General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - March 2017

Mar 2017

May 14, 2021

Of World's 100 Cities at Greatest Environmental Risk, India Has 43

According to a report by research firm Verisk Maplecroft, Asian cities face the greatest risk from environmental issues including air pollution and natural disasters.
Of the 100 most vulnerable cities, 99 are in Asia, according to the report. Of those, 37 are in China and 43 are in India, the world's first and third biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, respectively. Globally, 1.5 billion people live in 414 cities that are at high risk from pollution, water shortages, extreme heat, natural hazards and the physical impacts of climate change.
Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, topped the list of combined risk based on all nine factors analyzed by Verisk Maplecroft. India is home to 13 of the 20 riskiest cities in the world, a result of its extreme levels of air and water pollution. China's flood-prone Guangzhou and Dongguan topped the list of cities facing threats from natural hazards, followed by Japan's Osaka and Tokyo for being vulnerable to earthquakes and typhoons. Lima is the only city outside Asia among the top 100 most at-risk cities overall.

May 13, 2021

US Environmental Agency Releases Climate Report Delayed by Trump

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said for the first time that climate change is being driven at least in part by humans.
The agency made the acknowledgement in a new report that had been delayed by the Trump White House since 2017.
The Climate Change Indicators report charts the extent to which glaciers are shrinking, sea levels are rising and flooding is increasing.
The impacts are being felt by Americans with increasing regularity, it says.
Under former President Donald Trump, the EPA's Climate Change Indicators website was not updated, as it had been under his predecessor, Barack Obama.

May 09, 2021

Neanderthal Remains Unearthed in Italian Cave

Archaeologists in Italy have discovered the remains of nine Neanderthals who may have been hunted by hyenas, in a prehistoric cave south-east of Rome.
The fossilized bones, which include skull fragments and broken jawbones, were found in the Guattari Cave in the coastal town San Felice Circeo.
Neanderthals, a close ancient cousin of Homo sapiens, are believed to have died out about 40,000 years ago.
However, small traces of their DNA still exist in modern humans.
According to Italy's culture ministry, eight of the remains date from between 50,000 and 68,000 years ago, while the oldest could be 90,000 or 100,000 years old.

May 05, 2021

Sale of Coal and Wet Wood Restricted in England

Curbs on the sale of house coal and wet wood for household burning in England have come into force under new rules aimed at cutting air pollution.
People will still be able to use stoves and open fires but they will need to burn cleaner alternatives.
These are the first restrictions on what people can burn in their homes since the clean air acts of the 1950s.
The UK's air is far cleaner now, but in recent years pollution from log burners has increased dramatically.
Only 8% of households use them, but they are now the biggest source of the tiny pollution particles that are most damaging to health, according to government data.
Log burners and open fires are not being banned, but the government says people will have to buy dry wood or manufactured solid fuels which produce less smoke.

100 Million-year-old Bones of Sauropod Dinosaurs Discovered in Meghalaya

Researchers have identified fossil bone fragments of sauropod dinosaurs dating back to about 100 million years from an area around West Khasi Hills District in Meghalaya.
The yet-to-be-published findings were made during a recent field trip by researchers from the Geological Survey of India's Palaeontology division in North-East.
The GSI researchers noted that this is the first record of sauropods of probable Titanosaurian origin discovered in the region.
Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads relative to the rest of their body, and four thick, pillar-like legs. They are notable for the enormous sizes attained by some species, and the group includes the largest animals to have ever lived on land.
The finding makes Meghalaya the fifth state in India after Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu and the only state in the North-East to report Sauropod bones having titanosaurian affinity.

Scops-Owl Subspecies Rediscovered in Malaysia

The Bornean subspecies of Rajah scops owl (Otus brookii brookii), documented in the wild for the first time since 1892, may be its own unique species and deserving of a conservation designation. Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center ecologist Andy Boyce reported the rediscovery and photographed this elusive subspecies in the mountainous forests of Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia.
Almost all data on the Rajah scops-owl is of the Sumatran subspecies. The vocalizations, distribution, breeding biology and population size of the Bornean subspecies are totally unknown.

May 03, 2021

Antarctic Ice Sheet Melting to Push Sea Level

Researchers have warned that the global sea level rise caused by melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is likely to increase 20 per cent by the end of this century.
The global sea level rise linked to melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been significantly underestimated in previous studies, meaning sea level in a warming world will be greater than anticipated, said researchers from Harvard University in the US.
This occurs when the solid bedrock the West Antarctic Ice Sheet sits on rebounds upward as the ice melts and the total weight of the ice sheet decreases. The bedrock sits below sea level so when it lifts, it pushes water from the surrounding area into the ocean, adding to global sea level rise.
One simulation indicated that by the end of this century global sea level rise caused by melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would increase 20 per cent by the water expulsion mechanism.

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