environment

Source : Saudi Gazette | 24 Jan 2014

Madinah Emir Prince Faisal Bin Salman announced 13 permanent cultural and academic projects aimed at strengthening Madinah’s position as the permanent capital of Islamic culture.

The projects are mainly the outcome of the proposals and suggestions that came up for consideration during the ongoing year-long celebrations following Madinah’s selection as the Islamic Culture Capital for 2013.

By Jacob Chamberlain | Agencies | 15 Apr 2013

Ice is melting at a faster rate in the Antarctic Peninsula than at any time in the past 1000 years, and ten times more than it was 600 years ago, according to a new study by the Australian National University and the British Antarctic Survey, published in Nature Geoscience.

According to lead researcher Dr Nerilie Abram:

By Andrea Germanos | Agencies | 11 Mar 2013

"Under all plausible greenhouse gas emission scenarios," the world is on track to surpass temperatures not seen since the dawn of civilization, according to new research.

By Andrea Germanos | Agencies | 02 Jan 2013

Humanitarian assistance is failing the dire needs of tens of thousands of internally displaced persons in Afghanistan who have fled one life-threatening situation to find another as cold temperatures leave them struggling to survive.

Last winter over 100 children died from the cold in the many makeshift camps around the Afghan capital.

Source : OnIslam | 03 Dec 2012

Muslim students in Malaysia are planning weekly sessions to discuss ways of turning their country into a greener place in line with the teachings of their faith.

“Life needs to coexist, the Prophet tells us this and so does the Qur’an,” Radwan Islam, a 20-year-old engineering student at Universiti Teknikal in Melaka, told Bikyamasr.

Source : Agencies | 20 Nov 2012

The World Bank is the latest organization to raise alarm against the undeniable threat of climate change. Launched Monday, 'Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided' (pdf) details the catastrophic consequences, specifically within developing nations, of ignoring the global warming crisis. 

Source : BBC | 19 Sep 2012

The most powerful sky-scanning camera yet built has begun its quest to pin down the mysterious stuff that makes up nearly three-quarters of our Universe.

The Dark Energy Survey's 570-million-pixel camera will scan some 300 million galaxies in the coming five years.

The goal is to discover the nature of dark energy, which is theorised to be responsible for the ever-faster expansion of the Universe.

Its first image, taken 12 September, focussed on the Fornax galaxy cluster.

By Stephen Leahy | Guardian | 18 Sep 2012

The record loss of Arctic sea ice this summer may mean a cold winter for the UK and northern Europe. The region has been prone to bad winters after summers with very low sea ice, such as 2011 and 2007, said Jennifer Francis, a researcher at Rutgers University.

"We can't make predictions yet … [but] I wouldn't be surprised to see wild extremes this winter," Francis told the Guardian.

This year's ice melt has broken the 2007 record by an an area larger than the state of Texas.

By Stephen Leahy | IPS | 28 May 2012

Climate-heating carbon emissions set a record high in 2011, in a 3.2 percent increase over the previous year, the International Energy Agency reported this week. The main reason for this dangerous increase is that governments are failing to implement policies to prevent catastrophic increases of global temperatures.

By Associated Press | Makhachkala | 21 Feb 2012

Authorities are scrambling to save hundreds of starving and endangered Dalmatian pelicans after the Caspian Sea froze for the first time in years.

Hundreds of the gray-white birds with distinctive curly feathers at their napes are jostling one another in a rare patch of unfrozen water at a shipyard near the city of Makhachkala, the capital of the southern Russian province of Dagestan.