By KATE GALBRAITH18 June 2011 On the cliffs surrounding Lake Buchanan in Central Texas, a white ring extends some 13 feet above the shoreline, marking where the water reaches when the lake is full. At nearby Lake Travis, staircases that once led to the water’s edge now end well above it. These two lakes serve […]
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer15 June 2011 WASHINGTON — The fires searing parts of the West are an eerie echo of the past, a frightening reminder of a once terrible danger that had been held largely at bay for decades. The number of large wildfires has been rising for roughly the past 25 […]
By David Fogarty, with additional reporting by Gerard Wynn in London, Erik Dela Cruz in Manila, and Naveen Thukral in Singapore; Editing by Bill Tarrant10 Jun 2011 CANBERRA (Reuters) – Charlie Bragg gazes across his lush fields where fat lambs are grazing, his reservoirs filled with water, and issues a sigh of relief. Things are […]
Feeding the world by 2050 will require increasing agricultural output by 70 percent. To achieve this, agricultural productivity will need to grow at an annual average rate of at least 1.75 percent from a relatively fixed bundle of agricultural resources given growing regional scarcities of water and arable land. As noted earlier, over the past […]
By Carey Gillam; Editing by John Picinich7 Jun 2011 KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) – High-tech seeds and innovations in chemicals and farming will not be enough to solve looming food shortages for the world, according to a report issued Tuesday by a committee formed by food and chemicals conglomerate DuPont. Billions of dollars in private […]
By Mu Qing, Epoch Times Staff6 June 2011 The overall environmental situation in China is very grim with all seven major river systems polluted, according to Li Ganjie, Vice Minister of the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection, speaking at a press conference on June 3 to discuss the Report of the State of the Environment […]
By JUSTIN GILLIS4 June 2011 CIUDAD OBREGÓN, Mexico — The dun wheat field spreading out at Ravi P. Singh’s feet offered a possible clue to human destiny. Baked by a desert sun and deliberately starved of water, the plants were parched and nearly dead. Dr. Singh, a wheat breeder, grabbed seed heads that should have […]
By EDWARD WONG1 June 2011 DANJIANGKOU, China — North China is dying. A chronic drought is ravaging farmland. The Gobi Desert is inching south. The Yellow River, the so-called birthplace of Chinese civilization, is so polluted it can no longer supply drinking water. The rapid growth of megacities — 22 million people in Beijing and […]
By IAN JOHNSON3 June 2011 BEIJING — China’s three decades of rapid economic growth have left it with a “very grave” environmental situation even as it tries to move away from a development-at-all-costs strategy, senior government officials said on Friday. In a blunt assessment of the problems facing the world’s most populous country, officials from […]
By Matt Walker Editor, BBC Nature 31 May 2011 Populations of wildlife species in the world-renowned Masai Mara reserve in Kenya have crashed in the past three decades, according to research published in the Journal of Zoology. Numbers of impala, warthog, giraffe, topi, and Coke’s hartebeest have declined by over 70%, say scientists. Even fewer […]
