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Conflict in Crimea: First Referendum Results Show Crimea Has Voted to Join Russia

by VirginiWicken Posted on March 14, 2014

Mother Jones

This article is being updated as news breaks. Click here for the latest.

Russia has deployed 10,000 troops to multiple locations along the Ukraine-Russia border, deepening fears that the simmering crisis in the Crimean peninsula is about to escalate into full-scale warfare. In London on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry attempted to broker a last-minute deal with Russia’s foreign minister to ratchet down the crisis, but their talks “ended inconclusively,” according to the New York Times. This weekend, voters in Crimea, an autonomous region of about 2 million in southeastern Ukraine, will vote on a referendum that would give citizens the option of asserting independence from Ukraine, or becoming part of Russia. (Remaining part of Ukraine isn’t an option.) The United States and European Union leaders have called the referendum back-door annexation,” which would bring international consequences. Here’s what you need to know about the current state of play. Check back frequently, since we’ll update this post as events unfold.

Western leaders are furious: On Thursday, German Chancellor enacted as early as Monday, if Crimea chooses to secede.

If Crimea joins Russia, it could take Ukrainian gas and oil reserves with it: Russian exports account for about one-third of Europe’s gas consumption and those pipelines run smack through Ukraine. As Mother Jones‘ James West points out, “Russia has long been able to use Ukraine as an energy choke point.” On Thursday, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported that authorities in Crimea have been securing offshore gas and oil in the region. Crimean parliamentary speaker Vladimir Konstantinov reportedly said: “These deposits and the platform fully become the property of the Republic of Crimea…We have guarded them. These are our fields and we will fight for them.”

Putin is cracking down on Russian press: Julia Ioffe reports in The New Republic:

What began just days before the Olympics with a Kremlin attack on Dozhd, the last independent television station in Russia, has now extended to Lenta.ru, arguably the best news site in Russia. On Wednesday, the site’s editor-in-chief was fired and replaced with a Kremlin loyalist, and the whole staff quit in protest. Yesterday, the Kremlin went full-China on the Internet, the holy of holies of the Russian opposition. Using some flimsy legal pretexts, it banned access to various oppositional news sites, to the website of Moscow’s biggest radio station, and to the blog of Alexey Navalny, who is currently under house arrest.

Russia maintains that it’s not going to invade: Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is not planning to annex Crimea and he would leave it up to citizens in the region to determine their future. He also said force would only be used as “a last resort.”​ As recently as Friday, Russian officials have maintained that an invasion is still off the table:

But Western leaders aren’t optimistic that Putin will back down from annexing Crimea, after the referendum vote. According to the New York Times, “As of Friday, there had been no sign that President Vladimir V. Putin was prepared to take the ‘off ramp’ that the Obama administration has repeatedly offered.​” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov declared on Friday that Russia and the United States “have no common vision” about the crisis.

UPDATE, March 14, 2014, 3:00 PM EDT (Dana Liebelson): The Pentagon is sending 25,000 ready-to-eat meals to Ukraine, according to the Associated Press. Two US representatives have asked President Obama to put names of Russian officials responsible for human rights abuses on the Magnitsky list, a public list of Russians created in 2012 as part of the Magnitsky Act, to punish Russian officials who have committed human rights violations. Members of the list are prohibited from entering the US or using the US banking system.

UPDATE 2, March 14, 2014, 3:35 PM EDT (Hannah Levintova): Mimicking the language used to justify their invasion of Crimea, the Russian foreign ministry has issued a warning that they reserve the right to intervene in the city of Donetsk to protect lives after a series of clashes Thursday night led to at least one death and dozens of injuries.

Donetsk is a primarily Russian-speaking city in eastern Ukraine, not far from the Russian border. The clashes began yesterday after hundreds of demonstrators chanting Pro-Russian slogans broke through a police cordon and stormed a separate group protesting Russia’s invasion of Crimea and calling for “a united Ukraine.”

Here’s video of the incident heating up:

UPDATE 3, March 14, 2014, 8:06 PM EDT (Eric Wuestewald): Another two people were reportedly killed and five injured during clashes in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv Friday. There have been conflicting reports over who was injured and who was responsible for the attack, but many are alleging armed pro-Russian groups or the Ukrainian nationalist group Right Sector may have provoked it.

Kharkiv is Ukraine’s second largest city after Kiev, and historically, was the country’s first Soviet capital. Like Donetsk, it’s also close to the Russian border. As a result, large pro-Russian rallies have been common, which some are predicting could become a litmus test for the future direction of the country.

Update 4, March 15, 2014, 4:15 PM EDT (Dana Liebelson): 60 Russian troops in six helicopters have crossed into Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials, taking control of the village of Strilkove and leading to the first reports of Russian invasion outside of Crimea. The New York Times reports that troops also seized a gas plant and “the action was Russia’s most provocative since its forces took over Crimea two weeks ago.” Ukraine’s acting leader Oleksander Turchinov said: “The situation is very dangerous. I’m not exaggerating. There is a real danger from threats of invasion of Ukrainian territory. We will reconvene on Monday at 10am.”

Update 5, March 15, 4:45 PM EDT (Hannah Levintova): Earlier today, 50,000 people took part in a “peace march” in Moscow against Russia’s intervention in Crimea. Protestors marched waving both Russian and Ukrainian flags, and then gathered on the Prospect Sakharova, where massive anti-Putin rallies took place in 2012. Some protestors chanted: “The main enemy is the Kremlin. No to fascism, no to imperialism.”

Here’s a Russian-language newscast showing the march:

Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who stepped down from his post in February, wrote a statement today about the situation in Ukraine on Facebook. Here’s an excerpt:

Putin’s recent decisions represent a giant step backwards. Tragically, we are entering a new period with some important differences, but many similarities to the Cold War. The ideological struggle between autocracy and democracy is resurgent. Protection of European countries from Russian aggression is paramount again. Shoring up vulnerable states , including first and foremost Ukraine, must become a top priority again for the US and Europe. And doing business with Russian companies will once again become politicized. Most tragically, in seeking to isolate the Russian regime, many Russians with no connection to the government will also suffer the effects of isolation. My only hope is that this dark period will not last as long as the last Cold War.

Update 6, March 16, 5:30 AM EDT (Hannah Levintova): Several NATO websites were hit by cyber-attacks in the hours preceding the start of referendum voting in Crimea. A group calling itself “cyber-berkut” took credit for the attack, saying they targeted NATO for its interference in Ukraine. “We will not allow NATO occupiers in our homeland,” the collective wrote on their site. Their name references the berkut, an especially-feared faction of Ukraine’s police force used by ousted President Viktor Yanukovych that has since been disbanded. A NATO spokeswoman wrote on Twitter that the integrity of NATO data and systems was not effected and that experts were working to restore the sites.

Update 7, March 16, 11:30 AM EDT (Dana Liebelson): As the referendum vote wraps up in Ukraine, a German research group, GfK, has conducted early polling that anticipates a landslide vote for secession, with 70% of Crimeans participating in the vote choosing to join Russia; 11% choosing increased autonomy within Ukraine. There are also reports of Russian and Ukrainian troops building up near the border. Here is a video posted by The Wire of Russian tanks moving towards southwest Russia:

Update 8, March 16, 2:15 PM EDT (Eric Wuestewald): RT is reporting that 93% of those who participated in the Crimean referendum voted to seceed from Ukraine and become part of Russia, according to exit polls. Official results are expected later. Crimea’s Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov has responded to the news by announcing Crimea would join Russia in “as tight a timeframe as possible.”

The White House released a statement reaffirming its opposition to the referendum and called on members of the international community to condemn and “impose costs” on Russia’s actions:

The United States has steadfastly supported the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine since it declared its independence in 1991, and we reject the “referendum” that took place today in the Crimean region of Ukraine. This referendum is contrary to Ukraine’s constitution, and the international community will not recognize the results of a poll administered under threats of violence and intimidation from a Russian military intervention that violates international law.

Update 9, March 16, 4:50 EDT (Hannah Levintova): The AP, along with several of Russia’s state-funded news networks, are reporting that with about 50 percent of ballots counted, more than 95 percent of Crimea’s voters have opted to join Russia and secede from Ukraine.

Reports are also coming out saying that some journalists were prohibited from entering the polling stations to observe the vote count.

Continued here:

Conflict in Crimea: First Referendum Results Show Crimea Has Voted to Join Russia

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California and Illinois release draft fracking rules, and California’s are better

by km10madrid Posted on November 19, 2013

California and Illinois release draft fracking rules, and California’s are better

By

Bureau of Labor Statistics

If poring over draft fracking regulations is your cup of tea, then we’ve got a big steaming teapot for you.

California and Illinois both proposed rules governing hydraulic fracturing on Friday, after their governors signed bills requiring them earlier this year. A quick read of the tea leaves suggests that frackers are going to continue plundering Illinois with little thought given to environmental impacts. Frackers operating in California, however, will need to abide by some tough new regulations – but not tough enough to mollify environmentalists, who continue to call for a fracking moratorium in the Golden State.

Let’s look at Illinois first. “The new rules will include requirements that oil and gas companies test water before, during and after drilling, and hold them liable if contamination is found after drilling begins,” the Associated Press reports. But that’s not good enough, greens say.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources published a first draft of Illinois’ rules for high-volume oil and gas drilling on Friday, and environmental groups quickly criticized them as violating the spirit of regulations that industry, environmentalists and lawmakers crafted together.

The state’s hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” regulations were hailed as among the toughest in the nation when they were signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn earlier this year. The DNR, which will enforce them, must adopt rules to reflect the law, and will seek public feedback until Jan. 3.

But the proposed rules appear to undercut some key protections in the law, said Ann Alexander, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Midwest program, who participated in negotiations.

For example, the law requires that wastewater be kept in tanks, rather than open pits used in some other states, but allows emergency overflow into reserve pits. But the proposed rules do not specify how companies should calculate the size of the tanks they’ll need, and allows overflow to be removed seven days after fracking is completed, rather than seven days after it occurs — which Alexander called an “incentive for industry to try to make routine use of the dangerous open-air pits, under the guise of emergency use.”
Illinoisans can submit comments on the rules until Jan. 3.

Now let’s head to California. From the Los Angeles Times:

Hailed by state officials as the toughest in the nation, the draft regulations issued Friday would require those who conduct fracking to get state permits, test groundwater quality and notify neighbors before starting work. …

What’s needed now, [environmentalists] said, is a statewide ban on fracking and related techniques until scientists can provide firm assurances that the practice won’t cause harm.

“We want a timeout,” said Kathryn Phillips, state director of the Sierra Club. “At best, these regulations can be described as a mixed bag,” she said. “At worst, they provide another example of an agency’s continued deference to a regulated entity, even at the expense of public health and the environment.”

Nevertheless, even some opponents conceded that the proposed regulations were better than nothing.

“There are some good provisions from our very preliminary review,” said Bill Allayaud of the Environmental Working Group.

Californians have 60 days to comment on the proposed rules. The state will also be conducting a study of the environmental impacts of fracking, which could take up to 18 months to complete.


Source
Brown releases proposed rules for fracking, Los Angeles Times
First proposed Illinois oil, gas ‘fracking’ rules open for public comment, hearings scheduled, The Associated Press

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Typhoon and earthquake strike Fukushima

by xf0ks040u Posted on September 20, 2013

Typhoon and earthquake strike Fukushima

By

Shutterstock

The trail to Fukushima.

Two and a half years ago, the Fukushima Daiichi power facility was knocked out by a tsunami and earthquake. Myriad troubles ensued. Then this week it was hit by a typhoon, flooding, and another earthquake. Can’t a nuclear plant catch a break?

On Monday, Typhoon Man-yi smacked into Japan, causing flooding in some parts of the country, and new troubles at Fukushima.  From Agence France-Presse:

The operator of the leaking Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday that it dumped more than 1,000 tons of polluted water into the sea after a typhoon raked the facility. …

The rain … lashed near the broken plant run by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), swamping enclosure walls around clusters of water tanks containing toxic water that was used to cool broken reactors.

Then, early Friday morning, the Fukushima Prefecture was rocked by a 5.3 magnitude earthquake. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have done any additional damage to the already crippled plant. From the AP:

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake struck early Friday at a depth of about 13 miles under Fukushima Prefecture and about 110 miles northeast of Tokyo. …

The Japanese news agency Kyodo News reported that the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., observed no abnormality in radiation or equipment after the quake.

Even before this latest earthquake, Japan’s government was clearly fed up with the perpetually beleaguered nuclear facility. “Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday ordered TEPCO to scrap all six reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and concentrate on tackling pressing issues like leaks of radioactive water,” the AP reports.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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Typhoon and earthquake strike Fukushima

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FDA moves to keep arsenic out of your apple juice

by bvds34dfsg Posted on July 15, 2013

FDA moves to keep arsenic out of your apple juice

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Finally, more apples in our arsenic juice.

Apple juice may soon be as safe to drink as tap water. (Well, except for all that sugar.)

Nearly two years after consumer groups raised alarms about elevated levels of arsenic in some brands of apple juice, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed new limits on permissible levels of the chemical, which can cause cancer and other maladies.

The FDA’s proposed “action level” for inorganic arsenic in apple juice matches the EPA’s existing rules for tap water — 10 parts per billion.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

The FDA has tested arsenic in apple juice for at least 20 years and has long said the levels are not dangerous to consumers, in particular the small children who favor the fruit juice (second only to orange juice in popularity, according to industry groups).

But the agency issued a tougher stance with its announcement Friday. Under the new regulation, apple juice containing more than 10 parts per billion could be removed from the market and companies could face legal action.

The proposal follows testing by The Dr. Oz Show and Consumer Reports [PDF] that revealed that some apple juices contained more arsenic than was allowed in tap water.

WTF is arsenic doing in apple juice anyway? The Chicago Tribune explains:

Inorganic arsenic in food can come from pesticides or from soil and groundwater pollution, though some occurs naturally in the environment. Organic arsenic is viewed as relatively safe, but emerging research suggests that two types of organic arsenic may be toxic. The FDA says these occur rarely or in negligible quantities in apple juice.

It probably doesn’t help that a lot of the apple juice sold in the U.S. comes from concentrate imported from China, a country that does not have an exemplary food-safety record.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Oklahoma’s cyclones were all kinds of freaky

by Unique Article Posted on June 6, 2013

Oklahoma’s cyclones were all kinds of freaky

By John Upton

Brian Khoury

A scene from Oklahoma last Friday.

Not only did Friday’s tornado outburst in Oklahoma lead to at least 20 deaths, but analysis by NOAA has revealed that it included the widest tornado ever recorded in the U.S. and one twister that spun the wrong way.

The diameter of the El Rino tornado, which on Friday killed three famous weather chasers, reached a mind-boggling and record-breaking 2.6 miles. Both the El Rino cyclone and the Moore tornado, which struck nearby a week earlier, were rated EF5, the most damaging type of cyclone on the Enhanced Fujita scale. From LiveScience:

“To have two EF5s within less than two weeks in the same general area — that’s highly unusual,” [University Corporation for Atmospheric Research scientist Jeff] Weber told LiveScience. “Off the top of my head, I haven’t heard of it happening before.”

The tornadoes were made possible by “perfect” tornado conditions in the area, which have been intermittent for weeks, Weber said. Specifically, the alignment of the jet stream is bringing dry, cold air down from the north and allowing it to interact with warm, moist air from off the Gulf of Mexico, which sets up a volatile situation.

Like a wedge, the cold air collides with the warm air and causes it to rise, since warm air is less dense, Weber said. This rising warm air has created thunderstorms that have, in turn, spawned tornadoes.

It’s not just the size and power of the tornadoes that was remarkable. NOAA says that one of the tornadoes that struck Friday was a rare anticyclonic tornado:

You might think that an anticyclonic tornado would work in reverse of a typical tornado, replacing house roofs and putting cars back where they were before the normal tornado struck. But in fact, an anticyclonic tornado spins clockwise, whereas most other Northern Hemisphere storms spin counterclockwise.

From The Washington Post‘s Capital Weather Gang:

Leading tornado researcher Joshua Wurman (of the Center for Severe Weather Research) and his team were in the field monitoring the deadly EF5 twister when they spied another funnel, but spinning backwards, on their two “Doppler on Wheels” mobile radar units.

“At that point we bailed east towards Oklahoma City,” Wurman said. “I’m very happy my team had a radar out there. We only knew about [the anticyclonic tornado] because of the radar; otherwise we may have driven into it.”

Amazingly, Wurman’s encounter was not El Reno’s first with cyclonic and anticyclonic tornado pairings. On April 24, 2006, such a duo touched down in the area.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Famous storm chasers killed by Oklahoma tornado

by 1LymSlagter473 Posted on June 3, 2013

Famous storm chasers killed by Oklahoma tornado

By John Upton

Penn State

Tim Samaras.

Three researchers including a father and son who starred on the TV reality show Storm Chasers died doing what they loved on Friday night: venturing treacherously close to killer tornadoes to help the rest of us understand how they work.

Tim Samaras, founder of the tornado research company Twistex, and his son Paul Samaras were killed after a tornado struck the Oklahoma City suburb of El Reno on Friday. Their partner, Carl Young, also died.

“They all unfortunately passed away doing what they LOVED,” wrote Tim Samaras’s brother, Jim, in a post on Facebook. “I look at it that he is in the ‘big tornado’ in the sky.”

“As far as we know, these are the first documented storm intercept fatalities in a tornado,” NOAA said in a statement. “Scientific storm intercept programs, though they occur with some known measure of risk, provide valuable research information that is difficult to acquire in other ways.”

The tornado researchers were among 13 people killed when five tornadoes touched down in central Oklahoma on Friday night. Three more people drowned in floods triggered by the storms.

From National Geographic:

Tim Samaras, who was 55, spent the past 20 years zigzagging across the Plains, predicting where tornados would develop and placing probes he designed in the twister’s path in to measure data from inside the cyclone. (Read National Geographic’s last interview with Tim Samaras.)

“Data from the probes helps us understand tornado dynamics and how they form,” he told National Geographic. “With that piece of the puzzle we can make more precise forecasts and ultimately give people earlier warnings.”

Samaras’s instruments offered the first-ever look at the inside of a tornado by using six radially placed high-resolution video cameras that offered complete 360-degree views. He also captured lightning strikes using ultra-high-speed photography with a camera he designed to 1 million frames per second.

Samaras’s interest in tornados began when he was 6, after seeing the movie The Wizard of Oz. For the past 20 years, he spent May and June traveling through Tornado Alley, an area which has the highest frequency of tornados in the world.

From Reuters:

Five tornadoes touched down in central Oklahoma and caused flash flooding 11 days after a twister categorized as EF5, the most powerful ranking, tore up the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore and killed 24 people. Severe storms also swept into neighboring Missouri, while Moore experienced only limited damage this time.

Oklahoma’s Medical Examiner on Sunday put the state’s death toll at 13, including four children. Authorities in neighboring Missouri said there had been at least three deaths on Friday in flooding triggered by the violent storms.

As usual, so-called storm chasers closely tracked the storm to measure its power, gather research and take video to feed the television and Internet appetite for dramatic images.

“It is too early to say specifically how this tornado might change how we cover severe weather, but we certainly plan to review and discuss this incident,” said David Blumenthal, a spokesman for The Weather Channel, for which Tim Samaras and Young had worked in the past.

Three employees of the channel suffered minor injuries when their sport-utility vehicle was thrown about 200 yards by the winds while tracking the El Reno storm on Friday.

In this video, Tim Samaras describes how watching The Wizard of Oz triggered his lifelong obsession with tornadoes:

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Chinese forests now just chopstick factories in waiting

by Unacoomt Posted on March 12, 2013

Chinese forests now just chopstick factories in waiting

By Susie Cagle

China’s been dealing with a lot of pressure lately: dirty air, a river full of dead pigs, new pledges to go green … To cope, there’s apparently been an uptick in stress-eating. The country is now producing 80 billion pairs of disposable wooden chopsticks a year, nearly 60 pairs for each person in the country, according to Bai Guangxin, chair of Jilin Forestry Industry Group. That’s way up from the estimated 57 billion pairs produced annually between 2004 and 2009. At this rate, China is destroying nearly 1.5 percent of its forests each year just in the name of chopsticks.

theeruditefrog

From The Huffington Post:

The consequences of China’s chopstick production — deforestation, for one — have prompted action from some environmental groups. …

Bai pointed out during [a] meeting Friday that the Chinese government has also begun taking action by introducing policies limiting manufacturing of disposable chopsticks.

Government actions range from a 5-percent tax levied in 2006 on disposable chopsticks, to a 2010 warning of potential government regulations for companies that fail to strictly supervise disposable chopstick production. …

“We should change our consumption habits and encourage people to carry their own tableware,” Bai recommended on Friday.

If the country’s still planning on increasing its forest cover by nearly 21 percent by 2020, it should heed Bai’s advice. (You’d think as the head of a timber company he might be able to do something about this himself, but there’s the whole state-run thing to contend with.)

Maybe a little DIY could help. My brother, a sushi fanatic, carries his own steel travel chopsticks in a pouch around his neck. Similar sticks with a travel case cost a few bucks at your local Asian market. Bonus: no figurative or literal splinters in your mouth from unethical eating instruments.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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State Dept. on Keystone XL: So not a big deal

by iscciaglewstrone123 Posted on March 1, 2013

State Dept. on Keystone XL: So not a big deal

By Grist staff

The U.S. State Department just released a draft environmental impact statement for the Keystone XL pipeline, and it’s not what climate activists have been hoping for.

As The New York Times puts it, the report “makes no recommendation about whether the project should be built but presents no conclusive environmental reason it should not be.” According to The Washington Post, the report “suggest[s] that blocking the project would not have a significant impact on either the future development of Canada’s oil sands region or U.S. oil consumption.”

More from the Times:

The new impact statement says that extracting, shipping, refining and burning oil from the tar sands produces more climate-altering greenhouse gases than most conventional oil, but less than many of the project’s critics claim. The State Department study says that tar sands oil produces 5 percent to 19 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than other crude, depending on what oil was compared and who performed the calculations.

It predicts that Canada and its oil industry partners will probably continue to develop the oil sands even if the Keystone XL pipeline is not built. It states that building or not building the pipeline will have no significant impact on demand for heavy crude in the United States.

And it says that alternate means of transporting the oil — rail, truck, barge — also have significant environmental and economic impacts, including higher cost, noise, traffic, air pollution and the possibility of spills. It does not say that one method is better for the environment than the other, but says that a spill is more likely for rail transport but the volume of oil spilled from a pipeline probably would be greater.

Mother Jones reports that some of the document’s conclusions “have enviros worried that a greenlight is inevitable”:

Enviros immediately seized on the new report, arguing against its claim that any spills associated with the pipeline are “expected to be rare and relatively small,” and said it underestimated the project’s contribution to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. They also challenged the idea that TransCanada’s pipeline will not make a huge difference in the development of the tar sands, pointing to the industry’s own claims that the pipeline is essential to their plans to expand export of this type of oil.

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune captured the feelings of many activists with his response to the news: “President Obama said that he’s committed to fighting the climate crisis. If that is true, he should throw the State Department’s report away and reject the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline.”

When government officials release 2,000-page reports on Friday afternoons, it generally means they’d prefer that you didn’t hear about them. The full report is here if you’d like to spend your whole weekend feeling crappy about this news (maybe you’d like to discuss it with some people at #NoKXL or #Keystone).

This is by no means a final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. This draft report will be published next week and then subject to 45 days of public comment, after which it will be revised and finalized. The State Department also still has to release an analysis of whether the pipeline is in the “national interest,” so look for that to drop on another Friday afternoon. Ultimately, President Obama will make the final decision, probably in late spring or summer.

In the meantime, get those angry comments ready, folks. You know the American Petroleum Institute is already all over it.

Source

U.S. Report Sees No Environmental Bar to Keystone Pipeline, The New York Times
Blocking Keystone XL won’t save the climate, State Department analysis says, The Washington Post

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We answer your questions about the coming East Coast blizzard

by u60uurf Posted on February 7, 2013

We answer your questions about the coming East Coast blizzard

By Philip Bump

pbumpA New York City bus, stuck during a 2010 blizzard

It’s going to snow on the East Coast tomorrow, lasting overnight until Saturday. That much is known and agreed upon.

The following points are up for debate.

How much snow will there be?

Boston’s mayor, Thomas Menino, held a press conference this morning, canceling school and suggesting that people not be on the roads after noon. At that time, the city will be in a state of snow emergency. Why? Because of this:

weather.gov

That blizzard could dump two feet of snow on the city — perhaps as much as 30 inches. Or, according to one report: over four feet.

New York, meanwhile, could see an equal amount. Or it could see three inches. Gawker explains the discrepancy:

Right now, American (GFS) computer models are predicting a few inches of snow for much of the tri-state: a little over two inches for New York City; under an inch for much of New Jersey. Some of it might be rain. The sky-water is expected to start falling Thursday night through Friday morning, but the the brunt of the storm probably won’t hit until late Friday night. …

The European model, like a European model, is much more intimidating (and mean). According to the ECMWF (European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting — boring name; brainstorm improvements while trapped in your home this weekend), the amount of snow in New York could reach over a foot by Saturday evening (about 15 inches). The European model is generally considered by meteorologists to be the most accurate (it was the first to accurately predict the track of Hurricane Sandy).

So the answer to the question above is: We’ll see.

Does the storm have a name?

If you work in the marketing department at the Weather Channel, your answer to this will be an emphatic “yes.” The network has declared the storm to be “Nemo,” after the terrifying submarine captain in that old book, or maybe the terrifying clownfish in that newer movie.

Others, like Time TV critic James Poniewozik, don’t embrace the idea.

What’s the scariest part of the National Weather Service’s blizzard alert?

Well, of all of the words in the alert, it’s probably this section:

VERY STRONG WINDS UP TO HURRICANE FORCE ARE POSSIBLE FRIDAY NIGHT INTO SATURDAY. THIS MAY RESULT IN SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE ALONG WITH BLIZZARD CONDITIONS FOR A TIME. SCATTERED POWER OUTAGES ARE A POSSIBILITY.

Why is this storm happening?

(This issue isn’t actually up for debate.)

The Capital Weather Gang explains:

The cause of the storm is the explosive combination of two weather disturbances.

“A strong northern stream system will translate its energy to a southern stream low coming up the coast,” says [Wes Junker, the Gang’s winter weather expert]. “The latter will pull lots of moisture northward setting the stage for a major blizzard for the northeast as the low bombs out and slows off the New England coast.”

Is this a climate-change-related thing?

We can’t attribute specific weather events to climate change. It is the case that a warmer atmosphere results in more energy and stronger systems, and that incidents of heavy precipitation have increased over the past 60 years.

Will everyone who is still affected by Hurricane Sandy be OK?

God, I hope so.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Feds mark territory all over L.A. wildlife habitat

by gerdi Posted on January 15, 2013

Feds mark territory all over L.A. wildlife habitat

By Susie Cagle

Los Angelenos may be fond of their cars, but they’re also fond of their diverse wildlife. That’s probably not what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was counting on when it unilaterally and without warning decided to clear-cut 43 acres of wildlife habitat on L.A.’s Sepulveda Basin.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Much of the area’s vegetation had been planted in the 1980s, part of an Army Corps project that turned that portion of the Los Angeles River flood plain into a designated wildlife preserve.

Tramping through the mud Friday, botanist Ellen Zunino — who was among hundreds of volunteers who planted willows, coyote brush, mule fat and elderberry trees in the area — was engulfed by anger, sadness and disbelief.

“I’m heartbroken. I was so proud of our work,” the 66-year-old said, taking a deep breath. “I don’t see any of the usual signs of preparation for a job like this, such as marked trees or colored flags,” Zunino added. “It seems haphazard and mean-spirited, almost as though someone was taking revenge on the habitat.”

In 2010, the preserve had been reclassified as a “vegetation management area” — with a new five-year mission of replacing trees and shrubs with native grasses to improve access for Army Corps staffers, increase public safety and discourage crime in an area plagued by sex-for-drugs encampments.

The Army Corps declared that an environmental impact report on the effort was not necessary because it would not significantly disturb wildlife and habitat.

By Friday, however, nearly all of the vegetation — native and non-native — had been removed. Decomposed granite trails, signs, stone structures and other improvements bought and installed with public money had been plowed under.

Since the razing, the Corps has posted many photos of happy birds in other parts of the basin habitat in an attempt to reassure the public, or at least the public that is aware of its Flickr page. The Corps said that “somehow” it “didn’t clearly communicate” its intentions to plow under the habitat. Is it any wonder that excuse didn’t go over so well with, well, anyone?

The state water agency, state senators, and city council members are demanding an explanation by Feb. 11, and a plan to remediate the newly crushed area. So far the Corps’ explanation has been, essentially, “Oops.” Char Miller at KCET is not having any of it:

Did the Corps believe that no one would care? Or that even if people came upon its hack job that the traumatized terrain would elicit no comment? Or did the agency simply decide to act as it so often has in the past with little regard to the environmental consequences, and the public be damned?…

It is impossible to imagine that the Corps’ construction of this sterile monoculture, so consistent with its concrete fixation, will ever come close to matching the rich biota that citizen-led restoration efforts have nurtured on and attracted to the site. Like a wolf peeing on its territorial boundaries, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with bulldozer and chainsaw, has marked its turf, and the result has been a scandalous diminishing of nature and democracy.

Like a wolf peeing on its territorial boundaries. The Corps might’ve razed the land, but Miller’s raised standards when it comes to awesomely and appropriately rude similes to apply to the federal government.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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Feds mark territory all over L.A. wildlife habitat

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