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Archive for December 23rd, 2012
Boosting galactan sugars could boost biofuel production
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 23rd, 2012
ScienceDaily: Galactan is a polymer of galactose, a six-carbon sugar that can be readily fermented by yeast into ethanol and is a target of interest for researchers in advanced biofuels produced from cellulosic biomass. Now an international collaboration led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has identified the first enzyme capable of substantially boosting the amount of galactan in plant cell walls.
Unlike ethanol, advanced biofuels synthesized from the...
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New Zealand: Study of effect of climate change on kauri trees
Posted by Radio New Zealand: None Given on December 23rd, 2012
Radio New Zealand: An Auckland University scientist is studying what impact climate change will have on kauri trees. Kauri are considered a taonga to many Maori and were an important resource for early Maori who burned kauri gum as an insecticide, used their resin to make ink for moko and felled trees to make giant waka. Dr Cate Macinnis-Ngreceived a grant of $345,000 from the Marsden Fund to research the effects of climate change on kauri. Dr Macinnis-Ng said it is unclear how vulnerable kauri are to the more frequent...
Antarctic warming concern rises
Posted by BBC: Matt McGrath on December 23rd, 2012
BBC: A new analysis of temperature records indicates that the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is warming nearly twice as fast as previously thought.
US researchers say they found the first evidence of warming during the southern hemisphere's summer months.
They are worried that the increased melting of ice as a result of warmer temperatures could contribute to sea-level rise.
The study has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The scientists compiled data from records kept at Byrd station,...
Maya Civilization Provides A Real Apocalyptic Lesson
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 23rd, 2012
Scientific American: You survived the Mayan apocalypse, or at least transitioned to the next baktun, number 14 according to the Mayan calendar. But what real lessons does this ancient culture hold?
First and foremost, the Maya are a case study in adaptation. Their complex civilization of powerful city-states collapsed, and the jungle retook those urban centers. But the Mayan people endured, today being the principle ethnic population of parts of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.
European invaders did not end the era...
Australia: Heatwave puts Victoria, SA on fire alert
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 23rd, 2012
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: There are fire bans across large parts of Victoria and South Australia, with temperatures expected to top 40 degrees.
Fire authorities are urging residents in Victoria's north and west to enact bushfire survival plans, and a total fire ban has been declared for the Mallee, North Central, Northern Country, Wimmera and South West Districts.
Fire bans have also been put in place across nearly all of South Australia, which is facing similarly dangerous conditions, and in the Southern Riverina district...
United States: Weather shifts force farmers to try different crops, cultivation methods
Posted by Courier-Journal: James Bruggers on December 23rd, 2012
Courier-Journal: While some of them still aren’t convinced that humans are to blame, farmers across the nation — including those in Kentucky and Indiana — increasingly acknowledge that they’re having to deal with the consequences of climate change.
“Every day we get up, put our shoes on and watch the weather,” Spencer County farmer Scott Travis said during a break while driving a soybean harvester this fall.
» Global Warming: Bracing for climate change » For tablet users: View techniques farmers are using to...
Long Island study investigating climate change impacts on ecosystems
Posted by New Canaan News: None Given on December 23rd, 2012
New Canaan News: The Long Island Sound Study will investigate climate change impacts on key wildlife and ecosystem resources in the waterway.
The project -- "Sentinels of Climate Change: Coastal Indicators of Wildlife and Ecosystem Change in Long Island Sound" -- is part of LISS's Sentinel Monitoring for Climate Change program.
A sentinel is "a measurable variable (physical, biological, or chemical environmental indicator) that is susceptible to some key aspect of climate change."
The program aims to identify...
Philippines typhoon death toll ‘likely to hit 1,500.’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 23rd, 2012
Agence France-Presse: Some 300,000 people remain homeless in the Philippines following a deadly typhoon earlier this month, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said Friday.
The IFRC said urgent humanitarian assistance was needed to help around 200,000 of those affected by Typhoon Bopha -- the deadliest storm to have struck the Philippines this year, killing more than 1,000 across the archipelago.
"The situation is truly desperate," Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the...
Western Antarctica warming confirmed
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 23rd, 2012
USA Today: Western Antarctica has warmed unexpectedly fast over the last five decades, weather records confirm, adding to sea-level rise concerns in a warming world.
Temperatures in West Antarctica have increased at a rate nearly twiceas large as the global average, a 4.3 degree Fahrenheit increase since 1958, conclude meteorologists in the journal, Nature Geoscience, out Sunday.The finding adds Western Antarctica to the list of hot spots most affected by global warming, the century-long increase in global...
ECOLOGY SCIENCE: Old Forests, Kerala India’s Elephants, and the Biosphere
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on December 23rd, 2012
Proposing a planetary boundary for
terrestrial ecosystem loss
By
Dr. Glen Barry, December 16, 2012
Paper
presented at the Kerala Law Academy International Law Conference on Conservation
of Forests, Wildlife and Ecology, December 15-17, 2012
Theme
- The Legal Regime and Measures for Conservation of Bio Diversity and
Protection of Ecological Balance of Western Ghats
Earth
provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
Mahatma Gandhi
"How
wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to
improve the world." Anne Frank*Version
1.0, not
yet peer reviewed, or final edits for publication in conference proceedings. Here is the most recent version entitled "Terrestrial Ecosystem Loss and Biosphere Collapse" being readied for publication.
Review Paper Abstract
Planetary
boundary science continues the study of requirements to avoid ecosystem
collapse and to achieve global ecological sustainability, by defining key
thresholds in the Earth System's ecological conditions that threaten human
well-being. Terrestrial ecosystems do not enter into the nine originally
defined boundaries ranging from climate change to water availability, except
peripherally through other boundaries such as land use and biodiversity. A
rigorous research agenda is necessary to determine what quantity and quality of
terrestrial ecosystems are required across landscapes so as to sustain the
biosphere. This includes a spatially explicit way of indicating what extent of
a landscape, bioregion, continent and global Earth ...