Lima (AFP) Sept 1, 2010 – The Amazon, the world’s biggest river, is at its lowest level in over 40 years near its source in northeastern Peru, causing havoc in a region where it is used as the only form of travel, authorities said. According to officials in Loreto province, the Amazon on Tuesday in […]
During the past 50 years, sea level has risen up to 8 inches or more along some coastal areas of the United States, and has fallen in other locations. The amount of relative sea-level rise experienced along different parts of the U.S. coast depends on the changes in elevation of the land that occur as […]
Failure to act on threats to global sustainability brings the world closer to disaster By Jeffrey D. SachsSeptember 2010 Scientific American Magazine With this final column I will transition Sustainable Developments from Scientific American to the home page of the Earth Institute (ww.earth.columbia.edu). Although I will continue to contribute occasional essays to the magazine, I […]
IANS2010-09-01 16:10:00 Islamabad: Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Wednesday that his country has suffered losses of around $43 billion due to the floods that have displaced over 17 million people and killed over 1,600. The floods, which started with heavy monsoon rains in July, have affected 30 percent of agricultural land and […]
By Alister Doyle, ReutersWednesday, 1 September 2010 Tiny marine creatures found on the seabed on opposite sides of West Antarctic give a strong hint of the effects of sea level rise, say scientists. The discovery of very similar colonies of bryozoans, animals that anchor themselves to the seabed, in both the Ross and Weddell Seas […]
UPISept. 1, 2010 at 9:58 AM LONDON, Sept. 1 (UPI) — Only 20 percent of Pakistan’s flood victims have been rescued due to the enormity of the crisis, an international relief official said Wednesday. Gareth Owen, emergencies director of Save the Children in Britain, said the logistical challenges of reaching tens of thousands of people […]
By David BielloSep 1, 2010 06:00 AM For decades, apocalyptic environmentalists (and others) have warned of humanity’s imminent doom, largely as a result of our unsustainable use of and impact upon the natural systems of the planet. After all, the most recent comprehensive assessment of so-called ecosystem services—benefits provided for free by the natural world, […]
LEETOWN, W. Va. — A distinct decline in horseshoe crab numbers has occurred that parallels climate change associated with the end of the last Ice Age, according to a study that used genomics to assess historical trends in population sizes. The new research also indicates that horseshoe crabs numbers may continue to decline in the […]
United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) 31 Aug 2010 ISLAMABAD — It only took a few minutes on board a helicopter scudding across the wasteland that is the Pakistan flood zone for WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran to understand the full extent of the crisis currently facing the country. Hectare after hectare of prime farmland […]
By Will Lorimer1 September 2010 Rising sea levels are forcing the migration of indigenous peoples and threatening the freshwater ecosystem of catfish and piranha found in the Orinoco Delta near the coast of Venezuela The Warao are a river people. Found in the Orinoco Delta, they live between the expansive ranches ringing the upper delta […]
