The Stream, November 14: What Now for the Keystone XL Pipeline?

The U.S. State Department’s decision to postpone its verdict on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline until after next year’s presidential election may doom the project and accelerate Canada’s efforts to ship crude to Asia, Business Week reported, citing Canada’s finance minister.

Two degrees of disaster: The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert comments on the latest IEA World Energy Outlook report, which warned that the door to limiting climate change to 2 degrees Celsius is “closing.” And then again, an increase of “only” 2 degrees spells — at the very least — massive disruption, according to Kolbert. Three weeks until the U.N. Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa, and counting.

Likewise, a new analysis in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Low Carbon Economy Index shows that carbon emissions are increasing faster than economic growth, reversing a slow, but gradual, reduction in emissions intensity seen since 2000. In other words, for the first time since 2000, no improvement has being made in reducing the carbon intensity of the G20, despite modest economic recovery globally.

Six months after a devastating earthquake and a towering tsunami hit Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, American nuclear experts have compiled a 98-page chronology reconstructing the first hours of the disaster, blow by blow, The New York Times reported.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical used in hydraulic fracturing during water tests in a Wyoming aquifer, ProPublica reported.

A new project by the Environmental Law & Policy Center exposes Indiana’s dirtiest rivers.

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