Blogging the End of the World™
By Guy Dinmore Like bovine torpedoes, a trapped shoal of bluefin tuna, some two metres long, swirl in ever decreasing circles within the “chamber of death” as an intricate maze of nets closes around them. The signal is given and the mattanza – slaughter – begins. Two dozen Italian fishermen on longboats haul the final […]
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com Camels are among the most recognizable animals on the planet, yet few realize that wild populations are at a high risk of extinction. Of the world’s two camel species, the Dromedary camel, characterized by a single hump, has already gone extinct in the wild. The second species, the two-humped Bactrian camel, […]
Billions of beetles, wildfire spread imperil the northern forests of a warmer world By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special CorrespondentHAINES JUNCTION, Yukon Territory A veil of smoke settled over the forest in the shadow of the St. Elias Mountains, in a wilderness whose spruce trees stood tall and gray, a deathly gray even in the […]
By Barney Jopson in Nairobi The number of Kenyans in urgent need of food aid has jumped by more than 50 per cent to nearly 4m, according to official figures, as the country is hit by mass hunger as well as shortages of power and water. The immediate cause of the three-fold crisis is a […]
By JOHN TRUMBO, TRI-CITY HERALD JUNIPER DUNES, Wash. — Sneaking up on the nest of a ferruginous hawk begins about a half-mile away. Alert and sharp-eyed, the largest raptor in the hawk family is wary of intruders and will flush without warning. So Jason Lowe, a biologist with the Bureau of Land Management’s Eastern Washington […]
The Nile Delta is under threat from rising sea levels. Without the food it produces, Egypt faces catastrophe By Jack Shenker …Today, however, Nile water barely reaches this corner of the Delta. Population growth has sapped its energy upstream, and what “freshwater” does make it downriver is increasingly awash with toxins and other impurities. Farmers […]
cf. Graph of the Day: Historic Texas Drought Technorati Tags: drought,agriculture,heat wave
By Ed Stoddard DALLAS (Reuters) – A vast swathe of Texas remains in the grip of a scorching drought, which has cost billions of dollars and is cleaving America’s largest beef cattle herd. One county has seen its entire cotton harvest wiped out and losses for cattle, crops and the state’s fast growing game […]
Nanyuki, Kenya (AFP) Aug 19, 2009 – In Kenya a bruising and recurring drought is driving huge numbers of subsistence farmers away from rural areas, where they are increasingly reliant on hand-outs, into congested slums. “People are opting to relocate. I know families that are demolishing their houses, selling iron sheets and timber and getting […]
NJORO, 20 August 2009 (IRIN) – Two months before harvest time, the maize in Kenya’s Rift Valley should be tall, lush and green, bursting with life. Instead, crops in the province’s Lare division are stunted, barren fields of parched browns and pallid yellows. The area, local farmers say, has experienced three years of erratic rainfall. […]
