmouth Professor Chad McGuire about law and policy considerations governments must take when facing sea level rise.
While many may think that simply renourishing beaches or building more sea walls could solve the problem, McGuire says the challenge is far more complex.
"The problem with sea level rise is that it presents us with a new reality, a new set of...