New ‘fracking’ report sure to heat up debate

Does natural gas “fracking” contaminate water supplies? A new report strongly suggests it does, and that the “flaming faucet” phenomenon is real [...]

Radiation, Risk and the “Linear No-Threshold” Model

Earlier this month I posted about the longstanding debate over the ultimate death toll from the Chernobyl accident, and a new look at the data by a Union of Concerned Scientist physicist. Lisbeth Gronlund pored through scattered and hard-to-find data on the distribution of fallout from Chernobyl, crunched the numbers based on a statistical model of likely cancers at different exposure levels, and came up with an estimate of roughly 27,000 additional cancer deaths due to Chernobyl. This stands in stark contrast to a widely-quoted UN estimate of roughly 4,000, but also to estimates by Greenpeace and others of 90,000 or more cancer deaths [...]

Fukushima’s Collateral Damage

Six weeks after the crisis at the plant began, authorities are now threatening to arrest and fine anyone caught within the roughly 20-kilometer zone around the still-unstable nuclear reactors. The tougher stance is a stark reminder to local residents that while the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has become somewhat less critical in the last couple of weeks, it’s still volatile and dangerous. The disaster has also claimed its first victims here in the US – two new nuclear plants planned for Texas [...]

Fukushima vs. Chernobyl–Comparison less useful than ever

Nowhere near Chernobyl. Except sort of. But really, much, much less bad. Or… maybe worse. If your head’s hurting right now trying to keep track of official evaluations of the scale of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, well, get in line for the aspirin. If not yet the iodine pills [...]

Fukushima likely not as bad as Chernobyl, but what does that mean?

For four weeks now, the world has watched with a surreal combination of horror and helplessness as the Japanese have struggled to regain control of their crippled nuclear reactors in Fukushima, staunch the flow of radioactivity, and evaluate the long-term impact of the disaster on human health, the environment, and communities near and far [...]

Ozone levels over the Arctic hit all-time low

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There’s an odd feeling of déjà vu these days here on the environment beat. First came the awful events in Japan with a nuclear disaster on a scale unseen since Chernobyl in the 1980s. Now comes news about atmospheric ozone that takes us back to the 80s as well [...]

High food prices in Egypt and climate change

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The World’s environment editor Peter Thomson explores the possibility that climate change may be contributing to the unrest in Egypt. Egyptians are angry about high food prices, food prices are up in part because of last summer’s devastating heat wave in Russia, and many believe that in turn was linked to climate change. Download MP3