Greed In the Name Of Green

To Worshipers of Consumption: Spending Won't Save the Earth
Monica Hesse, Washington Post 5 Mar 08;

Congregation of the Church of the Holy Organic, let us buy.

Let us buy Anna Sova Luxury Organics Turkish towels, 900 grams per square meter, $58 apiece. Let us buy the eco-friendly 600-thread-count bed sheets, milled in Switzerland with U.S. cotton, $570 for queen-size.

Let us purge our closets of those sinful synthetics, purify ourselves in the flame of the soy candle at the altar of the immaculate Earth Weave rug, and let us buy, buy, buy until we are whipped into a beatific froth of free-range fulfillment.

And let us never consider the other organic option -- not buying -- because the new green consumer wants to consume, to be more celadon than emerald, in the right color family but muted, without all the hand-me-down baby clothes and out-of-date carpet.

* * *

There was a time, and it was pre-Al Gore, when buying organic meant eggs and tomatoes, Whole Foods and farmer's markets. But in the past two years, the word has seeped out of the supermarket and into the home store, into the vacation industry, into the Wal-Mart. Almost three-quarters of the U.S. population buys organic products at least occasionally; between 2005 and 2006 the sale of organic non-food items increased 26 percent, from $744 million to $938 million, according to the Organic Trade Association.

Green is the new black, carbon is the new kryptonite, blah blah blah. The privileged eco-friendly American realized long ago that SUVs were Death Stars; now we see that our gas-only Lexus is one, too. Best replace it with a 2008 LS 600 hybrid for $104,000 (it actually gets fewer miles per gallon than some traditional makes, but, see, it is a hybrid). Accessorize the interior with an organic Sherpa car seat cover for only $119.99.

Consuming until you're squeaky green. It feels so good. It looks so good. It feels so good to look so good, which is why conspicuousness is key.

T hese countertops are pressed paper.

Have I shown you my recycled platinum engagement ring?

In the past two weeks, our inbox has runneth over with giddily organic products: There's the 100 percent Organic Solana Swaddle Wrap, designed to replace baby blankets we did not even know were evil. There's the Valentine's pitch, "Forget Red -- The color of love this season is Green!" It is advertising a water filter. There are the all-natural wasabi-covered goji berries, $30 for a snack six-pack, representing "a rare feat for wasabi."

There is the rebirth of Organic Style magazine, now only online but still as fashionable as ever, with a shopping section devoted to organic jewelry, organic pet bedding, organic garden decor, which apparently means more than "flowers" and "dirt."

When renowned environmentalist Paul Hawken is asked to comment on the new green consumer, he says, dryly, "The phrase itself is an oxymoron."

Oh ho?

"The good thing is people are waking up to the fact that we have a real [environmental] issue," says Hawken, who co-founded Smith & Hawken but left in 1992, before the $8,000 lawn became de rigueur. "But many of them are coming to the issue from being consumers. They buy a lot. They drive a lot."

They subscribe, in other words, to a destiny laid out by economist Victor Lebow, writing in 1955: "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction . . . in consumption. . . . We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."

The culture of obsolescence has become so deeply ingrained that it's practically reflexive. Holey sweaters get pitched, not mended. Laptops and cellphones get slimmer and shinier and smaller. We trade up every six months, and to make up for that, we buy and buy and hope we're buying the right other things, though sometimes we're not sure: When the Hartman Group, a market research firm, asked a group of devout green consumers what the USDA "organic" seal meant when placed on a product, 43 percent did not know. (The seal means that the product is at least 95 percent organic -- no pesticides, no synthetic hormones, no sewage sludge, no irradiation, no cloning.)

Which is why, when wannabe environmentalists try to change purchasing habits without also altering their consumer mind-set, something gets lost in translation.

Polyester = bad. Solution? Throw out the old wardrobe and replace with natural fibers!

Linoleum = bad. Solution? Rip up the old floor and replace with cork!

Out with the old, in with the green.

It's done with the best of intentions, but all that replacing is problematic. That "bad" vinyl flooring? It was probably less destructive in your kitchens than in a landfill (unless, of course, it was a health hazard). Ditto for the older, but still wearable, clothes.

And that's not even getting into the carbon footprint left by a nice duvet's 5,000-mile flight from Switzerland. (Oh, all right: a one-way ticket from Zurich to Washington produces about 1,500 pounds of carbon dioxide.)

Really going green, Hawken says, "means having less. It does mean less. Everyone is saying, 'You don't have to change your lifestyle.' Well, yes, actually, you do."

But, but, but -- buying green feels so guilt less, akin to the mentality that results in eating 14 of Whole Foods' two-bite cupcakes. Their first ingredient is cane sugar, but in a land of high-fructose panic, that's practically a health food, right? Have another.

"There's a certain thrill, that you get to go out and replace everything," says Leslie Garrett, author of "The Virtuous Consumer," a green shopping guide. "New bamboo T-shirts, new hemp curtains."

Garrett describes the conflicting feelings she and her husband experienced when trying to decide whether to toss an old living room sofa: "Our dog had chewed on it -- there were only so many positions we could put it in" without the teeth marks showing. But it still fulfilled its basic role as a sofa: "We could still sit on it without falling through."

They could still make do. They could still, in this recession-wary economy, where everyone tries to cut back, subscribe to the crazy notion that conservation was about . . . conserving. Says Garrett, "The greenest products are the ones you don't buy."

There are exceptions. "Certain environmental issues trump other issues," Garrett says. "Preserving fossil fuels is more critical than landfill issues." If your furnace or fridge is functioning but inefficient, you can replace it guilt-free.

Ultimately, Garrett and her husband did buy a new sofa (from Ikea -- Garrett appreciated the company's ban on carcinogens). But they made the purchase only after finding another home for their old couch -- a college student on Craigslist was happy to take it off their hands.

The sofa example is what Josh Dorfman, host of the Seattle radio show "The Lazy Environmentalist," considers to be a best-case scenario for the modern consumer. "Buying stuff is intrinsically wrapped up in our identities," Dorfman says. "You can't change that behavior. It's better to say, 'You're a crazy shopaholic. You're not going to stop being a crazy shopaholic. But if you're going to buy 50 pairs of jeans, buy them from this better place.' "

Then again, his show is called "The Lazy Environmentalist."

Chip Giller, editor of enviro-blog Grist.org, has a less fatalistic view. He loves that Wal-Mart has developed an organic line. He applauds the efforts of the green consumer. "Two years ago, who would have thought we'd be in a place where terms like locavore and carbon footprint were household terms?" he says, viewing green consumption as a "gateway" to get more people involved in environmental issues. The important thing is for people to keep walking through the gate, toward the land of reduced air travel, energy-efficient homes and much less stuff: "We're not going to buy our way out of this."

* * *

Congregation of the Church of the Holy Organic, let us scrub our sins away with Seventh Generation cleaning products. Let us go ahead and bite into the locally grown apple, and let us replace our incandescent light bulbs with those dreadfully expensive fluorescents.

But yea, though we walk through the valley of the luxury organic, let us purchase no imported Sherpa car seat covers. Let us use the old one, even though it is ugly, because our toddler will spill Pom juice on the organic one just as quickly as on the hand-me-down.

Amen.

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Best of our wild blogs: 8 Mar 08

Exploring a new shore with new friends
on the wildfilms blog

Hard corals: animal, vegetable or mineral?
on the singapore celebrates our reefs blog

Kingfisher catches skink
on the bird ecology blog

Rock Pigeons
on the manta blog

The Junior Gallery Guides are back!
on the raffles museum news blog

Read more!

Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain

Alexi Mostrous
Times Online 8 Mar 08;

With larger mammals it’s fishing gear that’s the big problem. On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue.

Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.

The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds.

Gordon Brown announced last month that he would force supermarkets to charge for the bags, saying that they were “one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste”. Retailers and some pressure groups, including the Campaign to Protect Rural England, threw their support behind him.

But scientists, politicians and marine experts attacked the Government for joining a “bandwagon” based on poor science.

Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science, said: “The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence. This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive. Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn’t achieve anything.”

Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.

They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”

He added: “The impact of bags on whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals ranges from nil for most species to very minor for perhaps a few species.For birds, plastic bags are not a problem either.”

The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.

Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian Government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to “plastic bags”.

The figure was latched on to by conservationists as proof that the bags were killers. For four years the “typo” remained uncorrected. It was only in 2006 that the authors altered the report, replacing “plastic bags” with “plastic debris”. But they admitted: “The actual numbers of animals killed annually by plastic bag litter is nearly impossible to determine.”

In a postscript to the correction they admitted that the original Canadian study had referred to fishing tackle, not plastic debris, as the threat to the marine environment.

Regardless, the erroneous claim has become the keystone of a widening campaign to demonise plastic bags.

David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace, told The Times that bad science was undermining the Government’s case for banning the bags. “It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags,” he said. “The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags.

“It doesn’t do the Government’s case any favours if you’ve got statements being made that aren’t supported by the scientific literature that’s out there. With larger mammals it’s fishing gear that’s the big problem. On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue. It would be great if statements like these weren’t made.”

Geoffrey Cox, a Tory member of the Commons Environment Select Committee, said: “I don't like plastic bags and I certainly support restricting their use, but plainly it’s extremely important that before we take any steps we should rely on accurate information. It is bizarre that any campaign should be endorsed on the basis of a mistranslation. Gordon Brown should get his facts right.”

A 1968 study of albatross carcasses found that 90 per cent contained some form of plastic but only two birds had ingested part of a plastic bag.

Professor Geoff Boxshall, a marine biologist at the Natural History Museum, said: “I’ve never seen a bird killed by a plastic bag. Other forms of plastic in the ocean are much more damaging. Only a very small proportion is caused by bags.”

Plastic particles known as nurdles, dumped in the sea by industrial companies, form a much greater threat as they can be easily consumed by birds and animals. Many British groups are now questioning whether a ban on bags would cost consumers more than the environmental benefits.

Charlie Mayfield, chairman of retailer John Lewis, said that tackling packaging waste and reducing carbon emissions were far more important goals. “We don’t see reducing the use of plastic bags as our biggest priority,” he said. “Of all the waste that goes to landfill, 20 per cent is household waste and 0.3 per cent is plastic bags.” John Lewis added that a scheme in Ireland had reduced plastic bag usage, but sales of bin liners had increased 400 per cent.

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A UK family's attempt to live without plastic packaging

Plastic? No thanks
The Independent 8 Mar 08;

Appalled by reports of environmental pollution, Catherine Eade and her family decided to try to live without buying anything packaged in plastic. One month on, they are finding the experiment both life-changing and soberingly difficult

When I told my children we were going to stop buying plastic packaging until further notice, they didn't bat an eyelid.

We had been looking at the front page story in The Independent last month which revealed that a "plastic soup" twice the size of the US was floating around in the Pacific Ocean.

"Why don't we give it up for Lent?" suggested my eight-year-old, Joel, and my daughters agreed. (Although my youngest, Alice, confided in me later that she would find a shortage of yoghurt for 40 days quite challenging. I promised her I'd make some.)

What they, and I, didn't know was what an impact a plastic ban would have on everyday life in our family of five.

I'm not talking about refusing plastic bags: I've been doing that for years. No, this pledge meant every food item I normally bought for my family would be scrutinised for plastic. Recycled and recyclable cardboard, jars, tins and glass bottles I deemed acceptable; anything made of or containing plastic or some other unrecyclable material would be rejected.

The 10-metre deep vortex of plastic rubbish highlighted by The Independent was first discovered by a sailor, Charles Moore, in 1997. It is now the largest mass of rubbish in the world, totalling an estimated 100 million tonnes, and kills hundreds of thousands of birds and animals every year, as well as introducing toxic waste into the food chain.

Some of the plastic in this giant swirling rubbish dump has been there for 50 years, as it does not biodegrade; toothbrushes, Lego and cigarette lighters are just some of the items that have been found in the stomachs of fish and seabirds. Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans: the UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of the stuff.

The next day – Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent – was my first foray into a supermarket with the intention of buying only unpackaged foods, or at least foods that were not encased in plastic. Yes, I know that for anyone with a modicum of environmental awareness, supermarkets are not the place to shop. But between them, Asda, Morrison, Tesco and Sainsbury's account for three quarters of our grocery shopping in the UK. My aim was to see how easy it would be as an "average" shopper to reduce the amount of packaging I bought, and Tesco was my first port of call.

My first realisation was that much organic fruit and veg is actually more packaged than non-organic, so it was back to standard loose potatoes, apples and oranges and the rest. After five minutes in the fruit and veg aisle, my trolley was beginning to look like a greengrocer's barrow, with things I might – in the past – have bought in a bag, rolling around in a riot of colour. It looked great to me but I noticed I was getting a few funny looks as I strolled around closely examining packets, shaking and replacing them, with apples, apricots, avocadoes, potatoes and pears parading in all their naked glory in my trolley.

One disappointment was that the paper mushroom bag had a plastic insert – another example of thoughtless over-design.

I left the dairy aisles almost empty-handed: All the cheeses were in plastic wrapping – some unnecessarily on plastic trays inside plastic wraps. I settled for an organic cheddar in a sort of greaseproof paper printed with trees, figuring (hoping) that it must be bio-degradable and making a note to self to check when I got home. Out went margarine or spreadable butter in favour of a paper wrapped block of butter – easy. No yoghurts today, though.

Tins of tomatoes and beans were OK but jars turned out to be a different matter. Yes, the glass can be recycled, but all those lids! Some were tin, which I could recycle with the cans, but an amazing number of lids are plastic. To add insult, many jars also have a "tamperproof" plastic seal around the lid. Lids on plastic bottles and Tetrapaks were all plastic, so there could be no squash or juice for the kids in that form – or milk. How would I get round that one?

Porridge oats in a 75 per cent recycled cardboard box were the only cereal item without a plastic inner bag, so in they went. Porridge is a staple breakfast in my house anyway, but I wondered how soon the children would get bored of it without the odd morning of cornflakes or Rice Krispies.

Eggs were the answer. My usual seeded brown bread in a plastic bag was replaced by a French stick in a paper bag, as well as some flour so we could bake our own.

But when I got to the frozen section I realised things were getting tricky. No frozen peas or sweetcorn – my handy vegetables of choice when the kids are hungry and I have to whip up a meal fast. I vowed to buy fresh peas and corn from the local grocer, where I could top up my meagre haul with cucumbers, lettuce and other salad items that were not tightly bandaged in plastic.

At the checkout, the sulky teenager didn't bother to hide his annoyance as new potatoes and satsumas rolled off the weighing area.

A couple of days later, I found the same problems in Asda and Morrisons, leaving with a small bag of non-packaged goods to fill some gaps in my food stash. By this time, I confess, I had given up on finding milk without a plastic lid and bought some (although my research had revealed that some milk companies are planning to drop the handle on pint and two pint plastic bottles in favour of a more lightweight design).

Just as, sometimes, you split up with a partner and then find that every song you hear on the radio is a love song, so I found that now I was trying to avoid plastic it was everywhere I looked. So I changed my shopping habits radically. Carrying my organic cotton bag around with me I became a much more random, opportunist shopper.

In the Co-op next to my children's school, I nipped in when I spotted an unwrapped cucumber. I bought cheese wrapped in paper at the deli down the road and took the kids to the proper greengrocers, who were happy to tip everything into my bag. I ordered a local organic vegetable and fruit box with earth still caked to its cargo and cooked vegetables I wouldn't normally buy such as turnips and celeriac.

By the end of week one I had already fallen off the plastic wagon: an unforeseen shortage meant a visit to our corner shop for recycled toilet rolls – wrapped in plastic that was "recyclable where facilities exist".

I gave the kids money for ice creams that lovely sunny weekend as we lounged on the beach and they came back with ice lollies wrapped in plastic– didn't they used to be wrapped in paper? One day, I also bought a replacement toothbrush for my husband. Maybe I could have found an alternative, but I didn't have masses of time left over that day.

By the start of week two, the kids, to their credit, hadn't complained about the relentless porridge breakfast diet. But the cats slunk off in disgust when I produced boxed cat crunchies instead of their usual veterinary approved stuff in a big bag.

My larder of existing food was looking depleted, but I was determined to improve on the previous week. My children's school (Brighton Steiner School) has a policy of no pre-packaged food in lunchboxes, so there was no big change in their lunches. The school even has a dry wholefood goods shop. I ordered in bulk to save packaging.

I also wrote something in the school's weekly newsletter mentioning the "plastic soup" and asking for tips. A few parents got in touch: one told me she and her partner had not shopped in a supermarket (bar the more ethically minded Co-op) for three years. A friend told me that when she stopped buying fruit and veg in plastic, she was able to put out just one carrier bag of rubbish per week – not bad for a family of four – and that she was getting rid of things such as bubblewrap and jiffy bags through the community swapping website, Freecycle.

Ten days into my crusade, I felt I was making a (small) difference. My children were enjoying cooking with me more, making different types of bread and experimental cakes. My husband even offered to make pasta ( but the pasta cutter had rusted.)

I asked several food companies whether I could recycle their packaging and was mostly fobbed off with the reply that yes it was recyclable "where facilities exist". They don't. Not where I live, anyway. I phoned the local council and the "household waste depot" and was told that only plastic bottles could be taken there for recycling. What is so frustrating is there are so many types of plastic packaging which seemingly can't be easily recycled. Only the simplest, marked "PET 1" on most plastic bottles, is taken by kerbside recyclers.

Why has plastic become so widespread as a packaging material? All food manufacturers I contacted gave the same reason: plastic has proved the most successful material for wrapping food because it keeps it fresh and is durable enough to prevent leaks and spills during transportation. Longer distances between food producers and consumers have led to a greater demand for packaging, as has the increase in working families, the spread of microwaves and freezers.

Insufficient packaging is a major contributor to food waste. A shocking statistic from the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment is that more than six million tonnes of food from UK households alone goes to waste each year. The British Plastics Federation, making the case for plastic, says that in Britain, where use of plastic is widespread, food waste accounts for just 3 per cent of food produced – compared with 40 per cent in the developing world.

Meanwhile, plastic is clearly ingrained in British consumers' buying habits and is unlikely to disappear overnight – or not until the oil runs out, anyway. But alternatives do exist: London Bio Packaging is one of a handful of new companies that manufacture packaging made from plant materials which breaks down in compost or landfill within six to eight weeks. Charlie Vaughan-Lee, a director, told me that, having started up two years ago, the company now has 650 companies using its biodegradable packaging, with many London offices using the compostable cornstarch coffee cups.

Mr Vaughan-Lee named M&S as one company that is proactively working to reduce packaging and, on a visit to Sainsbury's, I discovered that most of its So Organic range of fruit and vegetables uses compostable packaging.

There are also a number of organisations – among them Wrap and Waste Watch – that encourage consumer brands to embrace recycled and biodegradable materials, while the plastics waste management industry has set itself the task of moving towards more environmentally sound practices with its organisation Recoup.

As for us, by week four of our experiment we have got used to living without some things, and I am putting aside more time to make staple items such as bread and yoghurt from scratch. On day 32, however, two of my kids tell me that there hasn't been enough in their lunch boxes all that week. I feel terrible and, looking at my vastly depleted larder, I realise there just aren't enough of the everyday things I have taken for granted for so long. A new Lidl has opened near the school and, that day, I give myself permission to buy some of the children's favourite things.

It feels like Christmas as I put frozen peas and a big block of emmental into my basket, then choose some breakfast cereal they haven't had for a month. I also treat myself to some feta.

As I pack away my haul with at least five or six plastic packaged items, I feel that I have in some way failed. But I also know that my buying habits are unlikely to change back to the way they were before. I have already proved that I can't live 100 per cent without plastic. Maybe 98 per cent will do for now.

Plastic: the facts

*Packaging represents the largest single sector of plastics use in the UK, accounting for 35 per cent of UK plastics consumption. Plastic is the material of choice in nearly half of all packaged goods.

* Packaging accounts for 60 per cent of household waste, and 11 per cent of household waste is plastic, 40 per cent of which is plastic bottles.

* On average, every household uses 500 plastic bottles each year, of which just 130 are recycled. The UK disposes of an estimated 13 billion plastic bottles per year.

* According to a 2001 Environment Agency report, 80 per cent of post-consumer plastic waste is sent to landfill, 8 per cent is incinerated and only 7 per cent is recycled.

* More than 80 per cent of plastic is used once and then thrown into landfill sites. More than 60 per cent of litter on beaches is plastic.

* We produce and use 20 times more plastic today than we did 50 years ago

* Plastics consumption is growing about 4 per cent every year in western Europe

*Plastic food packaging uses about 4 per cent of all crude oil.

* Reprocessor demand for plastics outstrips supply three times over

Sources: FOE, Waste Online, Recoup, BPF

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Curbing plastic bag usage in Singapore: FairPrice, please copy Ikea

Letter from Phillip Ang Keng Hong, Straits Times Forum 8 Mar 08;

LAST year, the National Environment Agency (NEA) revealed that a Singaporean used an average of about 600 plastic bags annually. It embarked on an educational approach to discourage dependence on plastic bags. More than a hundred thousand reusable bags have since been given out for free by NTUC FairPrice and other supermarkets. But on any trip to a shopping mall or supermarket, these bags are hardly seen.

The current approach has failed to convince most Singaporeans who have refused to 'sacrifice' personal convenience for an idea as abstract as environmental cost/global warming. This is compounded by our decades-old dependence. What the NEA needs to do is to address its root cause, that is, giving out free plastic bags with any purchase.

One company which has done just that with some success is Ikea. Despite a plastic bag levy, Ikea still pulls in the crowds with long queues forming at its cashiers a common sight during weekends. The fear of business being adversely affected by a levy on plastic carriers has been proven to be unfounded. (It was reported that when Ikea Britain levied a similar charge, it saw a 90 per cent reduction in plastic bag usage.) When told of a charge for plastic bags, most Ikea's customers decline them. Where possible, its customers now seem to have a 'preference' for Items to be hand-carried. When shopping at Ikea, many of its customers have now got used to bringing along Ikea's reusable bags, a sight not seen anywhere else in Singapore.

As the biggest supermarket chain in Singapore, it is about time NTUC FairPrice assumes a leadership role to curb plastic bag usage. The likelihood of its customers sacrificing convenience and incurring additional transport cost (fares, petrol) to avoid a five cents or even 50 cents charge is remote at best. FairPrice's current drive to persuade customers to use reusable bags, that is, FairPrice Green Reward - offering shoppers a rebate of 10 cents for a minimum of $10 purchase, is quite baffling. A simple customer survey would have convinced FairPrice that such a scheme will not work, which it probably had not conducted. As was to be expected, plastic bags continue to be the preferred choice of its customers. (Food outlets now charge an additional 20 cents for the plastic container for take-outs which may cost less than $3. Patrons simply pay up.)

The poor are definitely not going to be adversely affected. They shop by the plastic-bag load and, if the plastic bag levy means much to them, they are adaptable to change. The resistance to change comes from the more well-off who shop by the trolley-load, obviously preferring free plastic bags to bringing along five to 10 reusable bags each time. Its use as a trash bag is seldom maximised because of the perception of an endless free supply. Worse, the smaller ones which cannot double up as trash bags eventually end up as trash.

Recycling the uniquely Singaporean way also means the need for more plastic bags, that is, instead of placing items into bins, many prefer to bag all items into plastic bags. Despite being aware of the environmental cost (production and disposal) associated with plastic bag usage, there is still overwhelming resistance to change by businesses and consumers. Ikea has clearly shown that a reduction of plastic bag usage can only come about when they are not given out free of charge. It is about time other businesses take a leaf out of Ikea's green book.

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Guardian of Singapore's food supply

Straits Times 8 Mar 08;

As head of the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore, Chua Sin Bin has the monumental task of overseeing the Republic's sources of food, upholding food safety standards and safeguarding animal and plant health. CHEN HUIFEN reports

CEOs tend to be an impatient lot. Once they sit down to meet the press, they can't wait for the interview to start and be done with it, so that they can get on with the next engagement.

But not so Chua Sin Bin, 60, CEO of the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore, the key agency responsible for making sure that Singaporeans can enjoy their favourite foods with peace of mind and that the well-being of Singapore's plants and animals is being managed properly.

Before getting down to the formal part of our interview, Dr Chua spends a good half an hour sharing snippets of his personal life.

As his corporate communications assistant director prepares a cup of tea for the man, he speaks of his ambivalent attitude to the other hot drink associated with hospitality. 'I like the smell of coffee,' said Dr Chua. 'I always offer to make my wife coffee because I like the aroma, but I don't quite like the taste of it.'

Very soon, one learns that the man is a tea connoisseur and the former chairman of the Technical Committee for Tea, which was charged with setting the Singapore standard for teas, with a view to establish a tea auction centre here. 'But the auction centre never really took off,' he said with a wry laugh. 'So we wasted all our efforts.'

He knows his teas by type and origin, as well as the processes that go into their making. His favourite is Zhejiang's unfermented Longjing tea.

'It's the nicest of all,' said Dr Chua, who is also chief veterinary officer. 'Because it is green tea and hasn't gone to oven to dry. It's dried in the wok, by hand. So you can see the gentle treatment which the tea leaves have been given. The heat is not hot enough to burn your hand, so it is a very tedious process. As for Japanese tea, it tends to have a little bit of a burnt taste. So I always go for Longjing.'

Perhaps his youthful complexion has something to do with his tea drinking habit. Or his eating preferences. He proclaims that he is not adventurous when it comes to food, and will avoid anything with MSG or raw ingredients such as sashimi. 'My wife hardly fries,' he added. 'Most of the foods we eat at home, I think, are blanched.'

Spotlight on AVA

It is hard to pinpoint whether such habits are driven by health reasons or simply an extension of his professional undertaking. After all, food safety is part of his responsibility. And with food scares, import bans and rising food prices headlining the news recently, the spotlight has been cast on AVA to come up with measures and solutions.

In response to the rising costs of food, the agency has been diversifying its food supply sources, such as chickens from Brazil, vegetables from Vietnam and Indonesia, frozen ducks from Taiwan and seafood from Namibia. With the exception of eggs, all the key food items in Singapore have less than 50 per cent of their supply coming from a single country. Even so, Dr Chua concedes that food prices will continue their rising trend, owing to the supply crunch and growing demand from emerging economies in the region.

'When oil prices go up, food prices will go up because it's a knock-on effect,' he explained. 'Agricultural inputs, fertilisers, pesticides - a lot of these are derived from fuel. And you need energy to produce them. The logistics, the cost of transportation also increases, so that will contribute (to rising prices).'

Adding to the pressure is the worldwide hunt for alternative, green energy using food crops such as corn oil and palm oil. 'Perhaps it is also market failure in a way, because when farmers see that corn, palm oil are getting good prices, of course they want to grow corn and palm oil.' As a result, less of the earth's finite arable land is allocated for food crops.

For a longer term solution, science would have to come into play - either by achieving a better yield for crop production, or through a more efficient use of non-food crops such as jatropha for biofuel. Dr Chua is hopeful that the 'world will wake up' one day to its folly of diverting wholesome food crops towards fuel production.

Until then, more and more people could look toward genetically modified (GM) foods as a solution. Genetic modification involves taking DNA from one organism, modifying it and injecting it into a target plant in order to improve productivity or enrich it with a certain quality. GM corn products and soya beans are already available in Singapore.

'We have tested them, done the risk assessment, and the Genetic Modification Advisory Committee has also evaluated,' said Dr Chua. 'And we both agree that these products are safe and therefore they are in the marketplace.'

While food prices in Singapore is something which the AVA can help manage but not control, the authority can however claim credit for the standard of food safety here. Based on 2006 data, the number of food poisoning cases in Singapore is 35.93 per 100,000 population, lower than New Zealand's record of more than 400 cases per 100,000 and way better than the record of more than 2,000 cases in the US. Even taking into account the Prima Deli incident, last year's figure came to 36.67 per 100,000, within AVA's target of under 60 a year.

The consistent performance is achieved through stringent controls at source. For example, the AVA accredits sources, carries out checks and tests on food products at the point of import before making them available to consumers. In managing food poisoning outbreaks, the agency is also noted for its speedy and decisive response, as seen in the shutdown order on Prima Deli last year, after more than 100 people were infected with the salmonella enteritidis bacterium after eating the bakery's cakes.

'People may think we are hard on the industry, but the public is more important,' said Dr Chua. 'To us there's nothing more important than making sure that our public is protected.'

Even in the area of disease outbreak management, Dr Chua ensures that the same fastidious approach is applied. Multiple layers of defence are in place to prevent a bird flu outbreak, including netted cages to cut off contact with local poultry by wild birds. Farms are also discouraged from sharing equipment and allowing casual visitors to their premises. Vaccinations are carried out at the zoos and the bird park and surveillance at slaughterhouses and immigration check points has been stepped up.

'On top of that, we have already mapped out our contingency plan to get rid of bird flu in the event that it actually comes in,' he said. 'Various scenarios have been thought out.'

The AVA also holds regular training exercises and culling operations. 'I don't think we can totally eradicate the disease because of the wildlife reservoir. So what every country needs to do is make sure that they have a good system in which they can move in straight away and stop it from spreading.'

The system should be based on comprehensive risk assessment.

'Because we have finite amount of resources, we cannot squander that resource away by going everywhere trying to look for problems. No, we do our risk profiling. Every country, we risk-profile them. Also the sources, we risk-profile.'

As human beings continue to encroach further into the natural habitats of animals, exotic diseases such as bird flu and mad cow disease are unlikely to go away. The good thing that came out of the trend is that relevant agencies in each country have become more vigilant and more collaborative.

While the AVA can do all the forward planning and carry out preventive medicine initiatives, Dr Chua stresses that food safety and disease control should not be the sole responsibility of a single agency. The industry and the public must also play their role in paying attention to their consumption and surroundings, keeping in mind that there are groups of vulnerable people amongst us.

'There's a group of vulnerable population, people who are immunology-compromised, such as transplant patients, people who have diabetes, who have gone through chemotherapy,' he said. 'They are most susceptible to outbreak of diseases and food poisoning.'

Proactive role

Dr Chua himself takes a proactive role, too. As he admits, he may be a terrible cook, but he enjoys accompanying his wife on her marketing rounds to help choose ingredients. At this point, he readily debunks the popular supposition that supplies from wet markets are fresher than those from the supermarkets.

'I think both are the same,' he said. 'What's important is how they handle it without breaking the cold chain - that is critical to keeping the freshness of the food.'

Of course, it helps that he has a rough idea of where the supplies come from, and how they are managed in the logistical process. He also talks to the traders frequently to get their input.

'Take for example, vegetables from China. It's a long distance to come. But the post-harvest handling of vegetables, using uninterrupted cold chain, gives you very good products at the end of it.

'You must remember that vegetables ... when they are harvested, they continue to breath. So if we slow down the metabolism process, then actually you will keep the freshness and quality. And refrigeration is the way.

'If you lower the temperature, they almost go to sleep - hibernate and not metabolise so fast. So the freshness is preserved, and they can travel for a long distance, for a long time and keep so much better in the fridge when you take them home.'

Spoken like a specialist.

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Cambodia baby dolphin's health decline of concern

Xinhua 7 Mar 08;

PHNOM PENH, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Though infant mortality is on the decline among Cambodia's endangered Mekong Irrawaddy dolphin population, the overall health of the baby dolphins is of concern, national media on Friday quoted expert as saying.

Two of the nine baby dolphins born in 2007 died - one in January and another last week, said Touch Seang Tana, head of the governmental Commission of Mekong Dolphin Conservation.

In 2006, 14 babies were born, six of which died, he said, adding that these numbers were encouraging given the fact that the previous years saw an average of 15 babies die.

"Before there were a lot of deaths. Now there is only two," he was quoted by English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodian Dailyas saying.

The improvements are attributed to education campaigns over the last couple of years warning villagers not to use gill nets and encouraging them to find work in tourism instead of fishing.

However, the surviving baby dolphins are underweight and look unhealthy, he said, adding that the baby dolphin dying in January weighed only 3.8 kg and the baby found last week tangled in a fishing net 4 kg, some one kg shy of the normal weight.

"The remaining babies are small," he said, adding that the baby dolphin’s failing health is partly due to a shortage in the fish their mothers eat, which is something he attributed to global warming and shifting temperatures.

World Wildlife Fund' Cambodia Country Director Teak Seng said that global warming may be a threat to the dolphins, but there is no conclusive evidence to support the theory.

"We don't have any scientific evidence that supports this casual relationship, therefore further research needs to be conducted," he said.

"While dolphins are very sensitive to changes in their environment, such as water temperature and quality, other factors may be more influential such as diseases and water pollution," he added.

According to the Commission of Mekong Dolphin Conservation, there are currently 140 to 150 dolphins in Cambodia, over some 90 in 2006.

The Cambodian government has adopted a series of measures to protect the animal, such as no use of fishing net in its inhabiting area, and encouragement of local people to salvage those struggling in nets.

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Rare bird thought extinct found off Papua New Guinea: charity

Yahoo News 8 Mar 08;

A rare bird not seen for nearly 80 years has reappeared in the South Pacific off Papua New Guinea, Britain's leading bird protection charity said Friday.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said an expert who travelled on a ship northeast of the islands photographed more than 30 Beck's petrels, including young birds, which suggests a breeding site nearby.

Israeli ornithologist Hadoram Shirihai's account appears in the latest Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club, published Friday.

Only two records previously existed of the tube-nosed seabirds, both from the late 1920s when the ornithologist Rollo Beck collected two as he toured the region on a quest for museum specimens.

Shirihai said he may have seen the rare bird on a previous voyage in 2003 and returned last year to study them further. He said it marked the "rediscovery of the species".

The RSPB said hopes were raised that the bird was not extinct when a tour guide thought he had seen a Beck's petrel in the Coral Sea off northeast Australia in 2006.

But where the guide's photographic evidence was not conclusive, Shirihai's pictures "left no doubt", they added.

Protecting the species, which closely resembles the Tahiti petrel, could be difficult, given predators such as rats and cats at its breeding grounds, as well as widespread logging and land clearance for palm oil plantations.

Experts believe the birds may only visit nesting burrows at night, making conservation even more difficult.

"Even so, the discovery of this 'lost' bird is fantastic news and we congratulate those who spent so much time and effort in finding it," said Geoff Hilton, a senior RSPB biologist in a statement.

"It doesn't get much better than finding a species that was long thought extinct. Now we must use this discovery as a new spur to try to save the bird."

The Beck's petrel is classed by the BirdLife International umbrella group of conservation charities as critically endangered -- the highest level of threat. It has a dark brown back, head and throat and pale belly and flies low over seas with mainly straight wings.

It is slightly smaller and has narrower wings than the Tahiti petrel, which has been seen recently in the Bismarck Archipelago off north-east New Guinea, and the nearby Solomon Islands.

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Philippine breeding programme brings eagles back from the brink

Cecil Morella, Yahoo News 7 Mar 08;

Chick Number 22 chirps in delight as a feeder thrusts a talon-shaped puppet through a hole in a blind and offers it a full-grown mashed quail complete with bones and feathers.

Still in its birthday suit of fluffy white down the 44-day-old Philippine eagle is already bigger than a rooster, weighing 3.55 kilograms (7.8 pounds).

The Philippine eagle which once ruled the skies over most of the Philippine islands is today close to extinction.

Chief breeder Domingo Tadena, 60, is hoping his 30 years of captive breeding here on the lower slopes of the country's tallest mountain will soon be crowned with the first successful release of the king predator into the wild.

"We now have enough breeding stock," he tells AFP.

"The goal is to eventually release all birds that are hatched here," the breeder said as he hand-fed the chick, the 22nd hatched at the Philippine Eagle Foundation.

Drawing on lessons learned from the condor and harpy eagle conservation programmes in the United States, the foundation's goal is to set free one captive-bred bird each year.

"In the next five years I am confident that we can do this," said Dennis Salvador, the foundation's director.

A test release ended in tragedy in 2005 when a two-year-old male named Kabayan was electrocuted on a power transmission wire on Mount Apo's foothills, just nine months after being freed with radio and satellite tracking equipment.

Standing one metre (3.28 feet) tall with a two-metre (6.56-feet) wingspan and weighing 7.5 kilograms (16.5 pounds), the eagle with the massive hooked beak and hackles spreading out like a crown behind its head is found only here on Mindanao island.

It pairs for life and the female lays one egg every two years. Each eagle needs 17 square kilometres (6.56 square miles) of tropical rainforest to survive.

With old growth tropical rainforest being cut down at the rate of 100 hectares (247 acres) a day, only about 500 breeding pairs remain as prey and nesting sites vanish and the bird itself is pursued by trophy hunters.

Similar eagles are also found in far smaller numbers in forests on Luzon, Samar and Leyte islands, though lack of funds has meant little research has been done on their genetic make-up.

-- Aim is to release one bird each year to the wild --

Salvador says that because their prey is different and the islands have been separated for eons, it is possible that the Mindanao eagle is genetically distinct from the eagles found on the three other major Philippine islands.

Launched in 1978, the centre made a breakthrough in 1992 with its first hatchling, a male called Pag-asa, which means hope.

Having been raised for a life in captivity, Pag-asa would not survive in the wild. Instead, he remains at the foundation and is the main draw for the quarter of a million visitors who come each year.

The process of getting captive-bred eagles to pair, mate and lay an egg to supply the release programme could take up to four years, said Tadena, adding that sometimes the bigger female ends up killing the smaller male.

Trained at the Peregrine Fund, a Boise, Idaho-based centre for birds of prey that is also a key benefactor of the eagle foundation here, Tadena said the newer hatchlings are now raised without human contact so they do not come to rely on people for food.

They are put in large enclosures strategically placed on mountain slopes, where trainers release rabbits to hone the birds' hunting skills and roll meat down chutes to supplement their diet.

"Kabayan was already honing its hunting skills and relying less on supplemental feeding," Tadena said of the bird that was electrocuted. "The bird would steal chicks from nests on the hollows of trees and track ground mice and snakes."

Salvador said the centre is refining its eagle release protocol, training the birds to avoid high-tension power lines.

Preparing a captive-bred eagle for release costs around 37,000 dollars -- excluding the monitoring costs that require satellite tracking equipment. Each bird must be monitored for at least three years in the wild.

In its early years the programme was caught in the crossfire of communist guerrillas and government forces, forcing the breeding centre to relocate.

"The rebels were angry because we fed the eagles chickens. They told us, 'Why do the animals get chicken when Filipinos are dying of hunger?'" Tadena said.

The centre also rescues stricken eagles in the wild and since 1998, has saved 15 wounded birds. Thirteen survived and three were eventually released back to the wild. One other bird is due for release within two months after being nursed back to health.

"A lot of our retrievals over the past 10 years involved birds with lead pellets in them," said Salvador.

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Hong Kong wild bird tests positive for H5N1

Yahoo News 7 Mar 08;

A wild magpie robin in Hong Kong has tested positive for the H5N1 birdflu virus, the government said in a statement on Friday.

The bird was found and collected on February 29 near the Tai Po Kau nature reserve in the New Territories.

Scientists fear the H5N1 strain of avian influenza could mutate into a form that jumps easily from human to human, threatening an epidemic which could kill millions.

A 44-year old woman in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong died last month from H5N1, which she likely contracted from sick poultry in her backyard.

Hong Kong has now confirmed five cases of H5N1 infected wild birds this year including two cases which forced the temporary closure of the Mai Po nature reserve as well as aviaries in the popular Ocean Park themepark.

(Reporting by James Pomfret)

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Tourism boom darkens Taiwan's Sun Moon Lake

Ralph Jennings Yahoo News 7 Mar 08;

Sun Moon Lake has been compared to a classical Chinese landscape painting with its crystal waters reflecting surrounding snow-capped mountains.

But a hotel building boom around the mountain resort in central Taiwan has locals and environmentalists worried the unspoilt beauty of the lake, which draws 3 million tourists a year, might be ruined.

"Sun Moon Lake is a very important international site, and such an important resource should be protected," said Liu Ming-lone, spokesman for the Environmental Quality Protection Foundation, a Taipei-based non-governmental organization.

Seven hotels are being planned and built on the lake shores, with some of them charging as much as $500 per night.

One 200-room hotel just opened, while two more hotels are under construction. Another four hotels are being planned, including a high-end 100-room hotel resort and a 400-room two-star hotel geared toward budget tourists from mainland China.

Prospects for a tourism deal with China, which does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, have spurred development as the region prepares to host millions of well-heeled Chinese visitors should tourism agreements be reached between Beijing and Taipei.

The lake is well-known in China where descriptions in literature and text books give the impression that its beauty is unmatched on the mainland. Legal barriers to Chinese citizens entering Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China regards as a renegade province, give the lake an extra mystique.

But some locals suspect the hordes of tourists in China eager to visit the lake might be disappointed as development has already caused water pollution and traffic congestion. Locals also complain about unregulated construction without a unified theme as well as breaches of building codes.

"We don't need to limit the number of people, but we need to limit the number of buildings," said Roger Chang, 28, a regular visitor to the lake.

One of the hotels under construction will be 30-storeys high, far above new lake area height restrictions of seven storeys.

"With such a beautiful lake, we need some sort of master planned design to make it work out," said Hu Shan-wen, owner of the 6-year-old Spa Home hotel on the lake shores.

Faced with a faltering economy and high unemployment, the Taiwan government is keen to ramp up tourism to stimulate the services sector. Some critics believe it's eagerness is overcoming any prudence over Sun Moon Lake development projects.

Local authorities promise to put a cap on lakeshore development after the hotels in the pipeline are built, although construction will be allowed to proceed in the surrounding mountains with easy vehicle access to the lake.

There's concern the already congested two-lane highway to the lake will further clog with traffic when the new hotels open up despite a new shoreline shuttle bus route around the lake.

"There's still space to develop, but we should add only a few more hotels as there are transportation limits," said Joe Tseng, general manager of The Lalu, the shoreline's most famous lodging.

POLLUTION

Locals are also concerned that the development boom will cause pollution that might muddy the lake's pristine waters.

Last year, lake pollution rose about 2 percent from 2006 and the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration fined four hotels for improper treatment of wastewater.

"Lake water quality is very important," said tourism official Tseng Kuo-chi. "Right now it's being maintained well but as tourist numbers go up, we're afraid the quality could go down."

Seeking to cope with new pressures, two public water treatment systems will open up next year, handling 95 percent of the lakeshore's sewage, local tourism officials said.

Last year, the government approved funds to landscape the tip of Lalu Island, a boat tour landmark that was once a hill considered sacred by the local Thao aboriginal group.

China and Taiwan want a deal to bring up to 1,000 Chinese tourists to Taiwan per day, but negotiations are stalled. Taiwan is in the throes of a March 22 election and negotiations could be restarted when the new president takes office in late May.

An influx of visitors from China could mean that profits from tourism might outweigh concern about environmental impacts.

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

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Invasion of the giant oysters in Germany

The Independent 8 Mar 08;

Since its introduction in the 1970s, the Pacific oyster has spread like a plague, killing mussels, threatening birds and now even tourism. Tony Paterson reports from Germany on another worrying sign of global warming

Professor Karsten Reise does not normally use the sort of emotive language found in Hollywood horror movies. He is a serious and highly informed marine biologist in his late fifties who has been researching the environment around Germany's North Sea island of Sylt for well over a decade.

But on a grey and sea mist-bound afternoon, the heavily bearded professor walked over to a shelf in his office at Sylt's Alfred-Wegener Polar and Marine Research Institute overlooking the island's tidal sand flats and removed what looked like some ghastly freak of nature.

The remains of the creature in question was a giant barnacle-covered shell almost three times the size of an adult male's hand, yet shaped in the unmistakable form of an oyster. "This is the monster I found on the sands out there about four years ago," Dr Reise said, waving his arm in the direction of the sea. "Since then, the oyster phenomenon has turned into a proper invasion," he added.

Giant oyster specimens are not the only factors that seem to have induced uncomfortable feelings of Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer-style panic on Germany's northernmost island. Even the academic literature on the subject speaks unreservedly about an apparently unstoppable "invasion" by an "alien species" of the island's protected tidal sand flats.

Sylt's alien is the Crassostrea gigas, or Pacific oyster, which currently accounts for about 90 per cent of all oysters consumed globally.

The Pacific oyster was introduced to European coasts in the 1970s from Japan and British Columbia following the virtual collapse of the Continent's native oyster industry. The Pacific oyster was not introduced to Sylt, which boasted a formidable pre-war oyster industry, until 1986, and then only as a product that would be carefully farmed in an environment controlled partly by man.

"The Sylt oyster producers were granted a licence to fish farm, but back then all of the experts were convinced that the waters around the island were far too cold in winter to enable the oysters to survive without human intervention," Dr Reise said. But in the meantime, the experts have been proved hugely, even alarmingly, wrong.

The scale of Sylt's oyster invasion is massive. The Alfred Wegener Institute first noticed that something unusual was happening on the island's protected tidal sand flats back in 1995 –nine years after the Pacific oyster was introduced at a lone oyster farm on Sylt's northernmost tip. Handfuls of wild Pacific oysters were found that autumn nestling on an indigenous blue mussel bed that was exposed at low tide.

At that stage, the island's marine biologists were not unduly surprised. A few wild, or feral, oysters were expected as a natural byproduct of the local oyster farm. In 1995 the feral Pacific oyster population was about one oyster per square metre of tidal sand flat on Sylt. By 2004 the figure had leapt to nearly 500 per square metre. By 2007 the island's feral Pacific oyster count jumped to a staggering 2,000 per square metre. "What we are now experiencing is exponential growth of the wild oyster population," says Dr Reise. "We don't yet know where the process will end."

At low tide out on the wind and wave-beaten expanses of sandy mud and seaweed, evidence of the island's oyster invasion is everywhere. Pairs of oystercatchers and the occasional Brent goose spring into flight from sands that are covered for almost as far as the eye can see with a carpet of feral oysters that crunch underfoot. Unlike those consumed in posh restaurants, these are stuck together in vast clumps made up of scores of small oysters, with the odd native blue mussel and winkle nestling in between. "Six or seven years ago there was nothing here but sand," Dr Reise said.

Marine biologists are unanimous in their explanation for the causes of the Pacific oyster invasion. Sylt, which is on the same latitude as Newcastle, used to experience temperatures that were low enough to freeze the shallow salt waters surrounding it during winter. But the last harsh winter on Sylt was at the beginning of 1996. Since then, the island has experienced nothing but mild winters. "Cold winters can bring the spread of wild oysters to a halt, but warm winters enable the oyster larvae to flourish," said Dr Reise. "Their increase is a direct result of global warming."

During the warmer-than-average summer experienced in northern Europe during 2006, the sea temperature was greatly increased and the warm water appears to have encouraged an explosion in Pacific oyster larvae. In its wild form, the oyster has managed to spread as far north as Bergen in Norway.

The experts are not sure whether the current oyster explosion will have serious environmental consequences. During the early stages of the invasion, oysters were found almost exclusively on Sylt's indigenous blue mussel beds, raising fears that the rising oyster population would kill off the mussels.

Seabirds that normally rely on mussels as a food source have also been affected. Eider ducks, which used to visit Sylt on a regular basis in winter, have all but disappeared. The oystercatcher, a wading bird that lives all year on the island, also relies on mussels to survive, despite its name.

Even tourism is affected. Visitors who used to enjoy strolling across the sands in their bare feet now risk injury on the razor-sharp shells that cover the Pacific oyster beds.

Sylt's lone oyster farm, Dittmeyer's Oyster Company, has been farming its "Sylter Royal" Pacific oysters in one of the island's bays since 1986. Mr Dittmeyer insists that the sudden invasion of wild oysters on Sylt simply shows the island is catching up with much of the rest of northern Europe, where the Pacific oyster dominates. "It is happening everywhere," he said.

Mr Dittmeyer started his oyster farm on Sylt with Pacific oysters imported from Colchester. It was a case of history repeating itself. The Danish King Knut the Great did exactly the same during the 11th century, when he imported shiploads of oysters from England to what is now Germany's north-west coast.

As in much of the rest of Europe, the inhabitants of Sylt were able to harvest oysters from the seabed for the next 900 years, until industrial fishing and disease rendered them virtually extinct. Marine biologists such as Dr Reise say that today's explosion of the wild Pacific oyster population is just one of global warming's effects. Nobody has been able to predict its consequences. One of the factors that makes the spread of wild oysters almost impossible to control is the fact that the creatures have no natural predator – yet.

In his office, Dr Reise has another shell that sits next to his monster Pacific oyster. It is a black and grey speckled conch about the size of a large fist that houses a large sea slug or snail called the Rapana, which is found in Japanese waters. The creature is capable of boring through the shell of a Pacific oyster. "It was introduced in the Black Sea and has since spread to the Mediterranean," the professor said. "It could conceivably be introduced in the North Sea."

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Singapore's first green community club plugs into sunshine

Tania Tan, Straits Times 8 Mar 08;

SINGAPORE'S first green community club, which uses a series of mirrored tubes to reflect sunlight and illuminate its interior, will be officially christened tomorrow by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Anchorvale Community Club, the first community building to be awarded the Green Mark certificate, could pave the way for other eco-friendly recreation centres, according to officials.

The community club has been outfitted with light pipes on its third-floor roof. The pipes reflect sunlight to the second-floor reception area of the 3,800 sq m building.

On sunny days, the system eliminates the need for light bulbs, said Ms Foo Soon Leng, building division director of the People's Association. The club is still equipped with light bulbs for cloudy days.

The club was welcomed by academics, who have long pushed for greener public buildings.

'When people think sunlight and energy saving, they immediately think solar cells,' said Associate Professor Stephen Wittkopf of the National University of Singapore's department of architecture. 'But day lighting, if used well, can be another big advantage.

'Many developed countries, such as the United States and those in Europe, have green buildings. It's about time Singapore joined them.'

The improvement is one of several that will help the centre cut its power bill by at least $12,500 annually.

In addition to the light pipes, the club has installed motion sensor lights, and has turned down the air-conditioning.

'With the success of this centre, we are aiming for future community clubs to be Green Mark-certified as well,' said Ms Foo. At least four new centres are expected to be built in the next few years, she said.

Awarded by the Building and Construction Authority, the Green Mark is a rating system which measures the environmental impact of a building based on how energy- and water-efficient it is.

Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Lam Pin Min, who oversees the area, said: 'The committee overseeing the project needed little convincing to jump onto the green bandwagon, as most of us felt that was the right thing to do to help conserve energy and protect the environment.'

The Government has spent over $30 million to encourage developers and companies to use energy-efficient building designs. About two in 10 government buildings have already performed energy audits. Of these, eight have adopted energy-saving measures - shaving $2.6 million off their electricity bills annually.

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Receipts from green taxes falling, says study

Matthew Phan, Business Times 8 Mar 08;

DESPITE an increasing number of environmental taxes - accompanied by loud cries for more - receipts from green taxes as a percentage of GDP fell slightly in developed countries from 1996 to 2005, according to a study by KPMG.

'It is odd to see the apparent importance of environmental taxes in so many economies has actually fallen,' said Owi Kek Hean, head of tax services at KPMG Singapore.

While GDP growth across OECD countries was strong over the period, green taxes as a proportion of total tax revenue seem to be falling in importance, he said.

Receipts from taxes classified as environmental in the OECD fell from 2.72 per cent of GDP in 1996 to 2.52 per cent in 2005. And as a proportion of total tax revenue, they declined 0.45 of a percentage point.

Environmental tax receipts among the 13 European Union nations fell during 1999-2005 from 2.8 per cent to 2.6 per cent of GDP, and from 6.7 per cent to 6.4 per cent of total taxes.

Environmental taxes as a percentage of GDP fell in 18 of the 29 OECD countries, by as much as 3.35 percentage points in places like Greece, where it was previously as high as 5 per cent.

The US had the lowest proportion of environmental taxes - 0.89 per cent in 2005, 0.13 of a percentage point down from a decade earlier.

Turkey had the highest such taxes of any OECD country, at 5.49 per cent in 2005, up more than three percentage points from 1996.

KPMG said the trend suggests that linking taxation to environmental change is complex. Taxes aimed at improving the environment could have unintended consequences, it said.

For one, it is difficult to categorise activities as 'good' and 'bad', with the latter taxed.

Pollution is not the result of an attempt to harm the environment, but often a side effect of activities intended to enhance our enjoyment of it, like travel or keeping warm, said KPMG.

Also, the paradox of environmental taxes is that the more successful they are in changing people's behaviour, the less revenue they will raise, it pointed out.

In the UK, for example, the fall in receipts was largely due to a fall, in real terms, in duty from road fuel. The same was true for many other large European economies.

And governments now have other ways of influencing behaviour, such as regulations or emissions trading schemes, KPMG said.

Governments need to take a balanced approach, with taxes as part of a package that includes other, more direct measures, says the study, undertaken by KPMG's Tax Business School in the UK.

Mr Owi said the study in some ways validates the carrot rather than stick approach that Singapore has taken so far.

Singapore has tended to use awards or tax allowances, such as for energy efficient equipment, to encourage green behaviour.

KPMG's study also said 'reliefs can never hold as significant a place in the environmental tax armoury as charges'.

Environmentally-friendly alternatives do not exist for all harmful actions, so policy must aim to reduce such actions by negative incentives, rather than just encouraging substitutes by positive incentives, it said.

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Greening the festival scene: Cars and rubbish can make a festival an eco-disaster

The Independent 8 Mar 08;

Cars and rubbish can make a festival an eco-disaster. But now organisers are tackling their carbon footprint. Nick Hasted reports

Thom Yorke's statement at a press conference for Friends of the Earth last week that Radiohead won't be playing Glastonbury this year, because it lacks "a public transport infrastructure", has brought home an uncomfortable truth.

The churned, litter-embedded wasteland left behind the day after a typical rock festival already looks like a Friends of the Earth recruiting poster. But as the summer festival season grows more packed and varied, Yorke has identified a sea-change.

Travellers to the glorious West Country, where Glastonbury is one of many festivals this year, are getting used to the fact that their trip is environmentally damaging. Traditional rock fans at Reading and Leeds, meanwhile, are being encouraged to return their beer-cups for recycling, preferably before urinating in them to hurl at Funeral for a Friend.

Most festivals claim to be taking some sort of "green" stand this year. Glastonbury's Michael Eavis, though, doesn't need Yorke to see a starker choice. "The environmental impact of festivals is disastrous," he states bluntly. "To pretend they're green is ridiculous. You can recycle like mad, you can bring people on public transport, which we do. Overall, though, with generator-diesel and travel, the greenest thing to do is not to run the event. But if we want something like Glastonbury, if it's part of our culture, that's the price one has to pay. The spiritual high that people get across the nation, and the moral integrity of the crowd, outweighs the environmental impact. We've always minimised the damage. But if you switched off everything that created carbon, we'd be bored to tears."

Smaller, newer festivals have nevertheless done their best. "We started wanting to make as little carbon impact as possible," recalls Graeme Merrifield, organiser of Wychwood, now in its fourth year at Cheltenham Racecourse. "Festivals who call themselves green actually go to a greenfield site in the middle of nowhere. They have to bring infrastructure in, and there's no public transport – cars are easily festivals' biggest environmental cost. We have a very strong alliance with Friends of the Earth, to build sustainable plans. We're creating a small community of like-minded people. We have workshops about green issues; ideas people can put in their lives if they want. But being carbon-neutral is fanciful."

Chris Tarren, production manager for both Wychwood and Dorset's End of the Road festival, has detailed green policies for both: low-energy light-bulbs, lessening the power pumped by generators; daylight sensors on lighting; over 60 per cent of waste recycled on-site. Wychwood has a solar cinema. End of the Road's food is locally (where possible) and ethically sourced, with biodegradable cutlery. Its co-creator Sofia Hagberg, coming from Sweden's micro-recycling culture, ensures even cigarette butts are sifted out. "I believe every little thing counts," she says. "I was surprised at how well the site looked at the end. People take responsibility when they see we care."

"You can try to have a carbon-neutral festival," believes the Isle of Wight's John Giddings. "With wind turbines and waves, you've got things at your disposal that you don't get in downtown Fulham. There are going to be elements of wind-power in the festival. We're also negotiating to plant 50,000 trees, one for every festival-goer. We're just wondering where to fit them on the island...."

The latter policy sounds like a benign gesture that hasn't quite been thought through, something that exercises Tarren. "There's a serious lack of understanding," he says. "Everyone thinks it's all about this buzz-word the Government keeps coming out with, cutting your 'carbon footprint'. But people don't understand what that means, or how individual efforts might make a difference. Why are we promoting the fact that we're going to be as green as possible, when we're still creating carbon? If the Government helped with costs, instead of buzz-words... I'd love to use green generators. But the green tax puts fuel costs up 80 per cent."

The attractions of the smaller festivals, though – their human, approachable scale, and personal, not corporate priorities – are having wider benefits, as Andrew Haworth, the major promoter and Live Nation's new environmental officer, explains. "Smaller festivals are incredibly useful for trailing initiatives that we can then scale up and try on a much larger scale. I could, theoretically, ensure solar panels [were in place] all over Hyde Park for our Wireless festival. But if the weather's not right those four days, we have no power. We can't take those risks. It's also easier if festivals start from scratch. If you're trying to take a big established festival in a direction it hasn't followed previously, you have to take baby steps. You can't outrun audience expectations. But it makes moral and business sense to harness live music's energy at putting over what's possible – to reduce our environmental footprint."

Hearing Melvin Benn, who as managing director of Festival Nation promotes Reading, Leeds, Glastonbury, Download and Latitude, earnestly discuss a new form of recyclable wax paper for Reading's beer cups, shows how things are changing. Suffolk's Latitude is his eco-flagship for older, family audiences, and even the bars serving its local cider are made from sustainable timber. But where Latitude's patrons have reusable beer-cups worth £2, this would, he says, get them "nicked or thrown" at Reading or Leeds, where returning one nets you 10p. More than 90 per cent recycling was the result. Two bags of recyclable rubbish got you a beer.

As Benn accepts, responsible behaviour at rock festivals is a contradiction. "Teenagers are teenagers. My 18-year-old's environmentally conscious, but can I get him to turn the light off? Work within what the audience actually are, rather than pretend they'll automatically change. They need an endgame – a can of beer. Not just the promise that they'll feel good. On the other hand, I have 70,000 young people camping at Reading. Not one has a TV, record-player, hair-drier or lights. At home, they'd be burning electricity. At festivals, their carbon footprint is near-zero. And they're seeing 30 to 50 bands at one go."

"They're all changing as fast as they can," pressure group A Greener Festival's Ben Challis admits. "The guy who used to run Download was quite brutal about it. He got a £250,000 landfill bill, went green, then worked out that some people might want a green festival, and he could make money. Then he felt a warm glow. Now, it's up to the audiences to do more. Driving to a festival without thinking about lift-share now starts to feel irresponsible. What Thom Yorke is doing is great, but he's not quite right; the real carbon footprint is from the audience, not the band."

This remains the elephant in the room for fans. Glastonbury has always been green at heart. Reading, often indifferent but in walking distance from a train station, is greener. But, though there are beautiful city festivals such as Leicester's Summer Sundae, the point of most is to experience strange music in an inaccessible, probably West-Country setting far from normal life. End of the Road, for all its shuttle-buses and lift-shares, is aptly named. But, like Glastonbury, its heart-stopping beauty is worth more, I would contend, than the carbon-benefits of central London.

"Can it be justified?" Hagberg agonises. "Depends who you're asking. Mother Earth, probably not. The people who leave full of positive memories, in a more idealistic frame of mind? Maybe so."

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Costa Rica Aims to Be First Carbon-Neutral Country

Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News 7 Mar 08;

A small but growing number of countries are racing to become "carbon neutral" by reducing or offsetting their emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Roberto Dobles, the minister of environment and energy for Costa Rica, calls the race the "carbon-neutral World Cup."

His country recently became the first to make the green pledge.

"We realize that climate change is probably the major challenge facing humanity today, and it's everyone's responsibility to combat it," Dobles said in an interview at his office in San Jose.

The quest for carbon neutrality seeks to balance the amount of carbon dioxide a country releases by burning fossil fuels with the amount that it captures or offsets by, for example, planting trees. (See how global warming works.)

At a United Nations climate conference last month, the U.N.'s Environment Program launched a new online network of countries engaged in the carbon-neutral endeavor.

At the 154-nation talks, Monaco, the host country, became the fifth to commit to carbon neutrality, joining Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, and Costa Rica.

The smart money may be on Costa Rica to get there first, experts say, even though the small Central American country faces a host of problems, from illegal logging to overdevelopment fueled by tourism.

"There are advantages that Costa Rica offers to becoming carbon neutral," said Manuel Ramirez, Costa Rica director for the environmental nonprofit Conservation International.

For example, over 80 percent of Costa Rica's energy is already generated through renewable sources, such as water and wind.

And the country's rich tropical biosphere makes the environmental stakes especially high there.

Slightly smaller than West Virginia, Costa Rica is believed to house about 5 percent of the world's plant and animal species.

"Because Costa Rica is so biologically intense, we recognize that we have a special responsibility," said Dobles, the environment minister.

Green Luxury

Dobles predicts that greener business practices will ultimately lead to a greener bottom line, especially in the tourism industry.

"We have an opportunity to become the first carbon-neutral tourist destination," he said. "We want Costa Rica to be a guilt-free location to visit, and that will be good for business."

Some tourist areas of Costa Rica, particularly the northwest Guanacaste region, have suffered from overdevelopment in recent years (see a map of Costa Rica).

Many of the sleepy fishing villages that once dotted the country's Pacific coast have turned into sprawling beach resorts catering to thousands of mostly American tourists.

There are now three dozen nonstop flights from the United States to Guanacaste's provincial capital, Liberia.

Now the region is advertising itself as the next eco-friendly luxury hot spot, and several dozen high-end hotel chains are planning green resorts along the coast.

Ronald Sanabria, director of the Rainforest Alliance's sustainable tourism program in Costa Rica, says the country's carbon-neutral pledge is "courageous and forward-thinking."

"We have high hopes for this commitment."

But some observers worry that development is moving too fast for the region's infrastructure to handle and that regulations are not always followed.

"The current government knows mistakes were made in Guanacaste," said Jonathan Tourtellot, director of the National Geographic Society's Center for Sustainable Destinations. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

Many tourism companies have now begun measuring their carbon output and offsetting them through reforestation projects.

Oil Exploration

In addition to tourist development, deforestation has also taken a toll throughout the mountainous country, but the government has cracked down hard on illegal logging in recent years.

"Deforestation has halted mostly, or it is very low," said Ramirez, of Conservation International.

"The population has a stronger environmental awareness level than before."

As part of its quest for carbon neutrality, Costa Rica's government compensates landowners for planting and protecting trees on their property, since the trees help capture carbon, protect watersheds, and preserve scenic beauty.

The decade-old program is funded through a 3.5 percent tax on gasoline and pays about U.S. $15 million a year to around 8,000 property owners.

More than six million new trees were planted last year, surpassing a government target by more than a million trees, according to officials.

This year Costa Rica plans to plant seven million more, "almost two new trees for every person in the country," said Dobles, the environment minister.

The Costa Rican government also recently signed an agreement with the United States that results in one of the largest "debt-for-nature" swaps in history.

According to the agreement, the United States will forgive U.S. $26 million of Costa Rica's debt, freeing up that money for Costa Rica to invest in tropical forest conservation programs over the next 16 years.

Is "Carbon Neutral" a Cheat?

Some critics have dismissed carbon neutrality pledges such as Costa Rica's as publicity stunts, arguing that the only way to achieve climate neutrality is to eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions completely.

The Costa Rican government has also come under strong criticism recently for its plans to begin exploring for oil in its territorial waters.

This is an apparent reversal of a 2002 declaration by then-President Abel Pacheco that Costa Rica would become an environmental leader and not a "petroleum or mining enclave."

"There's a lack of strong political will to stop oil exploration in the country," said Ramirez, of Conservation International.

"Current governmental officials … are under extreme pressure to explore oil-dependent mechanisms. The general population could go back to the old days where oil-dependent energy was not seen as a problem."

For his part, Dobles says that increasing demand for energy means Costa Rica needs oil in the short term before more environmentally friendly fuels become readily available.

Unless it discovers oil at home, Dobles said, Costa Rica will be forced to import heavy crude from Venezuela that is expensive to refine and generates more pollution than lighter grades of oil.

"If we had hydrogen as a source today, we'd go for hydrogen," he said. "But we don't."

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MIT tackles urban gridlock with foldable car idea

Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Yahoo News 7 Mar 08;

Wouldn't it be nice to drive a car into town without worrying about finding a parking space?

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised just such a vehicle, a futuristic "City Car" that could even drive itself.

Once at your destination, the vehicle's computers would, at the press of a button, look for a parking spot behind others like itself, then fold roughly in half so you could stack it there as you would a shopping cart.

"We have reinvented urban mobility," said Bill Mitchell, a professor in architecture and director of the project at an MIT think tank in Cambridge, just outside Boston.

The vehicle hasn't yet been built. But a miniature mock-up version has gone on display at a campus museum, and there are plans to build a full-scale model this spring.

The dozen or so engineers and architects on Mitchell's team are confident their computer-generated work is on target.

They feel their golf cart-sized vehicle could provide a novel solution to the chronic traffic congestion afflicting cities across the United States, Europe and Asia -- not to mention pollution and energy use, since it would run on a rechargeable battery, the researchers say.

On the drawing board, their two-seater is roughly half the size of a typical compact automobile and a little smaller than the Smart car made by Daimler's Mercedes-Benz.

"It's a virtual computer on wheels," said Franco Vairani, designer of the vehicle's foldable frame, which he predicts will shrink the car to as little as an eighth the space needed to park the average car. While parked, it would hook up to an electricity grid for recharging, he added.

Hundreds could be stacked around a city and "you would just go and swipe your (credit) card and take the first one available and drive away," Vairani said, seated by his computerized drawing board.

People wouldn't have to worry about where to park their cars in town and automobiles would take up less urban space, leaving more room for parks and walkways, he added.

Peter Schmitt, a team engineer, says the car would have independently powered robotic wheels and be controlled using a computerized drive-by-wire system with a button or joystick.

Mitchell said he would like to bring the car to the manufacturing stage within the next three to four years.

But a key consultant for the project, Christopher Borroni-Bird, director of the Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts at U.S. automaker General Motors Corp, said he doesn't think City Car is quite ready yet for the road.

"What we have is a very intriguing concept," Borroni-Bird told Reuters in a telephone interview. "It is certainly a very promising idea, but I don't want to say it is ready for production ... there's still a lot of work yet to take it from concept to production."

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Road to clean hydrogen in Singapore

BMW says its hydrogen cars are just the beginning of a green revolution
Christopher Tan, Straits Times 8 Mar 08;

IT RUNS on hydrogen (the most abundant stuff in the universe) and emits nothing much else but distilled water from its tailpipe. Yet, it drives just like any other BMW 7-series V12.

Sounds like a limousine the folks at Greenpeace might approve of. But, in reality, the BMW Hydrogen 7 is not exactly 'green'.

Not right now, anyway.

Yes, it is true that hydrogen is the world's most common element. But harnessing it and storing it in a double-walled highly insulated tank at minus 250 deg C so that it can power a Beemer for nearly 200km expends lots of energy. Energy provided mainly by fossil fuels.

BMW's head of hydrogen project infrastructure Michael Meurer says 80 to 90 per cent of the hydrogen used to power the group's fleet of 100 Hydrogen 7s is 'black hydrogen' (because of its non-green derivation).

But he is working hard with third parties to create renewable means (such as solar, wind and hydro) to make, freeze and store hydrogen. He does not say when this end can be realised, but back in 2000, BMW predicted that by 2020, half the cars it sells would be hydrogen-driven.

It is a long shot, but BMW's attempt is the only one that can make a clean break from the tyranny of oil. Well, that and Daimler's fuel-cell project.

BMW chose a hydrogen combustion platform, instead of a fuel-cell format, where hydrogen is used to make electricity to power motors in the car.

'Above all, a BMW must be a BMW,' says Mr Roland Krueger, head of BMW Asia. 'So it must have the driving characteristics of a BMW.'

Fuel-cell cars tend to drive like powerful golf buggies.

But unlike fuel-cell cars, hydrogen combustion engines still produce traces of undesirable by-products, such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

The Hydrogen 7 rides well. Silent and smooth, it betrays just a hint of firmer damping - necessary because of the 200kg hydrogen tank in the rear. The car is 430kg heavier than the petrol-only 760Li, but packs merely 260bhp (versus the 760Li's 445bhp) and 300Nm (600Nm).

The power downgrade is presumably to tame the thirst of the hefty beast. Even so, the bi-fuel Hydrogen 7 will use about 14 litres of petrol per 100km in mixed cycle (more than the 445bhp 760Li). When using hydrogen, it will need over 50 litres of the stuff per 100km - despite hydrogen having a much higher energy content than petrol.

Even with hydrogen priced at a heavily subsidised 8 euros per kg (or 14.3 litres) in Germany, the Hydrogen 7 uses 29 euros per 100km in 'green' mode - 10 euros more than in petrol mode.

You might say saving the earth is never cheap. Then again, a fuel-cell car uses far less hydrogen.

Both the hydrogen combustion car and fuel-cell car have hefty price tags, estimated to be 10 times costlier than conventional models - and that's another hurdle to overcome before such cars can be sold commercially.

Just as BMW is showcasing five Hydrogen 7s here, two auto honchos at the ongoing Geneva Motor Show say hydrogen cars are far from commercial viability.

General Motors vice-chairman Bob Lutz and Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe said at separate interviews at the show that electric hybrids are better options, chiefly because they are affordable.

It is interesting to note that GM had been flip-flopping on this issue. In the 1990s, it had an up-and-running electric car programme but canned it. It then jumped on the fuel-cell bandwagon, only to have Mr Lutz say it is not viable now.

BMW, at least, has been consistent (or stubborn). But it must find clean and cheap ways to make hydrogen if it wants its dream to take off.

'This is just the beginning,' declares BMW Asia's Mr Krueger, pointing to a Hydrogen 7 purring in the driveway. 'Just the beginning.'

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