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Archive for May 25th, 2013
Severe weather partly a result of climate change
Posted by NBC: None Given on May 25th, 2013
NBC: Damaging tornadoes are an annual springtime threat in parts of the country, but Monday’s massive storm in Oklahoma, in a year that seems to have had more than its share of extreme weather, has many wondering whether things have gotten even more extreme than usual. NBC’s John Yang reports.
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Pakistan: With climate change, villagers become strangers in their own land
Posted by International Herald Tribune: Ali Ousat on May 25th, 2013
International Herald Tribune: When Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai first said that a time would come when the fishing community would dwell along the mighty Indus River but still die of hunger, it was merely a couplet.
Today fishermen living in one of the hundreds of villages in the Indus Delta have truly understood what the great saint meant to say.
Nearly three hundred families living in Kharo Chan village - which in Sindhi language means ‘bitter jetty’ -- have bitter memories to share. Allah Din, a farmer, said, “There was...
UK Emissions Must Be Halved By 2030, Says Davey
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 25th, 2013
Huffington Post: Europe should commit to a tough new target to halve emissions by 2030, Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey has said.
The Lib Dem Cabinet minister said the goal was ambitious but achievable as the Government set out its position ahead of efforts to secure a new international deal in 2015 on tackling global warming.
But the UK will oppose a European Union wide renewable energy target because it is "inflexible and unnecessary," he added.
Europe should commit to a tough new target to halve emissions...
Democratic Republic of Congo: Congo Waits on Funding for Largest Hydropower Project
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 25th, 2013
Guardian: The dream of harnessing the mighty Congo with the world's largest set of dams has moved closer, with the World Bank and other financial institutions expected to offer finance and South Africa agreeing to buy half of the power generated.
In the past 60 years French, Belgian, Chinese, Brazilian and African engineers have all hoped to dam the river.
But decades of civil war, corruption, and the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) reputation as a failed state have limited the hydropower developments...
Americans having their say on divisive Keystone pipeline plan
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 25th, 2013
CNN: Jobs, say hundreds of thousands of people. Pollution, say hundreds of thousands of others.
They say that's what a proposed oil pipeline would bring into the country, as it transports crude from massive deposits in Canadian tar sands to refineries and ports in the United States.
The Keystone XL pipeline has triggered a gush of comments from Americans for and against its construction. The State Department in Washington has received 1.2 million since early March, when it came out in support of...
Russia evacuates ‘drifting’ Arctic research station as ice floe melts
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 25th, 2013
Christian Science Monitor: Russia's environment ministry has ordered the urgent evacuation of 16 scientists from a research station on an Arctic ice floe near Canada because the ice around it is disintegrating at an alarming rate, giving the station little chance of survival.
The emergency has sparked a wider debate among Russian Arctic researchers over how to continue their work amid rapidly changing climate conditions, and in an atmosphere in which the race for newly uncovered Arctic resources has become one of the most...
Canada’s vast boreal forest a biodiversity hotspot
Posted by Philadelphia Inquirer: Sandy Bauers on May 25th, 2013
Philadelphia Inquirer: In case you missed it and forgot to send a card -- as did I -- Wednesday was the International Day for Biodiversity.
What's biodiversity?
Ask most people, and they think it's related to the number of species in a particular area. The more species, the more biodiversity.
So, naturally, they think of places like the Amazon as being biodiversity strongholds.
But a report from the Boreal Songbird Initiative and Ducks Unlimited begs to differ. They think other characteristics -- concentrations...