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Archive for October 4th, 2012
Australia: Think the Decline of the Great Barrier Reef is No Big Deal? Think Again
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on October 4th, 2012
EcoWatch: A study released on Monday found that the Great Barrier Reef`s coral cover declined by 50 percent in the past 27 years, partially as a result of human activities. These dramatic findings have caught the attention of scientists, politicians and some media outlets--even Fox News--but have been ignored by ABC, NBC, MSNBC and several major newspapers.
Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science examined thousands of surveys of the area and found that the amount of seafloor covered...
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Drought Conditions Recede Slightly Across U.S
Posted by Climate Central: Andrew Freedman on October 4th, 2012
Climate Central: Thanks to heavy rains from a slow-moving cold front, the massive drought affecting the U.S. receded slightly during the past week, as the drought footprint for all drought categories fell between Sept. 25 and Oct. 2. The findings, contained in the latest U.S. Drought Monitor, were released Thursday.
As of Oct. 2, about 65 percent of the contiguous U.S. experienced some form of drought, down a smidgen from 65.45 percent one week ago. The biggest drop occurred in the area of the lower 48 states...
Health Professionals Denounce Cuomo’s Health Reveiw on Fracking
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on October 4th, 2012
EcoWatch: Led by Dr. David O. Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany`s School of Public Health, a number of health experts--on behalf of the broad medical and scientific community in New York State--declared concerns with the health review on fracking undertaken by New York Gov. Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) that is now being reviewed by the Department of Health (DOH). The health experts released a letter to Cuomo in which they...
A Modest Rise in Global Food Prices
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2012
New York Times: Given the fears set off by the agricultural disasters of the summer, the latest report on food prices from the United Nations has to be counted as good news. The Food and Agriculture Organization reported Thursday that global prices rose 1.4 percent in September from the previous month.
Food and Agriculture OrganizationAfter sharp increases this summer, the climb in food prices was modest last month.
Prices increased only 1 percent in the all-important cereals sector, with gains in rice and...
Judge Rejects Binghamton’s Fracking Ban
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2012
New York Times: A court has struck down a moratorium on natural gas drilling in Binghamton, N.Y., yet both sides are claiming victory.
Binghamton, in Broome County, is among dozens of municipalities that have enacted bans and moratoriums blocking high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a gas extraction process that is under consideration by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration. Two previous court decisions have upheld the rights of municipalities to determine whether to allow fracking within their borders...
New Cleanup Method Offers Major Solution to Oil Spills, Study Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: Scientists have developed a superabsorbent material they say offers a cost-effective way to remove, recover and clean up large oil spills. Writing in the journal Energy & Fuels, Pennsylvania State University researchers Xuepei Yuan and T. C. Mike Chung describe a polymer material that they say can absorb 40 times its own weight in oil, transforming spilled material into a solid, oil-containing gel that is strong enough to be collected and transported to oil refineries for reprocessing. While many...
Sweden: Lakes react differently to warmer climate, study finds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2012
PhysOrg: A future warmer climate will produce different effects in different lakes. Researchers from Lund University in Sweden have now been able to explain that the effects of climate change depend on what organisms are dominant in the lake. Algal blooms will increase, especially of toxic blue-green algae. The study in question has been carried out by a group of researchers at the Department of Biology at Lund University. The research team is specifically focusing on predictions regarding how our water...
The Next Pandemic: Why It Will Come from Wildlife
Posted by Yale Environment 360: David Quammen on October 4th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: Emerging diseases are in the news again. Scary viruses are making themselves noticed and felt. There’s been a lot of that during the past several months -- West Nile fever kills 17 people in the Dallas area, three tourists succumb to hantavirus after visiting Yosemite National Park, an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo claims 33 lives. A separate Ebola outbreak, across the border in Uganda, registers a death toll of 17. A peculiar new coronavirus, related to SARS, proves fatal...
Climate Change Ignored Entirely in Presidential Debate
Posted by EcoWatch: Paul E McGinniss on October 4th, 2012
EcoWatch: [Editor's note: As I sat and watched the debate last night with my 13- and 15-year-old kids, I was hoping, mostly for their sake, that at least one of the two candidates running for President of the U.S. would focus on the most important issue our country faces--the health of our planet. Why is it so hard for people to understand that the health of the planet directly impacts our own survival? The Earth provides us with water, food, energy, shelter and all the other things that we need to live. We...
Q&A: ‘Mismatch Between Commitments and Action on Biodiversity’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 4th, 2012
Inter Press Service: The eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 11 CBD) approaches amidst a hailstorm of public protest against the "˜tragedy of the commons' - the rapid loss of biodiversity in forests, oceans and indigenous community farmlands.
Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Credit: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, Canada.
Ten thousand people are expected...