·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the full post at NewsoftheNorth.net.

A global report on the state of the world’s birds has implications for Wisconsin, say state conservation organizations.

The report, issued by the organization BirdLife International (birdlife.org) details the decline of global bird populations. As the official International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List Authority for birds, BirdLife says its 2008 assessment of all the world’s birds reveals that more than 1,226 bird species (12.4 percent, or one in eight) are considered threatened with extinction.

Beginning today, The Economist is hosting a two-week long Oxford-style online debate on the value of water. The proposition is “This house believes that water, as a scarce resource, should be priced according to its market value.”

Some of the issues the debate will cover include: Would water supplies be better managed if it were treated as a commodity, and priced accordingly? Or is water a basic human right that governments should secure for their citizens? As both an industrial input and a prerequisite of life, water has become extremely scarce for roughly a billion people who do not have a constant supply of clean and safe water, so the issue is of extreme importance.

Anyone may vote or comment. The only requirement is to register for a pen name first.