When in Indonesia, add a government decree to the formula for boosting solar energy, and all things begin to look more attractive to clean electricity developers and investors. Until now, the solar market of Southeast Asia has been tepid, at best. But a new decree from Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources is set
On September 22nd, the third annual World Rhino Day was celebrated, with over a dozen countries participating this year. World Rhino Day brought NGOs, zoos, rhino sanctuaries, and concerned citizens across the globe together to raise awareness and funds for the five species of rhinoceros — all of which are under threat from the
The ginger root can be used for so much more than just cooking. It can be used for medicinal purposes such as helping to relieve nausea and pain, aid in digestion, and act as an anti-inflammatory.
EXTINCT: Vietnam’s last rhino was a victim of the illegal rhino horn trade. Photo © WWF-Greater Mekong WWF and the International Rhino Foundation (IRF) have confirmed the extinction of the Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus) in Vietnam. DNA match On April 29th, 2010, the body of a female Javan rhino was found in Cat Tien
NASA has released a series of video and still visualisations that show a decade’s worth of fires across the surface of Earth based on data gathered by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instruments on board NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.
The tropical tourist paradise of Thailand is currently suffering through enormously costly floods, resulting from a “weak” La Niña monsoon season. Following September’s extremely heavy rains — five feet of rain for the month — the monsoon season continues virtually unabated into this month, where it also coincided, last weekend, with the highest tides of the month. It is estimated that 10 % of the nation’s rice crop has been destroyed, so far, costing nearly 4 billion USD, and growing. This will have certain impact on global food prices (driving them higher) and on food security for tens of millions of people.
The tsunami that rocked the eastern coast of Japan on March 11 of this year was captured by high-frequency radar in California and Japan as it rocked in from the epicentre of the earthquake. This is the first time that a tsunami has been picked up by radar and raises new possibilities for the early detection of tsunamis.
The World Meteorological Organisation, the weather agency of the United Nations, has announced that the current La Niña episode looks to be coming to an end.
I just wrote a few weeks ago on the possibility of coral reefs getting completely wiped out by 2100. Now, a couple recent research articles document the extensive damage to coral reefs around the world in 2010 alone, and it is pretty bad (understatement). Coral Bleaching in Caribbean Eli Kintisch of ScienceNOW writes: Scientists studying
Wasted food energy in the U.S. totals some 2150 trillion kilojoules per year–more than the U.S. could produce in ethanol (grain) biofuels. Further, an article in the New Scientist asserts that this amount is greater than the energy produced annually from all the oil and gas extracted from the Gulf of Mexico.
