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Archive for February 21st, 2010
Wetland ‘key’ for birds’ survival
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 21st, 2010
BBC: The importance of wetlands in Wales for the survival of migratory birds is highlighted in an annual study. Both the Dee and Severn estuaries feature in the top 20 sites for water birds in the UK, says RSPB Cymru. The Dee estuary has more than 129,000 birds on average and "internationally important" numbers of seven species. The report, produced by several conservation groups, also suggests "startling changes" in the fortunes of some of the birds visiting ...
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Love in a cold climate: A life-long obsession with the Arctic
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 21st, 2010
Independent: My fascination started some time in the early 1980s. I'm not quite sure when, but I'm quite sure why. I was seven or eight years old and I picked up a copy of National Geographic from 1978 which had an article about Spitsbergen, an island in the Arctic Ocean. It's a beautiful, severe place and, at that time, was caught up in a strategic tussle between the Soviet Union and the West. I've still got the magazine. At the time, I don't know what interested me more: the photographs, ...
Tropical storms to be more intense but less frequent: climate study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 21st, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Tropical cyclones may become less frequent this century but pack a stronger punch as a result of global warming, a paper published on Sunday said. The study is an overview of work into one of the scariest yet also one of the least understood aspects of climate change. Known in the Atlantic as hurricanes and in eastern Asia as typhoons, tropical storms are driven by the raw fuel of warm seas, which raises the question about what may happen when temperatures rise as a result of ...
Global Warming May Hurt Some Poor Populations
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 21st, 2010
redOrbit: The impact of global warming on food prices and hunger could be large over the next 20 years, according to a new Stanford University study. Researchers say that higher temperatures could significantly reduce yields of wheat, rice and maize – dietary staples for tens of millions of poor people who subsist on less than $1 a day. The resulting crop shortages would likely cause food prices to rise and drive many into poverty. But even as some people are hurt, others would be helped out of ...
EPA announces plan to clean up Great Lakes
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 21st, 2010
Reuters: A year after President Barack Obama proposed a plan to clean up the Great Lakes, the government Sunday laid out its plan to improve the ecology of the major bodies of water that support much of U.S. agriculture and industry. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson met with governors of states that touch the inland waterways to describe an "action plan" that will focus on eliminating invasive species, cleaning up pollutants, and remediating more than a half million ...
Feds outline plan to nurse Great Lakes to health
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 21st, 2010
Associated Press: The Obama administration has developed a five-year blueprint for rescuing the Great Lakes, a sprawling ecosystem plagued by toxic contamination, shrinking wildlife habitat and invasive species. The plan envisions spending more than $2.2 billion for long-awaited repairs after a century of damage to the lakes, which hold 20 percent of the world's fresh water. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the document, which Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was ...
Alien fish invasion divides lake states
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on February 21st, 2010
Independent (UK): A row has blown up between several northern US states about how to block an especially voracious species of non-native fish from entering the Great Lakes and potentially devastating their multi-billion-dollar fishing industry. Some experts believe that the Asian carp, which can grow up to four feet long and weigh as much as seven stone, may already have breached electrified barriers placed seven years ago in the waterways that connect the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan close to ...
EARTH MEANDERS: The Rainforest Movement Is Dead Long Live the Old Forest Revolution
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on February 21st, 2010
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
Old forests including tropical rainforests [search] are the ultimate expression of life, evolution and ecology. Here untold co-evolved species and genetic diversity exist and interact with each other and their environment to provide ecosystem services water, nutrient and energy cycling required for a habitable Earth. All intact terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems are important, yet rainforests are disproportionately so, given their tremendous species numbers and carbon stores. Few rainforest activists fully understand their ecological importance to continued being, or they would work only for full old forest protection and restoration.
When primary rainforests are lost, it is inevitable that local ecological and social conditions deteriorate, regional weather and species distributions deviate, and the global biosphere and its ability to maintain conditions for life are weakened. Rarely if ever do viable ecosystems remain to provide the same amount of ecological and development benefits as the intact standing old forests that were destroyed for the profit of the national and global elite. Virtually no one benefits from rainforest logging other than small numbers of loggers and green logging apologists who falsely say it can be done well.