RSS Feed
Archive for December 19th, 2014
Obama sounds like he’s about to reject Keystone pipeline
Posted by Grist: None Given on December 19th, 2014
Grist: Speaking at his end-of-the-year press conference on Friday afternoon, President Obama sounded very much like he’s poised to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. He gave his sharpest assessment to date of its potential costs and benefits - lots of costs and few benefits.
Climate hawks rejoiced, not only because of Obama’s implied opposition to Keystone, but because he finally confronted American ignorance of how the oil market works, and attempted to reorient our energy policy around reality.
At...
Posted in 
New EPA Standards Label Toxic Coal Ash Non-Hazardous
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 19th, 2014
National Public Radio: The Environmental Protection Agency has issued new national standards designating coal ash - a nearly ubiquitous byproduct of coal-fired power plants that contains arsenic and lead - as non-hazardous waste.
NPR's Christopher Joyce reports that coal-fired power plants produce more than 130 million tons of the coal ash each year and they have long stored millions of tons of it in giant ponds.
But many of those ponds have failed in recent years, allowing contaminated water to get into rivers and...
Obama: Keystone benefits for U.S. consumers, workers nominal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 19th, 2014
Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday that construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to transport crude oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast would only nominally benefit American consumers and workers in perhaps his strongest comments on the Canada-to-U.S. pipeline to date.
"There is very little impact - nominal impact - on U.S. gas prices, what the average American consumer cares about," Obama told reporters during an end-of-year press conference.
Obama picked apart some of the most...
‘Nuisance Flooding’ Will Affect Most of U.S. Coastline by 2050, Report Finds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 19th, 2014
Yale Environment 360: By 2050, most U.S. coastal areas are likely to be threatened by 30 or more days of flooding each year due sea level rise, according to a new report the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The researchers looked at the frequency of so-called "nuisance flooding," which occurs when the water level reaches one to two feet above local high tide, and found that several cities along the East Coast are already seeing more than 30 days of nuisance flooding each year. Additional major cities...
LA River’s flood role is ‘paramount’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 19th, 2014
BBC: Any moves to modify the Los Angeles River, to return parts of it to a more natural setting or to capture water, need to be implemented with care.
Scientists say the key job of the concrete channel, which has featured in countless films and pop videos, is to protect the city from damaging floods.
And that role is likely to become more challenging if climate change brings heavier rains, they argue.
Alternatives to the river's current brutalism will not be easy to find.
"This is not a simple...
Most of Alaska’s Permafrost Could Melt This Century
Posted by LiveScience: Tia Ghose on December 19th, 2014
LiveScience: The permafrost in some of Alaska's most iconic national parks could all but disappear this century, new research suggests. Right now, half of the ground in Denali National Park's is frozen year-round, but if global warming continues at the current pace, just 1 percent of this land could remain permafrost by the year 2100, according to new research presented here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Not only could vast swaths of the Alaskan tundra transform into swampy bogs,...
Stephen Harper’s climate-change comments only half the story, critics say
Posted by CBC: None Given on December 19th, 2014
CBC: Stephen Harper touts merits of Alberta's carbon pricing system Full text of Peter Mansbridge's interview with Stephen Harper Stephen Harper says oil and gas regulations now would be 'crazy' Canada under pressure after U.S., China agree to curb greenhouse gases Leona Aglukkaq's UN climate speech doesn't mention oil and gas emissions
Stephen Harper is often accused of being absent on environmental issues, but in a year-end interview with CBC News chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge, the prime minister...
Study shows the effect that growing beaver population is having on habitat & methane gas emissions
Posted by Environmental News Network: AlphaGalileo on December 19th, 2014
Environmental News Network: There are consequences of the successful efforts worldwide to save beavers from extinction. Along with the strong increase in their population over the past 100 years, these furry aquatic rodents have built many more ponds, establishing vital aquatic habitat. In doing so, however, they have created conditions for climate changing methane gas to be generated in this shallow standing water, and the gas is subsequently released into the atmosphere. In fact, 200 times more of this greenhouse gas is released...
How Long Can the US Oil Boom Last?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 19th, 2014
National Geographic: Now that oil prices have dropped to levels not seen since 2009, helped by a flood of oil flowing from hydraulic fracturing or fracking wells in North Dakota and Texas, it's time to ask the question: How long can the U.S. oil boom last?
In the short term, the price drop threatens profits from fracking, which is more expensive than conventional drilling. Sure enough, permit applications to drill oil and gas wells in the U.S declined almost 40 percent in November.
But in the long term, the U.S....
Extremes concern as planet gets hotter and colder
Posted by Climate News Network: Tim Radford on December 19th, 2014
Climate News Network: Global average temperatures continue to rise, but new research shows that the extremes of heat and cold are rising even faster.
Scientists report that heat waves have got hotter and cold snaps have got colder at a more extreme rate – and that continuing greenhouse gas emissions will mean that, in another two decades, Europe could experience once every two years the sort of lethal heat waves that occurred once in a thousand years.
Scott Robeson, professor of geography at Indiana University Bloomington...