RSS Feed
Archive for May 9th, 2015
Last regions pristine wilderness from Asia to Amazon under threat massive road-building
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 9th, 2015
Independent: The last great regions of pristine wilderness – from Asia to the Amazon – are threatened by an unprecedented road-building programme financed by aggressive development banks with little interest in protecting the natural world, a leading environmental scientist has warned.
Massive infrastructure and road-building are at the heart of huge development projects around the world, justified as vital attempts at helping the poorest attain a higher standard of living.
Scientists claim that we are...
Posted in 
California Gov. Brown toughens climate change goal
Posted by Desert Sun: Editorial on May 9th, 2015
Desert Sun: Gov. Jerry Brown has been busy of late pushing California forward on a number of environmental fronts.
The governor -- who began his new term challenging the state to ramp up to where it gets 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources in the next 15 years -- preempted Wednesday’s adoption of rules for his drought-response mandate with another initiative in recent days related to climate change.
Last week’s executive order sets a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent...
Drought spinoff: Dead orchards may go up in smoke
Posted by Fresno Bee: Mark Grossi on May 9th, 2015
Fresno Bee: In the wake of the drought, many orchards now dead wood • Open-field burning may increase as biomass plants close • AB 590 would keep biomass plants going with millions of state dollars ——— In drought-wounded Terra Bella, Kent Duysen says he has seen the plumes of smoke recently — farm-waste burning linked to both the devastating dry time and a faltering biomass energy industry. The San Joaquin Valley’s tainted air might be getting an extra dose of soot and ozone-forming gases this spring as...
When humans declared war on fish
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 9th, 2015
New York Times: ON Friday we humans observed V-E Day, the end to one part of a global catastrophe that cost the planet at least 60 million lives. But if we were fish, we would have marked the day differently — as the beginning of a campaign of violence against our taxonomic classes, one that has resulted in trillions of casualties. Oddly, the war itself was a great reprieve for many marine species. Just as Axis and Allied submarines and mines made the transportation of war matériel a highly perilous endeavor, they...
Arctic Ice Melting Faster and Earlier With Dire Results
Posted by Guardian: Rose Hackman on May 9th, 2015
Guardian: There was less ice in the Arctic this winter than in any other winter during the satellite era, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists said on Tuesday. The announcement was consistent with previous predictions that the Arctic would have entirely ice-free summers by 2040, they said in a briefing to the media on the state of climate trends in the North Pole. The consequences of such a small quantity of Arctic ice are major and far-reaching. After undergoing a period of colder...
The Canadians who live along the route of the longest proposed tar sands pipeline – in pictures
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 9th, 2015
Guardian: TransCanada’s proposed Energy East pipeline will be the single longest tar sands pipeline in the world if approved. It would carry crude oil and dilbit (diluted bitumen) from Alberta through Ontario to Quebec, and on to export terminals in the Maritimes. Photographer Robert van Waarden travelled over 2,796 miles along the length of the proposed pipeline from Hardisty, Aberta, to St John, New Brunswick, meeting people whose lives and livelihoods would be impacted by it