Up to Speed - September/October 2011 - Sierra Magazine

UP TO SPEED | Two Months, One Page

After years of protests from threatened communities, Peru cancels the huge Inambari Dam on a major tributary of the Amazon.

Following nationwide protests-including a 30,000-person march in Santiago-a Chilean court blocks five dams and power plants planned for Patagonia.

Application of a growth accelerant causes watermelons on farms in eastern China to detonate.

One out of every four deaths in China is caused by cancer. Widespread pollution is blamed, especially smoke from coal-fired power plants.

China surpasses the United States as the world's top consumer of energy.

People living in the vicinity of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility have radioactive urine.

About 400 elderly engineers and specialists volunteer to help control the damage at the stricken Daiichi plant.

A single-cell diatom that was extinct in the Atlantic for 800,000 years has reappeared after drifting from the Pacific via the increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean.

The new federal recovery plan for the northern spotted owl involves shooting barred owls, which are encroaching on spotted owl habitat.

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson prefers a $1 increase in the gas tax to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars.

Weeds are rapidly becoming immune to herbicides, according to researchers at Iowa State University at Ames, thanks to the popularity of herbicide-resistant bioengineered crops and the increased use of herbicides like glyphosate.

The Supreme Court won't let states regulate greenhouse gases on their own, saying it's up to the EPA.

Radioactive tritium has leaked from 48 of 65 U.S. nuclear power facilities, often into groundwater.

Interior secretary Ken Salazar halts new uranium mining at the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Nuclear power stations in Scotland and Israel are shut down after huge numbers of jellyfish clog their cooling-water intake screens.

A federal investigation blames Massey Energy for the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion, which killed 29 miners last April.

Texas, now in the worst drought since record keeping began 116 years ago, is declared a disaster area.

Neighboring Oklahoma is drier now than it was during the 1930s Dust Bowl period.

The sea is now rising faster than at any time in the past 2,100 years.

Shailendra Kumar Upadhyay, the 82-year-old former foreign minister of Nepal, tries to become the oldest person to climb Mt. Everest but dies in the attempt. —Paul Rauber

Left column, from top: Courtesy ofTokyo Electric Power Co./Kyodo via AP Images, iStockphoto/Flatcoater
Right column, from top: iStockphoto/alex_kz, iStockphoto/1Photodiva

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