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Archive for December 15th, 2010
Dying Beneath the Calm Waters
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 15th, 2010
Inter Press Service: At first glance, Lake Constance, trapped between Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, looks as peaceful as ever. But under the lake's apparently placid waters, a dramatic change is taking place - one that threatens to obliterate much of local biodiversity.
The temperature of the lake’s waters is rising at an alarming pace.
According to records from the Agency for Environmental Protection of Baden Wuerttemberg, the German federal state in which Lake Constance is situated, the lake’s water temperatures...
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Russia Approves Highway Through Khimki Forest Near Moscow
Posted by New York Times: Michael Schwirtz on December 15th, 2010
New York Times: Environmentalists on Tuesday appeared to lose a protracted battle to prevent construction of a highway through one of the Moscow region’s last remaining forests, just months after President Dmitri A. Medvedev succumbed to a public outcry and temporarily halted the project. A government commission has approved a plan to bisect the Khimki Forest with a five-mile stretch of a highway that will eventually link Moscow and St. Petersburg, officials said Tuesday. Environmentalists have complained that...
NASA image reveals worst drought on record for the Amazon river
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 15th, 2010
Mongabay: A new image released by NASA reveals the impact of the worst drought on record on the world's largest river.
The image, captured December 10, 2010, shows the Rio Negro, one of the Amazon's largest tributaries, at the lowest level ever recorded. Measurements taken December 3, 2010 at the city of Manaus found the river level at a record-low 13.63 meters.
NASA released the following statement describing the image, which is compared with a second image taken on December 9, 2008. The images include...
Small islands in the Pacific: Duel between freshwater and sea water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 15th, 2010
ScienceDaily: It is said that the first refugees of climate change will come from the Pacific. In the midst of this ocean's tropical regions are scattered 50,000 small islands, 8,000 of them inhabited. They are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of global warming. These effects include rising sea-water levels, drought and diminishing stocks of freshwater. Such water is essential for the life of the fauna and flora and for the human populations' food supplies. On the coral reef islands, freshwater occurs as...