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 [...]
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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. [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The world’s poorest countries can jump directly from the pre-electricity era into a new industrial revolution through an “energy Internet” — the uptake of renewable energy shared through communication technologies, argues economist Jeremy Rifkin. “The great economic revolutions in history occur when new communication technologies converge with new energy systems”, writes Rifkin. And now — [...]
Efforts to stem global warming have nurtured a strong urge worldwide to deploy renewable energy. As a result, the use of wind turbines has increased 10-fold over the past decade, with wind power often touted as the most cost-effective green opportunity. According to Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s commissioner for climate action, “People should believe [...]
Urban air pollution is set to become the top environmental cause of mortality worldwide by 2050, says a new report by France’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The worst countries affected will be China and India. The report released March 15 was issued with a strong warning, “Act now or face costly consequences.” [...]
OECD report says pollution will become biggest cause of premature death, killing an estimated 3.6 million people a year by 2050. Urban air pollution is set to become the biggest environmental cause of premature death in the coming decades, overtaking even such mass killers as poor sanitation and a lack of clean drinking water, according [...]
Three startup companies led by prominent scientists are working on new technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The scientific community is skeptical, but these entrepreneurs believe the process of CO2 removal can eventually be profitable and help cool an overheating planet. With global greenhouse gas emissions still on the rise, despite decades of [...]
When it comes to improving global air quality and reversing anthropogenic changes to the climate, we don’t exactly have much room for error: Experimentation with ultimately unhelpful management techniques could waste precious time and resources, and might even do further damage. Luckily, climatologists and meteorologists have developed increasingly precise mathematical models that allow researchers to [...]
Guardian: Dirty snow melts faster than clean snow. Nowhere is this clearer than on the glaciers of the Himalayas, where scientists have recorded accelerated melting, coinciding with a greying of the glaciers. Photo: Scientists have recorded accelerated melting, coinciding with the greying of the glaciers. Photograph: Paul Souders/Corbis Asia’s industrial revolution is pumping out lots [...]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Thursday announced a new global initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants. Working together as the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico, Sweden, and the United States will conduct what Secretary Clinton described as “a targeted, practical, and highly energetic global campaign to spread solutions to the [...]
OUTSIDE a village called Mau, in Uttar Pradesh, half a dozen chimneys rise from kilns into a colourless sky. These ovens, six among the 100,000 which turn out the 200 billion bricks made each year in India, are worked by dalits—members of castes once regarded as Untouchable. India’s brick kilns are noxious sources of pollution, [...]
The use of electric cars in China produces more particulate matter pollution than gasoline-fueled vehicles, according to a new study. In an analysis of five vehicle technologies, in 34 major Chinese cities. U.S. researchers found that the power generated to run electric cars produces significantly greater particulate matter emissions because 80 percent of China’s electricity [...]
Times of India: Is the chemical reaction involving radical-molecule complexes responsible for climate changes? If experts are to be believed, the better understanding of structure and reactivity of radical-molecule complexes can provide deep insight into various atmospheric phenomenons, including ozone depletion (global warming), acid rain and climate changes. “The recent studies focusing on understanding of [...]
Ask any industrialist and you will be told it is much cheaper to bribe the inspectors than to install and maintain pollution control equipment. When the rich and powerful of the world gather at an alpine ski resort, and the conversation turns to topics like “Is Capitalism Failing?” and “Global Risks 2012: The Seeds of [...]
This year, the elites in Davos – debating the future of capitalism – faced a little more self-doubt than usual as to whether they have the best ideas to run the world, not least in the face of the intractable euro crisis. But the future of capitalism is just one big global challenge among many [...]
It is official: India has the world’s most toxic air. In a study by Yale and Columbia Universities, India holds the very last rank among 132 nations in terms of air quality with regard to its effect on human health. India scored a miniscule 3.73 out of a possible 100 points in the analysis, lagging [...]
The Gazette: For the last 11,700 years, mankind has lived in what geologists refer to as the Holocene epoch. This interglacial period has been defined by its stable warm climatic conditions that have allowed Homo sapiens to populate the Earth and become its dominant species. Many scientists now believe that over the last 200 years, [...]
Climate Progress: A few simple and clear pictures (and links) showing how the planet continued to warm and change around us in 2011 by Peter Gleick, water and climate scientist, in a Forbes repost These facts are just part of why all national academies of science on the planet and every major geophysical scientific society agree that [...]
Reducing Soot and Methane Would Bring Fast Results, Says Study A study by a large international team of scientists says that relatively cheap, simple measures to cut two common pollutants could substantially reduce global warming and improve human health and agriculture in coming decades. Instead of focusing on carbon dioxide—the main culprit in climate change–they [...]
SciDevNet: Reducing methane and black carbon emissions could quickly tackle climate change while improving food security and people’s health, especially in developing countries, a study reports. Scientists identified 14 emission control measures that, when applied together, could reduce global warming by around 0.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, avoid up to 4.7 million premature deaths, and [...]
BBC UK: A rapid rise in air pollution from fossil fuels and biomass burning has worsened winter smog and extended its duration in many parts of South Asia, scientists and officials have said. In Bangladesh, India and Nepal the temperature has plummeted and clouds of fog and smoke hang in the sky blocking sunlight for [...]
Washington Examiner: In his 2004 bestseller, “State of Fear,” the late Michael Crichton introduced a skeptical climate science character, Professor Hoffman, who said: “I study the ecology of thought…. And how it has led to a State of Fear.” The professor went on to explain that the government practices “social control [which is] best managed [...]
Financial Express: The ambitious plans of the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) of Government of India to conserve lakes and rivers in the country have failed to deliver, with more than 80% of the projects not being completed on time and others not being utilised despite being constructed. These are the findings of a [...]
Nepal News: Within a decade, air pollution has grown at an alarming rate in the Kathmandu Valley. The capital has turned into as one of the dirtiest cities in the world. Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, is located at an elevation of approximately 1,400 meters in the bowl-shaped basin. Known for its exquisite environment [...]
Durban Post by Dr.C. S. Silori*: This note is on the major happening during COP 17 at Durban in South Africa during UN Climate Change Conference on December 4-5, and how the ‘equity’ issues has emerged as major challenge for the world leaders in context to future development and climate change. December 4, Sunday, was [...]
Guardian: UN climate talks back on track after China and Brazil say they will consider the ‘right’ legally-binding treaty on emission cuts. EU plans for a global treaty to legally bind all countries to slash greenhouse emissions by 2020 appear to be – just – on track after China and Brazil, two of the biggest [...]
International Business Times: Polar ice sheets have accelerated their retreat while global temperatures added up 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the onset of frenetic industrial activities, prompting scientists to suggest that time may be running out to arrest the ill-effects of climate change. This according to the latest report issued on Monday by the U.N. World [...]
The News: The Building Code of Pakistan (Energy Provisions 2011) already approved by the Steering Committee will soon be finalised by the Task Force of Pakistan Engineering Council. National Energy Conservation Centre (Enercon) Assistant Chief (Buildings) Abrar Malik stated this at a seminar on ‘Cool Roofs: Solar Radiation Management (SRM) Techniques to Combat Climate Change [...]
Ground Report: Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system; it is not the nearest to the sun but it is so hot that it can melt hard metals if placed on its surface. Greenhouse effect from the action of Green House Gases (GHGs) is the chief factor for this hotness. Venus is next [...]
Times of India: Isolating the human imprint on global warming amid natural climate fluctuations requires long-term analysis and not short term studies, satellite data reveals. The data indicates that the lower troposphere (up to eight km above the earth’s surface) has warmed roughly by 17 degrees Celsius since the beginning of satellite temperature records in [...]
Amrit Banstola: It is surprising to see that after 61 years of initiation of improved cook stove (ICS) by Government of Nepal (such initiative dates as far back as 1950 with the introduction of Indian models of Hyderabad and Magan stoves) traditional and primitive chulas (stoves) are still in extensive use in Chidipani rural community. [...]
Eurasia Review: Time has come to become serious about the future of the river. There is a growing perception that the Ganga might completely dry in next fifty years if no effective action is taken to purify the river, keep the flow of its water intact and control the global warming. There cannot be a [...]
Kuenselonline: While world over livestock population is experiencing an alarming increase to cater to as alarming an increase in demand for meat and diary products, Bhutan is headed the other way. That is quite befitting of the country’s emphasis and priority for environmental protection that draws its essence from its guiding philosophy of Gross National [...]
The Global Warming Policy Foundation: For the mechanism of global warming, the IPCC report emphasizes the impact of human activities and the correlation between the CO2 concentration and temperature increase. However, the Earth is a complex dynamic system with various factors affecting each other; great uncertainties exist regarding causes and effects of the climate changes. [...]
The Canadian: Since the NATO invasion and the subsequent terror wars in Islamic world the there have been drastic climatic horrors affecting the routine patterns of life on earth. Fast changing climatic behaviour could affect regions, human activities, and global progress, irreversibly unsettling the masses. However, the scientists who work to earn money from colonial [...]
Deccan Herald: A team of US and Korean scientists blame high levels of air pollution in South Asia for a sharp rise in the intensity of tropical cyclones over the Arabian Sea during and before the monsoon, writes Kalyan Ray . Increased air pollution in South Asia including India is pushing up cyclone intensity in [...]
Deccan Herald: The government has earmarked Rs 15,000 crore more to make the river pollution free. Thousands of people took a holy dip in the Ganga river at Patna on the occasion of one of the most auspicious festival Chhath this year, but an equal number avoided the sacred river in the wake of reports [...]
Kuenselonline: The Wangchu river that runs through Thimphu city, Bhutan’s biggest and fastest growing urban centre, is more polluted as it passes through the main town and flows downstream, a report prepared by the National Environment Commission concludes. The report collected data between March last year and April this year, from monitoring sites set up [...]
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: Writes about the history of Darjeeling town in Indian Himalayan region, its ethnicity, the administrative setup and various social, economic and ecological aspects. He talks about the fragile ecology and increasing demand for environmental resources due to growing tourist influx and poorly planned urbanization. He feels that hill town like Darjeeling has unique [...]
World Climate Report: There is word circulating that a paper soon to appear in Science magazine concludes that the climate sensitivity—how much the earth’s average temperature will rise as a result of a doubling of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide—likely (that is, with a 66% probability) lies in the range 1.7°C to 2.6°C, with [...]
Huffingtonpost: A tally of lost lives and health care expenditures arising from just six recent weather-related or epidemiological events suggests that the economic toll of future climate change is likely to be even more staggering than previously thought, according to a study published Monday in the journal Health Affairs. The analysis, conducted by a team [...]
Mongabay: Global carbon emissions last year exceeded worst-case scenario predictions from just four years before, according to the US Department of Energy (DOE). A rise of 6 percent (564 million additional tons) over 2009 levels was largely driven by three nations: the US, India, and China. Emissions from burning coal jumped 8 percent overall. The [...]
Sunday Morning Herald: Amid the bullishness about Asia’s economic future, and the potential for Australia to benefit, there’s a nasty downside risk that can’t be ignored – climate change. With more than half the world’s population, Asia has more at stake than any other region. It has become the largest contributor to the global increase [...]
Earth Times: Flecks of soot from a smoky open stove in India blacken more than just the roofs of the hut it is smoldering in. Fine particles of such smoke lodge deep in the lungs of women preparing meals, gifting them a dark scourge of ill-health and premature death. That same black soot floats higher [...]
Zee News: The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming. The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined [...]
