By Michael Smith12 February 2013 (Bloomberg Markets Magazine) – People streamed into the central square in Celendin, a small city in the Peruvian Andes, the morning of July 3, 2012. They were protesting the government’s support for Newmont Mining Corp.’s plan to take control of four lakes to make way for a new gold and […]
By Linda Uan12 February 2013 (WA Today) – On an average day in Kiribati we can look out across our calm and peaceful lagoons and see people fishing and going about their daily business and everything is at it has been for many generations. But this is deceptive. We now know that we are being […]
By Jim Lynch 2 February 2013 (The Detroit News) – In the nearly 100 years researchers have catalogued the rise and fall of the Great Lakes, Michigan and Huron have never seen a month like January. The two-lake system recorded its lowest-ever level for a month, a mean of 576.02 feet above sea level. It’s […]
By Beth Walker1 February 2013 (China Dialog) – China has confirmed it will resurrect a series of controversial hydropower dams in south-west China on rivers originating on the Tibetan Plateau, causing ripples of consternation from India and other downstream neighbours. The 2011-15 energy sector blueprint, released by China’s State Council last week, confirmed plans to […]
By RACHEL NUWER30 January 2013 (The New York Times) – Water, or the lack thereof, is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. As temperatures rise and droughts become more frequent, the threat of dwindling water resources worries not just environmentalists and governments but companies and their investors, too. Nearly every industrial sector, […]
By Minxin Pei28 January 2013 (FORTUNE) – For a long time, environmental activists, economists, and China scholars have warned about the coming environmental disaster in China. Such a catastrophe finally appeared in the most dramatic form in mid-January, when a thick layer of poisonous pollutants smothered much of northern China and made air in Beijing […]
By Jeremy Hance22 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – Glaciers are melting faster than ever in the tropical Andes, warns a new study published in The Cryosphere, which puts the blame for vanishing glaciers squarely on climate change. The study — the most comprehensive to date — found that since the 1970s glacier melt in the region […]
By Mike Pearson14 January 2013 (CNN) – Chris Berkey makes his living plying the often treacherous waters of the Great Lakes, delivering staples like cement to industries nestled in the myriad harbors that dot a coastline that’s equal to nearly half of the circumference of the globe. It’s not glamorous work, but it is critical […]
By MANNY FERNANDEZ12 January 2013 AUSTIN, Texas (The New York Times) – There is usually no shortage of controversial and politically divisive issues for lawmakers to address in the opening days of a state legislative session, from abortion to immigration to gun rights. But throughout the opening of the 83rd Texas Legislature last week, one […]
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer8 January 2013 WASHINGTON (AP) – America set an off-the-charts heat record in 2012. A brutal combination of a widespread drought and a mostly absent winter pushed the average annual U.S. temperature last year up to 55.32 degrees Fahrenheit, the government announced Tuesday. That’s a full degree warmer than the […]
