Blogging the End of the World™
By Mark E. Ruquet, www.PropertyCasualty360.com March 10, 2011 Munich Re said its 2010 net income dropped 5 percent as it took a hit from natural catastrophe losses that were higher than average. The Munich, Germany-based insurance company reported profit of €2.4 billion (U.S. $3.4 billion at the current exchange rate), a drop of €134 million […]
By Bob Johnson, The Associated Press 4 March 2011 Perry County resident Esther Calhoun said her rural area has been ruined by tons of coal ash that have been dumped in a sprawling landfill near Uniontown. Calhoun was in Montgomery this week to argue that a proposed bill to regulate coal ash disposal in Alabama […]
For the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl Accident, Ambientaria Records has gathered many Dark Ambient artists, including famous ones like Northaunt or Atomtrakt, for a compilation project. The album will be released on April 1st, 2011. It will be sold at a low price. All the benefits shall be reversed to Chernobyl Children International, a […]
Global capture fisheries production in 2008 was about 90 million tonnes, with an estimated first-sale value of US$93.9 billion, comprising about 80 million tonnes from marine waters and a record 10 million tonnes from inland waters. World capture fisheries production has been relatively stable in the past decade, with the exception of marked fluctuations driven […]
Documenting the end of multicellular life on Earth requires a somewhat obsessive personality, which Desdemona has in spades. But the good people of the RSOE EDIS Climate Change Monitoring Service have gone far, far beyond the level of effort Des would ever expend, compiling a huge database of disasters in near-realtime. The latest mishaps are […]
By Tom Doggett and Ayesha Rascoe; additional reporting by Braden Reddall; editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid and Lisa Shumaker WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The failure of the underwater blowout preventer that led to the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by the inability of attached cutting devices to shear and seal the […]
Baghdad (AFP) March 21, 2011 – Fifty percent of water resources are wasted in Iraq, where six million people have no access to clean water, the United Nations said on Monday, the eve of World Water Day. “Iraq faces difficulties in meeting the target of 91 percent of households using a safe drinking water supply […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comMarch 23, 2011 During a meeting in March 2011 twenty-six experts—from biologists to social scientists to NGO staff—crafted a statement calling on the Papua New Guinea government to stop granting Special Agricultural and Business Leases. According to the group, these leases, or SABLs as they are know, circumvent Papua New Guinea’s strong […]
By ROBERT BURNS21 March 2011 OVERTON — Escalating unrest in the Middle East is not only going to continue to drive gasoline and diesel fuel prices up to 2008 levels, but there’s a good chance it will do the same to the costs of fertilizing pastures, according to a Texas AgriLife Research expert. Even if […]
By Dana Kennedy Mar 22, 2011 – 1:23 PM Natalia Manzurova, one of the few survivors among those directly involved in the long cleanup of Chernobyl, was a 35-year-old engineer at a nuclear plant in Ozersk, Russia, in April 1986 when she and 13 other scientists were told to report to the wrecked, burning plant […]
