Global warming causing dramatic decline in Great Barrier Reef's seabirds
Source: The Australian
New research has determined that seabird populations on the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding waters are facing dramatic decline due to climate change. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says tens of thousands of seabirds are failing to breed because warmer water from more frequent and intense El Niño events means there is insufficient food to raise their young. Warm water near the surface forces fish, plankton and other prey into deeper water, where it cannot be reached by seabirds.
Indonesia's tin islands: blessed or cursed?
Source: Reuters
Tin mining on the Bangka-Belitung islands off Sumatra has brought wealth, but at a price; it is literally eating away at the land. Tin mining on the islands have left behind a lunar landscape of craters and hundreds of highly acidic, turquoise lakes created by centuries of largely unregulated tin mining. Efforts to restore damaged land, such as by replanting trees, have proceeded very slowly. A local official estimated that 619,000 hectares (1.5m acres) had been damaged by tin mining.
Corn ethanol uses more water than any other biofuel
Source: Treehugger.com
Another nail has been hammered into the corn ethanol coffin. According to researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, the water requirements to produce corn ethanol are significantly higher than producing non-irrigated biofuels, hydrogen generated from renewable energy, or petroleum or diesel fuel.
Eat kangaroos to save climate?
Source: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development Kangaroos may be able to make significant contributions to reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. Professor Ross Garnaut, an economist, argues that with cattle and sheep being large emitters of methane – a greenhouse gas – a shift in diet to a less polluting source of meat remains an option to help reduce emissions. Meat cattle is responsible for 58.1% of Australia's agricultural emissions.
Cow emissions more harmful than car
Source: PA
A herd of cows belches out more climate-changing gas than a family car, a university researcher has said. Andy Thorpe, an economist at the University of Portsmouth, said that 200 cows burp the annual amount of methane equivalent to the energy produced by a family car being driven 111,850 miles. The amount of methane produced by a herd was the same as the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced by a car burning 21,400 litres of petrol, he said.
