Tag Archives | Environment

Tiny Pacific Island Becomes The First Completely Solar-Powered Nation

By on November 17, 2012 in News 8

Think a completely renewable-energy-based society is a pipe dream? Tiny Tokelau will no longer rely on imported diesel, instead switching over to solar panels and coconut-based biofuel. Fiji, the Cook Islands, Samoa, and Tuvalu plan to follow suit in the next decade. Voice Of America reports:

The remote islands of Tokelau have become the first territory in the world to be powered by the sun, officials say. The move is expected to save money and ease the environmental burden of relying on imported fossil fuels.

“The Tokelau Renewable Energy Project is a world first. Tokelau’s three main atolls now have enough solar capacity, on average, to meet electricity needs,” said New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister Murray McCully in a statement. “Until now, Tokelau has been 100 percent dependent upon diesel for electricity generation, with heavy economic and environmental costs.”

The island nations of Samoa and Tuvalu are aiming to get all of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

… Read the rest

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Prometheus: The Story of a 5,000 Year-Old Tree

By on November 15, 2012 in News 2

Picture Credit: Collectors Weekly

Collectors Weekly offers the tragic but educational tale of the accidental felling of a an almost 5,000 year old Great Basin bristlecone tree dubbed “Prometheus”:

Currey downplayed the discovery in a dry essay for Ecology magazine in 1965, in which he stated, “Allowing for the likelihood of missing rings and for the 100-inch height of the innermost counted ring, it may be tentatively concluded that WPN-114 began growing about 4,900 years ago.” Though its exact age is still debated, the Prometheus tree was certainly the oldest single tree scientists had ever encountered.

The Prometheus tree’s felling made it doubly symbolic, as the myth of its namesake captures both the human hunger for knowledge and the unintended negative consequences that often result from this desire. Though members of the scientific community and press were outraged that the tree was killed, Currey’s mistake ultimately provided the impetus to establish Great Basin National Park to protect the bristlecones.

… Read the rest

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Commodification of Water, the Quintessential Issue of Our Time

By on November 2, 2012 in News 15

via chycho

Commoditization of the commons is the most important issue of our time, the most vital aspect of which is the commodification of water, usable water (pdf) to be more precise. As Global Water Corporation, a Canadian water privatization company has stated (pdf):

“Water has moved from being an endless commodity that may be taken for granted to a rationed necessity that may be taken by force.”

Strong words indeed for an important issue. Gavin Power, the deputy director of the United Nations Global Compact, reiterated this message when he made the following statement after receiving support from some of the largest corporations in the world in an effort “to help [sic] solve the global water crisis”:

“The scale of the water problem is so big that governments can’t solve it alone. They need the help of the private sector.”

Privatization of water, however, has some serious adversaries.… Read the rest

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7.7 Earthquake Hits Where The World’s Largest Geoengineering Experiment Took Place

By on October 29, 2012 in News 19

Source: USGS

Terry Wilson of the Canadian Awareness Network links the rogue geoengineering project by Russ George to a massive earthquake off the coast of British Columbia:

A 7.7 Earthquake hit the coast of British Columbia on Saturday night, and there has since been as many as 40 aftershocks today. Including one that measured 6.4 in magnitude. The quake sent many residents on the coast, fleeing for higher ground due to tsunami warnings. That where issued as far away as Hawaii.

The Earthquake originated on the island of Haida Gwaii, other wise know as the Queen Charlotte Islands region. The islands are located along the Queen Charlotte Fault, which is an active transform fault that produces significant earthquakes every 3–30 years. (the last major one happening in 1949, that measure 8.1 in magnitude)

As soon as I caught the news of this quake today, the first thing that came to mind was.

… Read the rest

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Precedent Set: $5 a Gallon Gasoline Leads to Easing of Environmental Regulations for Refineries in California

By on October 27, 2012 in News 5

via chycho

“Gasoline closing in on a record $5 a gallon prompted Governor Jerry Brown to direct California regulators to relax smog controls so oil refineries could increase supplies of cheaper fuel… [granting] refineries permission to make an early shift to winter-blend gasoline, typically not sold until after Oct. 31.”

Some have cited problems at refineries for the spike in fuel costs, some have put the blame on a short squeeze, some have suggested that policies and regulations that “insist refiners produce a specific blend of gas to meet tough state air quality standards” are the culprit, while others have been warning us for years of pending higher fuel costs due to peak oil.

Speculation, however, as to the causes of the price spike are a moot point. What matters is the admission by our representatives in government that our current economic system cannot support high oil prices, and that the environment and our health will be sacrificed to keep the machine churning.

… Read the rest

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US Government Hid Damage BP Spill Did to Whales

By on October 25, 2012 in News 2

Picture: NASA (PD)

Suzanne Goldenberg reports for the Guardian:

The images from the summer of 2010 were undoubtedly gruesome: the carcass of a young sperm whale, decayed and partially eaten by sharks, sighted at sea south of the Deepwater Horizon oil well.

It was the first confirmed sighting of a dead whale since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April that year – a time of huge public interest in the fate of whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other threatened animals – and yet US government officials supressed the first reports of the discovery and blocked all images until now.

The photographs, along with a cache of emails obtained by the campaign group Greenpeace under freedom of information provisions and made available to the Guardian, offer a rare glimpse into how many whales came into close contact with the gushing BP well during the oil spill.

… Read the rest

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Chimps Attacking Humans In Revenge For Habitat Destruction?

By on October 16, 2012 in News 42

Does this portend a future war between apes and humanity? Local media in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are interpreting a spate of chimp violence perpetrated against people as motivated by revenge. Via New Scientist:

Habitat loss may be to blame for an apparent spate of violent attacks by chimpanzees on humans in the war-torn eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mistrust of chimpanzees has been heightened by local media reports, which suggest that as many as 10 people have been killed and 17 injured by chimps, in acts that were reported as “revenge attacks” for people encroaching on their territory.

Klaus Zuberbuhler, a psychologist at the University of St Andrews in Fife, UK, and scientific director of the Budongo Conservation Field Station in Uganda, says restricting the chimps’ habitat can certainly affect their behaviour, though it is debatable whether the chimps’ aggression towards humans is a form of revenge.

… Read the rest

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The Pro-Cancer Lobby In Washington D.C.

By on October 8, 2012 in News 9

In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof describes what he terms the “cancer lobby” — how major industry spends millions of dollars to influence Congress in support of carcinogenic chemicals:

Who knew that carcinogens had their own lobby in Washington? Just consider formaldehyde, which is found in everything from nail polish to kitchen countertops, fabric softeners to carpets. Largely because of its use in building materials, we breathe formaldehyde fumes when we’re inside our homes. According to government scientists, it causes cancer.

The chemical industry is working frantically to suppress that scientific consensus — because it fears “public confusion.” Big Chem apparently worries that you might be confused if you learned that formaldehyde caused cancer of the nose and throat, and perhaps leukemia.

The industry’s strategy is to lobby Congress to cut off money for the Report on Carcinogens, a 500-page consensus document published every two years by the National Institutes of Health, containing the best information about what agents cause cancer.

… Read the rest

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Lake Karachay: The Most Toxic Place On Earth

By on October 3, 2012 in News 9

Basement Geographer on a lake in the Russian mountains which may be the single most concentrated spot of environmental desecration:

Imagine a lake so polluted and contaminated that spending just an hour on its shores would result in certain death, and the only way seen fit to deal with it is to fill the entire water body with concrete blocks to keep the toxic soil underneath from moving onshore. That lake is Lake Karachay in Russia’s Chelyabinsk Oblast, and it is considered by many to be the most polluted place on the planet.

Lake Karachay lies within the Mayak Production Association, one of Russia’s largest and oldest nuclear facilities and a major source of plutonium during the Soviet era. Built immediately following World War II, Mayak has been the site of numerous nuclear-related accidents throughout its history, some approaching the size of the Chernobyl meltdown but far more concentrated.

Statistics reveal that by the 1990s, there had been a 21% increase in the incidences of cancer, a 25% increase in birth defects, a 41% increase in leukaemia, and a rendering of 50% of the population of child bearing age sterile in the Mayak region.

… Read the rest

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