By Clara Chaisson29 January 2015 (OnEarth) – Increasingly intense storms in the United States might have an unexpected origin: Asian air pollution. Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have found that aerosols from across the Pacific strengthen extratropical cyclones—a type of storm system that drives much of our country’s weather. Asia is home to the […]
By Apoorva Joshi27 January 2015 (mongabay.com) – Since the 1950s, plantations and second-growth forests in China have been locally managed by village communities as collective forests, which today account for 58 percent of China’s forestland. Many of these collective forests lie within mountainous rural areas, some of which are also home to the 1,600 or […]
By Ali Mirchi, Kaveh Madani, and Amir AghaKouchak for Tehran Bureau23 January 2015 (The Guardian) – In the late 1990s, Lake Urmia, in north-western Iran, was twice as large as Luxembourg and the largest salt-water lake in the Middle East. Since then it has shrunk substantially, and was sliced in half in 2008, with consequences […]
By Nick Kirkpatrick 23 January 2015 (Washington Post) – Along a seashore in Hong Kong yesterday, a vibrant blue glow was seen emanating from the water. Beautiful photographs show the shore glimmering, with the lights of the city sparkling in the background. But this idyllic setting is potentially toxic. The luminescence is an algal bloom […]
By Dr. Jeff Masters23 December 2014 (wunderground.com) – #1: Earth Likely Had Its Warmest Year on Record The year 2014 has made it very apparent that global warming has not stopped, as the year-to-date-period January – November 2014 was Earth’s warmest such period since record keeping began in 1880, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data […]
By Satish Cheney27 December 2014 (AFP) – Rescue teams struggled Saturday to reach inundated areas of northeast Malaysia as victims accused the government of being slow to provide assistance after the country’s worst flooding in decades. Malaysians have vented their anger at Prime Minister Najib Razak after the release of photos which went viral on […]
By Oliver Wainwright16 December 2014 BEIJING (The Guardian) – The scene could be straight from a science-fiction film: a vision of everyday life, but with one jarring difference that makes you realise you’re on another planet, or in a distant future era. A sports class is in full swing on the outskirts of Beijing. Herds […]
By Adam Voiland10 December 2014 (NASA) – About 4.5 million years ago, the Kashmir Valley was at the bottom of a large lake, encircled by a ring of rugged mountains. Much of the lake’s water has long since drained away through an outlet channel on the valley’s west side. However, evidence of the lake remains […]
By Erik de Castro, with additional reporting by Rosemarie Francisco, Manny Mogato, Karen Lema, and Neil Jerome Morales in Manila; Writing by Rosemarie Francisco; Editing by Nick Macfie9 December 2014 MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine emergency workers were struggling on Tuesday to reach coastal villages on an island hardest hit by a typhoon where thousands of […]
(FAO) – The latest estimates indicate that 805 million people – about one in nine of the world’s population – were chronically undernourished in 2012–14, with insufficient food for an active and healthy life. This number represents a decline of more than 100 million people over the last decade and of 209 million since 1990–92. […]
