Sharks Decline But Attacks Rise

Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Yahoo News 27 Feb 08;

A diver who suffered a fatal shark bite in the Bahamas this week is part of a trend of increasing attacks around the world despite plummeting populations of the majestic fish.

If sharks are so threatened in the world's waters, why are attacks on humans on the rise?

Because the global population of humans is growing fast, so more people go to the beach, said George Burgess, curator of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. And nowadays, beach-goers don't just go for a dunk. They hang out in shallow water (home for many sharks) for long periods of time to surf, windsurf, boogie-board, kayak and dive.

The number of worldwide shark attacks overall increased from 63 in 2006 to 71 in 2007, continuing a gradual upswing over the past four years, Burgess said.

There have been five unprovoked shark attacks so far this year (most shark attacks are unprovoked), Burgess said. However, the death of Markus Groh, 49, an Austrian lawyer, on Monday is under investigation and might be classified as provoked as he was part of an uncaged tourist dive off the Bahamas where chum is thrown into open water.

"There are more people in the water than there ever have been," Burgess told LiveScience. "We can pretty much predict that next year there will be even more attacks. Even if shark populations are declining, which we know they are, even in a local situation if populations have been depleted, there is still a probability of getting an attack."

Shark stats

Sharks are disappearing from the world's oceans due to overfishing, says Julia Baum, a researcher at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego. Baum and some of her shark-tracking colleagues made comments to reporters earlier this month at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.

Sharks killed one human in 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File, but humans killed an estimated 38 million sharks for their fins each year, Baum said. That's as many sharks as the entire human populations of the 35 largest cities in the United States. Other estimates are nearly double that.

Some nations have banned shark fishing, but the bans are hard to enforce. And it's a free-for-all in international waters, Baum said.

The classic sharks, aka the "great sharks" such as the great white shark, scalloped hammerhead, mako sharks, thresher sharks, bull sharks and dusky sharks, are in trouble, she said. Deepwater species such as seal sharks, silky sharks, sleeper sharks and spined pygmy sharks are also at risk, said shark biologist Colin Simpfendorfer of James Cook University.

A study Baum conducted at her previous job at Dalhousie University showed all great shark species in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean have declined by more than 50 percent since the early 1970s.

Everyone agrees that the great sharks' numbers are declining, but some experts think Baum's estimates are faulty and the real situation is less dire, Burgess said.

Little is known about deepwater sharks, even after an assessment of them by IUCN-The World Conservation Union, said Colin Simpfendorfer of James Cook University. Almost half of the known species of sharks occur in deep water and they are more vulnerable to fishing than shallow water sharks (the great sharks), he said.

Data from two case studies, one in southeastern Australian waters and the other in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean, showed reductions in abundance of about 90 percent in many species of sharks in less than 20 years, Simpfendorfer said.

New listings could help

The scale of the problem of disappearing sharks is global due to shark finning, the process of cutting off a shark's fins and throwing the rest of the animal overboard still alive, leaving it to die, Baum said.

Finning makes use of only 2 to 5 percent of the animal, but shark fins are now one of the most highly valued marine commodities. A bowl of shark fin soup can sell for $100, so there is high incentive for fishermen to fin.

The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service is proposing to effectively close down much of the coastal large shark fisheries, Baum said. "This would be a very positive step forward for shark management in the U.S.," she said.

The European Union has acted to restrict pressure on deepwater sharks, Simpfendorfer said.

And white sharks have been listed as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, said shark researcher Salvador Jorgensen of Stanford University.

In the 2008 IUCN Red List, forthcoming later this year, five additional great shark species will be listed in the threatened categories, including the shortfin mako shark and three species of thresher shark, each of which will be listed as vulnerable. The scalloped hammerhead will be listed as globally endangered, Baum said.

"Sharks evolved 400 million years ago, and yet we could now lose some species in the next decade, so that would be just the blink of an eye in evolutionary time," Baum said.

Sharks are thought to be crucial to the entire marine ecosystem: they are top predators and help to keep smaller sharks and rays from devouring too many scallops, clams and other commercially important species of marine life.

You'll live

Meanwhile, if you do suffer a shark bite, your odds of living are greater than 90 percent. The rate of shark-attack fatalities hit an all-time low in 2007 for the past 20 years, Burgess said.

In fact, the trend for shark-bite fatalities in the 20th century is "down, down, down, decade by decade," Burgess said. The reason is better medical care.

As a result of multiple wars in the last century, medicine has learned how to do a much better job of saving people with traumatic injuries, Burgess said. "The whole process from water onto operating table or stitches occurs with greater rapidity and more professionalism," he said.

The real story isn't shark attacks, Burgess said. "The real story is what is happening to skates, sharks and rays on a worldwide basis. We have witnessed, in the last 20 to 30 years, huge declines in these animals worldwide."

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Monsoon intensity driven by Earth's orbit: study

Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 27 Feb 08;

The monsoon rains that drench tropical and subtropical Asia from June through September vary in duration and intensity in keeping with tiny wobbles in Earth's orbit as it circles the Sun, according to a study released Wednesday.

These cycles wax and wane every 23,000 years, said the study, based on the breakthrough use of stalagmites from a cave in central-eastern China to measure changes in climate patterns over the last quarter million years.

"The implications are that the present Asian summer monsoon is relatively weak in comparison to a few thousand years ago and that is will stay at this level for centuries more," lead researcher Hai Cheng of Nanjing Normal University in China's Jiangsu Province told AFP.

The findings, however, do not take into account the relatively recent impact of greenhouse gas-driven global warming, which climate scientists predict could significant alter monsoon patterns.

Three irregularities in the movement of Earth -- its orbit, the angle at which it is tilted, and the axis of rotation -- all combine to create a periodic variation in the amount of incoming solar radiation, explained Cheng.

It is this so-called precessional cycle that is largely responsible for longterm changes in monsoon duration and strength, the researchers found.

Monsoons occur with the seasonal reversals of wind directions caused by temperature differences between the land and sea.

While found elsewhere in the world, they are most pronounced in Asia in part due to the impact of the massive Tibetan Plateau.

Economies in tropical and sub-tropical Asia, especially around the Indian subcontinent, depend on monsoon rainfall to grow crops on land that is largely unirrigated.

But heavy monsoons can also bring massive flooding, causing severe economic damage and loss of life.

As significant as the findings, arguably, are the methods used to collect them.

Cheng and his colleagues measured the oxygen isotope ratios locked in the stalagmites built up from the floor of the Sanbao Cave to determine changes in climate over millennia, said the study, published in the British journal Nature.

Compared with other commonly used proxies of paleoclimatology such as tree-rings and ice cores, speleothems -- as these mineral deposits are called -- provide a record over a much longer timescale.

This technique "will likely replace the Greenland ice records as the chronological benchmark for correlating and calibrating climate variability," said Cheng.

It also allows for a new level of precision, achieved by measuring the growth of the isotope thorium-230 from the slow radioactive decay of uranium, found in trace amounts in the deposits.

"What emerges is a record of monsoon variation unprecedented in its detail and chronology stretching back 224,000 years," said Jonathan Overpeck and Julia Cole, both geologists at the University of Arizona, in a commentary, also in Nature.

The word "monsoon" is thought to have originated from the Arabic word "mausim," which means season.

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Moral appeal for UK energy saving

Richard Black, BBC News 27 Feb 08;

The battle against climate change has been described by a church leader as a "moral issue", at the launch of a strategy to reduce UK electricity use.

The Bishop of London said parts of the world are already affected by change.

Energy Saving Day, which is backed by environmental and religious groups and major energy companies, asks people to turn off electrical devices not in use.

Over 24 hours from 1800 GMT Wednesday, the National Grid will monitor what effect this has on UK consumption.

The BBC News website will be displaying results in close to real time.

Major energy companies including EDF, E.On and National Power are offering customers simplified access to home insulation.

At a launch event featuring a bicycle-powered cinema showing specially-commissioned short films on climate, bishop Dr Richard Chartres made the moral case for taking part.

"Let us remember people in the Ganges delta who are already feeling the effects of sea level rise and climate change," he said.

"The science changes year by year - though rarely in the right direction - but the moral imperative remains the same."

Responsible reward

E-Day was conceived and developed by Matt Prescott, a scientist and long-time campaigner for low-energy lightbulbs.

"I'm delighted by the way in which so many organisations from all sectors of society have been prepared to see what they can do to help tackle climate change," he told BBC News.

"They have offered to set aside their day-to-day differences in order to highlight that they accept the available science, agree that saving energy is a good idea, and want to simplify and widen access to some of the other potential solutions to climate change."

Those organisations include some of the UK's principal energy retailers, and the environmental groups that sometimes lambast them for their greenhouse gas emissions.

"We do call on companies to take more action," said Ashok Sinha, director of Stop Climate Chaos, an umbrella campaigning group on climate change.

"But we think it's welcome that they're encouraging their customers to save energy - that's responsible behaviour for an energy company."

The government obliges energy providers to offer energy saving measures to their customers.

People can use the E-Day website to register their interest in receiving help from these companies with loft and wall insulation.

Grid lines

E-Day started life as a Planet Relief, which was to have been an awareness-raising BBC TV programme with a large element of comedy.

But in September the BBC decided to pull the project, saying viewers preferred factual or documentary programmes about climate change.

The decision came after poor audiences for Live Earth, and public debate over whether it was the corporation's role to "save the planet".

Dr Prescott then decided to see whether he could mount E-Day as an independent operation, and secured the backing of important partners such as the energy companies and the National Grid.

Its role is crucial, acting as an independent and credible monitor of how much difference E-Day makes to the UK's electricity consumption.

Part of the Grid's job is to forecast demand for electricity. It says its forecasts are usually accurate to within 1% - so comparing demand across the 24 hours of E-Day with its predictions should provide an accurate measure of whether the initiative has made much difference.

Dr Prescott believes savings are likely to be small, up to 3%.

But even this could be the equivalent of taking a coal-fired power station off line for the day.

And he hopes the event will help confirm the idea that personal action can make a noticeable impact on energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

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Feed the world? We are fighting a losing battle, UN admits

Huge budget deficit means millions more face starvation

Julian Borger, The Guardian 26 Feb 08;

The United Nations warned yesterday that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, which have created a "new face of hunger".

"We will have a problem in coming months," said Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). "We will have a significant gap if commodity prices remain this high, and we will need an extra half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs."

With voluntary contributions from the world's wealthy nations, the WFP feeds 73 million people in 78 countries, less than a 10th of the total number of the world's undernourished. Its agreed budget for 2008 was $2.9bn (£1.5bn). But with annual food price increases around the world of up to 40% and dramatic hikes in fuel costs, that budget is no longer enough even to maintain current food deliveries.

The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2.5 million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition

"This is the new face of hunger," Sheeran said. "There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before."

WFP officials say the extraordinary increases in the global price of basic foods were caused by a "perfect storm" of factors: a rise in demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels, and climate change.

The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.

"For us, the main concern is for the poorest countries and the net food buyers," said Frederic Mousseau, a humanitarian policy adviser at Oxfam. "For the poorest populations, 50%-80% of income goes on food purchases. We are concerned now about an immediate increase in malnutrition in these countries, and the landless, the farmworkers there, all those who are living on the edge."

Much of the blame has been put on the transfer of land and grains to the production of biofuel. But its impact has been outweighed by the sharp growth in demand from a new middle class in China and India for meat and other foods, which were previously viewed as luxuries.

"The fundamental cause is high income growth," said Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute. "I estimate this is half the story. The biofuels is another 30%. Then there are weather-induced erratic changes which caused irritation in world food markets. These things have eaten into world levels of grain storage.

"The lower the reserves, the more nervous the markets become, and the increased volatility is particularly detrimental to the poor who have small assets."

The impact of climate change will amplify that already dangerous volatility. Record flooding in west Africa, a prolonged drought in Australia and unusually severe snowstorms in China have all had an impact on food production.

"The climate change factor is so far small but it is bound to get bigger," Von Braun said. "That is the long-term worry and the markets are trying to internalise it."

The WFP is holding an emergency meeting in Rome on Friday, at which its senior managers will meet board members to brief them on the scale of the problem. There will then be a case-by-case assessment of the seriousness of the situation in the affected countries, before the WFP formally asks for an increased budget at its executive board meeting in June.

But the donor countries are also facing higher fuel and transport costs. For the biggest US food aid programme, non-food costs now account for 65% of total programme expenditure.

Global impact: Where inflation bites deepest

1 United States The last time America's grain silos were so empty was in the early seventies, when the Soviet Union bought much of the harvest. Washington is telling the World Food Programme it is facing a 40% increase in food commodity prices compared with last year, and higher fuel bills to transport it, so the US, the biggest single food aid contributor, will radically cut the amount it gives away.

2 Morocco 34 people jailed this month for taking part in riots over food prices.

3 Egypt The world's largest importer of wheat has been hard hit by the global price rises, and most of the increase will be absorbed in increased subsidies. The government has also had to relax the rules on who is eligible for food aid, adding an extra 10.5 million people.

4 Eritrea It could be one of the states hardest hit in Africa because of its reliance on imports. The price rises will hit urban populations not previously thought vulnerable to a lack of food.

5 Zimbabwe With annual inflation of 100,000% and unemployment at 80%, price increases on staples can only worsen the severe food shortages.

6 Yemen Prices of bread and other staples have nearly doubled in the past four months, sparking riots in which at least a dozen people were killed.

7 Russia The government struck a deal with producers last year to freeze the price of milk, eggs, vegetable oil, bread and kefir (a fermented milk drink). The freeze was due to last until the end of January but was extended for another three months.

8 Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has asked the WFP to feed an extra 2.5 million people, who are now in danger of malnutrition as a result of a harsh winter and the effect of high world prices in a country that is heavily dependent on imports.

9 Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf announced this month that Pakistan would be going back to ration cards for the first time since the 1980s, after the sharp increase in the price of staples. These will help the poor (nearly half the population) buy subsidised flour, wheat, sugar, pulses and cooking fat from state-owned outlets.

10 India The government will spend 250bn rupees on food security. India is the world's second biggest wheat producer but bought 5.5m tonnes in 2006, and 1.8m tonnes last year, driving up world prices. It has banned the export of all forms of rice other than luxury basmati.

11 China Unusually severe blizzards have dramatically cut agricultural production and sent prices for food staples soaring. The overall food inflation rate is 18.2%. The cost of pork has increased by more than half. The cost of food was rising fast even before the bad weather moved in, as an increasingly prosperous population began to demand as staples agricultural products previously seen as luxuries. The government has increased taxes and imposed quotas on food exports, while removing duties on food imports.

12 Thailand The government is planning to freeze prices of rice, cooking oil and noodles.

13 Malaysia and the Philippines Malaysia is planning strategic stockpiles of the country's staples. Meanwhile the Philippines has made an unusual plea to Vietnam to guarantee its rice supplies. Imports were previously left to the global market.

14 Indonesia Food price rises have triggered protests and the government has had to increase its food subsidies by over a third to contain public anger.
FAQ: Food prices


Few winners and many losers

What is the problem?

In the three decades to 2005, world food prices fell by about three-quarters in inflation-adjusted terms, according to the Economist food prices index. Since then they have risen by 75%, with much of that coming in the past year. Wheat prices have doubled, while maize, soya and oilseeds are at record highs.

Why are food prices rising?

The booming world economy has driven up prices for all commodities. Changes in diets have also played a big part. Meat consumption in many countries has soared, pushing up demand for the grain needed by cattle. Demand for biofuels has also risen strongly. This year, for example, one third of the US maize crop will go to make biofuels. Moreover, the gradual reform and liberalisation of agricultural subsidy programmes in the US and Europe have reduced the butter and grain mountains of yesteryear by eliminating overproduction.

Who are the winners and losers?

Farmers are the obvious winners, as are poor countries that rely extensively on food exports. But consumers are having to pay more, and the urban poor in many developing states will be hardest hit, as they often spend more than a third of their income on food.

How long are prices likely to be high?

The US department for agriculture says the country's wheat stocks are at their lowest for 50 years and demand will continue to exceed supply this year. There is potential to bring more land into production in countries such as Ukraine, but that could take time. And as all foodstuffs have risen sharply in price there is little incentive for farmers to switch from one crop to another.

What about the EU's common agricultural policy?

High food prices certainly remove the need to subsidise farmers and so there is a chance, say experts, that badly needed reductions in CAP subsidies, which cost European taxpayers dearly, could now be within reach.

Are other commodity prices also rising?

Oil, metals and coal have seen their prices rise strongly as the global economy has expanded rapidly, driving up demand for almost everything,

particularly from emerging economies such as China and India. Some economists think speculation may also play a part. Disappointed by the sub-prime collapse and falling property values in many countries, investors have piled money into commodities.
Ashley Seager

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The real cost of palm oil

Andy Ho, Straits Times 28 Feb 08;

WHEN GOING GREEN GOES WRONG
A 2007 University of Leicester study found that for every hectare of oil palm, 170 tonnes of carbon are released into the air over the plantation's useful life of 25 years. By contrast, each hectare of peat-swamp absorbs 2.6 tonnes of carbon annually, so it stores 65 tonnes over 25 years. Producing palm oil on peatland, in other words, results in a net emission of carbon.

WE HAVE had bad air for the past few days. Prevailing winds have brought in the haze from Riau's forest fires. The culprits responsible for this are big plantation companies that burn forests to clear land to plant oil palm.

Widely used in food and cosmetics, palm oil accounts for 21 per cent of the global edible oils market. It is also used to make a renewable fuel called biodiesel, the main user of which is the European Union (EU).

In 2003, the EU announced it was mandating biofuels in 5.75 per cent of transportation by 2010, and 10 per cent by 2020. This initiative stoked investment in oil palm plantations and biodiesel refineries in Indonesia.

Since biodiesel is made from a plant, carbon is absorbed while the palm is growing, which is released when the green fuel is burned. Thus, compared to fossil fuels, biodiesel would be neutral in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it was argued.

We know now that things are not so simple. The process of producing palm oil itself takes a heavy toll on the environment. Still, the biofuel industry favours the palm as 1ha of it yields 20 tonnes of the crude. By contrast, biofuels like soybean and corn yield just 7.5 and 3 per cent of that, respectively.

By early last year, there were 6.1 million ha of oil palm in Indonesia, up from 600,000ha in 1985. Palm oil production rose from 157,000 tonnes in 1964 to 15.9 million tonnes in 2006, with exports jumping from 126,000 tonnes to 11.6 million tonnes in the same period. Last year, these exports were worth US$4.43 billion (S$6.3 billion).

As it is an important source of foreign exchange and employment, the Indonesian government wants to expand oil palm to the eastern part of the country. While Riau has the biggest area under palm cultivation now, plantation companies are being given forest concessions in Kalimantan, Irian Jaya and Sulawesi for further expansion.

It would be environmentally friendlier to rehabilitate disused rice paddies or old oil palm plantations, but that would cost more than clearing rainforests. Moreover, with forest concessions, companies can also sell the valuable tropical timber that they harvest.

The logging, however, is often uncontrolled, leading to the erosion of top soil that is then washed by rain into rivers, thus aggravating floods. Also, after the logging is done, firms tend to burn the logged-over areas to clear them, though this is illegal. Trees soak up carbon as they grow; when they are burned, they release it back into the atmosphere.

In addition, these forest fires often spread beyond their planned areas. At least 19 of Indonesia's protected national parks have been affected thus, including a Unesco-registered wetland in Sumatra.

Forest fires consumed 50,000 sq km of Indonesia's rainforests in 1994. Another 46,000 sq km went up in smoke in 1997-98. Of the 176 firms which used fires illegally to clear forests in 1997-98, 133 were oil palm companies. A 2007 United Nations Environment Programme report confirmed that planting oil palm was the main cause of deforestation in Indonesia.

Apart from rainforests, these companies also resort to clearing peat-swamp forests, which they first drain. Timber found in these forests is logged and the logged-over land is also cleared by burning. These boggy swamps absorb rain and run-off, thus helping to mitigate flooding and erosion. When they are drained and burned, however, the risk of flooding rises.

Moreover, these bogs have partially decomposed plant matter that has been sitting underground for centuries, effectively storing carbon. The 4 million ha of peatlands in Riau alone store 14.6 billion tonnes of carbon, experts estimate. When drained, the peat is exposed to oxygen and decomposes, thus releasing carbon. Of the 22.5 million ha of peatland in Indonesia, 10 million have been drained, studies estimate. When the peat-swamp forests are burned, the fires smoulder underground for years even if the surface fires are extinguished.

A 2007 University of Leicester study found that for every hectare of oil palm, 170 tonnes of carbon are released into the air over the plantation's useful life of 25 years. By contrast, each hectare of peat-swamp absorbs 2.6 tonnes of carbon annually, so it stores 65 tonnes over 25 years.

Producing palm oil on peatland, in other words, results in a net emission of carbon. This conclusion was supported by a study published in the journal Science this month. Peatland abuse has made Indonesia the third-largest carbon emitter in the world after the United States and China.

But it is rainforests, the world's richest ecosystems, that have captured the imagination of many. Not only do they house 70 per cent of all known flora and fauna species, they may also hold 200 species of trees per hectare compared to just a few in temperate forests.

Besides trees, rainforests contain innumerable species of vines, shrubs, mosses, and other plants. The unprecedented scale of deforestation in Indonesia - two-thirds of the forests in Sumatra and half in Borneo have been cleared - threatens many species.

Among the rainforest's more charismatic residents are mammals - like the Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran rhinoceros, the Sumatran orangutan, langurs, and so on. According to the World Conservation Union, 32 per cent of over 400 mammal species in Indonesia are threatened.

These animals can survive only in rainforests, not monoculture oil palm plantations where the varieties of leaves, fruits, roots and shoots they need to eat do not exist. The Conservation Union's authoritative Red List Of Threatened Species reports that 15 Indonesian species are critically endangered. A World Bank study has warned that Indonesia is 'almost certainly undergoing a species extinction spasm of planetary proportions'.

As if all this weren't enough, even processing the oil palm fruit can harm the environment. Because it must be processed within 24 hours of being harvesting, hundreds of small mills have been put up throughout rural Indonesia. Many of these discharge their effluent - oil residue and crushed shells - untreated into waterways. In Sumatra, in 2002, the Siak River was thus polluted, killing off thousands of fish. In 2003, the Kuning River in Sumatra suffered the same fate.

Admitting that such environmental consequences had not been anticipated when it mandated biofuels, the EU issued a new directive in January. This requires biofuels to show an overall cut of 35 per cent in carbon emissions compared to fossil fuels. However, the directive exempts biodiesel sourced from plantations established before 2003.

Indonesia exports 40 per cent of its crude palm oil to India and China, so no let-up in the expansion of the crop's cultivation is expected. Palm oil prices have been climbing uninterruptedly since mid2007, setting a new record of US$1,217 per tonne this week.

Don't hold your breath, haze or no haze.

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Market not the answer to climate change

Benjamin K. Sovacool & Toby J. Carroll, Straits Times 28 Feb 08;

EVIDENCE suggests that the market mechanisms currently being touted to address climate change could benefit the few in the short term - and fail all in the long term.

These market mechanisms include carbon trading (where licences to pollute one tonne of carbon are traded among firms) and carbon offsets (where developed countries build carbon-friendly infrastructure in the developing world). There are at least four reasons to be sceptical of their potential.

First, they attempt to reconcile a pro-growth model of development with improvements in the environment. This gives rise to a technocratic approach to the problem that has little chance of succeeding.

The problem with climate change is that reconciling infinite growth with the environment is no technical matter. Nature, unlike the paradigm of perpetual economic growth, appears to be rapidly approaching finite limits. Indeed, climatologists and atmospheric scientists have warned of the likelihood of tipping points, or climate-forcing thresholds, such as the extreme melting of ice or rising sea levels, beyond which changes are impossible to reverse.

Second, addressing climate change through carbon offsets will most likely be detrimental to many in the underdeveloped world.

Alternative transportation fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, for instance - promoted as a way for developed countries to 'offset' their emissions by investing in the developing world - have increased the global prices of corn, cassava, sugar cane, palm oil and soybeans. This has the largest impact on the poor, who spend 55 to 75 per cent of their income on food.

The recent 'tortilla riots' in Mexico, where the urban poor could not afford higher corn prices, and the 2006 Indonesian protests against high soybean and palm oil prices may be harbingers of more serious conflicts to come.

Third, the promotion of global offsets would penalise developing countries and solidify their dependence on developed nations. It would allow industrial nations to buy limitless amounts of cheap emission reductions in poor countries and bank them indefinitely for the future. This means that when developing nations are obliged to cut their own emissions, they would be left with only the most expensive options.

Fourth, offsets and carbon credits suffer from the assumption that a one-to-one relationship between carbon emissions and offsets exists. The energy-intensive nature of some offsets - such as carbon capture and sequestration - proves no such thing.

Accounting for the energy needed to capture, transport, inject and store carbon dioxide, firms have to sequester two to three tonnes to 'offset' every tonne they emit.

Moreover, efforts to offset carbon by means of afforestation (planting of trees), protecting existing grasslands and injecting carbon dioxide into underground caverns and aquifers run the risk of reaching biological saturation. Some forests can only store a certain amount of carbon no matter how many trees they have.

Also, investing purely in biological offsets such as plants could contribute dangerously to climate change if many of the world's forests turn from sinks (vegetation that absorbs carbon dioxide) to sources (vegetation that releases carbon dioxide). This is a real possibility given that forests and grasslands are at the ever-present mercy of floods, more severe weather, new strains of disease - not to mention vested interests that could later decide to alter land practices.

What we need is a qualitatively different approach - the equivalent of a 'Green New Deal' to address climate change. This would entail building informed constituencies for reform and social movements that can check the sources of climate-changerelated behaviour. It also entails recognising the qualitative differences among carbon mitigation and adaptation techniques. Not all carbon credits and offsets are 'equal', and they should not be treated as such.

The truth is the market is not always the best instrument to pursue public policy goals. The writers are research fellows at the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

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Solar Power's Greenhouse Emissions Measured

Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience Yahoo News 27 Feb 08;

Solar energy has long been touted as better for the environment than fossil fuels.

Increasingly, however, there are fears that making solar cells might release more hazardous pollution than fossil fuels would.

To ease those concerns, scientists studied the matter closely and now conclude that manufacturing solar cells produces far fewer air pollutants than conventional fossil-fuel-burning power plants.

The researchers gathered air pollution emissions data from 13 manufacturers of four major commercial types of solar cells in Europe and the United States from 2004 to 2006.

Making solar or photovoltaic cells requires potentially toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium. It even produces greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that contribute to global warming. Still, the researchers found that if people switched from conventional fossil fuel-burning power plants to solar cells, air pollution would be cut by roughly 90 percent.

Although manufacturing solar cells requires heavy metals, the researchers noted that coal and oil also contain heavy metals, which get released during combustion.

"One of the most promising photovoltaic technologies is based on cadmium telluride, but cadmium is one of the worst heavy metals. Still, if we compare direct emissions from production of cadmium telluride cells with coal power plants, toxic emissions would up 300 times lower," said researcher Vasilis Fthenakis, an environmental engineer at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y.

In fact, most of the toxic emissions from making solar cells come indirectly from fossil fuel-burning power plants, which provide the electricity needed for manufacture. Ironically, solar cell factories will likely need to rely on fossil fuels for power for a while, since solar power is too intermittent to use, Fthenakis explained, shutting down as it does when the sun goes down.

Still, Fthenakis added, scientists are researching ways to economically store power from solar cells on a large scale. Doing so could help lead to solar cell factories that run off solar power, "a self-sustained process," he told LiveScience.

Fthenakis and his colleagues detailed their findings in the March 15 issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

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Asia can lead the way in low-carbon aviation

Giovanni Bisignani, Straits Times Forum 28 Feb 08;

AVIATION is the lifeblood of the Asian economy. Across the region, 10.5 million aviation-related jobs support a US$807 billion (S$1.13 trillion) business. So it should come as no surprise that the industry is growing. What may surprise many is the responsible approach the air transport industry has taken globally to its environmental impact.

Let us start with the facts. T

he Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that aviation contributes 2 per cent of the world's man-made carbon dioxide. This is expected to grow to 3 per cent by 2050. This is far less than the current emissions from road transport, shipping, deforestation or energy production. Aviation is, and will remain, a small part of the big problem of climate change.

Being small is not a licence for complacency. And a growing carbon footprint would be unacceptable for any industry. The challenge is to keep the many benefits of aviation while eliminating the negatives.

Aviation has delivered impressive results. Over the last four decades, fuel efficiency has improved by 70 per cent. The billions being invested in new aircraft, some of which we saw at the recent Singapore Airshow, are helping to put aviation on target for a further 25 per cent improvement in fuel efficiency by 2020.

It is not just buying new aircraft. How we operate them has an important role to play.

The International Air Transport Association's (IATA) 'Green Teams' are working with airlines worldwide to identify environmental efficiencies.

Last year we identified operational measures that saved 7 million tonnes of CO2. Another 4 million tonnes of CO2 was saved by shortening more than 300 routes.

In Asia, re-organising air traffic over the Bay of Bengal is saving 50,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. Modernised approach procedures at Japanese airports will save 160,000 tonnes of CO2. And if we could sort out the tangle of air traffic procedures at the five airports in China's Pearl River Delta area, savings of 250,000 tonnes of CO2 are possible.

These achievements illustrate the positive impact of IATA's four- pillar strategy on climate change: invest in new technology; operate aircraft effectively; build and use efficient infrastructure; and provide positive economic incentives. Together, these initiatives have limited the annual growth of our carbon footprint to 3 per cent, even while air travel expands at 5 to 6 per cent.

But we are aiming much higher. Last June, I challenged the industry to achieve carbon-neutral growth, on the way to a carbon-free future, by developing a zero-emission aircraft in 50 years time.

The industry united behind this goal. The vision is ambitious, but it is possible for an industry that went from the Wright brothers to the jet age within a similar time frame.

Some potential building blocks for this future already exist, including solar power, hydrogen cells and biofuel. Last week, IATA signed an agreement to support 'Solar Impulse' - the solar airplane that will fly around the world with no fuel and zero emissions. And Virgin Atlantic, Boeing and General Electric are powering a plane using biofuel. None of these initiatives alone will deliver all of the answers. But together they are a spark for innovations that can move us forward.

Asia has a role in building this future. By 2010, intra-Asia traffic will be the largest single aviation market in the world. With size comes responsibility. And that extends to the environment. With an aircraft fleet that is two years younger than the global average of 11.8 years, Asia already has a head start on fuel efficiency. And the region's growth is a unique opportunity to develop leading-edge infrastructure.

Asia also has the opportunity to avoid the political hypocrisy that has characterised the debate on this issue in Europe.

Taxes applied in the name of the environment have only helped solve budget problems. Europe's rushed unilateral approach to include aviation in its emissions trading scheme is contrary to international treaties. The legal battles that are sure to follow will only distract attention from solving real issues - such as saving 12 million tonnes of CO2 with a single European sky for air traffic management, something that has been stalled for decades.

There are two unique opportunities for Asia. First, the Apec transport ministers laid the groundwork for environmental leadership last year with an agreement that technology, operations and infrastructure must be at the core of aviation's environmental agenda in the region. Turning this from words to reality would constitute real progress.

Second, the region's sovereign wealth funds could be used strategically to fund basic research in green technologies. And with the G-8 meeting in Japan later this year, there is a ready-made global stage for Asia to show its support for environmental responsibility.

The writer is the director-general and CEO of the International Air Transport Association.

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Lao villagers not ready for dam impact: group

Darren Schuettler, Reuters 27 Feb 08;

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Efforts to ease the social and environmental impact of a controversial dam in Communist Laos are behind schedule only months before its massive reservoir is flooded, an environmental group says.

"Water is due to begin rising in just a few months, but villagers are not ready to face NT2's impacts," International Rivers said in a report released this week after its latest visit to the Nam Theun 2 (NT2) hydropower project.

It highlights what the group says are shortcomings and delays in programs to compensate thousands of villagers on the Nakai Plateau and communities downstream affected by the $1.45 billion project in mountainous central Laos.

Stretching 200 km (125 miles) along the plateau, the 1,070-megawatt dam is the centerpiece of the tiny, landlocked country's plan to become a "battery" for the region and help pull its 5.8 million people out of poverty.

Nam Theun 2 is 70 percent complete and on track to begin operations in 2009, but the relocation of more than 6,200 villagers and plans to restore their livelihoods and those of thousands of others are behind schedule, the report said.

"Villagers, particularly those living downstream, are not ready to face Nam Theun 2's impacts and time is running short," said Shannon Lawrence, the group's Lao program director, referring to the reservoir flooding expected to begin in June.

A $16 million budget was inadequate to compensate more than 120,000 villagers downstream for loss of fisheries, "let alone to provide livelihood alternatives and flood and erosion protection," the report said.

The World Bank, a key backer of the dam 280 km (175 miles) southeast of Vientiane, said "there have been challenges in making sure the social and environmental aspects progressed at the same rate as the construction."

But Lao country manager Patchamuthu Illangovan said it was stepping up efforts to ensure affected people were looked after.

"Already, the project has provided significantly better housing to the affected people, better schools, better health clinics and better roads on the plateau," he said.

"It will deliver much more, to all the people of Laos, in the years ahead."

(Editing by Michael Battye and Jerry Norton)

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Alaska town sues 24 energy companies on climate change

Timothy Gardner, Reuters 27 Feb 08;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Alaskan village north of the Arctic Circle has filed suit in a U.S. District Court against 24 energy companies, in an attempt to link erosion damage from global warming to the defendants' actions.

Residents of Kivalina, a village of about 400 native Inupiat located on the tip of a barrier reef between the Chukchi Sea and two rivers, filed suit on Tuesday against the companies in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The suit is one of many global warming cases that have been filed after the U.N.'s climate change panel last year squarely placed the blame for global warming on human actions.

Village residents claimed that greenhouse gas emissions from the companies help warm the atmosphere and melt sea ice that used to protect them from winter storms. "Houses and buildings are in imminent danger of falling into the sea as the village is battered by storms and its ground crumbles from underneath it," the suit said.

The residents seek relocation costs which could run to $400 million.

Late last year, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offered a gloomy report on global warming's impact on the Arctic, finding less ice and hotter air.

The defendants, including Exxon Mobil Corp, BP Plc, Chevron Corp, coal miner Peabody Energy Corp, and power generator American Electric Power, are some of the largest producers of products that emit the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, or sell coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.

Matt Pawa, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an interview that under nuisance laws any major contributors to pollution problems can be sued.

He said since greenhouse gases combine together in the atmosphere to cause the overall problem of global warming, the biggest polluters can be blamed for contributing to the damage in Alaska. "Individual CO2 molecules don't have name tags," he said when asked if the companies could be directly linked to damage to the village.

The companies were chosen because they conduct some business in California, where the suit was filed. Pawa represented environmental groups in a successful automobile greenhouse emissions case in Vermont late last year that major automakers are appealing.

Gantt Walton, a spokesman for ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said the company had no comment on the case because it was still reviewing it.

He said ExxonMobil takes global warming "very seriously" and that the risks have warranted action by the company including reducing greenhouse gas emissions at its operations and supporting research into technology that could lead to breakthroughs.

Representatives of two other companies, Peabody and Chevron, did not immediately return telephone calls.

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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BP CEO says no gain from green investment

Tom Bergin, Reuters 27 Feb 08;

LONDON (Reuters) - BP Plc's Chief Executive said the oil giant's shares have received little, if any, uplift from its investments in renewable energy and hinted the company may sell some of its wind, solar and biofuels operations.

In his first strategy presentation as CEO, Tony Hayward said BP's strong asset base of hydrocarbons could support production of 4 million barrels per day to 2020, and that he was making good progress in turning around BP's troubled refinery division.

However, Europe's second-largest fully publicly traded oil company by market value said it was taking a new approach to its Alternative Energy unit, which was much prized by Hayward's predecessor, John Browne.

While Browne saw renewable energy as core to BP's operations -- highlighted in the "Beyond Petroleum" branding BP spent tens of millions of dollars advertising -- the oil giant now sees its alternative energy unit as simply a portfolio of investments.

A spokesman said the unit or its constituents could be floated or sold in parts. Nothing is on the cards currently, but this may change in the coming year.

"Taking stock market valuations for similar companies, we estimate it is already worth between $5 billion and $7 billion," Hayward said.

"What we will be doing over the course of the year will be looking at ways of realizing that value for shareholders because none of us believe that there is very much of that, if anything, in our share price today," he added.

The spokesman denied the shift represented a lessening in BP's commitment to renewable energy.

Environmental campaigners always dismissed the "Beyond Petroleum" campaign and said BP's much advertised investments in green energy, which represented about 1 percent of the company's total capital expenditure in recent years, was simply a token.

The London-based company was formerly known as British Petroleum.

Tony Hayward said that since his appointment, he had reviewed the business in detail to identify and remedy flaws which in recent years led to delays on big projects, pipeline leaks in Alaska and fatal accidents at U.S. refineries.

He said he was making "significant progress" in restructuring the underperforming oil giant, and that his plan should add billions of dollars in profits.

"We have made significant progress at BP over the past 10 months, quietly and without fuss," Hayward said.

In its refining division, BP said its underperformance compared to rivals meant it was earning $3.5 billion-$4 billion less per year than it should.

The company aims to reduce this by nearly half by end-2009 with most of the remainder of the shortfall slated to be made up in 2010-2011.

BP's shares closed 0.88 percent lower at 561-1/2 pence, underperforming a 0.49 percent drop in the DJ Stoxx European oil and gas sector index.

(Editing by Rory Channing/Elaine Hardcastle)

BP says shares don't benefit from green energy ops
Reuters 27 Feb 08;

LONDON (Reuters) - BP Plc's shares have not received an uplift from its investments in renewable and alternative energy such as wind, solar and motor fuels made from crops, the company's chief executive said on Wednesday.

Tony Hayward told a webcast for investors that the Alternative Energy unit was worth between $5 billion and $7 billion.

"What we will be doing over the course of the year will be looking at ways of realizing that value for shareholders because none of us believe that there is very much of that, if anything, in our share price today," Hayward said.

Bob Dudley, the head of BP's Russian unit added the company remained committed to its operations around Sakhalin Island off Russia's east coast, despite some early exploration disappointments.

(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Erica Billingham)

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Local man leads mangrove tours in Bali

Irawaty Wardany, The Jakarta Post 27 Feb 08;

Sukitra wasn't born a conservationist. It was a turn of events in his home village of Jungut Batu that transformed him into a leading figure of mangrove conservation.

"Several years ago, the villagers decided to open a large-scale salt farm on the beach near the village. In order to do so, we cleared the mangrove forest along the village's coast," he told The Jakarta Post last week.

It was a doomed enterprise. It turned out that salt farming was a grueling endeavor with a large window for failure. Moreover, the clearing of the mangroves made the village more vulnerable to natural disaster.

"The mangrove forest was a natural barrier. When it was gone, the sea water could easily reach our village and it did flood the village several times," he said.

Jungut Batu lies in the northern part of Nusa Lembongan, one of the three islands off Bali's southeastern coast. Nusa Lembongan is a favorite destination for visitors who yearn for a quiet hideaway with a fantastic beach.

The villagers abandoned salt farming and sought their fortunes in seaweed farming. They also replanted the mangrove forest.

"One day a French man came here and he was amazed to see how healthy and abundant the mangrove forest was," Sukitra said.

The foreign visitor later told Sukitra the mangrove forest had promise as a tourist attraction.

"I was so inspired by what he said that later I approached my fellow villagers and asked them to join me in establishing a group that would manage the mangrove forest as a tourist attraction," he said.

In 2000, Sukitra and 18 other villagers worked together and formed the group. It was later named the Mangrove Tour Group and Sukitra was elected its head.

"Each member provided one boat to the group. The boats would be used to take visitors on a tour across the forest," he said.

For a single trip of around 30 minutes, the group charges each visitor Rp 50,000 (US$5.40).

"We set aside Rp 5,000 for the village and Rp 2,000 for the group's fund and the remaining Rp 43,000 goes to the boat owners," he said.

The mangrove tour provides additional income to the group's members, who work mostly as seaweed farmers.

Sukitra said now the group had 33 members. Once a month, all the members participate in a clean-up activity to comb the forest looking for garbage.

Unfortunately, said Sukitra, the group had yet to receive proper support from village leaders.

"This group has yet to be officially acknowledged by the head of the village even though we have set aside a percentage of our income for the village," he said.

An outreach specialist of the Nature Conservancy, Marthen Welly, said he was impressed with the group's efforts.

"They are able to organize themselves in preserving this mangrove forest. All we have to do is to facilitate cooperation between the group and the village so that this place can be better promoted and developed," he said.

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