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Archive for April 11th, 2013
Storms bring heavy snow, hail, rains to central U.S
Posted by Reuters: Carey Gillam on April 11th, 2013
Reuters: High winds and heavy snow and rain whipped through parts of the central United States on Wednesday, knocking out power for thousands of people and closing schools and businesses.
There were reports of downed trees, flipped vehicles and structural damage from a potential tornado touching down in Arkansas, as storm watchers tracked a line of severe weather stretching from Arkansas through southeastern Missouri into Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
"It will be a long night in Arkansas for sure," said...
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Chilean Court Suspends Pascua Lama Mine
Posted by Inter Press Service: Marianela Jarroud on April 11th, 2013
Inter Press Service: Environmental groups and indigenous Diaguita communities of the Huasco Valley in northern Chile celebrated a court decision Wednesday that will bring to a complete halt work on the Pascua Lama gold, silver and copper mine belonging to Canada's Barrick gold.
"The mine was approved on the condition that the glaciers would not be touched. But the General Water Department (DGA) has repeatedly confirmed that Pascua Lama is destroying glaciers," said Lucio Cuenca, director of the Latin American Observatory...
Early warning signs of population collapse
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 11th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Spatial measurements of population density could reveal when threatened natural populations are in danger of crashing.
Many factors -- including climate change, overfishing or loss of food supply -- can push a wild animal population to the brink of collapse. Ecologists have long sought ways to measure the risk of such a collapse, which could help wildlife and fishery managers take steps to protect endangered populations.
Last year, MIT physicists demonstrated that they could measure a population's...
Choking on China
Posted by Foreign Affairs: Thomas N. Thompson on April 11th, 2013
Foreign Affairs: China is the world’s worst polluter -- home to 16 of the 20 dirtiest cities and the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Recent headlines have been shocking: 16,000 decaying pig carcasses in Shanghai’s Whampoa River, dire air quality reports in Beijing, and hundreds of thousands of people dying prematurely because of environmental degradation. Most recently, the country has been shaken by a mysterious virus, H7N9, which has already killed six people and has spurred health authorities to order the...
In Assam, Searching for New Crops and Farming Methods for Depleted Soil
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 11th, 2013
New York Times: For generations, the annual monsoon cycle blessed the upper Assam village of Boralapar with ideal conditions for paddy farming. Moderate annual flooding of the Dorpang River, a small tributary of the Brahmaputra River, enhanced the rich, loamy soil with a yearly booster dose of river-borne nutrients.
But over the past decade, upland deforestation and repeated embankment failure have turned the Dorpang vicious. Volatile flash floods can last for days, drowning paddy and burying fields under sand...