RSS Feed
Archive for February 18th, 2011
What is geo-engineering?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
Guardian: Geo-engineering schemes are projects designed to tackle the effects of climate change directly, usually by removing CO2 from the air or limiting the amount of sunlight reaching the planet's surface. Although large-scale geo-engineering is still at the concept stage, advocates claim that it may eventually become essential if the world wants to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Critics, by contrast, claim that geo-engineering isn't realistic – and may be a distraction from reducing emissions....
Posted in 
Ecuador: Chevron’s lawyers – the busiest in the world?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
Guardian: Oil is the dirtiest industry in the world and Chevron, one the world's largest companies, must be the oiliest. That's saying something when you consider it has rivals including BP, Shell, Exxon and Oxy. Never mind the gross violations of the Ecuadoran environment for which it was punished this week with a $8bn (£5bn) fine. When it comes to aggressive legal tactics, vindictiveness, threats, pollution, intimidation, tax evasion and links with venal and repressive regimes, it is in a league of its own...
Climate change no tall tale for local fisherman
Posted by Athens Banner-Herald: None Given on February 18th, 2011
Athens Banner-Herald: Years earlier, Rusk's father had, as he says, "laid a trip on me. Before he died, he said, 'Rich, it looks like the issue for your generation is going to be climate change - people are going to have to believe the projections of the scientists ... and you're going to need to get after it."
Rusk's dad died in 1994, and, he admits, his dad probably didn't use the words "climate change" - "but he picked up on it decades before, in the '60s and '70s, he saw it coming."
For his part, Rusk says he...
How close are we to the edge?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
Living on Earth: GELLERMAN: A recent World Bank study notes that food prices have soared nearly 30 percent just in the past year. Meanwhile, many autocratic regimes in the Middle East that have ruled for decades have suddenly become unstable - as citizens take to the streets, demanding change.
This is not a coincidence says Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute. He writes that rich nations are adding to the social instability when they buy up land in poor nations to guarantee their own food supply....
UK storm blamed on climate change
Posted by Age: Geoff Strong and Lindsay Murdoch on February 18th, 2011
Age: AS AUSTRALIANS from both ends of the country were yesterday cleaning up after storms and floods, a British study has concluded for the first time that an extreme storm in that country is likely to have doubled in intensity due to human induced climate change.
The study, published yesterday in the journal Nature, is significant because for the first time climate change has been blamed for a single event.
But Australian experts are divided over whether a similar study here would have been able...
The beaver’s new brand: Eco-saviour
Posted by Globe and Mail: Erin Anderssen on February 18th, 2011
Globe and Mail: Our bucktoothed icon is hard-working and monogamous, steadfast and stable in the Canuck way. But beloved? Not when one drops a tree on your cottage or floods your land with its dam. These days, however, the beaver has a new brand: eco-saviour. An increasingly vocal group of scientists and conservationists believes the dam-building rodent is an overlooked tool to mitigate climate change -- a natural remedy for our sick rivers and ravaged wildlife. Fly away with that, bald eagle.
It's the beaver's...
Hudson River Fish Evolve Toxic PCB Immunity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 18th, 2011
National Geographic: Bottom-feeding fish in the Hudson River have developed a gene that renders them immune to the toxic effects of PCBs, researchers say.
A genetic variant allows the fish to live in waters notoriously polluted by the now-banned industrial chemicals, and distinguishes the fish--Atlantic tomcod (Microgadus tomcod)--as one of the world’s fastest evolving populations.
"This is very, very rapid evolutionary change," said Isaac Wirgin, an environmental toxicologist at New York University’s...