RSS Feed
Archive for October 8th, 2010
Building for a cantankerous planet
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
Sydney Morning Herald: In the last few weeks of the election campaign when the parties were announcing their infrastructure initiatives, Russia was burning and choking, Pakistan was turning into an inland sea and China was losing whole hillsides. An article by Anthony Giddens and Martin Rees in noting these events, called for a renewed drive to wake the world from its torpor about the dangers of global warming. But there's a further concern as to how both existing and future assets can be protected from climate ...
Climate change boosts invasive alien threat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
Times LIVE: Climate change is likely to increase the threat invasive alien Acacia plants, including wattles, rooikrans and Port Jackson, pose to South Africa's already highly stressed water supply. In a written reply to a parliamentary question, tabled on Friday, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said recent studies showed some Acacia species could respond to warmer conditions by developing stronger, deeper root systems, which sucked up more water. "The research on ...
Hungary sludge death toll rises
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
BBC: The death toll following the spill of a large amount of toxic red sludge from an industrial plant in western Hungary has risen to seven, officials say. Disaster unit chief Tibor Dobson said two bodies had been found near the town of Devecser, but were likely residents missing from Kolontar, a town nearby. Earlier, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the River Danube was no longer under threat of widespread pollution. Mr Orban said the situation had now been brought "under ...
Australia’s river restoration conundrum highlights global water problem
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
Aol News: Australia's government is facing a tricky political dilemma as it considers a plan that would lower the amount of water used to irrigate farmland in an attempt to restore the nation's rivers. The country's farmers have been suffering for years from record drought, and yet many still doubt that human-induced global climate change has any role in their, and the country's, suffering. Under the new plan, farmers in Australia's major food bowl, the Murray-Darling, would see their ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Australia’s river restoration conundrum highlights global water problemUnited Kingdom: New virus causing mass deaths of frogs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
Independent: Common frog populations around the UK have declined by more than four-fifths because of a virus which causes their internal organs to haemorrhage. Populations infected with ranavirus, which is thought to be relatively new to the UK, suffered an average 81 per cent decrease in adult frogs over a 12-year period, research from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) found. The study, using data collected from the public by the frog mortality project and charity Froglife, showed ...
Food prices may soar due to global warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
Economic Times: Large-scale crop failures are likely to become more common in the wake of climate change and lead to spiralling prices. Rising temperatures could trigger events such as the wheat crisis in Russia this summer which pushed up food prices, researchers from the Universities of Leeds, Exter and the Met Office said. Scientists warned that rising temperatures would make crops mature more quickly, reducing their yield, while extreme temperatures could also significantly reduce yields, ...
River disaster hits Sarawak
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
Star: A major environmental disaster is unfolding in the state, as kilometre after kilometre of logs and wood debris flow down the Rajang. It was believed that heavy rain in the upper reaches of Balleh River – a tributary of the Rajang – had caused landslides at log ponds of a major timber camp and brought down the logs and wood debris. Kapit businessman Tay Hock Joo, who telephoned The Star in Sibu yesterday evening, said nobody in Kapit had ever seen such an occurrence ...
Climate change takes its toll on “miracle rice,” institute says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
Deutsche Press-Agentur: Climate change has reduced by 15 per cent the yield of the 'miracle rice' which helped avert famine in Asia in the 1960s, the International Rice Research Institute said Friday. A study conducted by the Manila-based institute showed that the yield of the IR8 rice variety, also known as 'miracle rice,' had dropped to 7 tons per hectare from yields of 9.5 to 10.5 tons per hectare when it was first introduced. Before the introduction of the new rice in the 1960s, the average global ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change takes its toll on “miracle rice,” institute saysGreenpeace: high arsenic, mercury levels in sludge
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
AP: Greenpeace is warning of "surprisingly high" levels of arsenic and mercury in the red sludge that seeped out of a burst reservoir in Hungary and has devastated the surrounding area. The activists say samples taken Tuesday in the town of Kolontar showed 110 milligrams of arsenic and 1.3 milligrams of mercury per kilogram of dry matter. The result, which also show 660 milligrams of chrome per kilogram, are based on analyses carried out in laboratories in Vienna and in the Hungarian ...
Toxic sludge almost the size of Gulf Oil spill
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 8th, 2010
AP: The mighty Danube was apparently absorbing Hungary's massive toxic red sludge spill with little immediate harm, officials reported Friday -- even though the amount of caustic slurry spewed over the western part of the country was nearly as great as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Revising even higher earlier estimates, government officials said the reservoir break at an alumina plant Monday dumped 600,000 to 700,000 cubic meters (158 million to 184 million gallons) of sludge onto three ...