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Archive for October 25th, 2010
Crisis forecast as prices reach record highs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
Guardian: Global food crisis forecast as prices reach record highs
Cost of meat, sugar, rice, wheat and maize soars as World Bank predicts five years of price volatility
Rising food prices and shortages could cause instability in many countries as the cost of staple foods and vegetables reached their highest levels in two years, with scientists predicting further widespread droughts and floods.
Although food stocks are generally good despite much of this year's harvests being wiped out in Pakistan...
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Water emerges as new weapon in Texas coal plant fight
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
Houston Chronicle: There is a new front in the fight over whether Texas should build more coal-fired power plants -- water.
The various water factions - farmers, environmentalists and growing, thirsty cities - have come together as allies against proposed coal plants across the state, with battles now raging from Abilene to Corpus Christi.
Their shared concern: The plants will use too much of an already stressed resource. So the unlikely allies are asking water suppliers to not sell the rights to billions of...
Ho Chi Minh City set to bear brunt of climate change impacts
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
Thanhnien News: Ho Chi Minh City and other Asia’s coastal megacities will suffer more frequent and severe flooding affecting millions of people, if current climate change trends continue, a new report says.
Major flooding could cost billions of dollars in infrastructure damage, hurting the economy. The hardest hit are likely to be urban poor populations, says the report titled Climate Risks and Adaptation in Asian Coastal Megacities.
The report was released Friday at the Asia Pacific Climate Change Adaptation...
Australia: Antarctic snowfall linked to south-western drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
WA Today: Increased snowfall in the Antarctic has been linked to drought in south-western Australia.
Researchers, including Australian Antarctic Division principal research scientist Tas van Ommen, have been analysing ice cores in the Antarctic and revealed snowfall variability may be linked to climate in the Southern Ocean and the South-West.
Dr van Ommen said the ice cores, drilled at Law Dome in the Antarctic, provided a record of annual variations in snowfall and provided a record stretching more...
U.N. talks on nature inch forward but rifts remain
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
Reuters: A U.N. meeting to set targets to fight rising animal and plant extinctions inched on Friday toward agreement, but rich and poor countries remained split over details of a new framework on genetic resources.
Envoys from nearly 200 countries are meeting in Nagoya, Japan, from Oct 18-29 to set new goals to preserve nature's riches after they failed to meet a goal for a "significant reduction" in losses of biological diversity by 2010.
The meeting hopes to push governments and businesses into taking...
Feds OK Largest-Ever U.S. Solar Project In Calif
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
AP: The Obama administration has approved a thousand-megawatt solar project on federal land in southern California, the largest solar project ever planned on U.S. public lands. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar hailed the $6 billion Blythe Project, to be built in the Mojave Desert near Blythe, Calif., as the start of a boom in solar power on federal lands. "Today is a day that makes me excited about the nation's future," Salazar said Monday at a news conference. "This project shows in a real way how harnessing...
Slide in EPA Clean Water Criminal Enforcement Continues Under Obama
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
New York Times: Criminal enforcement of federal water-pollution laws has continued a more than decadelong slide under the Obama administration, despite pledged improvements, according to U.S. EPA data.
The government reported 32 new Clean Water Act convictions during the fiscal year that ended in September, down from 42 in 2009. The number of criminal water pollution cases initiated by the agency fell from 28 last year to 21 this year.
Both figures have dropped nearly 60 percent since the late 1990s, their...
Fed panel gets 60-day extension on spill report
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
AP: A federal panel investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is getting 60 extra days to complete its report partly because more time is needed to do forensic testing on the piece of equipment that failed to stop BP's well from gushing into the sea.
Separately on Monday, a member of a White House-appointed commission that also is looking into the spill was critical of BP's safety record.
A key piece of evidence -- the blowout preventer -- was lifted from the ocean floor on Sept. 4 and later taken...
In Yemen, Water Grows Scarcer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
NYT: Increasingly sharp water shortages could cost Yemen 750,000 jobs and slash incomes by as much as 25 percent over the next decade, warns a new report on Yemen, an increasingly troubled Middle Eastern nation. The report was produced by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company at the request of the Yemeni government. Groundwater depletion rates are so rapid in the capital, Sana, that the city could effectively run out of water by 2025, according to an estimate in the report by a hydrology expert who...
Ecologist surprised at abrupt end to Serengeti-Mara wildebeest migration
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 25th, 2010
East African: A change in the spectacular wildebeest migration schedule in the great Serengeti-Mara ecosystem has caught ecologists offguard.
Traditionally, the wildebeest used to roam in Maasai Mara Game Reserve for at least three months and return to Serengeti National park, but this year they are reported to have spent less than the usual period.
“In September, the wildebeest were supposed to be still in Maasai Mara, but by then they they had started their return journey to Serengeti,” Tanzania National...