RSS Feed
Archive for June, 2014
Farmers Can Help Slow Down Global Warming: Study
Posted by International Business Times: Parismita Goswami on June 10th, 2014
International Business Times: Farmers around the world could help reduce global climate change by using more-precise quantity of nitrogen-based fertilizers, according to a new study.
According to researchers at Michigan State University, nitrogen fertilizer contributes to emission of green house gas from agricultural fields.
The study involved data from across the world to prove that emission of nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas produced in soil and further application of nitrogen as fertilizer, increases the emission...
China’s deserts are expanding at an alarming rate. So it’s fighting back, with straw mats
Posted by Global Post: None Given on June 10th, 2014
Global Post: We were surrounded by sand.
It stretched in undulating waves to the horizon in all directions.
Wei Men, who works for the Baijitan Nature Reserve in Ningxia province, beckoned for us to step down from our desert overlook and take a close-up look at the desert floor. He wanted to show us what officials hope is the future of this arid stretch of China.
Ningxia is facing a big problem. A small and relatively poor province, its population is growing and it has ambitions to expand its industry...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on China’s deserts are expanding at an alarming rate. So it’s fighting back, with straw matsClimate change could lead to China-India water conflict
Posted by RTCC: Ed King on June 10th, 2014
RTCC: Melting Himalayan glaciers and erratic rainfall could exacerbate tensions between central Asian countries later this century, warn defence analysts in a new report.
They say droughts or extreme rains linked to climate change could place growing populations in China, India and Pakistan under increased stress.
Based on latest research by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the study has been published by the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change and Cambridge...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change could lead to China-India water conflictAmazon tribal chief SOS: the white man is destroying everything
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 10th, 2014
Independent: The Brazilian tribal leader who enlisted Sting to help save the Amazon rainforest has accused the developed world of being intent on “destroying everything” and urged its citizens to fundamentally change the way they think.
Twenty-five years ago, Chief Raoni Metuktire, of the indigenous Kayapo population, shot to international prominence as his campaign against hydroelectric dams on the Xingu river galvanized The Police’s frontman.
With the help of Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, Chief Raoni...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Amazon tribal chief SOS: the white man is destroying everythingGreenland Glacier Lost ‘Mountain Range’ Worth Ice Last Month
Posted by New York Magazine: Joe Coscarelli on June 10th, 2014
New York Magazine: For those who sleep soundly at night by telling themselves they'll be long gone by the time climate change matters: Environmentalist Bill McKibben points us toward glacier-watchers reporting that a gigantic one in Greenland has lost up to ten cubic kilometers in less than 30 days. Greenland, that's far away, right? And what's a cubic kilometer anyway?
Writes Robert Scribbler:
Think of something the size of a mountain. Now multiply that by ten and you end up with a veritable mountain range....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Greenland Glacier Lost ‘Mountain Range’ Worth Ice Last MonthAnother Coal Chemical Spill Pollutes Public Waterway, This Time in Kentucky
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on June 10th, 2014
EcoWatch: On Friday, May 30, another coal-related chemical spill polluted a public waterway in Central Appalachia, killing hundreds of fish and alarming local residents. The chemical spill happened at a Cumberland Coal Company prep plant in Harlan County, KY. This time, the spill was not of coal slurry or a coal-washing chemical, but of a flocculant—a type of compound usually used to control other substances in sediment ponds or clean up spilled material in creeks. Reminiscent of the slurry spill from the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Another Coal Chemical Spill Pollutes Public Waterway, This Time in KentuckySoot and Dirt Is Melting Snow and Ice Around the World
Posted by National Geographic: Dennis Dimick on June 10th, 2014
National Geographic: It's easy to imagine new snow so bright that we must avert our eyes even while wearing sunglasses. What scientists are discovering, though, is this brilliant whiteness of snow and ice is increasingly being dimmed by air pollution.
From Greenland's ice sheets to Himalayan glaciers and the snowpacks of western North America, layers of dust and soot are darkening the color of glaciers and snowpacks, causing them to absorb more solar heat and melt more quickly, and earlier in spring.
This trend...
New permafrost forming around shrinking Arctic lakes, but will it last?
Posted by PhysOrg: Katherine Gombay on June 10th, 2014
PhysOrg: Researchers from McGill and the U.S. Geological Survey, more used to measuring thawing permafrost than its expansion, have made a surprising discovery. There is new permafrost forming around Twelvemile Lake in the interior of Alaska. But they have also quickly concluded that, given the current rate of climate change, it won't last beyond the end of this century. Twelvemile Lake, and many others like it, is disappearing. Over the past thirty years, as a result of climate change and thawing permafrost,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on New permafrost forming around shrinking Arctic lakes, but will it last?A Dusty Greenland Is Speeding Up Glacial Melt
Posted by ThinkProgress: None Given on June 10th, 2014
ThinkProgress: Greenland provides one of the best real-time visuals of climate change - cleaving glaciers the size of buildings cascading into the ocean as one long, slow river of ice returning to the sea. A new study shows that a layer of dust covering much of Greenland`s ice sheet could be speeding up this process.
A paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience suggests that dust particles embedded in Greenland`s massive ice sheet are gathering more heat than the otherwise white, reflective surface would...
Dust Particles Are Speeding Up the Melting of Greenland’s Ice Shelf
Posted by Softpedia: None Given on June 10th, 2014
Softpedia: In a paper recently published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers argue that, according to evidence at hand, Greenland's ice shelf has high chances to get a whole lot smaller way sooner than anyone would expect. Since the melting of this massive block of ice is expected to translate into a noteworthy increase in global sea levels, specialists warn that, the faster it melts, the sooner and the worse coastal communities could be affected by this phenomenon. What's interesting...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Dust Particles Are Speeding Up the Melting of Greenland’s Ice Shelf