Global

Shift to a new climate likely by mid-century - study

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Reuters
A Roma man cools himself in the impoverished outskirts of Ozd, northeastern Hungary, in the grip of a heat wave,
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OSLO, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Billions of people could be living in regions where temperatures are hotter than their historical ranges by mid-century, creating a "new normal" that could force profound changes on nature and society, scientists said on Wednesday.

Temperatures in an average year would be hotter by 2047, give or take 14 years, than those in the warmest year from 1860-2005 if the greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, with the tropics the first affected area, a new index indicated.

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New global standard will measure and help cut food waste

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Megan Rowling
Leftovers pictured in the 'Auf da Muehle' restaurant in the western Austrian village of Soell, June 2, 2013. Waste food from the restaurant is collected and sent weekly to a biogas plant, where it is used to help produce electricity
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LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Work is to start on a new global standard for measuring food loss and waste, which experts hope will help reduce the significant amount of food that does not get eaten because it is spoiled or thrown away.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) said on Monday it would bring together representatives from academia, the private sector, government and civil society groups to develop an international “Food Loss and Waste Protocol”. The first version is due to be ready by mid- to late-2015.

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Renewable Power Generation - 2012 figures

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Gail Rajgor
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Special report. Part one: how much renewable electricity capacity was installed worldwide at the end of 2012, and which technologies were the most popular?

About the article: This special Renewable Energy Focus power generation focus previews REMIPEG's latest update, carried out in the first four months of 2013 by Lahmeyer International, and presents an overview for each renewable power sector, based on scenarios up to the end of 2012.

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10 places climate change kills the most people

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MarketWatch.com
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Global climate change and pollution from the use of fossil fuels killed nearly 5 million people around the world in 2010, according to a report released earlier this year by climate change advocacy group DARA. By 2030, this figure will rise to nearly 6 million deaths, the group’s second annual climate vulnerability monitor estimates. Total global costs, which were estimated at more than $600 billion in 2010, are expected to rise to $4.35 trillion by 2030.

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A Biodiversity Map, Version 2.0

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RACHEL NUWER
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Tigers and pandas live in Asia, kangaroos and koalas in Australia and polar bears and snowy owls in the Arctic. The world can be divided into regions based upon the unique types of animals that live there. Or so the thinking went when Alfred Russel Wallace published the scientific world’s first global biodiversity map in 1876.

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Heat, Flood or Icy Cold, Extreme Weather Rages Worldwide

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SARAH LYALL
Snow blanketed Jerusalem on Thursday, an example of weather extremes that are growing more frequent and intense.
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  WORCESTER, England — Britons may remember 2012 as the year the weather spun off its rails in a chaotic concoction of drought, deluge and flooding, but the unpredictability of it all turns out to have been all too predictable: Around the world, extreme has become the new commonplace.

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The Next Pandemic: Why It Will Come from Wildlife

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David Quammen
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Emerging diseases are in the news again. Scary viruses are making themselves noticed and felt. There’s been a lot of that during the past several months — West Nile fever kills 17 people in the Dallas area, three tourists succumb to hantavirus after visiting Yosemite National Park, an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo claims 33 lives. A separate Ebola outbreak, across the border in Uganda, registers a death toll of 17.

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