Researchers: City residents produce less carbon

H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press Yahoo News 29 May 08;

While cities are hot spots for global warming, people living in them turn out to be greener than their country cousins.

Each resident of the largest 100 largest metropolitans areas is responsible on average for 2.47 tons of carbon dioxide in energy consumption each year, 14 percent below the 2.87 ton U.S. average, researchers at the Brookings Institution say in a report being released Thursday.

Those 100 cities still account for 56 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide pollution. But their greater use of mass transit and population density reduce the per person average. "It was a surprise the extent to which emissions per capita are lower," Marilyn Brown, a professor of energy policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of the report, said in an interview.

Metropolitan area emissions of carbon dioxide are highest in the eastern U.S., where people rely heavily on coal for electricity, the researchers found. They are lower in the West, where weather is more favorable and where electricity and motor fuel prices have been higher.

The study examined sources and use of residential electricity, home heating and cooling, and transportation in 2005 in the largest 100 metropolitan areas where two-thirds of the people in the U.S. live. It attributed a wide disparity among the 100 cities to population density, availability of mass transit and weather.

Lexington, Ky., had the biggest per capita carbon footprint: Each resident on average accounted for 3.81 tons of carbon dioxide in their energy usage. At the other end of the scale was Honolulu, at 1.5 tons per person.

Carbon dioxide is released from burning fossil fuels and is the leading "greenhouse gas." It drifts into the atmosphere and forms a blanket that traps the Earth's warmth. About 6.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released into air annually in the United States.

From 2000 to 2005, carbon dioxide from transportation, electricity use and residential heating in the largest metropolitan areas increased 7.5 percent. For the entire nation, it rose 9.1 percent. The average per capita footprint in those 100 cities rose at an annual rate of 1.1 percent a year, half the average yearly increase of 2.2 percent nationwide.

In explaining differences among cities, the researchers cited weather, the type of fuel used for heating and cooling, the development of rail transportation, the amount of urban sprawl and the cost of energy.

Cities with the largest carbon footprints are mostly in the eastern half of the country from Indiana to western Pennsylvania — areas that rely heavily on coal for electricity production and natural gas for heating.

The smallest carbon footprint was in cities in the West and New England.

Half of the dozen cities with the stingiest carbon output were in California, where electricity prices and motor fuels are expensive. Also cited was the Seattle-Portland, Ore., region, which relies heavily on hydropower.

Cities in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana dominated the bottom tier of high carbon emitters.

These urban areas are "kind of a poster child of what high carbon intensive growth looks like," said Brown. She noted their reliance on coal for electricity and natural gas for heating, a shortage of mass transit, and often older, energy-inefficient buildings.

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Another flood may hit Jakarta next week

Straits Times 30 May 08;

JAKARTA - THE World Bank warned yesterday that an exceptionally high tide could inundate the Indonesian capital next week, forcing thousands of people to flee homes and cutting off the highway to the international airport.

The situation - exasperated by global warming and the fact that Jakarta is sinking by up to 6cm a year - could mean flooding will exceed last November's roof- high levels in the hardest-hit areas, said Mr Hongjoo Hahm, the bank's infrastructure expert.

'This is just the beginning,' he said, as he pointed to homes reaching 1.5km inland that will likely be affected next Tuesday and Wednesday by the 18-year semi-annual tide cycle. 'It's getting worse and worse.'

Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago nation, is one of the world's largest contributors of carbon dioxide emissions, thanks to its rapid pace of deforestation. But experts say the country is also at risk of becoming one of the biggest victims of climate change.

Rising sea waters especially pose a threat to coastal cities like Jakarta, which has sunk at least 2m in the past three decades because of excessive ground water extraction, said Mr Hahm.

Eventually, the government should consider building a Dutch-style dike to protect the Jakarta Bay, he said, 'but that will cost billions of US dollars'.

One reason for the exceptionally high 18-year tide cycles was the combination of the moon's gravitational pull and an anomaly in sea level caused by Earth's own atmospheric pressure, he said.

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New Zealand moves to protect rare dolphins

Reuters 29 May 08;

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand plans to ban commercial fishing near its coast and set up marine reserves to protect the rare Hector's dolphins, a government minister said on Thursday

The Hector's dolphin is estimated to number around 7,400 from 29,000 in the late 1970s. However, one of its sub-species, the Maui dolphin, is said to be the rarest in the world and facing extinction with as few as 111 animals left.

Fishing is blamed for up to three-quarters of the known deaths of Hector's dolphins.

"The measures strike the best achievable balance between the protection of these iconic dolphins and the activities of our commercial and recreational fishers," said Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton.

He said the measures were estimated to cost the commercial fishing industry up to 295 jobs and NZ$79.1 million over the next 10 years.

The dolphins grow to around 1.4 meters (40 inches) compared with up to 4 meters for the common Bottlenose dolphin, live around 20 years, and breed slowly.

They usually live in small groups of no more than five and feed on inshore fish species, which brings them into contact with fishing nets.

However, conservationists said the measures were barely adequate.

"At best today's decision is a half measure that fails to ensure the dolphins' recovery or survival," said Dr Barbara Mass of the Care for the Wild International group.

The commercial fishing industry said the decision would not save any more dolphins, but would ruin some businesses.

(Reporting by Gyles Beckford; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

New Zealand plan to save rarest dolphin
Nick Squires, The Telegraph 29 May 08;

New Zealand announced tough new measures today to save the world's rarest and smallest dolphin from extinction.

But the initiative will cost millions of pounds and threaten the livelihoods of fishermen.

The establishment of marine sanctuaries, together with the banning of coastal net fishing and trawling, is designed to help conserve the last remaining 110 Maui's dolphins.

The conservation measures will also benefit the Hector's dolphin, which has declined from an estimated 29,000 in the 1970s to just 7,000.

"Clearly we've got iconic species here... they only exist in New Zealand," said Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton. "And under business as usual, inevitably (we will) watch the Maui's dolphin (become) an extinct population.

"We're going to give it a go, particularly for Maui's dolphins, to see if on our watch we can save them. We may not be able to," he said.

Fishing is blamed for up to three-quarters of the known deaths of Hector's dolphins, which become entangled in nets and injured by boats.

"The measures strike the best achievable balance between the protection of these iconic dolphins and the activities of our commercial and recreational fishers," said Mr Anderton.

He conceded that the measures would cost the commercial fishing industry nearly 300 jobs and NZ$79 million over the next decade.

"This is not an easy decision to make when you know you're going to put fishermen . . . out of business."

Hector's and Maui's dolphins are black, grey and white and reach about 5ft in length. They live for around 20 years but breed slowly. They feed on inshore fish species, which brings them into contact with fishing nets.

However, conservationists said the measures were not enough to save the species from extinction.

"At best today's decision is a half measure that fails to ensure the dolphins' recovery or survival," said Dr Barbara Mass of Care for the Wild International.

The head of the Seafood Industry Council, Owen Symmans, said the government was putting small fishermen out of business without any compensation and with little benefit to dolphins.

"It will not save one extra Maui's dolphin," he said, insisting that previously enacted laws already ensured that dolphins were not captured or harmed by fishermen.

A dolphin expert, Liz Slooten from Otago University, said the measures would probably keep the populations static, but would not help them recover.

Hector's dolphins live on the east and south coast of the South Island while Maui's dolphins, a sub species, live on the west coast of the North Island.

New Zealand tries to save 2 endangered dolphins
Yahoo News 29 May 08;

The New Zealand government banned coastal net fishing and announced new marine mammal sanctuaries Thursday in a bid to prevent the extinction of two indigenous dolphin species.

The tough new measures ban net fishing and trawling in areas ranging out to 1.2 to 7.7 miles from the shore in the dolphins' living areas around both main islands.

They are expected to cost the country's coastal fishing industry $62 million and as many as 295 jobs over the next five years.

The number of indigenous Hector's dolphins has declined from an estimated 29,000 in the 1970s to just 7,000, while there are only 111 remaining Maui's dolphins.

Officials said the tiny Maui's dolphin could be extinct within a few years — a warning that prompted the government action.

"Clearly we've got iconic species here ... they only exist in New Zealand," said Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton. "And under business as usual inevitably (we will) watch the Maui's dolphin ... (become) an extinct population."

"We're going to give it a go, particularly for Maui's dolphins, to see if on our watch we can save them. We may not be able to," he told National Radio.

The coastal fishing ban will protect most of the dolphins' habitats, Anderton said.

"This is not an easy decision to make when you know you're going to put fishermen ... out of business," he said.

Seafood Industry Council chief executive Owen Symmans said it was unhappy with the decision because the government was putting small fishermen out of business without any compensation "and for no real gain" to the dolphin.

"It will not save one extra Maui's dolphin," he said, asserting that previous catch controls already ensured that dolphins were not captured or harmed by fishermen.

Chris Howe, executive director of the World Wildlife Fund's New Zealand branch, earlier said that photographs of 22 common dolphins killed in trawler nets off North Island's west coast last December — released by the government in mid-March — proved that the fishing controls would not protect the endangered dolphins.

The Forest and Bird conservation group's advocacy manager, Kevin Hackwell, praised the government for taking the most significant action in 20 years to save the two species.

"The measures will go a long way toward halting the decline of the endangered dolphins and begin the slow path to recovery," he said.

But Green Party lawmaker Metiria Turei said the sanctuaries needed to extend farther out into the ocean.

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Balkan nations agree on wildlife protection steps

Madeline Chambers, Reuters 29 May 08;

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Six southeastern European countries on Thursday agreed to boost cross-border conservation efforts in an area of the Balkans especially rich in wildlife.

The governments of Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia said they would create 13 new protected areas and extend nine others in the Dinaric Arc, an area which stretches from Trieste in Italy to Tirana in Albania.

The area is home to healthy populations of large carnivores, including bears, lynxes, wolves and golden jackals, and large areas of undamaged forest. Environmentalists also say its freshwater ecosystems are the richest in the Mediterranean.

The announcement, made at a U.N. meeting on protecting the diversity of plant and animal life, brings the governments closer to agreeing a coordinated vision for the region, said conservation group WWF, which has been working on the initiative.

"This network will fill a crucial gap in a pan-European network stretching from France to Greece, ensuring shelter for threatened species as well as corridors for species' mobility," said Paolo Lombardi, director of WWF's Mediterranean Programme.

Under the agreement, Albania will enlarge the surface of its protected zones by at least 40,000 hectares (98,840 acres), while Bosnia will create three new protected areas in its central mountain region.

Croatia will boost the management of five marine protected areas and establish two new land parks, while Montenegro will create two land and three new marine parks. It will also harmonize its domestic nature protection rules with EU laws.

Serbia will establish a new protected area and enlarge one into a cross-border reserve. Slovenia has agreed to increase its protected area network in the Dinaric region by 2.5 percent.

The six countries -- some of them former enemies who fought against each other in the last 20 years -- have also committed to evaluating the effectiveness of existing management in their protected areas system.

WWF and organizations including UNESCO, IUCN, the Council of Europe and Euronatur have been working since 2005 on boosting cooperation between governments, international bodies and regional and international conservation partners.

The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity conference, which ends on Friday, is trying to agree on ways to reduce the speed at which species are dying out because of threats including deforestation, pollution and climate change.

U.N. experts say three species vanish every hour and the planet is facing the most serious spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers, editing by Alister Doyle and Mary Gabriel)

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Battle plan to repel nature's invaders

David Adam, The Guardian 29 May 08;

Foreign invaders with their sights on Britain's native plants and animals will be countered by a special rapid response unit, under plans announced by the government yesterday.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said non-native species such as floating pennywort and American mink damage Britain's wildlife and cost the economy some £2bn a year. Under the plan, Defra says efforts to spot such invaders will be better coordinated and action to repel them taken earlier.

The plans for England, Scotland and Wales include educating people on the dangers of such species and a web-based directory showing which invasive plants and animals are found in specific areas and how they spread.

According to a study in 2005, there are more than 3,000 non-native species now wild in Britain, with some 2,721 in England alone - of which two thirds are plants. Climate change is expected to bring more foreign species, as rising temperatures encourage them to establish themselves in new areas.

Jeff Rooker, minister for sustainable food and farming and animal health, said: "The introduction of species over thousands of years has shaped British wildlife and the countryside that we love. But non-native species that are invasive can have a serious impact on native wildlife and are estimated to cost the British economy at least £2bn a year. "

Some of Britain's best loved wildlife, including bluebells, red squirrels and water voles, are threatened by invasive species. Water voles have declined by 90% since 1990 because of habitat loss and the spread of American mink which prey on them. British bluebells are threatened because they hybridise with Spanish bluebells. The red squirrel has suffered since the introduction in the 19th century of the stronger, more adaptable, grey squirrel.

Some invaders pose a risk to human health. The oak processionary moth has hairs that cause irritation, while giant hogweed sap causes blistering. Invasive non-native species can also affect agriculture, forestry and fisheries, Defra said.

The strategy also aims to co-ordinate existing programmes to tackle invasive species which have established themselves, Defra said. It is being launched as ministers and officials from around the world meet for the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, Germany, to discuss attempts to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Invasive species are considered to be one of the greatest threats - along with habitat loss - to wildlife worldwide.

A report this month from environment group WWF and the Zoological Society of London said that more than one in four of all individual animals, birds and fish on the planet have disappeared in just over 30 years.

Experts have put the cost of removing the invasive Japanese knotweed from Britain at £1.6bn. The plant has no natural enemies here and causes problems through rapid invasion of habitats, exclusion of other plants, and damage to property.
The invaders

Azolla fern
A fast growing floating aquatic plant, capable of spreading completely over lake surfaces in a matter of months.

Marsh frog
The amphibian giant that can grow to 17cm long has hopped across the channel.

Red-eared terrapin
Originally from the US, these foot-long former pets can terrorise ducklings.

American mink
Farmed until the 1980s, hungry escaped minks are blamed for the collapse in water vole numbers.

Japanese knotweed
Known in Japanese as Itadori, which means simply "strong plant". Gardeners across the country will agree.

Defra launches invasive species strategy
Caroline Gammell, The Telegraph 28 May 08;

Rising global temperatures are fuelling the growth of invasive foreign plants and animals in Britain and putting hundreds of native species at risk, the Government has warned.

The spread of these non indigenous species is considered the second biggest threat to British wildlife - after habitat loss - and costs the economy between £2 and £6 billion a year.

Iconic native plants and animals, such as bluebells, red squirrels and water voles, are all under threat.

The problem is expected to get worse as warmer temperatures encourage the migration of these hostile species, which include floating pennywort, American mink and Chinese mitten crab.

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries are all affected by the spread of such plants and animals, the Government said.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs today launched its strategy to combat the problem, raising awareness of the offending plants and animals and plans to develop a "rapid response" to control the invasive species.

The scheme, which will affect England, Scotland and Wales, includes an online directory of where the foreign plants and animals can be found and how they spread.

Environment Minister Jeff Rooker said: "Non-native species that are invasive can have a serious impact on native wildlife and are estimated to cost the British economy at least £2 billion a year.

"And with climate change the threat becomes greater. For the first time we now have a co-ordinated plan to tackle this."

There are more than 3,000 foreign species flourishing in the wild in Britain and 66 per cent are plants. Although not all are invasive, those that are tend to colonise and dominate an area.

Hottentot Fig, originally from South Africa, grows up to a metre a year and one plant can spread to a 50 metre area if not controlled.

It chokes other native plants and threatens coastal habitats and is considered a particular problem on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall.

Japanese knotweed grows rapidly, dominating other plants and also causes damage to properties, growing through tarmac and floors.

The cost of removing the weed from Britain has been estimated by the plant charity Plantlife to be £1.56 billion so far.

Indigenous water voles have declined by 90 per cent since 1990 because of a combination of habitat loss and the spread of American mink which preys on them, while British bluebells are under threat because they cross-breed with Spanish bluebells.

The introduction of the grey squirrel in the 19th century is one of the best known examples of invasion by a foreign species, its ability to carry the squirrelpox virus which is lethal to red squirrels.

The native squirrel is now restricted to Scotland, Cumbria, Northumbria, the Isle of Wight and the islands of Poole Harbour.

White-clawed crayfish have suffered since the North American signal crayfish was introduced for commercial farming in the 1970s.

The foreign species carries crayfish plague which is deadly for the indigenous species and competes for habitat and food. White-clawed crayfish are now listed as globally threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Dr Debbie Pain, director of conservation at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust where the Defra scheme was launched, said her organisation had struggled to control the American Azolla fern.

"Sadly we face a constant battle as species encroach from neighbouring waterways. Much of the problem is the lack of awareness of the damage some species can do."

Eladio Fernandez-Galiano, head of the Biological Diversity Unit at the Council of Europe added: "Invasive alien species is one of the rising threats for biological diversity.

"In these times of climate change, more and more species will arrive and spread in our native ecosystems changing their character and singularity."

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Plastic waste – more than just unsightly debris!

Nic Slocum, The Southern Star 30 May 08

Since Methuselah’s grandfather was a small boy, sailors have used the oceans as a dumping ground for waste products. Local pollution incidents, largely reversible, would undoubtedly have occurred during these earlier times caused by those living on the seashore or waterways flowing to the coast.

During the last 60 years the nature and amount of waste we dump into the oceans, either directly or inadvertently, has changed dramatically causing possibly irreversible damage to marine ecosystems on a scale proving difficult to measure. Damage that may have far-reaching effects, not only on marine life but ultimately on human health.

Polluting marine debris originates from a variety of sources. Items discarded or lost by those who live, work or play next to the ocean, waste deliberately discarded from ships and offshore drilling platforms and material that originates further inland but is carried to the sea via rivers and estuarine outflows. Of the staggering array of beverage cans, styrofoam cups, polystyrene packaging, discarded polypropylene fish netting and line, plastic carrier bags, disposable lighters, balloons, bottles, bottle caps, oil drums and cartons ending up in the ocean, plastic items and their derivatives pose the greatest threat to creatures both large and small.

What happens to plastic in the ocean?

Of an annual global production of 100 million tonnes of plastic, a tiny 5% gets recycled. Much of the remainder ends up in landfills but an estimated 20 million tonnes end up in our oceans. The visible evidence of this plastic debris, some of which washes up on our shores, belies a more sinister and potentially larger problem. Plastic is valued for its resistance to degradation, which gives it a lifespan of hundreds of years in the marine environment. The bigger plastic items, when subjected to sunlight, wave action and mechanical abrasion simply break down into increasingly smaller, but no less indestructible particles that disperse over an ever-widening area of ocean. It is calculated that a single 1 litre plastic bottle could break down in this way to produce enough smaller fragments to put one particle per mile on every beach across the globe!

These smaller fragments of plastic debris combine with small pellets, the form in which many new plastics are marketed and distributed around the world. These degraded particles and pelleted plastic join with the plethora of other plastic debris to form ‘rafts’ of floating debris. Much attention has been given to these floating islands of discarded plastic; not so much because of the vast tonnage that finds its way ashore but more because they have been found to preferentially accumulate in parts of the ocean where wind is light, currents are circular and there are few land masses for this debris to be washed up on.

The North Pacific sub tropical gyre

Just such an area exists off the western seaboard of the USA. The North Pacific sub-tropical gyre is a large body of water that turns in a clockwise slow spiral. The winds are light in this area of the ocean and the nature of the current tends to cause plastic material to accumulate towards the centre of the gyre in enormous quantities. Studies have shown the volume of plastic in this gyre is so great that for every kilo of naturally produced plankton there are 6 kilos of plastic debris currently covering an area of ocean the size of Texas! This slow moving spiral of micro and macro plastic debris has been nicknamed the ‘Asian Trash Trail’ or, in deference to the increasingly galactic proportions of rubbish accumulating, the ‘Trash Vortex’. This North Pacific Ocean gyre is one of five oceanic gyres around the globe, which may exhibit similar vortices of discarded plastic. A slow circulation area in the Atlantic that has been studied is the Sargasso Sea. Unsurprisingly, large amounts of particulate plastic have been recorded in the water there.

Death and destruction

Unsightly as these oceanic gyres of plastic debris are, the damage occurs when wildlife interacts with them. From marine mammals to the smaller bird species, these items are mistaken for prey items and ingested, frequently causing death through poisoning, blockage or simply subduing the hunger reflex. Conservative estimates put the number of birds killed annually around the globe as a result of ingesting plastic items or becoming entangled in plastic bags or twine at one million. Additionally, over one hundred thousand marine mammals and sea turtles are estimated to die annually as a result of entanglement or ingestion. Over a thousand pieces of plastic were found in the stomach and intestines of a large pacific leatherback turtle washed ashore dead on the Hawaiian islands recently. Closer to home, a study published in 2005 looked at the pelagic seabird, the fulmar, so familiar to us here along the Cork coastline. Over 95% of birds washed up dead in countries surrounding the North Sea had fragments of plastic in their stomachs. One bird recovered from Denmark had a staggering 20 grams of plastic in its stomach; in human terms this is equivalent to around 2 kilograms. Fulmars, like many other pelagic species, feed on floating offal, much of it discarded from fishing vessels and frequently mistake floating plastic debris for food. The latest findings of this ongoing study found that those fulmars most contaminated were recovered alongside the busiest shipping lanes, which, according to the marine biologist leading the project, strongly suggests illegal dumping of waste at sea by fishing boats, other commercial shipping and offshore installations. The presence of fragments of balloons, plastic bags and bottles and other packaging suggests that some of this contaminating plastic originated from the land.

A sinister sting in the tail

Unexpectedly, a group of Japanese scientists found that these plastic fragments can concentrate some of the most harmful chemical pollutants present in the ocean, the persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and act as a chemical sponge concentrating these harmful compounds to as much as a million times the concentration than in the surrounding seawater. Additionally, plastics themselves are capable of leaching out endocrine disrupting chemicals, a byproduct of their manufacture. Marine organisms that consume this contaminated plastic debris imbibe a lethal cocktail of harmful, long-lived man-made chemicals capable of disrupting breeding patterns and reducing immune capability.

Many of the larger pieces of floating plastic that contaminate our oceans affect marine ecosystems in surprising ways. Plants and animals colonising floating plastic debris may be transported by currents far outside their normal habitat ranges, ultimately colonising areas they would not traditionally be found in. These introduced species may become ‘nuisance’ colonisers upsetting the balance of an ecosystem to the detriment of rarer, potentially economically more important species.

Not all plastic floats

Not all plastic debris that finds its way to the sea floats. Nearly 70% sinks and can – and does – smother bottom-dwelling organisms. A recent study of the North Sea by Dutch scientists found 110 pieces of plastic refuse for every square kilometre leading to estimates that the North Sea alone harbours a staggering 600,000 tonnes of litter on its polluted bottom. Following ratification of annex five of the MARPOL convention designed to prevent pollution by garbage from ships, the amount of marine debris, including plastics, declined. Recent years have seen an increase again with beaches both locally and worldwide bearing witness to the vast amounts of plastic debris continuing to find its way into our oceans.

Most marine scientists agree that over-fishing and habitat destruction through trawling is the most important issue facing marine ecosystems today – pollution by plastic debris lines up as a close second, alongside persistent organic chemicals and noise, as long-term pollutants – the effects of which we have yet to fully comprehend.

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Canadian plastic industry lashes out over bag bans

Ashleigh Patterson, Reuters 29 may 08;

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian plastic industry is lashing out at growing movement to eliminate plastic shopping bags, saying that an outright ban could cause more environmental harm than good.

"I think, generally speaking, there was always a kind of anti-plastic sentiment out there, Serge Lavoie, president and CEO of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, said on Wednesday. "We're a high-profile target."

Earlier this week, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario -- the provincially owned chain of 598 stores -- announced it would phase out plastic bags as part of ongoing efforts to become more environmentally friendly, offering paper or reusable fabric bags instead.

The LCBO joins a growing list of retailers and municipalities across Canada -- as in other countries -- that are looking to cut down on or phase out plastic bags.

But the CPIA contends banning plastic bags will fail to change consumers' behavior and may actually lead to more waste plastic as people switch to alternatives.

After Ireland imposed a tax on plastic shopping bags in 2002, consumers switched to heavy-duty kitchen catchers bought off the shelf. The amount of plastic shopping bags handed out fell by 90 percent, but the net result was a 21 percent increase in plastic used, according to the Packaging and Industrial Films Association.

"Consumers in your municipality will respond the same way to a ban on plastic shopping bags," a recent CPIA report says.

A better alternative is boosting existing recycling programs to recover and reuse plastic bags, Lavoie said.

The market for recycled bags is estimated at C$2 billion ($2 billion) in North America with the material used for products such as decking and garden trays.

Beatrice Olivastri, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Canada, said the industry has had decades to develop successful recycling programs but have "dodged that investment."

"I have no confidence, based on the performance in the last decade or two of the plastic's industry, that they really have viable recycling facilities up and running that can accommodate this sort of stuff," Olivastri said on Thursday.

Responding to criticism that the industry is being vilified, Olivastri said producers were "getting the lumps that they deserve for underwhelming performance."

According to Environment Canada, Canadians use some 55 million plastic shopping bags each week.

($1=$0.99 Canadian)

(Reporting by Ashleigh Patterson; editing by Rob Wilson)

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World food problem due to rising demand

It can be alleviated by expansion in food production through global cooperation
Amartya Sen, Business Times 30 May 08;

(CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts) Will the food crisis that is menacing the lives of millions ease up or grow worse over time? The answer may be both.

The recent rise in food prices has largely been caused by temporary problems like drought in Australia, Ukraine and elsewhere. Though the need for huge rescue operations is urgent, the present acute crisis will eventually end. But underlying it is a basic problem that will only intensify unless we recognise it and try to remedy it.

It is a tale of two peoples. In one version of the story, a country with a lot of poor people suddenly experiences fast economic expansion, but only half of the people share in the new prosperity.

The favoured ones spend a lot of their new income on food, and unless supply expands very quickly, prices shoot up. The rest of the poor now face higher food prices but no greater income, and begin to starve.

Tragedies like this happen repeatedly in the world. A stark example is the Bengal famine of 1943, during the last days of the British rule in India. The poor who lived in cities experienced rapidly rising incomes, where huge expenditures for the war against Japan caused a boom that quadrupled food prices. The rural poor faced these skyrocketing prices with little increase in income.

Misdirected government policy worsened the division. The British rulers were determined to prevent urban discontent during the war, so the government bought food in the villages and sold it, heavily subsidised, in the cities, a move that increased rural food prices even further. Low earners in the villages starved. Two million to three million people died in that famine and its aftermath.

Much discussion is rightly devoted to the division between haves and have-nots in the global economy, but the world's poor are themselves divided between those who are experiencing high growth and those who are not.

The rapid economic expansion in countries like China, India and Vietnam tends to sharply increase the demand for food. This is, of course, an excellent thing in itself, and if these countries could manage to reduce their unequal internal sharing of growth, even those left behind there would eat much better.

But the same growth also puts pressure on global food markets - sometimes through increased imports, but also through restrictions or bans on exports to moderate the rise in food prices at home, as has happened recently in countries like India, China, Vietnam and Argentina. Those hit particularly hard have been the poor, especially in Africa.

There is also a high-tech version of the tale of two peoples. Agricultural crops like corn and soya beans can be used for making ethanol for motor fuel. So the stomachs of the hungry must also compete with fuel tanks.

Misdirected government policy plays a part here, too. In 2005, the US Congress began to require widespread use of ethanol in motor fuels. This law combined with a subsidy for this use has created a flourishing corn market in the US, but has also diverted agricultural resources from food to fuel. This makes it even harder for the hungry stomachs to compete.

Ethanol use does little to prevent global warming and environmental deterioration, and clear-headed policy reforms could be urgently carried out, if American politics would permit it. Ethanol use could be curtailed, rather than being subsidised and enforced.

The global food problem is not being caused by a falling trend in world production, or for that matter in food output per person (this is often asserted without much evidence). It is the result of accelerating demand. However, a demand-induced problem also calls for rapid expansion in food production, which can be done through more global cooperation.

While population growth accounts for only a modest part of the growing demand for food, it can contribute to global warming, and long-term climate change can threaten agriculture. Happily, population growth is already slowing and there is overwhelming evidence that women's empowerment (including expansion of schooling for girls) can rapidly reduce it even further.

What is most challenging is to find effective policies to deal with the consequences of extremely asymmetric expansion of the global economy. Domestic economic reforms are badly needed in many slow- growth countries, but there is also a big need for more global cooperation and assistance. The first task is to understand the nature of the problem. -- NYT

Amartya Sen, who teaches economics and philosophy at Harvard, received the Nobel Prize in economics in 1998 and is the author, most recently, of'Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny'

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Australia's Long Drought Withering Wheat, Rice Supplies

Carolyn Barry, National Geographic News 29 May 08;

From Kenya's slums to India's rice paddies to Brazil's cafes, the skyrocketing cost of food has left no corner of the globe untouched. This is part two of a special series that explores the myriad local faces of the world's worst food crisis in decades.

Les Gordon is no stranger to Australia's harsh climate. A rice grower from the country's breadbasket region, some 512 miles (820 kilometers) southwest of Sydney, Gordon has spent almost half his three decades of farming battling drought.

But the most recent dry spell threatens to end his rice-growing days altogether.

"This is the first time we haven't had any rice since my grandfather planted his first crop in 1949," he said. "This is the worst drought in a long time."

In Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent, drought punctuates the climate record with disheartening regularity.

There's not been a decade since official records began that hasn't seen severe rain shortage. Down here drought is just a part of life.

But the onset of two record-breaking droughts in the past seven years—one of them widely considered "the worst drought in a thousand years"—has had far-reaching and crippling effects.

Major river systems are drying up. The Murray-Darling River Basin—home to 40 percent of Australia's agricultural industry—is at record low levels.

The dearth of water has ravaged Australian agriculture, from wheat to dairy, meat to wine. Some industries will take years to recover.

Rice farmers have arguably faired the worst: Production has been slashed to a measly 2 percent of pre-drought totals. Exports have virtually ceased.

Though Australian rice accounts for less than one percent of the global rice trade, "normal production levels would feed 40 million people around the world every day," said Gordon, who is also president of the Rice Growers' Association of Australia.

"Now we'll be able to supply a lot of Australia pretty well, but not much beyond that."

Australia's weather woes underscore the vulnerability of the world's food production to unexpected natural crises. With reserve food supplies in many countries dwindling as supply outstrips demand, even small drops in production are enough to send prices soaring.

Adding to the concern are predictions that global warming will increase the number and intensity of such unusual climatic events.

Australia will suffer from more frequent droughts, more extreme weather, and less annual rainfall in coming years, according to a recent climate change report by scientists from government agencies, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), and the Bureau of Meteorology.

Fickle Weather

Global warming is just one factor affecting Australia's climate, however.

The immediate driver of its current bout of fickle weather is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon, which amplifies Australia's climatic variability.

El Niño is the abnormal warming of tropical waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which tends to bring hot, dry weather to Australia. The reverse—called La Niña—often brings rain.

Flaring up every three to eight years, El Niños have been associated with many of Australia's droughts. With their effect on winter rains, the weather events can strongly influence the success of wheat crops.

"The difference between a good year and bad year can halve the total production," said Mark Howden, a CSIRO climate variability and agriculture expert.

Australian wheat makes up about 15 percent of the grain's world trade, so even small changes can ripple throughout the global market.

Unfortunately, El Niño/La Niña events are themselves highly variable.

A promising shift to a La Niña pattern in 2007 brought early rains for the Australian winter wheat-planting season. After two years of severe drought, farmers "planted up big" in response, Howden said.

"But the rain stopped early and the crops failed."

Farmers Still Suffering

Despite the inflated grain export prices, "in the last two to three years a lot of small grain traders have gone broke," said Peter Wright, a wheat farmer in Cowra, a town 188 miles (300 kilometers) west of Sydney.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that 10,636 families gave up farming during the most severe drought years, between 2001 and 2006.

Profits from the increased prices are often used to pay off debts racked up during the drought or to invest in technology to improve yields and increase water efficiency, Wright added. (See photos of drought-affected farmers.)

Record-high costs of fertilizer, fuel, and chemicals also offset export prices.

"We'll need four to five years of high prices to break even," he said.

Australia's relatively small population of 21 million consumes roughly a third of the country's agricultural products, with the rest sent overseas.

The reliance on world trade means domestic prices often mirror global prices, says Terry Sheales, chief commodity analyst at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

And those inflated prices have filtered down to retailers and consumers.

James Kidman, executive chef at Otto Ristorante, a modern Italian restaurant in inner Sydney, has noticed big increases in the cost of fruits, vegetables, and meat products, especially high-end cuts.

To protect patrons from price hikes, Kidman tries to "simplify the food," which means buying less expensive cuts of meat and "getting creative" negotiating with suppliers. Most other businesses have no choice but to pass on the extra costs to customers.

Back at the farm, average rains are predicted for the coming months and producers are hopeful of a reprieve.

"No drought has gone on forever," rice farmer Gordon said. "We'll get our turn eventually."

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Can the ecohackers save us?

Many scientists now believe the Earth can be altered to tackle global warming. But are these geoengineers being overly optimistic? Danny Bradbury investigates

Danny Bradbury, The Guardian 29 May 08;

It sounds like something from B-movie lore. Scientists working to avert global catastrophe invent a terrible technical instrument that could affect the fundamental way that the planet operates.

The question is not whether they should use it, but whether they have a choice. In both academic and privately funded laboratories, such techniques are being considered, mostly in response to global warming.

Geoengineering, or "ecohacking" - using science to change the environment on a vast scale - could become a reality faster than you think.

There are roughly 385 parts per million (ppm) of carbon in the atmosphere today, and that's making scientists already concerned about global warming unhappy. "I think it's a good goal to not go over 450ppm," says Alan Robock, a professor in the department of environmental sciences at Rutgers University. Many in his field consider that figure to be a tipping point, when global warming could run out of control. "The solution is mitigation," he warns.

But how to mitigate? Paul Crutzen doesn't think we're moving fast enough with reductions in carbon emissions. The professor emeritus at Utrecht University's Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences became one of the most famous geoengineering advocates for his idea of copying the Pinatubo volcano.

Its 1991 eruption sent 10m tonnes of sulphur (which became sulphur dioxide) into the atmosphere, reducing the global temperature by 0.5C the next year. Crutzen suggested a project to produce a similar effect, using balloons or artillery shells to put 1.9m tonnes of sulphur into the atmosphere to cool the Earth.

He wasn't the first would-be ecohacker. As far back as the 1970s, Russian climatologist Mikhail Budyko suggested putting reflective aerosols in the atmosphere. "And the first time that a US president was informed that there might be a global warming problem from carbon dioxide was in 1965," says Ken Caldeira, a scientist at the Carnegie Institution's department of global ecology. "President Johnson's advisors gave him a report that suggested we might put reflective materials across the surface of the ocean." The idea was that these would reflect large amounts of sunlight back into space and mitigate the effects of global warming.

Even in the early 19th century, US meteorologist James Espy advocated burning huge areas of forest in the hope of making rain by affecting the thermal dynamics of the atmosphere, says meterological historian and professor of science, technology, and society at Colby College James R Fleming.

When leading US meterologist Harry Wexler predicted ecohacking in a 1962 lecture, the first weather satellite had been up for three years. "He pointed out that any intervention with the Earth's heat budget could cause a change in the downstream flow and the climactic systems and weather patterns," says Fleming. "He gave serious lectures about the possible inadvertent damage we might do."

As climate change becomes an increasing concern, geoengineering is making a comeback. Scientists are looking at the atmosphere, the ocean, the land and even space to create a variety of effects, including helping to reduce the effect of sunlight on the Earth and sequestering carbon.

Seeding the ocean

US firm Climos plans to seed the ocean with iron particles. This will encourage the development of phytoplankton, it says, which carry large amounts of carbon to the ocean floor when they die. The company hopes to turn a profit by selling carbon credits.

Others are hoping to achieve a similar effect by bringing things up from underneath the ocean, rather than dropping things in from the surface. Atmocean plans to put large tubes in the ocean which will move vertically with the waves, pumping cool water to the surface from 200 metres down, says chief executive Phil Kithil. This will bring more nutrients with it, encouraging the phytoplankton to grow, he hopes.

Kithil adds that there's another benefit: "You're also reducing hurricane intensity by cooling the upper ocean." He argues that deploying these pumps over a roughly 60 x 60km area at one every 500 metres would bring enough cool water to the surface to reduce the intensity of a hurricane or perhaps even divert it, but ultimately he thinks the tubes could cover 80% of the ocean's surface for CO2 sequestration purposes.

Peter Flynn has oceanographic ideas of his own. The professor of mechanical engineering at Canada's University of Alberta cites worries about the Gulf Stream, which cycles warm water from the south Atlantic to the north, and sends cooler water back again. Salty water in the north sinks to the ocean floor and keeps the cycle moving. Should melting fresh water from the Arctic north shut down the pump, the results could be catastrophic, and Europe could be plunged into an ice age. Flynn proposed re-icing the Arctic using 8,000 giant floating platforms that would draw salty water from the ocean and spray it on to winter ice, dramatically increasing its thickness. It would continue to do this in the summer, which would then melt the ice and send tonnes of salty water plunging into the Gulf Stream.

Looking to the stars

Roger Angel, director of the Centre for Astronomical Adaptive Optics at the University of Arizona, is looking to the stars rather than the sea. He wants to put a mesh of tiny light refractors into space to sit between the Earth and the sun. The material would bend some of the sun's rays away from the planet.

"It's probably the most expensive and the cleanest," says Angel, who would need 16 trillion gossamer-light spacecraft, each sitting about a kilometre apart. Roughly 5m tonnes of material would be shot into space by a large magnetic railgun seated at the top of a mountain near the equator. Other than the $1tn (£500bn) launch cost, the other downside would be the 30 years needed to get them up there.

One of the upsides of the project is that it is reversible. Control craft would be needed to keep the others in exact position (using energy harvested from the solar light that they would be diverting). The control craft could move the array of reflectors out of the earth's orbit. In theory, the solar rays that contribute to climate change could be dialed up and down. "But whose hand is on that knob?" asks Caldeira. Whoever controlled the technology would be in a position of significant power. Getting everyone in the world to agree on climactic issues was difficult enough in Kyoto. And things could get even stormier when climactic, technological, and political fronts collide.

"Let's say Europe and North America don't reduce their carbon emissions, and China has a decade-long drought," Caldeira says. "It could say, 'You guys wrecked our climate, and we're going to engineer our own climate to repair things'."

Complicated outcomes

One of the biggest worries for Robock is that such tinkering could produce complicated outcomes. For example, spraying sulphur into the atmosphere might reduce the sunlight by 2%, he argues, but what will it do to the rain? "You might reduce precipitation," he says. "Preliminary results from calculations suggest that the Asian monsoon would be affected, which provides food for billions in Asia."

Some would-be ecohackers such as Espy may have been over-optimistic, but most of today's geoengineers are more cautious in their studies. Flynn says that his system would only be useful if we reached a tipping point.

Angel proposes amortising the cost of his project over 50 years. "You could say that a minimum of 100 million people would have their way of life ruined," says Flynn, musing about a gulf-stream shutdown. The $50bn that he'd need to mitigate the problem seems like a drop in the ocean when you consider that the money currently spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would pay for it in just over three months.

But hopefully we're not in B-movie territory yet. "The simplest thing is to stop putting in the gases that cause the warming," says Robock. When it comes to preventing the conditions that might make governments take geoengineering projects seriously, we all have our hands on the climate dial.
Considering the cost

Money spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in just over 3 months: $50bn

Launch of mesh of light reflectors between earth and the sun: $1tn

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High fuel cost may lead to tuna price hike

Straits Times 30 may 08;

Fishing boats may halt operations because of costs, leading to supply shortage
TOKYO - THE plate of tuna sashimi or tuna sandwich is going to cost more in the coming months.

An industry group said yesterday that as many as one in three ocean-going long-line tuna fishing boats across the world may halt operations because of high fuel costs.

About 140 boats from Taiwan, China, South Korea, Fiji and elsewhere are already standing idle at port, said Mr Yuichiro Harada, managing director at the Tokyo-based Organisation for the Promotion of Responsible Tuna Fisheries.

'Another 260 boats are considering suspending operations, bringing the total number to about 400' out of 1,174 boats operated by members of the organisation, Mr Harada said.

'The more you operate, the more money you lose' due to high fuel costs, he said, adding that a typical Japanese boat would lose 100,000 yen (S$1,300) in one day of long-line open-ocean fishing.

How long the boats might stay in port could vary from region to region and depend on whether fuel prices cool, he said.

The organisation groups long-line open-ocean tuna fishing boats from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, China, Equador, Seychelles, Fiji and Vanuatu. Most operators of such ships worldwide are members.

The halt is bound to cause a supply shortage of raw tuna meat used for Japan's beloved 'sashimi' slices, the organisation warned.

Officials say a steady drop in the number of bigeye and yellowfin tuna is also another factor behind the suspension of fishing expeditions.

Pollution, climate change and overfishing, say experts and scientists, are to blame for the depletion of fish stocks in the oceans.

The five main tuna species are skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye, albacore and bluefin.

Thailand, the world's biggest exporter of canned tuna, will see a fall in exports this year, reported the Bangkok Post yesterday.

'Prices of raw materials, for instance skipjack tuna, now stand relatively high at US$1,600 per tonne compared with about US$800 to US$1,000 a year earlier,' said Mrs Somying Piumsombun, the director-general of the Thai Fisheries Department, on Wednesday.

She was speaking on Wednesday at the 10th Infofish World Tuna Trade Conference and Exhibition where industry players warned that 'cheap tuna would be something of the past'.

Mr Harada regretted the looming supply shortage of tuna, but blamed speculative investment for pushing up oil prices.

'It is a very big problem for the food industry that it is affected by speculation,' he said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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Deep climate cuts urged; food price a wake-up call

Alister Doyle, Reuters 29 May 08;

OSLO (Reuters) - Governments will have to cut greenhouse gases far more deeply than planned to control global warming and high food prices linked to droughts are a wake-up call, four leading scientists said on Thursday.

"We have lost 10 years talking about climate change but not acting on it," the experts, led by Britain's Martin Parry who is a co-chair of a U.N. Climate Panel group on the impacts of climate change, wrote in the journal Nature.

They said there was "false optimism" about easy fixes.

By 2050, global emissions would have to be cut by 80 percent of the 1990 levels -- well beyond the 50 percent target under consideration for a July summit in Japan by the Group of Eight industrial nations.

"We are now probably witnessing the first genuinely global effects of greenhouse gas warming," they wrote of high food prices partly caused by droughts, for instance in major grains producer Australia, and by a drive to produce biofuels on farm land.

"This should serve as a wake-up call," they said. More than 190 nations have agreed to work out a new long-term treaty by the end of 2009 to combat climate change to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.

Cuts in emissions and efforts to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate "will need to be much stronger than currently planned if dangerous global impacts of climate change are to be avoided," they wrote.

Their study showed that even a 50 percent cut in world emissions by 2050, the most stringent goal considered by G8, was too little to avert dangerous impacts such as water shortages and rising seas even with further cuts at the same pace to 2100.

"Limiting impacts to acceptable levels by mid-century and beyond would require an 80 per cent cut in global emissions by 2050," they wrote.

G8 environment ministers meeting in Japan last weekend urged leaders at a summit in July to set a global target of halving greenhouse gases by 2050, a goal favored last year by all G8 nations except the United States and Russia.

President George W. Bush announced a policy last month, however, that will let U.S. emissions keep rising until 2025.

"The picture is much bleaker and I'm much less optimistic than I was," Parry told Reuters. A continued rise in emissions by the United States, the top emitter with China, would make deep cuts by mid-century ever more difficult, he said.

An 80 percent cut in emissions levels would limit a rise in global temperatures to 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, a level viewed by the European Union as a threshold for "dangerous" changes, the study said.

Parry noted that contenders to succeed Bush -- Republican John McCain and Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- favored U.S. cuts of 50 percent by 2050. That was too little when developed nations had to lead the way, he said.

The scientists said they were writing their personal opinions. Parry said he would not seek re-election to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in September so could write more freely.

(Editing by Jon Boyle)

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