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Archive for August 25th, 2011
Scientists discover massive underground river 13,000 feet beneath the Amazon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2011
Mongabay: Researchers at Brazil's National Observatory have discovered evidence of a massive underground river flowing deep beneath the Amazon River, reports the AFP.
Presenting this week at the 12th International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society in Rio de Janeiro, Elizabeth Tavares Pimentel reported the existence of a 6,000-kilometer-long (3,700-mile) river flowing some 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) under the Amazon.
Like the Amazon, the river flows west to east, but is considerably wider...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Scientists discover massive underground river 13,000 feet beneath the AmazonLos Angeles River Tries on New Role, as Waterway
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2011
New York Times: As they stood on the bank, the small and eager group exchanged the requisite disparaging jokes about the Los Angeles River, best known for its uninviting concrete channels that make many think of a drainage ditch.
"You think we'll turn into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle if the water touches us?' asked Aaron Goldstein, one of the group.
They could be forgiven for their dark humor. After all, there had not been an approved float trip down the river in more than seven decades. For many people,...
Malaysia: FBI questioned over ties with corrupt official
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2011
Mongabay: Logging roads and damaged forest in Sarawak compared with healthy forest in Brunei. In March Taib claimed that 70 percent of Sarawak's forest was "intact", a claim that was quickly undermined with a simple "flyover" using Google Earth. Photo courtesy of Google Earth.
Activists are questioning the FBI over the agency's rental of office space in a building owned by the family of a controversial Malaysian official.
The Bruno Manser Fund and the Borneo Project, groups that campaign on behalf of...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Malaysia: FBI questioned over ties with corrupt officialAfrica Remains Hamstrung in Battle for Water and Sanitation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2011
Inter Press Service: The statistics coming out of Africa are staggering: 40 percent of Africa’s 1 billion people live in urban areas and 60 percent live in slums, where water supplies and sanitation are "severely inadequate", according to the Nairobi-based U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).
The worst affected are countries in sub-Saharan Africa where shortage of financial resources, bureaucratic mismanagement and lack of political leadership are hampering progress towards resolving longstanding problems relating to...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Africa Remains Hamstrung in Battle for Water and SanitationMartin Luther King’s legacy and the power of nonviolent civil disobedience
Posted by Guardian: Bill McKibben on August 25th, 2011
Guardian: I didn't think it was possible, but my admiration for Martin Luther King, Jr., grew even stronger these past days. As I headed to jail as part of the first wave of what is turning into the biggest civil disobedience action in the environmental movement for many years, I had the vague idea that I would write something. Not an epic like King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," but at least, you know, a blog post. Or a tweet.
But frankly, I wasn't up to it. The police, surprised by how many people...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Martin Luther King’s legacy and the power of nonviolent civil disobedienceSustainability will remain a pipe dream until leaders understand ‘security’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2011
Guardian: A camel takes a drink in Jordan. The Middle East faces conflict if its water shortage is not tackled. Let's go back to basics – historically and conceptually. The cornerstone of security for all civilisations before the Industrial Age was land and water: without secure tenure of the land underpinning the lives of one's citizens, any ruler's tenure was short-lived. Without water, farming and productive enterprise was impossible. Armies were conscripted either to protect one's own land and water, or...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Sustainability will remain a pipe dream until leaders understand ‘security’Climate Shifts Cause War
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2011
Mother Jones: Top military brass, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the UN Secretary General have all warned that climate change will create conflicts in the future. But environmental shifts are already causing wars, argues a team of experts in a new paper in Nature (PDF) published this month.
El Niño, the oscillating period of warmer temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, brings with it higher temperatures on land and lower rainfall every three to seven years. According to the researchers, the weather phenomenon...
China Wages Water War
Posted by India Today: None Given on August 25th, 2011
India Today: China is calling it a run-of-the-river project and, for now, India is buying its explanation. After months of debate over Beijing's plans to divert the Brahmaputra, the prime minister assured the Rajya Sabha on August 4 that there was no cause for concern. "We have been assured that nothing will be done which affects India's interests adversely," Manmohan Singh told the Rajya Sabha in reply to a question put to External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna.
While there may not be any immediate danger...
Tanzania: Drop in malaria in Africa raises questions
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2011
United Press International: The incidence of malaria in many African countries south of the Sahara is falling rapidly but Danish and Tanzanian researchers say they don't know why.
The mosquito carrying the malaria parasite has practically disappeared from many villages without organized mosquito control, but it is not known whether malaria is truly being eradicated or just in a lull before returning with renewed vigor, a University of Copenhagen release said Thursday.
"Many of our fellow malaria researchers think that...
U.S. Geologists Sharply Cut Estimate Of Shale Gas
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2011
New York Times: Federal geologists published new estimates this week for the amount of natural gas that exists in a giant rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, which stretches from New York to Virginia.
The shale formation has about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas, according to the report from the United States Geological Survey. This is drastically lower than the 410 trillion cubic feet that was published earlier this year by the federal Energy Information Administration....