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Archive for August 8th, 2010
: Green turtles return to Malaysian beaches but future bleak
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
AFP: Green turtles are returning to Malaysia in their hundreds after being nearly wiped out, but experts warned Thursday that the species is still headed for oblivion if habitat loss is not stopped. Thousands of turtles used to land every year on Malaysian beaches, but their numbers plummeted in the 1980s due to rampant coastal development and the plundering of eggs from their sandy nests. However, landings have increased in the past few years in the eastern resort strip of ...
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Giant Iceberg Breaks As Term ‘Global Warming’ Hits 35
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
National Public Radio: A chunk of ice broke free in the waters of Greenland a few days ago, and it's not just any ice cube: This one's four times the size of Manhattan, containing enough fresh water to supply the entire United States for 120 days. Guy Raz charts the biggest Arctic iceberg in nearly 50 years, and then checks in with Wallace Broecker who 35 years ago today published a paper that gave a name to one of the most pressing issues of our time: global warming. Copyright (c) 2010 National Public ...
Huge ice island calves off Greenland glacier
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
Reuters: An ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off from one of Greenland's two main glaciers, scientists said on Friday, in the biggest such event in the Arctic in nearly 50 years. The new ice island, which broke off on Thursday, will enter a remote place called the Nares Strait, about 620 miles south of the North Pole between Greenland and Canada. The ice island has an area of 100 square miles (260 square km) and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State ...
Massive Arctic ice island drifting toward shipping lanes
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
Vancouver Sun: The biggest Arctic "ice island" to form in nearly 50 years -- a 250-square-kilometre behemoth described as four times the size of Manhattan -- has been discovered after a Canadian scientist scanning satellite images of northwest Greenland spotted a giant break in the famed Petermann Glacier. About one-quarter of Petermann's 70-kilometre-long floating ice shelf has split from the main glacier and is now drifting in a fiord toward open water. It will eventually track a route south, ...
China landslides leave scores dead
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
Guardian: At least 127 people are dead and another 2,000 missing after landslides and floodwaters swept through a county in north-western China overnight, state media reported. Half of the town of Zhouqu, in the south of Gansu province, was submerged. Water rose to the third storey of buildings and sludge as thick as two metres blocked major roads. Three hundred homes were engulfed by mud in the nearby village of Yueyuan, said an official. China's worst flooding for a decade has already ...
Russia: Pollution reaches new high as smog smothers Moscow
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
Independent: A suffocating smog from wildfires hung over the Russian capital on Saturday, raising the concentration of dangerous pollutants to a new high as residents donned masks and dozens of flights were delayed at the city's airports. In the Niznhy Novgorod region, 220 miles east of Moscow, Russian troops had to dig a five-mile canal to keep the fires away from the Sarov nuclear arms facility, which is ringed by forest. This was where the first Soviet atomic bomb was produced in 1949 and it ...
Bring water into climate change negotiations
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
IPS: Longer periods of drought, decreased river flow, higher rainfall variability and lower soil moisture content: water is at the heart of the impacts of climate change. Yet the precious commodity scarcely features in climate negotiations. Three hundred million Africans lack access to clean water; 500 million lack access to proper sanitation, according to Bai-Mass Taal, Executive Secretary from the African Ministers' Council on Water. "Lack of water security will be exacerbated by ...
Hunt for ‘extinct’ frogs begins
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
BBC: A frog hunt like no other is about to begin, as conservationists scour the world for species thought to be extinct but which may just be hanging on. Over the next two months, missions will begin in 14 countries searching for species such as the golden toad, the hula painted frog and the scarlet frog. Amphibians are the most threatened animals on the planet, with one third of species at risk of extinction. Many have been eliminated by a fungal disease carried in ...
Monsoon rains threaten to worsen Pakistan’s flood crisis
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
Associated Press: Pakistani authorities evacuated people living alongside expanding rivers today as forecasts predicted further heavy rain that could worsen the country's flood crisis. Officials estimate that as many as 13 million people have been affected by the worst flooding in the country's 63-year history. About 1,500 people have died, most of them in the north-west, the hardest-hit region. Monsoon rains began about two weeks agoand have washed away roads, bridges and many communications ...
Experts warn Moscow pollution levels remain too high
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 8th, 2010
RIA Novosti: Air pollution in Moscow may have eased on Sunday but levels will continue to exceed the norm for the near future, a specialist at Russia's State Environmental Agency said. "At the moment the ecological situation remains unfavorable throughout the territory of Moscow. While in the afternoon the situation has stabilized a bit, and the smoke dispersed, we still expect the concentration of pollutants to exceed the maximum," the Mosekomonitoring expert said. She added that in ...