Blogging the End of the World™
From Calculated Risk: No one saw this coming … From Bloomberg: Dubai Debt Delay Rattles Confidence in Gulf Borrowers Dubai is shaking investor confidence across the Persian Gulf after its proposal to delay debt payments risked triggering the biggest sovereign default since Argentina in 2001. … Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s cut the […]
November 24, 2009 Southern Africa’s plains zebras and the asiatic wild ass have been identified among animals whose migratory habits have been left in tatters. A quarter of the world’s migrating species are suspected to no longer migrate at all because of human changes to the landscape, and all of the world’s large-scale terrestrial migrations […]
By 2030, demand in India will grow to almost 1.5 trillion m3, driven by domestic demand for rice, wheat, and sugar for a growing population, a large proportion of which is moving toward a middle-class diet. Against this demand, India’s current water supply is approximately 740 billion m3. As a result, most of India’s river […]
By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) – Roads, buildings and pipelines in Canada’s north are at risk from global warming and the government must do more to protect infrastructure in the remote frozen region, an official panel said Thursday. Temperatures in the north — which includes the Arctic — are rising much faster than elsewhere […]
Docker River, an Australian Outback town, is under siege from 6,000 wild camels which have laid waste to the area in search of water. By Murray WardropPublished: 4:20PM GMT 26 Nov 2009 Residents in the Northern Territory settlement have been left cowering in their homes after the animals trampled fences, smashed through water mains and […]
NEW DELHI – INDIA’S water needs are set to double by 2030, which could dry up its river basins, according to new research released on Tuesday that paints a grim picture for supplies across the emerging world. Global fresh water demand by 2030 will be 40 per cent higher than current supplies and agriculture is […]
By Idrak Abbasov PIRALLAHI ISLAND, Azerbaijan, November 24, 2009 (ENS) – The fishermen perched on the beached boats on the Azerbaijan coast watched Faiq Balayev as he threw out his net, drew it in and trudged back to the shore. They need not have bothered, since he had once again failed to catch any shrimps. […]
By Eric Ombok Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) — Kenya’s tea production fell 7.4 percent in October to 32.7 million kilograms (719.4 million pounds), compared with the same month a year earlier because of a drought. The country, the world’s biggest exporter of black tea, shipped 27.1 million kilograms of the leaves during the month, the Tea […]
Safiel Kulei’s simple statement goes to the heart of the plight of many of his neighbors hit by consecutive years of drought in Kenya. “I had 88 cows. I sold 50. The rest died. I have nothing at the moment. I have since moved to town,” said Kulei, a farmer who is an evangelist with […]
By KATHARINE HOURELD (AP) – Nov 1, 2009 DELA, Kenya — When 64-year-old Jimale Irobe was a young man, he guided his herds of cows and camels through knee-high grass. These days the scrubby blades barely reach his ankles even in the rainy season, and there is never enough grass to go around. The cattle […]