Relógio mundial 2010

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Estatísticas mundiais actualizadas em tempo real

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Mapquest Atlas

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Blog Action Day 2010: Water

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Relatório Planeta Vivo 2010 da WWF

"Todos nós somos parte integrante desta complexa rede de vida na Terra – o Relatório Planeta Vivo, ajuda-nos a entender onde nos encaixamos e como pudemos ser uma peça fundamental de mudança."

Setembro mais seco dos últimos 22 anos

O mês de Setembro foi o mais seco dos últimos 22 anos. com uma anomalia de -31,5 mm, em relação ao respectivo valor normal de 1971-2000, o que classifica o mês como seco a extremamente seco em quase todo o território, com excepção do interior Norte e Centro que se classificou com normal.

No final do mês, praticamente todo o território, 91%, se encontrava em situação de seca meteorológica fraca a moderada, sendo que os restantes 8% se encontravam em situação de seca severa, afectando principalmente as regiões do litoral Norte e Centro.

Em termos de temperatura do ar, Setembro caracterizou-se por valores médios da temperatura do ar máxima e média superiores aos respectivos valores normais de 1971-2000, com anomalias de +1,2ºC e +0,7ºC, respectivamente. O valor médio da temperatura mínima do ar foi muito próximo do valor normal com uma anomalia de +0,1ºC.

Fonte

Sistemas de metropolitano de várias cidades do mundo, apresentados na mesma escala

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Catástrofe ambiental na Hungria

On October 4, 2010, an accident occurred at the Ajkai Timföldgyár alumina (aluminum oxide) plant in western Hungary. A corner wall of a waste-retaining pond broke, releasing a torrent of toxic red sludge down a local stream. Several nearby towns were inundated, including Kolontar and Devecser, where the sludge was 2 meters (6.5 feet) deep in places. Four people were killed immediately, likely from drowning, and several more were missing. Dozens of residents were hospitalized for chemical burns.

On October 9, 2010, the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image of the area. The top image shows a close-up of the alumina plant and closest villages. The bottom image shows the wider region.

The alumina plant appears along the right edge of both images, and incorporates both bright blue and brick red reservoirs. The breach of the retaining wall is apparent in the close-up view. Sludge cut a channel through the northwest corner of the waste reservoir and spread onto nearby fields.

The sludge forms a red-orange streak running west from the plant. The wide-area view shows the spill thinning but remaining discernible for several kilometers to the west. The New York Times reported that the stream nearest the plant empties into larger rivers. The BBC reported that authorities were pouring plaster into the Marcal River in hopes of preventing the sludge from reaching the Danube River.

The red sludge is a byproduct of refining bauxite into alumina, which is used in the manufacture of aluminum and other products. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) suggested that heavy metals in the sludge could soak into the ground and be absorbed by vegetation, potentially causing environmental effects for decades.

In the short term, the sludge swept away cars, filled homes, swamped agricultural fields, damaged bridges, and forced hundreds to evacuate.

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Nesta outra imagem retirada daqui compara-se o antes com o depois. Também em formato KML.

Image credit: DigitalGlobe (left) and GeoEye (right)

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Portugal planeia a primeira "cidade com um cérebro"

What do you get when you design a city from the ground up so that all of its systems—water, energy, waste, and climate control—gather and share information? The first "city with a brain."

On the outskirts of Paredes, in northern Portugal, a start-up calledLivingPlanIT, which has its roots in the tech industry, is working on a 150,000-person city that would use information technology in unprecedented new ways.

Every building in the city will have sensors that monitor occupancy, temperature, and energy use. That information, along with streams of data from solar and wind power generators and other city systems, will be fed into a central "nervous system" that can change how buildings are heated or powered based on real-time information.

LivingPlanIT is aiming for an ambitious completion date: 2015. But it has the support of the local government, which will help considerably. The Harvard Business Review also applauds the LivingPlanIT model (the companies supplying the technology for the city will be its first occupants). Our only reservation? The city's name: PlanIT Valley.

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