Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
On Antarctic safaris, remember to bring a microscope
Many people hope to come back from a wildlife safari with close-up pictures of lions or elephants – this picture below is my best attempt from a search for the largest land animals in Antarctica.
If you look hard you can see a reddish blob at the tip of the thumb — it’s Antarctica’s most aggressive land predator, an eight-legged mite known as Rhagidia.
Pete Convey, a biologist at the British Antarctic Survey (that’s his thumb), says that such tiny creatures evolved in Antarctica over tens of millions of years — they can freeze their bodies in winter in an extreme form of hibernation.
Penguins, seals and whales are the best known animals in Antarctica, but none live year-round on land, where the biggest creature is a flightless midge whose name is ”Belgica antarctica” and who’s about 0.5 cm long.
Landing in Antarctica — first icebergs
A buzz of excitement went around the plane (left) when a scientist spotted the first mountains of Antarctica through the window on a flight from the southern tip of Chile.
Even veteran Antarctic visitors say there’s something special every time they see the continent — after all, Antarctica was only first spotted in 1820 — Fabian von Bellingshausen, a Estonian who was a captain in the Russian navy, usually gets the credit.
from UK News:
Decision time at Heathrow
The government has approved the third Heathrow runway, in the interests of jobs and British competitiveness.
The third runway -- something airport operator BAA pledged it would not seek if it was granted permission to build Terminal 5 -- will open up a sharp political divide, with several Labour MPs, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats opposed to the idea.
American Museum of Natural History Exhibit on Climate Change
Stuart Gaffin is a climate researcher at Columbia University and a regular contributor with his blog “Exhausted Earth”. ThomsonReuters is not responsible for the content – the views are the author’s alone.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is running a new exhibit on Climate Change. Prior to seeing the exhibit I had read one of the few reviews of it in the New York Times, which was very harsh and essentially described it as a version of ‘apocalypse now.’ Without having seen the exhibit, the review made me shake my head in disappointment that the Museum may have really overdone it and perhaps blown it.
from FaithWorld:
Did climate change stoke past religious persecution?
A thought-provoking new book on Christianity's "lost history" holds that one of the central causes of 14th century religious persecution may well have been climate change. You can read my interview with author Philip Jenkins about "The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa and Asia -- and How It Died" on the Reuters website here.
"The Chronology of Christian sufferings under Islam closely mirrors that of Jews in Christian states," he writes, noting that "Around 1300, the world was changing, and definitely for the worse."
California: Man the lifeboats!
California’s already in the vanguard on U.S. carbon reduction (well, planning so far), and now Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to be ready for rising sea levels.
On Friday he ordered the state to study how high waters could rise and what to do about it, in an executive order which could be seen as the Cliffs Notes of why climate change is a big deal financially.
2008 to be 10th hottest year: warming trend up, or stalling?
This year is set to be about the 10th warmest since records began in the 19th century, according to Phil Jones, a leading British climate scientist — see story here.
But does that confirm a long-term trend of global warming, stoked by human emissions of greenhouse gases, or show that it has stalled? The warmest year on record is now a while ago, in 1998.
Green Obama Dreams: Environment Bloggers Weigh in on The Historic Day
Kenyan blogger Juliana Rotich is the editor of Green Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world, and is a regular contributor to this page. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content – the views are the author’s alone.
Tim Hurst of Ecopoliticology blog posts an entertaining video titled ’5 Green Obama Dreams’. The video mentions his posts on high resolution energy resource maps and the solar powered lawnmower.
“Post 2012″ strikes fear in carbon market players
No pun intended but for the world’s carbon community, times are looking a little black.
The global financial crisis, or GFC as it is being called this week during Australia’s largest ever carbon market gathering, is deeply troubling many participants. But a larger, more worrying issue remains “post 2012″.
Being on the Level About Sea Level
Stuart Gaffin is a climate researcher at Columbia University and a regular contributor with his blog “Exhausted Earth”. ThomsonReuters is not responsible for the content – the views are the author’s alone.
Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish political scientist who makes a semi-career (if not career) out of countering claims about global warming. His brand of writing tends to throw major counter claims out there on quite big climate issues, in short pithy sound-bites, often without data, letting the reader try and figure it out.
