A beautifully photographed short film, a shocking, tragic and important story. Colorado River: Running Near Empty by : Yale Environment 360.
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Env. Disasters
Humanity falls deeper into ecological debt: study
Earth’s seven billion denizens — nine billion by mid-century — are using more water, cutting down more forests and eating more fish than Nature can replace, it said. via Humanity falls deeper into ecological debt: study.
Great Barrier Reef Part 2: Climate Change Impacts
Coral reefs like the Great Barrier Reef depend on a narrow set of environmental conditions within which they prosper. At the heart of their biology, is a symbiosis that they form with tiny plant-like organisms known as dinoflagellates (commonly called zooxanthellae). This symbiosis is critical to the survival of corals and coral reefs, making possible the efficient trapping of sunlight by reef-building corals. This allows them a cheap source of energy with which...
James Hansen slams Keystone XL Canada-U.S. Pipeline: “Exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts” | ThinkProgress
James Hansen slams Keystone XL Canada-U.S. Pipeline: “Exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts” | ThinkProgress.
Gas Leaks on the Path to a Post-Fossil Future – NYTimes.com
ProPublica has published a good update on concerns that existing practices for extracting and piping natural gas, through leakage, substantially cut into the fuel’s substantial greenhouse-gas advantage over coal. A prime source for the story, Robert W. Howarth of Cornell University, is right in his draft paper on such emissions that complete life-cycle analysis is sorely needed to clarify the overall costs and benefits of gas drilling — particularly the fast-spreading extraction method known...
Carbon fiasco | Editorial
Carbon fiasco | Editorial | Squamish Chief, Squamish, BC. Last week a retired Saskatchewan farming couple touched off a flurry of government and oil-and-gas industry denials by releasing a consultant’s report that they said links a series of events on their farm over several years to leakage from a large industrial underground carbon capture and storage facility. Cameron and Jane Kerr say the report by geochemical expert Paul LaFleur links the deaths of animals,...
USGS report: Asian glacier retreat, driven by climate change, “increases the likelihood of outburst floods that threaten life and property in nearby areas”
From Climate Progress: Many of Asia’s glaciers are retreating as a result of climate change. This retreat impacts water supplies to millions of people, increases the likelihood of outburst floods that threaten life and property in nearby areas, and contributes to sea-level rise. Talk about your well-timed studies — see “One-fifth of Pakistan is under water.” The U.S. Geological Survey collaborated with 39 international scientists — “the most knowledgeable glaciologists for each geographic region...
Caught in the oil – The Big Picture – Boston.com
AP Photographer Charlie Riedel just filed the following images of seabirds caught in the oil slick on a beach on Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island. As BP engineers continue their efforts to cap the underwater flow of oil, landfall is becoming more frequent, and the effects more evident. (8 photos total) See the rest of the pictures here Caught in the oil – The Big Picture – Boston.com.
Hurricane, Oil Spill Could Be Troubling Mix
If a hurricane encounters the oil slick now covering parts of the Gulf of Mexico, the result could be devastating, scientists say. Not only could any hurricane increase the damage that oil does to coastal wetlands, but the presence of oil could lead to a more powerful hurricane, they say. Nobody knows for sure, though, because there's no record of a hurricane ever crossing paths with a large oil spill. Trouble Brewing The Atlantic...
What went wrong at oil rig? A lot, probers find – Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON – Bad wiring and a leak in what's supposed to be a “blowout preventer.” Sealing problems that may have allowed a methane eruption. Even a dead battery, of all things. New disclosures Wednesday revealed a complex cascade of deep-sea equipment failures and procedural problems in the oil rig explosion and massive spill that is still fouling the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and threatening industries and wildlife near the coast and on...