Blogging the End of the World™
ScienceDaily (July 25, 2009) — Scientists say conditions are favorable for significant coral bleaching and infectious coral disease outbreaks in the Caribbean, especially in the Lesser Antilles. Similar conditions may develop in Gulf of Mexico and Central Pacific. The forecast is based on the July NOAA Coral Reef Watch outlook, which expects continued high […]
By Jennifer Hattam, Istanbul, Turkey “The sea back in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s was thick with fish and we were the envy of the town. My pockets were always full and I traveled a lot,” says Mustapha Shaalan, 68. Now, like other Lebanese fishermen, he is lucky to make $200 a month, as daily […]
100 Abandoned Houses: Photographs of Detroit Paul Kedrosky crunches numbers from Bloomberg and makes them far more astounding: According to the latest data, the number of vacant U.S. homes touched 18.7-million in the second quarter. That is a daunting figure, of course, but it is more fun to put it in context. Assuming four people […]
By Christine Dell’Amore, National Geographic News Attacking from nests as big as pickup-truck beds, invasive western yellowjacket wasps in Hawaii are munching their way through an “astonishing diversity” of creatures, from caterpillars to pheasants, a new study says. Adult yellowjackets consume only nectar. But they kill or scavenge prey to deliver needed protein to their […]
SPECIAL REPORT BY XINHUA CORRESPONDENT DANIEL OOKO NAIROBI, (Xinhua) — The Kenyan government on Wednesday raised an alarm of severe food, water and energy shortages facing the east African nation. Prime Minister Raila Odinga told Parliament that over 10 million people are in urgent need of food assistance, noting that a very worrying situation and […]
This graph presents only seafood caught by fisheries. Overall per capita seafood (or aquatic products, including freshwater fishes and invertebrates) therefore, will be maintained only if aquaculture picks up the slack. Pauly, D., Lectures to the 2003 class of the United Nations University Fisheries Training Program, Institute of Marine Research, Reykjavik, December 15-19, 2002 Technorati […]
From Climate Progress: The best evidence is that the climate is now being driven by amplifying feedbacks (see Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius”), most notably: The defrosting of the permafrost The drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires). The destruction of the […]
By Matt Walker, Editor, Earth News Lions in Cameroon are having their kills stolen from under their noses by hungry villagers, say conservationists. Incidences of such kleptoparasitism, the stealing of food from another, usually occur between top predators such as lion, hyena and cheetah. But people are increasingly getting in on the act, conservationists say. […]
By Missy Ryan YUSUFIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – What was known as history’s fertile crescent, where lush farmland and abundant water gave rise to civilization, is today a dusty desert where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers crawl sluggishly toward the sea. Vast tracts of Iraqi farmland are cracked and barren, precious marshes have dried up […]
‘On left: microscopic photo of the spring diatom bloom with large organisms dominating. On right: warming of six degrees with smaller flagellates dominating.’ Image credit:IFM-GEOMAR, via PhysOrg.com I want to be careful not to exaggerate the significance of this work. That said, I find it disturbing to learn that a warming ocean selects for […]
