Leading climate scientist challenges Greenpeace's opposition to storing CO2

Deep divisions
One of the world's leading climate scientists challenges Greenpeace's opposition to storing CO2 in the depth of the oceans

Wallace S Broecker, The Guardian 18 Jun 08;

Most of us who are concerned about global warming agree that an important part of any strategy designed to stem the ongoing build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will be to capture and store CO2. Potential storage sites include spent oil fields, saline aquifers, layered basalts and the deep ocean.

While Greenpeace accepts the inevitability that CO2 will be captured and stored, it strongly opposes storage in the deep sea. As it is clear that virtually all the CO2 released to the atmosphere as a result of fossil fuel burning will ultimately find its way to the deep sea, its objection is focused on the "point pollution" created by purposeful injections of CO2. The fear is that such an activity will put at risk benthic biota - the community of creatures and plants in the deep sea - living in the vicinity of the injection sites.

In February 2007, I contacted Bill Hare, a senior scientist at Greenpeace, asking him to reconsider his organisation's stance against experiments to evaluate the environmental consequences of CO2 injected into the deep sea. I pointed out that if marine disposal proves to be economically favorable, and if push comes to shove, forces more powerful than Greenpeace will probably intervene and deep sea disposal will commence without adequate testing and evaluation.

Hare agreed to reconsider this matter in consultation with members of his and other like-minded organisations. In June 2007, he reported back that no change in policy would be made.

As a scientist, I seek rational decisions. So let me begin by outlining what is known about deep ocean storage.

First, in order to ensure that the injected CO2 has adequate time to mix throughout the deep sea, injection should be at depths greater than 3,500 metres - that is, the depth below which "liquid" CO2 becomes more dense than sea water.

Experiments conducted by Peter Brewer, of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, not only confirm that this is the case but also demonstrate that the CO2 injected rapidly reacts with sea water to form a solid clathrate, which is more dense than both liquid CO2 and sea water. Hence, the injected CO2 would end up on the sea floor as a slush. This would gradually dissolve, releasing the CO2 to the surrounding sea water, where it would react with the dissolved carbonate and borate ions to become chemically bound in the form of bicarbonate ion. As the concentration of carbonate and borate ions is small, the neutralisation would take place gradually as the CO2-rich sea water mixed into the surroundings.

We know that, based on radiocarbon measurements, the residence time of water in the abyssal Atlantic is in the order of 200 years. For the Indian Ocean, it is about 800 years, and for the Pacific about 1,000 years. As the deep Pacific has the largest volume, and is adjacent to earthquake-prone land areas where below-ground storage could not be safely done, it will be a prime target for storage.

A conservative upper limit on the storage capacity of the deep Pacific would be to require that the CO2 concentration in the water returning to the surface not be allowed to exceed the concentration in cold surface water at equilibrium with the atmosphere. Were this the limit to be adopted, then the capacity of water deeper than 1,500 metres in the Pacific would be about 480 gigatons of CO2, or about 130 gigatons of carbon for each 100 parts per million rise in atmospheric CO2 content.

We know enough to say with confidence that deep ocean disposal of CO2 is certainly feasible, but unless small-scale pilot experiments are conducted, information necessary to assess the impact on the macro abyssal biota will remain obscure. The injections could be made from ships equipped for deep sea drilling, and if the CO2 were tagged with radiocarbon, its dispersal away from the sea floor clathrate pile could be sensitively monitored.

Studies of the costs associated with ocean disposal would also be conducted. The CO2 would have to be sent through pipelines from its collection point to a port, where it would be loaded on tankers that would carry it to a floating ocean station, from which it would be piped to the abyss.

Putting aside the opposition by the environmental community, ocean disposal will become a viable option only if the costs are competitive with those associated with storage in hyper-saline continental aquifers.

Reduce stress

As any strategy designed to stem the build-up of greenhouse gases will have adverse environmental consequences, we must seek to minimise their impact. To the extent that we could capture and store CO2 produced by fossil fuel burning, we would reduce the acidification of the surface ocean, and hence the additional stress on coral reef communities. To date, there is no indication that the projected rise in upper ocean CO2 content will have adverse impacts on fish. If so, assuming the limit described above were to be observed, then once spread through the deep sea, the injected CO2 would not adversely impact on benthic biota.

However, I sympathise with those who claim that the benthic world is a fragile one. Hence, before we poke it with CO2, we should do our homework. Therefore, I challenge Greenpeace to relax its stand and allow a pilot project to proceed.

· Wallace S Broecker is the Newberry professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, US, and is a scientist at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth observatory.

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CO2 disposal in the ocean is a dangerous distraction: Greenpeace adviser

The Guardian 18 Jun 08;

Bill Hare, Greenpeace adviser and visiting scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, responds to Wallace Broecker's call for carbon storage experiments in the depths of the Pacific Ocean

The urgency of reducing emissions of CO2 has never been greater. The science of climate change has revealed that the risks are much higher and more imminent than we had estimated only a few years ago. But just as with a deadly emergency in a heavy passenger jet: the crew should never, ever rush into hasty actions that will ultimately make a very bad situation a lot worse. Ocean disposal of CO2 is one such option.

A careful, rational and scientific analysis of the option of CO2 disposal in the ocean leads to the conclusion that it is not viable. In 2006 the German government's scientific Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) came down against this option: "introducing CO2 into seawater should be prohibited, because the risk of ecological damage cannot be assessed and the retention period in the oceans is too short." The main arguments were "the largely incalculable ecological risk" and the fact that over longer timeframes a significant fraction of the stored CO2 would get back to the atmosphere.

In the long run (hundreds to thousands of years) which, given the very long lifetime of CO2 we must always keep in mind when devising climate policies to limit warming, this option would not help reduce CO2 below levels that would have otherwise occurred.

As the IPCC Fourth Assessment Mitigation report, in which I was a lead author, has shown, conventional options to rapidly reduce emissions in the next few decades are available now. What is lacking to deploy these at scale and quickly are the appropriate policy settings. The absence of these is most acute in Dr Broecker's own country, the USA.

It is not just Greenpeace and other environmental groups that think that ocean disposal is a bad option. The decision by OSPAR, for example, to explicitly rule out the disposal of CO2 into the ocean and on to the sea bed, is by no means irrational, nor the result of "strong-arm tactics". Neither is it a decision in which Greenpeace played any major role.

Turning to some of the details in Dr Broecker's arguments.

Deep water injection CO2 would cause inevitable and potentially irrevocable damage to those deep-water ecosystems directly impacted (smothering, asphyxiation, acidification), and at scale would result in far more widespread effects in the abyssal zone over time as the clathrates dissolve. Over far longer timescales it would result in changes to abyssal ecosystems which in turn feed back to the global carbon cycle.

To suggest that there is "no indication that the projected rise in upper ocean CO2 content will have adverse impacts on fish" and, on this basis, to argue that spread of CO2 through the deep sea would therefore also be benign, is misleading in the extreme. This statement ignores the growing evidence that projected rises in upper ocean CO2 and consequent acidification is likely to have profound impacts on calcification rates and calcifying organisms. It is predicted that upper ocean pH levels will drop to levels lower than those recorded at any time over tens of millions of years, and at a rate orders of magnitude greater than any previous change. There is also evidence that deep water crustacean species, sediment dwelling organisms and associated ecosystem processes could also be adversely affected, including changes to nutrient cycling thought to occur through impacts on sediment microflora.

The fact that deep water CO2 concentrations are currently lower than those of surface waters should not be taken as an indication of a vast unexploited capacity for CO2 disposal. Our knowledge of the biogeochemical processes which have contributed to the current distribution of CO2 in the deep oceans remains limited, as does our capacity therefore to predict the consequences of multi-billion tonne injections of CO2 at depth. To assume that uniformity of concentration is somehow an acceptable target, or one which will have minimal impact on marine ecosystems and the carbon cycle, is oversimplistic.

Dr Broecker argues that a series of experiments involving the release of one tonne quantities of CO2 at depths greater than 3,500m are the next logical step. One tonne release experiments to observe behaviour and determine impacts is one thing. However, one tonne experiments intended as proof of the concept for multi-gigatonne injections in the future is quite another.

An obvious critical aspect is the potential for cumulative impacts resulting from continuous injections over long periods, or a large number of injections, such as would be a necessary characteristic of any deep injection strategy for climate change mitigation. The nature and likelihood of these cumulative impacts simply could not be assessed from the results of the experiments he suggests.

Existing ocean dumping laws are designed to protect the marine environment from irresponsible and unsustainable waste disposal operations. The London Convention and its 1996 Protocol, which are currently in force in parallel, preclude the disposal at sea of industrial waste, including CO2, with the specific exception to enable carbon capture and storage in sub-sea bed geological formations under strict conditions of operation, verification, monitoring and control.

By definition, injection of CO2 at the sea bed deliberately and immediately relinquishes any control over the waste. Such disposal operations are effectively irreversible, and any adverse consequences, on whatever geographical and time scales they may occur, cannot be prevented or mitigated. If the models Broecker suggests we should rely on prove to be inadequate or inaccurate, or both, what do we do?

In short, ocean disposal of CO2, in common with other proposals for geoengineering our way out of climate change, is simply a dangerous distraction and draws attention away from the real solutions. There is no alternative but to drastically reduce emissions and this is best done at source using renewable energy, energy efficiency, reducing deforestation and improving the efficiency of industry and agriculture.

Many in the scientific community and in environmental groups such as Greenpeace share Dr Broecker's deep sense of frustration at the lack of action to date and his great sense of foreboding over the fate of the planet if we do not succeed in getting emissions reduced quickly.

Dr Broecker's work and writings since at least the mid-1970s warning of the dangers of rising CO2 helped to inspire a generation of scientists such as myself to work on this subject, and moreover to work hard and long to develop a global agreement to reduce emissions and limit the risk of rapid human-induced and dangerous climate change. As such his views are to be taken seriously and considered carefully. But in this case we must agree to disagree.

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Best of our wild blogs: 18 Jun 08

Compassionate Day at Acres' Wildlife Rescue Centre, 20 and 21 Jun Have a fun day outdoors AND make a difference! on Friday and Saturday.
on the wildsingapore happenings blog

Singapore Asceles
a locally endemic subspecies of stick insect from Upper Peirce, on the Tiomanese's blog

Hantu Reef Survey
great vis and lots of welcoming critters on the blue water volunteers blog

Sustainable Consumption vs Unsustainable Consumerism
on the Champions of the Environment blog

Anatomy of a nest: Common Tailorbird?
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Brown Hawk Owl in Bukit Timah
on the Mountain and Sea blog

Mushroom bloom at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve
and thoughts about taking nothing out of our nature reserve on the wonderful creations blog

Tree shrews at MacRitchie
on the tidechaser blog

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Top 10 New Species Named

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 17 Jun 08;

Thousands of new plant and animal species were discovered in 2007, though only 10 were bizarre enough, lethal enough or just plain cool enough to garner spots on a new Top-10 list.

Each year, the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) at Arizona State University issues the Top 10 New Species list, which spotlights flora and fauna described during the previous year, so in this case 2007.

The new list includes lethal animals like a box jellyfish (Malo kingi) - named after Robert King, who apparently died after he was stung by this species - and the Central Ranges Taipan (Oxyuranus temporalis), now thought to be one of the most venomous snakes in the world.

And a dragon millipede, whose shocking-pink exterior would put a 1980s fashionista to shame, gets a spot on the list. Rather than setting trends, the arthropod uses its gaudy coloration to alert predators of its toxicity.

Some species made it onto the list due to their modern monikers, including the Michelin Man, a succulent plant from Western Australia that resembles the rotund tire guy. Also on the list: an ornate sleeper ray from the east coast of South Africa that was named after the Electrolux vacuum cleaner brand due to the animal's ability to suck up prey in the water.

While scientists discover thousands of species each year, with an estimated 16,969 species considered new to science in 2006, plenty of plants and animals are waiting to be found. Scientists estimate 10 million or so species exist on Earth, with 1.8 million species described since Carl Linnaeus developed the modern system for naming plants and animals in the 18th century.

"Most people do not realize just how incomplete our knowledge of Earth's species is or the steady rate at which taxonomists are exploring that diversity," said Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist and director of IISE.

The international committee was chaired by Janine Caira of the University of Connecticut, and included scientists from across the globe, including the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Spain and New Zealand.

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US group seeks emergency protection for 32 species

Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press Yahoo News 16 Jun 08;

Environmentalists are seeking emergency protection for nearly three dozens rare plants, animals and insects under the Endangered Species Act, saying all are at risk due to habitat destruction and other threats.

WildEarth Guardians is asking Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dale Hall to list 32 species from across the West — ranging from flowering plants to snails — to ensure they do not disappear.

In an emergency petition sent to officials on Thursday, the group contends the habitat for some of the species has been reduced to just one location.

"The species we have chosen are all at the knife's edge of extinction," the petition states. "Given the location of these species on either no or only one known site on earth, a single event — whether from drought, flood, habitat destruction, pollution, exotic species, or other factors — could literally erase them from the world."

Valerie Fellows, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C., said Monday she was not sure whether the agency's endangered species division had received the petition. She said the agency typically has 90 days to review petitions.

WildEarth Guardians said the species in the petition were selected from a list of 674 the group had sought standard endangered species listing for in a pair of petitions filed last summer. The group followed up with a lawsuit in March, charging that Fish and Wildlife failed to act on the initial petitions.

The emergency petition is an attempt to turn up the pressure on the agency, said John Horning, executive director of WildEarth Guardians.

Horning says the endangered species listing program has nearly ground to a halt. He pointed out that the polar bear was the first U.S. species to be listed in over two years and that all of the listings under the Bush administration have been prompted by either citizen petitions or legal action.

As a result of the lack of action over the past eight years, there's more of a need to invoke the emergency provisions of the Endangered Species Act, Horning said.

He said WildEarth Guardians is looking to the species listed in the emergency petition to help make that case.

"These species deserve immediate, emergency protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to save them from vanishing forever, and we're urging them to use that authority," Horning said.

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EU Cites Flagrant Abuse of Bluefin Tuna Fisheries

PlanetArk 18 Jun 08;

BRUSSELS - EU fisheries regulators on Tuesday accused France and Italy of quota-busting and misreporting catches of bluefin tuna.

They said there were widespread abuses by fishermen from several nations trawling for bluefin tuna in the east Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Last week, the European Union banned trawling for bluefin tuna, prized by sushi lovers but chronically overfished for years, for vessels flying the flags of Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy and Malta in these waters. The ban came into force on Monday. A similar ban enters into force for Spain on June 23.

In a statement, EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg rejected calls by some of the countries to suspend the ban, citing numerous "failures of implementation and control" that made it impossible for national tuna catches to be accurately monitored.

At least eight spotter planes were working with EU vessels to help them identify bluefin tuna shoals, regulators said. Using spotter planes is illegal.

But the incentive to catch bluefin tuna remains strong, particularly in June, when around 85 percent of the fish are caught. Since last year, market prices for the delicacy have tripled: in Japan a single fish can cost up to US$100,000.

Bluefin tuna are known for their huge size, power and speed, with maximum weights recorded in excess of 600 kg. But the species' stock numbers are so depleted that scientists say bluefin tuna may die out if fishing is not restricted.

"This year again, the fishery has been marred by countless failures to properly implement the rules which have been agreed at international level to manage the bluefin tuna stock sustainably," the Commission said in its statement.

The EU bans apply to vessels that use a "purse seine", a type of net that floats the top of a long wall of netting on the surface while its bottom is held weighted under the water.

"We know of eight French purse seine vessels which have spent up to 21 days fishing since the start of the season, but have so far declared no catches," the statement said.

According to official figures, half the French fleet had caught nothing, while the other half declared they had caught over 90 percent of their individual quotas, although all the vessels showed similar activity rates, it added.

Some Italian purse seine vessels had, according to official figures, overshot their quota by between 100 and 240 percent.

Commission experts say the EU's fishing capacity is so large and bluefin tuna trawling activity so concentrated in June that the EU quota can be exhausted in just two days of fishing. (Reporting by Jeremy Smith; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Greenland whale hunt 'commercial'

Richard Black, BBC News 17 Jun 08;

Animal welfare campaigners say Greenland's whaling, held under rules permitting subsistence hunting, has become too commercial in character.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) found that a quarter of last year's catch was traded for profit through a private food company.

International Whaling Commission (IWC) rules allow hunting where there is a nutritional and cultural need.

The IWC annual meeting gets underway next week in Santiago, Chile.

WSPA campaigners are presenting their report this week to a preliminary meeting of the organisation's committee on aboriginal (or subsistence) whaling.



"Greenland has been on the slippery slope towards commercial whaling for years, and now, demonstrably, they've crossed the line," said WSPA's marine mammals manager Claire Bass.

"The IWC has heard anecdotally about these processing operations, but this is the first time it's been quantified, so we're expecting it to be explosive," she told BBC News

Vows renewed

Quotas for the five communities claiming a need for subsistence hunting were renewed at last year's IWC meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

At the time, some delegates queried Greenland's plans to expand its hunt to include bowhead and humpback whales - two species it had not previously targeted - and noted allegations that whalemeat regularly changed hands for money.



IWC rules do not explicitly prohibit commercial trade, but they specify that permits are granted only "to satisfy aboriginal subsistence need".

Delegates eventually voted to allow the bowhead quota, but rejected the request for humpbacks. Denmark, which speaks for Greenland in the IWC, is bidding for humpbacks again this year.

Over the last 12 months, WSPA visited markets and harbours around Greenland. Investigators posed as a documentary film crew reporting on local traditions and culture.

They concluded that at least a quarter of the whalemeat landed around the coasts was traded through a single company, Arctic Green Food, with supermarkets the principal destination.

The company advertises packets of whalemeat for sale within Greenland on its website. Products include steak, mince, salted blubber, and cuts from the fins and tails of minke whales, as well as unspecified meat from fin whales.

Tonnes Berthelsen, managing director of Arctic Green Food, told BBC News his company traded meat from about 40 whales each year.

"We're selling it frozen; and if we didn't sell it like that, if people weren't able to buy it frozen, then the waste would be very high."

But whereas the IWC says that "the meat and products are to be used exclusively for local consumption", WSPA points out that because the meat is sold in supermarkets, anyone can buy and consume it, even foreign nationals, raising the question of whether there is a genuine nutritional and cultural need.

Broken record

WSPA is one of the few groups to campaign against subsistence whaling.



The majority of conservation organisations support it as providing a sustainable resource to communities that need the meat.

There was a tacit agreement among anti-whaling NGOs not to oppose the renewal of subsistence quotas at last year's IWC meeting, an agreement that WSPA did not support on animal welfare grounds.

"The record of these hunts is really bad," said Ms Bass.

"Only one in five whales dies within a minute. These are the worst whale hunts in the world on welfare grounds."

Records submitted to the IWC show that in 2006, fin whales took on average 35 minutes to die, with one taking nearly six hours. Norway's overtly commercial hunters, by contrast, kill the majority of their prey within one minute.

The IWC's various committees are coming to the end of their series of meetings in Santiago before the full organisation convenes on Monday.

Its week-long meeting is likely to be dominated by South American proposals for a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic, and by discussions on whether pro- and anti-whaling blocs can find a path towards eventual compromise.

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$6m fund to fight infectious diseases

Today Online 18 Jun 08;

A $6-million fund has been set up to support research on infectious diseases.

The fund – the result of a joint collaboration between Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) and the British Medical Research Council – will be used to develop vital armoury in the fight against infectious diseases. They include :biological indicators of disease, development of diagnostic tests and detection devices and vaccine development.

But A*Star chairman, Mr Lim Chuan Poh (picture), said there won’t be a rush to use this grant yet.

There will first be a roundtable discussion to better understand the capabilities that are available in Singapore and the region, and also the strength that Britain can bring to the project.

“It builds and set the stage for the grant calls,” Mr Lim said.

“Once we’ve gone through this stage of allowing people enough time to follow up, we’ll proceed with the grant call, by which time the scientists from both sides will know how they can work well together.”

Last year, Singapore’s National Environment Agency signed a memorandum of understanding with Cuba’s Institute of Pedro Kouri to collaborate on dengue research. — 938LIVE

Singapore, UK set up S$6m joint research fund
Channel NewsAsia 17 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: Singapore and the United Kingdom are putting in S$6 million for research into fighting infectious diseases.

Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and the UK's Medical Research Council will contribute an equal share of S$3 million each.

In a statement, A*STAR said the fund will be used to develop "vital armoury" to keep one step ahead of infectious diseases, which account for about 20 percent of total deaths in the world.

This will include diagnostic tests and vaccine development in the fight against diseases like malaria, dengue, SARS and the avian flu.

The fund was agreed on after a high-level roundtable that was co-hosted by A*STAR's Chairman Lim Chuan Poh and UK's Minister of State for Science and Innovation, Ian Pearson.- CNA/so

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Pandemic Potential and Singapore

Clear and present danger
Straits Times 18 Jun 08;

There has been a rising number of deadly infectious diseases - Chikungunya, dengue, Sars, bird flu, HFMD - in recent times. Scientists fear an impending pandemic
Some are exotic and many are deadly - that sums up infectious diseases making the headlines today, as cases soar worldwide.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and chikungunya fever were unknown to most Singaporeans until recently.

Singapore is fortunate to have been spared the ravages of avian influenza - or bird flu - but elsewhere, it has killed humans and led to mass livestock cullings.

But more than 14,500 people in Singapore have caught hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) since January this year.

And just last week, blood samples were taken from 311 people living in Teachers' Estate after an 86-year-old retiree and her maid were diagnosed the week before as victims of the mosquito-borne virus, chikungunya.

Luckily, the samples tested negative for the disease. The estate is still being monitored by the National Environment Agency.

However, it was reported three days later that an expatriate housewife living in Farrer Road has become the latest victim of chikungunya fever.

Meanwhile, with bird flu outbreaks still occurring elsewhere, experts fear an impending pandemic. The World Health Organisation says a flu pandemic now may cause two million to eight million deaths worldwide. Developing countries will be the hardest hit.

Going back to the last century, the then biggest pandemic - commonly referred to as the Spanish flu - occurred in 1918 and 1919: it caused an estimated 40 million to 50 million deaths worldwide.

Dr Leong Hoe Nam, consultant infectious disease physician at Singapore General Hospital, has this sobering twist to a common saying: 'There are now four things certain in life - birth, death, taxes and another epidemic.'

How do infectious diseases that strike humans pop up? Most major ones have animal origins, researchers Nathan D. Wolfe, Claire Panosian Dunavan and Jared Diamond say in a review published in May last year in international science weekly Nature.

The study by the three researchers - from the epidemiology department in the School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles - also highlighted the role of agriculture in the evolution of animal pathogens into human pathogens. Farming, they noted, enables a large human and animal population to be in close proximity and constant contact.

A pathogen is an agent that causes infection or disease and is usually a micro-organism or a virus.

Cross-species infection may arise again when humans colonise new environments previously untouched and come into contact with wild animals or untested surroundings. A large population concentrated in a small space, like that found in most urban areas today, then exacerbates the problem of human to human transmission.

The Nipah virus is cited as one such example in a 2004 paper by researchers Robin A Weiss and Anthony J McMichael in science journal Nature Medicine.

The virus jumped from fruit bats to pigs before infecting pig farmers and abbatoir workers when pig farms were set up near virgin tropical forests in northern Malaysia in 1998.

SGH's Dr Leong says that four factors are required to create an infectious disease epidemic - a suitable virus, a suitable host, the virus' ability to mutate in such a way as to 'jump' species, and suitable hosts around the index case.

He said: 'You need the right time and the right person to spark an epidemic.'

Most viruses are ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, which occur singly and do not have double strands of genetic material, unlike DNA.

This trait allows them to mutate very quickly and easily as there is no parallel strand to keep evolution in check.

Dr Chong Chia Yin, head and senior consultant at the department of paediatric medicine at KK Women's and Children's Hospital, said: 'The flu virus has a huge animal reservoir including chickens, pigs, ducks and migratory wild birds. This allows the virus to circulate and then mutate into a more virulent form.'

Globalisation, industrialisation and mass air travel have also helped spread viral diseases beyond the geographic borders of their origin.

Dr Leong said: 'The problem with these outbreaks is globalisation and the mass movement of people. You can be in the Sahara desert one day and back at work in Singapore the next.'

But it's not all doom and gloom as cross-species infection usually requires a protracted and extreme series of mutations before occurring.

Finally, preparedness is critical.

Singapore's Ministry of Health has stepped up disease surveillance programmes in hospitals, stockpiled essential supplies and drugs and drawn up a national flu pandemic preparedness plan.

Doctors and other experts are urging the public to also take individual responsibility for their health and disease prevention. Those who are ill should stay away from work, school or public areas like shopping centres.

Dr Chan Poh Chong, consultant paediatrician and head of ambulatory and adolescent paediatrics in the University Children's Medical Institute at National University Hospital, said: 'Parents, for instance, can teach hygiene practices to their children. This has proven to be the best preventive measure against not only HFMD but all other infectious diseases.'

The risks you face
Straits Times 18 Jun 08;

Chikungunya and dengue fever

Spread by: Chikungunya fever is transmitted through the bite of infected Aedes aegypti and aedes albopictus mosquitoes while dengue fever is caused by the bite of infected Aedes mosquitoes. The mozzies become infected when they feed on the blood of patients already suffering from the disease.

Peak season: Cases increase in the warmer months when mosquitoes breed more prolifically.

Symptoms: Sudden onset of fever, severe headaches, chills, nausea and joint pain although prolonged joint pain and fatigue are more commonly found in chikungunya fever.

Treatment: There is no specific drug treatment against chikungunya and dengue fever. Aspirin should, however, be avoided in cases of chikungunya fever as this may increase the risk of bleeding.

Influenza

Spread by: The three main types of this viral infection are spread through direct contact with droplets of saliva or nasal secretions or by touching contaminated objects.

Peak season: Although the disease occurs year-round here, there are two seasonal peaks, namely one from May to July and the other from November to January.

Symptoms: Headaches, chills and a cough followed rapidly by a fever, appetite loss, muscle ache and tiredness.

Treatment: Antiviral medication and influenza vaccines.

Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome)

Spread by: The viral infection is spread by close contact with infected people and the droplets which they exhale.

Peak season: Dr Leong Hoe Nam, Singapore General Hospital's consultant infectious diseases physician, said: 'As it's a respiratory tract infection, it follows cold weather.'

Symptoms: Fever and cough but not all patients will have a runny nose and sore throat.

Treatment: Anti-bacterial and anti-viral drugs are available and vaccines are currently being developed.

Avian influenza or bird flu

Spread by: This flu viral disease is spread by contact with infected birds, which shed the H5N1 virus in their saliva, nasal secretions and faeces. Person to person transmission may occur but rarely.

Peak season: No known peak season. Dr Chong Chia Yin, head and senior consultant in KK Women's and Children's Hospital's department of paediatric medicine, said: 'Despite the destruction of an estimated 150 million birds, the H5N1 virus is considered endemic in many parts of Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China and possibly Laos.'

Symptoms: Humans with bird flu typically report flu-like symptoms like fever, cough, sore throat, headaches and muscle aches. Symptoms can also include eye infections, pneumonia and other complications.

Treatment: Anti-viral flu medicines like Tamiflu appear to be effective in treating bird flu although Dr Chong added that some resistance is developing.

Last month, drug company GlaxoSmithKline gained approval to sell a pre-pandemic bird flu vaccine in the European Union.

HFMD (hand, foot and mouth disease)

Spread by: This childhood ailment is spread by direct contact with saliva, nasal and throat secretions, blister fluid and faeces of an infected person as well as by sharing of toothbrushes, eating utensils, food and toys.

Peak season: Dr Anita Menon from KK Women's and Children's Hospital's department of paediatric medicine, said: 'HFMD is more common in tropical climates. In temperate countries, it tends to have a seasonal variation with cases mainly occurring in summer or autumn.'

Symptoms: It usually starts with a mild fever, poor appetite, lethargy and sometimes a sore throat. One or two days after the fever starts, sores develop in the mouth and rashes, red spots or blisters may occur on palms and soles.

Treatment: Patients can only be treated for symptoms and should take adequate amounts of fluids and water.

Dr Chan Poh Chong, consultant paediatrician and head of ambulatory and adolescent paediatrics at National University Hospital's University Children's Medical Institute, said: 'Even after recovering from a strain of HFMD, a child can succumb to another episode caused by a different strain. There is no known vaccine available.'

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Indonesia to begin forest carbon projects

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 17 Jun 08;

Indonesia is expected to be the first nation to carry out forest carbon projects to help combat climate change thanks to a newly launched forest carbon partnership with Australia.

Under the partnership agreement, signed by the two country's leaders in Jakarta on Friday, Australia will help Indonesia develop mechanisms needed to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).

"With this partnership, we are upbeat and ready to carry out the first REDD demonstration activity, hopefully in August. Australia will help us implement a REDD project in Central Kalimantan forests," Soenaryo, a senior official at the Forestry Ministry, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

"This project is vital because the world is watching to see whether or not the REDD concept can be used as a legal mechanism to slash greenhouse gas emissions."

Germany, Britain, Japan, Spain and Norway have also submitted forest partnership proposals to conduct REDD projects with Indonesia, Soenaryo said.

"We will sign a forest partnership with the German government in the near future," he said.

The REDD concept was adopted during the UN-sponsored climate change conference in Bali last year where negotiators from 190 countries held intensive talks on cutting carbon emissions, recognized as the main contributor to global warming.

The Bali meeting required forestry countries first to perform demonstration projects and build REDD mechanisms to be examined in a Copenhagen meeting next year.

One aim of the Copenhagen conference on climate change is to determine whether the REDD concept can be adopted as one of the legal mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when the Kyoto Protocol commitment ends in 2012.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, rich nations, except the United States, are bound to cut emissions by about 5 percent. The protocol allows only the clean development mechanism and forestation/reforestation projects as legal mechanisms for developing nations to take part in emissions cuts.

Developing nations, which are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, will be able to trade their carbon with rich nations to receive financial incentives based on tons of carbon reductions.

Indonesia is the third-largest forestry country in the world, with 120 million hectares of tropical forests.

The forest carbon partnership signed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd focuses partly on policy development and capacity building to support participation in international negotiations and future carbon markets.

Australia will help Indonesia develop a forest carbon accounting mechanism and set up a monitoring system.

"Australian experts will help Indonesians with calculating carbon emissions stocked in forests. This skill is important because it will enable us to compute the potential financial incentives through REDD projects," Soenaryo said.

He said carbon emissions from projects that avoid deforestation would be traded on a voluntary basis because there was no international legal treaty on REDD projects.

Australia will also set up monitoring stations to check forest conditions after the implementation of REDD projects, he said.

Many have expressed concerns about possible leaks in the implementation of REDD projects.

Australian former prime minister John Howard pledged a total of A$240 million last year to curb deforestation in Southeast Asia.

The fund included a promised A$30 million to plant 100 million trees in Borneo.

But Greenpeace Indonesia activist Arif Wicaksana expressed doubt the partnership could stop rapid deforestation in Indonesia.

"We want the government to take real actions to stop deforestation including imposing a forest moratorium and avoiding overlapping permits for forest use.

"The partnership gives no clear targets on how to stop deforestation," he said.

Arif urged the Australian government to also help improve the condition of Papua New Guinea's forests, which he said had been destroyed to meet high Australian demand for forest products.

He said he doubted Australia's capacity to calculate forest carbon.

"So far, there is no valid mechanism in the world on how to calculate carbon in the forests," he said.

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Inaccessible forest in the Chaco gets £10m protection

Lewis Smith, The Times 17 Jun 08;

Drunken trees and furry armadillos in one of the most inaccessible areas of the world are to be protected under a £10 million plan.

In an agreement to be officially sealed tonight, the World Land Trust (WLT), a British conservation charity, will take over joint management of a million hectares of forest in the Chaco, northern Paraguay, which had faced being ploughed up to make room for soya and biofuel crops. The WLT will share responsibility with Guyra Paraguay, a non-governmental conservation organisation.

Three national parks and huge tracts of private and government-owned land are included in the deal under which the WLT intends to raise £10 million for a trust fund to pay for the long-term management of the area, including paying for wardens recruited from indigenous populations.

The Chaco, which extends into Argentina and Bolivia and is twice the size of Wales, is home to a wide variety of animals, including the Chaco giant peccary, which resembles a hog and is the size of a pony but was known only from fossils until 1975.

The other wildlife includes Columbina doves, which are found in such quantities that they have been compared to the huge flocks of passenger pigeons that were found in North America until they were driven into extinction.

At five inches long and unusual in being covered in fur, the fairy armadillo is one of the oddest creatures of the Chaco. Other animals at home there include the giant armadillo, giant anteater, giant otter and jaguar.

The Chaco forest is perhaps best known for its palo borracho trees, forming the so-called drunken forest because they store so much water in their trunks that when they lean over they are said to resemble beer-bellied drunks. “Axe-breaker” quebracho trees were once common but now survive in the Chaco as a rare species. They were cut down in their thousands to provide sleepers for South America’s rail network.

John Burton, chief executive of the WLT, said: “This is certainly the biggest challenge that the WLT has faced in its 20-year history. It is vital that we rise to the challenge, to do as much as we can for the future of the world’s wild places. We must save this wonderful habitat, and we must work with the people who live there.”

Carlos López Dose, the Paraguayan Environment Minister, said: “We sincerely appreciate the support and the effort that is being carried out by our foreign friends in terms of the conservation of our Chaco. We welcome the international cooperation to join our conservation efforts on behalf of what remains of these, among the last great natural landscapes of the world. What we are doing today, signing this agreement, is of historical value for Paraguay.”

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Britain, Norway launch fund to preserve Congo Basin rainforest

Yahoo News 17 Jun 08;

The prime ministers of Britain and Norway on Tuesday launched a multi-million-pound initiative to preserve the rainforest in the Congo Basin, which has been described as "the world's second lung."

Gordon Brown and Jens Stoltenberg announced the 100-million-pound (125.8 million euro, 195 million dollar) fund in cooperation with the Commission for the Forests of Central Africa (COMIFAC) and the African Development Bank.

Each country will contribute 50 million pounds, while Britain pledged an additional eight million pounds.

Britain's Department for International Development said the money would help create a satellite monitoring system to give the first detailed view of the rate of deforestation in the Congo, with the pictures beamed direct to Central Africa.

Stoltenberg said as much as one fifth of current greenhouse gas emissions were caused by deforestation, but experts believed the emissions could be substantially lowered in a relatively short period.

"To reduce total emissions the global community will have to take urgent action," he said at the launch of the initiative in London.

"A reduction of the emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is essential to address climate change.

"We believe that the Congo Basin Forest Fund is a good example of a mechanism by which developed countries can help shoulder the financial burden of developing countries making significant emissions reductions."

Covering an area twice the size of France, the Congo Basin rainforest straddles six countries and is home to more than 50 million people, 10,000 species of plants, 1,000 species of birds and 400 species of mammals.

A UN study found that if action is not taken immediately to tackle deforestation then more than 66 percent of the rainforest will be lost by 2040.

Fund to save Congo Basin rainforest launched
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 17 Jun 08;

A multi-million pound fund to save one of the world's biggest rainforests from destruction has been launched in London.

Scientists say the preservation of the Congo Basin rainforest - the second largest in the world - is vital in fighting global climate change.

Deforestation contributes as much as 35 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and every week an area the size of 25,000 football pitches is cut down in the Congo Basin.

The UN estimates that 66 per cent of the rainforest will be gone by 2040 if the destruction isn't halted.

The Congo Basin Forest Fund is designed to protect the rainforest by paying African governments and its indigenous people to look after it and manage its vast resources sustainably and to guarantee its future survival.

The UK government announced it was adding £8m to the £50m it has already pledged - to help with start-up costs - and the Norwegian government announced it would contribute £50m. It is hoped that the Fund will attract donations from around the world.

One of the first steps will be the use of state-of-the-art satellite technology to map precisely for the first time the extent of the damage caused by deforestation.

Helping launch the Fund Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "It is a great honour to mark the launch of the Congo Basin Forest Fund.

"Together we are pledging to work together to secure the future of one of the world's last remaining ancient forests. Preserving our forests is vital if we are going to reduce global emissions and tackle climate change.

"I look forward to working with leaders and groups, in the Congo region and from around the world, to preserve these forests and sustain people's livelihoods."

More than 50m people from 10 countries live within the rainforest which covers an area twice the size of France.

Wangari Maathai, a Nobel laureate and one of the fund's co-chairs, said: " Scientists tell us we have not contributed much to global warming but the biggest effects will be felt in Africa.

"We have been calling for carbon justice by working with the countries who have contributed to assist the countries that are going to suffer the effects. We have to meet each other half way to deal with a difficult crisis that we all face."

Prof Maathai said the forests were also very important for maintaining rainfall and water supplies in the region and spoke of her own childhood experience in Kenya when a stream that people relied on for fresh water dried up because of intensive agriculture.

She warned against clear cutting forest for growing biofuels or other crops, saying it would be "counterproductive".

"Africa has to make very tough choices and she has to feed herself. But it's very important we do not sacrifice indigenous forests for biofuels or any other alternatives," she said.

"Africa is also a water-scarce continent and agriculture is still very dependent on rainfall. Encroachment on these forests would be counterproductive."

Former Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin, also a co-chair of the Fund, said they would be working closely with all the African governments involved.

"Nobody disputes the negative costs of cutting down the forest and that they are hurting themselves by doing it. We have to demonstrate that there are better alternatives, such as sustainable agriculture and reforestation, even in the short term, for their people."

The Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK), which works to protect the Congo Basin rainforest and the people that live in it, welcomed the fund as an opportunity to encourage new ways of looking at forest management.

Simon Counsell, RFUK director, said: "While all eyes are on the Amazon, the Congo Basin, the world's second-largest rainforest, is coming under increasing threat.

"If the Congo Basin follows the same pattern as West Africa, where complete forest destruction followed timber exploitation, then the result would be a catastrophe for millions of forest-dependent people and would drive countless plants and animals to extinction.

"The destruction of the Congo Basin forests would also have global consequences, releasing the equivalent of six years worth of global carbon emissions into the atmosphere."

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