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Activists Worry About Oil Spill Due to North Sea Platform Gas Leak

Mon, 2012-04-16 15:47 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

This is an undated handout photo issued by Total E&P UK Ltd of Total's Elgin PUQ (Process/Utilities/Quarters) platform. (AP/TOTAL E&P UK Ltd.)

Associated Press - foxnews.com - March 29, 2012

EDINBURGH, Scotland –  Environmental groups warned Thursday they fear an oil spill could be triggered at a North Sea offshore platform that has been leaking highly pressurized gas since the weekend.

A flame is still burning in the stack above the Elgin platform, which stands about 150 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, eastern Scotland, after a leak of flammable gas Sunday-- prompting all 238 staff to be evacuated on Monday.

Platform operator Total S.A. insists there is no threat of any explosion under current weather conditions, but said that surveillance flights have detected a sheen around the platform estimated to extend over 1.85 square miles.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)


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Looking Back on the Limits of Growth

Wed, 2012-04-11 21:55 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

Chart Sources: Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and Behrens III, W.W. (1972) /  Linda Eckstein

by Mark Strauss - Smithsonian Magazine - April 2012

Recent research supports the conclusions of a controversial environmental study released 40 years ago: The world is on track for disaster. So says Australian physicist Graham Turner, who revisited perhaps the most groundbreaking academic work of the 1970s,The Limits to Growth.

Written by MIT researchers for an international think tank, the Club of Rome, the study used computers to model several possible future scenarios. The business-as-usual scenario estimated that if human beings continued to consume more than nature was capable of providing, global economic collapse and precipitous population decline could occur by 2030.

(GO TO THE SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE ARTICLE)

Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update

The Club of Rome

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Building Resilience in African Nations is Paramount to Development

Mon, 2012-04-09 16:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

STUTTGART, Germany - Nancy Lindborg, assistant administrator for USAID's Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA), addresses staff of U.S. Africa Command, March 30, 2012, as part of the Command Speaker Series. Lindborg talked about USAID's efforts in Africa and discussed how U.S. AFRICOM can better work with the interagency organization to achieve common objectives. (U.S. AFRICOM photo by Danielle Skinner)

submitted by Samuel Bendett

U.S. AFRICOM Public Affairs - by Danielle Skinner

STUTTGART, Germany, Apr 3, 2012 — In developing countries experiencing chronic crises, such as those in the Horn of Africa, disaster risk reduction is often just as important, if not more so, than humanitarian response and recovery, according to a senior official from U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

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Pesticides to Blame for Bee-Colony Collapse

Sun, 2012-04-08 17:47 — Kathy Gilbeaux

A bee is seen sitting on a Marigold flower in a field of a private plantation near the village of Pishchalovo, about 220 km (138 miles) east of Minsk in this July 18, 2011 file photogaph.  Credit: Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko/Files

(LINKS TO THE 3 STUDIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST)

SEATTLE TIMES - A new study released yesterday, and two published last week, strengthen the case that neonicotinoid pesticides are key drivers behind declining bee populations — alone and especially in combination with other stressors. This class of pesticides covers 143 million acres of U.S. countryside, and more damning studies are awaiting publication. (Read this article in link below)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/northwestvoices/2017923620_beeslet.html

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Clinton Sees ‘Goldmines’ in Methane Emission Curbs to Fight Climate Change

Mon, 2012-04-02 23:21 — Kathy Gilbeaux

by Alexander Ragir and Joao Oliveira - bloomberg.com - June 1, 2011

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton urged cities and the World Bank to work on curbing methane emissions from landfills and charcoal, saying those steps first would buy time in the fight against global warming.

Politicians may need years to work out a way to limit the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels, and it would cheaper and quicker to focus on other gases first, Clinton said at the C40 meeting of mayors from the world’s largest cities in Sao Paulo today. Methane has 25 times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide, also known as CO2.

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Gulf's Dolphins Pay Heavy Price for Deepwater Oil Spill

Sat, 2012-03-31 23:55 — Kathy Gilbeaux

A study of bottlenose dolphins in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, showed that many of the marine mammals were suffering from lung and liver disease. Photograph: Alamy

by Peter Beaumont - guardian.co.uk - March 31, 2012

New studies show impact of BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster on dolphins and other marine wildlife may be far worse than feared.

A new study of dolphins living close to the site of North America's worst ever oil spill – the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe two years ago – has established serious health problems afflicting the marine mammals.

The report, commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA], found that many of the 32 dolphins studied were underweight, anaemic and suffering from lung and liver disease, while nearly half had low levels of a hormone that helps the mammals deal with stress as well as regulating their metabolism and immune systems.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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Fukushima Reactor Water Level Shallower Than Thought

Tue, 2012-03-27 23:19 — Kathy Gilbeaux

yomiuri.co.jp - March 28, 2012

The water level in the containment vessel of the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is only about 60 centimeters deep, far shallower than previously assumed levels of about four meters, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.

The lower-than-expected water level was discovered for the first time when the power utility used an industrial endoscope to check the crippled reactor's interior on Monday, TEPCO said.

According to some experts, it is possible that nuclear fuel that melted through the reactor's pressure vessel and accumulated on the bottom of the containment vessel in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami may not be completely covered in the water.

TEPCO said the water temperature in the vessel remained relatively low within a range of 48.5 C to 50 C. The discovery of the unexpectedly shallow water level will not affect TEPCO's judgment that the reactor is in a state of "cold shutdown."

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120327006202.htm

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Insights from Past Millennia into Climatic Impacts on Human Health and Survival

Tue, 2012-03-27 11:20 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Janine Rees

      

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov - by A. J. McMichael - National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia.

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Antimicrobial Resistance in the European Union and the World

Fri, 2012-03-16 23:42 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization

The EU’s contributions to the solutions of the global antimicrobial resistance problem Keynote address at the conference on Combating antimicrobial resistance: time for action
Copenhagen, Denmark

14 March 2012

Your Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary, excellencies, distinguished delegates, experts, representatives of regulatory authorities, agencies for disease control, and civil society, ladies and gentlemen,

You are meeting to explore what EU Member States can do to solve what you rightly recognize as a serious, growing, and global threat to health.

Drug-resistant pathogens are notorious globe-trotters. They travel well in infected air passengers and through global trade in food. In addition, the growth of medical tourism has accelerated the international spread of hospital-acquired infections that are frequently resistant to multiple drugs.

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Dwindling Resources Trigger Global Land Rush

Thu, 2012-03-15 22:57 — Kathy Gilbeaux

       

Caudalosa workers clean up mining tailings in Peru's Opamayo River. - Credit:Milagros Salazar/IPS

by Stephen Leahy - ipsnews.net

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Mar 1, 2012 (IPS) - A global scramble for land and mineral resources fuelled by billions of investment dollars is threatening the last remaining wilderness and critical ecosystems, destroying communities and contaminating huge volumes of fresh water, warned environmental groups in London Wednesday.

No national park, delicate ecosystem or community is off limits in the voracious hunt for valuable metals, minerals and fossil fuels, said the Gaia Foundation’s report, "Opening Pandora's Box". The intensity of the hunt and exploitation is building to a fever pitch despite the fact the Earth is already overheated and humanity is using more than can be sustained, the 56-page report warns.

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