Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Pet hamsters banned in Vietnam

Andre Vornic
BBC
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:39 UTC
Vietnam has banned the sale and possession of hamsters, whose popularity has been soaring.

The Ministry of Agriculture says anyone caught with a hamster will be fined up to 30m dong ($1,900) - almost double the average annual wage in Vietnam.

The authorities say the creatures are a potential source of disease.

Officials have also expressed concern that the animals are imported from China and Thailand without proper licensing or controls.
Read More...
Cloud Lightning

At Least 10 Tornadoes Rip Through Florida and Georgia

Michael Peltier
Reuters
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:01 UTC
Tornadoes cut through Florida and Georgia on Friday, blowing homes off foundations, felling power lines and snapping majestic oak trees as a record series of winter tornadoes continued to pound the United States.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? And Just How Sensitive is the Climate Anyway?

Ronald Bailey
Reason Magazine
Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:35 UTC
Let's start with some possible news from Heartland Institute's International Climate Change Conference. In the context of man-made global warming, climate sensitivity asks how much temperatures increase if one adds a specified amount of a greenhouse gas. In general, most climatologists accept the proposition, all things being equal, that if one doubles carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the average temperature will go up by +1 degree centigrade. But all things are not equal. In climate models, additional heat from carbon dioxide boosts atmospheric water vapor which in turn acts as a greenhouse gas. All models are dominated by this positive feedback loop. As a consequence, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated in its Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) last year that it "is likely to be in the range 2 to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C." In other words, doubling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is likely to warm the planet by between 2 degrees and 4.5 degrees centigrade.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Greek island Rhodes hit by two earthquakes


ekathimerini
Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:57 UTC
Two earthquakes measuring 5.1 Richter each hit the Dodecanese island of Rhodes yesterday. The tremors were felt within minutes of each other. The first was recorded at 6.11 p.m. and the second just three minutes later. No damage or injuries were reported.
Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Brutish winter storm hits Central, Eastern Canada

Jordana Huber
Canada.com
Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:30 UTC
Canada's "winter from hell" is nasty, brutish and will not be short, according to a senior climatologist at Environment Canada who said spring weather is still a distant dream for most parts of the country.

From freezing drizzle, to snow and ice pellets, Central and Eastern Canada faced a buffet of bad weather Wednesday as a storm centred over New England worked its way into the Maritimes, prompting Environment Canada to issue a series of winter storm warnings.
Read More...
Frog

Manmade flood unleashed in Grand Canyon

Amanda Lee Myers
Associated Press
Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:56 UTC
PAGE, Ariz. - Four arcs of water unleashed from a dam coursed through the Grand Canyon on Wednesday in a flood meant to mimic the natural ones that used to nourish the ecosystem by spreading sediment.

More than 300,000 gallons of water per second were released from Lake Powell above the dam near the Arizona-Utah border. That's enough water to fill the Empire State Building in 20 minutes, said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
Read More...
Frog

Lost logs are a barrier to turtle breeding


NewScientist
Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:26 UTC
As if decimating rainforests isn't bad enough, now it turns out industrial logging is also preventing leatherback turtles from nesting.

There is a timber boom in central Africa, with logging now allowed in two-thirds of Gabon's rainforests. Felled logs are floated down rivers to the coast in their thousands, where they are packaged for shipping abroad. Some are lost in transit, though, and float out to sea, eventually washing up along Gabon's 1000-kilometre coastline. Those beached logs pose a threat to breeding turtles, says William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Read More...
Attention

Blue Covenant: Maude Barlow on the Global Movement for Water Justice


Democracy Now
Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:29 UTC
Maude Barlow is the head of the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy organization, and founder of the Blue Planet Project. Barlow is author of the new book Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.
Read More...
Magic Hat

Hogs help battle beetle in apple orchard

James Prichard
Associated Press
Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:09 UTC
CLAYTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Jim Koan has gone hog-wild in his battle against a beetle that threatens his 120-acre organic apple orchard.

As part of a research experiment believed to be among the first of its kind, Koan is using pigs to help protect his fruit from the plum curculio, a tiny insect that is among the most destructive apple pests.
Read More...
Magnet

Great white shark eats anti-shark device

Pia Akerman
The Australian
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00 UTC
An electronic device designed to ward sharks away from surfers failed so spectacularly during a trial off South Africa that it was eaten by a great white.

Hungry shark
©Barcroft Media
Read More...