Nuclear waste grows
French radioactive waste to double by 2030
France’s highly radioactive waste will more than double by 2030 mainly as spent fuel derived from nuclear reactors mounts up, the French national radioactive waste management agency (Andra) said on Tuesday.
Andra draws up every three years an inventory of sites polluted with radioactivity and details quantities per waste category [...]
Global food supply far from secure
Africa’s farmers need help to access loans, fertilizer and export markets to avoid future food supply crises caused by climate change and commodities speculation, a top agricultural expert said on Tuesday.
Wheat, rice and maize prices have fallen sharply from their 2008 highs, when protests broke out across the developing world over unaffordable staple foods and [...]
Huge declines in woodland birds
Huge declines in woodland birds
Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
Few nightingales are left to sing
The nightingale has effectively vanished from woodlands across the UK.
A 30-year survey of British woodland birds has found that its population has fallen by more than 95%.
Seventeen other bird species have also declined significantly, many of [...]
Droughts and floods threaten China’s economic growth
Droughts and floods threaten China’s economic growth, forecaster warns
Cost of crop failure soars as weather disasters become more frequent and severe
Buzz up!
Digg it
Tania Branigan in Beijing
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 June 2009 13.22 BST
Article history
A farmer takes water from a dried-up [...]
North America faces beetle plague
A plague of tree-killing beetles which swept across British Columbia is threatening to spread east, to the US.
The mountain pine beetle has killed more than half of all lodge pole pine in the province and is now active in neighbouring Alberta.
Cold winters usually kill off the beetle larvae, but the region has been warmer than [...]
India will reject greenhouse gas emission targets
ndia will not sign up to targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions but will instead focus on fighting poverty and boosting economic growth, the environment minister said Tuesday.
India is one of the world’s biggest emitters alongside China, the U.S. and Russia, and the second most populous nation. But India’s per capita emissions lag far [...]
Nigeria:43 million at risk from desertification
Ahead of this year’s World Desertification Day coming up in July, the federal government has estimated that over 43 million Nigerians may be on the verge of losing their means of livelihood due to the looming threat of desert encroachment in the northern part of the country.
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The Minister of Environ-ment, Mr. John Odey [...]
Wake up America
Most Americans believe that we are “exceptional”—both as a society and as a species. We believe that America was ordained through divine providence to be the societal role model for the world. And we believe that through our superior intellect, we can harness and even conquer Nature in our continuous quest to improve the material [...]
Supermarket suppliers helping to destroy rainforest
Brazilian authorities investigating illegal deforestation have accused the suppliers of several UK supermarkets of selling meat linked to massive destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian firms that supply Tesco, Asda and Marks & Spencer are among dozens of companies named by prosecutors, who are seeking hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation.
The move follows a [...]
Climate Change Melts the Rockies
Washington, D.C.-A perfect storm in the Rocky Mountains driven by population growth, a warming climate, and economic development has put both the region’s ecosystems and its economy in jeopardy, according to the latest issue of World Watch magazine.
“If the Rocky Mountain states want to continue to see growing, robust economies and levels of personal income [...]
Seagrass Losses Reveal Coastal Crisis
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Mounting loss of seagrass in the world’s oceans, vital for the survival of endangered marine life, commercial fisheries and the fight against climate change, reveals a major crisis in coastal ecosystems, a report says.
A global study of seagrass, which can absorb large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide, found that 29 percent of [...]
Crops produce more toxins in response to climate change
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Staples such as cassava on which millions of people depend become more toxic and produce much smaller yields in a world with higher carbon dioxide levels and more drought, Australian scientists say.
The findings, presented on Monday at a conference in Glasgow, Scotland, underscored the need to develop climate-change-resistant cultivars to feed rapidly [...]
Sustainable Food in Africa
Most of Africa struggles to produce enough food, mainly through poor practices, poor government policies and a lack of money and education among farmers.
There are now many well meaning schemes to increase yields, but it will be a great shame if African farmers become dependent on fossil fuel inputs for better yield, only to find [...]
Conservatives have always been Green
For reasons best known to himself, George W Bush privately derided environmentalists as “green, green lima beans”. But he was often embarrassed to find them growing in unexpected places. Possibly his worst moment came when Angela Merkel, just installed as Germany’s youngest ever chancellor, came to call. The Right-wing former East German, he assumed, would [...]
On the US/Mexico Border
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ldrnt
Link to a radio feature about the increasingly fortified American/Mexican border.
Studying rainfall in India
My desk in the Greenpeace office is on the veranda, tucked under the last lip of roof cover. This means that when it’s raining, like it’s doing now, the water falls only a foot away, so I can reach out with my fingers and touch it.Our official Rainspotting website, which will play host to the [...]
Scientists attack energy industry
Scientists attack energy industry
By Roger Harrabin
BBC Environment Analyst
Some doubt the ability of the UK to meet renewable energy targets
Britain’s energy systems are no longer fit for purpose, according to leading members of the UK’s best-known scientific academy, the Royal Society.
A meeting of experts at the society said the [...]
Spain’s downturn hits foreign workers
Spain has the highest proportion of immigrants of any EU country - most are from Latin America and Eastern Europe. But as boom turns to bust, Spain is rethinking its open-door policy, as the BBC’s European Affairs correspondent Oana Lungescu reports.
Madrid airport is the last place many immigrants see in Spain before heading home
…
In the [...]
Force Feeding of Women in Mauritania
NOUAKCHOTT, 26 June 2009 (IRIN) - As perceptions of beauty change and obesity-related diseases rise, more women in Mauritania are fighting back against force-feeding, according to the government. But even as some women refuse to fatten up, up to one-third of the country’s women are still risking their lives to put on weight to conform [...]
Constant growth is good?
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Constant Growth is Good?
This week’s post is courtesy of Michael Large. Michael is licensed to practise law in Ontario and BC, and is a graduate student in the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria. His Master’s thesis will explore the complex relationship between population pressures, ecological degradation, and the law.
Neo-liberalism (aka neo-conservatism [...]
Mozambique to conserve unique rain forest
Mozambique agrees to protect lost rainforest of Mount Mabu
Conservation secured after expedition discovers new species of snake, butterfly and chameleon in untouched African landscape.
Pygmy chameleon, Mount Mabu Photograph: Julian Bayliss/Kew
“It’s been a very successful week.” Antonia Windsor joins scientists and conservationists in Mozambique where new species of butterfly and reptiles await Link to this audio [...]
Poor face increased food price volatility
Agriculture to remain strong despite crisis -report
PARIS, June 17 (Reuters) - Food demand should keep the farm sector strong in the next decade and limit the impact from the global economic downturn, the OECD and the UN’s FAO food agency said in a report on Wednesday.
“Despite the significant impact of the global financial crisis and [...]
Desertification in Southern Europe
(ANSA) - Rome, June 25 - The Sahara Desert is crossing the Mediterranean, according to Italian environmental protection group Legambiente which warns that the livelihoods of 6.5 million people living along its shores could be at risk.
”Desertification isn’t limited to Africa,” said Legambiente Vice President Sebastiano Venneri.
”Without a serious change of direction in economic [...]
Ensuring Universal Access to Family Planning
Fifteen years after 179 nations committed to improving the reproductive health of women and couples, UNFPA reflects on the ongoing challenges to achieving the goals set forth at the International Conference on Population and Develop in 1994. A group of 30 technical experts and programme managers including representatives from Bangladesh, Egypt, Guatemala, Kenya, India, Senegal, [...]
Small Whales Disappearing
Small whales are disappearing from the world’s oceans and waterways as they fall victim to fishing gear, pollution, and habitat loss - threats compounded by a lack of conservation measures such as those developed for great whales.
According to a WWF report, inadequate conservation measures are pushing small cetaceans - such as dolphins, porpoises and small [...]
Conflict in China between people and pandas
People and giant pandas are still coming into conflict.
So concludes a report into the firewood collecting habits of people living in one of China’s largest panda reserves.
It found that over the past 30 years, people living in rural communities have ventured ever deeper into prime panda habitat to collect wood to burn.
Unless more is done [...]
World water forum in Istanbul
Twenty thousand people milling around thematic, country, commercial booths, attending political, learning, and topical sessions, watching musical and dance performances, and busily socializing in the hallways. All trying to work out how we can better manage water.
“Bridging the Divides” is the perfect name for this conference here in Istanbul. It’s a city that links Asia [...]
Bird numbers decline ‘worrying’
Scotland’s seabird numbers plunged by 19% between 2000 and 2008, a new report has said.
Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) said the major cause was almost certainly a shortage of food due to a drop in the number of small fish, such as sandeels.
SNH said the fish were probably being affected by rising sea temperatures.
Declines have been [...]
When Partner Abuse Isn’t a Bruise But a Pregnant Belly
Sexual coercion and “reproductive control,” including contraceptive sabotage, are a common, and devastating, facet of dating and domestic abuse. A growing number of studies, experts and young women themselves are testifying to boyfriends demanding unprotected sex, lying about “pulling out,” hiding or destroying birth control, flushing pills down the toilet, say, and preventing (or, in [...]
Dolphins migration climate change related
Dolphin ’super pod’ seen in firth
Some of the short-beaked common dolphins who were seen in the Moray Firth
Hundreds of dolphins more commonly found in warmer seas have been seen in the Moray Firth while making a “massive migration” into the North Sea.
The environmental charity Earthwatch Institute said more than 400 short-beaked common dolphins were sighted [...]
Ozone hole has unforeseen effect on ocean carbon sink
The Southern Ocean has lost its appetite for carbon dioxide, and now it appears that the ozone hole could be to blame.
In theory, oceans should absorb more CO2 as levels of the gas in the atmosphere rise. Measurements show that this is happening in most ocean regions, but strangely not in the Southern Ocean, where [...]
Global Experts Gather to Discuss Family Planning Crisis
United Nations Gathering of Global Experts to Address Current Crisis in Family Planning
UNITED NATIONS, New York— Family planning experts from around the world warn that the lack of funding for family planning is stalling development efforts in poor countries. Countries facing large population growth are especially at risk.
With populations expected to more than double in [...]
Uganda’s Big Hungry Population
As producers of food,farmers have a right to question the rational behind Uganda’s population growth rate.
The Population Secretariat put the population at 30.66 million by mid 2009 and gave a growth rate of 3.2%.
However,the Development Strategy and Investment Plan,prepared at about the same time by experts within the Ministry of Agriculture,Animal Industry and Fisheries gave a growth [...]
Women gather for reproductive health conference
MADRID - About 150 women from all over the world are gathered in Madrid, Spain, for a high level meeting on sexual and reproductive health, an area that still faces neglect in countries such as Namibia.
Sexual and reproductive health, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), entails that people are able to have a satisfying [...]
The Uncertainty of Climate Science
It seems the one thing climate change sceptics are certain of is uncertainty, in particular how uncertainty in the predictions of climate models fatally undermines their legitimacy.
So the recent revelation of the UK government’s projections of global warming through to 2080 was met, predictably, with some cynicism by the deniers. While some commentators used the [...]
Geo-engineering and Climate Change
Even if all emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosol precursors ended today, more warming would occur in coming decades than the 0.8°C that has occurred to date, greatly intensifying climate change and its associated impacts. Already, sea level is rising, sea ice and mountain glaciers are retreating, the ranges of plant and animal species are [...]
Reindeer herds in global decline
Reindeer and caribou numbers are plummeting around the world.
The first global review of their status has found that populations are declining almost everywhere they live, from Alaska and Canada, to Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia.
The iconic deer is vital to indigenous peoples around the circumpolar north.
Yet it is increasingly difficult for the deer to survive in [...]
Rainy Britain slips again in EU beach rankings
Polluted floodwaters and overflowing sewers helped push British beaches further down the European Union’s rankings for a second year running on Thursday, but most other EU countries improved bathing water quality.
“The UK had one of the wettest summers on record,” said Tom Bell, UK coastal pollution officer at the Marine Conservation Society.
“Waters suffered from a [...]
Climate change worsens disaster risks for poor
Climate change will aggravate natural disasters and people in developing nations such as Dominica, Vanuatu, Myanmar and Guatemala are most at risk, a U.N.-backed study showed Thursday.
It urged governments to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to curb mounting impacts of hazards such as cyclones, floods, droughts, landslides, earthquakes and tsunamis.
“Risk is … felt most [...]
World science academies push for G8 climate action
The world’s richest countries and those that are developing fastest need to lead the transition to an energy-efficient and low-carbon economy to stave off the worst effects of climate change, science academies from these nations said on Thursday.
In a message to the Group of Eight industrialized nations, as well as leaders of fast-growing Brazil, China, [...]
World facing global A(H1N1) flu pandemic, announces UN health agency
The A(H1N1) influenza outbreak has officially reached global pandemic levels, the public health arm of the United Nations announced today, as it raised its warning system to Phase 6.The World Health Organization (WHO) stressed that Phase 6, the highest level on its pandemic alert scale, refers to the spread of the virus and not its [...]
Family Planning not given Priority in Pakistan
KARACHI - Getting the family planning message out among the estimated two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has not been a top priority, according to a senior health official from Punjab Province.
Islam Zafar, director of health in the province, is currently leading a team of 140 paramedics running a [...]
The Sea of Galilee is Drying Up
Israel is launching an emergency campaign to save the Sea of Galilee from environmental disaster.
Years of drought and mismanagement threaten to tip the iconic lake into catastrophe and kill off much of its plant and wildlife.
For centuries the Galilee has inspired millions of believers as the place where Jesus of Nazareth performed his miracles.
Nowadays it [...]
Low Usage of Family Planning Services by Afghan Women in Rural Areas
KABUL - Family planning services are available in over 90 percent of health facilities across Afghanistan but the number of women using them in rural areas is too low, according to the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH).
Report from the Push Journal:June 24th 2009
Hamida Ebadi, director of MoPH’s reproductive health unit, reckoned only 14-15 percent of [...]
Deforestation in Uganda
Uganda has lost nearly a third of its forests in the past 2 decades and could lose most of its tree cover in 40 years unless remedial measures are taken environmentalists have warned.
“Climate change does not happen in isolation-it interacts with existing problems and challenges,notably:deforestation,soil degradation,declining food security,declining fish stocks-and makes them worse”,said Frank Mulamzi,of NAPE.
Uganda [...]
Ecopsychology:Fact or Fiction?
Our vocabulary has changed so much in recent decades that our grandparents would now wonder what we were talking about. In the 1980s we got stuck in a language of acronyms, full of yuppies, dinkies and nimbyism. By the 1990s we’d become subversive, flipping “wicked” on its head and turning “mobile” from an adjective to [...]
The Reith Lectures:episode 3:Genetics and Morality
http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?uri=%2Fradio4%2F&go=toolbar&q=reith+lectures
Follow the link to find Professor Sandel’s latest lecture,which touches on eugenics,the genetic enhancement of humans and population management.
‘Boom and bust’ of deforestation
Cutting down Amazon forest for cattle and soy does not bring long-term economic progress, researchers say.
A study of 286 Amazon municipalities found that deforestation brought quick benefits that were soon reversed.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers say the deforestation cycle helps neither people nor nature.
They suggest that mechanisms to reward people in poorer countries [...]
UN expert puts forward measures to regulate ‘land grabbing’
An independent United Nations human rights expert proposed a set of measures today to guide large-scale international land purchases, known as “land grabbing,” ahead of upcoming negotiations by the “Group of Eight” (G8) industrialized nations on responsible investment in agriculture.The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, identified the practice of [...]
Ice loss could push sea levels above estimates
Increasing loss of ice from Antarctica and Greenland could cause sea levels to exceed U.N. estimates by 2100, an Australian government-backed report says, with the extent of the rise still uncertain.
The U.N. Climate Panel says seas could rise by 18-59 cm (7-24 inches) by 2100. It also raised the possibility of an additional 20 cm [...]
Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013′
Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.
Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.
Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.
Summer [...]
Many sharks ‘facing extinction’
Many sharks ‘facing extinction’
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
Endangered hammerhead sharks are often caught for their valuable fins
Many species of open ocean shark are under serious threat, according to an assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The Red list gives the status of 64 types [...]
UN experts tackle ‘conspiracy of silence’ over sexual violence in wartime
Women’s rights activists, senior military figures and top United Nations officials met in New York this week to discuss what the world body’s former humanitarian chief Jan Egeland described as “one of the biggest conspiracies of silence in history” – the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.The talks focused particularly on the [...]
Water woes seen as opportunity for ag investors
Water scarcity is a growing problem for rural and urban areas alike around the globe, providing an opportunity for investors, according to leading agricultural experts and investment strategists.
The costs of accessing water are on the rise with world supply under pressure from high usage, particularly in agriculture, inefficient infrastructure, environmental pollution, climate change and other [...]
Europe refuses to get soil on its hands
Three years ago, the European commission proposed a legal framework for soil protection (pdf). Three years later, it is at risk of being consigned to the compost heap as a small but powerful group of EU governments are refusing to approve it. Britain, France, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands are all opposed to the plan, [...]
Climate refugees will not flood rich nations
Migrants uprooted by climate change in the poorest parts of the world are likely to only move locally, contrary to predictions that hundreds of millions will descend on rich countries, a study said on Wednesday.
The research from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), a non-profit London-based think tank, challenges the common perception in [...]
French President Appoints First Openly Gay Cabinet Member
On Wednesday, June 24, France will officially have a new Minister of Culture: Frédéric Mitterrand, nephew of former French president François Mitterrand.
The first openly gay individual to be appointed to high office in France, he will replace outgoing minister Christine Albanel, whom French President Nikolas Sarkozy has called “too sad.”
http://www.ippf.org/en/News/Intl+news/French+President+Appoints+First+Openly+Gay+Cabinet+Member.htm
Protesters take over Scottish woodland earmarked for opencast mine
Activists have occupied a stretch of Scottish woodland and vowed to hold it until Scottish Coal shelves plans to turn the site into an opencast mine.
The protesters have the backing of local residents in the small village of Douglas, in South Lanarkshire, who have been battling for several years the mine which would destroy the [...]
Afghanistan:fewer rural women use family planning services
Wednesday, 24 June, 2009
IRIN News
KABUL - Family planning services are available in over 90 percent of health facilities across Afghanistan but the number of women using them in rural areas is too low, according to the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH).
Hamida Ebadi, director of MoPH’s reproductive health unit, reckoned only 14-15 percent of women in [...]
Population,Resources and Human Idealism
Bartlett notes that population growth will cease at some point: the mathematics assures us of that (otherwise, in just a few centuries, the entire surface of the planet would be covered with humans). Moreover, we need not do anything to solve the population problem; nature will take care of that for us. Sooner or later, [...]
Population and Sustainability
In an era of changing climate and sinking economies, Malthusian limits to growth are back—and squeezing us painfully. Whereas more people once meant more ingenuity, more talent and more innovation, today it just seems to mean less for each. Less water for every cattle herder in the Horn of Africa. (The United Nations projects there [...]
Gaia’s Evil Twin
The ground is shifting, though. A number of recent discoveries have cast serious doubt on the Gaia hypotheses. Two lines of research are especially damning: one comes from deep time - the study of ancient rocks - and the other from models of the future. Both overturn key Gaian predictions and suggest that life on [...]
Eco-Socialism:a study of Cuba
“Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations.”
I’ve never known any socialist organization to make this point explicitly, but Marx’s words imply that one [...]
World bank sees bleak prospects for development in Africa
For developing countries, the signs could not be worse: hunger and poverty are on the rise and financing is in freefall as capital markets, donors, and official lenders contend with a severe global downturn.
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“Almost two years after problems in the US mortgage market set in motion the biggest financial crisis since [...]
UK Repatriation Scheme:a Costly Failure
A £1m government scheme to help failed asylum seekers and their children return home resulted in just one family leaving Britain, the BBC has learned.
The pilot scheme in Kent, run by the charity Migrant Helpline, was aimed at reducing the number of children locked up in detention centres each year.
The Children’s Society said it was [...]
Water shortages:an investment opportunity or a crisis?
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Water scarcity is a growing problem for rural and urban areas alike around the globe, providing an opportunity for investors, according to leading agricultural experts and investment strategists.
The costs of accessing water are on the rise with world supply under pressure from high usage, particularly in agriculture, inefficient infrastructure, environmental pollution, [...]
Madonna Plans Another Adoption
Malawi’s rejection of Madonna’s attempt to adopt a little three-year-old girl named Mercy makes for alliteration and good headlines, but it’s the underlying story that really deserves the attention. Mercy is just the unfortunate poster-child for a much larger tragedy.
In Malawi, as in many other sub-Saharan countries, the AIDS epidemic has orphaned vast numbers of [...]
Peak Food - who cares
We at Peak Food have been warning for several years that we have an unsustainable food production system that will be unable to sustain the 8 billion people expected by 2025. Modern farming is dependent on finite fossil fuels for it’s power needs, for nitrogen fertilizer and for pesticides. The world is losing about 25 [...]
Will the burka be banned in France?
Since this was the first time in almost one and a half centuries that a French president had been allowed to address parliament, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s speech was already on course to ruffle a few feathers.
The Greens and Communists refused to attend and the Socialists left early, claiming the venue for the address - the [...]
Africa:Climate Change Threatens Instability in 37 Nations
The evidence is clear.Climate change is a reality that is already affecting the lives of millions of Africans by reducing agricultural production and food security,increasing water stress,facilitating the spread of diseases,increasing the risk of droughts,flooding and mass migration,as well as by eroding coastal habitats and valuable agricultural space because of rising sea levels.
This reality is [...]
Where’s the world’s plan of action against climate change?
Today, international action on climate change is urgent and essential. Indeed, there can no longer be any debate about the need to act, because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of which I am chairman, has established climate change as an unequivocal reality beyond scientific doubt.
For instance, changes are taking place in precipitation patterns, [...]
China arable land fears end reforestation drive
China has halted a program of letting marginal farmland return to woodland, because of fears the country’s arable land area could fall below a “red line” needed to feed its people, a vice minister said on Tuesday.
Lu Xinshe, deputy head of the Ministry of Land and Resources, said China was losing too many fields to [...]
Africa in 2040:The Darkened Continent
Abstract
This article examines the interaction of a variety of influences on the African food supply over the next three decades. The influences include climate change, rising oil and fertilizer prices, HIV/AIDS, rising population, falling GDP, food import and distribution requirements and global food price inflation. The article then looks at what the growing constraints on [...]
Repositioning Family Planning
Repositioning Family Planning: Guidelines for Advocacy Action
‘Provision of family planning services in Africa is hindered by poverty, poor access to services and commodities, poor coordination of the programmes, and dwindling donor funding. In addition, traditional beliefs favoring high fertility, religious barriers, and lack of make involvement have weakened family planning interventions. Yet, it is considered [...]
Megafauna demise blamed on humans
Megafauna demise blamed on humans
Debate has raged about the demise of “whopper hopper” P. goliah
A fossil study of the extinct giant kangaroo has added weight to the theory that humans were responsible for the demise of “megafauna” 46,000 years ago.
The decline of plants through widespread fire or changes toward an arid climate have [...]
Scientists warn of growing threat to global warming from unchecked gases
An international team of scientific researchers has warned that hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gases – used increasingly in insulation foam, air-conditioning and refrigeration – present a significant threat to global efforts to stabilize climate change, in a move welcomed today by the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).A scientific paper published in the Proceedings of [...]
Climate change blamed for Caribbean coral deaths
Climate change has contributed to a flattening of the complex, multi-layered architecture of Caribbean coral reefs, compromising their role as a nursery for fish stocks and a buffer against tropical storms, a study shows.
The analysis of 500 surveys of 200 reefs, conducted between 1969 and 2008, showed the most complex types of reef had been [...]
Earth’s coastlines after sea-level rise, 4000 AD
Even if we could freeze-frame the atmosphere as it is today, sea levels would still rise by 25 metres, says the latest study into the effects of climate change on melting ice sheets.
Eelco Rohling of the UK National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton and colleagues reconstructed sea level fluctuations over the last 520,000 [...]
Rapid growth in European cod farming prompts fears from green groups
Conservationists have expressed dismay at the rapid growth in European cod farming following new figures released last week.
Norway, which accounts for around 80% of the world’s farmed cod production, increased its national production by 59% from 10,375 tonnes in 2007 to 16,523 tonnes in 2008. The figures, from the country’s Directorate of Fisheries confirm the [...]
Swiss glaciers melting faster than ever before
Switzerland’s glaciers shrank by 12 percent over the past decade, melting at their fastest rate due to rising temperatures and lighter snowfalls, a study by the Swiss university ETH showed Monday.
“The last decade was the worst decade that we have had in the last 150 years. We lost a lot of water,” said Daniel Farinotti, [...]
Nature’s pill
THE first “natural” Pill is launched - promising to reduce side effects linked to the original.
It could cut headaches, mood swings and the higher risk of blood clots that put many women off the birth control tablets.
And users have shorter periods, with less pain and cramps, than those on the normal Pill.
The [...]
Ban warns of untold damage inflicted on seas, marking first World Oceans Day
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today marked the first United Nations World Oceans Day with a warning of the “terrible toll” human activity exacts on the world’s oceans and seas, with a new report highlighting the threat of the rising tide of marine garbage.“Vulnerable marine ecosystems, such as corals, and important fisheries are being damaged by over-exploitation, [...]
Saving the seas for marine mammals
Since the 1960s’ save-the-whale movement started in California, we have made some progress reversing the momentum toward extinction that came from centuries of whaling.
Despite global campaigns, whale meat is still sold in a number of nations
There are still great threats to whales and dolphins as some countries continue to go whaling and dolphin hunting.
Hundreds of [...]
Peru declares curfew after bloody clashes in Amazon jungle
Peru has declared a curfew in its Amazon jungle after dozens died and hundreds were injured in bloody clashes between security forces and indigenous tribes protesting against oil and mining projects.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/07/peru-curfew-amazon-indigenous-tribes
Menaces to oceans: CO2, plastic bags, overfishing
The world’s seas are filled with too much garbage and too few fish with flimsy plastic bags and government subsidies bearing much of the blame, activists and trade officials said Monday on the first U.N. World Oceans Day.
The World Trade Organization’s director-general, Pascal Lamy, used the occasion to note that some species are at risk [...]
Concern over young people’s risky sex
Awareness of the dangers of HIV/Aids is decreasing among young people at a time when fewer are practicising safe sex, a survey has revealed.
Nearly 60% of 16- to 24-year-olds questioned thought they were not at risk of contracting the infection after having unprotected sex and 8% believed taking a contraceptive pill offered protection against infection.
Almost [...]
A war of water
Gaza’s sewage problem is just one of several environmental issues which affect both Palestinians and Israelis. Friday 5 June was World Environment Day, and it is appropriate to take a moment to survey the environmental damage around us and ask what can be done to prevent it.
The river Jordan, which once nourished the Jordan valley [...]
Is the daddy-longlegs doomed?
Is the humble daddy-longlegs in trouble? The RSPB thinks so, at least in the uplands. Its research suggests that, because of hotter summers, that is to say, because of global warming, the peat bogs are drying out. It is suggested that, since the larvae prefer moist conditions, their numbers are falling, which in turn spells [...]
World oceans day: all the fish in the sea
Eating fish is good for us, but catching it in the way we do devastates the sea. Nearly nine tenths of European stocks are overfished, and around a third are beyond safe biological limits: that is, the adult population is too depleted to provide replacement stock. Almost all cod caught in the North Sea have [...]
Pirate fishing causing eco disaster and killing communities
Pirate fishing is out of control, depriving some the most world’s most vulnerable communities of food and leading to ecological catastrophe, a three-year investigation has found.
“Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is one of the most serious threats to the future of world fisheries. It is now occurring in virtually all fishing grounds from shallow [...]
Working Women changing traditional roles in Latin America and Caribbean
An increase of Latin American and Caribbean women in the workforce is challenging the traditional interplay between work and family life, a joint United Nations report said today, adding that responding to this phenomenon is an essential step towards gender equality and more productive economies.The report, “Work and Family: A new call for public policies [...]
Africa:Honour Pledges on Reproductive Health
In 1994,the International Conference on Population and Development-(ICPD)-proposed a ground-breaking shift in the approach to reproductive health:women’s reproductive capacity was to be transformed from an object of population control to a matter of women’s empowerment to exercise personal authority.
The ICPD’s Plan of Action set out several key action areas:education and literacy;reproductive health care andthe unmet need [...]
Ghosts of oceans past and future
Marine ecosystems are facing a litany of threats, ranging from overfishing to climate change - but the Census of Marine Life is key to mitigating them, say Ian Poiner and Poul Holm. In this week’s Green Room, they argue that everything from long-ago tax accounts to eyewitness whale encounters are crucial in understanding the future [...]
Sex sells:A Tiny Non-Profit Uses Mass Media to Encourage Family Planning
Family Planning
Fikrite is a girl in trouble. Her grandfather has just died and now a neighbor, a man named Damte, has taken over the house and is trying to turn the place into a bar and brothel. Fikrite says she won’t allow it, so Damte starts spreading rumors about the girl and soon everyone, [...]
Cameron Diaz on overpopulation
Cameron Diaz says the world doesn’t need any more children. The ‘My Sister’s Keeper‘ actress, who recently split from British model Paul Sculfor, believes it’s unfair to judge women who don’t want to settle down and start a family. She said: “I think women are afraid to say that they don’t want children because they’re [...]
China alone could bring world to brink of climate calamity, claims US official
China must be far more ambitious in tackling climate change if the international community wants to prevent calamitous levels of global warming, a senior US official told counterparts in Beijing today.
David Sandalow, assistant secretary of state for energy, said the continuation of business as usual in China would result in a 2.7C rise in global [...]
Global Bird Species in Serious Decline
Global Bird Species in Serious Decline
by Ben Block on May 29, 2009
Within the next few years, the Sidamo lark will likely become the first known bird to disappear from mainland Africa due to human-caused land use changes.
Researchers have known about the speckled brown Sidamo lark for only 40 years. Always a rare sight, the elusive [...]
2008 confirmed rise in weather disasters
A global trend toward increasing weather-related disasters was confirmed in 2008, the second deadliest year in the past decade for natural catastrophes, an annual Red Cross report said on Tuesday.
The number of people reported killed by natural disasters last year — a total of 235,736 — was surpassed only in 2004, the year of the [...]
U.S. climate report details energy, agriculture harm
Climate change has already caused “visible impacts” in the United States and poses particular risks to the U.S. agriculture and energy industries, a new government report said on Tuesday.
The report, which lays out the effects of global warming on specific U.S. regions and sectors, calls for quick policy action as the U.S. House of Representatives [...]
Climate change will have “severe” impact on Asia
Climate change impacts such as lower crop production will have severe effects on Asia and a broader climate pact being negotiated this year is crucial to minimizing the effects, a U.N. official said on Wednesday.
Developed nations are under intense pressure to agree to deep 2020 cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to try to seal an [...]