Best of our wild blogs: 7 May 10

URA Concept Plan 2011 review
First preliminary recommendations published; public feedback by 25 May 2010 from Habitatnews and EcoWalkthetalk

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong visits the Raffles Museum
from Raffles Museum News

The Singing Forest and Forest of Giants at the Southern Ridges from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!

Does Singapore really have the greatest environmental impact?
from Planet of the Monyets

World Migratory Bird Day 2010
from MNS Perak Branch

Morning scenics
from Ubin.sgkopi

Lightning bugs
from The annotated budak

Strange behaviour of the Coppersmith Barbet chick
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Concept Plan 2011 focus group reveals draft suggestions

Mustafa Shafawi/Satish Cheney Channel NewsAsia 6 May 10;

SINGAPORE: Public transport, walking or cycling should be the default means to get around in Singapore.

The recommendation was part of a two-pronged strategy proposed by a focus group on the Concept Plan 2011 to make Singapore an endearing and green home for all.

To discourage private transport, it said carpark lots should be reduced and higher parking fees be levied in the city.

"The important thing about car parking is that it is a possible way of regulating the use of private cars, because if you have difficulty in parking a car in a certain part of the city, and there's a very good public transport system, you may just consider using public transport," said Ong Keng Yong, co-chairman of the focus group on "Sustainability and Identity" and director of the Institute of Policy Studies.

The focus group said the government should include sustainability building considerations as a criterion for the award of land tenders.

Programmes to promote a green mindset and raise public awareness about recycling and reducing wastes should be strengthened.

In making Singapore an endearing home, the focus group felt that a Heritage Charter be introduced.

"It's basically to try and build a consensus among all the stakeholders in a particular district as to how to cherish, safeguard the things we love in that district," said Lee Tzu Yang, co-chairman of focus group on "Sustainability and Identity" and chairman of Shell Singapore.

The charter should be jointly formulated by the public, private and people sectors.

To enrich the experience of Singapore's built and natural heritage, it recommends that more people have homes in the heritage districts.

The focus group also said there must be greater community involvement in shaping an endearing Singapore.

With this in mind, schools and non-government organisations need to work with local communities to strengthen the local identity.

The focus group is one of two groups appointed by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).

The recommendations are being put up for public comment, after which the focus group will fine-tune its recommendations before making its submission to the URA.

The submission will be taken into account in drawing up the Concept Plan 2011, which maps out the long term directions for Singapore's land use and transportation plans over the next 40 to 50 years.

- CNA/ir

Lanes, lots for cyclists
And fewer car park spots among URA focus group's recommendations
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 7 May 10;

SINGAPORE - Some of their suggestions echoed popular calls that have been rejected time and again by the Government; other proposals may be downright unpopular, admitted the focus group appointed by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) to review its Concept Plan 2011.

Either way, green transport will have a key role in building a sustainable city, said the 30-member group.

For one, a dedicated bicycle lane network is necessary, and Ambassador Ong Keng Yong, co-chair of the group and director of the Institute of Policy Studies, hopes the Government will act on the suggestion even though this has been raised unsuccessfully in the past.

There should also be more and better secured parking facilities for bicycles, as well as changing facilities for cyclists.

Private transport, on the other hand, should be discouraged by reducing the number of car parking lots or by charging higher parking fees in the city and town centres.

Mr Lee Tzu Yang, the group co-chair and chairman of Shell Companies in Singapore, told reporters the measures may be unpopular but were targeted ways to limit traffic flow into certain areas.

He said: "Everybody supports the use of public transport; they just want somebody else to use the public transport."

The group said that lower public transport fares as well as more convenient, comfortable and frequent buses and trains would make a difference. For example, season passes for unlimited travel across different transport modes can be introduced, and economical shuttle services to MRT or LRT stations can be provided.

The carrot-and-stick approach should also apply to waste reduction and recycling, recommended the group - one of two appointed in January to discuss issues in the URA's Concept Plan, which maps out the long-term direction for land use and transportation in Singapore.

Higher waste-disposal fees - tied to the amount of trash collected from each household - can help reduce wastage, for example, while recycling facilities could be located at public transport nodes with rebates on public transport fares to encourage recycling.

This was the first time the group, which is looking into sustainability and identity, was presenting its draft recommendations. Six members, including the co-chairs, met 200 people in a forum as part of URA's overall public consultation exercise.

One member of the public, Mr Jeffrey Chong, asked if the panel - which included Nature Society president Shawn Lum, South West Community Development Council member Tiew Chee Meng and National University Singapore geography department chief Shirlena Huang - had considered introducing urban farming.

Mr Tiew said land scarcity in Singapore was an obstacle, and a green spirit must first be inculcated in Singaporeans.

After seeking the public's feedback, the focus group will fine-tune its recommendations before submitting its final report to URA, which reviews its Concept Plan once every 10 years. The current review is scheduled to be completed next year.

Meanwhile, the other focus group looking into quality of life and ageing will present its recommendations on Monday.

The public can give their feedback on yesterday's preliminary recommendations at spring.ura.gov.sg/conceptplan2011/publicforum.

Heritage Charters to help preserve historic districts
Ong Dai Lin Today Online 7 May 10;

To preserve the heritage of historic districts, Heritage Charters can be drawn up to guide the kinds of activities and uses allowed in these areas. These can be formulated jointly by the public, private and people sectors, said Mr Lee Tzu Yang, co-chair of the focus group appointed to look into the issue.

There is also a need to develop more iconic structures to give each area in Singapore a distinct identity, the focus group said.

As more than 80 per cent of Singaporeans live in public housing estates, significant buildings and structures - including town centres, wet markets and schools - should be retained even as neighbourhoods are redeveloped. The group also suggested that more signage and storyboards, including audio features, be introduced in historic districts to raise awareness of their significance. Community groups and educational centres can conduct walking tours in these districts.

Meanwhile, Singapore's parks - especially those of greater significance - should be designated "National Parks", which should have more basic facilities such as restrooms and shelters.

These recommendations were discussed last night at a public forum. Participant Lee Yi Peng, the eldest son of the Prime Minister, asked focus group members if there was a risk of damaging heritage and nature areas if they are made accessible to the public.

Mr Ganesh Kalyanam, director for capability development at the centre for culture and communication at Republic Polytechnic, said the authorities do make sure nature areas are not endangered when they are made accessible.

URA focus group shares suggestions
Uma Shankari, Business Times 7 May 10;

A FOCUS group set up to look at sustainability and identity issues for the Concept Plan 2011 recommends that Singapore aim to be 'environmentally and socially sustainable'.

The group, set up by the Urban Redevelopment Authority in January, announced its draft recommendations and sought public feedback on them at a forum yesterday.

The recommendations have two main thrusts: building a sustainable city and making Singapore an endearing home.

Under the first key thrust, the group wants stronger 'green' infrastructure and greater sharing and ownership of sustainable practices.

This can include reviewing the land tender system to include criteria to encourage developers to incorporate more green features in their projects, and establishing an island-wide waste-reduction and recycling programme.

The focus group also advocates promoting environmentally friendly transport and reviewing car parking policies to discourage the use of private transport - for example, by reducing the number of car parking lots or charging higher car parking fees in the city and town centres.

Ong Keng Yong, co-chairman of the focus group and director of the Institute of Policy Studies, said a 'holistic' blueprint - rather than a 'piecemeal' approach - is needed to make Singapore sustainable.

Under the second key thrust - making Singapore an endearing home - the focus group asks the government to safeguard the island's built and natural heritage, including historic districts such as Chinatown, Kampong Glam and Little India, monuments such as the old Supreme Court and City Hall and natural areas such as Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and Pulau Ubin.

The focus group also wants to enhance people's experience of Singapore's built and natural heritage and involve the community in shaping an endearing Singapore. It recommends greater involvement of local communities, schools, stakeholders and NGOs in designing and managing 'endearing' spaces.

'It's to try to build a consensus among all the stakeholders in a particular area on how to cherish, safeguard the things we love in that district,' said Lee Tzu Yang, co-chairman of the focus group and chairman of Shell Singapore.

The public feedback sought by URA will be considered by the focus group for incorporation in its final report.

Budding ideas on greening buildings, keeping heritage alive
Jessica Cheam & Lee Yen Nee, Straits Times 7 May 10;

IDEAS on how to ensure Singapore becomes a green and endearing home for its residents were unveiled by a focus group yesterday at a public forum.

Key recommendations by the 30-member group included an emphasis on greening buildings from the design stage right through the building's 'life cycle', to creating a heritage charter on activities allowed in heritage areas.

The members are from various local communities and were appointed by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).

Yesterday's forum was part of the URA's review of the Concept Plan 2011, which maps out directions for Singapore's land use and transport for the next 40 to 50 years.

Co-chair ambassador Ong Keng Yong of the Institute of Policy Studies said Singapore needed to further green its infrastructure to ensure sustainability.

One key idea to emerge from the four months of discussions was to adopt a 'life cycle' approach to buildings, starting from the design stage, he said.

The group suggested that Singapore implement more policies and incentives to encourage the 'greening' of buildings, including considering sustainability as a criterion for the award of land tenders.

Other ideas included encouraging owners to retrofit existing buildings with green features.

'It's important we have a mindset change to these activities,' Mr Ong told the 200-strong forum at the URA Centre in Maxwell Road.

The other co-chair, Mr Lee Tzu Yang, chairman of Shell Companies in Singapore, emphasised that keeping the nation's heritage alive was key to fostering a feeling of belonging.

'Everyone wants a place they belong to, that's no argument. The tensions during discussions was on the pace of change, and whether in the process, we lose the things we have,' he said.

The group suggested keeping certain key areas 'relevant for the young and old'. For example, the proposed heritage charter would be jointly created by the public, private and community sectors to guide the types of activities and uses allowed in heritage areas, he said.

Other recommendations included keeping significant buildings, iconic structures and spaces in housing estates as 'physical anchors of our collective social memories'.

People at the forum generally agreed with the focus group's recommendations but suggested various improvements. One idea thrown up called for the Green Mark scheme for green buildings to be enhanced to assess the life cycle impact of buildings.

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Going Green in Singapore: Hits and Misses

FairPrice to add recycling machines
Just drop empty tin cans or plastic bottles in and get bottled water coupon
Grace Chua Straits Times 7 May 10;

A VENDING machine at the FairPrice supermarket in Ang Mo Kio Hub swallows tin cans and plastic bottles. It then sorts them, counts them and spits out coupons that can be exchanged for bottled water.

The supermarket chain has three such 'reverse vending' machines, and intends to add another 10 at its outlets to get shoppers into the habit of recycling.

The hardware to separate different sorts of waste, a key problem in Singapore's recycling efforts, is already here, brought in by Wincor Nixdorf, a German firm, and Recycle Management Enterprise, a Singapore firm distributing machines from Norwegian maker Tomra.

Since last September, the three machines, located at FairPrice Ang Mo Kio, Marine Parade and City Square Mall, have collected more than 38,000 bottles and cans, some of which were deposited in bulk by schools.

But the machines are a heavy investment, costing at least $30,000 each. They are, for the moment, not collecting enough recyclables to recoup their cost.

For instance, aluminium cans go for just US$1,000 (S$1,390) a tonne - and it takes 70,000 to 80,000 cans to make up that weight.

Wincor Nixdorf Asia-Pacific vice-president Andrew Phay said the company would welcome bottle-deposit legislation, a proposal the National Environment Agency wants to study.

'Introducing a bottle or container deposit legislation certainly creates a real incentive for people to clean up after themselves,' he said.

In Japanese towns, the municipal government buys these machines from tax dollars or waste collection fees, said Mr Rudy Fang, director of Recycle Management Enterprise.

And many countries in Europe give an incentive to customers to return their cans and bottles through container-deposit laws: A small, refundable 'fee' is included in the price of a canned or bottled drink, and customers get their deposit back by returning the container.

Mr Fang said his company is hoping that firms, such as those selling canned or bottled drinks, will sponsor the machines or take up advertising space to help defray the costs.

Right now, his company says it has two machines with the supermarket to encourage recycling and gain visibility. In return, FairPrice provides the electricity to run the machines.

The Wincor Nixdorf machine at City Square, near Farrer Park, is leased by the supermarket chain. The bottles and cans collected by all three machines go to public waste collectors for recycling.

The concept, however, has still to catch on with more consumers here.

Ang Mo Kio resident Dave Tan, 35, an air force technician, said he has never noticed the machine in FairPrice's Ang Mo Kio Hub supermarket, where it is tucked away in a corner by the store's entrance.

He suggested putting such machines somewhere more prominent, such as outside malls or at bus stops.

Still, he said, getting residents to recycle would take some effort as 'people might not want to take along bags of bottles when they go shopping'.

Food recycling plant going to waste
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 7 May 10;

SINGAPORE's only food recycling plant is wasting away, operating at just half its capacity, two years after it began operations.

IUT Global in Tuas is recycling just 120tonnes to 130 tonnes of waste daily. A vacant lot, ready for further expansion, sits next to the existing factory.

Chief executive and managing director Edwin Khew made no bones about how the plant is losing money.

'It has taken us longer than we expected to get the waste volumes we need to break even,' he said. 'We need to be recycling 150 to 220 tonnes a day to break even... At 300 tonnes, we will start making money.'

IUT can process up to 800 tonnes of organic waste a day, which is more than half what Singapore puts out daily as food waste. Just 13 per cent of Singapore's 0.61 million tonnes of food waste was recycled last year. The target is 30per cent by 2012.

The main challenge is to get those that signed up - such as universities, hotels like the Pan Pacific Singapore, and Ion Orchard and 313@Somerset shopping malls - to understand that they must separate their waste at source.

It took two years and discounted rates, before IUT's vans started picking up pure food waste, with no paper or plastics mixed in.

If straws and plastic cutlery are mixed in with the food waste, it can still be sorted at the plant but this adds to costs as it must be incinerated. It cannot be recycled as the plastics are contaminated by the food and it is too costly to clean.

The food waste goes into a digester and is broken down over about 15 days. The methane gas generated in this process is used to power the plant and the excess of a few 100kw is sold back to the national power grid.

The final product, compost, is given away for free to local farmers, as IUT Global does not generate enough to sell. When the plant is at full capacity, about 6MW of electricity can be generated - enough to power 10,000 homes. This will form part of the company's revenue along with the waste collection contracts.

But there is light at the end of the recycling tunnel. The National Environment Agency has asked for expert advice on how to raise Singapore's recycling rate from the current 57 per cent to 60 per cent target by 2012.

Among other things, the agency is willing to pay for a consultant to come up with ways to make sure commercial, industrial and trade premises keep food waste separate from other types of waste, such as paper and plastic.

'If the Government wants to ensure source segregation, some form of law has to be introduced,' said Mr Khew, 61, who, prior to setting up IUT Global, worked for 30 years for Veolia, the world's largest waste services company.

'If you look at the countries that do it well, they all have some form of law - Japan, China and Korea.'

Not only does wet food waste contaminate potentially recyclable products, but it also takes more energy to burn wet waste in Singapore's incinerators.

Mr Khew said he was not giving up. He said: 'I have put in a lot of effort and I am not going to walk away.

'If we took all food waste out and the recyclables were not contaminated, all that would be left behind for a landfill would be sand, leather and broken glass.'

He added that it may be possible for household food waste to be recycled by his company if there were separate waste chutes in housing estates to gather it in one place.

Pan Pacific Singapore, which has recycled food waste with IUT Global since July last year, used food recycling bins in the staff cafeteria to raise awareness about the programme and get employees to put only food waste into the bins.

'In the first month, the food collected was about 78 per cent pure and by the subsequent month, it was 90 per cent,' said Ms Cheryl Ng, the public relations manager. The hotel recycles between 600kg and 700kg of food daily.

Read more!

It’s just ‘green’ sun blocks for Redang soon

R.S.N. Murali, The Star 7 May 10;

DUBAI: Pulau Redang tourists will only be allowed to use eco-friendly sun block creams in future.

The Terengganu Government plans to ban other types of sun blocks which have high concentration of chemicals to block out the effects of the ultraviolet light that are detrimental to the rich marine life of the island.

To enforce the ban, the state government is planning to conduct a briefing for tourists heading to Pulau Redang on the type of sun block creams that they can carry.

State Heritage, Culture, Art and Tourism committee chairman Datuk Zaabar Mohd Adib said the briefing was intended to be conducted at entry points like the Sultan Mahmud Airport and the Shahbandar jetty that is the gateway to Pulau Redang.

“Hundreds of tourists apply creams while sunbathing on Pulau Redang and before they take a dip in the water. Because of the volume of tourists, residue from the cream settles on the seabed and, in the long run, damage the coral life.”

He said this yesterday when met at the Arabian Travel Market 2010 here.

Zaabar is leading the state government’s delegation to the travel exhibition that is being held at the Dubai Convention and Exhibition Hall here.

“There are creams that are eco-friendly and we want to create awareness from now on the type of cream that will be permitted on the island in the future,” he said.

Zaabar said Terengganu would continue to cap the number of tourists to Redang to 160,000 to protect the environment, especially from the numerous diving activities that impact the ecosystem.

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World needs 'bailout plan' for species loss: IUCN

Yahoo News 6 May 10;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Facing what many scientists say is the sixth mass extinction in half-a-billion years, our planet urgently needs a "bailout plan" to protect its biodiversity, a top conservation group said Thursday.

Failure to stem the loss of animal and plant species will have dire consequences on human well-being, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned.

"The gap between the pressure on our natural resources and governments' response to the deterioration is widening," said Bill Jackson, the group's deputy director, calling for a 10-year strategy to reverse current trends.

"By ignoring the urgent need for action we stand to pay a much higher price in the long term than the world can afford," he said in a statement.

A fifth of mammals, 30 percent of amphibians, 12 percent of known birds, and more than a quarter of reef-building corals -- the livelihood cornerstone for 500 million people in coastal areas -- face extinction, according to the IUCN's benchmark Red List of Threatened Species.

In 2002, the international community pledged to slow the biodiversity drop off by 2010, and incorporated the target into the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

But the decline has continued apace, according to a major scientific assessment published last week in the journal Science.

The next opportunity to set new goals and devise a strategy for achieving them will be the October meeting in Nagoya, Japan of the Convention of Biological Diversity.

In preparation, an advisory body of scientists will brainstorm in Nairobi, Kenya starting next week, and formulate recommendations.

Discussions will cover protected areas, inland and marine water areas, the impact of climate change, biofuels and invasive species, said the IUCN, a key partner in the deliberations.

"This year we have a one-off opportunity to really bring home to the world the importance of the need to save nature for all life on Earth," said Jane Smart, head of the IUCN's Biodiversity Conservation Group.

"If we don't come up with a big plan now, the planet will not survive," she said.

The IUCN draws together more than 1,000 government and NGO organisations, and 11,000 volunteer scientists from about 160 countries.

Governments to debate planet "bailout"
IUCN Press Release 6 May 10;

Never has the world faced a more pressing crisis than the current loss of biodiversity, which affects every man, woman and child. The gap between the pressure on our natural resources and governments’ response to the deterioration is widening. IUCN is calling for governments to come up with a “bailout plan,” a 10-year strategy that will help countries halt and reverse this loss.

“Twenty-one percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of all known amphibians,12 percent of all known birds, 35 percent of conifers and cycads, 17 percent of sharks and 27 percent of reef-building corals assessed for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ are threatened with extinction,” says Bill Jackson, IUCN Deputy Director General. “If the world made equivalent losses in share prices there would be a rapid response and widespread panic, as we saw during the recent economic crisis. The loss of biodiversity, crucial to life on earth, has, in comparison, produced little response. By ignoring the urgent need for action we stand to pay a much higher price in the long term than the world can afford.”

Key decisions which could help reverse these trends will be decided at a meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice to the Convention on Biological Diversity, or SBSTTA, which takes place in Nairobi, Kenya from 10 to 21 May 2010. Scientists, including a delegation from IUCN, will work with the world’s governments to draw up a “big plan” on the best way to save all life on earth, the planet’s biodiversity. Some of the main areas that will be discussed include the biodiversity of protected areas, inland waters, marine and coastal areas, links between biodiversity and climate change, biofuels and invasive species.

“Countries are taking a very shortsighted view of the need to fuel their economies at the expense of nature, so much so that we’re now at crisis point when it comes to the loss of biodiversity,” says Jane Smart, Director, IUCN Biodiversity Conservation Group. “We can’t afford to forget that all economic activity is linked to nature. We need new targets and a concerted effort to ensure our natural assets are protected. This year we have a one-off opportunity to really bring home to the world the importance of the need to save nature for all life on earth. If we don’t come up with a new big plan now, the planet will not survive.”

Last week it was confirmed that world leaders have failed to deliver commitments made in 2002 to reduce the global rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, and have instead overseen alarming biodiversity declines. Those are the findings of a study by the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, a collaboration of more than 40 international organizations and agencies, including IUCN, which carried out the first comprehensive assessment of how the targets made through the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity have not been met.

Decisions taken at SBSTTA in Nairobi will provide a scientific basis for discussions that will take place in October in Nagoya, Japan, at the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

“SBSTTA is a crucial step in the process to stop the extinction crisis. If governments accept the science that’s presented to them in Nairobi, we stand a chance of reversing the current loss of biodiversity,” says Sonia Peña Moreno, IUCN Policy Officer- Biodiversity. “ If they choose to reject the fact that the natural world is in real danger, the effects could be devastating.”

Read more!

U.S. Targets Invading Carp With Poison, Nets, Shocks

Andrew Stern, PlanetArk 6 May 10;

Looking for Asian carp that could pose a dire threat to billion-dollar Great Lakes fisheries, U.S. authorities announced plans on Wednesday to poison, net and shock any invaders in Chicago-area rivers.

Authorities want to find out if any of the invasive Bighead and Silver Carp -- which have populated the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers -- have made it past electric barriers erected near Chicago to keep them out of the Great Lakes.

Carp DNA has been found in Lake Michigan, prompting neighboring states to file a lawsuit seeking to have locks closed. The suit seeks a permanent separation of the century-old, man-made links between the Mississippi River and Great Lakes watersheds.

So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected efforts to close the locks, much to the relief of the commercial barge industry, recreational boaters, and tour operators.

In a $78 million effort to track the voracious invaders and keep them out of the Great Lakes and away from the lakes' $7 billion recreational and commercial fisheries, federal and state agencies have embarked on a fishing program.

The next step will be to drop a fish poison, rotenone, along a narrow stretch of the Cal-Sag channel on the Lake Michigan side of the T.J. O'Brien Lock and Dam. The area is also past two underwater electric barriers meant to keep out the carp.

Boat traffic will be prohibited for four of five days during the poisoning operation set to begin on May 20.

The same poison was dispersed in December in a canal farther from Lake Michigan and turned up a single Bighead carp. A subsequent fishing expedition nearer to Lake Michigan did not find any of the invaders.

Nets and electro-fishing will be conducted next week along a shallow section of the Chicago River, closing the waterway to paddlers and recreational boats.

"These new monitoring efforts will help us make the most strategic decisions for keeping Asian carp from becoming established in the Great Lakes," said Charlie Wooley, Deputy Regional Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Read more!

Underground "Fossil Water" Running Out

Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News 6 May 10;

This story is part of a special series that explores the global water crisis. For more clean water news, photos, and information, visit National Geographic's Freshwater website.

In the world's driest places, "fossil water" is becoming as valuable as fossil fuel, experts say.

This ancient freshwater was created eons ago and trapped underground in huge reservoirs, or aquifers. And like oil, no one knows how much there is—but experts do know that when it's gone, it's gone.

"You can apply the economics of mining because you are depleting a finite resource," said Mike Edmunds, a hydrogeologist at Oxford University in the Great Britain.

In the meantime, though, paleowater is the only option in many water-strapped nations. For instance, Libya is habitable because of aquifers—some of them 75,000 years old—discovered under the Sahara's sands during 1950s oil explorations.

The North African country receives little rain, and its population is concentrated on the coasts, where groundwater reserves are becoming increasingly brackish and nearing depletion.

Since Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi launched his Great Man-Made River Project in the 1980s, an epic system of pipes, reservoirs, and engineering infrastructure is being built. It will be able to pump from some 1,300 paleowater wells and move 230 million cubic feet (6.5 million cubic meters) of H2O every day.

But while fossil water can fill critical needs, experts warn, it's ultimately just a temporary measure until conservation measures and technologies become status quo.

Radioactive Worries

Engineers in Jordan hope that the country's large fossil-water resources can help stem its chronic water shortage.

They envision a system that can move 3.5 billion cubic feet (99 million cubic meters) of water each year over a mostly uphill, 200-mile-long (320 kilometer-long) stretch from the remote southern desert to the capital city of Amman.

The U.S. $600 million project aims to tap Jordan's last primary water reserve, the Disi aquifer, on the border with Saudi Arabia.

But the project has encountered an unexpected stumbling block. The Disi's fossil water was recently found to contain 20 times the radiation levels considered safe for drinking. The water is contaminated naturally by sandstone, which has slowly leached radioactive contaminants over the eons.

Geochemist and water-quality expert Avner Vengosh of Duke University, one of the scientists who first discovered the problem, said the Disi's situation is not unusual.

Radiation contamination has been found in Israel, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, and Libya, Vengosh said.

Fortunately, radiation contamination can be fixed through a simple water-softening process, though it does cost money and creates radioactive waste that must be disposed of properly, he noted.

Troubled Waters

Bringing fossil water to the surface may cause other water quality issues. When aquifers are depleted, they can be subject to an influx of surrounding contaminants such as saltwater—a particular problem near coastal areas.

Also, like oil fields, depleting fossil water aquifers too quickly can reduce underground pressures and render large quantities of water essentially irretrievable.

Like the Jordanians, the Saudis already draw water for drinking and agriculture from the Disi, which Saudis call the Saq aquifer.

Saudi Arabia has also attempted tapping fossil waters. In 2008 a long-running program to sustain a nascent wheat industry with fossil water was scrapped; it simply sucked up too much rare water. The government intends to rely entirely on wheat imports by 2016, experts say.

Is That Fossil Water You're Drinking?

Oxford's Mike Edmunds said desert nations are only the obvious users of fossil water. In fact, many people may be using it, and using it up, without knowing.

Globally, wells are often drilled to about 320 feet (100 meters), Edmunds said. "Quite possibly only the top couple of meters of that are recent water. It's pretty obvious in Saudi Arabia or Libya, but that may be the case even in many places that aren’t particularly arid.

"People think about quantity when they are pumping, they don't ask about renewability as much—and that’s the big issue."

Though determining the vintage of such water isn't easy, said Duke's Vengosh, telltale signatures can help: Scientists look for radioactive isotopes that have been present in Earth's atmosphere only since humans initiated the nuclear era.

"In a very arid region one could argue that it doesn't matter" how old the water is, Vengosh said. "But in semi-arid areas, the ability to delineate between fossil water and replenished groundwater is always important."

Testing the Waters With New Technologies

Technological advances are also helping scientists get a handle on just how much water can be found in a given locale.

For instance, the European Space Agency's AQUIFER project uses satellite imagery to estimate water resources from space and help aid transborder management, according to geophysicist Stefan Saradeth.

The team examined parts of the Sahara and Sahel deserts, using proxies such as irrigation patterns, crop patterns, and changes in soil after pumping water.

"If there’s exploitation going on in terms of water or hydrocarbons, you see a minute lowering of the land surface, which we can measure from space on a millimeter scale," Saradeth said.

Such water-availability information is intended to help nations work together and share a critical resource.

“Every country can look beyond its own borders and see what’s going on," he said.

Other technologies can measure fossil water reserves more directly. In northern India, where New Delhi and Jaipur are draining fossil-water reserves along with water recharged by the annual monsoons, scientists used NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to measure aquifer use.

When underground reservoir levels change, they slightly alter Earth's gravitational field—just enough to be detected by GRACE satellites 300 miles (480 kilometers) above the surface. That data is used to map water use. In northern India, they produced a disturbing picture.

The NASA study found that humans are using more water than rains can replenish, and area groundwater levels declined by an average of one foot (30 centimeters) per year between 2002 and 2008.

Time—and Water—Running Out

In other nations the crisis is far more immediate—especially in Yemen, said Oxford's Mike Edmunds. The Middle Eastern country depends on fossil water—but can't expect to do so for much longer, according to Edmunds. "The Sana'a Basin is down to its last few years of extractable water," he said.

Worsening the situation is Yemen's tenuous government, shaky economy, and role as a haven for terrorists.

No one knows what will happen when it runs out—but Yemen’s fossil water will soon be a thing of the past.

Read more!

China leads Asia's push into green technology: UN

Yahoo News 6 May 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – China is leading a push by Asia-Pacific nations into green technology, which could be their ticket to sustained growth and reduced reliance on Western markets, the United Nations said Thursday.

It said environmentally friendly industries could provide export-dependent regional economies with new sources of growth to help make up for weakened demand in crisis-hit United States and Europe.

"The impact of the crisis has revealed the vulnerability of the region to external shocks," the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific said in its annual economic and social survey of the region.

"Asian and Pacific countries therefore need to find new sources of domestic and regional demand ... to help sustain their dynamism and allow for a gradual unwinding of global imbalances."

The UN praised efforts by China and South Korea for their "significant initiatives" to promote green technology as well as shift domestic consumption and production patterns to a more "environmentally sustainable path".

Government-backed investment in "energy and material-saving innovations" could see "greener" industries and businesses become drivers of growth as well as provide more affordable products for the poor, the report said.

But it was essential developed countries share their green expertise with poorer nations who cannot afford the technology, Aynul Hasan, head of macroeconomic policy and development, told a news conference.

"That technology should be shared," Hasan told reporters.

"This is where regional cooperation as well as the support of developed countries will be very, very important."

China invested 34.6 billion dollars in clean energy in 2009, up more than 50 percent on the previous year -- making it the world's biggest investor in energy-efficient technology, it said.

South Korea plans to inject 84 billion dollars in environmentally friendly industries over the next five years, the report said.

"China is playing an important role ... in terms of promoting green technology dealing with the environmental issues," said Hasan.

While China was expected to continue leading the Asian recovery from the financial crisis, much depended on Japan, the world's number two economy, where domestic demand and business investment remained weak, the UN said.

Another major threat to the recovery was growing inflationary pressures and asset price bubbles as "excessive liquidity from developed economies finds its way to emerging economies in Asia", Hasan warned.

"It's a major challenge for these countries to control inflation without hurting the growth momentum," he said.

The UN also called on regional leaders to strengthen their social safety nets and give more people access to basic financial services to generate jobs, fuel domestic spending and ensure sustained economic growth.

"Robust evidence ... shows that poor households with access to financial services can improve their economic well-being," the report said.

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Aussie failure to accurately measure and predict emissions from deforestation a lesson for world

Science Alert 7 May 10;

Australia’s failure to accurately measure and predict emissions from deforestation, and the difficulty it has had in reducing deforestation, should send a warning signal to the world, according to a study from The Australian National University.

The research was done by Andrew Macintosh from the Centre for Climate Law and Policy at ANU and published by the Australia Institute. It looked at the Australian experience with deforestation to highlight some of the risks associated with an international Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme.

It found a raft of pitfalls, including the potential for political manipulation of baseline levels, the difficulty of measuring deforestation emissions and the challenge of controlling deforestation.

“The Australian deforestation experience shows that there is a significant risk that, if deforestation baselines are negotiated, they will be manipulated to generate ‘hot air’ credits – credits that do not represent a reduction in emissions,” said Mr Macintosh.

“Even with the best intentions, it’s very difficult to devise accurate deforestation baselines, creating a risk that the scheme will inadvertently generate hot air credits. It is very difficult to accurately measure deforestation emissions, and any political leader who thinks they can control deforestation simply can’t see the wood for the trees.

“The Australian experience shows how the environmental credibility of an international REDD scheme could be undermined. Australia has one of the most advanced satellite-based monitoring systems in the world and some of the world’s leading forest researchers. Despite this, we have struggled to measure and project deforestation emissions, both of which are vital to the operation of an international scheme,” he said.

Mr Macintosh added that Australia had persuaded the world to allow it to include deforestation emissions in its Kyoto base-year emissions estimates, which had given the country a “free offset” and ensured Australia could meet its Kyoto target with the minimum of effort.

“If deforestation baselines for the REDD scheme are politically negotiated, the same thing could happen,” said Mr Macintosh. “Developing countries could negotiate overly generous baselines, leading to the issuing of hot air credits that undermine the environmental credibility of the international climate regime.

“The Australian experience with deforestation illustrates how hard it is to reduce deforestation emissions. Australia has struggled to control deforestation for 15 years, despite repeated attempts. This should serve as a warning. If a country like Australia finds it hard to halt deforestation, what is the outlook for developing countries with less advanced institutional, governance, monitoring and economic systems?”

The report Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries: A cautionary tale from Australia is available on the Australia Institute website.

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Leading scientists condemn 'political assaults' on climate researchers

Open letter defends the integrity of climate science and hits out at recent attacks driven by 'special interests or dogma'
Celia Cole, guardian.co.uk 6 May 10;

• Read the full text of the open letter

A group of 255 of the world's top scientists today written an open letter aimed at restoring public faith in the integrity of climate science.

In a strongly worded reproof of the recent escalation of political assaults on climatologists, the letter, published in the US Journal Science and signed by 11 Nobel laureates, attacks critics driven by "special interests or dogma" and "McCarthy-like" threats against researchers. It also attempts to set the record straight on the process of rigorous scientific research.

The letter is a response to negative publicity following the release of thousands of hacked emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and two mistakes makes by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN climate body.

The letter sets out some basic features of the scientific method. "Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of 'well-established theories' and are often spoken of as 'facts'," it says.

The document, citing theories including the age and origin of the Earth, the Big Bang and Darwin's evolution by natural selection, says that anthropogenic climate change is now so well-supported by evidence that it has achieved the same status. It adds that owing to science's adversarial nature, "fame" awaits any scientists who can prove the theory wrong.

"There is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change," the letter says.

The authors – who are all members of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the country's premier scientific institution – include some of the academic community's most distinguished climate researchers. But the list also includes top anthropologists, biochemistists and physicists who have felt the need to defend climate science in the wake of what they regard as politically motivated attacks. Three senior scientists from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester have also added their endorsement. All of the scientists signed up in a personal capacity, not on behalf of the National Academy or on behalf of their institution.

"Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence," the letter says.

Its call for an end to "McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association" appears to be jibe at Republican senator, James Inhofe, who has called for a criminal investigation into US and British climatologists whose email exchanges were stolen from UEA. The letter also condemns the "harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them."

The letter's co-ordinator, Peter Gleick, of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland, California, said: "[It] originated with a number of NAS members who were frustrated at the misinformation being spread by climate deniers and the assaults on scientists by some policy-makers who hope to delay or avoid making policy decisions and are hiding behind the recent controversy around emails and minor errors in the IPCC."

Scientists decry 'assaults' on climate research
Deborah Zabarenko, PlanetArk 7 May 10;

More than 250 U.S. scientists on Thursday defended climate change research against "political assaults" and warned that any delay in tackling global warming heightens the risk of a planet-wide catastrophe.

The scientists, all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, targeted critics who have urged postponing any action against climate change because of alleged problems with research shown in a series of hacked e-mails that are collectively known as "climate-gate."

"When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action," the 255 scientists wrote in an open letter in the journal Science.

"For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet," they wrote. They said they were deeply disturbed by "recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular."

Scientists sounded a similar note on Thursday before the U.S. House of Representatives panel on energy independence and climate change.

"The reality of anthropogenic climate change can no longer be debated on scientific grounds," James Hurrell of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research told the committee. "The imperative is to act aggressively to reduce carbon emissions and dependency on fossil fuels."

U.S. legislation aimed at cutting climate-warming pollution could be unveiled in the Senate next week.

FALLOUT FROM "CLIMATE-GATE"

Thousands of hacked e-mails sent between climate scientists were published just before a U.N. meeting on climate change last December in Copenhagen.

Those who doubt the existence of human-generated climate change argued that these messages showed that the climate research unit at East Anglia University in Britain had conspired to distort or exaggerate the science.

An inquiry last month cleared the British researchers of wrongdoing in the "climate-gate" case.

Even though individual scientists have been cleared, climate science is being tested, Sheila Jasanoff, of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, wrote in Science.

"It is no longer enough to establish what counts as good science; it is equally important to address what science is good for and whom it benefits," Jasanoff wrote.

She said in an interview that the article was prompted by the fallout from "climate-gate."

A U.S. climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University whose e-mails were released in the "climate-gate" case was targeted last month by the state of Virginia.

Michael Mann -- whose research includes the so-called "hockey stick" graph that documents recent climate warming -- was found not guilty by Penn State of suppressing or falsifying data or misusing information.

However, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is investigating whether Mann misused state funds when he got grants for his climate change research while at the University of Virginia.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

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The chance discovery that averted ecological disaster

The Independent 6 May 10;

Steve Connor on how the hole in the ozone layer was discovered by UK scientists a quarter of a century ago

It was perceived as one of the greatest environmental threats of the late-20th century. Twenty-five years ago this month, a hole in the ozone layer was detected high in the atmosphere over the frozen wastes of Antarctica; scientists warned it might spread to other parts of the world, leading to dangerous increases in cancer-causing radiation from the Sun.

The Earth's protective layer of ozone shields all life from the damaging effects of ultraviolet (UV) rays, and its gradual depletion by the release of man-made chemicals into the atmosphere threatened a dramatic increase in lethal skin cancers and blinding cataracts – a threat so serious it forced politicians to act.

Just two years after the discovery was publicised in 1985 by a team of three British scientists, the international community had drafted the Montreal Protocol, designed to curb and eventually ban the use and manufacture of ozone-destroying chemicals, such as the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in products ranging from fridges to aerosol sprays.

The protocol soon led to CFCs being phased out in many countries. Britain ceased production and consumption of CFCs in 1995, followed five years later by other developed nations. By 2009, all UN member states had signed the basic protocol, which was seen as one of the most successful international agreements on the environment.

Now, a quarter of a century after the publication of the key scientific paper documenting the ozone hole, one of the members of the scientific team has said the discovery might not have been made so soon had it not been for a combination of dogged perseverance and good luck.

"My perspective is that luck played its part, as in many other scientific discoveries," said Jonathan Shanklin, who, along with colleagues Joe Farman and Brian Gardiner of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, gathered the key field data.

At that time, in the early 1980s, British science was being squeezed by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. Long-term scientific monitoring programmes were especially threatened. Among them was the one responsible for the annual ozone measurements that had been carried out at the British Antarctic Survey's Halley research station since the late 1950s.

"In the 1980s, the British Antarctic Survey was looking at ways to economise, and the ozone monitoring at Halley was in the frame to be cut. Nothing seemed to be changing and there seemed little reason to keep it going. But it is programmes such as these that provide the crucial evidence for political decisions governing the future of our planet," Dr Shanklin said.

In fact, the measurements at Halley were not originally intended to monitor long-term changes to ozone but to help improve weather forecasting and to verify theories about atmospheric circulation. However, it gradually became obvious that ozone levels in the Antarctic spring – which occurs in October and September – were falling significantly after each southern winter, and were only partly recovering each summer.

There was already scientific speculation, backed up by serious theoretical work, about how the ozone layer might be affected by man-made pollutants such as CFCs in the stratosphere, where the ozone layer is found. Studies into ozone depletion in the 1970s by scientists Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina and Frank Sherwood Rowland led eventually to a Nobel prize in chemistry.

However, in the early 1980s nobody had noticed that the ozone layer above the South Pole was being depleted significantly at the end of each Antarctic winter, when the first rays of sunlight penetrate the darkness of the austral sky to cause ozone-destroying photochemical reactions with the chlorine of CFCs. The 1985 study showed that the lowest values of ozone seen in mid-October had fallen by 40 per cent between 1975 and 1984 – not quite a "hole" but worrying nonetheless.

"As I remember it, there was no real eureka moment in the discovery, more a combination of pieces falling into place," said Dr Shanklin, whose reflections are published in the current issue of Nature. The data was gathered from the ground using relatively simple instruments that looked up through the sky to measure the differences in UV light wavelengths known to be influenced by stratospheric ozone.

"What convinced the team was a graph plotting the minimum 11-day mean, which clearly showed that the spring decline was systematic. Farman crucially developed a chemical theory to explain the observations, linking them to rises in CFCs, and Gardiner carried out the essential quality control on the data," he said.

The study caused consternation, and some disbelief, among scientists in the US who were monitoring the ozone layer by sophisticated satellites. Their initial analysis had shown no such depletion but when they reanalysed the satellite data, they too detected the springtime depletion.

"I don't know what happened behind the scenes with the satellite teams, but I do know that they were overwhelmed by large amounts of data," Dr Shanklin recalled.

More than 20 years after the Montreal Protocol, there are signs that the ozone layer is beginning to recover. It could still take decades for it to return to the state it was in 50 years ago, but had it not been for three scientists who persevered with a seemingly irrelevant, long-term experiment, it would take longer still.

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