Peregrine Falcon feasting on a White-vented Myna
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Team with bite
on the annotated budak blog and Little brown bird and Crabbed out on Changi and Mad Murai
Nesting saga of Peaceful Doves: Part 2 of 6
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
White Peacock at St John
on the wonderful creation blog
Reef Friends Survey Training - Dec 08
on the BlueWaterVolunteers blog
Valley of The Trees
on the Aesthetic Voyager blog
Rio revisited?
on the BBC blog
China and India, as major consumers of energy, must cut emissions, says MM Lee
Tracy Quek, Straits Times 3 Dec 08;
HONG KONG: Singapore is known for its equatorial climate, but yesterday, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew revealed that when indoors in Singapore, he needs warm clothing more often than he does on his trips to Europe.
That is because 'the offices are freezing!', he declared, explaining that the low temperatures are a consequence of central air-conditioning systems in office buildings.
His comment drew laughter from the audience attending his 40-minute dialogue with former United States president Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative Asia meeting yesterday afternoon.
Mr Lee was responding to a question from Ms Liao Xiaoyi, president of Global Village, a Beijing-based environmental group, who had asked him why the Singapore Government did not take measures to address the problem of excessive energy consumption caused by the widespread use of air-conditioners.
Ms Liao, who has visited Singapore, said she could not 'understand the ridiculous phenomenon of why every house is so cold'.
In China, she said, the government has ordered that all air-conditioned public rooms must not be set lower than 26 deg C in summer, and no higher than 20 deg C in winter to save energy.
Chinese media reports say air-conditioners account for 30 to 50 per cent of office buildings' power consumption. Some cities such as Shanghai have been known to experience power shortages when the use of air conditioners is high.
Singapore, said Mr Lee, attempts to rein in the use of energy-guzzling air-conditioners by pricing.
'We give everybody a quota for normal consumption, if you go beyond that you pay a surtax on your electricity,' he said but added that the problem was that 'in a growingly affluent society, people say 'never mind I'll pay up'.'
The conflict between economic growth and the desire to protect the environment, how to get the whole world on board when it comes to tackling global warming, as well as finding solutions to the problem of growing scarcity of fossil fuels, took centre stage in Mr Lee's conversation with Mr Clinton.
Among the questions that Mr Clinton posed to MM Lee was one on how the use of renewable energy such as solar power and the dependence on it, could be encouraged at a time when prices for oil and coal have dropped.
The oil age will 'come to an end sooner or later', but alternative energy can never replace carbon fuels, said Mr Lee.
While nuclear fusion looks some years away, 'the only thing that can replace carbon fuels would be nuclear power', said MM Lee, who said he was more pessimistic about energy than water scarcity.
'With the best of intentions, the world must prepare itself for more adaptations than pushing back climate change,' said Mr Lee.
With scientists forecasting that global temperatures could rise by as much as 6 deg C over the coming decades, Mr Lee said the world must aim to keep the increase to the minimum prediction of 2 deg C. But it will not be easy.
'The Europeans have not been able to keep up the limits they placed on the Kyoto Protocol, they have decided now that cap and trade may not be as efficient as a straightforward carbon tax,' he said. 'How do you get a carbon tax right across the board throughout the world, including India and China?'
India and China, he noted, have made no commitments to cut their carbon emissions.
'We have to wait for them to get the message, when the glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau begin to recede to dangerous levels and their rivers begin to become seasonal with rain and not throughout the year.
'How long will that be? I don't know but maybe too late. So my conclusion is that we have to do the best we can, and hope that the major consumers of energy, which will be India and China, will come on board soon,' he said.
Meanwhile, there can be simple solutions to saving energy and energy efficiency.
Mr Lee cited the example of his stay at a hotel in Istanbul where he had a 'ghostly' experience with lights installed with motion-sensors that came on when a person was in range, but went off when no one was there.
'Now if we can have that for air-conditioners and so many other things, we could easily save 30, maybe 40 per cent of energy consumed,' he said.
However, energy efficiency will not solve the problem, it just 'delays the ending of the coal and oil age'.
He said: 'At the end of the day, there is a finite amount of stored solar energy over the millennia and people are using it up... it's going to come to an end. So we need to find a solution to this.'
Surprise sale of PowerSeraya to YTL Power unit after 'unsolicited proposal'
Gabriel Chen, Straits Times 3 Dec 08;
TEMASEK Holdings has stunned the market by announcing that it has sold electricity generator Power-Seraya to a unit of Malaysia's YTL Power International for $3.8 billion.
This came just a week after the Singapore investment company said it would shelve tender plans for PowerSeraya, owing to 'market conditions'.
Market talk had suggested that relatively poor investor interest and lower-than-expected indicative bids by investors had led to Temasek's earlier decision.
Temasek said in a statement yesterday, however, that Sabre Energy, a wholly-owned unit of YTL Power, would pay $3.6 billion for PowerSeraya and assume $201 million of its adjusted net debt as at March 31 this year.
The transaction for PowerSeraya - the third and last of the electricity generation companies (gencos) to be sold by Temasek - is expected to be completed early next year.
In June last year, Temasek announced it was selling the three gencos to liberalise the power generation industry. It had targeted to complete the sale by the middle of next year.
Ms Gwendel Tung, Temasek's director of investment, said yesterday that after the company put a stop to the tender process last week, YTL Power submitted an 'unsolicited proposal' that met Temasek's requirements.
Referring to YTL Power, Ms Tung said: 'We are confident that their expertise and experience will add significant value to Singapore's electricity market and PowerSeraya in particular.'
Other factors may have also come into play. One possibility, suggest industry watchers, is that the funds will come in handy in helping cushion losses from other investments that have soured amid the global financial crisis.
They say another possibility concerns Temasek's outlook on market conditions. Temasek might have worried that, with asset prices declining rapidly, it might not have been able to secure such an 'acceptable' price again had it 'procrastinated'.
Temasek's other gencos fetched higher prices. Tuas Power went to Chinese firm Huaneng for $4.23 billion. Senoko Power, meanwhile, was sold to a consortium led by Marubeni Corp for $4 billion.
A third theory concerned the other bidders for PowerSeraya, which were said to be a Hong Kong CLP Holdings-led consortium and Bahrain's Arcapita.
Due to deteriorating market conditions, and with banks taking more precautions on lending, Temasek might have been concerned over whether these bidders would face difficulties in financing the deal.
Temasek declined yesterday to comment on the talk and also declined to provide the names of the shortlisted bidders.
The sale of the three gencos is aimed at liberalising the power generation industry. Private ownership can trigger stronger competition, possibly leading to lower costs and lower electricity prices.
The acquisition of PowerSeraya is not YTL Power's first foray into Singapore-based assets.
Its parent company, YTL Corp, owns majority stakes in two Sentosa Cove projects. In November last year, the group made history here by paying $2,525 per sq ft per plot ratio for Westwood Apartments in Orchard Boulevard - the most expensive site to be sold collectively.
YTL Power managing director Francis Yeoh said the 3,100MW of licensed capacity operated by PowerSeraya would give YTL Power 'significant participation' in the Singapore energy market.
YTL Power believes its participation in Singapore's electricity market will put it in a prime position to contribute towards the liberalisation of the Malaysian electricity market.
The lights are back on
Energy provider goesto Malaysian-listed giant
Marissa Chew, Today Online 3 Dec 08;
JUST a week after saying it was shelving the sale of PowerSeraya, Temasek Holdings said yesterday it was selling the electricity: generation company to Malaysia-listed YTL Power International.
YTL Power agreed to pay $3.8 billion for PowerSeraya, which accounts for about a quarter of Singapore’s generation capacity. YTL Power will pay $3.6 billion in cash and assume net debt of $200 million.
The Malaysian company said DBS Bank is providing $2.25 billion of credit facilities to help finance the purchase.
Temasek launched the sale of :PowerSeraya in early October, despite the spreading gloom in financial markets, saying it had attracted strong interest from potential bidders.
:However, the Singapore investment company last week unexpectedly halted the sale of PowerSeraya, citing market conditions.
Observers at that time said the relatively poor investor interest and low indicative bids led to the decision. :YTL Power is understood to have been one of the contenders for PowerSeraya in the first round of the sales process, along with Hong Kong’s CLP.
Yesterday, Temasek’s director, investment, Ms Gwendel Tung said: “After we stopped the tender process last week, YTL Power International put forward an unsolicited proposal which met our requirements.”
:With the latest sale, Temasek completes the divestment of its three power generation assets, which it announced in July 2007. All three were sold to foreign interests this year, with Tuas Power going to China Huaneng Group for $4.2 billion, and Senoko Power picked up by a consortium of Japanese and French companies for $4 billion.
If YTL Power shareholders approve, the deal will be completed on Feb 28.
“The 3,100 megawatts of licensed capacity operated by PowerSeraya will give us significant participation in the Singapore energy market,” said YTL Power managing director Dr Francis Yeoh.
For YTL Corp, the parent of YTL Power, PowerSeraya is the second major acquisition in Singapore in just over a month. YTL Corp on Oct 28 bought the Macquarie Group’s stake in Singapore-listed Macquarie Prime Reit, which owns stakes in the Wisma Atria and Ngee Ann City malls, for $285 million.
Apart from power generation, Power-Seraya :also operates oil trading and multi-utility businesses, and offers retail energy services. The company had revenue of:$2.79 billion and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $355 million for the year ended March 31, 2008.
YTL ups the ante to clinch PowerSeraya
Deal comes just a week after Temasek stopped tender for the genco
Conrad Tan, Business Times 3 Dec 08;
(SINGAPORE) In a stunning about-turn, Temasek Holdings has sold electricity generating firm PowerSeraya to Malaysia's YTL Power International for $3.8 billion just a week after it postponed the sale indefinitely due to poor market conditions.
YTL Power will pay Singapore investment company Temasek $3.6 billion and assume $201 million of PowerSeraya's net debt.
'After we stopped the tender process last week, YTL Power put forward an unsolicited proposal which met our requirements. We are pleased with the successful outcome of the PowerSeraya divestment,' Gwendel Tung, director of investment at Temasek, said in a statement.
Francis Yeoh, managing director of YTL Power as well as its parent company YTL Corp - both listed on Bursa Malaysia - said that he was 'delighted' to acquire PowerSeraya, which will give YTL Power 'significant participation in the Singapore energy market'.
Sources told BT that Mr Yeoh flew to Singapore with other senior YTL Power executives to meet Temasek representatives. Over the past two days, they rapidly hammered out a deal.
Just last week, on Nov 25, Temasek said that it had stopped the tender process for the sale of PowerSeraya that it had started on Oct 7.
'In light of the market conditions, we have decided not to proceed further,' Ms Tung said in a statement at the time.
YTL Power had been one of two shortlisted bidders; the other was a consortium led by Hong Kong's CLP Group.
DBS Bank is providing $2.25 billion of credit facilities to YTL Power to fund part of the purchase.
PowerSeraya is the last of three power generating companies that Temasek put up for sale under its planned divestment of the gencos, first announced in July last year.
The first, Tuas Power, was sold to China Huaneng Group for $4.24 billion in March, while Senoko Power was bought by a consortium led by Japan's Marubeni Corp for $3.97 billion in September.
With a registered generating capacity of 2,940 megawatts (MW) and a licensed capacity of 3,100MW, PowerSeraya is the second largest genco here after the 3,300MW Senoko Power, providing about 27 per cent of Singapore's electricity needs.
The deal is subject to the approval of YTL Power's shareholders. If approved, the acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of February next year.
For the financial year ended March 31, 2008, PowerSeraya reported revenues of $2.79 billion and net income of $218 million.
Its net debt at the end of March was $201 million, after adjusting for a $100 million dividend paid to Temasek in September this year.
Wong Kim Yin, managing director of investment at Temasek, said that, with the sale of PowerSeraya, 'Temasek would have fulfilled its commitment to help develop a competitive power generation market in Singapore'.
Mr Yeoh, 54, one of the most powerful businessmen in Malaysia, has been busy deploying the YTL group's war chest of more than RM11 billion (S$4.6 billion) in cash to buy overseas assets on the cheap.
In October, the group bought Macquarie Group's entire interest in Singapore-listed Macquarie Prime Reit at a sharp discount to the property trust's net asset value, in an all-cash deal worth $285 million.
Temasek sells power firm to Malaysia YTL for $2.5bln
Kevin Lim, Reuters 2 Dec 08;
SINGAPORE, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL] said on Tuesday it had sold electricity generator PowerSeraya to a subsidiary of Malaysia's YTL Power International Bhd (YTLP.KL: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) for S$3.8 billion ($2.5 billion).
Temasek said Sabre Energy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of YTL, will pay S$3.6 billion and will assume S$201 million of PowerSeraya's adjusted net debt as of March 31, 2008.
YTL said it would fund the acquisition through a combination of cash reserves and a loan, and said the acquisition would add 76 million ringgit ($20 million) to its full year 2010 post-tax profit. It saw the acquisition being completed in the third quarter of 2009.
The deal came despite Temasek saying just a week ago that it had postponed the sale of PowerSeraya, the last of three power firms it is selling to liberalise Singapore's electricity market, amid market turmoil that has dampened deal-making globally.
"After we stopped the tender process last week, YTL Power International put forward an unsolicited bid which met our requirements," said Gwendel Tung, director of investment at Temasek, in a statement.
Temasek also raised S$334.5 million on Tuesday from the sale of its 70 percent stake in Singapore Food Industries (SFIL.SI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).
Asian sovereign wealth funds such as Temasek may invest their growing cash piles to shore up markets close to home as their risky bets in Western banks show few signs of paying off and as emerging economies look to avoid the damaging effects of the financial crisis, analysts said. [ID:nSIN287928].
Temasek sold the other two power generators earlier this year for a total of S$7.9 billion. For a Factbox on Temasek see [ID:nSP132652].
PowerSeraya's plant has a capacity of 3,100 megawatts (MW) and provides about 28 percent of the city-state's electricity. Its capacity will rise to 3,900 MW by 2010 as it is in the process of building an 800 MW capacity natural gas-fired plant.
"Its attraction lies both in its strong position in the energy market and its complementary multi-utility business -- the acquisition of PowerSeraya will help us grow our utility business in the region," said Francis Yeoh, managing director of YTL Power.
Bahrain's Arcapita and a consortium led by Hong Kong's CLP (0002.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) had been named as other potential bidders for PowerSeraya, according to media reports.
Analysts had expected the deal to be postponed because of higher borrowing costs for companies and expectations of weaker power demand from Singapore, which slipped into a recession in the third quarter.
Malaysia supplies natural gas to its neighbour Singapore. The two countries briefly merged in the 1960s and have since often bickered over issues from land reclamation to airspace.
Temasek sold generator Senoko Power to a consortium led by Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp (8002.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) for $2.5 billion in early September, while Tuas Power was sold to Chinese power firm Huaneng Group for $3 billion in March. (Additional reporting by Julie Goh in Kuala Lumpur; Writing by Neil Chatterjee; Editing by Mike Nesbit)
David Hughes, Business Times 3 Dec 08;
As an awful lot of containers are filled with rubbish, a report details how much trouble recyclable waste can cause
A COUPLE of publications coming to my attention this week have underlined how different a business liner shipping has become. The first was the British seafarers' union Nautilus UK's journal. Towards the back, there was a picture of a model of the Clan Line general cargo ship Clan Shaw and a write-up of its rather short service life, ending up under a different name on the rocks off Cape Town 16 years after being built.
Now it so happens that the Clan Shaw was an identical sister ship of my first ship as a cadet. Consequently, I took a particular interest in the article and especially the bit on how many crew we used to carry on those ships - the total complement was somewhere over 80. And then I looked at her tonnage - 8,700 gross registered tonnes, perhaps with a lifting capacity of around 14,000 tonnes.
We used to trundle around the European coast taking weeks, sometimes literally months, loading a full cargo before sailing to Africa to discharge and load again in equally leisurely manner.
Of course, it immediately struck home just how far we have come since the Clan Shaw and her ilk.
The Clan Shaw was big and powerful for her day so the fair comparison would be with an 8,000-TEU or 10,000-TEU container ship operating today.
And a modern container ship requires only a fraction of the time in port required by the old conventional cargo ships.
Then I saw a press release about the latest publication from the mutual liability insurer the UK P&I Club. The Perils of Waste Shipments in Freight Containers highlights the problems and summarises the legislative framework surrounding this trade. The club notes, 'There is plenty which can go wrong.'
One passage I found especially interesting. Apparently a vessel loading in the UK for China may carry recyclable waste in up to 65 per cent of its loaded containers.
The new UK Club manual goes into great detail about how much trouble 'recyclable' waste can cause. Partly this because the term is often really a misdeclaration of hazardous rubbish.
The club notes that containers carrying waste shipments can suffer structural damage due to improper stowage practices at the loadout point or become unusable due to tainting from a particular cargo's malodorous properties. Ports may turn down cargoes of contaminated green waste.
Unbalanced loads may cause vehicles to roll over during road transportation.
Shipments may be rejected at the port of discharge due to incorrect or incomplete documentation. Shippers and receivers may fail to take timely and appropriate measures to mitigate problems arising from incidents and may even abandon waste cargo, leaving the container operator to arrange disposal or return the cargo expensively to origin.
The club says that many countries receive hazardous waste as a welcome source of business, with at least 8.5 million tonnes shipped internationally each year. The trans-boundary movements of various wastes and their volumes have increased significantly over the last decade, with recycling the primary spur. Certain types of waste have become more valuable to export, such as electrical and electronic equipment, which is very expensive to recycle or treat in Western Europe.
The main international legislation governing the carriage of waste in containers is the Basel Convention. Negotiated under the United Nations Environment Programme, it was adopted in 1989 and came into force in 1992. It was originally designed to address the uncontrolled movement and dumping of hazardous wastes, including incidents of illegal dumping in developing nations by developed world parties. Among the 170 member countries, Afghanistan, Haiti and the United States have signed but not ratified it.
The Convention regulates the movement across international frontiers of hazardous and other wastes. These include paper, paperboard and paper product wastes, plastic, mixed plastic materials and metal or alloy electrical and electronic assemblies.
Written consent has to be obtained from the states of export, import and transit. The Convention obliges its parties to ensure that hazardous and other wastes are managed and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. Parties are expected to minimise the generation of waste and the quantities moved across borders, and to treat and dispose of it as close as possible to the place of generation.
Nevertheless, it is clear from the UK Club's new publication that an awful lot of containers hauled around the world on these ultra large, ultra expensive container ships are literally filled with rubbish, and quite often dangerous misdeclared rubbish at that.
So this all makes me wonder just how much progress we have made since the days of the Clan Shaw. She was apparently hopelessly inefficient, but in those days we made good profits for her owner and carried useful goods across the oceans. Can we say the same today?
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 3 Dec 08;
WE'VE heard it time and again. It's important to recycle. It's important to prevent mosquitoes from breeding.
But students might not heed the messages because of other distractions.
Now there's a new way to spread such important messages, through board games designed by students who took part in a competition organised by the National Environment Agency (NEA).
The winning entry for the secondary school category is Mozzie Buster, which was invented by 10 Secondary 3 students from Maris Stella High School. They won $1,000.
The game, which can be played by up to six people, revolves around using various weapons to fight mosquitoes in different locations represented on a map of Singapore.
The game locations have different prize values simulating the risk levels of the actual locations.
The areas that allow players to score the most points are the areas where dengue is known to be more prevalent.
One of the Maris Stella group members, Choy Bing Han, 15, said: 'The most fun part about designing the game is learning how to prevent mosquito breeding. We all can do our part in preventing dengue.'
Between May and July, the team met after school and during school holidays for up to three hours a week to work on the game.
They found out about the competition from their geography teacher.
Augustine Koh, 15, said the team got ideas from other games by going to a board games exhibition.
'The most difficult part was at the start when we had a lot of ideas but many of those didn't work,' he said.
For example, they wanted to use small mosquito figurines in the game but these were hard to make from recycled materials.
One of the criteria of the competition was that the game prototype submitted had to be made from recycled materials.
As part of the contest, NEA engaged Melchiz Pte Ltd, a training company which uses games as a medium, to provide three training sessions for the participants.
Bing Han said: 'They gave us ideas on how to make a successful game. For example, the objective must be clear and educational.'
One of the teachers supervising the team, Mr Low Tung Mun, 36, said: 'It was an interesting challenge - the process was quite meaningful. Not only was it fun but it teaches some important lessons on how to control dengue in Singapore.
'We didn't realise there are so many ways to fight dengue, such as breeding dragonflies that eat mosquito larvae. After research, we found a lot of basic stuff which can be done on a daily basis, like checking to make sure that plastic containers left outdoors are overturned so that they don't collect rain water.'
Mozzie-busting methods
So what examples of mozzie-busting methods will the boys be practising at home?
Bing Han said: 'Removing the flower pot plates, covering the toilet bowl when going on holiday. My family was already doing this but the message got reinforced after the board-game design experience.'
The winning team for the tertiary institution category was from ITE College Central (Tampines) who invented a game called Recycling Coaster.
Student Chua Boon Siah, 18, said: 'It's similar to Snakes and Ladders but there's the added objective of getting as many tokens as possible before reaching the end.
'Also, you can sabotage other players and switch places with them.'
Team-mate Leonard Cheng, 18, said he started using both sides of paper after joining the contest. He found out about it through posters on campus.
His teacher, Madam Fauziah Abdul Aziz, 52, said: 'We are now more conscious of the environmental message. It was also good to discover talent in the students. For example, all the illustrations in the game were hand-drawn. They were really impressive.'
Like the Maris Stella team, the ITE team also won $1,000. They also won another $300 for having the best illustrations.
NEA has produced 100 sets of the board games with plans to work closely with the South East Community Development Council to distribute the games to schools in the south-east district.
Mr Ng Meng Hiong, deputy director of the 3P (people, public and private sectors) partnership department of NEA, said: 'It's part of our outreach programme to the youths, engaging them in an interactive and fun way through games so that the message of environmental responsibility and ownership can be sustained.'
Joanna Benn, BBC Green Room 2 Dec 08;
How responsible is it to have children in a world whose environmental health is already under stress? That's the question Joanna Benn poses this week in the Green Room. On the other hand, she wonders, will a couple more hungry mouths make much difference?
I came out of my house last week and got caught up in a fleet of mothers and prams.
They were wearing a middle class yummy mummy uniform combining comfort and fashion - skinny jeans, UGG boots, black tops and large sunglasses.
The prams were all state-of-the-art three wheeled, balanced, air-bagged mini cars that can fold to the size of a postage stamp and carry the week's shopping.
The urban mother tribe looked chic, proud and collectively cool.
It got me thinking. I love kids, I love babies.
I love the idea of the Brady Bunch, of close-knit large families and a stream of brothers and sisters of different heights with crazy hair.
However, perhaps it's my age; suddenly everyone I know has children and it is confusing me.
I don't even know when it all happened. I remember conversations about university, jobs, flats, boyfriends and partners, but I seem to have missed the pre-baby musings.
One minute people were childless - or child-free, depending on your viewpoint.
The next - magic wand, small bang, plume of smoke - it was insta-family, complete with new people-carrier in the drive and more often than not, a house extension.
Two weeks ago, a single childless friend confessed she'd been looking into freezing her eggs. That apparently is not a taboo subject.
Nor are conversations about contraception, fertility patterns, mastitis, post-partum depression and sex, child behaviour problems, sleepless nights, credit crunch worries or redundancy.
However, dare ask how green is it to have kids in a world of dwindling resources, vast global inequality, terrifying climate change scenarios and dying empty seas... then people get uncomfortable and usually defensive.
Ugly truths
I have couched the question a few times: "Why did you want children?"
The answers have usually been - "It seemed the next thing to do, we wanted to, it felt right, I couldn't imagine not..."
Push again - "Have you thought about what kind of world you are bringing them into to? Some climate change scenarios give us a 10 to 15 year window before things get very ugly and scary indeed."
Resounding silence.
Being an environmentalist is, quite frankly, an awkward thing.
When I see babies, not only do I see the beauty, joy and miracle of life, I also see nappies, landfill waste, vast amounts of food and money needed, and a very shaky, unpredictable future.
According to United Nations projections, the world population will nearly stabilise at just above 10 billion people after 2200.
That's a lot of people on one small planet.
When we talk about the environment and available natural resources, we bandy around statistics; yet none of it seems to be about me or you or that guy that everyone talked about during the US election campaign, Joe the Plumber.
Mood swings
Ask any environmental organisation what it thinks about birth control; it'll sidestep the issue, and say it's not their place to comment.
If a commentator says there are too many people on the planet, their words smack of authoritarian dictatorships and human rights violations, and echo traces of unpalatable eugenics.
However, the reality is that every time we eat, switch on a light, get in a car, drink a beer, go on holiday or buy something to wear or use, we are adding to our environmental footprint.
Toddlers - small beings that they are - require almost unlimited nappies, a fair amount of food, and apparently a loungeful of loud, battery-powered plastic toys.
I am not saying we shouldn't have kids. They may well be the leaders of tomorrow, steering humanity into a just, equitable, fair and healthy future.
The new generation may indeed succeed where all others have failed, and learn lessons of the past.
Perhaps it's just my mood.
Or perhaps it's the media's fault that some of us feel as if humanity is sliding from one patch of melting ice to another in a murky sea of financial, environmental and social woes.
I am curious to know if I am the only 30-something woman who has these dilemmas, worrying about the planet's future and what we could and should do to ease the strain.
Am I fretting needlessly? Because in the grand scheme of things, one or two more children in the world really make no difference, do they?
And as for the future - rising sea levels, bare former forests, desertification, empty seas and a few dollar bills floating in the wind - well that'll all take care of itself.
Won't it?
Joanna Benn is a journalist, writer and consultant specialising in environmental issues
The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website
Tens of Thousands of Florida Jobs Threatened by Environmental Damage to Corals
Yubanet.com 1 Dec 08;
(Sarasota, Florida - December 1, 2008) A comprehensive new analysis of business generated by Florida's coral reefs warns that more than 70,000 jobs and more than $5.5 billion in economic activity in the state are in grave jeopardy from climate change.
"A business-as-usual approach to climate change could mean a lot less business for Florida," said Jerry Karnas, Florida project director at Environmental Defense Fund, which commissioned the report, Corals and Climate Change: Florida's Natural Treasures at Risk.
Florida boasts the only shallow-water coral reefs in the continental United States - and those reefs are a centerpiece of South Florida's economy. Like coral reefs worldwide, Florida's are under siege from a range of environmental challenges that could lead to huge economic losses in the state.
The groupers, snappers, jacks, angelfish, and spiny lobsters that thrive on coral reefs make Florida a destination for millions of fishermen every year and back up Florida's claim to be the Fishing Capital of the World. On the commercial side, catches of reef-associated species in South Florida account for $158 million in annual sales.
Terry Gibson, the Fishing Editor of Outdoor Life magazine and a co-author of the report with University of Miami Professor Hal Wanless, noted that "from scuba diving in the Keys to charter fishing boats in Miami-Dade to commercial fishing in Martin County, reef-related sales amount to more than $5.5 billion each year."
But climate change driven by unchecked greenhouse gas emissions is stressing coral reefs and putting the Florida economy at risk. According to Wanless, "a central culprit in the decline of coral reefs is unchecked emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, largely from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil."
New research by Florida scientists is providing surprising new insights into how CO2 and other greenhouse gases hurt coral reefs. First, global warming leads to warmer oceans – which cause harmful coral "bleaching" and make corals more vulnerable to diseases – as is now visible on many of Florida's coral reefs. As the report describes, innovative research by Dr. Kimberly Ritchie of the MOTE Marine Lab in Sarasota helps explain why: during times of warmer ocean water, corals lose their ability to use natural antibiotics to protect themselves from disease.
Research by another Florida scientist, Professor Andrew Langdon of the University of Miami, shows another way in which greenhouse gases harm coral reefs: as oceans absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, they become more acidic, which stunts coral growth and impairs reproduction.
EDF's Karnas said quick federal action to limit greenhouse gas emissions can help protect Florida's reefs and the state's economy. "We need Congress to cap global warming pollution. This report shows that doing nothing is the worst option for Florida's economy."
To see the full report, please visit edf.org/floridacorals.
BBC News 2 Dec 08;
Measuring up to 6m long, with elongated narrow snouts, gharials are one of the world's most distinctive-looking crocodilians.
Just 100 years ago, these fish-eating reptiles were prevalent throughout the Indian subcontinent; but by 2007, there were just 200 breeding adults found in only a handful of rivers in India and Nepal.
Last winter, this already critically endangered species was dealt another cruel blow. Over the space of just five months, more than 100 of the creatures washed up dead on the banks of India's Chambal river - and nobody knew why.
For the past year, herpetologist Rom Whitaker, who runs the Madras Crocodile Bank, has been followed by a BBC Natural World team as he attempted to solve this mystery.
Here, he explains how scientists may finally be on the verge of finding some answers.
It's been a bit like a long drawn out Agatha Christie mystery. Everything we hear about just throws up more questions.
Why is it just a particular 40km stretch of the river that is being affected, and the deaths all occurred over winter?
Why is it that only one particular size class - the medium sized ones - is dying?
And why is it that only one fish-eating animal is being affected?
Death by gout
We started to speculate that it had to be something in the food chain.
Autopsies have told us the deaths were caused by gout, which more or less indicates kidney failure - and this points to the build up of toxins.
The river that they live in - the Chambal - is one of the cleanest rivers in India. But this flows into another river called the Yamuna, which is a big huge toxic mess.
We think the gharial are moving into the Yamuna and feeding on fish that have big toxic loads.
Then it is likely that they are coming back to the Chambal, having brought with them all this fish they have gorged upon, and this bioaccumulation of toxin is then affecting them.
We believe that the die-off happened in winter because when it is cold, the animals are unable to metabolise anything in their system - they sort of shut down.
This will take a toll on weak, injured or sick animals. And in this case, if they had damaged kidneys, and the kidneys were trying to excrete the uric acid but were unable to, then the uric acid would have spread to the body, causing gout.
Ecologist Jeff Lang was able to fill us in on another piece of the puzzle concerning the size of the animals that were dying.
The little crocodilians can bask in what little sunshine is available in the winter, and because they are small they heat up very fast. Even if they have eaten polluted fish, they would be able to metabolise it very fast - in other words, get rid of it as quickly as they consume it.
The very large animals are at a stage of their life where they are not gorging on fish as they have no great incentive to grow fast. They are more likely to be concentrating on patrolling their territory than on feeding.
It is the medium-sized class that are dying - these are feeding on a lot of fish as they want to grow quickly. And in the case of the adult females, they need extra energy for egg production at this time of the year.
But being larger, it takes them a heck of a long time to warm up, and we think that they never do warm up enough to aid digestion and metabolise out the toxins.
'Educated speculation'
But why aren't other fish-eating animals affected?
If you are talking about river dolphins, cormorants, otters and pelicans - these are all warm-blooded, and they are eating and expelling waste as fast as they can.
So this accumulation may take place, but it isn't happening fast enough to kill them - at least not yet. And of course, there is the sinister possibility that people who eat the fish may also be affected.
The other species of crocodile that's there is the mugger crocodile.
And this animal is not a specialist like the gharial.
Gharials only eat fish, but these muggers eat anything that moves. So we surmise they are not getting the same kind of accumulation of nasty fish in their systems.
This is all speculation - but it is educated speculation. The pieces of the puzzle are beginning to all come together. But it is not enough to just find out what happened.
If they are going to clean up the Yamuna river, we are talking probably about another long decade of really hard work - and there is a chance that a die off could happen again before that.
The Chambal population is the most important last repository of gharial. So it seems that a critically endangered species with this one last bastion left is in real real trouble.
But the problem goes much wider.
The gharial could be the canary in the coalmine. They are telling us something very important - that our rivers are dying, and that could mean us dying next.
Crocodile Blues is on BBC2 on Tuesday 2 December at 2000GMT as part of the Natural World strand
Michael Perry, PlanetArk 3 Dec 08;
SYDNEY - It seems a bad back might be the only thing that can stop the relentless spread of Australia's poisonous cane toads, which are killing native animals as they hop across the nation, researchers say.
Australia's army couldn't stop the cane toads, which number around 200 million. Residents swinging golf clubs failed and so did a campaign to freeze them to death in refrigerators.
But now an Australian scientist says evolution has seen the biggest and fastest cane toads interbreed, resulting in arthritis and bad backs which could slow them down.
"Cane toads moving across Australia are the fastest amphibians on Earth after their rapid evolution from slow-moving homebodies into road warriors over the past 70 years," Rick Shine at Sydney University said in a statement received on Tuesday.
Thousands of cane toads moving in a front across tropical eastern Queensland state can travel 10 metres (30 feet) overnight, researchers say.
Those at the front of the invasion near the Western Australian state border can cover one km on a wet night -- 10 times the distance.
"Toads that run at the front of the pack are becoming bigger and faster. They have different personalities, different shapes and are developing different physiologies," said Shine.
The bigger, faster toads produce babies with bigger front legs and longer backs and consequently suffer arthritis.
"We are seeing toads in the Northern Territory with spinal arthritis -- big, bony lumps on their spine," said Shine.
Cane toads are one of Australia's worst environmental mistakes, ranking alongside the catastrophic introduction of rabbits.
The toads, introduced in a batch of 101 from Hawaii in 1935 in a failed bid to control native cane beetles, have spread 3,000 km (1,900 miles) from northeast Queensland to Darwin in Australia's tropical north.
The spread of the toads, whose skin is poisonous, has led to dramatic declines in populations of native snakes, goanna lizards and quolls, a cat-sized marsupial.
(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Paul Tait)
Raymond Colitt and Stuart Grudgings, Yahoo News 3 Dec 08;
BRASILIA/RIO DE JANEIRO - With its bold pledge to halve the rate of Amazon deforestation, Brazil wants to boost its international environmental credentials. But it may lack the conviction and resources to reach its goal.
The plan, announced Monday ahead of a major United Nations climate conference in Poland, is the first time Brazil has adopted a target for deforestation after years of putting the onus on rich nations to help stop global warming.
Environmentalists stress that is an important step forward from a few years ago when Brazil would barely discuss Amazon deforestation with other countries.
But while the target of halving the current rate of destruction by 2018 looks good on paper, critics say the plan lacks details and contains ambiguous language that gives the government leeway to miss the targets.
As well as strong commitment from a government that has often been reluctant to take on farming and development interests, success appears to depend on continued foreign donations to a fund that far has only received pledges from Norway.
"It's important that they have an actual goal, but it's going to come down as always to whether there's sustained political will," said Tom Lovejoy, biodiversity chair at the Heinz Center for science and the environment in Washington.
It is unclear whether President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former union leader often more concerned with jobs than trees, will put up the political capital the plan needs as he faces growing fallout from the global financial crisis.
Under the plan, which calls for a reduction in deforestation to an annual 2,260 square miles by 2018, Lula is not obliged to make any deforestation cuts in his two remaining years in office.
"They are setting targets for the next government. I'm not sure how convinced Lula is of this," said Rubens Born, executive director with Vitae Civilis, a group defending the environment and peace.
"SCHIZOPHRENIC"
Environmentalists are increasingly worried about a "tipping point" that could have a drastic impact on the regional climate and agriculture. It refers to a time when the forest's own destruction disrupts the cycle of rainfall and triggers irreversible desertification.
"Ten years is a long time out there and a lot of deforestation will have occurred by then and I really do worry about thresholds being passed," Lovejoy said.
Alarmed by a spike in deforestation last year, Brazil has made some progress in cracking down on illegal loggers, launching several high-profile operations this year to confiscate timber, beef and soy from illegally cleared areas.
It also cut credits to proprietors without proper land titles, increasingly uses satellite surveillance technology and plans to create a 3,000-strong environmental police force.
Still, the vastness of the Amazon means that enforcement is only part of the solution. Environmentalists say the only long-term option is to change the economics of deforestation by encouraging sustainable industries such as latex and nuts.
The government's plan calls for a massive increase in planting sugarcane and other biofuel crops, which critics say push farmers and ranchers deeper into the Amazon.
It also calls for more hydroelectric plants, which have attracted settlers and land speculators.
"The Brazilian government is schizophrenic. It wants conservation but then promotes such projects," said Claudio Maretti, head of regional conservation programs at WWF-Brasil.
The plan's financing is also uncertain, depending on the "availability" of domestic and international funds, according to the official document.
Norway this year pledged $1 billion over seven years to a new Amazon Fund aimed at improving conservation and alternative economic activities, provided Brazil reduces deforestation.
"It is absurd. Brazil should be interested in reducing deforestation with or without external funds," said Maretti.
(Editing by Todd Benson and Cynthia Osterman)
Brazil falls short with forest emission reduction ambitions
WWF 3 Dec 08;
Brasilia, Brail: Brazil's revised National Climate Change Plan, which for the first time defines goals for reducing massive emissions from deforestation in the Amazon, is commendable but still short on ambition and detail, WWF-Brazil said today.
The revised plan was released to coincide with the Conference of Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Poznan, Poland which is to put key processes in place to achieve an international climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol by the next COP meeting in Copenhagen in December next year.
Under the revised plan, the Brazilian government establishes a goal of reducing the annual rate of deforestation by 40 per cent from average 1996-2005 levels during 2006-09, with reductions of a further 30 per cent in each of the subsequent four-year periods. The aim is to achieve a total decrease of over 70% by 2014-2017.
Achieving these goals would avoid 4.8 billion tons of CO2 emissions during 2006-2017, a figure greater than the annual emissions of the European Union.
“This goal is reasonably ambitious,” says Carlos Alberto de Mattos Scaramuzza, Conservation Director at WWF-Brazil. “To achieve it, next year deforestation will have to drop 23% in relation to this year.”
In Brazil, land use and land use change represent 75% of greenhouse gas emissions, the vast majority originating from deforestation in the Amazon region. Hence reducing deforestation in the Amazon is a critical component of any strategy aimed at lowering Brazil´s greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the scenario defined in the plan, the average area of Amazon forest cleared each year would be 5,742 km2 by 2014-17.
“That´s bigger than the US state of Rhode Island,” says Scaramuzza. “The CO2 released from clearing this area of Amazon forest would be roughly equivalent to the current annual emissions of Canada.”
Together with eight other environmental NGOs, WWF-Brazil has proposed zero deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by 2015. According to Scaramuzza: “This goal is achievable if key actors—ranging from indigenous peoples to ranchers—are compensated for conserving the forest and thereby avoiding deforestation.”
In August the government of Norway pledged US$1 billion toward a newly established Amazon Fund. This voluntary contribution complements the ongoing climate negotiations, which are contemplating payments for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). Yet environmental NGOs such as WWF-Brazil have expressed concerns about the effectiveness of the Amazon Fund.
“This fund appears to be geared primarily to supporting government command-and-control programmes,” says WWF-Brazil’s CEO Denise Hamú. “To achieve more ambitious reductions in deforestation, it will be effective mechanisms to compensate the key actors on the ground who determine the fate of the forest.”
As part of its long-term conservation strategy for the Amazon, WWF-Brazil supports a wide range of initiatives aimed at protecting natural ecosystems and managing natural resources.
WWF-Brazil assists the Brazilian government´s ambitious Amazon Protected Area (ARPA) programme, which aims to consolidate a total of 600,000 km2 in new and existing protected areas in the region by 2012. A recent study found that the protected areas established or planned for establishment in 2008 under the program would result in a total reduction of 5.1 gigatons of CO2 emissions by 2050, which is roughly equivalent to 14% of global CO2e emissions per year, or 70% of the emissions targeted for reduction under the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com 2 Dec 08;
A new report finds that the World Bank is not doing enough to protect indigenous rights under its mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).
The report — titled "Cutting Corners: World Bank's forest and carbon fund fails forests and peoples" — was issued by the Forests and the European Union Resource Network (FERN) and the Forest Peoples Program (FPP) at the start of UN climate negotiations in Poznan, Poland.
"Cutting Corners" alleges that the Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) — which provides seed funding for REDD projects — has rushed its review process and is failing to follow its own rules set to protect indigenous people and forest communities. Such groups fear that without a proper framework, REDD could be used by governments and carbon traders to force forest people off their lands.
"In this flawed process forest communities have not been properly consulted. As a result, donors could be complicit in a new global drive reinforcing old top-down policies that will only lead to more forest destruction," said Saskia Ozinga, Coordinator of FERN. "We have seen from the EU's FLEGT process, which aims to control illegal logging, that a proper consultation process will take years, but trying to shortcut consultations will just lead to long-term failure."
"If measures to respect the rights of forest peoples are at the heart of efforts to combat deforestation, then forest and climate policies could do some good," added Tom Griffiths, Coordinator of the Forest Peoples Program's Responsible Finance Program. "It is alarming that the early government plans, approved by the World Bank, are simply business as usual. None of these REDD plans deal with the critical issues of governance, human rights, land tenure reforms and Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
"To attain sustainable forest and climate initiatives, forest peoples must be fully consulted about their design. International donors must also ensure that human rights and forest sector reforms are guaranteed before any international funding is released to developing countries for their national actions on forest and climate issues."
"Cutting Corners" comes shortly after Friends of the Earth International (FOE), an environmental activist group, announced its opposition to REDD via a report titled "REDD Myths". At the UNFCCC talks in Poznan, FOE says it will oppose attempts to include forests in carbon markets.
"During the climate talks, we will be demanding that forests are kept out of carbon markets, that plantations are entirely excluded and land rights are enforced as the basis of any forest policy," said Joseph Zacune, Climate and Energy Coordinator with FOE. "If governments are serious about tackling climate change, deforestation must be stopped once and for all. To do this we need to tackle the consumption of agrofuels, meat and timber products which is driving deforestation and support good governance of forest resources."
Other analysts say REDD — in a form that recognizes rural peoples' rights — offers the best hope for preserving forests in the future while simultaneously fighting global warming.
"REDD can benefit biodiversity conservation as well as indigenous and rural peoples," wrote Daniel Nepstad, Stephan Schwartzman, and Paulo Moutinho in a report published last year. "To succeed, national REDD programs must be consistent with UNFCCC and other UN principles, be transparent and have the active involvement of indigenous peoples and forest communities."
"Rejecting REDD will not defend indigenous rights. Substituting official aid from developed countries for carbon market funding will not be a better, less risky alternative for reducing deforestation. Indigenous rights abuses, often caused by the same activities that drive deforestation, must be addressed directly."
Yahoo News 3 Dec 08;
OTTAWA (AFP) – Extraction and refining of heavy oil from Canada's oil sands threatens to kill as many as 166 million migratory birds over the next 30 to 50 years, according to a report released Tuesday.
"The public needs to understand the real and long-term ecological costs of this development and determine if this is acceptable," said lead author Jeff Wells of the Boreal Songbird Initiative.
The Boreal forest in Canada's Alberta province, part of which is being mined or considered for future development, is a "globally important destination" for millions of birds as a nesting area and breeding habitat, especially for an array of wetland-dependent birds, the report said.
Each year an estimated 22-170 million birds breed in the area of the forest being mined or pegged for development
Such activity causes significant habitat loss and fragmentation, said the report. Toxic tailing ponds already result in 8,000 to 100,000 oiled and drowned birds annually.
The mortality numbers are also elevated with the decrease in air and water quality from tar sands development, as contaminants and toxins are released through the refining process.
"The loss of as many as 166 million birds is a wholly unacceptable price to pay for America's addiction to oil," commented Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Birds tell us so much about what is going on in the environment around us. This report makes it very clear that they are telling us it is time for a change in American energy policy," she said.
"There are better energy options available in North America that do not foul our air, poison our waters, or kill our backyard birds."
Canada Oil Sands Threaten Millions Of Birds - Study
Scott Haggett, PlanetArk 3 Dec 08;
CALGARY - A coalition of North American environmental groups says the development of Canada's oil sands region threatens to kill as many as 166 million birds over the next five decades and is calling for a moratorium on new projects in the region.
The coalition's groups, which include the Natural Resources Defence Council, the Boreal Songbirds Initiative and the Pembina Institute, say petroleum-extraction projects in the oil-rich region of northern Alberta are a threat to migratory birds and the boreal forest they rely on.
Their study concluded that development of the oil sands, would be fatal for 6 million to 166 million birds because of habitat loss, shrinking wetlands, accumulation of toxins and other causes.
The solution, the groups say, is to halt new projects in the oil sands and to clean up existing facilities. They are also calling for strengthened regulations to protect Canada's vast boreal, or northern, forest and for Alberta, whose government has backed oil sands developments, to prove the resource can be exploited without serious environmental harm.
"People need to take a hard look at whether this can be mitigated or if tar sands development is just incompatible with conservation of bird habitat," said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defence Council.
The report estimates about half of North America's migratory birds nest in the boreal forest and between 22 million and 170 million birds breed in areas that could be subject to oil sands development.
The oil sands contain the biggest oil reserves outside the Middle East but the crude is expensive and difficult to extract. Mining projects strip large areas of land to access the oil-laden soils below the surface.
While the report has not yet been made public, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which represents the country's big oil firms, said the oil sands industry complies with environmental regulations and dismissed calls for a moratorium.
"We need a balanced conversation, supported like a stool with three legs, environment, economy and energy," David Collyer, the association's president, said in a statement. "Calls for a moratorium that consider only one leg of the stool, in a vacuum, are not constructive."
Developments in the region have been criticized for pumping large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, using too much water and being harmful to wildlife.
Indeed, the death of about 500 ducks earlier this year after they landed on a toxic tailings pond operated by Syncrude Canada Ltd, the biggest oil sands producer, brought international attention to the region.
The environmental groups' forecast is based on a big expansion of oil production from the region. The oil sands currently produce more than 1 million barrels a day, but the report is based on an eventual output of 5 million barrels a day, in line with industry forecasts of production in two decades or more.
(Reporting by Scott Haggett; editing by Rob Wilson)
James Owen, National Geographic News 2 Dec 08;
The race is officially on for a U.S. $15-million-dollar (10-million-Euro) prize for harnessing the power of the oceans.
The winning marine renewable-energy innovation would provide a serious energy alternative to burning fossil fuels, which contribute to global warming.
Details of the Saltire Prize Challenge were announced Tuesday in Edinburgh by Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond.
The award will go to the team that "successfully demonstrates—in Scottish waters—the best commercially viable wave or tidal technology capable of providing electricity to thousands of homes."
The winning team must supply this electricity using only the power of the sea for a continuous two-year period.
(Related: "$20-Million Prize for Renewable Ocean Energy Announced" [April 2, 2008].)
"It is Scotland's energy challenge to the world—a challenge to the brightest and best minds worldwide to unleash their talents and push the frontiers of innovation in green marine energy," Salmond said.
"The Saltire Prize has the potential to unlock Scotland's vast marine energy wealth, putting our nation at the very forefront of the battle against climate change."
The prize, named after the cross of St. Andrew on the Scottish national flag, was inspired by other innovation competitions such as the U.S. $10-million-dollar Ansari X Prize.
That contest led to the first private spacecraft launch in 2004.
"Saudi Arabia of Marine Energy"
Scotland boasts a quarter of Europe's tidal power potential, according to Salmond.
He described the Pentland Firth, a region between Scotland's north coast and the Orkney Islands, as the "Saudi Arabia of renewable marine energy."
Scotland aims to meet 50 percent of its electricity demand from renewable resources by 2020.
There's also huge potential for ocean energy globally, said prize committee member Terry Garcia, executive vice president for mission programs for the National Geographic Society. (National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)
"It's not going to be the sole solution to our energy needs," Garcia said, but "this will be one of the important pieces of the puzzle."
The main purpose of the competition is to act as a catalyst for innovation, Garcia added.
"It's both about making marine energy economically viable and being able to produce it in a sustained way on a large scale," he said.
Wave and Tidal Power
The two major types of marine power are wave and tidal power.
Wave power technology involves floating modules with internal generators, which produce electricity as they twist about on the sea surface.
Tidal power harnesses tidal currents with arrays of underwater turbines similar to those that propel wind farms.
Tidal ranks among the most reliable renewable energies because tides are highly predictable, said AbuBakr Bahaj, head of the University of Southampton's Sustainable Energy Research Group in the U.K.
"But wave energy is driven by wind, which is notoriously difficult to predict," he said.
Even so, wave power may have the higher electricity-generating potential.
In Britain, for instance, it's estimated that wave power could potentially provide 20 percent of the country's total electricity supply, against 5 to 10 percent for tidal power, Bahaj said.
The scientist says the main technical challenge is to create reliable power installations that can operate in difficult marine environments for five to ten years without maintenance.
"You also need to have multiple devices working together at each site," he said.
Scotland Offers 10 Mln Pound Marine Energy Prize
Ian MacKenzie, PlanetArk 3 Dec 08;
EDINBURGH - The Scottish government announced a 10 million pound (US$14.94 million) prize for new wave or tidal power technologies on Tuesday as part of the country's renewable energy drive.
First Minister Alex Salmond announced details of the international "Saltire Prize" at a ceremony in Edinburgh castle.
The prize is intended "to push the frontiers of innovation in clean, green marine renewable energy," he said ahead of the ceremony.
Salmond said Scotland could enjoy a quarter of Europe's total marine power potential and described the turbulent waters off the northern Scottish mainland as "our Saudi Arabia of renewable marine energy."
The prize will be awarded to the team that can demonstrate the best commercially viable wave or tidal energy technology in Scottish waters that produces at least 100 gigawatt hours (GWh) over a two-year period using only the power of the sea.
Scotland's chief scientific adviser and head of the prize committee, Anne Glover, said the competition would open in the summer of 2009 and close by June 2013.
Scotland hopes to get half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
(Editing by Daniel Fineren)
Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 1 Dec 08;
The Facts
The picture that wind power often brings to mind is that of giant turbines on wind farms, which produce megawatts of electricity using rotors up to hundreds of feet in diameter. Small wind power systems, on the other hand, use comparatively petite turbines to support individual homes.
A typical residential wind energy system might be 1 to 10 kilowatts in capacity, with a 10- to 25-foot diameter (3 to 8 meter) rotor mounted on an 80-foot (24-meter) tower, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Turbines as small as 400 watts with rotors just 46 inches (117 cm) in diameter can help power water pumps or run lights and appliances.
Pros
Wind power is free, endless and 100 percent free of pollution and greenhouse gases. The American Wind Energy Association estimates that a small residential wind turbine can offset 1.2 tons of air pollutants over the course of its up-to-20-year life that your utility company would have otherwise generated, as well as 200 tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
For people completely off utility grids, "you have to have wind power," said wind energy expert Paul Gipe in Tehachapi, Calif., who has authored several books on the field. "A hybrid system with both wind and solar power will always be more cost effective and reliable than either wind or solar alone, and will always be cheaper than flying in diesel."
Cons
Most, if not all, rooftop wind turbines "simply don't work," Gipe said. "There is no stupider idea than attempting to harness wind energy by putting a turbine on a rooftop. There's too much turbulence over rooftops for turbines, and the trees and buildings that are often around houses obstruct the wind. A turbine has to be well above a rooftop to do any good, which means mounting it on a very tall tower, and if you're going to have a tower, you might as well have a tower that's mounted on the ground."
A number of small wind turbines are promoted as running at low wind speeds. While this may be true, the American Wind Energy Association's Web site explained, there is very little energy to be harvested at wind speeds less than 9 mph (14 kph).
"There are also claims by some that their wind turbines are silent," Gipe said. "I have seen many silent rooftop wind turbines, and they are silent because they don't work. There are many people who want to participate in renewable energy, and so they may be prey to hustlers overstating fraudulent claims."
Small wind turbines do make some noise, although the American Wind Energy Association contends a typical residential wind system makes less noise than the average washing machine. It also noted the turbines do kill some birds that run into them, although it added that statistically, a single housecat, windowpane or automobile is a much greater threat than a wind turbine.
"There are no panaceas when it comes to renewable energy, no cheap or easy solutions regardless of whether it's wind or solar or something else," Gipe said.
Editor's Note: "The Energy Debates" is a LiveScience series about the pros, cons, policy debates, myths and facts related to various alternative energy ideas. We invite you to join the debate by commenting directly on each article.
Portugal reinforces its reputation as a renewables champion with 120 new windmills
Giles Tremlett, guardian.co.uk 2 Dec 08;
Europe's biggest onshore wind farm plugged itself into the grid today to provide enough electricity for up to a million people in northern Portugal.
A total of 120 windmills are dotted across the highlands of the Upper Minho region of Portugal as one of western Europe's poorer nations continues to forge its reputation as a renewables champion.
"Europe's largest onshore wind farm is now fully operational," a spokeswoman for France's EDF Energies Nouvelles, which co-owns the farm, announced this morning.
The two megawatt turbines on each windmill deliver electricity to a single connection point with the electricity grid and should supply around 1% of Portugal's total energy needs.
A second, smaller wind farm is already functioning nearby, giving a combined output of 650 gigawatt hours per year. "That is above 1% of national consumption," said Nuno Ribeiro da Silva, head of the VentoMinho company that runs the farm.
That would provide enough energy for 300,000 homes, or most of the northern city of Viana do Castelo and its surrounding districts, he told the Publico newspaper.
Portugal's mixture of government enthusiasm, subsidies and special tariffs has turned it into one of the focal points of renewables development in Europe over the past five years.
The world's largest solar photovoltaic farm is being built near the southern town of Moura. The Moura solar farm, which will include a research centre, should be twice the size of any other in the world when it is fully up and running in two years time.
Portugal also recently inaugurated the world's first commercial wave power plant in the Atlantic Ocean off Aguçadoura, using technology developed in Scotland.
The country is heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels and has set a target of obtaining 31% of energy needs from renewables by the year 2020. That is more than twice the UK target. It also uses its subsidies policy to insist that manufacturers of turbines and solar panels set up production plants.
"By 2010 we will have 5,000MW of wind energy installed, meaning we will have increased it tenfold in just five years," economy minister Manuel Pinho said. "This is another step towards putting our country in the vanguard of what is being done with renewable energy."
Portugal, which claims to be one of the world's top five renewable energy countries, provides subsidies of up to 40% for new projects.
The world's largest onshore wind farms are in the United States, with the Horse Hollow farm in Texas providing more than 700MW.
These will soon be dwarfed by proposed offshore wind farms of up to 5,000MW each.
PlanetArk 3 Dec 08;
MILAN - Ocean warming, frequent tropical cyclones, floods and droughts are likely to have a devastating impact on food security in Pacific island countries, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Tuesday.
FAO's report on climate change and food security in the Pacific islands region comes as delegates from 187 countries meet in Poland for UN talks aiming to move closer to a deal on new climate treaty in 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
"Climate projections for the Pacific island countries are bleak and indicate reduced food security, especially for households," Alexander Mueller, FAO's assistant director-general said in a statement accompanying the report.
FAO's joint report with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and the University of the South Pacific is published on its Web site www.fao.org.
Warning about possible "enormous" economic damage to the region's agriculture, fisheries and forestry, Mueller urged the countries to move quickly to adapt these sectors to future climate-related disasters.
"There is a need to act urgently," he said.
A devastating mixture of droughts and floods would bring water stress, more pests and weeds, erosion and loss of soil fertility to the region's agriculture which depends heavily on summer rains, the statement said.
Expected increases in sea water temperature, coastal inundation, salinisation and erosion of soil would cut the size of productive agricultural land and hit fishery, threatening local food security, FAO said.
Fish consumption in Pacific island countries is very high, with an average of 70 kilogram per person per year, and fish exports account for as much as 70 percent of total exports in some countries, the report said.
Pacific island countries which have been relying too heavily on external resources in dealing with climate change should work out their national policies with programmes and budgets for sustainable development, the report said.
It urged nations which have pushed for monoculture crop production for foreign markets to diversify their agriculture.
(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova)
Yahoo News 2 Dec 08;
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – UN officials meeting in the Malaysian capital Tuesday warned Asian countries not to cut funding for disaster preparations, despite the global economic downturn.
Philippine senator Loren Legarda, the UN's newly-appointed "champion" for disaster risk reduction said countries in the region must spend to reduce risks in a natural disaster.
"We are hoping (budgets) will not be affected because disasters will continue to happen, just like 22 typhoons come to the Philippines every year... whether there is a global crisis or not," she told reporters on the sidelines of a two-day UN conference on disaster risk reduction.
"We must make (governments) aware that we are cutting losses by being prepared," she said.
Asia is already home to most of the world's natural disasters -- 75 percent of all people killed last year from calamities attributed to rising sea levels including floods and storms lived in the continent, global charity World Vision said in September.
In May, Cyclone Nargis left about 138,000 people dead or missing when it hit Myanmar, while an earthquake in southwestern China in the same month killed more than 87,000.
An earthquake-triggered tsunami in 2004 killed 168,000 people in Indonesia alone, with tens of thousands more dead in other nations.
Malaysia's deputy premier Najib Razak said his country would set up a regional disaster relief centre in a tie-up with the UN World Food Programme to coordinate humanitarian relief operations in Asia.
The centre will be built in Subang, in central Selangor state north of the capital Kuala Lumpur next year, and will serve as an operations centre to distribute food aid and relief work in disaster-struck nations in the region.
Richard Ingham PlanetArk 2 Dec 08;
POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – The head of the world's top climate scientists says he is stunned at the trillion-dollar cheques that have been signed to ease the banking crisis when funding for poverty and global warming is scrutinised or denied.
In an interview on the sidelines of the UN climate talks here, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said he was both astonished and dismayed at the imbalance.
"It seems very strange, what has happened in the past two or three months," he told AFP.
"It defies any kind of logic, if you look at the type of money that the world has spent on these bailouts, 2.7 trillion dollars (2.13 trillion euros) is the estimate, and it's been done so quickly and without questioning."
Pachauri recalled that when the Millennium Development Goals for attacking poverty and sickness were being drawn up, a panel chaired by Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico, suggested "a fairly modest estimate" of 50 billion dollars a year in help for poor countries.
"But everyone scoffed at it. Nobody did a damn thing," Pachauri said in the interview on Monday.
"(Yet) here, you've got agencies, you've got organisations that are not only responsible for their own failure but the failure of the entire economic system, and they get cheques worth 2.7 trillion dollars. I find this amazing... What can you say, what can you do?"
Pachauri suggested that this two-sided story illustrated a "distortion" in the economic system.
Carbon emissions -- the fossil-fuel pollution that stokes climate change -- were another example, whereby the true cost of using or abusing natural resources was not factored in to calculations, he said.
"Once the dust settles and we know the direction the world is going to move in, I think there will be a very deep and major reappraisal of the way we've been growing economically," said Pachauri.
"I think we will have a major spring cleaning of the economic system.... I believe that you will get a shift towards much more efficient use of natural resources, much more efficient use of energy, and certainly doing away with a lot of waste."
The December 1-12 talks in Poznan, taking place under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are intended to serve as a springboard to an ambitious new treaty to slash emissions of greenhouse gases beyond 2012.
The deal is scheduled to be completed in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Pachauri, who also made a speech to the conference, pointed to the latest scientific evidence on climate change, put forward last year in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report -- a landmark document that helped earn the panel the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Al Gore.
Only seven years are left, warned Pachauri, for global emissions of greenhouse gases to peak and then start declining, in order to stem warming to around two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.
Tackling the problem would cost less than three percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2030, a fleabite when compared to the bill that would come from drought, flood, rising sea levels and storms, he said.
Pachauri added that he was pressing for a meeting with US President-elect Barack Obama to drive home his message.
"If I can get 10 minutes with him, that's all I'll need," he said.
Yahoo News 2 Dec 08;
POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – Negotiators at the UN climate talks in Poznan got down to work on Tuesday as South Africa headed demands for rich nations to agree to tough targets in a new pact for defeating global warming.
"We're out of the starting gate," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), organising the 12-day conference that began here on Monday.
"We're off, and the work is progressing... my sense is that governments are keen to move things forward."
The meeting's key task is to whittle down a document, the size of a small phonebook, for action to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and step up financial help beyond 2012.
The hope is that the document can be sculpted into a blueprint leading to a deal in Copenhagen in December 2009.
The serious haggling will be left to a string of meetings throughout 2009 but already the Poznan talks have outlined the likely areas of battle.
On the table are widely varying proposals as to who should do what to cut their carbon pollution and by what year, and how to deliver financial aid and clean technology to poor, vulnerable countries.
Delegates on Monday set up a roster of working groups, grouped according to theme, to try to cut through the negotiation undergrowth.
Among rich countries, the European Union (EU) has set down the most ambitious plan, saying developed economies should cut their emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 over 1990 levels.
It has already promised to unilaterally reduce its own contribution of greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020, but this plan has been darkened by objections within its own ranks, with Poland and Italy fearing it will inflict too high an economic price.
The EU also says global emissions should peak within 10-15 years and be reduced to "well below half" of 2000 levels by mid-century.
Other rich countries, though, have been vague or silent about their positions and have looked to developing giants -- the big polluters of tomorrow -- to show their own hand first.
South Africa on Tuesday led the charge for rich nations to bear the burden of concessions in the post-2012 treaty.
Environment and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said "all developed countries" should commit to domestic emission cuts of 80-95 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.
They should also make an "unambiguous commitment" to cut their emissions by 25-40 percent below the 1990 benchmark by 2020, he said in a press statement released by the South African delegation.
In exchange, developing countries could pledge to make a "substantial deviation" below the expected upward trend of their pollution, said van Schalkwyk.
Van Schalkwyk did not spell out in figures as to what this concession on so-called baseline emissions would be. The United States, under President George W. Bush, has demanded that emerging giant economies, such as China and India, commit to targeted emissions curbs of the kind that bind rich countries in the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol.
The minister said "some regions" could agree to below-trend curbs by 2020 and all regions would follow by 2050, although developed countries would also have to help transfer clean technology and provide financial support to help them meet these goals.
Separately, Greenpeace activists scaled a 150-metre (487-feet) -high smokestack at a power plant in Konin, central Poland to urge the Polish government to back the EU's climate package.
The package comes up for debate at a summit in Brussels on December 11-12 that coincides with the climax at ministerial level of the Poznan conference.
Developing Nations Seek Cash In UN Warming Fight
Alister Doyle and Gabriela Baczynska, PlanetArk 3 Dec 08;
POZNAN - Developing nations urged rich nations at UN climate talks on Tuesday to raise aid despite the financial crisis to help the poor cope with global warming and safeguard tropical forests.
The UN's top climate official said the Dec. 1-12 meeting of 10,700 delegates had started well as the half-way point in negotiations to agree a new climate treaty by the end of 2009 in Copenhagen.
"I'm happy with where we are," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said of the meeting which will test governments' willingness to work on climate change amid a global economic slowdown.
"I think it's really important, especially in the context of the financial crisis, to see how we can craft a Copenhagen agreement that makes it clear how financial resources will be generated."
Developing nations say they will need billions of dollars to help them combat warming and adapt to changes such as droughts, floods, more powerful cyclones and rising seas. Rich nations say they will help, but have made few pledges.
"It's imperative that the level of financing is up to the challenge, that's the basic starting point," Andre Odenbreit Carvalho, a Brazilian Foreign Ministry official, told delegates.
Several nations, including Democratic Republic of Congo, Suriname and Papua New Guinea, said rich nations had to help them safeguard tropical forests.
Trees soak up greenhouse gases as they grow, and burning forests to clear land for farming accounts for about 20 percent of warming from human activities. Governments want measures to slow deforestation as part of the 2009 deal.
DEFORESTATION
"We must understand how to develop predictable, sufficient and sustainable financial flows" to protect forests, said Kevin Conrad, head of the Papua New Guinea delegation.
De Boer said that rich nations had to take a lead with deep cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases. "There was a strong sentiment expressed that governments need to speed up the work and need to really shift gear," he said.
Aid group Oxfam proposed rich countries pay about $50 billion annually from 2013 for rights to emit greenhouse gases, raising cash to help the least developed nations.
"This is a way to get it done," said Heather Coleman, senior climate policy advisor at Oxfam America, adding Norway and the Netherlands supported the concept.
Early on Tuesday, 11 Greenpeace activists scaled a 150-metre (490-foot) smokestack at the Patnow power plant in Poland to hang a banner reading "Quit coal, save the climate".
De Boer said that he was not targeting agreement on a complete deal next year, but rather on principles and targets. He denied that he was toning down ambitions.
"I don't think I'm managing expectations, I'm dealing with realities," he said.
The existing Kyoto Protocol, binding rich nations to curb emissions, was agreed in 1997 but only entered into force eight years later after ratification by sufficient countries.
That process would now have to be squeezed into just three years, from agreement on the outlines of a deal in Copenhagen next year, to ratification of a final treaty by up to 190 nations before the end of the present round of Kyoto in 2012.
Environmentalists gave a "Fossil of the Day" -- a dinosaur statuette -- to the European Union, accusing it of failing to lead in cutting emissions. The EU is split on designing measures to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
The Gulf state has joined a growing list of rich countries that want to grow food in poor countries
Xan Rice, guardian.co.uk 2 Dec 08;
Qatar has asked Kenya to lease it 40,000 hectares of land to grow crops as part of a proposed package that would also see the Gulf state fund a new £2.4bn port on the popular tourist island of Lamu off the east African country.
The deal is the latest example of wealthy countries and companies trying to secure food supplies from the developing world.
Other Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have also been negotiating leases of large tracts of farmland in countries such as Sudan and Senegal since the global food shortages and price rises earlier this year.
The Kenyan president, Mwai Kibaki, returned from a visit to Qatar on Monday. His spokesman said the request for land in the Tana river delta, south of Lamu, in north-east Kenya was being seriously considered.
"Nothing comes for free," said Isaiah Kabira. "If you want people to invest in your country then you have to make concessions."
But the deal is likely to cause concern in Kenya where fertile land is unequally distributed. Several prominent political families own huge tracts of farmland, while millions of people live in densely packed slums.
The country is also experiencing a food crisis, with the government forced to introduce subsidies and price controls on maize this week after poor production and planning caused the price of the staple "ugali" flour to double in less than a year.
Kibaki said that Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was keen to invest in a second port to complement Mombasa, which serves as a gateway for goods bound for Uganda and Rwanda and is struggling to cope with the large volumes of cargo.
By building docks in Lamu, Kenya hopes to open a new trade corridor that will give landlocked Ethiopia and the autonomous region of Southern Sudan access to the Indian Ocean. Kabira said that if the financing was agreed, construction of the port would begin in 2010.
Qatar, which has large oil and gas revenues, imports most of its food, as most of its land is barren desert and just 1% is suitable for arable farming. It has already reportedly struck deals this year to grow rice in Cambodia, maize and wheat in Sudan and vegetables in Vietnam.
Much of the produce will be exported to the Gulf. Qatar's foreign ministry in Doha did not return calls today, but Kabira said that its intention was to grow "vegetables and fruit" in Kenya.
The area proposed for the farming project is near the Tana river delta where the Kenyan government owns nearly 500,000 hectares (1.3m acres) of uncultivated land.
But a separate agreement to allow a local company to grow sugarcane and build a factory in the area has attracted fierce opposition from environmentalists who say a pristine ecosystem of mangrove swamps, savannah and forests will be destroyed.
Pastoralists, who regard the land as communal and rear up to 60,000 cattle to graze in the delta each dry season, are also opposed to the plan.
"We will have to ensure that this new project is properly explained to the people before it can go ahead," said Kabira.
The sudden rush by foreign governments and companies to secure food supplies in Africa has some experts worried. Jacques Diouf, director general of the UN's food and agricultural organisation (FAO), recently spoke of the risk of a "neo-colonial" agricultural system emerging.
The FAO said some of the first overseas projects by Gulf companies in Sudan, where more than 5 million people receive international food aid, showed limited local benefits, with much of the specialist labour and farming inputs imported.
A deal struck last month by Daewoo Logistics and Madagascar to grow crops on 1.3m hectares of land also attracted strong criticism. While the South Korean firm has promised to provide local jobs and will have to invest in building roads and farming infrastructure, it is paying no upfront fee and has a 99-year lease.
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