Archive for March 7th, 2010

United States: A municipal power co-op tied to area towns tackles a $2B hydroelectric project

Toledo Blade: Three months after halting construction of a mammoth $3.3 billion coal-fired power plant it had proposed for southern Ohio's Meigs County, American Municipal Power Inc. is following through with a $2 billion investment in five hydroelectric projects at existing dams along the Ohio River. Seventy-nine of AMP's 126 member communities have committed themselves financially. Nearly a third of those investors are small and mid-sized communities in northwest Ohio and southeast ...

Regional, global steps to curb climate impacts urged

New Nation: Supporting efforts of Bangladesh in the international area, experts and scientists have said that adequate national, regional and global steps are a must for reducing the adverse impacts of ongoing climate changes (CC). If the adverse impacts of CC could not be contained, agriculture, bio-diversity, ecology, environment, climatic paterns, human health and existence of the civilizations and habitations elsewhere would be under real threats, they said. Terming the task as the ...

Malawi: Climate change is changing farming methods

Inter Press Service: As they slept soundly on the night of Feb. 28, a family of four was killed when their house collapsed over their heads in Malawi's southern district of Chikhwawa. Christopher Ganizani, 27, his wife Grace, 29, and their children Rymon, six, and Christian, who was only nine months old, were buried alive under the rubble of their house, according to Chikhwawa police spokesman Sunday Ngulube. "The house, made of unbaked mud bricks, buckled under the intensity of the heavy rains ...

India: Conserving and restoring moorlands can slow down climate change

Asian News International: Scientists have stressed that conserving and restoring the moorlands is important because they are some of the rarest habitats in the world, home to extremely rare animals and plants, and can also slow down climate change. Seventy-five per cent of the world's heather moorlands are in the UK. However, pollution, overgrazing and wild fires have damaged large areas. Several organisations in the Peak District National Park in England are trying to restore and conserve the moorland ...

How food and water are driving a 21st-century African land grab

Guardian: We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia's largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 20 hectares – the size of 20 football pitches. The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer ...

California looks to Australia for lessons on water management

Pasadena Star-News: Over the past decade, Australia has seen its temperatures rise, its reservoirs plummet, and its crops dry up - the result of the country's worst drought in 100 years. The experience rings familiar to California water managers. In response to its crisis, Australia has made a $50 billion government investment in water infrastructure, cut water allocations to farmers by 70 percent, and slashed household water use to a quarter of what is used in Californian homes. And it seems to ...

Australia: But we’re warming to current idea

Sydney Morning Herald: WARMER oceans, balmy evenings and high humidity have led to what meteorologists have described as ''remarkably tropical'' conditions. A two-degree increase in the water temperature off the Sydney coast has been attributed to a stronger east-coast current coming from the Tasman Sea. ''The front that is associated with this current is biologically active, which can be seen from the change in the ocean colour, meaning the chlorophyll concentration is much higher this month,'' Dr ...

Bangladesh: Dealing with climate change demands a more gendered approach

Financial Express Bangladesh: Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for all -- with this very theme, the women of the world will be observing International Women's Day 2010. The major concern of the present world is climate change and environmental degradation. In fact, involving women in protecting the environment would help societies develop the sense of responsibility needed to maintain a good balance between humans and the earth's resources. Environmental degradation, however, is a result of the ...