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Archive for June 20th, 2011
Catastrophic species loss in Okavango delta
Posted by Guardian: Frederika Whitehead on June 20th, 2011
Guardian: The Okavango delta is one of the wonders of the natural world. The 16,000km oasis in the Kalhari desert, Botswana, is made up of around 50,000 islands intersected by channels, lagoons, and swamps.
Posted in 
United Kingdom: New app aims to reduce UK’s bottled water usage
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2011
Independent: A new iOS application released June 14 aims to reduce the levels of bottled water consumption in the United Kingdom by directing users to establishments where they can obtain free tap water.
The free application called Water Water Everywhere is a location-based app providing users with details of the nearest establishment where they can find free tap water. The application also encourages users to expand the database by adding new locations.
Created by Caffeine Concepts and Water Water Everywhere,...
Small hydro could add up to big damage
Posted by SciDev.Net: Tasneem Abbasi and S. A. Abbasi on June 20th, 2011
SciDev.Net: Environmental engineers Tasneem Abbasi and S. A. Abbasi warn that widespread adoption of small hydro could repeat a history of environmental damage.
A belief that 'small' hydropower systems are a source of clean energy with little or no environmental problems is driving the growing interest in mini, micro, and pico hydro systems that generate from less than 5 kilowatts up to 10 megawatts of energy.
Hydropower appears to be the cleanest and most versatile of renewable energy sources. But experience...
“Climate-Smart” Projects for a Successful Great Lake Restoration
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2011
Public News Service: Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes face serious challenges such as invasive species, pollution and variable water levels. And as millions of dollars are being spent revitalizing the region, researchers say projects should take into account the effects of climate change.
Patty Glick, senior climate change specialist with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), says the region is already seeing the effects of climate change, such as extreme precipitation, flooding and drought, and that scientists...
Afforestation will hardly dent warming problem: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Schemes to convert croplands or marginal lands to forests will make almost no inroads against global warming this century, a scientific study published on Sunday said.
Afforestation is being encouraged under the UN's Kyoto Protocol climate-change treaty under the theory that forests are "sinks" that soak up carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air through photosynthesis.
But environmental researchers, in a new probe, said that even massive conversion of land to forestry would have only a slender benefit...
Radiation bombards reactors, make them brittle
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2011
Associated Press: No aging problem has been more vexing or dangerous in nuclear power plants than the tendency of reactors to grow brittle.
This stubborn problem threatens the main radiation barrier at the plants: the garage-size steel vessels that cradle tons of radioactive fuel.
In certain emergencies, these vessels would flood with cooling water. If the vessel walls are too brittle, they could shatter and spew their radioactive contents into the environment.
This kind of accident is most likely to occur...
China food prices spike as floods ruin farmland
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 20th, 2011
Reuters: Torrential rain across southern and eastern China which has killed more than 100 people and triggered the evacuation of half a million has left large areas of farmland devastated as food prices surge, state media said on Sunday.
Weeks of rainstorms in the stricken province of Zhejiang in the Yangtze delta have caused nearly 5 billion yuan ($772 million) of damage, reducing vegetable production by 20 percent and pushing prices in the provincial capital of Hangzhou up by as much as 40 percent, Xinhua...
Irish turf cutters don’t give a sod for EU bog ruling
Posted by Guardian: Henry McDonald on June 20th, 2011
Guardian: Down in the bog, amid a field of black strips of turf stacked like Jenga sticks, Michael Fitzmaurice looks up defiantly at the plane snooping on his industry.
The aircraft is on the lookout for anyone still cutting, piling or collecting turf – an endeavour that the EU deems illegal.
"It's some crack that we have a country in recession and virtually bankrupt but the authorities can afford to put a plane in the sky to spy on turf cutters," he says breaking apart a piece of the black, natural...