Marking World Environment Day
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established World Environment Day (WED) in 1972 and every year for the past 40 years, countries around the world have dedicated June 5 to environmental causes. The theme for World Environment Day 2012 is “Green Economy: Does it include you?” With the shaky state of not only the United States economy but also the world economy, this year’s theme couldn’t be more appropriate.
Pipeline in northwest Alberta ruptures, polluting muskeg with 22,000 barrels of oil
A huge spill has released 22,000 barrels of oil and water into muskeg in the far northwest of Alberta, Canada. The spill ranks among the largest in North America in recent years, a period that has seen a series of high-profile accidents that have undermined the energy industry’s safety record. The Enbridge Inc. pipeline rupture that leaked oil near Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, for example, spilled an estimated 19,500 barrels.
Vancouver-based environmentalist Jessica Clogg “blown away” by response to national website blackout campaign
A Canadian environmental lawyer has said the response the “Black Out Speak Out” campaign was “extraordinary.”
Chinese Environmental Officials to Stop Counting ‘Blue Sky Days’
Chinese authorities say they will no longer use the imprecise method of counting “blue sky days” as a measure of air quality in the country’s heavily polluted capital city. The state-run China Daily newspaper on June 6 quoted a senior environmental official in Beijing as saying that the measurement was “only an average figure and can hardly reflect the specific situation” of pollution in the city.
