IT’S NOT OIL: No one in the area can recall seeing anything like it before. By Don Hunter Something big and strange is floating through the Chukchi Sea between Wainwright and Barrow. Hunters from Wainwright first started noticing the stuff sometime probably early last week. It’s thick and dark and "gooey" and is drifting for […]
By JULIET WILLIAMS SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told state employee unions Tuesday his administration would cut another 2,000 jobs to help close California’s $26.3 billion budget deficit. Meanwhile, Moody’s Investor Services downgraded California bonds to near-junk status, from A2 to Baa1, and placed the state’s credit rating on watch for possible further […]
By Noreen Parks In addition to weakening Earth’s natural shield against excessive radiation levels, ozone depletion above Antarctica has significantly dampened the Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb atmospheric CO2 and has accelerated acidification of southern polar waters, according to new research reported online June 20 in Geophysical Research Letters (2009, DOI 10.1029/2009GL038227). Of the atmospheric […]
By Faisal Mohammad Ali, BBC News, Bhopal One of India’s main tiger parks – Panna National Park – has admitted it no longer has any tigers. The park, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, was part of the country’s efforts to save the famous Royal Bengal Tiger from extinction. State Minister of Forests Rajendra […]
From Calculated Risk: This graph shows Capacity Utilization. This series is at another record low (the series starts in 1967). In addition to the weakness in industrial production, there is little reason for investment in new production facilities until capacity utilization recovers. … Industrial Production Declines, Capacity Utilization at Record Low in June Technorati Tags: […]
It appears that the largest Arctic glacier, the Petermann glacier in Greenland, is about to get a bit smaller. Reports from scientists monitoring the situation indicate that a chuck of ice the size of Manhattan (100 sq. kilometers) is about the fall off, with the suspected cause being at least partially to do with […]
By Matt Weiser California’s San Joaquin Valley has lost 60 million acre-feet of groundwater since 1961, according to a new federal study. That’s enough water for 60 Folsom reservoirs. This is among the findings in a massive study of groundwater in California’s Central Valley by the U.S. Geological Survey. It helps shed light on the […]
While their trade has been prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) since 2002, Asian pangolin populations are rapidly declining due to poaching for use in traditional Chinese medicine, report conservationists. Trade has nearly wiped out the species in Cambodia, Viet Nam and Laos, once strongholds […]
Update: Better late than never. Heavy rain eases Mumbai’s water woes By Himangshu Watts NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India is scrambling to divert power supplies to the countryside to irrigate rice and oilseed crops and limit damage after the worst start to the vital monsoon season in eight decades has raised fears of a drought. […]
San Joaquin Valley farms are laying off workers and letting fields lie fallow as their water ration falls. By Alana Semuels Reporting from Mendota, Calif. — Water built the semi-arid San Joaquin Valley into an agricultural powerhouse. Drought and irrigation battles now threaten to turn huge swaths of it into a dust bowl. Farmers have […]
