Global Disasters/ Significant Events – Nov 26, 2013
Posted by feww on November 26, 2013
US releasing 50% more methane than EPA reported: Study
The United States has been releasing 50 percent more methane, a greenhouse gas, than previous EPA estimates, according to a new study released by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
The new study estimates the US released 49 million tons of methane into the air in 2008, or more than the 32 million tons, which is 1.5 times higher than that estimated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The figure is also 1.7 times higher than the estimate released by international Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), a rubber-stamp outfit set up by the European Commission.
Methane is produced in a several ways including leaks during oil and gas exploration and refining, growing rice and livestock manure. Most of the U.S. methane is released in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with about 21 times greater heat-trapping ability per molecule than carbon dioxide.
The atmospheric concentration of methane has more than doubled since preindustrial times, climbing from about 700ppb to 1,826 ppb in 2012.
Methane has a boiling point of −161°C (−257.8°F) at one atmosphere, and is flammable only in concentration range of 5–15% in air.
Greedy Amazon Working Employees to the Bone
An undercover employee had to walk 11 and collect orders every 33 seconds.
An expert said such working conditions could cause “mental and physical illness,” reported BBC.
“Amazon reported UK sales of £4.8 billion [$7.8] last year. It employs around 20,000 staff in the UK during the Christmas period. On the company’s busiest day in December last year, 3.5million items were ordered by customers.”
The undercover reporter was employed as a “picker” collecting orders from 800,000 sq ft of storage. Because he worked night shifts his pay before tax rose from the daily rate of £6.50 [$10.53] per hour to £8.25 per hour.
Fire Earth 
worker at greedy amazon dot com said
(Reuters) – Workers at Amazon.com’s German operations were set to go on strike on Monday, in the middle of the crucial Christmas holiday season, in a dispute over pay that has been raging for months.
The Verdi union said workers would strike in Amazon’s logistic centres in Bad Hersfeld and Leipzig and, for the first time, in Graben.
A delegation of German workers will also protest at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, helped by U.S. workers unions.
On Tuesday, workers in Amazon’s center in the German town of Werne will protest, Verdi said.
The German union has organised short strikes this year to try to force Amazon to accept collective bargaining agreements in the mail order and retail industry as benchmarks for workers’ pay at Amazon’s German distribution centres.
However, Amazon has maintained that it regards staff at its centres in the cities of Bad Hersfeld and Leipzig as logistics workers and that they receive above-average pay by the standards of that industry.
Amazon employs around 9,000 people in Germany and Verdi earlier this year had warned it was ready to call a strike during the busy days before Christmas, when it would hurt the online retail company the most.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/16/us-amazon-germany-strike-idUSBRE9BF02F20131216
Survival Acres said
[Second link invalid. FEWW]
Survival Acres said
Interesting vid here:
http://www.dw.de/disappearing-permafrost/a-17250005