The primary Mata Atlantica forest once stretched over much of the eastern edge of Brazil. Large swaths of it have been eliminated and replaced with eucalyptus plantations. Photos and commentary by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project30 June 2011 On Wednesday, July 29th, around 200 participants divided into 4 groups toured various facilities […]
By Steve Conner, Science Editor12 July 2011 Climate change is speeding up the rate at which animals and plants are becoming extinct. By the end of the century, one in 10 species could be on the verge of extinction because of the effects of global warming, a study has found. The findings support the view […]
[Sadly, the folks at Serengeti Watch were right: The road will be built anyway. From their Stop the Serengeti Highway Facebook page: “AS PREDICTED OUR WORK IS NOT OVER! ‘Construction of a road across Serengeti will go on as planned but the government says more than 120 kilometres cutting across world famous park will not […]
[Update: As usual, optimism is not supported by the evidence: Paved road across Serengeti will go on as planned – World Heritage site to be mined for uranium.] By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News 24 June 2011 Controversial plans to build a tarmac road across the Serengeti National Park have been scrapped after warnings […]
By BOB CHRISTIE, Associated Press 24 June 2011 PHOENIX – The largest wildfire in Arizona history left a charred landscape of blackened forest, burned-out vehicle hulks and charred fireplaces as it destroyed more than 30 homes. It also inflicted a serious toll on an ecosystem that’s home to numerous endangered species. The flames spared three […]
By Ugo Bardi17 June 2011 […] Gaia herself, poor lady, might not emerge unscathed from the fight. She may be robust, but she is not eternal. Look at this graph [above], from a paper by Franck, Bounama and Von Bloh. As you see, the earth’s biosphere, Gaia, peaked with the start of the Phanerozoic age, […]
By Jonathan Watts3 June 2011 The Chinese government issued its annual “State of the Environment” report on Friday. Here are the highlights along with my interpretation and year-end grade for each subject based on the following standard: A – World classB – GoodC – PassableD – Poor but showing signs of improvementE – Poor and […]
Map of total nitrogen emissions from Spain according to the EMEP model for the period 1990-2006 (data from EMEP reduced to half-degree cell). A nitrophilous index was calculated using over 750,000 occurrence records of plants that had been indexed at GBIF for the Iberian Peninsula by March, 2009. To construct this index, the annual number […]
By IAN JOHNSON3 June 2011 BEIJING — China’s three decades of rapid economic growth have left it with a “very grave” environmental situation even as it tries to move away from a development-at-all-costs strategy, senior government officials said on Friday. In a blunt assessment of the problems facing the world’s most populous country, officials from […]
A nitrophilous index was calculated using over 750,000 occurrence records of plants that had been indexed at GBIF for the Iberian Peninsula by March, 2009. To construct this index, the annual number of records of nitrophilous taxa was obtained for the period 1900-2008. Next, the obtained value was divided by the total number of plant […]
