Urban beekeeping in UK helps combat decline

Robert Leslie Yahoo News 20 Sep 09;

LONDON (AFP) – In tiny urban gardens, Britons are doing their bit to counter the mysterious worldwide decline of bees -- they are starting to keep their own.

The ancient art of beekeeping is enjoying a renaissance in Britain, fuelled by concerns about the provenance of food and the desire to do something for the environment.

Jon Harris, 43, was a bee novice just six months ago.

Now, with hundreds of bees buzzing around him in his white protective suit, he lifts the frames out of the hive in his compact back garden in Brixton, south London, and gives a satisfied smile at what he finds.

"That honeycomb is just amazing," he says, brushing off the remaining bees to reveal the white-crusted product of the busy insects' magic.

Harris has enjoyed a bumper first summer with his hive, harvesting 20 kilogrammes (45 pounds) of honey -- "which goes to prove there is something around here they love."

Bees don't need pastures of wild flowers to find nectar -- the hedgerows and bushes alongside the railway line behind his house are a perfect substitute, but they will happily fly up to four miles (6.5 kilometres) looking for food.

When Harris was made redundant from his job as a retail buying manager in March, he found he had time on his hands. He had always wanted to keep bees -- but he thought his garden was too small for a hive.

A one-day course on urban beekeeping set him on the right path.

"As long as you have enough room for a hive, you've got enough room to keep bees," he told AFP.

"It is one of those hobbies that gets you outdoors and it actually gets you involved with something natural as opposed to doing a pottery course or a photography course."

While the bees are thriving in one London garden, globally they are in trouble.

Experts gathered this weekend in the southern French city of Montpellier for the 41st world apiculture conference, Apimondia, to ponder why parts of North America and Europe, and now also Asia, have been struck by Colony Collapse Disorder, which can wipe out up to 90 percent of a bee community.

Chris Deaves, chair of education at the British Beekeepers' Association, said a combination of factors was probably to blame.

"The decline is real," he says. "In the UK last winter we lost about 21 percent (of the population).

"The winter before it was about 25 to 30 percent. It is probable that the cause is multi-layered."

Some experts say the blood-sucking varroa mite could be to blame, but pesticides, viruses and industrialised farming are also suspected to be attacking and weakening bee communities.

"It is rather like a human being, when you are rundown you may start to exhibit the effects of the flu," Deaves says.

But his smile returns when he reflects on the newfound public enthusiasm for his passion in Britain.

"The interest in beekeeping is growing very, very rapidly," he said. "Perhaps it is because of the feeling that everybody has to do something to make the planet a better place to live," especially in polluted cities.

"You can't keep cows or sheep (in a city), but you can keep bees," Deaves said.

"People are also concerned about having the capability to create food in the UK," and people are increasingly worried about where their food comes from, and how many air miles were involved in getting it to the dinner table, he said.

Back in Brixton, Jon Harris' honey has travelled just a few steps from the garden to his kitchen.

He slices the honeycomb, takes a taste and licks his lips.

"It has got a very minty, eucalyptus-y taste to it when it comes out. That dies back a bit. But it is probably the best honey I have tasted."

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Tuna Town in Japan Sees Falloff of Its Fish

Martin Fackler, The New York Times 19 Sep 09;

OMA, Japan — Fishermen here call it “black gold,” referring to the dark red flesh of the Pacific bluefin tuna that is so prized in this sashimi-loving nation that just one of these sleek fish, which can weigh a half-ton, can earn tens of thousands of dollars.

The cold waters here once yielded such an abundance of bluefin, with such thick layers of tasty rich fat, that this tiny wind-swept seaport became Japan’s answer to California’s Napa Valley or the Brie cheese-producing region of France: a geographic location that is nearly synonymous with one of its nation’s premier foods.

So strong is the allure of Oma’s tuna that during the autumn fishing season, tens of thousands of hungry visitors descend on this remote fishing town, located on the northernmost tip of Japan’s main island of Honshu. On a recent Sunday, dozens of tourists, filmed by no fewer than three local television crews, crowded into an old refrigerated warehouse on a pier where Oma’s mayor presided over a ceremony to slice up a 220-pound bluefin into brick-size blocks for sale.

“This is a pleasure you can only have a few times in your life,” said Toshiko Maki, 51, a homemaker from suburban Tokyo, as she popped a ruby-red cube of sashimi into her mouth.

But now the town faces a looming threat, as the number of tuna has begun dropping precipitously in recent years because of overfishing. This has given Oma another, less celebrated distinction, as a community that has stood out by calling for greater regulation of catches in a nation that has adamantly opposed global efforts to save badly depleted tuna populations.

Just a decade or two ago, each boat here could routinely catch three or four tuna a day, fishermen say. Now, they say Oma’s entire fleet of 30 to 40 boats is lucky to bring in a combined total of a half-dozen tuna in a day.

The problem, they say, is that all the fish are being taken by big trawlers that come from elsewhere in Japan, or farther out to sea from Taiwan or China. Some of these ships even use helicopters to spot schools of tuna, which they scoop up in vast nets or catch en masse with long lines of baited hooks. According to local newspapers, there have been repeated incidents of small fishing boats from Oma and other ports intentionally cutting such trawl lines.

“I’m furious at Tokyo’s bureaucrats for failing to protect our tuna,” said Hirofumi Hamahata, 69, the president of the Oma fishermen’s co-op, who has worked as a commercial fisherman since age 15. “They don’t lift a finger against the industrial fishing that just sweeps the ocean clean.”

Such flares of temper are rare in normally reserved Japan, and especially in conservative fishing communities like this one. But this is a town fiercely proud not only of its tuna, but also of how it catches them: in two-man open boats, using hand-held lines and live bait like squid.

Mr. Hamahata described catching tuna in this traditional way as a battle of wits against a clever predator that he called “the lion of the sea.” After hooking one, the contest becomes a battle of strength: he said it typically took one or two hours to pull a big tuna close enough to the boat that it could be stunned with an electric charge.

In one Hemingwayesque battle, Mr. Hamahata said he fought for 12 hours with a huge bluefin that finally broke free.

Despite such difficulties, Oma’s fishermen said they preferred their generations-old fishing method because it allowed them to catch just large, adult fish, leaving the smaller young ones to sustain local stocks.

Fishing experts say the overfishing is a result of a broader failure by the Tokyo authorities to impose effective limits on catches in its waters. Indeed, Japan, which consumes some 80 percent of the 60,000 tons of top-grade tuna caught worldwide, has lobbied hard against efforts to limit tuna catches, such as are now being proposed by European countries for the Atlantic Ocean.

“There are too many entrenched interests whose objective is maximizing profit, not sustainable use,” said Masayuki Komatsu, an expert on the fishing industry at Tokyo’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

In Oma, catching a big tuna has become rare enough — and the market price high enough — to be cause for celebration. On a recent evening, family members rushed to the pier to greet one boat that had caught a 410-pound bluefin, whose tear-shaped body had to be hoisted off the boat’s deck with a forklift.

Moving quickly to gut and ice the fish to preserve its value, workers from the fishing co-op presented the footlong dorsal fin as a trophy to the captain’s wife, who said it was the first catch in 10 days. The workers said the fish would fetch more than $10,000 at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market.

“Catching a tuna is like winning the lottery,” said another fisherman, 23-year-old Takeshi Izumi, who said his boat had yet to catch a tuna this season.

To maximize prices, Oma has registered its name as a trademark that can be used only with tuna brought ashore here. This has made Oma a brand that is gaining recognition even outside Japan. In March, a sushi chef from Hong Kong paid some $50,000 to buy half of a 280-pound Oma bluefin.

The prices can be even higher: In 2001, a Japanese buyer paid a record $220,000 for a 444-pound Oma bluefin.

One unfortunate side effect, said the town’s mayor, Mitsuharu Kanazawa, was that few of Oma’s 6,200 residents can now afford their own town’s tuna. However, he said the fish have been a boon to the town’s economy, pumping in some $15 million a year from fishing and tuna-related tourism.

After a popular 2000 TV drama featured Oma, the town increased tourism by starting a three-day tuna festival every year in mid-October, which now draws 15,000 visitors a day, as well as hordes from the Japanese media, Mr. Kanazawa said.

“We Japanese have a weakness for brands,” said Ryuko Nishimura, 43, a homemaker from Kuroishi, a three-hour drive away. “It makes the tuna taste two or three times more delicious.”

But with tuna now in danger of perhaps disappearing, the mayor said the town was struggling to find another local product to keep the tourists coming.

“We tried kelp and abalone,” Mr. Kanazawa said, “but nothing has the appeal of tuna.”

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River heals as lawsuit against Big Poultry looms

Justin Juozapavicius, Associated Press Yahoo News 20 Sep 09;

SCRAPER, Okla. – David Overbey is no scientist, but he says a person doesn't have to be to see how much the Illinois River has improved in recent years.

Overbey, a 67-year-old retired laborer who spends his days fishing the river in the foothills of the Ozarks in eastern Oklahoma, said the water is clearer now than it was 30 or 40 years ago, and the drum and channel catfish he catches are bigger. And other locals, too, say the river is slowly beginning to heal after decades of deterioration.

Some trace the roots of the recovery to 2005, when Oklahoma brought a pollution lawsuit against the Arkansas poultry industry, suggesting the threat of legal action may have spurred the companies to do better at policing themselves.

"The water quality is getting better, and this year, especially, we had very little algae," said Archie "Trey" Peyton III, 35, a former environmental consultant who now runs the Peyton's Place float company.

"There's got to be a reason for that, which to me it follows that the last two years that most of the poultry litter in this region has been trucked out. But it looks to me like that's making an impact on the river," Peyton said.

But Oklahoma says the industry needs to do more, and its closely watched case against 11 companies — including food giants Tyson Foods Inc. and Cargill Inc. — goes to trial Thursday.

It's been a long-standing practice among poultry farmers in the Illinois River watershed to spread their chickens' droppings on their fields. But as big business took over the production of broilers, the amount of waste being spread on local fields ballooned — to an estimated 345,000 tons annually in recent years, according to Oklahoma.

Rather of disposing the waste in safer but more expensive ways — including burning it as energy, processing it into pellets or composting it — the state argues that Big Poultry has chosen the easiest, and cheapest, route. Runoff from the waste spread on the fields has polluted the Illinois River with harmful bacteria, degraded its water quality and caused algae blooms, the state argues.

The bacteria in the water threatens the health of the tens of thousands of people who use the river recreationally each year, and of the many businesses that rely on it.

The industry argues that Arkansas and Oklahoma sanctioned this practice by issuing farmers permits to spread the inexpensive waste.

The companies say they've also taken steps to reduce the amount of waste spread on the fields. Records provided to The Associated Press by the poultry industry show that nearly 290,000 tons of chicken waste have been trucked out of the area between 2005 through last month.

The four-year estimate, which does not include litter hauled away by the Oklahoma Conservation Commission, still is about 55,000 tons less than the amount of waste produced in just one year in the watershed.

But the industry says it's a start, and says it's spending millions of dollars researching alternative uses for chicken waste and has bankrolled various river improvement projects.

Other states considering taking on Big Poultry are closely watching the Oklahoma case, which is expected to last several weeks.

In the meantime, the poultry and tourism industries will continue to share the lush, 1 million-acre swath of land that extends from northeastern Oklahoma into western Arkansas, with its thick forests, babbling brooks and 1,800 low-slung chicken houses that dot the landscape.

Those who live and work along the river say its health appears to be improving. There's the fatter and more plentiful fish, for one, and less of the thick algae that once coated the river's bottom like shag carpeting. Local merchants say they logged banner seasons outfitting the tens of thousands of tourists who flock to the river each year.

"This river is better now than it was 20 years ago," said Jack Spears, a retired college professor who owns Arrowhead Resort, the second-largest float company in the area. His operation equips roughly 20,000 customers a year for trips down the river.

Spears has spent most of his 75 years in this county and remembers when he could look at water so clear in the Illinois that 10 or 12 feet down seemed like 6 inches.

"If I was in (the poultry companies') position, I'd say, 'hey, let's police our act. Let's clean up our act, or they'll be forced to by someone else,'" Spears said.

The other defendants named in the lawsuit are Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.; Tyson Poultry Inc., Tyson Chicken Inc., Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cargill Turkey Production L.L.C., George's Inc., George's Farms Inc., Peterson Farms Inc. and Simmons Foods Inc.

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Ivory Coast toxic dump 'still claiming lives'

Christophe Koffi Yahoo News 19 Sep 09;

AKOUEDO, Ivory Coast (AFP) – Three years after a ship dumped toxic waste in Ivory Coast, residents of a village off the main city of Abidjan are still traumatised by untimely deaths they say are linked to poisoning.

"We are living on borrowed time," said Bienvenue Danho, who is in charge of waste disposal at Akouedo, northeast of Abidjan, about the 2006 spill that caused 15 deaths and countless infections, according to a UN expert.

"There are unexplained deaths even today," said Blaise Adja, the head of a local youth association.

Over 100,000 people have sought medical help for problems including vomiting, diarrhoea and breathing difficulties.

"Three years after the scandal, we are only witnessing the short-term effects," Adja, a high school teacher, said, evoking the case of a 40-year-old man who had worked to clear up the waste and died this week of a throat tumour.

"Who will be the next one?" added Jean Fortune Tope, echoing a common worry.

In August 2006, the Probo Koala ship, chartered by Dutch firm Trafigura, dumped deadly caustic soda and petroleum residues on city waste tips in Abidjan -- having first attempted to offload the cargo in Amsterdam.

Trafigura, an oil trading firm, has already paid a one hundred billion CFA francs (152 million euros) in damages to the victims of the toxic poisoning in an out-of-court deal with the Ivory Coast government which exempts it from legal proceedings in the west African nation.

It also cleaned up the waste and agreed to build a waste incinerator to tackle Abidjan's pollution problem.

However, a UN expert this week said there was "strong" evidence linking at least 15 deaths and several hospitalisations to the incident.

"Indeed, there is a strong basis to conclude that the deaths and illnesses were directly and indirectly linked to the dumping waste," said Okechukwu Ibeanu.

"Residents in areas close to the dumping sites were directly exposed to the waste through skin contact and breathing of the volatile substances," he said.

A lawyer for victims taking legal action in Britain, where Trafigura has offices, had said on Wednesday that the company had offered a global settlement which "is likely to be acceptable to most, if not all, of the claimants."

The company will pay thousands of people who suffered short-term illnesses including vomiting, diarrhoea and breathing difficulties. The compensation will run to millions of pounds (dollars), reports said.

The Dutch multinational firm had reiterated that it was not responsible for deaths or serious injuries from the dumping, and has not admitted liability.

Court proceedings are ongoing in the Netherlands, with hearings scheduled for 2010.

Environmental group Greenpeace has asked a Dutch judge to order prosecutors to broaden the probe beyond the Netherlands. A decision should be taken within two months.

The possibility of a new compensation deal is however dismissed by most in Akouedo, with locals saying victims had only received a fourth of the compensation Trafigura paid the government.

Many allege that their names do not figure in the list of victims.

"It was a bargain," snorted Jean Fortune Tope.

"The state rushed through this urgent matter without thinking of the future," added David Gouedan.

Locals complain that they have not seen any of 500 million CFA francs allocated by the government for social projects in the village, where there is a giant dumping ground spanning scores of acres.

Meanwhile, a stench hangs over the area even now and "becomes stronger during the monsoon," complained Agnes Koutouan, casting a worried glance at a gutter filled with slimy green water and emanating a nauseous odour.

Trafigura settles over Ivory Coast toxic waste claims
Yahoo News 20 Sep 09;

LONDON (AFP) – Oil-trading company Trafigura has agreed to pay 30 million pounds to victims of toxic waste dumped in Ivory Coast in an out-of-court settlement, a spokesman for the firm said Sunday.

The agreement with British lawyers Leigh Day and Company, who represent 31,000 claimants in Abidjan, accepts however that there is no link between exposure to the waste and any deaths or miscarriages, as was alleged.

"The agreement was signed late on Saturday night," a spokesman for Trafigura told AFP on Sunday, confirming the deal was worth 30 million pounds (33 million euros, 49 million dollars).

Each victim will get 750,000 francs CFA (1,150 euros, 1,700 dollars), the spokesman added. They originally asked for a total of 180 million pounds.

In August 2006, the Probo Koala ship, chartered by Trafigura, dumped caustic soda and petroleum residues on city waste tips in Abidjan -- having first attempted to offload the cargo in Amsterdam.

Ivory Coast has said the dumping killed 17 people and caused more than 100,000 to seek medical help, while a report by a UN expert last week found "strong" evidence linking the waste to 15 deaths and several hospitalisations.

Trafigura has always disputed this, however, and its position was upheld in the out-of-court settlement.

In a joint statement issued late Saturday, Leigh Day and Trafigura said that more than 20 independent experts had been brought in to examine the case.

"These independent experts are unable to identify a link between exposure to the chemicals released from the slops and deaths, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, loss of visual acuity or other serious and chronic injuries," it said.

"Leigh Day and Co, in the light of the expert evidence, now acknowledge that the slops could at worst have caused a range of short-term, low-level flu-like symptoms and anxiety."

Trafigura director Eric de Turckheim said the settlement "completely vindicates Trafigura".

"Over the past three years, the company has been the target of numerous attacks which have wrongly asserted that Trafigura?s actions led to deaths and serious injuries," he said.

"These accusations have now been found to be baseless."

He added: "While we certainly do not accept legal liability, Trafigura regrets the Probo Koala incident and in particular the distress that it caused the local population."

However, Denis Yao Pipira, president of the national federation of toxic waste victims in Ivory Coast, said last week that the settlement was an "admission of guilt" which would bring "moral comfort to the victims."

At least 75 percent of the claimants gave their backing for the compensation agreement, Trafigura said, the legal minimum for such an out-of-court settlement to be reached.

Trafigura has already paid one hundred billion CFA francs (152 million euros) in damages to the victims in an out-of-court deal with the Ivory Coast government, which exempted it from legal proceedings in that country.

Saturday's agreement came a fortnight before the dispute was due to go to court in London on October 6, and just days after a damning United Nations report into the issue.

Okechukwu Ibeanu, who is the UN special rapporteur on the issue, said there was "a strong basis to conclude that the deaths and illnesses were directly and indirectly linked to the dumping waste".

Trader Trafigura says settles Ivorian waste case
Loucoumane Coulibaly and Reed Stevenson, Reuters 20 Sep 09;

ABIDJAN/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - International commodities trader Trafigura said on Sunday it had reached a settlement with thousands of people in Ivory Coast who said they had fallen ill from toxic waste dumped around the economic capital Abidjan.

Each of the 31,000 claimants represented by British law firm Leigh Day and Co would be entitled to damages of about 950 pounds ($1,553), Trafigura board director Eric de Turckheim told Reuters.

Trafigura said the settlement was in no way an admission of liability. An Ivorian group representing the victims said it rejected the offer, and accused the company of exploiting Africa's poverty to end the row and avoid taking responsibility.

Trafigura, one of the world's biggest commodities traders with offices in Geneva, Amsterdam and London, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to the 2006 incident, when slops from a cargo ship it had chartered were dumped in Abidjan, the main city in Ivory Coast.

Trafigura said in a statement that Leigh Day and Co had accepted that experts were unable to identify a link between the slops deposited and any deaths, miscarriages, still births or other serious injuries.

The slops "could at worst have caused a range of short-term, low-level flu-like symptoms and anxiety," it said. Lawyers at Leigh Day and Co could not be reached for comment.

De Turckheim, a co-founder of Trafigura, said the settlement vindicated the firm's stance that the toxic waste did not cause any deaths.

"NOT FAIR"

But the Ivorian National Federation of Victims of Toxic Waste, which says it represents nearly all the victims, accused Trafigura of trying to push through the agreement to avert a class action case due to be heard in a London court next month.

"Trafigura wants to excuse itself morally but it is not fair," Denis Pipira Yao, the group's president, told Reuters.

"The waste was toxic and lethal. Trafigura is proposing 750,000 CFA francs ($1,683) for each victim," he said. "As people are poor in Africa, Trafigura is using money to get away with it. We are not at all happy with this way of doing business and we will work with our lawyers to make it clear."

It was not clear why the compensation figure he cited was different from that stated by Trafigura.

De Turckheim declined to respond directly to Yao's comments, saying Trafigura's settlement was with the 31,000 claimants represented by Leigh Day and Co.

Leigh Day and Co said in a statement that in the last few weeks it had been exploring the possibility of settling the claims with Trafigura.

"We have reached a point where we are now in the process of putting a global deal to the claimants," Martyn Day said.

Trafigura hired a contractor in 2006 to dispose of slops from a ship it had chartered, the Probo Koala. It described the petrochemical waste as residues from gasoline, mixed with caustic washings.

Trafigura said in a press release that the settlement was "in no way an acceptance of liability," but a sign of its social and economic commitment to the region.

"Trafigura also recognises that the slops had a deeply unpleasant smell and their illegal dumping ... caused distress to the local population," it said.

A United Nations report on Wednesday said that on the face of it, there was a strong link between the waste and the deaths of at least 15 people and illness suffered by thousands more. Trafigura called the report "deeply flawed."

The company agreed to a $198 million out-of-court settlement with the Ivory Coast government in 2007, which exempts it from legal proceedings in the West African country.

(Additional reporting by Avril Ormsby; Writing by David Lewis and Reed Stevenson; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Turkey to up Euphrates flow to Iraq

Yahoo News 19 Sep 09;

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Turkey has agreed to up the flow of water along the Euphrates river to Iraq for a month, Baghdad said on Saturday, amid tensions between the two sides over distribution of the precious commodity.

The agreement came after talks in Istanbul involving Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Turkish Environment Minister Veysel Eroglu, following a months-long war of words between Baghdad and Ankara.

"Turkey has agreed to give Iraq 450 to 500 cubic meters of water per second along the Euphrates until October 20," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.

On Friday, however, Eroglu said between 500 and 550 m3/s would be released to Iraq. Dabbagh did not address the discrepancy in his statement.

At the end of June, Baghdad said Turkey had increased the Euphrates flow from 360 m3/s to 570 m3/s to help overcome a shortage and promised to raise that to 715 m3/s in July, August and September.

But last month, Iraq claimed the amount was cut back to around only 250 m3/s -- around a quarter of the minimum requirement for irrigation.

One cubic metre is equivalent to 35.3 cubic feet.

Iraq and Syria have often complained that Turkey monopolises the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris through a series of dams built on both rivers as part of a massive project to irrigate its southeastern corner.

Turkey insists the dams allow for better management, ensuring a constant flow of water downstream in spite of seasonal changes.

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Plugged-In Age Feeds a Hunger for Electricity

Jad Mouawad and Kate Galbraith, The New York Times 19 Sep 09;

With two laptop-loving children and a Jack Russell terrier hemmed in by an electric fence, Peter Troast figured his household used a lot of power. Just how much did not really hit him until the night the family turned off the overhead lights at their home in Maine and began hunting gadgets that glowed in the dark.

“It was amazing to see all these lights blinking,” Mr. Troast said.

As goes the Troast household, so goes the planet.

Electricity use from power-hungry gadgets is rising fast all over the world. The fancy new flat-panel televisions everyone has been buying in recent years have turned out to be bigger power hogs than some refrigerators.

The proliferation of personal computers, iPods, cellphones, game consoles and all the rest amounts to the fastest-growing source of power demand in the world. Americans now have about 25 consumer electronic products in every household, compared with just three in 1980.

Worldwide, consumer electronics now represent 15 percent of household power demand, and that is expected to triple over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency, making it more difficult to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.

To satisfy the demand from gadgets will require building the equivalent of 560 coal-fired power plants, or 230 nuclear plants, according to the agency.

Most energy experts see only one solution: mandatory efficiency rules specifying how much power devices may use.

Appliances like refrigerators are covered by such rules in the United States. But efforts to cover consumer electronics like televisions and game consoles have been repeatedly derailed by manufacturers worried about the higher cost of meeting the standards. That has become a problem as the spread of such gadgets counters efficiency gains made in recent years in appliances.

In 1990, refrigerator efficiency standards went into effect in the United States. Today, new refrigerators are fancier than ever, but their power consumption has been slashed by about 45 percent since the standards took effect. Likewise, thanks in part to standards, the average power consumption of a new washer is nearly 70 percent lower than a new unit in 1990.

“Standards are one of the few ways to cheaply go after big chunks of energy savings,” said Chris Calwell, a founder and senior researcher at Ecos, a consulting firm that specializes in energy efficiency.

Part of the problem is that many modern gadgets cannot entirely be turned off; even when not in use, they draw electricity while they await a signal from a remote control or wait to record a television program.

“We have entered this new era where essentially everything is on all the time,” said Alan Meier, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a leading expert on energy efficiency.

People can, of course, reduce this waste — but to do so takes a single-minded person.

Mr. Troast, of South Freeport, Me., is just the kind of motivated homeowner willing to tackle such a project. His day job is selling energy efficiency equipment through an online business. He was not put off by the idea of hunting behind cabinets to locate every power supply and gadget, like those cable boxes, Web routers or computers that glowed in the dark.

The Troasts cut their monthly energy use by around 16 percent, partly by plugging their computers and entertainment devices into smart power strips. The strips turn off when the electronics are not in use, cutting power consumption to zero.

While Mr. Troast’s experience demonstrates that consumers can limit the power wasted by inactive devices, another problem is not as easily solved: many products now require large amounts of power to run.

The biggest offender is the flat-screen television. As liquid crystal displays and plasma technologies replace the old cathode ray tubes, and as screen sizes increase, the new televisions need more power than older models do. And with all those gorgeous new televisions in their living rooms, Americans are spending more time than ever watching TV, averaging five hours a day.

The result is a surge in electricity use by TVs, which can draw more power in a year than some refrigerators now on the market.

Energy experts say that manufacturers have paid too little attention to the power consumption of televisions, in part because of the absence of federal regulation.

Another power drain is the video game console, which is found in 40 percent of American households. Energy experts — and many frustrated parents — say that since saving games is difficult, children often keep the consoles switched on so they can pick up where they left off.

Noah Horowitz, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, calculated that the nation’s gaming consoles, like the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the Sony PlayStation 3, now use about the same amount of electricity each year as San Diego, the ninth-largest city in country.

Mandatory efficiency standards for electronic devices would force manufacturers to redesign their products, or spend money adding components that better control power use.

Many manufacturers fight such mandates because they would increase costs, and they also claim the mandates would stifle innovation in a fast-changing industry.

The government has never aggressively tackled the television issue because of opposition from the consumer electronics lobby in Washington, experts say. In 1987, before televisions had swelled into such power hogs, Congress gave the Energy Department — which generally carries out the standards — the option of setting efficiency rules for TVs.

But industry opposition derailed an effort in the 1990s to use that authority, according to Steve Nadel of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. A more recent attempt to require home electronics to use no more than one watt of power in standby mode met the same fate. The federal government has moved forward on only two standards for electronics, covering battery chargers and external power supplies.

In the absence of federal action, a few states have moved on their own. The California Energy Commission just proposed new standards for televisions that would cut their power consumption in half by 2013. But that effort has set off a storm of protest from manufacturers and their trade group, the Consumer Electronics Association. (It is still expected to pass, in November.)

A spokesman for the industry said that government regulations could not keep up with the pace of technological change.

“Mandates ignore the fundamental nature of the industry that innovates due to consumer demand and technological developments, not regulations,” said Douglas Johnson, the senior director of technology policy at the association.

Mr. Johnson said that California’s limits on manufacturers, which he called arbitrary, might delay or even prohibit some features of new devices. Instead, he praised the government’s voluntary Energy Star program, which he says encourages efficiency without sacrificing innovation.

“Mandatory limits, such as we see in California, threaten to raise prices for consumers and reduce consumer choice,” he said.

Estimates vary regarding how much a mandatory efficiency program for gadgets would cost consumers. For some changes, like making sure devices draw minimal power in standby mode, experts say the cost may be only a few extra cents. At the other extreme, the most energy-efficient of today’s televisions can cost $100 more than the least energy-efficient. (That expense would be partly offset over time, of course, by lower power needs.)

Some types of home electronics are rated under Energy Star, a program that classifies products in more than 60 categories according to their energy consumption. But that program, while a boon to conscientious consumers who buy only the most efficient products, does not prevent the sale of wasteful devices and has not succeeded in driving them off the market.

The lack of regulation of gadgets is a notable contrast to the situation with appliances.

Congress adopted the nation’s first electrical efficiency standards in the 1980s, focusing initially on kitchen and other large appliances. That effort made some steep gains, particularly for refrigerators, which were once among the biggest power hogs in a typical home.

The federal effort lagged during the administration of George W. Bush, and the Energy Department missed a string of deadlines set by Congress. But the Obama administration has vowed to make maximum use of existing law, speeding up the adoption of 26 standards on a host of products that include microwave ovens and clothes dryers. Tougher lighting standards, embraced by both the Bush and Obama administrations, are due to take effect in coming years.

But Congress has never granted any administration the authority to set standards for power-hogging electronic gadgets like game consoles and set-top boxes. Even now, when both the administration and Congress are focused on the nation’s energy problems, no legislation is moving forward to tackle the issue.

Experts like Dan W. Reicher, who directs Google’s energy efforts, argue that the United States must do better, setting an example for the rest of the world.

“If we can’t improve the efficiency of simple appliances and get them into greater use,” Mr. Reicher said, “it’s hard to believe that we’ll succeed with difficult things like cleaning up coal-fired power plants.”

Read more!

Billion-Dollar Floodgates Might Not Save Venice

Sylvia Poggioli, NPR 20 Sep 09;

The construction of mobile floodgates aims to safeguard the 1,300-year-old island city of Venice. It's an ambitious engineering project, but some scientists say it may not be sufficient to protect Venice from rising sea levels due to climate change.

Venice rose from mudflats in the middle of a lagoon which forms the largest wetland in the Mediterranean. One of the world's most endangered cities, it has been subject to increasing flooding due to sinking land — but also to rising sea levels.

It's known as "aqua alta" — high water — and it brings city life to a standstill for several hours. Big boats can't go under low-hanging bridges, and water seeps into buildings through the sewage system. Venetians have not lived on the ground floor for decades.

Moses To The Rescue

Sophisticated technology is now being used for what has become a full-scale emergency. At one of the three inlets that lead from the sea into the lagoon, a massive mechanical hammer is driving a steel and concrete piling into the lagoon bed. Elena Zambardi works for the consortium safeguarding Venice and says the use of pilings was invented by the visionaries who founded the city 1,300 years ago.

"Under the Salute bridge or Rialto Bridge," for example, "there are piles, wooden piles to consolidate the subsoil," she says.
Artist's rendering of how the mobile barriers work. Graziano Arici/New Venice Consortium/AP
Enlarge Graziano Arici/New Venice Consortium/AP

An artist's rendering of how the mobile barriers around Venice would work.
Artist's rendering of how the mobile barriers work. Graziano Arici/New Venice Consortium/AP
Graziano Arici/New Venice Consortium/AP

An artist's rendering of how the mobile barriers around Venice would work.

The project acronym is MOSE, which is also the Italian word for Moses, recalling the biblical parting of the sea.

Once completed in 2014, there will be 78 large, mobile flood gates at the three inlets. When not in use, they will sit on the lagoon bed. When a high tide is forecast, Zambardi says, the gates will rise and shut off the sea from the lagoon.

But the project, which is 54 percent completed, has been hounded by controversy and, critics say, may already be outdated.

The IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — has forecast a sea level rise by the end of this century of between 18 and 59 centimeters. But scientists caution it could be even higher.

An Ecosystem In Danger

Marine scientist Laura Carbognin has been studying the Venetian lagoon for decades. Like many scientists, she fears rising sea levels could mean the floodgates will be closed often and for long periods. That would upset the vital exchange between the sea and the lagoon, suffocating its delicate ecosystem.

Carbognin co-authored a report that suggests another radical solution: "To complement the Moses solution, it is necessary that all the city is uplifted."

She says research already suggests the feasibility of raising Venice.

"Based on hydrological and geochemical data, the preliminary simulation shows that fluid injection into deep formation can uniformly raise Venice up to 30 centimeters over 10 years," Carbognin says.

Carbognin hypothesizes the injections of salt water or even carbon dioxide at a depth of 600 to 800 meters below the lagoon, but she concedes much more research is needed.

That would mean huge investments at a time when delays in state funding for the more-than-$6-billion MOSE has already substantially delayed the project's completion.

Read more!

That sinking feeling: world's deltas subsiding, says study

Yahoo News 20 Sep 09;

PARIS (AFP) – Two-thirds of the world's major deltas, home to nearly half a billion people, are caught in the scissors of sinking land and rising seas, according to a study published Sunday.

The new findings, based on satellite images, show that 85 percent of the 33 largest delta regions experienced severe flooding over the past decade, affecting 260,000 square kilometres (100,000 square miles).

Delta land vulnerable to serious flooding could expand by 50 percent this century if ocean levels increase as expected under moderate climate change scenarios, the study projects.

Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and farmed deltas on every continent except Australia and Antarctica are in peril, it says.

On a five-tier scale, three of the eleven deltas in the highest-risk category are in China: the Yellow River delta in the north, the Yangtze River delta near Shanghai, and the Pearl River Delta next to Guangzhou.

The Nile in Egypt, the Chao Phraya in Thailand and the Rhone River delta in France are also in the top tier of danger.

Just below these in vulnerability are seven other highly-populated deltas, including the Ganges in Bangladesh, the Irrawaddy in Myanmar (Burma), the Mekong in Vietnam and the Mississippi in the United States.

These flood plains and others all face a double-barrelled threat, reports the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

On the one side, a range of human activity -- especially over the last half-century -- has caused many delta regions to subside.

Without human interference, deltas naturally accumulate sediment as rivers swell and spread over vast areas of land.

But upstream damming and river diversions have held back the layers that would normally build up.

Intensive subsurface mining has also contributed mightily to the problem, notes the study, led by James Syvitski of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.

The Chao Phraya delta, for example, has sunk 50 to 150 millimetres (two to six inches) per year as a result of groundwater withdrawal, while a 3.7-metre (12-foot) subsidence of the Po Delta in Italy during the 20th century was due to methane mining.

Indeed, oil and gas mining contribute to so-called "accelerated compaction" in many of the most vulnerable deltas, according to the study, the first to analyse a decade's worth of global daily satellite images.

The other major threat is rising sea levels driven by global warming.

In a landmark report in 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted oceans would rise by 18-59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.6 inches) by 2100.

More recent studies that take into account the impact of melting icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica have revised that estimate upwards to at least a metre (39 inches) by century's end.

The already devastating impact of such increases will be amplified by more intense storms and hurricanes, along with the loss of natural barriers such as mangroves.

In the Irrawaddy delta the coastal surge caused by Cyclone Nargis last year flooded an area up to six metres (20 feet) above sea level, leaving 138,000 people dead or missing.

"All trends point to ever-increasing areas of deltas sinking below mean sea level," the researchers concluded.

"It remains alarming how often deltas flood, whether from land or from sea, and the trends seems to be worsening."

World's River Deltas Sinking Due To Human Activity, Says New Study
ScienceDaily 20 Sep 09;

A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder indicates most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking from human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk.

While the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report concluded many river deltas are at risk from sea level rise, the new study indicates other human factors are causing deltas to sink significantly. The researchers concluded the sinking of deltas from Asia and India to the Americas is exacerbated by the upstream trapping of sediments by reservoirs and dams, man-made channels and levees that whisk sediment into the oceans beyond coastal floodplains, and the accelerated compacting of floodplain sediment caused by the extraction of groundwater and natural gas.

The study concluded that 24 out of the world's 33 major deltas are sinking and that 85 percent experienced severe flooding in recent years, resulting in the temporary submergence of roughly 100,000 square miles of land. About 500 million people in the world live on river deltas.

Published in the Sept. 20 issue of Nature Geoscience, the study was led by CU-Boulder Professor James Syvitski, who is directing a $4.2 million effort funded by the National Science Foundation to model large-scale global processes on Earth like erosion and flooding. Known as the Community Surface Dynamic Modeling System, or CSDMS, the effort involves hundreds of scientists from dozens of federal labs and universities around the nation.

The Nature Geoscience authors predict that global delta flooding could increase by 50 percent under current projections of about 18 inches in sea level rise by the end of the century as forecast by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The flooding will increase even more if the capture of sediments upstream from deltas by reservoirs and other water diversion projects persists and prevents the growth and buffering of the deltas, according to the study.

"We argue that the world's low-lying deltas are increasingly vulnerable to flooding, either from their feeding rivers or from ocean storms," said CU-Boulder Research Associate Albert Kettner, a co-author on the study at CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and member of the CSDMS team. "This study shows there are a host of human-induced factors that already cause deltas to sink much more rapidly than could be explained by sea level alone."

Other study co-authors include CU-Boulder's Irina Overeem, Eric Hutton and Mark Hannon, G. Robert Brakenridge of Dartmouth College, John Day of Louisiana State University, Charles Vorosmarty of City College of New York, Yoshiki Saito of the Geological Survey of Japan, Liviu Giosan of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Robert Nichols of the University of Southampton in England.

The team used satellite data from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which carried a bevy of radar instruments that swept more than 80 percent of Earth's surface during a 12-day mission of the space shuttle Endeavour in 2000. The researchers compared the SRTM data with historical maps published between 1760 and 1922.

"Every year, about 10 million people are being affected by storm surges," said CU-Boulder's Overeem, also an INSTAAR researcher and CSDMS scientist. "Hurricane Katrina may be the best example that stands out in the United States, but flooding in the Asian deltas of Irrawaddy in Myanmar and the Ganges-Brahmaputra in India and Bangladesh have recently claimed thousands of lives as well."

The researchers predict that similar disasters could potentially occur in the Pearl River delta in China and the Mekong River delta in Vietnam, where thousands of square miles are below sea level and the regions are hit by periodic typhoons.

"Although humans have largely mastered the everyday behaviour of lowland rivers, they seem less able to deal with the fury of storm surges that can temporarily raise sea level by three to 10 meters (10 to 33 feet)," wrote the study authors. "It remains alarming how often deltas flood, whether from land or from sea, and the trend seems to be worsening."

"We are interested in how landscapes and seascapes change over time, and how materials like water, sediments and nutrients are transported from one place to another," said Syvitski a geological sciences professor at CU-Boulder. "The CSDMS effort will give us a better understanding of Earth and allow us to make better predictions about areas at risk to phenomena like deforestation, forest fires, land-use changes and the impacts of climate change."

Adapted from materials provided by University of Colorado at Boulder, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Sinking River Deltas Threaten Millions
livescience.com Yahoo News 21 Sep 09;

Most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking due to human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk, a new study finds.

Researchers have long warned that the mass human migration to coastal areas in recent decades puts more and more people at risk of death from major storms. About 500 million people in the world live on river deltas.

A 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which concluded that many river deltas are at risk from sea level rise. The new study indicates other human factors are causing deltas to sink significantly.

Why? The sinking of deltas from Asia and India to the Americas is made worse by the upstream trapping of sediments by reservoirs and dams, man-made channels and levees that whisk sediment into the oceans beyond coastal floodplains, and the accelerated compacting of floodplain sediment caused by the extraction of groundwater and natural gas, the scientists say.

Clear example

New Orleans is one example of a city that sits in a sinking delta, a problem known long before the city was ravaged by hurricane Katrina.

The new study, led by professor James Syvitski at the University of Colorado at Boulder, concluded that 24 out of the world's 33 major deltas are sinking and that 85 percent experienced severe flooding in recent years, resulting in the temporary submergence of roughly 100,000 square miles of land.

The results were detailed in the Sept. 20 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. The study is part of a $4.2 million effort funded by the National Science Foundation to model large-scale global processes on Earth like erosion and flooding. Hundreds of scientists from dozens of federal labs and universities around the nation are involved.

Syvitski and colleagues predict that global delta flooding could increase by 50 percent under current projections of about 18 inches in sea level rise by the end of the century, as forecast by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The flooding will increase even more if the capture of sediments upstream from deltas by reservoirs and other water diversion projects persists and prevents the growth and buffering of the deltas, according to the study.

"We argue that the world's low-lying deltas are increasingly vulnerable to flooding, either from their feeding rivers or from ocean storms," said CU-Boulder Research Associate Albert Kettner, a co-author on the study. "This study shows there are a host of human-induced factors that already cause deltas to sink much more rapidly than could be explained by sea level alone."

Storm surges

The team used satellite data from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which carried a bevy of radar instruments that swept more than 80 percent of Earth's surface during a 12-day mission of the space shuttle Endeavour in 2000. The researchers compared the SRTM data with historical maps published between 1760 and 1922.

"Every year, about 10 million people are being affected by storm surges," said CU-Boulder's Overeem, also an INSTAAR researcher and CSDMS scientist. "Hurricane Katrina may be the best example that stands out in the United States, but flooding in the Asian deltas of Irrawaddy in Myanmar and the Ganges-Brahmaputra in India and Bangladesh have recently claimed thousands of lives as well."

The researchers predict that similar disasters could potentially occur in the Pearl River delta in China and the Mekong River delta in Vietnam, where thousands of square miles are below sea level and the regions are hit by periodic typhoons.

"Although humans have largely mastered the everyday behavior of lowland rivers, they seem less able to deal with the fury of storm surges that can temporarily raise sea level by three to 10 meters (10 to 33 feet)," wrote the study authors. "It remains alarming how often deltas flood, whether from land or from sea, and the trend seems to be worsening."

'Millions at risk' as deltas sink
Richard Black, BBC News 21 Sep 09;

Most of the world's major river deltas are sinking, increasing the flood risk faced by hundreds of millions of people, scientists report.

Damming and diverting rivers means that much less sediment now reaches many delta areas, while extraction of gas and groundwater also lowers the land.

Rivers affected include the Colorado, Nile, Pearl, Rhone and Yangtze.

About half a billion people live in these regions, the researchers note in the journal Nature Geoscience.

They calculate that 85% of major deltas have seen severe flooding in recent years, and that the area of land vulnerable to flooding will increase by about 50% in the next 40 years as land sinks and climate change causes sea levels to rise.

"We argue that the world's low-lying deltas are increasingly vulnerable to flooding, either from their feeding rivers or from ocean storms," said Albert Kettner from the University of Colorado in Boulder, US.

"This study shows there are a host of human-induced factors that already cause deltas to sink much more rapidly than could be explained by sea level alone."

Most of the at-risk river basins are in the developing countries of Asia, but there are several in developed nations as well, including the Rhone in France and the Po in Italy.

The Po delta sank by 3.7m during the 20th Century, mainly from methane extraction, the researchers say.

Sinking feeling

The researchers drew on data from various space missions including the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, an 11-day project run from the shuttle Endeavour in 2000, and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (Modis) carried on two Nasa satellites.

Combined with historical records and measurements of sea level rise, this allowed the team to view how fast land was sinking in some deltas, and to look at the various factors that might be responsible.

Of the 33 major deltas studied, 24 were found to be sinking.

Possibly the worst affected is the Chao Phraya, the river that flows through Bangkok. In some years, parts of the delta have sunk relative to sea level by 15cm (six inches).

This is significantly more than the global rate of sea level rise as a consequence of climate change (1.8-3.0mm per year).

The flow of sediment down to the Chao Phraya delta has been almost entirely blocked, the researchers report - by taking water out for irrigation, damming the river, and directing the main flow through just a few channels.

Normally, this sediment would add to the height of the land, a process known as aggradation.

Taking water from aquifers for drinking, industry and agriculture is also compacting the ground, making it sink.

As the ground falls and sea level rises, people become more vulnerable to inundation during storms.

"Every year, about 10 million people are being affected by storm surges," said Irina Overeem, another of the study team from the University of Colorado.

"Hurricane Katrina may be the best example in the US, but flooding in the Asian deltas of the Irrawaddy in Burma and the Ganges-Brahmaputra in India and Bangladesh have recently claimed thousands of lives as well."

The team identifies the Mekong and the Pearl River delta near Hong Kong as places where similar disasters are likely in future.

THE HIGH-RISK LIST
# Deltas with "virtually no aggradation (supply of sediment) and/or very high accelerated compaction"
# Chao Phraya, Thailand
# Colorado, Mexico
# Krishna, India
# Nile, Egypt
# Pearl, China
# Po, Italy
# Rhone, France
# Sao Francisco, Brazil
# Tone, Japan
# Yangtze, China
# Yellow, China

Read more!

'The Age of Stupid': a wakeup call on climate

Jerome Cartillier Yahoo News 19 Sep 09;

PARIS (AFP) – Could we, the human race, really miss an ever-narrowing chance to save the planet from the ravages of global warming? "The Age of Stupid," which will be screened in hundreds of venues around the world next week, contemplates this grim scenario with the open aim of galvanising a collective effort to prevent it.

Former UN chief Kofi Annan is expected to attend a special "green carpet" showing in New York Monday, on the eve of the world's first United Nation's climate summit.

The film is a serious documentary dressed up as a futuristic climate thriller, with a few bits of animation thrown in to help explain the underlying science.

The story is told in the voice of an ageing archivist -- played by A-list British actor Pete Postlethwaite -- looking back from the year 2055 on a world devastated by climate catastrophe.

Ensconced in a sea-bound tower harbouring a complete digital record of human history, the sadder and wiser archivist pulls up image files that tell the story of real, flesh-and-blood people profiled by the filmmaker, Franny Armstrong.

"We could have saved ourselves, but we didn't. It?s amazing. What state of mind were we in, to face extinction and simply shrug it off?", Postlethwaite's character says with a flash of anger.

Gazing back to our time, he details the lives of six people whose stories intersect with global warming in different ways: a dirt-poor, aspiring medical student from Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta; a young business scion starting up India's third "low cost" airline; a pair of child refugees from the war in Iraq.

We meet 37-year-old Piers Guy, struggling vainly against the opposition of his neighbours in the English countryside of Cornwall to a windfarm that could power several thousand households.

And then there is 82-year old Fernand Parau, a French mountain guide who has watched Alpine glaciers retreat dozens of metres over his long career.

The movie's title comes from a retired oil company scientist in New Orleans, thinking out loud as to how future generations might look back our era if we fail to reign in global warming.

"The Age of Stupid" (www.ageofstupid.com) will be broadcast on Monday in more than 400 US theaters.

And on Tuesday, the film -- translated by volunteers into 32 languages -- will be seen in over 60 countries in locations ranging from the futuristic Geode in Paris to an open-air screen in Vanatu, a South Pacific island nation at risk of being wiped off the map by rising sea levels.

Organisers say more than 200,000 people across the globe will watch the film, which premiered in Britain earlier this year.

The movie's modest 450,000-pound (500,000-euro, 735,000-dollar) budget was financed entirely through "crowd funding," explained Armstrong.

"It is a simple concept: basically, 228 people invested between 500 and 35,000 pounds, and they all own a percentage of the profit," she told AFP in a phone interview.

Armstrong's aims are clear: to help turn up the volume of public pressure ahead of a make-or-break UN conference in Copenhagen in December charged with delivering a planet-saving climate treaty.

She points to other grassroots initiatives that have led to major changes: the US civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam War protests, investment boycotts that helped unravel South Africa's apartheid regime.

Science is clear on what needs to be done, she says: keep global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times, and make sure greenhouse gas emissions peak no later than 2015.

"Every generation that came before us did not know about the problem, and for every generation that follows, it will be too late for them to do anything," she said. "So it comes down to our generation."

"We have the potential to do it, the only question that remains is whether or not we are going to give it a try," she added.

Read more!

The people's planet: On the road to Copenhagen

The Independent 21 Sep 09;

Eco-campaigners offer their own solutions to climate change ahead of the UN summit in New York this week – a meeting that holds the key to striking a new 'Kyoto' treaty in Denmark in December. Jonathan Owen and Jenny Armstrong report

Franny Armstrong, Producer of 'The Age of Stupid'

Cut our emissions by 10 per cent in 2010

"To maximise our chances of preventing runaway climate change, we must quickly and massively cut global emissions. By signing up to the 10:10 campaign, you will commit yourself, your school, your hospital, your church, your business, your whatever, to cut 10 per cent of your emissions next year. As well as being achievable for the vast majority of the population, 10 per cent in one year is the kind of cut the science tells us we need."

Professor John Beddington, Government's Chief Scientific Adviser

Cut emissions to keep temperature rise to 2c above pre-industrial levels

"Global warming is happening and presents unprecedented risks to the planet. The science is clear that to avoid the worst effects. and to keep the risks of catastrophic climate change to an acceptable level, we must keep global temperature rise to C above pre-industrial levels. We must act urgently to make deep cuts in emissions. It's up to the politicians to deliver the deal that the evidence so clearly shows we need."

Sian Berry, Green candidate for London Mayor, 2008

Invest in railways, buses and home insulation as part of a green new deal

"We need to show that a fair agreement won't mean sacrificing jobs by building a genuine Green New Deal: strategic investment in the low-carbon infrastructure we'll need to reach our targets. This doesn't just mean hi-tech kit. The most impressive savings can be made much closer to home. Measures like new local rail lines, running more buses and – most effective and best value – cutting waste by insulating homes and replacing old boilers with more efficient models."

Dr Zhengrong Shi, Solar-cell scientist and businessman

Persuade China and the United States to lead the world

"The most important step toward an effective solution to climate change is for China and the US to commit to specific and meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. The mechanism for doing this is far less important than setting targets and applying severe penalties for not meeting them. With the US and China in the lead, the rest of the world will quickly follow; without them, we will continue to pontificate while the world's climate continues to deteriorate."

Zac Goldsmith, Conservative parliamentary candidate for Richmond, Surrey

Act on the solutions we have, such as micro-generation of energy

"We need tough targets for emissions reductions, mechanisms for helping poorer countries adapt, and a formula for putting real value on forests so they are worth more standing than destroyed. We don't need to pin our hopes on technologies that don't yet exist. Almost everything that needs doing is already being done somewhere."

Daryl Hannah, Actress and dedicated eco-campaigner

Abandon nuclear power in favour of renewable, clean energy

"We need to focus on truly renewable, regenerative, clean energy – that is not nuclear power, folks! Since more energy hits the Earth from the Sun in one hour than all other forms of energy man uses in an entire year, we should be putting our financial and mental resources toward developing community-based solar and solar-thermal projects. We could also employ micro-hydro and vertical-wind turbines. Our highest goal should be energy and resource conservation."

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, Head of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change

We need a zero-carbon electricity supply by 2025

"Decarbonising the electricity supply is the number one [priority] throughout the world. We've got to move by 2025 or so to an almost zero-carbon electricity supply, probably first in the developed world, but then in the developing world. We have to be incredibly miserly with the energy we use and we have to think of producing energy with as near zero-carbon emissions to the atmosphere as we can."

Professor Sir John Houghton, Founder, the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

Foot the annual $150bn-plus bill for helping developing countries tackle climate change

"Rich countries must commit to reducing their emissions by at least 25 to 40 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020. They must develop low-carbon economies at home and provide much needed finance for poor countries to adapt to climate change and to help them develop in a sustainable, low-carbon way. Developing countries need at least $150bn a year for adaptation and emissions cuts. It is essential that this money is found."

Rhian Kelly, Head of Climate Change, CBI

Make a 50 per cent global cut in emissions by 2050 to stimulate low-carbon markets

"Provide business certainty by setting long-term emissions reduction targets for 2050 of a 50 per cent global reduction. There should also be medium-term targets for 2020. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills recently said that if you get an ambitious deal at Copenhagen it will create global markets for low-carbon goods and environment services of £4.5trn by 2015. We need to build a global price of carbon. We need to establish a global carbon market."

Fazlun Khalid, Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences

Reduce personal energy use by 10 per cent

"While those ahead in the race are able to create more money to stay ahead, those behind engage in an almost impossible game of catch-up. The victim of this game is planet Earth and climate change is the result. We are all as much part of the solution as we are of the problem. If each of us can reduce our energy consumption by 10 per cent we would make a significant contribution to reducing the negative effects of climate change."

Sir David King, Former chief scientific adviser to the British Government

Avoid rushing to do a deal on carbon trading

"What we need is a robust process that doesn't have unintended consequences. My fear is that a developed world carbon trading scheme has this big consequence of carbon leakage. I would much rather we didn't reach an agreement at Copenhagen in December because I'm afraid that any agreement that's on the cards is totally inadequate,. I would be much happier to see an agreement reached by December next year.

Christine Loh, International adviser to the G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue

Follow the scientific evidence when coming up with policies to tackle climate change

"Humans are bargaining with each other, but ignoring the planet. What humans can do to reduce emissions is one thing, but if planetary boundaries are breached we are all imperiled. The planet needs to be represented – this is the job of science, and it is against the latest scientific evidence that the world needs to look at proposals, such as G8's to aim to cut emissions in half from 1990 levels by 2050."

James Lovelock, Inventor of the Gaia theory

Spend half our effort against climate change to prepare for the worst

"The Earth is in a pretty poor state, and likely to go on changing whatever we do and if that's true the most important job for governments to do is to prepare adaptation. Our own government should be making sure that protection against disastrous flooding, say, of London, is in place in time. The sensible thing to do is prepare for the worst, to spend half your effort doing that, just in case, as an insurance."

Wangari Maathai, Nobel prize-winning Kenyan sustainable development activist

Help developing countries go to low-carbon economies

"It should be a serious commitment that is translated into action at a national level. That means allocating resources to effect the agreements. In many countries they don't have the technology or the capital to make that low carbon economy happen, so they will need help from developed countries that are partly responsible for the problem. I hope this will be seen not so much as charity but as a justice issue."

Dr Stuart Parkinson, Executive director, Scientists for Global Responsibility

Slash the $1.5trn a year on military budgets – spend it on fighting climate change

"Energy use is the biggest source of carbon emissions, and we need a revolution in the sector to cut emissions enough to prevent dangerous climate change. With the world's governments spending a massive $1.5trn a year on military activities, a good way of releasing the money and skills would be by slashing these budgets. Given that climate change, if unchecked, will undermine global security, this makes sense from both an environmental and a security perspective."

Jonathon Porritt, Former chair of Sustainable Development Commission

Create a climate-change fund for developing countries

"Agree a new fund to help developing countries, to be designed and managed by the poor world as well as the rich world a significant percentage needs to be reserved for a new deal on deforestation. If countries like Brazil and Indonesia are able to confirm their willingness to do a deal this would represent a massive breakthrough. All OECD countries must acknowledge responsibility for today's climate crisis, and confirm their commitment to dramatic reductions in emissions by 2020."

Professor Stephen Schneider, Nobel prizewinning climatologist at Stanford University

Don't rely on 'cap and trade' – invest in green technology and energy efficiency too

"Cap and trade is only part of a comprehensive climate protection strategy. Other elements include performance standards – energy efficiency – investment incentives for green technology, and adaptation assistance for those having difficulty in coping with climate impacts. With the whole world watching at Copenhagen it will be hard for individual countries to try to block international progress in protecting the planetary commons unnoticed."

Dr Vandana Shiva, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology

Go organic globally and abandon factory farming

"Most methane and CO2 production comes from an industrialised, globalised agriculture system. The single biggest step that could be taken to reduce emissions – while improving our food systems, protecting farmers' livelihoods, and creating climate resilience – is to go organic on a global scale. That would mean the huge subsidies the government spends on chemical fertilisers wouldn't have to be spent, instead they could support the farmers to make the transition."

Julia Stephenson, Green activist and columnist

Make it cheaper for people to 'do the right thing'

"I would like the Copenhagen Summit to set out financial incentives to encourage us to live a thriftier – ie greener – lifestyle. The carrot works better than the stick, so governments should emphasise that going green means saving money, and implement a raft of incentives to help, like pay as you throw make rail travel cheaper. At the moment it is left to individuals to do the right thing. Currently, doing the right thing is expensive, and often inconvenient."

Ianukula Kaiabi Suia, President of ATIX, an indigenous organisation in Mato Grosso, Brazil

Include indigenous people in the Copenhagen negotiations and go back to nature

"When rulers of countries talk of international agreements to end man's devastating effect on nature they should look at us and see what hasn't been destroyed, and appreciate that in spite of all the enormous scientific progress the knowledge of traditional peoples represents the best way for man to co-exist with nature. The indigenous peoples want to be included when drafting agreements, because it is from the forests and the waters of their protected territories that the world sees hope."

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The Arctic - By Ban Ki-moon

UNEP 20 Sep 09;

First published in the New York Times on September 17, 2009

Two weeks ago, I visited the Arctic. I saw the remains of a glacier that just a few years ago was a majestic mass of ice. It had collapsed. Not slowly melted - collapsed. I traveled nine hours by ship from the world's northernmost settlement to reach the polar ice rim. In just a few years, the same ship may be able to sail unimpeded all the way to the North Pole. The Arctic could be virtually ice-free by 2030.

Scientists told me their sobering findings. The Arctic is our canary in the coal mine for climate impacts that will affect us all.

I was alarmed by the rapid pace of change there. Worse still, changes in the Arctic are now accelerating global warming. Thawing permafrost is releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Melting ice in Greenland threatens to raise sea levels.

Meanwhile, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

I am therefore all the more convinced we must act - now.

To that end, on Sept. 22 I am convening a special summit on climate change at the United Nations for some 100 world leaders - history's largest-ever such gathering of heads of state and government. Their collective challenge: transform the climate crisis into an opportunity for safer, cleaner, sustainable green growth for all.

The key is Copenhagen, where governments will gather to negotiate a new global climate agreement in December.

I will have a simple message to convey to leaders: The world needs you to actively push for a fair, effective and ambitious deal in Copenhagen. Fail to act, and we will count the cost for generations to come.

Climate change is the preeminent geopolitical issue of our time. It rewrites the global equation for development, peace and prosperity. It threatens markets, economies and development gains. It can deplete food and water supplies, provoke conflict and migration, destabilize fragile societies and even topple governments.

Hyperbole? Not according to the world's best scientists. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak within 10 years if we are to avoid unleashing powerful, natural forces that are now slipping out of our control.

Ten years is within the political lifetime of many attending the summit. The climate crisis is occurring on their watch.

There is an alternative: sustainable growth based on green technologies and policies that favor low emissions over current carbon-intensive models. Many national stimulus packages devised in the wake of the global economic downturn feature a strong green component that creates jobs and positions countries to excel in the clean energy economy of the 21st century.

Change is in the air. The key lies in a global climate deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature rise to a scientifically safe level. A deal to catalyze clean energy growth. Most urgently, an agreement must protect and assist those who are most vulnerable from inevitable climate impacts.

What is needed is political will at the highest levels - presidents and prime ministers - that translates into rapid progress in the negotiating room. It requires more trust among nations, more imagination, ambition and cooperation.

I expect leaders to roll up their sleeves and speak with - not past - each other. I expect them to intensify efforts to resolve the key political issues that have so far slowed global negotiations to a glacial pace. Ironically, that expression - until recently - connoted slowness. But the glaciers I saw a few weeks ago in the Arctic are melting faster than human progress to preserve them.

We must place the planet's long-term interests ahead of short-term political expediency. National leaders need to be global leaders who take the long view. Today's threats transcend borders. So, too, must our thinking.

Copenhagen need not resolve all the details. But a successful global climate deal must involve all countries, consistent with their capabilities, working toward a common, long-term goal. Here are my benchmarks for success.

First, every country must do its utmost to reduce emissions from all major sources. Industrialized countries have to strengthen their mitigation targets, which are currently nowhere close to what the IPCC says is needed. Developing countries, too, must slow the rise in their emissions and accelerate green growth as part of their strategies to reduce poverty.

Second, a successful deal must help the most vulnerable to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. This is an ethical imperative as well as a smart investment in a more stable, secure world.

Third, developing countries need funding and technology so they can move more quickly toward low-emissions growth. A deal must also unlock private investment, including through carbon markets.

Fourth, resources must be equitably managed and deployed in a way that all countries have a voice.

This year at Copenhagen, we have a powerful opportunity to get on the right side of history. It's an opportunity not only to avert disaster, but to launch a fundamental transformation of the global economy.

Strong new political winds now fill our sails. Millions of citizens are mobilized. Savvy businesses are charting a cleaner energy course. We must seize this moment to act boldly on climate change.

Ban Ki-moon is secretary general of the United Nations.

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Australian eruption 'overdue'

Geological Society of Australia, ScienceAlert 21 Sep 09;

A significant volcano eruption in Australia is ‘well overdue’ and emergency authorities must better prepare themselves and the wider community to respond to it, the recipient of the prestigious Geological Society of Australia (Victoria Division) Selwyn Medal for 2009 has warned.

Internationally-respected Melbourne geologist and Geological Society of Australia member, Associate Professor Bernie Joyce, will receive the Selwyn Medal this coming Thursday at the Geological Society of Australia’s (Victoria Division) annual Selwyn Symposium 2009.

“We can’t say with 100 per cent certainty that a significant volcano will strike tomorrow, next week, next year, or even 100 years down the track—but these geo-hazards are real and they must be given much more focus by emergency management authorities” Associate Professor Joyce said.

“There are around 400 volcanoes stretching from the Western District of Victoria into the Western Uplands around Ballarat and to the north of Melbourne around Kyneton and Kilmore, in some parts of the Eastern Uplands such as to the north of Benambra, and across to the South Australian border near Mt Gambier. A volcanic eruption in the Western Uplands could potentially see lava flows and ash falls impacting on Melbourne.

“There is also similar volcano risk present in various provinces in Far North Queensland, stretching from south-west of Townsville to near Cairns and up to Cooktown in the Far North. There are more than 380 volcanoes in total across this part of Queensland.

“A future eruption in any of these regions would be unlikely to come from an existing volcano (as the volcanoes there are generally considered to be 'once only’ erupters). Rather, future eruptions would occur at new sites nearby. The geological record shows that new volcanoes in these areas have erupted perhaps every 2000 years in the past 40,000 years—and given there has not been a major eruption there for the past 5000 years, a significant eruption seems well overdue.

“While any future volcanoes may discharge only small amounts of lava and ash, the real possibility remains that there could be a significant eruption — and it makes sense that the population centres potentially affected should be well-prepared for that worst-case scenario. To this end, eruption response plans should be developed and publicised by the emergency management authorities.

“It is telling that in New Zealand, which has volcano types similar to those in Australia, there is much more focus on the need to educate the public about volcano risk. For example, the Auckland Regional Council has a webpage devoted to volcano risk for that region alone, which has a history of earlier volcanoes very similar to those of Australia.

“The risk from a volcano would not just be from the initial eruption. For example, its red-hot lava and explosive ash would be a major fire hazard on the dry grassland plains of Western Victoria, and lava flows could continue for up to 20 years and for distances of more than 60 kilometres down river systems, cutting off essential water supplies and destroying infrastructure like towns, farming land, roads, railways and bridges. Ash falls could also continue for many years and an initial eruption could, in some circumstances, be followed by further volcanoes erupting near the first eruption site, affecting a wider area for a longer period.

“Eruptions can also produce a mix of toxic gases, including carbon dioxide that could collect in depressions in the surrounding land and asphyxiate those who came across it or were caught in it. An education process is needed to inform the community about how to avoid these situations if they arise.

“The geological record shows us that up to 200,000 years ago there was not a high level of volcanic activity on the Australian continent, yet during the past 40,000 years there has been a cycle of increased activity—this may be pointing to future activity.

“So it is much more likely to be a matter of when, rather than if, a significant volcano occurs in Australia, and emergency authorities should be better preparing themselves and the wider community for that eventuality.”

The Selwyn Medal is named in honour of Sir Alfred Selwyn, an eminent Victorian pioneering geologist and founder of the Geological Survey of Victoria.

In a career spanning 45 years, Associate Professor Joyce has produced significant research papers and assessments regarding volcanic risk and hazard in south-eastern Australia. He is currently studying the landforms of Western Victoria to see what they can reveal about future volcanic risk.

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