Archive for February 25th, 2011

Palm Oil Firms Demand Clarity Over Land Use

Jakarta Globe: Rising commodity prices are driving palm oil producers to find more land to boost output, but doing so in Indonesia may be too difficult, some producers claim. Sime Darby, the world’s largest listed palm oil producer, wants to acquire more land, including in Indonesia, the world’s top producing nation. However, it may turn to Africa if obstacles such as a ban on forest clearing and conflicting zoning regulations prove too much of a headache. “Sime Darby is always open to any proposition to...

Mackenzie mill suitor blamed for rainforest destruction

Vancouver Sun: Mackenzie mill suitor blamed for rainforest destruction Greenpeace accuses Singapore-based Sinar Mas of logging practices that are killing endangered orangutans in Sumatra The Asian forest company that's considering buying B.C.'s Mackenzie pulp mill was targeted Wednesday in a graphically disturbing ad campaign by Greenpeace over logging practices the eco-group says is killing endangered orangutans. Singapore-based Sinar Mas, one of the world's largest forest companies, is being accused...

Amazon Traveler Battles Deforestation and Climate Change in Brazil

Planet Green: In northern Brazil, there's a town called S?o F?lix do Xingu, located in the heart of the Amazon. Rane Cortez, a forest carbon development adviser with The Nature Conservancy, spent 10 days there. She was searching, but not for a lost treasure (unless you count a less-polluted world). Cortez is working with experts and locals on ways to cut carbon emissions from the destruction of forests. Here's the deal: The cutting and burning of trees in places like Brazil for cattle ranching or logging is...

Does the Southwest face a mega-drought?

New York Times: Rising global temperatures resulting from emissions of human origin could tip the southwestern United States into a period of prolonged extreme drought seen before only in distant geological history, a new study suggests. Researchers dug deep into the region`s climate history by studying a 270-foot core of lake sediment taken from the Valles Caldera, a volcanic depression in northern New Mexico. Data extracted from the core revealed "mega-droughts" in the region lasting as long as a thousand years....

Ancient megadroughts preview warmer climate: study

Reuters: Ancient megadroughts that lasted thousands of years in what is now the American Southwest could offer a preview of a climate changed by modern greenhouse gas emissions, researchers reported on Wednesday. The scientists found these persistent dry periods were different from even the most severe decades-long modern droughts, including the 1930s "Dust Bowl." And they determined that these millennial droughts occurred at times when Earth's mean annual temperature was similar to or slightly higher...

Ancient megadroughts preview warmer climate: study

Reuters: Ancient megadroughts that lasted thousands of years in what is now the American Southwest could offer a preview of a climate changed by modern greenhouse gas emissions, researchers reported on Wednesday. The scientists found these persistent dry periods were different from even the most severe decades-long modern droughts, including the 1930s "Dust Bowl." And they determined that these millennial droughts occurred at times when Earth's mean annual temperature was similar to or slightly higher...