Biodiversity

Counting the Earth's living riches is a landmark moment

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Damian Carrington
Counting the Earth's living riches is a landmark moment
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Moths, cicadas, and other insects attracted to a backlit sheet in the rainforest of Peru in 2008. Most of the 75% of all species that live in land are insects. Photograph: Gerry Bishop/Corbis

Some numbers are fundamental and iconic: think pi in mathematics and the speed of light in physics. They provide a cornerstone upon which a vast edifice of science can be built, leading ultimately to much of our prosperity and wellbeing.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/aug/23/biodiversity-earth-species-number

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Conservation Group Sues To Stop California Solar Plant

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Author: Nichola Groom

A U.S. conversation group has sued the federal government over its approval of a major solar power plant in the California desert, the latest in a string of challenges to the nation's renewable energy goals from the environmental community.

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Conservation Group Sues To Stop California Solar Plant

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'Ten Years' To Solve Nature Crisis, UN Meeting Hears

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By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News, Nagoya, Japan

Delegates will consider adopting new set of targets for 2020 that aim to tackle biodiversity loss

The UN biodiversity convention meeting has opened with warnings that the ongoing loss of nature is hurting human societies as well as the natural world.

The two-week gathering aims to set new targets for conserving life on Earth.

Japan's Environment Minister Ryo Matsumoto said biodiversity loss would become irreversible unless curbed soon.

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Fifth Of World's Plants Endangered - Global Study

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  • First global study shows 22 percent of plants threatened
  • Agriculture and other human activity pose biggest dangers
By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - One in five of the world's 380,000 plant species is threatened with extinction and human activity is doing most of the damage, according to a global study published on Wednesday. Scientists from Britain's Botanic Gardens at Kew, London's Natural History Museum and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), found that more than 22 percent of species were endang

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE68R1H8.htm

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Rust In The Bread Basket

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Rust in the bread basketA crop-killing fungus is spreading out of Africa towards the world’s great wheat-growing areasJul 1st 2010IT IS sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. Wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it is worse than child-crippling polio, still lingering in parts of Nigeria. Wheat rust has spread silently and speedily by 5,000 miles in a decade. It is now camped at the gates of one of the world’s breadbaskets, Punjab.

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