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Archive for May 11th, 2011
United Kingdom: Ministers call for action to protect transport links
Posted by This is Plymouth: None Given on May 11th, 2011
This is Plymouth: URGENT action is needed to safeguard vital transport links such as the Plymouth mainline against climate change, ministers have warned.
Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman has stressed the need to future-proof infrastructure in the face of extreme weather in order to protect the economy.
She was speaking at the launch of a cross government report "Climate Resilient Infrastructure", which outlined the challenges to the transport, energy, water and computer industries.
It included on its...
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Megafires – a vicious climate circle?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 11th, 2011
BBC: The term "megafire" sounds a bit serious... and so it is.
Even more serious is the idea - raised in a report compiled for a UN meeting this week - that megafires are becoming more frequent.
Still more alarming is the notion that these magafires are somehow quantitatively different from their smaller and more common cousins:
"Megafires exceed all efforts at control until firefighters get a favourable change in weather or a break in fuels.
"Even in countries with modern tools and techniques...
The dairy farmers who returned to Fukushima’s fallout path
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 11th, 2011
Guardian: Keiko Sanpei, whose Namie dairy farm is exposed to 100 times the radiation level now affecting Tokyo. Photograph: guardian.co.uk
"The alarm is ringing. That means danger," says Keiko Sanpei with a nervous laugh as she looks at a meter which shows radiation levels, at her dairy farm, more than five times the health limit. "I was afraid when I first returned. But being with the cows, that fear goes away."
Sanpei's home is in Namie, a radiation hotspot 17 miles downwind of the leaking Fukushima...
Seed Proteins May Help Plants Weather Drought
Posted by Inter Press Service: Timothy Spence on May 11th, 2011
Inter Press Service: British researchers are working on techniques to improve seeds chances of surviving drought by tapping the potential of little-known proteins that regulate water intake.
Lorenzo Frigerio and other plant scientists at the University of Warwick are researching seeds that would use water more sparingly and in turn boost crop defences against climate change in fast- growing developing nations that are the most vulnerable to freshwater shortages and food insecurity.
Asia’s thirst for water will...
Letter reveals EU fight over toxic chemicals
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 11th, 2011
Reuters: European chemical companies have warned the watchdog that oversees them that it could face legal action if it publishes the names of manufacturers of the most toxic substances in a growing environmental dispute.
The warning was contained in a letter from chemical industry group Cefic to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki, released after Reuters invoked freedom-of-information laws.
"Going beyond its remits exposes unnecessarily the ECHA Management Board and its individual members...
Researchers Try to Help Prevent Climate Change Conflict
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 11th, 2011
Voice of America: Experts say climate change is contributing to more and more conflicts around the world, especially in Africa. Researchers and aid agencies say they are doing their best to help reduce this trend.
At a panel discussion late Tuesday in Washington, Jeffrey Stark from the U.S.-based Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability described a worrisome scenario he recently encountered in the central cattle corridor of Uganda.
"We heard basically a consensus that the climate has changed...
Northwest farmers, scientists to study climate change effects
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 11th, 2011
Associated Press: Farmers and scientists in the inland Northwest are launching a $20 million study on how climate change will impact agricultural practices.
Nearly 100 researchers and farmers from across the region met Monday at the University of Idaho, where the five-year research program is starting, The Spokesman-Review reported.
“Climate change is one of the challenges that faces the sustainability of agriculture in this region,” said UI professor Scott Eigenbrode, who is leading the project.
Funding...
Weather havoc in the world
Posted by Voice of Russia: Dmitriyeva Nina on May 11th, 2011
Voice of Russia: The Mississippi River in the U.S has burst its banks, causing the biggest flooding in the country in the last 80 years. In Russia, fires have broken out in Siberia and the Far East, but the weathermen have assured that this summer will not be as hot and humid as last year. Nina Dmitryeva examines the weather woes in the world.
The spring has announced its arrival in Russia and the world in a strange manner this year. It is warm in Moscow and the sun appeared at the beginning of May, but it has...