Environmental News Archive
On a bright fall day in 2008, Scott Ely arrived at the natural gas well a few hundred feet from his home to find work strangely stilled.
His fellow employees of Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.'s drilling subsidiary were watching the only thing moving: a huge plume of gas "like Niagara Falls going upwards" buffeting the drilling rig from below, he remembered. The gas in the air was sickening.
Gas company whistle-blower details spills, errors
Global warming gases 'hit record high' says UN panel - but CO2 may not be worst
Global warming gases have increased beyond the worst predictions of the UN's climate experts - exceeding the worst of seven emissions predictions laid down by the UN's World Meteorological Organisations.
Weather stations in the Andes, in Alaska and the south Pacific helped to gather the data, which showed surges in various 'greenhouse' gases, including gases used as replacements for the CFCs previously blamed for eroding the ozone layer.
Vote to frack in Delaware River Basin delayed for now
The Delaware River Basin Commission on Friday postponed a meeting set for Monday to consider draft rules for natural-gas wells developed using a controversial drilling process.
On Thursday, Gov. Jack Markell told the commission Delaware would cast a vote against the proposals. Commission officials said the delay was intended to give the five-member panel more time to consider the issue.
Report: Climate change worsens extreme weather events
Heat waves, floods and other extreme weather worsen with global warming, suggests a major international climate report released today. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, obtained in draft form by USA TODAY, stresses that expanding cities and populations worldwide, also raise the odds of severe impacts from weather disasters.
"Unprecedented extreme weather and climate events" look likely in coming decades as a result of a changing climate, says the draft report. The final version was released early today by IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri at a meeting hosted by report sponsors, the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme, in Kampala, Uganda.
Oil and Gas Industry Is Inflating the Job-Creating Potential of Shale Gas Development by as Much as 900 Percent
Major oil and gas interests are spending millions to convince Americans that they can lift us from our economic slump in part by fracking our nation's shale gas reserves.
But a new set of analyses released today by the national consumer advocacy organization Food & Water Watch finds that the oil and gas industry is exaggerating the job-creating potential of shale gas development, in one case by 900 percent.
IEA: Warming may be irreversible by 2017
Rising energy demands could result in irreversible global warming by 2017 without strict new standards, an energy watchdog group said this week in London.
The International Energy Agency said in its latest World Energy Outlook, released Wednesday, that a "remarkable" 5 percent jump in global primary energy demand last year pushed greenhouse gas emissions to a new high due to the rebound of the world's economies following the 2008 financial crisis.
U.S. Government Confirms Link Between Earthquakes and Hydraulic Fracturing
On 5 November an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois. Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state. Why?In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state.
EPA Finds Compound Used in Fracking in Wyoming Aquifer
As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution.
A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing, according to new water test results released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Tar sands oil and Keystone XL's dirty secret
Picture this: a large, multibillion dollar Canadian corporation comes to the president of the United States and wants to build a 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
After reviewing the project, it becomes clear that instead of reducing America's reliance on oil from overseas, this pipeline would carry oil across America, risking spills on our land and waters, just to export the oil to other countries. In addition, the pipeline would increase gasoline prices in America, add to our air pollution, and most importantly, be a major setback in the fight to reverse global warming.
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