Environmental News Archive
For many, the battle over the Keystone XL pipeline is about national energy strategy and global climate change. For residents of the Manchester neighborhood in Houston, it’s also about what will be processed and spewed into the air in their backyards.
Activist Doug Fahlbusch recently brought some attention to the community when he held up a sign at a Valero-sponsored golf tournament that said, “TAR SANDS SPILL. ANSWER MANCHESTER.” That protest got him carried away from the links by security guards and arrested.
Keystone XL oil would be processed in sick East Texas community
US rejects EU claim of insecticide as sole reason for bee colony collapse
A government report blamed a combination of factors for the disappearance of America's honeybees on Thursday and did not join Europe in singling out pesticides as a prime suspect.
The report, by the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, blamed a parasitic mite, viruses, bacteria, poor nutritions and genetics as well as pesticides for the rapid decline of honey bees since 2006.
Earth's greenhouse gas approaches milestone level
The ratio of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere is flirting with 400 parts per million, a level last seen about 2.5 million to 5 million years ago, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
The institution this week launched a daily Keeling curve update, showing the saw-toothed upward diagonal of rising carbon dioxide levels since the late 1950s.
Fracking Waste: Too Toxic, Even For A Hazardous Waste Site
On April 19, a truck delivering waste from a fracking operation in Greene County, Pennsylvania, was quarantined after being rejected by a hazardous waste landfill as too dangerous.
The truck was carrying highly radioactive radium-226 in concentrations 86 times higher than allowed per EPA limits.
How Americans Became Exposed to Biohazards in the Greatest Uncontrolled Experiment Ever Launched
A hidden epidemic is poisoning America. The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We can’t escape it in our cars. It’s in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, young and old. And there’s a reason why you’ve never read about it in the newspaper or seen a report on the nightly news: it has no name -- and no antidote.
The culprit behind this silent killer is lead. And vinyl. And formaldehyde. And asbestos. And Bisphenol A. And polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). And thousands more innovations brought to us by the industries that once promised “better living through chemistry,” but instead produced a toxic stew that has made every American a guinea pig and has turned the United States into one grand unnatural experiment.
Global carbon concentration about to hit record levels
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 399.72 parts per million (ppm) and is likely to pass the symbolically important 400ppm level for the first time in the next few days.
Readings at the US government's Earth Systems Research laboratory in Hawaii, are not expected to reach their 2013 peak until mid May, but were recorded at a daily average of 399.72ppm on 25 April. The weekly average stood at 398.5 on Monday.
Sea temperatures off U.S. Northeast and Canada highest in 150 years
Sea surface temperatures on the continental shelf off the U.S. Northeast and Canada have reached their highest levels in 150 years, researchers say.
Scientists with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said the record-high sea surface temperatures of 57.2 degrees F in 2012 are the latest in a trend of above average temperature recorded during the spring and summer seasons.
The readings are part of a pattern of elevated temperatures occurring in the Northwest Atlantic but not seen elsewhere in the ocean basin over the past century, researchers at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center said.
Fracking Truck Sets Off Radiation Alarm At Pennsylvania Landfill
A truck carrying drill cuttings from a hydraulic fracturing pad in the Marcellus Shale was rejected by a Pennsylvania landfill Friday after it set off a radiation alarm, according to published reports. The truck was emitting gamma radiation from radium 226 at almost ten times the level permitted at the landfill.
The MAX Environmental Technologies truck was first quarantined at the landfill, which is operated by MAX, and then sent back to the fracking pad—Rice Energy’s Thunder II pad in Greene County—to be redirected to a site that can accept higher levels of radiation.
'Gasland Part II' Director Josh Fox on the Fight Against Fracking
Three years after the Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland secured fracking a place in the global lexicon, director Josh Fox returns with Gasland Part II, which premiered this weekend at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.
The sequel opens with quick cuts of Republicans and Democrats extolling the virtues of natural gas drilling, setting viewers up for a rollercoaster ride through government and corporate accountability. Like his first film, Fox spotlights the various health problems and water contamination issues facing individuals that live near gas wells.
Part II, which will premiere on HBO this summer, also charts the EPA's progress and interviews members of the the scientific community. Rolling Stone spoke with Fox about gas infrastructure and what it's like to get kicked off Capitol Hill.
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