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Archive for August, 2011
Sustainability 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...
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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....
Permafrost carbon could up global warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 25th, 2011
United Press International: Global warming may accelerate as billions of tons of carbon trapped in permafrost moves into the atmosphere by the end of this century, U.S. researchers say.
Warming with climate change could cause soil in high-latitude regions to change from being a carbon sink, storing carbon dioxide, to a source of atmospheric CO2 by the end of the 21st century, computer modeling conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory indicates.
The finding contradicts earlier...
Canadian Activist Arrested at White House Protest Tells Her Story
Posted by Treehugger: None Given on August 24th, 2011
Treehugger: Canadian activist Patricia Warwick fights climate change at Climate Action Now and went to Washington for the Keystone XL protest. She tells TreeHugger about her experience in this TreeHugger exclusive.
Back in June, when I heard about the protest being planned for Washington D.C. to convince President Obama not to approve the construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, I jumped at the chance to take a stand.
For the last two years I've been concerned about this proposed pipeline that...
Austin Plagued By Record Heat Wave
Posted by National Public Radio: John Burnett on August 24th, 2011
National Public Radio: MELISSA BLOCK, host: Today, at around 2:00 p.m. in Austin, Texas, an unhappy record was broken. This is the 70th day this year that temperatures there have exceeded 100 degrees. That broke the city's record of triple digit days set in 1925.
NPR's John Burnett sent us this postcard from the scorched streets of the Texas capitol.
JOHN BURNETT: It's always hot in Texas in the summer, but this one has been like no other in memory. The heat is like a malevolent force. People are sweaty, people are...
Study: Climate cycles may cause wars
Posted by Politico: Darius Dixon on August 24th, 2011
Politico: Studying conflicts occurring between 1950 and 2004, the probability of new violence throughout tropical regions of the world double during the hot, dry periods of El Niño years relative to cool, wet La Niña conditions. The data included 175 countries and 234 conflicts.
Overall, the team calculated that El Niño may have played a role in a fifth of civil wars worldwide during the span of the study.
"We believe that these findings represent the first major evidence that the global climate is a...
Peru passes landmark indigenous rights legislation
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 24th, 2011
Mongabay: A new administration in Peru is moving toward granting indigenous people long-sought legal rights, reports Survival International. Yesterday, the Peruvian congress approved new legislation that gives indigenous people free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for any project on their land. If signed into law and enforced, the legislation would provide indigenous groups considerable clout in keeping industry off their lands if they choose.
The legislation still has to be signed by new President Ollanta...