It is more exposed than any other country to global warming. And a series of unusual events – from dying trees to freak weather – suggest its impact is already being felt. Justin Huggler reports from the Sundarbans nature reserve Published: The Sundarbans nature reserve in Bangladesh’s south-west is one of the last untouched places on Earth – and home to the largest population of tigers left in the wild. But the trees in the Sundarbans have suddenly started dying. And not just that: they have started dying in a way nobody has seen before, from the top down. Nobody is sure what the cause is, but the country’s leading scientists think the trees are dying because, in recent years, the water has turned from fresh to salty. The Sundarbans is a massive mangrove swamp, and the sea has begun encroaching. What we are seeing may be one of the first casualties of rising sea levels caused by global warming. ‘Nobody can say for sure whether it is climate change because there haven’t been proper in-depth studies,’ says Professor Ainun Nishat, one of the country’s leading environmentalists, and one of those involved in the UN’s recent climate […]
SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Republican presidential candidate John McCain, looking to improve his standing with the party’s conservative voters, said Sunday the court decision that legalized abortion should be overturned. ‘I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned,’ the Arizona senator told about 800 people in South Carolina, one of the early voting states. McCain also vowed that if elected, he would appoint judges who ‘strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States and do not legislate from the bench.’ The landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade gave women the right to choose an abortion to terminate a pregnancy. The Supreme Court has narrowly upheld the decision, with the presence of an increasing number of more conservative justices on the court raising the possibility that abortion rights would be limited. Social conservatives are a critical voting bloc in the GOP presidential primaries. McCain’s campaign also announced early Sunday that he had been endorsed by former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who had been considering his own bid for the White House, and former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who failed in his bid for the Republican nomination in 1996. Keating told the crowd […]
Radical proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope are to be published this year, The Times has learnt. The proposals have been agreed by senior bishops of both churches. In a 42-page statement prepared by an international commission of both churches, Anglicans and Roman Catholics are urged to explore how they might reunite under the Pope. The statement, leaked to The Times, is being considered by the Vatican, where Catholic bishops are preparing a formal response. It comes as the archbishops who lead the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion meet in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in an attempt to avoid schism over gay ordination and other liberal doctrines that have taken hold in parts of the Western Church. The 36 primates at the gathering will be aware that the Pope, while still a cardinal, sent a message of support to the orthodox wing of the Episcopal Church of the US as it struggled to cope with the fallout after the ordination of the gay bishop Gene Robinson. Were this week’s discussions to lead to a split between liberals and conservatives, many of the former objections […]
NEW YORK — Researchers are trying to find ways to regrow fingers _ and someday, even limbs _ with tricks that sound like magic spells from a Harry Potter novel. There’s the guy who sliced off a fingertip but grew it back, after he treated the wound with an extract of pig bladder. And the scientists who grow extra arms on salamanders. And the laboratory mice with the eerie ability to heal themselves. This summer, scientists are planning to see whether the powdered pig extract can help injured soldiers regrow parts of their fingers. And a large federally funded project is trying to unlock the secrets of how some animals regrow body parts so well, with hopes of applying the the lessons to humans. The implications for regrowing fingers go beyond the cosmetic. People who are missing all or most of their fingers, as from an explosion or a fire, often can’t pick things up, brush their teeth or button a button. If they could grow even a small stub, it could make a huge difference in their lives. And the lessons learned from studying regrowth of fingers and limbs could aid the larger field of […]
At the height of the 1973 energy crisis, Arthur Rosenfeld had a revelation. Disturbed about having to spend half an hour in line at a gas station one Friday night, the particle physicist calculated that keeping his floor of offices brightly lit all weekend as usual would consume the equivalent of 5 gallons of gasoline. So Rosenfeld took what then seemed like a bold step: He turned off the lights. For 30 years, Rosenfeld has been one of the forces guiding California on a mission of conservation. And today the state uses less energy per capita than any other state in the country, defying the international image of American energy gluttony. Since 1974, California has held its per capita energy consumption essentially constant, while energy use per person for the United States overall has jumped 50 percent. California has managed that feat through a mixture of mandates, regulations and high prices. The state has been able to cut greenhouse gas emissions, keep utility companies happy and maintain economic growth. And in the wake of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on global warming, California serves as a model for other states seeking a similar path to […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
