Thursday, May 23rd
Last update03:53:19 AM GMT
Environmental Glance
Dear Dr. Shah: We the undersigned doctors, public health advocates, citizen leaders and residents of Pennsylvania, share your belief that health care is an ecosystem—which was to be the topic of your now-cancelled public lecture today.
Bereft of any concern comparable to that shown by the Governor of New York and by you, we are in crisis, subject to a wholesale onslaught by the unconventional gas drilling industry.
Melting sea ice, exposing huge parts of the ocean to the atmosphere, explains extreme weather both hot and cold.
Climate scientists have linked the massive snowstorms and bitter spring weather now being experienced across Britain and large parts of Europe and North America to the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice.
Nearly 2m homes in the UK will be heated by shale gas from the US within five years, under a deal agreed on Monday that is likely to be the first time major exports of the controversial energy source are used in the UK.
The US government has kept a tight rein on exports since the shale gas boom started more than five years ago. But the deal struck by energy company Centrica marks the start of a new era in gas use in the UK, because it opens up the market to cheap supplies from the US, as North Sea gas fields run out and pipelines to Europe remain expensive.
The neighborhood looks exceedingly normal: single-family homes and apartment buildings packed together, dogs barking from postage-stamp-size lawns, parents hustling down narrow sidewalks to fetch their children from school. But something with very dangerous potential lies below the surface, officials say.
The residents' toenails will provide confirmation.
A plume of hexavalent chromium, a metal used in industrial production that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls a "well-established carcinogen," has spread under Garfield, putting about one-tenth of the city's homes — about 600 structures and 3,600 residents — at risk.
A Chevron fuel spill near a northern Utah bird refuge is much worse than originally thought as up to 27,000 gallons might have leaked, authorities said.
A split in a pipeline that runs from Salt Lake City to Spokane, Wash., is suspected of releasing diesel fuel into soil and marshes at Willard Bay State Park, according to the U.S. Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
An unidentified “liquid natural-gas product” is flowing freely into the shallow ground near a creekside gas processing plant in rural western Colorado. After 11 days of cleanup operations and investigations, the source and precise contents of the toxic spill remain a mystery.
Officials at Williams Energy, the presumed culprit in the spill, have not been able to locate the source of the leak, so they have been unable to staunch the flow of underground pollution that is threatening to contaminate Parachute Creek.
At 8:30 p.m. this Saturday the Sydney Opera House will go dark. Soon after, the Great Wall of China, the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, Christ the Redeemer, the Empire State Building and countless others will follow suit. But if you notice any partial blackouts this weekend, fear not. The symbolic gesture simply marks each nation’s commitment to sustainability in 2013 in honor of Earth Hour.
Organizers of the annual event expect more than 7,000 cities and towns across 152 countries and territories on all seven continents to participate this year, including newcomers like Tunisia, Palestine, Galapagos, Suriname, French Guyana, Rwanda and the most remote island in the world: St. Helena.
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