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Archive for November 5th, 2014
Texas city bans fracking in its birthplace, court battles loom
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 5th, 2014
Reuters: Voters approved a ban on hydraulic fracturing in the north Texas town of Denton on Tuesday, making it the first city in the Lone Star State to outlaw the oil and gas extraction technique behind the U.S. energy boom.
The vote in the city of 123,000 was highly symbolic because hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, is widely used in Texas, the top crude producer in the United States.
Green groups said the result served as a wake-up call to the industry, but several similar measures failed...
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Birthplace America fracking boom votes to ban practice
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 5th, 2014
Guardian: The Texas town where America’s oil and natural gas boom began has voted to ban fracking, in a stunning rebuke to the industry.
Denton, a college town on the edge of the Barnett Shale, voted by 59% to ban fracking inside the city limits, a first for any locality in Texas.
Organisers said they hoped it would give a boost to anti-fracking activists in other states. More than 15 million Americans now live within a mile of an oil or gas well.
“It should send a signal to industry that if the people...
Did state break rules Kewaunee plant assessment?
Posted by Green Bay Press Gazette: Bill Lueders on November 5th, 2014
Green Bay Press Gazette: Al Kohnle, the property assessor in the tiny town of Carlton in Kewaunee County, admits he was "not qualified to do that big of a job."
The job concerned the Kewaunee Power Station, a nuclear plant on Lake Michigan, just south of Green Bay. When the plant was operational, it paid a utility tax to the state, which then made payments to the county and town. When it closed last May, the town had to come up with an assessed value.
So Kohnle tapped Gillott Appraisal Services of North Carolina. Based...
Fracking Bans Pass Denton, Texas, Two Calif Counties & One Ohio Town
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 5th, 2014
EcoWatch: With a record number of fracking issues on local ballots in California, Texas and Ohio, the outcome was decidedly mixed. Of the eight measures--three in California, four in Ohio and one in Texas--four passed and four failed.
The biggest victory came in Denton in north Texas, located atop the lucrative Barnett shale play. After citizens demanded action from city council on a fracking ban and council punted last July, the issue went to the ballot where it passed last night.
"As I have stated...
‘Business as usual’ will create the warmest Earth ever, warns IPCC lead author
Posted by Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Leigh Sales on November 5th, 2014
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: It's the most comprehensive appraisal of climate change ever undertaken and the news isn't good.
The United Nations' climate change body's new report says the scientific evidence is unambiguous about the warming of the planet and the need for action.
Greenhouse gases are at their highest levels for 800,000 years.
The Earth is on a trajectory for warming of at least four degrees Celsius by 2100. That'll mean more and longer heatwaves and storms and more species extinctions....
United Kingdom: Drought and flood fears after warm 2014
Posted by Belfast Telegraph: None Given on November 5th, 2014
Belfast Telegraph: New figures published by the Met Office show the period from January to October this year has been the warmest since records began in 1910 while it has also been the second wettest.
Unless November and December are extremely cold, 2014 will enter the record books as the hottest ever.
Experts say the increase is the result of climate change.
Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the elderly...
Snow retreat will worsen California droughts
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 5th, 2014
New Scientist: The Golden State is baking. After months of drought in California the long-term forecast is more drought.
Rising global temperatures will turn much of the snow that currently replenishes the state's reservoirs to rain, according to modelling studies by Dan Cayan at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. Unlike snow, which melts each spring and recharges California's reservoirs, rain evaporates and soaks into the ground - it dwindles away, he says.
Cayan says the Sierra Nevada...