ATREE: The Himalayas are assumed to be undergoing rapid climate change, with serious environmental, social and economic consequences for more than two billion people. However, data on the extent of climate change or its impact on the region are meagre. Based on local knowledge, we report perceived changes in climate and consequences of such changes [...]
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Discovery News: As the climate changes this century, the ranges of most mammal species will shrink – in many cases because animals won’t be able to get to areas suitable for them, says new research. And while some animals will do just fine or even better than before, certain animals could face catastrophic losses of [...]
National Geographic: Giant sauropods produced huge amounts of greenhouse gases, study suggests. Dinosaurs may have helped warm ancient Earth via their own natural gaseous emissions, a new study says. Like modern-day ruminants, giant plant-eating dinosaurs likely had microbes in their guts that gave off large amounts of methane—a potent greenhouse gas even more effective at [...]
Zee News: Climate change will be an additional stress on Indian forests, especially in Upper Himalayan stretches, which are already subjected to multiple challenges including over-extraction, livestock grazing and human impact, a government report said here today. India’s second National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, released by Environment Minister [...]
ScienceDaily: A modeling study from the European Alps suggests that population declines to be observed during the upcoming decades will probably underestimate the long-term effects of recent climate warming on mountain plants. A European team of ecologists around Stefan Dullinger from the Department of Conservation Biology, Vegetation and Landscape Ecology of the University of Vienna [...]
The News Pakistan: A Bangladeshi disaster management expert, Khurshid Alam, on Friday emphasised the need for training the local community in playing an effective role in recovering from natural calamities and minimising the adverse effects of an emergency. Local knowledge should be incorporated in designing a disaster management plan. It is very important to learn [...]
Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma: I’m indeed grateful to all the members who made written submissions to the discussions on ‘rewriting mountain perspective‘. At bilateral level, many others have contributed their unwritten thoughts and reflections. While many have gone public with their inputs, others have restricted themselves to drawing-room conversations such that they remain ‘unidentified’ in the [...]
AFP: Experiments that try to simulate global warming’s impact on plants badly underestimate what happens in the real world, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. The investigation backs anecdotal evidence from farmers and gardeners, especially in the northern hemisphere, who say seasonal plants are stirring into life far earlier than [...]
Zee News: Loss of biodiversity apparently impacts ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to a new study. The study is the first comprehensive effort to directly compare the effects of biological diversity loss to the anticipated effects of a host of other human-caused environmental changes. [...]
Sustain Labour: Nepalese workers and their trade unions are committed to fighting climate change by protecting Nepal’s beautiful forests and livelihoods, and are taking concrete actions to reduce deforestation. For over 30 years Nepalese communities have been working hard to manage their forests and to help protect their environment. Between 119 million and 1.42 billion [...]
Dawn (PESHAWAR): To offset the effects of climatic change and global warming in the country, the Pakistan Forests Institute (PFI), Peshawar has completed a comprehensive study to determine the climatic change scenarios in Pakistan’s various ecological zones and its impact on forests resources. “It is the first professional attempt to address the emerging issues of [...]
Alertnet: At present, close to one billion people suffer from hunger. Experts agree that there is a high risk of climate change affecting food security at the global level, with the most negative impacts in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The additional risk of climate change could put several hundred million at risk of [...]
Times of India: When biologist Kamal Bawa talks of global well-being on a sunny April morning in Bangalore, he draws attention to how every human, animal and tree in the ecosystem is enmeshed in the rhythm of life. The recent Gunnerus Sustainability Award from the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (DKNVS) and election [...]
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 [...]
Environmental and Civil News: Climate change impacts are likely to affect societies in complex and broad-ranging ways as technological, economic, social and ecological changes take place across regions, groups and sectors. Climate Change impacts have cascading effects on social and health concerns. Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable development are often developed separately at the local as [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
SNV Nepal: Given the high potential for renewable energy technologies (RETs) to contribute to both climate mitigation and adaptation, it is increasingly important to address climate change issues when planning for RET dissemination. However, sustainable utilisation of Nepal’s available energy resources will only be possible if planning is carried out at the local level with [...]
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 [...]
Zee News: Patches of forest measuring anywhere between 0.1 hectare to 1200 hectares and which are bio-diversity hot spots have been unique to Meghalaya for centuries, but now they are falling into disarray owing to reasons as diverse as poverty, cultural change and migration. Local Khasi tribes consider the forests as “sacred groves”, some of [...]
RECOFTC (A Grassroots Capacity Building document for REDD+ in the Asia-Pacific Region): This publication serves as a resource for community level facilitators to provide explanations about the basics of climate change and the role of forests. It aims to raise the awareness of grassroots stakeholders for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) through [...]
Many of the world’s rarest and richest forests, located in high-altitudes, could be all but wiped out by the combined impact of man-made climate change and habitat destruction. An international scientific team has warned of the near-total loss of one of the world’s most delicate ecosystems, the Mexican cloud forest, along with 70 percent of [...]
100 days to go to a conference and a summit that UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon has described as a “once in a life time opportunity”. Whether this event, coming 20 years after the historic Rio Earth Summit of 1992, delivers transformational change will depend on governments, but it also depends on you. If the UN [...]
Studying climate change in the Himalayas: the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Jan Salick The Himalayan mountain range in Asia is one of the highest places in the world, with several peaks rising above 8,000 meters. It’s also one of the most vulnerable to climate change. Seven years ago, Missouri Botanical Garden senior curator of ethnobotany Jan [...]
Low-tech experiment produces accurate data on threat to plant biodiversity and may also help with carbon capture. The fresh snow covers the Aubonne valley overlooking Lake Geneva. Clumps of beech, maple and juniper trees cling to the slopes of the Jura highlands. Scientists from Lausanne Polytechnic (EPFL) and Switzerland‘s Forest, Snow and Landscape Research Institute [...]
Researchers have posted carbon stock data for the world’s tropical forests on ArcGIS Online, a web-based mapping platform developed by ESRI. The data, based on satellite measurements from NASA including LiDAR and MoDIS data as well as on-the-ground field measurements, reveals the biomass of tropical forests at a 500-meter resolution, the highest resolution ever published [...]
Livestock production systems in Nepal are experiencing a significant downturn as critical resources such as water, soil, forests, agricultural productivity and farm labor are affected by rapid land use changes and climate change impacts. To ensure livestock climate change adaptation and strengthen livestock production systems, it is critical to understand and enhance feed, nutrition, and [...]
Delegates continue to negotiate the outcome document for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) during back-to-back meetings from 19-27 March 2012, at UN Headquarters in New York, US. The first “informal informal” consultations to negotiate the draft outcome document will take place from 19-23 March, and will be followed by the Third [...]
The EU has called on European governments to include data on CO2 emissions from farming and forestry in their efforts to tackle climate change. The draft law on accounting rules is in line with what was agreed at the Durban climate change conference in December. But the EU does not yet plan to include farming [...]
Case Study: Conventional agricultural practices in tropical latitudes, using modern plant breeding techniques, fertilizers, and irrigation, have resulted in an increased grain yield (Huxley, 1999). However, these agricultural practices have also played a major role in increasing the global total area of marginal land that is now substandard for the long-term production of food and [...]
If no-one argues against the proposition that it was capitalism that created the global warming problem, then no one can argue that it must therefore be capitalism that will solve the problem. But how can capitalism solve the problem of global warming? The answer: by financing the transition to a clean energy economy. This is [...]
If you started seeing robins on your lawn in mid-February, you’re not alone. Reports of early red-winged blackbird flocks are also coming in. I’m being asked if birds down south sensed our milder winter and decided to pack their bags and come back ahead of schedule. For these birds, probably not – they simply didn’t [...]
Sammad Sheikh of Tangchekh village in north Kashmir cannot understand why the rice fields that his family cultivated for generations are drying up. “It is a mystery as to why water is getting scarcer in summers,” he says. “This has been happening for the past few years though there have been one or two good [...]
Modern humans and climate change are both responsible for the extinction of many of the world’s big animals over the last 100,000 years, scientists have revealed. By examining extinctions during the late Quaternary period (from 700,000 year ago until present day), but primarily focusing on the last 100,000 years, researchers from the University of Cambridge [...]
The long-held contention that rural forest communities are the prime culprits in tropical forest destruction is increasingly being discredited, as evidence mounts that the best way to protect rainforests is to involve local residents in sustainable management. Some forest campaigners have been saying it for years, but now they have the research to prove it: [...]
BBC: Up to 900 species of tropical land birds around the world could become extinct by 2100, researchers say. The finding is modelled on the effects of a 3.5C Earth surface temperature rise, a Biological Conservation Journal paper shows. Species may struggle to adapt to habitat loss and extreme weather events, author Cagan Sekercioglu says. [...]
A freshwater ecologist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Smol studies lake sediments to understand climatic and environmental change. Nature Outlook asks him to share his experience. What can we learn from lake sediments? One of the biggest challenges in environmental science is the lack of long-term data, so we have to use indirect [...]
How is life on Earth reacting to climate change? : Human activities have added billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide to Earth’s atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise. We are beginning to see how warmer temperatures are altering climates all over the planet and to understand the effects they are having on animals, agriculture and [...]
Paper highlights 40 years of research on plant use by indigenous peoples in Peruvian Amazon and Tibet (ST. LOUIS): Humans are frequently blamed for deforestation and the destruction of environments, yet there are also examples of peoples and cultures around the world that have learned to manage and conserve the precious resources around them. The [...]
K N Vajpai: This article is in the series of responses to ongoing discussion on ‘Mountain Perspective’ at http://bit.ly/yYlbpl . It looks in to the aspects of mountain perspective and specificities as mentioned by Dr. N. S. Jodha during 1992s, and compares them in present context. For the reference of readers and forum discussants, I [...]
Summary for Policy Makers of Global Environment Outlook-5 Spurs Urgency for Action: President of the 12th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum Says “Time is Not on Our Side” In Nairobi on 22 February 2012, the world’s environment ministers ended their annual meeting by committing to make the upcoming UN Conference [...]
A number of multinational corporations have adopted the concept of a “green economy,” a model that allows the private sector to implement practices that save energy and reduce pollution. These corporations have not hesitated in using the terms “green” or “sustainable” in their mission statements and in marketing products ranging from shampoo to hydroelectric projects. [...]
Birds in eastern North America are picking up the pace along their yearly migratory paths. The reason, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers, is rising temperatures due to climate change. Using migration information collected in eBird, a citizen science program database containing 10 years’ worth of observations from amateur birdwatchers, assistant [...]
Researchers have uncovered a direct link between global temperatures and body size, leading them to conclude that future climate change could mean species getting smaller. A team led by scientists from the University of Florida and the University of Nebraska followed the evolution of the earliest horses about 56 million years ago, and found that [...]
On behalf of the Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry of the University of Ghent (Belgium), I invite you to join a reflection on ‘the need for a common understanding of the principle of the green economy as a criterion for sustainable development’. Since the beginning of the global negotiations on sustainable development, their central [...]
Sciencedaily; Global warming has forced alpine chipmunks in Yosemite to higher ground, prompting a startling decline in the species’ genetic diversity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. The study, appearing Feb. 19, in the advance online publication of the journal Nature Climate Change, is one of the first [...]
The instant communications technology that nurtured grassroots revolutions in the Arab world could also help farmers cope with climate change, according to Iowa State University researchers. And so the researchers – Steven Fales, a professor of agronomy; and Gene Takle, director of Iowa State’s Climate Science Program, a professor of agronomy and of geological and [...]
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992, where a number of seminal agreements were signed by heads of state from all the countries of the world. These included the Rio Declaration, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) [...]
It is no secret that developing countries like India are finding it difficult to balance economic growth and its development and environment agendas. But at the same time, they have also begun to realise that the impact of unsustainable growth will be a costly affair. For example, to tackle the impact of climate change on [...]
Climate stakeholders of SDPI-HBS Pak-India Track II Dialogue adopt unanimous resolution. Deliberating on water, energy, adaptation, gender equity and livelihoods, the climate stakeholders adopted a resolution on the concluding day of ‘Track-II Dialogue on (Climate) Change for peace’ which was jointly organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Heinrich Boll Stiftung (HBS). They stressed [...]
The traditional Chinese farming calendar, still used by millions of farmers to guide their farming activities, should be adapted to reflect global warming, say scientists. The 24 ‘solar terms’, a set of timings reflecting the seasonal cycle, were laid down 2,000 years ago as a supplement to the traditional Chinese calendar. They are marked on [...]
Scientific American: Climate change may ultimately push some species off mountainous islands in the sky. The cloud forests of the Andes mountains, bound between the Amazonian lowlands to the west and the peaks of the Andean uplift to the east, harbor worlds upon worlds. Within the mountains’ mosaic of high plateaus, deep-cut valleys and steeply [...]
Yojana Sharma describes various proposals for a new panel to monitor progress towards sustainable development after Rio+20.[LONDON] One of the most likely outcomes of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) taking place in Brazil in June will be a high-level intergovernmental panel charged with monitoring the planet’s progress towards sustainability. A key function of [...]
The Chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) R K Pachauri invited Himachal Pradesh government in India, to join the Global Union of Mountain States to form a ‘common voice’ on issues of sustainable development and fighting climate change. While advocating immediate need to formulate new strategies and take collective measures to [...]
Rio de Janeiro in Brazil will have a different kind of carnival this year. From June 20 to 22, the city will host the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which is expected to bring together heads of states, ministers, senior officials, representatives from international organisations, civil society leaders and environmentalists. Since the conference is [...]
Meat and cheese top the list of foodstuffs that have a negative impact on the environment, according to research If everyone in the UK went vegetarian or vegan it would have the same environmental benefit as talking half of all cars off the road, according to new research. Scientists have calculated the impact of 61 [...]
