2009 September | Distant-Help

A green Nobel Peace Prize next week? Or one too many?

Will the guardians of the Nobel Peace Prize make another green award in 2009 to encourage sluggish talks on new U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed in Copenhagen?

Or is it too early after environmental prizes in both 2004 and 2007?

The five-member Nobel panel likes to make topical awards to try to influence the world – a prize announcement on [...]

Brazil’s Minc gains clout at home before Copenhagen

After a series of setbacks since he took office in May 2008, Brazil’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc has scored several political victories in recent weeks that give his portfolio some clout for the first time in Latin America’s largest country.

Only a few months ago Minc looked like he would follow the path of his predecessor, [...]

Arctic expedition reaches the ice

U.S. and Russian scientists exploring the Arctic ocean finally reached ice on Monday, about 435 miles (700 km) northwest of Barrow, Alaska.

On a year when the Arctic sea ice has receded in the summer to its third-smallest on record, researchers on the RUSALCA expedition got the opportunity to study the water, sea life [...]

‘Not enough ice to make a margarita’

Scientists aboard the Russian research vessel Professor Khromov spent the weekend collecting samples of water, sealife and ocean-floor mud at a spot in the western Arctic Ocean that in most years would be covered with sea ice.

The ship, carrying researchers for the six-week RUSALCA expedition, was in its most northerly planned sampling stop, or “station,” a location nearly [...]

Oceans away! U.S. makes federal stab at ocean policy

The seven seas get a single U.S. approach in a draft federal plan for oceans released on Thursday (and dated Sept. 10, when it was given to the prez). The report is a response to President Obama’s request for a plan and says a new National Ocean Council should use ecosystem management to take on [...]

Airlines vow to cut carbon output by 2050

The aviation industry is set to make a dramatic pledge to slash carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2050, as key climate change talks get underway at the United Nations, a report said.
British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh will unveil an agreement between airlines, airports and aircraft companies to cut emissions to 50 percent below [...]

Australia unveils massive Aboriginal nature reserve

Australia on Thursday said it has created a massive nature reserve in the country’s far north that will be managed by Aborigines.
The so-called Indigenous Protected Areas in the Northern Territory contain rock art sites that are 50,000 years old and wilderness areas rivalling the nearby World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park, officials said.
The new reserve [...]

El Nino shift could boost hurricanes, droughts: study

Global warming periodically shifts El Nino thousands of miles to the west, potentially intensifying Asian droughts and weakening its dampening effect on Atlantic hurricanes, reports a study published Thursday.
Up to now, the tropical weather phenomenon, which strikes on average every four or five years, has generally occurred along a wide stretch of the equator in [...]

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