Harvard Science: 50-year model suggests regional pollution obscured a global trend Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a “warming hole” over the eastern United States — that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were [...]

The Himalayan glaciers are not shrinking at an alarming rate under the influence of the global warming syndrome. This was the assertion made by Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Advisor and Head of the Climate Change Programme of the Government of India (GoI). He was delivering the keynote address at a consultation workshop organised by the Assam [...]

Institute of Hazard Risks and Resilience: Last week Archinect website carried a slightly intriguing design concept for ‘Landslide Mitigation Housing‘ by Jared Winchester and Viktor Ramos, which are residential units to be intentionally constructed on a landslide site.  The inspiration is a location in California at Rancho de Palos Verdes , near to Los Angeles, [...]

SciDevnet: Climate researchers pay too little attention to social sciences, delegates at the International Conference of Mountain Countries on Climate Change have heard. The meeting in Nepal (5–6 April) was attended by around 30 country representatives, and concluded with a ‘Kathmandu Call for Action’, with a view to highlighting the specific needs of mountain countries [...]

RAYAGADA, India, Apr 27, 2012 (IPS) – Tribal farmer Harish Saraka has rediscovered the key to sustainable farming in this rain-dependent hinterland of eastern Odisha state – mixed cropping. Saraka, 38, is careful not to take credit for helping to turn around farming in this area, in the news just a decade ago for starvation [...]

WorldAgroforestry: Agriculture is the human enterprise that is most vulnerable to climate change. Tropical agriculture, particularly subsistence agriculture is particularly vulnerable, as smallholder farmers do not have adequate resources to adapt to climate change. While agroforestry may play a significant role in mitigating the atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG), it also has a role [...]

IRIN: The governance of natural resources like land, the oceans, rivers and the atmosphere, can affect the impact of some of the world’s biggest crises caused by natural events like droughts and floods. How best to manage those resources has been at the heart of the work by Nobel Prize winner (economics) Elinor Ostrom. She [...]

Canberratimes: Adapting to inevitable global warming will need changes across the Australian economy, including ditching property taxes that discourage people from moving out of areas prone to extreme weather events, the government’s independent research arm says. In a draft report released overnight, the Productivity Commission also calls for a close examination of federal disaster relief, [...]

IISD: The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Sixth International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation (CBA6) brought stakeholders and practitioners together to discuss community-based adaptation (CBA) planning and practices. The conference focused on communicating how communities are adapting to climate change, and addressed the following themes: scaling-up CBA; water resources; biodiversity and forests; coastal zones; [...]

Eurasia Review: Environmentalists and scientists have urged India and Pakistan to free the world’s highest battleground‎ of Himalayan Siachen glaciers from military forces to avoid devastating ecological disasters. “From human and environmental perspective, it is an expensive and tragic standoff on Siachen between two countries where either is too proud to back off unilaterally as [...]

BBC News: Leading energy ministers have been told the world is on track for a long-term temperature increase of 6C unless they change their priorities. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on current trends, emissions would double from 2009 to 2050. The deputy director of the IEA, Richard Jones, urged ministers: “Please take our warning [...]

The Hindu: India’s space and security capabilities are poised for a big leap with the launch of an entirely indigenous radar imaging satellite, RISAT-1. In the popular mind, radar satellites have a swashbuckling image that is often associated with covertly watching over other countries and tracking their military hardware. These satellites can certainly serve that [...]

New Scientist: [Michael Marshall ]Europe is doing it, Brazil is doing it, and now Mexico is doing it too. The country has passed a package of laws committing it to act on climate change. It is only the second developing nation to set greenhouse gas emissions cuts in the letter of the law. The package [...]

CDKN [Sam Bickersteth, CEO]: The Government of Vietnam, IIED and BCAS (Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies) have just hosted the Sixth annual Community Based Adaptation (CBA) conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, 16-22 April. I participated, together with CDKN’s Asia Director, Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, many members of CDKN network and some 300 others from 61 countries: it [...]

UN Solution Exchange: The query on ‘Flood resistant tree crops for ensuring food security’ was floated by UN Solution Exchange India to its members. The responses got are interesting one and could be replicated in the mountains as well. The UNSE members opined that though India has rich traditional knowledge and wisdom to mitigate disasters, [...]

CGIAR: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and supply agreements in the agricultural sector have a significant role to play to promote agricultural climate change mitigation and decrease pressure on the earth’s land and climate. Private sector engagement can also promote food security and positively affect the livelihoods of smallholder agricultural producers in developing countries. This states [...]

Express Tribune: Struck by worst natural disasters in recent years, Pakistan needs resources, long-term policy and political commitment to cope with climate change. This was said by Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) Chief Executive Naseer Memon during a workshop on climate change on Monday. A group of journalists attended the session, which was organised by a [...]

Alertnet: Indigenous communities around the world are highly vulnerable to climate change but instead of seeing them as victims, policy-makers should tap into their centuries-old knowledge of adapting to extreme weather patterns, aid workers say. In Iran, which has some 700 nomadic tribes, pastoralists have been successfully adapting to climate fluctuations for 12,000 years, development [...]

Himalayan Times: Ace mountaineer Appa Sherpa, who has conquered Mount Everest for 21 times, is planning to announce a greater alliance for the preservation of Himalayan region in the country and taking an initiative to form an international support group for the overall development of the region. “With an aim to preserve the entire Himalayan [...]

Media Matters: As the Earth’s climate warms, glaciers are shrinking worldwide. But Fox News is using a recent study showing stable glaciers in one region of the Himalayas to obscure the global melting trend and cast doubt on climate change. Study: One Mountain Range Is Bucking The Global Melting Trend Study: Karakoram Range In Himalayas “Is Holding Steady, And May Even Be [...]

Deccan Chronical: Indian and Pakistani glaciologists have crossed swords over whether the Siachen glacier is melting or not. Leading Indian glaciologist Dr Vijay Kumar Raina, formerly of the Geological Survey of India and author of a report on glaciers prepared for the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) in 2010 has stated categorically that the [...]

EVI: The changing dynamics of agriculture sector and the emerging threat of climate change The agriculture sector and its remarkable advances during the middle of 20th century is considered to be the basis for securing the food supply of a rapidly expanding human population especially in the developing countries that was enjoying the fruits of [...]

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) film Himalayan Meltdown won the prestigious Platinum Award in the broadcast documentary category last weekend at the 45th Annual Worldfest International Film Festival, the oldest independent film festival in the world. The one-hour film examines the shrinking glaciers of the Himalayas and the effects they have on the lives and [...]

Business Mirror: There is an urgent need to enhance the capacity of poorest communities to cope with climate change and minimize risk to natural disasters, particularly in Africa with 414 million people and Asia with 1.9 billion people, according to the Sixth International Conference on Community-based Adaptation on Climate Change. “Communities in poor countries are [...]

The News: Siachen is the only Glacier of Karakorum range melting with unprecedented rate, the cause of which is the military presence in the area and not global warming. The high-resolution images of the Siachen glacier show deep cracks every 10 feet (crevasses), both in longitudinal and transverse directions. The retreat of the glacier is [...]

The Guardian: is setting out to create world’s best layman-friendly guide to all aspects of climate change – and we need your help. Take one arcane and evolving scientific discipline. Add the future of energy security, economics and geopolitics. Throw in a handful of ideological baggage from across the political spectrum, season with ulterior motives, [...]

India Today: Naysayers notwithstanding, new studies show that Himalayan glaciers are indeed melting possibly due to climate change. The rate of their melting is not as alarming as projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 but is significant enough to seriously impact water availability in Asia in future. The warning comes [...]

Yale 360: With soaring human populations and rapid climate change putting unprecedented pressure on species, conservationists must look to innovative strategies — from creating migratory corridors to preserving biodiversity hotspots — if we are to prevent countless animals and plants from heading to extinction. By Lee Hannah Throughout much of the Pleistocene era, which began [...]

International Eco-tourism Society: Peru is so much more than its well-known lost city of Machu Picchu. A large part of the country’s territory lies within the Amazon basin rainforest east of the Andes. With the goal of highlighting educational experiences, the 18-day journey “From the Andes to the Amazon“, by Worldwide Ecotours and InkaNatura Travel [...]

Science Daily: Several hundreds of millions of people in Southeast Asia depend, to varying degrees, on the freshwater reservoirs of the Himalayan glaciers. Consequently, it is important to detect the potential impact of climate changes on the Himalayan glaciers at an early stage. Together with international researchers, glaciologists from the University of Zurich now reveal [...]

PHYS.ORG: Climate change will make conservation of biodiversity, and all the associated human benefits such as clean water and clean air, more challenging and expensive, with costs increasing by more than 100 percent in some cases, according to three new studies by a group of international researchers convened by Conservation International. Researchers called the studies [...]

IISD: The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the report on progress made in implementing activities under the Nairobi work programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change (FCCC/SBSTA/2012/INF.1). The overall objective of the Nairobi work programme is to assist all Parties, in particular developing countries, including the least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing States (SIDS), [...]

The Daily Star: South Asian nations should converge on stronger climate change negotiations in the global levels to protect hundreds of millions of people being affected in this region, suggested experts. They also recommended that South Asian countries actively collaborate among themselves in sharing knowledge and technologies to increase food productivity, energy efficiency and reduce [...]

TIME Science: It could have been so much worse. Over 100 tornadoes ripped through several Plains states in just 24 hours over the weekend. Cars were tossed through the air and houses were pulverized. Hail the size of baseballs fell from the sky, crushing anything left in the open. More than what is ordinarily a [...]

PNAS: All human–environment systems adapt to climate and its natural variation. Adaptation to human-induced change in climate has largely been envisioned as increments of these adaptations intended to avoid disruptions of systems at their current locations. In some places, for some systems, however, vulnerabilities and risks may be so sizeable that they require transformational rather [...]

Himalayan Times: The government of Nepal recently hosted a high level international conference of mountain countries on climate change. Nepal extended invitation to 55 countries, however, only nine ministers attended and less than 30 countries sent their representatives. Regardless of the attendance, one must praise the courage shown by the government in hosting such a [...]

CO2Science: The authors write that “currently there is much discussion regarding the impact of climate change and the vagaries of the weather, in particular extreme weather events,” which climate alarmists generally contend will increase in both frequency and severity in response to global warming. And in light of this significant climate of interest, plus the [...]

CDKN: The Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) was commissioned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in response to a recognised need to provide specific advice on climate change, extreme weather and climate events (‘climate extremes’). The SREX report was written over [...]

IHDP: Prof. Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University on the challenges of measuring the true costs and benefits of economic development. DIMENSIONS: Professor Dasgupta, how would you define the Green Economy in your own words? Prof. Partha Dasgupta [PD]: By a “Green Economy” we mean an economy where Nature’s worth is included in the reckoning when [...]

Guardian UK: Environment policies under attack include the green deal incentive that offers insulation to homeowners The green deal, the government’s big policy initiative for fighting climate change, is supposed to plug one of Britain’s biggest sources of carbon emissions – draughty, fuel-poor homes. Far from being a Liberal Democrat invention, it bore the imprimatur [...]

Washington Post [YOKOSUKA, Japan] — To the world’s military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts. By Arctic [...]

Reuters: To figure out what is likely to happen to Earth’s climate this century, scientists are looking 3 million years into the past. They have concluded that the most revealing slice of time is the Pliocene Epoch, a warm, wet period between 3.15 million and 2.85 million years ago, when the world probably looked and [...]

Nature: Despite a warming climate, some glaciers in southern Asia are holding their own. By: Sid Perkins While most of the world’s glaciers are shedding ice at a brisk clip, many in one mountain range along the rim of the Tibetan plateau have been posting measurable gains in recent years, a new study confirms1. The [...]

Forestry Nepal: Climate change is contemporary global threat to the animal world. Green house gases are resulting global warming which is creating different impacts in the world. Because of human activities green house gases are increasing. Nepal’s temperature is increasing at an alarming rate. Increasing temperature is creating different impacts on biodiversity, health the environment [...]

BBC News: By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News Some glaciers on Asia’s Karakoram mountains are defying the global trend and getting thicker, say researchers. A French team used satellite data to show that glaciers in part of the Karakoram range, to the west of the Himalayan region, are putting on mass. The reason is [...]

KuenselOnline: This is the  last article on the GLOF research and mitigation project between May 2009 and March 2012.  The articles will highlight latest findings on glacier, glacial lakes condition and natural hazards in the Bhutan Himalayas. Experts from the department of geology and mines (DGM), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan Science and [...]

The Economic Times: (R K Pachauri) Tackling climate change: Adapt to changes at local levels but mitigate release of greenhouse gases Much has been written and discussed recently on the subject of climate change in response to growing scientific evidence that has been assessed and disseminated in recent years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate [...]

Yale Environment 360: Large-scale industrial agriculture depends on engineering the land to ensure the absence of natural diversity. But as the recent emergence of herbicide-tolerant weeds on U.S. farms has shown, nature ultimately finds a way to subvert uniformity and assert itself. In its short, shameless history, big agriculture has had only one big idea: [...]

ScienceDaily: Global warming may initially make the grass greener, but not for long, according to new research conducted at Northern Arizona University. The study, published this week in Nature Climate Change, shows that plants may thrive in the early stages of a warming environment but begin to deteriorate quickly.” “We were really surprised by the [...]

Alertnet: Water is key to food security. Meeting mounting food needs of a burgeoning population increasingly depends on efficient use of the water. That is possible if people are educated about its prudent use. According to the a UN Water, “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access [...]

Yale Environment 360: [Michael E. Mann]Climate scientist Michael Mann, who has faced years of attacks from climate-change skeptics, explains why he believes bad-faith assaults on science have no place in a functioning democracy and why the truth about global warming will inevitably gain wide acceptance. As scientists, we are used to having our work questioned.Anyone [...]

MND: Will a load-of-nonsense IPCC press release be corrected? A little more than two years ago the UK’s Sunday Times ran a headline that read: UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters. (A screenshot may be seen here. The full text of the article is backed up here.) The very next day, the UN’s [...]

Farmers Weekly: The government’s chief scientific adviser has told Farmers Weekly that farmers should be convinced that global warming is a reality. John Beddington condemned climate scientists who refuse to accept that climate change is happening as all the evidence points towards climate change in a number of forms. “I would completely disagree with those [...]

Oxfam: Climate change is fast pushing the poorest and most marginalized communities beyond their capacity to respond. This report draws on case studies from around the world and on Oxfam’s experience working with rural communities. It sets out what is needed to enable people living in poverty to adapt to climate change, and a range [...]

Science Daily: New research by UCLA life scientists could lead to predictions of which plant species will escape extinction from climate change. Droughts are worsening around the world, posing a great challenge to plants in all ecosystems, said Lawren Sack, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior author of the research. Scientists [...]

Be Green: Mountains are silent, mighty, and incredibly beautiful as they interconnect with surrounding rivers and forests. The U.S. holds some of the oldest and richest mountainous regions that play a significant role in the ecological cycle. Unfortunately, these majestic giants of the earth are continually at the mercy of the coal mining industry particularly [...]

Press Information Bureau (GoI): The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressed the inaugural ceremony of India Water Week today in New Delhi. Following is the text of Prime Minister’s address on the occasion: “I am very happy to have this opportunity to inaugurate the India Water Week that is focussing this year on the important [...]

IHDP (GEC): Shades of Green Global Perspectives on the Green Economy The capitalist system has since its emergence as a dominant economic model faced scrutiny and scepticism, which has in many parts of the world reached a zenith in the wake of a global economic crisis and after decades of environmental degradation. Some would consider [...]

Guardian UK: Prof Jim Hansen to use lecture at Edinburgh International Science Festival to call for worldwide tax on all carbon emissions. Averting the worst consequences of human-induced climate change is a “great moral issue” on a par with slavery, according to the leading Nasa climate scientist Prof Jim Hansen. He argues that storing up [...]

Livelihoods.EU: Christian de Perthuis is professor of economics at Dauphine University in Paris, and Director of the Climate Economics Chair, a think-tank focusing on shaping economics to fight agains climate change. He is also a member of the Livelihoods Advisory Board. The short text that follows is the English translation of a lecture he made [...]