RSS Feed
Archive for January 6th, 2013
Frantic fight to save frogs from killer fungus
Posted by Washington Post: William Booth on January 6th, 2013
Washington Post: In moist, mossy rooms, rows of glass aquariums bathed in an eerie light shelter the last of the last of the frogs. It is a secure facility, for here reside the sole survivors of their species, rescued from the wild before a modern plague swept through their home forests and streams in a ferocious doomsday event that threatens these amphibians with extinction. Time is running out. In what may be the greatest disease-driven loss of biodiversity in recorded history, hundreds of frog species around...
Climate change is here, it is real and it is bad
Posted by Washington Times: None Given on January 6th, 2013
Washington Times: Climate change is here. Climate change is real. There is no use denying it is made worse by greenhouse gas emissions. The real questions to ask are: why should we care?
1. Disasters cost too much money
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the biggest threat to our economy, both long term and short term, is climate change. From a short term perspective, Hurricane Sandy (worsened by rising sea levels) caused damage and losses estimated by the governors of NY, NJ and CT at $82 billion....
Looking to sky to fight climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 6th, 2013
San Francisco Chronicle: One afternoon last fall, Armand Neukermans, a tall engineer with a sweep of silver bangs, flipped on a noisy pump in the back corner of a Sunnyvale lab. Within moments, a fine mist emerged from a tiny nozzle, a haze of salt water under high pressure and heat.
It didn't look like much. But this seemingly simple vapor carries a lot of hope - and inspires a lot of fear. If Neukermans' team of researchers can fine-tune the mechanism to spray just the right size and quantity of salt particles into...
In Fields and Markets, Guatemalans Feels Squeeze of Biofuel Demand
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 6th, 2013
New York Times: In the tiny tortillerias of this city, people complain ceaselessly about the high price of corn. Just three years ago, one quetzal — about 15 cents — bought eight tortillas; today it buys only four. And eggs have tripled in price because chickens eat corn feed. Meanwhile, in rural areas, subsistence farmers struggle to find a place to sow their seeds. On a recent morning, José Antonio Alvarado was harvesting his corn crop on the narrow median of Highway 2 as trucks zoomed by. “We’re farming here...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on In Fields and Markets, Guatemalans Feels Squeeze of Biofuel DemandUnited Kingdom: Weather: Could every cloud have a sinister lining?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 6th, 2013
Independent: When it came to weather, my parents were like those two little figures who alternate in emerging from the barometrically sensitive model house. My mother was the gloomy one, ever-armed with umbrella (and Pac-a-mac, for good measure), ever-ready with gloomy forebodings ("Sun before seven, rain by 11" was a favourite way to greet a cheery morning). My father was the sunny type, able to discern patches of incipient blue in the most leaden skies and who would describe each fall of rain, however prolonged...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Weather: Could every cloud have a sinister lining?