RSS Feed
Archive for April, 2011
Bird feathers show pollution rise over 120 years: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 18th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Feathers collected from rare Pacific seabirds over the past 120 years have shown an increase in a type of toxic mercury that likely comes from human pollution, US researchers said on Monday.
Scientists at Harvard University took samples from feathers belonging to the endangered black-footed albatross from two US museum collections, said the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The feathers, which dated from 1880 to 2002, showed "increasing levels of methylmercury that...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Bird feathers show pollution rise over 120 years: studyCarbon Goes Wild: The Global Warming Story
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 18th, 2011
National Public Radio: Well, it's that time of year. Friday is Earth Day, and this is the week that some of us pause to ponder the health of our planet (while others of us spend the week yelling at the people who are pausing to ponder the health of the planet). Being a pauser, not a yeller, I thought I'd spend this week sharing with you, especially the younger set of you, a series of cartoon essays about ... carbon. Why carbon?
"Water may be the solvent of the universe," writes Natalie Angier in her classic introduction...
Decision Looms for Laos Dam, but Impact Is Unclear
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 18th, 2011
New York Times: The Mekong River is so brown with silt as it passes this impoverished village, it could be called liquid dirt. For millions of people downstream this is the color of life: the Mekong, teeming with hundreds of species of fish and rich in minerals, has for centuries been the lifeline of villages and towns stretching from the rocky rapids of Tibet to the lazy meanderings of the river in the Vietnam delta. On Tuesday the four countries that share the lower reaches of the Mekong River will announce whether...
Tropical countries aim for global forest pact
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 18th, 2011
Mongabay: Tropical countries aim for global forest pact in Panama.
Representatives from more than 30 countries are expected to hammer out a formal agreement for future discussions on forest and climate issues when they meet next month in the Republic of Congo, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
The summit, which will be held from May 31 through June 3 in Congo's capital of Brazzaville, will be attended by nearly 500 delegates from tropical countries, donor nations, NGOs, and multilateral...
Sugarcane cools climate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 18th, 2011
ScienceDaily: Brazilians are world leaders in using biofuels for gasoline. About a quarter of their automobile fuel consumption comes from sugarcane, which significantly reduces carbon dioxide emissions that otherwise would be emitted from using gasoline. Now scientists from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology have found that sugarcane has a double benefit. Expansion of the crop in areas previously occupied by other Brazilian crops cools the local climate. It does so by reflecting sunlight...
Weatherwatch: why grass made Britain great
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 17th, 2011
Guardian: A sheep enjoys the grass on the North Yorkshire Moors. Photograph: Alamy
April showers interspersed with warm sunshine provide perfect conditions for grass to grow at maximum speed. Listening to the whirr of lawn mowers it is easy to forget that it was grass that made Britain great. Its lush nutritious greenness fed the sheep that made wool our main export; many a village church and manor was built on the profits of wool.
Late medieval skills in managing early growth of grass on water meadows...
Sugar cane ethanol cools climate when it replaces cattle pasture
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on April 17th, 2011
Mongabay: Sugar cane ethanol cools climate when it replaces cattle pasture
Converting cattle pasture and cropland in Brazil to sugar cane helps cool local climate reports research published in Nature Climate Change.
Scientists with the Carnegie Institutions’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University and the University of Montana analyzed temperature, reflectivity, and evapotranspiration from satellite data across 733,000 square miles--an area larger than the state of Alaska. They found converting...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Sugar cane ethanol cools climate when it replaces cattle pastureNASA image reveals extent of 2010 Amazon drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 17th, 2011
Mongabay: NASA image reveals extent of 2010 Amazon drought
From NASA: image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, the image shows vegetation 'greenness' during the 2010 drought, between July and September, compared to average conditions for the same period between 2000 and 2009 (except for 2005, the other drought year). The redder the image the less 'green' the forest. The "greenness index" measures how much photosynthesis could be happening based on how...
Sugarcane cools climate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 17th, 2011
Physorg: Brazilians are world leaders in using biofuels for gasoline. About a quarter of their automobile fuel consumption comes from sugarcane, which significantly reduces carbon dioxide emissions that otherwise would be emitted from using gasoline. Now scientists from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology have found that sugarcane has a double benefit. Expansion of the crop in areas previously occupied by other Brazilian crops cools the local climate. It does so by reflecting sunlight...
Sugarcane grown for fuel cools Brazil’s climate
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 17th, 2011
Reuters: Sugarcane grown to power Brazil's cars and trucks as an alternative to climate-warming fossil fuels has a beneficial side effect: it also cools the local air temperature, scientists reported Sunday. Researchers warned that this does not mean replacing Amazon forest or other natural vegetation with sugarcane fields. The benefit comes when sugarcane is introduced into existing agriculture, replacing pasture land or crops like soybeans. Sugarcane manages this win-win feat by its ability to reflect...