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Archive for July 9th, 2012
Canada’s PM Stephen Harper faces revolt by scientists
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 9th, 2012
Guardian: Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, faces a widening revolt by the country's leading scientists against sweeping cuts to government research labs and broadly pro-industry policies.
The scientists plan to march through Ottawa in white lab coats on Tuesday in the second big protest in a month against the Harper government's science and environmental agenda.
Harper is accused of pushing through a slew of policies weakening or abolishing environmental protections – with an aim of expanding...
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Russian officials: don’t blame us for flood deaths
Posted by Guardian: Miriam Elder on July 9th, 2012
Guardian: Officials have insisted they are not to blame for the deaths of at least 171 people due to flash floods in southern Russia at the weekend, despite admitting they had advance knowledge of the weather event.
"Do you think, my dears, that we could have warned each of you?" Alexander Tkachev, the long-serving head of southern Russia's Krasnodar region, said during a televised meeting with furious residents. "With what forces?"
In an attempt to deflect blame, he later fired the head of the Krymsk...
Aquaculture Output To Rise 33 Percent Over Next Decade, UN Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 9th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: The global aquaculture sector could produce 33 percent more fish for human consumption over the next decade, an increase in production that will help feed a growing world population even as fisheries are overexploited, a new UN report predicts. More than 79 million tons of farmed fish, crustaceans, mollusks and aquatic plants are expected to be produced from 2012 to 2012, a 33 percent growth compared with just a 3 percent growth from capture fisheries, according to the report from the UN's Food and...
EARTH MEANDERS: U.S. Abrupt Climate Change 2012: Where Will You Be the Day Earths Death Became Unavoidable?
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on July 9th, 2012
The worlds and especially Americas environment has gone mad during the summer of 2012. Abrupt climate change is clearly upon us, and life-giving ecosystems are visibly failing, portending doom for our shared biosphere, all life, and humanity. Given overshoot of ecological boundaries, and failure to pursue concerted national and global sustainable development and ecological sustainability policy, 2012 may well be the year Earths death through collapse of its one shared biosphere becomes inevitable.
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk
Abrupt Climate Change Is NowFundamentally the meaning of life is ecosystems [search]. Without a healthy, intact, diverse and operational environment - humanity and all life simply cannot exist. As a result of the human ecocidal system of industrial growth, local ecosystems are being destroyed globally for insatiable human consumption. Life of every sort including Gaia, the Earth system herself is dying.
Earth's biosphere - the thin mantle of life from underground to the top of the atmosphere, which self-regulates the Earth System to keep it habitable - is collapsing. Ecological science knows this with certainty in disciplines including planetary boundaries, limits to growth, global change and ecology. If nothing is done, massive social and ecological collapse ...
Water Use by Tourists Outstrips Water Use By Locals in Developing Nations, Report Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 9th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: The disproportionate use of freshwater by tourists in resorts across the developing world exacerbates the poverty of local residents and in some cases has triggered conflicts, a new report says. In a study of five tourist destinations — including Bali, Zanzibar, and Goa and Kerala in southern India — the UK-based group Tourism Concern found a wide disparity between the amount of water used by resort hotels and how much is available to local residents. In some Zanzibar villages, for instance, tourists...
India: Low Indus river flows threaten crops
Posted by AlertNet: Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio on July 9th, 2012
AlertNet: Ali Jamal is still waiting for irrigation water to soak his parched land in Pakistan's southern Sindh province -- and it is now almost too late for him to get a cotton crop this year.
"I have prepared the land, made furrows and broadcast cotton seed in it but there is no irrigation water flowing in the waterways,' the 35-year-old farmer told AlertNet.
The coastal district, some 209 km southeast of Karachi and on the eastern side of the Indus River, normally sees irrigation water flowing by...
Russia floods kill at least 105 in Krymsk area, Krasnodar region
Posted by LA Times: Khristina Narizhnaya on July 9th, 2012
LA Times: At least 105 people died when torrential rains tore through southern Russia, flooding tens of thousands of homes and catching sleeping people by surprise, authorities said Saturday.
"They ran out in the night with only with the clothes on their backs. My [parents] were able to save themselves and their passports," Anna Kovalevskaya, whose parents live in Krymsk, tweeted from Moscow. "The city is in panic."
Gov. Alexander Tkachev tweeted as he flew over the devastated area that "something unimaginable"...
Russia flood deaths: Alert in Krasnodar ‘too late’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 9th, 2012
BBC: Russian officials failed to give adequate warnings before flash floods that killed at least 171 people in the southern Krasnodar region, the Russian government says.
President Vladimir Putin has demanded a full report by the weekend on the disaster and how it was handled.
A day of mourning is being held for the victims. Record torrential rain has been blamed for the floods.
The town of Krymsk was devastated and the district boss has been sacked.
Seventeen people are still missing after...
US has hottest year since 1895, say scientists
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 9th, 2012
BBC: The last year in the continental US has been the country's hottest since modern record-keeping began in 1895, say government scientists.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also said the US had broken its record for the hottest six months in a calendar year.
One of the agency's weather experts suggested climate change was playing a role in the hot temperatures.
A recent 11-day heatwave in the US has claimed at least 46 lives.
A cold front moved in to the US Midwest...