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Archive for December 29th, 2012
Canada: Why we are Idle No More
Posted by Ottawa Citizen: Pamela Palmater on December 29th, 2012
Ottawa Citizen: The Idle No More movement, which has swept the country over the holidays, took most Canadians, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, by surprise.
That is not to say that Canadians have never seen a native protest before, as most of us recall Oka, Burnt Church and Ipperwash. But most Canadians are not used to the kind of sustained, co-ordinated, national effort that we have seen in the last few weeks -- at least not since 1969. 1969 was the last time the federal...
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United Kingdom: It never rains and then it pours. What is going on with our weather?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 29th, 2012
Guardian: The transformation of the British landscape over the last 12 months has been dramatic.
At the end of 2011, the nation was caught in the grip of one of the severest droughts on record. Low rainfall over the previous year had reduced water levels in rivers and reservoirs to exceptional levels. The year ahead promised to be one of parched landscapes, hosepipe bans and streams turned to trickles. There could have been widespread consequences for farmers, food production, tourism, industry and domestic...
How Britain went from a drought to a deluge as south-west is drenched again
Posted by Guardian: Tess Reidy and Jamie Doward on December 29th, 2012
Guardian: The view through the windows of the packed 11.55 London Paddington to Penzance train was of burst rivers and drowned fields.
Those on board were the lucky ones. On Friday, the train was the first to make it through to the west country for days after torrential rain plunged large parts of the UK into chaos. Rising water levels threatened to swallow the track as passengers grew increasingly bewildered.
"We were told one thing at Paddington," said Chris McColm, 70, who was trying to get to Totnes...
Ice Seals Get Endangered Species Protection
Posted by LiveScience: Megan Gannon on December 29th, 2012
LiveScience: Six groups of seals threatened by shrinking sea ice are gaining new protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced late last week.
NOAA will list as threatened two distinct bearded seal populations -- one in the Beringia region, which includes Alaska, and one in the Okhotsk region of Russia's far east -- and three subspecies of ringed seals (Arctic, Okhotsk and Baltic). Another ringed seal subspecies found only in...
Climate Change Real & Gorgeous
Posted by Wired: None Given on December 29th, 2012
Wired: When "Chasing Ice" finished, my 10-year-old son, sitting next to me in the almost empty theater, said, "That was sobering." He was right: Sobering, but also beautiful and inspiring.
"Chasing Ice" documents both the earth`s current warming and one man`s obsessive efforts to show that warming in terms everyone can understand: visual, immediate, dramatic. National Geographic photographer James Balog says he was a bit of a climate skeptic himself until he took an assignment in 2005 and 2006 photographing...
As Biodiversity Declines, Tropical Diseases Thrive
Posted by National Public Radio: Eliza Barclay on December 29th, 2012
National Public Radio: Global health advocates often argue that the tropical diseases that plague many countries, such as malaria and dengue, can be conquered simply with more money for health care - namely medicines and vaccines.
But a new paper is a reminder that ecology also has a pretty big say in whether pathogens thrive or die off. Using a statistical model, researchers predicted that countries that lose biodiversity will have a heavier burden of vector-borne and parasitic diseases. Their results appear this week...
Previous climate change drove Mesa people off Alaska’s North Slope
Posted by Alaska Dispatch: Ned Rozell on December 29th, 2012
Alaska Dispatch: Alaska was once the setting for an environmental shift so dramatic it forced people to evacuate the entire North Slope, according to Michael Kunz, an archaeologist with the Bureau of Land Management.
About 10,000 years ago, a group of hunting people lived on the North Slope, the swath of mostly treeless tundra extending north from the Brooks Range to the sea. These people, known as Paleoindians, used a chunky ridge of rock west of the Colville River as a hunting lookout. Michael Kunz first discovered...