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Breaking: Pres Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 6th, 2015
EcoWatch: We just made history together. Four years to the day after we surrounded the White House, President Obama has rejected the Presidential Permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline!
This is huge.
A head of state has never rejected a major fossil fuel project because of its climate impacts before. The President`s decision sets the standard for what climate action looks like: standing up to the fossil fuel industry and keeping fossil fuels in the ground.
BREAKING: President Obama has REJECTED...
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Pennsylvania Township Passes Bill of Rights Banning Fracking Wastewater Injection Wells
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 4th, 2015
EcoWatch: Last night, the people of Grant Township adopted the country’s first municipal charter establishing a local bill of rights. The Grant Bill of Rights codifies environmental and democratic rights, and bans fracking wastewater injection wells as a violation of those rights.
Grant joins growing numbers of communities across Pennsylvania and the U.S. that are coming together in a community rights movement to stand up to a system of law that forces fracking waste wells and other practices into communities,...
Impacted Landowners Demand EPA Revise Flawed Fracking Study
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on October 30th, 2015
EcoWatch: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Scientific Advisory Board met this week to review the agency’s draft assessment of the impact of fracking on drinking water resources, but the largely academic exercise got a dose of reality from residents of Dimock, Pennsylvania; Pavillion, Wyoming; and Parker County, Texas who have fought for years to get U.S. EPA to act.
Inexplicably, their cases of contamination were excluded in the thousands of pages that make up the EPA’s assessment. Given only...
Stunning Drone Footage Shows Greenland Literally Melting Away
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on October 27th, 2015
EcoWatch: A team of scientists are working on a project in Greenland, the results of which could provide "groundbreaking information" on just how fast the ice mass is melting, reports The New York Times.
The only place with more of the world’s ice than Greenland is Antarctica. But Greenland is warming twice as fast as Antarctica, and this rapid melting is raising global sea levels at an alarming rate--even faster than expected. In August, Jakobshavn--Greenland`s fastest-moving glacier and one of the fastest...
‘We the People Have Changed Tar Sands Pipeline Game Forever’
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on October 27th, 2015
EcoWatch: The pipelines exporting tar sands out of Alberta are almost full, according to a new analysis released today by Oil Change International. Without major expansion-driving pipelines such as Energy East, Kinder Morgan or Keystone XL, there will be no room for further growth in tar sands extraction, and tens of billions of metric tons of carbon will be kept in the ground. This would be a significant step towards a safer climate, cleaner water and air, and healthier communities.
NEW REPORT: No new...
New Report Exposes Hidden Fracking Subsidy on Public and Tribal Lands
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on September 30th, 2015
EcoWatch: A new, peer-reviewed report from Friends of the Earth brings to light one of Big Oil’s most overlooked subsidies: royalty-free flaring on public and tribal lands.
As the fracking boom spreads across the country, companies eager to tap profitable shale oil are burning away--or flaring--natural gas in record amounts. This practice increases air pollution and sends climate-busting carbon dioxide directly into the atmosphere. Last updated 35 years ago, existing federal guidelines allow widespread...
Banning Microbeads Offers Simple Solution to Protect Our Oceans
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on September 17th, 2015
EcoWatch: An outright ban on the common use of plastic “microbeads” from products that enter wastewater is the best way to protect water quality, wildlife and resources used by people, a group of conservation scientists suggest in a new analysis. These microbeads are one part of the microplastic problem in oceans, freshwater lakes and rivers, but are a special concern because in many products they are literally designed to be flushed down the drain. And even at conservative estimates, the collective total...
Arctic Warming Produces Mosquito Swarms Large Enough Kill Baby Caribou
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on September 16th, 2015
EcoWatch: Some Alaskans joke that mosquitoes are "Alaska`s state bird," but the pesky insects are becoming no joke. Warming Arctic temperatures have caused their numbers to swell immensely in the region in recent years. Lauren Culler has been studying insects in Greenland for the last several years. Culler, a postdoctoral researcher for Dartmouth College’s Institute of Arctic Studies, along with a team of researchers published a study yesterday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Why the Arctic's mosquito...
850 Tons of Treated Fukushima Water Dumped Into Pacific
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on September 15th, 2015
EcoWatch: Despite the objections of environmentalists and after overcoming local opposition from fishermen, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) pumped more than 850 tons of groundwater from below the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Monday. More than four years after a tsunami destroyed the plant and triggered a meltdown, the cleanup effort remains frought with numerous difficulties, including the nearly impossible task of dealing with the millions of gallons of contaminated and radioactive...
California Epic Drought Leads to Lowest Snowpack in 500 Years
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on September 15th, 2015
EcoWatch: The snowpack for the state of California--a critical source of drinking water for the state--hit its lowest level in the last 500 years, according to a study published yesterday in Nature. When the snowpack was measured in April--historically the high point for the season`s snowpack--it was just 6 percent of average for the past century.
California`s 2015 Sierra Nevada mountains snowpack was "the worst in the past 500 years" http://t.co/v0NzH7AXdQ pic.twitter.com/v61PIWq4IG
-- NYT Science (@NYTScience)...