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Archive for February 18th, 2011
Fishing down food web leaves fewer big fish, more small fish in past century: UBC research
Posted by Science Centric: None Given on February 18th, 2011
Science Centric: Predatory fish such as cod, tuna, and groupers have declined by two-thirds over the past 100 years, while small forage fish such as sardine, anchovy and capelin have more than doubled over the same period, according to University of British Columbia researchers.
Led by Prof. Villy Christensen of UBC's Fisheries Centre, a team of scientists used more than 200 marine ecosystem models from around the world and extracted more than 68,000 estimates of fish biomass from 1880 to 2007. They presented...
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U.S. judge delays decision in Chevron-Ecuador case
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
Reuters: A U.S. judge asked lawyers in the long-running Chevron Corp pollution dispute in Ecuador's Amazon rain forest to do more work on Ecuadorean law before he decides whether any judgment against the oil company can be enforced.
At a hearing in U.S. District Court in New York on Friday, Judge Lewis Kaplan did not convert his February 8 temporary restraining order halting the enforcement of any damages award against Chevron into an injunction. Kaplan's order lasts until March 8.
The issue is part...
Brazilian government claims only a ‘small minority’ oppose Belo Monte dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
Guardian: The President of the Brazilian public company EPE (Energy Research Company), Maurício Tolmasquim, declared this Thursday that just a "small minority that does not accept any form of hydroelectric power," is against the building of Belo Monte. The declaration was given in an interview over the phone to the international press, after a few days of protests against the major enterprise stopped Brasília.
EPE is the public company responsible for the planning of the projects for generation of electric...
U.S. judge reserves order in Chevron-Ecuador case
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
Reuters: A U.S. judge asked lawyers in the long-running Chevron Corp pollution dispute in Ecuador's Amazon rain forest to do more work on Ecuadorean law before he decides whether any judgment against the oil company can be enforced.
At a hearing in U.S. District Court in New York on Friday, Judge Lewis Kaplan did not convert his February 8 temporary restraining order halting the enforcement of any damages award against Chevron into an injunction. Kaplan's order lasts until March 8.
The issue is part...
Lake Baikal Study Sheds Light On Ecosystem Responses To Climate Variability
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
RedOrbit: Siberia's Lake Baikal, the world's oldest, deepest, and largest freshwater lake, has provided scientists with insight into the ways that climate change affects water temperature, which in turn affects life in the lake. The study was published in the journal PLoS ONE on Feb. 16.
"Lake Baikal has the greatest biodiversity of any lake in the world," explained co-author Stephanie Hampton, deputy director of UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis (NCEAS). "And, thanks...
Cocaine to Blame for Rain Forest Loss, Study Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
National Geographic: Cocaine is destroying lives and tearing homes apart—and not simply because of drug use. Farming coca, the plant used to make cocaine, has been linked to rising deforestation rates in Colombian rain forests, a new study says.
What's more, ecologist Liliana M. Dávalos and colleagues have for the first time quantified indirect deforestation tied to coca farming, such as clearing land for growing food crops near coca plantations.
"In southern Colombia we found geographically that there is just...
Flood studies bring climate change lawsuits a step closer
Posted by EurActiv: None Given on February 18th, 2011
EurActiv: A leading climate professor says that new evidence which further reinforces the connection between global warming and extreme rainfall is "extremely important" in setting out a methodology which could one day be used to sue energy companies for climate damage.
Background
In April 2007, EU lawmakers reached agreement on a Floods Directive for assessing and managing risks.
First proposed by the European Commission in 2006, it was a climate change adaptation measure, as floods are expected...
Climate reshapes tropical forests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
BBC: Tropical forests 're-shaped' by climate changes
Changes in rainfall patterns can affect the characteristics of tropical forests, research shows
Future climate change could change the profile of tropical forests, with possible consequences for carbon storage and biodiversity, a study says.
It suggests that if current trends continued, the drier conditions would favour deciduous, canopy species at the expense of other trees.
US researchers based their findings on the changes they recorded...
Badger cull decision delayed
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
Guardian: A controversial government decision on whether to allow badger culling in England to curb tuberculosis in cattle has been delayed, it emerged on Friday. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had been expected to announce its policy on the matter around the end of February, but it could now come as late as May.
Proposals to license farmers to kill badgers could mean up to 6,000 badgers are shot this year, but the plans have previously been dismissed as "scientifically among...
United Kingdom: Global warming, carbon emissions linked to increasingly torrential downpours
Posted by Canadian Press: Tamsyn Burgmann on February 18th, 2011
Canadian Press: When torrential rains swept away an entire shopping complex in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec in 1996, the provincial government called the disaster "an act of God."
And it was Mother Nature who bore the brunt of southern Ontarians' fury when damage costs soared to $500 million after severe thunderstorms on a single day in August 2005 washed out roads, golf courses and homes.
But a new study by Environment Canada scientists suggests we may have only ourselves to blame.
The...