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Archive for March 15th, 2014
What killed off the giant beasts – climate change or man?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 15th, 2014
Guardian: They were some of the strangest animals to walk the Earth: wombats as big as hippos, sloths larger than bears, four-tusked elephants, and an armadillo that would have dwarfed a VW Beetle. They flourished for millions of years, then vanished from our planet just as humans emerged from their African homeland.
It is one of palaeontology's most intriguing mysteries and will form the core of a conference at Oxford University this week when delegates will debate whether climate change or human hunters...
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United Kingdom: The bonfire of insanity: Woodland shipped 3,800 miles and burned in Drax power station
Posted by Daily Mail: David Rose on March 15th, 2014
Daily Mail: On a perfect spring day in the coastal forest of North Carolina I hike along a nature trail - a thread of dry gravel between the pools of the Roanoke river backwaters. A glistening otter dives for lunch just a few feet away.
Majestic trees soar straight and tall, their roots sunk deep in the swampland: maples, sweetgums and several kinds of oak. A pileated woodpecker - the world's largest species, with a wingspan of almost 2ft - whistles as it flutters across the canopy. There the leaves are starting...
Protestors Rally at Capitol to End Fracking
Posted by Fox 40: None Given on March 15th, 2014
Fox 40: Thousands of people marched around the State Capitol today in the largest anti-fracking protest in California. “We’re out here to deliver a message loud and clear to Governor Brown and the legislature, that fracking is a dirty and destructive form of fossil fuel extraction that has no place in California,” said Kassie Siegel with the Center for Biological Diversities Climate Law Institute. Siegel said hundreds of wells in California are already being fracked. “It’s in at least ten counties today,...
Coastal homeowners debate whether to rebuild or retreat
Posted by Press of Atlantic City: Donna Weaver on March 15th, 2014
Press of Atlantic City: Hurricane Sandy proved the Jersey Shore is not invincible and the sea level is still rising, so a quiet discussion has been building over the past 18 months about depopulating the coast.
Some New Jersey residents and officials are adamant: Retreating from the coast is not going to happen -- this is a salty-water culture that will not succumb to fear of another storm.
Others, however, are still shell-shocked and undecided about staying near the water.
Garrett Smith, of Franklin Park, Somerset...
Fracking causes stir in southern Illinois
Posted by Journal Star: Tim Landis on March 15th, 2014
Journal Star: Hydraulic fracturing joins the usual local, state and federal offices on the Johnson County primary ballot Tuesday.
In the weeks leading up to the election, the divisive national debate has found its way into homes, cafes and even Sunday school classes in the rural southern Illinois county known for its scenic, rolling hills and two state prisons that are the largest local employers.
Johnson County voters will be asked by advisory referendum on Tuesday whether the county should adopt...
NASA-funded study says “irreversible collapse” industrial civilization likely coming decades
Posted by Guardian: Dr Nafeez Ahmed on March 15th, 2014
Guardian: A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.
Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases...
Months after oil train derailment, crude still found Alabama swamp
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 15th, 2014
Associated Press: Environmental regulators promised an aggressive cleanup after a tanker train hauling 2.9 million gallons of crude oil derailed and burned in a west Alabama swamp in early November amid a string of North American oil train crashes.
So why is dark, smelly crude oil still oozing into the water four months later?
The isolated wetland smelled like a garage when a reporter from The Associated Press visited last week, and the charred skeletons of burned trees rose out of water covered with an iridescent...
California drought: Strife over groundwater boils over
Posted by San Francisco Chronicle: Melody Gutierrez on March 15th, 2014
San Francisco Chronicle: Zinfandel will flow like the water once did in Paso Robles this weekend. Bottles will pop open during a wine festival as rigs drill deep across the city to find a resource whose scarcity threatens Paso Robles to its core: water.
How scant has the crucial underground water supply become around the San Luis Obispo County city? Sue Luft can tell you anecdotally. The water levels in wells that feed homes and wineries around her 10-acre property just south of Paso Robles have dropped 80 feet in some...
More people to get clean, safe water in Tanzania
Posted by Daily News: None Given on March 15th, 2014
Daily News: NATIONWIDE implementation of water projects is designed to increase access to clean and safe water to more people from the current 51.09 to 74 per cent before end of next year, equal priority being given to both rural and urban communities, the government has said.
Speaking in Dodoma yesterday ahead of the National Water Week Festival to be held from March 16 through to 22, at Jamhuri Stadium, the Minister for Water, Prof Jumanne Maghembe said a total of 1,600 water projects are being implemented...
World’s most pristine waters are polluted by US Navy human waste
Posted by Independent: Cahal Milmo on March 15th, 2014
Independent: The American military has poured hundreds of tonnes of human sewage and waste water into a protected coral lagoon on the British-owned base of Diego Garcia over three decades in breach of environmental rules, The Independent can reveal.
The Indian Ocean base on the Chagos Islands has been one of the world’s most isolated and controversial military installations since Britain forcibly removed hundreds of islanders in the early 1970s, abandoning them to destitution, to make way for US forces including...