Category: RT Newswire

Published on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
Bush Has 16 Days To Decide Whether Polar Bears Are Endangered
by Elana Schor

The Bush administration has 16 days to decide whether polar bears are now an endangered species because of climate change, a California judge ruled today.

The US court handed a victory to three environmental groups that sued to protect polar bears threatened by melting sea ice, rejecting a plea by the government to postpone its decision until June 30.

An agency of the US interior department was supposed to have ruled by January 9 on whether to designate the polar bear an endangered species. But the agency failed to act, angering green activists who attributed the delay to the Bush administration’s sale of oil and gas drilling leases near polar bear habitats in Alaska.

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Published on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Climate Change Could Force 1 Billion From Their Homes by 2050
by Nigel Morris

As many as one billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming, scientists and political leaders will be warned today.

They will hear that the steady rise in temperatures across the planet could trigger mass migration on unprecedented levels.

Hundreds of millions could be forced to go on the move because of water shortages and crop failures in most of Africa, as well as in central and southern Asia and South America, the conference in London will be told. There could also be an effect on levels of starvation and on food prices as agriculture struggles to cope with growing demand in increasingly arid conditions.

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Next decade ‘may see no warming’ 
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website 
 
La Nina conditions have brought unseasonably cold weather to Europe

The Earth’s temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted.

A new computer model developed by German researchers, reported in the journal Nature, suggests the cooling will counter greenhouse warming.

However, temperatures will again be rising quickly by about 2020, they say.

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——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Salon: “Poison ice” and global warming
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:17:57 -0700
From: Fred Heutte <phred@SUNLIGHTDATA.COM>
Reply-To: Fred Heutte <phred@SUNLIGHTDATA.COM>
To: OREGON-LEADERS@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG

My friend Elizabeth Grossman, a very talented and wide-ranging
writer (her books include “High Tech Trash,” about e-waste;
“The Undamming of America” and a Sierra Club Travel Guide,
“Adventuring Along the Lewis & Clark Trail”) has now turned her
attention to the Arctic and has a good piece below published
by Salon today . . .

This is the result of research she’s doing for a book on
bioaccumulative chemicals generally but the Arctic plays a big
role in it.
fh

——————————–

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/30/arctic_pollutants/

Poison ice

By Elizabeth Grossman

April 30, 2008 | ARCTIC OCEAN — Over 300 miles north of the Arctic
Circle, in the polar dark of a December morning, University of
Manitoba Ph.D. student Jesse Carrie is out on the frozen Beaufort
Sea, collecting ice samples to measure for mercury and pesticides.
Lowered by crane from the deck of the icebreaking research vessel
the CCGS Amundsen, and accompanied by a rifle bearer who keeps
watch for polar bears, Carrie extracts ice cores and vials of
frigid water. Carrie is part of a $40 million International Polar
Year scientific expedition, the first ever to spend the winter
moving through sea ice north of the Arctic Circle. The expedition’s
labor-intensive work is essential to understanding the impacts of
global warming.

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