Environmental Glance
The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a new proposal for regulating hydraulic fracturing on federal lands, rolling back some measures from its original, abandoned draft as it sought to ease concerns the rules would be too burdensome for producers.
The U.S. Interior Department scrapped a proposal from 2012 after drawing heat from green groups and the drilling industry over rules aimed at updating decades-old fracking regulations.
New WH proposal: Frack first, ask questions later
Exposed: Lung Cancer Risks from Fracked Natural Gas in NYC Kitchens
At a public forum last night, leading voices in politics, public health, the environment and workers’ rights analyzed the threat to New York City residents from increased radon levels that would be found in natural gas from new regional sources being promoted by Mayor Bloomberg. Radon, a dangerous substance found in natural gas that most New Yorkers cook with, is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.
At the forum, Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal presented legislation sponsored by she and State Senator Diane Savino that would protect the public from the risks of radon in natural gas.
World’s fish have been moving to cooler waters for decades, study finds
Fish and other sea life have been moving toward Earth’s poles in search of cooler waters, part of a worldwide, decades-long migration documented for the first time by a study released Wednesday.
The research, published in the journal Nature, provides more evidence of a rapidly warming planet and has broad repercussions for fish harvests around the globe.
'Best estimate' for impact of melting ice on sea level rise
Researchers have published their most advanced calculation for the likely impact of melting ice on global sea levels. The EU funded team say the ice sheets and glaciers could add 36.8 centimetres to the oceans by 2100.
Adding in other factors, sea levels could rise by up to 69 centimetres, higher than previous predictions. The researchers say there is a very small chance that the seas around Britain could rise by a metre.
Alaska town to vanish by 2017, report says
When it comes to the fate of the 350 residents of Newtok, Alaska, the Guardian pulls no punches: "Exile is inevitable," it writes. That's because their coastal village, located about 480 miles west of Anchorage, is in the process of being washed into the Bering Sea.
As the Guardian explains in an in-depth look at the town, the Ninglick River flows past three of Newtok's sides on its path to the sea, and it's been chipping away at the village at a rate that's only grown more aggressive due to climate change (more than 100 feet of shoreline gone some years), which has been linked to melting permafrost and dwindling protective sea ice.
Grassroots campaigns can stop fracking one town at a time
New Yorkers worried about fracking have been looking at the impact it's had on their neighbors in Pennsylvania. Increasingly, they don't like what they see there. After a fact-finding tour to the town of Troy, in northern Pennsylvania, Terry Gipson, a New York state senator, reported that, despite signs of renewed economic activity in the region, he couldn't help wonder what will happen when the gas boom goes bust, as all booms inevitably do. Gipson asks:
"Envision a time when the trucks are gone, the lease money is spent, the trailers and the diners are empty, and all that is left is unusable farm land with a contaminated water supply. What will these people do then?"
The Mines that Fracking Built, Part Two
Keith Fossen never expected to join a grassroots environmental group, let alone help organize one from the ground up.
"I was so far over there on the conservative side … whenever I heard of anyone trying to do something for the environment, I was suspicious," Fossen said during an interview with Truthout. "I thought anything environmental was trying to control business."
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