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Environmental Health News
Environmental Health News is published daily by Environmental Health Sciences, a not-for-profit organization founded in 2002 to help increase public understanding of emerging scientific links between environmental exposures and human health.
Environmental Health News aggregates links to articles in the world press about environmental health, with daily updates. Topics carried include a broad array of issues in environmental health, including: chemical contamination, water quantity and quality, air pollution, sewage, Mad Cow disease, and genetic engineering, etc. as well as climate change and biodiversity stories with a health dimension. We make a special effort to find media coverage of new scientific findings related to these issues. We do not cover pure energy, 'critter stories,' or animal rights. Anything covered should have, at least implicitly, a link to human or ecosystem health.
Website: http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/
Contact:
www.EnvironmentalHealthNews.org
Environmental Health Sciences
609 East High Street
Charlottesville, Virginia. 22902
USA
434-220-0348
feedback@environmentalhealthnews.org
Europe Offers to Cut CO2 Emissions 95%
October 26, 2009 06:12 AM - Ian Traynor, guardian.co.uk, Environmental Health News
Europe attempted to reassert its international leadership in the fight against global warming today, offering to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95% by 2050 and by 30% by 2020 if a climate change pact is sealed in Copenhagen in six weeks' time. "This should be seen as a clear message to the world," said Andreas Carlgren, the Swedish environment minister who chaired the Luxembourg meeting. "We expect to reach an agreement in Copenhagen," he added, after environment ministers from 27 countries finalised a common EU negotiating position.
U.K.'s Royal Society Pushes GM Crop Use as Hunger Solution
October 21, 2009 12:20 PM - David Adam, The Guardian, Environmental Health News
Research to develop genetically modified crops must be stepped up as part of a £2bn "grand challenge" to avoid future food shortages, an influential panel of scientists said yesterday. In its report, the British Royal Society said that GM techniques would be needed to boost yields and help crops survive harsher climates, as the global population rises and global warming worsens.
Secret to Slowing Global Warming Lies Beneath the Waves
October 14, 2009 02:46 PM - Frank Pope, The Times, Environmental Health News
Life in the ocean has the potential to help to prevent global warming, according to a report published today. Marine plant life sucks 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, but most of the plankton responsible never reaches the seabed to become a permanent carbon store. Mangrove forests, salt marshes and seagrass beds are a different matter. Although together they cover less than 1 percent of the world’s seabed, they lock away well over half of all carbon to be buried in the ocean floor. They are estimated to store 1,650 million tons of carbon dioxide every year — nearly half of global transport emissions — making them one of the most intense carbon sinks on Earth. Their capacity to absorb the emissions is under threat, however: the habitats are being lost at a rate of up to 7 per cent a year, up to 15 times faster than the tropical rainforests. A third have already been lost.
Drought Disaster looms in East Africa
October 4, 2009 08:10 AM - Daniel Howden, The Independent, London, Environmental Health News
On the plains of Marsabit the heat is so intense the bush seems to shiver. The leafless scrub, bleached white by the sun, looks like a forest of fake Christmas trees. Carcasses of cattle and camels are strewn about the burnt red dirt in every direction. Siridwa Baseli walks out of the haze along a path of the dead and dying. He passes a skeletal cow that has given up and collapsed under a thorn tree. A nomad from the Rendille people, he is driving his herd in search of water.
Antarctica's hidden plumbing revealed
September 20, 2009 10:58 AM - New Scientist from, Environmental Health News
The first complete map of the lakes beneath Antarctica's ice sheets reveals the continent's secret water network is far more dynamic than we thought. This could be acting as a powerful lubricant beneath glaciers, contributing to sea level rise. Unlike previous lake maps, which are confined to small regions, Ian Joughin at the University of Washington in Seattle and colleagues mapped 124 subglacial lakes across Antarctica using lasers on NASA's ICESat satellite (see map).
Sea Levels Rose as Much as Two Feet This Summer in U.S. East
September 15, 2009 05:56 AM - Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News, Environmental Health News
Sea levels rose as much as 2 feet (60 centimeters) higher than predicted this summer along the U.S. East Coast, surprising scientists who forecast such periodic fluctuations. The immediate cause of the unexpected rise has now been solved, U.S. officials say in a new report (hint: it wasn't global warming). But the underlying reason remains a mystery.
Climate-change technology risks 'catastrophic' outcome
September 3, 2009 06:50 AM - Alun Thorne, Birmingham Post, Environmental Health News
Risky and unproven climate-changing technologies could have "catastrophic consequences" for the earth and humankind if used irresponsibly, according to a new report.
Our best guess about global warming may be wrong
September 2, 2009 06:40 AM - Moises Velasquez-Manoff, The Christian Science Monitor, Environmental Health News
Fifty-five million years ago, the world was a much warmer place. The poles were ice-free year-round. Palm trees grew in Alaska. Forests stretched right into the Arctic Circle. There, swamps like those in today’s southeastern United States hosted alligators, snakes, and giant tortoises. Scientists call this time in Earth’s history the Eocene, the dawn of the age of mammals. And climatologists have naturally taken a keen interest in how it began. They know that a dramatic spike in carbon dioxide associated with rapid climate change kicked off the epoch — called the "Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum" (PETM). But what scientists don’t understand about the PETM may hold the most relevant lessons for where the world’s climate is headed today.
New study backs UN panel on ocean rise
July 28, 2009 06:47 AM - AFP, Environmental Health News
The UN's climate panel has been backed over a key question as to how far global warming will drive up sea levels this century, a study published on Sunday says. The UN experts are right that the oceans are unlikely to rise by an order of metres (many feet) by 2100, as some scientists have feared, it says. But, its authors caution, low-lying countries and delta areas could still face potentially catastrophic flooding if the upper range of the new estimate proves right.
Deserts crossing Mediterranean
June 27, 2009 07:08 AM - ANSA.It, Environmental Health News
The Sahara Desert is crossing the Mediterranean, according to Italian environmental protection group Legambiente which warns that the livelihoods of 6.5 million people living along its shores could be at risk. "Desertification isn't limited to Africa," said Legambiente Vice President Sebastiano Venneri. "Without a serious change of direction in economic and environmental policies, the risk will become concrete and irreversible."