Russia will not cut carbon emissions under extended Kyoto climate pact

By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya; Editing by Alister Doyle and Pravin Char13 September 2012 Moscow says Kyoto extension ineffective Says developing nations must be involved in emissions deal MOSCOW, 13 September 2012 (Reuters) – Russia confirmed on Thursday it would not make cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from 2013 under the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol, joining Canada and […]

Graph of the Day: Change in Vegetation Cover by Biome across Latin America, 2001-2010

By Rhett A. Butler, www.mongabay.com20 August 2012 Latin America lost nearly 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 square miles) of forest — an area larger than the state of Oregon — between 2001 and 2010, finds a new study [pdf] that is the first to assess both net forest loss and regrowth across the Caribbean, Central and […]

Twenty more Nile rivers needed to feed growing world population – ‘The future political impact of water scarcity may be devastating’

By Alister Doyle; Editing by Alison Williams11 September 2012 OSLO (Reuters) – The world needs to find the equivalent of the flow of 20 Nile rivers by 2025 to grow enough food to feed a rising population and help avoid conflicts over water scarcity, a group of former leaders said on Monday. Factors such as […]

Asia faces water scarcity as coal-fired power generation expands

By Natalie Obiko Pearson 10 September 2012 Inner Mongolia’s rivers are feeding China’s coal industry, turning grasslands into desert. In India, thousands of farmers have protested diverting water to coal-fired power plants, some committing suicide. The struggle to control the world’s water is intensifying around energy supply. China and India alone plan to build $720 […]

Smugglers reap large profits from banned ozone-destroying coolant

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and ANDREW W. LEHREN7 September 2012 MIAMI – The chief executive of the century-old company from America’s heartland shifted nervously on the witness stand here as he tried to explain how a trusted senior vice president had been caught on a wiretap buying half a million dollars in smuggled merchandise, much of […]

Graph of the Day: Cumulative mass balance for Himalaya glaciers, 1975-2010

Above, Cumulative mass balance for 11 glaciers in 2006–2010 (Supplementary Table S6 and Figs S3–S13). Below, Cumulative mass balance for the three longest time series of glacier mass-balance measurements along transect 1 (Supplementary Table S7 and Figs S14 and S15). ABSTRACT: The Tibetan Plateau and surroundings contain the largest number of glaciers outside the polar […]

‘Sunshade’ to fight climate change costed at $5 billion a year

[cf. So the leaders of men conceived of their most desperate strategy yet] By Alister Doyle and David Fogarty; editing by Andrew Roche30 August 2012 OSLO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Planes or airships could carry sun-dimming materials high into the atmosphere for an affordable price tag of below $5 billion a year as a way to slow […]

2nd typhoon hits South Korea, moves toward North Korea

By Foster Klug and Sam Kim30 August 2012 SEOUL, South Korea – Strong winds and hard rain pounded southern South Korea on Thursday, as the second typhoon this week barreled down on the Korean Peninsula only days after 20 people died or went missing in the South in the first storm. North Korea was also […]

Typhoon Bolaven causes damage in northeast China

Jilin Province, China, 29 August 2012 (CCTV/CNN) – Gales and downpours brought by Typhoon Bolaven swept through northeast China’s Jilin Province since Tuesday, flooding downtown areas and damaging farmlands. The tropical storm affected Changchun, the provincial capital, with rainfall exceeding 10 centimeters from 8 a.m. Tuesday to 8 a.m. Wednesday. The maximum precipitation reached 120.6 […]

Typhoon Bolaven batters Korean Peninsula – Typhoon Tembin to hit South Korea tomorrow

By SAM KIM with additional reporting by Associated Press writers Hye Soo Nah, Foster Klug, and Hyung-jin Kim SEOUL, South Korea August 29, 2012 (AP) – The Korean Peninsula cleaned up Wednesday after one powerful typhoon and girded itself for another that could be particularly damaging to North Korea, which is still recovering from earlier […]

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