[posted by Kathiann M. Kowalski on EnergyNews, March 15th, 2018] Natural gas burns cleaner, but two recent explosions in Ohio show how accidental and “fugitive” emissions compromise some climate benefits. An explosion at a well pad in eastern Ohio last month forced nearby residents to evacuate for three weeks while crews worked to cap a gas leak. Just two weeks earlier, a gas pipeline in an adjacent county ruptured and caused several...

[posted by Bashir Goth on Gulf News, March 16th, 2017] We often hear the platitude “water is precious” while we carry around bottles of water we can drink anytime. We bathe with it several times a day, wash our cars with it, flood our lawns and gardens with gallons of it, and waste it in every conceivable way. On rare occasions, when we wake up in the morning and we don’t find readily available water in the faucet we go crazy, frantic...

[posted by Todd C. Frankel on The Washington Post, February 28th, 2018] In Congo’s sun-scorched and dusty south, thousands of miners scour underground tunnels hunting for cobalt. Many of them work by hand. That’s why they are known as creuseurs — French for diggers. They don’t use power tools. They don’t wear face masks and often no gloves. They do it because they live in one of the poorest countries in the world, and cobalt is...

[posted by Joe Watts on The Independent, March 1st, 2018] Michael Gove has launched a searing attack on an audience of water company bosses – accusing their firms of avoiding billions of pounds in tax, overpaying executives and failing to properly invest in infrastructure. The Environment Secretary said some companies had been funnelling almost all their profits to shareholders, while having “hidden behind complex financial...

[posted by Warren Cornwall on Science, March 1st, 2018] For Jaharul Sardar, a rice farmer in rural Bangladesh, the perils of living behind a wall hit home one cloudy May afternoon in 2009. Sardar was standing beside his fields when he heard neighbors cry out in alarm. A black hill of seawater was sweeping toward him. Sardar’s wife and 5-year-old son clambered atop the embankment that stands guard over his mud-floored house....

[posted by Parth M.N. on People’s Archive of Rural India, March 8th, 2018] Shankar Waghere flings his plastic bag on the ground and hunches over on his wooden cane to gather his breath. Then he kneels down, panting, and closes his eyes. They remain shut for the next 15 minutes. It’s been a lot of walking today for this 65-year old. Around him, in the darkness, are some 25,000 other farmers. “We have to fight for our rights,” he...