The nicest of neighbours
from The annotated budak
This Snake Eludes Me Again
from Life's Indulgences
New on Wildfacts: mangroves and coastal plants
from wild shores of singapore
Common Iora catching and swallowing caterpillar
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Shoreline restoration at the East Coast continues until Dec 09
from wild shores of singapore
Letter from Salina Ibrahim, Today Online 4 Sep 09;
I WOULD like to thank Golden Village for bringing the eco-movie The Cove to cinemas here.
It is disappointing that there has not been as much awareness of it as there should be. There needs to be more exposure of the issues raised because many of us are unaware of the slaughter that is taking place. We need to be shocked into awareness.
Singapore is indirectly guilty of contributing to the entertainment market that demands the capture of dolphins in the first place.
The Dolphin Lagoon in Sentosa and the proposed oceanarium at the integrated resort will only add to the bloody hands of fishing towns such as Taiji in Japan.
More than half of all captured dolphins die within two years in captivity, compared to their natural life expectancy of about 40 years.
When that happens, another "fish" order is issued and the vicious cycle is repeated. So begins yet another massacre of more than 20,000 dolphins in Taiji.
There are those who might ask: "So what? There are many dolphins in the sea."
The fact is we are causing an acute and unnatural depletion of these beautiful creatures.
Marine life generally does not have the privilege of a governing body or organisation to look after it, unlike their land-dwelling counterparts, but it is connected with and affects the sea - the largest and most influential ecosystem around.
I would urge more people to watch the movie, which runs for only 92 minutes. It's about being socially responsible. The next step is to educate others to do their part, no matter how small, in objecting to such activities.
Buyers ink contract farming deals to hedge against global fluctuations
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 4 Sep 09;
SHAKEN by the price upheaval last year, food importers, including supermarket chains, have intensified efforts to ink contracts that guarantee a stable supply of food to Singapore at fixed prices.
Fish, live chickens and vegetables are the main staples that have come under contract farming, in which a farmer agrees to provide a set amount of produce in accordance with the delivery schedule and standards set by the buyer.
Farmers benefit because the buyers commit to the purchase of agreed amounts at agreed prices.
The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) estimates that, overall, Singapore buyers now have 20 contract farming agreements in place with farmers in countries such as China and Malaysia, up from five three years ago.
Now, 5 per cent of the vegetables that people eat in Singapore are grown under contract, compared with half as much three years ago.
About half of the 120,000 live chickens that come into Singapore daily from Malaysia are also bred under contract. Three years ago, none was.
Contract farming for fish is just taking off, with a local breeder now supplying a tonne daily to NTUC FairPrice.
Fewer buyers now head for wholesale markets in the wee hours of the morning, or find it necessary to liaise with more than 30 exporters to secure supplies that are subject to volatile market prices.
The farming contracts shield Singapore consumers somewhat from vagaries in agricultural prices arising from fluctuations in global supply.
There is no looking back for the FairPrice chain, which now brings in 170 products this way, up from 118 two years ago.
'Contract farming provides greater quality control, as well as price and supply stability,' said Mr Tng Ah Yiam, FairPrice's director of integrated purchasing. 'It also allows us to better manage the entire supply chain so as to ensure freshness and quality, and contributes to greater product traceability.'
Cold Storage brings in more than a dozen types of produce under contract farming, mostly vegetables such as lettuce and basil.
Giant has 15 products under contract and is working to secure others, while Sheng Siong is exploring the option.
Singapore's vulnerability as a country that imports more than 90 per cent of its food was underscored during a turbulent period early last year when global shortages sparked bidding wars. They affected the prices of many staples such as rice, soya beans, cooking oil and vegetables.
'Through contract farming, Singapore can assure supply even if there is a global shortage,' said AVA's head of horticulture, Mrs Lam-Chan Lee Tiang.
'We are particularly vulnerable. This will help us tackle the challenges that affect global food supply and demand in the future.'
To encourage contract farming, the government agency launched a fund in July that importers can tap for feasibility studies. It is also working to match farmers and importers.
'Such contracts allow us to plan ahead,' said Malaysian Ong Hock Beng, who owns Bright Floriculture, a 36ha vegetable farm in east Johor. 'I know how much to grow, and I feel safer growing more because I know there is demand.'
His contract buyer, vegetable importer Ore Yock Pin, is grateful for the yearly contracts he signs with Bright Floriculture.
'Supermarkets have shelves to fill,' said Mr Ore, who is also a grower, and the executive director of Oh Chin Huat Hydroponic Farms in Sembawang.
'If I cannot guarantee stable supply, large chains might not want to do business with me.'
S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia 3 Sep 09;
SINGAPORE: Singapore's Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has detected the pandemic A(H1N1) virus in some pigs imported into Singapore from Indonesia's Pulau Bulan.
But the AVA stressed that the pork available here is safe for consumption, as the H1N1 virus is not transmitted through the handling and consumption of pork and pork products including ham, bacon, sausages and canned pork.
AVA added it will step up its monitoring and inspection to ensure food safety.
It said it will take part in a comprehensive disease surveillance programme on the Pulau Bulan farm, led by the Indonesian authority. The aim is to identify and isolate affected pig houses.
Restricted animal movement will be imposed to ensure only healthy pigs are exported to Singapore. The AVA said this is in line with the World Organization for Animal Health's recommendation.
It added that Singapore has adequate sources of pork supplies from 25 countries.
Singapore's import of 1,000 pigs daily from Pulau Bulan constitutes some 20 per cent of the total pork consumed here.
- CNA/ir
H1N1 found in pigs, but pork safe to eat: AVA
Agency stepping up monitoring, inspection to ensure food safety here
Joyce Hooi, Business Times 4 Sep 09;
THE Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) announced that the H1N1 virus had been confirmed in 12 pig samples taken from pigs from a farm in Pulau Bulan, an Indonesian island, yesterday.
The farm, which is owned by KMP - a Singapore-registered firm - makes up 21 per cent of Singapore's pork supply. It is the island's only source of live pigs, with 1,000 pigs being imported daily from Pulau Bulan.
The AVA stressed, however, that pork sold in Singapore is safe to eat.
'We would like to assure Singaporeans that the pork available in Singapore is safe for consumption as we would ensure that only healthy pigs are exported to Singapore,' said Tan Poh Hong, AVA's chief executive officer.
Ms Tan also emphasised that world health authorities such as the World Health Organization, World Organisation for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization have stated that there is no evidence that the H1N1 virus is transmitted by food.
In addition, the health authorities have also said that pork and pork products handled in accordance with good hygienic practices will not be a source of infection. The cooking of pork to an internal temperature of 70° Celsius will also kill bacteria and viruses, including the H1N1 virus.
'Nevertheless, AVA is stepping up its monitoring and inspection to ensure food safety in Singapore,' said Ms Tan.
The 12 positive samples came from an overall sample size of 7,000 pigs on Sept 3, and were confirmed as carrying the same H1N1 virus that is affecting humans.
Of the 12, four had originated from the abattoir in Singapore and eight from the farm in Pulau Bulan. There are currently about 230,000 pigs on the farm.
To date, none of the 12 samples testing positive for the H1N1 virus have originated from the meat itself.
According to the AVA, workers in the abattoir have been donning personal protective equipment while working since April this year.
The AVA had been collecting samples from pigs to test for the virus since the outbreak of the disease in humans in April.
'When the AVA surveillance programme picked up the H1N1 virus in the samples, we put in place enhanced measures like weekly farm inspections and increased pre-export testing,' said Ms Tan.
The AVA will also participate in a comprehensive disease surveillance programmes on the farm which will be led by the Directorate-General of Lifestock Services, an Indonesian authority, to identify and isolate affected pig houses. The pigs that are known to be affected are already being isolated.
As things stand, the AVA does not see the supply of pork being a problem. 'We currently have 25 approved countries exporting pork and pork products, and we are constantly trying to diversify our suppliers,' said Ms Tan.
The H1N1 virus had earlier been detected on Canadian and Australian pig farms in April and July this year, respectively.
Local pork is safe
AVA gives assurance, even as it finds pigs infected with virus
Teo Xuanwei, Today Online 4 Sep 09;
EVEN as a small number of pigs from Singapore's sole source of live pigs have been found to be infected with the pandemic H1N1 virus, the health authorities yesterday assured consumers that they can't get the disease from eating pork or from handling such food items.
The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) also said additional preventive measures are in place to ensure that only healthy pigs are imported here.
Since last Thursday, AVA inspectors have found 12 infected pigs from the Pulau Bulan farm in Indonesia which ships around 1,000 live porkers to Singapore daily.
Pork and pork products here are safe for consumption as there is no evidence that the H1N1 virus is transmitted through handling and consumption of food, said AVA. Studies so far have shown that the pandemic H1N1 virus only spreads between humans. Infections in pigs are localised to the respiratory tract and there is no circulation of the virus in the animals' bloodstream.
AVA inspectors have also not found traces of the virus in any meat being sold to meat traders so far.
Additional preventive measures include stepping up the frequency of inspections at the farm, isolating infected pigs, increased pre-export testing, as well as increasing the number of tests conducted on imported pigs at abattoirs here. Abattoir workers also wear protective equipment like face masks and shields, and gloves and aprons to prevent cross-contamination from pigs to humans.
AVA will also work with the Indonesian authorities in a disease surveillance programme at the Pulau Bulan farm.
Live pigs make up roughly one-fifth of pork supply here. Pork supply will not be affected for now, said AVA, as the spread of the virus at the farm has been limited. It also said Singapore has adequate sources of pork supplies from 25 countries.
H1N1 found in pigs from Indonesia
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 4 Sep 09;
THE Influenza A (H1N1) virus has been detected in pigs imported into Singapore from Indonesia's Pulau Bulan, Singapore's only source of live pigs.
Twelve pigs have been confirmed to have the virus, which causes infections in humans too.
But Singapore's Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has given the assurance that there is no risk of people catching the virus from eating pork as H1N1 is not transmitted from handling meat.
Eight of the pigs are on the farm and have been isolated. The other four were sent to Singapore's only abattoir in Jurong, and slaughtered and sold.
It is not yet known how the pigs contracted the virus, though pigs in Australia and Canada have caught it through human handlers.
Ms Tan Poh Hong, AVA's chief executive officer, said the government agency has stepped up monitoring and inspection procedures. Inspections of the farm, which houses about 230,000 pigs at any time, are now done weekly instead of monthly. AVA also tests 60 pre-export samples a week now, instead of 15.
At the abattoir, about 100 samples are extracted from organs and meat every day for testing, up from 30. Workers wear protective gear such as face masks, aprons and gloves.
'We will continue to put measures in place to make sure only healthy pigs are brought into Singapore,' said Ms Tan. 'I would like to emphasise that pork available in Singapore is safe for consumption.'
Her assurance comes as pork sellers, told of the news yesterday, expressed concern that sales would fall.
There is no evidence that eating pork products poses an infection risk, said the World Health Organisation (WHO), a view shared by other experts. Dr Alex Thiermann, special adviser to the director-general of the World Organisation for Animal Health, told The Straits Times that H1N1 is not found in the bloodstream or meat of the pig, but only in respiratory secretions. 'The risk from eating pork is negligible,' he said.
About 1,000 live pigs are shipped from Pulau Bulan, in the Riau Islands, to Singapore daily, then transferred to the abattoir. Live pigs make up 21per cent of pork consumed here. The rest comes chilled or frozen from overseas.
Fresh pork over frozen is still the preferred choice for Mr Ong See Tat, 62, and his wife. The taxi driver said: 'When you cook it the virus will die. Anyway, H1N1 is mild.'
In the meantime, however, supermarket chain Shop N Save has recalled Indonesian pork from its shelves and replaced it with Australian pork.
NTUC FairPrice will not replenish its supplies from Pulau Bulan, for 'commercial reasons', it said, as it expects demand to fall, and will stock up on frozen and chilled pork.
Additional reporting by Amresh Gunasingham
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 3 Sep 09;
Fires have continued to raze thousands of hectares of forest across Kalimantan for the last two weeks, causing air pollution and prompting repeated closures of airports particularly in Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan.
The government said the cloud-seeding techniques conducted by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) to help douse the fires had failed.
“Forest fires in Kalimantan remain alarming as they have been going on for two weeks and the number of hot spots is still high,” deputy assistant to the environment minister for forest and land destruction, Heddy Mukna, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Senior government officials will hold an “urgent” meeting in the Central Kalimantan capital of Palangkaraya on Friday to discuss measures to fight the fires.
Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar visited Palangkaraya last week to hand over water pumps to help the local government stop the fires.
The Forestry Ministry said the fires had affected 573 hectares of land in Palangkaraya in the last three days.
To curb forest fires, Central Kalimantan Governor Teras Narang has revoked a bylaw that
allows local people to clear land by burning. Burning is only permitted for land less than two hectares in size.
Teras warned he would rescind permits awarded to dozens of plantation owners in the province if they continued clearing their land by burning.
Hotspots in Kalimantan cause of Sarawak haze
The Star 4 Sep 09;
KUCHING: The haze has made a return here, the result of the 200 hotspots in neighbouring west Kalimantan.
State Natural Resources Environment Board (NREB) deputy controller Peter Sawal said the transboundary haze had adversely affected air quality in several divisions in the southern region.
“It was a bit hazy (yesterday),” he said. “The API (air pollutant index) in Tebedu (Sarawak-Kaliamatan border town) was 86 (on Wednesday) and in Samarahan, 69.’’
Sawal said the number of fires in Kalimantan – mainly open burning related to commercial farming – had doubled from last week’s 100 plus.
At its peak early last month, there were more than 600 hotspots there.
He added that there were no more local hotspots; a month ago there were some 170 statewide.
On the recent fires which destroyed thousands of hectares of forests in the central and northern regions, Sawal said the board had imposed compound fines of up to RM9,000 on some offenders,
He said the amount reflected the severity of the offence.
“Our regional offices are still investigating some of the incidents. We will wait for their reports and decide on the next course of action,’’ he added.
Michelle Nichols, Reuters 3 Sep 09;
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Colin Beavan so despaired at a lack of political action on climate change that he decided to see what difference he could make by living for a year with as little impact on the environment as possible.
Beavan and his reluctant wife, Michelle Conlin, drastically changed their lifestyle, doing their best not to create trash, cause carbon dioxide emissions or pour toxins into the water supply and by buying only local produce.
The New Yorkers rode bikes to get places, walked up and down the nine flights of stairs to their apartment and cooked meals with food from a local farmers market. They also got rid of their television and bought no new clothes for themselves or their 18-month-old daughter Isabella.
Six months into the year, came the most dramatic step -- they switched off the electricity.
"It wasn't about being an environmentalist and then doing it. It was about just being a concerned citizen and stumbling forward," Beavan, author of two history books, said in an interview.
"We jumped in without knowing what we were doing," added Conlin, a writer for BusinessWeek.
Beavan has described his experiences in a book, "No Impact Man." A documentary of the same name, directed by Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein, will be released in the United States this month.
"Just doing a little bit is not actually enough," said Beavan, who also blogged about his year-long experiment. "If we are essentially going to change the planet ... we have to consider changing our way of life."
Greenhouse gases emitted by burning coal, oil and gas are warming the planet. Governments are due to meet in December in Denmark to agree a new U.N. climate. The hope is to avoid some of the more drastic effects of global warming which include more droughts, floods and the spread of diseases.
"HIDDEN JOYS"
Beavan and Conlin began their experiment in late 2006 and soon attracted media interest. But along with the attention came criticism that the project was just a stunt.
"It can be perceived as a stunt, but truthfully in some ways that's part of the communications strategy to get people interested (in the issue of climate change)," Beavan said.
"A more honest title for Beavan's book would have been 'Low Impact Man,' and a truly honest title would have been 'Not Quite So High Impact Man,' the New Yorker magazine said in a review which accused Beavan of "cooking up" the project with his agent.
"Even during the year that Beavan spent drinking out of a Mason jar, more than two billion people were, quite inadvertently, living lives of lower impact than his," wrote Elizabeth Kolbert.
"Most of them were struggling to get by in the slums of Delhi or Rio or scratching out a living in rural Africa or South America. A few were sleeping in cardboard boxes on the street not far from Beavan's Fifth Avenue apartment."
The couple said the year was hard because U.S. culture is not equipped to support sustainable living.
But the project produced "hidden joys." While Conlin at first resented her husband for not letting her use the dishwasher, she grew to love spending time with her daughter doing the dishes.
"I exchanged my addiction to screens and my high fructose corn syrup induced haze for eating really clean food and feeling good and having an intimacy with my family and friends," Conlin said.
Living with little impact was not only good for the planet, it was also good for their bank account. Conlin said the couple cut their discretionary spending by about 50 percent.
The couple still tries to live sustainably, although not as radically. They still ride bikes, but occasionally take taxis, and they still live without a dishwasher, freezer, clothes dryer and air-conditioner.
(Editing by Alan Elsner)
Peter Griffiths, Reuters 3 Sep 09;
LONDON (Reuters) - Hundreds of rare baby sand lizards are being released into the British countryside as part of a national campaign to save endangered reptiles from extinction, a wildlife charity said on Thursday.
The Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust (ARC) said it will reintroduce nearly 400 of the green and brown reptiles, Britain's biggest and rarest lizard, to sites across England and Wales.
Once a common sight in parts of Britain, the shy creature has disappeared in some areas due to a devastating loss of its favored habitat: sand dunes or heathland.
Across Europe, urban sprawl, pollution, climate change and intensive farming have put huge pressure on many reptiles and amphibians.
One fifth of Europe's reptiles and nearly a quarter of its amphibians are in danger, according to a study for the European Commission released in May.
Experts hope the new lizards, which were specially bred in captivity, should have a better chance of survival because European law now protects them and their habitat.
"These sand lizard releases are just one part of our 133 actions, which in partnership, will help us turn back the clock on amphibian and reptile declines in the UK," said Dr Tony Gent, ARC's joint chief executive.
A stocky reptile with short legs and a blunt nose, the sand lizard, or lacerta agilis, feeds on snails, spiders and insects.
The males' green flanks become brighter during the breeding season when they will fight each other for females.
The first release of about 80 baby lizards, which are just two inches (5cm) long, will take place on Thursday at a National Trust reserve in Surrey, southeast England.
Tom Tew, chief scientist for Natural England, a government body which supported the project, said the release would help to reverse the decline in England's biodiversity.
"Reptiles and amphibians are coming under pressure from an increasing number of factors, including habitat loss, disease and a future of climate change," he said.
(Editing by Steve Addison)
Hundreds of sand lizards released
BBC News 2 Sep 09;
Hundreds of rare sand lizards are being released into the wild at locations in England and Wales from where they had previously disappeared.
They will be reintroduced at five sites in Surrey, Dorset and mid-Wales.
The sand lizard was once a common sight across heathland, but the gradual destruction of its habitats has led to its extinction in many places.
Some 400 of the creatures would be set free within a fortnight, the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation group said.
The first release of about 80 two-inch-long baby lizards, reared in special hatcheries, will take place at a National Trust nature reserve in Surrey on Thursday.
According to the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation group (Arc), the lizard was lost altogether from a number of counties including Kent, Sussex, Cornwall, Cheshire and north and west Wales.
More than 90% of suitable habitat has also vanished from Surrey, Merseyside and Dorset.
Frogs, toads, newts, lizards and snakes have all been affected by the loss of their habitats, often because of changes to agricultural practice, the planting of forests and building developments.
But Arc, formed by the merger of Froglife and the Herpetological Conservation Trust charities, said the animals and their habitats were now protected by law.
Nick Moulton, of Arc, said: "It's great to see them going back, now safely protected, where they belong."
The reintroductions were part of efforts to "turn back the clock on amphibian and reptile declines" in Britain, a statement from Arc added.
'Reverse the decline'
The young lizards were bred in captivity at locations that include the zoos at Chester and Marwell, and also specially modified back gardens.
The breeders minimised contact with the reptiles to prevent them becoming too tame, which would leave them at risk of being eaten in the wild by their main predator, the smooth snake.
The reintroduction of the sand lizards is part of a 133-point action plan, intended to reverse the decline of the UK's frogs, toads, lizards and snakes.
The plan includes research, monitoring species and encouraging land-owners to create habitats such as ponds to help wildlife flourish.
Dr Tom Tew, chief scientist at Natural England, the government's conservation agency, said: "Reptiles and amphibians are coming under pressure from an increasing number of factors including habitat loss, disease and a future of climate change.
"This important reintroduction programme is an example of the action that must be taken to reverse the decline in England's biodiversity and to conserve the habitats that our unique wildlife relies upon."
Jody Bourton, BBC News 3 Sep 09;
An elusive dolphin has been sighted off Cornwall three years after being seen much further north in the Irish Sea.
The rarely seen Risso's dolphin was photographed off Mounts Bay in Cornwall in June of this year.
Scientists have now identified it as the same dolphin once seen 172 nautical miles away off Bardsey Island in Wales.
The new sighting will help conservationists better understand the offshore habits of this enigmatic and strange-looking creature.
Risso's dolphins ( Grampus griseus ) are found throughout the world in temperate and tropical waters. They measure up to 4m in length and have a distinctive blunt round head.
But the dolphins' preference for deep offshore waters means they are rarely seen.
"This is a fortuitous, unique and very interesting discovery," says Mark Simmonds, international director of science at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
"Because of their typically inaccessible habits, relatively little is known about the biology or behaviour of this species and it is very interesting to know that those seen off Cornwall may be the same group as those seen in Wales."
Enigmatic lifetsyle
Compared to other dolphin species, scientists know relatively little about the structure and size of the Risso's dolphin population living around the UK.
Knowledge of their movements and appearances in different locations is therefore vital to understanding their biology.
According to the WDCS, more research needs to be done on the species, and measures taken to protect places which Risso's dolphins frequent, such as Cardigan Bay in Wales.
The water around Bardsey Island in Cardigan Bay is an important marine habitat for various cetacean species including bottlenose dolphins, harbour porpoises and Risso's dolphins.
As well as a important feeding ground, the WDCS says it is also beginning to recognise the area as a significant breeding and nursery area for the Risso's dolphin.
It hopes that further research in the area along with further sightings around the UK will help reveal more about the elusive dolphin's lifestyle.
Patrick Filleux Yahoo News 3 Sep 09;
PARIS (AFP) – The schooner Tara is to set sail on a three-year scientific voyage on the trail of naturalist Charles Darwin to map the effects of climate change on the marine organisms from which all life evolved.
The 150,000 kilometre (81,000 nautical mile) journey will take the French boat into all of the the world's oceans and from the ice caps to the tropics, following and also expanding on Darwin's 1831-1836 trip on board the Beagle.
That voyage inspired Darwin's theory of natural selection to explain the evolution of species, while the Tara's trip will study the clouds of tiny ocean flora and fauna that produce 50 percent of the world's oxygen.
"Without these microorganisms man would never have come into being. If they disappear, so do we," Eric Karsenti, the Tara's 60-year-old scientific leader, told AFP as the crew prepared for their departure this weekend.
"Marine microorganisms -- 90 percent of the oceans' biomass -- absorb the majority of atmospheric carbon dioxide and produce half our oxygen," explained Karsenti, head of cellular biology at the European Bio-Molecular Laboratory.
"Measuring the impact of the warming that they are undergoing and studying the carbon and oxygen cycle will allow us to incorporate as yet unknown data in future climate simulation models," he said.
The mission, dubbed Tara-Oceans, is the double-masted yacht's second related to climate change following an 18-month trip between 2006 and 2008 to chart the shrinking ice sheets in the Arctic between Siberia and Greenland.
This time, the boat will cruise warmer waters in the Mediterranean and the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans as well as returning to the Arctic and Antarctic and making stops in around 50 countries.
Divided between the 36-metre yacht and various laboratories on land, around 100 scientists will be involved in analysing the samples and data gathered.
"This ambitious mission will plunge us into the invisible world of marine ecosystems, one of the least explored realms of oceanography," said Etienne Bourgois, head of the company Tara Expeditions.
"From viruses to jelly fish, larvae and fish and coral, to various microorganisms such as coccolithophorids and diatoms, we are going to study all the ecosystems at the base of the marine food chain," said Karsenti.
"This has never been done at the global level and in the continuity of all the seas of the world," he added.
The effects of climate change on marine organisms like plankton are not yet fully understood -- some species might bloom in warmer waters, others might die out -- and many are also threatened by pollution such as fertiliser run-off.
As ocean species die or thin out it has an effect right through the ecosystem as they form the base of the food chain as well as an oxygen source.
The voyage will largely be financed by the fashion house Agnes B. and Tara Expeditions has signed several partnership agreements, including one with the global news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The mission in this case is universal and the adventure unique," said AFP chairman Pierre Louette.
"It's about allowing as many people as possible to see what ails our oceans and what nevertheless still leaves them so rich, and this to promote awareness of our natural environment," he said.
"In contributing to science and consciousness by distributing this news across the whole world, AFP is faithful to its own mission."
The Tara is due to sail out of the Breton port of Lorient on Friday or Saturday and head south across the Bay of Biscay towards its first stopover in Lisbon on September 11.
From there, it will round Gibraltar and enter the Mediterranean.
Cornelia Dean, The New York Times 3 Sep 09;
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that it would draft a national policy on fish farming in federal waters but in the meantime would allow aquaculture rules for the Gulf of Mexico to go into effect.
The gulf rules, the first in the nation for aquaculture in federal waters, were developed by the federal fishery management council with jurisdiction over the area. They would establish permit requirements, what species could be farmed and where, and other standards.
In a telephone news conference, Jim Balsinger, the acting administrator of the agency’s Fisheries Service, said that in the absence of a federal policy for saltwater fish farms, the agency had no grounds to block the gulf plan.
But environmental groups, citing marine aquaculture’s record, said that allowing the proposal to take effect set a bad precedent.
“We need a national plan,” said George Leonard, who heads the aquaculture program at the Ocean Conservancy, an advocacy group. He said the gulf plan “lacks enforcement standards for the risks we know accompany this kind of farming” and added that region-by-region regulation ran contrary to the Obama administration’s pledge to develop a regulatory framework for coastal waters generally.
Christopher Mann of the Pew Environment Group called it “a recipe for disaster.”
Dr. Balsinger said a national aquaculture framework was of “urgent” priority and predicted it would be drawn up within months, before permits were issued for the gulf. Still, he conceded that the gulf guidelines now have the force of law.
Fish farming accounts for only about 5 percent of fish produced in the United States, most of it freshwater plant-eating fish like tilapia. Saltwater aquaculture has been largely limited to shellfish grown in state waters.
Elsewhere in the world, though, marine aquaculture is a huge industry, and many experts call it the only answer to the world’s growing appetite for fish. Most fish consumed in the United States is imported, and about half of that is farmed.
Among other environmental problems, saltwater fish farms incubate microbes and parasites that threaten wild stocks.
For many experts, though, the biggest objection to the farming of fish-eating saltwater fish like salmon is that they must be fed — typically with meal pellets made from herring and other fish. It takes more than a pound of wild fish to produce a pound of farmed fish, an issue Dr. Balsinger said should be addressed in the national guidelines.
WWF 3 Sep 09;
Lima, Peru: Peruvian anchovy fishers – who pull in 10 percent of the total fish catch in the world – for the first time will be independently monitored, ensuring the sustainability of stocks.
Peruvian anchovy (Engraulis ringens) is a major Peruvian export, reaching more than U.S. $ 1.7 billion in 2008, equivalent to 70 percent of national fish exports for the entire country. Although the government in past years had gradually improved the management of anchovy stocks by creating standards and quotas, this new monitoring system will greatly bolster those efforts.
The Peruvian government earlier this month signed an agreement which formalized the establishment of the first Peruvian Observatory to regulate its fishing industry, run by universities Cayetano Heredia and del Pacifico, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), WWF and the Instituto del Mar Peruano (IMARPE). This observatory aims to implement a monitoring system that will strengthen and complement the technical capabilities of the government to ensure sustainable management anchovy stocks.
“I’m sure that with this development we’ll have the world’s best fishery and not just the largest," said the Minister of Production of Peru, Dr. Mercedes Araoz.
By providing free access to fisheries data for the scientific community and, the general public, the new Observatory will better allow for the implementation and enforcement of the “maximum established catch per boat” set previously by the government. Furthermore, it will help to assess the potential impacts of industrial fisheries and recommend best practices and strengthen the sector to improve fisheries management, ensuring the resilience of the anchovy population and the sustainability of the marine ecosystem of Peru.
"This puts Peru at the forefront of the world’s fisheries because it not only shares the information of the largest fishery on the planet, but it takes an important step towards sustainability and possible certification, and even generates inputs for the conservation of Humboldt’s marine ecosystem facing climate change", said Michael Valqui, Director of WWF Peru's Marine Program.
In addition to driving this initiative with the del Pacifico and Cayetano Heredia local universities and TNC, WWF Peru is currently contributing to the design and implementation of the operating system of the Observatory which will eventually work as an online platform with accurate technical information on the implementation of quotas, seasons and other aspects relevant to this activity. Also, the group will work in coordination with IMARPE to ensure maximum benefit from this system that, since it addresses the issue of transparency in the fishing industry, constitutes a necessary step on the path towards an eventual certification of Peruvian anchovy fishery by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).
Reuters 3 Sep 09;
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Cod fishing can be increased by between 9 and 15 percent in the Baltic Sea next year, but the catch of Western Herring should be reduced by 21 percent, the European Commission said Thursday.
"The positive trend for Baltic Sea cod gives us confidence that the plan we have adopted to rebuild the stocks is working," said Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg.
"For herring, the stock is in a long term slump. Serious cuts in fishing possibilities are needed to stop overfishing this stock."
The Commission proposed a 15 percent increase in the allowable catch for eastern Baltic cod to 51,267 tonnes, and an increase of 9 percent for western Baltic cod to 17,700 tonnes.
The proposal will be discussed by EU member states at a fisheries council in October.
The Western Herring stock has continued to decline after a 2009 catch that exceeded scientific advice, and the 2010 catch must therefore be reduced 21 percent to 21,469 tonnes, the Commission said.
The sprat catch must be reduced by 15 percent to 339,960 tonnes, it said.
(Reporting by Pete Harrison, editing by Tim Pearce)
Raised cod quota beckons for battered Baltic fleet: EU
Yahoo News 3 Sep 09;
BRUSSELS (AFP) – Cod fishing quotas in the Baltic sea should rise as stocks return to the waters between Scandinavia and a trio of former Soviet EU members hard hit by recession, the European Commission said Thursday.
Thousands of extra tonnes of the fish will be made available to fleets in 2010 if a commission proposal based on scientific advice is accepted at a meeting of the European Union's fisheries ministers next month.
But one in five western herring will have to be left in the seas if a long-term slump in numbers is to have any chance of being reversed, according to a statement outlining plans which also took into account economic conditions.
Likewise, sprat and sea salmon tonnage must also be substantially reduced.
"We have paved the way for the comeback of Baltic cod by strictly applying the cod plan," said fisheries commissioner Joe Borg of a multi-year set of targets.
The commission wants to increase the legal EU catch for Baltic cod from 60,917 tonnes to 68,967 tonnes, amid evidence of a rise in the numbers of fish thrown away after being caught.
That is put down to a revival in species numbers. However, thanks to historic overfishing, new herring stocks for the year are "now merely a quarter of what they used to be," Borg warned.
Ben Evans, Associated Press Yahoo News 3 Sep 09;
WASHINGTON – It's a scene that scientists say is all too common: A commercial fishing boat pulls in a net full of shrimp or tuna and finds a loggerhead sea turtle mixed in with the catch.
Biologists like Matthew Godfrey say one or two such takings can happen every day among fishing fleets off the Southeast coast. Those numbers can add up to thousands annually for a turtle species that has traveled the oceans for 200 million years but now faces a growing array of threats.
Godfrey is among the authors of the latest federal report on loggerheads that says most groups of the ancient reptile are at risk of extinction — in large part due to increased commercial fishing.
The study, released last month, predicted broad population declines across the globe in the coming years, including in a nesting area along the southeastern United States that is one of the world's largest.
"Unfortunately, a lot of times the target fish habitat and the turtle habitat overlap," said Godfrey, of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. "The turtles are air breathers, so they need to get to the surface, but if they're tangled up in the net, they can't get to the surface, and they essentially drown."
Loggerheads have been listed as a threatened species since 1978. This latest report puts new pressure on the government to upgrade their status to endangered and further restrict commercial fisheries.
But even the increased awareness that an endangered listing would bring might not save the turtles, which migrate thousands of miles through the sea.
Meaningful protections require broad global cooperation given the turtles' far-flung travels. Fishing operators already are chafing under regulations aimed at protecting the animals, and further restrictions could draw strong opposition and fresh concerns about hurting coastal economies.
"These trends are very difficult to reverse. It's like turning a big battleship," said Blair Witherington, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who helped write the report. "We really ought to be doing it now."
The report was commissioned by the National Marine Fisheries Service as a result of petitions from environmental groups, who say the government is moving too slowly to protect loggerheads and have sued to force stronger actions. Many of the study's authors work for the federal agencies that will decide whether to change its status to endangered.
For the first time, the study called for dividing loggerhead populations into nine distinct global populations, a potentially key recommendation that would allow each to be studied and protected as a separate species.
It said seven of those nine populations are in danger of extinction, including two along U.S. coasts: the major population in the Atlantic Ocean, which has nesting concentrated along the coasts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, and a smaller population that migrates through Pacific waters off the West Coast and Hawaii.
Aside from fishing, the report said other major threats include coastal development that disrupts nesting, such as erosion-control barriers and other structures that prevent mothers from nesting and bright lights that can disorient hatchlings. The animals and their eggs are also still hunted for consumption in some parts of the world, the report said, and will probably be threatened by changing sea levels from climate change, which could wash away nesting habitats.
The U.S. and other countries already have adopted a number of protections, but the report said their effectiveness has been incomplete.
Since the mid-1990s, shrimp trawlers have been required to use gear that allows turtles to escape, for example. But the National Marine Fisheries Service has estimated that nearly 650 turtles a year are still killed by shrimpers in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
In April, federal regulators restricted the use of long fishing lines for catching red grouper off Florida's western coast after studies showed that as many as 800 loggerheads were caught by the lines every 18 months. The temporary ban, from mid-May to mid-October — when sea turtles feed in the warm Gulf waters — angered fishing operators, who said it could kill their business.
"I don't know what else they could expect us to do," said Woody Moore, a commercial fisherman out of Jacksonville, Fla., who said he thinks the dangers posed by fishing fleets are exaggerated.
"I've never in my life caught a dead one," he said. "And I've been fishing 30 years."
Elizabeth Griffin, fisheries campaign manager at Oceana, an advocacy group that has sued the government to protect loggerheads more aggressively, acknowledged that significant steps have been taken but said the turtles remain largely unprotected in the water.
She said the United States, which hosts about 90 percent of loggerhead nesting off the Atlantic Ocean, should heed its own scientists' advice.
"We're a key player in preventing loggerheads from going extinct in the Atlantic so we really need to be a leader on this issue," Griffin said.
Therese Conant, deputy director of the Fisheries Service's endangered species division and another of the report's authors, said the government would probably issue a proposed decision in February on whether to change the turtles' status.
Yereth Rosen, Reuters 3 Sep 09;
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The waters off Alaska, teeming with enough fish to support more than half the U.S. commercial seafood catch, face a new threat -- increasing acidification from the same atmospheric carbon linked to global warming.
Although nobody knows for sure what the effects of higher acidity levels will be, reports of smaller salmon catches are worrying scientists and cast a pall over the state's $3.6 billion fishing industry.
"These waters are becoming corrosive and harmful to marine organisms," said Jeremy Mathis, an oceanographer with the University of Alaska Fairbanks' School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.
"I can tell you unequivocally, and I think 99.9 percent of scientists would agree, the polar oceans are becoming more acidic faster than the tropical oceans," said Mathis. "What we can't do is tell you the exact rate at which that is happening."
Mathis last month released findings that water samples from the Gulf of Alaska were growing noticeably acidic. He found similar results in Alaska's Bering and Chukchi Seas.
Around the nation, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has 40 to 60 scientists working at least part time on the subject, said Doug DeMaster, director of the agency's Alaska Fisheries Science Center.
"We view it as the evil twin of all the problems associated with global warming," said DeMaster, who is based in Juneau. It is a subject NOAA takes seriously, he said, but it still does not have enough knowledge to predict the effects.
HEATING UP FAST
The chemical process resulting in ocean acidification is simple: Carbon dioxide combines with molecules in the water to make carbonic acid. "It's exactly what happens when you make club soda," said Jeff Short, a retired NOAA researcher now a Juneau-based advocate with the environmental group Oceana.
The very characteristics that make waters off Alaska the sites of world-class fisheries also cause high rates of carbon absorption.
Cold water holds more carbon dioxide than warm water. The abundant phytoplankton in the water also absorbs carbon. And the shallow continental shelf that is so important to the teeming marine life prevents significant mixing with deeper waters to dilute the carbon.
All those factors "precondition the water to become acidic faster than the tropical Pacific, for example," said Mathis. Because of that, the far-north waters off Alaska are showing acidification effects earlier than waters in other parts of the world, according to Mathis' research.
Early effects are already apparent in Antarctic waters, where marine snails are less able to form their shells. Those snails are small, but are vital to the marine food chain, scientists say.
It is unclear what the effects will be over time, said Short, who previously worked on a laboratory project testing the effects of acidic waters on crab development.
"When you change the acidity in the ocean, it changes so many things that it's really difficult to figure how it's all going to wash out," he said.
FISHING INDUSTRY WORRIED
Questions are already being raised about some poor salmon catches in normally dependable fishing areas. Commercial and sport fishermen on the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage have reported that salmon are on average about 20 percent smaller than their normal size, Mathis said.
"While we can't say that's because of ocean acidification, we can say that ocean acidification is going to set the stage for those types of results," he said.
Signs of acidification are worrying Alaska fishermen.
"I'd say probably on a scale of 1 to 10, it would be 20 or 30," said Mark Vinsel, executive director of United Fishermen of Alaska, the state's largest commercial fishing organization. "It's dire, and it's a big concern."
The wholesale value of Alaska's commercial seafood catch was $3.6 billion in 2007, with much of the activity concentrated in the Bering Sea, according to a recent study by a private economic consultant. In addition, sport fishing in Alaska is an industry worth nearly $1.4 billion, according to the state Department of Fish and Game.
Given the financial issues at stake, researchers are rushing to examine potential impacts to fisheries.
Mathis is making voyages in mid-September to check ocean conditions in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea, while other scientists are studying the impact on Alaskan pollock and shellfish.
Research on the subject is just beginning, said Mike Sigler, who is leading ocean-acidification studies for the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. "There's no effects directly attributable to ocean acidification. But I think the problem is we don't understand the effects," said Sigler.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen, editing by Bill Rigby and Todd Eastham)
Ochieng' Ogodo, National Geographic News 3 Sep 09;
For one and a half decades, Johannes Mutisya, 54, a farmer in Kenya's Makueni district just east of Nairobi, has done what he could to eke out a living—but with little success.
He has bent wearily and scratched the dry, hardened earth, sprinkling a few maize or bean seeds and hoping for the best.
"These days we are only trying," Mutisya said, a distant look on his face.
"It is not like two decades ago and beyond, when people could be sure of bounty harvest after the rains."
Mutisya's situation is occurring across Africa, where farmlands are severely degraded and production is down.
African farmers on average apply only 10 percent of the soil nutrients, such as fertilizer, used in other parts of the world.
Coupled with effects of climate change, such as extreme droughts, the situation seems bleak.
But growing trees—especially acacia— on farms can improve the lot of some African farmers, said Dennis Garrity, who heads the Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Center.
Garrity spoke at the Second World Congress of Agroforestry held in Nairobi in August, which convened more than a thousand international experts to discuss the importance of growing trees on farms.
Nitrogen Fixer
The tall, long-lived acacia tree Faidherbia albida could serve as a free source of long-lasting and crop-boosting nitrogen, Garrity said.
A nitrogen fixer, the tree species could limit the use of polluting chemical fertilizers while also providing animal feed, construction material, and even medicine for farmers across sub-Saharan Africa.
"This is a fertilizer tree with reverse leaf phenology, which makes it become dormant and shed off its nitrogen-rich leaves during the early rainy season and at planting time when seeds need nitrogen," he said.
"And [then the tree] regrows the leaves at the beginning of the dry season, and thus does not compete with crops for light."
The tree species also acts as a windbreaker, provides wood for fuel and construction, and checks soil erosion by making the soil loose for water absorption during rainy season, Garrity added.
Acacia, iconic trees of the African landscape, are well adapted to a wide array of climates and soils, from the deserts to the humid tropics.
"Fertilizer Trees"
Scientists first observed farmers in Africa's Sahel region growing the trees in their sorghum and millet fields about 60 years ago.
Today the practice is still seen in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Sudan, and Ethiopia, and in parts of northern Ghana, northern Nigeria, and northern Cameroon.
In Zambia preliminary research has found that unfertilized maize yields in the vicinity of acacia trees averaged nearly three times those of crops grown nearby but beyond the trees' canopy.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai told the agroforestry conference that Africa must return to sustainable agriculture that embraces planting of "fertilizer trees" such as acacia.
"We have dona great damage to the ecosystems through less sustainable agriculture practices like monoculture that has contributed to food insecurity in Africa," Maathai said.
"We need to encourage farmers to grow many food crops to reduce vulnerability of communities."
Acacia trees may also give small farmers benefits in the lucrative carbon-storage market, said Archim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
The World Agroforestry Center and UNEP are developing a standard method for measuring carbon storage on all types of landscapes, which could provide a basis for providing farmers with a financial incentive to increase tree cover on their farms.
Climate change talks scheduled later this year in Copenhagen will consider a new strategy that could include such a program.
Reuters 3 Sep 09;
GENEVA (AFP) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Thursday he planned to bring together leaders of the world's most forested nations, including Brazil and Indonesia, for a meeting this month to discuss deforestation.
"I'm going to ask the leaders of the forest countries to meet" on September 22, he told journalists at the World Climate Conference.
The UN Secretary General highlighted Brazil, Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo and some European countries as most at risk from deforestation.
"I have been urging many leaders, particularly those forestry countries, to manage this issue, especially reforestation," Ban said.
The UN Environment Programme recently underlined that since trees and plants absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), stemming deforestation could be a tried and tested method in tackling climate change instead of more ambitious carbon capture projects.
The Amazon region had lost more than 17 percent of its forests -- 875,000 square kilometers (331,000 square miles) by 2005, an area larger than Pakistan or France, according to UN estimates.
While the rate of deforestation has slowed since then, another 11,224 square kilometers (4,333 square miles) disappeared in 2007 in Brazil alone.
Authorities in India said this month that they were looking to the country's vast forest cover to absorb its growing greenhouse gas emissions and stem international pressure to sign on to binding carbon reduction targets.
The proposed meeting in New York would coincide with the UN summit on climate change.
John Shepherd, New Scientist 3 Sep 09;
MOST people and nations now recognise the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid dangerous climate change. However, there is a growing fear that this fragile support for action could be at risk because geoengineering - the large-scale manipulation of the environment to counteract climate change - is now receiving serious attention from scientists, policy-makers and the media.
This is sometimes referred to as the "moral hazard" argument. It holds that even discussing geoengineering methods, such as fertilising the oceans with iron or seeding clouds with sea water, may lead to a drop in support for emissions reductions because of a premature conviction that geoengineering could provide an easier way out.
If the mere mention of geoengineering were to have such an effect on public opinion, it would be a serious matter. Social and political inertia are already an impediment to tackling climate change, and it is not hard to imagine that people may prefer to put their faith in untried technologies rather than change their high-carbon lifestyles.
What is more, for reasons of vested interest or ideology, a number of people and organisations oppose action on climate change, and there is a sophisticated and well-funded (mis)information and lobbying industry that seeks to promote such views. Some of these organisations are now showing great interest in geoengineering, and may try to promote it as an alternative to emissions reductions. It is not, as this week's Royal Society report clearly shows (see "Top science body calls for geoengineering 'plan B'").
While we need to take seriously the possibility that geoengineering will undermine efforts to reduce emissions, it is based on an assumption which has not yet been tested empirically. Indeed, it is possible that geoengineering could have the opposite effect. The politics of climate change are notoriously complex and it is difficult to predict people's behaviours and attitudes.
As part of the Royal Society study, we commissioned a preliminary investigation into the moral hazard issue. We convened four focus groups, each bringing together people with similar attitudes to green issues. These ranged from "positive greens", who believe we are reaching the planet's natural limits and that an ecological crisis is pressing, through two moderate groups we called "concerned consumers" and "cautious participants", to the "honestly disengaged", people who are dubious about the claimed threat from climate change and are unlikely to see a link to their own behaviour. The majority of participants were not already familiar with the concept of geoengineering.
As we expected, individuals expressed a wide range of attitudes towards climate change, but some were recurrent. For example, all of the groups expressed concern about the perceived gap between the scale of the problem and the ability of individuals to address it.
Encouragingly, our study suggests that introducing the idea of geoengineering into the discussion could help close this perceived gap and spur some people to take greater action to reduce their carbon footprint.
This appears to be because geoengineering puts the reality of climate change into perspective. Feedback during the focus groups suggested that the very notion that something as drastic as geoengineering may be required dramatically underlines the seriousness of the problem. As one member of the council of the Royal Society remarked later, if we really need to consider actions like these, we must be in serious trouble.
This response was particularly noticeable for the two groups occupying the middle ground: the concerned consumers, who hold pro-environmental beliefs but doubt that a crisis is imminent, and the cautious participants, who tend to agree there is a pressing crisis but are pessimistic about our ability to do anything about it. Even the honestly disengaged group ended up advocating greater incentives for behavioural change so as to avoid finding ourselves in the situation where we need to deploy geoengineering technologies without fully understanding them or their risks.
While these findings are encouraging, we must be cautious not to overemphasise them. Only further research within the UK and internationally will tell us how typical they are. Our focus groups were small and we must also remember that there is always a gap between what people say and what they actually do.
However, the results do suggest that the moral hazard issue may be less of a problem than is sometimes claimed. Indeed, we even have a tentative indication that mentioning geoengineering may galvanise some people into taking greater action on climate change.
There are many questions hanging over geoengineering, and it is clear that the safest and most predictable means of addressing climate change remains action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Geoengineering is not a cure-all for our problems, and its consequences - both known and unknown, intended and unintended - would be felt across the world. But it could be useful in the future to augment more conventional efforts.
At least it looks as though discussing the issue won't be counterproductive, but we need to ensure that the debate is based on facts rather than preconceptions and prejudices. So let's get on with research on the technology and its consequences, and with developing some governance and policy frameworks to control it. And let's do it right now, as a high priority.
Related article
Top science body calls for geoengineering 'plan B' Catherine Brahic, New Scientist 1 Sep 09;
Fiona MacDonald, ScienceAlert 4 Sep 09;
In response to the claim that geoengineering will need to be used if humans can't reduce their emissions, Australian scientists have voiced concern that the consequences may be too dangerous.
A report by the UKs Royal Society released on the first of September evaluated whether using radical geoengineering techniques was a feasible solution to climate change. The conclusion was that, although these techniques are unproven and potentially dangerous, they may be our only hope.
"It is essential that we strive to cut emissions now, but we must also face the very real possibility that we will fail," said Professor John Shepherd, chair of the study, in a Royal Society media release.
"Geoengineering and its consequences are the price we may have to pay for failure to act on climate change," he added.
However, Australian scientists have warned that we should not give up on trying to reduce human emissions as yet, as even as a last resort geoengineering may be too dangerous.
"Geoengineering responses are like the old lady who swallowed a spider to catch the fly, creating a whole set of new problems," said Professor Ian Lowe, President of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
The main types of geoengineering techniques are Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Solar Radiation Management (SRM).
CDR solutions include CO2 capture, enhanced weathering and afforestation. The Royal Society's report considered these to be the best option for preventing climate change now, as they have fewer uncertainties and risks.
SRM techniques include stopping the Sun's rays reaching Earth, with mirrors or by injecting dust into the upper atmosphere. These were considered more risky by the Royal Society's report and were advised to be used only if temperatures had reached a dangerous level.
Professor John Buckeridge, a professor of Natural Resources Engineering at RMIT University, said we needed to focus on reducing the rampant consumption of natural resources rather than geoengineering.
"Many things that have been done for good reasons, have turned out to be disadvantageous, e.g. introduction of exotic species for “recreation”. Geoengineering has the potential to reap even greater havoc," he said.
However, one scientist believes that the report has accurately assessed the urgency of climate change and the need for action.
Kevin Walsh, an Associate Professor of meteorology from the University of Melbourne, said, "The report correctly concludes that there is no substitute for a concerted campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while acknowledging that some geoengineering options may be helpful in the future," he said.
In the Royal Society's media release, Professor Shepherd acknowledged that geoengineering methods could have catastrophic consequences similar to those of climate change itself, but added that it was important to develop 'Plan B' now.
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press Yahoo News 3 Sep 09;
WASHINGTON – The Arctic is warmer than it's been in 2,000 years, even though it should be cooling because of changes in the Earth's orbit that cause the region to get less direct sunlight. Indeed, the Arctic had been cooling for nearly two millennia before reversing course in the last century and starting to warm as human activities added greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
"If it hadn't been for the increase in human-produced greenhouse gases, summer temperatures in the Arctic should have cooled gradually over the last century," said Bette Otto-Bliesner, a National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist and co-author of a study of Arctic temperatures published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
The most recent 10-year interval, 1999-2008, was the warmest of the last 2,000 years in the Arctic, according to the researchers led by Darrell S. Kaufman, a professor of geology and environmental science at Northern Arizona University.
Summer temperatures in the Arctic averaged 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than would have been expected if the cooling had continued, the researchers said.
The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate. The administration-backed measure would impose the first limits on greenhouse gases and eventually would lead to an 80 percent reduction by putting a price on each ton of climate-altering pollution.
It is the latest in a drumbeat of reports on warming conditions in the Arctic, including:
• A marine scientist reports that Alaskan waters are turning acidic from absorbing greenhouse gases faster than tropical waters, potentially endangering the state's $4.6 billion fishing industry.
• NASA satellite measurements show that sea ice in the Arctic is more than just shrinking in area, it is dramatically thinning. The volume of older crucial sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by 57 percent from the winter of 2004 to 2008.
• Global warming effects in Alaska also include shrinking glaciers, coastal erosion and the march north of destructive forest beetles formerly held in check by cold winters.
And with the melting of land-based ice, such as the massive Greenland ice cap, sea levels could rise across the world, threatening millions who live in coastal cities.
The new report is based on a decade-by-decade reconstruction of temperatures over the past 2,000 years developed using information from ancient lake sediments, ice cores, tree rings and other samples. The findings were then compared with complex computer climate model simulations created at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
"This study provides us with a long-term record that reveals how greenhouse gases from human activities are overwhelming the Arctic's natural climate system," commented NCAR scientist David Schneider, a co-author on the study.
Added Jonathan T. Overpeck, a University of Arizona professor of geosciences: "The Arctic should be very sensitive to human-caused climate change, and our results suggest that indeed it is."
In addition, he pointed out, as the Arctic warms there is less snow and ice to reflect solar energy back into space and the newly exposed dark soil and dark ocean surfaces absorb solar energy and warm further, accelerating the warming process.
The Arctic cooling had been the result of a 21,000-year cycle in the Earth's movement that caused the far north to get progressively less summertime energy from the sun for the last 8,000 years. That process won't reverse for another several thousand years.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
Science: http://www.sciencemag.org
Warming in Arctic reverses 8,000 year old cooling trend
Yahoo News 4 Sep 09;
CHICAGO (AFP) – An abrupt warming of the Arctic has reversed a cooling trend that began about 8,000 ago, according to a study published Thursday which sheds light on the threat of rising sea levels and climate change.
Increased greenhouse gas emissions appear to have overridden the natural cooling caused by a wobble in the Earth's axis which has been gradually pulling the planet away from the Sun.
This wobble has cooled summer temperatures by an average of about 0.2 degrees Celsius per thousand years, the study published in the journal Science found.
But Arctic temperatures began to rise at the beginning of the 20th century even though the orbital cycle that produced the cooling continued.
The result was summer temperatures that were about 1.4 degrees Celsius warmer than they should have been by the year 2000, according to the study which mapped Arctic temperatures for every decade of the past 2,000 years.
Temperatures for four of the last five decades were among the highest on record.
"This study provides us with a long-term record that reveals how greenhouse gases from human activities are overwhelming the Arctic's natural climate system," said co-author David Schneider of the Colorado-based National Center for Atmospheric Research.
"This result is particularly important because the Arctic, perhaps more than any other region on Earth, is facing dramatic impacts from climate change."
The Arctic tends to warm about three times faster than elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere because of a phenomenon called Arctic amplification.
When highly reflective ice and snow melt, the exposed dark land and ocean absorb more sunlight. The warmer temperatures accelerate melting, which then accelerates warming.
"This has consequences globally because, as the Arctic warms, glacier ice will melt, contributing to (a) sea-level rise and impacting coastal communities around the globe," said lead author Darrell Kaufman of Northern Arizona University.
"Thawing permafrost will release methane adding to the global greenhouse effect," Kaufman added.
The researchers used glacial ice, tree rings and lake sediments to supplement a complex computer model of global climate and generate a reconstruction of temperatures for the past 2,000 years.
Previous studies had only pinpointed Arctic temperatures for the past 400 years.
"Scientists have known for a while that the current period of warming was preceded by a long-term cooling trend," Kaufman said.
"But our reconstruction quantifies the cooling with greater certainty than before."
Arctic now warmest in 2000 years, researchers say
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 3 Sep 09;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions pushed Arctic temperatures in the last decade to the highest levels in at least 2,000 years, reversing a natural cooling trend that should have lasted four more millennia.
Carbon dioxide and other gases generated by human activities overwhelmed a 21,000-year cycle linked to gradual changes in Earth's orbit around the Sun, an international team of researchers reported on Thursday in the journal Science.
"I think it really underscores how sensitive the Arctic is to climate change ... and it's really the place where you can see first what's happening to the (climate) system and how the rest of the Earth will or might follow," David Schneider, a co-author and a scientist with the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research said in a telephone interview.
The big cool-down started about 7,000 years ago, and Arctic temperatures bottomed out during the so-called "Little Ice Age" that lasted from the 16th to the mid-19th centuries, dove-tailing with the start of the Industrial Revolution.
This cooling trend was caused by a characteristic wobble in Earth's orbit that very gradually pushed the Arctic away from the Sun during the northern summer. Earth is now about 620,000 miles (1 million km) farther from the Sun in the Arctic summer than it was 2000 years ago, said Darrell Kaufmann of Northern Arizona University.
This cooling should have continued through the 20th and 21st centuries and beyond as the 21,000-year cycle played out. This latest research confirms that it hasn't.
EARTH'S AIR CONDITIONER
"If it hadn't been for the increase in human-produced greenhouse gases, summer temperatures in the Arctic should have cooled gradually over the last century," Bette Otto-Bliesner, a co-author from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in a statement.
What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay there, since it is among the world's biggest weathermakers, sometimes called Earth's air-conditioner. As Arctic sea ice melts in summer, it exposes the darker-colored ocean water, which absorbs sunlight instead of reflecting it, accelerating the warming effect.
Arctic warming also affects land-based glaciers; if these melt, they would contribute to a global rise in sea levels.
Warming in this area could also thaw frozen ground called permafrost, sending methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.
Climate scientists have long known that Earth wobbles in its orbit, which affects how much sunlight reaches the Arctic in the summer. This is the first time a large-scale study has tracked decade-by-decade changes in Arctic summer temperatures this far back in time.
To figure this out, researchers looked at natural archives of temperature -- tree rings, ice cores and lake sediments -- along with computer models, which tallied closely with the natural record.
Average summer temperatures in the Arctic have increased by about 3 degrees F (1.66 degrees C) from what they would have been had the long-term cooling trend remained intact.
(Editing by Todd Eastham)
Arctic Temperatures Are Warmest in 2,000 Years
Andrea Thompson, livescience.com Yahoo News 3 Sep 09;
Arctic air temperatures in the 1990s were the warmest in the last 2,000 years and were a result of rising greenhouse gas levels, a new study concludes.
The findings, detailed in the Sept. 4 issue of the journal Science, also suggest that if it weren't for these manmade pollutants, temperatures around the North Pole would actually be cooling as a result of natural climate patterns.
"This result is particularly important because the Arctic, perhaps more than any other region on Earth, is facing dramatic impacts from climate change," said study team member David Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "This study provides us with a long-term record that reveals how greenhouse gases from human activities are overwhelming the Arctic's natural climate system."
Natural archives
The researchers uncovered this masked cooling trend by reconstructing Arctic temperatures over the past two millennia with data from Arctic lake sediments, glacial ice and tree rings, all of which provide records of the changes in temperatures up there.
These natural archives indicated a pervasive cooling across the Arctic on a decade-by-decade basis that is related to an approximately 21,000-year cyclical wobble in Earth's tilt relative to the sun.
Over the last 7,000 years, the timing of Earth's closest pass by the sun has shifted from September to January. This has gradually reduced the intensity of sunlight reaching the Arctic in the Northern Hemisphere's summertime, when Earth is farther from the sun (the main driver of summer temperatures is the fact that the hemisphere is tilted toward the sun during these months, while it is tilted away from the sun during winter).
The team's temperature analysis shows that summer temperatures in the Arctic, in step with the reduced energy from the sun, cooled at an average rate of about .35 degrees Fahrenheit (0.2 degrees Celsius) per thousand years. The temperatures eventually bottomed out during the "Little Ice Age," a period of widespread cooling that lasted roughly from the 16th to the mid-19th centuries.
The study is useful because it isolates the temperature changes of the Arctic region from the larger signal of the Northern Hemisphere - the orbital changes are known to have more of an effect on the high latitudes than the lower ones, and this is born out in the study's findings, said Michael Mann of Penn State University, who did not work on the new study.
Trend overwhelmed
Even though the orbital cycle that produced the cooling continued, it was overwhelmed in the 20th century by human-induced warming caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere.
"If it hadn't been for the increase in human-produced greenhouse gases, summer temperatures in the Arctic should have cooled gradually over the last century," said team member Bette Otto-Bliesner, also of NCAR.
The study found that the 10 years from 1999 to 2008 was the warmest in the Arctic in two millennia. Arctic temperatures are now 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 C) warmer than in 1900.
"The amount of energy we're getting from the sun in the 20th century continued to go down, but the temperature went up higher than anything we've seen in the last 2,000 years," said team member Nicholas P. McKay of The University of Arizona in Tucson.
The scientists compared the temperatures inferred from the field-based data with computer model simulations. The model's estimate of the reduction of seasonal sunlight in the Arctic and the resulting cooling was consistent with the analysis of the lake sediments and other natural archives. These results give scientists more confidence in computer projections of future Arctic temperatures.
"This study provides a clear example of how increased greenhouse gases are now changing our climate, ending at least 2,000 years of Arctic cooling," says NCAR scientist and team member Caspar Ammann.
The new study follows previous work showing that temperatures over the last century warmed almost three times faster in the Arctic than elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. This phenomenon, called Arctic amplification, occurs as highly reflective Arctic ice and snow melt away, allowing dark land and exposed ocean to absorb more sunlight. This amplification could lead to potentially catastrophic melting of Arctic sea ice and land-based glaciers, which could impact Arctic wildlife, indigenous peoples and global sea levels.
"The warming of the past century, which has been shown to very likely be due in substantial part to human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations, is once again seen to be without precedent in a very long-term (at least 2000 year in this case) context," Mann told LiveScience. "Yet one other line of evidence that the changes that are taking place today are indeed without precedent."
Arctic 'warmest in 2,000 years'
Richard Black, BBC News 3 Sep 09;
Arctic temperatures are now higher than at any time in the last 2,000 years, research reveals.
Changes to the Earth's orbit drove centuries of cooling, but temperatures rose fast in the last 100 years as human greenhouse gas emissions rose.
Scientists took evidence from ice cores, tree rings and lake sediments.
Writing in the journal Science, they say this confirms that the Arctic is very sensitive both to changes in solar heating and to greenhouse warming.
The 23 sites sampled were good enough to provide a decade-by-decade picture of temperatures across the region.
The result is a "hockey stick"-like curve in which the last decade - 1998-2008 - stands out as the warmest in the entire series.
"The most pervasive signal in the reconstruction, the most prominent trend, is the overall cooling that took place for the first 1,900 years [of the record]," said study leader Darrell Kaufman from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, US.
"The 20th Century stands out in strong contrast to the cooling that should have continued. The last half-century was the warmest of the 2,000-year temperature record, and the last 10 years have been especially dramatic," he told BBC News.
On average, the region cooled at a rate of 0.2C per millennium until about 1900. Since then, it has warmed by about 1.2C.
Much debate on climate change has centred on the Mediaeval Warm Period, or Mediaeval Climate Anomaly - a period about 1,000 years ago when, historical records suggest, Vikings colonised Greenland and may have grown grapes in Newfoundland.
The new analysis shows that temperatures were indeed warmer in this region 1,000 years ago than they were 100 years ago - but not as warm as they are now, or 1,000 years previously.
"It shows that the Mediaeval Warm Period is real, and is... an exception from the general trend of cooling," commented Eystein Jansen from Bergen University in Norway, who was not involved in the research.
"It also shows there's lots of variability on the 100-year timescale, and that's probably more so in the Arctic than elsewhere."
Professor Jansen was a co-ordinating lead author on the palaeoclimate (ancient climate) chapter of the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment.
Arctic wobbles
The root cause of the slow cooling was the orbital "wobble" that slowly varies, over thousands of years, the month in which the Earth approaches closest to the Sun.
This wobble slowly decreased the total amount of solar energy arriving in the Arctic region in summertime, and the temperature responded - until greenhouse warming took over.
"The 20th Century is the first century for which how much energy we're getting from the Sun is no longer the most important thing governing the temperature of the Arctic," said another of the study team, Nicholas McKay from the University of Arizona.
The recent warming of the Arctic has manifested itself most clearly in the drastic shrinkage in summer sea-ice extent, with the smallest area in the satellite era documented in 2007.
As the Science study emerged, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was telling the World Climate Conference in Geneva that many of the "more distant scenarios" forecast by climate scientists were "happening now".
Earlier this week, Mr Ban visited the Arctic in an attempt to gain first-hand experience of how the region is changing.
"Scientists have been accused for years of scaremongering. But the real scaremongers are those who say we cannot afford climate action," he said in his Geneva speech, calling for world leaders to make bigger pledges of action in the run-up to December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
Next Ice Age Delayed by Global Warming, Study Says
Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic News 3 Sep 09;
Humans are putting the brakes on the next ice age, according to the most extensive study to date on Arctic climate change.
The Arctic is now warmer than it's been in the past 2,000 years—a trend that is reversing a natural cooling cycle dictated by a wobble in Earth's axis.
Previously, researchers had looked at Arctic temperature data that went back just 400 years.
That research showed a temperature spike in the 20th century, but it was unclear whether human-caused greenhouse gas emissions or natural variability was the culprit, noted study co-author Gifford Miller of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
By looking even farther back in time, Miller and colleagues' newest study reveals that the 20th century's abrupt warming in fact interrupted millennia of steady cooling.
It's "pretty clear that the most reasonable explanation for that reversal is due to increasing greenhouse gases," Miller said.
The researchers' computer climate models dovetails with field data such as sediment cores and tree rings, which "really … solidifies our understanding," he said.
Eventually Earth will slip again into the pattern of cyclical ice ages, Miller added, but it may be thousands of years before that happens.
Ice Age, Interrupted
Earth's angle toward the sun changes due to a natural wobble in the planet's tilt, which cycles every 26,000 years. Since the planet's tilt is what creates the seasons, the wobble means that Earth makes its closest pass by the sun in September for part of the cycle.
But the change in Earth's tilt has caused us to pass closest to the sun in January over the past 7,000 years.
This means less sunlight has been hitting the Arctic during its summertime, so the region should be cooling.
To estimate past temperatures, the research team looked at Arctic lake sediments and at previously published data of glacial ice cores and tree rings.
The team also examined a computer model of global climate based at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.
Miller and colleagues found that the wobble in Earth's tilt causes Arctic temperatures to drop by about 0.36 degree Fahrenheit (0.2 degree Celsius) every thousand years during a cooling phase.
But human-caused global warming overwhelmed that gradual cooling in the mid-1990s, shooting temperatures up by about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) over the course of a few decades.
In fact, five of the warmest decades in the past 2,000 years have occurred between 1950 and 2000, according to the study, which will be published tomorrow in the journal Science.
Ecologist Syndonia Bret-Harte said she has seen the effects of climate change firsthand during her research on the changing Alaskan tundra.
The new study "doesn't seem that surprising, but it's good to confirm what researchers were already thinking," said Bret-Harte, of the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Global Warming Amplifiers
The effects of climate change are powerfully amplified in the Arctic, which has been heating up faster than anywhere else on Earth.
That's because Arctic temperatures are greatly impacted by melting from both summer sea ice and permafrost, or frozen soil, experts say.
Summer Arctic sea ice, which hit a record low in 2007, will probably have dissolved completely by 2030.
Without swaths of white ice to reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere, those rays will instead be absorbed into the darker oceans—speeding up the region's warming.
And melting permafrost is already starting to release carbon dioxide and methane, two potent greenhouse gases that have long been trapped underground.
"It's pretty straightforward that amplification will continue in the future. There will be direct impacts in the Arctic," study co-author Miller said.
"The big issue is, when you melt ice, the sea level rises—that's a global issue, and that has major impacts."
Bret-Harte agreed that the amplifying effects are "going to continue until summer sea ice is gone—there's no way to reverse the trend in the short term."
But that doesn't mean people shouldn't act, she said.
"Realistically we're looking at a warmer world, and there are two questions: How do we adapt to that as humans but [also] slow down the pace of [climate] change? The faster it is, the harder it is to adapt."
Clara Moskowitz, livescience.com 3 Sep 09;
When a big change is coming - be it in ocean circulation patterns, wildlife populations, or even the global economy - it is often heralded by telltale signs, scientists have found.
In many man-made and natural systems, conditions reach a tipping point when a major transition occurs and the system shifts from one state to another. Now researchers say they can begin to predict these tipping points by searching for universal early warning signs.
"At first we were surprised that yes, actually critical transitions in the brain could have a fundamental similarity to critical transitions in financial markets or ecology," said lead researcher Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. "It's a radical idea but when you think about it, it makes sense. Whatever system it is, if it has a tipping point, the universal laws of behavior for dynamical systems apply."
The researchers reviewed data from many different types of systems, including ecological systems such as the Earth's climate and ocean patterns, economic systems such as global stock market patterns, as well as medical systems in the human body such as asthma attacks, epileptic seizures and migraines.
In each of these examples, the scientists found that tipping points occurred and conditions changed dramatically over a relatively short period of time.
"Most systems change gradually most of the time, and tipping points are the exception," Scheffer told LiveScience. "But they are a very interesting exception, because they usually imply radical change."
Warning signs
One of the common warning signs of an impending tipping point is when a system takes longer to recover to equilibrium after it is disturbed. Most systems exist in temporarily stable states of equilibrium. If the system is perturbed by some force and pushed in a new direction, it usually moves back toward equilibrium quickly. But if the system is approaching a tipping point, it tends to take longer to recover its balance.
Another universal warning sign is when fluctuations in the system slow down. For example, in a climate approaching a tipping point, the weather tends to look more similar day to day leading up to the big change. In a brain before an epileptic seizure, neighboring patches of neurons look more like each other than they would in a regular brain. Prior to major economic change, stock markets in different areas start to act similarly to each other.
While fluctuations take longer in these systems, they often are greater in magnitude. That is, under normal circumstances fluctuations tend to be short and small. When a drastic transition approaches, conditions fluctuate between greater extremes, and the fluctuations take longer to pass.
"Close to a tipping point the system becomes more inert," Scheffer said. "If you displace it, there is less of a tendency to come to its own equilibrium value."
The scientists were excited to find connections between such vastly different systems, and hope to eventually apply their work toward practical early warning systems for, say, a seizure or a stock market crash.
"There is a lot of work still do to do when it comes to practical applications," Scheffer said. "That's far from easy. It's really an area of research that is in an exciting early development."
The research, which is detailed in the Sept. 3 issue of the journal Nature, was supported by the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology and Division of Ocean Sciences.
Phil Mercer, BBC News 3 Sep 09;
Australia has experienced its warmest August on record amid soaring winter temperatures.
Climatologists have blamed both the effects of climate change and natural variability.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology says that August was a "most extraordinary month" with mean temperatures 2.47C above the long-term average.
August in Australia culminated in a record-breaking heat-wave across much of the continent.
In the Queensland town of Bedourie the temperature reached 38.5C.
Elsewhere, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia have had their warmest winters on record.
Blair Trewin, from the National Climate Centre, says the past month has brought unprecedented conditions.
"Early last week we saw a number of locations in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland break their August record-high temperatures by four or five degrees. And to break records by that sort of margin is something which is extremely rare," said Mr Trewin.
Scientists believe that such unseasonal temperatures are the result of global warming and of the climate's natural variability.
There are warnings that spring in this part of the southern hemisphere is likely to bring more hot weather, exacerbating a long-standing drought.
John Ridley, a grain farmer in New South Wales, is a worried man.
"We needed rain yesterday, right. We needed rain most probably a fortnight ago for our crops to realise their full potential, but most probably been 30% of our yield potential gone and every day it doesn't rain that will fall quite dramatically from there," said Mr Ridley.
The warm, dry conditions have also prompted the authorities to warn that Australia's annual bushfire season is again likely to be severe.
Already serious outbreaks have flared to the north and south of Sydney, the country's most populous city.
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