Published on Aug 5, 2014
President Barack Obama spoke before the Africa summit dinner at the White House Tuesday, looking back fondly at his family ties to Africa and toasting to a peaceful future for the continent. (Aug. 5)
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by Katie Valentine Posted on August
5, 2014 at 11:47 amUpdated: August 5, 2014 at 12:01 pm
“Canadians Can’t Drink Their Water After 1.3 Billion Gallons Of Mining Waste Flows Into Rivers”
Mount Polley Mine tailings pond breach
CREDIT: Cariboo Regional District/screenshot
Hundreds of people in British Columbia can’t use their water after more than a billion gallons of mining waste spilled into rivers and creeks in the province’s Cariboo region.
A breach in a tailings pond from the open-pit Mount Polley copper and gold mine sent five million cubic meters (1.3 billion gallons) of slurry gushing into Hazeltine Creek in B.C. That’s the equivalent of 2,000 Olympic swimming pools of waste, the CBC reports. Tailings ponds from mineral mines store a mix of water, chemicals and ground-up minerals left over from mining operations.
The flow of the mining waste, which can contain things like arsenic, mercury, and sulfur, uprooted trees on its way to the creek and forced a water ban for about 300 people who live in the region. That number could grow, as authorities determine just how far the waste has traveled. The cause of the breach is still unknown.
…(read more).
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Download the Booklet
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society released “Climate Change: Evidence & Causes,” a new publication produced jointly by the two institutions, on February 27, 2014 at an event hosted by Miles O’Brien of the PBS Newshour.
About the Document
The leadership of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.K.’s Royal Society convened a UK-US team of leading climate scientists to produce this brief, readable reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and other individuals seeking authoritative information on the some of the questions that continue to be asked.
The publication makes clear what is well-established and where understanding is still developing. It echoes and builds upon the long history of climate-related work from both national academies, as well as on the newest climate-change assessment from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It touches on current areas of active debate and ongoing research, such as the link between ocean heat content and the rate of warming.
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Climate
Americans’ health, security, and economic well-being are tied to climate and weather. In the last 2 years, the United States experienced 25 climate- and weather-related disasters that claimed 1,141 lives and each exceeded $1 billion ($175 billion total) in damages. The public, businesses, resource managers, and policy leaders are increasingly asking for information to help them understand how and why climate conditions are changing and how they can prepare.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a primary provider of climate science, data, tools, and information used by stakeholders and citizens in decision-making contexts. These resources are supported by our strong foundation in science — including global climate observation and monitoring networks; world-renowned scientists; and state-of-the-art climate models.
NOAA is working with partners and the public to build a climate-smart nation that is resilient to climate and weather extremes, and long-term changes. Drawing upon NOAA’s foundation in science, our objectives are to:
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Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode .
About David Keith’s TEDTalk
Environmental scientist proposes a cheap and shocking way to address climate change: What if we inject a huge cloud of sulfur into the atmosphere to deflect sunlight and heat?
About David Keith
Environmental scientist David Keith works at the intersection of climate science, energy, and public policy. His research has taken him into some the realms of geo-engineering — including a dramatic potential solution to climate change, such as blowing a cloud of sulfur into the sky to bring the average global temperature down.
His other areas of study include the , the economics and climatic impacts of large-scale wind power, and the use of hydrogen as a transportation fuel.
His forthcoming book is called A Case For Climate Engineering. He teaches policy and engineering at Harvard University, and was named by Canadian Geographic in 2006.
See full talk:
….(read more).
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August 4, 2014 at 10:00 AM With Guest Host Meghna Chakrabarti. A NASA study says the water problem in the American is deeper than we thought. We’ll look at the West’s deep water challenge.
A woman takes a picture of newly-raised San Vicente Dam during a ceremony Wednesday, July 16, 2014, in Lakeside, Calif. Crews have finished raising the dam, as California endures the worst drought in the state since the mid-1970s. (AP)
If you’ve been to Lake Mead you’ve seen it. Prolonged drought in the West has driven the country’s largest reservoir to its lowest level in memory. But the true crisis lies below the Colorado Basin bedrock. More than 75% of the water lost in the last nine years came from groundwater supplies. And it may never come back. That’s water for 40 million Americans. Water for 4 million acres of farmland. Without drastic action, the water crisis may permanently change the Western way of life. This hour, On Point: groundwater crisis in the western U.S.
…(read more).
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Toledo area residents do not have safe drinking water. (photo: AP)
By Charles Pierce, Esquire05 August 14
owhere has the abandonment of reason and of science on the part of half of the American political system had such serious consequences as it has had on our attempts to craft national responses to our cascade of interconnected environmental problems, most of which have some basis in the Great Climate Change Hoax, which half of our political system believe is a scam to suck up that sweet grant money or, as Paul Ryan so brilliantly put it last week, to raise taxes. I don’t know but, maybe, if a half-million people still don’t have potable drinking water in a couple of weeks, we might take the whole thing a little more seriously than we have, and we might conclude that the planet’s getting genuinely pissed at us all.
….(read more),
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August 5, 2014 – Today in Energy – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Drilling Productivity Report
Natural gas production in the Marcellus Region exceeded 15 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) through July, the first time ever recorded, according to EIA’s latest Drilling Productivity Report. The Marcellus Region, mostly located in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, is the largest producing shale gas basin in the United States, accounting for almost 40% of U.S. shale gas production. Marcellus Region production has increased dramatically over the past four years, increasing from 2 Bcf/d in 2010 to its current level.
The rig count in the Marcellus Region has remained steady at around 100 rigs over the past 10 months. Given the continued improvement in drilling productivity, which EIA measures as new-well production per rig, EIA expects natural gas production in the Marcellus Region to continue to grow. With 100 rigs in operation and with each rig supporting more than 6 million cubic feet per day in new-well production each month, new Marcellus Region wells coming online in August are expected to deliver over 600 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of additional production. This production from new wells is more than enough to offset the anticipated drop in production that results from existing well decline rates, increasing the production rate by 247 MMcf/d.
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by Wolf Richter • August 5, 2014
America is on the verge of becoming a natural gas net exporter in a year or two. It can relieve energy-starved Japan from extortionary prices and free Europe from the clutches of Gazprom. A number of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities on the Gulf Coast and on the West Coast have been approved, are under construction, or are in the pipeline, so to speak. Untold riches await daring investors.
Or so it would seem, according to the hype, often as thick as San Francisco fog in the summer, that has shrouded the segment of the industry. Some stocks of companies hoping to ride that LNG export boom are soaring. Billions, mostly borrowed from unsuspecting or blind lenders of one type or another, have already been spent, and many more are going to be spent, on highly capital-intensive LNG export terminals.
For example, Cheniere Energy which by now is famous for producing ever increasing losses on declining revenues: in 2013, it generated $507 million in losses on $267 million in revenues – which is quite a feat! The losses are up 156% from 2011, while revenues are down 8%. It now has $9.5 billion in debt, up from $3.3 billion in 2011. Its stock price soared from penny stock in 2003 to over $40 a share in 2006 and 2007, before it revisited the penny stock purgatory in 2008. Then in 2012, the LNG export hype began wafting around its operations, and the stock soared again, and it recently spiked, and closed today at $72. It’s been one heck of a ride.
…(read more).
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U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) – Today in Energy
July 29, 2014
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on Evaluate Energy database
Note: Annualized means each point on the graph is the sum of the previous four quarters. Thus, the first-quarter 2014 results on an annualized basis mean the data represent the sum of the four quarters ending March 31, 2014. The data above are the aggregate results of 127 global oil and natural gas companies.
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Transition Studies 