BBC3 August 2010 Last updated at 00:35 ET Demand for shark fin soup in Asia has been blamed for the illegal killing of nearly 300,000 sharks off Brazil, an environmental group has alleged. The Environmental Justice Institute in Brazil has accused a seafood exporter (Siglo do Brasil Comercio) of illegally killing nearly 300,000 sharks. It […]
By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News 3 August 2010 Last updated at 05:17 ET An international team of researchers has developed a model that suggests degradation of tropical forests occurs in a series of “waves”. High-value trees were felled in the first “wave”, followed by a wave that removed mid-value timber […]
Analysis of air bubbles trapped in an Antarctic ice core extending back 800,000 years documents the Earth’s changing carbon dioxide concentration. Over this long period, natural factors have caused the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration to vary within a range of about 170 to 300 parts per million (ppm). Temperature-related data make clear that these variations […]
By Sujata Gupta03 August 2010, 17:45 Coral populations in the Gulf of Mexico could fall because of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster – from contact not with oil but with the dispersant that’s supposed to get rid of it. Laboratory tests suggest that Corexit 9500A, the dispersant used by BP to tackle the largest […]
By Simon Shuster / MoscowMonday, Aug. 02, 2010 Russians are not used to heat waves. When the high temperatures that have overwhelmed Russia over the past six weeks first arrived in June, some 1,200 Russians drowned at the country’s beaches. “The majority of those who drowned were drunk,” the Emergencies Ministry concluded in mid-July, citing […]
The population of Steller’s sea lions is declining so rapidly in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands that the Obama administration is calling for the emergency closure of commercial mackerel and cod fishing there. The fishing industry, largely based in Seattle, is alarmed and worried such measures could eventually lead to restrictions on parts of the $1 billion-a-year […]
By Michael Georgy Tue Aug 3, 2010 10:11am EDT ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The worst floods in memory in Pakistan have devastated the lives of more than 3 million people, a U.N. spokesman said on Tuesday, while outrage over the unpopular government’s response to its people’s plight spreads. The catastrophe, which started almost a week […]
By TERENCE ROTH in London and WILLIAM MAULDIN in MoscowAUGUST 3, 2010, 9:12 A.M. ET The scorching temperatures and dry skies threatening Russia’s wheat harvests have also been beating down on Western Europe, which is forecasting lower output of crops from French wheat to Italian tomatoes. Russia’s Agriculture Ministry Tuesday cut its forecast for the […]
By Craig Welch, Seattle Times environment reporter July 31, 2010 at 8:36 PM DABOB BAY, Hood Canal — Inside the burbling tubs of the Taylor Shellfish hatchery here, oysters are incubating once again. But no one believes things are really back to normal. Several years after oyster larvae around the Northwest began dying by the […]
Bombs, the invasion of alien species and pollution among threats facing fish in the enclosed sea, according to study By Alok Jha, www.guardian.co.uk Monday 2 August 2010 21.05 BST Marine life in the Mediterranean faces the greatest risk of damage and death, the Census of Marine Life shows. “Enclosed seas have the risk that, when […]
