Monthly Archives: June 2009

What If I’m Wrong?

By | Published: June 30, 2009
Risk Assessments I spend a lot of time playing “What if?” We all do this. I do this when I am driving – “What if that car at the next intersection pulls out in front of me?” – when I am working – “What if that high pressure line ruptures?” – and at home – “What [...]
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Midas Faces Bait-And-Switch Charges in California

By | Published: June 30, 2009
Suit names 22 muffler shops probed by undercover investigators Original post by miscellaneous
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EPA reverses Bush policy on states’ emissions limits

By | Published: June 30, 2009
window.document.getElementById(‘post-7932′).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’;Houston Chronicle: The Environmental Protection Agency reversed a Bush administration ruling Tuesday and cleared the way for California and at least 13 other states, including New York and Washington, to impose restrictions on automobile greenhouse gas emissions that exceed federal limits. The move dovetails with the Obama administration`s plan for implementing [...]
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EPA allows California to regulate car gases linked to climate change

By | Published: June 30, 2009
International Business Times: "EPA finds that California continues to have a need for its motor vehicle emissions program, including the greenhouse gas standards," the agency said in a statement today. The new standards will be effective immediately in California and 13 more states and the District of Columbia. The regulations require automakers to raise [...]
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NASA images show huge drop in Amazon fires in 2008

By | Published: June 30, 2009
Mongabay: New NASA research shows a sharp decline in the amount of smoke over the Amazon during the 2008 burning season, coinciding with a drop in deforestation reported last week by Carlos Minc, Brazil’s Environment Minister. Analyzing the aerosol concentrations over the Amazon each September from the past four burning seasons using the Ozone [...]
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NASA satellite photos reveal Yellowstone’s recovery from fires

By | Published: June 30, 2009
Mongabay: Satellite images released by NASA show a gradual recovery of forests affected by massive fires during the summer of 1988 in Yellowstone National Park. Fires during that hot and dry summer burned nearly 36 percent of the park — some 793,000 of the park’s 2,221,800 acres. Images acquired by the Landsat-5 satellite show [...]
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As Iraq Stabilizes, China Bids on Its Oil Fields

By | Published: June 30, 2009
New York Times: Oil companies from China, the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing consumer of oil, bid aggressively on Tuesday as Iraq began auctioning licenses in six large oil fields. A partnership of BP and the China National Petroleum Corporation, or C.N.P.C., won the first contract awarded, in the latest indication of Chinese interest in [...]
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E.P.A. Lists ‘High Hazard’ Coal Ash Dumps

By | Published: June 30, 2009
New York Times: The Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of 44 "high hazard potential" coal ash waste dumps across the country. The "high hazard" rating applied to sites where a dam failure would most likely result in a loss of human life, the environmental agency advisory said, but did not assess the structural [...]
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Rwanda: Climate change hits hard on food production

By | Published: June 30, 2009
New Times: Developing countries like Rwanda need to conserve as much water as it can sustain so as to counteract the problems of global warming and maintain its agriculture at a level commensurate to the needs of the whole population. Rwanda being a hilly, makes it possible to collect water from the steep landscape, [...]
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EPA approves California emissions standard

By | Published: June 30, 2009
Reuters: The Obama administration on Tuesday approved California’s long-standing bid to set its own tough standards for vehicle emissions, a decision in tune with a national plan to boost fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gases linked to climate change. These standards are immediately effective for California and for 13 other states and Washington D.C., [...]
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French radioactive waste to double by 2030

By | Published: June 30, 2009
Reuters: France’s highly radioactive waste will more than double by 2030 mainly as spent fuel derived from nuclear reactors mounts up, the French national radioactive waste management agency (Andra) said on Tuesday. Andra draws up every three years an inventory of sites polluted with radioactivity and details quantities per waste category as well as [...]
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United Kingdom: After the heatwave, stand by for the storms

By | Published: June 30, 2009
Independent (UK): June was Britain’s hottest, driest and sunniest month for three years as temperatures rose to nearly 32 degrees C, figures showed today. But, as usual, no-one should not get too used to basking in the sunshine. Despite Met Office seasonal forecasts predicting above average temperatures for the next two months, early July [...]
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India will reject greenhouse gas emission targets

By | Published: June 30, 2009
window.document.getElementById(‘post-7932′).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’;Reuters: India will not sign up to targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions but will instead focus on fighting poverty and boosting economic growth, the environment minister said Tuesday. India is one of the world’s biggest emitters alongside China, the U.S. and Russia, and the second most populous nation. But [...]
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A breath of fresh air for batteries

By | Published: June 30, 2009
Guardian: Is using air the answer to a longer-lasting lithium battery? It’s a surprising question but one familiar to Professor Peter Bruce of the University of St Andrews. A new "air-fuelled" rechargeable lithium battery being developed in his research laboratory promises up to 10 times today’s energy storage capacity. A normal lithium battery [...]
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Global food supply far from secure: farming expert

By | Published: June 30, 2009
Reuters: Africa’s farmers need help to access loans, fertilizer and export markets to avoid future food supply crises caused by climate change and commodities speculation, a top agricultural expert said on Tuesday. Wheat, rice and maize prices have fallen sharply from their 2008 highs, when protests broke out across the developing world over unaffordable [...]
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