Monday, Dec 08th
Last update07:17:16 AM GMT
Environmental Glance
The Environmental Protection Agency took the unusual step of revoking a permit Thursday for the country's largest surface mine, a setback for the controversial practice of "mountaintop removal" that helps produce 10 percent of the nation's coal.
The 2,300-acre operation at the Mingo Logan Coal Co.'s Spruce No. 1 coal mine in West Virginia has been mired in litigation since 1998.
Thousands of gizzard shad fish have been washed up on Chicago's harbours while more than 100 dead birds have been found clustered on a California highway.
The two instances appear to be a continuation of the strange mass animal deaths that have struck in the past fortnight - in America and elsewhere.
Like the rest of the 2.5-million-square-foot area at the top of the world, this chunk of the U.S. Arctic is melting quickly because of accelerated climate change. The prospect of newly thawed sea lanes and a freshly accessible, resource-rich seabed has nations jockeying for position. And government and military officials are concerned the United States is not moving quickly enough to protect American interests in this vulnerable and fast-changing region.
"We're not doing OK," said Lt. Cmdr. Nahshon Almandmoss as he flew the massive plane on the nine-hour flight from Kodiak to the northern border then down along the coast through the Bering Strait.
Last summer, as torrential rains flooded Pakistan, a veteran intelligence analyst watched closely from his desk at CIA headquarters just outside the capital. For the analyst, who heads the CIA's year-old Center on Climate Change and National Security, the worst natural disaster in Pakistan's history was a warning.
"It has the exact same symptoms you would see for future climate change events, and we're expecting to see more of them," he said later, agreeing to talk only if his name were not revealed, for security reasons.
While the WikiLeaks media frenzy may have been focused on the release of tens of thousands of classified military and U.S. State Department documents, it's a leaked Environmental Protection Agency document that has conservationists, environmentalists and beekeepers abuzz.
The November 2nd memo, leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, indicates that the EPA was well-aware that the pesticide Clothianidin posed some serious risks to honey bees. There have been concerns about this chemical from as far back as 2003, and it's already been banned in Germany, France, Italy and Slovenia because of its toxicity. But the EPA chose to sweep all that under the rug to keep the pesticide on the market.
Kentucky wildlife officials say several hundred dead birds were found dead in the western part of the state. The grackles, red wing blackbirds, robins and starlings were found last week.
New Year's Eve fireworks have been blamed for the deaths of thousands of blackbirds in central Arkansas. Another 450 birds died this week in Louisiana, likely after hitting power lines or cars.
Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported Monday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide.
They documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species, and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved, but the researchers also found evidence of inbreeding caused by habitat loss.
Page 147 of 200
