Philippines to ban incandescent bulbs

Yahoo News 5 Feb 08;

The Philippines will phase out incandescent bulbs by 2010 in favor of more energy-efficient fluorescent globes to help cut greenhouse gas emissions and household costs, the president said Tuesday.

Acknowledging similar moves in Canada and Australia, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called for a ban on incandescent bulbs.

"Like Australia, we should phase out incandescent lights by 2010," Arroyo said in her closing remarks at the Philippine Energy Summit.

The Asian Development Bank, a technical adviser at the summit, lauded the Philippine plan as a first in Asia. It said the most effective way to reduce the demand for electricity and greenhouse gases was to use energy more efficiently.

The bank "will support and encourage other developing countries to follow the Government of Philippines' lead and make the switch to more energy-efficient products like compact fluorescent lamps," Thomas Crouch, deputy director general of ADB's Southeast Asia Department said in a statement.

The Manila-based development bank said it was considering extending a $30 million loan to the Philippines to help fund energy-efficiency programs, including projects for low-income families to mitigate the financial impact of changing from incandescent globes to the more expensive fluorescent alternative.

Fluorescent bulbs need just 20 percent of the electricity that incandescent bulbs use to produce the same amount of light. They also last six to ten times longer than the average incandescent bulb.

The Asian Development Bank said the switch would cut household lighting costs by as much as 80 percent and — because the amount of electricity used would be drastically lower — reduce the Philippines' annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2.2 million tons starting in 2010.

Three years ago, Cuban government workers went door to door in many neighborhoods replacing incandescent light bulbs with more-efficient alternatives to counter crippling energy blackouts across the island. The scheme inspired Venezuela to give away energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs.

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WWF wants curbs on grouper exports

Borneo Bulletin 5 Feb 08;

KOTA KINABALU - The popular seafood delight grouper or ikan kerapu is facing a sharp drop in population, The Star reported.

Researchers have found that the ikan kerapu and mameng (humphead wrasse) population has dwindled in the last 10 years based on statistics collected by the Fisheries Department, said WWF- Malaysia executive director Dr Dionysius Sharma.

"This indicates the effects of reduced fish stocks by both commercial and traditional fishing methods," he said recently.

He said there was a need for sustainable fishing to be adopted with curbs on the export of these types of coral reef fishes.

Fish such as the humphead wrasse, humpback grouper and giant grouper are examples of high-value fish prized for their texture and flavour that have high demand in China, Hong Kong and Singapore markets. The humphead wrasse has been listed as an endangered species. Dr Sharma said WWF, together with the Fisheries Department and TRAFFIC South-East Asia, had adopted the Live Reef Fish Trade (LRFT) to check on the trade of such fish species that had high economic value.

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, works to ensure that trade in wild plants and animals is not a threat to the conservation of nature.

TRAFFIC South-East Asia was established in October 1991, hosted by WWF Malaysia. The Live Reef Food Fish Trade (LRFFT) is used to describe the trade in live reef fish for consumption, mainly in Hong Kong and southern China, involving more than 20 supply countries. The move to get the LRFT going in Sabah was in line with the Sabah Development Corridor blueprint that also focused on the need for sustainable utilisation and harvesting of natural resources, Dr Sharma said.

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Species Success: Rhinos Recover

Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Yahoo News 4 Feb 08;

After nearly disappearing from the planet, African white and black rhinos have made a healthy recovery, according to a wildlife advocacy group.

In the 1990s, these species had been poached almost to extinction for their valuable horns. But thanks to anti-poaching efforts, as well as the cooperation of local communities, African rhinoceros populations are on the rise.

"We have seen an increase in rhino populations of at least five percent per year over the last decade, which is encouraging," said George Kampamba, coordinator for World Wildlife Fund International’s African Rhino Program.

In 1997, there were 8,466 white rhinos and 2,599 black rhinos living in the wild. Today, there are 14,500 white rhinos and nearly 4,000 black rhinos.

"There's been a healthy increase in rhino numbers," said Petra Fleischer, fundraising manager of Save the Rhino International. "It’s the combined effort of anti-poaching work and monitoring to get a better picture of populations, environmental education, government strategies and community involvement. International funding is important, too."
Fleischer said getting local African people involved has been critical.

"It's important to work with local communities to find opportunities for generating income through conservation, such as through tourism," Fleischer told LiveScience.

Rhinos have recently been reintroduced to some countries where they had disappeared, such as Zambia and Uganda. This can help motivate local people to become more involved in conservation, and can give a boost to tourism, Fleischer said.

Rhinoceroses are huge creatures — adults often way more than a ton — and they can live to age 60 or older. They are herbivores, subsisting mostly on leafy greens.

Both types of African rhino have two horns protruding from their snouts. Rhino horn is a common treatment in traditional Asian medicine, which keeps demand high. Rhino horn dagger handles are also very popular in Yemen.
Habitat loss has also been a problem for rhinos.

Black rhinos, smaller than their white relations, are more endangered. Three of four black rhino subspecies are classified as "critically endangered" by the World Conservation Union.

"White rhinos are this amazing conservation success story," Fleischer said. "Black rhinos are still critically endangered so we still have lot of work to do."

The World Conservation Union now classifies white rhinos as "near threatened."

Along with African rhino species, there are three species of Asian rhinoceros, two of which are also critically endangered.

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Best of our wild blogs: 5 Feb 08

Massive reclamation at Labrador
and other coastal works 'in progress' on the wildfilms blog

Share your photos of our reefs!
Join the IYOR Singapore flickr group on the singapore celebrates the reefs blog

New shore blog!
check it out on the wild ginger rocks blog

Man's greatest mistake
on the hell hath no fury like nature scorned blog

Himalayan vulture flypast
on the bird ecology blog

Crab spider
that looks like jamby ayer on the budak blog and another spider that looks like bird poo.

A pile of carp
Human activities are the best predictor of the extent to which a freshwater ecosystem has been invaded by non-native fish on the journal watch online blog

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Nature giving way to virtual reality

Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Feb 08;

As people spend more time communing with their televisions and computers, the impact is not just on their health, researchers say. Less time spent outdoors means less contact with nature and, eventually, less interest in conservation and parks.

Camping, fishing and per capita visits to parks are all declining in a shift away from nature-based recreation, researchers report in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Declining nature participation has crucial implications for current conservation efforts," wrote co-authors Oliver R. W. Pergams and Patricia A. Zaradic.

"We think it probable than any major decline in the value placed on natural areas and experiences will greatly reduce the value people place on biodiversity conservation."

"The replacement of vigorous outdoor activities by sedentary, indoor videophilia has far-reaching consequences for physical and mental health, especially in children," Pergams said in a statement. "Videophilia has been shown to be a cause of obesity, lack of socialization, attention disorders and poor academic performance."

By studying visits to national and state park and the issuance of hunting and fishing licenses the researchers documented declines of between 18 percent and 25 percent in various types of outdoor recreation.

The decline, found in both the United States and Japan, appears to have begun in the 1980s and 1990s, the period of rapid growth of video games, they said.

For example, fishing peaked in 1981 and had declined 25 percent by 2005, the researchers found. Visits to national parks peaked in 1987 and dropped 23 percent by 2006, while hiking on the Appalachian Trial peaked in 2000 and was down 18 percent by 2005.

Japan suffered similar declines, the researchers found, as visits to national parks there dropped by 18 percent between 1991 and 2005.

There was a small growth in backpacking, but that may reflect day trips by some people who previously were campers, wrote Pergams and Zaradic. Pergams is a visiting research assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, while Zaradic is a fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program, Delaware Valley, in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

While fishing declined, hunting held onto most of its market, they found.

"This may be related to various overfishing and pollution issues decreasing access to fish populations, contrasted with exploding deer populations," they said.

The research was funded by The Nature Conservancy.

Scientists to Americans: Take a Hike!
Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Yahoo News 5 Feb 08;

"Take a hike!" isn’t just a rebuff. Now it's also a plea from environmental scientists. Researchers have found that people are enjoying the outdoors less than they used to, which may lead to decreased interest in protecting the environment.

Over the past 20 years, trips to U.S. parks have declined about 20 percent. In 2006, about 273,000 Americans visited a state or national park, down from about 287,000 people in 1987, according to a new study by conservation scientists Oliver Pergams of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Patricia Zaradic of Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. This averages out to roughly 0.9 visits per person a year now, compared to 1.2 visits 20 years ago.

And it's not just park visits that are down, but almost every form of outdoor recreation, including camping, hunting and fishing.

The researchers blame this outdoor decline on a phenomenon they've termed videophilia — a pervasive preference for experiencing the world through electronic media rather than actually leaving the house.

"There's this fascination for virtual nature as opposed to the real thing," Zaradic told LiveScience. "We can't say for sure that this is the smoking gun cause [of the decline], but I think it's very, very closely related."

The only type of outdoor enjoyment that is on the rise is hiking. The average American now goes once every 10 years. If this sounds like a pitiful number, it's still an improvement over the rate in 1987: Back then, Americans hiked only once every 12.5 years.

The researchers speculate that the boost in hiking may result from the drop in camping — perhaps people who used to commit to an overnight trip have downgraded to day hikes.

All of these trends have the scientists worried.

"It makes a huge difference if people are going less and less," Zaradic said. "There's a whole set of research that shows people care more about conservation issues when they are exposed to nature."

Zaradic and Pergams fear that the less people feel dirt under their feet and smell the fragrance of trees, for example, the less they'll want to recycle and donate money to Greenpeace or other environmental advocacy groups. The lack of interaction with nature could have serious consequences for future generations, who may not have the fond memories of childhoods spent outdoors that many older Americans have.

"Today's young people are being raised in an environment of less and less exposure," Zaradic said. "It has implications for the future — we're likely to see ripple effects."

The researchers don’t know what's behind this shift indoors but say that hunting down the causes of videophilia is an important next step in fighting the trend.

Zaradic said she might even consider running television ads in an awareness campaign. Though it may be ironic to use electronic media to convince people to turn off their TVs, she said, "if that's where the people are, I think it's a viable outreach tool."

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Dutch seek islands to combat rising sea threat

Harro ten Wolde, Reuters 4 Feb 08;

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch water industry experts on Monday backed proposals to build several off-shore islands to protect the nation's coast, much of which lies below sea-level, from rising seas caused by global warming.

The series of islands could also provide the Netherlands, one of Europe's most densely populated countries, with extra land for housing, businesses such as fish farms and a base for green energy projects like wind farms, they said.

The experts met in hotel in Scheveningen that overlooks the North Sea, which devastated the country's sea defenses during massive 1953 storms that killed 1,800 people and made coastal defense a major political issue in the Netherlands.

"Now is the time to develop such an island as the cost of reclaiming land is decreasing while land prices are increasing," Hans de Boer, who sits on a government innovation committee, told a press conference afterwards.

Rising global energy prices could also make the newly created island an attractive base for wind farms, de Boer added.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he hoped a first island would be created "as soon as possible."

He urged Dutch companies to come forward with plans and initiatives but declined to say how much the islands would cost or how long they would take. The idea of building islands dates from the '80s but was considered too expensive at that time.

Monday's meeting also talked about building an artificial island in the shape of a massive tulip, inspired by Dubai's Palm Island project, a development in the Gulf in the shape of a palm tree that Dutch dredging companies helped build.

The islands could be used for sports facilities, housing, agriculture or a nature reserve to relieve space constraints.

CLAWING BACK LAND

"We would be absolutely interested in moving to such an island," said Ad van Wijk, chairman at privately held Dutch firm Econcern, which produces and operates wind turbines.

"We could produce the blades for our turbines on the island and no longer need to transport them over land," he said.

Other ideas to protect the Dutch coast include equipping flood defenses with sensors to monitor sudden changes in water levels due to climate change and how best to use the North Sea's ecosystem, such as natural sand flows, for flood protection.

The Netherlands, a quarter of which lies below sea-level, has a long history of clawing back land from the sea and fighting floods.

Dutch firms have led a number of major coastal projects around the world, and U.S. officials sought Dutch advice on water management after floods devastated New Orleans in 2005.

Among the Dutch firms that hope to benefit from the Dutch government's plans are the world's largest dredger Boskalis and its rival Van Oord.

Van Oord said over the weekend it had completed work on "The World," a cluster of artificial islands off the coast of Dubai in the shape of the world's continents which used 320 million cubic meters of sand, equal to a 2-metre-wide, 4-metre-high wall stretching around the world.

(Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Wildlife protection officer defends his Napoleon wrasse catch

Sasamoto defends his Napoleon wrasse catch
Rianne Pangelinan-Brown, The Saipan Tribune 5 Feb 08;

“No one should blame me for catching the fish. I will continue to catch them until it becomes against the law for me to do so,” Sasamoto said.

Tony Roberts, left, and Felix Sasamoto pose with the 102-lb. Napolon wrasse, or tangison in Chamorro, they caught off Obyan Beach on Jan. 29. (Contributed Photo) A handful of community members have expressed outrage over the recent catch of two Napoleon wrasses on Saipan but the diver who caught them said he didn't do anything wrong.

Merchant marine Capt. Carl Brachear said it is rather sad that, although in many countries Napoleon wrasses are protected, that is not the case in the CNMI.

“This is really sad, as they are so rare in the world,” Brachear said.

Felix Sasamoto of the Division of Fish & Wildlife caught the two Napoleon wrasses just two weeks ago.

“I don't understand why these people are angry. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't break any law,” said Sasamoto, who maintained that he did not catch the fish at marine sanctuaries.

Michael Trianni, DFW's Fishery Section supervisor said, “As a free diver, Felix did not break any laws and has every right under existing laws to harvest that or any other fish he is able to.”

Sasamoto explained that catching the large fish has helped him pay for his bills and his wife's medications.

“I want these people to know that the fish did not go to waste. I work for the DFW, I would not do anything so stupid as to catch something that is endangered,” he said.

The Napoleon wrasse, according to Trianni, is not rare in the CNMI. “It has in fact been observed throughout the CNMI and is not considered uncommon,” Trianni said.

“No one should blame me for catching the fish. I will continue to catch them until it becomes against the law for me to do so,” Sasamoto said.

Being a diver, he said he knows for sure that the wrasses are not endangered in the CNMI. “I know a place where many of them gather. If people really want to see them, I can take them there. There are a lot of them!” exclaimed Sasamoto.

Brachear, however, begs to differ. “One main reason why Japanese divers visit Saipan at all is to swim with the wrasses,” he said.

“You don't see many Japanese divers visiting Saipan anymore,” Brachear said. “Instead, many of them travel to Guam because the wrasses are protected over there.”

In other countries, the Napoleon wrasse is considered under threat from extinction as a direct result of the lucrative demand for live Napoleon wrasse in Asia.

Divers in the local community have shared that swimming alongside this fish is a “priceless experience.”

The Napoleon wrasse is also known as a charming fish because it is very friendly, often allowing divers to stroke it or when no one is petting it, it has been known to gently nudge or brush up against a diver.

Although the wrasse is long lived, it has a very slow breeding rate. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, the numbers have declined due to a number of threats.

The threats have made it an endangered animal as it is not being replaced fast enough to compensate for the excess fishing rate and other threats.

The Napoleon wrasse is currently “red-listed” by the IUCN-“meaning it is a species being adversely impacted by human activity and is susceptible to becoming critically endangered or extinct,” according to marine coordinator Genevieve Johnson.

“The major problem we have here is overfishing. And some people just don't get it,” Brachear said.

Johnson said, “If the current demand for the Napoleon wrasse by the live reef fish trade is allowed to continue, we may soon lose a very special animal, one that is capable of willfully associating with humans.”

Wealthy patrons in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan have an insatiable appetite for the flesh of the Napoleon wrasse. It is reportedly popular in these regions to advertise one's wealth by paying upward of $1,500 to dine on a single fish, or up to $400 for a set of the wrasse's lips.

The eating of the Napoleon wrasses is not because of its superb taste, but because it serves as a status symbol, according to Wikipedia.

The meat of this fish has become expensive because it has been overfished and is a rare catch.

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Kota Kinabalu promises an eco-friendly waterfront project

The Star 5 Feb 08;

OVER the last few decades the narrow shoreline of the once serene coastal town of Kota Kinabalu (KK) has changed.

What KK was, in the 1950s or 1960s, is now almost unrecognisable to those who grew up close to it.

It has rapidly changed its face over the last three decades with most of the city centre built on reclaimed land.

Today, Kota Kinabalu City Hall is striving to strike a balance in preserving its old environment, while pushing for development to make the city a world-class leisure and tourism spot, in line with the objectives of the Sabah Development Corridor (SDC).

This rainforest city of over 300,000 people will play the leading role as the gateway to Sabah, which aims to be one of the most liveable places in Asia.

For city planners it is also crucial that the city is ready to impress and help the state woo some RM105bil in development projects for investments under the SDC’s 18-year overall economic development plan.

Environmentalist, however, are worried about pushing Kota Kinabalu's shoreline further into the sea as they believe further changes would bring irreparable consequences to city’s very own treasure.

Their concern is on the proposed Kota Kinabalu waterfront project that offers to transform Kota Kinabalu into an integrated mixed development along a section of the Kota Kinabalu town’s coastline.

The Kota Kinabalu City Waterfront, expected to be completed by 2010, will feature the key attraction of a 2km long boardwalk, built using eco-friendly materials rising above the sea on stilts.

Waterfront Urban Development Sdn Bhd (WUD) is carrying out the entire project in collaboration with Kota Kinabalu City (DBKK).

The project is among those identified under the SDC that aims to make Sabah a major destination for both leisure and business tourism and has also caught the attention of Kuwait Finance House (Malaysia) Bhd (KFHMB) and a consortium of Middle Eastern and Malaysian investors.

At the launch of the SDC, a tripartite agreement was signed between WUD, KFH and Intonasi Intan Sdn Bhd witnessed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

WUD managing director Reymee Mohamed Hussein said the development would incorporate environmentally friendly features like hi-tech LED lighting, energy conserving air conditioning systems and solar powered pedestrian lighting along the boardwalk.

Reymee, together with Geoffrey P.J. Lee, conceptualised the Kota Kinabalu City Waterfront development masterplan with DBKK.

He gave the assurance that there would be no reclamation work.

“It is primarily to increase the role of a coastal city like Kota Kinabalu to become a catalystfor the modernisation and development in Sabah,” said Reymee, adding that the RM500mil project was conceptualised after studying several thriving world class international waterfront attractions like Darling Harbour (Australia), Cape Town Waterfront (South Africa), Victoria Harbour (Hong Kong), Canary Wharf (London) and Clark Quay Riverside (Singapore).

The development will also spur economic growth for Kota Kinabalu and provide employment and new business opportunities to local residents and businesses.

“Kota Kinabalu City Waterfront will feature one of the longest city waterfront boardwalks in Asia and is poised to become the city’s prime tourist attraction. It will be an integral part of Sabah’s hospitality industry,” Reymee said.

Sabah Environment Protection Association president Datuk Sue Jayasuriya said there was a need to ensure that any development did not turn the rainforest city into a concrete jungle.

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Regional governments turn to price controls

Leslie Koh, Straits Times 5 Feb 08;

SPIRALLING food prices around the region are pushing governments into resorting to an old but potentially hazardous solution: price controls.

From Malaysia and Indonesia to China and Thailand, governments are turning to capping prices and stabilising them artificially in a bid to protect citizens from rising costs of food staples.

This comes with potential risks: Analysts warn that fighting market forces could trigger shortages and black-market activities - the very things the controls were meant to counter.

Unfortunately, alternative options are limited. Millions of people in countries like Indonesia and China are living below the poverty line, and the soaring prices put their survival at risk.

Governments also cannot afford to ignore the political fallout, as recent food riots and anti-inflation protests in Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan show.

A combination of factors, including poor weather, changing diets and rising demand for biofuels made from crops have cut the supply of staples such as rice and wheat, pushing up prices worldwide.

Last year saw food prices rise by a record 40 per cent, and more price hikes are expected this year. Yesterday, Bloomberg news agency reported the Asian Development Bank (ADB) warning that rising cereal prices worldwide may threaten 300 million rural poor in South Asia.

The threat of starvation and political instability has prompted governments to clamp down hard on the price hikes.

Some, like China and Indonesia, which have long had such price controls in place, recently increased the number of items for which government permission is required to raise prices.

Others, like Malaysia, are looking into stockpiling essential goods or cutting import duties.

However, economists and even some politicians remain wary of the potential pitfalls of fighting the free market.

'It's very difficult to have partial capitalism and partial socialism,' economist Dong Tao at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong told the International Herald Tribune.

'Market mechanisms will eventually kick in and a shortage will force the government to make adjustments later.'

Price controls not only give rise to trade on the black market, but also discourage food producers from increasing their output.

In subsidising food items, price caps enable people to keep buying what they would not be able to afford otherwise. Ironically, the sustained demand keeps market prices of the items up.

The costs of price controls are enormous. Subsidies on fuel, power, water and food cost the Malaysian government, for instance, some RM35 billion (S$15.3 billion) or more a year.

Such high bills put a great strain on national budgets, but governments often have little choice.

The rising cost of living has been a major source of political upheaval in the region, from the Tiananmen Square student protests in 1989 to the unprecedented clashes in Myanmar last year.

Malaysia, which is expected to hold elections soon, has also had to deal with several protests recently.

Even cutting back on subsidies, as countries like Indonesia have found out, can be a political challenge.

Director of agriculture Frederick Roche of the ADB's South Asia Department notes that it is the poor who bear the greatest brunt of rising prices.

'These are the people who are most vulnerable to food prices and in greatest need of protective mechanisms in the event of unexpectedly high food prices,' he told Bloomberg.

For people like Bangkok store clerk Rampai Krongtong, the government is their only hope.

'Everything is more expensive from goods to gas,' she said. 'We don't know how we can survive. The government has to fix the problem quickly or we're dead.'

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Singapore: No-frills house-brands to beat rising food prices

A growing no-frills revolution
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 5 Feb 08;

IN Ms Julie Kee's household, buying no-frills bread, detergent and even fish balls is a start when it comes to trimming the grocery bill for her family of four.

The 51-year-old design drafter estimates that her family saves "a few dollars" on each trip to the supermarket by opting for some house-brand items. But were they to switch completely to house brands, she estimates that up to $50 could be saved each time — reducing their $150 weekly grocery bill by a third.

At a time when the price of food has risen 2.9 per cent (from 2006 to 2007) and overall inflation 4.4 per cent, more are turning to no-frills brands to cut costs.

As a result, supermarkets are seeing a spike in the sale of house-brand products, which range from bread to bottled water and tidbits to toilet rolls.

Giant Hypermarket, for example, saw an 18-per-cent increase last year. Cold Storage and Shop N Save reported a 10- to 20-per-cent increase in recent months, while NTUC FairPrice reported a "double-digit growth" in sales since it started offering a 5-per-cent discount on 500 house-brand items on Dec 19.

Consumers say they appreciate the value-for-money deals on house-brand items, which can be cheaper than their branded substitutes by 5 to 50 per cent, according to the supermarkets.

Administrator Karen Chua, who is in her 30s, said she opts for house brands when buying necessities like salt and rice. A 10kg pack of rice at Giant costs about $11 — 40 per cent less than a "branded" pack of Thai rice. "There's no compromise on quality," she added.

Making the switch to house-brand products could result in bigger savings for consumers. For example, a basket of 10 house-brand items from FairPrice, including cooking oil, canned tuna and instant noodles, would cost $23.02, "about 34-per-cent cheaper than a similar basket comprising national brands", according to a FairPrice spokesman.

Supermarkets say that due to increasing popularity, they have expanded their range of house-brand items over the years. From about 800 house-brand items in 2000, FairPrice now has over 2,000, and plans to "introduce another 3,000 items in the next five years", said the spokesperson. Giant launched about 25 new items under its Giant and Gino house brands in the last three months, bringing the total to about 950.

Even relative newcomer Sheng Siong supermarket is growing its range of house-brand items under four brands — for example, Royal Golden Grain for rice and Softess for toilet rolls. "This segment is in its early stage of development for us," said a Sheng Siong spokesman.

And consumers, it seems, will make the switch if the price difference between no-frills and branded goods is great enough, and if the difference in quality in negligible.

"If the difference is 10 or 20 cents, I won't bother. The product also has to suit me," said Ms Kee.


House brands are flying off the shelves
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 5 Feb 08;

Supermarts report double-digit sales growth for cheaper, no-frills products

THEY come in plain vanilla packaging, have literally no other frills, and are mostly stacked below eye level on supermarket shelves.

But house-brand items are catching on with cost-conscious shoppers in a big way.

With prices of many food items rising, sales of house-brand items at supermarket chains - Giant and Cold Storage - rose by between 10 and 20 per cent last year, compared with 2006.

At supermarkets like Carrefour and FairPrice, the story is the same: Double-digit growth.

The common items picked up? Bread, rice, toilet rolls and kitchen towels.

Business is so good that other markets are jumping on the bandwagon.

Budget supermarket chain Sheng Siong, for instance, began stocking its shelves with house-brand versions of ice, detergent, toilet rolls and even abalone in the second half of last year.

Many stores - ranging from Watson's to Shop N Save - have had house-brand versions for items ranging from wet tissues to the painkiller paracetamol for some time.

But sales are taking off now, because rising inflation - Singapore's inflation rate hit a 25-year high of 4.4 per cent in December - and the higher cost of raw materials and production have pushed prices of everyday items ever higher.

House brands came under the spotlight again on Sunday, when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addressed the issue of the rising cost of living here and said Singaporeans should 'go for cheaper house brands' to save money.

He added that there is 'no need to buy branded bread' as 'bread is bread, rice is rice'.

Mr Lee used the house brand example to make the point that Singaporeans can overcome the problem by working together; the Government would do its part to help - through the Budget, for instance - but people would also have to make adjustments.

Buying house brands could lead to big savings. On average, such items are about 15 per cent cheaper than others, but the difference can be as much as 50 per cent.

Generally, savings on essentials are smaller. Rice, for example, is $1.50 cheaper for a 5kg bag than a comparative brand.

But on items like mineral water and dental floss, savings are greater: A six-pack of mineral water by Carrefour costs $7.90, compared to $12.50 for a brand-name product, while dental floss by Guardian Pharmacy costs $3.50 compared to $5.50 for the branded version.

There is added good news for shoppers on a tight budget, too: More such products are on the way.

Giant Hypermarket - which has about 1,000 types of house-brand products - launched 25 new ones over the past three months. And to meet increasing consumer demand, FairPrice aims to introduce another 3,000 house-brand items in the next five years.

It currently has more than 2,000 products under its house brand.

So why are these products cheaper?

A spokesman for FairPrice said costs are cut because products are sourced from all over the world and bought direct from the source to 'cut down on middle-men handling'.

He added: 'We then pass the cost savings to customers. Bulk purchase has also helped FairPrice to achieve lower prices.'

He added that low prices do not mean low quality.

Though most customers The Straits Times spoke to are sold, some, like Madam Jenny Lee, 44, are not.

She said: 'House brands may be cheaper, but when it comes to products like bread and oil, I stick to other brands. The quality is better.'

That, according to brand consultant Iskandar Muhd, 32, who advises companies on how to market their products, is a fallacy.

He said that 75 per cent of the time, 'people look at items from a branding point of view instead of quality of the workmanship'.

He added: 'Sometimes house-brand items and other branded items are exactly the same.'

Go for house brands, save $600
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 5 Feb 08;

FOR five years now, Mr Augustine Chua, 56, has been filling his supermarket trolley with NTUC FairPrice's house brand of products.

Each fortnight, Mr Chua hits the FairPrice supermarket at AMK Hub, a 15-minute walk from his three-room rental flat in the same neighbourhood.

And where there is a choice, his is simple: Go for the house brand. Doing so saves him about $600 a year, said the production manager, who earns $1,500 a month, and spends about $30 a fortnight on groceries.

'The house-brand items are priced reasonably and are good quality. Saving $600 a year on groceries is a lot for me,' added Mr Chua, who is separated from his wife and has no children.

Yesterday morning, he offered The Straits Times a peek into his shopping trolley, and about half the items in it carried the FairPrice brand. Among them: A 1kg bag of sugar, a packet of pork balls and a tin of mixed nuts. His savings range from 15 cents for a packet of vegetables to almost $2 for a pack of fish balls.

Mr Chua does treat himself to slightly more expensive brands for items such as chilli sauce, and pineapple slices.

But he added: 'House brands are good. When it comes to items like vegetables and nuts, I cannot tell the difference between a house brand and a non-house brand.

'Both are just as fresh!'

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Indonesian capital braces for more floods

Channel NewsAsia 5 Feb 08;

JAKARTA : Jakarta is bracing for more floods after last weekend's downpour paralysed many parts of the Indonesian capital.

Meteorologists say more heavy rain is expected this month.

City authorities have stepped up measures to reduce the impact of the floods but environmental groups are not convinced the efforts will work.

The main roads linking Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport and the city centre have finally reopened.

Workers worked tirelessly for the past three days to pump flood water from the road to a nearby canal.

Heavy downpour on Friday submerged a segment of an expressway in chest-deep water, making it impassable to all vehicles.

Thousands of passengers were left stranded at the airport.

Hundreds of flights in and out of Jakarta were disrupted, leaving many airlines counting their losses.

More than 3,000 residents were also forced to leave their homes.

Environmental groups say such floods will be a permanent feature in Jakarta during heavy downpours, because the capital has lost most of its green areas and water catchments to excessive development.

Selamet Daroyni, Executive Director of Indonesia's Environment Group, said:
"The opened green areas for water catchments is only 9 percent. It can only absorb 26 percent of the average annual rainfall of 2 billion cubic metres. The remainder escaped to low-lying areas."

The capital's poor drainage system has made matters worse.

And existing canals are not able to accommodate the heavy rainfall because they are clogged with debris.

Jakarta authorities say they plan to expedite the building of two flood canals in the capital.

But environmental groups doubt the measures will work.

Selamet Daroyni added: "Even with the completion of the east and west flood canals, they can only reduce floods by not more than 20 percent. We will still experience flood soon after the canals are completed."

Environmentalists say the long-term solution lies in the restoration of Jakarta's catchments areas which have been lost to development.

According to them, the first step is to carry out an environmental audit.

Until that happens, floods can be expected in many parts of the capital after 30 minutes of continuous downpour. - CNA/de

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New Monkey Species Found in Remote Amazon

Dave Hansford, National Geographic News 4 Feb 08;

A previously unknown species of uakari monkey was found during recent hunting trips in the Amazon, a New Zealand primatologist has announced.

Jean-Phillipe Boubli of the University of Auckland found the animal after following native Yanomamo Indians on their hunts along the Rio Aracá, a tributary of the Rio Negro in Brazil.

"They told us about this black uakari monkey, which was slightly different to the one we knew from Pico de Neblina National Park, where I'd worked earlier," Boubli said.

"I searched for that monkey for at least five years. The reason I couldn't find it was because the place where they were was sort of unexpected."

Uakaris normally live in flooded river forests, but this one turned up in a mountainous region on the Brazil-Venezuela border, far from its nearest relatives (see map).

"There is another species of primate in that region which is very similar to the uakari," Boubli said.

The two compete ecologically, he added, "so wherever that monkey occurs, you don't expect to find uakaris. That's why I wasn't really looking in those places."

Already Vulnerable

Boubli named the new monkey Cacajao ayresii after Brazilian biologist José Márcio Ayres.

As a senior zoologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Ayres—who died in 2003—helped create a protected zone in the heart of the Amazon.

But the newfound Ayres uakari, Boubli said, appears confined to a very small area outside any preserve and is hunted by locals.

"We're going to have to create a park or reserve, because [its habitat is] not a protected area," he said.

"The population is quite small, so they are quite vulnerable. I'm a bit concerned."

Little is known about the creature's habits, but Boubli said it lives in social groups and is likely a seed-eater, based on his observations of other uakaris.

Anthony Rylands, a primatologist at Conservation International, said work such as Boubli's is vital to wildlife protection.

"Many of these tropical forests are being destroyed now," Rylands said.

"There's a desperate need to save these animals, but we really need to know what animals we're trying to save [and] where they live. Otherwise you can't do anything about it."

Rylands added that today more new primate species are being described in the wake of advances in DNA technology.

"The sophistication of genetic analysis from just about any material—hair, feces—means we're able to get a much more precise view of primate diversity.

"Some of them, especially the nocturnal ones, are really quite cryptic—you can never recognize the differences simply by looking.

"Now … we've suddenly begun to realize that animals we previously considered to be one species are completely different creatures."

Defining the Species

A formal description of C. ayresii has been submitted to the International Journal of Primatology.

Meanwhile, some of Boubli's students will return to Pico de Neblina to study the new monkey's environment and behavior.

"It's very important to define what those monkeys are doing there, how big their range is, because we want to make a case for the Brazilian government to create a reserve," Boubli said.

"Finding a relatively large monkey as a new species these days is pretty cool," he said. "It shows how little we really know about the biodiversity of the Amazon."

In 2003 Boubli described another new species from the region, the bearded saki.

And he believes that new types of spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, and capuchin monkeys await confirmation.

"If we are still finding monkeys, imagine how many invertebrates and things like that are still out there. It's pretty amazing."

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Activists want polar bear on endangered list before Alaska oil sale

Yahoo News 5 Feb 08;

Animal activists on Monday pressed the US government to add the polar bear to the list of endangered animal species before the sell-off of oil and gas drilling rights in Alaska begins in the coming days.

"An endangered listing can affect the sell-off of the oil drilling rights," Brandon Frazier, a spokesman for global animal welfare group International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said.

"The authorities would have to get approval through the Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct drilling if there is an endangered species that inhabits the area."

The US government is due on Wednesday to offer several million acres of polar bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska for sale for oil and gas exploration leases.

The lease-sale would make the polar bears' habitat "vulnerable to big business interests and jeopardize the government's ability to protect it," IFAW said in a statement.

US lawmakers have proposed listing the polar bear as "threatened", but IFAW said that did not go far enough.

"A 'threatened' listing leaves open the possibility for exemptions and doesn't shut loopholes, such as the one that allows Americans to trophy-hunt for polar bears in Canada and bring their heads and hides back to the US," Frazier told AFP.

But listing polar bears as endangered before the sell-off of the drilling rights it would also "truly complicate getting the lease-sale in Alaska," he added.

"That's why the decision on listing the polar bear has been delayed," Frazier said.

The US Fish and Wildlife Services last month announced it was putting off a decision on listing the polar bear as a threatened species until after the sell-off of oil and gas drilling rights in Alaska.

"They are trying to wait it out, get the lease-sale through and then make the decision," said Frazier.

"That way, they could list the lease-sale as an exemption," he added.

Last month, US officials insisted the sale of drilling rights posed no threat to polar bears and said they planned to go ahead with the sell-off before a decision is taken on adding the polar bear's status.

The US government estimates crude oil reserves under the Chukchi Sea at 15 billion barrels.

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World launches talks on forest payoffs

Michael Casey, Associated Press Yahoo News 4 Feb 08;

For decades, a flood of aid and an army of conservationists couldn't save Indonesia's rain forests from illegal loggers, land-hungry peasants and the spread of giant plantations. Now the world is looking at a simpler approach: up-front cash.

Whether it was arming forest police or backing schemes to certify legal logs, no tactic could silence the chain saws or douse the intentional fires that each day destroy 20 more square miles of Indonesia's rain forests, and an estimated 110 square miles elsewhere in the world's tropics.

The problem was pure economics: Neither local authorities nor the rural poor, in Indonesia and elsewhere, have a material incentive to keep their forests intact.

That could now change because of a decision at December's U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate a deal, as part of the next international climate agreement, under which countries would be rewarded for reducing their galloping rates of deforestation, a big contributor to global warming.

The cash might come directly from a fund financed by richer northern nations, or through "carbon credits" granted per unit of forest saved. The credits could be traded on the world carbon market, where a northern industry can buy such allowances to help meet its own required reductions in emissions of global-warming gases.

Indonesia and other tropical countries backing the "avoided deforestation" concept hope this carbon price will outpace what landowners could get from logging the forests or clearing them for palm oil, rubber, soybean or other plantations.

"For the next decade, the international community and countries that negotiate this convention have tremendous potential, tremendous power in their hands," said Benoit Bosquet, head of a World Bank project to prepare poorer countries to take part in the new initiative, known as REDD, for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.

"There will be a lot of money going in there," he said. "You will see actors currently converting forest to plantations and cattle ranches saying, 'Wait a minute. If I get more money to preserve my forest than to produce beef, then of course I will keep my forest standing.'"

But turning REDD into reality is far from guaranteed, given competing interests among tropical countries, the world's growing demand for plantation products, and its poor track record in controlling deforestation.

The tangled question of forests has dogged climate negotiations for years.

Deforestation was left out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol because of concerns that tradable credits for saving forests would take pressure off northern nations to reduce their own industries' greenhouse-gas emissions as required under that accord. But scientific uncertainty also muddies the picture.

The carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere by the burning and rotting of deforestation is estimated to account for 20 percent of manmade greenhouse-gas emissions. But from Brazil's mahogany trees to Papua New Guinea's thick-trunked kauri, how much carbon is stored in which of the world's forests? How much carbon dioxide is absorbed by which trees?

How will the world fix baselines, judging what a country's "usual" deforestation rate is, in order to gauge rewards for a lower rate? And who's to verify the numbers?

A technical body under the U.N. climate treaty is collecting proposals from governments on how to address such issues. It's the first step toward negotiating a deal by 2009, as part of an overall agreement on deeper emissions cuts to succeed Kyoto when it expires in 2012.

Beyond the technical, however, political disputes will complicate the U.N. talks.

The focus may be on today's deforestation, but India, Costa Rica and others believe they should get credit for having been "good" — protecting their forests over the years. Some rain-forest governments, meanwhile, want commercial tree plantations counted in the mix, a move environmentalists oppose.

Some fear "avoided deforestation" credits flooding the market will drive down the carbon price. That's why REDD's advocates want the next round of emissions reductions to cut much deeper than Kyoto, raising demand for credits.

Brazil, whose energy projects already make it a big player in carbon credits, has opposed extending that market to trees, favoring instead a global fund to compensate rain-forest nations directly for income lost when land sits undeveloped.

The British government's Stern Review of climate economics argued that targeting deforestation is among the cheapest ways to reduce greenhouses gases. It estimated halting 70 percent of rain-forest destruction would cost $5 billion a year in compensation.

Some rain-forest nations, on the other hand, calculate REDD could generate as much as $23 billion a year.

Whatever the amount, into whose pockets would these credits or cash flow?

Over the years, in Indonesia and elsewhere, many initiatives — from arresting illegal loggers to promoting sustainable logging operations — have failed because of widespread corruption. Bribed officials look the other way. Politically connected elites often reap the profits from deforestation. Such problems remain.

Few governments have the means or money to monitor their deforestation. Land-rights disputes leave ownership of much forested land in question. Some environmentalists fear governments might push indigenous people out of newly protected forests — as they did when many national parks were created.

"We need to have clear property rights so we know who owns these forests that we're paying not to convert," said Frances Seymour, head of the Center for International Forestry Research in Indonesia. "We need mechanisms to get (the funds) down to the local level so they are not just skimmed off at the top."

Powerful interests have much at stake. European money is bringing pressure on Malaysia and Indonesia, for example, to clear land to produce biofuels, and Brazil faces demands from China to plant soybean to feed their growing middle class.

"It doesn't stop at national borders," said the World Bank's Bosquet. "What Brazil is doing is supplying more beef and soy to the outside world. You don't control that within Brazil."

The challenge in the Amazon became clear again in late January, when Brazil's government met in emergency session to deal with a sudden burst of deforestation after three years of decline.

Two months earlier, visiting the Amazon, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon learned how dying rain forests will feed global warming, and he went on to Bali to urge the world's nations to act. "It is time to wake up," he said.

Cutting through the political tangle to produce the grand plan called REDD — money for doing nothing to forests — will itself prove a challenge.

"There is a hell of a lot to negotiate and many controversial issues," said Christoph Thies, a Greenpeace forest campaigner who observed the Bali talks. "It's a long and difficult road ahead. To be honest, there is quite a good chance of failure."

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Society depends on more for less: power of consumer choice

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, BBC Green Room 4 Feb 08;

If the world is to end the threat from climate change, we need to produce more with less energy, says Mark Moody Stuart. In this week's Green Room, he outlines his vision that will help society fulfil this goal.

To address the climate challenge we need to reduce the carbon content of our energy by at least half.

But at the same time we must learn to generate a unit of GDP for about half the energy which we use at present.

Energy efficiency and carbon content of energy are equally important, but they require different approaches to achieve them.

I am a great believer in both the power of consumer choice and the market. As we come to understand the consequences, we do tend to make greener choices.

But most of us will only make those choices if they deliver the convenience and utility to which we are used or aspire; and if they do not cost more (or we can afford the luxury of choice).

Consumer opinion and choice is important, but it will not do the trick on its own. Its importance is in encouraging companies to supply the market in more climate friendly ways, and most importantly in encouraging governments (for whom consumers vote) to take the steps needed.

'Bitter experience'

So what of the market? It is an unsurpassed mechanism for allocating resources to deliver better things. Through competition, technologies are optimised or discarded, opening the field for creativity and choice. I believe in the power and value of markets.

But like most things, they have a failing. Without regulation to channel their power, markets will not deliver things which are of no immediate benefit to the individual making his or her choice, even though they may be beneficial to society.

Without regulation, markets would not have delivered unleaded gasoline, catalytic converters on the exhausts of cars or seatbelts and airbags, nor clean air to London after the killer smogs of the 1950s.

In New Delhi, regulation forced three-wheeled vehicles, taxis and buses to switch to clean gas fuel. The initial complaints were great, but everyone, including the taxi drivers, blessed the result.

These regulations were not cost free, but everyone benefited. Regulation was needed to channel the power of the market, but regulatory frameworks have to be simple and practical.

The gut opposition of business people to regulation comes from bitter experience of regulations which don't just frame the market but bind it hand and foot and tell us how things must be done.

This kills markets and takes the fun and variety out of life.

Carbon price

So what are the frameworks we need?

For carbon content, we need a mechanism which forces energy supplies in the right direction. This means putting a price on carbon for major producers (and large-scale users) of energy through a carbon cap and trade system, such as we already have in Europe.

Unfortunately, this system has been initially subject to government and business special pleading and gaming. Or it means a carbon tax.

Both are complex and should only be applied to major producers or users. Trading encourages carbon-avoiding investment where it has the most impact. It also allows the transfer, through market mechanisms, of financial resources to China and India.

I do not think we will get a more global agreement without such transfer. Taxation has the great merit that it provides a clear floor price of carbon.

So for me the preferred option is a combination - a tax, but with the ability to reduce it through trading, getting the best combination of a floor price and efficiency of investment.

Most people think that a price of something around 40 dollars a tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) to producers would do the trick.

Market decides

Before you panic about the cost to you and industrial transport, that is only about 5p a litre on fuel - within the noise of oil price variations.

On the other hand, for efficiency we need regulatory frameworks - very tough efficiency standards on buildings, on lighting and on personal transport.

That means banning the manufacture or import of old fashioned light bulbs.

Technically, this actually just means putting a standard on the efficiency of lights so that markets decide whether the best answer is compact fluorescent lights or the newer LEDs - old incandescents would never meet such a hurdle.

It means very tough standards on buildings. This is already having an effect in London where to achieve highly valuable planning permission, developments are already achieving energy efficiency which we thought we would not achieve for a decade or more.

And for personal transportation? That means banning "gas guzzlers" and steadily increasing the total efficiency of any vehicle sold.

You can buy the roomiest, vroomiest car, as long as it meets the efficiency standard.

My wife and I have driven a hybrid since 2001 and it is a beautiful and comfortable piece of engineering, silent and will do 100mph (we tried it, but not in England!).

That may not be the best technology - the market will find out. But we must constrain the market in an efficiency framework.

To achieve the same through taxation would mean fuel taxes at levels which would play havoc with industry, countryside dwellers and the poor who need transport.

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart is non-executive chairman of Anglo American, and is a member of the UN Global Compact and chairman of the Global Compact Foundation

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

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Ban gas-guzzling cars in the EU, says ex-Shell boss

Stephen Adams, The Telegraph 4 Feb 08;

New 'gas guzzling' cars should be banned across the European Union, the former head of Shell has said.

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart said the sale of new cars which do less than 35 miles per gallon (mpg) should be outlawed for environmental reasons.

The former oil giant boss said taking such cars off the road was an ethical issue and a responsibility of society at large. Such a move, which would be heavily resisted by the motor industry, would risk virtually eliminating the sports and luxury car markets.

Top British brands such as Jaguar, Rolls Royce and Aston Martin would have to radically re-engineer their vehicles and their business models if they were to survive.

But Sir Mark, 67, who was chairman of Royal Dutch Shell between 1998 and 2001, and retired from the board in 2005, said a total ban on inefficient cars was necessary.

He said: "We need very tough regulation saying that you can't drive or build something less than a certain standard. You would be allowed to drive an Aston Martin - but only if it did 50-60mpg."

In his opinion, he commented, cars which failed to use fuel sparingly "simply should not be allowed."

Cars which would be banned include the 13.7mpg Bentley Arnage, 14.8mpg Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and 24.8mpg Jaguar XJ 4.2l V8.

Sir Mark thought the most widely used method of getting people out of large cars - by taxing their use more - was not acceptable.

"When we eliminated coal fires in London we didn't say to people in Chelsea you can pay a bit more and toast your crumpets in front of an open fire - we said nobody, but nobody, could have an open fire," he said.

And he thought that, despite industry protests, the sector would adapt to new rules as it had done so in the past.

"When we introduced catalytic converters the car-makers said it would put the price of cars through the roof - but it didn't. Now we all have to have catalytic converters - that's only right," Sir Mark told BBC News.

Sir Mark, who is currently chairman of the mining group Anglo American, said his years in industry had taught him that the market would provide solutions if governments demanded them through tough legislation.

EU 'should ban inefficient cars'
Roger Harrabin, BBC News 4 Feb 08;

The EU should ban the sale of cars that do under 35 miles to the gallon, the ex-chairman of oil giant Shell says.

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart told BBC News the motor industry would adapt to cope with stricter environmental rules.

The UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders opposes the idea, saying drivers of the most polluting cars pay extra through road tax and petrol duty.

But Sir Mark said this simply let rich people avoid taking responsibility for tackling climate change.

Expanding on the views he expressed in a BBC News website Green Room opinion column, Sir Mark said: "Nobody needs a car that does 10-15mpg.

"We need very tough regulation saying that you can't drive or build something less than a certain standard. You would be allowed to drive an Aston Martin - but only if it did 50-60mpg."

Sir Mark's rule would apply only to new cars. Eventually, old polluting cars would die quietly of their own accord.

While car-makers could improve the efficiency of many sports cars to meet such a target, they would struggle to get some heavy, luxury cars to qualify.

The UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders spokesman Nigel Wonnacott said drivers of polluting cars already paid extra through VED (road tax) and petrol duty. That was enough.

Sir Mark said that, in addition to addressing inefficient cars, he also wanted very tough efficiency standards applied to other sectors, such as buildings and lighting.

He added that the rich should not escape their responsibility to tackle climate change: "It is a social thing. We don't say the wealthy can avoid doing what is needed by society.

"When we eliminated coal fires in London we didn't say to people in Chelsea you can pay a bit more and toast your crumpets in front of an open fire - we said nobody, but nobody, could have an open fire.

"When we introduced catalytic converters the car-makers said it would put the price of cars through the roof - but it didn't. Now we all have to have catalytic converters - that's only right."

Sir Mark - currently chairman of the mining group Anglo American - said his years in industry had taught him that the market would provide solutions if governments demanded them with enough conviction.

Battle for opinion

"Government's job is to set the framework in which industry can compete," he added. "The market is a magical thing - it will meet people's convenience but it needs guiding."

He said the EU was far too lax with motor manufacturers.

Such comments from a leading industrialist will make an impact on the current European debate in which German car-makers are fighting to avoid being punished for continuing to build heavy cars.

They say jobs are at risk if they have to change their models.

Sir Mark says that with a growing world demand for cars, jobs lost in one polluting part of the industry will be more than replaced by jobs in a newer, cleaner part of industry.

His remarks may chime well with many of the public.

Opinion polls consistently show that people are prepared to change their ways to tackle climate change - but only if their neighbours are forced to do the same.

This fact is regularly ignored by politicians fearing a potential backlash.

They may find in future that it is less controversial for them to impose tough rules on everyone rather than to seek compromises to accommodate minorities.

Nigel Case, director of The Classic Car Club in London, said he supported Sir Mark's comments, in theory – but said that currently car-makers were not producing clean vehicles attractive to drivers.

He noted that the Lotus Tesla electric sports car was capable of 60 mph in around 4 seconds, and a top speed of 130 mph.

"It sounds great," he said. "But we just can't get hold of one. If there were more cars like this available, it would make drivers feel good driving them."
A series of thought-provoking environmental opinion pieces

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China can weather snow storms, says World Bank

Chua Chin Hon, Straits Times 5 Feb 08;

Bank's report cites strong fundamentals; Chinese experts say crisis could even stimulate economy

BEIJING - THE devastating snow storms that have hit China will not cause long-term economic damage, the World Bank said yesterday, citing strong fundamentals and growing consumption in the mainland.

Beijing also has an array of policy options at its disposal should there be a need to pump up the economy, such as by relaxing fiscal policy or lifting credit curbs.

Some Chinese economists went further by suggesting that the crisis might actually stimulate the economy as China poured investments into repairing the damaged power grid and improving the infrastructural network.

'The global outlook has weakened and is uncertain, but China is likely to grow robustly and is well-positioned to stimulate demand if needed,' the World Bank said in its latest quarterly report on China released yesterday.

The report scaled back the World Bank's forecast for Chinese growth to 9.6 per cent - the slowest pace since 2002 - down from the 10.8 per cent it projected last September.

But slowing export growth was identified as the main damper on China's economy, rather than any lasting impact from the snow storms.

The bank's senior economist Louis Kuijs said the economic fallout from the storms should be 'temporary', and that recovery should pick up once the weather improves.

China's round-the-clock efforts to combat the prolonged weather crisis are at a critical stage this week, as stranded migrant workers and families without electricity look to the government to restore the paralysed transportation and power networks in time for Chinese New Year festivities, which begin on Thursday.

Beijing scored an important psychological victory in this regard yesterday when it successfully reopened the main north-south Beijing-Zhuhai Highway, which had been locked down in recent weeks by the country's worst winter weather in 50 years.

This raised hopes that millions of migrant workers waiting anxiously to be reunited with their families could get home in time, and that food and energy supplies could reach hard-hit regions faster.

Another boost came in the form of a spectacular 8.13 per cent surge in the Chinese bourse yesterday, its biggest one-day gain in 2-1/2 years.

The stock market was cheered by news over the weekend that financial regulators have approved two new stock funds, and by assurances from Mr Li Rongrong, the top official in charge of Chinese state-owned companies, that the overall performance of listed companies would not be affected by the storms.

But the winter crisis is not yet over. Heavy fog and a new round of snow, rain and sleet blanketed parts of central, southern and eastern China yesterday.

Dozens of flights were grounded as the authorities were forced to close expressways in parts of Zhejiang, Hunan, Anhui, Jiangxi and Jiangsu provinces in the east.

The affected regions, however, can expect a brief respite during the first three days of Chinese New Year when 'fine weather will dominate', meteorological chief Zheng Guoguang told reporters yesterday.

He attributed the recent storms to an unusually strong cold front moving in from north-west China and the La Nina, a cyclical global weather pattern blamed for a series of devastating hurricanes and floods last year.

However, he steered clear of any suggestion that China's breakneck pace of urbanisation and economic development might have contributed to the extreme weather. He also said that there was no way to predict if the same problem would return next year.

'But we have learnt an important lesson, and that is we must be prepared,' he said.

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Zambia Could Open Gates of Key Dam Hit by Floods

Shapi Shacinda, PlanetArk 5 Feb 08;

LUSAKA - Zambia braced for more rain and started evacuating people from the banks of three major rivers after heavy flooding last month and said it may open the spillway of its massive Kariba Dam to prevent its collapse.

The Zambezi River Authority said in a statement the gates "may be opened at any time if the need arises". The dam is the main power generation point for Zambia and Zimbabwe and supplies some electricity to Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

The government said hundreds of villagers will remain homeless if authorities decide to open the spillway gates of the dam -- one of the world's largest -- to prevent its walls from cracking. Doing so could affect power generation.

The government said it had started evacuating people living on the banks of three major rivers already battered by regional floods which have killed dozens and left thousands homeless in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

So far floods have killed six people in southern Zambia.

The financial costs could also be high. Kariba Dam supplies power to Zambia's Copperbelt, its industrial base and the economy's lifeblood.

Zambian state television showed footage of police picking up a sixth flooding victim from the Maramba stream in Livingstone.

Officials said the spillway gates of another dam, the Itezhi-Tezhi, may also be opened, possibly displacing thousands of villagers living along the banks of the Kafue, Luangwa and Zambezi rivers.

"Further outlook indicates that more rains are expected in the future, especially during February/March, which is the peak period," said the Zambezi River Authority.

Vice President Rupiah Banda said on state television that government officials had started telling people living along river banks to abandon their homes.

Banda said the government was also preparing relief operations as most maize fields in eastern Zambia were expected to be washed away by flood waters from dams.

"We are moving tents to people that will need them and we will provide relief maize because some people will lose their maize when the spillway gates are opened," Banda said.

In 2005, The Zambezi River Authority opened spillway gates at Kariba North Bank power station on the Zambezi River, causing severe flooding in eastern Zambia and parts of Mozambique. (Reporting by Shapi Shacinda; Editing by Michael Georgy)


Zambia Opens Gates of Dam After Heavy Rain
Shapi Shacinda, PlanetArk 7 Deb 08;

LUSAKA - Zambia's power utility Zesco said on Monday it had opened the spillway gates at the Itezhi-Tezhi dam which was under threat because of heavy rains.


Zesco manager Monica Chisela said the gates of the dam, which is on the Kafue River and supplies power to key copper mines, were opened to avoid its collapse, but flooding was not yet threatening the Kafue Flats game park downstream.

"It was assessed that flooding due to opening of the spillway gates ... has not reached further downstream of the Kafue Flats," she told Reuters.

Six people have been killed in floods in southern Zambia since last month.

A senior industry official told Reuters that the Kariba dam, the main power generation point for Zambia and Zimbabwe which also exports to Namibia and Botswana, would be opened on Monday.

In 2005, The Zambezi River Authority opened spillway gates at Kariba North Bank power station on the Zambezi River, causing severe flooding in eastern Zambia and parts of Mozambique.

Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi have been lashed by heavy rains for several weeks, causing swollen rivers to burst their banks and forcing thousands of villagers to flee flooded homes. (Editing by Phumza Macanda and Andrew Dobbie)

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"Tipping point" on horizon for Greenland ice

Alister Doyle, Reuters 4 Feb 08;

OSLO (Reuters) - Global warming this century could trigger a runaway thaw of Greenland's ice sheet and other abrupt shifts such as a dieback of the Amazon rainforest, scientists said on Monday.

They urged governments to be more aware of "tipping points" in nature, tiny shifts that can bring big and almost always damaging changes such as a melt of Arctic summer sea ice or a collapse of the Indian monsoon.

"Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change," the scientists at British, German and U.S. institutes wrote in a report saying there were many little-understood thresholds in nature.

"The greatest and clearest threat is to the Arctic with summer sea ice loss likely to occur long before, and potentially contribute to, Greenland ice sheet melt," they wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Tipping elements in the tropics, the boreal zone, and west Antarctica are surrounded by large uncertainty," they wrote, pointing to more potential abrupt shifts than seen in a 2007 report by the U.N. Climate Panel.

A projected drying of the Amazon basin, linked both to logging and to global warming, could set off a dieback of the rainforest.

"Many of these tipping points could be closer than we thought," lead author Timothy Lenton, of the University of East Anglia in England, told Reuters of the study.

Other sudden changes linked to climate change, stoked by human use of fossil fuels, included a dieback of northern pine forests, or a stronger warming of the Pacific under El Nino weather events that can disrupt weather worldwide, they wrote.

A possible greening of parts of the Sahel and the Sahara, if monsoon rains in West Africa were disrupted, was one of the few positive abrupt shifts identified by the scientists.

CLOSER

Even a moderate warming could set off a thaw of Greenland's ice sheet that could then vanish in 300 years -- raising sea levels by 6 meters (20 ft), or 2 meters a century and threatening coasts, Pacific islands and cities from Bangkok to Buenos Aires.

The U.N. Climate Panel foresees a rise in world sea levels ranging up to about 80 cms this century and reckons that a thaw of Greenland would take hundreds of years longer.

The new study said a disappearance of Arctic sea ice in summertime could happen in coming decades -- earlier than projected by the U.N. panel. That could stoke further global warming as dark water soaks up more heat than ice and snow.

The report also identified risks such as damage to northern pine forests -- widely exploited by the pulp industry -- because of factors such as more frequent fires and vulnerability to pests in warmer, drier conditions.

But it played down some other fears, such as of a runaway melt of Siberian permafrost, releasing stores of methane which is a powerful greenhouse gas.

And it said a shutdown of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean that brings warm water north to Europe "appears to be a less immediate threat".

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Climate set for 'sudden shifts'
Pallab Ghosh, BBC News 4 Feb 08;

Many of Earth's climate systems will undergo a series of sudden shifts this century as a result of human-induced climate change, a study suggests.

A number of these shifts could occur this century, say the report's authors.

They argue that society should not be lulled into a false sense of security by the idea that climate change will be a gradual process.

The work by an international team appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

"Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under human-induced climate change," he said.

"The greatest threats are tipping of the Arctic sea-ice and the Greenland ice sheet, and at least five other elements could surprise us by exhibiting a nearby tipping point."

The bulk of climate scientists now believe that human induced global warming has begun to affect some aspects of our climate.

Risk assessment

But that change is the start of a series of more dramatic changes if global warming continues, according to a group of more than 50 scientists.

In a formal survey the researchers said that a number of systems that influence the Earth's weather patterns could begin to collapse suddenly if there's even a slight increase in global temperatures.

At greatest risk is arctic sea ice, the Greenland ice sheet and the west Antarctic ice sheet.

The researchers have listed and ranked nine ecological systems that they say could be lost this century as a result of global warming. The nine tipping elements and the time it will take them to undergo a major transition are:

* Melting of Arctic sea-ice (about 10 years)
* Decay of the Greenland ice sheet (about 300 years)
* Collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet (about 300 years)
* Collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (about 100 years)
* Increase in the El Nino Southern Oscillation (about 100 years)
* Collapse of the Indian summer monsoon (about 1 year)
* Greening of the Sahara/Sahel and disruption of the West African monsoon (about 10 years)
* Dieback of the Amazon rainforest (about 50 years)
* Dieback of the Boreal Forest (about 50 years)

The paper also demonstrates how, in principle, early warning systems could be established using real-time monitoring and modelling to detect the proximity of certain tipping points.

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