Australia’s wettest spring on record causing floods, crop failures, evacuations, and locust plagues – ‘2010 held so much hope for our farmers’

By Hamish Boland-RudderDecember 7, 2010 AS NSW counts the cost of crop losses, evacuations, and property destruction brought by flooding rains, communities are preparing to deal with the human side of the disaster. The Macquarie River, which flows through the Warren Shire, has reached its highest level in 20 years after more than 100 millimetres […]

Receding glaciers on Mount Rainier threaten park’s major roadways

By Jeffrey P. Mayor, The Tacoma News Tribune12/06/1012:01 pm The greatest threat to the busiest road in Mount Rainier National Park is the mountain itself. Receding glaciers, loose rocks and boulders, glacial outbursts and debris flows could combine to cut off Nisqually-Paradise Road. Half the 1.2 million people who typically visit the park each year […]

Subarctic wildfires a ‘runaway climate change’ risk

By Marlowe Hood – Sun Dec 5, 1:57 pm ET PARIS (AFP) – Global warming is driving forest fires in northern latitudes to burn more frequently and fiercely, contributing to the threat of runaway climate change, according to a study released Sunday. Increased intensity of fires in Alaska’s vast interior over the last decade has […]

Louisiana oyster beds remain empty after BP disaster

By Paul AdamsBBC News, Louisiana Louisiana’s oyster beds have not recovered from the US’s worst environmental catastrophe, the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig disaster, and some fishermen fear they never will.  … The oysters were good but hardly plentiful. At this, the season of peak demand, far too many were simply dead. Not, as you might think, […]

World Bank: Cities should step up climate change fight

CANCUN, Mexico, Dec 4 (Reuters) — Cities should play a much bigger role in fighting global warming and can act more easily than governments struggling to agree on a UN climate accord, the World Bank said today. “The 10 biggest cities in the world emit more greenhouse gases than Japan,” Andrew Steer, the World Bank’s […]

Sperm whales full of pollutants

Even whales near the supposedly pristine Galapagos Islands carry disturbing levels of man-made pollutants in their bodies. By Jennifer ViegasMon Dec 6, 2010 08:49 AM ET Sperm whales throughout the Pacific Ocean carry evidence within their bodies of exposure to multiple man-made pollutants, according to a new Environmental Health Perspectives study. In a surprising finding, […]

Maya village in Mexico suffers as climate changes

By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Sun Dec 5, 4:59 pm ET TABI, Mexico – The first time Araceli Bastida Be heard the phrase “climate change” was on TV two years ago. Then she began to understand why strange things had been happening in her village. Tabi was in its second year of drought, and the […]

Mideast prays for rain as balmy weather lengthens drought

Nicosia (AFP) Dec 3, 2010 – Israeli firefighters are battling a deadly forest fire as unseasonably warm weather blankets a tinder dry Middle East, and some countries are even organising prayers for rain. Thousands of Israeli firemen and rescuers fought to put out the fire on the second day running, as international help poured in […]

Jellyfish are taking over the oceans: Population surge as rising acidity of world’s seas kills predators

By David Derbyshire3 December 2010 Britain’s beaches could soon be inundated with records numbers of jellyfish, marine experts warned today. Scientists say the number of jellyfish are on the rise thanks to the increasing acidity of the world’s oceans. The warning comes in a new report into ocean acidification – an often overlooked side effect […]

7 million Pakistan flood victims face grim winter – Crisis ‘underestimated from the start and then quickly forgotten’

By Matt WadeDecember 4, 2010 UNDERESTIMATED from the start and then quickly forgotten. That is how aid workers have summed up the international reaction to the Pakistan floods, one of the worst natural disasters in modern times. More than four months after the emergency, more than 10 million are still receiving daily emergency assistance and […]

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