最新世界环境资讯

A global environmental update

美联社报道，俄罗斯科学家历经20年多的南极洲钻探，终于接触到地壳表面数公里处隐藏着的一个约形成于2千万年前的巨大淡水湖。该湖内可能生活着远古时期的微生物，同时也为探索其它星球上的微生物提供了科研线索。

《卫报》消息，一个由亿万富翁提供资金支持的顶尖气候科学家小组正在游说各国政府和各国际机构支持在全球范围内进行气候调控，以避免灾难性的气候变化。他们提倡地球工程学方法，称在没有达成减少温室气体排放共同协议的情况下，需要采取“B计划”。

路透社报道，澳大利亚东部地区的农业产业带已连续第二年遭暴雨淹没。尽管主要产区刚经历了为期一周的洪水侵蚀，预测称棉花产量丰收仍会保持正常水平。此次洪水已经迫使成千上万的人逃离家园，河流暴涨。

《爱尔兰时报》报道，充沛的降雨，农业的丰收和各方的援助使得索马里结束了长达7个月的饥荒，但联合国官员认为，索马里要想确保不再陷入饥荒，未来的90天将至关重要。联合国称，索马里的形势既乐观又十分脆弱， 危机只是暂时性缓解，此次饥荒已“造成234万人面临营养不良和生命安全无法保证的风险”。

《独立报》称，由于常年生产过剩，西班牙的橄榄油业巨头们目前已陷入困境。今年的冬天将异常干燥，这意味着它们虽然已经面临着9千5百万升油的过量供应，却只能准备好迎接即将到来的另一个大丰收，如此一来将会还有2.85亿升油流入市场。

《卫报》报道，美国权威病毒专家们呼吁出台新的永久性的禽流感基因工程病毒禁令，因为在理论上此病毒可夺去世界上一半人的生命。目前，H5N1禽流感病毒只能通过密切接触受感染的禽类传播，但两个研究小组声称他们已经研究出通过空气传播的方法。

《卫报》报道，因腹泻死亡的儿童数量比因艾滋病、结核病和疟疾死亡的儿童数量总和还要多，其主要原因是食物和水源受到人类垃圾的污染。在利比里亚，每七个人中就有六个没有厕所使用。该国总统瑟利夫正努力提高人们对卫生系统和健康的意识。

《每日电讯报》消息，美国研究人员发现，轮船航线上持续的电机噪音，不仅改变了鲸鱼的行为，也对这些动物的身体造成了影响。科学家们在加拿大芬迪湾的研究发表在《皇家学会学报》上，报告表明北大西洋露脊鲸的慢性应激症可能与经常接触低频船舶噪声有关。 

Russian scientists, after more than 20 years of drilling in Antarctica, have reached the surface of a huge freshwater lake hidden under kilometres of ice for some 20 million years, The Associated Press said. Lake Vostok may hold microbial life forms from the distant past and clues to the search for life on other planets. 

A small group of leading climate scientists, financially supported by billionaires, is lobbying governments and international bodies to back experiments into manipulating the climate on a global scale to avoid catastrophic climate change, The Guardian reported. Advocating geo-engineering methods, they say a “plan B” will be needed in the absence of agreement on reducing greenhouse gases.

Agricultural belts in eastern Australia have been inundated with flood rains for the second year running, Reuters said. Projections for a bumper cotton crop remain on track, however, despite a week-long deluge in major growing regions. The floods have forced thousands of people from their homes and left rivers dangerously swollen.

In Somalia, good rains, a successful harvest and donor aid have ended the famine declared seven months ago, according to The Irish Times, but UN officials said the next 90 days will be critical to ensuring that the country does not slip back into extreme hunger. The UN termed the gains both considerable and fragile – a temporary respite in a crisis that “affects 2.34 million people with high risks of malnutrition and insecurity”.

Large sectors of Spain’s olive-oil industry are in trouble after years of overproduction, according to The Independent. An exceptionally dry winter means that the sector – already faced with a glut of olives equivalent to 95 million litres of oil – is braced for its second big crop in a row, which may add 285 million more litres to the market.

A group of leading US virus experts has called for permanent new restrictions on research in the face of a genetically engineered avian influenza virus that could, in theory, kill half the world’s population, The Guardian reported. Currently, the H5N1 virus can be caught only be close exposure to infected birds, but two research groups say they have found a way to make it infectious through airborne transmission.

Diarrhoea kills more children than HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined, and its main cause is food and water contaminated with human waste, The Guardian noted. In Liberia, where six out of seven people do not have a toilet, president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is pushing for awareness of the link between sanitation systems and health.

US researchers found that the steady drone of motors in shipping lanes not only alters whale behaviour but can also physically affect the animals, The Daily Telegraph said. Evidence from studies in Canada’s Bay of Fundy, the scientists wrote in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that exposure to low-frequency ship noise may be associated with chronic stress in North Atlantic right whales.