ApocaDocuments (16) matching "climate impacts" from this week
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Sun, Sep 20, 2009
from New York Times:
Belatedly, Egypt Spots Flaws in Wiping Out Pigs
CAIRO — It is unlikely anyone has ever come to this city and commented on how clean the streets are. But this litter-strewn metropolis is now wrestling with a garbage problem so severe it has managed to incite its weary residents and command the attention of the president... When the government killed all the pigs in Egypt this spring — in what public health experts said was a misguided attempt to combat swine flu — it was warned the city would be overwhelmed with trash.
The pigs used to eat tons of organic waste. Now the pigs are gone and the rotting food piles up on the streets of middle-class neighborhoods like Heliopolis and in the poor streets of communities like Imbaba. ...
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This pig in a poke went to hell in a handcart.
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Sat, Sep 19, 2009
from Agence France-Presse:
Car sales spike in Beijing, capital nears 4 million auto mark
Sales of new cars in Beijing have spiked to about 2,000 a day, a trend that will put up to four million vehicles on the streets of China's capital by year's end, state media said Friday.
About 60,100 cars were sold in the month of August in Beijing -- the largest number of auto purchases this year and nearly double the amount of vehicles sold in the same month in 2008, the China Daily said....an increase of one million cars in just two years. ...
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It's the Carpocalypse!
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Sat, Sep 19, 2009
from Christian Science Monitor:
Severe drought affects 1.3 million in Syria
The acute drought that has driven an estimated 300,000 Syrian farmers, herders, and their families to abandon home for makeshift urban camps may not be the worst in the region's history; the Fertile Crescent has often experienced cycles of drought.
But now climate change, an exploitation of water resources, and higher food prices brought about by the global financial crisis have all severely sharpened the impact of this dry spell, now in its fourth year. The numbers of Syrians affected – an estimated 1.3 million, 803,000 of whom have entirely lost their livelihoods – point to a serious humanitarian crisis.
With Syria's population expected to triple by 2025, the severity of the drought presents yet another challenge for a leadership isolated internationally and struggling at home to maintain a broken state system while slowly introducing capitalism. ...
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Perhaps they should rethink that whole "tripling the population" plan, eh?
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Sat, Sep 19, 2009
from Washington Post:
Left in the Flat-Screen Dust
...America's unquenchable craving, even in a recession, for the latest and greatest in electronics, and the nation's switch to digital television broadcasting in June, have combined to send consumers racing for flat-screen TVs -- and has made them anxious to rid their homes of their tube-based relics... nobody will take their old TVs, not even for free, and local governments are scrambling to stop the rejects, laden with lead, from being dumped in landfills or poor Asian countries.... As new TVs enter the home, many people hide the old ones in basements, garages or closets. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 99 million TVs were stored this way two years ago. But many TVs are simply tossed. In 2007, 27 million units were discarded, and 77 percent of them were tossed out with the trash (most of the rest are recycled). ...
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I know! Let's turn the TVs into aquariums — to replace our collapsing ocean and lake ecosystems!
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Fri, Sep 18, 2009
from Associated Press:
Scores of walrus carcasses found on Arctic coast
Up to 200 dead walruses have been spotted on the shore of Chukchi Sea on Alaska's northwest coast... Environmental groups calling for measures to slow greenhouse gas emissions say walruses on shore are evidence that global warming is altering the Arctic and forcing major changes in wildlife behavior.
The Center for Biological Diversity has petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to list walruses as a threatened or endangered species because of the threat from sea ice loss, and the agency has opened a 60-day public comment period. Retreating sea ice might have taken away some of the platforms walrus use to hunt and rest, pushing to walrus to shore. ...
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The canaries just keep getting bigger and bigger...
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Fri, Sep 18, 2009
from London Times:
India challenges US by agreeing to impose limits on carbon emissions
India wrong-footed the United States and other rich nations yesterday by agreeing for the first time to set numerical targets for curbing its greenhouse gas emissions.
The move added to pressure on the Obama Administration to deliver on its own climate change pledges even as senior Democrats warned that US legislation may face severe delays.
Jairam Ramesh, the Indian Environment Minister, told The Times that legislation was being drafted in Delhi to limit India's carbon footprint and in the process repair his country's reputation for intransigence on climate change before the crucial UN conference in Copenhagen in December. ...
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If India can do it, then yes we can too!
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Fri, Sep 18, 2009
from New York Times:
Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells
...Agricultural runoff is the single largest source of water pollution in the nation's rivers and streams, according to the E.P.A. An estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from waterborne parasites, viruses or bacteria, including those stemming from human and animal waste, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology...In Brown County [Wisconsin], part of one of the nation's largest milk-producing regions, agriculture brings in $3 billion a year. But the dairies collectively also create as much as a million gallons of waste each day. Many cows are fed a high-protein diet, which creates a more liquid manure that is easier to spray on fields.
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They put the "brown" in Brown County.
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Thu, Sep 17, 2009
from Associated Press:
EPA scraps Bush-era smog rule and will start over
The Obama administration signaled Wednesday that it would scrap a controversial Bush-era rule that set stricter limits for smog but fell short of scientific recommendations.
In a notice filed Wednesday in a federal appeals court, the Justice Department says there are concerns that the revision made by the Bush administration does not adhere to federal air pollution law. The Environmental Protection Agency will propose revised smog standards to protect health and the environment in late December.
"This is one of the most important protection measures we can take to safeguard our health and our environment," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson in a statement. "Reconsidering these standards and ensuring acceptable levels of ground-level ozone could cut health care costs and make our cities healthier, safer places to live, work and play."
Smog is a respiratory irritant that can aggravate asthma and has been linked to heart attacks. ...
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What's the hurry?
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Thu, Sep 17, 2009
from BBC:
Warming Arctic 'halts migration' of sea goose
Milder winters in the Arctic region have led to fewer Pacific brants, a species of sea goose, migrating southwards, say researchers.
A study by the US Geological Survey (USGS) found that as many as 30 percent of the birds were overwintering in Alaska rather than migrating to Mexico.
Until recently, more than 90 percent of the species were estimated to head south.
Writing in the journal Arctic, the team said the shift coincides with warming in the North Pacific and Bering Sea.
"This suggests that environmental conditions have changed for one of the northernmost wintering populations of geese," said lead author David Ward, a USGS researcher at the Alaska Science Center. ...
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More food for those grolar bears!
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Thu, Sep 17, 2009
from SolveClimate:
US Policy Breakthrough on Super Greenhouse Gases, But Obstacles Remain
The U.S. State Department issued an international proposal jointly with the governments of Canada and Mexico this week to phase down the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) starting as early as 2011.
The move represents a welcome breakthrough for the administration, whose HFC policy has been delayed since May when interagency disagreements stalled U.S. action on the super greenhouse gases.
HFCs, found in small amounts in air-conditioning and refrigeration systems, have a climate warming impact many thousands of times greater than CO2.... It would be the first time that the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, recognized as a very successful treaty that has stopped the global use of more than 90 ozone-destroying substances in its 20 years, would be deployed to control climate warming gases. ...
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Jobs. Air conditioning more expensive. Theory. Economy. Socialism. Don't tread on me.
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Tue, Sep 15, 2009
from Washington Post:
When It Comes to Pollution, Less (Kids) May Be More
To heck with carbon dioxide. A new study performed by the London School of Economics suggests that, to fight climate change, governments should focus on another pollutant: us.
As in babies. New people.
Every new life, the report says, is a guarantee of new greenhouse gases, spewed out over decades of driving and electricity use. Seen in that light, we might be our own worst emissions.
The activist group that sponsored the report says birth control could be one of the world's best tools for fighting climate change. By preventing the creation of new polluters, the group says, contraceptives are a far cheaper solution than windmills and solar plants. ...
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As long as people don't leave those dang rubbers lying around everywhere!
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Tue, Sep 15, 2009
from Washington Post:
Male bass in many US rivers feminized, study finds
Government scientists figure that one out of five male black bass in American river basins have egg cells growing inside their sexual organs, a sign of how widespread fish feminizing has become.
The findings come from the U.S. Geological Survey in its first comprehensive examination of intersex fish in America, a problem linked to women's birth control pills and other hormone treatments that seep into rivers. Sporadic reports of feminized fish have been reported for a few years.
The agency looked at past data from nine river basins - covering about two-thirds of the country - and found that about 6 percent of the nearly 1,500 male fish had a bit of female in them. The study looked at 16 different species, with most not affected. ...
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Given this, we might consider changing their name from bass to tenor.
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Tue, Sep 15, 2009
from Yale Environment 360:
Green Intelligence: Toward True Ecological Transparency
Wal-Mart has handed the environmental movement a new tool for ameliorating the human footprint: using an emerging generation of information systems to create market pressures to upgrade the ecological performance of commerce and industry. This strategy entails making life-cycle-assessment data for products transparent -- that is, labeling them with a sound, independent rating so shoppers can easily take the ecological impacts into account as they decide what to buy.
Indeed, the Wal-Mart announcement has thrust what once seemed merely an intriguing idea into a market reality companies will have to deal with -- not just in tomorrow's strategic plans, but in today's logistics and operations. Wal-Mart's 100,000-plus suppliers (and the likes of Procter & Gamble counts as just one) will be required to reveal their products' ecological impacts or have them dropped from the retailer's stores worldwide.
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Just as long as they keep using the smiley face, I'm okay with it.
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Want more context?
Try reading our book FREE online:
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
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Mon, Sep 14, 2009
from The Columbus Dispatch:
Poisons found in debris landfills
Ohio's 55 debris landfills offer a cheap, final resting place for the millions of tons of waste created at construction and demolition sites each year.
But there's a price.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency found a lot more than old concrete, bricks and lumber at 30 landfills it inspected. The EPA says arsenic, benzene and vinyl chloride -- all suspected carcinogens -- and lead, which can damage the brain and nervous system, all are found in the water trickling through the rubble...
At each of the surveyed landfills, including two in central Ohio, officials found as many as 29 pollutants at levels that exceed drinking-water health limits, pollution standards for streams, or both. ...
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It's getting so a person can't even throw something away without somebody bitching!
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Mon, Sep 14, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
The last nomads: drought drives Kenya's herders to the brink
The men, says 55-year-old Hawa, are a day behind the women with what remains of their livestock -- some camels and 18 goats out of the 40 they once owned. The rest perished through lack of water -- or were slaughtered for meat so her family could survive a few more days on their journey.... "We have no water," she explains, "and no food. We have left the pastures because we have lost so many goats. We had to come here to seek assistance. For the past two months we have talked and talked about making this decision. We waited because we thought there might be some rain."... "The way the climate is changing -- if it continues -- it will be very difficult to sustain the nomadic way of living. It is a very hard task. We fear that soon people will begin dying not just from the lack of food but from a lack of water."
He believes that despite the terrible conditions visible already, the nomads are currently only at the beginning of what has become a disaster. ...
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Vegetarianism might be an option -- if there were only vegetables.
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Mon, Sep 14, 2009
from SciDev.net:
Bangladesh to host centre for climate adaptation knowhow
Bangladesh is set to host a new international centre for research and training in climate change adaptation activities.
The International Centre for Climate Change and Development's official launch is planned for late November, at the end of its first course, Terry Cannon, the centre's visiting director of studies, told SciDev.Net.... "The idea is to bring together people from around the world who are working on community-based adaptation with vulnerable groups," explains Huq.
Huq says that although several universities in industrialised countries around the world are developing climate change courses, the new centre can provide something more -- particularly for students from less developed countries, who will be able to experience first-hand the realities of climate change in Bangladesh and link them to the situation in their home countries.
"Bangladesh is a living laboratory on climate change adaptation," he says. "We will take students out to see what is happening. It will be more than just a classroom exercise." ...
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Hands-on learning with humankind's biggest uncontrolled experiment!
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