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Archive for October 30th, 2014
Toxic chemicals, carcinogens skyrocket near fracking sites
Posted by US News World Report: None Given on October 30th, 2014
US News World Report: Oil and gas wells across the country are spewing “dangerous" cancer-causing chemicals into the air, according to a new study that further corroborates reports of health problems around hydraulic fracturing sites.
“This is a significant public health risk,” says Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany-State University of New York and lead author of the study, which was published Thursday in the journal Environmental Health. “Cancer...
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Global groundwater crisis may get worse as the world warms
Posted by Mashable: None Given on October 30th, 2014
Mashable: From India to Texas, people are rapidly depleting their valuable stores of groundwater -- leading to the possibility that aquifers may be emptied within decades, a NASA researcher has warned.
In a commentary published Wednesday in the journal Nature Climate Change, Jay Famiglietti, who has helped lead the use of a NASA satellite system to detect groundwater changes around the world, warned of dramatic consequences to come if changes are not made to the way that societies manage water supplies....
Climate change a ‘threat multiplier’ for farming-dependent nations: Report
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 30th, 2014
Reuters: Climate change and food insecurity are "threat multipliers", and 32 countries dependent on farming face an "extreme risk" of conflict or civil unrest in the next 30 years, a global analytics firm said on Wednesday. Food shortages and rising prices have the potential to worsen political, ethnic, class and religious tensions, the risk advisory firm Maplecroft reported in its annual "Climate Change and Environmental Risk Atlas (CCERA)". Analysts noted that several nations' military leaders are ahead...
Hot enough? Things are going to get hotter in Australia
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 30th, 2014
Sydney Morning Herald: Australia's unusually hot and dry weather is set to extend well into summer with the Bureau of Meteorology predicting increased risks of bushfires and heatwaves.
The bureau's latest three-month outlooks for temperature and rainfall covering the November-January period indicate the likelihood of drier-than-normal conditions across most of eastern Australia, particularly the north-east.
For Sydney, the immediate forecast is for mostly dry weather, with a maximum 31 degrees reached on Thursday...
Regreening program to restore one-sixth of Ethiopia’s land
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 30th, 2014
Guardian: Fifteen years years ago the villages around Abrha Weatsbha in northern Ethiopia were on the point of being abandoned. The hillsides were barren, the communities, plagued by floods and droughts, needed constant food aid, and the soil was being washed away. Today, Abrha Weatsbha in the Tigray region is unrecognisable and an environmental catastrophe has been averted following the planting of many millions of tree and bush seedlings. Wells that were dry have been recharged, the soil is in better shape,...
China’s growth-obsessed officials ignoring green policies: parliament
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 30th, 2014
Reuters: Local officials determined to make their economies bigger at any cost are ignoring Beijing's push to cut hazardous air pollution, opting instead to expand heavy industries and cut clean energy from the grid, a Chinese parliamentary report said.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's parliament, dispatched a team of inspectors to 10 cities and provinces from May to September to oversee the implementation of new pollution policies.
The team found some local officials...