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Archive for January, 2012
UN conference returns to Rio with new emphasis
Posted by Associated Press: Michael Astor on January 25th, 2012
Associated Press: Representatives from around the world will be returning to Rio de Janeiro this June -- 20 years after the U.N. Earth Summit -- but this time the focus will be on sustainable development, not climate change, a Brazilian diplomat said Tuesday.
Andre Correa do Lago, who heads the Brazilian delegation negotiating a draft of the outcome document for "Rio plus 20," said that climate change was too sensitive an issue for many countries, while sustainable development was something everybody could get...
Not All Wetlands Are Created Equal
Posted by New York Times: Rachel Nuwer on January 24th, 2012
New York Times: To many, it’s a familiar scenario: a strip mall suddenly pops up in what was once a desolate quagmire or boggy boondock.
But people are coming to realize that these seemingly wasted plots where land meets water provide a valuable ecological service. In addition to nurturing biodiversity, wetlands purify water, produce fish, store carbon dioxide that would otherwise contribute to global warming, and protect shorelines from floods, storm surges and erosion.
Since the early 20th century, development...
Arsenic cancer risk still high decades later in Chile region
Posted by Reuters: Amy Norton on January 24th, 2012
Reuters: People exposed to very high levels of arsenic in Chilean drinking water back in the 1950s and 60s are still showing a higher-than-normal risk of bladder cancer -- years after the arsenic problem was brought under control, a new study shows.
The findings are not surprising, researchers say, since the cancer would take decades to emerge.
But the results underscore the importance of continuing to screen high-risk people for bladder cancer, according to lead researcher Dr. Fernando Coz, a professor...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Arsenic cancer risk still high decades later in Chile regionIn Famatina, Water Is Worth Far More Than Gold
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2012
Inter Press Service: Thousands of people in the northwest Argentine province of La Rioja are mobilising to stop an open-cast gold mining project in the Nevados de Famatina, a snowy peak that is the semi-arid area's sole source of drinking water.
La Rioja "is a dry province and we have just enough clean water to live on, but not to share with miners," one of the protesters, Héctor Artuso, a resident from the small town of Villa Pituil, in the Famatina area, told IPS.
Residents of Famatina and neighbouring Chilecito...
USGS uses airborne tool to map Alaska permafrost
Posted by Associated Press: Dan Joling on January 24th, 2012
Associated Press: The agency announced Monday that an airborne survey in Alaska's Yukon River drainage had collected unprecedented images of the presence and absence of permafrost down to 328 feet. The study used an electromagnetic survey tool flown beneath a helicopter.
"We really think we've got the story nailed down from these data," research geophysicist Burke Minsley said by phone from the Crustal Geophysics and Geochemistry Science Center in Denver.
Minsley is lead author of the study published Friday...
Climate Change and Farming: How Not to Go Hungry in a Warmer World
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2012
Time: Climate change might hit us in the most vital place of all -- the dinner plate Why do we care about climate change? Obviously we worry about what warming temperatures might do to the geography of the planet -- particularly melting polar ice and raising global sea levels. We fear the impact that climate change could have on endangered species, as warming temperatures speed the already rapid pace of extinction for wildlife that have been pushed to the edge by habitat loss and hunting. We focus on the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate Change and Farming: How Not to Go Hungry in a Warmer WorldShale Gas a Bridge to More Global Warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2012
Inter Press Service: Hundreds of thousands of shale gas wells are being "fracked" in the United States and Canada, allowing large amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, to escape into the atmosphere, new studies have shown.
Shale gas production results in 40 to 60 percent more global warming emissions than conventional gas, said Robert Howarth of Cornell University in New York State.
"Shale gas also has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than oil or coal over the short term," said Howarth, co-author...
Only Civil Society Can Save Rio+20, Say Activists
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 24th, 2012
Inter Press Service: Large-scale social mobilisation, including street protests and parallel activities, is the only thing can save the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) from ending in nothing but frustration, according to activists and analysts.
A repeat of the failure of recent conferences to negotiate an international climate change pact seems inevitable, said Cândido Grzybowski, the director general of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE) and one of the founders...
Complications of Hacking the Planet
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 23rd, 2012
New York Times: As scientists, with some reluctance, begin to study the idea of "geoengineering" the planet to slow or halt global warming, they are finding that any such program would quite likely have a complex array of effects, not all of them to humanity`s benefit.
In a paper released on Sunday by the journal Nature Climate Change, four California researchers used computer analysis to test the idea of managing incoming sunlight and predicted what that would do to crop yields. As an example of the strategies...
Freshwater Bulge in the Arctic
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 23rd, 2012
New York Times: Scientists suggest that a dome of freshwater in the western Arctic Ocean might eventually disturb the warm currents that assure relatively mild weather in Northern Europe.