'The People of Niger Won't Survive
Another Failed Harvest' |
The famine has struck everywhere, but the first time it struck me how surreal this all was, was when I came across a little knot of nomadic tribesmen and their families, sheltering under a tree in the midst of the desert. Three of their children had already died of starvation and they were totally out of food supplies. The animals upon which they depend for survival were also dying from the effects of the drought.
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Raw Sewage Endangers Marine Life |
Every day, more than 300 million gallons of waste is generated in Karachi, out of which 40% is domestic waste and 60% is industrial waste. The sea receives over 150 million gallons of untreated domestic, municipal and industrial effluents daily which is dumped via Malir River, Lyari River and small waste drains mainly along Clifton coast and Korangi coast. full story |
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Tropical Storms More Intense,
New Research Shows |
Tropical storms have become significantly more intense in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans during the past 30 years, according to an analysis published Sunday. Using a new "power dissipation index" that reflects both the duration of storms and their maximum wind speeds, Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric researcher at MIT, reports that tropical storms' overall intensity has increased by about 50% since the mid-1970s. full story |
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Scientists: Northern California Oceans in Hot Water |
TheFarallon islands are home to the largest seabird colony in the continental United States, with about 250,000 birds from a dozen breeding species. But this year, things are far from normal in the avian domain there: many species of birds have failed to breed or have abandoned their nests. On the coast, scientists report, a large number of dead birds have washed onto the shore. Ninety-seven percent of them appear to have died from starvation. full story |
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The Snow Must Go On |
Needless to say, a day at the beach is not a normal Arctic activity. The climate shifts responsible for that change are also melting ice sheets, eroding the region's coastlines, and shrinking habitat for polar bears, caribou, and other animals the Inuit have long relied on for sustenance. While other citizens of the world debate the very existence of climate change, the Arctic is melting -- and the mainstays of this indigenous northern culture are disappearing with it. full story |
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Bad Food Flooding Iraqi Markets |
The removal of customs checkpoints is responsible for the flood of poor quality food currently sweeping Iraq and making people sick, say health officials. Both market stalls and stores are selling expired products. Before the American-led invasion in 2003, Kurdistan had several customs checkpoints where food items were stored until samples tested by the Directorate of Health showed that they were safe for consumption. full story |
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Greenpeace on Six Nation Climate Change 'Pact' |
Greenpeace Climate Campaigner Stephanie Tunmore said, "The pact, rather than saving the climate, is nothing more than a trade agreement in energy technologies between the countries in question. It is entirely voluntary and does not even mention greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The best option to cope with climate change is to increase energy efficiency and invest in renewable energy." full story |
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US, Australia, India, China and S Korea
To Sign New Climate Pact |
A group of countries including the United States, Australia, China, India and South Korea have agreed a secret pact on greenhouse gas emissions to replace the Kyoto climate protocol, a report said Wednesday. The alliance, which is yet to be announced, will bring together nations that account for more than 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. full story |
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Russian Plan to Save
World's Largest Tiger Succeeds |
Amur tigers living in the forests of Russia's Far East are increasing in number, a new census conducted by Russian scientists last winter reveals. Researchers counted about 500 individuals - 334 to 417 adult tigers and 97 to 112 tiger cubs - an indication that a conservation program begun in the 1990s by the Russian government and environmental groups is working. full story |
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Vets, Conservative Lawmakers Call for
Changes in Detainment Policy |
Yesterday, over 2,000 US military vets joined the growing chorus of people calling for an independent investigation into instances of abuse and torture committed at US-run detention facilities around the world. Also yesterday, three Republican senators introduced separate measures aimed at reining in the Pentagon’s detention policies in the so-called "war on terror," despite meeting stiff resistance and heavy backroom maneuvering from the White House. full story |
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Economic Boom Batters China's Climate |
China's environmental woes are so large they've begun to generate social instability. Choking on vile air, sickened by toxic water, citizens are rising up to protest the high environmental cost of China's economic boom. In a recent incident, villagers grew so exasperated by contamination from nearby chemical plants that they overturned and smashed dozens of vehicles and beat up police officers who arrived to quell what essentially was an environmental riot. full story |
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Global Warming or Odd Year? |
Marine biologists are spotting ominous signs all along the Pacific Coast this year: higher nearshore ocean temperatures, plummeting catches of groundfish, an explosion of dead birds on coastal beaches, and perhaps most disturbing, very few plankton the tiny critters that form the basis of the ocean's intricate food web. The normal northerly winds failed to show up this year, preventing the usual upwelling of colder water that sustains the plankton and many other species from anchovies to cormorants to whales. full story |
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Discovery of Toxins in Newborn Blood
Causes Alarm, Spurs Activism |
Following a recent study on pollutants in newborns’ blood, public advocacy groups are warning communities that their most vulnerable members face more risks than ever from exposure to industrial chemicals. Researchers and activists have called on the government to catch up with science on toxic exposures by reforming a regulatory regime that critics say currently coddles polluting industries at the expense of children’s health. full story |
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Greenland Glacier Almost Triples Speed
in Less Than Two Decades |
Independent scientists on board the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise yesterday discovered that a Greenland glacier has accelerated in the past nine years, exceeding all expectations, and has now become one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. These observations validate predictions of the response of Greenland glaciers to recent climate change. full story |
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Riots in a Village in China
as Pollution Protest Heats Up |
As many as 15,000 people massed here Sunday night and waged a pitched battle with the authorities, overturning police cars and throwing stones for hours, undeterred by thick clouds of tear gas. Fewer people may have turned out Monday evening under rainy skies, but residents of this factory town in the wealthy Zhejiang Province vow they will keep demonstrating until they have forced the 10-year-old plant to relocate. full story |
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The Lethal Water Wells of Bangladesh |
As many as 20 million Bangladeshis drink water contaminated with arsenic, according to American and Bangladeshi researchers; estimates vary widely, but some experts believe arsenic poisoning, if left unchecked, could ultimately cause cancers that could kill millions. The director of the arsenic research program at Berkeley, called the situation "the highest environmental cancer risk ever found," a threat worse than Chernobyl or Bhopal. full story |
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The Heat Is On |
Millions of Egyptians could be forced to migrate from the Nile Delta due to the effects of climate change, according to a report published by the Ministry for Environmental Affairs. In the next 50 years, Egypt’s coastal zone, home to more than 40% of the population, stands to be severely damaged by flooding, groundwater salinity and erosion resulting from rising sea levels associated with global warming. full story |
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Toxic Chemicals By the Hundred
Found in Blood of Newborns |
Exposure to 100s of toxic chemicals begins in the womb, finds a new study of the umbilical cord blood of 10 American newborns commissioned by the Environmental Working Group. The research and advocacy organization asked a lab to test 10 Red Cross cord blood samples for what they claim is the most extensive array of industrial chemicals, pesticides and other pollutants ever studied. full story |
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Birds Carry Pollution to Arctic |
Sea birds are transporting industrial and agricultural pollutants to the Arctic, according to new research. Canadian scientists found that birds carry pollutants like DDT and mercury, and deposit them in sites where other animals feed. They say this process may be contributing to the high levels of industrial chemicals found in some Arctic peoples. The research is published in the journal Science. full story |
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Boycott Seeks to Reform
ExxonMobil's Environmental Actions |
Changing ExxonMobil’s corporate behavior is the mission of a new environmental campaign called ExxposeExxon.com. Calling for a boycott of the company's products, stocks, and workforce, campaigners from 12 of America’s largest public interest and environmental groups showed up outside ExxonMobil service stations nationwide Tuesday. The ExxposeExxon campaign began campaigning yesterday in more than 50 cities. full story |
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Controversial Attack on
Endangered Species Act May Backfire |
A recently leaked draft of the planned legislation suggests Republicans wish to replace the 32-year old Act by narrowing the kinds of data used to define threatened or endangered species; tweaking the law's definition of "conservation" so that full recovery of at-risk species from possible extinction is no longer its goal; and eventually "sunset" all provisions of the Endangered Species Act by no later than 2015. full story |
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Melting Everest Could Make
World Heritage in Danger List |
The world's most famous mountaineer, Sir Edmund Hillary, has joined environmental campaigners and lawyers in urging the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to place Mount Everest on the UN List of World Heritage in Danger because climate change is melting ice and snow on the world's tallest mountain. The 21 nation committee, now meeting in Durban, South Africa, will discuss the proposal today. full story |
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Spy Chief: Mitterrand Ordered
Bombing of Rainbow Warrior |
François Mitterrand ordered the sinking of the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior, despite the late President’s denials at the time, France was told yesterday. In Operation Satanic, as the DGSE called the plan, three teams of secret agents used explosives to sink the vessel as it was preparing to sail to observe French nuclear testing at Mururoa atoll in the Pacific. full story |
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Ireland's Garbage Secrets Come Glaringly to Light |
Some 200,000 tons of rubbish was buried over generations at this landfill, south of Dublin, until it was closed in the 80's. Now that the dump is falling into the sea, the mess on the beach has become the symbolic tip of another iceberg: this tiny island nation's historic inability to deal with its garbage. Bray, some say, is the forefather of a waste-management situation that has spiraled out of control. full story |
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Green Groups Urge G8 Leaders to
Ignore Bush Not the Climate |
"Climate change is already affecting the natural world, throughout the world, and the impact on wildlife could be catastrophic. Attempts to reduce poverty in Africa and climate change are inextricably linked; temperature rises will bring increasing misery to many Africans and considerably affect African wildlife. There is no option but to recognise the impact of climate and to help the poorest countries adapt to it." full story |
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Military Expands Homeland Efforts:
or In Your Face on United States Soil |
A new Pentagon strategy for securing the U.S. homeland calls for expanded U.S. military activity on the ground and in other less traditional, potentially more problematic areas such as intelligence sharing with civilian law enforcement. The document raises the likelihood that U.S. combat troops will take action in the event that civilian and National Guard forces are overwhelmed. full story |
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Poll: 94 Percent Of Americans
Want To Address Climate Change |
Americans overwhelmingly support the US joining other members of the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations in limiting greenhouse gas emissions, according to an opinion survey. The poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa), the Washington-based research group, found that 94% of respondents said the US should make efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions, in line with other developed nations. full story |
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Children Are Not Guinea Pigs:
No Experimental Pesticides In Schools |
"The 14th Amendment of our Constitution says that everyone is entitled to equal protection under the law. I'm 17, and I'd like to live way past 18. Too many kids have cancer and asthma and learning problems and kids need to be protected from anything that might make health and learning problems worse. Our constitution seems to agree, because if they didn't want kids to be protected our founding fathers would have said that everyone is entitled to equal protection under the law except kids." full story |
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Bush, the Obstacle to a Deal on Global Warming |
Can America prevent the rich countries agreeing what to do about climate change? That's the other vital question at Gleneagles alongside Africa and its poverty and, last night, the omens did not look good. Bush made anything but reassuring noises in a pre-summit interview with Trevor McDonald, rejecting outright any suggestion that the US might join the Kyoto protocol on global warming, or consider any binding agreements to cut US emissions of greenhouse gases. full story |
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Revealed: Grim World of New Iraqi Torture Camps or Happy Fourth of July |
The video camera pans across Hassan an-Ni'ami's body as it is washed in the mosque for burial. What happened to him in his 24 hours in captivity was written across his body in chapters of pain, recorded by the camera. An arm appears to have been broken and one of the higher vertebrae is pushed inwards. There is a cluster of small, neat circular wounds on both sides of his left knee that appear to have been done with something like a drill. full story |
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Increase in the Number of Documents
Classified by the Government |
A record 15.6 million documents were classified last year, nearly double the number in '01. The increasing secrecy, and its rising cost to taxpayers, estimated by the office at $7.2 billion last year, is drawing protests from a growing array of politicians and activists, including Republican members of Congress, leaders of the independent commission that studied the 911 attacks and even the top federal official who oversees classification. full story |
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Bloggers Lobby to Fight Regulation by Government |
Web log founders who built followings with anti-establishment postings are now lobbying the establishment to try to fend off govt. regulation. Some are even working with a political action committee, lawyers and public-relations consultants to do it. "We have a democratic medium that allows anyone to have true freedom of the press. We have average citizens publishing their thoughts through research, through journalism, their activism..." full story |
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Africa's Elephants Come Back from the Brink |
African elephant populations are staging a remarkable recovery after a ban on the sale of ivory was imposed to tackle their slaughter. Estimated numbers have increased from about 283,000 in '90 to nearly 355,000 in '02, which translates to an overall rate of increase of about 4.5% per year. It is the first comprehensive statistical analysis of changes in the elephant population ever conducted at this scale. full story |
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