RSS Feed
Archive for June, 2012
Canada: First nations’ Northern Gateway stake ‘not free money at all’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 14th, 2012
Globe and Mail: What Enbridge did not mention is that in accepting company shares, those groups also agreed not to stand in the project's way. The equity agreement, which Enbridge acknowledged but is taking pains to play down, helps explain why 40 per cent of the groups declined what was essentially free money. It also illustrates the tactics the company is using as it fights a strident opposition to its $5.5-billion project. Under the terms of the deal, unearthed through a Greenpeace freedom of information request,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Canada: First nations’ Northern Gateway stake ‘not free money at all’Wildfires in Western U.S. to Increase with Climate Change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 14th, 2012
Climate Central: Large fires in the western U.S. -- such as those currently raging in Colorado and New Mexico -- may be part of a shifting pattern of wildfire risk brought on by climate change, according to a study led by researchers at UC Berkeley.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Ecosphere, analyzed the results of 16 different global climate change models. The models included variables such as annual precipitation and mean temperature of the warmest month and projected an increase in the frequency...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Wildfires in Western U.S. to Increase with Climate ChangeEgypt wheat experiment produces dramatic yield boost
Posted by SciDev.Net: Mohamed El-Sayed on June 14th, 2012
SciDev.Net: Egyptian scientists say a national experiment to boost wheat yields has succeed in increasing average national yields to 10 tonnes per hectare — one of the highest rates in the world, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation Statistical Yearbook for 2012. Egypt's Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) said the experiment had been carried out at more than 1,000 sites in 22 governorates across the country, and had achieved an average 30 per cent increase in productivity....
Water Security and Climate Change in Africa
Posted by Institute for Security Studies: Duke Kent-Brown on June 14th, 2012
Institute for Security Studies: The problem of climate change is very real and will probably not go away during this century or this millennium. In approaching the problem of climate change the question to be asked is not what is causing climate change (human insouciance, solar activity or some other cause) but what should we be doing to mitigate its effects. How can we best survive its anticipated impact? Certainly, a worldwide reduction in CO2 emissions, particularly by the major industrial countries, including China, would...
India’s ‘lawless’ mining industry criticised by Human Rights Watch
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 14th, 2012
Guardian: Government indifference and poor regulation have fuelled lawlessness in India's troubled mining industry and threaten serious harm to mining-affected communities, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.
The report: Out of control – mining, regulatory failure and human rights in India focuses on iron mining in Goa and Karnataka to illustrate a broader pattern of failed regulation, alleged corruption and harm to local communities.
In Karnataka, BS Yeddyurappa resigned as chief minister...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on India’s ‘lawless’ mining industry criticised by Human Rights WatchGlobal Warming Text Was Removed From Virginia Bill on Rising Sea Levels
Posted by U.S. News and World Report: Seth Cline on June 13th, 2012
U.S. News and World Report: Two Southern states have made it clear they want nothing to do with the idea of global warming.
A day after the North Carolina state senate passed a bill requiring science on rising sea levels to be ignored, Virginia lawmakers allowed a study on its coastline to begin on the state's dime only after all references to climate change or global warming were removed from its funding proposal.
[Sea Level Bill Would Allow North Carolina to Stick Its Head in the Sand]
Looking to address flooding...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Global Warming Text Was Removed From Virginia Bill on Rising Sea LevelsClimate Change May Spark More Wildfires In Future
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 13th, 2012
National Public Radio: AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The fires now raging in Colorado and elsewhere may be bad, but scientists studying the relationship between wildfires and climate change have this warning: In the coming years, they're probably going to get worse.
Max Moritz is lead author of the study and on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley's College of Natural Resources.
And, Max, what you did here is try to predict where in the future fires are likely to occur and how frequently. How did you do...
Peak planet: Are we starting to consume less?
Posted by New Scientist: Fred Pearce on June 13th, 2012
New Scientist: HUMANITY is doomed. Or it was in 1798, when English scholar Robert Malthus published his influential An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus predicted that unchecked growth in human numbers would condemn our species to a "perpetual struggle for room and food" and an unbreakable cycle of squalor, famine and disease. Nearly two centuries later, biologist Paul Ehrlich was no less pessimistic. We had exceeded the planet's "carrying capacity", he declared in his 1968 bestseller The Population...
Alarm rising over food crisis in Sahel region
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 13th, 2012
Mongabay: Warnings over a possible famine in Africa's Sahel region are becoming louder and more intense. Abnormal drought, locally high food prices, and regional conflict have ramped up concerns that 18 million people could suffer from malnutrition and starvation as the lean season sets in. UNICEF says it needs $238 million to save over a million children from severe malnourishment in the region, but has to date only raised $93 million.
"Across the Sahel we are dealing with multiple needs to save lives...
Southwest drought, climate warming and fuel: an explosive combination for record wildfires
Posted by Washington Post: Jason Samenow on June 13th, 2012
Washington Post: During the last two summers, wildfires have run rampant in the Southwest, setting record after record for size and destructiveness. It's no coincidence that severe drought and much above normal temperatures have been occurring in these same areas - although land-management practices and a surplus of combustible material - bear some responsibility as well.
Consider all of these wildfire records set in 2011 and 2012:
Texas: Suffered its worst wildfire season on record in 2011, with 30,457 fires...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Southwest drought, climate warming and fuel: an explosive combination for record wildfires