Toddycats Engage! Thu 05 Aug 2010: 7.30pm
from Toddycats!
Finally, sea fans on Changi!
from wild shores of singapore and colourful clouds
A mangrove episode
from Otterman speaks and lekowala
Marine life at Pulau Hantu
video clip by Aloke
Oil devastates indigenous tribes from the Amazon to the Gulf
from Mongabay.com news
Wong Siew Ying Channel NewsAsia 27 Jul 10;
SINGAPORE: The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) is mulling a possible law to get property owners make their existing buildings more environmentally-friendly.
The rule will cover all existing buildings, with the main focus on commercial and office buildings and hotels. This could come in two to three years to help Singapore meet its goal of "greening" 80 percent of its buildings by 2030.
So far, only 8 percent of some 210 million square metres of existing floor area have been "greened".
To promote sustainable development, the BCA launched the Green Mark Scheme in 2005. Over 450 buildings in Singapore are now part of the scheme, and all new buildings have to meet minimum Green Mark standards.
To get existing buildings to follow suit, a S$100 million "Green Mark Incentive Scheme For Existing Buildings" was launched in April last year to encourage building owners to undertake the necessary retrofits to upgrade their buildings.
Separately, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) will also grant additional floor area to encourage the private sector to develop buildings that attain higher tier Green Mark ratings.
Dr John Keung, CEO of BCA, said: "We haven't gone very far yet but we are looking at whether there are interested developers, good consultants, designers to re-design the buildings to retrofit the buildings."
BCA said the costs of constructing green buildings have come down.
The premium for a Green Mark Platinum building was around 2-5 percent of total investment previously. Now it's about 1 to 2 percent. This has also cut the payback period of the investment.
BCA is also expected to update its Green Building Masterplan next month.
BCA said it is in talks with industry players and so far, some developers and landlords of hotels are keen on the idea of greening existing buildings, because of the savings that can be reaped from being energy efficient.
Separately, the Singapore Contractors Association wants to raise environmental awareness among its members through a new two-day workshop.
The association hopes to take the programme overseas in five years.
Andrew Khng, president of Singapore Contractors Association, said: "What the Association has done is it has come up with an initiative to promote a certification scheme - called SEC SCAL Eco certification scheme - for members and this is to look at reducing carbon footprint for members."
The outlook is bright for the construction sector.
The first half of the year saw about S$11 billion of projects awarded.
BCA said another S$10b to S$16b in contracts are due out in the second half.
Construction demand for 2011 and 2012 has been projected to be between S$18b and S$25b each year.
- CNA/ir
The first green vehicle, costing about $500k, will be delivered in Sept
Christopher Tan, Straits Times 28 Jul 10;
TESLA, the maker of electric sportscars sought after by the wealthy and environmentally hip, has set up shop here.
Tesla Motors Singapore was registered last month, and operates out of Suntec City. It is now looking for a showroom, workshop and permanent office in the Leng Kee and Alexandra Road motorbelt.
Even before the California-based company's arrival, it already has a list of potential customers.
'People were contacting our head office directly to express interest,' said Tesla's regional sales manager Andrew Liew, who said it has about a dozen prospective buyers.
Ownership does not come cheap. The Lotus-built Tesla Roadster - the seven- year-old company's only model to date - is expected to cost just a bit less than a Porsche 911 Turbo. Or around $500,000, after the green vehicle rebate.
A second car, a full-sized sedan named Model S, is due here by 2012.
Mr Liew expects to deliver the first Roadster some time in September. That is, if parallel importers do not beat him to it. At least one parallel importer is offering the Tesla Roadster for sale.
Tesla was founded and is owned by a group of Silicon Valley technopreneurs, including PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. Investors include Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as automotive giants Toyota and Daimler.
The Tesla Roadster, which runs on lithium-ion batteries that can be charged via a household socket, is a 288-horsepower, two-seater capable of hitting 100kmh in just four seconds. It is good for 380km on a single charge - or seven times the average daily mileage clocked by a car driver here.
Since launching the Roadster in 2008, Tesla has delivered more than 1,200 of the first all-electric sports car in production.
Owners have included California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hollywood stars George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio. At its Asian debut early this month, the first buyers were chief executives and entrepreneurs.
However, the company has yet to turn a profit. Last month, it raised US$226 million (S$308.6 million) via a public listing.
Its Singapore audience is expected to be equally exclusive. Mr Liew predicts annual sales of 20 to 30 cars, and maybe more with the Transport Technology Innovation and Development Scheme, which exempts electric vehicles from a certificate of entitlement and registration taxes, but is open only to corporations and institutes taking part in a test-bedding scheme.
The Energy Market Authority (EMA), which is heading the scheme, has received bids from 11 companies to build electric vehicle-charging infrastructure here. They include Hitachi Asia, Robert Bosch (South- east Asia), and Wearnes Automotive and Equipment. The bids range from $988,600 to $11.07 million for up to 63 charging stations, to be up by year-end.
Hong Kong, Japan and Australia are among those in the region with such an infrastructure.
EMA will announce the successful bidder by end-September.
Matt Walker Editor BBC News 28 Jul 10;
An elusive mammal known as an Otter civet has been filmed in the wild for the first time, experts believe.
Conservationists surveying wildlife in the Deramakot Forest Reserve in the state of Sabah, Borneo took video of a pair crossing a road at night.
Otter civets are a type of civet, small primitive long-bodied cat-like mammals.
The announcement follows the rediscovery of the world's rarest otter in Deramakot Forest Reserve by the same scientific survey.
"I guess nobody can say this with 100% certainty, but as far as I know this is the first video ever taken of this species," says Mr Andreas Wilting, leader of the Conservation of Carnivores in Sabah (ConCaSa) project initiated by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) and performed in collaboration with the Sabah Wildlife Department and Sabah Forestry Department.
"I and my colleagues at least have never seen a video before."
Mr Wilting's team spotted the Otter civets (Cynogale bennettii) along a old logging road, watching as one fed upon an insect.
The Otter civet is thought to be the rarest civet species in southeast Asia.
As part of a two year survey of small carnivore species in the Deramakot Forest Reserve, the ConCaSa survey photographed Otter civets using camera traps on ten occassions.
More surprising, they managed to film the species in the wild on two occasions.
Otter civets are semi-aquatic, living in wet, lowland areas, a habitat that is being destroyed across much of southeast Asia.
Details of the latest finding have been published in the journal Small Carnivore Conservation, a publication of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission.
Rarely seen species
In the same issue, the scientific survey team lists a host of other rarely seen small carnivore species spotted or photographed in the reserve.
Of Borneo's eight vivverid species, the researchers recorded six: the Binturong (Arctictis binturong), Malay civet (Viverra tangaunga), Common Palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), Small-toothed Palm civet (Arctogalidia trivirgata), Banded civet (Hemigalus derbyanus) and previously mentioned Otter civet.
Other small carnivores caught on camera were the Sunda stink-badger (Mydaus javanensis), and two species of mongoose, the very common Short-tailed mongoose (Herpestes brachyurus) and the Collared mongoose (H. semitorquatus), and all three Bornean otter species, the Smooth-coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata), Asian small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinereus) and the extremely elusive Hairy-nosed otter, considered to be the world's rarest otter.
Yesterday, the ConCaSa project released a photograph showing the rediscovery of the Hairy-nosed otter in Borneo by the same scientific survey.
Earlier this year, the same project released the first video to be made public of a wild Sundaland clouded leopard.
Many of these species are classified as globally endangered, threatened or vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Further steps to protect Bornean otters and other carnivores will be developed at the Borneo Carnivore Symposium, which will be held in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia in June 2011.
WWF 28 Jul 10;
Wild populations of the iconic Mekong giant catfish will be driven to extinction if hydropower dams planned for the Mekong River go ahead, says a new report by WWF.
The report, River of Giants: Giant Fish of the Mekong (pdf), profiles four giant fish living in the Mekong that rank within the top 10 largest freshwater fish on the planet (see list of top 10 at bottom of page).
At half the length of a bus and weighing up to 600kgs, the Mekong River’s giant freshwater stingray (Dasyatis laosensis) is the world’s largest freshwater fish. The critically endangered and culturally fabled Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas) ranks third at up to 3 metres in length and 350kgs.
Dam will present unsurmountable barrier for giant fish
“A fish the size of a Mekong giant catfish, simply will not be able to swim across a large barrier like a dam to reach its spawning grounds upstream,” said Roger Mollot, Freshwater Biologist for WWF-Laos. “This would lead to the collapse of the wild population of this iconic species.”
Current scientific information suggests the Mekong giant catfish migrate from the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia up the Mekong River to spawn in northern Thailand and Laos. Any dam built on the lower Mekong River mainstream will block this migration route.
The hydropower dam planned on the Mekong River at Sayabouly Province, northern Laos, is a threat to the survival of the wild population of Mekong giant catfish. The Sayabouly Dam is the first lower Mekong River mainstream dam to enter a critical stage of assessment before member countries of the Mekong River Commission advise on whether to approve its construction.
Mekong River home to more giant freshwater fish than any other
“More giant fish live in the Mekong than any other river on Earth,” said Ms Dang Thuy Trang, Mekong River Ecoregion Coordinator for the WWF Greater Mekong Programme. “Currently, the Lower Mekong remains free-flowing, which presents a rare opportunity for the conservation of these species. But the clock is ticking.”
The other Mekong giant fish featured in the report are the "dog-eating" catfish (Pangasius sanitwongsei), named because it has been caught using dog meat as bait, and the giant barb (Catlocarpio siamensis), the national fish of Cambodia and largest carp in the world. At 300kgs each, these fish tie for fifth place on the global top ten.
Dams will amplify the impact of climate change on fisheries and agriculture
However, the impacts of lower Mekong River mainstream dams are not restricted to these Mekong giants, they would also exacerbate the impacts of climate change on the Mekong River Delta, one of the world’s most productive regions for fisheries and agriculture.
Building the Sayabouly Dam would reduce sediment flowing downstream to the Mekong River Delta, increasing the vulnerability of this area to the impacts of climate change like sea level rise.
There are alternatives
WWF supports a delay in the approval of the mainstream dams, including the Sayabouly Dam, to ensure a comprehensive understanding of all the positive and negative impacts of their construction and operation.
To meet immediate energy demands, WWF promotes sustainable hydropower projects on tributaries of the Mekong River, prioritising those that already have hydropower dams developed on them.
The Global Top 10 Giant Freshwater Fish
1. Giant freshwater stingray (Himantura chaophraya) 600kg (500cm, 240cm disc width) Mekong River Basin
2. Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius) 500kg (700cm) Yangtze River Basin
3. Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas) 350kg (300cm) Mekong River Basin
4. Wels catfish (Silurus glanis) 306kg (500cm) Widespread in Europe and Asia
5. Giant pangasius (dog-eating catfish) (Pangasius sanitwongsei) 300kg (300cm) Mekong River Basin
6. Giant barb (Catlocarpio siamensis) 300kg (300cm) Mekong River Basin
7. Arapaima (pirarucu; paiche) (Arapaima gigas) 200kg (450cm) Amazon River Basin
8. Piraíba (laulau; lechero) (Brachyplatystoma filamentosum) 200kg (360cm) Amazon River Basin
9. Nile perch (Lates niloticus) 200kg (200cm) Nile River Basin
10. Alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula) 137kg (305cm) Mississippi River Basin
Zainuddin Muhammad New Straits Times 28 Jul 10;
KUALA TERENGGANU: Three more diving spots on Pulau Redang have been closed due to coral bleaching.
Redang Terengganu Operators’ Association president Lee Yat Loong said divers had been advised to stay clear of Pulau Ekor Tebu, Pulau Che Isa and Pulau Tanjung Lebah until early next year.
He said the closure was the initiative of the association although all three spots were not on the Marine Park Department’s list of closed dive sites.
“Only Teluk Bakau was on the list but our checks revealed that the other three areas were also affected by coral bleaching and we recommended them to be closed as well.
“We have always been self-regulatory and through a collaboration with Reef Check Malaysia Berhad, we had highlighted the problems with the coral reefs in our area long before the announcement by the Marine Park Department,” he said.
The bleaching was caused by the rise in water temperature and not much could be done about it except for implementing a monitoring system on the condition of the coral reefs.
“It is us against Mother Nature and it looks like we are winning as the average water temperature is currently holding at between 29ºC and 30ºC compared with the 30-31ºC earlier in the year.
“We are confident of another one-degree drop in the water temperature soon and chances are the coral reefs will be back to normal in the next few months,” said Lee, adding that the dive site closures would reduce the stress on the reefs.
He said human impact on the reefs should be minimum. The closure was necessary for the authorities to conduct their studies, in addition to allowing the reefs to rest.
“But diving enthusiasts and prospective visitors to the island have nothing to worry as we have more than 20 other known diving spots in and around the island.
“Recent news coverage on the closure of dive spots has led people to assume the whole marine park was closed but that is just not true as it is still business as usual with plenty of diving and snorkelling here on
the island,” Lee said.
On July 21, the Marine Park Department had announced the temporary closure of nine diving and snorkelling areas in Pahang, Terengganu and Kedah, in addition to three islands in Pahang, due to coral bleaching.
The affected areas in Kedah are Pulau Payar, Teluk Wangi, Pantai Damai and Coral Garden while the areas in Pahang include Pulau Rengis, Pulau Tumok, Pulau Soyak, Pulau Chebeh and Batu Matang.
In Terengganu, Teluk Dalam,
Tanjung Tukas Darat and Tanjung Tukas Laut in Pulau Perhentian, Teluk Air Tawar in Pulau Tenggol, and Teluk Bakau in Pulau Redang will remain closed until the end of October.
Malaysia may close more dive sites hit by coral bleaching
(AFP) Google News 28 Jul 10;
KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia may close three more popular dive sites in the South China Sea which have been hit by coral bleaching blamed on global warming, an official said Wednesday.
Last week authorities announced the closure of nine dive sites on the tropical islands of Tioman and Redang until the end of October in an attempt to relieve stress on the fragile marine ecosystems.
The two islands are located off the east coast of Malaysia in the South China Sea.
Marine authorities said they were studying a proposal to shut down three more sites on Redang island after resort operators said they detected coral bleaching and wanted the diving spots closed.
"We have received the proposal, we will study it and verify the matter," a marine park official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The dive sites will only be closed if more than 60 percent of the coral has been damaged, she added.
The closure would give the coral a chance to regenerate and would remove stress caused by tourism-related activities such as diving.
Coral bleaching, which can eventually kill corals, occurs when stresses such as rising sea temperatures disrupt the delicate, symbiotic relationship between the corals and their host organisms.
The marine department has said 60 to 90 percent of the coral in some areas of the closed sites has been damaged.
The reefs in Redang and Tioman island attract some 500,000 tourists annually.
Muguntan Vanar The Star 28 Jul 10;
LAHAD DATU: Some 600 locals including villagers from Sinakut, the area proposed for the controversial 300 megawatt coal power plant, turned up at a forum for a greener Sabah here.
The public forum at SJK (C) Siew Ching, kicked off with students reciting to the audience the importance of a clean environment and why everyone should protect the state’s rich biodiversity.
WWF-Malaysias Borneo Programme chief technical officer Dr Rahimatsah Amat, WWF-Malaysia marine biologist Nina Ho and Sabah Environmental Protection Association (SEPA) Sandakan chairman Charles Chow presented papers at the event.
Rahimatsah touched on the Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) for the plant, while Chow went into the finer points of understanding the document that was released last month by the Department of Environment.
Ho spoke about the marine environment, stressing on the fact that the area proposed for the coal plant was important for marine life and food security.
SEPA Lahad Datu decided to organise the forum following requests by locals who wanted to know more about the issue.
Villagers from the Silam area, the first proposed site for the plant, also attended, lending their support at the forum.
Following strong protests, the project slated for Silam was cancelled in 2008, and last year, a second proposed site in Sandakan was also scrapped following opposition by local communities.
Many took the opportunity to sign a petition started by Green SURF (Sabah Unite to Re-Power the Future) to get the Government to scrap the project.
SEPA is a member of Green SURF along with WWF-Malaysia, Land Empowerment Animals People (LEAP), Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) and Partners of Community Organisations (Pacos).
The public was also reminded to send in written comments to the DOE before July 31, as just voicing opinions verbally or through social websites was not sufficient.
Antara 28 Jul 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News)- The People`s Coalition for Fishery Justice has appealed to the government on the need to preserve and improve mangrove forests.
The mangrove preservation is necessary to prevent them from disappearance from the face of the earth because the forests provide ground for fishes, shrimp, and mollusks for spawning and rearing.
According to data of the People`s Coalition for Fishery Justice (Kiara), damage of mangrove forests in the 1997-2008 period reached 68 percent.
Kiara program coordinator Abdul Halim said in Jakarta Wednesday damage of the mangrove ecosystem was caused by industrial anthropogenic waste in coastal areas.
Besides, the other causes include coastal land conversion for industrial purposes, commercial centers and luxury residential areas. The wastes caused damage of the mangrove ecosystem, and consequently making it difficult for fishermen to earn a living, he said.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Marine and Fishery Affairs set itself a target that by 2014, some 1,440 hectares of coastal areas would be preserved preventing them from environmental damage along national coastal areas. And of the 1,440 ha, some 101.7 percent could be preserved each year.
"The target needs to be coupled with the seriousness of the Minister of Marine and Fishery Affairs in carrying out the program," Abdul Halim said.
He added that seriousness in preserving the northern coastal areas of Java and Bali could become a reality if the program did not restore the ecological and social functions of the coastal ecosystem.
It is under these circumstances that it would be very important to involve the fishermen and coastal communities, he said.
For this reason that it is time for the Ministry of Marine and Fishery Affairs for a refreshment in restoring the mangrove forest ecosystem and raise the living standard of fishermen and the community in the coastal regions.(*)
But some observers say this is viable if jointly done with other expert countries
Daljit Dhesi The Star 28 Jul 10;
PETALING JAYA: The proposal to set up a dedicated special-purpose bank in Malaysia to fund clean-energy industries is not practical at this juncture due to the complexities of such ventures, according to some industry observers.
However, they believe its establishment would be more viable if carried out on a collaborative basis with other countries who have expertise in this area.
At the 6th World Islamic Economic Forum last month, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has proposed the setting up of a Clean Energy Development Bank to boost eco-sustainable efforts by developing countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
Najib added that Malaysia was ready to spearhead the initiative, which would help accelerate the development of clean energy-related industries.
Malaysian Rating Corp Bhd (MARC) vice-president and head of financial institution ratings Anandakumar Jegarasasingam said the strong public policy mandate of such an institution would make it challenging to function as a commercially viable entity.
“The inability to function as a commercially viable entity will, in turn, impact the long-term survivability of such institution,” he said.
Anandakumar said there were several practical issues that needed to be resolved before such a bank could be set up in Malaysia.
He, however, felt an inter-governmental initiative among a group of nations where financial resources and expertise could be pooled was a better option.
Anandakumar said one of the issues for the setting up of a “green bank” in Malaysia was whether the bank should operate on a commercial or public policy mandate.
A bank operating on a commercial basis may not be attractive for potential borrowers, while a bank operating on a public policy basis may face funding constraints should it be dependent on market funding.
In addition, he said, such an institution that funded new and experimental technology would need to have very high standards of corporate governance to ensure its credit origination and risk management standards were adequately robust.
An industry observer concurred, adding that apart from high standards of corporate governance, funding would also be an issue in terms of sourcing for funds.
“Will it be from the public sector or private funding or from external sources?,” the observer asked.
Anandakumar said it would be challenging for the new bank (especially if it is Malaysia-focused) to acquire the appropriate credit-risk expertise to evaluate green technology projects.
He believes a more practical way to encourage green energy-related industries in Malaysia would be to set up a clean-energy fund that could be funded by the Government and administered by an existing government-controlled bank.
Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd executive vice-president and head of corporate strategy and business planning, Tim Daniels, said the Government’s move to spearhead the development of such a bank was timely and forward-thinking.
He said it was in tandem with the increasing global interest and urgency in environmental conservation and management to achieve sustainability of the country’s eco-system and natural resources.
As such, Daniels said, Malaysia’s environmental agenda that was recently tabled under the 10th Malaysia Plan had laid out specific plans to protect the environment while harnessing economic value from the process.
According to the Plan, he said, the Government was taking steps to introduce a comprehensive eco-system for environmental sustainability through the AFFIRM (awareness, faculty, finance, infrastructure, research and marketing) framework.
“As the Government is now targeting rapid development to achieve the national agenda of becoming high-income nation, it is more critical now than ever to ensure that sustainability is a theme that is emphasised right from the onset of these plans.
“The Green Bank concept hence dovetails nicely, playing an important role in the financing aspect of the roadmap for climate-resilient growth as well as to ensure conservation of the nation’s ecological assets,’’ he noted.
Daniels said Alliance Bank realised that financial institutions had a significant secondary impact on the environment via the types of projects and business strategies that they supported.
To date, he said, the bank had an informal policy of assessing the environmental and social impacts of potential lending opportunities which were conducted as a part of its regular review of risks.
(AFP) Google News 27 Jul 10;
KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia plans to triple its annual revenue from timber and its products to 17 billion dollars by 2020 by exporting to new markets including Russia, an official said Tuesday.
Malaysia is a major tropical timber exporter and the trade contributes about five percent to its GDP. The European Union, the United States and Japan are traditional importers of Malaysian timber and its products.
"Timber is not a sunset industry," Norchahaya Hashim, director of licensing and enforcement at the Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry, told AFP during a gathering on illegal logging.
Malaysia's exports of timber and its products were worth 19.4 billion ringgit (6.1 billion dollars) in 2009.
Norchahaya said the government wanted the industry to tap into premium markets in the European Union and the United States with quality furniture products, while penetrating new countries in order to reduce dependence on a single market.
"We have to export to niche markets with quality timber products like furniture and timber mouldings.
"We want to diversify our markets. We are looking at Russia," she said.
Norchahaya said illegal logging was "not a major issue" in Malaysia, adding: "It consists of only a small percentage."
"The European Union and the US are imposing stringent regulations to ensure sustainability of the forests. There is also a lot of public pressure on their governments to ensure only legal timber is imported," she added.
Brian McFeeters, acting deputy chief of the United States' diplomatic mission here, said illegal logging and trade caused environmental damage, undermined the rule of law and funded armed conflict.
"Malaysia can gain market access by increasing its supply of legal timber products," he said in a statement.
The World Wildlife Fund earlier estimated that in the 1990s illegally logged trees accounted for about a third of Malaysia's timber exports, prompting the government in 2008 to launch a satellite programme to fight illegal logging.
Andrew Gully Yahoo News 27 Jul 10;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – With BP's broken well in the Gulf of Mexico finally capped, the focus shifts to the surface clean-up and the question on everyone's lips is: where is all the oil?
For three long months a massive slick threatened the shorelines of Louisiana and other southern US Gulf Coast states as BP tried everything from top hats to junk shots and giant domes to stanch the toxic sludge.
A cap stopped the flow on July 15 after between three and 5.2 million barrels (117.6 million and 189 million gallons) had gushed out. Roughly one quarter of that was picked up by BP's various collection and containment systems.
After frantic efforts to skim and burn the crude on the surface -- some 34.7 million gallons of oil-water mix have been recovered and 411 burns have been conducted -- the real difficulty now is finding any oil to clean up.
Dozens of reconnaissance planes fly constant sorties from Florida to Texas noting any oil sightings, while flat-bottomed boats trawl the marshes for lumps of tar too large to biodegrade.
"What we're trying to figure out is where is all the oil at and what can we do about it," said US spill response chief Thad Allen. "What we're seeing are mats, patties, small concentrations, very hard to detect, but they're out there."
The figures speak for themselves. Before the cap went on, some 25,000 barrels of oil a day were being skimmed from the thickest part of the slick near the well site.
By the time Tropical Storm Bonnie arrived last week, the take was down to a pitiful 56 barrels, begging the question of what to do with the fleet of 800 skimmers, many of them run by disgruntled fishermen.
Jane Lubchenco, the head of the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said Tuesday that a lot of the oil had been broken down naturally.
"We know that a significant amount of the oil has dispersed and been biodegraded by naturally occurring bacteria," she said.
"Bacteria that break down oil are naturally abundant in the Gulf of Mexico, in large part because of the warm water there and the conditions afforded by nutrients and oxygen availability."
"We are currently doing a very careful analysis to better understand where the oil has gone," she added.
Another concern is the dispersant used by BP to break up the oil. Some 1.8 million gallons of the controversial chemical Corexit were poured into the Gulf from a short time after the spill began until early July.
"Less oil on the surface does not mean that there isn't oil beneath the surface however or that our beaches and marshes aren't still at risk. We are extremely concerned about the ongoing short-term and long-term impacts to the Gulf eco-system," said Lubchenco.
"We are working with the best scientific minds in the government as well as the independent scientific community to produce an estimate of just how much oil has been skimmed, burned, contained, evaporated, and dispersed, so stay tuned on that front."
Only weeks ago, the slick was an unstoppable force that couldn't be prevented from swamping shorelines and slowly choking helpless pelicans; now the oil is an elusive enemy, one that has to be tracked down.
The latest "Nearshore Surface Oil Forecast" from the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) indicated only seven sizeable patches of surface oil, all light sheen.
An overflight Sunday identified one thicker patch of emulsified crude. A flotilla of skimmers was immediately dispatched and made short work of mopping it up.
With hopes high that the well will be sealed for good next week, Allen was conscious of the need to plan for the next phase, admitting, "we are going to have to figure out how we make a transition in our resources."
Sophisticated underwater operations involving fleets of robotic submarines at brain-crunching depths will make way for the less glamorous but equally complex work of Shoreline Clean-up Assessment Teams, SCATs for short.
"They will sign off literally mile by mile where we've had oil impact," said Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft, a government on-scene coordinator. "And that is the very long phase of this operation where you ultimately determine how clean is clean."
Approximately 638 miles (1,027 kilometers) of Gulf Coast is officially listed as "oiled," 362 miles in Louisiana, 109 miles in Mississippi, 70 miles in Alabama, and 97 miles in Florida.
The beaches should be relatively painless to mop up, but cleaning up the maze of marshes, where there is nothing to stand on and shallow-bottomed boats are needed to navigate the narrow channels, is a logistical nightmare.
Blanca Rodriguez PlanetArk 28 Jul 10;
Spanish daytime temperatures will rise by an average of between 3 and 6 degrees Celsius by 2100, and rainfall will tumble to 15-30 percent of recent levels, according to forecasts on Tuesday by the Met Office.
The Met Office said it produced the forecasts in order to plan for the impact of climate change.
"Madrid will be like (southern city) Seville, and Seville like Tucson. This is a report for action," Met Office President Ricardo Garcia told journalists.
Climate Change Secretary Teresa Ribera added at a news conference that Spain, which already suffers from water shortages and is building desalination plants, was particularly vulnerable to climate change.
"To the extent that temperatures change, animals and other living things will have to grow in different places to today, and that will also lead to significant changes in economic activities," she said.
In order to combat climate change and reduce its extensive dependence on imported fossil fuels, Spain has invested heavily in subsidizing renewable energy sources in recent years.
Spain is now the world's fourth-largest producer of wind power and the second-largest of solar, and renewables provided 40 percent of the country's electricity in the first half of 2010.
Peter Griffiths PlanetArk 28 Jul 10;
Britain may need to double its electricity supply and virtually eliminate emissions from power stations by 2050 if it is to meet legally binding climate change targets, the government said on Tuesday.
Announcing the coalition's first annual energy statement setting out its policy, Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said the "era of cheap, abundant energy is over," and the world must switch to alternative power sources.
Industry, heating and transport will use more electricity instead of oil and gas as the government seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels.
Failure to build a low-carbon economy would leave Britain vulnerable to volatile oil prices, more reliant on imports and exposed to insecure energy supplies, Huhne added. The statement set out 32 ways to move away from fossil fuels and become more energy efficient.
"We must find ways of making energy go further," Huhne said. "Even as we reduce overall demand for energy, we may need to meet a near doubling in demand for electricity."
Energy bills will "rise considerably" in the coming years, the report said, although Huhne said it was hard to put a figure on the expected rises.
Plans for new "smart" electricity meters that allow people to monitor their consumption more closely could be brought forward to 2018 from 2020.
While much of the statement's contents were already known, Huhne said bringing all the ideas together would create "an overarching framework" to guide business and consumers.
The government promised to reform energy markets, build a more modern electricity network, make buildings more efficient and create a Green Investment Bank to support low carbon projects.
Huhne acknowledged the scale of the energy challenge.
Britain is committed to sourcing 15 percent of its total energy needs from renewables including wind, solar and tidal power by 2020. That amounts to a sevenfold increase from current levels. Renewables are also seen generating 30 percent of the country's electricity, up from about 5.5 percent today.
The problem is exacerbated by the scheduled decline in existing oil, gas and nuclear capacity in the next 15 years.
"We lose a third of our coal plants by 2016 ... we lose much of the rest of the coal plant as a result of the emissions reduction directive coming in toward the end of the decade, and we are due to lose most of the nuclear plant by 2023," Energy Minister Charles Hendry told a news conference.
Huhne said the previous Labor government left a poor legacy on energy policy.
But Labor's energy spokesman, Ed Miliband, dismissed the statement as "rhetoric without substance."
"What the secretary of state didn't tell us is that on a whole range of issues he is going backwards, not forwards compared to the actions of the last government," Miliband said.
(Editing by Jane Baird)
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