Environment

Geek.com | Our atmosphere is filling up with CO₂ and we seem to be the major cause of that. The generally accepted solution seems to be cutting back on emissions as quickly as possible, but implementing such cuts is problematic because everyone has to agree to do more, which essentially ends up costing a lot of time and money.

BBC | The Canadian government has been accused of "muzzling" its scientists.  Speakers at a major science meeting being held in Canada said communication of vital research on health and environment issues is being suppressed.  But one Canadian government department approached by the BBC said it held the communication of science as a priority.

Science Daily | In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth's melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise.  Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica.

TG Daily | Pestalotiopsis microspora, found in the jungles of Ecuador, can digest polyurethane - which often currently ends up in landfill and takes generations to decay.  Burning polyurethane  releases toxins as well as carbon dioxide; and, while it can be recycled, it frequently isn't.

Physorg | The study, spearheaded by the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory in collaboration with NOAA, looked into the aftermath of the 2007 Cusco Busan spill, when that tanker hit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and spilled 54,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the bay.

Cracked.com | If we told you there was a leak of radioactive material in your basement, you'd get the hell out of that house. You'd probably get the hell out of that town. We've learned the hard way that you have to respect anything that upsets a Geiger counter.

The Atlantic | In last week's issue of the journal Science, Andrew Lawler gives a lengthy report on the forgotten city of Cahokia. For a while now archaeologists have known about this Native American settlement beneath modern East St. Louis, but many believed it was what Lawler calls a "seasonal encampment."

The Australian | In defending a lawsuit from a Fukushima Prefecture golf club, lawyers said the radioactive cesium that had blighted the Sunfield Nihonmatsu golf course's fairways and greens was the club's problem. The utility has taken a similarly hard line defending claims from ryokan (inn) and onsen (spa) owners.

Activist Post | To those of you who have been eager to hear the latest news concerning the potential release of genetically modified mosquitoes – here it is.  It turns out that the genetically modified mosquitoes could be released into the U.S. environment as early as January of 2012.

Financial Post | Contamination of a major western Canadian river basin from oil sands operations is a “high-profile concern” for downstream communities and wildlife, says a newly-released “secret” presentation prepared last spring by Environment Canada that highlighted numerous warnings about the industry’s growing footprint on land, air, water and the climate.

Huffington Post | Dr. Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland, outlined the scenario to news.com.au. Betelgeuse, one of the night sky's brightest stars, is losing mass, indicating it is collapsing. It could run out of fuel and go super-nova at any time.

BBC | Chevron said it had underestimated the pressure of underwater oil deposits while drilling, causing oil to rush up the bore hole and seep into the surrounding seabed.  Brazilian regulators said 416,400 litres had leaked since the accident happened almost two weeks ago.  Chevron said the leak had now been plugged.

The Atlantic | It's easy to miss the Podponics headquarters on Ponce de Leon Avenue. We breezed right by before company co-founder Dan Backhaus came out to the curb to wave us in. To look at their setup--six rust-colored, graffitied shipping containers tucked between a Cactus Car Wash franchise and a halfway house--you'd never suspect this was one of Atlanta's flourishing young startups. But behind the padlocked doors, an urban farming operation is in full swing.

The Guardian | Colombian environmental authorities have reported a huge shark massacre in the Malpelo wildlife sanctuary in Colombia's Pacific waters, where as many as 2,000 hammerhead, Galápagos and silky sharks may have been slaughtered for their fins.

Nature.com's News Blog | It remains unclear what will come of a coastal assessment that has been censored by the administration of Texas governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry to remove references to rising sea levels, among other things. But scientists involved in the affair say they have learned their lesson.

BBC | The Sun has recently been in a quiet phase of its regular 11-year cycle, which co-incided with three years in which the UK, along with other places in northern Europe and parts of the US, experienced cold conditions unusual in the recent record.

Network World | NASA today said a strong-to-severe geomagnetic storm is in progress following a massive solar flare and coronal mass ejection (CME).   CMEs are a solar phenomenon that can send solar particles into space and affect electronic systems in satellites and on Earth.  Simulations indicate that solar wind plasma has penetrated close to geosynchronous orbit starting at 9am today. Geosynchronous satellites could therefore be directly exposed to solar wind plasma and magnetic fields. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras after nightfall, NASA stated.

University of Cambridge | The discrepancy was first brought to their attention via a media release accompanying the publication of the 13th edition of The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World stating that the Atlas is ‘turning Greenland ‘green’’. Scientists from the Scott Polar Research Institute were extremely puzzled by this statement and the claim that ‘For the first time, the new edition of The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World has had to erase 15% of Greenland’s once permanent ice cover – turning an area the size of the United Kingdom and Ireland ‘green’ and ice-free’.  The scientists believe that the figure of a 15% decrease in permanent ice cover since the publication of the previous atlas 12 years is both incorrect and misleading.

Common Dreams | A leak from a shallow water crude oil pipeline in the Main Pass Area of the Gulf of Mexico has led Chevron to shut down its offshore Louisiana Main Pass pipeline network, the company said on Tuesday.

Brainz | While the 2011 earthquake and worries surrounding Fukushima have brought the threat of radioactivity back into the public consciousness, many people still don't realize that radioactive contamination is a worldwide danger. Radionuclides are in the top six toxic threats as listed in the 2010 report by The Blacksmith Institute, an NGO dedicated to tackling pollution. You might be surprised by the locations of some of the world’s most radioactive places — and thus the number of people living in fear of the effects radiation could have on them and their children.

The Guardian | Brazilian scientists have found a new river in the Amazon basin – around 4km underneath the Amazon river. The Rio Hamza, named after the head of the team of researchers who found the groundwater flow, appears to be as long as the Amazon river but up to hundreds of times wider.

Wall Street Journal | This year, the event that’s famous across Japan, has been overshadowed by confusion and anger over the city’s last-minute decision to cancel the use of bonfire wood from a tsunami-ravaged coastal city in Iwate prefecture due to radiation concerns.

Daily Galaxy | This still from a video taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the Aug. 8, 2011 solar flare as it appeared in the ultraviolet range of the light spectrum. The flare registered as an X6.9 class sun storm, the most powerful of the Solar Cycle 24. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash:

Lucas Whitefield Hixson | China”s State Oceanic Administration, which conducted the studies in the area, said today that waters in the western Pacific region, close to the east and southeast of the Fukushima nuclear power plant are found to have radioactive material in excess of normal quantitiesInitial tests of samples collected from these areas show that radioactive Cesium-137 and -134, as well as Strontium-90 can be found in all water samples, it said in a statement.

Global News | Top bureaucrats in Ottawa have muzzled a leading fisheries scientist whose discovery could help explain why salmon stocks have been crashing off Canada's West Coast, according to documents obtained by Postmedia News.  The documents show the Privy Council Office, which supports the Prime Minister's Office, stopped Kristi Miller from talking about one of the most significant discoveries to come out of a federal fisheries lab in years.

Listverse | I love fruit and I clearly just can’t get enough of them. When I try to imagine what one of these odd fruits taste like, it’s almost like trying to imagine a new color. I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around something I have never experienced, but that does not mean that I won’t try to experience as many as I possibly can in my lifetime

Anchorage Daily News | BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. estimated the size of the spill at 2,100 to 4,200 gallons of fluid, mainly methanol and other fluids along with an undetermined amount of crude oil. It spilled onto a gravel pad and into a small tundra pond, DEC said.

Independent | So great is demand that next Saturday, 16 July, has been dubbed Fish Dependence Day – the day on which imports would have to be relied upon because native supplies would have run out if only home-caught fish had been eaten since 1 January. Last year it fell on 3 August, almost three weeks later, and in 1995 it was six weeks later.

Treehugger | Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War -- and now it's being used against the Amazon rainforest

Video & Associated Press | Hundreds of barrels of crude oil spilled into Montana’s Yellowstone River after an ExxonMobil pipeline beneath the riverbed ruptured, sending a plume 25 miles downstream and forcing temporary evacuations, officials said.  The break near Billings in south-central Montana fouled the riverbank and forced municipalities and irrigation districts Saturday to close intakes.

Business Insider | South Plains farmer Scott Harmon told KCBD, "This is a disaster. This is a train wreck. We've never seen anything like this before. People are scared, they don't know what to do and what's going to happen to them next."

End the Lie | On top of Fort Calhoun and the Cooper Nuclear Station, two more facilities housing nuclear materials are now at risk. Of course the mainstream media is all but totally silent on this issue as it is a bit worrisome for people to think about four plants on the brink of potential nuclear disaster.

Al Jazeera | "Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," he said, "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."

The Nation | A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.

Business Insider | A fire in Nebraska's Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant briefly knocked out the cooling process for spent nuclear fuel rods, ProPublica reports. The fire occurred on June 7th.  On June 6th, the Federal Administration Aviation (FAA) issued a directive banning aircraft from entering the airspace within a two-mile radius of the plant.

Telegraph | The findings of the report, which has been given to the International Atomic Energy Agency, were revealed by the Yomiuri newspaper, which described a "melt-through" as being "far worse than a core meltdown" and "the worst possibility in a nuclear accident."

Guardian | Six months after predicting his own murder, a leading rainforest defender has reportedly been gunned down in the Brazilian Amazon. José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo, are said to have been killed in an ambush near their home in Nova Ipixuna, in Pará state, about 37 miles from Marabá.

Technology Review | In recent years, however, various teams have set up atmospheric monitoring stations in earthquake zones and a number of satellites are capable of sending back data about the state of the upper atmosphere and the ionosphere during an earthquake.

Digital Trends | If there’s one thing people around the world love to do — in fact, need to do — it’s eat. Unfortunately, another thing everyone likes to do is talk on their cell phones. And according to a new study (PDF), these two activities are completely at odds because of a cell phone signal’s confusing effects on one key player: bees.

PNJ | "It's a huge red flag," said Richard Snyder, director of the University of West Florida Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation. "It seems abnormal, and anything we see out of the ordinary we'll try to investigate."

World Nuclear News | Regional utility the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) reported blackouts in much of northern Mississippi as well as parts of northern Alabama and southeastern Tennessee as a result of the tornados and high winds. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Alabama to allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts. Almost 300 people are reported to have been killed by the storms.

Live Science | Fukushima Daiichi, the tsunami-damaged nuclear reactor site about 150 miles (241 kilometers) to the north, as the foolish crow flies, continues to leak trace amounts of radiation. Radioactive iodine-131 made it into the water supply here last month. But most, as physics would have it, has since decayed into stable xenon.

Russia Today | As world marks the Chernobyl anniversary, many say that the world has failed to learn the lessons on nuclear safety that the tragedy provided. RT talks to Professor Christopher Busby, Scientific secretary of the European Committee on radiation risks, for a little more insight on 21st century's most serious nuclear crisis at Fukushima.

CNN | Did the oil spill shatter the Gulf's food chain? Will fish have trouble reproducing because of exposure to hydrocarbons? What did those dispersants, which were supposed to break up the oil, do to the ecosystem on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico? Or did the Earth already heal itself?

Crikey | As a result the environmental group have obtained some 30,000 memos, emails and transcripts which document the worst oil spill in American history. Taking cues from WikiLeaks, Greenpeace has begun to leak its considerable cache online for all to see. Here’s what we pulled out of the document dump:

Guardian | Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show BP officials openly discussing how to influence the work of scientists supported by the fund, which was created by the oil company in May last year.

Irish Times | The head of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, Takashi Sawada, said yesterday that fuel rods in reactors 1 and 3 have melted and settled at the bottom of their containment vessels, confirming fears that the plant suffered a partial meltdown after last month’s huge earthquake and tsunami.

Daily Mail | It aims to establish 11 new rights for nature which include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Cryptome | Website of Air Photo Service Co. Ltd., Japan has posted high quality, detailed photos and a video of the plant.

Cape Cod Times | The spent-fuel pools at New England's oldest nuclear plants now hold up to five times more radioactive material than they were initially designed to handle. Pilgrim Nuclear Station in Plymouth, for example, which was originally licensed to store 880 fuel assemblies in its spent-fuel pool, currently holds nearly 3,000.