U.S. Navy researchers predict summer Arctic ice might disappear by 2016, 84 years ahead of schedule

By David Schmalz27 November 2013 (Monterey County Weekly) – Tucked away on the third floor of the Naval Postgraduate School’s building of Engineering and Applied Sciences, a small team of researchers is leading an effort that will change the way the world thinks about the world. Their project is the Regional Arctic System Model (RASM), […]

First comprehensive Gulf oil spill study reveals extensive damage in shoreline, deepwater habitats

By  Mark Schleifstein6 December 2013 (The Times-Picayune) – The extensive damage caused by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the ensuing cleanup efforts to natural resources along the shoreline and in deepwater habitats of the Gulf of Mexico were outlined for the first time Friday (Dec. 6) in a comprehensive environmental assessment. The assessment, […]

Botswana faces questions over licenses for fracking companies – Government accused of ignoring pollution risks to scarce water supplies in Central Kalahari Game Reserve

By Jeff Barbee and Mira Dutschke in Nata, Botswana, David Smith in Johannesburg 17 November 2013 (The Guardian) – Botswana has been accused of sacrificing the Kalahari, one of the world’s most precious wildlife reserves, to commercial fracking while ignoring the concerns of environmentalists and communities who could lose access to scarce water. Hydraulic fracturing, […]

Train in Alabama oil spill was carrying 2.7 million gallons of crude

By Soumya Karlamangla 9 November 2013 (Los Angeles Times) – A train that derailed and exploded in rural Alabama was hauling 2.7 million gallons of crude oil, according to officials. The 90-car train was crossing a timber trestle above a wetland near Aliceville late Thursday night when approximately 25 rail cars and two locomotives derailed, […]

Why Ecuador’s president is misleading the world on Amazon rainforest oil plan

By David Hill    15 October 2013 (theguardian.com) – The decision by Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa to abandon a plan to permanently forgo exploiting hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in return for at least US$3.6bn in compensation – the “Yasuni-ITT Initiative” – has sparked severe non-state media criticism in Ecuador, calls for a referendum, […]

Protests sweep Canada following paramilitary assault on indigenous fracking blockade – ‘Indigenous communities like the Elsipogtog First Nation are on the frontlines of defending water and the land for everyone’

By Sarah Lazare, staff writer18 October 2013 (Common Dreams) – Protests are sweeping Canada following Thursday’s assault by paramilitary-style police on members of indigenous Elsipogtog Mi’kmaq First Nation and local residents as they blockaded a New Brunswick fracking exploration site. The group had barricaded a road near the town of Rexton in rural New Brunswick […]

Canadian hamlet evacuated after oil train crash causes huge blaze –‘I could see great big flames way high in the air’

Gainford, Alberta, 19 October 2013 (AP) – Emergency crews battled a massive fire on Saturday after a Canadian National tanker train carrying oil and gas derailed west of Edmonton, Alberta, overnight. No injuries have been reported so far. A Canadian National spokesman, Louis-Antoine Paquin, said 13 cars four carrying petroleum crude oil and nine loaded […]

Over 865,200 gallons of fracked oil spill in North Dakota, public in the dark for days due to government shutdown

By Steve Horn10 October 2013 (desmogblog.com) – Over 20,600 barrels of oil fracked from the Bakken Shale has spilled from a Tesoro Logistics pipeline in Tioga, North Dakota in one of the biggest onshore oil spills in recent U.S. history. Though the spill occurred on September 29, the U.S. National Response Center – tasked with […]

Jude Law joins protest over Russia’s prosecution of Greenpeace activists – ‘What is ludicrous is that they have been charged with piracy’

5 October 2013 (BBC News) – Actor Jude Law and musician Damon Albarn have joined hundreds demonstrating in London over piracy charges brought by Russia against 30 Greenpeace activists. Six Britons were among those arrested last month as they protested against oil drilling in the Arctic at a rig owned by Russian firm, Gazprom. Relatives […]

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 […]

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