» Archive: Environment
March 09, 2006
"Let's put it in the ground instead..."
In an attempt to halt CO2 gases from being released into the climate, Shell and the Norwegian company Statoil plan to use extra CO2 to "raise oil output, curb global warming, and avert a future power crisis in central Norway".
"Under this scheme, Statoil would capture CO2 from a huge, 860-megawatt gas-fired power plant to be built at the company's Tjeldbergodden methanol complex in mid-Norway.
The CO2 would then be piped to Shell's Draugen oilfield off Norway - and later also to Statoil's Heidrun field - and injected into subsea reservoirs, to force oil to the surface."
January 26, 2006
Can you spell 'climate change?'
Weather is wacked but no one wants to say the words 'climate change' too loud.
2005 was the warmest year on recordPeople in shorts in Edmonton this week due to record highs.Winnipeg set to smash 60 year old weather record for January
Dozens die in Europe due to record setting cold snap.
January 25, 2006
Hearings to begin on $7B pipeline
Hearingsbegin on Wednesday in the Northwest Territories to examine the impact of a proposed natural gas pipeline through the Mackenzie Valley.
In 1977, an inquiry led by Justice Thomas Berger killed plans for a similar pipeline. His report recommended a 10-year moratorium on pipeline construction while native land claims are settled, and a permanent ban on any pipeline from Alaska across the northern Yukon
The current proposal includes three of the four aboriginal groups in the Mackenzie Valley as part-owners of the pipeline with oil giant Imperial Oil.
December 16, 2005
Activists' destruction of GM crops was justified: French court
In a judgement expected to send a chill through companies growing genetically modified (GM) crops in Europe and embolden their opponents, a French court acquitted 49 activists who destroyed GM plants after ruling their actions were justified.
December 15, 2005
Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica, say scientists
Science articles in Wikipedia, the free online resource, are about as accurate as those in Encyclopedia Britannica, Nature magazine says.The British publication had independent reviewers assess the accuracy of 42 pairs of articles from both encyclopedias.
Novices, experts and professionals all voluntarily submit or edit articles for Wikipedia. Britannica, meanwhile, charges for content and pays staff to research and write articles in the established resource.
November 28, 2005
Kyoto Talks in Montréal
I have trouble getting excited about the talks about the implementation of the Kyoto protocol, which are being held in Montréal. The international press doesn't share my trouble.
But the fact is, everyone is either behind, or way behind, on meeting the targets of the Kyoto protocol. The meetings will, as far as I can tell, be about political wrangling over how little various countries can get away with cutting. There will be thousands of people protesting the lack of reductions. But for all the complicated games, it reduces to the bottom line: will the planet reduce emissions enough, or will it not?
The outlook is grim. But what makes the meetings that much less interesting is that the degree to which things have already been decided far exceeds the degree to which it is possible for them to change over the course of the meetings.
Am I wrong? Will a big international meeting of leaders and bureaucrats come up with an unprecedented result? I'd be happy to be surprised.
November 11, 2005
UN warns on Iraq environment fate
The UN Environment Program has trained Iraqi specialists in detoxification, but says any clean-up could cost up to $40m (£23m).
Chemical spills, unsecured hazardous material and widespread pollution by depleted uranium are among the issues.
Among the five sites already probed are a metal plating facility at al-Qadyissa that was bombed, looted and then demolished in 2003.
Several tons of cyanide remain on the site, which is now an unsecured area used as a playground by local children.
"There are hundreds, probably thousands of other sites with the need of assessment," said Mural Thummarukudy, Unep's manager in Iraq, who appealed for donations.
November 10, 2005
Toxic Shock
Study released today tested volunteers from across Canada for 88 chemicals believed to be carcinogenic, to disrupt reproduction and hormonal function and interfere with fetal development. Researchers found that, on average, participants had a cocktail of 44 in their bodies.
Dr. Kapil Khatter, head of Canadian Physicians for the Environment, said what angers him is how little control individuals have over their exposure: "We don't have the choice to avoid things coming of smokestacks and getting into our food and water and things in consumer products we don't know about."
The most polluted individual in the study turned out to be David Masty, chief of the Whapmagoostui First Nation, a Cree community in northern Quebec. A total of 51 chemicals was found in his blood, as well as some of the highest levels of heavy metals, lending more credence to the belief that toxic pollutants are accumulating in Canada's North.
November 02, 2005
NDP Premier interested in selling uranium to Chinese
NDP Premier Lorne Calvert says he's interested in selling Saskatchewan uranium to China and wouldn't rule out storing nuclear waste here.
China wants to build dozens of nuclear power plants over the next 15 years to meet its soaring power demands
Factory Hog Farm Closes, Community Victorious
A controversial factory hog farm in Ste-Marie-de-Kent has closed after six years, leaving behind more than three million gallons of manure.
The Metz farm near Bouctouche, New Brunwick surrendered its license to operate five months ago.
For years, neighbours have complained that manure from the farm's 10,000 hogs made it difficult to breathe and hurt the area's tourism trade.
Locals also worried that the manure, which neighouring farmers spread on their fields, would pollute their water table and endanger wildlife.
Community groups rallied against the farm and the provincial government for allowing it to exist.
Provincial Agriculture spokesman Alain Bryar says the farm owners have left behind a lagoon of liquid manure. He says the company has until May to get rid of it.
October 25, 2005
With This Ring I Thee Bled
A great article was printed in the New York Times today on the impacts of gold mining:
In the early 1500's, King Ferdinand of Spain laid down the priorities as his conquistadors set out for the New World. "Get gold," he told them, "Humanely if possible, but at all costs, get gold."
I guess Canadian mining companies didn't hear the second part:
This month a Philippine province sued the world's fifth-largest gold company, Canada-based Placer Dome, charging that it had ruined a river, bay and coral reef by dumping enough waste to fill a convoy of trucks that would circle the globe three times.
October 13, 2005
2005 Set To Be The Warmest Year - EVER
New international climate data show that 2005 is on track to be the hottest year on record, continuing a 25-year trend of rising global temperatures.
In response to recent warming in the Arctic, a coalition of environmental groups said it plans to sue the Interior Department to force it to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because the sea ice they depend on is disappearing
Glacier's retreat exposes radioactive rock
Good to hear climate change is helping out mining companies.
A melting glacier along the Yukon-N.W.T. border has uncovered a potential uranium deposit in the mountainous region.Mining company officials have known for decades that there was radioactive material in the central Yukon. Twenty-five years ago, prospectors with geiger counters found uranium-rich boulders scattered at the foot of a glacier in the Werneke Mountains.
A drill rig was set up on the ice and attempts were made to drill exploration holes into the rocks below.
However, Basil Botha, president of Cash Minerals, says the moving glacier ice snapped the drills off at the ground.
"Once you got through the ice flow into the rock that was it," he says.
Botha says his company is getting ready to spend millions of dollars on new drilling now that melting ice has retreated to expose the former drill sites.
"We'll we'll go back next year and our budget next year is $2 million," he says.
In addition to uranium, Botha's company is also developing coal deposits in the Yukon
October 10, 2005
Everest
Chinese scientists have found that Mount Everest is 12 feet shorter than previously believed.
October 07, 2005
Montreal To Host International Climate Negotiations
Montreal will host the 11th Annual United Nations Climate Change Conference from November 28 to December 9, 2005. According to Canada's Environment Minister and the meeting's chair, Stéphane Dion
"Humanity must emerge from the 21st century having learned to control its impact on the climate. The Montreal Conference on Climate will be a turning point: it will allow the process of identifying the post-2012 international regime to get off on the right foot.”Whether talk will turn to action remains to be seen. Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by the period between 2008 and 2012 Canada's emissions are now 20% higher than what they were in 1990.
April 14, 2005
Peak Oil
With a flurry of attention in recent weeks (due in no small measure to the skyrocketting price of gas), it seems the concept of "peak oil" is finally beginning to enter the public consciousness in a big way. James Howard Kunstler lays out the prospects in the latest issue of Rolling Stone:
Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychology, famously remarked that "people cannot stand too much reality." What you're about to read may challenge your assumptions about the kind of world we live in, and especially the kind of world into which events are propelling us. We are in for a rough ride through uncharted territory.
Kunstler is writing for an American audience, but there is little in what he says that doesn't apply to Canadians as well -- especially given our dependence on natural gas to heat our homes for much of the year.
April 03, 2005
Mad as a hatter
Mercury poisoning is much more common than you may expect. Sure, we know not to eat certain types of fish, and maybe we'll start asking more questions about the fillings in our teeth, but The International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology provides a wealth of information that you just may want to bookmark and read up on over time.
This movie from U of Calgary is a quick demonstration of "How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Degeneration".
July 05, 2004
Muzzlin' to pay for the Guzzlin'
Guardian: "French drivers who favour large, gas-guzzling cars will have to pay up to €3,500 (£2,300) more for a new model from next January under a radical green road tax scheme unveiled by the environment ministry."
Toxic emissions increased by 5% in the US. Getting better all the time... di dum dum dum...
The Bush administration has tightened control over scientists that are employed by the government.
Arundhati Roy: "The fundamental difference between the Congress and the BJP is that one is an overtly fascist party, proudly fascist. It doesn’t feel bad if you call it that. The culture to which the BJP’s big leaders subscribe to openly admires Hitler. The Congress really was the party that opened India up to the whole neo-liberal regime. But the BJP has come in and taken it much further, to absurd levels. Today, we have a situation in which 40 percent of rural India has food absorption levels lower than sub-Saharan Africa. You have the biggest rural income divide ever seen in history. You have millions of tons of food grain rotting while starvation deaths are announced all over. The government imports food grain and milk and sugar and all of these things while Indian farmers are committing suicide not in the hundreds now, but the figures have moved into the thousands. "
January 02, 2004
Global Dimming?!
Guardian: "Ohmura's results suggested that levels of solar radiation striking the Earth's surface had declined by more than 10% in three decades. Sunshine, it seemed, was on the way out."
November 18, 2003
My name is Moofius.
Matrix: Revolutions sucked, but The Meatrix communicates some basic facts about industrial farms in an entertaining format.
October 29, 2003
Buy Nothing for Christmas
Christmas is one of the most stressful times of the year. An orgy of consumerism fueled by some unwritten, inexplicable obligation to spend money on 'things'. Christmas has devolved into an obligation, a competition.
This Christmas why not buy nothing?
Buying nothing is too radical a step for most but there are alternatives: make something; ask for one gift purchased with pooled money - a gift you actually want and will use; give a proxy gift by contributing to charity in the recipients name. Or, buy nothing.
October 10, 2003
Flames And Poisons
The Georgia Straight (Vancouver) uncovered the fact that an ingredient in the forest fire retardant chemical Firetrol, when mixed with water and UV light, is highly toxic.
"Millions Of Litres Of Fire Retardant Fell On B.C. Forests in 2003...In addition to B.C., Firetrol is used to fight forest fires in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, the Yukon, and Northwest Territories."
September 27, 2003
Polar Ice Break-ups
Just over a year ago, North America's news agencies were reporting a huge chunk of the Ross ice shelf in the Antarctic was breaking up. It was part of a pattern of receding ice in the Antarctic.
In recent years, the escalating number of massive icebergs breaking free from the continent has raised concerns that temperatures are steadily warming in the Antarctic region.
At that point there were still nay-sayers.
Yesterday, similar reports were coming from areas in the Arctic.
There is almost universal consensus that the results of Global Warming are real. All but the most willfully blind nay-sayers have retreated into obscurity. Some of our politicians still reject (pdf) the theory and the only global weapon we have to limit the effects: Kyoto.
September 19, 2003
Car that Runs on Compressed Air
In the late 90's, Mr. Guy Negre (a former F1 engineer) invented a car that runs on compressed air. He has since started up the company Zero Pollution Motors to help build and sell his e.Volution vehicles. As of 2003 they have 40 running prototypes and hope to begin crash testing for Europe and America at the end of 2003. MDI has already sold 32 small factories, the Mexican government has signed up to buy 40,000 to replace their gas and diesel taxis in Mexico City, and there is a lot of interest in Brazil, South Africa, and Spain.
Zero Pollution Motors has developed 5 different models, including a family car, a van, and a pickup. Using the home air compressor it takes 4 hours to fill the air tanks, however, at a super-high speed compressed air station this will only take 3 minutes. Each car can go 200 - 300 km on a tank of air, with a top speed of 100 km/hr. The estimated price is approximately $17,000.00 Canadian (72,000 francs).
August 07, 2003
Climate Change Accelerating?
The Age (Australia): Heatwave sparks greenhouse alarm
The heatwave could be consistent "with a worst-case scenario (of global warming) that nobody wants to come true", said Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief scientific adviser to the German Government and now head of Britain's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall centre.
July 10, 2003
U of Manitoba Study on GM Wheat
CBC News: A University of Manitoba study warns against planting genetically modified wheat because it poses an "unacceptable risk" to the environment...if the wheat was "grown under unconfined conditions…the trait would move from wheat crop to wheat crop."