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		News Archive     26/07/2008 07:00 AM United States: As wildfires get wilder, the costs of fighting them are untamed LA Times: It was day 42 of the zaca fire. A tower of white smoke reached miles into the blue sky above the undulating ridges of Santa Barbara's backcountry. Helicopters ferried firefighters across the saw-toothed terrain and bombed fiery ridges with water. Long plumes of red retardant trailed from the belly of a DC-10 air tanker. Bulldozers cut defensive lines through pygmy forests of chaparral. A few miles south, in a camp city of tents and air-conditioned office trailers, commanders ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Gore, Pickens now have common goal Albany Times Union,: Former Vice President Al Gore has navigated his crusade on behalf of environmental change into heavy waters, getting lots of attention but no credible nonpartisan denial of what he is saying. We have to listen up. He paints a grim picture of our national and global future if we don't face the pending change in the weather. He has already won an Oscar for his efforts on global warming and a shared Nobel Peace Prize to boot. The Supreme Court should be hanging its head in shame – five ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Ninety billion barrels of oil revealed in fragile Arctic Independent: The future of the Arctic will be less white wilderness, more black gold, a report on oil reserves in the High North has signalled this week. The first comprehensive assessment of oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle, carried out by American geologists, reveals that underneath the ice, the region may contain as much as a fifth of the world's undiscovered yet recoverable oil and natural gas reserves. This includes 90 billion barrels of oil, enough to supply the world ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM United States: State bid to limit emissions hits court snag San Francisco Chronicle:  California's effort to limit vehicle emissions of gases that contribute to global warming hit a snag Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that the state and environmental groups acted too early when they sued the Bush administration in January for blocking the law. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit filed by California, 15 other states and five environmental groups over the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to let the state ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Australians Willing to Act to Curb Climate Change Angus Reid Global Monitor: The vast majority of Australians want their government to introduce policies to tackle climate change without waiting for consensus with other countries, according to a poll by AC Nielsen published in the Sydney Morning Herald. 77 per cent of respondents say Australia should begin cutting its greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do. Additionally, 68 per cent of respondents say they are prepared to pay more for goods and services as a result of the new ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Ireland: Biofuel targets abandoned Herald: ENERGY Minister Eamon Ryan has said the Government has abandoned targets to have biofuels make up almost 6pc of transport fuel by 2010. Mr Ryan's predecessor Noel Dempsey set the ambitious targets of making biofuels 5.75pc of total transport fuel just 15 months ago. However, the plans have been dropped after growing doubts about the benefits of biofuels, which have been blamed for steep rises in global food prices as well as for exacerbating climate change rather than ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Developed nations should get serious on emissions cut: Pachauri Press Trust of India: Developed nations should pull up their socks and get "serious" about reducing carbon emissions before it was "too late", R K Pachauri, Chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said. "Continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to further (global) warming of 1.8 degree Celsius to 4 degree Celsius over the 21st century," the noted environment expert said. "The world can at best allow emissions to increase upto ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Ethanol carries huge costs to the environment, people Houston Chronicle: For years, Congress has promoted corn ethanol, touting its purported environmental benefit. Mounting data now suggest these assumptions were wrong. Expanded use of food for fuel is exacerbating environmental threats, including pollution in U.S. waterways. New data out this week on the growing "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico starkly highlight this concern. Dead zones are created when large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous run off into warm waters, spawning algae ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Making a climate crisis into a drama Guardian: The BBC's two-part global warming thriller Burn Up, which concluded last night, brought imaginary sex and murder to the real-life world of the climate negotiations. Along the way, writer Simon Beaufoy did his level best to weave real-life climate science and politics seamlessly into the fictional drama. Most people who have spent any time at climate negotiations will conclude that he did a credible job. Those who have been influenced by the more effective pieces of contrarian propaganda, ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Northern Wildfire Smoke May Cast Shadow On Arctic Warming ScienceDaily: The Arctic may get some temporary relief from global warming if the annual North American wildfire season intensifies, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado and NOAA. Smoke transported to the Arctic from northern forest fires may cool the surface for several weeks to months at a time, according to the most detailed analysis yet of how smoke influences the Arctic climate relative to the amount of snow and ice cover. "Smoke in the atmosphere ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Philippines: Protecting our forests Manila Times: In summary, the reasons for the urgent need to pass the Sustainable Forest Management Act are obvious. Forests are essential for mitigating global warming, preventing the loss of lives, the loss of the cultural heritage of Indigenous Cultural Communities and Indigenous Peoples and the loss of biodiversity resources unique to Philippine forests. Forests are valuable in themselves. The law should reflect this reality. The only way that this can be done is to incorporate the following ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Scientists use latest technology to examine aerosol particles that influence clouds Indo-Asian News Service: Scientists are using instruments like an aerosol mass spectrometer to examine the life cycles of atmospheric aerosols that can absorb and scatter light and influence the lifetime of clouds. Chemists from Aerodyne Research Inc. and Boston College (BC) have designed the instrument. According to Chemistry Professor Paul Davidovits and Aerodyne Principal Scientist Timothy B. Onasch from BC, the novel spectrometer allows researchers to better understand what happens to the ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM United Kingdom: Airport protesters plan next move BBC: Anti-Heathrow expansion protesters are to discuss their next move if the airport gets the go-ahead to build a third runway and sixth terminal. Local residents, trade unionists and MPs will meet at a conference in Harlington, west London, on Saturday. They will be joined by green protesters from the Camp for Climate Action. The Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise (Hacan) said plans could range from "mass letter-writing to mass direct ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM United States: County looks to become electric car-friendly San Jose Mercury News: Your stop for gas and a candy bar could soon give way to an occasional shot of electricity. At least that's the thinking of a panel of county-appointed environmental leaders who see electric cars in our not-too-distant future. Planning for a network of vehicle charging stations is one of the projects that the county Commission on the Environment is considering as part of its charge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "We know that the technology is coming forward. Let's ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Canada: Problem of population growth needs to be met Vanouver Sun: The most frightening -- and fascinating -- thing I know is a graph of human population growth over the past millennium. Starting in about 1800, the curve suddenly spikes almost straight upward, and this incredible growth in human numbers continues today. In my lifetime alone, population has increased by over four billion people. And thanks to technological innovations and cheap oil, the impact of each person on the globe has increased even faster. Under this onslaught, Earth's vast ... read more 26/07/2008 07:00 AM Report says West suffering from fed apathy Rocky Mountain News: The folks from the Brookings Institute were in town this week to unveil their new study on the intermountain West: "Mountain Megas." Five "megapolitan" areas - the Front Range, Phoenix/Tucson, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque/Santa Fe - are experiencing the fastest growth in the country. The federal government had better start paying more attention to our growing needs, the report says. "The federal government is largely impervious to the ... read more 25/07/2008 07:00 AM Canadian elections likely to focus on carbon tax Reuters: Elections to fill three seats in Canada's House of Commons will be held on September 8 with the major issue likely to be the opposition Liberal Party's proposal to introduce a carbon tax. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the date of the elections on Friday. Two of the seats had been held by the Liberals, one in Ontario and one in Quebec, and another in Quebec held by the separatist Bloc Quebecois. The outcome will not affect the balance of power in the House ... read more 25/07/2008 07:00 AM Democrats: White House must publish 'chilling' climate change document Guardian: The row over US inaction on carbon emissions reached new heights yesterday after the White House allowed Congress to look at last year's government proposal to officially deem climate change a threat to public health – a plan that aides to George Bush refused to acknowledge or read. The climate plan was finished in December by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in response to a supreme court ruling that required the Bush administration to state whether carbon emissions ... read more 25/07/2008 07:00 AM Doctors' advice to Britons: have fewer children and help save the planet Guardian: British couples should consider having no more than two children to help reduce the environmental impact of the rising global population, doctors have said. An editorial in the British Medical Journal today calls on GPs to encourage the view that bigger families are as environmentally dubious as owning a patio heater or driving a gas-guzzler. Writing in the journal, John Guillebaud, professor of family planning at University College, London and Pip Hayes, a GP based in Exeter, ... read more 25/07/2008 07:00 AM Indonesia: Last-Frontier Forest Is at Risk From Boom Wall Street Journal: The global resource boom is threatening one of the world's last tropical-forest frontiers: the Merauke region of Indonesia's remote Papua province. Indonesian companies are lining up to develop pulp-and-paper mills in Merauke; investors from South Korea want to expand palm-oil plantations; and Indonesian officials have tried to persuade International Paper Co to invest in the region. Merauke lies on the southern shore of Papua province, a California-size land of virgin forests ... read more News Archive     Back to Homepage
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