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Archive for August 16th, 2012
Landslide deaths much higher than thought: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
Reuters: Landslides killed more than 32,000 people across the world from 2004 to 2010 - up to 10 times more than previously thought, the first detailed study of the disasters showed on Thursday.
The new data on the scale of the problem should force governments to rethink how they dealt with the slides which have left a trail of destruction from China to Central and South America, researchers said.
"Landslides are a global hazard requiring a major change in perception and policy," said David Petley,...
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Climate change poses risks to food, beyond US drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
Reuters: Downpours and heatwaves caused by climate change could disrupt food supplies from the fields to the supermarkets, raising the risk of more price spikes such as this year's leap triggered by drought in the United States.
Food security experts working on a chapter in a U.N. overview of global warming due in 2014 said governments should take more account of how extremes of heat, droughts or floods could affect food supplies from seeds to consumers' plates.
"It has not been properly recognised...
Drought slashes EU maize crop, adds to global squeeze: analyst
Posted by Reuters: Gus Trompiz and Valerie Parent on August 16th, 2012
Reuters: Hot, dry weather in eastern and southern European Union countries has severely hit prospects for this year's EU maize harvest, adding pressure to a world market already reeling from huge drought damage in the United States, a grain analyst said.
French-based Strategie Grains also said that even an improved outlook for the EU's wheat harvest would provide little relief to grain supply as this would be swallowed up by export demand and a shift in livestock feed away from scarce maize.
Grain markets...
Food Activists See Portents of New and Deeper Hunger Crisis
Posted by Inter Press Service: Haider Rizvi on August 16th, 2012
Inter Press Service: Food rights activists from around the world will descend on the coastal U.S. state of Florida next week to protest homelessness and hunger facing millions of people in the United States and across the globe.
The Aug. 20-26 protests in Tampa were organised to draw attention to the Republican Party's aggressive stance on tax cuts for the rich and reductions in the social safety net for poor and working families.
The Republicans hold their national convention in Tampa on Aug. 17 to formally anoint...
India’s water reservoirs at 51 percent of capacity: government
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
Reuters: Water levels in India's main reservoirs were at 51 percent of capacity in the week to August 16, down 12 percentage points from a year ago, reflecting this year's weak monsoon, government data showed on Thursday.
The latest level was equal to the 10-year average for the week. It was 9 percentage points higher than the previous week, reflecting improvement in the monsoon since the last week of July.
Reservoirs are primarily they important for hydropower, which accounts for a quarter of India's...
Global warming causes more extreme shifts of the Southern Hemisphere’s largest rain band, study sugges
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
ScienceDaily: The changes will result from the South Pacific rain band responding to greenhouse warming. The South Pacific rain band is largest and most persistent of the Southern Hemisphere spanning the Pacific from south of the Equator, south-eastward to French Polynesia.
Occasionally, the rain band moves northwards towards the Equator by 1000 kilometres, inducing extreme climate events.
The international study, led by CSIRO oceanographer Dr Wenju Cai, focuses on how the frequency of such movement may...
Climate change forces South Pacific rain band movement
Posted by Examiner: None Given on August 16th, 2012
Examiner: CSIRO oceanographer Dr. Wenju Cai led an international group of researchers in the first definition of the impact of greenhouse gases and resultant climate change on weather patterns produced by the South Pacific rain band. The research was reported in the journal Nature and reviewed at the Eureka Alert web site on August 16, 2012.
Cai and colleagues predict more extreme floods and droughts in South Pacific countries as climate change produces more frequent and more severe fluctuations in the...
Has Fukushima radiation created mutant butterflies?
Posted by Mother Jones: Azeen Ghorayshi on August 16th, 2012
Mother Jones: Last March, the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake triggered a tsunami that sent over 45-foot waves of water crashing down on the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. While health officials scrambled to quickly stabilize the situation, it was unclear how much radiation had made it out of the plant--and how it could affect people, plants, and animals who came into contact with it.
Preliminary studies concluded that most...
Belo Monte dam construction halted by Brazilian court
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 16th, 2012
Guardian: Opponents of the world's biggest new hydroelectric project - the Belo Monte dam in Brazil - notched up a rare victory this week, when a federal appeals court ordered construction to be suspended until indigenous groups are properly consulted about the project.
The judgment on Tuesday may prove only a temporary reprieve but it is seen as a scathing verdict on the government's efforts to rush forward with the Xingu River project in the Amazon, which - despite controversy - is one of the pillars...