RSS Feed
Archive for April 28th, 2010
Melting sea ice would cause sea levels to rise by ‘hair’s breadth’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2010
Telegraph: Researchers at the University of Leeds calculate that around 1.5 million Titanic-sized icebergs each year are melting into the sea every year in the Arctic and Antarctic. This is causing sea level to rise by just 49 micrometers per year - around a hair's breadth. At that rate it would take 200 years for the oceans to rise by 1cm as a result of melting sea ice. If all the floating ice in the world melted it would cause sea levels to rise by just 4cm. In comparison if all the ice on ...
Posted in 
Wheat variety thrives on saltier soils
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2010
SciDev.Net: A variety of wheat that thrives on salty soils has been bred by scientists who say they will make it freely available to the developing world. The enhanced durum wheat is 25 per cent more productive in saline soils than its normal counterpart, according to Rana Munns, chief research scientist at the Australia-based CSIRO Plant Industry. Munns and her team isolated two salt tolerance genes from an old species of wheat (Triticum monococcum) and, using non-GM methods, introduced ...
Video: Madagascar could become “Haiti-like”
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2010
Mongabay: Niall O'Connor from the World Wildlife Fund warns in a Carte Blanche production that if the ecological destruction of Madagascar continues, the poor island country could become "Haiti-like", where he says, "most of the biodiversity, most of the forests are gone". Carte Blanche, an African investigative journalism show, went to Madagascar to look into the current environmental crisis where rosewood is being logged in National Parks threatening Madagascar's unique ...
Gulf Of Mexico: Oil Leaking And Creeping To Shore
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2010
National Public Radio: More than 5,000 barrels of oil have poured into the Gulf of Mexico since a deep water drilling rig leased to BP exploded, caught fire and sank last week. For the last three days, robotic submarines have been trying to activate a large valve on the floor of the Gulf to shut off the oil leak but the operation hasn't been successful. The oil is coming closer to shore; it's within 20 miles of the coast of Louisiana. The Coast Guard is considering setting fire to the Gulf, to ...
Israel: Settler Sewage Ruins Palestinian Crops, Drinking Water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2010
Inter Press Service: Residents of this Palestinian village refuse to buy the idea that the flood of raw sewage from the adjacent Israeli settlement of Kfar Etzion, that destroyed vineyards and contaminated their drinking water, was an accident. The Israeli Civil Administration, which administers the occupied West Bank, claims the spillage was the result of an accidental power malfunction which caused excess settlement sewage to overflow onto Palestinian land. "This was no mistake," says a British ...
Natural gas supply, jobs and technique debate booming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2010
USA Today: Robert Myers spends a lot of time hiking and fishing in state forests, "places where my grandfather went hunting," he says. But the hiking grounds for this Lock Haven, Pa., English professor and local activist are changing with what some critics say is the threat to the environment that comes as part of the latest boom: the hunt for natural gas. And Myers hates what it's doing to the Eastern forests. "It sickens me what the gas wells are doing to the places I love." Energy ...
Climate change increases heat waves, floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 28th, 2010
Reuters: Deaths from heat waves, property damage from floods and rising seas from melting glaciers are a few of the things Americans can expect as a result of climate change, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a report released on Tuesday. The report, called "Climate Change Indicators in the United States," examined the impact of global warming on 24 environmental indicators, such as ice cover and ocean temperatures. It said there was scientific evidence that climate ...