Blogging the End of the World™
By Rebecca Lindsey A spring heat wave scorched southeastern Australia in mid-November 2009, pushing the fire danger to the “catastrophic” category in parts of South Australia and New South Wales and to “extreme” in other surrounding areas. Many cities, including Melbourne and Adelaide experienced record-breaking temperatures that continued for many days. This pair of images […]
By Jeff Kart, Bay City, Michigan on 12. 5.09, Treehugger An emergency operation to stop invasive Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes used more than 2,000 gallons of rotenone to poison six miles of a canal near Chicago this week. Tens of thousands of fish were killed. Just one Asian carp, the target of […]
By ADAM MORTONDecember 5, 2009 THE world has little chance of avoiding at least two degrees of global warming this century – the projected threshold for unpredictable and accelerated climate changes – if the emissions targets proposed by rich nations are locked in at next week’s Copenhagen summit, an analysis has found. A report by […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com, December 03, 2009 We may never see again the Galapagos black-spotted damselfish, the beautiful 24-rayed sunstar, or the Galapagos stringweed. These species from Galapagos waters may all very well be extinct. Other species are on the brink, such as the Galapagos penguin and the Floreana cup coral. A new report in […]
December 02, 2009 PHILADELPHIA –- An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise along the Atlantic Coast of the United States was 2 millimeters faster in the 20th century than at any time in the past 4,000 years. Sea-level rise prior to the 20th century is […]
By Staff WritersSydney (AFP) Dec 3, 2009 The rotting carcasses of thousands of wild camelswho have died of thirst in Australia’s desert Outback are polluting vital waterholes and sacred sites, a report said Thursday. The Central Land Council, which administers Aboriginal land in the nation’s arid centre, said the corpses were poisoning water supplies, describing […]
Detroit News staff and wire reports Traverse City — Gov. Jennifer Granholm wants Michigan’s attorney general to take legal action to prevent Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes. Granholm and Lt. Gov. John Cherry sent Attorney General Mike Cox a letter today urging him to “pursue every legal tool” available. They say among possible […]
ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2009) — Since 1985, seawater temperature in Kuwait Bay, northern Persian Gulf, has increased on average 0.6°C per decade. This is about three times faster than the global average rate reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Differences are due to regional and local effects. Increased temperatures are having profound […]
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Authorities scooped up poisoned fish floating to the surface of a Chicago-area waterway on Thursday in an operation designed to keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes and prevent an ecological disaster. Illinois officials said a single Bighead carp, one of two prolific species of Asian carp viewed as a […]
Caption by Holli Riebeek with information provided by Kenneth Duda, USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. Normally a picturesque blue lake surrounded by steep volcanoes and Mayan settlements, Guatemala’s Lake Atitlán acquired a film of green scum in October and November 2009. A large bloom of cyanobacteria, more commonly known as blue-green algae, […]