Monthly Archives: May 2009
Japan: Global warming costs calculated
Yomiuri Shimbun: If the world does not take any measures against global warming, the financial damage Japan would suffer from related weather damage could be 17 trillion yen per year by the end of the century, according to a report produced by 14 research institutions across the country and released Friday. Efforts must be [...]
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Gravest challenge of the 21st century may be disease
iABC News: Earthquakes and hurricanes can devastate an entire country in just moments. Global warming could gradually raise sea levels, wreaking havoc on the climate and on people’s way of life. And with these potential disasters may come an even more insidious menace, one that could silently sneak up on a population and has [...]
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Brazil: Amazon rainforests pay the price as demand for beef soars
Guardian: A three-year survey by Greenpeace shows that western demand for beef and leather and an increase in cattle ranching is leading to intensified deforestation in the Amazon. Source: guardian.co.uk Link to this video Four-year old Daniel Santos da Silva and his older brother Diego Mota dos Santos, 10, heard their first gunshots in [...]
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Destruction of Brazil’s most imperilled rainforest continues
iMongabay: More than 100,000 hectares of Brazil’s most threatened ecosystem was cleared between 2005 and 2008, reports a study by the Fundação SOS Mata Atlãntica and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The "Atlas of Mata Atlântica Remnants", released May 26, assessed the extent of the Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest) across 10 of [...]
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Polluted, degraded ecosystems can recover in less than a lifetime
iMongabay: Restoration efforts can return polluted or degraded landscapes to previous states in less than a lifetime, according to study Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. The study rebuts a common assumption that ecosystem recovery takea centuries, even millennia. Yale researchers analyzed 240 independent studies that explored the recovery of degraded ecosystems due [...]
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Energy from pig slurry helps fight climate change
Associated Press: The 2,700 pigs on the farm that John Horrevorts manages yield more than ham and bacon. A biogas plant makes enough electricity from their waste to run the farm and feeds extra wattage into the Dutch national grid. He even gets bonus payments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As the world [...]
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US responsible for 29 percent of greenhouse gas emissions over past 150 years
Mongabay: In the past 150 years, the United States has emitted more greenhouse gas emissions than any other nation in the world, according to data by the World Resources Institute. In fact, US emissions account for 29 percent of the world’s total since the mid-1800s. The US emitted 328,264 million metric tons of carbon dioxide [...]
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UN To Set The Pace For Emissions On Monday
iredOrbit: On Monday, a 192-nation UN forum will take its first look at a draft text for negotiations for grueling efforts to craft a pact on climate change to enter a crucial phase. After 18 months of swapping visions, the 12-day huddle in the German city of Bonn under the UN Framework Convention on [...]
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How green is Obama?
Time Magazine: Many environmentalists — who spent the eight years of the Bush Administration in the cold — would agree. Obama announced tough new national standards for automobile emissions and fuel efficiency that essentially settled a long-running battle between environmentalists and the car industry in favor of the greens. Under the proposed rules, which would [...]
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Leaders called to special climate talks
Independent (UK): World leaders are to meet for an unprecedented second summit on climate change this year to try to get agreement on a tough new treaty by December, and may even get together for a third time before the end of the year. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, is to call the world’s [...]
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Why six Britons went to eco war
Guardian: Six ordinary people. One extraordinary feat of courage and endurance. Twenty thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide belched into the atmosphere in a single day. Twelve members of a jury, reaching a verdict that could change the future of the planet. From these ingredients, Nick Broomfield has fashioned a film that tells the gripping and [...]
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USGS: Gulf Of Mexico Contains Rich Gas Hydrate Reservoirs
Dow Jones: The U.S. Geological Survey said Friday that it has proof that the U.S. Gulf of Mexico has a rich concentration of gas hydrate reservoirs, a potential source of natural gas. The agency, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, said the Gulf is the first U.S. offshore area with documented data [...]
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How Much Has Changed? Obama Administration Deals Series of Anti-Environmental Blows
AlterNet: With little more than 100 days in office, the Democrats, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, have unleashed a slew of anti-environmental policies that would have enraged any reasonable conservationist during the Bush years. Take the delisting of the gray wolf in the western Great Lakes and parts of the northern Rockies, [...]
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Starfish defy climate change gloom
New Scientist: A SPECIES of starfish has confounded climate change doom-mongers by thriving as sea temperatures and acidity increase – a scenario that is likely as the world gets warmer. Most studies have concluded that sea animals with calcified shells or skeletons, such as starfish, will suffer as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels [...]
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Climate change: ‘Bali Road Map’ seeks compass