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Archive for May 10th, 2010
Barcoding life and pricing nature proposed to tackle biodiversity crisis
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
Guardian: In 2002, the world's governments agreed to significantly slow the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Time is almost up, and by most accounts they've failed. Now that climate change is emerging as one of biodiversity's greatest threats, scientists are proposing new ways to tackle the crisis. In the latest, and last, issue of Nature Reports Climate Change, Hannah Hoag reports on some of the most promising efforts underway to protect biodiversity against rising temperature and other impacts of ...
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Nature loss ‘to damage economies’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
BBC: The Earth's ongoing nature losses may soon begin to hit national economies, a major UN report has warned. The third Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) says that some ecosystems may soon reach "tipping points" where they rapidly become less useful to humanity. Such tipping points could include rapid dieback of forest, algal takeover of watercourses and mass coral reef death. Last month, scientists confirmed that governments would not meet their target of curbing ...
Oil spill threatens already weakened wetlands
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
Associated Press: Battered by hurricanes, weakened by erosion and flood-control projects, the sprawling wetlands that nurture Gulf of Mexico marine life and buffer coastal sites from storm surges now face another stern test as a monster oil slick creeps ever closer. About 40 percent of the nation's coastal wetlands are clumped along southern Louisiana, directly in the path of oil that was still gushing Monday from a ruptured underwater well. Roughly 3.5 million gallons has escaped in the three weeks ...
Cancer report energizes activists, not policy
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
Reuters: A cancer report that concludes Americans are under constant assault from carcinogenic agents has heartened activists, who hope that finally government and policymakers will pay attention to their concerns. Cancer experts say for the most part that we already know what causes most cases of cancer and it's not pollution or chemicals lurking in our water bottles. It's tobacco use and other unhealthy behaviors, says Dr. Graham Colditz of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. ...
BP Considers Options As Oil Keeps Pouring Into Gulf
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
National Public Radio: BP was looking for new ways Monday to stop an oil leak that is gushing an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico, after a containment structure placed over the leak clogged during the weekend. Next, the company is considering using a smaller containment box, called a "top hat," or injecting shredded rubber and other debris to stop the well, a procedure known as a "junk shot." On NBC's Today show, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said none of the ...
Loss of wildlife threatens food supplies – UN
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
Telegraph: The latest report on global biodiversity gives a more bleak picture than ever before of the state of the natural environment. In the last 35 years there has been a 30 per cent decline in the number of mammals, birds and other vertebrates on the planet, while the human population has doubled. It is impossible to count the loss of plants and insects because there are so many, but scientists fear millions of species could have been lost before they are even discovered. Already major ...
Report: Climate change could render much of world uninhabitable
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
USA Today: A worst-case scenario of global warming, in which temperatures would soar some 21 degrees, is that much of the world may simply become too hot for humans to live in, according to new research published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We found that ... a 21-degree warming would put half of the world's population in an uninhabitable environment,"says study co-author Matthew Huber of Purdue University. While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ...
Collapsing biodiversity is a ‘wake-up call for humanity’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
Mongabay: A joint report released today by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP) finds that our natural support systems are on the verge of collapsing unless radical changes are made to preserve the world's biodiversity. Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Ahmed Djoghlaf, called the bleak report "a wake-up call for humanity." The report is the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3). Employing scientific ...
Gulf spill will change deep water operations across oil industry, says BP
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
Guardian: The oil industry will have to overhaul how it operates in deep water as a result of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, said last night, as the company disclosed that the cost of the spill had now reached $350m (£236m). He said there would be "significant implications" in terms of new regulations and safety, while companies drilling offshore may be required in future to have spill-response equipment on standby. The blowout preventer, which failed to ...
BP, other companies point fingers in oil rig blast
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 10th, 2010
Associated Press: Early finger-pointing erupted Monday among companies involved in the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and unstopped leak of millions of gallons of oil, on the eve of the first congressional hearings into the accident. A top American executive for BP, Lamar McKay, said a critical safety device known as a blowout-preventer failed catastrophically. Separately, the owner of the rig off Louisiana's coast said BP managed it and was responsible for all work conducted at the site. A ...