News pertaining to any of the
Seven
Scenarios, PostApoc Trends, and Glints of Recovery are provided by
our newsgathering staff.
Click on an icon for recent news on a specific Scenario.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-06 12:12:44 Fri, Mar 6, 2009: from Bloomberg News India Failing to Control Open Defecation Blunts Nation’s Growth Until May 2007, Meera Devi rose before dawn each day and walked a half mile to a vegetable patch outside the village of Kachpura to find a secluded place.
Dodging leering men and stick-wielding farmers and avoiding spots that her neighbors had soiled, the mother of three pulled up her sari and defecated with the Taj Mahal in plain view.
With that act, she added to the estimated 100,000 tons of human excrement that Indians leave each day in fields of potatoes, carrots and spinach, on banks that line rivers used for drinking and bathing and along roads jammed with scooters, trucks and pedestrians.... In the shadow of its new suburbs, torrid growth and 300- million-plus-strong middle class, India is struggling with a sanitation emergency. From the stream in Devi’s village to the nation’s holiest river, the Ganges, 75 percent of the country’s surface water is contaminated by human and agricultural waste and industrial effluent. Everyone in Indian cities is at risk of consuming human feces, if they’re not already, the Ministry of Urban Development concluded in September.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-06 12:05:43 Fri, Mar 6, 2009: from BBC 'No proof' of bee killer theory Scientists say there is no proof that a mysterious disease blamed for the deaths of billions of bees actually exists.
For five years, increasing numbers of unexplained bee deaths have been reported worldwide, with US commercial beekeepers suffering the most.
The term Colony Collapse Disorder was coined to describe the illness.
But many experts now believe that the term is misleading and there is no single, new ailment killing the bees.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-06 12:01:57 Fri, Mar 6, 2009: from London Independent Revenge of the rainforest It covers an area 25 times bigger than Britain, is home to a bewildering concentration of flora and fauna and is often described as the "lungs of the world" for its ability to absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide through its immense photosynthetic network of trees and leaves. The Amazon rainforest is one of the biggest and most important living stores of carbon on the planet through its ability to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into solid carbon, kept locked in the trunks of rainforest trees for centuries.
But this massive natural "sink" for carbon cannot be relied on to continue absorbing carbon dioxide in perpetuity, a study shows. Researchers have found that, for a period in 2005, the Amazon rainforest actually slipped into reverse gear and started to emit more carbon than it absorbed.
Four years ago, a sudden and intense drought in the Amazonian dry season created the sort of conditions that give climate scientists nightmares. Instead of being a net absorber of about two billion tons of carbon dioxide, the forest became a net producer of the greenhouse gas, to the tune of about three billion tons.
The additional quantity of carbon dioxide left in the atmosphere after the drought - some five billion tons - exceeded the annual man-made emissions of Europe and Japan combined. What happened in the dry season of 2005 was a stark reminder of how quickly the factors affecting global warming can change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-06 11:44:58 Fri, Mar 6, 2009: from USA Today Obama veers from Bush's environmental course Even before George W. Bush can settle into his new house in Dallas, his legacy on the environment is being dismantled by his replacement in the White House. In less than two months, President Obama has put on hold Bush's plans for power-plant pollution, offshore oil drilling, nuclear waste storage and endangered species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-05 19:48:25 Fri, Mar 6, 2009: from Port Elizabeth Herald Starvation a likely outcome of climate change in Africa The global community is failing to meet the threat of climate change, says the chairman of the international body researching and tracking the climate change phenomena, Dr Rajendra Pachauri.
Addressing the National Climate Change Summit here on a video clip, Pachauri, of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said things had gone backwards since the first global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 16 years ago.
"Despite that commitment, between 1970 and 2004 emissions rose 70 per cent, and carbon dioxide alone rose 80 percent." ... Focusing on Africa, Pachauri said the prediction for some countries was that, as early as 2020, agricultural yield would drop by up to 50 percent.
"In most cases, these are countries where people are already suffering from malnutrition, so this will exacerbate that suffering."
Also by 2020, largely as a result of climate change, it is expected that between 75 million and 250 million people across the continent will be suffering from "water stress" -- a shortage of drinkable water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-05 19:14:48 Thu, Mar 5, 2009: from New York Times Grass-Roots Uprising Against River Dam Challenges Tokyo First, the farmers objected to an ambitious dam project proposed by the government, saying they did not need irrigation water from the reservoir. Then the commercial fishermen complained that fish would disappear if the Kawabe River's twisting torrents were blocked. Environmentalists worried about losing the river's scenic gorges. Soon, half of this city's 34,000 residents had signed a petition opposing the $3.6 billion project. In September, this rare grassroots uprising scored an even rarer victory when the governor of Kumamoto prefecture, a mountainous area of southern Japan, formally asked Tokyo to suspend construction. The Construction Ministry agreed, temporarily halting an undertaking that had already relocated a half-dozen small villages, though work on the dam itself had not started.
The suspension grabbed national headlines as one of the first times a local governor had succeeded in blocking a megaproject being built by the central government.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-05 19:17:43 Thu, Mar 5, 2009: from Reuters Arctic summer ice could vanish by 2013: expert The Arctic is warming up so quickly that the region's sea ice cover in summer could vanish as early as 2013, decades earlier than some had predicted, a leading polar expert said on Thursday.
Warwick Vincent, director of the Center for Northern Studies at Laval University in Quebec, said recent data on the ice cover "appear to be tracking the most pessimistic of the models", which call for an ice free summer in 2013.
The year "2013 is starting to look as though it is a lot more reasonable as a prediction. But each year we've been wrong -- each year we're finding that it's a little bit faster than expected," he told Reuters.
The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world and the sea ice cover shrank to a record low in 2007 before growing slightly in 2008.
In 2004 a major international panel forecast the cover could vanish by 2100. Last December, some experts said the summer ice could go in the next 10 or 20 years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-05 11:23:49 Thu, Mar 5, 2009: from LA Weekly San Fernando Valley's Galaxy of Chemical Goo West Hills resident Bonnie Klea is vivacious and no-nonsense. She won a battle over a rare bladder cancer diagnosed in 1995, and has long suspected the toxins that taint a big piece of land near her home -- land on which, if Los Angeles planners get their way, more building will soon be allowed.
"I had surgery and was in the hospital nine times in nine months," Klea says. Of the cancer itself, Klea says, "It’s in the neighborhood. On my little street alone, I have two neighbors who have had bladder cancer." Sixteen cancers have afflicted residents in 15 homes on Klea’s block. A 1990 state health department survey of cancer records showed elevated levels of bladder cancer in west San Fernando Valley census tracts, including tract 1132, where Klea lives. Klea is in a fight that she began 14 years ago, battling Los Angeles city planners and state Department of Toxic Substances Control bureaucrats over a proposed development at "Corporate Pointe at West Hills" in Canoga Park, where a well-known West Valley landmark, the former DeVry University, stands.
The expanse of land is riddled with heavy metal, chemical and radiological contamination.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-05 11:13:37 Thu, Mar 5, 2009: from Charleston Gazette C8 might damage sperm, study says CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Men with higher levels of C8 and similar chemicals in their blood have lower sperm counts and fewer normal sperm, according to a new scientific study published this week.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, is believed to be the first to link exposure to perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs, to problems with human semen quality.
Authors of the study say the findings might "contribute to the otherwise unexplained low semen quality often seen in young men," but added that more research is needed.
The study also adds to the growing body of science about the potential dangers of exposure to C8, which also is known as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. In January, another study found that women with higher levels of these chemicals in their blood took longer to become pregnant than women with lower levels.
Scientists in Demark produced the study, based on blood and semen samples from more than 100 men examined in 2003. The data was collected as part of a program through which such samples are provided when men report for Denmark's military draft.
They found that men with high combined levels of PFOA and a related chemical, PFOS, had a median of 6.2 million normal sperm in their ejaculate, compared to 15.5 million normal sperm among men with lower levels of the chemicals.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-04 16:54:12 Wed, Mar 4, 2009: from Wall Street Journal U.S. Climate Official Urges Congress To Curb Greenhouse-Gas Emissions The top U.S. negotiator of international climate-change agreements urged Congress to pass legislation curbing greenhouse-gas emissions in advance of an international summit this December, saying it would give other countries "a powerful signal" to cut their own emissions.
"It's been a long time now that countries have been looking to the U.S. to lead," Todd Stern, President Barack Obama's special envoy for climate change, said in response to questions from audience members after a speech at a conference on global warming. Mr. Stern acknowledged that passage of climate-change legislation before December would be "an extremely tall order," but added that "nothing would give a more powerful signal to other countries than to see a significant, major, mandatory plan" from the U.S. before the start of international talks that are intended to forge a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which committed many industrialized nations to cutting their emissions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-04 16:40:10 Wed, Mar 4, 2009: from Environmental Health News Migrating vultures succumb to lead An increasingly rare species of vulture that migrates from Mongolia to overwintering grounds in South Korea can pick up enough lead along the way to poison and kill them.
Lead poisoning may be the reason a globally threatened species of vulture is frequently found dead in the wild. The vulture is native to Europe and Asia. One large population overwinters in South Korea near the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Researchers examined 20 dead birds found in the area. They analyzed the animals' kidneys, liver and bones for lead and other metals.
They found very high levels of lead in these birds. Fourteen individuals had potentially toxic levels in their liver and kidneys.... The results also highlight that wildlife can transport toxic chemicals to new locations where it can then enter different food webs.
The authors suggest that the birds may pick up the poisonous lead during their migration by feeding on other animals that are contaminated with the heavy metal. The lead might come from ammunition used for hunting.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-04 16:32:48 Wed, Mar 4, 2009: from The Denver Post The cold truth about ozone Ozone pollution -- considered a summer problem -- is being detected across the West this winter, raising questions about the program to monitor and cut the pollutant.
First detected in February 2005 near the oil and gas fields of Pinedale, Wyo., elevated winter ozone is now being found in New Mexico and Utah, according to state data, and could eventually be found in Colorado.
"Now that we know to look for it, I think we'll find high levels of winter ozone across the West and the world," said Russell Schnell, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist.
Schnell's Earth Systems Research Laboratory in Boulder is probing how ozone -- corrosive gas linked to respiratory problems -- is created in winter.
"It is a sign of the rapidly industrializing West," said Vickie Patton, air programs manager for the Environmental Defense Fund. "We are seeing a hallmark Western resource-- healthy, clean air -- vanish."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-04 15:56:45 Wed, Mar 4, 2009: from New Scientist Inbreeding sabotages rare species' sperm It's a triple whammy for male animals on the brink of extinction: not only are there fewer mates around to have sex with, but, to make things worse, their sperm are more likely to carry genetic abnormalities and less likely to be good swimmers, research shows.... The team found that, on average, 48 percent of the sperm of endangered species was abnormal, compared with 30 percent in non-endangered species. In addition, the percentage of the sperm that was motile -- or capable of movement -- was around 10 percent lower in endangered species. Earlier research has shown that both characteristics make a male less likely to produce viable offspring.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-04 15:46:53 Wed, Mar 4, 2009: from New Energy Finance, via EurekAlert Clean energy investment not on track to avoid climate change The world economic crisis has hit investment in clean energy and means its growth is no longer on track for the world to avert the worst impact of climate change, according to leading clean energy and carbon market analysts, New Energy Finance.... Investment in clean energy -- renewables, energy efficiency and carbon capture and storage -- increased from $34bn in 2004 to around $150bn in each of 2007 and 2008. New Energy Finance's latest Global Futures report demonstrates that investment needs to reach $500bn per annum by 2020 if CO2 emissions from the world's energy system are to peak before 2020.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-03 14:48:44 Tue, Mar 3, 2009: from National Geographic News Glacier(less) National Park in 2020 It's an oft-repeated statistic that the glaciers at Montana's Glacier National Park will disappear by the year 2030.
But Daniel Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist who works at Glacier, says the park's namesakes will be gone about ten years ahead of schedule, endangering the region's plants and animals.... The 2020 estimate is based on aerial surveys and photography Fagre and his team have been conducting at Glacier since the early 1980s.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-03 13:13:07 Tue, Mar 3, 2009: from BusinessGreen Research warns two degree rise will halve rainforest 'carbon sink' The impact of global warming on tropical rainforests will be so severe that even increases in temperature that are widely regarded as "safe" could raise tree mortality rates to such a level that almost 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.
That is the sobering warning contained in new research from a team of Australian scientists, which suggests that even a two degree increase in average global temperatures will see the "carbon sink" effect currently provided by the world's rainforests cut in half.... The researchers calculated that for each degree Celsius global temperatures rise, the rainforests will shrink at such a rate that 24.5 billion tons of carbon is released to the atmosphere. In comparison, man-made emissions of greenhouse gases in 2007 reached a peak of 10 billion tons CO2 equivalent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-03 12:55:01 Tue, Mar 3, 2009: from KSU, via EurekAlert Birds in Flint Hills of Kansas, Oklahoma face population decline despite large habitat "Because of its size, the Flint Hills is assumed to be a population stronghold for grassland birds," said Kimberly With, a K-State associate professor of biology who led the study. "Mostly this has been based on bird counts, but they can be misleading because they don't show what the region is capable of producing. Birds are very mobile and thus birds could come from elsewhere to give the appearance of a stable population year after year. This is especially true if the region attracts birds because of its size, but birds do not breed successfully once they settle here."... They conducted a two-year study of regional viability of three grassland birds: the dickcissel, grasshopper sparrow and eastern meadowlark. With and her colleagues found that none of these bird species is viable in the 4 million-acre Flint Hills region. They estimated population declines of as much as 29 percent per year during the years studied.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-03 12:49:44 Tue, Mar 3, 2009: from Chicago Tribune Going green: Entire Swedish city switches to biofuels to become environmentally friendly KALMAR, Sweden -- Though a fraction of Chicago's size, this industrial city in southeast Sweden has plenty of similarities with it, including a long, snowy winter and a football team the town's crazy about.
One thing is dramatically different about Kalmar, however: It is on the verge of eliminating the use of fossil fuels, for good, and with minimal effect on its standard of living.
The city of 60,000—and its surrounding 12-town region, with a quarter-million people—has traded in most of its oil, gas and electric furnaces for community "district heat," produced at plants that burn sawdust and wood waste left by timber companies. Hydropower, nuclear power and windmills now provide more than 90 percent of the region's electricity.... Just as important, the switch from oil and gas is helping slash fuel bills and preserve jobs in a worldwide economic downturn. And despite dramatic drops in fossil fuel consumption, residents say nobody has been forced to give up the car or huddle around the dining table wearing three sweaters to stay warm.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-03 12:32:03 Tue, Mar 3, 2009: from Minneapolis Star Tribune More lake fish contain former 3M chemical A former 3M chemical has been found in fish taken from more metro area lakes, including Cedar, Calhoun and Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis.
The compound, known as PFOS, was measured at levels of concern in 13 of 22 lakes, mostly in bluegills, black crappies and largemouth bass.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) released the data Monday from fish tested in 2008, the agency's third year of checking fish.
Pat McCann, research scientist for the Minnesota Department of Health, said that the data are being reviewed and that the department may issue advice about eating fish less often from some of the lakes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-03 12:24:45 Tue, Mar 3, 2009: from Associated Press Study: Combining pesticides makes them more deadly for fish Common agricultural pesticides that attack the nervous systems of salmon can turn more deadly when they combine with other pesticides, researchers have found.
Scientists from the NOAA Fisheries Service and Washington State University were expecting that the harmful effects would add up as they accumulated in the water. They were surprised to find a deadly synergy occurred with some combinations, which made the mix more harmful and at lower levels of exposure than the sum of the parts.
The study looked at five common pesticides: diazinon, malathion, chlorpyrifos, carbaryl and carbofuran, all of which suppress an enzyme necessary for nerves to function properly.
The findings suggest that the current practice of testing pesticides - one at a time to see how much is needed to kill a fish - fails to show the true risks, especially for fish protected by the Endangered Species Act, the authors concluded in the study published Monday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-03 10:40:39 Tue, Mar 3, 2009: from London Daily Star 10,000 Could Die in Summer Heatwave The Government is said to be "very concerned" that as many as 10,000 lives will be lost as temperatures soar to 40C across the country.
Sun stroke, dehydration, air pollution and wildfires all contribute to a rise in deaths during sizzling summers.
The highest temperature measured in the UK was 38.5C, recorded in Kent on August 10, 2003. And it could become a regular occurrence in the near future.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-02 16:58:55 Mon, Mar 2, 2009: from Baltimore Sun Indoor air can be risk for kids with asthma Parents have long known that the polluted, pollinated air outdoors can bring on asthma attacks in their children. Now it turns out that many asthmatic inner-city kids are under assault inside their homes - where cigarette smoke, dust mites, mold and even cooking smells can make them sicker than car exhaust or ragweed.
Researchers are finding a direct link between the air children breathe at home and the asthma attacks that are the source of hundreds of thousands of emergency room visits in the U.S. every year. The latest study, published last month by Johns Hopkins researchers, quantified the increase in asthma symptoms for every increase in air pollution particles inside Baltimore homes.
Such findings have begun a movement of health professionals who are going door to door to educate families about the potential dangers of indoor air and helping them clean up their homes. Their goal is to reduce childhood asthma by 50 percent by 2012.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-03 10:41:25 Mon, Mar 2, 2009: from Agence France-Presse 19 dead in Bolivia dengue outbreak, 31,000 affected In Bolivia's worst national outbreak in a decade, 19 people have died from dengue fever since January and 31,000 people have been affected, official estimates showed Thursday.
Twelve people died from the disease in the tropical eastern region of Santa Cruz, three others died in central Bolivia, two others in the Andean west and one in the capital city of La Paz, according to an official toll cited by ATB television.
A Bolivian national died on arriving in neighboring Peru, and Health Minister Ramiro Tapia said that one additional death brought the overall death toll to 19.
A total of 30,870 dengue cases have been counted, 71 percent of them in Santa Cruz, -- the region most affected by the outbreak, where authorities have declared a health emergency, Beni, Pando and Cochabamba departments. More than 15,000 troops have been mobilized to assist health teams.
Transmitted by the Aedes aegypti, or yellow fever mosquito, dengue is the most widespread tropical disease after malaria. The highly infectious disease causes high fever, headaches and joint pain.
Its deadly hemorrhagic variant is much more dangerous than the classic type because it causes violent internal bleeding and swift fluid loss, which can lead to a quick, painful death if not treated in time.
Tapia said that 88 confirmed dengue cases were from the hemorrhagic variant.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-02 15:27:05 Mon, Mar 2, 2009: from CNN Can a 'smart grid' turn us on to energy efficiency? ... According to research sponsored by the U.S. Government, improving the efficiency of the national electricity grid by 5 percent would be the equivalent of eliminating the fuel use and carbon emissions of 53 million cars.
For years environmentalists have been talking up the idea of a "smart grid" -- an electricity distribution system that uses digital technology to eliminate waste and improve reliability -- as a way of achieving this.
Advocates of a "smart grid" also say that it would open up new markets for large and small scale alternative energy producers by decentralizing generation.
"It would give consumers the potential to have a much more complex relationship with their energy supplier," says John Loughhead, Executive Director of the United Kingdom Energy Research Center.
"Essentially, with a smart grid, traffic goes both ways. If you wanted to install some kind of micro-generation facility in your home, you could use it to sell to the grid and get money back."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-02 19:08:42 Mon, Mar 2, 2009: from Guardian (UK) China plans 59 reservoirs to collect meltwater from its shrinking glaciers China is planning to build 59 reservoirs to collect water from its shrinking glaciers as the cost of climate change hits home in the world's most populous country.
The far western province of Xinjiang, home to many of the planet's highest peaks and widest ice fields, will carry out the 10-year engineering project, which aims to catch and store glacier run-off that might otherwise trickle away into the desert.
Behind the measure is a concern that millions of people in the region will run out of water once the glaciers in the Tian, Kunlun and Altai mountains disappear.
Anxiety has risen along with temperatures that are rapidly diminishing the ice fields. The 3,800-metre Urumqi No1 glacier, the first to be measured in China, has lost more than 20 percent of its volume since 1962, according to the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (Careeri) in Lanzhou.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-02 18:59:32 Mon, Mar 2, 2009: from Mongabay Time to give up on Tasmanian tiger, says DNA expert The Tasmanian tiger, or Thylacine, has captured the imagination of cryptozoologists ever since the last known individual died in the 1936 in the Hobart Zoo, which closed the next year.... Austin's lab has examined numerous dropping believed to be from the Tasmanian tiger only to find that most belong to the Tasmanian devil. This continued lack of success for Austin means there is little to no hope of discovering a living Tasmanian tiger.... According to a Tasmanian newspaper, The Mercury, Austin is also doubtful of efforts to clone a Tasmanian tiger. He believes that DNA fragments of the animal are too broken to create a complete genome, and even if a Tasmanian tiger could be cloned, it would only provide the world with a single individual which couldn't reproduce. The millions of dollars it would take to clone a Tasmanian tiger would be better spent on conservation efforts for the hundreds of threatened species including several in Tasmania, according to Austin.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-03 13:04:11 Mon, Mar 2, 2009: from The Canadian Press Large fish going hungry as supplies of smaller species dwindle: report HALIFAX, N.S. -- Dolphins, sharks and other large marine species around the world are going hungry as they seek out dwindling supplies of the small, overlooked species they feed on, according to a new study that says overfishing is draining their food sources.
In a report released Monday, scientists with the international conservation group Oceana said they found several species were emaciated, reproducing slowly and declining in numbers in part because their food sources are being fished out.
"This is the first time that we're seeing a worldwide trend that more and more large animals are going hungry," Margot Stiles, a marine biologist at Oceana and the author of the report, said from Washington, D.C.
"It's definitely starting to be a pattern."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-01 20:20:55 Sun, Mar 1, 2009: from PressTV (Iran) Persian Gulf faces possible environmental crisis The Persian Gulf has been polluted by more than 5,000 cubic meters of toxic industrial waste including heavy metals.
The waste material from Mobin Petrochemical Company, located in Assaluyeh in southern Iran, has been discharged into the Persian Gulf without being treated, Iran's Environmental News Agency reported.
The news report added that the petrochemical company's waste materials are toxic and replete with hazardous industrial materials.... According to the latest studies, the level of the pollution in The Persian Gulf as a semi-closed sea is 47 times more than the open seas and the water in eastern coast of the area contains more pollutants.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-01 20:19:47 Sun, Mar 1, 2009: from Tribune Democrat (PA) Pollution pinches Chesapeake crabs The blue crab population is at an all-time low, and two factors are to blame: Pollution and overfishing. There are six sub-basins of the 444-mile Susquehanna that feed the bay.
Acid-mine drainage is blamed for pollution from this region, while farm runoff is the main culprit to the east.
There is less crab food, less crab habitat and too much catching of fish the crabs feed on.
In 2007, watermen suffered the worst crab harvest since Chesapeake Bay recordkeeping began in 1945. Last year was even worse in Virginia, and only slightly better in Maryland, causing more than $640 million in losses, reports show.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-01 20:18:45 Sun, Mar 1, 2009: from Guardian (UK) American taste for soft toilet paper 'worse than driving Hummers' The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.
"This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council.... More than 98 percent of the toilet roll sold in America comes from virgin forests, said Hershkowitz. In Europe and Latin America, up to 40 percent of toilet paper comes from recycled products. Greenpeace this week launched a cut-out-and-keep ecological ranking of toilet paper products.... Those brands, which put quilting and pockets of air between several layers of paper, are especially damaging to the environment.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-01 12:24:15 Sun, Mar 1, 2009: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel States' patchwork ballast rules has a few holes A battle to force overseas ships to stop dumping biological pollution in the Great Lakes is taking shape in the harbors of Wisconsin.
The state Department of Natural Resources recently released a proposed set of ballast water discharge rules for oceangoing vessels that is far stricter than anything that has been adopted by any other Great Lakes state except New York.
Ballast water is used to steady less-than-full cargo ships and is a problem for the Great Lakes because oceangoing vessels traveling from distant countries can arrive with tanks teeming with unwanted organisms. Those foreign species can wreak havoc on the environment when the ballast is flushed as cargo is loaded.
Congress has been talking about a uniform national ballast law for the better part of a decade, with little to show for it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-01 12:18:44 Sun, Mar 1, 2009: from Associated Press Part of Lone Star State now driest region in the nation LUBBOCK -- Central Texas cattle raiser Gerry Shudde remembers Texas' drought of record in the 1950s when his family's ranch sometimes got a couple of 4-inch rainfalls a year.
But the drought ongoing now is far different.
"This is just cut off completely," the 74-year-old rancher said. "In a lot of ways, it's worse."
Across the nation's No. 2 agricultural state, drought conditions are evaporating stock tanks, keeping many crop farmers from planting into long-parched soil, forcing cattle producers to cull their herds, and dropping water levels in state lakes.
Despite hurricanes Dolly, Gustav and Ike soaking Texas in 2008, almost every part of the state -- nearly 97 percent -- is experiencing some drought, according to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor map, released Feb. 26.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-01 12:11:02 Sun, Mar 1, 2009: from New York Times Obama's Backing Raises Hopes for Climate Pact Until recently, the idea that the world’s most powerful nations might come together to tackle global warming seemed an environmentalist's pipe dream. The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, was widely viewed as badly flawed. Many countries that signed the accord lagged far behind their targets in curbing carbon dioxide emissions. The United States refused even to ratify it. And the treaty gave a pass to major emitters in the developing world like China and India.
But within weeks of taking office, President Obama has radically shifted the global equation, placing the United States at the forefront of the international climate effort and raising hopes that an effective international accord might be possible. Mr. Obama's chief climate negotiator, Todd Stern, said last week that the United States would be involved in the negotiation of a new treaty -- to be signed in Copenhagen in December -- "in a robust way."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-01 11:31:12 Sun, Mar 1, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk UK Government 'to recommend siestas' to combat heatwaves People in areas hit by extreme heat will be advised to stay indoors during hottest time of the day -- between 11am - 3pm -- swap suits for casual loose-fitting clothes, avoid hot food, drink lots of water and use fans.
The alert was prepared by the Department of Health, in consultation with other agencies including the Met Office.
Met Office scientists have predicted that climate change means heat waves will become more frequent over the next two decades, becoming regular after 2030.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-01 11:15:34 Sun, Mar 1, 2009: from New Scientist Drug-resistant gonorrhoea on the rise In the latest setback, quinolone resistance seems to have spread to Canada. Kaede Ota and her colleagues at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto found that quinolone-resistant infections in Ontario soared from 4 per cent of infections in 2002 to 28 per cent in 2006 (Canadian Medical Association Journal, DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.080222). The team blames the surge on a mixture of unsafe sex and people not completing prescribed courses of antibiotics.
The fear is that strains resistant to all antibiotics will appear. The first cephalosporin-resistant strains appeared in 2008 in Japan.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-03-01 12:50:14 Sat, Feb 28, 2009: from New York Times Why 2007 I.P.C.C. Report Lacked 'Burning Embers' Diagram Several authors of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the projected effects of global warming now say they regret not pushing harder to include an updated diagram of climate risks in the report. The diagram, known as "burning embers," is an updated version of one that was a central feature of the panel's preceding climate report in 2001. The main opposition to including the diagram in 2007, they say, came from officials representing the United States, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. That frustration led them to seek publication of the climate-risk diagram in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In emails and phone interviews over the past week, several of researchers said the diagram was omitted in favor of written descriptions of levels of risk from increments of warming.
Some scientists thought that the diagram's smears of color, reflecting gradients of risk, were too subjective. But Stephen H. Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University who has been involved in writing the I.P.C.C. reports since 1988, said the real opposition came from a bloc of countries that thought the colorful diagram was too incendiary.... "Unfortunately governments of 5 fossil fuel dependent and producing nations opposed it.... No matter how much New Zealand, small islands states, Canada, Germany, Belgium and the UK said this was an essential diagram, China, the U.S., Russia and the Saudis said it was too much of a "judgment".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-28 09:00:59 Sat, Feb 28, 2009: from Mongabay Of China's 45 percent CO2 rise (2002-2005), a third was Western demand Thirteen-and-a-half percent of China's 45 percent rise in greenhouse gas emissions between 2002 and 2005 can be attributed to export production for Western countries, reports a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters. In other words, outsourcing of manufacturing by American and European firms accounted for larger share of carbon dioxide emission growth than rising domestic consumption in China (which made of 7 percent of the figure). The results, which indicate that Western companies are effectively outsourcing emissions along with manufacturing, have implications for future climate treaties, says one of the authors.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-28 12:08:25 Sat, Feb 28, 2009: from New York Times Obama's Greenhouse Gas Gamble In proposing mandatory caps on the greenhouse gases linked to global warming and a system for auctioning permits to companies that emit them, President Obama is taking on a huge political and economic challenge.
Business lobbies and many Republicans raised loud objections to the cap-and-trade program Mr. Obama proposed as part of his budget this week, saying the plan amounted to a gigantic and permanent tax on oil, electricity and manufactured goods, a shock they said the country could not handle during economic distress.... "Let’s just be honest and call it a carbon tax that will increase taxes on all Americans who drive a car, who have a job, who turn on a light switch, pure and simple," said John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader. "And if you look at this whole budget plan, they use this carbon tax as a way to fund all of their big government ideas." ... "It's a coal state stickup," ...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-28 08:25:26 Sat, Feb 28, 2009: from University of Alberta, via ScienceDaily Solar Energy Performance With Plastic Solar Cells Improved With New Method The University of Alberta and the National Research Council's National Institute (NINT) for Nanotechnology have engineered an approach that is leading to improved performance of plastic solar cells (hybrid organic solar cells). The development of inexpensive, mass-produced plastic solar panels is a goal of intense interest for many of the world's scientists and engineers because of the high cost and shortage of the ultra-high purity silicon and other materials normally required.... "[A metaphor might be] a clubhouse sandwich, with many different layers. One layer absorbs the light, another helps to generate the electricity, and others help to draw the electricity out of the device. Normally, the layers don't stick well, and so the electricity ends up stuck and never gets out, leading to inefficient devices. We are working on the mayonnaise, the mustard, the butter and other 'special sauces' that bring the sandwich together, and make each of the layers work together. That makes a better sandwich, and makes a better solar cell, in our case".... After two years of research, these U of A and NINT scientists have, by only working on one part of the sandwich, seen improvements of about 30 per cent in the efficiency of the working model.... The team estimates it will be five to seven years before plastic solar panels will be mass produced but Buriak adds that when it happens solar energy will be available to everyone. She says the next generation of solar technology belongs to plastic.
"Plastic solar cell material will be made cheaply and quickly and in massive quantities by ink jet-like printers."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-28 12:09:47 Sat, Feb 28, 2009: from Purdue University, via EurekAlert Prehistoric global cooling caused by CO2, research finds Ice in Antarctica suddenly appeared-- in geologic terms-- about 35 million years ago. For the previous 100 million years the continent had been essentially ice-free.
The question for science has been, why? What triggered glaciers to form at the South Pole? ... Additional computer modeling of the cooling suggests that the cooling was caused by a reduction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Even after the continent of Antarctica had drifted to near its present location, its climate was subtropical. Then, 35.5 million years ago, ice formed on Antarctica in about 100,000 years, which is an "overnight" shift in geological terms.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-28 08:03:29 Sat, Feb 28, 2009: from BusinessGreen Aquamarine Power touts 'biggest deal in the history of marine energy' Fresh from securing "the biggest deal in the history of marine energy" with Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), wave and tidal power specialist Aquamarine Power is in talks to agree similar supply deals with utilities in Ireland and Portugal.
Earlier this week, the company signed a major alliance with SSE's renewables division Airtricity that could see the developer of tidal and wave energy systems provide the company with up to one gigawatt of marine energy by 2020.
Under the terms of the deal, the two companies will launch a 50:50 joint venture that will work to gain consent for wave and tidal energy sites in the UK and Ireland.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-27 17:33:43 Fri, Feb 27, 2009: from New York Times Way back in 1994: Emissions Must Be Cut to Avert Shift in Climate, Panel Says Sept. 20, 1994: EVEN if worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide were capped at present levels, atmospheric concentrations of the heat-trapping gas would continue to increase for at least two centuries, rising well beyond the point at which the earth's climate would be disrupted, an international panel of scientists has reported.... "If you want to stabilize eventually, you've got to consider what you do now; that's a message that comes clearly through from the figures in our report," said Sir John Houghton, a British atmospheric physicist who is co-chairman of the intergovernmental panel's scientific working group, which issued the new report in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Dr. Houghton said he was speaking for himself, not the group.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-28 09:08:04 Fri, Feb 27, 2009: from Edmonton Journal Athabasca 'mostly untouched': report Biodiversity institute finds only 7 percent of region affected by oilsands projects.... When the institute examined the region north and east of Edmonton, home to most of Alberta's oilsands development, only seven per cent of the 93,000 square kilometres had been altered by human development.... The report found that: 29 of the 52 bird species were below the normal level; 62 of the 97 plant species were below normal. However, most of the species were close enough to their normal levels that when averaged out, the intactness of biodiversity ended up at 94 per cent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-28 09:25:08 Fri, Feb 27, 2009: from Scientific American The Great Garbage Patch In 1997 Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, set sail from Hawaii and discovered, in a remote part of the North Pacific, an island -- made of plastic.
Moore measured about 300,000 tiny pieces of plastic per square kilometer back then, but a decade later there are approximately 2.3 million pieces of plastic per square kilometer. What is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now the size of the United States, according to Moore.... The plastic never degrades, but sunlight and wave friction break it into tiny particles, smaller than five millimeters, that remain suspended in the water. Holly Bamford, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says it's likely that filter feeders like clams or jellyfish are eating the plastic, which may prove dangerous all the way up the food chain. Ongoing studies will try to determine the patch's impact.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-27 11:42:49 Fri, Feb 27, 2009: from New York Times Worst Drought in Half Century Shrivels the Wheat Belt of China a long rainless stretch has underscored the urgency of water problems in a region that grows three-fifths of China’s crops and houses more than two-fifths of its people — but gets only one-fifth as much rain as the rest of the country.... Normally, the new land he was offered lies under more than 20 feet of water, part of the Luhun Reservoir in Henan Province. But this winter, Luhun has lost most of its water. And what was once lake bottom has become just another field of winter wheat, stunted for want of rain. Water supplies have been drying up in Northern China for decades, the result of pervasive overuse and waste. Aquifers have been so depleted that in some farming regions, wells probe a half-mile down before striking water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-27 11:34:57 Fri, Feb 27, 2009: from KSTP (MN) MDH: Rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria alarming Health officials in Minnesota say they are seeing increasing evidence of antibiotic resistance in disease-causing bacteria in the state, prompting a reminder to health care providers and patients about the importance of using antibiotics carefully and appropriately.
A report, released this week, detailed the finding by health officials in Minnesota, North Dakota and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta of an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacterium, Neisseria meningitidis, that causes meningococcal disease....
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-27 10:49:59 Fri, Feb 27, 2009: from Forbes 25 more Oklahoma wells tested in E. coli probe At least 25 more private water wells have been tested near a northeastern Oklahoma town where an E. coli outbreak last summer killed one man and sickened hundreds more, the state's Department of Environmental Quality said.... But earlier this month, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson suggested that it could have been the result of contamination from nearby poultry farms.
He released a report concluding that the well at the Country Cottage "is, and has been, contaminated with poultry waste and associated bacteria, including E. coli." The report also noted 49 poultry houses within a six-mile radius of Locust Grove that have the capacity to produce 10,000 tons of waste a year.The poultry industry has denied these claims, saying the DEQ testing did not identify "any link between bacteria in water wells and poultry."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-26 18:14:08 Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from Nature International Polar Year: In from the Cold ...It might seem that, as so often in the past, science reigns supreme at the planet's poles. But as climate change opens up vast parts of the Arctic to commerce, nations are starting to exert their influence in the region more purposefully, and long-simmering political tensions might soon boil over.... Warming in the Arctic, and the retreat of summertime sea ice, is opening up the region to interests such as mineral exploitation, shipping, fishing and tourism. Some researchers fear that the commercial potential could shift international interactions from mainly scientific collaboration to hard-nosed politics. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace have proposed a 50-year moratorium on all exploitation in the Arctic, but this is unlikely to gain much support.
The shift towards economic and geopolitical competition poses a new threat for vulnerable Arctic environments, which should prompt scientists to speak out...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-27 12:00:31 Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from New York Times In Climate Debate, Exaggeration Is a Pitfall Social scientists who study the interface of climate science and public policy say that campaigners and officials who seek to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases face an uphill battle in changing people's minds about the issue. Even with the success of "An Inconvenient Truth," the Oscar-winning 2006 documentary featuring Mr. Gore, and widely publicized images of melting Arctic ice, surveys show that most Americans are either confused about climate change, mildly concerned about it or completely disengaged from the issue.
A variety of surveys show that roughly 20 percent of Americans are in Mr. Gore's camp and another 20 percent in Mr. Will's, rejecting the idea that humans could dangerously alter global climate. That division is unlikely to change any time soon, said David Ropeik, a consultant on risk communication who teaches at Harvard University.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-26 13:55:05 Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from Mongabay 'Ecstasy Oil' Threatens Cambodian Rainforests Authorities, working with conservationists, have raided and closed several 'ecstasy oil' distilleries in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains. The distilleries posed a threat to the region's rich biological diversity, reports Fauna and Flora International (FFI), the conservation group involved in the operation.
"The factories had been set up to distill 'sassafras oil'; produced by boiling the roots and the trunk of the exceptionally rare Mreah Prew Phnom trees and exported to neighbouring countries," said FFI. "The oil is used in the production of cosmetics, but can also be used as a precursor chemical in the altogether more sinister process of producing MDMA -- more commonly known as ecstasy. The distillation process not only threatens Mreah Prew Phnom trees, but damages the surrounding forest ecosystem. Producing sassafras oil is illegal in Cambodia."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-26 13:44:23 Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from USFS, via EurekAlert Study finds hemlock trees dying rapidly, affecting forest carbon cycle Otto, NC -- New research by U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists and partners suggests the hemlock woolly adelgid is killing hemlock trees faster than expected in the southern Appalachians and rapidly altering the carbon cycle of these forests.... Eastern hemlock, a keystone species in the streamside forests of the southern Appalachian region, is already experiencing widespread decline and mortality because of hemlock woolly adelgid (a tiny nonnative insect) infestation. The pest has the potential to kill most of the region's hemlock trees within the next decade. As a native evergreen capable of maintaining year-round transpiration rates, hemlock plays an important role in the ecology and hydrology of mountain ecosystems.... The authors suggest that infrequent frigid winter temperatures in the southern Appalachians may not be enough to suppress adelgid populations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-26 12:35:03 Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from Charleston Gazette White-nose disease confirmed in Pendleton bats CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Bats in Pendleton County have white-nose syndrome, a condition associated with the death of more than 100,000 hibernating bats in the Northeast, a laboratory has confirmed.... West Virginia caves provide some of the nation's most important hibernation sites for endangered Virginia big-eared bats and Indiana bats, as well as for a variety of more abundant bat species.
A cold-loving fungus not previously scientifically described has been linked to white nose syndrome, which was first observed in bat hibernation sites near Albany, N.Y., in 2006. Since then, the syndrome has spread to caves and abandoned mines in Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and West Virginia, and is suspected to be present in New Hampshire.... "The void in the night skies created by the absence of thousands of bats could affect all West Virginians, because bats prey on a variety of insect pests."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-26 11:54:21 Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from New Scientist How to survive the coming century ALLIGATORS basking off the English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lost cities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90 per cent of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4 degrees C.
Clearly this is a vision of the future that no one wants, but it might happen. Fearing that the best efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions may fail, or that planetary climate feedback mechanisms will accelerate warming, some scientists and economists are considering not only what this world of the future might be like, but how it could sustain a growing human population. They argue that surviving in the kinds of numbers that exist today, or even more, will be possible, but only if we use our uniquely human ingenuity to cooperate as a species to radically reorganise our world.
The good news is that the survival of humankind itself is not at stake: the species could continue if only a couple of hundred individuals remained. But maintaining the current global population of nearly 7 billion, or more, is going to require serious planning.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-25 21:15:01 Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from Edinburgh Scotsman RIP -- rest in (freeze-dried) pieces BODIES could be freeze-dried and shattered into dust to save space and help the environment, under plans being considered by a Scottish local authority.
East Lothian Council thinks the technique, invented in Sweden, could help ease cemetery congestion, while cutting emissions from cremations.
The process would involve freezing the dead body to -18C before submerging it in liquid nitrogen.
This would make the body so brittle it would disintegrate into dust when a vibration was passed through it... The process, known as promession, is considered more environmentally friendly than cremation, largely because it avoids the mercury pollution created by burning fillings in teeth and other metal objects in the body, such as replacement joints or surgical implants.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-25 20:49:20 Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from Los Angeles Times NASA satellite crashes A NASA satellite designed to measure greenhouse gas emissions and pinpoint global warming dangers crashed Tuesday after a protective covering failed to separate from the craft shortly after launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The loss of the $278-million satellite came as a severe blow to NASA's climate monitoring efforts, as well as the builder of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va. "Our whole team, at a very personal level, is disappointed," Orbital Science's John Brunschwyler said at an early-morning briefing just hours after the satellite plunged into the ocean near Antarctica.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-25 20:32:38 Thu, Feb 26, 2009: from The Daily Climate Saving the oceans: 'Mission Possible' ...[oceanographer and coral reef geologist Jeonie] Kleypas is one of the world's experts on the effects of climate change on the world's coral reefs, testifying to Congress and presenting papers around the world. She believes that societies must immediately and drastically reduce worldwide carbon emissions, but is also training her research to see if there are ways "to bolster coral reef health so they can weather the climate crisis."....Like many scientists, she struggles to find ways to impart the importance of biodiversity to humans in ways both poetic and prosaic. Losing a third of the coral species on a reef, she says, "is like losing a third of the colors from a Van Gogh painting." Reaching for a different demographic, she adds, "The loss of biodiversity is like having a football team with only tight ends."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-26 12:46:33 Wed, Feb 25, 2009: from New Scientist Hacking the planet: The only climate solution left... Previously, the idea of tweaking the climate in this way was anathema to most scientists. Apart from the technical challenges and environmental risks, many argued that endorsing the concept might scupper international negotiations for a post-Kyoto protocol to reduce global emissions. But it's becoming clear that moves to cut global carbon emissions are too little and too late for us avoid the worst effects of climate change. "There is a worrying sense that negotiations won't lead anywhere or lead to enough," says Lenton. "We can't change the world that fast," says Peter Liss, who is scientific adviser to the UK parliamentary committee investigating geoengineering. Extraordinary measures may now be the only way of saving vulnerable ecosystems such as Arctic sea ice.... What's more, geoengineering could turn out to be relatively cheap. Early estimates suggest some schemes could cost a few billion dollars, small change compared to the cost of slashing emissions - estimated by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern to be at least 1 per of global GDP per year. In his testimony to the UK politicians last year, John Latham of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, argued that all of the above reasons make it "irresponsible" not to examine geoengineering.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-25 14:08:07 Wed, Feb 25, 2009: from Courier-Mail (Australia) Human activity seen as a threat to marine echinoderms CREATURES are falling victim to human activities, and scientists say it could interfere with the evolutionary process and lead to extinctions.
Known as echinoderms, the species are essential for keeping ecosystems healthy and if their populations either crash or multiply, degraded seascapes may result.... "Each of these 28 cases was experiencing difficulties because of human activity, including over-fishing, nutrient run-off from the land, species introductions and climate change," Dr Uthicke said.
"We suggest that human-induced disturbance, through its influence on changes to echinoderm population densities, may go beyond present ecosystems impacts and alter future evolutionary trends."
In the Caribbean, sea urchins have died off and on the Great Barrier Reef an over-fished sea cucumber area closed six years ago has not recovered.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-25 13:57:05 Wed, Feb 25, 2009: from BusinessGreen First Solar reaches 'dollar per watt milestone' The company said that during the fourth quarter of last year, the manufacturing cost for its solar modules stood at 98 cents per watt, taking it below the $1 per watt mark for the first time.... First Solar said it was confident that plans to more than double its production capacity through 2009 to more than one gigawatt would allow it to reduce costs further to a point where energy from solar panels can undercut that from natural gas and coal.
According to the company, it has already reduced costs from more than $3 a watt in 2004 to less than $1 a watt now and there is every indication that the trend will continue as production capacity increases.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-25 11:25:24 Wed, Feb 25, 2009: from International Council for Science Polar research reveals new evidence of global environmental change The wide-ranging IPY findings result from more than 160 endorsed science projects assembled from researchers in more than 60 countries. Launched in March 2007, the [International Polar Year] covers a two-year period to March 2009 to allow for observations during the alternate seasons in both polar regions.... [R]esearch vessels ... have confirmed above-global-average warming in the Southern Ocean. A freshening of the bottom water near Antarctica is consistent with increased ice melt from Antarctica and could affect ocean circulation. Global warming is thus affecting Antarctica in ways not previously identified.
[International Polar Year] research has also identified large pools of carbon stored as methane in permafrost. Thawing permafrost threatens to destabilize the stored methane -- a greenhouse gas -- and send it into the atmosphere. Indeed, IPY researchers along the Siberian coast observed substantial emissions of methane from ocean sediments.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-25 09:50:46 Wed, Feb 25, 2009: from NASA, via EurekAlert 2008 was Earth's coolest year since 2000 Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City have found that 2008 was the coolest year since 2000. The GISS analysis also showed that 2008 is the ninth warmest year since continuous instrumental records were started in 1880.
The ten warmest years on record have all occurred between 1997 and 2008.
The GISS analysis found that the global average surface air temperature was 0.44 deg C (0.79 deg F) above the global mean for 1951 to 1980, the baseline period for the study. Most of the world was either near normal or warmer in 2008 than the norm. Eurasia, the Arctic, and the Antarctic Peninsula were exceptionally warm (see figures), while much of the Pacific Ocean was cooler than the long-term average.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-24 21:28:35 Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from New Scientist Lizards will roast in a warming world GLOBAL warming is set to make life distinctly uncomfortable for reptiles and other cold-blooded animals. Unable to produce heat, they rely on strategies such as moving from colder to warmer areas to function. Soon that might not be an option for tropical species.
Many species will need to adapt to climate change to survive, so Michael Kearney of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and his team designed a model to get an idea of how cold-blooded species, or ectotherms, would fare. They make up the majority of the world's species.
The researchers first assessed how an ectotherm's body temperature would change with body shape and colour, and surrounding environment. They then used satellite data to model wind speed, shade and air temperature in a warmer world.
For most ectotherms, a body temperature of 30 to 35 degrees C is ideal, with performance declining at higher and lower temperatures. Above 40 degrees C can be lethal.
Kearney's model showed that on a summer's day in the shade, a 3 degrees C rise in average temperature - the mid-range estimate for the end of this century - would send the body temperature of ectotherms in Australia's tropical deserts over 40 degrees C for at least an hour...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-24 18:03:28 Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from AAAS Dwindling Resources of Soil, Water and Air Require 'CDC for Planet Earth' In her plenary address to the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting, Kieffer called for the creation of a "CDC for Planet Earth"--an organization that could respond to planetary threats such climate change with the same kind of coordination the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed during the SARS and bird flu outbreaks of the late 1990s.... Ocean acidification, spreading deserts, dry aquifers and degraded soils are stealth disasters, altering the planet in ways that "will undermine our survival and evolution into the civilized global society that we might become," warned Kieffer.... And for the first time in history, "societies of the whole planet are so interconnected that Planet Earth is essentially one island," where the stealth disasters of one region can become a crisis for the whole globe, she suggested.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-24 17:53:00 Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from SciDev.net China's water deficit 'will create food shortage' A leading climate change expert has warned that water shortage is the greatest threat to China's agricultural sector this century, amid a drought across the country.
As demand for water continues to rise and less is available for agriculture, "China will see a food shortfall of 5-10 per cent -- a disastrous outcome in a country of 1.3 billion people -- unless effective and timely measures are taken," said Lin Erda, one of China's top climate change experts and leader of a joint China-UK project, 'Impacts of Climate Change on Chinese Agriculture'.... When the current episode of drought reached its peak in early February it was affecting 1.6 million hectares of farmland in at least 12 provinces in northern China -- considered the country's breadbasket. Thanks to snow and rainfall last week the affected area has dropped to 497,000 hectares across eight provinces.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-24 16:56:26 Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from McGill University, via EurekAlert Peptides-on-demand: McGill researcher's radical new green chemistry makes the impossible possible Fast and simple 'enabling technology' being offered to the world on open basis... McGill University chemistry professor Chao-Jun (C.J.) Li is known as one of the world leading pioneers in green chemistry, an entirely new approach to the science which eschews the use of toxic, petrochemical-based solvents in favour of basic substances like water and new ways of making molecules.
The environmental benefits of the green approach are obvious and significant, but following the road less travelled is also paying off in purely scientific terms. With these alternative methods, Li and his colleagues have discovered an entirely new way of synthesizing peptides using simple reagents, a process that would be impossible in classical chemistry.... "This is really an enabling new technology," he added, "and since McGill has decided not to patent it, we're making our method available to everyone. We are paying the journal's open access fee, so anyone in the world can access the paper."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-24 16:46:26 Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from Science Alert (Australia) Warm oceans slow coral growth It's official: the biggest and most robust corals on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have slowed their growth by more than 14 per cent since the "tipping point" year of 1990. Evidence is strong that the decline has been caused by a synergistic combination of rising sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification.... "It is cause for extreme concern that such changes are already evident, with the relatively modest climate changes observed to date, in the world's best protected and managed coral reef ecosystem," according to AIMS scientist and co-author Dr Janice Lough.... "The data suggest that this severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least 400 years," said AIMS scientist and principal author Dr Glenn De'ath.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-24 17:41:39 Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from National Geographic News How TB Jumps From Humans to Wildlife -- Vet Seeks Clues ...one sunny day in June 2000, [Kathleen Alexander] encountered a different problem: two banded mongooses, so thin their ribs stuck out, wandering around the sand pit where the children liked to play. These groundhog-sized animals are common through sub-Saharan Africa, but they run away from humans. Alarmingly, these mongooses weren't afraid of her. "It was clear they were sick," she recalled.... Alexander trapped one of the animals and tested it. Her tests revealed it was sick with tuberculosis--the human version. For the first time, free-range wild animals were confirmed to have contracted a human disease. Banded mongooses aren't in danger of going extinct. They live across southern Africa in large numbers. But if a disease can jump from humans to one wild animal, it could do the same with others. A new human disease could be disastrous for an endangered species. That includes a lot of primates. Since they're so closely related to humans, it's not hard for them to get our diseases.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-24 12:05:05 Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from London Daily Mail Social websites harm children's brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.
Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.
The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day. Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford University neuroscientist and director of the Royal Institution, believes repeated exposure could effectively 'rewire' the brain. "We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist," she told the Mail yesterday.
'My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-24 17:52:17 Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from New York Times Many Plans to Curtail Use of Plastic Bags, but Not Much Action SEATTLE -- Last summer, city officials here became the first in the nation to approve a fee on paper and plastic shopping bags in many retail stores. The 20-cent charge was intended to reduce pollution by encouraging reusable bags. But a petition drive financed by the plastic-bag industry delayed the plan. Now a far broader segment of Seattle's bag carriers -- its voters -- will decide the matter in an election in August.
Even in a city that likes to be environmentally conscious, the outcome is uncertain.
"You have to be really tone-deaf to what's going on to think that the economic climate is not going to affect people," said Rob Gala, a legislative aide to the city councilman who first sponsored the bill for the 20-cent fee.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-24 17:47:34 Tue, Feb 24, 2009: from Washington Post MIT Group Increases Global Warming Projections Report: High odds of warming over 5 degrees C (9 degrees F) if no action New research from MIT scientists shows that in the absence of stringent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, 21st century climate change may be far more significant than some previous climate assessments had indicated.
The new findings, released this month by MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, showed significantly increased odds that by the end of the century warming would be on the high end of the scale for a so-called "no policy scenario" as compared with similar studies completed just six years ago. The main culprits: the cycling of heat and carbon dioxide in the climate system are now better understood and projections of future greenhouse gas emissions have increased.
The results also showed that even if nations were to act quickly to reduce emissions, it is more likely that warming would be greater than previous studies had shown. However, the increase in projected temperatures under the "policy scenario" was not as large as for the no policy scenario.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-23 16:32:06 Mon, Feb 23, 2009: from Reuters U.S. renewable energy faces weak economy, old grid People in the industries say the stimulus will help speed the process, but it still may not be fast enough to meet the Obama administration's goal of ramping up renewable energy production and related investments to revive the economy.
The stimulus extends tax breaks for generating electricity from renewable sources. The government also will provide incentives for homeowners and businesses to buy solar power equipment, and will help fund other energy-saving measures.... Even if demand for renewable energy surges, moving those power supplies will pose problems. The electricity grid is little changed from the one that powered the radios that carried President Roosevelt's fireside chats in the 1930s.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-23 16:00:23 Mon, Feb 23, 2009: from The Louisville Courier-Journal Indiana ash ponds pollute bird habitat, drinking water The ash ponds at the nation's third-largest coal plant near here have contaminated a new wildlife sanctuary for endangered birds and the drinking water of a neighboring community.
And while a federal agency and the company that owns the Gibson plant, Duke Energy, have taken steps to alleviate both problems, advocates say the situation underscores the need for a fresh look at the hazards of coal combustion waste.
Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promised such a review following the 1.1billion-gallon ash slide in Tennessee in December that smothered several hundred acres.
The House Natural Resources Committee is weighing national standards for ash impoundments, and the new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, has promised to study whether national standards are needed to prevent toxic contaminants in ash from polluting water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-23 16:05:50 Mon, Feb 23, 2009: from Associated Press Chicago touts environmental efforts Plants cool 3 million square feet of rooftops throughout the city. Wind, hydropower and biofuels provide one-fifth of its energy. And last year, the mayor announced one of the country's most ambitious plans to slash greenhouse-gas emissions.
So when Chicago promises to host the greenest Summer Olympics ever if it's awarded the 2016 games, organizers say it's not a gimmick. It's an extension of efforts that have been transforming this former Rust Belt city for years.
"We've got a real opportunity to take the best aspects of our city, the parks, the lakefront and the environmentalism and bring a real asset to the table," Chicago 2016 spokesman Patrick Sandusky said. "It's certainly one of the great strengths of the city of Chicago that we have to offer."
In Chicago's official Olympic bid book, released earlier this month, organizers tout a low-carbon "blue-green" event, with most venues along Lake Michigan, which is lined with parks, and a focus on environmentalism. Regardless of whether Chicago gets the Olympics, Mayor Richard M. Daley says he'll continue to focus on a goal he set a long time ago: to make his city the greenest in the United States.
"When I started planting trees they thought it was a waste of money," Daley said during an interview at his City Hall office. "We started planting a green roof. They said, 'Oh, this is silly. What are we doing that for?'"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-23 15:35:12 Mon, Feb 23, 2009: from Washington Post Climate Fears Are Driving 'Ecomigration' Across Globe Adam Fier recently sold his home, got rid of his car and pulled his twin 6-year-old girls out of elementary school in Montgomery County. He and his wife packed the family's belongings and moved to New Zealand -- a place they had never visited or seen before, and where they have no family or professional connections. Among the top reasons: global warming. Halfway around the world, the president of Kiribati, a Pacific nation of low-lying islands, said last week that his country is exploring ways to move all its 100,000 citizens to a new homeland because of fears that a steadily rising ocean will make the islands uninhabitable.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-23 16:07:16 Mon, Feb 23, 2009: from New York Times Antibodies Offer a New Path for Fighting Flu In a discovery that could radically change how the world fights influenza, researchers have engineered antibodies that protect against many strains of the virus, including even the 1918 Spanish flu and the H5N1 bird flu. The discovery, experts said, could lead to the development of a flu vaccine that would not have to be changed yearly. And the antibodies already developed can be injected as a treatment, going after the virus in ways that drugs like Tamiflu do not.
Clinical trials to prove that the antibodies are safe in humans could begin within three years, a researcher estimated.... "It's not yet at the point of practicality, but the concept is really quite interesting."
The work is so promising that Dr. Fauci's institute will offer the researchers grants and access to its ferrets, which can catch human flu.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-23 16:14:43 Mon, Feb 23, 2009: from Environment Magazine The Short List: The Most Effective Actions U.S. Households Can Take to Curb Climate Change U.S. households account for about 38 percent of national carbon emissions through their direct actions, a level of emissions greater than that of any entire country except China and larger than the entire U.S. industrial sector. By changing their selection and use of household and motor vehicle technologies, without waiting for new technologies to appear, making major economic sacrifices, or losing a sense of well-being, households can reduce energy consumption by almost 30 percent -- about 11 percent of total U.S. consumption.... Table 3 below, based on Table 2, prioritizes actions in a few simple categories. It stands in contrast to common laundry lists by providing a short, prioritized, accurate, accessible, and actionable list of the most effective household actions to help limit climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-23 10:05:32 Mon, Feb 23, 2009: from Environmental Health News A worldwide pollutant may cause gene loss A new study suggests that long term exposure to a common water pollutant reduced the genetic diversity of the midge - a common water insect.
Aquatic insects are the foundation of healthy waterways. Other insects, invertebrates and fish depend on the tiny creatures for food. A loss of their genetics is a loss for ecosystem diversity.
The pollutant, called tributyltin (TBT), is a widely used pesticide. While TBT affected the growth, survival and reproduction of the midge insect, the greatest effects were found in the genes. TBT-exposed insects lost gene diversity two times greater than non-exposed insects.... Most toxicity studies look at high dose, single generation effects. But, in reality, organisms -- including humans -- are exposed to low-levels of chemicals over long periods, sometimes for many generations. Little is known about how these types of exposures may affect health.
In this study, scientists exposed the midge to TBT at levels found in the environment for 12 generations. They monitored growth, weight, mortality and genetic diversity, which was determined by studying DNA sequences known as microsatellites.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-23 16:15:38 Mon, Feb 23, 2009: from American Chemical Society Off-Balance Ocean Marine scientists who have measured the pH of the ocean's surface waters for decades see that it has been dropping. They say that the pH is currently about 8.1, down from about 8.2 in the 18th century. If CO2 emissions continue at current rates, they expect the pH to fall by approximately 0.3 more units in the next 50-100 years. And as the ocean becomes more acidic, scientists anticipate myriad changes to the ocean's chemistry.... For example, almost all reaction rates are pH dependent, so acidification may change processes in the ocean ranging from enzyme activity to the adsorption of metals onto particle surfaces in seawater... Many sea organisms without shells, such as anemones and jellyfish, may be especially susceptible to even the smallest changes in ocean pH because their internal pH tends to vary with that of the surrounding seawater. These organisms cannot actively regulate their internal pH as mammals do.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 12:42:08 Sun, Feb 22, 2009: from London Daily Telegraph Scientists capture dramatic footage of Arctic glaciers melting in hours Glaciologist Jason Box has been testing a Moulin, a shaft that allows water to travel from the glacier's surface to its bottom, in a glacier on the Greenland ice cap to find out how fast it is melting.
Dr Box said: "The Moulin is the epicentre of our concern because all the water is running down at this one point.
"It's just bottomless, no light escapes."
Balanced on the edge of an ice sheet the team used a flow meter to measure the water speed.... The team found that in just one day 42 million litres fresh water drained down this one Moulin. Dr Box thinks there are hundreds, possibly thousands more Moulins across the Greenland ice cap.
Greenland is losing enough water each year to cover Germany a metre deep.
Dr Box, from Ohio State University, thinks the way to combat melting glaciers is to cover them with blankets that will reflect the sun's rays.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 12:30:56 Sun, Feb 22, 2009: from Associated Press Mass migrations and war: Dire climate scenario If we don't deal with climate change decisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war," the eminent economist said.
His audience Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded here by bad weather and were talking climate. They couldn't do much about the one, but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting off mass conflict.... Stern said: "People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would have to move if you talk about 4-, 5-, 6-degree increases" - 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. And that would mean extended global conflict, "because there's no way the world can handle that kind of population move in the time period in which it would take place."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 12:22:10 Sun, Feb 22, 2009: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Great Lakes scourge infects West ...Zebra and quagga mussels have been making a particular mess of the Great Lakes ecosystem and economy since they were discovered in the late 1980s. The filter-feeding machines have cost this region billions of dollars by plugging industrial water intake pipes, starving fish populations and spawning noxious algae outbreaks that have trashed some of the Midwest's most prized shoreline.
For nearly two decades the western U.S. was spared this havoc.
No more.
The first quagga mussel west of the Continental Divide was discovered on Jan. 6, 2007. It was likely a stowaway hiding on the hull or in the bilge water of a Midwestern pleasure boat pulled across the Great Plains, over the Rockies and down a boat ramp at Lake Mead near Las Vegas, where a marina worker found some suspicious shells clinging to an anchor.... What took decades to unfold in the Great Lakes has played out in a matter of months in Lake Mead. Quaggas can lay eggs six or seven times a year in the warmer water, compared with once or twice a year in the Great Lakes.
If you drained Lake Mead above Hoover Dam, says National Park Service biologist Bryan Moore, it would reveal that brown canyon walls that were mussel-free just two years ago are now black with quaggas at densities of up to 55,000 per square meter.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 12:11:56 Sun, Feb 22, 2009: from The Center for Public Integrity Coal Ash: The Hidden Story ...For decades, the dangers of coal ash had largely been hidden from public view. That all changed in December 2008, when an earthen dam holding a billion gallons of coal ash in a pond collapsed in eastern Tennessee, deluging 300 acres in gray muck, destroying houses and water supplies, and dirtying a river.
But what happened in the Volunteer State represents just a small slice of the potential threat from coal ash. In many states -- at ponds, landfills, and pits where coal ash gets dumped -- a slow seepage of the ash's metals has poisoned water supplies, damaged ecosystems, and jeopardized citizens' health. In July 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified 63 "proven or potential damage cases" in 23 states where coal ash has tarnished groundwater and harmed ecology. Additional cases of contamination have since surfaced in states as far-flung as Maryland, New Mexico, Indiana, and Virginia. And in some locations, like Colstrip, the contamination has resulted in multimillion-dollar payouts to residents enduring the devastation.
Despite the litany of damage, there's no meaningful federal regulation of coal ash on the books; indeed, oversight of ash disposal -- much of it stunningly casual -- is largely left to the states.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 12:44:20 Sun, Feb 22, 2009: from Newsweek Greenest Nation This is a trick question. What big country is, by most measures, greener than Japan and Germany and produces more geothermal energy than all of Europe combined? It might help to know that this nation is also a pioneer in environmental stewardship, having passed many of the world's toughest regulations on vehicle emissions, energy efficiency and nature conservation.... California, with its 37 million people, emits 20 percent less CO2 per dollar of GDP than Germany. It generates 24 percent of its electrical power from renewable fuels like wind and solar, compared with only 15 percent in Germany and 11 percent in Japan. It also has the world's largest solar-power plant (550 megawatts in the Mojave Desert), the largest wind farm (7,000 turbines at Altamont Pass) and the most powerful geothermal installation (750 megawatts at The Geysers north of San Francisco). Although California isn't immune to the economic crisis -- its finances are on the brink of collapse, which could translate into growing support for those who argue that green measures cost jobs -- its green accomplishments put it at the head of the pack. If California were a country, its economy would rank as the world's 10th largest and could lay claim to be one of the world's greenest.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-21 14:11:39 Sat, Feb 21, 2009: from San Francisco Chronicle Investors put Chevron on 'climate watch' A group of activist investors, including the giant California State Teachers' Retirement System, on Wednesday placed Chevron Corp. and eight other companies on a "climate watch list" of corporations that aren't adequately addressing global warming. The investors want the companies to pay more attention to how their operations are affecting, and will be affected by, climate change.
The investors placed San Ramon's Chevron on the list because of its investments in Canadian oil sands. Squeezing petroleum from the sand releases more greenhouse gas emissions than ordinary oil production does.
A Chevron spokesman on Wednesday did not address the sand issue but noted that Chevron has its own climate change action plan and has a subsidiary that promotes energy efficiency and renewable power.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-21 14:04:33 Sat, Feb 21, 2009: from Cleveland Plain Dealer January was seventh-warmest on Earth, climate scientists say This may not play well in Northeast Ohio, but federal climate officials this week reported that planet Earth just had its seventh-warmest January in more than 125 years of records.
That's right, even though Cleveland just finished 6.5 degrees colder than normal (remember that 13-below-zero day?), most of the rest of the world got hotter last month -- including Australia, where records were broken with one 114-degree day.
The most recent report from the National Climatic Data Center in North Carolina asserts that the combined global land and ocean surface temperature for January was 54.55 degrees Fahrenheit -- or 0.95 degrees above the 20th-century average temperature.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-21 13:54:22 Sat, Feb 21, 2009: from Toronto Globe and Mail French-fry chemical may go on toxic list Worries that Canadians might be inadvertently ingesting too much cancer-causing acrylamide from French fries, potato chips and other processed foods has prompted Health Canada to recommend adding the chemical to the country's toxic substances list.
Acrylamide is an industrial chemical that isn't naturally found in foods, but is produced accidentally when sugars and other items in potatoes and grains are exposed to high cooking temperatures.
It has also been detected in breakfast cereals, pastries, cookies, breads, rolls, toast, cocoa products and coffee, although at levels far below those in fried potato products.... The toxic announcement was greeted positively by environmentalists, who have been arguing that potentially dangerous chemicals in consumer goods need to be limited.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-21 12:39:19 Sat, Feb 21, 2009: from Science Arctic Coastal Erosion Doubles in 50 Years As if record-breaking losses of sea ice and thawing permafrost weren't enough, climate change is also sweeping parts of the Arctic out to sea. New research in Geophysical Research Letters reports that the rate of erosion along a stretch of Alaska's northeastern coastline has doubled over the past 52 years. Such deterioration of arctic coastlines is likely to have significant impacts on local ecosystems, communities living in the Arctic, and oil and gas development.
Arctic shorelines are especially susceptible to erosion because their sediments are often held together by nothing more than ice. Scientists have been concerned about these fragile coasts, because they will be pounded harder by waves as the sea ice disappears and storms intensify. Warmer water and rising sea levels make matters even worse. Ground zero might well be the coastline along the Beaufort Sea in northeastern Alaska, where the sediments are particularly ice-rich and the shore unprotected.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 14:50:03 Sat, Feb 21, 2009: from Los Angeles Times Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice As permafrost thaws in the Arctic, huge pockets of methane -- a potent greenhouse gas -- could be released into the atmosphere. Experts are only beginning to understand how disastrous that could be.... International experts are alarmed. "Methane release due to thawing permafrost in the Arctic is a global warming wild card," warned a report by the United Nations Environment Programme last year. Large amounts entering the atmosphere, it concluded, could lead to "abrupt changes in the climate that would likely be irreversible."
Methane (CH4) has at least 20 times the heat-trapping effect of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2). As warmer air thaws Arctic soils, as much as 50 billion metric tons of methane could be released from beneath Siberian lakes alone, according to Walter’s research. That would amount to 10 times the amount currently in the atmosphere.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-21 07:42:28 Sat, Feb 21, 2009: from New York Times E.P.A. Expected to Regulate Carbon Dioxide The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States' negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen.... "We here know how momentous that decision could be," Ms. Jackson said. "We have to lay out a road map."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-20 18:20:20 Fri, Feb 20, 2009: from Times Online (UK) Windmills flap helplessly as coal remains king If you flick a switch today, the light goes on because of coal. Almost half the power generated in Britain on Tuesday came from coal and a bit more than a third from natural gas. Nuclear power stations were contributing 17 per cent and windmills provided 0.6 per cent.... After all the politics, we are breathless as our bright new whirligigs stand motionless on a beach horizon.
The wind has failed, as it does during periods of intense heat and cold, and although we have built, with enormous subsidy, enough wind turbines to generate 5 per cent of our electricity, no more than 1 per cent is operational when we need it.... The reason why we are still stuffing black lumps of carbon into furnaces is simple: it makes economic sense and the financial markets are shouting this message louder than ever before.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-20 17:55:35 Fri, Feb 20, 2009: from Michigan Technical University, via EurekAlert Abandon hope Do you "hope" that everyone will see the light and start living more sustainably to save the environment? If so, you may be doing more harm than good.... For decades, say Vucetich and Nelson, we have been hammered by the ceaseless thunder of messages predicting imminent environmental cataclysm: global climate change, air and water pollution, destruction of wildlife habitat, holes in the ozone. The response of environmentalists—from Al Gore to Jane Goodall—to this persistent message of hopelessness has focused on the need to remain hopeful.
But hope may actually be counter-productive, Vucetich and Nelson suggest. "I have little reason to live sustainably if the only reason to do so is to hope for a sustainable future, because every other message I receive suggests that disaster is guaranteed," they explain.
People are hearing radically contradictory messages:
Scientists present evidence that profound environmental disaster is imminent.
It is urgent to live up to an extremely high standard of sustainable living.
The reason to live sustainably is that doing so gives hope for averting disaster.
Yet disaster is inevitable....
"Instead of hope, we need to provide young people with reasons to live sustainably that are rational and effective," they say. "We need to lift up examples of sustainable living motivated by virtue more than by a dubious belief that such actions will avert environmental disaster."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-20 12:10:43 Fri, Feb 20, 2009: from SciDev.net World's fisheries face climate change threat Researchers examined the fisheries of 132 nations to determine which were the most vulnerable, based on the potential environmental impact of climate change, how dependent their economy and diet were on fisheries, and the capacity of the country to adapt.
Climate change can affect the temperature of inland lakes, the health of reefs and how nutrients circulate in the oceans, the researchers say.
They identified 33 countries as "highly vulnerable" to the effects of global warming on fisheries.
These countries produce 20 per cent of the world's fish exports and 22 are already classified by the UN as "least developed". Inhabitants of vulnerable countries are also more dependent on fish for protein -- 27 per cent of dietary protein is gained from fish, compared with 13 per cent in other countries. Two-thirds of the most vulnerable nations identified are in tropical Africa.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-20 17:57:53 Fri, Feb 20, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Customising clouds to stop global warming Stephen Salter, professor of engineering design at the University Edinburgh, and Professor John Latham, from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, have been using Salt Flares to test if it is possible to seed or even create Marine Stratocumulus Clouds.
These clouds, which are common, low-flying clouds, could help reflect the suns rays and therefore combat global warming.
Prof Salter said: "We need to make them reflect about 10 per cent more than they are reflecting now."
Prof Latham added: "We’ve got the most massive global problem that we’ve ever had, so we’ve got to think big."
The flares will spray up salt water into the clouds. When the particles rise into a cloud they redistribute the moisture, increasing its reflectivity.
As a result the cloud bounces more sunlight back into space.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-20 11:29:50 Fri, Feb 20, 2009: from Mongabay Indonesia confirms that peatlands will be converted for plantations Indonesia's Minister for the Environment has approved a decree that will allow the conversion of carbon-rich peatlands for oil palm plantations, reports The Jakarta Post.
Rachmat Witoelar said that oil palm plantations will only be established in areas where peat is less than 3 meters (10 feet) deep. Conversion will require an environmental impact analysis (Amdal).
"The conversion of peatlands is possible for certain criteria, but should be done very selectively," Rachmat told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. "The conversion is strictly forbidden in [peatland] more than 3 meters deep." ... "Allowing the destruction of more peatlands is a disaster for the fight against climate change, and will only confirm Indonesia's status as the world's third biggest polluter," Greenpeace Southeast Asia forest campaigner Bustar Maitar told The Jakarta Post.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-20 11:04:27 Fri, Feb 20, 2009: from New Scientist Ban on mountaintop mining overturned Even as public opinion in the US turns against coal, judges have overturned a ban on blasting away mountaintops to get at seams.
In the central Appalachians, including West Virginia, mining companies have lopped up to 300 metres off hundreds of mountains, destroying biologically diverse hardwood forest. The debris is often dumped into valleys, sometimes burying streams in the process.
A lawsuit filed by the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) based in Huntington, West Virginia, argued that such valley fills violate the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, and a US district court ruled in their favour in March 2007. But on 13 February, a Court of Appeals panel voted 2:1 to reverse the decision.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-20 11:21:19 Fri, Feb 20, 2009: from London Guardian Melt-pools 'accelerating Arctic ice loss' New research has revealed that melt-water pooling on the Arctic sea ice is causing it to melt at a faster rate than computer models had previously predicted.
Scientists have been struggling to understand why the northern sea ice has been retreating at a faster rate than estimated by the most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in 2007.
The IPCC's computer models had simulated an average loss of 2.5 percent in sea ice extent per decade from 1953 to 2006. But in reality the Arctic sea ice had declined at a rate of about 7.8 percent per decade.
Arctic sea ice has retreated so much that in September 2007 it covered an all-time low area of 4.14m km sq, surpassing by 23 percent the previous all-time record set in September 2005.
And during the summer of 2008, the north-west and north-east passages - the sea routes running along the Arctic coastlines of northern America and northern Russia, normally perilously clogged with thick ice – were ice-free for the first time since records began in 1972.
Part of the reasons for the discrepancy has to do with melt ponds, which are pools of melted ice and snow that form on the sea ice when it is warmed in spring and summer. As they are darker than ice and snow, they absorb solar radiation rather than reflect it, which accelerates the melting process.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-19 20:02:40 Fri, Feb 20, 2009: from Reuters Hunt begins for world's most polluted places Researchers will fan out across more than 80 developing countries beginning this month to hunt out and assess many of the world's dirtiest industrial waste sites.
The New York-based nonprofit Blacksmith Institute is training the researchers from local semi-government agencies, universities and nonprofit groups in the countries to create a database of the sites called the Global Inventory Project.... the inventory is a "first step" to help governments and international organizations prioritize the clean up of waste sites that pose health threats to people including cancer risks to adults and learning disability risks to children. Asthma and other respiratory ailments are other problems millions of locals suffer at sites like abandoned metal mines in Africa and factories that made weapons or industrial chemicals in former Soviet Union states.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-19 15:47:33 Thu, Feb 19, 2009: from San Jose Mercury News At least 500,000 gallons spewed in Sausalito sewage spill A broken pipe gushed at least 500,000 gallons of partially treated sewage into San Francisco Bay by Wednesday afternoon as Sausalito sanitary plant officials worked to get the spill capped more than 24 hours after it was spotted....
Workers in wetsuits placed a metal "saddle" around the 24-inch-wide pressure pipeline resting along the shore below the Fort Baker treatment plant to redirect wastewater back into the plant.... After several hours of unsuccessful attempts to plug the 2 1/2-inch hole before being submerged, the leak was allowed to continue overnight until work continued Wednesday morning.... [The Councilman] blamed the problem on "an incredibly leaky, neglected collection system" and "small banana-republic sewer districts" afraid to do anything because of rate increases.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-19 13:36:48 Thu, Feb 19, 2009: from Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, via EurekAlert Cleaning the atmosphere of carbon: African forests out of balance "If you assume that these forests should be in equilibrium, then the best way to explain why trees are growing bigger is anthropogenic global change -- the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could essentially be acting as fertilizer." says Muller-Landau, "But it's also possible that tropical forests are still growing back following past clearing or fire or other disturbance. Given increasing evidence that tropical forests have a long history of human occupation, recovery from past disturbance is almost certainly part of the reason these forests are taking up carbon today."
Muller-Landau, who directs a project to monitor carbon budgets in forest study sites worldwide as part of the Smithsonian's Center for Tropical Forest Science and the HSBC Climate Partnership, advises that this newfound sink shouldn't be taken for granted, or presumed to continue indefinitely. "While we still can't explain exactly what is behind this carbon sink, one thing we know for sure is that it can't be a sink forever. Trees and forests just can't keep getting bigger. Tropical forests are buying us a bit more time right now, but we can't count on them to continue to offset our carbon emissions in the future."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-19 13:30:20 Thu, Feb 19, 2009: from Slashdot Arctic Ice Extent Understated Because of 'Sensor Drift' In May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,' leading to a lively Slashdot discussion. Today, however, they say that they have been the victims of 'sensor drift' that led to an underestimation of Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers. The problem was discovered after they received emails from puzzled readers, asking why obviously sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as ice free open ocean. It turns out that the NSIDC relys on an older, less-reliable method of tracking sea ice extent called SSM/I that does not agree with a newer method called AMSR-E. So why doesn't NSIDC use the newer AMSR-E data? 'We do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data.' Turns out that the AMSR-E data only goes back to 2002, which is probably not long enough for the NSIDC to make sweeping conclusions about melting. The AMSR-E data is updated daily and is available to the public. Thus far, sea ice extent in 2009 is tracking ahead of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, so the predictions of an ice-free north pole might be premature.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-19 09:35:21 Thu, Feb 19, 2009: from Science Daily (US) Permafrost Is Thawing In Northern Sweden "At one of our sites, permafrost has completely disappeared from the greater part of the mire during the last decade," she says.
In areas where permafrost is thawing the ground becomes unstable and can collapse. This can be a local and regional problem in areas with cities and infrastructure. Moreover, the thaw can cause increased emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane from the ground. Roughly 25 percent of all land surface in the northern hemisphere are underlain by permafrost.
The thawing of permafrost that occurs today is likely to continue, in Margareta Johansson's view. She regards it as probable that there will be no permafrost in lowland areas around Abisko in 50 years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-19 09:20:36 Thu, Feb 19, 2009: from Desdemona Despair Dramatic decline in size of trophy fish Archival photographs spanning more than five decades reveal a drastic decline of so-called "trophy fish" caught around coral reefs surrounding Key West, Florida.... large predatory fish have declined in weight by 88 percent in modern photos compared to black-and-white shots from the 1950s. The average length of sharks declined by more than 50 percent in 50 years, the photographs revealed.
The study mirrors others that reveal stark changes to animal sizes caused by hunting or fishing, in which the largest of a species are often sought as trophy specimens.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-19 10:04:23 Thu, Feb 19, 2009: from New Scientist Arctic's personal greenhouse turns up the heat The warming of the Arctic has been explained before as being due to a positive feedback loop: as the ice cap melts and disappears, more of the dark ocean is exposed: the Arctic's reflectivity, or albedo, decreases. This means less energy is reflected back out into space and the region warms still further.
But that infamous arctic albedo feedback is only a small part of the problem.... [L]ess ice means more exposed sea, and a larger surface from which water can evaporate. Since water vapour is a strong greenhouse gas, the evaporation effectively creates an Arctic energy trap.... All this means the shrinking ice cap is playing a triple role in warming the Arctic. The ice is reflecting less energy, the open water is storing more energy, and is also supplying greenhouse gas to the atmosphere in the form of water vapour. Those three factors combine to produce a strong regional greenhouse over the Arctic.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 21:18:14 Thu, Feb 19, 2009: from Agence France-Presse Unchecked economic growth imperils Amazon: study Unbridled economic development fuelled by globalisation is devastating large swathes of the Amazonian basin, the United Nations warned in a major study released Wednesday.
A population explosion concentrated in poorly planned cities, deforestation driven by foreign markets for timber, cash crops and beef, and unprecedented levels of pollution have all taken a heavy toll on the planet's largest forest basin, the United Nations Environment Programme said.
The report, which pooled research by more than 150 experts from the eight countries that straddle Amazonia, acknowledged that these governments have individually taken steps to address environmental degradation.
But coordinated action is urgently needed to stem and possible reverse the damage, it said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 19:24:39 Thu, Feb 19, 2009: from Reuters Los Angeles nears water rationing With a recent flurry of winter storms doing little to dampen California's latest drought, the nation's biggest public utility voted on Tuesday to impose water rationing in Los Angeles for the first time in nearly two decades.
Under the plan adopted in principle by the governing board of the L.A. Department of Water and Power, homes and businesses would pay a penalty rate -- nearly double normal prices -- for any water they use in excess of a reduced monthly allowance.
The five-member board plans to formally vote on details of the measure next month.
The rationing scheme is expected to take effect in May unless the City Council acts before then to reject it -- a move seen as unlikely since Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for the measure under a water-shortage plan last week.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 21:11:11 Thu, Feb 19, 2009: from Associated Press Pope tells Nancy Pelosi life must be protected VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI received Nancy Pelosi, one of the most prominent abortion rights politicians in America, and told her Wednesday that Catholic politicians have a duty to protect life "at all stages of its development." The U.S. House speaker, a Catholic, was the first top Democrat to meet with Benedict since the election of Barack Obama, who won a majority of the U.S. Catholic vote despite differences with the Vatican on abortion.
On his fourth day in office last month, Obama ended a ban on funds for international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option � a sharp policy change from former President George W. Bush's Republican administration.
The Vatican's attempts to keep the Pelosi visit low-profile displayed its obvious unease with the new U.S. administration. Benedict and Bush had found common ground in opposing abortion, an issue that drew them together despite their differences over the war in Iraq.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 18:49:20 Wed, Feb 18, 2009: from NOAA, via Mongabay CO2 levels rise to a new record Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations climbed 2.28 parts-per-million (ppm) in 2008 to the highest level in at least 650,000 years -- and possibly 20 million years -- reports NOAA.
The average annual growth rate of CO2 concentrations this decade is now 2.1 ppm a year or 40 percent higher than that of the 1990s. CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are increasing at four times the rate of the previous decade.... Some scientists, including James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warn that CO2 levels must be kept below 350 ppm to avoid serious impacts from climate change. CO2 concentrations are presently around 386 ppm.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 18:51:52 Wed, Feb 18, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Manure could power two million homes According to Defra, the UK produces more than 100 million tonnes of organic material per year that could be used to produce biogas, 90 million tonnes of which comes from manure and slurry.
The National Farmers' Union has a target to have 1,000 on-farm anaerobic digestion (AD) plants by 2020, which will power farms and produce fertilisers as a by-product of the process.
Speaking at the NFU conference in Birmingham today, Farming and Environment Minister Jane Kennedy is expected to say: "We're producing more organic waste in this country than we can handle, over 12 million tonnes of food waste a year -- and farmers know too well the challenges of managing manure and slurry.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 12:15:52 Wed, Feb 18, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Giant oil slick heading for British shores The slick, which covers nearly nine square miles, is thought to have been leaked into the Celtic Sea when a Russian warship was refuelling.
Environmentalists said it is the biggest oil spill in waters around the British Isles since the Sea Empress ran aground off Milford Haven in 1996, causing widespread damage to the Pembrokeshire coast.
They warned that damage to marine life, including breeding birds, seals and dolphins, is likely to be devastating when the slick begins washing up on Welsh and Irish coasts within two weeks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 12:09:24 Wed, Feb 18, 2009: from World Bank, via AFP Andean glaciers 'could disappear': World Bank LIMA (AFP) -- Andean glaciers and the region's permanently snow-covered peaks could disappear in 20 years if no measures are taken to tackle climate change, the World Bank warned Tuesday.
A World Bank-published report said rising temperatures due to global warming could also have a dramatic impact on water management in the Andean region, with serious knock-on effects for agriculture and energy generation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:51:04 Wed, Feb 18, 2009: from University of Georgia, via EurekAlert Link between unexploded munitions in oceans and cancer-causing toxins determined During a research trip to Puerto Rico, ecologist James Porter took samples from underwater nuclear bomb target USS Killen, expecting to find evidence of radioactive matter -- instead he found a link to cancer. Data revealed that the closer corals and marine life were to unexploded bombs from the World War II vessel and the surrounding target range, the higher the rates of carcinogenic materials.
"Unexploded bombs are in the ocean for a variety of reasons -- some were duds that did not explode, others were dumped in the ocean as a means of disposal," said Porter. "And we now know that these munitions are leaking cancer-causing materials and endangering sea life." ... According to research conducted in Vieques, residents here have a 23 percent higher cancer rate than do Puerto Rican mainlanders. Porter said a future step will be "to determine the link from unexploded munitions to marine life to the dinner plate."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:52:15 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Astronomer devises giant sun shield to reverse global warming Professor Roger Angel thinks he can diffract the power of the sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile sunshade.
Each lens will have a diffraction pattern etched onto it which will cause the sun's rays to change direction.
He intends to use electromagnetic propulsion to get the lenses into space.
If work was started immediately Prof Angel thinks the sunshield could be operation by 2040.
He said: "Things that take a few decades are not that futuristic."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:05:44 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from Associated Press Beaver sighted in Detroit River; first in 75 years DETROIT – Wildlife officials are celebrating the sighting of a beaver in the Detroit River for the first time in decades, signaling that efforts to clean up the waterway are paying off.
The Detroit Free Press reports that a beaver lodge has been discovered in an intake canal at a Detroit Edison riverfront plant. Officials believe the beaver spotted by the utility's motion-sensitive camera marks the animal's return to the river for the first time in at least 75 years.
Photos and video were taken in November, but Detroit Edison didn't want to release them until they could ensure the animal's safety.
John Hartig, Detroit River refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says the cleanup along the river has also brought back sturgeons, peregrine falcons and other species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 15:18:25 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from Mother Jones The Stimulus Goes Green The conference bill's near-final numbers contain $11 billion for the creation of a smart energy grid; $8.4 billion for public transit; $6.3 billion for state and local energy efficiency grants; $6 billion for the cleanup of contaminated Department of Defense sites; $4.5 billion to green federal buildings; and $1.2 billion for the EPA's cleanup programs. Loan guarantees for nuclear and so-called clean coal technology development -- included in the Senate bill -- were cut. Tax credit programs, incentivizing research and investment in clean renewable energy, will add further to the bill's green tally.
"This is unbelievable," says Josh Dorner, a spokesman for Sierra Club. "This is an unprecedented investment in building a clean energy economy. The Clinton Global Initiative, about a year or so ago, their big challenge was to get spending on energy efficiency to reach $1.5 billion, total, in all of America. And this bill, just on federal buildings, has $4.5 billion. It's just kind of sinking in that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and Congress and President Obama really stepped up to the plate."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 15:10:09 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from Mother Jones What Invasive Species Are Trying to Tell Us Nowadays when species obey the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply, to fill the waters in the seas, to let the birds multiply on the Earth," all is decidedly not good. Proliferation on a biblical scale generally signals biological apocalypse, what scientists call invasion—the establishment and spread of introduced species in places they've never lived before. Species have always been on the move. But they've also been held in check by Earth's geographical barriers, like mountains and oceans. Today the rate of invasions has skyrocketed because of our barrier-hopping technology—jets, ships, trains, cars, which transport everything from mammals to microorganisms far beyond their natural ranges. The process is further accelerated by global climate change, that enormous human experiment unwittingly redistricting the natural world.
The results devastate both planetary and human health—most disease organisms, from influenza to malaria, are invaders over most of their range -- and few invasions can be stopped once they're successfully established. Biological invasions are now second only to habitat loss as a cause of extinction -- the leading cause of the extinction of birds and the second-leading cause of the extinction of fish. Twenty percent of vertebrate species facing extinction are doing so because of pressures from invasive predators or competitors. In a classic example, brown tree snakes arrived in Guam (snakeless but for a worm-sized insectivore) sometime after World War II and systematically ate 15 bird species into extinction while consuming enough small reptiles and mammals to redesign the food web. They also began traveling an expanding network of power lines, electrocuting themselves and causing about 200 power failures annually. In all, invasive species are estimated to cost $1.4 trillion each year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 14:32:29 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from Rutland Herald VT Residents Warned about Bats and White Nose Syndrome WATERBURY -- The Vermont Agency of Natural Resource's Fish & Wildlife Department recently issued a reminder to residents who live near caves and mines to expect unusual levels of bat activity as a result of the White Nose Syndrome that is afflicting hibernating bats.
Reports of sick bats have been coming in most recently from Norwich, Thetford and Strafford, near the Elizabeth Mine, where thousands of bats hibernate each winter.
Some people are finding dead bats on their porches or screen windows, some have bats entering their homes and some are seeing bats flying during the day.
"One of the symptoms of White Nose Syndrome is that bats are extremely emaciated, and many are awakening early and flying out of the cave in search of food," said State Wildlife Biologist Scott Darling.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 12:14:58 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from University of Cincinnati, via EurekAlert Estrogen found to increase growth of the most common childhood brain tumor CINCINNATI -- University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers have discovered that estrogen receptors are present in medulloblastoma -- the most common type of pediatric brain tumor -- leading them to believe that anti-estrogen drug treatments may be beneficial in limiting tumor progression and improving patients' overall outcome.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 10:58:16 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from University of Texas, via EurekAlert Scientists uncover secrets of potential bioterror virus GALVESTON, Texas —Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have discovered a key tactic that the Rift Valley fever virus uses to disarm the defenses of infected cells.
The mosquito-borne African virus causes fever in humans, inflicting liver damage, blindness and even death on a small percentage of the people it infects. Rift Valley fever also afflicts cattle, goats and sheep, resulting in a nearly 100 percent abortion rate in these animals. Its outbreaks periodically cause economic devastation in parts of Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe, and bioterrorism experts warn that its introduction to the United States would cripple the North American beef industry.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 09:45:54 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from New Era (Namibia) Overfishing Threatens Global Shrimp Industry - FAO WINDHOEK -- Reducing fishing capacity and limiting access to shrimp fisheries are likely to mitigate over-fishing, by-catch and seabed destruction, which the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations said are some of the major economic and environmental side effects of shrimp fishing.... [S]hrimp fishing is also associated with over-fishing, the capture of juveniles of ecologically important and economically valuable species, coastal habitat degradation, illegal trawling, and the destruction of sea-grass beds.... Estimates are that shrimp trawl fishing, particularly in tropical regions, produces large amounts -- if not the greatest amount -- of discards, or 27.3 percent (1.86 million tonnes) of discards.
The environmental impact of trawling -- and including shrimp trawling -- has been likened to forest clear-cutting and accused of being the world's most wasteful fishing practice.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:20:51 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from Indianapolis Star Study: Birds wintering farther north could signal climate change A recently released report by the National Audubon Society has tied changes in migratory bird habits to global warming. According to data from the group's annual Christmas bird count gathered over the past 40 years, nearly 60 percent of the 305 bird species sampled in North America now winter farther north than they did previously.... "The birds are an indicator of what's happening," said Greg Butcher, the lead scientist on the study and the National Audubon Society's director of bird conservation. "They are showing us that global warming has been going on for years, and it's having strong biological effects in Indiana and elsewhere."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 09:07:29 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from Mount Holyoke News Toxic BPA found in everyday products Epidemiological studies have shown that endocrine disruptors like BPA and other foreign chemicals, also known as xenobiotics, can influence the onset of precocious puberty, increase infertility and accelerate the progression of breast, vaginal, prostate and uterine cancer.... Recently, there has been a number of controversial discussions about safe levels of BPA exposure. The Environmental Protection Agency and the FDA currently warn against no more than 50 [micrograms] of BPA per kilogram of body weight per day. Recent research shows evidence that many of the abnormalities observed were at far lower concentration levels of BPA.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 09:23:07 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from New York Times The Unintended Consequences of Changing Nature's Balance In 1985, Australian scientists kicked off an ambitious plan: to kill off non-native cats that had been prowling the island's slopes since the early 19th century. The program began out of apparent necessity -- the cats were preying on native burrowing birds. Twenty-four years later, a team of scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division and the University of Tasmania reports that the cat removal unexpectedly wreaked havoc on the island ecosystem.
With the cats gone, the island's rabbits (also non-native) began to breed out of control, ravaging native plants and sending ripple effects throughout the ecosystem. The findings were published in the Journal of Applied Ecology online in January.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 07:58:46 Tue, Feb 17, 2009: from New Scientist North Atlantic is world's 'climate superpower' IF EVER there was a superpower of the oceans, the North Atlantic, with its ability to control global weather systems, is it. The bad news is that this region also happens to be especially sensitive to the effects of climate change, so what is happening there could affect the world.
The planet's climate goes through periodic convulsions that affect every region simultaneously. The most recent were in the early 1940s and mid-1970s. The latter coincided with the start of more frequent El Nino events in the Pacific and a strong global warming trend.... But the findings will leave most climate scientists more worried. Today's climate is changing most dramatically in the far North Atlantic, with record warming and ice loss in recent years. If the climate's "tipping point" resides in these waters, then nature's synchronised chaos could unleash unexpectedly sudden and severe consequences.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-16 18:53:22 Mon, Feb 16, 2009: from Associated Press British, French nuclear subs collide in Atlantic LONDON -- Nuclear submarines from Britain and France collided deep in the Atlantic Ocean this month, authorities said Monday in the first acknowledgment of a highly unusual accident that one expert called the gravest in nearly a decade.
Officials said the low-speed crash did not damage the vessels' nuclear reactors or missiles or cause radiation to leak. But anti-nuclear groups said it was still a frightening reminder of the risks posed by submarines prowling the oceans powered by radioactive material and bristling with nuclear weapons.
The first public indication of a mishap came when France reported in a little-noticed Feb. 6 statement that one of its submarine had struck a submerged object -- perhaps a shipping container. But confirmation of the accident only came after British media reported it.
France's defense ministry said Monday that the sub Le Triomphant and the HMS Vanguard, the oldest vessel in Britain's nuclear-armed submarine fleet, were on routine patrol when they collided in the Atlantic this month. It did not say exactly when, where or how the accident occurred.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-16 09:34:47 Mon, Feb 16, 2009: from BusinessGreen Microsoft takes carbon reporting to the mainstream In contrast, Microsoft is going after the mainstream.... Microsoft's Dynamics AX 2009 business application suite -- to which it has just added a free Environmental Sustainability Dashboard capable of providing execs with access to data on their company's fuel consumption, energy use and carbon footprint, amongst other performance indicators -- is aimed squarely at midmarket firms... And once all executives, regardless of their company's size, know how much carbon their organisation is emitting they are in the perfect position to start doing something about it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-16 09:27:29 Mon, Feb 16, 2009: from BusinessGreen Vegas water watchers raise drought fears Water supplies to Las Vegas could run dry within six years thanks to receding water levels at Lake Mead, officials warned last week, bringing into question the long-term viability of the fastest growing city in the US.... Over the past nine years, the Colorado river, which feeds Lake Meade, has experienced an average inflow two-thirds of its normal intake, Mulroy said in his presentation.... But scientists remain fearful that in the long term the desert city will have to find alternative water supplies and may even become unviable.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-16 18:39:16 Mon, Feb 16, 2009: from Mongabay Mass media 'screwing up' global warming reporting, says renowned climatologist "Business managers of media organizations," [Stephen Schneider] said, "you are screwing up your responsibility by firing science and environment reporters who are frankly the only ones competent to do this."
Schneider points to CNN, which in December fired all of its science and technology reporters. "Why didn't they fire their economics team or their sports team?" asks Schneider. "Why don't they send their general assignment reporters out to cover the Superbowl?" ... Schneider's frustration doesn't stop at the media. He believes scientists are not living up to their responsibility to actively participate in scientific discussions with the mainstream media.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-16 08:53:37 Mon, Feb 16, 2009: from New York Times Bringing Wind Turbines to Ordinary Rooftops WIND turbines typically spin from tall towers on hills and plains. But in these green times, some companies hope smaller turbines will soon rise above a more domestic spot: homes and garages. The rooftop turbines send the electricity they generate straight on to the home's circuit box. Then owners in a suitably wind-swept location can watch the needle on their electricity meter turn backward instead of forward, reducing their utility bills while using a renewable resource.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-16 08:44:52 Mon, Feb 16, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Tropical forests are drying out because of global warming Damp regions that had previously been considered immune to the type of blazes that blighted Australia this month could turn to tinderboxes as temperatures rise, it is claimed.
Rainforests currently play a critical role in regulating climate by absorbing carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. But if they were to catch alight they would become carbon producers, accelerating climate change.... "It is increasingly clear that as you produce a warmer world, lots of forest areas that had been acting a carbon sinks could be converted to carbon sources."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-16 18:57:23 Sun, Feb 15, 2009: from New Scientist Burp of Arctic laughing gas is no joke It seems the Arctic['s melting permafrost] is belching out nitrous oxide -- commonly known as laughing gas. Unfortunately, the punchline is that it is a powerful greenhouse gas.
Previously, emissions of N2O were thought to enter the atmosphere mainly from tropical forests and intensively managed farmland, with only a negligible amount from northerly environments.... Although this means N2O remains a small contributor to the greenhouse effect, compared with methane and carbon dioxide, the gas persists unaltered in the atmosphere for over 110 years, compared with around 10 years for methane -- which is also periodically released by the tundra.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-15 17:40:52 Sun, Feb 15, 2009: from Stanford University, via EurekAlert When fish farms are built along the coast, where does the waste go? All those fish penned up together consume massive amounts of commercial feed, some of which drifts off uneaten in the currents. And the crowded fish, naturally, defecate and urinate by the tens of thousands, creating yet another unpleasant waste stream.
The wastes can carry disease, causing damage directly. Or the phosphate and nitrates in the mix may feed an algae bloom that sucks the oxygen from the water, leaving it uninhabitable, a phenomenon long associated with fertilizer runoff. It has been widely assumed that the effluent from pens would be benignly diluted by the sea if the pens were kept a reasonable distance from shore, said Jeffrey Koseff, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and co-director of Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. But early results from a new Stanford computer simulation based on sophisticated fluid dynamics show that the icky stuff from the pens will travel farther, and in higher concentrations, than had been generally assumed, Koseff said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-15 17:34:09 Sun, Feb 15, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk 'Crazy ideas' to fight global warming revealed by scientists The science known as "geo-engineering" is considered dangerous by some for interfering with the world's delicate ecosystems, however advocates claim that it could "save the world" from catastrophic global warming.... However Robin Webster of Friends of the Earth said it was dangerous to rely on untested science.
"We cannot afford to close our eyes to new ideas but the fear is politicians see geo-engineering as the magic bullet that will get us out of trouble and take attention away from making difficult choices to cut carbon emissions now. We need to look at tried and tested technologies like renewables that work and can start reducing the threat climate change now."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-15 11:03:07 Sun, Feb 15, 2009: from BBC (UK) Global warming 'underestimated' The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.
Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted.
Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report had underestimated the rate of change.
He said warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than forecast.... "We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously in climate policy," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-15 10:57:04 Sun, Feb 15, 2009: from Washington University, via Eurek Biologist discusses sacred nature of sustainability Like all religious traditions, religious naturalism is anchored in a cosmological narrative, a set of stories accounting how the earth and its inhabitants came to be.
While conventional religions are generally based on older cosmological narratives such as those found in the Old and New Testaments, religious naturalism is based on a much more recent narrative.... She explains, "In more and more mainstream religions, you're seeing an increased emphasis on the earth and its creatures as sacred." This paradigm shift is due, at least in part, to a growing awareness that the old stories might not be sufficient to frame an ethic that alters the environment's current trajectory. She suggests that the new story offers a basis for understanding what a sustainable trajectory might look like.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-15 10:49:34 Sun, Feb 15, 2009: from Desdemona Despair Greenland fishing villages abandoned as fish are driven to colder water Coastal fishing villages such as Ikateq used to be home to families who relied on regular catches of Arctic char, a fish closely related to salmon. But warmer ocean temperatures in recent years have forced the char to migrate north to cooler waters, ending a way of life.Traditional villages are now ghost towns, with dogsleds and fish-drying racks lying unused outside abandoned houses.
With no way to support themselves, villagers have been forced to move to urban centres the largest city and capital, Nuuk, has a population of about 15,000. Ms Smirk says most of the displaced have no other way to earn a living and rely on social welfare.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-14 18:31:43 Sat, Feb 14, 2009: from Wall Street Journal Shrinking Water Supplies Imperil Farmers The state's water supply has dropped precipitously of late. California is locked in the third year of one of its worst droughts on record, with reservoirs holding as little as 22 percent of capacity.... At the Harris Farms near Coalinga, managers said they plan this year to sideline 9,000 of 11,000 acres they used to plant with tomatoes, onions, broccoli and other vegetables. Harris has been reducing production for two years because of declining water, and now must cut even more than planned. "You feel like a general in a battle," said John Harris, chairman and chief executive of the business. "You're in constant retreat."... In the Modesto metropolitan area, housing prices have declined 55 percent...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-14 12:49:45 Sat, Feb 14, 2009: from Contra Costa Times Newest Delta victims: Killer whales California's thirst is helping drive an endangered population of West Coast killer whales toward extinction, federal biologists have concluded.
The southern resident killer whale population, which numbers 83, spends much of its time in Puget Sound but since 2000 many of them have been spotted off the California coast as far south as Monterey Bay.
In a draft scientific report, biologists conclude the damage that water operations are doing to California's salmon populations is enough to threaten the orcas' existence because the water mammals depend on salmon for food. Federal officials confirmed the conclusions of the report to MediaNews on Friday; the data have not been released....
The findings, contained in a draft report by the agency's scientists, could elevate public support for environmental protection in the Delta, where the conflict between environmental advocates and water users has centered on Delta smelt, a nondescript fish that grows a couple of inches long and smells like cucumbers.
"People have a hard time looking at the Delta smelt for its own sake," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "If it's Shamu, that's a different thing."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-14 12:37:59 Sat, Feb 14, 2009: from Reuters Sea sponge shows promise as superbug antidote CHICAGO (Reuters) -- A compound from a sea sponge was able to reverse antibiotic resistance in several strains of bacteria, making once-resistant strains succumb to readily available antibiotics, U.S. researchers said on Friday.
"We can resensitize these pathogenic bacteria to standard, current-generation antibiotics," said Peter Moeller of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina.
Drug-resistant bacteria are a growing problem in hospitals worldwide, marked by the rise of superbugs such as methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus, or MRSA. Such infections kill about 19,000 people a year in the United States.
Moeller, who is working with researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina and North Carolina State University, said the team noticed a sponge thriving in what was an otherwise dead coral reef.
"It begged the question how is it surviving when everything else is dying?" Moeller told reporters at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago. "This opened up a whole new arena for us."
The researchers began chopping the sponge into smaller and smaller bits to isolate the properties that helped the sponge thrive in hostile marine conditions.
The team found that these bits of sponge were able to repel bacterial biofilms -- a slimy substance bacteria form to help stick to surfaces.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:17:18 Sat, Feb 14, 2009: from The Economist Drought in northern China ...After 100 days without precipitation in the region, the government has declared a "Level 1" emergency for the worst drought in 50 years, authorising an extra 300m yuan ($44m) in special drought-relief spending. It will finance everything from cloud-seeding rockets to the digging of new wells and tankers to deliver water. This year's winter-wheat harvest is at risk. February 8th saw some rain, but only 5-10 millimetres, compared with 200mm farmers say they need in coming months.
The drought comes at a difficult moment. The global downturn has hit China's exporters hard, and millions of rural migrants have lost their jobs in coastal factories and returned to their villages....China's water woes will only worsen, especially for farmers. When supplies tighten, urban and industrial users usually have priority. Ma Jun, a water specialist in Beijing, says that since the 1950s China has been digging ever deeper wells, and building ever more dams, canals, and water diversion projects. But all this has taken a toll. Because of lower water-tables and depleted aquifers, many rivers can no longer replenish themselves in the dry season.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-14 12:10:30 Sat, Feb 14, 2009: from London Independent Toxic waste blamed for birth defects Families of children born fingerless or with webbed hands and feet are to go to court on Monday to try to secure a multimillion-pound payout for birth defects which they claim were caused by a council's mismanagement of toxic waste dumps.
The case is being compared to the thalidomide scandal of the 1960s and 1970s, when parents brought claims arising from their children's severe birth defects caused by having taken the drug for morning sickness.
In the new case, mothers allege that during their pregnancies in the 1980s and 1990s they were exposed to contamination from waste sites left over from the clean-up of Northamptonshire's former steel industry based in Corby. Toxicology and medical experts have told the families that the rate of upper and lower-limb abnormality in Corby is 10 times higher than the national average.
Des Collins, the solicitor running the case, said he had medical evidence that would prove the children's deformities are linked to the toxic waste dumps left by the former steel industry. He said: "We have now got medical reports that rule out alternative explanations for what caused the limb deformities in these children."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-13 22:01:05 Sat, Feb 14, 2009: from Portland Oregonian Climate change threatens 'rock rabbits,' environmentalists say The tiny American pika, the "boulder bunny" that chirps at hikers high in the Western mountain ranges, may join the polar bear as a victim of climate change.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide by May whether to protect the pika under the federal Endangered Species Act in a court settlement reached today in San Francisco. Environmentalists say the animal is threatened by habitat loss due to global warming.
More than one-third of the pika population has vanished in Oregon, where it lives high in the Cascades and Eastern Oregon mountains.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Earthjustice sued the government in August, saying it was dragging its heels in providing protection for the pika. The polar bear was placed last year on the endangered species list because its habitat is under assault by warming temperatures.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-13 12:45:27 Fri, Feb 13, 2009: from London Times Penguins in peril as food search turns into marathon Penguins from the largest colony on mainland South America are being forced to swim the equivalent of two marathons farther to find food because of the effects of climate change.
The survival of the Magellanic penguin colony at Punta Tombo, on the Atlantic coast of Argentina, is being threatened by the increasing distances the birds must travel to feed themselves and their chicks, research has shown.
Dee Boersma, of the University of Washington in Seattle, said that Punta Tombo penguins were now routinely swimming 25 miles farther on their foraging expeditions than they did a decade ago... The longer foraging trips have contributed to the colony's decline: penguin numbers have fallen by more than 20 per cent in the past 22 years, leaving only 200,000 breeding pairs today.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-13 12:12:03 Fri, Feb 13, 2009: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer State not ready for 'climate refugees' "Climate refugees."
It's a term we should get used to, researchers warned on Thursday, predicting a flood of new residents driven north by heat waves, fires and other calamitous effects of global warming.
With one speaker raising the specter of a new migration on the scale of the Great Depression, state and county officials admitted they have barely started getting ready.
The warnings came at a conference of planners, scientists and government officials drilling into the results of a study released this week examining what Washington faces -- for our food supply, our forests, our drinking-water supplies and public health, among other fronts -- as the globe warms in coming decades.
"We're going to have an influx of climate refugees," said Richard Hoskins, an epidemiologist with the Washington Health Department. "This is going to have a tremendous impact on our public health (system). Local public health has a very full plate as it is."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:43:09 Fri, Feb 13, 2009: from BBC Bleak forecast on fishery stocks The world's fish stocks will soon suffer major upheaval due to climate change, scientists have warned.
Changing ocean temperatures and currents will force thousands of species to migrate polewards, including cod, herring, plaice and prawns.
By 2050, US fishermen may see a 50 percent reduction in Atlantic cod populations.... "The impact of climate change on marine biodiversity and fisheries is going to be huge," said lead author Dr William Cheung, of the University of East Anglia in the UK.
"We must act now to adapt our fisheries management and conservation policies to minimise harm to marine life and to our society."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-13 10:41:40 Fri, Feb 13, 2009: from Forbes Secondhand Smoke Linked to Dementia People exposed to secondhand smoke may face as much as a 44 percent increased risk of developing dementia, a new study suggests.
While previous research has established a connection between smoking and increased risk for dementia and Alzheimer's disease, this new study is the largest review to date showing a link between secondhand smoke and the threat of dementia, the authors said.
"There is an association between cognitive function, which is often but not necessarily a precursor of dementia, and exposure to passive smoking," said lead researcher Iain Lang, a research fellow in the Public Health and Epidemiology Group at Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, England.
What's more, Lang said, the risk of impaired cognitive function increases with the amount of exposure to secondhand smoke, the findings suggest. "For people at the highest levels of exposure, the risk is probably higher," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:45:05 Fri, Feb 13, 2009: from Latin America Press Farming chemicals cause kidney failure More than 3,000 workers at a sugar plant owned by Nicaragua's most powerful company have died from chronic renal failure since 1990 and a victims' group says another 5,000 workers have since developed the condition for the company's use of agrochemicals.
The San Antonio Refinery is owned by the Nicaragua Sugar Estates Limited, a part of Grupo Pellas, which produces Flor de Cana rum as well as ethanol and runs an electricity generator in Chichigalpa in the northern León department... Grupo Pellas denies any wrongdoing, accuses the sick workers of being alcoholics or drug addicts, and says that the illness is provoked by other causes. But a 2006 study by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, cited by Artoni, found that 95 percent of the 26 wells that serve the northwest of the country and close to 96 percent of the small family-only use wells are contaminated with feces, herbicides, bacteria and agrochemicals.
According to a recent investigation by the university, there is a possible cause-effect relation between the laborers' work and kidney failure.
Dr. Cecilia Torres, an occupational health researcher at the university told the Latin American Regional Office of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations that environmental neurotoxins, such as heavy metals -- arsenic, cadmium and lead -- and agrochemicals such as aldrin, chlorothalonil, maneb, copper sulfate, endrin and Nemagon, are major causes of chronic kidney failure in Nicaragua.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-12 12:09:27 Thu, Feb 12, 2009: from New York Times Big Science Role Is Seen in Global Warming Cure WASHINGTON -- Steven Chu, the new secretary of energy, said Wednesday that solving the world�s energy and environment problems would require Nobel-level breakthroughs in three areas: electric batteries, solar power and the development of new crops that can be turned into fuel....Dr. Chu said a "revolution" in science and technology would be required if the world is to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and curb the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.
Solar technology, he said, will have to get five times better than it is today, and scientists will need to find new types of plants that require little energy to grow and that can be converted to clean and cheap alternatives to fossil fuels.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-12 11:15:10 Thu, Feb 12, 2009: from Reuters U.S. and Russia track satellite crash debris Space officials in Russia and the United States were on Thursday tracking hundreds of pieces of debris that were spewed into space when a U.S. satellite collided with a defunct Russian military satellite.
The crash, which Russian officials said took place on Tuesday at about 1700 GMT (12:00 p.m. EST) above northern Siberia, is the first publicly known satellite collision and has raised concerns about the safety of the manned International Space Station.
The collision happened in an orbit heavily used by satellites and other spacecraft and the U.S. Strategic Command, the arm of the Pentagon that handles space, said countries might have to maneuver their craft to avoid the debris.
"The collision of these two space apparatuses happened by chance and these two apparatuses have been destroyed," Major-General Alexander Yakushin, first deputy commander of Russia's Space Forces, told Reuters.
"The fragments pose no danger whatsoever to Russian space objects," he said. When asked if the debris posed a danger to other nations' space craft, he said: "As for foreign ones, it is not for me say as it is not in my competency."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-16 10:46:38 Thu, Feb 12, 2009: from Christian Science Monitor On 'Darwin Day,' many Americans beg to differ ...In the US, though, Darwin remains a controversial figure. Two centuries after the famed naturalist's birth, more than 40 percent of Americans believe human beings were created by God in their present form, according to recent polls from Gallup and the Pew Research Center – a view impossible to reconcile with evolution propelled by natural selection.
Such creationist beliefs lack scientific merit, educators say, and in classrooms evolution reigns supreme. Opponents have tried an array of challenges over the decades, and the latest tactic recently scored its first major victory. It's a tack that is changing the way the cultural battle over evolution is fought.
In June of last year, Louisiana became the first state to pass what has become known as an "academic freedom" law. In the past, fights over evolution took place at the local school board level, but academic freedom proponents specifically target state legislatures.
Such laws back away from outright calls for alternative theories to evolution, electing instead to legislate support for teachers who discuss the "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses" of issues such as evolution in the name of protecting the freedom of speech of instructors and students alike.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-12 10:11:16 Thu, Feb 12, 2009: from Associated Press Africanized bees found in Utah for the first time Africanized honey bees have been found for the first time in the Beehive State. The bees, long the subject of lore as "killer bees," were recently discovered in Utah's Washington and Kane counties, the state Department of Agriculture said Wednesday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed that seven hives — three in the wild and four managed by private beekeepers — contained Africanized bees. The hives have since been destroyed.
The bees in Utah do not appear to be widespread and no injuries to people or animals have been reported.
State and local officials have been anticipating the bees' arrival since they showed up in Mesquite, Nev., in 1999, just a few miles from the Utah line.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-11 17:19:19 Wed, Feb 11, 2009: from New Scientist Eating less meat could cut climate costs Cutting back on beefburgers and bacon could wipe $20 trillion off the cost of fighting climate change. That's the dramatic conclusion of a study that totted up the economic costs of modern meat-heavy diets.
The researchers involved say that reducing our intake of beef and pork would lead to the creation of a huge new carbon sink, as vegetation would thrive on unused farmland.
The model takes into account farmland that is used to grow extra food to make up for the lost meat, but that requires less area, so some will be abandoned. Millions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, would also be saved every year due to reduced emissions from farms.
These impacts would lessen the need for expensive carbon-saving technologies, such as "clean coal" power plants, and so save huge sums, say Elke Stehfest of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and colleagues.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-11 17:05:12 Wed, Feb 11, 2009: from Reuters Can algae save the world - again? Can algae save the world again? The microscopic green plants cleaned up the earth's atmosphere millions of years ago and scientists hope they can do it now by helping remove greenhouse gases and create new oil reserves.
In the distant past, algae helped turn the earth's then inhospitable atmosphere into one that could support modern life through photosynthesis, which plants use to turn carbon dioxide and sunlight into sugars and oxygen.
Some of the algae sank to sea or lake beds and slowly became oil. "All we're doing is turning the clock back," says Steve Skill, a biochemist at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
"Nature has done this many millions of years ago in producing the crude oil we're burning today. So as far as nature is concerned this is nothing new," he said.
The race is now on to find economic ways to turn algae, one of the planet's oldest life forms, into vegetable oil that can be made into biodiesel, jet fuel, other fuels and plastic products.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-11 16:46:20 Wed, Feb 11, 2009: from London Daily Telegraph Scottish ski industry could disappear due to global warming, warns Met Office The country's five resorts are currently enjoying exceptional conditions after heavy snowfall in the Highlands, but climate change may mean they have less than 50 years of ski-ing left.
Alex Hill, chief government advisor with the Met Office, said the amount of snow in the Scottish mountains had been decreasing for the last 40 years and there was no reason for the decline to stop.
He added: "Put it this way, I will not be investing in the ski-ing industry. Will there be a ski industry in Scotland in 50 years' time? Very unlikely."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-11 16:36:01 Wed, Feb 11, 2009: from New Scientist New antibiotics would silence bugs, not kill them In future, the most effective antibiotics might be those that don't kill any bacteria. Instead the drugs will simply prevent the bacteria from talking with one another.
Drug-resistant bugs are winning the war against standard antibiotics as they evolve resistance to even the most lethal drugs. It happens because a dose of antibiotics strongly selects for resistance by killing the most susceptible bacteria first.
If, however, researchers can identify antibiotics that neutralise dangerous bacteria without killing them, the pressure to evolve resistance can be reduced. One way to do that is to target the constant stream of chatter that passes between bacteria as molecular signals.... Individual bacteria monitor the concentration of signalling molecules, and when it reaches a certain level, change their behaviour. That concentration provides a rough indication of when the number of cells in a particular population has reached a certain critical mass - known as a quorum.
When a quorum is reached, pathogenic bacteria shift from a benign state and begin attacking the host by secreting toxins.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-11 09:29:25 Wed, Feb 11, 2009: from Associated Press Salazar rejects Bush drilling plan WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has rejected a Bush administration plan to open vast waters off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to oil and gas drilling, promising "a new way forward" in offshore energy development including new wind projects.
Salazar at a news conference Tuesday criticized "the midnight timetable" for new oil and gas development on the country's Outer Continental Shelf proposed by the Bush administration four days before President Barack Obama took office Jan. 20.
The secretary said the previous administration's plan did not take into consideration the views of states and coastal communities, nor a need to better understand what energy resources are at stake, especially off the Atlantic coast where oil and gas estimates are more than three decades old.
"We need to ... restore an orderly process to our offshore energy planning program," declared Salazar, criticizing "foot dragging" by the Bush administration in pushing for renewable energy development in coastal waters.Salazar did not rule out expanded offshore drilling, but criticized "the enormous sweep" of the Bush proposal, which envisioned energy development from New England to Alaska including lease sales in areas off California and in the North Atlantic that have been off-limits for a quarter century.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-11 09:21:34 Wed, Feb 11, 2009: from Wilmington News Journal DuPont gets more time to test PFOA DuPont Co. has been given a last-minute pass on a federal deadline to complete testing on products thought to be a source of a controversial chemical in the environment.
The Environmental Appeals Board has given the company another three years to finish the testing, the second federal action taken in the waning days of the Bush administration on perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, a DuPont-made chemical used in Teflon and other products.
In January, the Environmental Protection Agency also set provisional guidelines on drinking-water exposure to PFOA at a level that was more lax than state guidelines in New Jersey and elsewhere.
"There's no science supporting either of these decisions. They're purely political gifts from the Bush administration," said Richard Wiles, executive director of Environmental Working Group, one of the first groups to sound the alarm on PFOA.
Growing evidence of the chemical's harmful health effects calls for a sharper response from the federal government, Wiles said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-11 09:12:50 Wed, Feb 11, 2009: from Minneapolis Star Tribune Road salt spreading into our water Rain and melting snow in the Twin Cities have flushed away road salt residue from hundreds of streets and tens of thousands of cars. But that might not be a good thing.
Now a University of Minnesota study estimates that 70 percent of the deicing salt used on metro-area roadways does not travel far when it drains off the pavement. It gushes into area wetlands and lakes and seeps into groundwater, and it is making them saltier with each successive year. About 30 percent goes to the Mississippi River.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-10 21:19:22 Wed, Feb 11, 2009: from Vietnam.net Urbanisation threatens food security Since 2001 the area under crops has dropped from more than 4.3 million ha to 4.13 million ha, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
In 2007 alone, the area under rice shrank by 125,000 ha, as authorities tried to restructure crop patterns and develop the services and industrial sectors and urban sprawl overran surrounding areas.
Farmlands are forecast to continue shrinking as they are appropriated for non-agricultural purposes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-10 12:06:40 Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from NPR Cholera Exhausts Zimbabwean Health Care System In December, the World Health Organization's worst-case scenario for Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak was that 60,000 people might become infected before the end of March. But already, nearly 70,000 cases of cholera have been reported.
Despite the fact that cholera is relatively easy to treat and to prevent with basic hygiene and appropriate sanitation, more than 3,300 people have died of the disease since the outbreak began in August 2008, according to the WHO.
A simple treatment of oral rehydration can save most lives, but health experts who have visited Zimbabwe recently say those measures simply aren't available because the economy is in meltdown.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-10 11:55:09 Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from Associated Press US relies on states for food safety inspections The U.S. government has increasingly relied on food-safety inspections performed by states, where budgets for inspections in many cases have remained stagnant and where overburdened officials are trained less than their federal counterparts and perform skimpier reviews, an Associated Press investigation has found.
The thoroughness of inspections performed by states has emerged as a key issue in the investigation of the national salmonella outbreak traced to a peanut processing plant in Blakely, Ga. The outbreak, which has highlighted weaknesses in the nation's food-safety system, is blamed for 600 illnesses and at least eight deaths in 44 states.... State investigators performed more than half the Food and Drug Administration's food inspections in 2007, according to an AP analysis of FDA data. That represents a dramatic rise from a decade ago, when FDA investigators performed three out of four of the federal government's inspections.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-10 09:59:21 Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Tories propose 'biocredits' to put cash value on damage to habitats and species Under radical new Conservative proposals to stop biodiversity loss in the UK, all would be given a cash value.
The scheme is designed to halt the decline of hundreds of habitats and species by assigning a cost to be paid by proposed development schemes that would lead to their destruction. The damage done by a project would be given a cash value and developers asked to compensate for that damage by investing an equivalent amount in projects to protect or improve biodiversity at another location.
The plan being put forward by the new Conservative shadow environment secretary, Nick Herbert, is modelled on similar "bio-credits" initiatives, including in the US, Malaysia and Australia, which have created markets in biodiversity worth tens of millions of pounds a year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-10 11:49:01 Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from New York Times Oil Contaminates Des Plaines River ROCKDALE, Ill. (AP)-- A holding tank at a Caterpillar facility in southwest suburban Chicago broke open early Sunday morning, spilling about 65,000 gallons of oil sludge and contaminating a three-mile section of the Des Plaines River, officials said.
"It is being contained, and there is no evidence of a fish kill or harm to water fowl," Maggie Carson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, said by e-mail.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-10 07:16:00 Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from Stanford University, via EurekAlert No joy in discoveries of new mammal species -- only a warning for humanity In the era of global warming, when many scientists say we are experiencing a human-caused mass extinction to rival the one that killed off the dinosaurs, one might think that the discovery of a host of new species would be cause for joy. Not entirely so, says Paul Ehrlich, co-author of an analysis of the 408 new mammalian species discovered since 1993.
"What this paper really talks about is how little we actually know about our natural capital and how little we know about the services that flow from it," said Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford.
"I think what most people miss is that the human economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the economy of nature, which supplies us from our natural capital a steady flow of income that we can't do without," Ehrlich said. "And that income is in the form of what are called 'ecosystem services' -- keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, supplying fresh water, preventing floods, protecting our crops from pests and pollinating many of them, recycling the nutrients that are essential to agriculture and forestry, and on and on."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-10 07:12:05 Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from UC Berkeley, via EurekAlert Scientists document salamander decline in Central America The decline of amphibian populations worldwide has been documented primarily in frogs, but salamander populations also appear to have plummeted, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.
By comparing tropical salamander populations in Central America today with results of surveys conducted between 1969 and 1978, UC Berkeley researchers have found that populations of many of the commonest salamanders have steeply declined.
On the flanks of the Tajumulco volcano on the west coast of Guatemala, for example, two of the three commonest species 40 years ago have disappeared, while the third was nearly impossible to find.... Frog declines have been attributed to a variety of causes, ranging from habitat destruction, pesticide use and introduced fish predators to the Chytrid fungus, which causes an often fatal disease, chytridiomycosis.
These do not appear to be responsible for the decline of Central American salamanders, Wake said. Instead, because the missing salamanders tend to be those living in narrow altitude bands, Wake believes that global warming is pushing these salamanders to higher and less hospitable elevations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-16 10:44:24 Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Cedarburg native wants to make it to both poles, Everest in one year Arctic explorer Eric Larsen, a Cedarburg native, intends to be the first person ever to reach the South and North poles and the summit of Mount Everest within one year.
The three-legged expedition to what Larsen calls "the top, bottom and roof of the world" is scheduled to begin in November in Antarctica. Travel across the Arctic to the North Pole would come second, beginning in February 2010. The push to Everest's summit - the world's highest at 29,029 feet above sea level - might start in September 2010.... Larsen plans to reach the three destinations in quick succession to draw public attention to the impact of global warming on each of these remote places. The name of the proposed expedition: Save the Poles.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:16:51 Tue, Feb 10, 2009: from Washington Post Pride of Argentina Falls on Hard Times Argentina is suffering its worst drought in decades and the cattle are dying by the barnload. Since October, the drought has taken down 1.5 million of the animals, according to an estimate by the Argentine Rural Society, in a country that last year sent 13.5 million to slaughter. The cattle for the most part are dying of hunger, as the dry skies have shriveled up their pastures, along with huge swaths of Argentina's important soy, corn and wheat fields.
"The drought has affected practically the entire country, the cattle-ranching sector, agriculture. It is the most intense, prolonged and expensive drought in the past 50 years," Hugo Luis Biolcati, the president of the Argentine Rural Society, said in the organization's offices in Buenos Aires. "I think we are facing a very bad year."
The cattlemen at the century-old Liniers Market in Buenos Aires, one of the largest cow auctions in the world, with about 40,000 animals passing through each week, tend to agree. In wooden pens, spines and ribs jut out under the many taut hides jostling together.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-09 17:55:41 Mon, Feb 9, 2009: from Agence France-Presse Pollution preferable to unemployment for Romanian town COPSA MICA, Romania (AFP)-- For the residents of Copsa Mica, a tiny town in central Romania, the closure of its local smelting plant is a worse catastrophe than having a reputation as the most polluted place in Europe.
"I know the plant was a threat to our health, but at least people had a job," said Diana Roman, a 22-year-old woman who sells potatoes and carrots on the market square of Copsa Mica, which has a population of 5,500 and is situated 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of Bucharest.
Roman's husband is one of the 820 workers being laid off -- out of a total workforce of 1,050 -- at the Sometra smelting plant, Copsa Mica's biggest employer... [Copsa Mica's mayor, Tudor] Mihalache acknowledged the heavy pollution caused by Sometra, making the air "unbreathable", despite investments to curb the emissions of sulphur dioxide and heavy metals such as lead, zinc and cadmium.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-09 13:46:53 Mon, Feb 9, 2009: from London Times MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.
Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients' data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.
The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children's conditions.... Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper's impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92 percent to below 80 percent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-09 20:03:36 Mon, Feb 9, 2009: from BusinessGreen Emergency Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen to be held in March Climate change scientists are to hold an emergency summit in Copenhagen next month to collate the latest findings in climate science and step up pressure on the UN negotiating process to ensure any deal agreed later this year is informed by the scientific realities of global warming.
The International Scientific Congress on Climate Change will run from 10-12 March and is being organised by the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU), including the University of Copenhagen, Yale, UC Berkeley, Tokyo, Oxford and Cambridge.
It will feature keynotes from IPCC Chairman Dr. RK Pachauri, Lord Nicholas Stern, and President of the European Commission Jose M. Barroso, as well as a raft of the world's top climate scientists and will address the extent to which a "technological fix" to climate change is now possible, the likely costs of inaction, and the scale of the global security threat climate change presents.
In addition, the conference aims to "bridge the four year data gap left by the leading global scientific body on climate change -- the IPCC -- with its latest reports".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-09 10:33:19 Mon, Feb 9, 2009: from Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader As bat deaths rise, mosquito invasion looms Here's a prediction: We will see more mosquitoes this summer. Why?
Because something is killing bats. Wiping out entire populations of the insect-eating mammals, and nobody knows why or how to stop it.
Considering a single little brown bat can eat more than 2,000 mosquitoes in a night, and factoring in that bats in our area are starting to perish just like bats in New York and New England did, one of our top insect predators might be absent from the evening sky this summer.
Last week the Pennsylvania Game Commission discovered dead bats in two mine sites in Lackawanna County.... Something is causing the thousands of bats to use up their winter energy reserves early.
As a result, the bats are emerging from hibernation six weeks early and flying out of the mines in search of insects. The problem is there aren't any bugs in February, and the bats are literally starving to death in mid-air.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-09 10:13:43 Mon, Feb 9, 2009: from Times Online (UK) Polar ice caps melting faster THE ice caps are melting so fast that the world's oceans are rising more than twice as fast as they were in the 1970s, scientists have found.
They have used satellites to track how the oceans are responding as billions of gallons of water reach them from melting ice sheets and glaciers.
The effect is compounded by thermal expansion, in which water expands as it warms, according to the study by Anny Cazenave of the National Centre for Space Studies in France.
These findings come at the same time as a warning from an American academic whose research suggests Labour's policies to cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050 are doomed.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:06:36 Sun, Feb 8, 2009: from Carlisle Sentinel Anti-idling truck law goes into effect As of Friday, most trucks and buses are no longer allowed to sit with their engines running for more than five minutes out of every hour.
The enactment of statewide legislation was sweet and long-awaited news for members of the Clean Air Board of Central Pennsylvania (CAB), which advocated such a bill for two years before it was passed in October 2008.
"We had our usual monthly public meeting on Thursday night, and we were celebrating," said CAB board member Rev. Duane Fickeisen of Unitarian Universalists of Cumberland Valley. CAB's emphasis has been on reducing the level of PM 2.5, a fine air particulate that is produced by diesel engines and linked to a variety of heart and lung ailments, and Fickeisen said he thinks the new law will help but not cure the problem.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:31:27 Sun, Feb 8, 2009: from McClatchy Newspapers Citizen scientists' notes document affects of climate change WASHINGTON -- It has to do with brown-headed cowbirds and clear-cut forests, lilacs and wildfires, vineyards in the Rhine Valley, marmots, dandelions, tadpoles, cherry trees around the Tidal Basin in Washington and musty old records stuffed in shoe boxes in people's closets and stacked on museum shelves.
As scientists track global warming, they're using sometimes centuries-old data to assess its impact on plants, animals, insects, fish, reptiles and amphibians. Increasingly, they're discovering that it can take only one seemingly insignificant change to disrupt an entire ecosystem.
"People talk about a 1- or 2-degree rise in temperature and it's inconsequential to us. Who cares?" said Greg Jones, an environmental studies professor at Southern Oregon University who's been studying wine grapes. "But in an ecosystem it can have dramatic effects." As the study of phenology, or life cycles, attracts growing attention, researchers are turning more and more to citizen scientists for help.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:23:22 Sun, Feb 8, 2009: from Associated Press DEP uncertain if coal slurry injection is safe Two years after it was charged to do so, and 13 months after its original deadline, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection remains unable to answer a question that worries thousands in the southern coalfields: Are water supplies and human health at risk when a chemical soup from the cleaning of coal is pumped into worked-out underground mines?"We have some concerns, to be quite honest with you," DEP Director Randy Huffman told The Associated Press about coal slurry injection. "We have questions we're trying to get some answers to, to make sure it's safe."
Yet coal operators are still permitted to inject slurry at 15 locations.
The DEP cannot say precisely what's in that waste, how much is injected annually, or whether and where it migrates. Nor is it under any pressure to do so: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hasn't studied the practice in a decade and said in 2002 its existing rules were adequate to protect groundwater.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:15:51 Sun, Feb 8, 2009: from London Independent New nuclear plants will produce far more radiation New nuclear reactors planned for Britain will produce many times more radiation than previous reactors that could be rapidly released in an accident, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
The revelations -- based on information buried deep in documents produced by the nuclear industry itself -- calls into doubt repeated assertions that the new European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) will be safer than the old atomic power stations they replace.
Instead they suggest that a reactor or nuclear waste accident, [sic] althouguh less likely to happen, could have even more devastating consequences in future; one study suggests that nearly twice as many people could die.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:41:35 Sun, Feb 8, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Carbon price falls to new low The price of carbon has hit new lows as power generators and industrial companies continue to cash in credits under the emissions trading scheme (ETS) to bolster their balance sheets.... Analysts at Barclays Capital warned the price could fall further to €9 while Utilyx, the carbon information provider, said: "There seems to be no bottom to carbon prices at the moment."
Market experts blame the decline on profit taking and a collapse in manufacturing, which has reached its lowest levels since 1981 in Britain.
Power generators and industrial firms are selling their credits to raise cash during the credit crunch but also because they are confident they will not need as many pollution permits at a time of falling demand for their products.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-09 11:04:31 Sat, Feb 7, 2009: from Reuters Health Testosterone-blocking chemicals found in wastewater NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Testosterone-inhibiting chemicals appear to be finding their way into UK rivers, possibly helping to "feminize" male fish -- and raising questions about what the effects on human health might be, according to researchers.
In tests of treated sewage wastewater flowing into 51 UK rivers, the researchers found that almost all of the samples contained anti-androgen chemicals -- substances that block the action of the male sex hormone testosterone.
What's more, when the researchers studied fish taken from the rivers, they found that exposure to anti-androgens seemed to be contributing to the feminization of some male fish - male fish with feminized ducts or germ cells.
What this means for humans is not clear. But the findings raise the possibility of effects on male fertility, the investigators report in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Past studies have suggested that estrogen-disrupting pollutants -- from sources like industrial chemicals and birth-control pills -- may be leading to the feminization of some wild fish. Researchers have discovered river-dwelling male fish with female characteristics, including eggs in their testes.
There have been doubts about whether the findings are relevant to men's fertility, however, since the presumed culprit chemicals in fish do not disrupt testosterone. But now these latest findings implicate anti-androgens in the feminization of fish as well.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-07 19:07:29 Sat, Feb 7, 2009: from New York Times Fallout Widens as Buyers Shun Peanut Butter Many consumers, apparently disregarding the fine print of the salmonella outbreak and food recall caused by a Georgia peanut plant, are swearing off all brands of peanut butter, driving down sales by nearly 25 percent. The drop-off is so striking that brands like Jif are taking the unusual step of buying ads to tell shoppers that their products are not affected, and giving them a coupon to make sure they do not learn to live without a staple that almost every child loves -- and more than a few of their parents, too.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-07 13:17:31 Sat, Feb 7, 2009: from Minneapolis Star Tribune Probe: Did 3M firefighting foam contaminate water? Minnesota health officials are launching a major investigation into whether drinking water in 15 Minnesota cities is contaminated with chemicals formerly manufactured by 3M Co. and used in municipal fire-fighting foam.
The tests, set to begin next month, will be important to residents and fire officials in communities across the country where a 3M firefighting foam has been used for years in training exercises, often on city-owned property adjacent to municipal wells. The foam is flushed into storm sewers or left to seep into the ground, raising the possibility that drinking water has been affected.
"This could have national significance," said Doug Wetzstein, supervisor in the superfund section at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Firefighters virtually everywhere have used the foam for decades, he said, at city practice areas, community college training courses, and especially at military bases, airports and refineries where jet fuel and other petroleum-based fires are a major concern.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-07 19:08:04 Sat, Feb 7, 2009: from AFP US green groups hail reversal of Bush-era land lease WASHINGTON (AFP) -- US environmentalists including actor Robert Redford have hailed US President Barack Obama's administration's reversal of a Bush-era move to lease wilderness land in Utah to energy companies.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has ordered the Bureau of Land Management "not to accept the bids on 77 parcels" that, he said, former president George W. Bush's administration had rushed to sell off in its dying days in office.
The lands involved sit "at the doorstep of some of our nation's most treasured landscapes in Utah," including Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Parks, Dinosaur National Monument and Nine Mile Canyon, Salazar said Wednesday.
Actor, environmental activist and Utah resident Robert Redford called the move "a sign that after eight long years of rapacious greed and backdoor dealings, our government is returning a sense of balance to the way it manages our lands."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-07 19:17:54 Sat, Feb 7, 2009: from Associated Press Octuplet birth doctor under investigation LOS ANGELES -- The spotlight on the mother of octuplets is turning to the fertility doctor who helped her give birth not once but 14 times by implanting Nadya Suleman with fertilized embryos.
The Medical Board of California investigating the doctor -- whom it did not name -- to see if there was a "violation of the standard of care," board spokeswoman Candis Cohen said Friday.
She did not elaborate.
Suleman, 33, of Whittier, already had six children when she gave birth Jan. 26 to octuplets. The births to an unemployed, divorced single mother prompted angry questions about how she plans to provide for her children.
But the backlash seems to have extended as well to Suleman's doctor...."All I wanted was children. I wanted to be a mom. That's all I ever wanted in my life," Suleman said in the portion of the interview that aired Friday. "I love my children."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 16:53:23 Fri, Feb 6, 2009: from CBC News (Canada) World's fish at risk as countries flout fishing code, study finds The time has come for responsible fishing guidelines to be enforced as law internationally because the voluntary code of conduct currently in place has failed to save the world's fish from being depleted, fisheries researchers say.
A recent study found "dismayingly poor compliance" among countries around the world with the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1995, said a commentary published this week in Nature.... "Overall, compliance is poor, with room for improvement at every level in the rankings," the commentary said, adding that even top-ranking countries such as Canada were given "fail" grades for certain practices and none achieved a "good" ranking.
Only Norway, the U.S., Canada, Australia, Iceland and Namibia received overall compliance scores of 60 per cent, and 28 countries that haul in 40 per cent of the global catch had "unequivocal fail grades overall," the study said.... It added that while it may have been necessary 13 years ago to make the agreement voluntary, there is more widespread agreement now that continued overfishing is hurting ecosystems and threatening food supplies, and something needs to be done.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:19:26 Fri, Feb 6, 2009: from MedPage Today Bisphenol A Mimics Estrogen, Phthalates Target Testosterone Although they have been linked to reproductive problems in both sexes, bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates -- common chemicals found in household plastics -- have gender-specific effects.... "BPA looks like estrogen," Dr. Taylor, whose research focuses on uterine development and endocrine disruption, said of its chemical structure. "By itself it is a very weak estrogen."
... Mice that were exposed to BPA as fetuses developed abnormalities of the ovaries, uterus, and vagina, Dr. Taylor said. Other murine studies found genetic abnormalities in eggs, an increased risk of mammary cancers, and early puberty in females....
Phthalates, on the other hand, have antiandrogenic effects, Dr. Taylor said.
Studies in male animals have found reduced sperm production, undescended testes, hypospadias, decreased testosterone production, and reduced anogenital distance.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 15:09:02 Fri, Feb 6, 2009: from New Scientist Why sustainable power is unsustainable Renewable energy needs to become a lot more renewable -- a theme that emerged at the Financial Times Energy Conference in London this week.
Although scientists are agreed that we must cut carbon emissions from transport and electricity generation to prevent the globe's climate becoming hotter, and more unpredictable, the most advanced "renewable" technologies are too often based upon non-renewable resources, attendees heard.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 15:11:27 Fri, Feb 6, 2009: from Scientific American U.S. Arctic May Close to Fishing All U.S. waters north of the Bering Strait may soon be closed to commercial fishing. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council—the government body charged with administering Alaskan waters—voted unanimously in Seattle today to close 196,000 square miles (150,000 square nautical miles) of ocean to any fishing.
"This will close the Arctic to all commercial fishing," says Jim Ayers, vice president for Pacific and Arctic affairs at Oceana, based in Juneau, who testified before the vote. "This is the beginning of a concept of large protected marine areas." ... While this is good news for fish, it does not mean that the Arctic is free from industrial threats. The Bush administration sold leases for oil and gas exploration in the Chukchi Sea to Shell and global warming is wreaking havoc by melting sea ice, softening permafrost and even eroding villages and towns. That prompted towns like Shishmaref to file a lawsuit requiring a reduction in greenhouse gases to preserve their traditional way of life.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 15:12:19 Fri, Feb 6, 2009: from New Scientist Antarctic bulge could flood Washington DC Rather than spreading out evenly across all the oceans, water from melted Antarctic ice sheets will gather around North America and the Indian Ocean. That's bad news for the US East Coast, which could bear the brunt of one of these oceanic bulges.... Once the ice melts, the release of pressure could also cause the Antarctic continent to rise by 100 metres. And as the weight of the ice pressing down on the continental shelf is released, the rock will spring back, displacing seawater that will also spread across the oceans.... The upshot is that the North American continent and the Indian Ocean will experience the greatest changes in sea level -- adding 1 or 2 metres to the current estimates. Washington DC sits squarely in this area, meaning it could face a 6.3-metre sea level rise in total. California will also be in the target zone.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-05 20:28:22 Fri, Feb 6, 2009: from Entomological Society of America, via EurekAlert A natural, alternative insect repellent to DEET Isolongifolenone, a natural compound found in the Tauroniro tree (Humiria balsamifera) of South America, has been found to effectively deter biting of mosquitoes and to repel ticks, both of which are known spreaders of diseases such as malaria, West Nile virus, and Lyme disease.
Derivatives of isolongifolenone have been widely and safely used as fragrances in cosmetics, perfumes, deodorants, and paper products, and new processing methods may make it as cheap to produce as DEET.... Since "isolongifolenone is easily synthesized from inexpensive turpentine oil feedstock," the authors write, "we are therefore confident that the compound has significant potential as an inexpensive and safe repellent for protection of large human populations against blood-feeding arthropods."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-05 12:44:33 Thu, Feb 5, 2009: from WV Public Radio White nose syndrome suspected in WV bats "On the way to the caves we found five dead bats along the trail, which is unusual," West said. "In the one cave, New Trout, we saw no evidence whatsoever of White Nose Syndrome. In Trout Cave we found two bats that had some fungal growth."... "As the counters proceeded to the rear of the cave, they observed that roughly a quarter of the bats they were counting, and they counted over 400 that day, roughly a quarter that they could examine were displaying a fungal growth that resembled White Nose," West said.
When the group left the cave at twilight, a number of bats were leaving the cave presumably in search of food, which they normally don't do in the cold months when there are no bugs to eat.
Bats with White Nose Syndrome eventually starve to death.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-05 12:45:28 Thu, Feb 5, 2009: from New York Times Experts in U.S. and China See a Chance for Cooperation Against Climate Change BEIJING -- When Chinese officials and the Obama administration begin serious discussions over issues at the heart of relations between China and the United States, the usual suspects will no doubt emerge: trade, North Korea, human rights, Taiwan. But an increasing number of officials and scholars from both countries say climate change is likely to become another focal point in the dialogue. American and Chinese leaders recognize the urgency of global warming, the scholars and officials say, and believe that a new international climate treaty is impossible without agreements between their nations, the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases.... "I believe climate change may become a very important issue which will put China-U.S. relations in a new framework in the 21st century because the stakes are high," said Wu Jianmin, a senior adviser to the Foreign Ministry. "We all understand we don't have much time left. We've got to work together."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-05 12:30:49 Thu, Feb 5, 2009: from US News and World Report Not Just HFCS and Peanut Butter: Here are 10 Other Risky Foods 1. Farmed Salmon. It's high in Polychlorinated Biphenyls, with 11 times more dioxins than wild salmon.
2. Conventionally Grown Bell Peppers. They require more pesticides than any other vegetable - with as many as 64 being found on a single sample of pepper in one study.
3. Non-Organic Strawberries. Some growers of strawberries irrigate their plants with Nutri-Sweet-laced water. The sugar substitute is a probable carcinogen.
4. Chilean Sea Bass. The fish is high in mercury, and if eaten consistently over time, can elevate the body's mercury levels to dangerous amounts.
5. Non-Organic Peaches. Pesticides easily penetrate their soft skins and permeate the fruit.
6. Genetically Modified Corn. We still don't know the long-term effects of genetically modified corn, but it's been tied to an increase in allergies for humans.
7. Bluefin Tuna. Not only is it high in mercury, but overfishing may drive the species to extinction.
8. Industrially Farmed Chicken. Arsenic has been found in conventional chickens, as well as antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
9. Non-Organic Apples. When grown in humid Mid-Atlantic states, the crop uses more pesticides than California, Oregon and Washington states.
10. Cattle Treated with rBGH. Recombinant bovine growth hormone has been traced to breast cancer and hormonal disorders.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-05 12:33:11 Thu, Feb 5, 2009: from University of Liverpool, via EurekAlert Software could save organizations $19,000 each month Software designed by the University of Liverpool which automatically shuts down computer systems after usage, is saving large organisations up to £13,000 in electricity costs each month.... Using the University of Liverpool as a test model the team discovered that 1,600 library-based PC's alone were using 20,000 kW each week unnecessarily – equating to approximately £2,400 in current electricity prices. PowerDown has so far recovered 24 million hours of PC inactivity within the University.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-05 12:12:48 Thu, Feb 5, 2009: from BBC Parched Perth embarks on water rescue Turning the sea into drinking water is at the heart of Western Australia's multi-faceted approach to satisfying the thirst of a booming population that lives on the edge of a desert. "We had a history of taking gutsy decisions," said Jim Gill, former chief executive of the Water Corporation of Western Australia, a government-owned monopoly.
"And that's what put us in a position of world leadership in terms of dealing with a drying climate."
The corporation opened the southern hemisphere's first desalination plant, south of Perth, in November 2006.
Powered by a wind farm, the move was prompted by the driest winter ever recorded in Western Australia (WA) - a region that was among the first to see the effects of a shifting climate.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-05 18:10:57 Thu, Feb 5, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Obama's energy secretary outlines dire climate change scenario Unless there is timely action on climate change, California's agricultural bounty could be reduced to a dust bowl and its cities disappear, Barack Obama's energy secretary said yesterday.
The apocalyptic scenario sketched out by Steven Chu, the Nobel laureate appointed as energy secretary, was the clearest sign to date of the greening of America's political class under the new president. In blunt language, Chu said Americans had yet to fully understand the urgency of dealing with climate change. "I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen," he told the Los Angeles Times in his first interview since taking the post. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California. I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-04 15:31:28 Wed, Feb 4, 2009: from New York Times Dark Days for Green Energy Wind and solar power have been growing at a blistering pace in recent years, and that growth seemed likely to accelerate under the green-minded Obama administration. But because of the credit crisis and the broader economic downturn, the opposite is happening: installation of wind and solar power is plummeting. Factories building parts for these industries have announced a wave of layoffs in recent weeks, and trade groups are projecting 30 to 50 percent declines this year in installation of new equipment, barring more help from the government.
Prices for turbines and solar panels, which soared when the boom began a few years ago, are falling. Communities that were patting themselves on the back just last year for attracting a wind or solar plant are now coping with cutbacks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-05 18:03:52 Wed, Feb 4, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Japan rejects deal to limit whaling to its own waters The [International Whaling Commission] has proposed that Japan scale back or halt its whaling in the Antarctic Ocean over the next five years, a suggestion that Shigeru Ishiba, minister of fisheries, dismissed as "unacceptable."
Tokyo "will not be able to accept any proposal that would prohibit Japan from continuing its research whaling," he told reporters.
Environmental campaigners have also condemned the IWC plan.... "This one-way compromise would lift the commercial whaling moratorium, allow the government of Japan to kill endangered species and permit illegal high-seas whaling to continue," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-04 14:34:23 Wed, Feb 4, 2009: from Mongabay Malaysian government says forest reserve 'plundered' for oil palm development Responding to allegations by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) that indigenous people have been forced from their lands (a charge it denied), the Sabah Forestry Department said that more than 30 percent of Mt. Pock And Tanjong Nagos Forest Reserves were "plundered" by "people with means to plant illegal oil palm including companies" up until 2001. The statement is noteworthy in that leaders of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, the marketing and lobbying arm of the Malaysian palm oil industry, have maintained that oil expansion has not taken place at the expense of natural forest in Malaysia. The Forestry Department statement noted that oil palm companies spent million of ringgit "to develop the illegal oil palm including the recruitment of illegal workers to destroy forests and intimidate Forestry Department staff on the ground." It said that 202 people were arrested in the reserves between 2003 and 2006. Statewide, 732 were apprehended for illegal encroachment. 471 of these were illegal immigrants.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-04 14:35:06 Wed, Feb 4, 2009: from AGU, via EurekAlert Global warming may delay recovery of stratospheric ozone Increasing greenhouse gases could delay, or even postpone indefinitely the recovery of stratospheric ozone in some regions of the Earth, a new study suggests. This change might take a toll on public health.... [They] report that climate change could provoke variations in the circulation of air in the lower stratosphere in tropical and southern mid-latitudes -- a band of the Earth including Australia and Brazil. The circulation changes would cause ozone levels in these areas never to return to levels that were present before decline began, even after ozone-depleting substances have been wiped out from the atmosphere.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-03 19:00:26 Wed, Feb 4, 2009: from London Guardian Biofuels more harmful to humans than petrol and diesel, warn scientists Some biofuels cause more health problems than petrol and diesel, according to scientists who have calculated the health costs associated with different types of fuel.
The study shows that corn-based bioethanol, which is produced extensively in the US, has a higher combined environmental and health burden than conventional fuels. However, there are high hopes for the next generation of biofuels, which can be made from organic waste or plants grown on marginal land that is not used to grow foods. They have less than half the combined health and environmental costs of standard gasoline and a third of current biofuels.... Using computer models developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the researchers found the total environmental and health costs of gasoline are about 71 cents (50p) per gallon, while an equivalent amount of corn-ethanol fuel has associated costs of 72 cents to $1.45, depending on how it is produced.
The next generation of so-called cellulosic bioethanol fuels costs 19 cents to 32 cents, depending on the technology and type of raw materials used. These are experimental fuels made from woody crops that typically do not compete with conventional agriculture. The results are published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 16:58:44 Tue, Feb 3, 2009: from BBC Water - another global 'crisis'? Among people who study human development, it is a widely-held view that each person needs about 20 litres of water each day for the basics - to drink, cook and wash sufficiently to avoid disease transmission.
Yet at the height of the East African drought, people were getting by on less than five litres a day - in some cases, less than one litre a day, enough for just three glasses of drinking water and nothing left over. Some people, perhaps incredibly from a western vantage point, are hardy enough to survive in these conditions; but it is not a recipe for a society that is healthy and developing enough to break out of poverty.
"Obviously there are many drivers of human development," says the UN's Andrew Hudson.
"But water is the most important."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-03 12:19:23 Tue, Feb 3, 2009: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Personal-care chemicals go on toxic list The federal government is placing on its toxic substances list two silicone-based chemicals that are widely used in shampoos and conditioners, where they help give hair the silky, smooth feeling often played up in advertisements for these personal care products.
It is the first time any country has taken such regulatory action against the substances, called D4 and D5 by the silicone industry, that are also in hundreds of personal-care products ranging from deodorants to skin moisturizers.... [Ottawa] decided to designate the substances as dangerous, based on fears that they were a threat to wildlife when they get into the environment from the disposal of consumer products and from industrial releases.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-03 11:52:43 Tue, Feb 3, 2009: from Seattle Times Deep trouble for wells in Eastern Washington A groundwater-mapping study that tracks how water trickles under Eastern Washington shows deep wells in four counties are in deep trouble.
The two-year study done by the Columbia Basin Groundwater Management Area, based in Othello, found that aquifer levels are dropping fast, that most deep wells in the study area are drawing water left from the ice-age floods at least 10,000 years ago, and that there is virtually no chance Lake Roosevelt is recharging deep wells in Eastern Washington's driest counties.
"This is a major issue for cities and big irrigators," said Paul Stoker, executive director of the groundwater agency.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-03 18:37:29 Tue, Feb 3, 2009: from CNN Money Wind jobs outstrip coal mining jobs Here's a talking point in the green jobs debate: The wind industry now employs more people than coal mining in the United States.
Wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70 percent increase from the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday from the American Wind Energy Association. In contrast, coal mining employs about 81,000 workers. (Those figures are from a 2007 U.S. Department of Energy report but coal employment has remained steady in recent years though it's down by nearly 50 percent since 1986.) Wind industry employment includes 13,000 manufacturing jobs concentrated in regions of the country hard hit by the deindustrialization of the past two decades.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-03 08:55:19 Tue, Feb 3, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Britain 'must revive farms' to avoid grave food crisis Britain faces a major food crisis unless urgent steps are taken to revive its flagging agricultural sector, warns one of the world's most influential thinktanks.... The thinktank on international affairs also claims the UK's consumers must expect to pay significantly more for their food if they want the country to develop a long-term sustainable food policy.... [T]he report's authors quote experts in the food supply chain who believe the prospect of the UK being hit by a crisis is "highly likely". The report claims: "What we had thought of as abundant food supply is anything but. Western societies, in particular, have tended to take their food supply for granted. The global system will reach breaking point unless action is taken."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-03 08:44:23 Tue, Feb 3, 2009: from Ecological Society of America, via EurekAlert Ecologists report quantifiable measures of nature's services to humans Some of the best-described ecosystem services include pollination of crops, flood and storm protection, water filtration and recreation. The challenging part is translating these services into something with a measurable value. Economic valuation methods take changes in the supply of ecosystem services and translate these into changes in human welfare.... The InVEST software has also shown that high levels of biodiversity often go hand-in-hand with the provision of more ecosystem services, suggesting that the preservation of biodiversity will enhance ecosystem services. This correlation is also reflected in the success of ecosystem service projects: The authors report that although conservation initiatives that focus on ecosystem services are still in their infancy, many are as successful as traditional biodiversity preservation approaches, and can often garner as much or more funding from the private sector.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-05 16:02:29 Tue, Feb 3, 2009: from CBC News (Canada) Mercury levels rising in caribou, contaminants program finds Caribou in Canada's North are showing increasing levels of mercury, a contaminant that has drifted into the Arctic from other parts of the world, researchers have found.
Mercury is one of two contaminants found in northern environments that are of great concern to scientists, said Mary Gamberg, project co-ordinator with federal Northern Contaminants Program in the Yukon.
Gamberg said mercury "seems to be increasing in some [wildlife] populations all across the Arctic," she told CBC News in an interview Monday.
"In marine mammals, in some populations, it's increasing. And in caribou, in some populations -- and particularly in female caribou -- it seems to be increasing, which is really interesting," she added.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 16:03:29 Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from Popular Science The Big Thaw Nowhere is global warming having as obvious an impact as in the Arctic, and people living in Alaska, northern Canada, northern Scandinavia and Siberia have front-row seats. Some experts say that temperatures in these regions have risen by 3 to 5 degrees F over the past 30 years. And the temperature in the Arctic has warmed at twice the global average rate in the past century, according to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Permafrost is ground that maintains a temperature below freezing for at least two years. In some areas, that frozen layer is thawing, causing roads to collapse, runways to crack, and homes to sink, split apart, or even fall into the sea. But inside that icy ground is a threat more dangerous than crumbling infrastructure: massive amounts of greenhouse gases that, if released into the atmosphere, have the potential to quickly intensify climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 18:41:00 Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from Reuters Rising sea salinates India's Ganges: expert KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Rising sea levels are causing salt water to flow into India's biggest river, threatening its ecosystem and turning vast farmlands barren in the country's east, a climate change expert warned Monday.
A study by an east Indian university in the city of Kolkata revealed surprising growth of mangroves on the Ganges river, said Pranabes Sanyal, the eastern India representative of the National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA).
"This phenomenon is called extension of salt wedge and it will salinate the groundwater of Kolkata and turn agricultural lands barren in adjoining rural belts," said Sanyal, an expert in global warming.
Sea levels in some parts of the Bay of Bengal were rising at 3.14 mm annually against a global average of 2 mm, threatening the low-lying areas of eastern India.
Climate experts warned last year that as temperatures rise, the Indian subcontinent -- home to about one-sixth of humanity -- will be badly hit with more frequent and more severe natural disasters such as floods and storms and more disease and hunger.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 15:03:40 Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel UW bacteria study could provide clue to controlling pathogens Of the thousands of bacteria swimming inside you, relatively few are bent on destruction. Most busy themselves in a communal effort to keep you fit and free from disease - unless something changes.
Scientists have long wondered what causes harmful bacteria to cross the species barrier from animals to humans and what causes a good bacterium inside us to turn bad.
Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that a single gene can cause bacteria to change hosts. Light-emitting bacteria called Vibrio fischeri colonized pinecone fish, then jumped to the bobtail squid - all because of a regulatory gene, the scientists reported Sunday in the journal Nature.
The two species, found in the North Pacific off Japan, receive different benefits from the bacteria. Bobtail squid have used the bacteria to create a light that fools predators. For pinecone fish, a slightly different strain of V. fischeri provides a kind of flashlight into the dark recesses of its reef habitat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 14:38:25 Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from Associated Press States fail in latest prairie dog report card ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Whether he sees his shadow or not this Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil has it easy. But in the West, his cousins are in dire straits, according to a report to be released Monday by WildEarth Guardians. The environmental group says North America's five species of prairie dog have lost more than 90 percent of their historical range due to habitat loss, shooting and poisoning. WildEarth Guardians' report grades three federal land management agencies and a dozen states on their actions over the past year to protect prairie dogs and their habitat. Not one received an A.
New Mexico, home to the Gunnison's prairie dog and black-tailed prairie dog, earned a D -- the same as last year -- because the group said state wildlife officials weren't actively conserving prairie dogs. The group says oil and gas activity threatens habitat in rural areas, while urbanization in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos is pushing the animals out.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 18:43:22 Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from Wired News Melting Arctic Prompts Calls for 'National Park' on Ice With arctic sea ice melting like ice cubes in soda, scientists want to protect a region they say will someday be the sole remaining frozen bastion of a disappearing world.
Spanning the northern Canadian archipelago and western Greenland, it would be the first area formally protected in response to climate change, and a last-ditch effort to save polar bears and other animals.
"All the indications are of huge change, and a huge response is needed if you want to have polar bears beyond 2050," said Peter Ewins, the World Wildlife Fund's Director of Species Conservation.
National Parks have proven to be one of the most important ways to protect and preserve natural areas and wildlife. First established in the United States in 1872, national parks have since been adopted internationally. But protecting an area outside of a single country's borders could prove to be difficult.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 12:51:27 Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from New Scientist Drought warning as the tropics expand California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, warned on Thursday that his state "is headed toward one of the worst water crises in its history".
Now new research suggests that the three-year drought in the Golden State may be a consequence of the expanding tropics, which are gradually growing as human emissions of greenhouse gases warm the planet....the simplest and most easily tracked characteristic of the tropics lies high above, at the boundary between the troposphere, where weather systems form, and the stratosphere above it.
Over the tropics, the tropopause, as this boundary is known, tends to lie several kilometres higher up in the atmosphere. The change in altitude is relatively easy to measure. "It is much more difficult to detect significant changes in the lower levels of the atmosphere and surface rainfall pattern," says Jian Lu of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 12:40:15 Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from Reuters Asian plantation workers face weedkiller health threat Malaysian plantation worker Rajam Murugasu became blind in one eye after she slipped and accidentally sprayed the weedkiller paraquat in her face.
"It was raining. I fell down and the chemical shot straight into my eye," said Murugasu, a 40-year-old mother of four. "I was in and out of hospital for a whole year," she told Reuters at Teluk Intan town in northwestern Malaysia.
Paraquat, a herbicide that protects crop yields by killing weeds that compete for water, nutrients, and light, is banned in the European Union and restricted to licenced users in the United States, New Zealand and parts of Latin America.
Yet it is widely used in China, India, the Philippines as well as Malaysia, where the government reversed a ban in 2006 after growers demanded they be allowed to use the cheap herbicide...."It is banned in all of the EU, so why are people in Asia putting up with this? Why such double standards? Are our lives of less value than theirs?"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 08:39:28 Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from New York Times (US) Rising Acidity Is Threatening Food Web of Oceans, Science Panel Says [As CO2] dissolves, it makes seawater more acidic. Now an international panel of marine scientists says this acidity is accelerating so fast it threatens the survival of coral reefs, shellfish and the marine food web generally.... "Severe damages are imminent," the group said Friday in a statement summing up its deliberations at a symposium in Monaco last October. The statement, called the Monaco Declaration, said increasing acidity was interfering with the growth and health of shellfish and eating away at coral reefs, processes that would eventually affect marine food webs generally.
Already, the group said, there have been detectable decreases in shellfish and shell weights, and interference with the growth of coral skeletons.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 08:31:43 Mon, Feb 2, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk North Sea sees recovery of cod stocks New figures from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices) show that the number of adult fish in the North Sea is expected to increase by 42 per cent this year, the largest rise in almost 30 years.
Significantly, the quantity of fish capable of reproducing is this year expected to exceed 70,000 tons -- the number set by scientists to mark the lowest level possible to ensure the species' long term survival.
It is the first time in a decade that the stock has risen above this milestone.
The recovery is likely to lead to further calls from British fishermen to increase the quota of cod they are permitted to catch.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-02 10:47:39 Sun, Feb 1, 2009: from London Times Two children should be limit, says green guru Couples who have more than two children are being "irresponsible" by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government's green adviser has warned.
Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government's Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population.
A report by the commission, to be published next month, will say that governments must reduce population growth through better family planning.
"I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate," Porritt said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-01 12:31:40 Sun, Feb 1, 2009: from London Times Plight of the humble bee Native British bees are dying out -- and with them will go flora, fauna and one-third of our diet. We may have less than a decade to save them and avert catastrophe. So why is nothing being done?...Most people do now get the point about honeybees. Following the multiple crises that continue to empty the hives -- foulbrood, varroa mites, viral diseases, dysfunctional immune systems, and now the mysterious but globally devastating colony-collapse disorder (CCD) -- it is understood that the true value of Apis mellifera lies not so much in the sticky stuff that gives our favourite insect its name as in the service it provides as a pollinator of farms and gardens. If you add retailers’ profit to farm gate prices, their value to the UK economy is in the region of 1 billion a year, and 35 percent of our diet is directly dependent on them. It is an equation of stark simplicity. No pollination: no crops. There is nothing theoretical about it. The reality is in (or, more accurately, not in) the hives. The US has lost 70 percent of its honeybee colonies over the past two winters. Losses in the UK currently are running at 30 percent a year -- up from just 6 percent in 2003.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-01 12:17:25 Sun, Feb 1, 2009: from San Francisco Chronicle Unilever blocking deforestation for palm oil The word came last spring at a climate change conference here. Unilever, the world's largest buyer of palm oil, would publicly call for a moratorium on deforestation by Indonesian growers of the coveted oil used in food, soaps, detergents, cosmetics and biofuel. The expansion of oil palm plantations is slowly destroying Kalimantan, the Indonesian side of Borneo and the habitat of the endangered Bornean orangutan, environmental activists say.
During the past two decades, an estimated two million acres have been felled annually in Borneo, which Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei, according to the environmental group, Friends of the Earth.
But with Jakarta planning to more than double the acreage of oil palm trees by 2011, activists are scrambling to form new alliances with the palm oil industry to stave off more destruction. They say the potential deforestation in Borneo - which has one of the world's largest standing rain forests - amounts to a "climate bomb" in global warming from increased carbon levels released into the atmosphere by fallen trees.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:16:21 Sun, Feb 1, 2009: from London Independent Parched: Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in Leaves are falling off trees in the height of summer, railway tracks are buckling, and people are retiring to their beds with deep-frozen hot-water bottles, as much of Australia swelters in its worst-ever heatwave.
On Friday, Melbourne thermometers topped 43C (109.4F) on a third successive day for the first time on record, while even normally mild Tasmania suffered its second-hottest day in a row, as temperatures reached 42.2C. Two days before, Adelaide hit a staggering 45.6C. After a weekend respite, more records are expected to be broken this week.
Ministers are blaming the heat-- which follows a record drought-- on global warming. Experts worry that Australia, which emits more carbon dioxide per head than any nation on earth, may also be the first to implode under the impact of climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-01 12:00:02 Sun, Feb 1, 2009: from Brisbane Times Fungicide maker in child defect storm THE chemical linked with fish abnormalities and a possible cancer cluster on the Sunshine Coast has been at the centre of a storm over genetic defects in children born overseas.
Manufacturer DuPont withdrew its fungicide Benlate from the US market in 2001 after it was forced to defend hundreds of law suits over the product's link with serious health issues, including a child who was born without eyes.
In 2000, DuPont was ordered to pay Ecuadorian shrimp farmers more than $US10 million after Benlate run-off from banana plantations contaminated water supplies and poisoned shrimp stocks.
Benomyl, the active ingredient in Benlate products, breaks down when sprayed and produces a fungicide, carbendazim, which Sunshine Coast macadamia farmers use. The hatchery, owned by Gwen Gilson, has a macadamia plantation on three sides.
Ms Gilson said fish larvae at the Sunland Fish Hatchery, Noosaville, began convulsing and dying four years ago. In August, 90 per cent of fish larvae spawned at the hatchery from brood stock taken from the Noosa River had two heads.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-31 13:23:31 Sat, Jan 31, 2009: from Reuters Philippines finds four new Ebola cases Manila - Four more people in the Philippines have been discovered infected by the Ebola-Reston virus and the possibility of pig-to-human transmission cannot be dismissed.
It was not a major health risk, Health Secretary Francisco Duque told a news conference, adding that the government was however widening testing of people who might have been in contact with sick pigs at hog farms placed under quarantine since October 2008.
"The Ebola-Reston virus is both an animal and human health issue, but we still consider this as a low risk situation to human health," Duque said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-31 13:18:39 Sat, Jan 31, 2009: from New York Times Praise the Lord and Green the Roof ...In setting out to construct an environmentally advanced building to replace the trio of connected brownstones that they now call home, the Episcopal sisters of the Community of the Holy Spirit were taking a giant step in their decade-long journey to weave ecological concerns into their daily ministry. While they have long tried to reduce their carbon footprint at 113th Street, the new convent, for which construction will begin in March, will help them be green from the ground up.
Of the 14 firms that the sisters had invited to submit proposals, BKSK ultimately wooed them with a plan that features rooftop gardens, water heated by solar power, rainwater collection, natural light and ventilation and the use of environmentally sensitive materials throughout.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-31 13:24:44 Sat, Jan 31, 2009: from Abu Dhabi National "The lake doesn't have a future" Lake Victoria, spanning 68,800 square kilometres and three countries – Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda – is home to more than 30 million people, a population that depends on this body of water, even as they choke the life out of it.
Godfrey Ogonda, an environmental scientist with the Friends of Lake Victoria, describes the assault on the lake as an "integrated" problem. It sounds innocuous enough until he explains that deforestation upstream is speeding soil erosion and washing excessive nutrients into the lake; unplanned settlements are pouring untreated human waste into the mix; overfishing is chronic; climate change is reducing rainfall and raising temperatures; and invasive species are attacking the weakened ecosystem... Named in 1858 after Queen Victoria, the largest tropical lake in the world is the reservoir of the mighty Nile river and it is close to joining the ranks of dying lakes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-31 13:02:30 Sat, Jan 31, 2009: from China Daily Birth defects soar due to pollution Every 30 seconds, a baby is born with physical defects in China, all thanks to the country's degrading environment, an official of the National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) has said.
"The number of newborns with birth defects is constantly increasing in both urban and rural areas," Jiang Fan, vice-minister of the NPFPC said at a conference in Beijing recently. "And the rather alarming increase has forced us to kick off a high-level prevention plan."
She said that "more than half" of the pregnancies in the country had benefited from the commission's scientific guidance since 2007.
A free pre-pregnant examination program has covered eight provinces with the highest rate of birth defects, she said, refusing to divulge further details.
"The government must take measures to prevent birth defects," Li Bin, minister of the NPFPC said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-31 13:25:15 Sat, Jan 31, 2009: from The Herald News (MA) Flowing medicine cabinet PATANCHERU, India -- When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.
And it wasn't just ciprofloxacin being detected. The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet -- a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say. Those Indian factories produce drugs for much of the world, including many Americans. The result: Some of India's poor are unwittingly consuming an array of chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.... "I'll tell you, I've never seen concentrations this high before. And they definitely ... are having some biological impact, at least in the effluent," said Dan Schlenk, an ecotoxicologist from the University of California, Riverside, who was not involved in the India research.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-30 19:18:58 Fri, Jan 30, 2009: from Michigan State University, via EurekAlert What we don't know still hurts us, environmental researchers warn A worldwide 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment enlisted hundreds of scientists to develop a view of ecosystems through the lens of services those ecosystems provide humanity, said Thomas Dietz, director of the MSU Environmental Science and Policy Program and professor in sociology and crop and soil sciences. The MEA found about 60 percent of ecosystem services supporting life -- including fresh water, fisheries, clean air, pests and climate -- are being degraded or used unsustainably. The MEA projected continued deterioration at current rates.... But drawing conclusions is still limited by what researchers call discipline-bound approaches that don't fully describe the range of the Earth's dynamic and complex biophysical and social systems.
"In only a few cases are the abilities of ecosystems to provide human well-being holding steady, and in almost every case we're seeing declines in ecosystems underpinning human well-being," said Dietz, who was involved in the original MEA.... "The conclusion that things are getting worse in general comes out of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment," he said. "Our job was to say 'OK, what science do we need to do?'"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-30 15:14:26 Fri, Jan 30, 2009: from UCLA, via EurekAlert Household chemicals may be linked to infertility [P]erfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs -- chemicals that are widely used in everyday items such as food packaging, pesticides, clothing, upholstery, carpets and personal care products -- may be associated with infertility in women.... In addition to being found in household goods, PFCs, the class of chemicals to which PFOS and PFOA belong, are used in manufacturing processes involving industrial surfactants and emulsifiers. They persist in the environment and in the body for decades.... The researchers say the biological mechanisms by which exposure to PFOS and PFOA might reduce fertility are unknown, but PFCs may interfere with hormones that are involved in reproduction.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-30 15:46:39 Fri, Jan 30, 2009: from BBC Acid oceans 'need urgent action' The world's marine ecosystems risk being severely damaged by ocean acidification unless there are dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, warn scientists.
More than 150 top marine researchers have voiced their concerns through the "Monaco Declaration", which warns that changes in acidity are accelerating.... It says pH levels are changing 100 times faster than natural variability. ... The researchers warn that ocean acidification, which they refer to as "the other CO2 problem", could make most regions of the ocean inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050, if atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase.
They also say that it could lead to substantial changes in commercial fish stocks, threatening food security for millions of people.
"The chemistry is so fundamental and changes so rapid and severe that impacts on organisms appear unavoidable," said Dr James Orr, chairman of the symposium.
"The questions are now how bad will it be and how soon will it happen."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-30 15:09:29 Fri, Jan 30, 2009: from MauiTime Weekly (HI) The great garbage swirl This dry, windless area is dominated by the Northern Pacific Gyre, a wind current that encircles an area twice the size of the continental United States. This ribbon of wind traps floating debris, mostly plastic, in a perpetual clockwise swirl. Part of this massive patch sits between Hawaii and the Mainland.
Rich Owen of the Environmental Cleanup Coalition, a Maui-based organization that is launching the beginnings of a cleanup effort for the area, said he first heard of the gyre from a friend.
"Literally my stomach just started getting in knots," the scuba instructor says. "I felt ill."... "I actually saw a fish shit a piece of plastic when I was in Bali," he says.... Yet you can't see it in satellite photos, according to Algalita.com, the Web site of the organization for which Moore conducts research, because the debris is more "soup" than continent. Instead of forming a trash island, a literal wasteland on the surface, plastic fragments permeate the sea to great depths. And researchers say it doubles in size every time they go out there, which is on average every two years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-30 08:17:41 Fri, Jan 30, 2009: from Mongabay Glaciers decline in ice mass for 18th straight year Glaciers worldwide lost ice mass for the 18th consecutive year due to warming temperatures and reduce snowfall, reports the University of Zurich’s World Glacier Monitoring Service.
Alpine glaciers lost on average 1.3 meters of thickness in 2006 and 0.7 meters in 2007, extending an 11.3-meter (36-foot) retreat since 1980. The pace melting has more than doubled since the 1990s.... The environmental consequences of melting glaciers are significant. Glaciers store massive amounts of water and their disappearance puts water supplies and agriculture in many regions at risk. Further, glacial melt is the largest contributor to rising sea levels according to a study published in Science in July 2007.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-30 08:14:04 Fri, Jan 30, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Carbon trading may be the new sub-prime, says energy boss "We like certainty about a carbon price," he said. "[But] the carbon price has to become simple and not become a new type of sub-prime tool which will be diverted from what is its initial purpose: to encourage real investment in real low-carbon technology."
Green campaigners have long been critical of the way the emissions trading scheme was set up, but it is unusual for a leading industry figure to cast doubt on it, as power companies lobbied hard for a market mechanism to deal with global warming.
"We are at the tipping point where we ... should wonder if we have in place the right balance between government policy, regulator responsibility and the market mechanism which will deliver the carbon price," said de Rivaz.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-29 19:37:19 Fri, Jan 30, 2009: from Alaska Dispatch Northern life endures a midwinter's thaw [The] thermometer at KJNP radio station in North Pole registered a low of minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit on Jan. 3 ... On Jan. 16, the same thermometer read plus 55 degrees. In Anchorage, temperatures varied from minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit at Campbell Creek Science Center Jan. 7 to plus 52 degrees at Merrill Field Jan. 16.... In areas where the warm wind was a real snow-eater, leaving the ground bare, red-backed voles lost their network of tunnels under the snow where they live, eat, and sometimes even breed in midwinter when times are good.
"It can be 10-to-15 degrees warmer under the snowpack," said Ian van Tets, a biology professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. "For a little furry animal those 10-to-15 degrees can make a big difference.
"I think this is going to be a bad winter for voles and lemmings," he said. "There's probably going to be a lot of die-off."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-29 18:48:07 Thu, Jan 29, 2009: from Daily Record (NJ) Bat plague fallout: More bugs, fewer crops? The potential environmental impact of White Nose Syndrome, recently diagnosed for the first time in New Jersey in the Rockaway Township area, likely would be significant according to bat experts and advocates.
"It's one of those experiments you never want to find the results of," said Merlin Tuttle, an internationally-known bat expert and founder of Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas.
Since bats feed on insects, fewer bats would mean more mosquitoes. That could result in additional cases of West Nile Virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, in humans.... He said that Texas, for example, has a cave with 20 million bats credited with devouring 200 tons of insects per night.
"You could only imagine what the impact could be on crops," Tuttle said.
"Just like birds by day, bats have a huge impact in keeping the insect population in balance -- including some of the worst crop and back-yard pests," Tuttle said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-29 19:35:36 Thu, Jan 29, 2009: from Christian Science Monitor Earth's big problem: Too many people. Are there too many people on Earth?
That question is rarely raised today, in part because it conjures up the possibility of governments intruding into the most private and profound decision a couple can make. In a worst-case scenario, authorities could impose discriminatory policies that would limit births based on such criteria as race, ethnic origin, cultural background, religion, or gender.
But with huge, vexing questions such as food security, poverty, energy supplies, environmental degradation, and climate change facing humanity, some are asking whether aggressive measures to control population growth should be on the public agenda..."You've got to get a president who's got the guts to say, 'Patriotic Americans stop at two [children],'" says Paul Ehrlich, a professor of population studies at Stanford University. "That if you care about your children and grandchildren, we should have a smaller population in the future, not larger."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-29 17:44:01 Thu, Jan 29, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Absence of wolves causes imbalance in US ecosystem, say scientists Settlers and trappers killed them all in little more than three decades.
But the loss of the stealthy predators in the early 1900s left a hole in the landscape that scientists say they are just beginning to grasp. The ripples extend throughout what is now Olympic National Park, leading to a boom in elk populations, overbrowsing of shrubs and trees, and erosion so severe it has altered the very nature of the rivers, says a team of Oregon State University biologists.
The result, they argue, is an environment that is less rich, less resilient and - perhaps - in peril.
"We think this ecosystem is unravelling in the absence of wolves," said OSU ecologist William Ripple.
Everything from salmon to songbirds could feel the fallout from the missing predators, the scientists say.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-29 17:39:03 Thu, Jan 29, 2009: from New Scientist Caterpillar plague strikes west Africa A throng of crop-eating caterpillars is threatening food supplies across west Africa, and could prove hard to control with pesticides. The crawling menace has appeared in northern Liberia, where hundreds of millions of the black larvae are devouring plants, fouling wells with their faeces and even driving farmers from fields.
They are now crossing into neighbouring Guinea, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that in two to three weeks they will turn into moths that can fly hundreds of kilometres and could spread across west Africa, worsening food shortages in the region.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-29 17:41:03 Thu, Jan 29, 2009: from New York Times Detroit Calls Emissions Proposals Too Strict DETROIT A -- automakers said Monday that they were working toward President Obama's goal of reducing fuel consumption, but rapid imposition of stricter emissions standards could force them to drastically cut production of larger, more profitable vehicles, adding to their financial duress.... The California regulations, if enacted today, "would basically kill the industry, said David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, an independent research organization in Ann Arbor, Mich. "It would have a devastating effect on everybody, and not just the domestics."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-29 16:20:23 Thu, Jan 29, 2009: from New Scientist Cheap, super-efficient LED lights on the horizon Although the ultimate dominance of LED lights has long been predicted, the expense of the super-efficient technology has made the timescale uncertain. The researchers now say LED bulbs based on their new process could be commercially available within five years.
Gallium nitride (GaN) LEDs have many advantages over compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and incandescent bulbs. They switch on instantly, with no gradual warm-up, and can burn for an average of 100,000 hours before they need replacing -- 10 times as long as fluorescent lamps and some 130 times as long as an incandescent bulb. CFLs also contain small levels of mercury, which makes environmentally-friendly disposal of spent bulbs difficult.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-28 14:26:46 Wed, Jan 28, 2009: from Guardian (UK) EU spending spree brings carbon capture closer to reality The European commission today proposed earmarking €1.25bn to kickstart carbon capture and storage (CCS) at 11 coal-fired plants across Europe, including four in Britain....CCS involves capturing CO2 at power stations and burying it in disused oil/gas fields or other undersea rock formations....
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-30 08:34:07 Wed, Jan 28, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Recycling 'could be adding to global warming' "It might be that the global warming impact of putting material through an incinerator five miles down the road is actually less than recycling it 3,000 miles away," he said.
"We've got to urgently get a grip on how this material is flowing through the system; whether we're actually adding to or reducing the overall impact in terms of global warming potential in this process."... councils in England and Wales were dumping more than 200,000 tons of recyclable waste every year -- up to 10 per cent of all the glass, paper, plastic and other materials separated out by householders. Thousands of tons of recyclables are shipped to China because of insufficient capacity and demand in Britain.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-28 12:17:53 Wed, Jan 28, 2009: from ACS, via EurekAlert Substantial work ahead for water issues, say scientists at ACS' Final Report briefing Scientists and engineers will face a host of obstacles over the next decade in providing clean water to millions of people caught up in a water shortage crisis, a panel of scientists and engineers said today... Although Edwards stressed the importance of water conservation in meeting those, he also cited unintended consequences of such efforts. He noted, for instance, that reduced-flush toilets and other water conservation methods are allowing water to remain in household pipes longer. As it stagnates in pipes, the water could develop undesirable characteristics and have unwanted effects on household plumbing.... For instance, hypoxic zones in the Bay -- large areas of low oxygen levels where most animals can't live -- are still growing despite lacking the nutrients they need for expansion. "We don't fully understood why that is so," Ball said. "There's a lot to be learned yet about what locations and causes lead to that phenomenon, whether there are carbon sources coming in from the shallows into the deep that current models and understanding don't capture."... For example, the use of sensors to detect potentially toxic substances in water could provide general benefits for safety. Cost-effective, low maintenance sensors are a Holy Grail, Haas said, but difficult to develop. He warned that over-sensitive sensors could be counterproductive.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-28 12:00:50 Wed, Jan 28, 2009: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel BPA lingers in body, study finds A study released today finds that bisphenol A, a chemical widely used to make plastic and suspected of causing cancer, stays in the body much longer than previously thought.
The findings are significant because the longer the chemical lingers in the body, the greater chance it has of doing harm, scientists say.
Researchers from the University of Rochester in New York also say the chemical may get into the body from sources such as plastic water pipes or dust from carbonless paper and not only from food containers that leach the chemical when heated.
The study results, published today in Environmental Health Perspectives, have sparked a flurry of concern and renewed calls for regulation... BPA, used to make baby bottles, dental sealants, food storage containers and thousands of other household products, was found in 93 percent of Americans tested.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-29 18:00:35 Wed, Jan 28, 2009: from New Scientist Most effective climate engineering solutions revealed Tim Lenton of the University of East Anglia, UK, has put together the first comparative assessment of climate-altering proposals such pumping sulphur into the atmosphere to mimic the cooling effect of volcanic emissions, or fertilising the oceans with iron.
"There is a worrying feeling that we're not going to get our act together fast enough," says Lenton, referring to international efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists have reached a "social tipping point" and are starting to wonder which techniques might complement emissions cuts, he says.... First, Lenton says the exercise shows there is no "silver bullet" -- no single method that will safely reverse climate change on its own.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-27 16:49:50 Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from Salt Lake Tribune In climate fight, a time for civil disobedience? Take the train. Dial down your heat. Write your senator.
Taking those individual steps surely helps in the battle against global warming. But, scientists and advocates warn, it's no longer enough to fend off climate disaster.
Get ready, some of them say, to hijack oil-lease sales (like a college student did in Utah), to climb smokestacks in protest (like Greenpeace activists did in England), to trespass at power plants (like demonstrators plan to do in Washington, D.C.).
It's time, these environmentalists say, for some good, old-fashioned civil disobedience -- the types of nonviolent acts proven effective by the famous (Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks) and the faceless (students at Tiananmen Square, anti-war protesters on college campuses, women suffragists in street marches).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-27 16:42:53 Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from Chicago Tribune Mercury in corn syrup? A swig of soda or a bite of a candy bar might be sweet, but a new study suggests that food made with corn syrup also could be delivering tiny doses of toxic mercury.
For the first time, researchers say they have detected traces of the silvery metal in samples of high-fructose corn syrup, a widely used sweetener that has replaced sugar in many processed foods. The study was published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health.
Eating high-mercury fish is the chief source of exposure for most people. The new study raises concerns about a previously unknown dietary source of mercury, which has been linked to learning disabilities in children and heart disease in adults.
The source of the metal appears to be caustic soda and hydrochloric acid, which manufacturers of corn syrup use to help convert corn kernels into the food additive.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-27 16:53:21 Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Supermarket chain bans use of pesticides in bid to save bees The supermarket chain Co-op has banned foods grown using pesticides that harm honey bees.... The use of pesticides have been blamed for the collapse and yesterday the Co-operative announced it was banning any foods grown using the chemicals from their own range of fresh products.... Co-operative Farms -- the UK's biggest farmer with 25,000 hectares -- will also invite beekeepers to establish hives on its land as part of a 10-point "Plan Bee".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-27 12:39:46 Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from AP News Tougher rules to end overfishing in US waters NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Ocean conservationists are hailing former President Bush for passing tough rules to end the overfishing of 40 struggling marine species before he left the White House.
The rules were issued on Jan. 15 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees U.S. oceans policy. Passage of the rules garnered little attention as President Barack Obama prepared to take power.
Under the new rules, the nation's eight regional fishery management councils will be forced to draw up measures to end overfishing by 2010. In most instances, this would involve putting caps on how many fish can be caught each year.
Fishery managers will need to establish catch limits and goals for each overfished stock. The rules provide for "strong accountability measures" to enforce catch limits, NOAA said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-27 12:52:29 Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from NPR Global Warming Is Irreversible, Study Says "People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide that the climate would go back to normal in 100 years or 200 years. What we're showing here is that's not right. It's essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years," Solomon says.
This is because the oceans are currently soaking up a lot of the planet's excess heat -- and a lot of the carbon dioxide put into the air. The carbon dioxide and heat will eventually start coming out of the ocean. And that will take place for many hundreds of years.... The answer, he says, is sooner rather than later. Scientists have been trying to advise politicians about finding an acceptable level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The new study suggests that it's even more important to aim low. If we overshoot, the damage can't be easily undone. Oppenheimer feels more urgency than ever to deal with climate change, but he says that in the end, setting acceptable limits for carbon dioxide is a judgment call.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-27 10:36:32 Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk 'Immortal' jellyfish swarming across the world The Turritopsis Nutricula is able to revert back to a juvenile form once it mates after becoming sexually mature.
Marine biologists say the jellyfish numbers are rocketing because they need not die.
Dr Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute said: "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion."... The jellyfish are originally from the Caribbean but have spread all over the world.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-27 09:58:28 Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from Functional Ecology, via EurekAlert Hoarding rainwater could 'dramatically' expand range of dengue-fever mosquito [C]limate change and evolutionary change could act together to accelerate and expand the mosquito's range. But human behaviour -- in the form of storing water to cope with climate change -- is likely to have an even greater impact.... "The potential direct impact of climate on the distribution and abundance of Ae. aegypti is minor when compared to the potential effect of changed water-storage behaviour. In many Australian cities and towns, a major impact of climate change is reduced rainfall, resulting in a dramatic increase in domestic rainwater storage and other forms of water hoarding."
"Water tanks and other water storage vessels such as modified wheelie bins are potential breeding sites for this disease-bearing mosquito. Without due caution with water storage hygiene, this indirect effect of climate change via human adaptation could dramatically re-expand the mosquito's current range," he says.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-27 09:58:04 Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from BBC (UK) Emperor penguins face extinction Based on predictions of sea ice extent from climate change models, the penguins are likely to see their numbers plummet by 95 percent by 2100.
That corresponds to a decline to just 600 breeding pairs in the world.... What is more, the extent of sea ice cover influences the abundance of krill and the fish species that eat them -- both food sources for the penguins.... "Unlike some other Antarctic bird species that have altered their life cycles, penguins don't catch on so quickly," she said.
"They are long-lived organisms, so they adapt slowly. This is a problem because the climate is changing very fast."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-27 09:49:05 Tue, Jan 27, 2009: from Associated Press Octuplets born in California doing 'very well' The octuplets born to a mother in Southern California are doing "very, very well" and breathing on their own, one of their doctors said Tuesday.
Dr. Mandhir Gupta, a neonatologist at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center, told ABC's "Good Morning America" the eight babies were in stable condition.
Two of the newborns -- the second live octuplets born in U.S. history -- were initially put on ventilators, but their breathing tubes have been removed.
"Only three babies need some sort of oxygen through the nose right now but they are breathing on their own," Gupta said. "The babies are doing actually very, very well."
The mother, who was not identified, gave birth Monday to the six boys and two girls weighing between 1 pound, 8 ounces, and 3 pounds, 4 ounces. The eighth baby was a surprise to the parents and doctors who had been expecting only seven children.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-26 18:42:40 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from Agence France-Presse Study predicts ocean 'dead zones' Global warming may create "dead zones" in the ocean that would be devoid of fish and seafood and endure for up to two millennia, according to a study published on Sunday.
Its authors say deep cuts in the world's carbon emissions are needed to brake a trend capable of wrecking the marine ecosystem and depriving future generations of the harvest of the seas.
In a study published online by the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists in Denmark built a computer model to simulate climate change over the next 100,000 years.
At the heart of their model are two well-used scenarios which use atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, as an indicator of temperature rise.
Under the worst scenario, CO2 concentrations would rise to 1,168 parts per million (ppm) by 2100, or about triple today's level.
Under the more optimistic model, CO2 would reach 549 ppm by 2100, or roughly 50 percent more than today.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-26 18:32:31 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from UAE Daily News Allergies On The Rise Globally Dubai (UAE DAILY NEWS) - A major conference in Dubai tackling allergies and highlighting their remedies will help professionals deal with this growing worldwide health problem. The Middle East-Asia Allergy Asthma Immunology Congress (MEAAIC) will be the first ever internationally-developed allergy/immunology meeting in the Middle East-Gulf region.
A staggering fifteen percent of the population in the UAE suffers from asthma, one of the most common allergies, according to Dr. Bassam Mahboub, local expert, vice president of the UAE Respiratory Society and local chair of (MEAAIC), who notes that the percentage of asthma in children in the UAE is twice as higher than in adults.
"Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airways disease. When asthma strikes, your airways become constricted and swollen, filling with mucus. Your chest feels tight - you may cough or wheeze - and you just cannot seem to catch your breath. In severe cases, asthma attacks can be deadly," Dr. Mahboub explains. In about 25 years, asthma will be one of the main killers worldwide.
He also notes that the figure is set to rise in the region as the environmental conditions deteriorate as a result of the high levels of air pollutions from cars, factories and construction activity. "As pollen from trees, grass and weeds cause allergic rhinitis and asthma; there is also a need to grow different kinds of trees and grass to tackle this emerging public health issue," he adds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-26 18:16:01 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from London Guardian Hospitals will take meat off menus in bid to cut carbon Meat-free menus are to be promoted in hospitals as part of a strategy to cut global warming emissions across the National Health Service.
The plan to offer patients menus that would have no meat option is part of a strategy to be published tomorrow that will cover proposals ranging from more phone-in GP surgeries to closing outpatient departments and instead asking surgeons to visit people at their local doctor's surgery.
Some suggestions are likely to be controversial with patients' groups, especially attempts to curb meat eating and car use. Plans to reuse more equipment could raise concern about infection with superbugs such as MRSA.
Dr David Pencheon, director of the NHS sustainable development unit, said the amount of NHS emissions meant it had to act to make cuts, and the changes would save money, which could be spent on better services for patients.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:36:10 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Ocean 'fertilisation' team ordered to halt global warming experiment An expedition including British scientists that hoped to "fertilise" the ocean to combat global warming was last night ordered to stop because of concerns that the experiment could breach international law. ... Environmentalists had claimed that the experiment -- aimed at creating a 186-square-mile bloom of plankton between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope so big that it will be visible from outer space -- could have a devastating impact on the oceans and may even speed up global warming.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-26 18:24:09 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from WKRG (Alabama) Smuggler Caught With Heads of 353 Parrots A new trade in parrot heads and tail feathers is adding to the pressure on the world’s wild population of African Grey Parrots, which is confined to the tropical forest area of West and Central Africa.
This is highlighted by a recent post by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) from Cameroon, which reports on a suspect arrested by game rangers who was found to be carrying 353 parrot heads and 2000 tail feathers. The suspect stated that he had collected the material for a witch doctor who was treating his mentally ill brother.... Unfortunately this kind of trade is likely to flourish as the financial difficulties of the world bite deeper and the unemployed poor in Africa become more and more desperate.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-26 17:40:23 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from SciDev.net Resistance to key malaria drug emerges The parasite responsible for the deadliest form of malaria is showing the first signs of resistance to artemisinin -- the drug hailed as the biggest hope for eradicating the disease.
The cases of resistance in Plasmodium falciparum were detected on the Thai-Cambodian border, in the same area that drug-resistant strains of the malaria parasite have developed in the past, most notably to chloroquine in the 1950s.
"We feel that we not only have to beat the drum but shake the cage: guys, this is significant," R. Timothy Ziemer, head of the President's Malaria Initiative, who visited the area to assess the resistance problem, told the International Herald Tribune.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-26 14:09:18 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from BBC (UK) 'Climate hope' in economic plans Economic stimulus packages being drawn up around the world show governments are taking the environment seriously, the UN's top climate official believes.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN climate convention, cited plans to boost growth by investing in renewable energy and public transport.
He said leaders "could not afford to fail" on climate change.... Mr de Boer, who heads negotiations within the UN climate convention, said developments in Beijing and Washington were signs that governments were using the economic troubles as a window of opportunity for reforming their economies.
"The high emissions, debt-driven, resource intensive model is dying," he said.
"The impacts of climate change would put the final nail in its coffin."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-26 08:17:14 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from Science News Pacific Northwest salmon poisoning killer whales Killer whales that feast on salmon in the Pacific Northwest are getting a heaping side of contaminants with each meal. The chinook salmon are heavily dosed with chemicals such as DDT and PCBs, nearly all of which the fish acquire in their years at sea, reports a new study in the January Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.... Salmon are known to deliver pollutants, especially PCBs, to coastal, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. PCBs are a kind of endocrine disruptor, known to interfere with development, meddle with immune system function and cause a host of other problems. . The Environmental Protection Agency banned most uses of PCBs in 1979; but the chemicals had been widely used in coolants, pesticides, plastics and other products and are extremely persistent in the environment, cycling through the food web for decades.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-26 08:09:19 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from Mongabay Palm oil may be single most immediate threat to the greatest number of species Efforts to slow the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations at the expense of natural forests across Southeast Asia are being hindered by industry-sponsored disinformation campaigns, argue scientists writing in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. The authors, Lian Pin Koh and David S. Wilcove, say that palm oil may constitute the "single most immediate threat to the greatest number of species" by driving the conversion of biologically rich ecosystems -- including lowland rainforests and peatlands.... Despite substantial scientific evidence to the contrary, the industry claims that expansion has not occurred in natural forest areas and that oil palm plantations sequester more carbon than rainforests.... "To effectively mitigate the threats of oil palm to biodiversity, conservationists need to persuade consumers to continue to demand both greater transparency in land-use decisions by governments and greater environmental accountability from oil palm producers."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-25 19:35:33 Mon, Jan 26, 2009: from New Scientist US prepares to block influx of GM food After a decade of exporting its genetically modified crops all over the world, the US is preparing to block foreign GM foods from entering the country -- if they are deemed to threaten its agriculture, environment or citizens' health, that is.
The warning was given to the US Department of Agriculture, which polices agricultural imports, by its own auditor, the Office of Inspector General (OIG): "Unless international developments in transgenic plants and animals are closely monitored, USDA could be unaware of potential threats that particular new transgenic plants or animals might pose to the nation's food supply."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-26 08:04:33 Sun, Jan 25, 2009: from Calgary Herald (Canada) More plastic than plankton in Pacific Ocean At least 80 per cent of the plastic in the ocean originated from the land. Thousands of cargo containers fall overboard in stormy seas each year. In 2002, 33,000 blue-and-white Nike basketball shoes were spilled off the coast of Washington.
Plastic in the ocean acts like sponges attracting neuro-toxins like mercury and pyrethroids, insecticides, carcinogens such as PCBs, DDT and PBDE (the backbone of flame retardants), and man-made hormones like progesterone and estrogen that at high levels induce both male and female reproductive parts on a single animal.
Japanese scientists found [plastic nuggets] with concentrations of poisons listed above as high as one million times their concentrations in the water as free-floating substances.
Each year, a million sea birds and 100,000 sharks, turtles, dolphins and whales die from eating plastic.... Currently, there is six times more plastic than plankton floating in the middle of the Pacific.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-25 14:58:41 Sun, Jan 25, 2009: from University of Copenhagen, via EurekAlert Dramatic expansion of dead zones in the oceans Dead zones are low-oxygen areas in the ocean where higher life forms such as fish, crabs and clams are not able to live. In shallow coastal regions, these zones can be caused by runoff of excess fertilizers from farming. A team of Danish researchers have now shown that unchecked global warming would lead to a dramatic expansion of low-oxygen areas zones in the global ocean by a factor of 10 or more.
Whereas some coastal dead zones could be recovered by control of fertilizer usage, expanded low-oxygen areas caused by global warming will remain for thousands of years to come, adversely affecting fisheries and ocean ecosystems far into the future.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-25 11:57:50 Sun, Jan 25, 2009: from London Guardian Living on thin ice ...Based on occasional submarine journeys and more recently satellite data, charts of the total area of Arctic sea ice have shown a gradual decline over the past 40 years. Then, in 2007, the line on the chart appeared to drop off a cliff, plunging below 5,000,000 sq km a full three decades ahead of forecasts. The dramatic events of two summers ago, when a Russian submarine rushed to plant a flag under the pole and Canadian and European governments tersely laid rival claims to sovereignty, led many scientists to warn that the Arctic sea ice could disappear entirely during the summer months much sooner than had been feared.
Most experts agree on the impact this will have on 5m Arctic inhabitants and the rest of the world - from the loss of the unique habitat that exists under the ice to rising global sea levels and possible changes to the ocean circulation and the weather patterns of the whole planet. Yet forecasts for when this will happen range from just four years to the end of the century. The reason is that very little is understood about the depth and density of the sea ice, and therefore the total volume of water frozen at the top of the world. This is what Hadow's Catlin Arctic Survey - appropriately sponsored by an insurance company - hopes to put right by providing the much-needed data about how much ice is left, and so help work out how much time we have to prepare for what is probably the most immediate, truly global threat of climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-25 17:07:51 Sun, Jan 25, 2009: from New York Times Green-Light Specials, Now at Wal-Mart ...Today, the roughly 200 million customers who pass through Wal-Mart's doors each year buy fluorescent light bulbs that use up to 75 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs, concentrated laundry detergent that uses 50 percent less water and prescription drugs that contain 50 percent less packaging.
"If all this sustainability stuff is just for the well-to-do, it's not going to make a difference," said Jib Ellison, the founder of Blu Skye, a sustainability consultant who has worked with Wal-Mart.
As the saying goes, Wal-Mart has also done well by doing good. Along with the McDonald's Corporation, it was one of only two companies in the Dow Jones industrial average whose share price rose last year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-25 17:08:34 Sun, Jan 25, 2009: from Associated Press Tasmanian devils threatened by contagious cancer CANBERRA, Australia-- Tasmania is trying to save the devil.
The Tasmanian devil, a ferocious, snarling fox-sized marsupial, is in danger of going extinct because of a contagious facial cancer. In the meantime, its biggest rival -- the European fox -- is thriving, and may become so dominant that the devil never comes back.
Scientists now want to build a double fence standing more than three feet tall to stop the cancer's relentless spread toward the rugged northwest of the island, home to disease-free devils and World Heritage-listed rain forest. Devils spread the cancer when they bite each other during mating or squabble over food.
But for any chance of success, the fences would have to be completed within two years, said Hamish McCallum, the senior scientist in the devil rescue program. He predicts the devil will go extinct in the wild within 20 years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-25 12:13:59 Sun, Jan 25, 2009: from Associated Press China dams reveal flaws in climate-change weapon XIAOXI, China-- The hydroelectric dam, a low wall of concrete slicing across an old farming valley, is supposed to help a power company in distant Germany contribute to saving the climate -- while putting lucrative "carbon credits" into the pockets of Chinese developers.
But in the end the new Xiaoxi dam may do nothing to lower global-warming emissions as advertised. And many of the 7,500 people displaced by the project still seethe over losing their homes and farmland.
"Nobody asked if we wanted to move," said a 38-year-old man whose family lost a small brick house. "The government just posted a notice that said, 'Your home will be demolished.'"
The dam will shortchange German consumers, Chinese villagers and the climate itself, if critics are right. And Xiaoxi is not alone.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-25 17:10:16 Sat, Jan 24, 2009: from Sunbury Daily Item (PA) Disease shows up in area bat colony LEWISBURG, PA -- A week before Christmas, DeeAnn Reeder and her colleague Greg Turner made a discovery in a cave in Mifflin County. A handful of bats hibernating for winter had the tell-tale sign of white-nose syndrome, a mysterious condition killing off colonies in the northeast.
The discovery of the white fungus confirmed what state, federal and academic researchers have suspected would happen: White-nose syndrome has arrived in Pennsylvania after being detected in New York and Vermont.... About 600 bats in Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Vermont, Kentucky and possibly New Hampshire and West Virginia were tagged with transmitters that collect body temperature readings during hibernation. Data collection is ongoing, with results due in several months.
Preliminary results show the bats are warming up, or temporarily coming out of hibernation, more frequently than normal. "It looks like before they die, they are warming up even more frequently, and some are dying as they warm up," she said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-24 16:58:39 Sat, Jan 24, 2009: from Scientific American A New Strain of Drug-Resistant Staph Infection Found in U.S. Pigs A strain of drug-resistant staph identified in pigs in the Netherlands five years ago, which accounts for nearly one third of all staph in humans there, has been found in the U.S. for the first time, according to a new study.
Seventy percent of 209 pigs and nine of 14 workers on seven linked farms in Iowa and Illinois were found to be carrying the ST398 strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)... If it turns out to cause disease in humans in the U.S., ST398 could further complicate the general struggle against MRSA, which is already being fought on two fronts: against a hospital-acquired strain that began attacking U.S. patients in the late 1960s, and a community strain that began sickening healthy people (who had not been hospitalized) in the 1990s. The staph strains are related, but have different genetic profiles and different resistance patterns. The hospital strain contaminates wounds and causes overwhelming bacterial infections, whereas the community strain causes a range of symptoms from mild infections to rapidly fatal pneumonias. Both can be deadly: In 2007 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that in 2005 94,360 Americans contracted invasive infections and 18,650 of them died; 85 percent of the deaths, it said, were caused by the health care strain.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-25 12:09:01 Sat, Jan 24, 2009: from Associated Press TVA memo spins environmental impact of coal ash disaster The massive coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant last month wasn't so much "catastrophic" as it was a "sudden, accidental release."
That's according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press that was prepared by TVA's 50-member public relations staff for briefing news media the day after the disaster at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville. The nation's largest public utility has been accused by environmentalists and affected residents of soft-pedaling the seriousness of the flood of toxin-laden ash that filled inlets of the Emory River and swept away or damaged lakeside homes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-24 16:27:49 Sat, Jan 24, 2009: from The Sacramento Bee Federal raid heightens concerns about fake organic fertilizer Federal agents this week searched a major producer of fertilizer for California's organic farmers, widening concern about the use of synthetic chemicals in the industry.
The raid Thursday targeted Port Organic Products Ltd. of Bakersfield. Industry sources estimate the company produced up to half of the liquid fertilizer used on the state's organic farms in recent years.
The Bee reported in December on a state investigation that caught another large organic fertilizer maker spiking its product with synthetic nitrogen, which is cheap, difficult to detect – and banned from organic farms.
Since then, the organic industry and state officials have taken several steps to catch violators in California, which produces nearly 60 percent of the U.S. harvest of organic fruits, nuts and vegetables...
As Thursday's raid indicates, work remains to improve a patchwork regulatory system that presumes manufacturers tell the truth about their products. On Thursday at the Eco-Farm Conference in Monterey, frustrated farmers and fertilizer makers alike called for stronger oversight.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-24 16:12:06 Sat, Jan 24, 2009: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel EPA a failure on chemicals, audit finds The Environmental Protection Agency's ability to assess toxic chemicals is as broken as the nation's financial markets and needs a total overhaul, a congressional audit has found.
The Government Accountability Office has released a report saying the EPA lacks even basic information to say whether chemicals pose substantial health risks to the public. It says actions are needed to streamline and increase the transparency of the EPA's registry of chemicals. And it calls for measures to enhance the agency's ability to obtain health and safety information from the chemical industry...."This just shows that the EPA is not any better able to protect Americans from risky chemicals than FEMA was to save New Orleans or the SEC was to cope with the financial collapse," said John Peterson Myers, a scientist and author who has been writing about chemical risks to human health for more than three decades.
For the EPA to be compared to the collapsed financial markets dramatically underscores the need for a complete overhaul of the regulation of toxic chemicals, said Richard Wiles, executive director of Environmental Working Group, a health watchdog organization based in Washington, D.C.
"The EPA joins the hall of shame of failed government programs," Wiles said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-23 14:21:11 Fri, Jan 23, 2009: from SciDev.net Investigating Pigs for Ebola Veterinary experts are investigating how a form of the Ebola virus found in primates has been transmitted to pigs in the Philippines.
Twenty-two international health and veterinary experts travelled to the island of Luzon in the Philippines last week (13 January) to investigate an outbreak of the Ebola Reston virus in pigs that occurred in 2008.
It was the first time the virus had been seen outside primates, and its appearance in domestic livestock is unexpected and worrying, according to Pierre Rollin, an Ebola expert from the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-23 12:48:58 Fri, Jan 23, 2009: from Mongabay 97 percent of climatologists say global warming is occurring and caused by humans The survey, conducted among researchers listed in the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments, "found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role". The biggest doubters were petroleum geologists (47 percent) and meteorologists (64 percent). A recent poll suggests that 58 percent of Americans believe that human activity contributes to climate change.... "So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you're likely to believe in global warming and humankind's contribution to it."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-25 11:28:01 Fri, Jan 23, 2009: from New York Times (US) Environmental Issues Slide in Poll of Public's Concerns A new poll suggests that Americans, preoccupied with the economy, are less worried about rising global temperatures than they were a year ago but remain concerned with solving the nation's energy problems.... In the poll, released Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, global warming came in last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. Only 30 percent of the voters deemed global warming to be "a top priority," compared with 35 percent in 2008.
"Protecting the environment," which had surged in the rankings from 2006 to 2008, dropped even more precipitously in the poll: only 41 percent of voters called it a top priority, compared with 56 percent last year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-23 10:52:55 Fri, Jan 23, 2009: from BBC (UK) Climate shift 'killing US trees' Old growth trees in western parts of the US are probably being killed as a result of regional changes to the climate, a study has suggested.
Analysis of undisturbed forests showed that the trees' mortality rate had doubled since 1955, researchers said.
They warned that the loss of old growth trees could have implications for the areas' ecology and for the amount of carbon that the forests could store.... "Because mortality increased in small trees, the overall increase in mortality rates cannot be attributed to ageing of large trees," they added.... "We may only be talking about an annual tree mortality rate changing from 1 percent a year to 2 percent, but over time a lot of small numbers add up," said co-author Professor Mark Harmon from Oregon State University.
He feared that the die-back was the first sign of a "feedback loop" developing.... Another member of the team, Dr Nate Stephenson, said increasing tree deaths could indicate a forest that was vulnerable to sudden, widespread die-back.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-23 10:44:51 Fri, Jan 23, 2009: from Guardian (UK) World's biggest wind turbine-maker says global downturn slashing demand The world's biggest wind turbine manufacturer Vestas says the current economic downturn has left it with 15 percent excess manufacturing capacity as demand for the technology falls short of projections. The news came as company works to restore its reputation following the discovery of fraud in its Spanish subsidiary.... "Six months ago everyone (in the investment community) said we were not doing enough to meet demand growing at an expected 40 percent this year. Now people are saying 'Why have you put in place plans for a 40 percent increase in capacity when growth levels are only going to be 25 percent?'," he explained.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-22 19:55:51 Fri, Jan 23, 2009: from Reuters Scotch Whisky Goes "Green" LONDON - Scotch drinkers who care for the climate will soon relish their tipple in the knowledge it is providing clean renewable power in the home of whisky.
Scottish authorities have given planning permission for a consortium of distillers to build a biomass-fueled combined heat and power plant near the heart of the whisky industry in Speyside.
Helius Energy Plc said on Wednesday it and the Combination of Rothes Distillers Ltd would build the plant, which would use distillery by-products and wood chips to generate 7.2 megawatts of electricity, enough for about 9,000 homes, and heat.
"Not only will it generate renewable heat and power, but it secures additional markets for our distillery co-products," Frank Burns, general manager of the Combination of Rothes, said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-22 19:46:07 Fri, Jan 23, 2009: from Toronto Globe and Mail Seasons come and go ... and they're doing so nearly two days earlier than they used to In the depths of winter, it may provide some comfort to think that summer will be here earlier than usual. But so will next winter.
In fact, the arrivals of all seasons have been sped up by nearly two days, according to new research, part of a worldwide trend that scientists say is tied to climate change.
Not only are temperatures rising, but the hottest and coldest days of the year are falling ever earlier in the calendar, a trend that accelerates from the late 1970s onward.
The research, conducted by scientists from the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University, is published in the latest edition of the scientific journal Nature.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-22 19:38:01 Fri, Jan 23, 2009: from London Times Ecologists warn the planet is running short of water A swelling global population, changing diets and mankind's expanding "water footprint" could be bringing an end to the era of cheap water.
The warnings, in an annual report by the Pacific Institute in California, come as ecologists have begun adopting the term "peak ecological water"-- the point where, like the concept of "peak oil", the world has to confront a natural limit on something once considered virtually infinite.
The world is in danger of running out of "sustainably managed water", according to Peter Gleick, the president of the Pacific Institute and a leading authority on global freshwater resources.... A glass of orange juice, for example, needs 850 litres of fresh water to produce, according to the Pacific Institute and the Water Footprint Network, while the manufacture of a kilogram of microchips -- requiring constant cleaning to remove chemicals -- needs about 16,000 litres. A hamburger comes in at 2,400 litres of fresh water, depending on the origin and type of meat used.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-22 10:15:18 Thu, Jan 22, 2009: from Tucson Citizen UA lab to check for emerging contaminants such as Prozac, estrogen The Arizona Laboratory for Emerging Contaminants, known as ALEC, uses super-sensitive instruments to test water, soil and tissue for minute amounts of substances such as uranium, heavy metals and organic compounds, including pharmaceuticals, said Jon Chorover, co-director of the lab.... Emerging contaminants are substances -- including Viagra, estrogen and Prozac that are raising alarms as potential hazards when found in water or foods containing or grown with contaminated water.
These contaminants are a growing concern in Arizona, where water is a precious resource.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-23 11:16:17 Thu, Jan 22, 2009: from Guardian (UK) New research on common chemical raises concerns More doubts have been raised over the safety of a common chemical found in hard plastic food containers and bottles, and metal cans. High levels of the chemical, called bisphenol A, appear to be linked to heart problems and type 2 diabetes, a new study has found.... Researchers have now done a study looking at 1,455 American adults, to see whether high levels of BPA in people's bodies could be linked to health problems.... The results showed that people with higher concentrations of BPA in their urine were also more likely to have heart problems or type 2 diabetes. They also had a higher chance of having chemical changes in their body, which suggested their livers might not be working as well as they should.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-22 09:26:16 Thu, Jan 22, 2009: from SciDev.net Peruvian region outlaws biopiracy LIMA, Peru -- A region of Peru is claiming to be the first in the world to enact a law outlawing biopiracy and protecting indigenous knowledge at a regional level.
Cusco -- in the Peruvian Andes, once the capital of the Inca Empire -- has outlawed the plundering of native species for commercial gain, including patenting resources or the genes they contain.
Corporations or scientists must now seek permission from, and potentially share benefits with, the local people whose traditions have protected the species for centuries.
Indigenous communities can now implement ways to protect local resources, including creating registers of biodiversity and protocols for granting access to it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-21 19:22:03 Thu, Jan 22, 2009: from University of Leeds, via EurekAlert Industrialization of China increases fragility of global food supply Global grain markets are facing [a] breaking point according to new research by the University of Leeds into the agricultural stability of China.
Experts predict that if China's recent urbanisation trends continue, and the country imports just 5 percent more of its grain, the entire world's grain export would be swallowed whole.The knock-on effect on the food supply -- and on prices -- to developing nations could be huge.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-21 20:31:39 Thu, Jan 22, 2009: from UC Irvine, via EurekAlert Termite insecticide a potent greenhouse gas An insecticide used to fumigate termite-infested buildings is a strong greenhouse gas that lives in the atmosphere nearly 10 times longer than previously thought, UC Irvine research has found.
Sulfuryl fluoride, UCI chemists discovered, stays in the atmosphere at least 30-40 years and perhaps as long as 100 years. Prior studies estimated its atmospheric lifetime at as low as five years, grossly underestimating the global warming potential.... Kilogram for kilogram, sulfuryl fluoride is about 4,000 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat, though much less of it exists in the atmosphere.... Sulfuryl fluoride blocks a wavelength of heat that otherwise could easily escape the Earth, the scientists said. Carbon dioxide blocks a different wavelength, trapping heat near the surface.
"The only place where the planet is able to emit heat that escapes the atmosphere is in the region that sulfuryl fluoride blocks," said Blake, chemistry professor. "If we put something with this blocking effect in that area, then we're in trouble -- and we are putting something in there."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-21 14:26:06 Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from New Scientist Mountain gorillas in dire straits, DNA reveals Mountain gorillas are in more trouble than we thought. Fewer of them are living in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) than previous estimates suggest. This is one of only two places worldwide where the gorillas survive in the wild.... It might also mean that the gorilla population in the park is not growing after all -- a census in 1997 found 300 gorillas, while one in 2003 found 320 individuals, but these figures may also be inaccurate. "Now we don't really know what is happening with this population," says Guschanski. "Probably the safest thing is to assume that the population is stable, but we will need to wait for another four to five years to assess how it is changing."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-22 14:08:37 Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Scientists solve enigma of Antarctic 'cooling' Scientists have solved the enigma of the Antarctic apparently getting cooler, while the rest of the world heats up.
New research shows that while some parts of the frozen continent have been getting slightly colder over the last few decades, the average temperature across the continent has been rising for at least the last 50 years.
In the remote and inaccessible West Antarctic region the new research, based on ground measurements and satellite data, show that the region has warmed rapidly, by 0.17C each decade since 1957. "We had no idea what was happening there," said Professor Eric Steig, at the University of Washington, Seattle, and who led the research published in Nature.
This outweighs the cooling seen in East Antarctica, so that, overall, the continent has warmed by 0.12C each decade over the same period. This matches the warming of the southern hemisphere as a whole and removes the apparent contradiction.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-22 14:12:18 Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from New Scientist Biofuel from the oceans Now a group at the Korea Institute of Technology in South Korea has developed a way to use marine algae, or seaweed, to produce bioethanol and avoid taking up land altogether.
The group says seaweed has a number of advantages over land-based biomass. It grows much faster, allowing up to six harvests per year; unlike trees and plants, it does not contain lignin and so requires no pre-treatment before it can be turned into fuel; and it absorbs up to seven times as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as wood.
The group's patent suggests treating all sizes of algae -- from large kelp to single-celled spirulina -- with an enzyme to break them into simple sugars, which can then be fermented into ethanol.
The resulting seaweed biofuel is cheaper and simpler to produce than crop or wood-based fuels, and will have no effect on the price of food, says the group.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-21 13:38:21 Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from WWF, via Science Daily (US) Power Emissions Limits To Save Most Carbon At Least Cost, Study Suggests The least cost way to reduce power related carbon emissions in Europe would be to supplement the EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS) with the introduction of Emissions Performance Standards for energy, according to a new study.... Such a system, successfully used in some US States where it has helped put renewable energy on a more equal footing with traditional energy sources, could cut the EU power sector's greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 by more than two-thirds – more than 800 million tonnes per year.... "The current EU Emissions Trading Scheme unfortunately does not prevent high polluting coal-fired power stations from being built," said Stephan Singer, Director of WWF's Global Energy Programme.
"We need new emissions limits to ensure Europe invests only in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and CO2 capture and storage facilities for coal-fired power stations. Otherwise, Europe will fail to deliver its contribution to keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-20 20:50:05 Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from New Scientist Appetite for frogs' legs harming wild populations ... [C]onservationists are warning that frogs could be going the same way as the cod. Gastronomic demand, they report, is depleting regional populations to the point of no return.... Bickford estimates that between 180 million to over a billion frogs are harvested each year. "That is based on both sound data and an estimate of local consumption for just Indonesia and China," he says. "The actual number I suspect is quite a bit larger and my 180 million bare minimum is almost laughably conservative."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-20 20:06:43 Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from New York Times Growing Taste for Reef Fish Sends Their Numbers Sinking KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia -- ... The fierce appetite for live reef fish across Southeast Asia — and increasingly in mainland China — is devastating populations in the Coral Triangle, a protected marine region home to the world’s richest ocean diversity, according to a recent report in the scientific journal Conservation Biology. Spawning of reef fish in this area, which supports 75 percent of all known coral species in the world, has declined 79 percent over the past 5 to 20 years, depending on location, according to the report.... She added, "From a very practical perspective, loss of the aggregations ultimately means loss of the associated fishery, so it makes good practical sense to change our attitude."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-20 19:32:18 Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from CNN Surveyed scientists agree global warming is real Human-induced global warming is real, according to a recent U.S. survey based on the opinions of 3,146 scientists... Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?
About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.
The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.
Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement...."The debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes," said [one of the study's authors].
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-20 19:11:08 Wed, Jan 21, 2009: from Bloomberg News Japan to Launch Satellite to Measure Global Warming The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency plans to launch a satellite in two days to measure greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere as nations seek better data on the evolution of global warming.
The Greenhouse-Gases Observing Satellite, or Gosat, will be lofted from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan shortly after noon local time on Jan. 22, the agency said today in a statement on its Web site... The Japanese project will measure the density of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere at 56,000 points around the globe, Yukiko Kaji, spokeswoman for the agency, said by telephone from Tokyo. Development costs for the satellite, dubbed “Ibuki,” the Japanese word for “breath,” totaled 18.3 billion yen ($202 million), she said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-20 16:08:39 Tue, Jan 20, 2009: from Los Angeles Times A new MRSA threat: children's ear, nose and neck infections The community strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus behind an explosion in nasty skin infections across the country is now causing ear and sinus infections and neck abscesses in children nationwide, a new study has found.
Of 21,000 pediatric staphylococcus infections from 2001 to 2006, 22 percent were the aggressive community MRSA strain known to scientists as USA300.
Moreover, the six-year review of data from more than 300 hospitals revealed an "alarming nationwide increase" in these infections, from just under 12 percent of in 2001 to 28 percent in 2006, according to the study published Monday in Archives of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery.... As long as staph stays where it's supposed to stay --on the outside -- it does little harm. But when it becomes invasive, slipping into a part of the body where it shouldn't be, any strain can cause severe infections of bones, joints, blood and lungs. And USA300 is particularly virulent, or capable of causing disease.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-20 18:52:45 Tue, Jan 20, 2009: from BBC Sex smell lures 'vampire' to doom A synthetic "chemical sex smell" could help rid North America's Great Lakes of a devastating pest, scientists say.
US researchers deployed a laboratory version of a male sea lamprey pheromone to trick ovulating females into swimming upstream into traps.
The sea lamprey, sometimes dubbed the "vampire fish", has parasitised native species of the Great Lakes since its accidental introduction in the 1800s.... This is thought to be the first time that pheromones have been shown to be the basis of a possible way of controlling animal pests other than insects.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-20 15:36:24 Tue, Jan 20, 2009: from Union Democrat Sierra Pacific defends use of forest chemicals Sierra Pacific Industries is defending its use of chemicals on forested land after a report from the San Francisco-based environmental group ForestEthics claimed their use is affecting wildlife and drinking water.
The report said SPI, which owns about 1.7 million acres in the state, has used more than 770,000 pounds of pesticides from 1995 to 2007 on its land -- which SPI doesn't deny.
Those chemicals are affecting wildlife adversely, like the sexual development and immune systems of male frogs, said Tyrone Hayes, a professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
"It's causing male frogs to grow ovaries," said Josh Buswell, the Sierra campaigner with ForestEthics. "That seems a little questionable."
One of the chemicals used by SPI is atrazine, which is the second most detected pesticide in drinking water wells, according to an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency national survey. Another is imazapyr, which has been shown to increase brain and thyroid cancers in male rats.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-20 18:57:13 Tue, Jan 20, 2009: from Business Mirror Dumping of banned toys from US feared A waste and pollution watchdog on Monday called on the government, particularly the Bureau of Customs, to prevent the entry of banned toys from the United States which may be dumped into the country.
At the same time, the group urged lawmakers to enact a law, and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), to come up with ways to guarantee consumer safety in the country, particularly against toxic contamination in various local and imported products.
EcoWaste Coalition made the call saying the impending implementation of far-reaching safety regulations for toys and other children’s products in the US might result in the massive recall of proscribed items that could find their way to the Philippines, which has less stringent requirements.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-19 19:17:55 Tue, Jan 20, 2009: from Sydney Morning Herald Endangered list grows as slow and steady lose race AFTER surviving for more than 100 million years, the world's largest sea turtle has been placed on the national threatened species.
Leatherback turtles, which are found in waters off NSW as well as south Queensland and Western Australia, can grow up to 1.6 metres in length and 700 kilograms.
The Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, said yesterday that the turtles, which had previously been classified as vulnerable, were now considered an endangered species.
"The uplisting is mainly due to the ongoing threat the turtle faces from unsustainable harvesting of egg and meat, and pressures from commercial fishing outside Australian waters," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-19 18:50:15 Mon, Jan 19, 2009: from Associated Press Palm oil frenzy threatens to wipe out orangutans ...the red apes ... in Indonesia are on the verge of extinction because forests are being clear-cut and burned to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations... The demand for palm oil is rising in the U.S. and Europe because it is touted as a "clean" alternative to fuel. Indonesia is the world’s top producer of palm oil, and prices have jumped by almost 70 percent in the last year.
But palm oil plantations devastate the forest and create a monoculture on the land, in which orangutans cannot survive.... There are only an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia, said Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Most live in small, scattered populations that cannot take the onslaught on the forests much longer.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-19 18:42:07 Mon, Jan 19, 2009: from London Independent River pollutants linked to male infertility The rise in male infertility and the decline in human sperm counts could be linked with chemicals in the environment known as anti-androgens which block the action of the male sex-hormone testosterone, a study has found.
Scientists have identified a group of river pollutants that are able to stop testosterone from working. These anti-androgens have been linked with the feminisation of fish in British rivers and could be affecting the development of male reproductive organs in humans, it found.
The study has established a link between anti-androgens released into rivers from sewage outflows and abnormalities in wild fish where males develop female reproductive organs. It is the first time that anti-androgens and hermaphrodite fish have been linked in this way.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-19 15:28:49 Mon, Jan 19, 2009: from Fast Company Water Desalination: The Answer to the World's Thirst? A quick spin through recent headlines reveals just how badly -- and how soon -- we're going to need new supplies of freshwater: Over the past 18 months in the United States alone, the governor of Georgia declared a state of emergency due to water shortages; salmonella contaminated municipal water in Colorado; and eight states ratified the Great Lakes Basin Compact, an agreement designed to ensure that Great Lakes water, nearly 20 percent of the world's freshwater, won't be shipped beyond those basins -- not even to nearby Minneapolis or Pittsburgh.
Worldwide, the picture is far bleaker. Global water consumption has roughly doubled since World War II, and yet, according to the United Nations, 1.1 billion people still have no access to a clean, reliable supply. Eighty percent of disease and deaths in developing countries -- more than 2.2 million people a year, including 3,900 children each day -- are caused by diseases associated with unsanitary water. The cost of waterborne diseases and associated lost productivity drains 2 percent of developing countries' GDP each year.... Saltwater already comprises 97.5 percent of the water resources on the planet, and 60 percent of the world's population lives within 65 miles of a seacoast. Why not desalinate seawater and slake the thirst of nations?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-19 13:06:26 Mon, Jan 19, 2009: from Reuters China reports third bird flu case in three days Chinese health authorities said on Monday a 16-year-old boy in central Hunan province is badly ill after contracting the H5N1 birdflu virus, the third case reported in as many days as the Lunar New Year holiday looms.
The Ministry of Health said on its website (www.moh.gov.cn) the teenage student entered hospital in Hunan on January 16 and the province disease control center confirmed he was infected with the H5N1 virus. He came from Guizhou province, next to Hunan.... China has warned of the risk of further human cases of bird flu in the run-up to the Lunar New Year holiday after reporting two new cases over the weekend.... The Spring Festival, or Lunar New Year holiday, starts next Monday, accompanied by a mass movement of people back to their home provinces for lavish celebratory meals.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-18 15:50:36 Sun, Jan 18, 2009: from Canwest News Service Climate warming 'highly unusual' says new study A major U.S. government report on Arctic climate, prepared with information from eight Canadian scientists, has concluded that the recent rapid warming of polar temperatures and shrinking of multi-year Arctic sea ice are "highly unusual compared to events from previous thousands of years."
The findings, released Friday, counter suggestions from skeptics that such recent events as the opening of the Northwest Passage and collapse of ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic are predictable phenomena that can be explained as part of a natural climate cycle rather than being driven by elevated carbon emissions from human activity.
A summary of the report -- described as "the first comprehensive analysis of the real data we have on past climate conditions in the Arctic," by U.S. Geological Survey director Mark Myers -- warns that "sustained warming of at least a few degrees" is probably enough "to cause the nearly complete, eventual disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet, which would raise sea level by several metres."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-18 15:40:31 Sun, Jan 18, 2009: from London Guardian Stop scattering ashes, families are told So many people want to scatter the ashes of family and friends in beauty spots that the government has been forced to step in with anti-pollution rules. Last month, staff at the Jane Austen House Museum in Hampshire discovered piles of human ashes scattered around the novelist's home and gardens, and football grounds, rivers, parks, golf courses, lakes, rivers and mountain tops have all become favourite remembrance spots.
Until 1960, only about one in three people in Britain chose cremation and it was uncommon for anyone to ask to have their ashes scattered. But, says the Cremation Society, there are now more than 420,000 cremations a year, 70 percent of all deaths.
Most families want to sprinkle the ashes in places meaningful to the deceased. In the 1970s, about 12 percent of ashes were taken away from the crematorium - now it is nearer two-thirds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-18 15:42:14 Sun, Jan 18, 2009: from Dhaka Daily Star Industrial pollution chokes people, crops alike Ammonia mixed toxic gas and urea dust emitted from Jamuna Fertiliser Factory (JFF) in Jamalpur have allegedly been wreaking havoc on the local environment and causing debilitating illnesses among the locals.
The toxic gas of the largest urea producing factory, at Tarandani of Sarishabari upazila in Tangail, has also been harming crops, trees, livestock, poultry and fish resources for the last 17 years. Many trees around the factory do not have a single leaf....Since its inception the JFF has been producing 1,700 tonnes of urea per day, 5,60,000 tonnes a year. Urea is produced from ammonia and carbon dioxide gas. Chemical formaldehyde is also mixed with the urea to make it hard. Formaldehyde acts as a disinfectant and it kills most bacteria and fungi (including their spores).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-18 15:28:41 Sun, Jan 18, 2009: from Kingston Daily Freeman MERCURY RISING: Bald eagles in region face new threat AFTER BEING pushed by humans to the brink of extinction and then re-establishing habitats in the Hudson River Valley and Catskill Mountains, bald eagles are again facing a manmade threat to their existence.
A Maine-based environmental organization has found an alarming accumulation of mercury in the blood and feathers of both juvenile and adult bald eagles in the Catskills.
While environmentalists say there is not yet conclusive scientific data to indicate the eagles are being harmed by the mercury levels in their systems, the study has found mercury levels in Catskills eagles to be close to those associated with neurological and reproductive problems in the common loon in the Adirondack Mountains and in Maine. The study also seems to support the belief that the Catskill Mountains region is a likely “hot spot” for methylmercury.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-17 11:03:35 Sat, Jan 17, 2009: from University of Bristol via ScienceDaily Cooling The Planet By Growing The Right Crops By carefully selecting which varieties of food crops to cultivate, much of Europe and North America could be cooled by up to 1°C during the summer growing season, say researchers from the University of Bristol, UK. This is equivalent to an annual global cooling of over 0.1°C, almost 20 percent of the total global temperature increase since the Industrial Revolution. The growing of crops already produces a cooling of the climate because they reflect more sunlight back into space, compared with natural vegetation. Different varieties of the same crop vary significantly in their solar reflectivity (called 'albedo'), so selecting varieties that are more reflective will enhance this cooling effect. Since arable agriculture is a global industry, such cooling could be extensive.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-17 10:50:43 Sat, Jan 17, 2009: from Wilmington News Journal Report warns of impact on coast from warming More storm-related flooding, shoreline erosion, habitat loss and saltwater intrusion into potential drinking water supplies are expected in Delaware and other Mid-Atlantic states as the climate warms, according to a report issued Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency. Delaware officials said they plan to use the federal report as a stepping-off point to plan for adaptation as the sea level continues to rise.
Most troubling for Dave Carter, program manager for Delaware Coastal Programs, is that sea-level rise, combined with a settling of land, already is causing problems in some low-lying areas along Delaware Bay. "These are the early signals," he said.
Comparing the state's new elevation data with Federal Emergency Management Flood Plan Maps for some areas in Delaware shows places where potential evacuation routes -- especially along Delaware Bay -- will be flooded "long before residents realize their lives are in danger," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-17 10:40:56 Sat, Jan 17, 2009: from Reuters Tibetan glacial shrink to cut water supply by 2050 Nearly 2 billion people in Asia, from coastal city dwellers to yak-herding nomads, will begin suffering water shortages in coming decades as global warming shrinks glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau, experts said.
The plateau has more than 45,000 glaciers that build up during the snowy season and then drain to the major rivers in Asia, including the Yangtze, Yellow, Brahmanputra and Mekong.
Temperatures in the plateau, which some scientists call the "Third Pole" for its massive glacial ice sheets, are rising twice as fast as other parts of the world, said Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University, who has collected ice cores from glaciers around the world for decades.
As glaciers melt at faster rates from the higher temperatures, a false sense of security about water supplies has developed across Asia, Thompson said on Friday.
If melting continues at current levels, two-thirds of the plateau's glaciers will likely be gone by 2050, he said at a meeting on climate change at the Asia Society in Manhattan.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-17 10:29:13 Sat, Jan 17, 2009: from Science News Livestock manure stinks for infant health The manure generated by thousands of cows or pigs doesn’t just stink — it may seriously affect human health.
New research examining two decades’ worth of livestock production data finds a positive relationship between increased production at industrial farms and infant death rates in the counties where the farms reside. The study reported in the February American Journal of Agricultural Economics implicates air pollution and suggests that Clean Air Act regulations need to be revamped to address livestock production of noxious gases.
The new work is in line with several studies documenting the ill effects of megafarms, which typically have thousands of animals packed into small areas, comments Peter Thorne, director of the Environmental Health Sciences Research Center at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Higher rates of lung disease have been found in workers at large poultry and swine operations and respiratory problems increase in communities when these large-scale farms move in, Thorne notes.
“This study is a very important contribution,” says Thorne. “This is an industry we really need — it provides food and a lot of jobs — the answer isn’t for everyone to become vegetarians.”
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-17 10:10:06 Sat, Jan 17, 2009: from Chicago Tribune U.S. warns of Teflon chemical in water Less than a week before the Bush administration leaves office, federal environmental regulators are issuing a controversial health advisory on drinking water contaminated with a toxic chemical used to make Teflon and other non-stick coatings.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is advising people to reduce consumption of water containing more than 0.4 parts per billion of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA -- a level critics say is not strict enough. Studies have shown the chemical, which is linked to cancer, liver damage and birth defects, has built up in human blood throughout the world.
It is unclear how many cities might exceed the new limit because the EPA doesn't require water treatment plants to test for PFOA... Critics called the EPA's advisory a last-minute gift from the Bush administration to DuPont and a handful of other companies that make PFOA. Some scientists have proposed limits as low as 0.02 parts per billion.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-16 11:01:06 Fri, Jan 16, 2009: from TIME E-Waste Not, E-Want Not Every day Americans throw out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers, making electronic waste the fastest-growing part of the U.S. garbage stream. Improperly disposed of, the lead, mercury and other toxic materials inside e-waste can leak from landfills.... A lot of exported e-waste ends up in Guiyu, China, a recycling hub where peasants heat circuit boards over coal fires to recover lead, while others use acid to burn off bits of gold. According to reports from nearby Shantou University, Guiyu has the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world and elevated rates of miscarriages. "You see women sitting by the fireplace burning laptop adapters, with rivers of ash pouring out of houses," says Jim Puckett, founder of Basel Action Network (BAN), an e-waste watchdog. "We're dumping on the rest of the world."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-16 10:00:17 Fri, Jan 16, 2009: from China.org.cn Returning to 'normal' is no longer an option In the first half of the year, volatile commodity prices, especially for food and oil, hit the world's poorest people hard. In the second half was the global financial catastrophe.
Yet, could the crises of food, fuel and finance that we experienced last year simply be three canaries in the coal mine? What if these are just the early warning signals that our current economic system is not sustainable at a much deeper level? ... Those of us in middle age today in richer countries are the third successive generation to benefit from the natural resource bubble that our first world economy has exploited since the mid-20th century.
It is highly unlikely -- unless we make some deep, structural changes to how we manage our economy -- that our children and their children will experience the same sense of progress and wealth.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-16 09:48:56 Fri, Jan 16, 2009: from LA Times Mercury levels higher in women in Northeast, coastal areas Health officials have warned consumers for several years to avoid consuming too much of any type of fish that tends to be high in mercury. High blood mercury levels can cause serious health problems and are particularly dangerous for pregnant women because the toxin may harm the fetus.
... Researchers used data from a large, national nutrition survey collected from 1999 to 2004 and found that women in the Northeast were the most likely to have blood mercury concentrations above 3.5 micrograms per liter. Almost 1 in 5 women in the Northeast had levels that are considered too high. More than 16 percent of women living in counties that bordered an ocean or the Gulf of Mexico had levels that are considered too high. Nationwide, about 10 percent of women had levels at or greater than 3.5 micrograms per liter.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-16 11:16:50 Fri, Jan 16, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Paint cities white to tackle global warming, scientist says Hashem Akbari believes that whitening 100 of the world's largest cities could wipe out the effect of the expected increase in emissions over the next decade.
White buildings and surfaces reflect far more sunlight than dark ones. Reflected sunlight does not contribute to the greenhouse effect, unlike the heat energy emitted by dark surfaces heated by the sun.
Dr Akbari, of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, also argues that if built-up areas were made white, less heat would accumulate within them, allowing residents and workers to reduce their use of air-conditioning units, which use a large amount of power.
Dr Akbari has calculated that making 100 of the largest cities white would increase the amount of sunlight reflected by Earth by 0.03 per cent. He believes it would cancel out the warming caused by 44billion tonnes of carbon emissions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-15 20:50:40 Fri, Jan 16, 2009: from BBC (UK) Farms to take heat out of warming Farmers could help curb rising global temperatures by selecting crop varieties that reflect solar energy back into space, researchers say. Scientists at Bristol University calculate that switching crops in North America and Europe could reduce global temperatures by about 0.1C.
Temperatures have risen by about 0.7C since the dawn of the industrial age.... "It could help marginally in certain places but it shouldn't cause anybody to think we can slow up our efforts to stop dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."
Another obvious question with the approach is how to persuade farmers to make crop choices that might impact on their income, if they were asked to adopt strains that fetched less at market.
One way would be to allow farmers to gain carbon credits for making a reflective choice, although Professor Caldeira suggested "starting to price albedo could open up a whole can of worms".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-15 19:31:53 Fri, Jan 16, 2009: from Taipei China Post Indonesian officials ride bicycles to fight global warming JAKARTA -- City officials in South Jakarta must now cycle when performing their duties, in a move to help combat pollution and global warming, an official said Wednesday. They can own a car and drive to work, but they must cycle when travelling to do their work, South Jakarta city spokesman Ahmad Sotar said.
"This is compulsory. Cycling will not only reduce pollution and global warming, but also promote good health," he added.
"The officials can also get to know their residents better since now they can cycle through the narrow alleyways to reach their homes. They can't do so if they drive," Sotar said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-15 12:55:31 Thu, Jan 15, 2009: from Seattle Times Scientists find contaminated orca food The food supply of Puget Sound's endangered orcas is contaminated, a team of Canadian and Washington scientists has found.
The scientists measured persistent organic pollution concentrations in chinook salmon in order to understand the orcas' exposure to contamination in their food supply. Orcas, or killer whales, are actually a type of dolphin, are among the most contaminated marine mammals in the world, and are at risk of extinction in Puget Sound.
The so-called southern resident population of orcas that frequents Puget Sound was listed as an endangered species by the federal government in November 2005.
Southern resident orca whales seem to prefer chinook salmon for their diet — fish that the scientists found were contaminated with PCBs, flame retardants and other persistent chemicals that are retained in body fat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-15 10:43:50 Thu, Jan 15, 2009: from Cleantech Blog Peak Phosphorus? First there was 'Peak Oil', then there was talk of 'Peak Water', but 'Peak Phosphorus' may trump them all as a sustainability issue without rival.
Fact: Phosphorus is a non-renewable resource for which there is no substitute.... The timing for Peak phosphorus may be 50 years out, or a hundred and fifty years, but as with peak oil, it's not a question of if, but when. There has already been considerable volatility in Phosphorus markets in the past year, possibly related more to volatility in the energy market and this has trickled through into food prices.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-15 10:39:16 Thu, Jan 15, 2009: from London Daily Telegraph Green I.T.: how many Google searches does it take to boil a kettle? ...a newspaper reported that just two Google searches generates the same amount of CO2 as boiling a kettle. That would mean the search giant might as well be flying 10 jumbo jets from London to New York every day, because approximately 242 million queries are processed over 24 hours.
The story was quickly seized upon by the technology community, and set the internet alight. Amidst all the subsequent hot air, Alex Wissner-Gross, the Harvard academic upon whose forthcoming research the story was supposedly based, claimed that he didn’t recognise the figures put next to his name. Google, meanwhile, hit back, too, and said that the correct figure wasn’t 7g of CO2 per search – it was 0.2g.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-15 09:58:07 Thu, Jan 15, 2009: from AFP Indonesia to allow trawling despite overfishing fears Indonesia will allow trawling in selected areas for the first time in 30 years despite concerns about overfishing, an official said Thursday.
Trawling, in which boats tow long nets that scoop up everything in their path, would be permitted this year off four areas of Borneo island's east Kalimantan province, maritime ministry official Bambang Sutejo said.
He dismissed concerns about overfishing but acknowledged that illegal trawling was already rampant in the area.
"There will not be overfishing this time as we're only allowing small boats to trawl, and it's not allowed in other parts of Indonesia," he said, adding that legalising trawling would help fight illegal trawlers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-15 09:47:07 Thu, Jan 15, 2009: from University of Wisconsin, via EurekAlert Nations that sow food crops for biofuels may reap less than previously thought Global yields of most biofuels crops, including corn, rapeseed and wheat, have been overestimated by 100 to 150 percent or more, suggesting many countries need to reset their expectations of agricultural biofuels to a more realistic level.
That's according to a study led by Matt Johnston and Tracey Holloway of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Jon Foley of University of Minnesota, which drew on actual agricultural data from nearly 240 countries to calculate the potential yields of 20 different biofuels worldwide.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-15 10:52:17 Thu, Jan 15, 2009: from Yale, via EurekAlert Yale survey: Americans eager to reduce their energy use Many Americans have already taken action to reduce their energy use and many others would do the same if they could afford to, according to a national survey conducted by Yale and George Mason universities.
Roughly half of the 2,164 American adults surveyed last September and October said they had already taken important steps to make their homes more energy-efficient, and a substantial number -- between 10 and 20 percent -- said they planned to take action over the next year. Almost two-thirds of the respondents said that they would like to buy a fuel-efficient car, but over a third said they can't afford one.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 15:12:09 Wed, Jan 14, 2009: from Los Angeles Times Herbal medicine sales up in sour economy; consumers seek cheaper, but often unproven, options CHICAGO (AP)-- The choice between $75 prescription sleeping pills or a $5 herbal alternative is a no-brainer for Cathy and Bernard Birleffi, whose insurance costs have skyrocketed along with the nation's financial woes.
The Calistoga, Calif., couple seem to reflect a trend. With many Americans putting off routine doctor visits and self-medicating to save money, use of alternative treatments is on the rise — even though evidence is often lacking on their safety and effectiveness.
Climbing sales of herbal medicines have paralleled the tanking economy, according to an Associated Press review of recent data from market-watchers and retailers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 14:53:34 Wed, Jan 14, 2009: from ProPublica Jackson to Be Asked About Regulating Perchlorate in Drinking Water In the latest volley of a years-long battle involving the Environmental Protection Agency, the military and the White House, the EPA announced last week that it will delay its decision [1] on whether to set a drinking water standard for perchlorate, a chemical in rocket fuel that has been found at harmful levels in drinking water across the country. The announcement that the EPA won't act until it receives advice from the National Academy of Sciences puts the contentious decision onto the already-heavy regulatory agenda awaiting Lisa Jackson, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to head the EPA.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 08:37:23 Wed, Jan 14, 2009: from Macau Daily Times Vietnam finds bird flu in chicken smuggled from China Vietnam has detected bird flu in chicken smuggled from China as the illegal trade picks up ahead of the lunar New Year later this month, state media reported yesterday.
Eight out of 16 poultry samples tested by animal health officials in the northern border province of Lang Son were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza, said the Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper. The provincial people's committee has sent an urgent message to local authorities, asking them to crack down on poultry smuggling to prevent the spread of infected poultry, the state-controlled newspaper said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 08:23:24 Wed, Jan 14, 2009: from Sydney Morning Herald Zimbabwe cholera cases pass 40,000: WHO Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic, which has killed more than 2,000, has claimed 81 more lives and the total number of cases now stands at 40,448, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.
The death toll has now reached 2,106 since August while 1,642 new cases were added on in a single day, it said.
On Tuesday, WHO spokesman Paul Garwood told AFP: "The epidemic is still not under control," adding that the rainy season was aggravating the contagion since the disease is transmitted by contaminated water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:39:56 Wed, Jan 14, 2009: from Glouster Daily Times NOAA: Six nations illegally caught bluefin The federal government yesterday identified six foreign countries it said engaged in illegal fishing during the last two years, including the illicit harvesting of valuable and endangered stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna.
The six nations named in a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- France, Italy, Libya, Panama, China and Tunisia -- were the first the United States has ever specifically identified as violators of international fishing regulations.
The six nations now face potential trade sanctions from the United States, including a possible ban on the sale of their seafood in this country.... The majority of violations identified in the NOAA report involved illegal or unregulated catches of bluefin tuna, a fish prized for its use as sushi and which has been severely depleted because of its popularity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 08:07:02 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from Associated Press Removing cats to protect birds backfires on island BANGKOK, Thailand -- It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds.
But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover, researchers said Tuesday.
Removing the cats from Macquarie "caused environmental devastation" that will cost authorities 24 million Australian dollars ($16.2 million) to remedy, Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division and her colleagues wrote in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-13 17:10:35 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from Agence France-Presse The earth's magnetic field impacts climate: Danish study COPENHAGEN -- The earth's climate has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field, according to a Danish study published Monday that could challenge the notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming.
"Our results show a strong correlation between the strength of the earth's magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics," one of the two Danish geophysicists behind the study, Mads Faurschou Knudsen of the geology department at Aarhus University in western Denmark, told the Videnskab journal.... The results of the study, which has also been published in US scientific journal Geology, lend support to a controversial theory published a decade ago by Danish astrophysicist Henrik Svensmark, who claimed the climate was highly influenced by galactic cosmic ray (GCR) particles penetrating the earth's atmosphere.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-13 13:21:23 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from New York Times Research Ties Human Acts to Harmful Rates of Species Evolution Human actions are increasing the rate of evolutionary change in plants and animals in ways that may hurt their long-term prospects for survival, scientists are reporting. Hunting, commercial fishing and some conservation regulations, like minimum size limits on fish, may all work against species health... Based on an analysis of earlier studies of 29 species — mostly fish, but also a few animals and plants like bighorn sheep and ginseng — researchers from several Canadian and American universities found that rates of evolutionary change were three times higher in species subject to “harvest selection” than in other species. Writing in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers say the data they analyzed suggested that size at reproductive maturity in the species under pressure had shrunk in 30 years or so by 20 percent, and that organisms were reaching reproductive age about 25 percent sooner.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-13 16:00:21 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from Brisbane Courier-Mail Two-headed fish larvae blamed on farm chemicals in Noosa River CHEMICAL contamination from farm runoff has been blamed after millions of fish larvae in the Noosa River were found to have grown two heads.
The disfigured larvae are thought to have been affected by one of two popular farm chemicals, either the insecticide endosulphan or the fungicide carbendazim.
Former NSW fisheries scientist and aquaculture veterinarian Matt Landos yesterday called on the Federal Government to ban the chemicals and urgently find replacements.
Dr Landos said about 90 per cent of larvae spawned at the Sunland Fish Hatchery from bass taken from the river were deformed and all died within 48 hours.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-15 10:54:45 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from Bloomberg News Food Production Chaos Looms in Africa as Soil Quality Worsens African farmers and climate change are combining to damage soil at a rate that may plunge the continent, home to about 1 billion people, into chaos as food production declines.
“The situation is very severe and soil fertility is declining rapidly,” Jeroen Huising, a scientist who studies soils at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, or CIAT, said today in an interview. “Many countries like Kenya already don’t have enough food to feed their population and soil degradation is worsening an already critical situation.”
Africa, where half the agricultural soil has lost nutrients necessary to grow plants, is hampered by a lack of information about soil conditions, Huising said. About 236 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, or one in three there, are chronically hungry, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-13 12:15:23 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from The Olympian Mysterious pelican deaths worry California biologists In a troubling wildlife mystery, sick and injured California brown pelicans are landing in suburban ponds, driveways and backyards -- far from their ocean home.... "Now they are appearing in really unusual places." ... Die-offs of young birds aren't uncommon along the coast this time of year. But bird rescuers knew something was amiss when many of the sick pelicans were adults, found far inland, bruised and starving.
A social animal, it is rarely found alone.... "We are seeing a number of conditions that are not typical of domoic acid toxicity or a domoic acid event. Therefore, we are continuing to collect and test samples, keeping an open mind and considering all possibilities."
Other theories have surfaced. Perhaps the birds are ingesting toxic fire retardants that washed to sea after recent fires. Maybe they're sick with a viral infection. Or perhaps the cold weather that hit the Pacific Northwest in December boosted their susceptibility to some yet-identified disease. Or there could be a confluence of factors.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-13 11:54:53 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from SciDev.net Solar house promises greener heating for Tibetans Chinese engineers have designed a solar house for Tibetans that aims to reduce their dependency on cattle dung for warmth.
A typical Tibetan family living in a remote mountainous village burns 300 sacks of dung -- around 2,000 kilograms -- each year, half of which it must purchase. But burning dung is inefficient and, in winter, temperatures plunge indoors.... Zeng Yan, chief architect of the Institute of Solar Building Technology, part of CNECHS, said that the experimental house, to be built in May, is supported by three core techniques: insulation, energy collection and energy storage.
The 100 square-metre house has an embedded greenhouse that collects the sun's energy, which can be transferred to the surrounding bedrooms and living room by opening connecting windows and doors.... But Xie Yuan, head of the Department of Science and Technology of Qinghai Province said that the houses might be unaffordable for local Tibetans. The annual personal income in a typical village is less than 1,700 Chinese yuan (around US$249), but the new house costs nearly 40,000 yuan (around US$5,850).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 22:31:50 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Greenpeace buys Heathrow land earmarked for airport's third runway Campaigners opposed to a third runway at Heathrow have bought a parcel of the land earmarked for the airport's expansion and are preparing for a fierce legal battle to defend it.
The Government is expected to approve the new runway this week, along with a sixth terminal -- although there was speculation last night that a decision could be delayed after Gordon Brown agreed to meet Labour backbenchers opposed to the project. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats both oppose the plans, as do dozens of environmental groups.
Greenpeace has bought a field the size of a football pitch and plans to invite protesters to dig networks of tunnels across it, similar to those built in the ultimately unsuccessful campaign against the Newbury bypass in 1996. The group also plans to divide the field into thousands of tiny plots, each with a separate owner. BAA, the airport's owner, would be forced to negotiate with each owner, lengthening the compulsory purchase process.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 22:23:18 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from Soil Science Society of America, via EurekAlert Forest Soil, Long After Most Acidic Rain, Remains Acidic Following the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 and 1990 acidic deposition in North America has declined significantly since its peak in 1973. Consequently, research has shifted from studying the effects of acidic deposition to the recovery of these aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.... The researchers believe that the observed trend in soil acidification is likely to continue until acidic inputs decline to the point where soil base cation pools are sufficient to neutralize them. Warby concluded, "Until then we are likely to see the continued sluggish chemical recovery of surface waters and a continuing threat to the health of forests, with additional declines in base status likely to increase the number of sites exhibiting lower forest productivity and or vulnerability to winter injury."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-13 12:22:53 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from USDA Forest Service Top 5 invasive plants threatening Southern forests in 2009 U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) Ecologist Jim Miller, Ph.D., one of the foremost authorities on nonnative plants in the South, today identified the invasive plant species he believes pose the biggest threats to southern forest ecosystems in 2009.
"Cogongrass, tallowtree, and Japanese climbing fern are among the fastest moving and most destructive nonnative plant species facing many southern landowners this year," said Miller. "Rounding out the top five invasive species that I'm very concerned about would be tree-of-heaven and nonnative privets. While our forests are besieged by numerous invasive plants, these and other nonnative species present serious financial and ecological threats to the South and its forests in 2009."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 21:56:26 Tue, Jan 13, 2009: from University of Houston, via EurekAlert 'Refinery dust' reveals clues about local polluters, UH-led research team says Cloaked in the clouds of emissions and exhaust that hang over the city are clues that lead back to the polluting culprits, and a research team led by the University of Houston is hot on their trails.... "Fine particulate matter is tiny – about 30 times smaller in diameter than a human hair – but it carries in it a lot of information about where it came from," explains Chellam, a civil and environmental engineering professor at UH's Cullen College of Engineering.... "The fact that we can quantify very minute concentrations of the catalyst material in the ambient air, as well as many other metals, shows the strengths of the analytical procedures developed at UH," Fraser says. "This allows us to track emissions from a source to communities far downwind, where people may be unaware that they are being exposed to emissions from industrial refineries."
Fraser said the team's goal is to advance the understanding of the science of air pollution so that more effective and efficient environmental regulations can be written.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 14:42:30 Mon, Jan 12, 2009: from Ayn Rand Center Pain of Recession Foretells Agony of Green Economy Washington, D.C.--For the first time in 25 years, global demand for oil is expected to decline two years in a row. The decline is an effect of the global economic recession, which has dramatically reduced production and trade worldwide.
“This recession, with all its grim news of job loss and economic hardship, should be seen as a cautionary tale against coercive energy and climate policies,” said Keith Lockitch, fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.
“Energy is the motive power that fuels production and trade. When economic activity slows, so does energy demand. But it goes the other way too. Imposing restrictions on the use of energy--as would occur under a system of carbon regulation--would choke off the economy’s fuel and shut down productive activity. The economic pain we’re all feeling in this recession is nothing compared to the pain we would feel if we adopt green policies that cut off fossil fuel consumption
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 12:51:07 Mon, Jan 12, 2009: from New Scientist Patent: Tree-hugging wind turbine Sridhar Condoor at Saint Louis University in Missouri has designed a hollow, cylindrical wind turbine that has no central hub. Its tube-like form means the device could be placed around a pre-existing feature such as a chimney stack, cellphone mast or even a tree trunk.
The outside of the turbine is a cylinder that is incised with inlets to catch the wind from any direction and toothed on the inside to drive a gear that powers a generator.
A cylindrical frame within allows the main cylinder to rotate freely and can be mounted around another object -- either vertically or horizontally. That makes it possible to install without needing clear space, and could even provide a way to hide ugly features, the patent says.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:08:22 Mon, Jan 12, 2009: from Bloomberg News Greenland's Rapid Glacier Retreat May Stall, Scientists Say The rapid shrinking of glaciers in Greenland during recent years may stall, diminishing the Arctic island's potential contribution to rising sea levels blamed on global warming, a U.K.-led research team found.
The study in the journal Nature Geoscience indicates the faster-than-normal ice loss observed in many of Greenland's glaciers in the early 2000s won't be sustained, said Andreas Vieli, a glaciologist at Durham University in northern England... While the researchers studied one glacier, they said their findings apply to glaciers in similar terrain that are grounded at their snout in a trough reaching below sea-level.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 12:16:09 Mon, Jan 12, 2009: from Chicago Tribune Studies show SE. Ind. site high in mercury levels INDIANAPOLIS - Rain and snow that fall near a cluster of coal-burning power plants in southeastern Indiana are laced with some of the highest concentrations of atmospheric mercury in the nation, a new federal study has found.
The U.S. Geological Survey research found the elevated levels of the toxic metal near Madison, Ind., adding to evidence that mercury spewed by power plants can end up in high concentrations in rain and snow that falls nearby.
The findings, along with a study that found the most toxic form of the metal in more than 80 percent of samples taken from streams statewide, document the legacy of one pollutant from modern industry, the researchers say.
"Everywhere we looked in Indiana we found mercury, and it's not the same everywhere, nor is it the same year to year or season to season," said Martin Risch, a USGS scientist who authored both papers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 09:57:47 Mon, Jan 12, 2009: from The Desert Sun (CA) Protected species moves from valley Warmer, drier weather linked to global climate change has caused at least one native species to disappear from the Coachella Valley -- and ecologists warn more could be lost if the conditions persist. The Jerusalem cricket, an inch-long insect protected under the Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan, used to live in the Thousand Palms area and near the Palm Springs International Airport.
But after more than a decade of drought, the moisture-needing cricket has shifted completely to more humid areas west of the valley, past Windy Point near Cabazon, according to local ecologists.
Its "dramatic" disappearance is "the canary in the coal mine telling us what's going on" regarding local effects of climate change, said Dr. Cameron Barrows, a research ecologist who's studied the Coachella Valley the past 23 years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 16:45:58 Mon, Jan 12, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Climate change fears spiral as warmer seas 'absorbing less carbon dioxide' Warmer waters -- themselves said to be the result of the changing climate -- are believed to have caused the decline.
Samples taken from the Sea of Japan last year were compared with analysis of water collected in the past.
The findings suggest that it is absorbing only half as much carbon dioxide as during the 1990s.
It could mean that governments would have to increase targets for cutting carbon emissions more sharply than previously thought.
Scientists believe that a slight change in the temperature of the water appears to have reduced a process known as "ventilation" which helps reabsorb about a quarter of the carbon dioxide produced around the world.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-13 12:56:09 Mon, Jan 12, 2009: from DOE via EurekAlert Dirty snow causes early runoff in Cascades, Rockies Soot from pollution causes winter snowpacks to warm, shrink and warm some more. This continuous cycle sends snowmelt streaming down mountains as much as a month early, a new study finds. How pollution affects a mountain range's natural water reservoirs is important for water resource managers in the western United States and Canada who plan for hydroelectricity generation, fisheries and farming.
Scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory conducted the first-ever study of soot on snow in the western states at a scale that predicted impacts along mountain ranges. They found that soot warms up the snow and the air above it by up to 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit, causing snow to melt.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-11 11:46:35 Sun, Jan 11, 2009: from Canadian Press Scientists track climate change through whale teeth WINNIPEG -- Researchers are hoping the huge tusks of the walrus and choppers of the beluga whale will help track the increasing impact of global warming on Canadian Arctic mammals and the Inuit communities that depend on the creatures for food.
Scientists with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Winnipeg are preparing to study the teeth of mammals killed during Inuit hunts to look for any signs that greenhouse gases are taking a toll.
Although scientists have studied the teeth — which have annular rings similar to those of a tree trunk — for many years, this is the first time they are being used to unlock the impact climate change is having in the North.
Experts expect to find a growing number of contaminants like mercury and PCBs in the teeth, as well as evidence of a thinning diet — all attributable to the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-11 11:31:16 Sun, Jan 11, 2009: from Contra Costa Times Food crisis due to warming world trumps all other worries, say scientists Many of today's toddlers face the grim prospect of coping with chronic food shortages in their old age if agricultural science doesn't adapt to a warming world, concluded scientists in a study published Friday in the journal Science.
The stark report, from scientists at Stanford University and the University of Washington, makes melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels from global warming appear minor compared with the prospect of hundreds of millions of people, including those living in Europe and the United States, anxiously seeking stable food supplies. ... By the end of the century, the worst of the heat waves in recent times will become the normal average summertime temperatures, the researchers reported. They based their conclusions on 23 climate models in a 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as data from severe heat waves dating several decades.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-11 11:50:12 Sun, Jan 11, 2009: from Reuters Obese Americans now outweigh the merely overweight WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of obese American adults outweighs the number of those who are merely overweight, according to the latest statistics from the federal government.
Numbers posted by the National Center for Health Statistics show that more than 34 percent of Americans are obese, compared to 32.7 percent who are overweight. It said just under 6 percent are "extremely" obese.
"More than one-third of adults, or over 72 million people, were obese in 2005-2006, the NCHS said in its report.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:18:53 Sun, Jan 11, 2009: from Associated Press Salmonella prompts peanut butter recall in Ohio COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio distributor says it has recalled two brands of its peanut butter after an open container tested positive for salmonella bacteria.
There was no immediate indication whether the brands were linked to a national salmonella outbreak.
King Nut Companies said in a statement issued Saturday that it has asked customers to stop distributing all peanut butter under its King Nut and Parnell's Pride brands with a lot code that begins with the numeral "8." The brands are distributed only through food service providers and are not sold directly to consumers.
Preliminary laboratory testing found salmonella bacteria in a 5-pound container of King Nut brand creamy peanut butter, the Minnesota Department of Health said Friday.
The Minnesota tests had not linked it to the type of salmonella in the outbreak that has sickened almost 400 people in 42 states, but the department said additional results are expected early next week.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-11 10:42:41 Sun, Jan 11, 2009: from Associated Press Nation's largest utility grapples with 2 spills STEVENSON, Ala. (AP) — Standing on a porch near the Widows Creek power plant Saturday, Charlie Cookston took a drag off a cigarette and ticked off the reasons he distrusts the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Dead mussels in the mighty, meandering Tennessee River. Dwindling numbers of fish. Big, black piles of coal ash that seem to get larger every day.
As nearby residents await lab tests on the safety of drinking water, tempers are unsettled. Electric rates at the nation's largest utility have soared. A dike burst in Tennessee destroyed several homes, and on Friday, as much as 10,000 gallons of waste spilled into Widows Creek in northwestern Alabama.
The nation's largest utility, once was viewed as a savior to the region, bringing lights, thousands of jobs and progress since its creation as a New Deal program in 1933, has had a rocky few months.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-11 10:14:18 Sun, Jan 11, 2009: from Guardian (UK) 20 big green ideas as Emma Howard Boyd, head of socially responsible investing at Jupiter Asset Management – sponsors of the Big Idea award, makes clear: "The urgency of what is required to combat issues such as climate change has not diminished as a result of the current financial crisis. We need big ideas -- and it is at times like these, when there is widespread disruption, that we see innovation and new thinking."
Big ideas need not necessarily be a whistle-and-bells hi-tech response. At least one of our Big 20 can be described as an "ancient technique" on loan from the Aztecs. The modern genius lies in its rediscovery and deployment because, while it would be foolish to believe blindly in a silver bullet for all environmental problems, now is absolutely the time for faith in contemporary ingenuity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-11 09:57:15 Sun, Jan 11, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Two Google searches 'produce same CO2 as boiling a kettle' A typical search through the online giant's website is thought to generate about 7g of carbon dioxide. Boiling a kettle produces about 15g.
The emissions are caused both by the electricity required to power a user's computer and send their request to servers around the world.
The discovery comes amid increasing warnings about the little-known environmental impact of computer and internet use.
According to Gartner, an American research firm, IT now causes about two per cent of global CO2 emissions and its carbon footprint exceeded that of the world's aviation industry for the first time in 2007.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-10 11:44:10 Sat, Jan 10, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Exxon chief backs carbon tax In a significant shift in stance, Exxon's chief executive, Rex Tillerson, told an audience in Washington that he considered a tax to be a fairer route to curbing emissions than a cap-and-trade system of pollution allocations.
"As a businessman it is hard to speak favourably about any new tax," said Tillerson. "But a carbon tax strikes me as a more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach."
Until recently, Exxon was reluctant even to concede that greenhouse gas emissions were responsible for global warming. The company has faced mounting pressure over its environmental policies, culminating in a shareholder rebellion at its annual meeting last year led by members of the oil-rich Rockefeller family.... "A carbon tax is also the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions - from investments made by companies to fuel their requirements to the product choices made by consumers," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:32:30 Sat, Jan 10, 2009: from New Scientist 'Climate fix' ship sets sail with plan to dump iron The ambitious geoengineering expedition has caused a stir among some campaigning groups, but has the scientific backing of the UK, German, and Indian governments, as well as the International Maritime Organisation.
Within weeks, the ship's crew hope to dump 20 tonnes of ferrous sulphate into the Southern Ocean. Plankton need iron to grow, and the aim of the expedition is to trigger a plankton bloom and boost the amount of carbon that is sucked out of the air and locked up at the bottom of the ocean.... "Twenty tonnes of iron particles in the vast ocean is very much drop in the bucket and is unlikely to have a lasting effect," says Ken Caldeira of Stanford University. "The rational concern is that experiments will lead down some slippery slope -- that small experiments could be scaled up without any regulation."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-10 10:15:18 Sat, Jan 10, 2009: from New Scientist Medicinal plants on verge of extinction THE health of millions could be at risk because medicinal plants used to make traditional remedies, including drugs to combat cancer and malaria, are being overexploited. "The loss of medicinal plant diversity is a quiet disaster," says Sara Oldfield, secretary general of the NGO Botanic Gardens Conservation International.
Most people worldwide, including 80 per cent of all Africans, rely on herbal medicines obtained mostly from wild plants. But some 15,000 of 50,000 medicinal species are under threat of extinction, according to a report this week from international conservation group Plantlife. Shortages have been reported in China, India, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda.
Commercial over-harvesting does the most harm, though pollution, competition from invasive species and habitat destruction all contribute. "Commercial collectors generally harvest medicinal plants with little care for sustainability," the Plantlife report says. "This can be partly through ignorance, but [happens] mainly because such collection is unorganised and competitive."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-10 10:03:53 Sat, Jan 10, 2009: from National Assessment of Adult Literacy State and County Literacy Estimates In response to a demand for estimates of the percentage of adults with low literacy in individual states and counties, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has produced estimates of the percentage of adults lacking Basic Prose Literacy Skills (BPLS) for all states and counties in the United States in 2003 and 1992. These estimates were developed using statistical models that related estimated percentages of adults lacking BPLS in counties sampled for the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) and the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) to county characteristics, such as levels of educational attainment and race/ethnicity distributions. Based on the results of these models, NCES derived BPLS literacy estimates for all states and counties in the United States and produced user-friendly tables to compare literacy estimates across states or counties and across years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-10 07:28:37 Sat, Jan 10, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Destructive alien species being transported around the world by sea [T]he cargo ships are unwittingly transporting larvae and tiny organisms that could cause damage to other species. This is because cargo ships take up water for ballast once they have discharged their load. When they arrive at the new destination the water is dumped -- along with any living stowaways on board.
Over the years ships have transported comb jellyfish from the US to the Black Sea, where they have decimated fish stocks. The European green crab has caused problems in the US and Australia and Asian kelp has caused havoc in New Zealand, Europe and Argentina.
In the UK the Chinese mitten crab and European zebra mussel are just some of the invasive maritime species transported by sea threatening native species.
It is estimated that up to 10 billion tonnes of ballast water is transferred globally each year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-10 11:06:41 Sat, Jan 10, 2009: from Environmental News Network California Scientists Create E.Coli-based Fuel That's Much More Efficient Than Ethanol U.S. scientists say they can turn E.coli, a strain of bacteria present in the human digestive tract, into a fuel that is twice or three times more efficient than ethanol. The scientists, attached to theUniversity of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) managed to create a strain for the first time that generates alcohol with five carbon atoms per molecule instead of the regular two or three. That's important because the larger, longer chain molecules contain more energy, something of a "holy grail" for the fuel industry.... E.coli, which is mostly found in dangerous quantities on polluted beaches, can be altered so that each cell can generate "long-chain alcohol". The bacteria that result from this process excrete a type of fuel that can be used in the airline industry. Gas and other petroleum products also stand to benefit from the excretion process.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-09 12:41:28 Fri, Jan 9, 2009: from The Tennessean Second TVA spill reported in Alabama TVA is investigating a leak from a gypsum pond at its Widows Creek coal-burning power plant in northeastern Alabama, a spokesman said at about 10:45 a.m. Central Time.
The leak, discovered before 6 a.m. has been stopped, according to John Moulton, with the Tennessee Valley Authority. "Some materials flowed into Widows Creek, although most of the leakage remained in the settling pond," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-09 10:56:42 Fri, Jan 9, 2009: from Cheboygan News Biologist on the case of dipping smelt population For years now, the spring smelt runs have been shadows of their former selves. Gone are the days when rivers and streams would run black, teaming with billions of migrating smelt. With only a few dips of the net, garbage cans could be filled with the tasty, bite-sized fish.
Runs like those haven't been experienced in years.... From predatory demand to the introduction of zebra and quagga muscles to climate change, each theory has merit but needs some explaining.... "Based on my field observations, I can say this situation will not change any time soon," said Schaeffer. "We recorded very few smelt and the ones we did get were very small, too small for anglers to keep."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-10 11:07:33 Fri, Jan 9, 2009: from Guardian (UK) US recycling: 'I don't even think we have an industry' "Across the street we would process 600 customers on a weekday, 1,000 at the weekend," he says. "The whole spectrum -- the homeowner who has stockpiled aluminium cans, the bar down the street that has a load of beer bottles, the liquor store with used cardboard. Now it's probably half that number."
Young is on the frontline of a crash in commodity prices that has seen the global market for recycled paper, cardboard, plastic, metals and glass all but disappear. In three weeks in October, the price of paper went from $200 to $20 a ton, corrugated cardboard dropped from $250 a ton in August to $100 in December. It is the worst he has seen since founding the company in 1963.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-09 10:55:50 Fri, Jan 9, 2009: from Yahoo/AP Tangerine growers tell beekeepers to buzz off Is it trespassing when bees do what bees do in California's tangerine groves?
That is the question being weighed by state agriculture officials caught between beekeepers who prize orange blossom honey and citrus growers who blame the bees for causing otherwise seedless mandarin oranges to develop pips.... Beekeepers say that, with development in the state's agricultural regions, there already are a limited number of places to take the bees for feeding.
"Our winter losses are increasing (because of colony collapse), and part of the problem is finding places to put bees where they have access to natural food, and citrus is part of that," said Gene Brandi, a Los Banos beekeeper and legislative liaison for the California State Beekeepers Association. [thanks, Janet!]
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 13:16:36 Thu, Jan 8, 2009: from Reuters Monsanto seeks FDA approval for drought-tolerant corn KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Monsanto Co said Wednesday it filed for U.S. regulatory approval for what could be the world's first drought-tolerant corn, a product that agricultural companies around the globe are racing to roll out amid fears of global warming and the needs of a growing population.
Monsanto said it submitted its product to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for regulatory clearance. It is working with German-based BASF on the project.
The two companies are jointly contributing $1.5 billion to a venture aimed at developing higher-yielding crops and crops more tolerant to adverse environmental conditions, such as drought, which has eroded production in countries around the world in recent years.
"It's been everybody's dream to have a drought-tolerant crop," said Iowa State University agronomist Roger Elmore, though he pointed out advantages would vary widely depending on geography.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 12:59:50 Thu, Jan 8, 2009: from Associated Press TVA ratepayers may be stuck with ash cleanup bill KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The tab for a toxin-laden ash flood at a coal-fired power plant in Tennessee could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and ratepayers for the nation's largest public utility will probably be stuck with the bill.
The total cost of cleaning up last month's accident isn't yet clear, but the bill will be staggering. Extra workers, overtime, heavy machinery, housing and supplies for families chased from their homes and lawsuits are among the costs that are piling up.
And with few other places for the Tennessee Valley Authority to turn to cover the costs, the utility's 9 million customers in Tennessee and six surrounding states will bear the brunt in higher electricity rate hikes in the future, TVA Chairman Bill Sansom told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
"This is going to get into (electric) rates sooner or later," Sansom said. "We haven't even thought about going to Washington for it."
When a dike broke Dec. 22 at the Kingston Fossil Plant, some 1.1 billion gallons of sludge was released from a 40-acre settlement pond, blanketing nearly 300 acres in a rural neighborhood up to 9 feet deep in grayish muck and spilling into the Emory River threatening drinking water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-10 11:09:13 Thu, Jan 8, 2009: from Christian Science Monitor As beetle invasion rages, a debate over logs Tromping through a snowy thicket of lodgepole pine, forester Tim Love identifies the telltale signs that the trees are, in his words, "dead already but don't know it."... These are the visible scars of massive beetle destruction that now stretches from Colorado to British Columbia. Soon, wind will likely finish off the pockmarked lodgepoles, sending them crashing to the forest floor, says Mr. Love, a district ranger in the Lolo National Forest in Montana. That's a fire hazard headache for the forest service -- and, some say, a missed opportunity.... An estimated 2.4 million acres across five northern US states show visible signs of trees killed by the beetles, according to data from Gregg DeNitto with the US Forest Service in Missoula.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 11:11:06 Thu, Jan 8, 2009: from News10.net What's killing California pelicans? The calls started coming in to the International Bird Rescue Research Center just after Christmas. Something strange was going on with pelicans up and down the coast of California.
"We started getting calls of pelicans acting a little weird," said IBRRC Director Jay Holcomb. "They were landing in weird spots, on highways on runways, in people's yards."
Holcomb said they have received more than 150 calls and 75 of the sick birds have been brought in to the centers in Cordelia and San Pedro. "As we looked at them they seemed to be disoriented like they didn't know where they were. They were confused," Holcomb said. The aquatic bird specialists at the IBRRC are baffled by the sick pelicans. "We don't know what's going on," said Holcomb. "It could be some kind of viral thing, some kind of toxin in the environment that they're eating." ... "We've had calls from people in Baja (Mexico) that have seen the same thing and have actually literally seen hundreds of pelicans dying on the beaches," said Holcomb.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 10:45:22 Thu, Jan 8, 2009: from Reuters Global whale 'hot spot' discovered off East Timor One of the world's highest concentrations of dolphins and whales -- many of them protected species -- has been discovered off the coast of East Timor, local and Australian researchers said on Wednesday.
A "hot spot" of marine cetaceans migrating through deep channels off the Timor coast, including blue and beaked whales, short-finned pilot whales, melon headed whales and six dolphin species was uncovered in a study for the Timor government.... In just one day, more than 1,000 individuals and possibly as many as 2,000 whales in eight separate pods -- each one containing up to 400 mammals -- were spotted over a 50-kilometre (31-mile) stretch of coast, Edyvane said.
Concentrations were similar to those near Antarctica, where Japan's whaling fleet is currently carrying out its yearly five-month research hunt, chased by anti-whaling activists.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 08:06:19 Thu, Jan 8, 2009: from Bennington Banner Bats with White Nose Syndrome appearing in area Dorset and Strafford area residents have reported bat sightings in recent weeks, when the nocturnal flyers are supposed to be hibernating. The unusual behavior is being caused by White Nose Syndrome, a mysterious affliction that is devastating bat populations in the Northeast, according to Scott Darling, a bat biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.... Darling said this year could be worst than last. "It's pretty discouraging," he said. "The bats came into winter in pretty bad shape."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 07:57:28 Thu, Jan 8, 2009: from Telegraph.co.uk Wind turbine destroyed after 'octopus UFO' seen in sky Dozens of residents claimed to have seen bright flashing spheres is the skies near Louth, Lincolnshire, where a 290ft turbine was mangled in a mystery collision.
One woman said she saw the an object fly towards the wind farm, while others described the lights as being linked by "tentacles", leading locals to dub it the octopus UFO.... Later on Sunday night, one of a turbine's 65ft blades was ripped off and another severely damaged.
The Health and Safety Executive described the damage as a "unique incident", and the energy firm Ecotricity which owns the 20-turbine site say it has no explanation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 07:47:09 Thu, Jan 8, 2009: from UC Boulder, via ScienceDaily Avian Flu Becoming More Resistant To Antiviral Drugs A new University of Colorado at Boulder study shows the resistance of the avian flu virus to a major class of antiviral drugs is increasing through positive evolutionary selection, with researchers documenting the trend in more than 30 percent of the samples tested. The avian flu, an Influenza A subtype dubbed H5N1, is evolving a resistance to a group of antiviral drugs known as adamantanes, one of two classes of antiviral drugs used to prevent and treat flu symptoms, said CU-Boulder doctoral student Andrew Hill, lead study author. The rise of resistance to adamantanes -- which include the nonprescription drugs amantadine and rimantadane -- appears to be linked to Chinese farmers adding the drugs to chicken feed as a flu preventative, according to a 2008 paper by researchers from China Agricultural University, said Hill.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-07 19:10:25 Thu, Jan 8, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Daily Mail turns incandescent with lightbulb rage As of just now the Daily Mail's hotline, giving away 5,000 sets of traditional incandescent no-nonsense lightbulbs is all out of its daily allocation of gas guzzling bulbs. The Mail is kindly dispensing them as a rebellion against the phasing out of 75w and 100w lightbulbs by 2012.... But deep down I know they've gone to people who take the right to install gas guzzling bulbs as the right to bear arms and whine on about how (traditional) incandescent lightbulbs heat the house with all that excess heat -- about efficient as using a hairdryer as your primary source of space heating...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-07 18:51:55 Wed, Jan 7, 2009: from New Scientist Rise of the garage genome hackers The competition is part of a do-it-yourself movement that hopes to spark a revolution in biotechnology. It is based on the emerging field of synthetic biology, which uses genes and other cell components as the building blocks for new organisms or devices. The movement is trying to open up this field to anyone with a passion for tweaking DNA in their spare time -- from biologists to software engineers to people who just like it as a hobby. The hope is that encouraging a wider mix of people to take part could lead to advances that would not happen otherwise, just as tinkering by the Homebrew Computer Club hackers of the 1970s spawned the first personal computers.
"Biology is becoming less of a science and more of a technology," says Mackenzie Cowell, co-founder of the group DIYbio, which aims to be an "Institution for the Amateur", providing scientists with resources akin to those found in academia or industry. "There will be more opportunity for people who didn't spend up to seven years getting a PhD in the field," he says.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-07 18:38:30 Wed, Jan 7, 2009: from The Peninsula Gateway Keeping an eye on feathered friends "The information gathered is public domain for scientists," Hands said. "One of the most important things is to look for trends. If something is unusual, they would have wondered what’s going on in the water. The birds are the canary in the coal mine. There is a certain standard number of birds we expect to see. If there's an increase or decrease, there could be something important going on, and this is our first notification.
"The last two years, we have been having a problem in declines with water birds.".... "They are a great indicator for the whole ecosystem," bird counter Charlie Wright said. "It's a really good way to monitor the health of the water."
Wright said sea birds are important indicators because they follow the fish populations.
"They follow the herring and other small fish," he said. "We don't know how they do it, they just do."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-07 15:59:59 Wed, Jan 7, 2009: from Meriden Record-Journal New polluters must give neighbors notice Is someone planning a 50-megawatt power plant in your backyard? If you live in Meriden or certain parts of Southington or Wallingford, there's a better chance you'll hear about it now that a new law creating Environmental Justice Communities has taken effect.
The regulation, which took effect Jan. 1, designates a number of cities and portions of suburban towns as Environmental Justice Communities. The entire city of Meriden has been so designated, as have neighborhoods in Wallingford and Southington.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-07 15:54:19 Wed, Jan 7, 2009: from ProPublica Agencies Move to Restrict FOIA Access in Last-Minute Regs As one of the most secretive presidential administrations in history gets ready to close up shop, it's closing a few more things -- records. Over the past few months, some federal agencies have issued rules that would eliminate public disclosure of information -- or, in some cases, make it more difficult for requesters to get information.
While the federal Freedom of Information Act regulates what government information may be withheld from the public, internal rules determine how that law is carried out at the agency level. Those rules also may restrict access to information.
On Dec. 9, the Department of Energy [2] proposed a rule that would eliminate the agency's "public interest balancing test" in determining whether to release information to the public.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 14:30:44 Wed, Jan 7, 2009: from New York Times Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States — most of them unregulated and unmonitored — that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal. Like the one in Tennessee, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any federal regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, and there is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-06 12:28:57 Tue, Jan 6, 2009: from CNNMoney Your house can make you sick (Money Magazine) -- You're sniffling and wheezing your way through another winter. A run of bad luck with germs? Sure, but it also may be the result of something more insidious: toxins.
Chemicals found in common home furnishings can cause asthma and flu-like symptoms, and your basement or bathroom may be harboring allergy-inducing mold. You could even be experiencing a reaction to a more dangerous substance that could cause kidney damage or cancer.... Banishing toxins from your home isn't an exciting improvement, but it's a crucial one, since many states counsel home buyers to do environmental checks before closing on a home. Below you'll find five of the most dangerous and common toxins to watch for, along with the most wallet-friendly ways to nip them in the bud.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-06 12:14:11 Tue, Jan 6, 2009: from Wildlife Conservation Society via ScienceDaily New Park Protects Penguins And Other Marine Life In Argentina The Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society has just announced that its efforts to protect a wildlife-rich coastal region in South America have paid off in the form of a new coastal marine park recently signed into law by the Government of Argentina. The park, which became official in early December protects half a million penguins along with several species of rare seabirds and the region’s only population of South American fur seals. It is the first protected area in Argentina specifically designed to safeguard not only onshore breeding colonies but also areas of ocean where wildlife feed at sea.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-06 12:05:16 Tue, Jan 6, 2009: from Environmental Health News Mercury-laden whale meat may foster heart disease Eating mercury contaminated seafood increases the risk of heart disease in men, reports this unique study that examined Faroese whalers.
The risk of heart disease increases in men who eat mercury contaminated seafood -- in this case whale meat. The results support previous findings with other human populations that show higher exposures to methylmercury can promote heart disease.
Methylmercury is an environmental pollutant found in fish and seafood. It is at particularly high levels in some top level predators that eat smaller prey, such as tuna and other large fish and marine mammals. People who eat enough mercury-laden food to increase their body levels may suffer from well known and adverse health effects, including reproductive and neurological problems and an increased risk of death from heart attacks.
This unique study looked at a group of 42 Faroese whalingmen aged 30-70 years old. More than half (26 (or 63 percent of the men) ate "3 or more whale meals per month." The researchers investigated if long-term exposure to mercury by eating pilot whale meat led to adverse heart related health effects, such as heart attacks....The researchers found a clearly significant correlation of increased blood pressure and arterial thickness with higher mercury levels found in their bodies.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-06 12:16:37 Tue, Jan 6, 2009: from Inter Press Service PERU: Open-Pit Mine Continues to Swallow City CERRO DE PASCO, Peru, Jan 5 (IPS) - An immense open-pit mine located 4380 metres above sea level is swallowing up the centre of the city of Cerro de Pasco in Peru's central highlands, while the damages, in the form of toxic waste, spread to nearby villages.
The government just signed a new law to relocate part of the local population, who for decades have suffered from the lead dust, dynamite explosions and toxic gases generated by the mining of zinc, lead and silver.
The open-pit mine now operated by Volcan, a Peruvian company, in this city of 70,000 -- which is the capital of the province of Pasco -- is now 1.8 kilometres long. Neighbourhoods stretch all around its edges.
The shabby houses located a few metres from the edge show cracks from the detonations, and children with blood lead levels far above the acceptable limits play next to vast heaps of slag.
And in villages near the city, local peasant farmers watch their livestock die because of a lack of water, and contaminated grass.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-06 19:25:08 Tue, Jan 6, 2009: from Environmental Health News Crops absorb livestock antibiotics, new science shows For half a century, meat producers have fed antibiotics to farm animals to increase their growth and stave off infections. Now scientists have discovered that those drugs are sprouting up in unexpected places.
Vegetables such as corn, potatoes and lettuce absorb antibiotics when grown in soil fertilized with livestock manure, according to tests conducted at the University of Minnesota.
Today, close to 70 percent of all antibiotics and related drugs used in the United States are routinely fed to cattle, pigs and poultry, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Although this practice sustains a growing demand for meat, it also generates public health fears associated with the expanding presence of antibiotics in the food chain.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-05 13:09:36 Mon, Jan 5, 2009: from London Daily Mail Orange drinks with 300 times more pesticide than tap water Fizzy drinks sold by Coca-Cola in Britain have been found to contain pesticides at up to 300 times the level allowed in tap or bottled water.
A worldwide study found pesticide levels in orange and lemon drinks sold under the Fanta brand, which is popular with children, were at their highest in the UK.
The research team called on the Government, the industry and the company to act to remove the chemicals and called for new safety standards to regulate the soft drinks market.
The industry denies children are at risk and insists that the levels found by researchers based at the University of Jaen in southern Spain are not harmful... The chemicals detected included carbendazim, thiabendazole, imazalil, prochloraz, malathion and iprodione.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-05 12:58:16 Mon, Jan 5, 2009: from via ScienceDaily Biofuel Development Shifting From Soil To Sea, Specifically To Marine Algae ...Today, the most fervent attention in biofuel development has shifted from soil to the sea, and specifically to marine algae. Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, along with researchers at UCSD’s Division of Biological Sciences, are part of an emerging algal biofuel consortium that includes academic collaborators, CleanTECH San Diego, regional industry representatives, and public and private partners.
Scripps scientists see algae as a “green bullet,” science and society’s best hope for a clean bioenergy source that will help loosen broad dependence on fossil fuel, counteract climate warming, and power the vehicles of the future.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-05 12:45:22 Mon, Jan 5, 2009: from London Daily Telegraph Satellite will show how the earth 'breathes' The Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) has been created in Japan to monitor emissions from around the planet from space and it is hoped the data it provides will help in the fight against global warming.
The orbiting satellite will track the emission of carbon dioxide and methane, gases that contribute heavily to the greenhouse effect.
Dubbed Ibuki - Japanese for "breath" - the satellite will record greenhouse gas emissions in 56,000 locations across the globe while orbiting the planet once every three days at an altitude of 666km.
While there are currently around 280 observations points around the world monitoring greenhouse gas emissions, the new satellite will offer scientists a non-terrestrial perspective of global emissions for the first time.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-05 12:38:22 Mon, Jan 5, 2009: from Agence France-Presse 1 in 5 mulling leaving HK HONG KONG - ONE in five Hong Kong residents is considering leaving the city because of its dire air quality, a survey released on Monday has found, raising fears over the financial hub's competitiveness.
The findings equate to 1.4 million residents thinking about moving away, including 500,000 who are 'seriously considering or already planning to move', according to the survey by the think tank Civic Exchange.
The groups most seriously thinking about fleeing the city include top earners and highly educated workers, raising fears over the southern Chinese city's ability to attract and retain top talent, the report's authors found.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-04 14:04:23 Sun, Jan 4, 2009: from Science Daily (US) Amazon Deforestation Trend On The Increase Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon forests has flipped from a decreasing to an increasing trend, according to new annual figures recently released by the country's space agency INPE. Commenting on the figures, Brazilian environment minister Carlos Minc confirmed that the government will on Monday announce forest related carbon emission reduction targets, which will link halting deforestation to the national climate change campaign. From August 2007 to July 2008, Brazil deforested 11,968 square kilometers of forests in the area designated as the Legal Amazon, a 3.8 per cent increase over the previous year and an unwelcome surprise following declines of 18 per cent over the previous period.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-04 13:54:30 Sun, Jan 4, 2009: from Associated Press Lead for car batteries poisons an African town
THIAROYE SUR MER, Senegal -- First, it took the animals. Goats fell silent and refused to stand up. Chickens died in handfuls, then en masse. Street dogs disappeared.
Then it took the children. Toddlers stopped talking and their legs gave out. Women birthed stillborns. Infants withered and died. Some said the houses were cursed. Others said the families were cursed.
The mysterious illness killed 18 children in this town on the fringes of Dakar, Senegal's capital, before anyone in the outside world noticed. When they did - when the TV news aired parents' angry pleas for an investigation, when the doctors ordered more tests, when the West sent health experts - they did not find malaria, or polio or AIDS, or any of the diseases that kill the poor of Africa. They found lead.
The dirt here is laced with lead left over from years of extracting it from old car batteries. So when the price of lead quadrupled over five years, residents started digging up the earth to get at it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-04 11:56:25 Sun, Jan 4, 2009: from Huffington Post Tennessee's Toxic Nightmare: Arsenic Levels 35 to 300 Times EPA Standard for Drinking Water Just-released independent water sampling data from the Tennessee coal ash disaster has shown alarmingly high levels of arsenic and seven other heavy metals, including cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and thallium.
"I've never seen levels this high," said Dr. Shea Tuberty, Assistant Professor of Biology at the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Lab at Appalachian State University. "These levels would knock out fish reproduction ... the ecosystems around Kingston and Harriman are going to be in trouble ... maybe for generations."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-04 10:56:59 Sun, Jan 4, 2009: from Joplin Independent Tyson Foods is undisputed winner of OCWF award The Golden Litter Award for 2008 goes to Tyson Foods, Inc. in recognition of attempts to cloud a U.S. Federal District Court lawsuit accusing Tyson and other poultry companies of water pollution. The award is presented by the Oklahoma Clean Water Forum (OCWF), a blog about water quality, the Illinois River and Tenkiller Lake.
In addition to the Golden Litter Award, Silver Squat Awards will go to Oklahoma television stations for non-coverage of Oklahoma's poultry lawsuit and poultry waste pollution of the Illinois River watershed. A newspaper and a public utility also are receiving Silver Squat Awards.
"With only a few exceptions, TV stations did dismal "diddly squat: in coverage of Oklahoma’s clean water lawsuit and poultry waste pollution of the Illinois River and Tenkiller Lake," said OCWF editors. "Because they did squat while raking in millions of poultry industry advertising dollars, they deserve squat."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-04 09:17:31 Sat, Jan 3, 2009: from Goldsboro News-Argus Cape Fear all-release fishing tourney raises striper issues Already, biologists have curtailing stocking white bass-striped bass hybrids into Jordan Lake. Fish from the upstream lake were passing into the lower Cape Fear River, diluting striped bass spawning effort. In 2008, NCWRC and NCDMF implemented a moratorium to shore up the spawning population. Based on a tournament held in Dec. 6, 2008 the moratorium is already working.
"This is one of the best days I've ever see," said Capt. Jeremiah Hieronymus. "Seven boats caught 77 striped bass and tagged 44 of them." ... "Stripers, sturgeon, shad and herring are like canaries in a coal mine," said Owens. "These anadromous suffer from the dams, which block their access to historic spawning waters. If we can get everyone together to allow those fish to get above the dams to spawn, we could have fishing on the Cape Fear that rivals the fishing on the Roanoke River."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-04 11:57:24 Sat, Jan 3, 2009: from Science Daily (US) Hot Southern Summer Threatens Coral With Massive Bleaching Event A widespread and severe coral bleaching episode is predicted to cause immense damage to some of the world's most important marine environments over the next few months. A report from the US Government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts severe bleaching for parts of the Coral Sea, which lies adjacent to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and the Coral Triangle, a 5.4 million square kilometre expanse of ocean in the Indo-Pacific which is considered the centre of the world's marine life.
"This forecast bleaching episode will be caused by increased water temperatures and is the kind of event we can expect on a regular basis if average global temperatures rise above 2 degrees," said Richard Leck, Climate Change Strategy Leader for WWF's Coral Triangle Program.... The bleaching, predicted to occur between now and February, could have a devastating impact on coral reef ecosystems, killing coral and destroying food chains. There would be severe impacts for communities in Australia and the region, who depend on the oceans for their livelihoods.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 12:23:22 Sat, Jan 3, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Paradise lost on Maldives' rubbish island It may be known as a tropical paradise, an archipelago of 1,200 coral islands in the Indian Ocean. But the traditional image of the Maldives hides a dirty secret: the world's biggest rubbish island.
A few miles and a short boat ride from the Maldivian capital, Malé, Thilafushi began life as a reclamation project in 1992. The artificial island was built to solve Malé's refuse problem. But today, with more than 10,000 tourists a week in the Maldives adding their waste, the rubbish island now covers 50 hectares (124 acres).... Environmentalists say that more than 330 tonnes of rubbish is brought to Thilafushi a day. Most of it comes from Malé, which is one of the world's most densely populated towns: 100,000 people cram into 2 square kilometres.
Brought on ships, the rubbish is taken onshore and sifted by hand. Some of the waste is incinerated but most is buried in landfill sites. There is, say environmental campaigners, also an alarming rise in batteries and electronic waste being dumped in Thilafushi's lagoon.
"We are seeing used batteries, asbestos, lead and other potentially hazardous waste mixed with the municipal solid wastes being put into the water...."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:32:10 Fri, Jan 2, 2009: from London Independent Climate scientists: it's time for 'Plan B' An emergency "Plan B" using the latest technology is needed to save the world from dangerous climate change, according to a poll of leading scientists carried out by The Independent. The collective international failure to curb the growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has meant that an alternative to merely curbing emissions may become necessary.
The plan would involve highly controversial proposals to lower global temperatures artificially through daringly ambitious schemes that either reduce sunlight levels by man-made means or take CO2 out of the air. This "geoengineering" approach – including schemes such as fertilising the oceans with iron to stimulate algal blooms – would have been dismissed as a distraction a few years ago but is now being seen by the majority of scientists we surveyed as a viable emergency backup plan that could save the planet from the worst effects of climate change, at least until deep cuts are made in CO2 emissions.
What has worried many of the experts, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as a Nobel Laureate, is the failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions through international agreements, namely the Kyoto Treaty, and recent studies indicating that the Earth's natural carbon "sinks" are becoming less efficient at absorbing man-made CO2 from the atmosphere.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:15:54 Fri, Jan 2, 2009: from New York Times Signs of Another California Drought Year SAN FRANCISCO-- California, just finished with its second consecutive year of drought, might well be facing a third. If so, state authorities may be forced to impose water rationing on farmers, homes and businesses.
With the rainy season well under way, early partial measurements indicate that the amount of water stored in the Sierra snowpack, the state's natural reservoir, is higher than the amount at this time last year but well below average, said the state's meteorologist, Elissa Lynn.
The deficit can be made up if January, February and March are full of big Pacific storms. But this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the weather phenomenon known as La Nina, which is characterized by cooler waters in the western Pacific Ocean and drier conditions, had returned for the second consecutive year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-04 11:59:14 Fri, Jan 2, 2009: from Chicago Tribune Canada's forests, once huge help on greenhouse gases, now contribute to climate change As relentlessly bad as the news about global warming seems to be, with ice at the poles melting faster than scientists had predicted and world temperatures rising higher than expected, there was at least a reservoir of hope stored here in Canada's vast forests.
The country's 1.2 million square miles of trees have been dubbed the "lungs of the planet" by ecologists because they account for more than 7 percent of Earth's total forest lands. They could always be depended upon to suck in vast quantities of carbon dioxide, naturally cleansing the world of much of the harmful heat-trapping gas.
But not anymore.
In an alarming yet little-noticed series of recent studies, scientists have concluded that Canada's precious forests, stressed from damage caused by global warming, insect infestations and persistent fires, have crossed an ominous line and are now pumping out more climate-changing carbon dioxide than they are sequestering. Worse yet, the experts predict that Canada's forests will remain net carbon sources, as opposed to carbon storage "sinks," until at least 2022, and possibly much longer.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 13:02:43 Fri, Jan 2, 2009: from The Economist Troubled waters -- the ocean collapse The evidence abounds. The fish that once seemed an inexhaustible source of food are now almost everywhere in decline: 90 percent of large predatory fish (the big ones such as tuna, swordfish and sharks) have gone, according to some scientists. In estuaries and coastal waters, 85 percent of the large whales have disappeared, and nearly 60 percent of the small ones. Many of the smaller fish are also in decline. Indeed, most familiar sea creatures, from albatrosses to walruses, from seals to oysters, have suffered huge losses.
All this has happened fairly recently. Cod have been caught off Nova Scotia for centuries, but their systematic slaughter began only after 1852; in terms of their biomass (the aggregate mass of the species), they are now 96 percent depleted. The killing of turtles in the Caribbean (99 percent down) started in the 1700s. The hunting of sharks in the Gulf of Mexico (45-99 percent, depending on the variety) got going only in the 1950s.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 16:07:28 Thu, Jan 1, 2009: from Guardian (UK) Slowdown of coral growth extremely worrying, say scientists Coral growth across the Great Barrier Reef has suffered a "severe and sudden" slowdown since 1990 that is unprecedented in the last four centuries, according to scientists.
The researchers analysed the growth rates of 328 coral colonies on 69 individual reefs that make up the 1,250 mile-long Great Barrier Reef, off north-east Australia. They found that the rate at which the corals were laying down calcium in their skeletons dropped by 14.2 percent between 1990 and 2005.... the most probable explanation for the drop in the growth rate of the corals' calcium carbonate skeletons is acidification of the water due to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. More acid water makes it more difficult for the coral polyps to grab the minerals they need to build their skeletons from the sea water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-04 12:00:37 Thu, Jan 1, 2009: from Guardian (UK) 95 months and counting From today, based on the best estimates available, we have eight years to head-off potentially uncontrollable climatic upheaval. What can happen in eight years? Quite a lot, actually. A world war can begin, and end. Two, in fact.... [H]istory tells us great things are possible. We are still in control. We just need to build, rapidly, new energy and transport systems and change our behaviour.
Only, we seem to have forgotten what we are capable of. Victorian engineers would have been aghast at our timidity. Within our 8 year time frame, for example, between 1845 and 1852 there were 4,400 miles of railway track laid in Britain.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 12:32:04 Thu, Jan 1, 2009: from New Scientist More polar bears going hungry The number of undernourished bears has tripled in a 20-year period.... In 1985 and 1986 the proportion of bears fasting was 9.6 and 10.5 per cent respectively. By 2005 and 2006 this had risen to 21.4 and 29.3 per cent... "If the ice continues to contract, which seems inevitable, polar bears will become even more nutritionally disadvantaged. The study proves polar bears are in serious trouble," says Rick Steiner, a marine conservationist at the University of Alaska in Anchorage.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-04 12:02:25 Thu, Jan 1, 2009: from Science Daily (US) Killer Mice Bring Albatross Population Closer To Extinction The critically endangered Tristan albatross (Diomedea dabbenena) has suffered its worst breeding season ever, according to research by the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK). The number of chicks making it through to fledging has decreased rapidly, and it is now five times lower than it should be because introduced predatory mice are eating the chicks alive on Gough island -- the bird's only home and a South Atlantic territory of the United Kingdom.... "Unsustainable numbers are being killed on land and at sea. Without major conservation efforts, the Tristan Albatross will become extinct".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-31 16:52:54 Wed, Dec 31, 2008: from SciDev.net Climate change linked to decline in Asian monsoon Evidence that human-induced climate change may be affecting the Asian monsoon cycle has been published by a Chinese-US team.... Records show that, before 1960, warmer years were associated with stronger monsoons, and the temperature decreased when the monsoon weakened. But the study found a reversed association after this date.
"The rising temperature now leads to less precipitation, which is not a natural pattern," said Larry Edwards, geologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author of the paper, which was published in Science (November).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-31 16:37:58 Wed, Dec 31, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Rainforest's chewing gum tappers go organic to get out of a sticky situation The location is remote, the practice old, the tools rudimentary, and the chances to chat with spider monkeys high. But this is no world apart. Men like Banos were at the root of one of the great consumer phenomena of our time: chewing gum.
Produced only in the jungle that straddles the southern part of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, northern Guatemala and Belize, chicle was the basis of chewing gum, from the little balls first sold in New York 140 years ago to the sticks included in GI rations during the second world war. Then in the 1950s came synthetic substitutes that shrank the industry to a shadow of its former self.... Mexico's chicleros may be on the threshold of a comeback: they are about to launch their own brand of certified organic chewing gum, which is expected to go on sale shortly in Waitrose.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-31 12:48:40 Wed, Dec 31, 2008: from Reuters Researchers say 2009 to be one of warmest years on record LONDON (Reuters) - Next year is set to be one of the top-five warmest on record, climate scientists said on Tuesday.
The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be more than 0.4 degrees celsius above the long-term average, despite the continued cooling of huge areas of the Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Nina.
That would make it the warmest year since 2005, according to researchers at the Met Office, who say there is also a growing probability of record temperatures after next year. Currently the warmest year on record is 1998, which saw average temperatures of 14.52 degrees celsius - well above the 1961-1990 long-term average of 14 degrees celsius.
Warm weather that year was strongly influenced by El Nino, an abnormal warming of surface ocean waters in the eastern tropical Pacific.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 21:55:26 Wed, Dec 31, 2008: from The Arizona Republic Asthma's links to air pollution stir worry The bits of dust and dirt so common in Phoenix's air may be causing more problems for asthmatic children than experts previously believed.
A new study released Tuesday found that asthma attacks and symptoms in children ages 5 through 18 increased by 14 percent on the days Valley skies were plagued by high levels of particulate pollution.
The study, conducted by researchers at Arizona State University, is thought to be the first in the state to quantify a tie between poor air quality and children's health.
It also reveals that children are affected by coarse pollutants at levels below the federal government's health standard.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-31 10:59:01 Wed, Dec 31, 2008: from Forbes Idaho miners won't have to restore groundwater Monsanto Co., Agrium Inc., and J.R. Simplot Co. will be able to mine phosphate without being forced to restore groundwater beneath their operations to its natural condition, according to a new rule awaiting approval by the 2009 Legislature.... "We have never asked for the right to mess up someone else's beneficial use of the groundwater," [lobbyist for Idaho Mining Association] Lyman told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "The department came up with a rule they think is workable, without putting our industry into a difficult situation where we'd be unable to comply."
The rule is backed by industry but opposed by environmentalists including the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Idaho Conservation League, who say it gives mining companies near the Idaho-Wyoming border license to pollute forever.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:37:04 Wed, Dec 31, 2008: from The Economist A sea of troubles -- an ocean wrapup The worries begin at the surface, where an atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide interacts with the briny. The sea has thus become more acidic, making life difficult, if not impossible, for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate shells or skeletons. These are not all as familiar as shrimps and lobsters, yet species like krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures, play a crucial part in the food chain: kill them off, and you may kill off their predators, whose predators may be the ones you enjoy served fried, grilled or with sauce tartare. Worse, you may destabilise an entire ecosystem.... And then there are the red tides of algal blooms, the plagues of jellyfish and the dead zones where only simple organisms thrive. All of these are increasing in intensity, frequency and extent. All of these, too, seem to be associated with various stresses man inflicts on marine ecosystems: overfishing, global warming, fertilisers running from land into rivers and estuaries, often the whole lot in concatenation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-31 09:46:04 Wed, Dec 31, 2008: from Politiken.dk Danish Arctic research dates Ice Age: "so sudden that it is as if a button was pressed" The extensive scientific study shows that it was precisely 11,711 years ago -- and not the indeterminate figure of 'some' 11,000 years ago -- that the ice withdrew, allowing humans and animals free reign.
... "Our new, extremely detailed data from the examination of the ice cores shows that in the transition from the ice age to our current warm, interglacial period the climate shift is so sudden that it is as if a button was pressed", explains ice core researcher Jorgen Peder Steffensen, Centre for Ice and Climate at NBI at the University of Copenhagen.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-30 15:51:23 Tue, Dec 30, 2008: from Discovery News Sprayed Aerosols Could Ease Climate Woes It won't solve global warming, but a group of scientists are calling for a focused research program to investigate ways to seed the atmosphere with chemicals that would let the heat out -- literally... David Keith, with the University of Calgary's Energy and Environmental Systems Group ... and colleagues want to investigate putting aerosols, such as sulfur, into the atmosphere to chemically unlock the greenhouse effect and allow more of the sun's reflected heat to radiate back into space.
"This brings up the question of who would make that decision," said Alan Robock of Rutgers University. And what temperature the world should be.
"A ski slope operator and someone running a shipping company in the Arctic might have different opinions about what's the ideal temperature for the planet," NASA's administrator Michael Griffin told Discovery News in an interview last year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-30 15:12:01 Tue, Dec 30, 2008: from Popular Science This Machine Might* Save the World * that's a big, fat "might" ... The source of endless energy for all humankind resides just off Government Street in Burnaby, British Columbia, up the little spit of blacktop on Bonneville Place and across the parking lot from Shade-O-Matic blind manufacturers and wholesalers. The future is there, in that mostly empty office with the vomit-green walls -- and inside the brain of Michel Laberge, 47, bearded and French-Canadian... What Laberge has set out to build in this office park, using $2 million in private funding and a skeletal workforce, is a nuclear-fusion power plant... If (and this is a truly serious if) Laberge and his team succeed, the rewards could be astounding: nearly limitless, inexpensive energy, with no chemical combustion by-products, a minimal amount of extremely short-lived radioactive waste, and no risk of a catastrophic, Chernobyl-level meltdown.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-05 12:25:10 Tue, Dec 30, 2008: from via ScienceDaily Climate Change Effects On Imperiled Sierra Frog Examined Climate change can have significant impacts on high-elevation lakes and imperiled Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged frogs that depend upon them, according to U.S. Forest Service and University of California, Berkeley, scientists. Their findings show how a combination of the shallow lakes drying up in summer and predation by introduced trout in larger lakes severely limits the amphibian's breeding habitat, and can cause its extinction... Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged frogs need two to four years of permanent water to complete their development so repeated tadpole mortality from lakes drying up in summer leads to population decline. The scientists found the effect to be a distinct mortality mechanism that could become more important in a warmer, drier climate.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-30 13:42:33 Tue, Dec 30, 2008: from Indo-Asian News Service Jan 31 deadline to remove Bhopal gas waste unlikely to be met Bhopal, Dec 30 (IANS) It has been 24 years since over 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) spewed out of the now defunct Union Carbide's pesticide plant here, killing thousands of people instantly and maiming many for life. But the state government is still grappling with ways to dispose of the toxic waste left behind that poses grave health hazards to people living nearby.
The world's worst man-made disaster - the Bhopal gas tragedy - occurred on the night of Dec 2-3, 1984, and the Madhya Pradesh High Court had set a Jan 31, 2009, deadline to remove the poisonous waste from the plant site, but this seems to be a tough task....According to medical experts, the site is a virtual storehouse of deadly chemicals including lead, mercury and chlorinated naphthalene that can cause cancer, affect the growth of children and lead to other health disorders. But more than 25,000 people living in 14 colonies around the factory have no option but to continue drinking the contaminated water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-05 12:28:26 Tue, Dec 30, 2008: from Bloomberg News Texaco Toxic Past Haunts Chevron as $27 Billion Judgment Looms Bolivar Cevallos walks around the farm where his family once lived amid the oil fields of Ecuador's Amazon rain forest. His boots sink ankle deep in tar. Everywhere he steps, oily muck seeps from the ground.
A gasolinelike smell hangs in the sweltering jungle air. The mess is a remnant of oil drilling in a 120-mile-long swath of the tropical jungle in northeastern Ecuador where Texaco Inc. and Ecuador's state-run oil company, PetroEcuador, have pumped billions of barrels of crude from the ground during the past 40 years. The ruined land around Cevallos's home is part of one of the worst environmental and human health disasters in the Amazon basin, which stretches across nine countries and, at 1.9 billion acres (800 million hectares), is about the size of Australia.
And depending on how an Ecuadorean judge rules in a lawsuit over the pollution, it may become the costliest corporate ecological catastrophe in world history.
If the judge follows the recommendation of a court-appointed panel of experts, he could order Chevron Corp., which now owns Texaco, to pay as much as $27 billion in damages.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-30 15:46:55 Tue, Dec 30, 2008: from New York Times At Plant in Coal Ash Spill, Toxic Deposits by the Ton In a single year, a coal-fired electric plant deposited more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials in a holding pond that failed last week, flooding 300 acres in East Tennessee, according to a 2007 inventory filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. The inventory, disclosed by the Tennessee Valley Authority on Monday at the request of The New York Times, showed that in just one year, the plant's byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems.
And the holding pond, at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a T.V.A. plant 40 miles west of Knoxville, contained many decades' worth of these deposits.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-29 16:38:46 Mon, Dec 29, 2008: from Agence France-Presse Natural disasters killed over 220,000 BERLIN -- Natural disasters killed over 220,000 people in 2008, making it one of the most devastating years on record and underlining the need for a global climate deal, the world's number two reinsurer said Monday.
Although the number of natural disasters was lower than in 2007, the catastrophes that occurred proved to be more destructive in terms of the number of victims and the financial cost of the damage caused, Germany-based Munich Re said in its annual assessment.
"This continues the long-term trend we have been observing. Climate change has already started and is very probably contributing to increasingly frequent weather extremes and ensuing natural catastrophes," Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-29 16:13:08 Mon, Dec 29, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail What if you can't see the forest for the wind farm? The only certain thing about the battle shaping up on the edge of Algonquin Park is that the green side will win. The question, however, is which green side will be the victor?
In a conflict suited to the times, the Ontario government is running into resistance from self-professed environmentalists over its plan to expand the use of wind turbines, which are the darling of other self-professed environmentalists.
The government, which wants to shut down all the province's polluting coal plants by 2014, seems determined to ignore the cries that plunking up to 60 giant wind turbines in the middle of nearly pristine forest is not the highest evolution of green philosophy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-29 14:03:21 Mon, Dec 29, 2008: from via ScienceDaily Climate Change Could Dramatically Affect Water Supplies It's no simple matter to figure out how regional changes in precipitation, expected to result from global climate change, may affect water supplies. Now, a new analysis led by MIT researchers has found that the changes in groundwater may actually be much greater than the precipitation changes themselves. For example, in places where annual rainfall may increase by 20 percent as a result of climate change, the groundwater might increase as much as 40 percent. Conversely, the analysis showed in some cases just a 20 percent decrease in rainfall could lead to a 70 percent decrease in the recharging of local aquifers — a potentially devastating blow in semi-arid and arid regions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-29 13:59:55 Mon, Dec 29, 2008: from NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory via ScienceDaily NASA Study Links Severe Storm Increases, Global Warming The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth's tropics -- the type associated with severe storms and rainfall -- is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. [The] team found a strong correlation between the frequency of these clouds and seasonal variations in the average sea surface temperature of the tropical oceans.
For every degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average ocean surface temperature, the team observed a 45-percent increase in the frequency of the very high clouds. At the present rate of global warming of 0.13 degrees Celsius (0.23 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, the team inferred the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by six percent per decade.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-30 16:19:12 Mon, Dec 29, 2008: from Washington Post Inventors Find Inspiration in Natural Phenomena For some, whale watching is a tourist activity. For Gunter Pauli, it is a source of technological inspiration.
"I see a whale, I see a six-to-12-volt electric generator that is able to pump 1,000 liters per pulse through more than 108 miles of veins and arteries," he said. The intricate wiring of the whale's heart is being studied as a model for a device called a nanoscale atrioventricular bridge, which will undergo animal testing next year and could replace pacemakers for the millions of people whose diseased hearts need help to beat steadily.
Pauli -- who directs the Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI) Foundation in Geneva -- is an unabashed promoter of biomimicry, the science of making technological and commercial advances by copying natural processes. At a time when many are looking for a way to protect Earth's biodiversity and reduce the ecological impact of industrial products and processes, a growing number of business leaders and environmental activists alike are looking to biomimicry as a way to achieve both ends.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-29 13:47:29 Mon, Dec 29, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Drillers eye oil reserves off California coast The federal government is taking steps that may open California's fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship traffic into San Francisco Bay. Millions of acres of oil deposits, mapped in the 1980s when then-Interior Secretary James Watt and Energy Secretary Donald Hodel pushed for California exploration, lie a few miles from the forested North Coast and near the mouth of the Russian River, as well as off Malibu, Santa Monica and La Jolla in Southern California.
"These are the targets," said Richard Charter, a lobbyist for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund who worked for three decades to win congressional bans on offshore drilling. "You couldn't design a better formula to create adverse impacts on California's coastal-dependent economy."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-28 12:24:53 Sun, Dec 28, 2008: from Merrillville Post-Tribune IDEM stops giving fines, punishments The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has stopped issuing fines against other state agencies in Indiana that violate their environmental permits.
For instance, the Indiana Department of Transportation violated wastewater permits for rest stops across the state more than 550 times over four years. It discharged sludge and ammonia into streams, causing algae blooms and potential damage to aquatic life. But INDOT got no fines. It got off with a legal slap on the wrist. Environmentalists are appalled, calling it a "creeping lack of accountability" and commitment to enforcing the law.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-28 12:15:29 Sun, Dec 28, 2008: from Purdue University via ScienceDaily Warmer Temperatures Could Lead To A Boom In Corn Pests Climate change could provide the warmer weather pests prefer, leading to an increase in populations that feed on corn and other crops, according to a new study. Warmer growing season temperatures and milder winters could allow some of these insects to expand their territory and produce an extra generation of offspring each year, said Noah Diffenbaugh, the Purdue University associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences who led the study.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-28 12:10:48 Sun, Dec 28, 2008: from Queen Ecosystem Changes In Temperate Lakes Linked To Climate Warming Unparalleled warming over the last few decades has triggered widespread ecosystem changes in many temperate North American and Western European lakes, say researchers at Queen's University and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. The team reports that striking changes are now occurring in many temperate lakes similar to those previously observed in the rapidly warming Arctic, although typically many decades later. The Arctic has long been considered a "bellwether" of what will eventually happen with warmer conditions farther south.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-27 16:14:35 Sat, Dec 27, 2008: from New York Times Tennessee Ash Flood Larger Than Initial Estimate A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Officials at the authority initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, gave way on Monday. But on Thursday they released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-30 19:11:38 Sat, Dec 27, 2008: from New York Times No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in "Passive Houses" ...Even on the coldest nights in central Germany, Mr. Kaufmann's new "passive house" and others of this design get all the heat and hot water they need from the amount of energy that would be needed to run a hair dryer...The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants' bodies.
And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:10:22 Sat, Dec 27, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Minnesota's iconic moose are dying off It wasn't long ago that thousands of moose roamed the gentle terrain of northwestern Minnesota, affirming the iconic status of the antlered, bony-kneed beast from the North Woods. In just two decades, though, their numbers have plummeted, from 4,000 to fewer than a hundred.
They didn't move away. They just died.
The primary culprit in what is known as the moose mystery, scientists say, is climate change, which has systematically reduced the Midwest's already dwindling moose population and provoked alarm in Minnesota, where wildlife specialists gathered for a "moose summit" this month in Duluth.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-27 16:02:49 Sat, Dec 27, 2008: from Discover Super Trees Clean up Superfund Sites Argonne, Illinois -- A legacy of the Argonne National Laboratory�s early foray into atomic energy lies buried here on its campus, about 25 miles southwest of Chicago. Although solid wastes from all sorts of experiments have been sealed in a landfill, certain liquids, mostly chlorinated solvents, still taint the water that runs under the site. The ongoing attempt to remove these contaminants occupies an enormous experimental facility that covers four acres and looks like a forest.
"I like to brag that I have the biggest lab at Argonne," says agronomist Cristina Negri, indicating an expanse of 900 poplars and willows growing in rows. The trees stand about 30 feet high. More important, their roots extend 30 feet down, where they tap the contaminated aquifer and literally pull pollutants out of the ground.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-27 14:27:56 Sat, Dec 27, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Asia appetite for turtles seen as a threat to Florida species ... the critters will help feed a huge and growing appetite for freshwater turtles as food and medicine.
The demand pits ancient culture against modern conservation and increasingly threatens turtle populations worldwide. As Asian economies boomed, more and more people began buying turtle, once a delicacy beyond their budgets. Driven in particular by Chinese demand, Asian consumption has all but wiped out wild turtle populations not just in China, but in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and elsewhere in the region. Now conservationists fear that the U.S. turtle population could be eaten into extinction.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-27 14:21:38 Sat, Dec 27, 2008: from Reuters Pollution at home often lurks unrecognized NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many people may be surprised by the number of chemicals they are exposed to through everyday household products, a small study finds, suggesting, researchers say, that consumers need to learn more about sources of indoor pollution.
In interviews with 25 women who'd had their homes and bodies tested for various environmental pollutants, researchers found that most were surprised and perplexed by the number of chemicals to which they'd been exposed.... The term "fragrance" on household-product labels can signal the presence of potentially harmful chemicals. One of the uses of phthalates, for example, is to stabilize fragrances.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:09:02 Sat, Dec 27, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail It's 'attack of the slime' as jellyfish jeopardize the Earth's oceans It has been dubbed the "rise of slime." Massive swarms of jellyfish are blooming from the tropics to the Arctic, from Peru to Namibia to the Black Sea to Japan, closing beaches and wiping out fish, either by devouring their eggs and larvae, or out-competing them for food.
To draw attention to the spread of "jellytoriums," the National Science Foundation in the U.S. has produced a report documenting that the most severe damage is to fish: In the Sea of Japan, for example, schools of Nomurai jellyfish - 500 million strong and each more than two metres in diameter - are clogging fishing nets, killing fish and accounting for at least $20-million in losses. The Black Sea has suffered $350-million in losses. A region of the Bering Sea is so full of jellies that it was nicknamed "Slime Bank."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:49:18 Fri, Dec 26, 2008: from Associated Press Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.
Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering -- a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-26 10:18:25 Fri, Dec 26, 2008: from Scientific American Court orders EPA to stick with Bush clean air rules--for now A federal court this week did an about-face, ruling (pdf) that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must enforce admittedly faulty regulations restricting power plant emissions until they're replaced by new improved ones.
"We are convinced that, notwithstanding the relative flaws of [the Clean Air Interstate Rule, CAIR], allowing CAIR to remain in effect until it is replaced by a rule consistent with our opinion would at least temporarily preserve the environmental values [translation: clean air] covered by CAIR," the federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., wrote in its decision (pdf) yesterday.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-26 10:07:41 Fri, Dec 26, 2008: from Boston Globe Going with climate's flow Environmental advocates, wildlife officials, and land trusts charged with protecting the natural world are beginning to take a new approach to climate change: rather than focus only on stopping it, they are also thinking about how to adapt to what's coming.... "The old model is - let's protect a certain species or natural community; let's protect this habitat for box turtle or for maple forest," said Andy Finton, director of conservation science at The Nature Conservancy. "We've got to be more flexible in our thinking, because we can't necessarily nail down all the species . . . In a way, we're protecting the stage, while the actors may change over time."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-26 09:58:57 Fri, Dec 26, 2008: from Washington Post Report: Alberta Mines Imperil Birds About half of America's migratory birds fly from destinations as far-flung as Chile to nest in Canada's boreal forest. In Alberta, that forest lies above tar sands that contain oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's.
The excavation of the tar sands -- projected to pump $2.4 trillion into Canada's economy between 2010 and 2030 -- could reduce the region's migratory-bird population by almost half, according to a peer-reviewed study released Dec. 2 by U.S. and Canadian environmental groups.... The study estimates that over 30 to 50 years, tar sands excavation will reduce bird populations by anywhere from 6 million to 166 million, including several endangered and threatened species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-26 09:50:07 Fri, Dec 26, 2008: from Discovery Channel Tenn. Sludge Spill Challenges 'Clean Coal' Future When an earthen wall holding back 525 million gallons of ash slurry gave way at the coal-fired Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee in the wee hours of Monday morning, the resultant flood ruined a picturesque rural landscape, inundated more than a dozen houses, and blanketed as much as 400 acres of land with potentially toxic muck....
But the mud has done much more than just sully a countryside. Americans' energy consumption habits are a top-tier political issue, and as we look for new ways to curtail global warming, wean ourselves from oil, and find sources of clean energy, coal's role is still unclear.
So the accident raises a serious question: Is there such a thing as "clean coal"?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-25 20:00:36 Fri, Dec 26, 2008: from National Research Council EPA Should Pursue Cumulative Risk Assessment of Phthalates The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should examine whether combined exposures to chemicals known as phthalates could cause adverse health effects in humans, says a new report from the National Research Council. In addition, this analysis, called a cumulative risk assessment, should consider other chemicals that could potentially cause the same health effects as phthalates, instead of focusing on chemicals that are similar in structure, which is EPA's current practice. Furthermore, EPA should consider using the recommended approach for future cumulative risk assessments on other kinds of chemicals.... Currently when conducting cumulative risk assessments, EPA often considers only chemicals that are structurally related, on the assumption that they have the same chain of reactions that lead to a final health outcome. That practice ignores how exposures to different chemicals may result in the same health effects. The conceptual approach taken for phthalates -- to consider chemicals that cause similar health effects -- should also be applied when completing any cumulative risk assessment, the committee said. For instance, EPA could evaluate the risk of combined exposures to lead, methylmercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls because all contribute to cognitive deficits consistent with IQ reduction in children.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-24 10:41:30 Wed, Dec 24, 2008: from Fox News No Matter What Happens, Someone Will Blame Global Warming Global warming was blamed for everything from beasts gone wild to anorexic whales to the complete breakdown of human society this year -- showing that no matter what it is and where it happens, scientists, explorers, politicians and those who track the Loch Ness Monster are comfortable scapegoating the weather.
FOXNews.com takes a look back at 10 things that global warming allegedly caused -- or will no doubt soon be responsible for -- as reported in the news around the world in 2008.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-24 11:00:04 Wed, Dec 24, 2008: from The Michigan Messenger Will water vortices provide the next renewable energy? U of M engineer says water currents can solve world's power problems: T. Boone Pickens may well have been right: Oil dependence is almost certainly "one emergency we can't drill our way out of." But if a University of Michigan engineer knows half of what he thinks he knows about water power, the solution to the world's energy needs doesn't have much to do with the billionaire oilman's much-advertised vision of an endless line of windmills stretching from Texas to Canada.
The real answer may be a cylinder continuously moving up and down in an 8,000-gallon water tank in the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Building on the University of Michigan's North Campus in Ann Arbor. As Professor Michael M. Bernitsas sees it, the cylinder-based device he invented is a short step away from a commercially viable version that might be the key to a cheap, inexhaustible supply of clean energy to power the entire world, even regions far removed from sources of water.
The device is nicknamed VIVACE, short for Vortex Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy. It's pronounced "Vee-VAH-chay," after the term for music played in a lively, spirited manner.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-24 10:31:49 Wed, Dec 24, 2008: from Annapolis Capital Measure your nitrogen footprint Environmentalists often stress that each of the 17 million people living in the Chesapeake Bay watershed contributes to the bay's decline.
Now they have a nifty tool to drive home their point: an online calculator that adds up how much nitrogen pollution each household generates.
The project has been two years in the making for Dr. Beth McGee and the staff at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. It's posted at www.cbf.org/yourbayfootprint.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-24 14:02:50 Wed, Dec 24, 2008: from University of California - Davis via ScienceDaily Baby Fish In Polluted San Francisco Estuarian Waters Are Stunted And Deformed Striped bass in the San Francisco Estuary are contaminated before birth with a toxic mix of pesticides, industrial chemicals and flame retardants that their mothers acquire from estuary waters and food sources and pass on to their eggs, say UC Davis researchers. Using new analytical techniques, the researchers found that offspring of estuary fish had underdeveloped brains, inadequate energy supplies and dysfunctional livers. They grew slower and were smaller than offspring of hatchery fish raised in clean water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-23 15:41:26 Tue, Dec 23, 2008: from Inderscience via ScienceDaily Fix For Global Warming? Scientists Propose Covering Deserts With Reflective Sheeting A radical plan to curb global warming and so reverse the climate change caused by our rampant burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution would involve covering parts of the world's deserts with reflective sheeting, according to researchers writing in the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues... The team's calculations suggest that covering an area of a little more than 60,000 square kilometres with reflective sheet, at a cost of some $280 billion, would be adequate to offset the heat balance and lead to a net cooling without any need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-23 11:20:58 Tue, Dec 23, 2008: from University of British Columbia via ScienceDaily Earth Not Center Of The Universe, Surrounded By 'Dark Energy' Earth's location in the Universe is utterly unremarkable, despite recent theories that propose toppling a foundation of modern cosmology, according to a team of University of British Columbia researchers....The team's calculations instead solidify the conventional view that an enigmatic dark energy fills the cosmos and is responsible for the acceleration of the Universe...."Since we can only observe the Universe from Earth, it's really hard to determine if we're in a 'special place,'" says [UBC post-doctoral fellow Jim] Zibin. "But we've now learned that our location is much more ordinary than the strange dark energy that fills the Universe."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-23 15:18:49 Tue, Dec 23, 2008: from TIME Magazine A Japanese Town That Kicked the Oil Habit ...In resource-poor Japan, which imports 90 percent of its fuel, Kuzumaki is a marvel of energy self-sufficiency. Signs of the town's comprehensive focus on environmental sustainability are visible from its mountaintops to the pens of the dairy cows that once were the bedrock of local commerce. Atop Mt. Kamisodegawa, the 12 wind turbines, each 305 feet (93 m) tall, have the capacity to convert mountain gusts into 21,000 KW of electricity — more than enough to meet the needs of the town's residents. The excess is sold to neighboring communities.
Of course, the wind doesn't always blow. At Kuzumaki Highland Farm, 200 dairy cows share the power load. Their manure is processed into fertilizer and methane gas, the latter used as fuel for an electrical generator at the town's biomass facility. Nearby, a three-year project sponsored by Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's New Energy Development Organization (NEDO) uses wood chips from larch trees to create gas that powers the farm's milk and cheese operations. The bark of other trees is also made into pellets for heating stoves used throughout the community. A local winery, for instance, has two such stoves, and Kuzumaki pays residents up to 50,000 yen ($490) toward the cost of installing one. All told, clean energy generated 161 percent of Kuzumaki's electricity last year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-23 10:36:33 Tue, Dec 23, 2008: from Nashville Tennessean Flood of sludge breaks TVA dike HARRIMAN, Tenn. — Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver.
One neighboring family said the disaster was no surprise because they have watched the 1960s-era ash pond's mini-blowouts off and on for years. About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry — enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools — rolled out of the pond Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-23 15:21:32 Tue, Dec 23, 2008: from Associated Press More than 100 million Americans breathe sooty air WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 100 million people living in 46 metro areas are breathing air that has gotten too full of soot on some days, and now those cities have to clean up their air, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.
The EPA added 15 cities to the sooty air list, mostly in states not usually thought of as pollution-prone, such as Alaska, Utah, Idaho and Wisconsin. That's probably because of the prevalence of wood stoves in western and northern regions, a top EPA official said.
But environmentalists said the EPA was only doing half its job on soot-laden areas, letting some southern cities with long-term soot problems — such as Houston — off the hook.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-22 13:26:00 Mon, Dec 22, 2008: from University of Missouri-Columbia via ScienceDaily Selflessness -- Core Of All Major World Religions -- Has Neuropsychological Connection All spiritual experiences are based in the brain. That statement is truer than ever before, according to a University of Missouri neuropsychologist. An MU study has data to support a neuropsychological model that proposes spiritual experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain....This study, along with other recent neuroradiological studies of Buddhist meditators and Francescan nuns, suggests that all individuals, regardless of cultural background or religion, experience the same neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences, such as transcendence.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:37:40 Mon, Dec 22, 2008: from The Times-Picayune Report sounds alarm on dead zone in the Gulf After years of piecemeal efforts to reduce Mississippi River pollution that leads to the Gulf of Mexico's annual "dead zone" disturbance, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Agriculture Department need to take quick action in pinpointing and reducing the source of the problem, says a new report from the National Research Council.
Agricultural practices in the nation's Heartland are a major contributor to the dead zone problem, and the report points out that EPA and USDA have not effectively coordinated upstream pollution-control measures to tackle the problem: a lifeless, oxygen-depleted swath of Gulf waters nearly the size of New Jersey.
Even with a more robust program to reduce river pollution, the report notes that it could take decades to reverse the damage.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-23 15:29:57 Mon, Dec 22, 2008: from Riverside Press-Enterprise Inland researchers say storm runoff, once just a threat, is a resource to be managed Two Inland researchers think they have come up with a way to help replenish depleted aquifers and reduce ocean pollution using some unlikely partners: big-box stores.
When it rains, much of parking-lot runoff flows across impervious surfaces into large detention basins, culverts or concrete waterways that carry the water to lakes and into the ocean.
The researchers propose tapping big-box stores, shopping malls and warehouses -- properties that generate much of the runoff -- to help capture some of it before it flows into storm drains.
They recommend building porous-pavement parking lots on the properties or channeling the storm water into infiltration trenches that allow the water to percolate into the ground.
Not only would these devices help reduce the amount of polluted water or "urban sludge" that ends up in lakes and in the ocean, it also would help recharge depleted groundwater basins, the researchers say.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-22 12:43:47 Mon, Dec 22, 2008: from Chemical & Engineering News Beetle Epidemic Escalates ...Colorado is among the hardest hit areas in what entomologists are calling one of the largest insect infestations in North America's recorded history. Stretching from British Columbia to as far south as New Mexico, millions of acres worth of pine trees have been killed by mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) over the past few years. The trees' deaths pose ecological, social, and economic challenges. The threat of fire ranks among the biggest concerns, particularly as the rice-grain-sized beetles migrate from trees in sparsely populated higher altitudes to forests surrounding residential neighborhoods.
This species of bark beetle is native to Western North America and infests trees as part of a natural cycle. Entomologists and chemical ecologists say several factors have contributed to the insect's recent population boom, including a 10-year drought that weakened the pines' natural defenses and winters warm enough that more of the beetle larvae can now survive. In areas where mountain pine beetle numbers equate to an epidemic, many trees are already dead. Simply removing the beetle-riddled arboreal carcasses is one of the only remaining options for controlling the epidemic, scientists say. Meanwhile, researchers are studying how the combination of other forestry management techniques and chemical tools may help save remaining trees from massacre by beetles.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-22 12:37:28 Mon, Dec 22, 2008: from ProPublica How the West’s Energy Boom Could Threaten Drinking Water for 1 in 12 Americans The Colorado River, the life vein of the Southwestern United States, is in trouble.
The river's water is hoarded the moment it trickles out of the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado and begins its 1,450-mile journey to Mexico's border. It runs south through seven states and the Grand Canyon, delivering water to Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego. Along the way, it powers homes for 3 million people, nourishes 15 percent of the nation's crops and provides drinking water to one in 12 Americans.
Now a rush to develop domestic oil, gas and uranium deposits along the river and its tributaries threatens its future.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-21 12:03:57 Sun, Dec 21, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Neanderthals could have died out because their bodies overheated Analysis of DNA obtained from Neanderthal remains has revealed key differences from modern humans that suggest their bodies produced excess heat.
While in the cold climate of an ice age this would have provided the species with an advantage, as the earth warmed they would have been less able to cope. Ultimately this would have caused their extinction around 24,000 years ago.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-21 11:53:32 Sun, Dec 21, 2008: from National Geographic News VIDEO: Animal-to-Human Disease Watch In remote corners, a research team is monitoring contact between humans and wild animals -- particularly wild animal meat -- in hopes of stopping pandemics before they start.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-21 11:42:45 Sun, Dec 21, 2008: from Time Magazine Making Hospitals Greener -- and Patients Healthier A doctor's principle code is, "First, do no harm." The irony is that your doctor's office or hospital may be making you sicker. Indeed, many hospitals are built with materials, like particleboard, PVC flooring and even conventional paint, that can leach poisonous substances. What's more, the chemicals used to clean hospitals -- chlorine, laundry detergents and softeners, ammonia -- contain toxic ingredients and can cause respiratory disease. In fact, studies suggest that nurses, who spend long hours at the hospital, have among the highest rates of environmentally induced asthma of any profession....Enter "green medicine" -- the effort to detoxify the healing environment and enhance patients' and employees' health, while reducing costs all around.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-21 11:21:22 Sun, Dec 21, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Tribune investigation prompts stores to pull food items Chicago-area supermarkets, gourmet shops and bakeries routinely sell mislabeled products that pose a danger to those with food allergies, according to Tribune testing and a comprehensive check of grocery aisles.
When informed of the findings, more than a dozen food companies said they would remove products from shelves or fix labels to properly disclose all ingredients.
In one of the nation's largest examinations of undisclosed ingredients in food, the Tribune reviewed thousands of items at more than 60 locations, finding dozens of products obviously mislabeled. The newspaper also conducted 50 laboratory tests—more than the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration combined over the last several years—to try to determine precise ingredients.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-21 11:13:19 Sun, Dec 21, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel EPA veils hazardous substances The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency routinely allows companies to keep new information about their chemicals secret, including compounds that have been shown to cause cancer and respiratory problems, the Journal Sentinel has found.
The newspaper examined more than 2,000 filings in the EPA's registry of dangerous chemicals for the past three years. In more than half the cases, the EPA agreed to keep the chemical name a secret. In hundreds of other cases, it allowed the company filing the report to keep its name and address confidential.
This is despite a federal law calling for public notice of any new information through the EPA's program monitoring chemicals that pose substantial risk. The whole idea of the program is to warn the public of newfound dangers.
The EPA's rules are supposed to allow confidentiality only "under very limited circumstances."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-20 12:52:05 Sat, Dec 20, 2008: from BBC Swiss glaciers 'in full retreat' Swiss glaciers are melting away at an accelerating rate and many will vanish this century if climate projections are correct, two new studies suggest.
One assessment found that some 10 cubic km of ice have been lost from 1,500 glaciers over the past nine years.
The other study, based on a sample of 30 representative glaciers, indicates the group's members are now losing a metre of thickness every year.
Both pieces of work come out of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
"The trend is negative, but what we see is that the trend is also steepening," said Matthias Huss from the Zurich university's Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-20 12:46:01 Sat, Dec 20, 2008: from Reuters Chromosomal changes seen in long-term airline pilots NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - New research suggests that airline pilots with long-term flying experience may be exposed to higher than average levels of radiation, resulting in more chromosomal translocations than usually seen.
Further studies with longer follow-up and more subjects, however, will be needed to determine if these pilots are at increased risk for cancer, according to the report in the online issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Chromosomal translocations occur when a chromosome fragment breaks off and attaches to another. This can lead to a range of medical problems, such as leukemia, breast cancer, schizophrenia or muscular dystrophy, depending on were [sic] the fragments reattach.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-20 12:39:12 Sat, Dec 20, 2008: from The Economist Fiddling with words as the world melts ...At this pace, it seems hard to believe that a global deal on emissions targets (reconciling new emitters with older ones) can be reached next December at a meeting in Copenhagen, seen as a make-or-break time for UN efforts to cool the world.
In the background of the Poznan meeting, there was mild optimism (and a reluctance by others to put fresh cards on the table) ahead of an expected change of stance by an Obama administration in America; resentment (among the poor and green) over the refusal of Japan and Canada to promise deeper cuts; and strong demands from China for the transfer of technology from the rich to others. In the final hours of the conference, the governments of small, sinking island nations were delighted to learn that they, and not some global body, would control a fund to help them adapt to a warming world. Their mood changed when it became known that no extra money had been set aside for this purpose.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-20 12:28:58 Sat, Dec 20, 2008: from Norfolk Daily Eastern Press Pesticides ban to hit farmers and prices Families will be hit by even higher basic food prices following a drastic European-led ban on pesticides that could change the face of farming in East Anglian.
Farmers' leaders have condemned a European Parliament deal to outlaw 22 chemicals that they say could mean a 20 to 25 per cent drop in yields for staple East Anglian produce such as potatoes, carrots and peas - and inevitably lead to increased prices in the shops.
They fear that if the plan goes ahead, following a vote next month, many of the corner-stone crops currently grown in the region will become unviable.
But groups in favour of the ban say it is justified because of evidence that the pesticides in question can trigger cancer or cause neural, hormonal or genetic damage.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-20 12:22:24 Sat, Dec 20, 2008: from Minneapolis Star Tribune X-rayed venison is on its way to food shelves Minnesota officials are all but finished X-raying donated venison for lead bullet fragments, and meat found to be lead-free is now being shipped to food shelves around the state.
Of about 10,000 packages of venison tested, 560 -- or 5.9 percent -- tested positive for lead, officials said. That meat -- about 1,100 pounds -- will be destroyed after it is tested further to determine lead levels. About 18,000 pounds of venison that showed no detectable lead have been released to food shelves.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:12:35 Fri, Dec 19, 2008: from London Guardian Scientists fear new wave of human BSE deaths may kill up to 350 Scientists were warning today of a possible new wave of deaths from the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) amid fears the disease might have taken hold in a wider range of the population than had first appeared.
Chris Higgins, head of the group that advises the government on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), suggested up to 350 people might die if it emerged that the long-incubating illness appeared to have infected a patient with a different gene type from previous British victims.
The first wave of infections almost certainly came from eating infected beef products after BSE struck cattle in the 1980s, although three of the 164 people who have died from the human disease since 1995 are thought to have contracted the disease from contaminated blood transfusions donated by people who were unwittingly carrying the disease.
The first wave of deaths peaked at 28 in 2000, and only one person has died from the disease this year. But Higgins, chairman of the spongiform encephalopathy advisory committee (SEAC), said that if another patient with the disease was found to have the different gene type, more could die.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-19 15:03:23 Fri, Dec 19, 2008: from Wall Street Journal Philippines Moves to Fight Pig Ebola Global health authorities are preparing an emergency mission to the Philippines after U.S. scientists discovered a strain of the Ebola virus in dead pigs there that had previously only been found in monkeys.
Unlike more-deadly strains of Ebola virus, health officials say this particular strain, known as the Reston strain, has never caused human illness or death, and it's not immediately clear there is a public-health issue.
But health officials say it is too early to rule out a possible threat to humans, and expressed concern over the fact that this incident, first revealed in an Oct. 30 teleconference between the Philippine government and U.S. health authorities, wasn't made public until a news conference for local media in Manila last week. Pigs have served as genetic mixing vessels for viruses that pass from animals to humans, which makes the Philippine discovery significant. "When a virus jumps species, in this case from monkeys to pigs, we become concerned, particularly as pigs are much closer to humans than monkeys in their ability to harbour viruses," says Peter Cordingley, Western Pacific spokesman for the World Health Organization in Manila.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-19 15:06:04 Fri, Dec 19, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor World's oceans turning acidic faster than expected Parts of the world's oceans appear to be acidifying far faster than scientists have expected.
The culprit: rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere pumped into the air from cars, power plants, and industries.
The Southern Ocean represents one of the most high-profile examples. There, scientists estimate that the ocean could reach a biologically important tipping point in wintertime by 2030, at least 20 years earlier than scientists projected only three years ago. Among the vulnerable: a tiny form of sea snail that serves as food for a wide range of fish.
Similar trends are appearing in more temperate waters, say researchers.
The studies suggest the CO2-emission targets being considered for a new global warming treaty are likely to be inadequate to prevent significant, long-lasting changes in some ocean basins.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-21 12:05:23 Fri, Dec 19, 2008: from Boston Phoenix 20 reasons the Earth will be glad to see Bush go ...We've selected 20 specific environmental transgressions of the Bush administration for scrutiny here, drawn primarily from conversations with and reports issued by the nation's leading environmental-advocacy groups. Were we to have written about all the ecological crimes committed by the Bush team -- the damage already done, the policies that have since been reversed, the individuals who have moved on to do their damage elsewhere -- we'd only be wringing our hands and wasting more paper. Thus, we've limited our Top 20 list to the horrific environmental scenarios still ongoing � these are the assaults on the planet that Bush and his cronies are continuing to this day, and surely would go on doing were their time not coming to a merciful end....
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:31:49 Thu, Dec 18, 2008: from UCLA, via EurekAlert No quick or easy technological fix for climate change, researchers say Global warming, some have argued, can be reversed with a large-scale "geoengineering" fix, such as having a giant blimp spray liquefied sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere or building tens of millions of chemical filter systems in the atmosphere to filter out carbon dioxide.
But Richard Turco, a professor in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a member and founding director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment, sees no evidence that such technological alterations of the climate system would be as quick or easy as their proponents claim and says many of them wouldn't work at all.... "The size distribution of the particles is critical," Turco said. "If the particles are too large, that will actually create a warming effect, a greenhouse warming. Small particles are not useful because they don't reflect much radiation; you need something in between, and we have shown that is hard to achieve reliably."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:11:51 Thu, Dec 18, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Scientists Find Increased Methane Levels In Arctic Ocean A team led by International Arctic Research Center scientist Igor Semiletov has found data to suggest that the carbon pool beneath the Arctic Ocean is leaking.... Geophysical measurements showed methane bubbles coming out of chimneys on the seafloor.
"The concentrations of the methane were the highest ever measured in the summertime in the Arctic Ocean," Semiletov said. "We have found methane bubble clouds above the gas-charged sediment and above the chimneys going through the sediment."... The new data indicates the underwater permafrost is thawing and therefore releasing methane.... Methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, is thought to be an important factor in global climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-18 12:27:45 Thu, Dec 18, 2008: from The Epoch Times Desalination Plants Increase - As do Concerns ...Is this a valid source of drinking water? What are the ramifications of desalination?
The desalination process removes salt and other minerals from water to make it drinkable. This is achieved by filtering using reverse osmosis. It sounds a good idea, just to take the salt out of the sea water and the result is water for us to drink; so why the fuss? And is it destructive to the oceans?
“Yes,” says Wal Grahame, “It is destructive. A desalination plant here will have a footprint bigger than the MCG [Melbourne Cricket Ground] and four stories high. To produce 50 gigs of water they will have to emit 1 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.”... Around 11,000 litres of sea water per second are pumped into the desalination works resulting in between 25 to 60 tonnes of waste. This is sludge from the pretreatment process which uses chemicals to remove solid bits and to destroy any biological life such as, fish, plankton and biota. The chemicals used in the pre treatment process are chlorine, caustic soda, hydrochloric acid, and ferric chloride. Some of these chemicals get discharged back into the sea. Using the reverse osmosis process, the water is then pushed through a series of membranes which filters out everything except the water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-18 12:18:04 Thu, Dec 18, 2008: from Nature Drinking water contamination mapped The most comprehensive survey so far has found a slew of drugs, personal care products, pesticides and other contaminants in drinking water being delivered to millions of people across the United States. None of the compounds appeared at levels thought to be immediately harmful to human health. But the researchers were surprised to find widespread traces of a pesticide, used largely in corn (maize) growing, that has, at higher levels, been linked to cancer and other problems.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-18 11:53:45 Thu, Dec 18, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Seas will rise faster than predicted, say scientists Sea levels will rise much faster than previously forecast because of the rate that glaciers and ice sheets are melting, a study has found.
Research commissioned by the US Climate Change Science Program concludes that the rises will substantially exceed forecasts that do not take into account the latest data and observations.
The adjusted outlook, announced at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, suggests that recent predictions of a rise of between 7in and 2ft over the next century are conservative.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-18 11:47:12 Thu, Dec 18, 2008: from Communication Theory, via EurekAlert Narrative entertainment programming can lead to persuasive outcomes Persuasive communication is often perceived as a threat to one's freedom, even if the message recommendation is in one's best interest. This results in message rejection as a way to reassert independence. Moyer-Gusé contends that different types of involvement in the narrative, such as engagement with the plot or identification with characters, may help to overcome resistance, thus resulting in persuasive effects.
The narrative format can allow viewers to become "sucked in" to the world in which the drama takes place, reducing viewers' perception that the message is persuasive in nature. The enjoyment associated with transportation into a narrative may allow individuals to process messages they would otherwise find too threatening.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:43:05 Thu, Dec 18, 2008: from BBC Changes 'amplify Arctic warming' ...Theory predicts that as ice is lost in the Arctic, more of the ocean's surface will be exposed to solar radiation and will warm up.
When the autumn comes and the Sun goes down on the Arctic, that warmth should be released back into the atmosphere, delaying the fall in air temperatures.
Ultimately, this feedback process should result in Arctic temperatures rising faster than the global mean.
Dr [Julienne] Stroeve and colleagues have now analysed Arctic autumn (September, October, November) air temperatures for the period 2004-2008 and compared them to the long term average (1979 to 2008).
The results, they believe, are evidence of the predicted amplification effect.
"You see this large warming over the Arctic ocean of around 3C in these last four years compared to the long-term mean," explained Dr Stroeve.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-17 20:33:24 Thu, Dec 18, 2008: from The Charleston Gazette Energy secretary nominee sees coal as 'nightmare' ... Carbon capture and storage research is still in its early stages, said Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist announced by Obama this week as his nominee to run the U.S. Department of Energy. Real-world projects to pump millions of tons of carbon dioxide might also be rejected unless scientists show it can be done safely, Chu said during an April speech.
"Coal is my worst nightmare," said Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Stanford University professor.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-17 20:20:19 Thu, Dec 18, 2008: from USA Today Cooperation helped Louisville clean up air LOUISVILLE — For years, Louisville has been known for fast horses, fine bourbon, a love of college basketball — and lousy air.
People who lived near a complex of chemical plants, called Rubbertown, put up with odors, burning eyes and fears that their every breath might contribute to asthma, cancer or other illnesses.
But that began to change about a decade ago, after a minister from the predominantly African-American neighborhoods around Rubbertown organized protests, demanding aggressive government action to clean up the toxic air and reduce the chemical emissions from factories.
The campaign soon ranged beyond those neighborhoods, attracting the help of university scientists, industry representatives and government officials. It has led to an ambitious and successful anti-pollution effort that has gained national attention.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-17 20:35:34 Wed, Dec 17, 2008: from DailyMonitor, via AllAfrica Ethiopia: Authority Urges Paradigm Shift in Agriculture Law On Genetically Modified Organisms Proposed Amid the price of chemical fertilizer showing little sign of decreasing, Federal Environmental Protection Authority urged on Tuesday for a paradigm shift to ecological agriculture.... While expressing his support to using chemical fertilizers to attain food security in the country, the Director said the country has as much as much as possible stick to ecological agriculture, adding the country's high capacity to produce compost could support the shift.... "If genetically modified remained unregulated in the country, they could suffer the general set up of our society as well as the environment," Dr.Tewolde said [in an obviously rough translation].
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-17 13:25:47 Wed, Dec 17, 2008: from Genetic Engineering News via EurekAlert Benefits of breastfeeding outweigh risk of infant exposure to environmental chemicals in breastmilk A study comparing breastfed and formula fed infants across time showed that the known beneficial effects of breastfeeding are greater than the potential risks associated with infant exposure to chemicals such as dioxins that may be present in breastmilk, according to a report published in the December issue (Volume 3, Number 4) of Breastfeeding Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com) and the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. The paper is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/bfm.... [T]his study's findings, based on epidemiologic data, do not downplay the adverse effects of exposure to dioxins and other environmental toxins. However, the authors distinguish between the statistical significance of risk/benefit assessments in an individual compared to population effects.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-17 11:16:54 Wed, Dec 17, 2008: from Queen Study links ecosystem changes in temperate lakes to climate warming The scientists studied changes over the last few decades in the species composition of small, microscopic algae preserved in sediments from more than 200 lake systems in the northern hemisphere. These algae dominate the plankton that float at or near the surface of lakes, and serve as food for other larger organisms.
Striking ecosystem changes were recorded from a large suite of lakes from Arctic, alpine and temperate ecozones in North America and western Europe. Aquatic ecosystem changes across the circumpolar Arctic were found to occur in the late-19th and early 20th centuries. These were similar to shifts in algal communities, indicating decreased ice cover and related changes, over the last few decades in the temperate lakes.... "The widespread occurrence of these trends is particularly troubling as they suggest that climatically-induced ecological thresholds have already been crossed, even with temperature increases that are below projected future warming scenarios for these regions," adds Dr. Paterson.... "We are entering unchartered territory, the effects of which can cascade throughout the entire ecosystem," concludes Dr. Smol.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-17 10:10:13 Wed, Dec 17, 2008: from Cafe Sendito Flawed International Farm Seed Rules Establish Permanent Spread of Patented GM Brands The Canadian courts ruled that the individual farmer had to shoulder the burden of ferreting out any instance of "contamination" of his crop by pollen from nearby genetically-modified (GM) planting, as Monsanto held a patent on the seeds. The farmer, and those who support his claims, argue that there is no means by which anyone can prevent cross-pollination from GM plants.... The group warned that due to the strict rules regarding harvesting, seed storage and repurchase, the system established by the marketing of patented GM seeds could force poor farmers onto "an expensive treadmill of dependence on the firms' seeds and chemicals".... "Because our rapeseed is contaminated with GMOs the economic effect has been disastrous for farmers, as we can no longer sell rapeseed to many countries in the world. The price of rapeseed has dropped almost in half."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-17 08:44:37 Wed, Dec 17, 2008: from Oregon State University, via EurekAlert Some climate impacts happening faster than anticipated A report released today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union provides new insights on the potential for abrupt climate change and the effects it could have on the United States, identifying key concerns that include faster-than-expected loss of sea ice, rising sea levels and a possibly permanent state of drought in the American Southwest.... While concluding that some projections of the impact of climate change have actually been too conservative -- as in the case of glacier and ice sheets that are moving and decaying faster than predicted -- others may not pose as immediate a threat as some scenarios had projected, such as the rapid releases of methane or dramatic shifts in the ocean current patterns that help keep Europe warm.... The "overarching" recommendation of the report is the need for committed and sustained monitoring of these climatic forces that could trigger abrupt climate change, the researchers concluded.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-16 12:00:03 Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Report: Politics corroded Bush decisions on endangered species Politics corroded Bush administration decisions on protecting endangered species in regions nationwide, federal investigators have concluded in a sweeping new report.
Former interior department official Julie MacDonald frequently bullied career scientists to reduce species protections, the interior department investigators found.
"The results of this investigation paint a picture of something akin to a secret society residing within the interior department that was colluding to undermine the protection of endangered wildlife and covering for one another's misdeeds," Congressman Nick Rahall, a Democrat from West Virginia, said late Monday afternoon.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-16 11:50:25 Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from SmashHits (India) Fruit based drinks contaminated with pesticides Fruit based soft drinks outside the US are highly contaminated with pesticides, especially in countries like Britain and Spain, says a new study.... They tested for pesticides such as carbendazim, thiabendazole, imazalil and malathion, which are applied to crops after harvest and can remain on fruits and vegetables during processing, according to a release of the American Chemical Society.
They found relatively large concentrations of pesticides, in the micrograms per litre range, in most of the samples analysed. Samples from Spain and Britain had the highest levels of pesticides, while samples from the US and Russia were among the lowest.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-16 11:31:13 Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Emissions: Where do you draw the line? Supporters of this system say that a cap-and-trade, market-based solution is the only realistic way a reduction in global emissions will ever be achieved. Carrots are always better than sticks, they say. But in such a world, it will be rare for a distinction to be made between why emissions were created in the first place.
There will be a market-determined price to pay for emitting a tonne of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but no one will be asking why you emitted it as long as you pay the going rate.
But is it beyond our collective wit to also judge our energy use against a set of criteria that gives extra weighting to our essential and most worthy needs?... But who is going to draw that line between essential and non-essential use? What, for example, would you place into the "essential" trolley? Two thousand miles' worth of petro-fuelled driving a year? Enough energy to heat your living room to 18C during winter?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-16 10:54:20 Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Last decade is the warmest on record, scientists say Global warming has pushed the world's temperature up by more than 1.26F (0.7C), said the Met Office, as they unveiled figures that show the dramatic effect human influence has had on the Earth's climate.
They predict that this year will be the tenth warmest worldwide since records began in 1850, with a global mean temperature of 58F (14.3C).
This would have been "exceptionally unusual" just a few years ago, but is now "quite normal," say climate scientists.
Dr Peter Stott from the Met Office said: "Human influence, particularly emission of greenhouse gases, has greatly increased the chance of having such warm years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-16 12:36:53 Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from AP News More than 2 trillion tons of ice melted in Arctic since '03 More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.
More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA's GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.... A second study suggests even larger amounts of frozen methane are trapped in lakebeds and sea bottoms around Siberia and they are starting to bubble to the surface in some spots in alarming amounts, said Igor Semiletov, a professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. In late summer, Semiletov found methane bubbling up from parts of the East Siberian Sea and Laptev Sea at levels that were 10 times higher than they were in the mid-1990s, he said based on a study this summer.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-16 11:03:52 Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from Forbes, via CBC Inside the world's superdumps The largest garbage dump in the world is roughly twice the size of the continental U.S.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a continent-sized constellation of discarded shoes, bottles, bags, pacifiers, plastic wrappers, toothbrushes and every other type of trash imaginable, floating in the Pacific Ocean about halfway between Hawaii and San Francisco.... Truckloads of printers, fax machines, hard drives and all kinds of defunct electronics arrive daily in Guiyu from warehouses in the port of Nanhai, where the imported waste comes ashore in sea-going containers. Roughly half these computers and electronic components are recycled; the rest are dumped. Nobody knows for sure, but evidence suggests most of the discarded components are dumped locally, despite the substantial risk that the waste, laden with toxic lead, mercury and cadmium, will contaminate local soil and water supplies.... Old ships are, more often than not, chock full of toxic chemicals, like insulation with asbestos and polychlorinated biphenyls in hoses, foam insulation and paint. In addition, most ships contain huge quantities of heavy metals like lead, mercury and cadmium. If ships are not properly dismantled, they contaminate the area where they are broken down.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-16 11:06:07 Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from Ashville Citizen-Times Ramping down the toxins we eat Some of the signs of an emerging crisis include: the presence of toxic chemicals, heavy metals and disease-causing bacteria in a host of foods; a rise in obesity and diet-related diseases; and air and water pollution from factory farms. Our current system isn't healthy and it's not sustainable.... Here are nine ideas for ways to improve health and send a strong signal to farmers, grocery stores and policymakers about the kinds of food we want to eat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:17:31 Tue, Dec 16, 2008: from New Scientist Jumbo squids in acid: What future oceans hold in store Swimming through warmer, more acidic oceans will feel like swimming through molasses for jumbo squid.... Jumbo squid blood carries very little oxygen -- with each cycle through its body, the oxygen can be used up entirely. This means they must "recharge" constantly, and makes the animals very dependent on what oxygen is available in the water around them. Yet, the warmer water is, the smaller the amount of oxygen it can hold.... To make matters worse, the squid's blood cells are able to carry even less oxygen in acidic water.... Last year, the first study to simultaneously track a predator and its prey suggested that sperm whales may take advantage of moments when jumbo squid slow down to catch them.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-15 19:29:28 Mon, Dec 15, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Jellyfish on the menu as edible fish stocks become extinct Fish stocks around Britain have been reduced to 10 per cent of what they were 100 years ago due to overfishing. Common skate and angel fish are already extinct while favourites like cod are in danger of being wiped out.... However scientists have said that unless the system is completely overhauled fish stocks will continue to deplete to the point of extinction by 2048, leaving consumers little option but to eat jellyfish or the small bony species left behind at the bottom of the ocean.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-16 18:47:01 Mon, Dec 15, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Waste Coffee Grounds Offer New Source Of Biodiesel Fuel Researchers in Nevada are reporting that waste coffee grounds can provide a cheap, abundant, and environmentally friendly source of biodiesel fuel for powering cars and trucks.... The used or "spent" grounds remaining from production of espresso, cappuccino, and plain old-fashioned cups of java, often wind up in the trash or find use as soil conditioner. The scientists estimated, however, that spent coffee grounds can potentially add 340 million gallons of biodiesel to the world's fuel supply.
To verify it, the scientists collected spent coffee grounds from a multinational coffeehouse chain and separated the oil. They then used an inexpensive process to convert 100 percent of the oil into biodiesel.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-16 09:04:01 Mon, Dec 15, 2008: from The Bracebridge Examiner and Gravenhurst Banner Muskoka's lakes face new environmental threat: report According to the study, long-term consequences of calcium decline could result in areas where forests won't grow back well. Lakes could also start to lose calcium-rich organisms.
A type of water flea, Daphnia, was the aquatic creature studied in the report, said Yan. The water flea is a crustacean, like little tiny shrimp, not an insect, he said.... "We are kind of likening these water fleas to canaries in the coal mine," Yan explained. "So if one calcium-rich animal is in trouble, then we darn well better find out about all the other calcium-rich animals, like crayfish and snails."... In the industrial age, minerals in the soil were leached through acid rain and logging.
"What takes the minerals away is six decades of acid rain and then logging, followed by forest regrowth," said Yan.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-15 09:53:14 Mon, Dec 15, 2008: from Ohio State University, via EurekAlert Greenland's glaciers losing ice faster this year than last year, which was record-setting itself Researchers watching the loss of ice flowing out from the giant island of Greenland say that the amount of ice lost this summer is nearly three times what was lost one year ago....
[T]he loss of ice since the year 2000 is 355.4 square miles (920.5 square kilometers), or more than 10 times the size of Manhattan.
"We now know that the climate doesn't have to warm any more for Greenland to continue losing ice," Box said. "It has probably passed the point where it could maintain the mass of ice that we remember.
"But that doesn't mean that Greenland's ice will all disappear. It's likely that it will probably adjust to a new 'equilibrium' but before it reaches the equilibrium, it will shed a lot more ice.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:42:27 Mon, Dec 15, 2008: from Innovations Report (Germany) Climate change: a dark future for migratory fish In Europe, most migratory fish species completing their cycle between the sea and the river are currently in danger.... This study has shown that for most species the situation will deteriorate. For example, the smelt and the Arctic char will lose approximately 90 percent of the watersheds that are favourable for reduced or null gains. Only two species, the thinlipped mullet and the twaite shad, will be able to expand their territory towards the north, beyond their initial distribution area. Finally, in accordance with the predictions, the southern watersheds risk losing most of their species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-15 09:15:05 Mon, Dec 15, 2008: from SciDev.net New Agency to be global 'Voice of Renewables' A new agency to be launched next month (26 January) in Bonn, Germany, aims to promote a swift transition towards the use of renewable energy worldwide.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which was initially driven by Denmark, Germany and Spain, will be the first worldwide agency solely dedicated to promoting renewable energy, acting as the "voice of renewable energy", according to its website.... It plans to support projects in biomass, hydropower, wind, solar and geothermal energy and biofuels.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-15 09:10:54 Mon, Dec 15, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Global oil supply will peak in 2020, says energy agency Global oil production will peak much earlier than expected amid a collapse in petroleum investment due to the credit crunch, one of the world's foremost experts has revealed.
Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency, told the Guardian that conventional crude output could plateau in 2020, a development that was "not good news" for a world still heavily dependent on petroleum.
The prediction came as oil companies from Saudi Arabia to Canada cut their capital expenditure on new projects in response to a fall in oil prices, moves that will further reduce supply in future.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-14 10:56:02 Sun, Dec 14, 2008: from Detroit News Hey, Senator, check out the 43 mpg Ford Fusion hybrid ... When the [Ford] Fusion hybrid arrives next spring, it will become the first two-mode hybrid car created by an American-based company. Congress should note that it had no hand with the development of this vehicle -- it takes years of hard work, actual thinking and wrenching to produce a new model and this particular vehicle is the result of planning that took place in President Bush's first term.
Since then, Ford has continued to improve its hybrid system, and the Fusion will offer more advanced technology than even the 2009 Ford Escape hybrid.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-14 10:48:02 Sun, Dec 14, 2008: from Indo-Asian News Service Get ready for worse climate change impacts: expert Poznan (Poland), Dec 14 (IANS) An extra billion people will face water shortage, cereal production in developing countries will drop and coastal regions will face more damage from floods and storms because of delay in combating climate change, says a leading expert.
The world should be prepared to face far worse effects of global warming than it is facing now, Martin Parry, a professor at the Imperial College in London, said in the backdrop of little substantial progress at the Dec 1-12 climate summit here.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:31:55 Sun, Dec 14, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Mercury-tainted fish on FDA menu In the waning days of the Bush presidency, the Food and Drug Administration is pushing to scuttle the government's advice about mercury-contaminated seafood, a dramatic policy change that would encourage women and children to eat more fish despite growing concerns about the toxic metal.
The FDA's recommendations, sent recently to the White House Office of Management and Budget for approval, prompted a sharp rebuke from scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency who, in memos circulated earlier this month, described them as "scientifically flawed and inadequate."
A joint advisory issued by the two agencies in 2004 cautions women of childbearing age, nursing mothers and young children to limit seafood consumption to 12 ounces a week. But in a draft version of the FDA's new report, the agency says its own modeling shows that children can benefit from eating more fish, not less.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:19:36 Sun, Dec 14, 2008: from Infection Control Today Antibacterial Personal Hygiene Products May Not Be Worth Potential Risks A recent study by UC Davis researchers calls into question the widespread use of two active ingredients -- triclocarban and triclosan -- in personal hygiene products, including antibacterial bar and liquid soaps. Using human and animal cell lines, researchers found that triclocarban disrupts reproductive hormone activity and triclosan interferes with a type of cell signaling that occurs in brain, heart and other cells.... "We decided to take a look at triclocarban and triclosan because these compounds appeared to be building up in the environment," said Bruce Hammock, a Superfund Basic Research Program investigator and professor of entomology. The compounds are also increasingly being detected in human breast milk and urine, he said.... Because of feedback loops in the body, amplification of these hormones could have the effect of depressing natural estrogen and androgen production, potentially impacting fertility and other hormone-dependent processes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-14 07:52:11 Sun, Dec 14, 2008: from Wired News Toxin-Gobbling Bugs Could Clean Ocean Dead Zones Bacteria that break down toxic compounds may have tricked scientists into underestimating the threat posed by spreading oceanic dead zones. But there's a silver lining: the bacteria might help bring them back to life.
In a 4,200-square-mile Atlantic ocean swath off the coast of Namibia, bacteria converted lethal sulphide into foul-smelling but otherwise harmless sulphur and sulphate.
"This is the first time that large-scale detoxification of sulphidic waters by chemolithotrophs has been observed in an ocean-open system," write European microbiologists and geochemists in a paper published Wednesday in Nature.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-14 07:28:23 Sun, Dec 14, 2008: from Cafe Sendito Mugabe Claims Cholera 'Erased,' World Leaders Express Outrage Robert Mugabe, whose critics charge he is illegally clinging to power after losing this year’s presidential vote, angered foreign governments and medical workers by claiming that his country had "erased" the cholera epidemic that has killed 800 since August. Mugabe claimed that Britain and the US were conspiring to invade his country using cholera as a pretext but that his government had "arrested" the spread of cholera and removed the pretext.... The World Health Organization reported this week that over 16,000 people are confirmed infected, and over 800 killed so far in the worst cholera epidemic the country has seen in decades. Hospitals in the north of South African say they can no longer handle the number of cases streaming across the border, though they are doing their best to treat those infected.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-13 12:17:21 Sat, Dec 13, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Al Gore: World cares more about Paris Hilton than saving the planet In a rousing speech to hundreds of delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, the former US Presidential candidate echoed President-elect Barack Obama in calling for change.
"It is wrong for this generation to destroy the habitability of the planet and ruin the prospects of every future generation. That realisation must carry us forward. Our children have a right to hold us to a high standard when the future of all human kind is hanging in the balance."... "The political systems of the developed world have become sclerotic. We have to overcome the paralysis that has prevented us from acting and focus clearly and unblinkingly on this crisis rather than spending so much time on OJ Simpson, Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-13 12:12:42 Sat, Dec 13, 2008: from National Research Council Federal Plan to Study Risks Posed by Nanomaterials Is Inadequate A new report from the National Research Council finds serious weaknesses in the government's plan for research on the potential health and environmental risks posed by nanomaterials, which are increasingly being used in consumer goods and industry. An effective national plan for identifying and managing potential risks is essential to the successful development and public acceptance of nanotechnology-enabled products, emphasized the committee that wrote the report.... [T]he plan fails to identify some important areas that should to be investigated; for example, "Nanomaterials and Human Health" should include a more comprehensive evaluation of how nanomaterials are absorbed and metabolized by the body and how toxic they are at realistic exposure levels.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-31 19:15:42 Sat, Dec 13, 2008: from NSF, via EurekAlert New online report on massive jellyfish swarms released Massive swarms of stinging jellyfish and jellyfish-like animals are transforming many world-class fisheries and tourist destinations into veritable jellytoriums that are intermittently jammed with pulsating, gelatinous creatures. Areas that are currently particularly hard-hit by these squishy animals include Hawaii, the Gulf of Mexico, the east coast of the U.S., the Bering Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, Australia, the Black Sea and other European seas, the Sea of Japan, the North Sea and Namibia.... From large swarms of potentially deadly, peanut-sized jellyfish in Australia to swarms of hundreds of millions of refrigerator-sized jellyfish in the Sea of Japan, suspicion is growing that population explosions of jellyfish are being generated by human activities.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-12 17:19:34 Fri, Dec 12, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Scientists predict seasonal ice-free Arctic by 2015 QUEBEC -- Ice in the Canadian Arctic is melting at such an alarming pace due to climate change that the North will be seasonally ice free in six years, according to a study released yesterday from a groundbreaking scientific expedition.
The dawning of a seasonal ice-free Canadian Arctic is upon us, said David Barber, one of the leading scientists on the 15-month expedition, adding the consequences for Inuit communities, the wildlife and the entire northern ecosystem are unpredictable.
And it is happening much faster than anyone anticipated, he said, noting that only two years ago a seasonal ice-free Arctic was predicted by 2030.
"I now believe that the Arctic will be out of multiyear ice in the summertime as early as 2015; it is coming very quickly," Dr. Barber said. "The whole system is in a very rapid rate of change. ... The Arctic is telling us that climate change is coming quicker and stronger."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-13 09:14:25 Fri, Dec 12, 2008: from CNN Drought parches much of the U.S., may get worse ...At least 36 states expect to face water shortages within the next five years, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. According to the National Drought Mitigation Center, several regions in particular have been hit hard: the Southeast, Southwest and the West. Texas, Georgia and South Carolina have suffered the worst droughts this year, the agency said.
Yet most people don't need a federal agency to tell them there's a water shortage. Plenty of cities have implemented water bans while state squabbles over water usage are common in some regions. What may surprise people, though, are the causes for the recent drought. It's not global warming, some climatologists say. The droughts are caused by rapid population growth and unwise agricultural choices.
John R. Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says the last three years have been drier than usual in many parts of the United States, but overall there's been no shortage of rainfall. He says the U.S. mainland experienced worse droughts in the 12th and 16th centuries.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-12 16:49:49 Fri, Dec 12, 2008: from Climate Daily Cleaning the air helps cool planet Local and state regulators have new ammunition in the fight to justify expensive air pollution rules: Cutting smog and soot has an immediate impact on climate change.
A study published this week bolsters the link between air quality and climate, finding that across-the-board cuts in air pollution can spur "substantial, simultaneous" improvement in local air quality and near-term mitigation of climate change.
Trimming smog and soot also represents an alternate and far more immediate global warming solution for regulators stymied by the complexities of other greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Sciences and the lead author of the study.
Tackling air pollution can buy 20 to 30 years worth of mitigation, he said – time that will be needed, if ongoing debates in Poznan, Brussells and Washington D.C. offer any indication – to cut the political and economic knots associated with carbon dioxide.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-12 13:21:31 Fri, Dec 12, 2008: from Greenpeace, via Mongabay Computer hackers are helping illegal loggers destroy the Amazon rainforest Computer hackers are helping illegal loggers destroy the Amazon rainforest by breaking into the Brazilian government's timber tracking system and altering the records so as to increase logging allocations, reports Greenpeace.... "By hacking into the permit system, these companies have made their timber shipments appear legal and compliant with the forest management plans. But in reality, they're trading illegal timber which is making the problem of deforestation worse, and a lack of control and policing in the areas they're logging means they think they can get away with it."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-12 10:15:29 Fri, Dec 12, 2008: from WWF Another fisheries commission throws the science overboard The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) today over-rode the advice of its science committee and rejected the recommendations of its chair in choosing only minor reductions in catch for bigeye and yellowfin tuna and watering down or deferring most measures for achieving reduced catches.... Measures adopted by the WCPFC will see a catch reduction of less than seven per cent for 2009 on WWF estimations, well down on a recommendation of a 30 percent cut which it was conceded would still not have eliminated overfishing. Among the discarded, delayed or reduced measures were high seas fishing closures, restrictions on gear types, and important initiatives to better record and verify catches and crack down on rampant illegal fishing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-12 10:07:10 Fri, Dec 12, 2008: from New York Times Interior Department Rule Eases a Mandate Under a Law on Wildlife The Interior Department on Thursday announced a rule that has largely freed federal agencies from their obligation to consult independent wildlife biologists before they build dams or highways or permit construction of transmission towers, housing developments or other projects that might harm federally protected wildlife.... In announcing the rule, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said his main intention was to ensure that the 1972 law was not used as a "back door" means of regulating the emission of the gases that accelerate climate change.... Pat Parenteau, a professor at the Vermont Law School, disagreed, saying, "For all federal agencies, if this isn't a carte blanche, it's certainly a broad license to decide for yourself that you don't need to consult."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-11 15:25:12 Thu, Dec 11, 2008: from Mongabay Climate change will transform the chemical makeup of the ocean "The ocean's calcium cycle is closely linked to atmospheric carbon dioxide and the processes that control seawater's acidity," co-author of the paper, Ken Caldeira, adds. Already, increasing acidification of the ocean is decimating certain populations of coral. In past research Caldeira has pointed out that an increasingly acidic ocean will doom the world's fishing industry and degrade 98 percent of the world's coral reefs in less than fifty years.... "as CO2 increases and weather patterns shift, the chemical composition of our rivers will change, and this will affect the oceans. This will change the amount of calcium and other elements in ocean salts." "What we learned from this work is that the ocean system is much more sensitive to climate change than we have previously appreciated," Griffith adds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-11 15:11:59 Thu, Dec 11, 2008: from Guardian (UK) The Environmental Protection Agency's 'Most Wanted' list Importing autos that did not meet standards: 2. Pumping toxic waste secretly into Mississippi: 1. Dumping tonnes of oil-contaminated grain into ocean: 1. Dumping fuel into river: 1. Dumping hazmat and acidic chemwaste into sewer: 1. Importing 105 cylinders of ozone-killing contraband: 1. Illegal disposal of mercury-tainted soil: 1. Illegal discharge into ocean: 1. One count of illegal asbestos removal: 1.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-11 14:55:32 Thu, Dec 11, 2008: from Guardian (UK) At Poznan, no one is listening to Peak Oil The community of nations have been talking for more than 18 years now about how to stop humanity's remorseless effort to cook its own home. These gabfests have largely been action-free zones. I have attended too many of them, but this year it was time to risk my blood-pressure on another.... One of my missions was an effort to raise the peak oil issue. I suspect that most of the 9,000-plus attendees -- diplomats, lobbyists and journalists -- may have little idea how strong the evidence is that a global energy crisis lurks just a few years in the future, and that it will have massive implications for climate change policymaking.... This year, for the first time, the IEA has conducted an oilfield-by-oilfield study of the world's existing oil reserves. It shows that the fields currently in production are running out alarmingly fast. The average depletion rate of 580 of the world's largest fields, all past their peak of production, is fully 6.7 percen per annum.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-11 14:22:18 Thu, Dec 11, 2008: from Wildlife Conservation Society, via EurekAlert Missing: 2,000 elephants Elephants in Zakouma National Park, the last stronghold for the savanna elephants of Central Africa's Sahel region, now hover at about 1,000 animals, down from an estimated 3,000 in 2006. Ivory poachers using automatic weapons have decimated elephant populations -- particularly when herds venture seasonally outside of the park.
Civil unrest in has made conservation exceedingly difficult in Chad. Several park guards have been shot and killed in recent years. However, safety conditions have recently improved somewhat and WCS is optimistic that it can increase on-the-ground elephant conservation work in and around Zakouma to protect the remaining population.... "Zakouma is a last stand for elephants in the Sahel," said Fay. "It's incredibly heartbreaking to stand before a dead elephant missing only its tusks. How can we stand idly by and watch this population continue to get slaughtered because of simple human greed?"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-11 14:27:45 Thu, Dec 11, 2008: from Newsweek Out of Thin Air Remember those sweltering summer days when the air was so muggy you could practically drink it? A new home appliance is promising to make that possible by converting outdoor air into nearly 13 quarts of fresh water every day.
Originally envisioned as an antidote to the shortage of clean drinking water in the world, the WaterMill has the look of a futuristic air conditioner and the ability to condense, filter and sterilize water for about 3 cents per quart.
At $1,299, the 45-pound device doesn't come cheap, and it is neither the first nor the biggest machine to enter the fast-growing field of atmospheric water generators. But by targeting individual households with a self-cleaning, environmentally friendly alternative to bottled water, Kelowna, British Columbia-based Element Four is hoping its WaterMill will become the new must-have appliance of 2009.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-14 10:37:05 Thu, Dec 11, 2008: from BBC Failing Zimbabwe: Reporter round-up A cholera epidemic is sweeping across Zimbabwe, causing further suffering to millions of people already struggling to survive in a country close to systemic collapse as food shortages and hyperinflation continue to take their toll.... It is a recipe for disaster, and a health scandal, according to a local priest.
"Even now, there are many sick people inside, they are frail, they can't walk and relatives don't have money to send them to hospital, so they are left to suffer," said Majorie, a middle-aged woman carrying a child on her back.
In the streets, piles of uncollected refuse are commonplace with flies feasting on the rubbish.
In this chaos, vendors selling tomatoes, mangoes and vegetables rove around.
Customers are still available. Some buy the produce and walk leisurely, eating mangoes, alongside streams of raw sewage to their hostels.
There is nothing they can do about it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-11 11:43:56 Thu, Dec 11, 2008: from Reuters China "cancer village" pays ultimate price for growth XIDITOU COUNTY, China (Reuters) - Once an isolated haven, the Chinese village of Liukuaizhuang is now a tainted hell, surrounded by scores of low-tech factories that are poisoning its water and air, and the health of many villagers.
One in fifty people there and in a neighboring hamlet have been diagnosed with cancer over the last decade, local residents say, well over ten times the national rate given in a health ministry survey earlier this year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-10 17:27:47 Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from London Independent Climate change: A battle for the planet Summing up what many scientists, environmentalists and politicians now think about the threat of climate change is simple: the world is drinking in the last chance saloon.
Time is still available to tackle the warming of the atmosphere, which every government (including that of George Bush) today accepts is real, and being caused by human actions. But the window of opportunity is rapidly closing, and the last chance for the world to act in concert to bring the process under control is clearly visible: it is the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen scheduled for December 2009.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-10 17:22:19 Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from Philadelphia Inquirer Politics choke clean-air efforts ...in June 2005, a panel of scientists appointed by the Environmental Protection Agency determined that the air was still too dirty.... The panel recommended tougher rules to limit long-term exposure, a move that EPA's own scientists said could prevent thousands of premature deaths annually.
EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson rejected their advice.
His decision took the panel by surprise, but before long, it would fit into a familiar pattern.
Over the next three years, leading environmental scientists would denounce Johnson for substituting politics for science on key pollution issues - from not regulating greenhouse gases blamed for global warming to delaying the assessment of toxic chemicals.
But it was in a succession of decisions on air quality that Johnson's uneven application of science had perhaps the most severe impacts on human health.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-10 16:57:50 Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Europe pledges strict emissions cut to tempt China and India into climate deal European officials have offered to make the continent virtually zero-carbon in an attempt to lure China and other developing countries into a new global climate deal to replace the Kyoto protocol.
Stavros Dimas, European commissioner for the environment, told the Guardian that the EU could aim for a 80-95 percent reduction in greenhouse gas pollution by 2050 in exchange for greater efforts by developing nations to limit their emissions.
Dimas said the pledge has "already been put on the table" and that he was awaiting responses. In return, Europe would ask developing countries to reduce their forecasted carbon pollution growth by 15-30 percent over the next decade. "We haven't got any reaction, so they're floating somewhere," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-14 10:47:59 Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Fisherman land 30 per cent increase in North Sea cod quotas Scottish fishermen have won a 30 per cent increase in the amount of cod they are allowed to land next year in return for signing up to tough new regulations.... Previously any fish under a certain size had to be discarded in a bid to preserve stocks, but under the new deal it will be prohibited to throw back any fish that is "marketable".
Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, warned the new regulations could be burdensome, depending on the small print.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-14 10:40:31 Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from New Scientist Darfur crisis is stripping the environment Tree cover has become so sparse in some areas that Darfuris often have to travel more than 75 kilometres from their camps to find enough wood to sell or use for fuel, the report added.
"We're now seeing extreme stress on the environment around many of the camps and the major towns in Darfur," said UNEP's Sudan country director Clive Bates in a statement. "We need to plant millions of trees and introduce new technologies for construction and energy as quickly as humanly possible."... Nyala's famous Kunduwa hardwood forest had been destroyed by extensive logging from 2005 to 2007 said the report, adding "its destruction is regarded by many as a tragedy that could have been avoided".
The report called for development organisations to launch environmental awareness campaigns in the region, and to pilot the use of alternative fuel sources and building materials.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-10 11:44:06 Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from AFP Fifth of world's corals already dead, say experts Almost a fifth of the planet's coral reefs have died and carbon emissions are largely to blame, according to an NGO study released Wednesday.
The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, warned that on current trends, growing levels of greenhouse gases will destroy many of the remaining reefs over the next 20 to 40 years.
"If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions," said Clive Wilkinson, the organisation's coordinator.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-10 11:39:33 Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from New York Times Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up The economic downturn has decimated the market for recycled materials like cardboard, plastic, newspaper and metals. Across the country, this junk is accumulating by the ton in the yards and warehouses of recycling contractors, which are unable to find buyers or are unwilling to sell at rock-bottom prices.
Ordinarily the material would be turned into products like car parts, book covers and boxes for electronics. But with the slump in the scrap market, a trickle is starting to head for landfills instead of a second life. "It's awful," said Briana Sternberg, education and outreach coordinator for Sedona Recycles, a nonprofit group in Arizona that recently stopped taking certain types of cardboard...
"Either it goes to landfill or it begins to cost us money," Ms. Sternberg said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-10 11:00:50 Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from New Scientist Crystals turn roads into power stations AN ENVIRONMENTALLY friendly road that positively welcomes heavy traffic may sound odd, but by placing piezoelectric crystals under the asphalt that convert vibration into electricity, Israeli engineers hope to harvest energy from passing vehicles.
Developer Haim Abramovich at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa says the crystals can produce up to 400 kilowatts from a 1-kilometre stretch of four-lane highway. His spin-out company, Innowattech, also based in Haifa, will begin testing the system on a 100-metre stretch of road in northern Israel in January.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:43:37 Wed, Dec 10, 2008: from Straight.com Gwynne Dyer: Four harsh truths about climate change About 70 interviews, a dozen countries, and 18 months later, I have reached four conclusions that I didn’t even suspect when I began the process. The first is simply this: the scientists are really scared. Their observations over the past two or three years suggest that everything is happening a lot faster than climate models predicted.
This creates a dilemma, because for the past decade they have been struggling against a well-funded campaign that cast doubt on climate change. Now, finally, people and even governments are listening. Even in the United States, the world headquarters of climate-change denial, 85 percent of the population now sees climate change as a major issue, and both major presidential candidates promised 80-percent cuts in American emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.
The scientists are understandably reluctant at this point to announce publicly that their predictions were wrong, that it's really much worse, and that the targets will have to be revised. Most of them are waiting for overwhelming proof that climate change really is moving faster, even though they are already privately convinced that it is.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:40:13 Tue, Dec 9, 2008: from UC Davis, via EurekAlert Baby fish in polluted San Francisco estuary waters are stunted and deformed Striped bass in the San Francisco Estuary are contaminated before birth with a toxic mix of pesticides, industrial chemicals and flame retardants that their mothers acquire from estuary waters and food sources and pass on to their eggs, say UC Davis researchers.
Using new analytical techniques, the researchers found that offspring of estuary fish had underdeveloped brains, inadequate energy supplies and dysfunctional livers. They grew slower and were smaller than offspring of hatchery fish raised in clean water.
"This is one of the first studies examining the effects of real-world contaminant mixtures on growth and development in wildlife," said study lead author David Ostrach, a research scientist at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. He said the findings have implications far beyond fish, because the estuary is the water source for two-thirds of the people and most of the farms in California.
"If the fish living in this water are not healthy and are passing on contaminants to their young, what is happening to the people who use the water, are exposed to the same chemicals or eat the fish?" Ostrach said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-09 16:19:26 Tue, Dec 9, 2008: from London Guardian Too late? Why scientists say we should expect the worst ... The cream of the UK climate science community sat in stunned silence as [climate scientist Kevin] Anderson pointed out that carbon emissions since 2000 have risen much faster than anyone thought possible, driven mainly by the coal-fuelled economic boom in the developing world. So much extra pollution is being pumped out, he said, that most of the climate targets debated by politicians and campaigners are fanciful at best, and "dangerously misguided" at worst.
In the jargon used to count the steady accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's thin layer of atmosphere, he said it was "improbable" that levels could now be restricted to 650 parts per million (ppm)....At 650ppm, the same fuzzy science says the world would face a catastrophic 4C average rise.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-09 16:24:23 Tue, Dec 9, 2008: from Reuters U.N. says climate change may uproot 6 million annually POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - The impact of climate change could uproot around six million people each year, half of them because of weather disasters like floods and storms, a top U.N. official said on Monday.
The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) was making plans based on conservative estimates that global warming would force between 200 million and 250 million people from their homes by mid-century, said L. Craig Johnstone, the U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees.
"That means a displacement of something like six million people a year -- that's a staggering number," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the December 1-12 U.N. climate talks in Poland.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-09 16:28:06 Tue, Dec 9, 2008: from Scientific American Chicago's Plans to Go Green ...In September, Chicago unveiled an action plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to one quarter below 1990 levels by 2020, followed by reductions through 2050 that would slash emissions by 80 percent. Up to 400,000 homes and 9,200 skyscrapers and factories would require energy-efficient retrofits in the next 12 years. All 21 coal-burning power plants throughout Illinois would need to be refurbished, too, requiring statewide cooperation. Another 450,000 riders would have to wedge themselves into elevated trains and buses every day—a 30 percent increase—rather than commute by car. “I don’t know of another municipal plan that is this ambitious or comprehensive,” says Rebecca Stanfield, a senior energy advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-09 12:04:33 Tue, Dec 9, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Diesel truckers at cancer risk from exhaust Trucking company workers who have been regularly exposed to diesel exhaust from vehicles on highways, city streets and loading docks have a higher risk of lung cancer than other workers, according to a new national study. The study, based on 31,135 worker records, found that drivers who do short-haul pickups and deliveries, including loading and unloading containers at ports and working at freight-delivery companies, had the highest rate of deaths and disease.
Dockworkers were also at a higher risk, according to the report by researchers at UC Berkeley and Harvard.
California's Air Resources Board will consider the study's findings when it meets Friday to vote on a landmark regulation to reduce risk to the general public from 1 million diesel trucks in the state.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-09 11:55:37 Tue, Dec 9, 2008: from Canwest News Service Toxic chemicals found in three-quarters of soft plastic toys in Canada Despite a decade-old voluntary ban in North America, Health Canada tests found three-quarters of soft plastic toys and items for young children for sale in Canada contained toxic chemical additives known to cause reproductive harm in children.
Phthalates, used to soften plastic toys, were present at elevated levels in the department's sampling of 54 of 72 products for children ages three and under made of the widely used plastic known as polyvinyl chloride. They included toys that are likely to be mouthed, like bath toys, and items designed for infants to help in feeding and sleeping.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-08 15:28:46 Mon, Dec 8, 2008: from Science Daily (US) California's Deep Sea Secrets: New Species Found, Human Impact Revealed Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego returning from research expeditions in Mexico have captured unprecedented details of vibrant sea life and ecosystems in the Gulf of California, including documentations of new species and marine animals previously never seen alive. Yet the expeditions, which included surveys at unexplored depths, have revealed disturbing declines in sea-life populations and evidence that human impacts have stretched down deeply in the gulf.... Large schools of fish documented in earlier expeditions at locations such as El Bajo seamount have vanished.... "We have lots of evidence of ghost nets with trapped animals at many depths, along with pollution, including beer cans, in each deep location we studied."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-09 16:41:16 Mon, Dec 8, 2008: from AP News Native Hunters -- Climate is thinning caribou herds Chief Bill Erasmus of the Dene nation in northern Canada brought a stark warning about the climate crisis: The once abundant herds of caribou are dwindling, rivers are running lower and the ice is too thin to hunt on.
Erasmus raised his concerns in recent days on the sidelines of a U.N. climate conference, seeking to ensure that North America's indigenous peoples are not left out in the cold when it comes to any global warming negotiations.
Erasmus, the 54-year-old elected leader of 30,000 native Americans in Canada, and representatives of other indigenous peoples met with the U.N.'s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, and have lobbied national delegations to recognize them as an "expert group" that can participate in the talks like other nongovernment organizations.
"We bring our traditional knowledge to the table that other people don't have," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-08 14:17:10 Mon, Dec 8, 2008: from Yale University, via EurekAlert Nanotechnology 'culture war' possible, says Yale study Rather than infer that nanotechnology is safe, members of the public who learn about this novel science tend to become sharply polarized along cultural lines, according to a study conducted by the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School in collaboration with the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. The report is published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.... When shown balanced information about the risks and benefits of nanotechnology, study participants became highly divided on its safety compared to a group not shown such information.
The determining factor in how people responded was their cultural values, according to Dan Kahan, the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor at Yale Law School and lead author of the study. "People who had more individualistic, pro-commerce values, tended to infer that nanotechnology is safe," said Kahan, "while people who are more worried about economic inequality read the same information as implying that nanotechnology is likely to be dangerous."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:33:47 Mon, Dec 8, 2008: from Cosmos Seven wacky ways to battle global warming Some of the stranger schemes proposed to tackle global warming were knocked down by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change when it met in Thailand, last year...
Due to slow political progress, though, and panic about the pace and scale of warming now being reported, some of these quick fixes may soon be back in favour...
Here, we share seven bold and unconventional solutions put forward to solve the climate change conundrum.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-08 11:41:38 Mon, Dec 8, 2008: from USA Today Health risks stack up for students near industrial plants ADDYSTON, Ohio — The growl of air-monitoring equipment has replaced the chatter of children at Meredith Hitchens Elementary School in this Cincinnati suburb along the Ohio River.
School district officials pulled all students from Hitchens three years ago, after air samples outside the building showed high levels of chemicals coming from the plastics plant across the street. The levels were so dangerous that the Ohio EPA concluded the risk of getting cancer there was 50 times higher than what the state considers acceptable. The air outside 435 other schools — from Maine to California — appears to be even worse, and the threats to the health of students at those locations may be even greater.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-08 09:21:15 Mon, Dec 8, 2008: from New Scientist Canadian tar plan threatens millions of birds A new report saying that millions of migratory birds are at risk adds to a mass of criticism of the damage caused by exploiting the oil sands.
The thick tarry deposit in northern Alberta is the world's second-largest oil reserve after Saudi Arabia, but separating the useable oil from the gunk takes three times as much energy as pumping conventional oil. This alone makes it some of the "dirtiest" oil on the planet.
This week, a report by the US Natural Resources Defense Council says that continued development of the area could kill 100 million migratory birds over the next 50 years, mainly by destroying their habitat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-08 09:13:52 Mon, Dec 8, 2008: from Cleantech Blog EarthLED releases a new consumer LED light bulb The EarthLED ZetaLux is a 7 watt LED light bulb. With a standard medium base, the bulb is a replacement for any incandescent light bulb. EarthLED estimates that it will cost as little as $2.00 to run the bulb for 8 hours every day for a year....
The ZetaLux uses 1/10th the amount of energy and produces roughly the same amount of light as a 50-60 watt light bulb. It has a direct light path (which in some ways takes a little getting used to) but according to EarthLED, that means the bulb has a 95 percent luminary efficiency (the bulb does not direct any light toward the light fixture).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-08 09:24:46 Mon, Dec 8, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Ban fishing in third of UK seas, says Marine Conservation Society For the past few decades fish stocks in the oceans around Britain have been depleting due to overfishing, causing a knock-on effect to other species.
Once-common species are now facing extinction, including the common skate, angel shark, sturgeon and leatherback turtle which are all critically endangered.
In order to protect the wildlife that is left, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) want a third of UK waters to be designated as "no-take" nature reserves by 2020 as part of the Marine Bill currently going through Parliament.... In addition to the 30 per cent of the seas that should be protected as broad habitats, specialist areas such as sea grass beds and reefs should be safeguarded, he added.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-07 12:43:50 Sun, Dec 7, 2008: from London Independent Ancient skills 'could reverse global warming' Ancient techniques pioneered by pre-Columbian Amazonian Indians are about to be pressed into service in Britain and Central America in the most serious commercial attempt yet to reverse global warming.
Trials are to be started in Sussex and Belize early in the new year, backed with venture capital from Silicon Valley, on techniques to take carbon from the atmosphere and bury it in the soil, where it should act as a powerful fertiliser....They aim to grow trees and plants to absorb CO2 and then trap the carbon by turning the resulting biomass into "biochar", a fine-grained form of charcoal that can be buried in the soil, keeping it safely locked up for thousands of years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-07 12:47:17 Sun, Dec 7, 2008: from New York Times Groups Battle Exotic Species in Texas AUSTIN, Tex. (AP)-- There was a time when horned frogs were not confined to Texas Christian University. The real-life version of the university's mascot, actually a kind of lizard, roamed Texas by the thousands until imported red fire ants marauded through the state, displacing the ants that served as the lizard's food.
Today, university researchers blame the fire ant invasion and pesticides for devastating the horned toad population.
The fate of the lizard is part of a larger story about invasive species -- a rogues' gallery of weeds, grasses, insects, fish and animals that are reshaping and in many cases destroying the natural order in Texas, and in many parts of the country.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-07 12:18:19 Sun, Dec 7, 2008: from London Independent It's official: Men really are the weaker sex The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.
The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.
Backed by some of the world's leading scientists, who say that it "waves a red flag" for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have "gender-bending" effects.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-07 12:11:22 Sun, Dec 7, 2008: from London Guardian The hidden cost of our growing taste for meat As the west's appetite for meat increases, so too does the demand for soya - used as animal feed by farmers. But the planting of huge tracts of land is causing deforestation and destroying eco-systems in developing countries... A report by campaign group Friends of the Earth is to be published on Tuesday to focus the attention of UK consumers and the government on the scale of this destruction. It will detail for the first time the cutting, burning and spraying that occurs as a consequence. The report, What's Feeding our Food?, will start a campaign urging the government to take action, ending subsidies and other policies that encourage intensive farming and making sure public money spent on food is not propping up damaging practices.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:08:39 Sat, Dec 6, 2008: from Science News Honeybee CSI: Why dead bodies can't be found ...Beehives across North America continue to lose their workers for reasons not yet understood, a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder. But new tests suggest how a virus nicknamed IAPV might be to blame for one of the more puzzling aspects of the disorder—the impression that substantial numbers of bees vanish into thin air.
In tests on hives in a greenhouse, bees infected with IAPV (short for Israeli acute paralytic virus) rarely died in the hive. Sick bees expired throughout the greenhouse, including near the greenhouse wall...Outdoors, the bees could scatter across the landscape where the occasional dead insect wouldn’t be easily noticed before scavengers found it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-06 10:27:42 Sat, Dec 6, 2008: from San Antonio Express News Starting to run on empty About 40 percent of the water used in Texas comes from the Ogallala, and almost all of that is poured onto farmland -- in staggering amounts.
In a given year, more water is used to irrigate farms in each of a half-dozen Panhandle counties than is pumped out of the entire Edwards Aquifer, the primary water source for San Antonio and much of South-Central Texas.
Rainfall can't keep pace with all that pumping, so the Ogallala's water table drops by an average of nearly 2 feet per year in this part of Texas. In places where corn production is especially intense, average annual declines have been found that exceed 8 feet.... Meanwhile, existing water supplies for the Panhandle are projected to decline by 40 percent by 2060.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-06 10:22:09 Sat, Dec 6, 2008: from San Jose Mercury News Bug off! Green pest control methods The seemingly endless bottles of pesticides that line the shelves of our nearest hardware store all contain warnings that the chemical compounds found within may be hazardous to our health. They advise us to avoid contact with eyes and skin and to keep out of reach of children and pets. These "precautions" do not exactly inspire confidence, but they are also studiously vague about the potential consequences of exposure.
With this problem in mind, the Pesticide Action Network has created an online database rating 368,974 of the most common and uncommon pesticides, herbicides and fungicides according to the toxicity of their ingredients www.pesticideinfo.org.
Searching the database for information about the toxic effects of many of the well-known brands is easy. For instance, according to the PAN database, Propoxur, one of the active ingredients in Raid, is known to be acutely toxic, neurotoxic and carcinogenic, as well as a groundwater contaminant. In other words, depending on the level of exposure, it can cause symptoms ranging from tremors, nausea and weakness to cancer, paralysis and death. That's not something I would like to unleash in my home.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-06 10:15:23 Sat, Dec 6, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk 21 new species in danger of extinction, UN convention hears Twenty-one animal species, including the cheetah, three dolphin families and an Egyptian vulture, were added to the list of those in danger of extinction by a UN conference in Rome. Six other bird species as well as manatees have also been placed on the list of animals benefiting from increased protections, called list I.
In addition, next year has been proclaimed the "Year of the Gorilla" to help the survival of threatened species.... Several species of sharks have been placed on the list of threatened species, including two families of Mako sharks in the Mediterranean whose population have fallen off by 96 per cent in recent years due to overfishing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-05 15:49:43 Fri, Dec 5, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor Rice-powered stove ignites new hope for poor farmers Alexis Belonio’s obsession with rice husks began in 2003, when rising fuel prices and heavy dependence on foreign oil slammed his native Philippines with an energy crunch.
"I saw rice mills throw husks into the rivers," says the agricultural engineer. "I started thinking about using them as fuel."
Mr. Belonio was already an accomplished inventor, having designed over 30 devices ranging from paddy dryers to water pumps for poor Filipino farmers. So his thinking led him to the cooking stove, an item fraught with expense and danger in the developing world.
More than a third of the world’s population can’t afford propane or other petroleum-based cooking fuels, relying instead on biomass such as wood or charcoal. Most biomass is burned in inefficient stoves that emit soot, smoke, and toxic fumes.
Belonio envisioned a safer, cleaner, and less-expensive way to cook. Working largely in isolation and with little funding, he turned rice husks – an inedible byproduct of milling rice for food – into a bright blue flame.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-05 14:58:39 Fri, Dec 5, 2008: from Der Spiegel Point of No Return for the Arctic Climate? ...A new study completed by a team of US, Norwegian and German researchers may now provide some clues. Published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters in November, the study posits that a dramatic change in atmospheric circulation patterns has taken place since the beginning of the decade, with centers of high pressure in winter shifting toward the north-east....Behind the complex language and impenetrable calculations upon which the study is based, however, is a frightening possibility: climate change in the Arctic could already have reached the point of no return. ... "In the case of Arctic Sea ice, we have already reached the point of no return," says the prominent American climate researcher James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-05 11:39:56 Fri, Dec 5, 2008: from Guardian (UK) 2008 will be coolest year of the decade The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing however, say climate scientists at the Met Office. "Absolutely not," said Dr Peter Stott, the manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Met Office's Hadley Centre. "If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends."
Prof Myles Allen at Oxford University who runs the climateprediction.net website, said he feared climate sceptics would overinterpret the figure. "You can bet your life there will be a lot of fuss about what a cold year it is. Actually no, it's not been that cold a year, but the human memory is not very long, we are used to warm years," he said, "Even in the 80s [this year] would have felt like a warm year."
And 2008 would have been a scorcher in Charles Dickens's time -- without human-induced warming there would have been a one in a hundred chance of getting a year this hot. "For Dickens this would have been an extremely warm year," he said. On the flip side, in the current climate there is a roughly one in 10 chance of having a year this cool.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-05 10:17:13 Fri, Dec 5, 2008: from The Australian Drought forces state to buy water or run dry FOR the first time in its history, South Australia will have to buy water to guarantee supplies for critical human needs next year, revealing the increasing severity of the nation's water crisis at the end of the Murray River.
Necessary water supplies to Adelaide and towns across the state are at this stage not secured from July next year, which has forced the Rann Government on to the open water market.
It has already bought 30 gigalitres from water resources shared with NSW and Victoria and admitted yesterday it had spent tens of millions of dollars to bolster the state's supplies.
Authorities must have 201gigalitres in reserve to ensure the water needs of the nation's fifth-largest city and the rest of the state are able to be met.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:14:07 Fri, Dec 5, 2008: from New York Times Mountaintop Mining Rule Approved The White House on Tuesday approved a final rule that will make it easier for coal companies to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys.
The rule is one of the most contentious of all the regulations emerging from the White House in President Bush's last weeks in office.... "This is unmistakably a fire sale of epic size for coal and the entire fossil fuel industry, with flagrant disregard for human health, the environment or the rule of law," said Vickie Patton, deputy general counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-05 09:52:43 Fri, Dec 5, 2008: from New Richmond News Invasive 'jumping carp' found in Mississippi River near La Crosse This is the first confirmed identification of a silver carp upstream of Clinton, Iowa, and the first identified in Wisconsin waters.
Fisheries supervisor Ron Benjamin of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said a single silver carp was among three species of invasive Asian carp discovered late last week in a commercial fishing net deployed in the Mississippi River near La Crosse. It was not immediately identified.
Two grass carp and one or two bighead carp were also pulled from the net.... "Aquatic invasive species are detrimental to native aquatic ecosystems."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-04 16:49:17 Thu, Dec 4, 2008: from Associated Press Solar car completes 1st ever round-the-world trip POZNAN, Poland (AP) — The first solar-powered car to travel around the world ended its journey at the U.N. climate talks Thursday, arriving with the message that clean technologies are available now to stop global warming.
The small two-seater, hauling a trailer of solar cells and carrying chief U.N. climate official Yvo de Boer, glided up to a building in Poznan, Poland, where delegates from some 190 nations are working toward a new treaty to control climate change.
"This is the first time in history that a solar-powered car has traveled all the way around the world without using a single drop of petrol," said Louis Palmer, the 36-year-old Swiss schoolteacher and adventurer who made the trip.
"These new technologies are ready," he said. "It's ecological, it's economical, it is absolutely reliable. We can stop global warning."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:20:47 Thu, Dec 4, 2008: from Associated Press Conservation group sues to protect walrus ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A conservation group went to court Wednesday to force the federal government to consider adding Pacific walrus to the list of threatened species.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for failing to act on a petition seeking protection for walrus under the Endangered Species Act. Walrus are threatened by global warming that melts Arctic sea ice, according to the group, which was one of the parties that successfully petitioned to list polar bears as threatened. The group also has filed petitions to protect Arctic seals.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-04 12:47:56 Thu, Dec 4, 2008: from Underwater Times Study: One-third Of World's Fish Catches Are Being Wasted As Animal Feed; 'It Defies Reason' An alarming new study to be published in November in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources finds that one-third of the world's marine fish catches are ground up and fed to farm-raised fish, pigs, and poultry, squandering a precious food resource for humans and disregarding the serious overfishing crisis in our oceans.... "We need to stop using so many small ocean fish to feed farmed fish and other animals," Alder said. "These small, tasty fish could instead feed people. Society should demand that we stop wasting these fish on farmed fish, pigs, and poultry." Although feeds derived from soy and other land-based crops are available and are used, fishmeal and fish oil have skyrocketed in popularity because forage fish are easy to catch in large numbers, and hence, relatively inexpensive.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-04 12:28:20 Thu, Dec 4, 2008: from Reuters Man-made noise in world's seas threatens wildlife ROME (Reuters) - Man-made noise in the world's seas and oceans is becoming an increasing threat to whales, dolphins and turtles who use sound to communicate, forage for food and find mates, wildlife experts said on Wednesday.
Rumbling ship engines, seismic surveys by oil and gas companies, and intrusive military sonars are triggering an "acoustic fog and cacophony of sounds" underwater, scaring marine animals and affecting their behavior.
"There is now evidence linking loud underwater noises with some major strandings of marine mammals, especially deep diving beaked whales," Mark Simmonds, Science Director of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, told a news conference in Rome... According to "Ocean Noise: Turn It Down," a new report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the distance over which blue whales can communicate has been cut by 90 percent as a result of higher noise levels.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-04 12:01:50 Thu, Dec 4, 2008: from Canwest News Service Ice cleaners can make hockey players sick, doctor warns A Quebec public health doctor says hockey-loving communities across the country should be wary of air poisoning related to the use of ice-surfacing machines after dozens of people became ill after attending hockey games last Sunday.
Some 35 people either checked into hospitals or saw doctors after suffering form symptoms of nitrogen poisoning related to a faulty ice-surfacing machine at Saint-Ubalde arena, west of Quebec City.... Participants of a garage league tournament Sunday evening started feeling ill hours after playing, said Dr. Henri Prud'homme of the Quebec City-area public health agency. One of the players was still reported to be in intensive care Wednesday.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-04 11:46:35 Thu, Dec 4, 2008: from New York Times Proposal Ties Economic Stimulus to Energy Plan WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama and leaders in Congress are fashioning a plan to pour billions of dollars into a jobs program to jolt the economy and lay the groundwork for a more energy-efficient one. The details and cost of the so-called green-jobs program are still unclear, but a senior Obama aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a work in progress, said it would probably include the weatherizing of hundreds of thousands of homes, the installation of “smart meters” to monitor and reduce home energy use, and billions of dollars in grants to state and local governments for mass transit and infrastructure projects.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-04 11:41:27 Thu, Dec 4, 2008: from Environmental Science and Technology EPA perchlorate decision flawed, say advisers The U.S. EPA’s preliminary decision not to regulate perchlorate in drinking water has elicited an outpouring of critical comments, including a plea from the agency’s own Science Advisory Board (SAB) for more scientific transparency and a stinging critique from the agency’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC). The committee faulted EPA for failing to take advantage of the best new science and for using a biological model that has not been peer-reviewed.
The furor marks the latest episode in an almost decadelong controversy surrounding the potential health effects of long-term, low-level exposure to perchlorate. The latest round pits many state and federal environmental protection risk assessors, environmental groups, and thyroid patient advocates against U.S. Department of Defense risk assessors, assessment consultants, and many respected thyroid specialists.
Perchlorate, a major component of rocket fuel, contaminates groundwater at many Department of Defense and NASA sites and those of their contractors. The chemical has also entered groundwater and the food chain in large quantities, in part through the past use of Chilean nitrate fertilizer.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-02 21:45:02 Wed, Dec 3, 2008: from Mongabay Agricultural firms cut incentives for Amazon deforestation As grain prices plummet and concerns over cash mount, agricultural giants are cutting loans to Brazilian farmers, reports the Wall Street Journal. Tighter farm credit may be contributing to a recent slowing in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, where agriculture is an increasingly important driver of forest clearing.... Now strapped for cash and facing rising risks in the credit markets, agricultural firms including Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., Bunge Ltd. and Cargill Inc., and equipment suppliers like Deere & Co. are reducing loans and advance cash payments to farmers at a time when production and borrowing costs are rising.
"As the volatile commodities market and the global financial crisis have increased the risk and expense of doing business in Brazil, big grain companies are reining in lending," writes Etter.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:45:30 Wed, Dec 3, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Farmland birds in Europe fall by half Farmland birds suffered the most, with numbers falling by half. Western Europe saw the most dramatic decline with a fall of more than 50 per cent because of intensive agriculture. However in Eastern Europe, where agriculture has retained more traditional practices, farmland birds fell by just over a third.
In the UK, the population of farmland birds reached its lowest point in more than 30 years last year, according to the RSPB. Of the dozen most rapidly declining farmland birds in Europe, eight including the grey partridge, turtle dove, corn bunting, tree sparrow and starling have also declined rapidly in the UK.... EU leaders have pledged to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010, but Mr Madge said the decline in farmland birds showed that plants and animals are declining at such a rate that the target is unlikely to be met.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-02 21:48:17 Wed, Dec 3, 2008: from Brisbane Courier-Mail White possum said to be first victim of global warming The white lemuroid possum, a rare creature found only above 1000m in the mountain forests of far north Queensland, has not been seen for three years.
Experts fear climate change is to blame for the disappearance of the highly vulnerable species thanks to a temperature rise of up to 0.8C.
Researchers will mount a last-ditch expedition early next year deep into the untouched "cloud forests" of the Carbine range near Mt Lewis, three hours north of Cairns, in search of the tiny tree-dweller, dubbed the "Dodo of the Daintree"....Scientists believe some frog, bug and insects species have also been killed off by climate change. But this would be the first known loss of a mammal and the most significant since the extinction of the Dodo and the Tasmanian Tiger.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-02 19:22:34 Wed, Dec 3, 2008: from Washington Post (US) EPA to Curb Medical Emissions The Environmental Protection Agency moved yesterday to curb pollution released by medical waste incinerators, ending an 11-year battle over how to best regulate the emissions.
Environmentalists hailed the move as an important precedent for controlling toxic releases into the air, saying EPA based its calculations on the availability of technologies to significantly clean up incinerator pollution. The facilities can install fabric filters to trap toxic particles or scrubbers to capture gaseous releases.
"This is the first time I've ever seen them do an air toxic rule right," said Jim Pew, a lawyer at Earthjustice...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:56:20 Tue, Dec 2, 2008: from AP News Panel: Bio attack likely in next 5 years The report, which is scheduled to be publicly released on Wednesday, suggests that the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama should improve the capability of the United States to counter such an attack and to prepare if necessary for germ warfare.
The report was written by the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism. Among other things, it concluded: "Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-02 08:17:31 Tue, Dec 2, 2008: from Inverness Courier Chain reaction that stems from global warming The birds that are now in trouble feed mainly on sandeels, a small fish usually found in large shoals and forming a key element in the marine food chains. Sandeels are also part of a fishery. In the past, over-exploitation of the stocks was thought to have an impact on seabirds but now this is not reckoned to be the case.... [I]t seems clear that something other than over-fishing is affecting the sandeels and the birds that depend on them.
The RSPB scientists have pointed to reports of significant declines in the biomass of plankton that forms the basis of almost all the marine food chains.
The plant element, the phytoplankton, can be looked on as the grass of the ocean. Everything else depends on it, including the larvae of the sandeels. It is suspected that the higher winter sea-surface temperatures being recorded are somehow disrupting the food chain.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-02 07:44:43 Tue, Dec 2, 2008: from New Scientist Heat we emit could warm the Earth Even if we turn to clean energy to reduce carbon emissions, the planet might carry on warming anyway due to the heat released into the environment by our ever-increasing consumption of energy.... The energy we generate and consume ultimately ends up being dissipated into the environment as heat. This input is relatively small today but might become significant in the next century, Cowern and Ahn suggest.
Their calculations show that if global energy use increases at about 1 per cent per year -- slower than in the recent past -- then by 2100, the heat dissipated could become significant enough to cancel out the benefits of cuts in emissions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-02 07:37:00 Tue, Dec 2, 2008: from Mongabay Brazil to cut Amazon deforestation by 70 percent to fight global warming Brazil will aim to cut its deforestation rate by 70 percent by 2018 under its plan to reduce emissions from forest clearing, Environment Minister Carlos Minc.
The plan will be financed by the country's Amazon Fund which relies on voluntary contributions from governments, corporations, and wealthy individuals. Norway has pledged up to a billion dollars to the fund depending on Brazil's effectiveness in reducing deforestation. Contributors are not eligible for carbon credits.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:46:32 Tue, Dec 2, 2008: from Guardian (UK) How changes in daily routine may become second nature Before going out you turn off the master switch for all your appliances. Then you climb into your electric car for the drive to work. The roads are noticeably quieter, and there have been studies showing asthma admissions are falling as petrol and diesel cars are replaced.... David Kennedy, the climate change committee's chief executive, said: "Let's not underestimate the energy efficiency that gives you more [savings] than lifestyle change, but there are things that can really make a difference, such as simply switching lights off when you leave the room and turning the thermostat down."
There would likely be visible and audible changes: quieter streets, more wind turbines on the horizon, but also, as farmers use less fertiliser, more trout and salmon in rivers, while countryside bird populations should flourish.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:16:21 Tue, Dec 2, 2008: from IFPRI, via EurekAlert Food price crisis and financial crisis present double threat for poor people The combined impact of low economic growth and decreased investments in agriculture could cause major increases in malnutrition in developing countries, according to new analysis by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The result could be 16 million more undernourished children in 2020.... "IFPRI recommends three priorities for action: (1) promote pro-poor agricultural growth, (2) reduce market volatility, and (3) expand social safety nets and child nutrition programs.
"Ultimately, our measure of success should not be defined by the price of food, but by the provision of adequate healthy food for all," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:02:23 Mon, Dec 1, 2008: from Binghamton University, via EurekAlert Foretelling a major meltdown By discovering the meaning of a rare mineral that can be used to track ancient climates, Binghamton University geologist Tim Lowenstein is helping climatologists and others better understand what we're probably in for over the next century or two as global warming begins to crank up the heat -- and, ultimately, to change life as we know it.... What Lowenstein and his colleague Robert Demicco at Binghamton University have discovered is that nahcolite, a rare, yellowish-green or brown carbonate mineral, only forms on earth under environmental conditions marked by very high atmospheric CO2 levels.... "If we assume that you and I are both in our 50s, the change in atmospheric CO2 in our lifetime is greater than the rate of any change in at least the last half million years," said Lowenstein, who is particularly concerned about unexpected changes...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-01 18:57:26 Mon, Dec 1, 2008: from BBC UN climate summit seeks clarity The talks, in the city of Poznan, mark the halfway point in a two-year process agreed at last year's UN conference.
The meeting will not produce a new deal but is likely to clarify what countries are looking for on issues such as emission cuts and forest protection.
The US will be represented by officials of the outgoing Bush administration.
The two-year process which began at last December's talks in Bali is designed to conclude in a year's time with an agreement that can enter force in 2012 when the current emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol expire.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-01 19:06:53 Mon, Dec 1, 2008: from Agence France-Presse Cholera-hit Zimbabwe cuts water supplies to capital Zimbabwe has cut water supplies to the capital Harare, state media said Monday, as the health minister urged the public to stop shaking hands in a desperate bid to curb a deadly cholera epidemic.
The city has suffered periodic water cuts for years as the crumbling economy has caused widespread power shortages that often leave pumps idle.
But the city-wide cut appeared aimed at stopping the flow of untreated water around Harare, which is at the epicentre of the cholera epidemic that has claimed 425 lives since late August -- most in just the last month.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-01 10:04:19 Mon, Dec 1, 2008: from Mongabay Amazon deforestation rises slightly to 4,600 square miles in 2008 Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon increased slightly for the August 2007-July 2008 period, reports the country's National Institute of Space Research (INPE). The rise is the first since 2004 when 27,379 square kilometers were destroyed, but is lower than forecast. The 2008 figure is the second-lowest annual loss since 1991.... Regional climate trends indicate that large swathes of the Amazon are increasingly susceptible to drought and fire. Coupled with continued deforestation, degradation, and fragmentation, some researchers say the Amazon is approaching a critical tipping point which could see more than half of the forest damaged or destroyed within a generation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:11:06 Mon, Dec 1, 2008: from Bioscience, via EurekAlert Persistent pollutant may promote obesity Tributyltin, a ubiquitous pollutant that has a potent effect on gene activity, could be promoting obesity, according to an article in the December issue of BioScience. The chemical is used in antifouling paints for boats, as a wood and textile preservative, and as a pesticide on high-value food crops, among many other applications.... The rise in obesity in humans over the past 40 years parallels the increased use of industrial chemicals over the same period. Iguchi and Katsu maintain that it is "plausible and provocative" to associate the obesity epidemic to chemical triggers present in the modern environment. Several other ubiquitous pollutants with strong biological effects, including environmental estrogens such as bisphenol A and nonylphenol, have been shown to stimulate the growth of fat storage cells in mice. The role that tributyltin and similar persistent pollutants may play in the obesity epidemic is now under scrutiny.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-30 20:52:52 Mon, Dec 1, 2008: from CBC News (Canada) 500 narwhals trapped by Pond Inlet ice: fisheries officials When the trapped narwhals were first discovered on Nov. 15, residents had counted at least 200 of the Arctic whales, trapped in shrinking areas of open water, also known as breathing holes or savssats.
But since the first discovery, fisheries officials say more breathing holes have been spotted. The department now estimates a total of 500 narwhals were trapped in as many as 20 breathing holes.... Hunters in Pond Inlet, a mostly Inuit community of about 1,300, told CBC News that the task of culling hundreds of entrapped whales has been daunting.
They added that they are trying to harvest as many whales as they can with the limited amount of daylight they have at this time of year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-30 19:03:26 Sun, Nov 30, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Africa's vanishing herds As the rain begins to fall on Tanzania's Tarangire National Park, thousands of zebra, wildebeest and giraffe will begin one of the world's greatest migrations. But many of the herds trampling across the grass at the foot of the Rift Valley highlands are falling in number - and scientists do not know why.... Numbers of wildebeest have fallen from 50,000 to 6,000 in the past 20 years, and numbers of antelope species, such as hartebeest and oryx, have declined by 90 and 95 per cent respectively. Confusingly some species -- zebra, giraffe, gazelle and buffalo - have remained relatively stable. To understand such contrasting fortunes, scientists from America's Dartmouth and Utah universities are working to determine whether habitat loss, changed food sources, or hunting -- or a combination of all -- is responsible.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-30 18:49:39 Sun, Nov 30, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Screw cap wine bottles threaten rare species Cork oak forests, which cover 2.7 million of hectares worldwide and support rare species such as Iberian lynx, black storks and booted eagles, are already disappearing in some areas.
Faced with falling demand for cork stoppers, which make up 70 per cent of the income from cork harvests, farmers are ripping up trees that have been on their land for hundreds of years in an attempt to grow alternative crops, such as eucalyptus.
The land that cork oaks grow on, however, is poor quality and when the trees are removed, the land often turns into desert. In the Algarve, Portugal, cork forests have declined by 28 per cent in the past 10 years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-30 11:34:55 Sun, Nov 30, 2008: from CNN New rifts form on Antarctic ice shelf Scientists have identified new rifts on an Antarctic ice shelf that could lead to it breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula, the European Space Agency said. The Wilkins Ice Shelf, a large sheet of floating ice south of South America, is connected to two Antarctic islands by a strip of ice. That ice "bridge" has lost about 2,000 square kilometers (about 772 square miles) this year, the ESA said.
A satellite image captured November 26 shows new rifts on the ice shelf that make it dangerously close to breaking away from the strip of ice -- and the islands to which it's connected, the ESA said.
Scientists first spotted rifts in the ice shelf in late February, and they noticed further deterioration the following week.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-30 11:28:08 Sun, Nov 30, 2008: from Albany Times Union Mercury a concern in eagles Bald eagles have been making a soaring comeback in New York, becoming more common along lakes and rivers. But eagles living in the Catskills face a hidden danger carried on the wind from distant coal-fired power plants. Eagles here contain more toxic mercury than those anywhere else in the state, according to a recent study from the Maine-based BioDiversity Research Institute and the state Department of Environmental Conservation. One out of every four eaglets had elevated blood mercury levels from a diet of tainted fish, raising the possibility the birds could be at risk for reproductive or developmental problems.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-30 11:18:53 Sun, Nov 30, 2008: from The Sacramento Bee Sierra Nevada climate changes feed monster, forest-devouring fires ... Wildfire has marched across the West for centuries. But no longer are major conflagrations fueled simply by heavy brush and timber. Now climate change is stoking the flames higher and hotter, too.
That view, common among firefighters, is reflected in new studies that tie changing patterns of heat and moisture in the western United States to an unprecedented rash of costly and destructive wildfires.
Among other things, researchers have found the frequency of wildfire increased fourfold – and the terrain burned expanded sixfold – as summers grew longer and hotter over the past two decades.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-30 11:13:04 Sun, Nov 30, 2008: from London Independent Pregnant women warned off make-up ...Growing concerns over the exposure of pregnant women to chemicals that may lead to birth defects have prompted calls for a new EU-wide cosmetics labelling system which would mark out some products as off-limits to mothers-to-be.
The move follows the publication of a study which found that women exposed to high levels of hairspray during pregnancy were twice as likely to have babies born with hypospadias, a condition in which the urinary tract grows on the underside of the penis. The Imperial College London study suggested that the birth defects were linked to chemicals in hairspray shown to disrupt the hormonal systems in the body and affect reproductive development.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-30 11:39:06 Sun, Nov 30, 2008: from Agence France-Presse Climate change gathers steam, say scientists PARIS (AFP)-- Earth's climate appears to be changing more quickly and deeply than a benchmark UN report for policymakers predicted, top scientists said ahead of international climate talks starting Monday in Poland.
Evidence published since the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change's (IPCC) February 2007 report suggests that future global warming may be driven not just by things over which humans have a degree of control, such as burning fossil fuels or destroying forest, a half-dozen climate experts told AFP.
Even without additional drivers, the IPCC has warned that current rates of greenhouse gas emissions, if unchecked, would unleash devastating droughts, floods and huge increases in human misery by century's end.
But the new studies, they say, indicate that human activity may be triggering powerful natural forces that would be nearly impossible to reverse and that could push temperatures up even further.
At the top of the list for virtually all of the scientists canvassed was the rapid melting of the Arctic ice cap.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-29 12:44:23 Sat, Nov 29, 2008: from Reuters Surging shoppers kill New York Wal-Mart worker NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A man working for discount retailer Wal-Mart was killed on Friday in a stampede by frenzied shoppers who broke down doors and surged into a Long Island, New York store, a police spokesman said.
The 34-year-old man was at the entrance of the Valley Stream Wal-Mart store just after it opened at 5 a.m. and was knocked to the ground, the police report said.... Wal-Mart said it was saddened by the death of the man, who was working for a temporary employment agency serving the retailer, and by the injuries suffered by shoppers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:55:58 Sat, Nov 29, 2008: from NPR Bluefin Tuna On Edge Of Collapse, Scientists Say Many of the world's fish are heading toward commercial extinction. The next one to go could be the majestic Atlantic bluefin tuna.
This week, an international committee meant to protect the species approved fishing levels that far exceed what scientists say is sustainable.
Conservationists fear that in just a few years, the remaining stocks of bluefin tuna in the Western Atlantic and Mediterranean could collapse completely.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-29 12:10:07 Sat, Nov 29, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Scientists say they've found bacteria that will fight invasive mussels Researchers seeking to slow the spread of invasive zebra and quagga mussels in American lakes and rivers have found a bacterium that appears to be fatal to the problematic species without affecting native mussels or freshwater fish.
The bacterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens, offers some hope for controlling the troublesome bivalves that are wreaking ecological and economic havoc in North American waters from the Colorado River to Vermont, and especially in the Great Lakes.
But more testing remains to be done, and the bacteria could be used effectively only on a limited scale, said Daniel Molloy, the New York State Museum researcher who discovered the possible new use for P. fluorescens.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-29 12:03:28 Sat, Nov 29, 2008: from Queen Biologists Find New Environmental Threat In North American Lakes A new and insidious environmental threat has been detected in North American lakes by researchers from Queen's and York universities. Along with scientists from several Canadian government laboratories, the team has documented biological damage caused by declining levels of calcium in many temperate, soft-water lakes.
Calling the phenomenon "aquatic osteoporosis," Queen's PhD candidate Adam Jeziorski, lead author of the study, notes that calcium is an essential nutrient for many lake-dwelling organisms.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-29 11:54:17 Sat, Nov 29, 2008: from Salt Lake Tribune Drought deepens strain on a dwindling Colorado The drought gripping Utah, Southern California and the rest of the Southwest this century shows no sign of ending. Scientists see it as a permanent condition that, despite year-to-year weather variations, will deepen as temperatures rise, snows dwindle, soils bake and fires burn.... Making matters worse, the Colorado -- the 1,450-mile-long lifeline that sustains more than 30 million souls and 3.5 million acres of farmland in seven states, 34 tribal nations and Mexico -- is in decline, scientists warn....Trend analyses by federal scientists, probably conservative, predict the population dependent on the river will reach at least 38 million during the coming decade.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-28 13:43:31 Fri, Nov 28, 2008: from Reuters Forests under threat from climate change: study OSLO -- Forests are extremely vulnerable to climate change that is set to bring more wildfires and floods and quick action is needed to aid millions of poor people who depend on forests, a study said on Thursday.
The report, by the Jakarta-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), urged delegates at a U.N. climate meeting in Poznan, Poland, from December 1-12 to work out new ways to safeguard forests in developing nations.
It said climate change could have impacts ranging from a drying out of cloud forests in mountainous regions of Central America -- making wildfires more frequent -- to swamping mangroves in Asia as seas rise.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-28 12:28:21 Fri, Nov 28, 2008: from Fort Worth Star-Telegram Environmental groups warn against dumping TV sets The big switch to digital television has people scrambling to make decisions: Cable or converter box? New TV? Satellite?
As the deadline approaches, and with the holiday shopping season in full swing, environmental groups are warning consumers about an unseen consequence of their purchases: the impact on the environment halfway around the world.
TVs and other electronics shipped overseas are frequently recycled under dangerously primitive conditions. Lead is melted over open coal fires. Wires are burned to expose the metal core. Gold and other metals are recovered in vats of acid. The resulting waste, much of it toxic, is dumped haphazardly.
The groups are worried that the problem will be exacerbated in the run-up to the digital switch, scheduled for Feb. 18.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:29:37 Fri, Nov 28, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Costs of Food Waste Pile Up ... Food waste has been a chronic problem for restaurants and grocery stores -- with millions of tons lost along the way as crops are hauled hundreds of miles, stored for weeks in refrigerators and prepared on hectic restaurant assembly lines. But the historically high price of commodities is making it an even bigger drag on the bottom line.... Roughly 30 percent of food in the United States goes to waste, costing some $48 billion annually, according to a Stockholm International Water Institute study. A 2004 University of Arizona study estimated that 40 to 50 percent of food in the United States is wasted.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-28 13:42:30 Fri, Nov 28, 2008: from Nature Carbon is forever After our fossil fuel blow-out, how long will the CO2 hangover last? And what about the global fever that comes along with it? These sound like simple questions, but the answers are complex — and not well understood or appreciated outside a small group of climate scientists... University of Chicago oceanographer David Archer, who led the study with Caldeira and others, is credited with doing more than anyone to show how long CO2 from fossil fuels will last in the atmosphere. As he puts it in his new book "The Long Thaw," "The lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is a few centuries, plus 25 percent that lasts essentially forever. The next time you fill your tank, reflect upon this."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:01:30 Fri, Nov 28, 2008: from New York Times Asian Beetle Spells Death for Maples So Dear [M]ost of the maples ... will be chopped down as early as next month because of an infestation of Asian long-horned beetles that is plaguing thousands of Worcester's trees.... When a tornado devastated Worcester in 1953, maples were planted as replacement trees. "Norway maples were readily available back then," said Brian Breveleri, the city’s urban forester. "And they were popular because they could weather the cold."
But when Worcester plants new trees this time around, it will vary the type. A tree inventory, completed in 2006, showed that 80 percent of its street trees were maples, which the beetles find irresistible.... "Tree diversity helps prevent pests from gaining a foothold," said Mike Bohne...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:40:37 Thu, Nov 27, 2008: from Scientific American Troubled waters: striped bass moms pass on harmful pollutants to babies ...Striped bass and other fish have been dying in droves off the coast of San Francisco for decades; pollution from industry and agricultural runoff has long been blamed.
Now a team of scientists from the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, San Diego, have fingered the killer contaminants. They found that wild female fish from the Sacramento River produced eggs containing a host of pollutants at levels high enough to cause biological harm. The list includes chemicals called PBDEs (flame retardants), PCBs (a known carcinogen banned in the 1979), and a slew of pesticides. They even found DDT, the infamous pesticide linked to cancer that was banned in 1972 after being indicted in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-27 10:50:09 Thu, Nov 27, 2008: from Toronto Star Poorest areas also most polluted, report shows Many of Toronto's poorest residents live near industries that spew the highest levels of toxic chemicals and pollutants into the air, a groundbreaking report has found.
Low-income families, many already facing diminished health from stress, bad nutrition, diabetes and poor dental care, are placed at further risk because they breathe air contaminated with pollutants suspected of causing cancer and reproductive disorders, say the authors of the report.
The study, a two-year research project by Toronto-based PollutionWatch, is one of the most comprehensive examinations ever of an issue that has largely gone unnoticed in Canada.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-27 10:05:47 Thu, Nov 27, 2008: from Guardian (UK) The 10 big energy myths Myth 1: solar power is too expensive to be of much use; Myth 2: wind power is too unreliable; Myth 3: marine energy is a dead-end; Myth 4: nuclear power is cheaper than other low-carbon sources of electricity...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:13:43 Thu, Nov 27, 2008: from CGIAR, via Mongabay Carbon market could pay poor farmers to adopt sustainable cultivation techniques ... [P]roceeds from the carbon market could be used to reward farmers who adopt cultivation techniques that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Such methods include growing crops under a canopy of fruit or timber trees, planting fodder trees for livestock, and curtailing the use of slash-and-burn agriculture.
"If we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and effectively as possible, we need to do everything we can to encourage the people living in and around the world's tropical forests to adopt carbon-saving and carbon-enhancing approaches to development," said Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Center, one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). "One crucial way to do that is to give them the same opportunities to sell their carbon as a commodity in the global market as is encouraged in other sectors."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-26 15:49:46 Wed, Nov 26, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Stern urges switch to low carbon economy during downturn The author of the Government's 2006 report on climate change said that while demand is low, it is a good time to switch to "a more sustainable pattern of growth" by replacing fossil fuels with more renewables and clean energy, designing new technologies and improving energy efficiency.
The former economist at the Treasury warned that previous growth on the back of the housing market boom or dot.com bubble have been unsustainable.
However investment in renewables and low carbon energy could improve the economy in the long term.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-26 13:49:22 Wed, Nov 26, 2008: from Reuters Greenhouse gases hit record levels last year GENEVA (Reuters) - Gases blamed for global warming reached record levels in the atmosphere last year, the United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) touched new highs after more steady rises in 2007, and methane had its largest annual increase in a decade, the World Meteorological Organization said.
"The major greenhouse gases -- CO2, methane and N2O -- have all reached new highs in 2007. Two of them, CO2 and N20, are increasing steadily and there is no sign of leveling off of those two gases," WMO expert Geir Braathen told a news briefing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-26 13:27:57 Wed, Nov 26, 2008: from London Independent 3,000 dead from cholera in Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's President, is trying to hide the real extent of the cholera epidemic sweeping across his nation by silencing health workers and restricting access to the huge number of death certificates that give the same cause of death.
A senior official in the health ministry told The Independent yesterday that more than 3,000 people have died from the water-borne disease in the past two weeks, 10 times the widely-reported death toll of just over 300....The way to prevent death is, for the Zimbabwean people, agonisingly simple: antibiotics and rehydration. But this is a country with a broken sewerage system and soap is hard to come by. Harare's Central Hospital officially closed last week, doctors and nurses are scarce and even those clinics offering a semblance of service do not have access to safe, clean drinking water and ask patients to bring their own.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:48:27 Wed, Nov 26, 2008: from Science News Antidepressants make for sad fish ...Tons of medicine ends up in the environment each year. Much has been excreted by patients. Leftover pills may also have been flushed down the toilet. Because water treatment plants were never designed to remove pharmaceuticals, water released into rivers by these plants generally carries a broad and diverse array of drug residues.... Fish exposed as embryos or hatchlings to trace concentrations of the antidepressant venlafaxine, marketed as Effexor, didn't react as quickly as normal to stimuli signaling a possible predator. This laid-back reaction could prove to be a "death sentence"...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:12:48 Wed, Nov 26, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Inspiring people to grow their own food ... That's why I really like the idea of the WHO Farm Project in the US. It's an attempt to convince Barack Obama to also reach for the spade when he takes the keys to the White House in January and symbolically dig up the famous front lawn in order to toss in some vegetable seeds. It's exactly what the Roosevelts did during the second world war and it helped to inspire over 20m so-called "Victory Gardens" across the US.
The garden at 10 Downing St isn't blessed with quite as many rods of prime growing land, but Buckingham Palace, and other world-famous sites across the UK, certainly are. It's not as if a decent veg patch needs to take up that much room. And just think of all those other wasted spaces where veg could easily be grown -- parks, verges, roundabouts (OK, that might be a little dangerous) and all those monoculture corporate HQ landscaped gardens.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-26 11:05:20 Wed, Nov 26, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Waterway wildlife sightings down by 25 percent The 2008 figures show 3,000 sightings compared to 4,000 in 2007 -- despite a 17 per cent rise in visitor numbers across the waterways network.
Officials are baffled by the drop but suspect it is a statistical 'blip' rather than a dramatic fall in the number of animals.
Many more people now use waterway tow paths as a route to work – walking, running or cycling – as well as for spotting wildlife.
"If there is a similar fall-off in numbers next year then there will be a cause for concern but at the moment I am not too worried," said Dr Mark Robinson, national ecology manager for British Waterways.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-26 11:06:04 Wed, Nov 26, 2008: from London Guardian FDA finds traces of melamine in US infant formula Traces of the industrial chemical melamine have been detected in samples of top-selling U.S. infant formula, but federal regulators insist the products are safe.
The Food and Drug Administration said last month it was unable to identify any melamine exposure level as safe for infants, but a top official said it would be a "dangerous overreaction" for parents to stop feeding infant formula to babies who depend on it.... Previously undisclosed tests, obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the FDA has detected melamine in a sample of one popular formula and the presence of cyanuric acid, a chemical relative of melamine, in the formula of a second manufacturer.
Separately, a third major formula maker told AP that in-house tests had detected trace levels of melamine in its infant formula. The three firms -- Abbott Laboratories, Nestle and Mead Johnson -- manufacture more than 90 percent of all infant formula produced in the United States.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-25 13:30:29 Tue, Nov 25, 2008: from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Transporting Broiler Chickens Could Spread Antibiotic-resistant Organisms Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found evidence of a novel pathway for potential human exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria from intensively raised poultry-- driving behind the trucks transporting broiler chickens from farm to slaughterhouse. A study by the Hopkins researchers found increased levels of pathogenic bacteria, both susceptible and drug-resistant, on surfaces and in the air inside cars traveling behind trucks that carry broiler chickens.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-25 11:52:44 Tue, Nov 25, 2008: from Kalamazoo Gazette War on ash borer moves outside of Lower Peninsula The native ash trees in Michigan's Lower Peninsula are doomed.
Even $70 million in tax dollars has not been enough to defeat the shiny, green emerald ash borer, a beetle that hitchhiked to Michigan from Asia in 2002 and has since feasted on the state's ash-tree population.
Michigan agriculture officials admit it's futile to enforce a Lower Peninsula quarantine designed to contain the beetle to identified "hot spots." The reason: Everywhere is a hot spot now in the Lower Peninsula.
"If you look in Southeast Michigan, or the Kalamazoo area, you are hard-pressed to find any ash trees that are alive," said Kenneth Rauscher, director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture's pesticide and plant-pest management division. "The future of ash is very, very dim."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-25 11:38:20 Tue, Nov 25, 2008: from New York Times Economic Slump May Limit Moves on Clean Energy Just as the world seemed poised to combat global warming more aggressively, the economic slump and plunging prices of coal and oil are upending plans to wean businesses and consumers from fossil fuel. From Italy to China, the threat to jobs, profits and government tax revenues posed by the financial crisis has cast doubt on commitments to cap emissions or phase out polluting factories.
Automakers, especially Detroit's Big Three, face collapsing sales, threatening their plans to invest heavily in more fuel-efficient cars. And with gas prices now around $2 a gallon in the United States, struggling consumers may be less inclined than they once were to trade in their gas-guzzling models in any case.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-25 11:32:43 Tue, Nov 25, 2008: from Canwest News WARMING TO GLOBAL WARMING ...a group of global-warming experts, made up mainly of university economists and anthropologists, is pushing the notion that global warming might not be an unmitigated disaster, especially for certain northerly regions, such as Canada, Russia and Scandinavia. Leading the charge is Robert Mendelsohn, an economics professor at Yale University, who says the benefits of global warming for Canada - from a longer growing season to the opening up of shipping through the Northwest Passage - will outweigh the negative effects.
"You're lucky because you're a northern-latitude country, Mendelsohn says. "If you add it all up, it's a good thing for Canada."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-25 11:04:23 Tue, Nov 25, 2008: from Associated Press One-third of China's Yellow River heavily polluted with industrial discharge BEIJING (AP) _ Newly released scientific results show one-third of the famed Yellow River, which supplies water to millions of people in northern China, is heavily polluted by industrial waste and unsafe for any use.
The Yellow River, the second-longest in China, has seen its water quality deteriorate rapidly in the last few years, as discharge from factories increases and water levels drop because of diversion for booming cities.
The river supplies a region chronically short of water but rich in industry.
The Yellow River Conservancy Committee said 33.8 percent of the river's water sampled registered worse than level 5, meaning it's unfit for drinking, aquaculture, industrial use and even agriculture, according to criteria used by the United Nations Environmental Program.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:54:52 Tue, Nov 25, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Fox River's dredging for PCBs starts soon Green Bay - The workhorse in the biggest and most expensive phase to clean up the Fox River is a massive building rising from the banks of the river.
Operating like a factory, the 242,000-square-foot facility will extract chemical compounds from river sediments for an estimated seven years and send them away in scores of dump trucks every day.
After years of jockeying and extensive planning, the actual processing of the contaminated sediments starts in May - making the Fox and the Hudson River in New York the largest remediation projects in the country.
The Fox is the largest single source of polychlorinated biphenyls on Lake Michigan.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-25 10:47:20 Mon, Nov 24, 2008: from University of Chicago, via EurekAlert Ocean growing more acidic faster than once thought University of Chicago scientists have documented that the ocean is growing more acidic faster than previously thought. In addition, they have found that the increasing acidity correlates with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a paper published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Nov. 24.... "The acidity increased more than 10 times faster than had been predicted by climate change models and other studies," Wootton said. "This increase will have a severe impact on marine food webs and suggests that ocean acidification may be a more urgent issue than previously thought, at least in some areas of the ocean."
The ocean plays a significant role in global carbon cycles. When atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in water it forms carbonic acid, increasing the acidity of the ocean. During the day, carbon dioxide levels in the ocean fall because photosynthesis takes it out of the water, but at night, levels increase again. The study documented this daily pattern, as well as a steady increase in acidity over time.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-24 16:03:07 Mon, Nov 24, 2008: from Texas A&M, via EurekAlert Nutrients in water may be a bonus for agriculture Drs. John Sij, Cristine Morgan and Paul DeLaune have studied nitrate levels in irrigation water from the Seymour Aquifer for the past three years, and have found nitrates can be as high as 40 parts per million. Though unacceptable for drinking, the water would benefit agricultural producers who use it for irrigation.
This high concentration of nitrates is a concern because it exceeds the federal safe drinking water standards as the aquifer is used as a municipal water source for the communities of Vernon, Burkburnett and Electra, as well as some rural families, Sij said.
"When you get more than 10 parts per million, it exceeds the federal limit," he said. "Our water at Chillicothe is around 20 parts per million, so we don't give it to the babies, but adults can drink it."...
"At nearly a $1 per pound for fertilizer nitrogen these days, 55 'free' pounds of nitrogen can add up to significant cost savings, about $55 per acre or more, for producers who irrigate their crops with high nitrate ground water," DeLaune said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:27:20 Mon, Nov 24, 2008: from Honolulu Injury Board Breast Cancer Risk in Hawaii Linked to Pesticides in Drinking Water and Indoor Air Pesticides leach into the Hawaii ground water system and end up in our drinking water. The warm tropical sun causes the pesticides to evaporate and enter the building through gaps in the foundation and infect breathing spaces inside the homes and schools and office buildings. Not only cancer but many respiratory diseases are caused by pesticides. Controlling insects with pesticides is a huge risk to drinking water and indoor air quality in Hawaii, and ultimately to matters of life and death to the public in Hawaii.... "Emerging evidence on endocrine disruption suggests that environmental chemicals may play a role in the development of breast cancer. Agricultural chemicals, including endocrine disruptors, have been used intensively in Hawaii's island ecosystem over the past 40 years leaching into groundwater, and leading to unusually widespread occupational and general population exposures."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:54:32 Mon, Nov 24, 2008: from Environmental News Network 'Fish technology' draws renewable energy from slow water currents Slow-moving ocean and river currents could be a new, reliable and affordable alternative energy source. A University of Michigan engineer has made a machine that works like a fish to turn potentially destructive vibrations in fluid flows into clean, renewable power.... Here's how VIVACE works: The very presence of the cylinder in the current causes alternating vortices to form above and below the cylinder. The vortices push and pull the passive cylinder up and down on its springs, creating mechanical energy. Then, the machine converts the mechanical energy into electricity.
Just a few cylinders might be enough to power an anchored ship, or a lighthouse, Bernitsas says. These cylinders could be stacked in a short ladder. The professor estimates that array of VIVACE converters the size of a running track and about two stories high could power about 100,000 houses. Such an array could rest on a river bed or it could dangle, suspended in the water. But it would all be under the surface.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:18:30 Mon, Nov 24, 2008: from Sydney Morning Herald Rescued whales reunite in Bass Strait Five pilot whales tagged with satellite tracking devices after surviving a mass stranding have successfully joined a larger pod in deeper waters off Tasmania.
It's the first time whales rescued from stranding have been tagged to track their progress.
Wildlife officers were celebrating on Monday after launching a huge rescue operation, which followed Saturday's mass beaching by more than 60 whales at Anthonys Beach near Stanley on Tasmania's north-west coast.
Despite the efforts of 60 volunteers and 15 government wildlife officers, 53 whales died, but 11 were saved after being transported on trucks 17km along the Bass Highway and released in deep water at Godfreys Beach on Sunday.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-24 10:12:26 Mon, Nov 24, 2008: from Mongabay Madagascar denies 'land grab' by South Korean conglomerate Officials from Madagascar are denying they have reached an agreement to turn over half the island nation's arable land to a South Korean corporation for food production, reports Reuters. The controversial deal -- which would have paid Madagascar nothing and turned over 1.3 million hectares to produce corn and palm oil for export at a time when one-third of country's children are malnourished -- was reported last week by the Financial Times.
"Several announcements have been made regarding Daewoo Logistics' project which are erroneous and we would like to set the record straight," Eric Beantanana, of the Economic Development Board of Madagascar, told Reuters on Thursday.... "Furthermore, we are talking about a search for 100,000 hectares ... It is only after this stage that the rest of the process will continue."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-24 10:03:52 Mon, Nov 24, 2008: from Journal of Medical Microbiology, via EurekAlert Scientists discover 21st century plague Bacteria that can cause serious heart disease in humans are being spread by rat fleas, sparking concern that the infections could become a bigger problem in humans. Research published in the December issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology suggests that brown rats, the biggest and most common rats in Europe, may now be carrying the bacteria.
Since the early 1990s, more than 20 species of Bartonella bacteria have been discovered. They are considered to be emerging zoonotic pathogens, because they can cause serious illness in humans worldwide from heart disease to infection of the spleen and nervous system.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-23 11:49:16 Sun, Nov 23, 2008: from Williamson Daily News Coal CEO calls environmentalists crazy Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, the fourth largest coal company in the country, blasted politics and the press, comparing Charleston Gazette Editor James. A. Haught to Osama Bin Laden Thursday evening when he addressed the Tug Valley Mining Institute in Williamson.... "They can say what they want about climate change," he said. "But the only thing melting in this country that matters is our financial system and our economy."... Many people would give support to groups who work to disprove global warming if it was not so politically incorrect, Blankenship said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-23 11:19:46 Sun, Nov 23, 2008: from London Independent Invasion of the Aliens British waters are being invaded by a wave of species making their way in from the sea, according to a new study. While foreign varieties of barnacles, brown seaweed and kelp may not sound dramatic, they are, in effect, slipping in under the radar, their progress hastened by climate change, according to Dr Nova Mieszkowska from the Marine Biological Association.
Their arrival will add to pressure on native species already under siege by a range of marine invaders to Britain's shores such as the American red signal crayfish and the Pacific oyster. Some have arrived as a result of climate change, while others have made their way here on ships' hulls, in ballast water or through the global trade in aquaculture.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-24 15:56:07 Sun, Nov 23, 2008: from London Times Mugabe tries to hide cholera death toll Doctors struggling to save the victims of a cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe despite a lack of basic drugs and intravenous drips vented their fury last week outside the Parirenyatwa hospital in Harare, the capital.... The response of President Robert Mugabe's failing government has been to cover up the scale of the problem and to send in riot police.... Last week the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs identified eight outbreaks and nine places where the number of cases was increasing. Its report concluded: "It is very likely with the current water and sanitation problems in the country, low capacity of the government to deal with the outbreak, glaring gaps in response, coupled with the rainy season that has started, cholera outbreaks could get catastrophic and claim many more lives."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:14:39 Sun, Nov 23, 2008: from Inter Press Service CLIMATE CHANGE-LATIN AMERICA: Frightening Numbers A World Bank study presented Friday, the first day of a Nov. 21-23 congress of legislators from the Americas meeting in Mexico City to discuss the challenges of the global financial and climate crises, says natural disasters related to climate change, like storms, drought and flooding, cost 0.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the affected countries, on average, in Latin America and the Caribbean.
If the frequency of natural disasters increases from one every four years to one every three years, per capita GDP could shrink by two percent per decade in the region, according to the report presented by Laura Tuck, director of the World Bank's department of Sustainable Development for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The economy of the Caribbean region alone could experience six billion dollars in losses by 2050 in tourism, coastal protection, and the pharmaceutical and fishing industries.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:31:27 Sun, Nov 23, 2008: from Science News Is Your Fish Oil Polluted? Diets rich in fish oil offer a number of health benefits, from fighting heart disease to boosting immunity. However, many noxious contaminants preferentially accumulate in fat. These include pesticides, brominated flame retardants, dioxins, and some related compounds known as polychlorinated biphenyls. So there's been some concern that if a fish was pulled from polluted waters, its fat might be polluted too. And those pollutants could end up an unwanted bonus in commercial fish-oil supplements.
A new survey of some 154 different fish-oil capsules sold by 45 different companies now confirms that some supplements are remarkably dirty and others quite pure. In general, PCBs and a breakdown product of DDT were the major pollutants in fish-oil supplements.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-22 12:37:29 Sat, Nov 22, 2008: from University of Alberta via ScienceDaily Research Finds Way To Double Rice Crops In Drought-stricken Areas University of Alberta research has yielded a way to double the output of rice crops in some of the world's poorest, most distressed areas. Jerome Bernier, a PhD student in the U of A Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, has found a group of genes in rice that enables a yield of up to 100 per cent more in severe drought conditions.
The discovery marks the first time this group of genes in rice has been identified, and could potentially bring relief to farmers in countries like India and Thailand, where rice crops are regularly faced with drought. Rice is the number one crop consumed by humans annually.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-22 12:13:44 Sat, Nov 22, 2008: from New Scientist Experts plan 'doomsday vault' for frog sperm The freezer could be the future for frogs and other amphibians. Efforts announced today are currently underway around the world to boost amphibian numbers with cryopreservation and assisted reproduction.
Breeding frogs and their cousins to increase numbers could help vulnerable species survive looming extinctions. But getting amphibians to mate is not always straightforward, so researchers are developing other techniques to give them a helping hand.
One proposal resembles the doomsday seed vault which opened this year in Norway. Only instead of plant seed, the amphibian vault would store sperm, guaranteeing amphibian genetic diversity for times of dwindling populations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-24 11:38:21 Sat, Nov 22, 2008: from Scientific American Fact or Fiction?: Cell Phones Can Cause Brain Cancer This summer, Ronald Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, sent a memo to staffers warning them to limit their cell phone use and to use hands-free sets in the wake of "growing evidence that we should reduce exposure" to cell phone radiation. Among the possible consequences: an increased risk of brain cancer.
Five months later, a top official at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) told a congressional panel that published scientific data indicates cell phones are safe.
So what's the deal? Do cell phones cause cancer -- or not?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-22 11:41:40 Sat, Nov 22, 2008: from Living on Earth Green Hospitals Critics say hospital buildings and food are enough to make you sick. Today there's a growing movement in health care to get hospitals to green their facilities and, as host Bruce Gellerman reports, it's transforming the medical community... "From bedpans and surgical gloves to operating rooms and MRI machines, hospitals are enormously expensive to build, equip and operate. And when it comes to making life saving decisions, administrators aren't about to worry about buying energy-saving devices. Still, medicine is starting to use the power of the purse to go green."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-22 10:35:37 Sat, Nov 22, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Are pill-popping turkeys a danger? Turkeys, like any other animal, get sick. And while few would dispute that they should be treated when that happens, many scientists, medical professionals and animal experts are concerned that too much medicine is being given to too many turkeys -- and to too many food animals in general... The potential for danger from antibiotic use in farm animals comes in two forms, experts say: The antibiotics could remain in meat when people eat it. They could also contribute to the development of resistant bacteria.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 16:54:47 Fri, Nov 21, 2008: from Washington Post New Rule Would Discount Warming as Risk Factor for Species The Bush administration is finalizing changes to the Endangered Species Act that would ensure that federal agencies would not have to take global warming into account when assessing risks to imperiled plants and animals.... The main purpose of the new regulations, which were first unveiled in August, is to eliminate a long-standing provision of the Endangered Species Act that requires an independent scientific review by either the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of any federal project that could affect a protected species. Under the administration's proposal, individual agencies could decide on their own whether a project would harm an imperiled species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 16:22:27 Fri, Nov 21, 2008: from Indianapolis Star Indiana lands on group's Top 50 list of mercury emitters Three Indiana power plants have landed on an environmental group's tally of the 50 facilities in the nation that emit the greatest amount of poisonous mercury into the air and water.
Together, the 50 plants last year released about 20 tons of mercury, which can cause permanent damage to brains, kidneys and developing fetuses, according to a report from the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit that advocates for stricter enforcement of environmental regulations.... Indiana has no restrictions specifically addressing mercury emissions from power plants.... Environmental activists would like the state to do more to reduce emissions from power plants.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:51:59 Fri, Nov 21, 2008: from Imperial College, via EurekAlert Hairspray is linked to common genital birth defect, says study Women who are exposed to hairspray in the workplace during pregnancy have more than double the risk of having a son with the genital birth defect hypospadias, according to a new study published today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
The study is the first to show a significant link between hairspray and hypospadias, one of the most common birth defects of the male genitalia, where the urinary opening is displaced to the underside of the penis. The causes of the condition are poorly understood.... The study suggests that hairspray and hypospadias may be linked because of chemicals in hairspray known as phthalates. Previous studies have proposed that phthalates may disrupt the hormonal systems in the body and affect reproductive development.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:27:31 Fri, Nov 21, 2008: from Environmental Expert (Spain) Supercritical CO2 boosts super optimism in sequestering greenhouse gas Scientists appear to have the rock-solid evidence that suggests carbon dioxide can be safely and permanently sequestered in deep, underground basalt rock formations, without risk of it eventually escaping to the atmosphere. The findings have potential implications for sequestering carbon in other reservoir systems as well. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have discovered key factors that show water-saturated liquid CO2, under conditions mimicking deep geologic settings, will plug cracks within the rock that otherwise might allow the hazardous greenhouse gas to escape.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 08:28:34 Fri, Nov 21, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Soil erosion threatens land of 100m Chinese, survey finds Almost 100 million people in south-west China will lose the land they live on within 35 years if soil erosion continues at its current rate, a nationwide survey has found.
Crops and water supplies are suffering serious damage as earth is washed and blown away across a third of the country, according to the largest-scale study for 60 years.
Harvests in the north-east, known as China's breadbasket, will fall 40 percent within half a century on current trends, even as the 1.3 billion population continues to grow.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:12:17 Thu, Nov 20, 2008: from Financial Times Daewoo to cultivate Madagascar land for free Daewoo Logistics of South Korea said it expected to pay nothing to farm maize and palm oil in an area of Madagascar half the size of Belgium, increasing concerns about the largest farmland investment of this kind.
The Indian Ocean island will simply gain employment opportunities from Daewoo's 99-year lease of 1.3m hectares, officials at the company said. They emphasised that the aim of the investment was to boost Seoul's food security.... "It is totally undeveloped land which has been left untouched. And we will provide jobs for them by farming it, which is good for Madagascar," said Mr Hong. The 1.3m hectares of leased land is almost half the African country’s current arable land of 2.5m hectares.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:41:45 Thu, Nov 20, 2008: from Reuters Malaria and dengue the sting in climate change Southeast Asia and South Pacific island nations face a growing threat from malaria and dengue fever as climate change spreads mosquitoes that carry the diseases and climate-change refugees start to migrate.
A new report titled "The Sting of Climate Change," said recent data suggested that since the 1970s climate change had contributed to 150,000 more deaths every year from disease, with over half of the deaths in Asia.... According to the World Health Organization, rising temperatures and higher rainfall caused by climate change will see the number of mosquitoes increasing in cooler areas where there is little resistance or knowledge of the diseases they carry.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-20 21:28:57 Thu, Nov 20, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor Poll: World wants green action, despite costs A wide majority of the world's citizens are unhappy with the slow pace of their governments' moves toward renewable energy and want their leaders to do more, even if that raises their utility bills, according to a global opinion poll released today. The finding sends a clear signal to officials at next month’s climate change meeting in Poznan, Poland, scheduled to lay the groundwork for a 2009 international treaty to limit greenhouse-gas emissions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-20 21:18:19 Thu, Nov 20, 2008: from London Guardian President for 60 more days, Bush tearing apart protection for America's wilderness George Bush is working at a breakneck pace to dismantle at least 10 major environmental safeguards protecting America's wildlife, national parks and rivers before he leaves office in January.
With barely 60 days to go until Bush hands over to Barack Obama, his White House is working methodically to weaken or reverse an array of regulations that protect America's wilderness from logging or mining operations, and compel factory farms to clean up dangerous waste.
In the latest such move this week, Bush opened up some 800,000 hectares (2m acres) of land in Rocky Mountain states for the development of oil shale, one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet. The law goes into effect on January 17, three days before Obama takes office.
The timing is crucial. Most regulations take effect 60 days after publication, and Bush wants the new rules in place before he leaves the White House on January 20. That will make it more difficult for Obama to undo them.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:48:56 Thu, Nov 20, 2008: from The Epoch Times 'Recyclers' Illegally Exporting Electronic Waste It contains toxic components such as lead, mercury and cadmium, and Canada generates about 140,000 tons of it each year. The United States generates three million tons yearly.
It is electronic waste, and disposing of it in an environmentally friendly way is proving complicated and open to abuse.
With the astronomical growth of e-waste in the last decade, the number of recyclers of the ever-growing tidal wave of discarded computers, monitors, printers and cell phones has exploded in North America.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-20 09:13:10 Thu, Nov 20, 2008: from Providence Journal Ecologist: Hope remains for world's oceans, but swift response is needed Outspoken marine ecologist Jeremy Jackson says humans have caused widespread and difficult-to-imagine damage to the world’s oceans and that the response needs to be of immense proportions. He says it boils down to two simple concepts: Become citizens instead of consumers, and elect real leaders, not facilitators of consumption.... "It's become obvious that [humans] are the cause," Jackson said. "How could we be so out of it? The oceans were out of sight and out of mind and nobody was paying attention. As a marine ecologist, it's embarrassing."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-19 20:06:21 Thu, Nov 20, 2008: from Bloomberg News October Temperatures Are Second-Warmest Since 1880 Global temperatures last month were the second-warmest since recordkeeping began while Arctic sea ice fell to its third-lowest level, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
The combined land and ocean surface temperature for October was 58.23 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.13 degrees above the 20th century average, said NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The warmest October since 1880 occurred in 2003.... Arctic sea ice extended 3.24 million square miles last month, almost 10 percent below the 1979-2000 average. Sea ice has been declining by an average of 5.4 percent a decade over the past 30 years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:10:19 Wed, Nov 19, 2008: from London Daily Mail New superbug version of E.coli found on British dairy farm A new superbug version of E.coli which could trigger life-threatening infections has been found on a dairy farm.
The mutant strain of E.coli 026 is believed to have emerged as a result of the heavy use of antibiotics on farm animals.
It is the first time it has been discovered in this country and only the third time it has been found anywhere in the world.
The bug is similar to the infamous E.coli 0157 which has been implicated in fatal food poisoning outbreaks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-19 16:07:17 Wed, Nov 19, 2008: from Washington Post EPA Moves to Ease Air Rules for Parks The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas, even though half of the EPA's 10 regional administrators formally dissented from the decision and four others criticized the move in writing.
Documents obtained by The Washington Post show that the administration's push to weaken Clean Air Act protections for "Class 1 areas" nationwide has sparked fierce resistance from senior agency officials. All but two of the regional administrators objecting to the proposed rule are political appointees.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-19 15:58:27 Wed, Nov 19, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bug bombs don't just kill pests: People, pets also sickened by foggers ...Last month, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study the agency says is the first look at pesticide poisoning incidents related to bug bombs. Using the records of eight states where such incidents are tracked most carefully, including Washington, they documented 466 cases of injuries or illness from 2001 to 2006.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency responded this month by launching an effort to re-examine bug bombs' labels and packaging.
The agency is also trying to figure out how to make consumers more aware of the need to read directions carefully....
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-19 11:10:46 Wed, Nov 19, 2008: from Technology Review Better Wind Turbines ExRo Technologies, a startup based in Vancouver, BC, has developed a new kind of generator that's well suited to harvesting energy from wind. It could lower the cost of wind turbines while increasing their power output by 50 percent.
The new generator runs efficiently over a wider range of conditions than conventional generators do.... ExRo's new design replaces a mechanical transmission with what amounts to an electronic one. That increases the range of wind speeds at which it can operate efficiently and makes it more responsive to sudden gusts and lulls.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-18 15:55:30 Tue, Nov 18, 2008: from University of Pittsburgh, via EurekAlert Pitt researchers use fluorescence to develop method for detecting mercury in fish Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have developed a simple and quick method for detecting mercury in fish and dental samples, two substances at the center of public concern about mercury contamination. The technique involves a fluorescent substance that glows bright green when it comes into contact with oxidized mercury.... The intensity of the glow indicates the amount of mercury present.
Developed in the laboratory of Kazunori Koide, a chemistry professor in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences, the new method can be used onsite and can detect mercury in 30 to 60 minutes for dental fillings (or amalgams) or 10 to 30 minutes for fish, Koide explained. "Our method could be used in the fish market or the dentist office," he said. "We have developed a reliable indicator for mercury that a person could easily and safely use at home."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-18 18:45:19 Tue, Nov 18, 2008: from New York Times Bark Beetles Kill Millions of Acres of Trees in West ...From New Mexico to British Columbia, the region's signature pine forests are succumbing to a huge infestation of mountain pine beetles that are turning a blanket of green forest into a blanket of rust red. Montana has lost a million acres of trees to the beetles, and in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming the situation is worse....In Wyoming and Colorado in 2006 there were a million acres of dead trees. Last year it was 1.5 million. This year it is expected to total over two million. In the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, the problem is most severe. It is the largest known insect infestation in the history of North America, officials said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:00:30 Tue, Nov 18, 2008: from Ohio State University, via EurekAlert Missing radioactivity in ice cores bodes ill for part of Asia When Ohio State glaciologists failed to find the expected radioactive signals in the latest core they drilled from a Himalayan ice field, they knew it meant trouble for their research.
But those missing markers of radiation, remnants from atomic bomb tests a half-century ago, foretell much greater threat to the half-billion or more people living downstream of that vast mountain range.
It may mean that future water supplies could fall far short of what's needed to keep that population alive.... "that... means that no new ice has accumulated on the surface of the glacier since 1944," nearly a decade before the atomic tests.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-18 13:41:52 Tue, Nov 18, 2008: from Canwest News Continents of garbage adrift in oceans Scientists are growing alarmed about massive floating dumps that are believed to be building up in centres of nearly all of the world's oceans.
The best-known patch, known by some as the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, consists of an estimated 100 million tonnes of plastic debris that has accumulated inside a circular vortex of currents known as the North Pacific gyre. Environmentalists call it the Pacific Trash Vortex....An estimated 100,000 marine mammals die each year from eating or being entangled in debris -- mostly plastic -- in the North Pacific alone. Hence the vortex's other nickname: the Plastic Killing Fields.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-18 11:03:37 Tue, Nov 18, 2008: from Washington Post Japan's Trash Technology Helps Deodorize Dumps in Tokyo TOKYO -- It doesn't smell like a dump.
If it did, there are a quarter-million neighbors to complain about Tokyo's Toshima Incineration Plant, which devours 300 tons of garbage a day, turning it into electricity, hot water and a kind of recyclable sand. ... Remarkably, this does not create a big stink, literally or politically.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 11:09:29 Tue, Nov 18, 2008: from Environmental Health News Future hazy for cleaner school buses ...While pollution-fighting technologies are widely available, fledgling efforts to clean up the nation's aging fleet of half a million school buses may stall as budget revenues plummet... About 24 million American children spend an average of an hour and a half every weekday riding school buses, nearly all of them powered by diesel fuel. Scientists say diesel exhaust contains carcinogens, and that its fine particles can sink deep into lungs, triggering respiratory infections, asthma attacks and heart attacks, and reducing lung capacity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:17:15 Tue, Nov 18, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Amazon to scrap plastic packaging for recyclable cardboard boxes It has pledged to stop sending toys, computers and other goods out in difficult-to-open plastic boxes.
The shopping website has joined leading manufacturers, including toy company Mattel and software giant Microsoft, to come up with a solution it says is both eco and customer-friendly.
Called "frustration free packaging", the company aims to replace plastic wrapping with a simple, recyclable cardboard box.... "Every Christmas we produce an extra three million tonnes of waste, and this could impact significantly on that. But we need manufacturers to think about this too -- it really comes back to the product design stage, and that needs to be re-thought."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 21:04:35 Tue, Nov 18, 2008: from New York Times Congo Violence Reaches Endangered Mountain Gorillas Congo's gorillas happen to live in one of the most contested, blood-soaked pieces of turf in one of the most contested, blood-soaked corners of Africa. Their home, Virunga National Park, is high ground -- with mist-shrouded mountains and pointy volcanoes -- along the porous Congo-Rwanda border, where rebels are suspected of smuggling in weapons from Rwanda. Last year in Virunga, 10 gorillas were killed, some shot in the back of the head, execution style, park officials said.
The park used to be a naturalist's paradise, home to more than 2,000 species of plants, 706 types of birds and 218 varieties of mammals, including three great apes: the mountain gorilla, the lowland gorilla and chimpanzees.
Now Virunga is a war zone.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:31:33 Tue, Nov 18, 2008: from NASA, via EurekAlert Water vapor confirmed as major player in climate change Andrew Dessler and colleagues from Texas A&M University in College Station confirmed that the heat-amplifying effect of water vapor is potent enough to double the climate warming caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
With new observations, the scientists confirmed experimentally what existing climate models had anticipated theoretically.... "This new data set shows that as surface temperature increases, so does atmospheric humidity," Dessler said. "Dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere makes the atmosphere more humid. And since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, the increase in humidity amplifies the warming from carbon dioxide."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-17 18:47:18 Mon, Nov 17, 2008: from Mongabay Discovery may lead to organic acrylic glass made from sugar A new discovery make it possible in the future to manufacture acrylic glass from organic materials including sugars, alcohols or fatty acids.... The researchers say that the biotechnological process is "far more environmentally friendly" than the conventional chemical production process for PMMA.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:17:57 Mon, Nov 17, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Japan's whaling mother ship sets sail A fleet of catcher ships was expected to join the Nisshin Maru as part of its foray into the waters of the Antarctic where it is this year due to hunt up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales as part of its controversial scientific research programme.... Reports of the departure of the fleet coincided with the Australian government unveiling a major scientific whaling study to prove to Japan that it was not necessary to kill whales for science.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-17 15:15:47 Mon, Nov 17, 2008: from MIT, via EurekAlert MIT: A quicker, easier way to make coal cleaner Instead of capturing all of its CO2 emissions, plants could capture a significant fraction of those emissions with less costly changes in plant design and operation, the MIT analysis shows.
"Our approach -- 'partial capture' -- can get CO2 emissions from coal-burning plants down to emissions levels of natural gas power plants," said Ashleigh Hildebrand, a graduate student in chemical engineering and the Technology and Policy Program. "Policies such as California's Emissions Performance Standards could be met by coal plants using partial capture rather than having to rely solely on natural gas, which is increasingly imported and subject to high and volatile prices."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:26:51 Mon, Nov 17, 2008: from USGS, via EurekAlert Acid soils in Slovakia tell somber tale Increasing levels of nitrogen deposition associated with industry and agriculture can drive soils toward a toxic level of acidification, reducing plant growth and polluting surface waters, according to a new study published online in Nature Geoscience.... On the basis of these results, the authors warn that the high levels of nitrogen deposited in Europe and North America over the past half century already may have left many soils susceptible to this new stage of acidification. The results of this further acidification, wrote the authors, are highly reduced soil fertility and leaching of acids and toxic metals into surface waters.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:29:34 Mon, Nov 17, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Cellphones in Yellowstone? Reporting from Yellowstone National Park -- Natural forces over millennia created the geysers, peaks and canyons that fascinate visitors here. But a newer feature is emerging on this stunning landscape -- cellphone towers... After years of complaints from environmental groups about the proliferation of cellphone towers in national parks, officials here and across the country are asking: How wired do we want our wilderness?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-17 14:41:45 Mon, Nov 17, 2008: from The Philadelphia Inquirer Going green - all the way to the grave ...Each year, along with their dearly departed, Americans bury 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid and 30-plus million board feet of timber, according to the Green Burial Council, an advocacy and certification organization in New Mexico.
Its founder, Joe Sehee, says we bury enough steel to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge, and enough concrete vaults - to keep the ground over graves from sinking, which makes maintenance easier - to pave a highway halfway across the United States...
Now people are being buried in coffins made of wicker or bamboo. In Ecopods of recycled paper. Even in simple shrouds. A San Francisco company offers them in linen, silk and ethnic textiles.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:26:56 Mon, Nov 17, 2008: from Fresno Bee Study bolsters link between Parkinson's, pesticide For years, researchers have suspected commercial pesticides put people at risk for Parkinson's disease. Now evidence in the San Joaquin Valley suggests it's true.
Researchers have found a strong connection between the debilitating neurological disease and long-term exposure to pesticides, particularly to a fungicide that is sprayed on thousands of acres of almonds, tree fruit and grapes in the Valley.
The fungicide ziram -- the 20th most-used agricultural toxin in California in 2006 -- emerged as a common factor in a UCLA study of 400 people with Parkinson's in the Valley.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:11:04 Mon, Nov 17, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk The animals and plants we cannot live without -- five experts Nearly 17,000 species are now considered to be threatened with extinction and 869 species are classed as extinct or extinct in the wild on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List. In the last year alone 183 species became more endangered.
Now, in the face of the growing threat posed by environmental changes around the globe, five leading scientists are to argue whether there is a single type of plant or animal which the planet really cannot afford to lose.
The debate, titled Irreplaceable -- The World's Most Invaluable Species, will see five experts present the case for the world's most important animals and plants from a shortlist of five: primates, bats, bees, fungi and plankton.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:00:29 Sun, Nov 16, 2008: from New York Times At Exxon, Making the Case for Oil While other oil companies try to paint themselves greener, Exxon's executives believe their venerable model has been battle-tested. The company's mantra is unwavering: brutal honesty about the need for oil and gas to power economies for decades to come.
"Over the years, there have been many predictions that our industry was in its twilight years, only to be proven wrong," says Mr. Tillerson. "As Mark Twain said, the news of our demise has been greatly exaggerated."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-17 11:04:57 Sun, Nov 16, 2008: from Khaleej Times Online Dead Fish Raise a Stink on Beaches in Fujairah Dibba-Al Fujairah and Dibba Al Hesn municipalities have stepped up their efforts to remove the huge collection of dead fish from their shores due to the red tide phenomenon.
The residents of Dibba-Fujairah and Dibba-Al Hesn have been complaining of the stench arising out of the situation. The red tide phenomenon occurs when there is higher than normal concentration of microscopic algae Karenia brevis in an area. The organism produces a toxin that affects the central nervous system of fish.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 14:47:12 Sun, Nov 16, 2008: from WJZ (Baltimore) Scientists Fear Bat-Killing Disease May Spread Something is killing bats by the thousands. Whole colonies have been wiped out in the northeast, and there is worry it could spread to Maryland.... "High numbers of deaths. They're moving in the day time, they're roosting in unusual locations. It's all very unusual behavior for bats," said Aimee Haskem, UM Center for Environmental Science.... So far, there's no sign of white nose syndrome in Maryland.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:27:13 Sun, Nov 16, 2008: from Fredericton Times and Transcript Hazardous chemical spill forces residents, nearby businesses not to use water for anything but flushing toilet An estimated 2,700 litres of chromium trioxide acid spilled from a location occupied by Custom Machine and Hardchrome Inc. on Melissa Street in the industrial park just outside Fredericton's city limits.
The well on site has been contaminated with high levels of chromium.
One of four monitoring wells drilled around the contaminated well has also shown higher levels of chromium, but consultants believe contaminated groundwater is being carried away from homes in the area.... Officials have said the incident was caused by human error.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 16:39:36 Sat, Nov 15, 2008: from North Bay Nugget David Suzuki keeps his optimism David Suzuki, scientist and environmentalist icon, is ever the realist. The reality is that we're in deep trouble and we've been sleepwalking into the future," he says.
But in spite of the almost daily revelations about global warming, pollution and climate change, Suzuki is also an optimist.
With children and grandchildren I can't give up and say it's too late. It's very, very late, but you have to have hope."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:36:52 Sat, Nov 15, 2008: from Toronto Sun Got a spare Earth anywhere? If the world continues to pillage and plunder Earth's natural resources at the rate we are now, by 2030 we will need two planets to support us.
If everyone on Earth consumed the equivalent resources of Canadians, it would take three Earths to meet the demand.
Since the late 1980s, we have been in overshoot -- meaning our ecological footprint has exceeded Earth's biocapacity to sustain our rate of consumption -- by about 30 percent.... Deforestation and land conversions in the tropics, dams, diversions, climate change, pollution and over-fishing are killing species off, the reverberations of which are felt along the food chain.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:26:23 Sat, Nov 15, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Campaigner wins seven-year battle to force rethink on use of pesticides An environmental campaigner yesterday won a landmark victory against the government in a long-running legal battle over the use of pesticides. The high court ruled that Georgina Downs, who runs the UK Pesticides Campaign, had produced "solid evidence" that people exposed to chemicals used to spray crops had suffered harm. The court said the government had failed to comply with a European directive designed to protect rural communities from exposure to the toxins. It said the environment department, Defra, must reassess its policy and investigate the risks to people who are exposed. Defra had argued that its approach to the regulation and control of pesticides was "reasonable, logical and lawful".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-15 12:24:00 Sat, Nov 15, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Nasa fights global warming with bathtime favourite After years of research -- and with the fate of planet Earth hanging in the balance -- the Nasa scientist who helped to put a robot on Mars has finally completed work on a device that can measure how fast Greenland's ice-cap is melting.... When glaciers surge, they move at up to 100 times their usual speed. Scientists believe that surging could be caused by water from melting ice on the top of a glacier flowing into tubular holes and eventually reaching the base, where it acts as a lubricant, speeding the movement of the glacier towards the coast.
Cue the rubber ducks. In August, Dr Behar flew to the Jakobshavn Glacier and landed near one of the tubular holes, known as "moulins". Into one of the moulins he dropped 90 ducks, each labelled with the words "Science Experiment" and "Reward" in three languages along with an e-mail address.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:26:45 Sat, Nov 15, 2008: from NSF, via EurekAlert Mysterious microbe plays important role in ocean ecology An unusual microorganism discovered in the open ocean may force scientists to rethink their understanding of how carbon and nitrogen cycle through ocean ecosystems.... Unlike all other known free-living cyanobacteria, this one lacks some of the genes needed to carry out photosynthesis, the process by which plants use light energy to make sugars out of carbon dioxide and water.
The mysterious microbe can do something very important, though: It provides natural fertilizer to the oceans by "fixing" nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form useable by other organisms.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-15 15:30:20 Sat, Nov 15, 2008: from New Scientist Dumb eco-questions you were afraid to ask If I switch the light on and off every time I enter and leave a room, does this use more energy than leaving it on all evening?... How clean does the pizza box have to be for it to be recyclable? Likewise cans and bottles... What's the most fuel-efficient way to drive?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:16:49 Sat, Nov 15, 2008: from Bloomberg News Wrinkle Fillers Linked to 'Serious' Side Effects Some people who received wrinkle-fillers suffered "serious and unexpected" side effects such as the inability to control facial muscles, disfigurement and rare life-threatening allergic reactions, U.S. regulators said.... Non-surgical cosmetic procedures increased more than eightfold between 1997 and 2007, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
About 1.36 million women and 84,000 men received wrinkle-fillers last year, according to the plastic surgery group.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-15 16:15:30 Fri, Nov 14, 2008: from Mongabay Caspian seal numbers plummet 90 percent A team from the University of Leeds performed a series of surveys in 2007 and 2008 which revealed that the birth rate has decreased from around 17,000 pups born per year to only between 6,000 and 7,000 -- a drop of 60 percent. The team's census further showed that the current number of breeding females was only 17,000, a number barely large enough to maintain the genetic viability of the species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-15 16:35:18 Fri, Nov 14, 2008: from Greater Good Magazine Are Human Beings Hard-Wired to Ignore the Threat of Catastrophic Climate Change? ...a growing number of social scientists are offering their expertise in behavioral decision making, risk analysis, and evolutionary influences on human behavior to explain our limited responses to global warming. Among the most significant factors they point to: The way we're psychologically wired and socially conditioned to respond to crises makes us ill-suited to react to the abstract and seemingly remote threat posed by global warming. Their insights are also leading to some intriguing recommendations about how to get people to take action-including the potentially dangerous prospect of playing on people's fears.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:13:14 Fri, Nov 14, 2008: from Chicago Tribune U.S. undercuts clean-air rule Looking to bolster the fight against childhood lead poisoning, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month approved a tough new rule aimed at clearing the nation's air of the toxic metal.
A key part of the initiative is a new network of monitors that will track lead emissions from factories. But the Bush administration quietly weakened that provision at the last minute by exempting dozens of polluters from scrutiny, federal documents show.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-15 16:37:09 Fri, Nov 14, 2008: from Charlotte Business Leader Demand for organic products driving growth of local farms The exact number of farms in the region focusing on organic products isn't known. The N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services doesn't count organic farms.
But Daryl Bowman, director of the N.C. Crop Improvement Association -- a membership-based organization that certifies farms, ranches and other things as organic -- says about 500 N.C. farms are using natural methods.
"That number is growing by 25 percent a year," he says.
The growers have few problems finding buyers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:53:38 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from National Geographic Giant, Prehistoric Fish Rebounding in Canada Once plentiful in the river, the sturgeon population had dropped below 40,000, and scientists were unable to explain the die-offs of mostly female fish.
That's when an alliance of government agencies, environmentalists, aboriginal groups, and commercial and recreational fishers came together to save the sturgeon, spurring a robust recovery of the lower Fraser River population.
Recent estimates show the population has increased to about 50,000 fish.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:59:43 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from The Economist The population of bluefin tuna is crashing Yet Raul Romeva, a green MEP from Spain, says this summary is a "sanitised" version. He believes the full report has been suppressed by the commission at the request of national governments because its contents are so embarrassing. The full report is said to contain details about the scale of infringements, including which countries are responsible. One-third of inspections, says Mr Romeva, led to an apparent infringement, such as inadequate catch documentation. The commission, he says, is covering this up.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 15:55:37 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from Mongabay Limiting global warming to 2-degree rise will require $180/t carbon price says energy think tank In a report released Wednesday the International Energy Agency warned that a business-as-usual approach to energy use would result in a 6-degree rise in temperatures putting hundreds of millions at risk from reduced water supplies and diminished agricultural production. But the energy think tank said that limiting temperature rise to 2-3-degree-rise by the end of the century would be "possible, but very hard."... "Current trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable -- environmentally, economically and socially -- they can and must be altered," said Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 15:57:15 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene via ScienceDaily Airport Malaria: Cause For Concern In U.S. In a global world, significant factors affect the spread of infectious diseases, including international trade, air travel and globalized food production. "Airport malaria" is a term coined by researchers to explain the more recent spread of malaria to areas such as the United States and Europe, which some scientists credit to warmer climate changes... It begins with a mosquito that is transported during an international flight from a malaria-endemic region.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:29:55 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Lawmaker says action on warming will take time Congress will not act until 2010 on a bill to limit the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming despite President-elect Barack Obama's declaration that he will move quickly to address climate change, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee predicted Wednesday. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said that while every effort should be made to cap greenhouse gases, the economic crisis, the transition to a new administration and the complexity of setting up a nationwide market for carbon pollution permits preclude acting in 2009.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 16:11:37 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from Kansas City Star Climate change brings Kansans dire prediction Over the next century, eastern Kansas will get warmer and drier.
Western Kansas will get warmer and a lot drier.
The first in-depth analysis of climate change in Kansas, released Tuesday, offers a bundle of future worries as well as a bleak outlook for agriculture in the state.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 16:12:55 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from GhanaWeb Online "Mad Cow" outbreak claims 10 lives Ten persons have been confirmed dead following an epidemic of Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis (CSM) at Yaw Bronya, a farming community near Ofoase in Asante Akim-South District. Nine of the deceased, all of whom died in a spate of two weeks, have been buried, while three others are on admission at the Juaso District Hospital.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 15:15:12 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Victoria's Secret sued after bra 'made women ill' Several women have claimed that underwear from the leading lingerie firm, which uses supermodels including Giselle Bundchen and Heidi Klum, made them ill.
One woman even claims to have been left permanently scarred after wearing the Angels Secret Embrace bra...A US medical Web site was flooded with complaints against the underwear company.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 15:24:38 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from Reuters Giant Asian smog cloud masks global warming impact-UN A three-kilometre thick cloud of brown soot and other pollutants hanging over Asia is darkening cities, killing thousands and damaging crops but may be holding off the worst effects of global warming, the UN said on Thursday.
The vast plume of contamination from factories, fires, cars and deforestation contains some particles that reflect sunlight away from the earth, cutting its ability to heat the earth... The amount of sunlight reaching earth through the murk has fallen by up to a quarter in the worst-affected areas and if the brown cloud disperses, global temperatures could rise by up to 2 degrees Celsius.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 15:26:01 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from Nature Modified genes spread to local maize Transgenes from genetically modified (GM) maize (corn) crops have been found in traditional 'landrace' maize in the Mexican heartland, a study says. The work largely confirms a similar, controversial result published in Nature in 2001 and may reignite the debate in Mexico over GM crops.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 15:36:32 Thu, Nov 13, 2008: from LA Times California economy loses $28 billion yearly to health effects of pollution The California economy loses about $28 billion annually due to premature deaths and illnesses linked to ozone and particulates spewed from hundreds of locations in the South Coast and San Joaquin air basins, according to findings released Wednesday by a Cal State Fullerton research team.
Most of those costs, about $25 billion, are connected to roughly 3,000 smog-related deaths each year, but additional factors include work and school absences, emergency room visits, and asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses, said team leader Jane Hall, a professor of economics and co-director of the university's Institute for Economics and Environment Studies.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-16 15:53:26 Wed, Nov 12, 2008: from Purdue University via ScienceDaily Commercial Poultry Lack Genetic Diversity, Are Vulnerable To Avian Flu And Other Threats As concerns such as avian flu, animal welfare and consumer preferences impact the poultry industry, the reduced genetic diversity of commercial bird breeds increases their vulnerability and the industry's ability to adapt, according to a genetics expert... Researchers found that commercial birds are missing more than half of the genetic diversity native to the species, possibly leaving them vulnerable to new diseases and raising questions about their long-term sustainability.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:59:22 Wed, Nov 12, 2008: from Euractiv.com Existing climate actions 'not good enough', EU warned Global warming is driving major environmental changes more quickly than expected, with the Earth's average temperature racing towards dangerous levels and the transition to a low-carbon economy stalling, leading climate experts say. The world is in even "more dire straits" than the worst predictions set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Johan Rockstrom, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, told a climate change conference in Brussels yesterday...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:01:53 Wed, Nov 12, 2008: from MSNBC Nasty intestinal bug spikes in U.S. hospitals A virulent, drug-resistant gut infection that causes potentially deadly diarrhea, especially among the old and sick, is up to 20 times more common than previously thought, a large survey of U.S. hospitals and health care centers finds.
Thirteen in every 1,000 patients were infected or colonized with Clostridium difficile, known as C. diff, according to surveys by nearly 650 U.S. acute care and other centers, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, or APIC, reported Tuesday. That's between 6.5 and 20 times higher than previous estimates of the nasty bacterial infection tied to overuse of antibiotics and improperly cleaned hospital rooms...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:05:48 Wed, Nov 12, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Submarine in worst nuclear leak since 80s The Royal Navy is facing serious questions about why it kept quiet for four days about one of the worst radioactive spillages in recent years.
More than 61 gallons (280 litres) of toxic coolant poured into a river from a burst hose as it was being pumped from the nuclear submarine HMS Trafalgar on November 7.
But the Navy has only now admitted to the spill of the liquid, which contained tritium, a substance which can cause burns, cancer and DNA mutations as it breaks down.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:26:58 Tue, Nov 11, 2008: from Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Alaska permafrost study reveals larger global warming problem Alaskans should watch where they step. University of Alaska professor Chien-Lu Ping and a team of researchers have dug more than 100 holes around the state, taking permafrost samples for a paper published in the October issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.
In the paper, Ping concluded frozen Arctic soil contains nearly twice as much organic material and greenhouse gases as previously thought. He based his conclusions on the information collected in Alaska and more than 10 years of research.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:07:23 Tue, Nov 11, 2008: from Bloomberg News Radioactive Beer Kegs Menace Public, Boost Costs for Recyclers French authorities made headlines last month when they said as many as 500 sets of radioactive buttons had been installed in elevators around the country. It wasn't an isolated case. Improper disposal of industrial equipment and medical scanners containing radioactive materials is letting nuclear waste trickle into scrap smelters, contaminating consumer goods, threatening the $140 billion trade in recycled metal and spurring the United Nations to call for increased screening.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:08:33 Tue, Nov 11, 2008: from BBC Bolivia holds key to electric car future Lithium carries a great promise. It could help power the fuel efficient electric or petrol-electric hybrid vehicles of the future.
But, as is the case with fossil fuels, it is a limited resource... demand for lithium will outstrip supply in less than 10 years unless new sources are found.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:26:15 Tue, Nov 11, 2008: from The Daily Climate The ocean's acid test ...according to a new report issued today by Oceana ... today’s ocean chemistry is already hostile for many creatures fundamental to the marine food web. The world’s oceans – for so long a neat and invisible sink for humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions – are about to extract a price for all that waste.
The effects are not local: Entire ecosystems threaten to literally crumble away as critters relying on calcium carbonate for a home – from corals to mollusks to the sea snail – have a harder time manufacturing their shells. Corals shelter millions of species worldwide, while sea snails account for upwards of 45 percent of the diet of pink salmon.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:55:28 Tue, Nov 11, 2008: from Census of Marine Life, via EurekAlert Marine invasive species advance 50km per decade, World Conference on Marine Biodiversity told A rapid, climate change-induced northern migration of invasive marine is one of many research results announced Tues. Nov. 11 during opening day presentations at the First World Conference on Marine Biodiversity, Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, in Valencia.
Investigators report that invasive species of marine macroalgae spread at 50 km per decade, a distance far greater than that covered by invasive terrestrial plants. The difference may be due to the rapid dispersion of macroalgae propagules in the ocean, according to Nova Mieszkovska, from the Marine Biological Association of the U.K. ... "The impacts of the pressure of climate change are particularly dramatic, according to results presented at the Conference, in the abrupt deterioration of the Arctic and coral reefs" Duarte asserts.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:01:01 Mon, Nov 10, 2008: from Science Daily (US) XDR-TB: Deadlier And More Mysterious Than Ever New research has found that XDR-TB is increasingly common and more deadly than previously known. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is a growing public health threat that is only just beginning to be understood by medical and public health officials.... Over the three to seven years that the study's patient population was monitored, approximately 50 percent of those identified with XDR-TB died, which was a mortality rate similar to untreated TB patients in South India, and one that becomes even worse with HIV co-infection.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:35:25 Mon, Nov 10, 2008: from Guardian (UK) European fishing fleets may have catches cut by one-quarter European fishing fleets could see their catches cut by up to a quarter next year if EU ministers sign up to recommendations aiming to protect overfished species such as cod and haddock.
The European Commission today proposed deep cuts in 2009 catches for almost 30 species and a ban on fishing for several others across the northeastern Atlantic.... "I know this will be hard on the fleets affected," he said. "But there is no other choice if we want to restore the ecological basis for a truly viable European fishing industry," he added.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:17:45 Mon, Nov 10, 2008: from Mondaq (AK) Infrastructure Stakeholders May Soon Find Themselves Liable For The Effects Of Climate Change Climate change may be to blame for buckling roads and flooding, but failure to adapt to a changing climate could soon have its own set of consequences. A variety of legal actions charging different types of actors for alleged actions or omissions have occurred (or are now underway) -- all related in some way to greenhouse gas emissions. Our law, therefore, is evolving as our knowledge of climate change and its effects evolve.
Very little attention has been paid to potential legal liability for failing to adapt infrastructure to climate change-related risk. Amendments to laws, building codes and standards that would take into account the potential impact of climate change on infrastructure assets are still some time away.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:18:55 Mon, Nov 10, 2008: from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Symptoms of global warming overrun Greenland Although millions of people across the world still aren't convinced global warming is as big a problem as scientists claim, symptoms of the planet's warming pop up everywhere in Greenland.
The island's summer fishing season is longer. Crops are being grown in areas never thought possible for cultivation. Tourism is booming.... [But] a lack of sea ice has made winter passage between settlements more difficult, if not impossible. That's a huge problem because there are no roads between villages.... Full-sized halibut that used to be available at depths of about 1,000 feet now swim at depths of about 2,600 feet.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:34:32 Mon, Nov 10, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Quarter of Atlantic sharks and rays face extinction More than a quarter of sharks and rays in the north-east Atlantic face extinction from overfishing, conservationists warned today.
A "red list" report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 26 percent of all sharks, rays and related species in the regional waters are threatened with extinction. Seven per cent are classed as critically endangered, while a fifth are regarded as "near-threatened".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:20:43 Sun, Nov 9, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Lemmings hit by climate change Lemming populations have been ravaged by climate change as their breeding habits are disrupted by the wrong type of snow.
The rodents, who contrary to popular belief do not commit suicide, breed best when thick, fluffy snow forms a blanket under which they can shelter, reproduce and feed on moss.
Now researchers at the University of Oslo have reported that a general warming of the earth has given rise to a cycle of freezing and thawing which has meant that snow melts and freezes at ground level depriving the creatures of food.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:21:35 Sun, Nov 9, 2008: from Associated Press Congo refugee camp hit by cholera outbreak Doctors struggled Sunday to contain an outbreak of cholera in a sprawling refugee camp near Congo's eastern provincial capital of Goma, as new fighting ignited fears that infected patients could scatter and launch an epidemic.
At the Kibati camp and in Goma, thousands packed church services Sunday to pray for peace after rebels and pro-government militiamen executed civilians in two waves of terror that the top U.N. envoy to Congo has called war crimes.
The killings highlighted the inability of U.N. peacekeepers to protect civilians or halt a 10-week-old rebel offensive that has convulsed eastern Congo and forced more than 250,000 people from their homes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:24:58 Sun, Nov 9, 2008: from Yale University, via EurekAlert Revised theory suggests carbon dioxide levels already in danger zone If climate disasters are to be averted, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) must be reduced below the levels that already exist today, according to a study published in Open Atmospheric Science Journal by a group of 10 scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
The authors, who include two Yale scientists, assert that to maintain a planet similar to that on which civilization developed, an optimum CO2 level would be less than 350 ppm -- a dramatic change from most previous studies, which suggested a danger level for CO2 is likely to be 450 ppm or higher. Atmospheric CO2 is currently 385 parts per million (ppm) and is increasing by about 2 ppm each year from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) and from the burning of forests.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:00:15 Sun, Nov 9, 2008: from Wired Plastic Additives in Common Lab Gear Could Contaminate Critical Research Highly reactive chemicals can easily leak from plastic lab equipment used by scientists worldwide, interfering with results and potentially contaminating everything from basic biological research to drug development.... The best-known plastic additive is bisphenol A, a hard plastic ingredient that has drawn headlines for its hormone-disrupting effects in animals and, perhaps, humans.... Holt then tested his lab's pipette tips and microplates; once again, they found additives. When he told other researchers in his department, three of 20 teams reported evidence of interference, including a colleague working on the GABA neurotransmitter, key to the central nervous system and a target of tranquilizer drugs.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 16:35:57 Sat, Nov 8, 2008: from Census of Marine Life via ScienceDaily Overfishing Threatens European Bluefin Tuna Bluefin tuna disappeared from Danish waters in the 1960s. Now the species could become depleted throughout the northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean, according to analyses by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Aqua) and University of New Hampshire. The species is highly valued as sushi.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:25:02 Sat, Nov 8, 2008: from London Daily Mail Park life: Why living in a green area improves your health Living near parks and forests improves your health and lengthens your life, according to new research published today.
Scientists also found the health gap between rich and poor was narrower in greener areas.
Lead author Richard Mitchell from Glasgow University said their findings showed the impact of green spaces was bigger than once thought.
'The size of the difference in the health gap is surprising and represented a much bigger effect than I had been expecting,' he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:25:14 Sat, Nov 8, 2008: from Associated Press Obama climate policy caught in Democratic tussle A fight within the Democratic Party over control of the House Energy and Commerce Committee could influence the outcome of President-elect Obama's efforts to limit the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.
Obama has said he wants to act quickly on climate change. But crucial bipartisan support could be tested if liberal California Rep. Henry Waxman succeeds at unseating Chairman John Dingell of Michigan, the panel's top Democrat for 28 years and a key ally of automakers and electric utilities.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:25:46 Sat, Nov 8, 2008: from New York Times U.S. to Open Public Land Near Parks for Drilling The Bureau of Land Management has expanded its oil and gas lease program in eastern Utah to include tens of thousands of acres on or near the boundaries of three national parks, according to revised maps published this week. National Park Service officials say that the decision to open lands close to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument and within eyeshot of Canyonlands National Park was made without the kind of consultation that had previously been routine.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:40:52 Fri, Nov 7, 2008: from Agence France-Presse The rate of warming is 'unprecedented' Washington - Research on Arctic and North Atlantic ecosystems shows the recent warming trend counts as the most dramatic climate change since the onset of human civilisation 5000 years ago, according to studies published on Thursday.
Researchers from Cornell University studied the increased introduction of fresh water from glacial melt, oceanic circulation, and the change in geographic range migration of oceanic plant and animal species.
The team, led by oceanographer Charles Greene, described "major ecosystem reorganisation" -- or "regime shift" -- in the North Atlantic, a consequence of global warming on the largest scale in five millennia... "The rate of warming we are seeing (now) is unprecedented in human history," said Greene...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:51:35 Fri, Nov 7, 2008: from Canadian Press Society spells out environmental links to cancer in online handbook The Canadian Cancer Society has launched an online handbook that details the environmental substances known to or suspected of causing cancer and what people can do to limit their exposure.
Entitled The Environment, Cancer and You, the handbook discusses asbestos, radon gas, electromagnetic fields, flame retardants, labelling of consumer products, phthalates in plastics, teflon and non-stick cookware, and water chlorination by-products.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:36:47 Fri, Nov 7, 2008: from TIME Magazine Is It Time to Kill Off the Flush Toilet? To flush or not to flush. That was the question that designers and ecologists were asking each other this week as hundreds of people who spend a lot of time thinking about these things convened for the annual World Toilet Summit and Expo in Macau... the flushing loo -- that human innovation that lifted the industrialized world out of its own dirt, cholera and dysentery -- is quickly becoming one of the more egregious instruments of waste in this time of acutely finite resources.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:58:48 Fri, Nov 7, 2008: from McClatchy Newspapers Bush officials moving fast to cut environmental protections In the next few weeks, the Bush administration is expected to relax environmental-protection rules on power plants near national parks, uranium mining near the Grand Canyon and more mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia. The administration is widely expected to try to get some of the rules into final form by the week before Thanksgiving because, in some cases, there's a 60-day delay before new regulations take effect. And once the rules are in place, undoing them generally would be a more time-consuming job for the next Congress and administration.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:16:24 Thu, Nov 6, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Recycling waste piles up as prices collapse Thousands of tonnes of rubbish collected from household recycling bins may have to be stored in warehouses and former military bases to save them from being dumped after a collapse in prices.
Collection companies and councils are running out of space to store paper, plastic bottles and steel cans because prices are so low that the materials cannot be shifted. Collections of mixed plastics, mixed paper and steel reached record levels in the summer but the "bottom fell out of the market" and they are now worthless. The plunge in prices was caused by a sudden fall in demand for recycled materials, especially from China, as manufacturers reduced their output in line with the global economc downturn.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:24:13 Thu, Nov 6, 2008: from The Earth Institute at Columbia University via ScienceDaily Rocks Could Be Harnessed To Sponge Vast Amounts Of Carbon Dioxide From Air Scientists say that a type of rock found at or near the surface in the Mideast nation of Oman and other areas around the world could be harnessed to soak up huge quantities of globe-warming carbon dioxide. Their studies show that the rock, known as peridotite, reacts naturally at surprisingly high rates with CO2 to form solid minerals -- and that the process could be speeded a million times or more with simple drilling and injection methods.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:41:38 Thu, Nov 6, 2008: from SciDev.net China's GM ambition raises biosafety concerns China's recent roll-out of a a US$3.7 billion research programme to develop genetically modified (GM) crops, particularly rice, has been hailed by supporters as the means to feed the country's swelling population.
But opposition remains strong due to concerns ranging from the health and environmental risks to regulation loopholes, writes Jane Qiu in Nature.... Others warn that GM technology safeguards could be undermined by the monoculture of rice and lack of adjacent refuges, which would encourage resistant pests; the absence of effective labelling of GM seeds; and the illegal release of GM varieties from laboratories.
Worryingly, many stakeholders are being excluded from the agriculture ministry's biosafety evaluation process.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:42:24 Thu, Nov 6, 2008: from TIME Magazine Taking On King Coal The future of coal will dictate the future of the climate. Plants in the U.S. that burn this low-cost, high-carbon fuel account for about 40 percent of the country's greenhouse-gas emissions, not to mention other air pollutants. Right now there are about 600 coal power plants in the U.S., and an additional 110 are in various stages of development. Without ways to capture the carbon burned in coal and sequester it underground, new plants all but guarantee billions of tons of future carbon emissions and essentially negate efforts to reduce global warming.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 21:59:05 Thu, Nov 6, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Lemmings hit by climate change Lemming populations have been ravaged by climate change as their breeding habits are disrupted by the wrong type of snow.
The rodents, who contrary to popular belief do not commit suicide, breed best when thick, fluffy snow forms a blanket under which they can shelter, reproduce and feed on moss.
Now researchers at the University of Oslo have reported that a general warming of the earth has given rise to a cycle of freezing and thawing which has meant that snow melts and freezes at ground level depriving the creatures of food.... This has meant that the regular explosions in lemming numbers have ceased over the past 15 years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:43:49 Thu, Nov 6, 2008: from Harvard University, via EurekAlert Global warming predicted to hasten carbon release from peat bogs Billions of tons of carbon sequestered in the world's peat bogs could be released into the atmosphere in the coming decades as a result of global warming, according to a new analysis of the interplay between peat bogs, water tables, and climate change.
Such an atmospheric release of even a small percentage of the carbon locked away in the world's peat bogs would dwarf emissions of manmade carbon.... "Previous modeling has assumed that decomposition in peat bogs is like that in a conventional soil," Moorcroft says. "Ours is the first simulation to take a realistic look at the interaction between the dynamics of the water table, peat temperatures, and peat accumulation."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:40:43 Thu, Nov 6, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor Why frogs are croaking In the quest to find out why frog species have been declining so dramatically, various researchers have blamed climate change, disease, pollution, and increases in ultraviolet light from the sun reaching the surface. If two new studies are any indication, the answer increasingly appears to be: all of the above.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:45:31 Wed, Nov 5, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Superbug MRSA cases hit record level in Ontario Ontario has recorded its highest number of superbug MRSA cases - a troubling sign that the pernicious invader has made significant inroads in hospitals.
Specifically, the number of cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has increased by more than 50 per cent over a three-year period, with 16,498 patients infected or colonized with MRSA in 2007, according to figures provided by Ontario's Quality Management Program-Laboratory Services.
By comparison, a total of 10,301 patients were infected or colonized with the superbug in 2004, according to Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, who analyzed the data for the laboratory services program.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:46:32 Wed, Nov 5, 2008: from Dow Jones Newswires Under Obama, Dark Days Seen Ahead For Fossil Fuels Under President-elect Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the fossil fuels industry may face "dark days ahead," while alternative energy sectors are likely to flourish.
Although it will take years to engineer and implement, an Obama administration energy and environment policy marks a tectonic shift for the nation. He would move the U.S. away from petroleum as its primary energy source and towards renewable energy, advanced biofuels, efficiency and low greenhouse-gas-emitting technologies.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:48:08 Wed, Nov 5, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Raccoons spread flu, study shows ...New research shows the pesky critters -- called the animal world's Typhoid Mary by one of the study's authors -- can catch and spread both human and avian strains of influenza.
Lead author Jeffrey Hall isn't suggesting the raccoon you have to shoo away from your garbage can is likely to infect you with the flu.
But his findings point to the possibility that raccoons play a role in the emergence of new strains of influenza, helping bird viruses adapt to be able to infect mammals. That process, which involves the swapping of genes among viruses, is called reassortment and is one of the ways a strain capable of causing a flu pandemic could arise.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:48:46 Wed, Nov 5, 2008: from Scientific American Birds of a Feather: Commercial Producers Play Chicken with Avian Flu In the late 1980s thousands of chickens died from a cancer caused by a virus known as avian leukosis virus J because they were all descended from a few roosters susceptible to the disease.
This is just one example of how a lack of genetic diversity can imperil livestock and agriculture. Similar instances abound from the Irish potato famine of the 19th century to cattle raised for meat—one bull named Ivanhoe passed on his genetic susceptibility to an immune system disorder to roughly 15 percent of all the Holstein bulls in the U.S. today. Now a new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, shows that the world's 40 billion commercial chickens—those raised for their meat and eggs—have half the genetic diversity possible in the chicken genome, rendering them susceptible to other crippling disease outbreaks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:49:19 Tue, Nov 4, 2008: from Portland Oregonian Can rain + TV watching = autism? After his son's autism spectrum disorder was diagnosed, Michael Waldman began to wonder whether television viewing might play a triggering role.
The question so obsessed the Cornell University economist that he enlisted several colleagues to pursue the answer by means of an unlikely strategy: studying rainfall records in Oregon, Washington and California. Kids cooped up indoors on rainy days, they figured, probably watch more television. To the surprise of autism experts, the economists found that the disorder indeed appears significantly more often among children living in counties with more rain and snow.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:50:34 Tue, Nov 4, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Palm oil agreement could lead to logging moratorium The view that the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is merely a way of making companies appear politically correct without making difference to de-forestation could be about to change if agreement on an important new resolution is reached.... Each year the burning and degradation of Indonesian peat swamp forests releases a staggering 2 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. This accounts for nearly 4 per cent of global emissions from less than 0.1 per cent of the world's land surface.... There is a possibility that they could be awarded funds through carbon credits under the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) scheme that is currently under discussion.
Under the terms of this new resolution the RSPO will also start a programme to support the responsible development of suitable land. These would include land swaps where forest concessions could be exchanged for waste land concessions and the establishment of soft loan funds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:52:07 Tue, Nov 4, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Ozone hole over Antarctica covered area size of North America The hole was the fifth biggest since satellite monitoring began in 1979.... Ozone loss was at its worst in 2006 when the hole covered more than 11.4m square miles at its peak but by last year the ozone hole had returned to average size and depth and was 30 per cent smaller than the record size.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:53:29 Tue, Nov 4, 2008: from UIUC, via EurekAlert Smaller mosquitoes are more likely to be infected with viruses causing human diseases The researchers painstakingly took into account the size of each mosquito by measuring the length of their wings. Smaller-sized mosquitoes had higher infection and potential to transmit dengue virus than larger individuals. However, Alto warns there are other components, such as adult longevity, host preference, and feeding frequency, that determine a mosquito's vectoring ability which still need to be taken into account in future studies.
The Asian tiger and yellow fever mosquitoes are the two main transmitters of dengue virus, the mosquito-borne virus of greatest importance to human health. Both of these mosquitoes are found throughout the world including the U.S. The ferocious tiger mosquito invaded Illinois in the 1990s. Now researchers have shown that only slight differences in the body sizes of these mosquitoes drastically alter their potential to transmit viruses causing human disease.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:25:51 Tue, Nov 4, 2008: from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, via EurekAlert Solar power game-changer: 'Near perfect' absorption of sunlight, from all angles An untreated silicon solar cell only absorbs 67.4 percent of sunlight shone upon it -- meaning that nearly one-third of that sunlight is reflected away and thus unharvestable. From an economic and efficiency perspective, this unharvested light is wasted potential and a major barrier hampering the proliferation and widespread adoption of solar power.
After a silicon surface was treated with Lin's new nanoengineered reflective coating, however, the material absorbed 96.21 percent of sunlight shone upon it -- meaning that only 3.79 percent of the sunlight was reflected and unharvested. This huge gain in absorption was consistent across the entire spectrum of sunlight, from UV to visible light and infrared, and moves solar power a significant step forward toward economic viability.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:55:31 Tue, Nov 4, 2008: from Mongabay True cost of China's coal: $250 billion in pollution, environmental damage, and social ills Every year China is spends $250 billion in hidden costs due to its reliance on coal, according to a report compiled over three years by top Chinese economists. These hidden costs are in the form of both environmental degradation and social ills.... According to the report, air pollution from coal has become so bad in China that chronic respiratory disease has become a leading cause of death. In addition to air, coal has also impacted China's water availability. For every ton of coal produced two-and-a-half tons of water become polluted; already 71 percent of the coal mines in China are facing water shortages. When rain falls it is often unusable. Acid rain, due largely to coal production, is now recorded in thirty percent of China. China's land is not left unaffected. Mercury from the coal has seeped into China's soil and landslides due to mining are not uncommon. Mining accidents leading to injury or death are common in China where little has been invested in miner safety; according to the BBC, 3,700 miners died in accidents in 2007 alone.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-21 09:56:14 Tue, Nov 4, 2008: from Montana State University, via EurekAlert New type of fuel found in Patagonia fungus A team led by a Montana State University professor has found a fungus that produces a new type of diesel fuel, which they say holds great promise.
Calling the fungus' output "myco-diesel," Gary Strobel and his collaborators describe their initial observations in the November issue of Microbiology.... Strobel, who travels the world looking for exotic plants that may contain beneficial microbes, found the diesel-producing fungus in a Patagonia rainforest. Strobel visited the rainforest in 2002 and collected a variety of specimens, including the branches from an ancient family of trees known as "ulmo." When he and his collaborators examined the branches, they found fungus growing inside. They continued to investigate and discovered that the fungus, called "Gliocladium roseum," was producing gases. Further testing showed that the fungus -- under limited oxygen -- was producing a number of compounds normally associated with diesel fuel, which is obtained from crude oil.
"These are the first organisms that have been found that make many of the ingredients of diesel," Strobel said. "This is a major discovery."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:33:48 Tue, Nov 4, 2008: from Bay Journal NOAA takes stock of assessment scientists and comes up short Now, it turns out that there's a shortage of scientists to tell us that there's a shortage of fish.
A new federal report warns that the nation is facing a critical shortage of stock assessment scientists, the specialists who crunch numbers from various surveys to estimate the abundance of various fish populations.... Miller noted that many important species that live entirely in the Chesapeake have never had stock assessments, including such species as oysters, soft clams, razer clams, horseshoe crabs, catfish and white perch,
"All would be eminently suitable candidates for an assessment, but there simply are not the staff around to do it," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:23:46 Mon, Nov 3, 2008: from Bloomberg News Coca-Cola agrees to cut water use and stabilize emissions SAN FRANCISCO - Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft-drink maker, vowed to more efficiently use water and stabilize its carbon-dioxide emissions linked to global warming under an agreement released last week with the World Wildlife Fund.
Coca-Cola pledged to improve efficiency at bottling plants 20 percent by 2012 though overall water use will increase as business grows. The manufacturing changes will save about 50 billion litres (13 billion gallons) of water during the next four years, the Atlanta-based company said. Coca-Cola also will hold emissions at current levels, said spokeswoman Lisa Manley.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-03 13:43:13 Mon, Nov 3, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Neil Young on gas guzzlers: Long may you run Leave it to Neil Young to make green technology cool.
The rock legend has created a company called Linc Volt Technology to promote the conversion of existing gas-guzzling cars into vehicles that run on alternative energy. But we're not talking about boxy little e-cars here. Young, who likes his cars old and big, is launching his effort by converting a 1959 Lincoln Continental to run on electricity and natural gas.... "All we're doing is showing that you can run a car like this at 100 miles per gallon or more," said Young...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:33:13 Mon, Nov 3, 2008: from Associated Press Mexico City's 'water monster' nears extinction MEXICO CITY-- Beneath the tourist gondolas in the remains of a great Aztec lake lives a creature that resembles a monster - and a Muppet - with its slimy tail, plumage-like gills and mouth that curls into an odd smile.
The axolotl, also known as the "water monster" and the "Mexican walking fish," was a key part of Aztec legend and diet. Against all odds, it survived until now amid Mexico City's urban sprawl in the polluted canals of Lake Xochimilco, now a Venice-style destination for revelers poled along by Mexican gondoliers, or trajineros, in brightly painted party boats.
But scientists are racing to save the foot-long salamander from extinction, a victim of the draining of its lake habitat and deteriorating water quality. In what may be the final blow, nonnative fish introduced into the canals are eating its lunch - and its babies.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:14:02 Mon, Nov 3, 2008: from Atlanta Journal-Constitution Drought more menacing, but it gets less mention Drought? What drought? The rains still haven’t come. Lake Lanier drops ever lower. And Georgia’s water wars with Florida and Alabama slog along.
Yet last fall's doomsday water scenarios have disappeared from newspaper front pages and state officials' lips. Instead, this fall, Georgians are consumed with the financial crisis, the presidential election and gas prices. Meanwhile, the new year promises Year Four of the drought that has fundamentally affected the way North Georgians live.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:09:41 Mon, Nov 3, 2008: from USA Today A bounty sprouts in the city with MyFarm enterprise Some might look across this city's rolling hills with its waves of roofs and see some of America's priciest real estate.
Trevor Paque saw virgin farmland.
He calls his enterprise, MyFarm, a "decentralized urban farm." His aim is to turn San Francisco's under-used, overgrown backyards into verdant plots of green that will provide organically grown food for the city's residents.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-02 09:16:14 Sun, Nov 2, 2008: from Eureka via ScienceDaily Cleaning Heavily Polluted Water At A Fraction Of The Cost A European research project has succeeded in developing a water treatment system for industrial oil polluted water at a tenth of the cost of other commercially available tertiary treatments, leaving water so clean it can be pumped safely back out to sea without endangering flora or fauna.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:40:18 Sun, Nov 2, 2008: from London Guardian Is water the new oil? ...Already, 1bn people do not have enough clean water to drink, and at least 2bn cannot rely on adequate water to drink, clean and eat - let alone have enough left for nature.... The Stockholm International Water Institute talks about 'an acute and devastating humanitarian crisis'; the founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, warns of a 'perfect storm'; Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary General, has raised the spectre of 'water wars'. And, as the population keeps growing and getting richer, and global warming changes the climate, experts are warning that unless something is done, billions more will suffer lack of water - precipitating hunger, disease, migration and ultimately conflict.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:13:03 Sun, Nov 2, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Drought land 'will be abandoned' Parts of the world may have to be abandoned because severe water shortages will leave them uninhabitable, the United Nations environment chief has warned.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said water shortages caused by over-use of rivers and aquifers were already leading to serious problems, even in rich nations. With climate change expected to reduce rainfall in some places and cause droughts in others, some regions could become 'economic deserts', unviable for people or agriculture, he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 16:36:37 Sun, Nov 2, 2008: from Conservation International, via EurekAlert Eastern Pacific tuna hang in the balance Whether this 16-nation Commission will act to protect declining tuna stocks, or once again demonstrate their impotence to do so, remains to be seen. The fate of Pacific tuna stocks hangs in the balance.
Tuna populations are showing signs of trouble in the eastern tropical Pacific. Bigeye tuna populations are falling to low levels, the average size of captured yellowfin tuna is in decline and high levels of very small juvenile tuna are being caught accidentally. The Commission's own scientific staff have issued repeated warnings about these signs and urged nations to collectively adopt measures that include establishment of closure periods for overall stock recoveries, special closure areas where fish are most reproductively active and limits on annual catches. Despite five attempts in two years, the Commission has yet to agree on a single measure to address overfishing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:58:17 Sat, Nov 1, 2008: from Jakarta Post Mass relocation planned as seas rise The government is preparing to relocate people living on islands considered vulnerable to rising sea levels over the next three decades.
Sea levels are expected to surge drastically between 2030 and 2040 because of global warming. Experts and the government fear that about 2,000 islands across the country will sink.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-01 23:54:21 Sat, Nov 1, 2008: from Time Magazine What the Public Doesn't Get About Climate Change In a paper that came out Oct. 23 in Science, John Sterman -- a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Sloan School of Management -- wrote about asking 212 MIT grad students to give a rough idea of how much governments need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by to eventually stop the increase in the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. These students had training in science, technology, mathematics and economics at one of the best schools in the world -- they are probably a lot smarter than you or me. Yet 84 percent of Sterman's subjects got the question wrong, greatly underestimating the degree to which greenhouse gas emissions need to fall. When the MIT kids can't figure out climate change, what are the odds that the broader public will?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:59:25 Sat, Nov 1, 2008: from Eugene KVAL Drug-resistant bacteria found in pork A ground-breaking investigation by the KOMO Problem Solvers has found toxic, life-threatening Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) bacteria in some pork you might buy at grocery stores.
This drug-resistant bacteria is already responsible for more deaths in this country than AIDS. What makes MRSA so potentially dangerous is the bacteria can make you sick just by touching it.
In spite of the risk, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has resisted testing store-bought pork for the aggressive bacteria.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-01 23:55:01 Sat, Nov 1, 2008: from New York Times Fears on Animal Feed Widen Food Inquiry in China SHANGHAI -- Chinese regulators said Friday that they were widening their investigation into contaminated food amid growing signs that the toxic industrial chemical melamine has leached into the nation's animal feed supplies, posing health risks to consumers throughout the world. The announcement came after food safety tests earlier this week found that eggs produced in three provinces in China were contaminated with melamine, which is blamed for causing kidney stones and renal failure in infants.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-11-15 13:52:27 Sat, Nov 1, 2008: from USA Today Advisers: FDA decision on safety of BPA 'flawed' A Food and Drug Administration advisory board voted Friday to say that the agency ignored critical evidence suggesting that a controversial plastic chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, could harm children. The FDA's science board, a group of outside experts, voted unanimously to endorse a report that found major flaws in the agency's decision to declare BPA safe.... The science board agreed with the finding that that the FDA was wrong to base its August decision that BPA is safe only on studies funded by the chemical industry.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:15:09 Fri, Oct 31, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Die-off of bats is linked to new fungus Researchers have found a clue in the mysterious die-off of bats that has struck the Northeast -- a new fungus that so far seems to be present only in bats and in caves where the die-off has occurred. "The fungus is in some way involved in causing the bats to starve to death," said biologist Thomas Tomasi of Missouri State University in Springfield. "They are burning up too many calories, at a rate faster than they can sustain."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:09:18 Fri, Oct 31, 2008: from Associated Press Calif. cuts water deliveries to cities, farms The state said Thursday it would cut water deliveries to their second lowest level ever, prompting warnings of water rationing for cities and less planting by farmers.
The Department of Water Resources announced it will deliver just 15 percent of the amount that local water agencies throughout California request every year. That marks the second lowest projection since the first State Water Project deliveries were made in 1962.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:38:29 Fri, Oct 31, 2008: from BBC Polar warming 'caused by humans' In 2007, the UN's climate change body presented strong scientific evidence the rise in average global temperature is mostly due to human activities.
This contradicted ideas that it was not a result of natural processes such as an increase in the Sun's intensity.
At the time, there was not sufficient evidence to say this for sure about the Arctic and Antarctic. Now that gap in research has been plugged, according to scientists who carried out a detailed analysis of temperature variations at both poles.
Their study indicates that humans have indeed contributed to warming in both regions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-31 16:09:58 Fri, Oct 31, 2008: from WTHR-13 What's Floating in the River Indianapolis - It's a rainy fall morning and the White River looks particularly murky.
There's good reason.
The dark, sludgy stuff that's floating down the river is coming straight from someone's toilet.
Dirty little secret?
No.
Indianapolis and more than 100 other Indiana towns openly admit they dump human waste into scenic rivers and streams.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:28:32 Thu, Oct 30, 2008: from NASA via ScienceDaily Climate Change Seeps Into The Sea Good news has turned out to be bad. The ocean has helped slow global warming by absorbing much of the excess heat and heat-trapping carbon dioxide that has been going into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
All that extra carbon dioxide, however, has been a bitter pill for the ocean to swallow. It's changing the chemistry of seawater, making it more acidic and otherwise inhospitable, threatening many important marine organisms.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:20:08 Thu, Oct 30, 2008: from Massachusetts Institute of Technology via ScienceDaily Methane Gas Levels Begin To Increase Again The amount of methane in Earth's atmosphere shot up in 2007, bringing to an end a period of about a decade in which atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas were essentially stable, according to a team led by MIT researchers. Methane levels in the atmosphere have more than doubled since pre-industrial times, accounting for around one-fifth of the human contribution to greenhouse gas-driven global warming....pound for pound, methane is 25 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-30 19:10:25 Thu, Oct 30, 2008: from Tucson Weekly Grim Tally ...On Oct. 22, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva released a report, compiled by his staff and subtly titled, "The Bush Administration Assaults on Our National Parks, Forests and Public Lands (A Partial List)."...Grijalva said he expects a slew of last-ditch efforts to gut environmental regulations in the administration's final days.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:31:18 Thu, Oct 30, 2008: from Scientific American Geoengineering: How to Cool Earth--At a Price Three recent developments have brought [geoengineering] back into the mainstream.
First, despite years of talk and international treaties, CO2 emissions are rising faster than the worst-case scenario envisioned as recently as 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "The trend is upward and toward an ever increasing reliance on coal," says Ken Caldeira, a climate modeler at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif.
Second, ice is melting faster than ever at the poles, suggesting that climate might be closer to the brink -- or to a tipping point, in the current vernacular -- than anyone had thought.
And third, Paul J. Crutzen wrote an essay. The 2006 paper in the journal Climatic Change by the eminent Dutch atmospheric chemist, in which with heavy heart he, too, urged serious consideration of geoengineering, "let the cat out of the bag," Keith says. Crutzen had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the destruction of atmospheric ozone in 1995; if he was taking geoengineering seriously, it seemed, everyone needed to.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:28:08 Thu, Oct 30, 2008: from Science Farm chemicals can indirectly hammer frogs Atrazine, the second-most widely used agricultural pesticide in America, can pose a toxic double whammy to tadpoles. The weed killer not only increases the likelihood that massive concentrations of flatworms will thrive in the amphibians’ ponds, a new study reports, but also diminishes the ability of larval frogs to fight infection with these parasites. Moreover, the new data show, runoff of phosphate fertilizer into pond water can amplify atrazine’s toxicity. The fertilizer does this by boosting the production of algae on which snails feed. Those snails serve as a primary, if temporary, host for the parasitic flatworms, which can sicken frogs.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-29 13:35:42 Wed, Oct 29, 2008: from Charleston Post and Courier Useful things rise from ashes At Santee Cooper's Winyah generating station, powerful generators make enough electricity to light 577,000 homes. In the process, the plant creates vast amounts of ash, and for years, hundreds of thousands of tons ended up in nearby retention ponds. No more.
Today, nearly all of this ash ends up being reused. In the shadow of the Winyah plant's smokestacks, American Gypsum recently opened a $150 million factory that uses Santee Cooper's gypsum to crank out as much as 136 miles of wallboard per day. Nearby, crews mine bottom ash from a pond to make lighter concrete building blocks; fly ash is sent to concrete-makers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 08:57:21 Wed, Oct 29, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Killer whales disappearing off southern B.C. There were early signs of starvation and then declining birth rates - now a growing number of adults and calves have vanished from a population of orcas found in the waters of southern British Columbia and northern Washington.
Although no bodies have been found, it's thought that the whales, which rarely stray from the group, have died, perhaps tipping a key population toward extinction.
And scientists say the worst is yet to come for the southern resident orcas and a second, separate population known as the northern residents, which are both heading into winter undernourished because there are so few salmon to feed on.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-29 13:23:59 Wed, Oct 29, 2008: from Portland Oregonian Fact or fiction: Is Oregon killing you? Like many people, Joyce Young thinks Oregon is special. But not in a good way.
A naturopathic doctor, Young moved to Oregon in 1997, attracted by the state's healthy reputation for organic foods, outdoor recreation and environmental awareness.
By last year, she was convinced the state was slowly killing her. She was constantly stuffy, hoarse and suffering aches and pains. In her practice, she saw lots of people coping with diseases, including multiple sclerosis and breast cancer. Digging into statistics, Young noticed high rates of those ailments and diseases such as skin cancer and strokes she thought would be rare in a cloudy, healthy state.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-29 13:19:36 Wed, Oct 29, 2008: from BBC Earth on course for eco 'crunch' The planet is headed for an ecological "credit crunch", according to a report issued by conservation groups.
The document contends that our demands on natural resources overreach what the Earth can sustain by almost a third.
The Living Planet Report is the work of WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network.
It says that more than three quarters of the world's population lives in countries where consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 21:42:07 Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from Honolulu KHNL Researcher warns: "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" is out of control An environmental warning tonight from the man who discovered a vortex of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean. It's twice the size of Texas, and still growing... Moore discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 1997 while sailing in the Trans Pacific Yacht Race to Hawaii. Since then, the sea captain says the plastic pollution pit has more than quadrupled.... Moore says the plastic problem has become so severe, there's 46 times more plastic as there is plankton.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-28 15:32:15 Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from Boston Globe Troubling toll in Thoreau's backyard In the 1850s, a few years after he had gone to "live deliberately" in a cabin in the woods at Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau began to compile detailed records on hundreds of species of plants in his beloved Concord. Those same data now are being used to measure the effect of climate change, and the news is not good, researchers said yesterday. Scientists from Boston University and Harvard reported that 27 percent of the species documented by Thoreau have disappeared, and another 36 percent are in such low numbers that their disappearance is imminent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-28 15:23:55 Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from Reuters Mysterious African disease is a new virus - expert A mysterious hemorrhagic disease that has killed three people in South Africa and forced others into isolation appears to be a never-before-seen strain of a virus known as an arenavirus, an expert said on Monday.
Genetic testing indicates the virus is a new type of arenavirus -- a large family of viruses that include the germs that cause Lassa fever and the mouse-borne lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, said Dr. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University in New York.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-28 15:23:47 Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Carbon footprint standard for all products drawn up by Government The world's first standard to measure the carbon footprint of every product in our shops will be launched tomorrow by the Government in an effort to end the continuing confusion over "eco-labels".... The document, known as a Publicly Available Specification or PAS 2050, will tell producers how to calculate a product's carbon output, from the raw materials, through manufacturing and consumption, to the waste produced.
It will enable companies to estimate the amount of CO2 in grams used in the life of a product and therefore its potential impact on global warming.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-28 15:17:14 Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from Army Times Burn pit at Balad raises health concerns An open-air “burn pit” at the largest U.S. base in Iraq may have exposed tens of thousands of troops, contractors and Iraqis to cancer-causing dioxins, poisons such as arsenic and carbon monoxide, and hazardous medical waste, documentation gathered by Military Times shows.
The billowing black plume from the burn pit at 15-square-mile Joint Base Balad, the central logistics hub for U.S. forces in Iraq, wafts continually over living quarters and the base combat support hospital, sources say.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:29:24 Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from University of Georgia, via EurekAlert Study helps clarify role of soil microbes in global warming feedback Current models of global climate change predict warmer temperatures will increase the rate that bacteria and other microbes decompose soil organic matter, a scenario that pumps even more heat-trapping carbon into the atmosphere. But a new study led by a University of Georgia researcher shows that while the rate of decomposition increases for a brief period in response to warmer temperatures, elevated levels of decomposition don't persist.
"There is about two and a half times more carbon in the soil than there is in the atmosphere, and the concern right now is that a lot of that carbon is going to end up in the atmosphere," said lead author Mark Bradford, assistant professor in the UGA Odum School of Ecology. "What our finding suggests is that a positive feedback between warming and a loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere is likely to occur but will be less than currently predicted."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:09:45 Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from The Argosy Biosphere barely balancing The environment appears to be swiftly falling to pieces around us. Though television commercials about carbon emissions, and reusable shopping bags signal greater awareness of the issues, our environment is in crisis, particularly our biodiversity. In the Americas alone, bats, bees and bananas appear to be in serious danger, which in turn threatens human life.... In a world where every ecosystem is connected and every species has an impact, losing biodiversity means a lot more for the human race than just having to shorten the 'B' section of the Children's encyclopedia.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:31:16 Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from Reuters Europe cracks down on fishing for deep-sea species Europe's exotic deepwater fish, some of which can live up to 150 years, won more protection from the European Union on Monday as fisheries ministers agreed to hefty quota cuts for the next two years.
Bearing names like forkbeard, black scabbardfish, greater silver smelt and roundnose grenadier, Europe's deep-sea fish grow and reproduce far more slowly than fish in shallower waters and are far more vulnerable to overfishing.... With the depletion of mainstay commercial fish such as cod and hake in recent years, they have become an attractive catch as trawlers switch from their regular fishing grounds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:57:17 Tue, Oct 28, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Climate change keeps swans in Siberia Hundreds of swans due to spend winter in the UK are staying put in Siberia because climate change has made the region warm enough to remain, bird experts have said. Bewick's swans are usually expected in wetlands around England in late October but flocks have been arriving later every year.
This year it is feared the endangered birds, which are the smallest species of swan to be found in the UK, will fail to turn up at all since it is now warm enough to stay in Siberia.
At Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre, where 300 swans should be arriving any minute now, bird lovers are still waiting.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:28:46 Mon, Oct 27, 2008: from London Guardian Climate change 'making seas more salty' Global warming is making the sea more salty, according to new research that demonstrates the massive shifts in natural systems triggered by climate change.
Experts at the UK Met Office and Reading University say warmer temperatures over the Atlantic Ocean have significantly increased evaporation and reduced rainfall across a giant stretch of water from Africa to the Carribean in recent years. The change concentrates salt in the water left behind, and is predicted to make southern Europe and the Mediterranean much drier in future.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:22:54 Mon, Oct 27, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Australia's Stern review warns of runaway global warming Carbon pollution levels are rising so fast that the world has no realistic chance of hitting ambitious climate targets set by Britain and the G8, an influential report to the Australian government has warned.... Since 2000, the Garnaut report says, global carbon emissions from fossil fuel use have grown by 3 percent each year, as economies of developing countries including China have boomed. This compares to annual growth rates of 2 percent through the 1970s and 1980s, and just 1 percent in the 1990s.... The worst case considered by the IPCC was that world carbon dioxide emissions would rise by 2.5 percent each year -- a scenario often criticised as too pessimistic. Most government projections and discussions are based on the milder IPCC "median" scenario, which sets an annual growth rate of just 2 percent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-27 12:16:42 Mon, Oct 27, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Endangered birds tracked by conservationists are found poisoned The birds, northern bald ibis, are thought to have fallen victim to poisons left out by farmers to kill rats.... The species numbered more than 6,000 in Turkey and Syria 50 years ago but development and the use of the farm chemical DDT is thought to have caused the collapse in numbers.
It is thought that many of the young birds who disappear without trace fall victim to poisoning.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:40:33 Mon, Oct 27, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Biogas converters -- making fuel and fertiliser from biodegradable waste Most of the food we throw away in this country ends up in landfill sites, where methane emissions are a real problem.
Not so long ago all these gases were allowed to waft up into the atmosphere or were simply burnt off with flares to stop explosions.... The digestors are really silos designed to speed up the rotting process and collect the methane that's released. The brilliant thing about it is that all the gas can than be used for electricity generation -- or even for vehicle fuel.
And what's left behind is a great fertiliser -- so almost nothing is actually wasted.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:56:49 Mon, Oct 27, 2008: from Financial News Pandemic coming -- and it will slam insurers: Lloyd's of London A repeat of the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 is expected to cause a global recession on a scope ranging from 1 percent to 10 percent of global gross domestic product, according to a report released by Lloyd's of London’s emerging risk team.
The Lloyd's report, "Pandemic -- Potential Insurance Impacts," concludes that a pandemic is inevitable, with historic recurrence rates of 30 to 50 years. The report focuses on the impact of a global pandemic on the business community and, in particular, the insurance markets.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:33:17 Mon, Oct 27, 2008: from Charleston Post and Courier Effects on wildlife studied Frogs and other amphibians are experiencing a mysterious and dramatic decline across the world. Pollution is one suspect, he said. Climate change and disease are others.
But his particular interest is coal-combustion waste, which he said is a complex brew of arsenic, selenium, chromium, mercury and other contaminants. More and more research is showing that these wastes are affecting wildlife.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:28:00 Mon, Oct 27, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Climate deal may be too late to save coral reefs, scientists warn A new global deal on climate change will come too late to save most of the world's coral reefs, according to a US study that suggests major ecological damage to the oceans is now inevitable.
Emissions of carbon dioxide are making seawater so acidic that reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia could begin to break up within a few decades, research by the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California suggests. Even ambitious targets to stabilise greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, as championed by Britain and Europe to stave off dangerous climate change, still place more than 90 percent of coral reefs in jeopardy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:34:04 Mon, Oct 27, 2008: from Independent Online (South Africa) Locals ignorant of mercury threat People are still eating fish from Inanda Dam, despite a precautionary warning from government officials that aquatic life in one of Durban's biggest drinking water reservoirs may be contaminated with poisonous levels of mercury pollution.... Medical council researchers also collected hair samples from more than 80 people living close to the dam. Nearly 20 percent had remnants of mercury pollution above WHO guidelines, suggesting they might be at risk from eating contaminated fish or vegetables.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:08:41 Mon, Oct 27, 2008: from All About Feed Most fish goes into animal feed A nine-year study by the University of British Columbia has found that 90 percent of small fish caught in the world's oceans every year such as anchovies, sardines and mackerel are processed to make fishmeal and fish oil.
Factory-farmed fish, pigs and poultry are consuming 28 million tonnes of fish a year, or roughly six times the amount of seafood eaten by Americans, according to the study.... The institute's executive director, Dr Ellen Pikitch, said: "It defies reason to drain the ocean of small, wild fishes that could be directly consumed by people in order to produce a lesser quantity of farmed fish."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-26 12:06:36 Sun, Oct 26, 2008: from St. Louis Post-Dispatch Wild hogs overrun Missouri ...The feral hog population exploded in the early 1990s when state conservation officials believe some began releasing the pigs for recreational hunting. More than 10,000 are rooting around 20 counties, mostly in the southern part of the state....The swine are ecological wrecking balls, ruining crops, pastures, hayfields and stock ponds. They eat almost anything, including salamanders, young quail, turkey and even small fawns.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-26 08:01:53 Sun, Oct 26, 2008: from New Scientist New roads could bring pollution to Yellowstone Some of the US's pristine forests could soon be criss-crossed with roads for logging and mining as the federal government once again relaxes conservation rules -- this time in Idaho.
US national parks are still protected, but at threat are so-called "roadless" areas of national forests. These cover more than 230,000 square kilometres -- an area nearly as large as the UK. Bill Clinton banned virtually all development in these areas just before leaving office in January 2001. The Bush administration scrapped this policy in 2005, working out rules on a state-by-state basis instead.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:50:45 Sun, Oct 26, 2008: from Science News Book Review: Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault On Our Children The authors capture community efforts to connect clusters of disease to chemicals -- including TCE, phthalates, chromium 5 and Teflon -- and illuminate the underlying policy reasons for gaps in governmental oversight.... More than a hundred interviews with corporate researchers, public health leaders, government insiders and affected families support this cautionary tale of collusion that falls short of being alarmist. The authors ask readers to demand accountability and public health scrutiny for the benefit of future generations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-26 07:49:40 Sun, Oct 26, 2008: from Pacific Daily News (Guam) Bush approach to restricting fishing meets local resistance The local fishing community on Guam is joining the Northern Marianas in a battle against a plan in Washington, D.C., to classify the Marianas Trench a national marine monument.... "We're only little guys with little boats," he said of Guam's local fishing community.
All of Guam's small boat fishing operations combined catch 50 tons of fish a year, he said.
A purse seiner -- which local fishermen don't use -- can catch 1,500 tons in just one fishing trip, he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-26 07:43:49 Sun, Oct 26, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Britain threatens plan for climate spy in space A major programme to monitor climate change from space could be in jeopardy after it emerged that the British government is poised to slash funding for the project.... [Kopernicus satellite programme] has the specific purpose of providing accurate data for policymakers around the world. The first of the five satellites, packed with scientific instruments, Sentinel 1, is due to be sent into orbit in 2011. 'It's essential that we recognise that the Earth is changing and that we put an Earth-management plan in place. Kopernikus is that global view of a changing environment,' said Monks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:44:08 Sun, Oct 26, 2008: from Myrtle Beach Online S.C. DHEC doesn't track AVX pollution "It just continues to amaze me that all of this flew under the radar for so long and now that there has been a public outcry by the neighbors DHEC is finally taking some action," said Mary Henry, president of the homeowners association at Sterling Village I, which is near AVX.... The possible criminal investigation would focus on decades' worth of trichloroethylene, or TCE, contamination in groundwater at AVX.
TCE is an industrial degreaser that has been linked with liver and other cancers.
The contamination has spread from AVX to a roughly 10-block neighborhood adjacent to the manufacturer.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-25 14:42:39 Sat, Oct 25, 2008: from Infoshop News Ivory Coast: Two Underlings Jailed for Toxic Dumping, But Oil Company Bosses Still Free Yesterday Ugborugbo, the Nigerian owner of an Ivorian waste-disposal firm called Tommy, was handed 20 years in jail for directing an operation to dump chemicals from the tanker throughout the Ivorian port city of Abidjan in 2006. A shipping agent named Desire Kouao was sentenced to five years in jail for "complicity."
Executives and Directors of Trafigura aren't going to jail. The company paid off the Ivory Coast and they didn't even have to face any criminal charges.... As usual the crime bosses get a get out of jail card, while their [underlings] serve time for them.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:54:39 Sat, Oct 25, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer Are the orcas starving? Showing signs of starvation as salmon runs faltered up and down the West Coast, Puget Sound's orca population lost seven of its number over the past year, bringing the population to just 83, anxious scientists reported Friday.
The development marks the biggest reduction in the orca population since a series of bad chinook salmon seasons in the 1990s battered the killer whales' numbers.
Revealing the degree to which the orcas are interrelated to a far-flung marine ecosystem, the collapse of California's Sacramento Valley chinook run seems likely to be partly to blame for declining killer whale numbers...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-25 12:29:13 Sat, Oct 25, 2008: from San Diego Union-Tribune Drought, beetles killing forests Bugs and diseases are killing trees at an alarming rate across the West, from the spruce forests of Alaska to the oak woodlands near the San Diego-Tijuana border.
Several scientists said the growing threat appears linked to global warming. That means tree mortality is likely to rise in places as the continent warms, potentially altering landscapes in ways that increase erosion, fan wildfires and diminish the biodiversity of Western forests.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:12:24 Sat, Oct 25, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Bush Administration Rushes Regulatory Changes Before Time Is Up The Bush administration is hurrying to push through regulatory changes in politically sensitive areas such as endangered-species protection, dismaying opponents on the left, just as conservatives were irritated by rules rushed out at the end of the Clinton administration. Proposals now in final stages of review at various federal agencies affect mining, endangered-species protection, health-care policy and other areas. In some cases, the administration has set unusually short deadlines for the public to comment -- so short that one agency summoned employees across the country to Washington this week to help agency leaders vet 200,000 comments in the space of four days.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-25 08:39:14 Sat, Oct 25, 2008: from Vancouver Sun Greener lifestyle also means eating less meat Like the UN, the IPCC says that transportation -- all those SUVs, 4x4s and RVs we hear so much about -- account for 13 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, while burgers, ribs and chicken strips account for 18 per cent.
Closer to home, Simon Donner, a University of B.C. specialist in the effects of climate change and land use, said plainly in an interview: "In terms of personal bang for your environmental buck, just eat less meat."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-25 08:32:07 Sat, Oct 25, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Plug points in street will boost battery car revolution Charging points for electric cars are to be installed in thousands of car parks and on streets as part of a government plan to convert drivers from petrol and diesel to electricity.
Under the scheme, motorists will be able to plug in and recharge their batteries while shopping or at work. In the longer term, those who are unable to wait will be able to exchange their empty battery and drive on with minimal delay.... They intend to borrow ideas pioneered in Israel, where half a million recharging points are being installed in a scheme known as Project Better Place.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-24 16:47:49 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Salt levels in the ocean reflect human-induced climate change Global warming is changing levels of salt in the ocean leading to different weather patterns on land, meteorologists have found.... In the subtropical zone salt has increased to a level outside natural variability over the last 20 years, suggesting less rainfall and increased evaporation caused by human-induced climate change. However in the North Atlantic, where there are more changeable weather patterns, an increase in salt levels was put down to natural variation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-24 16:20:01 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Times of India Dengue cases cross 1000 mark in Delhi With 13 more patients testing positive for dengue, the cases of the vector-borne disease in the national capital shot up to 1008 on Thursday.
Compounding the problem for the citizens and civic authorities, the city has also reported six cases of chikungunya fever so far, officials said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:55:56 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Sofia Echo (Bulgaria) Massive ivory auctions to lead to new killing of elephants, conservationists warn Ivory auctions that will take place in Namibia on October 28, Botswana on October 31, Zimbabwe on November 3, and South Africa on November 6 2008 have raised the concerns of international conservationists ... who said that the ivory auction was approved by members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), despite an international outcry from scientists and conservationists.... "For some inexplicable reason, some people think that all elephant populations are adequately protected and thriving. Nothing could be further from the truth. For many of the most vulnerable elephant populations across Africa, any increased poaching pressure will almost certainly result in localised extinction in the near future," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-24 16:03:45 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor Corals gain climate-change shield Rare species of staghorn corals may bear some good news for reef conservation: It appears that some rare types of staghorns can readily breed with related species, creating hybrids that may be far more resilient to climate change or other stresses than anyone thought.... "This is good news, to the extent that it suggests that corals may have evolved genetic strategies for survival in unusual niches," notes Zoe Richards, who led the effort.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-24 14:47:45 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Iraq scarred by war waste Destroyed factories have become untended hazardous waste sites, leaking poison into the water and the soil. Forests in the north and palm groves in the south have been obliterated to remove the enemy's hiding places... Iraq is planted with 25 million land mines. Chemical weapons and depleted uranium munitions have created 105 contaminated areas, the minister said. Sewers need attention and more than 60 per cent of Iraq's fresh water is polluted.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:47:31 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Inter Press Service Worst Forms of Pollution Killing Millions Gold mining and recycling car batteries are two of the world's Top 10 most dangerous pollution problems, and the least known, according a new report.
The health of hundreds of millions of people is affected and millions die because of preventable pollution problems like toxic waste, air pollution, ground and surface water contamination, metal smelting and processing, used car battery recycling and artisanal gold mining, the "Top Ten" report found....In previous years, the Blacksmith Institute has released a Top Ten list of toxic sites. The Institute continues to compile a detailed database with over 600 toxic sites and will release the world's first detailed global inventory in a couple of years.
However, this year, rather than focus on places, it wants to bring specific pollution issues to world attention. And in particular highlight the health impacts -- a 2007 Cornell University study that 40 percent of all deaths worldwide are directly attributable to pollution, he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:15:49 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Critics slam chemical report Lawmakers, scientists and advocacy groups intensified their criticism Thursday of a government report declaring bisphenol A to be safe....The Journal Sentinel reported Thursday that the draft was done primarily by representatives of the plastics industry and those with an interest in downplaying concerns about the chemical. Bisphenol A, used in baby bottles and other hard plastic, has been detected in the urine of 93 percent of Americans tested. Hundreds of studies have found it to cause health problems in laboratory animals, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hyperactivity, autism and reproductive failure.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-24 13:09:12 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from McClatchy Newspapers EPA weakens new lead rule after White House objects After the White House intervened, the Environmental Protection Agency last week weakened a rule on airborne lead standards at the last minute so that fewer known polluters would have their emissions monitored.
The EPA on Oct. 16 announced that it would dramatically reduce the highest acceptable amount of airborne lead from 1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter to 0.15 micrograms. It was the first revision of the standard since EPA set it 30 years ago.
However, a close look at documents publicly available, including e-mails from the EPA to the White House Office of Management and Budget, reveal that the OMB objected to the way the EPA had determined which lead-emitting battery recycling plants and other facilities would have to be monitored.
EPA documents show that until the afternoon of Oct. 15, a court-imposed deadline for issuing the revised standard, the EPA proposed to require a monitor for any facility that emitted half a ton of lead or more a year.
The e-mails indicate that the White House objected, and in the early evening of Oct. 15 the EPA set the level at 1 ton a year instead.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:25:55 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Farmers Weekly Parliament climbdown could save key weedkillers and fungicides In the parliament's first reading of the controversial pesticides approval legislation, MEPs voted for a proposal that would remove any pesticide that triggered any of the three criteria (persistence, bio-accumulation and long-distance environmental transfer) for an active ingredient to be termed a "persistent organic pollutant" (POP). By contrast, the European Commission and EU agricultural minister both say a substance will be called a POP only if it meets all three criteria.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-24 12:03:01 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Strategic Management Journal Green Practices: When Do Corporations Respond To Stakeholders' Pressure? The authors find that firms with powerful marketing departments were more responsive to pressures from customers and competitors... In contrast, they find that firms with powerful legal departments were more responsive to pressures from regulators and environmental NGOs, and were especially likely to adopt government-initiated voluntary programs.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:58:59 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from UCSD, via EurekAlert Potent greenhouse gas more prevalent in atmosphere than previously assumed A powerful greenhouse gas is at least four times more prevalent in the atmosphere than previously estimated, according to a team of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
Using new analytical techniques, a team led by Scripps geochemistry professor Ray Weiss made the first atmospheric measurements of nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), which is thousands of times more effective at warming the atmosphere than an equal mass of carbon dioxide.... Nitrogen trifluoride is one of several gases used during the manufacture of liquid crystal flat-panel displays, thin-film photovoltaic cells and microcircuits. Many industries have used the gas in recent years as an alternative to perfluorocarbons, which are also potent greenhouse gases, because it was believed that no more than 2 percent of the NF3 used in these processes escaped into the atmosphere.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:55:25 Fri, Oct 24, 2008: from Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, via EurekAlert Diversity of trees in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest defies simple explanation Trees in a hyper-diverse tropical rainforest interact with each other and their environment to create and maintain diversity, researchers report in the Oct. 24 issue of the journal Science....
It is difficult to determine the effects of climate change, habitat fragmentation and species extinctions on life's diversity without a coherent model of how communities are organized; but a unified theory of diversity patterns in ecological communities remains elusive. The most complex biological systems -- such as tropical rainforests -- are the most important testing grounds for theories that attempt to generalize across ecological communities; as they pose the greatest challenge. At Yasuni, in addition to the 600 species of birds and 170 of mammals, there are approximately 1,100 species of trees in the 25 hectare plot -- more than in all of the U.S. and Canada, combined.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-23 16:56:29 Thu, Oct 23, 2008: from Hampton Roads Daily Press Most believe climate change is real ...The Miller Center survey, conducted this September, found 75 percent of Virginians believe "there is solid evidence that the average temperature on Earth has been getting warmer over the past four decades."
That's a pretty high number. Further, 39 percent said they believe human activity is causing the warming, while 33 percent said it was a combination of human activity and natural patterns. Twenty percent said only natural patterns were to blame.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:22:21 Thu, Oct 23, 2008: from Reuters China report warns of greenhouse gas leap BEIJING: China's greenhouse gas pollution could double or more in two decades says a new Chinese state think-tank study that casts stark light on the industrial giant's role in stoking global warming. Beijing has not released recent official data on greenhouse gas from the nation's fast-growing use of coal, oil and gas. Researchers abroad estimate China's carbon dioxide emissions now easily outstrip that of the United States, long the biggest emitter.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:37:41 Thu, Oct 23, 2008: from University of Georgia via ScienceDaily Ecosystem-level Consequences Of Frog Extinctions Streams that once sang with the croaks, chirps and ribbits of dozens of frog species have gone silent. They're victims of a fungus that's decimating amphibian populations worldwide. Such catastrophic declines have been documented for more than a decade, but until recently scientists knew little about how the loss of frogs alters the larger ecosystem. A University of Georgia study that is the first to comprehensively examine an ecosystem before and after an amphibian population decline has found that tadpoles play a key role keeping the algae at the base of the food chain productive.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:52:59 Thu, Oct 23, 2008: from Guardian (UK) UK announces world's largest algal biofuel project The world's biggest publicly funded project to make transport fuels from algae will be launched today by a government agency which develops low-carbon technologies.
The Carbon Trust will today announce a project to make algal biofuels a commercial reality by 2020. The plan could see up to 26m pounds spent on developing the technology and infrastructure to ensure that algal biofuels replace a signficant proportion of the fossil fuels used by UK drivers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 16:34:26 Thu, Oct 23, 2008: from findingDulcinea Dead Humboldt Squid Wash Up on Oregon, Washington Beaches The Oregonian reports that beaches along Oregon's northern coast have seen an influx of dead Humboldt squid washing ashore over the past few days. The squid are typically about 3 1/2 feet long, and thrive in the warmer waters of Southern California and Mexico. However, these squid swam north in search of food.... "The fact this is happening in both hemispheres could be a sign it is tied in with global warming," but noted that pieces of the puzzle were still missing.
There are possible explanations other than global warming. Some biologists suggest that overfishing of the squid's "natural predators, including tuna, sharks and swordfish" has allowed Humboldt squid to swim further.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:58:25 Thu, Oct 23, 2008: from UNSW, via EurekAlert Magic solar milestone reached UNSW's ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence has again asserted its leadership in solar cell technology by reporting the first silicon solar cell to achieve the milestone of 25 per cent effiency.... "Our main efforts now are focussed on getting these efficiency improvements into commercial production," he said. "Production compatible versions of our high efficiency technology are being introduced into production as we speak."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:15:46 Wed, Oct 22, 2008: from London Independent Organic farming 'could feed Africa' Organic farming offers Africa the best chance of breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition it has been locked in for decades, according to a major study from the United Nations to be presented today.
New evidence suggests that organic practices -- derided by some as a Western lifestyle fad -- are delivering sharp increases in yields, improvements in the soil and a boost in the income of Africa's small farmers who remain among the poorest people on earth.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-22 12:19:20 Wed, Oct 22, 2008: from U.S. News and World Report Some Nuclear Energy Backers Say Uranium Alternative Could be a Magic Bullet In the midst of renewed global interest in nuclear energy, a long-overlooked nuclear fuel, thorium, is being re-examined as a potential solution to some of the industry's most daunting problems, including disposal of waste. Widely available in the sandy beaches of India, Australia, and the United States, among other places, thorium is a naturally occurring, slightly radioactive element that is being heralded by advocates as a safer alternative to uranium that could help limit the production of nuclear waste and prevent nuclear technology from being used for weapons rather than energy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:39:32 Wed, Oct 22, 2008: from Boston Globe The nature of cigarette butts According to the American Littoral Society, cigarettes are the most common type of litter on earth. A study in the Journal of Tobacco Control reports smokers litter more than 4.5 trillion of them each year. Smoking's environmental impact (we won't go into the health woes here) is already atrocious: It emits 5.5 billion pounds of CO2 and more than 11 billion pounds of methane annually. Discarded butts add insult to injury, leaching hundreds of toxic chemicals (arsenic, lead, and benzene among them) into the water, air, and ground, killing birds, fish, and healthy microorganisms.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-22 10:52:06 Wed, Oct 22, 2008: from Reuters Birdflu pushed back, pandemic threat remains: UN International efforts have pushed back the spread of bird flu this year but the risk of a global influenza pandemic killing millions is as great as ever, the United Nations and World Bank reported on Tuesday.
Most countries now have plans to combat a pandemic, but many of the plans are defective, said the report, issued before a bird flu conference due to be attended by ministers from some 60 countries in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from Friday to Sunday.
The report, fourth in a series since a bird flu scare swept the globe three years ago, followed a new World Bank estimate that a severe flu pandemic could cost $3 trillion and result in a nearly 5 percent drop in world gross domestic product.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:54:30 Wed, Oct 22, 2008: from Saskatoon Star Phoenix Ecological stocks plummet around the world In fully 52 per cent of the mammals for which population trends are known, numbers are dwindling. Some 188 species are in the highest threat category of critically endangered. An additional 29 species have been flagged as critically endangered possibly extinct, and nearly 450 mammals have been listed as endangered.
The greatest threats mammals face are deforestation and other habitat loss, as well as overhunting. Habitat loss and degradation affect 40 per cent of the world's mammals and climate change is increasingly a factor affecting habitat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:31:21 Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from Springer News Fertilizers -- a growing threat to sea life She highlights how population growth, agricultural expansion, and urbanization have released nitrogen from the land and moved it to Chesapeake Bay, where it has accumulated and degraded both the natural wildlife and water quality.
The combination of the increasing use of fertilizers, deforestation and the draining of wetlands and floodplains to provide more land for crops, has led to an imbalance in the nitrogen cycle, in particular reduced opportunities for the natural removal of nitrogen. As a result, there is an excess of nitrogen in the estuary, also known as eutrophication. This in turn has led to the deterioration of the local ecosystem through reduced concentrations of oxygen in the bay, affecting both the water quality and the fish populations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:32:05 Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer Redband trout's decline under study The redband index - like the Dow Jones - is headed south. On one stretch of the upper Spokane, redband counts dropped 75 percent between 1980 and last year. Though downstream counts are higher, redband populations aren't healthy in any part of the river, Donley said. The declines have occurred despite two decades of catch-and-release regulations for anglers.... But hydropower dams altered the river's flows, while withdrawals sucked water out of the river. Gravel spawning beds, where redbands lay their eggs, dry out too soon, killing the young fry.
Pollutants also hurt the trout. More than other fish in the Spokane system, redbands need cold, clean water for survival.
"They're the canary in the coal mine," Donley said. "We use them as an environmental indicator."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:38:52 Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Cow burps are making a growing contribution to global warming Dr Andy Thorpe, an economist at the University of Portsmouth, found a herd of 200 cows can produce annual emissions of methane roughly equivalent in energy terms to driving a family car more than 100,000 miles (180,000km).... He added that while carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have increased by 31 per cent during the past 250 years, methane has increased by 149 per cent during the same period.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:38:26 Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor Wood heat rises again But as people polish their stoves and admire their woodpiles, environmentalists and health officials are expressing concern that burning wood in old or poorly designed stoves could add significantly to air pollution. And although wood represents a local and renewable fuel source, its credentials as a "carbon neutral" fuel -- not adding to global warming -- are hazy at best.... "I like to call it '75 percent carbon neutral,'" Mr. Gulland says. While wood burning does release carbon dioxide and methane, advocates argue that the trees would do that anyway in the forest as they die, fall over, and decompose.... "On a scale of carbon neutrality, it's better than burning a fossil fuel, but it's not the same as wind or solar," Rector says. "It's a very complicated question," she says. "We still need to let the scientists figure it out."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-21 11:29:24 Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from Science News Clean coal for cars has a dirty side If the United States tried to achieve independence from foreign oil by making gasoline from vast reserves of domestic coal, the country would probably end up increasing its carbon emissions, a new study concludes.
Researchers found that in realistic scenarios, the mass production of fuel from coal or natural gas would lead to the emission of more climate-changing greenhouse gases than the current oil-based economy. But even in the most optimistic scenarios, which assumed that breakthroughs in technology could be achieved, coal and gas would not help reduce emissions from transportation, the researchers report in the Oct. 15 Environmental Science & Technology.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-21 11:06:39 Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from US News and World Report California Maps a Plan to Slow Down Global Warming ...This week, the California Air Resources Board, the state agency tasked with implementing the law, released the first details of exactly what the state must do to achieve its global warming goals. In a 142-page report many experts believe could serve as a policy template for other states—and even the federal government—the board provides specific estimates of exactly how and where the state could have an impact on climate change. To return to 1990 carbon emissions levels, the plan says, the state will need to reduce its annual emissions by about 4 tons per person—from 14 tons currently to about 10 tons in 2020. The report calls this goal "ambitious but achievable."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:53:37 Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Bumblebee decline threatens British countryside The continuing decline in bees will destroy the British countryside as important iconic plants die without pollination, experts have warned. They are also key to a number of rare flowers including fox gloves, honey suckle and a range of wild orchids that cannot be pollinated by other insects. However bumblebees are in sharp decline. Of the 25 species found in the UK, three are nationally extinct and many more are seriously threatened.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-21 10:50:23 Tue, Oct 21, 2008: from USA Today Experts predict next epidemic will start in animals ...A report by the non-profit Trust for America's Health, to be released next week, asserts that infectious diseases from the developing world are anything but "a back-burner concern."
The report, "Germs Go Global: Why Emerging Infectious Diseases Are a Threat to America," cites National Intelligence Estimates that conclude outbreaks of new and resurgent infectious diseases, many of which "originate overseas," kill more than 170,000 people in the USA each year....Chikungunya may well become the next epidemic to reach the USA. Carrying an African name that roughly means "bent over," chikungunya is a mosquito-borne illness that causes severe flu-like symptoms and muscle aches that may last a lifetime.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:37:29 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from Washington Post Risk of Disease Rises With Water Temperatures When a 1991 cholera outbreak that killed thousands in Peru was traced to plankton blooms fueled by warmer-than-usual coastal waters, linking disease outbreaks to epidemics was a new idea. Now, scientists say, it is a near-certainty that global warming will drive significant increases in waterborne diseases around the world.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:20:04 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from The Sydney Morning Herald Dramatic drop in Kiwi sperm quality The quality of New Zealand men's sperm has halved in two decades - the most dramatic drop of any western country.
New research presented to a gathering of international fertility researchers in Brisbane today was told that the sperm volume carried by the average New Zealand man decreased from about 110 million to 50 million per millilitre between 1987 and 2007.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-20 15:35:29 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from Issues in Science and Technology A National Renewable Portfolio Standard? Not Practical To sum up, we estimate that the states could accommodate 10 percent of the electricity coming from wind (or solar, if the costs were to come down) at any one time. With some attention and adjustment, we find that the electricity system could accommodate 15 percent or even 20 percent....
A national system must also deal with the fact that the best wind resources are in the Great Plains, about 1,000 miles from the Southeast where the electricity is likely to be needed. Policymakers must remain mindful of the difficulty of expanding transmission infrastructure. Community opposition will be widespread, the cost will be high, and the lines themselves will be vulnerable to disruption by storms or terrorists.
Thus, although a 20 percent national RPS might be physically possible with a very large transmission network and large amounts of spinning reserve, the logistical barriers will be high and the costs daunting. Embarking on this path without considering alternative strategies to reach the same ultimate goal would be short-sighted.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:25:17 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from USGS, via American Society of Agronomy Pesticide Concentrations Decreasing Over the years, frequent research has detected pesticides in ground water around the country, including in aquifers used for drinking-water supply. Over the past few decades, the use of some pesticides has been restricted or banned, while new pesticides have been introduced. One goal of the study was to track the retention of various types of contaminants that would be found in the different pesticides used over the years.... The results of this study are encouraging for the future state of the nation’s ground-water quality with respect to pesticides," said Laura Bexfield, who conducted the data analysis. "Despite sustained use of many popular pesticides and the introduction of new ones, results as a whole did not indicate increasing detection rates or concentrations in shallow or drinking-water resources over the 10 years studied."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:40:37 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from The Intelligencer Well-grounded fears of aquifer depletion But this year, as Palisades' well dropped to its lowest level, as housing and commercial development expanded, as quarry production continued and as natural gas drilling stood on the horizon in Nockamixon, Stanfield said homeowners should start taking notice.
Stanfield, who volunteers as vice chairman of the Bridgeton-Nockamixon-Tinicum Groundwater Management Committee, said in the several years he has monitored water levels, the high school's well is at the highest variation he has seen — with the water level rising and falling.
"It suggests that the aquifer they are drawing from is seriously stressed and there needs to be a review of how to respond to this," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-20 10:01:59 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from University of Deleware When under attack, plants can signal microbial friends for help Researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered that when the leaf of a plant is under attack by a pathogen, it can send out an S.O.S. to the roots for help, and the roots will respond by secreting an acid that brings beneficial bacteria to the rescue.... "Plants are a lot smarter than we give them credit for," says Bais from his laboratory at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-20 09:55:07 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from News.com.au (Australia) Popular Pacific holiday spots hit by dengue 'pandemic' MOre than 500 people have been diagnosed in Samoa, at least 1000 in both New Caledonia and Fiji and close to 900 in Kiribati.
But researchers believe the real number is at least double these figures, because so many people do not seek, or cannot reach, medical help.... There is no vaccine for dengue fever, and no specific treatment.
Once contracted doctors advise patients to take fluids and rest.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:20:30 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Not so common: scientists raise alarm as Britain's seals disappear Marine biologists have warned of significant and serious changes in the seas around Britain after detecting a steep and "frightening" fall in the numbers of common seals around the coast.... "This is very abnormal. To give you an idea of the level of abnormality, the rates of decline are equivalent to these populations producing no offspring for five or six years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:52:34 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from Timmins Daily Press (Canada) Toxic chemicals found in Ottawa River: Memo Not only is raw sewage flowing into the Ottawa River, so are toxic chemicals.
In a memo sent to city councillors last week deputy manager for infrastructure services Nancy Schepers stated that recent testing found at least 10 chemicals, some of them toxic, in the river that serves as the city's main source of drinking water.
At least one chemical, perfluorobutane sulfonate, can result in birth or developmental effects, affect the brain and nervous system, cause cancer and affect reproduction and fertility.
Raw river water samples taken in April 2008 showed 10 compounds from a list of 51 compounds the city tested for.... "In the long run we may conclude there are health effects or that there are no significant health effects," said Levy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:07:00 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from The Independent (UK) Don't kill the planet in the name of saving the economy We are living through two great meltdowns -- the credit crunch, and the climate crunch. The heating of the planet is now happening so fast it's hard to pluck a single event to fix on, but here's one. By the summer of 2013, the Arctic will be free of ice. How big an event it this?
The Wall Street Crash hadn't happened for 80 years. The Arctic Crash hasn't happened for three million years: that's the last time there was watery emptiness at the top of the world. The Arctic is often described as the canary in the coal mine. As one Arctic researcher put it to me this week: the canary is dead. It's time to clear the mine, and run.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-20 09:34:19 Mon, Oct 20, 2008: from The Scotsman For every 100 of these birds that graced our skies, just five remain THE number of Arctic terns in Scotland has dropped by a shocking 95 per cent in the past two decades. The graceful seabirds, well known in Shetland and Orkney for zealously guarding their nests and letting out rasping cries, are suffering severe declines. The dramatic decline, outlined in the Scottish Government's consultation into the Scottish Marine Bill, has been described as a "wake-up call".
Other seabirds, including the Arctic skua and the black-legged kittiwake, have also suffered large drops in numbers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:12:18 Sun, Oct 19, 2008: from Sacramento Bee Yosemite glacier on thin ice ...As signals of climate change begin to come into focus in the Sierra Nevada, its melting glaciers spell trouble in bold font. Not only are they in-your-face barometers of global warming, they also reflect what scientists are beginning to uncover: that the Sierra snowpack -- the source of 65 percent of California's water -- is dwindling, too.
More of the Sierra's precipitation is falling as rain instead of snow, studies show, and the snow that blankets the range in winter is running off earlier in the spring. And snow in the Sierra touches everything. Take it away and droughts deepen, ski areas go bust and fire seasons rage longer.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-19 11:50:02 Sun, Oct 19, 2008: from UN IRIN SOMALIA: Poor rains intensify human suffering and deprivation The situation in Somalia has deteriorated into an "unfolding humanitarian disaster" with shocking levels of human suffering and deprivation, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned.
"Rates of malnutrition in most of southern and central Somalia are above emergency threshold levels of 15 percent and in many areas greater than 20 percent and increasing," said an analysis prepared by FAO's Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:30:38 Sun, Oct 19, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Migrating Alaskan pollock are creating the potential for a new dispute with Russia America's biggest catch lands here and at nearby ports every year: more than 2 billion pounds of Alaskan pollock to feed a global appetite for fish sticks, fast-food sandwiches and imitation crabmeat.... Yet the careful management that helped make Alaskan pollock a billion-dollar industry could unravel as the planet warms. Pollock and other fish in the Bering Sea are moving to higher latitudes as winter ice retreats and water temperatures rise. Alaskan pollock are becoming Russian pollock, swimming across an international boundary in search of food and setting off what could become a geopolitical dispute.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-19 16:54:28 Sun, Oct 19, 2008: from New York Times Candidates Agree on Need to Address Global Warming Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama part company on many issues, but they agree that the Bush administration's policies on global warming were far too weak.
Both candidates say that human-caused climate change is real and urgent, and that they would sharply diverge from President Bush's course by proposing legislation requiring sharp cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:11:30 Sat, Oct 18, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor Climate change's most deadly threat: drought ...Brian Fagan believes climate is not merely a backdrop to the ongoing drama of human civilization, but an important stage upon which world events turn... In his new book, The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, Fagan ... makes an original contribution ... by summoning attention to what he calls "the silent elephant in the room": drought. As polar icecaps melt and glaciers disappear, thus causing seas to rise, low-lying coastal areas may indeed be inundated, creating millions of environmental refugees. But it is the inland agricultural breadbasket regions that feed the world that stand to suffer the greatest upheaval if reliable precipitation patterns vanish.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:43:34 Sat, Oct 18, 2008: from University of Chicago Press Journals via ScienceDaily Global Warming Threatens Australia's Iconic Kangaroos As concerns about the effects of global warming continue to mount, a new study published in the December issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology finds that an increase in average temperature of only two degrees Celsius could have a devastating effect on populations of Australia's iconic kangaroos.... The most significant effects of climate change are not necessarily on the animals themselves, but on their habitats -- specifically, in amounts of available water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 11:54:49 Sat, Oct 18, 2008: from New York Times E.P.A. Toughens Standard on Lead Emissions; Change Is the First in 3 Decades The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set stringent new standards for airborne lead particles, following the recommendations of its science advisers and cutting the maximum allowable concentrations to a tenth of the previous standard. It was the first change in federal lead standards in three decades.
But the cleanup of areas with excessive lead levels is not required for more than eight years, and the system of monitors that detect the toxic contaminant is frayed. Currently, 133 monitors are in operation nationwide, down from about 800 in 1980, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, Cathy Milbourn, said. The agency is working on rebuilding this network, to include more than 300 monitors, Ms. Milbourn said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 11:57:51 Sat, Oct 18, 2008: from SciDev.net Himalayan pollution 'could impact monsoon cycle' Researchers have shown that pollution from China, India, Nepal and Pakistan can reach altitudes of over 5,000 metres in the Himalayas, contributing to the warming of the atmosphere and potentially affecting the South-East Asian monsoon cycle. They also found that new aerosol particles -- ultrafine particles suspended in the atmosphere -- can form at these heights.... "This study is remarkable as it can explain the phenomenon of the melting of glaciers that we have started to observe in the Himalayas," says Ngamindra Dahal, a hydrometeorologist at the National Trust for Nature Conservation, Nepal.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-19 17:08:30 Sat, Oct 18, 2008: from Natural News Cell Phones May be Wiping out Bees and Affecting Health of Humans But one of the most popular theories is that electromagnetic radiation given off by cell phones and other hi-tech gadgets is causing this worrying phenomenon. The theory is that radiation interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing them from finding their way back to the hive, which is a hallmark trait of bees.
And there is actual evidence to back this up. German research has long shown that bees change their natural patterns of behavior near power lines.
In addition, a study at Landau University has found that bees do not go back to their hives when cell phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.
[Editor's note: from International Herald Tribune: "Good story for sure, except that the study in question had nothing to do with mobile phones and was actually investigating the influence of electromagnetic fields, especially those used by cordless phones that work on fixed-line networks, on the learning ability of bees. The small study, according to the researchers who carried it out too small for the results to be considered significant, found that the electromagnetic fields similar to those used by cordless phones may interrupt the innate ability of bees to find the way back to their hive."] (Thanks, Bud)
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 13:10:56 Sat, Oct 18, 2008: from Calgary Sun (Canada) Ban on BPA begins today Canada will be the first country to limit the use of bisphenol A today when it formally declares the chemical a hazardous substance.
The federal government published its decision to place BPA on its list of toxic substances in the Canada Gazette. The decision comes six months after Health Minister Tony Clement announced plans to limit use of the chemical.
The Conservatives said they will now move to ban the importation and sale of baby bottles containing BPA.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 10:35:02 Fri, Oct 17, 2008: from Associated Press Armyworms attacking pastures, wheat in Texas Texas farmers are once again battling armyworms and the voracious creatures are attacking fields and pastures in formidable numbers.... The armyworm, which is actually the caterpillar or larva of the night-flying moth, do the most damage in the fall, when they're at their peak, nearly fully grown at about an inch-and-a-half long. They'll chomp on any plant, but prefer grasses, especially the lush and well-fertilized hay meadows and pastures in North, East and Central Texas.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 11:59:03 Fri, Oct 17, 2008: from Associated Press Government declares beluga whale endangered The federal government on Friday placed the beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, concluding that a decade-long recovery program has failed to ensure their survival... The findings by NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service conflict with claims by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has questioned scientific evidence that the beluga whale population in the waters near Anchorage continues to decline.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 12:00:25 Fri, Oct 17, 2008: from NOAA, via Mongabay NOAA offers 'dramatic evidence' of Arctic warming Fall air temperatures 9 degrees F (5 degrees C) above normal, the second lowest-ever extent of summer sea ice, and the melting of surface ice in Greenland are signs of continued warming in the Arctic, according to the Arctic Report Card, an annual review of Arctic conditions by U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its partners. "Changes in the Arctic show a domino effect from multiple causes more clearly than in other regions," said James Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle and a lead author of the report. "It's a sensitive system and often reflects changes in relatively fast and dramatic ways."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 10:39:04 Fri, Oct 17, 2008: from Guardian (UK) US climate change activists go on trial Eleven climate change activists are due in court today on criminal charges after they blockaded a planned $1.8bn coal-fired power plant, providing an American echo of the Kingsnorth Six trial.
The activists were arrested last month in rural Wise County, Virginia, at the gates of a power plant being built by Dominion, the No 2 utility in the US. The 11 chained themselves to steel barrels that held aloft a banner, lit by solar panels, challenging the utility to provide cleaner energy for a region ravaged by abusive coal mining.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:21:51 Fri, Oct 17, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Microbes Useful For For Environmental Cleanup And Oil Recovery BioTiger™ resulted from over eight years of extensive work that began at a century-old Polish waste lagoon. "DOE had originally funded us to work with our Polish counterparts to develop a microbe-based method for cleaning up oil-contaminated soils," explains Dr. Robin Brigmon, SRNL Fellow Engineer. From that lagoon, they identified microbes that could break down the oil to carbon dioxide and other non-hazardous products. "The project was a great success," Dr. Brigmon says. "The lagoon now has been cleaned up, and deer now can be seen grazing on it."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 10:41:49 Fri, Oct 17, 2008: from Concord Monitor No frost yet isn't good Global climatic change has its short-term upside. It's not instant gloom and doom. And, sure, a 70-degree October day has weather explanations. By itself its not indicative of climate change.
Unfortunately, the climate is changing. The frosts and the winter are later. We'd expect a frost around Labor Day. Now it's more than a month later, and still not close. October is more like September. November is more like October.
People used to bet on the day of ice out on the big lakes, like Winnipesaukee and Champlain. Now they may not be totally frozen over at all. Two winters ago I kayaked on a still unfrozen Mountain View Lake at the foot of Mount Sunapee around Jan. 1.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:31:51 Fri, Oct 17, 2008: from Courier-Mail (Australia) Narangba toxic waste still unknown, admits company A company treating dangerous toxic waste admits it does not know exactly what chemicals are stored on its site at the Narangba Industrial Estate.
A cleanup of previous contamination at the BCD Technologies plant is still months away from being completed, despite the spill being discovered late last year.... The Environmental Protection Agency has confirmed that an audit it conducted found drums of unidentified material left by the previous owner of the company.
Some drums were later found to contain carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 10:44:23 Thu, Oct 16, 2008: from Mansfield News Journal Ohio average temperatures up 2 degrees Climate change has sent the region's average temperature up 2° since 2000, according to a new report. Things are heating up across Ohio, the report from the Environment Ohio Research and Policy Center in Columbus showed, leading environmentalists to call for more efforts to combat global warming.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:16:55 Thu, Oct 16, 2008: from Brown University, via ScienceDaily Coastal Dead Zones May Benefit Some Species, Scientist Finds Coastal dead zones, an increasing concern to ecologists, the fishing industry and the public, may not be as devoid of life after all. A Brown scientist has found that dead zones do indeed support marine life, and that at least one commercially valuable clam actually benefits from oxygen-depleted waters.... The reasons appear to be twofold: The quahogs' natural ability to withstand oxygen-starved waters, coupled with their predators' inability to survive in dead zones. The result: The quahog can not only survive, but in the absence of predators, can actually thrive.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:26:26 Thu, Oct 16, 2008: from University of Georgia UGA study reveals ecosystem-level consequences of frog extinctions A University of Georgia study that is the first to comprehensively examine an ecosystem before and after an amphibian population decline has found that tadpoles play a key role keeping the algae at the base of the food chain productive.... Without tadpoles swimming along the streambed and stirring up the bottom, the amount of sediment in the stream increased by nearly 150 percent, blocking out sunlight that algae need to grow... The UGA research team is continuing to monitor the health of the streams to get valuable, long-term data. So far the stream has not rebounded. "It's still sad going back," Connelly said, to which Pringle added: "Once the frogs die, it's like an incredible silence descends over the whole area. It's eerie."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:57:51 Thu, Oct 16, 2008: from Ohio State University New solar energy material captures every color of the rainbow Researchers have created a new material that overcomes two of the major obstacles to solar power: it absorbs all the energy contained in sunlight, and generates electrons in a way that makes them easier to capture.... At this point, the material is years from commercial development, but he added that this experiment provides a proof of concept -- that hybrid solar cell materials such as this one can offer unusual properties.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 10:47:51 Thu, Oct 16, 2008: from Portland Business Journal Businesses cite high costs in toxic-regulation plan A state proposal that would more strongly regulate the disposal of toxic products has unnerved many Oregon businesses.
The "product stewardship" rules, drafted primarily by Oregon’s Department of Environment Quality, seek to better regulate disposal of such goods as rechargeable batteries, certain paint types, carpet and items containing mercury. Oregon lawmakers could consider the new rules during the 2009 legislative session.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:11:38 Thu, Oct 16, 2008: from Bloomberg News Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.
The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 10:51:00 Thu, Oct 16, 2008: from Plenty Coal and clear skies: Obama's balancing act When Barack Obama arrived in Washington as a newly elected senator in early 2005, he landed in the middle of an environmental firestorm. Obama had been assigned a seat on the Senate's Environment and Public Works committee - and the first order of business was the Clear Skies Act. The brainchild of the Bush administration, the CSA was presented as an initiative to reduce air pollution and boost the economy; it was applauded by industry groups, but drew sharp criticism from environmentalists and many Democrats, who said the move would weaken existing clean-air regulations, loosen caps on a range of air pollutants, delay the enforcement of smog and soot standards, and exempt power plants from rules requiring them to comply with modern emission standards... In the end, of course, Obama voted against Clear Skies, deadlocking the Environment committee and effectively killing the legislation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:10:54 Wed, Oct 15, 2008: from McClatchy Newspapers Memos tell wildlife officials to ignore global-warming impact New legal memos by top Bush administration officials say that the Endangered Species Act can't be used to protect animals and their habitats from climate change by regulating specific sources of greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of global warming.
The assessment, outlined in memos sent earlier this month and leaked Tuesday, provides the official legal justification for limiting protections under the Endangered Species Act.
One of the memos, from the Interior Department's top lawyer, concluded that emissions of greenhouse gases from any proposed project can't be proved to have an impact on species or habitat, so it isn't necessary for federal agencies to consult with government wildlife experts about the impact of such gases on species as stipulated under the Endangered Species Act.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 10:53:48 Wed, Oct 15, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Some bottled water toxicity shown to exceed law Bottled water brands do not always maintain the consistency of quality touted in ads featuring alpine peaks and crystalline lakes and, in some cases, contain toxic byproducts that exceed state safety standards, tests show. The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization with offices in Oakland, tested 10 brands of bottled water and found that Wal-Mart's Sam's Choice contained chemical levels that exceeded legal limits in California and the voluntary standards adopted by the industry.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 12:38:27 Wed, Oct 15, 2008: from George Monbiot, The Guardian This stock collapse is petty when compared to the nature crunch This is nothing. Well, nothing by comparison to what's coming. The financial crisis for which we must now pay so heavily prefigures the real collapse, when humanity bumps against its ecological limits.... As we goggle at the fluttering financial figures, a different set of numbers passes us by. On Friday, Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading a European study on ecosystems, reported that we are losing natural capital worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year as a result of deforestation alone.... The two crises have the same cause. In both cases, those who exploit the resource have demanded impossible rates of return and invoked debts that can never be repaid. In both cases we denied the likely consequences.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:53:09 Wed, Oct 15, 2008: from Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, via EurekAlert Global warming threatens Australia's iconic kangaroos As concerns about the effects of global warming continue to mount, a new study published in the December issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology finds that an increase in average temperature of only two degrees Celsius could have a devastating effect on populations of Australia's iconic kangaroos.
"Our study provides evidence that climate change has the capacity to cause large-scale range contractions, and the possible extinction of one macropodid (kangaroo) species in northern Australia," write study authors Euan G. Ritchie and Elizabeth E. Bolitho of James Cook University in Australia.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:47:12 Wed, Oct 15, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Wild cat parts trade is growing in Burma There is an organised and growing trade in wild cat parts in Burma, wildlife investigators have found. Skins and body parts from almost 1,200 animals were found openly on sale in markets. They included parts of at least 107 Tigers and all the eight species of wild cats found in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:15:03 Wed, Oct 15, 2008: from Daily Press Still no answers: A new study doesn't tell us what to do about oysters and the bay The study's failure to endorse the Asian oyster is bound to disappoint those who think it's the salvation of an industry that has been devastated right along with the creature it depends on. Once so abundant that heaps of oysters broke the surface of local waters, the native oyster has become rare indeed, due to disease, poor water quality and over-fishing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:48:37 Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from 350.org Send an invitation to the next U.S. President Dear Sen. Obama/Sen. McCain: I'm writing with a simple request: attend the UN Climate Meetings this December and rejoin the world's fight against the climate crisis.
The need for an international deal has never been greater. NASA's top climate scientists have said that to avoid disaster the planet needs a plan both to cut carbon emissions sharply and immediately, and to steer a long term path back below 350 parts per million Carbon Dioxide.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:49:54 Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from World Wildlife Fund via ScienceDaily Climate Change To Devastate Or Destroy Many Penguin Colonies Half to three-quarters of major Antarctic penguin colonies face decline or disappearance if global temperatures are allowed to climb by more than 2 degrees C. A new WWF report -- 2 degrees C is Too Much -- shows that the colonies of 50 percent of the iconic emperor penguins and 75 per cent of the Adelie penguins are under threat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:37:53 Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from Discovery News Ozone Pollution to Worsen Under Climate Change Surface-level ozone, a poisonous gas that claims tens of thousands of lives annually, could get much worse thanks to the effects of climate change, according to new research... "It's the third most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane," David Fowler of the National Environmental Research Council in the United Kingdom said. "But it's not the biggest one, and it's not the biggest threat to human health -- particulates in the atmosphere are worse. So it's a sort of Cinderella gas that has been mostly ignored."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:52:11 Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from Digital Journal Is Toxic Waste Behind Somali Piracy ? Somali pirates are accusing European firms of dumping toxic waste off the coast of Somalia and this is why they are holding a ship for ransom. European firms are being accused of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast. This is the claim that the Somalia pirates, who are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukrainian ship, are making. The pirates say the money will go towards cleaning up the waste... Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy for Somalia said there is "reliable information" that European and Asian companies are dumping toxic waste, including nuclear waste, off the Somali coastline.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:52:47 Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from Reuters Global Hunger Index 2008: hunger situation in 33 countries is 'very serious' to 'grave' "Almost a billion starving people is a scandal for the world. In contrast to the banks, they themselves are not guilty for their plight. The general rethinking about the role of the state and the international community, brought about by the financial crisis, must be extended to also cover the hunger crisis. The world needs a rescue package to combat global hunger, and we therefore demand that funding for the development of agriculture in developing countries be increased by at least ten billion euros every year and that fairer trading conditions should be created."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:53:36 Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from Current Biology, via EurekAlert In a last 'stronghold' for endangered chimpanzees, survey finds drastic decline In a population survey of West African chimpanzees living in Cote d'Ivoire, researchers estimate that this endangered subspecies has dropped in numbers by a whopping 90 percent since the last survey was conducted 18 years ago. The few remaining chimpanzees are now highly fragmented, with only one viable population living in Taii National Park, according to a report in the October 14th issue of Current Biology....
This alarming decline in a country that had been considered one of the final strongholds for West African chimps suggests that their status should be raised to critically endangered, said Genevieve Campbell of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-31 19:18:06 Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Bleak warning that UK fish face extinction A hidden catastrophe is unfolding off the coasts of Britain which could leave our seas filled with only algae and jellyfish, a leading conservation organisation warns today. The Marine Conservation Society says severe overfishing is the biggest environmental threat facing Britain and is having a profound effect on marine ecosystems. The warning comes in Silent Seas, a report released as the government prepares its marine bill for parliament.... Simon Brockington, head of conservation at the MCS, said: "There's a moral imperative: we simply shouldn't be living in such a way that drives species to extinction."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:21:15 Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from CBC News (Canada) Methane hydrates: Energy's most dangerous game All the energy America needs for the next 100 years lies under the sea off the coast of South Carolina. One problem: Digging it out could cause a global climate disaster.
Welcome to the final frontier in fossil fuels, the wild card in climate change theories and the dark horse in the scramble to secure access to clean energy. Meet methane hydrates, the world's most promising and perilous energy resource.... In other words, the extraction process, if done improperly, could cause sudden disruptions on the ocean floor, reducing ocean pressure rates and releasing methane gas from hydrates. A mass release of methane into the sea and atmosphere could have catastrophic consequences on the pace of climate change. More than 50 million years ago, undersea landslides resulted in the release of methane gas from methane hydrate, which contributed to global warming that lasted tens of thousands of years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:29:41 Tue, Oct 14, 2008: from Daily Mail (UK) Rick Stein vows to continue using endangered fish in his restaurants Rick Stein, Britain's top seafood chef, has vowed to go on using endangered species of fish in his acclaimed restaurants despite warnings of over-fishing.
The 61-year-old claimed following government and fishery guidelines would lose him 80 per cent of his menus and he would not be able to keep his four restaurants in Padstow going.
And, controversially, he questioned whether the fish stocks situation is really as bad as the government and marine conservationists are saying.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 22:07:48 Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from CNN International Illegal marijuana growing pollutes U.S. national parks Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes.
Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending.
"What's going on on public lands is a crisis at every level," said Forest Service agent Ron Pugh.... "People light up a joint, and they have no idea the amount of environmental damage associated with it," said Cicely Muldoon, deputy regional director of the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:56:12 Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from Toledo Blade Climate change called certain and most predictions are bad Agriculture could become more difficult, with crop yields harder to maintain because of drier soils and more insects -- and too much rain at the wrong times.... The frequency of thunderstorms could be doubled, yet soil is expected to be drier and more prone to drought because of the increased rate of evaporation.... Expect more sneezing from pollen and ragweed, plus a variety of other health issues from more mushroom spores, mold, and poison ivy, he said.
Portions of North America are now being affected by dust clouds emanating as far away as Africa's expanding deserts.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-13 12:11:25 Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from New York Times 'Black Silicon' increases efficiency Black silicon has since been found to have extreme sensitivity to light. It is now on the verge of commercialization, most likely first in night vision systems.
"We have seen a 100 to 500 times increase in sensitivity to light compared to conventional silicon detectors," said James Carey, a co-founder of SiOnyx who worked on the original experiments as a Harvard graduate student.... As a result of his research, a number of academic and corporate research groups are still exploring the material, which absorbs about twice as much visible light as normal silicon...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 13:11:40 Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from JAMA, via EurekAlert Research shows link between bisphenol A and disease in adults A research team from the Peninsula Medical School, the University of Exeter, the University of Plymouth and the University of Iowa, have found evidence linking Bisphenol A (BPA) to diabetes and heart disease in adults.... BPA is used in polycarbonate plastic products such as refillable drinks containers, compact disks, some plastic eating utensils and many other products in everyday use. It is one of the world's highest production volume chemicals, with over 2.2 million tonnes (6.4 billion pounds) produced in 2003, with an annual growth in demand of between six and 10 per cent each year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-13 11:08:20 Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Using electrons to treat organic seeds Sales of organic products are booming: Consumers want their food to be untainted. To avoid the use of fungicides yet nevertheless protect plants from disease, researchers have developed a method that involves bombarding seeds with electrons to kill fungal spores and viruses.... So what happens when the electrons hit the seeds? "It's not unlike cooking. For instance, when you make strawberry jam, the germs are killed by the high temperature -- and your jam will keep for years. The electrons destroy the chemical bonds that hold together the molecules in the fungal spores and other pathogens, but without generating heat. You might say that they cause the molecules to explode," explains Roder.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-13 10:50:07 Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from Daily News (South Africa) Mystery virus came from mice Test results have shown that the disease which has killed at least three people in Johannesburg hospitals is one of the rodent-borne Arena viruses -- a family of viruses that includes Lassa fever.
The Arena virus is carried by wild rodents (multimammate mice) and is shed in urine or droppings. The tests were conducted at US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in Johannesburg and the results were made public yesterday.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:26:02 Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from Mongabay Armageddon for amphibians? Frog-killing disease jumps Panama Canal Chytridiomycosis -- a fungal disease that is wiping out amphibians around the world -- has jumped across the Panama Canal, report scientists writing in the journal EcoHealth. The news is a worrying development for Panama's rich biodiversity of amphibians east of the canal.... While scientists don't yet know the origin of the fungus, they suspect it might be the African clawed frog, a species that has been shipped around the world for research purposes. The fungus is highly transmissible and has spread to at least four continents, in some cases probably introduced unintentionally by humans in the treads of their shoes. As it spreads, the disease lays waste to more than 80 percent of amphibians across a wide range of habitats, including those that are undisturbed by humans. Some researchers have suggested that climate change could be creating conditions that exacerbate the impact of the pathogen -- which predominantly affects highland species -- although the theory is still controversial.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:07:43 Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Climate change targets could end farming as we know it -- NFU New targets to cut the UK's greenhouse emissions by at least 80 per cent will cripple agriculture in the UK, according to farmers.... The [National Farmers Union] said it would be "nigh on impossible" for farming to make the cuts without a massive reduction in livestock farming -- which produces methane, and cultivating the land -- which produces nitrous oxide.... "We simply do not know how to produce the current volume of food produced using 80 per cent less greenhouse gases," he added.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:21:13 Mon, Oct 13, 2008: from Innovations Report Copper catalyst recycles carbon dioxide RIKEN chemists have developed a catalyst that should allow carbon dioxide to be used as a versatile synthetic chemical.... Zhaomin Hou... along with colleagues Takeshi Ohishi and Masayoshi Nishiura, has now developed a copper catalyst that helps the boron compounds to react with carbon dioxide without destroying sensitive chemical groups.... "One of our goals is to find a catalyst that can transform CO2 in exhaust gasses of automobile vehicles or chemical plants into useful materials."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-12 12:30:17 Sun, Oct 12, 2008: from London Independent A 'Green New Deal' can save the world's economy, says UN Top economists and United Nations leaders are working on a "Green New Deal" to create millions of jobs, revive the world economy, slash poverty and avert environmental disaster, as the financial markets plunge into their deepest crisis since the Great Depression.
The ambitious plan – the start of which will be formally launched in London next week - will call on world leaders, including the new US President, to promote a massive redirection of investment away from the speculation that has caused the bursting “financial and housing bubbles” and into job-creating programmes to restore the natural systems that underpin the world economy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:27:55 Sun, Oct 12, 2008: from Boston Globe Driving Mr. Lynx ...A growing number of ecologists worry that conservation-as-usual won't be able to keep up with the predicted pace of climate change. To some of them, assisted migration is a more proactive tool for preserving nature's richness, and possibly the only hope for saving certain species. Others wonder whether it would amount to just the sort of meddling that infested the American South with kudzu and choked Northern wetlands with purple loosestrife. Scientific models are no match for the actual complexities of ecosystems, they argue, and humans have proven inartful at playing God. It is a debate that underlines a broader shift in ecology, as some say the field needs to move into a more activist role - away from simply protecting nature and toward reshaping it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-25 15:55:04 Sun, Oct 12, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Donation raises questions for head of FDA's bisphenol A panel A retired medical supply manufacturer who considers bisphenol A to be "perfectly safe" gave $5 million to the research center of Martin Philbert, chairman of the Food and Drug Association panel about to make a pivotal ruling on the chemical's safety. Philbert did not disclose the donation, which is nearly 50 times larger than the $210,000 annual budget of the University of Michigan Risk Science Center, where he is founder and co-director.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:35:45 Sun, Oct 12, 2008: from McClatchy Newspapers U.S. taps Canada's oil sands -- but at an environmental cost ...While oil supplies are dwindling in some places, or disrupted by hurricanes, threatened by terrorist attacks or controlled by hostile governments, Alberta's oil sands -- a patch of forest about the size of Florida with a sea of oil beneath it -- produce more crude than all the wells in Texas or Alaska...The sands contain a form of crude oil called bitumen that's as thick as peanut butter. To remove the sand and clay to turn the bitumen into heavy crude that can flow to refineries takes a lot of energy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:36:58 Sat, Oct 11, 2008: from London Guardian ABC deems Gore climate change advert too 'controversial' for TV The ABC network has refused to air an advert produced by Al Gore's environmental group, ruling that its charge of US government favouritism to the oil industry is too "controversial" for television.
The TV commercial, part of the WE campaign run by Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, was submitted for airing after this week's presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain - both of whom have vowed to limit greenhouse gas emissions if elected. But ABC concluded that the advert violated its internal policy against "controversial" content during network-sponsored programmes, network spokeswoman Julie Hoover told the Guardian.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:25:13 Fri, Oct 10, 2008: from National Geographic Birds in "Big Trouble" Due to Drugs, Fishing, More Bird species are in "big trouble" worldwide, a sign that the planet's health is also faltering, according to a new report released today at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) meeting in Barcelona, Spain. Not only are rare birds getting rarer, but migratory songbirds, seabirds, and even common backyard birds are also plummeting, according to the State of the World's Birds, a report by the U.K. nonprofit BirdLife International.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-10 17:19:38 Fri, Oct 10, 2008: from London Times Research raises health fears over energy-saving light bulbs Reading or working near to an energy-saving light bulb could be harmful to your health, experts have cautioned.
Certain types of fluorescent light bulbs - where the shape of the coil is clearly visible - may emit ultraviolet (UV) radiation that can damage the skin, new research suggests.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) issued a “precautionary” warning that the bulbs should not be used for long periods at distances closer than 30cm (one foot) away, such as in a desk or bedside lamp.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-10 18:32:10 Fri, Oct 10, 2008: from U.S. News and World Report Global Warming Triggers an International Race for the Arctic A new epoch is beginning at the top of the Earth, where the historic melting of the vast Arctic ice cap is opening a forbidding, beautiful, and neglected swath of the planet. Already, there is talk that potentially huge oil and natural gas deposits lie under the Arctic waters, rendered more accessible by the shrinking of ice cover. Valuable minerals, too. Sea lanes over the top of the world will dramatically cut shipping times and costs. Fisheries and tourism will shift northward. In short, the frozen, fragile north will never be the same.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:52:04 Fri, Oct 10, 2008: from New West Guzzling the West's Water What is particularly ironic about livestock-caused stream dewatering is that it usually makes little economic sense. In much of the West, the value of leaving water in the river to sustain native fisheries or to provide for water-based recreation is often vastly greater than that of the beef produced with the same amount of water. Leaving water in the river to support fishing may ultimately be far more beneficial to local economies than using it for irrigation. Yet we regularly sacrifice the fish to produce beef -- a commodity that is already produced more economically and with less environmental impact in other, naturally wetter, parts of the country.
In biology, it can be useful to categorize causative factors as either proximate or ultimate. In the arid West, livestock production is often the ultimate cause of species endangerment, though other factors, often more readily recognized, may be proximate causes. Thus, many dams in the West are proving to be ecological disasters, yet the dams themselves are only proximate causes of deteriorating aquatic ecosystems. Many dams would not have been built but for the demand for water storage for irrigation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-10 10:03:22 Fri, Oct 10, 2008: from Reuters Virgin shark got pregnant in Virginia aquarium Scientists using DNA testing have confirmed the second-known instance of "virgin birth" in a shark -- a female Atlantic blacktip shark named Tidbit that produced a baby without a male shark.
The shark came to the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach not long after being born in the wild and lived there for eight years with no males of the same species, said Beth Firchau, the aquarium's curator of fishes.
The 5-foot (1.5-meter) shark died after being removed from the tank for a veterinary examination, and a subsequent necropsy revealed that Tidbit was carrying a fully developed shark pup nearly ready to be born, Firchau said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:27:00 Thu, Oct 9, 2008: from University of Alaska Fairbanks via ScienceDaily Arctic Soil May Contain Nearly Twice Greenhouse-Gas Producing Material Than Previously Estimated Frozen arctic soil contains nearly twice the greenhouse-gas-producing organic material as was previously estimated, according to recently published research by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists. School of Natural Resources & Agricultural Sciences professor Chien-Lu Ping published his latest findings in Nature Geoscience... Ping predicted that a two- to three-degree rise in air temperatures could cause the arctic tundra to switch from a carbon sink -- an area that absorbs more carbon dioxide than it produces -- to a carbon source -- an area that produces more carbon dioxide than it absorbs.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-09 20:41:15 Thu, Oct 9, 2008: from LIve Mint India’s cremated leave ashes, carbon footprint Kanpur: Even the dead are adding big time to the carbon footprint.
And the preference of Indian Hindus for conventional cremation in a country of 1.1 billion is only exacerbating the global problem.
If you want to burn a body completely, it will 400-500kg of wood, says Kalu Chaudhary, a body-burner at the Harishchandra ghat in Varanasi. If you do the math, that means about 50-60 million trees, covering 1,500-2,000 sq. km of forest land, are cut every year to burn the dead in India...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-09 18:12:55 Thu, Oct 9, 2008: from Reuters Climate change could force millions from homes Environmental damage such as desertification or flooding caused by climate change could force millions of peoples from their homes in the next few decades, experts said on Wednesday.
"All indicators show we are dealing with a major emerging global problem," said Janos Bogardi, director of the U.N. University`s Institute on the Environment and Human Security in Bonn, Germany.
"Experts estimate that by 2050 some 200 million people will be displaced by environmental problems, a number of people roughly equal to two-thirds of the United States today," the University said in a statement.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:22:19 Thu, Oct 9, 2008: from National Geographic News Heavy Metal-Eating "Superworms" Unearthed in U.K. Newly evolved "superworms" that feast on toxic waste could help cleanse polluted industrial land, a new study says.
These hardcore heavy metal fans, unearthed at disused mining sites in England and Wales, devour lead, zinc, arsenic, and copper. The earthworms excrete a slightly different version of the metals, making them easier for plants to suck up. Harvesting the plants would leave cleaner soil behind.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-09 14:02:02 Thu, Oct 9, 2008: from New Statesman The disaster we have yet to face [I]t is even more important to ask ourselves what the economic crisis reveals about our ability to control all our tsunamis, financial and otherwise. Foremost is the worst imaginable tsunami: an uncontrollable disruption of climate leading to panic and instability of the kind we are currently experiencing.
For the stakes of such a climate crisis are high. The current financial tsunami will, at worst, provoke a major recession, whereas a climatic tsunami will, at worst, destroy humanity. Am I exaggerating? No. First, the data: the cost of the ecological impact of CO2 emissions from countries in the Northern Hemisphere from these "toxic products" -- to employ a phrase that has been used to describe financial derivatives -- has been put at $3 trillion, perhaps more than the losses that will arise from the financial crisis. This ecological impact will only grow, and with it the effect on temperatures, on oceans, on glaciers, on storms.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:37:15 Thu, Oct 9, 2008: from Sustainable Business New Climate Change Bill Unveiled in House House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Energy and Air Quality subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-Va.) have released a new 461-page climate change bill that they are calling a "discussion draft."
Environmental groups are praising the release of a new bill, but point out that the numbers are off, particularly on short-term targets.... [A Greenpeace spokesman says] "Faced with a four-fold increase in the rate of carbon dioxide pollution since 2000 and emerging evidence of methane emissions from the melting arctic that may accelerate global warming we simply don’t have time anymore for the half-measures and loopholes that riddle this bill."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:29:02 Thu, Oct 9, 2008: from Bloomberg News World Fisheries Waste $50 Billion as Stocks Decline, UN Says The damage to fish stocks through over-fishing has resulted in larger fleets chasing fewer resources, the report said. The waste amounts to 63 percent of the $80 billion worth of fish caught each year, the UN said in a summary of the report.
Scientists say the world's fisheries may collapse by 2048 if catch levels are maintained. Government subsidies have reduced incentives for change, the UN-World Bank report said. Reducing fleet capacity would increase profitability and allow fish stocks to recover, increasing yields, the report said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-09 11:12:35 Wed, Oct 8, 2008: from Independent Online (South Africa) Haemorrhagic Viral Outbreak: 11 quarantined in Zambia Eleven people are in isolation and are being closely monitored for flu-like symptoms as Gauteng health authorities work to stop the possible spread of a virus that has led to the deaths of at least three people.
One woman has been quarantined at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital since being admitted last night. She is the supervisor of the cleaner who possibly died of the mystery virus.... Pelser said the three deaths were caused by a viral haemorrhagic fever as all the victims presented with the same symptoms: high fever, body aches, diarrhoea, vomiting and skin rash or bleeding. But tests for known strains such as Ebola, Congo and Marburg had all come back negative.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:48:36 Wed, Oct 8, 2008: from ACS, via ScienceDaily New Material Could Speed Development Of Hydrogen Powered Vehicles Researchers in Greece report design of a new material that almost meets the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) 2010 goals for hydrogen storage and could help eliminate a key roadblock to practical hydrogen-powered vehicles.... In the new study, the researchers used computer modeling to design a unique hydrogen-storage structure consisting of parallel graphene sheets — layers of carbon just one atom thick —stabilized by vertical columns of [carbon nanotubes]. They also added lithium ions to the material's design to enhance its storage capacity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:30:36 Wed, Oct 8, 2008: from Union of Concerned Scientists Invasive Species are Costing Ohio, Report Finds From the emerald ash borer to zebra mussels, invasive species are damaging Ohio's environment and economy, according to a new report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The report says state and federal policies both need to be much stronger in order to prevent new species invasions and reduce the impact of harmful species that have already established themselves in the state.... Ohio is particularly susceptible to new species invasions because so many international products (on which insects and other pests can "hitchhike") are transported into the state on trucks and ships. The report documents existing data on federal and state spending on invasive species in the state and region, as well as on the damage done to economic activity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:20:24 Wed, Oct 8, 2008: from SciDev.net Brazil's climate change plan 'ready for public scrutiny' The recommendations are organised into four lines of action: mitigation; vulnerability, impact and adaptation; research and development; and empowerment and divulgation.
Goals include getting 7,000 megawatts of power from renewable energy between 2008 and 2010, increasing production of ethanol from 25.6 billion litres in 2008 to 53.2 billion litres by 2017, and preventing the release 570 million tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2008 and 2017 by using biofuels.
Targets will be met by promoting sustainable development in the industrial and agricultural sectors, maintaining a high proportion of renewable energy in the electricity production, encouraging the use of biofuels in the transportation sector, and reducing deforestation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-08 12:46:30 Wed, Oct 8, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Dutch city kept warm by hot-water mines Heerlen, in the southern province of Limburg, has created the first geothermal power station in the world using water heated naturally in the deep shafts of old coalmines -- which once provided the southern Netherlands with thousands of jobs but have been dormant since the 1970s.
Tapping "free energy" marks a breakthrough in green technology by exploiting the legacy of the coalmines that emitted so much pollution and helped to create the climate change emergency faced by the planet.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-08 11:41:00 Wed, Oct 8, 2008: from PhysOrg.com Arctic soil reveals climate change clues Frozen arctic soil contains nearly twice the greenhouse-gas-producing organic material as was previously estimated, according to recently published research by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists.... Wielding jackhammers, Ping and a team of scientists dug down more than one meter into the permafrost to take soil samples from more than 100 sites throughout Alaska. Previous research had sampled to about 40 centimeters deep.
After analyzing the samples, the research team discovered a previously undocumented layer of organic matter on top of and in the upper part of permafrost, ranging from 60 to 120 centimeters deep. This deep layer of organic matter first accumulates on the tundra surface and is buried during the churning freeze and thaw cycles that characterize the turbulent arctic landscape.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:53:35 Wed, Oct 8, 2008: from Fiji Times Pacific fishing collapse predicted The collapse of commercial fishing in the Pacific has been predicted within five years by Greenpeace.
The comment accompanies the close of the fourth meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commissions Technical and Compliance Committee, reports Radio New Zealand.
Greenpeaces Pacific Oceans campaigner, Lagi Toribau said big fishing companies are depleting the fisheries there in the same way as they have others.
Toribau said the commission, which was set up four years ago, has failed to address the extent of pirate fishing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 13:12:15 Wed, Oct 8, 2008: from Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News Bisphenol A linked to chemotherapy resistance Exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) may reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapy treatments, say University of Cincinnati (UC) scientists.
The research study, led by UC's Nira Ben-Jonathan, PhD, says that BPA -- a man-made chemical found in a number of plastic products, including drinking bottles and the lining of food cans -- actually induces a group of proteins that protect cancer cells from the toxic effects of chemotherapy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:57:29 Tue, Oct 7, 2008: from Scientific American Cylindrical Solar Cells Give a Whole New Meaning to Sunroof There are approximately 30 billion square feet (2.8 billion square meters) of expansive, flat roofs in the U.S., an area large enough to collect the sunlight needed to power 16 million American homes, or replace 38 conventional coal-fired power plants. By covering these roofs with large, flat arrays of cylindrical thin-film solar cells (think massive installations of fluorescent tubes, only absorbing light rather than emitting it), Fremont, Calif.–based Solyndra, Inc., hopes to harness that energy....the newly shaped cells have the potential of harnessing solar power at around the same price as electricity from coal-fired power plants, currently the cheapest generation option at around six cents per kilowatt hour.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:51:44 Tue, Oct 7, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Chicago's electric carp barrier hits a snag It's supposed to be the last chance to keep the Great Lakes from turning into the Great Carp Ponds, but the federal government's new electric fish barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal is not doing the job. The $9 million contraption designed to repel the jumbo - and jumping - Asian carp was finished nearly 2 1/2 years ago. It was conceived in a desperate attempt to stop the fish that have already infested the middle of the continent from gobbling their way up a canal that is an artificial link between the Mississippi River basin and the Great Lakes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:51:16 Tue, Oct 7, 2008: from Media Newswire Ecosystem Renovation -- Bring Them On Back A 'lost' lake in Mali and a Kenyan forest that is the water tower for key rivers and lakes in East Africa are among two country projects aimed at bringing significant degraded and denuded ecosystems back from the brink.
The projects are among several being drawn up and spearheaded by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in cooperation with governments, to demonstrate that re-investing in damaged ecosystems can generate significant economic, environmental and social returns.
A further project proposal is being drawn up and staff being hired to restore soils, wetlands, forests and other key ecosystem on the hurricane-vulnerable island of Haiti where environmental degradation has been linked to social unrest.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-07 10:21:39 Tue, Oct 7, 2008: from Guardian (UK) End use of fossil fuels in 20 years, UK warned Britain must abandon using almost all fossil fuels to produce power in 20 years' time, the government's climate change watchdog will warn today.
The independent Climate Change Committee will publish its advice to the government that the UK should set a 2050 target of cutting all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent -- including the emissions from aviation and transport, which were previously excluded.... "We have to almost totally decarbonise the power sector by 2030, well before 2050," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:07:52 Tue, Oct 7, 2008: from Columbian.com Lichens may be canaries in the coal mine Samples were sent to a University of Minnesota laboratory for analysis of their nitrogen and sulfur content.
The results set off alarms.
"Lichens indicating nitrogen-enriched environments were abundant," Geiser wrote in a 2007 article published in the journal Environmental Pollution. "The atmospheric deposition levels detected likely threaten gorge ecosystems and cultural resources" such as Native American petroglyphs and pictographs rock art, she wrote.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:28:27 Tue, Oct 7, 2008: from Scotland on Sunday Mexico tourism boom kills coral quicker than climate change Human waste, like that from Cancun's hotels and night spots, aggravates threats to coral worldwide, such as overzealous fishing, which hurts stocks of fish that eat reef-damaging algae....
Across the Caribbean, the amount of reef surface covered by live coral has fallen about 80 percent in the past 30 years, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network says.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:24:09 Tue, Oct 7, 2008: from USGS Most Alaskan Glaciers Retreating, Thinning, and Stagnating, Says Major USGS Report Most glaciers in every mountain range and island group in Alaska are experiencing significant retreat, thinning or stagnation, especially glaciers at lower elevations, according to a new book published by the U.S. Geological Survey. In places, these changes began as early as the middle of the 18th century.
Although more than 99 percent of Alaska's large glaciers are retreating, a handful, surprisingly, are advancing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-07 11:26:35 Tue, Oct 7, 2008: from Wildlife Conservation Society, via EurekAlert 'Deadly dozen' reports diseases worsened by climate change The "Deadly Dozen" list -- including such diseases as avian influenza, Ebola, cholera, and tuberculosis -- is illustrative only of the broad range of infectious diseases that threaten humans and animals. It builds upon the recommendations included in a recently published paper titled "Wildlife Health as an Indicator of Climate Change," which appears in a newly released book, Global Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events: Understanding the Contributions to Infectious Disease Emergence, published by the National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine. The study examines the nuts and bolts of deleterious impacts of climate change on the health of wild animals and the cascading effects on human populations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:06:46 Mon, Oct 6, 2008: from Associated Press Fresh global warming fears as glaciers melt at alarming rate The latest report from the Icelandic government's Committee on Climate Change has warned that the country's glaciers will have all but disappeared by the next century, contributing to the threat of sea level rises, a British broadcaster has reported.
Europe's largest glacier, Iceland's Vatnajokull, is melting because of rising temperatures and reduced snow fall, Sky News said... And for some, like farmer Olafur Eggertsson, the warmer temperatures in Iceland have lengthened his growing season, meaning higher profits for his produce.
He has even been able to grow Iceland's first crop of wheat, Sky reported.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 15:33:26 Mon, Oct 6, 2008: from Brisbane Courier-Mail Australians 'bored' by climate change AUSTRALIANS are becoming bored with the issue of climate change and many still doubt whether the phenomenon is actually happening, according to a new survey.
Only 46 per cent of Australians said they would take action on climate change if they were in charge of making decisions for Australia, a dip from 55 per cent last year, according to the Ipos-Eureka Social Research Institute's third annual climate change survey.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:52:34 Mon, Oct 6, 2008: from Associated Press 1 in 4 mammals at risk of extinction, scientists say Conservationists have taken the first detailed look at the world's mammals in more than a decade, and the news isn't good... "We estimate that one in four species is threatened with extinction and that the population of one in two is declining," the researchers said in a report to be published Friday in the journal Science... "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 15:19:56 Mon, Oct 6, 2008: from Portland Oregonian Look out, Oregon, for a global warming land rush What if the American Southwest dries up, browns out, and those people now misting their patios in Arizona head to the still-green Pacific Northwest? What if Californians hit the road north in numbers far surpassing the 20,000 who now move to Oregon each year? What if the polar ice melts, oceans rise and millions living along coastal areas -- or ravaged by Katrina-like storms -- have to move?...By 2060, a Metro economist said, the seven-county Portland area could grow to 3.85 million people -- nearly double the number here now.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:06:12 Mon, Oct 6, 2008: from CTV News Wind turbines cause health problems, residents say Windmills may be an environmentally friendly alternative energy source but they also cause debilitating health problems, say people who live near them.
Wind turbines are popping up in rural communities around the world, including Canada, in the hope that they will reduce reliance on coal and other sources for power. Currently, there are about 1,500 turbines across Canada and there are plans to build another 1,000 to 1,500 in the next year.
But some residents who live near wind farms complain the turbines cause a number of adverse health effects, such as crippling headaches, nose bleeds and a constant ringing in the ears.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-05 18:15:55 Sun, Oct 5, 2008: from European Space Agency via ScienceDaily Arctic Sea Ice Annual Freeze-up Underway After reaching the second-lowest extent ever recorded last month, sea ice in the Arctic has begun to refreeze in the face of autumn temperatures, closing both the Northern Sea Route and the direct route through the Northwest Passage. This year marked the first time since satellite measurements began in the 1970s that the Northern Sea Route, also known as the Northeast Passage, and the Northwest Passage were both open at the same time for a few weeks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-05 18:12:01 Sun, Oct 5, 2008: from Geological Society of America via ScienceDaily Topsoil's Limited Turnover: A Crisis In Time ...Records show that topsoil erosion, accelerated by human civilization and conventional agricultural practices, has outpaced long-term soil production. Earth's continents are losing prime agricultural soils even as population growth and increased demand for biofuels claim more from this basic resource.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:26:41 Sun, Oct 5, 2008: from London Observer Seas turn to acid as they soak up CO2 The Bay of Naples is renowned for its breathtaking beauty and glittering clear waters... But beneath the waves, scientists have uncovered an alarming secret. They have found streams of gas bubbling up from the seabed around the island of Ischia. 'The waters are like a Jacuzzi - there is so much carbon dioxide fizzing up from the seabed,' said Dr Jason Hall-Spencer, of Plymouth University. 'Millions of litres of gas bubble up every day.'
The gas streams have turned Ischia's waters into acid, and this has had a major impact on sea life and aquatic plants. Now marine biologists fear that the world's seas could follow suit.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-05 18:03:43 Sun, Oct 5, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Warming Andes stymies Peruvian potato farmers For the first half of his life, potato farmer Gregorio Huanuco used the same formula that had dictated the survival of his ancestors for generations.... by 1990, Huanuco began noting strange climatic patterns in this village of 500 residents at 11,000 feet in the Andean Cordillera Blanca. They included battering hailstorms, months without rain and warmer winters. By 2005, the quirky weather became more consistent and included a fungus that blanketed his potato crops.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:27:58 Sat, Oct 4, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Atlantic Wolffish: Fearsome Fish That Deserve Protection? ... seeking endangered species protection for the Atlantic wolffish, a fish threatened with extinction due to years of overharvesting and habitat loss due to modern fishing gear. If the petition is successful, this will be the first listing of a marine fish as an endangered in New England.... According to federal statistics, the number of wolffish landed by commercial fishermen has dropped 95 percent from over 1,200 metric tons in 1983 to just 64.7 metric tons in 2007. More critically, wolffish have virtually disappeared from the annual scientific research trawls that take place twice a year in the state and federal waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the New England coast. In addition to fishing, habitat alterations are also suspected as a major threat to the wolffish. One scientist has estimated that virtually every inch of the seafloor in New England's ocean waters was impacted by commercial trawling (in which football field-sized nets are dragged through the ocean) between 1984 and 1990.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:50:30 Sat, Oct 4, 2008: from Azerbaijan Press Agency Tartar River water banned for using because Armenians poison it Local residents said the river became very turbid and they found dead bodies of fishes and other river inhabitants.
Armenians began to clean silt layer in Sarsang reservoir with the support of Russian company. The process was shown on Armenian TV channels broadcasted to Nagorno Karabakh.
They shed slops from Sarsang and other reservoirs into Tartar River.
Experts of the Azerbaijan Water Problems Institute found out that 90 per cent of the river water is useless.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-04 08:50:13 Sat, Oct 4, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Shrinking Oyster Population Focus of River Summit "When I got out of the Army in 1970, . . . you could make a good living," Smith said.
But the number of oyster boats has dwindled, as have the shucking operations throughout the Chesapeake Bay area. Although state and federal oyster restoration efforts have cost nearly $60 million since 1994, the number of oysters has declined, according to a recent Environmental Protection Agency estimate. Experts say the oyster population in the bay is at 1 percent of historic highs in the 1880s.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-04 08:43:31 Sat, Oct 4, 2008: from Networkworld, via PostCarbon Cities Gas shortage spurs telework in southeast U.S. Gas shortages in the southeast United States are prompting companies to consider expanding their telework programs so employees can conserve fuel. Other options workers are weighing include greater use of carpools and public transit, along with alternative scheduling arrangements such as four-day work weeks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 19:29:11 Fri, Oct 3, 2008: from 350 Ecuador votes to grant rights to nature ...On Sunday, two thirds of Ecuador's citizens voted to approve a new Constitution, which notably includes a set of unprecedented articles that guarantee 'inalienable rights to nature'. The articles appear to be the first of their kind, and have sparked a global conversation...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:39:56 Fri, Oct 3, 2008: from Washington Post (US) On the Sunny Beaches of Brazil, A Perplexing Inrush of Penguins ...Like some maritime dust-bowl migration, more than 1,000 ... penguins have floated ashore in Brazil, nearly as far north as the equator. By the time their webbed feet touch sand, many are gaunt and exhausted, often having lost three-quarters of their body weight. Even more have died....By Sept. 21, the Niteroi Zoo had received 556 penguins, compared with just seven penguins in all of 2007. Hundreds more dead and feeble penguins, some covered in oil, hit land in the resort town of Florianopolis, and as far north as Salvador and Recife.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:54:04 Fri, Oct 3, 2008: from Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics Rethinking Who Should Be Considered 'Essential' During a Pandemic Flu Outbreak Not only are doctors, nurses, and firefighters essential during a severe pandemic influenza outbreak. So, too, are truck drivers, communications personnel, and utility workers. That's the conclusion of a Johns Hopkins University article to be published in the journal of Biosecurity and Bioterrorism.... Dr. Kass says, "when preparing for a severe pandemic flu it is crucial for leaders to recognize that if the public has limited or no access to food, water, sewage systems, fuel and communications, the secondary consequences may cause greater sickness death and social breakdown than the virus itself."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:32:28 Fri, Oct 3, 2008: from Texas A&M, via EurekAlert Atlantic tuna return thousands of miles to birthplace to spawn New research findings reported in Science have critical implications for how bluefin tuna are managed on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.... Despite the high level of mixing, the team also observed that over 95 percent of adult bluefin tuna returned to their place of origin in either the Gulf of Mexico or Mediterranean Sea to spawn.... "Rates of homing reported here are extremely high and comparable to Pacific salmon, which are known to return to the streams in which they were initially spawned, with very high frequency," according to co-author Barbara Block from Stanford University.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:49:55 Fri, Oct 3, 2008: from USA Today Exposure to chemical may affect the genitals of baby boys. Baby boys are more likely to have changes in their genitals — such as undescended testicles and smaller penises — if their mothers were exposed to high levels of a controversial chemical during pregnancy, a new study shows. Virtually everyone has been exposed to the chemicals, called phthalates, which are used in countless plastic products and are found in everything from drinking water to breast milk to household dust, according to the study, published in the current issue of Environmental Research.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:52:57 Fri, Oct 3, 2008: from Ecology Society of America, via EurekAlert Decline in Alaskan sea otters affects bald eagles' diet Sea otters are known as a keystone species, filling such an important niche in ocean communities that without them, entire ecosystems can collapse.... [S]ea otters can have even farther-reaching effects that extend to terrestrial communities and alter the behavior of another top predator: the bald eagle.
In nearshore marine communities, towering kelp can reach heights of 250 feet and function much like trees in a forest, providing food, homes and protection for fish and invertebrates. The most important enemies of these giant algae are tiny sea urchins, only inches in diameter, which live on the kelp's holdfasts and eat its tissue. When urchin populations become too large, they can defoliate entire kelp forests, leaving only barren remains....
Otters can eat the spiky urchins whole, making them the major urchin predator. The otters' presence keeps urchin populations in check and maintains the balance of the ecosystem.... The results are the first to show that the presence or absence of otters influences a terrestrial animal, and that the complex food web linkages can reach as far as five different food chain levels: from sea otters to sea urchins, kelp, marine fish and finally bald eagles.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:34:05 Thu, Oct 2, 2008: from CSIRO (Australia) Emissions rising faster this decade than last The latest figures on the global carbon budget to be released in Washington and Paris today indicate a four-fold increase in growth rate of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions since 2000. "This is a concerning trend in light of global efforts to curb emissions," says Global Carbon Project (GCP) Executive-Director, Dr Pep Canadell, a carbon specialist based at CSIRO in Canberra.... Dr Canadell said atmospheric carbon dioxide growth has been outstripping the growth of natural carbon dioxide sinks such as forests and oceans.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-02 16:08:19 Thu, Oct 2, 2008: from Geological Society of America Topsoil's Limited Turnover: A Crisis in Time Records show that topsoil erosion, accelerated by human civilization and conventional agricultural practices, has outpaced long-term soil production. Earth's continents are losing prime agricultural soils even as population growth and increased demand for biofuels claim more from this basic resource.... Top geomorphologist David R. Montgomery of the University of Washington says that "ongoing soil degradation and loss present a global economic crisis that, although less dramatic than climate change or a comet impact, could prove catastrophic nonetheless, given time."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-02 15:43:50 Thu, Oct 2, 2008: from University of Michigan Scientists explore putting electric cars on a two-way power street Think of it as the end of cars’ slacker days: No more sitting idle for hours in parking lots or garages racking up payments, but instead earning their keep by providing power to the electricity grid.
Scientists at the University of Michigan, using a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), are exploring plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) that not only use grid electricity to meet their power needs, but return it to the grid, earning money for the owner.... The concept, called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration, is part of a larger effort to embrace large-scale changes that are needed to improve the sustainability and resilience of the transportation and electric power infrastructures. If V2G integration succeeds, it will enable the grid to utilize PHEV batteries for storing excess renewable energy from wind and the sun, releasing this energy to grid customers when needed, such as during peak hours.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:10:31 Thu, Oct 2, 2008: from Environmental Research, via EurekAlert Six environmental research studies reveal critical health risks from plastic Exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates and flame retardants (PBDEs) are strongly associated with adverse health effects on humans and laboratory animals. A special section in the October 2008 issue of Environmental Research, "A Plastic World," provides critical new research on environmental contaminants and adverse reproductive and behavioral effects.
Plastic products contain "endocrine disrupting chemicals" that can block the production of the male sex hormone testosterone (phthalates used in PVC plastic), mimic the action of the sex hormone estrogen (bisphenol A or BPA used in polycarbonate plastic), and interfere with thyroid hormone (brominated flame retardants or PBDEs used in many types of plastic).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:07:20 Thu, Oct 2, 2008: from Manila Bulletin 81 drums of toxic endosulfan recovered from sunken ship "US-based salvor firm Titan and its local partner Harbor Star have started retrieving the endosulfan from the wreck. As of 1 p.m. last Tuesday, 22 packs of endosulfan, out of 400, had been retrieved, Bautista said.... The divers and the personnel receiving the containers on the barge were wearing hazmat (hazardous material) suits. These are people trained on the handling of toxic substances.... After the chemicals and hydrocarbons are extracted, the bodies of the ferry passengers will be retrieved.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-01 19:43:13 Wed, Oct 1, 2008: from Agence France-Presse Palin: Cause of global warming 'doesn't matter' WASHINGTON: Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said on Tuesday that global warming is "real," but stressed that it "kind of doesn't matter" whether or not humans are to blame for climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:17:14 Wed, Oct 1, 2008: from Science Acidic Oceans Getting Noisy, Too The ocean is becoming a noisier place. As seawater turns more acidic, due to absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2) building up in the atmosphere, it allows sound waves to travel farther, according to new research. That's potentially bad news for a host of marine animals, including whales and dolphins, that rely on sound for hunting and communication--and that are easily stressed by background noise from ship traffic and military sonar.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-01 19:17:58 Wed, Oct 1, 2008: from London Guardian Met Office warns of need for drastic cuts in greenhouse gases from 2010 The world will have to take drastic action within two years to reduce greenhouse gas pollution if it is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, a new study warns... The study shows that cutting global emissions by 3 percent a year from 2010 offers the only possible hope of avoiding a global temperature rise of more than 2C - widely recognised as the threshold beyond which the worst impacts of sea level rise and drought become a significant risk.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:30:14 Wed, Oct 1, 2008: from Associated Press Feds propose listing 48 Hawaiian species at once HONOLULU - The federal government took a new, ecosystem-based approach to the endangered species list on Tuesday, proposing an all-at-once addition of 48 species, including plants, two birds and a fly, that live only on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The action by the Interior Department would designate about 43 square miles as critical habitat for all the species rather than considering each species' habitat separately, which has been the practice for three decades. Officials said considering the species all at once should save time and resources and would help the whole ecosystem.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:29:53 Wed, Oct 1, 2008: from Associated Press Experts warn species in peril from climate change ORLANDO, Fla. - Climate change threatens to kill off up to a third of the planet's species by the end of the century if urgent action isn't taken to restore fragile ecosystems, protect endangered animals and manage growth, scientists warned Wednesday as a wildlife summit opened. "Much of the predictions are gloom and doom. The ray of hope, however, is that we have not lost our opportunity. We still have time if we act now," said Jean Brennan, a senior scientist...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 19:47:07 Tue, Sep 30, 2008: from Los Angeles Times California launches broad effort to control hazardous chemicals California today launched the most comprehensive program of any state to evaluate, label and, in some cases, ban industrial chemicals that are linked to cancer, hormone disruption and other deadly effects on human health.... Instead of a product-by-product approach, two new laws are designed to encompass 80,000 chemicals now in circulation, focus on the most dangerous, widespread substances first and control them at the manufacturing stage, before they leach into the air, water or human skin.
The legislation, Schwarzenegger said, propels California to "the forefront of the nation and the world. . . . With these two bills, we will stop looking at toxics as an inevitable byproduct of industrial production."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:49:51 Tue, Sep 30, 2008: from National Research Council, via Miami Herald (FL) Report blasts slow progress on Everglades restoration After eight years, the ambitious effort to restore the Everglades has produced stacks of science and engineering studies, created a sprawling bureaucracy and burned though $7 billion or so of taxpayer money.
But it hasn't restored much of anything.
That's the conclusion of a National Research Council progress report on the Everglades released Monday.
It finds that while the great marsh and its wildlife continue to decline, projects intended to revive the River of Grass have been tied up in red tape, interagency turf battles, budget shortfalls and waffling political support. Construction runs years behind schedule and billions over budget.... "Portions of the ecosystem are close to thresholds that, if they continue to deteriorate, it will be too late."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-02 17:21:50 Tue, Sep 30, 2008: from Nairobi East African Africa: Climate Change May Lead to New Diseases African countries must work together to mitigate the health impacts of global warming to avoid a "continental disaster," climate and health experts who met recently in Nairobi have said.
According to the experts, climate change will lead to the emergence of new infections and the spread of old ones, further straining cash-strapped public health systems.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-02 17:23:57 Tue, Sep 30, 2008: from American Society of Agronomy Experiment Demonstrates 110 Years of Sustainable Agriculture A plot of land on the campus of Auburn University shows that 110 years of sustainable farming practices can produce similar cotton crops to those using other methods.
In 1896, Professor J.F. Duggar at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn University) started an experiment to test his theories that sustainable cotton production was possible on Alabama soils if growers would use crop rotation and include winter legumes (clovers and/or vetch) to protect the soil from winter erosion.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-02 17:29:47 Tue, Sep 30, 2008: from London Daily Guardian Meat must be rationed to four portions a week, says report on climate change People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a major new report warns.
The report, by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey, also says total food consumption should be reduced, especially "low nutritional value" treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:26:14 Tue, Sep 30, 2008: from University of Rochester, via EurekAlert When particles are so small that they seep right through skin ... [S]ome nanoparticles are so small that they can actually seep through skin, especially when the skin has been damaged.
The health implications of nanoparticles in the body are uncertain, said DeLouise, an assistant professor of Dermatology and Biomedical Engineering and an expert on the properties of nanoparticles. Other scientists have found that the particles can accumulate in the lymph system, the liver, the nervous system, and in other areas of the body. In her study, she found that the particles accumulate around the hair follicles and in tiny skin folds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:19:49 Tue, Sep 30, 2008: from New Zealand Herald NZ firm to microwave forest waste into charcoal A New Zealand company which says it has patented world-first industrial technology to microwave forest waste is planning to offer charcoal to farmers and horticulturists who want to boost the quality of their soils.
The technology can capture significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and hold it for 10,000 years by putting the charcoal into topsoils, and at the same time improve plant growth.
The company, Carbonscape, has begun initial batch scale production of the "biochar" at its Marlborough plant.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-30 13:15:42 Tue, Sep 30, 2008: from Associated Press Nation's first greenhouse gas auction nets $38.5M ALBANY, N.Y.—The nation's first cap-and-trade greenhouse gas auction raised nearly $40 million that will be spent by Northeast states on renewable and energy efficient technologies.
Under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, all fossil fuel-burning power plants in a 10-state region are required to buy credits to cover the carbon they emit. The results of the first of a series of quarterly auctions were released Monday.
The initiative is viewed as a possible model for a national program to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas blamed for global warming.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-30 13:18:33 Tue, Sep 30, 2008: from TravelVideo.tv Dubai warns beachgoers to stay out of sea Dubai authorities and doctors have warned beachgoers to stay out of the sea as illegally dumped sewage has contaminated parts of the emirate’s shoreline, according to published reports. The sewage has blackened the waters surrounding Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, close to Jumeirah Open Beach, and further up the coast in the same area.... Keith Mutch, general manager of Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, which has had to suspend its operations for the past two weeks, said that the area had been completely ruined by the sewage. "It's become like a big toilet, with black colored water floating all around. A number of our members have developed skin rashes, eye and ear infections after coming into contact with the waters," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:52:45 Mon, Sep 29, 2008: from USA Today No driveway carwashes, Wash. state says Along with wild salmon and steelhead trout, the Pacific Northwest soon may have another endangered species -- the driveway carwash.
Washing your car or boat in the driveway or street is a residential ritual as American as backyard barbecues. But the state of Washington is telling its local governments they must prohibit home car washing unless residents divert the wash water away from storm drains, where they say it causes water pollution.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-29 11:42:33 Mon, Sep 29, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Chicago's toxic air People living in Chicago and nearby suburbs face some of the highest risks in the nation for cancer, lung disease and other health problems linked to toxic chemicals pouring from industry smokestacks, according to a Tribune analysis of federal data.... the Tribune is posting the information on its Web site, where users can easily find nearby polluters and the chemicals going into their air... The Tribune also found Chicago was among the 10 worst cities in the U.S.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-29 11:39:01 Mon, Sep 29, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Freecycle: the big green giveaway If you haven't already come across Freecycle, the online recycling network - one of the biggest green initiatives of the past decade - it is a global network of message boards, with more than 450 groups in the UK. The beauty of it is that it transforms one person's trash into another's treasure.
You sign up to your local group, where you can post messages to say what you're offering, or looking for. No money changes hands and it's up to the person who wants an item to collect it, so you don't have to stress about how you're going to heave an unwanted futon out of your home.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:14:29 Mon, Sep 29, 2008: from McGill Daily (Canada) Plastic poison resists regulation It runs in the blood of almost every person in the world. The chemical is Bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic estrogen that has been used in plastics for decades and interferes with fetal development. In mice it can change the structure of genitalia, reverse sexual differences in the brain, and increase susceptibility to prostate and breast cancers. And although it may cause heart disease and diabetes in humans, few seem to care.... Canada labelled BPA as toxic earlier this year, a designation that allows ministers to regulate its use. Baby bottles containing BPA were banned, and many drink companies took bottles containing BPA off the shelves. So far, no other country has followed suit.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-29 11:07:50 Mon, Sep 29, 2008: from Bandon Western World (OR) Mussels and scallops harvesting closure People hoping to gather mussels and scallops on the South Coast will have to wait until the Oregon Department of Agriculture ends a harvesting closure.
The ODA put a closure into effect last Thursday for recreational mussel harvesting from the California border north to, and including, Bastendorff Beach, due to elevated levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning. The ban is for mussels on all beaches, rocks, jetties and at the entrances to bays, a press release said.
Coastal scallops also are included in the closure. Only the adductor muscle should be eaten from scallops harvested on the coast. Crabs are not impacted by this level of toxin and are safe to eat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-29 12:32:57 Mon, Sep 29, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Nurseries replenishing B.C.'s forests wither on the vine This year she grew a crop of 22 million young trees, which she harvested and sent off to market. Logging companies bought those seedlings and so did tree-planting contractors.
With British Columbia's forests in a massive die-off because of a pine beetle infestation, Ms. Dawes's agri-business should be thriving. But it isn't. It is struggling to survive because of a downturn in the forest industry -- and because the federal government no longer recognizes silviculture as farming.... Silviculture operators, who until then had been covered by CAIS, thought they would simply join other farmers in a smooth transition to the new programs.
Then they found out that not only had they lost their status as farmers - but they also had to pay back any funds they'd been given under CAIS, dating back to 2003.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-28 18:29:15 Sun, Sep 28, 2008: from National Geographic News Sun's Power Hits New Low, May Endanger Earth? Even the sun appears headed for a recession. The Ulysses space probe has detected fewer sunspots, decreased solar winds, and a weakening magnetic field -- the lowest solar activity observed in 50 years, NASA scientists said yesterday.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:41:30 Sun, Sep 28, 2008: from Associated Press Scientists think algae may be the fuel of the future Borculo, Netherlands -- Set amid cornfields and cow pastures in eastern Holland is a shallow pool that is rapidly turning green with algae, harvested for animal feed, skin treatments, biodegradable plastics -- and with increasing interest, biofuel... Experts say it will be years, maybe a decade, before this simplest of all plants efficiently can be processed for fuel. But when that day comes, it could go a long way toward easing the world's energy needs and responding to global warming.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-28 19:18:03 Sun, Sep 28, 2008: from London Guardian Deaths soar from hospital superbugs Almost 37,000 NHS patients have died after catching either the MRSA or C-difficile hospital superbugs during Labour's time in office, official figures show.
The two virulent infections claimed 36,674 lives between 1997 and 2007. Of those, 26,208 were from Clostridium difficile and 10,466 from MRSA. Numbers dying in England and Wales from C-difficile soared from 975 in 1999 to 8,324 last year, a jump of about 850 per cent, while fatalities linked to MRSA grew from 386 in 1997 to 1,593 in 2007.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-29 08:28:59 Sun, Sep 28, 2008: from NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center via ScienceDaily Arctic Saw Fastest August Sea Ice Retreat On Record, NASA Data Show Following a record-breaking season of arctic sea ice decline in 2007, NASA scientists have kept a close watch on the 2008 melt season. Although the melt season did not break the record for ice loss, NASA data are showing that for a four-week period in August 2008, sea ice melted faster during that period than ever before.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-28 18:09:46 Sat, Sep 27, 2008: from Scientific American Climate change may be sparking new and bigger "dead zones" ... Scientists are discovering that climate change -- and not just fertilizer from farm use -- may be spurring the emergence of barren underwater landscapes in coastal waters. Expanding dead zones not only spell trouble for biodiversity, but they also threaten the commercial fisheries of many nations... Agricultural runoff sparks many of these die-offs; increased use of nitrogen fertilizers has doubled the number of lifeless pockets every decade since the 1960s, resulting in 405 dead zones now dotting coastlines globally.
But lesser-known wastelands are also emerging -- without nutrient input from farms.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-28 19:29:29 Sat, Sep 27, 2008: from Wiley-Blackwell via ScienceDaily New More Efficient Ways To Use Biomass Alternatives to fossil fuels and natural gas as carbon sources and fuel are in demand. Biomass could play a more significant part in the future. Researchers in the USA and China have now developed a new catalyst that directly converts cellulose, the most common form of biomass, into ethylene glycol, an important intermediate product for chemical industry.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:09:49 Sat, Sep 27, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Citing cost, USDA kills pesticide-testing program WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has abruptly halted a government program that tests the levels of pesticides in fruits, vegetables and field crops, arguing that the $8 million-a-year program is too expensive --a decision critics say could make it harder to protect consumers from chemicals in their food.
Data from the 18-year-old Agricultural Chemical Usage Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture were collected until this year, and the Environmental Protection Agency used the data to set safe levels of pesticides in food.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-28 19:40:38 Sat, Sep 27, 2008: from Associated Press Global warming pollution increases 3 percent WASHINGTON - The world pumped up its pollution of the chief man-made global warming gas last year, setting a course that could push beyond leading scientists' projected worst-case scenario, international researchers said Thursday. The new numbers, called "scary" by some, were a surprise because scientists thought an economic downturn would slow energy use. Instead, carbon dioxide output jumped 3 percent from 2006 to 2007.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-28 19:41:38 Fri, Sep 26, 2008: from US, via Mongabay U.S. Congress passes legislation to boost solar, wind, and geothermal energy Tuesday the U.S. Senate passed a bill that will extend tax credits on solar power installations through 2016. The House approved the measure Wednesday.
The $17 billion package will allow businesses and homeowners to deduct part of the cost of new solar installation from their income tax. The legislation would also extend incentives for wind power for one year and geothermal and biomass for two years. The tax credits would have otherwise expired at the end of the year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-28 17:45:55 Fri, Sep 26, 2008: from SeaCoastOnline (Maine) Where have all the bats gone? Sitting outside as the sun set and the yard sank into shadow, I saw the swallows replaced by bats. There were usually at least 10 or 20 bats living in the old carriage house next to my driveway. I could hear their clicking squeaks both during the day as they rested under the shingles and at night while darting overhead after mosquitoes. This summer, the evening sky in my neighborhood has had a marked absence of bats. ... Growing evidence indicates that the fungus isn't the cause of death, but a symptom of something bigger: climate change, an unknown pathogen, or perhaps the increased pesticide use in the Northeast following the upswing in West Nile disease.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:22:00 Fri, Sep 26, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk More methane plumes found in Arctic Hundreds more methane plumes have been discovered in the Arctic raising fresh fears that the greenhouse gas is contributing to global warming.... The findings follow the revelation earlier this week that Russian scientists have discovered vast quantities of methane being released by the melting permafrost from the seabed off Siberia.
Scientists believe that sudden releases of methane have, in the past, been responsible for increasing global temperature, dramatic climate change and the extinction of species.
The latest discoveries came from researchers on the British ship the James Clark Ross. They said they had observed around 250 methane plumes in a 30 sq mile area.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:25:49 Fri, Sep 26, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Amphibians facing a wipeout by 2050 Half of Europe's amphibian species could be wiped out in the next 40 years. Scientists from the Zoological Society of London say that the combined force of climate change, pollution, disease and habitat loss and degradation has left many with "nowhere to run".
After assessing the amphibians' prospects, they predicted that more than 50 per cent of the 81 species native to Europe faced extinction by 2050.
Even surviving species, they said, were likely to suffer a decline in numbers and distribution, including the common toad in Britain, which is already being affected by climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:49:25 Fri, Sep 26, 2008: from Daily Green Sixteen Hormone Disrupting Chemicals Found in Teen Girls Laboratory tests reveal adolescent girls across America are contaminated with chemicals commonly used in cosmetics and body care products. Environmental Working Group (EWG) detected 16 chemicals from 4 chemical families -- phthalates, triclosan, parabens, and musks -- in blood and urine samples from 20 teen girls aged 14-19. Studies link these chemicals to potential health effects including cancer and hormone disruption. These tests feature first-ever exposure data for parabens in teens, and indicate that young women are widely exposed to this common class of cosmetic preservatives, with 2 parabens, methylparaben and propylparaben, detected in every single girl tested.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:41:40 Fri, Sep 26, 2008: from University of the Basque Country Bisexual fish in the Urdaibai estuary Chemical compounds contaminating water can alter the sexual development of aquatic organisms, giving rise to hermaphrodite creatures with both masculine and feminine gametes. This was the conclusion of a research team from the University of the Basque Country alter analysing mussels and grey mullet in Urdaibai.... [N]umerous chemical compounds in water influence the growth, behaviour, reproduction and the immune function of organisms, due to interference with the endocrine system. This is why these compounds are known as 'endocrine disruptors'. Basically they are alkylphenols (amongst others, breakdown derivatives of domestic detergents and cosmetics), pesticides, plastifiers, petroleum derivatives and synthetic hormones. On occasions, they influence the organisms themselves; otherwise the consequences may appear in the second or third generation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-25 16:51:37 Thu, Sep 25, 2008: from Guardian (UK) 'Wave snakes' switch on to harness ocean's power Yesterday, the red snake-like devices were inaugurated as part of the world's first commercial-scale wave-power station, three miles from the coast of the northern Portuguese town of Agucadoura. The project, which will generate clean electricity for more than 1,000 family homes in its first phase, marks the latest step in Portugal's moves to become a leader in developing renewable energy sources.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-25 15:27:30 Thu, Sep 25, 2008: from National Science Foundation Pine Bark beetles affecting more than forests Scientists suspect they are also altering local weather patterns and air quality.
A new international field project, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., is exploring how trees and other vegetation influence rainfall, temperatures, smog and other aspects of the atmosphere.... "Forests help control the atmosphere, and there's a big difference between the impacts of a living forest and a dead forest," says NCAR scientist Alex Guenther, a principal investigator on the project. "With a dead forest, we may get different rainfall patterns, for example."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-25 15:18:20 Thu, Sep 25, 2008: from Temple University, via EurekAlert Simple device which uses electrical field could boost gas efficiency According to Rongjia Tao, Chair of Temple's Physics Department, the small device consists of an electrically charged tube that can be attached to the fuel line of a car's engine near the fuel injector. With the use of a power supply from the vehicle's battery, the device creates an electric field that thins fuel, or reduces its viscosity, so that smaller droplets are injected into the engine. That leads to more efficient and cleaner combustion than a standard fuel injector, he says.... The results of the laboratory and road tests verifying that this simple device can boost gas mileage [up to 20 percent] was published in Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly journal published by the American Chemical Society.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:27:05 Thu, Sep 25, 2008: from AFP Greenland economy shudders as shrimp stocks shrink Dwindling shrimp stocks off Greenland's coast have local fishermen and authorities fretting that one of the island's main sources of income, known here as "pink gold", could soon vanish....
"We really don't know why the shrimps are becoming rarer," Siegstad said, venturing however to speculate that "it could be due to a combination of global warming and the fact that predators like ... cod are moving back into Greenland waters.... There is not enough cod to [explain] the possible losses from shrimp, and there will not be for five to 10 years," she said.
"And if we aren't careful, if we do not give it time to build up its stocks, we will make the cod disappear," she said, blasting a government decision to set an annual catch quota of 15,000 tonnes of cod instead of banning all fishing of the species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-25 13:11:49 Thu, Sep 25, 2008: from The Herald (Scotland) Wildlife Expert Backs Seabed Sewage Pipe A wildlife expert yesterday applauded Scottish Water for spending £3.8m to lay a sewage pipe on the seabed near Inverness to protect dolphins, seals and porpoises.... Previously, sewage from North Kessock was simply discharged into the waters under Kessock Bridge. Now pumping stations transfer the waste through a seabed pipeline to South Kessock where it enters the Inverness system. Like the rest of the city's waste water, it is pumped to the treatment works at Allanfearn to be cleaned up, protecting the sensitive environment of the Moray Firth.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 19:29:30 Wed, Sep 24, 2008: from London Guardian A new law of nature The South American republic of Ecuador will next week consider what many countries in the world would say is unthinkable. People will be asked to vote on Sunday on a new constitution that would give Ecuador's tropical forests, islands, rivers and air similar legal rights to those normally granted to humans. If they vote yes - and polls show that 56 percent are for and only 23 percent are against - then an already approved bill of rights for nature will be introduced, and new laws will change the legal status of nature from being simply property to being a right-bearing entity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-24 19:35:48 Wed, Sep 24, 2008: from Associated Press Colorful study probes climate change, fall foliage UNDERHILL, Vt. - Could climate change dull the blazing palette of New England's fall foliage? The answer could have serious implications for one of the region's signature attractions, which draws thousands of "leaf peepers" every autumn. Biologists at the University of Vermont's Proctor Maple Research Center will do some leaf peeping of their own to find out — studying how temperature affects the development of autumn colors and whether the warming climate could mute them, prolong the foliage viewing season or delay it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-24 19:31:32 Wed, Sep 24, 2008: from New York Times Fast Food Hits Mediterranean; a Diet Succumbs KASTELI, Greece -- Dr. Michalis Stagourakis has seen a transformation of his pediatric practice here over the past three years. The usual sniffles and stomachaches of childhood are now interspersed with far more serious conditions: diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. A changing diet, he says, has produced an epidemic of obesity and related maladies. Small towns like this one in western Crete, considered the birthplace of the famously healthful Mediterranean diet � emphasizing olive oil, fresh produce and fish -- are now overflowing with chocolate shops, pizza places, ice cream parlors, soda machines and fast-food joints.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:31:15 Wed, Sep 24, 2008: from Environmental Health News Northeastern, West Coast women have high mercury levels Women in the Northeast are contaminated with the highest concentrations of mercury in the United States, with one of every five exceeding levels considered safe for fetuses, according to a new national study... Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that accumulates in fish and seafood. When babies are exposed to high concentrations of mercury in the womb, their brains may develop abnormally, impairing learning abilities and reducing IQ.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:10:50 Wed, Sep 24, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer Western states' plan aims to cut greenhouse gas A coalition of Western states and four Canadian provinces released on Tuesday the most far-reaching plan yet for cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases that are warming the globe. The Western Climate Initiative will create a market-based system that limits carbon dioxide releases and allows polluters to trade for the right to emit the gases.
The "cap-and-trade" plan is touted by elected officials and environmentalists as a means of reducing the country's dependence on fossil fuels and gives Washington state a running start in the development of clean, green energy.
It also will help reduce the harm caused by global warming, including rising sea levels, droughts and more ferocious and frequent storms and wildfires, the officials said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:26:02 Tue, Sep 23, 2008: from SeaWeb via ScienceDaily Solution To Global Fisheries Collapse? 'Catch Shares' Could Rescue Failing Fisheries, Protect The Ocean A study published in the September 19 issue of Science shows that an innovative yet contentious fisheries management strategy called "catch shares" can reverse fisheries collapse. Where traditional "open access" fisheries have converted to catch shares, both fishermen and the oceans have benefited... The results of the study are striking: while nearly a third of open-access fisheries have collapsed, the number is only half that for fisheries managed under catch share systems. Furthermore, the authors show that catch shares reverse the overall downward trajectory for fisheries worldwide, and that this beneficial effect strengthens over time.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:38:30 Tue, Sep 23, 2008: from National Geographic Iran Sinking as Groundwater Resources Disappear Iran's insatiable demand for water, which is being drawn out of aquifers far faster than it can be replenished, is causing large chunks of farmland to sink and buildings to crack, according to a new study. Estimates suggest the water levels in Iranian aquifers have declined by an average of nearly 1.5 feet (half a meter) every year over the last 15 years. As the water is removed, soil and rock lose their support, leading to compaction and sinking.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-23 13:28:36 Tue, Sep 23, 2008: from Washington Post Palin, McCain Disagree on Causes of Global Warming No one, including Gov. Sarah Palin, questions that Alaska's climate is changing more rapidly than any other state's. But her skepticism about the causes and what needs to be done to address the consequences stands in sharp contrast to the views of her running mate, Sen. John McCain, and place her to the right of the Bush administration and several other Republican governors....Newsmax magazine published an interview late last month in which the governor said: "A changing climate will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:31:26 Tue, Sep 23, 2008: from London Independent Exclusive: The methane time bomb The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats... its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:25:36 Mon, Sep 22, 2008: from London Independent Catastrophic fall in numbers reveals bird populations in crisis throughout the world The birds of the world are in serious trouble, and common species are in now decline all over the globe, a comprehensive new review suggests today... Their falling populations are compelling evidence of a rapid deterioration in the global environment that is affecting all life on earth -- including human life...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-22 18:05:57 Mon, Sep 22, 2008: from International Rice Research Institute via ScienceDaily Long-term Global Food Crisis Looms: Experts Urge Immediate Action Declining agricultural productivity and continued growing demand have brought the world food situation to a crossroads. Failure to act now through a wholesale reinvestment in agriculture -- including research into improved technologies, infrastructure development, and training and education of agricultural scientists and trainers -- could lead to a long-term crisis that makes the price spikes of 2008 seem a mere blip.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:10:22 Mon, Sep 22, 2008: from Abu Dhabi National War zone's melting glacier a "colossal" risk ISLAMABAD // India and Pakistan's 24-year battle for the Siachen Glacier along the disputed border above Kashmir costs more than US$2 billion (Dh7.4bn) annually, is accelerating glacial melting and is putting millions of South Asians at risk of catastrophic floods, drought and food shortages, glacial experts and environmentalists warn.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:05:28 Mon, Sep 22, 2008: from Minneapolis Star Tribune Atrazine found in lakes far from farm sources The widely used weed-killer atrazine is showing up in pristine lakes in northern Minnesota far from farm country, and scientists believe the chemical is falling out of the sky. In the first statewide study of pesticides in Minnesota lakes, government scientists discovered small amounts of atrazine in nine out of 10 lakes sampled, including some in or near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:25:25 Sun, Sep 21, 2008: from National Academy of Sciences via ScienceDaily Marine Debris Will Likely Worsen In The 21st Century Current measures to prevent and reduce marine debris are inadequate, and the problem will likely worsen, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council... Marine debris, man-made materials that intentionally or accidentally enter and pollute the ocean, can cause significant harm. For instance, birds, fish, and marine mammals ingest debris, especially plastics, which can lead to digestive problems and uptake of toxic compounds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-21 15:57:36 Sun, Sep 21, 2008: from London Independent Mobile phone use 'raises children's risk of brain cancer fivefold' Children and teenagers are five times more likely to get brain cancer if they use mobile phones, startling new research indicates.
The study, experts say, raises fears that today's young people may suffer an "epidemic" of the disease in later life. At least nine out of 10 British 16-year-olds have their own handset, as do more than 40 per cent of primary schoolchildren.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:48:18 Sun, Sep 21, 2008: from Charleston Post and Courier Depleted striper stock sends rumors swirling As the prized striped bass mysteriously disappeared from the Marion-Moultrie lakes, a rumor whispered from fisherman to fisherman: tributyltin.
A disastrous spill of the chemical in 2000 from a tin plant near Lexington killed all the animals and plants nearby in a creek that feeds the Congaree River in Columbia. Later that same year, the same chemical was spilled from another plant into the river upstream. Within two years, state biologists were confronting the depletion of the catch in the lakes downstream.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-21 10:19:33 Sun, Sep 21, 2008: from Mongabay Monoculture tree plantations are "green deserts" not forests, say activists Simone Lovera of the Global Forest Coalition says that "plantations form part of an industrial model for the production of abundant and cheap raw material that serves as an input for the economic growth of the industrialized countries. What the producer countries get are environmental degradation and rising poverty, which are the 'externalized costs' of this cheap raw material." Since 1980 tropical forest plantations have expanded by almost fivefold.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:36:38 Sun, Sep 21, 2008: from UPI Iranians deplete aquifers, land is sinking Researchers say increasing demand for groundwater in Iran is depleting that nation's water supplies, resulting in land surface deformations.
An international team of scientists said decades of unrestrained groundwater extraction are linked to land surface deformation on local and regional scales.... "Comparing ground deformation in Iran with other basins around the world revealed that Iran currently hosts some of the fastest sinking valleys and plain aquifers in the world," the scientists said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 21:03:44 Sat, Sep 20, 2008: from Blue Flipper Diving Abu Dhabi tries to save the dumpy 'lady of the sea' The city's expansion along the coastal belt has encroached on the dugongs' habitat, and dredging has disturbed the seagrass beds, the mammal's only source of food, explained Thabit Zahran al Abdessalaam, the director of the marine biodiversity management sector at the EAD.
"Abu Dubai is attractive for dugongs as almost all the sea grass beds in the entire UAE are here," he said, adding that dugongs are protected under UAE law and anyone found to be harming them can be prosecuted.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 18:10:45 Sat, Sep 20, 2008: from Dutch Harbor Fishermen 'Fish, baby, fish' isn’t responsible management As it had happened with perch, the catch of pollock rose gradually through 1980 when a large spawning aggregation was discovered in the waters off of Kodiak Island. Over the next five years the spawning aggregation was heavily exploited and the fishery peaked and collapsed.
Trites states that the same picture can be painted for fisheries in the Bering Sea. Yellowfin sole catches rose from 1954 to 1961 until the stock declined due to overfishing. As the yellowfin sole declined, the fishery moved to pollock.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:36:04 Sat, Sep 20, 2008: from AP News Scientists monitor growing Lake Erie algae bloom Giant floating fields of algae are back in strength this year on Lake Erie and scientists are trying to figure out why.
The blooms of the pea-soup colored algae -- so big they've been showing on satellite photos -- are toxic to fish and small animals and irritating to humans. The lake once notorious for its pollution is cleaner than ever, yet the algae continues to thrive.... "It's now blooming in the proportions that it was in the bad old days of the 1960s and early '70s," Bridgeman said. "There's a mystery to it because the lake seemed to be getting cleaner, but now the algal blooms are worse."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 12:06:23 Sat, Sep 20, 2008: from NaturalNews.com Xerox Invents Reusable Paper that Uses UV Light for "Ink" Xerox subsidiary Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) has developed a type of paper that, combined with a special printer, can print documents that erase themselves after a day so that the paper can be reused.
Xerox says that 25 percent of all documents get recycled the same day they are printed, and that 44.5 percent are intended only for a single viewing. Using the new printer and paper for one-shot documents like daily menus, work summaries and office memos could vastly reduce paper and energy use, the company said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:04:40 Sat, Sep 20, 2008: from The Economist Running dry The world has a water shortage, not a food shortage: MOST people may drink only two litres of water a day, but they consume about 3,000 if the water that goes into their food is taken into account. The rich gulp down far more, since they tend to eat more meat, which takes far more water to produce than grains. So as the world's population grows and incomes rise, farmers will -- if they use today's methods -- need a great deal more water to keep everyone...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:19:17 Sat, Sep 20, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Humanity at risk: Are the males going first? Something is happening to today's boys and men: Fewer are being born compared with girls, they're having more trouble in school, virility and fertility are down and testicular cancer rates are up. Now, scientists say these 'fragile males' may be more vulnerable than females to pollutants, affecting their development as early as the womb. If so, writes Martin Mittelstaedt, it could be a bigger threat to our future than global warming...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:52:08 Sat, Sep 20, 2008: from PC Magazine Twelve-Year-Old May Hold Key to Solar Energy One significant problem with existing solar technology is that it's not terribly efficient at harvesting solar energy and turning it into electricity. Solar technology is improving all the time, but one 12-year-old boy may have the key to making solar panels that can harness 500 times the light of a traditional solar cell. William Yuan is a seventh grader in Oregon whose project, titled "A Highly-Efficient 3-Dimensional Nanotube Solar Cell for Visible and UV Light," may change the energy industry and make solar energy far easier to harness and distribute.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-19 19:27:34 Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from International Rice Research Institute Global food situation at a crossroads Declining agricultural productivity and continued growing demand have brought the world food situation to a crossroads. Failure to act now through a wholesale reinvestment in agriculture -- including research into improved technologies, infrastructure development, and training and education of agricultural scientists and trainers -- could lead to a long-term crisis that makes the price spikes of 2008 seem a mere blip.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-19 19:13:52 Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from National Research Council, via EurekAlert Marine debris will likely worsen in the 21st century Current measures to prevent and reduce marine debris are inadequate, and the problem will likely worsen, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. The United States and the international maritime community should adopt a goal of "zero discharge" of waste into the marine environment, and a system to assess the effectiveness of existing and future marine debris prevention and reduction actions should be implemented. In addition, better leadership, coordination, and integration of mandates and resources are needed, as responsibilities for preventing and mitigating marine debris are scattered across federal organizations and management regimes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:34:03 Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from National Science Foundation From Sugar to Gasoline Following independent paths of investigation, two research teams are announcing this month that they have successfully converted sugar -- potentially derived from agricultural waste and non-food plants -- into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and a range of other valuable chemicals.... While several years of further development will be needed to refine the process and scale it for production, the promise of gasoline and other petrochemicals from renewable plants has led to broad industrial interest.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-19 19:54:20 Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from Associated Press Chicago outlines plan to slash greenhouse gases CHICAGO -- Mayor Richard M. Daley has announced a plan to dramatically slash emissions of heat-trapping gases, part of an effort to fight global warming and become one of the greenest cities in the nation.
The plan calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to three-fourths of 1990 levels by 2020 through more energy-efficient buildings, using clean and renewable energy sources, improving transportation and reducing industrial pollution.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:24:07 Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from Purdue University, via EurekAlert 'Buckyballs' have high potential to accumulate in living tissue Research at Purdue University suggests synthetic carbon molecules called fullerenes, or buckyballs, have a high potential of being accumulated in animal tissue, but the molecules also appear to break down in sunlight, perhaps reducing their possible environmental dangers.... Findings indicated buckyballs have a greater chance of partitioning into fatty tissues than the banned pesticide DDT. However, while DDT is toxic to wildlife, buckyballs currently have no documented toxic effects, Jafvert said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:23:32 Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory IMPACTS: On the Threshold of Abrupt Climate Changes "There are lots of names for abrupt climate change: nasty surprises, the jokers in the deck, the tipping point," Collins says. "When the national lab participants first met to decide on the most significant potential sources of abrupt climate change in future, the first thing we had to do was define what we meant: a large-scale change that happens more quickly than that brought on by forcing mechanisms -- on a scale of years to decades, not centuries -- and that persists for a very long time." ... Only half joking, Collins refers to these [four types of forcing mechanisms] as "the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-19 20:16:26 Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Discovery waters down fears of fast-melting ice A team of Canadian researchers has unearthed the most ancient ice ever found in North America - 700,000-year-old wedges that didn't melt when the Earth was much balmier than it is today.
The scientists say their discovery means the permafrost that covers a quarter of the land in the Northern Hemisphere may not release its vast stores of carbon as quickly as some experts fear.
That's not to say one of the most catastrophic global-warming scenarios isn't going to happen, said Duane Froese.... It will just happen more slowly, he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:04:47 Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from Birdlife.org Birds indicate biodiversity crisis -- and the way forward The report highlights worldwide losses among widespread and once-familiar birds. A staggering 45 percent of common European birds are declining: the familiar European Turtle-dove, for example, has lost 62 percent of its population in the last 25 years. On the other side of the globe, resident Australian wading birds have seen population losses of 81 percent in just quarter of a century.
Twenty North American common birds have more than halved in number in the last four decades. Northern Bobwhite fell most dramatically, by 82 percent. In Latin America, the Yellow Cardinal -- once common in Argentina -- is now classified as globally Endangered.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-19 20:43:15 Fri, Sep 19, 2008: from National Geographic Arctic Ice in "Death Spiral"; Is Near Record Low The Arctic Ocean's sea ice has shrunk to its second smallest area on record, close to 2007's record-shattering low, scientists report. The ice is in a "death spiral" and may disappear in the summers within a couple of decades, according to Mark Serreze, an Arctic climate expert at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-19 20:40:28 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from BusinessWeek Kyrgyzstan Rations Electricity Trolleybuses stand abandoned, and cars jam intersections because traffic lights do not work. Economic activity is also at a standstill, and people return home to darkness.
Since late August, when the government imposed nationwide electricity rationing, this has been life in Kyrgyzstan. It is the first time since the dire years of the 1990s that Kyrgyzstan has faced widespread outages. Every day power is cut for eight hours in different parts of the country. The government has imposed a rotating rationing scheme to preserve dwindling water supplies from the main regional reservoir in Toktogul. Three hundred kilometers west of Bishkek, Toktogul is the largest water reservoir in Central Asia.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 15:31:31 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor Communities plan for a low-energy future Transition Towns (or districts, or islands) designate places where local groups have organized to embrace the challenge of adapting to a low-oil economy. As the movement's website (www.transitiontowns.org) states, it's an experiment in grass-roots optimism: Can motivated citizens rouse their neighbors to act in the face of diminished oil resources and climate change?
"We don't know if this will work," says Ben Brangwyn of Totnes, England, who in 2007 helped launch the Transition Network to support Transition Towns worldwide, "but if we leave it to the government it will be too little, too late. If we do it on a personal level, it won't be enough. But if we do this as a community, it may be just enough, just in time."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:24:15 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from Daily Express (Malaysia) The clams are nearly gone Giant clams in Sabah waters have been severely depleted due to overfishing, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Borneo Marine Research Institute Director Professor Dr Saleem Mustafa said. He said these unique clams were being harvested for their adductor muscle considered a delicacy and massive shells which are used for making handicrafts.... "Giant clams are essentially coral reef animals, and since corals are bleaching as a result of destructive fishing practices and climate change, the effect is evidently brought to bear on the giant clams."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-19 21:03:52 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from American Society of Agronomy Nitrate Concentrations of Ground Water Increasing in Many Areas of the United States Nitrate is the most common chemical contaminant in the world's ground water, including in aquifers used for drinking-water supply. Nitrate in drinking water of the United States is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) because of concerns related to infant health and possible cancer risks. Use of man-made synthetic fertilizers has steadily increased since World War II, raising the potential for increased nitrate contamination of the nation's ground water, despite efforts in recent decades to improve land-management practices.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-19 21:04:43 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research Significant increase in alien plants in Europe The number of alien plant species has more than tripled over the last 25 years. This is the finding of a study by European scientists who evaluated the data from 48 European countries and regions. 5789 plant species were classified as alien. 2843 originating outside of Europe, according to the researchers and their publication in the journal Preslia. By contrast, in 1980 only 1568 alien species were registered. Of these, 580 had come from outside Europe.... New species that bring about long-term changes to ecosystems by e.g. competing with native species, are regarded as one of the greatest threats to biodiversity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-19 21:06:27 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from Marketwatch Nationwide Consumer Class Action Lawsuit Filed in Georgia Against Baby Bottle Manufacturers On September 12, 2008, Rights For America attorneys... filed a consumer class action complaint on behalf of four Georgia families against the top four polycarbonate plastic baby bottle manufacturers for their use of the synthetic hormone known as Bisphenol-A (BPA) as a chemical component in their plastic baby bottles and toddler training cups. Bisphenol-A, also referred to as "BPA" was developed in the 1930s as a synthetic estrogen, but instead gained wide usage beginning in the 1950s for its rigid and shatterproof qualities in scores of plastic products, including baby bottles and children's training cups. Unfortunately, over 150 independent peer reviewed studies by the world's leading scientists and researchers in this area have repeated shown that BPA can activate estrogen receptors that lead to the same effects as the body's own estrogens.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:13:59 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from Online Opinion (Australia) Water for food: the forgotten crisis This year, the world and, in particular, developing countries and the poor have been hit by both food and energy crises. As a consequence, prices for many staple foods have risen by up to 100 per cent.
When we examine the causes of the food crisis, growing population, changes in trade patterns, urbanisation, dietary changes, biofuel production, and climate change and regional droughts are all responsible.... The causes of water scarcity are essentially identical to those of the food crisis. There are serious and extremely worrying factors that indicate water supplies are close to exhaustion in some countries. Population growth in the next approximately 40 years will see an increase from 6.5 to up to 9.0 billion. Essentially every calorie of food requires a litre of water to produce it. Therefore, on average we require 2,000-3,000 litres of water per person [per day] to sustain our daily food requirements.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 15:51:55 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Tar sands -- the new toxic investment Shell and BP have been warned by investors that their involvement in unconventional energy production such as Canada's oil sands could turn out to be the industry's equivalent of the sub-prime lending that poisoned the banking sector and triggered the current financial crisis.... The Canadian tar sands are estimated to contain as much as 180bn barrels of oil but the environmental groups warn that extracting bitumen and upgrading it to synthetic crude oil is three to five times more greenhouse gas intensive than conventional oil extraction.
Upgrading a single barrel of tar sand bitumen for use in a conventional refinery also requires 14 cubic metres of natural gas, leading to huge demand for gas and supply infrastructure in remote regions of Canada. Enormous amounts of water are also needed in the process.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:26:27 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Starving guillemots push rival chicks off cliffs Guillemots have begun killing their neighbours' chicks by pecking them to death and pushing them off cliff edges in a desperate reaction to collapsing fish stocks in the North Sea.
The sudden rise of infanticide in a colony in the Firth of Forth marks an unprecedented breakdown in the social behaviour of the birds, described by experts as a "catastrophe" that could eventually see the whole colony die out.... It is extremely rare for guillemots to leave a chick unattended, but Ashbrook said 60 percent of those in the Isle of May colony were left alone last year. Of 99 chicks born between late May and early August, 60 percent died -- almost 70 percent of them in direct attacks by neighbours.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 15:55:57 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from Environmental News Service Hurricane Ike Shuts Largest U.S. Biodiesel Refinery The nation's largest biodiesel refinery, located on the Houston Ship Channel, will be shut down for the next six to eight weeks because of damage and loss of power caused by Hurricane Ike, company officials say.
The publicly traded owner-operator GreenHunter Energy says damages at its Renewable Fuels Campus were mainly due to floodwater, which crested the 100-year flood plain level, rather than wind damage from Hurricane Ike.
Completed in March, the refinery is capable of producing 105 million gallons of biodiesel a year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:13:53 Thu, Sep 18, 2008: from Australian Broadcasting Corporation Contaminated milk crisis worsens in China The contaminated milk powder crisis in China continues to worsen and drag New Zealand's dairy company Fonterra into the scandal.
More than 6000 babies are sick, three have died and 150 have serious kidney failure after drinking milk powder that had been deliberately contaminated with melamine, a toxic substance used in plastics.
The Chinese Government has admitted its dairy market is "chaotic" and has ordered a national testing program.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:52:05 Wed, Sep 17, 2008: from National Geographic Bush-Meat Ban Would Devastate Africa's Animals, Poor? If current hunting levels persist in Central Africa, endangered mammals such as forest elephants and gorillas will become extinct, the study suggests.
Researchers estimated the region's current wild-meat harvest at more than a million tons annually—the equivalent of almost four million cattle. Instead of banning the practice, the report recommends that hunting for non-threatened species be legalized and regulated to protect the food supply and livelihoods of forest people.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 19:52:24 Wed, Sep 17, 2008: from Natural News Wal-Mart Abandons Milk From Hormone-Treated Cows Wal-Mart said that its decision came in response to rising consumer demand for hormone-free milk.
"We've listened to customers and are pleased that our suppliers are helping us offer Great Value milk from cows that are not treated with rBST," said Wal-Mart general merchandise manager Pam Kohn.
Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer in the United States, with more than 4,000 stores, and the country's largest retail seller of organic milk.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 16:00:21 Wed, Sep 17, 2008: from London Guardian Sarah Palin: The ice queen ...Alaskans, who annually receive oil-royalty dividends - $1,654 each last year - think of themselves as fiercely independent, but in fact are completely dependent on oil. As in many resource-rich economies, this has tended to encouraged corruption and bad governance, and a culture of impunity among lawmakers. After a four-year FBI investigation, several Alaskan businessmen and politicians - including the state's US senator, Ted Stevens - have been convicted of making and taking bribes to keep a tax on oil profits at an artificially low 20 percent. Palin herself is facing one abuse-of-power investigation for allegedly using her position to settle family scores by exacting retribution against her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, and firing officials who would not toe the line.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 16:02:35 Wed, Sep 17, 2008: from Congress, via The National Academies Fuel-Efficiency Ratings for Tires Proposed Congress has ordered the implementation by the end of 2009 of a national consumer information program whose goal will be to produce ratings on passenger tire fuel-efficiency, although regulations will not require tires to be labeled with the ratings.
Tires affect vehicle fuel economy through their rolling resistance. As a tire rolls under the weight of a vehicle, its shape changes repeatedly, causing loss of energy in the form of heat, which in turn causes the vehicle to use more fuel to maintain speed. Some of the key variables in a tire's rolling resistance are its tread design and composition, inflation pressure, and level of maintenance.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 21:43:45 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from US News and World Report Heart Disease, Diabetes Linked to Chemical in Plastics It turns out, though, that adults may be at risk, too. A landmark study of more than 1,400 people ages 18 to 74, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that those with the largest amount of BPA in their urine had nearly three times the risk of heart disease and more than twice the risk of diabetes as those who had the lowest levels. "Even those with the highest BPA levels still had levels way below the currently established 'safe' level," says David Melzer, an epidemiologist at the University of Exeter in England and coauthor of the study. Other researchers say there's enough evidence from previous animal studies to suggest that BPA is harmful to adults.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 16:20:56 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from Washington Post (US) U.S. Judge Reverses Plan to Expand Snowmobile Access in National Parks Handing environmentalists a major victory, a federal judge yesterday overturned the Bush administration's plan to allow hundreds more snowmobiles to traverse Yellowstone and other iconic national parks each winter. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan threw out the National Park Service's 2007 plan, calling it "arbitrary and capricious, unsupported by the record, and contrary to law."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:52:15 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from Scientific American Can Offshore Drilling Really Make the U.S. Oil Independent? No one disputes that a lot of oil lies untapped under the rocky floors of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans off the U.S. coasts... The [Minerals Management Service] has estimated that there are around 18 billion barrels in the underwater areas now off-limits to drilling. That's significantly less than in oil fields open for business in the Gulf of Mexico, coastal Alaska and off the coast of southern California, where there are 10.1 billion barrels of known oil reserves as well as an estimated 85.9 billion more... But here's the catch: There is a chance that the MMS has miscalculated the amount of offshore oil, because its estimates are based on 30- to 40-year-old data.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:26:04 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from PNAS, via Mongabay Earth already committed to 2.4-degree C rise from climate change As of 2005 the Earth was already committed to rise of global mean temperatures by 2.4°C (4.3°F), concludes a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The conclusion is significant because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that a rise in global temperature by 1 to 3°C will lead to catastrophic consequences, including "widespread loss of biodiversity, widespread deglaciation of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and a major reduction of area and volume of Hindu-Kush-Himalaya-Tibetan glaciers, which provide the head-waters for most major river systems of Asia." These glaciers, predicted to shrink considerably in the next few decades, provide food and water to over two billion people.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 17:06:16 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from University of Illinois New study says high grain prices are likely here to stay An ethanol-fueled spike in grain prices will likely hold, yielding the first sustained increase for corn, wheat and soybean prices in more than three decades, according to new research by two University of Illinois farm economists.
Corn, an ethanol ingredient that has driven the recent price surge, could average $4.60 a bushel in Illinois, nearly double the average $2.42 a bushel from 1973 to 2006, said Darrel Good and Scott Irwin, professors of agriculture and consumer economics.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:48:22 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from Loyola University, via EurekAlert Is re-emerging superbug the next MRSA? "Disease caused by Clostridium difficile can range from nuisance diarrhea to life-threatening colitis that could lead to the surgical removal of the colon, and even death,"... When C-diff is not actively dividing, it forms very tough spores that can exist on surfaces for months and years, making it very difficult to kill, Johnson said.
"Antibiotics are very effective against the growing form of the bacteria but it doesn't do anything to the spores," Johnson said. "If there are spores they can sit around like stealth bombs. Once the antibiotic is gone, these spores can germinate again and spread their toxins."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:57:23 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk China to become world's largest investor in green energy Last year, China spent 6 billion pounds on renewable energy projects, just slightly short of Germany, the world leader. This year, the Communist Party has vowed to redouble its efforts. Li Junfeng, an energy expert at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said that in terms of the "overall scale of renewable energy development", China already leads the way.
Greenpeace believes China can shortly produce half of its energy from renewable sources.
"The task is tough and our time is limited," said Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, earlier this year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:55:18 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Arctic Sea Ice At Lowest Recorded Level Ever Final figures on minimum ice coverage for 2008 are expected in a matter of days, but they are already flirting with last year's record low of 1.59 million square miles, or 4.13 million square kilometres.
"If you take reduced ice thickness into account, there is probably less ice overall in the Arctic this year than in any other year since monitoring began," said Martin Sommerkorn, WWF International Arctic Programme's Senior Climate Change Advisor.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:13:34 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Waste: Oil price fuels expansion of plastic recycling Plastics recycling in the UK is booming. The number of bottles collected by local authorities has shot up nearly 70 percent in the past year giving processing businesses increased security of supply.
The industry has also been boosted by high oil prices, which have pushed up the value of plastic recyclate and virgin resin by about 10 percent in the past year. Virgin resin is now worth about £950 a tonne and recyclate only 5 percent less.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:16:49 Tue, Sep 16, 2008: from Engineer Live Studies confirm challenges of man-made pollutants in the environment New evidence that chemical contaminants are finding their way into the deep-sea food web has been found in deep-sea squids and octopods, including the strange-looking 'vampire squid'. These species are food for deep-diving toothed whales and other predators. "It was surprising to find measurable and sometimes high amounts of toxic pollutants in such a deep and remote environment," Vecchione said. Among the chemicals detected were tributyltin (TBT), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs), and dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT). They are known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) because they don't degrade and persist in the environment for a very long time.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:47:37 Mon, Sep 15, 2008: from Associated Press Health facilities flush estimated 250M pounds of drugs a year U.S. hospitals and long-term care facilities annually flush millions of pounds of unused pharmaceuticals down the drain, pumping contaminants into America's drinking water... These discarded medications are expired, spoiled, over-prescribed or unneeded... Few of the country's 5,700 hospitals and 45,000 long-term care homes keep data on the pharmaceutical waste they generate. Based on a small sample, though, the AP was able to project an annual national estimate of at least 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging, with no way to separate out the drug volume.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:06:37 Mon, Sep 15, 2008: from Connecticut Post What's killing off our salt marshes? Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, the coastal wetlands are dying, and no one knows for sure why this is happening.
First observed in the Florida panhandle in 1990, the shoreline degradation, called sudden wetland dieback, has been observed in hundreds of locations from Louisiana to Maine. Scientists say that while it's normal for coastal marsh vegetation to have its bad years, they have never seen marsh grass die and not recover, until now.... Researchers agree that solving the marsh dieback puzzle is important -- not only for the Sound, but for the Earth as well.
"The salt marsh is the second most productive ecosystem on the planet -- only the tropical rainforest will produce more biomass per square kilometer," Elmer said. "It also serves as a home for many organisms.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:47:49 Mon, Sep 15, 2008: from New York Times On an Infested River, Battling Invaders Eye to Eye Though awesome and even unnerving to behold, the fishy fusillade is all too common on the Illinois River -- and it is not good. These are Asian carp, a ravenous, rapidly multiplying invasive species that in the last decade has threatened the well-being of native fish, affected commercial fishing and transformed the typical workday for these researchers into a scene from "Apocalypse Now."
The Illinois, a working river that supports both churning coal barges and great blue herons, is one link in a chain of waterways connecting Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico. And the thought of Asian carp invading the Great Lakes haunts the dreams of environmentalists, business owners and government officials. That fishy downturned mouth; those unblinking, low-set eyes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:19:12 Mon, Sep 15, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Roll back time to safeguard climate, expert warns Scientists may have to turn back time and clean the atmosphere of all man-made carbon dioxide to prevent the worst impacts of global warming, one of Europe's most senior climate scientists has warned.
Professor John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, told the Guardian that only a return to pre-industrial levels of CO2 would be enough to guarantee a safe future for the planet. He said that current political targets to slow the growth in emissions and stabilise carbon levels were insufficient, and that ways may have to be found to actively remove CO2 from the air.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:47:08 Mon, Sep 15, 2008: from NewsInferno Even More Americans Affected by Pharmaceuticals in Water Than First Believed After a five-month-long inquiry conducted by the AP earlier this year, it found many communities do not test for drugs in drinking water and those that do often fail to tell customers they have found medications, including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers, and sex hormones. At that time, medications were found in drinking water supplies in 24 major metropolitan areas. Water providers are not required to test for pharmaceuticals and the EPA's budget for the testing of endocrine disruptors in America's waterways was cut by 35 percent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:25:36 Mon, Sep 15, 2008: from Russia Infocenter Permafrost Bogs of Siberia Thaw Too Fast Joint Russian and French scientific ecological expedition detected very fast thawing of permafrost in frost mound bogs of Western Siberia.
The international project on studying frost mound bogs Kar-Wet-Sib united eight Russian researchers -- ecologists, microbiologists and biogeochemists -- and four French scientists from Midi-Pyrenees National Observatory.
Researchers said that they were nearly shocked with the rate of bog permafrost thawing. Their estimations show that during last three years melting rate added 20 percent to its normal values.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:17:15 Sun, Sep 14, 2008: from NaturalNews.com Ocean Dead Zones Now Top 400 An ocean "dead zone" can be compared to a living creature because both will waste away when deprived of nutrients and adequate oxygen. Marine life is becoming nonexistent in certain areas in our oceans and these areas are growing steadily. There were 405 dead zones that were accounted for in 2007. This is a 33 percent increase over a 1995 survey. The number of dead zones has essentially doubled every decade since the 1960s.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:23:21 Sun, Sep 14, 2008: from Global Public Media Seriously: emptying the ocean Daniel Pauly, director of the UB Fisheries Centre, interview transcript, from 2003: "Generally it takes about 10-15 years from the discovery of a fish population of large fish, for it to be reduced by a factor of 10 and less to a smaller amount."... "[T]hat's why most species of fish have collapsed to less than one or two or three percent of the original biomass in the 50's." ... "So overfishing, in a sense, is subsidized by these enormous prices." ... "If you look at the modern fishing vessel, you will find a level of technical sophistication on deck and its mind boggling. It's like an airplane. It has eco-sound... that tells you where every fish is, where you are, how the grounds look like, extremely detailed.... So if you deploy this technology to catch fish, the fish lose. They invariably lose."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:03:45 Sun, Sep 14, 2008: from Democrat and Chronicle, via Post Carbon Cities Small 'urban poultry' movement has residents raising chickens from scratch Eating from the home garden is typically limited to fruits and vegetables.
But a small and determined flock of city and suburban residents is adding another food group to their homegrown bounty: eggs laid by chickens they are raising in their own backyards.
"I really want to be living on a farm, but I have to live in the city for my husband. This is a way to bring myself a little closer to food security and sustainability," says Kate Mendenhall, a projects coordinator for Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York and founder of the Rochester City Chicken Club.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:17:41 Sun, Sep 14, 2008: from The Province (Canada) World's oceans could become 'soupy swill': expert Our seas are suffocating under a layer of slime. That slime -- algae feasting on pollutants and fertilizers and starving the ocean of oxygen - is growing rapaciously and killing off sea life at an alarming rate.... A new study published in August reveals the world's dead zones have doubled in size every decade since 1960. Coastal waters with once rich marine life -- Chesapeake Bay, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and off Peru, Chile and Namibia -- are rapidly losing species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-13 14:00:52 Sat, Sep 13, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Sustainability Starts in Your Own Back Yard But we now know that native plants can endure without synthetic chemicals or fertilizer, or much watering or labor, once established. And that insects that depend on native plants are important food for birds.
Knowing this, gardeners can take steps to promote sustainability in their landscapes. It involves how you use your property -- everything you own. Here are some key steps that will help you to create a sustainable gardening culture and promote renewable energy:
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-13 10:39:36 Sat, Sep 13, 2008: from New Scientist Antarctic sea ice increases despite warming The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has grown in recent Septembers in what could be an unusual side-effect of global warming, experts say... "The Antarctic wintertime ice extent increased...at a rate of 0.6 percent per decade" from 1979 to 2006, says Donald Cavalieri, a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:08:17 Sat, Sep 13, 2008: from Dallas News Researcher says numbers of bumblebees declining, too Ms. Colla took field surveys of bumblebees between 2004 and 2006 in southern Ontario, comparing the results with data gathered in the early 1970s. She could find only 11 species, down from 14, and of those 11, four were in decline.... The Xerces Society is assembling the data of approximately 30 scientists in North America to document the state of the bumblebee, which is also an important pollinator.... "You look at all their data, and what we see is really discouraging," says Scott Hoffman Black, the society's executive director. "It's a picture of a really drastic decline toward extinction."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:16:20 Sat, Sep 13, 2008: from McClatchy Newspapers Nitrogen emerges as the latest climate-change threat Scientists are raising alarms about yet another threat to Earth's climate and human well-being. This time it's nitrogen, a common element essential to all life... it's becoming clear that human activities, such as driving cars and raising crops, also are boosting nitrogen to dangerous levels — polluting air and water and damaging human health... Its compounds create smog, cause cancer and respiratory disease, and befoul rivers, lakes and coastal waters. They create "dead zones" in the ocean, corrode roads and bridges, weaken the ozone shield and add another greenhouse gas to the already overburdened atmosphere.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-13 10:12:27 Sat, Sep 13, 2008: from Daily Times (Pakistan) Open dumping of garbage: Islamabad residents fear another epidemic outbreak "The CDA has converted the sector into a filth depot causing air and water pollution -- a serious health hazard. Pollution is creating irritation, tension, headache and depression among the residents of the area besides increase in waterborne diseases," said Dr Rashid, an employee of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences and a resident of sector G-10/1.
He strongly criticised the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) and CDA for dumping the waste in open. He said it would further pollute underground water.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-13 10:26:48 Sat, Sep 13, 2008: from Associated Press Group: Global warming could cost Ohio its buckeyes It's not the best-researched global-warming theory, but it could be the most horrifying to certain fans of college football: Environmentalists said Friday that climate change might push the growing range of Ohio's iconic buckeye tree out of the state, leaving it for archrival Michigan.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-12 17:30:38 Fri, Sep 12, 2008: from BBC Earthworms to aid soil clean-up Researchers at Reading University found that subtle changes occurred in metals as worms ingested and excreted soil.
These changes make it easier for plants to take up potentially toxic metals from contaminated land.
Earthworms could be the future "21st Century eco-warriors", scientists suggested at the British Association Science Festival in Liverpool.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:35:53 Fri, Sep 12, 2008: from Muskegon Chronicle Soot-spewing ships pollute environment Ocean freighters spew twice as much soot into the air as previously believed and tugboats are among the worst maritime offenders when it comes to air pollution, according to a new government study.
Soot is comprised of tiny particles of black carbon, which become airborne during the burning of diesel and other fossil fuels, wildfires and the burning of vegetation for agricultural purposes. Soot can settle in human lungs, causing asthma and premature deaths; researchers also believe soot emissions may contribute to global warming.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:51:09 Fri, Sep 12, 2008: from Washington Post Beating Back the Ocean ...People around the world are wrestling with how to preserve the beaches they have settled on. In Redington Shores, Fla., engineers constructed a barrier to break the waves farther out. Several Mediterranean towns have replaced their beaches' sand with more-resilient gravel.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-13 10:58:11 Thu, Sep 11, 2008: from AP, via Topix Australian researchers discover elusive frog The 1.5 inch-long Armoured Mistfrog had not been seen since 1991, and many experts assumed it had been wiped out by a devastating fungus that struck northern Queensland state.
But two months ago, a doctoral student at James Cook University in Townsville conducting research on another frog species in Queensland stumbled across what appeared to be several Armoured Mistfrogs in a creek, said professor Ross Alford, head of a research team on threatened frogs at the university.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:54:49 Thu, Sep 11, 2008: from The Economist Adapt or die Two things have changed attitudes. One is evidence that global warming is happening faster than expected. Manish Bapna of the World Resources Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC, believes "it is already too late to avert dangerous consequences, so we must learn to adapt."
Second, evidence is growing that climate change hits two specific groups of people disproportionately and unfairly. They are the poorest of the poor and those living in island states: 1 billion people in 100 countries. Tony Nyong, a climate-change scientist in Nairobi, argues that people in poor countries used to see global warming as a Western matter: the rich had caused it and would with luck solve it. But the first impact of global warming has been on the very things the poorest depend on most: dry-land agriculture; tropical forests; subsistence fishing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:21:29 Thu, Sep 11, 2008: from San Diego Reader Plague of the Urban Tumbleweeds Put it this way: the average plastic bag has an estimated life of from 20 to 1000 years, depending on the bag and whom you talk to. So if William the Conqueror had buried his dog's doodoo in a plastic bag after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the bag'd be wasting away just about now. We don't need to be creating history like that.
A plastic bag's useful lifespan is, what, 20 or 30 minutes? However long it takes to get from the supermarket to home. Thereafter, it launches into a second career filling our landfills and clogging our streams, storm drains, oceans, fishes' bellies. And from there, perhaps, to our bellies. How bad is the problem? Green think tanks have had a field day conjuring up original ways to express the horror.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:02:49 Thu, Sep 11, 2008: from Raleigh News & Observer Ag-Mart workers testify Nearly four years ago, Francisca Herrera bore a son who had no arms or legs, triggering the largest pesticide prosecution in state history.
On Wednesday, she and the boy's father said they were repeatedly exposed to pesticides while working on a North Carolina tomato farm run by Ag-Mart. Herrera was pregnant at the time.
"It happened morning, noon and evening," Herrera said at a Wednesday state Pesticide Board hearing. Sprayers "would pass by close to where we were working. They didn't care if we were eating."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-11 12:52:15 Thu, Sep 11, 2008: from Mother Jones Sarah Palin: A Big Boon for Big Oil ...in Alaska, as it turns out, the future means more of the past: More fossil fuels extracted under the frozen tundra and ocean; more industrial development of pristine wilderness and more destruction of Native lands; and perhaps even another Cold War with Russia over who will control the Arctic's crucial energy supplies. Poised to help propel Alaska into this future is its governor and now the Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-13 01:50:12 Thu, Sep 11, 2008: from London Independent Cleared: Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.
Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:21:00 Wed, Sep 10, 2008: from Associated Press Freshwater fish in N. America in peril, study says About four out of 10 freshwater fish species in North America are in peril, according to a major study by U.S., Canadian and Mexican scientists. And the number of subspecies of fish populations in trouble has nearly doubled since 1989, the new report says. One biologist called it "silent extinctions" because few people notice the dramatic dwindling of certain populations deep in American lakes, rivers and streams.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:51:34 Wed, Sep 10, 2008: from European Science Foundation, via EurekAlert Cryopreservation techniques bring hopes for women cancer victims and endangered species Emerging cryopreservation techniques are increasing hope of restoring fertility for women after diseases such as ovarian cancer that lead to destruction of reproductive tissue. The same techniques can also be used to maintain stocks of farm animals, and protect against extinction of endangered animal species by maintaining banks of ovarian tissue or even nascent embryos that can used to produce offspring at some point in the future.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:18:28 Wed, Sep 10, 2008: from Oregon State University, via EurekAlert Old growth forests are valuable carbon sinks Contrary to 40 years of conventional wisdom, a new analysis to be published Friday in the journal Nature suggests that old growth forests are usually "carbon sinks" -- they continue to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change for centuries.... "Carbon accounting rules for forests should give credit for leaving old growth forest intact," researchers from Oregon State University and several other institutions concluded... "Much of this carbon, even soil carbon, will move back to the atmosphere if these forests are disturbed."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:18:03 Wed, Sep 10, 2008: from NASA, via EurekAlert NASA study illustrates how global peak oil could impact climate The burning of fossil fuels -- notably coal, oil and gas -- has accounted for about 80 percent of the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial era. Now, NASA researchers have identified feasible emission scenarios that could keep carbon dioxide below levels that some scientists have called dangerous for climate.... To better understand the possible trajectory of future carbon dioxide, Kharecha and Hansen devised five carbon dioxide emissions scenarios that span the years 1850-2100. Each scenario reflects a different estimate for the global production peak of fossil fuels, the timing of which depends on reserve size, recoverability and technology.
"Even if we assume high-end estimates and unconstrained emissions from conventional oil and gas, we find that these fuels alone are not abundant enough to take carbon dioxide above 450 parts per million," Kharecha said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-10 19:33:26 Wed, Sep 10, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Climate scientist aims to get 1million students to vote on presidential candidates' green energy records Renowned climate scientist James Hansen today lent his voice to a US voter organising drive with an ambitious goal: enlisting 1m students who will cast their vote for the presidential candidate with the greenest energy record.
The organising push, dubbed Power Vote, aims to harness young people's unprecedented engagement in the US elections and keep enthusiasm high for stronger action against climate change.
Power Vote plans to dispatch organisers to college campuses across America, educating students about climate policy and capturing their information for mobilisation to the polls in November.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:47:12 Wed, Sep 10, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Over-fishing, not climate change, is greatest danger to world's oceans He said: "Across the 21 different ecosystems we have looked at, direct human actions have long been exceeding -- and will long continue to exceed -- the effects of climate change in almost every case.
"That is not to say that climate change isn't happening or is unimportant. "Coral reefs are threatened by oceanic warming and the release of carbon frozen and buried in wetlands has major implications for the Earth.
"But the demise of fish stocks through fishing and decline of rivers through excessive off-take are just two dramatic examples of how people are directly changing aquatic ecosystems and threatening the natural services that they deliver."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-10 19:26:56 Wed, Sep 10, 2008: from Great Falls Connection Lake Marmota Reaches "Tipping Point" [Amy Stephan] said she could tell a number of neighbors and upstream homeowners had taken advantage of beautiful weather one weekend earlier in the season and had fertilized their lawns, because by Thursday, there were four inches of algae on the pond. When it dies, she said, the algae can create dead zones lacking oxygen and also smother life on the floor of the lake.
The bacteria that feed on dead algae can use up all the oxygen in the water where they are present.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-09 16:54:20 Tue, Sep 9, 2008: from Ohio State University Scientists point to forests for carbon storage solutions The researchers' calculations suggest that carbon storage in Midwestern forests could offset the greenhouse gas emissions of almost two-thirds of nearby populations, and that proper management of forests could sustain or increase their storage capacity for future generations.
Based on measurements taken between 1999 and 2005 at a forest study site in northern Michigan, the scientists have determined that similar upper Midwest forests covering an estimated 40,000 square miles store an average of 1,300 pounds of carbon per acre per year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:46:18 Tue, Sep 9, 2008: from US Geologic Survey Silent Streams? Escalating Endangerment for North American Freshwater Fish Nearly 40 percent of fish species in North American streams, rivers and lakes are now in jeopardy, according to the most detailed evaluation of the conservation status of freshwater fishes in the last 20 years.
The 700 fishes now listed represent a staggering 92 percent increase over the 364 listed as "imperiled" in the previous 1989 study published by the American Fisheries Society. Researchers classified each of the 700 fishes listed as either vulnerable (230), threatened (190), or endangered (280). In addition, 61 fishes are presumed extinct.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-09 12:07:03 Tue, Sep 9, 2008: from AP, via Forbes Wyoming probes possible livestock disease in herd State and federal livestock officials have launched an investigation into the possibility of a second Wyoming cow testing positive for brucellosis, jeopardizing the state's disease-free status even as the rancher at the center of the first outbreak decides to slaughter his herd.... It is not dangerous to eat the meat of animals infected with brucellosis, as long as it is cooked.
"The meat is perfectly safe to eat so there's no issue there," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-09 12:00:21 Tue, Sep 9, 2008: from Daily Herald Prof steers away from corn for biodiesel When it comes to alternative fuels, a University of Northern Colorado professor says weeds and algae should be in our gas tanks, not corn... asu is attempting to clone genes from a tropical tree that possesses a compound known as oleoresin, with properties similar to diesel fuel. He hopes to recultivate them into nonfood plants or algae for biofuel production.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:29:19 Tue, Sep 9, 2008: from Center for Biological Diversity Penguins Marching Toward Endangered Species Act Protection A federal judge today approved a settlement between the Center for Biological Diversity and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the fate of 10 penguin species imperiled by global warming. Under the settlement, the Service must by December 19th complete its overdue finding on whether the penguins should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The finding is due on the emperor, southern rockhopper, northern rockhopper, Fiordland crested, erect-crested, macaroni, white-flippered, yellow-eyed, African, and Humboldt penguins.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-10 19:33:52 Tue, Sep 9, 2008: from London Times How carbon capture and storage (CCS) could make coal the fuel of the future It has been condemned as one of the main causes of global warming but is coal about to enjoy an extraordinary rebirth as the fuel of the future?
The first power plant in the world that will take the toxic emissions from coal and bury them deep in the ground opens today, carrying with it the hopes of scientists and environmentalists around the world.
If the power station in Spremberg, eastern Germany, is able to produce affordable electricity without polluting the atmosphere, it could mark the start of a new era for a fossil fuel whose days appeared numbered.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:50:54 Tue, Sep 9, 2008: from New York Times Friendly Invaders ...It sounds like the makings of an ecological disaster: an epidemic of invasive species that wipes out the delicate native species in its path. But in a paper published in August in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dov Sax, an ecologist at Brown University, and Steven D. Gaines, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, point out that the invasion has not led to a mass extinction of native plants. The number of documented extinctions of native New Zealand plant species is a grand total of three.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:39:23 Mon, Sep 8, 2008: from The Philadelphia Inquirer Certain flame retardants may make us sick A common group of flame retardants used since the 1970s and credited with saving lives is proving to be a pervasive contaminant in the environment that may be harmful to human health. The chemicals were added to textiles, couches, carpet pads, mattresses, and the hard plastics in TVs, computers, and other electronic devices.... Health studies suggest that they may, at high levels of exposure, cause cancer.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-08 08:36:06 Mon, Sep 8, 2008: from Times Herald-Record Out of the ashes, a local forest is reborn Touring the scorched mountaintops recently, Chapin and a group of local biologists were excited by the opportunities the spring forest fire left behind.
See this sassafras, with its mitten-shaped leaves?
Park staff have never seen so much.
And the witch hazel and the wintergreen and the Indian cucumber root?
"We have more of it than we ever did," said John Thompson, a natural resources specialist with the Mohonk Preserve. "Some species are already responding to the openings on the forest floor."
The burned acreage has also attracted rare birds, such as scarlet tanagers and Canada warblers, plus porcupines, bears, bobcats and rattlesnakes. It's an influx of biodiversity that's drawn scientists to the site all summer.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-08 08:30:26 Mon, Sep 8, 2008: from The Australian Ergon Energy uniforms 'making workers sick' ENERGY workers are breaking out in blisters and vomiting after wearing potentially toxic uniforms.
At least 143 Ergon Energy workers in Queensland have suffered severe allergic reactions to the flame-retardant uniforms recently rolled out to the state's 3400-strong workforce at a cost of about $3.5 million.... Workers also claim the Chinese-made uniforms release a yellow, bubbling substance when ironed that causes nausea and vomiting.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-08 08:22:43 Mon, Sep 8, 2008: from The Independent (UK) Red kite reintroduced after 200 years and killed within weeks An endangered bird of prey reintroduced to Northern Ireland after a 200-year absence has been found shot dead, it emerged yesterday.... "These magnificent birds were neither a threat to humans nor livestock, so we can only assume that whoever did this was either ignorant or gets a perverse sense of enjoyment from killing birds of prey."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:36:47 Mon, Sep 8, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Wind of change on farms as cows help to save the Earth Hundreds of cattle in Britain are being fed a new diet to reduce their burping and cut emissions of greenhouse gas.
Chopped straw and hay are the vital ingredients to settle a cow's stomach and reduce emissions of methane by 20 per cent.... It is the wind from the mouth of the cow, not the gases from from the rear, that does the most damage to the environment. If every dairy farm in the UK adopted this method it would remove the equivalent of 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:19:18 Mon, Sep 8, 2008: from Chattanooga Times Free Press Testing for drugs in Tennessee River system under way Caffeine was found in more than 93 percent of about 160 test samples of river water... [as well as] at least 12 other common drugs, including several antibiotics, antidepressants and substances designed to lower human cholesterol levels. While the amount of drugs in the water is tiny by human standards, they one day may have a serious impact on the environment -- and on humans, as well, he said.... "If you're taking all these drugs at once, in really low concentrations, for your entire life, does that sound like a good thing? I don't think so," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 21:58:15 Sun, Sep 7, 2008: from TCPalm (Florida) Dolphin die-off in northern Indian River Lagoon is raising red flags "Indian River dolphins are excellent sentinels of ecosystem health and, beyond that, human health," said Dr. Gregory Bossart... "We need to address the problems they have not just for their sake but out of concern for the health of the ecosystem and even our own health."... Since May 1, 47 dolphins have died in a stretch of the Indian River Lagoon from the southern end of the Mosquito Lagoon near Titusville south to Palm Bay,
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-07 10:35:36 Sun, Sep 7, 2008: from Mongabay Cameroon and Nigeria to protect world's rarest gorilla Cameroon and Nigeria have agreed to protect the the Cross River gorilla, world's most endangered gorilla, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society, which helped broker the deal.
The two West African nations will cooperate to protect the habitat of the critically endangered primate that occurs only in the two countries. Cameroon and Nigeria will crackdown on illegal logging and the bushmeat trade, strengthen field monitoring, increase community involvement and conservation education, and improve law enforcement within the parks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:43:25 Sun, Sep 7, 2008: from London Independent Pollution can make you fat, study claims Pollution can make children fat, startling new research shows. A groundbreaking Spanish study indicates that exposure to a range of common chemicals before birth sets up a baby to grow up stout, thus helping to drive the worldwide obesity epidemic.... The research, published in the current issue of the journal Acta Paediatrica, measured levels of hexachlorobenzene (HCB), a pesticide, in the umbilical cords of 403 children born on the Spanish island of Menorca, from before birth. It found that those with the highest levels were twice as likely to be obese when they reached the age of six and a half.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:39:22 Sun, Sep 7, 2008: from United Nations University, via EurekAlert Experts meet on need for new rules to govern world's fragile polar regions Problems forecast for the Arctic as its ice recedes include:
Overfishing; Pollution from ships and offshore extraction of oil and gas;
Oil spills; and
Invasion of alien species carried by ships' ballast water.
"Overfishing, the result in part of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, is already occurring in the Okhotsk and Bering Seas," says conference presenter Dr. Tatiana Saksina of the World Wildlife Fund's International Arctic Programme.
"Agreements are needed now to regulate shared and straddling fish stocks and to protect fish migrating to higher latitudes in search of colder waters," she says.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:02:01 Sun, Sep 7, 2008: from EcoWorldly Biofuels War: The New Scramble for Africa by Western Big Money Profiteers African civil society is calling for a moratorium on new biofuels investments in Africa amid concern that that the biofuels revolution will bring more food insecurity, higher food prices and hunger to the continent.
In Tanzania, thousands of farmers growing cereals like corn and rice are already being evicted from fertile land with good access to water, for biofuel sugar cane and jatropha plantations on newly privatized land.
According to the anti-biofuels investment campaigners, whole villages are being cleared or grabbed, but families have been given minimal compensation or opportunities for their loss of land, community and way of life.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-07 09:50:28 Sun, Sep 7, 2008: from California Progress Report Californians Don't Need a Daily Serving of Toxic Perfluorinated Chemicals You may find PFCs in anything that's made to repel grease, such as pizza, popcorn and French fry containers. A carcinogen, they now show up in more than 98 percent of Americans' blood, and in 100 percent of 293 newborns tested by scientists in a recent study. Worst of all, these compounds never break down -- they'll stay in our soil, our water and our bodies indefinitely.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:20:12 Sun, Sep 7, 2008: from Baltimore Sun Bighorn sheep may lose habitat The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on the final details of a map that would cut by nearly half the habitat previously considered critical to the species' survival. The plan could be approved by the end of this month.
Scientists and environmental advocates say the downsized habitat could deal a permanent setback to a species that has had 10 years of federal protection. They accuse the Department of the Interior, which governs Fish and Wildlife, of mixing politics with science, caving in to mining and tribal interests. One mining operation already has applied to expand its operation into land once listed as critical to the sheep's recovery, documents show.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-06 13:24:38 Sat, Sep 6, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Oil refineries underestimate release of emissions, study says A study by the Alberta Research Council that investigated the plume of contaminants emanating from a Canadian oil refinery using high-tech sniffing equipment found the facility dramatically underestimated its releases of dangerous air pollutants... Based on the study, funded by the federal, Alberta and Ontario governments, it is likely that all refineries in Canada and the United States are seriously undercounting emissions because they follow an estimating protocol developed by the Washington-based American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Under the protocol, refineries don't calculate their actual emissions, but try to reach approximate figures using technical assumptions and mathematical equations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-06 12:08:10 Sat, Sep 6, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Risking Armageddon for Cold, Hard Cash India and the United States, along with deep-pocketed corporations, have been steadily pushing along a lucrative and dangerous new nuclear pact, the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement.... The pact will gut global efforts to contain the spread of nuclear materials and encourage other countries to flout the NPT that India is now being rewarded for failing to sign. The U.S.-India deal will divert billions of dollars away from India's real development needs in sustainable agriculture, education, health care, housing, sanitation and roads. It will also distract India from developing clean energy sources, such as wind and solar power, and from reducing emissions from its many coal plants. Instead, the pact will focus the nation's efforts on an energy source that will, under the rosiest of projections, contribute a mere 8 percent of India's total energy needs -- and won't even do that until 2030.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-06 11:58:54 Sat, Sep 6, 2008: from Bernama (Malaysia) New Glue Ruling For Table Tennis [A] player fainted while trying to glue her bat, apparently because of the toxic substance present in the gum.
And so, world controlling body International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) has decided that beginning with the 2008 Volkswagen Women's World Cup, currently underway at the Cheras Badminton Stadium, volatile organic component-based glue -- glue containing toxic composite -- would be banned.
Only water-based glue would be allowed.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:19:33 Sat, Sep 6, 2008: from Kansas City Star An end run around expert advice The proposed change would put the fox in charge of the chicken coop. Federal agencies that want to build dams or roads or pursue any other project could decide on their own whether they would harm a protected species.
The bureaucrats -- not the scientists -- would be in charge. Federal agencies would be far more likely to to protect their own projects than to protect threatened wildlife. Currently agencies must consult biologists and other scientific experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service before they are allowed to proceed on proposed projects that could adversely affect species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:12:48 Fri, Sep 5, 2008: from University of Cincinnati, via EurekAlert Bisphenol A linked to metabolic syndrome in human tissue New research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) implicates the primary chemical used to produce hard plastics -- bisphenol A (BPA) -- as a risk factor for metabolic syndrome and its consequences. Metabolic syndrome is a combination of risk factors that include lower responsiveness to insulin and higher blood levels of sugar and lipids. According to the American Heart Association, about 25 percent of Americans have metabolic syndrome. Left untreated, the disorder can lead to life-threatening health problems such as coronary artery disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:27:13 Fri, Sep 5, 2008: from University of Michigan Recovery efforts not enough for critically endangered Asian vulture Captive breeding colonies of a critically endangered vulture, whose numbers in the wild have dwindled from tens of millions to a few thousand, are too small to protect the species from extinction, a University of Michigan analysis shows. Adding wild birds to the captive colonies, located in Pakistan and India, is crucial, but political and logistical barriers are hampering efforts, says lead author Jeff A. Johnson.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-20 13:19:32 Fri, Sep 5, 2008: from Denver Garden Examiner Garden in any season -- even without a greenhouse Though you can grow many things indoors without light, sprouts and mushrooms are some of the tastiest things that come to mind when indoor winter gardening is mentioned.
Both are very easy – even for beginner gardeners. Sprouts are nothing more than germinated seeds. If you can germinate seeds, you can grow sprouts! Sprouts are typically grown in one of three mediums: potting soil (or soil from your garden), gravel or sand, or air.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:32:44 Fri, Sep 5, 2008: from Reuters via PlanetArk Gull Sets Arctic Pollution Record for Birds A small Arctic gull has set a record as the bird most contaminated by two banned industrial pollutants, scientists said on Thursday.
Eggs of the ivory gull, which has a population of about 14,000 from Siberia to Canada, were found to have the highest known concentrations of PCBs, long used in products such as paints or plastics, and the pesticide DDT.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-05 13:45:27 Fri, Sep 5, 2008: from USA Today GM plans to dump use of landfills In an attempt to green up the planet, and its image, General Motors will confirm today plans to make half of its 181 plants worldwide "landfill-free" by the end of 2010. That means nothing from their manufacturing processes would end up in a landfill.
Ten GM plants, including an engine plant in Flint, Mich., already are landfill-free, and GM will have about 80 more producing little or no waste within 20 months...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-05 13:41:18 Fri, Sep 5, 2008: from Austin American-Statesman As climate changes, will patterns of disease shift as well? This summer, an outbreak of typhus has left 16 Travis County residents with the flea-borne illness; 14 others are suspected of having the disease. In recent years, whooping cough and West Nile virus have also plagued Central Texas.
Are the outbreaks stand-alone events, each with its own explanation? Or, with hot summers bearing down on the state, are these signals of broader changes in disease patterns driven by a warming climate?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:34:54 Fri, Sep 5, 2008: from Washington Post Emissions Standards Tightened The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday tightened emissions standards for new gasoline-powered lawn mowers, weed trimmers and boat engines, reducing the amount of smog-causing pollution these motors will be allowed to emit.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:08:35 Thu, Sep 4, 2008: from Mother Jones Climate of Meddling From Exxon-lobbyist memos to White House-deleted notes on the health impact of global warming, seven key dates in the Bush administration's eight-year scuffle with a green planet.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:00:48 Thu, Sep 4, 2008: from Detroit News Stung by mysterious die-offs, Michigan beekeepers worry about impact As beekeepers harvest honey this month, they face an uncertain future that could bring higher food prices as bees mysteriously continue to vanish from hives... Experts calculate a quarter of the estimated 2.4 million colonies across the U.S. have been lost in the last two years to colony collapse disorder. The reason -- or reasons -- remains unknown. The use of pesticides, a fungus, parasitic mites and even stress and the bees' diet are all theories.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-04 15:59:20 Thu, Sep 4, 2008: from Associated Press Environmentalists can't corral Palin ..."John McCain was all about global warming and the integrity of the science. The selection of Sarah Palin is a complete reversal from that position," said Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., who traveled to the South Pole with McCain in 2006 to visit with scientists studying climate change. "She is disturbingly part of the pattern of the Bush administration in their approach to science generally and the science of the environment in particular."
The McCain campaign Wednesday characterized Palin as a leader on climate change, noting she set up a sub-cabinet office to map out state response strategies and sought $1.1 million in federal funds to help communities threatened by coastal erosion and other effects.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-03 18:00:02 Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from World Wildlife Fund via ScienceDaily Baltic States Failing To Protect Most Damaged Sea Nine Baltic sea states all scored failing grades in an annual WWF evaluation of their performance in protecting and restoring the world’s most damaged sea... The best grade (an F for just 46 per cent) was received by Germany, followed by Denmark (41 per cent) and the worst were Poland (25 per cent) and Russia (26 per cent).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-03 17:53:51 Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from NaturalNews.com Citrus Crops in U.S Under Siege From Unknown Bacterium Citrus greening is blazing through the Florida citrus groves like wildfire. Scientists don't know how long it will take to find a treatment or cure for this contagious bacterial disease. One scenario projects that within nine to ten years, all the citrus trees currently in the ground will be dead.
Citrus greening, caused by a bacterium yet unnamed, is one of the most serious citrus diseases in the world, destroying the economic value of the fruit while compromising the tree. The disease has significantly reduced citrus output in Asia, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Brazil. Now trees grown in the U.S. are in jeopardy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:01:05 Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph English honey harvest halved after catastrophic drop in bee numbers The annual English honey harvest has dropped to half of its normal level this year, with the appalling summer weather compounding the effects of the sudden and unexplained collapse in the number of bees.
Keepers, farmers and industry have held their first crisis talks over fears that the British honey bee population could be facing near extinction within five years.
There are now fears that English honey could disappear altogether unless the dramatic decline in bee colonies is arrested.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-03 17:41:45 Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from London Guardian Coal plans go up in smoke One day, historians might speculate that it was the ambition of the companies that sought to profit by building coal-fired power stations that triggered the beginning of the end for humans' most polluting habit.
Four years ago, campaigners in the US raised concerns over plans to build 150 coal-fired power stations nationwide. Today, nearly half those plans have been defeated in the courts or abandoned, while half of the remaining proposals are being actively opposed. Just 14 of the 150 plants are being developed, and environmental lawyers are all still pursuing them.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-03 17:22:26 Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from Associated Press 19-square-mile ice sheet breaks loose in Canada "A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:32:03 Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from AFP Ivory Coast's toxic waste trial to start September 29 The trial of 12 people charged with involvement in the 2006 toxic waste pollution scandal in the Ivory Coast is set to go ahead on September 29, according to court documents released Tuesday.
The 12 are charged with "poisoning or complicity to poison" in the illicit dumping of 500 tonnes of caustic soda and petroleum residues across more than a dozen open-air rubbish tips around the commercial capital Abidjan.
The toxic sludge, brought into Ivory Coast by Dutch-based multinational trading company Trafigura, killed 16 people and caused an estimated 95,000 people to seek medical attention.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:27:42 Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer Population decline causing inbreeding among spotted owls, study says Declines in populations of the endangered northern spotted owl are leading to inbreeding and a resulting lack of genetic diversity needed for survival, making the birds more prone to disease and other problems, a report by an Oregon State University scientist concludes.
The problem, a "population bottleneck," likely will make recovery even harder, said Susan Haig, a wildlife ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center at OSU.
"Previous recovery plans were reporting the birds were doing OK. They're not," Haig said. She conducted the largest genetic study ever on endangered birds by taking blood samples from owls throughout the West.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-03 10:03:15 Wed, Sep 3, 2008: from PC Magazine Ebay launches WorldOfGood.com The site's mission: to preserve "People Positive and Eco Positive" principles that make a positive impact on the people that make them, as well as the environment. In essence, it's similar to The Body Shop: buy ecologically sound products, while allowing the seller to charge a fair price.
All products, producers and sellers are verified by various third parties called Trust Providers -- like TransFair USA (Fair Trade Certified), Co-op America and Aid to Artisans -- to meet a core set of ethical and environmental standards, according to the site. Some example items: an artisan-crafted plate from Chile, banana-fiber animal napkin rings from Kenya, and a stuffed llama from Peru.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-02 17:58:57 Tue, Sep 2, 2008: from Public Campaign Action Fund Oil, Coal Industries Already Have Spent $427 Million On Politics, Policy, and Marketing in 2008 Today Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving America’s campaign finance laws, released a new analysis finding that the oil and coal industries spent $427.2 million so far this year of the year to shift public opinion and to capture the eyes, ears, and support of Congress on critical energy issues.... "With spending like this, it’s clear that these polluting industries see much at stake in Congress," continued Nyhart.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:25:25 Tue, Sep 2, 2008: from American Institute of Biological Sciences via ScienceDaily Thawing Permafrost Likely To Boost Global Warming, New Assessment Concludes "A new assessment more than doubles previous estimates of the amount of carbon stored in permafrost ... The thawing of permafrost in northern latitudes, which greatly increases microbial decomposition of carbon compounds in soil, will dominate other effects of warming in the region and could become a major force promoting the release of carbon dioxide and thus further warming ..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:37:41 Tue, Sep 2, 2008: from BBC Climate 'hockey stick' is revived "A new study by climate scientists behind the controversial 1998 "hockey stick" graph suggests their earlier analysis was broadly correct.
Michael Mann's team analysed data for the last 2,000 years, and concluded that Northern Hemisphere temperatures now are "anomalously warm".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-02 10:18:24 Tue, Sep 2, 2008: from Sudbury Start (Canada) Canadians more willing to ride the bus, but transit systems are letting them down A survey commissioned by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Canadian Urban Transit Association found that consumers want to take public transit, but lack of buses and trains plus long waiting times are acting as a deterrent.
More than 40 per cent of those questioned said they would seriously consider taking local transit if gas prices continue to rise. The responses suggest that transit ridership could triple as a result of higher gas prices, a joint news release from the FCM and CUTA said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 19:52:58 Tue, Sep 2, 2008: from FoodConsumer.org Plastic chemical may raise risk of heart attack, diabetes A new study suggests that bisphenol A could be more harmful than thought. It has found that the chemical at the level found commonly found in humans' blood can suppress a hormone that protects people from heart attacks and type 2 disease.
The study appeared online in Environmental Health Perspectives August 14, a day before the Food and Drug Administration claimed that bisphenol A is safe at current exposure levels.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:52:41 Tue, Sep 2, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Global warming: Sea level rises may accelerate due to melting ice sheet The vast Greenland ice sheet could begin to melt more rapidly than expected towards the end of the century, accelerating the rise in sea levels as a result of global warming, scientists warned yesterday.
Water running off the ice sheet could triple the current rate of sea level rise to around 9mm a year, leading to a global rise of almost 1 metre per century, the researchers found.... There are signs that the Greenland ice sheet, which covers 1.7 million square kilometres of land, has already begun to melt faster than expected. The reason is thought to be surface water on the ice sheet trickling down through fissures to the underlying bedrock, making the ice sheet less stable, and the loss of buttressing ice shelves along the coastline.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-01 16:46:58 Mon, Sep 1, 2008: from National Post (Canada) B.C. anglers catch a 70-year-old fish, 3.2 metres long, then release it Rod Toth was on the river near Chilliwack, B.C., Aug. 27 when he hooked the massive sturgeon. For nearly three hours the five men wrestled to bring the sturgeon to the surface, taking turns cranking the reel, slowly hauling the fish through the murky water.
"We didn't see it until the very end," Mr. Toth said. And when Mr. Toth's four clients finally laid eyes on the sturgeon, well, some language is best left on the river, the guide said.... On shore they tagged the fish, held onto its rough skin for the mother of all fish photos and released the sturgeon.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-01 13:20:24 Mon, Sep 1, 2008: from Edinburgh Scotsman Temperature rises 'will be double the safe limit' for global warming "IT IS "improbable" global warming will be kept below 4C -- double the rise considered safe to avoid climate catastrophe -- according to an influential new report.
Internationally, it has long been agreed governments should be aiming to keep a global temperature rise below 2C, to avoid climate change spiralling out of control. However, a bleak new study by scientists at the Tyndall Centre, a leading organisation for climate change research at the University of Manchester, now suggests we should be adjusting our expectations towards far higher rises."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-01 13:02:58 Mon, Sep 1, 2008: from Environmental Health Perspectives Dengue Reborn: Widespread Resurgence of a Resilient Vector "Dengue -- a viral disease that can refer to both dengue fever and the more severe dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) -- swept away records again this past spring as it raged across Brazil, infecting more than 160,000 people and killing more than 100. The reports were similar to those out of Southeast Asia in the summer of 2007, South America the previous spring, and India the fall before that. Although it may not be the most devastating of the mosquito-borne diseases -- malaria strikes 10 times more people and yellow fever kills more of its victims -- dengue has become a major public health concern for two reasons: the speed with which it is spreading and the escalating seriousness of its complications."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:04:09 Mon, Sep 1, 2008: from CNN International Lights out? Experts fear fireflies are dwindling Yet another much-loved species imperiled by humankind? The evidence is entirely anecdotal, but there are anecdotes galore.
From backyards in Tennessee to riverbanks in Southeast Asia, researchers said they have seen fireflies -- also called glowworms or lightning bugs -- dwindling in number.... "It is quite clear they are declining," said Stefan Ineichen, a researcher who studies fireflies in Switzerland and runs a Web site to gather information on firefly sightings.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-09-01 09:36:54 Mon, Sep 1, 2008: from Gant Daily (PA) Deep-well Natural Gas Drilling a Concern for State's Water Quality Scientists have known for years the gas was there, but it wasn't until new drilling technology was developed that it could be extracted. This method uses hydraulic pressure to fracture the shale layer so trapped gas can escape.
"Fracking, as they call it, can require several million gallons of water for each gas well, and some wells may be fracked more than once during their active life, which might span more than a decade," Swistock explained.... In other states, fracking water has been found to contain numerous hazardous and toxic substances, including formaldehyde, benzene and chromates.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:18:54 Sun, Aug 31, 2008: from Public Library of Science via ScienceDaily Protection Zones In The Wrong Place To Prevent Coral Reef Collapse "Conservation zones are in the wrong place to protect vulnerable coral reefs from the effects of global warming, an international team of scientists warn... Current protection zones – or 'No-take areas' (NTAs) – were set up to protect fish in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before climate change was a major issue."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-31 10:18:03 Sun, Aug 31, 2008: from National Academy of Sciences via ScienceDaily Public Involvement Usually Leads To Better Environmental Decision Making "When done correctly, public participation improves the quality of federal agencies' decisions about the environment, says a new report from the National Research Council. Well-managed public involvement also increases the legitimacy of decisions in the eyes of those affected by them, which makes it more likely that the decisions will be implemented effectively."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:31:24 Sun, Aug 31, 2008: from McClatchy Newspapers Scientists fear impact of Asian pollutants on U.S. "From 500 miles in space, satellites track brown clouds of dust, soot and other toxic pollutants from China and elsewhere in Asia as they stream across the Pacific and take dead aim at the western U.S... By some estimates more than 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants from Asia - ranging from soot to mercury to carbon dioxide to ozone - reach the U.S. annually. The problem is only expected to worsen: Some Chinese officials have warned that pollution in their country could quadruple in the next 15 years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:52:03 Sun, Aug 31, 2008: from London Independent For the first time in human history, the North Pole can be circumnavigated "Open water now stretches all the way round the Arctic, making it possible for the first time in human history to circumnavigate the North Pole, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. New satellite images, taken only two days ago, show that melting ice last week opened up both the fabled North-west and North-east passages, in the most important geographical landmark to date to signal the unexpectedly rapid progress of global warming."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-30 12:33:17 Sat, Aug 30, 2008: from AFP Massive evacuation as millions hit by India floods More than 300,000 people trapped in India's worst floods in 50 years have been rescued but nearly double that number remain stranded without food or water, officials said Saturday.
About 60 people have died and three million have been affected since the Kosi river breached its banks earlier this month on the border with Nepal and changed course, swamping hundreds of villages in eastern Bihar state.... "We have been stuck here for the past 10 days with no rescue team reaching here. Our food and water stocks have run out. Our mobiles (phones) are working, but they too will fail any moment," Laxmi Singh was quoted as saying.
Survivors at relief shelters said they were not getting anything to eat.
"We have absolutely nothing with us here. We left everything behind," one woman at a crowded relief camp told NDTV news network.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-30 13:38:17 Sat, Aug 30, 2008: from National Geographic News VIDEO: Sun Used to Purify Water "Just 48 hours of sunlight can kill germs that cause cholera, typhoid, and other diseases�a discovery that's already helping Kenya's poor."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-30 10:54:58 Sat, Aug 30, 2008: from NaturalNews.com Broken Compact Fluorescent Lights Release Mercury Into the Air: Over 100 Times the EPA Limit "Compact fluorescent light bulbs can release dangerous amounts of mercury into the air when they break and must be disposed of very carefully, according to a report by the state of Maine.
Compact fluorescent bulbs, which consume only about a quarter as much energy as traditional incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer, all use mercury to produce light."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-30 10:23:57 Sat, Aug 30, 2008: from McClatchy Newspapers Palin questioned whether global warming is melting Arctic ice "Sen. John McCain's choice of a running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, favors drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, questioned the science behind predictions of sea ice loss linked to global warming and opposed a state initiative that would have banned metal mines from discharging pollution into salmon streams."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-30 10:16:12 Sat, Aug 30, 2008: from The Olympian (WA) Alaska seeks to show polar bears aren't threatened Alaska's state legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon -- researchers just have to fill in the science part.... A $2 million program funded with little debate by the legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:00:40 Sat, Aug 30, 2008: from LA Times (US) Italy mobsters block efforts to clean up toxic trash heaps The Naples-based Camorra controls the import, transport and disposal of millions of tons of rubbish, an extremely lucrative business in which the group follows its own rules, ignores regulations on toxic waste and contaminates once-fertile farmland, country fields, forests and rivers.
Beyond the ugliness of it all, evidence now suggests that the garbage is poisoning the food chain and may be causing cancer, birth defects and other health problems.... Scientists continue to study the link between the refuse and health, but already point to alarming trends, according to the World Health Organization, including a rate exceeding regional or national norms for cancers of the stomach, kidney, liver and lung, as well as congenital malformations. In some areas between Naples and the city of Caserta, residents are two to three times more likely to get liver cancer than those in the rest of the country, according to Italy's National Research Council.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:18:30 Fri, Aug 29, 2008: from Murray Valley Standard (Australia) Fish 'n' chips that last forever The society's "Australia's Sustainable Seafood Guide" ... divides species into three categories: "Say no", "Think twice" and "Better choice".
Species to avoid include those that have been over-fished, such as shark and orange roughy (or deep sea perch). Deep sea species are vulnerable to over-fishing because they tend to be slow-growing and long-living.
The method by which a fish is caught is also important. Catching by handline is better for the environment than bottom trawling, the equivalent of using a nuclear bomb to catch rabbits. There are several methods in between.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-29 16:34:26 Fri, Aug 29, 2008: from BusinessGreen US Treasury launches Environment and Energy Office The new Office for Environment and Energy is to be headed up by William A Pizer, a former director at research body Resources for the Future and white house economic adviser on energy issues, and will be tasked with developing, co-ordinating and executing the Treasury's role in both domestic and international energy and green policy.
In particular, the office will be tasked with managing the multi-billion dollar Clean Technology Fund announced earlier this year by President Bush and intended to accelerate the development of low carbon technologies in developing economies.
It will also be responsible for the US Tropical Forest Conservation Act and the Global Environmental Facility, as well as the development of new financial mechanisms and initiatives for tackling climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-29 16:37:44 Fri, Aug 29, 2008: from Wildlife Conservation Society, via EurekAlert Unexpected large monkey population discovered A WCS report reveals surprisingly large populations of two globally threatened primates in a protected area in Cambodia.
The report counted 42,000 black-shanked douc langurs along with 2,500 yellow-cheeked crested gibbons in Cambodia's Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area, an estimate that represents the largest known populations for both species in the world.... The scientists believe total populations within the wider landscape may be considerably greater.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-29 11:24:18 Fri, Aug 29, 2008: from Telegraph (UK) Bittern numbers up almost 50 per cent Bittern numbers are up almost 50 per cent on last year after the best nesting season for 130 years, according to the RSPB. This year 75 male bitterns were recorded in English reed beds, a 47 per cent increase on 2007 and a huge 581 per cent increase in the numbers recorded in 1997 when the UK population plummeted to a low of just 11 booming males, all in England.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:35:22 Fri, Aug 29, 2008: from Wenachee World Investigators identify toxic goo, still looking for who dumped it Nearly all of the 2,353 barrels contained industrial paint solvents and sludge, though more than half of the containers had deteriorated and spilled most or all of their contents. Some held medical waste and two barrels tested positive for low levels of radioactive materials.... Aquifers under the dump tested positive for high levels of organic compounds, metals, petroleum products, solvents, pesticides and other chemicals.... Officials believed the contamination was coming from the 55-gallon barrels, which were brought to the unlined landfill by a transport company in August 1975 and buried. But no records of what the barrels contained could be found.
The [transport] company paid $2 per barrel — about $4,700 in all — to bury the toxins.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:24:17 Thu, Aug 28, 2008: from ABC News Future Storms, Global Warming Could Devastate Louisiana Coast Louisiana's 15,000 square miles of coastal wetlands traditionally act as natural buffers from storm surges. For centuries, the fresh floodwaters of the Mississippi River replenished the wetlands with sediment, building them up and flushing out the saltwater blown in by hurricanes. But when levees were built in the 1930s to control the flooding of the river, saltwater flowing in from the gulf was left unchecked, killing habitats for freshwater wildlife and eating away at the coastline.
The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources estimates that every 38 minutes the area loses an area of coastline about the size of a football field.
"And they say over the next 20, 25 years we'll lose another thousand miles," Jindal said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-28 18:08:36 Thu, Aug 28, 2008: from ScienceAlert (Australia and New Zealand) Climate code red -- the case for emergency action "Very few, if any, people in government get the whole story, so there’s a gaping hole between what the science is telling us and the policy response," says Spratt. "Politicians think you can negotiate with the laws of physics and chemistry, but you do so at the planet's peril. If business-as-usual pollution continues there will be catastrophic consequences."
'Code Red' refers to the system employed in hospitals to alert staff that a patient needs advanced life support; it activates an emergency response. The planet, the authors contend, needs that level of life support now.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:17:32 Thu, Aug 28, 2008: from Mongabay Biofuels 200 times more expensive than forest conservation for global warming mitigation The British government should end subsidies for biofuels and instead use the funds to slow destruction of rainforests and tropical peatlands argues a new report issued by a U.K.-based think tank.... [The study] says that "avoided deforestation" would be a more cost-effective way to address climate change, since land use change generates more emissions than the entire global transport sector and offers ancillary benefits including important ecosystem services.... They find that the biofuel initiative will save 2.6-3 million tons of carbon dioxide per year at a cost of ($1 billion), while a similar investment in preventing deforestation and peatland destruction could result in avoided emissions of 40-200 million tons of CO2 per year or a 50 times greater amount of avoided emissions. The savings would be equivalent to 37 percent of all UK carbon dioxide emissions for 2005.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-28 09:54:25 Thu, Aug 28, 2008: from eFlux Media Unstoppable Thawing in the Arctic Sea The disturbing truth is that the ice level is headed down a declining path and the Arctic region is doomed to see the day when, during the summer, it will be only water. And if this had already been foreseen by scientists, who claimed that by the year 2080, the Arctic sea would be ice-free, the more recent predictions are a lot bleaker: some say by 2050, some by 2030 and some reckon it will occur within as little as 5 years.... Any way one might look at it, the picture looks really grim and leaves almost no room to hope for improvement or change. No ice on the Arctic sea could mean a torturous rite of passage for the Earth as we know it now. And it will not overcome it unscarred.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:57:40 Thu, Aug 28, 2008: from Western Morning News (UK) 'Barmy' pesticides ban blasted Ministers are to step up pressure on the European Parliament not to press ahead with "barmy plans" to ban three-quarters of pesticides used by farmers.... The opposition has to come from across the continent to ensure that it is "not just Britain whingeing", he said.... The controversy centres on the types of chemicals which Brussels wants to remove. They include banning substances which have "endocrine disrupting properties" that could cause adverse effect in humans.
However, the public is already exposed to such substances through prescribed drugs, meat, peas and beans and products like soya milk.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:50:45 Thu, Aug 28, 2008: from Myrtle Beach Sun News Loggerhead nesters have banner year Rare loggerhead sea turtles are having a terrific nesting season on the Grand Strand and have been laying eggs on local beaches in higher and higher numbers.
Still, biologists warn that the population of the mammoth turtles, which can weigh up to 300 pounds, remains fragile. And the federal government is considering a proposal to classify loggerheads as endangered after 30 years of listing them as a threatened species.... This year, a rare Kemp's ridley turtle has laid 84 eggs in a nest on Pawleys Island, McClary said. It is only the second nest in South Carolina for a Kemp's ridley, the most endangered turtle in the world.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:17:55 Thu, Aug 28, 2008: from Innovations Report (Germany) Overfishing Pushes Baltic Cod to Brink of Economic Extinction "It's such an overfished system," Limburg said. "The big concern is that overexploitation is causing the fish to evolve. The finding that humans can actually cause evolution of fish populations, which in turn can drive their degradation, is relatively new and is drawing a lot of attention.
"Some fisheries, including that for cod, are now known to cause 'juvenescence,' or the evolution of younger, smaller adult fish. The ecological and economic consequences both appear to be negative," she said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-28 09:27:49 Thu, Aug 28, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Half of Australia untouched by humans, says study by Pew Environment Group Nearly half of Australia is largely untouched by Man, making it one of the biggest wildernesses in the world, ranking alongside the Amazon rainforest and Antarctica, a new study has found.... The other two great remaining wilderness areas in the world are the Sahara and the northern Boreal forest in Canada.
"As the world's last great wilderness areas disappear under pressure from human impact, to have a continent with this much remaining wilderness intact is unusual and globally significant," Dr Traill added.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-27 11:39:55 Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from New York Times Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid's Limits When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.... The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.
The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.
"We need an interstate transmission superhighway system," said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-28 20:01:24 Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from World Wildlife Fund, via ScienceDaily Polar Bears Found Swimming Miles From Alaskan Coast An aerial survey by government scientists in Alaska's Chukchi Sea has recently found at least nine polar bears swimming in open water -- with one at least 60 miles from shore -- raising concern among wildlife experts about their survival....
"As climate change continues to dramatically disrupt the Arctic, polar bears and their cubs are being forced to swim longer distances to find food and habitat."...
Satellite images indicate that ice was absent in most of the region where the bears were found on August 16, 2008, and some experts predict this year's sea ice loss could meet or exceed the record set last year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:12:58 Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Eating rats to beat global food crisis Rat meat has become such a popular alternative to other dearer meats in Cambodia that its price has increased fourfold.
As inflation pushes the price of beef beyond the reach of the poor, increased demand for rat meat has pushed up rodent prices.... This month, an Indian official said eating rats was a way to beat rising global food prices. Vijay Prakash, the secretary of Bihar's welfare department, said regular rat snacks would also translate into fewer rodents eating precious grain stocks, 50 percent of which are lost in the north-eastern Indian state every year to the creatures.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:17:17 Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from PLoS ONE, via Power-Boat World World's Marine Parks 'May Not Save Corals' They warn that many existing 'no take areas' (NTAs) in the Indian Ocean and around the world, while effective in protecting local fish, may not be much help in enabling reefs to recover from major coral bleaching events caused by ocean warming.
The research, published in the journal PLoS ONE, is the largest study of its kind ever carried out, covering 66 sites in seven countries in the Indian Ocean and spanning over a decade.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:23:11 Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from Birdlife International Drugs firms told to do more to prevent vulture extinctions The Indian government has ordered a crackdown on companies selling the drug [Diclofenac] responsible for the near-extinction of vultures.... [A study] showed that the population of White-rumped Vultures Gyps bengalensis in India was dropping by more than 40 percent every year. The species's numbers have dropped by 99.9 percent since 1992 to about 11,000, from tens of millions. Populations of Indian Gyps indicus and Slender-billed Gyps tenuirostris vultures have fallen by almost 97 per cent in the same period, to 45,000 and just 1,000 respectively.... Now vets are dodging the ban by using the human form of diclofenac for livestock, despite an effective and safe alternative drug being available.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-27 09:35:26 Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from Engineering Capacity (UK) Go green and stay out of the red Environmental measures could be the answer to combating the downturn with new research launched today showing that waste prevention, using less raw material and energy recovery will be crucial to saving UK companies money in the face of economic recession.... The research, says Envirowise, shows growing recognition that waste minimisation and resource efficiency have become business imperatives in the current economic climate if companies are going to reduce costs and keep up their green credentials.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:07:50 Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from Popular Science New research finds higher-than-expected levels of pesticides in hives The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates agricultural pesticide use, but this regulation does not account for the interaction of these chemicals that inevitably takes place through the bees' pollination processes. Some of these combinations of pesticides have been found to have a synergistic effect hundreds of times more toxic than any of the pesticides individually, says James L. Frazier, professor of entomology at Penn State.... These changes include immune system blocks and disorientation, which may help to explain the CCD crisis of late.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-27 09:24:06 Wed, Aug 27, 2008: from Citizens Voice (PA) Federal agency: Cancer cluster exists between Tamaqua, McAdoo The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry on Monday confirmed something that residents of an area at the intersections of Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties have felt sure of for many years -- that an unusually high number of people there are suffering from a rare blood cancer.... The report found three environmental similarities in common in the cluster areas: hazardous waste sites, air pollution and coal mining operations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:46:18 Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from Ecological Society of America Ecological Society of America Criticizes Bush Administration's Overhaul of the Endangered Species Act "The concept of independent scientific review has been in practice since the 18th century and is crucial to ensuring that ideas and proposed work are scientifically sound," said Alison Power, president of the Society and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. "This overhaul of the Endangered Species Act would place the fate of rare species in the hands of government stakeholders who are not qualified to assess the environmental impacts of their activities."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-26 15:17:27 Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from Canadian Press Slow Food movement could finally be picking up speed in the United States Slow Food USA is about to make its first major foray into the U.S. cultural and political scenes. Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend Slow Food Nation over Labour Day weekend in San Francisco, a Woodstock-like festival and symposium meant to underscore the connection between planet and plate.
It's the first serious test of whether Slow Food - a philosophy born in Europe and often hobbled by a snob factor - can evolve into a movement capable of altering the appetite of the average American....
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:07:25 Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from KDRV Bush administration cuts spotted owl habitat 23 percent The Bush administration has decided that the Northern Spotted Owl can get by with less old growth forest habitat as it struggles to get off the threatened species list.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it would cut by 23 percent the federal forest land designated as critical habitat for the owl in Washington, Oregon and Northern California. Designating critical habitat for protection is a requirement of the Endangered Species Act. Meanwhile, owl numbers are dropping by 4 percent a year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-26 11:21:00 Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from The Money Times (India) West Nile virus Engulfs First Human Life in California The extremely infectious West Nile virus has continued to surge in parts of California, claiming its first human victim this year in Orange County in Southern California, the state Department of Public Health announced on Monday.
A 72-year-old Buena Park woman has become the first person in California this year to die of the WNV infection.... The health officials are worried about a possible repeat of cases such as what happened in 2004, when Southern California experienced 710 human West Nile virus cases with 21 fatalities.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:45:29 Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from NaturalNews Canada's Oil Sands Declared "Most Destructive Project on Earth" as Eco Disaster Looms The report accuses the Canadian government of allowing the Tar Sands Project to emit levels of greenhouse gases that far outstrip any reductions made in other areas.
"Ottawa is letting the Tar Sands hold Canadians hostage on global warming," said Program Manager Matt Price.... The group also says that the project has contaminated rivers and groundwater with toxic chemicals, caused an increase in acid rain and created "health sacrifice zones" in the surrounding region.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:16:40 Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from The Scotsman Prize-winning author warns humans could be headed for extinction Margaret Atwood, the novelist, has warned that the planet is at a "crisis moment" and the human race could be headed towards extinction.... The Canadian said although the "cockroaches will always be fine", humans may not.... Atwood said she thinks the crisis involves climate change, deforestation, overfishing, declines in bird populations and production of energy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:31:51 Tue, Aug 26, 2008: from Utne Reader Online Fish or Foul The world's oceans are being transformed, and not for the better.... Scientists now know that the eating habits of a single species, Homo sapiens, are driving these changes. By knocking out the chain's upper levels (which include predatory fish like tuna, swordfish, and shark) through violent overfishing, and skimming off the middle and bottom for industrial use, we are changing, perhaps permanently, the structure of an environment that nourishes us.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-25 14:39:57 Mon, Aug 25, 2008: from The Apocadocs PANIQuiz for August 18-25 now available What is Ecojel? Why has the Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit against the EPA? What does Carbonfootprint.com have to say about Madonna's world tour carbon footprint? According to the Institute of Polar Environment, how is arsenic getting into Antarctic soil? These questions and more, for your entertainment and dismay.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:51:32 Mon, Aug 25, 2008: from AFP Global warming time bomb trapped in Arctic soil: study Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle of global warming, a new study warned Sunday.
The study, published in the British journal Nature Geoscience, found that the stock of organic carbon "is considerably higher than previously thought" -- 60 percent more than the previously estimated.
This is roughly equivalent to one sixth of the entire carbon content in the atmosphere. And that is just for North America.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-25 13:10:59 Mon, Aug 25, 2008: from New York Times Carbon Emissions Across the United States "Electric power production and transportation are the two largest sources of carbon emissions in the United States. But there are big differences in emissions between companies, and from state to state, that may make it harder to reach any agreement on cuts." State-by-state graphic.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:18:06 Mon, Aug 25, 2008: from Cell Press, via EurekAlert Why wind turbines can mean death for bats Ninety percent of the bats they examined after death showed signs of internal hemorrhaging consistent with trauma from the sudden drop in air pressure (a condition known as barotrauma) at turbine blades. Only about half of the bats showed any evidence of direct contact with the blades.... All three species of migratory bats killed by wind turbines fly at night, eating thousands of insects—including many crop pests—per day as they go. Therefore, bat losses in one area could have very real effects on ecosystems miles away, along the bats' migration routes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:20:43 Mon, Aug 25, 2008: from University of New South Wales, via EurekAlert Heavy metal link to mutations, low growth and fertility among crustaceans in Sydney Harbor tributary Heavy metal pollutants are linked to genetic mutations, stunted growth and declining fertility among small crustaceans in the Parramatta River, the main tributary of Sydney Harbour, new research shows.
The finding adds to mounting evidence that toxic sediments and seaweeds in Sydney Harbour are a deadly diet for many sea creatures.... Earlier this year, UNSW scientists revealed that copper-contaminated seaweeds in Sydney Harbour were killing 75 percent of the offspring of small crustaceans that feed on a common brown seaweed.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:16:22 Mon, Aug 25, 2008: from European Science Foundation, via EurekAlert Future for clean energy lies in 'big bang' of evolution Dramatic progress has been made over the last decade understanding the fundamental reaction of photosynthesis that evolved in cyanobacteria 3.7 billion years ago, which for the first time used water molecules as a source of electrons to transport energy derived from sunlight, while converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.... For humans now there is the tantalising possibility of tweaking the photosynthetic reactions of cyanobacteria to produce fuels we want such as hydrogen, alcohols or even hydrocarbons, rather than carbohydrates.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-25 12:46:54 Mon, Aug 25, 2008: from University of Arizona, via ScienceDaily Drier, Warmer Springs In US Southwest Stem From Human-caused Changes In Winds Since the 1970s the winter storm track in the western U.S. has been shifting north, particularly in the late winter. As a result, fewer winter storms bring rain and snow to Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, western Colorado and western New Mexico.
"We used to have this season from October to April where we had a chance for a storm," said Stephanie A. McAfee. "Now it's from October to March".... McAfee's co-author Joellen L. Russell said, "We're used to thinking about climate change as happening sometime in the future to someone else, but this is right here and affects us now. The future is here."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-24 10:51:08 Sun, Aug 24, 2008: from Planet Ark Urgent Steps Needed To Combat Food Wastage - Report "The United States and some other developed states throw away nearly a third of their food each year, according to a report that said on Thursday the world was producing more than enough to feed its population... The authors said that in the United States, up to 30 percent of food, worth some $48.3 billion, is thrown away each year.
"That's like leaving the tap running and pouring 40 trillion litres of water into the garbage can -- enough water to meet the household needs of 500 million people," the report said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-25 12:41:34 Sun, Aug 24, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor New rays of hope for solar power's future "From five miles away, the Nevada Solar One power plant seems a mirage, a silver lake amid waves of 110 degree F. desert heat. Driving nearer, the rippling image morphs into a sea of mirrors angled to the sun.
As the first commercial "concentrating solar power" or CSP plant built in 17 years, Nevada Solar One marks the reemergence and updating of a decades-old technology that could play a large new role in US power production, many observers say...
Spread in military rows across 300 acres of sun-baked earth, Nevada Solar One’s trough-shaped parabolic mirrors are the core of this CSP plant – also called a "solar thermal" plant. The mirrors focus sunlight onto receiver tubes, heating a fluid that, at 735 degrees F., flows through a heat exchanger to a steam generator that supplies 64 megawatts of electricity to 14,000 Las Vegas homes."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-24 10:26:59 Sun, Aug 24, 2008: from Reuters After 5 years of war, Iraqis desperate for water "At a communal water station in a Baghdad slum, a young boy's skinny arms fly up and down as he uses a bicycle pump to coax water from the dry ground.
His efforts produce a languid stream that will tide over his family -- and the families of the children waiting near him to fill their cooking pots -- until the next day.
This is a daily ritual for millions of Iraqis who lack access to sufficient clean water and proper sewage five years after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-24 10:22:26 Sun, Aug 24, 2008: from London Independent Nuclear waste containers likely to fail, warns 'devastating' report "Thousands of containers of lethal nuclear waste are likely to fail before being safely sealed away underground, a devastating official report concludes.
The unpublicised report is by the Environment Agency, which has to approve any proposals for getting rid of the waste that remains deadly for tens of thousands of years.
The document effectively destroys Britain's already shaky disposal plans just as ministers are preparing an expansion of nuclear power."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-24 10:19:39 Sun, Aug 24, 2008: from London Observer Beauty spots to be devoured by sea "Some of Britain's most famous coastal landmarks will be radically changed or even lost because it is no longer possible to hold back rising seas and coastal erosion, according to the National Trust. The castle of St Michael's Mount off the coast of Cornwall, the white cliffs of Birling Gap in East Sussex, Studland beach in Dorset and the dunes of Formby, near Liverpool, are among the places which could alter dramatically. In one of the most extreme cases to be identified by the trust, the entire 18th-century fishing village of Porthdinllaen on the north-west coast of Wales could be left to crumble into the sea."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-23 12:02:18 Sat, Aug 23, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Madonna's carbon footprint under scrutiny "Madonna may have headlined last year’s Live Earth concert promoting climate change, but her carbon footprint for her world tour has come under scrutiny. The emissions generated by the singer’s 45 date tour is the equivalent to that created by 160 Britons in an entire year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:12:38 Sat, Aug 23, 2008: from National Geographic News "Water Mafias" Put Stranglehold on Public Water Supply "Worldwide corruption driven by mafia-like organizations throughout water industries is forcing the poor to pay more for basic drinking water and sanitation services, according to a new report.
If bribery, organized crime, embezzlement, and other illegal activities continue, consumers and taxpayers will pay the equivalent of U.S. $20 billion dollars over the next decade, says the report, released this week at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm, Sweden."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-23 11:34:25 Sat, Aug 23, 2008: from New Scientist Superfood rice bran contains arsenic "Rice bran – a so-called "superfood" – might contain dangerous amounts of a natural poison. A new study suggests that rice bran, the shavings left over after brown rice is polished to produce white rice grains, contains "inappropriate" levels of arsenic. Andrew Meharg at the University of Aberdeen, UK, and colleagues found that the levels of arsenic in rice bran products available on the internet and used in food-aid programmes funded by the US government would be illegal in China – the only country in the world to have standards for how much arsenic is permissible in food."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:24:28 Sat, Aug 23, 2008: from Chemistry World Chinese sewage plant study raises concerns Many water treatment facilities in China are failing to remove toxic organic chemicals and levels of some chemicals are actually increasing during treatment, according to researchers from Nankai University, Tianjin.... One of the chemicals monitored by Sun's team is nonylphenol, released during the breakdown of nonylphenol polyethoxylate detergents. Nonylphenol is an endocrine disrupter... [T]he sewage treatment works only removed 60-70 per cent of nonylphenol polyethoxylate from water... To make matters worse, nonylphenol polyethoxylate degrades into smaller metabolites, such as nonylphenol, which could be 70 times more toxic than their precursors.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:51:26 Sat, Aug 23, 2008: from KUOW Radio Oyster Larvae Dying Off at Alarming Rates The oyster industry in the Pacific Northwest could be facing serious trouble. In recent years, hatcheries have seen oyster larvae die off at unusually high rates. No one knows what's killing the young oysters, but scientists have two theories....
ONE THEORY IS THAT THE BACTERIA THRIVE IN THE SO-CALLED DEAD ZONE. THAT'S AN AREA OF LOW OXYGEN WATER THAT HAS RECENTLY APPEARED OFF THE OREGON COAST....
DAVIS SUSPECTS THE WATER IS MORE ACIDIC THAN NORMAL, BUT IT'S HARD TO SAY, SINCE SCIENTISTS HAVEN'T KEPT RECORDS OF PH LEVELS IN THE SOUND.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-04 17:36:56 Sat, Aug 23, 2008: from WiredPRnews Where no cruise ship will ever go: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch In the North Pacific Ocean, in a remote area known as the North Pacific Gyre, are two giant floating "islands," each the size of Texas.
They are not made of organic materials. They are made of plastic.
The "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "Trash Vortex" is at least 20 years of accumulated junk cast off by humans, 90 percent of it plastics. Only 20 percent comes from ships and oil platforms at sea; 80 percent comes from land. Ocean currents carry debris from the east coast of Asia to the center of the gyre in a year or less, and debris from the west coast of North America in about five years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:56:10 Fri, Aug 22, 2008: from Cape Cod Times Man-made chemicals tied to sick lobsters A Woods Hole scientist believes he may have found a key culprit behind a mysterious disease linked to a dramatic drop in lobster populations from Buzzards Bay to Long Island.
In research conducted this summer, Hans Laufer found that common man-made chemicals used in plastics, detergents and cosmetics had infiltrated the blood and tissue of lobsters, making them more vulnerable to a particularly virulent strain of shell disease."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 21:44:21 Fri, Aug 22, 2008: from New Scientist Penguins dumping arsenic in Antarctica "Penguin guano isn't usually considered an environmental hazard. Yet, according to new research, it is the main source of arsenic accumulation in Antarctic soil.
Zhouqing Xie of the Institute of Polar Environment at the University of Science and Technology of China and colleagues looked at how much arsenic was found in the droppings of three bird species and two seal species that live on Ardley Island, off the Antarctic peninsular.
The droppings of the gentoo penguin contained far more than those of the other species - nearly twice as much as the droppings of the southern giant petrel and up to three times more than the local seals."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-22 15:58:27 Fri, Aug 22, 2008: from BBC World heading towards cooler 2008 "Data from the UK Met Office shows that temperatures in the first half of the year have been more than 0.1 Celsius cooler than any year since 2000.
The principal reason is La Nina, part of the natural cycle that also includes El Nino, which cools the globe."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:12:01 Fri, Aug 22, 2008: from The Economist (UK) Everyone knows industry needs oil. Now people are worrying about water, too Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, estimates that global water consumption is doubling every 20 years, which it calls an "unsustainable" rate of growth. Water, unlike oil, has no substitute. Climate change is altering the patterns of freshwater availability in complex ways that can lead to more frequent and severe droughts.
Untrammelled industrialisation, particularly in poor countries, is contaminating rivers and aquifers. America's generous subsidies for biofuel have increased the harvest of water-intensive crops that are now used for energy as well as food. And heavy subsidies for water in most parts of the world mean it is often grossly underpriced -- and hence squandered.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-22 15:21:23 Fri, Aug 22, 2008: from Virginia Tech, via ScienceDaily Biodiesel Byproduct Converted Into Omega-3 Fatty Acids The typical American diet often lacks omega-3 fatty acids despite clinical research that shows their potential human health benefits. Zhiyou Wen, assistant professor of biological systems engineering in Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, found a way to grow these compounds using a byproduct of the emerging biodiesel industry.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:16:21 Fri, Aug 22, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Whaling under fire as Norway catches only half of its quota Norway will not catch enough whales to meet its quota this year, in what environmentalists are claiming is proof that the nation should abandon the activity completely.
Since the whaling season started on April 1, fishermen have caught around half the number of animals allowed by the authorities – 533 common minke whales out of a quota of 1,052.... Norway hunts only one type of whale, the common minke whale, which is considered as "threatened with extinction" according to Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which bans its international trade.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:11:37 Fri, Aug 22, 2008: from The Capital, Annapolis, MD Fish kill hits Magothy Thousands of dead fish and crabs floated to the surface of the Magothy River this week, suffocated by low oxygen levels in the water..... To Paul Spadaro of Severna Park, president of the Magothy River Association, the fish kill is yet another sign that we need to do more to clean up area waterways.
Rapid development, overuse of fertilizers and leaky septic systems all take their toll on the water, and in turn, the aquatic life.
"What the poor fish have to deal with is our doing," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:25:13 Thu, Aug 21, 2008: from Penn State via ScienceDaily Future Impact Of Global Warming Is Worse When Grazing Animals Are Considered, Scientists Suggest "The impact of global warming in the Arctic may differ from the predictions of computer models of the region, according to a pair of Penn State biologists. The team -- which includes Eric Post, a Penn State associate professor of biology, and Christian Pederson, a Penn State graduate student -- has shown that grazing animals will play a key role in reducing the anticipated expansion of shrub growth in the region, thus limiting their predicted and beneficial carbon-absorbing effect."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:23:32 Thu, Aug 21, 2008: from American Chemical Society, via EurekAlert A new biopesticide for the organic food boom With the boom in consumption of organic foods creating a pressing need for natural insecticides and herbicides that can be used on crops certified as "organic," biopesticide pioneer Pam G. Marrone, Ph.D., is reporting development of a new "green" pesticide obtained from an extract of the giant knotweed.... "The product is safe to humans, animals, and the environment," says Marrone... The new biopesticide has active compounds that alert plant defenses to combat a range of diseases, including powdery mildew, gray mold and bacterial blight that affect fruits, vegetables, and ornamentals.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:38:14 Thu, Aug 21, 2008: from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Climate change could be impetus for wars, other conflicts, expert says In a survey of recent research published earlier this summer in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Scheffran concluded that "the impact of climate change on human and global security could extend far beyond the limited scope the world has seen thus far."
Scheffran’s review included a critical analysis of four trends identified in a report by the German Advisory Council on Global Change as among those most possibly destabilizing populations and governments: degradation of freshwater resources, food insecurity, natural disasters and environmental migration.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:15:27 Wed, Aug 20, 2008: from Edmonton Journal Fish with double jaw sparks eco interest "CALGARY - A northern First Nations band which displayed a deformed, two-jawed fish at a weekend water conference says the grotesque specimen has spurred efforts to collect evidence to show that Alberta's oilsands are poisoning both wildlife and people.
George Poitras, a spokesman for the Mikisew Cree, said the band is determining what to do with the large goldeye, which was found last week by children playing in the waters of Lake Athabasca, downstream from the oilsands."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-20 18:56:57 Wed, Aug 20, 2008: from Ohio State University, via EurekAlert Satellite Images Show Continued Breakup Of Two Of Greenland's Largest Glaciers, Predict Disintegration In Near Future Researchers monitoring daily satellite images here of Greenland's glaciers have discovered break-ups at two of the largest glaciers in the last month.
They expect that part of the Northern hemisphere's longest floating glacier will continue to disintegrate within the next year.... What worries Jason Box [and other colleagues] even more about the latest images is what appears to be a massive crack further back from the margin of the Petermann Glacier.
That crack may signal an imminent and much larger breakup.
"If the Petermann glacier breaks up back to the upstream rift, the loss would be as much as 60 square miles (160 square kilometers)," Box said, representing a loss of one-third of the massive ice field.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-20 15:33:37 Wed, Aug 20, 2008: from International Waste Water Institute, via ScienceDaily 52-city Report Examines Use Of Wastewater In Urban Agriculture As developing countries confront the first global food crisis since the 1970s as well as unprecedented water scarcity, a new 53-city survey conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) indicates that most of those studied (80 percent) are using untreated or partially treated wastewater for agriculture. In over 70 percent of the cities studied, more than half of urban agricultural land is irrigated with wastewater that is either raw or diluted in streams.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-20 15:25:03 Wed, Aug 20, 2008: from The Missoulian (Montana) Glacier Park: Disappearing namesake may make pristine wilderness symbol of climate change "The national parks in general, and Glacier Park in particular, have become the poster child for climate change, and that means they really are stepping up as leaders in both research and education." ... Which explains Kloeck's daily talks, seven times a day, up there on Logan Pass.
"It's called 'Goodbye to Glaciers,'" said Sherry Forbes, the park's chief of interpretation and education. "And it's part of a much broader effort."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-20 15:11:30 Wed, Aug 20, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Japan to launch carbon footprint labelling scheme Japan is to carry carbon footprint labels on food packaging and other products in an ambitious scheme to persuade companies and consumers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
The labels, to appear on dozens of items including food and drink, detergents and electrical appliances from next spring, will go further than similar labels already in use elsewhere.
They will provide detailed breakdowns of each product's carbon footprint under a government-approved calculation and labeling system now being discussed by the trade ministry and around 30 firms.
The labels will show how much carbon dioxide is emitted during the manufacture, distribution and disposal of each product, the ministry said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-20 11:21:03 Wed, Aug 20, 2008: from Divemaster (UK) Shark numbers worry over fin export The WWF says 230 tonnes of shark fin have been exported from Australia in the past 13 months....
Conservationists say they have major concerns about Australia's contribution to the shark fin industry.
WWF's Dr Gilly Llewellyn says the appetite for shark fin overseas which Australia appears to be feeding, is insatiable, and in the past 13 months 230 tonnes of shark fin have been exported from our shores, mainly to Asian markets.
"Using a really conservative estimate using the largest possible size of shark, using a low fin to weight ratio, that's still 10,000 sharks that would have needed to be killed for that amount of fin," she says.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-20 11:11:03 Wed, Aug 20, 2008: from Ohio State University, via EurekAlert A better way to make hydrogen from biofuels Researchers here have found a way to convert ethanol and other biofuels into hydrogen very efficiently.
A new catalyst makes hydrogen from ethanol with 90 percent yield, at a workable temperature, and using inexpensive ingredients.
Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, said that the new catalyst is much less expensive than others being developed around the world, because it does not contain precious metals, such as platinum or rhodium. "Rhodium is used most often for this kind of catalyst, and it costs around $9,000 an ounce," Ozkan said. "Our catalyst costs around $9 a kilogram."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:30:46 Wed, Aug 20, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor New sea change forecasts present a slimy picture Earth's oceans are on the brink of massive change. You see it in such details as the hordes of Pacific mollusks that researchers have identified as ready to invade the North Atlantic as a thawing Arctic Ocean opens the way. You also see it in broad trends: A new overview warns that such relentless human impacts as overfishing or agricultural pollution -- as well as global warming -- threaten mass extinctions of marine life.
Jeremy Jackson at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who made that overview, notes that this is "not a happy picture."
He says that "the only way to keep one's sanity and try to achieve real success is to carve out sectors of the problem that can be addressed in effective terms and get on with it as quickly as possible."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:46:07 Tue, Aug 19, 2008: from American Chemical Society, via ScienceDaily Green catalysts provide promise for cleaning toxins and pollutants Tetra-Amido Macrocyclic Ligands (TAMLs) are environmentally friendly catalysts with a host of applications for reducing and cleaning up pollutants, and a prime example of "green chemistry".... The oxidation catalysts are the first highly effective mimics of peroxidase enzymes. When partnered with hydrogen peroxide, they are able to convert harmful pollutants into less toxic substances.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-19 15:42:56 Tue, Aug 19, 2008: from Indiana University, via EurekAlert Chronic lead poisoning from urban soils While acute lead poisoning from toys and direct ingestion of interior paint has received more publicity, these cases account for only a portion of children with lead poisoning. Many health officials are increasingly concerned with chronic lead poisoning, which occurs at lower levels of lead in the blood and are harder to diagnose. Babies and young children may develop chronic lead poisoning when playing in dirt yards or playgrounds or in areas with blowing dry soil tainted with the lead, which is ubiquitous in older urban areas.... As their neurons develop, the nervous system tries to use lead in place of calcium and the child's neural systems fail to form correctly. This impairs neural function leading to irreversibly decreased IQ and increased attention deficient issues.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:49:41 Tue, Aug 19, 2008: from Radio Australia Australian expert says sea levels to rise four metres "An Australian climate change expert says the world's sea levels could rise by up to four meters this century.
The head of the climate change unit at the Australian National University and science adviser to the federal Government, Professor Will Steffen, says he believes the scientific community is underestimating the speed at which the climate is changing.
Rising sea levels from global warming are predicted to make some Pacific islands unlivable within the next decade, with Tuvalu expected to be underwater by 2050."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:34:30 Tue, Aug 19, 2008: from Science News Carcinogens from car exhaust can linger "The daily exposure to free radicals from car exhaust, smokestacks and even your neighbors' barbecue could be as harmful as smoking, according to a new study. Many combustion processes, such as those in a car, create tiny particles that may act as brewing pots and carriers for free radicals -- chemicals believed to cause lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-19 10:35:20 Tue, Aug 19, 2008: from Washington Post Anti-Regulation Aide to Cheney Is Up for Energy Post "A senior aide to Vice President Cheney is the leading contender to become a top official at the Energy Department, according to several current and former administration officials, a promotion that would put one of the administration's most ardent opponents of environmental regulation in charge of forming department policies on climate change."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:06:57 Tue, Aug 19, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Lawsuit seeks EPA pesticide data "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to disclose records about a new class of pesticides that could be playing a role in the disappearance of millions of honeybees in the United States, a lawsuit filed Monday charges. The Natural Resources Defense Council wants to see the studies that the EPA required when it approved a pesticide made by Bayer CropScience five years ago.
The environmental group filed the suit as part of an effort to find out how diligently the EPA is protecting honeybees from dangerous pesticides..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:14:41 Tue, Aug 19, 2008: from National Geographic Our Good Earth "...This year food shortages, caused in part by the diminishing quantity and quality of the world's soil ... have led to riots in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. By 2030, when today's toddlers have toddlers of their own, 8.3 billion people will walk the Earth; to feed them, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates, farmers will have to grow almost 30 percent more grain than they do now. Connoisseurs of human fecklessness will appreciate that even as humankind is ratchetting up its demands on soil, we are destroying it faster than ever before. "Taking the long view, we are running out of dirt," says David R. Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington in Seattle."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:09:25 Mon, Aug 18, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Spanish fear day when tap will run dry "BARCELONA, Spain -- Water woes spiraled to such depths this year that the top regional environment minister here -- a confirmed agnostic -- confessed to climbing the stony shrine of the Virgin of Montserrat for a bit of solace. Winter rains refused to fall, shriveling reserves to severe drought levels and prompting a water shipment from France. Catalonia's go-to guy for the environment, Francesc Baltasar, told local radio that fear made for a quick, if dubious, epiphany at the feet of the Virgin Mary."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-31 19:46:07 Mon, Aug 18, 2008: from London Independent Jellyfish invasion: Britain to fight them on the beaches "The growing threat from swarms of jellyfish around Britain's coast is to be investigated for the first time by British and Irish scientists. Using the latest technology, researchers are planning to tag jellyfish to explore their life cycles and movement in a project known as Ecojel."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:41:13 Mon, Aug 18, 2008: from Reuters India "Toxic" Indian festivals poison waterways "MUMBAI (Reuters) - Toxic chemicals from thousands of idols of Hindu gods immersed in rivers and lakes across India are causing pollution which is killing fish and contaminating food crops, experts and environmentalists said on Monday... Elaborately painted and decorated idols are worshipped before they are taken during mass processions to rivers, lakes and the sea, where they are immersed in accordance with Hindu faith.
Environmentalists say the idols are often made from non-biodegradable materials such as plastic, cement and plaster of Paris and painted with toxic dyes."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:25:31 Sun, Aug 17, 2008: from University of California - Berkeley via ScienceDaily Dying Frogs Sign Of A Biodiversity Crisis "Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley... researchers argue that substantial die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-17 11:22:51 Sun, Aug 17, 2008: from Indianapolis Star Green burials cost less and are earth-friendly "...Though burials come in many shades, the greenest involve cemeteries that look less like golf courses and more like nature preserves, caskets made of cardboard and bodies that aren't juiced up with embalming fluids -- all at a fraction of the cost of a traditional burial... Not confined to the tree huggers of the Pacific Northwest, green cemeteries have opened in places such as the South Carolina foothills and northeastern Ohio."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-17 10:55:32 Sun, Aug 17, 2008: from London Observer Democrats waver over offshore drilling ban "Under fire from Republicans, top Democratic politicians in the United States are considering lifting a ban on new offshore oil drilling... Democrats have hitherto said new drilling would do little to relieve consumer pain at the pump, accusing Republicans of misleading the public and being a pawn of big oil companies. Yet signs are emerging that they are easing their opposition to the comprehensive ban."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-17 10:48:05 Sun, Aug 17, 2008: from South Florida Sun Sentinel Health questions linger after state study on Fort Lauderdale trash incinerator "FORT LAUDERDALE - A state study that found few links between toxic ashes from the Wingate trash incinerator and health problems in nearby neighborhoods downplayed important data, according to several health experts who worked on the survey.
One expert, University of Alabama at Birmingham epidemiologist Jeffrey Roseman, helped design the study and said state officials dismissed high rates of reported anemia, asthma and cancers in the northwestern Fort Lauderdale community around Wingate."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-17 10:44:38 Sun, Aug 17, 2008: from Kansas City Star In the face of environmental disaster, more Chinese are going green "While Olympic visitors from around the world get a firsthand glimpse this month at China's pollution problems, a homegrown movement is racing to ward off what many here predict could be epic environmental meltdown.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese are taking the first steps to turn the tide, fueled by growing unhappiness with the plunging quality of life caused by out-of-control environmental degradation."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:26:09 Sat, Aug 16, 2008: from Reuters Acid ocean imperils more than shells SYDNEY -- Rising ocean acidity could reduce fertilization of marine invertebrates and might eventually wipe out colonies of sea urchins, lobsters, mussels and oysters, according to a study.
Scientists knew that ocean acidification was eating away at the shells of marine animals, but the new study has found that rising acidity hindered marine sperm from swimming to and fertilizing eggs in the ocean.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-17 10:48:33 Sat, Aug 16, 2008: from London Independent Fattest children to be taken away from their parents "Dangerously overweight children will have to be taken from their parents and put into care because of Britain's worsening "obesity epidemic", council leaders have warned.
One million children will be clinically obese within four years on current trends, storing up future problems from heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure and diabetes.
The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents 400 councils in England and Wales, predicted social services teams would have to take drastic action to improve the health of seriously overweight children."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-16 11:30:13 Sat, Aug 16, 2008: from Austin American-Statesman Armstrong tops list of city's largest water users "Every minute, about five gallons of water passed through the sinks, sprinklers, fountain and pool at Lance Armstrong's house in June, making the retired professional cyclist Austin's biggest water-using individual that month.
A total of 222,900 gallons of water was used at Armstrong's home, according to the most recent city records available. That's about what 26 average Austin households use in a month."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-16 11:01:39 Sat, Aug 16, 2008: from Associated Press Worrying invasive snail found in Lake Michigan "CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists worry that a rapidly reproducing, tiny invasive snail recently found in Lake Michigan could hurt the lake's ecosystem. The New Zealand mud snail joins a long and growing list of nonnative species moving into the Great Lakes, threatening to disrupt the food chain and change the local environment."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-16 07:43:49 Sat, Aug 16, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) As the ice melts, control ebbs in the Arctic The Northwest Passage may be ice-free this summer, for only the second time in recorded history. The Canadian Arctic is being fundamentally transformed.
As the ice diminishes, new actors and interests will arrive. Who is coming? What will they do? What does it mean for Canada? Many people expect international shippers to take advantage of the shorter distances between Europe and Asia to carry goods through an increasingly ice-free Passage. Most shipping experts, however, think that will happen only in the medium term. Before the larger companies commit themselves to Arctic voyages, they will need longer, and much more certain, times of open water.
The increased use of the Arctic for other economic activities is much more likely. In particular, the huge oil and gas resources in and around the Northwest Passage may be best brought to market by ship rather than by pipeline.... Our Coast Guard's icebreaking fleet is small and aging; our search-and-rescue capability is based in the south; our navy has a very limited ability to go north; we require industry to provide for their own rescue capability; and we maintain almost no oil-spill response equipment in the North.
In short, we are not prepared for any shipping, let alone for large tanker traffic.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:00:31 Fri, Aug 15, 2008: from The Nation (Nairobi) via AllAfrica Africa: Unable to Put Beef And Fish On the Table, Continent Courts Animal-Spread Diseases Last year's outbreaks of the deadly Marburg and Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever viruses in southwestern Uganda and in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo's province of Kasai Occidental and the sporadic outbreaks of Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) across the continent once again bring to light the threat zoonotic diseases pose to sub-Saharan Africa in particular and the world generally.... Along with population increase comes the need for more arable and grazing land and the exploration of new forest, swamp and cave habitats. This raises the likelihood of exposure to 'new' infectious agents in those environments, and could result in the emergence of new disease pathogens. As population grows there is also an increase in the demand for food. In sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, people are more and more turning to wild animals for food. This high demand for bush meat in the countries of the Congo Basin is helping to fuel the increase in outbreaks of such illnesses as Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:35:43 Fri, Aug 15, 2008: from NaturalNews Fragrances in Common Household Products Contain Many Toxins According to a study that was posted on the Environmental Impact Assessment Review and reported by CBS, there are many different kinds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found in laundry detergents, air fresheners (in solid, spray and oil form), dryer sheets, and fabric softener. VOCs are small substances that evaporate into the air.... She was able to identify some of the VOCs, discovering that 10 of those that she found were considered toxic under the U.S. federal law. Furthermore, three out of ten of the VOCs were considered air pollutants: acetaldehyde, chloromethane, and 1,4 dioxane.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:12:23 Fri, Aug 15, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk National Trust cuts plastic bags by 95 per cent with 5p charge Its clampdown on the "plastic poison", blamed for harming wildlife and blighting the environment, follows similar successes at High Street stores and supermarkets across the country.... Thousands of customers have opted to either recycle old bags or invest in hessian and canvas, and the Government has warned of a mandatory charge for those retailers who do not get onboard the anti-waste bandwagon.
The National Trust as part of a wider campaign to become more environmentally-friendly.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-15 14:56:36 Fri, Aug 15, 2008: from Reuters High gas prices cut driving for 8th month: government Americans scaled back their driving during June by almost 5 percent in response to soaring fuel costs, the government said on Wednesday -- a day after announcing the biggest six-month drop in U.S. petroleum demand in 26 years...."Changes in consumer behavior have essentially erased five years of growth in gasoline demand," the American Petroleum Institute said on Wednesday in a separate report that showed gasoline use during the first seven months of 2008 fell by 2.1 percent to the lowest level for the period in five years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:15:35 Fri, Aug 15, 2008: from Virginia Institute of Marine Science, via ScienceDaily Study Shows Continued Spread Of 'Dead Zones'; Lack Of Oxygen Now A Key Stressor On Marine Ecosystems A global study led by Professor Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, shows that the number of "dead zones" -- areas of seafloor with too little oxygen for most marine life -- has increased by a third between 1995 and 2007.... The study, which appears in the August 15 issue of the journal Science, tallies 405 dead zones in coastal waters worldwide, affecting an area of 95,000 square miles, about the size of New Zealand. The largest dead zone in the U.S., at the mouth of the Mississippi, covers more than 8,500 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:14:00 Fri, Aug 15, 2008: from UC Irvine, via ScienceDaily Climate Change Caused Widespread Tree Death In California Mountain Range, Study Confirms Warmer temperatures and longer dry spells have killed thousands of trees and shrubs in a Southern California mountain range, pushing the plants' habitat an average of 213 feet up the mountain over the past 30 years, a UC Irvine study has determined. White fir and Jeffrey pine trees died at the lower altitudes of their growth range in the Santa Rosa Mountains, from 6,400 feet to as high as 7,200 feet in elevation, while California lilacs died between 4,000-4,800 feet. Almost all of the studied plants crept up the mountain a similar distance, countering the belief that slower-growing trees would move slower than faster-growing grasses and wildflowers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-14 16:48:25 Thu, Aug 14, 2008: from CSRwire First Ever National Initiative to Establish Sustainable Agriculture Standard (SCS-001) Enters Next Important Phase Sustainability is widely understood to encompass environmental, social, and economic parameters, dating back to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. For agricultural products, safety and quality parameters are also a key part of the sustainability discussion. SCS-001, the draft standard that will serve as the starting point for discussions, also addresses the impacts of product packaging, the responsibilities of the supply chain, and agricultural practices that can minimize greenhouse gases.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-15 15:20:03 Thu, Aug 14, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal (WI) State studies hunt of formerly endangered wolves Wisconsin officials are laying the groundwork for the first public hunting of wolves in more than 50 years.... Last winter's population estimate was 537 to 564 wolves, more than the recovery goal of 350, according to Adrian Wydeven of the DNR. The population was about the same during the winter of 2007, he said.
By comparison, wolves totaled less than 250 in 2000.... A wolf season would require approval from the Natural Resources Board, which sets policy for the DNR, and from the Legislature. But the measure would likely prompt a lawsuit from wolf advocates.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:44:30 Thu, Aug 14, 2008: from KOMO TV news (WA) Three pesticides singled out in report as threat to salmon "Overwhelming evidence" suggests the pesticides are interfering with the ability of salmon to swim, find food, reproduce and escape bigger fish trying to eat them, says the evaluation issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service.... Chloripyrifos. Also known by trade names that include Dursban and Lorsban, it is used on more than three dozen crops, including asparagus, alfalfa, cherries, broccoli, onions, pears and peaches, as well as for industrial uses and to control mosquitoes and fire ants.
Diazinon. Also known as Knox Out, Spectracide and other brand names, diazinon is used on about 50 crops, including almonds, apples, blueberries, carrots, grapes, spinach and strawberries.
Malathion is used on more than 100 crops, including avocados, cauliflower, corn, mangoes, rice, sweet potatoes and watermelon. For homes, it is registered for use on lawns, flowering plants, vegetable gardens, fruit trees, shrubs and other trees.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-14 11:59:23 Thu, Aug 14, 2008: from Foster's Daily Democrat (NH) Victory gardens popular again In the days of my childhood, during World War II, Victory Gardens were the height of popularity and patriotism. Now Americans' thinking has come full circle, and I see and hear the term "victory garden" frequently.
Victory gardens, where Americans raised their own fruit and vegetables, often the first time for many, were commonplace during those war years. Some also planted flowers for cheer in an uncertain world of black-outs and food shortages and rationing.... Today, with gas and food, not necessarily rationed, but definitely at higher prices, more people have been thinking about raising and preserving their own food this summer. The term of 65 years ago came to someone's mind, so they're referred to these as Victory Gardens again, when people, who have never done so or rarely, begin planting gardens.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-14 09:55:20 Thu, Aug 14, 2008: from Telegraph-Journal (Canada) Lake Utopia's toxic algal bloom The blue-green algae, he said, is caused by increased nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, which come from a variety of sources. Fox said the increase could be an accumulation of many factors, including the flow from a canal that flows from the man-made headpond created by a power dam, automatic dishwater soap flowing into the water, the Cooke Aquaculture hatchery located on the lake, fertilizers people are using to grow grass on their lawns, leaky sewage systems and recreational boating.... Cleary advised that drinking the water could result in a "pretty nasty effect" of nausea and diarrhea and possibly death... The doctor explained that while humans probably wouldn't choose to swim in the scummy areas of the water or swallow it, animals don't know any better and should not be permitted to swim in the lake.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:21:47 Thu, Aug 14, 2008: from Sacramento News and Reviews The chemistry of beauty You know those 12 products women use daily? That adds up to some 168 chemical ingredients, and men's habits total about 85 ingredients. I deposit about 110 chemicals into my body every day.... [C]hronic illness and disease in the United States is on the rise, affecting almost one-half of the population, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As the use of synthetic chemicals post-World War II increased, so did infertility, birth defects in males, testicular cancer and learning disabilities. Breast cancer used to be relegated to post-menopausal women. Now young women in their 20s are afflicted.... This industry is the least regulated under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:07:14 Wed, Aug 13, 2008: from Guardian (UK) UK Honeybee deaths reaching crisis point Britain's honeybees have suffered catastrophic losses this year, according to a survey of the nation's beekeepers, contributing to a shortage of honey and putting at risk the pollination of fruits and vegetables.
The survey by the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA) revealed that nearly one in three of the UK's 240,000 honeybee hives did not survive this winter and spring.
The losses are higher than the one in five colonies reported dead earlier this year by the government after 10 percent of hives had been inspected.
The BBKA president, Tim Lovett, said he was very concerned about the findings: "Average winter bee losses due to poor weather and disease vary from between 5 percent and 10 percent, so a 30 percent loss is deeply worrying. This spells serious trouble for pollination services and honey producers."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:49:04 Wed, Aug 13, 2008: from Associated Press Venomous lionfish prowls fragile Caribbean waters "SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A maroon-striped marauder with venomous spikes is rapidly multiplying in the Caribbean's warm waters, swallowing native species, stinging divers and generally wreaking havoc on an ecologically delicate region. The red lionfish, a tropical native of the Indian and Pacific oceans that probably escaped from a Florida fish tank, is showing up everywhere -- from the coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola to Little Cayman's pristine Bloody Bay Wall, one of the region's prime destinations for divers. Wherever it appears, the adaptable predator corners fish and crustaceans up to half its size with its billowy fins and sucks them down in one violent gulp."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:50:01 Wed, Aug 13, 2008: from Scientific American Population Bomb Author's Fix For Next Extinction: Educate Women "It's an uncomfortable thought: Human activity causing the extinction of thousands of species, and the only way to slow or prevent that phenomenon is to have smaller families ... according to Stanford University scientists Paul Ehrlich and Robert Pringle... Ehrlich and Pringle call for educating women, which has slowed or stopped population growth in the developed countries of Europe. "Education and employment -- for women especially -- along with access to contraception and safe abortions are the most important components," they write."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-13 12:34:04 Wed, Aug 13, 2008: from Blue Ridge Times-News Files Show Governor Intervened With Court regarding DuPont Judgment When Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia filed a friend-of-the-court brief in June arguing that the State Supreme Court should review a $382 million judgment against the DuPont Company, he said he was not taking sides, but acting in the interest of due process. Documents from the governor's office, however, show that Mr. Manchin had consulted with the company before filing the brief, and DuPont officials say the governor even asked them to provide him with a draft brief.
The case involves thousands of residents in and around Spelter, W.Va., where DuPont operated a zinc-smelting plant. Last October, a jury in Harrison County ruled that DuPont deliberately endangered those residents by dumping toxic arsenic, cadmium and lead at the plant... The revelations of Mr. Manchin’s involvement in the DuPont case come against a backdrop of larger concerns raised recently about the independence of the state's legal system. In the last year, two Supreme Court justices have come under scrutiny for ties to company executives that had cases pending before the court.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:21:52 Wed, Aug 13, 2008: from IndiaInteracts Powerful Friends of Posco and Sterlite In today's world, where the real wealthy are the corporate tycoons, it is hardly surprising that they are using their wealth not just to win friends but also to buy loyalty.
The brazen manner in which the Posco and the Vedanta (Sterlite) have bought the friendship of Naveen Patnaik administration in Orissa and the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre is a testimony to the bourgeoning influence of the money power.... And what has the plant done to the people? Although the refinery is not yet in full operation, it is already damaging local life.
Filmmaker S.Josson spoke to the people of the area in March 2008. Sample one quote: Mukta a woman living in the vicinity of the refinery says: "The water has become bad. When we bathe the skin itches. When we drink we get sores in our mouth. Our hair is falling rapidly. The air quality has also become terrible. It is difficult to breathe. We get sores in our throat. The body itches at night. Our cattle are dying"... And this is how Naveen Patnaik and Manmohan Singh are bringing the experience of modern living for the tribal people of Orissa.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:31:00 Wed, Aug 13, 2008: from The Daily Mirror (UK) Tuna company John West blamed for death of sharks in nets Britain's best-selling brand of tinned tuna is responsible for killing thousands of rare sharks and turtles every year, a new report claims.... Tuna stocks have dwindled so much due to over-fishing in recent years that the industry is already on the brink of collapse.
A John West spokesman said last night: "We take our responsibility to the marine environment extremely seriously. Our selection procedure in appointing suppliers is very rigorous."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:20:01 Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from Thaindian (Thailand) Wild elephant seals to track changes in temperature of Antarctic seas A team of scientists has glued electronic sensors to the heads of 58 wild elephant seals to track changes in the temperature of the Antarctic seas.
Mounting evidence that the Southern Ocean is warming more rapidly than expected has fuelled interest in temperature dynamics and sea-ice formation rates near the South Pole.
But thick sea ice cover makes it virtually impossible to collect data by conventional methods such as buoyant floats and research ships.
Now [a research team] from Paris got round the problem by gluing electronic sensors to the heads of 58 wild elephant seals.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-12 15:14:16 Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from National Center for Atmospheric Research, via EurekAlert Antarctic Climate: Short-Term Spikes, Long-Term Warming Linked to Tropical Pacific Dramatic year-to-year temperature swings and a century-long warming trend across West Antarctica are linked to conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean, according to a new analysis of ice cores conducted by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Washington (UW). The findings show the connection of the world's coldest continent to global warming, as well as to periodic events such as El Niño.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-12 13:32:23 Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from RepublicanAmerican via Bloomberg News World Bank, promising to go green, lends to massive coal-fired power plant "Once the new Tata Ultra Mega power plant in western India is fired up in 2012 and fully operational, it will become one of the world's 50 largest greenhouse-gas emitters. And the World Bank is helping make it possible.
A year after World Bank President Robert Zoellick pledged to "significantly step up our assistance" in fighting climate change, the development institution is increasing its financing of fossil-fuel projects around the globe."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:06:37 Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from Washington Post Endangered Species Act Changes Give Agencies More Say "The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:16:00 Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Humpback whales make a comeback Humpback whales are making a comeback more than 40 years after a ban on commercial hunting was brought in to save them from extinction.
Marine biologists estimate that the number of humpbacks worldwide may have grown to more than 40,000 adults and about 15,000 juveniles, following the ban that began in the 1960s. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has revised its classification of the whales as "vulnerable" to "of least concern" on its latest annual list of endangered animals.
The southern right whale population has also begun to recover -- the number of these is believed to have doubled from 7,500 in 1997.
Randall Reeves of the IUCN said: "This is a great conservation success and shows what needs to be done to ensure these ocean giants survive."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:24:49 Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from PNAS, via ScienceDaily New Report Details Historic Mass Extinction Of Amphibians; Humans Worsen Spread Of Deadly Emerging Infectious Disease Amphibians, reigning survivors of past mass extinctions, are sending a clear, unequivocal signal that something is wrong, as their extinction rates rise to unprecedented levels, according to a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Humans are exacerbating two key natural threats -- climate change and a deadly disease that is jumping from one species to another.... "An ancient organism, which has survived past extinctions, is telling us that something is wrong right now" Vredenburg said. "We -- humans -- may be doing fine right now, but they are doing poorly. The question, really, is whether we'll listen before it's too late."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-12 12:56:51 Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, via EurekAlert "Anti-noise" silences wind turbines IWU researchers have developed an active damping system for wind turbines.... "These systems react autonomously to any change in frequency and damp the noise -- regardless of how fast the wind generator is turning," says Illgen. The key components of this system are piezo actuators. These devices convert electric current into mechanical motion and generate "negative vibrations," or a kind of anti-noise that precisely counteracts the vibrations of the wind turbine and cancels them out.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:34:10 Tue, Aug 12, 2008: from PNAS, via ScienceDaily Humans Implicated In Prehistoric Animal Extinctions With New Evidence The new study provides the first evidence that Tasmania's giant kangaroos and marsupial 'rhinos' and 'leopards' were still roaming the island when humans first arrived [43,000 years ago]. The findings suggest that the mass extinction of Tasmania's large prehistoric animals was the result of human hunting, and not climate change as previously believed.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:40:51 Mon, Aug 11, 2008: from Arkansas Democrat-Gazette It's time to declare mussel extinct, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says The turgid-blossom pearly mussel -- a shiny yellow-green mollusk less than 1. 6 inches in length -- has been on the endangered species list since 1976....
"One of the things that we say as biologists is that these are kind of like canaries in a coal mine," Christian said. "They are an indicator that environmental conditions aren't good, and that may be an indicator of water quality."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:14:45 Mon, Aug 11, 2008: from Inter Press Service News Agency West Africa: Overfishing Linked to Food Crisis, Migration According to a recent report by the nongovernmental organisation ActionAid, West African seas are being devastated by legal and illegal overfishing, while local fishing industries decline. Moreover, the economic partnership agreements in their currently proposed form only exacerbate this problem.
The overfishing of West African coastal waters, often by large European trawlers and sometimes by "fishing pirates" who trawl without any authorisation, has largely depleted local fish stocks.
This has a direct impact on the rising rate of unemployment and on the ever-increasing flow of West Africans who embark on perilous journeys to Europe, in search of a better life.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:28:24 Mon, Aug 11, 2008: from AP, via the Munster Times (Indiana) Researchers study mercury in the Great Salt Lake [F]or reasons scientists cannot explain, [the Great Salt Lake] is heavily laden with toxic mercury.... Three years ago, in an alarming finding, U.S. Geological Survey tests showed the lake had some of the highest mercury readings ever recorded in a body of water in the United States.... Each year, more than 9 million birds stop by, many on their annual treks between Canada or South America and parts between, making the Great Salt Lake "sort of the Delta airplane hub of the West in terms of migration," Aldrich said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:23:02 Mon, Aug 11, 2008: from Society of Chemical Industry Organic Food Has No More Nutritional Value Than Food Grown With Pesticides, Study Shows New research in the latest issue of the Society of Chemical Industry's (SCI) Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture shows there is no evidence to support the argument that organic food is better than food grown with the use of pesticides and chemicals. Many people pay more than a third more for organic food in the belief that it has more nutritional content than food grown with pesticides and chemicals.... "[T]he study does not support the belief that organically grown foodstuffs generally contain more major and trace elements than conventionally grown foodstuffs."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:29:22 Mon, Aug 11, 2008: from Media Newswire Landmark Ruling Requires Aggressive Action to Protect Puget Sound from Stormwater In a landmark decision, the Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board today issued a ruling requiring that cities and counties around Puget Sound take more aggressive steps to reduce stormwater runoff. The board struck down provisions in two regionwide permits as inadequate, and concluded that greater use of "low impact development" techniques is required to meet the governing legal standards. The permits are issued by the state Department of Ecology, which must now reissue them.
"This is a great day for Puget Sound," said Kathy Fletcher, Executive Director of People for Puget Sound. "This ruling gets us one big step closer to the Puget Sound Partnership's goal of recovering Puget Sound by 2020."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:11:52 Mon, Aug 11, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Recyclers are cashing in on the fortune in your bin ... Many are locked into 20 to 30-year contracts with recycling companies and are unable to cash in on the higher cost of plastic and copper.
As the cost of commodities rises it increasingly makes sense for manufacturers to retrieve materials from rubbish instead of buying them new. Town hall leaders have told The Times that the sector is missing out on millions of pounds that would come from trading commodities themselves or negotiating better contracts. They said that such profits could go to improving local services and even cutting bills... Westminster council, which has a seven-year contract to share profits as prices rise, believes that town halls are sitting on a fortune. "Where there's muck there's brass," Mark Banks, Westminster's waste strategy manager, said. Any profit made will be ploughed back into services or to lower council tax rises, he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-10 18:22:36 Sun, Aug 10, 2008: from CanWest News Service Arctic meltdown could set new record The Arctic Ocean ice cover, which appeared earlier this summer to be headed for a moderate recovery after last year's record-setting retreat, has begun disintegrating so rapidly in recent weeks that experts now say the ice loss by mid-September could exceed even 2007's history-making meltdown.
The Canadian Ice Service is reporting an "unprecedented" opening of waters in the Beaufort Sea north of the Yukon-Alaska border... "We've never seen any kind of opening like this in history," CIS senior ice forecaster Luc Desjardins said of the Beaufort's exceptional loss of ice this summer. "It is not only record-setting, it's unprecedented. It doesn't resemble anything that we've observed before."... Desjardins says there's also a "very good likelihood" that the best-known route of the Northwest Passage -- from north of Baffin Island to the Beaufort Sea south of Victoria Island -- will soon become fully navigable for the third consecutive summer, a year after the fabled shipping conduit drew global attention by opening more completely than ever.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-10 11:02:44 Sun, Aug 10, 2008: from Associated Press 7 in 10 try reduce carbon footprint "High energy prices are double-teaming with environmental concerns to prompt broad conservation efforts, with seven in 10 Americans saying they're trying to reduce their "carbon footprint," chiefly by driving less, using less electricity and recycling."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-10 11:06:30 Sun, Aug 10, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Wicks: All is lost on global warming without clean coal A dramatic warning that "all is lost on global warming" unless the world finds a new clean coal technology in the next few years has been made by the UK energy minister, Malcolm Wicks.
He insists in a Guardian interview that "the stakes are that high", as he seeks to justify pressing ahead with a new generation of coal-fired power stations starting at Kingsnorth in Kent, currently the site of a major protest.... He also argued India and China were due to increase coal-fired electricity "ginormously" over the next 20 years, so it was vital to develop the technology that would, in the medium term, clean their electricity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:48:19 Sun, Aug 10, 2008: from The West Australian West Australia may get drier than expected Computer models have already forecast that global warming will make dry areas even drier, while increasing severe rainfall and flooding in already wet areas such as Australia’s tropical far north.
But the new research, based on satellite rainfall data over the past 21 years, suggest that this polarising trend is even more pronounced than models had foreseen. That is ominous news for southern WA, which has already seen rainfall declines of 20 per cent since the 1980s.
In contrast, wet tropical areas are likely to suffer an increase in heavy rainfall, raising the prospect of flooding, according to Richard Allan, of Reading University, in Britain, who led the study.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:11:09 Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from Mail and Guardian Online (South Africa) Food prices: The people say 'enough!' Elsewhere in Dakar (Senegal) -- and in nearly a dozen other African countries -- protesters have not been quite as restrained. Angered by sharply rising prices of basic foodstuffs, transport, electricity and other essentials, they have poured into the streets to express their frustrations and demand that their governments act quickly to halt the spiralling cost of living. Street barricades, burning tyres, arson and sometimes deadly confrontations with riot police have been common.... In other countries too, demonstrators often saw the lack of political change as one reason for the widening economic gap between those with access to power and the majority of the poor..... The extent of the protests suggests that ordinary citizens are starting to sense their potential political power and are no longer willing to remain silent. Since 2007, there has been an "awakening of the people's conscience" in Guinea, says Rabiatou Serah Diallo, secretary general of the National Confederation of Workers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:42:41 Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from Farmers Weekly (UK) Save Our Sprays: EU Pesticide Ban -- Your Questions Answered Proposed EU pesticide legislation could remove key products from the market. Mike Abram explains the background, what the current position is, and what happens next.... "Among the many casualties would be virtually all insecticides, strobilurin fungicides, chlorothalonil, mesosulfuron-methyl (as in Atlantis), and metazachlor. It is probably easier to write a list of what would be left."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:17:46 Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from New York Times As Bat Population Falls, the Questions Multiply No one knows the extent of the syndrome yet. "We've received an increasing number of calls from people in northwestern Connecticut saying bats have not returned to their summer homes," Ms. Dickson said.... A nursing little brown bat can consume about 1,200 insects a night, more than half its body weight.... Bats play a critical role in the welfare of the conservancy's exotic waterfowl species by reducing the number of insects carrying potentially harmful viruses.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-09 12:48:30 Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from The Daily Green Junk Mail Produces as Much CO2 as 7 States Combined "A report by the group ForestEthics estimates that destroying forests to make paper for junk mail releases as much greenhouse gas pollution as 9 million cars.
Another way to look at it: Junk mail produces as much pollution as seven U.S. states combined, or as much as heating 13 million homes each winter.
While the estimates may or may not be accurate, the point is indisputable: Junk mail is a waste."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:59:49 Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from Baltimore Sun (US) Algal Bloom: Crabs suffocating in Middle River John Neukam has been catching crabs in pots near the Middle River for decades. But this year, the crabs have been dying in the water, suffocated by a bright green algae bloom that is choking off oxygen and worrying watermen and recreational boaters.
"You crab all week, you get a bushel and a half in your live box, and they die," said Neukam, after checking his pots yesterday morning. "I've been here all my life -- 64 years -- and we've only had this one other time, when fertilizer from a farm seeped into the cove."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:33:44 Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail No matter what flame retardant is used, it shows up in the environment "Another chapter has been added to the troubled history of flame retardants. The latest compounds used to reduce the risk of fire have been found in household dust for the first time.
First, there were polychlorinated biphenyls, which were banned in the 1970s when it became clear that they were highly toxic and were accumulating in people and wildlife.
PCBs were replaced by PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), which were used in a wide array of consumer products, including televisions and baby clothing. But then those also showed up in wildlife, including whales in the Arctic."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-09 12:32:06 Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from The Australian Key degrees of difference "HAS global warming stopped? The question alone is enough to provoke scorn from the mainstream scientific community and from the Government, which says the earth has never been hotter. But tell that to a new army of sceptics who have mushroomed on internet blog sites and elsewhere in recent months to challenge some of the most basic assumptions and claims of climate change science."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 16:25:51 Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from Der Spiegel Globalization Is Destroying the World's Oceans "...About one-fourth of all known fish populations are already overfished to the brink of extinction, including once-abundant species cod and tuna. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), another 50 percent are considered completely exploited. No one can, or is even willing, to predict the consequences for the complex ecosystem, and yet it is clear that the oceans are gradually being ravaged."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:28:19 Sat, Aug 9, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Amazonian Chernobyl -- Ecuador's oil environment disaster "Once it was pristine rainforest. Now it has been described as an Amazonian Chernobyl. Millions of gallons of crude oil and toxic waste -- the legacy of an oil extraction programme -- has blighted 1,700 hectares of land and poisoned the rivers and streams in Sucumbios in the north-east corner of Ecuador... Indigenous Indian people blame the pollution on the US oil giant Chevron -- formerly Texaco -- and say it has caused a catalogue of health problems including severe birth defects, spontaneous miscarriages and cancers."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:50:21 Fri, Aug 8, 2008: from Daily Mail Greatest threat to Britain is a flu pandemic that could kill 750,000, warns Government report "The greatest threat facing Britain is a flu pandemic that could kill 750,000 people, a Government report will warn today. A national 'risk register' has identified an outbreak as the emergency that would have the greatest impact - though a terror attack is considered more likely."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:40:46 Fri, Aug 8, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Invasion of the New Zealand mud snails "They are only a few millimetres long, hard-shelled and humble. But the New Zealand mud snails have laid siege to four of the five Great Lakes and are threatening to invade rivers and streams, too. A Penn State research team says these foreign-intruder species that have long been a problem in the western United States could have the ability to change ecosystems in the East."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-08 15:34:53 Fri, Aug 8, 2008: from Reuters UK Military wants to lead U.S. into the green "The U.S. military has a history of fostering change, from racial integration to development of the Internet. Now, Pentagon officials say their green energy efforts will help America fight global warming. By size alone, the Defence Department can make waves. It accounts for 1.5 percent of U.S. energy consumption."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-08 15:32:31 Fri, Aug 8, 2008: from National Geographic Extreme Rains to Be Supercharged by Warming, Study Says "Global warming could make extreme rains stronger and more frequent than previously forecast, a new study suggests. Such a scenario could make floods fiercer, damage more crops, and worsen the spread of diseases such as malaria, scientists say."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:26:23 Fri, Aug 8, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer 'Alarming' elevated cancer risk in South Seattle linked to air pollution "Residents of a broad swath of South Seattle from Seward Park to West Seattle face elevated cancer risks because of air pollution, according to a soon-to-be released government study... The risks are significantly elevated in pockets of industrial pollution -- and skyrocket within about 200 yards of highways, says the long-awaited study by state and federal scientists."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-07 11:25:02 Thu, Aug 7, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Aphid, sentinel of climate change, appearing even earlier "Aphid populations are exploding because they are surviving and breeding through the winter. And for every 1ºC rise in mean temperature during January and February they are taking flight on average eight days earlier to feed on crops and gardens. .. And one of the UK's most damaging aphids - the peach-potato aphid (Myzus persicae) - has been found to be flying two weeks earlier than usual."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-07 11:20:23 Thu, Aug 7, 2008: from San Diego Union-Tribune Desalination plant receives go-ahead "private company's proposal to build the nation's largest drinking water desalination plant at Agua Hedionda Lagoon in Carlsbad cleared its final hurdles Wednesday before the California Coastal Commission... The $300 million plant envisioned by Poseidon Resources Inc. of Stamford, Conn., would produce 50 million gallons of drinking water each day, enough to supply 112,000 households."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-07 11:20:50 Thu, Aug 7, 2008: from McClatchy Newspapers Shrinking African lake imperils wildlife "...Once among the largest lakes in the world — at some 9,000 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey — Lake Chad has been decimated over the past four decades by rising temperatures, diminishing rainfall and a growing population that's using more water than ever before. Today, estimated at less than 2 percent of its original size, the lake's surface would barely cover Brooklyn and Manhattan."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:59:30 Thu, Aug 7, 2008: from The Register-Guard Agency: Chemicals a danger to salmon "Three insecticides in common use around Oregon homes and farms pose a serious threat to endangered salmon and have been found extensively in Oregon watersheds.
The insecticides chlorpyrifos, malathion and diazinon — as they have been commonly used — are likely to lead to the extinction of more than two dozen salmon or steelhead runs in California, Oregon and Washington, according to a draft biological opinion by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency that functions as a watchdog for ocean-going species."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-06 16:17:38 Wed, Aug 6, 2008: from Wildlife Conservation Society via ScienceDaily Massive Numbers Of Critically Endangered Western Lowland Gorillas Discovered In Republic Of Congo "The world's population of critically endangered western lowland gorillas recently received a huge boost when the Wildlife Conservation Society released a census showing massive numbers of these secretive great apes alive and well in the Republic of Congo."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-06 16:10:54 Wed, Aug 6, 2008: from London Guardian Rockies wilderness at risk from latest dash for gas "...Somewhere in the workings of the British Columbia government, an application from global energy company BP is working its way around civil servants' desks. In it, the firm outlines a proposal that has horrified local environmentalists: the installation of up to 1,500 gas wells covering an area of 500 sq km (310 sq miles) amid the lush 1,580 sq km wilderness of the Flathead.... The Flathead valley connects the protected areas, allowing hundreds of bears and thousands of moose to roam between the parks. "
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-06 15:59:52 Wed, Aug 6, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Golf courses try to play through drought "Amid the current drought, golf courses in the East Bay are some of the hardest-hit water customers. While the local water district has ordered single-family home dwellers to cut water use by 19 percent, so-called irrigators such as golf courses must achieve a 30 percent savings.... The state's 900 golf courses cover about 130,000 acres, employ about 160,000 workers and pump nearly $7 billion into the economy. They are trying to make better use of surface water - and drilling for underground supplies.
But environmentalists say keeping golf courses green shouldn't come at the expense of future water users."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:40:20 Wed, Aug 6, 2008: from The London Times Polluted Ganges must be cleaned, gurus demand "A coalition of gurus has issued an ultimatum to India's fragile Government: purify the chronically polluted Ganges, the river revered by Hindus, or face protests and political ruin.
Ganga Raksha Manch, a newly formed alliance of celebrity holy men, is demanding urgent action to cleanse the holy waterway, which has become a noxious cocktail of human and industrial waste, before a general election that must be held before May."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:28:42 Tue, Aug 5, 2008: from Nature Almost half of primate species face extinction "The first comprehensive review in twelve years on the conservation status of primates is revealing that our closest relatives are in serious danger. The review, presented today at the 22nd International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, UK, shows that of the 634 known primate species and subspecies, nearly 50 percent are threatened with extinction in the next decade. That soars to more than 70 percent in Asia, with individual countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia seeing at least 80 percent of their primate species threatened. Cambodia was at the top of the list, with 90 percent of its primate species in imminent danger."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:50:42 Tue, Aug 5, 2008: from USA Today Toxic plastic toys could go the way of dinosaurs "Children's advocates say they hope a sweeping consumer protection law passed by Congress last week will begin a broad national effort to shield youngsters from dangerous chemicals.
The bill, which is expected to be signed by the president, will require that toys be tested for safety before they're sold. The law would ban several types of phthalates, ingredients in plastic linked to reproductive problems."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:15:34 Tue, Aug 5, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Virgin forests more efficient at storing carbon "Untouched natural forests store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated and 60 per cent more than plantation forests, a new Australian study of "green carbon" and its role in climate change says.
Green carbon occurs in natural forests, brown carbon is found in industrialized forests or plantations, grey carbon in fossil fuels and blue carbon in oceans.
Australian National University scientists said that the role of untouched forests – and their biomass of green carbon – had been underestimated in the fight against global warming."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-05 11:49:44 Tue, Aug 5, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Newsom signs strict green building codes into law "San Francisco took a major step Monday to cement its reputation as the most environmentally progressive city in the United States, as Mayor Gavin Newsom signed into law stringent green building codes for new construction and renovations of existing structures in the city. The new codes focus on water and energy conservation, recycling and reduction of carbon emissions."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-04 16:02:17 Mon, Aug 4, 2008: from Long Now Foundation, Stewart Brand Paul Ehrlich, "The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment" The current two greatest threats that Ehrlich sees are climate change (10 percent chance of civilization ending, and rising) and chemical toxification of the biosphere. "Every cubic centimeter of the biosphere has been modified by human activity."
The main climate threat he sees is not rising sea levels ("You can outwalk that one") but the melting of the snowpack that drives the world’s hydraulic civilizations -- California agriculture totally dependent on the Sierra snowpack, the Andes running much of Latin America, the Himalayan snows in charge of southeast Asia. With climate in flux, Ehrlich said, we may be facing a millennium of constant change. Already we see the outbreak of resource wars over water and oil. (tip o' the hat to Arnie)
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-04 12:40:37 Mon, Aug 4, 2008: from Tel Aviv University via ScienceDaily Genetically Modified Root Systems Result In Plants That Survive With Little Water "A part of the global food crisis is the inefficiency of current irrigation methods. More irrigated water evaporates than reaches the roots of crops, amounting to an enormous waste of water and energy. Tel Aviv University researchers, however, are investigating a new solution that turns the problem upside-down, getting to the root of the issue. They are genetically modifying plants' root systems to improve their ability to find the water essential to their survival."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-04 12:35:24 Mon, Aug 4, 2008: from London Guardian Anger at police raid on green camp ahead of coal protest "Environmental campaigners and politicians criticised the police last night after around 200 officers raided a climate camp, seizing hundreds of items that they claimed could be used to break the law.
Activists at the camp, which starts today with a series of workshops on sustainable energy and social justice, said the raid aimed to disrupt legitimate protest.... officers ... found bolt cutters, superglue and climbing ropes in the raid at the end of last week."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-08 22:17:16 Mon, Aug 4, 2008: from Bloomberg News Pickens, Gore Sidestep Differences in Alternative-Energy Quest "The most unlikely alliance in this election year hasn't come out of any political campaign. It's in the convergence of interests between billionaire oilman and Republican Party backer T. Boone Pickens and former vice president turned environmentalist Al Gore.
Gore, the Democratic Party's 2000 standard-bearer, and Pickens, who helped bankroll the group that questioned Democrat John Kerry's war record in the 2004 presidential race, are pursuing separate paths toward a shared goal: cutting U.S. dependence on oil."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:28:10 Mon, Aug 4, 2008: from Associated Press Invasive species bills stuck in Congress "Tiny foreign mussels assault drinking water sources in California and Nevada. A deadly fish virus spreads swiftly through the Great Lakes and beyond. Japanese shore crabs make a home for themselves in Long Island Sound, more than 6,000 miles away.
These are no exotic seafood delicacies. They're a menace to U.S. drinking water supplies, native plants and animals, and they cost billions to contain.
Yet Congress is moving to address the problem at the pace of a plain old garden snail. With time for passing laws rapidly diminishing in this election year, two powerful Senate committee chairmen are at loggerheads over legislation to set the first federal clean-up standards for the large oceangoing ships on which aquatic invasive species hitch a ride to U.S. shores."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-03 08:26:29 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Senate Passes Bill That Would Protect Great Lakes Efforts to protect the Great Lakes from those who may covet their vast quantities of water for an increasingly thirsty world took a major step forward Friday as the Senate passed legislation endorsing the Great Lakes Basin Compact.
The broad multi-state agreement would ban most diversion of Great Lakes water to any place outside the basin and would mandate conservation efforts inside it. Despite what some criticized as significant loopholes in the measure, House leaders said the bill would be a priority after the five-week congressional recess, and President Bush has said he would sign it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:25:42 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from Cell Press, via EurekAlert More acidic ocean could spell trouble for marine life's earliest stages Increasingly acidic conditions in the ocean—brought on as a direct result of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere—could spell trouble for the earliest stages of marine life, according to a new report.... " If other marine species respond similarly -- and there's no evidence yet that they don't -- then we're in trouble," said Jon Havenhand of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. "The analogies are quite simple: we observed a 25 percent reduction in fertilization success at reduced pH, which is equivalent to a 25 percent reduction in the spawning stock of the species. Apply equivalent changes to other commercially or ecologically important species, such as lobsters, crabs, abalone, clams, mussels, or even fish, and the consequences would be far-reaching. It could be enough to 'tip' an ecosystem from one state to another."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:49:57 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from Boston University, via EurekAlert The emerging scientific discipline of aeroecology Organisms that use the aerosphere, specifically arthropods, birds and bats, are also influenced by an increasing number of anthropogenic or man-made conditions and structures, notably lighted towns and cities, air pollution, skyscrapers, aircraft, radio and television towers, plus a recent proliferation of communication towers and wind turbines that dot the Earth's landscape.
In addition, human-altered landscapes increasing are characterized by deforestation, intensive agriculture, urbanization, and assorted industrial activities that are rapidly and irreversibly transforming the quantity and quality of available terrestrial and aquatic habitats which airborne organisms rely upon. These conditions are known to influence navigational cues, sources of food, water, nesting and roosting habitats--factors that can, in turn, alter the structure and function of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the assemblages of organisms.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-02 21:28:09 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from Scientific American Camels Plagued by Parasites Nearly 84 percent of male camels in eastern Iran may be infected with helminths (parasitic worms) that can cripple reproduction and afflict other organs, the scientists report in the journal Parasitology Research.... "The high prevalence rate of this infection surprised me," says Ahmad Oryan, professor of veterinary pathology at Shiraz University in Iran, who led the research. "Due to the effects of this nematode [a type of roundworm] on breeding of the male camels, this infection, if not treated or controlled, could have adverse outcomes and will affect the calving rate of this animal."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 21:03:17 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from San Jose Mercury News (California) Porpoise deaths raising questions "It's the tip of the iceberg," said Mary Jane Schramm, spokeswoman for the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. "These are open ocean animals. For every one we find dead there are probably many others that are out there."... Harbor porpoises are not commonly tracked by the state and so little is known about where they feed or mate. Over time, state records show the mammals have a tendency to die during the summertime calving season, but researchers don't know why. "It could be that the acid bio-accumulated in the fetus," Schramm said. "If it's something that the mother ingested and passed through the placental barrier, it could be something that she passed on to her fetus."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:56:52 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from American Sociological Association, via EurekAlert Toxic drugs, toxic system: Sociologist predicts drug disasters Americans are likely to be exposed to unacceptable side effects of FDA-approved drugs such as Vioxx in the future because of fatal flaws in the way new drugs are tested and marketed, according to research to be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
"Drug disasters are literally built into the current system of drug testing and approvals in the United States," said Donald Light.... "Recent changes in the system have only increased the proportion of new drugs with serious risks."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 19:44:28 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from Durango Herald (Colorado) State regulators knew nothing about the gas-field chemical spill ... that ended with a Durango nurse's illness because it happened on tribal land...
Behr removed Marshall's boots, which she said were damp. She and other nurses noticed a strong chemical smell when Marshall walked into the hospital.
"If (he) didn't have any chemical on (him), what the heck were we smelling?" Behr said.
Behr fell ill a few days later, and within a week she was fighting for her life in the intensive care unit....
Delayed symptoms are common after phosphate exposures, said Theo Colburn, president of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a Paonia nonprofit agency that has been critical of the chemicals used in gas drilling.
Phosphate "has the ability to shut down the body's ability to produce steroids," Colburn said. This can lead to immune-system failure.
Behr began to recover after her doctor treated her with steroids.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-02 20:51:13 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Host of new pylons to carry wind farm power A report due this autumn will warn that if Britain is serious about a low-carbon economy then it must string potentially thousands of miles of new high-voltage power cables across the country. The infrastructure is vital, experts say, because most renewable energy will be generated in remote areas such as northern Scotland or the North Sea – whereas most consumers live in southern Britain.... "We are moving from a system dominated by a small number of large power stations to something far more diverse. Our network needs to adapt rapidly to those changes."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-02 20:45:49 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from Guardian (UK) China 'leads the world' in renewable energy China is the world's leading producer of energy from renewable sources and is on the way to overtaking developed countries in creating clean technologies, according to a report by the Climate Group.... The country already leads the world in terms of installed renewable capacity at 152 gigawatts. In the next year, China will also become the world's leading exporter of wind turbines and it is also highly competitive in solar water heaters, energy efficient home appliances, and rechargeable batteries.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-02 20:40:57 Sun, Aug 3, 2008: from Enews 2.0 Settlement Will Reduce Cancer-Causing Chemical In Potato Chips Attorney General Jerry Brown filed lawsuits in 2005 against H.J. Heinz, Frito-Lay, Lance Inc and Kettle Foods, together with Procter and Gamble PG.N and four fast-food chains: McDonald's, KFC, Burger King and Wendy's for selling food containing high levels of acrylamide, a chemical compound that is produced when foods, particularly potatoes, are cooked at high temperatures.
According to Brown's statement, the corporations have reached an agreement to decrease the levels of the chemical that causes cancer and is found in their product.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 21:02:41 Sat, Aug 2, 2008: from University of Washington via ScienceDaily Ivory Poaching At Critical Levels: Elephants On Path To Extinction By 2020? African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989. But the public outcry that resulted in that ban is absent today, and a University of Washington conservation biologist contends it is because the public seems to be unaware of the giant mammals' plight.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-02 09:44:09 Sat, Aug 2, 2008: from The Economist Meet the new neighbours "...Mosquitoes, and the West Nile virus that some of them carry, are thriving in California’s plunging property market... Fully 63,000 homes were foreclosed in California between April and June... Empty houses mean untended pools. Untended pools quickly breed mosquitoes."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:59:52 Sat, Aug 2, 2008: from The Daily Green Evidence That Pesticides Are Seriously Messing Up Our Honey Bees "...They've found some incredible numbers taken from samples taken last year - one bee, a single, solitary bee, had 25 different insecticides hidden within her tiny body. And she wasn't even dead. The cleanest bee they found had only five insecticides. Only."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-02 09:35:33 Sat, Aug 2, 2008: from Business Week Building a Greener America "Forget the common icons of global warming. Fuming tailpipes and industrial smokestacks, it turns out, are less culpable for climate change than a set of offenders hidden in plain sight: buildings. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, buildings are responsible for almost half of all annual greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., consuming more than three-quarters of all the electricity produced by American power plants."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:37:38 Fri, Aug 1, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Ducklings die as a river's flow dries up "What had been for the last six months a vibrant stream teeming with migrating waterfowl and shorebirds recently became a dry channel where vultures gorged themselves on ducklings that died when the flows dried up.
The discovery prompted calls for an investigation into the deaths of at least 20 cinnamon teal ducklings, 10 mallard ducklings and 20 adult mallards that had sought refuge in a shrinking pool of water in a concrete basin in the city of Industry, about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
It also raised questions about the place of nature in an urban water system in which virtually every drop is adjudicated and claimed by someone."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:23:42 Fri, Aug 1, 2008: from Raleigh WRAL News Hurricanes feed environmental fears about hog lagoons "The destruction wrought on hog lagoons by Hurricane Floyd in 1999 prompted North Carolina's governor to vow to eliminate them.
However, ten years later, more than 3,800 hog lagoons still operate and are, increasingly, the target of environmental activists.
Flooding killed hundreds of swine and caused hog lagoons to overflow, contaminating nearby water supplies."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:29:02 Fri, Aug 1, 2008: from Ottowa Sun Climate change puts seniors' health at risk "Canada's elderly population -- expected to double in the next 25 years -- will be especially hard-hit by the dire effects of climate change, warns a sprawling study by Health Canada.
The much-anticipated document, released late yesterday, says Canada will face climate change hazards ranging from more natural disasters to increases in infectious disease to spikes in respiratory illness."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-08-01 13:06:20 Fri, Aug 1, 2008: from Truthout Major Discovery From MIT Primed to Unleash Solar Revolution "In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:25:57 Fri, Aug 1, 2008: from Environmental Health Perspectives The Global Sweep Of Pollution: Satellite Snapshots Capture Long-Distance Movement "Towering smokestacks were a popular mid-twentieth-century "remedy" for industrial emissions. Pump the stuff high enough into the air, went the thinking, and the problem would go away. But evidence collected since then has strongly suggested that tall smokestacks are not sufficient to mitigate the effects of pollution -- those pollutants eventually came down somewhere, dozens or thousands of miles away."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:48:37 Thu, Jul 31, 2008: from The Seattle Times Group to sue over protection for polar bears "A conservative legal-advocacy group said Wednesday it plans to sue the federal government over its recent decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species. The group, the Pacific Legal Foundation, contends the listing paves the way for lawsuits against any industry responsible for large-scale carbon emissions that could be connected to the steady warming of the bear's Arctic habitat."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:57:01 Thu, Jul 31, 2008: from New York Times via Reuters Prenatal Cell Phone Exposure Tied to Behavior "Children whose mothers used cell phones frequently during pregnancy and who are themselves cell phone users are more likely to have behavior problems, new research shows... After the researchers adjusted for factors that could influence the results, such as a mother's psychiatric problems and socioeconomic factors, children with both prenatal and postnatal cell phone exposure were 80 percent more likely to have abnormal or borderline scores on tests evaluating emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity, or problems with peers."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:08:31 Thu, Jul 31, 2008: from New Scientist Five ways to trigger a natural disaster "Few people still doubt that human emissions are causing long-term climate change, which is predicted to increase storm surges, drought and possibly hurricanes. So there's little doubt that humans influence natural disasters over the long term. But can we also trigger sudden "natural" catastrophes?
The answer is yes. From mud volcanoes to disappearing lakes, human actions can have all sorts of unforeseen environmental consequences."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:20:44 Thu, Jul 31, 2008: from Environmental Science and Technology Government pesticide and fertilizer data dropped "The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has eliminated the only federal program that tracks the use of pesticides and fertilizers on American farms. The move has left scientists, industry groups, and public advocates surprised and confused about how to carry on their work without this free information. The canceled program was the only one to make freely available to the public nationwide data on the amount of pesticides and fertilizers applied to U.S. farms."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:25:43 Thu, Jul 31, 2008: from London Times Earthworm's plight is early warning of threat to man "...Research carried out by scientists at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Edinburgh, shows that even low levels of chemical pollutants in the soil caused fundamental changes in the lifecycle of earthworms, affecting their ability to reproduce. These findings raise fundamental questions about the effect of pollution in the soil and also raise concerns about the effect of human exposure to widely used chemicals."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:13:52 Wed, Jul 30, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Underwater, a disturbing new world "In just a few years, the gravel and white boulders that for centuries covered the bottom of Lake Michigan between Chicago and the Door County, Wis., peninsula have disappeared under a carpet of mussels and primitive plant life... In the last three years or so, scientists say, invasive species have upended the ecology of the lakes, shifting distribution of species and starving familiar fish of their usual food supply."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:25:13 Wed, Jul 30, 2008: from Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Melting permafrost poses threats to infrastructure, Alaska economy "...By definition, permafrost is any ground that’s been frozen for at least two years. It can be dry soil or nearly all ice, and it can start an inch below the surface or many yards below. It can go down a few feet or a few thousand.
Now, as temperatures warm across Alaska, the temperature of the frozen ground is warming, too. In some places, it’s warmed to its own tipping point of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point it stops being permafrost and starts being water and soil."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-29 19:59:13 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Farmers ready to cash in on soaring land prices Farmland prices have risen by 50 per cent over the past year to reach a record high, according to the latest market survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Some farmers are taking the opportunity to sell up and retire, particularly those feeling the squeeze from the rising cost of fuel, fertilisers and energy. Cashing in is a serious option for those who are unable to operate at a profit.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-29 19:52:52 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from Financial Times (UK) Balancing traditional scientific freedom and openness The challenge will be to engage a broad range of scientists in the fight against terrorism, without causing an unhealthy imbalance in the scientific enterprise. For instance, the billions of dollars spent by the US government on biodefence over the past few years may have distracted researchers from the fight against infectious diseases. The risk of a flu pandemic -- or the emergence of a lethal new disease -- is far greater than of a large-scale bioterrorist attack. While there is some scientific crossover between the expertise needed to fight natural and man-made epidemics, it is important to allocate research resources on a balanced view of the risks we face globally.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-29 19:13:51 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from Daily Times (Pakistan) Markets run out of flour: 'Lists of flour distributors are faulty' The lists of flourmills dealers provided to the district government by the Food Department is faulty, due to which the magistrates cannot monitor the supply of flour in the market, a district government official told Daily Times on Tuesday.... District Food Controller Arif Shah said that there were some "typographical errors" in the lists, which were being removed. He said that < there was no shortage of flour in markets, adding that stores running out of flour would be provided new stock immediately. "In case any flourmill has provided an incorrect list of dealers, there is a procedure to deal with it under the law," he added.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:49:19 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from WLUC (MI) Cute, cuddly and endangered And it's because of low survival rates and poaching that Siberian tigers are nearly extinct in the wild.
"All tigers, no matter what subspecies it is, will be extinct by 2015," said Cramer.
"The Siberian tiger is the most endangered of any of the large carnivores in the world," DeYoung said. "They claim over in Russia, there's only 200 left on the Russia-China border."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-29 13:14:31 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health via ScienceDaily Study Suggests 86 Percent Of Americans Could Be Overweight Or Obese By 2030 "Most adults in the U.S. will be overweight or obese by 2030, with related health care spending projected to be as much as $956.9 billion, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Their results are published in the July 2008 online issue of Obesity."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-29 12:57:59 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Huge chunk snaps off storied Arctic ice shelf "A four-square-kilometre chunk has broken off Ward Hunt Ice Shelf - the largest remaining ice shelf in the Arctic - threatening the future of the giant frozen mass that northern explorers have used for years as the starting point for their treks.
Scientists say the break, the largest on record since 2005, is the latest indication that climate change is forcing the drastic reshaping of the Arctic coastline, where 9,000 square kilometres of ice have been whittled down to less than 1,000 over the past century, and are only showing signs of decreasing further."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-29 12:48:03 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from London Guardian Haiti: Mud cakes become staple diet as cost of food soars beyond a family's reach "At first sight the business resembles a thriving pottery. In a dusty courtyard women mould clay and water into hundreds of little platters and lay them out to harden under the Caribbean sun.
The craftsmanship is rough and the finished products are uneven. But customers do not object. This is Cité Soleil, Haiti's most notorious slum, and these platters are not to hold food. They are food."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-29 12:41:34 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from Guardian (UK) US environmental agency silences employees on climate change Amid intensifying scrutiny of its failure to act on climate change, the US environmental protection agency (EPA) has ordered employees not to talk to internal auditors, Congress or the media, according to a leaked email released yesterday by green campaigners.
The EPA has refused repeated requests from Congress to explain its December denial of California's request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions -- a move that overruled the agency's own career scientists.
Three Democratic senators have scheduled a press conference today to discuss the controversy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:37:17 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from PLOS, via ScienceDaily Is It Too Late To Save The Great Migrations? Martin Wikelski describe the threats facing "one of nature's most visible and widespread phenomena," a behavior found in animals as diverse as whales and warblers, dragonflies and salamanders. Many of the most spectacular migrations have disappeared or experienced steep declines due to human behavior, the authors lament.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-29 12:42:39 Tue, Jul 29, 2008: from Telluride Daily Plane 'The Worm' is spreading, and it's hungry San Miguel and Ouray and Montrose counties are in the process of being invaded -- very slowly -- by Western Spruce Budworms that are sending waves of worry through the populace.
After initially being spotted in Lawson Hill by a concerned homeowner, the worm has reportedly been spotted from Telluride to Ophir to Norwood. It's been called "the most widely distributed and destructive defoliator of coniferous forests in Western North America."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-28 12:26:42 Mon, Jul 28, 2008: from Great Lakes Radio Consortium Online Hitchhiking "If you're really trying to save on gas you might like to know that there's a new way to hitchhike... ZimRide allows people to find rides online."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:40:50 Mon, Jul 28, 2008: from Kansas City Star Researchers investigate tundra's steady awakening "TOOLIK LAKE, Alaska ... Ground here that for tens of thousands of years was frozen solid is terra firma no more.
Across the tundra and coast of the Arctic Ocean, land is caving in. Soils loosed by freshly thawed earth set off a new era of rot, and of bloom -- dumping a bonanza of nutrients into a top-of-the-world environment that swirls from months of midnight sun to deep-freeze dark."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-28 11:57:53 Mon, Jul 28, 2008: from Houston Chronicle Scientists find soot has an even darker side "Soot is one of mankind's oldest pollutants.
Cavemen blackened their walls with it. During the Industrial Revolution, soot so thoroughly coated the English countryside that white moths died out and were largely replaced by black-bodied descendants to preserve their camouflaging abilities.
Despite its long history, however, soot remained one of the least understood components of our air.
But now, a raft of new studies is beginning to make clear how soot may play a critical role in everything from human health to global warming to whether it will rain tomorrow in Houston."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-28 11:39:46 Mon, Jul 28, 2008: from Bergen County Record Neighbors fear they won't survive legal fight with Ford "Two-and-a-half years after they filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Ford Motor Co., Upper Ringwood residents are steeling themselves for a long battle - one that some believe they won't survive. "I'll be dead before I get any money," said Mickey Van Dunk, 37. He's had 17 surgeries to treat a rare autoimmune disorder that's left his face heavily scarred."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-28 08:41:39 Mon, Jul 28, 2008: from NOAA, via ScienceDaily Northern Wildfire Smoke May Delay Arctic Warming The Arctic may get some temporary relief from global warming if the annual North American wildfire season intensifies, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado and NOAA. Smoke transported to the Arctic from northern forest fires may cool the surface for several weeks to months at a time, according to the most detailed analysis yet of how smoke influences the Arctic climate relative to the amount of snow and ice cover.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:17:31 Mon, Jul 28, 2008: from Boston Globe Wing damage: bats in peril Researchers now think that a fuzzy white fungus found on thousands of dead and dying bats in New England and New York last winter might be the primary cause of the illness. Scientists have learned that the unidentified fungus seems to thrive in the cold temperatures found in caves and mines in winter -- when bats are hibernating and most vulnerable. As worrisome is that many bats continued to die this spring, dashing hopes that they would recuperate when they emerged from hibernation and resumed feeding. Hundreds of animals with scarred wings, both dead and alive, were discovered in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire through June.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:58:38 Sun, Jul 27, 2008: from Birmingham Sunday Mercury Human sewage used on crops in the Midlands "FARMERS are using treated human sewage as crop fertiliser on almost 3,000 Midland fields.
Severn Trent Water says demand for the waste has soared because it is now just a fifth of the cost of conventional animal-based fertiliser, which is closely linked to the price of oil.
The treated human sewage, known as sludge, is being used on fields to grow crops including maize, corn and oats."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:22:22 Sun, Jul 27, 2008: from Des Moines Register Floods foul Iowa environment "The scope of environmental damage in the wake of this spring's massive flooding is just starting to come into focus. The early findings: Iowa is awash in bacteria, plagued with pesticides, and doused in oil and dangerous compounds, but at concentrations that don't pose an immediate risk to aquatic life or human health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency collected 169,836 stray computers, appliances, televisions and containers as of July 17, most in Linn County."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-28 08:36:48 Sun, Jul 27, 2008: from New York Times Green, Greener, Greenest "...Green is good for the planet, but also for a college's public image. In a Princeton Review survey this year of 10,300 college applicants, 63 percent said that a college's commitment to the environment could affect their decision to go there."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:13:12 Sun, Jul 27, 2008: from Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Change in the land of frozen ground, fish and hardy trees "Alaska is changing, and not just in the booming suburbs or shrinking villages, but in the trees on the hillsides, the fish in the oceans, and the climate itself -- the very things that make Alaska what it is. The spruce and birch of the boreal forest are struggling with warm summers, and shrubs are moving into the tundra. Grizzly bear, moose, and king salmon are showing up in places they haven't been seen before, and subtropical fish are taking fishermen's bait in the Gulf of Alaska."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-26 21:55:06 Sat, Jul 26, 2008: from Orange County Register Sites endangered by global warming "That dream vacation -- diving along the Great Barrier Reef, skiing in the Swiss Alps -- could remain a dream forever if you don't get a move on... It's been called climate sightseeing, a kind of farewell tour of Earth's greatest hits. The subject is full of paradoxes: The more you travel, for example, the more you're contributing to the problem that made you go to an endangered site in the first place."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-26 11:26:19 Sat, Jul 26, 2008: from Newsweek Beetlemania "After ravaging 22 million acres of pine trees in Canada over the last 12 years, the rice-sized insects have been feasting their way southward. Their favorite meal: the majestic lodgepole pine, which makes up 8 percent of Colorado's 22 million acres of forests. Before landing in Beaver Creek, the pine beetles tore through neighboring Vail, Winter Park, Breckenridge and several areas around Steamboat Springs. So far, say state foresters, the beetles have eaten through 1.5 million acres, about 70 percent of the all the state's lodgepole pines. The tree's entire population will be wiped out in the next few years, Colorado state foresters predict, leaving behind a deforested area about the size of Rhode Island."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-26 11:00:49 Sat, Jul 26, 2008: from Time Magazine Coral Reefs Face Extinction "You don't have to be a marine biologist to understand the importance of corals — just ask any diver. The tiny underwater creatures are the architects of the beautiful, electric-colored coral reefs that lie in shallow tropical waters around the world. Divers swarm to them not merely for their intrinsic beauty, but because the reefs play host to a wealth of biodiversity unlike anywhere else in the underwater world. Coral reefs are home to more than 25 percent of total marine species. Take out the corals, and there are no reefs — remove the reefs, and entire ecosystems collapse."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-26 10:55:36 Sat, Jul 26, 2008: from Ohio State University via ScienceDaily New Material May Help Autos Turn Heat Into Electricity "Researchers have invented a new material that will make cars even more efficient, by converting heat wasted through engine exhaust into electricity. In the current issue of the journal Science, they describe a material with twice the efficiency of anything currently on the market."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-26 09:24:23 Sat, Jul 26, 2008: from The West Australian Fears over new mosquito-borne virus Health experts fear a mosquito-borne virus could cause a spike in cases of a debilitating disease.... In the past two years, West Australia health authorities have been notified of 15 cases of chikungunya, the Swahili term for the stooped posture which the virus causes in sufferers with joint pain. The disease also causes vomiting, extreme fatigue and, in rare cases, death. The Health Department declared chikungunya a notifiable infectious disease two months ago.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 16:24:14 Sat, Jul 26, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Finny finis? Stern trawlers the size of destroyers, purse-seiners that can encircle a dozen nuclear submarines, sonar, spotter planes, GPS and DuPont's nylon monofilament netting become the norm. Equipped with the latest technology, the fishing fleets of the world become armadas facing enemies with brains the size of chickpeas.
By the turn of the millennium, 90 per cent of the world's predator fish - tuna, sharks, swordfish - have been removed from the ocean; leading marine ecologists to project that, because of pollution, climate change and overfishing, all the world's major fisheries will collapse within the next 50 years. The saga ends where it began, in North Atlantic fishing towns, where the locals are reduced to catching slime eels and tourists in search of the quaint get served farmed-in-China tilapia at local seafood shacks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-26 08:57:48 Sat, Jul 26, 2008: from Sociological Quarterly, via EurekAlert Wealth Does Not Dictate Concern for the Environment It has been a long-held assumption that poor nations will not support efforts to protect the environment since their citizens are too preoccupied with meeting basic needs, such as food and housing. However, a new study in The Sociological Quarterly reveals that citizens of poorer nations are just as concerned about environmental quality as their counterparts in rich nations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:56:34 Sat, Jul 26, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Democrats: White House must publish 'chilling' climate change document [W]histleblowers have revealed that the White House ordered the agency to scrap its proposal. Democratic attempts to investigate the backroom dealings were stymied until this week, when senators were finally permitted a look at the plan.
... California Democrat Barbara Boxer, released a summary of the proposal to reporters. Boxer was allowed to take notes on the plan but not given a copy.... Democrats asked the EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, to testify next week at a hearing exploring allegations of White House obstruction on climate change. But Johnson refused, citing executive privilege and forcing the cancellation of the hearing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-25 15:51:19 Fri, Jul 25, 2008: from Good Magazine The Economy: America Love It Or Fix It 2008 "If we’re addicted to oil, our twelve-step program should begin with admitting that we have a problem. As the price of oil creeps ever higher, finding new energy sources is more important than ever. But the search for alternatives, combined with environmental disruptions, is putting new pressures on other essentials like food. There are some things that are going well in the world. Right now, the economy is not one of them."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-25 13:23:16 Fri, Jul 25, 2008: from University of Maryland vis ScienceDaily Costs Of Climate Change, State-by-state: Billions, Says New Report "Climate change will carry a price tag of billions of dollars for a number of U.S. states, says a new series of reports from the University of Maryland's Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER). The researchers conclude that the costs have already begun to accrue and are likely to endure... "We don't have a crystal ball and can't predict specific bottom lines, but the trend is very clear for these eight states and the nation as a whole: climate change will cost billions in the long run and the bottom line will be red," says Matthias Ruth, who coordinated the research and directs the Center for Integrative Environmental Research at the University of Maryland."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-25 13:17:46 Fri, Jul 25, 2008: from Wall Street Journal It's all about the lighting "Around the world, the night sky is vanishing in a fog of artificial light, which a coalition of naturalists, astronomers and medical researchers consider one of the fastest growing forms of pollution, with consequences for wildlife, people's health -- and the human spirit. About two-thirds of the world's population, including almost everyone in the continental U.S. and Europe, no longer see a starry sky where they live."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-25 08:40:05 Fri, Jul 25, 2008: from National Post (Canada) Fuel cell cars at least 15 years away at best: Study Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are still 15 years away from becoming a viable business for automakers even if they overcome remaining technical hurdles and the U. S. government provides massive subsidies, a government-funded report said last week.
Under a best-case scenario, automakers will only be able to sell about two million electric vehicles powered by fuel cells by 2020, according to the study by the National Research Council. That would mean that less than 1 percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads by that date would be powered by fuel cells.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:56:02 Fri, Jul 25, 2008: from Natural News Chemical Causes of Diabetes: Overeating Is Not the Only Problem Medical science has discovered how sensitive the insulin receptor sites are to chemical poisoning. Metals such as cadmium, mercury, arsenic, lead, fluoride and possibly aluminum may play a role in the actual destruction of beta cells through stimulating an auto-immune reaction to them after they have bonded to these cells in the pancreas.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:11:05 Fri, Jul 25, 2008: from Downey Patriot Getting rid of your TV and a tsunami of waste [T]he biggest loser to the great HDTV switchover could be our environment. Solid waste managers worry that consumers will opt for HDTV en masse, consigning perfectly good analog TVs to the U.S. waste stream. Eighty to 200 million televisions could be discarded over the next 30 months.... Picture tubes hold up to eight pounds of toxic lead, while television plastic casings contain cancer-causing flame retardants. Other TV toxins can include cadmium, mercury, chromium, beryllium and arsenic. If not recycled, toxic TVs can poison people, soils and groundwater.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:29:00 Fri, Jul 25, 2008: from Surfbirds.com Hundreds of dead penguins wash ashore Biologists are puzzled by the hundreds of young penguins that have been washing up along the Brazilian coastline since late June. The Magellanic Penguins have been found dead or barely alive, along beaches all over south-eastern Brazil. The mainly young birds will have come from colonies about 2,500 miles south in Argentina. Penguins regularly move north into the waters off southern Brazil in search of food.... "The penguin population is intimately linked to their supplies of food, so this suggests something is happening to the population of fish they eat."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-24 14:40:32 Thu, Jul 24, 2008: from Chicago Sun-Times Global warming may boost kitten population "Global warming and kittens. While it may seem hard to see the connection between the two -- a climate phenomenon that melts glaciers and acidifies oceans, and cuddly, 4-ounce balls of fur -- experts say there could be one. Each spring, the onset of warm weather and longer days drives female cats into heat, resulting in a few months of booming kitten populations known as "kitten season." ... What shelter officials and veterinarians have begun noticing, however, is that kitten season is starting to begin earlier and last longer."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-24 14:33:34 Thu, Jul 24, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Cow power could generate electricity for millions, US study shows "...Scientists have calculated for the first time how much of a country's electricity needs could be provided from the manure of cattle and other livestock. They estimate that 3 per cent of America's total electricity demand could be created from animal waste, enough to power millions of homes and businesses... Broken down and then burnt, the scientists estimate that the manure from hundreds of millions of livestock in America could produce approximately 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:30:03 Thu, Jul 24, 2008: from Albany Times-Union Mercury release wasn't stopped Federal environmental officials failed to stop cement plants from releasing unsafe levels of toxic mercury despite repeatedly being sued by environmentalists for disobeying federal law, according to report issued Wednesday.
Such lawsuits led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reveal this year that cement plants sent nearly 23,000 pounds of mercury into the air nationwide -- more than double what the agency had reported just two years earlier.... Mercury that drifts back to earth enters the food chain mostly through water.... One-seventieth of a teaspoon of mercury is enough to taint a 25-acre lake.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:12:23 Thu, Jul 24, 2008: from EUobserver.com EU clears baby bottle chemical despite Canada ban The levels of bisphenol A, or BPA, found in such items is safe for infants in small amounts, according to a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)scientific opinion issued on Wednesday (23 July), which stated that the substance "provides a sufficient margin of safety for the protection of the consumer, including fetuses and newborns." ... "The scientists also concluded that newborns are similarly able to metabolise and eliminate BPA at doses below 1 milligram per kilogram of body weight per day."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:14:14 Thu, Jul 24, 2008: from Ohio State University Paying to save tropical forests could reduce carbon emissions Wealthy nations willing to collectively spend about $1 billion annually could prevent the emission of roughly half a billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year for the next 25 years, new research suggests.
It would take about that much money to put an end to a tenth of the tropical deforestation in the world, one of the top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, researchers estimate. If adopted, this type of program could have potential to reduce global carbon emissions by between 2 and 10 percent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:19:38 Thu, Jul 24, 2008: from The Oregonian Sockeye come back in record numbers One of the great fish surprises in years has landed in the Northwest: Sockeye salmon, an ocean-going species that starts and ends its life hundreds of river miles inland, have swum their way up the Columbia River this summer in numbers unseen in five decades.
No one knows exactly why. Some say it's because federal courts ordered the release of extra water over dams in 2006 and 2007 to make passage easier when the fish were young and migrating to sea. Others cite improved ocean conditions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:39:51 Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from BBC Warming world 'drying wetlands' "More than 700 scientists are attending a major conference to draw up an action plan to protect the world's wetlands. Rising temperatures are not only accelerating evaporation rates, but also reducing rainfall levels and the volume of meltwater from glaciers.
Although only covering 6 percent of the Earth's land surface, they store up to an estimated 20 percent of terrestrial carbon."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:59:26 Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from NaturalNews.com Colony Collapse Disorder Debunked: Pesticides Cause Bee Deaths "The great mystery of bee deaths has been solved. Colony Collapse Disorder is poisoning with a known insect neurotoxin. Clothianidin, a pesticide manufactured by Bayer, has been clearly linked to die offs in Germany and France.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:50:02 Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from University of Illinois Study predicts crop-production costs will jump dramatically in 2009 Costs to get crops in the ground will jump by about a third in 2009, fueled by fertilizer prices expected to surge 82 percent for corn and 117 percent for soybeans, said Gary Schnitkey, an agricultural economist who conducts the annual survey of input costs.... "Roughly 80 percent of the cost of producing nitrogen fertilizer is natural gas, so as natural gas costs have gone up so have the costs of those inputs," he said. "Phosphorus and potassium are mined, and as energy costs increase, mining costs increase."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:06:00 Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from Guardian (UK) A recession will give ecological development a new life "This is an opportunity to think strategically about development," says environmental adviser Chris Baines. "Sites where biodiversity is being lost may have a reprieve, and this breathing space is the opportunity to think about establishing a green infrastructure ahead of a restart in building and to analyse the social implications to families of such high-density housing without significant green space. There are opportunities for tree-planting, wetlands for flood management, energy crops, adventure playgrounds."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:29:20 Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Mystery as dead birds fall from the sky over Western Australia Post-mortem examinations have failed to determine the cause of the birds' deaths. Last December 5,000 birds died in the coastal town of Esperance, 500 km south of Perth, after being poisoned by lead carbonate blowing through the town as it was being exported through Esperance Port.... "The birds, when they are showing signs of having been poisoned become a bit wobbly on their feet, they sit down and within 10 to 15 minutes they're dead." ... He said it was particularly puzzling that the deaths were confined to seagulls. In Esperance, wattle birds, yellow throated miners and honey-eaters died.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:34:52 Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer Fresh scent may hide toxic secret Ten of the 100 volatile organic compounds identified qualified under federal rules as toxic or hazardous, and three of those -- 1,4-dioxane, acetaldehyde and chloromethane -- are "hazardous air pollutants" considered unsafe to breathe at any concentration, according to the study.... [A]s this UW study shows, it's disturbingly easy to find toxic chemicals in everyday products like these because companies don't have to say what's in their products."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:58:06 Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from Mail and Guardian (South Africa) Climate change affecting Uganda Rainfall in the March to June rainy season is becoming more erratic, followed by heavy downpours from October to December, which destroy crops and increase soil erosion.
Long droughts have led to farmers producing less food, while pastoralists find traditional grazing areas are shrinking and turning arid. This has curtailed their movements and led to competition and conflict for ever-smaller resources. When rains arrive they are often torrential, causing floods and doing more harm than good. Floods destroy crops and increase the prevalence of water-borne diseases.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 16:21:52 Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from TIME When Jellyfish Attack Beaches from Marseille to Monaco have been plagued this summer by millions of the gelatinous invaders, whose burning stings have sent scores of holiday-makers fleeing the surf with yelps of pain since large numbers of jellyfish were first sighted along France's coast in June. And those menacing the shorelines are simply the outriders of giant shoals that marine biologists have identified hovering between Corsica and France's southern shores.... Overfishing and other destructive human activity have prompted the prolific multiplication of jellyfish by decimating their natural predators: tuna, sharks and turtles.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-23 06:58:17 Wed, Jul 23, 2008: from ANI, via MSN (India) Allergy-causing sofas from China Thousands of Brits have developed severe allergies after coming in contact with the toxic gas emitted by an anti-mould agent in their Chinese sofas. An increasing number of patients are being treated in hospitals for symptoms, which appeared to range from skin cancer, and chemical burns to severe eczema.
The cases have been linked to an estimated 100,000 sofas... He added that it could take weeks or months to become hypersensitised to the chemical, which disguised the link to the furniture in many cases.
Exposure to dimethyl fumarate can make a person more vulnerable to reactions to other chemicals.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:07:55 Tue, Jul 22, 2008: from World Wildlife Fund via NaturalNews.com Half the Amazon Rainforest to be Lost by 2030 "Due to the effects of global warming and deforestation, more than half of the Amazon rainforest may be destroyed or severely damaged by the year 2030, according to a report released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
The report, "Amazon's Vicious Cycles: Drought and Fire," concludes that 55 percent of the world's largest rainforest stands to be severely damaged from agriculture, drought, fire, logging and livestock ranching in the next 22 years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:18:56 Tue, Jul 22, 2008: from Scientific American Happy Fish Go Hungry? "...Toxicologists at Clemson University in South Carolina have found that hybrid striped bass exposed to the antidepressant fluoxetine (the generic name for Eli Lilly's Prozac) were markedly less interested in feeding than other fish. The more fluoxetine ingested, the less the appetite. The fish also did things that could lead to life-shortening events -- like failing to take usual precautions around predators and making them easier prey."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-22 11:52:55 Tue, Jul 22, 2008: from Washington Post An Oilman's Bet Against Oil "...perhaps the strangest role the 80-year-old, Oklahoma-born Pickens has fashioned for himself is his current one: the billionaire speculator as energy wise man, an oil-and-gas magnate as champion of wind power, and a lifetime Republican who has become a fellow traveler among environmentally minded Democrats -- even though he helped finance the "Swift boat" ads that savaged the campaign of the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.)."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-22 10:28:10 Tue, Jul 22, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Energy efficiency schemes 'could save British business 2.5 billion pounds a year' [Energy efficiencies] would also cut 22 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere....
"Our research shows that energy efficiency measures, not job cuts or salary freezes, are the cost-cutting steps businesses are considering first during this economically challenging time. It's an encouraging sign that wise companies are realising that cutting carbon and being green is the easiest way to make a business lean," he adds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-22 09:10:03 Tue, Jul 22, 2008: from UPI UK government says pandemic 'inevitable' A British government committee said globalization and lifestyle changes make it inevitable that Britain will be hit with a pandemic of some sort.... "Estimates are that the next pandemic will kill between 2 million and 50 million people worldwide and between 50,000 and 75,000 in (Britain)," the government report said. "Socio-economic disruption will be massive."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:24:50 Tue, Jul 22, 2008: from Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, via EurekAlert Study reveals air pollution is causing widespread and serious impacts to ecosystems [A]ir pollution is degrading every major ecosystem type in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States.... "Deposited pollutants have tangible human impacts. Mercury contamination results in fish that are unsafe to eat. Acidification kills fish and strips nutrients from soils. Excess nitrogen pollutes estuaries, to the detriment of coastal fisheries. And ground-level ozone reduces plant growth, a threat to forestry and agriculture."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-21 15:17:21 Mon, Jul 21, 2008: from Pioneer Press (Minnesota) Asphalt shortage raises the price of roadwork Refinery asphalt prices nationally have risen more than 40 percent since March, government statistics show.... According to Simonson, refiners are trimming asphalt production in favor of more profitable products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and kerosene. Some refiners have invested heavily in cokers, he said, to further break up crude oil molecules and wring out still more fuel, leaving little or no asphalt.
"That shift, plus record-high crude prices, explains the huge surge in asphalt prices in the last few months," Simonson said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-21 12:16:47 Mon, Jul 21, 2008: from The Durango Herald (Colorado) Gasfield chemicals sicken nurse, state agency pushing for transparency All the tests on Cathy Behr were negative. As the medical mystery deepened, her body began failing.... Finally, doctors ... diagnosed a chemical exposure that happened in their own emergency room, where Behr works 12-hour shifts as a nurse. She had treated a sick gas-field worker and breathed the fumes on his clothes from a chemical called ZetaFlow for five or 10 minutes.... ZetaFlow and similar chemicals are exempt from many federal and state environmental laws.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-21 12:06:00 Mon, Jul 21, 2008: from The Project for PostApocology PANIQuiz for the week ending July 20 now online What did the WWF recently ask cruise ships in the Baltic Sea to
stop doing? Antarctic worms, sea spiders, urchins and other marine creatures
are now being threatened by what? What is the current concern regarding the "fish Ebola" detected in
Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-21 10:15:43 Mon, Jul 21, 2008: from Times Online (UK) IEA warns non-Opec oil could peak in two years Dr Birol, who is leading an investigation into the condition of the world's largest oilfields, said that the world was entering a "new oil order".
"Demand growth is no longer coming from the US and Europe but from China, India and the Middle East," he said. "Because their disposable incomes are growing so fast and because of subsidies, high oil prices will not have a major impact on demand growth." This meant that prices would remain extremely high for the foreseeable future and that the fundamental dynamics of the global oil market increasingly were outside of the control of Western countries.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:47:38 Mon, Jul 21, 2008: from Oregon State University, via EurekAlert Lionfish decimating tropical fish populations, threaten coral reefs [T]his invasive species, which is native to the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean and has few natural enemies to help control it in the Atlantic Ocean. It is believed that the first lionfish -- a beautiful fish with dramatic coloring and large, spiny fins -- were introduced into marine waters off Florida in the early 1990s from local aquariums or fish hobbyists. They have since spread across much of the Caribbean Sea and north along the United States coast as far as Rhode Island.... "These fish eat many other species and they seem to eat constantly."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:04:38 Mon, Jul 21, 2008: from United Nations University, via EurekAlert Massive greenhouse gases may be released as destruction, drying of world wetlands worsens: UN Warming world temperatures are speeding both rates of decomposition of trapped organic material and evaporation, while threatening critical sources of wetlands recharge by melting glaciers and reducing precipitation.... Says UN Under Secretary-General Konrad Osterwalder, Rector of UNU: "Too often in the past, people have unwittingly considered wetlands to be problems in need of a solution. Yet wetlands are essential to the planet's health -- and with hindsight, the problems in reality have turned out to be the draining of wetlands and other 'solutions' we humans devised."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-21 08:00:33 Mon, Jul 21, 2008: from Society of Chemical Industry, via EurekAlert A dash of lime -- a new twist that may cut CO2 levels back to pre-industrial levels Scientists say they have found a workable way of reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere by adding lime to seawater. And they think it has the potential to dramatically reverse CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere... [I]t could be made workable by locating [lime production] in regions that have a combination of low-cost 'stranded' energy considered too remote to be economically viable to exploit – like flared natural gas or solar energy in deserts – and that are rich in limestone, making it feasible for calcination to take place on site.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-20 12:08:03 Sun, Jul 20, 2008: from New York Times Trying to Build a Greener Britain, Home by Home "...people... have reduced their carbon footprint by half in the last five years and turned Hove ... from the archetype of a traditional British seaside town into the prototype of a green village. Their efforts are gaining traction here, and recognition around Britain, as a model of easily replicated ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The British government is debating a plan to put some version of smart metering on all 46 million gas and electricity meters in the country’s homes."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-20 11:44:27 Sun, Jul 20, 2008: from NaturalNews.com FDA Panel Seeks to Water Down Warnings on Tamiflu Side Effects "...Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, is an anti-viral medication that can be used to treat or prevent influenza. When used as a treatment, it reduces the duration of flu symptoms by approximately one day... According to the FDA, five children under the age of 17 died after "falling from windows or balconies or running into traffic." There have been a total of 25 deaths linked to Tamiflu, three of them in the United States."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:42:54 Sun, Jul 20, 2008: from The Baltimore Sun The coming black plague? "...governments should start planning for a worst-case scenario, with soaring oil prices disrupting food supplies, just as they plan for other possibilities like nuclear war and bioterrorism... Dale Allen Pfeiffer, author of the recent book Eating Fossil Fuels: Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture, goes even further in his warnings. With global oil production soon sliding into decline, fuel prices might continue to skyrocket until the world's food system collapses, causing starvation, he wrote.
"Growing evidence indicates that world [oil and gas] production will peak around 2010, followed by an irreversible decline. The impact on our agricultural system could be catastrophic," he wrote. "Hunger could become commonplace in every corner of the world, including your own neighborhood."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:10:39 Sun, Jul 20, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Africa's Last and Least "Soaring prices for food and fuel have pushed more than 130 million poor people across vast swaths of Africa, Asia and Latin America deeper into poverty in the past year, according to the U.N. World Food Program (WFP). But while millions of men and children are also hungrier, women are often the hungriest and skinniest. Aid workers say malnutrition among women is emerging as a hidden consequence of the food crisis."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-20 11:19:53 Sun, Jul 20, 2008: from The Quad-City Times States, localities cracking down on idling engines "A billion gallons of diesel fuel are burned every year by idling long-haul trucks and locomotives, pushing 11 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
That doesn’t even count public buses, school buses and millions of cars across the country.
Increasingly, though, it appears some states and localities see engine idling as an area in need of closer inspection."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:57:40 Sun, Jul 20, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail A tough new row to hoe "The Green Revolution that began in 1945 transformed farming and fed millions in developing countries. But its methods over the long run are proving to be stunningly destructive... Now, almost half a century later, the Green Revolution's key innovations - chemicals and monocultures - are being blamed for a recent pest and disease epidemic that has ravaged Asian rice fields and sharply curtailed the supply of the main food staple of half of the world's population."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-19 16:57:20 Sat, Jul 19, 2008: from NaturalNews.com Greenpeace Ranks Eco-Friendliness of Electronics Manufacturers; Nintendo Dead Last "In the most recent version of the Greenpeace Guide to Consumer Electronics, Nintendo became the first brand to ever score a zero out of 10 possible points. In the quarterly report, Greenpeace ranks a variety of electronics manufacturers on the extent to which they have eliminated toxic materials from their products (five categories) and on the nature of their product takeback and recycling policies (four categories)."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-19 10:08:53 Sat, Jul 19, 2008: from Bangkok Post World Bank says Asian cities at risk "The World Bank has urged Asian cities to come up with climate resilient programmes to safeguard people from natural hazards triggered by climate change and rising sea levels."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:36:51 Sat, Jul 19, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Fish Virus Feeds Fears It Will Spread to Mississippi River "CHICAGO -- A deadly fish virus has been found for the first time in southern Lake Michigan and an inland Ohio reservoir, spurring fears of major fish kills and the virus's possible migration to the Mississippi River...The Illinois Department of Natural Resources invoked emergency fishing regulations June 30 to stop the spread of viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS), often described as "fish Ebola," which was found in round gobies and rock bass tested at a marina near the Wisconsin border in early June."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:07:23 Sat, Jul 19, 2008: from BBC Diary: Colorado River drought "The south-western US is suffering its eighth consecutive year of drought. There are concerns that the Colorado River, which has sustained life in the area for thousands of years, can no longer meet the needs of the tens of millions of people living in major cities such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The BBC's Matthew Price is travelling along the river to investigate the scale of the problem and is sending a series of diary items from there."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-19 09:43:36 Sat, Jul 19, 2008: from Miller-McCune Environment Becomes Heredity "Advances in the field of epigenetics show that environmental contaminants can turn genes “on” and “off,” triggering serious diseases that are handed down through generations. But there’s also a more heartening prospect: The same diseases may be treated by relatively simple changes in nourishment and lifestyle."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:10:09 Fri, Jul 18, 2008: from Economist Up to their necks in it "Despite good laws and even better intentions, India causes as much pollution as any rapidly industrialising poor country... By official estimates, India has facilities to treat 18 percent of the 33,200m litres of sewage its cities produce every day. In fact, it treats only 13 percent, because of shortages of power, water and technical expertise in its sewage plants. These figures may underestimate the problem: measuring the output of 700m Indians who have no access to a toilet is tricky... In the words of Sunita Narain, a prominent environmentalist, mocking the tourist ministry's slogan: "Incredible India, drowning in its excreta."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:36:00 Fri, Jul 18, 2008: from Associated Press Should we move species to save them? "With climate change increasingly threatening the survival of plants and animals, scientists say it may become necessary to move some species to save them. Dubbed assisted colonization or assisted migration, the idea is to decide how severe the threat is to various species, and if they need help to deal with it."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:09:28 Fri, Jul 18, 2008: from Associated Press Warming health report: Poor, elderly to hurt most "Global warming will affect the health and welfare of every American, but the poor, elderly, and children will suffer the most, according to a new White House science report released Thursday. The 284-page report, mostly written by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said every region of the country will be hit by worse health from heat waves and drought. It said all but a handful of states would have worse air quality and flooding. It predicts an increase in diseases spread by tainted food, bad water and bugs."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 21:46:24 Fri, Jul 18, 2008: from University of Michigan via ScienceDaily Record-setting Dead Zones Predicted For Gulf Of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay "Record-setting "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay appear likely this summer, according to new forecasts from a University of Michigan researcher... Given recent massive flooding of cities and farms in the Mississippi River basin, the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Area Forecast is for the dead zone to cover between 21,500 and 22,500 square kilometers (8,400-8,800 square miles) of bottom waters along the Louisiana-Texas coast. If the prediction bears out, it will be the largest on record."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-18 17:50:20 Fri, Jul 18, 2008: from British Antarctic Survey via ScienceDaily Fragile Antarctic Marine Life Pounded By Icebergs: Biodiversity Suffering "Antarctic worms, sea spiders, urchins and other marine creatures living in near-shore shallow habitats are regularly pounded by icebergs. New data suggests this environment along the Antarctic Peninsula is going to get hit more frequently. This is due to an increase in the number of icebergs scouring the seabed as a result of shrinking winter sea ice."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:38:44 Thu, Jul 17, 2008: from New York Times Interior Dept. Opens 2.6 Million Alaskan Acres for Oil Exploration "The Interior Department on Wednesday made 2.6 million acres of potentially oil-rich territory in northern Alaska available for energy exploration... The decision will open up for drilling much of the northeast section of the Northeast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, holding an estimated 3.7 billion barrels of oil, Tom Lonnie, Alaska state director for the Bureau of Land Management, said in a conference call with reporters."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-17 16:26:39 Thu, Jul 17, 2008: from Baltimore Sun Color Me Concerned "...New research indicates [synthetic dye] chemicals can disrupt some children's behavior, and activists and consumer groups are asking for bans or limits on the dyes. A prestigious British medical journal recommended that doctors use dye-free diets as a first-line treatment for some behavior disorders; British regulators are pressuring companies to stop using the dyes, and some are complying."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-17 15:16:52 Thu, Jul 17, 2008: from Public Library of Science via ScienceDaily Frogs With Disease-resistance Genes May Escape Extinction "As frog populations die off around the world, researchers have identified certain genes that can help the amphibians develop resistance to harmful bacteria and disease. The discovery may provide new strategies to protect frog populations in the wild. New research examines how genes encoding the major histocompatibility (MHC) complex affect the ability of frogs to resist infection by a bacterium that is commonly associated with frog population declines."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:06:31 Thu, Jul 17, 2008: from Discover Ocean Acidification: A Global Case of Osteoporosis "It all seemed so convenient: As our smokestacks and automobile tailpipes spewed ever more carbon dioxide into the air, the oceans absorbed the excess. Like a vast global vacuum cleaner, the world's seas sucked CO2 right out of the atmosphere, mitigating the dire consequences of global warming and forestalling the melting of glaciers, the submergence of coastlines, and extremes of weather from floods to droughts... The problem was that, having swallowed hundreds of billions of tons of greenhouse gases since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the oceans were becoming more acidic. And not just in a few spots. Now the chemistry of the entire ocean was shifting, imperiling coral reefs, marine creatures at the bottom of the food chain, and ultimately the planet's fisheries."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-16 16:58:37 Wed, Jul 16, 2008: from London Guardian Human consumption: Flying in the face of logic "In 1968, six years after Rachel Carson published Silent Spring - the book regarded as marking the beginning of modern environmental consciousness - a young American entomology professor at Stanford University, California, published The Population Bomb... When Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb, there were 3.5 billion people on Earth; there are now 6.7 billion."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-16 17:01:42 Wed, Jul 16, 2008: from World Wildlife Fund via ScienceDaily Cruise-liner Sewage Adds To Baltic Decline "Most international cruise ship companies operating in the Baltic Sea have refused to co-operate with a plea from WWF to stop dumping their sewage straight into the water. The Baltic, an inland sea, is one of the most polluted seas in the world, so much so that the countries on its northern European shores have recently joined together to form the Baltic Sea Action Plan in an attempt to reverse its decline."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-20 11:49:56 Wed, Jul 16, 2008: from New Scientist When acquiring mosquito-borne disease is a good thing "With 50 million cases in the tropics each year, dengue fever is humanity's most common insect-borne viral infection. Killing the mosquitoes that carry it is the only way to fight it, but now a large-scale survey in Thailand has revealed that this can make the deadliest form of dengue more prevalent.
Known as "breakbone fever", dengue is painful but normally not fatal the first time around ... the real threat is the second infection....causing a potentially fatal disease called dengue haemorrhagic fever. DHF kills 12,000 people a year, mainly children.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-16 17:00:41 Wed, Jul 16, 2008: from Associated Press Chesapeake watermen fear blue crab not coming back "Chesapeake Bay crabber Paul Kellam has advice for the teenage boys who help tend his traps every summer: You better have a backup plan. It's an anxious summer for watermen harvesting the Chesapeake's best-loved seafood, the blue crab. The way some see it, the crabbing business here isn't just dying. It's already dead."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-16 16:59:40 Wed, Jul 16, 2008: from Associated Press There's an 'energy tsunami' coming "A bipartisan group of 27 elder statesmen is sending an open letter to both presidential candidates and every member of Congress saying the country faces "a long-term energy crisis" that threatens the security and prosperity of future generations if swift action isn't taken. The group includes Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and six other former secretaries of state or defense, former senators of both parties and a half dozen former senior White House advisers and other Cabinet officers for both Republican and Democratic presidents."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:29:06 Tue, Jul 15, 2008: from Associated Press EPA document ties public health problems to global warming; White House tried to bury analysis "Government scientists detailed a rising death toll from heat waves, wildfires, disease and smog caused by global warming in an analysis the White House buried so it could avoid regulating greenhouse gases. In a 149-page document released Monday, the experts laid out for the first time the scientific case for the grave risks that global warming poses to people, and to the food, energy and water on which society depends."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 21:02:10 Tue, Jul 15, 2008: from Scranton Times-Tribune (PA) Biologists driven batty Tens of thousands of bats in New York and New England died of a mysterious disease over the winter and experts are now keeping a close eye on Pennsylvania's winged mammals.... "Bats have been here for 60 million years, so they obviously perform some important function in the ecosystem," [Dr. Kwiecinski ] said, as he sat in his office, surrounded by real bats, toy bats and pictures of bats. "Never seen anything like this in bats," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:12:22 Tue, Jul 15, 2008: from Muskegon Chronicle Zebra, quagga mussels cross Continental Divide The Great Lakes' mussel pain has gone nationwide. European zebra and quagga mussels imported to the lakes by ocean freighters in the mid-1980s have crossed the Continental Divide and spread to California. This comes as the population of quagga mussels has multiplied dramatically in the Great Lakes in recent years, disrupting the fish food chain, fueling algae blooms that soil beaches and botulism outbreaks that have killed more than 70,000 fish-eating birds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-15 10:34:41 Tue, Jul 15, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Ocean floor could store century of US carbon emissions The Juan de Fuca plate, which comprises the ocean floor a few hundred kilometres from the coasts of Washington and Oregon, contains layers of basalt that geologists think might be suitable for long-term sequestration of CO2 as part of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) system.... The region identified could potentially store around 208bn tonnes of liquefied CO2, the researchers said, a figure that could rise to 250bn tonnes depending on how much of the gas reacted with the rocks to form carbonates.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-15 01:52:02 Tue, Jul 15, 2008: from Columbia University, via EurekAlert Closing a coal-burning power plant leads to improved cognitive development in children Closing coal-fired power plants can have a direct, positive impact on children's cognitive development and health... The study allowed researchers to track and compare the development of two groups of children born in Tongliang, a city in China's Chongqing Municipality -- one in utero while a coal-fired power plant was operating in the city and one in utero after the Chinese government had closed the plant. Among the first group of children, prenatal exposure to coal-burning emissions was associated with significantly lower average developmental scores and reduced motor development at age two. In the second unexposed group, these adverse effects were no longer observed; and the frequency of delayed motor developmental was significantly reduced.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-15 10:38:52 Tue, Jul 15, 2008: from Oregon State University, via EurekAlert Greatest value of forests may be sustainable water supply This new view of forests is evolving, scientists say, as both urban and agricultural demands for water continue to increase, and the role of clean water from forests becomes better understood as an "ecosystem service" of great value. Many factors -- changing climate, wildfires, insect outbreaks, timber harvest, roads, and even urban sprawl -- are influencing water supplies from forests.
Preserving and managing forests may help sustain water supplies and water quality from the nation's headwaters in the future, they conclude, but forest management is unlikely to increase water supplies.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-15 10:23:50 Mon, Jul 14, 2008: from Australian Associated Press Global warming 'will multiply pests' "Global warming will allow exotic plants and animals to invade vulnerable Australian ecosystems, the WWF conservation group has warned.
Warmer temperatures will allow feral animals and invasive weeds to gain access to cooler and higher areas where they have not previously been able to exist, according to WWF's Invasive Species Policy Officer Julie Kirkwood."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-15 01:46:35 Mon, Jul 14, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Prions can survive sewage treatment, UW-Madison study says "Mad cow disease-causing prions can survive conventional sewage treatment, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists. Prions -- rogue misfolded proteins that cause mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease, and its human equivalent, variant Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease -- are not degraded by standard wastewater decontamination and can end up in fertilizers, potentially contaminating crops."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-14 12:01:21 Mon, Jul 14, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Olympics suck up China's already scarce water "...Over-extraction of groundwater and falling water tables are huge problems for China, particularly in the north. Environmental activists warn that the nation is facing a future of water shortages, water pollution and continuing deterioration in water quality. Beijing is one of the world's most water-scarce mega-cities, with a deficit of 324,000 acre-feet annually."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:38:11 Mon, Jul 14, 2008: from Vietnam News Poisoned rivers menace public health (Vietnam) Trinh Thi Bien, 73, has lived her whole life along the Nhue River in Ha Tay Province’s Phu Xuyen District.
"In the past, the river was full of fish and shrimp, and it was so clean that the villagers could even cook with its water. But this is gone now," she says sadly.
"The river has become terribly dirty. My family has drilled three wells, but all the water we find is polluted by the nearby river," says the old woman, who lives in Minh Tan Commune.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:09:06 Mon, Jul 14, 2008: from Rights and Resources Institute, via EurekAlert New studies predict record land grab as demand soars for new sources of food, energy and wood fiber Escalating global demand for fuel, food and wood fibre will destroy the world's forests, if efforts to address climate change and poverty fail to empower the billion-plus forest-dependent poor, according to two reports released today by the U.S.-based Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), an international coalition comprising the world's foremost organisations on forest governance and conservation.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-13 11:21:54 Sun, Jul 13, 2008: from Massachusetts Institute of Technology via ScienceDaily New 'Window' Opens On Solar Energy: Cost Effective Devices Available Soon "Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of. MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing the sun's energy that could allow just that."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:41:23 Sun, Jul 13, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Hazardous flame retardant found in household objects "A flame retardant that was taken out of children's pajamas more than 30 years ago after it was found to cause cancer is being used with increasing regularity in furniture, paint -- even baby carriers and bassinets -- and manufacturers are under no obligation to let the public know about it... [The EPA] Web site lists 16 studies that each conclude the chemical does not harm people. The Journal Sentinel examined those studies and found that all were funded by chemical-makers..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-13 03:58:31 Sun, Jul 13, 2008: from Atlanta Journal-Constitution CDC lab containing deadly virus suffers power outage A laboratory building that contains a deadly strain of avian flu and other germs is among four that lost power for more than an hour Friday when a backup generator system failed again at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.... CDC officials did not attempt to override and restart the agency's backup generators because they didn't know what the anomaly was that shut them down, Skinner said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:05:14 Sun, Jul 13, 2008: from The Independent (UK) Sewage threatens to turn flamingo breeding site into cesspool In one of the world's great wildlife spectacles, tens of thousands of lesser flamingos gather at a South African wetland –- but it is a spectacle now gravely threatened by pollution.... The dam is being used to dump raw sewage from a malfunctioning treatment plant owned by the Sol Plaatje Municipality.
"Without urgent action, the dam will become a polluted cesspool devoid of birdlife," said Duncan Pritchard, of BirdLife South Africa.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-13 03:20:31 Sun, Jul 13, 2008: from The Independent (UK) We've seen the future ... and we may not be doomed Humanity stands on the threshold of a peaceful and prosperous future, with an unprecedented ability to extend lifespans and increase the power of ordinary people – but is likely to blow it through inequality, violence and environmental degradation. And governments are not equipped to ensure that the opportunities are seized and disasters averted.... [T]he 2008 State of the Future report runs to 6,300 pages and draws on contributions from 2,500 experts around the globe.
Its warning is all the more stark for eschewing doom and gloom. "The future continues to get better for most of the world," it concludes, "but a series of tipping points could drastically alter global prospects."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:48:43 Sun, Jul 13, 2008: from The Independent (UK) Return of the ivory trade The world trade in ivory, banned 19 years ago to save the African elephant from extinction, is about to take off again, with the emergence of China as a major ivory buyer.
Alarmed conservationists are warning of a new wave of elephant killing across both Africa and Asia if China is allowed to become a legal importer, as looks likely at a meeting in Geneva next week. ... "This is going to mean a return to the bad old days where elephants are being shot into extinction," said Allan Thornton, of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), the group which provided much of the evidence on which the original ivory ban was based in 1989.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-12 21:43:34 Sun, Jul 13, 2008: from University of Alabama-Birmingham Good News about Four-dollar Gas? Fewer Traffic Deaths An analysis of yearly vehicle deaths compared to gas prices found death rates drop significantly as people slow down and drive less. If gas remains at $4 a gallon or higher for a year or more, traffic deaths could drop by more than 1,000 per month nationwide, said Michael Morrisey, Ph.D., director of UAB's Lister Hill Center for Health Policy and a co-author on the new findings.... "For every 10 percent rise in gas prices, fatalities are reduced by 2.3 percent. The effects are even more dramatic for teen drivers."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-12 12:00:27 Sat, Jul 12, 2008: from National Geographic News Yellowstone Geysers May Stop Erupting, Study Suggests "A long-term study of Yellowstone National Park's iconic geysers suggests that dry spells caused by climate change are slowing—and may even stop—the geysers' clockwork-regular eruptions."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:34:10 Sat, Jul 12, 2008: from The Telegraph via Associated Press Study: Southeast's cheap access to water at risk "A new study says global warming and population growth threaten the Southeast's already precarious water supplies by fueling more extreme weather and degrading water quality... Models show that anticipated higher temperatures will generate more volatile weather, with more extreme storms, flooding and erosion ... and contribute to more severe droughts. Adding to the strain is the Southeast's population growth, which has led the nation in recent years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:55:33 Sat, Jul 12, 2008: from National Research Council Restoration of Climate Sensors Needed To continue the study of long-term climate change, NASA and NOAA need to restore a number of sensors that were previously planned for future Earth-observing satellites but cancelled [by the Bush Administration], according to a new report from the National Research Council. The report provides recommendations for a recovery strategy and stresses the need for a clearer national policy toward acquiring long-term climate records.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:56:08 Sat, Jul 12, 2008: from Daily Mail Superbugs threaten to put Britain back to pre-antibiotic age "Superbugs are threatening to return Britain to a 'pre-antibiotic' era in which common infections killed in huge numbers, a major new study warns. There is an urgent need for new, effective medicines to replace drugs that have become useless, says the report by the Royal Society, the UK's science academy. The battle against drug-resistant bacteria has concentrated too much on tackling dirty hospitals and curbing the over-use of existing antibiotics."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:30:45 Sat, Jul 12, 2008: from KOMO News Increasingly popular caviar raises health concerns "...As demand for paddlefish caviar has grown, health officials have become as uneasy ... about a variety of toxins found in the eggs, including mercury, chlordane and cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. But advocates say the level of contaminants is below federal safety standards and that most consumers don't eat enough of it to suffer any ill effects... Washington chef and restaurant owner Nora Pouillon said she doesn't serve paddlefish caviar. "I can't with a clear conscience poison my customers," she said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-12 11:03:04 Sat, Jul 12, 2008: from BBC Leak closes French nuclear plant "France's nuclear safety watchdog has ordered a plant in the country's south to temporarily close after a uranium leak polluted the local water supply... Waste containing unenriched uranium leaked into two rivers at the Tricastin plant at Bollene, 40km (25 miles) from the popular tourist city of Avignon."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:37:02 Sat, Jul 12, 2008: from BBC Living in a world without waste "The Mayor of Kamikatsu, a small community in the hills of eastern Japan, has urged politicians around the world to follow his lead and make their towns "Zero Waste"... Kamikatsu may be a backwater in the wooded hills and rice terraces of south-eastern Japan but it's become a world leader on waste policy.
There are no waste collections from households at all. People have to take full responsibility for everything they throw away.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 19:53:15 Fri, Jul 11, 2008: from The Japan Times Musky hormone disrupter residue found in breast milk "A minute residue of synthetic musk fragrances, feared to block hormones, has been found in a limited number of sampled breast milk and fat tissues of Japanese women, according to a recent joint study by researchers from three Japanese universities.
While there have been findings of the synthetic compounds -- known as HHCB and AHTN -- in breast milk in the United States and Europe, this was the first study that reported their detection in people in Japan."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:35:33 Fri, Jul 11, 2008: from Science Warming Spells Trouble for Fish "Global warming of the oceans will likely cause the extinction by 2050 of dozens of fish species that cannot migrate to colder waters, according to a study presented here yesterday at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium. "The loss of biodiversity will be considerable, and replacing them with new species would take millions of years," says co-author Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:39:58 Fri, Jul 11, 2008: from New Scientist Corals join frogs and toads as world's most endangered "Within one generation, diving on coral reefs could be a very rare holiday opportunity. The first comprehensive review of tropical coral species reveals that over one-quarter reef-building coral species already face extinction.
This means corals join frogs and toads as the most threatened group of animal species on the planet."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:05:12 Fri, Jul 11, 2008: from Washington Post EPA Won't Act on Emissions This Year "The Bush administration has decided not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions before the president leaves office, despite pressure from the Supreme Court and broad accord among senior federal officials that new regulation is appropriate now."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-10 19:30:49 Thu, Jul 10, 2008: from Associated Press Antarctic ice shelf 'hanging by thread': European scientists "New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday. Images taken by its Envisat remote-sensing satellite show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is "hanging by its last thread" to Charcot Island, one of the plate's key anchors to the Antarctic peninsula, ESA said in a press release.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:56:37 Thu, Jul 10, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle U.S. proposes to put smelt on endangered list "The delta smelt, a tiny but important fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, could officially become "endangered" under a proposal announced Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Smelt are an indicator of the delta's health, and nearly 750,000 acres of farmland and 25 million people from the Bay Area to Central and Southern California rely on water from the delta."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-10 17:33:46 Thu, Jul 10, 2008: from Forbes Dirty Driving: Top 10 Worst Polluters "The Hummer H2 might be an obvious target for environmentalists, but unless it's caked in mud, the hulking sport utility vehicle isn't the filthiest ride on the road. That distinction goes to another SUV: the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-10 17:06:23 Thu, Jul 10, 2008: from London Independent How to cut your paper footprint "Each of us throws away, on average, a quarter of a ton of paper every year... No one likes to think of trees being felled, but many of us have a cosy image in our heads that it all comes from recycling or "sustainable" woodlands growing in neat rows, perhaps somewhere in Sweden. It's a myth. Globally, 70 per cent of the 335 million tons of paper the world uses each year comes from natural, un-farmed sources."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-10 16:08:43 Thu, Jul 10, 2008: from New York Times Global Warming Talks Leave Few Concrete Goals "The statement issued by the industrialized Group of 8 pledged to “move toward a carbon-free society†by seeking to cut worldwide emissions of heat-trapping gases in half by 2050. But the statement did not say whether that baseline would be emissions at 1990 levels, or the less ambitious baseline of current levels, already 25 percent higher.
Mentions of mandatory restrictions on emissions were carefully framed. Caps or taxes were endorsed where “national circumstances†made those acceptable. The statement urged nations to set “midterm, aspirational goals for energy efficiency.â€
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-09 18:35:20 Wed, Jul 9, 2008: from New Scientist, via EurekAlert 10 people die from new CJD-like disease A new form of fatal dementia has been discovered in 16 Americans, 10 of whom have already died of the condition. It resembles Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease -- with patients gradually losing their ability to think, speak and move -- but has features that make it distinct from known forms of CJD.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-09 18:30:35 Wed, Jul 9, 2008: from NOAA, via EurekAlert Aerosol toxins from red tides may cause long-term health threat NOAA scientists reported in the current issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives that an algal toxin commonly inhaled in sea spray, attacks and damages DNA in the lungs of laboratory rats.... The scientists, led by John Ramsdell of NOAA's Center for Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research in Charleston, S.C., determined that brevetoxins react with DNA of lung tissue and attach to the DNA-bases that code genetic information. The linkage of chemicals in the environment to DNA is a first step for many cancer causing agents and can lead to mutations in genes that normally prevent the formation of cancers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:19:23 Wed, Jul 9, 2008: from Guardian (UK) More pressure on global fish stocks as scientists warn of underreporting of catches The implication is that global fish stocks, already widely acknowledged to be under heavy pressure, are in far more in danger than thought. The underreporting particularly threatens the hundreds of millions of poor people around the world who rely on fish for subsistence.
A reconstruction of actual catches in 20 places around the globe showed that fish landings that were not reported were at least as high as the declared catch, and sometimes more than 16 times higher.
"This is underreporting of such magnitude that it boggles the mind," said Professor Daniel Pauly, of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-09 17:21:28 Wed, Jul 9, 2008: from Nature, via EurekAlert Scripps research scientists reveal key structure from ebola virus the research reveals the shape of the Ebola virus spike protein, which is necessary for viral entry into human cells, bound to an immune system antibody acting to neutralize the virus.... "Much about Ebola virus is still a mystery," says Erica Ollmann Saphire, the Scripps Research scientist who led the five-year effort. "However, this structure now reveals how this critical piece of the virus is assembled and, importantly, identifies vulnerable sites that we can exploit."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:04:00 Wed, Jul 9, 2008: from New York Times Corals, Already in Danger, Are Facing New Threat From Farmed Algae Corals are being covered and smothered to death by a bushy seaweed that is so tough even algae-grazing fish avoid it. It settles in the reef's crevices that fish once called home, driving them away.... [I]ntroduced in the past three decades to 20 countries around the world from Tonga to Zanzibar and the result in most of them has been failure or worse. The alga K. alvarezii invaded the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve in south India a decade after commercial cultivation began in nearby Panban. "No part of the coral reef was visible in most of the invaded sites, where it doomed entire colonies," the journal Current Science has reported.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-09 06:35:24 Wed, Jul 9, 2008: from Guardian (UK) GM installs world's biggest rooftop solar panels The largest rooftop solar power station in the world is being built in Spain. With a capacity of 12 megawatts of power, the station is made up of 85,000 lightweight panels covering an area of two million square feet.
Manufactured in rolls, rather like carpet, the photovoltaic panels are to be installed on the roof of a General Motors car factory in Zaragoza, eastern Spain.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:23:09 Wed, Jul 9, 2008: from University of Michigan, via EurekAlert How intense will storms get? New model helps answer question A new mathematical model indicates that dust devils, water spouts, tornadoes, hurricanes and cyclones are all born of the same mechanism and will intensify as climate change warms the Earth's surface.... For every 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit that the Earth's surface temperature warms, the intensity of storms could increase by at least a few percent, the scientists say. For an intense storm, that could translate into a 10 percent increase in destructive power.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-08 16:11:20 Tue, Jul 8, 2008: from Rutgers University via ScienceDaily Could Pond Scum Undo Pollution, Fight Global Warming And Alleviate World Hunger? "Three plant biologists at Rutgers' Waksman Institute of Microbiology are obsessed with duckweed, a tiny aquatic plant with an unassuming name. Now they have convinced the federal government to focus its attention on duckweed's tremendous potential for cleaning up pollution, combating global warming and feeding the world."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:13:44 Tue, Jul 8, 2008: from Los Angeles Times A climate threat from flat TVs, microchips "A synthetic chemical widely used in the manufacture of computers and flat-screen televisions is a potent greenhouse gas, with 17,000 times the global warming effect of carbon dioxide, but its measure in the atmosphere has never been taken, nor is it regulated by international treaty."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-08 11:02:53 Tue, Jul 8, 2008: from NewsWireless.net Nokia offers 'amnesty' for old phones: 'We'll recycle them for you' "If all of the three billion people that own mobile phones globally brought back just one unused device, we could save 240,000 tonnes of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gases to the same effect as taking four million cars off the road."... "From today, anyone can come along to our London store and hand in their old handsets, whatever the make, and we’ll recycle it for them."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-08 09:54:53 Tue, Jul 8, 2008: from AP News Cheney wanted cuts in climate testimony Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on the public health consequences of climate change, fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials maintains.
When six pages were cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for Disease Control last October, the White House insisted the changes were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers about the accuracy of the science.
But Jason K. Burnett, until last month the senior adviser on climate change to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, says that Cheney's office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC's original draft testimony removed.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:05:14 Mon, Jul 7, 2008: from Terra Daily Australian climate report like 'disaster novel': minister "Heatwaves, less rain and increased drought are the likely prospect for Australia, according to a new report on climate change which the agriculture minister said read like a "disaster novel".
The report, by the Bureau of Meteorology and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, found that the world's driest inhabited continent is likely to suffer more extreme temperatures due to climate change."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:08:24 Mon, Jul 7, 2008: from USA Today 'Invasive' humans threaten U.S. coral reefs "Half of all U.S. coral reefs, the center of marine life in the Pacific and Caribbean oceans, are either in poor or fair condition, a federal agency warns today.
The report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration places much of the blame on human activities and warns of further oceanwide decline.
Reefs closer to cities were found to suffer poorer health, damaged by trash, overfishing and pollution."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:18:44 Mon, Jul 7, 2008: from NineMSN (Australia) Yarra River fish deaths worry protesters The dredging of millions of tonnes of toxic sludge from Melbourne's Yarra River should stop until an investigation determines why fish are dying, protesters say.... "We're talking about exactly the same area and this is where they're dredging up that black toxic stuff which is full of heavy metals and who knows what else".... Almost three million cubic metres of toxic silt is being dredged from the Yarra River area and deposited in a containment "bund" in Port Phillip Bay as part of a $1 billion project to make way for larger ships.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:40:25 Mon, Jul 7, 2008: from University of Exeter, via EurekAlert Study shows rise in Cornwall's dolphin, whale and porpoise deaths The research team analysed records of cetacean strandings from 1911 to 2006 from around Cornwall's north and south coasts and the Isles of Scilly. They found a marked increase from the early 1980s, with common dolphins and harbour porpoises being the worst-affected species. In total, fewer than 50 cetacean strandings a year occurred in Cornwall in the 1980s but numbers since 2000 have ranged from 100 to 250 per annum.... The researchers analysed records of 2,257 cetaceans, 862 of which were common dolphins. They found that, since 1990, at least 61 percent of incidents in Cornwall are the result of fishing activity, with animals being caught up in nets in a phenomenon known as 'bycatch'. The seas around Cornwall are known to be a major hotspot for large scale fisheries, with many vessels coming from other EU nations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:13:12 Mon, Jul 7, 2008: from Science, via Science Daily Acidifying Oceans Add Urgency To Carbon Dioxide Cuts [H]uman emissions of carbon dioxide have begun to alter the chemistry of the ocean--often called the cradle of life on Earth. The ecological and economic consequences are difficult to predict but possibly calamitous, warn a team of chemical oceanographers in the July 4 issue of Science, and halting the changes already underway will likely require even steeper cuts in carbon emissions than those currently proposed to curb climate change.... Although the ocean's chemical response to higher carbon dioxide levels is relatively predictable, the biological response is more uncertain. The ocean's pH and carbonate chemistry has been remarkably stable for millions of years--much more stable than temperature.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:13:35 Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from Robert Silverberg, in Asimovs Science Fiction Peak Metals: Gallium, Indium, Zinc, Copper The element gallium is in very short supply and the world may well run out of it in just a few years. Indium is threatened too, says Armin Reller, a materials chemist at Germany' s University of Augsburg. He estimates that our planet's stock of indium will last no more than another decade. All the hafnium will be gone by 2017 also, and another twenty years will see the extinction of zinc. Even copper is an endangered item, since worldwide demand for it is likely to exceed available supplies by the end of the present century.... Dr. Reller says that by 2017 or so there'll be [no gallium] left to use. Indium, another endangered element -- number 49 in the periodic table -- is similar to gallium in many ways, has many of the same uses ... and is being consumed much faster than we are finding it. Dr. Reller gives it about another decade.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-06 11:13:32 Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from Times Online (UK) How China's thirst for oil can save the planet What is bad news for businesses and consumers, however, is good for investors in green energy. Vast sums of money are pouring into technologies that until relatively recently were the preserve of niche businesses and environmental campaigners. This year should see a record [200 billion dollars] or more invested in "clean technology" despite the credit crunch, according to a report published last week by the consultants New Energy Finance for the United Nations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:27:19 Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from Nature Geoscience, via ScienceDaily New Pathway For Methane Production In The Oceans Discovered A new pathway for methane production has been uncovered in the oceans, and this has a significant potential impact for the study of greenhouse gas production on our planet. The article, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, reveals that aerobic decomposition of an organic, phosphorus-containing compound, methylphosphonate, may be responsible for the supersaturation of methane in ocean surface waters.... Interest in this research crosses many specialties. Oceanographers will be excited because it offers a solution to the long standing methane paradox. Microbiologists will be excited because it shows an aerobic production pathway of methane, which goes against everything that is currently known about methane, and Climatologists will be interested because it's a potent greenhouse gas that we don't have constraints on, and this new pathway is very exciting.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:11:32 Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Wildlife extinction rates 'seriously underestimated' Endangered species may become extinct 100 times faster than previously thought, scientists warned today, in a bleak re-assessment of the threat to global biodiversity.
Writing in the journal Nature, leading ecologists claim that methods used to predict when species will die out are seriously flawed, and dramatically underestimate the speed at which some plants and animals will be wiped out.... "Some species could have months instead of years left, while other species that haven't even been identified as under threat yet should be listed as endangered," said Melbourne.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-06 12:17:16 Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Help find the lost ladybugs Two years ago in Virginia, two children made a discovery near their home in Arlington that still has scientists talking. They found a ladybug.
But it wasn't just any ladybug. It was a nine-spotted ladybug, and its discovery was the first sighting of a nine-spotted ladybug in the eastern U.S. in more than 14 years.... [I]t was common until the mid-1980s.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-05 21:24:46 Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from Sunday News (Zimbabwe) Chicken feed shortage affects poultry industry ACUTE shortages of poultry feed on the market is increasing nutritional deficiency diseases in chickens, further crippling the poultry industry, which has experienced a sharp decline over the years.
Matabeleland North's Department of Veterinary Services' provincial officer, Dr Polex Moyo said the shortages have resulted in most birds suffering from stress and nutritional deficiencies diseases....
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 21:01:52 Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from The National (United Arab Emirates) Gazelles: Changing with the winds It was not that long ago that gazelles outnumbered people in the vast deserts of the Arabian peninsula. Now, with the rapid modernisation in the UAE having had a profound effect on local flora and fauna, the Arabian gazelle is estimated to have a global population of less than 20,000 and the sand gazelle has been placed on the list of endangered species.... One of only a handful of mammals whose biological adaptations allow them to survive in the harsh desert climate, gazelles have a similar method of water conservation to that of the camel and both species can live without surface water for significant amounts of time without suffering dehydration.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-06 12:30:55 Sun, Jul 6, 2008: from KTLA (California) Fireworks Leave Tons of Pollutants For Months When the rockets and the bombs burst in the air tonight, spectators will experience more than a spectacular show celebrating America's birthday.
When their blends of black powder, metals, oxidizers, fuels and other toxic ingredients are ignited, traces wind up in the environment, often spreading long distances and lasting for days, even months.
Although pyrotechnic experts are developing environmentally friendly fireworks, Fourth of July revelers this year will be watching essentially the same high-polluting technology that their grandparents experienced decades ago.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-06 11:25:20 Fri, Jul 4, 2008: from PLOS, via EurekAlert Simian foamy virus found to be widespread among chimpanzees Recent studies have shown that humans who hunt wild primates, including chimpanzees, can acquire SFV infections. Since the long-term consequences of these cross-species infections are not known, it is important to determine to what extent wild primates are infected with simian foamy viruses. In this study, researchers tested this question for wild chimpanzees by using novel non-invasive methods. Analyzing over 700 fecal samples from 25 chimpanzee communities across sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers obtained viral sequences from a large proportion of these communities, showing a range of infection rates from 44 percent to 100 percent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:03:22 Fri, Jul 4, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Secret report: rush to biofuels caused food crisis Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75 percent - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3 percent to food-price rises.... Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:56:16 Fri, Jul 4, 2008: from University of Florida, via EurekAlert New study points to agriculture in frog sexual abnormalities In a study with wide implications for a longstanding debate over whether agricultural chemicals pose a threat to amphibians, UF zoologists have found that toads in suburban areas are less likely to suffer from reproductive system abnormalities than toads near farms -- where some had both testes and ovaries.
"As you increase agriculture," said Lou Guillette, a distinguished professor of zoology, "you have an increasing number of abnormalities."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-03 11:29:33 Thu, Jul 3, 2008: from Great Ape Trust Orangutans 'declining more sharply' than previously estimated Endangered wild orangutan (Pongo spp.) populations are declining more sharply in Sumatra and Borneo than previously estimated, according to new findings published this month by Great Ape Trust of Iowa scientist Dr. Serge Wich and other orangutan conservation experts in Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation.
Conservation action essential to survival of orangutans, found only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, must be region-specific to address the different ecological threats to each species, said Wich and his co-authors, a pre-eminent group of scientists, conservationists, and representatives of governmental and non-governmental groups. The experts' revised estimates put the number of Sumatran orangutans (P. abelii) around 6,600 in 2004. This is lower than previous estimates of 7,501 as a result of new findings that indicate that a large area in Aceh that was previously thought to contain orangutans actually does not.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-03 11:21:24 Thu, Jul 3, 2008: from Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research Giving tropical forests a helping hand Dutch ecologist Marijke van Kuijk has studied the regeneration of the tropical forest in Vietnam. Abandoned agricultural land does regenerate to tropical forest, but only slowly. Two procedures are used to help nature along: pruning of foliage to free up space for trees and planting the desired tree species.... [T]he natural regeneration process from agricultural land to forest often stagnates at the scrub stage. Some plants and shrubs grow vigorously and become dominant as a result of which young trees do not receive enough light to grow.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-03 10:18:31 Thu, Jul 3, 2008: from National Physical Laboratory, via EurekAlert Scientists set out to measure how we perceive 'naturalness' Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) are working towards producing the world's first model that will predict how we perceive naturalness. The results could help make synthetic products so good that they are interpreted by our senses as being fully equivalent to the 'real thing', but with the benefits of reduced environmental impact and increased durability.... Ruth Montgomery of the National Physical Laboratory, said: "Our senses combine to identify natural materials. But what are the key factors, is it colour, gloss, smoothness, temperature?... The focus of the research is wood, fabric and stone, but once the data is combined the aim is to produce a predictive computer model that will work for other materials. If successful the range of applications would be huge. For instance, synthetic mahogany furniture that is indistinguishable from the natural material, but won't rot or be attacked by woodworm or artificial grass so good that they use it on Wimbledon's Centre Court."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:11:40 Thu, Jul 3, 2008: from Barrie Examiner Massive fish deaths a puzzle for officials: carp washing ashore across Lake Simcoe "I was down off De Grassi Point to fish for bass and I ran into three of them about 100 yards offshore. I thought it was a rock or something," he said yesterday.
He dragged the near-metre long fish behind his boat in the event the Ministry of Natural Resources or some other agency wanted to run tests on the carcass, prompting another nearby angler to ask him what his big catch was. So far, the carp die-off is being monitored by the MNR in lakes Simcoe and Couchiching and is reaching up as far as Sparrow Lake near Washago.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-03 08:16:53 Thu, Jul 3, 2008: from Sky News (UK) 'World Pharmacy' Being Destroyed A quarter of all our medicine is sourced from it and it hosts a mass of colourful biodiversity. But both the Peruvian Amazon's species and the world's medicine are facing their gravest threat yet.... Just as the rainforest is rich in flora, it also boasts an abundance of other, more lucrative riches.
The race to plunder the forest of fossil fuels, gold and timber for example, means that every day truckloads of trees are slashed and burned with little reforestation. The authorities turn a blind eye to the illegal activities of big business.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:29:58 Wed, Jul 2, 2008: from University of Washington, via ScienceDaily Penguins Setting Off Sirens Over Health Of World's Oceans [T]he culprit isn't only climate change, says a University of Washington conservation biologist. Oil pollution, depletion of fisheries and rampant coastline development that threatens breeding habitat for many penguin species, along with Earth's warming climate, are leading to rapid population declines among penguins, said Dee Boersma, a University of Washington biology professor and an authority on the flightless birds.
"Penguins are among those species that show us that we are making fundamental changes to our world," she said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-02 10:29:15 Wed, Jul 2, 2008: from Times Online (UK) After 200 million years, all-male future spells doom for tuatara reptiles The only survivors in the wild of an order of reptiles that scampered with dinosaurs could be wiped out because climate change will turn them all into males.
The gender of tuataras, an ancient type of reptile with three eyes, is determined by the temperatures that the embryos are kept at when in the egg. Global warming means that the reptiles, regarded as living fossils, face the threat of dying out in the wild because of a terminal shortage of females.
Only males will be born in nests where the eggs have been kept at temperatures of 22.25C (72.05F) whereas females are guaranteed only at temperatures lower than 22.1C.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-02 09:49:58 Wed, Jul 2, 2008: from Earth Policy Institute Lester Brown: Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization In this greatly revised edition, Brown outlines a survival strategy for our early twenty-first century civilization. The scale and complexity of the issues facing our fast-forward world have no precedent. Brown outlines an ambitious plan that includes cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020, achievable with existing technologies. The choice is yours and mine.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-01 17:13:32 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from World Wildlife Fund, via EurekAlert Traditional medicine in Cambodia and Vietnam endangering rare flora and fauna Two reports from TRAFFIC, the world's largest wildlife trade monitoring network, on traditional medicine systems in Cambodia and Vietnam suggest that illegal wildlife trade, including entire tiger skeletons, and unsustainable harvesting is depleting the region's rich and varied biodiversity and putting the primary healthcare resource of millions at risk.... "In Vietnam, we estimate between 5-10 tiger skeletons are sold annually to be used in traditional medicine. With each skeleton fetching approximately $20,000, there is a strong incentive to poach and trade tigers that we must address from the grassroots up."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-01 16:57:10 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from Central Chronicle (India) 40 metric tons of toxic waste removed from Bhopal Union Carbide plant "About 40 metric ton chemical waste and clay (lime sludge) was transported from Union Carbide Plant premises on June 27 to Pithampur. The work was executed under the eyes of experts and officials", said JT Ekka, Director, Gas Disaster & Relief Department on Tuesday.... Since the [Bhopal gas] tragedy, many NGOs ... have urged the State and Union Government to fulfil the demands of survivors [for] clean water in the gas-affected localities, and health care to the victims of gas tragedy.
Now the [NGOs] have begun questioning the State Government over the removal of toxic waste and its disposal in Pithampur.
"The entire dumping operation was carried under the cover of darkness. It's a big question that in what manner hazardous toxic waste was removed, transported and disposed in Pithampur plant", said Abdul Jabbar, convenor Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-01 16:44:51 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from Middle East Online Bread subsidies under threat in drought-hit Syria The availability of cheap food has been a cornerstone Syrian domestic economic policy.
However, there are growing doubts among ordinary people and analysts as to how much longer the country can remain relatively insulated from the global food crisis which has sparked riots in over 30 countries, including Egypt, where a similar authoritarian socialist government is in place.
The government exerts significant control over food prices through its control of the marketing, import and export of agricultural produce, but the agricultural sector has been partially liberalised, and food prices have risen 20 percent in the last six months, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-01 12:14:52 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Map reveals extent of deforestation in tropical countries A map of the world's tropical forests has revealed that millions of hectares of trees were cut back to make way for crops in recent years.
Created from high-resolution satellite images, the map shows the extent of deforestation in the tropics with unprecedented accuracy.... The map showed that deforestation in Indonesia was largely concentrated in just two regions, and that much of it was peatland. "The peatlands are essentially all carbon, so if you clear it and fire it, an enormous amount of carbon will be emitted into the atmosphere," said Stolle. "Without a precise map, we would not know that level of detail."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-01 16:47:54 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from USA Today, via WBIR Salmonella probe grows -- maybe not tomatoes Federal investigators retraced their steps Monday as suspicions mount that fresh unprocessed tomatoes aren't necessarily causing the salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds across the USA.
Three weeks after the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers to avoid certain types of tomatoes linked to the salmonella outbreak, people are still falling ill, says Robert Tauxe with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.... If another food is found to be the culprit after tomatoes were recalled nationwide and the produce industry sustained losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, food safety experts say the public's trust in the government's ability to track foodborne illnesses will be shattered.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:23:10 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from Xinhua (China) Crustaceans, squid found where once there were fish Researchers are pointing fingers at global warming again, saying it has caused dramatic shifts in some aquatic communities in which fish populations die off and crabs, lobsters and squid take over.
The finding comes from a new analysis of 50 years worth of fish-trawling data collected in Narragansett Bay and adjacent Rhode Island Sound but may apply elsewhere, researchers said.... "We think there has been a shift in the food web resulting in more of the productivity being consumed in the water column," Collie explained. "Phytoplankton are increasingly being grazed by zooplankton, which are then eaten by planktivorous fish, rather than the phytoplankton sinking to the bottom and being consumed by bottom fish. It's a rerouting of that production from the bottom to the top."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-01 08:31:40 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Fortified Cassava Could Provide A Day's Nutrition In A Single Meal Scientists have determined how to fortify the cassava plant, a staple root crop in many developing countries, with enough vitamins, minerals and protein to provide the poor and malnourished with a day's worth of nutrition in a single meal.... "This is the most ambitious plant genetic engineering project ever attempted," Sayre said. "Some biofortification strategies have the objective of providing only a third of the daily adult nutrition requirements since consumers typically get the rest of their nutritional requirements from other foods in their diet. But global food prices have recently gone sky high, meaning that many of the poorest people are now eating just one meal a day, primarily their staple food.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:10:50 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from ABS CBN News Online (Philippines) Toxic chemical leak will have int'l repercussions: expert One cargo in the sunken M/V Princess of the Stars off Romblon can very well be a ticking time-bomb.... Quijano rejects claims endosulfan in its raw form poses no immediate threat of contamination.
"The technical grade 92 percent (in the sunken ferry) endosulfan is a highly-concentrated form of the pesticide, so it doesn't need activation before it can be toxic. It is toxic by itself, and as soon as it gets out of the compartment, animals and humans are exposed to immediate and long-term danger of toxicity even in very small amounts," he said. "The level toxic to fish is .03 parts per billion. Assuming the container broke and all 10 tons spread, there can be sufficient concentration to kill fish within a 100 kilometer radius, even humans exposed to acute toxicity."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-07-01 08:21:18 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from NewIndPress (India) Traffic jam on highway, food crisis imminent It's a riot-like situation in the iron ore mines area of Kalta, Koira, Tensa and Barsun areas. Acute shortage of essential commodities have compounded the problems of the working class people who are already suffering price hike of essential commodities as a result of high inflation.
With iron ore-laden heavy vehicles from Rajamunda en route Roxy, Kalta, Koira and Barbil getting stranded on NH-215 for the last one week, movement of public buses and other light vehicles on the route has come to a grinding halt. Moreover, [in] the NH-215 near Chuna Ghati area up to a kilometre remains unmotorable. This has reflected on the movement of vehicles and buses carrying essential commodities from Rourkela.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:47:51 Tue, Jul 1, 2008: from Daily News (Sri Lanka) Toxic waste export harder to control, despite Basel Convention A meeting of the Basel Convention on hazardous wastes was told of the continuing transfer of wastes to developing countries, including the export of used condoms to Indonesia and electronic wastes dumped in China and Nigeria inside equipment such as computers and cell phones.
African countries also recalled the immoral act of a Dutch-based shipping company that dumped toxic chemical wastes at Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, which killed three people and hospitalised 1,500. These incidents were cited by participants as signs that the problem of hazardous waste movement has not lessened and are more difficult to control, despite the Convention.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 18:13:37 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Tick And Mosquito Repellent Can Be Made Commercially From Pine Oil In laboratory tests, ARS chemist Aijun Zhang in the Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory, Beltsville, Md., and his colleagues discovered that the naturally occurring compound deters the biting of mosquitoes more effectively than the widely used synthetic chemical repellent DEET. The compound also repelled two kinds of ticks as effectively as DEET.... Some segments of the public perceive efficient synthetic active ingredients as somehow more dangerous than botanical compounds, giving additional importance to the discovery of plant-based isolongifolenone.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 18:14:41 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from Afriquenligne (France) Namibian govt to auction eight live black rhino The Namibian government said Monday it would auction eight live black rhinos to foreign buyers and hundreds of other wildlife to raise funds for conservation purposes.... Government also said it would auction 40 disease-free buffalo to foreign buyers... [as well as] 16 sable from the Etosha national park and 21 giraffe from the Waterberg Plateau park.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:07:01 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from ABS CBN News Online (Philippines) No 'significant' release of toxic chemical yet: experts The 10 tons of the toxic insecticide, endosulfan, in the [sunken ferry] MV Princess of the Stars' hull is still in a not-so-soluble "solid flake" form, which explains why a chemical disaster hasn't happened in Romblon, a government chemist said.... He said this could explain why the divers have not tested positive for chemical poisoning and why there are yet no reports of fish kills near the sunken ferry.... "It’s really highly-toxic to marine life" ... "a "chemical disaster" would already have happened if the endosulfan was in its ready-to-mix form.... Endosulfan is a severely-restricted [endocrine disrupting] pesticide that can only be used by Del Monte and Dole for their pineapple plantations. Only these two institutional users are allowed to handle the chemical, according to Dr. Norlito Gicana, FPA executive director.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 17:44:20 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Prudence: a green virtue However difficult the mainstream parties might be finding the sustainable development agenda, they know that their own political destiny is being shaped by it more and more every year. Climate change, oil at $140 a barrel, food security issues, obesity, public health, infrastructure, housing -- even if sustainable development isn't yet the "central organising principle" of contemporary politics, more and more of the agenda is framed by it.
And it is not that dissimilar for leading businesses....
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:48:11 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Lundy's rare cabbage blooms again after invaders are expelled from its patch One of the world’s rarest plants, the Lundy cabbage, has been brought back from the point of extinction.
The cabbage, which, despite its beautiful yellow flowers, tastes disgusting, is found only in a couple of hundred square yards on Lundy Island, a few miles off the North Devon coast.
It is enjoying its most successful year in decades, thanks to conservationists' attempts to stop an invasion of rhododendrons on the island. ... Attempts to stop the rhododendrons began in the 1940s, when volunteers were called in to cut them down. But the plants came back stronger every time, so in 2002, conservationists began a full-scale extermination programme.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 15:18:05 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from Wall Street Journal Indian Wind-Turbine Firm Hits Turbulence The Indian company -- the world's fifth-largest wind-turbine maker by sales -- earlier this year acknowledged that 65 giant blades on turbines it had sold in the U.S. Midwest were cracking because of the extreme gusts in the region. The company is reinforcing 1,251 blades, almost the total it has sold in the U.S.... Other Suzlon turbines have broken down because of cold weather in the Midwest.... Mr. Tanti has been able to exploit a shortage of turbines from more-established manufacturers like Vestas AS of Denmark, the world's largest wind-turbine producer, and General Electric Co, whose order books are full through 2010. At about $3 million each, Suzlon's turbines sold in the U.S. are priced about 25 percent cheaper than those of major competitors.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:55:37 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona An Impossible Coexistence: Transgenic and Organic Agriculture The cultivation of genetically modified maize has caused a drastic reduction in organic cultivation of this grain and is making their coexistence practically impossible. This is the main conclusion reached in one of the first field studies in Europe... The author's analysis reveals a social confrontation between proponents and opponents of GM technology regarding the consequences it can have and the measures to be taken in regulating and taking responsibility for any cases of admixture... Many farmers who could sue for damages prefer not to do so in order to avoid any local confrontations in small villages.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 08:24:03 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from MSNBC (US) Pentagon fights EPA on pollution cleanup The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose "imminent and substantial" dangers to public health and the environment.
The Pentagon has also declined to sign agreements required by law that cover 12 other military sites on the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country. The contracts would spell out a remediation plan, set schedules, and allow the EPA to oversee the work and assess penalties if milestones are missed.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:06:25 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from Society for General Virology, via EurekAlert Bee disease a mystery Deformed wing virus (DWV) is passed between adult bees and to their developing brood by a parasitic mite called Varroa destructor when it feeds. However, research published in the July issue of the Journal of General Virology suggests that the virus does not replicate in Varroa, highlighting the need for further investigation.... "[W]e still don't know exactly how these viruses are passed from the mite to the bee."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 08:13:27 Mon, Jun 30, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Mechanism And Function Of Humor Identified By New Evolutionary Theory Alastair Clarke explains: "The theory is an evolutionary and cognitive explanation of how and why any individual finds anything funny. Effectively it explains that humour occurs when the brain recognizes a pattern that surprises it, and that recognition of this sort is rewarded with the experience of the humorous response, an element of which is broadcast as laughter."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-29 16:47:10 Sun, Jun 29, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Meltdown: how long does the Arctic have? "Now we are wondering if that is what is happening now. If it is, then the summertime ice cap may never recover and by 2013, or sometime soon after, it could be gone."
If Holland is right, then the destruction of the Arctic ice cap could become the first great global warming disaster. Why is it happening so fast? And how will it affect the rest of the world? ... Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, has been watching this process for two decades, making trips under the polar ice cap in a Royal Navy submarine equipped with radar that can measure the thickness of the ice. Over that period the average thickness has fallen by 40 percent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:36:31 Sun, Jun 29, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Climate Change May Challenge National Security, Classified Report Warns The National Intelligence Council (NIC) has completed a new classified assessment that explores how climate change could threaten U.S. security in the next 20 years by causing political instability, mass movements of refugees, terrorism, or conflicts over water and other resources in specific countries. The House Intelligence Committee is scheduled to be briefed Wednesday, June 25, on the main findings.... "There is clearly great interest among policy makers in knowing whether climate change will make crises such as the conflict in Darfur more prevalent, and whether other violent scenarios might be likely to unfold," said Levy. "The science of climate impacts does not yet give us a definitive answer to this question, but at least now we're looking at it seriously."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:49:35 Sun, Jun 29, 2008: from New York Times Citing Need for Assessments, U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Project Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.... "It doesn't make any sense," said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. "The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 07:50:25 Sat, Jun 28, 2008: from CNN North Pole could be ice-free this summer, scientists say The North Pole may be briefly ice-free by September as global warming melts away Arctic sea ice, according to scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.... The brief lack of ice at the top of the globe will not bring any immediate consequences, he said.
"From the viewpoint of the science, the North Pole is just another point in the globe, but it does have this symbolic meaning," Serreze said. "There's supposed to be ice at the North Pole. The fact that we may not have any by the end of this summer could be quite a symbolic change."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-27 22:36:44 Sat, Jun 28, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Bark Hopping: After branching out into Alberta, pine beetles take root There were hopes that low winter temperatures in early 2008 would reduce Alberta's infestation, but in a downbeat assessment released yesterday, the officials said populations of the voracious tree pest remain high in several areas.
"Pine beetles may be here to stay in Alberta," said Ted Morton, Sustainable Resource Development Minister.... "That's more or less the gateway to the boreal forest. If it progresses eastward from where it is now, it can move into Jack pine in northeastern Alberta, and from there, it's all Jack pine to Labrador," said Duncan MacDonnell, spokesman for the ministry.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 07:37:24 Sat, Jun 28, 2008: from Stuff.co.nz (New Zealand) Algal sludge greets Olympic sailors ... in Qingdao, the 2008 Olympic sailing venue, this week for a training camp only to find the sailing course blighted by tonnes of the algae.... Astonishing photos taken by coaching staff show conditions that create the illusion the sailors -- world No 1 men's pair Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page and women's crew Tessa Parkinson and Elise Rechichi -- are training on a lush green lawn instead of open blue water.... "We're not exactly sure what sort of algae it is, but it's not kelp -- it's very fluffy and spongy. It looks like the guys are sailing on grass." ... "This week, their boat's called Dead Calm -- quite appropriate, really, given the circumstances," Browne joked.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:10:42 Sat, Jun 28, 2008: from Brown University, via EurekAlert Brown Researchers Create Mercury-Absorbent Container Linings for Broken CFLs Each [compact fluorescent lamp (CFL)] contains a small amount (3 to 5 milligrams) of mercury, a neurotoxin that can be released as vapor when a bulb is broken. The gas can pose a minor risk to certain groups, such as infants, small children and pregnant women.... The team has created a prototype – a mercury-capturing lining attached to the inside of store-bought CFL packaging. The packaging can be placed over the area where a bulb has been broken to absorb the mercury vapor emanating from the spill, or it can capture the mercury of a bulb broken in the box.
The researchers also have created a specially designed lining for plastic bags that soaks up the mercury left over from the CFL shards that are thrown away.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-27 22:11:11 Sat, Jun 28, 2008: from University of Missouri, via EurekAlert Ancient Oak Trees Help Reduce Global Warming, MU Study Finds “If a tree is submerged in water, its carbon will be stored for an average of 2,000 years,” said Richard Guyette, director of the MU Tree Ring Lab and research associate professor of forestry in the School of Natural Resources in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. "If a tree falls in a forest, that number is reduced to an average of 20 years, and in firewood, the carbon is only stored for one year." ... The team studied trees in northern Missouri, a geographically unique area with a high level of riparian forests (forests that have natural water flowing through them). They discovered submerged oak trees that were as old as 14,000 years, potentially some of the oldest discovered in the world. This carbon storage process is not just ancient; it continues even today as additional trees become submerged, according to Guyette.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:21:11 Fri, Jun 27, 2008: from University of Rhode Island, via EurekAlert Climate change causing significant shift in composition of coastal fish communities A detailed analysis of data from nearly 50 years of weekly fish-trawl surveys in Narragansett Bay and adjacent Rhode Island Sound has revealed a long-term shift in species composition, which scientists attribute primarily to the effects of global warming.
According to Jeremy Collie, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography, the fish community has shifted progressively from vertebrate species (fish) to invertebrates (lobsters, crabs and squid) and from benthic or demersal species – those that feed on the bottom – to pelagic species that feed higher in the water column.
"This is a pretty dramatic change"... said Collie.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-27 07:36:23 Fri, Jun 27, 2008: from ThaiIndian News 'Mild' malaria strain is more deadly, says study The new research has shown that P. vivax is far from benign, and is responsible for a significant illness with high rates of severe disease and death.
The paper also shows that in many cases, victims are infected with a mixture of both parasites and that this results in an even higher risk of severe disease than infection with a single parasite.... But P. vivax accounts for 400 million cases every year in Asia, with about 300 cases reported annually in patients returning to Australia from malaria endemic countries. In Indonesia, the parasite has developed resistance to standard treatments.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-27 07:36:59 Fri, Jun 27, 2008: from Indian Catholic (India) Radioactive wastes contaminate Jharkhand’s water Record level of rains this year has ironically contaminated the water sources of villages near Turamdih uranium mines in Jharkahnd state.... The overflowing waste ponds have contaminated the water sources. The villagers fearing death have reportedly stopped fetching water from their wells and ponds.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-26 20:37:10 Fri, Jun 27, 2008: from NIST, via EurekAlert Standards set for energy-conserving LED lighting These standards -- the most recent of which published last month -- detail the color specifications of LED lamps and LED light fixtures, and the test methods that manufacturers should use when testing these solid-state lighting products for total light output, energy consumption and chromaticity, or color quality.
Solid-state lighting is expected to significantly reduce the amount of energy needed for general lighting, including residential, commercial and street lighting. "Lighting," explains NIST scientist Yoshi Ohno, "uses 22 percent of the electricity and 8 percent of the total energy spent in the country, so the energy savings in lighting will have a huge impact."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-26 17:25:08 Thu, Jun 26, 2008: from UN, via ReliefWeb Djibouti: 'Almost half the population facing food shortages' A significant percentage of Djibouti's population could face food shortages due to drought, rising prices with declining remittances, and high levels of livestock deaths, an early warning information service has warned.... "Significant food deficits exist in all pastoral areas due to a combination of three consecutive below-average rainy seasons, extremely high prices for staple foods, declining remittances, and high levels of livestock mortality (40-50 percent)," the network noted. "The situation is critical, and pre-famine indicators have been observed."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:07:52 Thu, Jun 26, 2008: from ABC News U.N.: Toxic Waste Exports on the Rise Many poor countries accept toxic waste from abroad, such as old computers, rusted ships and pesticides, in a shortsighted bid to lift themselves out of poverty, despite the dangers to human health and the environment, a U.N. rights official said Thursday.... "Is it worth the short term monetary gain? Is it worth people falling sick ... precious water sources contaminated permanently?" he asked. "I believe that we need to think of a better solution to generate income and development."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:04:36 Thu, Jun 26, 2008: from University of Minnesota, via ScienceDaily Extreme Weather Events Can Unleash A 'Perfect Storm' Of Infectious Diseases, Research Study Says An international research team ... has found the first clear example of how climate extremes, such as the increased frequency of droughts and floods expected with global warming, can create conditions in which diseases that are tolerated individually may converge and cause mass die-offs of livestock or wildlife.... The study ... suggests that extreme climatic conditions are capable of altering normal host-pathogen relationships and causing a "perfect storm" of multiple infectious outbreaks that could trigger epidemics with catastrophic mortality.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-26 17:26:30 Thu, Jun 26, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Cost of tackling global climate change has doubled, warns Stern The author of an influential British government report arguing the world needed to spend just 1 percent of its wealth tackling climate change has warned that the cost of averting disaster has now doubled.
Lord Stern of Brentford made headlines in 2006 with a report that said countries needed to spend 1 percent of their GDP to stop greenhouse gases rising to dangerous levels. Failure to do this would lead to damage costing much more, the report warned - at least 5 percent and perhaps more than 20 percent of global GDP.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:23:52 Thu, Jun 26, 2008: from Herald Online (South Africa) Pollution fears as prawns die in thousands THOUSANDS of pink prawns have washed up dead on the banks of the Swartkops estuary, apparently as a result of pollution from the Markman canal....
"The whole river was pink. We feel fairly certain there was a connection between this swarming, the die-off and what we saw and smelt coming out of the Markman canal last week."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:09:45 Wed, Jun 25, 2008: from McClatchy Washington No bigger than a thumbnail, yet this mussel is a huge pain With no natural predators and a high reproductive rate, the quagga mussel has become a growing worry throughout the United States, clogging municipal water pipes, taking food from native species and possibly stimulating the growth of the deadly bacteria that cause botulism.... The quagga — which is even hardier than its better-known cousin, the zebra mussel — started out in the Caspian or Black Sea, reached the Great Lakes in the ballast of ships, and in early 2007 hitched its way West on industrial and recreational boat hulls.
The mussels, in densities of up to thousands per square yard, cling to boats, docks and even other shellfish...
Scientists are especially concerned with the quagga's potential ability to invigorate toxic botulinum bacteria. The quagga mussels deplete oxygen from the water, creating ideal conditions for the bacterial spore, which exists naturally in the water, to vegetate and become dangerous.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-25 17:45:09 Wed, Jun 25, 2008: from University of Idaho, via EurekAlert Food Scientists Confirm the Effectiveness of Commercial Product in Killing Bacteria in Vegetable Washwater The product, sold commercially as FIT Fruit and Vegetable Wash, not only proved much more effective than the commonly used chlorine dioxide but is made from ingredients like citric acid and distilled grapefruit oil that are generally regarded as safe. Chlorine dioxide, whose use in food plants can put workers at risk, was compromised by soils and plant debris in the washwater and killed only 90 percent of the target organisms in the food plant and followup laboratory studies. By contrast, FIT killed 99.9999 percent...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-25 13:34:18 Wed, Jun 25, 2008: from Business Standard (India) Genetic panel to decide on Doritos corn chips today The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of the environment ministry is likely to consider tomorrow whether Doritos corn chips of PepsiCo USA should be allowed to be sold in the Indian market.
The hearing comes in the wake of a complaint by Greenpeace India that the tests on the chips have confirmed the presence of GM Mon 863 and NK 603, both of which are Monsanto's genetically-modified (GM) corn varieties.... Meanwhile, PepsiCo India, in a statement, said: "While Doritos is a PepsiCo brand, the product in question is not manufactured in India, and we neither import it nor authorise others to do so."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-25 12:19:35 Wed, Jun 25, 2008: from Religious Intelligence Call on religious groups to switch electrical suppliers A leading authority on climate change has called on Christians to change their electricity supplier. Speaking to The Church of England Newspaper, Sir John Houghton said it would make an enormous difference to the future of the planet. Speaking after the launch of Tearfund's latest My Global Impact environmental scheme Sir John Houghton said: "The Christian church is the biggest NGO in the world. If Christians can get together on something they can really make a very big difference."... [Switching to sustainable energy suppliers] would force the electricity supplier to buy more renewable energy and that would change the energy very substantially."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:09:12 Wed, Jun 25, 2008: from The Monitor, via AllAfrica East Africa: Saving the 'Fish Basket' From Drying Up While Lake Victoria remains the most productive fishery in Africa, with annual fishery yields fluctuating around 600,000 tonnes, valued at $350 - 400m, catches of Nile perch are steadily declining. In 2001, boats caught an average 160 kilos of Nile perch each trip, today they catch less than 20. At the same time, catches of lower valued species, such as the silver-coloured mukene are steady, if not increasing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-25 08:48:33 Wed, Jun 25, 2008: from Daily Nation (Kenya) Kenya must import three times as much maize as projected Kenya is first heading for a major shortfall in its staple food product, maize.
Detailed research recently conducted by the Egerton University’s respected Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development shows that Kenya will start running out of maize in August.... Logistically, the most likely supplying country is South Africa, which has a surplus crop. But there is a potential problem here in that its crop is a mix of GMO and non GMO. Kenya is reportedly insisting on the latter, which only comes to the market towards the end of July.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:39:16 Wed, Jun 25, 2008: from MetroWest Daily News Tests to begin for Nyanza underground cleanup Long gone are a 12,000-ton vault that oozed chemicals and the infamous green and purple sludge lagoons atop Megunko Hill.
But one last known piece of contamination from the former dye company site still lingers deep underground in Ashland.
Federal contractors plan to return to town this summer to start designing the cleanup of dense chemicals that have sunk below the water table to the bedrock beneath, causing a plume of contaminated groundwater.... Nyanza operated from 1917 to 1978, also polluting the Sudbury River with mercury that is being eyed in a separate EPA cleanup process.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:48:25 Tue, Jun 24, 2008: from Conde Nast Portfolio China's Big Drain Shijiayao’s main water source is a seep in a notch in the barren mountainside, which drips about a dozen bucketfuls a day—except in summer, when it dries up completely. No one bathes in Shijiayao. Next month, while visitors to Beijing amble along man-made lakes and fountains at the grand Olympic Green and Olympic Forest Park, Shijiayao residents will trek about 12 miles a day for drinking water.... Now the Olympics are exacerbating China’s water problems. To ensure enough potable water for an expected 1.5 million visitors in August, Beijing is tapping 80 billion gallons of so-called backup supply from four reservoirs in neighboring Hebei Province. Yet water levels in these reservoirs are already dangerously low. So to sustain the population boom on the semiarid Beijing plain, China’s water planners are scrambling to build pipelines, canals, and water tunnels farther and farther into the hinterlands.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 07:13:30 Tue, Jun 24, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) First nations join pool of Fisheries petitioners "The government has often used economics to rationalize wiping out or eradicating a particular species, or wiping out habitat for a species. They rationalize it with this thing called 'no net loss'," he said.
"In other words they are arrogant enough to think that man is able and capable of making a decision on wiping out habitat, God's creation, and replacing it with some man-made habitat. And I don't think it's possible.
"That's one of the policies I'd like the Auditor-General to look at, that goofy policy called 'no net loss'.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:30:22 Tue, Jun 24, 2008: from Fergus Falls Journal (MN) Meadowlark numbers are dropping One alarming story is the plight of the once-common meadowlark. Meadowlarks are classic birds of grasslands. Meadowlarks are so beloved that numerous states have claimed it as their state bird. Every American farm kid now over the age of 50 grew up with the call of the meadowlark being about as common as that of a robin today. Sadly, that is no longer true.
Meadowlark populations have been in a measurable and alarming decline for the last 40 years. It is not that they are threatened with extinction anytime soon; rather, they went from common to uncommon, from rural icon to rural alarm call, all in a few decades.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-24 08:12:52 Tue, Jun 24, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Twenty years later: tipping points near on global warming James Hansen, director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, marks the 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking statement to Congress by saying there's no time left to delay in defusing the global warming time bomb. "... The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. The next president and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-23 17:03:23 Mon, Jun 23, 2008: from AP, via International Herald-Tribune US health official: Complacency is 'public health enemy No. 1' "Emerging infectious diseases are a major global public health threat, and there's nothing in the world of evidence that would suggest that the threat is getting smaller," Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a health conference in Malaysia.
"A pandemic would be a catastrophic human health event if it had any of the characteristics of the previous pandemics in terms of transmissibility and case fatality rate," she said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:47:11 Mon, Jun 23, 2008: from Environment News Service Toxic Algae Poisons Klamath River and Two Reservoirs In 2004, the Karuk Tribe determined that the massive blooms of blue-green algae behind PacifiCorp's Iron Gate and Copco dams was the toxic algae Microcystis aeruginosa.
This algae secretes a potent liver toxin known as microcystin. Since the discovery, tests of these reservoirs have shown some of the highest recorded levels of the toxic algae in the world ... can exceed water quality standards set by the World Health Organization by as much as 4,000 times.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:35:04 Mon, Jun 23, 2008: from Queen Life on the edge: To disperse, or become extinct? "Predicting the speed at which plants are likely to migrate during climate warming could be key to ensuring their survival," says Queen's Biology professor Christopher Eckert.
Populations of plants growing at the outer edges of their natural "geographic range" exist in a precarious balance between extinction of existing populations and founding of new populations, via seed dispersal into vacant but suitable habitat. "Policy makers concerned with preserving plant species should focus not only on conserving land where species are now, but also where they may be found in the future," says Dr. Eckert.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-23 10:47:38 Mon, Jun 23, 2008: from AsiaNews.it World toxic waste summit in Bali The meeting, which opened today in Bali, Indonesia, has attracted about a thousand delegates from 170 countries, and will last until Thursday. Its focus will be on ways to better dispose of dangerous waste in emerging and developing nations in order to minimise its effect on human health and the environment.
The Basel Convention of 1989 was designed to prevent the transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries which lack the infrastructure and know-how to guarantee eco-sustainable disposal or recycling.
However the Convention has not been successful in stopping the flow of hazardous waste, especially e-waste, from industrialised countries to emerging nations like China and India that have become virtual dumps for the West.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-23 11:31:18 Mon, Jun 23, 2008: from The ApocoDocs PANIQuiz Released for the week ending June 23 How big will the Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" be this year, if the scientists are correct? What does a Texas inventor call his "bio-crude," derived from organic waste? New research suggests ocean temperatures and sea levels are higher than estimated by what percentage? How will a new eco-club in Britain generate electricity? Plus more.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-23 09:11:10 Mon, Jun 23, 2008: from New York Times U.S. May 'Free Up' More Land for Corn Crops Signs are growing that the government may allow farmers to plant crops on millions of acres of conservation land, while a chorus of voices is also pleading with Washington to cut requirements for ethanol production.... Senator Grassley ... on Friday urged the Agriculture Department to release tens of thousands of farmers from contracts under which they had promised to set aside huge tracts as natural habitat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-30 06:59:54 Mon, Jun 23, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Put Oil Firm Chiefs on Trial, says leading climate change scientist James Hansen James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:02:18 Sun, Jun 22, 2008: from Illawara Mercury (Australia) Eight species disappear At least eight species of wildlife have been wiped out of the Illawarra in the past 100 years, according to a report released by the Department of Environment and Climate change.... The species the department listed as "extinct" [from the area] -- animals which could no longer be found in a given area -- were: eastern quoll, ground parrot, wompoo fruit dove, superb fruit dove, rose-crowned fruit dove, bush stone curlew, jabiru, and the magpie goose.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:15:44 Sun, Jun 22, 2008: from The West Australian Australia to argue need for whale ban Environment Minister Peter Garrett will lead the Australian push to continue a ban on whaling at what is expected to be a highly charged meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).... "I will be making very clear the ... strong view that the Australian government and Australians have generally about the practice of killing whales in the name of science," he said. "I will be saying clearly and strongly at this whaling commission that we think there is a much better way of approaching the question of looking after our whales, conserving whales."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:21:54 Sun, Jun 22, 2008: from Grist Why are sperm counts so low in Missouri? Are the region's titanic annual lashings of agrichemicals -- synthetic and mined fertilizers, as well as poisons designed to kill bugs, weeds, and mold -- leaching into drinking water and doing creepy things to the state's citizens? And what about manure from the stunning concentration of concentrated-animal feedlot operations (CAFOs)...? Greaney cites an Environmental Health Perspectives study showing that men in Columbia have sharply lower average sperm counts.... [T]wo pesticides -- diazinon and metolachlor -- have shown up in samples from Missouri men with low sperm counts. Neither is currently regulated by the EPA as a drinking-water contaminant.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:08:31 Sun, Jun 22, 2008: from Green Bay Press Gazette (WI) Fight against invasives remains fluid: VHS changes definition, views of battle Dozens of dead panfish and bass seen floating on West Alaska Lake in Kewaunee County recently were not the result of viral hemorrhagic septicemia, but rather a common bacterial infection.... Instead, it was columnaris, one of the oldest known fish diseases and one that typically strikes following some type of environmental stress.... Gansberg said there are four aquatic invasives high on the local radar: Eurasian water milfoil, curly leaf pondweed, zebra mussels and VHS.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-22 07:45:49 Sun, Jun 22, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Home-made energy to prop up grid Homeowners are to be offered extra financial incentives to fit their properties with solar panels and wind turbines in an ambitious green energy programme to reduce the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.
At the heart of the £100 billion renewable energy strategy, due to be unveiled this week, is a proposal to encourage householders to generate their own power. They will be able to sell back surplus electricity at premium prices to the national grid. At present it can be sold only at market rates.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:08:06 Sat, Jun 21, 2008: from CBC (Canada) Dumping mining waste into lakes 'more responsible': fisheries minister Tailing waste produced by mining companies is best stored in water, the federal fisheries minister said Tuesday, defending a planned move by bureaucrats to reclassify 16 Canadian lakes as toxic dump sites.... "It is much more responsible to store them in water," Hearn said. "Any damage done in relation to fish or fish habitat has to be mitigated where there is no net loss to either fish or fish habitat. There is a major environmental study done before any go-ahead is given," he said, adding that "every aspect is covered" before anybody could be in a position to damage the environment.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:15:31 Sat, Jun 21, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Blue whale song is getting deeper The haunting song of the world's biggest animal, the blue whale, is getting deeper, researchers have discovered.
Underwater recordings of the giant endangered mammals have revealed that the tone of their rhythmic pulses and moans has become steadily lower as their population have slowly recovered after nearly being wiped out by whaling. Before large-scale hunting, the global blue whale population was thought to have been around 200,000 animals, but numbers fell to just a few hundred by the 1960s when a hunting ban was introduced.
The population has since recovered to around 4,500 animals.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:54:39 Sat, Jun 21, 2008: from Yorkshire Post (UK) Sludge used on fields may strip crop of value Farmers have been warned they could devalue their crops by fertilising them with sewage sludge.
Although partially retracted after being issued, the warning gave a rare glimpse of some unease in the food and drinks business about a practice which has been growing for 10 years.... "We are concerned that following the recent rise in fertiliser prices, some growers may be tempted to apply sewage sludge. The vast majority of our customers do not accept such treatment and a recent parcel of grain sold off water authority land that had been treated with sewage sludge attracted a price discount of £60 per tonne."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-21 10:58:12 Sat, Jun 21, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Biggest firms call for huge cuts in emissions to start green industrial revolution Heads of 100 of the world's biggest companies will today call on political leaders to agree huge cuts in greenhouse gases to stimulate a "green industrial revolution".... The chairmen and chief executives, whose companies represent more than 10 percent of global stockmarkets, indicate that emissions reductions by richer countries will have to be much deeper than 50 percent, but insist that big developing nations, particularly China and India, also have to tackle pollution. So far the G8 has only said it would "seriously consider" a 50 percent cut.
"Climate change is not only a challenge, it is also an opportunity," says the statement.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:30:41 Fri, Jun 20, 2008: from Global Change Biology (Blackwell) Birds Migrate Earlier, But Some May Be Left Behind As The Climate Warms Rapidly Many birds are arriving earlier each spring as temperatures warm along the East Coast of the United States. However, the farther those birds journey, the less likely they are to keep pace with the rapidly changing climate.... eight out of 32 bird species are passing by Cape Cod significantly earlier on their annual trek north than they were 38 years ago. The reason? Warming temperatures. Temperatures in eastern Massachusetts have risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1970.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:37:53 Fri, Jun 20, 2008: from Bellevue Intelligencer (Canada) Electronics wasteland: 91,000 tonnes of electronic waste in Ontario each year Lead, flame retardants, mercury, cadmium, chromium, beryllium: many consumers would be surprised to learn that a desktop computer contains all of these potentially toxic substances.
But ensuring your unwanted electronics are disposed of safely isn't always an easy task.... This means obsolete and unwanted electronics -- and all the associated toxic substances -- often end up in the dump for lack of an easy alternative.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-19 21:31:06 Fri, Jun 20, 2008: from University of Liverpool, via EurekAlert Desert plant may hold key to biofuel growth in arid land Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi, is unique because, unlike normal plants, it captures most of its carbon dioxide at night when the air is cooler and more humid, making it 10 times more water-efficient than major crops such as wheat. Scientists will use the latest next-generation DNA sequencing to analyse the plant's genetic code and understand how these plants function at night.
The project will generate a genome sequence database that will be used as an Internet resource for plant biologists throughout the world.... Scientists believe that the novel genes found in Kalanchoe could provide a model of how bio-fuel plants could be grown on un-utilised desert and semi-arid lands, rather than on fertile farmland needed for producing food.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:07:31 Thu, Jun 19, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Fish die-off near Milwaukee signals latest lakes invader may be advancing on Chicago shores "When thousands of bloody, hemorrhaging fish recently turned up on the Lake Michigan shore south of Milwaukee, it confirmed the worst fears of scientists worried that an Ebola-like virus stalking Great Lakes fish would strike closer to Chicago.
The dead fish were round gobies, a small invasive species that many feel is better off dead. But unlike many other diseases that tend to hit one or two types of fish, this viral strain has led to large fish kills involving more than 30 species, including valuable sport fish such as salmon, trout, walleye, muskie, bass and perch."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-19 15:47:56 Thu, Jun 19, 2008: from Oxford Analytica, via Globe and Mail (Canada) Low carbon future depends on technology, reductions, efficiencies ... However, the report assumes that given the scale of the challenge, progress must be made on all viable technologies.... there is a disconnect between current energy sector investment plans worldwide and the requirements for transitioning to a low-carbon economy.... CONCLUSION: Conflicting political priorities suggest strongly that governments will be unable to act either individually or collectively with sufficient speed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to IPCC recommendations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:01:44 Thu, Jun 19, 2008: from North Channel Sentinel (TX) Biocrude from waste too good to be true? Now Rivera must convince potential investors that his trade secret – 21 years and $31 million dollars in the making – isn’t just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
The "Rivera Method" takes such agricultural refuse as cracked soy beans, rice and cotton seed hulls, grain sorghum, milo and jatropha and turns them into bio-crude oil. This crude – or Vetroleum, as Rivera calls it - can then be further refined into everything from gasoline to jet fuel and just about every petrochemical in between.
With this process, just one bushel (60 pounds) of organic waste can yield about six gallons of bio-crude, Rivera said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:06:19 Thu, Jun 19, 2008: from Afriquenligne (France) Research institute warns of African land degradation Lagos, Nigeria - The survival of more than 250 million people living in the dry lands of the developing countries is being threatened by chronic land degradation, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) said in a statement made available to PANA here Thursday.
"Dry lands cover about 41 percent of the earth's surface. The poor people in the dry lands depend mainly on rain-fed agriculture and natural range lands for their survival. Their livelihoods are at risk due to land degradation, which is exacerbated by increasing population growth that is putting considerable pressure on fragile land resources," ICRISAT said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:11:41 Thu, Jun 19, 2008: from Science, via ScienceDaily Tropical Forest Sustainability: A Climate Change Boon Improved management of the world’s tropical forests has major implications for humanity’s ability to reduce its contribution to climate change, according to a paper published in the journal, Science. The authors say the billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) absorbed annually by the world's forests represents an 'economic subsidy' for climate change mitigation worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:31:05 Thu, Jun 19, 2008: from BBC (UK) Fulmars' dramatic decline: seabird in peril A reduction in the size of the Scottish whitefish fleet may be linked to a fall in numbers of a seabird, a conservation charity has said.
The John Muir Trust said a count of fulmars at Cape Wrath found 261 pairs on cliffs that once supported 700. The birds often feed on fish discarded by fishing boats.
However, a decline in the numbers of vessels, following European restrictions on catch sizes, could be contributing to a famine.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:45:14 Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from Daily Mail New eco-nightclub where the dancers generate electricity Britain's first eco-nightclub is to open in King's Cross. The venue will sell organic spirits served in polycarbon cups and will be powered with renewable energy.
There are also plans to install a recycled water system to flush its lavatories and an energy-generating dancefloor, which would harness power from the pounding of clubbers' feet and convert it into electricity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:34:41 Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from Contra Costa Times Last of salmon trucked to San Pablo Bay "The routes to the ocean followed by California salmon for millennia have turned into such a dangerous gauntlet that today millions of fish no longer come down the Feather, the American or the Mokelumne rivers.
They migrate instead in trucks down U.S. Highways 70 and 50, Interstate 80 and State Route 12."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-18 18:59:48 Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Ocean temperatures and sea level increases are 50 percent higher than previously estimated New research suggests that ocean temperature and associated sea level increases between 1961 and 2003 were 50 percent larger than estimated in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.... The research corrected for small but systematic biases recently discovered in the global ocean observing system, and uses statistical techniques that "infill" information in data-sparse regions. The results increase scientists' confidence in ocean observations and further demonstrate that climate models simulate ocean temperature variability more realistically than previously thought.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:42:00 Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from Intelligencer-Journal, via RedOrbit Old Landfill Gunk Fouls Trail At Park ... A vegetation-free area extends for about 25 feet across the embankment... [The sign lists] a host of pollutants that might be present at various levels, including iron, nickel, mercury, zinc, arsenic, chloroethane and benzene... Jim Warner, executive director of the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority, said leachates are an old story with old landfills.
There were no environmental safeguards, he said. Still, he noted, over many years, the sites do tend to flush themselves clean.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:06:49 Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from FishUpdate Norwegian saithe fisheries celebrate sustainability The Norwegian North Sea saithe and Norwegian North East Arctic saithe fisheries were the first Norwegian fisheries to enter the MSC assessment process.
Subject to MSC Chain of Custody certification, saithe from the fisheries is now eligible to carry the MSC eco-label on fish and products marking it out as fish from a sustainable and well-managed source.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-18 11:09:04 Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from Reuters India Vietnam lifts rice export ban, Manila seals deal [Lifting the ban] could speed a recent decline in international rice prices from record highs -- prices had nearly trebled this year -- helping to ease food inflation and boosting supplies of the staple in Asia.... "There are signs of improving supplies but we still have a few bullish factors," said one trader.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:35:58 Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from University of Adelaide, via EurekAlert World-class environment vision to 'bring back the species' One of Australia's leading environmentalists will spearhead a world-class project to help revegetate the Mount Lofty Ranges, to stave off the effects of climate change and halt the loss of bird, animal and plant species.... "Ten species are already extinct in the Mt Lofty Ranges and a further 60 species continue to decline in numbers despite the cessation of vegetation clearance in the 1980s. Climate change will exacerbate these losses," he says.
"This will be a terrible loss for all South Australians, but it is avoidable, if suitable and resilient habitats are re-established. Our work is not just about revegetation but about reconstructing complex habitats to secure the region's biodiversity."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:33:28 Wed, Jun 18, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Poachers kill last four wild northern white rhinos The last four northern white rhinoceros remaining in the wild are feared to have been killed for their horns by poachers and are now believed to be extinct in the wild. Only a few are left in captivity but they are difficult to breed and the number is so low that the species is regarded as biologically unviable.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:38:24 Tue, Jun 17, 2008: from New York Times Tiny, Clingy and Destructive, Mussel Makes Its Way West "...The mussel-coated debris is unmistakable evidence of an event occurring silently and largely out of sight — the colonization of the Colorado River by the quagga mussel, a fingernail-size Eurasian bivalve with an astonishing sex drive and a nasty reputation for causing economic and ecological havoc.
Like the closely related zebra mussel, the quagga can cling tenaciously to hard surfaces, like the equipment of the many hydroelectric and water-supply plants along the lower Colorado.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-17 17:47:37 Tue, Jun 17, 2008: from University of New Hampshire Researchers Test Sediment-Scrubbing Technology In Cocheco River Rather than dredging up the problem, or burying it under several feet of sand, they've created a patch -- black geotextile mats designed to cap and stabilize pollution in place.... The reactive "filling" of this quilt contains three different substances that bind and stabilize different pollutants. One such substance -- a UNH-patented technology based on a natural form of phosphorus -- treats toxic heavy metals associated with industrial pollution such as lead, copper, zinc and cadmium.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:54:09 Tue, Jun 17, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Pig manure 'crude oil' no panacea the NIST team has developed the first detailed chemical analysis revealing what processing is needed to transform pig manure crude oil into fuel for vehicles or heating. Mass production of [T]his type of biofuel could help consume a waste product overflowing at U.S. farms, and possibly enable cutbacks in the nation's petroleum use and imports. But, according to a new NIST paper, pig manure crude will require a lot of refining... [It] contains at least 83 major compounds, including many components that would need to be removed, such as about 15 percent water by volume, sulfur that otherwise could end up as pollution in vehicle exhaust, and lots of char waste containing heavy metals, including iron, zinc, silver, cobalt, chromium, lanthanum, scandium, tungsten and minute amounts of gold and hafnium. Whatever the pigs eat, from dirt to nutritional supplements, ends up in the oil.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-17 12:29:25 Tue, Jun 17, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Global Impact Of Urbanization Threatening World's Biodiversity And Natural Resources "As a species we have lived in wild nature for hundreds of thousands of years, and now suddenly most of us live in cities -- the ultimate escape from nature," says Peter Kareiva, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy and co-author of the report. "If we do not learn to build, expand and design our cities with a respect for nature, we will have no nature left anywhere."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-17 12:12:45 Tue, Jun 17, 2008: from Perth Now (Australia) Housing plan at toxic waste dump A toxic waste plant shut down after a shocking history of government cover-ups will become part of an eco-friendly residential development in Armadale.
Almost five years after the closure of a toxic waste plant that was linked to residents' sickness, there are plans to build an residential development for 40,000 people incorporating land that contained big stockpiles of noxious chemicals and sludge with harmful pathogens.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:05:48 Tue, Jun 17, 2008: from CTV (Canada) Supermarkets contribute to failing fisheries by selling 'Red List' North American supermarkets can be blamed for contributing to the looming global fisheries collapse, according to a report authored by Greenpeace.... "As key players in the seafood supply chain, retailers have an important role to play in ensuring their customers only have one seafood choice: fair and sustainable products," says the report.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:05:12 Tue, Jun 17, 2008: from CBC (Canada) Lakes across Canada face being turned into mine dump sites CBC News has learned that 16 Canadian lakes are slated to be officially but quietly "reclassified" as toxic dump sites for mines. The lakes include prime wilderness fishing lakes from B.C. to Newfoundland.
Environmentalists say the process amounts to a "hidden subsidy" to mining companies, allowing them to get around laws against the destruction of fish habitat.
Under the Fisheries Act, it's illegal to put harmful substances into fish-bearing waters. But, under a little-known subsection known as Schedule Two of the mining effluent regulations, federal bureaucrats can redefine lakes as "tailings impoundment areas."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 17:22:49 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from Brownsville Herald (TX) Police investigate sale of tigers in Wal-Mart parking lot Police and federal authorities are investigating the sale of six Bengal tiger cubs in a Wal-Mart parking lot Sunday afternoon.
The animals appear to have been bound for Mexico and neither the buyer nor seller had the permits needed to legally transport the endangered species across national borders, a federal agent said.... There are about 2,000 Bengal tigers living in the wild.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 19:45:02 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from Metro News (Canada) Contaminants poison First Nation reserves The Aamjiwnaang First Nation reserve near Sarnia is located in the heart of petrochemical manufacturing country. Its soil and water has been found to be contaminated with dioxins, PCBs, pesticides, and metals. The Aamjiwnaang people have to put up with odours, are unable to swim or fish in their rivers and have high rates of asthma in children.... [a]t the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, two girls were born for every boy and it is hypothesized that endocrine disrupters were to blame for this.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 21:45:54 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from Herald Tribune (FL) Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' to grow to record Researchers predict a "dead zone" of oxygen-depleted waters off the Louisiana and Texas coasts could grow this summer to 10,084 square miles, making it the largest such expanse in at least 23 years.
If the preliminary forecast holds, the researchers say, the size of the so-called "dead zone" would be 17-21 percent larger than at anytime since the mapping began in 1985 — and about as large as the state of Massachusetts. Another forecast is planned next month.
The report Monday ... is based on May nitrate loads on the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:01:16 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from BusinessWeek Food Safety: 'Near the Breaking Point' For the FDA's embattled food safety inspectors, the salmonella scare was more evidence that a chronic lack of money and manpower has left the agency reacting to such events rather than preventing them in the first place -- a longtime goal. Stephen Sundlof, who runs the FDA's Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition, has recently wondered if his people can handle more than one big crisis at a time -- say, a nationwide outbreak of E. coli and salmonella. "[We're] near the breaking point," he says. The situation is so dire that the Bush Administration has made an extraordinary request to add $275 million to its proposed 2009 budget for the FDA.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 14:28:58 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from Post-Searchlight (Georgia) DNR: Sucker fish kill unusual In a case that has stumped the Georgia Department of Natural Resources fisheries division, last weekend boaters discovered approximately 200 dead spotted sucker fish on Spring Creek.... "We don't get stumped too often," Weller said. "I've worked with the department for 12 years, and this is the most mysterious fish kill I've ever encountered" ... Fisheries experts are awaiting lab results they hope will provide clues in determining the cause of the fish kill.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 14:20:54 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from ABC News (Australia) 'Cane toads with wings' heading north Authorities say their attempt to raise public awareness about the threat of pest birds is being thwarted by a higher profile and far uglier amphibious pest... "The Indian miner is closely related to the starling. They are both in the same family and the Indian miner is probably an even more aggressive bird and it will actively compete with native species and displace them from their nesting hollows and food sources."
He says cane toads have hogged the headlines for years at the expense of other destructive pests.
"Cane toads are ugly and warty and people generally don't like them. Whereas birds, people have an affinity to them and they see them as charismatic animals.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:10:59 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from New York Times China Pulls Ahead in the Great Carbon Race For awhile it was neck and neck, but China has now clearly pulled ahead of the United States and become the world's dominant source of carbon dioxide emissions.... "The report, released Friday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, found that in 2007 China's emissions were 14 percent higher than those of the United States."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 11:23:57 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Solar future brightens as oil soars "High oil prices have boosted demand even more. The market will probably expand another 40 percent this year," ... referring to both PV and solar thermal systems, which produce hot water. He said his previous assumption -- that grid parity would be reached in Germany in five to seven years -- now looked very conservative since it allowed for only a 3 percent rise in electricity prices each year. In many countries increases of 20 percent a year are becoming the norm.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 11:15:14 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from Times Online (UK) 90 per cent of pandas in jeopardy after China earthquake Nearly all of China’s endangered pandas are in jeopardy after the earthquake last month devastated the remote mountain corner that is their last remaining [natural] habitat. Already boxed into these steep and thickly forested hillsides by the advance of [humans], its numbers limited by a slow rate of reproduction and with its food supply threatened by the scarcity of its favourite arrow bamboo, the panda is now facing its most severe crisis in decades. Chinese officials ... have announced that the last 1,590 pandas living in the wild face a very uncertain future after the earthquake.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:22:52 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from Penn State University/NOAA 8-day undersea mission begins experiment to improve coral reef restoration Scientists have begun an eight-day mission, in which they are living and working at 60 feet below the sea surface, to determine why some species of coral colonies survive transplanting after a disturbance, such as a storm, while other colonies die. Coral reefs worldwide are suffering from the combined effects of hurricanes, global warming, and increased boat traffic and pollution. As a result, their restoration has become a priority among those who are concerned.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 10:16:53 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Humor Shown To Be Fundamental To Our Success As A Species Clarke’s theory has wider implications: "It sheds light on infantile cognitive development, will lead to a revision of tests on ‘humour’ to diagnose psychological or neurological conditions and will have implications regarding the development of language. It will lead to a clarification of whether other animals have a sense of humour, and has an important role to play in the production of artificial intelligence being that will feel a bit less robotic thanks to its sense of humour."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 09:28:17 Mon, Jun 16, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Corn sets all-time high on U.S. crop fears Corn prices surged to a record high on Monday and looked set to climb further as widespread flooding in a key producing region, the U.S. Midwest, helped to heighten concern about tight supplies, dealers said.
"I think we are definitely going higher. There is no let up either on the demand or supply side...," said analyst Sudakshina Unnikrishnan of Barclays Capital in London.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:19:36 Sun, Jun 15, 2008: from Dhaka Daily Star in Bangladesh Rivers void of life forms "The level of pollution in the Buriganga and most parts of Turag and Norai flowing around the capital is so high that no living organism can survive in the waters of these rivers, researchers say. A three-year research finds that some invertebrates and small organisms come into being in these rivers when water flow increases during rains. But these life forms completely disappear in the dry season, they add.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 08:44:49 Sun, Jun 15, 2008: from European Space Agency via ScienceDaily Even The Antarctic Winter Cannot Protect Wilkins Ice Shelf "Wilkins Ice Shelf has experienced further break-up with an area of about 160 km breaking off from 30 May to 31 May 2008. Envisat satellite captured the event -- the first ever-documented episode to occur in winter... New images highlight the rapidly dwindling strip of ice that is protecting thousands of kilometres of the ice shelf from further break-up."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-15 12:04:31 Sun, Jun 15, 2008: from Edinburgh Scotsman Superbug in hospital outbreak 'has same death rate as smallpox' "EXPERTS fear the strain of Clostridium difficile that has killed eight people at the Vale of Leven Hospital, and been involved in the deaths of eight more, is as deadly as smallpox.
The strength of the 027 strain is under investigation, but the rate of fatalities in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde hospital, in West Dunbartonshire, has horrified bacteriologists."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:23:54 Sun, Jun 15, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail An amphibious assault "Around the world, frogs and toads are falling victim to a loss of habitat, pesticides, pollution and an insidious, quick-acting fungus... Amphibians are disappearing faster than any other animals since the dinosaurs: 32 per cent of all species are threatened with extinction, compared with 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds. Almost half are in decline."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 09:01:20 Sat, Jun 14, 2008: from London Times Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol "Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide 'renewable petroleum'... To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs -- very, very small ones -- so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-14 12:52:37 Sat, Jun 14, 2008: from Yemen Observer World Environment Day announces war on carbon emissions "Under the slogan "Kick the Carbon Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy" the world celebrated World Environment Day (WED) - which aims to spread awareness about environmental preservation. The day's agenda is to give a human face to environmental issues. It aims to empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development; and to promote an understanding that communities are pivotal to changing attitudes, said the United Nations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-14 12:48:51 Sat, Jun 14, 2008: from Inter Press Service EUROPE: Getting Allergic to Climate Change "Climate change induced by global warming is provoking health hardships in Europe, especially through new, prolonged allergies, authorities say. The most important new allergy affecting Europeans is being caused by ambrosia artemisiifolia, popularly known by several names, including common ragweed, annual ragweed, bitterweed, blackweed, or, more telling, hay fever weed."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:46:48 Sat, Jun 14, 2008: from Chemical & Engineering News Pesticide Mixtures Hurt Salmon "Mixtures of pesticides at concentrations found in the environment can wreck a salmon's sense of smell, according to a new study. Salmon use their sense of smell to find food and mates, detect predators, and migrate seasonally from rivers to oceans. The new findings suggest that the effects of pesticides in rivers on olfaction may be at least partially responsible for declining salmon stocks, which led to this year's ban on commercial fishing for wild salmon along the U.S. Pacific Coast."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:46:10 Sat, Jun 14, 2008: from Associated Press Companies get OK to annoy polar bears "Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas. The Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations this week providing legal protection to seven oil companies planning to search for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska if "small numbers" of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:03:49 Sat, Jun 14, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Sunscreen's a bleach for aquatic life "Plopping down on the beach slathered from head to toe with sunscreen may help with the carcinoma, but the inevitable cooling dip in the ocean won't be good for the coral. The creams that sunbathers use to ward off cancer-causing ultraviolet rays cause bleaching in coral reefs and seem to accumulate in fish and other aquatic life, according to recent studies."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-13 06:27:54 Fri, Jun 13, 2008: from DNA (India) Highly infectious polio strain re-appears in UP The oral polio vaccination drive has been advanced by the Uttar Pradesh government after a girl in the state's Badaun district was infected with a highly infectious polio strain, a senior official said on Thursday.
"After a gap of nearly eight months, the P1 polio virus has resurfaced in UP. After the detection of the highly virulent P1 virus, we have decided to advance the vaccination drive," regional team leader of the World Health Organisation's National Polio Surveillance Project, S.K. Parthyarch said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-13 06:20:57 Fri, Jun 13, 2008: from Earth Institute, via ScienceDaily Closing Ozone Hole Will Have Major Impact On Global Warming, And Probably Not For The Better In the past few decades, the tropospheric winds in the Southern Hemisphere have been accelerating closer to the planet's pole as a result of increasing greenhouse gases and decreasing ozone. This wind change has had a broad range of effects on the Earth's climate. The IPCC models predict that this effect will continue, albeit at a slower pace. In contrast, predictions made by the chemistry-climate models indicate that, as a consequence of ozone recovery--a factor largely ignored by IPCC models--the tropospheric winds in the Southern Hemisphere may actually decelerate in the high latitudes and move toward the equator, potentially reversing the direction of climate change in that hemisphere.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:53:49 Thu, Jun 12, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Coalinga solar plant would also burn manure "A proposed Central Valley power plant will tap three potent sources of renewable energy at once - the sun, crop stubble and cow manure. The plant, near the old oil-patch town of Coalinga in Fresno County, will combine a large solar farm with a generator that burns orchard trimmings, agricultural waste and, yes, excrement.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:47:07 Thu, Jun 12, 2008: from University of Alaska Freshwater runoff from the Greenland Ice Sheet 'faster than previously calculated' "The Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance is changing as a response to the altered climatic state," said Mernild. "This is faster than expected. This affects freshwater runoff input to the North Atlantic Ocean, and plays an important role in determining the global sea level rise and global ocean thermohaline circulation."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:45:42 Thu, Jun 12, 2008: from Seattle Times Acidified ocean water rising up nearly 100 years earlier than scientists predicted In surveys from Vancouver Island to the tip of Baja California, the scientists found the first evidence that large amounts of corrosive water are reaching the continental shelf -- the shallow sea margin where most marine creatures live. In some places, including Northern California, the acidified water was as little as four miles from shore.
"What we found ... was truly astonishing," said oceanographer Richard Feely, of [NOAA's] Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. "This means ocean acidification may be seriously impacting marine life on the continental shelf right now."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:13:49 Thu, Jun 12, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Sharks 'functionally extinct' in Mediterranean Researchers used fishermens' notes and archives to show that numbers had declined by as much as 99 per cent in the last two centuries.... The scientists who conducted the study said that 47 species of sharks live in the Mediterranean, but that many of them had not been seen for decades.
They added that other predators, such as whales, turtles and large fish such as tuna, "had declined similarly" and that the entire ecosystem of the Mediterranean was at risk. Sharks help control the populations of various fish and keep the food chain balanced.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-12 09:07:34 Thu, Jun 12, 2008: from Daily Pilot Toxins up cost of bay project Sediment and urban runoff containing nasty chemicals like those found in common ant and roach killers find their way from upstream into the harbor.
The presence of insecticides in the local waters containing a type of natural chemical compounds called pyrethrins mean costly federal environmental approvals before the city can begin dredging, said Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff.
The chemicals kill tiny organisms at the bottom of the food chain and need proper — and expensive — federally-approved disposal methods, Kiff said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:10:10 Thu, Jun 12, 2008: from Geek.com Xeros washing machine only uses a cup of water The huge saving in water has come about due to the introduction of plastic chips. Along with a cup of water each wash holds thousands of reusable plastic chips – roughly 20 kg per load, and detergent. The machine uses this combination to somehow remove everyday dirt and stains from the clothes just like a conventional machine. The bonus being 2 percent of the water and energy are used to do it plus, the clothes are left almost dry reducing the need for a drying appliance.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-16 08:53:45 Thu, Jun 12, 2008: from Baltimore Sun High levels of formaldehyde found in baby furniture "A number of cribs and changing tables commonly sold at retail outlets contain unhealthy levels of formaldehyde, a consumer advocacy group reported yesterday... Six of 21 cribs and other nursery products gave off formaldehyde at levels that increase the risk of asthma and respiratory problems, the group reported."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:03:42 Thu, Jun 12, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Drought closes world's biggest cattle ranch in Australia "Anna Creek station, which is bigger than Israel, encompasses 9,267 square miles of scrub, sand dunes and savannah in the Outback of South Australia.
It is normally capable of supporting 16,000 cattle but the "Big Dry" -- the worst drought in a century -- has exhausted the land, forcing the herd to be whittled down to less than 2,000."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:24:23 Wed, Jun 11, 2008: from The Age (Australia) 'No return' fears on climate change The world could be tracking towards irreversible climate change as warming takes place much quicker than previously thought, an Adelaide academic has warned.
Climate change expert Barry Brook, of Adelaide University, told a Canberra conference [that] atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were headed towards 600 parts a million, and forecast global temperature increases of up to six degrees.... "We're seeing events predicted for the end of the 21st century happening already," Professor Brook said.... "We are at or exceeding the fossil-fuel-intensive scenario, which the latest IPCC report didn't cover because they thought it was too much," Dr Pittock said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-11 12:50:26 Wed, Jun 11, 2008: from AP News Hong Kong slaughters all market poultry: bird flu Health officials ordered the slaughter of all live poultry in Hong Kong's street markets on Wednesday after detecting one of the largest outbreaks of the bird flu virus in years. The action comes after tests showed four markets had poultry infected with the H5N1 virus.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:17:12 Wed, Jun 11, 2008: from Watertown Daily Times Wind projects held up by 'white nose syndrome' bat concerns The proposed 62-turbine wind farm in Clayton, as well as the proposed 65-turbine St. Lawrence and 140-turbine Cape Vincent wind farms in Cape Vincent, may be affected by the thousands of Indiana bats that have died because of "white nose syndrome".... [T]he company is waiting on Horse Creek while the impact of white nose syndrome on bats is understood. Indiana bats are on federal and state endangered species lists.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-11 09:38:25 Wed, Jun 11, 2008: from National Academies G8+5 Science Academies Call for International Action on Climate Change, Global Health Today the science academies of the G8 countries, as well as China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa, issued statements urging leaders worldwide to take action on two pressing global challenges. To mitigate and adapt to climate change, nations must begin a transition to being "low-carbon societies," a shift that will require energy-saving changes in all sectors -- from housing to transportation to industry -- and the development of a range of clean energy sources.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-11 09:13:24 Wed, Jun 11, 2008: from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Farmers who plant -- or replant -- after June 20 may see yields drop by half Department of Agriculture reports that corn and soybean growers in several Midwestern states are behind schedule on their planting. A cooler and wetter-than-average spring has left Illinois and Indiana furthest behind on planted corn and soybeans. Several other states are lagging behind their normal planting schedules, but by a lesser margin.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:00:15 Wed, Jun 11, 2008: from MIT Carbon emissions trading in Europe: Working well, lessons learned For the past three years, the European Union has been operating the world's largest emissions trading system and the first system to limit and to trade carbon dioxide emissions. An MIT analysis of this initial "trial" phase finds that—despite its hasty adoption and somewhat rocky beginning—the European Union cap-and-trade system has operated well and has had little or no negative impact on the overall EU economy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:05:32 Tue, Jun 10, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Small farms are now our best chance of feeding the world A recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are 20 times as productive as farms of more than 10 hectares. Sen's observation has been tested in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Java, the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. It appears to hold almost everywhere.... As developing countries sweep away street markets and hawkers' stalls and replace them with superstores and glossy malls, the most productive farmers lose their customers and are forced to sell up. The rich nations support this process by demanding access for their companies. Their agricultural subsidies still help their own large farmers to compete unfairly with the small producers of the poor world.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-10 14:00:20 Tue, Jun 10, 2008: from The Monitor Dragonfly native to Mexico spotted for first time in Rio Grande Valley Three types of dragonflies never seen before in the Valley made visits last week to Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park, headquarters of the World Birding Center.... Rose, who has a doctorate in dragonfly ecology, said he's not certain why the dragonflies have come this far north and west. One possibility is that they're drawn to the park's resacas, which have recently been filled with more water.
"Something funny is definitely going on here," he said, although he's not sure what it is.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-10 13:28:45 Tue, Jun 10, 2008: from OPB News Commercial Waste Disposal At Hanford Raises Some Eyebrows The commercial low level waste dump at Hanford is a disgrace to the state of Washington. It is a massive unlined set of ditches that are leaking contamination that threatens the Columbia River. And it’s an embarrassment that we are dumping radioactive waste, some of it extremely radioactive, in unlined ditches."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-10 13:24:13 Tue, Jun 10, 2008: from AFP, via Tehran Times (Iran) Recycling boom adds to hazardous life of Cambodian children Cambodia's growing demand for recyclables -- from bottles and cans to cardboard -- has seen a sharp rise in the number of child scavengers trawling through the capital's waste heaps, many of them press-ganged into what advocates say is one of the world's most hazardous forms of labor.... "They use neither gloves nor shoes, they inhale toxic fumes, eat out of garbage bins," he said, listing ailments he sees every day, from headaches and infected wounds to diarrhea and hacking coughs.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:54:59 Tue, Jun 10, 2008: from Innovations Report (Germany) Environmental Solution for China's Steel Industry [Masteel] produces approximately fifteen million tons of steel each year which is primarily sold as steel sections, wire rods and medium and thick plates.... In order to drastically reduce environmental emissions from its No. 1 Sinter Plant, Masteel decided to have a Meros plant installed. A major reason for Maanshan's decision for Meros was because of the excellent results achieved with the new plant at the Sinter Plant No. 5 of the Austrian steel producer voestalpine. Since the Meros plant start-up in August 2007, it has been operating at near 100 percent availability and pollutants are reduced in some cases to well over 90 percent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-10 08:55:37 Tue, Jun 10, 2008: from Durham University Report confirms drilling, not earthquake, caused Java mud volcano A mud volcano which has caused millions of dollars worth of damage was caused by the drilling of a gas exploration well, an international team of scientists has concluded.
The two-year old mud volcano, Lusi, is still spewing huge volumes of mud and has displaced more than 30,000 people.
The most detailed scientific analysis to date disproves the theory that an earthquake that happened two-days before the mud volcano erupted in East Java, Indonesia, was potentially to blame.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:14:15 Tue, Jun 10, 2008: from NOAA Fisheries Service Persistent Man-made Chemical Pollutants Found in Deep-sea Octopods and Squids New evidence that chemical contaminants are finding their way into the deep-sea food web has been found in deep-sea squids and octopods.... These species are food for deep-diving toothed whales and other predators.... "It was surprising to find measurable and sometimes high amounts of toxic pollutants in such a deep and remote environment," Vecchione said. Among the chemicals detected were tributyltin (TBT), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs), and dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:27:12 Mon, Jun 9, 2008: from Pensacola News-Journal (FL) University researchers, attorneys eye PCBs in Escambia Bay while state health officials mum High levels of a cancer-causing chemical in several fish found in the middle of Escambia Bay indicate that a health advisory about fish in the lower Escambia River may not go far enough.... One of UWF's four mullet samples measured 1,580 nanograms per gram of PCBs, compared to the federal threshold of 20 nanograms per gram and the state threshold of 50 nanograms per gram. All of the mullet samples were higher than state and federal limits.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:53:18 Mon, Jun 9, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer Potentially fatal bacteria found in pigs, farmworkers "Federal food safety and public health agencies are being urged to begin checking meat sold across the country for the presence of MRSA, a potentially fatal bacteria. Scientists have found the infection in U.S. pigs and farmworkers... MRSA -- methicillin-
resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- can be extremely dangerous, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Monina Klevens examined the cases of the disease reported in hospitals, schools and prisons in one year and extrapolated that "94,360 invasive MRSA infections occurred in the United States in 2005; these infections were associated with death in 18,650 cases."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:22:36 Mon, Jun 9, 2008: from The Toronto Star Freshwater clams in shell shock "Under seige from zebra mussels, habitat loss and pollution, this species is 'the most endangered animal group in North America.'"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:37:31 Mon, Jun 9, 2008: from NewScientist Pesticides blamed for plummeting salmon stocks A weak mix of pesticides in river water dampens a salmon's sense of smell, say researchers. In experiments, Steelhead rainbow trout exposed to low levels of 10 common agricultural pesticides could not perceive changes in levels of a predator's scent.... A depressed sense of smell might also keep fish from finding mates and food. Trout are closely related to salmon, and, though the theory is unproven, pesticides may be a cause of plummeting salmon stocks in Canada and the US, Tierney says.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:03:21 Mon, Jun 9, 2008: from The Whig Standard (Ontario) Little known about wolverine, study shows Jason Fisher has spent six years studying wolverines in Alberta, and in all that time he's never bumped into one of the elusive, fierce and hellishly hard to count animals without the use of a trap or remote camera.
As Fisher wraps up his multi-year pilot study into the animal -- legendary for its tenacity and strength -- just how many wolverines are still prowling the western Canadian forests remains very much a mystery.
That makes it a poster child for all species of lesser-known critters that are actively hunted in the province without evidence of whether their populations are sustainable.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:52:55 Mon, Jun 9, 2008: from USDA Elevated Carbon Dioxide Boosts Invasive Nutsedge Elevated levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) could promote the growth of purple and yellow nutsedge—quick-growing invasive weeds that plague farmers and gardeners in many states.... Both species displace native plants and reduce yields in a variety of important agricultural crops, including corn, cotton and rice. Purple and yellow nutsedge spread via rhizomes and underground tubers, and are extremely difficult to control.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:24:43 Sun, Jun 8, 2008: from Natural News Nanosolar Price Barrier Breakthrough Makes Solar Electricity Cheaper Than Coal A new combination of nano and solar technology has made it possible for solar electric generation to be cheaper than burning coal. Nanosolar, Inc. has developed a way to produce a type of ink that absorbs solar radiation and converts into electric current. Photovoltaic (PV) sheets are produced by a machine similar to a printing press, which rolls out the PV ink onto sheets approximately the width of aluminum foil. These PV sheets can be produced at a rate of hundreds of feet per minute.
"It's 100 times thinner than existing solar panels, and we can deposit the semiconductors 100 times faster," said Nanosolar's cofounder and chief executive officer, R. Martin Roscheisen. "It's a combination that drives down costs dramatically."
Nanosolar is ramping up production of its PowerSheets at factories in San Jose, California, and Berlin, and expects to have them commercially available before the end of the year. The buzz around the PowerSheets is so strong that the company already has a three to five year backorder.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:04:51 Sun, Jun 8, 2008: from AP, via Abilene Reporter-News Markets emerging for old-fashioned farming, ranching A recent study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that intensive industrial livestock production has yielded antibiotic-resistant bacteria, degraded the environment and devastated rural communities by replacing farm and ranch jobs with poorly paying feedlot positions.
By contrast, operations such as Hearst Ranch raise their animals without growth-promoting hormones or antibiotics -- and don't confine their livestock to teeming feed lots.
"In the consumer's mind, there's a connection to better health and to better for the environment and to good corporate citizenship," Goldin said. "It's just starting, but I think it's going to be a very powerful movement."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:27:08 Sun, Jun 8, 2008: from Detroit Free Press Mercury fillings are now said to pose risk for some After years of asserting that mercury in fillings was safe, the Food and Drug Administration now says it may be harmful to pregnant women, children, fetuses and people who are sensitive to mercury exposure.... The American Dental Association said the settlement "in no way changes the federal agency's approach to or position on dental amalgam."
Amalgam is "a safe, affordable and durable material that has been used in the teeth of more than 100 million Americans," the ADA said in a statement.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:27:25 Sun, Jun 8, 2008: from Weekend Post (South Africa) Species being fished into oblivion, researchers warn Anglers in the Eastern and Southern Cape are fishing the region's line fish into oblivion and researchers warn it could spell the end of line fish altogether if authorities don't act decisively to enforce quotas.... "These [line fish] are slow-growing, and what was abundant initially has now been exploited."
Cowley described the trend as "serial exploitation". As one popular line fish reached near-extinction, anglers switched to the next more abundant species, [leading to] 80 per cent of the fish which would occur naturally already fished out.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-07 16:43:17 Sat, Jun 7, 2008: from People's Daily (China) How to kick the carbon habit? To seriously de-carbonize the current energy economy, the greatest challenge perhaps lies in how to integrate the new energy resources into the existing energy infrastructure that was designed around fossil fuels.
Electricity is the most important element of today's energy system. Mostly produced by coal-fired power plants, it also happens to be the largest and most easily replaced contributor to carbon emissions because almost all renewable sources, including solar, wind, geothermal, ocean and bioenergy, are all able to produce electricity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-07 16:45:16 Sat, Jun 7, 2008: from Boston Globe Home oyster gardening popular restoration effort "Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay have been all but wiped out, but amateur conservationists are signing on to the growing hobby of home aquaculture to help bring the struggling bivalves back.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has sent out thousands of wire cages over the last decade to people in Maryland and Virginia willing to grow oysters under home docks for nine months and return them for "planting" on sanctuary reefs on the Chesapeake's tributaries."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:25:21 Sat, Jun 7, 2008: from Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Putting sea life to the acid test "A new report by the Antarctic research centre, released at the Hobart meeting, says that about half the fossil fuel carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by humans has now dissolved into the oceans. If we keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the current projections, by 2100 the ocean acidification will be three times that experienced at the end of the glacial period, 15,000 years ago."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-07 10:10:32 Sat, Jun 7, 2008: from International Herald Tribune $45 trillion urged in battling carbon emissions In one of the strongest warnings so far about the world's thirst for energy, the International Energy Agency said Friday that investment totaling $45 trillion might be needed over the next half-century to prevent energy shortages and greenhouse gas emissions from undermining global economic growth."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-07 10:04:21 Sat, Jun 7, 2008: from Baltimore Sun via Associated Press In Congress, gas prices trump global warming "Congress retreated Friday from the world's biggest environmental concern -- global warming -- in a fresh demonstration of what happens when nature and business collide, especially in an election year... A bill the Senate was debating would put a price on carbon emissions, targeting "greenhouse gases" that contribute to the warming that many scientists say could dramatically change the Earth."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:22:10 Fri, Jun 6, 2008: from AP News Oregon judge sends polluting company owner to prison The owner of a company that repeatedly mishandled waste oil and other hazardous material in violation of federal environmental laws has been sentenced to six months in prison.
Donald Spencer will also pay a $150,000 fine on behalf of his company, Spencer Environmental Inc.
A prosecutor says a prison sentence in such an environmental case is rare.
Spencer was convicted of two federal felonies for failing to dispose properly of thousands of gallons of used oil and wastewater contaminated with highly corrosive hydrochloric acid.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:50:14 Fri, Jun 6, 2008: from The Independent (UK) Paradise lost: climate change forces South Sea islanders to seek sanctuary abroad After years of fruitless appeals for decisive action on climate change, the tiny South Pacific nation of Kiribati has concluded that it is doomed. Yesterday its President, Anote Tong, used World Environment Day to request international help to evacuate his country before it disappears.
Water supplies are being contaminated by the encroaching salt water, Mr Tong said, and crops destroyed. Beachside communities have been moved inland. But Kiribati -- 33 coral atolls sprinkled across two million square miles of ocean -- has limited scope to adapt. Its highest land is barely 6 feet above sea level.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:21:31 Fri, Jun 6, 2008: from NIH, via EurekAlert Long-term pesticide exposure may increase risk of diabetes Licensed pesticide applicators who used chlorinated pesticides on more than 100 days in their lifetime were at greater risk of diabetes, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The associations between specific pesticides and incident diabetes ranged from a 20 percent to a 200 percent increase in risk.... "Although the amount of diabetes explained by pesticides is small, these new findings may extend beyond the pesticide applicators in the study," Sandler said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:02:51 Fri, Jun 6, 2008: from NOAA Fisheries Service, via ScienceDaily Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean Dolphin Populations Improving The numbers of Northeastern offshore spotted and eastern spinner dolphins in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are increasing after being severely depleted because of accidental death in the tuna purse-seine fishery between 1960 and 1990, according to biologists from NOAA's Fisheries Service.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-06 11:16:23 Fri, Jun 6, 2008: from Brantford Expositor (Canadian Press) WHO concerned by Indonesia's bird flu plan ndonesia's health minister said Thursday her country would no longer report H5N1 avian flu deaths as they happen but will share a revised death toll every six months -- a threatened policy change experts said would put the country in violation of a key international health treaty.... "We will not announce every single new bird flu death because sometimes it is misunderstood," Supari told Reuters.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-06 10:56:26 Fri, Jun 6, 2008: from BioScience, via Science Daily (US) Western U.S. Forests At Risk: Complex Dynamics Underlie Bark Beetle Eruptions Biological interactions involving fungi as well as trees and competing insects drive bark beetle outbreaks. The processes are sensitive to a forest's condition and the local climate, but prediction is difficult because the processes turn on multiple critical thresholds.... Forest management that favors single tree species and climate change are just two of the critical factors making forests throughout western North America more susceptible to infestation by bark beetles, according to an article published in the June 2008 BioScience.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-06 07:07:31 Fri, Jun 6, 2008: from Vineyard Gazette Online Against Odds, Piping Plovers Rebound The first clutch of chicks hatched at Tashmoo on May 24. On other beaches all over the Vineyard, more happy events have since happened or are imminent. But the perpetuation of the threatened species is thanks as much to the efforts of human midwives as to the plover parents.
Ring the shorebird information line and you’ll learn that large parts of the East Beach on Chappaquiddick are closed to over-sand vehicles, lest roaming chicks be killed. Further closures are imminent on the Edgartown side of Norton Point.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-06 01:34:21 Fri, Jun 6, 2008: from Chronicle-Herald (Canada) What’s behind huge plankton growth? They’re looking for answers to explain last year’s "phenomenal" growth of phytoplankton in coastal waters off Nova Scotia — particularly in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Cabot Strait and Scotian Shelf. "It was incredible," Glen Harrison, head of the Ocean Research and Monitoring Section, part of BIO’s Ecosystem Research Division, said of the annual biological spring bloom. "It stood out," he said after comparing satellite imagery and oceanographic data of previous blooms over the past 10 years. "When we really see something like that -- a big signal -- we know something has changed in the environment."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:04:20 Thu, Jun 5, 2008: from The Economist Bushmeat: Just let them get on with it "Conservationists and animal-welfare types please take note: trade in wildlife products, as long as it is properly managed, is an indispensable boon for the poor. And what is more, it's big business, worth around $300 billion in 2005—chiefly in timber and fisheries.... But the report laments that far too much of the harvesting of, and trade in, wild products is poorly supervised, with the result that habitats are degraded and stocks depleted.... If no public authority is able to offer secure tenure of land or resource rights to a reasonable number of people, there is little incentive to invest in long-term sustainability."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-17 16:30:39 Thu, Jun 5, 2008: from Environmental Research Web Geoengineering could lead to droughts Geoengineering schemes to cut the amount of sunlight reaching the earth have been proposed as a measure to reduce temperature rises brought about by increased levels of greenhouse gases. But now a team of researchers in the US has shown that such a move would decrease mean global precipitation, potentially leading to drought.
"Global mean rainfall changes are more sensitive to solar forcing than to carbon dioxide forcing," Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, US, told environmentalresearchweb. "Therefore, if you turn down the sun to counter carbon dioxide effects, you will end up with less rainfall and droughts."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:22:18 Thu, Jun 5, 2008: from StraightGoods Climate change casts marine science adrift Climate change is altering the world's oceans in so many ways scientists cannot keep pace, and as a result there is no comprehensive vision of its present and future impacts, say experts. Rising sea levels, changes in hurricane intensity and seasonality, declines in fisheries and corals are among the many effects attributed to climate change. In an attempt to put some order to their disconcerting findings, more than 450 scientists from some 60 countries gathered in the northern Spanish city of Gijón for the symposium "Effects of Climate Change on the World's Oceans...."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-05 11:33:12 Thu, Jun 5, 2008: from NSF, via ScienceDaily Human Viruses Appear To Be Making Wild Chimpanzees Sick After studying chimpanzees in the wilds of Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park for the past year as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Virginia Tech researcher Dr. Taranjit Kaur and her team have produced powerful scientific evidence that chimpanzees are becoming sick from viral infectious diseases they have likely contracted from humans.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-05 07:14:05 Thu, Jun 5, 2008: from NSF, via ScienceDaily Large-scale Experiments Needed To Predict Global Change In a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment on "Continental-scale ecology in an increasingly connected world" (June 2008), ecologists discuss how human influences interact with natural processes to influence global connectivity.
The authors conclude that networks of large-scale experiments are needed to predict long-term ecological change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:36:52 Thu, Jun 5, 2008: from Pew Institute for Ocean Science, via ScienceDaily Quotas Allow More Caviar Export, Further Jeopardize Endangered Sturgeon [M]ore caviar will be exported from Caspian Sea and Amur River states this year as a result of unacceptably permissive new trade quotas... Most sturgeon species are endangered and some, like beluga sturgeon, are threatened with extinction. These quotas will further damage this ancient fish's chance of recovery and survival, since sturgeon must be killed to harvest their prized eggs which are then processed into caviar, the group says.... "Sturgeon have been on earth since the time of the dinosaurs, but are being wiped out because of inadequate international and domestic controls. We urge consumers to protest with their wallets by not purchasing any wild-caught caviar."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:21:18 Thu, Jun 5, 2008: from NOAA, via ScienceDaily Tornados, Flooding May Warn Of Climate Change Record-keeping meteorologists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration say this year's tornado season is one of the deadliest in a decade and may be on pace to set a record for the most tornadoes. And flooding in the Midwest has been at 100-year levels this spring. "There is considerable concern that climate change due to greenhouse gases species increasing will lead to the enhancement of strong, large storms occurrences, such as hurricanes that also spawn tornadoes when they occur. Increased storm strengths also bring flooding events," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:04:20 Wed, Jun 4, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk UN report: Coastal communities face disaster Entire marine ecosystems are threatened because of human mismanagement, according to the UN academic study. It warns of a looming, potentially "terminal" disaster in several coastal areas unless they are given better care.... In the past 50 years bays and estuaries, sea grasses, and mangroves and wetlands have all suffered dramatically because of human activity, the report states. Shorelines have hardened, channels and harbours have been dredged, soil dumped, submerged and emergent land moved, and patterns of water flow changed.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:21:14 Wed, Jun 4, 2008: from Stabroek News (Guyana) Quartz Hill mining highlights environment threat Breaches of the mining regulations were evident during a recent visit to Quartz Hill and nearby areas, resulting in pollution and fouling of waterways even as the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) strives to enforce the rules and advocate self-regulation.... Meanwhile, unsafe use of mercury, breached tailings ponds and mining activities close to water courses were some of the infringements....
As a result of the breached tailings ponds, a section of the Omai Creek was heavily discoloured with a yellow sludge, which made its way to the Essequibo River.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:54:26 Wed, Jun 4, 2008: from Times Online (UK) Wasps on the rise in Alaska as climate warms Wasps used to be an uncommon sight in Fairbanks until two years ago. Then huge numbers of them swarmed on the city, ten times more than normal. The number of stings grew so bad that outdoor school events were cancelled, 178 patients were treated in hospital for stings and two people died. A study now reveals that wasp stings across northern Alaska have increased sevenfold over the past few years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-04 16:40:29 Wed, Jun 4, 2008: from Guardian (UK) End of the road for Hummer after sales of 'world's most anti-environmental car' dive Loathed by environmentalists, military-style Hummers have survived years of vandalism, arson and abuse. But the lumbering American gas-guzzling vehicles have met their match in the rocketing cost of filling a tank with petrol.
Alarmed by a slump in demand for vehicles that consume vast quantities of fuel, Hummer's owner, General Motors, is reviewing the future of the Hummer brand which was originally a civilian version of the US military's armoured Humvee. The struggling Detroit-based carmaker said it was considering off-loading the business -- and with US sales plunging, its prospects are cloudy.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:01:58 Wed, Jun 4, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Puffin numbers plummet in UK's biggest colony Naturalists working on the Isle of May, a major seabird colony on the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh, disclosed today that puffin numbers on the island have unexpectedly fallen by nearly a third this year after decades of continual increases in population.... Although the bird – which has a relatively long 30-year lifecycle - congregates in large colonies such as the Isle of May to breed in the spring, it spreads across the sea to winter on the water. It also has a wide and varied diet, from zooplankton and worms, to small fish such as sand eels, and squid.
As a result, its decline suggests a profound problem across the North Sea rather than an isolated or one-off event, said Harris. "We're looking for something acting over a substantial part of the North Sea," he said. "Something big is going on at a wide scale."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-04 08:35:14 Wed, Jun 4, 2008: from eFluxMedia Bird Flu Strain at Tyson Foods Leads to Killing of 15,000 Hens While the virus discovered at Tyson Foods is harmless to humans, shares of U.S. chicken companies dropped as investors worried foreign buyers may ban U.S. chicken. The U.S. exports about 16 percent of its chicken and a loss of key overseas markets could create a glut of chicken here.
Following the discovery, the U.S. Agriculture Department has already suspended shipments of chicken from Arkansas to Russia, the most important overseas market for U.S. chicken.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:17:10 Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Reminder: Siberian permafrost and feedbacks Among Zimov's findings: The release of greenhouse gases — particularly methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide—from thawing permafrost underneath Siberian lakes could accelerate global warming and represents an especially worrisome trend in the battle to slow climate change.... Melting permafrost awakens dormant microbes that devour thousands of tons of organic carbon, creating methane as a byproduct if no oxygen is present.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-04 17:38:19 Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from Daily Galaxy Is There a Solution to the "Continent of Plastic" that Pollutes the Pacific? Are there really 'continents', or massive floating garbage patches residing in the Pacific? [T]hese unsightly patches are reportedly killing marine life and releasing poisons that enter the human food chain, as well. [T]hese plastic patches certainly aren't solid surfaced islands that you could build a house on... Ocean currents have collected massive amounts of garbage into a sort of plastic "soup" where countless bits of discarded plastic float intertwined just beneath the surface.... The enormous Texas-sized plastic patch is estimated to weigh over 3 million tons.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:36:44 Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from BBC (UK) Images reveal 'rapid forest loss' High-resolution satellite images have revealed the "rapid deforestation" of Papua New Guinea's biodiversity rich rainforests over the past 30 years.
An international team of researchers estimates that the current rate of loss could result in more than half of the nation's tree cover being lost by 2021.... Although it only accounts for less than 0.5 percent of the Earth's land cover, the heavily forested island nation is home to an estimated 6-7 percent of the planet's species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:52:16 Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from Peterborough Examiner (Canada) Holistic permaculture looks at whole system Permaculture is permanent agriculture (agriculture that can be sustained indefinitely) and permanent culture (a method of working with, rather than against, nature).... using multiple crops that form beneficial plant communities, forest farming, crop rotation, no till, preserving native seeds and plants, composting, conservation of land and water, and bringing nature back to our homes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:58:31 Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Climate Findings Were Distorted, Probe Finds An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency's public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday.
The probe came at the request of 14 senators after The Washington Post and other news outlets reported in 2006 that Bush administration officials had monitored and impeded communications between NASA climate scientists and reporters.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-03 08:48:56 Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from Polish Radio Dangerous ladybird species reaches Poland The bug, which is a native of mid-eastern Asia, was introduced in Western Europe in 1997 as a natural method to control greenfly. However, the ladybird, which has a voracious appetite, has proved dangerous not only to greenfly but also to other European insects, its cousin included. It can also damage orchard fruit and vineyards, and its bite may cause an allergic reaction in humans. Polish researchers from the Academy of Sciences are trying to monitor the situation but they say that currently there are no ways of dealing with the insect.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-03 08:40:08 Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from Tulsa World High fertilizer prices a growing worry Urea, a key form of solid nitrogen fertilizer, doubled in price from 2000 to 2007 and then went another 40 percent higher over the past year, according to reports. Potash, another key ingredient in some fertilizers, now costs nearly $600 per ton, while phosphate is nearing $1,000 a ton.... Fuel cannot be blamed for everything that goes up, he added; fertilizer demand is also reaching all-time highs and may bear some responsibility for the costly chaos. Some chemical components are fetching record orders worldwide for everything from farming to mining.
"It's real global," Robinson said. "This is the first year in 30 years that (fertilizer) demand exceeds supply."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:08:22 Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from NewsInferno BPA Found in Canned Foods According to recent testing, canned foods sold in Canada have been found to contain BPA concentrations as high as double the levels that prompted many to stop using BPA-laced plastic baby and water bottles. Less than half a cup of tomato sauce or a cup of chicken noodle soup would exceed the lowest dose found in recent research to have an adverse effect on animals.
Bisphenol-A�or BPA�is a fairly ubiquitous chemical that mimics the hormone, estrogen, and is used in polycarbonate plastic products, including baby bottles and metal can coatings and could be linked to a range of hormonal problems. In the lab, BPA is linked to sex-hormone-imbalances, including breast and prostate cancer, early puberty, miscarriage, low sperm count, and immune-system changes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-03 08:18:25 Tue, Jun 3, 2008: from American Society for Microbiology, via EurekAlert Climate change could impact vital functions of microbes Global climate change will not only impact plants and animals but will also affect bacteria, fungi and other microbial populations that perform a myriad of functions important to life on earth. It is not entirely certain what those effects will be, but they could be significant and will probably not be good, say researchers today at a scientific meeting in Boston.
“Microbes perform a number of critical functions for ecosystems around the world and we are only starting to understand the impact that global change is having on them,” says Kathleen Treseder of the University of California, Irvine, at the 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-04 16:31:45 Mon, Jun 2, 2008: from The Scientist Banana: R.I.P. Panama disease - or Fusarium wilt of banana - is back, and the Cavendish does not appear to be safe from this new strain, which appeared two decades ago in Malaysia, spread slowly at first, but is now moving at a geometrically quicker pace. There is no cure, and nearly every banana scientist says that though Panama disease has yet to hit the banana crops of Latin America, which feed our hemisphere, the question is not if this will happen, but when. Even worse, the malady has the potential to spread to dozens of other banana varieties, including African bananas, the primary source of nutrition for millions of people.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:36:14 Mon, Jun 2, 2008: from BBC (UK) Unnatural roots of the food crisis The current model of market-driven food production is leaving people hungry.
It has turned food into a commodity subject to all the market failures that create inequities and negative impacts on the environment.... Amazingly, there is very little attention being paid to what fundamentally underpins all of our food systems - biodiversity and the services provided by ecosystems, such as soil, water and resilience to disasters.
We need to attack market failures and change the economic rules of current food production systems.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:59:38 Mon, Jun 2, 2008: from Religious Intelligence Ltd Climate change question not proven, says bishop The Anglican Bishop of Chester has described the question of how much carbon dioxide contributes to global warming as "in some respects still open".... "[T]he phenomena under investigation are so large: the whole of the earth's surface, the whole of the earth's atmosphere, and the sun itself. That makes precision difficult to achieve. The history of science is littered with scientific consensuses that have come to be overturned one way or another. The fact that there has been a degree -- somewhat less than one degree -- of global warming over the past century does seem to be fairly clearly established. Its correlation with CO2 emissions is less so in my view, although there may be --- and we should probably say, 'probably is' -- a link. But it is still, I think, in the realms of probability."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:20:12 Mon, Jun 2, 2008: from Annals of Neurology, via Science Daily Even Low Levels Of Air Pollution May Pose Stroke Risk These findings support the hypotheses that recent exposure to fine particulate matter may increase the risk of ischemic cerebrovascular events specifically. There is experimental evidence that particulate air pollution is associated with acute artery vasoconstriction and with increases in plasma viscosity (thickening of the blood) which may enhance the potential for blood clots, although this requires further study.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:05:56 Mon, Jun 2, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Last flight of the honeybee? Close on two million colonies of honeybees across the US have been wiped out. The strange phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD), is also thought to have claimed the lives of billions of honeybees around the world. In Taiwan, 10 million honeybees were reported to have disappeared in just two weeks, and throughout Europe honeybees are in peril.... "It's those new neonicotinoid pesticides that growers are using," he says. "That's what's messing up the bees' navigation system so they can't find their way home." ... With innocuous brand names such as Gaucho, Assail and Merit, these pesticides are used worldwide, from sunflower fields to apple orchards, lawns to golf courses. The chemicals they contain are an artificial type of nicotine that acts as a neurotoxin that attacks insects' nervous systems on contact or ingestion.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-02 08:08:13 Mon, Jun 2, 2008: from BBC (UK) Progress at UN biodiversity forum Nearly 200 countries have agreed on measures to protect the world's most threatened wildlife. At a Bonn conference they pledged to set up a deep-sea nature reserve and increase by tens of millions of hectares the area of land protected. But environmentalists... said progress was too slow compared to the threat to the world's species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:26:30 Sun, Jun 1, 2008: from RedOrbit Species Disappearance Puzzles Scientists U.S. scientists say they are baffled by the disappearance of Diporeia, a shrimplike major food source for fish in the Great Lakes.
The declining populations of the energy-dense creature are threatening lake whitefish and many prey fish upon which salmon, trout and walleye rely... Collaborating researcher Tom Nalepa ... said the Diporeia are already gone from many large areas of lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, with nearly no Diporeia found in Lake Michigan at depths shallower than 90 meters. Just 15 years ago, their density often exceeded 10,000 animals per square meter at such depths.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:44:36 Sun, Jun 1, 2008: from Vancouver Sun Everyone knows acid rain, but what about black water? In other words, when it comes to sorting the "clean energy" from the "smart energy," most of us don't know what we're talking about.
According to EcoAlign, an eco-marketing group, the green gap isn't just about misusing words. Our lack of understanding contributes to a "growing misalignment" between our intention to become more green and our ability to do so. Unless we get to know the new vocabulary, we run the risk of committing the kinds of eco-errors that could lead to ecocide -- or, worse, an entirely avoidable ecopolypse.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-01 12:22:54 Sun, Jun 1, 2008: from CNET News Plant power to fight toxic tech Most Americans live and work in buildings awash in chemicals blamed for asthma, lung cancer, and a host of other maladies.
The best way to clean the air could be with a green thumb, according to Bill Wolverton, a former NASA environmental scientist who has spent more than 30 years studying how plants purify the air. The results of his research could come to market this fall as a household air filter that looks like a potted plant.... Based upon chemicals in common consumer products, for instance, a peace lily might be ideal for a laundry room, and a new couch could be flanked by bamboo palms. Among the plants researchers found to have potent air-purifying qualities are the Eureka palm, lady palm, peace lily, and rubber plant.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-01 11:24:44 Sun, Jun 1, 2008: from Daily Mail Chlorine in tap water 'nearly doubles the risk of birth defects' "Pregnant women living in areas where tap water is heavily disinfected with chlorine nearly double their risk of having children with heart problems, a cleft palate or major brain defects, a new study has found. Scientists say expectant mothers can expose themselves to the higher risk by drinking the water, taking a bath or shower, or even by standing close to a boiling kettle."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-01 11:05:33 Sun, Jun 1, 2008: from The Poultry Site New Quarantine Regulations for Exotic Newcastle Disease WASHINGTON, US - The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today issued a final rule that changes the exotic Newcastle disease (END) domestic quarantine regulations.... Exotic Newcastle disease is a highly contagious and fatal viral disease that affects all species of birds. END is not avian influenza and poses no risk to human health. However, it is another highly contagious disease of poultry and birds. It affects the respiratory, nervous and digestive systems of birds, and many birds die before demonstrating any clinical signs of the disease.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-01 11:14:17 Sun, Jun 1, 2008: from Discover Everything You Know About Water Conservation Is Wrong "...It takes about 155 gallons of water on average to grow a pound of wheat. So the virtual water of this pound of wheat is 155 gallons. For a pound of meat, the virtual water is 5 to 10 times higher. There’s a virtual water count for everything. The virtual water footprint of a cup of coffee is 37 gallons; an apple, 19 gallons; a banana, 27; a slice of bread, 10; a sheet of paper, 3; and a pair of leather shoes, 4,400, according to Waterfootprint.org, a Unesco-run Web site providing a calculator for individual and national water use."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:09:47 Sun, Jun 1, 2008: from Associated Press China kicks off drive to kick plastic bag habit "China on Sunday became the latest country to declare war on plastic bags in a drive to save energy and protect the environment."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-06-01 10:49:01 Sun, Jun 1, 2008: from In These Times, in AlterNet Will the Toxic Sludge Industry Be Held Accountable for Human Health Risks? "... and we have precocious puberty, little girls developing breasts at 5 or 6 years old, little boys developing armpit hair. And that is something that people don't want to talk about," Holt says. "They will talk about their thyroid glands, their cancers, but they will not talk about early puberty. We are on a true toxic tilt."
For the first time since she became involved in the sludge issue, Holt is guardedly hopeful that her concerns will finally be addressed, and that the sulphurous alliance between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), municipal sewer authorities and Synagro Technologies (the nation's largest sludge disposal firm, which was recently bought by the Carlyle Group) -- will be exposed for the blight it is.
In April, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, announced that her committee will hold hearings on the issue this summer. The catalyst is a confluence of recent news reports about sludge-related scandals.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:47:39 Sat, May 31, 2008: from Toronto Star The Frozen Ark: Toward Jurassic Park Since 2004, the little-known Frozen Ark project in Nottingham, England has been quietly gathering, storing and preserving genetic "backups" of species for whom conservation efforts have come too late – or not at all. Priority is being given to 40 animals that are extinct in the wild but still living in zoos. Next in line are 10,000 or so species whose populations have fallen as human numbers inexorably rose. The Frozen Ark is a "doomsday animal vault." Small tissue samples of endangered species are being frozen and preserved in liquid nitrogen.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-31 11:46:52 Sat, May 31, 2008: from MIT newsoffice MIT develops a 'paper towel' for oil spills The scientists say they have created a membrane that can absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil, and can be recycled many times for future use. The oil itself can also be recovered. Some 200,000 tons of oil have already been spilled at sea since the start of the decade.
"What we found is that we can make 'paper' from an interwoven mesh of nanowires that is able to selectively absorb hydrophobic liquids--oil-like liquids--from water," said Francesco Stellacci, an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and leader of the work.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:31:46 Sat, May 31, 2008: from San Diego Union-Tribune Wave of Cliff Swallow deaths sparks mystery The recent deaths of nearly 100 cliff swallows near the public dock at Lower Otay Lake ... appear to have started about a week ago, when the reek of decaying birds at the Lower Otay dock and boathouse caught the attention of the city's lake manager. Swallow deaths have continued for several days, prompting reservoir employees to knock down nests that have dead swallows.
"There are a few that are surviving, but most of the birds... and the babies are dying," said Nelson Manville, supervisor of the lakes program for San Diego. "They have had a horrendous smell."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:24:11 Sat, May 31, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Safety Studies on Nanoparticles Lag Behind Technology One issue is that the explosion of products using nanomaterials has outpaced the research into what happens when the particles escape into the environment or the human body. "Safety studies are dribbling in, but new consumer products are pouring in... The system is backwards"... Silver, one of the most widely used nanomaterials, has potent antibacterial properties, "which can be a good thing or a bad thing"... When nanosilver and ionic silver reach wastewater treatment plants, they could kill beneficial bacteria used to remove impurities; if the particles get back into waterways, they could also harm fish and algae. Leftover sewage sludge is also used as agricultural fertilizer; nanosilver remaining there could damage soil used to grow food.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-31 10:58:47 Sat, May 31, 2008: from The Telegraph (India) Viral deaths under wraps New Delhi: The government has refused to investigate thousands of suspected deaths from chikungunya while repeatedly asserting in Parliament that no one has died from this viral infection, public health experts say.
The disease had broken out in many places in 2006, and at least one city recorded an extraordinarily high mortality. Ahmedabad registered 2,944 deaths over its average during a four-month period when the outbreak had peaked, municipal records show.... During the 2006 outbreak, more than 1.4 million people were suspected to have been infected by chikungunya, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:47:22 Sat, May 31, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk New insect repellent last three times longer To identify the new repellents, the team conducted a rigorous search of a library of compounds known as N-acylpiperidines (related to the active ingredient in pepper), using a brain like computer, called an artificial neural network, to link chemical structure to repellent qualities.
They used the neural net to find better versions of DEET, which is able to block the insects' sense of smell. Insects also find DEET unappealing to bite through, and at higher concentrations they tend to avoid contact with DEET.
The researchers then tested the 34 best candidates in the laboratory on human volunteers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-31 11:05:55 Sat, May 31, 2008: from Newcastle University, via ScienceDaily Organic Free Grazing Cows Are Cream Of The Crop A new study by Newcastle University proves that organic farmers who let their cows graze as nature intended are producing better quality milk. The Nafferton Ecological Farming Group study found that grazing cows on organic farms in the UK produce milk which contains significantly higher beneficial fatty acids, antioxidants and vitamins than their conventional 'high input' counterparts.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:59:07 Sat, May 31, 2008: from Yale University, via ScienceDaily Apparent Problem With Global Warming Climate Models Resolved By measuring changes in winds, rather than relying upon problematic temperature measurements, Robert J. Allen and Steven C. Sherwood of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale estimated the atmospheric temperatures near 10 km in the Tropics rose about 0.65 degrees Celsius per decade since 1970 -- probably the fastest warming rate anywhere in Earth's atmosphere. The temperature increase is in line with predictions of global warming models.
"I think this puts to rest any lingering doubts that the atmosphere really has been warming up more or less as we expect, due mainly to the greenhouse effect of increasing gases like carbon dioxide," Sherwood said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:01:57 Sat, May 31, 2008: from NOAA Marine Fisheries, via ScienceDaily Healthy Parents Provide Clues To Survival Of Young Haddock On Georges Bank In 2003, haddock on Georges Bank experienced the largest baby boom ever documented for the stock, with an estimated 800 million new young fish entering the population. With typical annual averages of 50 to 100 million new fish in the last few decades, fisheries biologists have been puzzled by the huge increase and its ramifications for stock management. They have been looking for answers and may have found one -- healthy adults.... "Simply put, having more food to eat gives adult haddock a chance to get into better physical shape to reproduce healthy offspring with a higher chance of survival."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:53:49 Fri, May 30, 2008: from DailyTech Buckyballs Versus Cell Membranes The group, from the University of Calgary, used the computing power of WestGrid to run their simulations, which involved buckyball clusters interacting with lipid cell membranes. Their simulations found that the molecules were able to dissolve into the cell membrane, passing through it without causing mechanical damage, and reform in the cell's interior. Once inside the cell, the buckyballs could cause damage to the cells.
Peter Tieleman, one of the study's leaders, explains "buckyballs are already being made on a commercial scale for use in coatings and materials but we have not determined their toxicity. There are studies showing that they can cross the blood-brain barrier and alter cell functions, which raises a lot of questions about their toxicity and what impact they may have if released into the environment."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-30 17:32:07 Fri, May 30, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Lead Exposure in Childhood Linked to Criminal Behavior Later A study in the May 27 issue of PLoS Medicine is the first empirical evidence that elevated blood lead levels, both in the pregnant mother and in the child, are associated with criminal behavior in young adulthood.
"I never would have thought that we would be seeing these effects into the later 20s," said study co-author Kim Dietrich, a professor of environmental health at the University of Cincinnati. "I'm actually quite astounded and quite worried about this. Although lead levels have been going down in this country, a large proportion of the population now in their 20s and 30s had blood levels in this neurotoxic range."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:53:29 Fri, May 30, 2008: from CIDRAP Some avian flu H7 viruses growing more human-like The investigators determined that several recent North American H7 viruses have an increased ability to bind to a type of receptor molecule that is abundant on human tracheal cells and is less common in birds. Their results were published this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The finding -- which comes as the deadly Eurasian H5N1 virus continues to be seen as the likeliest candidate to spark a pandemic -- "underscores the necessity for continued surveillance and study of these [North American H7] viruses as they continue to resemble viruses with pandemic potential," says the report.... "The most important message we can take from this is that there will be another pandemic strain that will emerge -- tomorrow, next week, next year, whenever, but it's going to occur."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:36:02 Fri, May 30, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Ecosystem destruction costing hundreds of billions a year The steeply accelerating decline of the natural world is already costing hundreds of billions of pounds a year, say leading economists, in a review of the costs and benefits of forests, rivers and marine life. The losses will increase dramatically over the next generation unless urgent remedial action is taken, they say.... The economists warn that on current trends, 11 percent of the world's untouched forests and 60 percent of its coral reefs could be lost by 2030. About 60 percent of the Earth's ecosystem, examined by the researchers, has been degraded in the past 50 years. Population growth, changing land use and global climate change will lead to further declines.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:35:19 Fri, May 30, 2008: from BlueRidgeNow (Times-News) Unknown toxin kills fish in Davidson River PISGAH FOREST - State officials on Thursday were investigating the cause of a mile-long fish kill on the lower Davidson River, while Transylvania County officials urged residents to avoid contact with the water in the Davidson and downstream on the French Broad River.... a preliminary report with the DWQ office in Black Mountain listed as a possible source a 22,000 gallon tank of "black liquor," a concentration of organic byproducts of the paper-making process.... The Davidson is famous for its trout fishing, both along the private section downstream of U.S. 64/276 and through Pisgah National Forest upstream.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:23:55 Fri, May 30, 2008: from Angewandte, via Ars Technica Nanotechnology used to build artificial virus The Lee research group at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea found an alternate strategy, one that used pre-organized supramolecular nanostructures to construct, for the first time, a filament-shaped artificial virus.... The virus' simultaneous ability to deliver genetic materials and hydrophobic therapeutic reagents are particularly useful, and the researchers' approach is flexible and allows for a variety of structural changes to the virus. Until we study the toxicology of these artificial viruses, however, we cannot judge their full potential for treating diseases.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:07:44 Fri, May 30, 2008: from Tehelka (India) India's lone DDT manufacturing facility shows no signs of shutting down The nauseating smell of DDT assaults the senses as one nears this industrial belt built around the once small villages of Eloor and Edayar. There are about 200-odd factories in the region but it is the DDT factory of the Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL), manufacturing DDT and Endosulfan since 1956, which has many of the area's 40,000 residents up in arms. There is by now sufficient evidence to show that water in the village’s wells has become unfit for drinking and that large tracts of land are turning uncultivable by the season.... A signatory to the Convention, India has banned the use of DDT in agriculture. HIL's DDT production is thus fully export-oriented: its client list has eight African countries, including Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-30 09:27:53 Fri, May 30, 2008: from New York Times Peru Guards Its Guano as Demand Soars Again The worldwide boom in commodities has come to this: Even guano, the bird dung that was the focus of an imperialist scramble on the high seas in the 19th century, is in strong demand once again.... "We are recovering some of the last guano remaining in Peru," said Victor Ropon, 66, a supervisor from Ancash Province whose leathery skin reflects his years working on the guano islands since he was 17.
"There might be 10 years of supplies left, or perhaps 20, and then it will be completely exhausted," said Mr. Ropon, referring to fears that the seabird population could be poised to fall sharply in the years ahead.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:29:17 Fri, May 30, 2008: from EuroNews Toxic fish scare in France sparks national enquiry There is new concern over a pollution scare in France. People living along the Rhone river, and regular eaters of fish caught in it, have tested positive for dangerously high levels of a carcinogenic chemical in their blood. Some exhibited four to five times the so-called 'safe' level of PCBs, or polychlorobiphenyles.... Despite being banned from sale for industrial use in France for more than 20 years, PCB was used in glues, paints and even paper.
The startling results of this limited study have now prompted a two year national enquiry to find out just how dangerous France's rivers are.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:16:13 Fri, May 30, 2008: from University of California - Riverside via ScienceDaily Large Methane Release Could Cause Abrupt Climate Change As Happened 635 Million Years Ago "An abrupt release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, about 635 million years ago from ice sheets that then extended to Earth's low latitudes caused a dramatic shift in climate, triggering a series of events that resulted in global warming and effectively ended the last "snowball" ice age, a UC Riverside-led study reports."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-29 20:48:36 Fri, May 30, 2008: from Nature You emit what you eat "...a new study by Christopher Weber and Scott Matthews of Carnegie Mellon University in Washington, DC, suggests that a dietary shift may be more effective in reducing your emissions than eating local produce. They conducted a life-cycle analysis of all greenhouse gas emissions, not just carbon dioxide, associated with the production of food consumed in the United States, compared against those associated with long-distance distribution."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-29 19:05:55 Thu, May 29, 2008: from Associated Press White House issues climate report 4 years late "Under a court order and four years late, the White House Thursday produced what it called a science-based "one-stop shop" of specific threats to the United States from man-made global warming... White House associate science director Sharon Hays, in a teleconference with reporters, declined to characterize the findings as bad, but said it is an issue the administration takes seriously."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-29 18:56:20 Thu, May 29, 2008: from Institut de Recherche Pour le Développement, via EurekAlert Reforestation using exotic plants can disturb the fertility of tropical soils In Burkina Faso, controlled experiments showed that the development of E. camaldulensis, the eucalyptus species most often planted in the world, outside its area of origin, significantly reduced the diversity of the mycorrhizal fungi communities essential for the healthy functioning of the ecosystem.
... also found in the soil of a Senegalese plantation ... where, scarcely a few months after its introduction, the soil’s microbial characteristics had completely changed. ... The soil sampled from areas surrounding the A. holosericea plantation had a balanced distribution of mycorrhizal fungi species, whereas [inside showed] a strong imbalance in the composition of the mycorrhizal fungi community... there is a risk that the Australian acacia might create a new ecosystem whose physical, chemical and biological characteristics will not necessarily be favourable to a recolonization of the habitat by native species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-29 18:45:02 Thu, May 29, 2008: from Strategic Management Journal Green Firms Rewarded By Financial Markets Using data on 267 U.S. firms, Mark Sharfman and Chitru S. Fernando of the University of Oklahoma analyzed whether firms that had improved their environmental risk management also experienced a reduction in their total cost of capital, and found evidence supporting their hypothesis.
Financial markets seem to perceive greener firms as safer investments because of a reduced likelihood of litigation, government penalties, and/or catastrophic accidents. The financial markets reward this lower level of risk by charging the firm less for its capital, thus allowing the firm to carry more debt.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-29 18:32:33 Thu, May 29, 2008: from TIME Eating bugs The very qualities that make bugs so hard to get rid of could also make them an environmentally friendly food. "Nature is very good at making insects," says David Gracer, one of the chefs at the Richmond festival and the founder of future bug purveyor Sunrise Land Shrimp. Insects require little room and few resources to grow. For instance, it takes far less water to raise a third of a pound (150 g) of grasshoppers than the staggering 869 gal. (3,290 L) needed to produce the same amount of beef. Since bugs are cold-blooded invertebrates, more of what they consume goes to building edible body parts, whereas pigs and other warm-blooded vertebrates need to consume a lot of calories just to keep their body temperature steady.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:23:25 Wed, May 28, 2008: from The New York Times via Associated Press Scientists warn of rising Pacific Coast acidity "A panel of marine scientists are warning that the Pacific Coast's increasing acidity could disrupt food chains and threaten the Pacific Northwest's shellfish industry... The data indicates acidic water is appearing along the Pacific Coast decades earlier than expected. The acidified water does not pose a threat to humans, but it could dissolve the shells of clams, oysters and other shellfish."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:51:28 Wed, May 28, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer Get used to high food costs, water shortages "Shocked by rising food prices? Get used to it -- and be ready for water shortages, too, says a sweeping new scientific report rounding up likely effects of climate change on the United States' land, water and farms over the next half-century."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-27 21:39:41 Wed, May 28, 2008: from Imperial College London via ScienceDaily Parts Of UK Could Be Too Hot For Wine-making By 2080, Research Suggests "...Emeritus Professor Richard Selley from Imperial College London, claims that if average summer temperatures in the UK continue to rise as predicted, the Thames Valley, parts of Hampshire and the Severn valley, which currently contain many vineyards, will be too hot to support wine production within the next 75 years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:46:38 Wed, May 28, 2008: from American Chemical Society via ScienceDaily Melting Glaciers May Release DDT And Contaminate Antarctic Environment "In an unexpected consequence of climate change, scientists are raising the possibility that glacial melting is releasing large amounts of the banned pesticide DDT, which is contaminating the environment in Antarctica."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-27 17:28:14 Tue, May 27, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Scientists warn of bird flu epidemic "Researchers who analysed samples of recent avian flu viruses found that a strain of the virus called H7N2 had adapted slightly better to living in mammals. Tests on ferrets proved the strain could be passed between animals but scientists said the evidence suggested that bird flu could be transmitted between humans."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-27 17:07:27 Tue, May 27, 2008: from Toronto Star How we waste food "It is one of the most perverse ironies of our age: Amid soaring prices and global shortages we are throwing out more food than ever. A new study offers the most comprehensive look yet at the depth of our collective profligacy... Try to imagine 35,000 hulking African elephants barrelling down Yonge St., and you'll come close to picturing the quantity of food we throw out each year in Toronto alone."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:44:44 Tue, May 27, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Oil crisis triggers fevered scramble for the world's seabed "A fevered scramble for control of the world's seabed is going on - mostly in secret - at a little known office of the United Nations in New York. Bemused officials are watching with a mixture of awe and suspicion as Britain and France stake out legal claims to oil and mineral wealth as far as 350 nautical miles around each of their scattered islands across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans... Not to be left out, Australia and New Zealand are carving up the Antarctic seas."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-27 21:28:23 Tue, May 27, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Midwest's message: Hands off our lakes "Piece by piece, a 5,500-mile wall around the Great Lakes is going up. You can't see it, but construction is progressing nicely, along with an implied neon sign that flashes, "Hands off—it's our water." The legal pilings for a 1,000-mile segment of the wall are scheduled to be sunk Tuesday when Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle finalizes his state's approval of the so-called Great Lakes Compact, a multistate agreement designed to protect and restrict access to nearly 20 percent of the world's supply of fresh water, contained in the five Great Lakes."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-26 11:04:47 Mon, May 26, 2008: from London Independent Mosquito invasion brings disease risk to UK "An Asian mosquito species is poised to arrive in Britain, bringing with it the risk of a potentially lethal disease that the insect can pass from one person to another. The Asian tiger mosquito has already established itself in northern Italy where it has transmitted chikungunya fever to scores of people."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:23:37 Mon, May 26, 2008: from Chemical & Engineering News Nanotube Inflammation "RIGID MULTIWALLED carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) longer than 20 µm elicit the same toxic response in mice that asbestos does, according to two new studies. The results suggest that in humans nanotubes could lead to mesothelioma, the hallmark cancer of asbestos exposure, if sufficient quantities of the material are able to reach the lungs by inhalation."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-26 10:49:35 Mon, May 26, 2008: from The Australian Tasmanian devils now on endangered list "The decision to upgrade the Tasmanian devil's status from vulnerable to endangered at the state level follows the failure to stem the spread of the deadly facial tumour disease.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-26 10:40:52 Mon, May 26, 2008: from The Japan Times G8 meet sidesteps midterm gas cuts "KOBE — Environment ministers from the Group of Eight countries meeting Sunday in Kobe apparently sidestepped the major issue of setting midterm greenhouse-gas reduction targets for 2020 due to a divide between developing and industrialized countries over specific targets."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-26 10:38:34 Mon, May 26, 2008: from London Guardian Billions wasted on UN climate programme "Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN's carbon offsetting programme. Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN's main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:03:50 Sun, May 25, 2008: from Ventura County Star Poor soil lowers world's production of food "...Soils around the world are deteriorating with about one-fifth of the world's cropland considered degraded in some manner. The poor quality has cut production by about one-sixth, according to a World Resources Institute study. Some scientists consider it a slow-motion disaster."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-25 11:49:26 Sun, May 25, 2008: from London Independent Coca-Cola to phase out use of controversial additive after DNA damage claim "Coca-Cola, the world's biggest soft drinks company, is phasing out a controversial additive that may cause hyperactivity and DNA damage. By August, no cans of Diet Coke should contain the preservative sodium benzoate."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-25 11:42:04 Sun, May 25, 2008: from Agence France-Presse via Terra Daily Five Arctic powers to meet in Greenland "Representatives of the five countries bordering the Arctic will meet in Greenland on Wednesday to discuss the impact of climate change on the icy region -- and how to divide up its as-yet untapped rich resources."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:20:55 Sun, May 25, 2008: from Houston Chronicle Tufts global warming study eyes cost of doing nothing Doing nothing about global warming would cost America dearly in the rest of this century because of stronger hurricanes, higher energy and water costs, and rising seas that would swamp coastal communities, according to a new study by economists at Tufts University.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:58:54 Sun, May 25, 2008: from London Guardian So what's Plan Bee? "In the last few months, the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA), which claims almost 12,000 members, has begun speaking words of doom. 'Nation's honeybees could be wiped out in 10 years' the organisation claimed in December."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:32:10 Sun, May 25, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Haven for birds still harbors traces of chemical poison "Some of Illinois' rarest and most imperiled birds return each spring to marshes on Chicago's Southeast Side, where they weave nests of loose reeds, start the season's courtship rituals and, scientists believe, resume ingesting a poison most people thought was gone a generation ago.
Researchers studying the state's endangered population of black-crowned night herons reported this year that the birds contain remnants of the insecticide DDT, a contaminant popularly imagined to have faded into America's hazy chemical past, but which scientists say has lingered in a persistent form almost everywhere in the world nonetheless."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-25 11:25:40 Sun, May 25, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Nations urge deep emission cuts by US, Japan "KOBE, Japan -- European and developing countries urged the United States and Japan on Sunday to commit to deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 -- a step they say is needed to defuse a coming ecological disaster caused by global warming... The United States, however, has not committed to a midterm goal, demanding that top developing countries like China also commit to reductions. Japan has called for emissions by industrialized countries to begin to fall in the next one or two decades, but it too has stopped short of setting a 2020 target."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:34:49 Sun, May 25, 2008: from Houston Chronicle Drought turning futures to dust "APALACHICOLA BAY, FLA. — Longtime oysterman Keith Millender sees every shower taken or car washed in metropolitan Atlanta as a small threat to his family, which has harvested seafood from northwest Florida's Apalachicola Bay for generations. The Apalachicola River — which carries water more than 300 miles from Georgia's Lake Lanier into the bay, providing the delicate balance of freshwater and saltwater oysters need to thrive — is running dry."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:01:16 Sat, May 24, 2008: from National Wildlife Federation via ScienceDaily Dramatic Impact Of Sea-Level Rise On Chesapeake Bay's Coastal Habitats "A new report ... shows in vivid detail the dramatic effects of sea-level rise on the largest estuary in the US, which sustains more than 3,600 species of plants, fish and animals including great blue herons and sea turtles. If global warming continues unabated, projected rising sea levels will significantly reshape the region's coastal landscape, threatening waterfowl hunting and recreational saltwater fishing in Virginia and Maryland, according to the report by the National Wildlife Federation."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-24 10:02:22 Sat, May 24, 2008: from University of Florida via ScienceDaily Invasion Of Gigantic Burmese Pythons In South Florida Appears To Be Rapidly Expanding "The invasion of gigantic Burmese pythons in South Florida appears to be rapidly expanding, according to a new report from a University of Florida researcher who’s been chasing the snakes since 2005."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:43:53 Sat, May 24, 2008: from Science News Ocean reflux "Seawater with the potentially shell-disrupting chemistry predicted for the open ocean after 2050 has already surfaced along North America's West Coast, scientists report. In spring 2007, the corrosive, deep water rose temporarily to the Pacific surface some 40 kilometers roughly west of the California-Oregon border, says Richard Feely of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:35:41 Sat, May 24, 2008: from BBC Vast cracks appear in Arctic ice "Scientists travelling with the troops found major new fractures during an assessment of the state of giant ice shelves in Canada's far north. The team found a network of cracks that stretched for more than 10 miles (16km) on Ward Hunt, the area's largest shelf... One of the expedition's scientists, Derek Mueller of Trent University, Ontario, [explained]: "It means the ice shelf is disintegrating, the pieces are pinned together like a jigsaw but could float away."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:13:19 Fri, May 23, 2008: from NOAA, via EurekAlert New study finds most North Pacific humpback whale populations rebounding The new research reveals that the overall population of humpbacks has rebounded to approximately 18,000 to 20,000 animals. The population of humpback whales in the North Pacific, at least half of whom migrate between Alaska and Hawaii, numbered less than 1,500 in 1966 when international whaling for this species was banned. In the 1970s, federal laws including the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act provided additional protection.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:23:00 Fri, May 23, 2008: from European Science Foundation, via EurekAlert Ocean acidification -- another undesired side effect of fossil fuel-burning "Ocean acidification is more rapid than ever in the history of the earth and if you look at the pCO2 (partial pressure of carbon dioxide) levels we have reached now, you have to go back 35 million years in time to find the equivalents"... A maximum allowed change in pH, where the system is still controllable, needs to be found. This is a major challenge considering the multifaceted unknowns that still are to be clarified. This so-called "tipping point" is currently estimated to allow a drop of about 0.2 pH units, a value that could be reached in as near as 30 years. More research and further modeling needs to be undertaken to verify the predictions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-23 08:57:35 Fri, May 23, 2008: from Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture Oregano oil works as well as synthetic insecticides to tackle common beetle pest Not only does oregano oil work as well as synthetic versions but it has none of the associated side effects of synthetic insecticides on the environment.
Growing resistance to synthetic insecticides combined with potential environmental damage and new government directives on changes to the way chemicals are registered means that scientists are increasingly looking at natural alternatives that can be produced in the large scale quantities needed for agricultural industry use.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:25:45 Fri, May 23, 2008: from Aquatic Conservation, via EurekAlert Over 50 percent of oceanic shark species threatened with extinction The experts determined that 16 out of the 21 oceanic shark and ray species that are caught in high seas fisheries are at heightened risk of extinction due primarily to targeted fishing for valuable fins and meat as well as indirect take in other fisheries. In most cases, these catches are unregulated and unsustainable. The increasing demand for the delicacy 'shark fin soup', driven by rapidly growing Asian economies, means that often the valuable shark fins are retained and the carcasses discarded. Frequently, discarded sharks and rays are not even recorded.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-22 14:00:05 Thu, May 22, 2008: from Associated Press Governor: Alaska to challenge polar bear listing "The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday. She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts. Palin argued that there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said. Climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears, during summers are unreliable, said Palin, a Republican."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:41:56 Thu, May 22, 2008: from Associated Press USDA axes the sole national survey to chart pesticide use "Consumers lost a key source of information about what's sprayed on their food on Wednesday, the last day the government published a long-standing national survey that tracks the amount of pesticides used on everything from corn to apples. Despite opposition from prominent scientists, the nation's largest farming organizations and environmental groups, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed Wednesday it plans to do away the program."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:06:33 Thu, May 22, 2008: from Chemical and Engineering News Groups Petition EPA To Ban Endosulfan Widely used pesticide is an endocrine disrupter and neurotoxicant... EPA estimates that farmers use approximately 1.4 million lb of endosulfan each year in the U.S. The pesticide is used extensively on cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, and apples, but residues of it have been detected in numerous other foods, including cucumbers, green peppers, raisins, cantaloupe, spinach, and even butter, according to the petition. Endosulfan has been detected in humans and the environment, including remote areas such as the Arctic, where it is not used.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-22 09:49:08 Thu, May 22, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Shell 'selling suicide' by preferring tar sands to wind Shell was accused yesterday of "selling suicide on the forecourt" by pressing ahead with tar sands operations in Canada and continuing to flare off excess gas in Nigeria while pulling out of renewable schemes such as the London Array - the world's largest offshore wind scheme.
The accusation that Shell was irresponsibly adding to climate change was made by an unnamed shareholder at its annual meeting in The Hague after Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer insisted the company was doing all it could to meet rising demands for energy while reducing CO2 emissions. Shell would listen to all stakeholders but he warned "ultimately it will not be possible to meet fully everyone's expectations".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:23:39 Thu, May 22, 2008: from AP, via Belleville News-Democrat Conservationists auction off frog naming rights Amphibian Ark, an international collaboration of conservationists working to save frogs, is organizing the effort to auction the naming rights to five species of frogs on the Internet - one frog a month for five months.
Profits will fund efforts to protect frogs at a crucial time, said Kevin Zippel, Amphibian Ark's program director. Amphibians have been on the planet for 360 million years, but based on recent science, "This is the greatest extinction rate they've ever faced," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-21 18:44:36 Wed, May 21, 2008: from World Wildlife Fund via ScienceDaily Biodiversity Loss Puts People At Risk: World Wildlife Fund "Future generations face hunger, thirst, disease and disaster if we carry on losing biodiversity. And as biodiversity plummets our use of resources soars. WWF now estimates that biodiversity has declined by more than a quarter in the last 35 years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:58:42 Wed, May 21, 2008: from American Chemical Society via ScienceDaily Simple, Low-cost Carbon Filter Removes 90 Percent Of Carbon Dioxide From Smokestack Gases "Researchers in Wyoming report development of a low-cost carbon filter that can remove 90 percent of carbon dioxide gas from the smokestacks of electric power plants that burn coal and other fossil fuels. The study describes a new carbon dioxide-capture process, called a Carbon Filter Process, designed to meet the need. It uses a simple, low-cost filter filled with porous carbonaceous sorbent that works at low pressures."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-21 09:12:31 Wed, May 21, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Oil hits record near $130 as supply fears grow Crude oil prices scaled a new peak near $130 a barrel on Tuesday amid deepening worries over tight global stockpiles and signals from OPEC that no additional supplies are forthcoming to ease the crunch. Billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday he expected oil to hit $150 a barrel this year. The prediction came on the same day two investment banks raised their 2008 crude price forecasts and two weeks after Goldman Sachs said a barrel could fetch $200 by 2010.
"There's a feeling that some of these forecasts of $150 oil might be right," said Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover. "So why not buy it now, rather than later?"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-21 09:00:01 Wed, May 21, 2008: from Institute for Children's Environmental Health Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative Publishes Scientific Consensus Statement on Environmental Factors "Given the established knowledge, protecting children from neurotoxic
environmental exposures from the earliest stages of fetal development through adolescence is clearly an essential public health measure if we are to help reduce the growing numbers of those with learning and developmental disorders and create an environment in which children can reach and maintain their full potential." ... "We could cut the health costs of childhood disabilities and disease
by billions of dollars every year by minimizing contaminants in the environment..." "The overwhelming evidence shows that certain environmental exposures can contribute to life-long learning
and developmental disorders"...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:23:22 Wed, May 21, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Effects of Nanotubes May Lead to Cancer, Study Says Microscopic, high-tech "nanotubes" that are being made for use in a wide variety of consumer products cause the same kind of damage in the body as asbestos does, according to a study in mice that is raising alarms among workplace safety experts and others. Within days of being injected into mice, the nanotubes -- which are increasingly used in electronic components, sporting goods and dozens of other products -- triggered a kind of cellular reaction that over a period of years typically leads to mesothelioma, a fatal form of cancer, researchers said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-20 12:54:12 Tue, May 20, 2008: from London Times Obesity fuels growing ‘boy-boob’ problem "Obesity has been blamed for the growing problem of “boy-boobs” – cases of teenage boys with breasts so well developed that surgery is needed to reduce them. Doctors at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool say that they are seeing dozens of teenagers every year with gynaecomastia, the condition in which males develop breasts."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-20 12:39:19 Tue, May 20, 2008: from Reuters UK Flu bugs growing resistance to drugs: studies "Seasonal flu viruses are developing the ability to evade influenza drugs globally, but how and why this is happening is not clear, experts told a conference on Monday. Europe is the worst-affected by strains of influenza that resist the effects of antiviral drugs, but the resistance is growing globally, they told a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:35:23 Tue, May 20, 2008: from TIME Magazine What Condoms Have to Do with Climate Change "As the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael Hayden should have some insight on the biggest threats facing the U.S. But when Hayden recently described what he saw as the most troublesome trend over the next several decades, it wasn't terrorism or climate change. It was overpopulation in the poorest parts of the world. "By mid-century, the best estimates point to a world population of more than 9 billion," Hayden said in a speech at Kansas State University. "Most of that growth will occur in countries least able to sustain it." The sheer increase in population, Hayden argued, could fuel instability and extremism, not to mention worsening climate change and making food and fuel all the more scarce. Population is the essential multiplier for any number of human ills."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:35:23 Tue, May 20, 2008: from BBC Climate 'accelerating bird loss' Climate change is "significantly amplifying" the threats facing the world's bird populations, a global assessment has concluded.
The 2008 IUCN Bird Red List warns that long-term droughts and extreme weather puts additional stress on key habitats.
The assessment lists 1,226 species as threatened with extinction - one-in-eight of all bird species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-20 13:06:21 Mon, May 19, 2008: from Associated Press Recycling options lag the compact fluorescent push "It's a message being drummed into the heads of homeowners everywhere: Swap out those incandescent lights with longer-lasting compact fluorescent bulbs and cut your electric use. Governments, utilities, environmentalists and, of course, retailers everywhere are spreading the word. Few, however, are volunteering to collect the mercury-laced bulbs for recycling — despite what public officials and others say is a potential health hazard if the hundreds of millions of them being sold are tossed in the trash and end up in landfills and incinerators."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-19 16:24:24 Mon, May 19, 2008: from Planet Ark via Reuters UN Experts To Say 2010 Biodiversity Target Elusive "Up to 5,000 delegates and some heads of state, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will try to agree at the Convention of Biological Diversity in the German city of Bonn on ways to save plant and animal species. UN experts say the planet is facing the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago and some say three species vanish every hour as a result largely of human activity causing pollution and loss of habitat."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:04:02 Mon, May 19, 2008: from Planet Ark via Reuters US Changes Course, Bans Drilling In Arctic Wetland "The Bush administration on Friday proposed keeping potentially oil-rich wetlands in Arctic Alaska off-limits to drilling because of their ecological sensitivity, a reversal of its earlier plan. The Bureau of Land Management proposed a 10-year leasing moratorium for 430,000 acres of wetlands north and east of vast Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Environmentalists and local groups hailed the decision."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-04 17:38:56 Mon, May 19, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail A sea of synthetic trash "...The United Nations estimates that each square kilometre of ocean carries 13,000 pieces of debris, but this area in the north Pacific has something like 330,000 pieces per square kilometre. Now, armed with proof that the plastic is making its way into the human food chain, experts warn the existence of the garbage patch and its far-reaching implications could be just as imminent as the worldwide food shortage and the effects of global warming."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-18 11:37:30 Sun, May 18, 2008: from Lahore Daily Times 45 percent people suffering from chronic diseases "Around 45 percent people in Pakistan are suffering from various chronic diseases, and the recent wave of gastroenteritis was because of environmental hazards, according to studies conducted by the Pakistan Medical Association. The study also states that communicable and non-communicable diseases are rapidly increasing in the country because of the environmental hazards."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:03:13 Sun, May 18, 2008: from New York Times One Country's Table Scraps, Another Country's Meal "Grocery bills are rising through the roof. Food banks are running short of donations. And food shortages are causing sporadic riots in poor countries through the world. You’d never know it if you saw what was ending up in your landfill. As it turns out, Americans waste an astounding amount of food — an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, according to a government study — and it happens at the supermarket, in restaurants and cafeterias and in your very own kitchen. It works out to about a pound of food every day for every American."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:15:05 Sun, May 18, 2008: from London Times Zones of death are spreading in oceans due to global warming "Marine dead zones, where fish and other sea life can suffocate from lack of oxygen, are spreading across the world’s tropical oceans, a study has warned. Researchers found that the warming of sea water through climate change is reducing its ability to carry dissolved oxygen, potentially turning swathes of the world’s oceans into marine graveyards."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-18 11:20:51 Sun, May 18, 2008: from Kalamazoo Gazette CAFOs in conflict: Huge farms increase efficiency but create environmental concerns "...Concentrated-animal-feeding operations, or CAFOs. What's not to love about 'em? Supporters call them technological models of efficiency and energy conservation that protect animals from predators and disease, manage manure wastes that were once scattered across fields and streams, and create cheap food and full-time employment."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-18 11:16:48 Sun, May 18, 2008: from London Independent Warning: Using a mobile phone while pregnant can seriously damage your baby "Women who use mobile phones when pregnant are more likely to give birth to children with behavioural problems, according to authoritative research. A giant study, which surveyed more than 13,000 children, found that using the handsets just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age. And it adds that the likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phones before the age of seven."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:55:21 Sat, May 17, 2008: from Apapa Vanguard NAFDAC bans 30 agrochemical products "THE National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has banned the sale and supply of 30 different agrochemical products in the country. NAFDAC Director-General, Professor Dora Akunyili, explained in Abuja that the ban became necessary when it was discovered that the pesticides were causing food poisoning that had resulted in the death of many after they consumed food crops preserved with the chemicals... "Samples were again taken to our laboratory and it was discovered that the foodstuffs contained outrageously high levels of lindane, an organochlorinated pesticide commonly called gammallin that affects the nervous system, producing a range of symptoms from nausea, vomiting, headaches, dizziness to seizure, convulsion and death," she said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-17 11:12:57 Sat, May 17, 2008: from New York Times Famine Looms as Wars Rend Horn of Africa "...Somalia -- and much of the volatile Horn of Africa, for that matter -- was about the last place on earth that needed a food crisis. Even before commodity prices started shooting up around the globe, civil war, displacement and imperiled aid operations had pushed many people here to the brink of famine.
But now with food costs spiraling out of reach and the livestock that people live off of dropping dead in the sand, villagers across this sun-blasted landscape say hundreds of people are dying of hunger and thirst.
This is what happens, economists say, when the global food crisis meets local chaos.
"We're really in the perfect storm," said Jeffrey D. Sachs, a Columbia economist and top United Nations adviser, who recently visited neighboring Kenya."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:34:13 Sat, May 17, 2008: from The Earth Institute at Columbia University via ScienceDaily Warming Climate Is Changing Life On Global Scale, Says New Study "A vast array of physical and biological systems across the earth are being affected by warming temperatures caused by humans, says a new analysis of information not previously assembled all in one spot. The effects on living things include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia; and shifting of the oceans' plankton and fish from cold- to warm-adapted communities."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-06 19:45:36 Sat, May 17, 2008: from China Post (Taiwan) Hazardous chemical discovered in detergents Three local brands of common household detergents contain hazardous endocrine disrupters potentially harmful to health and environment, a consumers' protection group claimed yesterday.... Results of a survey of 20 brand name household laundry detergents found in the market, conducted by the Consumers' Foundation showed that 15 percent contain nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEO).... NPEO compounds break down into a group of toxic and persistent byproducts, such as nonylphenol (NP).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-17 09:04:38 Sat, May 17, 2008: from Argus Leader Bubonic plague found in prairie dog Federal and state officials are advising residents to take precautions after sylvatic plague was found in a dead prairie dog west of Interior.... This plague first appeared in the state in fall 2004 in Custer County. An outbreak occurred on Oglala Sioux reservation in 2005, then reappeared last year in Shannon County. The latest occurrence was in winter in Dewey County.
The plague is a bacterial infection of rodents that could kill a large number of prairie dogs or other rodents. Livestock aren't affected.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:46:47 Sat, May 17, 2008: from The Scotsman 'Frightening' future must be avoided to retain the integrity of planet we share Nearly 200 national governments will say next week that they are unlikely to meet a target of slowing the rate of extinctions of living species by 2010, a failure which could threaten future food supplies.... UN experts say that the planet is facing the worst spate of extinction since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago and some say three species vanish every hour as a result, largely, of human activity causing pollution and loss of habitat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 18:00:34 Sat, May 17, 2008: from Redding News Recovery plan kills species' foe, thins fire-prone forests Protecting the northern spotted owl from wildfire and killing a competing owl should restore the controversial species in 30 years, federal scientists said Friday.
"Unless the barred owl threat is lessened, land management alone will not recover the owl," said Ren Lohoefener, director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Pacific region.
The shotgunning of barred owls, a cousin of the spotted owl that encroached from back East on its old growth turf, to see if it improves spotted owl numbers is part of the final Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan released Friday by the Fish and Wildlife Service. So is a new strategy to thin fire-prone forests, leaving behind patches of spotted owl habitat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:31:37 Fri, May 16, 2008: from ASU, via EurekAlert New study links fate of personal care products to environmental pollution and human health concerns Two closely related antimicrobials, triclosan and triclocarban, are at the center of the debacle. Whereas triclosan (TCS) has long captured the attention of toxicologists due to its structural resemblance to dioxin (the Times Beach and Love Canal poison), triclocarban (TCC) has ski-rocketed in 2004 from an unknown and presumably harmless consumer product additive to one of today’s top ten pharmaceuticals and personal care products most frequently found in the environment and in U.S. drinking water resources.... [the] antimicrobial ingredients used a half a century ago, by our parents and grandparents, are still present today at parts-per-million concentrations in estuarine sediments.... "This extreme environmental persistence by itself is a concern, and it is only amplified by recent studies that show both triclosan and triclocarban to function as endocrine disruptors in mammalian cell cultures and in animal models."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:23:40 Fri, May 16, 2008: from USDA Forest Survey, via ScienceDaily Window Of Opportunity For Restoring Oaks Small, New Study Finds Communities of Oregon white oak were once widespread in the Pacific Northwest's western lowlands, but, today, they are in decline. Fire suppression, conifer and invasive plant encroachment, and land use change have resulted in the loss of as much as 99 percent of the oak communities historically present in some areas of the region.... "In areas where conifers have encroached into oak woodlands and savannas, about two-thirds of the remaining oaks were predicted to die over a 50-year period unless the conifers are removed," said Peter Gould, a research forester and lead author of the report.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:58:00 Fri, May 16, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Soils Contain Huge Amounts Of Ancient Carbon: When Does This Carbon Enter The Atmosphere? "As the planet is warming up, this carbon is being released from the soil into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, but there are in fact two types of carbon -- 'new' carbon, which has recently entered the soil through vegetation, and 'old' carbon, which has been locked up in the soil for years... The implications of knowing this are very important and it will enable us to determine for the first time what the consequences of changes in land use might be for climate change... As more CO2 is released from the soil, the temperature is going to increase further -- it could almost be a runaway reaction."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:57:22 Fri, May 16, 2008: from Science, via EurekAlert Atmosphere threatened by pollutants entering ocean, prof says Human-caused atmospheric nitrogen compounds are carried by wind and deposited into the ocean, where they act as a fertilizer and lead to increased production of marine plant life. The increase in plant life causes more carbon dioxide to be drawn from the atmosphere into the ocean. This process results in the removal of about 10 percent of the human-caused carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thus potentially reducing the climate warming potential, according to the team's paper.... However, some of the nitrogen deposited in the ocean is re-processed to form another nitrogen compound called nitrous oxide, which is then released back into the atmosphere from the ocean. Nitrous oxide is a powerful greenhouse gas itself – about 300 times more powerful per molecule than carbon dioxide – thus cancelling out about two-thirds of the apparent gain from the carbon dioxide removal, Duce explained. "But of course, the whole system is so complex that we're still rather unsure about what some of the other impacts might be within the ocean," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-16 10:17:44 Fri, May 16, 2008: from Ottowa Citizen (Canada) Silicone gel implants may lose approval Health Canada is expected to announce Friday its plans for synthetic chemicals found in silicone fluids as part of a risk assessment of 200 chemical substances, identified as top priorities for action because they are potentially harmful to human health or the environment.
It has already written to industry, explaining that "in the absence of additional relevant information," the government is "predisposed to conclude, based on a screening assessment, that this substance satisfies the definition of toxic (under the) Canadian Environmental Protection Act"... A toxic declaration about the Cyclohexasiloxane family, also known as D4, D5, D6, would start a process that could lead to a ban in certain products, as with bisphenol A in baby bottles.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:02:39 Fri, May 16, 2008: from The Post (Pakistan) Prince Charles urges forest logging halt The halting of logging in the world's rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said, reports BBC News.
He called for a mechanism to be devised to pay poor countries to prevent them felling their rainforests.
The prince told the BBC's Today programme 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.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:59:45 Thu, May 15, 2008: from Metro.co.uk (Great Britain) Alarm over dramatic wildlife decline There are almost a third fewer animal, bird and fish species today than three decades ago, an alarming new report has revealed.
According to the WWF's Living Planet Index, land-based, marine and freshwater species fell overall by 27 per cent between 1970 and 2005. The report comes ahead of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity next week, which will discuss aims to achieve a "significant reduction" in the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:46:15 Thu, May 15, 2008: from The Statesman (India) Flora species on verge of extinction in Sikkim Forty-six species of flora are facing extinction in Sikkim, says a recent survey by the Botanical Survey of India.
"The bio-diversity is being threatened in some areas of the state owing to easy accessibility, large scale extraction, collection of medicinal herbs, poaching and encroachment in the natural habitat... The forest is being cleared for various developmental activities like road, building, dams and industrial development which is threatening the species in Sikkim."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:30:22 Thu, May 15, 2008: from Vancouver West Ender It's time to put a lid on bottled water the manufacturing process is a factor in global warming and depletion of energy resources; it takes close to 17 million barrels of oil to produce the 30 billion water bottles that U.S. citizens go through every year. Or, as the National Geographic website illustrates it: "Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That's about how much oil was needed to produce the bottle." It also takes more water to produce a bottle than the bottle itself will hold. Canadians consume more than two-billion litres of bottled water a year, and globally we consume about 190 billion litres a year. Unfortunately, most of those bottles -- more than 85 per cent, in fact -- get tossed into the trash rather than the recycling bin.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:33:40 Thu, May 15, 2008: from LawyersAndSettlements.com Botox Migration a Recipe for Disaster The concern, which initially only circulated through medical journals but has since been widely reported in mainstream media, surrounds the potential migration of the neurotoxin from the initial injection site. A study by the Italian National Research Council discovered that Botox injected into the whisker muscles of rats, had migrated in trace amounts to the brain stem in as little as three days.
A Canadian study achieved similar results. Last month the Journal of Biomechanics published the findings of Walter Herzog, a noted kinesiologist from the University of Calgary. While researching osteoarthritis and joint degeneration, he found that botulinum toxin injected into the supporting muscles of cats not only paralyzed the muscles into which the toxin was injected, but had spread into, and weakened all muscles in the area.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-15 09:38:56 Thu, May 15, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Light Emitting Diodes Save Energy And Can Now Concentrate Light Precisely Where Needed Light-emitting diodes are unbeatable in terms of energy efficiency. A one-watt LED delivers roughly the same optical output as a hundred-watt light bulb. If a high light output is required, however, the tiny light sources are not the preferred means of illumination. A novel optical component is set to change that situation. It directs the light to the exact spot where it is needed. In the case of a desk lamp, for instance, the light can be concentrated in such a way that only a DIN-A4-sized surface in the middle of the table is brightly lit. The LED evenly illuminates the required area, while everything else stays in the dark.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:09:23 Thu, May 15, 2008: from NewsDaily Research links common chemicals to obesity Exposure in the womb to common chemicals used to make everything from plastic bottles to pizza box liners may program a person to become obese later in life, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.... Previous studies have linked these chemicals -- also found in water pipes -- to cancer and reproductive problems, prompting a number of countries and U.S. states to consider potential bans or limits of the compounds, the researchers said. One of the chemicals is called Bisphenol A, found in polycarbonate plastics. Past research has suggested it leaches from plastic food and drink containers.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-15 08:50:16 Thu, May 15, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Fighting Pests And Diseases Organically With Help From Wild Cocoa Trees In French Guiana In every production zone worldwide, cocoa trees are faced with pests and diseases that can wipe out entire harvests. To protect their crops, farmers often use costly, polluting chemicals or labour-intensive manual techniques. However, there are now clean, ecological methods, for instance using sources of natural resistance. In this respect, a highly specific group of cocoa trees, the wild trees found in French Guiana, looks very promising.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:28:11 Wed, May 14, 2008: from Ecological Society of America, via Eurekalert Restoring fish populations leads to tough choice for Great Lakes Gulls You might think that stocking the Great Lakes with things like trout and salmon would be good for the herring gull. The birds often eat from the water, so it would be natural to assume that more fish would mean better dining. But a new report says that the addition of species such as exotic salmon and trout to the area has not been good for the birds, demonstrating that fishery management actions can sometimes have very unexpected outcomes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:59:03 Wed, May 14, 2008: from Wilson Center Fishing for Families in the Philippines The Philippines' rapidly rising population has overwhelmed the fisheries that have traditionally supported the country, bringing grinding poverty and malnutrition to many coastal communities. But a new approach to conservation may save families along with the fish and their habitats... By integrating the delivery of family planning and conservation services, the Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM) project found that it could improve reproductive health and coastal resource management more than programs that focused exclusively on reproductive health or the environment -- and at a lower total cost.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-14 18:39:25 Wed, May 14, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Fears for Amazon rainforest as Brazil's environment minister resigns Silva said her decision was the result of the "difficulties" she was facing in "pursuing the federal environmental agenda". She said her efforts to protect the environment had faced "growing resistance … [from] important sectors of the government and society".... Sergio Leitao, the director of public policy for Greenpeace in Brazil, said Silva had taken her decision because of growing pressure from within the government to relax laws outlawing bank loans to those who destroyed the rainforest.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-14 15:01:43 Wed, May 14, 2008: from The Dickinson Press vis Associated Press Idaho raptor group: Study confirms lead fragments in venison "An Idaho raptor group working to eliminate lead from ammunition has released findings it says shows 80 percent of ground venison from deer killed with high-velocity lead bullets contains metal fragments. The Peregrine Fund, based in Boise, and researchers from Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., say the study released Tuesday is further evidence people who eat meat from game animals shot with lead bullets risk exposure to the toxic metal."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:52:41 Wed, May 14, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor ON TRACK TOWARD RECORD SPRING FOR TORNADOES Extremes in temperature throughout the vast table of the American heartland are making 2008 one of the deadliest years for US tornadoes in recent history. The supercell thunderstorms that breed twisters have occurred farther north and earlier in the year than is typical, according to some experts. But many are quick to add that this increase in severe weather is not necessarily an indication of permanent climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-14 14:41:01 Wed, May 14, 2008: from BBC News Cull after bird flu hits S Korea "South Korean officials say they have killed the entire poultry population of Seoul to curb the spread of bird flu. Quarantine officers destroyed 15,000 chickens, ducks and turkeys in farms and restaurants across the capital. The cull began just hours after the authorities recorded Seoul's second outbreak of the virus in a week."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-17 11:24:52 Wed, May 14, 2008: from New York Times A City Cooler and Dimmer, and, Oh, Proving a Point "JUNEAU, Alaska — Conservationists swoon at the possibility of it all. Here in Alaska, where melting arctic ice and eroding coastlines have made global warming an urgent threat, this little city has cut its electricity use by more than 30 percent in a matter of weeks, instantly establishing itself as a role model for how to go green, and fast.... the 31,000 residents ... are not necessarily doing it for the greater good.... Electricity rates rocketed about 400 percent after an avalanche on April 16 destroyed several major transmission towers that delivered more than 80 percent of the city’s power from a hydroelectric dam about 40 miles south."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-13 15:16:34 Tue, May 13, 2008: from Rice University via ScienceDaily.com Hot Climate Could Shut Down Plate Tectonics "A new study of possible links between climate and geophysics on Earth and similar planets finds that prolonged heating of the atmosphere can shut down plate tectonics and cause a planet's crust to become locked in place."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:56:32 Tue, May 13, 2008: from The Daily Mail Sir Paul McCartney 'furious' after his new eco-car is flown 7,000 miles from Japan "Sir Paul McCartney was today said to be furious after his new eco-friendly car was flown 7,000 miles from Japan. The former Beatle ordered the £84,000 hybrid vehicle to be shipped to Britain but the delivery instead created a carbon footprint almost 100 times larger by arriving on a jet. The Lexus LS600H produces just 219g in carbon emissions per kilometre.... his efforts to help save the environment were frustrated by the fact that the air journey created 38,050kg of carbon dioxide instead of the 297kg for the three-week voyage by boat."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:45:03 Tue, May 13, 2008: from New York Times Nissan Plans Electric Car in U.S. by 2010 "The Nissan Motor Company plans to sell an electric car in the United States and Japan by 2010, raising the stakes in the race to develop environmentally friendly vehicles. The commitment — expected to be announced Tuesday by Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn — will be the first by a major automaker to bring a zero-emission vehicle to the American market."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:49:00 Tue, May 13, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Energy Dept. says wind power could be savior "Windmills spinning over the Great Plains and along the coasts could supply 20 percent of U.S. electricity by the year 2030 and put a significant dent in greenhouse gas emissions, federal officials said Monday.
Although wind farms now generate just 1 percent of the nation's electricity, a new report from the U.S. Department of Energy found that wind power could play a far larger role in the future. It could supply roughly the same percentage of the nation's power as nuclear plants provide today."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:02:55 Tue, May 13, 2008: from Washington Post Firms Seek Patents on 'Climate Ready' Altered Crops "A handful of the world's largest agricultural biotechnology companies are seeking hundreds of patents on gene-altered crops designed to withstand drought and other environmental stresses, part of a race for dominance in the potentially lucrative market for crops that can handle global warming, according to a report being released today. Three companies -- BASF of Germany, Syngenta of Switzerland and Monsanto of St. Louis -- have filed applications to control nearly two-thirds of the climate-related gene families submitted to patent offices worldwide..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-11 23:34:51 Mon, May 12, 2008: from Jamaica Observer Supermarket prices too high for low-income earners Corporate Area supermarket shopping has gotten more expensive for minimum wage and middle income earners as price increases on basic food items continue to wreak havoc on the salaries of employed persons. A survey of five supermarkets by the Sunday Observer last week showed a staggering variation in prices on basic food items, and the only competition appeared to be which supermarket is the most expensive.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-11 23:22:16 Mon, May 12, 2008: from Yonhap News (South Korea) S. Korea to ban import of Japanese potatoes South Korea will expand its existing ban on Japanese potatoes to cover products grown on the main island of Honshu, the government said Monday. The National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service (NVRQS) said the measure that goes into effect on Wednesday is in response to the discovery of Globodera rostochiensis, or yellow potato cyst nematodes. The nematodes are insects that are classified as a serious threat to the plant roots of both potatoes and tomatoes, with most countries banning imports from a country if an outbreak is reported.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:54:27 Mon, May 12, 2008: from Times of India Antibiotics rule pharma retail market New Delhi: The first quarter (January-March) of this year has witnessed a change in the domestic pharma retail market with antibiotics and anti-bacterial drugs dominating the show in top 10 brands.... Interestingly, the growth of the industry is mainly driven by the chronic segment (like cardio-vasculars, diabetics, central nervous system), which have grown by 17-18 percent last year. Against this backdrop, offtake of acute segments (anti-infectives, gastro-intestinals, nutritionals) has been slow and grown by 10-15 percent only, industry experts said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:18:51 Mon, May 12, 2008: from Forbes (US) Oil over USD 126, new peak for 5th straight day Oil prices leapt to a new peak of more than $126 a barrel on Friday, hitting a record for the fifth straight session, in a market given an additional spur by tight supplies of diesel.
U.S. crude for June delivery rose $1.87 to $125.56 by 1335 GMT, off a record high of $126.20 a barrel. London Brent crude rose $2.81 to $125.65 per barrel.
"I'm not particularly surprised by the speed of the rise in crude. There are many market bulls hoping for prices to rise heading into the summer," said Tetsu Emori, fund manager at Astmax Co Ltd in Tokyo.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-11 11:36:43 Sun, May 11, 2008: from London Sunday Mirror Will giant vegetables help solve world food shortage? "They came from Outer Space... huge monsters never seen on Earth before. And they could soon be heading towards a supermarket near you... These giant fruit and veg, grown from seeds sent into space, are now being grown in southern China where they are being heralded as a solution to the world's food shortage."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:55:55 Sun, May 11, 2008: from Lawrence Journal Kansas group appointed to look at climate change A new group will soon tackle the politically charged issue of reducing climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions in Kansas. "Experts agree that Congress will institute a carbon tax in the coming years," Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said. "By taking steps to prepare now, we better position our state for potential costs in the future." Sebelius has appointed 20 members to the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, including industry and scientific leaders. The group will have its first meeting May 20 in Wichita. The Kansas Legislature has just ended its session after a bruising battle over a proposal to build two 700-megawatt coal-fired power plants in western Kansas. Sebelius opposes the project because of the plants' annual emission of 11 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:23:08 Sun, May 11, 2008: from Linköping University via ScienceDaily Carbon Dioxide Capture And Storage: Grasping At Straws In The Climate Debate? "Great hopes are being placed on undeveloped technology. Capturing and storing carbon dioxide is predicted to be one of the most important measures to counter the threats to our climate. But the technology still hasn’t been tested in full scale, and the complications and risks it entails may have been grossly underestimated."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:05:29 Sun, May 11, 2008: from The Milford Daily News Honeybee deaths still on the rise "Colony collapse disorder started appearing in hives in the past two years and is marked by massive desertion and die-offs in bee yards. Theories on its cause range from microwaves from cell phone use to a combination of poor nutrition, varroa mites - an external parasite of honeybees - and stress. This week, a national survey of bee health from the Apiary Inspectors of America showed 36.1 percent of beehives were lost since last year. That's up from the previous year's losses of 32 percent."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:54:29 Sun, May 11, 2008: from The London Observer How the world's oceans are running out of fish "...Is anyone not aware that wild fish are in deep trouble? That three-quarters of commercially caught species are over-exploited or exploited to their maximum? Do they not know that industrial fishing is so inefficient that a third of the catch, some 32 million tonnes a year, is thrown away? For every ocean prawn you eat, fish weighing 10-20 times as much have been thrown overboard. These figures all come from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which also claims that, of all the world's natural resources, fish are being depleted the fastest. With even the most abundant commercial species, we eat smaller and smaller fish every year - we eat the babies before they can breed... Once stocks dip below a certain critical level, the scientists believe, they can never recover because the entire eco-system has changed."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-10 11:27:38 Sat, May 10, 2008: from The Asian Pacific Post Everest turning into world's highest cesspool "A deadly peril lurks on Mount Everest, the highest summit in the world. It is far more dangerous than the freezing cold, gale winds and recently posted security forces who are empowered to shoot at the sight of political activities. The new hazard comes from hundreds of tonnes of human waste scattered along the mountain slopes... While conscientious mountaineers have been trying to clear the garbage left on the mountains, nothing has been done to treat the human waste."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:42:57 Sat, May 10, 2008: from Fort Worth Star-Telegram Contamination is linked to dust from TV sets "Common household dust has long been known to carry pesticides, allergens and other irritants.... Now, a study by researchers at Boston University's School of Public Health appears to have pinpointed the largest source of chemical flame retardants as the dust on television sets.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:45:48 Sat, May 10, 2008: from Public Library of Science via ScienceDaily Seed Dispersal In Mauritius -- Dead As A Dodo? "...Recent work has highlighted how it is not species diversity per se, which breathes life into ecosystems, but rather the networks of interactions between organisms. Thus, the real ghosts in Mauritius are not as much the extinct animals themselves, but more importantly the extinct networks of interactions between the species."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:48:27 Sat, May 10, 2008: from American Society of Agronomy Large Reductions In Agricultural Chemical Use Can Still Result In High Crop Yields And Profits Researchers investigated whether yield, weed suppression, and profit characteristics of low-external-input (LEI) farming systems could match or exceed those of conventional farming systems. Yields and profits were similar or higher in the LEI systems as in the conventional system, and lower herbicide inputs did not lead to increased weed problems. The results suggest that large reductions in agrichemical use can be compatible with high crop yields and profits.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-10 11:00:32 Sat, May 10, 2008: from University of Montreal, via ScienceDaily University Research Contributes To Global Warming, Professor Discovers Herve Philippe, a Université de Montréal professor of biochemistry, is a committed environmentalist who found that his own research produces 44 tonnes of CO2 per year. The average American citizen produces 20 tonnes. ""I did my PhD on nucleotide sequencing in the hope of advancing our knowledge of biodiversity, but I never thought that the research itself could have a negative impact on biodiversity," he said, during a recent biology department symposium."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:34:05 Fri, May 9, 2008: from Edinburgh Scotsman Ventilator superbug resistant to antibiotics "HOSPITALS face a dangerous new superbug threat in the form of a drug-resistant microbe that clings to catheters and ventilation tubes. Doctors studying the genetic code of the bug, commonly known as Steno, are worried about its ability to shrug off antibiotics. Around 1,000 cases of blood poisoning caused by Stenotrophomonas maltophilia are reported in the UK each year. Of these, almost a third are fatal."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-09 16:22:34 Fri, May 9, 2008: from St. Louis Post-Dispatch Evangelicals press to fight global warming "When the Senate takes up legislation next month to confront global warming, environmental groups will have some fervent new allies: evangelicals and other Christian activists. Concerned about what they see as a moral and biblical issue, religious groups from the right are joining with environmental organizations from the left in supporting strong measures to fight global warming."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:39:24 Fri, May 9, 2008: from UCSF, via ScienceDaily Common Herbicide Disrupts Human Hormone Activity In Cell Studies A common weedkiller in the U.S., already suspected of causing sexual abnormalities in frogs and fish, has now been found to alter hormonal signaling in human cells, scientists from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) report. The herbicide atrazine is the second most widely used weedkiller in the U.S., applied to corn and sorghum fields throughout the Midwest and also spread on suburban lawns and gardens.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-09 07:44:16 Fri, May 9, 2008: from Salt Lake Tribune Beleaguered Utah prairie dog needs greater protection, or faces extinction In the third management area, its supposed stronghold in the West Desert, numbers will quickly plummet if plans go through to translocate some of the largest remaining populations, such as at the Cedar Ridge golf course in Cedar City. While FWS rallied for the condor, crane and ferret, the agency has turned its back on the Utah prairie dog. It refers to Utah prairie dogs as a nuisance, characterizes its numbers as exploding in the spring (although scientists report low reproduction rates), and allows hundreds to be moved every year. Fewer than 10 percent of the animals survive translocation. They are simply being thrown away.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:42:42 Thu, May 8, 2008: from Sacramento Bee Law firm vows to sue if U.S. links climate to polar bear "A Sacramento law firm known for its conservative advocacy is poised to join the political melee over the fate of the polar bear, vowing Wednesday to sue the government if global warming is cited as a threat to the species. The Pacific Legal Foundation's warning comes in response to a much-anticipated decision next week by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on whether to protect Alaskan polar bears under the Endangered Species Act. The service faces a court-ordered deadline of May 15 for that ruling.... Reed Hopper, a foundation attorney, claimed polar bears are thriving and already adequately protected."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:58:12 Thu, May 8, 2008: from Environmental Science and Technology Metal pollution is toxic for endangered eels "One of the world's most bizarre creatures is vanishing. Freshwater eel populations began crashing worldwide in the 1980s. The decline has been rapid, and scientists think eels are probably succumbing to a variety of ills, including overfishing, habitat loss, pollution, and eel-chewing hydropower turbines."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-08 17:39:22 Thu, May 8, 2008: from ClimateChangeCorp Ten eco-innovators to watch All of these innovative companies have something in common. They took an essential industry, such as clothing, housing, or energy, turned it upside down and gave it a shake. They shook out wasted energy, extra costs and excess materials, and in many cases they created something that stands to revolutionise the industry.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:32:40 Thu, May 8, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Flame retardant found in peregrine falcon eggs "The eggs of peregrine falcons living in California's big cities contain some of the highest levels ever found in wildlife of a flame retardant used in consumer products, a new study has found. Studies of peregrine falcon eggs and chicks by state scientists reveal that the birds hunting in San Francisco, Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Diego are ingesting the flame retardant called PBDEs, believed to leach out of foam mattresses, synthetic fabrics, plastic casings of televisions, electronics and other products. The research shows that the indoor chemicals can contaminate the outdoors and even humans."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:57:23 Thu, May 8, 2008: from Environmental Expert (UK) British company fined for polluting National Trust beauty spot Thames Water was ordered to pay more than £40,000 after admitting destroying the ecology of a high-quality stream and lake after a burst pipe churned raw sewage out onto National Trust land. Thousands of fish, including notable species of brook lamprey, brown trout, bullhead, and native crayfish were left dead as the sewage caused oxygen levels to plummet and ammonia to rocket... "When I first arrived at the Penwood Stream I was struck by the smell of raw sewage. The water had turned a cloudy orange colour and the stream bed was covered in slimy sewage fungus; thousands of fish, including some important and rare species, where dead or in distress, gasping at the surface of the water..." In February 2007 Environment Agency officers were called out after Thames Water reported the same pipe had burst again, just 15 metres from the previous incident.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-07 17:02:36 Wed, May 7, 2008: from Associated Press EPA might not act to limit rocket fuel in drinking water "An EPA official said Tuesday there's a "distinct possibility" the agency won't take action to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has contaminated public water supplies around the country... The toxin interferes with thyroid function and poses developmental health risks, particularly to fetuses."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:53:47 Wed, May 7, 2008: from Newsday Australia's Koalas at risk from climate change "Koalas are threatened by the rising level of carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere because it saps nutrients from the eucalyptus leaves they feed on, a researcher said Wednesday....An increase in carbon dioxide favors the trees' production of carbon-based anti-nutrients over nutrients, so leaves can become toxic to koalas..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-07 16:40:30 Wed, May 7, 2008: from Times of India Arctic ice melt could see rise of "Grolar bear" "Scientists have suggested that due to the adverse effects of Arctic ice melting, the hybrid of a polar bear and grizzly bear - dubbed the 'grolar bear', might rise in numbers. According to a report in The Sun , the effects of climate change means that the hybrid bears could become more common as their habitats increasingly overlap due to global warming."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-07 16:23:25 Wed, May 7, 2008: from Planet Ark via Reuters Risk Of Bird Flu Pandemic Probably Growing-Experts "Some 150 experts are attending a meeting hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to update its guidance to countries on how to boost their defences against a deadly global epidemic.
The H5N1 avian flu virus has infected flocks in much of Asia, Africa and parts of Europe. Experts fear it could mutate into a form that passes easily from person to person, sparking an influenza pandemic that could kill millions."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-06 11:59:45 Tue, May 6, 2008: from Planet Ark via Reuters Alberta Puts C$55 Million Into Pine Beetle Fight "VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Alberta will spend C$55 million ($54 million) this year to stem the spread of pine beetles, which have ravaged forests in neighbouring British Columbia, the Alberta government said Monday."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-06 11:41:54 Tue, May 6, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Who should MDs let die in a pandemic? Report offers answers "Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die. Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-06 11:34:58 Tue, May 6, 2008: from Edinburgh Scotsman Humble mould could be the key to cleaning nuclear test zones "FUNGI could be the answer to cleaning up war zones and nuclear testing sites, according to research published this week by Scottish scientists. Experts at Dundee University say fungi – related to the blue streaks in some cheeses – have the ability to clear away radioactive waste. Their study – which appears in the journal Current Biology– shows the organisms can transform depleted uranium, the radioactive metal used in nuclear weapons, into a stable mineral."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:46:32 Tue, May 6, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Breeding toxins from dead PCs Thousands of discarded computers from western Europe and the US arrive in the ports of west Africa every day, ending up in massive toxic dumps where children burn and pull them apart to extract metals for cash.... "We filmed children as young as six searching for metal scraps in the earth, which was littered with the toxic waste from thousands of shattered cathode ray tubes," said Benjamin Holst, co-founder of DanWatch. "A whole community is virtually living and working in this highly toxic environment, which is growing every day."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:25:03 Tue, May 6, 2008: from University of Washington, via ScienceDaily Trouble In Paradise: Global Warming A Greater Danger To Tropical Species Polar bears fighting for survival in the face of a rapid decline of polar ice have made the Arctic a poster child for the negative effects of climate change. But new research shows that species living in the tropics likely face the greatest peril in a warmer world.... [T]ropical species have a far greater risk of extinction with warming of just a degree or two. That is because they are used to living within a much smaller temperature range to begin with, and once temperatures get beyond that range many species might not be able to cope.... "Unfortunately, the tropics also hold the large majority of species on the planet," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-05 17:22:19 Mon, May 5, 2008: from The Hindu (India) Deadly viral outbreak in China may not peak for two months A fast-spreading viral disease in eastern China, which has claimed the lives of at least 21 children, might not peak for another two months as it thrives in warm weather, the UN warned on Saturday. Reports from China said Enterovirus-71 or EV-71 has infected nearly 3,000 children, most of them under two. Called hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), it starts with fever and leads to ulcers in mouth, hands and buttocks.... There is no vaccine or known cure and the disease takes its own course. In most cases, children recover after about a week without treatment but in serious cases, brain swelling and paralysis leading to death might occur.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-05 17:08:13 Mon, May 5, 2008: from International Herald-Tribune U.S. electric companies offer "smart" power meters As more utilities install "smart" power meters that track how much electricity flows into a home in real time, they are freer to offer alternatives to the average monthly rate that they traditionally charged to consumers.... Last year, about 95 percent of the participants saved money in ComEd's open-enrollment residential real-time pricing program, one of the first in the United States. The majority saved between 7 percent to 12 percent, the utility said. To date, about 4,000 of the utility's 3.3 million residential customers have signed up.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:46:16 Mon, May 5, 2008: from Science and Spirit Too few vultures for Zoroastrians to dispose of their dead "There are thousands of bodies rotting on the site," said Baria, agitated and angry. "There are no vultures at all and without the vultures, it doesn't work. The solar collectors don't work. Nothing is working. My mother's body was there for a year and a half, naked and exposed."... In 2000, the Indian scientific community called out to their international colleagues and an all-out effort was launched to determine what had caused vulture numbers to plummet from an estimated 80 million to just a few thousand in less than ten years. It was the most catastrophic decline in an avian population in recent history.... [discovered that] the three species of Gypsvultures were dying from ingesting livestock carcasses treated with diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and antipyretic pharmaceutical drug used on both livestock and humans. It is a mild painkiller akin to aspirin.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-05 14:57:35 Mon, May 5, 2008: from The Globe and Mail (Canada) Comfy stilettos? Give em the needle. We keep beating down the flesh at the bottom of our feet, and with age we lose the fat pads. This can result in burning and pain, especially on the balls of the foot.
But, as with many symptoms of aging, help is but a needle away. Dr. Suzanne Levine, a New York-based "podiatrist to the stars," has pioneered a treatment using injectables that creates the feeling of "pillows in your feet."
"It's biodegradable hyaluronic acid and Sephadex [sugar glucose beads], which stimulates your own soft tissue to produce more collagen," Chelin explains. "We're just replacing what nature takes away."
Results can last up to 18 months, he says, although "many high-heel devotees get treated about a week before their big glam outings."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-06 21:31:47 Mon, May 5, 2008: from National Post via CanWest News Canadian schools sent brochures from climate change skeptics "An American think tank [the Chicago-based Heartland Institute] has sent out more than 11,000 brochures and DVDs to Canadian schools urging them to teach their students that scientists are exaggerating how human activity is the driving force behind global warming."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-04 19:31:24 Sun, May 4, 2008: from NPR Beavers Offer Solution to Climate Change "In the Southwest U.S., biologists are talking about returning beavers to rivers they once inhabited in order to fight droughts -- which are expected to get worse as the globe warms. Beaver dams create great sponges that store lots of water."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-04 12:12:54 Sun, May 4, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Pollution sends men bald "Men living in polluted areas are more likely to go bald than those breathing cleaner air, a new study suggests. The ground breaking research, by academics at the University of London, has linked the onset of male pattern baldness, to environmental factors, such as air pollution and smoking."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-04 12:10:10 Sun, May 4, 2008: from Penn State via ScienceDaily Global Warming Linked To Caribou-calf Mortality "Fewer caribou calves are being born and more of them are dying in West Greenland as a result of a warming climate ... caribou may serve as an indicator species for climate changes including global warming, based ... on data showing that the timing of peak food availability no longer corresponds to the timing of caribou births."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:52:47 Sun, May 4, 2008: from The Baltimore Sun Marshes produce mercury hazard "...As Maryland and other states look to build thousands of acres of wetlands to fight global warming, the research has significant implications. More wetlands would absorb more carbon dioxide, but they also could make mercury health hazards worse."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-04 19:33:30 Sun, May 4, 2008: from The Charleston Gazette via Environmental Science and Technology Breast milk contains C8, study concludes "C8 and related chemicals used in nonstick pans and stain-resistant fabrics have been found in human breast milk, according to the first major U.S. study to examine breast-feeding as a possible exposure route. Perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs, were found in all of the 45 human breast milk samples tested in the new study."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 15:34:14 Sun, May 4, 2008: from National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration via ScienceDaily Salmon Fishery 'failure' "Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez has declared a commercial fishery failure for the West Coast salmon fishery due to historically low salmon returns. Hundreds of thousands of fall Chinook salmon typically return to the Sacramento River every year to spawn. This year, scientists estimate that fewer than 60,000 adult Chinook will make it back to the Sacramento River....NOAA's Fisheries Service issued regulations to close or severely limit recreational and commercial salmon fishing in the area."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-03 13:51:46 Sat, May 3, 2008: from Adelaide Sunday Mail Temperatures tipped to pause for a decade "RISING global temperatures may stall for the next decade, with some scientists now believing the natural response of ocean currents will temporarily offset the effects of climate change. German climate scientists say the temperature pause is the result of the slowing of the global currents that transport heat around the planet."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:44:29 Sat, May 3, 2008: from The Associated Press Major Arctic sea ice melt is expected this summer "The Arctic will remain on thinning ice, and climate warming is expected to begin affecting the Antarctic also, scientists said Friday."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:03:29 Sat, May 3, 2008: from Time Magazine Lowe Eyes the Everglades "Lowe's, the home improvement chain, wants to move the border [of Miami-Dade County's Urban Development Boundary (UBD] so it can erect a new store on more than 20 acres of the wetlands; further south, developers want to hop the line to build a commercial park and thousands of new homes. Protesters, including Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, gathered to denounce the plans last week -- but on Thursday the Miami-Dade County Commission approved the Lowe's and the office developments."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:23:04 Sat, May 3, 2008: from Georgia Institute of Technology, via EurekAlert Environmental fate of nanoparticles depends on properties of water carrying them The fate of carbon-based nanoparticles spilled into groundwater -- and the ability of municipal filtration systems to remove the nanoparticles from drinking water -- depend on subtle differences in the solution properties of the water carrying the particles, a new study has found.
In slightly salty water, for example, clusters of Carbon 60 (C60) would tend to adhere tightly to soil or filtration system particles. But where natural organic compounds or chemical surfactants serve as stabilizers in water, the C60 fullerene particles would tend to flow as easily as the water carrying them.
"In some cases, the nanoparticles move very little and you would get complete retention in the soil," said Kurt Pennell, a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "But in different solution conditions or in the presence of a stabilizing agent, they can travel just like water. The movement of these nanoparticles is very sensitive to the solution conditions."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:13:04 Fri, May 2, 2008: from The London Independent US plan to protect right whale from shipping blocked by Cheney "Efforts to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale from being killed by ships are being blocked by Vice President Dick Cheney according to leaked documents. A behind the scenes struggle is raging between the White House and US government scientists who want to force ships to slow down near the calving grounds of the almost extinct right whale."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:41:04 Fri, May 2, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Oxygen-poor ocean zones are growing "Oxygen-starved waters are expanding in the Pacific and Atlantic as ocean temperatures increase with global warming, threatening fisheries and other marine life, a study published today concludes... The low-oxygen, or hypoxic, zones may also be connected to the Pacific coast invasion of the Humboldt, or jumbo, squid. These voracious predators, which can grow 6 feet long, appear to be taking advantage of their tolerance for oxygen-poor waters to escape predators and devour local fish, another team of scientists theorizes."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:44:42 Fri, May 2, 2008: from AP, via CNN Pharmaceuticals in reservoir causing troubling problems to fish, wildlife A five-month Associated Press investigation has determined that trace amounts of many of the pharmaceuticals we take to stay healthy are seeping into drinking water supplies, and a growing body of research indicates that this could harm humans. But people aren't the only ones who consume that water. There is more and more evidence that some animals that live in or drink from streams and lakes are seriously affected.... Pharmaceuticals in the water are being blamed for severe reproductive problems in many types of fish: The endangered razorback sucker and male fathead minnow have been found with lower sperm counts and damaged sperm; some walleyes and male carp have become what are called feminized fish, producing egg yolk proteins typically made only by females. Meanwhile, female fish have developed male genital organs. Also, there are skewed sex ratios in some aquatic populations, and sexually abnormal bass that produce cells for both sperm and eggs.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:47:56 Fri, May 2, 2008: from Guardian (UK) "Dishonest, irresponsible": Shell lambasted for pulling out of world's biggest windfarm Oil giant drops plan days after it reports £4bn profits. Shell was accused last night of being greedy and irresponsible as it came under ferocious attack from politicians and environmentalists for its decision to drop a commitment to the biggest offshore wind farm in the world.... "Mere days after reporting first-quarter profits of £4bn, Shell has shown its true colours in what can only be described as a PR disaster for the company, and further proof that its media-friendly "greenspeak" is both dishonest and irresponsible."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:33:08 Fri, May 2, 2008: from LA Times Antibiotics in our livestock Not just a cure for infection anymore, antibiotics are routinely given to livestock to prevent disease in crowded pens and stockyards and to promote growth. The report says farms can buy these drugs without a prescription or veterinary permission, so it's no surprise that half of all the antibiotics worldwide are used in food production. The ubiquitous use of animal antibiotics saves consumers $5 to $10 a year on their meat and poultry bill, the National Academy of Sciences estimated in 1999. Even that relative pittance is a pseudo-saving, though, because the United States spends more than $4 billion a year to combat [antibiotic-]resistant infections, which kill 90,000 people a year in this country.
Experience elsewhere shows that meat producers can use far less medication. In 1998, Denmark banned antibiotic use in livestock except to treat illness. Four years later, a World Health Organization study found that the ban was already helping to reduce the potential for resistant bacteria, at minimal cost to meat producers and without significantly affecting the health of the livestock. Two years ago, the European Union banned the use of all growth-enhancing antibiotics.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:52:09 Thu, May 1, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor U.S. Eyes Shift Away from Corn Ethanol America's love affair with corn-based ethanol is cooling -- at least in Washington. Some legislators blame the rising use of corn as a biofuel as a key factor behind high food prices. Others want to freeze the federal mandate on biofuels production at current levels, reversing legislation passed just a few months ago that increases it through 2022. Still others are pushing to shift tax incentives away from corn-based to cellulose-based ethanol in the nearly completed farm bill. These moves represent a dramatic backlash against corn ethanol, which until a few months ago was widely viewed as a boon for both farmers and consumers. ...done right, a shift toward cellulose -- nonfood plant material like grasses and crop residues -- could reduce US reliance on imported oil just as well as corn does. And it would accomplish it with fewer food and environmental trade-offs.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:46:29 Thu, May 1, 2008: from Environmental Science & Technology DDT levels in Antarctic penguins present a complex mystery "The use of DDT peaked several decades ago at more than 36,000 metric tons per year (t/yr). Today, less than 1000 t of the organochlorine pesticide -- banned in most countries since the 1980s -- is applied annually for mosquito control and farming, mainly in the Southern Hemisphere. Despite this drop, Adelie penguins in the Antarctic continue to have the same levels of total DDT in their bodies as they did 30 years ago. New research published in ES&T (DOI: 10.1021/es702919n) identifies Antarctic meltwater as the continued source of total DDT, and possibly other pollutants, in the southern continent's ecosystems."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:44:04 Thu, May 1, 2008: from National Science Foundation Global Warming Affects World's Largest Lake Russian and American scientists have discovered that the rising temperature of the world's largest lake, located in frigid Siberia, shows that this region is responding strongly to global warming. Warming of this isolated but enormous lake is a clear signal that climate change has affected even the most remote corners of our planet," Hampton said.
In their paper, the scientists detail the effects of climate change on Lake Baikal -- from warming of its vast waters to reorganization of its microscopic food web. "The conclusions shown here for this enormous body of freshwater result from careful and repeated sampling over six decades..." The data on Lake Baikal reveal "significant warming of surface waters and long-term changes in the food web of the world's largest, most ancient lake," write the researchers in their paper. "This lake was expected to be among those most resistant to climate change, due to its tremendous volume and unique water circulation."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-01 09:25:36 Thu, May 1, 2008: from PLOS, via PubMed Central Urban Slum Conditions Are A Source Of Leptospirosis Leptospirosis has emerged to become an urban slum health problem. Epidemics of severe leptospirosis, characterized by jaundice, acute renal failure and haemorrhage, are now reported in cities throughout the developing world due to rapid expansion of slum settlements, which in turn has produced the ecological conditions for rodent-borne transmission of the spirochete pathogen. A survey was performed in the city of Salvador, Brazil, to determine whether the risk of Leptospira infection clustered in households within slum communities in which a member had developed severe leptospirosis. We found that members of households with an index case of leptospirosis had more than five times the risk of having serologic evidence for a prior infection than members of neighbourhood households in the same communities. Increased risk of infection was found among all age groups who resided in these households. The finding that Leptospira infection clusters in specific slum households indicates that the factors associated with this environment are important determinants for transmission.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-01 09:26:47 Thu, May 1, 2008: from CSIRO Australia, via ScienceDaily Boost For "Green Plastics" From Plants Australian researchers are a step closer to turning plants into "biofactories" capable of producing oils which can be used to replace petrochemicals used to manufacture a range of products... "Using crops as biofactories has many advantages, beyond the replacement of dwindling petrochemical resources," says the leader of the crop development team, CSIRO's Dr Allan Green. "Global challenges such as population growth, climate change and the switch from non-renewable resources are opening up many more opportunities for bio-based products."... The CBI is a 12-year project which aims to add value to the Australian agricultural and chemical industries by developing technologies to produce novel industrial compounds from genetically modified oilseed crops.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:22:41 Wed, Apr 30, 2008: from University of Missouri-Columbia, via EurekAlert Too much technology may be killing beneficial bacteria For years, scientists have known about silver's ability to kill harmful bacteria and, recently, have used this knowledge to create consumer products containing silver nanoparticles. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that silver nanoparticles also may destroy benign bacteria that are used to remove ammonia from wastewater treatment systems.... Several products containing silver nanoparticles already are on the market, including socks containing silver nanoparticles designed to inhibit odor-causing bacteria and high-tech, energy-efficient washing machines that disinfect clothes by generating the tiny particles. The positive effects of that technology may be overshadowed by the potential negative environmental impact... "We found that silver nanoparticles are extremely toxic. The nanoparticles destroy the benign species of bacteria that are used for wastewater treatment. It basically halts the reproduction activity of the good bacteria."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-30 19:20:34 Wed, Apr 30, 2008: from University of Colorado at Boulder Researchers forecast 3-in-5 chance of record low Arctic sea ice in 2008 The forecast by researchers at CU-Boulder's Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research is based on satellite data and temperature records and indicates there is a 59 percent chance the annual minimum sea ice record will be broken this fall for the third time in five years. Arctic sea ice declined by roughly 10 percent in the past decade, culminating in a record 2007 minimum ice cover of 1.59 million square miles. That broke the 2005 record by 460,000 miles -- an area the size of Texas and California combined.
"The current Arctic ice cover is thinner and younger than at any previous time in our recorded history, and this sets the stage for rapid melt and a new record low," said Research Associate Sheldon Drobot, who leads CCAR's Arctic Regional Ice Forecasting System group in CU-Boulder's aerospace engineering sciences department. Overall, 63 percent of the Arctic ice cover is younger than average, and only 2 percent is older than average, according to Drobot.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-30 16:58:28 Wed, Apr 30, 2008: from Africa Science News Egypt allows for commercialisation of GM maize Egypt's Minister of Agriculture has approved the decisions made by the National Biosafety Committee (NBC) and Seed Registration Committee allowing the commercialization of a Bt corn variety.
This marks the first genetically modified (GM) crop approved for domestic planting in the country.
The approval is highlighted in a recent Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) report by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).
During last year's growing season, field trials were conducted and assessed. A local seed company, acting as an agent of a multi-national life science company, plans to import GM seeds for propagation and production from South Africa.
The GM corn will be planted in 10 governates throughout Egypt.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-30 16:53:05 Wed, Apr 30, 2008: from Gazette Online, IA Cedar Rapids preps for ash tree infestation City arborist Matthew Nachtrieb is making it a priority to remove and replace stressed ash trees along city streets in anticipation of what is the certain arrival of a bug that has devastated millions of ash trees in states east of Iowa.
Nachtrieb's notion about the now-notorious bug, the emerald ash borer, is no different from that of Robin Pruisner, state entomologist at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship:
The emerald-colored pest first appeared near Detroit six years ago. Pruisner said the bug has appeared about 80 miles away in East Peru and LaSalle, Ill. It has spread to spots in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Illinois, including the Chicago area.
It hasn't arrived in Iowa yet. But it will.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-29 12:55:24 Tue, Apr 29, 2008: from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Carbon Footprint Of Best Conserving Americans Is Still Double Global Average "An MIT class has estimated the carbon emissions of Americans in a wide variety of lifestyles -- from the homeless to multimillionaires, from Buddhist monks to soccer moms -- and compared them to those of other nations. The somewhat disquieting bottom line is that in the United States, even the people with the lowest usage of energy are still producing, on average, more than double the global per-capita average. Whether you live in a cardboard box or a luxurious mansion, whether you subsist on homegrown vegetables or wolf down imported steaks, whether you're a jet-setter or a sedentary retiree, anyone who lives in the U.S. contributes more than twice as much greenhouse gas to the atmosphere as the global average..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:43:40 Tue, Apr 29, 2008: from Washington Post Emptying the Breadbasket "...Across America, turmoil in the world wheat markets has sent prices of bread, pasta, noodles, pizza, pastry and bagels skittering upward, bringing protests from consumers... U.S. farmers are expected to plant about 64 million acres of wheat this year, down from a high of 88 million in 1981. In Kansas, wheat acreage has declined by a third since the mid-1980s, and nationwide, there is now less wheat in grain bins than at any time since World War II -- only about enough to supply the world for four days. This occurs as developing countries with some of the poorest populations are rapidly increasing their wheat imports."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:33:18 Tue, Apr 29, 2008: from The Independent Climate change could force 1 billion from their homes by 2050 "As many as one billion people could lose their homes by 2050 because of the devastating impact of global warming ... 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. Rising sea levels could also cause havoc, with coastal communities in southern Asia, the Far East, the south Pacific islands and the Caribbean seeing their homes submerged. North and west Africans could head towards Europe, while the southern border of the United States could come under renewed pressure from Central America."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:02:11 Tue, Apr 29, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Shops ration sales of rice as US buyers panic The global food crisis reached the United States yesterday as big retailers began to ration sales of rice in response to bulk purchases by customers alarmed by rocketing prices of staples. Wal-Mart's cash and carry division, Sam's Club, announced it would sell a maximum of four bags of rice per person to prevent supplies from running short. Its decision followed sporadic caps placed on purchases of rice and flour by some store managers at a rival bulk chain, Costco, in parts of California. The world price of rice has risen 68 percent since the start of 2008, but in some US shops the price has doubled in weeks.... Looting and riots in Haiti left at least six dead and forced the resignation of the prime minister this month, leaving the hemisphere's poorest country tense and edgy. In Guyana an 80 percent rise in the price of rice and 50 percent in the cost of chicken triggered protests and a strike by sugarcane workers. The government promised to issue seeds and urged people to cultivate idle land. Surinam set up an emergency cabinet committee to seek ways to dampen food prices.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:28:54 Tue, Apr 29, 2008: from Uro Today Human Exposure to Endocrine Disrupters and Semen Quality We propose that environmental factors, including exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals, may be represented in this idiopathic category of diagnosis. Endocrine disrupters are proposed to modulate or dysregulate the endogenous endocrine system via competitive or non-competitive binding at steroid hormone receptors, changes to synthesis, metabolism or transport of hormones or by changes in gene expression. Significant laboratory evidence supports endocrine disruption as a mechanism of action for several types of chemicals including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), bisphenol A (BPA), 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), p,p’-DDE (p,p'-dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethylene)- the major breakdown product of DDT and mixtures such as pesticides. Though there is a relative paucity of population-based studies examining the effects of exposure to endocrine disrupters on human semen quality, it may be cautiously interpreted that endocrine disruption due to organochlorine exposures may be manifested as reduced sperm motility and morphology.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-28 17:46:44 Mon, Apr 28, 2008: from London Guardian US air force calls for mission to combat climate change "The US air force will this week call for the world's top scientists to come together in a 21st-century Apollo-style programme to develop greener fuels and tackle global warming. It wants universities, governments, companies and environmental groups to collaborate on a multibillion-dollar effort to work out greenhouse gas emissions of existing and future fuels. William Anderson, an assistant secretary of the air force, said the project aimed to calculate the overall carbon footprint of the world's energy sources, rather than merely measure their direct emissions. He said controversy over the environmental impact of biofuels showed such an effort was needed to avoid making the situation worse: "If you look at the situation with bioethanol from corn, a lot of people saw that as a panacea, but now it seems that if you include the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon footprint may be worse than people realised."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-28 17:27:06 Mon, Apr 28, 2008: from PERI, University of Massachussetts, Amherst The Toxic 100: The Top Corporate Air Polluters in the U.S. The Toxic 100 index identifies the top U.S. air polluters among the world's largest corporations. The index relies on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) project. The starting point for the RSEI is the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), which reports on releases of toxic chemicals at facilities across the United States.... [Toxic 100 Top Ten:] E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., Nissan Motor, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bayer Group, Dow Chemical, Eastman Kodak, General Electric, Arcelor Mittal, U.S. Steel, ExxonMobil. [And 90 others.]
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:45:35 Mon, Apr 28, 2008: from Mother Earth News Designing Sustainable Small Farms Conventional agricultural ecosystems (i.e., farms) are inherently fragile: Their productivity can be sustained only if fossil fuel subsidies, in one form or another, are employed as inputs. Most farms entail, as well, other very serious environmental costs. Clearly, we need to create new food raising systems that will conserve soil, water, and nutrients ... minimize the use of fossil fuels, chemical fertilizers, and synthetic pesticides ... and lead to regionally self-reliant food systems.... [I]n the final analysis agricultural production will be maintained only if farms are designed in the image of natural ecosystems, combining the knowledge of science with the wisdom of the wilderness.... The philosophy, as summed up by Mollison, is one "of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation, rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:38:49 Mon, Apr 28, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Killer Sea Lice Alarmed, Ms. Morton took out a dip net and pulled up dozens of wild juvenile pink salmon. They were bleeding from the eyeballs and the base of the fins. Most of them were covered with brown flecks -- juvenile sea lice. As they grow, changing their body shape every few days, these parasitic copepods strip mucus, scales and skin from the growing fish. While a full-grown salmon has an armour coating of scales and can survive an infestation, the parasites exhaust the young fish and quickly kill them off.
Using hand seine nets to sample local waters, Ms. Morton established that the salmon farmers were raising millions of adult farmed Atlantic salmon along the migration routes of wild Pacific salmon - in exactly those inlets and estuaries where juvenile wild Pacific fattened up before going to sea. Suddenly, the decline of wild salmon populations did not seem like such a mystery: The 27 farms in the Broughton, had, by crowding normally nomadic fish into tightly packed nets, become ranches for sea lice, concentrating and fatally passing on parasites to wild salmon when they were at their most vulnerable. In 2002, government scientists predicted that 3.6 million pink salmon would return to the Broughton. Fewer than 150,000 did - a 97-per cent-population crash.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-05-02 16:37:41 Sun, Apr 27, 2008: from New York Times Saddled With Legacy of Dioxin, Town Considers an Odd Ally: The Mushroom "FORT BRAGG, Calif. -- On a warm April evening, 90 people crowded into the cafeteria of Redwood Elementary School here to meet with representatives of the State Department of Toxic Substances Control. The substance at issue was dioxin, a pollutant that infests the site of a former lumber mill in this town 130 miles north of San Francisco. And the method of cleanup being proposed was a novel one: mushrooms. Mushrooms have been used in the cleaning up of oil spills, a process called bioremediation, but they have not been used to treat dioxin."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:16:13 Sun, Apr 27, 2008: from Wenatchee World Jumbo squid invade waters off Pacific coast "They aren't your normal calamari. But the jumbo squid now lurking off the Pacific Northwest coast could threaten salmon runs and signal yet another change in the oceans brought on by global warming. The squid, which can reach seven feet long and weigh up to 110 pounds, are aggressive, thought to hunt in packs and can move at speeds of up to 15 mph. In Mexico, they're known as diablos rojos, or red devils. They reportedly will attack divers when they feel threatened.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-27 11:10:43 Sun, Apr 27, 2008: from Time How to Win the War on Global Warming "The steady deterioration of the very climate of our very planet is becoming a war of the first order, and by any measure, the U.S. is losing. Indeed, if we're fighting at all—and by most accounts, we're not—we're fighting on the wrong side. The U.S. produces nearly a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases each year and has stubbornly made it clear that it doesn't intend to do a whole lot about it."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-27 11:06:31 Sun, Apr 27, 2008: from Discover How Much Do Chemicals Affect Our Health? "Philip Landrigan [is] a Harvard-trained physician who has fought the world’s most powerful corporations and bullied bureaucrats to protect the public from poisonous pollutants for nearly 30 years...the 65-year-old scientist is gearing up for his most ambitious project yet: the National Children’s Study, a landmark field investigation that will follow 100,000 American children from as soon as possible after conception to age 21. He hopes the research will identify factors in the environment—cultural, genetic, social, physical, and chemical—that make us more susceptible to disease. He also hopes it will shed light on why rates of birth defects, childhood cancers, asthma, obesity, violence, ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and other learning disabilities are skyrocketing."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:44:25 Sun, Apr 27, 2008: from Boston Globe The future of dirt "THE EARTH'S UNCERTAIN oil reserves and dwindling freshwater supply may get all the attention, but modern society is also overtaxing the ground itself. At the same time that a growing population and the newfound appetites of the global middle class are straining our food supply, governments all over the world are also pushing for more ethanol-generating energy crops. To support all that production on a limited amount of arable land, scientists and farmers have long focused on technical improvements such as plant breeding, bioengineering, and creating new fertilizers and pesticides. But some are now asking a different question: What if we could create better dirt?
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-26 08:07:26 Sat, Apr 26, 2008: from The Star (Malaysia) Cost remains a factor in recycling industrial waste Much dumping of industrial wastes was due to the high cost of recycling, even though such wastes had reusable materials. With the problems of climate change and pollution increasing, Yeoh said it was a challenge for corporations to translate the economies of waste management into the daily processes of its business operations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:41:14 Sat, Apr 26, 2008: from AlterNet Turkey Plans to Sell Rivers and Lakes to Corporations The water privatization fever is hitting Turkey, just a year before the country will host the World Water Forum. In March 2009 the Turkish government will host the fifth World Water Forum against a backdrop of what is probably the most sweeping water privatisation programme in the world. As well as privatizing water services, the government plans to sell off rivers and lakes.... There are private water supply contracts in Arpacay and Corlu, as well as widespread outsourcing and subcontracting of the water supply across the country. In the city of Antalya, French water giant Suez pulled-out six years into a 10-year contract after the municipality rejected their demand for another price increase. The prices had already risen 130 percent and the company had failed to invest what was promised.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:01:44 Sat, Apr 26, 2008: from Reuters Bangladesh stops poor from collecting rotten rice "The dumping site has been cordoned, and the relevant authorities have been asked not to dump rotten rice at unrestricted spots anymore," a security official said. Hundreds of poor people thronged the dumping site as the Food Department started ditching some 500 tonnes of damaged rice on Friday. Nearly half of Bangladesh's 140 million people live on an income less than a dollar per day and their plight has worsened since rice and other food prices started rising this year. "The rice is still not too bad, we are sure this will not harm us," said Manjula Begum, a mother of three children, after collecting a bowl of rice.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:56:55 Sat, Apr 26, 2008: from Brattleboro Reformer Baitfish limit irks fishermen An emergency baitfish regulation put into effect last October has been supplanted with a permanent regulation to help prevent Vermont waters from a fatal fish virus called viral hemorrhagic septicemia. The disease, which may be the worst anglers will have to deal with in generations, can infect numerous species and spreads at an alarmingly fast rate.
Experts believe a form of the strain arrived in the Great Lakes about eight years ago, however it was not detected until 2005 when thousands of fish died in Lake Ontario. Since that time, it rapidly spread through many lakes and streams in the Midwest and continued to kill large portions of fish.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-26 08:18:12 Sat, Apr 26, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) U.S. hunters targeting polar bears while they can The rules of engagement are simple: The trophy must be male and at least 2.4 metres tall. And since March, big-game hunters, mainly Americans, clad head to toe in caribou-skin outfits and riding dogsleds, have been on the hunt in Canada's Arctic for one of the most controversial animals on the planet: polar bears. In this male-dominated, high-priced world, where Inuit-guided hunts can run more than $40,000 (U.S.), bigger is better, right down to the animal's baculum, or penis bone.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-26 07:14:08 Sat, Apr 26, 2008: from Government of India Conservation of Genetic Diversity a Must for Sustainable Agriculture: Shri Pawar The Government considers proper management of plant and animal genetic resources integral to sustainable development of agriculture ... "Ecological implications of climate change and of agricultural intensification are major constraints to sustainable development of agriculture-based systems. So far, there is little awareness among professionals of the close relationship between climate change and food security and the role genetic resource has to play. It is imperative to manage these resources in a sustainable way. Climate change-induced environmental stress may in fact go beyond the reach of adaptation and in situ approach of genetic resource conservation offers a great chance to shape a future worth living.... Further, a blend of modern science and indigenous knowledge will be required to face the challenges of increasing agricultural production in decades ahead."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:51:47 Fri, Apr 25, 2008: from The Examiner Loss of prairie chickens worries scientists WICHITA, Kan. - The Flint Hills are no longer the "Prairie Chicken Capital of the World," because a combination of ranching practices, invasive trees and encroaching civilization is causing the birds' population to plummet, scientists say. Studies from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks show the number of prairie chickens in the Flint Hills' eastern edge has fallen 90 percent in the past 30 years and 50 percent throughout the rest of area.
"Prairie chickens are right at the top of our list of species we're concerned about," said Ron Manes of the Nature Conservancy of Kansas. "They are an excellent indicator of the health of the prairie." ... Biologists fear that a decline in the prairie chicken could start a chain reaction that would also endanger the eastern meadowlark, Henslow's sparrows, grasshopper sparrows and others.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:51:18 Fri, Apr 25, 2008: from UTexas, via Slashdot Solar-powered Cyanobacteria Produces Sugars for Biofuels A newly created microbe produces cellulose that can be turned into ethanol and other biofuels, report scientists from The University of Texas at Austin who say the microbe could provide a significant portion of the nation's transportation fuel if production can be scaled up.
Along with cellulose, the cyanobacteria developed by Professor R. Malcolm Brown Jr. and Dr. David Nobles Jr. secrete glucose and sucrose. These simple sugars are the major sources used to produce ethanol.
"The cyanobacterium is potentially a very inexpensive source for sugars to use for ethanol and designer fuels," says Nobles.... Brown and Nobles say their cyanobacteria can be grown in production facilities on non-agricultural lands using salty water unsuitable for human consumption or crops.
The new cyanobacteria use sunlight as an energy source to produce and excrete sugars and cellulose, and can be continually harvested without harming or destroying the cyanobacteria. [Further,] cyanobacteria that can fix atmospheric nitrogen can be grown without petroleum-based fertilizer input.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-25 08:29:04 Fri, Apr 25, 2008: from Georgia Institute of Technology, via ScienceDaily Energy Saving Lights: Organic Light Emitting Diode Made To Last Longer, Resist Moisture Researchers have developed an improved organic light emitting diode (OLED) sealing process to reduce moisture intrusion and improve device lifetime. OLEDs are promising for the next generation of displays and solid state lighting because they use less power and can be more efficiently manufactured than current technology. However, the intrusion of moisture into the displays can damage or destroy an OLED's organic material.... During testing, the SiON-encapsulated OLEDs showed no sign of degradation after seven months in an open-air environment, while the OLEDs without the coating degraded completely in less than two weeks under the same conditions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-25 07:34:51 Fri, Apr 25, 2008: from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, via Science Daily Significant "Red Tide" Season Predicted For 2008 Based On Computer Models And Observations A combination of abundant beds of algal seeds and excess winter precipitation have set the stage for a harmful algal bloom similar to the historic "red tide" of 2005, according to researchers from WHOI and NC State. The 2005 bloom shut down shellfish beds from the Bay of Fundy to Martha's Vineyard for several months and caused an estimated $50 million in losses to the Massachusetts shellfish industry alone. The weather patterns over the next few weeks will determine whether this year's algal growth approaches the troubles of 2005.... The algae are notorious for producing a toxin that accumulates in clams, mussels, and other shellfish and can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) in humans who consume them.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:22:24 Fri, Apr 25, 2008: from Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, via EurekAlert New nanotech products hitting the market at the rate of 3-4 per week The number of consumer products using nanotechnology has grown from 212 to 609 since PEN launched the world’s first online inventory of manufacturer-identified nanotech goods in March 2006. Health and fitness items, which includes cosmetics and sunscreens, represent 60 percent of inventory products.... Despite a 2006 worldwide investment of $12.4 billion in nanotech R&D, comparatively little was spent on examining nanotechnology's potential environmental, health and safety risks. "Public trust is the 'dark horse' in nanotechnology's future," says Rejeski in his testimony. "If government and industry do not work to build public confidence in nanotechnology, consumers may reach for the 'No-Nano' label in the future and investors will put their money elsewhere."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:43:26 Thu, Apr 24, 2008: from Science, via EurekAlert Scientists call for more access to biotech crop data "Since 1996 more than a billion acres have been planted with biotech crops in the U.S.," said Michelle Marvier of Santa Clara University in Calif. "We don't really know what are the pros and cons of this important new agricultural technology. People on both sides of the debate about genetically engineered crops have been making a lot of claims. One side has been saying that biotech crops reduce insecticide use, reduce tillage and therefore the erosion of top soil. People on the other side say that biotech crops could hurt native species."... The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistical Service annually collects data documenting acreage planted to various crops in all 50 states.... In addition, the NASS annually interviews more than 125,000 farmers about their land use and the acreage planted in various biotech crops. "We're already spending the money to have these data collected. Let's make them available in the right format for researchers to use. It would be a relatively inexpensive additional step with enormous scientific and public benefit."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:52:06 Thu, Apr 24, 2008: from Newcastle University, via Eurekalert Technological breakthrough in the fight to cut greenhouse gases The Newcastle team has succeeded in developing an exceptionally active catalyst, derived from aluminium, which can drive the reaction necessary to turn waste carbon dioxide into cyclic carbonates at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, vastly reducing the energy input required.... 'If our catalyst could be employed at the source of high-concentration CO2 production, for example in the exhaust stream of a fossil-fuel power station, we could take out the carbon dioxide, turn it into a commercially-valuable product and at the same time eliminate the need to store waste CO2', he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-24 16:14:26 Thu, Apr 24, 2008: from Brown University, via Eurekalert Brown Scientists Say Biodiversity Is Crucial to Ecosystem Productivity In the first experiment involving a natural environment, scientists at Brown University have shown that richer plant diversity significantly enhances an ecosystem's productivity.... the results confirmed tests charting how biodiversity affects aboveground plant productivity in artificial ecosystems.... the greater the number of plant species, the more productive the ecosystem.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 21:00:53 Thu, Apr 24, 2008: from Wildlife Conservation Society, via Science Daily Rare Musk Ox May Be Threatened By Climate Change "Musk ox are a throwback to our Pleistocene heritage and once shared the landscape with mammoths, wild horses, and sabered cats," said the study's leader Dr. Joel Berger, a Wildlife Conservation Society scientist and professor at the University of Montana. "They may also help scientists understand how arctic species can or cannot adapt to climate change." Once found in Europe and Northern Asia, today musk ox are restricted to Arctic regions in North America and Greenland although they have been introduced into Russia and northern Europe. They have been reintroduced in Alaska after being wiped out in the late 19th century. Currently they found in two national parks: Alaska's Bering Land Bridge National Park and Cape Krusenstem National Monument.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-24 15:47:54 Thu, Apr 24, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Analysis of RNA Role in Spreading Disease Advances Study of Damaging Plant Infections Because no chemical treatments exist that can specifically inhibit viroid infection, an effective way to prevent viroid multiplication and spread is through genetic alterations of susceptible plants. The best approach to such bioengineering is learning exactly how the pathogens function in the first place, said Biao Ding, senior author of the study and professor of plant cellular and molecular biology at Ohio State.... Viroids resemble viruses, but consist of only small RNA molecules that don’t have the protein coat found on viruses and that don't encode any proteins. Viroids so far have been shown to infect only plants.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-24 09:35:41 Thu, Apr 24, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Chicago rice hits record high above $25 U.S. rice futures struck a new lifetime peak above $25 in Asian trading on Thursday, as worries about possible supply shortages continued to plague the world's second-biggest food grain crop.
Chicago Board of Trade July rough rice futures surged to a record high of $25.010 per hundredweight on worries over scarce global supplies of the grain. CBOT rice is up about 80 percent so far this year. The July contract surpassed the previous record of $24.85 touched in Chicago on Wednesday, where it later closed at $24.82.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:43:19 Thu, Apr 24, 2008: from NOAA, via Science Daily Greenhouse Gases, Carbon Dioxide And Methane, Rise Sharply In 2007 Last year alone global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, increased by 0.6 percent, or 19 billion tons. Additionally methane rose by 27 million tons after nearly a decade with little or no increase. NOAA scientists released these and other preliminary findings today as part of an annual update to the agency's greenhouse gas index, which tracks data from 60 sites around the world.... Earth's oceans, vegetation, and soils soak up half of these emissions. The rest stays in the air for centuries or longer. Twenty percent of the 2007 fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide are expected to remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years, according to the latest scientific assessment by the International Panel on Climate Change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-23 16:01:48 Wed, Apr 23, 2008: from The Post (Pakistan) Villagers protest against chemical factory owners SHEIKHUPURA: The residents of Amoki on Wednesday took out a protest rally against the administration of a local chemical factory. The villagers told The Post that the chemical factory located near their village was emitting poisonous gases in the air. As a result, three buffaloes of a villager Muhammad Latif died due to poisonous gases, besides the inhabitants were suffering from fatal diseases due to the toxic waste and smoke of the factory.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:45:09 Wed, Apr 23, 2008: from BBC (UK) Biodiversity loss "bad for our health" A new generation of medical treatments could be lost forever unless the current rate of biodiversity loss is reversed, conservationists have warned.... Further research [on the southern gastric brooding frog (Rheobatrachus silus)] could have lead to new ways of preventing and treating stomach ulcers in humans, but the amphibian was last recorded in the wild in 1981. "These studies could not be continued because both species of Rheobactrachus became extinct... The valuable medical secrets they held are now gone forever."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-27 12:04:50 Wed, Apr 23, 2008: from PLOS, via Reuters New virus causes South American fever Scientists have identified a new virus that causes bleeding and shock and killed at least one man in a remote area of Bolivia. Doctors at first thought the patient had dengue fever or yellow fever -- caused by two unrelated viruses that can also cause hemorrhagic fevers. "He went on in a few short days from a kind of fairly flu-like illness with headache, fever and muscle aches and deteriorated rapidly into ... the shock and bleeding," Nichol said. But it is never so severe as fictional accounts and films about viruses, Nichol stressed. The new virus is likely carried by a rodent, as most are, and does not pose a widespread threat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-22 20:54:29 Wed, Apr 23, 2008: from University of Kansas, via The Independent (UK) Exposed: the great GM crops myth Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:33:07 Tue, Apr 22, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Migrating bird numbers plummet in UK The number of birds which migrate to the UK every Spring to breed is plummeting, a new study reveals. The fall in birds completing the annual journey from Africa has been so dramatic that scientists fear it is part of a seismic environmental change. The spotted flycatcher, turtle dove and tree pipit numbers have declined by more than 80 per cent while once familiar small songbirds such as the willow, marsh and garden warblers have declined by as much as 75 per cent.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-22 14:00:21 Tue, Apr 22, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Electric car for the masses to be made in Southern California "Norwegian automaker Think Global said Monday it planned to sell low-priced electric cars to the masses and will introduce its first models in the U.S. by the end of next year. The battery-powered Think City will be able to travel up to 110 miles on a single charge, with a top speed of about 65 mph, the company said. It will be priced below $25,000.... Ford Motor Co. was the longtime owner of Think but sold it in 2003. It was purchased by Norweigan investors two years ago, and began selling cars in Norway this year, with sales in Sweden, Denmark and Britain expected this year. The company said its annual production capacity in Europe is 10,000 vehicles.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-22 13:46:19 Tue, Apr 22, 2008: from The London Independent Global warming threat to native dragonfly species "Britain's dragonflies, which date back to the dinosaurs but are increasingly threatened by habitat destruction, pollution and climate change, are to be the subject of a major national survey. The five-year project, to be launched on Thursday, will result in a new atlas of the 39 species of dragonfly and damselfly that breed in Britain – which are soon likely to be joined by several others."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-22 13:36:49 Tue, Apr 22, 2008: from Toronto Star Arctic ice melting fast in summer sun "New Arctic sea ice is now so perilously thin on average that it melts under the sunshine of clear summer skies it once could survive, American researchers conclude in a study published today. Using modern satellite imagery, the scientists from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research linked last summer's record loss of sea ice to unusual cloudless weather in June and July that allowed the sun to relentlessly beat down on first-year ice formed over the previous winter.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:42:09 Tue, Apr 22, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor Roots of Asia's rice crisis "BOHOL, PHILIPPINES...For decades, governments have been encouraging a boom in services and skyscrapers, but not the capacity to grow more rice. Financing in agriculture has stagnated, and fewer farmers are expected to produce more rice for exploding populations. That neglect is one of the central causes of what some analysts call the "perfect storm" – including rising global oil prices, drought in Australia, and inclement weather – behind the rice crisis."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-22 13:21:03 Tue, Apr 22, 2008: from Miami Herald Forecast of rising waters paints bleak future for S. Fla. coasts "Under conservative predictions of a three-foot rise in sea level, high tide would wash daily into downtown Miami, South Beach and Hollywood by century's end. At five feet, the sea would swallow much of the Everglades and cover pavement from Fort Lauderdale across to Naples.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:32:28 Mon, Apr 21, 2008: from Science (US) via Science Daily Flu Viruses Take One-way Ticket Out Of Asia, Then Travel The World Seasonal influenza strains constantly evolve in overlapping epidemics in Asia and sweep the rest of the world each year, an international research team has found.... The Science study shows ... that each year since 2002, influenza A (H3N2) viruses have migrated out of what the authors call the "East and Southeast Asian circulation network," and from there spread around the world.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:10:06 Mon, Apr 21, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Fishing Throws Targeted Species Off Balance, Study Shows Research led at Scripps with a distinguished team of government and international experts (including two chief scientific advisors to the United Kingdom) demonstrates that fishing can throw targeted fish populations off kilter. Fishing can alter the "age pyramid" by lopping off the few large, older fish that make up the top of the pyramid, leaving a broad base of faster-growing small younglings. The team found that this rapidly growing and transitory base is dynamically unstable-a finding having profound implications for the ecosystem and the fishing industries built upon it.... Fishing typically extracts the older, larger members of a targeted species and fishing regulations often impose minimum size limits to protect the smaller, younger fishes.
"That type of regulation, which we see in many sport fisheries, is exactly wrong," said Sugihara. "It's not the young ones that should be thrown back, but the larger, older fish that should be spared. Not only do the older fish provide stability and capacitance to the population, they provide more and better quality offspring."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:07:57 Mon, Apr 21, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Canada first to label bisphenol A as officially dangerous Health Canada is calling bisphenol A a dangerous substance, making it the first regulatory body in the world to reach such a determination and taking the initial step toward measures to control exposures to it.... U.S. tests have found that more than 90 per cent of the population carries in their bodies trace residues of the chemical, whose molecular shape allows it to mimic the female hormone estrogen.... Until now, regulators in other countries have accepted the industry's assertion that BPA is harmless at the tiny, parts-per-billion type exposures from canned food and plastic beverage containers. A part per billion is roughly equal to one blade of grass on a football field, although natural hormones such as estrogen are active at far lower concentrations, around a part per trillion.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:33:49 Sun, Apr 20, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Mercury In River Moves Into Terrestrial Food Chain Through Spiders Fed To Baby Birds Songbirds feeding near the contaminated South River are showing high levels of mercury, even though they aren't eating food from the river itself, according to a paper published by William and Mary researchers in the journal Science.... one of the first, if not the first, to offer scientific documentation of the infiltration of mercury from a contaminated body of water into a purely terrestrial ecosystem. "In bodies of water affected by mercury, it's always been assumed that only birds or wildlife that ate fish would be in danger," said Cristol, an associate professor in William and Mary's Department of Biology. "But we’ve now opened up the possibility that mercury levels could be very high in the surrounding terrestrial habitat, as well."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:32:53 Sun, Apr 20, 2008: from Irish Independent We're the clear losers in the latest round of germ warfare Future generations will laugh at the sheer arrogance and hubris that the medical profession exhibited with respect to infection in the 20th century.... Our apparent victory over the bugs was illusory, short-lived and ultimately pyrrhic... The inappropriate treatment of common benign viral illnesses (e.g. colds) with antibiotics is a major cause of the emergence of MRSA and other resistant bacteria. Doctors who allow themselves to be browbeaten into the inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics are hastening the day when they will have to tell their infected patients "there is nothing I can do for you".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:01:28 Sun, Apr 20, 2008: from The Star (Canada) A vicious circle of misery "People are stunned. And it's not just the poor and hungry buyers. It's the small merchants themselves," says Trevor Rowe, a World Food Program spokesperson for Latin America.
"They're bearing the brunt of the consumers' complaints, and they have a hard time justifying the high costs. It's a brutal situation for everyone. In the rural part of the country the calorie intake was already low. Now people are plunged into chronic hunger."
El Salvador is not alone. Throughout the world, the working poor, and even the middle class, have been pushed into poverty by soaring food costs. International aid organizations and charities are faced with a crisis that is unprecedented in the last half century.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-20 11:30:13 Sun, Apr 20, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Canadian landowners threaten clear-cut as protest Rural landowners are threatening to clear-cut a huge swath of land in Eastern Ontario to protest against the lack of compensation in the province's new endangered species law, an action that could leave an endangered bird homeless, the Ontario Landowners' Association said yesterday.... "We're making a point," said Mr. MacLaren. "This legislation will have the opposite effect from what is intended ... You're forcing good stewards of the land, good stewards of the environment and therefore good stewards of endangered species to do the unthinkable."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:53:01 Sat, Apr 19, 2008: from Las Vegas Review-Journal Scientist: Stop carbon emissions or face ruin "Droughts, more wildfires, hotter and longer summers and more violent storms will plague the desert Southwest if carbon-dioxide pollution continues, a leading climate-change scientist believes. Sea levels will rise several feet, covering the state of Florida, the country of Bangladesh and most beachfront property by the end of the century if people keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the current rate, said James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:19:59 Sat, Apr 19, 2008: from Associated Press Jet stream found to be permanently drifting north The jet stream -- America's stormy weather maker -- is creeping northward and weakening, new research shows. That potentially means less rain in the already dry South and Southwest and more storms in the North. And it could also translate into more and stronger hurricanes since the jet stream suppresses their formation. The study's authors said they have to do more research to pinpoint specific consequences. From 1979 to 2001, the Northern Hemisphere's jet stream moved northward on average at a rate of about 1.25 miles a year, according to the paper published Friday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:23:16 Sat, Apr 19, 2008: from Tufts University Early Exposure To Common Weed Killer Impairs Amphibian Development "Tadpoles develop deformed hearts and impaired kidneys and digestive systems when exposed to the widely used herbicide atrazine in their early stages of life, according to research by Tufts University biologists. The results present a more comprehensive picture of how this common weed killer -- once thought to be harmless to animals -- disrupts growth of vital organs in amphibians during multiple growth periods."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-19 13:31:53 Sat, Apr 19, 2008: from National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration Global Land Temperature Warmest On Record In March 2008 "The average global land temperature last month was the warmest on record and ocean surface temperatures were the 13th warmest. Combining the land and the ocean temperatures, the overall global temperature ranked the second warmest for the month of March. Global temperature averages have been recorded since 1880."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:58:22 Fri, Apr 18, 2008: from Bergen County Record Honeybees on rebound in North Jersey "Honeybees are on the rebound in North Jersey. After a strange affliction known as colony collapse disorder devastated honeybee colonies nationwide and caused a 45 percent mortality rate in New Jersey a year ago, local beekeepers are reporting far fewer deaths."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:40:29 Fri, Apr 18, 2008: from Reuters Freshening of deep Antarctic waters worries experts "Scientists studying the icy depths of the sea around Antarctica have detected changes in salinity that could have profound effects on the world's climate and ocean currents... Voyage leader Steve Rintoul said his team found that salty, dense water that sinks near the edge of Antarctica to the bottom of the ocean about 5 km (3 miles) down was becoming fresher and more buoyant. So-called Antarctic bottom water helps power the great ocean conveyor belt, a system of currents spanning the Southern, Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans that shifts heat around the globe....If these currents were to slow or stop, the world's climate would eventually be thrown into chaos."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:17:25 Fri, Apr 18, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel High levels of household chemicals found in pets "We bred them to protect us and warn us of impending trouble. According to a new report, our pets are doing their job. The Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental watchdog group, released a study Thursday showing that dogs and cats are carrying heavy burdens of many household chemicals - flame retardants, plasticizers and stain-resisting chemicals - in their blood and urine.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:39:54 Fri, Apr 18, 2008: from Science Daily (US) "Sudden Oak Death" Pathogen Is Evolving, Restriction On Movement Of Infected Plants Urged The pathogen responsible for Sudden Oak Death first got its grip in California's forests outside a nursery in Santa Cruz and at Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County before spreading out to eventually kill millions of oaks and tanoaks along the Pacific Coast, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.... "In this paper, we actually reconstruct the Sudden Oak Death epidemic," said Matteo Garbelotto, UC Berkeley... [the] principal investigator of the study. "We point to where the disease was introduced in the wild and where it spread from those introduction points." The study, scheduled to appear later this month in the journal Molecular Ecology, also shows that the pathogen is currently evolving in California, with mutant genotypes appearing as new areas are infested.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:42:29 Thu, Apr 17, 2008: from Reuters S. Korea Culls 3 Million Birds as Bird Flu Spreads Fast "South Korea said on Thursday it had culled 3 million farmed birds and confirmed three more outbreaks of bird flu, as the country grapples with its worst avian influenza outbreak in four years. In just two weeks South Korea has confirmed 15 cases of the deadly H5N1 strain, raising alarm as the highly virulent virus is spreading at its fastest rate since the country reported its first case in 2003.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-17 11:58:22 Thu, Apr 17, 2008: from London Guardian Waves of Destruction "Rising seas are changing Britain's coast dramatically. Norfolk is the first low-lying area to face a stark and cruel new choice - plough millions into doomed defences, or abandon whole villages to the invading waters...More than 15 million people live close to Britain's coastline. This small corner of Norfolk is the first to confront what every low-lying community in the country will face in the coming decades: the real cost of increased erosion, storms and sea-level rises exacerbated by global warming. It presents local people and the government with a stark dilemma. Is it worth spending billions on defending homes and livelihoods? Or, faced with inexorable sea-level rise, should expensive coastal defences be abandoned, leading to the evacuation of land and houses?"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:24:57 Thu, Apr 17, 2008: from Der Spiegel A Storehouse of Greenhouse Gases Is Opening in Siberia "Researchers have found alarming evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to thaw and release long-stored methane gas. The results could be a catastrophic warming of the earth, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But can the methane also be used as fuel? ... In the permafrost bottom of the 200-meter-deep sea, enormous stores of gas hydrates lie dormant in mighty frozen layers of sediment. The carbon content of the ice-and-methane mixture here is estimated at 540 billion tons.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-17 11:45:54 Thu, Apr 17, 2008: from Environmental Science & Technology PFOS alters immune response at very low exposure levels "Perfluorinated compounds previously in stain repellents may be affecting the human immune system, according to new research published in Toxicological Sciences (2008, DOI 10.1093/toxsci/kfn059). After studying mice orally exposed to perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) daily for 28 days, a group of researchers observed that the animals’ immune systems were affected at much lower levels than ever reported....PFOS is no longer being produced. Its manufacturer, 3M, agreed to phase out production by 2002. But it remains a persistent, global contaminant."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:56:09 Wed, Apr 16, 2008: from Associated Press World beaches strewn with 6 million pounds of garbage "The world's beaches and shores are anything but pristine. Volunteers scoured 33,000 miles of shoreline worldwide and found 6 million pounds of debris from cigarette butts and food wrappers to abandoned fishing lines and plastic bags that threaten seabirds and marine mammals.
A report by the Ocean Conservancy, to be released today, catalogues nearly 7.2 million items that were collected by volunteers on a single day last September as they combed beaches and rocky shorelines in 76 countries from Bahrain to Bangladesh and in 45 states from Southern California to the rocky coast of Maine."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-16 15:56:15 Wed, Apr 16, 2008: from Bloomberg Biofuel Rule Will Do More Harm Than Good, Oxfam Says "U.K. fuels for cars and trucks must contain biofuels starting today, a move that may do more harm than good to the environment and drive food prices higher, charities including Oxfam and Greenpeace said....Scientists in the U.K. and U.S. have found that the cultivation of biofuels can increase the output of CO2 and other gases blamed for global warming because of changes in land use."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:33:16 Wed, Apr 16, 2008: from The Guardian Tesco labels will show products "...The UK's biggest supermarket ... Tesco is to test putting "carbon labels" on its own-brand products next month in a move to enable consumers to choose products which are less damaging to the environment. The retailer will put carbon-count labels on varieties of orange juice, potatoes, energy-efficient light bulbs and washing detergent, stating the quantity in grammes of CO2 equivalent put into the atmosphere by their manufacture and distribution.
Chief executive Sir Terry Leahy said: "We will give the carbon content of the product and the category average." The labels should eventually allow shoppers to compare carbon costs in the same way they can now compare salt and calorie content."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:22:42 Wed, Apr 16, 2008: from Reuters Africa World sea levels seen rising 1.5m by 2100 "Melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warming water could lift sea levels by as much as 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) by the end of this century, displacing tens of millions of people, new research showed on Tuesday. Presented at a European Geosciences Union conference, the research forecasts a rise in sea levels three times higher than that predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last year. The U.N. climate panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:42:05 Tue, Apr 15, 2008: from American Chemical Society Ancient Method, Black Gold "Fifteen hundred years ago, tribes people from the central Amazon basin mixed their soil with charcoal derived from animal bone and tree bark. Today, at the site of this charcoal deposit, scientists have found some of the richest, most fertile soil in the world. Now this ancient, remarkably simple farming technique seems far ahead of the curve, holding promise as a carbon-negative strategy to rein in world hunger as well as greenhouse gases."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:09:02 Tue, Apr 15, 2008: from Reuters Africa Melting mountains a 'time bomb' for water shortages "VIENNA - Glaciers and mountain snow are melting earlier in the year than usual, meaning the water has already gone when millions of people need it during the summer when rainfall is lower, scientists warned on Monday.
"This is just a time bomb," said hydrologist Carmen de Jong at a meeting of geoscientists in Vienna.
Those areas most at risk from a lack of water for drinking and agriculture include parts of the Middle East, southern Africa, the United States, South America and the Mediterranean.
Rising global temperatures mean the melt water is occurring earlier and faster in the year...."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:34:57 Tue, Apr 15, 2008: from BBC China now 'top carbon polluter' "China has already overtaken the US as the world's "biggest polluter", a report to be published next month says. The research suggests the country's greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the US in 2006-2007."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 22:00:40 Mon, Apr 14, 2008: from University of New South Wales Shorebird Numbers Crash In Australia "One of the world's great wildlife spectacles is under way across Australia: as many as two million migratory shorebirds of 36 species are gathering around Broome before an amazing 10,000-kilometre annual flight to their northern hemisphere breeding grounds. But an alarming new study has revealed that both these migrants and Australia's one million resident shorebirds have suffered a massive collapse in numbers over the past 25 years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:01:36 Mon, Apr 14, 2008: from Reuters Bangladesh faces climate change refugee nightmare "DHAKA - Abdul Majid has been forced to move 22 times in as many years, a victim of the annual floods that ravage Bangladesh.
There are millions like Majid, 65, in Bangladesh and in the future there could be many millions more if scientists' predictions of rising seas and more intense droughts and storms come true...Experts say a third of Bangladesh's coastline could be flooded if the sea rises one metre in the next 50 years, creating an additional 20 million Bangladeshis displaced from their homes and farms."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:00:56 Mon, Apr 14, 2008: from Associated Press Sludge Fertilizer Program Spurs Concerns "BALTIMORE - Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients.
Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:25:03 Sun, Apr 13, 2008: from Contra Costa Times Bill to keep mussels out of lakes "California, where water and recreation often mix, is struggling to devise a plan to defend its lakes and rivers from invasions by tiny quagga and zebra mussels, which threaten to wreak havoc on the environment and water delivery systems.
An East Bay lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require lake and reservoir operators to develop plans to prevent boaters from inadvertently infecting new water bodies in California with nonnative mussels. The invasive mollusks can stow away in boats hauled from one reservoir to another. In a little more than a year, the mussels have infested the Colorado River and 17 reservoirs and aqueducts, mostly in Southern California but one in San Benito County."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-13 11:22:47 Sun, Apr 13, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Winds of change are blowing in the suburbs "Joel Lee doesn't consider himself an environmental maverick. He doesn't collect rainwater for bathing or drive a car powered by cooking grease. He's just an ordinary guy who has grown tired of the amount of money he forks over to heat his showers, light his bedroom and cool his home. So for the last year, Lee has been pressing officials in Will County to let him erect a 70-foot-tall wind turbine on the 10 acres that surround his ranch home near Peotone."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-20 11:17:56 Sun, Apr 13, 2008: from London Independent Russian town is so toxic even the mayor wants it closed down "Harsh winters, polluted air, crumbling apartment blocks..." the residents of many Russian towns might feel that they have cause for complaint. But in Chapayevsk, a town of about 70,000 inhabitants in European Russia, the mayor himself has suggested a novel way of solving the town's problems ... abandon it. You can hardly blame him ... 96 per cent of all children there are deemed unhealthy."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:03:04 Sat, Apr 12, 2008: from London Daily Telegraph Pollution is making flowers smell less "Air pollution from power plants and cars is destroying the fragrance and thereby inhibiting the ability of pollinating insects to follow scent trails to their source, a new University of Virginia study indicates. This could partially explain why wild populations of some pollinators, particularly bees - which need nectar for food - are declining in areas around the world, from California to the Netherlands.... The result, potentially, is a vicious cycle where pollinators struggle to find enough food to sustain their populations, and populations of flowering plants, in turn, do not get pollinated sufficiently to proliferate and diversify."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-12 18:55:50 Sat, Apr 12, 2008: from The Canadian Press New cracks suggest largest remaining Arctic ice shelf destined to disappear "WARD HUNT ISLAND, Nunavut -- New cracks in the largest remaining Arctic ice shelf suggest another polar landmark seems destined to break up and disappear. Scientists discovered the extensive new cracks in the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf earlier this year and a patrol of Canadian Rangers got an up-close look at them last week."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:37:59 Sat, Apr 12, 2008: from Toronto Star The coming hunger "...This week, food riots paralyzed Haiti, with angry marchers outside the president's palace shouting "We are hungry!" Five people were killed in the chaos...Rice is the staple food of 4 billion people. But the prices for it, along with corn, wheat and other basics, has surged by 40 per cent to 80 per cent in the last three years and caused panicked uprisings in some of the poorest countries on Earth, from Cameroon to Bolivia. The situation has deteriorated so swiftly that some experts predict the effects of a global food crisis are going to bite more quickly than climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-12 14:19:02 Sat, Apr 12, 2008: from Associated Press EPA advisors slam new smog rule "An advisory panel of scientists told the Environmental Protection Agency that its new air quality standard for smog fails to protect public health as required by law and should be strengthened. In a stern letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, the advisors expressed frustration that their unanimous recommendation for a more stringent standard was ignored when Johnson set the new smog requirements last month."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-19 09:49:38 Sat, Apr 12, 2008: from Science, via Science Daily (US) Massive Study Of Madagascar Wildlife Leads To New Conservation Roadmap An international team of researchers has developed a remarkable new roadmap for finding and protecting the best remaining holdouts for thousands of rare species that live only in Madagascar, considered one of the most significant biodiversity hot spots in the world. Altogether, more than 2,300 species found only in the vast area of Madagascar - a 226,642-square-mile (587,000-square-kilometer) island nation in the Indian Ocean - were included in the analysis.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:55:27 Sat, Apr 12, 2008: from Jamai Cascio (Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies) The Big Picture: Resource Collapse We (the human we) have pushed the limits of many of the resources our civilization has come to depend upon. Oil is the most talked-about example, but from topsoil to fisheries, water to wheat, many of the resources underpinning life and society as we know it face significant threat. In many cases, this threat comes from simple over-consumption; in others, it comes from ecosystem damage (often, but not always, made worse by over-consumption).
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:54:32 Thu, Apr 10, 2008: from News-Enterprise (KY) Report: A dozen Hardin County water sources polluted A dozen Hardin County streams and the headwaters of one popular lake are considered unhealthy for aquatic life, fish consumption or both, according to a draft report released this week by Kentucky’s Division of Water.... Thirty-four streams in surrounding counties also are considered too polluted to fully sustain aquatic life or fully provide healthy recreational opportunities, according to the draft report.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-10 11:51:44 Thu, Apr 10, 2008: from Newsline365 (India) Bird Flu virus entrenched in India: United Nations In a grave and serious warning to India since the first outbreak of birdflu in Maharashtra in 2006, the United Nations today said that the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus might have got entrenched in the Indo-Gangetic plains of India and Bangladesh. This is almost confirmed by the massive spread of the disease across the states in India. After West Bengal, now it is the turn of Tripura. Bird flu has attacked this northeastern state, the fifth state of India that has become the prey of H5N1 avian influenza virus within a short span of three years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:54:06 Thu, Apr 10, 2008: from Telluride DailyPlanet Fish kill possible on Fall Creek Pink-bellied and dappled with black-pepper speckles, the Colorado River cutthroat trout once swam through 21,000 miles of rivers and streams across the West. But the fish are dwindling, threatened by invasive species, polluted streams and years of mining, and they now occupy only 3 to 15 percent of their old habitats.
Efforts to replenish cutthroat stocks to Colorado rivers have a spotty record. But now, the U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Department of Wildlife are proposing a fish-kill in Fall Creek and Woods Lake to wipe out non-native fish and bring back the endemic trout.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-20 11:12:50 Thu, Apr 10, 2008: from Greenpeace Logging in Canada's Boreal Forests it finds that logging is destabilizing the Boreal Forest in ways that may exacerbate both global warming and its impacts. The forest products industry and government regulators adamantly deny that logging in Canada's Boreal affects the climate. But research shows that when the forest is degraded through logging and industrial development, massive amounts of greenhouse gasses are released into the atmosphere, and the forest becomes more vulnerable to global warming impacts like fires and insect outbreaks. In many cases, these impacts cause even more greenhouse gasses to be released, driving a vicious circle in which global warming degrades the Boreal Forest, and Boreal Forest degradation advances global warming. If left unchecked, this could culminate in a catastrophic release of greenhouse gasses known as "the carbon bomb".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:15:46 Wed, Apr 9, 2008: from Reuters Warming trends rise in large ocean areas: study "Warming trends in a third of the world's large ocean regions are two to four times greater than previously reported averages, increasing the risk to marine life and fisheries, a U.N.-backed environmental study said.
Overfishing, coastal pollution and degradation of water quality were common in all 64 large marine ecosystems studied by scientists who contributed to the U.N. Environmental Program report presented at an international conference on oceans, coasts and islands in Vietnam this week."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:24:28 Wed, Apr 9, 2008: from Purdue University Interactive Map of Greenhouse Gases and Emissions "A new, high-resolution, interactive map of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels has found that the emissions aren't all where we thought. "For example, we've been attributing too many emissions to the northeastern United States, and it's looking like the southeastern U.S. is a much larger source than we had estimated previously," says Kevin Gurney, an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric science at Purdue University and leader of the project...."Ten years ago there might have been resistance to the notion of examining who is responsible for the CO2 emissions in such a visually detailed way," Gurney says. "However, what Vulcan makes utterly clear is that CO2 emissions cannot be exclusively affixed to SUV drivers, manufacturers or large power producers; everybody is responsible...."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-09 18:53:21 Wed, Apr 9, 2008: from National Science Foundation Breakthrough In Biofuel Production Process "Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of "green gasoline," a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees...While it may be five to 10 years before green gasoline arrives at the pump or finds its way into a fighter jet, these breakthroughs have bypassed significant hurdles to bringing green gasoline biofuels to market."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:01:06 Tue, Apr 8, 2008: from London Times Food prices rise beyond means of poorest in Africa "It has been called a "perfect storm" -- a combination of apparently unrelated events that have come together to trigger soaring food prices. Millions of people, particularly in developing countries, are affected by rises that have caused riots and many deaths.
Increased energy prices, competition between biofuels and food, rising demand from economic growth in emerging countries and the effects of sudden climatic shocks, such as drought and floods, have combined to cause skyrocketing prices in some of the world's poorest countries, such as Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.
Peter Smerdon, Africa spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), told The Times: "The people hit hardest by this combination of factors are those living on the razor's edge of poverty. There is not one single country in Africa not negatively affected. Indeed, most countries in the world are affected."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:18:14 Tue, Apr 8, 2008: from Time Magazine Can Climate Change Make Us Sicker? "What do we talk about when we talk about global warming? It'll get hotter, that's a safe bet; polar ice caps will be melting, and wildlife that can't adapt to warmer temperatures could be on the way out. But what does it really mean for the health of us, the human race? It's a question that remains surprisingly difficult to answer — research into climate change's impacts on human health have lagged behind other areas of climate science. But what we do know has scientists and doctors increasingly worried — a rising risk of death from heat waves, the spread of tropical diseases like malaria into previously untouched areas, worsened water-borne diseases."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:38:53 Tue, Apr 8, 2008: from New York Times Hermaphrodite Frogs Found in Suburban Ponds "Just as frogs' mating season arrives, a study by a Yale professor raises a troubling issue. How many frogs will be clear on their role in the annual springtime ritual? Common frogs that make their homes in suburban areas are more likely than their rural counterparts to develop the reproductive abnormalities previously found in fish in the Potomac and Mississippi Rivers, according to the study by David Skelly, a professor of ecology at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Dr. Skelly's research found that 21 percent of male green frogs, Rana clamitans, taken from suburban Connecticut ponds are hermaphrodites, with immature eggs growing in their testes.
The study is the latest in a decade's worth of research that has found intersex characteristics in water-dwelling species like sharp-tooth catfish in South Africa, small-mouth bass on the Potomac and shovelnose sturgeon in the Mississippi.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-12 19:05:01 Mon, Apr 7, 2008: from Reuters Hard Times on the Way for Koalas "Australia's unique tree-dwelling koalas may become a victim of climate change, new research reported on Saturday shows. Australian scientists say that eucalyptus leaves, the staple diet of koalas and other animals, could become inedible because of climate change."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:22:07 Mon, Apr 7, 2008: from Vancouver Tyee Big Worries About Micro Particles "The next "it" product is here. Some of you sleep on it. Some of you slap it on cuts. Some of you clean with it. Some babies suck on it. A few people study it, wondering if "it" will be an environmental and health disaster. Silver nanoparticles lace the insides of mattresses, bandages, washing machines, baby soothers, teddy bears and socks. Long known for its antimicrobial properties, silver is more effective at the nano-scale, particles a billionth of a metre in diameter. It's effective enough that the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States will consider it a pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. Over 500 consumer products in North America hype their nano-sized composition, with silver the nano-star of the moment....The question of toxicity and human-engineered nanomaterials is one scientists and regulators struggle to understand. And one that consumers barely know about."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-19 12:56:46 Mon, Apr 7, 2008: from New York Times Duck and Cover: It's the New Survivalism "...Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore. Faced with a confluence of diverse threats — a tanking economy, a housing crisis, looming environmental disasters, and a sharp spike in oil prices — people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes.
They stockpile or grow food in case of a supply breakdown, or buy precious metals in case of economic collapse. Some try to take their houses off the electricity grid, or plan safe houses far away. The point is not to drop out of society, but to be prepared in case the future turns out like something out of “An Inconvenient Truth,” if not “Mad Max.”
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:20:55 Mon, Apr 7, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Health problems reported after aerial spraying "On a clear night in September, the Wilcox family got ready for the airplane that would soon fly overhead and spray a pesticide to fight an invasive moth discovered on the Monterey Peninsula. They shut the windows and stayed indoors. "I didn't think much of it. We thought it wouldn't be harmful," said Air Force Maj. Timothy Wilcox, who's enrolled in the U.S. Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey. The very next day, the Wilcoxes' 11-month-old son, Jack, started wheezing. It got so bad, his eyes rolled back in his head, the boy's father said. The baby spent his first birthday in the hospital on oxygen and medication."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:53:40 Sun, Apr 6, 2008: from Defenders of Wildlife Record number of bison slaughtered around Yellowstone National Park A record number of bison – over 1,100 – have been slaughtered this winter around Yellowstone National Park. The [killing] of nearly one-quarter of the park’s bison population dramatically demonstrates the need to reform the rules governing the last stronghold for America’s wild bison. "Yellowstone’s bison are America's bison, the last pure descendants of the tens of millions of bison that once thundered through the American landscape," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife and former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Clinton administration. "Yet as soon as they set foot outside of Yellowstone Park, even onto publicly owned national forests, they are harassed and killed. This is truly one of the worst examples of wildlife management in the country."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 11:00:36 Sun, Apr 6, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Drought ignites Spain's 'water war' "There is a common saying in Spain that during a drought, the trees chase after the dogs. Now it is ringing true as the country struggles to deal with the worst drought since the Forties: reservoirs stand at 46 per cent of capacity and rainfall over the past 18 months has been 40 per cent below average. But months before the scorching summer sun threatens to reduce supplies to a trickle, a bitter political battle is raging over how to manage Spain's scarcest resource -- water. Catalonia, in the parched north east, has been worst affected, with reservoirs standing at just a fifth of capacity.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-06 12:48:12 Sun, Apr 6, 2008: from Indianapolis Star 'Toxic trailers' raise fears about RVs "When Shelly Higdon went camping in her new 27-foot travel trailer, she didn't expect to get a headache and sore throat or lose her voice, or her 8-year-old son to get a nosebleed. After she got home, she and her family had the trailer tested. They were shocked: Airborne formaldehyde in the travel trailer was seven times the amount considered acceptable by scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency....At issue is the urea formaldehyde put in glue used to make plywood and particle board that is fashioned into furniture, cupboards and floors. As an RV or camper cabin warms up, formaldehyde slowly seeps from the glue as a colorless gas."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:50:17 Sun, Apr 6, 2008: from International Public Forum on Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples Indigenous peoples hardest hit by climate change describe impacts Indigenous people point to an increase in human rights violations, displacements and conflicts due to expropriation of ancestral lands and forests for biofuel plantations (soya, sugar-cane, jatropha, oil-palm, corn, etc.), as well as for carbon sink and renewable energy projects (hydropower dams, geothermal plants), without the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous people.... [such as] a Dutch company whose operations include planting trees and selling sequestered carbon credit to people wanting to offset their emissions caused by air travel.... Forced evictions continued to 2002, leading indigenous people to move to neighboring villages, caves and mosques. Over 50 people were killed in 2004.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:07:14 Sun, Apr 6, 2008: from Yale University Study shows why synthetic estrogens wreak havoc on reproductive system Researchers at Yale School of Medicine now have a clearer understanding of why synthetic estrogens such as those found in many widely-used plastics have a detrimental effect on a developing fetus, cause fertility problems, as well as vaginal and breast cancers.... exposure to DES and similar substances results in lasting genetic memory, known as "imprinting."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:41:07 Sun, Apr 6, 2008: from Nature, via NSF Emission Reduction Assumptions for Carbon Dioxide Overly Optimistic, Study Says Reducing global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) over the coming century will be more challenging than society has been led to believe, according to a research commentary appearing this week in the journal Nature.... Recent changes in "carbon intensity"--CO2 emissions per unit of energy consumed--already are higher than those predicted by the IPCC because of rapid economic development, says lead author Pielke. In Asia, for instance, the demands of more energy-intensive economies are being met with conventional fossil-fuel technologies, a process expected to continue there for decades and eventually move into Africa.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-12 18:55:30 Sat, Apr 5, 2008: from Cosmetics Design-Europe Botox rat study shows toxins migrate to the brain A new scientific study on rats suggests that the anti-wrinkle treatment Botox may be able to move from the skin into the brain, degrading proteins and acting on nerves.... Although the study findings might have some positive applications for research into the treatment of overactive brain neurons, the findings may turn out to have less positive repercussions for individuals seeking the treatment for cosmetic reasons.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:53:16 Sat, Apr 5, 2008: from Corvallis Gazette Times Salmon decline impacts research A projected shortage of fish is putting salmon research by Oregon State University in jeopardy. Ironically, the study, which enlists commercial fishermen as collaborators, is designed to help protect weak salmon stocks.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:25:15 Sat, Apr 5, 2008: from The Free Lance-Star Tons of toxic substances released by area industry, military bases Across the state, more than 400 entities filed reports based on their size and amounts of toxic materials released. The 2006 figures are the latest information available.... The toxic materials are among 650 on a federal list [of persistent bioaccumulative toxics, such as lead, mercury and dioxin-like compounds,] that can cause cancer or other adverse health effects at significant concentration levels beyond the facility boundaries, cause cancer in humans or harm the environment if found in large quantities.... There are no imminent health threats present in the report, which DEQ officials say is useful to communities, industry and regulators.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:32:06 Fri, Apr 4, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Habitat Destruction May Wipe Out Monarch Butterfly Migration Intense deforestation in Mexico could ruin one of North America’s most celebrated natural wonders — the mysterious 3,000-mile migration of the monarch butterfly. According to a University of Kansas researcher, the astonishing migration may collapse rapidly without urgent action to end devastation of the butterfly’s vital sources of food and shelter.... In spite of its protected status, the isolated reserve is suffering from illegal logging driven by soaring prices for lumber in Mexico. This logging, once sporadic, has increased in recent years and now is threatening the very survival of the butterflies.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-04 17:21:03 Fri, Apr 4, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Climate Change Is Not Caused By Cosmic Rays, According To New Research New research has dealt a blow to the skeptics who argue that climate change is all due to cosmic rays rather than to man-made greenhouse gases. The new evidence shows no reliable connection between the cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover.... The new research shows that change in cloud cover over the Earth does not correlate to changes in cosmic ray intensity. Neither does it show increases and decreases during the sporadic bursts and decreases in the cosmic ray intensity which occur regularly.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-04 16:36:33 Fri, Apr 4, 2008: from The Canadian Press Mutation of the common cold linked to four deaths Four seniors died at a Nanaimo, B.C. care home earlier this year and 57 others developed serious respiratory infections as a mutation of the common cold swept through the facility.
The Vancouver Island Health Authority confirms an outbreak of human metapneumo virus, a recently discovered viral mutation, began Jan. 3 at Dufferin Place long-term care home.
It affected 61 of the 150 residents at the home over a six week period.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:39:27 Fri, Apr 4, 2008: from Kenniwick Tri-City Herald Hanford workers position 'umbrella' over contamination "Hanford workers have finished installing a 70,000-square-foot "umbrella" over soil contaminated by what may have been the largest leak of radioactive waste from Hanford's underground tanks. The cap is a temporary measure to keep rain and snow melt from driving contamination deeper into the ground. But eventually, as leak-prone tanks are emptied of radioactive waste, the Department of Energy is expected to identify a way to clean up or otherwise permanently protect the public and environment from the remains of the spill.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:35:10 Fri, Apr 4, 2008: from The Independent American songbirds are being wiped out by banned pesticides "The number of migratory songbirds returning to North America has gone into sharp decline due to the unregulated use of highly toxic pesticides and other chemicals across Latin America.
Ornithologists blame the demand for out-of-season fruit and vegetables and other crops in North America and Europe for the destruction of tens of millions of passerine birds. By some counts, half of the songbirds that warbled across America's skies only 40 years ago have gone, wiped out by pesticides or loss of habitat."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-04 14:06:54 Fri, Apr 4, 2008: from Associated Press US: Fighting global warming costly "BANGKOK, Thailand - With global markets in turmoil and the U.S. threatened by recession, negotiators at a climate change conference are asking: can nations afford to make rapid cuts in emissions to fight global warming without going into an economic tailspin? ... U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson said such costs need to be factored in when deciding how deep the world ought to require industrialized nations to reduce emissions.
"If you push the globe into recession, it certainly isn't going to help the developing world either," he said. "Exports go down, and many of the developing countries of course are heavily dependent on exports. So there's a lot of issues which need to be fleshed out ... so people understand the real world."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-03 19:44:37 Thu, Apr 3, 2008: from Houston Chronicle (US) Shell CEO: Easy-To-Produce Oil to Peak Van der Veer said while depletion of maturing conventional resources would certainly play a key role in peak production, lack of access to remaining large reserves, such as in Saudi Arabia, was also a central component in his forecast.
Remaining resources, such as gas trapped in difficult-to-tap reservoirs or oil sands and shales, will require increasingly costly investments per barrel to produce.
"It's becoming technologically expensive, capital intensive and lead times are growing longer," van der Veer said at an energy supply scenario seminar at the Center for Strategic International Studies.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:33:24 Thu, Apr 3, 2008: from Nature EPA feels heat over flame retardant "A much-anticipated report on the health hazards of a ubiquitous flame retardant has been delayed amid controversy over the removal of a respected toxicologist from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advisory panel reviewing the report.
The report, which was due last week, is expected to mount pressure on the chemical industry to ban decabrominated diphenyl ether (deca-BDE), which is used as a flame retardant in furniture, carpets, and televisions and other electronic goods. The EPA has delayed its release by a month and experts tracking the issue expect further delays."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-04-03 17:48:44 Thu, Apr 3, 2008: from Anchorage Daily News Interior secretary dodges hearing on polar bear status "Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was a no-show Wednesday in front of a Senate committee seeking an explanation for why his agency has been slow to decide whether to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Kempthorne, summoned in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, refused to testify. Instead, he sent a letter and spoke personally to several of the committee members. He also pledged to testify once he had issued a decision, now three months late."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 19:07:25 Thu, Apr 3, 2008: from US News and World Report Land Once Preserved Now Being Farmed "Since the mid-1980s, the U.S. government, in an attempt to reduce the environmental fallout from large-scale farming, has been paying farmers to set aside less-than-ideal land for conservation. The results have been overwhelmingly positive: Soil erosion has been reduced; chemical and fertilizer runoff has eased; habitats for game birds and endangered species have been created and enlarged. The pushback to climate change has been equally noteworthy: In 2007, the lands trapped 50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, making the Conservation Reserve Program the most effective government-funded defense against greenhouse gases on private lands....But dark clouds are forming on the protected fields. Historically, farmers have been eager to participate in the program, and many still are. But as prices for crops have soared, a growing number of farmers have opted to put conservation land back into production. The trend is expected to accelerate -- to the grave concern of many observers who caution that years of steady environmental progress could be halted, or even reversed, as buffers and habitats are converted into farmland...to feed the global demand for biofuels.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:16:57 Thu, Apr 3, 2008: from Litchfield County Times (CT) Bat die-off now found in Connecticut Dr. Davis said that there is little data available on bats, which is making it difficult for scientists to determine cause and effect. "They don't normally do bat surveys every year in every cave," he said, "mainly because when you go in, you wake them up and they burn up fat with nothing to eat. This syndrome could have started earlier than two years ago -- we just don't know. The real problem is there are no in-depth studies of bat biology. There are several labs working as hard as they can and they find parasites, they find bacteria on the fur or skin -- but no one knows if this is normal because there is no data on a healthy population. We haven't found any toxins; we haven't found any smoking gun. Everything is so inter-connected. There are so many different elements that could be attributed to something else. No one knows for sure."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:15:38 Wed, Apr 2, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Elevated Concentrations Of Toxic Metals In China Ming H. Wong and colleagues collected dust samples from roads adjacent to e-waste processing workshops in Guiya, China, to find that lead levels were 330 and 371 times higher than non e-waste sites located 5 miles and 19 miles away. Copper levels were 106 and 155 times higher. "Currently, there are no guidelines or regulations for heavy metals in dust. It is hoped that the results can serve as a case study for similar e-waste activities in countries such as Africa, India and Vietnam where e-waste is becoming a growing problem, so that the same mistakes could be prevented."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:41:02 Wed, Apr 2, 2008: from New Zealand Herald Gwynne Dyer: World countdown to crop catastrophe In Thailand, farmers are sleeping in their fields after reports that thieves are stealing their rice, now worth $600 a tonne. Four people have died in Egypt in clashes over subsidised flour that was being sold for profit on the black market. There have been food riots in Morocco, Senegal and Cameroon.... Last year it became clear that the era of cheap food was over. Food costs worldwide rose by 23 per cent between 2006 and 2007. This year, what is becoming clear is the impact of this change on ordinary people.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 21:00:03 Wed, Apr 2, 2008: from Bloomberg.com (US) Bird Flu Crosses Species Barrier to Spread Among Dogs A bird flu virus that killed dogs in South Korea can spread from one dog to another, showing that the disease is capable of crossing species and causing widespread sickness in mammals, a study found.... Transmission of avian influenza A virus to a new mammalian species is of great concern because it potentially allows the virus to adapt to a new mammalian host, cross new species barriers, and acquire pandemic potential,'' the Korean researchers said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:51:32 Wed, Apr 2, 2008: from Yahoo News (US) States suing EPA over global warming Officials of 18 states are taking the EPA back to court to try to force it to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that rebuked the Bush administration for inaction on global warming.... In a petition prepared for filing Wednesday, the plaintiffs said last April's 5-4 ruling required the Environmental Protection Agency to decide whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, from motor vehicles... The EPA has instead done nothing, they said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:38:03 Tue, Apr 1, 2008: from Associated Press Maryland crab season opens to anxiety "...The prognosis for the blue crab, the Chesapeake's hallmark seafood product, is bad. Last year's catch was Maryland's second-lowest since 1945, and winter population surveys indicate this year's harvest may not be much better. Fishery regulators in Maryland and Virginia say the crab population is nearing dangerous lows. Regulators are expected to reduce the harvest even further to save crabs...The worry extends to government scientists who manage the crab fisheries in the Chesapeake. Maryland and Virginia scientists say they've got one last shot to protect the crabs or they could face the collapse of one of the region's last viable fisheries."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:40:26 Mon, Mar 31, 2008: from The Guardian Tensions rise as world faces short rations "Food prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers can't keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it is already boiling over.
Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports -- a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century...Global food prices, based on United Nations records, rose 35 percent in the year to the end of January, markedly accelerating an upturn that began, gently at first, in 2002. Since then, prices have risen 65 percent."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:12:47 Mon, Mar 31, 2008: from The Toronto Globe and Mail The end of the road "To most Canadians, migration is a spectacle that marks the seasons. We know spring is here, despite the snowbanks in much of the country, because northbound geese have begun to appear from the south, just as we knew winter was coming when we saw them flying the other way. But many long-distance travellers -- from the whooping crane and the red knot to sea turtles and the rarest of the world's large whales, the North Atlantic right -- are in serious trouble. Over millions of years, they have been hardwired to undertake long journeys to survive. But these feats of strength and endurance are increasingly perilous in a world ever more congested and plagued by a changing climate."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-31 18:41:36 Mon, Mar 31, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Gore Launches Ambitious Advocacy Campaign on Climate "Former vice president Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history. The Alliance for Climate Protection's "we" campaign will employ online organizing and television advertisements on shows ranging from "American Idol" to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." It highlights the extent to which Americans' growing awareness of global warming has yet to translate into national policy changes, Gore said in an hour-long phone interview last week. He said the campaign, which Gore is helping to fund, was undertaken in large part because of his fear that U.S. lawmakers are unwilling to curb the human-generated emissions linked to climate change."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:02:51 Mon, Mar 31, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Migratory Wetland Habitat for Shorebirds Declining Fast "A decline by more than 70 percent of several North American shorebird species since the early 1970s has brought state, federal and international concern about conservation efforts for these birds and their wetland habitat.... Shorebirds stop over in Oklahoma to utilize wetlands and other waterways to rest and feed during both their spring and fall migrations. Davis said little is known about how landscape patterns and land use influence shorebirds migrating through the state.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-30 17:24:38 Sun, Mar 30, 2008: from Associated Press Cities switch off lights for Earth Hour "From the Sydney Opera House to Rome's Colosseum to the Sears Tower's famous antennas in Chicago, floodlit icons of civilization went dark Saturday for Earth Hour, a worldwide campaign to highlight the threat of climate change. The campaign began last year in Australia, and traveled this year from the South Pacific to Europe to North America in cadence with the setting of the sun."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:17:41 Sun, Mar 30, 2008: from University of Missouri-Columbia Despite Awareness Of Global Warming Americans Concerned More About Local Environment "...Results from a recent survey conducted by a University of Missouri professor reveal that the U.S. public, while aware of the deteriorating global environment, is concerned predominantly with local and national environmental issues. "The survey's core result is that people care about their communities and express the desire to see government action taken toward local and national issues," said David Konisky, a policy research scholar with the Institute of Public Policy. "People are hesitant to support efforts concerning global issues even though they believe that environmental quality is poorer at the global level than at the local and national level. This is surprising given the media attention that global warming has recently received and reflects the division of opinion about the severity of climate change."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:23:18 Sun, Mar 30, 2008: from Natural Resources Defense Council American West Heating Nearly Twice As Fast As Rest Of World "The American West is heating up more rapidly than the rest of the world, according to a new analysis of the most recent federal government temperature figures. The news is especially bad for some of the nation’s fastest growing cities, which receive water from the drought-stricken Colorado River. The average temperature rise in the Southwest’s largest river basin was more than double the average global increase, likely spelling even more parched conditions."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:08:30 Sun, Mar 30, 2008: from Fresno Bee Moving to cooler ground "The 2,000-year-old giant sequoias east of Fresno have survived warm spells lasting centuries, but in just 100 years, global warming could snuff them out -- along with many Sierra Nevada species. Why? The current episode of climate change is moving faster than any warm-up detected in the past 500,000 years, many scientists say. Many say car exhaust and other global-warming emissions from human activities may be the reason."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-30 16:47:07 Sun, Mar 30, 2008: from The London Independent Mobile phones "Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation. The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks. Earlier this year, the French government warned against the use of mobile phones, especially by children. Germany also advises its people to minimise handset use, and the European Environment Agency has called for exposures to be reduced."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-07 08:31:32 Fri, Mar 28, 2008: from Los Angeles Times EPA chief bides time on court's decision "EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson has shelved his agency's findings that greenhouse gases are a danger to the public, and on Thursday told Congress that he will initiate a lengthy public comment period about whether such emissions are a risk before responding to a U.S. Supreme Court order. The move means there is virtually no chance the Bush administration will act to regulate greenhouse gases in response to the high court's decision in the time left in office."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:36:35 Thu, Mar 27, 2008: from BBC (UK) Plastic and toxic magnetism Studies suggest billions of microscopic plastic fragments drifting underwater are concentrating pollutants like DDT.... "We know that plastics in the marine environment will accumulate and concentrate toxic chemicals from the surrounding seawater and you can get concentrations several thousand times greater than in the surrounding water on the surface of the plastic."... According to Dr Thompson, the plastic particles "act as magnets for poisons in the ocean".... In a typical sample of sand, one-quarter of the total weight may be composed of plastic particles.... "The thing that's most worrisome about the plastic is its tenaciousness, its durability. It's not going to go away in my lifetime or my children's lifetimes.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-27 18:33:45 Thu, Mar 27, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Suspended Animation Induced In Mice With Sewer Gas: Effects Are Reversible "Hydrogen sulfide is the stinky gas that can kill workers who encounter it in sewers; but when adminstered to mice in small, controlled doses, within minutes it produces what appears to be totally reversible metabolic suppression," says Warren Zapol, MD, chief of Anesthesia and Critical Care at MGH and senior author of the Anesthesiology study. "This is as close to instant suspended animation as you can get, and the preservation of cardiac contraction, blood pressure and organ perfusion is remarkable."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-27 17:02:31 Thu, Mar 27, 2008: from Newark Star-Ledger On Saturday, hit the lights for Earth Hour "Coca-Cola's iconic sign in Times Square will go dark this Saturday night. Lights will switch off along downtown San Francisco's skyline. McDonald's arches in Chicago will power down.
These are just some of the large-scale lights-out efforts planned for Earth Hour, an event the World Wildlife Fund started last year in Sydney. During Earth Hour, observed between 8 and 9 p.m. local time on Saturday, individuals and businesses around the world will turn off their lights in the name of energy conservation and global warming awareness. Dan Forman, a spokesman for Earth Hour, said millions are expected to participate."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-27 16:52:10 Thu, Mar 27, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Superbug MRSA spreading fast, report warns "A staggering 29,000 Canadian hospital patients acquired the superbug MRSA in a one-year period, including an estimated 2,300 whose deaths were partly attributed to the pernicious bacteria, federal figures released today show. The increase in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus translates into 12,000 new infections plus 17,000 patients who became colonized, said Andrew Simor, co-chairman of the Canadian Nosocomial Infection Surveillance Program. (Being colonized with MRSA means the patients are carriers who are not infected and show no symptoms.)"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:27:50 Thu, Mar 27, 2008: from Pittsfield Berkshire Eagle Plan would leave PCB risk "KENT, Conn. — General Electric's proposed cleanup of the Housatonic River would leave fish inedible in many stretches of the river, unsafe for human consumption because of high PCB levels.
GE presented its cleanup proposal at a public meeting in the Town Hall here last night. Its plan covers the river south of where the east and west branches meet, just below the Fred Garner River Park on Pomeroy Avenue in Pittsfield. The company will hold another public session at 5:30 p.m. today at the Lee Middle and High School.
Addressing an audience of about 40 people, GE representatives said its plan would strike a balance among removing PCBs from the ecosystem, protecting the environment from an invasive cleanup, and keeping costs low. But its predictions made clear that the enough PCBs would be left behind to present a health risk to some animals and to anyone who ate a steady diet of fish from some parts of the Housatonic.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:22:42 Wed, Mar 26, 2008: from The Vancouver Sun Pine beetle infestation impacting salmon runs "VANCOUVER - If the heat of climate change weren't enough of a danger to Pacific salmon, scientists are cataloging how the effects of the global-warming-aided mountain pine beetle infestation are adding to salmon's woes.
The grain-of-rice-sized beetles have chewed through interior pine forests covering an area four-times the size of Vancouver Island, a report released Tuesday by the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council notes.
Some 60 per cent of the Fraser River watershed is affected, with loss of forest cover over salmon streams that has led to numerous impacts that "significantly alter the watershed's ecology, threatening already stressed salmon runs."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-26 17:59:21 Wed, Mar 26, 2008: from Reuters Warming seen having immunological consequences "The first two bee sting-related deaths were reported in Fairbanks, Alaska in the summer of 2006, which researchers suspect was a consequence of global warming; and they predict that this is just the beginning. Honeybees and yellow jackets were rare in the area until the past few years...There has been a 50-percent increase in sting-related emergencies and, now, the first reports of anaphylactic reactions to bee stings."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:34:15 Wed, Mar 26, 2008: from BBC (UK) Plastic and the Midway albatross The Midway Islands are home to some of the world's most valuable and endangered species and they all are at risk from choking, starving or drowning in the plastic drifting in the ocean.
Nearly two million Laysan albatrosses live here and researchers have come to the staggering conclusion that every single one contains some quantity of plastic.
About one-third of all albatross chicks die on Midway, many as the result of being mistakenly fed plastic by their parents.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-26 10:01:35 Wed, Mar 26, 2008: from Daily Reckoning (UK) How Food Shortages Provoke Economic Nationalism "Half the world's population depends on rice, but stocks are at their lowest level since the 1970s. Securing adequate food supplies is policy priority number one for many developing countries. This political dimension means that there is plenty of mileage in the current food price boom.... The link between food shortages and civil unrest is well known. In the year 2000 around 15m tonnes of America's maize crop was turned into ethanol, in 2007 that quantity was almost 85m tonnes, output that would normally be earmarked for food consumption. The rise in global maize prices caused 'tortilla riots' in Mexico in January last year. There have also been food riots in Morocco, Uzbekistan, Yemen and West Africa."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-25 15:24:10 Tue, Mar 25, 2008: from LiveScience.com Vast Antarctic Ice Shelf on Verge of Collapse A vast ice shelf hanging on by a thin strip looks to be the next chunk to break off from the Antarctic Peninsula, the latest sign of global warming’s impact on Earth's southernmost continent.
Scientists are shocked by the rapid change of events.
Scambos alerted colleagues at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) that it looked like the entire ice shelf — about 6,180 square miles (16,000 square kilometers — about the size of Northern Ireland)— was at risk of collapsing.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-25 15:06:50 Tue, Mar 25, 2008: from The Sault Star Arctic ice refreezes 4 percent, not enough, scientists say "U.S. scientists say critical Arctic sea ice has made a tenuous partial recovery this winter, following last summer's record melt. But that is an illusion - like a Hollywood movie set - says scientist Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Washington. The ice is very thin and vulnerable to heavy melting again this summer. Overall, Arctic sea ice has shrunk precipitously in the past decade and scientists blame global warming caused by humans. Last summer, Arctic ice shrank to an area that was 27 per cent smaller than the previous record. This winter, it recovered to a maximum of 15 million square kilometres. That's up four per cent and the most since 2003, NASA ice scientist Josefino Comiso said. It is still a bit below the long-term average level for this time of year."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-25 14:24:06 Tue, Mar 25, 2008: from Moscow Times Carbon Credits Get Cool Reception "Despite evidence that the country's northernmost reaches are melting, threatening people and animals as well as its unique landscape, concern over global warming has yet to hit home for many Russians. Indeed, environmental experts say melting icecaps have prompted Russia's push to reclaim part of the Arctic with showy submarine missions that would have been all but impossible just a few years ago. And environmental issues make the front pages mainly when huge foreign-led oil and gas projects fall afoul of the Kremlin."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:40:07 Tue, Mar 25, 2008: from Palm Beach Post Suit over limbless boy, 3, settled "MIAMI — The Florida produce company Ag-Mart has settled a civil suit with two former tomato pickers who claimed their son was born without arms and legs because of the misuse of dangerous pesticides in farm fields by the agricultural firm. The child, Carlos Candelario Herrera, known as "Carlitos," was born Dec. 17, 2004. His mother, Francisca Herrera, then 19, originally from Mexico, had worked in Ag-Mart fields in both South Florida and North Carolina during her pregnancy. She said in a deposition that on repeated occasions pesticides sprayed in adjacent Ag-Mart fields had drifted and reached her. She also said she was forced to work in freshly sprayed fields, that her hands absorbed the wet chemicals and that she had suffered sore throat, burning eyes and headaches. Other former employees backed her claims.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-24 18:50:16 Mon, Mar 24, 2008: from Fox News (US) Viruses Found Transmitting Genes Among Bacteria "We've found previously that the viruses can move between biomes [ecological communities] pretty easily," Rohwer told LiveScience. "So in theory they should be able to move things from one part of the world to another."... That means genes that would confer environmental protection or some other adaptive tool could trek long distances via viruses from bacteria in one part of the world to another region.... "We're finding those genes in the viruses, which suggests that the viruses, when they're doing infection, they're actually manipulating the behavior of the bacteria when they're in them," Rohwer said.... In fish farms, the researchers found the viruses delivered "eating" genes to bacteria.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:57:23 Mon, Mar 24, 2008: from Guardian (UK) US authority failing to list endangered species Conservation groups claim that Bush appointees have been deliberately making it harder to designate animals and plants as endangered, and have launched a series of lawsuits. Administration officials admit that there are about 280 species waiting to be added to the list.... The Washington Post yesterday published internal documents from the interior department showing that officials have frequently overruled recommendations from scientists. The lack of recent designations could be motivated by various interests such as a desire not to see oil exploration or housing development shackled by a need to protect habitats that are home to threatened species.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-24 17:57:31 Mon, Mar 24, 2008: from Jeff Vail, via The Oil Drum The Problem of Growth "This has been a whirlwind tour of the structural bias in hierarchy toward growth, but it has also, by necessity, been a superficial analysis. Books, entire libraries, could be filled with the analysis of this topic. But despite the scope of this topic, it is remarkable that such a simple concept underlies the necessity of growth: within hierarchy, surplus production equates to power, requiring competing entities across all scales to produce ever more surplus—to grow—in order to compete, survive, and prosper. This has, quite literally, Earth shaking ramifications.
We live on a finite planet, and it seems likely that we are nearing the limits of the Earth’s ability to support ongoing growth...."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:37:50 Mon, Mar 24, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Krill fishing threatens Antarctic species The Antarctic, one of the planet's last unspoilt ecosystems, is under threat from mankind's insatiable appetite for harvesting the seas.
The population of krill, a tiny crustacean, is in danger from the growing demand for health supplements and food for fish farms. Global warming has already been blamed for a dramatic fall in numbers because the ice that is home to the algae and plankton they feed on is melting. Now 'suction' harvesting which gathers up vast quantities has been introduced to meet the increased demand. It threatens not just krill, but the entire ecosystem that depends on them, say environmental campaigners. Krill are also believed to be important in removing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by eating carbon-rich food near the surface and excreting it when they sink to lower, colder water to escape predators.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-24 17:06:20 Mon, Mar 24, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Climate change is accelerating The growth of developing economies in Africa, Asia and South America has accelerated global warming far beyond official predictions and it is developed nations that must act to halt the potentially catastrophic consequences, according to a new study from the world's leading temporary power supplier, Aggreko.
The warning, which has shocked environment campaigners, comes from Aggreko's chief executive, Rupert Soames, who said: 'The threat of global warming is far greater than people have previously thought. The consensus figure on the world's power consumption going forward to 2015 is simply wrong.'
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-24 11:58:32 Mon, Mar 24, 2008: from WattzOn.org The Game Plan for changing energy use Remarkably thoughtful long powerpoint-like presentation by Saul Griffith, a MacArthur Grant recipient, with gorgeous graphics, detailed talking points, and a structured plan for remedying our path to overheating the world. Recommended.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:22:00 Sun, Mar 23, 2008: from Guardian (UK) The Big Picture of Biology Breach Rivers of dead fish, 100-acre rubbish dumps, smog-filled skies – are these the world's worst environmental black spots? Eight photos of how we're overwhelming the earth.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-22 20:49:25 Sun, Mar 23, 2008: from ZDNet The lightbulb of the future? Silicon Valley's Luxim has developed a lightbulb the size of a Tic Tac that gives off as much light as a streetlight. News.com's Michael Kanellos talks to the company about its technology and its plans to expand into various markets.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-22 19:10:54 Sat, Mar 22, 2008: from DailyKos Diary Early look at 2008 Arctic sea ice levels In December a scientist on an icebreaker there described it as "styrofoam in a bath tub."
The big unknown is whether atmospheric conditions (reduced cloudiness and increased air temps) will aid the melting as they did in 2007. If they do, expect a big melt beyond last year's. I hesitate to say that a complete loss is possible, but based on the present conditions we could well see the main pack split in two for the first time.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:52:24 Sat, Mar 22, 2008: from FishUpdate.com North Sea protected area network would devastate industry, claims trade body According to the WWF UK report, published today, a network of marine reserves, that cover at least 30 per cent of the North Sea, is needed to help rebuild populations of many fish species, and protect the habitats upon which these, and other species depend.
In the report, 'A Return to Abundance: A Case for Marine Reserves in the North Sea', WWF-UK suggests a network of five experimental marine reserves that it says will improve the sustainability of fisheries, protect biodiversity, and help establish a healthy ecosystem....
Describing the proposals as "flawed", Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation said "The sweeping assumption is made that very large fixed marine protected areas would prove beneficial in the North Sea based on evidence gained from elsewhere. Such an assumption cannot safely be made, given the unique nature of the mixed fisheries in the North Sea."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-22 18:28:35 Sat, Mar 22, 2008: from Mongabay.com Markets could save forests: An interview with Dr. Tom Lovejoy "Market mechanisms are increasingly seen as a way to address environmental problems, including tropical deforestation. In particular, compensation for ecosystem services like carbon sequestration — a concept known by the acronym REDD for "reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation" — may someday make conservation a profitable enterprise in which carbon traders are effectively saving rainforests simply by their pursuit of profit. Protecting rainforests and their resident biodiversity would be an unintentional, but happy byproduct of money-making endeavors."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:59:35 Sat, Mar 22, 2008: from London Independent Water will be source of war unless world acts now, warns minister "The world faces a future of "water wars", unless action is taken to prevent international water shortages and sanitation issues escalating into conflicts, according to Gareth Thomas, the International Development minister.
The minister's warning came as a coalition of 27 international charities marked World Water Day, by writing to Gordon Brown demanding action to give fresh water to 1.1 billion people with poor supplies. "If we do not act, the reality is that water supplies may become the subject of international conflict in the years ahead," said Mr Thomas. "We need to invest now to prevent us having to pay that price in the future."
His department warned that two-thirds of the world's population will live in water-stressed countries by 2025. The stark prediction comes after the Prime Minister said in his national security strategy that pressure on water was one of the factors that could help countries "tip into instability, state failure or conflict".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:53:54 Sat, Mar 22, 2008: from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel FDA relied on industry studies to judge safety "Ignoring hundreds of government and academic studies showing a chemical commonly found in plastic can be harmful to lab animals at low doses, the Food and Drug Administration determined the chemical was safe based on just two industry-funded studies that didn't find harm. In response to a congressional inquiry, Stephen Mason, the FDA's acting assistant commissioner for legislation, wrote in a letter that his agency's claim relied on two pivotal studies sponsored by the Society of the Plastics Industry, a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-22 14:54:52 Sat, Mar 22, 2008: from Toronto Globe and Mail Wal-Mart move 'tipping point' for non-hormone milk "Organic food proponents will remember Thursday as the day the ground shifted.
Giant food retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced that its store brand milk in the United States will now come exclusively from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones. The move sends a powerful signal to food manufacturers about the growing mainstream demand for health food products. With Wal-Mart already the largest retailer of organic milk in the U.S., it has been clear that consumers interested in greener food products are no longer the narrow group of back-to-the-earth types and wealthy urban yuppies. "It's reached the tipping point," said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association in the U.S., who has spent years campaigning against the use of hormones designed to boost milk production by up to 15 per cent in dairy cows.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:16:39 Sat, Mar 22, 2008: from US Fish and Wildlife Service White-Nose Syndrome in Bats (video)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species biologist Susi von Oettingen talks about white-nose syndrome in bats and investigates a hibernaculum in an abandoned mine and the area around it.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:31:12 Fri, Mar 21, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Glaciers melting at fastest rate in past 5,000 years Experts have been monitoring 30 glaciers around the world for nearly three decades and the most recent figures, for 2006, show the biggest ever 'net loss' of ice. Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told The Observer that melting glaciers were now the 'loudest and clearest' warning signal of global warming.
The problem could lead to failing infrastructure, mass migration and even conflict. 'We're talking about something that happens in your and my lifespan. We're not talking about something hypothetical, we're talking about something dramatic in its consequences,' he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-21 12:41:26 Fri, Mar 21, 2008: from Globe and Mail/AP (Canada) Dengue epidemic hits Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro: An outburst of dengue has killed at least 47 people -- and perhaps twice that -- in Rio de Janeiro state this year, officials said Thursday, announcing a hot spot in a hemispheric outbreak that sickened nearly 1 million people in 2007.
State officials said 51 cases are being reported every hour as the outbreak strains public hospitals' capacity... Brazil had more than half of the 900,782 cases of dengue in the Americas last year, according to the Pan American Health Organization. Of the hemisphere's 317 deaths, 158 came in Brazil, including 31 in Rio state.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-24 19:39:40 Fri, Mar 21, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Dissolved Organic Matter May Influence Coral Health The composition of dissolved organic matter surrounding Florida Keys coral reefs has likely changed in recent decades due to growing coastal populations.
Bacterial communities endemic to healthy corals could change depending on the amount and type of natural and man-made dissolved organic matter in seawater, report researchers... "When coastal ecosystems are physically altered, the natural flow of dissolved organic material to nearby coral ecosystems is disrupted with potentially harmful consequences for the corals," said Shank, assistant professor of marine science.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:51:10 Wed, Mar 19, 2008: from Montgomery Advertiser Climatologist says global warming not alarming, carbon fuels not to blame "The Earth is getting warmer, but Alabama's state climatologist says carbon fuels aren't to blame. John Christy, who heads the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama- Huntsville, told a group of civic and business leaders Tuesday that the Earth's warming is well within historical ranges. He spoke at the Energy and Environment Lecture sponsored by Auburn Montgomery and Alabama Power Co. Carbon dioxide levels have increased 38 percent in the last 100 years, Christy said, leading to an increase in the average surface temperature of about 1.26 degrees. Even if carbon dioxide doubled, temperatures would increase only about 3.6 degrees, according to Christy."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:16:29 Wed, Mar 19, 2008: from The Washington Post (US) Perennial Arctic Ice Cover Diminishing, Officials Say "The amount of long-lasting sea ice in the Arctic -- thick enough to survive for as much as a decade -- declined sharply in the past year, even though the region had a cold winter and the thinner one-year ice cover grew substantially, federal officials said yesterday.... The surprising drop in perennial ice makes the fast-changing region more unstable, because the thinner seasonal ice melts readily in summer."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-20 14:28:35 Wed, Mar 19, 2008: from Contra Costa Times UN: Indonesia failing in bird flu fight "JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Efforts to contain bird flu are failing in Indonesia, increasing the possibility that the virus may mutate into a deadlier form, the leading U.N. veterinary health body warned. The H5N1 bird flu virus is entrenched in 31 of the country's 33 provinces and will cause more human deaths, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement released late Tuesday. "I am deeply concerned that the high level of virus circulation in birds in the country could create conditions for the virus to mutate and to finally cause a human influenza pandemic," FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech said. "
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:10:21 Wed, Mar 19, 2008: from Reuters Investors warm to water as shortages mount " LONDON (Reuters) - As liquidity is drained from credit and money markets and pours into oil and gold, another asset class that could offer long-term returns to the discerning investor is water. Water shortages are on the rise -- stemming from soaring demand, growing populations, rising living standards and changing diets. A lack of supply is compounded by pollution and climate change. Investors are mobilizing funds to buy the assets that control water and improve supplies, especially in developing countries such as China where urban populations are booming, further tightening supply."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:32:52 Wed, Mar 19, 2008: from Associated Press Global warming rushes timing of spring "WASHINGTON - The capital's famous cherry trees are primed to burst out in a perfect pink peak about the end of this month. Thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom till around April 5. In central California, the first of the field skipper sachem, a drab little butterfly, was fluttering about on March 12. Just 25 years ago, that creature predictably emerged there anywhere from mid-April to mid-May....Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying. "The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. Blame global warming.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:16:21 Wed, Mar 19, 2008: from The Adirondack Daily Enterprise Bat die-off is serious Of the nearly 20 caves and mines that state Department of Environmental Conservation biologist Al Hicks is aware of the DEC surveying this winter, all but three had bats with white-nose syndrome in them, he said. That breaks down to about 400,000 bats affected.
"It's almost everything we have," Hicks said. "It's about as bad as we can get."
The mortality rate of bats with white-nose syndrome is 90 to 97 percent, Hicks said.... "a progression that is much faster than expected..." Darling estimated that, if half a million bats died, "that would add up to two billion insects per night that would not get eaten."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-18 16:11:20 Tue, Mar 18, 2008: from Agence France-Press Japanese baseball joins fight against global warming "TOKYO -- Japanese professional baseball players have vowed to shorten playing time per game as part of the national pastime's contribution to the fight against global warming. They will aim to cut playing time by six percent, or 12 minutes, from the average of three hours and 18 minutes per game, the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) commissioners' office said. "When a professional baseball game is staged, a huge amount of carbon dioxides, a cause of global warming, is discharged because it requires use of energy to move players and spectators, supply electricity for lighting and other purposes and dispose of food and drink waste," NPB said in a statement."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 10:58:37 Tue, Mar 18, 2008: from USA Today Drought eases, water wars persist "It's raining again in the Southeast. Much of the drought-parched region has been deluged recently by winter downpours, including weekend storms that battered the downtown business district and a swath of north Georgia. The drought has not ended, but it has eased across most of the region, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor and the National Weather Service.... Now comes a tougher challenge: resolving new and long-standing disputes over water that some experts say could hamper the region's emergence as an economic and population powerhouse. In a part of the nation where water shortages have not traditionally been an issue, it's difficult to tell whether even a historic drought has made a lasting difference, some scholars say. "The Southeast has not yet come to grips with the fact that it has a water problem, that it needs to plan for its water usage, that it can't take for granted that all the water it needs will always be there," says Robin Craig, a law professor and water expert at Florida State University's College of Law.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:50:04 Tue, Mar 18, 2008: from Hartford Courant Carbon Dioxide Up For Sale "For the first time in the U.S., carbon dioxide goes on sale in September — and the bidding will start at $1.86 a ton. A consortium of 10 states, including Connecticut, said Monday it will hold the first auction of carbon emissions "allowances" on Sept. 10, part of a plan to curb greenhouse gases from the region's power plants and slow global warming. Subsequent auctions will be held quarterly, and power plant operators — who until now have been able to emit without paying — will have until the end of 2011 to acquire enough credits to account for all of their CO{-2} emissions. "It's a new model not just for the region but for the nation," said state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy. "It's a way we can make greenhouse gas reductions achievable but do it in way that costs are contained, that protects the interests of the consumer."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:02:23 Tue, Mar 18, 2008: from Associated Press Dioxin cleanup near Dow Chemical plant remains on slow track "More than a century after Dow Chemical Co. began dumping dioxins into a river flowing past its mid-Michigan plant, the company and regulators are still debating how to cleanse a swath of waters and wetlands that now reaches 50 miles to Lake Huron. Dow acknowledges tainting the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers, their floodplains, portions of the city of Midland and Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay with dioxins -- chemical byproducts believed to cause cancer and damage reproductive and immune systems. But the company says it must finish measuring how much pollution exists -- and where -- before devising a cleanup plan. Government officials are pushing Dow to move faster, as some local residents forge ahead with a lawsuit against the chemical giant."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:51:07 Mon, Mar 17, 2008: from USA Today Belize coral reef: gorgeous but threatened A potent mix of coastal development, tourism, overfishing, pollution and climate change has damaged an estimated 40 percent of the Belize reef system, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that attracts more than a third of Belize's 850,000 annual visitors.
A recent string of "bleaching events" — where vibrantly hued coral turn a skeletal white — occurred when a spike in water temperatures that scientists associate with global warming expelled symbiotic algae living inside corals.
Worldwide, experts calculate that nearly 50 percent of coral reefs are under imminent or long-term threat of collapse through human pressures; 20 percent have been destroyed.... But the island's dense mangroves and coastal forests, onetime shelters for jaguars, crocodiles and juvenile fish bound for the coral reef a half-mile offshore, are giving way to condos and resorts that have drawn the likes of John Grisham and the stars of the 2001, Ambergris-based reality show Temptation Island.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-17 01:22:11 Mon, Mar 17, 2008: from NDTV State media reports outbreak of bird flu in China Bird flu has broken out in the south of China, killing more than 100 poultry, state media reported on Sunday, citing the agriculture ministry.
The outbreak occurred in a market in Guangzhou, in Guangdong province on Thursday, and was a "highly pathogenic" subtype of the H5N1 influenza virus, which can be deadly to humans, the report said.
A further 500 birds were culled and the disease was under control after emergency measures were taken.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-17 01:03:42 Mon, Mar 17, 2008: from The Fiji Times Online Near-empty dam causes supply disruptions The dam was yesterday alarmingly three-quarters empty, with the two streams running dry. Water from the Waimanu River was being pumped into the dam yesterday to make up for the shortfall.
Mr Yanuyanurua said as a result of the dry spell Fiji had been experiencing over the past few days, the water level had dropped dangerously.... Interim Local Government Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi said the water department should explain why this had happened.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-15 13:54:57 Sat, Mar 15, 2008: from The News "Islamabad Green City" charter to be signed today "Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro has approved the proposal to declare the Islamabad a Green City and has directed the Ministry of Environment to finalise the Islamabad Green City Action Plan in consultation with all stakeholders including ministries of industries, petroleum, interior, health, CDA and others. A charter to declare the Islamabad a green city will be signed today (Saturday) with the promise that from now and onward every government official, resident, industrial and business entrepreneur, administration, planner/developer and civil society will work together to make Islamabad a True Green City by improving its Environmental Conditions and promoting Sustainable Development...About 100 cities have so far been declared as green cities world over. In the green cities, urban planning is given due importance and programmes such as energy conservation, tree plantation are carried out in a more coherent manner.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:27:39 Sat, Mar 15, 2008: from Green Bay Press-Gazette Blocked study draws attention to PCBs "It has been almost 20 years since the National Wildlife Federation issued its first fish consumption warning, drawing the public's attention to the effects of PCBs and mercury on Great Lakes fish.
Back then, it was met with strong opposition from sport and commercial fishermen, among others. The debate continues to rage today. A 400-page study on health and environmental hazards in the Great Lakes was blocked from publication by the CDC last year. Part of the report draws attention to the health risks associated with eating fish from the Lower Fox River and Green Bay."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-15 13:38:12 Sat, Mar 15, 2008: from National Geographic News Melting Ice Sheets Can Cause Earthquakes, Study Finds "As ice sheets melt, they can release pent-up energy and trigger massive earthquakes, according to new study. Global warming may already be triggering such earthquakes and may cause more in the future as ice continues to melt worldwide, the researchers say....Now a new study, the first to use sophisticated computer models to simulate how ice sheets would affect the crust in the region, bolsters this scenario. The study showed that earthquakes are "suppressed in presence of the ice and promoted during melting of the ice," said study leader Andrea Hampel of the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:18:04 Sat, Mar 15, 2008: from Scientific American Fertilizer Runoff Overwhelms Streams and Rivers--Creating Vast "Dead Zones" "The water in brooks, streams and creeks from Michigan to Puerto Rico carries a heavy load of pollutants, particularly nitrates from fertilizers. These nitrogen and oxygen molecules that crops need to grow eventually make their way into rivers, lakes and oceans, fertilizing blooms of algae that deplete oxygen and leave vast "dead zones" in their wake. There, no fish or typical sea life can survive. And scientists warn that a federal mandate to produce more biofuel may make the situation even worse."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:06:01 Fri, Mar 14, 2008: from The Hindu Govt allows use of 66 pesticides banned outside in India "New Delhi (PTI): The government on Friday said that there are 66 pesticides such as DDT and Endosulfan, which are either banned or severely restricted in other countries, but are permitted for use in India as these have been found to be harmless. "... use has been permitted only after thorough reviews and satisfying that the particular pesticide does not pose harmful effect under the conditions of use in our country," Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers B K Handique told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:39:24 Fri, Mar 14, 2008: from Sacramento Bee Officials shut salmon fishing in seven coastal areas of California, Oregon "Wildlife officials moved Wednesday for early closure of seven coastal salmon fishing zones in California and Oregon, a sign of dire conditions facing the Central Valley chinook. The action came in a conference between fisheries managers gathered in Sacramento for a series of meetings by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council. Officials representing California, Oregon and the federal government opted to close the seven zones to protect salmon that remain alive in the ocean.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-14 14:55:03 Fri, Mar 14, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Popular 'green' products test positive for toxicant "New tests of 100 "natural" and "organic" soaps, shampoos and other consumer products show that nearly half of them contained a cancer-causing chemical that is a byproduct of petrochemicals used in manufacturing. Many items that tested positive for the carcinogen are well-known brands, including Kiss My Face, Alba, Seventh Generation and Nature's Gate products, sold in retail stores across the nation. The findings of the Organic Consumers Assn., a consumer advocacy group, are sending a jolt through the natural products industry. Gathering today in Anaheim for a national trade show, many leaders worry that the test results will taint the industry in the eyes of the public. Of the 100 products tested, 47 had detectable levels of 1,4-dioxane, which the Environmental Protection Agency has declared a probable human carcinogen because it causes cancer in lab animals."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:21:20 Fri, Mar 14, 2008: from Nature The energy-water nexus: deja-vu all over again? "With US policymakers struggling to contemplate a future where oil pipelines sputter and water wells come up empty, panellists at the recently concluded American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston urged a rethink of the connection between these two crucial resources....Energy and water are closely linked. We use a lot of water to produce energy, especially fossil fuel energy. And we use a lot of energy to produce water -- for food, to treat water, to capture and treat wastewater", says [Peter] Gleick, [director of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California]. "Energy constraints are beginning to affect water policy, and water policy is beginning to affect our energy choices. And yet, almost never do we integrate these two policies."...Now, the 2009 budget contains US$8 million earmarked to help fund a Department of the Interior census of domestic water supplies -- the first in 30 years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 22:29:14 Fri, Mar 14, 2008: from National Geographic News Water in Dams, Reservoirs Preventing Sea-Level Rise "Dams and reservoirs have stored so much water over the past several decades that they have masked surging sea levels, a new study says. But dam building has slowed, meaning sea levels could rise more quickly than researchers predicted in a 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Sea levels have been rising for decades, due mostly to global warming caused by greenhouse gases. The oceans are on average about 6.3 inches (16 centimeters) higher now than in 1930, when they started a noticeable upward climb. Melting glaciers and ice caps, along with ocean warming—water expands as it heats up—are the main culprits behind the increase."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-13 17:24:31 Thu, Mar 13, 2008: from Arkansas Democrat Gazette Judge backs off comment on litter "TULSA -- U. S. District Court Judge Gregory Frizzell backed away Tuesday from his March 3 comment that poultry litter is “solid waste†under federal law. Frizzell, who's overseeing a hearing on a preliminary injunction request to ban the spreading of poultry litter on farm fields in the Illinois River watershed, explained his switch on the last day of witness testimony. Attorneys are scheduled to give their closing arguments on the injunction at 1:30 p.m. today."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-12 20:31:32 Thu, Mar 13, 2008: from The Canadian Press Public warned not to consume certain juices for toddlers that may contain arsenic "OTTAWA - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Loblaws Inc. have warned the public not to consume certain pear juices for toddlers that may be contaminated with arsenic. The CFIA says in a news release that there have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of the products. The two products listed in the warning are the one-litre President's Choice Organics Pear Juice from Concentrate for Toddlers and the 128-millilitre Beech Nut Pear Juice from concentrate with Vitamin C added. The products have been distributed across the country, the agency says."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:06:54 Wed, Mar 12, 2008: from Chemical & Engineering News Maryland Bug Boosts Biofuels "Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was at the University of Maryland, College Park, on March 10 to present a $50,000 state grant to Zymetis, a company spun off from research conducted at the university. The company will use the grant to accelerate the commercialization of a novel process to make ethanol from cellulosic biomass. At the heart of the new process is a mixture of enzymes derived from the bacterium Saccharophagus degradans, which was discovered by chance and isolated from Chesapeake Bay salt marsh grasses...Today, most ethanol is made by fermenting sugars from agricultural products such as corn and sugarcane. But the large-scale use of food crops for fuel production is controversial because it will allegedly raise food prices. Thus, companies have been seeking ways to make fuels out of cellulosic waste products such as corn stover, woody residues, and switch grass with a variety of chemical and biochemical processes....Zymetis enzymes are an advance in the field because they break down cellulose faster and "more simply" than other methods."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-12 18:41:37 Wed, Mar 12, 2008: from Associated Press EPA hikes rules to cut smog-clogged air "WASHINGTON - The air in hundreds of U.S. counties is simply too dirty to breathe, the government said Wednesday, ordering a multibillion-dollar expansion of efforts to clean up smog in cities and towns nationwide. The federal action, which lowers ozone limits for the atmosphere, means that 345 counties will now be in violation of the health requirement, about four times as many as under the old rules. However, scientists said the change still isn't enough to significantly reduce heart and asthma attacks from breathing smog-clogged air, and they pressed the Environmental Protection Agency to issue even more stringent requirements.... EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, already a target of intense criticism over emissions linked to global warming and regulation of mercury from power plants, decided to take the middle ground when it comes to smog."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-11 19:09:10 Tue, Mar 11, 2008: from National Research Council (US) Climate Change Will Have A Significant Impact On Transportation Infrastructure And Operations "While every mode of transportation in the U.S. will be affected as the climate changes, potentially the greatest impact on transportation systems will be flooding of roads, railways, transit systems, and airport runways in coastal areas because of rising sea levels and surges brought on by more intense storms, says a new report from the National Research Council. Though the impacts of climate change will vary by region, it is certain they will be widespread and costly in human and economic terms, and will require significant changes in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transportation systems."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:58:03 Tue, Mar 11, 2008: from Science Daily (US) MegaBee Nourishes Beleaguered Honey Bees ... [A] new, convenient source of proteins, vitamins and minerals that bees need for good health. Bees can eat MegaBee as a meal or snack when days are too cold for venturing outside of their warm hive, for example, or when flowers -- bearing pollen and nectar, the staple foods for adult bees -- aren't yet in bloom.
Better nutrition might be a key to reversing the decline of honey bees, Apis mellifera, in the United States. A mostly mysterious colony collapse disorder is blamed for losses of once-thriving colonies, as are problems caused by mites, beetles, Africanized honey bees, diseases and pesticides.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:49:00 Tue, Mar 11, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Alarming Growth In Expected Carbon Dioxide Emissions In China, Analysis Finds The growth in China's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult, according to a new analysis... The researchers' most conservative forecast predicts that by 2010, there will be an increase of 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions in China over the country's levels in 2000.... This growth from China alone would dramatically overshadow the 116 million metric tons of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:16:02 Tue, Mar 11, 2008: from iBerkshires (MA) Bat die-off now found in Western Mass. After receiving reports last month from Vermont and New York about large numbers of bats dying in caves, biologists from the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated caves and mines in the region where colonies of bats are known to spend the winter.
They found bats flying outside of one of the state's largest mines in Chester when they should have been hibernating, and found dead bats near the entrance that were collected for further study.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:33:27 Tue, Mar 11, 2008: from The Washington Post (US) Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China With the prices of oil and coal soaring, policymakers around the world are looking at massive solar farms to heat water and generate electricity. For the past four years, however, the world has been suffering from a shortage of polysilicon -- the key component of sunlight-capturing wafers -- driving up prices of solar energy technology and creating a barrier to its adoption.
With the price of polysilicon soaring from $20 per kilogram to $300 per kilogram in the past five years, Chinese companies are eager to fill the gap.... But Chinese companies' methods for dealing with waste haven't been perfected.... the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.... For each ton of polysilicon produced, the process generates at least four tons of silicon tetrachloride liquid waste....
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-10 17:28:13 Mon, Mar 10, 2008: from Reuters Africa Vatican lists "new sins," including pollution "VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight. The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils. Asked what he believed were today's "new sins," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 10:58:05 Mon, Mar 10, 2008: from People's Daily (China) Amazon's worst-ever drought in 2005 caused by global warming "Brazil's drought in 2005, the worst-ever hitting the Amazon, was caused by global warming instead of the El Nino weather phenomenon as previously thought, the country's National Space Research Institute (INPE) announced Sunday. "The idea that a drought comes with every El Nino is simply not correct," said INPE researcher Carlos Nobre who studied the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean and Amazon rainfall. "El Nino does not affect the southwestern Amazon region."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-10 16:26:31 Mon, Mar 10, 2008: from The Atlantic Waterworld "Excerpt: The Earth has always been unstable. Flooding and erosion, cyclones and tsunamis are the norm rather than the exception. But never have the planet’s most environmentally frail areas been so crowded. The slowdown in the growth rate of the world’s population has not changed the fact that the number of people living in the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters continues to increase. The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 was merely a curtain-raiser. Over the coming decades, Mother Nature is likely to kill or make homeless a staggering number of people. American journalists sometimes joke that, in terms of news, thousands of people displaced by floods in Bangladesh equals a handful of people killed or displaced closer to home. But that formula is now as unimaginative and out-of-date as it is cruel."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:45:33 Mon, Mar 10, 2008: from Associated Press AP probe finds drugs in drinking water "A vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones -- have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows. To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe. But the presence of so many prescription drugs -- and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen -- in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:52:05 Mon, Mar 10, 2008: from Times Online Climate czar, Lord Adair Turner, says take off your tie to cut CO2 "Office workers should be allowed to shed their suits and ties and adopt lightweight informal clothing to help cut carbon dioxide emissions, according to Lord Adair Turner, the new climate czar. He believes forcing men to wear suits and women to wear smart skirts raises demand for air-conditioning and discourages them from using sustainable forms of transport such as walking and cycling."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:50:30 Mon, Mar 10, 2008: from mlive.com Great Lakes fish soak in new poison "Toxic flame retardants commonly used in computers, televisions and textiles have accumulated dramatically in Great Lakes fish over the past two decades, prompting legislative efforts to ban the compounds. The state Legislature in 2004 banned two types of the flame retardants, called polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs. Michigan was one of several states to ban the manufacture, use or distribution of penta-BDE and octa-BDE. But a third type of the chemical, deca-BDE, is still widely used and can break down into the more toxic forms of PBDEs. Environmental activists and some scientists are pushing for a ban on deca-BDE, a persistent toxin that accumulates in the food chain....The Michigan Chemistry Council and the Michigan Association of Fire Chiefs oppose banning deca-BDE. "Right now, we feel that the science has not justified the banning of deca-BDE," said Jerry Howell, chief executive officer of the Michigan Chemistry Council.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:32:36 Sun, Mar 9, 2008: from The New Nation (Bangladesh) Impact of Bird Flu: Bad days for fast food shops in Dhaka Sales in the city's fast food shops have marked a sharp fall as customers continued to ignore chicken items out of bird flu fear, hitting hard the booming fast-food business. "We're passing through a very critical time as our sales have dropped by 50 percent. Even our regular customers hardly visit our shops and those who come are scared of taking chicken items," said Sohel Rana, supervisor of 'Chicken King', a popular fast food shop in Dhanmondi area.... He also blamed the media for spreading the bird flu panic among the people. "Watching chicken culling on television and reading those in newspapers, people get panicked."... Nearly 100,000 poultry farms have been shut down due to the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus, throwing around 2.5 million people out of jobs.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-08 18:58:51 Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Food crisis will take hold before climate change, warns chief scientist Food security and the rapid rise in food prices make up the "elephant in the room" that politicians must face up to quickly, according to the government's new chief scientific adviser.
In his first major speech since taking over, Professor John Beddington said the global rush to grow biofuels was compounding the problem, and cutting down rainforest to produce biofuel crops was "profoundly stupid".
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 20:24:13 Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from Wildlife Conservation Society Mercury Threatens Next Generation Of Loons "A long-term study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the BioDiversity Research Institute, and other organizations has found and confirmed that environmental mercury -- much of which comes from human-generated emissions -- is impacting both the health and reproductive success of common loons in the Northeast."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:32:11 Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from The Independent Invasion of the giant oysters "The Pacific oyster was introduced to European coasts in the 1970s from Japan and British Columbia following the virtual collapse of the Continent's native oyster industry. The Pacific oyster was not introduced to Sylt, which boasted a formidable pre-war oyster industry, until 1986, and then only as a product that would be carefully farmed in an environment controlled partly by man....In 1995 the feral Pacific oyster population was about one oyster per square metre of tidal sand flat on Sylt. By 2004 the figure had leapt to nearly 500 per square metre. By 2007 the island's feral Pacific oyster count jumped to a staggering 2,000 per square metre. "What we are now experiencing is exponential growth of the wild oyster population," says Dr Reise. "We don't yet know where the process will end."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:31:16 Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Edison to launch big wind project "Southern California Edison said Friday that it was about to begin construction on a desert wind farm that could provide power for upward of 3 million homes by 2013, predicting that it would be the largest wind transmission project in the country...Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said the project would create the largest block of wind energy in the country."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:30:45 Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Mysterious Eel Fishery Decline Blamed On Changing Ocean Conditions "American eels are fast disappearing from restaurant menus as stocks have declined sharply across the North Atlantic. While the reasons for the eel decline remain as mysterious as its long migrations, a recent study by a NOAA scientist and colleagues in Japan and the United Kingdom says shifts in ocean-atmosphere conditions may be a primary factor in declining reproduction and survival rates."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:50:11 Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Delay in polar bear policy stirs probe "The Interior Department's inspector general has begun a preliminary investigation into why the department has delayed for nearly two months a decision on listing the polar bear as threatened because of the loss of Arctic sea ice. A recommendation to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was to have been made in early January by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on whether to declare the bear threatened. But when the deadline came, the agency said it needed another month, a timetable that also was not met."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:38:29 Sat, Mar 8, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Tadpoles, sun, and ozone "A number of studies have suggested that higher levels of ultraviolet radiation -- due to ozone depletion -- can damage frog DNA.... [A] team at the University of Ottawa's Centre for Advanced Research in Environmental Genomics has found that even a slight increase in ultraviolet B radiation -- similar to what would hit frog eggs on a spring day in Ottawa -- can be disastrous. Many of the tadpoles exposed to low levels had physical abnormalities that would be deadly in the wild, such as kinked tails that forced them to swim in circles, or bloated abdomens. It appeared as if they could eat, but not defecate, biologist Vance Trudeau says. Unlike those in the control group, very few of the tadpoles exposed to UVB developed into frogs."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:49:44 Fri, Mar 7, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Chemicals In Our Waters Are Affecting Humans And Aquatic Life In Unanticipated Ways Derek Muir of Environment Canada and colleagues have determined that of the 30,000 or so chemicals used commercially in the United States and Canada, about 400 resist breaking down in the environment and can accumulate in fish and wildlife. These researchers estimate that of this 400, only 4 percent are routinely analyzed and about 75 percent have not been studied.... found that some combinations were much more toxic to the juvenile salmon than any one of the chemicals acting alone...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-07 13:17:44 Fri, Mar 7, 2008: from Financial Times (UK) Twin shocks of finance and resources facing global economy The global economy is facing twin shocks. Natural resource markets are delivering a supply shock of 1970s dimensions, while the financial system is delivering a shock comparable to the bank and thrift crises of the 1988-1993 period. The magnitude of each shock is very different. The financial markets require a recapitalisation of the banking system, with estimates ranging from $300bn to $1,000bn.... The broad story is of depletion. Most of the easily obtainable resource deposits have already been exploited and most usable agricultural land is already in production. Natural resource discoveries, where they continue to occur, tend to be of a lower quality and are more costly to extract. Meanwhile, the dwindling supply of unutilised land faces competing demands from biodiversity, biofuels and food production.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:30:15 Fri, Mar 7, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Life after the oil crash The grab-your-gun-and-head-for-the-hills scenario goes something like this: In the next year or so, world oil production will peak and then promptly plummet, forced down by sinking reserves. While supply crashes, demand will grow. Virtually overnight, fuel will become so dear that farm tractors will go idle, people will go hungry and homes will go cold. Financial markets will collapse and social chaos will follow.... These "doomers," as they're called among the peaknik community, congregate online at DieOff.org, AnthroPik.com and dozens of other apocalyptic sites dedicated to discussing when the sky will fall and what to do afterward.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:36:48 Fri, Mar 7, 2008: from Windsor Star (Canada) Bird decline shocks experts Birds that eat flying insects are in a shocking and mysterious decline, says the co-editor of the new Atlas of Breeding Birds in Ontario.
"It is an alarm bell," Gregor Beck, a wildlife biologist and the book's co-editor, said this week.... "It's really scary because we're not certain what's going on or why," Beck said. "There's not going to be a simple fix to this one."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:48:02 Thu, Mar 6, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Scheme to protect 1.8m acres of rainforest "A world-first rainforest conservation project which will lock up 100 million tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of 50 million flights from London to Sydney, has been agreed in Indonesia. The scheme will protect 1.8 million acres of rainforest in northern Sumatra, including endangered species such as the Sumatran tiger, Sumatran elephant and the northernmost population of orangutans."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-06 17:54:22 Thu, Mar 6, 2008: from Environmental Science and Technology Tracking climate change in flowers "Dandelions, forsythia, dogwoods, bluebells. When will they bloom this year? The answer is likely to be different than it was 50 years ago. To keep track of how flowers and foliage respond to a changing climate, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and a team of collaborators have launched an online database called Project BudBurst. The initiative allows citizen scientists, gardeners, and students to document when they see that first bud open, the timing of the first leaf, the first flower, and when the plant goes to seed. Maps showing these events across the U.S. are available on the website. Volunteers can choose from more than 60 suggested trees and flowers, or they can add their own favorite species."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:32:12 Wed, Mar 5, 2008: from Associated Press Hogs Help Battle Beetle in Apple Orchard "CLAYTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- Jim Koan has gone hog-wild in his battle against a beetle that threatens his 120-acre organic apple orchard. As part of a research experiment believed to be among the first of its kind, Koan is using pigs to help protect his fruit from the plum curculio, a tiny insect that is among the most destructive apple pests... They hope their work will someday help fruit growers throughout the world reduce the use of pesticides while diversifying their agricultural operations, as he is doing. He plans to periodically sell off the offspring of his four original hogs, keeping only those he needs."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:48:54 Wed, Mar 5, 2008: from Associated Press OECD: World must act on climate change "OSLO, Norway -- The world must respond to climate change and other environmental challenges now while the cost is low or else pay a stiffer price later for its indecision, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Wednesday. A new report by 30-nation organization looks at "red light issues" in the environment, including global warming, water shortages, energy, biodiversity loss, transportation, agriculture and fisheries...A window of opportunity to act is now open," the report said. "We need forward-looking policies today to avoid high costs of inaction or delayed action over the longer term."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:03:52 Wed, Mar 5, 2008: from Associated Press Industry trying to block smog cleanup "WASHINGTON -- Big industries are waging an intense lobbying effort to block new, tougher limits on air pollution that is blamed for hundreds of heart attacks, deaths and cases of asthma, bronchitis and other breathing problems. The Environmental Protection Agency is to decide within weeks whether to reduce the allowable amount of ozone -- commonly referred to as smog -- in the air. A tougher standard would require hundreds of counties across the country to find new ways to reduce smog-causing emissions of nitrogen oxides and chemical compounds from tailpipes and smokestacks. Groups representing manufacturers, automakers, electric utilities, grocers and cement makers met with White House officials recently in a last-ditch effort to keep the health standard unchanged. They argued that tightening it would be costly and harm the economy in areas that will have to find additional air pollution controls."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:15:49 Wed, Mar 5, 2008: from Star-Ledger (NJ) Bats continue to de-hibernate and starve to death "Last year, when we first found this, we lost up to 18,000 bats. This year we're talking about [losing] 400,000. We've found problems in almost every cave in [NY] state, with one exception in Syracuse," said Hicks, the mammal specialist for the New York Endangered Species Unit.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-05 12:52:45 Wed, Mar 5, 2008: from ABC (Australia) GM Canola the new cane toad "It's like a wild mustard, it's a weed, it just grows spontaneously everywhere," she said.
"In Japan there's also evidence in this report of it just growing wild on the dockside and on the road.
"They don't even grow any GM crops in Japan and GM canola is a problem [there] as a noxious weed."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:20:57 Tue, Mar 4, 2008: from Chesapeake Bay Journal Study links agriculture to increase of intersex fish in Potomac basin "Scientists have been perplexed for years as to why large numbers of male smallmouth bass in the Potomac River basin contain immature egg cells, but they offer some clues in a recent journal article. Results published in the Journal of Aquatic Animal Health suggest that the high rate of "intersex" characteristics in smallmouth bass from the Shenandoah River and the South Branch of the Potomac appears to be linked to areas with large human populations or intense agricultural operations.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-04 18:34:46 Tue, Mar 4, 2008: from Arkansas Democrat Gazette Judge suggests he'll treat litter as 'solid waste' "TULSA -- Poultry litter should be viewed as solid waste as defined by federal law, U. S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell said Monday afternoon. Frizzell said he's been considering how poultry litter fits into the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, legislated in 1976. Oklahoma seeks a preliminary injunction banning farmers from spreading poultry litter on farm fields in the Illinois River watershed. The state must prove that spreading litter is a threat to human health and that litter is "solid waste" under federal law. "Under RCRA [the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ], this is likely solid waste," Frizzell said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:36:33 Tue, Mar 4, 2008: from PhysOrg.com Eastern Hemlock on the ropes from invasive species "Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is an aesthetically and ecologically important species of tree found from eastern Canada to the Great Lakes states and south along the entire Appalachian mountain range. Since the hemlock tends to grow alongside streams, it plays an important role in regulating water temperature, and its loss could affect the many species of fish and insect life that inhabit mountain streams.
The tree is threatened by the prolific spread of an exotic insect known as the hemlock wooly adelgid (Adelges tsugae), which kills the trees in as few as four years. In the past decade, the hemlock wooly adelgid has infested more than 50 percent of the eastern portion of the hemlock's range, and the number is expected to grow because the adelgid, an introduced species from Asia, has no natural predators in North America."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-04 13:49:10 Tue, Mar 4, 2008: from Exchange Morning Post (Canada) Turning a Landfill Into a Pollination Park "Turning a garbage dump into a bloom-filled haven for birds, butterflies and other pollinating insects is the vision the Guelph Pollination Initiative has for a local landfill site.... Hosted by the University of Guelph and the City of Guelph, the event will focus on plans to turn Guelph's Eastview landfill into an urban habitat for pollinators by designing the 100 acres to include plant species that attract pollinators."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:48:21 Tue, Mar 4, 2008: from BBC (UK) Loch Ken in crisis over crayfish "A warning has been issued of a "looming" crisis on a Scottish loch due to the advance of a major predator.
American signal crayfish, which can eat young fish and destroy their habitat, have been found in increasing numbers at Loch Ken in Dumfries and Galloway.
Bob Williams of the Glenkens Business Association said the problem was having a "major impact" on trade in the area."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-03 18:11:19 Mon, Mar 3, 2008: from The Wall Street Journal Americans Start to Curb Their Thirst for Gasoline " As crude-oil prices climb to historic highs, steep gasoline prices and the weak economy are beginning to curb Americans' gas-guzzling ways. In the past six weeks, the nation's gasoline consumption has fallen by an average 1.1\% from year-earlier levels, according to weekly government data. That's the most sustained drop in demand in at least 16 years, except for the declines that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which temporarily knocked out a big chunk of the U.S. gasoline supply system."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:08:48 Mon, Mar 3, 2008: from Reuters Yemen Sleepwalks Into Water Nightmare "BEIT HUJAIRA - Black-clad women trudge across a stony plateau in the Yemeni highlands to haul water in yellow plastic cans from wells that will soon dry up... These women are at the sharp end of what Yemen's water and environment minister describes as a collapse of national water resources so severe it cannot be reversed, only delayed at best...Yemen relies on groundwater, which nature cannot recharge fast enough to keep pace with a population of 22.4 million expanding by more than 3 percent a year.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-03 18:01:20 Mon, Mar 3, 2008: from Naples News Daily (FL) Collier county wants right to withdraw more aquifer water; district reluctant "The county wants more fresh water because it is less expensive to treat than brackish water and can be treated with existing water plant capacity, delaying the need to build new plants, county Water Director Paul Mattausch said.... More than half of the county's water supply comes from alternative water supplies, either highly treated reclaimed water from the county's sewage treatment plants or brackish water from deeper underground."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-03 15:40:16 Mon, Mar 3, 2008: from Nhan Dan (Vietnam) H5N1 outbreaks in 9 Vietnamese provinces "Bird flu outbreaks have been reported in Phu Tho and Ha Nam province, announced the Veterinary Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on March 2.
This has brought the number of the epidemic-hit cities and provinces to nine, including Thai Nguyen, Quang Ninh, Hai Duong, Nam Dinh, Tuyen Quang and Ninh Binh in the north and Vinh Long in the south."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-03 15:33:32 Mon, Mar 3, 2008: from The Tribune, Chandigarh, India Toxins, sand mining threatens gharials "Between December 2007 and February 2008, as many as 105 gharials have been reported dead. However, the reason for the decline in their numbers is attributed to possibility of nephro-toxin entering the food chain and loss of habitat due to illegal sand mining."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-03 14:32:06 Mon, Mar 3, 2008: from Tropical Conservation Science, via Mongabay.com China's tropical rainforests decline 67 percent in 30 years Tropical rainforest cover in southern Yunnan decreased 67 percent in the past 30 years, mostly due to the establishment of rubber plantations, according to a new assessment of tropical forests in southwestern China.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 16:18:38 Sun, Mar 2, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Scientists warn of new plague of jellyfish in Spain "The problem seen on the beaches is not the main concern for scientists," said Professor Gili, "For us the major worry is the global disequilibrium in the sea caused by over-fishing."
As a result of over-fishing, the jellyfish do not have to face their usual predators and competitors, which usually regulate population growth. Numbers of large fish such as swordfish and red tuna, which eat jellyfish, have been drastically reduced by bad fishing practices, as have the smaller fish, such as sardines and whitebait, which compete for food with the stingers.... "Spectacular growth has been found in jellyfish populations in Japan, Namibia, Alaska, Venezuela, Peru, Australia ... this is an international ecological problem," Gili said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-02 20:11:32 Sun, Mar 2, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Future Battlegrounds for Habitat Conservation Very Different to Those in Past "The researchers found that many of the regions that face the greatest habitat change in relation to the amount of land currently protected -- such as Indonesia and Madagascar -- are in globally threatened and endemic species-rich, developing tropical nations that have the fewest resources for conservation. Conversely, many of the temperate regions of the planet with an already expansive network of reserves are in countries -- such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland—with the greatest financial resources for conservation efforts, but comparatively less biodiversity under threat."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-02 10:59:30 Sat, Mar 1, 2008: from Campus Press CU researchers examine trends in Arctic Sea ice "Arctic Ocean ice is at a tipping point and what happens in the next five to six years determines whether the Arctic Ocean will be mostly ice-free in the summer," he said.... The research stresses that the old ice, which has melted and the new ice that has taken its place are fundamentally different. As ice ages, its thickness, surface topography, strength, and albedo (amount of light reflectivity) change dramatically. As older and thicker ice melts, it gives way to newer, thinner ice. These conditions make the region more susceptible to rapid change and a snowball affect ensues: the more ice that is lost, the more rapidly it continues to dissipate."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-01 15:21:27 Sat, Mar 1, 2008: from Earth Institute at Columbia University Seafloor Cores Show Tight Bond Between Dust And Past Climates "Each year, long-distance winds drop up to 900 million tons of dust from deserts and other parts of the land into the oceans. Scientists suspect this phenomenon connects to global climate--but exactly how, remains a question. Now a big piece of the puzzle has fallen into place, with a study showing that the amount of dust entering the equatorial Pacific peaks sharply during repeated ice ages, then declines when climate warms. The researchers say it cements the theory that atmospheric moisture, and thus dust, move in close step with temperature on a global scale; the finding may in turn help inform current ideas to seed oceans with iron-rich dust in order to mitigate global warming."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:29:58 Sat, Mar 1, 2008: from The Guardian Gaia guru Lovelock: enjoy life while you can "[Climate scientist maverick James] Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more....He smiles and says: 'Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan.'"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-03-01 14:46:27 Sat, Mar 1, 2008: from National Geographic News Climate Change Hitting the Sea "When it comes to climate change, polar bears and sharks may grab the bulk of the headlines—but it's the threat to the sea's tiniest creatures that has some marine scientists most concerned. Malformed seashells show that climate change is affecting even the most basic rungs of the marine food chain—a hint of looming disaster for all ocean creatures—experts say. Climate change could drastically reduce sea urchin populations in particular, according to Gretchen Hofmann, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:23:02 Thu, Feb 28, 2008: from Prince George Citizen Canadian frogs endangered "Quebec aquariums and zoos are leaping to the defence of an animal that is increasingly threatened with extinction in La Belle Province and around the world -- frogs. The Quebec croaker and its amphibious friends are disappearing at a massive rate, with scientists estimating that up to one-half of species worldwide are in danger of disappearing. Some 120 species of amphibians have gone extinct in recent years, scientists say."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:59:17 Thu, Feb 28, 2008: from Associated Press Olympics highlight Beijing water woes "BEIJING --
When 16,000 athletes and officials show up this summer, they will be able to turn the taps and get drinkable water - something few Beijing residents ever have enjoyed.
But to keep those taps flowing for the Olympics, the city is draining surrounding regions, depriving poor farmers of water. Though the Chinese capital's filthy air makes headlines, water may be its most desperate environmental challenge. Explosive growth combined with a persistent drought mean the city of 17 million people is fast running out of water."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:37:23 Thu, Feb 28, 2008: from United Press International Polluted prey affects wild birds "Welsh scientists have found brain and behavioral changes in wild birds after the birds forage on invertebrates contaminated with environmental pollutants. Katherine Buchanan and colleagues at Cardiff University studied male European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) foraging at a sewage treatment works and analyzed the earthworms that constitute their prey. The researchers found birds exposed to environmentally relevant levels of synthetic and natural estrogen developed longer and more complex songs compared with males in a control group...The researchers also found female starlings prefer the song of males exposed to the mixture of endocrine disrupting chemicals, suggesting the potential for population level effects on reproductive success."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-27 17:15:42 Wed, Feb 27, 2008: from Congressional Quarterly EPA Chief Overruled Staff on California Greenhouse Gas Rules "Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson was urged by his staff to allow California to set greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles, even though he ultimately decided to block the regulations, according to documents obtained by the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Sen. Barbara Boxer , D-Calif., said she plans to grill Johnson about his decision at a hearing Wednesday on the EPA’s proposed fiscal 2009 budget.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 22:24:53 Wed, Feb 27, 2008: from The Guardian Sumatran deforestation driving climate change and species extinction, report warns "The destruction of Sumatra's natural forests is accelerating global climate change and pushing endangered species closer to extinction, a new report warned today. A study from WWF claims that converting the forests and peat swamps of just one Sumatran province into plantations for pulpwood and palm oil is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands, and is endangering local elephant and tiger populations. The fastest rate of deforestation in Indonesia is occurring in central Sumatra's Riau province, where some 4.2m hectares (65 percent) of its tropical forests and peat swamps have been cleared for industrial plantations in the past 25 years, the study shows....The report, a joint effort between WWF, Remote Sensing Solutions and Hokkaido university in Japan, claims to be the first piece of research to analyse the connection between deforestation and forest degradation, global climate change and declining wildlife populations."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:53:08 Wed, Feb 27, 2008: from New York Times (US) Drug-Resistant TB Rates Soar in Former Soviet Regions "Drug-resistant tuberculosis cases in parts of the former Soviet Union have reached the highest rates ever recorded globally, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. The rates could soar even higher, spreading the potentially fatal disease elsewhere, a top W.H.O. official said, releasing findings from the largest global survey of the problem."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:47:47 Tue, Feb 26, 2008: from Jackson Hole Star Tribune Embattled ag undersecretary makes no apologies for timber policies "He overhauled federal forest policy to cut more trees -- and became a lightning rod for environmentalists who say he is intent on logging every tree in his reach. After nearly seven years in office, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey still has a long to-do list. Near the top: Persuade a federal judge to keep him out of jail ... A Montana judge, accusing Rey of deliberately skirting the law so the Forest Service can keep fighting wildfires with a flame retardant that kills fish, has threatened to put him behind bars."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 19:05:39 Tue, Feb 26, 2008: from The Gazette Colorado's getting dustier "The amount of dust blowing into Colorado from the west has increased 500 percent since humans settled the region, a dust bowl effect that could impact snowpack and human health, a study has found. A team of researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder analyzed soil samples at two remote lakes high in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, and found dust levels five to seven times higher than at any time in the past 5,000 years.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-26 17:54:44 Tue, Feb 26, 2008: from Guardian (UK) CRAGs: carbon rationing action groups. "Some have described them as the 21st century's green equivalent of the Co-operative Movement. Others have likened them to the book club craze inspired by chat-show hosts Richard and Judy. Some bloggers have dismissed them as 'green authoritarians'. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the 'crags', or carbon rationing action groups.
Crags are community groups that meet in one another's homes and local pubs and set themselves personal carbon targets for the year. Backsliding members who jet off on too many foreign holidays have to pay their colleagues a nominal fine or do green-style 'community service' to make up for their environmental transgressions. Only 17 of these groups are active globally, but 16 are in the UK."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-26 16:02:30 Tue, Feb 26, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Food riots and the UN World Food Program "WFP officials say the extraordinary increases in the global price of basic foods were caused by a "perfect storm" of factors: a rise in demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels, and climate change.... Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:38:33 Tue, Feb 26, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Sea birds choking on migrant fish "The snake pipefish, virtually unknown around the UK in 2002, has undergone a massive, baffling and dangerous expansion since then, scientists have discovered.... Since 2000 sea birds have not been able to find sufficient food either to sustain their chicks or give them the energy to breed, a problem that is blamed on the dwindling populations of small fish and sand eels that sea birds eat, a phenomenon scientists have been unable to explain....
Now parent guillemots, terns and puffins are scooping pipefish from the sea for their chicks as substitutes for their normal fish food. But the pipefish body is rigid and bony and extremely hard for chicks to eat. Biologists have found dozens left uneaten in single nests while chicks have choked to death on their bodies."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:21:53 Tue, Feb 26, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Cheap, Clean Drinking Water Purified Through Nanotechnology "Tiny particles of pure silica coated with an active material could be used to remove toxic chemicals, bacteria, viruses, and other hazardous materials from water much more effectively and at lower cost than conventional water purification methods, according to researchers writing in the current issue of the International Journal of Nanotechnology."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:42:10 Tue, Feb 26, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Male Fertility May Be Harmed By Mix of Endocrine Disrupters "...pregnant rats were exposed to a cocktail consisting of three chemicals that all inhibit the effect of the male sex hormone testosterone: The drug flutamide and the pesticides vinclozolin and procymidone. The three chemicals were administered in doses which are harmless individually. Concurrent exposure to the three substances did, however, show significant cocktail effects. The male rats did, among other things, develop female characteristics in the form of retained nipples and severely malformed external sexual organs. Sixty per cent of the male rats were, for example, born with hypospadias [an open urethra]."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 15:13:30 Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from Reuters Methane, permafrost, and the Wild Card "More research [is] urgently needed into the possibility of a runaway release of methane, a powerful heat-trapping gas trapped in frozen soils in Siberia, Canada, Alaska and Nordic nations, it said in a 2008 yearbook issued at 154-nation talks in Monaco.... Vast amounts of methane entering the atmosphere "would lead to abrupt changes in the climate that would likely be irreversible," UNEP said. "We must not cross that threshold."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 22:22:36 Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from Science and Spirit Creation Care, and evangelicals "Surveys by the Ellison Research Group, Inc., show that seventy-five percent of evangelicals believe that climate change is real and will impact their lives. Eighty-four percent believe that the Congress should pass a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions. Senate Republicans recently rejected a "Climate Security Act."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-25 17:23:29 Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from Financial Post Global shortage of metals looming "Peak oil has lots of press, but what about peak copper? Peak zinc? Peak gold? Sounds preposterous, but maybe it's not so far-fetched. Nearly every commodity is experiencing some supply issues, for a host of reasons. Add it all up, and it means potential supply shortages in the future. Demand may slacken this year, but in the next 10 years today's high commodity prices may actually look like a bargain."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:20:01 Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from Concord Monitor (NH) River herring decline has widespread effect "The Taylor River system, which lies largely in Hampton Falls and Hampton, had 400,000 river herring return from the sea annually in the 1980s. That number is now down to less than 1,000, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates.... You wouldn't eat one on a bet, so what's it matter? Oh, but it does. The little fish are food, not just for humans, but for striped bass, cod, haddock, mackerel, salmon, porpoises, seals, dolphins and whales as well as terns, puffins and other seabirds. When their food supply shrinks, fish populations crash, prices rise, fishing restrictions are put in place and the fishing industry suffers."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:49:01 Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from AP News France Halts Genetically Modified Corn The French government on Saturday suspended the use of genetically modified corn crops in France while it awaits EU approval for a full ban.
The order formalized France's announcement Jan. 11 that it would suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON810, the seed for the only type of genetically modified corn now allowed in the country.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-25 13:42:02 Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from First Post (UK) Pat Robertson's take on heaven, and the election Then he added: "I talked to one guy who went to heaven and he saw all these wonderful fields and flowers. I have a feeling that Heaven will be whatever it is you are looking for." ... For Robertson's third ingredient for Armageddon was an anti-Christ in the White House, and, he revealed, that devilish president would be a Democrat.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-25 11:29:22 Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Bio-crude Turns Cheap Waste Into Valuable Fuel "This makes it practical and economical to produce bio-crude in local areas for transport to a central refinery, overcoming the high costs and greenhouse gas emissions otherwise involved in transporting bulky green wastes over long distances." The process uses low value waste such as forest thinnings, crop residues, waste paper and garden waste, significant amounts of which are currently dumped in landfill or burned."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:04:07 Mon, Feb 25, 2008: from 60 Minutes Honey Bees and Colony Collapse "Normally, if there weren't soldier bees to protect a hive's honey, all the honey would be poached by bees from other hives in short order. But, this beekeeper said, "The hives are like a ghost town. The honey's there. The other bees won't touch it." He showed the honey, just sitting there in the dead hive."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-24 12:42:54 Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from Market Oracle (UK) A Very Alarming Picture in Energy Sector Peak Oil Trends "If you think that at the moment the world is consuming 30-plus billion barrels a year of oil and is finding seven or eight billion barrels a year, and this state of affairs has been going on now for 20 or more years... It's obviously unsustainable." ... Dr. Buckee says the cost of a barrel of oil could reach as high as $200 by the third or fourth quarters of this year, and that prices would have to get that high before it would have any particular impact on demand.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-24 12:28:29 Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from Sandia National Laboratories Sandia, Stirling Energy Systems set new world record for solar-to-grid conversion efficiency 31.25 percent efficiency rate topples 1984 record
"Gaining two whole points of conversion efficiency in this type of system is phenomenal," says Bruce Osborn, SES president and CEO. "This is a significant advancement that takes our dish engine systems well beyond the capacities of any other solar dish collectors and one step closer to commercializing an affordable system."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:31:29 Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from Earth Institute (Columbia) Growing Threat Seen In Human-Wildlife Conflict, Drug Resistance "An international research team has provided the first scientific evidence that deadly emerging diseases have risen steeply across the world, and has mapped the outbreaks’ main sources. They say new diseases originating from wild animals in poor nations are the greatest threat to humans. Expansion of humans into shrinking pockets of biodiversity and resulting contacts with wildlife are the reason, they say. Meanwhile, richer nations are nursing other outbreaks, including multidrug-resistant pathogen strains, through overuse of antibiotics, centralized food processing and other technologies."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-24 11:26:05 Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from American Society of Agronomy Transgenic Cotton Cultivars Not More Profitable "... Again in 2003, selection of the transgenic cultivars reduced returns, while similar, higher returns were attained from non-transgenic technologies.
According to the authors, “Collectively these results indicate that profitability was most closely associated with yields and not the transgenic technologies.” Continued research is necessary to analyze the 2005 and 2006 results with more recent types of transgenic cotton cultivars."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-24 11:19:09 Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from University of New Hampshire Paving The Way For Green Roads "We have a real opportunity to re-build the infrastructure the right way with sustainable materials and socially sensitive designs that protect air, water, land, and human resources".... "The cost of building a road is not reflected fully in the price of materials," Gardner adds. "The total cost of mining virgin materials, for instance, involves not only the cost of materials and labor, but also the environmental cost at the mining site, the environmental costs... of transporting these materials to the building site, and the environmental costs of building the equipment to mine and transport material and build the roads."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-24 11:55:00 Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Exxon Oil Spill Case May Get Closure "When a federal jury in Alaska in 1994 ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion to thousands of people who had their lives disrupted by the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill, an appeal of the nation's largest punitive damages award was inevitable. But almost no one could have predicted the incredible round of legal ping-pong that only this month lands at the Supreme Court."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:19:18 Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from Republican-American (CT) Disease killing brown bats across the region... CT? A mysterious disease has killed hibernating bats in New York and Vermont, is spreading into Massachusetts, and may already be in Connecticut.... Biologists have now identified sick bats in Chester, Mass., 40 miles north of Connecticut's Barkhamsted Reservoir, and will be looking for them here in March.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-23 19:30:06 Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from Science Daily (US) First Documented Case Of Pest Resistance To Biotech Cotton "Bt-resistant populations of bollworm, Helicoverpa zea, were found in more than a dozen crop fields in Mississippi and Arkansas between 2003 and 2006.... "What we're seeing is evolution in action," said lead researcher Bruce Tabashnik. "This is the first documented case of field-evolved resistance to a Bt crop.""
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:50:44 Sun, Feb 24, 2008: from Science Daily (US) New Fuel Cell Cleans Up Pollution And Produces Electricity "Scientists in Pennsylvania are reporting development of a fuel cell that uses pollution from coal and metal mines to generate electricity, solving a serious environmental problem while providing a new source of energy. They describe successful tests of a laboratory-scale version of the device in a new study."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:32:44 Sat, Feb 23, 2008: from Science Daily (US) Chemicals In Our Waters Are Affecting Humans And Aquatic Life In Unanticipated Ways "Substances that we use everyday are turning up in our lakes, rivers and ocean, where they can impact aquatic life and possibly ourselves. Now these contaminants are affecting aquatic environments and may be coming back to haunt us in unanticipated ways.... The researchers looked at mixtures of five common insecticides and found that some combinations were much more toxic to the juvenile salmon than any one of the chemicals acting alone."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-23 19:19:25 Sat, Feb 23, 2008: from Science Daily (US) New possibilities for removing NOx "A discovery in molecular chemistry may help remove a barrier to widespread use of diesel and other fuel-efficient "lean burn" vehicle engines. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have recorded the first observations of how certain catalyst materials used in emission control devices are constructed."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:32:11 Sat, Feb 23, 2008: from Guardian (UK) 2004: Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us "Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters....
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.... The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:36:17 Sat, Feb 23, 2008: from The International News (Pakistan) Palm at new peak on record soy oil "Malaysian palm oil futures jumped more than 2 per cent to a new peak for the sixth straight session on Thursday on tight global vegetable oil supplies and crude oil's record over $101....
Palm oil has climbed nearly 21 per cent this year, driven by increased Chinese and European demand, a flood of funds into commodity markets and Jakarta's plans to hike export taxes for palm oil."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-23 17:57:56 Sat, Feb 23, 2008: from National Geographic Rat Invasions Causing Seabird Decline Worldwide "The global analysis found that non-native rats have been observed preying on roughly a quarter of all seabird species, often with disastrous consequences.... Now 102 of 328 recognized seabird species are considered threatened or endangered by the World Conservation Union, with predation by invasive species ranking among the top dangers."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 19:02:59 Fri, Feb 22, 2008: from American Chemical Society Translation: Earthworms and transmission of toxins "Earthworms are an important link in transporting environmental contaminants from soil to other organisms in terrestrial food webs. Large molecules (>0.95 nm), such as PBDEs, are thought to not readily cross membranes, and thus do not accumulate in organisms. However, earthworms have been shown to accumulate contaminants of considerable size (8), including significant bioaccumulation from sludge-amended soils with mean biota-soil accumulation factors (BSAFs) of 4-8 for BDE-47, -99, and -100 (7). Similarly, studies of the aquatic worm, Lumbriculus variegatus, in PBDE-spiked sediments gave BSAFs of 3 for BDE-47 and -99 (9)."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:21:35 Fri, Feb 22, 2008: from United Press International Study: Global cooling a 1970s myth "A U.S. climatologist said there was no consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed for a new ice age. Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center said a survey of scientific journals of the era showed that only seven supported global cooling, 44 predicted warming and 20 others were neutral, USA Today reported Thursday...The study, which will be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, said a review of the literature suggests that greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:31:16 Fri, Feb 22, 2008: from University of Georgia Emerging Infectious Diseases On The Rise: Tropical Countries Predicted As Next Hot Spot "It's not just your imagination. Providing the first-ever definitive proof, a team of scientists has shown that emerging infectious diseases such as HIV, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus and Ebola are indeed on the rise. By analyzing 335 incidents of previous disease emergence beginning in 1940, the study has determined that zoonoses -- diseases that originate in animals -- are the current and most important threat in causing new diseases to emerge. And most of these, including SARS and the Ebola virus, originated in wildlife. Antibiotic drug resistance has been cited as another culprit, leading to diseases such as extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB)."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 22:06:22 Thu, Feb 21, 2008: from The Age Dire new warning on climate Recent work by scientists suggests climate change is advancing more rapidly and more dangerously than previously thought, according to Canberra's top adviser on the issue. In a dire warning to the Rudd Government, Ross Garnaut has declared that existing targets for cuts in greenhouse emissions may be too modest and too late to halt environmentally damaging rises in temperature. On the eve of the release today of his interim report on climate change, Professor Garnaut told a conference in Adelaide yesterday that without intervention before 2020, it would be impossible to avoid a high risk of dangerous climate change. "The show will be over," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:15:32 Thu, Feb 21, 2008: from The Boston Globe Bat sickness reaches mines in Western Massachusetts "A mysterious and deadly sickness that has killed off thousands of bats in New York has now been discovered in two Western Massachusetts mines. Researchers say they expect to find more affected wintering bat populations as they lead expeditions into dark caves and mines in the Northeast over coming weeks. They predict that hundreds of thousands of the furry creatures will be wiped out before the end of winter. The illness ... does not appear to pose any risk to people...
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-21 19:13:48 Thu, Feb 21, 2008: from Nature Map pinpoints disease "A detailed map highlighting the world's hotspots for emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) has been released. It uses data spanning 65 years and shows the majority of these new diseases come from wildlife. Scientists say conservation efforts that reduce conflicts between humans and animals could play a key role in limiting future outbreaks."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 19:00:31 Thu, Feb 21, 2008: from Environmental Science and Technology Worms bear sludge load "Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) end up in the tons of solid sludge left behind by wastewater treatment processes. Those so-called biosolids are often repackaged and sold as fertilizers for both industrial and small-scale agriculture. In a new survey, published in ES&T (DOI: 10.1021/es702304c), researchers show for the first time that those compounds can turn up in earthworms ... Bioaccumulation of PPCPs by worms is not entirely a surprise, according to Stockholm University's Cynthia De Wit, who points to her own work looking at PBDEs and other persistent compounds in earthworms. However, the new research underscores that worms could serve as monitoring organisms, she says. Because the worms seem to concentrate compounds that may be present at undetectable levels in the soils, they can be "a sort of sentinel, or magnifying glass of what's in the soil," she adds."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-21 18:09:01 Thu, Feb 21, 2008: from Associated Press Wolves to be removed from species list "BILLINGS, Mont. - Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list, following a 13-year restoration effort that helped the animal's population soar, federal officials said Thursday. An estimated 1,500 wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That represents a dramatic turnaround for a predator that was largely exterminated in the U.S. outside of Alaska in the early 20th century."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-20 17:21:55 Wed, Feb 20, 2008: from National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (UCSB) A Global Map of Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems The goal of the research presented here is to estimate and visualize, for the first time, the global impact humans are having on the ocean's ecosystems. Our analysis, published in Science, February 15, 2008, shows that over 40 percent of the world's oceans are heavily affected by human activities and few if any areas remain untouched.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-01 21:55:47 Wed, Feb 20, 2008: from AP, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Bats in NY, VT dying from mysterious malady In New York, Hicks cautioned in a report that he and his colleagues were "one survey short of saying that every substantial collection of wintering bats in the state is infected."
"If you are not worried, you should be," his report said. "The two sites infected last year that have been surveyed so far this winter have experienced a 90 percent and 97 percent drop in populations since this began, with most of the survivors currently in poor health." Worse, said Hicks, nobody knows the cause. "We don't know what the problem is. All we can do is just sit back and watch them die."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:04:32 Wed, Feb 20, 2008: from Terra Daily Fish Devastated By Sex-Changing Chemicals In Municipal Wastewater "While most people understand the dangers of flushing toxic chemicals into the ecosystem through municipal sewer systems, one potentially devastating threat to wild fish populations comes from an unlikely source: estrogen. After an exhaustive seven-year research effort, Canadian biologists found that miniscule amounts of estrogen present in municipal wastewater discharges can decimate wild fish populations living downstream ... Male fish exposed to estrogen become feminized, producing egg protein normally synthesized by females."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:42:20 Wed, Feb 20, 2008: from The Asahi Shimbun Pesticide dichlorvos detected in sliced frozen mackerel imported from China "TAKAMATSU--The pesticide dichlorvos, which had contaminated gyoza dumplings imported from China, was detected in sliced frozen mackerel processed in an area of China that handles a large volume of farm produce. The fish was sold in Japan by Kouzai Bussan Co., based in Sanuki city, east of here, company officials said Monday. They said 0.14 parts per million (ppm) of the organophosphorus pesticide was found in the product called Aburi Toro Shimesaba Suraisu, a package of 20 slices weighing about 200 grams."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-19 20:08:06 Wed, Feb 20, 2008: from Associated Press Oil jumps above $100 on refinery outage "NEW YORK - Oil futures shot higher Tuesday, closing above $100 for the first time as investors bet that crude prices will keep climbing despite evidence of plentiful supplies and falling demand. At the pump, gas prices rose further above $3 a gallon. There was no single driver behind oil's sharp price jump; investors seized on an explosion at a 67,000 barrel per day refinery in Texas, the falling dollar, the possibility that OPEC may cut production next month, the threat of new violence in Nigeria and continuing tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela. The fact that there was no overriding reason for such a price spike could be a bad omen for consumers already bearing the burdens of high heating costs and falling real estate values."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:47:19 Tue, Feb 19, 2008: from Science New Materials Can Selectively Capture Carbon Dioxide, Chemists Report "UCLA chemists report a major advance in reducing heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Science. The scientists have demonstrated that they can successfully isolate and capture carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming, rising sea levels and the increased acidity of oceans. Their findings could lead to power plants efficiently capturing carbon dioxide without using toxic materials."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 16:17:51 Tue, Feb 19, 2008: from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Sharks In Peril: Ocean "Sharks are disappearing from the world's oceans. The numbers of many large shark species have declined by more than half due to increased demand for shark fins and meat, recreational shark fisheries, as well as tuna and swordfish fisheries, where millions of sharks are taken as bycatch each year."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:50:09 Tue, Feb 19, 2008: from The Guardian Consequences of GM crop contamination "The consequences of contamination between GM crops and non-GM varieties will be much more serious with the next generation of GM crops, an influential group of US scientists has warned. Mixing between GM and non-GM varieties has already caused serious economic losses for producers in lost sales and exports. But the consequences of mixing will be much more serious with new crops that are altered to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals, the scientists argue. The crops could harm human health and be toxic to wild animals."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 16:54:46 Tue, Feb 19, 2008: from The Australian Snail loss catastrophic for food chain "GLOBAL warming is threatening the future of a tiny marine snail which, if lost, could trigger a catastrophic collapse of Antarctica's food chain, experts say. Pteropods have been dubbed the "potato chip" of the oceans because they provide food for so many different species. But the lentil-sized snails - eaten by fish and other lower life forms, which are in turn eaten by species higher up the food chain - are highly sensitive to temperature and acidity, both of which are affected by climate change. Carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere is expected to make the oceans more acidic. This could have dire consequences for pteropods, impairing their ability to make shells."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-18 21:43:28 Tue, Feb 19, 2008: from Reuters Bird flu claims second life in Vietnam "Hanoi - Bird flu has killed a second man in Vietnam this week, infected a child and poultry in two provinces and a health official warned more people would fall sick of the virus, the government and state media said on Saturday. The 27-year-old man died on Thursday night at a Hanoi hospital after he was taken there from the northern province of Ninh Binh on Tuesday with serious pneumonia, the official Vietnam News Agency reported."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:27:25 Tue, Feb 19, 2008: from The Star Press Activists fear new list could harm river cleanup efforts "INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A shift in how Indiana compiles a federally mandated list of its polluted waterways has removed about 800 stretches of rivers and streams from that list, leaving environmentalists worried that it could hamper watershed restoration efforts. State officials contend the new methodology has produced a more accurate picture of Indiana’s “impaired” waterways, and will allow them to focus on cleaning up those most tainted with mercury, PCBs and other contaminants. But environmentalists say Indiana’s new approach is problematic because it’s “de-listed” parts of rivers and streams simply because it doesn’t have data on whether they are polluted."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:57:01 Tue, Feb 19, 2008: from Los Angeles Times Huge beef recall issued "The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the largest beef recall in its history Sunday, calling for the destruction of 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef produced by a Chino slaughterhouse that has been accused of inhumane practices. However, the USDA said the vast majority of the meat involved in the recall -- including 37 million pounds that went mostly to schools -- probably has been eaten already. Officials emphasized that danger to consumers was minimal."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 18:46:04 Sun, Feb 17, 2008: from AP News Nuclear Forensica Vs. Terrorism "Between 1993 and 2007 there were 1,340 cases reported of illicit trafficking of various types of nuclear materials around the world, she said.... Potential threats range from explosions to the spread of radioactive materials and sabotage at nuclear facilities, Nilsson told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science."
2009-02-22 20:20:15 Sun, Feb 17, 2008: from Friends of the Earth, via Business Week Report Raises Alarm Over Superweeds "As more acres of "Roundup Ready" crops are planted, the use of the pesticide has increased. The increased application has led some weeds to develop a resistance to glyphosate, the generic term for the chemical in Roundup. And, in turn, farmers have had to apply stronger doses of pesticide to kill the superweeds.... According to the report, the amount of weed-killing herbicides used by farmers has exploded, rising fifteenfold since biotech crops were first planted. The report lists eight weeds in the U.S. -- among them horseweed, common waterhemp, and hairy fleabane -- that have developed resistance to glyphosate, the most commonly applied pesticide."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:41:42 Fri, Feb 15, 2008: from Seattle Post-Intelligencer Scientists fear Tipping Point for Pacific Ocean "Where scientists previously found a sea bottom abounding with life, two years ago they discovered the rotting carcasses of crabs, starfish and sea worms, swooshing from side to side in the current. Most fish had fled -- and those that didn't or couldn't joined the deathfest on the sea floor. Extraordinarily low oxygen levels were to blame -- swept up from the deep ocean into normally productive waters just off the Pacific Northwest coast by uncharacteristically strong winds....It looks like the Pacific has reached a "tipping point," a threshold where low-oxygen levels are becoming the rule, researchers said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-15 18:08:00 Fri, Feb 15, 2008: from TED (Ideas worth spreading) The omnivore's next dilemma (Michael Pollan) "What if human consciousness isn't the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game, the ultimate prize of which is world domination? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see things from a plant's-eye view -- to consider the possibility that nature isn't opposed to culture, that biochemistry rivals intellect as a survival tool. By merely shifting our perspective, he argues, we can heal the Earth. Who's the more sophisticated species now?"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-14 18:49:02 Thu, Feb 14, 2008: from United Press International Yellowstone mystery: Where are the rabbits "The U.S. Wildlife Conservation Society is trying to figure out why jack rabbits have vanished from Yellowstone National Park. The report, published in the journal Oryx, said there have been no confirmed jack rabbit sightings in Yellowstone since 1991 and only three in Grand Teton National Park since 1978. Historical records indicate that white-tailed jack rabbits were once abundant in Greater Yellowstone, a 23,166-square-mile ecosystem that contains the Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, the group said Thursday in a release."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-14 18:44:53 Thu, Feb 14, 2008: from Georgia Institute of Technology Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead To Emission-free Cars "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech researchers envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-14 18:45:28 Thu, Feb 14, 2008: from Terra Daily Skin disease linked with deforestation "U.S. scientists have determined deforestation and social marginalization increase the risk of acquiring an infectious, tropical skin disease. The University of Michigan researchers examined the incidence of the disease American cutaneous leishmaniasis, or ACL, in Costa Rica. ACL -- characterized by skin lesions caused by an infectious organism carried by sand flies -- most commonly affects workers in forested lowlands, but tourists are increasingly at risk as remote tropical areas become more accessible."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 22:04:01 Thu, Feb 14, 2008: from Financial Times Study finds profit in cutting emissions "Half the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions needed to make the world safe can be achieved at a net profit to the global economy, a study has found. McKinsey, the consultancy, publishes a report on Thursday concluding that investment in energy efficiency of about $170bn a year worldwide would yield a profit of about 17 per cent, or $29bn. Diana Farrell, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, said: "It shows just how much deadweight loss there is in the economy in energy use."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-14 18:19:36 Thu, Feb 14, 2008: from Cape Argus 'SA's water could run out by 2025' "The government is now being warned about a looming water crisis for South Africa in the same way that it was warned a decade ago about the present energy crisis, one of the country's top environmental organisations says. The warning from World Wide Fund for Nature - South Africa (WWF-SA) is that 98 percent of available water resources are already fully utilised and the country could run out of water by 2025. "This doesn't mean the taps will run dry, but that water-intensive industries won't be able to continue working as before and there may be water rationing," chief executive of WWF-SA Morne du Plessis told a media briefing at the Waterfront on Wednesday."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 15:53:44 Thu, Feb 14, 2008: from Environmental Science and Technology Perchlorate in food "Food is the primary source of perchlorate for most Americans, and U.S. toddlers on average are being exposed to more than half of the U.S. EPA's safe dose from food alone, according to a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) diet survey designed to provide perchlorate and iodine intake averages from food for the entire U.S. Even though the new study is silent on intake by highly exposed populations, several lawmakers and environmental advocates renew their calls for a national perchlorate drinking-water standard, EPA is not divulging its plans. The agency, which has been waiting for the results from the FDA study to help it decide whether to set a national drinking-water standard for perchlorate, intends to issue a preliminary determination on whether to regulate the substance soon, according to Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Water."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:01:19 Thu, Feb 14, 2008: from Associated Press Study says people impact all oceans "Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop pristine, might be the lament of today's Ancient Mariner. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the planet, and every single spot has been affected by people in some way. Researchers studying 17 different activities ranging from fishing to pollution compiled a new map showing how and where people have impacted the seas. Our results show that when these and other individual impacts are summed up, the big picture looks much worse than I imagine most people expected. It was certainly a surprise to me," said lead author Ben Halpern, an assistant research scientist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:20:37 Tue, Feb 12, 2008: from Globe and Mail Salmon farms killing wild stocks: study "VANCOUVER -- Salmon farms are having a negative impact on wild stocks globally, in many cases causing survival rates to drop by more than 50 per cent per generation, according to a new study being released today... It compared the marine survival of wild salmon in areas with salmon farming to adjacent areas that didn't have farms - and it found wild stocks are suffering wherever they are in contact with salmon farms....Studies have clearly shown that escaped farm salmon breed with wild populations to the detriment of the wild stocks, and that diseases and parasites are passed from farm to wild salmon."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:30:26 Tue, Feb 12, 2008: from The Independent Insect explosion "Food crops could be ravaged this century by an explosion in the numbers of insect pests caused by rising global temperatures, according to scientists who have carried out an exhaustive survey of plant damage when the earth last experienced major climate change. Researchers found that the numbers of leaf-eating insects are likely to surge as a result of rising levels of CO2, at a time when crop production will have to be boosted to feed an extra three billion people living at the end of 21st century."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-12 16:33:37 Tue, Feb 12, 2008: from The Telegraph Malaria warning as UK becomes warmer "Following a major consultation with climate change scientists, the Government is issuing official advice to hospitals, care homes and institutions for dealing with rising temperatures, increased flooding, gales and other major weather events. It warns that there is a high likelihood of a major heatwave, leading to as many as 10,000 deaths, hitting the UK by 2012....Hospitals are also warned to prepare for outbreaks of malaria and tick-born viruses, as well as increased levels of skin cancer and deaths from asthma and other breathing conditions."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 17:00:16 Tue, Feb 12, 2008: from Chicago Tribune Refinery pollution may soar "Global-warming pollution from Midwest oil refineries is expected to soar by as much as 40 percent during the next decade, a dramatic increase that runs counter to regional and national efforts to curb heat-trapping gases. Expansion plans at the BP refinery in Whiting would boost the facility's greenhouse-gas emissions to 5.8 million tons a year, the company told the Tribune. That would be equivalent to adding 320,000 cars to the nation's highways. While greenhouse gases from the tailpipes of cars get the most attention, the refineries that keep cars and trucks running also contribute to global warming. Fuel must be burned to make gasoline from oil, generating carbon-dioxide pollution."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:38:52 Mon, Feb 11, 2008: from The Times of India King penguins could be wiped out by climate change "PARIS: One of the emblems of the Antarctic, the king penguin, could be driven to extinction by climate change, a French study published on Monday warns. In a long-term investigation on the penguins' main breeding grounds, investigators found that a tiny warming of the Southern Ocean by the El Nino effect caused a massive fall in the birds' ability to survive. If predictions by UN scientists of ever-higher temperatures in coming decades prove true, the species faces a major risk of being wiped out, they say. "
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:31:27 Mon, Feb 11, 2008: from Cambridge News Killer ladybirds are invading the area "It may look like the delicate insect that has graced the nation's gardens for centuries. But the Asian harlequin ladybird is nothing like our gentle native species. It is a brutal killer which is set to wipe out Britain's 46 native species of ladybird due to its voracious appetite. Dr Mike Majerus, an academic at Cambridge University ... said: "The harlequin is very large, aggressive and out-competes our native species for food. And when it can't find aphids to eat, it will devour other ladybirds, as well as lacewing, butterflies and hoverflies."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:33:02 Mon, Feb 11, 2008: from Behavioral Neuroscience Saccharin may lead to weight gain "Casting doubt on the benefit of low-calorie sweeteners, research released Sunday reported that rats on diets containing saccharin gained more weight than rats given sugary food. The study in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience found that the calorie-free artificial sweetener appeared to break the physiological connection between sweet tastes and calories, driving the rats to overeat. Lyn M. Steffen, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, who was not involved in the latest report, said the study offered a possible explanation for the unexpected association between obesity and diet soda found in recent human studies."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-11 16:00:24 Mon, Feb 11, 2008: from Wall Street Journal Nine Cities, Nine Ideas "Ann Arbor, Mich., and Beijing, China, have precious little in common. But the modest college town and sprawling national capital do share one trait: They're part of a world-wide movement by cities to rein in their runaway energy use. Ann Arbor is replacing the bulbs in its street lamps with light-emitting diodes that use much less power. Beijing is closing or relocating cement kilns, coal mines and chemical plants dating back to the era of Chairman Mao.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:11:32 Sun, Feb 10, 2008: from Times Colonist Killer whales loaded with fire retardant "They wow tourists and remind people of the mysteries and majesty of the ocean, but killer whales swimming around the waters of Vancouver Island are the most contaminated animals on Earth...Blubber studies on the two salmon-eating populations of resident killer whales -- the endangered southern residents with 88 members and the threatened northern residents with 230 members -- have found a significant buildup of toxins in their systems....A growing concern is the rapid buildup of PBDEs, the chemicals found in fire retardants..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:06:27 Sun, Feb 10, 2008: from Toronto Star The alarming redefinition of 'glacial' "The Athabasca Glacier, remnant of ice sheets that once enveloped the Canadian Rockies and most of Canada, draws hundreds of thousands of tourists each year who catch a glimpse of what much of North America and Europe probably looked like some 10,000 years ago, the twilight of the last Ice Age...the Athabasca is melting at a faster-than-glacial pace. During the last Ice Age, the Athabasca Glacier -- a river of ice six kilometres long, one kilometre wide, and as deep as 300 metres -- was much deeper and stretched down the valley ... one sign predicts the glacier's disappearance in 100 years."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-09 17:22:36 Sat, Feb 9, 2008: from University of Alberta Barnacles Go To Great Lengths To Mate "Compelled to mate, yet firmly attached to the rock, barnacles have evolved the longest penis of any animal for their size - up to 8 times their body length - so they can find and fertilize distant neighbours. Graduate student Christopher Neufeld and Dr. Richard Palmer from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta have shown that barnacles appear to have acquired the capacity to change the size and shape of their penises to closely match local wave conditions."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-12-31 19:49:01 Sat, Feb 9, 2008: from The Telegraph (UK) Killer jellyfish population explosion warning "It could easily have been the role model for the terrifying creature in the film 'Alien'. A perfect toxin-loaded killing machine, there is no creature on earth that can dispatch a human being so easily or so quickly. The box jellyfish is so packed with venom that the briefest of touches can bring agonising death within 180 seconds. And if comes under sustained attack it responds by sending its compatriots into a super-breeding frenzy in which millions of replacements are created. The really bad news is that the box jellyfish and another equally poisonous species, Irukandji, are on the move. Scientists are warning that their populations are exploding and will pose a monumental problem unless they are stopped."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 18:58:24 Sat, Feb 9, 2008: from National Geographic Human Activities Triggering "Global Soil Change" "Earth's climate and biodiversity aren't the only things being dramatically affected by humans—the world's soils are also shifting beneath our feet, a new report says....This new era will be defined by the pervasiveness of human environmental impacts, including changes to Earth's soils and surface geology...Earth's soils already show a reduced capacity to support biodiversity and agricultural production."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:43:34 Sat, Feb 9, 2008: from National Geographic Warming Creating Extinction Risks for Hibernators "When researchers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab in Crested Butte, Colorado, started documenting marmot hibernation patterns in the 1970s, the animals rarely awoke before the third week of May...These abbreviated hibernations are part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that hibernating animals are waking up earlier -- or not going to sleep at all -- due to rising temperatures from global warming. From chipmunks and squirrels in the Rocky Mountains to brown bears in Spain, these altered slumber patterns are putting animals at risk both of starvation and increased predation, researchers say -- which could bring many species to the brink of extinction."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:46:47 Sat, Feb 9, 2008: from Houston Chronicle Brown pelican population soars "Celebrating the phoenix-like recovery of the brown pelican, brought to near-extinction 40 years ago by potent insecticides, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Friday proposed removing the big-beaked coastal bird from the endangered species list. Kempthorne, speaking in Baton Rouge, La., said more than 620,000 of the pelicans now inhabit the U.S. Gulf and Pacific coasts, the Caribbean and Latin America. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Texas Coastal Program counted 3,800 nesting pairs in Texas."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:50:18 Sat, Feb 9, 2008: from Associated Press Device on knee can produce electricity "Call it the ultimate power walk. Researchers have developed a device that generates electrical power from the swing of a walking person's knee. With each stride the leg accelerates and then decelerates, using energy both for moving and braking...With the device, a minute of walking can power a cell phone for 10 minutes, [Max] Donelan, of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, said in a telephone interview. Other potential uses include powering a portable GPS locator, a motorized prosthetic joint or implanted drug pumps."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 22:02:30 Fri, Feb 8, 2008: from Post-Tribune Emission increase expected BP projects it will release 1.5 million to 2 million tons more carbon dioxide -- a greenhouse gas -- after its Whiting expansion is complete in 2011. Carbon dioxide is not a regulated pollutant, which means there's no limit on it in BP's proposed air permit. But BP was among the first corporations to recognize global warming in 1998, and environmentalists question how the 30-40 percent increase fits with BP's corporate image of reducing greenhouse gases.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-07 19:40:54 Fri, Feb 8, 2008: from Nature Poor Projections "The extent to which sea level could rise by 2100 is greatly underestimated in current models, suggests a new study, highlighting the risk faced by coastal areas and island nations. Radley Horton at Columbia University, US, and colleagues estimated that sea level could rise by 54 to 89 centimetres by the end of the century, in contrast to the latest estimate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of 18 to 59 centimetres."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:34:51 Fri, Feb 8, 2008: from The Daily Green The Seed of Deadly Tornadoes "Temperatures as much as 25 degrees higher than normal set the stage for the deadly tornadoes that descended on the American south, leading to death, injuries and destruction in Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee ... Is this another global warming harbinger?"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:30:29 Fri, Feb 8, 2008: from Salt Lake Tribune Carbon dioxide could saturate seas first, kill plant life that supplies oxygen "Greenhouse emissions' warming effect on the atmosphere is bad enough, but their bigger threat is the ecological chaos they are causing as the world's oceans become more acidic, according to a marine scientist. Oceans are absorbing the glut of atmospheric carbon dioxide -- stemming from two centuries of rampant burning of fossil fuels -- at the rate of 1 million metric tons an hour. Reacting with seawater, the absorbed carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid and throws marine chemistry out of whack. Without a major effort to curb emissions, massive die-off will occur in coral reefs, the shells of crucial mollusk species will dissolve and key marine plant life, which produces half the world's atmospheric oxygen, will disappear..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:06:10 Thu, Feb 7, 2008: from Thaindian News Environmental toxins may be linked to early onset of puberty in girls "A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Pisa in Italy has suggested a link between environmental toxins and early onset of puberty in girls. The paper suggests that certain environmental toxins, such as the mycoestrogen zearalenone (ZEA) produced by the Fusarium fungus species, might disrupt the normal growth and hormonal development of girls."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 21:59:37 Thu, Feb 7, 2008: from Associated Press Study: Ethanol may add to global warming "The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The study challenges the rush to biofuels as a response to global warming. The researchers said that past studies showing the benefits of ethanol in combating climate change have not taken into account almost certain changes in land use worldwide if ethanol from corn -- and in the future from other feedstocks such as switchgrass -- become a prized commodity."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:21:05 Thu, Feb 7, 2008: from India News Two billion face water famine as Himalayan glaciers melt "New Delhi: Two billion people face acute water shortage this century as Himalayan glaciers melt due to global warming. [Sayed I. Hasnain of the Centre for Policy Research] said the little work that had been done predicted that there would be a 20-30 percent increase in the water flow of the Ganges in the next four decades as the glaciers feeding the river melted, followed by a severe water shortage."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 21:57:12 Wed, Feb 6, 2008: from Charleston City Paper Should we be taxed for eating animals? "The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization found in 2006 that livestock production generates 18 percent of greenhouse gases worldwide -- more than the entire transportation sector of cars, trucks, planes, and ships combined. Cows constantly belch methane from their four stomachs, and lagoons of pig effluent release the gas into the air. Much of the world's beef comes from deforested areas (70 percent of former Amazon rainforest is now used for cattle grazing), a one-two punch from the loss of carbon dioxide-absorbing trees and the addition of more animals. Meat and dairy production is predicted by the U.N. to double in the next 40 years, a growth PETA feels could be abated by a 10-cent tax on each pound of meat."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:36:09 Wed, Feb 6, 2008: from The Washington Post Dust Storms Overseas Carry Contaminants to U.S. "...with NASA satellites and sampling by researchers around the world, scientists know that great billowing clouds of dust waft over the oceans in the upper atmosphere, arriving in North America from deserts in Africa and Asia. Scientists are beginning to look at these dust clouds as possible suspects in transcontinental movement of diseases such as influenza and SARS in humans, or foot-and-mouth disease in livestock. Until recently, epidemiologists had looked at people, animals and products as carriers of the diseases."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:11:05 Tue, Feb 5, 2008: from AP (via Yahoo) Navy must comply with no-sonar rule "Scientists have said loud sonar can damage the brains and ears of marine mammals, and may mask the echoes from natural sonar that some whales and dolphins use to locate food.
The president signed a waiver Jan. 15 exempting the Navy and its anti-submarine warfare exercises from the injunction, arguing they are vital to the nation's national security."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-07 19:34:06 Tue, Feb 5, 2008: from PNAS, via Yahoo News Tipping points on many horizons "Tipping elements in the tropics, the boreal zone, and west Antarctica are surrounded by large uncertainty," they wrote, pointing to more potential abrupt shifts than seen in a 2007 report by the U.N. Climate Panel.
A projected drying of the Amazon basin, linked both to logging and to global warming, could set off a dieback of the rainforest.
"Many of these tipping points could be closer than we thought," lead author Timothy Lenton, of the University of East Anglia in England, told Reuters of the study.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-03 12:31:55 Sun, Feb 3, 2008: from DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Human-caused Climate Change At Root Of Diminishing Water Flow In Western US, Scientists Find "The Rocky Mountains have warmed by 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The snowpack in the Sierras has dwindled by 20 percent and the temperatures there have heated up by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit. All could lead to dire consequences for the water supply in the Western United States, including California. Scientists have noted that water flow in the West has decreased for the last 20 to 30 years, but had never explained why it was happening. Until now."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-03 11:07:33 Sun, Feb 3, 2008: from Associated Press Rain forests fall at 'alarming' rate "ABO EBAM, Nigeria - In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe. From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests. The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists — and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-03 11:00:23 Sun, Feb 3, 2008: from Associated Press Butz, former agriculture secretary, dies "WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Earl L. Butz, an outspoken U.S. agriculture secretary forced from office in 1976 for making a racist joke and once a dean at Purdue University, died Saturday. He was 98.... The free-market advocate had a relaxed and earthy style that won him acclaim as an after-dinner speaker but caused problems in his public life."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-14 18:56:23 Thu, Jan 31, 2008: from Discover Unsustainable Soil Use Can Cause Civilizations to Collapse "Earth is running out of soil. At least that's the conclusion of a new study supporting the long-held belief that current farming practices are causing soil to erode more quickly than new soil can be produced."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-30 19:40:56 Thu, Jan 31, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Video Reveals Violations of Laws, Abuse of Cows at Slaughterhouse "Video footage being released today shows workers at a California slaughterhouse delivering repeated electric shocks to cows too sick or weak to stand on their own; drivers using forklifts to roll the "downer" cows on the ground in efforts to get them to stand up for inspection; and even a veterinary version of waterboarding in which high-intensity water sprays are shot up animals' noses -- all violations of state and federal laws designed to prevent animal cruelty and to keep unhealthy animals, such as those with mad cow disease, out of the food supply."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:48:09 Thu, Jan 31, 2008: from Associated Press Poor Haitians resort to eating dirt "PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau. Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-29 20:05:02 Wed, Jan 30, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Commodities continue to rack up double digit gains "In five of the last six years commodity prices have posted double-digit increases.
And the indications are that the index, which tracks price trends in 32 of Canada's major exports, has started the year with another increase, aided by gold, oil, potash, sulphur and wheat prices, all of which reached record highs so far this month."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:56:14 Tue, Jan 29, 2008: from Technical Research Centre of Finland Could Bush Chips Be Profitably Used For Electricity Generation In Namibia? "VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has studied the profitability of using bush chips in electricity production in Namibia, where biomass from bushes has great energy production potential. Namibia suffers from the overgrowth of bush, which is disruptive to cattle raising, the country's primary source of livelihood. VTT also developed the production technology for bush chips. According to the study, the production of chips for power plants is technically possible."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:34:23 Tue, Jan 29, 2008: from National Geographic News Flame Retardants Found in Rare Tasmanian Devils "Flame retardants that are suspected carcinogens have been found in some of Australia's Tasmanian devils, researchers announced last week. The find triggered local media reports suggesting that the chemicals might be linked to the mysterious cancer that has been killing the rare marsupials for more than a decade. A study conducted by the Australian government's National Measurement Institute ... found "high" levels of hexabromobiphenyl ether and "reasonably high" levels of decabromobiphenyl ether�chemicals used to treat electronics, textiles, and furniture."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:55:45 Tue, Jan 29, 2008: from The Guardian Bush opens 3m acres of Alaskan forest to logging "The US government has announced plans to open more than 3m acres (about 5,000 square miles) of Alaskan wilderness to logging, mining and road building, angering environmental campaigners who say it will devastate the region. Supporters say the plan for the Tongass National Forest, a refuge for grizzly and black bears, wolves, eagles and wild salmon, will revive the state's timber industry. The Bush administration plan for the forest, the largest in the US at nearly 17m acres, would open 3.4m acres to logging, road building and other development, including about 2.4m acres that are currently remote and without roads. About 663,000 acres are in areas considered most valuable for timber production."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-28 19:16:18 Tue, Jan 29, 2008: from American Geophysical Union American Geophysical Union Revises Position On Climate Change "A statement released on January 24 by the world's largest scientific society of Earth and space scientists--the American Geophysical Union, or AGU--updates the organization's position on climate change: the evidence for it, potential consequences from it, and how to respond to it. The statement, Human Impacts on Climate ... is the first revision since 2003 of the climate-change position of the AGU, which has a membership of 50,000 researchers, teachers, and students in 137 countries."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:39:28 Tue, Jan 29, 2008: from University of Leicester Man-made Changes Bring About New Epoch In Earth "Geologists from the University of Leicester propose that humankind has so altered the Earth that it has brought about an end to one epoch of Earth's history and marked the start of a new epoch ... they suggest humans have so changed the Earth that on the planet the Holocene epoch has ended and we have entered a new epoch - the Anthropocene."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:05:10 Mon, Jan 28, 2008: from Science The Ocean's Deserts "The Sahara, the Gobi, the Chihuahuan--all are great deserts. But what about the South Pacific's subtropical gyre? This "biological desert" within a swirling expanse of nutrient-starved saltwater is the largest, and least productive, ecosystem of the South Pacific. Together with the subtropical gyres in other oceans, biological deserts cover 40 percent of Earth's surface. But their relative obscurity may be about to change. Researchers are reporting that the ocean's biological deserts have been expanding, and they are growing much faster than global warming models predict."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:55:04 Mon, Jan 28, 2008: from The Independent Big business says addressing climate change rates very low on the agenda "Global warming ranks far down the concerns of the world's biggest companies, despite world leaders' hopes that they will pioneer solutions to the impending climate crisis, a startling survey will reveal this week. Nearly nine in 10 of them do not rate it as a priority, says the study, which canvassed more than 500 big businesses in Britain, the US, Germany, Japan, India and China. Nearly twice as many see climate change as imposing costs on their business as those who believe it presents an opportunity to make money. And the report's publishers believe that big business will concentrate even less on climate change as the world economy deteriorates. The survey demolishes George Bush's insistence that global warming is best addressed through voluntary measures undertaken by business ..."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-27 21:53:43 Mon, Jan 28, 2008: from National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration 2007 Was Tenth Warmest For U.S., Fifth Warmest Worldwide "The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. in 2007 is officially the tenth warmest on record, according to data from scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The agency also determined the global surface temperature last year was the fifth warmest on record. The average U.S. temperature for 2007 was 54.2°F; 1.4°F warmer than the 20th century mean of 52.8°F."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-26 12:19:19 Sat, Jan 26, 2008: from Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research Extra Power From Private Wind and Solar Generation Can Be Given Back To Grid More Easily "An increasing number of people use wind or solar energy as a power source, and at times, they have extra power available that could be sold to the electricity grid. Dutch-sponsored researcher Haimin Tao examined how this externally generated energy can be better stored and transferred."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-25 19:08:59 Sat, Jan 26, 2008: from Pak Tribune US scientists close to creating artificial life: study "WASHINGTON (AFP) - US scientists have taken a major step toward creating the first ever artificial life form by synthetically reproducing the DNA of a bacteria, according to a study published Thursday. The move, which comes after five years of research, is seen as the penultimate stage in the endeavour to create an artificial life form based entirely on a man-made DNA genome -- something which has tantalised scientists and sci-fi writers for years. The research has been carried out at the laboratories of the controversial celebrity US scientist Craig Venter, who has hailed artificial life forms as a potential remedy to illness and global warming."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-25 18:26:08 Fri, Jan 25, 2008: from AFP India worst bird flu outbreak spreads "KOLKATA, India (AFP) - India's worst outbreak of bird flu spread as health authorities battled on Friday to stop it reaching the densely populated city of Kolkata amid heavy rain that hampered culling efforts. Authorities reported the disease had affected two more districts, bringing the number hit by avian flu to 12 out of West Bengal state's total of 19. "We're afraid bird flu may spread to many areas -- it has already spread to two more districts," said state animal resources minister Anisur Rahaman in Kolkata, which has 13.2 million people, many of whom live in congested slums."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:43:26 Wed, Jan 23, 2008: from New York Times U.S. Given Poor Marks on the Environment "WASHINGTON -- A new international ranking of environmental performance puts the United States at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among the 149 countries on the list. European nations dominate the top places in the ranking, which evaluates sanitation, greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural policies, air pollution and 20 other measures to formulate an overall score, with 100 the best possible. The top 10 countries, with scores of 87 or better, were led by Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The others at the top were Austria, France, Latvia, Costa Rica, Colombia and New Zealand, the leader in the 2006 version of the analysis, which is conducted by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 09:35:25 Wed, Jan 23, 2008: from Guardian (UK) Is this the end of cheap food? "Walton ... forecasts two further years of similar increases, at least. All the indicators, the prices of every food staple, are on the up - wheat doubled in price at one point last year. 'It's something the industry has expected and is thus, hopefully, a manageable cycle,' he says. 'No hunger riots. But we have enjoyed food prosperity for a long time, and we're seeing the end of that.'
Others offer an even more bleak assessment. Jacques Diouf, head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, spoke recently of a 'very serious crisis' brought about by the rise in food prices and the rise in the oil price. Various global economic bodies are forecasting rises of between 10 per cent and 50 per cent over the next decade."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:46:19 Wed, Jan 23, 2008: from Marianas Variety (Micronesia) 2008 is International Year of the Coral Reef "DIFFERENT environmental groups and government agencies gathered on Friday at the SandCastle of the Hyatt Regency Hotel Saipan to declare 2008 as the International Year of the Coral Reef.... The symposium also recognized the medicinal value of reef organisms, and the different threats to coral reefs such as improper watershed development, sedimentation, marine debris, over-fishing, global warming, among other problems."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-21 16:06:20 Mon, Jan 21, 2008: from University of California - Davis Math Models Snowflakes In Extraordinary Detail "Three-dimensional snowflakes can now be grown in a computer using a program developed by mathematicians at UC Davis and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. No two snowflakes are truly alike, but they can be very similar to each other, said Janko Gravner, a mathematics professor at UC Davis. Why they are not more different from each other is a mystery, Gravner said. Being able to model the process might answer some of these questions."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:45:57 Mon, Jan 21, 2008: from Montana State University Renewed Interest In Turning Algae Into Fuel "The same brown algae that cover rocks and cause anglers to slip while fly fishing contain oil that can be turned into diesel fuel, says a Montana State University microbiologist. Drivers can't pump algal fuel into their gas tanks yet, but Keith Cooksey said the idea holds promise. He felt that way 20 years ago. He feels that way today.
"We would be there now if people then hadn't been so short-sighted," Cooksey said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:30:58 Mon, Jan 21, 2008: from San Francisco Chronicle Bacteria race ahead of drugs "...Dr. Jeff Brooks has been director of the UCSF lab for 29 years, and has watched with a mixture of fascination and dread how bacteria once tamed by antibiotics evolve rapidly into forms that practically no drug can treat.
"These organisms are very small," he said, "but they are still smarter than we are."
Among the most alarming of these is MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bug that used to be confined to vulnerable hospital patients, but now is infecting otherwise healthy people in schools, gymnasiums and the home. Last week, doctors at San Francisco General Hospital reported that a variant of that strain, resistant to six important antibiotics normally used to treat staph, may be transmitted by sexual contact and is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. "We are on the verge of losing control of the situation, particularly in the hospitals," said Dr. Chip Chambers, chief of infectious disease at San Francisco General Hospital.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-21 15:40:26 Mon, Jan 21, 2008: from Living on Earth From toilet to tap "Orange County will soon use purified wastewater to replenish sinking groundwater. Orange County, CA has opened what is likely the largest sewage purification plant for drinking water in the world. The community is on board, and the idea is already being copied elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad. 'The squeamish call it 'toilet to tap.' The correct term is 'indirect potable water reuse.' That's a mouthful. And in a few days 2.3 million people in Orange County California will begin quenching their thirst with it. Living on Earth's Ingrid Lobet reports.'"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:46:42 Mon, Jan 21, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk PostApoc Fashion "The post-Apocalyptic mood was reinforced by the assemblage of detritus which decorated the clothes, as if the wearers had rummaged through piles of discarded junk, finding old cassette tapes, robot toys, computer innards, bits and pieces of old electrical equipment, feathers, beads and old cables and saved them as talismans, glueing, stitching and tying them to their jackets and coats."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 16:59:34 Thu, Jan 17, 2008: from OC Register Research tracks arctic warming "As much as a third of the warming trend in arctic regions is caused by "dirty snow," not by greenhouse gases, UC Irvine researchers say, a finding that could have implications for pollution control efforts across the Northern Hemisphere. Because darker surfaces absorb more heat from sunshine, [climate researcher Charlie] Zender said, soot is making a significant contribution to Arctic warming, which is melting permafrost, increasing spring runoff and causing a variety of woes for the people who live in these regions. Better control of pollution sources that emit large amounts of soot -- coal-fired power plants in China, for example -- could be a relatively easy way to reduce arctic warming, he said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:45:33 Thu, Jan 17, 2008: from Associated Press Zebra mussel discovered in California "HOLLISTER, Calif. - State wildlife officials say a destructive species known as the zebra mussel has been discovered in California for the first time. Department of Fish and Game spokeswoman Alexia Retallack says a fisherman found the mollusks while fishing in the San Justo Reservoir in San Benito County. State officials plan to conduct further surveys to determine the extent of the infestation and develop a plan to stop its spread."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-16 20:26:23 Thu, Jan 17, 2008: from Genes and Development Molecular Evolution: Mice Given Bat-like Forelimbs Through Gene Switch "A research team led by Dr. Richard Behringer at MD Anderson Cancer Center reports that they have successfully switched the mouse Prx1 gene regulatory element with the Prx1 gene regulatory region from a bat -- and although these two species are separated by millions of years of evolution -- the resulting transgenic mice displayed abnormally long forelimbs."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:31:19 Thu, Jan 17, 2008: from Christian Science Monitor On emptying seas, a vanishing way of life "Cabras, Italy - Seven hours after setting out into the inky 3 a.m. blackness, the Crazy Horse's two-man crew pulls back into port with the fruits of their morning's labor: just a few small buckets of fish, worth maybe $60. "That's the average now," sighs Gianni Pisanu, whose boat is docked nearby, as he helps his neighbors tie up. "The sea is impoverished now." For more than 50 years, the nearly two dozen countries bordering the Mediterranean have struggled to jointly manage the shared bounty of the sea, whose uniqueness makes managing this crisis both unusually difficult and extremely important."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-16 19:11:52 Thu, Jan 17, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Changing climate "Climate change is having a significant impact on the health of the seas surrounding Britain, says a new report. Rising seas, bigger waves, flooding, and more violent storms are already happening as temperatures increase. 2006 was the second-warmest year in UK coastal waters since records began in 1870 and seven of the 10 warmest years have occurred in the last decade, according to the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) report card 2007-08."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:04:01 Thu, Jan 17, 2008: from Reuters Greenland thaw biggest in 50 years "OSLO: Climate change has caused the greatest thaw of Greenland's ice in half a century, perhaps heralding a wider meltdown that would quicken a rise in world sea levels, scientists said on Tuesday. "We attribute significantly increased Greenland summer warmth and ice melt since 1990 to global warming," a group of researchers wrote in the Journal of Climate, adding to recent evidence of faster Antarctic and Arctic thaws. "The Greenland ice sheet is likely to be highly susceptible to ongoing global warming," they said. Greenland contains enough ice to raise world sea levels by seven metres, although the process would take centuries if it were to start."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 13:53:37 Thu, Jan 17, 2008: from Washington Post (US) Scientists Take Complaints About Interference to Hill "Two dozen scientists swarmed over Capitol Hill this week mad as vespinae (hornets) at what they say is Bush administration meddling in environmental science.
Organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Endangered Species Coalition, the rumpled researchers won time in the offices of more than 20 lawmakers. They are protesting what Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, calls "the systematic dismantling of the Endangered Species Act through the manipulation and suppression of science."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-18 16:39:26 Wed, Jan 16, 2008: from Emerging Infectious Diseases High Degree Of Antibiotic Resistance Found In Wild Arctic Birds "Swedish researchers report that birds captured in the hyperboreal tundra, in connection with the tundra expedition "Beringia 2005," were carriers of antibiotics-resistant bacteria. These findings indicate that resistance to antibiotics has spread into nature, which is an alarming prospect for future health care. "We were extremely surprised," says Bjorn Olsen, professor of infectious diseases at Uppsala University and at the Laboratory for Zoonosis Research at the University of Kalmar.
"We took samples from birds living far out on the tundra and had no contact with people. This further confirms that resistance to antibiotics has become a global phenomenon and that virtually no region of the earth, with the possible exception of the Antarctic, is unaffected."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 21:54:33 Wed, Jan 16, 2008: from University of Southern California Greenhouse Ocean May Downsize Fish, Risking One Of World "The last fish you ate probably came from the Bering Sea. But during this century, the sea's rich food web -- stretching from Alaska to Russia--could fray as algae adapt to greenhouse conditions. "All the fish that ends up in McDonald's, fish sandwiches--that's all Bering Sea fish," said USC marine ecologist Dave Hutchins, whose former student at the University of Delaware, Clinton Hare, led research published Dec. 20 in Marine Ecology Progress Series.
At present, the Bering Sea provides roughly half the fish caught in U.S. waters each year and nearly a third caught worldwide."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-14 22:23:50 Tue, Jan 15, 2008: from Associated Press Study: Northeast winters warming fast "ALBANY, N.Y. - Earlier blooms. Less snow to shovel. Unseasonable warm spells. Signs that winters in the Northeast are losing their bite have been abundant in recent years and now researchers have nailed down numbers to show just how big the changes have been. A study of weather station data from across the Northeast from 1965 through 2005 found December-March temperatures increased by 2.5 degrees. Snowfall totals dropped by an average of 8.8 inches across the region over the same period, and the number of days with at least 1 inch of snow on the ground decreased by nine days on average."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:44:39 Tue, Jan 15, 2008: from Associated Press Beetles may wipe out Colo. lodgepoles "DENVER - Strands of distressed, red pine trees across northern Colorado and the Front Range are a visible testament to the bark beetle infestation that officials said will kill most of the state's lodgepole pine trees within 5 years. The infestation that was first detected in 1996 grew by half-million acres last year, bringing the total number of acres attacked by bark beetles to 1.5 million, state and federal forestry officials said Monday.
"This is an unprecedented event," said Rick Cables, Rocky Mountain regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-16 19:47:04 Mon, Jan 14, 2008: from UPI Hordes of rats ravaging Indian state "CALCUTTA, India, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- The Indian state of Mizoram saw its crops ravaged by hordes of hungry rats last year, leading to the loss of nearly 40,000 tons of rice. Mizoram agriculture official James Lalsiamliana said the state's flowering bamboo crops drew in large numbers of the rodents, which went on to eat up much of the crop supply in 2007, the BBC reported Saturday. Lalsiamliana said that among the other crops decimated by the rodent invasion were the state's watermelon, chilli, banana, pumpkin and papaya supplies."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:29:52 Mon, Jan 14, 2008: from UPI Invasive beetle attacks redbay trees "Tallahassee, Fla. A beetle imported from Asia is spreading around the southeast United States, leaving dead and dying redbay trees in its wake. The redbay ambrosia beetle is believed to have entered the country through Savannah, Ga., in 2002, probably in a wood pallet or packing case. It has spread into the Carolinas and south to Florida, where it was spotted for the first time last summer in Brevard County in central Florida, Florida Today reports. The beetle produces a fungus that spreads throughout a tree, eventually killing it. The fungus nourishes more generations of beetles."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-13 16:16:57 Sun, Jan 13, 2008: from Durango Herald (US) Oil shale rises again in Western Colorado Chevron officials look at the size of tomorrow's market. Six billion people live on Earth, and there might be 9 billion by the middle of the century. "We're probably going to need every molecule of energy going forward that we can get to meet the needs of that growing population," Johnson said.
That's what brings Chevron back to Colorado's notoriously difficult oil-shale deposits. "The easy oil, we pretty much have used up," he said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-13 16:02:08 Sun, Jan 13, 2008: from Reuters UK U.N. says prepare for big flu pandemic economic hit "Most countries have now focused on pandemic as a potential cause of catastrophe and have done some planning. But the quality of the plans is patchy and too few of them pay attention to economic and social consequences," he told BBC radio. "The economic consequences could be up to $2 trillion (1 trillion pounds) -- up to 5 percent of global GDP removed," he said, reiterating previous World Bank and UN estimates.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 17:03:48 Sun, Jan 13, 2008: from The Canadian Catastrophic Bee de-populations "It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees' death is accompanied by a set of symptoms, "which does not seem to match anything in the literature."
In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi -- a sign, experts say, that the insects' immune system may have collapsed."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-13 15:34:02 Sun, Jan 13, 2008: from Arab Times (Kuwait) “Islamic Jesus” hits Iranian movie screens "Nader Talebzadeh sees his movie, 'Jesus, the Spirit of God,' as an Islamic answer to Western productions like Mel Gibson's 2004 blockbuster 'The Passion of the Christ,' which he praised as admirable but quite simply 'wrong'.
'Gibson's film is a very good film. I mean that it is a well-crafted movie but the story is wrong -- it was not like that,' he said, referring to two key differences: Islam sees Jesus as a prophet, not the son of God, and does not believe he was crucified.
Talebzadeh said he even went to Gibson's mansion in Malibu, California, to show him his film. 'But it was Sunday and the security at the gate received the film and the brochure and promised to deliver it,' though the Iranian never heard back."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-13 15:52:05 Sun, Jan 13, 2008: from Globe and Mail (Canada) Antarctic ice sheet shrinking at faster rate But a new study released today, based on some of the most extensive measurements to date of the continent's ice mass, presents a worrisome development: Antarctica's ice sheet is shrinking, at a rate that increased dramatically from 1996 to 2006.... "Over the time period of our survey, the ice sheet as a whole was certainly losing mass, and the mass loss increased by 75 per cent in 10 years," the study said.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 18:34:41 Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from The Economist (UK) Christophe de Margerie, the boss of Total, thinks that the world's oil production may be nearing its peak "Mr de Margerie is careful to point out that he is not predicting "peak oil" in a geological sense. His definition of peak oil is "when supply cannot meet demand". He believes that the fuel that the world needs to keep its cars and factories running may well be out there, somewhere. It is just getting harder and harder to extract, for technical as well as political reasons. For one thing, he points out, the output of existing fields is declining by 5m-6m b/d every year. That means that oil firms have to find lots of new fields just to keep production at today's levels. Moreover, the sorts of fields that Western oil firms are starting to develop, in very deep water, or of nearly solid, tar-like oil, are ever more technically challenging. There is not enough skilled labour and fancy equipment in the world, he believes, to ramp up production as quickly as people hope."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-13 15:35:31 Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from The New York Times In Life's Web, Aiding Trees can Kill Them "Their findings, reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that relationships between plant and animal species can be far more complex than had been thought and that even seemingly benign interference can have devastating effects."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 19:42:28 Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from Washington Post The Sixth Extinction More than a decade ago, many scientists claimed that humans were demonstrating a capacity to force a major global catastrophe that would lead to a traumatic shift in climate, an intolerable level of destruction of natural habitats, and an extinction event that could eliminate 30 to 50 percent of all living species by the middle of the 21st century. Now those predictions are coming true. The evidence shows that species loss today is accelerating. We find ourselves uncomfortably privileged to be witnessing a mass extinction event as it's taking place, in real time.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 11:45:26 Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from AP News Floodwaters Begin to Recede in Nev. Town "The cause of the canal failure in the northern Nevada desert town had not been determined, but it followed heavy rain from the storm system that piled up as much as 11 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada range and toppled nearly 500 miles of power lines in California.... water that had been as deep as 8 feet was down to no more than a foot inside homes, but some streets still had 2 to 3 of icy water. "We're working as hard as we can," the mayor said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-12 11:04:19 Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from BBC (UK) Stomach bug sweeping the country "Doctors estimate more than 100,000 people a week are catching norovirus, which causes diarrhoea and vomiting... At least 56 hospital wards across England and Wales have been closed to new patients, the BBC has learned.
The Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust says it is cancelling all non-urgent operations until 9 January because of what it calls the "unrelenting pressure" caused by the virus."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-12 10:55:22 Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from News Blaze (.com) Photon Energy to Peak in 2012 "Scientists call it the "Dark Energy" because they have absolutely no clue as to what it is. Margaret said her friends in the world of spirit have told her it is called "Photon Energy," a band of energy traveling the Universe that is speeding everything up.
Margaret also says the Photon Energy is causing many problems in the world today. It is compressing time, pressuring people, causing road rage, and bringing a lot of anger out. Metaphysically, it is designed to do just that - to bring out of humanity all the trapped energy that the majority on the Earth plane have, not only from this lifetime, but - as Margaret says - from previous lives."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-11 19:08:32 Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from New York Times (US) U.S. Nuclear Envoy Puts Gentle Pressure on North Korea "North Korea missed a Dec. 31 deadline for disabling its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, and, according to Washington, for providing a full list of its nuclear activities, including weapons, facilities and fissile material. Last week, North Korea announced that there was nothing further to declare because it had already explained enough."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:45:06 Sat, Jan 12, 2008: from Sacramento Bee (US) Fish: Delta drop sparks fears of ecological shift "Five Delta fish species continue marching toward extinction, according to new data released Wednesday, a result that some observers warn may signify a major ecological shift in the West Coast's largest estuary.... record-low numbers for three species: longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail and American shad. Two others, Delta smelt and striped bass, posted near-record lows."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-11 19:26:55 Fri, Jan 11, 2008: from United Press International Bush ends Israel visit on religious note "U.S. President George Bush ended his peace-making trip to Israel Friday with a visit to a Holocaust memorial and an aerial tour of Christian sites in Galilee. Flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres, Bush wore a yarmulke and lit a memorial flame, placed a wreath and spoke briefly at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem, Voice of America reported.
"I was most impressed that people in the face of horror and evil would not forsake their God, and in the face of unspeakable crimes against humanity, brave souls -- young and old -- stood strong for what they believe," Bush said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:03:03 Fri, Jan 11, 2008: from United Press International Hybrid poplar trees to absorb contaminants "U.S. researchers want to plant poplar trees at a former oil storage facility to see if the trees can turn contaminants into harmless byproducts. Purdue University researchers said a recent a study found that transgenic poplar cuttings absorbed 90 percent of trichloroethylene within a hydroponic solution in one week. The engineered trees also took up and metabolized the chemical 100 times faster than unaltered hybrid poplars."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:50:02 Fri, Jan 11, 2008: from DOE Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC at Berkeley Body Heat To Power Cell Phones? Nanowires Enable Recovery Of Waste Heat Energy "Energy now lost as heat during the production of electricity could be harnessed through the use of silicon nanowires synthesized via a technique developed by researchers ... The far-ranging potential applications of this technology include DOE’s hydrogen fuel cell-powered “Freedom CAR,” and personal power-jackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell-phones and other electronic devices."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:18:43 Thu, Jan 10, 2008: from ScienceDaily Humans Have Caused Profound Changes In Caribbean Coral Reefs "Coral reefs in the Caribbean have suffered significant changes due to the proximal effects of a growing human population, reports a new study. "It is well acknowledged that coral reefs are declining worldwide but the driving forces remain hotly debated," said author Camilo Mora at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada...The study showed clearly that the number of people living in close proximity to coral reefs is the main driver of the mortality of corals, loss of fish biomass and increases in macroalgae abundance. "The continuing degradation of coral reefs may be soon beyond repair, if threats are not identified and rapidly controlled," Mora said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-09 19:10:59 Thu, Jan 10, 2008: from Reuters Bird dog steps on gun, kills hunter "A Houston-area man was killed in a hunting accident after his dog stepped on a loaded shotgun in the back of a pick-up truck, triggering a blast that pierced the vehicle and the hunter's leg, a local sheriff said. Perry Price, a 46-year-old math teacher, shot a goose on Saturday then put his gun in the back of the truck where the dog was waiting to retrieve the bird."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-09 15:31:21 Wed, Jan 9, 2008: from PortClintonNewsHerald (Ohio) 101-year temperature record broken "In any time in Ohio, we can get a mix of weather. In January it's not really common that we get southerly weather this far north, but it can happen. The jet stream has shifted its position to allow the warm air to flow north into Ohio," the meteorologist said.
"We've had several swings in recent years where we do get warm-ups in January. ... Getting temperatures in the 50s is really not that uncommon, but getting them into the 60s is really noteworthy."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 11:51:12 Tue, Jan 8, 2008: from Telegraph.co.uk Naples rubbish threatens environment disaster "Five thousands tonnes of stinking rubbish have piled up as a result of closed incineration plants and misused public funds. Incompetent management, crooked politicians and above all, the Neapolitan mafia, have been blamed for the crisis.
But the result is not in doubt. The southern region's 6m people are now threatened by rising levels of the poisons, which experts warn could remain in the food chain for decades."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-03 18:14:41 Tue, Jan 8, 2008: from The Daily Green Carbon Isn't the Only Global Cycle Out of Whack "The world is getting familiar with the carbon cycle and how pumping carbon that's been buried for millions of years into the atmosphere causes some global problems. Well, get ready to learn about nitrogen.
Like carbon, the nitrogen cycle is all out of whack. In this case, the origins are similar. Instead of burning petroleum or coal, nitrogen comes from natural gas transformed into ammonia fertilizer and used to grow crops; what doesn't absorb into the soil runs off into streams, which flow into rivers, which flow to the ocean, where the nitrogen fuels "dead zones" -- areas where nitrogen (and phosphorus) fertilizes so much algae growth that it absorbs enough oxygen to make the water inhospitable to fish and other marine life. Jellyfish are about the only thing that thrives in these conditions; corals certainly do not."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-09 22:54:35 Mon, Jan 7, 2008: from Internet George W. Bush considered as the Antichrist "One of the mysteries of Revelation has been the identity and connection of a second beast who rescues the antichrist and serves as his prophet. Rev 13:12 "He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast." Carl [sic] Rove became Bush's alter ego when he rescued Bush from political death after his defeat in a Congressional race, and since 1993 he has served as the brains and the cleverness of the antichrist."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-07 15:26:27 Mon, Jan 7, 2008: from YNetNews (Israel) Radioactive attack possible, says IAEA head "Terror groups might try to attack a facility housing radioactive materials in a populated area or even in one (of the world's) capitals, which could lead to a wide area being infected with radiation and thousands of deaths," ElBaradei told the London based, Arab-language al-Hayat newspaper.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:19:50 Mon, Jan 7, 2008: from Times-Picayune (New Orleans) Study suggests big risks with fish farms "The study from Canadian researchers finds that parasites spread from farmed salmon along Canada's Pacific coast could lead to a species collapse for the area's wild salmon within four years. Previous studies have pointed to sea lice from fish farms as a threat to wild salmon populations, but this is the first to suggest effects on the entire species population."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-05 14:18:19 Sat, Jan 5, 2008: from Reuters Tuberculosis exposure feared on India-to-U.S. flight "U.S. health officials are trying to track down 44 people who sat near a woman infected with a hard-to-treat form of tuberculosis aboard an airliner from India to determine whether they have been infected, authorities said on Friday. The infected woman is 30 years old and is being treated for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, or MDR TB, at a hospital in the San Francisco area, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She had been diagnosed in India with MDR TB but traveled last month anyway, the CDC said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-04 22:54:10 Sat, Jan 5, 2008: from AFP It's raining iguanas after Florida cold snap "An unexpected cold snap this week sent thermometers plummeting in Florida and heat-hungry iguanas dropping from tree branches like autumn leaves, scientists and witnesses said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-04 22:49:04 Sat, Jan 5, 2008: from Associated Press More than 1M lose power in Calif. storm "Howling winds, pelting rain and heavy snow pummeled California on Friday, toppling trees, flipping big rigs, cutting power to more than a million people and forcing evacuations in mudslide-prone areas. Flights were grounded and highways closed in Northern California as gusts reached 80 mph during the second wave of an arctic storm that sent trees crashing onto houses, cars and roads. Forecasters expected the storm to dump as much as 10 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada by Sunday. The heavy snow was slowing search efforts for a family believed to be missing in the mountains, authorities said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-03 14:56:43 Thu, Jan 3, 2008: from National Post (Canada) Peak Gold? Production from the world's biggest producer, South Africa, has sunk to levels not seen since the 1930s, he said, and despite a long-standing bull run for the price of gold, a finite supply of the precious metal means not enough is being produced to meet demand.
"Demand is driving this inexorably," Mr. Norman said. "People talk about peak oil, but peak gold should also be a feature of discussion in 2008."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-03 14:52:58 Thu, Jan 3, 2008: from Radio Netherlands Breakthrough in effective bird flu vaccine There has been a new step forward in the development of an effective vaccine against H5N1, the bird flu virus that's also dangerous to humans. By adding an agent that stimulates the immune system, it appears that the existing vaccine is effective against various strains of the bird flu virus.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-03 14:50:51 Thu, Jan 3, 2008: from Newsday (US) Hundreds of crows killed by virus in NY
Hundreds have died this winter from infection with a strain of avian reovirus that attacks their intestinal systems. The birds have been found in Albany, Dutchess, Jefferson, Montgomery, Orange and Steuben counties. The largest die-off was a group of 100 in Poughkeepsie.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-03 14:45:13 Thu, Jan 3, 2008: from New Straits Times (Malaysia) Malaysian Cabinet committee to tackle climate change "Environmental needs go beyond environmental impact assessments."
Azmi said the setting up of the committee would mean a more concerted effort in dealing with issues of the environment. "As it is, some ministries don't look at climate change mitigation as their responsibility. This cabinet committee will bring everyone in."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-02 19:58:29 Thu, Jan 3, 2008: from AP Snake saved after eating golf balls "BRISBANE, Australia - A snake has been saved by surgery after mistaking four golf balls for a meal of chicken eggs, a veterinarian said Wednesday. A couple had placed the balls in their chicken coop at Nobbys Creek in New South Wales state to encourage their hen to nest, Australian Associated Press reported."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-02 19:53:37 Thu, Jan 3, 2008: from AP Business News Oil futures rise to $100 a barrel "Crude oil prices briefly soared to $100 a barrel Wednesday for the first time, reaching that milestone amid an unshakeable view that global demand for oil and petroleum products will outstrip supplies."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-02 19:39:53 Thu, Jan 3, 2008: from Associated Press California sues EPA over tailpipe rules "California sued the federal government Wednesday in its ongoing bid to set the country's first greenhouse gas limits on cars, trucks and SUVs, providing new data to show its program is superior to a federal plan. EPA Administrator Stephen L. ... Johnson said energy legislation signed by President Bush will raise fuel economy standards to an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, which he called a far more effective approach to reducing greenhouse gases than a patchwork of state regulations."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-01 15:38:36 Tue, Jan 1, 2008: from Yankton Press and Dakotan (US) Project Offers Sanctuary For Endangered Birds "Down by the river, there is a habitat for endangered species recovery program being created with a price tag of $2.47 million. The endangered species piping plover and least tern have been threatened with predators since the building of the dams along the Missouri River."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:24:09 Sat, Dec 29, 2007: from Current Biology (Cell Press) Deep-sea species' Loss Could Lead To Oceans' Collapse, Study Suggests "In a global-scale study, the researchers found some of the first evidence that the health of the deep sea, as measured by the rate of critical ecosystem processes, increases exponentially with the diversity of species living there."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 11:50:02 Thu, Dec 27, 2007: from Science Will Beetles Inherit The Earth? Evolutionary Study Reveals Their Long-term Success "Most modern-day groups of beetles have been around since the time of the dinosaurs and have been diversifying ever since, says new research. There are approximately 350,000 species of beetles on Earth, and probably millions more yet to be discovered, accounting for about 25 percent of all known life forms on the planet. The reason for this large number of beetle species has been debated by scientists for many years, but never resolved."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 17:44:22 Thu, Dec 27, 2007: from ScienceDaily Scientist On Quest For Disappearing Eel "Biology professor Peter Hodson and his team of toxicologists and chemists have received a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) to solve the mystery of Lake Ontario's disappearing eel population.
Declared a "species of concern" under Canada's new Species at Risk Act, American eels have until recently supported a multi-million-dollar historic fishery in Ontario and an even larger industry in Quebec. But with rapidly decreasing numbers of eels, the Ontario fishery has been closed and the Quebec fishery is in serious decline."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-08 09:19:43 Thu, Dec 27, 2007: from Associated Press Loss of sea ice could harm walrus "Federal marine mammal experts in Alaska studying the effects of global warming on walrus, polar bears and ice seals warn there are limit [sic] to the protections they can provide. They can restrict hunters, ship traffic and offshore petroleum activity, but that may not be enough if the animals' basic habitat "sea ice" disappears every summer."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-10-08 16:28:54 Sun, Dec 23, 2007: from British Medical Journal Humor Develops From Aggression Caused By Male Hormones, Professor Says "Humour appears to develop from aggression caused by male hormones, according to a study published in the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal....Particularly interesting for the evolution of humour is, [Professor Shuster] says, the observations that initial aggressive intent seems to become channeled into a verbal response which pushes it into a contrived, but more subtle and sophisticated joke, so the aggression is hidden by wit. The two then eventually split as the wit takes on an independent life of its own."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-12 13:48:24 Tue, Dec 18, 2007: from USA Today Microwave popcorn chemical out of the bag "ConAgra has removed a controversial chemical from its microwave popcorn that gives the snack a buttery, creamy taste, citing concern for its workers' health."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 16:37:59 Tue, Dec 18, 2007: from NPR Worries About Water as Chinese Glacier Retreats "China's lowest glacier, the Mingyong glacier -- an enormous, dirty, craggy mass of ice wedged in a mountain valley 8,900 feet above sea level -- is melting. And as it melts, the glacier on the edge of the Tibetan plateau is retreating up the mountain faster than experts can believe."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2007-12-17 18:45:08 Mon, Dec 17, 2007: from Washington Post Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms "Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome -- a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 10:56:19 Mon, Dec 17, 2007: from New York Times (US) LA Reservoirs Closed After Carcinogen Is Found The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power plans to drain 600 million gallons from the reservoirs, the Elysian and the Silver Lake, early next year, said a water department spokesman, Joseph Ramallo. The reservoirs will be out of use for three to four months amid drought conditions.
High levels of the carcinogen bromate were found in early October by a commercial customer who ran a laboratory test, officials said. The utility confirmed the finding, immediately removed the reservoirs from service and notified the Department of Public Health.
Officials emphasized that the chemical is dangerous only after long-term consumption.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 11:50:35 Sun, Dec 16, 2007: from NPR Scientists Seek Cause of Mysterious "Rogue" Waves "'Rogue waves' are monsters of the open ocean -- the powerful 'walls of water' can destroy even large ships. Satellite measurements have found them to be up to 100 feet tall. So far, scientists have disagreed about what causes the waves, but researchers at UCLA think that they may have found a clue"
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-09 22:39:55 Sun, Dec 16, 2007: from The Observer Inside Ebola "Inside Ebola's zone of death Uganda is gripped by fear of an epidemic explosion' as the killer virus develops a slower and potentially more lethal version."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:17:46 Fri, Dec 14, 2007: from American Geophysical Union, by way of Reuters Carbon cuts a must to halt warming -- US scientists "We're a lot closer to climate tipping points than we thought we were," said James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "If we are to have any chance in avoiding the points of no return, we're going to have to make some changes." .... "In the summer of 1980, the North Pole was covered by an ice sheet about the size of the continental United States, but this year the ice would not have covered the states west of the Mississippi River."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 11:01:38 Fri, Dec 14, 2007: from Science Daily (US) Carbon Crisis lethal for coral reefs "If world leaders do not immediately engage in a race against time to save the Earth's coral reefs, these vital ecosystems will not survive the global warming and acidification predicted for later this century. That is the conclusion of a group of marine scientists from around the world in a major new study published in the journal Science on Dec. 13.... "This crisis is on our doorstep, not decades away. We have little time in which to respond, but respond, we must!" says Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, lead author of the Science paper, The Carbon Crisis: Coral Reefs under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2007-12-14 09:56:29 Fri, Dec 14, 2007: from Taipei Times (Taiwan) Keep strong nuke pact: Gorbachev "Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said on Tuesday a pillar of the arms control system could fall if Washington and Moscow replace the landmark START nuclear arms reduction treaty with a less formal pact.
The START treaty, signed in 1991, set ceilings on the size of the Russian and US nuclear arsenals and became a symbol of the end of the Cold War. Washington has indicated it will not extend it in 2009 but wants to replace it with a pact that eliminates strict verification requirements and weapons curbs."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2007-12-14 09:56:42 Fri, Dec 14, 2007: from Jakarta Post (Indonesia) Bird flu resurfaces in Asia, human deaths and poultry outbreaks reported "Bird flu has resurfaced in parts of Asia, with human deaths reported in Indonesia and China and fresh poultry outbreaks plaguing other countries during the winter months when the virus typically flares. Indonesia, the nation hardest hit by the H5N1 virus, announced its 93rd death on Friday after a 47-year-old man died a day earlier in a Jakarta hospital, said Health Ministry spokesman Joko Suyono. He fell ill on Dec. 2 and was admitted with flu-like symptoms, becoming Indonesia's 115th person infected with the disease."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:02:22 Fri, Dec 14, 2007: from The Hindu (India), Nov 21, 2007 Urbanisation causing wetland depletion "Experts found that the pollution of wetland ecosystems in the State was considerably high in Vembanad-Kol backwater system following various types of pollution in the upstream areas of the Pampa, Achenkovil and Periyar rivers. Also, salinity intrusion into rivers due to low water level in the summer months makes it unfit for drinking and other uses like irrigation. Heavy metal concentration was observed during the pre-monsoon months. The high metal concentration, observed in Kochi harbour area during the pre-monsoon season, was also attributed to the intrusion of high saline waters and precipitation of particulate matter."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 10:20:24 Tue, Dec 11, 2007: from AP News Ominous Arctic melt worries experts "An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.
Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:22:50 Tue, Dec 11, 2007: from The Washington Post (2005, US) Wave of Marine Species Extinctions Feared "Sitting in a small motorboat a few hundred yards offshore on a mid-July afternoon, Samuel H. Gruber -- a University of Miami professor who has devoted more than two decades to studying the lemon sharks that breed here -- plunged into despondency. The mangroves being ripped up to build a new resort provide food and protection that the sharks can't get in the open ocean, and Gruber fears the worst." ... "It's been a slow-motion disaster," said Boris Worm, a professor at Canada's Dalhousie University, whose 2003 study that found that 90 percent of the top predator fish have vanished from the oceans. "It's silent and invisible. People don't imagine this. It hasn't captured our imagination, like the rain forest."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-01-09 22:43:48 Tue, Dec 11, 2007: from Washington Post (US) Virus Starts Like a Cold But Can Turn Into a Killer "Infectious-disease expert David N. Gilbert was making rounds at the Providence Portland Medical Center in Oregon in April when he realized that an unusual number of patients, including young, vigorous adults, were being hit by a frightening pneumonia.
"What was so striking was to see patients who were otherwise healthy be just devastated," Gilbert said. Within a day or two of developing a cough and high fever, some were so sick they would arrive at the emergency room gasping for air. "They couldn't breathe," Gilbert said. "They were going to die if we didn't get more oxygen into them." Gilbert alerted state health officials, a decision that led investigators to realize that a new, apparently more virulent form of a virus that usually causes nothing worse than a nasty cold was circulating around the United States. At least 1,035 Americans in four states have been infected so far this year by the virus, known as an adenovirus. Dozens have been hospitalized, many requiring intensive care, and at least 10 have died.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-18 10:55:14 Tue, Dec 11, 2007: from AAAS (US) Sir David King Urges Global Pact by 2009 to Reduce Greenhouse Gases Speaking to an overflow audience, King said that the Earth is already feeling destructive effects of human-caused climate change. But if a rigorous new agreement could be approved in 2 years and implemented by 2012, he said, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases could be stabilized between 450 and 550 parts per million. "The impacts at 450 ppm will be 'dangerous,'" King said. But if levels were to approach 550 ppm and beyond, possible on current trends by mid-century, impacts which would become progressively more severe at higher levels include: reduced crop yields in many areas; reduced supplies of fresh water; storms, droughts, and forest fires of increasing intensity; species extinction; lethal heat waves; and coastal flooding that could create tens of millions of refugees.
"We must get global agreement," he said, "and I'm standing here in Washington [D.C.] saying: 'We need it in a very short period of time.' "
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-01-02 11:21:34 Tue, Dec 11, 2007: from Journal of Carbon Balance and Management Projected climate change impact on oceanic acidification "Future projections of ocean acidification will therefore mainly be dependent on the future level of atmospheric CO2. The consequences of a small but sustained decrease in oceanic pH on marine phytoplankton are virtually unknown. It will be important for marine ecologists in the future to better understand the sensitivities of phytoplankton growth to pH in particular, so as to better quantify the likely future biological changes at the regional and global scale."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 11:59:50 Tue, Dec 11, 2007: from KOTV (Oklahoma) Worst Tulsa ice storm in 20 years "Thousands of calls have been made to the City's 911 operators requesting police, fire, medical and other assistance.
Tulsa firefighters have responded to more than 50 structural fires since the storm began. One smoke-inhalation fatality was reported. One person died Monday when their vehicle struck a downed power line and brought a power pole down on the vehicle.
At 2:00 p.m. on Monday, Tulsa police had 76 uniformed officers patrolling streets. They were assisted by 65 detectives, academy staff and recruits and other police officers taking calls and looking for hazardous situations.
Public Works had 30 crews removing tree debris and checking bridges and overpasses for ice.
"All agencies are working diligently to deal with the needs of citizens," said Mayor Taylor. "We will continue to monitor weather conditions and to direct operations as long as needed from the EOC."
"I want to urge everyone to be very cautious in coming days," the mayor said."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2007-12-10 10:57:22 Mon, Dec 10, 2007: from Reuters (Africa) A new virus called Chikungunya spreads to several new countries via mosquito "This mutation increases the potential for Chikungunya virus to permanently extend its range into Europe and the Americas," Stephen Higgs and colleagues at the University of Texas Medical Branch wrote in their report, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 11:58:31 Mon, Dec 10, 2007: from The Daily Star (Bangladesh) Natural calamities and Bangladesh growth potential Apart from natural calamities we are facing two other disasters in Bangladesh: (a) our agricultural land is reducing, almost 1 percent per annum. As a result, we would not be able to increase the production of food grains beyond the limits supported currently available by high yield varieties, (b) the high growth of population is hindering all our development plans. If we could control the population growth from the time of our independence, there would not be any people below poverty level at this point in time.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:22:03 Mon, Dec 10, 2007: from The Telegraph (UK) One in three bird species faces extinction An increase of 1°C from present temperatures is likely to trigger roughly 100 bird extinctions. But if the global average temperature were to rise 5°C, from that point on an additional degree of warming, to 6°C, would probably cause 300 to 500 more bird extinctions.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 12:18:45 Sun, Dec 9, 2007: from TheDay (CT) Cheap Oil is So Yesterday. Time to Start Writing Expensive Oil into Our Plans? "Competition for scarce resources will drive up the future price of raw materials: The building blocks of progress -- fossil fuel energy, metals, land - are more abundant and cheaper now than they will be in the future. Resource nationalism means that certain strategic materials may not be available for import -- at any price -- in the not-too-distant future. We should reconsider the future value of energy, raw materials, farmland and water."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 11:57:22 Sun, Dec 9, 2007: from
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:21:33 Sun, Dec 9, 2007: from Xinhua (China) Scientists: More than 20 species alien to China invaded country in last decade "Wan Fanghao, an official with the ministry of agriculture, said some alien species have already caused disasters in the country.
The American White Moth, native to North America and first detected in Northeast China's Liaoning Province in 1979, is threatening forests and crops in 116 counties of six provinces and municipalities in China including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Liaoning, according to the State Forestry Administration (SFA).
The moth denude a tree, and consume vegetables and crops in days. It boasts a strong reproduction ability. A female moth can lay some 2,000 eggs in one go, and can breed 30 million to 200 million descendants a year, according to biologists."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-06 21:52:05 Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Academic seeks 100 percent greenhouse target Nations need to cut greenhouse pollution by 50 per cent by 2025 and 100 per cent by 2050 to avoid climatic disaster, an academic says.
Climate change researcher Ian McGregor said the kind of emissions cuts being discussed at the UN conference on Bali would fail to avert catastrophic climate change.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 11:53:48 Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from Health Day News Environmental Toxin Collects in Breast Milk "Scientists have discovered the mechanism by which a chemical known as perchlorate can collect in breast milk and cause cognitive and motor deficits in newborns."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2007-12-08 14:08:32 Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from Telegraph.co.uk Russia 'needs nuclear arsenal to match US' The Kremlin has already announced plans to commission six or seven of its ultra-modern Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missiles a year.
The Topol-M, which can to carry up to six warheads, is capable of penetrating America's most sophisticated defence systems.
Russia's nuclear modernisation programme is at the core of an ambitious plan to update the country's armed forces, which came close to total collapse during the chaotic and penurious 1990s.
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-22 20:07:53 Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from AllAfrica.com Uganda: Cabinet Meets Over Ebola Epidemic "At Mulago Hospital, where Dr. Jonah Kule, a medic from Bundibugyo, died of suspected Ebola on Tuesday night, some sections were paralysed yesterday as health workers feared to handle patients without appropriate protective gear. In the casualty ward, Saturday Vision saw empty glove boxes and plastic containers meant to carry disinfectants. By about 11:00am, a crowd of patients was outside the casualty ward waiting in vain to be called in, while others went home frustrated. In emergency ward 3B, some workers wore masks, white gumboots and gloves, while others did not. Meanwhile, in the out-patient department in Old Mulago, work was going on normally except for the low turn up of patients compared to other days. The hospital director could not be reached for comment as he was in marathon meetings."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2007-12-08 12:01:30 Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from TheCheers (Estonia) Method Man certain Britney's balding signalled the Apocalypse "The rocker recently said that the 'Toxic' singer's decision to go bald marked a total change in the music industry.
"The whole music industry is twisted on it's f**king head. And Britney Spears shaved her head - that's how I know the Apocalypse is coming," Contactmusic quoted him, as saying."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 14:16:27 Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from Cebu Daily News (Philippines) Manila: Study sees lack of clean water by 2025 "The Philippines' water resources are fast deteriorating with rapid urbanization, with only about 33 percent of river systems still suitable as a supply source and up to 58 percent of groundwater now contaminated, a new Asian Development Bank (ADB) research shows."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2008-02-17 11:53:13 Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from ScienceDaily Ocean Plankton Reducing Greenhouse Gases By Using More Carbon Dioxide "Microscopically tiny marine organisms known as plankton increase their carbon uptake in response to increased concentrations of dissolved CO2 and thereby contribute to a dampening of the greenhouse effect on a global scale. An international group of scientists led by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany documented this biological mechanism in a natural plankton community for the first time."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2007-12-08 11:48:32 Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from AllHands.com Uganda: 'Hiv/Aids is Nothing Compared to Plague' "This hut had to be at a good distance of not less than 200 metres. Relatives would bring food and pour it on a banana leaf about 100 metres from the 'condemned' patient, who would then pick it or eat it from there. This was meant to cut out any direct contact with healthy people.
Often, these patients would die at night and would be buried just next to the hut by only family members. Neighbours would shun such homes for a long time.
Just like happens when a disease breaks out and is yet to be identified, rumours of witchcraft abounded as regards plague.
But it was the colonial government which brought an end to the pandemic when it exploited cultural beliefs to wipe out plague. The cure, the government said, lay in the tail of an undesirable rodent that is a menace in our homes - the rat. And it was real."
Mouse-Over Punchline
2009-02-08 17:34:24 Sat, Dec 8, 2007: from BBC Global Systems may 'face collapse' "Current global consumption levels could result in a large-scale ecosystem collapse by the middle of the century, environmental group WWF has warned."
