Archive for January 1st, 2013

China’s taste for pork serves up a pollution problem

Guardian: Fan Jianjun points to a concrete pipe jutting from the lake bank. Sludge spews from its mouth and arcs across the water, the surface bubbling with the bodies of flies. Fan has lived in Houtonglong village all his 31 years. The water was clear, he says, before the pig farm was built and people's health began to suffer. No one consulted the villagers before Shengtai pig farm was built 100 metres from their homes. The farm produces 10,000 animals a year – a relatively small concern in the world...

Fixing Our Food Problem

New York Times: Nothing affects public health in the United States more than food. Gun violence kills tens of thousands of Americans a year. Heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes kill more than a million people a year - nearly half of all deaths - and diet is a root cause of many of those diseases. And the root of that dangerous diet is our system of hyper-industrial agriculture, the kind that uses 10 times as much energy as it produces. We must figure out a way to un-invent this food system. It`s been...

A ‘very wacky’ year for weather hurts people, economies

North Jersey: From the rampage of superstorm Sandy to the warmest average temperature ever recorded, extreme weather harassed New Jersey throughout 2012. There was even a rare derecho — a line of intense thunderstorms that swept through in June with wind gusts of 80 mph. But the state was hardly alone: The worst drought in a half-century parched the central United States. Intense floods ravaged West Africa. Oddly timed typhoons hit the eastern Pacific. An extreme cold snap chilled Europe, and dry conditions seared...

Obama should resolve to reject Keystone oil pipeline

Sacramento Bee: A dangerously obese man, serious about his New Year's resolution to lose weight, would not begin the year by buying $7 billion worth of fat-producing candy. Nor would any nation serious about reducing greenhouse gases approve construction of a $7 billion pipeline that would facilitate the consumption of 900,000 gallons a day of tar sand oil, spewing greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere. On this New Year's Day 2013, America is that dangerously obese man. And President Barack Obama is poised...

United Kingdom: Extreme weather to blame for £1.3bn loss

Scotsman: ALTHOUGH the official figures will not be released until later this month, the English National Farmers Union estimates that the extreme weather has caused a staggering £1.3 billion loss in farm income in 2012 as a result of extreme weather problems. And the union warns that might not be the final tally as many farmers currently have land under water or are facing a double-whammy of huge feed bills for their livestock. With farmers reeling from both the physical and financial challenges from...

Lake Erie is second-most threatened of Great Lakes

Associated Press: Lake Erie is one of the most threatened of the five Great Lakes as a result of toxic blue-green algae and invasive species of fish, mussels and plants, according to a new report. The Great Lakes Environmental Assessment and Mapping Project concluded that Lake Erie was the second-most threatened of the lakes, behind Lake Ontario. Researchers with the assessment project spent more than three years collecting data on 34 lake "stressors" - including invasive species, climate change and pollution,...

Himalayas should brace for ‘mega quake’ this century

SciDevNet: A 'mega earthquake' is likely to strike the Himalayas this century, causing catastrophic landslides and floods and killing more than 40,000 people, Indian and US geologists have warned. Scientists from the National Geophysical Research Institute of India and Stanford University, United States, analysed the fault that separates the Asian and Indian continental plates. Images of the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT) fault showed that a segment of it dips downwards by 15 degrees, and is steeper and...

Climate change threatens French wine

GlobalPost: From rising shorelines to devastating hurricanes, the visible effects scientists say climate change is wreaking on daily life no longer surprise many people around the world. The French have their own take on just how radically life may change. “In 20 years, the English will be making Grenache from Chateauneuf-du-Pape,” says Herve Lethielleux, co-owner of L’Etiquette, a wine boutique in central Paris, about a wine variety from subtropical southeastern France. That’s because the changing...

Top Five Reasons 2012 Made Us Pay Attention to Climate Change

Triple Pundit: It’s that time of year when we look back and reflect on the past year and make silly lists. Well this list is far from silly – it is quite sobering news for many of us to accept. In 2012, climate change came to the forefront. Here are 5 reasons why: 5) 2012 was the hottest year on record. A December 2012 report by the independent non profit organization Climate Central states: “There is a 99.99999999 percent chance that 2012 will be the hottest year ever recorded in the continental 48 states,...