Ecosystems

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Ebola outbreak threatens peace, security, WHO chief says

Mon, 2014-10-13 20:19 — mike kraft

ASSOCIATED PRESS Oct. 13, 2014

GENEVA — The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is “unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization, said Monday.

Chan, who dealt with the 2009 avian flu pandemic and the SARS outbreaks of 2002-03, said the Ebola outbreak had progressed from a public health crisis to “a crisis for international peace and security.”

“I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries,” she said in a statement delivered on her behalf to a conference in Manila, Philippines, and released by her office in Geneva. “I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure.”

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Earth has lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF

Sun, 2014-10-05 18:32 — Maeryn Obley

Image: Rubbish dumped on the tundra outside llulissat in Greenland stand in stark contrast to icebergs behind from the Sermeq Kujullaq or llulissat Ice fjord – a Unesco world heritage site. Photograph: Global Warming Images/WWF-Canon

theguardian.com - September 29th, 2014 - Damian Carrington

The number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years, according to a new analysis. Creatures across land, rivers and the seas are being decimated as humans kill them for food in unsustainable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats, the research by scientists at WWF and the Zoological Society of London found.

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Get Smarter on Agriculture and Climate

Mon, 2014-09-22 18:00 — Norea

David Cleary Director of Agriculture Nature Conservancy By David Cleary - Sep 22, 2014 - environmentalleader.com

In a somber scene-setter for the upcoming climate summit in New York, the UN’s meteorological office, The World Meteorological Organization, released a report showing that world carbon emissions in 2013 reached a record high, and atmospheric carbon is increasing at the fastest rate seen in over thirty years. Some hard questions are facing the international order, which has spent much of that period in an interminable round of meetings meant to combat climate change. Against this backdrop, the pertinent question the UN report raises is: why bother? If we appear to be losing the battle, what difference does yet another meeting and round of press conferences make, other than to traffic conditions in lower Manhattan?

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Ban Ki-moon: 'World living in an era of unprecedented level of crises'

Mon, 2014-09-22 18:00 — Norea

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon with actor Leonardo DiCaprio during his designation ceremony as the UN Messenger of Peace. Photograph: EPA

Julian Borger - New York The Guardian
21 Sep 2014 16.55 BST

More than 140 heads of state and government fly in to New York this week for the United Nations general assembly amid apprehension that international order is unraveling at an accelerating pace, while the world's leaders seem ever less willing or able to deal with the proliferating threats.

The UN's humanitarian agencies are in danger of being completely overwhelmed by the multiple crises. Ebola is spreading rapidly across West Africa, swamping rickety national health systems and a thus-far underfunded UN effort to stop its advance. The spread of Islamic State (Isis) extremists in the Middle East, feeding on the destruction of the Syrian civil war and exposing the weakness of the Iraqi state, has similarly outpaced patchy international efforts at containment.

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Global Rise Reported in 2013 Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Sat, 2014-09-20 18:00 — Norea

A mask guarded against Shanghai haze last year. China’s economy was a factor in below-average global emissions growth. Credit Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press By JUSTIN GILLIS - SEPT 21, 2014 - nytimes.com

Global emissions of greenhouse gases jumped 2.3 percent in 2013 to record levels, scientists reported Sunday, in the latest indication that the world remains far off track in its efforts to control global warming.

The emissions growth last year was a bit slower than the average growth rate of 2.5 percent over the past decade, and much of the dip was caused by an economic slowdown in China, which is the world’s single largest source of emissions. It may take an additional year or two to know if China has turned a corner toward slower emissions growth, or if the runaway pace of recent years will resume.

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http://ecowatch.com/2014/08/14/fracking-waste-disposal-opposition/2/

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Fracking Waste Disposal Fuels Opposition in U.S. and Abroad

Tue, 2014-09-09 09:43 — Norea

In England, the government approved the injection of a million and a half gallons of potentially radioactive water under the North Moors National Park. Photo credit: Spinwatch Anastasia Pantsios | August 14, 2014 11:50 am

Spinwatch’s Andy Rowell reports:

The commercial success of the Ebberston Moor field depends on Third Energy being allowed to re-inject the potentially radioactive water that is produced with the gas back into what is known as the Sherwood Sandstone formation, which overlies the limestone where the gas will be extracted from. The sandstone lies 1400 metres below the ground. Notes of a meeting between Third Energy and the regulator involved, the Environment Agency, disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), reveals that “the success of the Ebberston Moor Field is dependent on the disposal of [produced] water to the Sherman Sandstone.”

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http://www.voanews.com/content/ebola-also-devastates-wild-ape-population/2411749.html

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Ebola Also Devastates Wild Ape Population

Thu, 2014-08-14 22:45 — Norea

Steve Baragona - August 13, 2014 9:03 AM

One day in 1996, boys from a village in northern Gabon brought home a chimpanzee they found dead in the forest. The villagers butchered it for food.

That act set off an Ebola outbreak that killed 21 people, according to the World Health Organization.

Years later, on a reporting trip in Gabon, author David Quammen met two men from the village who were there during the outbreak.

At the time Ebola was ravaging their village and their families, they noticed something strange. In the forest nearby, 13 gorillas lay dead.

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Understanding the Connections Between Coastal Waters and Ocean Ecosystem Services and Human Health

Sun, 2014-06-15 18:35 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Cheryl Stroud

nap.edu - Institute of Medicine. Understanding the Connections Between Coastal Waters and Ocean Ecosystem Services and Human Health: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2014.

Authors

Rose Marie Martinez and Erin Rusch, Rapporteurs; Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice (BPH); Institute of Medicine (IOM)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBSU9KaCYP4&feature=youtu.be&t=1m11s

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Emily Penn - Pangaea Exploration - Apple - Apps We Can't Live Without

Thu, 2014-06-12 18:19 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Emily Penn - Pangaea Exploration - featured in the latest Apple commercial - (in the link below - starting at 1:11)

About Us - Pangaea Exploration

Mission

We believe that the depth, complexity and sheer inertia of the threats to our oceans is significant. Practical solutions and the resources to implement them do still exist. The central challenge is our collective will to act, to care. We also believe that our ultimate success depends on a future generation of inspired conservationists.

We have a two part mission

1. To actively strengthen the health of marine life through Exploration, Conservation and Education work.

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