Earth-Touch Blog

On this 40th annual Earth Day, I’ve selected some of the top stories from various news sites and magazines that have a dedicated science/ environment section. This is what news is happening in our environment today. ‘Paltry’ Copenhagen carbon pledges point to 3C world.”Pledges made at the Copenhagen summit are very unlikely to keep global warming below 2C, researchers find.” -Richard Black, BBC News Awarding of Brazilian dam contract prompts warning of bloodshed. “Indigenous leader says men are preparing their bows and arrows to prevent construction of the Belo Monte dam”. – Tom Phillips, The Guardian At 40, Earth Day…

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The UN climate talks kicked off yesterday in their first meeting since the rather dismal Copenhagen Summit. Also yesterday, the World Bank approved a 3.75 BILLION dollar loan to South Africa – and we’re not talking Zimbabwean dollars. South Africa will accept this loan in order to build one of the world’s largest power stations, the Medupi station – to be powered by coal. It will produce 25 million tonnes of CO2 annually – which is more than a shedload. Medupi apparently means “rain that soaks parched lands, giving economic relief”. Picture from Eskom showing site clearance Apparently it’s needed…

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The South Georgia Heritage Trust is planning murder on a large scale. Up until the mid 20th century whaling still happened on this island and a visitor, which arrived with, but never left with the whalers is the rat. Having rats and mice is a major issue on islands which are exceptionally important as seabird breeding colonies and historically have no land predators. These rodents become the major predators and vast numbers of chicks from many species get eaten – alive. The South Georgia pippit, the Antarctic’s only songbird, found only on this archipelago, is hanging on by a thread.…

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After posting our video “Coral reefs and climate change, a message for Copenhagen”, we got the following message on YouTube.

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Earth-Touch doesn’t normally interfere in any way with the goings on of wildlife around us. On our trip to the Sani Pass to find vultures we went a slightly different route. We visited a new vulture restaurant which has been set up at Sani Top for the Bearded vulture and the Cape vulture. Both species have lost their lowland breeding sites around Lesotho – causing them to retreat higher up the escarpment. The Bearded vulture has a wide global range, but is a rare sight in South Africa and is locally listed as ‘Endangered’(1). The Cape vulture is far more…

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