Environmental News

Giant Owl Escapes in England

LOWER STRATTON, England, March 12 (UPI) — Authorities in southwest England are warning residents to be on the lookout for a giant owl that may be hungry enough to make a meal of their pet cat or dog.
The European eagle owl escaped Sunday from its enclosure in the back garden of a home in Lower Stratton, near Swindon, The Times of London Online reports.
“The owner went into the enclosure and the owl flew at him,” says a spokeswoman for Wiltshire police. Read more »

Flagstaff Leading Anchorage in Snowfall

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., March 12 (UPI) — It’s hard to believe but Flagstaff, Ariz., has had more snow this year than either Anchorage, Alaska, or Buffalo, N.Y., the National Weather Service says.
The weather service says Flagstaff has racked up more than 11 feet of snow so far and is on the way to recording one of its snowiest seasons ever, the Arizona Republic reported Friday.
March usually produces a lot of snow so this winter could end up being Flagstaff’s fifth snowiest, the forecasters say. Read more »

Northern Rockies Facing Water Shortages

SPOKANE, Wash., March 12 (UPI) — Farmers and ranchers in the northern Rockies may soon face water shortages due to record low levels of winter snowpack, U.S. hydrologists say.
Hydrologists warn that with below-average mountain snowpack in most parts of the region, farmers and ranchers could face troubles if additional snowfall does not come soon, USA Today reported Friday. Read more »

More Ethanol Usage May Be Bad for Earth

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., March 11 (UPI) — A Purdue University study suggests the increased use of corn ethanol might boost the Earth’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Professor Thomas Hertel and his five co-authors said their new economic analysis of the effects of increasing use of corn-derived ethanol on greenhouse gas emissions confirms the corn-based biofuel is unlikely to reduce global production of carbon dioxide. Read more »

Colorado Avalanche Claims Life of Snowboarder

KEYSTONE, Colo., March 11 (UPI) — The coroner’s office for Summit County, Colo., said a 20-year-old snowboarder was killed in an avalanche near the state’s Arapahoe Basin.
The Summit County coroner’s office said the victim of Wednesday’s avalanche near the popular Colorado ski area was a man who relocated to Colorado from Spring Grove, Ill., last November, The Denver Post reported Thursday.
The coroner’s office did not release the victim’s name. Read more »

BP Buys Interest in Brazilian Oil Fields

LONDON, March 11 (UPI) — British oil giant BP said Thursday it had purchased rights to oil fields in Brazil for $7 billion from Devon Energy, a company based in Oklahoma.
The purchases include interest in eight offshore oil fields in the Campos and Camamu-Almada basins, The Times of London Online reported. Two other fields are in the Parniaba basin, inland.
Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras is said to have discovered fields containing 80 billion barrels of oil. Read more »

Strong Quake, More Aftershocks Rock Chile

SANTIAGO, Chile, March 11 (UPI) — A 7.2-magnitude earthquake and two strong aftershocks rumbled Thursday near Libertador O’Higgins, Chile, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake and aftershocks struck the administrative division just as Chile prepared to inaugurate Sebastian Pinera as president, CNN reported.
The quake’s epicenter was about 83 miles north of Talca, 85 miles south of Valparaiso and 92 miles southwest of Santiago, Chile’s capital, USGS said, and about 22 miles deep. Read more »

I-70 Reopens After Massive Colo. Rock Slide

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo., March 11 (UPI) — Interstate 70 through Colorado’s Glenwood Canyon reopened Thursday, three days after a rockslide of gigantic boulders covered the roadway in both directions.
One lane was opened in each direction with a 14-foot width restriction, state transportation department officials said.
The speed limit was reduced to 40 mph through the 16-mile canyon, whose walls climb as high as 1,300 feet above the Colorado River. Read more »

Pollution Affects Women’s Marathon Times

BLACKSBURG, Va., March 11 (UPI) — A U.S. researcher said women’s marathon running times are affected by poor air quality.
Civil and environmental engineer Lynsey Marr of Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg said higher levels of pollution particles in the air were associated with slower running times for women. However, men were not significantly affected.
Marr suggests the gender difference may be due to the smaller size of women’s trachea’s, which makes it easier for particles to deposit there and possibly cause irritation. Read more »

Tornadoes, Storms Cover Parts of U.S.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., March 11 (UPI) — A tornado watch for Arkansas ended Thursday after powerful tornadoes bulldozed through dozens of homes and critically injured two people, officials said.
The storms that produced the destructive tornadoes late Wednesday were expected to lose some their punch as they moved east of the Mississippi Thursday, AccuWeather.com said. However, forecasters warned some locally damaging storms could hit areas from southern Illinois to Florida.
In central Arkansas, one tornado damaged 22 homes in Saline County, CNN reported. Read more »

Vick Faces Protesters at Awards Ceremony

BALTIMORE, March 10 (UPI) — Philadelphia Eagles player Michael Vick should not have been given the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation prize at a Baltimore event, protesters said.
The Baltimore Sun said Wednesday nearly 100 protesters assembled outside a Baltimore banquet hall Tuesday night to oppose Vick serving as the Eagles’ representative for the annual award.
A single player on each of the 32 NFL teams is presented with the award every year for serving as a role model or for embracing principles such as courage or sportsmanship. Read more »

Scientists Chemically Turn CO2 into CO

ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 10 (UPI) — U.S. and British scientists say they’ve developed a technique that chemically turns carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using visible light, such as sunlight.
The achievement by researchers from the University of Michigan, led by Professor Steve Ragsdale and researcher Elizabeth Pierce, and scientists from the University of Oxford, led by Professor Fraser Armstrong, opens the doors for scientists to consider what organism exists, or can be created, to accomplish the same task. Read more »

California Park Sees 1st Condor Egg in 100 Years

PAICINES, Calif., March 10 (UPI) — A pair of California condors have nested in a California national park for the first time in more than 100 years, park officials said Wednesday.
Pinnacles National Park Superintendent Eric Brunneman said the Ventana Wildlife Society released the female condor at Pinnacles, in Paicines, approximately 18 months ago, and the male was set free in nearby Big Sur, along the state’s central coast, KTVU-TV, Oakland, reported.
The condors were tracked with visible numbers, radio telemetry, and global positioning technology. Read more »

Cotton That Conducts Electricity Created

ITHACA, N.Y., March 10 (UPI) — U.S. scientists say they have developed cotton threads that can conduct electricity as well as a metal wire, yet remain light and flexible enough to wear.
Researchers led by Cornell University Assistant Professor Juan Hinestroza say the technology might some day allow your T-shirt to cool you on a hot day, analyze your perspiration or monitor your heart rate. Your pillow will be able to monitor your brain waves and a dress might be able to charge an iPod or MP4 player.
The scientists say that’s not science fiction — it’s cotton in 2010. Read more »

East Africa is Next Hot Oil Zone

NAIROBI, Kenya, March 10 (UPI) — East Africa is emerging as the next oil boom following a big strike in Uganda’s Lake Albert Basin. Other oil and natural gas reserves have been found in Tanzania and Mozambique and exploration is under way in Ethiopia and even war-torn Somalia.
The region, until recently largely ignored by the energy industry, is “the last real high-potential area in the world that hasn’t been fully explored,” says Richard Schmitt, chief executive officer of Dubai’s Black Marlin Energy, which is prospecting in East Africa. Read more »

Judge Spares 30 Fighting Dogs

DETROIT, March 10 (UPI) — A federal judge in Detroit says about 30 dogs seized from a fighting ring can be adopted or placed in foster homes.
Judge David Lawson overruled a prosecutor’s recommendation in ruling Tuesday that the dogs, mostly pit bulls, did not need to be euthanized.
Anyone interested in adopting the dogs or fostering them, however, must be told of the dogs’ histories and of a state law that imposes criminal liability on owners of dogs who later kill or maim, Lawson said. Read more »

Obama Attacks Healthcare Fraud, Waste

WASHINGTON, March 10 (UPI) — U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday the healthcare system loses billions of dollars a year to fraud, waste, abuse and subsidies to insurance companies.
“Nowhere is reform more needed than when it comes to our healthcare system,” Obama said at a high school in suburban St. Louis.
“The healthcare system has billions of dollars that should go to patient care and they’re lost each and every year to fraud, to abuse, to massive subsidies that line the pockets of the insurance industry.” Read more »

Santa Monica Restaurant Sold Banned Whale Meat

LOS ANGELES, March 10 (UPI) — Federal prosecutors Wednesday accused a Santa Monica, Calif., restaurant and one of its chefs of selling Sei whale meat illegally.
The sale of whale meat is banned in the United States under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and Sei whales are on the endangered species list, U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said in a news release. Read more »

Dolphins Win Big At Oscars

Los Angeles, California (March 10) – Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony was not just a big night for fashion and entertainment. It also helped to bring light to an environmental topic from the dark ocean depths. The Cove received an Oscar for Best Feature Documentary, an honor which will help bring awareness to the controversial issue of dolphin capture and slaughter. Read more »

Thomas, Etheridge Support Water Initiative

LOS ANGELES, March 10 (UPI) — U.S. singers Melissa Etheridge and Rob Thomas are to take part in the global water initiative Dow Live Earth Run for Water.
Live Earth, organizer of the Dow Live Earth Run for Water; Pacific Sports, race director for the Los Angeles event; and Atlanta Track Club, race director for the Atlanta event, announced Monday that Etheridge will perform live at the Los Angeles eent and Thomas will perform in Atlanta.
The Dow Live Earth Run for Water is a series of 6km run/walks, culminating with water education villages and live musical performances. Read more »

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