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Archive for July 28th, 2014
California drought dries up plans for historic gold rush celebration
Posted by Reuters: Shawn Hubler on July 28th, 2014
Reuters: California’s drought has claimed yet another historic casualty in this parched capital city - the annual heritage celebration known as Gold Rush Days.
Staged for the past 15 years by tourism groups who turn the city's Old Sacramento district into a dirt-paved scene from the 1850s, the Labor Day weekend tradition was canceled on Monday due to concerns about water use and fire.
Steve Hammond, president and chief executive officer of the Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau, said that up to...
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Netflix about to hijack our evenings with grim environmental films
Posted by Grist: Samantha Larson on July 28th, 2014
Grist: Netflix has already burned weeks of our lives with its early ventures into original programming. You know what I`m talking about. Every episode of House of Cards or Orange is the New Black left you tearing out your hair screaming, “I NEED JUST ONE MORE, PLEEEASE!”
Now that the good people at Netflix have come to realize their power, they’re going to try to use it to show us something even more unnerving than murderous politicians: real life. As part of their new documentary push, they bought the...
GAO Report: Drinking Water Risk Underground Fracking Waste Injection
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on July 28th, 2014
EcoWatch: The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) publicly released its report today finding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is "not consistently conducting two key oversight and enforcement activities for class II programs" for underground fluid injection wells associated with oil and gas production. The report shows that the EPA`s program to protect drinking water sources from underground injection of fracking waste needs improvement.
According to the report, "The U.S. EPA...
Study: Climate change increases chance slowdown in yields
Posted by Des Moines Register: None Given on July 28th, 2014
Des Moines Register: The odds of a major production slowdown of corn and wheat are as much as 20 times greater with climate change, according to researchers at Stanford University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The authors used global climate computer models, along with data about weather and crops, to calculate the chances that climatic trends would slow the growth in yields by 10 percent during the next 20 years. The result, researchers found, would mean yields would grow about half as quickly as...
Climate warming may not drive net losses soil carbon from tropical forests
Posted by Environmental News Network: Carnegie Institute For Science on July 28th, 2014
Environmental News Network: The planet's soil releases about 60 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, which is far more than that released by burning fossil fuels. This happens through a process called soil respiration. This enormous release of carbon is balanced by carbon coming into the soil system from falling leaves and other plant matter, as well as by the underground activities of plant roots. Short-term warming studies have documented that rising temperatures increase the rate of soil respiration. As...
Crews make headway against destructive Northern California wildfire
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2014
Reuters: Firefighters began to gain the upper hand on Monday against a Northern California wildfire that has destroyed 13 homes and blackened nearly six square miles in the drought-parched foothills east of Sacramento, officials said.
Crews had built containment lines around roughly two-thirds of the so-called Sand Fire as of Monday morning, up from only 35 percent on Sunday evening, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
Some residents who were forced to flee their homes ahead...
United Kingdom: Tories target seats will be opened for fracking says Greenpeace
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2014
Independent: More than three-quarters of the Tories’ top target seats in the next general election have been opened up for oil and gas exploration, Greenpeace has claimed.
As the Government launched the latest bidding round for onshore oil and gas licences, which covers around half the country, the environmental campaign group warned that the licensing area also covered freshwater aquifers and intruded on 10 national parks.
The analysis by Greenpeace comes after a ComRes poll of more than 1,000 people in...
United Kingdom: Government pushes ahead with fracking plan despite wide opposition
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2014
Guardian: Overwhelming opposition to the government's plans to expanding fracking across Britain was expressed by interest groups during an official consultation, whose results were released a day after ministers signalled a go-ahead for shale gas drilling around the country.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change's report on the government's Strategic Environmental Assessment of its nationwide fracking plan recorded a wide range of objections, including from bodies such as Public Health England and...
Trees Save Lives and $7 Billion in Health Costs Annually, Forest Service Finds
Posted by Environment 360: None Given on July 28th, 2014
Environment 360: Trees are saving more than 850 human lives each year and preventing 670,000 cases of acute respiratory symptoms in the U.S., according to the first broad-scale estimate of trees' air pollution removal by U.S. Forest Service researchers. Looking at four common air pollutants -- nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 microns -- researchers valued the human health benefits of the reduced air pollution at nearly $7 billion annually in a study published...
Warming Threatens Roads, Ports and Planes, Report Says
Posted by Climate Central: Bobby Magill on July 28th, 2014
Climate Central: The transportation sector is a major contributor to climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions, and, worldwide, it's also one of the most vulnerable sectors to the effects of climate change, according to a new report.
In other words, climate change could mean "sun kinks' could warp train tracks in the heat, airplanes will be more expensive to fly, highway surfaces could soften in heat waves, roadways and bridges could be washed away in rising seas and storm surges, and storms in the open ocean...