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Archive for October 10th, 2011
The Real Cost of Beef
Posted by Inter PreJoao Meirelles and Maria Jose Barney Gonzalezss Service: None Given on October 10th, 2011
Inter PreJoao Meirelles and Maria Jose Barney Gonzalezss Service: The livestock industry, particularly cattle production, is one of the world's major contributors to climate change and has become the largest consumer of grain and plants as people in many parts of the world increase the amount of meat and dairy products in their diet. This, combined with unsustainable production practices, particularly in the Brazilian Amazon, could lead to the collapse of the Amazon forest biome and the environmental services it provides to balance the planet, write Joao Meirelles,...
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Can Ecological Corridors Heal Fragmented Landscapes?
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Jim Robbins on October 10th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: The rugged Cabinet Mountains of northwestern Montana are an island of wild country with a population of fewer than 30 grizzly bears, their existence tenuous because they are cut off from others of their kind by distance, roads, and other development. Biologists are concerned about the small number of females, since they reproduce only every three to four years. So in recent years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has occasionally caught a sow near Glacier National Park, trucked it to the Cabinets,...
Australia: Climate change puts alpine water at risk
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 10th, 2011
AAP: Climate change is putting at risk alpine water that is worth close to $10 billion a year to the Australian economy and supports more than two million people.
A new report released by Climate Change Minister Greg Combet on Monday warns the Australian Alps, reaching from Victoria to NSW and the ACT, are extremely vulnerable to rising global temperatures.
The report estimates the average 9600 gigalitres of water generated by the Australian Alps catchments are worth as much as $9.6 billion a year...
Australia approves BHP’s Olympic Dam mine expansion
Posted by Reuters: Sonali Paul and James Regan on October 10th, 2011
Reuters: BHP Billiton moved closer to an estimated $20 billion to $30 billion expansion of its Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine after winning environmental approvals on Monday for the project in the deserts of southern Australia.
The approvals give BHP the green light to nearly quadruple the mine's copper output to 750,000 tonnes annually to help feed a growing market in Asia, especially China, where copper consumption is forecast to surge 6 percent this year.
BHP, expected to make a final decision...
Entrepreneur builds small hydro plants to bring electricity to Indonesian villages
Posted by Christian Science Monitor: Sara Schonhardt on October 10th, 2011
Christian Science Monitor: It takes a lot of energy to keep up with Tri Mumpuni Iskandar, which seems fitting given her passion: to electrify poor, rural communities across Indonesia's sprawling 3,200-mile-long archipelago. The charismatic director of the People Centered Business and Economic Institute (IBEKA), a nongovernmental organization that develops small hydropower projects, stays on the run. Recently she visited a village in West Java on a Thursday; returned to Jakarta, the capital, on the weekend; and then embarked...