Blogging the End of the World™
By Barbara Goldberg; Additional reporting by Dave Warner; Editing by Jerry Norton 15 August 2011 NEW YORK (Reuters) – An unstoppable conveyor belt of rain drenched the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Monday, adding to record-breaking precipitation that triggered flood watches and a local state of emergency at the start of the workweek. Severe weather in […]
The Arctic may be the world’s next geopolitical battleground. Temperatures there are rising faster than anywhere else in the world, and the melting ice will have profound consequences on the roof of the world, opening strategic waterways to shipping, reducing the ice cap on Greenland, and spurring a rush to claim rights to the wealth […]
By Peter Gorenstein, Daily Ticker 12 August 2011 The United States military budget accounts for over 40% of the world’s annual military expenditures and, at around $700 billion per year, more than 20% of the federal budget. The Federal government wants to curb that spending as part of deficit reduction. Last week’s deficit deal calls […]
By Timothy McDonald13 August 2011 The Queensland and Federal Government’s first report card on water quality in the Great Barrier Reef has found pesticides used in agriculture are causing significant problems for the reef. The report says some farmers need to be more careful with their chemicals, finding that nearly one-quarter of horticulture producers and […]
CHICAGO, August 11 (AP) – Two former water department officials have been indicted in an investigation of a Chicago suburb that for decades drew drinking water from a tainted well, federal prosecutors announced Thursday. Frank Scaccia and Theresa Neubauer face multiple counts of lying to regulators over 20 years about piping in the polluted water […]
By John R. Platt13 August 2011 More dugongs (Dugong dugon) have died in Australia this year than in all of 2010. At least 90 of the marine mammals, close relatives of manatees, have starved to death off the coast of Queensland after floods destroyed the area’s sea grass, the dugong’s main source of food. Another […]
The ivory trade has doubled in Guangzhou and Fuzhou, a study has found, adding to fears for Africa’s elephant and rhino populations By Greg Neale and James Burton, The Observer14 August 2011 Elephant poaching in Africa and Asia is being fuelled by China’s economic boom, according to a study of the ivory trade. Authors of […]
Contact: Barnaby Smithbpgs@ceh.ac.uk44-792-029-5384 A new study shows that as climate change enhances tree growth in tropical forests, the resulting increase in litterfall could stimulate soil micro-organisms leading to a release of stored soil carbon. The research was led by scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the University of Cambridge, UK. The results […]
[UPDATE: Dole responds to allegations it is illegally growing bananas in national park] By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com14 August 2011 Dole Food Company, a US-based corporation famous for its tropical fruit products, is allegedly destroying rainforest in Somawathiya National Park in Sri Lanka for a banana plantation, reports local press. The 4,700 hectare (11,600 acre) plantation, […]
By Scott Thill8 August 2011 Mass extinction is finally fighting its way back into the news cycle, thanks to recent scary reports on climate change from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, the United Nations Environment Program and the July issue of Science. But University of Washington paleontologist Peter Ward has been […]
