Stories about Environment from July, 2010
Taiwan: Rice fields outside the Presidential Office
On July 18th, Taiwanese farmers transformed the Presidential Office into rice fields, not for creating a city garden, but for a protest to the Land Expropriation Act.
Russia: Ask a Search Engine About the Weather
“When the heat will pass away?” is this week's most popular search enquiry in the Russian Google. Another most popular search requests include: “How to survive heat wave?”, “How to cool down the room without an air conditioner?” and “Where people swim in the Moscow region?”, RIA Novosti reports [RUS].
Russia: First Cyrillic Word Tops Twitter Trends
Russian heatwave makes history not only in the streets of Moscow but also in the virtual space. The Russian word “дождь” (rain) turned to be the first Cyrillic word in Twitter's worldwide trending topics, RIA Novosti [RUS] reports. It happened after Moscow bloggers witnessed a minor rain, that followed several weeks of unusually...
Malawi: An eye on charcoal trade
An eye on the charcoal trade in Malawi: “Like the rest of the world, forests in Malawi play a vital role. They are the engine of survival to millions of poor Malawians, but at the rate with which forests are being cleared, mainly through illegal logging and burn agriculture, the...
Taiwan: Foxconn and the shame of Taiwan
After 12 employees’ jump of buildings and one more jump in Chimei Innolux Corporation-a subsidiary company of Foxconn-on July 20, Chairman Terry (Tai-Ming) Gou was criticized by Taiwanese scholars as “the shame of Taiwan”, so he threatens to halt all investment in Taiwan. Blogger and book writer Kue-hsien Liao argues that...
Brazil: How Could the Amazon Thrive in the 21st Century?
Lou Gold reacts to Andrew Revkin's post at the NY Times blog DotEarth on the future of the Amazon: “Can we really keep marketing the land, its products and services? Can the market really be the final arbiter? What are its limits? Perhaps only catastrophe can show them to us?...
Russia: Unknown People in Masks and Police Attack Environmentalists
From 20 to 40 young people in white masks attacked the camp of the defenders of the Khimki forest park [RUS], Igor Podgorny [RUS] and Novaya Gazeta [RUS] reported. The police intervention didn't help – instead several environmentalists and journalists were detained.
Brunei: Double Rainbow
On 20th July 2010, at 5.00pm, many parts of Brunei witnessed a Double Rainbow
Singapore: Flooding and government
Siew Kum Hong tries to understand the recent flooding disaster in Singapore and reminds authorities that people are angry because of the “scope and location of the floods that have been occurring and the Government's cavalier response so far.”
Central America: Traveling on a Fellowship and Blogging About it
The blogger from Antigone Wanders is traveling Central America for three months, going through Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In her latest post she talks about her experience crashing a meeting of “Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP), the Honduran resistance”, she goes on to give the...
Barbados: missing butterflies
My Rustic Bajan Garden wonders if a decline in numbers of butterflies is a worrying sign for Barbados. “The absence of these creatures is a strong indicator that all is not well in our environment.”
Mozambique/Brazil: “Ethanol diplomacy” meets criticism
NGOs furiously denounced last week's trilateral accord between Brazil, Mozambique and the European Union promoting ethanol production in Mozambique for the European market. The blogsphere provides some background to this "ethanol diplomacy" and questions its future social and environmental impacts.
Hong Kong: Citizen campaign to save Tai Long Beach
Many people have the impression that Hong Kong is a concrete forest made up with high rise buildings. However, actually 75% of the land in this global city is undeveloped country side. Such landscape is an unintended result of the colonial history, when after the WWII, the British government tried...
Philippines: Manila Water Crisis
Metro Manila, the national capital region of the Philippines, is now experiencing a water shortage crisis with millions enduring water supply rationing. Filipino bloggers try to make sense of the crisis.
Taiwan: Driftwood in Tsengwen Reservoir
After almost one year since typhoon Morokot, Tsengwen Reservoir is still seriously blocked by driftwood and silt. Citizen journalist Sadapeopo documented the situation in a video report, interviewed the boss of local yacht-tour company and several travelers when visiting the dam, and gave his own observation(zht). “Two-thirds of the wood...
Palestine: A Green Home Away from Home
In this post we hear about two women with a great love of nature: a nun who has found her home in the convent garden, and a city-dwelling mother who has brought her dreams of a village garden to the balcony of her apartment.
Russia-US-EU: Great game revisited
Katinka Barysch at openDemocracy publishes an extensive analysis of relations between Russia and the West in former soviet space, in a Great Game revisited.
Bangladesh: Power Crisis Blues
Mahadi Hasan Talukder describes how power crisis is spoiling the city life in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.
D. R. of Congo: Searching for Bonobo
Read field notes from Dr. Terese Hart, Searching for Bonobo in Congo. Bonobos great Apes falling in the same group with chimpanzees.
Tanzania: Support Movement Against Serengeti Highway
Say no to plans by the Tanzanian government to build a highway cutting through a protected wilderness area of the Serengeti National Park: @TEDxDar strtd a hme-grown grp of organizers to solicit support against serengeti highway. Join the mailing list: save.serengeti.tz@gmail 1:26 AM Jul 19th via web
Japan: Rice paddy art
Pink Tentacle published several pictures [en] of wonderful examples of rice crop art, “which is created by carefully arranging different colors of rice plants in the field.”
