In search of Bluey...
the fried tempeh is back! on The Blue Tempeh blog
The Pagoda bagworm
if you've wondered what made those circular holes in mangrove leaves, on the moth mania blog
Get ready for the Inuit oil millionaires
a different view of Arctic dwellers on the Short Sharp Science blog
Indian Silverbills reusing Baya Weaver nests
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
This publication by the Singapore Botanic Gardens has interesting articles including:
Requirement, to kick in from next April, will benefit car buyers
Christopher Tan, Straits Times 25 Sep 08;
CAR buyers wanting to pick a greener set of wheels will soon have more information to help them decide, as dealers are being asked to label the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) their cars emit.
This will be in addition to the fuel economy figures they need to have on their windscreens from April next year.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) said the CO2 and fuel economy figures are to raise consumers' awareness and 'to help them make informed choices' when buying a car.
With the labelling, consumers will be able to see for themselves how thirsty or polluting the car they are eyeing is when compared with other comparable models.
Among a myriad of tailpipe emissions, European legislators have been targeting CO2, largely because it is one of the main gases that contribute to global warming.
The European Union has ruled that all new cars should emit no more than 120g of CO2 per kilometre by 2012 - from an average of around 150g today.
The NEA is not legislating a target level, but merely requires sellers to declare the figures - a common practice in many markets, including Australia and Europe.
Singapore Environment Council executive director Howard Shaw applauded the move as 'necessary', but added that the label should perhaps also provide data of similar vehicles as well as comparative running costs of such vehicles.
'I think the label should also tell people how much it costs to run a car per kilometre,' he added, because knowing how far you can go on a litre of fuel or how much fuel it takes to cover 100km - two standard efficiency measures in the motoring industry - 'do not mean much to many people'.
The NEA has been gathering feedback from the industry on the labels.
Most authorised agents The Straits Times spoke to do not see a problem meeting the new requirement.
Motor Traders Association (MTA) president Tan Kheng Hwee said: 'We are still working with the NEA to sort out some practicality issues for the actual implementation. They have asked for feedback from MTA members and we are in the process of compiling a report for them.
'We are confident that with close cooperation, we can smoothly implement the labelling scheme.'
Authorised agents can often get the required consumption and CO2 readings from their manufacturers.
But parallel importers will have some difficulty. This is largely because they do not have access to documentation from manufacturers as they get their cars from overseas dealers, not directly from carmakers.
And if they are to comply with all the requirements of the test procedure, they would have to set aside cars for testing at their own expense. If the cars happen to be high-end models such as Porsche, Lexus or Ferrari, the exercise can be prohibitive.
Singapore Vehicle Traders Association secretary Raymond Tang said: 'This will be an issue, but we are still waiting for more details from the NEA.'
Besides parallel importers, authorised agents of brands which do not export to Europe may face some difficulty too, because NEA will require dealers to meet a European emissions standard.
Mr Kevin Kwee, executive director of Group Exklusiv, which imports Chinese Geely cars, said: 'This is something very new to us. We've informed the factory but they've not come back to us.'
Motor traders have been given a list of recognised independent testing facilities where cars can be sent to for readings to be taken if they cannot obtain the information from manufacturers.
Observers say parallel importers are likely to have to resort to this method. And that they might pass on some of the cost involved to car buyers.
mongabay.com 24 Sep 08;
WWF, one of the world's largest environmental groups, says it will now support policy mechanisms that would compensate tropical countries for reducing carbon dioxide emissions generated by deforestation and forest degradation, according to remarks by the group's president and CEO at an "avoided deforestation" meeting in New York.
Speaking to an audience that included Former Vice President Al Gore; Wangari Maathai, a Nobel Prize-winning the Kenyan environmentalist from Kenya; veteran newscaster Dan Rather; Barrhat Jagdeo, sitting president of the South American country of Guyana; and dozens of executives and high-ranking officials from NGOs and governments around the world, Carter Roberts said Monday that WWF would no longer oppose efforts to include forests in international climate negotiations.
“The Amazon, if it were a country, would be in the top seven emitters of greenhouse gases in the world," Carter said. "Unless the world has policies that recognize that value of standing trees and forests, we will have failed.�
"In Kyoto, WWF was pivotal in keeping forests out. We have changed our position," he added.
The news was welcomed by groups pushing forest conservation as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Tropical deforestation and degradation accounts for a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire transportation sector. Some economists say that "avoided deforestation" represents one of the most-effective means for cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases, while many environmentalists see the concept as offering the best hope for saving endangered tropical forests.
WWF had opposed including forest conservation in climate talks due to concerns over monitoring and implementation as well as a desire to focus on reducing industrial emissions. The group, along with other campaigners, argued at the time that "avoided deforestation" would allow developed countries to meet emission reduction requirements without cutting emissions from industrial sources, including power generation, construction, and transportation. WWF and other avoided deforestation opponents feared that rich countries would be "let off the hook" by simply paying tropical countries to cease forest clearing, instead of pushing energy efficiency, pollution controls, and other measures. In the meantime, deforestation continued unabated, with Indonesia and Brazil alone losing some 300,000 square kilometers of forest -- an area the size of Italy or the Philippines -- since talks in 2001 officially excluded avoided deforestation from the Kyoto Protocol.
WWF's opposition in the face of ongoing forest destruction sparked a bitter rift among environmentalists, but the group last year signaled that it might be having a change of heart when it hosted a public symposium on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (REDD), a proposed avoided deforestation mechanism. Now with his comments at the Avoided Deforestation Partners meeting, Carter has publicly thrown WWF's considerable clout into the campaign to get forests recognized as a critical component of addressing climate change.
Roberts said that WWF will now support avoided deforestation as part of a broader set of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"We need forests to be in there, but energy efficiency and movement to renewables are equally important," he said, adding that the basis for climate change mitigation "must be absolute deep cuts in emissions in the U.S."
"If the cuts are real and deep, that will force cuts across all sectors... [they] can't be superficial," he continued.
"There is no silver bullet for resolving the climate crisis. We need a broad effort that targets all sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Tropical deforestation, which accounts for nearly a fifth of global emissions, obviously must be an integral part of a comprehensive climate change strategy.�
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore agreed.
"We have to start reducing our pollution and substituting renewable sources of energy," Gore said. "But, we also have to provide the means for stopping deforestation. One of the most effective things we can do in the near term to address the climate crisis is to protect the world’s tropical forests."
Augusto Villalon, Philippine Daily Inquirer 24 Sep 08;
TUBBATAHA REEF OFF REMOTE Cagayancillo Island in Palawan was the first natural site from the Philippines inscribed in the Unesco World Heritage list in 1993, so appropriate for an archipelago like the Philippines where the sea is the principal life-giving force, the center of people’s lives.
Why is Tubbataha of World Heritage quality?
The Unesco World Heritage Committee that reviews all nominations to the World Heritage list says it is one of the most outstanding coral reefs in the region, with one of the densest groupings of coral and marine life in the world.
It further affirms that in the 33,200 hectares of the Tubbataha Reef Marine Park is a unique example of an atoll reef with a very high density of marine species.
The site is an excellent example of a pristine coral reef with a spectacular 100-meter perpendicular wall encrusted with marine life. It also has extensive lagoons and two coral islands. The North Reef is a nesting site for both birds and marine turtles.
Tubbataha Reef is within a vast national park and marine sanctuary that lies in the middle of the Sulu Sea, 150 km away from Puerto Princesa City. It takes a 12-hour boat ride to get there.
The reef harbors a diversity of marine life greater than any other such area in the world. No wonder it’s a desirable diving location.
Its inaccessibility makes site maintenance extremely difficult but it is also an asset; its remote location protects the site by limiting the pressure on the environment caused by more divers than Tubbataha’s carrying capacity can handle.
Cycle preserved
Tubbataha’s existence has been turbulent with human destruction, but the cycle of nature itself has preserved it. Although fishermen exploited the reefs, the monsoons prevented fishing for nine months, allowing marine life and the reef time to regenerate. Despite human destruction,
Legislation protecting Tubbataha was in place as early as the 1980s, but dynamite fishing and other destructive fishing methods severely damaged the cover of living coral, to the point that a 1989 study showed that the coral in the outer reefs had decreased by 25 percent.
Fishermen from southern and central Philippines once fished with absolutely no regard for the severe impact of their methods on the marine life, but now, thanks to the constant and determined vigilance of Tubbataha authorities, they must follow strict controls.
It was once severely threatened by the establishment of a large seaweed farm in one of the islets in its vicinity, taking advantage of the sheltered reefs of its atoll system. The Department of the Environment and Natural Resources and Tubbataha Foundation successfully fought to eliminate the threats.
Coral reef areas are vital to sustaining the economic, marine and ecological balance of the Philippines.
Most fish and invertebrate larvae that originate in Tubbataha Reef are believed to migrate with the prevailing currents to the eastern side of Palawan and the entire Sulu Sea. They eventually provide the fish catch that sustains the life of the people.
Complex links
Since the Philippines benefits from the preservation of its environment, it is crucial to sustain Tubbataha Reef in as close to its pristine state as possible. Today the reef is professionally managed, fishing is finally controlled, and tourism is controlled as well.
The global ecological system is linked in a very complex manner. Tubbataha is one of these links that contribute to the ecological health of the world.
Considering that 75 percent or more of the coral reefs in the Philippines are in varying stages of decline, Tubbataha stands out as one of the best managed and conserved marine sanctuaries in the country, an example worth emulating.
Dubai ups ante with $1.5B hotel on palm island
Adam Schreck and Barbara Surk, Associated Press 22 Sep 08;
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — It's the latest word in Persian Gulf excess: a $1.5 billion resort boasting a $25,000-a-night suite and dolphins flown in from the South Pacific — all atop an island built in the shape of a palm tree.
Environmentalists have long criticized both Palm Jumeirah island and some of the features of the Atlantis hotel, set to open Wednesday. And analysts wonder if global financial turmoil will crimp Dubai's big hopes for tourists.
Dubai is not blinking. The 113-acre resort on the artificial island off the coast is among the city-state's biggest bets that tourism can help sustain its economy once regional oil profits stop flowing.
"You don't build a billion-and-a-half dollar project just anywhere in the world," said Alan Leibman, president and managing director of Kerzner International, the hotel operator that teamed with Dubai developer Nakheel on the resort.
With its own oil reserves running dry, Dubai hopes to woo those eager to make money and those who know how to spend it — even as much of the global economy sours.
For years, the emirate — one of seven semi-independent states that make up the United Arab Emirates — has been feverishly building skyscrapers and luxury hotels.
A key piece of the strategy has been to cultivate an image in the West as a sun-kissed tourist destination despite its intense summer heat, conservative Muslim society and dearth of historic sites.
Among the daring projects are an indoor ski slope, the as-yet-incomplete world's tallest skyscraper and a growing archipelago of man-made islands such as Palm Jumeirah — the smallest of three such projects planned.
Much of the focus at the Atlantis, modeled on a sister resort in the Bahamas, is on ocean-themed family entertainment. The resort has a giant, open-air tank with 65,000 fish, stingrays and other sea creatures and a dolphinarium with more than two dozen bottlenose dolphins flown in from the Solomon Islands.
The hotel's top floor aims squarely at the ultra-wealthy. A three-bedroom, three-bathroom suite complete with gold-leaf, 18-seat dining table is on offer for $25,000 a night.
Environmental groups and some people in the Solomons protested the sale of the dolphins to the resort as well as the 30-hour plane flight to get them to Dubai.
Dubai's development has long been criticized by environmental activists, who say the construction of artificial islands hurts coral reefs and even shifts water currents. They also point to growing water and electricity consumption.
Developers seem undaunted. For the moment, the Atlantis shares the island only with rows of high-end houses and construction sites. But other international names are set to move in.
Donald Trump plans a hotel straddling the center of the tree-shaped island's "palm," and the storied QE2 ocean liner will become a hotel and a tourist attraction docked alongside its "trunk." An 1,800-seat theater nearby will house a permanent Cirque du Soleil show beginning in summer 2011.
"Palm Jumeirah in and of itself will become one of Dubai's major tourist attractions," said Joe Cita, chief executive of Nakheel's hotel division.
Boosting the number of attractions on the island will not only entice more visitors, but also persuade them to spend more time and money in the city, he said.
By 2010, Dubai aims to attract 10 million hotel visitors annually, up from about 7 million in 2007. Atlantis alone will increase the city's hotel capacity by 3 percent.
So far, demand appears strong. The Middle East had the highest hotel occupancy rates in the world during the first half of the year, with Dubai leading the region at 85.3 percent, according to professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.
Dubai also had the highest room rates in the region, although revenue growth is slowing, Deloitte noted.
Atlantis' backers are optimistic they can fill its 1,539 rooms despite the economic uncertainty wracking some of the world's richest economies. Their focus is on well-heeled travelers from Europe, Russia, Asia and elsewhere in the Middle East.
"People will still take family holidays," Leibman said. "Dubai is still good value when you're paying in pounds, (or) you're paying in euros."
Nakheel, the developer, and Kerzner, the hotel operator, are both privately held companies and do not release sales data. Leibman said demand from tour groups looks strong well into the first part of next year.
Yet Marios Maratheftis, head of regional research for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan at Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai, said there is "good reason" to be concerned that global financial problems could hit Dubai's tourism industry. Nevertheless, he said, the city's long-term outlook remains positive.
Kerzner has grown increasingly close to Dubai in recent years. In 2006, the company took itself private in a $3.8 billion deal partially bankrolled by a division of Nakheel's state-owned parent, Dubai World. Nakheel retains a large stake in the company.
Nakheel's hotel division has expanded rapidly. The company's holdings include New York's Mandarin Oriental, the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, and the W Hotel in Washington.
Its parent also owns a minority stake in MGM Mirage Inc. and is teaming with that casino operator and Kerzner to build a multibillion-dollar casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
But don't expect to find roulette wheels at Dubai's Atlantis. Islamic prohibitions against gambling ensure casinos remain off limits.
Grand Aquatic Openings in Dubai
Sara-Lise Haith, Deeper Blue 24 Sep 08;
Dubai Aquarium & Discovery Centre will unveil the marvels of the ocean floor to the people of Dubai with the opening of The Dubai Mall. Featuring the world's largest viewing panel and pronounced a spectacular display of some of the world's most intriguing marine animals. The flagship development of Emaar Malls Group, The Dubai Mall is one of the world's largest shopping, lifestyle and entertainment destinations featuring a host of world-class leisure attractions.
The Aquarium will feature the world’s largest viewing panel with 270-degree walk through tunnel; one of the world’s largest indoor Aquariums
The Discovery Centre offers interactive, educational centre
More than 33,000 aquatic animals; representing 85 marine species
Features the single largest collection of sharks; over 400 sharks and rays combined
Free viewing; Dubai Aquarium a significant value-add for mall visitors
Dubai Aquarium & Discovery Centre is one of the eagerly anticipated opening day attractions and is expected to draw in residents, tourists and marine enthusiasts from around the world.
With the main tank measuring 50m long x 17m wide x 11m high, and the world’s largest viewing panel measuring 32.8m long x 8.3m high, Dubai Aquarium & Discovery Centre will be a spectacular showcase of over 33,000 marine animals, representing over 85 different species. Shark and ray-watching will quickly become a favourite leisure pursuit as Dubai Aquarium & Discovery Centre feature the world’s single largest school of sharks including 45 sand tiger sharks, 45 grey reef sharks and up to 30 spotted eagle rays. In total, there will be over 400 sharks and rays to provide for an adrenaline-fueled visual experience.
Also today in Dubai was the official opening of The Palm Atlantis, described as a magnificent, oceanic tribute to a mythological age. In spite of the recent fire to a rooftop shortly before opening, the famous resort has opened its doors today as planned. The Palm Atlantis sports the much controversial Dolphin Bay, which is a four-and-a-half hectare lush tropical setting modelled on their natural habitat , described as "home for the dolphins at Atlantis” The dolphins were bought in the Solomon Islands and brought to the UAE. There are three vast lagoons where visitors can meet these dolphins through a choice of interactions.
The Aquarium, which holds a recently captured whale shark from the waters of the UAE, is said to hold some 65,000 marine animals, including sharks, eels, rays, piranhas, as well as multitudes of exotic fish. A local Dubai newspaper reports that the captured whale shark will "eventually be tagged and released". Atlantis announced the capture of the juvenile whale shark recently which was found in shallow waters, “fatigued and disorientated”. Whale Sharks are protected by CITES (Convention for the International Trade of Endangered Species) and apparently the hotel was urged to release the animal.
It is unknown how long Atlantis plan to keep the whale shark for.
At the moment it's too difficult to live the green life. Obstacles should be removed and green choices made cheaper and easier
Ben Caldecott, guardian.co.uk 24 Sep 08;
The environment movement has been catapulted into the heart of UK politics over the last 3 years. It's obvious that many more people are aware of and care about climate change and environment issues than ever before. To his credit, David Cameron and his "Vote Blue, Go Green" mantra has helped to make environmentalism politically mainstream. For all the political parties, robust environment policies are now essential for electoral success.
This shift isn't unique to the UK. Throughout the world we are seeing the growing clout of environment groups in political debates. If we are to deal with the plethora of human-created problems that are destroying our planet, this shift is both positive and essential.
There are a number of barriers, however, created by government and green groups, that could undermine this progress. Just as millions of people are becoming aware of the great threats to our environment, they are being frustrated by messy policies and priest-like environmentalists.
If we don't get our act together and make environmentalism more relevant to everyday life, the population at large will stop listening. In the UK, there are a number of reasons why people could quickly become fed up with aspects of environmentalism.
Firstly, taxes which have little to do with protecting the environment have been spun as "green taxes" by the government in an attempt to make them seem more palatable to the public. This strategy has backfired. Green taxes together cost the average household £1,417 a year and public impressions are negative. According to a YouGov/Sunday Times poll (pdf) from March last year, 63% of respondents believed that global warming was just an excuse to raise taxes further.
Secondly, some environment policies, such as subsidies for first generation biofuels, have been proven to be counterproductive and excessively expensive, shortly after they were touted as a solution. This has broken down public trust in the politicians and environmentalists that advocated them.
Thirdly, on almost everything from emission reductions to biodiversity conservation, the government's green targets have comprehensively failed. This is because targets are set without considering the policies needed to implement them, are so vague as to be largely pointless or failing that, are chopped and changed when they are unlikely to be met.
Lastly, measures that are said to help the environment are made difficult and time-consuming by government. Take recycling, the options available for sorting our waste for recycling and disposal differ hugely between local authorities and the recycling of items like glass actually uses more energy than it saves. This lack of clarity and simplicity, which is by no means confined to recycling, makes doing the right thing difficult, when it should be easy. People do want to help save the planet, but they need to be empowered to do so, not frustrated and hindered.
Given these obvious failures, what could be the options for restoring trust in environmentalism and making it more relevant to the individual?
One of the most important things to demonstrate is that policies actually protect our environment cheaply and effectively. Being transparent about the costs associated with particular policies is essential. For example, the vast majority of people don't know what the cheapest ways of reducing greenhouse emissions are. If they did, they might wish to prioritise expenditure on the cheapest methods or use some abatement options and not others. The public debate on this has been mute, primarily because government and many green groups are not willing to be transparent about the options available and their respective costs and benefits.
By far the most important thing, however, is to empower people to choose environmentally sound options and relate their individual actions to the bigger environmental picture of say, climate change and biodiversity conservation. As a country, the UK does this particularly badly. The important choices people make every day concerning transport, waste disposal, recycling, what to buy, and energy usage, are often not "green" because the greenest option is difficult or impossible to choose. Government needs to seriously think about to how make the greenest options the cheapest and easiest.
The environment movement is at a crucial juncture, where global awareness of environmental threats is extremely high. Yet, that movement has so far failed to reach the heights of transparency and relevance needed to keep the struggle to protect our planet continually vivid in people's minds and central to our way of life. Environmentalism now needs to take into account of people's legitimate concerns about cost and propose cost-effective solutions to the problems we face. It must also help to make the greenest options in everyday life the easiest to choose.
Slim Allagui, Yahoo News 24 Sep 08;
A European Union proposal to ban imports of seal skins has Greenlandic Inuits worried they could soon face a repeat of boycotts that severely crippled one of their major sources of income two decades ago.
"This is a war against us and we can't accept that," Aqqaluk Lynge, who heads up the Greenlandic branch of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), told AFP.
Seal products certified to result from humane hunting techniques or from traditional hunting by Inuits across the Arctic region would be excluded from the proposed ban, but the indigenous people of Greenland nonetheless fear their livelihoods are at stake.
"Exemptions for Inuits have not worked before, and the ICC's position is that exemptions will not work this time around either," Lynge told an international Arctic conference in the western Greenlandic town of Ilulissat earlier this month.
The ban, proposed by the European Commission in July, is mainly aimed at Canada, where hunters this year were allowed to slaughter 275,000 seals, or nearly a third of the 900,000 seals hunted each year around the globe.
Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory of only 57,000 residents, including 50,000 Inuits, however also relies heavily on seal hunting, counting some 2,300 professional hunters and about 6,500 recreational hunters.
In 2006, the last year for which numbers are available, 113,000 seals were killed off the shores of the island, which unlike Denmark is no longer part of the EU.
Greenland's hunters are all Inuits who according to their representatives do not kill seal pups and only kill adult seals with a virtually painless shot to the head.
But while they in theory should not be affected by a potential EU ban, they fear they could soon see their markets shrivel as they did 20 years ago when boycotts aimed especially at halting inhumane hunting practices targeting baby seals nearly wiped out the entire industry.
Public opinion "does not distinguish between Canadian and Greenlandic hunters, something we noticed in the 1980s," the island's former deputy prime minister Josef Motzfeldt lamented to AFP.
For years seal pelts, meat and fat, which is used in beauty products, were shunned around the globe, and even today prices remain 75 percent lower than before the boycotts, forcing authorities to heavily subsidise Greenland's struggling hunters.
"It is very worrying that the Commission is not aware of the serious consequences its proposal will have for people who live off of this ancestral hunt," Greenland's local foreign minister Aleqa Hammond told AFP at the Ilulissat conference.
"We have not changed our hunting technique for 100 years and it is not cruel," insisted Hammond, who plans to address the European Parliament when it debates the issue this autumn.
In Ilulissat, Arkalo, a fisher and hunter who refused to give his last name, castigated Brussels as he dried two seal skins on his balcony.
"We really don't need this new blow, because we have barely recovered from the boycott campaigns by Greenpeace and other Brigitte Bardots (referring to the French actress and animal rights activist) against the massacre of baby seals in Canada that hurt us so much," he said.
Many hunters and their families are still dependent on local government handouts to survive.
Lynge of the ICC insisted the new proposed ban would again "hurt the small and sustainable, community-based market developed by Inuits across the Arctic."
"We are again the victims, but we are ready nevertheless to work with the EU on re-examining this ban and finding a solution," he said.
The EU commissioner responsible for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, Joe Borg, attempted at the conference in Ilulissat to justify the Commission's proposal.
"The European public opinion with regard to seal hunting, especially what is portrayed in the media, is such that the Commission felt that it had to take action," he explained to AFP, stressing that "if the seals are hunted in a humane way and a proper manner then no negative economic impact should be sustained."
Nonetheless, Greenland's minister of hunting, fisheries and agriculture, Finn Karlsen, has called on "the seal skin industry to intensify its efforts in markets outside the EU, like Russia, China and the rest of Asia," in order to minimise any potential negative impact of the ban.
"Seal hunting will always be an essential part of the (Inuit) way of life and culture in all the towns and villages in Greenland and makes up the primary livelihood in the most remote hamlets," he said.
As for claims that the hunt is threatening the seal species, Karlsen pointed out that Greenland hunts around 100,000 seals each year out of an estimated population of about seven million animals, stressing that the sea mammals also deplete the island's much-needed fish stocks.
Sarah Shard, Yahoo News 24 Sep 08;
Eco-fashion is not just a cool concept but is proving a useful economic tool for Japan's textile manufacturers.
Environment-friendly new products from recycled cotton to organically-dyed cashmere and a revolutionary treatment to make wool shrink-resistant without using chemicals were among the innovations showcased at a trade fair in Paris to woo the fashion capital's top designers.
"These are the survivors. The low quality textile manufacturers have all disappeared because they could not compete with China on price," explained Seiko Fujii-Lesage at the J-Tex salon.
They have identified the emerging eco-friendly market as one way of staying ahead of the game.
Fujitex, which built its reputation on luxury - it has two entries in the Guinness Book of Records for paying the highest ever price for Australian merino wool and for selling the world's most expensive material, vicuna - has a new range of cashmere dyed with plant extracts, such as pomegranate, acacia and cloves.
"We are trying to deploy natural dyes instead of chemicals in consideration of the environmental issues which the whole world should address," Fujitex president Toru Fujita said.
He was also at pains to emphasise that the company's stocks of Andes vicuna, which is considered endangered, had been acquired legally through the Peruvian government's scheme to combat poaching.
Vicunas, related to llamas and alpacas, only produce tiny quantities of ultra-fine wool so the wild animal can only be shorn every three years. Hence its rarity and eye-watering price of 4,600 euros (6,700 dollars) a metre.
Tarui textiles uses soil pigments to dye its organically-grown cottons. All the range is sourced geographically, from yellow from the southern French region of Provence to a red from Ayers rock in Australia and benigara, a red oxide traditionally used to preserve wood from Nakatome in Japan.
-- We never stop researching --
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Tarui textiles is also a convert of "eco.wash", which its inventors say is the world's first environmentally-friendly process to prevent wool shrinking when it comes into contact with water.
It uses ozone, a naturally occurring substance, instead of the chemical chlorine, which causes environmental pollution while safer ozone returns naturally to oxygen. Ozone is also less harsh on the fibres, leaving a softer feel.
As well as using 100 percent recycled cotton for its terry towelling and sportswear fabrics, knitwear specialist Minami has found a way of recuperating the sweepings discarded in the making of mink coats. It weaves the soft, inside fur, which is normally wasted, with organic cotton into discretely luxurious textiles that would not immediately attract the attention of the anti-fur lobby.
Miyashin is experimenting with combining bamboo and traditional Japanese paper with silk. The resulting fabrics can look heavy but are in fact incredibly light, some with a "peach skin" finish. "These are still prototypes. We are improving all the time," the company told AFP.
Meanwhile the Takahashi firm has found a new use for the very strong hard-wearing cottons worn by judo players for high-end coats and furnishing fabrics to cover sofas.
Toa-Knit and Aona Pile are both pioneering techniques to produce new versions of jacquards. Toa-Knit uses circular machines to produce jacquards with geometric patterns on an industrial scale which look as delicate as lace although nylon is used to give them strength. "People can't believe they are not devore," where chemicals are used to eat away the surface of the fabric, the company said.
Aona Pile, which specialises in ultra-high gauge fabrics, produces jacquards in dense velours which are extremely lightweight alongside fake furs, which sales manager Nobuaki Ando predicts are the future.
The real key to survival, he believes, is innovation. "We never stop researching and producing new materials. We can't afford to."
PlanetArk 25 Sep 08;
OSLO - Eating less meat can help rich nations to combat global warming but may not work for poor countries where people depend on livestock for survival, a leading expert said on Wednesday.
UN reports show that the livestock sector accounts for about 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming -- more than the transport industry. Eating less beef, pork or chicken is often advocated as a way to cut emissions.
"We agree that the world as a whole could eat less meat," said Carlos Sere, head of the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute, which is backed by governments around the world.
"But we are concerned that the message is too generic. You do not want to get governments and development agencies to forget about livestock in Asia and Africa," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
More than 600 million people in developing nations depend on livestock to some extent, he said. In India, for instance, milk is a key source of protein and calcium for a huge vegetarian population.
Raising livestock "is a key survival instrument...you are allowing poor people to make an income," Sere said.
Other benefits include meat, hides, use of animals for transport and dung for fertilisers. Meat consumption is far lower in developing nations than in rich countries.
Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the UN Climate Panel, suggested this month that people should have a meat-free day every week to help slow global warming that could bring more floods, droughts and rising seas.
VEGETARIAN
Others have also advocated a shift away from meat. "The biggest change anyone could make in their own lifestyle would be to become vegetarian," former Beatle Paul McCartney said earlier this year of ways to fight global warming.
Sere said the messages should be focused on rich nations, where livestock are often fattened on food that could otherwise be used for human consumption.
Farm animals emit large amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from their digestive tracts. Use of fossil fuels for everything from fertilisers to harvesting feed for animals also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.
In developing nations, smallholders with a few buffaloes or cows often fed them waste from crops such as sorghum, rice or millet, "turning resources humans can't eat into something of value," he said.
In the longer term, rising incomes in developing nations are spurring a surge in demand for meat.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has projected that world meat production will more than double to 465 million tonnes in 2050, from 229 million in 1990-91. (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Story by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
Xan Rice, guardian.co.uk 24 Sep 08;
More than 350,000 small-scale farmers in Africa and Central America will soon begin selling produce to the UN in an initiative that could transform the way food aid is purchased.
Announcing the five-year $76m (£41m) pilot project today, the UN's World Food Programme said it would buy surplus crops from low-income farmers in 21 countries to help boost fragile economies. The food will be used for regional hunger emergencies and safety net schemes, such as school feeding projects.
While the WFP currently buys about 80% of its stocks locally in the developing world, virtually all of it comes from traders and large-scale farmers who can supply significant quantities of staples such as maize, sorghum and beans.
"The world's poor are reeling under the impact of high food and fuel prices, and buying food assistance from developing world farmers is the right solution at the right time," said Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, who described the Purchase for Progress scheme as a "win-win".
"We help our beneficiaries who have little or no food and we help local farmers who have little or no access to markets where they can sell their crops."
Charitable foundations established by Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and Howard Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, are funding the project, which targets some of the world's poorest countries, including Sierra Leone, Malawi, Ethiopia and El Salvador. It is expected that 40,000 metric tons of food - enough to feed to 250,000 people for a year - will be purchased from small-scale farmers in the first twelve months.
The farmers who sign up will be required to form into local collectives, and to set up a bank account in the group's name. The usual UN requirements for the growers to provide surety bonds, transport and packaging materials will be relaxed or waived.
By selling directly to the WFP rather than middlemen it is expected that the farmers will receive higher-than-normal prices. There are also plans to negotiate seasonal contracts with the smallholder collectives to give them additional security.
The announcement was made at the UN general assembly, where world leaders are discussing the progress made towards achieving the millennium development goals, whose targets include halving the 1990 poverty and hunger levels by 2015. Speaking at the launch, Bill Gates said that the new initiative "represents a major step toward sustainable change that could eventually benefit millions of poor rural households in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions".
The WFP, which bought $612m (£330m) of food supplies in the developing world last year to feed 86 million people, said that it will ensure that local markets are not distorted by only purchasing from farmers with surplus crops. In time, it is hoped that the farmers will also be connected to other local and regional markets.
Jatindra Dash, PlanetArk 25 Sep 08;
BHUBANESWAR, India - Officials in eastern India struggled to provide aid to tens of thousands of flood victims after riots broke out on Wednesday, as floodwaters lapped the Taj Mahal compound but posed no immediate threat to it.
Monsoon rains, burst dams and overflowing embankments have unleashed bouts of flooding in South Asia this year, killing about 1,500 people, mostly in India but also in Nepal.
In India's Orissa state, tens of thousands were still stranded on embankments and highways after large areas were flooded when authorities opened sluice gates of a dam on the Mahanadi river after heavy rains last week.
Food riots broke out in many areas after villagers complained they were not getting relief supplies. Hungry victims beat up officials, blocked roads and looted relief materials.
"At least eight people sustained injuries after two groups of people clashed over distribution of relief," police officer Jitendra Kumar Dalai, who was injured, told Reuters by telephone from flood-hit Jagatsinghpur district.
Authorities said more than 100,000 people were still marooned and 19 more deaths were reported overnight, raising the death toll from floods in the eastern state to 48 in the past week.
At least 20 more flood-related deaths were reported in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, raising the overall toll from floods across India to at least 239 in the past five days.
Rising rivers have burst their banks and swamped vast areas of farmlands and villages, forcing thousands from their homes in the northern state and eastern state of Bihar, also reeling under floods.
Indian officials said they had posted policemen near the famed Taj Mahal to monitor water levels in the swollen Yamuna river.
Floodwaters had reached the outer wall of the Taj compound, but posed no danger to the 17th century mausoleum built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan on very high ground, officials said.
"Since the monument has weathered many a storm over the centuries, I do not think the rise in the Yamuna level or its increasing current could cause any harm to the structure," said K.C. Yadav, a police officer.
The flooding in the Yamuna, which also flows close to New Delhi, was caused by the release of water from two barrages following heavy rains upstream.
The Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of modern world, is already under threat from industrial pollution which is turning its white marble a pale yellow. (Additional reporting by Sharat Pradhan; Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Jerry Norton)
PlanetArk 25 Sep 08;
UNITED NATIONS - Development of alternative energy should create more than 20 million jobs around the world in coming decades as governments adopt policies to address the depletion of resources, according to a UN report released on Wednesday.
Some 2.3 million people around the world already work in alternative energy jobs with half of them in biofuels, said the report, "Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World," commissioned and funded by the UN's Environment Programme.
Speedy creation of the jobs will depend on countries implementing and broadening policies including capping emissions of greenhouse gases, and the shifting of subsidies from the oil and natural gas sector, to new energy including wind, solar and geothermal power, it said.
"If we do not transform to a low-carbon economy we will miss a major opportunity for the fast tracking of millions of new jobs," Achim Steiner, UNEP director, told reporters.
He said movement toward the jobs will occur even if the world does not come to a new agreement by the end of next year on stabilizing and then cutting greenhouse gases. That's because global population is headed toward 8 billion or 9 billion by 2050, while new resources like metals, oil and gas are becoming more expensive to find, he said.
But if the world waits 10 years to take serious action on greenhouse gases the costs for moving to a green economy will be much higher, he said.
US President George W. Bush walked away from the UN's carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol early in his first term, saying it would raise costs and unfairly exempt rapidly developing countries from emissions limits. Delegates from across the world will try to reach a successor agreement to the Kyoto pact in a UN meeting in Copenhagen late next year.
BIOFUEL JOBS
The report was written before the US credit crisis reshaped Wall Street and reverberated around the world raising fears that many sectors could be slowed, including alternative energy.
Steiner said it would be a mistake to ditch green energy policies during the current financial crisis because in the long term the new jobs will make economies stronger and help make goods with less oil and gas.
The report said some 12 million new jobs could be created by 2030 in biofuels-related agriculture and industry.
Biofuel critics say current US ethanol, which is mostly made from corn, does little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But companies are racing to make cleaner, next-generation ethanol from sources including crop waste and rapidly growing non-food crops like switch grass and poplar trees.
The report said many jobs in the biofuels industry are unfair to workers. "Much of the employment on sugarcane and palm oil plantations in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Malaysia and Indonesia is marked by poor pay and dangerous working conditions," it said.
"There is also concern that large-scale biofuels production might drive large numbers of people off their land in future years," it said. "Close scrutiny" will be needed to determine what portion of biofuel jobs can be counted as decent jobs, it added.
Manufacturing, installing, and maintaining solar panels should add 6.3 million jobs by 2030 while wind power should add more than 2 million jobs. Even more jobs could be created in the building, recycling, and clean-vehicle manufacturing sectors, the report said.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Jackie Frank and Eric Beech)
Michelle Nichols, PlanetArk 25 Sep 08;
NEW YORK - Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon.
The former US vice president, whose climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Academy Award, told a philanthropic meeting in New York City that "the world has lost ground to the climate crisis."
"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.
"I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact," he said. "I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that."
The government says about 28 coal plants are under construction in the United States. Another 20 projects have permits or are near the start of construction.
Scientists say carbon gases from burning fossil fuel for power and transport are a key factor in global warming.
Carbon capture and storage could give coal power an extended lease on life by keeping power plants' greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere and easing climate change.
But no commercial-scale project exists anywhere to demonstrate the technology, partly because it is expected to increase up-front capital costs by an additional 50 percent.
So-called geo-sequestration of carbon sees carbon dioxide liquefied and pumped into underground rock layers for long term storage. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Christine Kearney and Xavier Briand)
Michael Schirber, LiveScience.com 24 Sep 08;
Editor's Note: Each Wednesday LiveScience examines the viability of emerging energy technologies - the power of the future.
Wind energy might be the simplest renewable energy to understand. Yet there are misconceptions about what makes the wind industry turn.
The United States now has nearly 17,000 megawatts of wind power installed, which can supply about 1.2 percent of the nation's demand for electricity, according to a recent report from the Department of Energy (DOE).
With these numbers projected to grow in the coming years, it might be good to be aware of a few myths that are blowing in the wind.
1. Wind is cheap
No one owns the wind, so it might seem like wind energy should cost less than other technologies that require costly fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to operate.
However, the initial investment for wind energy is high. Large scale wind turbines cost a few million dollars per megawatt to put up, which at face value appears competitive with new coal-fired power plants, but the wind doesn't always blow. In effect, wind turbines typically only produce electricity about 30 percent of the time, so it takes longer to pay back the building costs.
Taken together with government incentives and maintenance costs over a turbine's 20-year lifetime, wind energy ends up costing about 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to DOE estimates. That's slightly more than coal, but the two are getting closer all the time.
2. America is way behind the rest of the world
Denmark gets 20 percent of its energy from wind. Germany has the most wind turbines of any country. China is set to nearly double its wind energy capacity in just one year.
You might think the United States is dragging its heels, but in terms of the raw total, America produces more wind energy than any other country (thanks to it being windier here than in Germany).
And more investment is on the way.
One recent headline grabber is the world's large wind farm project in Pampa, Texas, proposed by oil magnate T. Boone Pickens. This is part of the so-called Pickens Plan to invest $1 trillion on wind turbines throughout the wind corridor from the Dakotas down to the Texas panhandle.
3. Wind turbines are loud
Wind turbines used to be loud, but newer designs are less so.
Some of the bad rap about noise can be attributed to a single wind turbine constructed in 1978 outside of Boone, N.C., which generated low-frequency sound waves that rattled windows and made some people sick in nearby homes.
Since then, most new rotors turn slower and are mounted in front of (not behind) their towers. These and other changes have dramatically lowered the noise, said Pat Moriarty of the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo.
Still, some neighbors complain, and the wind industry continues to search for even quieter designs.
4. Wind turbines kill birds
This one is actually true, but the problem is not as bad as some people claim.
The impression that all turbines are dangerous to birds comes from Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in California. This was one of the first big wind farms, and unfortunately it was placed in a migratory bird pathway, Moriarty said.
In addition, Altamont's 4,800 small wind turbines - many installed in the early 80s - have rotors low to the ground and packed close together, which may be why more than 1,000 birds (half of which are raptors) die there each year.
Newer wind farms report fewer bird deaths probably because the turbines are taller and spread further apart. And for comparison's sake, studies show that many more birds die colliding with cars and buildings than die in turbine blades.
5. Any house can own a windmill
Unless you have a good chunk of land around your house, it's probably not a good idea to get a wind turbine. If it's too close to buildings or trees, the wind will be turbulent and won't produce the power that it's supposed to.
But what do we know. The small wind turbine market grew by 14 percent in 2007. Some of these are for boats, but others supply homeowners who live off the grid.
Tracie Cone, Associated Press 24 Sep 08;
After exploration by millions of visitors over the past 100 years, it's hard to imagine anything left to discover amid the majesty of Yosemite's glacier-cut granite cliffs and giant Sequoia groves.
But, by thinking small, scientists have discovered new species of lichen clinging like microscopic starfish to Yosemite icons such as El Capitan, Half Dome and Vernal Falls, and countless slabs of less famous rock. And they are trying to determine whether the species exist anywhere else.
The chance to collect and study the lichen that give the Yosemite's granite faces their distinctive black and rust-colored striping enticed world-class climbers to the park last week. Dangling from ropes with chisels in hand, they gave earthbound scientists access to the microcosms that exist at their fingertips.
"We hear about new species of life being discovered in the remote Amazon, but here in Yosemite?" said extreme mountaineer Carlos Buhler, a member of the only team to ascend Mt. Everest's 29,000-foot east face. "This world of lichen is something that climbers see up close every day without knowing very much about it, so it's a chance for me to learn more about the world in which I live. I doubt I'll ever look at lichen the same way again."
National Park Service scientists look at lichen — a combination of fungus and algae — as one of nature's best harbingers of air pollution and climate change, so they are in a race to determine exactly what species are growing in the 1,169-square-mile park.
"It's important to know what our baseline flora and fauna are before we lose it, and lichen are a good baseline," said Martin Hutten, a Yosemite lichenologist who entered the field after discovering that air pollution had destroyed all but the most hardy lichen in his native Netherlands.
Hundreds of species of slow-growing lichen in the Sierra Nevada cling to everything from trees and shrubs to metal handrails over Merced River tributaries. Like tiny sponges, they suck from the atmosphere both the water and nutrients that feed them — and the pollutants that kill. Yosemite scientists are beginning to use the lichen as an indicator species for the amount of polluting nitrogen and sulfur in the forests.
"There is a tremendous amount of biodiversity that hasn't been discovered here in Yosemite," said Niki Nicholas, the park's chief of resources management and science. "People probably think that Yosemite has been around forever so everything must have been discovered."
Last year, scientists cataloged a new orchid unique to Yosemite, and two years before that found three new species of bees.
"If we have it now, we can see if we still have it 15 years from now," said Linda McMillan, the chairman of the American Alpine Club's Yosemite Committee who has been recruiting members to work on similar projects in parks and nature preserves around the world. "No one group in the world can understand something as complex as an ecosystem."
The lichen study is part of an ongoing public-private effort funded by the federal government and the nonprofit Yosemite Fund to take a biological inventory of the park's resources in a rapidly changing environment.
"I can think of worse ways for my tax dollars to be spent," said Steve Mackison, visiting from Maryland, as he watched Hutten rappel down Vernal Falls, a 317-foot waterfall.
Already the research has led to new discoveries in Yosemite, where scientists had assumed the vivid black, gray and rust-colored bands that run down the face of Vernal Falls were oxidized minerals washed there over centuries by falling water. "One thing we have definitely established since getting close is that a lot of these streaks are different things that are alive," Hutten said.
The search for new lichen species in Yosemite paid off when scientists found one pollution-intolerant species, Altectoria sarmentosa, which was thought to exist in only one place in California. They say some of the approximately 100 unfamiliar species they are sending to Oregon State University for further testing could turn out to be unique to the park and, perhaps, the world.
"Already we have doubled the number of species known to be here," Nicholas said, "but we know we have lots more."
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press 24 Sep 08;
Can a plague of beetles change the weather? That's one question researchers hope to answer in a four-year research program in Western forests that are being infested by pine mountain beetles, leading to the deaths of great swathes of trees.
Vegetation affects local weather by absorbing or reflecting sunlight and releasing chemicals and moisture. Changes can influence such things as rainfall, temperatures and smog.
Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., have launched an effort to study the interaction between the surface and the atmosphere in a region extending from southern Wyoming to northern New Mexico using aircraft, ground-based instruments and computer models.
"Forests help control the atmosphere, and there's a big difference between the impacts of a living forest and a dead forest," NCAR scientist Alex Guenther, a principal investigator on the project, said in a statement.
"With a dead forest, we may get different rainfall patterns, for example," he added.
Tiny particles from plants can form the nucleus for raindrops. Plants also emit chemicals that can help form smog. Living forests soak up carbon dioxide, while dead ones release it, potentially contributing to warming.
Indeed, preliminary computer modeling suggests that beetle kills of large forest areas can lead to temporary temperature increases of 2-to-4 degrees Fahrenheit, the researchers said.
The project is known as BEACHON, for Bio-hydro-atmosphere Interactions of Energy, Aerosols, Carbon, H2O, Organics, and Nitrogen.
Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience.com 24 Sep 08;
Marshes pass a lot of gas, which adds to the whole global warming problem. One solution: Let them flood, a new study suggests.
The idea is pretty simple. Both nature and humans create greenhouse gases. Humans do it when they burn carbon-based stuff. One aspect to nature's contribution involves bacteria in wetlands that produce methane while munching on organic meals.
Methane is the major component of natural gas, and it's also a greenhouse gas that acts like a blanket to keep solar radiation trapped inside the atmosphere.
Wetlands can be thought of as the kidneys of the environment, absorbing chemicals and gunk and organic matter, explains a team led by William Mitsch of Ohio State University. Nature likes to flush its kidneys, either with floods, tides or occasional catastrophic storms such as hurricanes. We humans sometimes work to prevent all that with levees, sea walls, dams and floodgates, but that means the kidneys can get a little backed up. When that happens, more methane is released from the deep water in a wetlands area, the researchers found.
In tests, pulsing water through wetlands cut down on methane emissions.
"Our point is that the healthiest systems and the ones with the lowest emissions of greenhouse gases are those that have these pulses and that are able to adapt to the pulses," Mitsch said.
The research, announced this week, was published in a recent issue of the journal Wetlands.
The study examined methane emissions over a two-year period. The researchers created two different kinds of conditions in two 2.5-acre experimental wetlands. In 2004, they used pumps to deliver monthly pulses to create conditions in the wetlands resembling natural marshes flooded with river water. In 2005, they pumped roughly the same amount of water but maintained a more artificial, constant flow with no pulses.
Methane is composed of carbon and hydrogen, and its emissions are expressed in terms of the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. Methane emissions were measured approximately twice monthly over the two study years. In the areas where no pulsing was done, the methane emissions were double compared to the pulsed areas.
"If there is less methane emission it means that either more carbon is stored in the peat, or the methane is 'oxidized' as it passes through the water to carbon dioxide, or it is pulsed out of the system," Mitsch told LiveScience in an email interview. "Since an 'outflow' of a wetland will usually go to an oxygenated flowing stream, the carbon then is metabolized aerobically and is emitted as carbon dioxide there."
So why is this better? "Carbon dioxide is 22 times less a problem as a greenhouse gas than is methane," he said.
The scientists aren't suggesting any major projects to create pulses in existing systems. Rather, Mitsch said, we'd be wise to leave existing natural setups as they are.
"We build dams to minimize pulses and manage rivers to stay in their channels," he said. "Nature does not 'like' even or predictable flows; only humans do. Nature is smarter than we are in managing its gases."
Anne Minard, National Geographic News 24 Sep 08;
Even the sun appears headed for a recession.
The Ulysses space probe has detected fewer sunspots, decreased solar winds, and a weakening magnetic field—the lowest solar activity observed in 50 years, NASA scientists said yesterday.
That translates into a shrinking of the heliosphere, the invisible buffer that extends beyond Pluto and guards the planets—ours included—from bombardment by cosmic rays.
Speaking yesterday at a NASA teleconference, scientists refused to draw conclusions from their observations, especially with respect to whether the changes are influencing Earth's climate.
"That area of science is in the realm of speculation at this point," said Nancy Crooker, a researcher at Boston University.
But David J. McComas of the Southwest Research Institute, who leads one of the experiments onboard Ulysses, called the changes "significant."
"This is a whole-sun phenomenon. The entire sun is blowing significantly less hard than it was 10 to 15 years ago," he said.
"Over the entire record of sun observations, this is the longest prolonged low pressure that we've observed."
Variable Star
Some variance in solar activity is normal for the sun, which has a 22-year magnetic cycle and an 11-year sunspot cycle.
But McComas said in a statement that researchers have been "surprised to find that the solar wind is much less powerful than it had been in the previous solar minimum."
Ed Smith, a NASA Ulysses project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, also added that the drop in solar winds has lasted longer than predicted.
Solar Influence
Scientists noted that while solar activity is low compared to the past 50 years of data, the sun's output has dipped before.
In the early 1600s Galileo and other astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots over a 30-year period. Normally, the early scientists would have witnessed closer to 50,000.
Scientists have also speculated for centuries about an intuitive link between the sun's intensity and Earth's climate.
There is evidence of the sun causing short-term impacts on Earth's weather.
The so-called Maunder Minimum, a time of low solar activity, lasted from about 1645 to 1715. During this time, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice, and canals in Holland routinely froze solid, according to NASA.
Glaciers advanced in the Alps, and sea ice increased so much that no open water flowed around Iceland in the year 1695.
The latest observations show that the sun is even more mercurial than previous research could have found. "The sun is a variable star after all," Crooker said.
Less protection from the sun's heliosphere may also make space exploration more dangerous, according to Crooker.
Astronauts could encounter more lethal cosmic rays without the sun's protection, for example.
Most of the effects of a shrinking heliosphere, however, will be felt billions of miles beyond Pluto, at the edges of the sun's influence.
If the solar wind stays weak, NASA's Voyager 1—launched in 1977 and now headed beyond our solar system—should reach the edge of the heliosphere earlier than expected, becoming the first craft to enter interstellar space.
Mission Sunset
Launched in 1990, the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses mission has lasted four times longer than expected.
The probe, which is slowly freezing to death and is expected to shut down within months, observed a dramatic slowdown in solar activity during its third and final orbit around the sun last year.
While the demise of Ulysses is imminent, NASA will soon develop the Solar Probe mission, which will fly close to the sun to determine what heats its corona—the outer layer—and accelerates solar wind.
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