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Archive for March 7th, 2011
Climate change, biofuels threaten food security-FAO
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 7th, 2011
Reuters: Climate change bringing floods and drought, growing biofuel demand and national policies to protect domestic markets could boost global food prices and threaten long-term food security, the United Nations said.
High and volatile food prices are a growing global concern, partly fuelling the protests which toppled the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year. The aftershocks have been seen across North Africa and the Middle East from Algeria to Yemen.
Periods of price volatility are not...
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Brazil: Legal war on Belo Monte dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 7th, 2011
Rainforest News: Last week a judge blocked construction of the Belo Monte dam, saying it did not meet environmental standards. But a higher court on Thursday said there was no need for all conditions to be met in order for work to begin. Critics say the project threatens wildlife and will make thousands of people homeless. The Monte Belo dam is a cornerstone of President Dilma Rousseff's plan to upgrade Brazil's energy infrastructure.
Licences still have to be granted for the actual building of the plant, but...
Scientists map human vulnerability to climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 7th, 2011
Asian News International: First global map has suggested that climate change will have greatest impact on the population least responsible for causing the problem.
Researchers already study how various species of plants and animals migrate in response to climate change.
Now, Jason Samson of the McGill University's department of natural resource sciences has taken the innovative step of using the same analytic tools to measure the impact of climate change on human populations.
Samson and fellow researchers combined...
Flood catastrophe exercise to test Britain’s emergency services
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 7th, 2011
Guardian: Flash floods will drown London and Yorkshire, a major reservoir will blow out in Derbyshire, rivers will burst their banks from the Thames valley to Wales and a tidal surge will swamp the east coast in the armageddon scenario underpinning Britain's biggest ever civil emergency exercise.
Exercise Watermark will involve 10,000 people from the police to prison officers and equipment from helicopters to hospitals, testing the nation's ability to respond to a range of major flood emergencies. At its...
California superstorm would be costliest US disaster
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 7th, 2011
ScienceDaily: A hurricane-like superstorm expected to hit California once every 200 years would cause devastation to the state's businesses unheard of even in the Great Recession, a USC economist warns.
Researchers estimate the total property damage and business interruption costs of the massive rainstorm would be nearly $1 trillion.
USC research professor Adam Rose calculated that the lost production of goods and services alone would be $627 billion of the total over five years. Rose, a professor with the...
Birnam Wood in the 21st Century: northern forest invading Arctic tundra as world warms
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 7th, 2011
Mongabay: In Shakespeare's play Macbeth the forest of Birnam Wood fulfills a seemingly impossible prophecy by moving to surround the murderous king (the marching trees are helped, of course, by an army of axe-wielding camouflaged Scots). The Arctic tundra may soon feel much like the doomed Macbeth with an army of trees (and invading species) closing in. In a recent study, researchers found that climate change is likely to push the northern forests of the boreal into the Arctic tundra--a trend that is already...