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Archive for July 28th, 2011
The Horn of Africa crisis is a warning to the world
Posted by Guardian: Jeffrey Sachs on July 28th, 2011
Guardian: The crisis in the Horn of Africa is a profound human disaster in the making and a warning to the world. More than 11 million Africans, mainly pastoralists in the dry lands of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and neighbouring countries, are at risk of starvation after two failed rainy seasons. They need urgent help to stay alive, and governments and NGOs are in place to deliver that help if the needed financing is confirmed immediately. An estimated $1bn is needed urgently, equal to $1 from each person...
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Climate change needs political focus, too
Posted by Coloradoan: Kevin Cross on July 28th, 2011
Coloradoan: While Tea Partiers in Washington have been defending corporations and the wealthy from assuming their fair share of the tax burden, much of the country has endured record-breaking temperatures, flooding and drought. Perhaps future historians will compare the Tea Partiers unfavorably to Nero, who is said to have fiddled while Rome burned. At least Nero was producing music, rather than rhetoric defending the haves.
As the average global temperature rises due to humanity's addition of greenhouse...
South Korea landslides: Seoul residents warned over exposed landmines
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2011
Reuters: South Koreans have been warned to beware of exposed landmines and explosives after the heaviest rainfall in a century caused landslides in and around the capital which killed more than 70 people and swamped homes and military installations.
The defence ministry said around 10 landmines buried during the 1950-53 Korean war near Mount Umyeon in southern Seoul had not been recovered after a mudslide in the area.
Explosives were also swept from an ammunition depot in Yangju, north of Seoul, when...
Nigeria farmers fear crop loss after erratic rain
Posted by AlertNet: George Fominyen on July 28th, 2011
AlertNet: Nigeria farmers fear crop loss after erratic rain - reports
This November 2009 photo shows a labourer gathering sugarcane at a commercial farmland in Numan community, Adamawa state, northeast of Nigeria. Farmers in northern Nigeria fear erratic rains have threatened the prospect of a good harvest and say crops are already drying up, but the country's meteorological agency argues it is too early to predict how the rainy season will turn out, the Daily Trust newspaper reported on Tuesday.
This...
Kenyans call for domestic action against drought
Posted by AlertNet: Katy Migiro on July 28th, 2011
AlertNet: A woman holds her malnourished child inside a ward at the Wajir district hospital, 800km (500 miles) north of Kenya's capital Nairobi, July 13, 2011. News that the number of Kenyans in need of food aid will increase from 2.4 million to 3.5 million by September has provoked calls for government dismissals and outpourings of shame in the Kenyan press.
Millions of people in the Horn of Africa have been plunged into a food crisis by severe drought. In Kenya, food shortages have reached critical levels...
Palestinians fear for ancient West Bank water source
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2011
Reuters: Hewn from rock, the cavernous cisterns which dot the desert beyond Bethlehem have for centuries harvested winter rain to provide shepherds and their flocks with water through summer.
Under a baking sun, an elderly Bedouin explains how cisterns he remembers from childhood, many of them restored to full working order in the last few years, are once again helping his goat-herding community to survive.
That, he concludes, is why the Israeli authorities who control the West Bank have demolished...
A Year Later, Michigan Oil Spill Cleanup Continues
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2011
National Public Radio: One year after an oil spill, workers are still cleaning up the bottom of the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan. An estimated 840,000 gallons leaked from a broken pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy. Life for those living near the accident site in Michigan has not returned to normal yet, and it probably won't for some time.
How to feed the world without destroying the planet
Posted by Nature: Jason Clay on July 28th, 2011
Nature: The single largest human impact on our finite planet comes from producing food. By 2050, there will be 2 billion to 3 billion more people on Earth with three times more per capita income, consuming twice as much as now. About 70% will live in cities — more than are alive today. By 2050, we may need three Earths to meet the demands of our consumption. We urgently need to find ways to do more with less.
In the past 18 months, members of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academia and the private...
Legislative riders target environmental protections
Posted by Washington Post: Darryl Fears and and Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2011
Washington Post: For environmentalists, it was something to shout about. In a rare show of defiance, 37 House Republicans broke party ranks two days ago and voted with Democrats to strike an amendment from an appropriations bill that forbade the Fish and Wildlife Service from listing any new plant or animal as endangered.
In telephone calls and e-mails, environmentalists at groups such as the National Wildlife Federation and Defenders of Wildlife called the vote "historic' and "awesome' in surprised reactions....
United States: Warming climate could give exotic grasses edge over natives
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 28th, 2011
ScienceDaily: California's native grasses, already under pressure from invasive exotic grasses, are likely to be pushed aside even more as the climate warms, according to a new analysis from the University of California, Berkeley.
In the study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Global Change Biology and is now available online, UC Berkeley biologists catalogued the ranges of all 258 native grasses and 177 exotic grasses in the state and estimated how climate change -- in particular, increased...