News: Archive for February, 2011
‘(Reuters) – U.S. environmental regulators issued rules on Wednesday that will halve the cost for industrial polluters to cut toxic air emissions, a sign the Obama administration is willing to compromise on cutting pollution.’
via U.S. rules slash costs to cut industrial pollution | Reuters.
‘LOS ANGELES, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) — Climate change could prolong toxic algal outbreaks by 2040 or sooner, posing a health threat to humans, a new study suggests.’
via U.S. study predicts prolonged toxic algal outbreaks due to climate change.
‘BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) — Soaring food prices, which the World Bank says have hit “dangerous levels,” have thrust the issue of food security sharply into the global spotlight over the past week.’
Worth noting in this article is a counter charge to frequent critiques by Geithner and others of Chinese currency valuation policy:
‘The U.S. Federal Reserve is driving up food prices by cranking up its dollar printing presses and devaluing its own currency. As the U.S. website of Business Insider puts it: “The food crisis is a dollar crisis.”‘
‘(Reuters) – Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Friday reiterated the Obama administration’s case against moving forward with a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.’
via U.S. must move past Yucca dump for nuke waste: Chu | Reuters.
‘Willi Dansgaard, a Danish paleoclimatologist who was the first to recognize that the Earth’s climatic history was stored in the Greenland ice cap, died Jan. 8 in Copenhagen, according to the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. He was 88.’
‘(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Energy said on Friday it will spend $27 million on a new effort to reduce the costs of solar power by 75 percent by the end of the decade in a bid to make the renewable power source as cheap as fossil fuels.’
via Department of Energy seeks to cut solar costs by 75 percent | Reuters.
‘Shell announced Thursday it would not conduct exploratory drilling in Arctic waters off Alaska this year after a ruling last month revoked federal clean air permits that would have allowed drilling ships and support vessels to operate in the environmentally sensitive region.’
via Arctic drilling: Shell Alaska to delay Arctic offshore drilling – latimes.com.
‘Reuters – A San Francisco judge has tentatively ruled that California did not adequately consider alternatives to creating a carbon market, a decision which clouds the premier U.S. climate change program’s outlook.’
via California court clouds cap-and-trade outlook | Reuters.