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Coal Ash Crime Cost Duke Energy $102 Million
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on May 19th, 2015
Environment News Service: Admitting guilt for a massive coal ash spill last year, three subsidiaries of Duke Energy, the largest utility in the United States, will pay a $68 million criminal fine and spend $34 million to benefit rivers and wetlands in North Carolina and Virginia.
Four of the nine criminal charges relate to the massive coal ash spill from the Dan River steam station into the Dan River near Eden, North Carolina in February 2014.
A team from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service takes core samples during...
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El Niño 2015 Forecast to ‘Raise Global Temperatures’
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on May 19th, 2015
Environment News Service: Weather forecasting centers around the world have now declared that an El Niño, the most powerful fluctuation in Earth’s climate system, has begun in the tropical Pacific.
El Niño is a warming of the Pacific Ocean as part of a complex cycle linking atmosphere and ocean. An El Niño can raise global temperatures, says the UK’s Met Office.
A El Niño event brings a higher risk of more, and more severe, tropical cyclones. Impacts on the biosphere are expected, such as coral bleaching and widespread...
Brazil Pursues Illegal Miners on Indigenous Land
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on May 12th, 2015
Environment News Service: Federal Police officers from the states of Roraima, Rondônia, São Paulo, Amazonas, and Pará were marshaled Thursday to serve 313 warrants against people suspected of clandestine gold and gemstone mining on indigenous lands.
The law enforcement operation is chiefly aimed at illegal mining in the Yanomami indigenous reserve in Roraima, reports the state-run Agencia Brasil.
About 150 Federal Police are involved in serving the warrants, assisted by officers of the Brazilian Institute for the Environment...
World Water Future Demands Action Today
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on April 16th, 2015
Environment News Service: In 2050 there will be enough water to produce food for a global population of nine billion, but over-consumption and climate change will increase water scarcity in the planet`s neediest regions, finds a new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Water Council.
The report, "Towards a water and food secure future" was released Tuesday at the Seventh World Water Forum now underway at the Daegu EXCO. Held every three years since 1997, this year`s forum is jointly organized...
Eating Chicken, Not Beef, Yields Climate Benefits
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on April 7th, 2015
Environment News Service: Eating beef is one of the biggest climate villains, but a vegan diet is not necessary to reach climate goals, finds new research from Chalmers University of Technology. A poultry-based diet is a smart and inexpensive way to reduce our impact on the climate.
The trend all over the world is the same: an increasing number of people are eating an increasing amount of beef, although this trend runs counter to the goal of limiting the temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius as governments agree to...
California Governor Orders 1st Mandatory Water Limits
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on April 2nd, 2015
Environment News Service: Following the lowest snowpack ever recorded and with no end to the drought in sight, California Governor Jerry Brown Wednesday announced actions that will save water, increase enforcement to prevent wasteful water use, streamline the state`s drought response and invest in new technologies that will make California more drought resilient.
For the first time in state history, the governor has directed the State Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions in cities and towns...
Cyclone Pam Slams Vanuatu, Killing 24 People
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on March 17th, 2015
Environment News Service: At least 24 people lost their lives as Cyclone Pam blasted through the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu Friday night, UN and other aid agencies report.
Aid workers expect the death toll to rise as more information comes in from the nation`s 65 inhabited islands, where communication services are still out after the cyclone which packed wind gusts of up to 320 kilometers per hour (199 mph).
Tropical Cyclone Pam struck Vanuatu, hitting the capital of Port Vila, as an extremely destructive category...
Disaster Risk Reduction Meeting Jolted by Cyclone Pam
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on March 16th, 2015
Environment News Service: Cyclone Pam devastated the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu just as UN officials and insurers gathered in Japan this week for a long-planned conference on disaster risk reduction. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates that the cyclone "tragically underscored" the importance of global efforts on disaster risk reduction.
Thousands are attending the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, which runs through Wednesday. They are expected to agree on a new framework for managing...
Yet Another Oil Train Derails, Catches Fire in Ontario
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on March 9th, 2015
Environment News Service: Another Canadian National oil train derailed and caught fire early Saturday in Ontario near the town of Gogama, about 600 kilometers (372 miles) north of Toronto. It was the second such incident in Ontario and the fourth in North America since February 14.
Oil trains in West Virginia and Illinois also ran off the rails, sending fireballs and thick clouds of black smoke high in the air. The Illinois wreck occurred just this week; that fire is still burning.
Four oil trains have derailed and...
U.S. Drought Risk This Century Worst in 1,000 Years
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on February 12th, 2015
Environment News Service: The worst persistent drought ever in the U.S. Southwest and Great Plains will parch the region during the second half of the 21st century, with the drying conditions "driven primarily" by human-induced global warming, new research predicts.
"We are the first to do this kind of quantitative comparison between the projections and the distant past, and the story is a bit bleak," said Jason Smerdon, a co-author and climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of the Earth Institute...