Tigers not deterred by selective logging

WWF 13 Mar 09;

Recent research conducted by WWF shows that selectively logged forests may be able to support high population of tigers in Malaysia, and in turn boost the role of protected areas in tiger conservation.

A nine-month camera-trapping survey in a forest reserve in Kelantan, Malaysia revealed that selectively logged forests can accommodate a high population density of tigers, according to a research article published in the conservation journal Oryx.

Selective logging is a forestry practice that aims to better conserve forest areas by only cutting a select number of trees in a stand instead of the whole stand at once.

Researchers carried out the survey in a forest reserve which has been selectively logged since the 1970s. Using camera traps, they obtained a tiger density estimate of 2.59 adult tigers per 100 km².

“Although the study illustrates the potential of selectively logged forests to accommodate a high population density of tigers, the long term response of tigers and other wildlife particularly arboreal animals to conditions created by disturbance due to logging remains poorly understood” said Mark Rayan, field biologist for WWF-Malaysia’s Tiger Conservation Programme and the article’s lead author.

“Our results demonstrate the conservation importance of existing logged over forests and the need to halt subsequent conversion of such habitats to other land uses such as plant commodity crops,” Rayan said. “Existing selectively logged forests may also serve as important core tiger habitats as subsequent camera-trapping in the study area provided photographic evidence of breeding success,” he added.

Selectively logged forests are an integral part of habitat management for tigers as outlined in the National Tiger Action Plan for Malaysia, said Nawayai Yasak, the Department of Wildlife and National Park’s (DWNP) Biodiversity Conservation Director,

“These areas are identified as important tiger habitats due to their sheer size as well as being a major component of Malaysia’s Central Forest Spine,” Yasak said. “DWNP will continue to work with the Forestry Department and support the activities of NGOs in efforts towards conserving Malayan tigers, both in terms of population numbers and health,” .

Apart from a study conducted in a primary forest in Taman Negara National Park between 1999 and 2001, there have been no other robust density estimates of tigers in other forest types in Malaysia. With almost 85 percent of confirmed tiger habitats located within reserve forests, these habitats are critical towards the long term survival of tigers in Peninsular Malaysia.

“With results such as these, there is clearly a need to enhance management guidelines for selectively logged forests,” said Dato’ Dr. Dionysius Sharma, CEO of WWF-Malaysia. “With adequate enforcement and monitoring, these habitats will not only provide long-term economic and environmental benefits, but also enable tigers to proliferate in order to reach Malaysia’s target of 1000 wild individuals by 2020.”

Selectively-logged forest still important for tigers
WWF 18 Mar 09;

Selangor – A nine-month camera-trapping survey in a Permanent Reserved Forest (PRF) in Kelantan has revealed that selectively logged forests have the potential to accommodate a high population density of tigers, according to a recent research article published in the conservation journal Oryx.

The survey, carried out in a forest reserve which has been selectively logged since the 1970s until present-day, was conducted by deploying camera-traps. By applying a capture-recapture sampling framework, a density estimate of 2.59 adult tigers per 100 km² was obtained.

“Our results demonstrate the importance of existing selectively logged forests in Malaysia for tiger conservation and the need to halt subsequent conversion of such habitats to other land uses such as plant commodity crops,“ said lead author Mark Rayan, field biologist for WWF-Malaysia’s Tiger Conservation Programme.

Mark Rayan also stated that existing selectively logged forests may also serve as important core tiger habitats as subsequent camera-trapping in the study area provided photographic evidence of breeding success. With almost 85% of confirmed tiger habitats located within PRFs, these habitats are critical towards the long term survival of tigers in Peninsular Malaysia.

According to Mohamad Nawayai Yasak, the Department of Wildlife and National Park’s (DWNP) Biodiversity Conservation Director, PRFs are integral part of habitat management for tigers as outlined in National Tiger Action Plan for Malaysia.

“These areas are identified as important tiger habitats due to their sheer size as well as being a major component of the Central Forest Spine (CFS). DWNP will continue to work with the Forestry Department and support the activities of NGOs in efforts towards conserving Malayan tigers, both in terms of population numbers and health,” he added.

There is a tendency in Malaysia to perceive selectively logged-over forest as having lesser conservation and economic value. As tigers have large habitat requirements, the effects of conversion, leading to fragmentation and isolation of forest reserves, will severely affect the long-term viability of tiger populations across the landscape.

Apart from a single study conducted in a primary forest in Taman Negara National Park between 1999 and 2001, there have been no other robust density estimates of tigers in other forest types in Malaysia.

Dato’ Dr Dionysius Sharma, CEO of WWF-Malaysia said, “With results such as these, there is clearly a need to enhance management guidelines for PRFs. With adequate monitoring and enforcement, selectively logged forests will not only provide long-term economic and environmental benefits, but also enable tigers to proliferate in order to reach Malaysia’s target of 1000 wild individuals by 2020.”

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Conservationists voice concern for eastern plains of Cambodia

Brendan Brady, The Phnom Penh Post 13 Mar 09;

FOR the poorest rural Cambodians, the forest acts as a safety net, providing a variety of products they could not otherwise afford.

If not managed, exploitation of forests in the eastern plain provinces of Mondulkiri and Ratanakkiri could push communities there over the brink, according to Seng Teak, country director of the conservation group WWF.

The provinces are home to some of the country's poorest communities - including hill tribe minority groups that have largely remained outside the market economy and the gains it has made - that depend on their natural surroundings for survival.

Government and WWF officials met in Mondulkiri's capital, Sen Monorom, Thursday to commend two community-protected areas in the Mondulkiri province covering 3,000 hectares.

The nearly 300 households in the villages of Sre Thom Mleung and Ronous Khnhen in the Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary have been part of a nearly one-year-old project that allows them to extract resources such as rattan and honey in limited amounts as long as they abstain from
logging and abrasive slash-and-burn agricultural practices.

"We're promoting subsistence use," said Bas van Helvoort, conservation program manager for WWF.

Communities there are in a fragile state that could be shattered by anticipated climate changes, he warned.

"Computer models show the area becoming warmer and dryer, and a rise of extreme events weather patterns," he said.

Such conditions could prove devastating, he said: "reduced water for crops, increased risk of fire ... and drying-up the small ponds ... that are vital sources of water for villagers."

Living in extreme isolation, many communities in the area would not know how to change their primitive agriculture practices to accommodate the environmental change, he said.

His concern comes on the heels of a stern warning last month that climate change could prove particularly disastrous for Cambodia's eastern plains.

Mondulkiri province ranked as the most susceptible area to climate change in Southeast Asia, after the Indonesian capital Jakarta, according to a recent report by a Singapore-based research group.

The report, released February 2 and prepared by the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia, identified Mondulkiri as the 4th-most vulnerable of 530 administrative zones assessed throughout Southeast Asia. Ratanakkiri ranked 6th.

Unlike other parts of Southeast Asia that are repeatedly pounded by flooding, earthquakes and hurricanes, among other devastating natural disasters whose frequency is linked with climate change, Cambodia's northeastern provinces have remained relatively unexposed to such shocks, said Arief Anshory Yusef, one of the report's authors.

Their vulnerability - and that of Cambodia, in general - stemmed largely from an inability to adapt to climate-related threats, and not the severity of the risks themselves, he said.

In the study, Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri received the lowest and second-lowest scores, respectively, in the ability of people there to adjust to environmental changes - dismal rankings that correlated with their ranking as the 3rd- and 4th-poorest areas in the region, respectively.

An official with the Climate Change Department at the Ministry of Environment, who asked not to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media, said the government had not studied the vulnerability of Mondulkiri or Ratanakkiri to climate change.

"We have been conducting a report for the last two years on the effect of greenhouse gases on Cambodia," he said. "We hope to finish the report by the end of this year."

Pains of land development
Development workers in the eastern plains have echoed predictions of imminent trouble, saying land development and land speculation have degraded the area's environment at an alarming rate.

Bill Herod of Village Focus Cambodia, who works with indigenous Phnong minority youth in Sen Monorom, said land acquisitions - whether through aggressive purchasing or illegal grabs - are expediting environmental degradation by pushing off the land the Phnong, whose modest lifestyles have traditionally put little pressure on their habitats.

"There's been a devastating impact on the area's ecosystem over the last few years," he said. "When people buy land, one of the first things they do is clear it of trees.

"It's an extremely remote area, and it's difficult for indigenous groups here to cope with any changes to their lives," he added.

Jack Highwood, who works in Mondulkiri with the Bunong ethnic group, also sees the situation as dire.

"Mondulkiri is currently experiencing an unprecedented level of deforestation due to the sale of land to companies foreign and domestic, organised land-grabbing and the knee-jerk reactions of the Bunong peoples," he said.

He said development pressures have led the Bunong to clear-cut their land and sell it before it is appropriated without compensation.

The loss of their land and forests is pushing the group, which still relies on primitive farming and hunting and gathering, to the brink - and a change in climate, by changing their livelihoods, would surely push them over the edge, he said.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SAM RITH

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Best of our wild blogs: 13 Mar 09

I signed the No Whaleshark petition, have you?
on the Midnight Monkey Monitor blog

Help Keep Me Free In The OCEAN
on the colourful clouds blog

Sand mining at Changi East continues
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Of nesting shiftwork and Coppersmith Barbets (Part 4)
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

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Animal friends say no to whale sharks in Singapore oceanarium

EarthTimes 12 Mar 09;

"We respect the views of this group of petitioners, although they may not be representative of the broader society," the Resorts World Sentosa spokesperson said.

Singapore - A group of Singapore and international animal welfare groups on Thursday launched an online campaign to oppose plans by the developer of a resort to bring whale sharks to his oceanarium on the city state's Sentosa Island. The groups launched a website, www.whalesharkpetition.com, and called on the public to sign a petition against the plans to import whale sharks for the Marine Life Park at Resorts World on Sentosa, which is still under construction.

"Whale sharks are vulnerable to extinction and have never done well in captivity," the petitioners said. "No man-made environment, no matter how large, could accomodate their needs."

Whale sharks "can grow as large as two city buses, migrate thousands of kilometers in the wild, and live up to a hundred years. It is just plain cruel to keep them in glass cages," said the groups, including the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Resorts World of Sentosa defended the plan to bring whale sharks to its Marine Life Park, which is supposed to become the world's biggest oceanarium upon completion, with 700,000 fish in 20 million gallons of water.

"The Marine Life Park ... has consistently pledged its commitment to develop a word-class facility that will set the standard in Asia for animal care, learning and education and the promotion of marine conservation," a spokesperson said.

Resort World of Sentosa had not finalized details for the Marine Life Park and continues to explore various options.

"We respect the views of this group of petitioners, although they may not be representative of the broader society," the spokesperson said.

Related links

• Animal welfare groups oppose import of whale sharks at Sentosa IR
• The petition is at http://www.whalesharkpetition.com/
  
• I will boycott Resorts World Sentosa and its Marine Life Park Facebook group:
• Resorts World Sentosa at what price? on the wild shores of singapore blog
  
• More about the issues with lots of links on the wild shores of singapore blog

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Resorts World Sentosa press statement on petition against captive whale sharks

Marine Life Park Statement 12 March 2009

We are aware of the online petition that has been addressed to the Singapore Government and the Marine Life Park.

The Marine Life Park has consistently pledged its commitment to develop a world-class facility that will set the standard in Asia for animal care, learning and education and the promotion of marine conservation. A world-class team of experienced professionals and animal experts will be set up to deliver this promise.

Just as zoos have educated millions of people worldwide on the need for, and importance of, protecting wildlife, we believe our Park will likewise play a crucial role in educating visitors on the variety and conservation of marine animals. It will be a unique window for visitors – many of whom would never get to see such marine life up close -- to appreciate the ocean and the need for its conservation

Details on the Marine Life Park have not been finalized and we continue to explore various options. As we move forward, we will abide by the Singapore regulatory guidelines on the import and treatment of marine life.

We welcome feedback and remain committed to dialogue with special interest groups, supporters and any individual who is keen to learn and act on marine conservation.-Marine Life Park.

Related articles

• Animal welfare groups oppose import of whale sharks at Sentosa IR
• The petition is at http://www.whalesharkpetition.com/
• I will boycott Resorts World Sentosa and its Marine Life Park Facebook group:
• Resorts World Sentosa at what price? on the wild shores of singapore blog
  
• More about the issues with lots of links on the wild shores of singapore blog

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Singapore top in Asia for attractiveness in developing tourism industry

Channel NewsAsia 12 Mar 09;

SINGAPORE: Singapore has been ranked top in Asia and 10th out of 133 countries globally for the attractiveness of their environments in developing the travel and tourism industry.

This is according to the World Economic Forum's latest Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2009.

Improving six places from its overall ranking last year in the 2008 report, Singapore was placed first for its policy environment, indicating that its rules and regulations are highly conducive to the development of its travel and tourism industry.

Such policies include those that facilitate foreign ownership and Foreign Direct Investment, well-protected property rights, few visa restrictions and transparency of policy making.

Singapore also came in first in human resources, scoring high in the quality of its education system, extent of staff training, ease of hiring foreign labour, as well as hiring and firing practices.

According to the report, an excellent educational system, top-notch training facilities, healthy workforce, and flexible labour market are key factors contributing to Singapore's good performance in this area.

In terms of overall prioritisation of travel and tourism, Singapore was ranked second, improving by three places against last year's ranking. Citing indicators such as government expenditure on the sector, strong destination-marketing campaigns, and country-level presence at key international tourism fairs, the report said that these factors signalled the importance of the travel and tourism sector to the overall economy.

Singapore also benefited from its excellent transport infrastructure, with ground transport infrastructure, air transport infrastructure and air networks being ranked highly. Its Info-Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure has also seen a measurable improvement since last year.

The STB recently rolled out a S$90 million initiative – Building On Opportunities to Strengthen Tourism (BOOST) – for the tourism sector.

BOOST includes measures such as "2009 Reasons to enjoy Singapore", the STB's global marketing campaign that aims to drive demand for travel to Singapore, as well as enhanced funding support for tourism businesses and training schemes to raise the skills and service excellence of tourism workers in Singapore.

STB's director of strategic planning, Mr John Gregory Conceicao, said the ranking "is an indication of Singapore's strengths in its tourism management and infrastructure. It will in turn strengthen our efforts to ride out the current downturn and position ourselves for future growth."

- CNA/ir

Singapore among top 10 in tourism rankings
Improvements in areas like infocomms, infrastructure help it rise six places in WEF report
Lim Wei Chean, Straits Times 13 Mar 09;

NEVER mind that Singapore has no natural or cultural resources.

Its travel and tourism sector is the 10th most competitive, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report on 133 countries and regions.

Ranked 16th last year, Singapore pipped Britain to the last slot in the top 10.

It was also top in Asia.

The annual report's scoring system gave the Republic top marks for the quality of its workers and for its rules and regulations being 'extremely conducive' to the growth of travel and tourism.

Other plus points were the quality of its port infrastructure and the transparency of its Government's policymaking.

The report by the non-profit WEF appraised 133 countries and regions in 14 areas, ranging from infrastructure for air and ground transportation to safety and security, policy rules and regulations.

The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, as the ranking is called, was developed four years ago to measure how regulatory and business-

related issues shape the efficiency of a country's travel and tourism sector.

In this year's ranking, countries like Switzerland, Austria and Germany continued tohog the top spots as they had done for the last two years.

Singapore's leapfrog into the top 10 came from improvements made in the building of tourism infrastructure, such as hotel rooms, and having teller machines that accept Visa cards, among other things.

It also made strides in information communication technology, measured by the number of subscribers to broadband Internet and mobile phones, and the extent of Internet-use among businesses.

Ms Ng Lee Li, a section head at the Tourism Academy@Sentosa, said Singapore's small size was an advantage as it 'certainly gives us more control over what we want to achieve and by when'.

The ranking also suggests Singapore has become more attractive to tourism-related businesses looking to invest here, which should help it ride out the current downturn, said Mr John Gregory Conceicao, the Singapore Tourism Board's director of strategic planning.

But although the improved ranking gives Singapore 'more visibility', it is not about to turn this island into an instant tourist magnet, said Professor John Davis, who teaches marketing at the Singapore Management University (SMU).

Noting that these rankings are geared more towards governments and businesses, he added: 'Most people do not decide to travel somewhere based on these ranking charts, but rather on whether they have any interest in going there.'

Still, the ranking is a measure of how attractive Singapore is as a place to do business in this sector, said Mr Aaron Hung, who teaches world travel and tourism at SMU.

For example, he said, many companies base their regional headquarters here, not because Singapore receives many tourists, but because 'it has the talent and excellent policy environment for businesses to thrive'.

1. Switzerland (1)
2. Austria (2)
3. Germany (3)
4. France (10)
5. Canada (9)
6. Spain (5)
7. Sweden (8)
8. The United States (7)
9. Australia (4)
10. Singapore (16)

Figures in brackets indicate last year's rankings

Singapore is top Asian nation in travel and tourism
Business Times 13 Mar 09;

SINGAPORE has emerged as the highest-ranked country in Asia - and the only Asian country in the world's top 10 - in the third annual Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report.

Switzerland is ranked No 1 overall, followed by Austria and Germany in the latest report from the World Economic Forum. Singapore is ranked 10th among 133 countries, up from 16th last year.

The rankings are based on the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, which measures regulatory and business-related issues that are seen as levers for improving travel and tourism competitiveness.

Areas in which Singapore scored well are policy rules and regulations, ground transport infrastructure, prioritisation of travel and tourism, and human resources.

The survey also identified areas for improvement. Singapore is perceived to be at a competitive disadvantage in environmental sustainability, price competitiveness, cultural resources and natural resources.

According to 2008 estimates in the report, Singapore's travel and tourism industry contributed 2.3 per cent of GDP, while the 2009-2018 annual growth forecast is 1.6 per cent. 2008 estimates put tourism employment here at 64,000.

'This is an indication of Singapore's strengths in its tourism management and infrastructure,' said John Gregory Conceicao, director of strategic planning for the Singapore Tourism Board. 'It strengthens our efforts to ride out the current downturn and position ourselves for future growth.'

Geoffrey Lipman, assistant secretary-general of the World Tourism Organization, said: 'This index will help governments and the industry identify areas where supporting the sector can show big gains in the response to both the recession and climate change. Tourism competitiveness is a major element to be included in economic stimulation packages.'

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Singapore committed to Jurong oil storage project

It is looking at other solutions to solve land shortage problem: Iswaran
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 13 Mar 09;

THE government is committed to the Jurong Rock Cavern (JRC) oil and petrochemical storage project and is looking at other creative solutions such as floating oil storage to alleviate the land shortage on Jurong Island, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Iswaran said yesterday.

He was responding to media queries on what the government can do for investors who have been unable to secure land on the island for storage. Only those who bring higher value-added activities, such as oil refining or petrochemical production, have been able to obtain sites.

Mr Iswaran was officiating at the opening of Horizon Singapore Terminals following the recent completion of its third phase. Horizon earlier planned to build another petrochemical storage terminal but has not been able to secure land.

Mr Iswaran said: 'At the end of day, the government's investments and facilitation of this kind of infrastructure - whether floating or underground oil storage - is driven by the overall value proposition to the industry. Clearly, that depends in turn on global market conditions.

'The key consideration in all this is to make sure we have a suite of options. We work with industry to make sure which offers the best value proposition. That's how JTC has to proceed - it has to make sense for businesses and for Singapore.'

Despite protracted delays with the $700 million JRC - with JTC Corporation now saying that it will pick the main contractor and operator only by June - Mr Iswaran said that the project is 'something we've already committed to, and the work proceeds'.

'How it will essentially be used will be a function of demand, market conditions and business plans of individual companies working together with our agencies,' he said.

The first phase of JRC is expected to provide 1.47 million cubic metres of oil storage - more than Horizon Singapore's 1.24 million cu m - with a second phase adding another 1.32 million cu m.

Saeed Khoory, chief executive of Emirates National Oil Company, the leading player in Horizon Singapore Terminals, said that there is an acute shortage of oil storage here.

The project has helped boost oil trading in Singapore, he said. Before recent investments in storage, the value of physical oil traded through Singapore was about US$150 billion in 2005. This had doubled to US$300 billion last year, after more than five million cu m of storage was added over the three years.

Horizon Terminals chief executive Yusr Sultan said the Singapore facility is its largest investment outside the United Arab Emirates.

Horizon, which is bidding to operate the JRC, hopes to leverage on its relationship with Gulf producers to get them to use Singapore's underground storage, he told BT. But it has not yet started talking specifics with any party.

On JTC's plan to build floating oil storage, Mr Sultan said Horizon does not have much experience with this but will not rule out participating in the project.

'We will look at the technicalities once Singapore finalises the design,' he said. 'That could prove a viable alternative if it is technically feasible, although we have to assess the market at that time.'

Iswaran: Growth may be minus 5%
Yang Huiwen, Straits Times 13 Mar 09;

GROWTH could be at the lower end of the Government's forecast of minus 2 per cent to minus 5 per cent this year, said Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran yesterday.

He said recent trends suggested 'the lower end of the range' looks more likely now but the ministry will have a better idea once first-quarter data comes in.

Mr Iswaran was talking on the sidelines of an event that augers well for the local economy - the official opening of Horizon Singapore Terminals (HST).

The $470 million storage terminal on Jurong Island was built by United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm Horizon Terminals to store refined petroleum products such as fuel oil and gasoline. It has a capacity of 1.24 million cubic metres, making it the largest storage terminal outside of the UAE, said Horizon Terminals chief executive Yusur Junaidy.

The terminal - comprising 59 tanks and four jetties - was built in three phases and started operating in October 2006. It just completed its third and final phase. 'The completion of Horizon Singapore Terminals comes at a time of acute shortage of oil storage capacity that was potentially hampering the volume of physical oil being traded through the country,' said Mr Saeed Khoory, group chief executive of HST's parent, the Emirates National Oil Company.

Mr Khoory, who also chairs the HST board, said a wave of terminal investments has sharply lifted the value of offshore physical oil traded through Singapore, the world's No. 3 refining and oil trading hub.

It was about US$150 billion in 2005 but had doubled to US$300 billion (S$462 billion) last year thanks to the addition of over five million cubic metres of storage capacity over three years.

The demand for storage is even more relevant given weakening consumption of refined petroleum products, Mr Khoory added, pointing out that his firm's tanks are '100 per cent full'.

Unfortunately, the scarcity of land on Jurong Island makes it difficult to further expand operations here, said Mr Khoory.

Mr Iswaran said the Government is 'looking for creative solutions' to increase oil storage capacity.

JTC Corporation, which is responsible for the island's broad-based industrial property market, has identified underground rock caverns as an alternative storage facility.

It is also looking offshore at what are known as 'very large floating structures' to store oil products and petrochemicals.

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Public outcry over hamster promotion leads to its halt

‘Small, puny, but still a pet’
Loh Chee Kong Today Online 13 Mar 09;

SPEND $35 at a pet shop and you can take a hamster home for free. If you hold a PAssion Card — a membership card for grassroots leaders — you only need to spend $25.

This joint promotion between Pets’ Station and the People’s Association (PA) sparked a public outcry yesterday after a flyer was sent out by email to PAssion Card holders.

And in a truimph of civic action, the promotion — due to take place next week at Tiong Bahru Plaza where Pets’ Station has an outlet — was stopped even before it could begin. This was after the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) acted on the complaints.

Readers who wrote to Today were particularly disappointed that a Government agency had endorsed the promotion, includingMr William Fong who was “appalled” when he learnt of it through an online forum. He said: “Pets should never be meant as gifts or presents because having a pet is a lifetime responsibility and commitment.”

Another reader, Dr Tan Chek Wee said he was “deeply shocked and saddened”. Online forum posts described the promotion as“ridiculous”. Said one: “A hamster is very small and puny but it’s still a pet, and should be treated as one ... not like a free gift.”

SPCA executive officer Deirdre Moss told Today the society had received more than 20 email voicing strong objections to the promotion. Besides contacting the AVA, which was “already onto it”, SPCA wrote to the PA to “strongly object to such a practice” and stressed that “pets are living things which shouldn’t be exploited as free gifts for promotional purposes”, said Ms Moss.

Mr Madhavan Kannan, who heads AVA’s centre for animal welfare and control, said the authority had contacted Pets’ Station and “instructed them not to proceed with the promotion”. The pet shop complied.

Reiterating that the AVA bans the sale or gift of animals at exhibitions, Mr Madhavan said this is to prevent impulse buying and subsequent abandonment of pets.

When contacted, Pets’ Station declined to comment as its spokesperson was “unavailable”. On its part, the PA apologised for its “oversight”. A PA spokesperson told Today: “When alerted on the concerns raised on Thursday morning, we immediately withdrew thePAssion Card from this promotion, before it could take effect. (We) share the views that pets like hamsters should be cared for by people who are genuinely interested in them.”

Still, Ms Moss gave full marks to the civic action which “resulted in almost instant action by the authorities”. She said: “I was quite stunned and amazed that so many people are speaking up for animals. We are very encouraged that there was so much awareness over an issue like this.”

Shop under fire for hamster giveaway
Netizens up in arms after seeing e-flyer
Liew Hanqing, The New Paper 14 Mar 09;

IT WAS a marketing tactic that failed even before it started.

The offer: Spend $35 in a single receipt and get a free hamster.

The promotion, offered by Pets' Station in Tiong Bahru Plaza, backfired after incensed netizens lashed out against it.

The advertisement had begun circulating online this week. The pet shop had planned to offer a free hamster for every $35 spent in a single receipt, or $25 for PAssion card holders.

The PAssion Card is a membership card for People's Association grassroots leaders and members of the Community Clubs.

The shop's e-flyer, which was later posted on a popular online forum, has caused an uproar among netizens. Many expressed the view that the promotion was cruel and that it was not right to give away an animal as a freebie.

Promotion cancelled

After netizens bombarded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) with e-mails and phone calls, the pet shop was instructed to cancel the promotion, which was supposed to run from 16-22 Mar.

A spokesman for Pets' Station confirmed that the promotion, to be held at the atrium at Tiong Bahru Plaza, is off.

She told The New Paper: 'We have responded to all e-mails and will stop all promotional activities which involve live pets.

'We acknowledge negligence on our part, and would like to apologise to the public.'

A spokesman for AVA said it had received feedback from the public and had instructed the pet shop to cancel the promotion.

Said the spokesman: 'At animal exhibitions, AVA does not allow the sale or giving away of any animal. This is to prevent impulse buying of pets and animals being given to people who do not really need them or are unable to take care of them, resulting in the abandonment of pets.'

Discussion was lively on the forum thread related to the promotion.

One netizen wrote: 'After they adopt (an animal), they may abuse or just abandon them. It's ridiculous to give out pets.'

Numerous bloggers also posted entries criticising the pet shop.

One blogger, dead_cockroach, wrote: 'This is a very irresponsible marketing tactic. I foresee a number of these hamsters being neglected or abandoned at the void decks in due time when the novelty wears out.'

Another blogger, Dawn, wrote: 'This is terrible. When you buy accessories, you get a free hamster?'

SPCA executive officer Deirdre Moss said: 'It is marvellous that so many people are speaking up for animal welfare. These are people who received the promotion via e-mail and had acted on it immediately by voicing strong objections.'

Mr Louis Ng, executive director of About Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres), a charity aimed at fostering respect and compassion for animals, agreed that animals should not be given away as freebies.

He said: 'People need to think of the commitment that comes with owning a pet. The whole family must be willing to commit to taking care of the pet.'

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Spaniards lobby Madrid on shark protection: campaigners

Yahoo News 12 Mar 09;

MADRID (AFP) – Thousands of Spaniards have signed a petition demanding greater protection for sharks from overfishing, marine protection campaigners Oceana said Thursday.

The document, signed by about 13,000 people, has been handed to Spain's marine ministry, the group working with fellow environmental campaigners the Shark Alliance said in a statement.

According to these organisations, Spain is fourth in a world league table for shark fishing, with the European Union, "principally due to Spain," a global hotspot for shark "capture, consumption and commercialisation."

"We are asking the Spanish government to protect sharks" through "the rapid application" of conservation measures outlined in a European Commission action plan drawn up in February, the statement added.

The Commission recommended that fishing boats be banned from hacking off valuable fins on board then throwing the rest of the shark back in the water.

Its plan also includes possible temporary fishing exclusion zones to protect young or reproducing sharks and tightened rules on fishing gear to minimise unwanted catches and ensure such catches are released back into the water.

Oceana and the Shark Alliance said that measures should also include quotas based on scientific research, saying "urgent action" was needed to avoid the "exhaustion of species vital to marine ecology."

EU member countries are due to present their responses to the action plan by April, with the package requiring approval by member states and the EU parliament.

A recent study by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature suggests that as many as one-third of the shark species caught in EU waters are threatened by excessive fishing.

Sharks are targeted by British, French, Spanish and Portuguese fleets, with the Spanish fishing fleet taking more than half of the European catch of around 100,000 tonnes each year, according to the Shark Alliance, which provided Brussels with data.

Shark meat is served in restaurants across Europe, including at traditional British fish-and-chip shops, according to WWF.

The European Commission said that between 1984 and 2004, world shark catches grew from 600,000 to over 810,000 tonnes per year.

Of these, more than half are taken in the North Atlantic, including in the North Sea.

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Can We Keep Swimming in Sushi?

Casson Trenor’s New Book Says Yes and Ty Warner Sea Center Explains How
Alastair Bland, Santa Barbara Independent 12 Mar 09;

When that sashimi platter arrives at your table, how easy it is to forget that those creamy slices of flesh came from living animals—and how tempting to ignore that some of those creatures are teetering on the brink of extinction. In his new book, Sustainable Sushi: A Guide to Saving the Oceans One Bite at a Time, environmentalist, seafood lover, and restaurant consultant Casson Trenor tells readers about the grave reality behind most sushi menus while assuring that it’s possible to make sustainable choices when dining out—and it needn’t require ordering seconds of the seaweed salad.

The pocket-sized book runs 40 short chapters, each dedicated to a common sushi menu item, including uni, hamachi, toro, hotate, and suzuki. Trenor translates for readers, providing taxonomic identification of the species from which each item derives. He also describes each animal’s biological history, the common methods used to harvest it, and whether eating the creature is a “sustainable” pleasure.

The greatest taboo of the standard sushi menu is toro, that buttery belly meat of the bluefin tuna. Toro may be the most desired item in the industry, but less savory than each slice of marbled flesh is the bloody story behind it: At the current rate of slaughter, the bluefin tuna will be extinct in a matter of years, warns Trenor. “Bluefin tuna stocks are beyond exploited,” he explained. “The bluefin is in so much trouble all across the planet. If we have any hope of saving this fish, we need to stop eating it.”

In recent history, bluefins commonly grew to more than 1,000 pounds. Today, most are caught before they reach 400, and even 300-pounders have become rare, said Trenor. “This fish is on its way out.”

Bluefin aquaculture is making the matter worse. Bluefin farms technically are not farms but “ranches,” operating by capturing juvenile bluefins and transporting them en masse to pens where they are fattened for slaughter. “We’re stealing the juveniles before they’ve had a chance to breed,” explained Trenor.

Sushi menus worldwide are riddled with other woeful favorites, and Trenor urges diners to follow five rules of thumb when dining out: 1) Never order farmed salmon. 2) Avoid shrimp farmed in tropical countries, especially nations of Southeast Asia. 3) Don’t eat wild fish taken by longlines, and this can include yellowtail, swordfish, mahi-mahi, tuna, shark, and others. 4) Steer clear of hamachi. 5) Say no to unagi.

All of this is old news to the Ty Warner Sea Center’s Sustainable Seafood Program. Launched two years ago and operating in conjunction with the venerable Seafood Watch Program of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Sea Center’s program has accelerated during the last six months as more and more restaurants express interest in phasing out unsustainable items and phasing in better options, said Sea Center manager Amanda Hendrickson. Visitors to the Ty Warner Sea Center can pick up pocket-sized Seafood Watch cards to carry as dining-out guides. Seafood Watch also distributes cards specifically geared toward sushi menus.

“We all have the power to turn around the state of the ocean’s fisheries by making informed and knowledgeable seafood choices,” said Hendrickson. “One way to do that is by carrying these cards.” Restaurants that have signed up for consulting advice from the Ty Warner Sea Center include Elements, bouchon, Seagrass, Downey’s, and Wine Cask.

Though more and more seafood items are slipping into the red as fisheries everywhere suffer from overexploitation, numerous sustainable items are available, many of them the products of clean aquaculture. Farmed arctic char, now gaining popularity, is an excellent alternative to salmon. Barramundi, tilapia, catfish, and scallops and other bivalves are also good choices when farmed. Yet consumers must beware of farming operations that produce salmon, hamachi, and unagi, which are ecological disasters. Smart wild options include pot-caught shrimp, pole-caught mahi-mahi (an extremely fast-growing fish), and hand-caught yellowfin tuna. Sustainable Sushi and the Seafood Watch cards reveal many more.

Perhaps the root of most seafood sustainability problems is humans’ tendency to dine off the top of the food chain. We happen to favor large, fast, predatory fish that take many years to grow and require great amounts of smaller fish to sustain themselves. Trenor explained, “We have to stop eating sharks, tuna, and swordfish and instead eat the things that sharks, tuna, and swordfish eat.”

A still wiser choice is to eat species that are themselves herbivorous or omnivorous, like striped bass, tilapia, catfish, and crawfish. Whereas the “fish-in-fish-out” ratio for tuna may be more than 20 pounds of feeder fish for every pound of tuna, plant-eating species can grow at a fish-in-fish-out ratio of fewer than one to one.

In 160 pages, Sustainable Sushi formats an ocean’s worth of information into a manageable handbook, and diners who carry it will hold the power to order wisely, enjoy a guilt-free meal, and help assure that sushi is not just a short-lived pleasure of the present, but a sustainable industry of the future.

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Malaysia urged to force big oil to produce biofuel

Yahoo News 12 Mar 09;

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysia must force major oil firms to produce biofuel if the once-vaunted biodiesel industry is to have any future, industry experts told a conference Thursday.

When crude oil prices rocketed last year, Malaysia and Indonesia, which produce most of the world's palm oil, heavily promoted their version of biofuel -- a mixture of diesel with five percent processed palm oil.

But the industry's fortunes waned when the price of crude oil tumbled, triggering a crash in the palm oil price which made supply uncertain and jeopardised the long-term contracts needed to develop the biofuel industry.

Malaysia already requires government diesel vehicles to use biofuel, with privately owned diesel vehicles compelled to make the shift by next February.

But M.R. Chandran, an adviser to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, told an industry conference this week that the measures did not go far enough.

"The government has to get their own national corporations like Petronas and other oil companies here like Shell and Esso mandated and say, 'look chaps, here is the 5.0 percent blend and you have to do it and that is it and get it done,'" he said.

"That's the only way to save the biofuel industry here."

However, Plantations Minister Peter Chin told the conference that while Malaysia was unable to roll out its ambitious biodiesel programme because of logistical problems, oil companies were not ready to act, either.

"Our car industry is not ready. Petronas is not 100 percent ready. Neither is Shell and Esso," he said.

"We intend to do it but at the same time we have to get our logistics right. There are certain (geographical) constraints which we must acknowledge," he said, referring to problems in transporting biodiesel.

Chandran said that out of the 92 government licences issued for palm oil plants in 2006, only 16 were built and most were not operating due to the low prices.

"If Indonesia and Malaysia want to see a fair demand for palm oil and avoid all this fluctuation in prices, you have to create domestic demand," he said.

Indonesia's state oil company Pertamina has been ordered to sell fuel with at least a one percent biofuel content and this is expected to rise to five percent by 2025.

Crude palm oil prices plummeted from a peak of 4,312 ringgit (1,168 dollars) per tonne a year ago to a low of 1,390 ringgit in October last year. Prices have recovered to 2,047 ringgit per tonne currently.

Chin said Malaysia was comfortable with current prices and did not expect a rally in the near future.

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Oil spill will 'kill marine life for years'

news.com.au 13 Mar 09;

ONE of Australia's leading conservation groups has warned the oil spill along Queensland's coast will affect every level of the marine food chain.

Martin Taylor from WWF said everything from fish and crabs to water birds, dugongs and dolphins, would feel the effects after oil spilled from a cargo ship caught in cyclonic winds on Wednesday.

"It's a mass poisoning event, effectively," Mr Taylor said.

It goes away very slowly naturally, mostly through bacterial attack, and then breakup and emulsification with the action of water.

"So unless people get out there and clean it up as fast as possible, that poison will kill marine life for years."

Mr Taylor said the oil not only affected the feathers of birds, it also clogged up the feeding systems of crabs and shellfish.

But it was not just the small creatures that were in danger, he warned, saying animals like dugongs, turtles and dolphins were also at risk.

"Fuel is poisonous, and very toxic," he said.

"The hydrocarbons get absorbed and end up in the tissues of the fish larger animals are eating.

"Dugongs eat seagrass and a lot of that's tidal, so when the tide goes out a lot of seagrass gets exposed and the oil will settle on it."

Mr Taylor said turtles were susceptible to the black slicks as well.

"It can affect their metabolism and make them ill and could also affect their breeding,: he said.

About 100,000 litres of oil have washed up on the shores of Moreton and Bribie island and parts of the Sunshine Coast after spilling from the cyclone-stricken Pacific Adventurer on Wednesday.

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Major oil slick off Australia coats beaches, birds

Yahoo News 12 Mar 09;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A major oil clean-up was underway off Australia's northeast coast Thursday to limit the damage to beaches and marine life after a ship lost 30 tons of fuel when its hull was pierced by a container washed overboard.

Marine experts are still searching for 31 containers of ammonium nitrate, used for making fertilizer and explosives, which were lost from The Pacific Adventurer off Moreton Bay near the city of Brisbane Wednesday.

If the containers, which have 620 tons of ammonium nitrate, leak it could cause major algae blooms which would choke marine life in Moreton Bay, say marine scientists.

Maritime Safety Queensland said the missing containers may never be recovered.

"It happened outside of Moreton Bay, on the eastern cape, in water with about 200 meters (600 feet) depth. If they sank it's likely they'll stay there," said a spokesman.

News reports from helicopters said the oil slick stretched 40 to 60 kms (25-40 miles) along the shore of Moreton Island.

A local lifesaver said oil globules stretched for about one km along one beach on the Queensland Sunshine Coast.

"As you walk along it sticks to the bottom of your shoe like glue," said David McLean from Marcoola Surf Life Saving Club.

Beachgoers were trying to limit the environmental impact, saving turtle eggs and cleaning up the oil, said McLean.

Wildlife injured by the oil spill were being treated by staff from the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency.

Heavy seas whipped up by a tropical storm, which caused the containers to break loose, were helping the oil clean-up by pushing the oil slicks offshore.

"Oil is a natural resource, it just breaks up naturally under weather, including the sun and water," said a spokesman for the Queensland state Environmental Protection Agency.

(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Valerie Lee)

Aussie beaches a 'disaster zone' after oil spill
Yahoo News 13 Mar 09;

SYDNEY (AFP) – Authorities in Australia have declared dozens of popular tourist beaches on the northeast coast as disaster zones, their once-pristine sands now fouled by a massive oil and chemical slick.

Queensland state's marine safety authority said up to 100 tonnes of fuel were now believed to have spilled from the Hong Kong-flagged ship Pacific Adventurer amid cyclonic conditions early Wednesday.

Moreton and Bribie Islands, and parts of the popular Sunshine Coast, were declared disaster zones, with the state's leader Anna Bligh.

"This may well be the worst environmental disaster we have seen in southeast Queensland," Bligh said.

Initial estimates put the spill at 30 tonnes, but authority spokesman John Watkinson said up to 100,000 litres could be washing up along a 60-kilometre (40-mile) stretch of the region's beaches, sickening local wildlife.

"We really want to know what amount is out there," said Wilkinson. "It's a hell of a lot more than 30 tonnes."

Describing it as a "potential environmental tragedy", Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pledged full government support for the clean-up effort, which could cost millions of dollars.

The oil flooded Moreton Bay, near the state capital Brisbane, after wild seas whipped up by tropical cyclone Hamish toppled 31 containers of ammonium nitrate fertiliser from the ship's deck.

As they fell the containers punctured the hull, before taking 620 tonnes of the explosive chemical to the ocean floor.

The vessel's owners, Swire Shipping, face 1.5 million dollars (977,000 US dollars) in fines if found guilty of environmental or maritime breaches, and have indicated they will meet the clean-up costs, estimated at 100,000 dollars per day.

"The company very much regrets the environmental impact caused as a consequence of the vessel being caught in Cyclone Hamish," Swire said in a statement.

"The company and its insurers will meet all their responsibilities."

Experts fear the fertiliser, a nutrient-rich chemical, could cause damaging algal blooms, suffocate fish and kill natural habitats.

Moreton Bay, a marine sanctuary, is home to a range of sea birds and other creatures, including turtles, dolphins and pelicans.

"The flow-on effects of oil spills can be substantive," an environmental protection authority spokesman said. "The longer-term impacts are yet to be realised."

Oil spill: Queensland beaches declared disaster zones
ABC News 13 Mar 09;

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has declared Moreton Island, Bribie Island and southern parts of the Sunshine Coast disaster zones after a massive oil spill.

Sixty kilometres of coastline is covered in the slick, which came from the Pacific Adventurer after it was damaged earlier this week in rough seas whipped up by cyclone Hamish.

Up to 100,000 litres of heavy fuel oil leaked into the ocean from the cargo ship.

Ms Bligh met with an emergency response group last night.

She says the spill is much bigger than originally reported by the ship and the effect will be widespread.

Ms Bligh says public access will be restricted to the areas to allow pollution response teams to clean up.

Clean-up coordination centres have been set up in the disaster zones.

Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg says the Government's handling of the clean-up has been farcical.

"We've now got the ridiculous situation of the Government chasing the councils off the beach who are there with heavy equipment trying to clear up oil spills and oil slicks that are more than 20 and 30 kilometres long," he said.

"They're running around with a few buckets and shovels and they are being told that this is the clean-up strategy, now this is ridiculous."

Mr Springborg yesterday voiced support for Environmental Protection Agency staff overseeing the clean-up. But he now says he was misled when he was told it was under control.

"It's either been a cover-up or absolutely incompetently mishandled," he said.

Ms Bligh says suggestions of a cover-up are ridiculous.

"This is a 60km oil spill. Any suggestion that anyone would want to cover it up or could is simply nonsense," she said.

Sunshine Coast

Emergency groups will meet on the Sunshine Coast this morning to formulate a plan to clean-up the oil spill.

Sunshine Coast Council environment manager Stephen Skull says it is too early to say how long it will take to remove the oil.

"It's certainly bigger than the first reports I was getting in terms of the extent of it and the magnitude of what's impacting our beaches," he said.

But the worst fears of Sunshine Coast residents have been realised, with the oil slick washing into the Maroochy River.

Local Murray Johnson says the State Government did not respond quickly enough to the unfolding disaster.

"They should be able to put something in place pretty rapidly to sort of safeguard against this sort of thing, because for Queensland it's a major tourism place and no-one's going to like having black scud all over the beach," he said.

But Mayor Bob Abbot says the blame game must wait until the immediate crisis is resolved.

"Got the issues with communication and that sort of stuff, but the important thing is to get this thing fixed first and I'm more interested in doing that than anything else.

"We can argue about who said what and when and who pays when it's over. As far as I'm concerned, we've got to go full steam ahead and stop it getting any further up the river."

Meanwhile, Greens Leader Bob Brown says he is astonished the Queensland and federal governments are so unprepared for a major oil spill.

Senator Brown says Australia should have a national coordinating service.

"We have always known that a much worse spill like those we have seen in Europe and Alaska could occur in Australia, where is the nationally coordinated action?" he said.

Fishing industry fears

Queensland Seafood Industry Association president Neil Green says the 30 containers of ammonium nitrate that fell off the Pacific Adventurer on Wednesday morning remain a major concern to commercial fishermen.

""Thirty of this size [of] containers are like 30 houses out there in the ocean, where our guys are going to be out there trawling and hook up on one of these," he said.

"They could capsize and that's a major problem for us. We're looking at the possibility of major areas being wiped out, environmentally-wise."

He is concerned about the long-term effects of ammonium nitrate polluting a major fishing area in south-east Queensland.

"We're horrified. Looking at the location of where these containers went over, it's smack bang in the middle of our major trawl grounds," he said.

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Liberia invaded by crop-eating caterpillars again: ministry

Yahoo News 12 Mar 09;

MONROVIA (AFP) – Liberia has been hit by a second invasion of crop-destroying caterpillars which have wreaked havoc in the west African nation, agriculture ministry officials said Thursday.

"We have two weeks maximum to react. We have our teams out on the field preparing to contain the situation," Moses Subah, head of the agriculture ministry's technical team, said.

"We have mobilised experts from the sub-region; experts came from Brazil, from the United States, who provided technical assistance," Agriculture Minister Chris Toe told AFP.

"Following the spraying of the caterpillars, the 11 teams have been involved in mopping up activities ...as well as the search for adult moths. This exercise has proven very successful in containing further spread."

The first wave of crop destroying caterpillars was identified as Achaea Catocaloides, a very destructive pest that attacks a wide range of crops including coffee and cocoa, key cash earners.

Over a hundred Liberian villages have so far been affected by the plague and authorities warn that hundreds of thousands of people could face hunger because the caterpillars have devoured all the crops.

Liberia has declared a state of emergency and called on the international community to help it deal with the plague, which has also spread to parts of Guinea and threatens Sierra Leone's border region with Liberia.

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Warming Impacts Antarctic Food Chain

Andrea Thompson, livescience.com Yahoo News 12 Mar 09;

Rapid climate changes along the Antarctic Peninsula have caused a simultaneous shift in the biological productivity of the area, finds a new study that could explain why some penguins and other species there are on the decline.

The western portion of the Antarctic Peninsula (the northernmost part of the continent) has experienced 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) of warming over about the last 30 years - more than anywhere else on the planet - and declining sea ice coverage.

This warming caused a shift from the usual cold, dry climate of the area to warmer, wetter conditions, at least in the northern parts of the peninsula, in the past few decades.

Along with this regional climate change , researchers have noticed that populations of Adelie penguins and krill - both of which thrive in a cold, dry climate - have moved southward (poleward). Meanwhile other species, particularly Chinstrap penguins, are taking over the northern areas.

Martin Montes-Hugo of Rutgers University in New Jersey, along with his colleagues, suspected that the migration of the penguins could be related to changes at the base of the Antarctic food chain, namely phytoplankton.

Using data from 30 years of satellite coverage and field studies, they determined that levels of phytoplankton off the western shelf of the peninsula have declined by 12 percent over that time.

"We're showing for the first time that there is an ongoing change on phytoplankton concentration and composition along the western shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula that is associated with a long-term climate modification," Montes-Hugo said. "These phytoplankton changes may explain in part the observed decline of some penguin populations."

The results of the study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, are detailed in the March 13 issue of the journal Science.

"Now we know that climate changes are impacting at the base of the food web and forcing their effects on up through the food chain," said study team member Hugh Ducklow of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

Climate change effects seen in Antarctic winds
Yahoo News 12 Mar 09;

WASHINGTON – Changing wind patterns linked to global warming are altering the food chain in Antarctica and may lead to further increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The most basic food, plankton, is declining in the northern portions of the Antarctic peninsula reaching toward South America, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

At the same time, populations of Adelie penguins, who require a colder climate, have dropped sharply in that region, while warmer-weather chin-strap penguins have increased.

"We're showing for the first time that there is an ongoing change on phytoplankton concentration and composition along the western shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula that is associated with a long-term climate modification. These phytoplankton changes may explain in part the observed decline of some penguin populations," Martin Montes-Hugo, a marine scientist at Rutgers University, said in a statement.

The change reflects shifting patterns of cloud cover, ice formation and winds, the report said.

A separate report in the same edition of Science raises the possibility that new wind patterns could result in more upwelling of deep water in the region, which would then release stored carbon dioxide, potentially increasing global warming.

"The faster the ocean turns over, the more deep water rises to the surface to release CO2," said Robert Anderson, a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "It's this rate of overturning that regulates CO2 in the atmosphere."

"Mad" Microplants Show Antarctic Climate Change
Deborah Zabarenko, PlanetArk 13 Mar 09;

WASHINGTON - You just don't want to make phytoplankton mad.

These microscopic sea plants are at the bottom of the food chain in the waters that surround the Antarctic peninsula, and when they're unhappy, everything that depends on them suffers, including fish, penguins and possibly, eventually, people.

A new study published on Thursday in the journal Science indicates that some of these Antarctic phytoplankton have become increasingly grumpy over the last 30 years.

Like most plants, phytoplankton need food and sunlight to survive. For some that live off the west coast of the Antarctic peninsula, getting these essentials has been an increasing challenge, with a 12 percent decrease in phytoplankton populations seen in the last three decades.

U.S. researchers figured this out by looking at satellite data and tracking the amount of chlorophyll -- a sign of phytoplankton photosynthesis -- in the Southern Ocean off the Antarctic peninsula, a long tail of land that juts out from the main body of the continent and points toward South America.

This area is a good place to look for signs of climate change, because it is warming faster than any other place on Earth in the winter.

Phytoplankton are excellent markers for climate change because they respond quickly, sometimes in as little as a day, to varying environmental conditions, and because so much of the food chain relies on their survival.

SUNLIGHT MAKES PHYTOPLANKTON HAPPY

Because atmospheric circulation patterns are shifting over the peninsula -- probably due to climate change -- there are now cloudy skies where there used to be sunshine and vice versa, said study co-author Martin Montes-Hugo of Rutgers University.

In the southern part of the peninsula, the clouds are decreasing and sunlight is melting the sea ice, freeing up more open water that sunlight can shine through, Montes-Hugo said by telephone.

"You have more open water and so you have light penetration, so the phytoplankton is happy in the south," he said, because like most plants, phytoplankton need sunlight for photosynthesis.

In the northern part of the peninsula closer to the warm equator there are more clouds, and sea ice is even more reduced than in the south. Changing atmospheric patterns are whipping up increasing winds in the area, churning the ocean water, which enables the phytoplankton to go deeper. At these deeper levels, the little plants can catch less sunshine.

"This makes phytoplankton mad," Montes-Hugo said. "It's not good for phytoplankton because you have less light."

Phytoplankton, like other plants, absorb the climate-warming greenhouse gas carbon dioxide; less phytoplankton means less of this gas will be absorbed.

A decrease in phytoplankton along the Antarctic peninsula results in less food for krill, the tiny crustaceans that small fish eat, and on up the food chain to Adelie penguins and other creatures.

Adelie penguins are moving southward because the extreme Antarctic climate they require is no long present in parts of the peninsula; Chin-strap penguins that can tolerate warmer temperatures are moving into the area, Montes-Hugo said.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

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Rapid action needed to save polar bears from climate change: WWF

Pierre-henry Deshayes Yahoo News 12 Mar 09;

OSLO (AFP) – Polar bears are in danger of being wiped out unless urgent measures are taken to combat climate change and rapid warming in the Arctic, environmental group WWF warned Thursday.

"No sea ice equates no polar bears. It's really that simple," WWF polar bear expert Geoff York told reporters.

York was speaking in Oslo days before representatives of the five countries bordering the Arctic were set to meet in the northern Norwegian town of Tromsoe on March 17 to discuss how to safeguard the bear.

The WWF insisted the Arctic countries had a special obligation to spearhead efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

"People have caused the problem, people have to fix it," said Rasmus Hansson, the head of WWF Norway, adding that several of the five Arctic nations "are also extremely important (to the development of) international climate change policies."

The three-day Tromsoe meeting grouping Canada, Denmark (with Greenland), Norway, Russia and the United States will discuss how to address threats against the polar bear that have emerged since they first signed a conservation agreement in 1973.

Back then, hunters were the only known threat against the white bear.

"Nobody thought about climate change at that time," said scientist Thor Larsen, who helped negotiate the 1973 accord.

More than three decades after the signing of the agreement however, WWF says climate change is now "the predominant threat" facing the majestic Arctic animal.

"Speaking about polar bears without addressing climate change is like discussing cod without wanting to speak about the sea," Hansson said.

As many as two thirds of the 20-25,000 polar bears that roam the Arctic could disappear within the next 50 years due to global warming, according to recent estimates from the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

And climate change is not the only thing threatening the bears today.

They are also increasingly exposed to toxic substances like PCB that flow into the region on the back of ocean and atmospheric currents, breaking down the mammals' immune systems and reproductive capabilities.

This in turn further complicates their ability to adapt to the shifting climate.

The Tromsoe meeting comes at "an extremely important moment," ahead of the talks on a new global pact on climate change in Copenhagen in December set to replace the Kyoto accord, Hansson said.

In the United States, President Barack Obama "has sent completely different signals than the previous administration on climate issues," he added.

According to some estimates, the Arctic sea ice that makes up the polar bear's hunting ground could completely disappear during the summer months by 2020.

It is not too late to act, said York, who used to work for the USGS.

He cautioned however that "oil, mining, shipping and military activities did not exist in previous times of warming," calling for all these activities to be reined in across the region.

WWF also warns that the problems facing polar bears today serve as an indicator for how the ecosystem is being affected, something that will eventually have serious implications for humans.

"If polar bears run into serious troubles, then we human beings are in for serious troubles too," Hansson said.

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Green carpet roll out for "The Age of Stupid" film

Kate Kelland, Reuters 12 Mar 09;

LONDON (Reuters) - The stars will arrive by solar car, bike, or rickshaw. The carpet on which they pose for paparazzi will be green, not red. And this world premiere will be screened in a far-from-exclusive solar-powered cinema tent.

British filmmakers are planning the world's first entirely eco-friendly film premiere on Sunday as they roll out the green carpet for "The Age of Stupid" -- a film about a future world devastated by climate change.

The film stars British actor Pete Postlethwaite -- famous for roles in "The Usual Suspects" and "In The Name of the Father" -- as an old man living alone in a wrecked world in 2055, looking back at "archive footage" from 2008 and asking why mankind didn't save itself while it had the chance.

The film's director, Franny Armstrong says the film is as much about campaigning as entertaining -- and for her there is no question about the world's most pressing issue.

"We've just got a couple of years, maximum, to act if we are going to prevent catastrophic climate change and stop the deaths of hundreds of millions of people," she told Reuters in an interview. "So, as a film-maker there is absolutely no choice now as to what subject you should be working on."

Taking its lead from Al Gore's Oscar-winning climate change film "An Inconvenient Truth," a trail blazer for a new genre of "envirodocs," The Age of Stupid casts Postlethwaite as the founder of a "Global Archive" in the now melted Arctic, preserving humanity's achievements in the hope the planet might one day be habitable again.

He pulls together archive clips from six real-life tales -- including an 8-year-old Iraqi refugee forced to live on the streets of Jordan after her family and home were destroyed during the U.S.-led invasion, and an 82-year-old French mountain guide who has seen his beloved Alpine glaciers melt away.

Finance for the film was raised by a unique scheme dubbed "crowd-funding" -- which saw the entire 450,000 pounds ($623,000) budget raised by selling "shares" to groups or individuals prepared to invest but not interfere.

Among the 228 backers, who invested anything from 500 to 35,000 pounds each in return for a percentage of the profits, are a hockey team and a health center.

Armstrong, a 37-year-old Briton, became convinced of the need for a new type of film-making when her previous film "McLibel" -- based on the 1990 libel case by two environmental activists against McDonald's -- ran up against fear of legal action which stopped many outlets from showing it.

"In the end, McLibel reached 25 million people," she said. "And the only reason it did that was because I owned the rights and I was prepared to give it away to small cable channels where millions of people would watch it."

This time around, the "crowd-funding" model gave her the freedom she says is vital to the film's future success.

"The main thing was that we wanted to own the rights, so that we can control the distribution and get it out to the greatest number of people," she said.

"And we wanted complete editorial control -- we didn't want advertising people telling us we had to water down our message."

As a result, film premiere on Sunday is being billed as INclusive, rather than EXclusive.

It will be streamed live on the Internet and shown to around 16,000 people in more than 60 cinemas across Britain at the same time as the "green carpet" celebrities see it in London.

And, in keeping with the film's message, a full eco-audit of both the film and the premiere will be available for scrutiny.

"We calculated the film's carbon footprint by recording every journey - by foot, bicycle, motor boat, rowing boat, plane, train, car, rickshaw and helicopter - as well as all the electricity, gas, food and equipment used," says Armstrong.

She said it added up to 94 tonnes of CO2 -- equal to that used by four Americans or eight Britons in a year, or 185 patio heaters in a month.

"I definitely think our film is worth 185 patio heaters," said Armstrong.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Eco-audit for film "The Age of Stupid"
Reuters 12 Mar 09;

LONDON (Reuters) - British filmmakers are planning the world's first entirely eco-friendly film premiere on Sunday as they roll out the green carpet for "The Age of Stupid" -- a film about a future world devastated by climate change.

The following is the filmmakers' calculation of the carbon footprint for making the film and some comparisons.

CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS

48 flights, 124,000 miles - 68,100 Kg C02

Food for 1,277 meals - 3,400 KgC02

Train trips, 23,612 miles - 4,100 Kg C02

Boat trips, 497 miles - 3,200 Kg C02

Cameras, computers, tapes, CDs etc - 2,800 Kg C02

Heating two offices ( pretty cold) - 1,100 Kg CO2

2 helicopter flights, 105 minutes - 735 Kg C02

Car trips, 2400 miles -740 Kg C02

Underground trains & buses, 1,480 miles - 95 Kg C02

Bicycle & walking trips, 13,100 miles - 0 Kg C02

Electricity (green supplier) - 0 Kg C02

CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS TOTAL - 94,270kg CO2

Equivalent to:

8 British people for 1 year

4 American people for 1 year

1,000 Tanzanians for 1 year

91 people living sustainably for 1 year

1 of Piers' big turbines for 6 days

Recycling 910,000 bottles

15 British homes for 1 year

18 American cars for 1 year

185 gas patio-heaters for one month

(Source: "The Age of Stupid" website www.ageofstupid.net

(Compiled by Kate Kelland, edited by Paul Casciato)

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Growing Pollution Leads To "Global Dimming": Study

Will Dunham, PlanetArk 13 Mar 09;

WASHINGTON - Visibility on clear days has declined in much of the world since the 1970s thanks to a rise in airborne pollutants, scientists said on Thursday.

They described a "global dimming" in particular over south and east Asia, South America, Australia and Africa, while visibility remained relatively stable over North America and improved over Europe, the researchers said.

Aerosols, tiny particles or liquid droplets belched into the air by the burning of fossil fuels and other sources, are responsible for the dimming, the researchers said.

"Aerosols are going up over a lot of the world, especially Asia," Robert Dickinson of the University of Texas, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.

Dickinson and two University of Maryland researchers tracked measurements of visibility -- the distance someone can see on clear days -- taken from 1973 to 2007 at 3,250 meteorological stations worldwide.

Aerosols like soot, dust and sulfur dioxide particles all harmed visibility, they said in the journal Science.

The researchers used recent satellite data to confirm that the visibility measurements from the meteorological stations were a good indicator of aerosol concentrations in the air.

The aerosols from burning coal, industrial processes and the burning of tropical forests can influence the climate and be a detriment to health, the researchers said.

Other pollutants such as carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases are transparent and do not affect visibility.

The data will help researchers understand long-term changes in air pollution and how these are associated with climate change, said Kaicun Wang of the University of Maryland.

"This study provides basic information for future climate studies," Wang said in a telephone interview.

The scientists blamed increased industrial activity in places like China and India for some of the decreased visibility, while they said air quality regulations in Europe helped improve visibility there since the mid-1980s.

The aerosols can have variable cooling and heating effects on surface temperatures, reflecting light back into space and reducing solar radiation at the Earth's surface or absorbing solar radiation and heating the atmosphere, they added.

(Editing by Maggie Fox)

Pollution dims skies as well as befouling the air
Yahoo News 12 Mar 09;

WASHINGTON – The skies are dimming, for most of the world. Increases in airborne pollution have dimmed the skies by blocking sunlight over the past 30 years, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

While decreases in atmospheric visibility — known as global dimming — have been reported in the past, the new study compiles satellite and land-based data for a longer period than had been available.

"Creation of this database is a big step forward for researching long-term changes in air pollution and correlating these with climate change," Kaicun Wang, assistant research scientist in the University of Maryland, said in a statement. "And it is the first time we have gotten global long-term aerosol information over land to go with information already available on aerosol measurements over the world's oceans."

They reported that dimming is occurring everywhere except Europe, where declines in pollution have resulted in brighter skies.

Changes in aerosols can affect weather and also may have an impact on climate, though past studies have been inconclusive. These pollutants can result in cooling by reflecting sunlight back into space, but they also can absorb solar energy, warming the atmosphere.

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, meanwhile, warned that suggestions for a high-atmosphere "sunshade" of particles to battle global warming could reduce energy production from solar power plants.

Those proposals are aimed at blocking sunlight that can be absorbed by so-called greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, warming climate.

But airborne particles also scatter light that does get through, and that diffuse light cannot be used by solar energy concentrating systems that produce electricity, Daniel Murphy, a scientist at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., reported in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Flat photovoltaic and hot water panels, commonly seen on household roofs, use both diffuse and direct sunlight, so they would be less affected.

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On the Net:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov

Environmental Science and Technology: http://pubs.acs.org/journal/esthag?cookieSet1

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Global downturn could halve CO2 emissions: expert

Gelu Sulugiuc, Reuters 12 Mar 09;

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The global economic downturn could cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 50 percent, a scientist said on Thursday at the Congress on Climate Change.

Terry Barker, director of the Center for Climate Change Mitigation Research at Cambridge University, said the recession could cause a reduction in carbon emissions by 2012 bigger than the estimated 35 percent cut in the 1929-1932 Great Depression.

"My top-of-the-head prediction is it would go down as much as 40 to 50 percent at worst but that remains to be seen," Barker said.

"At the moment the signs are very bad as to when we're going to get out of this depression. I'm very pessimistic about global GDP, but I suppose you could say I'm very optimistic that carbon emissions are going to come down," he said.

Barker said he already saw signs of sharp falls in electricity production in China, but needed more data from the industrialized world before he could make a more confident prediction.

In the meantime, he urged governments to use the opportunity to stimulate their economies by investing in green energy.

"If all G20 countries adopted a Green New Deal, the world economy could be greatly strengthened, especially the sectors producing low-carbon technologies," he said.

"As we get to more stringent carbon reduction targets macroeconomic costs go down, not up," Barker added. "We would see increased benefits through innovation and distribution of low carbon technologies and increased revenues from taxes."

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

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Four in 10 Americans think global warming exaggerated

Yahoo News 12 Mar 09;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – More Americans than at any time in the past decade believe that the seriousness of global warming is being exaggerated, a Gallup poll showed Thursday.

Forty-one percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters that they are doubtful that global warming is as serious as the mainstream media are reporting, putting public skepticism about the hot-button issue at the highest level recorded by Gallup in more than a decade.

The previous high came in 2004, when 38 percent of Americans said news reports exaggerated the seriousness of global warming.

Gallup's 2009 environment poll, which surveyed 1,012 adults by land- and mobile phone line between March 5 and 8, also showed that Americans ranked global warming last out of eight environmental issues that respondents were asked to give a score to based on their level of concern about the topic.

The pollution of drinking water was deemed the greatest source of concern, with 84 percent of respondents saying it worried them.

Other issues that were ranked -- and beat global warming by at least five percentage points -- were water pollution in general, toxic contamination of soil and water, fresh water supply, air pollution, loss of rain forests, and the extinction of plants and animals.

The number of Americans who thought global warming is already affecting the planet has also fallen, from 61 percent in March last year to 53 percent this year.

And a record high 16 percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters that they believe the effects of global warming "will never occur."

The poll results suggest "that the global warming message may have lost some footing with Americans," Gallup analyst Lydia Saad said.

"Americans generally believe global warming is real ... (but) most Americans do not view the issue in the same dire terms as the many prominent leaders advancing global warming as an issue," she said.

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Global warming will save millions of lives: Bjorn Lomborg

Dire predictions about climate change and health omit the cost of cold, says Bjorn Lomborg.
Bjorn Lomborg, The Telegraph 12 Mar 09;

Global warming will increase the burden on the British health system because more people will suffer from heat-caused illness. This was the message delivered to a conference in Copenhagen this week by Alistair Hunt, a researcher at Bath University. "I am trying to bring home the impact of climate change to everyone," he said.

There is one significant impact that the researcher did not "bring home" in interviews about his work: warmer temperatures will save lives.

It is true, as Hunt noted, that the 2003 heatwave claimed 2,000 lives in Britain; that human-caused warming will increase global temperatures by about 2.6 degrees Celsius on average; and that high temperatures cause heat strokes, heart attacks and other illnesses, which hit the elderly and chronically ill the hardest. But low temperatures also kill. The old, infirm, homeless and very young are at the highest risk of hypothermia, heart attacks, strokes and illnesses caused or exacerbated by the cold.

Winter regularly takes many more lives than any heatwave: 25,000 to 50,000 people each year die in Britain from excess cold. Across Europe, there are six times more cold-related deaths than heat-related deaths. We know this from the world's biggest cross-national, peer-reviewed studies under the aegis of Professor William Keatinge of the University of London.

Global warming will mean more frequent heatwaves, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – by 2100, every three years instead of every 20 years. But bitterly cold spells will decrease as quickly, coming once every two decades, rather than every three years.

For the UK, the Keatinge studies show heat-related deaths caused by global warming will increase by 2,000. But cold-related deaths will decrease by 20,000. The only global study suggests that this is true internationally: by 2050, there will be almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths a year, and almost 1.8 million fewer cold-related deaths. Warmer temperatures will save 1.4 million lives each year. The number of saved lives will outweigh the increase in heat-related deaths until at least 2200.

This is not an argument to do nothing in the face of global warming. But focusing only on the negative lays the groundwork for extremely poor policies.

Hunt's research was presented at a Copenhagen summit that had key speakers with views more negative than consensus expectations, in the hope of convincing politicians to commit to drastic carbon cuts.

This is the wrong response: even if the Kyoto Protocol's promised carbon emission reductions had been fully implemented across this century, temperatures would only be reduced by an insignificant 0.2°C, at a cost of $180 billion a year.

If we want to cut temperatures faster – and identify new technology that can cool houses in summer and save lives – we need cheap alternative energy technology within 20 to 40 years. If every country committed to spending 0.05 per cent of GDP on researching non-carbon-emitting energy technologies, that would cost $25 billion a year, and it would do a lot more than massive carbon cuts to fight warming and save lives.

To prepare adequately for the challenge of global warming, we must acknowledge both the good and the bad that it will bring. If our starting point is to prove that Armageddon is on its way, we will not consider all of the evidence, and will not identify the smartest policy choices.

Bjørn Lomborg is the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School, and the author of 'Cool It' and 'The Skeptical Environmentalist'

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Meet the climate sceptics

Barack Obama may be worried about greenhouse gases - but not everyone is. Suzanne Goldenberg reports from this week's gathering of climate change deniers
Suzanne Goldenberg, The GuardianC 12 Mar 09;

It is 8.50am in a windowless room in a hotel off New York's Times Square and the speaker is rounding off a talk called "Climate change and extreme events: lies, damned lies and statistics". There are nearly 100 people in the room. "How many people understood that statistical discussion?" he asks. Half a dozen hands go up. In the last row, a professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is regarded as a luminary by climate change revisionists, sits with mouth wide open and head tilted back, asleep.

In Copenhagen, scientists have been gathering this week to air the latest research on global warming. In Washington, Barack Obama and Congress are working on legislation to curb the burning of greenhouse gases. European government leaders returning from the US talk of how the new administration is giving fresh momentum to efforts for a global climate change treaty. Then there is this gathering, almost ignored by the media, which talks about climate change as a relic from the past: "Global warming: was it ever really a crisis?"

For those who reject the science that climate change is man-made and caused by carbon dioxide, and those who oppose government efforts to reduce carbon emissions, this is the anti-global warming jamboree: a gathering of the world's leading revisionist scientists and activists. It is also the launch of a new campaign against Obama's efforts to green the economy and sign America up to a climate change treaty.

"This is the counter-offensive to what is happening in the mainstream media and among our leadership in Congress and in the White House," says Marc Morano, an aide to James Inhofe, the Republican senator who notoriously dismissed global warming as a "hoax".

Conference attendees, from the US, Britain, Europe and beyond, readily admit that their views are dismissed by the leading scientific institutions and government. But they refuse to give up. They see in the economic recession new potential to re-open - and possibly win - the battle on global warming.

"The economic crisis has taken the wind out of the sails of [emissions] cap and trade and energy tax," says Joseph Bast, the president of the Heartland Institute, a Chicago thinktank that hosted the conference and was funded in the past by Exxon Mobil.

"If Obama cannot get cap and trade or an energy bill passed in the next two months, I think it is dead for the duration of the administration," he says.

It would be easy to dismiss this gathering as a pity party for people on the fringes of modern thought. The contrast with the America embodied by Obama's election is stark. The 600 attendees (by the organisers' count) are almost entirely white males, and many, if not most, are past retirement age. Only two women and one African-American man figure on the programme of more than 70 speakers. Aside from a smattering of academics from well-known universities, they are affiliated with rightwing thinktanks, such as the Ayn Rand Institute, the Carbon Sense Coalition, or the scarily named Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, that operate far outside the mainstream of public discourse.

Unlike Obama, who owed his victory to millions of supporters and donors, the climate change deniers operate within narrow bands of support: the conservative wing of the Republican party and the extreme end of the Christian Right. According to DeSmogblog, an environmentalist website, the 50 or so thinktanks linked to this conference between them have received $47m in funds over the years from Exxon and the Koch and Scaife families, who are the leading patrons of conservative causes in America. Both families made their first fortunes in the oil business.

But on one point, environmentalists and their opponents agree: after the skirmishes of the last decade about the science explaining the causes of climate change, and policy debates about carbon trading in Europe, the stage is set for a final showdown in Washington.

Conversation in the corridors regularly turns to how the naysayers could be more effective at influencing the debate and blocking new legislation. "What about taking out lawsuits against Hollywood celebrities who lend their prestige to environmental causes?" someone asks.

Morano, once a producer for the chatshow host Rush Limbaugh, will be crucial to that new PR push. He is leaving his Senate job to start a new climate website. The main thrust of his argument is that the carbon reduction targets set in Europe and under consideration by Congress will not work - "a symbolic solution for an alleged crisis", he claims.

But although the next phase of combat will be in the policy arena, conference-goers are not willing to concede any ground to the scientific establishment. They insist there are other causes of climate change, such as the sun or volcanos.

Richard Lindzen, the MIT meterologist who is treated with near-reverence among the conference-goers, admits such sessions are closer to therapy than shared scientific discovery. "It's fundamentally a support group," he says. "Let's have a vehicle for people who are sceptical to get together and meet each other."

Not that the mingling process is without awkwardness. Among climate change deniers there is little agreement on who they are fighting, and why, beyond the most basic. They all share a loathing for Al Gore. In the exhibition hall, a film-maker promotes a documentary on the environmental champion called Not Evil Just Wrong. Gore is regularly excoriated in the speeches as the leading "climate change alarmist".

Some of those in attendance see themselves as modern day Galileos, pure scientists trying to get the truth out against a hostile academic orthodoxy. Others see the concern about global warming as just another attempt to get in the way of business trying to turn a legitimate profit. For some, the enemy is government of any kind. Arthur Robinson, a leading rejectionist, gets a smattering of applause when he says he opposes the idea of state-funded schools for children.

Still others, like the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, the leading European climate change sceptic, are still fighting communism. "Environmentalism is an ideology," he told the conference. "It really is a replacement of some of the sins of the last century."

Environmentalists see that fracturing in the ranks as a sign of weakness. They note that large corporations, such as Exxon, which supported Heartland for nearly a decade, are now eager to be seen as partners for the Obama administration as it seeks to shift the US economy from fossil fuels to other sources of energy.

But though weakened in this age of Obama, the climate change revisionists remain determined not to go down without a fight. "It's almost a lost, lost battle," the Czech president said. "Nevertheless, for me, I must persevere and go on."

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