Environmental News Archive
On Friday, the State Department revised its January report on the environmental impacts of building or not building the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, including the number of potential injuries and fatalities if Canadian oil would move by rail instead.
The New York Times reported that the revisions projected “hundreds more fatalities and thousands more injuries than expected over the course of a decade.”
Hundreds more fatalities if Keystone XL isn’t built? Not exactly
Greenpeace Erects Fracking Site at UK Prime Minister's Estate
As British Prime Minister David Cameron prepared for the announcement of a controversial new fracking law in the UK, Greenpeace activists gave the leader a taste of his own policy early Wednesday when they set up a mock fracking operation at his country estate.
Police were called after the activists, wearing hard hats and day-glo vests, erected security fencing around Cameron's cottage in the Cotswold hamlet of Dean, Oxfordshire. Signs were posted that read: "We apologise for any inconvenience we may cause while we frack under your home," and ordered complaints to be directed to the PM's office.
4 Worker Fatalities Linked to Used Fracking Fluid Exposure
Field studies conducted by the U.S. Government have revealed that hydrofracking fluids are responsible for the deaths of four field workers since 2010.
The report, recently released by the National Institute for Occupational Safety, suggests that workers could be exposed to hazardous levels of toxic volatile hydrocarbons found in waste fracking fluids.
EPA to make Obama's big move on climate change
When the Obama administration unveils its much-anticipated proposal to curb power plant emissions, this cornerstone of the president's climate change policy - the most significant environmental regulation of his term - will not be declared in a sun-bathed Rose Garden news conference or from behind the lectern in a major speech.
It will not be announced by the president at all, but instead by his head of the Environmental Protection Agency, while President Barack Obama adds his comments in on an off-camera conference call with health advocates.
Bill legalizing fracking heads to North Carolina governor
A bill to allow permits for fracking in North Carolina was all but a done deal Thursday as it heads to Gov. Pat McCrory for his signature.
It was a fast turnaround for the bill after being passed with no debate by the Senate hours after the House approved it with minor changes. McCrory, an ardent proponent of expanding natural gas exploration in North Carolina, will very likely sign the bill.
Natural gas exploration includes fracking, which refers to hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting oil and gas by injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals into rock. Permits for the practice could be issued by May 2015.
Obama will let states decide how to cut greenhouse gas emissions
President Barack Obama is about to unveil the centerpiece of his agenda to fight climate change, a much anticipated rule to slash the emissions of planet-warming gases from power plants.
The president will call for major reductions, according to sources familiar with the planning, with each state given its own greenhouse gas emissions reduction target and the power to decide how to meet it. The Environmental Protection Agency is putting the plan together, and Obama will announce it Monday.
'Time running out' as CO2 levels hit new high: United Nations
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have crossed a new threshold, the UN's weather agency saidon on Monday, highlighting the urgency of curbing manmade, climate-altering greenhouse gases.
In April, for the first time, the mean monthly CO2 concentration in the atmosphere topped 400 parts per million (ppm) throughout the northern hemisphere, which pollutes more than the south, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said.
Dead Babies and Utah's Carbon Bomb
What is going on in Utah's Uinta Basin to explain newborn babies dying? An abrupt surge in teenage mothers, drug, alcohol use? No evidence of that. Is there a genetic explanation? Genes don't change that quickly. Is there a sudden onset of medical incompetence by the area's health-care providers?
No reason to think so. That leaves one other possibility. Is there something happening in the environment? As a matter of fact, yes.
This Ice Sheet Will Unleash a Global Superstorm Sandy That Never Ends
If you want to truly grasp the scale of Earth's polar ice sheets, you need some help from Isaac Newton. Newton taught us the universal law of gravitation, which states that all objects are attracted to one another in relation to their masses (and the distance between them).
The ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland are incredibly massive—Antarctica's ice is more than two miles thick in places and 5.4 million square miles in extent. These ice sheets are so large, in fact, that gravitational attraction pulls the surrounding ocean toward them. The sea level therefore rises upward at an angle as you approach an ice sheet, and slopes downward and away as you leave its presence.
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