Week of December 9, 2013

News from Across the USM Campuses

Dec. 11^th - Dr. Deborah Steinberg, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, "Zooplankton and biogeochemical cycling in the changing ecosystem of the West Antarctic Peninsula." This event is a part of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory Distinguished Scholar Seminar Series.

Dec. 10^th - SESYNC Seminar: New Dynamics of Mining, Oil & Gas - This event will be held from 12:20 - 1:30pm at The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), located at 1 Park Place, Suite 300, Annapolis, MD 21401.

Dec. 10^th - Jinjun Kan (Stroud Water Research Center), "Molecular tools to understand bacterial population dynamics in the Chesapeake Bay" host, M. Kemp. Seminar will be held the Horn Point Laboratory auditorium (Coastal Science Bldg.) at 11:00 am on Wednesday. The seminar is open to the public.

State of Maryland News

Board of Public Works Approves Funding for Clean Water and the Chesapeake Bay (Maryland Department of the Environment, News Release, 12/4/13)

Talking trash: Baltimore students speak out against waste-burning power plant (By Brentin Mock, Grist.org, 12/3/13)

Maryland Department of the Environment highlights best stormwater management practices at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis (Maryland Department of the Environment, Social Media Release, 12/3/13)

National and International News

Spill by Daniel Beltrá - in pictures: It was one of the world's most destructive environmental disasters in human history: in April 2010 an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig killed 11 men and sent 210m gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing a black tide covering 68,000 square miles of ocean and spreading along 16,000 miles of coastline. Spill is the first book from photographer Daniel Beltrá, who documented the spill from a Cessna floatplane, 3,000ft above the Louisiana coastline. It includes 27 of his award-winning aerial photographs that have gone on show around the world, and an essay by Barbara Bloemink that gives context to Spill as an artistic response to the environment and nature (The [UK] Guardian - Environment Blog, 12/9/13)

US Navy predicts summer ice free Arctic by 2016: Is conventional modelling out of pace with speed and abruptness of global warming? (By Nafeez Ahmed, The [UK] Guardian - Earth Insight Blog, 12/9/13)

Summer heat waves blamed on a melting Arctic: A new study links extreme weather in the U.S. and Europe to the loss of sea ice (By Lindsay Abrams, Salon.com, 12/9/13)

My year without a car: I'm an unlikely biker, but when I finally broke my driving habit, I discovered the joys (and pain) of cycling (By Wayne Scott, Salon.com, 12/8/13)

How The Long, Strange 'Witch Hunt' Of An Arctic Whistleblower Came To An End (By Kate Sheppard, The Huffington Post - Green Blog, 12/6/13)

Schoolchildren ordered indoors as air pollution cloaks Shanghai: Eastern China's dangerous levels of air pollution blamed on coal burning, car exhaust, factories and weather patterns (By The Associated Press as reported by The [UK] Guardian - Environment Blog, 12/6/13)

Wikileaks reveals failed plans to suppress anti-Keystone activists: A 2010 presentation laid out strategies for dealing with environmentalists (By Lindsay Abrams, Salon.com, 12/6/13)

Exposed: The Rightwing's National Plan To Crush Green Energy: From supporting Keystone XL to opposing home solar panels, ALEC planning assault on the environment (Sarah Lazare, CommonDreams.org, 12/5/13)

Large Companies Prepared to Pay Price on Carbon (By Coral Davenport, The New York Times - Energy & Environment, 12/5/13)

The World's Top 7 Bike-Share Systems (By Sarah Goodyear, The Atlantic Cities Blog, 12/5/13)

Bicycle Sales Outpace Cars as European 'Bike Revolution' Gains Speed: Continent sees surge in fossil fuel-free transport as green lanes and other policies encourage people to ditch automobiles (By Jacob Chamberlain, CommonDreams.org, 12/4/13)

Madrid is getting rid of car lanes and putting pedestrians first (By Sarah Laskow, Grist.org, 12/4/13)