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Archive for April 9th, 2013
Climate study of Mekong Basin projects crop shifts
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
Bangkok Post: A climate-change study on the Lower Mekong Basin says Laos' and Vietnam's central highlands can anticipate declines in production of robusta coffee and forecasts the cash crop will become more suitable for northeastern Thailand.
"For robusta coffee, we found overall the central highlands will have reduced suitability," said Jeremy Carew-Reid, the main author of Climate Change and Impact Study for the Lower Mekong Basin.
"But other areas will open up, such as northeastern Thailand, northern...
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Climate change projects in Northern Ghana said not to be doing well
Posted by Ghana Business News: None Given on April 9th, 2013
Ghana Business News: Three out of the 11 districts in the Northern Region are performing creditably well in the implementation of climate change projects under the $88.6 million, Ghana Social Opportunities Projects (GSOP), Mr Sabastian Salia Yiah, Regional Infrastructure Engineer said.
“Aside East Gonja, Saboba and Kpandai Districts, who have cultivated and maintained the mango and cashew trees, the remaining Districts’ plantation had been burnt by wild fire and this is a worrying situation,” he said.
Mr Yiah disclosed...
Is Sustainability Still Possible?
Posted by Worldwatch: None Given on April 9th, 2013
Worldwatch: In today’s society, the word “sustainable” has become practically meaningless, with most sustainable products just a step less bad than conventional alternatives. Because of the power of “sustainababble,” the world has largely ignored the rich spectrum of political, cultural, and technological changes that would set us on the path to a truly sustainable future. Although the science of sustainability is clearer than ever, we still face the question of whether transforming our society into one guided...
Malawians rethink maize planting as climate dries
Posted by AlertNet: Karen Sanje on April 9th, 2013
AlertNet: Less than three years after Ezelina Nyirongo reluctantly abandoned cultivation of her favourite local maize varieties, the 48-year-old from Rumphi in northern Malawi is thinking of going back to them.
Back in 2010, Nyirongo was advised by agricultural extension officers working in her area, near the city of Mzuzu, to switch from late-maturing local maize to new hybrid varieties.
"The hybrid maize varieties they recommended we start growing have been maturing a little earlier than the local...
Tanzania Emerges As Candidate for Green Gas Emissions
Posted by East African Business Week: None Given on April 9th, 2013
East African Business Week: Tanzania could join the list of leading African nations in greenhouse gas emissions in the future. This is if its ambitious plans to utilize coal and natural gas for power generation will not take environmental conservation into account, an expert has warned. Presenting a paper on "the global context and debates surrounding energy and environment", the Director of Tanzania Specialist Organization on Community Natural Resources and Biodiversity Conservation (TASONABI), Mr. Bariki Kaale explained...
Pakistan to be hardest hit by climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
Economic Times: Pakistan will be amongst the countries hardest hit by climate change, said a leading daily, warning that a disaster of enormous proportions is silently evolving in the mountains up north.
An editorial in the Dawn on Tuesday said that away from the din of politics and the immediacy of militant strife, a disaster of enormous proportions is silently evolving in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan mountains up north, one that could in time impact the length and breadth of Pakistan.
"The peaks are home to...
India’s largest copper smelter ignites toxic debate
Posted by Reuters: Anupama Chandrasekaran on April 9th, 2013
Reuters: Housewife A. Puneeta was washing dishes on a foggy Saturday morning when suddenly her throat began to burn. Coughing hard and struggling to breathe, she rushed into the street to find her neighbours running, haphazardly, in panic.
"First people said there was a gas leak, and then someone said Sterlite seemed to have opened up something, and that's the cause of the throat burning," said Puneeta, 32, who is married to a fisherman in this port town near the southern tip of India.
She was referring...
Climate change will threaten wine production, study shows
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
Guardian: Bid adieu to Bordeaux, but also, quite possibly, a hello to Chateau Yellowstone. Researchers predict a two-thirds fall in production in the world's premier wine regions because of climate change.
The study forecasts sharp declines in wine production from Bordeaux and Rhone regions in France, Tuscany in Italy and Napa Valley in California and Chile by 2050, as a warming climate makes it harder to grow grapes in traditional wine country.
But also anticipate a big push into areas once considered...
North Dakota, a Portrait of an Oil Boom
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
Time: North Dakota’s oil boom has been called everything from the region’s equivalent of a gold rush, to its version of Silicon Valley. And it’s all thanks to a the Bakken formation, a 360 million year old shale tectonic plate sitting underneath much of the northwestern part of the state, which is thought to hold around 18 billion barrels of oil. But the good times have not come without a price: The state has run up against a serious shortage of housing for the thousands who have poured in looking for...
Eco-change triggers rapid evolution
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 9th, 2013
BBC: Changes to their surroundings can trigger "rapid evolution" in species as they adopt traits to help them survive in the new conditions, a study shows.
Studying soil mites in a laboratory, researchers found that the invertebrates' age of maturity almost doubled in just 20-or-so generations.
It had been assumed that evolutionary change only occurred over a much longer timescale.
The findings have been published in the journal Ecology Letters.
"What this study shows for the first time is...