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Archive for September, 2012
Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity
Posted by Earth Policy Institute: None Given on September 27th, 2012
Earth Policy Institute: “The U.S. Great Drought of 2012 has raised corn prices to the highest level in history. The world price of food, which has already doubled over the last decade, is slated to climb higher, ushering in a new wave of food unrest,” says Lester R. Brown, author of Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity (W.W. Norton & Company).
“This year’s corn crop shortfall will accelerate the transition from the era of abundance and surpluses to an era of chronic scarcity,” notes Brown,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food ScarcityOpen Letter to Obama and Romney Calls for End to Keystone XL Pipeline
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on September 27th, 2012
EcoWatch: Today, Tom Weis and allies released an Open Letter calling on President Obama and Governor Romney to withdraw their support for Keystone XL on economic, public health and national security grounds. In addition to affected ranchers, farmers and indigenous leaders, signatories include Lester Brown, Daryl Hannah, James Hansen, Mariel Hemingway, Bill McKibben, Bonnie Raitt, Ed Begley, Jr. and race car driver Leilani Münter.
Tomorrow, Weis begins a 4-week “rocket trike” tour of the eastern plains and...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Open Letter to Obama and Romney Calls for End to Keystone XL PipelineUnited Kingdom: Scattering moss can restore key carbon sink
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2012
New Scientist: "Save the bogs" isn't as catchy as "save the whales", but the cause is just as worthwhile. UK peat bogs damaged by 150 years of pollution are to be restored with a scattering of tiny mosses. The rebuilt bogs should improve water quality and could slow climate change. In the future, they might even be used to geoengineer a cooler climate by storing carbon dioxide.
Peat bogs depend on a protective layer of sphagnum moss that traps the peat layers, as well as providing the raw material for new peat....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Scattering moss can restore key carbon sinkWorld Bank agrees to fund project related to controversial Gibe III dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2012
Mongabay: Originally refusing to provide funding to Ethiopia's controversial Gibe III hydroelectric dam, the World Bank has now announced plans to fund the power lines that will carry generated electricity away from it. In their official statement they report that the lines will "connect Ethiopia’s electrical grid with Kenya’s, create power-sharing between the two countries, reduce energy costs, promote sustainable and renewable power generation [and] better protect the region’s environment...eventually benefiting...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on World Bank agrees to fund project related to controversial Gibe III damToo soon to tap Namibia’s groundwater find, experts say
Posted by SciDevNet: Servaas van Den Bosch on September 27th, 2012
SciDevNet: The extraction of the much needed water from a large underground aquifer in northern Namibia may need to wait for further studies, officials have warned at a water investment conference. The aquifer, discovered in July, may contain enough water to sustain about one million people living in the area for 400 years at the current consumption rate, as well as boost development through irrigation in this poor, heavily overgrazed area where women and children walk for hours to get fresh water from boreholes....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Too soon to tap Namibia’s groundwater find, experts sayAs Temperatures Climb, Salt Marshes Curb Climate Change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2012
redOrbit: With only 6 days separating us from the third-hottest summer on record, the warnings of climate scientists are increasingly being taken with more than just a grain of salt. Many climate scientists are of the opinion that if we haven’t passed a tipping point already, then that time is rapidly approaching.
Carbon dioxide, one of the most prevalent of our greenhouse gases, acts as a sort of blanket in our atmosphere by trapping in the Earth’s heat. As carbon dioxide accumulates, it has the ability...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on As Temperatures Climb, Salt Marshes Curb Climate ChangeWorst flood for decades uproots 10,000 in central Nigeria
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2012
Reuters: Nigeria's worst flooding in decades has displaced more than 10,000 people in the centre of the country over the past week and stranded some villagers on rooftops, emergency services said on Thursday.
At least 140 people have been killed around Nigeria and tens of thousands have been forced to abandon their homes since the beginning of July, officials say. The flooding has been the worst for more than 50 years, according to Yushua Shuaib, a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Worst flood for decades uproots 10,000 in central NigeriaStudy examines forest vulnerability to climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 27th, 2012
PhysOrg: Mid-elevation forests - those between approximately 6,500 to 8,000 feet (1,981 to 2,438 meters) in elevation - are the most sensitive to rising temperatures and changes in precipitation and snowmelt associated with climate change, finds a new University of Colorado Boulder-led study co-funded by NASA. The study looked at how the greenness of Western U.S. forests is linked to fluctuations in year-to-year snowpack.
A research team led by CU-Boulder researcher Ernesto Trujillo used satellite and...
Interview: Using the Internet to Identify Millions of New Species
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Diane Toomey on September 27th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: Each year, about 18,000 new species of plants and animals are discovered and described by science. That may sound like a lot, but entomologist and taxonomist Quentin Wheeler thinks it is woefully inadequate. Wheeler is the founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University, and along with such renowned colleagues as E.O. Wilson and Peter Raven, he is calling for an intensive international effort in the next 50 years to discover the estimated 8 to...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Interview: Using the Internet to Identify Millions of New SpeciesLivelihoods depend on the environment in the Western Ghats
Posted by Mongabay: Viraj Singh on September 27th, 2012
Mongabay: In the Uttar Kannada district of the Western Ghats, the livelihood of the average individual depends largely on the well being of the environment. Six months ago, before large-scale mangrove planting of the area, if someone were to walk through the banks of the mangroves in the Western Ghats he would see many fishermen casting their long nets and wires, time and time again noticing pieces of trash such as plastic grocery bags tangled in the nets.
Problems like plastic bags in the Western Ghats...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Livelihoods depend on the environment in the Western Ghats