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Archive for October 2nd, 2012
India’s peasant farmers gather for protest march on Delhi
Posted by Guardian: Jason Burke on October 2nd, 2012
Guardian: Tens of thousands of peasant farmers from across India will set out on Wednesday on a 200-mile march on Delhi in one of the biggest such protests seen in the country for years.
Organisers of the demonstration aim to highlight problems for India's landless, for hundreds of millions of poor farmers and for so-called tribal communities who often live in resource-rich areas where lucrative mining operations are causing massive environmental damage.
"Millions of people are living in slums, on railway...
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United Kingdom: Bog ‘recovering’ after extraction
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 2nd, 2012
BBC: Peat bog land in Greater Manchester has recovered from commercial extraction in a "remarkably short time", Lancashire Wildlife Trust said.
The trust bought 264 acres of Salford's Little Woolden Moss, part of Chat Moss, in August and began a project to "conserve and restore" it.
Project manager Dr Chris Miller said he was amazed by the speed of recovery.
"While the plants are not ideal, they have taken over areas of bare peat in a remarkably short time," he said.
Little Woolden Moss is...
United Kingdom: Peat supplier blames summer rains for shortage
Posted by Guardian: Rupert Neate on October 2nd, 2012
Guardian: Britain's biggest peat supplier has warned that the awful summer could leave garden centres struggling to grow enough plants, after admitting it had been unable to harvest the nation's waterlogged bogs.
William Sinclair Holdings issued a profits warning on Tuesday, saying it had only been able to achieve about a fifth of its normal annual harvest of about 570,000 cubic metres of peat.
"With the lousy sunshine we haven't had five solid days of sunshine to allow the [harvest] cycle to take place,"...
Indigenous agroforestry ‘may improve livelihoods’
Posted by SciDev.Net: Siobhan Chan on October 2nd, 2012
SciDev.Net: Smallholder farmers should use their indigenous knowledge of trees to boost incomes and drive social development, according to a new book by Roger Leakey, vice chairman of the International Tree Foundation and renowned tree biologist.
Leakey said his new book Living with the Trees of Life: Towards the Transformation of Tropical Agriculture is the world's first research-based guide for agroforestry -- an agricultural practice that uses the interactive benefits of combining trees and shrubs with...
Experts See Signs of El Niño, but a Weak One
Posted by New York Times: John H. Cushman Jr. on October 2nd, 2012
New York Times: A season of warmer ocean waters that has been expected to produce a Niño episode and perhaps bring relief from the continuing drought may turn out to be a bit weaker than advertised, according to climate experts. The periodic upwelling of warmer waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific can be one of the most telling calls that a climatologist can make. A powerful Niño can drive global patterns of drought, storm, snow and flood, with big consequences for farmers and fishermen, relief organizations...
Climate change: monsoon season likely to be delayed by 2-3 weeks annually: expert
Posted by Business Recorder: None Given on October 2nd, 2012
Business Recorder: Rapid climate change is likely to delay monsoon season for 2-3 weeks annually across the globe, Dr Moetasim Ashfaq, Computational Climate Scientist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA said here on Monday. He was delivering a special lecture on "South Asian Summer Monsoon in 21st Century" organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).
He said that high resolution climate models used at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA have predicted weakening of summer monsoon precipitation over...
Nigeria: Must See Film Provides Wake Up Call for America
Posted by EcoWatch: Paul E McGinniss on October 2nd, 2012
EcoWatch: Delta Boys is a must-see film about Niger Delta militant rebels who are fighting government and environmental oppression in oil-rich Nigeria. Award-winning filmmaker, Andrew Berends, who was arrested in Nigeria during the filming of this documentary, bravely crosses the lines of Nigeria`s oil conflict to bear witness to the lives of the militants engaged in the bloody struggle and the civilians caught in the crossfire.
Nigeria, Africa`s most populated country, is the fifth largest oil supplier...
Irreversible warming will cause sea levels to rise for thousands of years to come, new research shows
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 2nd, 2012
ScienceDaily: Greenhouse gas emissions up to now have triggered an irreversible warming of Earth that will cause sea levels to rise for thousands of years to come, new research has shown.
The results come from a study, published today (Oct. 2) in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, which sought to model sea-level changes over millennial timescales, taking into account all of Earth's land ice and the warming of the oceans -- something which has not been done before.
The research showed...
California’s vanishing snowpack is another victim of climate change
Posted by Long Beach Press-Telegram: Forrest Shearer on October 2nd, 2012
Long Beach Press-Telegram: As a professional snowboarder lucky enough to ride mountains around the world, I have seen the impacts of climate change first-hand. I've seen once-famous slopes now with zero snow, ski resorts that have shut down, and glaciers that are disappearing.
In my native state of California, boarders and skiers are bracing for the effects of a warmer world. Scientists are predicting the Sierra snowpack will decline by 25 percent by 2050. We caught a preview this past ski season, when Lake Tahoe and Squaw...