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Archive for June, 2014
In Huge Defeat for Oil and Gas Industry, Court Rules New York Towns Can Ban Fracking
Posted by Village Voice: None Given on June 30th, 2014
Village Voice: Huge news this morning for shale-gas drilling skeptics: the highest court in New York state ruled that towns have the authority to ban oil and gas companies from operating within city limits.
Deborah Goldberg, the lawyer who argued on behalf of the town of Dryden, New York, tells the Voice, will have a "huge impact here in New York state and may very well influence similar efforts around the country."
In 2011, residents of Dryden passed a zoning ordinance prohibiting oil and gas drilling; Six...
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Endless Summer: On the Verge of the Sixth Extinction
Posted by San Diego Free Press: None Given on June 30th, 2014
San Diego Free Press: We`ve seen a lot of bad news lately from the dismaying results of our last local election and a slew of reactionary court decisions at the state and national level to the re-emergence of the chaos in Iraq and the seemingly daily news reports of growing evidence that our widening level of economic inequality is becoming an entrenched and sadly taken-for-granted part of our new normal.
Even as we head into the heedless days of summer, we are greeted by yet more studies showing that the climate change...
Kenya Carbon Credit Tree Protection Program to Grow Fivefold
Posted by Bloomberg: David Malingha Doya on June 29th, 2014
Bloomberg: Wildlife Works Carbon LLC, a U.S.- based business selling carbon credits in the voluntary market generated by forest conservation, plans to expand fivefold the biodiversity-rich areas it protects in Kenya.
Disappearing forests deprive the East African economy of as much as $75 million of income a year, about five times the amount the country earns from forestry and logging, the United Nations Environment Programme and state-run Kenya Forest Service said in 2012. Deforestation has also disrupted...
Scientists find evidence of long-term warming inside Greenland’s ice sheet
Posted by Alaska Dispatch: Yereth Rosen on June 29th, 2014
Alaska Dispatch: In the mid-20th century, when Carl Benson was traveling Greenland gathering data he would use to write his Ph.D. thesis on the temperature, structure and composition of the hard-packed snow that covers that island, conditions deep beneath the surface were fairly consistent: white, firm, cold and dry.
“If you could imagine cutting a wall of Styrofoam, that’s what it was like,” said Benson, now a professor emeritus with the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute.
Related: How dust...
Hotter and larger tropics more vulnerable to climate change
Posted by Channel NewsAsia: Pichayada Promchertchoo on June 29th, 2014
Channel NewsAsia: Covering some 130 countries and territories around the Equator and situated between the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the Tropic of Capricorn in the south -- the tropics is expanding as climate change heats up the earth, turning more and more countries into a hot zone. It is a growing concern and Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has called for people to be better carers of the environment as she launched the State of the Tropics Report in Myanmar. She said: "I'd like this report to be...
Lagos govt warns residents stop building structure on drainage
Posted by WorldStage: Benson Akomo on June 29th, 2014
WorldStage: Lagos State Government has debunked reports that there will be no flood in the state, warning residents to stop building structures on drainage channels.
State Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello, gave the warning at the weekend said the state government will no-longer tolerate acts that tend to frustrate government's efforts aimed at solving problem of flooding.
Bello who harped flood control mechanism of the government said, "it is not for us as a government to say that there...
Study: Salamanders in the Appalachians are smaller
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 29th, 2014
Associated Press: Some scientists suggest it could be still another sign of climate change: Salamanders in the Appalachian Mountains are getting smaller, they say, because in a drier, warmer climate, the little cold-blooded creatures use more energy to stay alive.
"As their temperature rises, all their physiological rates increase," said Michael Sears, a Clemson University biologist. "All else being equal, that means there is less energy for growth."
In a study earlier this year in the journal Global Change...
Coastal Warning Issued for Vital Atlantic Habitats
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on June 29th, 2014
Climate News Network: Rising temperatures, increasingly acidic seas and human destruction will drastically change the nature of the coastal seas of the north-east Atlantic over the next century, scientists predict.
According to new research in the journal Ecology and Evolution, it will completely alter the forests of kelp and the maerl beds of coralline algae that serve as shelter and nurseries for baby cod and juvenile scallops. These are some of the most productive habitats on Earth -- habitats that also soak up...
United Kingdom: Allow fracking in national parks, says outgoing Enviro Agency chief
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 28th, 2014
Independent: Fracking should be allowed in national parks and fears over its impact have been “exaggerated,” according to the head of the Environment Agency.
The chairman, Chris Smith, who is stepping down next month, dismissed concerns about its possible impact on the national parks and sites of special scientific interest that could be licenced for fracking.
In an interview with the Times, Mr Smith said: “Provided it is done carefully and properly regulated, those fears are definitely exaggerated.”
He...
Rare-earth mining in China comes at a heavy cost for local villages
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 28th, 2014
Guardian: From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collectively known as rare earths.
The town of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, is the largest Chinese source...