By Maina Waruru11 February 2013 NAIROBI, Kenya (AlertNet) – Kenya’s hopes of becoming one of the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa with a body legally empowered to advise on mitigating the effects of climate change have hit a dead end, after President Mwai Kibaki rejected a law that would have created a Kenya Climate Change […]
By PAUL KRUGMAN10 February 2013 (The New York Times) – Last week Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, gave what his office told us would be a major policy speech. And we should be grateful for the heads-up about the speech’s majorness. Otherwise, a read of the speech might have suggested that he was offering […]
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent; Editing by Doina Chiacu9 February 2013 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The population of moose in northeastern Minnesota dropped by 35 percent since last year, prompting state officials to cancel this year’s fall hunt and conservationists to blame warming temperatures for the massive creature’s decline. “The state’s moose population has been in […]
By Jeff Hecht9 February 2013 (New Scientist) – Geoengineering is being tested – albeit inadvertently – in the north Pacific. Soot from oil-burning ships is dumping about 1000 tonnes of soluble iron per year across 6 million square kilometres of ocean, new research has revealed. Fertilising the world’s oceans with iron has been controversially proposed […]
By Philip Bump8 February 2013 (Grist) – “We live in a world in which the climate is changing.” This statement from the EPA, the first line in its draft “Climate Change Adaptation Plan” [PDF] released today, is basic. But that the EPA is saying it is important. For two reasons. The first is that the […]
ROME, 7 February 2013 – The FAO Food Price Index held steady at 210 points in January 2013 after three straight months of decline. Increases in oil and fats prices offset lower cereals and sugar quotations while dairy and meat values remained substantially unchanged. The pause in the Index’s decline tallies with a significant upward […]
By Gerard Wynn – The author is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own.7 February 2013 (Reuters) – Climate change will not be a top issue in the United States under President Barack Obama, despite the soaring rhetoric in his Inaugural Address last month. Past failure to pass sweeping U.S. climate legislation […]
By Coral Davenport7 February 2013 NORFOLK, Virginia (National Journal) – Jimmy Strickland can tell you exactly how much money rising sea levels have cost his business. In 1989, he opened his accounting firm in a one-story brick building near Norfolk’s historic cobblestoned Hague district, which surrounds one of this low-lying city’s many tidal rivers. Dressed […]
By Carey Gillam; editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Galloway7 February 2013 Kansas City (Reuters) – Harsh drought conditions expanded in key U.S. farm states in the nation’s midsection over the last week, climate experts said on Thursday. There has been some recent precipitation through the Plains region but the frozen ground did not allow […]
5 February 2013 (National Climate Centre) – Severe rainfall deficiencies for the 6 month (August 2012 to January 2013) period have expanded in central Australia and in large parts of the inland southeast of Australia following below average January rainfall. Severe deficiencies now cover most of South Australia (where August to January rainfall was the […]
