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Archive for April 23rd, 2013
Bangladesh focuses on adaptation as climate fears grow
Posted by RTCC: Ed King on April 23rd, 2013
RTCC: Climate adaptation planning is likely to become a priority for Bangladesh’s leaders as the hopes of keeping global temperatures within safe limits decrease.
The country is already one of the most vulnerable in the world to flooding and storm surges. Torrential rain last year left over 100 dead and 250,000 stranded.
And compared to the USA post Hurricane Sandy, it takes Bangladesh more time to ‘bounce back’ from extreme weather events, which the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report says will get...
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We can save Iraq’s ‘Garden of Eden’
Posted by New Scientist: Fred Pearce on April 23rd, 2013
New Scientist: Engineer Azzam Alwash is intent on restoring the fabled Mesopotamian marshes in southern Iraq that Saddam Hussein tried to wreck
Some say the marshes of southern Iraq are the origin of the Garden of Eden story. Why did Saddam Hussein drain them?
He said it was to make dry land for agriculture. He dug canals and diverted the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, causing 90 per cent of the marshes to dry out. But really, he saw the Marsh Arabs who lived there, fishing, cutting reeds and tending water...
Genetic study finds salmon refuge
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 23rd, 2013
BBC: An area of coastal waters around North-West France has been identified as a site for a previously unknown ice-free refuge for salmon during the Ice Age.
Researchers said the isolated marine haven would help explain the "genetic mosaic" of British and Irish salmon.
They added that fish from this refuge bred with fish from the Iberian peninsula as they migrated into UK waters as the ice receded.
The findings have been published in the journal Heredity.
"There has been a lot of work done...
Pollution Is Radically Changing Childhood in China’s Cities
Posted by New York Times: Edward Wong on April 23rd, 2013
New York Times: The boy’s chronic cough and stuffy nose began last year at the age of 3. His symptoms worsened this winter, when smog across northern China surged to record levels. Now he needs his sinuses cleared every night with saltwater piped through a machine’s tubes. The boy’s mother, Zhang Zixuan, said she almost never lets him go outside, and when she does she usually makes him wear a face mask. The difference between Britain, where she once studied, and China is “heaven and hell,” she said. Levels of...
Mississippi barge traffic snarled by floods, accidents
Posted by Reuters: Karl Plume on April 23rd, 2013
Reuters: Commercial shipping traffic was moving again on the Mississippi River south of St. Louis after a pair of barge accidents that forced the U.S. Coast Guard to close the waterway over the weekend, but navigation remained severely impaired further north.
Flooding following torrential rains across the central United States forced the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to close about a dozen locks on the Illinois River and the Mississippi River north of St. Louis late last week.
The U.S. Coast Guard will...