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Archive for October 21st, 2011
Ghana’s population explosion
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 21st, 2011
Guardian: Sometime in 1947 or 1948, King Jorbie Akodam Karbo I summoned one of his young unmarried daughters to the palace at Lawra. The all-powerful ruler of the small kingdom in the far north of what is today Ghana, but was then the Gold Coast, told the girl she must go to Accra, the capital of the colony. She was to learn to be a midwife and return to teach others, so helping to prevent the many childbirth deaths that were taking place in the community.
You can imagine her trepidation at leaving. The...
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The politics behind Thailand’s floods
Posted by Guardian: Thitinan Pongsudhirak on October 21st, 2011
Guardian: Inaccurate information, poor management and nature have all combined to unleash one of Thailand's worst floods in decades. When the newly elected government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra took office in early August, it wasted no time in rolling out populist policies catered to its up-country supporters, putting in motion the legacy of Yingluck's brother, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a military coup five years ago and later convicted and exiled for corruption....
Forest Service will continue using fire retardant
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 21st, 2011
Associated Press: The U.S. Forest Service has backed off claims about the effectiveness of the huge red plumes of fire retardant that big airplanes drop on wildfires, but the agency does not expect to cut back on using it.
Acting under a court order, the agency Friday posted on its website the final environmental impact statement laying out how it plans to use fire retardant without harming threatened and endangered fish, wildlife and plants on national forests and grasslands covering 193 million acres in 44 states....
AFRICA: Gov’ts Fail to Invest in Hungriest, Poorest Regions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 21st, 2011
Inter Press Service: For millennia, people have coped with drought in the Horn of Africa, comprised mainly of drylands. Yet today, more than 13 million people there are starving because of political instability, poor government policies and failure to invest in the world's poorest people, say experts here in Changwon. 2.5 billion dollars in humanitarian aid is needed to cope with a devastating hunger crisis in parts of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Two billion people, half of whom are extremely impoverished,...
Database Highlights Projects That Convert Runoff into Public Resources
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 21st, 2011
Yale Environment 360: The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has launched a public database of 479 projects that use green infrastructure techniques to divert and process urban stormwater before it reaches rivers, lakes, estuaries and other waterways. By using such methods as rain gardens, green roofs, and bioretention -- which replicates the uptake and storage of chemicals and sediment by wetlands -- designers say the projects have improved the quality of water in their cities and towns, while converting...
Rising sea levels threaten Ghana’s coastal communities
Posted by SciDev.Net: Maxwell Awumah on October 21st, 2011
SciDev.Net: Ghana will experience increased flooding brought on by rising sea levels caused by global warming, a modelling study has predicted.
The study, published in Remote Sensing last month (7 September), says that about 650,000 people and almost 1,000 buildings in the three communities in the Dansoman area of Accra will be vulnerable to permanent flooding by 2100, as the shoreline recedes by more than 200 metres.
The study says natural and industrial sites will be submerged, and buildings made of...
Canada: Alberta: EU dirty oil sands ranking threat to trade
Posted by Reuters: Charlie Dunmore and Barbara Lewis on October 21st, 2011
Reuters: The government of Alberta, home to the bulk of Canada's oil sands, has written to EU experts voicing "grave concerns" that the bloc's plans to rank unconventional oil as a highly polluting fuel are unfair and a potential threat to trade ties.
"The proposed measure has been deliberately crafted in such a way as to discriminate specifically and uniquely against oil sands derived fuels," said a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.
"Alberta believes that the fuel quality directive implementing measure...
Global Warming’s Disastrous Effect: Water Levels to Continue to Rise in the Next 500 Years
Posted by International Business Times: Genalyn.C on October 21st, 2011
International Business Times: Researchers have forecasted a continuous rise in water level in the coming centuries due to global warming.
"Based on the current situation we have projected changes in the sea level 500 years into the future," says Aslak Grinsted, a researcher at the Centre for Ice and Climate, the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. His group forms part of a team that has calculated the long-term outlook for rising sea levels in relations to the emission of greenhouse gases and pollution of...
Thai PM opens the floodgates in desperate bid to save Bangkok
Posted by Independent: Andrew Buncombe on October 21st, 2011
Independent: Thailand's new prime minister last night opted for a high-risk gamble to try and save Bangkok from devastating flooding by allowing some of the surging waters to enter the city.
By deciding to proceed with a controlled release of water through the city's network of canals, Yingluck Shinawatra and her senior officials are hoping to ensure any flooding to the capital city reaches no more than ankle deep. But they admit what they are doing is a gamble that could go wrong.
"Originally, we believed...
Scientists Look Again At Great Lakes And Climate Change
Posted by Ashland Current: None Given on October 21st, 2011
Ashland Current: A recent study of climate change and Great Lakes water levels suggests that while temperatures warm, more water could stay in the Great Lakes than previously anticipated.
The study, conducted at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Michigan, was published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research.
The researchers involved in the study predict a smaller drop or even a rise in lake water levels in different scenarios of climate change....