Archive for March 13th, 2010

United States: Is herbicide atrazine bad for you?

Journal Star: The neighborhood where Tyrone Hayes grew up was developed by draining a swamp. He spent his youth fascinated with frogs, turtles, snakes and lizards that shared his stomping ground. Hayes graduated from Harvard University with a major in evolutionary biology, earned a Ph.D. at 24 and became the youngest tenured professor at the University of California-Berkeley. He became a world expert on frog development. Then he met atrazine, an herbicide used on more than 70 percent of ...

Climate Change Adds to Bird Stress

New York Times: Changes in the global climate are imposing additional stress on hundreds of species of migratory birds in the United States that are already threatened by other environmental factors, according to a new Interior Department report. The department's annual State of the Birds report shows that nearly a third of the nation's 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or suffering from population decline. For the first time, the report adds climate change to other factors threatening bird ...

Land loss, climate change endangering La. birds

Daily Comet: The combined forces of climate change and land loss pose a major threat to Louisiana bird species, especially those that depend on the disappearing coast, according to a report released Thursday by a partnership of university bird researchers, federal agencies and environmental groups. The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change," released Thursday by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was prepared by a partnership of university bird researchers, federal agencies and ...

Zimbabwe: Farmers urged to adjust to changing weather patterns

Herald: Government has called on farmers to adjust to changing weather patterns and become more scientific in their approach to agriculture. In a speech read on his behalf by Mr Collins Mungate, a senior official in the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity, Minister Webster Shamu said Zimbabwe -- like all other countries in the region -- was affected by the effects of global warming and climate change. "Our rainfall pattern, amount and distribution of rain have changed ...

Lake Erie water quality worsening

Monroe News: Lake Erie was shrouded in fog Friday, but its future waters might be a muddier brown or an eerier bright green due to persistent pollution and climate change, experts suggest. The lake, especially its shallowest western basin bordering Monroe County and northwest Ohio, is suffering from farm-related and other runoff that threatens to return its health to that of the 1970s when it was written off as dead. "We don't want to be responsible for writing Lake Erie's obituary again," said ...

UN climate change claims on rainforests were wrong, study suggests

Telegraph: A new study, funded by Nasa, has found that the most serious drought in the Amazon for more than a century had little impact on the rainforest's vegetation. The findings appear to disprove claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could react drastically to even a small reduction in rainfall and could see the trees replaced by tropical grassland. The IPCC has already faced intense criticism for using a report by ...

ALERT! Let Rainforest Action Network Know Global Ecological Sustainability Depends Upon Ending Old Forest Logging

TAKE ACTION! Rainforest Action Network [search] is a key supporter of failed Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) [search] efforts to “sustainably” log tens of millions of hectares of primary and old-growth forests for lawn furniture, toilet paper and other throw-away consumer items. As RAN celebrates its 25th anniversary, let them know old forests will never be fully protected as long as they and others unquestioningly support “certified” yet ecologically unsustainable first-time industrial primary rainforest logging. Demand RAN vigorously defend their support for first-time primary rainforest logging over an area two times as large as Texas, or resign from FSC immediately. Encourage RAN to spend the next 25 years working to protect and expand old forests to maintain a habitable Earth.