RSS Feed
Archive for December 18th, 2014
No Fracking In New York? That’s OK With Pennsylvania
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 18th, 2014
National Public Radio: Pennsylvania's fracking boom has led to record-breaking natural gas production, but its neighbor, New York, announced Wednesday it was banning the practice. Industry and environmental groups say New York's decision could be good for Pennsylvania.
New York's ban comes six years after the state placed a temporary moratorium on fracking to study the gas drilling technique. Now, officials question fracking's economic benefits and cite environmental risks.
"There are many red flags because scientific...
Posted in 
EPA expected issue new regulations for disposal of coal ash
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 18th, 2014
Guardian: Six years after a catastrophic coal ash spill took out part of a Tennessee town, 10 months after a cascade of toxic grey sludge fouled a North Carolina river, the Obama administration is poised to unveil the first rules for the disposal of coal ash on Friday.
The new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency – issued in response to a lawsuit brought by Earthjustice and other campaign groups - will provide the first controls for the handling and storage of coal ash, the toxic waste left behind...
Could New York’s Fracking Ban Have Domino Effect?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 18th, 2014
National Geographic: New York's decision to ban fracking for health reasons could reverberate beyond the state, bolstering other efforts to limit the controversial method of drilling for oil and natural gas.
While two dozen U.S. municipalities and at least two countries, Bulgaria and France, have also adopted bans, states have been slower to act. Fracking opponents say New York, which surprised them Wednesday with the boldest move of any state so far, will change that.
"It definitely has a national political impact...
Impacts of deforestation on Amazonian river ecosystems could be far-reaching
Posted by Mongabay: Mike Gaworecki on December 18th, 2014
Mongabay: Vast areas of the Amazon forest are being destroyed for agricultural uses, mainly industrial-scale soybean crops, and turned into pasture land for livestock. The riparian forests surrounding streams have not been exempt from this trend. And though headwater streams in the Brazilian Amazon are valuable aquatic ecosystems, little research has been done to determine how deforestation is impacting the streams’ environmental integrity and ability to function as natural habitats.
That is, until now....
Mount Kenya’s Vanishing Glaciers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 18th, 2014
New York Times: In 1941, an Italian civil servant named Felice Benuzzi was captured by Allied forces and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in East Africa. The camp faced Mount Kenya, 17,000 feet high, and Benuzzi found himself staring longingly at that larger, snow-blanketed world from the smallness of his own. Eventually he couldn’t help himself; he decided to climb the mountain. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Indian children carrying coal to a crushing machine in the state of Meghalaya. India...
Clearing Rainforests Distorts Global Rainfall & Agriculture, Study Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 18th, 2014
Yale Environment 360: Clearing forests not only releases carbon into the atmosphere, it also triggers worldwide shifts in rainfall and temperatures that are just as potent as those caused by current carbon pollution and that pose great risk to future agricultural productivity, researchers report. Deforestation in South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa may alter growing conditions in agricultural areas as far away as the U.S. Midwest, Europe, and China, the study in Nature Climate Change finds. The researchers calculate...
We can’t let climate change turn droughts, flash floods and mudslides into the new normal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 18th, 2014
Guardian: Between power outages, deluging rains, flash floods, mudslides and record droughts, California is quickly becoming unrecognizable – all the bellwethers of an ecosystem out of whack. Thanks to a rapidly changing climate making wet regions wetter and dry regions drier, 2014 will be the hottest year on record – and, if we’re not careful, the Bay Area’s recent #HellaStorm will soon become the norm.
Everyone in the state knows the severity of the problem: we’re in the midst of our worst drought in...
A Chat on New York’s Shale Gas Ban w/ Anti-Fracking Superhero Mark Ruffalo
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 18th, 2014
New York Times: On Twitter early this morning, I had a productive exchange about Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s decision to ban shale gas development in New York with Mark Ruffalo, the actor best known for playing the Marvel comic character Hulk.
Ruffalo, who lives near the Delaware River in the upstate New York region that was targeted for shale gas drilling, is one of many prominent public figures who pressed Cuomo long and hard to ban hydraulic fracturing, popularly known as fracking.
We both would love to see...
Climate change could cut world food output 18 percent by 2050
Posted by Reuters: Chris Arsenault on December 18th, 2014
Reuters: Global warming could cause an 18 percent drop in world food production by 2050, but investments in irrigation and infrastructure, and moving food output to different regions, could reduce the loss, a study published on Thursday said.
Globally, irrigation systems should be expanded by more than 25 percent to cope with changing rainfall patterns, the study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters said.
Where they should be expanded is difficult to model because of competing scenarios...
How will climate change transform agriculture?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 18th, 2014
PhysOrg: Climate change impacts will require major but very uncertain transformations of global agriculture systems by mid-century, according to new research from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. Climate change will require major transformations in agricultural systems, including increased irrigation and moving production from one region to another, according to the new study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. However without careful planning for uncertain...