RSS Feed
Author Archive
World’s Glaciers Melting Faster Than Ever
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on August 4th, 2015
Environment News Service: The current rate of glacier melt around the world is unprecedented in recorded history, new research by the World Glacier Monitoring Service demonstrates.
Based at the University of Zurich, the World Glacier Monitoring Service compiles the results of worldwide glacier observations in annual calls-for-data from its national correspondents in more than 30 countries.
The current database contains more than 5,000 measurements of glacier volume and mass changes since 1850 and more than 42,000 front...
Posted in 
Former Exxon President On Mission Clean Up Oil Sands
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on August 2nd, 2015
Environment News Service: Canada has given oil sands a dirty reputation, but a breakthrough, commercially viable technology has caught the eye of a former Exxon Mobil president who is putting it to use to clean up Utah`s billions of barrels of oil sands.
Imagine extracting high-quality oil out of the estimated 32 billion barrels buried in Utah`s oil sands, without creating the toxic wastelands that have resulted from oil sands projects in Western Canada. And imagine doing it at a cost that can still turn a profit in today`s...
New U.S. Stream Protection Rule Infuriates Big Coal
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on July 17th, 2015
Environment News Service: New national regulations to prevent or minimize the impacts of coal mining on surface water, groundwater, fish and wildlife were proposed today by the Obama Administration. The Stream Protection Rule would safeguard about 6,500 miles of streams nationwide over a 20 year period. The proposed Stream Protection Rule would affect the ability of mountaintop removal coal mining companies to destroy or bury waterways near surface mining operations. Mountaintop removal mining has already buried more than...
Global Sea Levels Could Soon Rise 20′ as Climate Warms
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on July 12th, 2015
Environment News Service: Global sea levels have risen at least six meters, or about 20 feet, above present levels many times over the past three million years, finds a new review analyzing three decades of research on melting polar ice sheets.
What worries scientists the most is the fact that amount of melting was caused by an increase of only one to two degrees Celsius in global mean temperatures, the increase that Earth is experiencing now.
When past temperatures were similar to or slightly higher than the present...
New York State First to Ban Fracking
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on July 1st, 2015
Environment News Service: A statewide ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was made official across New York State on Monday, nearly a year after communities won the right to ban oil and gas development locally.
This action concluded New York Department of Environmental Conservation`s comprehensive, seven-year review and officially prohibits fracking anywhere in the state.
Joe Martens, head of the Department of Environmental Conservation, DEC, said in a statement, "After years of exhaustive research...
Pope Francis: Protect the Climate as a ‘Common Good’
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on June 19th, 2015
Environment News Service: “The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all,” declares Pope Francis in his first major teaching on the environment, an encyclical letter released today. Pope Francis urges all human beings to change their behavior to protect the good resources we all hold in common – the climate, the oceans, biodiversity – “the planet, our common home.” “Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years. Yet we are called to be instruments of God...
World Environment Day: UN Asks Us Each for One Change
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on June 5th, 2015
Environment News Service: Many of the Earth`s ecosystems are approaching "critical tipping points," the United Nations warned today, World Environment Day. The world body accompanied the warning with an invitation to each of the planet`s 7.247 billion plus people to mark the day by making one change towards more responsible consumption of resources, such as flying with e-tickets instead of paper tickets or riding a bike to work.
"Humanity continues to consume far more natural resources than the planet can sustainably provide....
New U.S. Clean Water Rule Clarifies Stream Protections
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on May 29th, 2015
Environment News Service: One in three Americans, about 117 million people, get their drinking water from streams that lacked clear protection before a new Clean Water Rule issued Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Protection for many U.S. streams and wetlands has been confusing, complex, and time-consuming as the result of two Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and in 2006.
The new rule is intended to provide clarity on protections for these smaller water bodies...
$50 Million Federal Dollars Ease Historic Drought
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on May 21st, 2015
Environment News Service: The Obama Administration will invest nearly $50 million to improve water efficiency and conservation in California and 11 other western states squeezed by years of crippling drought, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced today.
Funded projects will replace thirsty grass with drought-tolerant plants, upgrade irrigation controls, line canals to prevent seepage, capture stormwater runoff, increase groundwater recharge and improve salmon habitat.
"In a time of exceptional drought, it...
Burst Pipeline Spills Crude Oil on California Coast
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on May 21st, 2015
Environment News Service: Thousands of gallons of black smelly crude oil that spilled from a broken pipeline Tuesday in the California coastal county of Santa Barbara has fouled popular beaches and spread across nine miles of ocean.
Reported by a passerby early Tuesday afternoon, the spill occurred near Refugio State Park west of the city of Santa Barbara. Officials have closed the popular park and have also closed El Capitan State Beach over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.
Officials said up to 105,000 gallons could...