By Betsy Blaney, The Associated Press17 December 2011 LUBBOCK, Texas – The worst drought in Texas’ history has led to the largest-ever one-year decline in the leading cattle-state’s cow herd, raising the likelihood of increased beef prices as the number of animals decline and demand remains strong. Since Jan. 1, the number of cows in […]
By Alan Buis, Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov, 818-354-0474, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CADecember 14, 2011 PASADENA, California – By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth’s land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type – such as forest, grassland or […]
The economy’s bust, the climate’s on the brink and even the arts are full of gloom. Has there ever been an era so bleak? By Andy Beckettm www.guardian.co.uk 18 December 2011 It is a crisp bright winter morning, but in a windowless basement gallery at Tate Britain, minutes after opening time, there is already quite […]
By JUSTIN GILLIS16 December 2011 FAIRBANKS, Alaska – A bubble rose through a hole in the surface of a frozen lake. It popped, followed by another, and another, as if a pot were somehow boiling in the icy depths. Every bursting bubble sent up a puff of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas generated beneath the […]
By Nataliya Vasilyeva, AP Business Writer 17 December 2011 USINSK, Russia – On the bright yellow tundra outside this oil town near the Arctic Circle, a pitch-black pool of crude stretches toward the horizon. The source: a decommissioned well whose rusty screws ooze with oil, viscous like jam. This is the face of Russia’s oil […]
In Ethiopia, a low-income country with 39 per cent of its 82.9 million people living below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day, according to the World Bank, hardship rather than rising expectations and better living standards may be the major factor in motivating young women and men in cities when family choices are […]
Tens of thousands of flood-affected children in Pakistan are being kept free of disease through the emergency provision of safe water, sanitation facilities, and hygiene lessons. But a lack of funding is putting in doubt future humanitarian assistance. Staving off disease in post-flood Pakistan Technorati Tags: Pakistan,Asia,monsoon,flood,epidemic,United Nations,global warming,climate refugees,climate change
AYUTTHAYA, December 18 (AFP) – Piles of rubbish, rusting furniture and discarded machinery litter one of Thailand’s top high-tech parks, a former symbol of economic prowess laid to waste by weeks of flooding. Many of the companies located in the country’s industrial heartland say it will be several months at least before their operations return […]
December 16 (Maritime Executive) – At the end of October, the STS Pallada discovered a 20-million-ton mass of tsunami debris from the mega 9.0 magnitude earthquake off Sendai, Japan in March. Since this discovery, scientists have been studying, and tracking the contents of the giant floating mass, and now, they are inviting the public on […]
By Tilo Arnhold, tilo.arnhold@ufz.de Phone +49 341 235 163516 December 2011 Chicago/Leipzig (UFZ) – Large forest regions in Canada are apparently about to experience rapid change. Based on models, scientists can now show that there are threshold values for wildfires just like there are for epidemics. Large areas of Canada are apparently approaching this threshold […]
