Dutch climate warms 0.42 C per decade

An analysis by Dutch weather service MeteoVista (Dutch report | English coverage), using tens of thousands of meteorological measurements (by KNMI, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) shows the climate in the Netherlands has warmed by 0.42 degrees Celsius over the last decade, with climate figures averaged over the periods 1971-2000 and 1981-2010 (with November and December 2010 not yet taken into account).

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Arctic ocean acidification faster than predictions

Cold water absorbs more CO2, so it is around the Poles that the consequences of ocean acidification are first felt. Pteropods – tiny swimming Arctic sea snails – have difficulty building their shells at CO2 levels very close to the present ones. They are staple diet for juvenile salmon. Ocean acidification is a genuine threat to ecology. And ’10 percent less pteropods means 20 percent less salmon’.

Yesterday the Geological Society of America met in Denver. “Models are probably underestimating at least by a few years the impact of ocean acidification in the Arctic,” say the researchers.

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‘Genes cannot be patented’

Human and other genes should not be eligible for patents because ‘they are part of nature’, says (PDF) the US Department of Justice on behalf of the government, revoking longstanding policy – and practice of government agencies like the Patent and Trademark Office and the National Institutes of Health.

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Nagoya results: nature gets 17 percent

After two weeks of negotiations, yesterday, on the final day of the big UN biodiversity conference in Nagoya, Japan, countries agreed on a new treaty for the protection of species and ecosystems.

The percentage of Earth’s land surface under official nature protection will be increased from 13 percent now, to 17 percent in 2020. Ocean habitat protection is also gradually taking form, with official marine biodiversity reserves increasing from 1 to 10 percent of the Earth’s ocean surface.

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Royal Philosophy: biodiversity loss is bad

We may not know the exact sum figures of biodiversity, nor the precise percentages of species decline. It may also be irrelevant. Although ecology is in fact all about counting – we have to become aware that we are loosing something we don’t yet realize we value, at rates we may never be able to count.

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Conservation efforts are effective but lacking

It paints a sad picture, the latest assessment of the world’s vertebrates by the IUCN. Of the almost 26,000 vertebrates on the IUCN Red List as much as a fifth face a serious risk of extinction. With an average of 52 species added to the lot each year. To reach this conclusion, 174 scientist from 38 countries combined their research in an article that appeared in Science yesterday.

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