Jun 09 2010
Blue-green algae blooms choked Lake Taihu – China’s third biggest source of freshwater – in May, forcing 5 million people to use bottled water for drinking and bathing. Soon after, local media were reporting outbreaks across the country. Rancid blooms contaminated Dianchi Lake in southwestern China, then Xinlicheng reservoir, the main source of water for [...]
Jun 09 2010
It all looks too orderly: a kind of greedy appropriation of the land with all the wild bits appearing as unshaved, rude tufts bristling at the margins of organized systems of fields. This all seems to have a narcissistic quality. This self-satisfied, self-serving landscape, all too willing to barge out the wild and turn it [...]
Jun 09 2010
The Pacific’s storm system plays an important role in the circulation of the Earth’s atmosphere, transporting heat and moisture to the northern latitudes. Renyi Zhang, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, said this weather system had been affected by aerosols – tiny particles of pollution such as soot produced when burning coal. “Rapid industrialisation [...]
