Archive for February 16th, 2010

Decrease in fog threatens California’s s sequoias: study

Independent (UK): California's coastal fog has decreased significantly over the past 100 years, potentially endangering coast redwood trees dependent on cool, humid summers, according to a new study made public Monday. The study by University of California, Berkeley, scientists said it was unclear whether this phenomenon was part of a natural cycle or the result of human activity. But it warned the change could affect not only the redwoods, but the entire redwood ecosystem. "Since 1901, ...

Beyond the corn field: Balancing fuel, food and biodiversity

ScienceDaily: The development of alternative fuel will greatly benefit the U.S., say scientists in an Energy Foundation-funded report published February 16 by the Ecological Society of America (ESA), the nation's largest organization of ecological scientists. However, in order to effectively reap the social and economic benefits of biofuel production, U.S. policies need to address potential effects of land-use choices on our ecosystems. In the report, scientists Virginia Dale, Keith Kline, John ...

Greenland: Fjords Contribute to Melting of Glaciers

New York Times: Greenland`s glaciers are melting faster than they used to, contributing to the rise of sea levels worldwide. While warmer atmospheric temperatures thin all the glaciers from above, scientists have wondered if warmer waters are also melting the many glaciers that flow into the fjords. Two studies published in Nature Geoscience provide evidence that this is the case. In one study, Fiammetta Straneo of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and colleagues looked at water ...

Planting New Seeds for the Take-Off

Inter Press Service: A salty, crunchy salad herb known to gourmands as samphire could revolutionise agriculture in the Middle East by providing food, fodder and fuel without using a single drop of freshwater. Salicornia, a succulent plant that can grow in either fresh or salt water, has traditionally been seen as a source of food. However, with rising energy prices and increasing concern over global warming, the halophyte (salt- tolerant plant) is now prized for its other properties. According to ...

Kenya to tap Rift Valley’s geothermal gold mine

Business Green: Long-standing plans to establish Kenya's Rift Valley as one of the world's largest providers of geothermal energy received a major boost last week, with the news of an ambitious plan by national utility giant the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen). The $1.3bn (£830m) project, to develop 280MW of geothermal power by 2013, is expected to be backed by the World Bank and will more than double KenGen's geothermal capacity. The company told Reuters that the "scope of the ...

Bangladesh: Government against climate aid via World Bank

IRIN: Bangladesh has voiced strong opposition to plans by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to provide close to US$100 million in climate change aid - because of its delivery through the World Bank. "We are strongly against the World Bank's involvement in handling the climate fund. DFID should give the money straight to the Bangladesh government rather than giving it to the World Bank to disburse it," Food and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque told IRIN on 16 ...

United States: Hampton Roads in ‘dire straits’ because of global warming predictions, says expert

Daily Press: Sobering evidence of how storms will have an increasingly devastating effect on the Peninsula as the century progresses is outlined in a new model by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "This is an important issue for us to get moving on," Eric Walberg, physical and environmental planning administrator with the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, told the Hampton City Council last week. The hydrodynamic model produced by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science ...

Less fog puts redwoods at risk

San Francisco Chronicle: A gradual decrease in summer fog along the California coast over the past century may be endangering the region's giant redwoods and affecting the ecology of the area surrounding the trees, according to a study by UC Berkeley scientists. "The redwoods along our coast are highly dependent on fog as a source of water during the summer when water in the ground is scarce," Todd E. Dawson, one of the study's two authors, said in an interview. "Foggy nights are needed to rehydrate the trees ...

Indonesia: Palm estate is forest, says ministry

Jakarta Post: The Forestry Ministry is drafting a decree to include oil palm plantations in the forest sector to comply with international standards in mitigating climate change. The ministry said it believed the policy would not lead to massive forest conversion into palm oil plantations as many critics feared. "By definition, oil palm plantations will be defined as forest, but its management will be under the Agriculture Ministry," head of research and development at the ministry, Tachrir ...