By Rhett A. Butler24 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – By some estimates, more than 30,000 elephants were slaughtered across the savannas and forests of Africa and Asia for the ivory trade during 2012. The carnage represents as much as 4 percent of the world’s elephant population. Accordingly, some conservationists are warning that elephants face imminent extinction […]
By Jeremy Hance24 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – When Typhoon Bopha, also known as Pablo, ran ashore on Mindanao, it was the largest tropical storm ever to hit the Philippine island. In its wake, the massive superstorm left over 1,000 people dead and 6.2 million affected, with officials saying illegal logging and mining worsened the scale […]
MANILA, Philippines, 25 January 2013 (ABS-CBNnews.com) – Two crane ships from Singapore are arriving before the end of the month to extract the USS Guardian from Tubbataha Reef in Palawan, the Philippine Coast Guard said Friday. “They are waiting for two ships with heavy cranes that will be coming from Singapore and then they will […]
By Steve Connor24 January 2013 A secretive funding organisation in the United States that guarantees anonymity for its billionaire donors has emerged as a major operator in the climate “counter movement” to undermine the science of global warming, The Independent has learnt. The Donors Trust, along with its sister group Donors Capital Fund, based in […]
By Leesha McKenny, Urban Affairs Reporter25 January 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – When the news came through, the fourth-generation oyster farmer Rob Moxham said it made him feel sick to his stomach. Tests this week confirmed that the Pacific oyster mortality syndrome had reached the Hawkesbury’s tributary, Mullet Creek, the local industry’s nursery for juvenile […]
By PAUL FOY24 January 2013 SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Michelle Francis keeps one eye on Utah’s air quality index and the other on her 9-year-old daughter’s chronic asthma these days. The air pollution is so awful in her Salt Lake City suburb that Francis keeps her daughter indoors on many days to prevent her […]
MANILA, Philippines, 23 January 2013 (ABS-CBNnews.com) – The US Navy minesweeper ship USS Guardian damaged at least 1,000 square meters of coral reefs in Tubbataha Reef in Palawan when it ran aground Thursday, according to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG). Lt. Cmdr. Armand Balilo, spokesman of the PCG, said the estimated damage was based on […]
22 January 2013 (PA) – TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough has warned that human beings have become a “plague on the Earth”. The 86-year-old broadcaster said the negative effects of climate change and population growth would be seen in the next 50 years. He told the Radio Times: “It’s coming home to roost over the […]
By Jeremy Hance22 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – Glaciers are melting faster than ever in the tropical Andes, warns a new study published in The Cryosphere, which puts the blame for vanishing glaciers squarely on climate change. The study — the most comprehensive to date — found that since the 1970s glacier melt in the region […]
By Michael Carlowicz23 January 2013 (NASA Earth Observatory) – January 2013 brought record-setting heat to Australia; not just for days, but for weeks. Temperatures regularly eclipsed 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in multiple locations across the continent. According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Australia set a new record for the highest temperature averaged […]