Peak Humanitarian Aid: The period during which accelerating climate crises overwhelm the capacity of industrial civilization to handle them. Has this peak arrived, along with the others? The July 2010 flood catastrophe in Pakistan suggests that it has. The United Nations reports that the scale of the flood damage is larger than the combined damage […]
By Heidi Cullen and Claudia TebaldiOctober 27th, 2010 The summer of 2010 brought intensely hot weather to large portions of the northeastern U.S., central Europe, and Russia. Russia was especially hard hit as a heat wave — with daily high temperatures hitting 100°F — contributing to the deaths of as many as 15,000 people in […]
By Rania Abouzeid and Haji Jan Mohammad Thursday, Dec. 09, 2010 Dozens of people with outstretched arms welcome the chopper as its rotors kick up swirls of gritty dust from the cracked, mud-caked earth of Haji Jan Mohammad — a poor agricultural village transformed into a desolate island by waist-deep floodwaters that stretch to the […]
ScienceDaily (Dec. 8, 2010) — The fire disaster in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa is a typical example of climate change effect and a taste of the future, says Dr. Guy Pe’er, one of the authors of Israel’s first report to the UN on climate change. Ten years ago, Dr. Pe’er and other Israeli scientists […]
Nicosia (AFP) Dec 3, 2010 – Israeli firefighters are battling a deadly forest fire as unseasonably warm weather blankets a tinder dry Middle East, and some countries are even organising prayers for rain. Thousands of Israeli firemen and rescuers fought to put out the fire on the second day running, as international help poured in […]
By Matt WadeDecember 4, 2010 UNDERESTIMATED from the start and then quickly forgotten. That is how aid workers have summed up the international reaction to the Pakistan floods, one of the worst natural disasters in modern times. More than four months after the emergency, more than 10 million are still receiving daily emergency assistance and […]
Russian scientists travel to Siberia to measure output of methane from permafrost lakes. BBC goes along. “It’s taking place now, and we are too late, to my mind, for decision making. This process has started, and we have no opportunity to stop it. We have only a time to delay it, to make the results […]
By Staff WritersNov 27, 2010 Paris (AFP) – Fishing nations opted Saturday to leave catch limits for eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna virtually unchanged despite concerns that the species is perilously close to collapse. Annual quotas for the sushi mainstay will be trimmed from 13,500 tonnes this year to 12,900 tonnes in 2011, the 48-member International […]
In July 2010, massive rain in Pakistan led to unprecedented flooding that submerged one-fifth of the country and affected more than 20 million people. While many experts believe the floods were the result of climate change, others say the science is uncertain. Regardless, most agree that natural disasters are occurring more frequently and that the […]
Paris (AFP) Nov 19, 2010 – Japan took centre stage Friday at talks on the future of Atlantic bluefin tuna, issuing a call for negotiators to respect science and crack down on renegade fishing. Facing declining stocks and over-exploitation of a fish prized in Japan as gourmet sashimi and sushi, Tokyo issued a sharp warning […]
