Monthly Archives: August 2008

Australia: Govt open to carbon trading scheme alternatives: Wong

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says the Federal Government is open to alternatives to a cap and trade emissions scheme. There have been calls for a direct tax on carbon instead of the Government’s preferred emissions trading scheme, which would set a limit on carbon. Senator Wong says the Government [...]
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Coastlines remain intact, despite climate change: study

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Indo-Asian News Service: Preliminary research from the windswept coast of southern France suggest that world’s coastlines remain largely intact despite climate change. The urgent question is whether even small changes in sea levels due to climate change will wreck this natural balance and trigger devastating coastal erosion. Key parameters are being recorded on [...]
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Belgium Restricts Local Food After Radioactive Leak

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Reuters: Belgian authorities have restricted consumption of vegetables and milk produced near a nuclear medicine institute after a leakage of radioactive iodine, the European Commission said on Friday. The institute in Fleurus in southern Belgium produces radioisotopes used to treat cancer. "Belgian authorities … have now decided to implement protective actions, in particular [...]
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Greenpeace Canada Blasts Syncrude Lawsuit

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Reuters: Greenpeace Canada blasted a lawsuit brought against it by Syncrude Canada Ltd, saying the move was designed to intimidate critics of the sprawling oil sands developments in northern Alberta. The suit comes after Greenpeace protesters targeted a waste-water pipe at Syncrude’s Aurora mine, north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, on July 24, demanding a [...]
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Army helps in India as South Asia reels under floods

By | Published: August 31, 2008
window.document.getElementById(‘post-7932′).parentNode.className += ‘ adhesive_post’;Reuters: The Indian army and navy stepped up efforts on Monday to rescue hundreds of thousands of people marooned by floods, while rising river levels also rang alarm bells in neighbouring Bangladesh. In India’s impoverished eastern state of Bihar, villagers have been living on rooftops for days, while others are eating [...]
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Australia: $3.5bn compo in water buyback plan

By | Published: August 31, 2008
AAP: HOMEOWNERS in the NSW community of Coleambally would share in $1 billion compensation under a $3.5 billiion plan to sell the town’s water to the Federal Government for environmental use. Robert Black, chairman of the Coleambally Irrigation Area, said if the Government wanted to buy water allocations, Climate Change and Water Minister Penny [...]
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Republicans scale back convention due to Hurricane Gustav

By | Published: August 31, 2008
LA Times: Republicans scrambled Sunday to reshape their national convention to a more austere and less political event as Hurricane Gustav upended their plans to showcase John McCain and his new running mate, and to take apart Barack Obama in a nationally televised extravaganza. After the Democratic nominee’s acceptance speech in Denver broke television [...]
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London Mayor Begins Review of Congestion Charge Zone

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Bloomberg: London Mayor Boris Johnson began a review of the traffic-congestion zone that may lead to the program being scrapped in the city’s western districts. Drivers pay 8 pounds ($14) a day to enter an area that covers most of central and west London. The central zone was introduced in 2003 and extended west [...]
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India increases efforts to save thousands stranded by floods

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Telegraph (UK): Flood-affected people wait for a rescue team at Chondipur village of Madhepura district in India’s eastern state of Bihar Photo: REUTERS The authorities fear an outbreak of cholera and other water-borne diseases as those stranded have no access to food or clean drinking water. Fierce fighting erupted as thousands of evacuees [...]
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Greenland could melt much faster than predicted

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Cosmos: Rapid melting of Greenland’s ice sheet this century, once considered unlikely, is now a real possibility. If proved right, many of the world’s coastlines could soon be inundated by rising seas, a new study suggests. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a global panel of more than 2,000 leading climate scientists, estimate [...]
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Govt admits drought measures ‘not good enough’

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Federal Government says it knows current drought assistance measures are not good enough, and that is why they are being reviewed. Over the weekend the Australian of the year, country music singer Lee Kernaghan, again accused the Prime Minister of abandoning farming families. He says the Government is re-branding [...]
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Can engineering the earth save it from catastrophe?

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Independent: Fears that the world is not doing enough to cut carbon dioxide emissions are forcing scientists to "think the unthinkable" by taking seriously the idea that humans may have to alter the global climate artificially with mega-engineering projects. The Royal Society will launch a study later this year aimed at reviewing the possibility [...]
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Global warming: Sea level rises may accelerate due to melting ice sheet

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Guardian: The vast Greenland ice sheet could begin to melt more rapidly than expected towards the end of the century, accelerating the rise in sea levels as a result of global warming, scientists warned yesterday. Water running off the ice sheet could triple the current rate of sea level rise to around 9mm a [...]
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Glaciers need closer watch in poor countries – UNEP

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Reuters: Scientists are not paying enough attention to glacial melting in the Andes, the Himalayas and peaks in other developing countries, a United Nations-backed report found on Monday. Experts from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) said while there has been excellent monitoring of glacial trends in Europe [...]
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Extreme and risky action the only way to tackle global warming, say scientists

By | Published: August 31, 2008
Guardian: Political inaction on global warming has become so dire that nations must now consider extreme technical solutions – such as blocking out the sun – to address catastrophic temperature rises, scientists from around the world warn today. The experts say a reluctance "at virtually all levels" to address soaring greenhouse gas emissions means [...]
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