Nobel laureates press EU leaders to classify tar sands as high carbon – ‘The extraction of unconventional fuels is having a particularly devastating impact on climate change’

3 October 2013 (Reuters) – Twenty-one Nobel laureates including South African anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu have written to European Union leaders urging them to implement a law that would label oil from tar sands as dirtier than other crudes. The EU tar sands proposal has incensed the government of Canada, whose economy is highly dependent […]

Wave of jellyfish shuts down Swedish nuclear reactor

By Gary Peach1 October 2013 (AP) – Marine biologists say that the wave of jellyfish that caused a Swedish nuclear plant to shut down a reactor is going to become a more common occurrence. It wasn’t a tsunami but it had the same effect: A huge cluster of jellyfish forced one of the world’s largest […]

Norway abandons Mongstad carbon capture plans – ‘The development of technologies to capture and store CO2 has taken longer, been more difficult and more costly than expected’

20 September 2013 (BBC News) – The outgoing government in Norway has buried much-vaunted plans to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground amid mounting costs and delays. The oil and energy ministry said the development of full-scale carbon dioxide capture at Mongstad oil refinery had been discontinued. It said it remained committed to research […]

Graph of the Day: Measles outbreak in unvaccinated Protestant communities in the Netherlands, 28 August 2013

By Tara Culp-Ressler 11 September 2013 (Think Progress) – At the end of last month, epidemiologists in Texas traced the source of a measles outbreak to a right-wing megachurch whose pastor has preached against vaccines. Even though about 98 percent of Texas residents are vaccinated against the highly contagious disease, the congregants who attended that […]

Graph of the Day: Decline of butterfly populations in Europe and EU, 1990-2011

22 July 2013 (EEA) – The European Grassland Butterfly Indicator has been updated both for Europe and the EU. In this chapter both indicators are presented. Figure 4.1 shows the European Grassland Butterfly Indicator, as well as the indicator for the Member States of the EU alone. The indicator is based on the supranational species […]

Denmark defends whale and dolphin slaughter in Faroe Islands – 1,085 dolphins killed since 21 July 2013

[Keep in mind that Japan still poaches dolphins at Taiji and whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary; Iceland and Norway continue to poach whales in the Atlantic.] By Erwin Vermeulen 28 August 2013 (SSCS) – On 27 August 2013, around 2pm local time, another 51 Pilot whales were butchered in the Ferocious Isles. This time […]

Graph of the Day: Decline of butterflies in 4 countries in Europe, 1990-2011

22 July 2013 (EEA) – The European Grassland Butterfly Indicator is built from European species trends. In this chapter, we give an overview of the trends of grassland butterflies in Europe and the EU. First, we calculate the trend in each country and for each species separately. Figure 3.1 shows four of the national trends […]

National Geographic: Rising Seas

By Tim Folger1 September 2013 (National Geographic) – By the time Hurricane Sandy veered toward the Northeast coast of the United States last October 29, it had mauled several countries in the Caribbean and left dozens dead. Faced with the largest storm ever spawned over the Atlantic, New York and other cities ordered mandatory evacuations […]

Carbon stored in Arctic permafrost is being mobilised in Eurasia river basins

By Peter Rüegg 19 August 2013 (PhysOrg) – Using indicator molecules, a team of researchers headed by ETH Zurich demonstrates that carbon stored in the Arctic permafrost is being mobilised in Eurasian river basins. Arctic permafrost soils store vast amounts of carbon in the form of dead but not decomposed plant debris. Around half of […]

Graph of the Day: Population declines of three butterfly species in Europe, 1990-2011

22 July 2013 (EEA) – Figure 3.2 shows some examples of European butterfly trends: The Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus), a widespread and in many countries common and abundant butterfly, occurring on all kinds of grasslands; the Orangetip (Anthocharis cardamines), a typical spring butterfly; the Lulworth Skipper (Thymelicus acteon), a specialist species of dry calcareous grasslands. […]

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