RSS Feed
Archive for December 25th, 2011
Smart Guide to 2012: The Rio Earth Summit
Posted by New Scientist: Fred Pearce on December 25th, 2011
New Scientist: Spaceship Earth needs a pilot. It's time we stepped into the cockpit and took over the controls. That will be the theme of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June. Natural disasters, food and water shortages and biodiversity loss show that humanity is crossing planetary boundaries, making our world more dangerous. At Rio we will have to push for a global system of "environmental governance".
Earth has nine critical life-support systems vital to our survival. They have some resilience...
Posted in 
Asia Pacific region faces rising costs from storms, disasters
Posted by Voice of America: Ron Corben on December 25th, 2011
Voice of America: Climate and disaster risk experts say the Asia Pacific region faces rising costs from storms and disasters often tied to climate change, creating new challenges for regions as they try to prepare and recover from such events. Warning comes as Thailand and the Philippines attempt to bounce back from recent disasters and the region gets ready to mark the seventh anniversary of the devastating 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami.
The backhoe lifts piles of discarded rubbish left from flood-stricken...
A farm lives high and clean off the hog
Posted by LA Times: David Zucchino on December 25th, 2011
LA Times: Loyd Bryant used to pump manure from his 8,640 hogs into a fetid lagoon, where it raised an unholy stink and released methane and ammonia into the air. The tons of manure excreted daily couldn't be used as fertilizer because of high nitrogen content.
The solution to Bryant's hog waste problem was right under his nose -- in the manure itself.
A new waste-processing system -- essentially a small power plant -- installed on his 154-acre farm uses bacteria to digest the waste and burns methane...
Florida Looks for Curbs on Some Snake Species
Posted by New York Times: Lizette Alvarez on December 25th, 2011
New York Times: To live in South Florida is to make peace with flying cockroach behemoths, brigades of lizards that dart across walls (bedroom and otherwise) and frogs the size of cannonballs that loiter on driveways. But even in a state as hospitable as this one to scaly, slithering creatures, enough is enough. Florida has the highest number of nonnative amphibians and reptile species, according to a recent University of Florida study, and some of them are obliterating native Floridian creatures. Florida’s Congressional...