postMigrator

Depleted Groundwater Threatens Food Security

By postMigrator May 10, 2008 May 10, 2008 RT Newswire

Published on Friday, May 9, 2008 by The San Francisco Chronicle
Depleted Groundwater Threatens Food Chain
by Daniel Pepper

Hands clasped and head bowed, he offers a short prayer to a Sufi saint and asks for a bountiful supply of groundwater. He then cranks up a wheezing diesel engine, lines up the drill over the offerings and releases a lever that brings an iron cylinder crashing into the earth.

“Business is growing each year,” said Kumar. “But we’ve placed about as many tube wells as we can in this area.”

On either side of Kumar’s drill, the calm beauty of emerald rice patties belies a quiet catastrophe brewing hundreds of feet beneath the surface. As the water table in Punjab drops dangerously low, farmers across the state are investing – and often going into debt – to bore deeper wells with more powerful pumps.

New Global “Cooling” Theory Fuel For Denialists

By postMigrator May 10, 2008 May 10, 2008 RT Newswire

Global cooling theories put scientists on guard
Fri May 9, 2008 1:44pm EDT By Gerard Wynn

LONDON (Reuters) – A new study suggesting a possible lull in manmade global warming has raised fears of a reduced urgency to battle climate change.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of hundreds of scientists, last year said global warming was “unequivocal” and that manmade greenhouse gas emissions were “very likely” part of the problem.

And while the study published in the journal Nature last week did not dispute manmade global warming, it did predict a cooling from recent average temperatures through 2015, as a result of a natural and temporary shift in ocean currents.

The IPCC predicted global temperature increases this century of 1.8 to 4 degrees Celsius.

2 Articles: Sahara Dried Slowly-Not Abruptly, May Be Green Again

By postMigrator May 9, 2008 May 9, 2008 RT Newswire

Sahara dried out slowly, not abruptly: study
Thu May 8, 2008 5:46pm EDT

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) – The once-green Sahara turned to desert over thousands of years rather than in an abrupt shift as previously believed, according to a study on Thursday that may help understanding of future climate changes.

And there are now signs of a tiny shift back towards greener conditions in parts of the Sahara, apparently because of global warming, said the lead author of the report about the desert’s history published in the journal Science.

The study of ancient pollen, spores and aquatic organisms in sediments in Lake Yoa in northern Chad showed the region gradually shifted from savannah 6,000 years ago towards the arid conditions that took over about 2,700 years ago.

Wildlife: Great Tits Cope Well With Warming

By postMigrator May 9, 2008 May 9, 2008 Uncategorized

Great tits cope well with warming
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Food for hungry mouths

At least one of Britain’s birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food.

Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.

Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust.

Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say.