[This is Desdemona’s kind of satire.] WASHINGTON, 26 January 2012 (The Onion) – Saying there’s no way around it at this point, a coalition of scientists announced Thursday that one-third of the world population must die to prevent wide-scale depletion of the planet’s resources—and that humankind needs to figure out immediately how it wants to […]
By Gopal Sharma; editing by Paul Casciato27 January 2012 BARAHBISE, Nepal (Reuters) – Looking at the swirling grey waters of the Bhote Koshi River, Ratna Kaji remembers when it turned into a “monster,” leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. “It came down roaring, washed away homes and people when they were sleeping,” the […]
By David Fogarty; Editing by Ron Popeski and Sanjeev Miglani26 January 2012 SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A 15-km (10 mile) stretch of crisp white beach is one of the key battlegrounds in Singapore’s campaign to defend its hard-won territory against rising sea levels linked to climate change. Stone breakwaters are being enlarged on the low-lying island […]
[Apologies in advance for the ad.] By Kyung Lah, CNN26 January 2012 Inside Fukushima Exclusion Zone, Japan (CNN) – When you stand in the center of Japan’s exclusion zone, there is absolute silence. The exclusion zone is the 20-kilometer (12-mile) radius around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, an area of high radiation contamination. On March […]
By arevamirpal::laprimavera 26 January 2012 When it was someone else’s problem (Chernobyl), Japan was telling the truth about the effect of radiation, particularly on children. Here’s Tokyo Brown Tabby’s translation and captioning of a TV program from 1993. Ironically, the female newscaster has morphed into one of the strongest proponents (even today) of nuclear power […]
23 January 2012 (UNEP) – Industrially produced nutrient fertilizers (nitrogen, phosphorus) are essential to global food security and have been the main driver of dramatically improved agricultural yields over the last sixty years to feed a growing population. At the same time, excess nutrients from inefficient use in farming and insufficient treatment of nutrients in […]
26 January 2012 (AP) – Thailand’s revered national symbol, the elephant, may face a new threat of extinction: being poached not just for their tusks, but for their meat. Two wild elephants were found slaughtered last month in a national park in western Thailand, alerting authorities to the new practice of consuming elephant meat “The […]
25 January 2012 (Agence France-Presse) – The worldwide fishing industry could benefit from a $50 billion boost annually if stocks were allowed time to recover, the UN said Wednesday. Already 32 percent of the world’s fish stocks have been depleted by years of overfishing and poor coastal management, according to a UN Environment Programme report […]
By MORT ROSENBLUM and MAR CABRA25 January 2012 TALCAHUANO, Chile – Eric Pineda, a dock agent in this old port south of Santiago, peered deep into the Achernar’s hold at a measly 10 tons of jack mackerel — the catch after four days in waters once so rich they filled the 17-meter fishing boat in […]
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO24 January 2012 SÃO PAULO, Brazil – Brazil has made great strides in recent years in slowing Amazon deforestation and showing the world it was serious about protecting the mammoth rain forest. The rate of deforestation fell by 80 percent over the past six years, as the government carved out about 150 million […]
