India mango farmers angry at dump plan

Farmers in northern India are angry over plans to establish a huge rubbish dump nearby one of the country's most famous mango plantations.

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The arguments made by climate change sceptics

At the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, 192 governments are aiming for a new global agreement to constrain greenhouse gas emissions and curb human-induced climate change. But some commentators are unconvinced that rising greenhouse gas emissions are the cause of modern-day warming. Or they say the world is not actually getting warmer - or that a new treaty would hurt economic growth and well-being.

So what are their arguments, and how are they countered by scientists who assert that greenhouse gases, produced by human activity, are the cause of modern-day climate change?

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Long feared extinct crow rediscovered

THE HINDU October 15, 2009

(ALIVE AND WELL: The recently rediscovered Banggai Crow photographed in remote Indonesia. Photo: Philippe Verbelen )

Ornithologists have discovered a critically endangered crow, known to science only by two specimens described in 1900, on a remote, mountainous Indonesian island.

The Banggai Crow was believed by many to be extinct until Indonesian biologists finally secured two new specimens on Peleng Island in 2007.

Pamela Rasmussen, a Michigan State University assistant professor of zoology and renowned species sleuth, provided conclusive verification after studying the two century-old specimens known as Corvus unicolour in New York’s American Museum of Natural History. more...

Kashmir's main glacier "melting at alarming speed"

REUTERS, Mon Oct 12, 2009

Indian Kashmir's biggest glacier, which feeds the region's main river, is melting faster than other Himalayas glaciers, threatening the water supply of tens of thousands of people, a new report warned on Monday.

Experts say rising temperatures are rapidly shrinking Himalayan glaciers, underscoring the effects of climate change that has caused temperatures in the mountainous region to rise by about 1.1 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years.

The biggest glacier in Indian Kashmir, the Kolahoi glacier spread over just a little above 11 sq km (4.25 sq mile), has shrunk 2.63 sq km in the past three decades, a new study said. More...

Nobel economics has relevance to climate change

THE HINDU, October 13, 2009

(Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson Photo: AFP/GETTY )

One of the winners of the Nobel prize for economics this year, Elinor Olstrom, is a pioneer in the study of the economics of the ‘commons’ — common property resources which, by virtue of being available to everyone free of cost, tend to be over-exploited. More...

Expert proposes ‘eco-friendly’ method to connect rivers

THE HINDU, October 11, 2009

Amid growing environmental concerns attached to the river linking project, an expert has come up with an “eco-friendly” method to connect the water bodies with grids so that states can share the resources according to their requirements. More...

What happened to global warming?

BBC, 9 October 2009

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998. Read more...