Top Yahoo searches in 2007: Global warming and celebrity melt-downs

Glenn Chapman, Yahoo News 3 Dec 07;

A review of Yahoo searches reveals global warming, celebrity meltdowns, social networking and a literary boy wizard's final adventure captured mankind's attention in 2007.

The US Internet giant sifted billions of searches made this year by its hundreds of millions of users worldwide to identify trends regarding what piqued people's interest.

The results were posted on Monday at Yahoo's website under the banner of "Top Trends in Search in 2007"

"It is really a barometer for what is interesting and relevant for the world," Yahoo director of product marketing Raj Gossain said while discussing the findings with AFP.

"We have a set of trends that identifies a culture that is really on the brink of change. There are a lot of inflection points that relate to the environment, politics, trade, and how they view celebrity."

Information about fallen Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and the Middle East was the most sought-after news followed by oil prices and the activities of US President George W. Bush.

"People were checking the status of the war and we've seen more and more searches on exit strategies," said Yahoo senior news editor Vera Chan.

"People are monitoring the situation in Iran, the nuclear program and worries of further military confrontations."

Product recalls proved to be hot topics, with queries logged regarding problems with pet food, toys, and even peanut butter.

Internet searches revealed a hunger for knowledge about global warming and ways to do something about it, according to Gossain.

Recycling, hybrid cars, solar energy, and former US vice president Al Gore, who shared a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his battle against global warming, were among top "green" searches for the year.

"These queries indicate a desire for people to take action," Gossain said. "The issue has clearly gone into the public consciousness."

The Internet was rife, as usual, with searches for information on celebrities. This year the focus was on stars whose lives were troubled or tragic.

Queries about pop singer Britney Spears topped the list, followed in succession by those about celebrity brat Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith, a former Playboy centerfold found dead in a Florida hotel room in February.

"These stories are our pop culture Greek tragedy," Chan said of celebrity sagas.

"We've seen in the past couple of years there is a circuit celebrities travel. You go on some kind of spree, apologize and check into rehab. This year it seems the stakes were much higher."

Internet searches were also enthralled with "final farewells," the top one being for fictional boy wizard Harry Potter.

The last of in the series of Potter books by author J.K. Rowling was released this year.

The Internet was also scoured for information about the finale of the cable television series "The Sopranos" and the death of Marvel Comic cartoon hero "Captain America."

Video-sharing website YouTube, online encyclopedia Wikipedia and online social-networking locale Facebook led the pack in technology searches, followed by an Apple Inc. triad of iTunes, iPod and iPhone, according to Yahoo.

Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and Sony's Playstation 3 video game consoles landed in the top ten technology searches, along with the music-playing video game "Guitar Hero."

Global warming joined animals, games, dinosaurs and homework subjects in the top ten Yahoo searches by children.

"2007 seems to be a year when we are at a crossroads and change is going to come in personal lives and on the global stage," Chan said.

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Nature Conservancy study finds marine conservation cuts poverty

Stevie Emilia, The Jakarta Post 3 Dec 07;

Well-managed marine conservation can significantly help reduce poverty and enhance the quality of life for local communities, according to a new study.

The study, Nature's Investment Bank, which was released by The Nature Conservancy in Manado, North Sulawesi, on Thursday, was based on more than 1,100 interviews within poor communities in four countries, including Indonesia, from November 2006 to May this year.

In Indonesia, the study was conducted in North Sulawesi's Bunaken National Park, a popular diving destination in the province.

"This important study demonstrates that conservation and the well-being of humans are indelibly linked," said Stephanie Meeks, acting president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy.

"It's clear from this study that taking steps to protect vital natural systems, such as through the establishment of marine protected areas, provides clear benefits to people as well as wildlife."

Governments around the world are wrestling with questions about whether investment in conservation benefits the lives of the extremely poor.

This new study suggests that such investments do bring about measurable economic and quality of life benefits.

In the study, it was found that restoration of local resources, be they fisheries or coral reefs, increased fish catches and economic opportunities, improved community health as well as directly enhanced the lives of local residents.

Craig Leisher, who co-authored the study along with Dutch economist Dr. Peter van Beukering and Brazilian/Australian social scientist Dr. Lea M. Scherl, said when protected marine areas are developed with government support and scientific data, and are managed primarily by local communities that take pride in the management of their natural resources, significant improvements in quality of life can be seen.

"Building networks of resilient marine protected areas will help maintain the food and income necessary to support coastal communities as well as curb the use of destructive fishing techniques," he said.

Poverty has risen to the forefront of global issues, with nearly 3 billion people around the world living on the equivalent of US$2 a day or less, forcing millions to make decisions that damage their environment in order to feed themselves and their families.

When poverty increases, fish stocks are depleted. Fishermen are often driven to use destructive methods to catch what little is left, damaging the reefs and fish habitats that produce the food local communities depend upon for survival.

With every 5 percent loss of coral reefs, 250,000 to 500,000 tons of fish are lost as well, threatening food security for millions.

According to the study, tour operators in Bunaken National Park noted that tourists come for world-class diving and their presence directly benefits the local economy and tourism sector.

Marine conservation also directly benefits local farmers and fishermen because hotels and restaurants purchase much of their food from them.

In Bunaken National Park, the study found that marine conservation has benefited local communities, such as from the creation of more than 1,000 new jobs open to the local community, and by allowing those working in tourism to earn twice as much as fishermen. Moreover, 20 percent of park entrance fees are used for local community projects.

The study also found out that fishermen in Bunaken's marine protected area spent some 50 percent less time per year fishing than fishermen in areas without a marine protected area, while their income was roughly equal. This finding suggests in protected areas fishermen have more time to invest in other activities, such as the tourism industry.

The study, which was co-funded by the Nature Conservancy, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Australian government, WWF-Indonesia and was completed in collaboration with local NGOs and universities in each of the four study sites, also found similar results in other areas researched.

Links

On the Nature Conservancy website
Nature's Investment Bank Report Finds Marine Conservation Can Reduce Poverty
and its Protected Areas page

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Cameroon welcomes home "Taiping Four" gorillas

Tansa Musa, Reuters 1 Dec 07;

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Cameroon has welcomed home four endangered western lowland gorillas known as the "Taiping Four", following an international campaign that won their return from Malaysia, where they were illegally smuggled five years ago.

The four, a male and three females, were flown to Douala airport late on Friday from South Africa, where they had been kept at the National Zoological Garden in Pretoria after the Malaysian government sent them back to Africa in 2004.

Malaysia' Taiping Zoo had acquired the apes after they were trapped as infants in Cameroon's forests in 2002 and illegally smuggled out of the central African country.

DNA tests established they came from Cameroon, whose government launched an intense diplomatic lobbying campaign for their return, backed by international conservation groups that seek to protect endangered primates.

"This is a victory for our diplomacy. This is proof of our commitment to the principle of the protection of our wildlife," Cameroon's Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, told reporters at Douala airport as the gorillas were unloaded in big cages from the plane.

As he spoke, young men and women wearing T-shirts from a local environmental group performed traditional dances and chanted songs calling for wildlife to be preserved. They waved placards with the message "No to gorilla trafficking".

After their arrival, the gorillas were taken to the Limbe Wildlife Centre sanctuary. They will initially be freed into a quarantine facility before joining 11 other gorillas at the sanctuary in a special enclosure.

Pretoria's zoo sent two of its primate keepers with the apes to assist with their resettlement at the Limbe sanctuary.

Western lowland gorillas are grey brown, grow up to 6 feet (1.83 metres) tall and can weigh as much as 275 kg (606 lb). Their intelligence and physical structure make them one of man's closest relatives.

Man is their only predator, with hunters tracking them for bushmeat and timber companies destroying their natural habitat.

Cameroon is one of the few countries where they still exist in the wild, although numbers are fast dwindling.

"I am absolutely delighted that the gorillas are back in Cameroon ... This sends a message to poachers and traffickers that the world will not stand by and tolerate the illegal trade in wildlife. Our wildlife indeed should stay wild and stay in the jungle," Christina Pretorius of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said.

IFAW was one of several conservation groups that backed Cameroon in its campaign to recover the "Taiping Four".

Due to an increase in the hunting of animals for bushmeat -- especially prized primates -- across Africa, sanctuaries across the continent are dealing with an influx of primate orphans in need of lifelong care.

The Limbe sanctuary has rescued four chimps this year alone.

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U.S. says seeks new climate deal, rejects Kyoto

Alister Doyle, Reuters 3 Dec 07;

BALI, Indonesia (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday it would seek a new global deal to fight climate change after Australia's move to ratify the Kyoto Protocol isolated it as the only developed nation outside the current U.N. pact.

"We're not here to be a roadblock," U.S. delegation leader Harlan Watson said on the opening day of a December 3-14 meeting of almost 190 nations in Bali, Indonesia, seeking to agree a roadmap to work out a successor to Kyoto which runs to 2012.

"The United States intends to be flexible and work constructively on a Bali roadmap," he said, referring to plans for Bali to launch two years of negotiations on a new U.N.-led deal to fight climate change beyond 2012.

"We respect the decision that other countries have made and we would, of course, ask them to respect the decision we have made," Watson told a news conference.

Earlier, delegates gave almost a minute's applause to news that Australia's new Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was signing documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol hours after taking office.

The United States is now the only developed nation opposed to Kyoto. President George W. Bush rejected the pact in 2001, saying it would cost U.S. jobs and wrongly excluded 2012 targets for developing nations.

Watson said that Washington was willing to discuss a new long-term deal to succeed Kyoto.

"The response will have to be global," he said, adding that Washington would be flexible in considering whether targets should be voluntary, the approach favored by Bush until now, or binding as under Kyoto.

CLEAN COAL

Washington has ploughed billions of dollars into new technologies, ranging from hydrogen to "clean coal," rating the hope of breakthroughs a better solution than Kyoto's caps.

Kyoto binds 36 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Australia will be the 37th.

Watson said that Kyoto nations would face a struggle to keep their pledges of cuts. "The current regime of legally binding is not doing the job," he said.

It was not going to be easy to reach 2012 goals under Kyoto, he said. "Only a few countries have reduced emissions absolutely -- the UK, Germany and a few others ... It's going to take heroic steps to meet 2012 targets."

Watson said that U.S. emissions had risen by just 1.6 percent from 2000-05, when the economy expanded by 12 percent and the population rose by 5 percent.

That U.S. performance is better than many Kyoto nations. But U.S. emissions in 2005 were also 16 percent higher than in 1990, the benchmark year for Kyoto.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Green group warns Java of looming disaster from loss of protected forests

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post 3 Dec 07;

The continued loss of protected forests on Java could lead to serious ecological disasters on the densely populated island costing the country some Rp 136 trillion annually, an environmental organization said over the weekend.

According to a recent study of Java's forests between 2002 and 2006, conducted by the Greenomics Indonesia, some 165,000 hectares of conservation and protected forests on Java experienced decreasing ecological function.

"Most of the deterioration can be found in West, Central and East Java provinces," Greenomics executive director Elfian Effendi said.

"The large number of squatters in forests and illegal logging have made things even worse," he said.

He said at least 61 regencies in the three provinces were prone to floods, landslides and drought due to climate change and the damage due local forests.

"Damage to conservation and protected forests has affected at least 123 rivers and is threatening more than 10 million hectares of farmland and thousands of villages located along the rivers," said Elfian.

"During the rainy season, floods submerge farmland and villages in coastal areas; landslides hit villages and damage infrastructures in mountainous areas.

"In the dry season, drought hits almost all regencies located in mountainous areas, costing Rp 136.2 trillion annually to the government and the people on the island," he said.

Elfian stressed the importance of maintaining balanced and sustainable development on Java, and halting logging in conservation and protected forests.

He also called for increased efforts to reforest barren areas prone to natural disasters.irregular seasons and the ecological disasters have caused losses in the agriculture sector," he said.

"Climate change will remain a major hurdle for people-based economic development in years to come.

"The more forest areas are damaged, the more serious the ecological disasters will be and the more losses the people will suffer."

Indonesia and the United Nations Convention on Climate Change are jointly hosting the latest meeting to start hammering out a new global agreement to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol. The 13th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change starts Monday.

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IT industry 'damaging' the environment

Paul Eccleston, Telegraph 3 Dec 07;

The rapidly expanding information and technology industry is having a growing impact on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, a new report claims.

IT is growing faster than the aviation industry and, with more than a billion computers on the planet, is responsible for around two per cent of man-made CO2 annually, which is on a par with the global airline industry.

An environmental campaign group is now urging the industry to wake up to the environmental impact it is having and adopt better energy policies.

In its report An Inefficient Truth, the charity Global Action Plan calls on the Government to introduce new laws that will force IT companies and users to cut their energy use.

The report claims there are an estimated 10 million office PCs in the UK and 43 per cent of the adult population regularly uses one at work.

IT equipment accounts for about 10 per cent of the country's total efficient electricity use.

As the number of people using computers rises so does the energy consumed by UK organisations.

Information and communications technology (ICT) equipment accounts for about 10 per cent of the UK's total electricity consumption or the output from four nuclear power stations.

The intensive power requirements needed to run and cool data centres now accounts for around a quarter of the IT industry's sector's CO2 emissions.

Between 2000 and 2006, energy consumption from non-domestic ICT equipment increased by more than 70 per cent and is expected to grow a further 40 per cent by 2020.

The Inefficient Truth report said that although computers had helped transform the world they had also greatly increased demand for energy. Because of the fear of power cuts, companies increased storage capacity, operated back-up generators and even duplicated their systems, resulting in an upwardly spiralling cycle of energy consumption.

The use of ICT was growing at a faster rate than the increase in flying but unlike the aviation industry, IT had the opportunity to make energy savings at very little cost.

The report said the link between increased energy consumption of ICT and man-made climate change was clear and cutting energy use now made sense not just environmentally but also as a way of business cutting costs.

Computer servers 'as bad' for climate as SUVs
Catherine Brahic, NewScientist.com news service 3 Dec 07;

Computer servers are at least as great a threat to the climate as SUVs or the global aviation industry, warns a new report.

Global Action Plan, a UK-based environmental organisation, publishes a report today drawing attention to the carbon footprint of the IT industry in the UK.

"Computers are seen as quite benign things sitting on your desk," says Trewin Restorick, director of the group. "But, for instance, in our charity we have one server. That server has same carbon footprint as your average SUV doing 15 miles to the gallon. Yet, whereas the SUV is seen as a villain from the environmental perspective, the server is not."

The report, An Inefficient Truth states that with more than 1 billion computers on the planet, the global IT sector is responsible for about 2% of human carbon dioxide emissions each year – a similar figure to the global airline industry.

The energy consumption is driven largely by vast amounts of customer and user data that are stored on the computer servers in most businesses. The rate at which data storage is growing surpasses the growth in the airline industry: in 2006, 48% more data storage capacity was sold in the UK than in 2005, while the number of plane passengers grew by 3%.
Unknown cost

The group ran a survey of some of the largest businesses in the UK in an attempt to find out how aware the industry is of its carbon footprint.

The survey revealed that more than half of the IT professionals surveyed believed their environmental impact was "significant", however:

• 86% of them do not know the carbon footprint of their activities

• two thirds of the departments they work for are not responsible for paying their own energy bills

• more than half do not even see those bills

The bottom line is that IT departments "are buying lots and lots of kit that they have to run and cool without knowing what the energy cost of that kit is", says Restorick.

The survey also revealed that considerable amounts of electricity could be saved by more efficient data storage: 60% of the departments said they were using less than half their storage capacity and 37% said they are storing data indefinitely.

Restorick told New Scientist that simply increasing the efficiency of energy use and data storage could easily cut 30% of power use in businesses. "In theory, this could happen overnight," he says.
ID cards

Respondents to the survey said they are given few if any incentives to "go green". Global Action Plan is calling on the UK government to review its policies on long-term data storage to take into account the environmental implications and to encourage businesses to only keep the data they need to save.

Restorick points out that policies being pursued by the government have considerable carbon costs. "This government is very keen on individual ID cards," says Restorick. "We would say you should be doing a carbon analysis of putting ID cards into our country – such cards would require data being kept on every single person in the country for an infinite amount of time."

The report is published as a major UN conference about climate change opens in Bali, Indonesia.

From 3 to 14 December, thousands of representatives from governments around the world, NGOs, climate policy makers, researchers, environmental activists, and lobbyists meet in Bali to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto protocol and discuss its progress.

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Fears mount for world's last great tuna fishery

David Brooks Yahoo News 2 Dec 07;

Delegates from over 40 countries began meeting Monday at a Pacific fisheries conference in Guam amid warning signs the world's last great tuna fishery is heading for crisis.

Some argue the western and central Pacific fishery -- which supplies over half the world's tuna -- is in trouble already.

Attempts to improve conservation measures will be put to the five-day meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, which includes delegates from Pacific nations and major fishing countries.

"We still believe there is time for this commission to change course to save our fisheries and our future," Greenpeace's Fiji-based oceans campaigner Tagi Toribau told AFP.

Prized for top quality sashimi in Japan and as a source of cheap canned protein on supermarket shelves all over the world, tuna stocks have been slashed in most of the world's oceans.

The future of the comparatively healthy western and central Pacific tuna fishery is crucial for small Pacific states. Tuna is the only major economic resource for many, as well as one of the most important food sources.

Currently licence fees provide them a small return of around five to six percent of the three billion US dollar annual catch in the region.

The commission believes the two most endangered species -- yellowfin and bigeye -- need a reprieve if the fishery is to remain sustainable.

The bigeye catch needs to be reduced by 25 percent and yellowfin by 10 percent, commission executive director Andrew Wright told AFP.

Stocks of the most common species skipjack are believed to be healthy, although it is less valuable than bigeye and yellowfin and usually ends up in cans.

Skipjack is usually caught in nets by sophisticated purse-seine fishing vessels from countries including Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea and other so called distant water fishing nations.

The purse-seiners accounted for 72 percent of the total catch in the region last year.

But the purse-seiners -- some modern hi-tech vessels are capable of catching up to 10,000 tonnes annually -- also catch large numbers of juvenile yellowfin and bigeye as bycatch.

Long-line boats capable of reeling out massive lines carrying thousands of baited hooks catch most of the mature bigeye and yellowfin, which are sold at premium prices on the fresh tuna market.

Greenpeace argues the commission has under-estimated the impact of illegal and unreported fishing.

It says the fishing effort in the western and central Pacific needs to be cut by half if tuna stocks are to remain healthy, although Wright says this would be politically and economically impossible to impose.

Maurice Brownjohn, president of the Papua New Guinea Fishing Industry Association, says there is already a crisis in some areas of the region.

"If you look at the state of the domestic industries of the island countries, PNG has got less than 20 boats operating out of 80 domestic long-liners," he said.

"The Solomons has lost its domestic long-line fleet and Fiji I think is down to 60 or 70 percent.

"This is mirrored throughout the Pacific and has happened in just the last couple of years with the downturn of the fishery."

Greenpeace's Toribau said apart from cutting fishing effort, Greenpeace will press at this week's meeting for marine reserves set up in some international waters in the region to safeguard breeding areas.

It also wants a ban on catches being transferred from fishing vessels to larger transport ships at sea, a practice which makes it harder to detect illegal fishing and unreported catches.

Brownjohn is sceptical that the major fishing nations will accept their responsibility to reduce fishing.

"They are not interested in not bringing in any measures which would detrimentally affect their industryÂ’s operations or cut the supply of raw materials for their processors."

Even the commission's Wright is pessimistic about prospects for effective conservation measures in the short term.

"What you might find -- and maybe it's 10 years down the track -- is that the resources do become overexploited and you have to experience a crisis in the fishery before governments do take the difficult decisions to re-establish the fisheries on a sustainable basis."

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Tim Flannery: Climate campaigner's road from 'raving idiot' to Australian of the year

Neil Sands Yahoo News 2 Dec 07;

Flannery, a zoologist, biologist, explorer, conservationist and writer, began his scientific career documenting the long-term impact of human activity on the tropical rainforests of Papau New Guinea.

Australian scientist Tim Flannery grew used to receiving quizzical looks in the 1990s as he pounded the corridors of power in Canberra urging politicians to do something about climate change.

"You'd go and see a federal minister and they'd stare at you like you were a raving idiot," Flannery says of his early lobbying efforts.

"You could see them thinking 'what's this guy spouting on about?'.

"That only changed recently."

A shift in the Australian public's attitude towards climate change, brought about in no small part by Flannery himself, means politicans are now far less dismissive of the scientist-turned-environmental campaigner.

The extent to which the views that Flannery's critics once derided as fringe nonsense have become part of the mainstream was demonstrated last January, when the 51-year-old was named 2007 Australian of the Year.

"Tim helps us understand the predicament we face, carefully laying out the science and showing us the likely effects of human-induced climate change," his award citation said.

"But he also offers us hope of a solution to stop and ultimately reverse this trend."

Flannery returned to Parliament House, where his calls for environmental action once went unheeded, to received the award at a glitzy ceremony presided over by then-prime minister John Howard.

If the conservative leader hoped that Flannery's acceptance of an award traditionally viewed as apolitical might tone down his criticism of government policy, he was to be disappointed.

Flannery continued to launch ferocious attacks on Howard's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and used his status as Australian of the Year to broadcast his opinions as widely as possible.

"John Howard handed me the award but it was the people of Australia who gave it to me," Flannery told AFP.

"They gave it to me for raising these issues and I owe it to them to continue doing that. It's perhaps given a bit more gravitas to the issue than it might have had otherwise."

Howard was ousted in elections on November 24 by Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, who has pledged to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Flannery, a zoologist, biologist, explorer, conservationist and writer, began his scientific career documenting the long-term impact of human activity on the tropical rainforests of Papau New Guinea.

He discovered 29 new species of kangaroo in the remote New Guinea highlands, surviving encounters with giant spiders, having arrows pointed at him by hostile tribesmen and contracting typhus and malaria.

Renowned British naturalist Sir David Attenborough described Flannery as an explorer in the league of historical figures such as David Livingstone.

He rose to public prominence in Australia following the 1994 publication of the ecological history "The Future Eaters," an examination of how mankind has altered the environment of Australasia.

Last year he released "The Weather Makers," which explains how the build up of greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels has damaged the atmosphere and is causing global warming.

This has resulted in the melting of the polar ice-caps, rising sea levels and the extinction of some species -- incontrovertible evidence that mankind's pollution is heating up the Earth, he said.

The book made best-seller lists around the world as the climate change warnings Flannery had been issuing for well over a decade finally gained public acceptance.

Flannery says the turnaround in pubic opinion occurred over a short period last year and he remains uncertain about why the change occurred.

"My feeling is that the Iraq adventure was a factor," he said.

"People thought 'well if the intelligence services and the president (US President George W. Bush) could get it so wrong on weapons of mass destruction then maybe they're wrong on other things'.

"It opened the way for them to challenge what they were being told about climate change, that it wasn't a problem."

Flannery this year took up a climate change research position at Sydney's Macquarie University and he is also chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council.

In the latter role, he will be part of the Danish government delegation at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Bali from December 3, which will look at ways to negotiate pollution cuts after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol pledges run out.

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Australia steals show at Bali climate talks by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol

David Fogarty, Reuters 3 Dec 07;

BALI, Indonesia (Reuters) - Australia won an ovation at the start of U.N.-led climate change talks in Bali on Monday by agreeing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, isolating the United States as the only developed nation outside the pact.

Soon after an Australian delegate promised immediate action on Kyoto, new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took the oath of office and signed documents to ratify, ending his country's long-held opposition to the global climate agreement.

"I think I can speak for all present here by expressing a sigh of relief," conference host and Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar told the conference opening session.

About 190 nations are in Bali seeking a breakthrough for a new global pact to fight climate change by 2009 to avert droughts, heatwaves and rising seas that will hit the poor hardest.

"The world is watching closely," Witoelar told delegates at the December 3-14 meeting trying to bind outsiders led by the United States and China into a long-term U.N.-led fight against warming.

"Climate change is unequivocal and accelerating," he told the opening ceremony in a luxury beach resort on the Indonesian island. "It is becoming increasingly evident that the most severe impacts of climate change will be felt by poor nations."

A new treaty is meant to widen the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The United States and developing nations have no caps under Kyoto.

The United States, as the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, has been feeling the heat from developing nations demanding the rich make stronger commitments to curb emissions.

Australia, the world's top coal exporter and among the world's highest per-capita greenhouse gas polluters, has been criticized for years for refusing the ratify Kyoto.

"It was an emotional and spontaneous reaction to a very significant decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Secretariat, said of the ovation.

The United States was unfazed.

"NO ROAD BLOCKS"

"We respect Australia's decision," Harlan Watson, head of the U.S. delegation, told reporters. "We're not here to be a roadblock. We're committed to a successful conclusion here."

De Boer told delegates rich nations had to agree to axe emissions from burning fossil fuels to encourage poor countries to start braking their own rising emissions.

"Bold action in the north can fuel clean growth in the south," he said, urging a sharing of clean energy technologies such as solar or wind power. "I fervently hope you will make a breakthrough here in Bali by adopting a negotiating agenda."

Others urged caution.

"At the opening ceremonies for the climate talks in Bali, there was lots of good will and optimism, but there is clearly a challenging road ahead," said Angela Anderson, vice president for climate programs at the Washington-based National Environmental Trust.

"Agreements on adaptation, deforestation and technology cooperation must be reached before the high-level officials arrive next week. While all the governments agree in principle, there is significant disagreement on the details."

Climate change talks have been bogged down by arguments over who will pay the bill for cleaner technology and how to share out the burden of emissions curbs between rich and poor nations.

China and India, among the world's top polluters and comprising more than a third of humanity, say it's unfair and unrealistic for them to agree to targets, particularly as they try to lift millions out of poverty.

The European Union, which has pledged to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, said that countries should start to look at hard new commitments in Bali.

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle, Gerard Wynn and Adhityani Arga in Bali and James Grubel in Canberra; editing by)

Australian PM ratifies Kyoto Protocol
Madeleine Coorey, Yahoo News 3 Dec 07;

Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd became Australia's 26th prime minister Monday and immediately began dismantling the former government's policies by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Rudd had pledged to commit Australia to the landmark United Nation's treaty on greenhouse gas emissions as his first priority. And the former diplomat kept his word after his official swearing in at Government House in Canberra.

"Today I have signed the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol," he said in a statement.

"This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change."

Rudd, who ousted conservative John Howard in elections nine days ago on a platform that included reversing the previous government's policy and ratifying Kyoto, had taken the oath of office just hours earlier.

The centre-left leader said ratification of the treaty on combating global warming was approved by the first meeting of the government's executive council and later by the governor general.

Ratification will come into force 90 days after the commitment is handed to the United Nations, he said, meaning Australia will become a full member of the Kyoto Protocol before the end of March 2008.

The move leaves the United States as the only major developed nation that has refused to ratify the pact.

Rudd said Kyoto was considered to be "the most far-reaching agreement on environment and sustainable development ever adopted".

"Australia's official declaration today that we will become a member of the Kyoto Protocol is a significant step forward in our country's efforts to fight climate change domestically -- and with the international community," he said.

The move means Rudd is likely to receive a hero's reception when he undertakes his first foreign visit as prime minister to attend high level talks at a United Nations conference on climate change in Bali.

The conference, which began Monday, aims to produce a "roadmap" for negotiating a new pact on tackling global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

Australia's scientific community praised Rudd's move, saying it acknowledged the scientific basis of warnings on the impact of climate change and would draw more of the developing world into the Kyoto process.

"It has acknowledged that for the last 11 years Australia has had backwards thinking in terms of what the science is telling us," said Professor Barry Brook, a climate change expert from the University of Adelaide.

"The second important thing is this has given America no excuse now."

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Josep Canadell said the decision showed Kyoto was still vital.

"This comes at a critical crossroads, as it will increase the morale and the momentum to get global emission targets on the table soon after Bali," he said.

"It's a very significant moment for Australia both domestically and internationally and the hope is that this near-consensus by the developed world will release a snowball effect on the attitude of developing countries."

Rudd said his government would do "everything in its power" to help Australia meet its Kyoto obligations -- which are set at capping greenhouse gas emissions at 108 percent of 1990 levels by 2012.

Official projections point to Australia just breaching this limit, estimating greenhouse gas output at 109 percent of 1990 levels by 2012.

Rudd has promised a sharp reversal of several of Howard's other policies, including withdrawing Australian combat troops from Iraq war and rolling back labour laws, which he says are unfair to workers.

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Climate Change May Wipe Some Indonesian Islands Off Map

Sugita Katyal and Adhityani Arga, PlanetArk 3 Dec 07;

"It will be like permanent flooding. By 2050, about 24 percent of Jakarta will disappear," possibly even forcing the capital to move to Bandung, a hill city 180 km east of Jakarta.

JAKARTA - Many of Indonesia's islands may be swallowed up by the sea if world leaders fail to find a way to halt rising sea levels at this week's climate change conference on the resort island of Bali.

Doomsters take this dire warning by Indonesian scientists a step further and predict that by 2035, the Indonesian capital's airport will be flooded by sea water and rendered useless; and by 2080, the tide will be lapping at the steps of Jakarta's imposing Dutch-era Presidential palace which sits 10 km inland (about 6 miles).

The Bali conference is aimed at finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, on cutting climate warming carbon emissions. With over 17,000 islands, many at risk of being washed away, Indonesians are anxious to see an agreement reached and quickly implemented that will keep rising seas at bay.

Just last week, tides burst through sea walls, cutting a key road to Jakarta's international airport until officials were able to reinforce coastal barricades.

"Island states are very vulnerable to sea level rise and very vulnerable to storms. Indonesia ... is particularly vulnerable," Nicholas Stern, author of an acclaimed report on climate change, said on a visit to Jakarta earlier this year.

Even large islands are at risk as global warming might shrink their landmass, forcing coastal communities out of their homes and depriving millions of a livelihood.

The island worst hit would be Java, which accounts for more than half of Indonesia's 226 million people. Here rising sea levels would swamp three of the island's biggest cities near the coast -- Jakarta, Surabaya and Semarang -- destroying industrial plants and infrastructure.

"Tens of millions of people would have to move out of their homes. There is no way this will happen without conflict," Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said recently.

"The cost would be very high. Imagine, it's not just about building better infrastructure, but we'd have to relocate people and change the way people live," added Witoelar, who has said that Indonesia could lose 2,000 of its islands by 2030 if sea levels continue to rise.


CRUNCH TIME AT BALI

Environmentalists say this week's climate change meeting in Bali will be crunch time for threatened coastlines and islands as delegates from nearly 190 countries meet to hammer out a new treaty on global warming.

Several small island nations including Singapore, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Caribbean countries have raised the alarm over rising sea levels which could wipe them off the map.

The Maldives, a cluster of 1,200 islands renowned for its luxury resorts, has asked the international community to address climate change so it does not sink into a watery grave.

According to a UN climate report, temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and sea levels by between 18 cm and 59 cm (seven and 23 inches) this century.

Under current greenhouse gas emission levels, Indonesia could lose about 400,000 sq km of landmass by 2080, including about 10 percent of Papua, and 5 percent of both Java and Sumatra on the northern coastlines, Armi Susandi, a meteorologist at the Bandung Institute of Technology, told Reuters.

Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country, has faced intense pressure over agricultural land for decades.

Susandi, who has researched the impact of climate change on Indonesia, estimated sea levels would rise by an average of 0.5 cm a year until 2080, while the submersion rate in Jakarta, which lies just above sea level, would be higher at 0.87 cm a year.

A study by the UK-based International Institute for Economy and Development (IIED) said at least 8 out of 92 of the outermost small islands that make up the country's borders are vulnerable.


TOO MANY ISLANDS TO COUNT

Less than half of Indonesia's islands are inhabited and many are not even named. Now, the authorities are hastily counting the coral-fringed islands that span a distance of 5,000 km, the equivalent of going from Ireland to Iran, before it is too late.

Disappearing islands and coastlines would not only change the Indonesian map, but could also restrict access to mineral resources situated in the most vulnerable spots, Susandi said.

He estimates that land loss alone would cost Indonesia 5 percent of its GDP without taking into account the loss of property and livelihood as millions migrate from low-lying coastlines to cities and towns on higher ground.

There are 42 million people in Indonesia living in areas less than 10 meters above the average sea level, who could be acutely affected by rising sea levels, the IIED study showed.

A separate study by the United Nations Environment Programme in 1992 showed in two districts in Java alone, rising waters could deprive more than 81,000 farmers of their rice fields or prawn and fish ponds, while 43,000 farm labourers would lose their job.

One solution is to cover Indonesia's fragile beaches with mangroves, the first line of defence against sea level rise, which can break big waves and hold back soil and silt that damage coral reefs.

A more expensive alternative is to erect multiple concrete walls on the coastlines, as the United States has done to break the tropical storms that hit its coast, Susandi said.

Some areas, including the northern shores of Jakarta, are already fitted with concrete sea barriers, but they are often damaged or too low to block rising waters and big waves such as the ones that hit Jakarta in November.

"It will be like permanent flooding," Susandi said. "By 2050, about 24 percent of Jakarta will disappear," possibly even forcing the capital to move to Bandung, a hill city 180 km east of Jakarta.

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

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Energy-Hungry India Eyes Role As "Wind Superpower"

Alistair Scrutton, PlanetArk 3 Dec 07;

When it comes to renewable energy and wind power, India can look the West in the eye and say -- look at our years of progressive policies

NEW DELHI - India might be painted as a pollution-spewing, global-warming economy of 1 billion people but it is also one of the world's biggest wind power users, part of a focus on renewable energy mostly unnoticed in the West.

Years of tax incentives have helped make India one of the fastest-growing markets for wind power, a major component of renewable energy that will be high on the agenda of the Dec. 3-14 UN climate change meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

The Bali conference comes as international pressure mounts on India to ensure its growth gets cleaner. The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned this month of the climatic dangers of "unfettered" energy demand growth in India.

"When it comes to renewable energy and wind power, India can look the West in the eye and say -- look at our years of progressive policies," said Santosh Kamath, a wind power specialist and associate director at KPMG consultants.

Wind power in India is still a minority sector compared with the Asian giant's overall energy needs that are dependent on coal and oil.

With its reliance on dirty fuels, India will become the world's number three carbon emitter by 2015, the IEA says.

But renewable energy, of which the vast majority is wind power, accounts for more than 7 percent of India's installed generation capacity -- a rate that compares favourably with much of the rest of the world.

India is the world's fourth largest wind-power market.

"Wind power is growing tremendously. If you want a wind plant you'll have to book a year in advance," said Chandra Bhushan, associate director at the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.

"There's been years of progressive policies and recognition for a long time that India will face a shortage of fossil fuels."

India, with its thousands of miles of coastline, is suited to wind power. Its wind power potential is estimated at 45,000 megawatts (MW) -- about a third of total energy consumption.

There is also little of the concern in India seen in the West over wind turbines ruining scenic vistas -- scores can be seen, for example, outside Jaisalmer's ancient fort in Rajasthan, one of India's most popular tourist sites.


A WIND SUPERPOWER?

The boom brings in profits, the kind of virtuous circle experts say is needed for renewable energy to really work.

At Vestas RBB India Ltd, one of India's largest wind-power firms, sales rose 30 percent in 2006 and the company forecasts growth of about 40 percent this year, company officials say.

India's rise to what supporters call a "wind superpower" is due to tax breaks in the 1990s and to Tulsi Tanti, chairman of Suzlon Energy, India's biggest wind energy company.

Troubled by power shortages in the 1990s for his textile business in western India, he bought some wind turbines and soon realised it could be a good business. His company quickly became the pioneer in the sector.

Wind power has also been helped by some states setting targets that 10 percent of their power should come from renewable energy.

High capital costs and the fact wind is intermittent -- plants often run at a quarter of their capacity compared with 80 percent capacity for nuclear power -- mean that it is expensive and the sector has needed tax incentives to survive.

Rakesh Bakshi, managing director of Vestas RBB, said provisions were still needed until economies of scale mean "we can give conventional energy a run for its money".

But as oil reaches US$100 a barrel, and with India suffering shortages that see factories often relying on diesel generators, firms are increasingly looking at wind.

Sarvesh Kumar, deputy managing director of Vestas RBB, said many clients were large manufacturers, such as cement or textile firms, concerned about the long-term energy costs.

KPMG estimates that wind power costs around 3.5 rupees a kilowatt hour, compared with 2.5-3 rupees for imported coal.

"Wind energy is almost price competitive in many places," T.L. Sankar, senior energy adviser at the Administrative Staff College of India, told a renewable energy conference.

And global warming might only add to its attraction.

"It can only gain in importance because of concerns about climate change," added Kamath.

(Editing by Y.P. Rajesh and David Fogarty)

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Wind Power Sets Sail From Crowded Germany

Sylvia Westall, PlanetArk 3 Dec 07;

Stanford University researchers have found that if only 20 percent of the world's wind power could be captured, it would satisfy 100 percent of energy demands for all purposes and over seven times its electricity needs.

BERLIN - Nearly 19,000 wind turbines cover Germany: dotted across the countryside, nudging to the edge of cities and whirring alongside motorways.

They generate 5 percent of Germany's electricity -- more than in any other country in the world. But with the best plots already taken, there are now few spaces left where companies are allowed to build more. And it's not just a German problem.

"There's not that much empty land space," said Steve Sawyer, secretary-general of the Global Wind Energy Council, which represents the industry. "Northern Europe is this little, crowded peninsula on the western tip of Asia with an awful lot of people.

"The next big phase of development in places like Germany and Holland will be offshore, where the resources are so much better."

With a target of generating around 30 percent of its electricity using renewable energy sources by 2020, Germany is one of several countries where investment is being poured into offshore wind technology. The first large sites are planned for next year in the North and Baltic seas.

In countries keen to reduce emissions and dependency on fossil fuels, offshore is the place to invest, analysts say.

Thanks to offshore investment, Germany's environment ministry predicts wind power could generate around a third of electricity by 2030, more than currently generated using gas.

The country's engineering association estimates there is 50 billion euros (US$74.31 billion) worth of potential investment in offshore wind.

"At the moment I would buy German offshore wind projects," said associate William Young at consultant New Energy Finance. "There's a sea-change going on in offshore at the moment which could allow some good money to be made for people who are willing to take calculated risks."

It is not just a question of space. Offshore turbines can also work harder, generating at full capacity up to 50 percent of the time. Sheltered onshore turbines work at full tilt around 20 percent of the time.


LAND GRAB

In Britain, where around 1.5 percent of electricity is produced by wind, opposition to 50 metre-tall turbines near homes has meant companies are also looking out to sea.

"The land-grab has happened," said John-Marc Bunce, alternative energy analyst at broker Ambrian Partners.

"In places like the UK there was never really enough land anyway and the government was crazy thinking anyone would want to have a wind turbine next to their house."

Also, as the European Union makes emitting carbon more costly, utilities once wary of investing in renewables are taking note. Under EU rules, companies have to buy extra emissions permits if they produce too much harmful carbon dioxide, making polluting more expensive.

Germany's biggest power producer, RWE, said last month it plans to quadruple its generating capacity from renewables, investing 1 billion euros annually from 2008, mainly in onshore and offshore wind.

In countries which have space on land, investment is also wise, Bunce says: the United States alone could supply most of the world's wind power growth in the next five years.

Recent research supports the theoretical potential of wind power.

Stanford University researchers have found that if only 20 percent of the world's wind power could be captured, it would satisfy 100 percent of energy demands for all purposes and over seven times its electricity needs.


NO SILVER BULLET

But offshore wind is not without drawbacks, and over the longer term, it could be upstaged by other sources.

"It costs a lot more and it's a lot more difficult. The development of offshore technology is in the same place that onshore wind industry was eight, 10 years ago," said Sawyer at the Global Wind Energy Council.

Offshore turbines have to be installed and maintained in much harsher conditions, and while they can be bigger and more powerful, they need to be extra reliable.

"It's almost like designing a ship. You can't afford to have a 5 million euro machine standing offshore, and some 25-cent part breaks and have it sitting idle for a month," Sawyer said.

Germany is seeking to "repower" its onshore sites with new, more powerful turbines and with offshore being riskier, it is wise to invest in other technologies too, analysts say.

"Offshore will only be truly widely accepted when the benefits are really seen, when the first big projects take off," said Johannes Lackmann, head of Germany's renewable energy association. "We have to develop all renewable energy resources. Some will prove fit, some will not and fall to the wayside."

So the industry has a tricky choice: invest now or wait until technologies improve, hoping there is a better answer.

"There's no silver bullet. There's going to be far greater energy efficiency: it's going to be offshore wind, onshore wind and a little of solar, plus cleaner coal, plus nuclear and gas," said Young at New Energy Finance.

"Renewables are not the answer, they are just a small part of the answer."

While wind is cost-competitive over the next decade, advances in solar and wave technology will eventually make these sources equally, if not more attractive, analysts say.

"Longer term, solar makes a lot of sense because you put it anywhere. Further down the line, it's wave power," Bunce said.

But while turbines can be installed off the coast, floating wind farms are unlikely to be a viable option.

With some in the shipping industry concerned about how wind farms could block radio frequencies and shipping lanes, the amount of suitable sites near the coast is limited.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Lovell in London)

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Singapore companies on way to building green data centres

Study shows that the effort is part of corporate social responsibility goals
Amit Roy Choudhury, Business Times 3 Dec 07;

A NEW study has revealed a welcome trend among Singapore and Asia-Pacific companies: they are more aware of the harmful environmental effects that large, power hungry data centres have and are looking at ways to make these centres more environmentally friendly.

The 2007 Green Data Centre report by Symantec shows that three-fourths of the survey respondents have an interest in adopting a strategic green data centre initiative.

However, the flip side, according to Symantec's Darric Hor, is that only one in seven have been successful at implementing a green data centre, 'illustrating a stark contrast between interest and execution'.

Mr Hor, who is general manager of Symantec Singapore, noted that for the purpose of the study a green data centre has been defined as one which has increased efficiencies in energy usage, power consumption, space utilisation and reduction of polluting energy sources.

'Data centre managers are running out of space and energy costs are skyrocketing, so they are motivated to 'green' the data centre for cost reduction and efficiency purposes,' Mr Hor noted. However, a clear motivator that separates Singapore and other Asia-Pacific countries from other regions is that the 'greening the data centre' rollouts are being done more from a sense of responsibility to the community, rather than being driven by cost savings and business profitability demands alone, he added.

The study notes that 66 per cent of respondents in Asia-Pacific, including Japan, (APJ), indicated energy efficiency is either a critical or high priority concern in their data centres.

While 76 per cent of APJ companies are at least considering a green strategy, only one in six (16 per cent) have begun implementing a green data centre.

Mr Hor said it was pleasing to note that the Singapore and Asia-Pacific managers who responded to this survey adopted corporate social responsibility positions.

'In some cases, corporate boards have developed a triple bottom line that includes formal metrics to measure economic, social, and environmental success,' he said.

'To meet their environmental objectives, some companies have pledged to reduce total energy consumption, while others have stated their intent to reduce their carbon footprint.' The Symantec official noted that many data centre professionals are increasingly turning to software solutions, including those that manage server consolidation and virtualised environments, as they develop and implement their green initiative.

In their responses to the survey, data centre managers have indicated that software designed for server consolidation and server virtualisation are the most popular solutions in creating energy efficiencies, with 51 per cent and 47 per cent indicating plans to consolidate and virtualise servers respectively.

Around 68 per cent of respondents indicate that reducing energy played a role in their decision to implement virtualisation and server consolidation.

In addition to server consolidation and virtualisation, those who implement a green data centre strategy are more likely to use software for storage resource management, server management and data deduplication.

Irrespective of the technique used, at the end of the day Singapore enterprises will gain in cost reduction and increased efficiency from their 'green' initiatives, and from unifying the initiatives seamlessly with their business demands, Mr Hor noted.

'They need to also manage the pervasive challenges in the data centre complexity - particularly around server consolidation and virtualisation.'

Singapore based CIOs (chief information officers) today have a unique opportunity to strengthen their companies' green efforts through a variety of measures, the Symantec official said.

'They need to develop the company's strategy to accommodate tighter IT asset management and impress on vendors the need to use less toxic substances and more energy-efficient technologies.'

The survey respondents revealed that most data centre managers are at least planning to implement power management products, with 30 per cent implementing on selected equipment, 13 per cent on equipment throughout the data centre, and 34 per cent either planning to use or currently evaluating.

Mr Hor noted that in addition to server virtualisation and consolidation, energy efficient CPUs were the second-most popular technology for data centre power reduction, with 28 per cent of respondents citing this as one of the two technologies they think will reduce power consumption.

The following were also described as possible solutions that respondents either plan to implement, or are currently implementing: replacing old equipment with more energy-efficient equipment (44 per cent); recycling obsolete hardware components (39 per cent); monitoring power consumption (38 per cent); and reducing the space used by servers (37 per cent).

'The findings indicate that cost savings and constant business pressure to maintain performance and meet increasingly aggressive service level agreements are the main reasons for implementing many green strategies.

For them it's beyond environmental concerns - it's about meeting business goals and reducing costs,' Mr Hor noted.

However, the survey participants noted that while energy efficiency is a priority, it must be balanced by business needs: 'The increasing emphasis on creating energy efficiencies has added another layer of complexity in managing today's data centre.'

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Hidden colony of orang-utans is discovered in the forests of Borneo

Daniel Howden, The Independent 3 Dec 07

Conservationists working to combat deforestation on the island of Borneo have uncovered a "hidden colony" of 800 orang-utans in an area under imminent threat from the expansion of the palm oil industry.

The previously uncounted apes have been found in the Sungai Putri, a tract of rare peat swamp forest in the West Kalimantan province of Indonesian Borneo. But the area has recently been rezoned by local government and concessions for palm oil plantations could be sold at any time.

Frank Momberg, country director of the conservation group Flora and Fauna international, is part of a group of scientists and environmentalists who were studying the massive carbon deposits in the area when they came upon the colony. "Local people knew of course [that they were there]," he said. "But no scientist had ... recorded this population before."

Mr Momberg is leading an urgent effort to protect the 57,000-acre forest and guarantee a future for the orang-utans and other endangered species in Sungai Putri, as well as the millions of tons of carbon it secures.

Borneo is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, and is at the epicentre of deforestation worldwide. Half of all tropical timber used on the planet comes from this one island. Peat swamp forests like Sungai Putri are among the most important carbon sinks on the planet, yet vast areas of them have been drained in recent years for conversion to agricultural land, releasing millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The swampy floor of Sungai Putri, thick with decaying trees and rich organic matter up to 11m deep in places, is not only a dense, deep carbon sink, says Mr Momberg, but the "most efficient terrestrial ecosystem for the sequestration of carbon".

Deforestation accounts for one-fifth of all carbon released into the atmosphere and Indonesia's slash and burn policies have already seen the country become the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

It has also meant massive habitat loss for Asia's only great ape. The orang-utan could be the first great ape to be made extinct. The "man of the forest" used to be common throughout Asia but now survives only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. There are some 7,000 Sumatran orang-utans left and the estimated population of 40,000 remaining on Borneo is also in steep decline.

Delegates at the climate talks in Bali will be asked to radically expand the Kyoto Protocol which would see countries like Indonesia rewarded for avoiding further deforestation.

If the proposals, backed by scientists, environmentalists, developing nations and a growing business lobby, can be agreed, areas such as Sungai Putri could be worth millions of dollars and play a key role in combating climate change.

But the quick returns offered from palm oil mean the threat to the forest remains real and 70 per cent of Sungai Putri could be wiped out within five years.

"Farmers use fire to clear the land and fires are already burning at the edges," said Mr Momberg. "Illegal logging is ongoing with small scale but continuous degradation of the forest."

Help may be at hand from a new kind of conservation effort. A green investment company, Carbon Conservation, has been working with local communities, Flora and Fauna International and local government to bring in outside funding. They are setting up a scheme under which private-sector investors put in money which is used both to protect the forest and offer alternative incomes to local people. In return investors get carbon credits for the area which has avoided deforestation.

At the moment the market for the voluntary credits is small but that could change overnight if the UN talks deliver an international framework deal.

Dorjee Sun, the chief executive of Carbon Conservation, said that negotiations were well advanced. A leading investment bank and others were just waiting for a signal from Bali.

"The private sector is showing the way by buying voluntary credits, now it's over to the governments in Bali," he said. "It's time for them to just do it."

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Best of our wild blogs: 3 Dec 07

Is the Labrador talk really that cheap?
another view of someone who attended Cpt Francis' briefing on the justin dive blog

Labrador's living intertidal shore
and more about the volunteers who work on our shores on the wildfilms blog

Dredging on Changi
and other thoughts about our northern shores on the budak blog

The Making of a Nature Guide
the inside story on the manta blog

Should 10,000 people fly to Bali to fight climate change?
Gerard Wynn on the reuters environment blog

In defence of the underdog(s)
comments on 'Has Singapore gone to the dogs?' on the nearly lucid blog

Teaching the baby heron to hunt
on the bird ecology blog

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Sea turtles face threat from Indian ports plan

Debabrata Mohanty, The Independent 3 Dec 07;

One of the world's largest sea-turtle nesting beaches is facing a double development threat from industry on India's east coast.

A large port is planned either side of the main nesting site of the threatened Olive Ridley turtles in Orissa where up to 300,000 of the reptiles come ashore to lay their eggs every year.

The Olive Ridley, among the smallest of the world's seven marine turtle species, is found in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans, and swims great distances to haul itself out on to the sandy beaches of Orissa for its annual egg laying ritual.

However, over the past 13 years, more than 130,000 Olive Ridleys have been washed up dead in the area, after being caught in the nets of trawlers and gill netters. And now the species, listed as "vulnerable" by the World Conservation Union, is facing the risk of being driven from the coast completely by the proposed ports on either side of its nesting site.

Tata Steel, one of the biggest industrial companies in India, is building a £294m deepwater port at Dhamra, near a river mouth, a mere eight miles north-west of the nesting beaches of the Gahirmatha marine sanctuary. This is one of the largest nesting beaches in the world for marine turtles, with 100,000 to 300,000 nesting there every year.

On the other side of the nesting beaches, the Korean steelmaker Posco has proposed a £343m dedicated port for its 12 million-ton steel plant, 42 miles to the south.

They are big developments: the port by the Indian conglomerate is likely to have a total capacity of 83 million tons a year within 10 years while Korean steelmaker's port will handle 31 million tons a year.

Conservation groups such as Operation Kachhapa and Greenpeace fear the ports would add to the existing problem of loss of suitable undisturbed breeding habitat.

The activists have singled out the Tata Steel port, given its proximity to the nesting beach and the ancillary development it would spawn. "Tata Steel's port at Dhamra would be an ecological blunder," said Sanjiv Gopal of Greenpeace India. "We recently conducted a rapid biodiversity assessment which found the presence of Olive Ridley turtles as well as the endangered crab-eating frog and the white belly mangrove snake. The results have made it clear that the project cannot go ahead, in the absence of a comprehensive and impartial environment impact assessment."

Greenpeace also referred to a satellite telemetry study by the Wildlife Institute of India in 2001 showing turtle movements near the proposed port. But thousands of them also die a gory death as they are trapped in the nets of fishing trawlers that illegally scour the coast.

"The artificial lights from anchoring vessels on Dhamra port and shore-based megaport-based industries would disrupt the breeding and nesting of the Ridleys as the hatchlings would be disoriented by artificial light," said Biswajit Mohanty of Operation Kachhapa (Sanskrit for turtle).

An expert body of the Indian Supreme Court suggested that the company and the local Orissa government should look for an alternative site.

"The routes that will be used by shipping will necessarily be through the turtle congregation areas offshore. Oil spills and sundry pollution will inevitably occur in the event of a large port being set up. It is therefore necessary that an alternative site is located for this port," the body said in response to a petition filed by a Delhi lawyer in 2003.

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Prices unlikely to rise after destruction of contaminated vegetables: AVA

Channel NewsAsia 2 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE : Vegetable prices in Singapore will not be affected by the destruction of some 200 tonnes of contaminated veggies.

The vegetables from six farms in Sungei Tengah and Lim Chu Kang Agrotechnology Parks had to be destroyed after they were contaminated by a red dye released from an RSAF aircraft more than a week ago in preparation for an upcoming aerobatic display.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority says the vegetables destroyed comprise less than 1 percent of Singapore's consumption and so will not affect vegetable prices.

Farmers who spoke to our reporter say they hope to grow new crops in time for Chinese New Year.

Others are hoping for adequate compensation from the Defence Ministry. - CNA/ch

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AVA says vegetables in markets safe to eat: following checks on vegie farms with 'red spots' Channel NewsAsia 1 Dec 07;

Farmers told to destroy 200 tonnes of greens after red dye from airbase falls on them
Mindef says dye was from an aircraft being tested on the ground last Friday
Jessica Jaganathan & David Boey, Straits Times 1 Dec 07;

Read more!

Transformed Mount Faber

Transformed Mt Faber eyes MICE business
It hopes to double capacity before Sentosa facilities come onstream
Lynette Khoo, Business Times 3 Dec 07;

AFTER a major revamp in 2004 that saw Mount Faber transforming from a cable car station to Singapore's second most visited paid tourist attraction, Mount Faber is now eyeing the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) business.

Before the MICE facilities in the integrated resort at Sentosa are up and running, Mount Faber hopes to double its own MICE capacity. Its facilities can currently hold 1,200 persons at any one time.

'We have been working with the relevant authorities for land space,' Mount Faber Leisure Group CEO Susan Teh told BT. 'We are still in talks to see how we can expand.'

The existing MICE facilities are already fully utilised during peak season and 80 per cent booked during off-peak period, she said.

From a low base, revenue from the MICE segment has grown by a staggering 290 per cent since Ms Teh took office in 2004, and has become a significant growth driver for the group.

Ms Teh now hopes to position Mount Faber as a 'total solutions' for MICE events, given the unique offering of conference venue amid the lush flora and fauna, attractions, food and beverage (F&B), business centre service and coach transport that enables visitors to arrive in style.

Some major institutions and corporations that have already tapped Mount Faber's MICE facilities include the International Monetary Fund, Citibank Singapore, UBS and Singapore Telecommunications.

Confident that Mount Faber offers a unique hilltop experience not seen in other parts of Singapore, Ms Teh reckoned that the MICE facilities at Resorts World at Sentosa would be complementary rather than competitive.

'As the government is targeting 17 million (visitors by 2015), there will definitely be spillovers and everyone can have a piece of the pie,' Ms Teh said.

With companies increasingly looking for unique places to hold corporate functions, Mount Faber now has an event management team that helps to plan corporate events such as dinner and dance parties and product launches.

Since Mount Faber's revamp in 2004 that saw the group embark on a strategy of diversification, significant improvements have been seen not just in its facade, but also translating to headline numbers.

Its profit has doubled from 2004 while its revenue has tripled over the same period. The revenue mix has shifted from predominantly cable car receipts to an even contribution from F&B, MICE, cable car rides, attractions and wholesaling.

Mount Faber now serves a broad target group by providing casual to formal dining, family attractions to venues for corporate events, and has seen a mingling of tourists and locals.

The revamped Mount Faber also saw an increase in visitor arrivals from 1.2 million in 2004 to 1.8 million year-to-date.

'We are targeting two million visitors, an all-time high, and we are on track by the end of this year,' Ms Teh said.

The icon of the revamped Mount Faber - Jewel Box - which houses its MICE facilities and F&B outlets, sits on the hilltop which was previously only used for the cable car station.

Other selling points of Mount Faber stem from its 'four seasons' campaign, which changes the design and colours of the facade at Jewel Box every quarter, including touch points like menu and cocktails, offering a different experience each time.

'You can't find another attraction in a hill environment. The Jewel Box itself has already started to benefit from the brand and this is what we will leverage on going forward,' she added.

Ahead of the opening of the Sentosa IR, other non-MICE facilities at Mount Faber will also get a facelift to cater to the sophisticated and discerning visitors that the IR is expected to attract.

This would include upgrading the F&B area which comprises Altivo, Glass Bar, Faber Rock and Faber Hill Bistro, and increasing retail outlets, Ms Teh said.

'We are working with the relevant authorities to improve the accessibility here,' she added.

Without letting on whether a tram line is in the pipeline, Ms Teh said that the authorities will look at improving accessibility in the southern precinct in general and can be expected to talk to various stakeholders to achieve this.

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Sentosa planning to develop Mount Faber ahead of IR
Channel NewsAsia 14 Aug 07

Read more!

Food retail prices set to rise as supplies cost more

Supply price index for food jumped 10% in October over last year
Erica Tay, Straits Times 3 Dec 07;

THE price of a meal out seems set to rise as food supply costs, especially for imports, soared for the second month in a row.

Many eateries have yet to pass on the higher charges to customers, but economists believe they will not be able to hold out much longer, given the severity of the cost hikes.

Official figures released last week showed that Singapore's domestic supply price index (DSPI) rose 4.9 per cent in October from a year ago, and its food component, 10.3 per cent. This followed a 10 per cent jump in September.

While its more famous cousin, the consumer price index (CPI), tracks price rises faced by end-consumers, the lesser-known DSPI tracks the prices of goods made locally or imported that are retained for use in the domestic economy.

This means that while the increase in the price of a bowl of noodles is reflected in the CPI, increases in the prices of the ingredients - such as flour, meat and condiments - are reflected in the DSPI.

The DSPI showed prices of live animals were 24.5 per cent higher in October than a year ago; of eggs and dairy produce, 41.6 per cent; of vegetables and fruit, 5 per cent. Fish prices fell 0.5 per cent.

DBS Bank economist Irvin Seah said the new data signals that faster rises in consumer food prices are probably just around the corner.

Food makes up the largest chunk of the CPI, which is used to calculate the headline inflation rate.

The average Singapore household saw its food bill go up by 4.3 per cent in October from a year ago.

'Consumer food prices usually follow supply prices with a lag, as retailers and food sellers tend to absorb cost hikes for some time,' Mr Seah said.

United Overseas Bank economist Ho Woei Chen expects food inflation to rise, saying: 'Suppliers will eventually have to pass on higher costs.'

She said rising rents, wages and food costs will force those in the catering sector to raise prices for consumers.

Restaurateur Nicholas Pang has seen ingredients rise 20 per cent in price in the past six months.

'Pork and poultry cost 15 per cent more, and cooking oil is up by 30 per cent,' said Mr Pang, who runs three Japanese restaurants and one fast-food outlet.

Still, he has not raised his menu prices. He said: 'It doesn't make sense to up your prices every time costs increase.'

He prefers to sign forward contracts with suppliers to lock in costs, and switch to alternatives when possible.

'But if food costs keep rising, we must at some point review our prices,' he noted.

Increasingly expensive imports - particularly of meat, live animals, dairy produce and eggs - are a major factor behind higher supply prices.

Fuelling the jump in farm produce prices is a global supply crunch caused by bad weather and by a shift in farm use towards growing crops for biofuels as rising crude oil prices make biofuels more viable, explained Ms Ho.

The food portion of the import price index also rose in October, by more than 10 per cent from a year ago.

Higher food inflation is a global issue, said Standard Chartered Bank economist Alvin Liew. He said: 'Agricultural produce prices have soared in countries such as China, from which Singapore imports a great deal.'

He predicted CPI food inflation will average 4 per cent next year.

Mr Seah was more pessimistic: 'We are looking at between 5 and 6 per cent.'

Low-income groups will be hit the hardest by higher food prices as a greater chunk of their income goes to food, he added. Thus, he argued, 'policy action is needed to cushion rising food costs'.

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No major fuss over Hanoi's huge dam project

Roger Mitton, Straits Times 3 Dec 07;

Interestingly, unlike similar projects in the region such as the Three Gorges dam Son La has evoked little international attention. Part of the reason is that Vietnam is building it without any outside funding or construction assistance. And doing so with quiet, almost clandestine, efficiency.

HANOI - SIX months ago, the people of Ta Sai, a tree-shaded village nestled by the majestic Black River in mountainous north-western Vietnam, were ordered to pack up and leave.

Trucks took the residents, mostly ethnic minority subsistence farmers and fishermen, up a hillside several kilometres away. They were left at a stony, treeless site with no water or electricity and told to carve out new lives.

'We were given money to build new homes, but if we wanted a decent place, it would cost a bit more than what the government gave us,' said Mr Luong Van Dieu, one of the village headmen.

Although many miss their leafy riverside village with its stilt houses, the Ta Sai people consider themselves lucky.

Mr Dieu, of the Tai minority, said: 'We only had to move a short distance, so we are still on our ancestral lands. Others have had to move far away. That is sad.'

Indeed, the Vietnamese authorities have moved some villagers up to 100km away and resettled them among unfamiliar new communities.

About 95,000 people in all are being evicted to clear the area for the construction of a massive 215m-high dam across the Black River near Son La, 340km north-west of Hanoi.

The hydroelectric plant will be South-east Asia's biggest and will generate 10.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, about a sixth of Vietnam's burgeoning energy needs.

Professor Pham Phu, a power expert at Ho Chi Minh City's University of Technology, said: 'Right now, we are importing electricity from China because we have a serious shortage. So, we need to build the Son La dam to satisfy our energy demands.'

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has taken a personal interest in making sure the project starts generating electricity on time in 2012. He has sealed a US$280 million (S$405 million) deal with France's Alstom Hydro to provide the turbines and generators.

Interestingly, unlike similar projects in the region such as the Three Gorges dam in China, Nam Theun 2 in Laos and Bakun in East Malaysia, Son La has evoked little international attention.

Part of the reason is that Vietnam is building it without any outside funding or construction assistance. And doing so with quiet, almost clandestine, efficiency.

Bothersome diplomats and snooping journalists are kept away from the remote river valley that is home to many of Vietnam's colourful ethnic minorities.

The Tai, Hmong, Kho Mu, Giay and Khan who live there have their own languages and cultural values.

Relocating them presented Vietnam with a thankless task that could easily spark global outrage if handled badly - just when a more outward-looking Hanoi wanted support for its bid to play a bigger international role by joining the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations Security Council.

But Vietnam has handled the task with remarkable aplomb.

Already, about 80,000 people have been resettled in a massive, but low-profile operation that has caused surprisingly few incidents.

Mr Nguyen Thai Hung, relocation director for Muong La district, near the dam site, said: 'We still have another 2,000 households to move, and we are trying to encourage them to go peacefully.'

The encouragement is practical: hard cash, new homes and the promise of better roads, schools, water, electricity and health care.

Most villagers concede, often grudgingly, that relocation has improved their living standards.

Many who lived in cramped areas by the river bank now reside in larger communities with better facilities, more convenient transportation and bigger houses.

Naturally, the fact that the first batches to move were largely satisfied had a ripple effect and made others relocate more willingly.

But, of course, there were gripes.

Mr Dieu's Ta Sai villagers nurse grievances over the way bureaucratic mismanagement led to their being moved before their new location was ready.

Even now, they have no running water or electricity. Their children have to travel 25km along a dirt track to school because the promised new road and school have not materialised.

With no public transportation, many children just stay home.

After being resettled on dry uplands where they cannot fish or grow rice, their parents do much the same as they await the day the lake fills up and Ta Sai is again a waterfront village.

In the meantime, they depend on handouts from the government, which promised them 20kg of rice every month for two years.

'Now, they say they can only give us 18kg because the price of rice has risen,' said Mr Dieu. 'So, we are unhappy at these broken promises.'

Resettlement officer Hung understands the concerns. He said: 'Our administrative procedures are cumbersome, and the compensation and relocation policies are not always consistent or transparent.'

Still, there have been nice gestures.

For example, the religious customs of many minorities forbid graves being dug up or submerged under water.

This sensitive predicament was resolved when local officials helped fund a special ritual that involved villagers giving offerings to the spirits of the dead for three days and nights.

So overall, Vietnam has managed the mass relocation better than expected.

Despite understandable complaints, most villagers now look forward to a brighter future.

Mr Dieu said: 'We are all hoping that when the dam is finished and we get water and electricity and a new road, our lives will be better.'

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Cyclone wipes out rice crops in Bangladesh

Business Times 3 Dec 07;

DHAKA - A CYCLONE that killed thousands of people in Bangladesh has destroyed at least 800,000 tonnes of rice in the fields.

This exacerbates a food shortage that the government was already grappling with, a government adviser said.

Cyclone Sidr last month wiped out 553,000ha of crops, causing losses totalling about 20 billion taka (S$420 million), said Mr C. S. Karim, agriculture adviser to Bangladesh's army-backed interim government.

'In the present situation, the country would need to import a total of 1.9 million tonnes of rice,' he added.

Meanwhile, New Delhi will allow Bangladesh to import half a million tonnes of rice from India, a visiting Indian minister said on Saturday, easing an export ban on the staple food.

The announcement by Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee came after neighbouring Bangladesh appealed for international help earlier in the week to prevent a food crisis in the impoverished nation following the Nov 15 storm.

Mr Mukherjee, who was on a one-day tour of cyclone-hit areas, said the 'magnitude of the natural calamity' prompted India to remove the ban on rice exports to Bangladesh.

India, the world's third largest rice exporter, clamped a ban on rice exports two months ago in a bid to reduce soaring domestic prices of the food staple that were causing anger among consumers.

Cyclone Sidr, the strongest since 1991 when another storm killed around 143,000 people along Bangladesh's coasts, came close on the heels of devastating floods from July to September that killed more than 1,000 people and washed away about 1 million tonnes of rice.

Mr Karim said the country would also need to import two million tonnes of wheat to meet the food shortfall.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

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Global warming is pushing edges of tropics towards poles: study

Yahoo News 3 Dec 07;

The tropics appear to have already expanded by at least the same margin as models predict for this century

The greenhouse effect is causing Earth's zone of tropical climate to creep towards the poles, according to a study whose release on Sunday coincided with the eve of a major UN conference on climate change.

The poleward expansion of the tropics will have far-reaching impacts, notably in intensifying water scarcity in the Mediterranean and the US "Sun belt" as well as southern Africa and southern Australia, it warns.

The paper, appearing in a new journal, Nature Geoscience, is an overview of the latest published research into atmospheric systems at the tropics.

For cartographers, the tropical belt is defined quite simply by the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, at latitudes 23.5 degrees north and south of the equator.

For climatologists, though, where the tropics end is fuzzier because of the complexity of a powerful high-altitude wind pattern, known as the Hadley circulation.

These powerful jet streams are what determine precipitation patterns of the tropics, which is characterised by lots of rain in the central part of the belt near the Equator and by dryness at its fringes.

Some years ago, the first credible computer simulations predicted that, as the Earth warmed, the Hadley jet streams and their associated wind and rainfall patterns would move poleward.

Under the most extreme scenario, the tropics were on average predicted to expand by about two degrees latitude, equivalent to around 200 kilometres (120 miles) over the 21st century.

The new paper looks at a batch of recent studies based on five different types of measurement from 1979-2005.

It concludes that this change in the tropical jet streams has already happened -- and the worst-case scenario has already been surpassed.

"Remarkably, the tropics appear to have already expanded -- during only the last few decades of the 20th century -- by at least the same margin as models predict for this century," it says.

"The observed widening appears to have occurred faster than climate models predict in their projections of anthropogenic [man-made] climate change."

The five datasets variously find expansion ranging from two degrees to 4.8 degrees latitude over the 25 years, or 200-480 kms (120-300 miles).

Many worrisome questions arise from these findings, says the paper.

First and foremost is about the accuracy of climate models that drive scientific conclusions about the pace of global warming and, in turn, inform policymakers about how to address the problem.

Also unclear are the mechanisms that have caused the widening of the tropics, says the paper. Possible factors include the ozone hole, warming of the sea's surface and an increase in the tropopause, a boundary layer between the troposphere and the stratosphere.

In any case, a widening of the tropics carries "worldwide implications," according to the study.

"The edges of the tropical belt are the outer boundaries of the sub-tropical dry zones, and their poleward shift could lead to fundamental shifts in ecosystems and in human settlements.

"Shifts in precipitation would have obvious implications for agriculture and water resources and could present serious hardships in marginal areas."

It voices particular concern for semi-arid regions that are at the fringes of the sub-tropical dry zone, including the Mediterranean, the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, southern Australia, southern Africa and parts of South America.

"A poleward expansion of the tropics is likely to bring even drier conditions to these heavily populated regions, but may bring increase moisture to others," it warns.

The paper is lead-authored by Dian Seidel of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NOAA) Air Resources Laboratory at Silver Spring, Maryland.

Publication on Sunday came on the eve of a UN conference in Bali, Indonesia aimed at revamping efforts to tackle global warming.

Around 10,000 delegates are expected to attend the 11-day gathering, which is tasked with agreeing on a blueprint for two years of negotiations for a pact that will slash greenhouse-gas emissions from 2012 and beef up support for poor countries that will bear the brunt of climate change.

Expanding tropics could spur storms: study
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 3 Dec 07;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Earth's tropical belt is expanding much faster than expected, and that could bring more storms to the temperate zone and drier weather to parts of the world that are already dry, climate scientists reported on Sunday.

"Remarkably, the tropics appear to have already expanded -- during only the last few decades of the 20th century -- by at least the same margin as models predict for this century," the scientists said in the current edition of Nature Geoscience.

Scientists forecast the tropic belt would spread by about 2 degrees of latitude north and south of the Equator by the end of the 21st century. That amount of tropical expansion has already occurred, and was confirmed by five independent ways of measuring it, the report found.

For mapmakers and astronomers, there is no question about where the tropic zone ends: it is at 23.5 degrees north and south of the Equator at the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, boundaries determined by Earth's tilt on its axis. These tropical borders are the furthest point from the Equator where the sun shines directly overhead at the summer solstice.

But climate scientists define the tropic band by what happens on the land, in the water and in the air, and that is what is changing, the study said.

'SERIOUS HARDSHIPS'

Tropical temperatures are warm, and it rains a lot, with little seasonal or day-to-day change. The subtropics, by contrast, are generally dry. If the warm, wet tropical climate is spreading poleward, the dry subtropic climate may head for the poles too.

Those dry subtropical bands could include some of the most heavily populated places on Earth, the scientists said: the Mediterranean, the U.S. Southwest, northern Mexico, southern Australia, southern Africa and parts of South America.

"Shifts in precipitation patterns would have obvious implications for agriculture and water resources and could present serious hardships in marginal areas," the authors wrote.

For those who live in the middle latitudes, like most U.S., European and Asian residents, the change could affect the storm tracks that largely determines weather in these areas, said co-author Dian Seidel of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"Those storm tracks are linked with the position of the jet stream, which is one way we use to delineate the width of the tropics," Seidel said by telephone from NOAA's Air Resources Laboratory outside Washington. "The jet streams are moving poleward, and so, presumably, would the storm tracks."

This poleward migration of storm tracks is in line with predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This worldwide panel of scientists and policymakers is convening in Bali, Indonesia this week to determine how to deal with climate change.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)


Earth's tropics belt expands
Seth Borenstein, Associated Press, Yahoo News 2 Dec 07;

Earth's tropical belt seems to have expanded a couple hundred miles over the past quarter century, which could mean more arid weather for some already dry subtropical regions, new climate research shows.

Geographically, the tropical region is a wide swath around Earth's middle stretching from the Tropic of Cancer, just south of Miami, to the Tropic of Capricorn, which cuts Australia almost in half. It's about one-quarter of the globe and generally thought of as hot, steamy and damp, but it also has areas of brutal desert.

To meteorologists, however, the tropics region is defined by long-term climate and what's happening in the atmosphere. Recent studies show changes that indicate an expansion of the tropical atmosphere.

The newest study, published Sunday in the new scientific journal Nature Geoscience, shows that by using the weather definition, the tropics are expanding toward Earth's poles more than predicted. And that means more dry weather is moving to the edges of the tropics in places like the U.S. Southwest.

Independent teams using four different meteorological measurements found that the tropical atmospheric belt has grown by anywhere between 2 and 4.8 degrees latitude since 1979. That translates to a total north and south expansion of 140 to 330 miles.

One key determination of the tropical belt is called the Hadley circulation, which is essentially prevailing rivers of wind that move vertically as well as horizontally, carrying lots of moisture to rainy areas while drying out arid regions on the edges of the tropics. That wind is circulating over a larger area than a couple decades ago.

But that's not the only type of change meteorologists have found that shows an expansion of the tropics. They've seen more tropical conditions by measuring the amount of ozone in the atmosphere, measuring the depth of the lower atmosphere, and the level of dryness in the atmosphere at the edges of the tropics.

Climate scientists have long predicted a growing tropical belt toward the end of the 21st century because of man-made global warming. But what has happened in the past quarter century is larger and more puzzling than initially predicted, said Dian Seidel, a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lab in Silver Spring, Md. She is the author of the newest study.

"They are big changes," she said. "It's a little puzzling."

She said this expansion may only be temporary, but there's no way of knowing yet.

Seidel said she has not determined the cause of this tropical belt widening. While a leading suspect is global warming, other suspects include depletion in the ozone layer and changes in El Nino, the periodic weather phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean.

Other climate scientists are split on the meaning of the research because it shows such a dramatic change — beyond climate model predictions. Some scientists, such as Richard Seager at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, say changes in El Nino since the 1970s probably are a big factor and could make it hard to conclude there's a dramatic expansion of the tropical belt.

But climate scientists Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria and Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Seidel's work makes sense and that computer models have consistently been underestimating the ill effects of global warming.

"Every time you look at what the world is doing it's always far more dramatic than what climate models predict," Weaver said.

Both Weaver and Seidel said the big concern is that dry areas on the edge of the tropics — such as the U.S. Southwest, parts of the Mediterranean and southern Australia — could get drier because of this.

"You're not expanding the tropical jungles, what you're expanding is the area of desertification," Weaver said.

Nature Geoscience http://www.nature.com/ngeo

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