How Bita’ama villagers call dolphins

Solomon Star 17 Jun 09;

A RECENT visit to Bita’ama village, north Malaita, brought some mix feeling of traditional practices for catching dolphins.

Catching dolphin in the past is a normal practice using traditional taboos for bride price initiation.

Today, it has been transformed into a business that has brought the country of the Solomon Islands in the world map, especially, those who are concerned over will be extinct animals and mammals.

The country has benefitted from its sale.

My journey that Friday (11 June 2009) was a unique one.

I never thought of encountering such experience with the people of the dolphin caller.

As I entered the netting ground, I saw more than 50 adults and children swimming in between 60 live dolphins that were caught a week earlier.

I suppose it was a normal practice for it was their traditional way of coming in contact with mammals of the sea.

Here I can sense the God-given closeness of human beings to mammals of which I have no idea.

It taught me a good understanding that man can know God through nature.

As I approach the beach, something tells me that these people need help.

I was with my friend who is also the landowner and have much to say in regard to the catching of dolphins.

I was introduced to the leader who shook my hand with delight and told me that they were waiting for a photographer.

You see, they have arranged for someone to take photos and to publish the article but he never came.

I found out later that the photographer finally arrived very late in the evening. He told this people that he would be happy to set up a tourist centre in the area for dolphin watching which I raise my eye brow with uncertainty.

May be it is too early but nothing can stop such business to be erected at this local site.

The leader was a charismatic guy who knew the traditional values and cultural practices of dolphin calling.

The catching of dolphin, especially for the tooth, has highlighted a very important role of women in the society.
Dolphin tooth were rare and it can only be obtained by catching them.

Indirectly, women become important to the society to the dolphin caller. This confirms our Melanesian traditional beliefs that women were important.

They till the ground for garden, they look after the babies, they fish and cut firewoods, they cook.

Men rely heavily on women for success and prosperity yet, today, we don’t even recognise them.

The people of the dolphin caller had taught me a good lesson that day. It was what behind the dolphin catching that counts.

What really matter is not the money, nor the tooth, but it is the value and respect given to women.

The killing in the past and the eating of the flesh was done for the whole purpose of womanhood as an important commodity in this ancient Solomon Islands society and practices.

Does modern Solomon Islanders have the same world view to women when you catch a dolphin today?

Or is it because of the money, riches and fame that dolphin are now caught. Let God be the judge.

The first catch of the dolphins some few weeks ago are rare ones. One of my colleagues was not permitted to take photos. He was not allowed because of traditional taboos.

The dolphin callers were advised that the rare dolphins should be released for safety reason.

They were told that some of the rare dolphins were sick so they were injected. I take that as rumour so I asked the leader whether the injection was true or not.

He said, no of which I asked no further questions. Curiosity for the safety of mammal in the Solomon Islands has led me to find out more.

However, it was not my business. I am just fascinated to see so many dolphins under captivity that day.

The leader then told me the story of the second catch. It was on Thursday that the name of the tribe to carry out the catch was permitted. There was no dolphin.

On Friday the name of the Mama to carry out the catch was permitted. Again, there was no catch.

On Saturday as they were approaching the area of the catch they saw a school of dolphin heading toward them.

Expert on dolphin says that if you see five dolphins above the surface of the sea, underneath you expect to see two hundred.

Whether this is true but it shows that we have been richer with so many dolphins.

They led them to the site of the slaughter but instead they lovely nurture them into the waiting net for possible sale.

My friend then told me of the important day that the Lord has given for mankind.

No wonder one can brand the second catch as the ‘dolphin Sabbath catch’ of which the leader pronounced without reservation of the truth concerning the Sabbath as the day of the Lord.

I was permitted to take pictures and loaded about more then 200 photos which are rare in comparison to dolphin sanctuary that can be seen in tourist outlet in every country of the world. It was big business.

No wonder world business people are looking at Solomon Islands, now, for more dolphins.

My simple mind says that we need to support our local industries.

Solomon Islands needs local people to carry out there God-given ability such as simple catching of dolphin to boost our economy.

I took an interview video clip of the leader.

He said that the people of Bi’itiama have entered a new era. An era that women, children and men can work together for the benefit of the community.

He wanted to see young people to benefit from the sale of the dolphin, to have schools, youth halls and churches.

He told me to write an article in the news paper for the world to see and if possible to come to Bita’ama directly, to buy their home-made product – the dolphin.

Solomon Islands Government, the name of the game is not exploitation but explanation.

How can we help this simple people to benefit directly from this untapped industry?
Long live dolphin catchers!

By Pastor Wilfred Liligeto
Youth Director
Seventh Day Adventist Mission

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Hunting humpbacks: Plans attacked by environmentalists

Yahoo News 16 Jun 09;

LISBON (AFP) – Plans to resume the hunting of humpback whales, protected by a moratorium introduced more than 40 years ago, came under fire from environmentalists Tuesday, ahead of a key meeting.

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) said Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, intends to ask a summit on Monday to grant it permission to hunt a quota of 50 humpbacks over five years.

"Denmark is lobbying intensely, with the support of Sweden, to build a European consensus in favour of Greenland's proposal," WDCS spokesman Nicolas Entrup said in a statement issued in Lisbon.

"The WDCS urges member states and the Czech presidency (of the European Union) not to put at risk the EU's reputation for commitment to the conservation of the world's whales."

The humpback was a major target of hunters and its population fell dramatically before a moratorium was introduced in 1966.

Greenland will make its request at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which kicks off on Monday on the Portuguese island of Madeira, the WDCS said.

There are 85 countries in the IWC, which has for some years been trying to come to a new compromise on whale hunting and conservation.

Iceland and Norway are the only two countries in the world that authorise commercial whaling.

Japan officially hunts whales for scientific purposes, which are contested by opponents, and the whale meat is sold for consumption.

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Australia's forests key to fighting global warming

Rob Taylor, Reuters 16 Jun 09;

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Ancient Australian forests are key to fighting climate change and contain the world's most dense carbon store, eclipsing tropical rainforests as efficient greenhouse gas absorbers, scientists said on Tuesday.

Towering Mountain Ash forests covering Victoria state's cool highlands hold four times more carbon, or around 1,900 metric tons of carbon per hectare, than tropical forests, scientists at the Australian National University said.

"The trees in these forests can grow to a very old age, at least 350 years, and they can grow very large, very tall, and they grow very dense, heavy wood," said Brendan Mackey, a professor of environment science.

The researchers studied biomass data from 132 forests around the world to discover regions storing the most carbon, with results published in the U.S.-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Australian forest was compared to old growth tracts on the United States Pacific Coast, Siberia, the central Amazon, Thailand and Cambodia, Venezuela, Finland and elsewhere.

The findings overturn conventional thinking about the carbon density of different forest types that until now held that tropical rainforests were the most carbon-dense, Mackey said.

The Victorian forest, part of the water catchment for Australia's second biggest city Melbourne, was a large store because the area had been protected from logging, highlighting the link between old growth forest felling and global warming.

"Part of the reason these trees store so much is that they have reached mature growth. You are just never going to store the same amount of carbon if you are turning the forest over every 40 years," Mackey told Reuters.

"This reinforces the point that we need to think about the carbon value of these forests, which we've just been thinking of until now as wood supply," he said.

A second reason for Mountain Ash's carbon efficiency was that plant growth rates were balanced by rates at which biomass decayed, with the cool Victorian forests conducive to high growth and slower rates of decomposition.

That placed Australia's living and dead biomass carbon among Mountain Ash forest at 1,900 metric tons per hectare against 650 tones per hectare in temperate U.S. Pacific forests and between 140 and 250 metric tons in most rainforests globally.

The Victorian forests are in rugged mountains at the head of the Yarra River, which eventually flows through the center of Melbourne, and is surrounded by national park and state forest.

Mackey said the findings could be of real help in planning the fight against climate change in other parts of the world.

"If we were to have climate change policies that recognized the mitigation value of the carbon stocks in natural forest, then that would give a completely different set of values about forest resource management," he said.

Australia's Wilderness Society said the carbon stored in the native forests of Southeast Australia was equivalent to 460 million metric tons of greenhouse gas per year for the next 100 years, with 9.3 billion metric tons of carbon stored.

"This research demonstrates how important it is for the (national) government to now take seriously the carbon stored in our remaining native forests," said Virginia Young, the society's Strategic Campaigns Coordinator.

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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Scientists Debate Shading Earth As Climate Fix

Richard Harris, NPR 16 Jun 09;

Engineering our climate to stop global warming may seem like science fiction, but at a recent National Academy of Sciences meeting, scientists discussed some potential geoengineering experiments in earnest.

Climate researcher Ken Caldeira was skeptical when he first heard about the idea of shading the Earth a decade ago in a talk by nuclear weapons scientist Lowell Wood.

"He basically said, 'We don't have to bother with emissions reduction. We can just throw aerosols — little dust particles — into the stratosphere, and that'll cool the earth.' And I thought, 'Oh, that'll never work,' " Caldeira said.

But when Caldeira sat down to study this, he was surprised to discover that, yes, it would work, and for the very same reasons that big volcanoes cool the Earth when they erupt. Fine particles in the stratosphere reflect sunlight back into space. And doing it would be cheap, to boot.

Caldeira conducts research on climate and carbon cycles at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. During the past decade, he said, talk about this idea has moved from cocktail parties to very sober meetings, like the workshop this week put on by the National Academy of Sciences.

"Frankly, I'm a little ambivalent about all this," he said during a break in the meeting. "I've been pushing very hard for a research program, but it's a little scary to me as it becomes more of a reality that we might be able to toy with our environment, or our whole climate system at a planetary scale."

Attempting to geoengineer a climate fix raises many questions, like when you would even consider trying it. Caldeira argued that we should have the technology at the ready if there's a climate crisis, such as collapsing ice sheets or drought-induced famine. At the academy's meeting, Harvard University's Dan Schrag agreed with that — up to a point.

"I think we should consider climate engineering only as an emergency response to a climate crisis, but I question whether we're already experiencing a climate crisis — whether we've already crossed that threshold," Schrag said.

In reality, carbon-dioxide emissions globally are on a runaway pace, despite rhetoric promising to control them. University of Calgary's David Keith suggested that we should consider moving toward experiments that would test ideas on a global scale — and do it sooner rather than later.

"It's not clear that during some supposed climate emergency would be the right time to try this new and unexplored technique," Keith said.

And experiments could create disasters. Alan Robock of Rutgers University cataloged a long list of risks. Particles in the stratosphere that block sunlight could also damage the ozone layer, which protects us from harsh ultraviolet light. Or altering the stratosphere could reduce precipitation in Asia, where it waters the crops that feed 2 billion people.

Imagine if we triggered a drought and famine while trying to cool the planet, Robock said. On the plus side, it's also possible that diffusing sunlight could end up boosting agriculture, he said.

"We need to evaluate all these different, contrasting impacts to see whether it really would have an effect on food or not," he said. "Maybe it's a small effect. We really don't know that yet. We need more research on that."

Thought experiments to date have focused primarily on the risks of putting sulfur dust in the stratosphere. There are many other geoengineering ideas — like making clouds brighter by spraying seawater particles into the air. But none of them is simple.

"I don't think there is a quick and easy answer to employing even one of those quick and cheap and easy solutions," said social scientist Susanne Moser.

There's no mechanism in place to reach a global consensus about doing this — and a consensus seems unlikely in any event. Who gets to decide where to set the global thermostat? And will this simply become an excuse not to control our emissions to begin with? These were all questions without answers at the academy's meeting.

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Global Sunscreen Won't Save Corals

ScienceDaily 16 Jun 09;

Emergency plans to counteract global warming by artificially shading the Earth from incoming sunlight might lower the planet's temperature a few degrees, but such "geoengineering" solutions would do little to stop the acidification of the world oceans that threatens coral reefs and other marine life, report the authors of a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The culprit is atmospheric carbon dioxide, which even in a cooler globe will continue to be absorbed by seawater, creating acidic conditions.

"There would be a slight reduction in this problem, because land plants would be expected to be able to grow more vigorously in a high CO2, but cool world," says Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, a co-author of the study with lead author Damon Matthews of Concordia University, Canada, and Carnegie geochemist Long Cao. Land plants and soils would hold onto more carbon in this scenario, so less would find its way into the oceans. "However this expansion of the land biosphere, while it's a slight help to ocean acidification is not enough to make a big difference."

A widely-discussed proposal for countering warming with geoengineering involves injecting small, reflective particles into the upper atmosphere. This would partially block incoming sunlight before it reached the Earth's surface, lowering global temperatures just as volcanic ash from the Mount Pinatubo did following its eruption in 1991. But critics have warned that such a scheme might also alter rainfall patterns, damage the planet's ozone layer, or have other unexpected effects.

Until the current study, which used a computer model of the Earth's climate system and biosphere to simulate the effect of geoengineering on climate and the ocean's chemistry, the potential impact of such a scheme on ocean acidification had never been calculated. In the simulations, reduced sunlight cooled the planet as expected,,and it also slightly slowed the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, as more carbon was absorbed by natural sinks. But this slight change was not enough to significantly mitigate ocean acidification.

Ocean acidification rivals global warming as a threat to marine ecosystems, especially coral reefs, which need to be surrounded with mineral-saturated water in order to grow. Rising levels of carbon dioxide make seawater more acidic, leading to lower mineral saturation. Recent research has indicated that continued carbon dioxide emissions will cause coral reefs to begin dissolving within a few decades, putting the survival of these ecosystems at extreme risk.

Geoengineering's minimal effect on ocean acidification adds another factor to the debate over the advisability of intentionally tampering with the climate system. Some see geoengineering as a possibly necessary response to the prospect of devastating climate change caused by increased human emission of greenhouse gases. Others see it as reckless tinkering with the planet's complex and finely tuned climate system that could do more harm than good.

"Geoengineering approaches come with all sorts of risks," says Caldiera. "It is important we learn about the the full set of these risks and all of their implications." He considers deep cuts in human emissions of carbon dioxide to be the most effective safeguard against a global environmental crisis. "One of the good reasons to prefer CO2 emissions reductions over geoengineering is that CO2 emissions reductions will protect the oceans from the threat of ocean acidification, whereas these geoengineering options will not."

Journal reference:

1. Matthews, H. D., L. Cao, and K. Caldeira. Sensitivity of ocean acidification to geoengineered climate stabilization. Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, 28 May 2009

Adapted from materials provided by Carnegie Institution, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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Lazy Environmentalist says don't feel bad

Claudia Parsons, Reuters 16 Jun 09;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Self-described lazy environmentalist Josh Dorfman has a plan to save the planet that is a little unorthodox -- he tells people to stop feeling bad about taking long showers and driving fast cars.

"Environmentalists make people feel bad, and making people feel bad is a terrible marketing strategy," Dorfman said, explaining the concept of his new television series debuting on the Sundance Channel on Tuesday, "The Lazy Environmentalist."

"Prophecies of doom and gloom or trying to appeal to a moral imperative, those tactics appeal to a very small minority that change their behavior," Dorfman said in an interview. "I'm interested in implementing change for the great majority."

On the show, Dorfman shows families and business people how they can make their lives easier by making more environmentally friendly choices.

In the first episode, he analyzes a California family's trash and shows them how to recycle, compost and shop for products that produce less waste that will go to landfills.

The father is at first skeptical, casting doubt on the reality of global warming and arguing that there is plenty of space in Texas for as many landfills as required.

"The great majority of Americans are not environmentally conscious," Dorfman said, adding that the biggest challenge he finds in persuading people to go green is the argument that it will cost them more money, especially at a time of recession.

Dorfman deliberately chooses skeptics, such as a woman who runs a dog grooming business and believes it will be too difficult and too costly to use natural products.

Dorfman shows she can save money in some areas, for example by using less water to wash the dogs. There's no escaping that organic dog biscuits are more expensive, but he argues that is offset by health benefits and lower vet's bills.

"The Lazy Environmentalist" started life as a blog five years ago soon after Dorfman started a small environmental luxury furniture design company. An assistant questioned how he could call himself an environmentalist when he enjoyed taking long showers and showed little commitment to recycling.

"I do my best thinking in the shower," Dorfman said, adding that he would rather drive a swift Audi than a gas-sipping Prius, even though he knows a hybrid is better for the planet than a sports car.

"I care, but I'm lazy," he said. "Let's stop feeling bad."

The best way to make a difference, Dorfman said, is to make the environmental choice also the more attractive choice -- cheaper, easier, time-saving or more aesthetically pleasing.

Among examples he cites is a website called www.solarcity.com that leases solar energy systems to homeowners with no upfront installation cost. The money saved on lower electricity bills offsets the lease payment so most homeowners end up saving money immediately, Dorfman said.

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Going green is where the jobs are: new study

WWF 16 Jun 09;

Brussels, Belgium – With over three million jobs across Europe, green economic activities are overtaking polluting industries in terms of employment, says a new WWF study.

“Low carbon jobs for Europe” shows that at least 3.4 million European jobs are directly related to renewable energy, sustainable transport and energy efficient goods and services. This compares with 2.8 million jobs in polluting industries, such as mining, electricity, gas, cement, and iron and steel. It is predicted that the low-carbon economy will continue to expand in the future, whereas employment in extractive and climate polluting industries will continue to decline.

“The study clearly points at the winners and provides evidence that climate-friendly policies and technologies make a positive contribution to the economy,” says Jason Anderson, Head of European Climate and Energy Policy at WWF. “The clean economy is about to take off. If politicians continue to support industries that contribute to climate pollution, Europe will face high costs in the future, both for the economy and the environment.”

Available figures suggest that in Europe close to 400,000 people are employed in renewable energy activities, some 2.1 million in efficient transport, and over 900,000 in energy efficiency goods and services. These jobs include, for example, manufacturing, installation and maintenance of wind turbines and solar panels, and construction works to improve efficiency in existing buildings. Related indirect jobs are estimated at approximately another 5 million.

All are showing significant growth, with particular focus on wind power, solar photovoltaic, bioenergy, public transport and building sectors.

Leading European countries are Germany, Spain and Denmark for wind power, Germany and Spain for solar power. Other countries see developments in similar activities, with high potentials for improvement.

Ahead of the European Council meeting in Brussels on 18-19 June, WWF is asking that the EU makes strong commitments to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions and move to a green economy.

“In the next few days, Europe has an opportunity to do something to reduce the international perception that it is good at making promises but poor at living up to them,” added Anderson. “The Council should reemphasize Europe's commitment to taking on emissions cuts that are in line with staying below a 2 degree limit, which is not the case now”.

“In doing so Europe will demonstrate confidence that ambition in tackling the climate problem goes hand in hand with developing the engines of future economies and employment. As this report shows, making a strong emissions reductions commitment will also support the fastest growing and highest job contributing areas of the economy.”

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German firms eye huge African solar project: report

Yahoo News 16 Jun 09;

BERLIN (AFP) – German firms plan to club together next month to turn into reality a dream to generate electricity for Europe in the deserts of north Africa using solar power, a newspaper report said Tuesday.

The 20 or so firms will form on July 13 a consortium that aims to attract an enormous 400 billion euros (560 billion dollars) in investment in the project, known as Desertec, the Suedeutsche Zeitung daily reported.

It wants to place solar power installations in several countries in the region, provided they are politically stable, the paper said, quoting Torsten Jeworek, a board member of insurance giant and consortium head Munich Re.

He also said that he was "very optimistic" that other countries including Italy and Spain would join, and that there had been "positive signals" from North America as well.

"We want to create an initiative that will put on the table concrete implementation plans in the next two or three years," Jeworek said. "Technologically, the project is practicable."

He added that Desertec could provide around 15 percent of Europe's electricity needs. The Suedeutsche Zeitung said that the first electricity could begin flowing to Europe in 10 years.

A spokeswoman for German engineering giant Siemens, which the paper said would be a member of the consortium, told AFP that Desertec was a "very exciting project."

If fully realised, the project could generate 100 gigawatts of electricity, the equivalent of 100 power plants, the Siemens spokeswoman added.

Experts hail Sahara-Europe solar plan
William Ickes Yahoo News 14 Jul 09;

FRANKFURT (AFP) – Far-sighted plans to energise Europe by tapping solar power from the sweltering Sahara desert offer bright prospects but must not overshadow renewable sources closer to home, experts say.

German deputy environment minister Matthias Machnig said solar systems behind the 400-billion-euro (560-billion-dollar) project, launched in Germany on Monday, had "enormous potential."

The Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII) is powered by 12 mostly German companies from the engineering, energy and finance sectors but has also won support from firms in Algeria and Spain and from officials in Egypt and Jordan.

The project, scheduled for completion in 2050, would install solar power generators across North Africa and the Middle East and share the electricity between host countries and their private partners.

The technique, called solar thermal electrical generation (STEG), uses reflected sun rays to heat fluid-filled tubes, creating steam that drives a generator.

The plan also includes water desalinisation plants for host nations.

Greenpeace spokesman Andree Boehling said: "We support and welcome this initiative" and forecast that "around a quarter of the global electricity supply could come from solar electricity in deserts."

Matthias Fawer, who covers sustainable energy for the private Swiss bank Sarasin, told AFP the initiative was "a visionary concept" but noted it was not the only solution.

"I wouldn't bet on one horse," he said, adding that it was also important to develop wind energy parks in the North Sea and geo-thermal plants in places where that was appropriate.

"It's the combination that is viable and makes renewable energy so strong," Fawer said.

Greenpeace called the Desertec initiative "another building block" for the future but said it was "not an alternative to decentralised technologies like photo-voltaic or wind energy."

The environmental group calls for a combination of such energy sources with centralised ones including offshore wind turbines and hydro-electric power from Scandinavia.

German Social Democratic deputy Hermann Scheer also preferred decentralised European sources to a massive project in the hands of major corporations.

But Fawer backed the idea of helping North Africa, a major source of European immigrants.

"We need to support this continent," he stressed. "Europe and Africa should work much closer together."

Jordan's Prince Hassan ibn Talal agreed when the project was unveiled on Monday.

Partnerships formed through the work "will open a new chapter in relations between the people of the European Union, West Asia and North Africa," he was quoted by a statement as saying.

A study by Desertec, Greenpeace and the Wuppertal environmental research institute said the project could create two million jobs. Desertec spokesman Tim Hufermann said 80 percent of the electricity would power producer countries.

The remainder should satisfy 15 percent of Europe's needs, he added.

Critics say few jobs would be created in host countries however, and the business daily Handelsblatt warned Monday against fostering "eco-colonialism."

The massive project would cover 6,000 square kilometres (2,300 square miles), including 2,500 for power plants and 3,500 for the distribution grid.

"They are already building plants" in Egypt, Spain and Tunisia that could be integrated into the network, Hufermann noted.

Desertec has put the initial start-up cost at around 10 billion euros.

Beyond the massive cost, a potential obstacle is the possibility of regional instability, which the group hopes to avoid by increasing the number of host nations and encouraging their economic development.

Solar-generated electricity is also expensive, and some question whether local populations can afford it.

Greenpeace called for initially subsidised prices and said development of the technology would eventually make it cheaper than conventional sources.

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Open-source hydrogen car takes to the road

Designs for the Riversimple urban car, capable of a 50mph top speed and a 240 mile range, will be freely available online in a bid to help grow the hydrogen market

Adam Vaughan, guardian.co.uk 16 Jun 09;

A new hydrogen-powered car, whose designs will be "open source" and posted for free use on the web, was unveiled today in London. The company behind the Riversimple urban car claim the new model proves hydrogen automotive technology is ready for roll-out now rather than in 10 years' time.

The open-source approach means entrepreneurs around the world could download the designs and manufacture the two-seater prototype locally for free.

The car, which drove in to the launch event, is capable of a 50mph top speed, 0-30mph acceleration in 5.5 seconds, and has a 240 mile range. The car's backers say it has greenhouse gas emissions of 30g/km CO2, less than a third of the latest hybrid petrol cars such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight.

The lightweight Smart car-size vehicle uses hydrogen in a modest 6kW fuel cell, and – in the case of this prototype – uses hydrogen converted from natural gas. Hydrogen can also be created from water using electrolysis and potentially even from biofuels.

The open-source decision was made to speed the car's commercialisation, with the company hoping entrepreneurs globally will adapt it to local conditions. Hugo Spowers, a motorsport engineer and the founder of Riversimple, said: "We want competitors, even if they're in the UK. We believe that open source is commercially the best thing for us to do, as it will help grow the market for hydrogen technology, from parts to repairs and the refuelling infrastructure."

Sebastian Piëch, the finanical backer for Riversimple, added: "Now that we have the basic vehicle in place with practical technology, the challenge is to begin the development of a fuelling infrastructure to accompany it."

The car, which cost nearly £500,000 to develop in partnership with Oxford University and Cranfield University, is expected to cost £200 a month to lease when it is launched as a production vehicle. The date for UK availability is yet to be announced, but Riversimple is in talks with UK cities including Oxford and Worcester for pilots.

Hydrogen cars have so far enjoyed little real-world success, due in part to a lack of charging infrastructure, cost and – more recently – a political swing towards electric cars.

Gordon Brown has publicly backed electric cars as a way to reduce UK carbon emissions, and in April the government announced plans to offer £5,000 grants towards anyone buying an electric car in 2011.

In the US, the Obama administration recently cut research budgets for hydrogen vehicles. Steven Chu, the US energy secretary, last month said: "We asked ourselves: 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?' The answer, we felt, was 'no'."

Spowers disputed the notion that widespread hydrogen technology was a long way off. "I agree the passion is swinging away from hydrogen, but the reason is people are sceptical of the near-term possibilities of hydrogen vehicles – people are still clear that hydrogen is the end-game."

The Riversimple urban car, he said, proved the technology was available now.

The ultimate green car – but where do you fill it up?
The hydrogen-run vehicle unveiled yesterday promises a pollution-free future. But there is a bumpy road ahead
Michael McCarthy, The Independent 17 Jun 09;

It's silent, it's pollution free, it's nippy, and it'll get you round town for £2,500 a year, fuel and maintenance included. So, is it the car of the future? Maybe.

The developers of the hydrogen-powered Riversimple Urban Car certainly think it is, and when this new British contribution to green motoring was unveiled in London yesterday they did not spare the superlatives. The lightweight two-seater, which has a hydrogen fuel cell powering four electric motors, will cut travelling costs and do more to save the planet, they said, than any other car on the road.

That's if it gets there. What was unveiled yesterday on the terrace of Somerset House overlooking the Thames was a demonstration model and before the Riversimple can come off the production line and take its place in the traffic, many obstacles have to be crossed.

The biggest one is the hydrogen, which goes into the fuel cell in liquid form, at a very low temperature. There is no hydrogen refuelling infrastructure in Britain, or anywhere else for that matter, and at present no-one is proposing to build one, especially seeing the billions of pounds it would cost.

The answer to this from the engineer behind the Riversimple, Hugo Spowers, is to keep it local. Mr Spowers wants to go into partnership with a British city – he has Oxford in mind, among others – in which 50 vehicles would be based and leased to customers. As the car is intended to be a city runabout, rather than for long journeys, there would only need to be a single refuelling point in each urban centre, he says. If more cities took up the idea, Mr Spowers predicts a national hydrogen refuelling network could come into existence of its own accord.

But before he can get to that stage he has to raise another £20m of investment, of which "a proportion", he said yesterday, had been secured. The Riversimple publicity made much of the backing of Sebastian Piech, a member of the Piech motoring dynasty involved in running Porsche and Volkswagen, but Mr Spowers made it clear that Mr Piech was investing privately and not on behalf of any major German car company.

The advantages of the Riversimple, assuming it lives up to everything claimed by the makers, are considerable. It can reach a top speed of 50mph, which is comparable to that of the electric G-Wiz, but with a carbon fibre body and a much lighter fuel cell than in other hydrogen vehicles it is claimed to have a range on one fuel charge of 240 miles – five times the distance the G-Wiz can travel before recharging.

Above all, with a hydrogen fuel cell no carbon dioxide is emitted from the exhaust to add to the greenhouse gases causing global warming, which would be a principal reason for many people to buy the car. But Mr Spowers did admit that the emissions were in fact 30grams of CO2 per kilometre travelled, reflecting the amount of CO2 released in the industrial process needed to make the hydrogen. But even this, he said, was "a quarter of the lowest emissions of any car in the market today", and there was a prospect of "green" hydrogen in the future, made with renewable energy, when the CO2 would shrink even lower.

Hydrogen-powered car makes debut
Peter Woodman, Press Association The Independent 16 Jun 09;

A new lightweight hydrogen-powered car, capable of speeds up to 50mph, was shown off in London today.

Able to travel 240 miles without refuelling, and weighing just 772lb (350kg), the two-seater Riversimple Urban Car could be put into production as soon as 2013.

Before that the project leaders plan to raise funds to build 10 prototypes and try out vehicles in UK cities.

Supported by the great-grandson of car pioneer Ferdinand Porsche, the Riversimple car does the petrol equivalent of 300 miles to the gallon.

The design of the car will be placed online so that production versions can be developed to suit local requirements in urban areas.

The cars will be leased to users rather than sold, with owners getting a maintenance, support and fuel package. The vehicles are expected to have a life span of around 20 years.

The car has four electric motors attached to each wheel and these double as brakes and generate electricity which is stored in a bank of ultracapacitors.

The car is powered by a fuel cell of just six kilowatts compared with the 100kW in some hydrogen prototypes.

The car has been developed over the last three years in a co-operative research programme involving the River Simple development team founded by engineer Hugo Spowers and Oxford University, Cranfield University in Bedfordshire and Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies.

The research has been financed through initial support from industrial gas company BOC, Government grants and the private support of the Piech family including Sebastian Piech, a great-grandson of Ferdinand Porsche.

Mr Piech said: "The Riversimple Urban Car represents a major step towards practical 21st century personal transport and towards the fulfilment of my great-grandfather's ambitions for accessible personal transport, but this time combining his other passions: light weight and high efficiency.

"Now that we have the basic vehicle in place with practical technology the challenge is to begin the development of a fuelling infrastructure to accompany it, to encourage the adoption of the sale of mobility service and encourage broad participation in the open source design to make the already practical technology into a broadly adaptable customer proposition."

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ConocoPhillips chief warns of impending oil crisis

Yahoo News 16 Jun 09;

DETROIT (AFP) – Government efforts to curb climate change could soon spur an oil crisis more severe than those already experienced, the head of oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips said Tuesday.

"We're very concerned that if we don't keep the supply up we're going to see another crisis," said chief executive officer Jim Mulva.

Government intervention in the energy market "has an impact" on the willingness of companies to pour billions into the development of new projects, Mulva told an economic summit in Detroit, Michigan.

"If we're not investing in replacing our resources in fossil fuels then we're going to create a bigger challenge soon: higher price spikes and volatility in the cost of our energy than what we've experienced even in the past," he said.

"That's not going to be helpful to the recovery of our economy."

Demand for energy is expected to grow significantly in the coming decades as a result of economic development and a growing global population, and there is no way that demand can be met without the use of oil and gas, he said.

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China 'unfairly seen as eco-villain'

William Bleisch, BBC News 17 Jun 09;

China's rapid economic expansion in recent years has been matched by its increasingly voracious appetite for energy and natural resources, says William Bleisch. But, as he explains in this week's Green Room, the nation has sometimes been unfairly portrayed as the world's biggest environmental villain.

As early as 1995, Lester Brown, one of the world's leading environmentalists, predicted that China's increasing demand for food and other commodities would soon drive world prices to record highs.

If the figures were alarming then, they have only grown more so as China's prosperity has increased its global reach and purchasing power.

Cries of alarm have come from more and more people, as China's demand for everything from oil to hardwood timber has been blamed for global price rises.

The increasing affluence of Chinese consumers and their new-found ability to travel the world means that far more of them have the opportunity and the means to purchase tiger skins, ivory and rhinoceros horn.

And as the nation's energy and mining industries have ventured beyond the nation's borders, they have turned out to be every bit as rapacious and unethical as western companies can be; perhaps more so, since they do not have to answer to an open press and domestic outrage.

Growing appetite

The impacts of China's affluence are being felt downstream as well, in the form of greenhouse gases emissions.

CO2 emissions from China are increasing faster than from any other country in the world.

In 1990, it already accounted for some 10.5% of the world's CO2 emissions. Now, according to some analyses, China has become the world's largest emitter of climate-altering gases.

The backlash has been predictable. China's exemption from caps on greenhouse gas emissions was one of the major reasons why the US Senate unanimously rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

It was a powerful justification for the Bush administration's stance on Kyoto.

The politicians believed that US efforts would be pointless if China's emissions continued to grow.

But are the criticisms entirely fair? First, markets and emissions must be considered relative to China's enormous population and fairly recent emergence as a newly industrialised nation.

China's population of 1.3 billion is about four times larger than that of the US, but each Chinese citizen uses about 25% of the energy consumed by his or her US counterpart.

Even that measure is skewed, because much of that energy used in China is to manufacture goods that are then purchased by Americans, Europeans and Japanese.

The current rates of emissions also hide the fact that the industrialised western nations (including Japan) have been belching out CO2 far longer than China, which only reached newly industrialised status in the 1990s.

Exotic tastes

China certainly deserves criticism for its impacts on other areas of the environment.

Chinese consumers have a large and growing appetite for exotic medicines that has directly led to dozens of species in China and throughout the world becoming endangered.

Its citizens are still responsible for consumption of staggering amounts of wildlife and threatened timber products, some illegally smuggled from as far away as Indonesia and Zimbabwe.

In 2008, several US states moved to ban turtle trapping on public lands, and 12 more US turtle species have been proposed for the endangered species list - all because of the impact of trade to China.



But even with regard to trade in wildlife, the story is hardly as simple as it is often portrayed.

China signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) and put it into force in 1981, passing legislation soon after to back up the treaty.

In many areas, the government has made dramatic strides in controlling wildlife trade over the past 20 years, even as demand has sky-rocketed due to consumers' new affluence.

Illegal wildlife products have largely disappeared from shops and markets in much of China, as enforcement of wildlife laws has become clearer and more effective.

Gone are the days when tiger bone wine could be openly advertised, and monkeys and wild caught parrots were openly sold in markets.

The tiger brand plasters found in every Chinese pharmacy contain no tiger, and the tiger and leopard skins sold to foolish westerners at many tourist traps are actually just poorly dyed dog skins.

Chinese consumers seeking to stock up on threatened wildlife must now travel to neighbouring countries, where unscrupulous local dealers still feel safe offering them a multitude of products, both fake and real.

China has also made dramatic strides in protecting the best examples of natural habitats in nature reserves and other protected areas.

More than 15% of the nation's land area is legally protected in thousands of nature reserves and national parks, and most national reserves now have full-time staff that carry out regular patrols.

The proposal and approval of the enormous Giant Panda Sanctuary World Heritage Natural Site in the Sichuan Qionglai Mountains is just one of the most recent examples of China's political will and dedication to protecting world natural heritage.

This is essential, since the rapid pace of development means that natural ecosystems outside protected areas are under increasing threat from the relentless search for more land and resources.

Controlling the breakneck development has proved to be difficult or impossible for many regions, but a new law on Environmental Impact Assessments, which became effective in September 2003, has been praised as a model of good legislation.

It includes provisions to increase protection for critical habitats and protected areas. There is still a major gap between policy and implementation, but it may not be long before the "Three Simultaneous Commencements" (the start of permit application, the start of the environmental impact assessment and the start of digging) becomes a thing of the past, at least in the country's more progressive regions.

Team effort

China has made impressive efforts to rise to standards set by the international community, but the efforts have not always been good enough to stem the tide in the face of massive and growing pressures.

It can be argued that none of this will mean much if China's greenhouse gas emissions cause climate disasters to habitats and species throughout the world.

But here too, China has responded to global needs.

It signed the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1998 and ratified the Protocol in 2002, something that the US failed to do.

More importantly, it made emissions reduction a national policy in 2005, when the nation's 11th Five-Year Plan (for 2006 to 2010) set a target of reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20%.

The EU gave itself a similar target, but has until 2020 to achieve it; US plans are less ambitious still.

Given the pattern of exaggeration and over-statement often seen in the international press, it is little wonder that strident international criticism just seems to be dismissed as sour grapes by most people in China.

Is it time, as many Chinese critics argue, for westerners to back off and tend to their own houses?

Perhaps. But isn't it the responsibility of all, both producer nations and consumer nations, to work together to solve problems such as depletion of ocean fisheries and over-exploitation of threatened species?

We might hope that at least global climate change is so much of a clear and present danger that, for once, countries could put aside their differences and act together to find a workable solution, perhaps based on the seemingly fair standard of a "climate change allocation" for each person on the planet.

China should respond to critics by providing clear answers detailing what is being done to solve real problems. And that is not "China-bashing"; the same could be said of every fully industrialised nation.

Global problems demand global accountability; and that creates a responsibility of each of us to point out when policy and implementation are failing, and to help each nation rise to the needs.

Dr William Bleisch is science director of the China Exploration & Research Society

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

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New US climate report dire, but offers hope

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 16 Jun 09;

WASHINGTON – Rising sea levels, sweltering temperatures, deeper droughts, and heavier downpours — global warming's serious effects are already here and getting worse, the Obama administration warned on Tuesday in the grimmest, most urgent language on climate change ever to come out of any White House.

But amid the warnings, scientists and government officials seemed to go out of their way to soften the message. It is still not too late to prevent some of the worst consequences, they said, by acting aggressively to reduce world emissions of heat-trapping gases, primarily carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

The new report differs from a similar draft issued with little fanfare or context by George W. Bush's administration last year. It is paradoxically more dire about what's happening and more optimistic about what can be done.

The Obama administration is backing a bill in Congress that would limit heat-trapping pollution from power plants, refineries and factories. A key player on a climate bill in the Senate, California Democrat Barbara Boxer, said the report adds "urgency to the growing momentum in Congress" for passing a law.

"It's not too late to act," said Jane Lubchenco, one of several agency officials at a White House briefing. "Decisions made now will determine whether we get big changes or small ones." But what has happened already is not good, she said: "It's happening in our own backyards and it affects the kind of things people care about."

Lubchenco, a marine biologist, heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In one of its key findings, the report warned: "Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems." The survival of some species could be affected, it said.

The document, a climate status report required periodically by Congress, was a collaboration by about three dozen academic, government and institute scientists. It contains no new research, but it paints a fuller and darker picture of global warming in the United States than previous studies.

Bush was ultimately forced by a lawsuit to issue a draft report last year, and that document was the basis for this one. Obama science adviser John Holdren called the report nonpartisan, started by a Republican administration and finished by a Democratic one.

"The observed climate changes that we report are not opinions to be debated. They are facts to be dealt with," said one of the report's chief authors, Jerry Melillo of Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, Mass. "We can act now to avoid the worst impacts."

Among the things Melillo said he would like to avoid are more flooding disasters in New Orleans and an upheaval of the world's food supply.

The scientists softened the report from an earlier draft that said "tipping points have already been reached and have led to large changes." Melillo said that is because some of the changes seen so far are still reversible.

Even so, Tom Karl of the National Climatic Data Center said that at least one tipping point — irreversible sea level rise — has been passed.

A point of emphasis of the report, which is just under 200 pages, is what has already happened in the United States. That includes rapidly retreating glaciers in the American West and Alaska, altered stream flows, trouble with the water supply, health problems, changes in agriculture, and energy and transportation worries.

"There are in some cases already serious consequences," report co-author Anthony Janetos of the University of Maryland told The Associated Press. "This is not a theoretical thing that will happen 50 years from now. Things are happening now."

For example, winters in parts of the Midwest have warmed by 7 degrees in just 30 years and the frost-free period has grown a week, the report said.

Shorter winters have some benefits, such as longer growing seasons, but those are changes that require adjustments just the same, the authors note.

The "major disruptions" already taking place will only increase as warming continues, the authors wrote. The world's average temperature may rise by as much as 11.5 degrees by the end of the century, the report said. And the U.S. average temperature could go even higher than that, Karl said.

Environmental groups praised the report as a call for action, with the Union of Concerned Scientists calling it what "America needs to effectively respond to climate change."

Scott Segal, a Washington lobbyist for the coal industry, was more cautious: "Fast action without sufficient planning is a route to potential economic catastrophe with little environmental gain."

Associated Press Writer Dina Cappiello in Washington contributed to this report.
U.S. Global Change Research Program: http://tinyurl.com/m4rdnp

Act now on global warming, US government report urges
Yahoo News 16 Jun 09;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Americans must take quick action to slow climate change or face a future in which devastating weather extremes affect everything from water supplies to food production, a US government report said Tuesday.

Global warming, which the report blames largely on human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases, has already brought weather and environmental changes including higher temperatures and sea levels, retreating glaciers, and earlier snowmelt, says the report by the US Global Change Research Program, a grouping of government agencies and the White House.

With no changes to human energy usage, which the report says is a key factor in driving global warming, rising temperatures will bring with them more frequent extreme heat waves, such as the one that swept Europe in 2003, claiming tens of thousands of lives.

Hurricanes will become fiercer as they gather greater strength over warmer oceans.

Regions that have already seen an increase in precipitation are likely to have even higher levels of rain and snowfall while arid areas, such as the largely desert southwestern region of the United States, could experience more droughts.

Unchecked climate change will have a huge impact on agriculture, as the heart of US farming, the Midwest and Great Plains, becomes hotter and drier.

Temperature rises in the United States will also bring with them increased demands on the energy system, as more people use air-conditioning to beat the heat.

Although the report urges Americans to take immediate action to halt the advance of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts of climate change cannot be wholly undone, it warns.

"No matter how aggressively heat-trapping emissions are reduced, some amount of climate change and resulting impacts will continue due to the effects of gases that have already been released," the report says.

The report, titled "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States," tackles the subject of climate change from a global and a uniquely US angle "to show that the US cannot be viewed as an island when you are talking about climate change," said Jerry Melillo, one of the lead authors on the project.

"One big message we're trying to get across is that not only is climate change happening now, but it's happening in your backyard," said Melillo, a researcher at the Marine Biology Observatory in Massachusetts.

Government Study Warns of Climate Change Effects
John M. Broder, The New York Times 16 Jun 09;

WASHINGTON — The impact of a changing climate is already being felt across the United States, like shifting migration patterns of butterflies in the West and heavier downpours in the Midwest and East, according to a government study to be released on Tuesday.

Even if the nation takes significant steps to slow emissions of heat-trapping gases, the impact of global warming is expected to become more severe in coming years, the report says, affecting farms and forests, coastlines and floodplains, water and energy supplies, transportation and human health.

The study was prepared by the United States Global Change Research Program, a joint scientific venture of 13 federal agencies and the White House. Under a 1990 law, the group is required to report every 10 years on natural and human-caused effects on the environment. The current study, which began in the George W. Bush administration, builds on the findings of the 2000 one.

The study, overseen by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will be posted at www.globalchange.gov/usimpacts.

Some of the effects being seen today and cited in the report are familiar, like more powerful tropical storms and erosion of ocean coastlines caused by melting Arctic ice. The study also cites an increase in drought in the Southwest and more intense heat waves in the Northeast as a result of growing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other climate-altering gases in the atmosphere.

Reduced mountain snowpack means earlier melt-offs and reduced stream volumes across the West and Northwest, affecting residential and agricultural water supplies, habitats for spawning fish and reduced hydroelectric power generation, the study found.

But the speed and severity of these effects in the future are expressed with less certainty in the report and will depend to some extent on how quickly the United States and other nations move to reduce emissions.

“What we would want to have people take away is that climate change is happening now, and it’s actually beginning to affect our lives,” said Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a principal author of the report. “It’s not just happening in the Arctic regions, but it’s beginning to show up in our own backyards.”

Dr. Karl said that unless the country acted soon to reduce emissions and to adapt to inevitable effects of a changing climate, the costs would be severe.

“Our destiny is really in our hands,” he said. “The size of those impacts is significantly smaller with appropriate controls.”

Dr. Karl said the section of the 188-page report dealing with human-health effects generated the most discussion and uncertainty among the agencies. The study said rising average temperatures would cause more heat-related illnesses and deaths, along with some reduction in deaths from extreme cold.

The study also showed that higher temperatures combined with air pollution would cause a higher incidence of asthma and other respiratory ailments.

Michael C. MacCracken, a leader of the 2000 study and a principal outside reviewer of the current one, said in an e-mail message that the new report was a useful overview of the state of current climate science in the United States, but “there is not much that is new.”

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