Public

"Hunted to near extinction in the 19th century, the trumpeter swan is taking advantage of warmer, longer summers to expand its range and numbers - one of the few good news stories of global warming, at least for now."

Jane Kay reports for The Daily Climate January 18, 2012.
 

"President Barack Obama's jobs council called on Tuesday for a corporate tax overhaul, expanded domestic drilling and new regulatory reforms, a set of proposals unlikely to provide a quick fix for high unemployment or gain much traction in an election year."

"Prominent MIT researcher Kerry Emanuel has been receiving an unprecedented 'frenzy of hate' after a video featuring an interview with him was published recently by Climate Desk.

Emails contained 'veiled threats against my wife,' and other 'tangible threats,' Emanuel, a highly-regarded atmospheric scientist and director of MIT’s Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate program, said in an interview. 'They were vile, these emails. They were the kind of emails nobody would like to receive.'

"When the massive tsunami smacked into Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power plant was stacked high with more uranium than it was originally designed to hold and had repeatedly missed mandatory safety checks over the past decade. The Fukushima plant that has spun into partial meltdown and spewed out plumes of radiation had become a growing depot for spent fuel in a way the American engineers who designed the reactors 50 years earlier had never envisioned, according to company documents and outside experts."

"As a third-grader in Winsted, Connecticut, last year, Matthew Asselin was sick -- a lot. He was lethargic and plagued with a persistent wet cough, respiratory infections and painful headaches."

"The longtime head of the citizens advisory committee that has oversight of the state's parks and forests was fired Friday by the Corbett administration, a termination that council members say was illegal and raises concerns about reduced public accountability of Marcellus Shale gas drilling in state forests."

"New York's emerging plan to regulate natural gas drilling in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale needs to go further to safeguard drinking water, environmentally sensitive areas and gas industry workers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has informed state officials. The EPA's comments, in a series of letters [1] this week to the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, are significant because they suggest the agency will be watching closely as states in the Northeast and Midwest embrace new drilling technologies to tap vast reserves of shale gas."

"An offshore rig exploring possible oil and gas fields off Nigeria's coast for Chevron caught fire Monday, and the oil company said officials were still trying to account for all those working there."

"Chevron said two workers were missing and 152 others found, but gave no further detail on the missing persons.

The company said it was still investigating the fire, which occurred near its North Apoi oil platform, and which forced it to shut down."
     

"The United States is poised to formally and finally ban that slithering scourge of the Everglades, the Burmese python. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has championed the ban, is expected to make the announcement Tuesday morning during a press conference at a flood control pumping station off Tamiami Trail in the Everglades — a spot that is pretty much ground zero for a giant exotic constrictor that has become one of the nation’s most notorious invasive species."