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Archive for June, 2011
African Agriculture and Food Supply at Risk
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 18th, 2011
Inter Press Service: Climate change and global warming are likely to have dramatically negative effects on African agriculture and food supply by reducing river runoffs and water recharge, especially in semi-arid zones such as Southern Africa, two new reports say.
Both studies were released while thousands of delegates from around the world gathered during Jun. 6- 17 in the German city of Bonn to take part in the new United Nations (UN) Climate Change conference. New research supports the need for a revamped international...
Japan’s TEPCO suspends cleanup at Fukushima plant
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 18th, 2011
Reuters: The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, said on Saturday it had suspended an operation to clean up radioactive water only hours after it had begun as radiation levels rose faster than expected.
"The level of radiation at a machine to absorb cesium has risen faster than our initial projections," said a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co.
The plan had got underway on Friday after being delayed by a series of glitches.
Officials had said earlier this week that large...
Drought and poachers take Botswana’s natural wonder to brink of catastrophe
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 17th, 2011
Guardian: A bull giraffe flanked by a female strides through the Kwedi area of the Okavango delta. The Okavango delta in Botswana has suffered "catastrophic" species loss over the past 15 years, researchers have announced , in the latest sign of a growing crisis for wildlife in Africa.
Some wild animal populations in the delta, one of the wonders of the natural world, have shrunk by up to 90% and are facing local extinction, according to the most comprehensive aerial survey yet undertaken there.
The...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Drought and poachers take Botswana’s natural wonder to brink of catastrophe‘Perfect Storm’ Along Missouri River Puts Army Corps Policies in Cross Hairs
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 17th, 2011
GreenWire: As the engorged Missouri River swamps towns and threatens to burst a backup levee in Hamburg, Mo., lawmakers are calling for a review of the Army Corps of Engineers' flood-control plans.
With record snowmelt and rainfall threatening to create the second major U.S. flood disaster in as many months, the Army Corps is scrambling to drain six massive reservoirs in Montana and the Dakotas. The corps is releasing water more than twice as fast as has ever been attempted since the reservoirs were built...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on ‘Perfect Storm’ Along Missouri River Puts Army Corps Policies in Cross HairsDeforestation in Brazil’s Amazon continues to rise; clearing highest near Belo Monte dam site
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 17th, 2011
Mongabay: Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon continues to rise; clearing highest near Belo Monte dam site
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon from August 2009-May 2011.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon continued to rise as Brazil's Congress weighed a bill that would weaken the country's Forest Code, according to new analysis by Imazon.
Imazon's near-real time deforestation tracking system found that 165 square kilometers (103 square miles) of forest was cleared last month, a 72 percent rise over...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon continues to rise; clearing highest near Belo Monte dam siteNebraska nuclear reactor dry though surrounded by flood
Posted by Reuters: David Hendee on June 17th, 2011
Reuters: The Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Nebraska remains shut down due to Missouri River flooding, but the plant itself has not flooded and is expected to remain safe, the federal government said Friday.
The rising river "has certainly affected the site, but the plant itself, the actual reactor is still dry," said Scott Burnell, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman.
The 478-megawatt plant north of Omaha shut April 9 to refuel, and has remained shut because of the flooding, said Omaha Public...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Nebraska nuclear reactor dry though surrounded by floodFAO calls for better monitoring of water use
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 17th, 2011
SciDev.Net: There is a knowledge gap on water use in developing countries Developing countries are failing to account for where water is going, how it is being used and how much of it remains, according to a major report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The report, 'Climate change, water and food security', published earlier this month (9 June), aims to sum up current scientific understanding of the impacts of climate change on agriculture and agricultural water management, and to highlight...
Food price explosion ‘will devastate the world’s poor’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 17th, 2011
Guardian: Boats stranded by drought in central China last month; experts say this year's global harvest is in a 'critical' condition.
Food prices will soar by as much as 30% over the next 10 years, the United Nations and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have predicted.
Angel Gurría, secretary-general of the OECD, said that any further increase in global food prices, which have risen by 40% over the past year, will have a "devastating" impact on the world's poor and is likely to...
Regulators: Neb. nuclear plants prepared for flood
Posted by Associated Press: Josh Funk on June 17th, 2011
Associated Press: The pictures of a Nebraska nuclear power plant were startling: Floodwaters from the swollen Missouri River had risen nearly to the reactor building, with the potential to climb even higher.
Coming only a few months after Japan's nuclear disaster, the Associated Press images alarmed many people who saw them earlier this week. But nuclear regulators and the utility that runs the Fort Calhoun reactor say there is little cause for immediate concern.
The plant, encircled by a giant rubber barrier...
Putting Children in Harms Way
Posted by Inter Press Service: Miriam Gathigah on June 17th, 2011
Inter Press Service: It is late afternoon and the lone figure of nine-year-old Nancy Chepkemboi trudges home. To keep her head dry from the heavy rains, Chepkemboi has placed her books inside her shirt and used the polythene bag that is her school bag to cover her head.
The little girl cannot have her books wet because her teacher will send her home. But she also does not want to expose her head to the rain. With her teeth chattering from the cold, she says that for the past few days she has had to walk home in the...