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Archive for January 29th, 2011
More frequent drought likely in eastern Africa
Posted by Science Centric: None Given on January 29th, 2011
Science Centric: The increased frequency of drought observed in eastern Africa over the last 20 years is likely to continue as long as global temperatures continue to rise, according to new research published in Climate Dynamics.
This poses increased risk to the estimated 17.5 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa who currently face potential food shortages.
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of California, Santa Barbara, determined that warming of the Indian Ocean, which causes...
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Geobiologists Link Ancient Climate Change And Mass Extinction
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 29th, 2011
REDORBIT: About 450 million years ago, Earth suffered the second-largest mass extinction in its history--the Late Ordovician mass extinction, during which more than 75 percent of marine species died. Exactly what caused this tremendous loss in biodiversity remains a mystery, but now a team led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has discovered new details supporting the idea that the mass extinction was linked to a cooling climate.
"While it's been known for a long time that...
Forest week in review: African wildlife collapse, greenwashing, and a big dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 29th, 2011
Mongabay: In a featured interview, biologist Ian Craigie discussed the 59 percent drop in big mammal populations in Africa's parks. The bad news: the overall decline of African mammals is likely to be worse than even the study portrays for two reasons: mammal populations have almost certainly suffered worse outside of parks than inside.
Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), a controversial Indonesian forest products brand that has distinguished itself by an extensive greenwashing campaign, announced it is partnering...
Millions face water shortage in China
Posted by China Daily: None Given on January 29th, 2011
China Daily: JINAN - More than 2.2 million people and 2.7 million livestock are facing a water shortage as the worst drought in decades continues to linger in many parts of China.
Sun Minghua, a rural resident of Bozhou in East China's Anhui province, checks out withering wheat seedlings on his farm on Thursday. [Photo/China Daily]
Some wheat-growing regions, including Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Anhui, Shanxi and Jiangsu provinces, have received little rainfall since October.
More than 4 million hectares...
Water worries: The drying of the West
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 29th, 2011
Economist: STANDING on the Hoover Dam and looking upstream at Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, the visitor notices a wide, white band ringing the cliffs. Nicknamed “the bathtub ring”, this discolouration comes from minerals that were once deposited on the volcanic rock by the Colorado River and have become visible as its level has dropped. It is one sign of a water crisis that threatens America’s south-west.
Other reminders abound. Farther upstream there are dry docks, jutting out ominously into desert,...
Testing the waters
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 29th, 2011
Time: Shark humor has its time and place, but not when I'm snorkeling somewhere called Shark Bay. At the Heron Island Research Station, a laboratory on the teardrop-shaped atoll 45 miles (72 km) off Australia's east coast, the suntanned, chirpy station manager gives a parting wave to the three students who are taking me out for my first look at the legendary corals of the Great Barrier Reef. "Just don't get eaten, will you?" she says. Ha-ha. Happily, there are no sharks in Shark Bay that morning; in fact,...
Six months after the Pakistan floods – audio slideshow
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 29th, 2011
Guardian: Pakistan floods Six months after the Pakistan floods - audio slideshow
The Pakistan floods affected 21 million people in the Indus valley region, and six months on, more than 1 million people are still homeless. Huge numbers of farmers have lost their livelihoods as much of the land is still under water or rendered useless for cultivation
M’sia keen to list Sabah’s Maliau Basin as heritage site
Posted by Straits Times: None Given on January 29th, 2011
Straits Times: MALAYSIA is very keen to list Sabah's Lost World, the Maliau Basin as a world heritage site.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, in endorsing the state government's proposal, said that a World Heritage listing by Unesco would bring immediate world attention and interest in the 58,400-hectare untouched tropical rainforest, just slightly smaller than Singapore.
He said the heritage listing of Mount Kinabalu National Park, George Town, Gunung Mulu National Park and Malacca had seen a jump...
Iraq water shortages raising ethnic tensions
Posted by Agenece France -Presse: None Given on January 29th, 2011
Agenece France -Presse: A worsening water shortage in Iraq is raising tensions in the multi-ethnic Kirkuk province, where Arab farmers accuse the Kurdistan region of ruining them by closing the valves to a dam in winter.
"We are harmed by the Kurds, and the officials responsible for Baghdad and Kirkuk will not lift a finger," said Sheikh Khaled al-Mafraji, a leader of the Arab Political Council that groups mainly Sunni tribal leaders.
At the heart of the conflict is the Dukan dam, built in 1955 in Iraq's northern...
PM: Western critics of M’sian oil palm industry taking narrow view –
Posted by Star: MUGUNTAN VANAR on January 29th, 2011
Star: Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said certain western critics of Malaysia's oil palm industry were taking a narrow-minded view of the issue.
The Prime Minister said that they failed or ignored to look at the benefits of the oil palm industry for the citizens who were dependent on it for their livelihoods.
''They (critics) looked for narrow angles, they fail to understand that we have a responsibility to our people who depend on oil palm beyond small holders and companies.
''They are pointing fingers...