Cluster: Science

Winter onset causes disruptions

This content was published on Nov 22, 2008 Snow blanketed the country on Friday night, blocking various roads in the Valais and Jura cantons, and a number of minor accidents were reported. There were several electricity outages in the eastern canton of Graubünden, with unusually wet snow causing trees to fall on to power cables. Rail links to the canton were severely disrupted…

Climate solutions

Toilets are not to be taken for granted

This content was published on Nov 19, 2008 An exhibition entitled “Sanitation is Dignity” showed people the grim reality of life without proper sanitation, as part of the Swiss participation in World Toilet Day. More than one third of the world’s population lives without toilets and every year two million people fall victim to diarrhoeal diseases caused by the lack of sanitation. The…

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Right to eat comes before fuel, minister says

This content was published on Nov 18, 2008 In an interview with swissinfo, Environment and Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger explains the Swiss position: that the right to food comes before the right to mobility. Organised by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the conference has attracted representatives of all United Nations member countries as well as scientists, academics, and business owners. The…

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Foreign invaders threaten native Swiss species

This content was published on Nov 18, 2008 A project at Bern University has allowed scientists for the first time to take a sweeping look at the types of plants and animals that have moved to Europe from far-flung places. Such an inventory, which relied on more than a hundred scientists and three years of collecting data, has never been done before on…

Climate solutions

Climatologist asks for ban on coal investments

This content was published on Nov 17, 2008 A top climate scientist widely respected for work against global warming has asked the Swiss government to stop investments in coal-fired power plants abroad.

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Climate prediction remains an inexact science

This content was published on Nov 11, 2008 Almost all scientists agreed that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by humans were mainly responsible for global warming, but opinions differed on future levels of warming. Professor Reto Knutti of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and Gabriele Hegerl of Edinburgh University’s School of Geosciences studied climate…

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Adventurer demands more green action

This content was published on Nov 10, 2008 Piccard, who plans to fly around the world in a solar-powered aircraft, spoke out on Monday against industrial opponents of energy reforms aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland. Piccard made his comments as Environment Minister Moritz Leuenberger visited the Solar Impulse aircraft project at a military airbase in Dübendorf, outside Zurich. “We can…

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Turning the taps

This content was published on Nov 10, 2008

Rhone glacier faces rapid meltdown

This content was published on Oct 29, 2008 Scientists at the Federal Institutes of Technology in the two cities calculated the state of the glacier from 1874 to 2100 using various data and models. These included temperature, precipitation and glacial retreat. Taking into account the average climate change forecast, the temperature would be 3.8 degrees Celsius higher than in 1990, while rainfall would…

Climate solutions

Swiss live beyond their ecological means

This content was published on Oct 29, 2008 Switzerland came 19th in the Living Planet Report 2008, which said more than three-quarters of the world’s population live in countries whose consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal. The United States and Australia rank among the five countries with the largest “footprint” or depletion rate per person, along with the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and…

Cluster: Science

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