News Forum Archives: January 2005

Antarctica, Warming, Looks Ever More Vulnerable

January 25, 2005
By Larry Rohter
The New York Times

The Larsen B ice shelf collapsed over a 35-day period early in 2002, losing more than a quarter of its total mass. OVER THE ABBOTT ICE SHELF, Antarctica – From an airplane at 500 feet, all that is visible here is a vast white emptiness. Ahead, a chalky plain stretches as far as the eye can see, the monotony broken only by a few gentle rises and the wrinkles created when new sheets of ice form.

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Posted by Paul on January 26, 2005

Supermarket Giants Crush Central American Farmers

December 28, 2004
By Celia W. Dugger New York Times

PALENCIA, Guatemala – Mario Chinchilla, his face shaded by a battered straw hat, worriedly surveyed his field of sickly tomatoes. His hands and jeans were caked with dirt, but no amount of labor would ever turn his puny crop into the plump, unblemished produce the country’s main supermarket chain displays in its big stores.

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Posted by Paul on January 25, 2005

Study: Albatrosses Often Circle Globe

The Associated Press
Thursday, January 13, 2005

WASHINGTON – Gray-headed albatrosses, famed for flocking to the South Georgia Islands near Antarctica to mate and raise chicks, routinely circle the globe between breeding seasons in a restless search for fish, British scientists discovered.

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Posted by Paul on January 16, 2005

Race is on to claim the Arctic Circle

With ice retreating, wrangling has already started on the uncovering of wastes and riches of the far north.
The New Zealand Herald
January 7, 2005

Deep inside the Arctic Circle, hundreds of kilometres beyond the frontier of human habitation, a solitary red flag with a white cross flies in the freezing winds, its pole hammered into the unyielding rock of Hans Island. Next to it, a plaque tells the world the Vikings have returned.

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Posted by Paul on January 14, 2005

Study Urges Water Conservation on Farms

Sun Jan 9,11:25 AM ET
By Mark Johnson, Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. – A growing population coupled with diminishing fresh water supplies should force major changes in the way the world’s farmers water their crops in the coming decades, a recent study recommends.

Since agriculture uses about 70 percent of the world’s fresh water every year, farming should be the focus of intense conservation efforts, said David Pimentel, a professor at Cornell University and primary author of the study published in the October issue of the journal BioScience.

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Posted by Paul on January 11, 2005

George Jetson, Meet the Sequel

The New York Times
January 9, 2005 By Danny Hakim

DETROIT – The Sequel is totally cool.

General Motors’ latest hydrogen car prototype, called the Sequel, will be unveiled today at a press preview of the North American International Auto Show here. It is a car unlike any other and a glimpse of a possible, very different, automotive future. Most important, it runs on a hydrogen fuel cell, so its only tailpipe emission is water vapor, not the smog-forming pollutants and greenhouse gases that come out of gasoline-powered cars.

So why do environmental groups see the Sequel not as a panacea for cars’ environmental shortcomings but as G.M.’s latest Trojan horse?

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Posted by Paul on January 09, 2005

The Ends of the World as We Know Them

January 1, 2005
By Jared Diamond Op-Ed Contributor The New York Times

Los Angeles New Year’s weekend traditionally is a time for us to reflect, and to make resolutions based on our reflections. In this fresh year, with the United States seemingly at the height of its power and at the start of a new presidential term, Americans are increasingly concerned and divided about where we are going. How long can America remain ascendant? Where will we stand 10 years from now, or even next year?

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Posted by Paul on January 04, 2005

‘Mangroves can act as shield against tsunami’

by G. Venkataramani
The Hindu

CHENNAI, INDIA, DEC. 27. “Tsunami is a rare phenomenon. Though we cannot prevent the occurrence of such natural calamities, we should certainly prepare ourselves to mitigate the impact of the natural fury on the population inhabiting the coastal ecosystems. Our anticipatory research work to preserve mangrove ecosystems as the first line of defence against devastating tidal waves on the eastern coastline has proved very relevant today.

The dense mangrove forests stood like a wall to save coastal communities living behind them,” said M.S. Swaminathan, Chairman, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai.

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Posted by noble on January 03, 2005