A sneak peek at Singapore's new natural history museum!
from wild shores of singapore
A Congregation of Tiger Beetles
from Macro Photography in Singapore
Uvaria curtisii: Remembering James Sinclair
from Flying Fish Friends
pink-necked green pigeons @ Sg Buloh
from sgbeachbum
Collared Kingfisher - Cicada prey and cicada rain
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Yellow-vented Bulbul nesting in a hanging basket
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Ong Dai Lin Today Online 14 Apr 11;
SINGAPORE - Planted by the road, they are unlikely to attract even a passing glance. But these plants along the junction of Margaret Drive and Kay Siang Road in the Dawson estate have a special role - they cleanse rainwater before it flows into the Marina Barrage reservoir.
The seven species - including the lalang look-alike pennisitum - form the bio-retention swales, a project by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) to improve the quality of rainwater before it enters the reservoirs. Construction for the project started last year and will end when the swales built along Kay Siang Road to Tanglin Road are completed.
Having plants and soil removing components in rainwater like nutrients and nitrogen before they flow into reservoirs helps to prevent algae bloom, which lowers the cost of treating water.
The project is part of a scheme under the PUB's Active, Beautiful, Clean (ABC) Waters Programme to include design features, such as bio-retention swales, rain gardens and wetlands, in housing estates and schools, to cleanse rainwater.
The scheme was launched in 2009 and 14 certified projects were started last year. If successful, more projects will be added.
Ms Angela Koh, assistant director of the catchment & waterways department at PUB, said the ABC Waters Programme goes beyond beautifying drains. "We thought it is important to keep water clean and wanted look at different ways to do so," she said.
Partners like the HDB were engaged for the projects, so they could be extended to more areas, said Ms Koh, noting that the HDB builds 80 per cent of housing in Singapore. The PUB is also engaging private developers and other public agencies to come on board, as well as schools.
"If you think of the over 300 schools in Singapore, as well as private and public agencies it (the water cleansed) can be quite substantial," she said.
The first rain garden was built in Balam estate in MacPherson in 2008 as a pilot project. Seeing that the project was working "quite well", the PUB decided to increase the number of projects, said Ms Koh.
Assumption Pathway School is the first school in Singapore to have its own rain garden under the scheme.
An 85m-long rain garden with a boardwalk to provide an outdoor classroom has been built in the school near its entrance.
The rain garden absorbs and treats 12 per cent of the rainwater that falls onto the school's area.
After the rainwater flows through the ground around the plants, such as the butterfly nectar plant and three layers of soil, it is transferred to roadside canals through underground pipes and then on to the reservoirs.
The PUB is currently in talks with other schools to build such rain gardens, said Ms Koh.
Mustafa Shafawi Channel NewsAsia 13 Apr 11;
SINGAPORE: The National Environment Agency (NEA) has released the first official Clean and Green Singapore music album.
Entitled Eco Music Challenge Season 1, it said the music album hopes to touch the heart of every individual in the community, encouraging them to safeguard and cherish Singapore's beautiful environment.
The music album comprises 15 environment tracks of different music genres and languages, ranging from jazz, pop and soft rock to contemporary folk.
These are original compositions by the selected 13 finalists of NEA's inaugural Eco Music Challenge held last year to inspire the youths to show their appreciation for the environment through music.
Chief Executive Officer of NEA, Andrew Tan, said the album is uniquely Singapore, produced by youths, for youths. He added that just as Total Defence is the nation's responsibility, environmental protection is the duty of every Singaporean.
NEA hoped to raise S$10,000 from the album sales to support the environmental initiatives of the Nature Society.
Proceeds from the album sales will go to the society's activities of nature appreciation and nature study at Semakau Landfill.
Songs from the Eco Music Challenge album are available for download at S$0.99 per song or S$9.90 for the full album download at www.nea.ecomusic.sg. It is also on sale as a hardcopy compilation album at the NEA's Customer Service Centre at S$11.90.
-CNA/ac
Greening Singapore, one NEA song at a time
Today Online 14 Apr 11;
SINGAPORE - The sound of music has gone green.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) has released the first official Clean and Green Singapore music album, comprising 15 environmental tracks of different music genres and languages.
Entitled Eco Music Challenge Season 1, the album hopes to encourage individuals to safeguard and cherish Singapore's beautiful environment.
The album, with tracks ranging from jazz, pop, soft rock to contemporary folk, features original compositions by the selected 13 finalists of the NEA's inaugural Eco Music Challenge.
It was held last year to in spire the youths to show their appreciation for the environment through music.
NEA's chief executive officer, Mr Andrew Tan, said the album is uniquely Singapore, produced by youths, for youths.
The NEA hoped to raise S$10,000 from the album sales to support the environmental initiatives of the Nature Society.
Proceeds from the album sales will go to the society's activities of nature appreciation and nature study at Semakau Landfill.
Songs from the Eco Music Challenge album are available for download at S$0.99 per song or S$9.90 for the full album at www.nea.ecomusic.sg.
It is also on sale at the NEA's Customer Service Centre for S$11.90.
Mustafa Shafawi Channel NewsAsia 13 Apr 11;
SINGAPORE: A multi-agency exercise, showing Singapore's readiness to respond to major chemical spills, was carried out Wednesday, observed by over 60 delegates at the International Chemical and Oil Pollution Conference and Exhibition.
Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) Group Director (Hub Port), Captain M Segar, said with the Straits of Malacca and Singapore being heavily used by vessels, it is essential to be operationally-ready in case of any major spills.
Code-named CHEMSPILL 2011, the scenario involved a chemical tanker, MT Chemical Carrier, suffering a steering failure and being hit by another tanker in the Sinki Fairway off Jurong Island.
The impact of the collision also caused three crew members of MT Chemical Carrier, who were on the catwalk to fall to the main deck.
More than 10 vessels and 120 personnel from 13 agencies were involved in the exercise.
The agencies included the Singapore Armed Forces, the Police Coast Guard, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Transport, the National Environment Agency and MPA.
The exercise was held in conjunction with the 6th Singapore Maritime Week.
- CNA/cc
CHEMSPILL 2011 validates Singapore's operational readiness
MPA Press Release 13 Apr 11;
Over 60 delegates from the International Chemical and Oil Pollution Conference and Exhibition (ICOPCE) 2011 observed an action-packed chemical spill exercise today. The exercise demonstrated Singapore's readiness to respond to a major chemical spill in its waters.
Aimed at testing and validating the Chemical Contingency Plan (Marine) for combating a major chemical incident in Singapore waters, the exercise consisted of two aspects - a seaward equipment deployment demonstration and a table-top exercise at MPA's Port Operations Control Centre 2 at PSA Vista.
"With the Straits of Malacca and Singapore being heavily used by vessels, it is essential for us to be operationally-ready in case of any major spills. Regular exercises ensure that various agencies are prepared at all times and that our contingency plans are regularly reviewed. The multi-agency involvement in this chemical spill exercise is a good example of how close coordination allows Singapore to respond quickly and effectively to any spills in Singapore's waters," said Capt M Segar, MPA's Group Director (Hub Port).
Code-named CHEMSPILL 2011, the scenario involved a chemical tanker, MT Chemical Carrier suffering a steering failure and being hit by another tanker in the Sinki Fairway off Jurong Island. The chemical tanker, which was loaded with 10,000 tonnes of Benzene, suffered damage to its cargo tanks and some 500 tonnes of Benzene was spilled. The impact of the collision also caused three crew members of MT Chemical Carrier, who were on the catwalk to fall to the main deck. One crew member was seriously injured and required immediate medical attention.
The spill response teams deployed primary and secondary booms and treated the spill with foam to prevent more Benzene escaping from the damaged tanks. Api Api, MPA's fire-fighting craft also sprayed water at the incident site to reduce the risk of fire and cool the surface and disperse the flammable gas cloud. A Republic of Singapore Air Force helicopter was also activated to provide medical evacuation of the injured crew.
CHEMSPILL 2011 successfully demonstrated the close cooperation between various agencies in Singapore to combat major chemical spills in our waters. More than 10 vessels and 120 personnel from 13 agencies were involved in the exercise. The agencies included the Singapore Armed Forces, the Police Coast Guard, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Transport, the National Environment Agency and MPA.
Held in conjunction with the 6th Singapore Maritime Week, ICOPCE 2011 (11 to 13 April) was officially opened on 11 April by Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Finance and Transport.
Mustafa Shafawi Channel NewsAsia 13 Apr 11;
SINGAPORE: The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and port operator PSA Corp are joining hands to research and test bed new technologies for future container terminals.
Areas of focus under the five-year Port Technology Research and Development Programme include green port technologies.
MPA will fund the programme with up to S$10 million over five years from the Maritime Innovation and Technology Fund (MINT Fund).
PSA, together with local institutes of higher learning and other industry partners will provide co-funding and in-kind resources of up to S$10 million over the same period.
A key project to be undertaken by PSA under the new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is the development of Automated Guided Vehicles which will reduce manpower and improve port productivity.
PSA will also develop more intelligent systems that will streamline port planning processes and operations.
Through this programme, MPA hopes that Singapore will continue to be at the forefront of technology in port operations and services adding to its development and growth as an international maritime centre.
-CNA/ac
Singapore ports to get $20m shot in the arm
Joyce Hooi Business Times 14 Apr 11;
SINGAPORE'S ports are going to get a $20 million boost over the next five years through the Port Technology Research and Development Programme.
Yesterday, the programme was launched by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and PSA Corporation (PSA) with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
MPA will fund the programme with up to $10 million over five years from the Maritime Innovation and Technology (Mint) Fund.
PSA, local institutes of higher learning and other industry partners will provide co-funding and in-kind resources of up to $10 million.
The programme will focus on three areas - automated container port systems, advanced container port optimisation techniques and technologies, and green port technologies.
Under the programme, automated guided vehicles for future container terminals will be developed.
'For the world's busiest transhipment hub, technology is vital in ensuring that its terminal customers are served seamlessly, efficiently and effectively round the clock,' said Lam Yi Young, chief executive of the MPA during the signing of the MOU at the International Maritime-Port Technology and Development Conference 2011.
'Through this programme, MPA hopes that Singapore will continue to be at the forefront of technology in port operations and services, adding to its development and growth as an international maritime centre.'
MPA and PSA Launch Port Technology Research and Development Programme
MPA Press Release 13 Apr 11;
Both parties will collaborate to conduct research and test bed new technologies for future container terminals
Paving the way for more technologically advanced container terminals in Singapore, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and PSA Corporation Limited (PSA) jointly launched the Port Technology Research and Development Programme today through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
The MOU was signed by MPA Chief Executive Mr Lam Yi Young and Mr Tan Puay Hin, Regional CEO Southeast Asia, PSA International. The signing was witnessed by Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transport, Mr Choi Shing Kwok, who was the Guest-of-Honour at the opening ceremony of the International Maritime-Port Technology and Development Conference 2011, which was held in conjunction with the 6th Singapore Maritime Week. Joining Mr Choi to witness the signing were Mr Lucien Wong, Chairman of MPA and Mr Fock Siew Wah, Group Chairman of PSA International.
The five-year Port Technology Research and Development Programme will focus on three broad areas, namely automated container port systems, advanced container port optimisation techniques and technologies, and green port technologies. The Programme will see MPA, PSA, equipment and technology providers, local institutes of higher learning and other companies coming together to develop advanced port technologies for Singapore's container terminals.
MPA will fund the Programme with up to S$10 million over five years from the Maritime Innovation and Technology Fund (MINT Fund). PSA, together with local institutes of higher learning and other industry partners will provide co-funding and in-kind resources of up to S$10 million over the same period.
A key project that would be undertaken by PSA under the new MOU is the development of Automated Guided Vehicles (or AGVs) for future container terminals to reduce manpower and improve port productivity. PSA will also seek and adapt new technologies to develop more intelligent systems that will streamline port planning processes and operations. These seek to further raise the value-add of employees and overall productivity.
"For the world's busiest transhipment hub, technology is vital in ensuring that its terminal customers are served seamlessly, efficiently and effectively round the clock. Through this Programme, MPA hopes that Singapore will continue to be at the forefront of technology in port operations and services adding to its development and growth as an international maritime centre," said Mr Lam.
Said Mr Tan, "This MOU Programme will create new opportunities for collaboration with MPA and our industry partners to jointly develop more innovative port management solutions and tools. PSA is fully committed to propel itself to reach higher levels of productivity and effectiveness to serve our customers."
Ryan Huang Channel NewsAsia 13 Apr 11;
SINGAPORE : Singapore's electricity demand hit a record high in 2010, growing by nine per cent from the previous year.
This is according to data from the latest annual report by the Energy Market Company (EMC), which operates the wholesale electricity market, where electricity is bought and sold through a competitive trading system.
In 2010, average annual demand was at 5,008 megawatts, versus 4,603 megawatts in 2009. Last year also saw the highest average monthly demand, with 5,161 megawatts recorded in May.
With rising fuel prices, EMC expects to see upward pressure on power rates, but new capacity and a stronger Singapore dollar may help keep a lid on production cost.
Many companies increased their output in 2010 when the economy rebounded and pushed up the demand for power.
That higher consumption pushed the value of electricity sold last year to a new high of S$8 billion. That's a 24 per cent jump from the previous year.
The record could have been higher but it was partly held back by a strong Singapore dollar, which appreciated by 8 per cent.
"The factors that drove that were the unprecedented economic recovery that Singapore saw - the 14.5 per cent increase in the economic growth, (and) also the impact of international fuel oil prices. During last year, we saw WTI oil prices rise by 29 per cent," said Dave Carlson, EMC's CEO.
Last year, the strong demand pushed the average annual Uniform Singapore Energy Price (USEP), the benchmark for average wholesale price, to an all-time high of $171 per megawatt per hour. That's 16 per cent higher than the previous year.
And that could continue to rise this year in line with oil prices.
But so far for the first three months of 2011, demand has softened, with USEP in Q1 was $169/MWh, a 0.6 per cent drop from the last quarter of 2010.
EMC said this was due to a traditionally low demand due to festive holidays and cooler weather.
"The key thing for us is to ensure that we have the available supply coming on to meet that demand. And the good news is that there's a lot of new repowering projects, and new built projects already underway. That will ensure that Singapore has a good efficient generation that will be offered into the market. The more efficient, the more that we can contain the impact of increasing fuel oil prices if they continue, and also the increase in demand if the economy grows," said Carlson.
There will also be at least seven new plants expected to come up over the next three years. And at least two are being upgraded to become more efficient by running on gas, instead of fuel oil.
Around 80 per cent of Singapore's electricity is generated by power plants running on natural gas.
And most of this is piped in from Indonesia and Malaysia through long-term contracts, which are closely pegged to the price of fuel oil.
But Singapore could become less dependent on that, when its liquefied natural gas terminal comes online in 2013.
- CNA/ac/ls
This is starting point in Singapore's talks with Tenaga: EMC chief
Ronnie Lim Business Times 14 Apr 11;
CROSS-BORDER sales of electricity - such as the latest bid by Malaysia's Tenaga Nasional to buy some electricity from Singapore generating companies - will not impact on electricity prices here. This is the starting point from which Singapore is negotiating.
Dave Carlson, CEO of Energy Market Company, who said this in response to a BT query whether the move would adversely impact security of electricity supply here and prices, said that Tenaga has been discussing this with the Energy Market Authority (EMA), Singapore's electricity and gas regulator, and another point emphasised is to 'make sure that we don't sell electricity needed by Singapore consumers'.
BT reported last week that Tenaga wants to buy some 200 megawatts (MW) of electricity from Singapore to help it tide over some capacity shortages 'for a few months', due to problems with its natural gas feedstock supplies.
Following its meeting with the EMA, Tenaga separately also met the Singapore gencos, BT understands. Power industry sources contacted yesterday said that 'we are looking at it', but didn't indicate a timeline for the deal.
Operationally, some 200 MW of electricity can be transmitted through two 230kV submarine cables linking Malaysia's national power grid with Singapore's electricity transmission network at Senoko. And there have been previous instances of cross-border electricity supplies during emergency outages.
Sources earlier said that Tenaga was short of electricity capacity due to gas feedstock shortages for its plants, with this arising from maintenance of offshore gas platforms in Malaysia. Malaysia's gas supplies - which are heavily subsidised - are reportedly also running down in the peninsular because of robust demand.
On this end, the EMA had also sounded out the possibility of Singapore gencos commercially importing electricity in the medium term, or around 2018, as an option to help them diversify from their dependence on piped gas supplies from Malaysia and Indonesia. This is in addition to the LNG terminal which Singapore is building on Jurong Island currently.
Asked about how such cross-border electricity supplies will affect the market here, EMC's Mr Carlson said that there are already on-going discussions at an international level for an Asean-wide energy grid. 'The larger the market becomes, the more beneficial it will be,' he said.
Focus Taiwan 13 Apr 11;
Kuala Lumpur, April 13 (CNA) If Taiwan's state-run oil company decides to move a petrochemical investment project to Malaysia, the country will accommodate the needs of the company, a Malaysian official said Wednesday.
Malaysia will be "flexible for their special request" by CPC Corp., Taiwan executives, said Mukhriz Mahathir, Malaysia's deputy minister of international trade and industry.
CPC executives said Tuesday that Malaysia's offer of a 10-year tax holiday and an expedited environmental impact assessment was an average standard incentive package for foreign investors.
However, Mahathir told the CNA that his country will do its best to satisfy the needs of the Taiwan investor in every way, if Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co., an affiliate of CPC, decides to relocate its controversial petrochemical plant to Malaysia.
If CPC is not satisfied with the Johore and Port Klang locations offered, arrangements could be made for the company to look at other sites such as Sabah and Sarawak, he said.
Asked about Malaysia's edge over China, which reportedly is also keen to attract the investment project, Mahathir said that while Malaysia does not have much oil or natural gas, it has the relevant expertise and technology.
In addition, it has several locations that Taiwan can choose from, he said. From a long-term perspective, Malaysia is also politically stable, which means there is no danger of abrupt policy changes, he said.
Taiwan's Economics Minister Shih Yen-shiang said earlier this month that if the project had to be relocated overseas because of protests by environmental groups, CPC would be inclined to choose Malaysia.
The multi-billion-dollar project was initiated by Kuokuang Petrochemical to expand oil refining capacity and the production of chemicals such as ethylene.
Critics said the plan to build the complex in the Dacheng Wetlands in central Taiwan would create losses that would outweigh the benefits. The disadvantages would include damage to local oyster and eel-farming industries, and health hazards to local residents, they said. (By Sun Tien-mei and Lilian Wu) enditem/ pc
David Mercer Associated Press Yahoo News 13 Apr 11;
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – A group of researchers says the threat posed to bats by a fatal disease isn't just a threat to the animals but to American agriculture, one they believe farmers and consumers alike scarcely appreciate.
Bats save American farmers at least $3.7 billion a year in pest-control costs by eating insects that feed on crops, a benefit that could be in jeopardy as a disease that has killed more than a million bats in the Northeast spreads to the Midwest, the researchers said in a paper published in the April 1 edition of the journal Science. They and others fear the disease could eventually affect fruit- and vegetable-growing areas in the West as well.
"Almost daily, we get the question of why should we care about bats," said one of the paper's authors, biologist Paul Cryan of the U.S. Geological Survey. "We don't feel we have much time to get the word out that bats are important and why they're important."
White-nose syndrome has devastated the populations of migratory bat species such as the little brown bat in the Northeast since it was discovered in New York in 2006. Since then, the fungus that causes the disease has spread south and west to 16 states and parts of Canada. More than a million bats have died, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
But agriculture is a much smaller business in northeastern states like New York than it is in the Midwest. Just last month the disease was found in Ohio, one of the country's larger producers of corn and soybeans. It's also recently turned up in Indiana — another big corn and soybean state — while suspected cases have been reported in Missouri. White-nose syndrome also has been found this year in North Carolina, a big Southern farm state.
Some West Coast farmers and organic growers have talked for years about the effectiveness of bats as a means of pest control.
Cryan and the other researchers set out several years ago to measure that benefit, a task they and others say is very difficult. They began by looking at what bugs bats ate in the cotton-growing areas of south-central Texas. They were particularly interested in whether bats ate cotton boll worms, and they found they did — a lot of them. In all, each bat ate up to 8 grams (about the weight of two grapes) of bugs each night.
Earlier research the Science paper draws on indicates bats in the Midwest eat a range of pests — stink bugs, root worm moths and many others.
Using the consumption rate they found in Texas, the authors figured bats save farmers anywhere from $12 to $173 an acre a year in pesticide costs, depending on the crops they grow, pesticides they use and other factors.
The researchers consider their $3.7 billion estimate conservative, but they expect some skepticism.
"We expect there to be some people to disagree with the details of this, and we hope that that starts a broader scientific discourse," Cryan said.
He and his research partners also noted that, to a lesser extent, they're concerned about bats being killed by electricity generating wind turbines, particularly since the windy, flat Midwest has many.
Phil Nixon, an entomologist at the University of Illinois, works with corn and soybean farmers on crop protection and shares the authors' concerns about bats and white-nose syndrome. He just isn't sure bats could eat enough to cut down much on the many pests found in the millions of acres of corn, soybeans and wheat across the Midwest.
"I'm sure all of these would be impacted by bat feeding, but how much it is it's hard to say," Nixon said. "My guess is relatively small."
But bats are already playing a significant role in pest reduction in some Western crops.
University of California Extension Service entomologist Rachael Freeman Long works with numerous central California farmers who grow crops like walnuts and hang bat houses to attract and keep the mammals.
"Farmers love their bats in this area," Long said. "When you go onto the farm level and you talk to farmers, their idea is every pest that a bat eats is one less that they don't have to take care of."
Bob Borchard is one of those farmers. He says he and his bother Joseph have about 20 bat houses scattered over their 400 acres of walnut trees near Winters, Calif., primarily to get rid of a common pest called the coddling moth.
"They do a really good job," he said, explaining that bats take care of most of the brothers' pest-control needs. "It's about 80 percent."
No one knows how quickly white-nose syndrome could spread across the Midwest, Cryan and fellow bat-paper author Gary McCracken said, or whether it will eventually reach the West. But they worry that because the disease has moved quickly so far that it could drastically reduce bat populations in just four or five years — and force farmers to spray far more pesticides than they now do.
Until now, "It's not really been in the bread basket, so to speak," said Gary McCracken, a University of Tennessee professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.
Yahoo News 13 Apr 11;
CAPE TOWN (AFP) – South African soldiers are patrolling the world famous Kruger National Park on the borders with Mozambique to stamp out rhino poaching, the defence minister said Wednesday.
"As of April 1 this year, we are deployed around the border area that would cover the Kruger Park and we are in a position now to assist them them with the plight that has been bedeviling them for a very long time which is rhino poaching," minister Lindiwe Sisulu told a press briefing.
South African National Parks asked the military to step in to help stop the ongoing rhino bloodbath in the giant park which lost 146 animals last year.
"We have deployed a company there and we will be able to deal with the problem of poaching effectively," said acting defence force chief General Temba Matanzima.
The soldiers have not yet clashed with poachers who had killed 46 rhinos in Kruger Park this year out of a countrywide total of 71 by last month.
Home to more than 70 percent of the world's remaining rhinos, South Africa lost 333 rhinos last year and the surge -- fuelled by use of rhino horn in Asian traditional medicine -- has been blamed on organised syndicates.
The operation in Kruger is part of a move to give the army, rather than police, responsibility for border patrols.
Laurel Brubaker Calkins Bloomberg 13 Apr 11;
BP Plc (BP/)’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico killed or sickened as many as 200 times the number of animals estimated by the government, an undercount that could limit the company’s spill-related fines, an advocacy group said.
The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Arizona, said in a study released today it found five times as many sea turtles, 10 times as many birds and 200 times more marine mammals were injured or died than official estimates. BP faces civil penalties based, in part, on the number of wildlife and fish killed or harmed by more than 4.1 million barrels of crude that poured into the Gulf last year.
The government’s counts haven’t been updated to reflect the dozens of bird, turtle and dolphin carcasses that are washing ashore this spring, Tierra Curry, a biologist with the center, said in today’s report. The group added those casualties to the official tallies, then multiplied those numbers “by accepted scientific multiplication factors” to reach what it calls the “true mortality counts,” she said.
“The numbers of animals injured by the Gulf oil spill are staggering,” Curry said. “The government’s official count represents a small fraction of the total animals harmed by this disastrous spill.”
U.S. tallies released in mid-February counted wildlife harmed by the spill to include 1,146 sea turtles, 8,209 birds, and 128 dolphins and whales Curry said, citing government data.
By the center’s estimate, the spill caused harm or death to about 6,165 sea turtles, 82,000 birds of 102 species and as many as 25,900 marine mammals, including four species of dolphins and whales.
Separate Studies
Scientists working for environmental groups and government agencies have been conducting separate studies to estimate the spill’s impact on Gulf wildlife, including fish and shrimp populations. The studies rely on multipliers, as scientists say exact counts of killed or sickened animals are impossible, given that the majority of carcasses sink into the ocean, rot unseen in marsh grasses or are consumed after death by predators, according to Curry.
The center has filed a citizen’s suit against London-based BP for Clean Water Act violations. It has also sued the Interior Department over offshore drilling policies’ impact on wildlife. Both lawsuits are pending along with hundreds of cases against BP and other companies involved in the oil spill, which are consolidated in New Orleans federal court.
“The Center for Biological Diversity’s is an independent study,’’ Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement. “The government’s investigation and assessment of damages to natural resources and wildlife is ongoing.’’ He declined to comment further.
BBC News 13 Apr 11;
The EU has agreed on common inspection rules to prevent overfishing and make it possible to trace fish "from net to plate", the European Commission says.
The rules include a new point system to punish crews who fish illegally. If they accumulate too many points they will lose their licence.
EU nations police their own fisheries, but they have agreed on common inspection and reporting methods.
The controls are part of a big reform of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy.
Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said fishing data would be cross-checked electronically across Europe and law-breakers would face equally severe sanctions, whatever their nationality.
Ms Damanaki said: "We can no longer allow even a small minority of fishermen to ignore the rules."
Many EU fish stocks are seriously depleted - hence the drive to overhaul the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) by 2012.
Critics of the CFP have argued that it is not applied evenly across the EU.
The new controls replace and update old rules that were scattered in different regulations, the Commission says.
The Commission will be empowered to carry out checks on member states' fisheries controls and reduce certain fishing quotas if the EU inspectors find serious infringements.
Roger Harrabin BBC News 13 Apr 11;
EU biofuels targets are unethical, according to a report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
Its authors recommend the targets should be lifted temporarily until new safeguards are put in place for biofuels grown in Europe or imported. But they stop short of calling for a complete halt to biofuels, which some environmentalists want.
And they hold out the hope that new technologies may be able to develop biofuels from cellulose.
Crucially, they hope this could be done in a way that does not damage the environment or compete with food crops.
However, they acknowledge that progress towards these new biofuels is too slow, and that the next-generation fuels available are too expensive.
They want governments to do more to encourage biofuels that use less land, fertiliser and pesticide.
The Council is an independent body that was set up 20 years ago to ponder ethical issues raised by developments in biology and medicine.
It has been studying biofuels for 18 months - specifically relating to the EU Renewable Energy Directive target that biofuels should account for 10% of transport fuel by 2020, a much-criticised mandate originally designed as part of Europe's strategy to combat climate change.
Based on what it says is a set of ethical values which will be widely shared, the report says biofuels should:
not be at the expense of human rights;
be environmentally sustainable;
contribute to a reduction of greenhouse gases (some currently increase greenhouse gases);
adhere to fair trade principles;
have costs and benefits that can be distributed in an equitable way.
These principles would be backed by a mandatory - and strictly enforced - EU certification scheme, a little like the Fairtrade scheme.
The authors rehearse a familiar list of complaints about current biofuel production: it strips biodiversity when forests or peatlands are cleared to grow fuel crops; current biofuels produce too little energy; biofuels are imported from countries which often have low environmental standards; biofuels compete with food crops and contribute to pushing up food prices.
Currently 3% of UK road fuel is biofuel. The report notes that only a third of that met an environmental standard in 2009/2010.
The report's chair is Joyce Tait, scientific advisor to the Economic and Social Research Council's Innogen Centre at Edinburgh University.
Professor Tait told BBC News: "It is clear that current EU policies as currently produced and incentivised are unsuitable and unethical. We clearly need a new overarching ethical standard backed up by certification to improve the way the world produces biofuels."
Responding to the challenge from some campaigners that cropland should not be used to fuel the cars of the rich, she said: "There are numerous conflicts with food crops.
"There are ways of dealing with that through food prices. It's not controllable in the direct sense but it's controllable with the certification we envisage so that biofuels do not compete with food crops."
'Optimist at heart'
She admitted: "Multiple requirements for land use are not able to be met with current technology, current disturbances caused by climate change and current population growth requirements - we are going to have to improve."
Her co-author Ottoline Leyser, professor of plant development at the University of Cambridge's Sainsbury Laboratory, said: "We have to have a sustainable supply of food and fuel.
"We need fuel to grow food. We have to consider it as a piece, and factor in ecosystems and biodiversity, too."
Professor Leyser said the report had not attempted to calculate whether the world had enough land to supply the needs of food, fuel and wildlife, but that she was optimistic that there would be enough.
"I'm an optimist at heart. We will have to reduce our use of fuel and reduce our consumption of meat - but we will have to do this to adapt to the future anyway."
Critics say the authors are naïve in thinking that certification schemes will work, and too wedded to technology solutions.
Kenneth Richter, Friends of the Earth's biofuels campaigner, told BBC News: "The Government must simply scrap biofuel targets and instead focus on greener cars and improved public transport, fast and affordable rail services, and incentives to get people cycling and walking."
Robert Palgrave from the Biofuelwatch campaign was scathing about the Council's conviction that certification would guarantee that agricultural land would not be swallowed by biofuels.
He told BBC News: "We have serious concerns that an Indirect Land-Use Factor, far from being a step towards stopping agrofuel use in the EU could potentially make things even worse.
"There is no scientific credible way of calculating the full climate impacts of agrofuels. Indirect impacts are not just about 'hectare for hectare' displacement; they are also about the interaction between land prices and speculation, about the impacts of roads, ports and other infrastructure on forests, about policy changes which affect land rights, about scarcely-understood interactions between biodiversity, ecosystems and the climate."
Andrea Mustain LiveScience.com Yahoo News 13 Apr 11;
The powerful earthquake and ensuing deadly tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 produced now-familiar scenes of devastation — entire villages and towns reduced to rubble.
Once the waters receded, they took scenes of the devastation with them. Piles of debris — smashed homes, cars, boats, and perhaps more grim reminders of the lives lost in the tsunami — are now afloat in the Pacific Ocean, born on powerful currents, and are predicted to hit the United States, according to a model developed by researchers at the University of Hawaii.
Roughly a year from now, the first wave of debris is expected to hit Hawaii's Midway Islands. In two years, the debris cloud will likely hit Hawaii's main islands, and in three years, it's projected to arrive on the U.S. West Coast, said Jan Hafner, a scientific programmer who helped develop the model at the university's International Pacific Research Center in Honolulu.
Wreckage from Japan could hit shorelines from Baja, Calif., as far north as Alaska.
However, Hafner told OurAmazingPlanet, the debris is then expected to head back out to sea and wallop Hawaii again, in a second, more powerful wave.
"The main cloud of the debris would turn to the southwest and end up in the Pacific Garbage Patch, and within five years it will be coming out of the garbage patch once in a while and hit Hawaii over and over and over," Hafner said.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch — known to scientists as the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone — is a vast, wandering region of swirling currents that tends to gather up floating debris and periodically dumps it on Hawaiian shores.
Chance of danger
Beyond the cheerless prospect of finding ghostly reminders of the Japanese tragedy on faraway shores, there is a chance the debris piles could pose some danger, although little is known about the nature and quantity of the wreckage.
"We don't know how much of the stuff could be potentially toxic, and there's also a concern about radioactivity," Hafner said.
Since some of the debris could be quite large — and therefore not as easily dispersed and broken up by natural mechanisms like erosion and hungry marine organisms — it could carry radioactivity with it, Hafner said, "but we do not know for sure if that is the case."
Satellite tracking
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is using both commercial and federally operated satellites to track the debris, according to a NOAA spokesman.
However, tracking marine debris with satellites is difficult, according to NOAA's Marine Debris Program website.
Hafner also said that using satellites to look for debris in the vast expanse of an ocean can be tricky.
"You have to have a very fine resolution to capture the debris, and satellites tend to have coarse resolution of a few hundred meters," Hafner said. "Some specialized satellites can do it, but you have to have a clear sky and you have to know roughly where to look."
Hafner said the model for the movements of marine debris in the Pacific is the brainchild of researcher Nikolai Maximenko, who designed it months before the cataclysm in Japan. Maximenko used large buoys to develop his model, which means it could be very good at predicting the path of the wreckage from Japan, since that tragedy likely dragged large pieces of wreckage to sea.
"It not only dragged big pieces," Hafner said, "but because there are so many and we don't know the exact composition, and because it's heading toward us, it's a good idea, if nothing else, to monitor where this cloud of debris is moving."
Yahoo News 12 Apr 11;
GENEVA (AFP) – A leading climate scientist warned Tuesday that Europe should take action over increasing drought and floods, stressing that some climate change trends were clear despite variations in predictions.
"There are some robust areas like Siberia, we know what the climate will be, another robust area is the Mediterranean, because the models tell the same story," said Zbigniew Kundzewicz, review editor of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) chapter on freshwater resources.
"Climate change will pose two major water challenges in Europe: increasing water stress in southern Europe and increasing floods elsewhere," he added during a workshop organised by the UN Economic Commission on Europe.
"Current water management practices may be inadequate to reduce adverse impacts of climate change."
The Polish scientist said southern Europe would be more affected than northern Europe, with evidence already of hotter weather and longer drought leading to water shortages, harm to agriculture, a 20 to 50 percent decrease in hydro-electric power and denser water pollution.
Nonetheless, the intensity of rainfall when it does occur is also growing with warming, raising the threat of sudden summer floods such as those that hit eastern Europe in August 2002.
Kundzewicz also highlighted the amplifying impact of shifting land use, including more urban areas which absorb water less readily than rural areas during sudden rainfall.
"One hundred years floods may become a 50-year or 20-year flood," he explained.
The IPCC expert acknowledged that more than a dozen climate change models were "not ready for prime time" because of the way they sometimes differed on detail, partly because of the lack of a clear picture of future carbon emissions.
"We can't adapt to one fixed, crisp number, but we know a range and sometimes the range is disturbing," he added.
Charles Q. Choi LiveScience.com Yahoo News 13 Apr 11;
Although the planet is warming overall, events of extreme cold are still likely to persist on each continent for the next century, researchers say.
The Southeast and Northwest in the United States may be especially vulnerable to these chills, scientists added.
Investigators at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used nine global climate models assuming moderate levels of greenhouse gas emissions (the gases that build up in the atmosphere and trap heat) to compare the climates of 1991 to 2000 with 2091 to 2100.
All nine models found that climate would overall experience warming at the end of the century. However, they forecast that events of extreme cold would still happen, although they would occur less frequently.
"The fact that future extreme cold events will continue to be at least as intense and long-lasting in many regions of the world, even under warming scenarios, may not seem intuitive," researcher Auroop Ganguly, a civil and environmental engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, told Our Amazing Planet.
One can think of the existence of extreme cold events despite an overall trend of global warming much as one would the presence of millionaires in the midst of the Great Depression or the current global economic crisis. Global warming and the Great Depression represent average trends, while cold snaps and millionaires represent extreme cases within those trends.
"Global warming happens over and above natural climate variability, and the latter may cause cold snaps on any given winter and at specific regions of the world even though the overall longer-term global trend is one of warming," Ganguly said.
In addition, "as others have said previously, global warming is probably better understood as 'global weirding' — for example, the changes in temperature patterns are expected to have significant geographical variability," he added.
And global warming is of course not the only factor determining the temperatures at a particular place and time.
"Climate and weather are governed by complex physical mechanisms related to, for example, topography, atmospheric movements and ocean currents, and warming in one region may actually lead to cold extremes in others," Ganguly explained.
Although the researchers found that the Southeast and Northwest may be especially prone to persistence of extreme cold events, they cannot yet pinpoint why, Ganguly said. "We may be able to speculate, based on the related scientific literature, that topography, natural climate variability, atmospheric blocking effects and ocean warming all play a role," he said.
These findings suggest that regional plans in the face of climate change "cannot afford to relax readiness for extreme cold events even as preparations are made to adapt to a generally warming world," Ganguly said.
Ganguly and his colleagues, climate statistician Evan Kodra and climate data mining researcher Karsten Steinhaeuser, detailed their findings online March 16 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Yahoo News 13 Apr 11;
SYDNEY (AFP) – Scientists have for the first time shown a link between intensifying climate events and tectonic plate movement in findings that could provide a valuable insight into why huge tremors occur.
Understanding why plates change direction and speed is key to unlocking huge seismic events such as last month's Japan earthquake, which shifted the Earth's axis by several inches, or February's New Zealand quake.
An Australian-led team of researchers from France and Germany found that the strengthening Indian monsoon had accelerated movement of the Indian plate over the past 10 million years by a factor of about 20 percent.
Lead researcher Giampiero Iaffaldano said Wednesday that although scientists have long known that tectonic movements influence climate by creating new mountains and sea trenches, his study was the first to show the reverse.
"The closure or opening of new ocean basins or the build of large mountain bands like the Andes or Tibet itself, those are geological processes that affect the pattern of climate," said Iaffaldano, an earth scientist with the Australian National University.
"We are showing for the first time that the opposite also is true, that the pattern of climate is then able to affect back in a feedback mechanism the motion of tectonic plates."
Iaffaldano stressed that his study did not mean that global warming would translate to stronger earthquakes happening more often, with the relevant patterns developing over "the order of millions of years."
"Of course earthquakes do occur at the boundaries between plates because of plate motions, but our work doesn't imply at all that we will see an increase in these types of events," he told AFP.
Iaffaldano collaborated with Universite de Rennes geoscientist Laurent Husson and Hans-Peter Bunge from Munich's LMU university on the study, which was recently published in the Earth and Planetary Science Letters journal.
The team plans to build on the study by probing whether climate events have had a similar impact in other regions.
"For example I can imagine that there might be a signature of climate in the Andes for example or in the Rocky Mountains," said Iaffaldano.
"This is something that we should look at in the future."
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