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Archive for January 7th, 2011
Egypt: Pharaonic Palm at Risk of Extinction, Again
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 7th, 2011
Inter Press Service: Environmentalists have called for more efforts to protect the argun palm, a rare desert tree prized by the ancient Egyptians that is on the verge of extinction.
Less than 400 argun palms (Medemia argun) are known to exist in remote desert regions of Egypt and Sudan. Environmentalists say urgent action is needed to protect the enigmatic fan palm, which is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species.
"These palms...
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Saving crticial wilderness areas in Rwanda’s forests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 7th, 2011
Rainforest News: The landscape around Gisenyi in western Rwanda, on the border to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is breathtakingly beautiful. Mount Nyiragongo towers majestically over the city, which is contiguous with the city of Goma across the border in DRC. Located inside the Virunga National Park north of Goma and Lake Kivu, and just west of the border with Rwanda, its fertile land has made it one of the most densely populated regions on the entire continent. It also boasts virgin forests that are home...
Climate Scientists Deepening Skepticism of Democracy
Posted by Forbes: None Given on January 7th, 2011
Forbes: Does a liberal democracy have sufficient resolve to stomach the economic and political sacrifices required to stabilize global warming?
A growing number of climate scientists believe the answer is "no." In their view, democratic institutions are perpetuating climate change by precluding implementation of the politically unpalatable actions needed to reduce the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
For example, in The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy, David...
Fiji Water sued for greenwashing
Posted by Mother Jones: Jen Phillips on January 7th, 2011
Mother Jones: Despite selling, you know, water, Fiji Water is not the most transparent corporation. The company, the subject of a groundbreaking investigative feature we ran in 2009, is now the target of a lawsuit for deceptively marketing itself as "carbon-negative." A US District Court class-action suit filed by a Newport, California, firm on behalf of a Santa Ana woman named Desiree Worthington accuses Fiji Water of using a practice known as "forward crediting": essentially, giving yourself credit for carbon...
Mass bird and fish deaths stoke curiosity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 7th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Five thousand dead blackbirds rained from the sky on the first day of the New Year in Arkansas. Then more dead birds fell in other states. Then huge fish kills were discovered in multiple US waterways. And suddenly it became a worldwide phenomenon, with reports of mass die-offs of birds and fish in Sweden, Britain, Japan, Thailand, Brazil and beyond.
Doves, jellyfish, snapper, jackdaws... it seemed no species was immune.
Conspiracy theorists, doomsdayers and religious extremists warned that...
Gulf Oil Spill: Methane Gas Concentrations in Gulf of Mexico Quickly Returned to Near-Normal Levels, Surprising Research
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 7th, 2011
ScienceDaily: Calling the results "extremely surprising," researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and Texas A&M University report that methane gas concentrations in the Gulf of Mexico have returned to near normal levels only months after a massive release occurred following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion.
Findings from the research study, led by oceanographers John Kessler of Texas A&M and David Valentine of UCSB, were recently published in the journal Science. The findings...