Blogging the End of the World™
Beijing (AFP) July 12, 2010 – Pollution from a mine owned by a top gold producer has severely contaminated a river in southeastern China, leading to a massive fish kill, the government and state media said Monday. Seepage from a mining waste pond owned by the Zijinshan Copper Mine has contaminated the Ding River and […]
PricewaterhouseCoopers claims UK firms are “biting the hand that feeds” through negligent approach to ecosystem services By James Murray, BusinessGreen, 13 Jul 2010 The threat to businesses arising from unchecked biodiversity loss is larger and more immediate than that presented by climate change. That is the stark conclusion of a long-anticipated UN-backed report to be […]
Jul 1st 2010 IT IS sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. Wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it is worse than child-crippling polio, still lingering in parts of Nigeria. Wheat rust has spread silently and […]
Contact: Victoria Picknellvictoria.picknell@zsl.org020-744-96361 AFRICAN national parks like Masai Mara and the Serengeti have seen populations of large mammals decline by up to 59 per cent, according to a study published in Biological Conservation. The parks are each visited by thousands of tourists each year hoping to spot Africa’s ‘Big Five’ – lion, elephant, buffalo, […]
The polar bear has long been a symbol of the damage wrought by global warming, but now biologist Andrew Derocher and his colleagues have calculated how long one southerly population can hold out. Their answer? No more than a few decades, as the bears’ decline closely tracks that of the Arctic’s disappearing sea ice. No […]
By Stephen Messenger, Porto Alegre, Brazil on 07.12.10 If you thought unscrupulous logging practices were the only threat to the world’s largest rainforest, then think again. According to a new study, one extremely powerful storm in 2005 resulted in the deaths of an estimated 441 million to 663 million trees along the Amazon basin […]
Business underestimating catastrophic consequences of declining oil, says Lloyd’s of London/Chatham House report By Terry Macalister, www.guardian.co.uk Sunday 11 July 2010 15.28 BST One of the City’s most respected institutions has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for businesses that fail to prepare for a world of increasing oil scarcity and a lower carbon economy. The Lloyd’s […]
Published: Monday, July 12, 2010, 6:46 PM NEW ORLEANS — Live underwater video showed a new cap was placed Monday onto the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, offering hope of containing the gusher for the first time since BP’s deepwater rig exploded in April. BP officials did not immediately comment on the video […]
By Sean Mattson; editing by Catherine Bremer CARTI SUGDUB, Panama, June 12 (Reuters) – Rising seas from global warming, coming after years of coral reef destruction, are forcing thousands of indigenous Panamanians to leave their ancestral homes on low-lying Caribbean islands. Seasonal winds, storms and high tides combine to submerge the tiny islands, crowded with […]
By Maria Kolesnikova; editors: John Deane, Alastair Reed July 12 (Bloomberg) — Russia’s worst drought in a decade has damaged more than half of grain planted in 11 regions and hot, dry weather may continue for the rest of this month, a meteorologist said. “We don’t see much room for improvement in July,” said Anna […]
