Monday 18 October 2010

New predictions for rising sea levels

New research suggests that up to 150 million people could be displaced as sea levels rise by 30cm to 70cm by the end of this century. This could result in flooding of low-lying coastal areas, including some of the world's largest cities.

The team published the study in the journal PNAS.

'Ten years' to solve nature crisis

The UN biodiversity convention meeting has opened with warnings that the ongoing loss of nature is hurting human societies as well as the natural world. Much hope is being pinned on economic analyses showing the loss of species and ecosystems is costing the global economy trillions of dollars each year.

Buddhist scholar Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki said 'the problem of nature is the problem of human life'. Today, unfortunately, human life is a problem for nature," he told delegates in his opening speech.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

A sign of things to come?

The abnormally warm and dry weather in Moscow, shrouded in a blistering haze of smoke from wildfires is another symptom of global warming according to experts from the environmental group WWF Russia.

The head of the climate and energy programme at WWF Russia, Alexei Kokorin, said the abnormal temperatures soaring to up to 40C increased the likelihood of wildfires around the capital.

"We have to get ready to fight such fires in the future because there is a great possibility that such a summer will be repeated. This tendency won't stop in the coming 40 years or so, until the greenhouse gas emissions are reduced," he said. "We can now say that the wave of abnormal phenomena that the rest of the world has been experiencing has finally reached central Russia," Dr Kokorin added.

Friday 1 October 2010

Water map shows billions at risk of water insecurity

About 80% of the world's population lives in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure, according to a new global analysis appearing in the journal Nature.

The most severe threat category encompasses 3.4 billion people.

The analysis is a global snapshot, and the research team suggests more people are likely to encounter more severe stress on their water supply in the coming decades, as the climate changes and the human population continues to grow.