Archive for June, 2015

Road To Mauna Kea Construction Site Closed Until Further Notice

Tech Times: With a summit looming almost 14,000 feet above the ocean's surface, Mauna Kea towers as the tallest mountain in the world from base to peak. This height makes it an ideal spot to build a thirty-meter telescope, a project that has been vehemently opposed by Hawaiian natives, so much so that that they blocked the road leading to the summit to prevent construction. Protesters started lining up Wednesday last to deter crew and equipment from making it to the Mauna Kea's summit and starting work on...

Sacred Mountain Blockade: Protectors Halt Construction Mauna Kea

Indian Country Today: Not since the United States forced annexation of Hawaii in 1897 have traditional Hawaiians come together in such solidarity. On Wednesday, June 24, 750 activists blocked police and construction crews from reaching the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s tallest and most sacred mountain. Construction was to begin that day on the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which would have an eight-acre footprint on the mountaintop. The telescope project is under the management of the University of Hawaii....

Mauna Kea summit road to remain closed

Star-Advertiser: The University of Hawaii said the Mauna Kea summit road will remain closed as damage assessments continue in the wake of efforts by protesters last week to block passage to the site of the Thirty Meter Telescope with boulders and altars. The road closure begins at the Halepohaku mid-level facilities, withonly authorized personnel allowed through until further notice, the university said in a press release. “The University of Hawaii Office of Mauna Kea Management is currently assessing damage to...

Restored streams take 25 years or longer to recover

ScienceDaily: New research has found that the number of plant species growing just next to restored streams can take up to 25 years to increase above those channelized during the timber floating era. This is according to doctoral student, Eliza Maher Hasselquist, and other researchers from Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. In the Vindel River catchment in northern Sweden, the main channel and most tributary streams were channelized from the 1850s to the 1950s to accommodate...

Enlightening Hawaii Economy

Civil Beat: Now that reaction to construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) has proven its impacts to Hawaiian culture are so profound it cannot proceed, supporters of the project cling to the hope that its much-touted economic benefits can, somehow, keep it alive. That hope is predicated on a widespread belief that the economic benefits would be substantial, which in turn is predicated on widespread acceptance of claims originating with TMT Corporation and parroted by both local and national media. Selling...

How Hawaiian mountaintop became battleground between native activists & astronomers

Post: The million-year-old mountain Mauna Kea rises broad-shouldered and statuesque out of the crystalline waves of the Pacific. Lush forests blanket its base, while sparse clouds buffet its rocky, windswept upper slopes, so high they are often gilded with snow even in balmy Hawaii. A long-dormant volcano formed by magma oozing up from the Earth’s interior, Mauna Kea looms nearly 14,000 feet above the surface of the ocean and more than six miles above the sea floor, making it the world’s tallest mountain...

Organic food to have longer ‘life’ with superchilling technique

ScienceDaily: A new method keeps salmon fresh for a whole month, without the use of chemicals. The technology is called superchilling, and it lies somewhere between freezing the fish and cooling it down. Now it is about to provide useful help to organic food producers. This method of conserving food was developed in order to maintain fresh food quality over a long period of time, thus reducing the amount of food that ends up in the bin rather than in our stomachs. Now it is going to be tested on ecological...

Worth saving: landscapes threatened by climate change – gallery

Guardian: We asked you for photos of places you want to save from rising tides, changing temperatures and natural disasters.

Australia: West Kimberley’s Canning aquifer depleted by fewer cyclones not mining, say scientists

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Fewer cyclones, not mining, are to blame for a decrease in the water stored in north-west Australia's Canning Basin aquifer, West Australian scientists say. Stretching from north of Broome down to Port Hedland and 1,000 kilometres inland, the Canning aquifer is a huge area earmarked for irrigated agricultural development in the Northern Australia White Paper. But a 2014 international study concluded that north-west Australia's Canning Basin has the third highest rate of depletion in the world,...

Alaska’s glaciers melt faster as climate change speeds up

Climate News Network: The glaciers of Alaska are melting and retreating: the chief cause is climate change and the loss of ice is unlikely to slow, according to a new study by US scientists. They calculate that the frozen rivers of the Pacific coast of America’s northernmost state are melting fast enough to cover the whole of Alaska with 30 cms of water every seven years. Since Alaska is enormous – it covers 1.5 million square kilometres and is the size of California, Texas and Montana put together – this adds up to...