Is Earth’s Wettest Place Getting Drier?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7511356.stm
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Year: 2008
How John McCain Doomed Mount Graham
How John McCain Doomed Mount Graham
Star Whores
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
We waited for a night when the moon was obscured by clouds. It sounded like a silly plan here in the heart of the Arizona desert, where Oregonians stream each year to worship the unrelenting sun.
But the wait was only two days. Then the sky clouded up, just as the Apaches predicted. These weren’t rain clouds, just a smoke-blue skein, thin as morning fog, but dense enough to dull the moonlight and shield our passage across forbidden ground.
We were going to see the scopes. The mountain was under lockdown. Armed guards, rented by the University of Arizona, blocked passage up the new road and patrolled the alpine forest on the crest of Mount Graham. Only certified astronomers and construction workers were permitted entry. And university donors. And Vatican priests.
But not environmentalists. And not Apaches. Not at night, anyway. Not any more.
Antarctic Icebergs Scouring Seabed are New Threat to Marine Life
Published on Friday, July 18, 2008 by Telegraph/UK
Antarctic Icebergs Scouring Seabed are New Threat to Marine Life
Antarctic marine life is coming under increasing threat from icebergs that are scouring the seabed and destroying their habitat, a new study by the British Antarctic Survey has found.
Shrinking sea ice is significantly increasing the rate at which the icebergs scour the seabed and the study predicts that the Antarctic Peninsula is going to get hit more frequently.
Ocean Quest: The Race To Save The World’s Coral Reefs
Published on Thursday, July 17, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Ocean Quest: The Race To Save The World’s Coral Reefs
Last week, scientists issued their latest, grim assessment of the world’s coral reefs. But as Steve Connor reports from Florida, extraordinary new ocean ‘reseeding’ techniques mean there may still be time to halt – or even reverse – the destruction of mother nature’s marine marvels
Coral reefs are often described as the tropical rainforests of the oceans. But marine biologists sometimes use another analogy: that of the canary in the coalmine. These birds were used by miners as an early warning for lethal gas; corals, too, are extraordinarily sensitive to environmental change. For Nancy Knowlton, a scientist at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, it’s an apt description: “If that’s the analogy, then the canary has passed out on the floor of the cage. Coral reefs are potentially immortal. They only have to die if we make them.”