NEW YORK, 31 October 2012 (The Onion) – Following Hurricane Sandy’s destructive tear through the Northeast this week, the nation’s 300 million citizens looked upon the trail of devastation and fully realized, for the first time, that this is just going to be something that happens from now on. Gradually comprehending that this sort of […]
By DAVID W. CHEN and MIREYA NAVARRO30 October 2012 The warnings came, again and again. For nearly a decade, scientists have told city and state officials that New York faces certain peril: rising sea levels, more frequent flooding, and extreme weather patterns. The alarm bells grew louder after Tropical Storm Irene last year, when the […]
By Charles Riley7 October 2012 (CNN Money) – More people live in China than any other country, and in 2010 it surpassed the United States as the largest car market on Earth. As the popularity of automobiles grows, China’s infrastructure has struggled to keep pace. The result is – like anywhere else in the world […]
By Nikolaj Nielsen2 October 2012 BRUSSELS – Hundreds of defects have been found throughout Europe’s nuclear reactors and mostly in France, according to a EU stress test report leaked to the German and French media. The stress tests assess whether any of Europe’s 143 licensed nuclear power plants can withstand extreme events such as earthquakes […]
Islamabad/Brussels, 9 October 2012 (ICG) – Three successive years of devastating floods threatening the lives of millions, coupled with the displacement of hundreds of thousands due to military operations and militancy, gives Pakistan’s radical Islamist groups opportunities to recruit and increases the potential for conflict. “Since the democratic transition began in 2008, some progress has […]
By Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul, www.guardian.co.uk8 October 2012 The police and army in an increasingly violent Afghanistan will struggle to secure the country when foreign forces leave and the people face a corrupt presidential election in 2014, the Red Cross and a thinktank have warned. At stake is the limited and fragile stability that has […]
By Kevin McCoy, USA TODAY4 October 2012 While most Americans worry about gas and heating oil prices, water rates have surged in the past dozen years, according to a USA TODAY study of 100 municipalities. Prices at least doubled in more than a quarter of the locations and even tripled in a few. Consumers could […]
By Paul Brinkmann, with additional reporting by Oscar Pedro Musibay10 August 2012 (South Florida Business Journal) – The city of Miami Beach is vetting a $200 million storm water concept that is one of the first in the nation to respond to sea level rise resulting from global warming. As part of the process, global […]
BY PETER CALTHORPE SEPT/OCT 2012 (Foreign Policy) – In the last five years, China has built 20,000 miles of expressways, finishing the construction of 12 national highways a whopping 13 years ahead of schedule and at a pace four times faster than the United States built its interstate highway system. Over the last decade, Shanghai […]
By Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent, www.guardian.co.uk25 September 2012 Climate change is already contributing to the deaths of nearly 400,000 people a year and costing the world more than $1.2 trillion, wiping 1.6% annually from global GDP, according to a new study. The impacts are being felt most keenly in developing countries, according to the research, […]
