Commemorating the birth anniversary of late prime minister Indira Gandhi and in observance of ‘World Toilet Day’, Sulabh International Thursday marked the end of its six-year long fight against the caste-based tradition in Alwar.

Perhaps the “dumb bird” reputation is the reason behind the tale that during a rainstorm, turkeys will stare up at the sky with their beaks hanging open, transfixed, until they drown. Although turkeys sometimes do tilt their heads up at the sky and remain there for several moments, scientists say the idea that turkeys drown that way is just a myth.

The SOS in the shape of a declaration was approved at the 25-minute cabinet meeting presided over by President Mohammad Nasheed.

But if developed countries act now, a ‘climate-smart’ world is feasible, and the costs for getting there will be high but still manageable, says the report, adding that high-income countries also need to act quickly to reduce their carbon footprints and boost development of alternative energy sources to help tackle the problem of climate change.

The analysis was done by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

While global temperatures would rise, the most dangerous potential aspects of climate change, including massive losses of Arctic sea ice and permafrost and significant sea-level rise, could be partially avoided.

“This research indicates that we can no longer avoid significant warming during this century,” said NCAR scientist Warren Washington, the study paper’s lead author. “But, if the world were to implement this level of emission cuts, we could stabilize the threat of climate change,” he added.

The institute’s advisory board which includes environmental and public health experts from institutions like Harvard, MIT, IIT-Delhi and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has picked Sukinda valley in Orissa and Vapi in Gujarat as 4th and 5th in the list of the top 10 worldwide.

The top 10 have been picked from what the institute calls the “Dirty Thirty”, a larger list of the 30 worst polluted areas in different parts of the world.

Not surprisingly, the list is dominated by fast-growing economies. Four Indian cities and six cities each from Russia and China are among them. The bad news for India is that neither Sukinda nor Vapi, or indeed, any other place in India was in the top 10 in the 2006 report by the same institute. Sukinda has the largest chromite ore deposits in India and also has the largest opencast chromite mine in the world.

A new analysis of changing conditions in the region, using complex computer models of weather and climate, says conditions that had been forecast by the end of the century could occur much sooner.

A change in the amount of ice is important because the white surface reflects sunlight back into space. When ice is replaced by dark ocean water sunlight can be absorbed, warming the water and increasing the warming of the planet.

The finding adds to concern about climate change caused by human activities such as burning fossil fuels, a problem that has begun receiving more attention in the Obama administration and was part of the G20 discussions in London.

“Due to the recent loss of sea ice, the 2005-2008 autumn central Arctic surface air temperatures were greater than 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above” what would be expected, the new study reports.

Today, however, the Bins have not only stopped hunting the dolphins, but have turned their protectors as well. The fishermen, once branded as poachers and killers of river dolphins, have turned protectors of this threatened species, thanks to a community-based campaign for saving the river dolphins launched by the Center for North East Studies and Policy Research (C-NES), an NGO based in Guwahati. Under this campaign launched three years ago, local groups like the Bins have been brought into the conservation process, by creating alternative livelihood opportunities for them, and also by introducing alternatives to certain dolphin-based products like the fish bait.

The subglacial mountains were first detected by Russian researchers more than 50 years ago and are named after a Soviet geophysicist, Grigoriy Gamburtsev. But, despite a small survey carried out in the 1970s, the size and shape of the Gamburtsev mountain range has remained a mystery.

Peter Aldhous, San Francisco bureau chief, New Scientist magazine, says in his article that agriculture makes a bigger contribution to global warming than the entire transportation sector, and people can help manage the problem by choosing low-carbon foods.

At a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that Aldhous attended, Helene York of the Bon Appetit Management Company described her efforts to bring low-carbon menus to its network of some 400 cafes on college campuses and in corporations across 29 US states.

US researchers claim to have found evidence that accelerated melting has crossed a “tipping point” from which there is no going back.

The amount of summer ice at the North Pole has steadily declined since 1979, according to satellite images. Computer models predict that this trend will continue, leaving the Arctic completely ice-free during the summers as early as 2030.

Every day actions of guerrillas appears even more creative and to generate buzz. And that developed by Leo Burnett in Buenos Aires for the Red Cross (Argentina division of the Red Cross – Red Cross) is one. To warn about global warming and its consequences a “man melted” distributing leaflets with tips on how to save energy.

The experts said the fight against warming in the Arctic should be re-directed to focus more on cutting the industrial pollution from soot, ozone and methane in Europe, North America and Russia to try to prevent the ice disappearing.

Soot or black carbon darkens the ice and makes it soak up more heat, accelerating a melt compared to reflective snow and ice. Methane comes sources including oil and gas and agriculture while ozone is formed from industrial pollutants.

Takamanda National Park, on the border with Nigeria, is home to an estimated 115 Cross River gorillas.

The total population of the subspecies is thought to be less than 300.

The news comes as governments of 10 gorilla range states gather in Rome for the first meeting of a new partnership aimed at protecting the primates.

The Gorilla Agreement was finalised in June, and brings together all the countries where the various species and subspecies are found.

Since the 1990s, a number of altimeter satellites have been measuring the height of the ocean surface and this has dramatically improved our understanding of sea level rise.

Travelling at 40,000MPH and just 82,000ft over the moon, the ‘white-knuckle’ flyby was the closest yet past any of Saturn’s moons.

Enlarge

�

This image was captured on Cassini’s approach to the icy moon, 26,000 miles above the surface

Scientists are intrigued by the possibility that liquid water, perhaps even an ocean, exists beneath the surface of Enceladus.

Environmentalists hailed the listing decision, but criticized the time it took to materialize.

But John and Ann Till, it would seem, have worked harder than most.

The couple spent three months collecting an incredible 60,000 pieces of rubbish to gain 36,000 air miles in a supermarket recycling incentive scheme.

Rising human populations and clearance of forests for farming or biofuels were wrecking natural habitats, according to the study by Birdlife International, which groups experts in more than 100 conservation bodies worldwide.

Even common birds, such as doves or skylarks in Europe, were becoming scarcer in a worrying sign of wider upsets to nature. Birds are among the best researched of all wildlife and are a barometer of the environment.

“Bird species are slipping faster than ever towards extinction,” according to Birdlife’s “State of the World’s Birds” report issued at an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) congress in Barcelona.

This past summer, the Arctic sea ice dwindled to its second lowest level. Arctic sea ice is usually 1 to 3 meters, or as much as 9 feet thick. It grows during autumn and winter and shrinks in the spring and summer.

Scientists have monitored sea ice conditions for about 50 years with the help of satellites. Changes in the past decade have been alarming to climate researchers and oceanographers.

“It is the second lowest on record. ... If anything, it is reinforcing the long-term trend. We are still losing the ice cover at a rate of 10 percent per decade now, and that is quite an increase from five years ago,” Meier said. “We are still heading toward an ice cover that is going to melt completely in the summertime in the Arctic.”

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through “methane chimneys” rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a “lid” to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.