Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Tales from the Trail:
Green energy aspirations for Obama’s India visit
When Barack Obama heads for India next month, he'll be carrying a heavy policy agenda -- questions over the handling of nuclear material, the outsourcing of U.S. jobs and India's status as a growing economic power, along with regional relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan. But Rajendra Pachauri, the Nobel Peace laureate who heads the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, hopes the U.S. president has time to focus on clean energy too.
Even as Pachauri and the U.N. panel evolve -- and as Pachauri himself weathers pressure from some quarters to resign -- he urged Obama to work on U.S.-India projects that he said would enhance global energy security.
Given India's red-hot economic growth rate -- 8 or 9 percent a year, Pachauri told reporters during a telephone briefing -- he said it makes sense for the United States to work with India to head off an expected soaring demand for fossil fuels.
Over the next two decades, Pachauri said, "If we continue on a business-as-usual path, India will be importing something like 750 million tons (that's about 5.25 million barrels) of oil a year ... and possibly over 1,000 million tons of coal. So I think India has to make some very radical shifts and bring about a movement towards cleaner energy technology."
from Environment Forum:
Backyard tigers
Would you keep a tiger as a pet?
A puppy-sized tiger cub can be bought in the United States for as little as $200, and there are probably about 5,000 such backyard tigers across the country, about the same number of privately owned tigers in China, according to World Wildlife Fund.
That is far greater than the approximately 3,200 wild tigers worldwide, compared to the estimated 100,000 wild tigers a century ago. The growing number of these animals in captivity poses a threat to the species in the wild, WWF reports.
from MacroScope:
Will China make the world green?
Joschka Fischer was never one to mince words when he was Germany's foreign minister in the late '90s and early noughts. So it is not overly surprising that he has painted a picture in a new post of a world with only two powers -- the United States and China -- and an ineffective and divided Europe on the sidelines.
More controversial, however, is his view that China will not only grow into the world's most important market over the coming years, but will determine what the world produces and consumes -- and that that will be green.
from Environment Forum:
So long, sardines? Lake Tanganyika hasn’t been this warm in 1,500 years
East Africa's Lake Tanganyika might be getting too hot for sardines.
The little fish have been an economic and nutritional mainstay for some 10 million people in neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- four of the poorest countries on Earth. They also depend on Lake Tanganyika for drinking water.
But that could change, according to research published in the online version of the journal Nature Geoscience. Using samples of the lakebed that chart a 1,500-year history of the lake's surface water temperature, the scientists found the current temperature -- 78.8 degrees F (26 degrees C) -- is the warmest it's been in a millennium and a half. And that could play havoc with sardines and other fish the local people depend on.
Groundbreaking new cancer report?
The President’s Cancer Panel has issued a new report saying that Americans are being bombarded — their words — with carcinogens.
Advocates of more research into the potential chemical causes of cancer had been waiting for the report, which they call groundbreaking. But it’s made less of a splash than they expected. Asked about the report, one White House spokesman replied,
Volcano chaos: A pointer to potential Iran/Gulf smoke disruption?
As if they didn’t have enough to think about, planners trying to pin down the unintended consequences of a strike on Iran may be required to reorder their lengthy worry list.
The concern? Iceland’s volcano, or rather, the vivid reminder the exploding mountain provided to governments of the importance of civil emergency planning.
Biofuels’ green credentials called into question
Biofuels were once seen as the perfect way to make transport carbon-free, but a series of EU studies are throwing increasing doubt on the green credentials of the alternative fuel.
The latest to be released gave a preliminary assessment that biodiesel from soybeans could create four times more climate-warming emissions than conventional diesel.
Volcano spews up more criticism of EU
Ash and steam rise from an erupting volcano near Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland
The Icelandic volcano that has caused havoc with European travel has also spewed up more criticism of the European Union.
A travel-affected European Parliament session on Tuesday turned into a forum for bashing the EU and other European authorities over the response to the crisis.
from The Great Debate UK:
Impact of the volcano disruption on the airlines
- Joris Melkert, MSc BBA, is assistant professor in aerospace engineering at the Delft University of Technology. The opinions expressed are his own.-
Despite the announcement that air space could begin to re-open in Northern Europe, the Icelandic volcano eruption could prove to be a major turning point for the global airline industry with short- to medium-term questions already being asked by some about its future financial viability.
from The Great Debate UK:
Why the Icelandic volcano could herald even more disruption
- Dr Andrew Hooper is an Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology and is an expert on monitoring deformation of Icelandic volcanoes. The opinions expressed are his own. -
The unprecedented no-fly zone currently in force across much of Europe has already caused the greatest chaos to air travel since the Second World War. Thousands of flights have been cancelled or postponed with millions of travel plans affected.
