Graph of the Day: Global Mercury Emissions from Human Activities, 1990-2007

The elemental form of mercury is not as toxic to humans and wildlife as the organic form of mercury, methylmercury, which can accumulate in blood, feathers, and fur. An inorganic element found in the earth’s crust, mercury is naturally released into the environment through geological events such as volcanic eruptions. Elemental mercury (abbreviated Hg, from […]

UN world hunger report 2011: High, volatile prices set to continue

Rome, October 10 (FAO) – Food price volatility featuring high prices is likely to continue and possibly increase, making poor farmers, consumers and countries more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity, the United Nations’ three Rome-based agencies said in the global hunger report published today. Small, import-dependent countries, particularly in Africa, are especially at risk. […]

2010 Amazon drought released more carbon than India’s annual emissions

October 9 (mongabay.com) – The 2010 drought that affected much of the Amazon rainforest triggered the release of nearly 500 million tons of carbon (1.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere, or more than the total emissions from deforestation in the region over the period, estimates a new study published in the journal […]

Graph of the Day: Age of Arctic Sea Ice, 1983-2011

Why did ice extent fall to a near record low without the sort of extreme weather conditions seen in 2007? One explanation is that the ice cover is thinner than it used to be; the melt season starts with more first-year ice (ice that formed the previous autumn and winter) and less of the generally […]

Steep increase in global CO2 emissions despite reductions by industrialized countries

Paris, France (SPX) Sep 28, 2011 – Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main cause of global warming – increased by 45% between 1990 and 2010, and reached an all-time high of 33 billion tonnes in 2010. Increased energy efficiency, nuclear energy and the growing contribution of renewable energy are not compensating for […]

RealClimate: Greenland meltdown

By Gavin Schmidt21 September 2011 After a record-breaking 2010 in terms of surface melt area in Greenland [Tedesco et al., 2011], numbers from 2011 have been eagerly awaited. Marco Tedseco and his group have now just reported their results. This is unrelated to other Greenland meltdown this week that occurred at the launch of the […]

Canada faces huge global warming costs

By Michel Comte, AFP 29 September 2011 The economic impact of climate change on Canada could climb to billions of dollars per year, according to a study published Thursday by a policy group that advises the Canadian government. The report, Paying the Price: The Economic Impacts of Climate Change for Canada, by the National Round […]

Graph of the Day: Global Food Security Levels in the Face of High Food Prices

If nothing else, existentially important goods include food. Although countries such asGermany are almost self-sufficient when it comes to the basic supply of foodstuffs, peak oil could well have serious consequences in some areas of agriculture. Potential supply bottlenecks would above all jeopardise countries with high food import quotas since the cost of importing food […]

2011 sets U.S. record for most natural disasters – Republicans demand relief funding be offset by clean-energy cuts

By Joe Romm  26 September 2011 This year just set the record for most Federal Emergency Management Agency declared disasters. And we’ve still got 3 months to go. It is strictly a coincidence, of course, that most of those disasters are climate related and climate scientists predicted that as we pour more heat-trapping gases into […]

Graph of the Day: Colorado River Annual Flow, 1905-2010

Flow of the already over-allocated Colorado River, showing a general decreasing trend over the past 100 years. Thirsty for Answers: Preparing for the Water-related Impacts of Climate Change in American Cities Technorati Tags: population,freshwater depletion,drought,North America,climate change,global warming,agriculture

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