Extinctions on the rise in the Galapagos: fishing and global warming devastating islands' species

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com, December 03, 2009 We may never see again the Galapagos black-spotted damselfish, the beautiful 24-rayed sunstar, or the Galapagos stringweed. These species from Galapagos waters may all very well be extinct. Other species are on the brink, such as the Galapagos penguin and the Floreana cup coral. A new report in […]

Sea level rise along U.S. Atlantic Coast fastest in 4,000 years

December 02, 2009 PHILADELPHIA –- An international team of environmental scientists led by the University of Pennsylvania has shown that sea-level rise along the Atlantic Coast of the United States was 2 millimeters faster in the 20th century than at any time in the past 4,000 years. Sea-level rise prior to the 20th century is […]

Rotting camels poisoning Australian water supplies

By Staff WritersSydney (AFP) Dec 3, 2009 The rotting carcasses of thousands of wild camelswho have died of thirst in Australia’s desert Outback are polluting vital waterholes and sacred sites, a report said Thursday. The Central Land Council, which administers Aboriginal land in the nation’s arid centre, said the corpses were poisoning water supplies, describing […]

Graph of the Day: Sea Surface Temperature in Kuwait Bay, 1985-2007

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2009) — Since 1985, seawater temperature in Kuwait Bay, northern Persian Gulf, has increased on average 0.6°C per decade. This is about three times faster than the global average rate reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Differences are due to regional and local effects. Increased temperatures are having profound […]

Sundarbans water warming eight times faster than global average

IANS 1 December 2009, 10:20am IST NEW DELHI: In the Sundarbans, surface water temperature has been rising at the rate of 0.5 degree Celsius per decade over the past three decades, eight times the rate of global warming, says a new study. That makes the Sundarbans one of the worst climate change hotspots on the […]

India: Amid droughts and failed crops, a cycle of poverty worsens

India has long been plagued by unscrupulous moneylenders who exploit impoverished farmers. But with crops failing more frequently, farmers are left even more desperate and vulnerable. By Mark Magnier, 1 December  2009 … Here in the Bundelkhand region in central India that is among the nation’s more impoverished areas, the problem is exacerbated by climate […]

Climate change threatens life in Shishmaref, Alaska

  By John D. Sutter, CNNDecember 3, 2009 3:39 a.m. EST Shishmaref, Alaska (CNN) — When the arctic winds howl and angry waves pummel the shore of this Inupiat Eskimo village, Shelton and Clara Kokeok fear that their house, already at the edge of the Earth, finally may plunge into the gray sea below. “The […]

Methane: A menace surfaces

Arctic permafrost is already thawing, creating lakes that emit methane. The heat-trapping gas could dramatically accelerate global warming. How big is the threat? What can be done? Methane bubbling up into the atmosphere from thawing permafrost that underlies numerous Arctic lakes appears to be hastening global warming. New estimates indicate that by 2100 thawing permafrost […]

One killed in Mumbai water shortage protests

Reporting by Rina Chandran; Editing by Paul de Bendern and David Fox MUMBAI (Reuters) – One man was killed and about a dozen injured in a violent protest on Thursday against water cuts in India’s largest city after the worst monsoon in nearly four decades left Mumbai authorities scrambling to ration supplies. Mumbai is facing […]

Australia drought 'worse than 1930s'

SOUTHERN Australia stands to have the worst drought conditions since the 1930s as maximum summer temperatures soar, Victoria’s rural fire authority says. In a weather presentation to federal Victorian MPs at Parliament House in Canberra, Country Fire Authority chief fire officer Russell Rees also said there was a 55 per cent chance of summer temperatures […]

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