A 200-year-long drought 4,200 years ago may have killed off the ancient Sumerian civilization, according to Matt Konfirst, a geologist at the Byrd Polar Research Center Thanks largely to the mainstream obsession with ‘climate change’, research into historical disasters that focuses on climate is getting more funding. Mainstream reporting of this research is skewed towards supporting…
In Trees Make Rain V we saw how trees enable microbes to put just the right kind of particles in the air to make it rain. It turns out that these are the most productive of all three known types of nucleating particles: Meteor dust particles, which serve as ice nucleators mostly at temperatures colder…
Patrick Alley at TEDxExeter talks about how the logging industry and governments have conned people into believing that legal logging is ok and that organizations like the WWF are helping to improve the state of our forests. There’s an article on the redd-monitor site that’s worth reading too.
If you cut your forest, the winds will not blow from the ocean and will not bring you rain. Natural forests draw atmospheric moisture inland from the ocean in a positive feedback loop. This builds up precipitation inland, compensating for water lost through river flow and ultimately increasing river runoff due to the sustained low-pressure…
[On 10th Sept 2013], “Varm luft for milliarder”, a documentary by Tom Heinemann, was broadcast on Danish television. It’s an exceptionally good documentary, with beautiful photography and featuring interviews with politicians, academics, a carbon trader, a journalist and an activist. The narration is by Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Headhunters, Game of Thrones, Black Hawk Down)….
[youtube=http://youtu.be/-AnRUhxRDA4] Allan Savory describes his successes in reversing desertification.
A leaked draft EU document shows that the Commission would like to rename palm oil plantations as “forest” in order that biodiesel from palm oil plantations can still meet EU biofuels sustainability criteria. Palm oil expansion is a major cause of tropical rainforest destruction and biodiesel from palm oil can easily cause more greenhouse gas…
ECOTERRA Intl.—one of the co-founders of the original campaign—warned that the indiscriminate counting of even GM-trees planted by industries into the statistics of the now UNEP-led initiative gives a false picture and bears grave dangers. “A serious indigenous tree planting campaign carried out by honest people has been hi-jacked for the PR purposes of the…
The Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Amazon deforestation jumped 69 percent in the past 12 months — the first such increase in three years — as rising demand for soy and cattle pushes farmers and ranchers to raze trees, officials said Saturday. Some 3,145 square miles of forest were destroyed between August 2007…