Research warns two degree rise will halve rainforest "carbon sink"

New study warns that even "safe" level of global warming will lead to huge increase in rainforest mortality rates by James Murray The impact of global warming on tropical rainforests will be so severe that even increases in temperature that are widely regarded as "safe" could raise tree mortality rates to such a level that […]

Uganda glaciers gone by 2025; malaria, drought, and crop failure to increase

  KAMPALA, 3 March 2009 (IRIN) – The ice caps on the Rwenzori Mountains along Uganda’s western border have receded significantly in the past century and could disappear completely in the next few years, experts said. "The results of recent mapping are alarming," Philip Gwage, assistant commissioner in charge of meteorology in the ministry of […]

Three-quarters of European bird species in decline

Climate change is already having an impact on European bird species, according to British scientists. Details of the study by an international team of researchers have been published in the journal Plos One. Some birds are expected to do well as temperatures rise, but these are in the minority, the researchers write. "Overall, the trend […]

Two-thirds of antelope species in decline

  The springbok is the only antelope species whose population is on the rise, according to a new review by the Red List for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In addition, over a quarter of the antelopes, 25 species out of 91, are considered threatened with extinction. “Unsustainable harvesting, whether for food […]

California home sites turn to wasteland

By Roger Vincent By day, it’s far too quiet at the site of a planned housing and retail development on a former Navy base in Oakland. At night, neighbors can hear the thieves come out. They rip out copper wire, haul away pipes and take anything else they can steal from dozens of buildings on […]

Oil producers running out of storage space

Glut caused by world slowdown leaves the world awash in crude NEW YORK – Supertankers that once raced around the world to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for oil are now parked offshore, fully loaded, anchors down, their crews killing time. In the United States, vast storage farms for oil are almost out of room. As […]

Mixed pesticide pollution deadly for fish

By JEFF BARNARD, AP Environmental Writer GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Common agricultural pesticides that attack the nervous systems of salmon can turn more deadly when they combine with other pesticides, researchers have found. Scientists from the NOAA Fisheries Service and Washington State University were expecting that the harmful effects would add up as they accumulated […]

Human factors suspected in mass whale beaching

by Lewis Smith Conservationists are demanding an immediate and thorough inquiry into what they say is the suspicious stranding of 200 whales and dolphins. Fears that the mass stranding on an Australian beach on Sunday was caused by human disturbance were raised because two species of cetacean came ashore simultaneously. Most of the animals were […]

Chesapeake dead zone covers 40% of bay; crab fishery declared federal disaster

By Andy Sullivan REEDVILLE, Virginia (Reuters) – It doesn’t look like a disaster area. Crab boats dart back and forth on this inlet of the Chesapeake Bay as they have for generations. On the shore, million-dollar vacation homes catch the morning sun. But watermen aren’t pulling blue crabs out of the Bay this winter. After […]

Graph of the Day: Saudi Crude Oil Production

If Saudi Arabia’s oil production has peaked, then global production has peaked. From The Oil Drum: Saudi Arabia’s historical crude oil production indicates a peak of 9.6 million barrels/day in 2005. In 2008, crude production was 9.3 mbd. In 2009 it is forecast to be 8.1 mbd followed by an increase in 2010 to 8.5 […]

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