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Fires Cost Russia '300 Billion Dollars' In Deforestation
August 26, 2010 - Yahoo! News
Moscow -- Wildfires have cost Russia 300 billion dollars in forest loss, environmentalists said on Thursday, explaining the scale of the disaster by Vladimir Putin's "absurd" changes to forestry law. The economic damage amounts to 25,000 dollars per hectare (2.4 acres), or at least 300 billion dollars, according to estimates based on the market value of timber and the cost of reforestation, said Alexei Zimenko, general director of the Biodiversity Conservation Centre. According to Russian environmentalists, citing data from the Global Fire Monitoring Centre, the fires have covered an area of 10 million to 12 million hectares in Russia since the start of the year. Full Article
By Anna Smolchenko © 2010 Agence France Presse © 2010 Yahoo! Inc.
 
New Microbe Discovered Eating Gulf Oil Spill
August 24, 2010 - MSNBC
A newly discovered type of oil-eating microbe suddenly is flourishing in the Gulf of Mexico and gobbling up the BP spill at a much faster rate than expected. Scientists discovered the new microbe while studying the underwater dispersion of millions of gallons of oil spilled since the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Also, the microbe works without significantly depleting oxygen in the water, researchers reported in the online journal Sciencexpress. Full Article
© 2010 MSNBC.com
 
Far North Greenland Glacier Cracking Up
August 22, 2010 - CBS News
In northern Greenland, a part of the Arctic that had seemed immune from global warming, new satellite images show a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a major glacier. The crack is 7 miles long and about half a mile wide. It is about half the width of the 500 square mile floating part of the glacier. Other smaller fractures can be seen in images of the ice tongue, a long narrow sliver of the glacier. Full Article
© 2010 The Associated Press © 2010 CBS Interactive Inc.
 
Ice Island Separated From Petermann Glacier
August 10, 2010 - The Huffington Post
An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland. Few images can capture the world's climate fears like a 100-square- mile (260-sqare-kilometer) chunk of ice breaking off Greenland's vast ice sheet, a reservoir of freshwater that if it collapsed would raise global sea levels by a devastating 20 feet (6 meters). Full Article
© 2010 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
 
New Garbage Patch Discovered in Indian Ocean
August 3, 2010 - Yahoo! Green
Scientists previously mapped huge floating trash patches in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but now a husband-wife team researching plastic garbage in the Indian Ocean suggest a new and dire view. "The world's oceans are covered with a thin plastic soup," says Anna Cummins, cofounder of 5 Gyres Institute. Cummins and her husband, Marcus Eriksen, established the 5 Gyres Institute to research plastic pollution in the world's oceans. The team works in collaboration with Algalita Marine Research Foundation and Pangaea Explorations, two nonprofit scientific organizations devoted to marine preservation. They report that all of the 12 water samples collected in the 3,000 miles between Perth, Australia, and Port Louis, Mauritius (an island due East of Madagascar), contain plastic. Full Article
By Lori Bongiorno © 2010 Yahoo! Inc.
 
Congressman: Too Much Dispersant Used In Oil Spill
August 1, 2010 - CBS News
New Orleans -- As BP inched closer to permanently sealing the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, congressional investigators railed against the company and Coast Guard for part of the cleanup effort, saying too much toxic chemical dispersant was used. Full Article
© 2010 The Associated Press © 2010 CBS Interactive Inc.
 
Plankton, Base Of Ocean Food Web, In Big Decline
July 28, 2010 - CBS News
Washington -- Despite their tiny size, plant plankton found in the world's oceans are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world's oxygen and suck up harmful carbon dioxide. And they are declining sharply. Worldwide phytoplankton levels are down 40 percent since the 1950s, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The likely cause is global warming, which makes it hard for the plant plankton to get vital nutrients, researchers say. Full Article
© 2010 The Associated Press © 2010 CBS Interactive Inc.
 
Methane's Hidden Impact in Gulf Oil Spill
June 30, 2010 - The Christian Science Monitor
The BP oil blowout, now into its 11th week, is releasing large quantities of methane into the ocean, most of which is remaining dissolved in the waters deep beneath the surface. Full Article
By Pete Spotts © 2010 The Christian Science Monitor
 
UN Rejects Export Ban On Atlantic Bluefin Tuna
March 18, 2010 - CBS News
Doha, Qatar -- A proposal to ban the export of Atlantic bluefin tuna prized in sushi has been rejected by a U.N. wildlife meeting. Thursday's decision occurred after Japan, Canada and scores of poor nations opposed the measure on the grounds that it would devastate fishing economies. Full Article
© 2010 The Associated Press © 2010 CBS Interactive Inc.
 
Feds Outline Plan To Nurse Great Lakes To Health
February 21, 2010 - CBS News
Traverse City, Mich. -- The Obama administration has developed a five-year blueprint for rescuing the Great Lakes, a sprawling ecosystem plagued by toxic contamination, shrinking wildlife habitat and invasive species. The plan envisions spending more than $2.2 billion for long-awaited repairs after a century of damage to the lakes, which hold 20 percent of the world's fresh water. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the document, which Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was releasing at a news conference Sunday in Washington. Full Article
© 2010 The Associated Press © 2010 CBS Interactive Inc.
 
Feds Deny Protection for Spotted Seals Near Alaska
October 15, 2009 - Mother Nature Network
Following an 18-month review, the NOAA denies "Endangered" status to ice-dependent spotted seal, despite rapid melting rate in Arctic waters. Full Article
By Dan Joling © 2009 The Associated Press © MNN Holdings, LLC.
 
U.K. Wild Seed Bank Hits 10 Percent Target
October 15, 2009 - MSNBC
London -- Britain's seed bank, the only one in the world aiming to collect all of the planet's wild plant species, has reached its goal of banking 10 percent by 2010. Full Article
© 2009 Reuters © 2009 Microsoft
 
UN Warns of 70 Percent Desertification by 2025
October 3, 2009 - Yahoo! News
Buenos Aires -- Drought could parch close to 70 percent of the planet's soil by 2025 unless countries implement policies to slow desertification, a senior United Nations official has warned. Drought currently affects at least 41 percent of the planet and environmental degradation has caused it to spike by 15 to 25 percent since 1990, according to a global climate report. Full Article
© 2009 Agence France Presse © 2009 Yahoo!
 
Nearly 70 Percent of Argentine Forests Lost in a Century
September 26, 2009 - PhysOrg
Forests that spread across 100 million hectares (247 million acres) in 1900 have dwindled to 33.19 million hectares (82 million acres), officials said. Forest destruction has accelerated in the past 10 years with the boom of soy crops, a major motor of growth in Argentina, the top exporter of soy flour and oil and the third-largest exporter of soy seeds. Full Article
© 2009 Agence France Presse © 2009 PhysOrg.com
 
 

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