hydraulic fracturing
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NYT Mag: Country folk understand fracking better than city folk
The New York Times has a long article in this weekend's magazine about hydraulic fracturing in southwestern Pennsylvania. It tries to capture the culture of the place and to show the tensions for people who have an economic interest in drilling but are at risk of suffering health impacts. But it also manages to glance […]
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The new fracking battleground: Trenton
There's a new battlefront in the fracking fight: the Delaware River Basin, which provides water to 5 percent of the country's population. And anti-fracking dreamboat Mark Ruffalo is asking for help in fighting against fracking there. You don’t have to take Ruffalo’s word for it — you probably want to fight fracking anyway. When 350.org […]
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Oil and gas reps suggest using counterinsurgency tactics on fracking opponents
It's obvious that the natural gas industry has no love for opponents of fracking in places like Pennsylvania. But recordings from an industry meeting reveal that the industry's animosity goes a little deeper than mere irritation — they think of opponents as an "insurgency" that should be handled with techniques developed to fight terrorism in […]
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Fracking causing earthquakes in England and Oklahoma
Natural gas fracking caused an earthquake in England. And a spate of quakes in Oklahoma. And while the idea that fracking for natural gas causes earthquakes has been floating around, these quakes offer stronger proof that fracking seriously messes with the environment. And while these quakes, peaking in intensity around the high 2s on the […]
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Critical List: U.S. solar files complaint against China; crayon sculpture melts in Texas heat
American solar companies filed a trade complaint against China for dumping cheap solar panels in the U.S. market.
California could pass cap-and-trade.
Adrian Grenier from Entourage is opening a pop-up gallery in L.A. that focuses on sustainable living.
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Critical List: Leaking New Zealand oil tanker could break apart; EPA to speed Great Lakes cleanup
Eeek. A huge crack has opened up in the hull of the ship leaking oil off the coast of New Zealand, and the ship could break up apart "at any point," according to Maritime New Zealand.
In the U.S., the Justice Department had to sue Transocean to force the company to answer government subpoenas related to the Macondo well spill.
Can we feed people without killing the planet? Yes, says a new study, but it’ll take money, planning, and eating less meat.
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Critical List: Enviros want Lisa Jackson to stay; a Penn. town could ban fracking
Enviros are hoping Lisa Jackson, their one stalwart ally high up in the administration, will keep on keeping on, despite the White House's decision to undermine her work on smog regulations.
A Pennsylvania town could vote to ban natural gas drilling.
One organizer of Rio+20, a U.N. summit next year on climate issues, says the conference should split environmentalism away from climate change issues. Basically, he says, we’re at the point where it’s much more important to embrace sustainability and prepare for climate change than it is to resolve the Green vs. Brown faceoff. -
Critical List: Biden stumps for clean energy; the magical green properties of concrete
"The biggest mistake this nation has made in its entire history" would be not to invest in clean energy, VP Joe Biden said yesterday at the National Clean Energy Summit 4.0
The Russian government just cut a deal with Exxon to look for oil in that country’s sector of the Arctic. The next day, Russia raided BP’s Moscow offices.
George Monbiot argues that fracking without regulation is insane.
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Despite everything, natural gas is still cleaner than coal
Back in April, the EPA officially recognized that drilling for natural gas releases more methane than the agency had thought and offered a new methodology for estimating methane emissions connected to natural gas. The Worldwatch Institute, which does sustainability research, and the Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors, who do pretty much what their name says they do, crunched the numbers and found that, despite this, natural gas still releases less atmosphere-clogging gas than coal.