Climate Witness: Chris Kong, Malaysia
on WWF - Climate Witness stories
Mad lesson on Birds
an upcoming activity on the Cicada Tree Eco-Place blog
Camping on our shores
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Peregrine Falcon mobbed by a crow
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Great and Rhinoceros Hornbills’ new playground
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Antsy
on the annotated budak blog
Straits Times Forum 27 Mar 09;
I REFER to Wednesday's article, 'Pack them in, build them up'.
I am both shocked and dismayed by Professor Edward Glaeser's short-sighted and highly flawed opinion that a population of 6.5 million would be essentially beneficial for Singapore. His notion that there is nothing unhealthy about living in skyscrapers does not take into consideration the many Singaporeans who wish Singapore would lose its tag as a concrete jungle and focus on creating a city with more 'green spaces'.
He also welcomes the addition of more 'smart people', whom he defined as a typical man in his 40s with children, without considering whether these individuals would be able to assimilate into Singapore culture with no accompanying problems which are already plaguing many immigrants here.
He also mentioned that a city with high density would also serve people's needs but he has conveniently forgotten that the basic human need of privacy, comfort and space would be severely compromised in public spaces if the population hit 6.5 million.
As it is, many of my peers have expressed a sincere wish to emigrate, not because of the high cost of living or the stressful lifestyle. It is primarily because they are appalled by how Singapore has been transformed into a city where it is difficult to find a seat on the MRT on a weekday afternoon, or seek peace and solace even in the suburbs, when Sembawang Mall is now as crowded as Plaza Singapura. Homes are getting smaller and more expensive, and people feel blessed to secure a seat in a foodcourt at any time of the day.
Prof Glaeser also claimed that packing individuals close together in smaller homes would reduce transport costs and energy usage, but this is overly simplistic and short-sighted. There is every possibility that smaller homes may use more energy if more time is spent on home entertainment.
Prof Glaeser's view that a city with high population density would reduce transport cost is also problematic as recent research shows that individuals living in residential zones which are overly crowded have a higher tendency to travel out of their residential area to seek leisure arenas that are 'less congested' and where they are 'less scrutinised' than in flats built in close proximity to each other.
Prof Glaeser's comments are certainly not representative of most Singaporeans who seriously wish for a less crowded living environment.
Robin Chee
Thriving density? Be wary of potential pitfalls
Straits Times Forum 27 Mar 09;
I REFER to the report on Wednesday, 'Pack them in, build them up'. Professor Edward Glaeser of Harvard University suggests that a population of 6.5 million in a densely built-up city could give Singapore a thriving density attractive to 'smart people' who would generate new jobs and a 'creative buzz'. In turn, this buzz would spur new growth, making Singapore an even better place to live and work, for natives and foreigners alike.
On this rosy feedback cycle, seemingly loaded with an infinite chain of goods, I suggest caution: Beware of possible pitfalls of this model.
The first lies in the possibility of overcrowding. Beyond the obvious speculations of ever more crowded hawker centres, trains and roads, a thriving density cannot be automatically assumed, even with a 6.5 million population on an island as small as Singapore. A thriving density must be deliberately encouraged and designed, or it will turn into overcrowding. A thriving density is the result of people interacting with other people, people wanting to interact with other people; while overcrowding is by default, people brushing by other people.
A thriving density fosters social understanding and productive interaction, culminating in greater social solidarity. On the other hand, overcrowding exacerbates alienation and unproductive competitiveness, consequently turning into open conflict.
Common sense tells us that, while skyscrapers may provide the vertical solution to the problem of overcrowding, they are least ideal to foster a thriving density, since vertical use of skyscrapers via elevators tends to compartmentalise lives, minimise social interaction and reduce chance meetings.
The second pitfall lies in the unqualified emphasis on 'smart people'. No one would deny that Bernard Madoff or the many Wall Street financial wizards who have exacerbated the current financial crisis are 'smart people', or part of the creative class. Yet 'smartness' or creativity without morality, scruples or responsibility - as the current crisis has demonstrated - is a liability rather than a benefit to society.
From what is happening in the world today, being satisfied with a mere 'creative buzz' is likely to alarm many, while trying to foster a 'moral creative buzz' is likely to reassure, and intuitively attract post-financial crisis workers, investors and citizens.
This model of a densely built up, creative city growing on its own dynamics is nevertheless very seductive. But as with any other model to be pursued on a practical level, one should be wary of its potential pitfalls.
Jeffrey Chan
Today Online 27 Mar 09;
The more you save on energy consumption, the more you will gain. With this principle in mind, South-West CDC decided to introduce an ECo Challenge where a minimum 10 per cent energy savings will earn the low-income household a free energy efficient appliance.
Some 500 Institute of Technical Education student volunteers will act as energy auditors under the ECo Energy Auditors scheme.
They will assess households’ energy consumption and teach them how to reduce their electricity usage. The 1,000 low-income households expected to benefit from this initiative will also receive free installation of an energy efficient lighting system for one lighting point.
This scheme is part of the South-West district’s 10-year sustainability plan which aims to achieve win-win savings for both the environment and residents. 938LIVE
More than half polled don't know when it is
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 27 Mar 09;
SINGAPOREANS seem to be in the dark about Earth Hour, if a poll of 110 people is any indication.
With only two days left before Earth Hour this Saturday, those who know about it may have yet to see the light behind the exercise.
Earth Hour, an international initiative to switch off non-essential lighting from 8.30 to 9.30pm on Saturday, has been well broadcast.
But The New Paper poll showed that the majority (56 per cent) did not know when it is supposed to take place.
Among those who have heard about the initiative, there were some who either did not know the exact details - which means they would not be able to join in the effort - or did not care.
Among those who knew when it was, two-thirds said they had planned to join in the symbolic effort to counter global warming. Out of the 110 polled, this translates to just 30 per cent.
There were those who were simply didn't care, like student Kelvin Wong, 19: 'I'm not doing anything about it. I know it's inconsiderate but I'm not bothered.'
Then there are those who question whether the event would make a real difference (see Street Talk).
Mr Joshua Chong, 30, a programme coordinator, said: 'I don't think there's anything special about Earth Hour. It raises awareness, yes, but I won't be doing anything special.
'What real difference can that one hour make anyway? There's very little real impact, so there's little point in it.'
It appears that corporate entities are taking to the Earth Hour initiative in a more concerted way than individuals.
The organiser of Earth Hour, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), said over 300 companies are taking part, a leap from the few companies which took part last year.
Big names that have pledged their support include Canon Singapore, CapitaLand, Sentosa Leisure Group and National Geographic Channel.
The Canon Singapore billboard on Orchard Road will be switched off during the hour, while National Geographic is doing a channel blackout of its programmes. It will instead flash environmental facts on its screen.
But not all is lost on the community and individual front.
On Saturday, ECO Singapore, a group that advocates sustainable lifestyles for youths, will send out more than 1,200 student volunteers to engage 30,000 households all over Singapore for Earth Hour.
How will the students overcome apathy among the people they encounter?
Mr Wilson Ang, founder of ECO, said: 'The point is not to try and change people overnight, but to encourage them to take that first step. Last year, we had a similar exercise and it was so meaningful that about half of those involved have come back this year to lend a hand.'
Ms Carine Seror, WWF Singapore's director of corporate responsibility and Earth Hour campaign manager, was content with the results of our poll.
'Of course, it can always be better, but given that this is the first year that Earth Hour has been officially endorsed by the Government, the results are not too bad.
'At least half of the people have heard about Earth Hour and they know when it is. This is a huge achievement for us.'
She added: 'Earth Hour has brought the issue of climate change closer to people. From awareness to action is always a struggle. The poll shows that we still have a lot of work to do, until one day when 100 per cent of the population switches off all non-essential lighting.'
Additional reporting by Audrey Tan, Bernice Huang, Darren Foong, Joanna Hor, Michelle Tay, Pearly Tan, Han Su-Ying, newsroom interns
It's time to power off for the Earth
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 27 Mar 09;
IS EARTH Hour about switching off lights for an hour, or about switching on your mind to think of how to reduce carbon emissions every day?
The organisers of Earth Hour have said that it's a symbolic initiative.
The next step is to consider how to make Earth Hour an effective tool in the urgent fight against climate change.
How? Have more Earth Hours - from an hour annually to an hour every month.
Then, with greater awareness, have it once a week and, finally, turn it into an daily habit to think about which lights and electrical appliances we really need on.
As what one student, Miss Joyce Leong, 21, said in our poll: 'I always turn off non-essential lights at home. For me, it's Earth Hour every day!'
The thing about environmental problems is that they require a daily, concerted effort to have any positive impact.
During Saturday's Earth Hour, I will be switching off my room light and making sure I've no appliance on stand-by. Then I'm heading to a green concert outside Simei East Point Mall with my father.
It may be a small gesture, but therein lies the power of Earth Hour.
The threshold for action is low because the action is very simple - just turn off the light if you don't need it.
That's why, according to the Earth Hour website, 2,712 cities, towns and municipalities in 83 countries have already committed to support this initiative.
And about candles, if people light 10 candles in place of switching on their lights, this would defeat the purpose of the exercise and result in more carbon dioxide emissions.
Ms Carine Seror of WWF Singapore listed the following recommendations:
Use bee wax or vegetable wax candles
Keep your party simple and do not create unnecessary waste
Power your event with green energy or offset its carbon emissions (for example, by supporting the planting of trees or using energy-efficient light bulbs)
On Saturday, let there be no light.
What a big turn-off
To mark Earth Hour, more than 10,000 people and 450 firms and malls will switch off their lights for one hour tomorrow
Frankie Chee, Straits Times 27 Mar 09;
Singapore will be in the dark tomorrow night, but it is all for the cause of a brighter future.
More than 10,000 people and 450 companies, hotels, malls and schools will switch off their lights for an hour at 8.30pm, as part of the global Earth Hour energy conservation effort.
At least 2,700 cities in 84 countries have committed to mark Earth Hour, an initiative by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to raise awareness of climate change issues and which was launched two years ago.
If you are out and about tomorrow night, you will encounter the unusual sight of Singapore landmarks such as Zouk nightclub and Royal Plaza on Scotts hotel, and malls including The Cathay, Wisma Atria and Tangs Orchard all blacked out during primetime.
Diners at Royal Plaza on Scotts' restaurants will eat by candlelight, moviegoers at Cathay's cinemas will find the passageways dimmer than usual, shoppers at Tangs will browse darkened window displays and about 30 per cent of store lights will be switched off.
At Zouk, Earth Hour puts clubbers in the shade: Unnecessary lighting such as the colour wash on the club's exterior, a fibre-optic installation in its foyer, a plasma wall and the exterior lighting at Wine Bar will be switched off.
Downtown, the lights at Suntec City's distinctive Fountain of Wealth and the logos on its mall and office towers will be turned off.
Individuals are also doing their bit. Undergraduate Darren Tan, 21, has told his mother to switch off the lights in their private apartment in Potong Pasir during Earth Hour.
He says: 'Green awareness is now more apparent - everyone is more aware and conscious of it. And as I grow older, I become more conscious of it too.'
Hospitals are also getting in on the act. Alexandra Hospital will turn off the lights in its wards, along some corridors and on the facade of its building.
The hospital's chief executive, Mr Liak Teng Lit, says: 'It is after visiting hours and the patients are supposed to be sleeping.
'The hospital believes in the cause. Energy shortages and global warming will be big problems and these are caused by the population. We have to do something about it.'
Beverage company Coca-Cola Singapore, whose factory at Tuas operates non-stop, will turn off its sign and the factory's external lighting fixtures as well as those in its administrative building. But the lights in its production and warehouse areas will stay on for the safety of staff operating machinery.
Some places are going beyond the one-hour shutdown to show that they are keen greenies.
Take, for example, the Hong Leong Group conglomerate. Apart from shutting off the lights at 25 buildings, including the Millennium & Copthorne hotels and Hong Leong Finance, the company is encouraging staff to sleep without air-conditioning at home and hotel staff are roping in guests to participate as well.
Electricity in Alexandra Hospital's administrative offices was turned off between noon and 1pm every day this week, while about 40 per cent of its cafeteria lights have been turned off from 10am to noon and 2 to 8pm since Monday.
Coca-Cola embarked on a staff awareness drive about Earth Hour, with regular bulletins sent out weekly and a staff suggestion scheme on cutting down energy consumption.
It is also switching to energy-saving induction bulbs in its warehouse, which, based on its calculations, should result in a whopping 42,240 kilowatt-hour (kwh) reduction in energy usage monthly.
The average energy consumption of a four-room HDB flat is 348kwh a month, while that of a landed property is 1,108 kwh a month.
According to Singapore Power, a 100 watt bulb will use 0.1kw per hour, at a cost of 1.8 cents for the period.
During Earth Hour last year - when Singapore first took part - 50 million people in 370 cities participated.
This year, the initiative seeks to sign up one billion people on its website and will present this figure to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.
The meeting will determine government policies and actions to combat global warming, replacing the Kyoto Protocol.
WWF Singapore's director for corporate responsibility, Ms Carine Seror, tells Life!: 'With this one hour, we can't save or change the world. But it shows world leaders we care about the planet and that it's time to take some real action.'
Today Online 27 Mar 09;
TO BUILD up Singapore’s expertise in designing sustainable buildings, a new course has been rolled out by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the University of Nottingham.
Called the Master of Science in Sustainable Building Design, it is a first-of-its-kind postgraduate course, and comes under the Singapore Workforce Development Agency’s (WDA) Professional Conversion Programme.
There will be 60 students and they will receive up to 90 per cent of Government funding for their course fees.
The 2-year part time course will be based on an inter-disciplinary approach to sustainable design and comprises six compulsory modules and one dissertation.
The new course would be good news to 100 green building practitioners and graduating students surveyed by BCA Academy. More than 90 per cent of them felt the need for such training opportunities, while most believed that there will be high demand for such courses.
The course will be conducted at BCA Academy’s Braddell Road campus, and classes will be delivered by academic staff from the University of Nottingham and University of Nottingham Ningbo, China. The first intake will start in September. 938LIVE
Jamie Lee, Business Times 27 Mar 09;
KEPPEL Land expects to save up to $4 million in annual energy bill from completing six Green Mark certified projects.
The property arm of conglomerate Keppel Corporation also aims to achieve at least Green Mark Gold rating from the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) for all its developments.
'In its commitment towards going green, the company has gone beyond the statutory requirement and pledged to achieve a minimum Green Mark Gold certification for all new projects,' Keppel Land says in its first sustainability report.
The Green Mark Gold is ranked third out of four certifications available.
Under BCA criteria, new buildings are assessed on energy and water efficiency, as well as environmental quality and protection. The buildings are then ranked according to points tallied.
Keppel Land also said its overseas projects will be developed to meet similar international benchmarks.
With the completion of the six Green Mark projects, Keppel Land expects to see savings of $3-$4 million (depending on the cost of electricity), or a total annual energy reduction of almost 18 million kilowatt/ hours - enough to power 3,000 Singapore homes for a year.
Keppel Land's Green Mark certified projects here include Ocean Financial Centre, phase one of the Marina Bay Financial Centre commercial development and Reflections at Keppel Bay.
The certifications were given last year.
Keppel Land's Ho Chi Minh City condominium project the Estella was also certified as Green Mark in 2008.
The company has put in place energy-efficiency measures at its office buildings, including Bugis Junction Tower, Equity Plaza, Keppel Bay Towers and Prudential Towers. And based on energy audits, total annual savings could exceed $1 million.
The moves follow BCA's decision to focus on greening existing buildings, which are significant energy guzzlers.
Yahoo News 26 Mar 09;
PARIS (AFP) – Around a billion people living in the world's major cities are being invited to turn off their lights at 8:30 p.m. local time on Saturday for "Earth Hour," described as the biggest mass campaign to demand action on climate change.
The Empire State Building, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Acropolis in Athens and the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan are among the buildings whose illuminations will be switched off for an hour, the organisers said on their website (http://www.earthhour.org/)
More than 200 buildings in Paris will be dark for an hour, including the Louvre, Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Paris Opera House, according to the French branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
The Eiffel Tower will be plunged into darkness for five minutes and scrap a display of flashing lights scheduled for 9:00 p.m., Paris city hall said.
Earth Hour was launched by WWF in 2007.
Last year's event drew a claimed participation of 370 cities in 35 countries. Last week, the organisers said that 1,189 would be taking part this year.
People are being invited to provide blogs and short video clips (http://12seconds.tv/earthhour) on the ways of spending an hour in the dark.
The campaign has been backed by the United Nations, whose secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, last week described it as a "a clear message... (for) action on climate change" in the runup to a crucial meeting in Copenhagen.
The December conference aims at crafting a new global pact on curbing emissions of greenhouse gases and providing help for poor countries bearing the brunt of climate change.
Earth Hour 2009: A Billion to Go Dark Saturday?
Ker Than, National Geographic News 26 Mar 09;
Starting in New Zealand's remote Chatham Islands, thousands of cities, towns, and landmarks around the world will start to go dark for Earth Hour on Saturday evening.
Up to a billion people worldwide are expected to participate in this global voluntary blackout by switching off their lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time.
The movement, sponsored by the conservation nonprofit WWF, is designed as a symbolic gesture in support of action against global warming.
Now in its third year, Earth Hour has been attracting some high-profile advocates.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently pledged his support for Earth Hour, saying it has the potential to be "the largest demonstration of public concern about climate change ever attempted."
Secretary-General Ban urged people to participate as a way of letting politicians know that they expect progress at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, when world leaders will meet to draft a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol.
Other big names endorsing Earth Hour 2009 include actors Edward Norton and Cate Blanchett, musicians Alanis Morissette and Big Kenny, and the band Coldplay.
Landmarks at Night
Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia, in 2007 with about two million participants.
By 2008 the event had spread to nearly 400 participating cities in 35 countries and 50 million participants. (See before-and-after pictures of Earth Hour 2008.)
As of press time, more than 2,800 cities, towns, and villages in 84 countries worldwide are expected to take part in Earth Hour 2009.
World landmarks such as the Empire State Building, the Las Vegas strip, the Eiffel Tower, Rio de Janiero's statue of "Christ the Redeemer," Athens's Acropolis, Egypt's Great Pyramids, and Rome's Colosseum will also slip temporarily into darkness.
"Sometimes it takes a while for a good idea to get out there, and this year we're really hitting our stride," said WWF spokesperson Leslie Aun.
Earth Hour: Energy Saver?
While Earth Hour is important as a symbolic gesture, it would be even more valuable if the energy savings of the event were known, said Mary-Elena Carr, associate director of the Columbia Climate Center in New York City.
"The issue is whether it goes beyond a 'really cool' event and leads to anything tangible," Carr said.
"If there was an idea of how much energy was being saved, people could take measures to lower their energy use in a systematic and practical way."
Unlike in previous years, WWF is not releasing energy-savings estimates for this year's Earth Hour.
"We think the value of Earth Hour is the lights going off," WWF's Aun said, "not the energy savings."
Bernama 26 Mar 09;
KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 (Bernama) -- The government should create greater public awareness of environmental issues and to provide better public transport to address the threat of global warming.
Centre for Environment, Technology and Development Malaysia (CETDEM) chairman Gurmit Singh said the public could help protect the environment by using public transport and this would definitely reduce carbon emissions compared with driving their personal cars.
"The government can promote the use of public transport using the same concept in its campaign to use electricity economically so as to avoid energy wastage," he said at the Climate Change Forum, here, Thursday.
The forum was organised by the British High Commission in collaboration with the Chevening Alumni of Malaysia.
Gurmit said high carbon gas emissions were not due to electricity usage but fuel consumption.
"Our studies have shown that if consumers use public transport instead of personal transport, it will cut down carbon emissions by about one quarter," he said.
Apart from that, he said, the public and private sectors should show continuous commitment to preserving and protecting the environment by conducting more research and development on climate change.
"Currently, there is not enough support in creating environmental awareness from the two sectors to ensure Malaysia does not contribute to high carbon gas emissions," he added.
-- BERNAMA
National Geographic News 26 Mar 09;
As the smallest known frog species in the world's second largest mountain range, this new amphibian is easy to miss.
But scientists searching the Andes mountains' upper Cosqipata Valley in southern Peru, near Cusco, spotted the coin-size creature--a member of the Noblella genus--in the leaf litter of a cloud forest between 9,925 and 10,466 feet (3,025 and 3,190 meters).
Photograph courtesy Alessandro CatenazziAndrew Wight, Brisbane Times 27 Mar 09;
The chief chemical investigator into the Exxon Valdez has vindicated the Queensland Government's response to the oil spill in Moreton Bay two weeks ago.
Dr Jeffrey Short, a 30-year veteran of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said Premier Anna Bligh was right not to order the immediate deployment of dispersal planes after the 230-tonne spill, which occurred after containers lost in rough seas from the Pacific Adventurer pierced the hull.
"In your case (Moreton Bay), the high winds and high seas at the time would have made dispersant or booms ineffective, so I don't think you could have helped that," Dr Short told brisbanetimes.com.au from his home in Washington DC.
Dr Short played a key role in the 1987 spill, in which the Exxon Valdez poured 40 million litres of oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska, resulting in the death of seabirds, seals and other wildlife.
While the Exxon Valdex spilled much more oil than the Pacific Adventurer, Dr Short urged the State Government to heed the lessons of the past.
Tourism could be affected if proper care wasn't taken,Dr Short said.
"After the Exxon spill, no one wanted to come to Alaska.
"Even places hundreds of kilometres away were deserted by tourists.
"The main lesson that we learnt from Exxon Valdez was that you really don't want the oil to get to the shore and once it does, every moment is vital."
Dr Short said it was preferable for oil to wash up on beaches.
"The oil that's on the open sand beaches isn't going to last very long," he said.
"The tides govern how much flushing occurs. A tide of a couple of metres is quite a lot of flushing.
"Most of the oil was removed from the beach in the first few years after the (Exxon) spill."
Dr Short also said it was fortunate little oil had made its way into freshwater marshes or mangroves on Moreton island.
"If the oil gets into the root systems of mangroves, it can't be gotten out," he said.
"This oil is quite toxic to fish eggs. With bunker oil , it has a higher density and it's just buoyant enough to get floated onto the beach and when they mixed with any sand at all, the oil sinks in.
"The oil gets into crab burrows, kills the crabs and then forms this plug that stays in there."
Dr short said the oil from the Exxon spill lasted much longer than predicted.
"Even years later, the oil is still there, still causing toxic effects."
Meanwhile, an independent panel of scientists, chaired by Australian Institute of Marine Science CEO Dr Ian Poine, is also satisfied with the government's handling of the clean-up so far.
Maritime Safety Queensland head Captain John Watkinson said the panel has vindicated their approach.
"They've given an endorsement of the work presently being undertaken and they're going to continue to monitor that progress of operation," he said.
Katharine Houreld, Associated Press 26 Mar 09;
DIANI, Kenya (AP) — Plastic fishing nets — some bought for poor fishermen with American aid money — are tangling up whales and turtles off one of Africa's most popular beaches.
One recent victim was a huge dappled whaleshark that bled to death after its tail was cut off by fishermen unwilling to slash their nets to save it. In another case, divers risked their lives to free a pregnant, thrashing humpback whale entangled in a net last summer.
Both incidents occurred off Diani beach, which is popular with American and European tourists.
The fishermen have traditionally used hooks and hand lines to haul in their catch, which they then sold to hotels full of tourists. But the use of plastic nets has become increasingly common as growing populations have competed to catch shrinking supplies of fish, marine biologist David Obura said.
In 2003, USAID began a four-year project worth $575,000 to improve the lives of coastal communities. It worked on a project with a Kenyan government agency that included providing freezers for the fishermen to store their catch, along with boats and nets.
But the plastic nets are destroying the very ecosystems that the fishermen depend on and the tourists come to see, said Daniel Floren, who runs a local diving school.
Officials, experts and even the fishermen themselves acknowledge the nets are killing wildlife and coral.
"Without the reefs, there will be no diving. If we have nothing to show, I'll have to shut up shop," Floren said.
The aim of the U.S. project was to help lift local people out of poverty, said Robert Buzzard, a USAID official involved in the initiative. But there were no studies to show how the kind of equipment supplied might affect the marine life.
"There weren't environmental assessments year on year," Buzzard acknowledged, saying USAID was "partly" responsible but also was dependent on local organizations to provide information.
The project did not provide the type of nets or long fishing lines — which catch fish without entangling other marine life — that fishermen requested, said Isaak Mwachala, head of one of the local fishermen's associations.
"When they were going to the shop where these nets are sold, they didn't bring us with them ... but when (the nets) are already here we can't refuse them," he said.
Buzzard said he did not have records of Mwachala's request, but said it was possible it had been made.
When Mwachala and his friends head out to sea, they often throw miles (kilometers) of plastic net onto the reef. The money they earn pays school fees for one man's child, hospital bills for another's. But along with the haul of colorful fish, the nets threaten turtles, whales, whalesharks and dugongs — large marine mammals related to manatees.
The fishermen, who say their old hook-and-line method never caught turtles or whales, practice conservation where they can.
After Floren offered small payments last year, they brought him more than 70 turtles snarled in fishing nets over a two-month period. It was not possible to say how many of them were trapped in nets funded by USAID. He managed to cut free and release all but a dozen. But the pregnant, entangled humpback whale last September was much harder.
It took Floren and two other divers three tense hours to cut her free, all the while risking panicking the whale and becoming entangled in the mesh themselves if she suddenly fled to the deep sea. A rare dugong and another humpback mother whale were freed a month later in the northern town of Malindi.
The huge dappled whalesharks that migrate down the coast are also at risk. Volker Bassen, founder of the East African Whaleshark Trust, said about half a dozen have become entangled in the type of nets funded by USAID since he founded the trust four years ago.
He said most marine animals are trapped by nets left on the reefs overnight to catch lobsters for the tourists.
"The nets that USAID bought are made of nylon, which doesn't rot. Even if it washes away, it remains in the sea and continues to kill marine life for decades," he explained. "It turns into a ghost net."
The nets are still destructive even if just used during the day and hauled in at night. The stones they use to weigh down the nets scrape over the delicate corals in time with the current, snagging the nets along the bottom and leaving scraps of blue nylon entangled in their wake. Onboard the boat bought with USAID funds, the men casually tossed chunks of the coral they'd pulled up over the side of the boat.
The fishermen interviewed by The Associated Press agreed that their livelihoods depended on preserving the seas and were interested in trying long lines if they were provided.
But Buzzard said USAID's involvement with the fishermen's group had been finished for a year and a half, and there were no plans to replace the nets. Buzzard said a colleague had been sent to speak to local conservationists who had complained about the nets.
"Those concerns are valid," he said. But "this project is finished ... Every project we do, we learn from."
Still, providing only one group of fishermen with new equipment would not be enough to save the marine life, said Obura, who specializes in studying coral reefs.
In addition to the growing groups of poor fishermen crowding onto the reefs, huge European and Asian trawlers much further offshore are overfishing the deeper coastal waters, he said.
"The fishermen have the strong sense that there are other, richer fishermen out there raping and pillaging the seas and so why shouldn't they?" he said.
Fisherman Mohammed Khamis said the nets provided with USAID funds have increased the fishermen's average daily earnings from $4.50 to $7 — still less than a tourist pays for a fish fillet at an expensive hotel.
Khamis knew the nets could be destructive, but had three sets of school fees to pay totaling $460 a year and no other options for work in a country riddled with corruption and poverty. He says he could not afford to sacrifice his children's future for a turtle's.
"If someone has a family, they have to look for school fees, sickness, everything," he said. "We don't eat these turtles and we don't want to catch them but the extra fish is paying my children's school for their future."
Yahoo News 26 Mar 09;
PERTH, Australia (AFP) – A baby whale rescued after a mass beaching on Australia's west coast died Thursday after coming back ashore, leaving just three of the mammals alive, authorities said.
A group of 11 long-finned pilot whales were lifted onto trucks by cranes fitted with giant slings and driven to a safe harbour for release after they beached at Hamelin Bay, south of Perth city, on Monday.
Almost 90 of the whales and bottlenose dolphins came ashore, and most perished before they could be moved.
Of the 10 who made it to sea just three were still alive Thursday, with a baby whale becoming the seventh to die after re-beaching.
"We have had a report of a juvenile whale being washed up on the beach just east of Augusta," said John Carter, of the environment department.
"That one unfortunately didn't make it," he told AFP.
Authorities would continue aerially monitoring beaches in the area to ensure the survivors, who were believed to have made it to deeper water, did not return to shore, Carter said.
More than 400 whales have stranded around southern Australia and Tasmania in the past four months, including a mass beaching of almost 200 on King Island.
In November, more than 150 pilot whales died after beaching themselves on Tasmania's west coast and in January, 48 sperm whales died on a sandbar at the north of the island.
The phenomenon of whale strandings and the causes remain the subject of scientific debate.
Kristen Gelineau, Associated Press Yahoo News 26 Mar 09;
SYDNEY – For decades, the poisonous cane toad has plagued Australians, breeding rapidly, eating voraciously and bestowing death upon most animals that dare consume it.
So officials came up with a novel — and, some say, poetic — solution: hold a festive mass killing of the creatures and turn the corpses into fertilizer for the very farmers who've battled the pests for years.
On Saturday, residents of five communities in cane toad-plagued northern Queensland state will grab their flashlights and fan out into the night to hunt down the hated animals as part of the inaugural "Toad Day Out" celebration. The toads will be brought to collection points the next morning to be weighed and killed, with some of the remains ground into fertilizer for sugarcane farmers at a local waste management plant.
"It's just a circle of poetic justice!" Toad Day Out organizer Lisa Ahrens said. "Seventy-five years later, they're a benefit to the cane farmer."
The toads were imported from South America to Queensland in 1935 in a failed attempt to control beetles on sugarcane plantations. The problem? The toads couldn't jump high enough to eat the beetles, which live on top of cane stalks.
The ample amphibians, which grow up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) in length, bred rapidly, and their millions-strong population now threatens many local species across Australia. They spread diseases, such as salmonella, and produce highly toxic venom from glands in their skin that can kill would-be predators. The toads are also voracious eaters, chomping up insects, frogs, small reptiles and mammals — even birds. Cane toads are only harmful to humans if their poison is swallowed.
"The cane toad is probably the most disgusting creature and the most destructive creature," said Queensland politician Shane Knuth, a longtime loather of cane toads who came up with the Toad Day Out idea. "They're killing our native wildlife, they're taking over our habitat and they're hopping all through this country."
Knuth, who has been pushing a proposal to offer a 40 Australian cent ($0.28) bounty on the creatures since 2007, said each adult female cane toad can produce 20,000 eggs. "So if we're able to remove 3,000 female toads, we have the potential in the long run of removing 60 million toads from our environment," he said. No one knows exactly how many cane toads live in Australia.
Organizers are trying to woo thousands of people to take part in the hunt by offering prizes for those with the biggest toad and the highest total weight of toads. Goodies range from cane toad trophies (made of actual stuffed cane toads) to a gift certificate for a local resort.
An organizers' tip sheet gives advice on how to create toad traps — or "detention camps" — and recommends that participants "study detention techniques to ensure your own, as well as the toad's safety — they must be alive and unharmed for interrogation."
Live toads brought to the collection points will be examined by experts to ensure they're not harmless frogs and then killed, either by freezing or by being placed in plastic bags filled with carbon dioxide.
Haydn Slattery, manager of the SITA waste management plant in Cairns, said he's hoping to receive about 220 pounds (100 kilograms).
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has applauded the effort — with one caveat.
"We're only supportive of the plan if the toads are killed humanely — in other words, they're not hit with baseball bats or cricket bats and golf clubs," said spokesman Michael Beatty.
Amphibious warfare: Australians offered prizes in cane toad cull
Pests threaten native species, say Queensland authorities
James Sturcke and agencies, guardian.co.uk 26 Mar 09;
Introduced as part of a misguided attempt to control beetle infestation, the poisonous cane toad quickly supplanted its intended prey as one of the most destructive and hated creatures in Australia.
Now Queensland authorities believe the collective loathing in which they are held will galvanise residents into taking part in a mass cull on Saturday night.
Townsville council wants people to track down and bag up the toads, which breed rapidly, eat voraciously and kill most animals that dare to eat them.
The live animals should then be taken to a collection point the following day where they will be weighed and either frozen or gassed to death, with the carcasses turned into fertiliser.
Only unharmed animals will be accepted according to the rules of the Toad Day Out event.
"The cane toad is probably the most disgusting creature and the most destructive creature," said Queensland politician Shane Knuth, who came up with the Toad Day Out idea. "They're killing our native wildlife, they're taking over our habitat and they're hopping all through this country."
Knuth, who has been pushing a proposal to offer a 40¢ (19p) bounty on the creatures since 2007, said each adult female cane toad can produce 20,000 eggs every time it spawns.
The toads were imported from South America to Queensland in 1935 in a doomed effort to control beetles on sugar cane plantations – the toads could not jump high enough to eat the beetles, which live on top of cane stalks.
The amphibians, which grow up to 20cm (8in) in length, constitute an environmental menace, authorities say, which threaten many native species across Australia.
They spread bacteria such as salmonella and produce highly toxic venom from glands in their skin that can kill would-be predators. The toads are also voracious eaters, consuming insects, frogs, small reptiles and mammals – even birds. Cane toads are only harmful to humans if their poison is swallowed.
Toad Day Out organisers are offering prizes for people with the biggest toad and the highest total weight of toads. Goodies range from cane toad trophies – made of stuffed cane toads – to a gift certificate for a local resort.
Aware that an annual event may not be enough to satisfy local population control demands, the council offers advice on how to freeze the animals to death at home.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has applauded the effort – with one caveat. "We're only supportive of the plan if the toads are killed humanely – in other words, they're not hit with baseball bats or cricket bats and golf clubs," said spokesman Michael Beatty.
Yahoo News 26 Mar 09;
OTTAWA (AFP) – Sealers taking part in Canada's controversial yearly hunt have slaughtered some 19,411 seals so far this year, reaching their full kill-quota, fisheries officials said Thursday.
"It's been calm and orderly," said Phil Jenkins, a spokesman for Canada's fisheries and oceans department, describing the first leg of the annual commercial cull, which ended Wednesday.
Some 350 Canadian sealers in 20 vessels and on the shores of the Magdalen Islands have taken part in the annual seal kill.
Weather permitting, a small hunt of 1,500 animals around Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, will take place on Friday, Jenkins said.
Otherwise, the commercial hunt would resume next month off the west coast of Canada's island Newfoundland province and near Quebec's lower northshore, targeting some 63,000 seals.
Thereafter, the main hunt off the northeast coast of Newfoundland will kick off, said Jenkins. Some 188,600 seals are expected to be slaughtered during this phase.
Canada is home to the world's largest annual commercial seal hunt. Harp seals also are hunted commercially off the coasts of Greenland, Norway, the United States, Namibia, Britain, Finland and Sweden.
The seals are hunted mainly for their pelts, but also for meat and fat, which is used in beauty products.
The Canadian hunt has been fiercely criticized by animal rights groups, who say it is cruel.
The Canadian government countered that the 350-year-old hunt is crucial for some 6,000 North Atlantic fisherman who rely on the seal hunt for up to 35 percent of their total annual income.
In April, the European parliament is to vote on a proposed prohibition on seal products that would ban products derived from seals from being imported, exported or even transported across the 27-member bloc.
The measure still has to be approved by EU governments before it can be implemented.
Ottawa has said it would fight any curbs on the international trade of seal products.
David Fogarty PlanetArk 26 Mar 09;
SINGAPORE - Farmers of the future will have to use cattle and sheep that belch less methane, crops that emit far less planet-warming nitrous oxide and become experts in reporting their greenhouse gas emissions to the government.
Agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases and globally that share will rise as demand for food from growing human populations also increases, scientist Richard John Eckard of the University of Melbourne said on Thursday.
But farmers are facing a near-impossible challenge: feeding the world while trying to trim emissions and adapt to greater extremes of droughts and floods because of global warming, he said.
In coming years, farmers will have to monitor and report emissions as more nations move toward emissions trading.
"We want agriculture to feed the world. We want farmers to be viable and continue to increase the rate of productivity growth. At the same time, we're telling them they are going to face a more harsh climate they need to adapt to.
"On top of that you impose a policy that you can now only emit a fraction of the emissions that you were emitting," he told Reuters from Perth, Western Australia, during a climate change conference.
Eckard said research into ways of trimming those emissions while maintaining production growth was not advanced enough.
Australia, a major beef, dairy, wheat and wool producer, is aiming to launch the world's most sweeping emissions trading scheme from mid-2010.
Emissions from agriculture will be exempt until at least 2015 in part because technology to curb farm emissions is still in its infancy but also because adding costs to farmers is unpopular.
But the government has said it is determined to tackle emissions from agriculture one way or another because they comprise 16 percent the nation's total. In New Zealand, about half of national emissions come from agriculture.
CLEVER CATTLE, SMART CROPS
Methane, which is about 20 times more powerful at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, comes from the stomachs of ruminants, such as cattle and sheep. Nitrous oxide, about 310 times more powerful than CO2, comes from the soil in wheat, maize, rice and sugar cane crops.
Eckard, who also works for the Victorian state government, said Australia had launched a national effort to find ways of tackling methane and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions.
He leads a team that focuses mainly on intensive livestock systems and N2O emissions from wheat and grazing.
He said steps under development in Australia included dietary supplements and vaccines that curb methane production in livestock, as well as improving the rate, source and timing of nitrogen fertilizer use.
"We've evaluated oils and found out that for every one percent extra oil we put in the diet of a ruminant you get about a six percent reduction in methane," he said, referring to cottonseed and canola oil.
There was also a major project to breed a super variety of sheep and beef and dairy cattle that need less food to grow.
Scientists are also developing crop varieties that need less water and nitrogen fertilizer, Eckard said.
(Editing by Valerie Lee)
UNEP 25 Mar 09;
Nairobi, 25 March 2009 - Extensive forest fires are affecting several of Kenya's key moisture reservoirs including the 400,000-hectare Mau Forest Complex, Kenya's largest forest and the source of water for at least twelve rivers. Important Rift Valley Lakes, including Lake Victoria, the source of the River Nile, depend on the rivers which are fed from the forest.
Noor Hassan Noor, the Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner said that between 25 and 35 per cent of the eastern Mau forest has been lost so far as a result of the fire.
Commenting on the situation, the co-ordinator of the UNEP-Kenya country program Henry Ndede , said "the forest fires will interfere with the already existing effects of deforestation. There will be changes in micro-climate that influence tea growing and other agricultural activities in the region and loss of topsoil transported as silt in the rivers during the rainy season will interfere with fish breeding in major Kenyan lakes."
In addition, Kenya's energy sector is suffering. A $260 million dollar hydro-electricity project was stopped because it was designed to depend on water from the forest complex. If the forest continues to be denuded the Mara River will also dry up, leaving large populations and rare wild animals at the mercy of drought.
In the next few days the Kenya Forest Working Group, of which UNEP is a partner, will put forward a series of recommendations to the Kenyan government, which will suffer losses of more than $300 million dollars a year from the tourism, tea and energy sectors if the forest continues to deplete.
Anne Kahihia, assistant director in charge of the affected area for the Kenya Wildlife Service, spoke to UNEP after visiting communities living on the burning forest's edge. "The Masaii there are not happy," she said. "They are having a big problem. All their rivers have dried up. The kids talk in Masaii about when the water was pure and clean and the water was sacred."
Kenya's normally most visited national park, Lake Nakuru Park, is also in danger. The forest should act as a sponge, regulating the flow of water into the lake from its source in Mau. But farming and an increased population are making the quality and quantity of water entering the lake unstable.
Kenya's minister for forests and wildlife, Dr Noah Wekesa told the media that the forest fires come at a time when the Kenyan government is deliberating how best to manage the forest, which is one of the country's five water towers.
With the forest intact, up to 60 per cent of Kenya's energy could be harnessed from the additional water flows, which could be crucial if Kenya is to survive any rises in oil prices.
Yahoo News 26 Mar 09;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – As President Barack Obama tries to green the United States by slapping limits on carbon emissions, Congress was told to ignore his plan because climate change does not exist.
"The right response to the non-problem of global warming is to have the courage to do nothing," said British aristocrat Lord Christopher Walter Monckton, a leading proponent of the "climate change is myth" movement.
The Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who was an advisor to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, argued before the Energy and Environment Subcommittee that for 14 years, contrary to broadly accepted scientific beliefs, "there has been no statistically significant global warming."
The House hearing, titled "Adaptation Policies in Climate Legislation," discussed ways to address President Barack Obama's cap-and-trade proposal in his 3.55-trillion-dollar budget plan, presented to Congress in February.
Obama's proposal would limit emissions of greenhouse gases for manufacturers, and permit companies to trade the right to pollute to other firms -- a similar cap-and-trade system to the European model.
The moves are now subject of intense political opposition in Congress, notably from lawmakers representing US states heavily invested in energy production through fossil fuels.
"Adaptation is at present unnecessary," said Lord Monckton at the hearing. "Mitigation is always unnecessary. It is also disproportionately expensive.
"Green jobs are the new euphemism for mass unemployment," he added.
Addressing the hearing on the "balanced Biblical view" for environment and development issues, Pastor Calvin Beisner -- national spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance, a coalition of clergy, theologians and religious leaders -- questioned proposed efforts to combat climate change.
"I am convinced that policies meant to reduce alleged carbon dioxide-induced global warming will be destructive," he said.
"The Biblical world view sees Earth and its ecosystems as the effect of a wise God's creation and ... therefore robust, resilient, and self regulating, like the product of any good engineer."
Beisner argued that policies to reduce carbon emissions would destroy jobs and be prohibitively expensive.
"The truth is that no alternative fuels can compete at present with fossil fuels for price," he said.
Congressman Joe Barton, from the oil-rich state of Texas, maintained that "mankind always adapts," and that "adaptation to shifts in temperature is not that difficult."
What will be difficult, he argued, was "adaptation to rampant unemployment and enormous, spontaneous and avoidable changes to our economy if we adopt such a reckless policy as cap-and-tax or cap-and-trade."
Facing down the non-believers, an array of government agency representatives and environmental organizations described the mounting threats to humanity from devastating climate change -- including rising sea levels, soaring temperatures and increasingly violent weather phenomena.
Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), stressed mitigation would not suffice.
"While increased mitigation measures will likely reduce the need for future adaptation, the United States and the world will continue to experience changing climate conditions and resulting impacts," he said.
President of National Wildlife Federation, Larry Schweiger, urged lawmakers to back moves to tackle climate change, telling them that the United States "must invest now in safeguarding the natural world from the inevitable impacts of global warming."
Recalling the report from the Nobel Prize-winning UN intergovernmental panel on climate change, Schweiger warned that due to cataclysmic climate change, "in the lifetime of a child born today, 20 to 30 percent of the world's plant and animal species will be on the brink of extinction, if we don't take action now."
Many Republicans in Congress remain deeply skeptical about adopting a market-based mechanism to cut carbon emissions, fearing it may hit the competitiveness of US firms and products on global markets, particularly while China and India refuse to make concessions in tandem.
A recent study funded by the environmental group Greenpeace claimed the United States could reduce carbon emissions by 83 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 while sharply expanding employment, through dramatic increases in wind, solar and other green energies.
LiveScience Yahoo News 26 Mar 09;
The warming of Atlantic Ocean waters in recent decades is largely due to declines in airborne dust from African deserts and lower volcanic emissions, a new study suggests.
Since 1980, the tropical North Atlantic has been warming by an average of a half-degree Fahrenheit (a quarter-degree Celsius) per decade.
While that number may sound small, it can translate to big impacts on hurricanes, which are fueled by warm surface waters, said study team member Amato Evan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For example, the ocean temperature difference between 1994, a quiet hurricane year, and 2005's record-breaking year of storms (including Hurricane Katrina), was just 1 degree Fahrenheit.
Evan and his colleagues had previously shown that African dust and other airborne particles can suppress hurricane activity by reducing how much sunlight reaches the ocean and keeping the sea surface cool. Dusty years predict mild hurricane seasons, while years with low dust activity - including 2004 and 2005 - have been linked to stronger and more frequent storms.
In the new study, the researchers investigated the exact effect of dust and volcanic emissions on ocean temperatures. They combined satellite data of dust and other particles with existing climate models and calculated how much of the Atlantic warming observed during the last 26 years could be accounted for by simultaneous changes in African dust storms and tropical volcanic activity, primarily the eruptions of El Chichón in Mexico in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.
The results: More than two-thirds of this upward trend in recent decades can be attributed to changes in African dust storm and tropical volcano activity during that time.
This was a surprisingly large amount, Evan said.
The results, detailed in the March 27 issue of the journal Science, suggest that only about 30 percent of the observed Atlantic temperature increases are due to other factors, such as a warming climate.
"This makes sense, because we don't really expect global warming to make the ocean [temperature] increase that fast," Evan said.
This adjustment brings the estimate of global warming's impact on the Atlantic more in line with the smaller degree of ocean warming seen elsewhere, such as the Pacific.
Of course, this doesn't discount the importance of global warming, Evan said, but indicates that newer climate models will need to include dust storms as a factor to accurately predict how ocean temperatures will change.
Satellite research of dust-storm activity is relatively young, and no one yet understands what drives dust variability from year to year. And volcanic eruptions are still relatively unpredictable.
"We don't really understand how dust is going to change in these climate projections, and changes in dust could have a really good effect or a really bad effect," Evan said.
More research and observations of the impact of dust will help answer that question.
Less Dusty Air Warms Atlantic, May Spur Hurricanes
Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 26 Mar 09;
OSLO - A decline in sun-dimming airborne dust has caused a fast warming of the tropical North Atlantic in recent decades, according to a study that might help predict hurricanes on the other side of the ocean.
About 70 percent of the warming of the Atlantic since the early 1980s was caused by less dust, blown from Saharan sandstorms or caused by volcanic eruptions, U.S.-based scientists wrote in the journal Science.
Clouds of dust can be blown thousands of kilometers (miles) and reflect some of the sun's rays back into space.
"Since 1980 tropical North Atlantic Ocean temperatures have been rising at a rate of nearly 0.25 Celsius (0.45 F) per decade," they wrote on Thursday.
In the past, the rapid temperature rise had been blamed on factors such as global warming or shifts in ocean currents. Warmer temperatures may spur more hurricanes, which need sea surface temperatures of about 28 Celsius (82.40F) to form.
A sea temperature difference of just one Fahrenheit separated 1994, a quiet hurricane year, from a record 2005 when storms included Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison statement.
"We were surprised" by the big role of dust on Atlantic temperatures, said Ralf Bennartz, a professor at the university and a co-author of the study written with experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
COOLER
In past decades "there was much more dust blowing from (Africa) onto the Atlantic and cooling the sea and ... potentially suppressing hurricane intensity," he told Reuters. No other ocean receives so much dust.
More droughts in Africa in the 1980s, for instance, meant more dust in the air, he said of the study of satellite data and climate models. Annual emissions of dust from North Africa have been estimated at between 240 million and 1.6 billion tonnes.
Bennartz said the scientists were trying to work out, for instance, if wet weather in North Africa could mean less dust and in turn point to fewer hurricanes battering the United States or Caribbean islands.
Big volcanic eruptions were El Chichon in Mexico in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. Both dimmed the sun.
The study suggests that only 30 percent of the warming of the Atlantic can be explained by factors other than dust, for instance global warming blamed by the U.N. Climate Panel on emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.
"This makes sense, because we don't really expect global warming to make the ocean (temperatures) increase that fast," said Amato Evan, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was lead author.
Bennartz said it was unclear how climate change might affect overall dust amounts blown from Africa this century.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
David Fogarty, PlanetArk 26 Mar 09;
SINGAPORE - The forecast for Sydney in summer 2060 is hot, polluted and deadly to the elderly.
Rising summer temperatures due to global warming, drier weather and smog from transport and bushfires will make Australia's lifestyle capital a health hazard, a scientist told a major climate change conference on Wednesday.
Most at risk will be the increasing number of elderly from heat stress and anyone with asthma or heart complaints, said Martin Cope of the state-funded Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.
"We're talking about tripling the number of hospital admissions due to respiratory conditions," he told Reuters from Perth in Western Australia, which is hosting the Greenhouse 2009 conference.
"There will be more warmer days, more warmer nights and an older population. It's certainly something we want to plan ahead for," he said, adding the picture might not be so grim if Sydneysiders embraced low-carbon lifestyles and industry.
Cope's team at the CSIRO's Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research used computer models to generate urban weather forecasts for Sydney to test the effects of temperature increases of 1 to 4 degrees Celsius over the current annual maximum.
Higher temperatures caused increased heat stress in the elderly but also helped intensify air pollution, he said.
"From the modeling, we were looking at a 20 percent increase in the number of days above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) ... You can be looking at a 100 percent increase of the small number of extreme temperature days," he said, referring to temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius.
Cope said the number of people aged 65 and over were expected to double by 2060, increasing the numbers at risk from heat and rising pollution in Sydney.
"That has the biggest effect on the changes in mortality from heat stress. We are talking about roughly a doubling of heat-stress related deaths. If you then factor in a change in the demographic, you could be talking about a doubling again," he said. Sydney's air would also become more toxic during summer because of higher temperatures and the interaction between sunlight and the chemicals released by burning fossil fuels, even from painting, grass cutting and eucalyptus trees.
"A lot of these emissions are temperature dependent. As things warm up then you get more of the gases being released from the liquids," Cope said.
Add to this the carbon monoxide from tailpipes and ozone created in the smog that blankets the city and "it's a big soup," he said.
By 2060, the projections for Sydney would also be drier with potentially more drought, more dust storms, more high-fire risk weather, he added, further adding materials to the smog mix.
Cope said the computer models also showed how to trim the worst of the impacts, for example, improving household insulation and reducing the city's heat-island effect.
Shifting to electric or hybrid cars would also help.
"That's really the key. The steps that we will take to reduce carbon emissions will also be beneficial to reducing air pollution."
(Editing by Dean Yates)
Thousands of Punjab farmers suffer as river Chenab runs dry
Andrew Buncombe and Omar Waraich, The Independent 26 Mar 09;
Crucial, coveted and increasingly scarce, water has become the latest issue to stoke tensions between India and Pakistan, with farmers in Pakistan's breadbasket accusing Delhi of reducing one of the subcontinent's most important rivers to little more than a trickle.
A group of more than 20 different UN bodies warned earlier this month that the world may be perilously close to its first water war. "Water is linked to the crises of climate change, energy and food supplies and prices, and troubled financial markets," said the report.
"Unless their links with water are addressed and water crises around the world are resolved, these other crises may intensify and local water crises may worsen, converging into a global water crisis and leading to political insecurity and conflict at various levels."
The crisis in the agricultural heartland of Pakistan relates to the Chenab, one of a series of waterways that bisect the Punjab, which means 'five rivers'. The Chenab is fed with glacial meltwaters from the Himalayas and for centuries has provided crucial irrigation for the region. But last summer farmers began to notice the levels of both the river and groundwater begin to fall.
Pakistan blames India, saying it is withholding millions of cubic feet of water upstream on the Chenab in Indian-administered Kashmir and storing it in the massive Baglihar dam in order to produce hydro-electricity. Its Indian neighbour, Pakistan declares, is in breach of a 1960 treaty designed to administer water use in the region. After initial talks to try and resolve the issue, the matter has been put on hold since the Mumbai attacks last November in which 165 people were killed, fuelling tensions between the two quarrelsome neighbours.
Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari warned: "The water crisis in Pakistan is directly linked to relations with India. Resolution could prevent an environmental catastrophe in South Asia, but failure to do so could fuel the fires of discontent that lead to extremism and terrorism."
The farmers who make their livelihoods along the banks of the Chenab are quick to blame India for their misery. When Mohammed Babar and other villagers close to the town of Wazirabad sunk a well several years ago, they discovered water just 50ft beneath the surface; now the water table lies at around 100ft down. "To irrigate our crops it used to cost about 200 rupees (£2.71) worth of diesel," said Mr Babar, standing amid fields lush with rice and winter wheat. "Now it costs 250 or 300."
From where Mr Babar and his neighbours live, it is just a few hundred yards to the Chenab. Once a strong-flowing river, it is now a slow-flowing trickle. Locals say the river once came up close to the top of the road bridge but now it dribbles past, metres below.
Abdul Hamid and his family make their living cutting reeds for thatching on the east bank of the river. They have watched the level of the water fall, and with it, the supply reeds from which they make their living.
"There has been a big difference. It doesn't even look like a river anymore, it looks like a puddle," said 40-year-old Mr Hamid, who has eight children. "When there is no water, there are no reeds and then no money. My whole family works doing this. We used to earn 500 rupees a day. But now it's down to 300 because there are less reeds." Asked why the Chenab had fallen, Mr Hamid had a ready answer: "It has been cut off by India."
The Chenab is one of five main rivers that pass through the Punjab, all ultimately joining the Indus, which reaches the sea south of Karachi. The 1960 Indus Water Treaty allocated the river waters between Pakistan and India, which is also allowed to make some use of them for power generation. Pakistan complained in 2005 to the World Bankabout the operation of the Baglihar dam. An independent expert upheld some objections, but dismissed others.
Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for President Zardari, said Pakistan was "paying a high price", but India has denied breaching any conditions of the 1960 treaty. Delhi said it had invited Pakistan's water commissioner to visit the dam to see that the Chenab's flow was naturally low.
India's Ministry of External Affairs declined to comment, but an official said: "The entire peace process and discussions we have been having for the past three or four years have been put on pause. It is not the right climate for these talks when we know that there are threats against our safety and security emanating from Pakistan."
Rob Woollard Rob Woollard Yahoo News 26 Mar 09;
LOS ANGELES (AFP) – US automaker Tesla Motors unveiled Thursday its state-of-the-art five-seat sedan, billed as the world's first mass-produced, highway-capable electric car.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said the company, which last year released its breakthrough two-seat Roadster, aims to have its sleek Model S sedan roll off assembly lines by 2011.
The futuristic zero-emission vehicle will be powered by lithium-ion battery packs capable of traveling between 160 and 300 miles (257 and 482 kilometers) per charge.
The car has an anticipated base price of 57,400 dollars but will cost less than 50,000 after a federal tax credit of 7,500 dollars, Musk said.
While the price tag is steep compared to other mass-market sedans, Tesla has stressed that tax incentives, relatively inexpensive maintenance and the lack of fueling costs will make the car competitive with cheaper rival sedans.
Musk told reporters he hoped the car would lead a new generation of vehicles that would help the auto industry wean itself off foreign oil.
"What we really wanted to show the car industry is that it is possible to create a compelling electric car at a compelling price ... We hope the industry will follow our lead," Musk said.
"It's incredibly important that we wean ourselves off oil as soon as possible and that we make the transition to electric vehicles rapidly."
Musk said Tesla aimed to manufacture around 20,000 units per year from an undisclosed factory location in Southern California and said the vehicle could be charged at home in just four hours.
"Even at 20,000 cars per year, we won't come close to affecting the electricity grid and you will be able to charge this car at home," he added.
"It's capable of taking a wide range of currents and voltages, and the charge is built into the car so you don't have to worry about 'Is there a charger at the destination that I'm driving to?'"
Tesla said its new model would become the "car of choice for environmentally conscious and discriminating drivers throughout North America and Europe." It expects to roughly split initial sales between the two continents before expanding into Asia in 2012.
Tesla's other zero-emission car, the two-seat Roadster, is on sale in Europe and the United States.
The company said last year it had ramped up production of the high-performance vehicle, which has a price tag of about 100,000 dollars, due to soaring demand.
Founded in 2003, Tesla specializes in the environmentally-friendly, electric cars that several car manufacturers are starting to produce.
Troubled automotive giant General Motors is developing its own electric sedan, the Chevrolet Volt, which it expects to go on sale in 2011 for about 40,000 dollars a unit.
Thursday's unveiling came against the backdrop of a teetering US auto industry while President Barack Obama has said his administration wants to see a million electric cars on the roads by 2015.
Auto industry analysts were cautious about whether Tesla's Model S suggested that electric vehicles were the future of the US auto industry, saying hybrid vehicles and low fuel prices could stymie their growth.
Jim Hossack of California-based AutoPacific Consulting said Tesla's latest prototype was "something of a technical marvel" but questioned whether it could revolutionize the US auto industry.
"The problem is our fuel price. If you're going to launch an electric vehicle you probably want to do it in a market where fuel prices are high," Hossack told AFP.
"At the moment in the US, they're cheap, a quarter of what they are in Europe or Japan. Hybrids might be better positioned to be the dominant technology."
While Model S production would demonstrate that an electric car can be mass produced, Hossack noted that "we can also put a man on the moon. And it turns out it's expensive."
Tesla Unveils Four-Door Electric Sedan
Nichola Groom, PlanetArk 27 Mar 09;
HAWTHORNE - Electric car start-up Tesla Motors Inc unveiled its newest, cheapest vehicle on Thursday, a four-door sedan that can carry five adults and could travel up to 300 miles per charge.
The Model S will cost $49,900, after a U.S. government tax credit of $7,500, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said at the car's unveiling. It is slated to go into production in 2011 and will be manufactured in Southern California.
In his remarks, Musk billed the Model S as the first mass-market, highway-ready electric vehicle. And, he said, the price is comparable to that of a $35,000 gasoline-powered car such as a Ford Taurus, assuming gas prices of about $4 a gallon.
"Would you rather have this car, or would you rather have a Ford Taurus?" Musk asked the crowd of journalists.
Tesla plans to produce 20,000 Model S sedans a year. The company expects to receive funding from the Department of Energy this year to support the Model S program.
Tesla, which ran into a series of cost overruns and production delays with its Roadster sports car that forced it to cut 24 percent of its staff, said last month that it should be profitable by the middle of this year.
The more than $100,000 Roadster is well beyond the reach of most car buyers, with owners including Hollywood celebrities and corporate titans such as actor and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Google Inc founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
With the Model S, Tesla is aiming for a broader range of customers, Musk said, saying the company was making the car "as affordable as possible." He expects the car to appeal to buyers of mid-range to premium sedans.
The Model S base price will include a battery with a 160-mile range, Musk said. Customers will have the option to upgrade to a battery with a 300-mile range.
The Model S has a top speed of 130 mph and can get to 60 mph in 5.5 to 6 seconds.
(Editing by Gary Hill)
WWF 26 Mar 09;
Washington, DC – Existing information technologies (IT) can produce dramatic reductions in harmful CO2 emissions while fully meeting the demands of today’s corporations, two new WWF reports are demonstrating.
Virtual Meetings and Climate Innovation in the 21st Century highlights the significant impact employee travel makes on a company’s total carbon footprint – accounting for 50% or more among non-manufacturing companies.
“Creating a global network of more than 4,000 high quality videoconferencing studios in cities around the world would help build a new infrastructure for the 21st century and would cost less than one and a half airplanes,” said Dennis Pamlin, a WWF-US Policy Advisor and co-author of the reports.
From Workplace to Anyplace highlights opportunities to employ existing technologies that enable one or more individuals to work or collaborate remotely. This would create new efficiencies and cut emissions created by daily commuting or business air travel.
In the report’s “smart world” scenario, where policies and IT industry users contribute to a climate smart future, roughly one billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions are avoided through tele-work in year 2030–an amount equivalent to the total current annual carbon dioxide emissions from the United Kingdom and Italy combined.
By the year 2050, tele-work could reduce almost 3.5 billion tons of emissions–equivalent to more than half of the United States’ current CO2 emissions.
The report also says that developed countries may deliver the majority of greenhouse gas emissions with increased tele-working in the short term, but developing countries can deliver the bulk of the reductions in the long term.
According to the reports, which were independently authored by WWF together with leading academic experts and with funding support from HP and Microsoft, collaboration is fundamental. Business and policy makers can deliver a low carbon future, but they must work together to achieve meaningful results
“IT can be a significant driver of greenhouse gas reductions, but we need strong global climate policy to ensure these solutions are implemented at the speed and scale necessary to make a difference,” said Pamlin.
“This research tells us that if relatively simple measures are implemented globally, we can achieve annual emissions reductions equal to at least half of current U.S. total annual emissions by 2050.
“But we must start to walk in the right direction now, before it’s too late.”
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As part of this research, a carbon calculator for policymakers and businesses was developed and is available online at www.worldwildlife.org/carbonprojector.
The energy company has sold out on its renewable investments, claiming they are 'not economic'
Fred Pearce, guardian.co.uk 26 Mar 09;
Shell, I have to report, is the new Exxon. The company that back in December was filling this and other newspapers with double-page adverts promoting its conversion to a "new energy future" of wind farms, hydrogen fuels, fuel made from marine algae and much else, has pulled the plug.
In the 1990s Royal Dutch Shell set its boffins on finding new green fuels, such as forest plantations to make biofuels. I remember them at the Earth Summit in Rio back in 1992. Not long after, Shell was for a time the world's second largest manufacturer of solar panels. In 2004, it opened the world's largest grid-connected solar park.
The company seemed to embrace the idea that a modern global oil company could and should transform itself into a green energy company. But, to rewrite its old advertising slogan, you can never be sure of Shell.
Just as the other European oil giant, BP, flattered to deceive when it began to call itself Beyond Petroleum, so too with Shell.
At a time when new bosses at Exxon in the US are making overtures to Barack Obama's idea of a new green deal to fight climate change, Shell is going back to the bad old days.
Last week, this and other papers reported: "Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydropower because they are not economic."
In recent years, Shell has invested more than $1bn in the most commercial of the new renewable industries, wind power. It claims to have more than 500MW of wind power capacity altogether — the equivalent of half a regular power station.
It was chicken feed for them. But many hoped for more. Then last year, Shell pulled out of what would be the world's largest offshore wind farm in the Thames estuary. The London Array would have tripled its wind capacity.
The company claimed at the time that it was going to concentrate its renewables business in the US. Now that promise has quietly disappeared. Last week, its head of gas and power, Linda Cook, told reporters: "We do not expect material amounts of investment [in wind and solar] going forward." Biofuels will still get cash. Everything else is back into cold storage.
Why? "They continue to struggle to compete with other investment opportunities we have in our portfolio." In other words, oil prices are back down and Shell is in this for the short term.
We are left with those, shall we say unfulfilled, ads. "Tackling climate change and providing fuel for a growing population seems like an impossible problem, but at Shell we try to think creatively," said one. If you keep old newspapers, you'll find it across the centrefold of the Guardian on 15 December. If not, a version is still on their web site.
But now we know the creative thinking had more to do with advertisement copywriting rather than energy technology.
The ad continues: "It won't be easy. Innovative solutions rarely are. But when the challenge is hardest, when everyone else is shaking their heads, we believe there is a way." Do smile, amid your tears.
Shell was busted last year by the UK Advertising Standards Authority for an ad claiming that its $10bn investment in sucking oil from tar sands in Canada was a contribution to a sustainable energy future.
Clearly it hasn't been chastened. Those pre-Christmas ads were more greenwash. But, for anyone who has watched the company over the years, what has happened is not so much a cynical misrepresentation of its policies as an outright betrayal of past promises.
In the race for a greener future, Shell could have been a contender. Now it is on the canvas, flat out cold.
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