“The climate crisis is here and now”

Herman Rosa Chavez counts every day that he has been in office. It’s a point El Salvador’s soft-spoken Minister of Environment and Natural Resources makes in all his conversations, underscoring the urgency with which he views his tasks, both in the domestic and international sphere. “For us climate change is a current problem, not something that will come 10 or 20 years hence,” says the man who was a surprise choice for the post when the left-wing government of Mauricio Funes assumed charge on June 1, 2009.

Science and Technology - Briefs

EVOLUTION When morels bloomed

Organic v conservative

AT A time when the world is pushing for organic farming, the US is advocating the no-till method.

Migratory birds at risk

MIGRATORY birds are becoming vulnerable to shifts in seasons. Climate change is modifying the time of seasons. Early arrival of spring at breeding sites is making it harder for the migratory birds to attract mates or find food. Scientists warn this ecological mismatch can reduce bird populations.

Science and Technology - Briefs

EARTH SCIENCES Tortoise, not rabbit

Megadrought demystified

A MEGADROUGHT in parts of Africa and Asia about 17,000 years ago led to mass migration of humans and animals. It is regarded as the most severe in the last 50,000 years. Rainfall in this drought-hit region is caused when winds from the northern and southern hemispheres converge ne-ar the equator. This area is called the In-tertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Till now it was believed the mega-drought was caused because the zone shifted southwards. But researchers at Paul Smith’s College, New York, reckon that many other forces were at play.

Too costly to grow

Betel leaves were once dubbed green gold. But farmers do not find betel farming lucrative anymore. Besides low demand, it is the rising input cost, primarily for irrigation, that is discouraging betel farmers.

Blank on target

Two states succeeded. Rest did not. The National Action Plan of Climate Change (NAPCC) envisages five per cent of total energy production every year from all states will be from renewable sources. But in the financial year ending March 2010, the achievement was of 3.9 per cent, majority of which came from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The gap is likely to increase as NAPCC’s target will rise by one per cent annually to touch 15 per cent by 2020.

Letters

How love of science is killed  

Science and Technology - Briefs

TECHNOLOGY Dogs sniff cancer