Venus Drive - COLUGO!
from Diary of a Boy wandering through Our Little Urban Eden
A Quiet Evening @ Daily Farm Nature Park
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Feeding Spotted Dove: 3. Comfort behaviour
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Day 14 - A Murder ererere~~~
from Project Orion II
Bernama 9 Jul 10;
KUALA LUMPUR, July 9 (Bernama) -- Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has taken emergency measures to shut down production pipelines at offshore platforms 240 kilometres off the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia after a thin layer of oil sheen was sighted.
The sheen was sighted near facilities operated by Petronas' production sharing contractors, comprising Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc and Newfield Peninsular Malaysia Inc, Petronas said in a statement Friday.
Efforts are ongoing to identify the source of the sheen, using remotely operated underwater vehicle as well as subsea pipeline tests, said the national oil corporation.
As per standard procedure, emergency response and oil spill teams, including those from the Petroleum Industry of Malaysia Mutual Aid Group and East Asia Response Ltd, were mobilised to the area.
All relevant authorities, including the Department of Environment, were informed, Petronas said.
The contractors have cleaned up the majority of the sheen and are now monitoring the situation via aerial and marine surveillance, it added.
-- BERNAMA
Chong Zi Liang Straits Times 10 Jul 10;
AT LEAST five Members of Parliament will ask the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources to explain last month's floods, when Parliament next sits on July 19.
Issues such as the capacity and maintenance of Singapore's drainage system, and financial aid for under-insured businesses are the focus of their questions.
Ms Lee Bee Wah, an engineer by profession, believes the floods were due to poor design or poor maintenance of the drainage system, or a combination of both. The vice-chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development and Environment, her questions will focus on these two issues.
Nominated MP Teo Siong Seng wants to know if the Government and grassroots groups will provide financial aid to businesses hit by the floods, but whose insurance payouts are less than their costs of recovery.
Singapore was hit by two rounds of flooding last month. The first, on June 16, inundated parts of the nation's premier shopping belt at Orchard Road, causing damage to designer stores. The second round of floods occurred a week later in areas such as Tai Seng, East Coast and Upper Thomson.
Tampines GRC MP Irene Ng has filed questions on whether global warming was the cause of unusually heavy rainfall on the days of the floods, and efforts to raise awareness of its effects.
Marine Parade GRC MP Fatimah Lateef's ward was affected by the second round of floods.
She will ask Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim what can be done to prevent flooding, not just in Orchard Road but in other parts of Singapore as well.
Dr Fatimah will also meet the PUB next week to discuss flood alleviation in her ward.
West Coast GRC MP Ho Geok Choo's ward was not affected in this round of flooding. But it was in 2003, when a three-year-old boy drowned in a flooded drain.
She has filed a question on the programmes in place to deal with future floods.
Some MPs, like Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC MP Hri Kumar Nair, have written directly to the PUB for explanations and action to address local flooding in their constituencies.
The PUB has promised to widen drains in the Sin Ming area, which he represents.
'I will communicate the news directly to the residents through the Thomson newsletter,' he said.
Besides floods, another issue that MPs plan to highlight is the safe transport of foreign workers.
Jurong GRC MP Halimah Yacob hopes measures such as higher side railings and canopies, previously slated to be in place by September 2012, 'can be enforced by the end of this year'.
Three foreign workers died when the lorry they were riding in skidded and crashed off the Pan-Island Expressway on June 22.
Jeremy Koh Channel NewsAsia 9 Jul 10;
SINGAPORE : Beehives have been creating some buzz in the estates in Singapore. One of them was in Woodlands.
A MediaCorp News hotline caller saw a one-metre long beehive that was just beginning to form.
The caller told Channel NewsAsia that the bees started flying into her flat on Thursday night. Residents called the town council, which removed the beehive.
Nearby, another small colony of bees had also started to form, but was destroyed by pest controllers.
The bee menace has been reported in several estates, including one in Hougang Avenue 8 last Thursday.
Residents said the swarm of bees appeared within the span of just a few hours.
"I didn't know at first, until my neighbour from the 16th floor told me. Then I went to see. There were really a lot of bees, like lanterns dangling there."
A spokesperson from Aljunied Town Council said he had received feedback from residents about the swarm of bees at 11am that day.
And the bees were removed thirty minutes later, using chemical sprays.
Margie Hall from the Nature Society of Singapore, said the bees are likely to be honey bees. And they appeared to be treating the staircase landing as a temporary refuge while they sought a permanent home.
Margie Hall, honorary secretary, Nature Society (Singapore), said: "They're not inherently aggressive at all, so long as they're allowed to go peacefully about their business, they have no intention of stinging everybody, they're not out to get anybody.
"But if they get upset, then they will sting people, and they might get upset if people walk into their path of flight."
As the bees are congregating in an urban setting, Ms Hall said they can pose a danger to those living around the area.
So even though bees, as prime pollinators, are a vital part of the eco-system, Ms Hall said destroying them with chemical sprays may be inevitable.
She said: "They're obviously a last resort as you're going to kill and destroy the bees. But how quickly you move to the last resort depends upon how many people you've got around, and how much control you've got over what people do."
And her advice to those who encounter huge swarms of bees is to stay far away.
- CNA/al
Intact swaths of trees reduce tsunami damage, a new study suggests
Sid Perkins Science News 17 Jul issue
Field studies of an Indonesian coastline ravaged by a tsunami in December 2004 suggest that leaving mangrove forests intact along a shoreline could substantially reduce damage from moderate-sized tsunamis.
When a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck west of Sumatra on December 26, 2004, it spawned a tsunami that hammered nations fringing the Indian Ocean (SN: 1/8/05, p. 19). Near Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on the northwestern tip of Sumatra, the tsunami swept inland more than 4 kilometers and killed tens of thousands of people. Now, by studying wave-induced damage to the mangrove forests surrounding that city, civil engineer Shunichi Koshimura of Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, and his colleagues have developed a model to estimate the tsunami-buffering capacity of intact mangrove forests. They report their findings online June 30 in the Journal of Geophysical Research–Oceans.
About two years after the damage occurred, the researchers took measurements of almost 700 mangrove trees in five broad swaths of intertidal terrain where dense stands of those trees — from the genus Rhizophora — had stood before the tsunami struck. Many of those trees were damaged, snapped off near their bases by the surging water, but some had survived the inundation unscathed. The team’s analyses showed that as the estimated wave-induced stresses on tree trunks increased, the proportion of damaged trees also increased.
Using that data, Koshimura and his colleagues calculated how well intact forests of mangroves — and especially the dense, broad networks of thick roots that prop up the trees’ trunks — might absorb the coast-battering energy in tsunamis of various heights.
The researchers estimate that a 500-meter-wide swath of 10-year-old mangroves — a forest in which each 10 square meters of land contains about 16 trees, and tree trunks average about 7 centimeters in diameter — would reduce the force of flowing water in a 3-meter-deep tsunami by 70 percent. For a 4-meter-deep tsunami, however, that same forest would be mostly destroyed by the surging water.
Older trees fare better against the battering waves, the team suggests. More than 80 percent of the trees in a 500-meter-wide patch of 30-year-old mangroves could survive a 5-meter-deep tsunami and absorb half the hydrodynamic force exerted by the onshore surge.
“Mangroves make an effective bioshield against tsunamis,” says Koshimura. “It is not possible to build concrete walls along all the coasts,” he notes. He adds, though, that his team’s analyses suggest a 6- to 9-meter-deep tsunami would destroy even a mature mangrove forest.
Koshimura and his team “have really provided a solid set of data and analyses… that show the damage-reducing effects of mangroves,” says Monte Sanford, a Reno, Nev., environmental consultant formerly at the University of Nevada. “It’s refreshing to see this, because for the past six years there have been two different camps about whether mangroves actually help reduce damage
Tan Ju-Eng, The Star 10 Jul 10;
TEN young people – aged 20 to 28 — from different academic backgrounds and training, went on an expedition to the Belum National Park in Perak last week.
The group comprised accountancy, culinary school, communications and economics students and some graduates in building technology and biotechnology. Among them was a graduate in conservation biology.
They were all on a four-day expedition to work on a project supporting WWF TX2 campaign to double the number of tigers in the country by 2022.
WWF field biologist Lau Ching Fong, 25, a biotechnologist, has been working with WWF for two years.
“I joined the tiger conservation efforts only recently. If you have the passion, just go for it even though you don’t have the proper qualification,” he said.
Lau is excited about being able to carry out the job on the ground and that his work could contribute to the whole conservation effort and to a bigger plan in the future.
His colleague Christopher Wong Chai Thiam, 25, joins him in the Belum forest monthly to set and change camera traps to track the existence of tigers in the area and their movements.
He is particularly passionate about collecting, researching and analysing the data to help save the animals.
During the expedition, the team got to change a camera trap set up earlier which captured the photo of a deer. The camera trap is an important gadget to show the presence of wildlife in these areas.
In the last six months, tigers were captured on film by the camera traps set up in Temenggor.
During the four days, the team trekked and gathered information to enable them create a communication tool that will help bridge the gap of understanding between the community and the abstract idea of tiger conservation.
“The WWF officers have pointed out that the markings on the tree were done by poachers. This is enough to alert us on the need to support WWF’s efforts in tiger conservation,” said Ee Mei Chin, 28, a finance executive with D’Jungle People Training Consultants.
The Tiger Trex expedition is organised by Thestaronline.TV in collaboration with World Wildlife Fund - Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia) and sponsored by D’Jungle People Training Consultants.
The expedition took them into the Belum forest with WWF Tiger team to change camera traps, visit salt lick and to talk to orang asli villagers about their experiences with tigers.
The challenge for the team is to put all their skills, experiences and information from the expedition together in a project to help the WWF TX2 campaign collect 50,000 signatures to lobby for more government support and political will to help eliminate the threat to tigers.
It is hoped that with the signatures they will be able to persuade Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to attend the Tiger Summit in Vladivostok, Russia, in September.
At the summit, heads of state from 13 tiger-range countries will meet and decide the future of the world’s remaining 3,200 tigers.
Malaysia is home to the world’s second largest wild tiger population, after India. It has declared its goal to double its tigers by 2020 and a plan on how this can be achieved.
The National Tiger Action Plan for Malaysia was released in 2008 and aims to have 1,000 wild tigers by 2020 through four main strategies.
Some of the activities are already being carried out by various government agencies and the Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (MYCAT), of which WWF-Malaysia is a part.
Malaysia is signatory to the Hua Hin Declaration in Thailand earlier this year where ministers and representatives at the First Asian Ministerial Conference on Tiger have committed to globally double wild tiger population.
The declaration also included a review on each country’s tiger conservation strategies or action plans before the Tiger Summit, where the heads of state will announce acceleration of the implementation of national and regional tiger conservation programmes.
The WWF TX2 signature campaign is aimed at getting Malaysia committed to implementing its Tiger Action Plan and come up with a “big win” for tigers that can be showcased at the Summit.
Fidelis E Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 7 Jul 10;
Having already lost two of its indigenous tiger species, Indonesia is now looking for money — and courting controversy — with a brace of plans to boost the number of Sumatran tigers in the wild.
The government recently announced a plan to double the tiger’s population by 2022 from current levels, based on a commitment agreed to by 13 countries in October in Kathmandu, Nepal.
A follow-up meeting gets underway next week in Bali, with the participation of delegates from Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Bali meeting is expected to produce a draft recovery plan for the world’s tigers as well as a joint declaration from the countries’ leaders, to be discussed at the next summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, along with funding proposals for conservation programs.
The Ministry of Forestry’s director general of forest protection and nature conservation, Darori, was upbeat about the ambitious target to multiply Sumatran tiger numbers, citing an intensive breeding program begun several years ago. “I’m very optimistic that we can double the population by 2022,” he said. “If within a year we can breed 15 tigers and release them into their natural habitat, then we’ll be on track to achieve our target.”
Darori said the breeding center, set up inside the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park’s Tambling Conservation Center, had successfully bred four tiger cubs over the past two years.
There are an estimated 400 Sumatran tigers left in Indonesia and an additional 150 in captivity elsewhere around the world, the ministry says.
Conservationists have praised the government’s intention but say more needs to be done to curb the illegal wildlife trade and reduce the incidence of human-tiger conflict near big-cat habitats.
Hariyo T Wibisono, coordinator of the Harimau Kita (Our Tigers) conservation forum, said breeding efforts should be taking place in the tigers’ natural habitats, not in captivity.
“This breeding program must only be seen as a stopgap measure until we can also strengthen protection, especially with regard to the wildlife trade,” he said.
He pointed out that the Balinese and Javan tigers had been driven to extinction in the past because of rampant poaching and human-animal conflicts.
“If we don’t prioritize law enforcement, then there’s a real fear that we’ll still have forests but no more tigers,” Hariyo said. “The lessons learned from the extinction of the two other species must not be wasted, otherwise Indonesia will be made to look the fool.”
The Balinese and Javan tigers became extinct in the 1930s and 1980s, respectively, while the Sumatran tiger is currently classified as critically endangered.
Harry Santosa, the Forestry Ministry’s director for biodiversity conservation, said the government would use the Bali meeting to push for $175 million in funding for law enforcement as part of its conservation program.
The money, he said, would be used to build supporting facilities at six national parks that are home to Sumatran tigers.
Harry added his directorate received only Rp 15 billion ($1.65 million) a year from the state for all of its conservation programs, not just for tigers.
Andjar Rafiastanto, from Fauna and Flora International, said the government should use the Bali meet to lobby neighboring countries to crack down on the cross-border trade in tiger parts.
“Lots of tiger parts make it to China through Hong Kong and Singapore, so we can use this event to get their commitment to end this smuggling,” he said.
Meanwhile, Noviar Andayani, country director for the Wildlife Conservation Society, said on average 12 tigers a year were being killed for encroaching on human settlements. “We support the government’s breeding program, but our observation in the field would indicate that the biggest threat facing Sumatran tigers is the potential for human-tiger conflicts, along with the illegal wildlife trade,” he said.
The WCS, he added, had uncovered 18 tiger-smuggling cases since 2008, but only seven had been prosecuted.
Darori said he was aware of the shortcomings in law enforcement, which he said would be addressed in a proposed bill on forestry crimes.
“The bill will call for stiff penalties for violators,” he said. “Those caught smuggling even a single tiger whisker could face up a minimum of five years in prison. In addition, negligent forestry and wildlife officials could also be jailed in smuggling cases.”
Meanwhile, the Forestry Ministry is adamant about pushing ahead with a controversial new program to allow people to “adopt” captive tigers for as much as Rp 1 billion to help curb poaching. “People don’t understand that this is a realistic initiative,” Darori said. “Every day there are people who request to adopt tigers.”
“They will take good care of the tigers. It’s better than allowing them to be killed by poachers,” he added.
Antara 9 Jul 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Cargill is collaborating with the World Wildlife Fund-U.S. (WWF) to undertake an assessment of its palm oil suppliers in Indonesia as part of its continued commitment to sustainable palm oil production.
The assessment would help gauge current progress amongst Cargill`s suppliers to implement the principles and criteria established by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), Cargill said in a press release issued from Minneapolis, the US.
"We are committed to helping lead efforts to move the palm oil industry towards more sustainable palm oil production," said Paul Conway, senior vice president at Cargill, in the released published on the company`s website.
"We already have responsible palm production policies on our own plantations and we want to play our part by working with the industry and the Indonesian government to encourage the adoption of sustainable production practices. WWF`s extensive experience will help us assess progress amongst our suppliers and will enable us to work with each supplier to implement the standards set out by the RSPO," he said.
The assessment will begin in August 2010 and the first phase will prioritize estates from Cargill`s key suppliers with the highest biodiversity concerns.
Cargill will release a summary of the overall findings and resulting action steps after the first stage of the assessment, which is expected to be complete in early 2011.
"This project is very important to WWF because it will help move the palm oil industry to higher levels of performance," said Jason Clay, senior vice president of markets at World Wildlife Fund.
Cargill has set a goal of buying 60 percent of its total crude palm oil from RSPO members by the end of 2010. It is encouraging its suppliers to join RSPO and to attain certification for all of their oil palm plantations.
Cargill`s oil palm plantation, PT. Hindoli in Sumatra, Indonesia has received the RSPO certification and smallholders at this plantation are scheduled in the next few months to be the first to be RSPO certified. It also is working towards getting RSPO certification for its other palm plantation, Harapan Sawit Lestari.
The company has its own policies in place for responsible palm production on its own plantations including commitments to not plant on high conservation value forests (HCVF); to not develop new plantations on deep peat land or land that would threaten biodiversity; and a strict no-burn policy for land preparation.
Today marks 'fish dependence day' – where our appetite for seafood means we have to deplete other countries' resources
David Adam guardian.co.uk 9 Jul 10;
Europeans are eating more fish while stocks in their own seas continue to deplete, according to a new analysis that highlights the unsustainable nature of the industry. A report from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) names today as the point at which Europe has nominally consumed all its own fish, and needs to bring in stocks from elsewhere. The thinktank says this "fish dependence day" comes earlier than in previous years, which it says shows that policy changes are needed.
The report, Fish Dependence: The Increasing Reliance of the EU on Fish From Elsewhere, maps marine resources onto a calendar year, and finds the day when the EU effectively starts to live off the rest of the world. This point now arrives a month earlier than when the group performed a similar analysis in 2000.
Aniol Esteban, head of environmental economics at NEF, said: "Safeguarding the marine environment is vital if we want to make use of EU resources and protect livelihoods and economies."
Esteban added: "The EU has some of the largest and richest fishing grounds in the world but at the moment we're not managing them properly. The upcoming reform of the EU's common fisheries policy presents a unique opportunity to ensure that these ecosystems are protected for future generations."
The group is calling for reduced fishing capacity and stronger conservation controls. It also wants wider campaigns to promote responsible consumption of fish, as well as greater government investment in ways to enforce quotas and sustainable practices.
The report says: "In a context of finite resources and growing populations, the current EU model is unsustainable. The EU's increasing fish dependence has implications for the fish stocks in other countries, which are also overfished, and for the communities that depend upon them."
It adds: "The main message of this report is that rising fish consumption in a context of declining stocks is a model that is environmentally unviable and socially unfair. The EU has highly productive waters that have the potential to sustain a long-term and stable supply of fish, jobs and related social and economic benefits, but only if its fish resources are managed responsibly."
Charles Abbott Reuters 9 Jul 10;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Exporters, livestock feeders and ethanol makers are going through the U.S. corn stockpile faster than farmers can grow the crops, the government said on Friday.
Despite record crops in two of the past three years and another record within reach this year, the Agriculture Department estimated the corn carryover will shrink to the lowest level since 2006/07.
In a monthly look at crop supply and usage, USDA estimated 1.478 billion bushels of corn will be in U.S. bins on August 31, when this marketing year ends, and 1.373 billion bushels will be on hand at the end of 2010/11.
The carryover figures are sharply lower from USDA's previous estimates -- down 8 percent for this year and down 12 percent for next year -- but slightly larger than traders expected.
"The number is definitely a negative, when you look at the carryout numbers," said Don Roose, analyst with U.S. Commodities in West Des Moines, Iowa.
The report was anticlimactic after USDA last week shocked markets with data that showed corn plantings were smaller than expected this year and corn consumption through June 1 was far larger than expected.
That data had spurred U.S. corn futures up 16 percent to a two-month high but prices are still far below 2010's peak above $4.25 a bushel seen in early January.
Wheat futures fell 2 percent on Friday, weighed by USDA estimates of a 2.2 billion-bushel U.S. crop, up 7 percent from its previous estimate and a surplus equal to six months' use. Wheat for September delivery ended the day at the Chicago Board of Trade at $5.38 a bushel, down 2 percent.
August soybeans rose 1 percent for the day, closing at $9.93-1/4 a bushel. September corn ended at $3.83-1/2, down 2 cents a bushel.
Some traders say the 2009 crop is overstated at a record 13.11 billion bushels and that livestock feed use of corn may not be as high as the June 30 report suggested. Analysts say a variety of explanations are possible, from an improperly high estimate of corn usage as of June 1 to a delayed recognition of shrinkage due to poor-quality corn.
"There will probably never be a known 'right' answer to this question, but we'll all keep looking for clues," said Pat Westhoff at a University of Missouri think-tank.
In its update, USDA raised its estimate of corn consumed as livestock feed by 175 million bushels, to 5.525 billion bushels but shaved 50 million bushels from corn-for-ethanol, due to a wobble in ethanol output.
Along with a smaller carryover supply this year, USDA trimmed its estimate of the corn crop by 125 million bushels, to 13.245 billion bushels -- still a record, due to smaller plantings. .
USDA raised its forecast of this year's wheat crop to 2.216 billion bushels, up 7 percent from June due to higher yields, and projected a cotton crop of 18.3 million bales weighing 480 lbs (218 kg), up 10 percent on larger plantings overall and the best crop weather in the Southwest since 1994/95.
USDA will make its first estimates of the fall harvest on August 12.
USDA says its corn crop projections are within 7 percent of the year-end figure, on average, but end-stock projections vary by as much as 35 percent from the final figure. Its winter wheat forecast has a margin of 7 percent.
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Christopher Doering and Jasmin Melvin in Washington and Sam Nelson in Chicago; Graphics by Jasmin Melvin; editing by Jim Marshall and Lisa Shumaker)
Yahoo News 9 Jul 10;
MOSCOW (AFP) – Drought has destroyed nine million hectares (22 million acres) of crops in Russia and a state of emergency has been declared in 14 regions, a government official said Friday.
Another three regions were also facing serious problems, deputy prime minister Viktor Zubkov added, Interfax reported.
"It's a lot," said Zubkov of the lost production. "We have to ensure that the livestock do not suffer."
Russia has about 80 million hectares of cultivated land, but on Monday the agriculture ministry revised its 2010 forecast for cereal crop yields down to 85 million tonnes from 95 million.
Zubkov nevertheless stressed that there would be no shortage of grain crops for the domestic market as Russia had 24 million tonnes of reserves, which could also be used to help the drough-hit regions.
In 2009, production of cereal crops came to 97 million tonnes.
The situation in Russia has already pushed up the price of grains on the European markets.
Karin Zeitvogel Yahoo News 9 Jul 10;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Targets set by policy makers to slow global warming are too soft to prevent more heatwaves and extreme temperatures in the United States within a few years, with grim consequences for human health and farming, a study warned this week.
Although the United States and more than 100 other countries agreed in Copenhagen last year to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions "so as to hold the increase in global temperature below two degrees Celsius," a study conducted by Stanford University scientists showed that might not be enough.
Stanford earth sciences professor Noel Diffenbaugh and former postdoc fellow Moetasim Ashfaq wrote in the study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, that "constraining global warming to two degrees C above pre-industrial conditions may not be sufficient to avoid dangerous climate change."
"In the next 30 years, we could see an increase in heatwaves like the one now occurring in the eastern United States or the kind that swept across Europe in 2003 that caused tens of thousands of fatalities," said Diffenbaugh, lead author of the study.
"Those kinds of severe heat events put enormous stress on major crops like corn, soybean, cotton and wine grapes, causing a significant reduction in yields," he said.
Diffenbaugh and Ashfaq used two dozen climate models to project what could happen in the United States if carbon dioxide emissions cause temperatures to rise 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (one degree Celsius) between 2010 and 2039 -- a likely scenario, according to the UN's International Panel on Climate Change.
If that occurs, the mean global temperature in 30 years would be about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (two degrees Celsius) hotter than in the preindustrial era of the 1850s.
Many climate scientists and policy makers have set a two-degree Celsius increase as the upper threshold for temperature rise, saying beyond that the planet is likely to experience serious environmental damage.
But in their two-year study, Diffenbaugh and Ashfaq found that even if temperatures rise by less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial conditions, there is likely to be a spike in extreme seasonal temperatures and more and longer heatwaves.
The first impacts could be felt as early as during the next 10 years in the United States, the scientists said.
In the 2020s, an intense heatwave equal to the longest on record from 1951 to 1999 is likely to occur as many as five times a decade in parts of the United States -- even if global temperatures rise by only one degree Celsius, it said.
The 2030s could be even hotter, with more and longer heatwaves and a spike in extreme seasonal temperatures in the United States.
Along with rising temperatures, there would be a fall in precipitation and soil moisture could lead to drought-like conditions in parts of the United States, which would harm crop yields and could increase the number of wildfires, the study showed.
"I did not expect to see anything this large within the next three decades. This was definitely a surprise," said Diffenbaugh.
"It's up to the policymakers to decide the most appropriate action, but our results suggest that limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius does not guarantee that there won't be damaging impacts from climate change," he said.
Geophysical Research Letters is a peer-reviewed publication of the American Geophysical Union.
Climate Change Means More Heatwaves, Premature Deaths, Scientists Warn
Environment News Service 9 Jul 10;
WASHINGTON, DC, July 9, 2010 (ENS) - Climate change is a serious health hazard that the United States must prepare for, according to government and university scientists from across the country.
They advised Thursday that climate models show that global warming will increase air pollution and trigger more heat waves, floods and droughts, all of which will threaten human health.
"Climate change is a quintessential public health problem," said Michael McGeehin, director of the Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency of the federal government.
"Heat waves are a public health disaster. They kill, and they kill the most vulnerable members of our society," McGeehin warned. "The fact that climate change is going to increase the number and intensity of heat waves is something we need to prepare for."
McGeehin was one of several scientists who briefed reporters on a teleconference held by the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists.
Climate change models show that the kind of heat waves some parts of the country have been suffering through in recent weeks will occur more often and at closer intervals, and last longer, said David Easterling, a climatologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.
"The current spate of heat waves could be a harbinger of things to come," he said, pointing out that from January through May, this year has been the hottest on record for global average temperatures.
Climate change could even make regions of the Earth uninhabitable, according to Matthew Huber, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University. His research on the effects of heat stress, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, calculated the highest temperature-humidity combination that humans can withstand.
Huber's findings show that if emissions from burning fossil fuels continue unabated, extremely high temperature and humidity levels could make much of the world essentially uninhabitable for human beings.
Over the long term, perhaps 200 or 300 years, the planet could experience an increase of average global temperatures of 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit.
Under that scenario, much of the world, including Australia, many Mediterranean countries, and parts of Africa, Brazil, China, India and the United States, would be so hot and humid that people would not be able to survive outside during heatwaves for more than a few hours.
"We can still decide to try to avoid that" by dramatically reducing the heat-trapping emissions that cause global warming, Huber said. "And from our calculations, it is something we should try to avoid."
Jonathan Patz, director of global environmental health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said that while climate change is a health threat, tackling it is a major public health opportunity.
He pointed out that the World Health Organization reports about one million people annually die prematurely from air pollution. He says that cutting global warming emissions also would reduce certain kinds of pollution, especially ground-level ozone.
"If we can reduce air pollution," Patz said, "we can save lives."
Patz's latest research found that cutting down on the number short car trips and reducing the number of miles driven by about 20 percent would save hundreds of lives, avoid hundreds of thousands of hospital admissions, and save billions of dollars in healthcare costs in the Midwest alone.
If drivers got out of their cars and either walked or rode a bicycle, Patz added, "we could probably double those health care cost savings."
Climate scientist Brenda Ekwurzel with the Union of Concerned Scientists, who moderated the press briefing, noted that addressing climate change is not all about saving polar bears and other faraway creatures and habitats.
"More and more, studies demonstrate that the health care impact and health care costs related to climate change," she said, "are directly related to us."
Cecil Morella Yahoo News 9 Jul 10;
MANILA (AFP) – The Philippines' once pristine island of Boracay has become extremely overdeveloped, with its famous beach now choked by sewage and too many bars, the country's new tourism minister said Friday.
In a candid interview with AFP, Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim suggested it was time tourists visited equally beautiful beaches in the country other than Boracay, which the government said drew 650,000 tourists last year.
"If you go to Boracay you'd love the beach, you'd love the night life and the good restaurants. But it's so dense, it's so dense," Lim said.
"It is now, you know, too commercial. It's become Phuket," he said, referring to the much larger Thai beach resort island.
Lim, who joined President Benigno Aquino's cabinet when it took power on June 30, said the 10.3-square-kilometre (four-square-mile) central Philippine island of Boracay was a different place a generation ago.
The sprawl that followed the tourist dollars caused the seawater off the four-kilometre (2.5 mile) white-sand beachfront to sprout algae, which was fed by sewage from the hotels and restaurants, he said.
"Thirty years ago they tried to set the rules but they were not successful. The local government did not cooperate... so people started overbuilding," Lim said.
"Of course, bad sewage -- that's why (you are seeing) algae at certain times of the year. It's green. It's the result of the sewage seeping out.
"The algae there is not yucky, it's moss. Maybe fish eat it. But it's an indication that there's a problem below the surface."
Asked if the problem, which first made world headlines in the mid-1990s, had been solved, Lim said: "I'm not sure. I don't think so, that's why at certain times of the year the algae forms."
Lim said environmental and zoning regulations were not being enforced, leading to structures even being built inside the high-water mark.
"And they continue to build. They're building huge hotels in the mountains."
Lim suggested the government may in the end be unable to halt overdevelopment.
"We have world-class laws but nobody follows them," he said, adding tourists may just have to look elsewhere.
"The thing about Boracay is the quality of the sand. But there are other places that have better quality sand, but (they are) very expensive," Lim said.
Lim also voiced concern about a project approved by the previous government under then president Gloria Arroyo to extend Caticlan airport, just across a small strait from Boracay, so that it can take international flights.
"It will compound the problem because it is meant to lengthen the airport, bring in more tourists and there are too many tourists (already)," he said.
Environmentalists oppose the seven-year, 54-million-dollar project, which would more than double the runway length to 2.1 kilometres, because they believe it will damage the area's ecosytem and lead to sand erosion on Boracay.
Local lawyer Augusto Macam, who represents a number of Boracay tourist establishments, told AFP Lim was not giving the complete picture about the situation on Boracay.
"Maybe the secretary should take a look at the place first," Macam said.
"The responsible stakeholders are addressing the sewage problem and other environmental concerns," he said.
The problem, he said, was that the local government had allowed certain businesses to flout the rules.
"It's a problem of regulation and that is the duty of the government."
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