|
|
English coastlines in danger of crumbling away, says National Trust
13 10 2008 Telegraph: They are the breathtaking landscapes and historic buildings which help define the south-west coast of England. The report says 170 miles of coastline could be affected by erosion The familiar, rugged coastlines, cliffs and beaches of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset are quintessentially English. Ancient monuments, pathways and sheltered harbours all provide clues to a rich maritime history. But the National Trust, responsible for the care of special places ...
|
|
|
|
|
Crumbling coast: South-west England's treasures in danger
13 10 2008 Guardian: Almost 200 miles of some of the most precious stretches of south-west England's coastline are threatened by rising sea levels, it is claimed today. Fabulous beaches and cliffs, harbours and buildings are in danger. At least 142 scheduled ancient monuments, 111 listed buildings and one historic garden lie within a "risk zone". More than 100 miles of public rights of way have already been lost, or could be soon. The claims are made in Shifting Shores, a report published by the ...
|
|
|
|
|
Australia: Activists disrupt logging in Tasmania
13 10 2008 AAP: Forest activists have disrupted logging in a part of Tasmania that was subject to a protesting truce, the state's forestry body says. Police said they were called on Monday to remove a tree-sit protester and about 20 other activists blocking a road to a harvesting area of state forest in the Upper Florentine Valley, 120km west of Hobart. Forestry Tasmania spokesman Steve Whiteley said the area was formerly covered by a truce signed between Forestry Tasmania and the Still Wild, ...
|
|
|
|
|
Driving Mr. Lynx
12 10 2008 Boston Globe: ON AN OVERCAST, late-July morning, a five-car caravan of environmentalists arrived at a patch of North Carolina forest in the Smoky Mountains. Armed with shovels and 3-gallon buckets for watering, they unloaded several 2-foot specimens of Torreya taxifolia, a gangly, long-needled pine tree native to North Florida. Only several hundred Torreya pines remain in the wild, clinging to a few ravines by Florida's Apalachicola River, less than 1 percent of the stock a century ago. Most of the ...
|
|
|
|
|
Chainsaw massacre: They clean our air, reduce carbon and will save the planet ... So why are trees public enemy No1?
12 10 2008 Observer: Everyone professes a love of trees. I cannot find anybody who'll admit to hating them, or the lesser charge of finding their gnarled trunks, light-blocking canopies or autumnal tendency to drop leaves everywhere even vaguely irksome. Ostensibly, then, we're a nation of tree fanciers and huggers who relish being custodians of a rich woodland legacy. No surprise that the oak tree is a potent symbol of Englishness, its proud crown even providing cover for the occasional monarch on the run. The ...
|
|
|
|
|
Wildfires Send Ozone Pollution High Above Legal Limits
11 10 2008 Environment News Service: Wildfires can hike ozone pollution to levels that violate U.S. public health and environmental standards, new research has determined. The study by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research focused on California wildfires in 2007, finding that they repeatedly caused ground-level ozone to spike to unhealthy levels across a broad area, including much of rural California as well as neighboring Nevada. Fires worsen ozone levels by releasing nitrogen oxides and ...
|
|
|
|
|
Sustainable Landscape Industry Takes Root in Texas
11 10 2008 Environment News Service: The U.S. landscape industry has enjoyed decades of prosperity, but that will continue only if operators find more environmentally-friendly growing and selling methods, and embrace sustainability, says the executive vice president of the American Nursery and Landscape Association. Speaking Wednesday at Texas A&M University, Robert Dolibois, delivered the keynote address for the Distinguished Lecture Series of the Ellison Chair in International Floriculture. Dolibois said his ...
|
|
|
|
|
Supreme Court May Bar Groups From Contesting Federal Rules
11 10 2008 Environment News Service: The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared sympathetic to a legal position held by the Bush administration that would limit environmentalists and other public interest groups from challenging federal regulations. The case centers on a dispute over rules imposed by the U.S. Forest Service, but legal experts contend the court's ultimate decision could have far-reaching impacts and make it nearly impossible for many individuals and third parties to contest rules enacted by federal ...
|
|
|
|
|
WHO sets the agenda for climate and health research
11 10 2008 SciDev.Net: Experts have developed a research agenda to better understand and deal with the impacts of climate change on human health. The agenda was developed by more than 80 researchers and representatives from donor and UN agencies at a WHO meeting on climate change and health, held in Madrid, Spain, this week (6--8 October). The aim is to to "speed up, focus and intensify climate change and health research," said Maria Neira, WHO director of public health and environment, at a news ...
|
|
|
|
|
South Africa: Newly Discovered Ecosystem Of One Bacterium
11 10 2008 National Public Radio: Deep in a South African gold mine, three kilometers below the Earth's surface, scientists have discovered a tiny ecosystem in which there is only one organism. Dylan Chivian, the bioinformatics lead at the Joint BioEnergy Institute in Berkeley, Calif., discusses the finding.
|
|
|
|
|
Florida Hopes Energy Farm Will Be First of Many
11 10 2008 Inter Press Service: If an experiment to plant sweet sorghum in rural Florida and convert it to fuel ethanol pans out, it could herald a fundamental change in how the U.S. and other countries create and use renewable bio-energy, researchers say. Biofuels, like ethanol, are widely blamed for driving food prices higher, sparking food riots in many countries. At least 25 percent of the U.S. maize crop is diverted to biofuel, and extensive areas in Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Brazil are also devoted to ...
|
|
|
|
|
Russia: Happy birthday Mr Putin, here's a tiger!
11 10 2008 Guardian: He is famous for his macho stunts - which have included stripping to his waist during a Siberian fishing trip, skiing down a volcano and doing judo. But yesterday Vladimir Putin, Russia's answer to Action Man, went one step further when he showed off his latest birthday present: a rare two-and-a-half-month-old Siberian tiger. The Russian prime minister, who turned 56 on Tuesday, was given the tiger as a present. Yesterday he posed with the animal at his dacha outside Moscow, ...
|
|
|
|
|
Sri Lanka: 'Rice Paddies More Valuable Than Int'l Airport'
09 10 2008 Inter Press Service: Sri Lankan rice farmers who fought against President Mahinda Rajapakse and his powerful brothers, trying to construct an international airport on their paddies, say they won because their cause was just and enjoyed popular support. "There was no hidden agenda. It was not a personal battle; I fought in the national interest and 800 families were involved in the campaign. Why did the Rajapakses back off? Maybe because we were clean and honest," says H.M. Premachandra, 52, president of ...
|
|
|
|
|
Farmers will grow drought resistant crops 'in four years'
08 10 2008 Guardian: Genetically modified crops that are drought resistant will be grown by farmers within four to five years, according to scientists developing the technology. Dr David Dennis, the chief executive of Performance Plants Incorporated in Kingston, Ontario, said varieties of drought-tolerant oilseed rape and maize were already being tested in field trials in the US. He claimed the new varieties can increase yield by 40% when the plants are most water-stressed. Climate scientists ...
|
|
|
|
|
WHO Warns Against 'Bird Flu Fatigue'
08 10 2008 Inter Press Service: So where is the pandemic? This is a question most often asked of health experts years after they warned about a pandemic influenza that could infect up to 35 percent of the world's population. The experts had say that pandemics are recurring events and that one was due anytime. They said a pandemic today, given the large volume of international travel, could reach all continents in less than three months and that the world's medical facilities will have difficulty coping with the huge ...
|
|
|
|
|
Food crises could swing future UK elections, says thinktank
07 10 2008 Guardian: A food crisis is highly likely in the UK, with price and availability becoming issues that swing the outcome of future elections, according to a report from the thinktank Chatham House. The UK's food system is unable to cope with rapid changes in supply driven by climate change, rising energy prices and population growth, the report says. Consumers are likely to have to accept a shift from individual preferences to a system in which government and industry have to ensure the food that ...
|
|
|
|
|
Argentine beekeepers no longer in clover
07 10 2008 Reuters: Beekeepers had it easy when cattle roamed freely across the flower-filled meadows of Argentina's Pampas plains. But a boom in soy farming has changed all that. The legendry prairies have fast become one of the most efficient swathes of cropland on Earth, leaving little room for wild flowers and leading beekeepers in the world's No. 1 honey exporter to move their hives and even sow their own flowers. "They say that wherever the cow goes, the bee follows ... They live in harmony ...
|
|
|
|
|
U.S. to limit oil development in polar bear habitat
07 10 2008 Reuters: The U.S. Interior Department will designate within two years protected areas of the Arctic that are considered critical habitat for polar bears and cannot be harmed by oil development as part of a legal settlement with environmental groups on Monday. The Interior Department formally listed polar bears as threatened in May, but did not create protected areas for them. Environmental groups said the threatened listing needed to be coupled with habitat designations to protect polar ...
|
|
|
|
|
Australia: Scientists vs community in battle over river red gums
06 10 2008 Stock and Land: More than 40 scientists have signed an open letter to Victorian Premier John Brumby urging an end to mismanagement of water-starved river red gum forests along the Murray. The letter calls on the Government to accept advice that it protect 103,000 hectares of forest, including creating five new national parks and establishing a regional park from Wodonga to past Mildura. But an angry rally in Echuca yesterday heard an opposing view: that timber workers, farmers and hunters also ...
|
|
|
|
|
India: 'Settle forest rights first, industry can wait'
06 10 2008 Times of India: The bone of contention between wildlife and tribal lobbies could now turn into a headache for project developers, especially mining and power sectors. The Congress general secretary Kishore Chandra Deo has pointed out to PM Manmohan Singh that the diversion of forest land for industrial and infrastructural projects before the implementation of Forest Rights Act (FRA) was illegal. Deo, who has been pitching for the FRA in the face of inhouse resistance, has noted that UPA's celebrated ...
|
|
|
|
|
United States: Rise in carbon dioxide levels could either help or hurt crops
05 10 2008 Des Moines Register: For a peek at what the future holds for agriculture, go to the Agriculture Department's sprawling research campus outside the nation's capital and check out the stainless steel chambers in Building 10. Resembling oversized refrigerators, the chambers simulate the atmospheric conditions plants could experience in coming decades. Inside the chambers, scientists are growing stands of both wild and conventional varieties of rice to see how they respond. Stalks of wild rice are ...
|
|
|
|
|
Gore links Iowa floods to climate change
05 10 2008 Des Moines Register: Iowa's recent natural disasters are connected to global climate change, former Vice President Al Gore said in a speech at the state Democratic Party's annual fall fundraiser Saturday. Gore was the keynote speaker at the 2008 Jefferson Jackson Dinner at Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines. Gore, a former U.S. senator from Tennessee, lost the presidential election to George W. Bush in 2000. Last year, he won a Nobel Peace Prize for his effort to tackle global climate change. Gore ...
|
|
|
|
|
Britain's rivers could run dry
05 10 2008 Guardian: Britain's rivers could nearly run dry because long hot summers caused by climate change will not be sufficiently compensated by wetter winters, researchers predict. It is a scenario that would endanger wildlife and send household water bills soaring. Flows in the Mersey and Severn are likely to be reduced in summer by up to 80 per cent by 2050, according to a study by the Environment Agency. The Thames's flow is likely to decline by up to 50 per cent during the same period. It ...
|
|
|
|
|
Global warming set to shake our eating habits
05 10 2008 Australian: CLIMATE change is likely to deprive us of the pleasures of eating beef and lamb, instead forcing us to contemplate platefuls of kangaroo meat and threatening another Australian table staple -- seafood. A report to be released by the CSIRO today says changes in temperature, ocean currents, rainfall and extreme weather events could cost Australian fisheries tens of million of dollars. Hardest hit could be stocks of Tasmanian salmon, estimated to be worth $221million in 2005-06 ...
|
|
|
|
|
Australia: Frogs come face to face wih extinction
05 10 2008 Australian: ARMAGEDDON is approaching for frogs throughout the world, warns internationally renowned primatologist Jane Goodall. The 74-year-old conservationist visited Adelaide Zoo yesterday to discuss the potential mass extinction of frogs and how an international breeding program, dubbed the Amphibian Ark, might be the only hope for hundreds of species. Frogs are "the canary in the coalmine", Dr Goodall told The Australian yesterday. "When you see frogs disappear at this rate, ...
|
|
|
