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India and China will suffer severe water stress by 2050, says study
Posted by Monitor: None Given on April 1st, 2016
Monitor: Parts of Asia are likely to suffer severe water stress by the middle of this century, according to a new study by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The study, published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, considered major developing nations – notably India and China – and modeled their water-use trajectories if no action is taken to restrain either growth or anthropogenic climate change.
Under such circumstances, the researchers found that both countries had a roughly...
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Hawaii telescope: Did indigenous rights just beat astronomical discovery?
Posted by Monitor: None Given on December 5th, 2015
Monitor: A Hawaiian Supreme Court ruling Wednesday on a contentious proposal to build a large, Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea validated the rights of indigenous Hawaiians.
The court ruled that the state of Hawaii should not have given the telescope project a permit without formally hearing the position of the Native Hawaiians – who hold the Mauna Kea mountaintop sacred – first. This ruling emphasized that the state must value concerns from the indigenous people who brought the lawsuit and who slowed...
Why climate change pushing Earth boreal forests tipping point
Posted by Monitor: None Given on August 22nd, 2015
Monitor: International policy makers should set their sights on the protection of boreal forests, international forestry experts argued this week in an article published Thursday in the journal Science. The article was part of a special issue on forests released before the World Forestry Congress is held in September.
“Boreal forests have the potential to hit a tipping point this century,” said Anatoly Shvidenko, a researcher scholar with the Ecosystems Services and Management Program at Austria's International...
Hawaii Officials Rethink Astronomical Observatory Plans
Posted by Monitor: None Given on June 3rd, 2015
Monitor: There will be no further construction work on Mauna Kea for new astronomical observatories, instead the existing ones will be decommissioned and rebuilt. This is the main decision reached by the University of Hawaii in cooperation with the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
Initial plans involved the construction of a new, modern observatory on a newly commissioned site. Following heated protests from the local population, University of Hawaii representatives have decided to rethink their...
Washington State, battling five wildfires, braces higher temperatures
Posted by Monitor: None Given on July 12th, 2014
Monitor: Potentially record-high temperatures this weekend threaten to complicate firefighting efforts in Washington State, where five wildfires already are raging.
Hot and dry weather forecast for this weekend could exacerbate the 28-mile Mills Canyon Fire and lead to additional wildfire outbreaks, officials warn. The coming heat wave could bring temperatures in the triple digits, National Weather Service’s Matt Fugazzi told The Seattle Times. The heat wave, coupled with dry conditions, could transform...
Next fracking controversy: In Midwest, a storm brews over ‘frac sand’
Posted by Monitor: None Given on March 9th, 2014
Monitor: Kyle Slaby bounds up the slope behind his house, stopping at the sandstone outcrop he hopes will save his family's farm. The Slabys grow corn and soybeans on the ridgeline above. But these days there's more money – a lot more – in mining the sand below. "A lot of people look on it as an extension of farming," Mr. Slaby says. "It's another crop you're harvesting." Sand has become a valuable – and deeply divisive – commodity in the upper Midwest. Hydraulic fracturing, a method of extraction also...
Uganda: Global warming may affect coffee production
Posted by Monitor: None Given on September 20th, 2011
Monitor: Global warming has increased the spread of pests in key farming regions with coffee exports facing the strain from the berry disease. Scientists at the Nairobi based International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) predict increased incidences of coffee berry borer in coffee zones over the next 40 years due to changing climatic patterns.
Even small increases in temperature will lead to serious consequences on the number of generations, as well as the latitudinal and altitudinal range...