News: Archive for April, 2014
‘(Reuters) – A CSX Corp train carrying crude oil derailed and burst into flames in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia on Wednesday, spilling oil into the James River and forcing the evacuation of hundreds.’
via Train carrying crude derails in Virginia town, bursts into flames | Reuters.
‘Flames and thick black smoke rose into the air after a train derailed Wednesday afternoon along a river in downtown Lynchburg, Va., toppling more than a dozen oil tanker cars and plunging several into the water.’
via Lynchburg, Va., train derails, sending up fireball as cars topple – latimes.com.
‘Diesel engine exhaust has long been known to promote cardiovascular disease and lung cancer. A new understanding of one of the components of diesel exhaust shows it is also a powerful driver of climate change, with black carbon particles 3,200 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide in the near-term.’
via Cleaning Up Diesel Exhaust Improves Both Health & Climate.
‘The US supreme court endorsed the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to deal with air pollution blowing across state lines on Tuesday, in an important victory for the Obama administration as well as downwind states.’
‘Climate change caused by humans has made the likelihood of extreme rainfall similar to that seen in England this winter significantly higher, according to analysis seen by the Guardian.’
via Climate change ‘making extreme rainfall in England more likely’ | Environment | theguardian.com.
‘Weather systems that bring rainstorms to many drought-prone areas of northern Africa, carry Saharan dust across the ocean and seed Atlantic hurricanes could grow stronger as a result of human-caused climate change, a new analysis by Stanford scientists suggests.’
via Stanford scientists see climate change intensifying African weather systems.
‘During an interview with HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” Friday, Steyer challenged the Kochs to a public debate on energy policy, the Keystone XL pipeline, subsidies for the oil industry and climate change.’
‘WASHINGTON — ENERGY storage is crucial to transforming the electric grid into a clean, sustainable, low-emissions system, the experts say. And it’s happening already, just not the way most consumers would expect.’
via Ice or Molten Salt, Not Batteries, to Store Energy – NYTimes.com.
‘Li is one of hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers who are now using insurance as a tool to hedge against the risks of climate change. China is the world’s second-largest agricultural insurance market after the United States by premium income, and it is scrambling to spread the use of climate-related insurance into other sectors.’
via Millions of China’s Farmers Now Buy Climate-Change Insurance – Scientific American.
‘In November 2013, American climate scientist Richard Heede, of the Colorado-based Climate Accountability Institute, published a paper with a revolutionary thesis. After nine years of researching the energy industry in dozens of countries, he concluded that nearly two-thirds of the world’s carbon dioxide and methane emissions dating back to the dawn of the industrial era were the responsibility of just ninety companies. Heede called them the “carbon majors.”’
via Want to Stop Climate Change? Take the Fossil Fuel Industry to Court | The Nation.