Nature Laid Waste: The Destruction of Africa
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/11/9555/
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Year: 2008
Africa’s Deforestation Rate Twice World Rate
Africa’s deforestation twice world rate, says atlas
Tue Jun 10, 2008 3:27pm EDT
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) – Africa is suffering deforestation at twice the world rate and the continent’s few glaciers are shrinking fast, according to a U.N. atlas on Tuesday.
Satellite pictures, often taken three decades apart, showed expanding cities, pollution, deforestation and climate change were damaging the African environment despite glimmers of improvement in some areas.
“Africa is losing more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of forest every year — twice the world’s average deforestation rate,” according to a statement by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) about the 400-page atlas, prepared for a meeting of African environment ministers in Johannesburg.
Study: Melting Arctic Ice Could Spur Inland Warming
Melting Arctic ice could spur inland warming: study
Tue Jun 10, 2008 1:53pm EDT
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – If Arctic sea ice starts melting fast, polar bears and ring seals wouldn’t be the only creatures to feel it: A study released on Tuesday suggests it could spur warmer temperatures hundreds of miles (km) inland.
That means a possible thaw in the long-frozen soil known as permafrost, which in turn could have severe effects on ecosystems, human infrastructure like oil rigs and pipelines and the release of more global warming greenhouse gases in Russia, Alaska and Canada, the scientists said.
The End of Cheap Water: Case Study
The Economist
Jun 5th 2008
Israel
Don’t make the desert bloom
Milk and honey is all very well. But what about the water?
THIS is the fourth consecutive year of drought in
Israel. Last winter it rained only about 65% of
the long-term average. The water level in the Sea
of Galilee, the source of nearly 30% of Israel’s
fresh water, is close to the danger line and
hardly rose during the winter even though the
pipeline that takes water from it was closed for
part of the year. This week the government
reacted with an emergency plan.