Water shortages cause 100,000 to flee homes in Iraq: UN

Paris (AFP) Oct 13, 2009 – More than 100,000 people in northern Iraq have abandoned their homes since 2005 because of water stress, after drought and over-extraction of groundwater caused the collapse of an ancient water system, UNESCO said on Tuesday. “Drought and excessive well pumping have drawn down aquifer levels in the region, causing […]

With each passing month the situation gets more desperate: climate change sinks Carteret Islanders

From TreeHugger: Though it may be a number of years before your life is personally impacted by climate change, for people in low-lying island nations and the world’s great river deltas rising sea levels and saltwater ruining land is already a fact of life. One such place is the Carteret Islands off the coast of […]

Food production 'must rise 70%'

Food production will have to increase by 70% over the next 40 years to feed the world’s growing population, the United Nations food agency predicts. The Food and Agricultural Organisation says if more land is not used for food production now, 370 million people could be facing famine by 2050. The world population is expected […]

Melting glaciers release pollution from past decades

Alpine glaciers are now releasing nasty chemicals that settled on them decades ago and have since been banned By Jessica Hamzelou Bad hair and shoulder pads are not the only things from the 1980s that we’d rather not see again. Nasty chemicals banned in that decade are also on the list. Unfortunately, melting Alpine glaciers […]

Rare frog species bear the brunt of chytrid, a deadly fungal disease

Hope for frog conservation got bleaker with a recent study showing that fungus-associated extinction is reducing amphibian biodiversity in Central America By Carina Storrs    Threats to wildlife survival, such as habitat loss and climate change, tend to strike some species harder than others, and the threat of chytrid, a deadly amphibian fungus, appears to be […]

Melting permafrost causing disappearance of Arctic wetlands

By Bob Janiskee Scientists working in Denali National Park suspect that permafrost melting that’s caused by climate warming might be an important reason why many of Alaska’s shallow lakes and wetlands have shrunk or disappeared. If the trend continues, wetland-dependent wildlife might be severely impacted. … Bush pilots and others familiar with the black spruce […]

Flood victims in Burkina Faso suffer as climate changes

By Christophe Parayre OUAGADOUGOU (AFP) – A world away from the heated negotiations for a critical deal on stopping climate change at the UN summit in Copenhagen, Burkina Faso inhabitants are suffering the direct consequences of global warming. Jacqueline, Noroudine and Guy-Prosper are among the 150,000 made homeless by floods after the heaviest rainfall in […]

Kashmir's main glacier ‘melting at alarming speed’

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Indian Kashmir’s biggest glacier, which feeds the region’s main river, is melting faster than other Himalayas glaciers, threatening the water supply of tens of thousands of people, a new report warned on Monday. SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Indian Kashmir’s biggest glacier, which feeds the region’s main river, is melting faster than […]

Australia state creates more than 1000 bushfire safe havens

  By JONATHAN DART, October 10, 2009 MORE than 1000 properties across the state are expected to be earmarked and prepared as shelters of last resort in case of a bushfire. In one of the largest collaborative projects between the state’s Rural Fire Service and emergency services, the ”neighbourhood safer places” will be chosen, prepared […]

Organic mucilage blobs proliferating through oceans

By Christine Dell’Amore, National Geographic News, October 8, 2009 Beware of the blob—this time, it’s for real. As sea temperatures have risen in recent decades, enormous sheets of a mucus-like material have begun forming more often, oozing into new regions, and lasting longer, a new Mediterranean Sea study says (sea “mucus” blob pictures). And the […]

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