PNG Aids victims 'buried alive'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6965412.stm
Published: 2007/08/27 15:35:27 GMT
© BBC MMVII

Some people with HIV/Aids in Papua New Guinea are being buried alive by their relatives, a health worker says.

Margaret Marabe said families were taking the extreme action because they could no longer look after sufferers or feared catching the disease themselves.

Ms Marabe said she saw the "live burials" with her own eyes during a five-month trip to PNG's remote Southern Highlands.

PNG is in the grip of an HIV/Aids epidemic - the worst in the region.

Officials estimate that 2% of the six million population are infected, but campaigners believe the figure is much higher.

HIV diagnoses have been rising by around 30% each year since 1997, according to a UN Aids report.

Global warming could delay next ice age -- study
Agence France-Presse
Last updated 10:05am (Mla time) 08/30/2007

LONDON -- Burning fossil fuels could postpone the next ice age by up to half a million years, researchers at a British university said Wednesday.

Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere caused by burning fuels such as coal and oil may cause enough residual global warming to prevent its onset, said scientists from the University of Southampton in southern England.

The world's oceans are absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but in doing so they are becoming more acidic, said a team led by Doctor Toby Tyrrell, which conducted research based on marine chemistry.

This, in turn, dissolves the calcium carbonate in the shells produced by surface-dwelling marine organisms, adding even more carbon to the oceans. The outcome is elevated carbon dioxide levels for far longer than previously assumed, the scientists argued.

Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for between five and 200 years before being absorbed by the oceans, reckons the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

However, up to one-tenth of the carbon dioxide currently being emitted will remain in the air for at least 100,000 years, argued Tyrrell.

"Our research shows why atmospheric carbon dioxide will not return to pre-industrial levels after we stop burning fossil fuels," said Tyrrell.

"It shows that if we use up all known fossil fuels it doesn't matter at what rate we burn them.

"The result would be the same if we burned them at present rates or at more moderate rates; we would still get the same eventual ice-age-prevention result."

Ice ages occur around every 100,000 years as the Earth's orbit around the Sun alters. However, carbon dioxide levels can affect their onset.

Humans have already burned about 300 gigatons of carbon of fossil fuels. If 1000 Gt C are burned then it is likely the next ice age will be skipped. Burning all possible fossil fuels (about 4,000 Gt C) could lead to avoidance of the next ice age by 500,000 years, the study said.

Climate flooding risk 'misjudged'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6969122.stm
Published: 2007/08/29 17:00:27 GMT
© BBC MMVII

Climate change may carry a higher risk of flooding than was previously thought, the journal Nature reports.

Researchers say efforts to calculate flooding risk from climate change do not take into account the effect carbon dioxide (CO2) has on vegetation.

Higher atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas reduce the ability of plants to suck water out of the ground and "breathe" out the excess.

Plants expel excess water through tiny pores, or stomata, in their leaves.

Their reduced ability to release water back into the atmosphere will result in the ground becoming saturated.

Areas with higher predicted rainfall have a greater risk of flooding. But this effect also reduces the severity of droughts.

The findings suggest computer models of future climate change may need to be revised in order to plan for coming decades. -End-

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