FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 15, 2008
2:00 PM

CONTACT: National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA)
Andrea Keller Helsel, National Parks Conservation Association,
202.454.3332
 
 
National Parks Conservation Association Names 10 National Parks Most Threatened by New Coal-Fired Power Plants
Parks Group Calls on Administration to Abandon Effort to Permit More Power Plant Pollution Near National Parks By Weakening Clean Air Regulations
 
WASHINGTON, DC - May 15 - The nation’s leading voice for the national parks, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), today called on the Administration to halt its efforts to rollback clean air protections for national parks, citing 10 national parks at risk from pollution from new coal-fired power plants.

“Americans expect and deserve clean air when they visit our national parks,” said NPCA Clean Air and Climate Programs Director Mark Wenzler. “Instead of opening the door to more pollution in national parks such as Shenandoah, Great Basin, and Zion, the Administration should be working to secure a legacy that preserves America’s national treasures for our children and grandchildren.”

NPCA’s new report, Dark Horizons, identifies the 10 national parks most at risk from pollution from new coal-fired power plants as Shenandoah (Va.), Great Smoky Mountains (Tenn./ N.C.), Mammoth Cave (Ky.), Theodore Roosevelt (N.D.), Mesa Verde (Co.), Capitol Reef (Utah), Zion (Utah), Great Basin (Nev.), Wind Cave (S.D.), and Badlands (S.D.).

NPCA is calling on the Administration to halt its efforts to weaken clean air protections for national parks. Despite objections from its own scientists and the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to finalize a rule that weakens pollution standards and makes it easier to build new coal-fired power plants near national parks. NPCA warns that national parks such as Shenandoah will suffer greater pollution, and wildlife and scenic views in national parks such as Great Basin, which is largely unaffected by air pollution, will be harmed.

Echoing NPCA’s concerns, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA-30th), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has written several letters to EPA Administrator Johnson about this rulemaking and its potential affect on national parks, calling for it to be withdrawn.

——————————————————————————————–

Rain deepens Myanmar misery; casualty tolls jump
Fri May 16, 2008 12:34pm EDT

YANGON (Reuters) - Torrential tropical downpours lashed Myanmar’s cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta on Friday as thousands of destitute victims took to roadsides to beg for help to supplement the meager trickle of aid flowing in.

The official death toll has jumped sharply, to 77,738 from a previous figure of 43,328 according to a Myanmar state television report late on Friday.

Independent experts have said the actual number is probably far higher, with British officials saying the total dead and missing could be more than 200,000.

Continue Reading »

Published on Thursday, May 15, 2008 by Environmental News Service (ENS)
US Lists Polar Bear as Threatened But Balks at New Protection
by J.R. Pegg

The Bush administration reluctantly declared the polar bear a threatened species yesterday, concluding that the loss of Arctic sea ice has put the future of the iconic species in peril. But the administration also took steps to ensure the decision will not require new efforts to tackle global warming or put new restrictions on oil and gas development in polar bear habitat.

The announcement ends a three-year legal dispute over whether the polar bear should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because of the impact of global warming on its Arctic habitat. Three conservation groups first filed a petition requesting the decision in 2005.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service missed a January deadline to issue a decision and was under a court order to finalize its decision by Thursday.

Continue Reading »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 15, 2008  9:53 AM

CONTACT: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337
 
U.S. Trusting Oil Companies to Safeguard Arctic Wildlife
Industry Permit Plans Not Subjected to Required Peer-Review or Monitoring 
 
WASHINGTON, DC - May 15 - Federal agencies issued permits for oil exploration in vast areas of the Arctic Ocean without verifying industry claims or imposing required safeguards against damage to wildlife, according to agency e-mails released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Intense political pressure to speed Arctic leasing coupled with tardy industry submission of any data resulted in official rubber-stamping of permit applications without review or plans for follow-up.

Continue Reading »

Friday, 16 May 2008 03:31 UK
 
Wildlife populations ‘plummeting’ 
 
Over-fishing and demand for their fins as a delicacy have hit shark numbers
Between a quarter and a third of the world’s wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.

Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.

Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the “great extinction episodes” in the Earth’s history is under way, it says.

Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed.

Continue Reading »

Published on Thursday, May 15, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
World’s Wildlife and Environment Already Hit by Climate Change, Major Study Shows
by Ian Sample

Global warming is disrupting wildlife and the environment on every continent, according to an unprecedented study that reveals the extent to which climate change is already affecting the world’s ecosystems.

Scientists examined published reports dating back to 1970 and found that at least 90% of environmental damage and disruption around the world could be explained by rising temperatures driven by human activity.

Big falls in Antarctic penguin populations, fewer fish in African lakes, shifts in American river flows and earlier flowering and bird migrations in Europe are all likely to be driven by global warming, the study found.

Continue Reading »

Obesity contributes to global warming: study
Thu May 15, 2008 7:03pm EDT 

By Michael Kahn

GENEVA (Reuters) - Obesity contributes to global warming, too.

Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school’s researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday.

————————————————————————————-

“We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility,” Edwards said in a telephone interview. “Obesity is a key part of the big picture.”

At least 400 million adults worldwide are obese. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.

In their model, the researchers pegged 40 percent of the global population as obese with a body mass index of near 30. Many nations are fast approaching or have surpassed this level, Edwards said.

BMI is a calculation of height to weight, and the normal range is usually considered to be 18 to 25, with more than 25 considered overweight and above 30 obese.

The researchers found that obese people require 1,680 daily calories to sustain normal energy and another 1,280 calories to maintain daily activities, 18 percent more than someone with a stable BMI.

Because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than rely on cars, a slimmer population would lower demand for fuel for transportation and for agriculture, Edwards said.

This is also important because 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions stem from agriculture, he added.

The next step is quantifying how much a heavier population is contributing to climate change, higher fuel prices and food shortages, he added.

“Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food,” Edwards and Roberts wrote.

(Editing by Stephen Weeks)

————————————————————————————-

Some interesting observations here…i have been giving alot of thought
over the years to the impacts of global warming on the characteristics of
severe thunderstorms & severe thunderstorm outbreaks, & thus far have
drawn only 1 fairly certain conclusion:

GET USED TO IT!

The nature of building construction is going to have to change ASAP…for
EVERYONE-not just those privileged enough to “afford” it. Along w/ energy
efficiency, storm-proofing will be as critical in places like the eastern
2/3 of the country (hell-EVERYWHERE) as earthquake-proofing building
standards are on the West Coast. It is rapidly becoming an issue of
disaster preparedness & public health-w/ all its racist & classist
implications…

A. Storm Tracker

Continue Reading »

Rachel’s Democracy & Health News #959
Thursday, May 15, 2008

<http://rachel.org>www.rachel.org–To make a secure donation, click:
<http://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=155>here.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

THE CARBON CAPTURE JUGGERNAUT ROLLS ON

The coal, oil, automobile, railroad and electric power industries are
planning to “solve” the global warming problem by capturing carbon
dioxide (CO2) and burying it a mile underground, hoping it will stay
there forever. The plan is called CCS, short for “carbon capture and storage” (or sometimes “carbon capture and sequestration”).

Emitting CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) is thought to be the main human contribution to global warming.

Continue Reading »

Page last updated at 15:31 GMT, Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:31 UK

Charles urges forest logging halt

Prince Charles said there needed to be rewards for preserving the rainforest

The halting of logging in the world’s rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said.

He called for a mechanism to be devised to pay poor countries to prevent them felling their rainforests.

The prince told the BBC that the forests provided the earth’s “air conditioning system”.

He said it was “crazy” the rainforests were worth more “dead than alive” to some of the world’s poorest people.

The world’s forests store carbon in their wood and in their soils.

Continue Reading »

Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 by The Chicago Tribune
US Using Food Crisis To Boost Bio-Engineered Crops
by Stephen J. Hedges

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has slipped a controversial ingredient into the $770 million aid package it recently proposed to ease the world food crisis, adding language that would promote the use of genetically modified crops in food-deprived countries.0514 03 1

The value of genetically modified, or bio-engineered, food is an intensely disputed issue in the U.S. and in Europe, where many countries have banned foods made from genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Proponents say that GMO crops can result in higher yields from plants that are hardier in harsh climates, like those found in hungry African nations.

Continue Reading »

———————–
“Mekong forests are also home to a range of endangered animals,
including the clouded leopard, tiger, and Malayan sun bear.”
—————————

NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/NEWS

U.S. Major Importer of Illegal Asian Timber, Study Says
Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News
May 13, 2008

Vietnam has become a hub for processing Asia’s
illegally logged timber, much of which is sold in
the United States as outdoor furniture,
conservationists say.

In a report released in March, the U.K.-based
nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency
(EIA) and its Indonesian partner Telapak warned
that the illegal timber trade is threatening some
of the last intact forests in Southeast Asia,
especially in Laos.

Continue Reading »

As the climate warms, there will be more, larger, hotter forest fires…&
they won’t distinguish between public & private lands…

ASW

—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Cost of building homes in harm’s way
From: “Lance Olsen” <lance@wildrockies.org>
Date: Wed, May 14, 2008 10:26 am
To: “cmcr-outreach” <cmcr-outreach@vortex.wildrockies.org>
————————————————————————–

————————-
“Big price to protect homes

“Suppressing wildfires in the wilderness-urban
interface accounts for 85 percent of firefighting
costs in the United States, according to the
report.”
—————————–

The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 05/14/2008 12:16:43 AM MDT

Growing focus on fires leaves other
Forest Service programs withering
By Steve Lipsher

The U.S. Forest Service plans to spend $1.9
billion - nearly half of its annual budget - to
prevent and fight wildfires this summer.

Continue Reading »

Note the US Forest Service official’s quote at the end: smells like something’s afoot…

ASW

———————————————
“The findings run contrary to expectation. It was
thought that more trees meant more carbon being
drawn from the atmosphere. ‘If you suppress fires
and lots of little trees show up, then you ought
to store more carbon,’ says ecologist Richard
Houghton of the Woods Hole Research Center in
Falmouth, Massachusetts.”
—————————————————————

Nature
14 May 2008   doi:10.1038/news.2008.818

News

Forest-fire management ‘raises carbon emissions’

California study suggests fire-free forests store less carbon.

Quenching forest fires leads to more carbon in
the air, says new research carried out in
Californian forests. The discovery suggests that
forests spared from fire may release more of the
greenhouse gas into the air than they absorb.

Decades of suppressing natural fires has
increased the number of surviving trees in
California’s forests. But this growth has been at
the expense of larger trees, which are less
resilient to drought and other stresses than
smaller, younger trees, resulting in a decline in
the total amount of carbon stored in these
forests.

Continue Reading »

————————————————–
The new study is written by many of the people
who wrote the so-called Working Group I report,
the first of a trio of major assessments released
last year by the IPCC.

It concludes “significant changes” are already
occurring among natural systems on all
continents, with the exception of Antarctica, and
in most oceans.
—————————————————

Alalam News  (Tehran, Iran)
Wednesday,  14   May   2008

‘Significant’ Climate Change Occurring
<http://www.alalam.ir/english/en-NewsPage.aspnewsid=032060120080514111031>

PARIS, May 14–A wide-scale study published
Wednesday has strengthened warnings, spelt out
last year by UN scientists that climate change is
already on the march.

The paper, published in Nature, goes beyond the
scope taken by a landmark report issued by the
UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) in February 2007.

Continue Reading »

Good article-but this person also forgets that-even just in terms of climate stability-forests are more than carbon sinks. They serve as sponges, slowing the hydrological cycle & cooling the planet. Biodiversity itself also contributes to climate stability…

We need to connect ALL these dots-especially where ecosystems are concerned…some of us KNEW the damn timber beast was going to start arguing for liquidation of old-growth stands as a “green” capitalistic false solution…

Selective logging in old-growth stands as acceptable? Maybe-i have my doubts…but if it is to happen, we don’t need to big timber firms to move into Brazil, Indonesia, or Cascadia to do it.

ASW

—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Indonesia: more than just a carbon sink
From:    “Lance Olsen” <lance@wildrockies.org>
Date:    Tue, May 13, 2008 3:25 pm
To:      “cmcr-outreach” <cmcr-outreach@vortex.wildrockies.org>
————————————————————————–

—————–
“They must not convert good-quality natural
forest into tree plantations. …. Natural forest
stands in conservation forest areas must be
preserved …. Forests have many functions, one
of which is preserving biodiversity. In our rich
natural forests exist a great multitude of living
things.”
————

JAKARTA POST
May 13, 2008

Opinion

Indonesian forests should be more than just carbon sinks
Wiryono, Bengkulu

In the last five decades, environmental awareness
among people has increased worldwide, but the
focus of attention has shifted from time to time.
In the 1960s and 1970s, pollution got the most
attention from the public, especially in Western
countries.

Continue Reading »

The latest from NASA’s Earth Observatory (13 May 2008

******************

- NASA Satellite Captures Image of
Cyclone Nargis Flooding in Burma (Myanmar)

* Media Alerts:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/

- Researchers Forecast 59 Percent Chance
of Record Low Arctic Sea Ice in 2008
- Scientists Discover New Ocean Current
- Before Fossil Fuels, Earth’s Minerals Kept CO2 in Check
- Northern Lights Glimmer with Unexpected Trait
- Stratospheric Injections to Counter
Global Warming Could Damage Ozone Layer
- Better Regional Monitoring of CO2
Needed as Global Levels Continue Rising
- Ozone Hole Recovery May Reshape Southern Hemisphere Climate Change
- Sierra Nevada Rose to Current Height Earlier Than Thought

———————————————————————
Earth Observatory weekly mailing — http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
To unsubscribe, e-mail: eo-announce-unsubscribe@eodomo.gsfc.nasa.gov
For additional commands, e-mail: eo-announce-help@eodomo.gsfc.nasa.gov

———————————————————————————-

Medieval church re-emerges as Spain ships in water
Wed May 14, 2008 11:14am EDT

Barcelona ships in water supplies

By Martin Roberts

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Perhaps the most striking image of Spain’s drought, so severe it has forced Barcelona to ship in water, has been that of the underwater church which emerged from a drying dam.

For most of the past four decades, all that has been visible of the village of Sant Roma has been the belltower of its stone church, peeping above the water beside forested hills from a valley flooded in the 1960s to provide water for the Catalonia region.

This year, receding waters have exposed the 11th-century church completely, attracting crowds of tourists who stand gazing around it on the dusty bed of the reservoir.

Neighboring Vilanova de Sau is enjoying a tourist boom, its mayor Joan Riera says.

Continue Reading »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 12, 2008  5:40 PM

CONTACT: Rainforest Action Network
Sam Haswell, Communications Director
(415) 659-0519
Cameron Scott, Communications Manager
(415) 659-0541
Nell Greenberg, Communications Manager
(415) 659-0557
media@ran.org

International Paper Threatens to Violate Own Policy by Expanding Into Indonesian Rainforest

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - May 12 - Rainforest Action Network and ForestEthics today condemned a proposal by U.S.-based International Paper to build a pulp mill and establish 1.2 million acres of plantation forest in the heart of the Indonesian rainforest. The groups urged International Paper, which is holding its Annual General Meeting today, to not violate its own paper policy and to abandon its plans to expand into Indonesia, a global warming and biodiversity hot spot.

Continue Reading »

—————————————
“The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide,
the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than
expected.”
———–

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/12/climatechange.carbonemissions
Monday May 12 2008

World CO2 levels at record high, scientists warn
David Adam

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a
record high, according to new figures that renew fears that climate
change could begin to slide out of control.

Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in
the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40%
since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last
650,000 years.

Continue Reading »

A new entry titled ‘What the IPCC Models Really Say’ has been posted to RealClimate.org.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=564

————————————————————————–

Fire managers predict bad year for blazes
Sat May 10, 2008 2:37pm EDT

By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - U.S. fire managers are forecasting a grim year for blazes in drought-plagued Western states, just weeks after a premature start to the Southwest’s wildfire season.

This comes even as the U.S. Forest Service, the lead agency for fighting fires on vast swaths of public and private lands, is reassessing a years-old model that sought to contain all blazes at all times.

Environmental and financial strains paired with demographic changes have made that strategy ineffective in an era of record-size fires sweeping across the West, experts say.

Continue Reading »

Sun May 11, 2008 11:51am EDT

Deadly tornadoes hit U.S.

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - At least 19 people were killed in Missouri and Oklahoma when tornadoes and violent storms ripped through the central and southeastern United States, devastating neighborhoods and injuring hundreds, officials said on Sunday.

The National Weather Service reported six deaths in Oklahoma and 13 in Missouri but those tolls may rise.

Continue Reading »

Published on Friday, May 9, 2008 by The San Francisco Chronicle
Depleted Groundwater Threatens Food Chain
by Daniel Pepper

Hands clasped and head bowed, he offers a short prayer to a Sufi saint and asks for a bountiful supply of groundwater. He then cranks up a wheezing diesel engine, lines up the drill over the offerings and releases a lever that brings an iron cylinder crashing into the earth.

“Business is growing each year,” said Kumar. “But we’ve placed about as many tube wells as we can in this area.”

On either side of Kumar’s drill, the calm beauty of emerald rice patties belies a quiet catastrophe brewing hundreds of feet beneath the surface. As the water table in Punjab drops dangerously low, farmers across the state are investing - and often going into debt - to bore deeper wells with more powerful pumps.

Continue Reading »

Global cooling theories put scientists on guard
Fri May 9, 2008 1:44pm EDT  By Gerard Wynn

LONDON (Reuters) - A new study suggesting a possible lull in manmade global warming has raised fears of a reduced urgency to battle climate change.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of hundreds of scientists, last year said global warming was “unequivocal” and that manmade greenhouse gas emissions were “very likely” part of the problem.

And while the study published in the journal Nature last week did not dispute manmade global warming, it did predict a cooling from recent average temperatures through 2015, as a result of a natural and temporary shift in ocean currents.

The IPCC predicted global temperature increases this century of 1.8 to 4 degrees Celsius.

Continue Reading »

Sahara dried out slowly, not abruptly: study
Thu May 8, 2008 5:46pm EDT

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - The once-green Sahara turned to desert over thousands of years rather than in an abrupt shift as previously believed, according to a study on Thursday that may help understanding of future climate changes.

And there are now signs of a tiny shift back towards greener conditions in parts of the Sahara, apparently because of global warming, said the lead author of the report about the desert’s history published in the journal Science.

The study of ancient pollen, spores and aquatic organisms in sediments in Lake Yoa in northern Chad showed the region gradually shifted from savannah 6,000 years ago towards the arid conditions that took over about 2,700 years ago.

Continue Reading »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 8, 2008
12:02 PM

CONTACT: World Wildlife Fund / The Nature Conservancy
Virginia Cramer 804-225-9113 x 102

World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy Release First-Ever Comprehensive Global Map of Freshwater Systems

WASHINGTON, DC - May 8 - Over a decade of work and contributions by more than 200 leading conservation scientists have produced a first-ever comprehensive map and database of the diversity of life in the world’s freshwater ecosystems. The map and associated fish data – a collaborative project between World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy — are featured in the May issue of the journal BioScience.

Continue Reading »

Independent.co.uk
Airline emissions ‘far higher than previous estimates’

By Cahal Milmo
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/airline-emissions-far-higher-than-previous-estimates-821598.html

The aviation industry’s failure to curb its soaring carbon emissions
could lead to the “worst case scenario” for climate change, as
envisaged by the United Nations.

An unpublished study by the world’s leading experts has revealed that
airlines are pumping 20 per cent more carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere than estimates suggest, with total emissions set to reach
between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion tonnes annually by 2025.

Continue Reading »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 7, 2008
12:29 PM

CONTACT: Environmental Groups
Stephen Bloch, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, (801) 486-3161 x.3981
Pam Miller, Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, (435) 650-2900
Johanna Wald, Natural Resources Defense Council, (415) 875-6100
Suzanne Jones, The Wilderness Society, (303) 650-5818 x.102
Thomas Kleinschnitz, Utah Guides and Outfitters, (800) 423-4668

Public Overwhelms Interior Dept. With Opposition
to Latest Proposed Oil & Gas Project in Utah’s Famed Nine Mile Canyon

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH - May 7 - Last week tens of thousands of Americans from across the nation called on the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to reject a Denver-based gas company’s plans to drill more than 800 new natural gas wells in eastern Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon region, an area world-renowned for its fragile rock art sites. Local and regional businesses and conservation groups also have asked the Interior Department to go back to the drawing board and not approve the West Tavaputs full-field development project offered by Bill Barrett Corporation and supported by the BLM.

Continue Reading »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 6, 2008
3:05 PM

 CONTACT: Union of Concerned Scientists
Aaron Huertas, 202-331-5458
 
 
Chrysler Gas Gimmick Keeps Customers Addicted To Oil, Science Group Says
Statement by David Friedman, Union of Concerned Scientists
 
WASHINGTON, DC - May 6 - Chrysler announced today that it will cover gasoline costs above $2.99 a gallon for customers who buy or lease a new vehicle from the company. The offer is limited to the first three years customers use their cars and covers up to 12,000 miles per year.
According the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Chrysler is trying to fool consumers into overlooking its vehicles’ poor fuel economy and environmental performance. The savings the Chrysler program offers, the organization says, don’t measure up to the savings one would get from purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle.

Continue Reading »

Do you eat shrimp imported from Asia? Do you vacation there?
Lance
——————————————–
“… large-scale conversion of mangroves into
shrimp and fish farms were among the main
destructive drivers.

“Other pressures included new development to
accommodate the growth in the tourism sector and
rising populations.”
———————————————-

BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7385315.stm

Published: 2008/05/06 17:30:25 GMT

Mangrove loss ‘left Burma exposed’
By Mark Kinver
Science and nature reporter, BBC News

Destruction of mangrove forests in Burma left
coastal areas exposed to the devastating force of
the weekend’s cyclone, a top politician suggests.

ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said
coastal developments had resulted in mangroves,
which act as a natural defence against storms,
being lost.

At least 22,000 people have died in the disaster, say state officials.

Continue Reading »

There is more to the climate-forest relationship than carbon.

ASW

——————————————
“The plain truth is that eucalypt forests are periodic emitters of
carbon and excluding fire from our forested landscape is neither
realistic nor ecologically justifiable. Factoring eucalypt forests
into the carbon economy is not for the faint-hearted.”
———————————————-

The Australian
May 07, 2008

End the forest wars
David Bowman, Peter Kanowski and Rod Keenan

THE bushfire smoke that blanketed the sky above Hobart late last
month graphically marked an abrupt turn in the public debate about
forest management.

Environmentalists were quick to make the link between forest
regeneration burns and carbon emissions, and to argue that old growth
should be saved to serve as carbon stores.

Indeed, this debate was anticipated in February at a conference in
Hobart on management of the world’s old forests; by co-incidence that
week Government adviser Ross Garnaut released his interim report on
Australia’s possible response to global change.

Continue Reading »

By 1990, there was evidence that rising CO2
levels reduce nutrients in plants. So, even while
elevated CO2 levels can speed growth of plants,
the plant-eaters have had to eat more plant
tissue to gain the same nutrition.

This effect is independent of CO2’s capacity to
retain heat that would have escaped into space,
but the combined two effects will plausibly be
greater than either one alone.

The research on CO2 and nutritional content of
plants has continued for these past 18 years, and
now includes implications for domestic livestock,
humans, and wildlife. Evidence based on koala
research is just the latest finding in a
longstanding topic of interest.
Lance

—————————————–
“This change will mean eucalypt species with high protein content will become
unbeneficial to the koala as the so-called
“anti-nutrients” such as tannins bind
the protein making it unusable.”
—————————————–

The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia)
  May 6, 2008 - 11:49PM

climate change threatens koalas: expert
The koala is under threat from climate change,
according to new research which shows rising
carbon dioxide levels are killing nutrients in
the plants they eat.

Continue Reading »

Climate Wire www.eenews.net 5/5/08
 
WATER: Climate-related water concerns heat up (05/05/2008)
Christa Marshall, ClimateWire reporter

Eighteen million Southern Californians may be rationing water this summer for the first time in years. The region’s water distributor is preparing to ask customers to stop using water supplies outdoors one day a week for activities such as washing the car and running sprinklers.

Meanwhile, the impact of carbon capture and sequestration of CO2 from coal-fired power plants on water supplies soon will be studied by a leading drinking water research foundation. It wants to determine whether storing the gas in underground geological formations could unleash dangerous runoff by dissolving rock.

“We have to be careful we don’t create a problem by trying to solve a problem,” said Robert Renner, executive director of the Awwa Research Foundation, the study’s instigator and sponsor of a Friday briefing on Capitol Hill on the global impact of climate change on drinking water.

Appearing with Renner were three Australian, British and American experts who described how rising temperatures have dried up rivers and reservoirs, increased costs and raised the likelihood of pathogens and salt water creeping into drinking water sources.

Continue Reading »

Published on Monday, May 5, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Sinking Without Trace: Australia’s Climate Change Victims

Like Kiribati and Tuvalu, the islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged. But unlike their Pacific neighbours, the plight of their inhabitants is being overlooked.

Ron and Maria Passi, who operate Murray Island’s only taxi, were out driving the night the king tide struck. Neighbours flagged them down, asking for help, and so it was not until some time later that they saw their own grandchildren standing in the road. “They were shouting ‘Granddad, stop the car, the water is coming in the house’,” says Ron. “I just slammed on the brakes.”

The couple’s son, Sonny, was outside his fibro shack with his five children, watching the monster surf, lashed by north-west winds, rise ever higher. In the commotion, everyone had forgotten that Sedoi, the baby, was still inside. They heard her crying and found her in her cot, covered in sand. Water had surged in after a wave picked up a big wooden pallet and flung it through the front wall.

Continue Reading »

Something to Celebrate!

BLM Withdraws Proposed Energy Leases in Southern Colorado
The Associated Press

Article Last Updated: 05/02/2008 04:45:41 PM MDT

DENVER—Federal officials are withdrawing most of the proposed oil and gas leases up for sale in a May 8th auction.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Friday that it will defer offering leases on 144,000 acres out of the original 175,430 acres. The parcels withdrawn are in the Rio National Grande Forest in southern Colorado.

BLM officials say the parcels could be auctioned later. They’ll go over the analysis of the sites with the Forest Service

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International Herald Tribune

China farms the world to feed a ravenous economy

The Associated Press
Sunday, May 4, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/04/asia/AS-FEA-GEN-China-Farming-the-World.php

CHALEUNSOUK, Laos: The rice fields that blanketed
this remote mountain village for generations are
gone. In their place rise neat rows of young
rubber trees - their sap destined for China.

All 60 families in this dirt-poor, mud-caked
village of gaunt men and hunched women are now
growing rubber, like thousands of others across
the rugged mountains of northern Laos. They hope
in coming years to reap huge profits from the
tremendous demand for rubber just across the
frontier in China.

As Beijing scrambles to feed its galloping
economy, it has already scoured the world for
mining and logging concessions. Now it is turning
to crops to feed its people and industries.
Chinese enterprises are snapping up vast tracts
of land abroad and forging contract farming deals.

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Farmers face climate challenge in quest for more food
Sun May 4, 2008 4:10am EDT  By David Fogarty

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - If farmers think they have a tough time producing enough rice, wheat and other grain crops, global warming is going to present a whole new world of challenges in the race to produce more food, scientists say.

In a warmer world beset by greater extremes of droughts and floods, farmers will have to change crop management practices, grow tougher plant varieties and be prepared for constant change in the way they operate, scientists say.

“There certainly are going to be lots of challenges in the future. Temperature is one of them, water is another,” said Lisa Ainsworth, a molecular biologist with the United States Department of Agriculture.

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-Over 350 dead as cyclone pounds Myanmar
Sun May 4, 2008 4:00pm EDT 
Cyclone devastates Myanmar

Myanmar damage will take days to assess: U.N.
3:48am EDT By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - A cyclone killed more than 350 people in military-ruled Myanmar, ripping through Yangon and the Irrawaddy delta where it flattened at least two towns, officials and state media said on Sunday.

The death toll is likely to climb as the authorities manage to contact outlying islands and villages that felt the full force of Cyclone Nagris, a Category 3 storm packing winds of 120 miles per hour when it hit early on Saturday.

State television, which was still off air in Yangon more than 36 hours after Nagris slammed into the city of 5 million, reported 20,000 homes destroyed on one island alone, a government official in the remote capital, Naypyidaw, said.

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Small ethanol plants key to efficiency: Canada
Fri May 2, 2008 5:48pm EDT By Randall Palmer

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Building more and smaller ethanol plants could help overcome concerns that production of the biofuel consumes more in energy than it provides, Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said on Friday.

One of the reasons so much energy is used to make ethanol is that trucks travel long distances carrying corn, chaff or other plant material to ethanol plants.

“Smaller and locally owned I think are the right way to go,” Ritz said as he kicked off debate in the House of Commons on the final stage of a bill that would ensure that gasoline contains 5 percent ethanol by 2010.

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UN urges biofuel investment halt 
 
Palm oil is one of the biofuel crops stirring controversy.

The UN’s new top adviser on food has urged a freeze on biofuel investment, saying the blind pursuit of the policy is “irresponsible”.

Olivier de Schutter also wants curbs on investors whose speculation is, he says, driving food prices higher.

UN officials liken the rise in food prices to a silent tsunami, threatening 100 million of the world’s poorest.

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Climate change warms Arctic, cools Antarctica
Fri May 2, 2008 5:07pm EDT  By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Arctic and Antarctica are poles apart when it comes to the effects of human-fueled climate change, scientists said on Friday: in the north, it is melting sea ice, but in the south, it powers winds that chill things down.

The North and South poles are both subject to solar radiation and rising levels of climate-warming greenhouse gases, the researchers said in a telephone briefing. But Antarctica is also affected by an ozone hole hovering high above it during the austral summer.

“All the evidence points toward human-made effects playing a major role in the changes that we see at both poles and evidence that contradicts this is very hard to find,” said Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

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Rain and snow spell relief for Great Lakes
Fri May 2, 2008 1:26pm EDT  By Jonathan Spice

TORONTO (Reuters) - Twice as much autumn rain and early winter ice helped Lake Superior, the biggest of North America’s Great Lakes, bounce back from record low water levels reached last year.

The deep, cold lake on the Canada-U.S. border — the largest freshwater body of water in the world by surface area — rose about 31 cm (1 foot) in seven months, with half of that in April alone as the spring thaw melted heavy winter snowfall that arrived late in the season.

The turnaround in the uppermost of the Great Lakes could literally trickle down to its four lower cousins, spelling relief for shippers who use the major waterway and residents concerned over shallow channels and receding shorelines.

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‘Big Dry’ hits Australian farmers 
By Nick Bryant
BBC News, Sydney 

The drought has forced 10% of farmers off the land in just five years

More than 10,000 Australian farming families have had to leave their land as a result of the country’s ongoing drought, new figures reveal. There has been a 10% drop in the number of farmers in the past five years, the figures released by the Australia Bureau of Statistics revealed.

Australia is presently in the grip of the what’s known locally as the “Big Dry” - the worst drought in a century. The figures reveal its impact on the nation’s farming communities. They show that the number of farmers in Australia has dropped by a third in just 20 years.

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Arctic sea ice forecast: another record low in 2008
Arctic ice seen melting faster than anticipated
Thu May 1, 2008 1:43am EDT
24 Apr 2008
 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Arctic sea ice, sometimes billed as Earth’s air conditioner for its moderating effects on world climate, will probably shrink to a record low level this year, scientists predicted on Wednesday.

In releasing the forecast, climate researcher Sheldon Drobot of the University of Colorado at Boulder called the changes in Arctic sea ice “one of the more compelling and obvious signs of climate change.”

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Published on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
Bush Has 16 Days To Decide Whether Polar Bears Are Endangered
by Elana Schor

The Bush administration has 16 days to decide whether polar bears are now an endangered species because of climate change, a California judge ruled today.

The US court handed a victory to three environmental groups that sued to protect polar bears threatened by melting sea ice, rejecting a plea by the government to postpone its decision until June 30.

An agency of the US interior department was supposed to have ruled by January 9 on whether to designate the polar bear an endangered species. But the agency failed to act, angering green activists who attributed the delay to the Bush administration’s sale of oil and gas drilling leases near polar bear habitats in Alaska.

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Published on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Climate Change Could Force 1 Billion From Their Homes by 2050
by Nigel Morris

As many as one billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming, scientists and political leaders will be warned today.

They will hear that the steady rise in temperatures across the planet could trigger mass migration on unprecedented levels.

Hundreds of millions could be forced to go on the move because of water shortages and crop failures in most of Africa, as well as in central and southern Asia and South America, the conference in London will be told. There could also be an effect on levels of starvation and on food prices as agriculture struggles to cope with growing demand in increasingly arid conditions.

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Next decade ‘may see no warming’ 
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website 
 
La Nina conditions have brought unseasonably cold weather to Europe

The Earth’s temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted.

A new computer model developed by German researchers, reported in the journal Nature, suggests the cooling will counter greenhouse warming.

However, temperatures will again be rising quickly by about 2020, they say.

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——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Salon: “Poison ice” and global warming
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:17:57 -0700
From: Fred Heutte <phred@SUNLIGHTDATA.COM>
Reply-To: Fred Heutte <phred@SUNLIGHTDATA.COM>
To: OREGON-LEADERS@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG

My friend Elizabeth Grossman, a very talented and wide-ranging
writer (her books include “High Tech Trash,” about e-waste;
“The Undamming of America” and a Sierra Club Travel Guide,
“Adventuring Along the Lewis & Clark Trail”) has now turned her
attention to the Arctic and has a good piece below published
by Salon today . . .

This is the result of research she’s doing for a book on
bioaccumulative chemicals generally but the Arctic plays a big
role in it.
fh

——————————–

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/30/arctic_pollutants/

Poison ice

By Elizabeth Grossman

April 30, 2008 | ARCTIC OCEAN — Over 300 miles north of the Arctic
Circle, in the polar dark of a December morning, University of
Manitoba Ph.D. student Jesse Carrie is out on the frozen Beaufort
Sea, collecting ice samples to measure for mercury and pesticides.
Lowered by crane from the deck of the icebreaking research vessel
the CCGS Amundsen, and accompanied by a rifle bearer who keeps
watch for polar bears, Carrie extracts ice cores and vials of
frigid water. Carrie is part of a $40 million International Polar
Year scientific expedition, the first ever to spend the winter
moving through sea ice north of the Arctic Circle. The expedition’s
labor-intensive work is essential to understanding the impacts of
global warming.

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EXCHANGE MORNING POST : Business, Economics, Education, Entrepreneurs,
Environment, Science and Technology

April 29, 2008
http://www.exchangemagazine.com/morningpost/2008/week18/Tuesday/042809.html

Asia’s Rainforests Vanishing As Timber, Food Demand Surge: Experts.

“Asia’s rainforests are being rapidly destroyed,
a trend accelerated by surging timber demand in
booming China and India, and record food, energy
and commodity prices, forest experts warn.

The loss of these biodiversity hot spots, much of
it driven by the illegal timber trade and the
growth of oil palm, biofuel and rubber
plantations, is worsening global warming, species
loss and poverty, they said…at the Asia-Pacific
Forestry Week conference in Hanoi. …

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 28, 2008
1:10 PM

 CONTACT: Center for Biological Diversity
Rob Mrowka, Center for Biological Diversity, (702) 249-5821
 
 
Federal Proposal to Open 1.7 Million Acres of Nevada Public Land to Oil and Gas Development Would Worsen Global Climate Change and Imperil Species
 
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - April 28 - Today the Center for Biological Diversity submitted comments urging the federal Bureau of Land Management to scrap its proposal to open 1.7 million acres of public lands in Lander and Nye counties to oil and gas development because the drilling would exacerbate global climate change and further threaten imperiled species.

At the heart of the Center’s complaint is the Bureau’s failure to analyze or even acknowledge the environmental impacts from the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the development and consumption of oil and gas produced from the area, despite the National Environmental Policy Act’s mandate to fully disclose the environmental impacts from federal actions.

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Warming shifts gardeners’ maps
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

Every gardener is familiar with the multicolor U.S. map of climate zones
on the back of seed packets. It’s the Department of Agriculture’s
indicator of whether a flower, bush or tree will survive the winters in
a given region.

It’s also 18 years old. A growing number of meteorologists and
horticulturists say that because of the warming climate, the 1990 map
doesn’t reflect a trend that home gardeners have noticed for more than a
decade: a gradual shift northward of growing zones for many plants.

The map doesn’t show, for example, that the Southern magnolia, once
limited largely to growing zones ranging from Florida to Virginia, now
can thrive as far north as Pennsylvania. Or that kiwis, long hardy only
as far north as Oklahoma, now might give fruit in St. Louis.

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Climate ‘fix’ could deplete ozone
By Helen Briggs  Science reporter, BBC News

Research has cast new doubt on the wisdom of using
Sun-blocking sulphate particles to cool the planet.

Sulphate injections are one of several
“geo-engineering” solutions to climate change being
discussed by scientists.

But data published in Science journal suggests the
strategy would lead to drastic thinning of the ozone
layer.

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Plans to control access to Amazon 
By Gary Duffy
BBC News, Sao Paulo 

The Brazilian government is wary of bio-piracy

Brazil’s Congress is to be asked to consider a law which could require foreign visitors and workers in the Amazon region to have a permit.

The legislation is designed to prevent outside interference and illegal use of the rainforest’s resources.

Those in the region without a permit would be fined up to $60,000 (£30,000).

But some scientists have warned that if passed the measure could have a negative impact on research, and would force experts to look elsewhere.

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Brazil “soy king” sees Amazon as food solution
Fri Apr 25, 2008 1:45pm EDT 

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - More of the Amazon rain forest should be cut down to make way for farmland to help ease the global food crisis, the governor of a big Brazilian farming state was quoted on Friday as saying.

Blairo Maggi, the governor of Mato Grosso state and Brazil’s largest soy producer, was quoted in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper as defending deforestation.

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More 08 Caribbean hurricanes than avg: AccuWeather
Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:01am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AccuWeather.com on Friday predicted the 2008 hurricane season in the Caribbean would be slightly above average, with an increased chance that storms would make landfall in North America.

A waning La Nina condition in the Pacific Ocean and a warm water cycle in the Atlantic ocean are the two main factors cited by the private weather forecasting service.

“The warming is not uniform across the entire Atlantic. In some areas where hurricanes normally