RSS Feed
Archive for October, 2011
Bat killer cause traced to fungus
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
BBC: White-nose syndrome (WNS), the disease rampaging its way through the bats of North America, is caused by a fungus, scientists have confirmed.
Researchers from a number of US institutions infected healthy bats with the fungus Geomyces destructans, and found they did develop the disease.
The team also showed that the fungus can pass from one bat to another.
Writing in the journal Nature, they say WNS "has the potential to decimate North American bat populations".
So far, the disease has...
Killer Russian heatwave product of climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
Mongabay: Image of Russia and nearby areas from August 4th, 2010 by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. Especially intense fires are outlined in red. Smoke from peat and forest fires lead to dangerous levels of pollution throughout Moscow and surrounding areas. Photo by: NASA. Click to enlarge.
Last year's Russian heatwave and drought resulted in vast wildfires and a mortality rate that was 56,000 people higher than the same period in 2009. Now, researchers have published a paper in the...
Climate Change is Altering the Lives of Alaska’s Natives
Posted by U.S. News and World Report: Joel N. Shurkin on October 26th, 2011
U.S. News and World Report: Climate change has altered the lives of Native Alaskans in the state's interior in dramatic, sometimes dangerous ways.
Although the effects of change are well documented along the coast, where higher tides and ferocious storms have threatened native communities, a study by the U.S. Geological Survey has found indigenous people in Alaska's interior also have felt the transformation to a warmer climate during the past several decades of their lifetimes.
The study, appearing in the October 2011...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Climate Change is Altering the Lives of Alaska’s NativesA Carbon Culprit: Rivers and Streams
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
New York Times: The amount of carbon dioxide being released from streams, rivers and lakes is probably being undercounted by scientists modeling the earth`s carbon budget, a new study suggests.
The carbon dioxide emitted by inland waterways has only recently been included in assessments of global emissions over all. To date, it has mostly been measured in the form of carbon transfer from freshwater bodies to oceans.
But after looking at water chemistry data from 4,000 inland waterways, the study`s authors,...
U.S. Geothermal Potential Mapped in New Interactive Database
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: Google Earth Geothermal potential in the U.S. existing technologies. Researchers at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Geothermal Laboratory assembled geological data from 35,000 sites nationwide, including the depth and temperature of geothermal resources for each state. Those projections, which can be viewed using Google Earth software, suggest there is significantly more potential for geothermal energy than previously believed, particularly in the eastern two-thirds of the nation. While geothermal...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on U.S. Geothermal Potential Mapped in New Interactive DatabaseNamibian capital needs “water banks” for dry times
Posted by Reuters: Ed Cropley on October 26th, 2011
Reuters: Namibia's capital, Windhoek, is four years from running out of water should a recent pattern of above-average rains end and it needs to start filling aquifers artificially to counter the threat, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
With administrations across Africa struggling to meet the needs of rapidly urbanizing populations, the city of 300,000 in the middle of the arid southwest African nation serves as a perfect test case for better water management.
Every year, its people...
What would you say to the world’s 7 billionth person?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
Guardian: Next Monday, population experts predict that one of this year's 78 million new babies will be the planet's 7 billionth person. It's just 12 years since the 6 billionth was born, and only a little over two centuries ago that we reached the first billion.
In 1999, the Guardian asked the Indian-British novelist Salman Rushdie to write a letter to the 6 billionth child, in which he meditated on the role religion would play in their life:
There are those who say that the great wars of the new century...
Why Go for Mabira? It Has the Poorest Soils
Posted by Independent: Owen E. Sseremba on October 26th, 2011
Independent: Forest soils are only 'fertile' for one type of sustainable land use, that is; forestry.
Several writers on the contested give away of Mabira forest have not given the public: obvious, basic knowledge, and facts about the soil ecology of rain forests.
Mabira is a rain forest whose soils are very poor and cannot support agricultural production as it may seem. This is a fact that people often overlook. A basic understanding of forest soils, nutrient deposits locations, the root systems, tree...
The UN predicts the world’s population explosion: visualised
Posted by Guardian: Simon Rogers on October 26th, 2011
Guardian: X
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on The UN predicts the world’s population explosion: visualisedChina Takes Loss to Get Ahead in Desalination Industry
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 26th, 2011
New York Times: Towering over the Bohai Sea shoreline on this city’s outskirts, the Beijiang Power and Desalination Plant is a 26-billion-renminbi technical marvel: an ultrahigh-temperature, coal-fired generator with state-of-the-art pollution controls, mated to advanced Israeli equipment that uses its leftover heat to distill seawater into fresh water.
There is but one wrinkle in the $4 billion plant: The desalted water costs twice as much to produce as it sells for. Nevertheless, the owner of the complex, a...