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Archive for November, 2010
Beaver escape gives teeth to Scotland’s debate over tampering with nature
Posted by Guardian: Kevin McKenna on November 27th, 2010
Guardian: They are all mobilised in the bitter cold. Officers of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), the police and local enthusiasts are scouring the countryside for furry creatures amid fears that they could reclaim their ancient territory and undermine the grand beauty of our wild places.
The revelation last week that 20 beavers had been set loose in the forests around Perth and Tayside has sparked a desperate recovery operation. Along the banks of the river Tay a volunteer trapper is laying traps to round...
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Don’t let us down: UN climate change talks in Cancun
Posted by Independent: Jonathan Owen and Matt Chorley on November 27th, 2010
Independent: As government ministers from more than 190 countries gather today in the Mexican city of Cancun for the start of talks aimed at minimising the impact of climate change, the need for a deal could scarcely be more pressing. The stakes are high, the expectations are low.
There is scant sign of the dramatic cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases needed to stop global warming exceeding 2C and devastating vast areas of the planet.
Failure to achieve meaningful progress could seal the fate of hundreds...
Climate change could bring sudden drought to La Paz
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2010
Boston Globe: As the world warms, scientists expect some ecosystems to gradually migrate up slopes, essentially chasing environmental conditions they needs to thrive.
But according to recent research on the historical ecology of the Andes conducted in part by a Westfield State University assistant professor, those steady changes can reach a tipping point in some cases that flips local ecosystems on their head.
The scientists examined fossilized pollen in Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest elevation great...
One scientist’s hobby: Recreating the ice age
Posted by Associated Press: Arthur Max on November 27th, 2010
Associated Press: Wild horses have returned to northern Siberia. So have musk oxen, hairy beasts that once shared this icy land with woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats. Moose and reindeer are here, and may one day be joined by Canadian bison and deer.
Later, the predators will come -- Siberian tigers, wolves and maybe leopards.
Russian scientist Sergey Zimov is reintroducing these animals to the land where they once roamed in millions to demonstrate his theory that filling the vast emptiness of Siberia with...
Horror summer fails to shift Russia climate scepticism
Posted by Agence France-Presse: Maria Antonova on November 27th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Russia may have endured its hottest summer on record and battled deadly forest fires, but attitudes on climate change remain dominated by scepticism and even mired in conspiracy theories.
Experts see no major substantial movement in Russia's stance ahead of the latest UN climate conference in Cancun, despite the occasional acknowledgement by President Dmitry Medvedev that the earth is warming.
During the last major climate conference in Copenhagen, Medvedev published Russia's ambitious Climate...
UN in the last chance saloon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 26th, 2010
Agence France-Presse: Global talks on climate change resume in the Mexican resort of Cancun on Monday, facing a clamour for results or the prospect of limbo. The 12-day meeting climaxes an 11-month effort to pick up the pieces after last December's trauma in Copenhagen.
More than 120 leaders jetted to the Danish capital, expecting to bless a pact that would slow, halt and then reverse the threat to Earth's climate system.
Instead, they were plunged into a nightmare where they had to haggle over a horribly complex,...
In Australian politics, climate change equals grief
Posted by Globe and Mail: Effrey Simpson on November 26th, 2010
Globe and Mail: Australia is green again. Fields baked dry for so long are verdant; ponds and river basins have filled. Water restrictions on urbanites are gone; farmers are hauling in bumper crops. The world's driest continent has been given a bath.
From 1997 to 2007, Australia suffered through the Big Dry or the Millennium Drought. Those 10 years changed everything, at least temporarily. The drought crushed farmers, reminded city-dwellers of the brutality of the country's geography, turned Australia's only...
Is the stage being set for new water wars in Africa?
Posted by Guardian: Claire Provost on November 26th, 2010
Guardian: With diarrhoea the biggest killer of children in Africa, the urgency of the water and sanitation crisis on the continent is hard to question. But while
some NGOs are calling on African governments to make water and sanitation integral parts of their national public health strategies, and fund them accordingly, the African Development Bank (AfDB) announced this week that closing the continent's multi-billion dollar infrastructure gap requires new investors and paying customers.
Leading a special...
A climate journey: From the peaks of the Andes to the Amazon’s oilfields
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 26th, 2010
Guardian: Last month I went on an extraordinary, epic journey through the Andes mountains of Peru and Ecuador. The aim was to record the stories of the largely hidden people on the frontline of climate change, and see how communities and governments are trying to adapt.
I began at 16,000ft on the snows of Mount Cayambe in Ecuador where the glaciers are in full retreat, and ended in the oilfields of the Amazon. In between, I came across water conflicts, deserts growing, rivers shrinking, extreme temperatures...
Lake Tahoe warming rapidly, satellites find
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 26th, 2010
San Francisco Chronicle: The world's largest lakes, including Lake Tahoe, have been warming rapidly for 25 years as the global climate changes, NASA scientists report. And throughout the Northern Hemisphere, surface water temperatures of many lakes have been rising even faster than the warming air above them, according to observations by ultra-sensitive satellites. In a report just published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Philipp Schneider and Simon Hook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena say...