Asia’s air pollution ‘circles the world for years’: report | Raw Story

Asia’s air pollution ‘circles the world for years’: report | Raw Story

WASHINGTON — Pollution from Asia's booming economies rises into the stratosphere during the monsoon season then circles the world for years, according to a report out Thursday.

A study by the Boulder, Colorado-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) said the strong air circulation patterns linked to Asia's monsoon rainy season serves as a pathway for black carbon, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants to rise into the stratosphere.

The stratosphere is the layer of the atmosphere located some 32 to 40 kilometers (20 to 25 miles) above the Earth's surface.

"The monsoon is one of the most powerful atmospheric circulation systems on the planet, and it happens to form right over a heavily polluted region," said NCAR scientist William Randel, the study's lead author.

"As a result, the monsoon provides a pathway for transporting pollutants up to the stratosphere."

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As Glaciers Melt, Bolivia Fights for the Good Life | CommonDreams.org

As Glaciers Melt, Bolivia Fights for the Good Life | CommonDreams.org

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Disappearing Glaciers

The melting of glaciers worldwide is one of the starkest effects of global warming. In the Cordillera Real mountain range, part of the Andes, glaciers have lost 40 percent of their volume between 1975 and 2006. The glacier Chacaltaya, which sits approximately 20 miles from Illimani, has disappeared completely. Five years ago Chacaltaya was proudly heralded by Bolivian tour agencies as the highest ski slope in the world. Now the Bolivian Ski Club's welcome sign angles forlornly on a barren incline.

Bolivia, which is home to 20 percent of the world's tropical glaciers (glaciers that are located at high altitudes around the equator), is clearly panicked by the rapidity of glacial melt. Bolivia's tropical glaciers are especially susceptible to climactic changes: they depend on the increasingly erratic rainy season to regenerate, and their altitude compounds the effects of rising temperatures. Edson Ramirez, one of Bolivia's most respected glacier experts, predicted that Chacaltaya, at least, would last until 2015. Now, some scientists express doubt that any Andean tropical glaciers will exist in 30 years.

The trouble is that the tropical glaciers depend on seasonal regularity. In tropical zones south of the equator, seasons are generally divided into rainy and dry: dry is May through November (southern winter) and rainy is November through April (southern summer). During the rainy season, glaciers accumulate moisture and ice mass. This thaws during dry season, filling streams and rivers with fresh water precisely when it is most needed.

"Water Is Life."

When speaking about climate change, people in Bolivia use this refrain with reliable predictability. It is an uncomfortable, unavoidable aphorism. The glaciers are an indispensable part of the national water supply system; as much as 30 percent of the water supply for the 2 million residents of La Paz and its sister city of El Alto come from glacial melt. On a global scale, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center estimates that 75 percent of the world's freshwater is stored in glaciers.

But warming temperatures mean that the glaciers are melting at a rate that outpaces their ability to accumulate mass during the rainy months. The consequence is that an important source of water is dwindling dangerously.

And Khapi isn't just struggling with a deteriorating water supply. As a community that relies on intimate knowledge of weather patterns in order to survive, erratic weather has introduced unforeseen challenges to food production. Sagrario Urgel, with Oxfam Bolivia, is particularly worried about the effect of unpredictable weather on rural communities like Khapi: "They don't have ways to anticipate things like they had before, for the times of planting and harvesting," she explains, "and all of this change in climate is causing considerable crop losses."

Giant Antarctic iceberg could affect global ocean circulation | Environment | The Guardian

Giant Antarctic iceberg could affect global ocean circulation | Environment | The Guardian

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg that contains enough fresh water to supply a third of the world's population for a year has broken off in the Antarctic continent, with possible implications for global ocean circulation, scientists said today.

The iceberg, measuring about 50 miles by 25, broke away from the Mertz glacier around 2,000 miles south of Australia after being rammed by another giant iceberg known as B-9B three weeks ago, satellite images reveal. The two icebergs, which both weigh more than 700m tons, are now drifting close together about 100 miles north of Antarctica.

Rob Massom, a senior scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in Hobart, Tasmania, said the location of the icebergs could affect global ocean circulation and had important implications for marine biology in the region.

The concern is that the massive displacement of ice would transform the composition of sea water in the area and impair the normal circulation of cold, dense water that normally supplies deep ocean currents with oxygen.

"Removal of this tongue of floating ice would reduce the size of that area of open water, which would slow down the rate of salinity input into the ocean and it could slow down this rate of Antarctic bottom water formation," Massom told Reuters.

Mario Hoppema, chemical oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, said that as a result "there may be regions of the world's oceans that lose oxygen, and then of course most of the life there will die". ...

World's top firms cause $2.2tn of environmental damage, report estimates | Environment | The Guardian

World's top firms cause $2.2tn of environmental damage, report estimates | Environment | The Guardian
Report for the UN into the activities of the world's 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment

The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world's biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found.

The report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.

Later this year, another huge UN study - dubbed the "Stern for nature" after the influential report on the economics of climate change by Sir Nicholas Stern - will attempt to put a price on such global environmental damage, and suggest ways to prevent it. The report, led by economist Pavan Sukhdev, is likely to argue for abolition of billions of dollars of subsidies to harmful industries like agriculture, energy and transport, tougher regulations and more taxes on companies that cause the damage.

Ahead of changes which would have a profound effect - not just on companies' profits but also their customers and pension funds and other investors - the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment initiative and the United Nations Environment Programme jointly ordered a report into the activities of the 3,000 biggest public companies in the world, which includes household names from the UK's FTSE 100 and other major stockmarkets.

The study, conducted by London-based consultancy Trucost and due to be published this summer, found the estimated combined damage was worth US$2.2 trillion (£1.4tn) in 2008 - a figure bigger than the national economies of all but seven countries in the world that year.

The figure equates to 6-7% of the companies' combined turnover, or an average of one-third of their profits, though some businesses would be much harder hit than others. ...

US Broadband Figures Show 40 Percent Lack High-Speed Internet: STUDY

US Broadband Figures Show 40 Percent Lack High-Speed Internet: STUDY

WASHINGTON — Roughly 40 percent of Americans do not have high-speed Internet access at home, according to new Commerce Department figures that underscore the challenges facing policymakers who are trying to bring affordable broadband connections to everyone.

The Obama administration and Congress have identified universal broadband as a key to driving economic development, producing jobs and bringing educational opportunities and cutting-edge medicine to all corners of the country.

"We're at a point where high-speed access to the Internet is critical to the ability of people to be successful in today's economy and society at large," said Larry Strickling, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an arm of the Commerce Department that released the data Tuesday. ...