Environmental News Archive
Winter lacked an Antarctic chill this year in New Zealand, to record effect.
Scientists said on Tuesday that the South Pacific nation had its warmest winter since record-keeping began more than a century ago.
The average nationwide temperature was 9.5C (49.1F) for June, July and August, about 1.2C above average and 0.3C above the previous record set in 1984, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said. Record-keeping began in 1909.
New Zealand has warmest winter on record
Can Frackers Silence a Child?
For anyone who lives near a natural gas shale, the story of the Hallowich family of Washington County, Pennsylvania, is a familiar one. It begins with a knock on the door from a representative from a multi-billion dollar natural gas company offering an enticing sum of money in exchange for the mineral rights to the land.
Then comes the drilling, followed by reports of headaches, or nosebleeds, or worse. Then the legal fees. Then silence.
What’s not familiar in the case is what may have happened to Chris and Stephanie Hallowich’s children.
650,000 Comments Call on Obama Administration to Ban Fracking on Public Lands
A coalition of 276 environmental and consumer organizations including Americans Against Fracking, 350.org, Berks Gas Truth, Center for Biological Diversity, CREDO Action, Democracy for America, Environmental Action, Daily Kos, Food & Water Watch, MoveOn, Progressive Democrats of America, The Post Carbon Institute and United For Action delivered to President Obama and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) nearly 650,000 public comments asking the federal government to ban hydraulic fracturing—fracking—on public lands.
This development amplifies the message sent by the 7,800 people who called the White House yesterday, urging President Obama to protect communities and their resources from the negative effects of fracking. The deadline for submitting public comments to the federal government regarding drilling and fracking on federal lands is today, Aug. 23.
Fukushima's Invisible Crisis: Don't expect coverage on the evening news
On July 22, one day after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s pro-nuclear Liberal Democratic Party won control of Japan’s upper house of Parliament, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) revealed that contaminated groundwater from its Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was leaking into the Pacific Ocean.
The head of the Soma-Futaba Fisheries Cooperative, Hiroyuki Sato, complained to the local paper, Fukushima Minpo, “TEPCO is saying that the pollution will stay inside the harbor, but the harbor is connected to the ocean, and the tide flows in and out. You can’t say there won’t be any impact. We want them to take action immediately.” The National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations called the
Radioactive groundwater at Fukushima nears Pacific
Deep beneath Fukushima's crippled nuclear power station, a massive underground reservoir of contaminated water that began spilling from the plant's reactors after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the Pacific.
Now, 2 1/2 years later, experts fear it is about to reach the ocean and greatly worsen what is fast becoming a new crisis at Fukushima: the inability to contain vast quantities of radioactive water.
Texas drought: frack the water + frack the climate = “dear God help us”
The state of Texas is in a state of pain.
We almost have to invent a new word to convey the sense of a drought this devastating: 98% of the state is experiencing drought, with areas of “severe” and “exceptional” drought.
Farmers and ranchers are selling their herds. Yet in some towns, the fracking industry is being allowed to use 50% of the water. You can call Texas Governor Rick Perry to ask him why: (512) 463-2000.
Sea level could rise 3 feet by 2100, climate panel finds
An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace.
The scientists, whose findings are reported in a draft summary of the next big United Nations climate report, largely dismiss a recent slowdown in the pace of warming, which is often cited by climate change doubters, attributing it most likely to short-term factors.
European forests near 'carbon saturation point'
European forests are showing signs of reaching a saturation point as carbon sinks, a study has suggested. Since 2005, the amount of atmospheric CO2 absorbed by the continent's trees has been slowing, researchers reported.
Writing in Nature Climate Change, they said this was a result of a declining volume of trees, deforestation and the impact of natural disturbances. Carbon sinks play a key role in the global carbon cycle and are promoted as a way to offset rising emissions.
Report: UN panel finds it's 95 percent likely humans cause of climate change
Leaked drafts of a United Nations report show scientists have never been more confident that climate change is occurring, according to Reuters.
Scientists say it is at least 95 percent likely that humans are the main cause of climate change, largely by burning fossil fuels, Reuters said of the findings in the draft Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
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