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Archive for November 9th, 2015
Mud from Brazil mine disaster raises health risks, 25 still missing
Posted by Reuters: Stephen Eisenhammer and Marta Nogueira on November 9th, 2015
Reuters: Mud and waste water from burst dams at a Brazilian iron ore mine cut off drinking water and raised health and environmental concerns in cities more than 300 km (186 miles) downstream on Monday, amid increasingly dire search efforts in a village devastated by the mudslides.
One of Brazil's worst mining disasters in recent memory left 25 people missing. Officials have confirmed two deaths since Thursday's tragedy and are working to identify two more corpses recovered on Sunday.
Exhausted firefighters...
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Brazil climate change report warns of failed hydropower and crops
Posted by Mongabay: Glenn Scherer on November 9th, 2015
Mongabay: A comprehensive new study commissioned by Brazil’s government predicts severe drought and crop failures due to climate change by 2040.
Brazil now gets 78% of its electricity from hydropower, but decreased rainfall could cut river flows by 38 to 57% to the nation’s four biggest existing hydropower plants, sharply decreasing energy generation.
Reduced water flows to proposed dams in the Tapajós basin, as well as to the gigantic, under construction Belo Monte dam, could make hydroelectric power...
ANC may pay as drought withers black South African farmers’ dreams
Posted by Reuters: Ed Stoddard on November 9th, 2015
Reuters: Cattle are the traditional asset by which Nampie Motloung, a subsistence black South African farmer, has long measured his wealth. But a blistering drought has made them a liability. "I have no choice but to sell some of my cows. I must do it before they die," Motloung, 62, told Reuters as his 30-strong herd ambled in the distance across the parched landscape. "It pains me to do so. My cattle are my family's inheritance," he said. The wealth of small-scale farmers and the dreams of emerging black...
Assessing ecosystem services: Increasing the impact on decision making
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 9th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Assessments of ecosystem services (ES), aiming at informing decisions on land management, are increasing in number around the globe, but only in a few cases recommendations are then applied by decision-makers in real life. In a new paper published in the journal Ecology and Society a team of researchers aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and policy needs, by providing a new step-by-step problem-oriented approach for informing land-use decisions. Often ES assessments are found to...
Indonesian NGO takes aim at government for failure to handle haze
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on November 9th, 2015
Mongabay: A human rights watchdog in Indonesia intervened in this year’s haze crisis on Monday to criticize the government for failing to do enough to protect the human rights of citizens affected by toxic pollution.
“Kontras does not see any coordination among state institutions or even serious steps to provide protection of the fundamental rights of citizens who live around the [affected] forest area and land,” Puri Kencana, a senior official at the Commission for “the Disappeared” and Victims of Violence...
Anger over enduring ‘environmental horror’ in oil-rich, polluted Niger delta
Posted by Guardian: John Vidal, and Jesse Winter on November 9th, 2015
Guardian: Communities in the oil-rich region of Ogoniland say they feel just as marginalised and in need of work and development as they were before the executions of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other chiefs in November 1995. The executions, which followed a kangaroo court that allowed no appeal, followed a peaceful uprising by 300,000 Ogonis against Shell’s widespread pollution in Ogoniland. They focused worldwide attention on the small 1,050 sq km region where the Nigerian oil industry first developed in the...
Warming set breach 1C threshold
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 9th, 2015
BBC: Global temperatures are set to rise more than one degree above pre-industrial levels according to the UK's Met Office.
Figures from January to September this year are already 1.02C above the average between 1850 and 1900.
If temperatures remain as predicted, 2015 will be the first year to breach this key threshold.
The world would then be half way towards 2C, the gateway to dangerous warming.
The new data is certain to add urgency to political negotiations in Paris later this month aimed...
Keystone developer says it may try again
Posted by Hill: Devin Henry on November 9th, 2015
Hill: TransCanada pledged Friday to seek another permit for its Keystone XL pipeline after the Obama administration rejected the project. Saying "misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science," TransCanada said it would seek other options for getting the 1,200 mile pipeline built, including "filing a new application for a presidential permit." The company also questioned whether Obama's rejection of the project aligns with the State Department's review, which it said concluded the pipeline would...
As floods hit, Pakistan’s Kalasha people fear for their way of life
Posted by Reuters: Rina Saeed Khan on November 9th, 2015
Reuters: For Akram Hussain, unprecedented monsoon floods that drenched his Hindu Kush mountain valley this year were a danger to more than just homes and crops.
His 4,000-strong Kalasha people, who live in three remote valleys in north-west Pakistan, preserve an ancient way of life, including animist beliefs at odds with Pakistan’s dominant Islamic state religion. That has led to threats by the Taliban, who call them kafirs, or non-believers.
Outsiders, looking for arable land, also have increasingly...
Brazil dam burst BHP boss inspect disaster zone dozens still missing
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 9th, 2015
Guardian: The boss of BHP Billiton will arrive in Brazil on Monday to see at first-hand the devastation wrought by the collapse of a dam at an iron ore mine co-owned by the company that has left at least two dead and dozens missing.
Three days after the rupturing of two dams unleashed a massive flood of mud on nearby villages, authorities were still struggling to determine the cause of the disaster or even recover the bodies of as many as 28 people lost in the torrent.
Amid mounting criticism by officials,...