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Archive for December 9th, 2010
Mountainfolk make climate plea as UN talks approach climax
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 9th, 2010
AFP: Mountain communities and the UN on Thursday joined hands to warn of the "devastating" impact of global warming in mountain areas, as climate change talks draw to a close in Cancun.
In an appeal to mark world mountain day on Saturday, the UN Environment Programme, experts and people from Switzerland, Bhutan and Canada warned that climate change was already changing their landscape, livelihoods and sapping water supplies.
"I'm convinced that unless we as individuals but also governments wake...
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Posted by Associated Press: Charles J. Hanley on December 9th, 2010
Associated Press: Bolivia's President Evo Morales, addressing a U.N. climate conference with modest goals, said Thursday that governments will be committing "ecocide" if they fail to act decisively to halt global warming.
It will be a "failure on the part of the powers of the world, not the peoples, because we need to adopt texts that do not allow further warming of the Earth," Morales told delegates to the two-week conference, which ends on Friday.
The Bolivians lead a group of dissident, left-leaning Latin...
Flood defence budgets: not waving but drowning
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 9th, 2010
Guardian: National Union of Students president Aaron Porter believes the fee increase can still be stopped, while Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster hints he may vote in favour of the package
Pakistan floods released stored toxic chemicals
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 9th, 2010
New Scientist: Iran Tehran chokes and blames severe pollution on US sanctions
Iran's capital shrouded in 'poisonous' smog caused by petrol produced locally following US import ban
Residents of Tehran are blaming US sanctions for unprecedented levels of air pollution that have repeatedly forced the closure of universities and schools in the Iranian capital in the past month.
Tehran, surrounded by mountains and with millions of cars on its congested streets, has long been regarded as one of the world's most...
Climate change: the daily reality for farmers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 9th, 2010
Independent: Deforestation and forest degradation account for 17 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Although Pacific Island countries (PICs) contribute very little to emissions, the larger forested PICs can play an important role in reducing global carbon emissions. There are opportunities for these countries to benefit financially from maintaining and establishing forest areas to mitigate climate change through a REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) carbon financing mechanism....
Environmental changes challenge Vietnam government
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 9th, 2010
Reuters: About a year ago some farmers from Binh Thanh commune in Vietnam's southern rice growing heartland suspected the worst -- that their irrigation water had become too salty.
They telephoned Vo Thanh, the head of An Giang province's hydro-meteorology center, and he came to take water samples from the commune, which is about 20 km (12 miles) from the sea.
The farmers' hunch turned out to be right. The brackish water would damage their crops, so Thanh advised officials to tell farmers to stop pumping...
Warming climate may dry up water supplies
Posted by NC Times: DEBORAH SULLIVAN BRENNAN on December 9th, 2010
NC Times: The San Diego region is likely to see its water supply from the Colorado River reduced 10 to 25 percent in coming decades, as climate change reduces rainfall to the region and higher temperatures cause more evaporation upstream, David Pierce, a climate researcher with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said Wednesday at the San Diego Coastkeeper's forum on the region's water supply.
The "Signs of the Tide" forum in San Diego considered the status of the region's water supply, how climate...
Pakistan floods released stored toxic chemicals
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 9th, 2010
New Scientist: The floods that tore through Pakistan earlier this year, affecting 20 million people, released some 3000 tonnes of dangerous chemicals into the environment. A report due to be published next year will warn that the event was not a one-off.
Its findings were presented at the climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, yesterday.
The long-lived chemicals, known collectively as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), include several banned pesticides and the insect repellent DDT. They are dispersed...
Alberta take on climate change is downright self-destructive
Posted by Edmonton Journal: Graham Thomson on December 9th, 2010
Edmonton Journal: A little while ago a reader wrote to me about climate change, saying something along the lines of, "Give your head a good shake Mr. Thomson. It's been unseasonably cold in Edmonton the past few weeks. Where's your global warming now?"
I did indeed shake my head and have been shaking it ever since at the illogic some people bring to the climate-change discussion. Yes, it gets cold in Edmonton, sometimes unseasonably so. But we're talking here about global warming, not Edmonton warming. This year...
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