Blogging the End of the World™
Washington (AFP) July 18, 2010 – Scientists studying the massive BP oil spill fear a decades-long, “cascading” effect on marine life that could lead to a shift in the overall biological network in the Gulf of Mexico. With some 400 species estimated to be at risk — from the tiniest oil-eating bacteria to shrimp […]
The Oriente – the East – is Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest region, home to unparalleled biological diversity, as well as the country’s oil patch and massive contamination left behind by decades of oil operations by Texaco (now Chevron). Amazon Watch’s Ecuador campaign team is on a brief field research mission in the Oriente, and today was […]
Why did a parliamentary committee suddenly destroy drafts of a final report on tar sands pollution? Here’s what they knew. By Andrew Nikiforuk, www.TheTyee.ca 15 Jul 2010 Just two weeks ago the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development abruptly cancelled a big report on the tar sands and the project’s extreme water impacts. The […]
RICHMOND, Vt.— More than six months after the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition to close all federally managed bat caves in the lower 48 states, the U.S. Forest Service has indicated it intends to close caves on federal forests and grasslands in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and most of Wyoming and South Dakota. A […]
By Michael McCarthy, Environment EditorTuesday, 20 July 2010 The frog-killing disease which is sweeping parts of the world is now wiping out amphibian species before they have even been described, new research has shown. Dramatic declines in amphibian populations in the Americas and Australia have been known since the late 1980s, exemplified by the […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com July 20, 2010 Consumers in the US purchasing mahogany furniture may be unwittingly supporting illegal logging in a Peruvian reserve for uncontacted indigenous tribes, imperiling the indigenous peoples’ lives. A new report by the Upper Amazon Conservancy (UAC) provides evidence that loggers are illegally felling mahogany trees in the Murunahua […]
Report says Afghan city and region will need six times more water by 2050, as Oxfam warns of violence over scarce resource By John Vidal, environment editor, www.guardian.co.uk Monday 19 July 2010 09.25 BST Kabul and its surrounding region are perilously short of water and may not be able to supply a fast-growing, more affluent […]
The size and number of marine dead zones—areas where the deep water is so low in dissolved oxygen that sea creatures can’t survive—have grown explosively in the past half-century. Red circles on this map show the location and size of many of our planet’s dead zones. Black dots show where dead zones have been observed, […]
By JUSTIN GILLIS and LESLIE KAUFMANPublished: July 17, 2010 On the rocky beaches of Alaska, scientists plunged shovels and picks into the ground and dug 6,775 holes, repeatedly striking oil — still pungent and dangerous a dozen years after the Exxon Valdez infamously spilled its cargo. More than an ocean away, on the Breton coast […]
Prayer service for the Gulf of Mexico By Roy Hoffman, Press-Register Published: Sunday, July 18, 2010, 4:07 PM As first light filled the sky over the Gulf of Mexico, a small band of worshippers gathered at Gulf State Park Pavilion on Sunday to pray for the Gulf and those affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil […]
