An experiment in the Amazon forest will test a hypothesis that higher levels of CO2, due to climate change, can avert the drought and high temperatures it was supposed to cause.
Tag: climate change
Iran is facing the risk of “critical” water shortages if the country does not dramatically cut water use, Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian declared in a speech to the Iranian parliament. Citing several years of drought, climate change and increased population, Chitchian told legislators on Sunday that usage needed to drop by by 40%. Average annual […]
MUNICH — In many places in the northern Alps, the winter sports season is already over before Easter. Some view the mild winter as a kind of foretaste of climate change, but experts warn against reading too much into any single year’s weather. “What was extreme is that the weather this winter on the whole […]
Women farmers in Lower Congo have been the first to notice the effects of desertification, and the first to react.
PORT VILA — The small boat slices through the turquoise water that separates Efate from Pele — two of the 80-some islands that make up Vanuatu, a Melanesian archipelago in the southwest Pacific. Kaltuk Kalomor, Vanuatu’s Minister of Agriculture, is standing onboard, pointing out the receding coastline, a consequence of the rising sea level and […]
The sixth Climate Change Vulnerability Index report produced by risk analysis firm Maplecroft has found that climate change “may pose a serious obstacle to sustainable economic growth in the world’s most commercially important cities.” The index ranked the vulnerability of the world’s countries to the impacts of climate change by evaluating their risk of exposure […]
BOGOTA — With the expansion of Chiribiquete National Natural Park, Colombia’s National System of Protected Areas has gone a long way to preserve an additional 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres) of Amazonian jungle. The importance of this new area is not difficult to measure. In those 27,800 square kilometers of jungle located between Guaviare […]
From Fiji to the Marshall Islands, it’s time to react to the effects left by emissions from large industrialized nations.
RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTER VISITS CRIMEAIn the highest-level visit from Moscow since Crimea joined the Russian Federation, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev arrived in the region this morning, Ria Novosti reports. He announced that pensions and wages for public workers would be increased and that all residents would benefit from health insurance. Medvedev also explained that […]
RWANDA – Severe weather kills and natural disasters can be particularly deadly in Rwanda, like elsewhere in Africa. The most deadly storm last year killed at least 72 people and injured more than 120. According to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs (MIDIMAR), in 2012 alone, 3000 homes were destroyed. Justin Kayira, Director […]
SATKHIRA – In the district of Padmapukur, a few dozen kilometers from the Bay of Bengal, tin shacks balance delicately on scraps of land coming out of the sea, like makeshift boats lost in the middle of the ocean. Only children, women, old people and the severly handicapped still live in the homes scattered along […]
PARIS – It is a new stain on the already tarnished reputation of biofuels. After being accused of aggravating food insecurity and driving up food prices, accelerating tropical deforestation and even increasing greenhouse gas emissions, crop-based biofuels are now being accused of worsening air pollution and creating health problems. The European Union’s target of 10% […]