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Archive for August 18th, 2015
California Is on Fire. This Map Shows Where
Posted by Mother Jones: Luke Whelan on August 18th, 2015
Mother Jones: On August 17, 2013--two years ago today--a deer hunter near California's Yosemite National Park ignored a campfire ban and burned trash from his dinner. The embers blew into dry brush, starting the third worst wildfire in the state's history. All told, the Rim Fire, as it came to be called, burned 257,314 acres in and around Yosemite.
No wildfires of that scale have occurred since, but, thanks to drought and climate change, California is far from out of the woods. In fact, in 2015, 4,382 wildfires...
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National methane rule call for 45% reduction
Posted by Durango Herald: Peter Marcus on August 18th, 2015
Durango Herald: Federal regulators Tuesday announced the first-ever national methane regulations aimed at significantly cutting the greenhouse gas.
The expected announcement was met by cheers from the environmental world, while the energy sector suggested it amounts to additional red tape.
The proposal calls for a reduction in methane emissions from the oil-and-gas industry by as much as 45 percent in the next 10 years from 2012 levels. In addition to cutting greenhouse gases, it also would reduce volatile...
Will New US Restrictions on Methane Be Enough?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 18th, 2015
National Geographic: The U.S. will rein in methane from its biggest human source-the oil and gas industry-but the new rules won't touch a wide swath of places already leaking the invisible, heat-trapping gas.
Strengthened Environmental Protection Agency standards aimed at new energy facilities, proposed Tuesday, will cut somewhere between 20 to 30 percent of the sector's methane emissions from 2012 levels over the next decade, estimates Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation....
Global warming lethal to baby lizards: Nests become heat traps
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 18th, 2015
PhysOrg: The expected impact of climate change on North American lizards is much worse than first thought. A team of biologists led by Arizona State University investigators has discovered that lizard embryos die when subjected to a temperature of 110 degrees Fahrenheit even for a few minutes.
The researchers also discovered a bias in previous studies, which ignored early life stages such as embryos. Embryonic lizards are immobile and cannot seek shade or cool off when their surrounding soil becomes hot....
United Kingdom: Fracking in the pipeline as exploration sites offered to firms
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 18th, 2015
BBC: The Oil and Gas Authority has announced 27 more locations in England where licences to frack for shale oil and gas will be offered.
Twelve firms, including Cuadrilla and Ineos, have been given the exclusive right to explore for oil and gas, including fracking.
The exploration sites include areas in the Midlands and the North East.
However, whether exploration can actually go ahead is subject to local planning consent.
The announcement comes after Energy Secretary Amber Rudd said last...
200 Soldiers Deployed Help Fight Western Wildfire
Posted by Reuters: Laura Zuckerman on August 18th, 2015
Reuters: The U.S. Army mobilized soldiers on Monday to reinforce civilian firefighters stretched thin by dozens of major wildfires roaring largely unchecked across the West, with more than 100 homes reduced to ruins in several states.
The 200 troops deployed from Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington, are to be organized into 10 firefighting crews of 20 each, all of whom will be sent to a single fire yet to be determined, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
Fire...
England to Open Up 1,000 sq Miles for Fracking
Posted by Guardian: Emma Howard and David Hellier on August 18th, 2015
Guardian: Large areas of Yorkshire, the north-west and the east Midlands are to be opened up to fracking after the government announced it will offer a fresh round of licences for oil and gas exploration.
Areas near Leeds, Sheffield, Lincoln and Nottingham are to be offered to companies in an expansion plan that green groups predicted would trigger “hundreds of battles” over the future of the countryside.
Ineos, the Anglo-Swiss chemicals group that wants to lead the UK’s shale gas industry, was awarded...
Seeking distance from Obama, Clinton voices opposition to Arctic drilling, Keystone XL delays
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 18th, 2015
Associated Press: Hillary Rodham Clinton is voicing opposition to President Barack Obama's authorization for oil drilling in the Alaska Arctic and his delays on Keystone XL, in some of the clearest signs of the Democratic front-runner distancing herself from the president.
Having agreed with him on most issues so far in her 2016 race, Clinton edged to Obama's left on climate change on Tuesday. In the course of a few hours, she announced her disapproval of his move to allow Royal Dutch Shell to drill in the Arctic...