Science Daily: Black carbon aerosols and tropospheric ozone, both human made pollutants emitted predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere’s low- to mid-latitudes, are most likely pushing the boundary of the tropics further pole ward in that hemisphere, new research by a team of scientists shows. While stratospheric ozone depletion has already been shown to be the [...]

IIED: The Vice-President of Nepal — His Excellency Parmanand Jha — hosted the launch of a new report that details how the country can benefit from bringing its environment and development policies into harmony. The report, by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Kathmandu-based Asian Centre for Environment Management and Sustainable [...]

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 [...]

Assam Tribune: Ignoring the crucial linkages of a river’s upstream, midstream, and downstream flows can endanger not just the river, but human communities and ecology sustained by it. A disregard of ‘environmental flows,’ by construction of dams, has already harmed many rivers in the Western Ghats, giving rise to political as well as environmental issues. [...]

Click Green: A new study from the University of California, Davis, provides a deeper understanding of the complex global impacts of deforestation on greenhouse gas emissions. The study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, reports that the volume of greenhouse gas released when a forest is cleared depends on how the trees [...]

Jagaran Post: Members belonging to various parties on Monday demanded immediate intervention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to save the river Ganga and make it pollution free at the earliest. “I demand that the Prime Minister should intervene to save the Ganga which is not just a river but our lifeline and part of our [...]

Gadling: The Himalayan Stove Project is a non-profit organization that has a very clearly defined message and goal. The group looks to improve the lives of those living in the Himalaya Mountains while simultaneously preserving the environment there as well. To accomplish this lofty goal, the HSP intends to deliver 10,000 clean cooking stoves to [...]

Scientific American (blog): One day after new test results showed that only 32 percent of U.S. 8th graders are proficient in science, a group of 26 states has helped draft a document that may bring about a major overhaul of science education in this country.  Known as the Next Generation Science Standards, the draft sets ambitious [...]

The Tibet Post: His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Ugyen Trinley Dorjee addressed the “Bodh Dharama-Vishva Shanti” summit, a large gathering of Indian and Tibetan Buddhists at Dharamshala on Wednesday. His Holiness thanked the Government of Himachal Pradesh and its people for their assistance and hospitality to the Tibetan people. “I think, Himalaya is an [...]

Financial Express: Fight climate change with green energy. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has emphasised on the need for incorporating renewables in the energy matrix for climate change mitigation and for reducing greenhouse gasses. India’s national agenda on climate change is to reduce carbon emissions by 25% by 2020 in tune with its Copenhagen [...]

weADAPT: Basically, climate modelling involves converting theories of atmospheric physics, solar radiation, phase state physics, etc. into mathematical formulas that can be solved by a computer. The relevant values are worked out for discrete areas (called grid cells) across the whole world, over a number of time steps. The result is a simulation of the [...]

The Tribune: A collective scientific approach is required for mitigating the impact of climate change which is one of the most serious social, economic and environmental challenges facing humanity. This was discussed at an international conference on “Climate Change: Opportunities and Challenges” held at the National University of Science and Technology here on Wednesday. The [...]

The Hindu: Countries in Asia and the Pacific must strike a balance between rising prosperity and rising emission as their success or failure will have repercussions worldwide, a latest report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has said. “The Asia-Pacific region must continue to grow economically to lift millions out of poverty, but it [...]

Zee News: Possibly the least urbanized country in South Asia, Nepal is also the fastest urbanizing nation in the region — and unless the government seriously manages urbanization better, the country could fail to attain economic efficiency from the process, a new World Bank study has warned. The findings of the study — Urban Growth [...]

IRIN News: The needs of millions of indigenous mountain people across Nepal are overlooked, imperilling their food security and hindering their economic progress, activists and experts say. “People in the mountains of Nepal are worse off in terms of total poverty – food and non-food poverty,” said Jean-Yves Gerlitz, co-author of a recent study on [...]

Environment News Service: India is considering integrating Israeli water technologies into a national initiative to clean up the polluted Ganges River, which provides water for 40 percent of India’s population in 11 states through which it flows. Indian engineers, scientists and officials from water technology companies visited Israel late last month to explore the possibilities. [...]

Vancouversun: Experts seek ways to boost production; World will need 70 per cent more food by 2050 In flood-damaged fields in the Philippines, farmers are testing a hardy new variety of rice that can survive completely submerged for more than two weeks. In Kenya’s Kibera slum, poor urban families are turning around their diets and [...]

Bangkok (UN ESCAP Strategic Communications and Advocacy Section) – Climate change mitigation and adaptation must go hand in hand with efforts to make development more inclusive and sustainable in Asia-Pacific countries, the top United Nations official in the region said here today. As the world’s most natural disaster-prone region and with climate change adding to [...]

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”- Neil Postman One of the perks of my job is the opportunity to interact with, and influence, the future generation. I recently enjoyed such an opportunity at The Energy and Resources Institute’s (TERI) University, where I addressed a gathering of students [...]

Hill Post: Ignorance is not always bliss; not when the climate and pristine ecology is at stake. A change in the climate that has served millions of life forms from the beginning of time does not just affect our surroundings. It ropes in our future generations too. 2 years ago, I crossed the Rohtang Pass [...]

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 [...]

Hill Post: Himachal Green Court imposes Rs 100 Cr damages on Jaypee Cement Plant Getting tough on blatant violations of environment laws, a green bench of Himachal Pradesh High Court (India) on Friday not only imposed Rs 100 crore damages on Jaiprakash Associates Ltd. (JAL, a Indian industry) for having set up a whole cement [...]

Daily Mail: When it comes to conservation of river Ganga, the government seems to be moving at snail’s pace. Even 10 months after issuing a notification to declare 135 km stretch of the river from its origin at Gaumukh as eco-sensitive zone (ESZ), the ministry of environment and forests has failed to finalise it. The [...]

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 [...]

WRI Publication: This report introduces the National Adaptive Capacity (NAC) framework, a tool to help governments bring institutional capacity development into their adaptation planning processes. The NAC framework enables its users to systematically assess institutional strengths and weaknesses that may help or hinder adaptation. National adaptation plans may then be better designed to make best [...]

GEF: This June the world community returns to Rio de Janeiro for the Rio+20 Summit. It is hard to believe that 20 years have passed since the first Earth Summit. So much has been accomplished as a result of that historic meeting; so much has changed; and so much remains to be done. It was [...]

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 [...]

Financial Express: The green climate fund (GCF), established as a result of the Durban talks last year for easy access to funds for developing countries tackling climate change, has found interest from six countries—Germany, Switzerland, Namibia, Mexico, Korea and Poland. The six countries have expressed interest to host the fund referring to the ability to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

UNDP (India): To ensure that national climate change policies are modified/adapted to meet needs of states, in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India this project aims to strengthen the capacities of state governments and other stakeholders both nationally, and across states address climate change challenges. The project will support national [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Telegraph UK: Carbon emissions from goods imported and consumed in the UK are rising more quickly than greenhouse gases are being cut domestically, MPs have warned. The Energy and Climate Change Committee warned that “outsourcing” of pollution to other countries meant the UK’s record on cutting greenhouse gases was not as good as official figures [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Climate Central: Dramatically reducing emissions of one of the key contributors to global warming – nitrous oxide – will require farmers to change their ways of growing food, and citizens in the developed world to slash their yearly meat consumption, according to a new study published Friday. The study by Eric Davidson, the director of [...]

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 [...]

GHT: The impact of climate change could fall disproportionately on women and children, more so in the remote mountains of Nepal. Participants of the Climate Smart Celebrity Trek met with media and local authorities at a press conference in Jumla today and discussed how the changed climate impacts the livelihood of the families, which in [...]

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 [...]

Kashmir Life (Srinagar, India): Tonnes of trash dumped in Indian Kashmir during an annual religious pilgrimage pose a serious threat to the region’s water supplies and flora, environmental groups warn. The trash is dumped during an annual trek to a shrine in the Amarnath cave, 3,800 meters (12,800 feet) up in the Himalayas, which is [...]

Scientific American: The two-stroke rickshaw, although convenient in traffic-snarled cities, is a toxic nuisance–but new engines could clean up their act. Banned in Delhi for a decade, smog-spewing combustion engine–powered rickshaws are fading away in India and in many other countries, thanks not only to inroads by minivans, but also to  improved rickshaw motor designs [...]

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 [...]

PHYS.ORG: Kimberly Casey is a glaciologist who spends a fair amount of time in the office analyzing satellite data. But when she talks about her fieldwork on remote glaciers, one suspects she could do pretty well in a triathlon, too. Casey has carried 70-pound backpacks up mountain crossings in the Himalayas and waded ice-cold streams [...]

DowntoEarth: AFTER spending 6 months in the Indian Himalayas, my pessimistic attitude towards the developing world has eased somewhat. My experience has also led me to believe that the current ideology needs to be changed in order to restore the environment to the people, alleviating some of the everyday drudgery in their lives while preserving [...]

Heinrich B0LL Stiftung Foundation: Publication (Aditi Kapoor): What are India’s climate change adaptation policies and what do they mean for its people – women and men? The public discussion on climate change in India tends to focus more on mitigation initiatives. Adaptation is far less in the public eye despite the emerging scientific research on [...]

Mongabay: Former president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed speaking to reporters at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009. Photo by: Adam Welz. Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives, told the world on The Daily Show Monday night: “Just don’t be so silly” about climate change. Nasheed, who in February was forced to resign his [...]

Economic Times (WASHINGTON): It’s believed that global warming is quite a recent phenomenon, but a new study has suggested that the world’s oceans began warming more than 100 years ago, much earlier than previously believed. The findings, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, could help scientists better understand the Earth’s record of sea-level rise, [...]

SciDevNet: Decisions on whether and how to use massive technical solutions known as ‘geoengineering’ to mitigate or reverse climate change must involve developing countries, a session on geoengineering governance at the Planet Under Pressure conference agreed yesterday (28 March).   Geoengineering proposals have included reflecting sunlight away from the Earth by spraying ocean water into [...]

Times of India, Dipannita Das: Climate change presents a unique opportunity to revisit our plans to develop and manage water resources, besides helping frame policies and practices, says a report titled ‘water sector options for India in a changing climate,’ published recently by South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP). The SANDRP is [...]

National Geographic: “REDD is the new beast in the forest,” said Patrick Anderson of the Forest Peoples Programme in Indonesia here at Climate Change Mitigation with Local Communities and Indigenous peoples workshop in Cairns, Australia. Deforestation gobbles up an area the size of Greece (13 million hectares) every year. As if that loss wasn’t bad [...]

ANI, Washington: Satellites are observing changes in land surfaces in high detail at northern latitudes, pointing towards thawing permafrost. This releases greenhouse gases into parts of the Arctic, exacerbating the effects of climate change. Permafrost is ground that remains at or below 0°C for at least two consecutive years and usually appears in areas at [...]

Afrique en ligne: Africa has been urged to play an enhanced role in further negotiations on climate change to aid quick consensus building on a number of issues that still needs to be resolved following the Durban Climate Conference last December. Of important concern to Africa is the review of the long-term temperature goal agreed [...]

The Nation, ISLAMABAD  – On the concluding session of a three-day workshop on the occasion of World Water Day, experts said that Pakistan has done nothing to store water in past 45 years. The workshop titled Framing Responses: Journalists’ Workshop on Climate Change Impacts and Challenges was organised by Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) [...]

Vicky Pope guardian.co.uk : That’s not a question you should be asking – it’s a matter of empirical evidence, not belief. This may seem like an odd question for a climate scientist to ask, but it is one I am constantly asked now. The typical discussion starts: “I know that the climate is changing, but [...]