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Archive for February 23rd, 2011
Southern African farmers face heavy flood losses
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on February 23rd, 2011
AlertNet: A woman enters her home flooded with water, close to the swollen Limpopo River in Mozambique, Temba Mduli's fields resemble a vast lake, studded with treetops and half-submerged buildings. Once-green corn, soya beans, potatoes and sunflowers have been turned yellow by some of the worst flooding to cut through northern South Africa in years.
"I will be lucky just to get fodder out of the bad parts,' he says, as his two John Deere tractors sit nearby, submerged to their steering wheels. "That's...
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Top 25 most endangered turtles: Asian species in crisis
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 23rd, 2011
Mongabay: Surviving hundreds of millions of years on Earth have not saved turtles from facing extinction at human hands. A new report by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Turtle Conservation Coalition, identifies the world's 25 most imperiled turtles, including one that is practically assured extinction: 'Lonesome George' the last Abdington Island tortoise in the world. The list includes four turtle species from South and Central America, three from Africa, and one from Australia. But Asia is...
Parasitic protozoons survive waste water and drinking water treatment plants in Galicia
Posted by Science Centric: None Given on February 23rd, 2011
Science Centric: 'The presence of two resistent forms of protozoons, the oocysts from the Cryptosporidium genus and cysts of the Giardia genus, is one of the greatest public health problems in water supply, because these parasites can easily survive our water treatment systems,' Jose Antonio Castro Hermida, a scientist at the Galician Institute for Food Quality in the Xunta de Galicia (regional government), tells SINC.
A team led by this researcher took 232 water samples in 55 Galician towns, and confirmed the...
Ecuador: Q&A: “The Verdict Against Chevron Is Enforceable, Because It Is Just”
Posted by Inter Press Service: Gonzalo Ortiz Interviews Juan Pablo SÁENZ, Prosecuting Attorney In Chevron Case on February 23rd, 2011
Inter Press Service: On Feb. 14, a provincial Ecuadorean court issued the harshest environmental verdict in history against a major oil company, the U.S.-based Chevron. But is there any chance it will be carried out?
"We wouldn't keep working on this if we didn't think success was possible. On a scale of one to 10, it's a 10," the youngest of the litigant attorneys, Juan Pablo Sáenz, told Tierramérica in an interview.
It is the environmental trial of the century. The ruling of the court of first instance orders...
Newcastle hopes to tap deep heat with 2000m geothermal probe
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 23rd, 2011
Guardian: Britain's greenest city has launched a hunt for virtually free hot water more than a mile below its central streets. Drilling has started in Newcastle Upon Tyne on a borehole which hopes to tap inexhaustible supplies of groundwater naturally kept at 80C (176F) by geothermal heat.
The project, based at the former home of the city's most famous previous liquid – the old Scottish and Newcastle brewery – expects to tap the water and start pumping in early June. By then, the drill operated by scientists...
Climate Change, Food Safety Linked
Posted by U.S. News and World Report: Joel N. Shurkin on February 23rd, 2011
U.S. News and World Report: Global warming has the potential to make what we eat more dangerous and expensive, and the world already is feeling the effects, according to experts. Click here to find out more! A quartet of scientists reporting during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington last weekend said the issues of food safety are poorly understood, but the inference from what is known is distressing. They fear that global warming would lead to increased levels of contamination...
Climate change drives (micro)evolution in Finland
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 23rd, 2011
Scientific American: For want of snow, the tawny owl of Finland has become more brown in the past half-century, according to new research published February 22 in Nature Communications. Finnish researchers scored tawny owls (Strix aluco)—a raptor common to all of Europe—on the color of their plumage, specifically how brown (dark) or gray (pale) their feathers were. (Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group.)
Since the owls do not seem to show a sexual preference for either darker or lighter feathers,...
EU to tackle Canadian tar sands in new law: sources
Posted by Reuters: Pete Harrison and Juliane Von Reppert-Bismarck on February 23rd, 2011
Reuters: Europe's trade and climate chiefs are preparing to take a stand against imports of oil from Canada's polluting tar sands, despite fears the move might wreck a multi-billion dollar trade deal, according to EU sources and documents. European Union sources said this week that Canada had threatened to pull out of trade talks because of the clash, but Ottawa has denied that. Canada says draft EU standards to promote greener fuels will harm a possible future market for its oil sands -- tar-like oil that...
Global warming, extreme events and weird weather
Posted by Washington Post: Andrew Freedman on February 23rd, 2011
Washington Post: I've never been a fan of absolutes. People who espouse rigid beliefs - be they about climate change, religion, or politics (or a mix of all three) - instinctively make me question their evidence. As a reporter, I tend to see things in varying shades of gray, rather than black and white, and I gravitate towards stories that are full of nuance and complexity, where absolutes are rarely, if ever, to be found.
For this reason, the oft-made assertions that "global warming will make the weather more...
United Kingdom: Potato firm joins research into how farmers can use less water to grow their crops
Posted by This is Lincolnshire: None Given on February 23rd, 2011
This is Lincolnshire: PROBLEMS growing crops because of potential water shortages are being tackled by county experts.
The University of Lincoln and Branston Potatoes Ltd are taking part in a project that could influence the way potatoes and other crops are grown in the future.
This could help county farmers tackle the issues of climate change head on without losing crops or money.
The research will highlight future risks to the industry in what is one of the country's prime potato-growing areas.
It is currently...