Environment

Regulators Monitor 'Serious Leaks' At Japanese Nuclear Plant

7:25am August 23, 2013

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is back in the news — more than two years after an earthquake and tsunami triggered a series of meltdowns. New leaks found this week prompted regulators to consider raising the alert level.

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The Crosstex NGL Pipeline is just one such project in the country that has forced long, unwanted legal battles between oil companies and landowners.

Legal Battles Over Land Rights, Pipelines Are On The Rise

2:24pm August 22, 2013

by Mose Buchele, KUT News

The industry estimates that the U.S. will need to add 2,000 miles of pipeline per year, and that's just natural gas. Oil will need its own infrastructure. That means there will be a lot of pipeline going through a lot of private land — along with sometimes long, drawn-out legal fights with landowners.

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Heavy rains in Australia in 2010 and 2011 flooded farmland and homes, like these in the Queensland state town of St. George, seen here on Feb. 7. 2011.

How Extreme Australian Rains Made Global Sea Levels Drop

9:19am August 20, 2013

by Richard Harris

Sea level has been rising steadily as a result of global warming. But in 2010 and 2011, levels dropped sharply by a quarter of an inch. A new analysis says that's because extraordinarily heavy rainfall got trapped in inland Australia.

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Environment

What Happened to All Those Cicadas?

8:39am August 20, 2013

Remember back in April, when everyone was awaiting the arrival of the 17-year-cicadas? What happened?

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Dolphin Deaths Alarm Scientists

7:35am August 18, 2013

The animals are washing ashore at a higher rate than the last 26 years. Host Scott Simon speaks with Charley Potter, collection manager for marine mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, about the response along the Mid-Atlantic.

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Chinese beachgoers walk by an algae-covered public beach in Qingdao, China, in July. The seas off China have been hit by their largest-ever growth of algae, ocean officials say, with waves of green growth washing onto the shores.

The Algae Is Coming, But Its Impact Is Felt Far From Water

5:49pm August 11, 2013

by NPR Staff

From China's Yellow Sea to the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, agricultural waste in the water system is fueling spectacular algae blooms. The masses of slime cause dead zones in the water and major losses in tourism revenue in affected towns. But the algae fight doesn't begin at the water's edge; it starts in the fields and pastures.

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More than 40 years ago, the EPA banned oil companies from releasing wastewater into the environment, but made an exception for the arid West. If livestock and wildlife can use the water, companies can release it. Cows like these grazing near a stream of w

EPA Wants To Allow Continued Wastewater Dumping In Wyoming

10:16am August 08, 2013

by Elizabeth Shogren

The environmental agency has proposed permits that would allow oil companies to continue releasing contaminated wastewater onto the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming. NPR found last year that the EPA has been allowing oil companies to send so much wastewater onto dry land that it was creating raging streams.

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People cool off Wednesday in a pool in Shanghai, where temperatures reached an all-time record: 105.4 degrees.

'It's Too Hot': Shanghai Wilts In Record-Setting Heat Wave

6:41pm August 07, 2013

by Frank Langfitt

Usually bustling streets are nearly empty at noon, and thousands have gone to hospitals for relief. China's National Meteorological Center says the long-running heat wave is driven by a variety of factors, including climate change, as well as Shanghai's construction density, growing population and shrinking green space.

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Fox Ranch, outside Yuma County, Colo., is a 14,000-acre nature preserve and working commercial cattle ranch. The ranch is used by the Nature Conservancy to put into practice its panned grazing technique.

Environment

Ecologists Turn To Planned Grazing To Revive Grassland Soil

4:24pm August 07, 2013

by Luke Runyon

The world's soil is in trouble. Ecologists say without dramatic changes to how we manage land, vast swathes of grassland are at risk of turning into hard-packed desert. To make sure that doesn't happen, researchers are testing out innovative ways to keep moisture in the soil.

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Earth Scientists Pin Climate Change Squarely On 'Humanity'

8:12pm August 06, 2013

by Christopher Joyce

The federal government's top climate scientists announced Tuesday that 2012 was really hot — among the top 10 hottest years on record and the hottest ever in the U.S., with rising sea levels, less Arctic sea ice and warmer oceans. And the American Geophysical Union called humanity "the major influence" on global climate change.

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