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Archive for August 19th, 2010
Pakistani floods reportedly triggered by climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
Central Asia Online: The super-floods that swept from Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa down to the southern end of Sindh are a harbinger of global climate change's influence on South Asia, scientists argue. The UN said more than 20m survivors are trying to resume their lives in the flood's wake. This year's "extreme and unusual weather" represents global climate change, said Director General of Pakistan Meteorology Department, Dr. Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhary. He pointed to the wild variation between ...
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BP oil spill: scientists find giant plume of droplets ‘missed’ by official account
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
Guardian: Scientists have mapped a 22-mile plume of oil droplets from BP's rogue well in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, providing the strongest evidence yet of the fate of the crude that spewed into the sea for months. The report offers the most authoritative challenge to date to White House assertions that most of the 5m barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf is gone. "These results indicate that efforts to book-keep where the oil went must now include this plume," said Christopher ...
146 dams threaten Amazon basin
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
Mongabay: Although developers and government often tout dams as environmentally-friendly energy sources, this is not always the case. Dams impact river flows, changing ecosystems indefinitely; they may flood large areas forcing people and wildlife to move; and in the tropics they can also become massive source of greenhouse gases due to emissions of methane. Despite these concerns, the Amazon basin--the world's largest tropical rainforest--is being seen as prime development for hydropower projects. ...
Signs of climate change are obvious
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
Chicago Daily Herald: Global warming deniers are silent. The first six months of 2010 were the hottest in recorded history. They see that an island of ice four times the size of Manhattan and half as thick in height as the Empire State Building breaks off Greenland and say nothing. Since April, China has had record rains and flooding that had killed over 700 people and forced 8.1 million to relocate. Recent floods in Pakistan have killed over 1,000 people and displaced at least 2 million. Ten percent of ...
United Kingdom: Cotton Gardens playground: Urban “oasis” under threat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
Guardian: Name of project Cotton Gardens playground Describe the site currently, including details of protected or threatened habitat or species The site is an oasis of green used as a tranquil and natural escape from the surrounding concrete jungle. With its lanscaped grassy humps and numerous trees the site is already a natural playground used by both children and adluts for various forms of recreation, for picnics, dog-walking or just for quiet contemplation. The area is also, for our ...
Australia: On the frontline of climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
Independent: Irrigated by one of the world's mightiest river systems, the Murray-Darling Basin yields nearly half of Australia's fresh produce. But the basin is ailing, and scientists fear that as climate change grips the driest inhabited continent, its main foodbowl could become a global warming ground zero. The signs are already ominous: in the Riverland, one of the nation's major horticulture areas, dying vines and parched lemon trees attest to critical water shortages. Farmers have had their ...
Damaged ecosystems magnify Asia’s killer floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
AFP: Climate change may be playing a part in record rains ravaging Asia but environment experts say the destruction of ecosystems is more directly to blame for the severity of killer floods. Widespread deforestation, the conversion of wetlands to farms or urban sprawl and the clogging up of natural drainage systems with garbage are just some of the factors exacerbating the impacts of the floods, they say. "You can't just blame nature... humans have encroached on the natural flood ...
Indonesia: ‘Super-extreme’ weather is the worst on record
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
Jakarta Globe: Jakarta. Indonesia has been experiencing its most extreme weather conditions in recorded history, meteorologists warned on Wednesday as torrential rains continued to pound the capital. All regions across the archipelago have been experiencing abnormal and often catastrophic weather, an official from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said. "We have reached a super-extreme level of weather this year, the first time in our history, and this is much worse ...
Canada: Pine beetles’ march across B.C. is a catastrophe in slow motion
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
Vancouver Sun: It's funny. You can read that pine beetles have denuded and killed an area of B.C. forest land equivalent to the area of California and New York combined, but it doesn't sink in. It seems impossible. Sheer hyperbole. But drive the circular route through Hope, Princeton, Merritt, Cache Creek, Lillooet, Pemberton, Whistler as I did this past weekend, and you can see it. Kilometre after kilometre of trees stripped of needles and tinder-dry. It's heartbreaking and ...
Kremlin official warns on Russian water purity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2010
Reuters: Russia's lax water purity standards and wasteful use of water pose a threat to national security, the head of President Dmitry Medvedev's Security Council said in remarks published on Thursday. Russia has one-fifth of the world's freshwater reserves, presidential Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev told the official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta in an interview. But he warned against complacency in a world he said faces tensions over water supplies, including in nearby ...