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Archive for June, 2010
Millions face starvation in west Africa, warn aid agencies
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 21st, 2010
Guardian: Starving people in drought-stricken west Africa are being forced to eat leaves and collect grain from ant hills, say aid agencies, warning that 10 million people face starvation across the region. With food prices soaring and malnourished livestock dying, villagers were turning to any sources of food to stay alive, said Charles Bambara, Oxfam officer for the west African region. "People are eating wild fruit and leaves, and building ant hills just to capture the tiny amount of ...
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As tiny UAE’s water tab grows, resources run dry
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 21st, 2010
Reuters: Driving along brand new highways with medians of lush trees and manicured grass, one could easily forget the United Arab Emirates sits on a sweltering desert coast with rapidly diminishing freshwater resources. The Gulf Arab nation's oil income has allowed it to subsidize extravagant water use for Emiratis, either those in gated communities sporting pristine pools and evergreen golf courses or for farmers clinging to ancient irrigation practices. Environmentalists warn the ...
Dutch court seeks fine over I.Coast toxic waste
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 21st, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Dutch prosecutors called Monday for a Swiss-based company whose chartered ship left Amsterdam and dumped allegedly deadly waste in the Ivory Coast in 2006 to be fined two million euros. Multinational Trafigura, waste treatment company Amsterdam Port Services (APS) and the Ukrainian captain of the Probo Koala are on trial in Amsterdam for allegedly breaking environment and waste export laws in Dutch territory. Seventeen people allegedly died after caustic soda and petroleum ...
Climate change will have ‘mixed’ effect on Asian rivers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 21st, 2010
SciDev.Net: Two of Asia's 'water towers', the Brahmaputra and Indus river basins, are likely to be severely affected by climate change while others will be less affected and could even benefit, research on Asia's rivers shows. One-fifth of the world's population is dependent on water from the Brahmaputra, Indus, Ganges, Yangtze and Yellow rivers – often referred to as Asia's water towers – which are fed by melt water from the Himalayas. Until now it was thought that all the Asian river basins ...
Tropical storm could develop in Caribbean
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 21st, 2010
Reuters: A tropical wave spawning a large area of thunderstorms in the eastern Caribbean Sea could develop into a tropical cyclone over the next couple of days, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Monday. The NHC gave the system a medium 30 percent chance of developing, up from 20 percent earlier Monday. Specifically, the NHC said, "Although there is no evidence of a surface circulation ... this system is showing some signs of organization and environmental conditions appear ...
Sour Showers: Acid Rain Returns–This Time It Is Caused by Nitrogen Emissions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 21st, 2010
Scientific American: FROM SULFURIC TO NITRIC: Sulfuric acid rain has been responsible for dissolving some limestone and marble statues, but more importantly, be it sulfuric or nitric acid rain, it can kill fish and other living things. The acid rain scourge of the '70s and '80s that killed trees and fish and even dissolved parts of statues on Washington, D.C.'s National Mall is back. But unlike the first round, in which sulfur emissions from power plants mixed with rain to create sulfuric acid, the ...
China devastated by floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2010
Guardian: Huge floods in southern China have killed at least 132 people and displaced 800,000 others, the government said today as the annual storm season picked up ferocity. Local media showed images of people abandoning their homes in rubber dinghies in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, one of the worst hit areas. Many carried small bundles of possessions salvaged from the rising waters that turned the streets into rivers. More than 10 million people have lost property, been injured or ...
Clear-Cutting Declines in Brazil’s Rainforest, but Fires Are on the Rise
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2010
AAAS: Although the Brazilian Amazon has recently experienced a decline in deforestation rates, researchers writing in Science say that forest fires in the region are on the rise--and that the benefits of decreased deforestation could be partially offset by increased carbon dioxide emissions from those fires. The growing incidence of forest fires appears to be primarily linked to human agricultural activities near re-forested areas or forest edges. As a result, the researchers report, a ...
Is New Environmentalism the Answer or the Problem?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2010
AlterNet: Take your well-disciplined strengths and stretch them between two opposing poles. Because inside human beings is where God learns. –Rainer Maria Rilke There is a battle going on for the soul of environmentalism. How it plays out will determine our ability to respond to a whole host of environmental dilemmas, especially climate change. All of us are partners in this struggle, since battle lines are being drawn not simply on the street or in policy debates ...
Ridge clue to Antarctic ice loss
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2010
BBC: The discovery of an underwater ridge in West Antarctica could help explain why there has been an acceleration in the ice flowing from a glacier in the area. Researchers suggest that the base of Pine Island Glacier once sat on the ridge, but recently became detached from the feature. The team made the discovery during surveys that used a unmanned submarine to examine waters under the glacier. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Geoscience. "We ...