Caption by Adam Voiland29 June 2012 Up to 90 taiga wildfires burned in the Far East of Russia on June 29, 2012. According to the ITAR-TASS news agency, the fires had burned more than 2,000 hectares (8 square mile) over the course of a day. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite […]
By Anis Ahmed, with additional reporting by Ruma Paul, Nurul Islam in COX’S BAZAR, and Raju Ahmed in SYLHET; Editing by Pravin Char27 June 2012 DHAKA (Reuters) – At least 100 people have died and 250,000 left stranded by flash floods and landslides in Bangladesh set off by the heaviest rain in years, police and […]
GAUHATI, India, 1 July 2012 (AP) – The death toll from monsoon rains in northeastern India has risen above 60, with more than 2,000 villages inundated as rivers breached their banks, an official said Sunday. More than a week of heavy rains in Assam state has caused the massive Brahmaputra river — one of Asia’s […]
By LIZ GOOCH23 June 2012 KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – For much of the year, the Petronas Towers, the world’s tallest twin buildings, are gleaming landmarks visible far from the city center here. But last weekend, the 88-story structures were shrouded in a smoky haze that prompted doctors to warn people with respiratory problems to wear […]
By NEAL PEIRCE, Times-Dispatch 17 June 2012 HONOLULU – An Asian century, an urban century — the rise of the East and the role of such expansive urban giants as Shanghai are emblematic of popular assessments of where the world’s economy is heading. But talk with Roland Fuchs of the East-West Center in Honolulu and […]
Karbala, Iraq, 3 June 2012 (AFP) – Trees as far as the eye can see are the weapons one Iraqi province is using in the fight against desertification in a country where decades of conflict have exacted a terrible environmental toll. Karbala, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad, is best known as the site […]
Today, close to 99% of the coal mined in the Powder River Basin is consumed in domestic U.S. coal markets. However, a depressed domestic market and increased foreign demand, especially from the Pacific Rim, has piqued the interest of the largest U.S. coal producers in potential export markets. Chris Ruppel, an energy analyst at Execution, […]
By ANDREW C. REVKIN3 June 2012 Even as insect infestations and other factors accompanying warming have led to the “browning” of some stretches of boreal forest between temperate regions and the Arctic tundra, the tundra appears to be greening in a big way, various studies have shown. The newest such work, focused on scrubby windswept […]
By Frank Langfitt22 May 2012 Mongolia, the land of Genghis Khan and nomadic herders, is in the midst of a remarkable transition. Rich in coal, gold, and copper, this country of fewer than 3 million people in Central Asia is riding a mineral boom that is expected to more than double its GDP within a […]
By Alyssa Battistoni18 May 2012 Coal is without question our dirtiest fuel source: When burned, it dumps toxins like mercury and nitrogen oxides into the air and packs an outsize punch when it comes to carbon emissions. Since America has a lot of it, though, we’ve tended to use a lot: Historically, around half our […]
