Blogging the End of the World™
By Wanjiru MachariaPosted Tuesday, July 20 2010 at 21:00 Settlers evicted from South Western Mau are still in makeshift camps one year later even as the government plans to move to the next phase of evictions. While some left the camps after realising that nothing was forthcoming, more than 1,000 families are still languishing at […]
By BEN CUBBY, ENVIRONMENT EDITORAugust 4, 2010 CONTAMINATED water from a coalmine is flowing into the Georges River, south of Sydney, at levels that are toxic to aquatic life, an independent water quality report has shown. A plume of saline water stretched along the river for 15 kilometres from the discharge point of an underground […]
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 […]
