Blogging the End of the World™
ROME, 7 February 2013 – The FAO Food Price Index held steady at 210 points in January 2013 after three straight months of decline. Increases in oil and fats prices offset lower cereals and sugar quotations while dairy and meat values remained substantially unchanged. The pause in the Index’s decline tallies with a significant upward […]
By Gerard Wynn – The author is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.7 February 2013 (Reuters) – Climate change will not be a top issue in the United States under President Barack Obama, despite the soaring rhetoric in his Inaugural Address last month. Past failure to pass sweeping U.S. climate legislation […]
By Coral Davenport7 February 2013 NORFOLK, Virginia (National Journal) – Jimmy Strickland can tell you exactly how much money rising sea levels have cost his business. In 1989, he opened his accounting firm in a one-story brick building near Norfolk’s historic cobblestoned Hague district, which surrounds one of this low-lying city’s many tidal rivers. Dressed […]
By Carey Gillam; editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Galloway7 February 2013 Kansas City (Reuters) – Harsh drought conditions expanded in key U.S. farm states in the nation’s midsection over the last week, climate experts said on Thursday. There has been some recent precipitation through the Plains region but the frozen ground did not allow […]
By Jean Rovys Dabany and Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Pravin Char6 February 2013 Libreville, Gabon (Reuters) – Poachers have killed more than 11,000 elephants in Gabon’s Minkebe National Park rain forest since 2004, Gabon’s government said on Wednesday, with the massacre fueled by increasing demand for ivory in Asia. The densely-forested central African country is […]
5 February 2013 (National Climate Centre) – Severe rainfall deficiencies for the 6 month (August 2012 to January 2013) period have expanded in central Australia and in large parts of the inland southeast of Australia following below average January rainfall. Severe deficiencies now cover most of South Australia (where August to January rainfall was the […]
By Adrian Lowe7 February 2013 (Sydney Morning Herald) – Fire crews are battling to control large bushfires that have broken containment lines in the state’s east amid high temperatures. The Aberfeldy fire, near Licola, north-east of Mount Baw Baw, became more active because of a north-westerly wind, a spokesman from the State Bushfire Control Centre […]
By Tim Wall4 February 2013 (Discovery News) – Don’t let the drought in the U.S. fool you, intense rainfall around the world has been causing deadly floods in the past few years. Several have died in the current flooding in Queensland, Australia. In July 2012, the heaviest rain in decades left 37 dead in Beijing, […]
By Raymond T. Pierrehumbert6 February 2013 (Slate) – Like swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, every December some 20,000 geoscientists flock to San Francisco for the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Slate readers have already heard about a presentation with a particularly eye-catching title, but for me some of the most thought-provoking news […]
By MARY PILON5 February 2013 WILLOW, Alaska (The New York Times) – By 9:30 most mornings here in the world’s unofficial dog-sledding capital, Luan Marques has harnessed 10 Alaskan huskies to his sled and shot off into the awakening woods for a training ride, his sights set on the famous Iditarod competition next month. The […]
