Madagascar sanctions logging of national parks

www.wildmadagascar.org via MongabayJanuary 11, 2010 Madagascar has legalized the export of rosewood logs, possibly ushering in renewed logging of the country’s embattled rainforest parks. The transitional authority led by president Andry Rajoelina, who seized power during a military coup last March, today released a decree that allows the export of rosewood logs harvested from the […]

Australia oyster farming collapses

By DEBRA JOPSONJanuary 12, 2010 They are the farmers who play god to the oysters which feed Sydney. In Tuross Lake there are no longer natural tides since the big dry closed the nearby river entrance to the sea last year, so Graeme Campbell and his son Daniel replicate the flow which keeps their stock […]

Deadly jellyfish bloom off Australia coast

By MARISSA CALLIGEROSJanuary 12, 2010 – 1:54PM Potentially deadly marine stingers may be blooming in unprecedented numbers off the Queensland coast, as far south as Moreton Bay. But a request by a world-leading expert  to study the phenomenon has been denied by the Australian Research Council, despite mounting evidence overseas and a series of recent […]

Now, the Chinese bubble is set to burst

By David Barboza, The New York Times James S Chanos built one of the largest fortunes on Wall Street by foreseeing the collapse of Enron and other highflying companies whose stories were too good to be true. Now Chanos, a wealthy hedge fund investor, is working to bust the myth of the biggest conglomerate of […]

Shattered Dubai dream echoes across Mideast

Laid off workers leave ‘in tears’; remittances dry up, cutting funds to region AMMAN, Jordan – Mahmoud Tamimi’s friends call it the “Dubai syndrome” — the insatiable longing for a city he loves but was forced to leave. Back in Dubai, the 31-year-old had a good job, nice apartment and a $3,700 monthly salary, dozens […]

Graph of the Day: Australia Mean Temperature Deciles, 1950-Present

2009 ends Australia’s warmest decade on record, with a decadal mean temperature anomaly of +0.48°C (above the 1961-90 average). In Australia, each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the preceding decade. In contrast, decadal temperature variations during the first few decades of Australia’s climate record do not display any specific trend. This suggests […]

Debris from melting glaciers chokes Mount Rainier rivers

The fallout from Mount Rainier’s shrinking glaciers is beginning to roll downhill, and nowhere is the impact more striking than on the volcano’s west side. By Sandi Doughton, Seattle Times science reporter National Park Service geologist Paul Kennard walks over a portion of Tahoma Creek where glacial sediment has spilled into forest. Mount Rainier’s glaciers […]

‘The Green Drought’: Floodwaters fail to stop drought's creep across New South Wales

By SAFFRON HOWDEN AND JESSICA MAHARJanuary 12, 2010 Roads remain submerged in floodwater, ghostly rivers have risen from the dead, paddocks are a sea of green, and mosquitoes are breeding like it’s the tropics. Welcome to the drought, NSW style. Despite a surge of devastating floodwaters through parts of the west and central west since […]

Human expansion leading to 'extinction crisis', UN warns

Human expansion is wiping out species at about 1,000 times the “natural” or “background” rate and something must be done to slow the decline, according to the United Nations. The UN will launch the International Year of Biodiversity today, warning that the on-going loss of species around the globe will seriously affect the future of […]

‘Amazon Chernobyl’: 18 billion gallons of toxic waste dumped in Amazon waters

A film released this week in Britain recounts the 16-year battle by Ecuadorians for damages against Chevron for oil pollution By Esme McAvoy It’s barely eight in the morning and already the dusty oil town of Lago Agrio, on the fringes of the Ecuadorian Amazon, is sweltering. Its name means “sour lake” in Spanish, after […]

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