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Archive for August 25th, 2010
Cost of drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
BBC: The extreme heatwave, which caused a severe drought and wildfires in Russia, might be over, but both officials and consumers are now busy calculating its cost and trying to work out its consequences. Russian deputy economy minister, Andrei Klepach, said earlier this week that the drought would take up to 0.8% off this year's economic growth, "or maybe even more than that". The 0.8% official figure equals 313bn roubles ($10.1bn, £6.6bn at the current exchange rate), but is ...
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Rare ‘fire tornado’ filmed in Brazil
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
BBC: A 'fire tornado' has been caught on camera in the Brazilian municipality of Aracatuba, caused by strong, dry winds that fanned wildfires. A whirlwind of flames spiralling several metres high danced across fields, bringing traffic to a halt on a nearby road, before it disappeared. The phenomenon followed weeks of drought which have sparked brush fires across the country.
UN says 800,000 cut off by Pakistan floods
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
AP: Floods have isolated about 800,000 people in Pakistan who are now only reachable by air and aid workers need at least 40 more helicopters to ferry lifesaving aid to the increasingly desperate people, the United Nations said. The appeal Tuesday was an indication of the massive problems facing the relief effort in Pakistan more than three weeks after the floods hit the country, affecting more than 17 million people and raising concerns about possible social unrest and political ...
India: Erratic rains spark climate debate
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on August 25th, 2010
Telegraph (India): Puzzling Bihar peasants over the past two years, the erratic rains have triggered a debate on if the state has undergone a climate change. The jury is divided. Agriculture experts have suggested changes in cropping pattern due to the irregular rainfall. But the Met department believes it is premature to take any decision on climate change without data of at least 30 years. In the past two years, rainfall was deficient in June and July, when majority of the farmers sow paddy. ...
Environmental groups sue EPA on Cape Cod pollution
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
AP: Two environmental organizations have sued federal regulators in an effort to accelerate the cleanup of coastal waters in Massachusetts' Cape Cod Bay. The Conservation Law Foundation and the Coalition for Buzzards Bay allege in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that the Environmental Protection Agency has not fulfilled requirements to adequately regulate the discharge of nitrogen into the cape's bays. It says excess nitrogen from septic systems, stormwater runoff and wastewater ...
Photos: Tiny frog discovered living inside carnivorous plants in Borneo
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
Mongabay: One of the world's smallest frogs has been discovered living inside pitcher plants in Borneo, reports Conservation International, a conservation group that is jointly supporting a campaign with IUCN to search for some of the world's "lost amphibians." The species, described in Zootaxa by Indraneil Das and Alexander Haas of the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Museum of Hamburg, is named ...
Former Chief of Drilling Agency Says New Inspection System Needed
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
NYT: S. Elizabeth Birnbaum, the former head of the Minerals Management Service who resigned under pressure a month after the blowout of BP`s well in the Gulf of Mexico, said Wednesday that the offshore drilling oversight agency needed a thorough overhaul of its regulations, inspection procedures and culture. Testifying publicly for the first time since her resignation, Ms. Birnbaum told the presidential panel investigating the accident that the minerals service -- since reorganized and ...
Declining trees spell gloom for planet
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
Sydney Morning Herald: LESS rainfall and rising global temperatures are damaging one of the world's best guardians against climate change: trees. A global study, published in the journal Science, shows that the amount of carbon dioxide being soaked up by the world's forests in the past decade has declined, reversing a 20-year trend. It diminishes hopes that global warming can be seriously slowed down by the mass planting of trees in carbon sinks. Although plants generally grow bigger as a result of ...
China’s heavy rains blamed on unusual climate patterns
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
VOA: Helicopters were crucial in evacuating more than 250,000 people in China's northeastern Liaoning province days ago. Torrential rains battered the area and led to severe flooding along the border with North Korea. Weather experts and Chinese officials attribute the heavier than usual rainfall to unusual climate patterns and global warming. This was the latest of what has become a summer of natural disasters for China. Official media call it the country's worst flooding in a decade, ...
India: Green Activists Gain Ground with Successive Victories
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2010
IPS: Green activists in India have chalked up a series of successes recently and feel heartened that the central government is heeding their call. A number of mega projects which would have displaced vulnerable communities or caused damage to the environment were recently scrapped by the government. The latest victory was in preventing the multinational group Vedanta from opening up bauxite mines in the eastern state of Orissa and trampling on the rights of the local tribal ...