General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - December 2018

Dec 2018

Jul 18, 2019

World's Northernmost Settlement sees Record High Temp

Temperatures hit a record 21 degrees Celsius in Canada's Alert, the northernmost permanently inhabited spot on the planet, less than 600 miles from the North Pole.
The temperature was recorded at Alert, a military base on the 82nd parallel which intercepts Russian communications and which has been home to a weather station since 1950.
In October 2018, a landmark UN report warned that time is running out to avert global disaster and that avoiding climate chaos will require an unprecedented transformation of society and the world economy.
The heat wave is due to a high pressure front over Greenland, which is "quite exceptional" and feeds southerly winds on the Arctic Ocean, said Castellan.
The Arctic is heating up three times faster than other parts of the planet, said Castellan, stressing on the need for a drastic reduction in carbon emissions.

Jul 10, 2019

NGT Asks States to Submit Plan to Curb Stubble Burning

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) asked Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to submit their plan for tackling crop residue burning this year, which is a major contributor to air pollution in neighbouring Delhi.
The green tribunal asked the states concerned to file their respective progress reports, including the strategies and proposed action plan they intend to implement to curb the problem in the current year.
Crop residue burning takes place during winter, which is also the time for peak air pollution.
A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel noted that according to news reports, 25-30% of air pollution in the national capital region was caused due to crop burning in Punjab, Haryana and UP.

Bahrain Records Hottest June

Bahrain recorded temperatures that make the month of June the hottest ever experienced in the Arab Gulf country in more than a century.
Summers in the Arabian Peninsula are consistently hot and humid. The Bahrain News Agency's report, however, showed temperatures are soaring even higher.
Bahrain's Meteorological Directorate said that the average temperature in June was 36.3 Celsius (97.3 Fahrenheit), about 3.9 degrees Celsius (39 Farenheit) above the long-term normal for that month.
As per the report, June had the highest average temperatures for that month since 1902, with 20 days recording temperatures exceeding 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). The hottest day clocked in at 45.3 Celsius (113 Fahrenheit). Humidity levels were on average about 40%.

Jul 05, 2019

Timor to Recycle All Plastic Waste

In a region where seas are awash with trash, East Timor is set to become the world's first country to recycle all its plastic waste after it teamed up with Australian researchers to build a revolutionary recycling plant.

Shrinking of Frigid Zones

According to new data released by scientific agencies, the sea ice extent, a measure of the surface area of the ocean covered by ice, in both the Arctic and Antarctic has shrunk, proving right climate scientists' warnings about the effect of global warming on the world's frigid zones.
Arctic sea ice extent in June 2019 was second lowest on record; the lowest was recorded in June 2016. Arctic sea ice extent in June averaged 10.53 million square kilometres, which is 1.23 million square kilometres below the 1981 to 2010 average and 120,000 square kilometres above the previous record in 2016.
Climate scientists have been warning of an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, increased variability and instability of climatic patterns because of global warming.
The Snow and Ice Data Center also said the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the open waters of the Arctic have been unusually high, up to 5 degrees Celsius above average in the Chukchi Sea, a marginal area of the Arctic Ocean.

Jul 04, 2019

Declare Panje a Bird Sanctuary

Nature conservation group Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) questioned the Maharashtra government's delay in declaring three wetlands in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) as wildlife sanctuaries, even after the state wildlife board directed conservation of these areas.
In December 2015, the state wildlife board, headed by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, said that the Panje-Funde zone in Uran; Mahul-Sewri in Mumbai; and the Training Ship Chanakya (TSC) - NRI Complex wetland in Navi Mumbai, would be declared as bird sanctuaries.
These sites were meant to provide shelter for migratory birds that were likely to be dislocated from other wetlands by the construction of 22.5-km-long Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) project.
The forest department, however, said that it was awaiting a proposal of the site co-ordinates. Once the forest department receives the proposal, future course of action would be considered.

Jun 28, 2019

Desert-dwelling Carnivorous Dinosaur Found

A desert-based carnivorous dinosaur that used claws to capture small prey 90 million years ago was unearthed in southern Brazil.
Just over a meter and a half in length (five feet), the fossil remains of the Vespersaurus paranaensis were found in Cruzeiro do Oeste municipality of Parana state.
The Vespersaurus was a theropod, a group of two-footed, meat-eating dinosaurs that included the better known tyrannosaurus and velociraptor.
Footprints now believed to belong to this new species of dinosaur were discovered in Cruzeiro do Oeste in the 1970s.
Other dinosaur species have been found there and, according to the scientists, the latest discovery must "catapult" paleontological investigations in the region.

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