By Bijoyeta Das 9 Sep 2013 Guwahati, India (Al Jazeera) – He sniffs, slurps his tea, swirls and spits a jet of orangish liquid into the tumbler. “Malty, hard,” says Parag Hatibaruah, a professional tea-taster. “But not as strong, brisk and creamy as it was once,” he adds, shaking his head dismissively. Rows of teacups […]
(NASA) – Elephant Butte Reservoir dwindled to its lowest level in 41 years during the summer of 2013, despite monsoon rains in early July. It had been filled nearly to capacity for most of 1985 to 2000; the left-hand image from 1994 shows it about 89 percent full. At right, it has been reduced to […]
By Catherine Wong5 September 2013 (The Times-Standard) – Bridgeville Elementary School was reopened Wednesday after being forced to close for a day when staff discovered up to 20,000 gallons of water had been stolen from an onsite water tank during the Labor Day weekend. ”There were tire tracks in the field on the south side […]
Groundwater pumpage within the Death Valley area began around 1913 in Pahrump Valley. Pumpage began mainly to support rising agricultural interests, but also supplied mining, industry, rural, and urban growth. The number of pumping wells in the region had increased from three in 1913 to over 9,300 in 1998. Pumpage for irrigation in the DVRFS […]
By Bryan Walsh2 September 2013 (TIME) – When we talk about the challenge of ending hunger and feeding a growing global population, most of the focus is put on increasing production. That’s not surprising — “more” is our solution to most social problems. But some of the hunger gap could be closed by making better […]
By Damian Carrington 28 June 2013 (The Guardian) – The government has launched an “urgent” review of the crisis facing bees and other pollinators in the UK and pledged to introduce a national pollinator strategy. “As we all recognise, pollinators play a vital role in the security of our food supply and the quality of […]
29 August 2013 (mongabay.com) – Nearly 500 fires are burning across the Indonesian island of Sumatra, raising fears that choking air pollution could return to Singapore and Malaysia. The fires, set to clear land for agriculture, are concentrated in Riau, Jambi, and South Sumatra provinces. Like the fires that charred the region two months ago, […]
By Rhett A. Butler3 September 2013 (mongabay.com) – Conversion of forests for palm oil production now appears to be the single largest driver of deforestation in Indonesia, accounting for roughly a quarter of forest loss between 2009 and 2011, asserts a new Greenpeace report that accuses the sector’s main certification standard of failing to stop […]
1 September 2013 (Press TV) – Indian officials say floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have affected more than five million people in over a dozen districts of the northern Bihar state, as rain-swollen rivers burst their banks. “Major rivers, including the Ganga, Sone, Budhi Gandak, Kosi and Gandak, are not showing receding trend so […]
By William L. Stefanov, Jacobs2 September 2013 (NASA) – This photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station highlights a late summer plankton bloom across much of Lake Ontario, one of North America’s Great Lakes. Microscopic cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, can reach such large concentrations and color the water to such an extent […]
