Blogging the End of the World™
United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) 31 Aug 2010 ISLAMABAD — It only took a few minutes on board a helicopter scudding across the wasteland that is the Pakistan flood zone for WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran to understand the full extent of the crisis currently facing the country. Hectare after hectare of prime farmland […]
By Will Lorimer1 September 2010 Rising sea levels are forcing the migration of indigenous peoples and threatening the freshwater ecosystem of catfish and piranha found in the Orinoco Delta near the coast of Venezuela The Warao are a river people. Found in the Orinoco Delta, they live between the expansive ranches ringing the upper delta […]
By Chris Mooney 31 August 2010 LAST September, David Barber was on board the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Amundsen (pictured), heading into the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. He was part of a team investigating ice conditions in autumn, the time when Arctic sea ice shrinks to its smallest extent before starting to grow again as […]
By Ben Raines, Press-Register Tuesday, August 31, 2010, 5:00 AM Lumpy, degraded oil collected in the Mississippi Sound has tested positive for several of the main ingredients in the Corexit dispersant used in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to scientists working for a New Orleans-based lawyer. Officials with the federal government and […]
By SAMMY FRETWELLSunday, Aug. 22, 2010 A push by federal biologists to protect a rare fish from extinction in South Carolina could cost the Santee Cooper power company more than $100 million and delay approval of a license the company needs to operate dams at lakes Marion and Moultrie. A federal study released last month […]
www.mongabay.com August 30, 2010 The decision last week by the Brazilian government to move forward on the $17 billion Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu river will set in motion a plan to build more than 100 dams across the Amazon basin, potentially turning tributaries of the world’s largest river into ‘an endless series of […]
Many locations in the United States are already undergoing water stress. The Great Lakes states are establishing an interstate compact to protect against reductions in lake levels and potential water exports. Georgia, Alabama, and Florida are in a dispute over water for drinking, recreation, farming, environmental purposes, and hydropower in the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River system. The […]
By THANASSIS CAMBANISAugust 24, 2010 6 OCTOBER CITY, Egypt — The highway west out of Cairo used to promise relief from the city’s chaos. Past the great pyramids of Giza and a final spasm of traffic, the open desert beckoned, 100 barren miles to the northwest to reach the Mediterranean. That, at least, was the […]
By Jeffrey Jones; editing by Rob Wilson and Janet GuttsmanMon Aug 30, 2010 5:31pm EDT CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Canada’s vast oil sands operations are polluting the Athabasca River system, researchers said on Monday, in a report that is bound to fuel the environmental battle over developing the resource. Contradicting Alberta government assertions that […]
Antarctic cold snap kills millions of aquatic animals in the Amazon. By Anna Petherick27 August 2010 With high Andean peaks and a humid tropical forest, Bolivia is a country of ecological extremes. But during the Southern Hemisphere’s recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of the country’s tropical region hit freshwater species hard, killing an […]
