Best of our wild blogs: 19 Aug 08

Erosion on Singapore's shores
some issues on the wild shores of singapore blog

A family of Pied Fantail
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

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Sungei Buloh erosion: How bad? Study on

Tania Tan and Ang Yiying, Straits Times 19 Aug 08;

THE National Parks Board (NParks) is conducting an in-depth study into the extent and causes of soil erosion in the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

The area being studied is a 2km stretch of the Kranji coastline, where mangrove roots are appearing more exposed than usual.

In the 'worst case scenario', up to $25 million may be needed for extensive works to shore up the coast, though the actual cost will be known only after the survey and redevelopment proposal are done by next September.NParks conservation director Wong Tuan Wah stressed that the erosion has not reached 'alarming' levels yet, and that the study is a pre-emptive move.

He said: 'The approach is to identify the issues now and manage them ahead of time, instead of waiting for permanent damage to be done.'

Dr Ho Hua Chew, who chairs the Nature Society's conservation committee, suggested that boats could be churning up waters, washing away the soil around the roots of the mangrove trees.

He said it is a good idea to do the study to identify the problems in the area.

Associate Professor David Higgitt from the National University of Singapore's Department of Geography said that signs of coastal erosion would include sediment around the roots of the mangrove trees being washed out.

A trained observer would notice this, he said.

A guide who accompanied a team from The Straits Times to Sungei Buloh last Friday pointed out instances of exposed roots.

The team also saw a toppled tree among the mangroves.

NParks was unable to confirm whether the tree fell over because of weakened roots or from some other cause, such as being struck by lightning.

Ms Ng Sock Ling, the assistant director of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, said that the signs of erosion may not be apparent to the casual visitor.

Two park regulars, Mr Spencer Chew and Mr Peter Tan, both engineers in their 50s, said they had not noticed that erosion was a problem there.

Sungei Buloh was gazetted as a nature reserve in 2002, after years of lobbying by green groups here.

The 130ha site was also designated an Asean Heritage Park in 2003.

The study on soil erosion is part of the Sungei Buloh Master Plan, announced earlier this year to strengthen biodiversity conservation in the area.

A fallen mangrove tree at the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve where signs of soil erosion have been reported.
Soil erosion has exposed these mangrove tree roots (top) at Sungei Buloh, compared to well-embedded roots (bottom) at the nature reserve. -- ST PHOTOS: KEVIN LEONG

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Going to Malaysia? Beware of mozzies

Chikungunya patients here were hit by a strain of the virus circulating in Malaysia
Lee Hui Chieh, Straits Times 19 Aug 08;

IF YOU are heading across the Causeway, stay well covered up and have insect repellent handy, as the record number of chikungunya cases in Malaysia is having a spillover effect here.

At least 82 of this year's 117 chikungunya patients were hit by a strain of the virus that has been circulating in Malaysia.

Of these 82, 43 caught the mosquito- borne disease that causes fever and joint pains in Johor while three others fell ill after visiting Malacca.

The remaining 36 contracted the disease in Singapore after being bitten by Aedes mosquitoes here, which had probably become infected after feeding on patients who returned from Malaysia, or one of the 36 after they fell ill.

Malaysia has reported a record high of 136 chikungunya patients this year, up from last year's tally of fewer than 100.

Tests by the National Environment Agency's (NEA) Environmental Health Institute showed that the strain of the virus in the 46 travellers' blood was identical to that found in the 36 infected here.

They include 32 workers from the largest cluster in Kranji Way, and four others living in Teachers' Estate off Upper Thomson Road, Jalan Jelita off Holland Road, and Miltonia Close off Yishun Avenue 1.

The institute's scientists mapped the genetic code, or DNA, of the viruses in patients' blood samples, and compared them against one another and against those from overseas. They found that the virus that caused the Little India outbreak resembled viruses found in India, while the one behind the Farrer Road cluster was similar to viruses in Sri Lanka.

This means that the two incidents were not linked, said the institute's head, Dr Ng Lee Ching. Each time, someone had probably picked up the virus overseas and passed it on to mosquitoes here that went on to infect other people.

But the viruses from patients at Teachers' Estate, Jalan Jelita, Kranji Way and Miltonia Close, were the same as that from patients infected in Malaysia.

So it is no longer possible to tell if each of these incidents was sparked off by a different infected traveller, or if the virus has gone into the community and is spreading from area to area, Dr Ng said.

But in any case, efforts to stop the disease from spreading further should not be relaxed, she said.

'So far, our clusters have mostly been small. It's better to have patients popping up one by one, than have many Kranji Way clusters. So every single case is still worth the effort of fighting,' she added.

The scientists have yet to test viruses from the latest incidents in areas such as Woodlands, Sungei Kadut and the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre, but will do so.

The Woodlands episode may have resulted from the virus being spread from an imported case to a local one.

Dr Charity Low, who runs a clinic in Woodlands Street 83, diagnosed her first chikungunya patient on July 22.

The 59-year-old teacher, who lives on that street, developed a fever, joint pains, rashes and throat ulcers, three days after returning from Johor. He had visited two friends there who had fever and joint pains.

Dr Low had his blood tested for both dengue and chikungunya, which cause similar symptoms, and was surprised when the results were positive for chikungunya.

Less than two weeks later, she received a second surprise. A 27-year-old housewife living in Woodlands Street 81 showed up with fever, joint pains and rashes. Tests showed that she too had chikungunya.

Dr Low said: 'She had no travel history, so most probably she caught it from my first patient or others in the area.'

Woodlands has had three other imported cases from Malaysia since July.

This year, 63 people here have been infected locally, and a further 54 overseas. Apart from those who caught the virus in Malaysia, four were infected in Indonesia, two in India and two in Sri Lanka.

The Health Ministry and NEA advise travellers to wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants, apply insect repellent and use mosquito coils while in chikungunya outbreak areas such as the Malaysian states of Johor, Malacca, Negri Sembilan and Perak; Indonesia and India.

Chikungunya patients should also protect themselves from being bitten again when they are ill, to prevent the disease from spreading further.

Business hurt by Chikungunya cluster at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre
Teoh Kheng Siong & Hoe Yeen NIe, Channel NewsAsia 18 Aug 08;

SINGAPORE : Some stall owners at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre saw business drop by as much as 30 per cent, after three cases of Chikungunya fever were reported there last week.

Two of the victims - a 61-year-old man and his daughter - have recovered, and the daughter has since returned to work at the market.

Still, customers are shying away from the market, raising concerns among some stall owners, who said it will take about a month for business to recover.

Officers from the National Environment Agency (NEA) have been making thorough checks at the premises, and so far they have discovered four mosquito-breeding sites.

NEA officers are also distributing posters warning of the dangers of the disease. - CNA /ls

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Her field trips led the way to a green discovery

ONE ARDENT ECO-LOVER
Agatha Koh Brazil, Today Online 19 Aug 08;

DR TAN Lay Pheng gets to bring her work home and she is happy about it.

The 37-year-old mother of two young daughters is an environmentalist who works at Republic Polytechnic (RP) with researchers and industries on ways to better the environment.

At home, she consciously walks the talk of energy conservation to impart the message to her daughters as “children learn from examples”. So much so that the older one, who is five, chirpily reminds cashiers at supermarkets “no plastic bag please”.

Dr Tan recently received an Ecofriend Award from the National Environment Agency for her work in the public sector. She chairs the Tertiary Institutions Council for the Environment (Tice) which includes members from the three universities and five polytechnics and reaches out to more than 100,000 students.

Together with other key Tice members, she believes in nurturing youth leaders to fight climate change by organising eco-camps, where students showcase their ideas and implement them.

She traces her eco-friendliness to her undergraduate days. “I had lots of field trips ... then, we had a big problem with waste management,destruction of natural flora and fauna. There were also indications of the (then) future trend of global warming and ozone layer depletion,” she says.

That was 15 years ago and the interest in environmentalism that those trips engendered as well as the curriculum and the interactions Dr Tan had with her lecturers led her to do her Masters on the topic of converting waste such as plant compost, flyash and sludge to plant fertiliser.

All these, she says, are “bits” that “transformed” her into a “eco-friend”. Her doctorate was on clarifying how energy could be saved when growing temperate plants in tropical conditions — by cooling their roots.

On weekends, the family (her husband is a engineering lecturer at Nanyang Technological University) head for the parks and nature spots such as Lower Pierce reservoir to enjoy the outdoors.

Besides her work at the council,Dr Tan is also manager of environmental technology at RP. The institution is a leader in converting waste into a resource and Dr Tan manages these projects in collaboration with industry players. Her role is to “secure funding and grants, manage timelines, coordinate research efforts and getting them ‘married’ with the right industry players”. RP will hold its first environmental technology day on Sept 10, an event in which industry players as well as students will showcase their ideas for sustaining the environment.

Dr Tan takes the green message down to the masses too. One of her ongoing projects as a member of the Women’s Executive Committee in Kebun Baru Constituency is to spread the recycling message to the “uncles and aunties” of the heartland.

This eco-friend who counts her mother as her chief inspiration as she was “always recycling whatever can be recycled even since I was a small child”, is no “blind faith” tree hugger, however.

There is still lots to be done, she says, and that is why RP is strategic to her work because of the young student base to whom these value can be imparted.

One of her wishes is that “environment stewardship” is included in all curricula so that students will find it easier to undertake projects — which in turn will go a long way to keeping the issue firmly in their consciousnesses.

Another wish is for a change in infrastructure — for all “residential and commercial buildings to have separate chutes for recyclables/non-recyclables”.

And, of course, to reinforce the message to “turn off the air conditioner when we don’t need it”!

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Fires engulf tens of hectares of teak forests in Jombang

Antara 18 Aug 08;

Jombang (ANTARA News) - Fire engulfed tens of hectares of teak forest under the management of the state owned forestry company (Perhutani) in Gempol, Jombang district, East Java.

Some of the company`s employees were deployed to the location of fire, but Monday afternoon they were still unable to put out the flames.

"Our personnel deployed to the location were limited, so that the flames cannot be extinguished totaLly," Gempol Perhutani`s Chief Priyono said here on Monday.

According to him, in the beginning the fires only burnt the teak trees in the vicinity of Sumberboto tourist resort in the past week.

After that the fire spread to other teak forests which are under Perhutani`s management of Purwodadi and Gedangan. "Until now the fire is still raging. Frankly speaking we have difficulty in putting out the fire as the wind continues to blow hard," he said.

As to the cause of the fire, Priyono said it may be caused by carelessnes of some people hunting for wild animals in the forests.

Forest fires also hit several places in Riau province of Sumatra Island and Central Java province over the past few weeks, as this year`s dry season hots up.

In Riau, forest fires have created haze in the skies over the province.

Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) office head in Pekanbaru, Blucher Doloksaribu, was cited as saying that there were 111 hot spots across Riau on Aug. 1. The figure increased to 136 two days later, he added.

Thanks to intensified firefighting efforts, however, BMG Pekanbaru detected only 78 hot spots on Tuesday, said Doloksaribu.

However, the fires would continue until mid-August because rainfall was decreasing and temperatures were rising, he said.

Temperatures had reached 34.2 degrees Celsius, which may increase the forest fires, said Doloksaribu.

Riau provincial health agency has provided 30,000 masks in anticipation of haze from forest fires which have been raging in the province, Burhanudin Agung, head of the Riau public health and nutrition agency said. (*)

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Workshop recommends wider campaign in fight to save sea turtles

Andra Wisnu, The Jakarta Post 19 Aug 08;

Roughly 4,900 sea turtles die each year in Indonesian waters, prompting the need for a wider campaign to preserve this endangered amphibious species.

In a workshop on by-catch reduction techniques for sea turtles at the Sanur Plaza Hotel here on Monday, experts agreed that the sea turtle population was declining.

"In all the sea turtle habitats and sanctuaries I've visited, I've seen less and less sea turtles coming onto the beaches," said Ngurah Wiadnyana, a researcher from the Research Center for Captured Fisheries, at the Ministry of Maritime and Fisheries.

"This signals the qualitative destruction of the sea turtle habitat, be it by pollution or beach degradation."

Sea turtles are an endangered species, protected by Indonesian law. The law protects six species of sea turtles, the hawkbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata), olive ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea), leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), green turtle (Chelonia mydas), loggerhead turtle (Carretta Carretta) and the flatback sea turtle (Natator depressus).

How safe these turtles are remains in question, as sea turtles are still considered a delicacy in some parts of Indonesia, while many indigenous people in the country still poach sea turtles for ritualistic purposes, Wiadnyana said.

Wiadnyana found that in the 1980s, the number of sea turtles laying eggs on sea turtle islands off West Sumatra, could reach more than 200 per day with a single turtle laying up to 200 eggs. Now, only three sea turtles can be seen laying eggs per day on these same islands.

He said another factor affecting the sea turtle population was the fishing industry.

According to him, at least 70 percent of fishing boats sailing on a 40-day trip accidentally catch at least one sea turtle.

"Usually fishermen release sea turtles, because it's considered bad luck to keep them, but they tend to release them without taking out the hooks that caught them," he said.

He urged the government to increase funding for the preservation of sea turtles and to start a nationwide campaign to protect sea turtles.

"One of the methods for adoption is to introduce a widespread campaign for fishermen to use a circle hook," he said.

The circle hook, introduced and subsidized by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) for the Indonesian fishing industry since 2006, is larger than conventional hooks, preventing it from being accidentally swallowed by sea turtles.

Arif Satria, the director of research and strategic planning from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, said government regulations had failed to reduce sea turtle trafficking.

He said the government needed to take stricter measures against sea turtle traffickers and to develop an international network with neighboring countries, given the fact that sea turtles tended to migrate to international waters.

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Confused Sea Turtles March Into Italian Restaurant

PlanetArk 19 Aug 08;

ROME - About 60 newly hatched sea turtles lost their way during their ritual passage to the sea and marched into an Italian restaurant instead, a conservation worker said on Monday.

The baby turtles -- which ended up under the tables of startled diners at the beachside restaurant -- were probably thrown off track and lured by the eatery's bright lights, said Antonio Colucci, who was called to help rescue the group.

"They saw the artificial lights and took the wrong route," said Colucci, who works on a turtle monitoring project for the conservation group WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature).

"The diners were at first quite curious and then someone alerted the coastal authorities."

The stranded turtles, which had hatched on a beach in the southern Italian region of Calabria, were released into the sea.

Female sea turtles nest on beaches and their offspring instinctively head to the sea after hatching from their eggs.

(Reporting by Deepa Babington; editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Fears grow for lost baby whale who thought yacht was mum

Yahoo News 18 Aug 08;

Fears were growing Tuesday for the survival chances of a lost baby humpback whale who tried to suckle from an Australian yacht in the belief it was its mother.

Wildlife experts used the yacht to lure the calf out of Pittwater bay near Sydney's Palm Beach on Monday, hoping it would link up with other whales passing by on their annual breeding migration.

But early on Tuesday the calf was reportedly spotted back in Pittwater, apparently having failed to find either its own mother or a surrogate, Department of National Parks and Wildlife spokesman Chris McIntosh told AFP.

"We successfully lured the calf about a kilometre out to sea -- probably the first time that's been done using a yacht as a surrogate mother," he said.

"Later we saw whales a bit further offshore and there was a slender chance it may have linked up with them, but this morning we have got reports that it has returned to the western shores of Pittwater."

Mcintosh said the calf risked running out of energy through lack of food, being attacked by sharks, simply dying of hunger or beaching itself.

Rangers were searching for the calf, which showed no sign of injury and was most likely rejected by its mother, and euthanasia might have to be an option if it became stranded, McIntosh said.

"We've consistently said it was a slim chance that it might link up with its mother or other whales but the reality is that in the wild, for various reasons, mothers sometimes reject their young," he said.

The calf is estimated to be two months old, about five metres (yards) long and to weigh five tonnes, but it would still rely primarily on its mother's milk and its survival chances are seen as poor.

"Looking at its behaviour, the way it was nuzzling up to yachts would indicate it was primarily still suckling," McIntosh said.

"It really was trying to suckle, just below the waterline and against the keel, with its head engaged against the boat."

The humpbacks are on the return leg of a remarkable 20,000-kilometre (12,500-mile) annual round trip from the Antarctic to tropical waters to breed, and they can be seen ploughing homewards not far off Sydney's beaches on most days.

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Frogs and other amphibians dying at alarming rates, say scientists

McClatchy newspapers, guardian.co.uk 14 Aug 08;

New research led by two University of California at Berkeley biologists finds frogs and other amphibians worldwide need help, because they are dying at alarming rates.

The researchers find that some frog populations are at 2 to 5% of their former size - that's a decline of 95 to 98% - which they argue is a warning sign of a larger global issue.

An article published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that scientists are not yet sure what the long-term implications might be.

They are sure, however, of the varied causes of the die-off, and say mankind is to blame for most of them.

David Wake, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley, said the die-off can be pinned to three factors - habitat destruction; a naturally occurring fungus, which researchers say is not unique to dead frogs they found in the Sierra Nevada; and introduced species, which present an imbalance in amphibious habitats. For example, the first hint of frog decline in California came in the 1990s, when scientists believed rainbow trout introduced in the area by humans were feeding on tadpoles and frog eggs.

"It's not a one-two punch," Wake said. "It's more of a one, two, three, four punch."

The "fourth punch," Wake said, is climate change, which is showing dramatic effects on aquatic-dwelling species worldwide.

"There is no place in California where frogs are still thriving," Wake said.

Fewer frogs eating insects - like West Nile-carrying mosquitoes - is just one example of how a major blow to global ecology could cause a shift in the grand food chain, though Wake would not equate the possible spreading of West Nile virus to the frog die-off.

Wake and his colleague Vance Vredenburg studied amphibian populations in the Sierra Nevada and say they have observed frogs carcasses in remote peaks - places they are expected to thrive.

In 2004, researchers found that one-third of amphibian species around the world are threatened with extinction, according to a University of California-Berkeley release on the subject at that time.

Wake suggested mass extinctions should prompt more focus on the study of pathology, as decimated frog populations could easily mean a change in the ways diseases are transmitted in human populations.

"We've got to invest a lot more in research of the ecology of infectious disease," Wake said. Drastic shifts in the ecology affects "how it spreads through the environment".

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Corruption killing Bangladesh forests: watchdog

Yahoo News 18 Aug 08;

Bangladesh's jungles, including the world's largest mangrove forest the Sunderbans, are being destroyed because of rampant corruption in the nation's forest department, a graft watchdog said Monday.

Transparency International (TI) said in its report that forest officials were engaged in illegal logging worth millions of dollars a year.

Bribery was most evident in the appointment process for top-level jobs. Over the past two decades, forest chiefs have been chosen through an auction system in which the person who paid the biggest bribe landed the job, TI said.

The local branch of the Berlin-based watchdog conducted a 16-month investigation into Bangladesh's forest department. Lead investigator Manzoor-e-Khuda told AFP it was among the most corrupt in the graft-ridden country.

"Corruption is everywhere in the department and it's threatening the future of our forests. Our biodiversity is now at stake because of corrupt practices," he said.

"The post of the chief conservator forest (CCF) has been auctioned off regularly in the past 20 to 25 years. The immediate past CCF (Mohammad Osman Gani) gave an 11 million taka (161,000 dollars) bribe to get the post," the report said.

In March 2007, armed forces raided the home of the country's then chief conservator of forests Gani and found local currency worth 142,000 dollars stashed throughout his house, including in pillows, under his mattress and in a rice barrel.

His arrest was part of the emergency government's nationwide crackdown on corruption and he was sentenced to seven years in jail.

About a dozen top forestry officials have been detained since then on corruption charges.

TI said Bangladesh was losing 37,700 hectares (93,150 acres) of its forest each year, largely due to illegal logging, up sharply from 8,000 hectares in the 1980s.

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Europe's pine may be wiped out, say experts

Barry Hatton, The Guardian 18 Aug 08;

Europe's pine forests are at risk from a killer bug that has already caused ecological catastrophes in east Asia, experts believe. Tens of thousands of trees have already died in Portugal and officials fear that pine wilt disease, which has become out of control in the south-west corner of the continent, could spread further.

Two species of pine are susceptible: maritime pine, which makes up almost a quarter of Portugal's forests, and Scots pine, the most widespread pine species in Europe, often used for Christmas trees.

The European commission has already imposed tight restrictions on the export of Portuguese pine, which must be disinfected and given a clean bill of health before leaving the country. But Roddie Burgess, the head of the Plant Health Service for the British government's Forestry Commission, who has been studying the disease for more than 20 years, fears the bug's spread across Portugal. "Given the scale of the problem ... it's going to be very difficult to get on top of this," he said.

The nematode bug swarms through a pine tree's innards and kills it within weeks by choking off the flow of sap. It is carried in the respiratory system of a flying beetle and was first detected in the Setúbal region, south of Lisbon, in 1999, when 340,000 trees died in two years. Experts think the beetle arrived in wooden crates at a nearby port.

The disease wiped out Japan's vast pine forests in the 1970s.

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Living a Green Dream on Danish Island

Martin Burlund, PlanetArk 19 Aug 08;

SAMSO, Denmark - Concerns about energy security may run high elsewhere in Europe, but on the windswept Danish island of Samso the inhabitants have achieved a decade-long target of self-sufficiency in renewable power.

It's a challenge their government set the island in 1997 and which has been largely funded through local taxes and individual investments, in one of Europe's wealthier countries -- Denmark's GDP per capita was more than US$35,000 in 2006.

Now the islanders have shown that where there's a wind, there's a way -- and in the process mounted a global showcase for one of the prize export industries in Denmark, which is home to the world's largest wind-turbine maker, Vestas.

"I often use Samso as an ambitious example of how to cope with the big challenges that our own country faces in the race to become independent of fossil fuels," said Randy Udall, a US energy sustainability activist.

Based in Colorado, Udall imports ideas from all over the world on how to make communities self-sufficient in energy.

On Samso, which is home to just 4,000 people, wind turbines tower over green fields and rise from the choppy waters of the North Sea; rye, wheat and straw are used to heat the one-storey buildings and solar panels have sprouted on roof tiles.

"I think Samso has set an agenda for the climate issue and, alongside other projects, it has shown that this is possible," said Soren Hermansen, director of the Samso Energy Academy and one of the project's main drivers.

Without any construction subsidies, the islanders have invested 400 million Danish crowns (US$84.35 million) -- an average of more than US$20,000 per citizen.

"We invested US$84 million -- a big number for 4,000 people -- but in reality it's not a whole lot," said islander Jorgen Tranberg, who describes himself as a milk producer who "owns a couple of turbines".

In Denmark's geographical centre, Samso used to be best known for its early-season potatoes. Now 11 onshore wind turbines cover all local electricity demands and 70 percent of the island's homes are heated using biofuels or solar power.

While some homes have opted to stay with oil furnaces for heating and cars are still common, the island has become carbon neutral by erecting 10 offshore wind turbines -- in addition to the 11 on land -- to offset the automobiles' carbon emissions and those from the 30 percent of homes still heated by oil.

"We even produce far more electricity than we need," said Hermansen. The surplus is sold to the mainland.

To promote wind-power, the Danish government subsidises wind energy production to the tune of about 20 to 50 percent of the final cost of power to consumers.


BEATING THE EU

The islanders' efforts dovetail with European Union policy but have gone much further than official targets.

The European Union has committed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth by 2020 from 1990 levels, and to get one-fifth of all energy demand from renewable sources such as wind, solar and biomass.

Some islanders say the renewable project has been helped by developing as a grassroots venture rather than having targets and regulations imposed by a bureaucracy.

"First of all you need determination and can-do spirit, and then you need an economic foundation to make it possible," Tranberg told Reuters in the cockpit of his wind turbine.

Many islanders own shares in the onshore wind turbines, an investment that they originally hoped would pay back after eight to 10 years.

A stronger-than-expected wind -- blowing 10-15 percent more force than expected into the blades -- cut the payback time and now Samso Energy Academy says a share in a wind turbine generates about 500 crowns per year in income.

"We held a lot of meetings, but we managed to do it because we hired good experts and trusted our own instinct," said Tranberg, who bought one early turbine himself and then a second offshore one with a partner.

"What is intriguing about Samso is their ability to make this project a sport for them, to show that this can be done," said the US activist Udall.

There have been secondary benefits for islanders too: cement was needed to build the turbines' foundations, solar panels had to be installed and homeowners began to demand better insulation.

This gave blacksmiths and cement workers a reason to stay on the island at a time of economic slowdown: five families moved in to take on new 'renewable energy' jobs.


OVERSEAS INTEREST

The project has attracted great overseas interest: ambassadors representing foreign countries in Denmark, on a recent trip to see Samso's small towns driven by solar panel farms and wind power, were impressed.

"What we're trying to learn is how to do it -- how to achieve that level of energy renewable self-sufficiency that Samso and the community here have achieved," said Frederica Gregory, Canadian ambassador to Denmark.

It has also helped draw attention to Denmark's wind power prowess. Jutland-based Vestas last week reported a 67 percent rise in its order backlog to over 7 billion euros, and estimated wind power will account for at least 10 per cent of global power output in 2020, from a little over 1 percent today.

This translates into annual growth of between 20 and 25 percent over the next 12 years.

"Using resources (that are) locally available and producing it in a way that is self-sufficient for the island while exporting green energy is something many nations would love to see," said Slovenian ambassador Rudolf Gabrovec. (Additional reporting by Kim McLaughlin; Editing by Clar Ni Chonghaile and Sara Ledwith)

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Lab animal use 'tops 100 million'

Jennifer Carpenter, BBC News 17 Aug 08;

A new analysis claims the number of animals used worldwide in laboratory experiments is close to 115 million.

The annual figure is based on official statistics from 37 countries, but includes estimates for nations where data is unavailable.

The report hopes that better records will encourage more responsible policy-making and regulation.

Reported in the journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals, the figure has been contested by pro-experiment groups.

The global estimate is the result of a joint venture between the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research.

They said it was the first estimate of global numbers of animals used in scientific research.

Data deficient

National statistics for many countries are not released, and so the UK-based team extrapolated national figures from the number of scientific papers that were published involving animals.

The research included animals that are used to maintain stocks, and also included animals deemed surplus and humanely killed.

In previous estimates, neither of these categories were included in national statistics.

"It is troubling that there are so many countries that appear not to record the lives of those animals suffering in their laboratories," said Wendy Higgins of the Trust.

"Knowing the number of animals used gives real ammunition for the general public to put pressure on their governments to play their part in the global reduction and replacement of animals in experiments," she told BBC News.

The results of the study estimate that the US and Japan use the greatest number of animals (17 million and 11 million, respectively), followed by Canada, France and Australia (all about 2.3 million).

Barbara Davies, communications director for the UK's Research Defence Society, argues that the study's final figure is inflated.

She said that the data for many countries was extremely limited, very variable and out of date.

"The paper makes too many assumptions and extrapolations to have any confidence in its conclusion," Ms Davies told BBC News.

"They know the media will pick up 115 million as the top-line result, and not delve deeper into how they achieved this number."

Ms Davies said the numbers needed to be put in context to show how society benefits from animal-testing.

GM trend

In Britain, the number of animals used in laboratory experiments declined from a peak in 1970s, but since 1997 has shown a steady increased.

Official Home Office figures show a 6% year-on-year increase.

"This year is the first time in 16 years that we have seen the number of animals used in UK labs exceed three million," comments Ms Higgins.

The use of genetically modified animals - mainly mice - has more than quadrupled since 1995, and is responsible for the recent growth in the number of animals used.

Ms Davies said these animals were a powerful way to find out what a gene did, and how a flaw in it affected human health.

"The Human Genome Project threw up many new genes but we don't know what their functions are," she added.

By knocking out genes in animals, scientists hope to gain insight into the function of all the genes found by recent genome sequencing projects.

"It is in everyone's interest to replace animals in experiments wherever possible, but it is difficult, and that is why progress is slow," Ms Davies conceded.

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Millions eating food grown with polluted water, says UN report

Study of 53 cities across the world finds 'widespread' use of waste water contaminated with heavy metals and sewage

John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 18 Aug 08;

At least 200 million people around the world risk their health daily by eating food grown using untreated waste water, some of which may be contaminated with heavy metals and raw sewage, according to major study of 53 world cities.

Urban farmers in 80% of the cities surveyed were found to be using untreated waste water, but the study said they also provided vital food for burgeoning cities at a time of unprecedented water scarcity and the worst food crisis in 30 years.

The study from the UN-backed International Water Management Institute (IMWI), said the practice of using waste water to grow food in urban areas was not confined to the poorest countries.

"It's a widespread phenomenon, occurring on 20m hectares across the developing world, especially in Asian countries like China, India and Vietnam, but also around nearly every city of sub-Saharan Africa and in many Latin American cities as well," said IWMI researcher Liqa Raschid-Sally.

"Nor is it limited to the countries and cities with the lowest GDP. It is prevalent in many mid-income countries as well", she said.

The report, launched today at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, found the practice "widespread and practically inevitable".

"As long as developing countries lack suitable transport to deliver large quantities of perishable produce to urban areas, urban agriculture will remain important. In the face of water scarcity generally and a lack of access to clean water, urban farmers will have no alternative except to use … polluted water", write the authors.

The report found that few developing countries have official guidelines for the use of waste water in agriculture. Even if they do, monitoring and enforcement rarely happen and may not be realistic. As a result, though the practice may be theoretically forbidden or controlled, it is "unofficially tolerated."

Earlier in 2008, the UN's World Health Organization stated that a global environmental and health crisis was unfolding with more than 200m tonnes of human waste a year being dumped untreated in water systems, exposing hundreds of millions of people to disease.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said on Sunday that rivers around the world are now seriously polluted "to the brink of collapse".

"Many rivers in developing countries and emerging economies are now polluted to the brink of collapse. For example, the Yangtze, China's longest river, is suffering because of pollution by untreated waste, agricultural run-off and industrial discharge", said a spokesman.

Wastewater fears for urban farms
Mark Kinver, BBC News 18 Aug 08;

Urgent action is needed to remove pollutants from urban wastewater, which is often used in cities to grow food, an international study has warned.

Data collected by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) found that 85% of cities discharged the water without any appropriate treatment.

With many developing nations swiftly urbanising, the authors said people were at increasing risk of disease.

The findings are being presented at an international water summit in Sweden.

"As the world flips over from a predominantly rural to a predominantly urban population base, cities are going to take more and more water for agriculture," explained IWMI director general Colin Chartres.

"However, most of the water going into urban areas comes out the other end in the sewers," he told BBC News.

"We know that there is an informal sector within many cities that is using [wastewater] to grow vegetables, but there has been no data on how much of this water was being used or what the risks were."

Waste not, want not

The study, based on case studies from 53 cities in developing nations, examined where wastewater was being generated, how much was being used in urban agriculture, and to what degree the water was being treated.

With increasing food prices and growing concerns about water scarcity, the authors of the report highlighted a number of benefits of using wastewater to irrigate crops.

They said that it allowed food production in places where there was a lack of water, or where no alternative clean water sources were available.

It also recycled nutrients, meaning that farmers did not have to buy expensive fertilisers.

And irrigating farmland with wastewater also has environmental benefits, explained Dr Chartres.

"It is a pretty useful way of treating water in the sense that if the water just went straight into a river, it would cause a lot more eutrophication problems further downstream.

"So in a way it is performing an ecological service by cleaning up some of the water and recycling the nutrients."

However, Dr Chartres warned that using wastewater for irrigation was not risk free, especially as the world became more urbanised.

"If this practice is going to be increasingly commonplace and more and more people are going to be eating food produced this way, then there needs to be a bit more concern about the heavy metals and other contaminants in there.

"Ideally, the end product should be treating the water to a standard that means there is no risk, but most developing nations cannot afford to do this.

"Apparently, what happens now in areas with very polluted water is that the farmers do a smell test or a taste test," he added.

"If the water tastes too foul or smells too bad, then they won't use it to irrigate their crops - but that's a pretty dangerous way to go about things."

The IWMI report found that wastewater was being used in 80% of the cities surveyed.

This equated to 5.6 million farmers and family members dependent upon the wastewater in order to earn a living.

It added that very often industrial and domestic waste streams were mixed together. Ensuring the two were kept apart would reduce the risks from chemical contamination.

"It is really just about minimising the risks from field to fork with a series of simple measures," Dr Chartres explained.

"[These include] letting the water settle in a pond, so a lot of the eggs from worms drop out of the water, and irrigating around the crops rather than on top of them.

"When the crop is harvested, it also needs to be washed with fresh, clean water in the market, and that water needs to be constantly changed so everything else is not contaminated."

The authors said that the international community needed to develop policies and practices to reduce the health and environmental risks, while maintaining the financial and food production benefits.

The findings are being presented at the World Water Week summit in Stockholm, Sweden - a week-long conference attended by water and sanitation experts from more than 140 countries.

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Minister challenges Prince Charles to prove GM crops threat

Phil Woolas says government will go ahead with trials unless scientific evidence shows GM crops are harmful
Jenny Percival, guardian.co.uk 17 Aug 08;

A government minister today challenged the Prince of Wales to prove his claim that firms developing genetically modified crops risked environmental disaster.

"If it has been a disaster then please provide the evidence," said Phil Woolas, the environment minister, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph.

He accused Prince Charles of ignoring the needs of the world's poorest countries by attacking GM crops, and insisted the government would go ahead with trials unless scientific evidence showed they were harmful.

On Wednesday, after the prince told the Daily Telegraph that GM crops were an experiment "gone seriously wrong", the government said it welcomed all voices in the debate and stressed that safety was its priority.

But in highly critical comments that suggest high-level anger at the prince's intervention, Woolas said the government had a "moral responsibility" to investigate whether GM crops could help alleviate hunger in the developing world. It was easy for people in countries where food was plentiful to ignore the potential of GM to raise agricultural productivity, he said.

"I'm grateful to Prince Charles for raising the issue. He raises some very important doubts that are held by many people. But government ministers have a responsibility to base policy on science and I do strongly believe that we have a moral responsibility to the developing world to ask the question: can GM crops help?

"I don't understand the reasoning behind the assertion that this is dangerous for climate change."

Woolas stressed the government had yet to decide whether it should relax the controls on the cultivation of GM crops.

"Should the UK change our policy on GM to one that is more liberal?" he said. "The government has not got a predetermined decision."

The Sunday Telegraph quoted a Labour source as saying the prince had "overstepped the mark". The newspaper quoted a source close to the prince as saying he did not intend to cause a political row and "simply cares for the future".

Green groups including Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association supported the prince's view that GM crops would not help to solve the food crisis.

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"Toxic" Indian Festivals Poison Waterways - Expert

Nishika Patel, PlanetArk 19 Aug 08;

MUMBAI - Toxic chemicals from thousands of idols of Hindu gods immersed in rivers and lakes across India are causing pollution which is killing fish and contaminating food crops, experts and environmentalists said on Monday.

Hindus across India celebrate various religious festivals in September and October, paying homage to deities like Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, and Goddess Durga, the destroyer of evil.

Elaborately painted and decorated idols are worshipped before they are taken during mass processions to rivers, lakes and the sea, where they are immersed in accordance with Hindu faith.

Environmentalists say the idols are often made from non-biodegradable materials such as plastic, cement and plaster of Paris and painted with toxic dyes.

After the statues are immersed, the toxins then contaminate food crops when villagers use the polluted water for irrigation, said Shyam Asolekar, science and engineering head at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai.

"Even small traces are extremely toxic as they persist in the body for a long time and accumulate in the human tissues," said Asolekar, who has closely studied the effects of Hindu customs.

Paints contain metals like mercury, cadmium and lead, which can pass up the food chain from fish to human beings, he said.

Environmentalists said materials like plaster of Paris do not dissolve easily and reduce the oxygen level in the water, resulting in the deaths of fish and other aquatic organisms.

Statue remains from festivities last year still float in rivers and water tanks in Mumbai, where the annual "Ganesh Chaturthi" festival culminate in the immersion of some 160,000 statutes -- some up to 25 feet (7 metres) high -- by millions of devotees.

Traditionally, idols were made from mud and clay and vegetable-based dyes were used to paint them.

But commercialization of festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi and Durga Puja has meant people want bigger and brighter idols and are no longer happy with the eco-friendly statues.

Authorities say they are taking steps to check pollution. Mumbai has dug 48 ponds this year for the immersion of idols, but environmental groups say not enough is being done.

"If we do not respect nature then we are not respecting god," said Manisha Gutman of environmental group Eco Exist.

About 80 percent of India's 1.1 billion population are Hindus. In recent years, their religious festivals and customs have come under increasing scrutiny as public awareness of environmental issues grows.

The spring festival of Holi involves the throwing of coloured powder but studies have found that the industrial powders used are often toxic and can cause asthma, temporary blindness and even skin cancer. (Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Paul Tait)

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Coal's toxic legacy to the Arctic

Richard Black, BBC News 18 Aug 08;

Coal burning in western Europe and North America has been a prime source of heavy metal pollution in the Arctic.

Scientists plotted levels of thallium, cadmium and lead in a Greenland ice core and linked them to other chemicals indicating coal as the main origin.

Clean air legislation has reduced the heavy metal load in recent years.

But writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the team says increased coal burning in Asia may see levels of the metals rise.

These substances accumulate in the bodies of plants and animals living in the region, including whales, polar bears and caribou.

Some Arctic people also carry high levels of the heavy metals, which can cause a number of medical conditions, in their bodies.

Economic drivers

The study team, from the Desert Research Institute in Reno, US, analysed an ice core extracted in Greenland which gives a continuous record of pollutants deposited from the atmosphere back to 1772.

They took readings of heavy metal levels on a month-by-month basis.

Graphs show all three metals soaring between 1850 and 1900 as the industrial age took off. The early 20th Century saw inputs 10 times higher than in pre-industrial times.

The Great Depression of the 1930s saw levels dip as economies contracted, then a rise as the global marketplace recovered.

But by the 1970s, all three of the metals were decreasing in abundance, broadly coinciding with the adoption of clean air legislation in Europe and North America, the source regions for most of the input to the Greenland ice.

"In North America and western Europe, there was a big effort to clean up the air," noted lead researcher Joseph McConnell.

"Part of that was a shift from coal to oil and gas, and part was a move to burn coal at higher temperatures and burn it in a better way," he told BBC News.

The rises and falls correlate well with fluctuations in the amount of black carbon and sulphur, products of coal burning, captured in the ice, suggesting that coal was the dominant source of these emissions.

The one blip came from lead which showed a renewed rise in the 1950s, probably due to the swift increase in motoring.

Potent poison

Heavy metals are among substances that bio-accumulate; when they pass into animals, they stay there, immune to digestion and the body's waste removal processes.

When that animal is eaten by another higher up the food web, the predator, whether human or not, generally takes on a substantial part of the toxic cargo.

Most of the studies on Arctic peoples have concentrated on mercury, another heavy metal also produced by coal burning and other industries.

They suggest that mercury may have contributed to neurological impairment in some communities.

Some Arctic dwellers have been found to receive levels of cadmium above recommended safe limits through their diet. The metal's most important medical impact is kidney damage.

"There's been very little study of thallium in the Arctic, though," said Dr McConnell.

Thallium is a potent toxin.

Once incorporated into rat poison, its use is highly restricted. It was an early suspect in the race to determine what killed former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London two years ago.

The new study promises to help investigators studying the health of Arctic peoples by providing a detailed record of heavy metal input to the environment over time.

Whereas previous studies suggested the cadmium load was highest in the 1960s and 1970s, the new research shows the peak input occurred decades earlier.

As the global population increases, economies develop and natural gas supplies peak, the International Energy Agency predicts coal usage will increase globally, with the major Asian economies including China and India responsible for most of the increase.

Dr McConnell believes the picture of the last few years captured by his Greenland core suggests this renewed interest in coal burning is leading to an upturn in heavy metal input to the part of the Arctic he has studied.

But he believes more cores are needed from different regions, and is proposing to drill in other parts of the Arctic, notably areas north of Russia and east Asia, to establish the global pattern.

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Shipping pollution 'may cause 60,000 deaths a year'

Roger Highfield, The Telegraph 18 Aug 08;

Sea air in coastal cities, renowned for being bracing and healthy, is instead being heavily polluted by dirty smoke from ships a study has found.

Scientists have found ships are contributing far more polluting tiny sulphur rich particles than had previously been thought.

The tiny particles travel large distances and can become lodged in the lungs, posing a serious health hazard.

Previous studies have shown ship smoke may be responsible for as many as 60,000 deaths worldwide, according to an earlier study conducted at the University of Delaware.

"This is the first study that shows the contribution of ships to fine particulates in the atmosphere," said Prof Mark Thiemens, who headed the research team at the University of California, San Diego.

"Ships are really unregulated when it comes to air pollution standards. What we wanted to find out was the contribution of ships to the air pollution in San Diego.

"And what we found was a surprise, because no one expected that the contribution from ships of solid sulphur-rich particles called primary sulphate would be so high."

Primary sulphate, or SO4, is produced when ships burn a cheap, sulphur-rich fuel called "bunker oil."

The scientists say, these primary sulphate particulates are particularly harmful because they are especially fine, less than 1.5 microns or millionth of a metre in size.

As a result, they can travel extremely long distances because they stay in the atmosphere for longer periods and, unlike bigger dust grains and particles that are removed by the body when breathed, remain in the lungs.

Using a chemical fingerprinting technique to sample air at the end of the pier at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, the scientists found that the smoke from ships contributed as much as 44 per cent of the sulphate found in fine particulate matter in the atmosphere of coastal California.

On the days when the proportion of ship sulphate approached one-half of the fine particulate matter, the scientists determined from wind direction and speed calculations that ships burning high sulphur fuel in the Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego ports were a major influence.

"Our results suggest that this component of ship emissions is important and should not be ignored in the future," said Dr Gerardo Dominguez, first author.

In another study in the same journal, a team warms that the future impact of global warming is even worse than predicted when the grazing animals are taken into account.

The impact of global warming in the Arctic was studied by Penn State biologists, Dr Eric Post and Christian Pederson, to show that grazing animals will play a key role in reducing the anticipated expansion of shrub growth, thus limiting their predicted and beneficial carbon-absorbing effect.

While Dr Post and Pederson agree that global warming will promote the growth of shrubs, they argue that grazing by muskoxen and caribou will reduce the carbon-mitigating benefit of the plants, based on the findings of a novel five-year experiment in West Greenland in which they compared the effects of grazing in plots treated with increased temperatures versus those left untreated.

"We need to be aware that the 'carbon dioxide sponge' - represented especially by shrubs and trees - may not be as big as we thought it was," said Dr Post. "This finding is yet another reason to think carefully about reducing carbon-dioxide emissions."

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Beijingers hope Games clean-up stays in place

Dan Martin, Yahoo News 18 Aug 08;

Beijing's aggressive moves to get the city ready for the sporting showcase also has whet the appetite of residents for a modern, clean and orderly city -- something they hope will outlast the Olympic flame itself.

If Wen Laifu had his way, the Beijing Olympics would last forever.

The immediate reason is China's huge and growing collection of gold medals which the sports-mad Beijing resident called "extraordinary."

"Beijing is one of the great cities of the world. But we don't act like it sometimes," said Wen, a freelance ad copy writer strolling through Tiananmen Square on an overcast but pollution-free day with his wife and young son.

The Olympic host city, whose modern makeover has impressed Games visitors, is unrecognisable to many long-term residents.

Strict driving restrictions have helped ease the chronic and paralysing traffic congestion that normally clogs the streets of the ancient capital of 17 million people, taking about one-third of its three million cars off the road.

That, plus the moving or temporary shuttering of factories in the region as well as other anti-pollution moves, has been credited with helping to clear the city's notoriously smoggy skies during the Games, although favourable weather also has been a factor.

Other moves have included a clampdown on the city's blatant prostitution, but also the stifling of dissidents to avoid embarrassing political dissent during the August 8-24 Games.

Authorities have given no hint yet that the temporary beautification measures would be maintained following the Games, but many are hoping they will.

A poll last month by the Beijing Social Facts and Public Opinion Survey Centre found that 96 percent of Beijing residents felt the measures had been beneficial and 60 percent wanted them to continue.

"These measures have been successful. The city is better now," said Zhao Wei, 39, who operates a chain of six dry-cleaning outlets.

The driving restrictions, which have limited motorists to driving on alternate days based on their license plate number, have forced him to take the bus and subways every other day.

They also have slightly disrupted business by complicating delivery of chemicals and other supplies he needs, though like nearly all Chinese questioned by AFP, he saw that as a necessary inconvenience during the Olympics.

Independent estimates have put annual direct economic losses from the city's gridlock at up to one billion dollars. The World Health Organisation estimates about 650,000 people die prematurely in China each year from air pollution.

Zhao is willing to sacrifice for a better city, adding that Beijing's notorious gridlock already regularly causes supply disruptions and that rising petrol prices have made driving more expensive anyway.

He said Beijing should adopt limits on car ownership similar to those in Shanghai, China's largest city.

"Chinese can accept hardship for the greater good, especially under government guidance. It is one of our national strengths," said Zhao, riding the subway to an Olympic basketball game with friends.

Hong Guangli, a 25-year-old economics graduate student, is realistic, noting that business pressures are likely to bring a return to the free-for-all growth behind Beijing's problems.

Yet he remained hopeful that the government, having seen that seemingly intractable problems can be addressed with the proper motivation, will place new emphasis on improving living conditions, not just in Beijing, but nationwide.

"We cannot move as quickly in China as in your country. But we are making progress," he said.

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China's Olympic Pollution Efforts Paid Off, Expert Says

Rick Lovett, National Geographic News 15 Aug 08;

Beijing's air for the opening track-and-field events at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games is "better than expected," said U.S. Olympic distance runner Amy Yoder Begley.

"When I came to China to race in 2002," Yoder Begly said in an e-mail earlier this week, "the air caused my lungs and nasal passages to burn." She also described the sensation as "swallowing glass."

Although air pollution in China's capital city is almost always worse than anywhere in the United States, Chinese efforts to clean up the air before the Games have paid off.

The country shut down all nearby factories and ordered half the cars off the road, creating tangible improvements, scientists say.

"I'm measuring about a 20 to 40 percent reduction in particulate matter compared to a year ago," said Staci Simonich, an environmental chemist from Oregon State University whose lab group has made three trips to Beijing to study the city's air.

Ups and Downs

Day-to-day pollution levels have tended to fluctuate. When it rains, pollution drops, then builds back up—unless there's a strong north wind to blow it away, Simonich said.

"We've seen some real ups and downs," Simonich said from her temporary lab at Peking University in Beijing.

On a good day, the air quality is still below levels American athletes are accustomed to.

U.S. runner Yoder Begley's 10,000-meter teammate Kara Goucher grew up in the clean air of northern Minnesota, and had never been to Beijing before this summer.

"[T]he pollution and smog in Beijing is much, much worse than I imagined," she wrote earlier in the week—before the latest rain—on a blog for the Duluth News Tribune.

"Its a bit eerie how the sun never comes out all day. If you are walking around the village and you look ahead, you can't see all of the buildings. The pollution creates a fog that clouds over everything. It is unimaginable. I am shocked by how bad it is."

Simonich's measurements confirm that the air, although better, is still heavily polluted by U.S. standards.

On average, she said, she's been measuring particulate levels about six times higher than those seen in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

A good day in Beijing, she said, is roughly comparable to America's most polluted cities.

The Chinese were hoping for more than the improvements seen in Simonich's tests, but their efforts have been undercut by the smog-trapping climate.

"I think they've done as much as they can," Simonich said. "But … the role that meteorology plays is so important."

Extreme Heat

The same weather that traps smog can make Beijing extremely hot and humid.

Goucher and Yoder Begley prepared for their competitions by training for a week in Houston, along with fellow distance runner Galen Rupp.

"The workouts went great," the group's coach, Alberto Salazar, told the Portland Oregonian newspaper. "We ran in hotter conditions than we expect to see in Beijing."

But that doesn't mean the heat won't be a major factor for less-prepared competitors.

"The air is so thick," Yoder Begley wrote on her blog. "You sweat through your clothes in minutes and stay wet all day."

The weather took a toll last weekend in the men's bicycling road race, a hilly 152-mile (245-kilometer) event in which 53 of 143 competitors dropped out.

"I worked hard, but the heat and humidity were too much for me," Dutch cyclist Karsten Kroon told the Salt Lake Tribune. "You feel your head explode."

Mari Holden, a 2000 silver-medalist-turned-coach, sympathized.

"I always had a hard time with heat and humidity," she told National Geographic News. "I've had instances where I ended up in the hospital."

Whatever the conditions, however, athletes say they are still driven to do their best.

As distance runner Shalane Flanagan told the Associated Press: "Unless I can't walk and my lungs are falling out, or I'm coughing up a lung, I'll be running."

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