Solar Is Valuable Resource in Climate Action Plan

As the UN Climate Conference ended with a whimper last week, the U.S. continues to move forward in its attempts to curtail climate change.

President Obama this month issued an executive order establishing a task force of state and local officials to identify ways America can respond and be resilient to the effects of climate change. The order, along with Obama’s Climate Action Plan, is a positive step towards curbing the effects of climate change and reducing our nation’s carbon emissions.

Solar energy represents a massive opportunity to help meet the goals of the action plan, which are to cut carbon pollution in America, prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, lead international efforts to combat global climate change and prepare for its impacts.

Today, solar is one of the fastest-growing sources of new energy in the United States — last month, solar accounted for three-quarters of America’s new energy capacity!

More than 30 additional utility-scale, clean energy solar projects are under construction helping to reduce carbon emissions from power plants while putting thousands of electricians, steelworkers and laborers to work. These facilities, along with rooftop solar on homes, businesses and schools, will generate electricity for generations to come, reducing our nation’s carbon footprint in the long term.

Across the nation, as we saw this week in Georgia, communities are already stepping up to defend their right to solar power.

Nine out of 10 Americans think we need to develop more solar — because they know how important a clean, healthy environment is for our children and our future.

Taking action on climate by boosting renewable energy is good for more than just the environment — it’s a win for the economy, too. American businesses know that solar is not only a good clean energy source, it is also a good value proposition. Day after day, businesses report they are adding more solar to their portfolios.

The cost of a solar system has dropped by nearly 40 percent over the past two years, making solar more affordable than ever. And as solar continues to scale up, costs will continue to come down.

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EU wants action on quota discards

Published: March. 1, 2011 at 9:09 PM

(Brussels, March 1, UPI)-the European Union calls for an end to a practice the fishing boats in the North Sea as half their catch quotas remain as much the discard.

European Commission Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said "Walking with business as usual can not," the BBC. "This is something that we could do if we had healthy stocks;" but now when share is declining, no one can justify that we fish and due to our policy we force people to take it back.

"This is unacceptable, and we have to give up discard," she said.

Damanaki proposes the regulation of fleets by restrictions on fishing, close "mixed fisheries" and the use of the observer, electronic logbooks and control of ports if the maximum quota was intercepted by a species in it,.

Bertie Armstrong, Chief Executive of the Scottish of fishermen's Federation, "a knee-jerk response to populist television coverage exactly the problem that is described, but that is no solution." called the proposal

Accused of a document of the Commission, EU and national legislation to discard and also says that the practice is motivated by "financial interests of the fishing industry.", to keep only more valuable fish on board

Currently, fishermen have to discard fish if you exceed your quota for this species, or if you fish net, which are too young or too small.

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Toxic Nevada mine is looking for action $5 m from BP, ARCO

Scott Sonner, associated press on Tuesday 15 February 2011, 9: 45 pm EST

RENO, Nevada (AP)--Neighbors have a toxic mine in Northern Nevada threw a class action suit against BP America and Atlantic Richfield Co. them intentionally and negligently the level of contamination from the abandoned site conceal for decades leaking filed.

The lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Reno on Monday is a minimum of $5 million for at least 100 inhabitants in the rural town of the city where the old Anaconda copper mine opened in 1941.

The applicants say, well you are, once contaminated with uranium, arsenic and other metals in a plume of groundwater for drinking water was slowly from the site migrated, the 6 square miles-an area the same size approximately 3,000 Fu?ballfeldern--covering about 65 miles southeast of Reno.

The lawsuit says that even after informants, previously secret records documenting the dangers to publish work with Government refused the corporations, and federal regulators try to clean the radioactive and other hazardous waste the last 10 years.

"Destroyed the water supply to this community, and now it's time to clean it." Is there way to the contamination this people's land and its wells, ", said Steven English, a lawyer, made for the inhabitants of the complaint."

"A mother should not have your child to say you can not turn the spigot because your water is dangerous." "This not acceptable is in this country", he said the associated press on Tuesday.

The lawsuit, said the company knew or should have known that their discharge of toxic and hazardous substances would contaminate neighboring properties, air, water, groundwater and the environment. You said you ' deliberately allowed toxic and hazardous substances to enter and to stay "The neighbour country."

"Despite their knowledge of the serious health and environmental effects associated with exposure to hazardous substances and despite jobs and Alerts form intentionally masked the true extent of contamination, health and environmental authorities, (BP and ARCO), thereby enable (you) take all appropriate measures to properly remove of dangerous and toxic substances or the dangers created by its publication to mitigate discharge, storage, handling, processing, disposal and dumping of toxic and hazardous substances, to avoid" the suit said.

Tom Mueller, a spokesman for BP America, said Tuesday evening that the company officials have had no chance to review the complaint and had no immediate comment.

Fueled by demand after the second world war, Anaconda produced almost 1.75 billion pounds of copper from 1952-78 in the mine which U.S. Highway 95 Mason Valley along the irrigated agricultural oasis in the area otherwise largely barren high desert.

Environmental protection agency has established the US over the years, the uranium as a by-product of the processing of copper was produced and that of the radioactive waste first dirt Valley ponds, this - in contrast to modern Teichen-chipped-tipped leaked into the groundwater.

Water have provided free officials for BP and its subsidiary, Atlantic Richfield, Anaconda Copper co. in 1978 who bought bottled for all residents, who want it in recent years. But you have insisted that uranium enters the region of course ground, and until recently argued, there was no way to prove that half a century of processing of metals are pollution was responsible.

A new wave of EPA tests reported in November 2009 the associated press, however, found that 79 percent of well north of me dangerous concentrations of uranium tested have arsenic or both, that the water unsafe to drink.

"You have evidence now groundwater mine affected," said Steve Acree, a highly respected hydrogeologist for the EPA in Oklahoma brought test results to investigate AP currently in that.

Monitoring had levels of uranium more than 10 times the legal drinking water standard well half a mile away. The mine wells tested in the standard as high as 100 times in an area where ore with sulfuric acid and other toxic chemicals in ponds, unlined was processed.

Though not well understood the health effects of certain levels, says the EPA of long-term exposure to high uranium in drinking water can cancer cause kidney damage.

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