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Archive for March 11th, 2010
Say goodbye to one of the driest, warmest Canadian winters since 1948
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2010
Canadian Press: Environment Canada says the winter we just experienced was one of the warmest and driest across the country since 1948. The national average temperature was 4 degrees Celsius above normal and precipitation was 22 per cent below normal. This year, parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario had 60 per cent less precipitation than normal. Senior climatologist David Phillips says the weather was "quite spectacular,' adding, "we've never seen a winter like this.' He ...
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Mapping out the future of Alpine glaciers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2010
EuroNews: The Alps are known as "Europe`s water tower". Their glaciers provide 40 percent of Europe`s fresh water. Pure and abundant, alpine streams fill major rivers, including the Danube, Rhine, Po, and Rhone, making irrigation and transportation possible in large parts of Europe. But these glaciers are facing an uncertain future, as studies show that temperatures in the Alps are increasing at a rate that`s more than twice the global average. Umberto Morra di Cella is a ...
Canada: Dying duck pics sent to Alberta premier
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2010
CNews: An admission by Premier Ed Stelmach that he had not seen recent photos of dying ducks at a Syncrude tailings pond has ruffled the feathers of Greenpeace. The environmental group on Wednesday presented Stelmach's spokesman, Jerry Bellikka, with two enlarged photos of tar-covered ducks, hoping the premier would take a look at the images. They were entered as evidence at the ongoing trial against Syncrude, which faces environmental charges related to the April 2008 incident in ...
Vietnam forest fires rise sharply in drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2010
Deutsche-Presse Agentur: Drought-driven forest fires in Vietnam this year have already consumed an area greater than the entire area burned in 2008 or 2009, officials said Tuesday. Fires have destroyed 1,600 hectares of forest so far this year, said Do Thanh Hai, a senior official at Vietnam's Forest Protection Department. That area is more than 10 times the rate measured in the first two months of 2008 or 2009, which each saw just more than 140 hectares destroyed. Hai blamed the fires on a drought that has ...
United Kingdom: 500 species of plants and animals vanish because of humans, says study
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on March 11th, 2010
Times (UK): Nearly 500 species of plants and animals have disappeared in England in the past 200 years, according to the first comprehensive audit of native wildlife. The disappearances, which have been largely attributed to human activities, include four species that did not exist anywhere else. The great auk, a flightless seabird similar to a penguin, Ivell's sea anemone, Mitten's beardless-moss and York groundsel, a weed, have all become extinct since 1800. "These species were lost on ...
More than two extinct species a year in England, report reveals
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2010
Guardian: More than two animals and plants a year are becoming extinct in England and hundreds more are severely threatened, a report published today reveals. Natural England, the government's agency responsible for the countryside, said the biggest national study of threats to biodiversity found nearly 500 species that had died out in England, all but a dozen in the last two centuries. The losses recorded compare with a natural rate of about one extinction every 20 years before humans ...
U.S. judge rules for Chevron in Ecuador case
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2010
Reuters: Chevron Corp may pursue an international arbitration claim over environmental pollution allegations in Ecuador, a judge ruled on Thursday, part of a long-running case that carries a potential $27 billion liability for the second-largest U.S. oil company. The government of Ecuador had asked Manhattan federal court Judge Leonard Sand to prevent Chevron from taking the 17-year-old case to arbitration under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty. U.S. courts had previously ...
Cyprus conflict closes leaders’ eyes to water shortage
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 11th, 2010
BBC: The war I'm interested in is the water war - not an armed conflict, but a struggle nonetheless, between people and a rapidly disappearing resource. The alarming thing, for those working to ease this new conflict, is that Cypriots don't even seem to realise that hostilities between them and nature have begun. Charalampos Theopemptou is the Greek Cypriot side's Environment Commissioner, and it was he who told me the story about the old man in the classroom. He explains its ...