2 Africa demands deep carbon cuts from rich world
by Richard Ingham, AFP
Tue Nov 3, 3:17 pm ET
| BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) - Some 50 African nations staged a show of force at world climate talks here Tuesday, demanding that rich countries commit to deep cuts in the carbon emissions that stoke global warming.
Talks were suspended throughout the day in one of the twin negotiation tracks under the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) before delegates hammered out a procedure for addressing the demand.
In an exceptional show of unity, African countries blamed advanced economies for using fossil fuels to take the fast track to prosperity but at the cost of unleashing today's climate nightmare. |
3 Over 1,000 fish species 'threatened with extinction'
AFP
Tue Nov 3, 11:39 am ET
| GENEVA (AFP) - More than 1,000 freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction, reflecting the strain on global water resources, an updated global "Red List" of endangered species showed Tuesday.
The list by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the most respected inventory of biodiversity covering more than 47,000 of the world's species.
Scientists looked at 3,120 freshwater fish this year, 510 more than a year ago. They found that 1,147, or a third, are now threatened with extinction. |
4 Religion gets behind fight against climate change
by Anne Chaon and Marlowe Hood, AFP
Mon Nov 2, 1:52 pm ET
| PARIS (AFP) - Leaders from nine major faiths meet at Windsor Castle on Tuesday in an exceptional initiative that supporters predict will harness the power of religion in the fight against climate change.
The oecumenical gathering at the home of Queen Elizabeth II, 35 kilometres (22 miles) west of London, is being co-staged by the United Nations and Prince Philip's Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC).
Representatives from Baha'ism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shintoism, Sikhism and Taoism will unveil programmes that "could motivate the largest civil society movement the world has ever seen," said UN Assistant Secretary General Olav Kjorven. |
5 European palm oil buyers shun 'eco-friendly variety'
by Beh Lih Yi, AFP
Mon Nov 2, 6:40 am ET
| KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - European palm oil buyers who are refusing to purchase expensive eco-friendly palm oil were named and shamed Monday by environmental campaigners WWF International.
Only 10 out of the 59 major retailers and manufacturers surveyed in an industry scorecard have lived up to their commitments to buy "sustainable" palm oil which is manufactured according to strict standards, it said.
At an industry conference in the Malaysian capital, WWF said that less than one-fifth of the 1.0 million tonnes of sustainable palm oil produced in the past year has been sold. |
6 Obama urges action as Europe ups climate pressure on US
by Michael Mathes, AFP
Tue Nov 3, 5:41 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Tuesday said it was "imperative to redouble our efforts" to combat global warming, as European leaders pressed Washington to take action on climate change ahead of next month's summit.
Obama met top European leaders for an EU-US summit here, shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered a heart-felt appeal for a climate protocol in a rare address to a joint session of the US Congress.
"All of us agreed that it is imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to assure that we create a framework for progress in dealing with (a) potential ecological disaster," Obama said after talks with European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, who holds the EU presidency, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. |
7 US Senate Republicans skip open of climate change talks
AFP
Tue Nov 3, 11:55 am ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republicans on a key US Senate committee were absent Tuesday as debate opened on a Democratic proposal for sweeping climate change legislation.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee opened its critical debate on the plan at 9:00 am (1400 GMT) without its Republican members, despite last-ditch efforts to avert an opposition boycott from Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the committee.
Republican Senator George Voinovich did show up soon after the meeting opened, but only to deliver a statement opposing the measure. |
8 Flurry of lobbying cash obscures US climate debate
by Kerry Sheridan, AFP
Mon Nov 2, 10:07 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - When it comes to the debate in the United States over what to do about climate change, cash has clouded the issue.
Lobbying groups for both the energy and environmental sides have boosted their spending by double digits over last year as the US Senate is poised to debate key legislation ahead of global climate change talks next month.
But science and specifics are hard to find in the barrage of ads and messages about green jobs, alternative energy and the dangers of pollution. |
9 Massive fire blazes on leaking Australian oil rig
by Madeleine Coorey, AFP
Mon Nov 2, 3:20 am ET
| SYDNEY (AFP) - An oil rig burned uncontrollably off Australia Monday as officials warned the massive blaze could not be contained until they plug a leak which has gushed tonnes of crude over the past 10 weeks.
As the government ordered an inquiry into the emergency, environmentalists warned that delays in shutting down the fire and leak would further harm the pristine waters off the northwest coast, which are home to whales and dolphins.
The West Atlas rig caught fire Sunday during the latest attempt to stop the leak, which has dumped thousands of barrels of oil into the Timor Sea since it began leaching into the water on August 21. |
10 Many in US coal country oppose new emission regulations
by Andrew Beatty, AFP
Sun Nov 1, 5:47 pm ET
| CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AFP) - Coal super-powers China, India and the United States are set to dominate world climate talks next month, but even in the heartland of US coal there are doubts their re-branded fuel can be part of the solution.
In the rugged tree-cloaked hills of rural West Virginia, coal is as much a way of life as bluegrass music, pickup trucks or the hundreds of wood-clad baptist churches that spot the countryside.
Mountain tops have been removed to get it, endless trains hurtle across the state carrying it and atop roadside heaps every conceivable piece of industrial equipment is employed to lift, drop, clean or shift lumps of the black sooty rock. |
11 Bridge opens China's 'last virgin island' for development
by D'Arcy Doran, AFP
Sat Oct 31, 3:28 pm ET
| SHANGHAI (AFP) - China on Saturday opens a new bridge over the Yangtze that will pave the way for rapid development of the country's "last virgin island," Chongming -- now just an hour's drive from booming Shanghai.
With a surface area 50 percent bigger than Singapore, the island has captured the imagination of developers, who have considered building everything from a Disney theme park to a replica of Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch.
Some fear a parade of eager investors buoyed by the new transport links could ruin the rustic island and its vast wetlands, but officials insist the site will not become a stomping ground for land grabs and overdevelopment. |
12 French firm pushes carbon capture solution at US coal plant
by Andrew Beatty, AFP
Sat Oct 31, 12:01 pm ET
| NEW HAVEN, West Virginia (AFP) - Eyeing lucrative markets in China, India and beyond, French firm Alstom on Friday unveiled the world's largest carbon capture facility at a coal plant -- a technology backers hope will fuel a new multi-billion dollar industry and keep the coal industry alive.
Banking that coal power plants will come under legal and financial pressure to reduce emissions as part of efforts to reduce global warming, the pilot facility captures and stores around 100,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from West Virginia's Mountaineer plant.
The unit can handle only a fraction of Mountaineer's 1,300 megawatt capacity, burying the captured carbon dioxide 2.1 kilometers (7200 feet) underground. |
13 Multiyear Arctic ice is effectively gone: expert
By David Ljunggren, Reuters
Thu Oct 29, 12:01 pm ET
| OTTAWA (Reuters) - The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday.
Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world.
But David Barber, Canada's Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, said the ice was melting at an extraordinarily fast rate. |
14 Over 17,000 species threatened by extinction
By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writer
Tue Nov 3, 8:38 am ET
| GENEVA - A rare Panamanian tree frog, a rodent from Madagascar and two lizards found only in the Philippines are among over 17,000 species threatened with extinction, a leading environmental group said Tuesday.
The Rabb's fringe-limbed tree frog, only discovered four years ago, is one of 1,895 amphibian species that could soon disappear from the wild because of deforestation and infection, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said.
The Switzerland-based group surveyed 47,677 animals and plants for this year's "Red List" of endangered species, determining that 17,291 of them are at risk of extinction. |
15 Panel says NASA should skip moon, fly elsewhere
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Fri Oct 23, 2:28 am ET
| WASHINGTON - NASA needs to make a major detour on its grand plans to return astronauts to the moon, a special independent panel told the White House Thursday.
Under current plans, NASA has picked the wrong destination with the wrong rocket, the panel's chairman said. A test-flight version of the rocket, the new Ares I, is on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, awaiting liftoff later this month for its first experimental flight.
Instead, NASA should be concentrating on bigger rockets and new places to explore, the panel members said, as they issued their final 155-page report. The committee, created by the White House in May to look at NASA's troubled exploration, shuttle and space station programs, issued a summary of their findings last month, mostly urging more spending on space. |
16 Energy secretary: Science demands action on climate
By Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers
Tue Oct 27, 6:19 pm ET
| WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Tuesday laid out the scientific risks of inaction on global warming and went straight to his main point - the climate and energy bill starting its way through the Senate could help drive what he called "energy opportunity."
The Senate is only now taking up the bill -- Tuesday was its first hearing -- and much could change as senators demand amendments and compromises. No Republicans now support it, though Sen. Lindsey Graham , R- S.C. , has written that he's interested in a consensus approach.
The bill's Democratic supporters are looking for some Republican allies to help secure the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural blocks for passage. They're also working against the odds to get the bill finished in time for international climate negotiations in December in Copenhagen, Denmark . The House of Representatives passed a version in June, but before anything's enacted into law, the House and Senate must agree on identical terms. |
17 Farmers fight climate bill, but warming spells trouble for them
By Renee Schoof and David Goldstein, McClatchy Newspapers
Thu Oct 29, 2:45 pm ET
| WASHINGTON -- Farm state senators and others soon will get a taste of what their colleagues from Missouri already have piled high on their desks: thousands of letters from farmers urging them to vote against the climate and energy bill.
The Missouri Farm Bureau started the letter campaign early, weeks before the bill was fully written and made public. It was followed this month with a pitch from the American Farm Bureau , the nation's largest agriculture lobby, to get farmers to take farm caps, sign their bills and send them to senators with notes that say, "Don't cap our future."
Agriculture is likely to have a central place in the debate on the bill later this year about the short-term costs of acting to curb climate change -- and the costs of failing to address the long-term risks. |
18 Will U.S. go empty-handed to world climate talks?
By Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers
Thu Oct 29, 6:36 pm ET
| WASHINGTON - Without a new law requiring cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. could end up going empty-handed to the international climate talks in December.
Many nations are watching to see whether the Senate will make progress on a climate and energy bill that would spell out the U.S. national emissions-reduction plan. Without an offer of such cuts from the largest source of emissions that are already in the atmosphere, there won't be a global deal at the talks in Copenhagen, Denmark .
At the same time, other countries have started to put forward their own plans to cut emissions. If that momentum builds, it could put pressure on the Senate to pass the bill, possibly early in 2010, and open the way for another negotiating round on a global treaty next year. |
19 His tiny agency has big role in energy debate
By Barbara Barrett, McClatchy Newspapers
Sun Nov 1, 6:00 am ET
| WASHINGTON -- As energy increasingly dominates the economy, a quiet little agency in Washington holds the responsibility for tracking the particles that conduct, fuse, blow, heat, combust and convert the earth, wind and water into the energy that makes our society run.
The man behind the quiet data-crunching enterprise is Richard Newell , a Duke University economist and energy enthusiast.
He sits in a glass-walled office a block off the National Mall , between the president who hired him and the congressional lawmakers who hammer his numbers into policy. He visits his wife and two young daughters in North Carolina every weekend, reads massive amounts of analysis and tries to know, always, the big picture about what's going on in the world. |
20 Tear down mental walls on climate, German chancellor says
By William Douglas, McClatchy Newspapers
Tue Nov 3, 6:02 pm ET
| WASHINGTON - German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an impassioned plea Tuesday to a joint session of Congress to work together on efforts to curb global warming and to help forge a binding climate-change deal at an international meeting next month.
"We need an agreement on one objective: Global warming must not exceed 2 degrees Celsius," Merkel said, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. "To achieve this, we need the readiness of all countries to accept internationally binding obligations. We cannot afford missing the objectives in climate protection that science tells us have to be met."
Merkel said that people must tear down mental walls that blocked them from seeing the plight of future generations if warming continued unchecked. The world's nations will meet next month in Copenhagen, Denmark , for climate talks. She said they'd need to find the same resolve that Germans had when they brought down the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989 . |
21 Like built-in GPS, brain maps help you find your way home
By Robert S. Boyd, McClatchy Newspapers
Fri Oct 30, 12:44 pm ET
| WASHINGTON - Lost? Not sure how to get home? Trying to find your way through the mall or an airport?
Help is on the way, thanks to a stack of brain cells, or neurons, inside your head. They're mostly on the left side in males, on the right in females.
Scientists have long known that a small, seahorse-shaped region in the brain, the hippocampus, contains neurons called "place cells" that specialize in geography. |
22 Huge Explosion Was Biggest Space Rock to Strike Earth Since 1994
Leonard David, SPACE.com's Space Insider Columnist
Thu Oct 29, 5:18 pm ET
| GOLDEN, Colo. A space rock explosion earlier this month over an island region of Indonesia is now being viewed as perhaps the biggest object to tangle with the Earth in more than a decade.
On Oct. 8, reports from Indonesia told of a loud air blast around 11 a.m. local time. One report indicated a bright fireball, accompanied by an explosion and lingering dust cloud, as the origin of the air blast.
According to experts at the NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office in Pasadena, Calif. Don Yeomans, Paul Chodas, Steve Chesley the blast is thought to be due to the atmospheric entry of an asteroid more than 30 feet (10 meters) in diameter. Due to atmospheric pressure, the object is thought to have detonated in the atmosphere, yielding an energy release of about 50 kilotons (the equivalent of 110,000,000 pounds of TNT explosives). |
23 Strong Leonid Meteor Shower Expected Nov. 17
Joe Rao, SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
Mon Nov 2, 2:01 pm ET
| Circle Nov. 17 on your calendar, for early that morning a moderate to possibly very strong showing of annual Leonid meteor shower is likely.
The very strong display will favor those living across most of central and eastern Asia. In this region, meteor rates might briefly rise to a few hundred per hour (the time frame for the most intense activity is anticipated sometime around 21:40 GMT).
A far more modest, but still potentially enjoyable display of a few dozen Leonid meteors per hour is expected to favor North America. In the United States and Canada, eastern observers will be particularly well-positioned for maximum activity, expected sometime between 3:30 and 5:30 a.m. EST, when the radiant of the Leonid shower will be well up in the dark southeastern sky. |
24 Rocketeers Win $1 Million in Lunar Lander Contest
Tariq Malik, Managing Editor SPACE.com
Tue Nov 3, 3:05 pm ET
| A California-based team of engineers has snagged a $1 million NASA prize by winning a pitched competition to fly homemade rockets on mock moon landing missions.
Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif., successfully flew its rocket Xoie (pronounced Zoey) twice within a set time limit to qualify for the top Level 2 prize in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, a NASA-sponsored contest to build mock lunar landers.
The Masten team beat longtime front-runner Armadillo Aerospace, a Texas-based team led by video game developer John Carmack, with precision flying on Oct. 30 that gave their Xoie vehicle the best landing accuracy of the multi-month competition. An award ceremony is set for Thursday in Washington, D.C. |
25 NASA Probe Sees Changing Seasons on Mercury
Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer SPACE.com
Tue Nov 3, 3:05 pm ET
| A NASA spacecraft has spotted what appears to be changing seasons on Mercury and found much more iron on the surface of the small, rocky planet than previously thought.
The MESSENGER probe made the observations during its third flyby of Mercury on Sept. 29, when it took a host of measurements and images of the innermost planet's surface and atmosphere. Only about half of the planned measurements were made because of a data glitch that affected the spacecraft during the flyby.
The $446 million probe's third flyby brought it within 142 miles (228 km) of Mercury's surface to cover more uncharted terrain, leaving 98 percent of the planet now mapped. The flyby was also a gravity assist meant to guide the spacecraft into orbit around the planet in 2011. |
26 40 Years Ago: The Message that Conceived the Internet
Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer LiveScience.com
Wed Oct 28, 8:48 pm ET
| On Oct. 29, 1969, UCLA student Charles Kline sent the first message over the ARPANET, the computer network that later became known as the Internet. Though only the "l" and "o" of his message ("login") were successfully transmitted, the interactive exchange ushered in a technological revolution that has - as anyone alive long enough to witness the shift knows - revolutionized human interaction.
"This ARPANET experiment that we're essentially celebrating right now, while it's not the Internet it is certainly one of the foundations of the Internet," said Vinton Cerf, vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. Cerf, along with Robert Kahn, Chairman, CEO and President of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), are considered the fathers of the Internet as they created the so-called TCP/IP protocol that allowed various independent networks to link up to form a network of networks, or the Internet.
That was 40 years ago Thursday, and since then, the ability to communicate with others, share information and just be connected has drawn more than a billion people online. And so the ARPANET, and later the Internet, was both supported by and fostered innate human nature - the need to be social and share information. |
27 Bite Marks Show T. Rex Teens Fought Viciously
Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
Tue Nov 3, 12:14 pm ET
| If human teenagers seem terrible at times, be thankful we don't have young tyrannosaurs to deal with.
Scientists now find these adolescent predators got into serious battles with their peers, with bites at times puncturing through bone - the kinds of fights we see today in distant relatives of the dinosaurs.
Researchers investigating Jane, the prized juvenile T. rex at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, discovered she received a serious bite that punctured her left upper jaw and snout in four places. As severe as it was, the injury wasn't life threatening and eventually healed over, although it left its mark. |
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