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 […]

Environmental refugees and global warming in Sub-Saharan Africa

ScienceDaily (Mar. 22, 2010) — Climate change and environmental degradation are likely to trigger increased migration in Sub-Saharan Africa with potentially devastating effects on the hundreds of millions of especially poor people, according to a paper in the International Journal of Global Warming. Environmental changes are especially pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), explain Ulrike Grote […]

Graph of the Day: Global Trends in Land-Use Area for Livestock Production, 1961-2001

Nearly 30% of the Earth’s terrestrial ice-free surface is devoted to livestock production, while 8% is devoted to production of crops that are directly consumed by people. As livestock production shifts to more intensive systems, it will place more pressure on arable land for the production of feed. Over-grazing has resulted in loss of biodiversity […]

Billions of gallons of toxic wastewater dumped into Ecuador rivers

“The stream was 50 meters from our house and chemicals were dumped into it. Oh, it stank! The water ran like a natural stream, but it was warm toxic waste water. We had headaches, dizziness, stomachaches…. Our children loved to fish and swim in the river. They came home covered in crude. We fried the […]

Uganda says pollution of Lake Victoria worsening

Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Kevin Liffey KAMPALA (Reuters) – Pollution in parts of Lake Victoria is worsening so fast that soon it may be impossible to treat its waters enough to provide drinking water for the Ugandan capital, a senior official said Monday. The lake, east Africa’s largest by area, also supplies water […]

Waste water kills millions of children, pollutes sea

Reporting by Tim Cocks; editing by Ralph Boulton ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Human beings are flushing millions of tonnes of solid waste into rivers and oceans every day, poisoning marine life and spreading diseases that kill millions of children annually, the U.N. said on Monday. “The sheer scale of dirty water means more people now die […]

Silent streams: Freshwater animals are vanishing faster than those on land or at sea

By Doug ChadwickPhotograph by Joel Sartore …Lakes, swamps, and rivers make up less than 0.3 percent of fresh water and less than .01 percent of all the water on Earth. Yet these waters are home to as many as 126,000 of the world’s animal species, including snails, mussels, crocodiles, turtles, amphibians, and fish. Almost half […]

EPA report: Streams near mining toxic

By Ken Ward Jr., Staff writerMarch 15, 2010 CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Water quality downstream from surface coal-mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky greatly exceeds recommended toxicity limits, according to previously unreleased sampling data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. EPA scientists found toxicity levels as high as 50 times the federal guidelines in water […]

Graph of the Day: Chinook Salmon Landings on the U.S. West Coast, 1950-2007

Landings refer to the amount of catch that is brought to land. Chinook salmon landings are most often reported in terms of numbers of individual fish. Numbers of fish caught are sometimes converted to estimates of weight, but this is primarily for the purpose of quantifying the economic value of the commercial catch. Salmon managers […]

Diversion of California water to save salmon ‘scientifically justified’

By Michaael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Controversial cuts in water deliveries to central California farms to protect endangered fish appear to be “scientifically justified” but still in need of further study, scientists have concluded in a report to be issued Friday. In a politically sensitive study, the National Research Council determined two federal […]

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