RSS Feed
Archive for September, 2011
Decades of Deforestation Have Contributed to Africa Famine, Group Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 12th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: Decades of forest destruction have turned once-productive lands into desert across the Horn of Africa, worsening a devastating famine that has killed tens of thousands of people in Somalia and elsewhere, forestry experts say. A new study by the Center for International Forestry Research, conducted in 25 countries, shows that forests provide about one-quarter of household income for people living in or near them, offering a critical defense against poverty. In parched regions like the Horn of Africa,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Decades of Deforestation Have Contributed to Africa Famine, Group SaysUnited Kingdom: Concerns over green spaces planning
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 12th, 2011
Press Association: The Government was accused today of "fobbing off" calls to define sustainable development, which it has put at the heart of the controversial planning reforms. The changes which aim to simplify the planning process contain a "presumption in favour of sustainable development", which ministers say will boost growth while protecting the environment and countryside. But campaigners have raised fears the reforms will lead to a return to damaging development, by putting the emphasis in favour of building...
United States: How Dead Is Yucca Mountain?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 12th, 2011
New York Times: Protesters outside a town hall meeting held last spring by President Obama in Reno, Nev., demanded that he reverse his decision to shelve the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has voted to kill Yucca Mountain again, sort of.
The project has become more complex than nuclear physics. Yucca Mountain, a volcanic structure 100 miles from Las Vegas, was the government’s lead candidate for a nuclear waste repository, but President Obama, making good on a campaign...
Tanzania issues early ban on food exports
Posted by AlertNet: Felix Mwakyembe on September 12th, 2011
AlertNet: Facing threats to its own food security at a time when famine is afflicting neighbouring countries in the Horn of Africa, Tanzania this year issued an early six-month ban on non-governmental exports of grain and maize.
Extreme weather and unpredictable rainfall, believed to be associated with climate change, are affecting crops around the world, and some governments have limited trading of food in response. Last year, Russia banned wheat exports after a drought in that country.
In Tanzania,...
Britain’s nappy mountain to be recycled into roof tiles, saving 22,000 tonnes of CO2 a year
Posted by Daily Mail: Ted Thornhill on September 12th, 2011
Daily Mail: It`s not likely that many will poo-poo this idea.
Britain uses three billion disposable nappies a year - but now they are set to be turned into roof tiles after a unique recycling plant opened its doors today.
More than a half a million tonnes of waste from disposable nappies is generated in Britain every year going into landfill or incineration.
And despite going green on other issues, families are still buying disposable nappies over traditional old-style washable ones. The average baby...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Britain’s nappy mountain to be recycled into roof tiles, saving 22,000 tonnes of CO2 a yearNew research on safety of storing carbon underground is questioned
Posted by Inside Climate News: Katherine Bagley on September 12th, 2011
Inside Climate News: A new industry-funded scientific study concludes that underground storage of CO2 poses little risk to human health. At least one critic isn't convinced. By Katherine Bagley, InsideClimate News For more than a decade, carbon capture and storage technology has been heralded by fossil-fuel industries and many policymakers and scientists as an effective response to the threat of climate change. But the commercialization of CCS—which captures heat-trapping CO2 from smokestacks and pumps it into reservoirs...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New research on safety of storing carbon underground is questionedEARTH MEANDERS: 9/11/01 The Day America Died
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on September 11th, 2011
The 9/11 attacks were inhumane barbarity that brutally destroyed thousands. Yet America squandered the opportunity to unite the world against terrorism, instead going it alone to wage perma-war for a decade (permanent war, still on-going), causing tremendous lasting damage to life in America, our ideals, and world standing. In policies that can best be described as grotesque acts of revenge, hundreds of times the original victims of 9/11 were murdered by U.S. troops given illegal orders. Many if not most of the 300,000 to 1,000,000 killed were innocents just as in the twin tower attacks. This is not the America where I was born and raised. If these militarist, fascist, morally and financially bankrupt policies and resultant collapse of ecology continue; the simpler, more honorable America has died, perhaps forever.
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
Introduction
On the tenth anniversary of 9/11 attacks upon America, I too mourn 3,000 victims of a monstrous criminal evil. Yet as a politically unaffiliated free thinker and global citizen, I am acutely aware that this was only the beginning of the decades violent criminal atrocities. I will not and cannot forget Americas dramatic and incautious over-reaction, as mostly ...
Date palm decline: Iraq looks to rebuild
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Iraqi officials are pushing re-planting programmes for the country's date palms, which are famed across the Middle East as the region's best but have suffered terrible losses in past decades.
The trees were celebrated during Babylonian times for their strength and majesty, but more than three decades of conflict, sanctions and mismanagement have seen their numbers dramatically fall.
"In ancient times, people were heavily dependent on this tree," from which they derived not only food, but wood...
Arctic sea ice decline continues in August
Posted by Summit Voice: Bob Berwyn on September 11th, 2011
Summit Voice: The August sea ice extent in the Arctic reached the second lowest level for the month and tracked near record low levels for much of the summer. The latests readings underscore the continued decline in Arctic ice cover, according to the monthly update from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
The Arctic sea ice extent w ill probably reach its lowest level in the next few weeks before starting to reform in the cold autumn and winter days ahead.
Average ice extent for August 2011 was 5.52 million...
Heat pumps ‘not on the radar’ for most of the UK, warns Huhne
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 11th, 2011
Business Green: Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has put his weight behind a new set of guidelines designed to boost investor confidence in heat pump technologies, which are "off the radar" for most people in the UK.
Huhne launched a set of updates to the Microgeneration Certification Scheme MIS3005 guidelines late last week, which are designed to ensure that air and heat pump installers select the right devices for customers.
The UK is currently trailing behind market leaders such as France, Germany and Sweden...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Heat pumps ‘not on the radar’ for most of the UK, warns Huhne