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Archive for December 2nd, 2010
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hits 40
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 2nd, 2010
Scientific American: Forty years ago today, Republican president Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. At the time the nation had no law mandating clean water, clean air or the safety of chemicals. Lead was still in all gasoline, and acid rain was poisoning the waterways downwind of the nation's coal-burning power plants.
Forty years later, we have the EPA to thank for reductions in air and water pollution, unleaded gasoline—as well as cars more efficient at burning it—and even new efforts to...
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Many U.S. wetlands could vanish by 2100
Posted by OurAmazingPlanet: None Given on December 2nd, 2010
OurAmazingPlanet: Coastal wetlands around the world, including many on the U.S. Atlantic coast, could be more endangered by climate change and sea-level rise than previously thought, a new study suggests.
Coastal wetlands provide critical services such as absorbing energy from hurricanes and storms, preserving shorelines, protecting human populations and infrastructure, supporting commercial seafood harvests, absorbing pollutants and serving as critical habitat for migratory bird populations. These resources and...
Food security wanes as world warms
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 2nd, 2010
ScienceNews: Since summer, signs of severe food insecurity -- droughts, food riots, five- to tenfold increases in produce costs -- have erupted around the globe. Several new reports now argue that regionally catastrophic crop failures -- largely due to heat stress -- are signals that global warming may have begun outpacing the ability of farmers to adapt.
Some one billion people already suffer serious malnutrition. That number could mushroom, the new reports argue, if governments big and small don’t begin...
Venezuelan flood victims can stay at presidential palace, says Hugo Chávez
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 2nd, 2010
Guardian: Venezuela Venezuelan flood victims can stay at presidential palace, says Hugo Chávez
President urges those at risk from further rain to leave homes as death toll from floods and mudslides reaches 25
Dozens of Venezuelans left homeless by torrential rain can remain at the presidential palace until the government finds them new homes, the country's president, Hugo Chávez, said today.
The news came as the death toll from flooding and mudslides reached 25.
Chávez also visited the hillside...
Rewarding eco-friendly farmers can help combat climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 2nd, 2010
ScienceDaily: Financially rewarding farmers for using the best fertilizer management practices can simultaneously benefit water quality and help combat climate change, finds a new study by the University of Maryland's Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER). The researchers conclude that setting up a "trading market," where farmers earn financial incentives for investing in eco-friendly techniques, would result in a double environmental benefit -- reducing fertilizer run-off destined for the Chesapeake...
Poor stream health imperils fish
Posted by Science Centric: None Given on December 2nd, 2010
Science Centric: 'Of the 675 fish species found in southeastern waters, more than 25 percent are considered imperilled,' Donald J. Orth, the Thomas H. Jones Professor of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences in Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment, told the audience of scientists during his keynote address at the Southeastern Fishes Council annual meeting in mid November 2010 in Athens, Ga. The theme of the meeting was 'Got Water? At the Crossroads of Fish Conservation and Water Supply.'
Orth's...
Many coastal wetlands likely to disappear this century
Posted by Science Centric: None Given on December 2nd, 2010
Science Centric: Many coastal wetlands worldwide - including several on the U.S. Atlantic coast - may be more sensitive than previously thought to climate change and sea-level rise projections for the 21st century.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists made this conclusion from an international research modelling effort published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Scientists identified conditions under which coastal wetlands could survive rising sea...
Africa could feed itself, says development expert
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 2nd, 2010
SciDev.Net: Africa could feed itself within a generation through the application of science-based techniques to agricultural production, according to the editor of a report on how to do this, which will be discussed by East African heads of state today. The continent has a window of opportunity in which to take decisions to increase food production that would enable it to feed itself, said the report, put together by a 20-member board under the Agricultural Innovation in Africa project, funded by the Bill &...
Corn Belt Senators Defend Ethanol Subsidies
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 2nd, 2010
New York Times: Let the ethanol wars begin.
Shortly after a bipartisan group of senators circulated a letter calling for an end to federal ethanol subsidies and tariffs this week, a group of Corn Belt senators have released their own declaration calling for renewal of the measures.
A federal subsidy of 45 cents a gallon for blending ethanol into gasoline and a 54-cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol will both expire automatically at the end of the year without Congressional action. A bill introduced...
Taj Mahal threatened by polluted air and water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 2nd, 2010
Guardian: A new Indian government survey has revealed that the Taj Mahal, the nation's best-known monument, is again facing a major threat from pollution.
The report, compiled by India's National Environment Engineering Research Institute, shows that measures taken after previous scares that the 17th-century tomb was being irreparably damaged by air and water pollution are failing.
The survey, commissioned by the Ministry of Environment, found that pollution levels in the city of Agra, where the Taj...