Tuesday, Oct 28th
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Environmental News Archive
The bitter battle over fracking has gone global, and according to pro-business consultants, the oil and gas industry has every reason to be concerned.
Oil and gas rigs are popping up in communities across the world as the fossil fuels industry races to exploit reserves with the controversial drilling technique known as fracking. In response, a global anti-fracking movement has emerged, and activists are winning victories in countries across world.
A new report warns that climate change driven by human activity already is affecting the American people and economy, with more frequent and intense heat waves, heavy downpours and, in some places, floods and droughts.
A draft version of the National Climate Assessment that was released Friday warns that as the Earth continues to warm because of increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the health and livelihoods of many Americans and the ecosystems that sustain the country face some frightening impacts. Sea levels are rising, scientists warn, oceans are becoming more acidic, and glaciers and Arctic sea ice are melting.
Future generations of Americans can expect to spend 25 days a year sweltering in temperatures above 100F (38C), with climate change on course to turn the country into a hotter, drier, and more disaster-prone place.
The National Climate Assessment, released in draft form on Friday , provided the fullest picture to date of the real-time effects of climate change on US life, and the most likely consequences for the future.
A persistent drought held its grip on America's bread basket on Thursday, with no sign of relief for the four main wheat-growing states.
The poor outlook for winter wheat, which accounts for about 70% of the US crop, has raised fears about further food prices shocks, after widespread failure of last year's corn and soybean crops.
Conditions in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas, which produce about a third of the country's wheat crop, remained unchanged – virtually the worst on record, according to the US Drought Monitor.
Glenn Paulson, the EPA's science adviser, describes the project as "one of the most aggressive public outreach programs in EPA history."
The final report won't come out until late 2014. But a 275-page progress report was released in December and, for all its details, shows that the EPA doesn't plan to address one contentious issue — how often drinking water contamination might occur.
America set an off-the-charts heat record in 2012.
A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperature last year up to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit, the government announced Tuesday. That's a full degree warmer than the old record set in 1998.
Breaking temperature records by an entire degree is unprecedented, scientists say. Normally, records are broken by a tenth of a degree or so.
The New York Times got its ink-stained hands on a report from the New York Health Department assessing the risks associated with fracking, the primary issue at play as the state considers whether or not to lift a ban on the practice. While the report suggests that fracking doesn’t pose risks, there are at least two gigantic caveats. From the Times:
The state’s Health Department found in an analysis it prepared early last year that the much-debated drilling technology known as hydrofracking could be conducted safely in New York, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times from an expert who did not believe it should be kept secret. …
British energy company BP accused oil services company Halliburton of skirting its responsibilities in the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Transocean Deepwater Inc., owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, leased to BP, agreed to pay more than $1 billion in fines and penalties for the BP oil spill, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday. The company agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges, paying $400 million in fines, as well as another $1 billion in civil penalties for violations of the Clean Water Act.
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