2009 February: Climate
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Guardian, Pyrenees glacier ice vanishing, The Age, 2009 Feb. 25 (the Pyrenees have lost almost 90 per cent of their glacier ice over the past century and scientists say global warming means it will disappear within a few decades)
Bridie Smith, Critters galore in icy Antarctica, The Age, 2009 Feb. 17 (one of the first wildlife surveys of Antarctica's icy waters has uncovered a rich collection of marine life, rivalling the diversity of the Great Barrier Reef)
Victory gardens: Digging their way out of recession, Economist, 2009 Feb. 28 (allotments by any other name)
Philip Hopkins, Food R&D alarm bells ring, The Age, 2009 Feb. 24 (agricultural research and development needs to be increased and better targeted if the world is to feed itself in the 21st century, according to a visiting expert)
Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, Getting an appetite for biotechnology, BBC, 2009 Feb. 27 (a growing population and climate change is going to make it difficult to meet the demand for food in the coming years; we must embrace the solutions offered by biotechnology if we are going to feed the planet)
Katherine Kizilos, Livestock reform is just a greenhouse whisper, The Age, 2009 Feb. 17 (deciding what to eat for dinner might seem like a trivial preoccupation in these difficult times but, as it turns out, livestock production is one of the biggest contributors to climate change; according to the UN, livestock is responsible for 18 per cent of the world's greenhouse emissions, a higher share than transport)
James Morgan, Bleak forecast on fishery stocks, BBC, 2009 Feb. 13 (changing ocean temperatures will force many fish species to migrate towards the poles, hitting fish stocks, scientists warn)
Robin McKie, It is now time to embrace GM technology, Observer, 2009 Feb. 1 (a climate of fear created by anti-GM campaigners has led Britain to reject genetically modified crops)
Jamie Doward, Britain 'must revive farms' to avoid grave food crisis, Observer, 2009 Feb. 1 (top thinktank issues stark warning of unrest over prices and says GM crops could offer a solution)
Suzanne Goldenberg, Dire climate fears for US, The Age, 2009 Feb. 27 (climate scientists have produced a blunt assessment of the impact of global warming on the US, warning of droughts that could reduce the south-west to a wasteland and heatwaves that could make life impossible even in northern cities)
Peter Ker, Dash to save drinking water, The Age, 2009 Feb. 17 (more than a billion litres of drinking water—enough to supply Melbourne's entire daily water consumption—was rushed out of one of the city's major dams yesterday in a bid to avoid contamination from bushfires)
Global warming 'underestimated', BBC, 2009 Feb. 15 (the severity of global warming over the next century will be worse than forecast, a leading climate scientist warns)
Peter Marshall, Face global warming or lives will be at risk, The Age, 2009 Feb. 12 (we will be fighting more fires unless we tackle the problem's source)
AP, Loo paper habit wipes out trees, The Age, 2009 Feb. 28 (Americans like their toilet paper soft: exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed)
The Brazilian Amazon: Preventing pillage in the rainforest, Economist, 2009 Feb. 28 (a scheme to regularise land holdings in the Amazon forest faces many obstacles)
William Kininmonth, Anatomy of a firestorm, The Age, 2009 Feb. 26 (Victoria's climate has long set the scene for annual danger; Kininmonth examines how, through history, these threats have erupted catastrophically)
Marika Dobbin, Trees now firefighters' main threat, The Age, 2009 Feb. 20 (falling trees made unstable by years of drought and Black Saturday bushfires are proving to be the biggest danger facing the nearly 5000 firefighters still battling blazes in Victoria)
Gary Sheridan and Patrick Lane, Fire, rain and our water, a muddied matter of chance, The Age, 2009 Feb. 18 (there's still much to learn about the effect of fire on the environment)
Daniel Lewis, Cellars and dugouts could become death traps, The Age, 2009 Feb. 16 (a bushfire expert has warned that poorly built underground shelters could be death traps in a fire)
Lindsay Murdoch, Fire's intensity leaves no trace of victims, The Age, 2009 Feb. 16 (police have been unable to find any trace of the bodies of some of Black Saturday's victims because the fires were so prolonged and intense)
Andrea Petrie, Angry survivors blame council 'green' policy, The Age, 2009 Feb. 11 (angry residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk)
Michael Bachelard and Cameron Houston, Day of horror as inferno rages, The Age, 2009 Feb. 8 (Victorians today awoke to the greatest bushfire catastrophe since Ash Wednesday; a statewide inferno that may have claimed up to 40 lives is still burning out of control)
Suzanne Goldenberg, Dire climate fears for US, The Age, 2009 Feb. 27 (climate scientists have produced a blunt assessment of the impact of global warming on the US, warning of droughts that could reduce the south-west to a wasteland and heatwaves that could make life impossible even in northern cities)
Juliet Eilperin, Clinton sparks new hope for climate action, The Age, 2009 Feb. 21 (Hillary Clinton's decision to visit China on her first trip overseas as US Secretary of State highlights the daunting tasks the Obama Administration faces)
Sarah Mukherjee, 'CO2 reduction treaties useless', BBC, 2009 Feb. 13 (a new report says that treaties, such as the Kyoto Protocol, which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, are useless)
Obama 'must act now' on climate, BBC, 2009 Feb. 12 (the planet will be in "huge trouble" unless Barack Obama tackles climate change rapidly, says a top US scientist)
Washington Post, Climate talks plea to Obama, The Age, 2009 Feb. 11 (UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appeals to Barack Obama to attend hastily planned summit in late March to promote international efforts to stem climate change)
UN chief in India climate warning, BBC, 2009 Feb. 5 (UN chief Ban Ki-moon warns a climate change conference in India that failure to tackle the issue will lead to global economic upheaval)
Suzanne Goldenberg, Obama's energy secretary outlines dire climate change scenario, Guardian, 2009 Feb. 4 (Steve Chu's warning the clearest sign to date of the greening of America's political class under Obama)
Darren Gray, Fleeing butterflies the final warning, The Age, 2009 Feb. 20 (Theo and Natasha Theissling could see no flame from their Callignee home of a bushfire that had started in Churchill more than five hours earlier, but the butterflies became a sign that things were changing dramatically)
Eli Greenblat, Wheel out of action for at least six months, The Age, 2009 Feb. 25 (Melbourne's $100 million Southern Star Observation Wheel is in danger of quickly turning into a giant white elephant after engineers discovered damage caused to the structure during Victoria's recent heatwave will put it out of action for at least six months)
Reko Rennie, Marika Dobbin and Selma Milovanovic, Battle to contain fires before weather turns, The Age, 2009 Feb. 25 (Victorian fire authorities have until Friday to contain seven large bushfires burning out of control before extreme weather is forecast to again threaten towns)
Adam Morton, Drought and fire here to stay with El Niño's return, The Age, 2009 Feb. 17 (Victoria is likely to come under the influence of another El Niño within the next three years, exacerbating the drought and the likelihood of bushfires, a senior Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist says)
Peter Ker, Dash to save drinking water, The Age, 2009 Feb. 17 (more than a billion litres of drinking water—enough to supply Melbourne's entire daily water consumption—was rushed out of one of the city's major dams yesterday in a bid to avoid contamination from bushfires)
Adam Morton, Policy 'needs more science', The Age, 2009 Feb. 16 (Victorian Government agencies lack enough specialised scientists to manage an expanding fuel-reduction policy, a leading fire ecologist says)
Kenneth Davidson, Undrinkable water is the next problem, The Age, 2009 Feb. 12 (once the smoke clears, polluted dams will be a serious concern)
Andrea Petrie, Angry survivors blame council 'green' policy, The Age, 2009 Feb. 11 (angry residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk)
Melissa Fyfe, Top advisers warned against desal plant, north-south pipe, The Age, 2009 Feb. 8 (one of State Government's top strategic consultants advised cabinet against building controversial desalination plant and north-south pipeline in an alternative water plan that has since been suppressed)
Michael Bachelard and Cameron Houston, Day of horror as inferno rages, The Age, 2009 Feb. 8 (Victorians today awoke to the greatest bushfire catastrophe since Ash Wednesday; a statewide inferno that may have claimed up to 40 lives is still burning out of control)
Ben Doherty, The sun rises on our 'worst day in history', The Age, 2009 Feb. 7 (today is likely to be among the hottest on record in Victoria, and the effects of the heatwave are adding up across the state)
James Morgan, Bleak forecast on fishery stocks, BBC, 2009 Feb. 13 (changing ocean temperatures will force many fish species to migrate towards the poles, hitting fish stocks, scientists warn)
Ian Sample, Clownfish lost at sea due to rising carbon dioxide levels, Guardian, 2009 Feb. 3 (the tale of a clownfish that got lost at sea in the 2003 movie Finding Nemo may be a taste of things to come)
Michael Green, Teaming up and powering down, The Age, 2009 Feb. 25 (too hard for the politicians?; in one town, Castlemaine, unlikely allies are fighting climate change and winning)
Greenhouse gases: OCOck up, Economist, 2009 Feb. 28 (America's new carbon-dioxide-monitoring satellite crashes soon after launch)
Jonathan Amos, US 'CO2 hunter' set for lift-off, BBC, 2009 Feb. 24 (Nasa prepares to launch its first mission dedicated to measuring carbon dioxide concentrations on Earth from space)
Tim Colebatch, 2008 coolest since 2000, The Age, 2009 Feb. 16 (last year was the coldest year around the world since 2000—yet it was still the 10th hottest since records began in 1850, monitoring by British researchers has shown)
Greenhouse gases: Accounting from above, Economist, 2009 Feb. 14 (two new satellites will monitor carbon-dioxide emissions)
Michelle Grattan, The business of emissions trading is becoming bogged in politics, The Age, 2009 Feb. 27 (Greg Combet's new role gives him a chance to promote his credentials)
Peter Christoff, Middle path on emissions is like doing nothing, The Age, 2009 Feb. 24 (the Rudd Government's carbon pollution reduction scheme, better known as the emissions trading scheme, fails on several critical points)
Georgina Robinson, Rain lashes Sydney as flood levels ease, The Age, 2009 Feb. 18 (severe flooding forecast across NSW, with new front expected to double rainfall in deluged mid-north)
Tom Arup and Adam Morton, Review for emissions plan, The Age, 2009 Feb. 12 (Treasurer Wayne Swan orders another review of Federal Government's emissions trading scheme, prompting Opposition to accuse it of abandoning climate change policy)
Peter Marshall, Face global warming or lives will be at risk, The Age, 2009 Feb. 12 (we will be fighting more fires unless we tackle the problem's source)
Tim Colebatch, Downturn a window for climate, The Age, 2009 Feb. 12 (Global financial crisis could give world two or three years of much-needed time to step up the fight to slow climate change, Ross Garnaut says)
Kate Lahey, Heat killed one-fifth of state's bats, The Age, 2009 Feb. 19 (more than 4000 grey-headed flying foxes in Yarra Bend Park perished during the city's hottest days)
Jim Muir, Iraq marshes face grave new threat, BBC, 2009 Feb. 24 (Iraq's famed southern marshes are shrinking again because of record low rainfall and dam and irrigation systems upstream)
Peter Ker, Dash to save drinking water, The Age, 2009 Feb. 17 (more than a billion litres of drinking water—enough to supply Melbourne's entire daily water consumption—was rushed out of one of the city's major dams yesterday in a bid to avoid contamination from bushfires)
Drought in northern China: Farmers pay the price for decades of wasteful water use, Economist, 2009 Feb. 14 (as population and living standards rise, China's water woes will only worsen, especially for farmers; when supplies tighten, urban and industrial users usually have priority)
Kenneth Davidson, Undrinkable water is the next problem, The Age, 2009 Feb. 12 (once the smoke clears, polluted dams will be a serious concern)
David Molden, Solution for the world's water woes, BBC, 2009 Feb. 10 (reducing the impact of our "water footprints" is the best way to help the world quench its growing thirst)
Dan Glaister, California faces 'grimmest water situation ever', Guardian, 2009 Feb. 4 (drought causes the state's agriculture industry to disappear while residents continue to consume water at high levels)
William Kininmonth, Anatomy of a firestorm, The Age, 2009 Feb. 26 (Victoria's climate has long set the scene for annual danger; Kininmonth examines how, through history, these threats have erupted catastrophically)
Melissa Fyfe, Heatwave left hundreds dead, The Age, 2009 Feb. 22 (January's brutal heatwave—which may have killed 100 Melburnians and more than 200 people across south-eastern Australia—is now the subject of investigations by the DHS and the Coroner's Office)
Georgina Robinson, Rain lashes Sydney as flood levels ease, The Age, 2009 Feb. 18 (severe flooding forecast across NSW, with new front expected to double rainfall in deluged mid-north)
Guardian, Snow and ice create chaos in Britain's deep freeze, The Age, 2009 Feb. 8 (snow creates chaos in Britain, forcing closure of hundreds of roads and bridges, including the two Severn crossings between England and Wales, and causing power losses to more than 20,000 homes)
Snowbound Britain: Struggles and revels in the drifts, Economist, 2009 Feb. 7 (considering that gusts of leaves have been known to overwhelm Britain's infrastructure, it is not surprising that the heaviest snowfalls since 1991 paralysed much of the country this week)
Ben Doherty, The sun rises on our 'worst day in history', The Age, 2009 Feb. 7 (today is likely to be among the hottest on record in Victoria, and the effects of the heatwave are adding up across the state)
Helen Pidd, Steven Morris, Martin Wainwright and Helen Carter, Snow, chaos, and more snow coming as winter sweeps UK, Guardian, 2009 Feb. 4 (forecasters warn that heavy snow will continue to cause problems across the country)
David Teather and Graeme Wearden, The Arctic blast that may have cost British businesses £1.2bn, Guardian, 2009 Feb. 3 (concerns grow that up to 3,000 extra companies may fail if inclement weather continues)