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Archive for September, 2010
Could industrial interests ruin payments for environmental services?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2010
Mongabay: One of the biggest ideas in the conservation world over the past decade is Payments for Environmental Services, known as PES, whereby governments, corporations, or the public pays for the environmental services that benefit them (and to date have been free), i.e. carbon, biodiversity, freshwater, etc. For example, Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is the largest such proposed PES concept, yet many others are emerging. However, a new study in ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Could industrial interests ruin payments for environmental services?US commission told 50 percent of oil spill remains in Gulf
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2010
AFP: More than half the oil released from a busted BP well remains in the Gulf of Mexico, a presidential panel was told Monday, as the US pointman lamented a "dysfunctional" response to the disaster. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar meanwhile told the bipartisan commission that the spill had bolstered a drive to reform federal regulations for offshore drilling, promising that lessons were learnt. In an ominous sign for Gulf residents, however, oceanographer Ian MacDonald told the ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on US commission told 50 percent of oil spill remains in GulfSave the planet – a message from another world
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2010
Guardian: Jacinto Zarabata sits in a suburban back garden in north London and unselfconsciously uses a stick to probe the inside of a gourd, which is shaped like a rather phallic mushroom with a bright yellow cap. The first member of the Kogi people of Colombia ever to visit Britain is wearing traditional rough cotton clothes and has a cloth bag slung over each shoulder as he chews toasted coca leaves. It would be easy to view Jacinto as a noble savage; an exotic being from a pristine ...
Ugandan forest being stripped for fuel wood
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2010
Mongabay: A new study in the open access journal of Tropical Conservation Science finds that the Kasagala forest reserve in central Uganda is losing important tree species and suffering from low diversity of species. Researchers believe that forest degradation for charcoal and firewood has put heavy pressure on this ecosystem. The Kasagala forest reserve, according to the authors, was "previously set aside to provide ecosystem services and offer catchment protection to Lake Kyoga, an inland ...
Are human actions making natural disasters more destructive?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2010
CNN: As Pakistan struggles to recover after one of the worst floods in its history, questions are already being asked about how human decisions may have exacerbated the effects of this natural disaster. "Human activities have made the impacts of disasters more destructive," Claire Seaward, Oxfam, told CNN. In Pakistan, as in many countries around the world, a growing population has forced more and more people to live in vulnerable coastal areas and floodplains. "Increasingly, ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Are human actions making natural disasters more destructive?Study: Central Illinois will be much hotter by 2050
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 26th, 2010
Pantagraph: If you thought last summer was hot, you ain't seen nothing yet. Central Illinois will see water shortages, including some severe ones, when average temperatures climb 4.5 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050, according to a new study from the Natural Resources Defense Council and Tetra Tech, a California-based environmental consulting firm. More rain will fall over the central United States, but the increase in moisture will be offset by more demand for water by plants and people, ...
Indo-Pak ‘natural partners’ to combat climate change: Qureshi
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 25th, 2010
Indian Express: Noting that the climate change may have contributed to the devastating floods in Pakistan, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi suggested that India and Pakistan were natural allies in combating the problem plaguing both countries. "If we need to look into climate change, can we do it alone?" Qureshi said, speaking at the Asia Society yesterday in New York. "The most natural partners on issues of climate change are India and Pakistan. We share water...the Himalayan glaciersif ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Indo-Pak ‘natural partners’ to combat climate change: QureshiKilimanjaro’s vanishing ice due to tree-felling
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 25th, 2010
New Scientist: AGGRESSIVE tree-felling on mount Kilimanjaro could be partly to blame for its vanishing ice cap. The ice on Kilimanjaro's summit has shrunk to just 15 per cent of its extent in 1912, leading campaigners to hold it up as a symbol of climate change. But other factors are also at play. For instance, the air at the summit is getting drier, reducing the snowfall that replenishes the ice and reflects solar radiation. Now Nicholas Pepin from the University of Portsmouth, UK, and ...
Documentary shows dramatic shrinking of the Aral Sea
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 25th, 2010
Independent: A new documentary which premiered Tuesday at a film festival in Spain graphically depicts the dramatic dessication of the Aral Sea in Central Asia. "Aral, the Lost Sea," combines archive footage from the Soviet era with present-day images to show how the Sea is drying up. The film, by acclaimed Spanish director Isabel Coixet for the "We Are Water Foundation," was shown at the San Sebastian film festival. Once the world's fourth-largest inland body of water but now a ...
Safe drinking water is the issue that affects us all
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 25th, 2010
Asahi Shimbun: One major environmental question facing humanity is whether and how it can avoid conflict over water resources. The Asahi World Environmental Forum 2010, a public discussion forum organized by The Asahi Shimbun, which focused on issues concerning water, was held Sept. 13 and 14 at Hotel Okura in Tokyo. On the first day, a team of international experts discussed ways to solve the growing problem of water scarcity due to the surge in the world's population and global warming. * * ...