Abstract: The “climate dice” describing the chance of an unusually warm or cool season, relative to the climatology of 1951-1980, have progressively become more “loaded” during the past 30 years, coincident with increased global warming. The most dramatic and important change of the climate dice is the appearance of a new category of extreme climate […]
Geneva, Oct 15, (IANS) – At least 650 people have died and over eight million people have been affected by floods and typhoons in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and the Philippines, the UN has said. So far, Thailand and Cambodia are the worst affected and the situation is expected to worsen as more rains, high […]
24 January 2012 (Radio New Zealand) – Salvage work on the Rena reached a milestone on Tuesday with all containers holding hazardous material now removed from the upper decks of the vessel. Thirty-two containers of dangerous goods, including flammable and toxic chemicals, were on board the Rena when it ran aground on Astrolabe Reef on […]
[Here’s a Desdemona-approved doom essay, via Guy McPherson.] By John Rember14 January 2012 […] I’ve decided it’s better to be an honest observer of a dark world than to make up cheery lies for people desperate to spend their lives in culturally-prescribed illusion. If I wanted to make up lies I would have gone into […]
Contact: Yan ZhongWei, yzw@tea.ac.cnScience in China Press24 January 2012 The Twenty-four Solar Terms are ancient Chinese terms used for about 2000 years. They describe 24 stages or timings associated with seasonal changes in phenology and agricultural activity throughout a year. Qian et al. from the Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment for East Asia, Chinese Academy […]
January 24 (mongabay.com) – The Sumatran elephant subspecies (Elephas maximus sumatranus) was downgraded to critically endangered on IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species on Tuesday, prompting environmental group WWF to call for an immediate moratorium on destruction of its rainforest habitat, which is being rapidly lost to oil palm estates, timber plantations for pulp and […]
By Yoko Kubota and Shinichi Saoshiro; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher24 January 2012 TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s energy minister admitted on Tuesday that no records were kept of top level discussions in the critical early days on how to respond to the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 25 years. The admission, and apology, by Trade Minister […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com24 January 2012 You can buy pretty much anything on the internet: from Rugby team garden gnomes to Mickey Mouse lingerie. In some places, consumers have even been able to purchase illegal wildlife parts, such as ivory and rhino horn. In fact, the internet has opened up the black market wildlife trade […]
By FELICITY BARRINGER23 January 2012 To see how thoroughly the concept of ecosystem services — the economic analysis of the natural world’s intersection with human endeavors — is embedded in climate change research, check out this forecast from a group led by researchers at Duke University and the Environmental Defense Fund. It examines the future […]
By Rudy Ruitenberg23 January 2012 Food waste was denounced by farm ministers and policy makers gathered in Berlin as almost 1 billion people in developing countries go hungry. Consumers in rich countries dispose of 220 million metric tons of food waste every year, equal to the entire food output of sub-Saharan Africa, Jose Graziano da […]
