Archive for October 31st, 2010

Chad: Europe must save shrinking African lake

Reuters: Europe will be confronted with 30 million Africans trying to reach its shores unless it acts to stop climate change from depleting a lake on which they depend, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Sunday. Scientists say changing weather patterns, along with growing populations and the construction of dams, are to blame for the shrinking of Lake Chad, which provides livelihoods for about 30 million people in surrounding countries. "If Lake Chad dries up, there are about 30 million people who...

Need to move Indonesia’s capital growing urgent in face of climate change, experts say

Reuters: Sea level rise, worsening flooding and land subsidence in and around Jakarta have prompted Indonesian officials to resurrect plans to move the country's capital - but local residents and experts say Jakarta itself will not survive unless it adapts to cope with climate change. Plans to relocate Indonesia's central government, parliament and public offices to another province on the island of Java or to another island in the Indonesian archipelago have been proposed on and off since the 1930s because...

Curtailing carbon

Register Guard: The city of Eugene wants residents to reduce the amount of global warming gases they are responsible for releasing into the atmosphere. Eugene resident and sustainable-business consultant Joshua Proudfoot is a believer in the city`s plan for Eugene residents to battle global warming. Addressing climate change "is more than a question of environmental ethic," he said. "It is a question of survival for our businesses, for our people and for our society." Proudfoot`s passion is understandable....

United States: Eugene carbon emissions low, but will still grow

Register Guard: Compared with other Oregon cities and the rest of the nation, Eugene has relatively low per person carbon emissions. That`s not necessarily because residents have especially eco-friendly habits, though. It`s mainly because the Eugene Water & Electric Board, the city`s electricity provider, gets most of its power from hydroelectric dams -- rather than from coal or gas-fired electricity plants -- with virtually no carbon emissions. Still, according to a 2007 inventory of Eugene`s greenhouse gas emissions,...