A new paper in the journal Nature argues that the release of a 50 Gigatonne (Gt) methane pulse from thawing Arctic permafrost could destabilise the climate system and trigger costs as high as the value of the entire world’s GDP. The East Siberian Arctic Shelf’s (ESAS) reservoir of methane gas hydrates could be released slowly over 50 years or ‘catastrophically fast’ in a matter of decades – if not even one decade – the researchers said.

Not everyone agrees that the paper’s scenario of a catastrophic and imminent methane release is plausible. Nasa’s Gavin Schmidt has previously argued that the danger of such a methane release is low, whereas scientists like Prof Tim Lenton from Exeter University who specialises in climate tipping points, says the process would take thousands if not tens of thousands of years, let alone a decade.

But do most models underestimate the problem? A new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) projects that the Arctic will be ice free in September by around 2054-58. This, however, departs significantly from empirical observations of the rapid loss of Arctic summer sea ice which is heading for disappearance within two or three years according to Nature co-author […]

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As New York gears up for a massive expansion of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, state officials have made a potentially troubling discovery about the wastewater created by the process: It’s radioactive. And they have yet to say how they’ll deal with it.

The information comes from New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation, which analyzed 13 samples of wastewater brought thousands of feet to the surface from drilling and found that they contain levels of radium 226, a derivative of uranium, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink.

The findings, if backed up with more tests, have several implications: The energy industry would likely face stiffer regulations and expenses, and have more trouble finding treatment plants to accept its waste-if any would at all. Companies would need to license their waste handlers and test their workers for radioactive exposure, and possibly ship waste across the country. And the state would have to sort out how its laws for radioactive waste might apply to drilling and how the waste could impact water supplies and the environment.

What is less clear is how the wastewater may […]

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oday a coalition of environmental organizations and clean water groups released an eye popping new report highlighting the public health threats of toxic water pollution from coal-fired power plants. Environmental experts from Waterkeeper Alliance, Sierra Club, Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice and Clean Water Action reviewed technical data from 386 coal-fired power plants across the country and found that the Clean Water Act has been almost universally ignored by power companies and permitting agencies.

For each plant, the groups reviewed permit and monitoring requirements for some of the most toxic poisons routinely discharged into rivers, lakes and bays on a daily basis including arsenic, boron, cadmium, lead, mercury and selenium. The report, Closing the Floodgates: How the Coal Industry Is Poisoning Our Water and How We Can Stop It found that:

In the absence of any effective pollution limit, coal plants have become by far the largest source of toxic water pollution in the country

Of the 274 coal plants that discharge coal ash and scrubber wastewater into waterways, nearly 70 percent (188) have no limits on the toxics most commonly found in these discharges (arsenic, boron, cadmium, lead, mercury and selenium) that are dumped directly […]

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The USDA ‘rubber-stamped’ the first of many ‘dangerous’ new genetically engineered (GE) seeds Friday under the department’s new streamlined approval process.

The fast-track process allows the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to ‘make a determination of nonregulated status for crops with GE traits that have already been approved in another crop’ without a new review, allowing for a more ‘timely and predictable review process,’ according to Mike Firko, APHIS Acting Deputy Administrator for biotechnology regulatory services.

‘As expected, the fast-track approval process has made it all that much easier for the USDA to rubber-stamp a host of new GE crops,’ Katherine Paul, Associate Director of the Organic Consumers Association, told Common Dreams.

The first products to come down the speedy new pipeline are a host of canola seeds resistant to the ‘dangerous’ herbicide glyphosate, which a recent study linked to a litany of health disorders and diseases including Parkinson’s, cancer and autism.

Already approved is a glyphosate-resistant canola from Pioneer, with other pending petitions for deregulation including Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant canola and hybridization system corn, as well as Genective’s glyphosate-resistant corn.

‘For years, scientists have warned about the hazards of glyphosate,’ continued Paul, who noted that the FDA recently raised the allowable limit […]

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