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Archive for June 5th, 2010
Bangladesh: Part of Sundarbans may be lost in future: Bhattacharjee
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
Indo-Asian News Service: A part of the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans may be lost in future due to the rising water levels in the Bay of Bengal as a fallout of global warming, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee cautioned on Saturday. "Areas in the Sundarbans like Basanti and Gosaba in our state have been affected by the rise in the water level of the Bay of Bengal due to global warming. The same fate awaits a part of Bangladesh," Bhattacharjee said at a function organised by the state ...
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Glaciers’ wane not all down to humans
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
Nature: The Great Aletsch Glacier is ill. Over the course of the twentieth century, the largest Alpine glacier, in Valais, Switzerland, receded by more than two kilometres, and Switzerland's 1,500 smaller glaciers are not faring any better. Is it all down to man-made global warming? Not according to a recent study, which finds that about half of the glacier loss in the Swiss Alps is due to natural climate variability1 -- a result likely to be true for glaciers around the world. "This ...
Philippines: Ready for the next deluge?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
Business Mirror: It's a question of funding, logistics, time, political will, and the hardest of all--a culture of risk-taking. That seems to sum up the major headache that the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is facing these days as the rains have started falling, and everyone is traumatized by the memory of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, which hit the country late last year and wrought havoc of such magnitude that the United Nations was prompted to issue a flash appeal for hundreds of millions ...
Rwanda faces other green challanges after plastic bag ban
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Rwanda has successfully banned plastic bags but the tiny central African country, which Saturday led celebrations to mark World Environment Day events, faces several other green challenges. Rwanda is justifiably proud of having succeeded in banning one environmental hazard -- one of the factors that led the United Nations to choose it to lead the global events marking World Environment Day. "Many countries in the region have a lot to learn from Rwanda when it comes to ...
Melting at the microscale
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
ScienceNews: Earth's northern polar cap is disappearing at unprecedented rates. To understand why, re-searchers are getting up close and personal with ice. Using satellites, scientists get a broad perspective on how the skin of sea ice atop the Arctic Ocean shrinks, on average, just a little bit more every summer. But zooming down to within a few meters of the surface brings some important little things into view. In particular, "microphysical" properties of the ice, such as how salty water ...
Pelicans, Back from Brink of Extinction, Face Threat From Oil Spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
New York Times: For more than a decade, the hundreds of brown pelicans that nested among the mangrove shrubs on Queen Bess Island west of here were living proof that a species brought to the edge of extinction could come back and thrive. The island was one of three sites in Louisiana where the large, long-billed birds were reintroduced after pesticides wiped them out in the state in the 1960s. But on Thursday, 29 of the birds, their feathers so coated in thick brown sludge that their natural ...
Oil Stains Beaches And Tourists As Slick Spreads
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
Associated Press: Driftwood and seashells glazed with rust-colored tar lined the surf along the Gulf Coast's once-pristine white sand beaches Saturday, the crude from a busted oil well deep underwater showing up in greater quantities and farther east. A cap placed over the gusher was collecting some of the oil, which had stained beaches with a waxy mess of tar balls and created an unusual orange foam in the surf. In Gulf Shores, Ala., wooden boardwalks leading to beachfront hotels were spotted ...
Obama: Oil spill upends life for Gulf residents
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
Associated Press: President Barack Obama said Saturday that he will stand with Gulf Coast residents "until they are made whole" from the oil spill catastrophe. Obama recorded his weekly radio and Internet address from this barrier island town he visited Friday on his third trip to the Gulf since an April 20 drilling rig explosion unleashed a gusher of crude into the waters there. He spoke of the people he'd met -- an oyster fisherman named Floyd whose oyster beds have been destroyed by oil, and ...
Russia: Medvedev urges global eco-disaster fund
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday called for a global fund to fight ecological catastrophes like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, as he sought to burnish his credentials as a green leader. Admitting that Russia itself was lagging behind other countries in its standards of environmental protection, he also said Russians should feel free to protest against the authorities on environmental issues. Medvedev said that the oil spill from the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig ...
Eyewitness: Oil reaches the beaches of Alabama
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 5th, 2010
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