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Archive for February, 2011
Parks key to saving India’s great mammals from extinction
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 24th, 2011
Mongabay: Parks key to saving India's great mammals from extinction
An interview with Krithi Karanth, a part of our Interviews with Young Scientists series.
Krithi Karanth grew up amid India's great mammals--literally. Daughter of conservationist and scientist Dr. Ullas Karanth, she tells mongabay.com that she saw her first wild tigers and leopard at the age of two. Yet, the India Krithi Karanth grew up in may be gone in a century, according to a massive new study by Karanth which looked at the likelihood...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Parks key to saving India’s great mammals from extinctionAncient Catastrophic Drought Leads to Question: How Severe Can Climate Change Become?
Posted by National Science Foundation: None Given on February 24th, 2011
National Science Foundation: How severe can climate change become in a warming world?
Worse than anything we've seen in written history, according to results of a study appearing this week in the journal Science.
An international team of scientists led by Curt Stager of Paul Smith's College, New York, has compiled four dozen paleoclimate records from sediment cores in Lake Tanganyika and other locations in Africa.
The records show that one of the most widespread and intense droughts of the last 50,000 years or more...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Ancient Catastrophic Drought Leads to Question: How Severe Can Climate Change Become?Toxic water ‘threatens SA city’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 24th, 2011
BBC: Rapidly rising acidic water in the abandoned gold mines under Johannesburg in South Africa could leak out early next year, the water ministry warns.
Its report recommends building pumps and monitoring stations immediately.
The toxic liquid has been building up in mine shafts which were dug more than a century ago and stretch for many kilometres under the city.
Trevor Manuel, a minister in the president's office, reassured residents that there was no cause for panic.
The BBC's Milton Nkosi...
Salazar: Colorado River issue could push conservatives to face climate change
Posted by Las Vegas Sun: None Given on February 24th, 2011
Las Vegas Sun: Could Western conservatives push the GOP toward adopting a more friendly stance on climate change?
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar certainly seems to think so.
In comments he delivered at a symposium hosted by the progressive Center for American Progress Thursday morning, Salazar said the worsening situation with the Colorado River -- where the water level has dropped about 20 percent in the last decade -- is serving as a powerful wake-up call to conservatives to do something about climate...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Salazar: Colorado River issue could push conservatives to face climate changeMega-drought threat to US Southwest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 24th, 2011
Nature: The Dust Bowl -- the seven-year drought that devastated large swathes of US prairie land in the 1930s -- was the worst prolonged environmental disaster recorded for the country. But a study of the American Southwest's more distant climatic past reveals that the catastrophic drought was a mere dry spell compared to the 'mega-droughts' that were recurring long before humans began to settle the continent.
The findings, reported in a paper in Nature1 this week, add to concerns that the already arid...
Southern African farmers face heavy flood losses
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on February 23rd, 2011
AlertNet: A woman enters her home flooded with water, close to the swollen Limpopo River in Mozambique, Temba Mduli's fields resemble a vast lake, studded with treetops and half-submerged buildings. Once-green corn, soya beans, potatoes and sunflowers have been turned yellow by some of the worst flooding to cut through northern South Africa in years.
"I will be lucky just to get fodder out of the bad parts,' he says, as his two John Deere tractors sit nearby, submerged to their steering wheels. "That's...
Top 25 most endangered turtles: Asian species in crisis
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 23rd, 2011
Mongabay: Surviving hundreds of millions of years on Earth have not saved turtles from facing extinction at human hands. A new report by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Turtle Conservation Coalition, identifies the world's 25 most imperiled turtles, including one that is practically assured extinction: 'Lonesome George' the last Abdington Island tortoise in the world. The list includes four turtle species from South and Central America, three from Africa, and one from Australia. But Asia is...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Top 25 most endangered turtles: Asian species in crisisParasitic protozoons survive waste water and drinking water treatment plants in Galicia
Posted by Science Centric: None Given on February 23rd, 2011
Science Centric: 'The presence of two resistent forms of protozoons, the oocysts from the Cryptosporidium genus and cysts of the Giardia genus, is one of the greatest public health problems in water supply, because these parasites can easily survive our water treatment systems,' Jose Antonio Castro Hermida, a scientist at the Galician Institute for Food Quality in the Xunta de Galicia (regional government), tells SINC.
A team led by this researcher took 232 water samples in 55 Galician towns, and confirmed the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Parasitic protozoons survive waste water and drinking water treatment plants in GaliciaEcuador: Q&A: “The Verdict Against Chevron Is Enforceable, Because It Is Just”
Posted by Inter Press Service: Gonzalo Ortiz Interviews Juan Pablo SÁENZ, Prosecuting Attorney In Chevron Case on February 23rd, 2011
Inter Press Service: On Feb. 14, a provincial Ecuadorean court issued the harshest environmental verdict in history against a major oil company, the U.S.-based Chevron. But is there any chance it will be carried out?
"We wouldn't keep working on this if we didn't think success was possible. On a scale of one to 10, it's a 10," the youngest of the litigant attorneys, Juan Pablo Sáenz, told Tierramérica in an interview.
It is the environmental trial of the century. The ruling of the court of first instance orders...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Ecuador: Q&A: “The Verdict Against Chevron Is Enforceable, Because It Is Just”Newcastle hopes to tap deep heat with 2000m geothermal probe
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 23rd, 2011
Guardian: Britain's greenest city has launched a hunt for virtually free hot water more than a mile below its central streets. Drilling has started in Newcastle Upon Tyne on a borehole which hopes to tap inexhaustible supplies of groundwater naturally kept at 80C (176F) by geothermal heat.
The project, based at the former home of the city's most famous previous liquid – the old Scottish and Newcastle brewery – expects to tap the water and start pumping in early June. By then, the drill operated by scientists...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Newcastle hopes to tap deep heat with 2000m geothermal probe