Outreach for our reefs and other low tide happenings
on the singapore celebrates our reefs blog
Another Cyrene walk
on the wildfilms blog with video clip of the landing by siva
Semakau with Brunei students
on the wonderful creations blog
Purple Swamphen eating mollusc
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
ICC Bintan preparations underway
on the News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore blog
farmers protest UGM project
Fadli and Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post 23 Jul 08;
Authorities in Karimun regency, Riau Islands, have revoked the operation permits of seven sand export companies, saying mining activities severely harmed the area's environment and fishing conditions.
Karimun Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Djoko Rudi told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday the police had asked Karimun Regent Nurdin Basirun to make a decision in compliance with the 2002 government ban on sand mining across the Riau archipelago.
The government has banned sea sand excavation after finding it severely damaged the marine ecosystem and led to sand smuggling overseas, especially to Singapore, where its price is higher.
"We have sealed off the seven companies operating in Karimun and asked the regent to cancel their permits," said Djoko.
According to Djoko, Nurdin issued licenses to the seven companies several months ago. However, it was unclear the volume of sand they mined.
"The issuance of the licenses was intended for local sand demand. We have told them it was illegal. Only mining land sand is permissible," said Djoko.
Police, added Djoko, had also referred to the trade ministerial decree on the banning of sand, soil and top soil export issued Jan. 22 and put into effect Feb. 6, 2007.
According to the ordinance, sea and land sand are banned for export; however, the potential of sea sand export overseas is greater than land sand.
Djoko said police had mobilized the Riau Islands water police unit, based on Kundur Island, to conduct surveillance to prevent sand smuggling, especially to Singapore.
"The Indonesian Military (TNI) is also equipped with patrol boats to counter sand smuggling," said Djoko.
According to data from the Riau Sand Exporters Association (Hipepari), sand shipments from Riau Islands to Singapore reach 300,000 tons annually, compared to 100,000 tons for the domestic market.
Singapore has grown from its size in 2000 thanks to the rush of sand imported from the islands partly through the black market. The illegal sand business in the province has reportedly involved politicians from Jakarta and military officials.
Elsewhere, a group farmers in Kulonprogo, Yogyakarta, opposed a planned land reclamation project involving the prestigious Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and a private company, saying it would affect their farmland.
More than 1,000 coastal farmers on Monday demanded (UGM) rector Sudjarwadi sign an agreement not to be involved in any form of cooperation with sand mining activities.
The farmers, from 11 villages along the coast of Kulonprogo, arrived at UGM at around 9:30 a.m. by truck, car and motorcycle after learning that UGM's forestry school would be involved in scientific studies by working with an investor, PT Jogja Magasa Mining, and the Kulonprogo regency administration in a reclamation project valued at Rp 1.2 billion (approximately US$133,300).
UGM is slated to conduct research on the coastal area after the reclamation project has been completed.
"We will reject the plan at all cost and oppose anyone involved to our last drop of blood. Even if we have to wage a war, I'm ready to die," said protest coordinator Tukijo.
Tukijo said sand mining would have an adverse impact on the environment, especially on the local community, because more than 6,000 families depend on farming on the disputed 100-hectare plot of sandy soil.
"More than 30,000 lives eke a living from growing vegetables and side crops on the coastal farmland. What would we eat if the sand was mined?" Tukijo said.
The sand mining project, which commenced in 2005, would be carried out on a coastal area stretching 25 kilometers long, 1.8 km wide and 14.5 meters deep.
"Thousands of homes would be evicted. Where would we stay? Even if they relocated us, what would we do for a living?
"It could resemble the Lapindo devastation. We will lose our homes and livelihoods as well," a protester, Tukimin, said.
Esther Ng, Today Online 23 Jul 08;
AUSTRALIA has become one of the world’s most ardent adopters of green real estate practices, thanks to the demand of best building practices from staging the 2000 Sydney Olympics and job seekers demanding eco-friendly work environments.
Here in Singapore, multinational corporations have been leading the eco-charge. To help pave the way, property consultants Colliers International has launched r.e.Design, a green real estate guide for developers, landlords and tenants.
“Over the last few years, the market has tipped towards a more sustainable standard of living thanks to climate change and rising oil prices. More and more companies are going green as a way to attract young and bright talent and as a means of differentiating themselves from other companies,” said Mr Simon Carter, Collier’s regional head of sustainability in Asia-Pacific.
The guide will help companies get a better understanding of sustainable real estate practices as green buildings become an industry standard. According to architects and builders that Today spoke to, it used to cost 30 to 40 per cent more to build a green building. Today the cost is typically just3 to 5 per cent more.
“This is relatively small when considering the life-cycle cost of the building development,” said Mr Jason Pomeroy, director of Broadway Malyan, an architecture firm. “In time, it is hoped that the trend will continue in the more favourable economic direction as technologies improve in terms of both design, manufacture, production, execution and, therefore, their costs.”
As demand for green development grows in Singapore, local suppliers will need to stock up on more environmentally-friendly building materials.
Mr Richard Hassell, director of Woha architects, explained: “You have a client that wants to build a green home, but there’s usually one local supplier in the market or none at all. For instance, if you wanted to use low volatile organic compound plywood or sustainable harvested plywood, you have to get it overseas and that adds to cost.”
City Development’s City Square Mall development is being billed as Singapore’s first eco-mall. It hopes to achieve 30-per-cent savings in energy and water usage when completed.
This would result in an estimated emission reduction of over 5,700 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. It would require approximately 25,000 trees to absorb this amount of carbon dioxide.
Apart from reducing life-cycle running cost, experts believe eco-buildings will attract high-worth tenants.
“The incorporation of planted rooftop gardens, sky courts and terraces can provide spaces for social interaction. Occupants will feel empowered in that they are not compromising their own responsibilities to preserve the environment by their occupation of eco-buildings,” said Broadway Malyan’s Mr Pomeroy.
Channel NewsAsia 22 Jul 08;
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian utility Tenaga may construct the country's first nuclear power plant at a cost of US$3.1 billion but is braced for objections from the public, a report said on Tuesday.
"We are looking at about US$3.1 billion for a 1,000 MW plant," Mohamad Zam Zam Jaafar, head of Tenaga's nuclear energy taskforce, was quoted as saying by the Edge financial daily newspaper.
"The government has asked Tenaga to look at nuclear power," he added.
The Edge said Malaysia will reveal a national energy blueprint next month.
Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said in June that Malaysia may consider nuclear power to meet its long-term energy needs amid surging global oil prices.
Mohamad said the taskforce was discussing the plant's location and how to source uranium, adding Tenaga anticipated the public could object to the plant.
"A lot has to be done to change the public mindset when it comes to nuclear," he said.
Mohamad also said Tenaga would likely enter into a joint venture with an "experienced party to build its very first plant."
Currently, half of Malaysia's power plants run on gas. Other sources include coal and hydropower.
Last year, the government said it would build Southeast Asia's first nuclear monitoring laboratory to allow scientists to check the safety of atomic energy programmes in the region.
- AFP/yb
Daniel Wallis, Reuters 22 Jul 08;
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Researchers in Madagascar have found critically endangered greater bamboo lemurs living far from the only other place they were known to exist, raising hopes for the survival of the species, experts said on Tuesday.
The discovery was made in the Torotorofotsy wetlands of east central Madagascar, more than 400 km (240 miles) north of the isolated pockets of bamboo forest where the rest of the known populations of the species live.
"Finding the extremely rare Prolemur simus in a place where nobody expected it was probably more exciting than discovering a new lemur species," said Edward Louis, a U.S. conservation geneticist who coordinated the joint research, in a statement.
Experts now believe 30 to 40 of the distinctive big-eyed lemurs -- which have jaws powerful enough to crack their favorite food, giant bamboo -- live in Torotorofotsy.
They say that habitat destruction caused by slash-and-burn agriculture and illegal logging threatens the previously known populations that total about 100 individuals, making the existence of the newly found lemurs particularly valuable.
"Our hope is that the presence of these critically threatened creatures will increase efforts to protect their habitat and keep them alive," said Rainer Dolch of MITSINJO, a Malagasy group that manages the Torotorofotsy site.
Biologists have long flocked to Madagascar, where about 90 percent of species are unique to the giant island.
Part of the reason for its profuse biodiversity is its varied terrain, including rainforest, dry forest, lowlands and mountains, and part is its geologic history.
Once part of the African mainland, Madagascar drifted off some 100 to 200 million years ago. It eventually drew colonist species, including lemurs, whose ancestors probably rafted over on floating vegetation, scientists say.
The latest research was carried out by MITSINJO and the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, supported by the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation and Conservation International.
The researchers will present their updated information on the greater bamboo lemur on August 3-8 at the International Primatological Society 2008 Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland.
(Editing by Mariam Karouny)cv
Dave Sherwood, National Geographic News 22 Jul 08;
When nearly 900 endangered leatherback sea turtles emerged from the sand on this remote Pacific beach this spring, scientists rejoiced.
The near record hatch, up from just a handful the year before, signaled progress.
Absent from the headlines, however, was the fact the turtles were born in a fenced, shaded hatchery to protect them from predators and scorching sun.
Scientists here and elsewhere are increasingly finding they have no choice but to intervene as a warming Earth, changing ocean conditions, and coastal development threaten to outpace the sea turtles' ability to adapt.
"These are no longer natural problems," said Carlos Drews, who leads the marine turtle program for the World Wildlife Fund in Latin America. "We can't expect the turtles to adjust."
This realization has sparked a growing discussion among conservationists on how to help species cope with climate change.
"It's an experiment we've been forced into, and one we hadn't planned for," said Michael Coyne, director of SeaTurtle.org and chairperson of the International Sea Turtle Society.
Highly Endangered Long-lived animals, leatherback sea turtles can reach 6.5 feet (2 meters) in length and weigh up to 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms).
Found in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea, the animals are highly endangered.
The Pacific population, for example, has declined to an estimated 5,000 animals, a 95 percent drop since 1980. Coastal development, poaching, and fishing bycatch are the main culprits.
With climate change bringing additional burdens, turtles and their habitat must be carefully monitored, Coyne says.
This would allow biologists to react more quickly if a region's beaches suddenly become uninhabitable or food sources become unavailable.
"Sea turtles are … driven by temperature," Coyne said. "We need to track their movements as climate change progresses, then protect their new habitat."
Beaches "Too Hot"
Already close to extinction, climate change may prove the last straw for the Pacific leatherback. Warming temperatures on nesting beaches are the primary concern.
Unlike humans, sea turtles have no sex chromosomes. The temperature of beach sand surrounding an egg determines the sex of a developing turtle.
When temperatures top 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4 degrees Celsius), females predominate; under cooler conditions, males take over.
In places like Junquillal, beach sand temperatures inside nests regularly reach a lethal 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), according to biologist Gabriel Francia, who leads a World Wildlife Fund project there.
Surface sand temperatures can be much worse, often cresting at 158 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Celsius).
"If we leave these eggs in the sand to fend for themselves, they hard-boil and die. It is just too hot," Francia said.
Biologists and community members are planting native trees to restore natural vegetation—and shade—to the beach.
With the species at risk, the biologist has no choice but to transplant the nests. He says the few turtles that might hatch would be female, skewing the natural balance of sexes.
"We're tinkering with nature. And we don't know what effect that could have," Coyne said. "Ideally we can find a way to help turtles survive on their own in the long-term."
Only one in a thousand sea turtles is believed to survive the natural and human-made hurdles of life at sea—from hungry sea birds to offshore fishing nets.
Climate change may stack the odds even more for breeding turtles that return decades later to their natal beaches to nest.
"If the turtles return to these beaches and find them flooded, or too warm, we have to ensure that they have someplace else to go," Coyne said.
Ancient feeding patterns and migration routes may also be affected by changing ocean temperatures and rising seas.
Migrating Beaches
James Spotila, a turtle researcher at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, says defending against such threats starts with protecting ocean beaches and the forest that backs them.
"Beaches can then migrate landward as ocean levels rise, continuing to provide habitat for nesting turtles," Spotila said.
Drews, of the World Wildlife Fund, says the challenge is deciding which beaches to protect.
Seeking refuge from heat, the adaptable turtles could push farther north or south, depending on rainfall and cloud coverage patterns.
"We have to develop a more flexible conservation model if these turtles are to survive. The rigid park boundaries of the past won't do," Drews said.
For now small victories, such as the bumper crop of turtles this year on Playa Junquillal, are a good start, he said.
"We need be sure every egg hatches, every baby leatherback lives, so that populations are best equipped to survive the new challenges they face," Drews said.
McClatchy newspapers, The Guardian 22 Jul 08;
Scientist Anne Hershey paddled a small inflatable raft across an arctic lake, pausing in her stroke to consider how the melting permafrost caused a landslide of mud and sediment spilling down the bank into the water.
Since the bank collapsed two years ago, the water has grown cloudy with sediment, providing scientists a natural laboratory for studying how warmer temperatures may play out in ecosystems far and near.
Global air and water temperatures are inching up, causing seas to warm and expand, and polar ice to melt. Alaska is warming more quickly than lower latitudes of the United States, so scientists can observe changes from global warming here first. The average annual temperature in arctic Alaska has increased about 4 degrees Fahrenheit in 50 years, according to the Alaska Climate Research Center.
Hershey, an aquatic ecologist at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, heads a team of researchers who are studying arctic lakes and how the surrounding landscapes affect what lives in them. Increasingly, a focus of their research is the effects of climate change.
"As time has gone on, it's become more and more important," Hershey said. "The Arctic is very sensitive to climate change. We're experiencing that."
Hershey, 55, has spent parts of nearly every summer at Toolik Field Station in northern Alaska since she was a graduate student at North Carolina State University in the late 1970s.
Toolik - its name is the Eskimo word for "loon," the water bird whose tremulous cries provide a summer evening soundtrack - houses scientists trying to develop a blueprint of the Arctic ecosystem. A hodgepodge of large tents and drab-green laboratory trailers sits beside the research outpost about 150 miles south of the Arctic Ocean.
The surrounding grassy tundra is pocked with thousands of pristine glacial lakes undisturbed by development and beyond the reach of roads. As a result, the lakes are accessible only by foot or aircraft such as a helicopter.
Such unspoiled ecosystems are ideal laboratories for Hershey and other scientists.
"We can really understand basic science because the lakes are not affected by many aspects of human activity," said Hershey, who has studied about 200 lakes in the region.
One of the things researchers might expect to see is that the sediment from the collapsing lake banks could add more organic matter to the lakes. That would affect what grows in them, including algae and the creatures that feed on algae. So far, Hershey said, they haven't observed that, but they're still studying it.
"It could be the lakes are changing as a result of climate change, but not in ways that were expected," she said.
While Hershey collected water samples from different depths of the lake for analysis, graduate student Matt Bostick of Greensboro lowered a heavy steel tube into a different part of the lake to collect cores of sediment.
Bostick, 27, is comparing differences in methane gas levels between undisturbed arctic lakes and lakes where melting permafrost is dumping extra organic matter from decomposed plants.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, more than 20 times as potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Any methane that is not consumed by microorganisms in the lake would go up in the atmosphere and contribute to climate change.
"The thermokarsts are getting bigger in the lakes," Bostick said, referring to the phenomenon of collapsing banks along rivers and lakes. "This is something I can see. It seems to be such a rapid process."
Hershey said it appears that methane is becoming a more important part of the diet of bacteria and animals that eat bacteria in the lakes, but they're studying how climate change is contributing.
"That's science," Hershey said. "That's what we're doing up here, trying to find answers to these questions."
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 23 Jul 08;
Families taking part in a greener living experiment have made big cuts in their carbon footprint.
They managed to reduce their energy use by 30 per cent and CO2 emissions by 20 per cent.
Organisers of the Green Streets challenge say if all UK households did the same the UK could save £4.6bn on energy bills.
Green Streets, a year-long social experiment in energy saving, is organised by British Gas and monitored by the think-tank Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), and involves 64 families in eight different cities.
Interim results based on the first five months of the Challenge reveal the best performing households managed to achieve savings on gas of more than 50 per cent.
Families who live in the Green Streets - a mix of British Gas customers and other energy suppliers - were given a budget of £30,000 per street to spend on energy efficiency measures, with advice from British Gas energy experts.
The street which produces the best energy and CO2 savings figures over a year will win £50,000 to spend on making a community building more energy efficient.
The savings they have produced so far are a result of installing energy efficient technology such as better insulation, solar panels and modern boilers working alongside simple energy saving behavioural changes.
British Gas and ippr claim the success of the experiment points the way to how the UK can reach the legally-binding government target of reducing CO2 emissions by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2010.
Analysis of the results so far found:
# The highly-motivated households almost halved their energy use;
# Expert advice on energy efficiency helped lead to sustained interest and behaviour change;
# Behavioural change can be as important as new equipment - one London household reduced its gas use by 45 per cent by installing loft insulation and thermostatic heating controls;
# Green Streets produced better community spirit and neighbourliness, bringing together neighbours who hadn't met before and creating both peer pressure and support to maintain energy efficient behaviour.
The success of the Challenge has led to organisers making three specific recommendations:
1. The adoption and extension of neighbourhood energy advisers scheme with one adviser for every 20 streets. IPPR say 10,000 advisers would cost £500m per year but would produce potential savings of £4.6bn.
2. The creation of new green mortgage packages by banks and energy companies to pay for the installation of energy saving technology. A £524 package for cavity wall and loft insulation, paid for under a 7 per cent APR finance package on a three year loan, would pay for itself within the three years and generate a £395 return on the investment every year after that.
3. Communities rather than individual households should be offered incentives to change their behaviour possibly through a £4m annual national energy saving prize-fund.
A clear policy framework and Government funding would be needed to underpin the recommendations and providing regulation and incentives for energy companies to invest in making them happen.
The report's author Matthew Lockwood, Senior Fellow in the Climate Team at the IPPR, said: "If the UK is to meet its target of reducing CO2 emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 to 2010, and by 60 per cent by 2050, radical new approaches to public policy will be needed.
"We need to recognise that three in four of the homes we will live in by 2050 have already been built. If we want householders to make up front investments in energy efficiency equipment that will curb bills and emissions for years to come, we will need creative approaches to financing the installation of energy efficiency measures in our homes."
Phil Bentley, managing director, British Gas, said: "The UK now buys energy on the world market and competes toe to toe with countries prepared to pay higher prices than we've seen before. Reducing energy consumption is the single most important thing households can do to reduce bills and cut emissions.
"With our advice and assistance, Green Streets households have saved up to 30 per cent on their energy use in just five months. The challenge for everyone is to see if they can do the same, and this report shows what we can all achieve."
Adam Sage, Times Online 23 Jul 08;
A British schooner docked in Penzance yesterday carrying 30,000 bottles of wine on a voyage that enthusiasts believe will herald a return to wind power in merchant shipping.
The first commercial cargo of French wine to be transported by sail in the modern era is due in Dublin this week after a six-day journey, which is being touted as a green and ultimately cheap alternative to fuel propulsion.
The 108-year-old, wooden, triple-masted Kathleen & May has been chartered by the Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV), a shipping company established in France to specialise in merchant sailing. “This is beyond anybody's dreams,” said Steve Clarke, the owner of the Kathleen & May, which was built in 1900 in Ferguson and Baird's yard at Connah's Quay near Chester.
“When I bought this boat in 1966 it was going to be cut up with chainsaws. Nobody ever imagined it would ever sail again.” He said that amid high fuel costs and concern over carbon emissions, commercial sailing ships could have a future. “I think they might have hit on something.”
Frédéric Albert, a former French radio journalist who founded CTMV this year, agreed. “We are the only firm in Europe doing this and the level of interest in our project has far exceeded our expectations,” he told The Times. “A lot of big companies have contacted us.”
His initial contract is with 80 vineyard owners from the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France to carry their bottles to Ireland on the tall ship. CTMV is finalising another deal to bring Irish whiskey and Scotch back to France by sail, Mr Albert said.
The Kathleen & May, which spent most of its working life transporting coal and clay before being taken out of commercial service in 1960, left Brest in Brittany last Friday and spent yesterday in Penzance to be inspected by British customs officers.
It travels at a top speed of eight knots, about half as fast as a modern cargo vessel. Its supporters say that it is pollution-free - unlike almost all the other 50,000 merchant ships in the world, which emit 800 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
“Originally this was intended as an ecological project enabling producers to put a label on their goods saying they had been moved by a clean means of transport,” said Mr Albert.
“But it could become economically interesting as well given the high price of fuel.” He said CTMV had chartered five sailing ships to transport products such as Fairtrade coffee, jam and alcoholic drinks. “We are 5 per cent more expensive than standard merchant shipping companies at the moment. But we are going to build our own ships and when they enter service, we will be cheaper.” His initiative comes with the French Association of Shipowners predicting that wind-powered vessels could capture 0.5 per cent of the commercial shipping market, which transports 90 per cent of the world's traded goods.
Trouble at sea
— The International Maritime Organisation said this year that carbon pollution from the world's merchant fleet had reached 1.1billion tonnes - three times greater than previously thought
— Nearly 4.5 per cent of all global emissions of carbon dioxide is generated by merchant ships, and the figure is predicted to rise to 6 per cent by 2020
— When Tesco started ferrying wine by barge last year, 50 lorries were taken off the road each week. Three journeys are made each week along the 40-mile stretch from Liverpool to Manchester, carrying 600,000 litres of wine on each trip
Sources: Times Archive; www.sail-world.com
The Telegraph 22 Jul 08;
Although not included in the Kyoto Protocol, the maritime industry's CO2 emissions rival those of aviation. But new initiatives from port authorities look set to make shipping more eco-friendly. Jimmy Lee Shreeve reports
"Commercial shipping emissions have been one of the least studied areas of all combustion emissions," says Daniel Lack, a scientist at the Washington DC-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
He's right. But it isn't just formal studies that are lacking. Shipping, like aviation, plays a major role in the global economy and is also a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Yet it has never been included in progammes like the Kyoto Protocol. As a result, its impact on the environment goes largely unreported.
Daniel Lack and his team, however, have uncovered damning evidence showing that emissions from shipping are worse than previously thought.
Large cargo ships, for example, merrily emit more than twice as much black carbon (otherwise known as soot, which is thought to be the second largest contributor to global warming, after CO2) than was estimated in earlier studies.
Even the humble tugboat pumps out more black carbon for the amount of fuel it burns compared to other vessels.
"The two previous studies of soot emissions examined a total of three ships, [but] we reviewed plumes from 96 different vessels," explains Lack, whose department's findings were published in the July issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Lack and his colleagues measured emissions from commercial vessels in open sea, channels and ports along the southeast coast of America during the summer of 2006.
They estimate that commercial shipping releases around 130,000 metric tons of black carbon a year, or 1.7 per cent of the global total - with much of it pumped out near highly populated coastlines.
Include the whole gamut of greenhouse gases and the picture is even bleaker.
The commercial or merchant shipping industry shifts about 90 per cent of the world's goods and commodities. These are carried on huge ships that burn low-grade fuel.
According to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), these vessels belch out 3.5 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions (some estimates give an even higher figure). Currently, the organisation is drafting new rules to limit sulphur emissions from ship exhausts and is generally trying to get shipping firms to burn cleaner fuels.
But it isn't just the merchant marine that is eco-unfriendly; cruise liners are too. In its annual report, Carnival Cruise Lines admitted that its operations pump out 401 grams of CO2 per passenger. This is 36 times more than the per-passenger emissions of Eurostar, and more than three times that of a passenger on a Boeing 747.
According to Justin Francis of ResponsibleTravel.com, which provides eco-friendly travel information, this is only the half of it. "Some cruises involve a flight to the departure destination, something of a double-carbon whammy."
On top of this, statistics from the United Nation's OurPlanet magazine reveal that a cruise ship passenger produces on average 3.5kg of rubbish every day, compared to the 0.8kg generated by local people on shore.
Despite this, cruise liner companies insist they are working hard to reduce their environmental impact. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, for example, says it is installing smokeless gas-turbine engines on up.
But it's ports authorities that are at the forefront of the race to make shipping cleaner. During mid-July, representatives from ports around the world met in Rotterdam (the world's third busiest port) to draw up plans to cut emissions from shipping.
The World Ports Climate Conference was organised by the Rotterdam ports authority and the Clinton Climate Change Initiative. Although delegates were divided on the exact contribution of shipping to global warming (studies put it at anything from 1.4 per cent to 4.5 per cent), they did agree that the shipping sector is set to grow in "leaps and bounds" and that it is imperative that measures are taken to help save the planet.
"The climate is changing every minute as we sit here," said Ogunlade Davidson, co-chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"Human beings have to solve it [global warming] because we created it. The marine environment has to take its own responsibility as do all of us."
He said the best solutions lay in technologies like the use of hydrodynamics in propellers, which could reduce CO2 emissions by up to 30 per cent on new ships and by 20 per cent on older ones. He added that renewable fuels, speed reduction and fleet maintenance also had a role to play.
Davidson went on to say that the potential is there to cut the global fleet's CO2 emissions by 17.6 per cent by 2010, and by 28.2 per cent by 2020.
"But this will not be enough to offset the projected fleet growth," he concluded.
Just about all the targets put forward at the conference had issues associated with them. The International Maritime Organisation, for example, is pushing hard to put emission targets in place that would come into effect by February 2010.
The problem is, these targets are unlikely to be met unless developing countries sign up to be part of the initiative. This is because the developed world accounts for only 25 per cent of the world's merchant fleet.
"In my view, if reduction in CO2 emissions from ships are to benefit the environment as a whole, they must apply globally to all ships in the world fleet regardless of their flag," said Efthimios Mitropoulos, secretary-general of the IMO.
"It seems completely incongruous that two ships carrying similar cargo, loaded at the same port, sailing at the same speed and having the same destination, should be treated differently because they are registered under two different flags."
Although China (which has one of the world's largest ports in Shanghai) didn't attend the conference, the country is onboard for the proposed cleanup plan.
"They're behind us all the way," said conference chair and former Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers. He added that China's representatives "couldn't come for budget reasons."
Various measures were put forward at the July conference for dealing with emissions from shipping, including:
# Increasing the number of power points for providing ships with electricity when they're in harbour. Currently, the majority of ships burn fuel when idle to generate electricity.
# Limiting the amount of containers that can be moved by trucks within a port - and moving more goods to and from ports by cleaner transport such as trains and barges.
# Replacing the trucks used to move containers in ports with hybrid vehicles.
# Working with "clean coal" organisations to pipe carbon dioxide emissions from port power plants into empty underground gas fields. (Rotterdam and Royal Dutch Shell are to open a test reservoir in 2010).
In a taped message, Bill Clinton told conference delegates that, "If widely implemented, these ideas can have a significant impact."
The conference concluded with the adoption of the World Port Climate Change Declaration, in which delegates from over 50 ports from 35 countries committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality - all of which could mark the beginning of the ocean waves becoming greener.
A follow-up conference is scheduled for November in Los Angeles.
Surely, the threat posed by climate change is no laughing matter? But cartoonists from over 50 countries have shown that barbed humour can be a powerful weapon in the fight to halt global warming. David Adam reports
David Adam, The Guardian 23 Jul 08;
Can you laugh at global warming? Indeed, should you? The Ken Sprague Fund has organised a competition that set out to answer those awkward questions - so if you think that cartoons about climate change could be in poor taste, look away now.
Around 150 artists from more than 50 countries submitted entries. The results, says John Green, secretary of the fund that was set up in memory of cartoonist Ken Sprague, were "bitingly satirical, outrageously funny or exceedingly bitter, and even fatalistic". None were neutral or indifferent, he says, while few took the subject lightly.-4764.jpg)
"Of course, there is repetition: cracked and parched landscapes with marooned whales; polar bears shaving off their thick pelt; Father Christmas on a camel," Green says. "But what is more amazing is the imaginative range and the number of unique ideas."
Two entries came from Burma, at the height of the recent devastating floods. Most were from poorer countries, likely to be the hardest hit by global warming.
Green says: "Cartoons can reach parts that other arguments can't. We have been inundated with doom-laden predictions and scientific facts on the inevitability of global warming, but here we can exorcise our fears. Powerful, uncompromising and uncomfortable images bring home to us what it will really mean - not a Costa del Sol on the Welsh coast and palm trees in the garden, but desertification, hunger and poverty."
First prize was awarded to Coat Star, by Mikhail Zlatkovsky, from Russia. Green says that the judges - chaired by regular Guardian political cartoonist Martin Rowson - felt that the winner "captured the shabbiness and sleazy way our planet is being devastated".
Zlatovsky is a political cartoonist and illustrator, living in Moscow, but his original education was in the field of nuclear physics. He had been preparing for his science PhD thesis when in 1971, for political reasons, he suddenly quit all his research and became a freelance artist/cartoonist. Almost immediately, he started participating in international cartoon competitions and has won more than 200 awards. In a 1992 worldwide survey of cartoonists, Zlatkovsky was given top spot by his peers.
In the early to mid-90s, he lived in the US, but then moved back to Moscow, where he became a professor at Moscow State University, as well as art director for a group of national magazines and newspapers.
His one-man exhibitions have been staged in galleries in Belgium, Canada, Estonia, France, Italy, Malta, Poland, Russia, Turkey and the US, and he is currently working on his PhD thesis about the history of Russian cartooning.
Second in the competition was Butterflies, by Constantin Ciosu, from Romania, a cartoonist, illustrator and art teacher who has won numerous international prizes.
Third prize went to The Hand, by Tawan Chuntraskawvong, a freelance cartoonist from Thailand.
The gallery of cartoons is on the Guardian website.
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