Search Results for: Climate change

BY ALAN OSBORN
DESPITE speculation of a reprieve for Germany’s condemned nuclear power sector, no swift change can be expected regarding the present phase-out following the inconclusive election. The German Atomic Forum has flatly told Utility Week it “remains bound by the agreement with the present government” on the nuclear wind-down.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITAIN is not normally thought of being subject to landslides and avalanches in the way that Alpine countries are, but the coming of climate change has made these natural disasters a real and potentially very expensive threat to us.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has called on European Union (EU) countries to further liberalise their professions, including legal specialists, although a Communication’ policy paper praises Britain for its reforms. The UK “is making good progress” across the board in fighting restrictive practices regarding profession entry, fees and advertising, along with Denmark and the Netherlands, said Brussels.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
EARTHQUAKE insurance is an odd business in that the human scale of a disaster is sometimes wildly in excess of the economic losses and the latter in turn often far exceed the level of cover and therefore claims.…

BY MARK ROWE
INTRODUCTION

WEATHER forecasting has evolved somewhat beyond the reliance of medieval truisms such as rain on St Swithin’s Day meant 40 more days of showers. But better weather forecasts are only any use if we are able to respond to such information accordingly and effectively.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MALARIA parasites make humans infected with the disease when in its transmissible phase more attractive to mosquitoes, encouraging them to bite, become infected themselves, and then spread it to other hosts, researchers claim. The fact that mosquitoes carrying a fully developed malaria parasite are manipulated by this organism to bite more frequently was already known.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE OPEN Runway system, produced by the UK’s Met Office, (Met for Meteorological), has proved popular in helping British airports to mitigate the potential delays associated with extreme weather events. Essentially, Open Runway gives airports an advance warning of the need for runway clearance and gritting in the event of snow and ice.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
IT may never equal the four-fold rise in the price of a barrel of crude oil that took place between 1973 and 1974, but this year’s hike to more than US$60 a barrel has given all those industries dependent on the stability of fuel prices a severe shock, and the aviation industry is one of those reeling from the increases.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations (UN) is warning African countries to gear up for a possible increase in demand for male circumcisions, after the publication of a study suggesting it could significantly cut male HIV infections. The French study of 3,273 South African men showed that circumcised men were 63% less likely than uncircumcised men to be infected through sex with HIV-positive women.…

BY MARK ROWE
IT is difficult to separate the present-day Czech paint industry from the industrial heritage of the country. While the rest of the world made jokes about Skoda cars during the Communist era, the Czechs fumed as they saw a once great engineering industry reduced to a laughing stock.…