Muslims pray for rain in drought-hit Guyana

Reporting by Neil Marks; Editing by John O’CallaghanGEORGETOWNSat Mar 27, 2010 2:56pm EDT (Reuters) – Muslims across Guyana prayed for rain on Saturday to end a drought that has battered the tiny South American nation’s rice and sugar exports and caused food shortages in indigenous communities.   The government of the former British colony of about […]

Worst ice conditions ever recorded kill Canada seals before hunters can

CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island, Canada, March 26, 2010 (ENS) – Thousands of harp seal pups are presumed dead in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence and starving pups are being found abandoned on the beaches of Prince Edward Island, victims of the worst ice conditions ever recorded in the region. Environment Canada said March 16 that […]

The Carbon Quilt: Making sense of the world’s carbon footprint

The Carbon Quilt is a universal tool to make greenhouse gases visible. London’s daily carbon dioxide emissions. 139 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide would fill a sphere 521 metres across. To most Londoners, ‘139 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide’ is not a very meaningful quantity. Illustrating it in the context of London landmarks allows viewers […]

Soils release more carbon dioxide as globe warms

ScienceDaily (Mar. 25, 2010) — Twenty years of field studies reveal that as the Earth has gotten warmer, plants and microbes in the soil have given off more carbon dioxide. So-called soil respiration has increased about one-tenth of 1 percent per year since 1989, according to an analysis of past studies in the journal Nature. […]

Vietnam drought withers orchards — ‘Not a drop to drink’

Reported by Trung Duong – Tien Trinh  2000 custard apple trees. Around four years old. To a tree, they withered and died. That was a month ago. Now, he can do nothing but watch a hectare of his mango trees fade in the relentless heat. “Drought like this… there’s no way I can save the […]

Death of coral reefs could devastate nations, have ‘tremendous cascade effect for all life in the oceans’

By BRIAN SKOLOFF (AP) WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Coral reefs are dying, and scientists and governments around the world are contemplating what will happen if they disappear altogether. The idea positively scares them. Coral reefs are part of the foundation of the ocean food chain. Nearly half the fish the world eats make their […]

Parched Australia farmers vote to abandon irrigation: ‘I just want the nightmare to end’

By PETER KERMarch 26, 2010 THE winds of social change are gathering speed across Victoria, after irrigators in one of state’s most drought-ravaged districts virtually voted themselves out of existence last night. More than 70 per cent of the 153 farmers in the Campaspe Irrigation District say they wish to cease irrigating. They declared their […]

Six ways we’re already geo-engineering Earth

By Brandon Keim Email AuthorMarch 23, 2010 | 8:00 pm Scientists and policymakers are meeting this week to discuss whether geo-engineering to fight climate change can be safe in the future, but make no mistake about it: We’re already geo-engineering Earth on a massive scale. From diverting a third of Earth’s available fresh water to […]

Victims call China drought a human-caused disaster

By Lin Li & Feng MingSound of Hope Radio Network The continued drought in Southwest China has affected more than 50 million people in the provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, and the city of Chongqing. Discontent over the artificial causes of the drought, sky-high food prices, and unsatisfactory disaster relief has increased. Meanwhile, the […]

Graph of the Day: Trend in Australia Mean Temperature, 1960-2009

All of Australia has experienced warming over the past 50 years. Some areas have experienced warming since 1960 of up to 0.4ºC per decade resulting in total warming over the five decades of 1.5 to 2ºC Highly variable rainfall across the country, with substantial increases in rainfall in northern and central parts of Australia, as […]

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