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Aceh's largest peat swamp at risk from palm oil
2014-08-11 06:23:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
Mongabay: Oil palm plantations and other developments are threatening Rawa Singkil Wildlife Preserve--Aceh's largest peat swamp, and home to the densest population of Sumatran orangutan in the Leuser Ecosystem. The lack of clear boundaries, and construction of roads bisecting the area has fostered encroachment by local and outside entrepreneurs, including some former local officials, reports Abu Hanifah Lubis, Program Manager of Yayasan Leuser Internasional (YLI). "They claim the boundaries are not clear,"...
Indonesia: What is peat swamp, and why should I care?
2014-07-21 01:00:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
Mongabay: Long considered an unproductive hindrance to growth and development, peat swamp forests in Southeast Asia have been systematically cleared, drained and burned away to make room plantations and construction. Now, as alternating cycles of fires and flood create larger development problems, while greenhouse gas emissions skyrocket, it is time to take a closer look at peat, and understand why clearing it is at best a very bad idea. What is a tropical peat swamp forest? Peat swamp forests form in...
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indonesia
Climate change could swamp NASA space centers
2014-05-21 19:13:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
Verge: A report released this morning from the Union of Concerned Scientists says NASA may face an unexpected threat from climate change: underwater launch pads. The report identifies eight different facilities at risk from rising sea levels in coming decades, including several that have already faced extreme conditions. Space centers in Mississippi and Louisiana sustained more than $750 million in damage from Hurricane Katrina, and the Johnson Space center in Texas sustained comparable damage from Hurricane...
Tags: change
space
centers
climate
Converting Peat Swamp to Palm Oil Plantations Contributes to Climate Change
2014-04-15 07:19:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
Environmental Leader: Converting peat swamp forests in Southeast Asia into industrial oil palm and pulpwood plantations releases emissions, threatens biodiversity and ultimately accelerates climate change, according to a guest column by a Princeton professor and PhD candidate at the university. As trees are stripped from peat swamp to make room for oil palm plantations, the peat is drained and the decomposition releases a large amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, David Wilcove, professor of public affairs...
Months after oil train derailment, crude still found Alabama swamp
2014-03-15 17:26:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
Associated Press: Environmental regulators promised an aggressive cleanup after a tanker train hauling 2.9 million gallons of crude oil derailed and burned in a west Alabama swamp in early November amid a string of North American oil train crashes. So why is dark, smelly crude oil still oozing into the water four months later? The isolated wetland smelled like a garage when a reporter from The Associated Press visited last week, and the charred skeletons of burned trees rose out of water covered with an iridescent...