Page 85 - Environment

CM asks officials to prepare strategy for maintaining canals

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao Friday asked irrigation officials to evolve a comprehensive strategy for maintaining canal systems as there would be continuous flow of water from projects in the state. "Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao instructed the irrigation officers to evolve a comprehensive strategy for maintaining the canal system in tune with the continuous water flow from the projects in Telangana, which hitherto was a drought prone area," a release from his office said. Rao held a meeting with officials on evolving a strategy in view of plans to lift waterfrom Kaleshwaram irrigation project from July this year, it said. Rao asked the officials to get ready in all aspects for maintaining barrages, reservoirs, canals, distributaries and sluices, the release added.

SpaceX launches 60 little satellites, with many more to come

SpaceX has launched 60 little satellites, the first of thousands that founder Elon Musk plans to put in orbit for global internet coverage. The recycled Falcon rocket blasted off late Thursday night. The first-stage booster landed on an ocean platform following liftoff, as the tightly packed cluster of satellites continued upward. Musk said Friday all 60 flat-panel satellites were deployed and online a few hundred miles (kilometers) above Earth. Each weighs 500 pounds (227 kilograms) and has a single solar panel and a krypton-powered thruster for raising and maintaining altitude. The satellites have the capability of automatically dodging sizable pieces of space junk. The orbiting constellation named Starlink will grow in the next few years, Musk said. Twelve launches of 60 satellites each will provide reliable and affordable internet coverage throughout the US, he said. Twenty-four launches will serve most of the populated world and 30 launches the entire world. That will be 1,800 .

Cleanup of Nairobi rivers uncovers grisly find of 14 bodies

A major operation to clean up the trash-clogged rivers in the Kenyan capital has led to the grisly discovery of 14 bodies, most of them babies and children, the local government said Friday. On Friday, clean-up crews found the body of an eight-year-old boy who had been strangled and dumped near the Nairobi River, just days after the bodies of twin babies were discovered in a plastic bag. "Nairobi county youth conducting cleaning of Nairobi River have today (Friday) found yet another body of a... boy strangled and dumped near the river," said county government spokesman Elkana Jacob. "This makes a total number of 14 bodies of adults and infants retrieved from Nairobi rivers since Governor Mike Sonko launched the clean-up exercise," he said. Nairobi's name comes from a Maasai phrase meaning "place of cool waters", however the main river and its tributaries have fallen prey to industrialisation and chaotic urban planning. Factories spew industrial waste into the rivers, while dozens of ..

Youths rally in climate protest before EU vote

Tens of thousands of young climate activists rallied in Germany on Friday in the latest mass protest demanding urgent action against global warming, ahead of the weekend's European Parliamentary elections. At least 5,000 students boycotted classes and demonstrated at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate in what was expected to be one of the largest of protests planned in more than 120 countries. Large crowds also gathered in Hamburg, Frankfurt and other German cities, mirroring protests across Europe and the world. In Berlin, they carried signs with messages such as "Climate now, homework later!" and "There is no planet B", while teenage activists chanted: "What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? now!" The initiator of the "Fridays for Future" protests, 16-year-old Swedish school girl Greta Thunberg, again passionately called on youths in Europe and around the world to join the movement. "It is time for all of us to resist on a massive scale," she wrote in a text co-authored

Punjab reaps biggest wheat crop in 20 years

Punjab has harvested a 20-year record bumper wheat crop this season with its production of 129.93 lakh tonnes, an official said on Friday.

Climate change marches may sway people's beliefs, actions: Study

As thousands of school students around the world walked out of class Friday to demand action on climate change, a study has found that taking to the streets to protest may have a positive effect on the public. The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Communication, found that individuals tended to be more optimistic about people's ability to work together to address climate change. Janet Swim, a professor at The Pennsylvania State University in the US, said the findings suggest that climate change marches can have positive effects on bystanders. "Marches serve two functions: to encourage people to join a movement and to enact change," Swim said. "This study is consistent with the idea that people who participate in marches can gain public support, convince people that change can occur, and also normalize the participants themselves," she said. Over one million young people are expected to join the "school strike for climate change" protests in at least 110 countries on ...

Ensure supply of potable water to Lakshadweep villages: NGT

The National Green Tribunal Friday directed the Lakshadweep administration to ensure supply of potable water to villages in the Union Territory and implement the action plan suggested by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) in this regard. A bench comprising Justice Raghuvendra S Rathore and Satyawan Singh Garbyal directed the administration to implement the action plan and the suggestions made by the amicus curie appointed by it within three months. It also directed Central Pollution Control Board to pay Rs 50,000 to amicus curiae Sameer Sodhi, advocate, for the services rendered by him within 15 days. "As the full requirement of fresh water in the islands cannot be met with from the limited fresh ground water resources, water supply schemes in all islands must resort to a combination of ground water, desalinated water and rainwater harvesting. "Desalination plants of suitable capacities may be installed in the remaining islands to supplement ground water resources," the tribunal ...

SpaceX launches first 60 satellites of its internet network

SpaceX has launched a rocket carrying the first 60 satellites of its "Starlink" constellation, which is intended to provide internet from space in an array that could one day contain over 12,000 orbiting transponders. One of the company's Falcon 9 rockets blasted off without incident from Cape Canaveral in Florida around 10:30 pm Thursday (0230 GMT Friday). An hour later, the rocket began to release the satellites at an altitude of 280 miles (450 kilometers). The satellites then had to separate and use their thrusters to take up their positions in a relatively low orbit of 340 miles (550 kilometers). "Successful deployment of 60 Starlink satellites confirmed!", the company said on its official Twitter account. Their final orbit is slightly higher than the International Space Station, but well below the majority of terrestrial satellites -- the highest of which are geostationary at 22,400 miles (36,000 kilometers). The launch was originally scheduled for last week, but was postponed ..

Kakrapar Atomic Power plant connected to grid

The first 220 MW nuclear power plant at Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS-1) in Surat in Gujarat was synchronised with the grid on Friday, said the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL).

Oldest meteorite collection on Earth discovered in Chile

Scientists say they have uncovered the oldest meteorite collection on Earth's surface in Chile's Atacama Desert, allowing them to reconstruct the rate of falling meteorites over the past two million years. Earth is bombarded every year by rocky debris, but the rate of incoming meteorites can change over time. "Our purpose in this work was to see how the meteorite flux to Earth changed over large timescales -- millions of years, consistent with astronomical phenomena," said Alexis Drouard, from Aix-Marseille University in France. To recover a meteorite record for millions of years, the researchers headed to the Atacama Desert. "While Antarctica and hot deserts both host a large percentage of meteorites on Earth (about 64 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively)," said Drouard, lead author of the research published in the journal Geology. "Meteorites found in hot deserts or Antarctica are rarely older than half a million years," he said. Drouard said that meteorites naturally disappear ..

Colombian breeds rare frogs to undermine animal traffickers

In a small farmhouse surrounded by cloud forest, Ivn Lozano inspects dozens of glass containers that hold some of the world's most coveted frogs. The conservationist has been fighting the illegal trade in rare tropical frogs for years, risking his life and his checkbook to save the brightly colored, poisonous amphibians whose population in the wild is dwindling. But Lozano doesn't hunt down poachers and smugglers. He's trying to undermine them by breeding exotic frogs legally and selling them at lower prices than specimens plucked by traffickers from Colombia's jungles. His frog-breeding center, Treasures of Colombia, is among a handful of conservation programs around the world that are trying to curtail the trafficking of wild animals by providing enthusiasts with a more eco-friendly alternative: specimens bred in captivity. "We can't control the fact that in some countries it is legal to own these animals," Lozano said. "But we want to make sure that collectors buy animals that are .

Plastic polluter: Brazil recycles 'almost nothing'

Standing among sacks of used supermarket shopping bags, soft drink bottles and detergent containers, Evelin Marcele is scornful of Brazil's efforts to recycle plastic waste. "Almost nothing," said the 40-year-old director of CoopFuturo, a sorting center for recyclable material in Rio de Janeiro, where plastic makes up 60 percent of the roughly 120 tonnes of garbage delivered to the facility every month. Brazil is the fourth biggest producer of plastic rubbish in the world, beaten only by the United States, China and India, according to a recent report published by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). But the Latin American country recycles just 1.28 percent of the 11.4 million tonnes it generates every year, which the WWF said was well below the global average of nine percent. An estimated 7.7 million tonnes of plastic ends up in landfills. "People are consuming more, generating more garbage and the governments didn't prepare the cities with the infrastructure that was required to deal with

Fierce divide as Botswana lifts hunting ban

Many conservationists on Thursday reacted with anger over Botswana's decision to lift its blanket ban on hunting, describing it as a "horrifying" move, though others backed the idea. Botswana fended off criticism of its decision to end the five-year ban, saying the move would not threaten the elephant population. A government statement said the cabinet had been influenced by the "high levels of human-elephant conflict" and its "impact on livelihoods". "Predators appear to have increased and were causing a lot of damage as they killed livestock in large numbers," it said. "The general consensus from those consulted was that the hunting ban should be lifted." A blanket hunting ban was introduced in 2014 by then-president Ian Khama, a keen environmentalist, to reverse a decline in the population of wild animals. But lawmakers from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) have been lobbying for the policy change, saying wild animal numbers have become unmanageable in some ...

Botswana lifts ban on elephant hunting, to some anger

Botswana has lifted its ban on elephant hunting in a country with the world's highest number of the animals, a decision that has brought anger from some wildlife protection groups. The southern African nation is home to an estimated 130,000 elephants. The lifting of the ban raised concerns about a possible increase in illegal poaching of elephants for their tusks to supply the ivory trade. "Expect mass culling next," the CEO of WildlifeDirect, Paula Kahumbu, said in a post on Twitter, adding that the impact of Botswana's decision will be felt across Africa. Botswana has long been a refuge for elephants on a continent where tens of thousands have been killed over the years for their ivory. The decision to lift the hunting ban comes amid growing conflicts between humans particularly farmers and elephants, the Botswana government's statement said. It said hunting will resume "in an orderly and ethical manner" but does not say how it will be regulated. The country, with a population of

Waste food can be used to produce biodegradable chemical

Engineers at the University of Waterloo have developed a technology that can help extract the biodegradable chemical from waste food that can be refined as a source of energy.According to the study published in the 'Bioresource Technology', the chemical could also be used to replace petroleum-based chemicals in a host of products including drugs and plastic packaging."People like me, environmental biotechnologists, look at food waste as a tremendous resource. With the right technologies, we can extract numerous useful chemicals and fuel from it," said Hyung-Sool Lee, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Waterloo.The technology already exists to reduce the environmental impact by diverting food waste, collecting methane gas as it is broken down by microorganisms and burning the gas to produce electricity.But Lee said that system - known as anaerobic digestion - ultimately yields little or no net benefits when the high costs of food waste mixing and wastewater treatment ...

Traffic affected in several parts of the city due to counting of votes

Traffic remained effected in several parts of the national capital due to counting of votes and celebrations by party workers, officials said Thursday. The Delhi Traffic Police updated its Twitter handle alerting commuters about the traffic situations. "Traffic remains affected on August Kranti Marg due to vote counting center at Jija Bai Industrial Training Institute for women. Kindly avoid August Kranti Marg. "Traffic remains affected on Swami Narayan Marg due to vote counting center. Motorist are advised to avoid Swami Narayan Marg and take Sunder Lal Jain Hospital road or Nimri Colony road instead of Swami Narayan Marg," the Delhi Traffic Police tweeted.

Human activity behind global temperature rise, study confirms

Human factors such as greenhouse gas emissions and particulate pollution, and other external factors are responsible for the rise in global temperature, an Oxford study has confirmed. While this has been the consensus of the scientific community for a long time, uncertainty remained around how natural ocean-cycles might be influencing global warming over the course of multiple decades. The study, published in the Journal of Climate, looked at observed ocean and land temperature data since 1850. Apart from human-induced factors such as greenhouse gas concentrations, other occurrences such as volcanic eruptions, solar activity and air pollution peaks were included in the analysis. The findings demonstrated that slow-acting ocean cycles do not explain the long-term changes in global temperature, which includes several decades of accelerated or slowed warming. "We can now say with confidence that human factors like greenhouse gas emissions and particulate pollution, along with ...

Climate change can be reversed, DiCaprio's 'Ice on Fire' claims

"We don't need advanced technology, Mother Nature has seaweeds and shellfish which sequester five times more carbon than land-based plants," said Bren Smith, winching a glistening haul of glossy brown kelp out of the sea. A fisherman turned "steward of the sea" who runs a restorative ocean farm growing seaweed and farming shellfish, Smith is one of dozens of characters who appear in "Ice on Fire", an eye-opening environmental documentary at Cannes film festival. Produced by Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Leila Conners, who worked together on 2007 climate documentary "The 11th Hour", the film offers a fascinating look at the innovations and people working to significantly reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Take kelp. Not only does it soak up five times more carbon than plants on land, it is one of the fastest growing plants on earth and can be widely used for everything from food to fertiliser and even animal feed. "If you provide a seaweed diet to cows, you get a 90 ...

Eighteen Earth-sized exoplanets discovered

Scientists have discovered 18 Earth-sized planets beyond the solar system, including one of the smallest known so far and another that could offer conditions friendly to life. The exoplanets are so small that previous surveys had overlooked them, said researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany. The study, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, re-analysed a part of the data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope with a new and more sensitive method that they developed. The team estimates that the new method has the potential of finding more than 100 additional exoplanets in the Kepler mission's entire data set. Somewhat more than 4,000 planets orbiting stars outside our solar system are known so far. Of these so-called exoplanets, about 96 per cent are significantly larger than our Earth, most of them more comparable with the dimensions of the gas giants Neptune or Jupiter. This percentage likely does not reflect the real conditions .

Artificial photosynthesis transforms CO2 into fuels

Scientists -- including one of Indian origin -- have successfully used artificial photosynthesis to produce fuels using water, carbon dioxide and sunlight. By converting carbon dioxide into more complex molecules like propane, green energy technology is now one step closer to using excess CO2 to store solar energy -- in the form of chemical bonds -- for use when the Sun is not shining and in times of peak demand, researchers said. Plants use sunlight to drive chemical reactions between water and CO2 to create and store solar energy in the form of energy-dense glucose. For the study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers developed an artificial process that uses the same green light portion of the visible light spectrum used by plants during natural photosynthesis to convert CO2 and water into fuel, in conjunction with electron-rich gold nanoparticles that serve as a catalyst. "The goal here is to produce complex, liquefiable hydrocarbons from excess CO2 and other