Sep 23 2010

Ocean cold snap paused global warming in 70s

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A cold snap in northern oceans around 1970 may have caused a dip in world temperatures that briefly interrupted a trend of global warming, scientists said on Wednesday. Many experts had previously explained a slight global cooling around 1970 as a side-effect of a slow build-up of sun-dimming air pollution from factories, power plants and cars that cleared up in later years with stricter air pollution laws.
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Sep 08 2010

How to save the reefs

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The world should safeguard coral reefs with networks of small no-fishing zones to confront threats such as climate change, and shift from favoring single, big protected areas, a U.N. study showed. "People have been creating marine protected areas for decades. Most of them are totally ineffective," Peter Sale, a leader of the study at the U.N. University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health, told Reuters. "You need a network of protected areas that functions well," he said. "It's important to get away from single protected areas which has been the common approach." Fish and larvae of marine creatures can swim or be carried large distances, even from large protected areas.
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Aug 19 2010

Afghanistan and Africa food supplies most at risk from drought & floods

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Afghanistan and nations in sub-Saharan Africa are most at risk from shocks to food supplies such as droughts or floods while Nordic countries are least vulnerable, according to an index released on Thursday. "Of 50 nations most at risk, 36 are located in Africa," said Fiona Place, an environmental analyst at British-based consultancy Maplecroft, which compiled the 163-nation food security risk index. Maplecroft said that it hoped the index could help in directing food aid or to guide investments in food production.
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Aug 12 2010

Russia’s peatland fires seen burning for months

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Some of Russia's smog-causing peatland fires are likely to burn for months, part of a global problem of drained marshes that emit climate-warming greenhouse gases, experts said on Wednesday. Novel carbon markets could offer a long-term fix for peat bogs, from Indonesia to South Africa, if negotiators of a U.N. climate treaty can agree ways to pay to safeguard marshes that are often drained to make way for farms, roads or homes. "Peat fires continue underground and...they will not be extinguished in Russia before winter rains and snow set in," said Hans Joosten, professor of peatland studies and paleoecology at the University of Greifswald in Germany.
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Aug 11 2010

Russia’s fires cause “brown cloud,” may hit Arctic

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Smoke from forest fires smothering Moscow adds to health problems of "brown clouds" from Asia to the Amazon and Russian soot may stoke global warming by hastening a thaw of Arctic ice, environmental experts say. "Health effects of such clouds are huge," said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, chair of a U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) study of "brown clouds" blamed for dimming sunlight in cities such as Beijing or New Delhi and hitting crop growth in Asia. The clouds -- a haze of pollution from cars or coal-fired power plants, forest fires and wood and other materials burned for cooking and heating -- are near-permanent and blamed for causing chronic respiratory and heart diseases.
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Jun 12 2010

New UN climate text under fire as talks end

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Rich and poor nations alike criticized a new blueprint for a U.N. climate treaty on Friday as two weeks of talks among 185 countries ended with small steps toward an elusive deal. A streamlined climate draft, meant to help talks on a new pact, cut out some of the most draconian options for greenhouse gas and dropped all references to "Copenhagen" -- where a U.N. summit in December fell short of agreeing a treaty. "The group is dismayed that the ... text is unbalanced," developing nations in the Group of 77 and China said in a statement. Several of them said the 22-page text wrongly put emphasis on greenhouse gas curbs by the poor, not the rich.
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