Evidence Continues to Mount for Ticking ‘Methane Time Bomb’ – Common Dreams staff New research that utilized both ground-based measurements and aerial surveys in specific sub-arctic regions in Alaska and Greenland has discovered approximately 150,000 ‘methane seeps’ – a phenomenon where methane gas previously held in the frozen permafrost beneath tundras or under arctic sea [...]
Red dust blown in from Australia‘s parched interior blankets Sydney in 2009. Australia and its region are experiencing the hottest 60 years in a millennium, scientists have determined. Photograph: Greg Wood/AFP/Getty link to article http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/may/17/australasia-hottest-60-years-study The last 60 years have been the hottest in Australasia for a millennium and cannot be explained by natural causes, according [...]
Over One Million Say Shell No! to Arctic Drilling – Common Dreams staff Environmental groups delivered over a million signatures to the White House today demanding President Obama stop Shell’s plans for oil drilling in the Arctic. “President Obama has a small window to stop Shell from spoiling the Arctic, and that’s exactly what people [...]
Anti-whaling ‘Sea Shepard’ Captain, Activist Arrested – Common Dreams staff The environmental activist organization Sea Shepherd said their founder Captain Paul Watson has been detained in Frankfurt, Germany in response to a Costa Rican extradition warrant for “violating ships traffic”. Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd environmental group (Photo: Albert Olive/EPA)In 2002 Watson’s ship intercepted a [...]
Climate change impacts for Northwest NSW The Climate Commission has released an climate change impact statement for New England and Northwest NSW. The impact statement accompanies The Critical Decade report and highlights key climate change impacts and opportunities for the New England/Northwest NSW region, which are: Koala nutrition may be impacted by climate change. Photo credit: Tourism Australia [...]
Photo Credit: Shutterstock/mostafa fawzy How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education Student research is often dictated by corporations that endow professorships, give money to universities, and put their executives on education boards. May 11, 2012 | Here’s what happens when corporations begin to control education. “When I approached professors [...]
Permaculture Visionary: “We Don’t Need to Wait for Permission” to Transform Our Societies Saturday, 12 May 2012 00:00By Brianne Goodspeed, Truthout | Interview Four years ago, a British educator and permaculturist named Rob Hopkins initiated what has since become one of the most rapidly evolving and far-reaching social experiments of our [...]
(Photo: Mona Caron)In case after case around the world, water is being turned into a good for sale and for profit. Driven by a different vision and by economic necessity, a global counter-trend is growing to assure that household water be free or cheap, accessible, and safe, and that the earth’s water be kept pure [...]
Report: Fracking Wastewater Disposal Methods Leave Environment, Public Health at Risk New report from NRDC shows national implications for Pennsylvania‘s risky fracking wastewater practices – Common Dreams staff A report released Wednesday from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) shows that the five main ways of dealing with wastewater from fracking leave public health and the environment [...]
Seaplex researchers Matt Durham and Miriam Goldstein encounter netting and plastic in the Pacific. (Photograph: Scripps Institution of Oceanography)Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography looked at the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG), known as the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch,’ and found an “alarming amount” of plastic trash, much in small bits. Plastic [...]
Global Corporations Undermining Democracy Worldwide by Isolda Agazzi GENEVA – In a world where governments are increasingly subservient to global finance capital, multinationals are gaining ground in the fight against state regulations that aim to protect the environment, public health or social policies. Instead of Chevron paying for its pollution of the indigenous lands in [...]
New Study Predicts Frack Fluids Can Migrate to Aquifers Within Years by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica A new study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected into the ground could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly than experts have previously predicted. “The [...]
Debris from the Japan tsunami pictured floating in the Pacific. Experts say debris will start coming ashore in North America sooner than thought. Photograph: Ho New / Reuters/REUTERS Wreckage from Japan‘s tsunami – fishing gear and furniture, footballs and ships – has swept across the Pacific far faster than expected, with thousands of tonnes projected to [...]
The kingdom of Bhutan does not measure GDP growth, but ‘gross national happiness‘ [GALLO/GETTY] New Delhi, India - The economic crisis, the ecological crisis and the food crisis are a reflection of an outmoded and fossilised economic paradigm – a paradigm that grew out of mobilising resources for the war by creating the category of economic “growth” [...]
What is climate change? Climate change is what happens when greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide and methane) trap more heat in the earth’s surface. The earth is naturally insulated by the gases in the atmosphere, which for tens of thousands of years have kept the earth’s temperature relatively stable. [...]
Growing up, Falling in Love Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 The AP story on military maneuvers in the Arctic reads like the gleeful report of a mugging. “To the world’s military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War [...]
Stop the Holocaust of Migrating Birds by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez Lately I have been sitting with the brooding knowledge that at least 7 million migrating songbirds were killed this spring running the gauntlet of 84,000 American communication towers that rise as high as 2,000 feet into the sky, braced by invisible guy wires that garotte the birds [...]
“Time is life.”“As alert citizen groups are pointing out,” writes Korten, “the proposals being advanced would result in the ultimate commodification and financialization of nature for the short-term benefit of the same global profiteers who created the mortgage bubble that brought down much of the global economy in 2008.” With these three words, Karma Tshiteem, [...]
World population will reach 9 billion by 2050. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images World population needs to be stabilised quickly and high consumption in rich countries rapidly reduced to avoid “a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills”, warns a major report from the Royal Society. Contraception must be offered to all women who want it and consumption cut [...]
Why Is Autism So Drastically on the Rise? An Environmental Horror Story An investigation into the relationship between environmental poisons and human health is riveting — and terrifying. April 23, 2012 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ? Join our mailing list: Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email. If horror [...]
Fishing boats lie abandoned in oil-polluted water near Bodo, Nigeria. (Photo: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty)Shell’s official investigation had greatly under-reported the spill, claiming that only 1,640 barrels of oil were spilled in total. Shell’s Wildly Inaccurate Reporting of Niger Delta Oil Spill Exposed Spill 60 times bigger than Shell maintains – Common Dreams staff [...]
Arctic Methane in Vicious Cycle of Global Warming: Study More methane emissions lead to more warming, and more warming leads to more methane emissions – Common Dreams staff As the Arctic warms due to global warming, the Arctic Ocean itself may be releasing vast amounts of methane, contributing to even more global warming, according to [...]
(Photo: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Reto Stöckli)We live in a vast universe made up of billions of galaxies, each of which is made up of billions of stars. Our home is a small planet that revolves around a small sun in a remote galaxy. It is just the right distance from the sun so that it is not too [...]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 20, 2012 4:36 PM CONTACT: Greenpeace Washington DC: (202) 462-1177 San Francisco: (415) 255-9221 The 5 important Lessons Not Learnt from Deepwater Horizon WASHINGTON – April 20 – The second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster is upon us – and looking at the lessons the oil industry got from it, you’d [...]
(photo: Birmingham Friends of the Earth) Published on Sunday, April 22, 2012 by Informed Comment Earth Day Means Nothing If We Don’t Limit Carbon Emissions by Juan Cole The first observance of Earth Day was March 21, 1970. I was 17, and along with other students at Broad Run High School, went out with garbage bags [...]
Spanish King Juan Carlos leaves San Jose hospital after breaking his hip on a hunting expedition. Spain’s king says sorry for Africa hunting trip By Barnaby Phillips in Europe on Thu, 2012-04-19 17:27. A rather bashful King of Spain says he is “sorry” he went on a hunting trip in Botswana this week. News of the trip [...]
When We Grow Up, We Will Fall in Love with Earth by Robert C. Koehler The AP story on military maneuvers in the Arctic reads like the gleeful report of a mugging. “To the world’s military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War [...]
A dead dolphin marked with spray paint on Queen Bess Island at the mouth of Barataria Bay in 2010. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP Deepwater Horizon aftermath: how much is a dolphin worth? Two years after the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, BP and US authorities wrangle over how much should be paid in damages Suzanne Goldenberg, US [...]
Idaho Fire Photograph by Mark Thiessen Fire can have different effects in different kinds of forests. Some species, like the lodgepole pine, use the extreme heat of large fires to release their seeds. Other species, like the ponderosa pines seen burning in this aerial shot of an Idaho fire, need frequent but more mild, low-level [...]
New York Post Hyped Fracking Over 20 Times Since January 2011, Rarely Mentions Risks The New York Post, the New York-based daily newspaper run by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., has published 21 opinion pieces on the controversial process of natural gas extraction called hydraulic fracturing (or ‘fracking’) since January 1, 2011.* Many of the op-eds [...]
Photo Credit: mydphotos The Human Cancer Risks Posed by Extreme Fossil Fuel Extraction We cancer survivors, who know something about the fragility of life, hereby declare that the exchange of life-giving water for death-dealing fossil fuel is unacceptable. April 17, 2012 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ? Join our mailing list: Sign up to stay up to [...]
Photo Credit: Public Citizen 6 Scary Extreme Energy Sources Being Tapped to Fuel the Post Peak Oil Economy Think of this as taking fracking to the next level so that we can continue to speed along on our highway to hell — peak oil, and the earth, be damned. April 15, 2012 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE [...]
Dahr Jamail: BP Oil Disaster Ongoing After Two Years TALK NATION RADIO http://davidswanson.org/node/3648 Dahr Jamail has covered the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico for two years. He reports on massive environmental and economic damage and on oil continuing to enter these damaged waters. Jamail is [...]
Obama Echoes Bush, Sets Plan for Polar Bear Extinction “President Obama’s proposal for these magnificent and imperiled animals is a gift to Big Oil“ – Common Dreams staff The Obama Administration issued a proposed rule yesterday that disregards the effects of greenhouse gases on polar bear habitat leading one conservation group to say that the [...]
Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists Eyeless shrimp and fish with lesions are becoming common, with BP oil pollution believed to be the likely cause. Dahr Jamail New Orleans, LA - “The fishermen have never seen anything like this,” Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. “And in my 20 years working [...]
The environment and climate patterns have long been topics of conversation and discussion. From the cordial greeting to more serious research there has been a long tradition of viewing the environment as something fixed or unchangeable all part of what is often called mother nature. Since we all live iin the same [...]
An oil rig reflected in a fracking pond on the Giddings Estate, a 10,000-acre field in near Midland, Texas, owned by Pioneer Natural Resources, February 15, 2012. (Photo: Jim Wilson / The New York Times)A coalition of local and environmental organizations including 350.org - the impetus behind the Keystone XL pipeline tar sandsprotests - are turning the [...]
Scraping the Bottom By John Feffer We are all trust fund babies living off the wealth of our ancestors. I’m not talking Mommy and Daddy. I’m talking Barney. That cuddly T-Rex and all his dinosaur friends, along with those giant ferns and tiny trilobites, died millions of years ago only [...]
A satellite image of the Pacific Ocean (Image: Earthmap)”The 1990s peak is most likely indicative of human-induced climate change,” said Patrick Moss, a scientist from the University of Queensland. “Any drastic changes from the norm, which persist for several decades and over a wide area, represent important climate signals.” * * * Study: Historic Rise [...]
Daybreak over Gasherbrum IV on the Baltoro glacier in the Karakoram range of the Himalayas. Photograph: Ed Darack/Corbis The glaciers are still shrinking – and rapidly A couple of glaciers shrinking more slowly than expected does not change the irrefutable fact that most are melting rapidly Jonathan Bamber guardian.co.uk, Sunday 15 April 2012 18.00 BST Article [...]
Moving the global economy off its current decline-and-collapse path depends on reaching four goals: stabilizing climate, stabilizing population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the economy’s natural support systems.poverty, and restoring the economy’s natural support systems. These goals – comprising what the Earth Policy Institute calls ‘Plan B’ to save civilization – are mutually dependent. [...]
Shell Hell in Nigeria As We Ruin Our Kids’ Planet, They Take Us to Court By David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/we-ruin-our-kids-planet-they-take-us-court Here in the land of the free lunch and the home of the instant gratification, most people make a huge deal out of children’s rights or fetuses’ rights, or occasionally both. Which is [...]
Honeybees fill a hive at Golden Angels Apiary in Singers Glen, Va., last month. Though colony collapse disorder has not affected Valley beekeepers, local hives are still susceptible to a variety of dangers, like neonicotinoids, an insecticide thought to attack the insects’ central nervous system. Michael Reilly/Daily News-Record/AP Studies fault Bayer in bee die-off A corn pesticide manufactured [...]
Burping cows have become the comic relief of the global warming debate, but livestock emissions are no laughing matter. Every year, the world’s 1.2 billion ruminants produce 80 million tonnes of methane, or 28 per cent of global methane emissions. Just one grazing dairy cow belches around 600 litres per day. Methane [...]
A seismograph monitoring an earthquake. (Photo: Bill McKay / Flickr)A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) team has found that a sharp jump in earthquakes in America’s heartland appears to be linked to oil and natural gas drilling operations. Scientists: Increase in US Earthquakes Almost Certainly Manmade Saturday, 07 April 2012 09:22By Joe Romm, ThinkProgress | Report As hydraulic fracturing has [...]
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) Are America’s Nukes on the Brink of Death? by Harvey Wasserman link http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/05-1 The only two US reactor projects now technically under construction are on the brink of death for financial reasons. If they go under, there will almost certainly be no new reactors built here. The much mythologized “nuclear renaissance” [...]
Marine energy companies such as Pelamis, the manufacturer of this wave ‘snake’, could win a share of a new £20m government prize announced on Thursday. Photograph: Pelamis £20m wave energy competition unveiled The prize money will be shared between two winners, who will develop the first wave and tidal devices to sit in array formation [...]
Tomgram: Bill McKibben, How You Subsidize the Energy Giants to Wreck the Planet Posted by Bill McKibben at 9:20am, April 5, 2012. Just in case you’re running for national office, here are a few basic stats to orient you when you hit Washington (thanks to the invaluable Open Secrets website of the Center for Responsive [...]
Avoiding the Next Arctic Oil Disaster Exxon‘s Valdez disaster had ruinous and enduring impacts. We could be close to catastrophe again. March 29, 2012 | link http://www.alternet.org/water/154766/avoiding_the_next_arctic_oil_disaster Twenty-three years ago, the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef and spilled over 11 million gallons of oil into the pristine waters and rich fishing [...]
The global water justice movement is perhaps one of the best examples of a social movement that grew out of local water struggles into a transnational network aimed at promoting strategies of solidarity and resistance to neoliberalism. The World Water Forum and the Resistance Against the Corporate Takeover of Water Activists held an alternative to [...]
