Sea levels in Venice plunge to 14-year low

Reuters 19 Feb 08;

VENICE (Reuters) - Sea levels in the lagoon city of Venice plunged to a 14-year low this week, beaching some gondolas and exposing the canal-beds of famed waterways.

The Centro Maree, whose forecasts are vital for organizing transport in Venice, said a high-pressure system set off a "Code White" alert that signals low sea levels.

Canals slipped on Monday to 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) below average sea level, the lowest since 1994, and remained at "Code White" levels on Tuesday. The lowest level recorded was 92 cm below in 1989.

"The forecasts have to be as accurate as possible because you can't go down certain canals (at extremely low levels), so ambulance services need to be informed, the firemen need to be informed," said Franca Pastore at the Centro Maree.

Venetians, long accustomed to floods and dry spells, were taking the swing in sea levels in their stride.

A gondola association said their business was still prospering, since only a tiny fraction of the city's canals were off limits.

Being beached is hardly a top worry for Venetians. Instead, they are building a more than a multi-billion euro underwater dam system to save them from future floods that threaten the city's survival.

Centro Maree said the low water levels were expected to persist throughout midweek before returning to normal.

(Writing by Phil Stewart; Editing by Charles Dick)

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London mayor launches blitz on bottled water

Yahoo News 20 Feb 08;

London Mayor Ken Livingstone on Tuesday launched a blitz against bottled mineral water, urging restaurant customers in the British capital to ask for tap water to help the environment.

Livingstone said tap water was not only cheaper but also comes without the heavy carbon footprint of transporting bottled varieties by road and often vast distances by air from countries as far away as Fiji and New Zealand.

"People should be encouraged to ask and feel confident they can ask in restaurants for tap water, rather than have to pay through the nose for bottled water," he told his weekly news conference.

The initiative, backed by utility Thames Water and environmental groups, follows recent comments from environment minister Phil Woolas on the two-billion-pound (2.6-billion-euro, 3.9-billion-dollar) a year industry.

Woolas told a BBC television documentary that "it borders on morally being unacceptable" for Britons to spend so much on mineral water when there was a worldwide water shortage and pure drinking water was readily available.

Jenny Jones, a Green Party representative on the London Assembly, said: "This is another step to making London a world city in fighting climate change."

Bottled water was "disastrous for the planet" because of its use of plastics, the "ludicrous" distances it was often transported and Britain's "appalling" level of recycling of bottles after use, she added.

According to industry body the Bottled Water Information Office, the average Briton drinks 37.6 litres of bottled water each year, with six million litres drunk every day.

But it said bottled water accounts for only 0.03 percent of Britain's total carbon emissions, while the industry was committed to more environmentally friendly methods of production, transport and containers.

Related articles

Bottled water industry is bordering on the immoral, says UK minister
Lewis Smith, The Times 16 Feb 08;

Inside that Water Bottle
Ross Wallace, Today Online 10 Nov 07;

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Singapore's AA to develop road safety and environmentally-green vehicles

Channel NewsAsia 19 Feb 08;

SINGAPORE: Singapore's Automobile Association is looking into ways to improve road safety and reduce the environmental damage caused by vehicles.

This was the focus of a meeting held on Tuesday, attended by delegates from automobile associations around the region.

Singapore's AA said it would like to see more initiatives implemented for environmentally-friendly vehicles. This includes an increase in compressed natural gas or CNG refuelling stations and for them to be more easily accessible.

The AA is also working closely with the authorities to introduce a road assessment programme.

The system is in place in 30 countries worldwide, and serves to identify roads that are particularly dangerous.

Greg Hunting from the New Zealand Automobile Association, said: “What they do is examine the roads, look at the safety record and also the furniture on the roadside, what's safe and what's not.”

“They rate the roads with star ratings of 1-5. Now that's a benefit to our members and to motorists generally because they can see whether a road is very safe or not but it also helps governments prioritise where they invest in roads to make them safer,” he added.

Bernard Tay, President of the Automobile Association of Singapore, said: “Those that have a lot of accidents, the assessment will be reviewed by having specified vehicles going through it and experts will make recommendations to make changes to the road so it will be more safe for motorists to drive.” -CNA/vm

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Scientists capture giant Antarctic sea creatures

Michael Perry, Yahoo News 19 Feb 08;

Scientists studying Antarctic waters have filmed and captured giant sea creatures, like sea spiders the size of dinner plates and jelly fish with six meter (18 feet) tentacles.

A fleet of three Antarctic marine research ships returned to Australia this week ending a summer expedition to the Southern Ocean where they carried out a census of life in the icy ocean and on its floor, more than 1,000 meters (yards) below the surface.

"Gigantism is very common in Antarctic waters -- we have collected huge worms, giant crustaceans and sea spiders the size of dinner plates," Australian scientist Martin Riddle, voyage leader on the research ship Aurora Australis, said on Tuesday.

"Many live in the dark and have pretty large eyes. They are strange looking fish," Riddle told local radio.

"Some of the video footage we have collected is really stunning -- it's amazing to be able to navigate undersea mountains and valleys and actually see what the animals look like in their undisturbed state," Riddle said.

"In some places every inch of the sea floor is covered in life. In other places we can see deep scars and gouges where icebergs scour the sea floor as they pass by," he said.

The Australian Antarctic Division expedition will help scientists monitor how the impact of environmental change in Antarctic waters, such as ocean acidification caused by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, will make it harder for marine organisms to grow and sustain calcium carbonate skeletons.

"It is predicted that the first effects of this will be seen in the cold, deep waters of Antarctica," said Riddle.

"What we saw down there were vast coraline gardens based on calcareous organisms and these are the ones that could really be lost in an increasing acidic ocean," he said.

The three ships, the Aurora Australis, France's L'Astrolabe and Japan's Umitaka Maru docked in Hoabrt on Australia's southern island state of Tasmania, with their decks full of an array of sealife including unknown species of sea creatures collected near the eastern Antarctic land mass.

Some creatures, which were retrieved from between 200 - 1,400 meters (yards) below the surface, weighed up to 30 kg (65 pounds), while some 25 percent of the sealife chronicled was previous unknown.

The census of life in the Southern Ocean is known as the Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census (CEAMARC). The French and Japanese ships examined the mid and upper ocean, while the Australian ship studied the ocean floor.

"This research will help scientists understand how communities have adapted to the unique Antarctic environment," said Graham Hosie, leader of the census project on Umitaka Maru.

"Specimens collected will be sent to universities and museums around the world for identification, tissue sampling and bar-coding of their DNA. Not all of the creatures that we found could be identified and it is very likely that some new species will be recorded as a result of these voyages."

CEAMARC is part of the international Census of Antarctic Marine Life, coordinated by the Australian Antarctic Division, which will see some 16 voyages to Antarctic waters during this, the International Polar Year (2007-2009).

The census will survey the biodiversity of Antarctic slopes, abyssal plains, open water, and under disintegrating ice shelves. It aims to determine species biodiversity, abundance and distribution and establish a baseline dataset from which future changes can be observed.

Antarctic depths reveal bizarre new life forms
Nick Squires, The Telegraph 19 Feb 08

Sea spiders the size of dinner plates, giant worms and jelly fish with 18 ft-long tentacles have been discovered by a scientific expedition exploring the largely unknown waters of Antarctica.

The bizarre menagerie - many of the creatures are new to science - was documented by a fleet of three Australian, French and Japanese marine research ships which docked in Hobart, Tasmania, this week.

"Gigantism is very common in Antarctic waters," said Australian scientist Martin Riddle, voyage leader on one of the research ships, the Aurora Australis.

"Many [of the creatures] live in the dark and have pretty large eyes. They are strange looking fish."

The expedition collected video footage of the sea bed at depths of up to 4,200ft.

"It's amazing to be able to navigate undersea mountains and valleys and actually see what the animals look like in their undisturbed state," Dr Riddle said.

"In some places every inch of the sea floor is covered in life. In other places we can see deep scars and gouges where icebergs scour the sea floor as they pass by."

The collected specimens, which include sea urchins, fish and glass-like animals called tunicates or sea squirts, will be sent to universities and museums around the world for identification, tissue sampling and DNA analysis. Some of the creatures hauled up from the deep weighed up to 65 lbs.

"Not all of the creatures that we found could be identified and it's very likely that some new species will be recorded as a result of these voyages," said Graham Hosie, leader of the Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census project.

The scientists are monitoring how the impact of environmental change in Antarctic waters, such as ocean acidification caused by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, could affect marine life.

It is feared that acidification will make it harder for marine organisms to sustain their calcium carbonate skeletons.

Scientists are also concerned that another threat to Antarctica - global warming - could draw sharks to the Southern Ocean, shattering a delicate ecological balance.

Biologists who gathered in Boston last week for the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science warned that sharks would devastate soft-shelled mollusks and other invertebrates inhabiting the ocean floor.

Global warming has already pushed temperatures up by 1 - 2ºC in the past 50 years, and within a century sharks might be able to move into Antarctic waters, scientists said.

"The Antarctic seafloor has been dominated by relatively soft-bodied, slow-moving invertebrates, just as in ancient oceans prior to the evolution of shell-crushing predators," said University of Rhode Island biology professor Cheryl Wilga.

"The water only needs to remain above freezing year round for it to become habitable to some sharks, and at the rate we're going, that could happen this century."

"Once they get there, it will completely change the ecology of the Antarctic benthic community," she said.

Global warming would also make Antarctica more appealing to crabs which have previously been unable to survive the freezing temperatures, threatening marine life which has not changed since the Paleozoic era of 250m to 500m years ago.

"Predatory crabs are poised to return to warming Antarctic waters for the first time in millions of years, which will disrupt the composition of the archaic marine communities," said Rick Aronson, of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama.

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Dead poultry raises bird flu alarm in Vietnam

Yahoo News 19 Feb 08;

Dead poultry have been found in rivers and streams in northern Vietnam, a sign of a possible new bird flu outbreak during a prolonged cold spell, officials said on Tuesday.

The Agriculture Ministry said in a report that callers to an animal health department hotline reported large numbers of dead birds in five provinces, but was not specific.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu killed three men in northern Vietnam between January 18 and February 14 during a record-long cold spell. The H5N1 virus seems to thrive best in cool temperatures.

"In recent days the Animal Health Department has received many reports about poultry dying in large numbers in provinces," the Agriculture Ministry-run department said in a report on its Web site (www.dah.gov.vn).

"A bird flu outbreak is forecast to emerge in the northern region when cold days extend," it said.

The department, in a separate report, said that bird flu has killed nearly 2,500 ducks and chickens in the northern provinces of Hai Duong, Nam Dinh and Tuyen Quang, bringing to seven the provinces on the government's bird flu watchlist.

Animal health workers have slaughtered the remaining 1,900 birds at the three infected farms.

Doctors confirmed at the weekend that a 7-year-old child from the northern province of Hai Duong had the virus. The child has been under treatment in Hanoi along with several suspected cases.

Bird flu has killed 50 people in Vietnam out of 106 infected cases since late 2003, the Health Ministry said.

Officials said they have not been able to control poultry smuggling from northern neighbor China, which reported its latest human death on Monday, bringing its toll to 18.

H5N1 remains mainly a virus of birds, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person and sweep the world, possibly killing millions.

The virus is known to have killed 227 people globally since late 2003, according to the World Health Organisation, not including the latest death in China and two cases in Indonesia in recent days.

(Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Grant McCool and David Fogarty)

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China warns of forest fires following snow storms

Reuters 18 Feb 08;

BEIJING (Reuters) - Unseasonably cold weather across large swathes of southern China killed trees which could worsen forest fires later in the year and lead to landslides and pest outbreaks, officials warned on Tuesday.

The country's forestry industry incurred direct economic losses of 57.3 billion yuan ($8.01 billion) from the snow and ice storms, which impacted millions of people who depend on the sector for their livelihood, said deputy State Forestry Administration head Zhu Lieke.

"The disaster situation is at present still continuing for the forestry sector, and the losses will get ever bigger," he told a news conference.

"Areas affected by this disaster were those where the industry was growing the fastest and was the most vibrant, and also had the most abundant resources, covering one tenth of the country's forestry cover," Zhu said.

"It will seriously affect the environment and our ability to reach the goal of covering 20 percent of the nation with forests by 2010," he added.

The large number of trees toppled in the storms would create ideal conditions for devastating fires, Zhu said.

"Often after heavy snows what follows are dry conditions," he added.

Forest cover in some parts of China had dramatically fallen following the cold snap, said Xiao Xingwei, head of the forestry administration's resources department.

"This will lead to a sharp decrease in biodiversity, increase in water run-off and landslides, and induce forest fires and pests," Xiao said.

The snow had killed or maimed an estimated 30,000 creatures classified as belonging to a protected species.

Yet Xiao said China's timber output would not be seriously affected overall.

"Timber supplies should generally be able to remain steady," he said. "But in areas hard hit by the disaster, output could be impacted for the next three to five years."

"Some factories may have to close," Zhu said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by David Fox)

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Carmaker Porsche challenges London gas guzzler tax

Jeremy Lovell, Reuters 18 Feb 08;

LONDON (Reuters) - Luxury carmaker Porsche said on Tuesday it planned to legally challenge London mayor Ken Livingstone's decision to help fight global warming by taxing gas guzzling cars driving in the city centre. Porsche said on Tuesday the 25 pound ($48.74) daily charge was unfair, would not cut emissions of carbon dioxide and would deter businesses from moving to the city.

"A massive congestion charge increase is quite simply unjust," said Andy Goss, Managing Director of Porsche Cars GB.

"Thousands of car owners driving a huge range of cars will be hit by a disproportionate tax which is clear will have a very limited effect on CO2 emissions," he added.

Livingstone rejected the move as a public relations stunt and called it an attack on Londoners.

"No one is allowed to throw their rubbish in the street and Porsche should not be allowed to impose gas guzzling polluting cars on Londoners who do not want them," he told reporters.

Announcing the plan last week Livingstone admitted that it would have little immediate effect on carbon emissions but said it would discourage people from driving polluting cars in the city centre and encourage manufacturers to make cleaner engines.

He said the new scheme would raise 30 million to 50 million pounds a year and cover most of the cost of a major cycling initiative that will include a Paris-style roadside bicycle hire scheme in the city centre.

Livingstone, who has made the environment a central plank of his tenure, is facing a tough re-election battle in May. If he loses, his emissions policy is likely to go with him.

The 25 pound daily tax on vehicles emitting 225 grams or more of carbon dioxide per km would apply in the same way as the normal 8 pound ($16) daily charge does to all but the cleanest cars.

"I have every sympathy with a Scottish hill farmer who needs his 4x4 to get around. But there is absolutely no justification for cars producing high amounts of pollution being driven in central London," Livingstone said when he announced the scheme.

Environmentalists lashed out at the Porsche move and called for even tougher measures against the most polluting cars in next month's budget.

"Along with the rest of the German car industry they are desperately resisting the strong measures needed to tackle the car industry's contribution to climate change," said Friends of the Earth head Tony Juniper.

Porsche said it would write to Livingstone this week asking him to reconsider the plan.

If he failed to respond in 14 days or refused to reconsider the plan that will come into force in October, the carmaker would make a submission to the courts for a judicial review.

"The proposed increase will be bad for London as a whole and will send out the signal that it is not serious about establishing itself as the best place in the world to do business," Goss said.

The court could force a delay, alteration or even a rejection of the plan.

A judicial challenge by Greenpeace last year forced the government to mount a major public consultation on its proposals for a new fleet of nuclear power stations.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Hough; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

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Consequences of GM crop contamination 'are set to worsen'

James Randerson, The Guardian 18 Feb 08;

The consequences of contamination between GM crops and non-GM varieties will be much more serious with the next generation of GM crops, an influential group of US scientists has warned.

Mixing between GM and non-GM varieties has already caused serious economic losses for producers in lost sales and exports. But the consequences of mixing will be much more serious with new crops that are altered to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals, the scientists argue. The crops could harm human health and be toxic to wild animals.

"What would be the impact societally, economically if for example, cornflakes were contaminated by some sort of drug or chemical? I think it would be a vast impact economically," said Karen Perry Stillerman, senior food and environment programme analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"I think it's really hard to say [what impact contamination would have] because there is a variety of different drugs and chemicals that might be manufactured in plants this way," she added. "Our perception is that some of them might be toxic, but all of them would certainly cause tremendous economic upheaval."

The group presented its findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Boston.

Huge research effort

Up to now, commercial GM varieties have been restricted mainly to modifications for herbicide tolerance or resistance to pests. But a huge research effort is going into a new generation of crops that are genetically modified to produce drugs, hormones, vaccines and industrial chemicals such as the precursors of plastics.

Although public opinion in Britain and the rest of Europe remains firmly against GM crops in general, it is more favourable to crops with medical benefits. But the Union of Concerned Scientists said that these are precisely the crops that pose the greatest risks if they exchange genes with wild relatives or conventional versions of the same crop.

So-called "pharma crops" can offer advantages over current methods of drug manufacture. Vaccines produced this way could be grown cheaply in developing countries and simply given to patients in the food. That would remove the need for sterile needles and refrigerators to keep vaccine doses cold - a major obstacle for delivering therapies in poor countries.

Prof Paul Gepts, a plant geneticist at the University of California, Davis, said past experience suggests that "contamination" events cannot be avoided. "Gene flow is really a regular occurrence among plants. So if you put a gene out there it's going to escape. It's going to go to other varieties of the same crop or to its wild relatives," he said. "It's clear that zero contamination is impossible at present."

Major economic losses

There have been a handful of examples in the US and elsewhere of genes from GM varieties not cleared for human consumption getting into nearby food crops and hence the human food chain. This has led to major economic losses for producers in lost sales, exports and clean-up costs, but there have been no proven cases of damage to human health.

"With the products we are talking about, there's the potential for that to be much more serious than what we have seen so far," said Prof Robert Wisner at Iowa State University.

According to Gepts, most of the ideas for keeping crops apart are inadequate, because pollen and seed are carried on the wind, by animals and birds and on farm machinery. He said the only way to be sure that food crops would not be contaminated by drug genes or genes for industrial chemicals would be to use non-food crops such as tobacco.

Alternatively, GM food plants could be grown in greenhouses or underground to prevent pollen escaping, he said.

Call for ban

The Union of Concerned Scientists is calling on the US Department of Agriculture to ban the growth of GM pharma crops outdoors unless they are species that are not eaten by people or livestock.

The USDA is currently putting together new guidelines on GM that are expected to be completed by the end of the year. Currently, no GM crops that produce industrial chemicals or pharma crops are grown commercially, although there are some field trials under way in the US.

Similar issues will apply in the UK and Europe if pharma crops are approved. So far, though, only a handful of GM crop varieties are grown in Europe.

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Birds choke to death on migrant fish

Robin McKie, The Observer 17 Feb 08;

Baffled scientists warn of a 'catastrophic' impact as snake pipefish flood into British waters

Britain's sea birds are facing a deadly new threat from a population explosion of strange, seahorse-like creatures in our coastal waters. The snake pipefish, virtually unknown around the UK in 2002, has undergone a massive, baffling and dangerous expansion since then, scientists have discovered.

Divers report seeing hundreds on single dives, while dozens of pipefish - which can grow to more than 18 inches in length - have been found in the nests of puffins, kittiwakes, terns and other sea birds.

The discovery has alarmed biologists because they have found that chicks are choking to death on the rigid, bony bodies of pipefish, while adults are feeding on them despite the fact they have very little nutritional value.

The implications for future generations of sea birds - already badly affected by depletion of Atlantic and North Sea fish stocks - are alarming, scientists warned at a meeting of the Zoological Society in London last week. 'It is an extremely worrying development,' said Professor Sarah Wanless, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), Edinburgh. 'The spread of pipefish in our waters could have a catastrophic impact on sea bird breeding.'

The explosive growth of the snake pipefish (Entelurus aequoreus) in the past five years has been one of the most mysterious events affecting Britain's coastal waters in recent years. Six years ago they were unknown around the UK. The next year divers and fishermen reported finding occasional specimens.

'Since then the species has increased dramatically in abundance and its spread continues. Indeed it may be accelerating,' states a paper on marine biology by a team led by Professor Mike Harris, another CEH scientist. 'In June last year, 500 were caught in a 15-minute haul off the Farne Islands, while in July and August large catches were recorded in the Norwegian Sea, for example.'

The cause of the pipefish's spread is puzzling. Some scientists suspect that sea warming caused by climate change may be involved, but the link is not obvious. The snake pipefish is a subarctic species unlikely to be attracted directly by our warming coastal waters. Instead, scientists speculate that changes in ocean currents may be driving increasing numbers into our waters, or that their principal foodstuff, various species of plankton, may be becoming more abundant around Britain. Whatever the cause, they say that the impact on sea birds could be disastrous.

Sea bird numbers have been hit by a series of consecutive breeding failures in recent years, affecting skuas, guillemots, shags and others. The problem is starvation. Since 2000 sea birds have not been able to find sufficient food either to sustain their chicks or give them the energy to breed, a problem that is blamed on the dwindling populations of small fish and sand eels that sea birds eat, a phenomenon scientists have been unable to explain.

Now parent guillemots, terns and puffins are scooping pipefish from the sea for their chicks as substitutes for their normal fish food. But the pipefish body is rigid and bony and extremely hard for chicks to eat. Biologists have found dozens left uneaten in single nests while chicks have choked to death on their bodies.

In addition, studies have found that the species is low in fat content and represents poor nutritional value. Nevertheless, sea birds - already affected by poor diet - are turning to pipefish for food, a move that will only further damage their breeding.

'In the longer term, it is going to be very dangerous indeed for the future of sea birds around Britain,' added Wanless. 'Sea birds breed fairly slowly and a number of bad years could have a long-term devastating impact.'

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Alien species 'wreck world's oceans and rivers'

Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 19 Feb 08;

Alien species are wreaking havoc on the world's oceans and river systems, say scientists.

Marine invasive species damage waters and land that native species and plants rely on to survive.And governments have to spend millions of pounds trying to get rid of them, says the Nature Conservancy study.

Examples in the UK include Floating pennywort (Hydrocotyle ranunculoides) a native of North America which was brought to Britain in the 1980s as a garden pond plant but which quickly spread to the wild.

The pennywort chokes rivers and streams depriving water creatures and plants of essential oxygen and light. Individual stems can grow up to 20cm in a day, creating a mat of vegetation up to 15m from the bank in one season.

Invasive and predatory marine animals which cause massive problems for our native creatures on waterways include the American mink, American crayfish, and the zebra mussel from the Caspian sea.

Once in the wild, these aquatic invaders cause massive disruption and with no natural predators and a benign climates they expand rapidly to nuisance proportions.

The latest study contains a global assessment of the impacts and causes of invasive marine species and says 84 per cent of the world's coasts are being affected by foreign aquatic species.

Stephanie Meeks, acting president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, said: "Everyone in the world depends on healthy oceans and coasts for survival. Invasive species are severely impacting native plants and animals, and are causing significant economic damage at the same time.

"By understanding the scale and scope of these invaders, we are better equipped to stop them."

According to the study, in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, international shipping and aqua culture are the major causes of the spread of harmful species introduction world-wide with 80 per cent of all invasive introductions accidental.

The economic costs of invasive species are huge with the US alone spending £60bn annually to control and repair damage from more than 800 invaders. Throughout the world's oceans, aquatic aliens damage economies by hitting fisheries, fouling ships' hulls, and clogging intake pipes. Some can also pose a threat to human health through disease.

Examples of the damage invasive species can cause include:

* The comb jellyfish carried to the Black Sea on a ship in the early 1990s. It devastated fish populations and disrupted the entire food chain by feeding voraciously on fish eggs and zoo plankton.

* The Pacific oyster was transported from Japan to be farmed in coastal waters around the world since the early 1900s. Once introduced, they aggressively attach themselves to rocks and group together, squeezing out other species. In Australia and elsewhere, this fast-growing species can smother prized native oysters and mussels, hurting local fisheries.

* Wild Atlantic salmon stocks in Scotland and Scandinavia are being decimated by new pathogens, while escaped farm salmon are weakening the genetic resilience of native fish. Each year, up to 500,000 salmon escape from fish farms in Norway alone.

* San Francisco Bay, California, is the most invaded aquatic region on earth. More than half of its fish and most of its bottom-dwelling organisms are not native and new species are being introduced at an alarming rate.

Jennifer Molnar, conservation scientist at The Nature Conservancy and lead author of the study, said: " "The scale of this problem is vast. Every day, thousands of vessels cross our oceans with invasive species hitchhiking on their hulls. Because of this, as many as 10,000 species are estimated to be in transit at any one time.

"Once alien species become established in marine habitats, it can be nearly impossible to remove them, The best way to address these invaders is to prevent their arrival or introduction in the first place."

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 19 Feb 08

wildfilms contributes to Arts Central's "Once Upon a Tree Part 2"
which debuts at 9.30pm tomorrow, more on the wildfilms blog

Another fabulous Hantu Dive
on the hantu blog

New butterfly species for Singapore?
on the butterflies of singapore blog

Ubin Civil Service Chalets
and lots of other long-awaited updates too on the pulau ubin stories blog including update on endangered ubin lontong and on this day, 66 years ago.

Ubin montage
photos and thoughts about the price and value of our natural heritage on the budak blog

Red-legged crane at Botanic Gardens
several sightings on the bird ecology blog

Saga seeds on a beach
and memories on the leafmonkey blog

MacRitchie Reservoir and back
on the mountain and sea blog

Green Tip: Collect rainwater for plants and others
on the Asia Is Green blog

Read more!

Vision to fly first solar-powered airplane round the world by 2011

Channel NewsAsia 18 Feb 08;

SINGAPORE: Imagine a plane that can fly round the world day and night with zero fuel, zero emissions - and powered by just solar energy. With skyrocketing jet fuel prices, that's not a pipe dream anymore - but a real vision that adventurer Dr Bertrand Piccard hopes to turn into reality by 2011.

It may just be a prototype now. But this dream of a plane - the Solar Impulse - developed by Dr Piccard's team, should go on its first test flight by 2009.

And by 2011, the team hopes to build a second plane that will travel around the world, day and night.

However, when the sun goes down, what happens to this plane that depends on solar energy to stay in flight?

Piccard said: "On solar energy, you have to capture the energy with solar cells on the wings, store this energy in the batteries and at the same time, run the engine during the day."

"So when you get the dark, you can use the energy from the batteries until the next sunrise, and continue the next day and next night and next day again," he added.

Batteries are expected to last at least 16 hours after dark. But to fly without fuel, obtaining the right aerodynamics was tough.

However, that dream is now a reality with a cool US$70 million tag - of which 65 per cent of the financing has been obtained.

And with a man who has gone round the world non-stop in a hot air balloon, an adventure like this at the frontiers of aviation should be no barrier.

With an aviation industry vision of zero carbons emissions in 50 years, we could be travelling on a 300-passenger plane powered solely by clean energy in the future. - CNA/vm

Lean, green flying machine
Leong Wee Keat, Today Online 19 Feb 08;

THIS plane will have the wingspan of a superjumbo Airbus A380 but the weight of a car. And when it finally takes off in three years' time, the single-seater Solar Impulse plane will attempt to create aviation history — by flying around the world purely on solar energy, with zero emissions.

And after that flight is completed in May 2011, the Solar Impulse's next ambitious target will be to carry a payload of 300 passengers in little more than 40 years' time.

Founded five years ago, the Swiss-based Solar Impulse project seeks to realise the dream of an aircraft capable of taking off autonomously and maintaining itself in flight for several days without any fuel, propelled solely on energy generated and stored by the solar cells on its wings.

Yesterday, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) signed a cooperation agreement with Solar Impulse on the sidelines of the Singapore Airshow Aviation Leadership Summit.

The agreement is the first the IATA has signed since it announced in December its goal of having air travel achieve carbon-neutral growth in the medium-term, en route to a carbon emission-free future in 50 years.

With the industry under the spotlight amid climate change concerns, airlines and manufacturers have begun taking steps to reduce emissions, such as reducing fuel burn and attempting flights on alternative fuels.

Yet, founder and president of Solar Impulse, Dr Bertrand Piccard — who piloted the first non-stop, round-the-world balloon flight in 1999 — acknowledged that aiming to fly without fuel sets "the bar extremely high".

"In the 20th century, we have to rewrite aviation history with the same passion and enthusiasm but with other technologies which are less greedy in terms of fuel," he said.

Current solar airplanes are not designed to store energy and have to land when there is insufficient sunlight.

But the plane — which looks like a glider with 250 sq m of solar cells — can fly up to 16 hours in darkness on solar energy stored in lightweight lithium batteries. If energy levels are low, the plane can climb to greater altitudes, similar to those reached by jet planes, to reach the sun's rays.

Construction of the first prototype is underway. Test flights will be carried out later this year, with the first night flight set for next year. A second plane will then be built to cross the Atlantic a year later.

In May 2011, the Solar Impulse plane will attempt to fly around the world, with stops in China, Hawaii, Florida, Morocco or Spain, before returning to its starting point in the United Arab Emirates.

The plane will land after every five days non-stop in the air for a change of pilots. Dr Piccard said the plane's auto-pilot would allow the pilot to rest and only sound an alarm if it detects trouble or turbulence.

In all, 52 engineers are working on the US$70-million ($99-million) project.

Asked how he would persuade major commercial aircraft manufacturers to adopt his idea, Dr Piccard said: "We don't need to convince anyone.

"The price of energy will oblige everyone to find alternative solutions. When you have oil at $200 a barrel, the price of the ticket will not remain the same."

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