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Gore takes cash for water campaign from chemical firm
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on April 18th, 2010
Independent (UK): Al Gore, the self-styled squeakiest-clean and deepest-green politician in American history, has some explaining to do this weekend. His environmental organisation has taken money to raise awareness about the need for clean water from a controversial chemicals company involved in the aftermath of one of the world's worst pollution disasters. Dow Chemical, the US firm which now owns the leaking pesticides factory responsible for thousands of deaths in Bhopal, India, is sponsoring Life ...
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Solution to a thirsty world: sea water without the salt
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on March 21st, 2010
Times (UK): MIDDLE East government officials spent last week in Vienna, discussing oil at a meeting of Opec, the producers' cartel. In Oman, however, another dwindling resource was top of the agenda. In the coastal town of Al Khaluf, Oman's minister for water turned on a desalination plant that will provide the area with 100 cubic metres of fresh, clean water every day -- enough for 80,000 people. The plant was sold by Modern Water, a British company that claims places such as Oman will ...
United Kingdom: 500 species of plants and animals vanish because of humans, says study
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on March 11th, 2010
Times (UK): Nearly 500 species of plants and animals have disappeared in England in the past 200 years, according to the first comprehensive audit of native wildlife. The disappearances, which have been largely attributed to human activities, include four species that did not exist anywhere else. The great auk, a flightless seabird similar to a penguin, Ivell's sea anemone, Mitten's beardless-moss and York groundsel, a weed, have all become extinct since 1800. "These species were lost on ...
United Kingdom: Gardeners urged to stop using peat-based compost
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on March 9th, 2010
Independent (UK): The star of the BBC's Gardeners' World has been drafted in by the Government as they try to persuade the public to stop using peat compost. Ministers hope that Diarmuid Gavin will help them convince gardeners to stop using peat, which is present in almost half of all compost sold by garden centres. Yesterday the Environment Secretary Hilary Benn announced a new target to phase out the use of peat compost in amateur gardens by 2020 but shied away from imposing a ban, provoking ...
Climate change report sets out an apocalyptic vision of Britain
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on February 26th, 2010
Times (UK): Mass migration northwards to new towns in Scotland, Wales and northeast England may be needed to cope with climate change and water shortages in the South East, according to an apocalyptic vision set out by the Government Office for Science. Heathrow would be converted into a giant reservoir by 2035, there could be severe restrictions on flying and driving and farmers would be forced to sell their land to giant agricultural businesses. Greenhouse gas emissions would be controlled by ...
Italy’s longest river at risk after ‘sabotage’ at oil depot
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on February 25th, 2010
Independent (UK): Italian officials warned of an ecological disaster as they scrambled to contain an oil spill that reached the the Po river yesterday. Milan regional officials said the cause was certainly sabotage at a former refinery turned oil depot on the tributary Lambro river. While no arrests have been made, Italian news reports have noted that the depot owner had laid off several workers in recent months. There were varying accounts of the amount of oil released: officials in Milan said ...
Methane levels may see ‘runaway’ rise, scientists warn
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on February 22nd, 2010
Independent (UK): Atmospheric levels of methane, the greenhouse gas which is much more powerful than carbon dioxide, have risen significantly for the last three years running, scientists will disclose today -- leading to fears that a major global-warming "feedback" is beginning to kick in. For some time there has been concern that the vast amounts of methane, or "natural gas", locked up in the frozen tundra of the Arctic could be released as the permafrost is melted by global warming. This would give a ...
Alien fish invasion divides lake states
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on February 21st, 2010
Independent (UK): A row has blown up between several northern US states about how to block an especially voracious species of non-native fish from entering the Great Lakes and potentially devastating their multi-billion-dollar fishing industry. Some experts believe that the Asian carp, which can grow up to four feet long and weigh as much as seven stone, may already have breached electrified barriers placed seven years ago in the waterways that connect the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan close to ...
Kenya: Indigenous knowledge meets science
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on February 19th, 2010
Independent (UK): For generations, the Nganyi people of western Kenya have served as rainmakers, helping local communities decide when best to prepare their land and sow their seeds. By observing subtle changes in nature that would be unnoticeable to most people - in air currents, the flowering and shedding of leaves of certain trees, the behaviour of ants, bird songs, even the croaking of frogs and toads - they have been able to interpret weather patterns and provide valuable advice. But even the ...
Decrease in fog threatens California’s s sequoias: study
Posted by Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed on February 16th, 2010
Independent (UK): California's coastal fog has decreased significantly over the past 100 years, potentially endangering coast redwood trees dependent on cool, humid summers, according to a new study made public Monday. The study by University of California, Berkeley, scientists said it was unclear whether this phenomenon was part of a natural cycle or the result of human activity. But it warned the change could affect not only the redwoods, but the entire redwood ecosystem. "Since 1901, ...