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Archive for June 1st, 2011
Brazil approves Belo Monte hydroelectric dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 1st, 2011
Guardian: Members of the Caiapo's tribe dance during a protest in front of the National Congress in Brasilia against the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Amazonian Xingu river.
Brazil's environment agency gave its definitive approval on Wednesday for construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, a controversial $17bn (£10bn) project in the Amazon that has drawn criticism from native Indians and conservationists.
The regulator, Ibama, issued licenses to the consortium in charge...
Rapid changes in Greenland climate last 5,000 years, study finds
Posted by Physorg: Tom Simons on June 1st, 2011
Physorg: Abrupt average temperature changes of as much as 4 or 5 degrees Celsius over a few decades may have profoundly affected human civilization for cultures that occupied western Greenland over the past 5,000 years.
Those are the findings of a study published in the May 30-June 3 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a group of scientists that included Sherilyn Fritz of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Using a new technique that measures the qualities of haptophytes...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Rapid changes in Greenland climate last 5,000 years, study findsBrazil clears massive Amazon dam for construction
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 1st, 2011
Reuters: Brazil's environment agency gave its definitive approval on Wednesday for construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, a controversial $17 billion project in the Amazon that has drawn criticism from native Indians and conservationists.
The regulator, Ibama, issued licenses to the consortium in charge of Belo Monte to build the massive dam on the Xingu River, a tributary to the Amazon.
The government has said the 11,200-megawatt project, due to start producing electricity in 2015, is crucial...
Forest fragmentation threatens Europe, species: UN
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 1st, 2011
Agence France-Presse: Fires, felling and agriculture are whittling Europe's forests down into isolated patches, threatening to speed up desertification and deplete wildlife, a UN report warned Tuesday.
Isolated forest patches, caused through what is called fragmentation, are more vulnerable to climate change and threaten biodiversity, the United Nations Environment Programme report said.
They are also less able "to stabilise soils and supply sufficient water to the cities, companies and communities that rely on...
Cholera outbreaks closely follow temperature rise, rainfall
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 1st, 2011
Reuters: Moderate increases in temperature and rainfall can herald cholera epidemics, a study in East Africa has found, and researchers urged governments to use those environmental cues to better protect vulnerable populations.
The researchers matched cholera outbreaks which occurred in Zanzibar between 1999 and 2008 against temperature and rainfall records over the same period and found that the environmental changes were closely followed by disease.
"We found that when temperature goes up by 1 degree...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Cholera outbreaks closely follow temperature rise, rainfallSeed maker races for crops as climate changes
Posted by Reuters: Christine Stebbins on June 1st, 2011
Reuters: A changing climate that many scientists fear will hurt global crop production means seed makers must work harder to meet food needs as world population grows by 30 percent by 2050, a top world seed executive said.
"Agriculture production is moving to the north because those climates are becoming warmer. Some of those environments are also very conducive to some good agricultural production," Paul Schickler, president of Pioneer Hi-Bred, a unit of chemicals giant DuPont, told Reuters on Friday....
Fish ignore alarming noises in acidifying seawater
Posted by ScienceNews: None Given on June 1st, 2011
ScienceNews: Greenhouse gases dissolving in the world’s oceans may have the eerie effect of disrupting young fishes’ natural reluctance to swim toward scary noises.
When raised in water mimicking the predicted acidifying chemistry of future oceans, juvenile clownfish appeared perfectly willing to swim toward speakers broadcasting the recorded daytime sounds of a reef teeming with predators, says fish ecologist Steve Simpson of the University of Bristol in England. “When you’re a centimeter long as a fish,...
Rainmakers of China struggling to cope with country’s severe drought
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 1st, 2011
Guardian: Artillery soldiers at the reserve army fire shells for artificial rain in Wuhan capital of Hubei province.
China is running out of cloud-seeding shells after pounding the skies with a massive barrage to ease the worst drought that parts of the Yangtze delta have experienced for more than 100 years.
One of the country's biggest manufacturers of the weather-modifying ordnance said its warehouses were empty despite raising production by 30%, operating on weekends and adding two hours to shift...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Rainmakers of China struggling to cope with country’s severe droughtChile: HidroAysén Dam Project is Dividing Communities
Posted by Inter Press Service: Susana Segovia on June 1st, 2011
Inter Press Service: The area that will be flooded to build the HidroAysén project’s five dams represents barely 0.05 percent of the Chilean region of Aysén. But it is made up precisely of the valleys where the majority of the population lives, according to local residents.
In the heart of the southern Patagonia region, in the valleys of the Ñadis River, 45 kilometers south of the town of Cochrane, live 14 families who will have to be relocated because the construction of the Baker 2 hydroelectric dam, one of the...
Global food crisis: China land deal causes unease in Argentina
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 1st, 2011
Guardian: Patagonian steppe: a summer day near Bariloche in Rio Negro state, Argentina. The attraction to the Chinese of access to an area of land in Patagonia larger than Cornwall is obvious. As China's economy grows and its population becomes more urbanised, diets are changing rapidly. People are eating more industrially produced meat and dairy products, and buying more processed foods.
Soya is the feedstock for this revolution, but demand for it can no longer be met within China. So the Chinese state-owned...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Global food crisis: China land deal causes unease in Argentina