Water Current News
Water Conserver Jul 29, 2010 08:28AM http://www.waterconserve.org/ Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM First US court session pits BP against oil spill victims Agence France-Presse: BP was to come face-to-face Thursday with the victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill during a first court hearing into the case, which is likely to become the trial of the century. The hearings in Boise, Idaho, will examine whether complaints submitted by some 200 plaintiffs can be consolidated in the wake of the three-month crisis, which has been called the worst environmental disaster in US history. A decision is expected around two weeks after the hearing, but the session ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM Russia: Moscow chokes in smog amid record heat wave LA Times: As peat fires raged on the outskirts of town, shrouding Moscow in a thick cloud of smog, residents Wednesday sought to cope with a record-breaking heat wave that is expected to intensify further. Public health officials urged workers in non-essential jobs to stay home and people not to drive their cars as weather forecasters predicted temperatures exceeding 102 degrees Thursday, in a city more used to icy spells than such heat. With more than 1,480 fires in two weeks, the smog ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM Gulf Residents Face Quandary: Sue Or Settle? National Public Radio: The administrator of BP's compensation fund is trying to persuade Gulf Coast residents not to sue the company, but to take a settlement instead. But many in the region say it's too early to pinpoint their damages. Ask Darren Frickey how much this oil spill has already cost him, and the answer is as simple as it is sad. He has gone from catching $5,000 worth of shrimp a week in Louisiana's bayous to catching none at all. Peering down at the containers on his boat that have been ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM United States: US hit by new oil spill Agence France Presse: A new oil spill is sullying US waters in the northern state of Michigan after a pipeline leak sent more than a million gallons of crude into a river tributary, officials said Wednesday. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the spill began Monday when a 30-inch (76-centimeter) pipe in Marshall, Michigan burst, spewing the crude into Talmadge Creek, a waterway which feeds into the Kalamazoo River. Officials said the pipeline belongs to the Canadian company Enbridge ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM Wildlife conservation projects do more harm than good, says expert Guardian: Ecotourism and western-style conservation projects are harming wildlife, damaging the environment, and displacing and criminalising local people, according to a controversial new book. The pristine beaches and wildlife tours demanded by overseas tourists has led to developments that do not benefit wildlife, such as beaches being built, mangroves stripped out, waterholes drilled and forests cleared, says Rosaleen Duffy, a world expert on the ethical dimensions of wildlife conservation ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM BP Disaster Regnites California's Anti-Drilling Fervor New York Times: What a difference an oil spill makes. Californians, whose dislike of offshore drilling dates back to the Santa Barbara spill of 1969, had begun to see virtue in new sources of oil as gasoline prices soared in 2008, polls showed. That year, for the first time since 2000, when the first poll of the state`s environmental attitudes was taken by the Public Policy Institute of California, a majority -- albeit a bare one, 51 percent -- was willing to allow more drilling off the California ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM Gulf oil spill reaches 100-day mark Agence France-Presse: The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster reached the 100-day mark Wednesday with hopes high that BP is finally on the verge of permanently sealing its ruptured Macondo well. But years of legal wrangles and probes lie ahead and myriad questions remain about the long-term effects of the massive oil spill on wildlife, the environment and the livelihoods of Gulf residents. If BP needs a reminder of the long legal road ahead as it tries to rebuild its reputation, one will be provided on ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated? Time: President Obama has called the BP oil spill "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced," and so has just about everyone else. Green groups are sounding alarms about the "Catastrophe Along the Gulf Coast," while CBS, Fox and MSNBC slap "Disaster in the Gulf" chryons on all their spill-related news. Even BP fall guy Tony Hayward, after some early happy talk, admitted the spill was an "environmental catastrophe." The obnoxious anti-environmentalist Rush Limbaugh has been a rare ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM Russian subs dive deep for new energy sources BBC: Russia has some of the largest energy reserves in the world, but it keeps searching for new sources - even if it means going underwater. Two Russian deep-water submersibles have once again taken a dive in Lake Baikal, to study recently found fields of gas hydrates, a possible fuel of the future. Baikal is the world's deepest, oldest freshwater basin and one of the most biologically diverse. Located in East Siberia close to the Mongolian border, the lake holds one-fifth ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM Indonesian Sinar Mas-linked firms wrecked forest: report Reuters: Greenpeace said on Thursday it had fresh evidence that palm oil firms linked to Indonesian agribusiness giant Sinar Mas have bulldozed rainforest and destroyed endangered orangutan habitats in Kalimantan. The charges were denied by palm oil firm PT SMART Tbk, part of Sinar Mas, which has already said it would stop clearing critical forests. The accusations, leveled by Greenpeace in a new report, is the latest chapter in a long and bitter dispute between the conservationists and ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM Palm oil group still destroying Indonesian forest, says Greenpeace Business Green: Indonesia's largest palm and pulp group is still destroying critical habitats, claims Greenpeace in an investigation published today. The non-governmental organisation (NGO) has published new photographic evidence, aerial monitoring and field analysis which seems to show that the Sinar Mas group is continuing to break its own environmental commitments on protecting forests and peat land. And confidential documents obtained by the group indicate that the firm has ambitions to ... Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM Thailand Faces Flak for Backing Mekong Dams Inter Press Service: Northern Thai villagers living on Mekong River's banks are poised to join a growing tide of opposition against a planned cascade of 11 dams to be built on the mainstream of South-east Asia's largest body of water. These communities, many of them from the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai, are drafting a petition to be submitted in the coming weeks to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. They see this step as the first in a long battle to protect a riverine culture and livelihood ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Company ramps up effort to clean Mich. river spill Associated Press: Michigan's governor on Wednesday sharply criticized attempts to contain a large oil spill making its way down the Kalamazoo River after the company responsible for the spill said it had redoubled its efforts to clean up the mess. Gov. Jennifer Granholm called on the federal government for more help, saying resources being marshaled by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Enbridge Inc. are "wholly inadequate." Enbridge has been working to clean up the spill since it said its ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Argentina, Uruguay strike deal over paper mill Agence France-Presse: Argentina and Uruguay have agreed to a joint environmental monitoring program along the shared Uruguay River, ending a seven-year pollution controversy over a Finnish paper mill on the Uruguayan side. "A chapter in hour history ends and a new era of cooperation begins," Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said at the signing ceremony in the presidential palace. The agreement, which calls for setting up a joint-scientific committee in 30 days to begin the monitoring work, ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Sparks fly over study suggesting wildfires cut CO2 Conservation Magazine: Call it a hot topic. A study suggesting that intentional forest blazes could significantly cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from wildfires in the Western United States has prompted a piquant scholarly quarrel. The exchange highlights the challenge forest managers may face in balancing plans to use fire to restore forest ecosystems with efforts to curb carbon emissions. Forests have emerged as a key player in climate change because trees can suck huge amounts of CO2 out of the ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Russia: Pollution threat to deepest lake BBC: The world's deepest and oldest lake, Lake Baikal, is at risk of being removed from the UNESCO World Heritage list. A Russian pulp and paper mill has been polluting the water for decades. Now, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is meeting in Brazil to discuss the effect of the plant's waste waters. There are fears the lake may end up on the endangered list or get struck off it altogether. Katia Moskvitch reports. Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM 100 days of oil: Gulf life will never be the same Associated Pres: A hundred days ago, shop owner Cherie Pete was getting ready for a busy summer serving ice cream and po-boys to hungry fishermen. Local official Billy Nungesser was planning his wedding. Environmental activist Enid Sisskin was preparing a speech about the dangers of offshore drilling. Then the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded off the coast of Louisiana, and in an instant, life along the Gulf Coast changed for good. Pete spends her days worrying that the fishing industry may ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Sizzling Moscow shrouded in polluting smog Associated Press: A cloud of harmful smog has enveloped Moscow, raising airborne pollutants to four times the norm, officials said Wednesday, and prompting doctors to urge residents to stay indoors as the city swelters in a record heat wave. Officials have said the smog, which has plunged the Kremlin and other famous landmarks into a dull haze for days, is the capital's worst since 2002. The cloud has drifted in from dozens of peat bog and forest fires in rural land south and east of the city, ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Report Says Minnesota Beaches Among Cleanest, Florida's Among Dirtiest National Public Radio: Vacation season has arrived in Washington. We can tell because the daily commuter traffic's a breeze and we can get reservations at our favorite restaurants on Saturday nights before 11 p.m. But if you want to go to the beach and haven't made plans yet, you might want to check out the Natural Resources Defense Council's 20th annual beach report first. Or you might find your vacation paradise ruined by dirty water. According to the report, Minnesota, New Hampshire and California ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Scientists say global warming is continuing Associated Press: Scientists from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming, one day after President Barack Obama renewed his call for climate legislation. "A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record," the annual State of the Climate report declares. Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, the report said its analysis of 10 indicators that are "clearly and directly related ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Gulf oil slick breaks up rapidly and begins to slip below waves Guardian: Images from the Gulf of Mexico suggest a once vast expanse of oil is breaking up so rapidly it may soon be invisible to satellite photography. But scientists warned today that underwater plumes of oil could linger for a year or even decades. One hundred days after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon, the US moved into a new phase in its response to the country's worst environmental disaster today. John Amos, president of SkyTruth, an environmental satellite organisation, ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Crews Scramble To Contain Michigan Oil Spill National Public Radio: A company operating a pipeline that dumped more than 800,000 gallons of oil into a southern Michigan river said Wednesday that it is doubling its workforce on the containment and cleanup effort. Officials with Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge Inc. made the announcement during an update on the spill, which coated birds and fish as it poured into a creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River, one of the state's major waterways. "We've made significant progress," company CEO Patrick ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Already illegal, one man tests poisoning rhino horn too Mongabay: Given the epidemic of rhino poaching across Africa and Asia, which has placed four out of five species in jeopardy of extinction, one fed-up game manager wants to take the fight beyond the poachers to the consumer. Ed Hern, owner of the Lion and Rhino Park near Johannesburg, told South Africa's The Times that he has begun working with a veterinarian on injecting poison into a rhino's horn to consumers. He told The Times that people who consumed poisoned rhino horn "would get very sick or ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Climate Extremes Fuel Hunger in Guatemala Inter Press Service: "Three-quarters of the fields are still under water. Maize, plantains, okra and pasture are all lost," José Asencio told IPS at the village of Santa Ana Mixtán in southern Guatemala, the area worst affected by tropical storm Agatha. The villagers have been working for food in order to survive. "We've been shoring up the banks of the Coyolate and Mascalate rivers, and the mayor has been giving us food rations, although we haven't received any for the past two weeks because supplies ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM China's Three Gorges dam close to limit as heavy rains persist Associated Press: Record high water levels are putting the capacity of China's massive Three Gorges dam to the test after heavy rains across the country, compounding flooding problems that have left more than 1,200 people dead or missing. The dam's water flow reached 56,000 cubic metres per second (1.96 million cubic feet), the biggest peak flow this year, with the water height reaching 158 metres (518 feet), the official Xinhua news agency reported. This is about 10% less than the dam's maximum ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Gulf spill raises long-term beach safety questions Reuters: It could be years before some Gulf of Mexico beaches recover fully from BP Plc's massive oil spill and are declared free of toxic pollutants, including heavy metals, that can make people sick, a leading environmental advocacy group said on Wednesday. "This is an unprecedented tragedy and environmental disaster in the Gulf that is raising unprecedented questions about how to manage beaches and other parts of the environment," said David Beckman, Water Program director with the ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Watching grass grow in the Gulf, and cheering! Reuters: Marsh grasses are the tough guys of the plant world. Left alone, they dominate coastal marshes from Texas to Newfoundland. Burn their stems and leaves, and they come back bushier than ever. They help slow down hurricanes and filter pollution. As impenetrable to humans as a green wall, they shelter birds, fish and endangered mammals, and act as nurseries for commercial species like shrimp and crabs. But let oil get into their roots and underground reproductive systems, and they ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Judge orders tougher look at fire retardant drops Associated Press: A federal judge Wednesday ordered the U.S. Forest Service to take a tougher look at the possibility that routinely dropping toxic fire retardant on wildfires from airplanes will kill endangered fish and plants. U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in Missoula, Mont., ruled that the current environmental assessment is inadequate in light of federal biologists' findings that fire retardant that lands in creeks and on rare plants jeopardize the survival of endangered species and their ... Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM Country diary: Achvaneran Guardian: My study is away from the house, which enables me to look out from the largest window to the pond below. The pond is large with two small islands and we had it dug out 22 years ago. Last week I watched a female wild mallard trying to control her ducklings as they darted here and there looking for seeds or insects. She had nested on the side of the burn at the back of the pond and had raised eight ducklings. Gradually the hooded crows have taken their toll and yesterday she was left with only ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM Vedanta rejects Amnesty International claims of human rights abuses Guardian: Mining company Vedanta today dismissed as "incorrect" an Amnesty International report that accused the firm of human rights abuses and damaging the environment. Chief executive MS Mehta claimed Amnesty had "jumped to the wrong conclusions" and that Vedanta was "very strong on sustainable development". His remarks come ahead of tomorrow's annual meeting of shareholders in London which is expected to draw protests from campaigners in support of people in the eastern Indian state ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM United Kingdom: Transport research laboratory site: Wildlife at risk on Thames Basin heaths Guardian: The RSPB is contenting the development on the grounds that it will threaten vulnerable wildlife on the Thames Basin heaths. Describe the site currently, including details of protected or threatened habitat or species The application site is a previously developed site, including part of the old Transport Research Laboratory site, along with the former vehicle test track and skid-pan. Although the application site itself has little value to wildlife, immediately adjacent lies an ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM BP oil spill: taxpayers face clean-up costs Guardian: BP is poised for fresh controversy after it emerged today that the UK Treasury will lose hundreds of millions of pounds as a result of the oil clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico. The cost of the clean-up has pushed BP into the red, meaning the oil company will be able to book a near-$10bn (£6.5bn) tax credit, slashing its tax bill in the US and Britain. The loss comes on top of a plunge in tax revenues after BP halted its dividend payouts to shareholders. The news will dismay ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM Marshes 'at risk from hurricanes' BBC: Hurricanes in 2005, including Katrina, destroyed 527 sq km of wetlands in the US Gulf state of Louisiana Freshwater coastal wetlands are more vulnerable to erosion during hurricanes than habitats with higher levels of salinity, a study has suggested. US researchers say freshwater marshes have shallower root systems, leaving them at risk from wave erosion during storm surges. They added that the results could have implications for wetland restoration projects in ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM Carbon emissions threaten fish populations ScienceDaily: Baby fish may become easy meat for predators as the world's oceans become more acidic due to CO2 fallout from human activity, an international team of researchers has discovered. In a series of experiments reported in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), the team found that as carbon levels rise and ocean water acidifies, the behaviour of baby fish changes dramatically -- in ways that decrease their chances of survival by 50 to 80 per ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM Proposed law seen as new threat to Brazil's Amazon Reuters: A proposed overhaul of Brazilian forest policy being considered in Congress is raising concern that the world's largest forest could be left more vulnerable than in decades to razing by farmers despite recent progress in protecting it. Destruction of the forest, which is a vital global climate regulator due to the vast amount of carbon it stores as well as a caldron of biodiversity, is driven mainly by farmers who clear Amazon land for crops and livestock. Supported by the ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM United States: Severe local water shortages on the way due to global warming Modest Bee: Sacramento County is one of four in California and just 29 nationwide that face likely, extreme water shortages by 2050 -- even if global warming were to mysteriously disappear -- according to a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. The report found that California and 13 other states face severe shortages under expected global-warming scenarios. Nationwide, more than 1,100 counties -- one in three -- were projected to face water ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM State Dept. extends review of Canadian pipeline The Hill: The State Department is extending its review of a controversial pipeline project that would expand U.S. imports of oil from Canadian tar sands, a plentiful energy source that is under fire from activists and some lawmakers over its environmental effects. The decision to lengthen the review of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL follows complaints from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a senior House Democrat that State's draft environmental review was inadequate. The ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM What BP knows about the size of Gulf disaster Mother Jones: While BP publicly stuck to claims that its blow-out well was leaking at rate of 5,000 gallons of oil per day, the company was privately operating under the assumption that at least five times that amount was gushing into the Gulf, according to documents released today by congressional investigators. BP's internal estimate of 53,000 barrels per day is buried in one of the company's requests to use more than the maximum threshold of dispersants established by the EPA, which the Coast ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM Climate Weapons: More Than Just a Conspiracy Theory? Ria Novosti: The abnormally hot weather in the central regions of Russia has already caused serious economic damage. It has destroyed crops on roughly 20% of the country's agricultural land lots, the result being that the food prices are clearly set to climb next fall. On top of that, fires are raging over peat lands around Moscow. These days, the majority of forecasts concerning the climate are alarming: droughts, hurricanes, and floods are going to be increasingly frequent and severe. Director of the ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM China Gorges flooding set to peak BBC: China says flood waters at the Three Gorges Dam will peak within the next 24 hours, after torrential rain further up the Yangtze river over the weekend. More heavy rain is expected in parts of southern China from now until Thursday. News has only just emerged of a bridge collapse in Henan province on Saturday in which 33 people died and up to 21 are still missing. China suffers monsoon-type rains every year but this year's rainfall has been the heaviest in more than a ... Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM Report: US faces climate change-driven water shortages Energy Collective: As global warming accelerates, the world will become not only hotter, flatter, and more crowded but also thirsty, according to a new study that finds 70 percent of counties in the United States may face climate change-related risks to their water supplies by 2050. One-third of U.S. counties may find themselves at "high or extreme risk," according to the report prepared for the Natural Resources Defense Council by Tetra Tech, a California environmental consulting firm. "It ... Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM Converging weather patterns caused last winter's huge snows in U.S ScienceDaily: The memory of last winter's blizzards may be fading in this summer's searing heat, but scientists studying them have detected a perfect storm of converging weather patterns that had little relation to climate change. The extraordinarily cold, snowy weather that hit parts of the U.S. East Coast and Europe was the result of a collision of two periodic weather patterns in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds. It was the snowiest ... Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM Climate change could spur Mexican migration to US: study Agence France-Presse: Global warming could drive millions more Mexicans into the United States in search of work by 2080 due to diminishing crop yields in Mexico, a study released Monday showed. "Depending on the warming scenarios used and adaptation levels assumed... climate change is estimated to induce 1.4 to 6.7 million adult Mexicans (or two percent to 10 percent of the current population aged 15-65 years) to emigrate as a result of declines in agricultural productivity alone," the study ... Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM Egypt extends olive branch in Nile river row Reuters: Egypt sounded a conciliatory note on Monday in a dispute over how Nile waters should be shared by the countries it passes through at an African summit in the Ugandan capital Kampala. After more than a decade of talks driven by anger over the perceived injustice of a previous Nile water treaty signed in 1929, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya signed a new deal in May without their northern neighbors. The five signatories have given the other Nile Basin countries -- ... Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM BP could start final process to kill well next week Reuters: BP Plc could start the final procedure to kill its ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico late next week despite storm-related delays, the top U.S. oil spill official said on Monday. The procedure involves pumping mud and cement through a relief well, which has been drilled since May 2 to a spot close to the bottom of the stricken well. "The next thing that we need to do is get this well in the position where we can make the intercept and kill this well from the bottom," ... Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM Heat Wave: 2010 to Be One of Hottest Years on Record National Geographic: Thanks to a combination of global warming and an ocean-warming El Niño event, 2010 is set to become one of the hottest years ever recorded, a new report says. Land and ocean temperatures for the period of January to June were the hottest seen since record-keeping began in 1880, according to an analysis released July 15 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The average temperature for the first half of 2010 was 57.5 degrees Fahrenheit (14.2 degrees ... Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM Global Warming Means More Mexican Immigration? National Geographic: Disputes over illegal Mexican immigrants are already heating up in the United States, thanks in part to a new Arizona immigration law. But global warming could bring the immigration issue to a boiling point in the coming decades, if a new study holds true. According a new computer model, a total of nearly seven million additional Mexicans could emigrate to the U.S. by 2080 as a result of reduced crop yields brought about by a hotter, drier climate--assuming other factors ... Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM Climate change linked to mass Mexican migration to US LA Times: Climbing temperatures are expected to raise sea levels and increase droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires. Now, scientists are predicting another consequence of climate change: mass migration to the United States. Between 1.4 million and 6.7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080 as climate change reduces crop yields and agricultural production in Mexico, according to a study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The ... Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM United Kingdom: Engineers race to design world's biggest offshore wind turbines Guardian: British, American and Norwegian engineers are in a race to design and build the holy grail of wind turbines – giant, 10MW offshore machines twice the size and power of anything seen before – that could transform the global energy market because of their economies of scale. Today, a revolutionary British design that mimics a spinning sycamore leaf and which was inspired by floating oil platform technology, entered the race. Leading engineering firm Arup is to work with an academic ... Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM Exploring Algae as Fuel New York Times: In a laboratory where almost all the test tubes look green, the tools of modern biotechnology are being applied to lowly pond scum. Foreign genes are being spliced into algae and native genes are being tweaked. Different strains of algae are pitted against one another in survival-of-the-fittest contests in an effort to accelerate the evolution of fast-growing, hardy strains. The goal is nothing less than to create superalgae, highly efficient at converting sunlight and ... Water Conserve a project of Ecological Internet, Inc. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
Water Conserver Jul 29, 2010 08:28AM
Jul 29, 2010 12:00PM
First US court session pits BP against oil spill victims
Agence France-Presse: BP was to come face-to-face Thursday with the victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill during a first court hearing into the case, which is likely to become the trial of the century. The hearings in Boise, Idaho, will examine whether complaints submitted by some 200 plaintiffs can be consolidated in the wake of the three-month crisis, which has been called the worst environmental disaster in US history. A decision is expected around two weeks after the hearing, but the session ...
Russia: Moscow chokes in smog amid record heat wave
LA Times: As peat fires raged on the outskirts of town, shrouding Moscow in a thick cloud of smog, residents Wednesday sought to cope with a record-breaking heat wave that is expected to intensify further. Public health officials urged workers in non-essential jobs to stay home and people not to drive their cars as weather forecasters predicted temperatures exceeding 102 degrees Thursday, in a city more used to icy spells than such heat. With more than 1,480 fires in two weeks, the smog ...
Gulf Residents Face Quandary: Sue Or Settle?
National Public Radio: The administrator of BP's compensation fund is trying to persuade Gulf Coast residents not to sue the company, but to take a settlement instead. But many in the region say it's too early to pinpoint their damages. Ask Darren Frickey how much this oil spill has already cost him, and the answer is as simple as it is sad. He has gone from catching $5,000 worth of shrimp a week in Louisiana's bayous to catching none at all. Peering down at the containers on his boat that have been ...
United States: US hit by new oil spill
Agence France Presse: A new oil spill is sullying US waters in the northern state of Michigan after a pipeline leak sent more than a million gallons of crude into a river tributary, officials said Wednesday. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the spill began Monday when a 30-inch (76-centimeter) pipe in Marshall, Michigan burst, spewing the crude into Talmadge Creek, a waterway which feeds into the Kalamazoo River. Officials said the pipeline belongs to the Canadian company Enbridge ...
Wildlife conservation projects do more harm than good, says expert
Guardian: Ecotourism and western-style conservation projects are harming wildlife, damaging the environment, and displacing and criminalising local people, according to a controversial new book. The pristine beaches and wildlife tours demanded by overseas tourists has led to developments that do not benefit wildlife, such as beaches being built, mangroves stripped out, waterholes drilled and forests cleared, says Rosaleen Duffy, a world expert on the ethical dimensions of wildlife conservation ...
BP Disaster Regnites California's Anti-Drilling Fervor
New York Times: What a difference an oil spill makes. Californians, whose dislike of offshore drilling dates back to the Santa Barbara spill of 1969, had begun to see virtue in new sources of oil as gasoline prices soared in 2008, polls showed. That year, for the first time since 2000, when the first poll of the state`s environmental attitudes was taken by the Public Policy Institute of California, a majority -- albeit a bare one, 51 percent -- was willing to allow more drilling off the California ...
Gulf oil spill reaches 100-day mark
Agence France-Presse: The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster reached the 100-day mark Wednesday with hopes high that BP is finally on the verge of permanently sealing its ruptured Macondo well. But years of legal wrangles and probes lie ahead and myriad questions remain about the long-term effects of the massive oil spill on wildlife, the environment and the livelihoods of Gulf residents. If BP needs a reminder of the long legal road ahead as it tries to rebuild its reputation, one will be provided on ...
The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?
Time: President Obama has called the BP oil spill "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced," and so has just about everyone else. Green groups are sounding alarms about the "Catastrophe Along the Gulf Coast," while CBS, Fox and MSNBC slap "Disaster in the Gulf" chryons on all their spill-related news. Even BP fall guy Tony Hayward, after some early happy talk, admitted the spill was an "environmental catastrophe." The obnoxious anti-environmentalist Rush Limbaugh has been a rare ...
Russian subs dive deep for new energy sources
BBC: Russia has some of the largest energy reserves in the world, but it keeps searching for new sources - even if it means going underwater. Two Russian deep-water submersibles have once again taken a dive in Lake Baikal, to study recently found fields of gas hydrates, a possible fuel of the future. Baikal is the world's deepest, oldest freshwater basin and one of the most biologically diverse. Located in East Siberia close to the Mongolian border, the lake holds one-fifth ...
Indonesian Sinar Mas-linked firms wrecked forest: report
Reuters: Greenpeace said on Thursday it had fresh evidence that palm oil firms linked to Indonesian agribusiness giant Sinar Mas have bulldozed rainforest and destroyed endangered orangutan habitats in Kalimantan. The charges were denied by palm oil firm PT SMART Tbk, part of Sinar Mas, which has already said it would stop clearing critical forests. The accusations, leveled by Greenpeace in a new report, is the latest chapter in a long and bitter dispute between the conservationists and ...
Palm oil group still destroying Indonesian forest, says Greenpeace
Business Green: Indonesia's largest palm and pulp group is still destroying critical habitats, claims Greenpeace in an investigation published today. The non-governmental organisation (NGO) has published new photographic evidence, aerial monitoring and field analysis which seems to show that the Sinar Mas group is continuing to break its own environmental commitments on protecting forests and peat land. And confidential documents obtained by the group indicate that the firm has ambitions to ...
Thailand Faces Flak for Backing Mekong Dams
Inter Press Service: Northern Thai villagers living on Mekong River's banks are poised to join a growing tide of opposition against a planned cascade of 11 dams to be built on the mainstream of South-east Asia's largest body of water. These communities, many of them from the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai, are drafting a petition to be submitted in the coming weeks to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. They see this step as the first in a long battle to protect a riverine culture and livelihood ...
Jul 28, 2010 12:00PM
Company ramps up effort to clean Mich. river spill
Associated Press: Michigan's governor on Wednesday sharply criticized attempts to contain a large oil spill making its way down the Kalamazoo River after the company responsible for the spill said it had redoubled its efforts to clean up the mess. Gov. Jennifer Granholm called on the federal government for more help, saying resources being marshaled by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Enbridge Inc. are "wholly inadequate." Enbridge has been working to clean up the spill since it said its ...
Argentina, Uruguay strike deal over paper mill
Agence France-Presse: Argentina and Uruguay have agreed to a joint environmental monitoring program along the shared Uruguay River, ending a seven-year pollution controversy over a Finnish paper mill on the Uruguayan side. "A chapter in hour history ends and a new era of cooperation begins," Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said at the signing ceremony in the presidential palace. The agreement, which calls for setting up a joint-scientific committee in 30 days to begin the monitoring work, ...
Sparks fly over study suggesting wildfires cut CO2
Conservation Magazine: Call it a hot topic. A study suggesting that intentional forest blazes could significantly cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from wildfires in the Western United States has prompted a piquant scholarly quarrel. The exchange highlights the challenge forest managers may face in balancing plans to use fire to restore forest ecosystems with efforts to curb carbon emissions. Forests have emerged as a key player in climate change because trees can suck huge amounts of CO2 out of the ...
Russia: Pollution threat to deepest lake
BBC: The world's deepest and oldest lake, Lake Baikal, is at risk of being removed from the UNESCO World Heritage list. A Russian pulp and paper mill has been polluting the water for decades. Now, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is meeting in Brazil to discuss the effect of the plant's waste waters. There are fears the lake may end up on the endangered list or get struck off it altogether. Katia Moskvitch reports.
100 days of oil: Gulf life will never be the same
Associated Pres: A hundred days ago, shop owner Cherie Pete was getting ready for a busy summer serving ice cream and po-boys to hungry fishermen. Local official Billy Nungesser was planning his wedding. Environmental activist Enid Sisskin was preparing a speech about the dangers of offshore drilling. Then the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded off the coast of Louisiana, and in an instant, life along the Gulf Coast changed for good. Pete spends her days worrying that the fishing industry may ...
Sizzling Moscow shrouded in polluting smog
Associated Press: A cloud of harmful smog has enveloped Moscow, raising airborne pollutants to four times the norm, officials said Wednesday, and prompting doctors to urge residents to stay indoors as the city swelters in a record heat wave. Officials have said the smog, which has plunged the Kremlin and other famous landmarks into a dull haze for days, is the capital's worst since 2002. The cloud has drifted in from dozens of peat bog and forest fires in rural land south and east of the city, ...
Report Says Minnesota Beaches Among Cleanest, Florida's Among Dirtiest
National Public Radio: Vacation season has arrived in Washington. We can tell because the daily commuter traffic's a breeze and we can get reservations at our favorite restaurants on Saturday nights before 11 p.m. But if you want to go to the beach and haven't made plans yet, you might want to check out the Natural Resources Defense Council's 20th annual beach report first. Or you might find your vacation paradise ruined by dirty water. According to the report, Minnesota, New Hampshire and California ...
Scientists say global warming is continuing
Associated Press: Scientists from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming, one day after President Barack Obama renewed his call for climate legislation. "A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record," the annual State of the Climate report declares. Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, the report said its analysis of 10 indicators that are "clearly and directly related ...
Gulf oil slick breaks up rapidly and begins to slip below waves
Guardian: Images from the Gulf of Mexico suggest a once vast expanse of oil is breaking up so rapidly it may soon be invisible to satellite photography. But scientists warned today that underwater plumes of oil could linger for a year or even decades. One hundred days after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon, the US moved into a new phase in its response to the country's worst environmental disaster today. John Amos, president of SkyTruth, an environmental satellite organisation, ...
Crews Scramble To Contain Michigan Oil Spill
National Public Radio: A company operating a pipeline that dumped more than 800,000 gallons of oil into a southern Michigan river said Wednesday that it is doubling its workforce on the containment and cleanup effort. Officials with Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge Inc. made the announcement during an update on the spill, which coated birds and fish as it poured into a creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River, one of the state's major waterways. "We've made significant progress," company CEO Patrick ...
Already illegal, one man tests poisoning rhino horn too
Mongabay: Given the epidemic of rhino poaching across Africa and Asia, which has placed four out of five species in jeopardy of extinction, one fed-up game manager wants to take the fight beyond the poachers to the consumer. Ed Hern, owner of the Lion and Rhino Park near Johannesburg, told South Africa's The Times that he has begun working with a veterinarian on injecting poison into a rhino's horn to consumers. He told The Times that people who consumed poisoned rhino horn "would get very sick or ...
Climate Extremes Fuel Hunger in Guatemala
Inter Press Service: "Three-quarters of the fields are still under water. Maize, plantains, okra and pasture are all lost," José Asencio told IPS at the village of Santa Ana Mixtán in southern Guatemala, the area worst affected by tropical storm Agatha. The villagers have been working for food in order to survive. "We've been shoring up the banks of the Coyolate and Mascalate rivers, and the mayor has been giving us food rations, although we haven't received any for the past two weeks because supplies ...
China's Three Gorges dam close to limit as heavy rains persist
Associated Press: Record high water levels are putting the capacity of China's massive Three Gorges dam to the test after heavy rains across the country, compounding flooding problems that have left more than 1,200 people dead or missing. The dam's water flow reached 56,000 cubic metres per second (1.96 million cubic feet), the biggest peak flow this year, with the water height reaching 158 metres (518 feet), the official Xinhua news agency reported. This is about 10% less than the dam's maximum ...
Gulf spill raises long-term beach safety questions
Reuters: It could be years before some Gulf of Mexico beaches recover fully from BP Plc's massive oil spill and are declared free of toxic pollutants, including heavy metals, that can make people sick, a leading environmental advocacy group said on Wednesday. "This is an unprecedented tragedy and environmental disaster in the Gulf that is raising unprecedented questions about how to manage beaches and other parts of the environment," said David Beckman, Water Program director with the ...
Watching grass grow in the Gulf, and cheering!
Reuters: Marsh grasses are the tough guys of the plant world. Left alone, they dominate coastal marshes from Texas to Newfoundland. Burn their stems and leaves, and they come back bushier than ever. They help slow down hurricanes and filter pollution. As impenetrable to humans as a green wall, they shelter birds, fish and endangered mammals, and act as nurseries for commercial species like shrimp and crabs. But let oil get into their roots and underground reproductive systems, and they ...
Judge orders tougher look at fire retardant drops
Associated Press: A federal judge Wednesday ordered the U.S. Forest Service to take a tougher look at the possibility that routinely dropping toxic fire retardant on wildfires from airplanes will kill endangered fish and plants. U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in Missoula, Mont., ruled that the current environmental assessment is inadequate in light of federal biologists' findings that fire retardant that lands in creeks and on rare plants jeopardize the survival of endangered species and their ...
Country diary: Achvaneran
Guardian: My study is away from the house, which enables me to look out from the largest window to the pond below. The pond is large with two small islands and we had it dug out 22 years ago. Last week I watched a female wild mallard trying to control her ducklings as they darted here and there looking for seeds or insects. She had nested on the side of the burn at the back of the pond and had raised eight ducklings. Gradually the hooded crows have taken their toll and yesterday she was left with only ...
Jul 27, 2010 12:00PM
Vedanta rejects Amnesty International claims of human rights abuses
Guardian: Mining company Vedanta today dismissed as "incorrect" an Amnesty International report that accused the firm of human rights abuses and damaging the environment. Chief executive MS Mehta claimed Amnesty had "jumped to the wrong conclusions" and that Vedanta was "very strong on sustainable development". His remarks come ahead of tomorrow's annual meeting of shareholders in London which is expected to draw protests from campaigners in support of people in the eastern Indian state ...
United Kingdom: Transport research laboratory site: Wildlife at risk on Thames Basin heaths
Guardian: The RSPB is contenting the development on the grounds that it will threaten vulnerable wildlife on the Thames Basin heaths. Describe the site currently, including details of protected or threatened habitat or species The application site is a previously developed site, including part of the old Transport Research Laboratory site, along with the former vehicle test track and skid-pan. Although the application site itself has little value to wildlife, immediately adjacent lies an ...
BP oil spill: taxpayers face clean-up costs
Guardian: BP is poised for fresh controversy after it emerged today that the UK Treasury will lose hundreds of millions of pounds as a result of the oil clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico. The cost of the clean-up has pushed BP into the red, meaning the oil company will be able to book a near-$10bn (£6.5bn) tax credit, slashing its tax bill in the US and Britain. The loss comes on top of a plunge in tax revenues after BP halted its dividend payouts to shareholders. The news will dismay ...
Marshes 'at risk from hurricanes'
BBC: Hurricanes in 2005, including Katrina, destroyed 527 sq km of wetlands in the US Gulf state of Louisiana Freshwater coastal wetlands are more vulnerable to erosion during hurricanes than habitats with higher levels of salinity, a study has suggested. US researchers say freshwater marshes have shallower root systems, leaving them at risk from wave erosion during storm surges. They added that the results could have implications for wetland restoration projects in ...
Carbon emissions threaten fish populations
ScienceDaily: Baby fish may become easy meat for predators as the world's oceans become more acidic due to CO2 fallout from human activity, an international team of researchers has discovered. In a series of experiments reported in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), the team found that as carbon levels rise and ocean water acidifies, the behaviour of baby fish changes dramatically -- in ways that decrease their chances of survival by 50 to 80 per ...
Proposed law seen as new threat to Brazil's Amazon
Reuters: A proposed overhaul of Brazilian forest policy being considered in Congress is raising concern that the world's largest forest could be left more vulnerable than in decades to razing by farmers despite recent progress in protecting it. Destruction of the forest, which is a vital global climate regulator due to the vast amount of carbon it stores as well as a caldron of biodiversity, is driven mainly by farmers who clear Amazon land for crops and livestock. Supported by the ...
United States: Severe local water shortages on the way due to global warming
Modest Bee: Sacramento County is one of four in California and just 29 nationwide that face likely, extreme water shortages by 2050 -- even if global warming were to mysteriously disappear -- according to a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. The report found that California and 13 other states face severe shortages under expected global-warming scenarios. Nationwide, more than 1,100 counties -- one in three -- were projected to face water ...
State Dept. extends review of Canadian pipeline
The Hill: The State Department is extending its review of a controversial pipeline project that would expand U.S. imports of oil from Canadian tar sands, a plentiful energy source that is under fire from activists and some lawmakers over its environmental effects. The decision to lengthen the review of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL follows complaints from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a senior House Democrat that State's draft environmental review was inadequate. The ...
What BP knows about the size of Gulf disaster
Mother Jones: While BP publicly stuck to claims that its blow-out well was leaking at rate of 5,000 gallons of oil per day, the company was privately operating under the assumption that at least five times that amount was gushing into the Gulf, according to documents released today by congressional investigators. BP's internal estimate of 53,000 barrels per day is buried in one of the company's requests to use more than the maximum threshold of dispersants established by the EPA, which the Coast ...
Climate Weapons: More Than Just a Conspiracy Theory?
Ria Novosti: The abnormally hot weather in the central regions of Russia has already caused serious economic damage. It has destroyed crops on roughly 20% of the country's agricultural land lots, the result being that the food prices are clearly set to climb next fall. On top of that, fires are raging over peat lands around Moscow. These days, the majority of forecasts concerning the climate are alarming: droughts, hurricanes, and floods are going to be increasingly frequent and severe. Director of the ...
China Gorges flooding set to peak
BBC: China says flood waters at the Three Gorges Dam will peak within the next 24 hours, after torrential rain further up the Yangtze river over the weekend. More heavy rain is expected in parts of southern China from now until Thursday. News has only just emerged of a bridge collapse in Henan province on Saturday in which 33 people died and up to 21 are still missing. China suffers monsoon-type rains every year but this year's rainfall has been the heaviest in more than a ...
Report: US faces climate change-driven water shortages
Energy Collective: As global warming accelerates, the world will become not only hotter, flatter, and more crowded but also thirsty, according to a new study that finds 70 percent of counties in the United States may face climate change-related risks to their water supplies by 2050. One-third of U.S. counties may find themselves at "high or extreme risk," according to the report prepared for the Natural Resources Defense Council by Tetra Tech, a California environmental consulting firm. "It ...
Jul 26, 2010 12:00PM
Converging weather patterns caused last winter's huge snows in U.S
ScienceDaily: The memory of last winter's blizzards may be fading in this summer's searing heat, but scientists studying them have detected a perfect storm of converging weather patterns that had little relation to climate change. The extraordinarily cold, snowy weather that hit parts of the U.S. East Coast and Europe was the result of a collision of two periodic weather patterns in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds. It was the snowiest ...
Climate change could spur Mexican migration to US: study
Agence France-Presse: Global warming could drive millions more Mexicans into the United States in search of work by 2080 due to diminishing crop yields in Mexico, a study released Monday showed. "Depending on the warming scenarios used and adaptation levels assumed... climate change is estimated to induce 1.4 to 6.7 million adult Mexicans (or two percent to 10 percent of the current population aged 15-65 years) to emigrate as a result of declines in agricultural productivity alone," the study ...
Egypt extends olive branch in Nile river row
Reuters: Egypt sounded a conciliatory note on Monday in a dispute over how Nile waters should be shared by the countries it passes through at an African summit in the Ugandan capital Kampala. After more than a decade of talks driven by anger over the perceived injustice of a previous Nile water treaty signed in 1929, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya signed a new deal in May without their northern neighbors. The five signatories have given the other Nile Basin countries -- ...
BP could start final process to kill well next week
Reuters: BP Plc could start the final procedure to kill its ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico late next week despite storm-related delays, the top U.S. oil spill official said on Monday. The procedure involves pumping mud and cement through a relief well, which has been drilled since May 2 to a spot close to the bottom of the stricken well. "The next thing that we need to do is get this well in the position where we can make the intercept and kill this well from the bottom," ...
Heat Wave: 2010 to Be One of Hottest Years on Record
National Geographic: Thanks to a combination of global warming and an ocean-warming El Niño event, 2010 is set to become one of the hottest years ever recorded, a new report says. Land and ocean temperatures for the period of January to June were the hottest seen since record-keeping began in 1880, according to an analysis released July 15 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The average temperature for the first half of 2010 was 57.5 degrees Fahrenheit (14.2 degrees ...
Global Warming Means More Mexican Immigration?
National Geographic: Disputes over illegal Mexican immigrants are already heating up in the United States, thanks in part to a new Arizona immigration law. But global warming could bring the immigration issue to a boiling point in the coming decades, if a new study holds true. According a new computer model, a total of nearly seven million additional Mexicans could emigrate to the U.S. by 2080 as a result of reduced crop yields brought about by a hotter, drier climate--assuming other factors ...
Climate change linked to mass Mexican migration to US
LA Times: Climbing temperatures are expected to raise sea levels and increase droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires. Now, scientists are predicting another consequence of climate change: mass migration to the United States. Between 1.4 million and 6.7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080 as climate change reduces crop yields and agricultural production in Mexico, according to a study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The ...
United Kingdom: Engineers race to design world's biggest offshore wind turbines
Guardian: British, American and Norwegian engineers are in a race to design and build the holy grail of wind turbines – giant, 10MW offshore machines twice the size and power of anything seen before – that could transform the global energy market because of their economies of scale. Today, a revolutionary British design that mimics a spinning sycamore leaf and which was inspired by floating oil platform technology, entered the race. Leading engineering firm Arup is to work with an academic ...
Exploring Algae as Fuel
New York Times: In a laboratory where almost all the test tubes look green, the tools of modern biotechnology are being applied to lowly pond scum. Foreign genes are being spliced into algae and native genes are being tweaked. Different strains of algae are pitted against one another in survival-of-the-fittest contests in an effort to accelerate the evolution of fast-growing, hardy strains. The goal is nothing less than to create superalgae, highly efficient at converting sunlight and ...
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