Staggering tree loss from 2005 Amazon storm

American Geophysical Union EurekAlert 12 Jul 10;

WASHINGTON—A single, huge, violent storm that swept across the whole Amazon forest in 2005 killed half a billion trees, a new study shows.

While storms have long been recognized as a cause of Amazon tree loss, this study is the first to produce an actual body count. And, the losses are much greater than previously suspected, the study's authors say. This suggests that storms may play a larger role in the dynamics of Amazon forests than previously recognized, they add.

Previous research had attributed a peak in tree mortality in 2005 solely to a severe drought that affected parts of the forest. The new study says that a single squall line (a long line of severe thunderstorms, the kind associated with lightening and heavy rainfall) had an important role in the tree demise. This type of storm might become more frequent in the future in the Amazon due to climate change, killing a higher number of trees and releasing more carbon to the atmosphere.

Tropical thunderstorms have long been suspected to wreak havoc in the Amazon, but this is the first time researchers have calculated how many trees a single thunderstorm can kill, says Jeffrey Chambers, a forest ecologist at Tulane University, in New Orleans, and one of the authors of the paper, which has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

In 2005, there was a spike in tree mortality in the Amazon. Previous studies by a coauthor of this new paper, Niro Higuchi of Brazil's National Institute for Amazon Research (INPA), showed the second largest upsurge recorded since 1989 for the Manaus region. Also in 2005, large parts of the Amazon forest experienced one of the harshest droughts in the last century. A study published in the journal Science in 2009 pointed at the drought as the single agent for a basin-wide increase in tree mortality. But a very large area with major tree loss (the region near Manaus, in the Central Amazon) was not affected by the drought.

"We can't attribute [the increased] mortality to just drought in certain parts of the basin—we have solid evidence that there was a strong storm that killed a lot of trees over a large part of the Amazon," Chambers says.

From January 16 to January 18, 2005, a squall line 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) long and 200 kilometers (124 miles) wide crossed the whole Amazon basin from southwest to northeast, causing several human deaths in the cities of Manaus, Manacaparu and Santarem. The storm's associated strong vertical winds, with speeds of up to 145 km/hour (90 mi/hour), uprooted or snapped in half trees that were in their path. In many cases, the stricken trees took down some of their neighbors when they fell.

The researchers used a combination of Landsat satellite images, field-measured tree mortality, and modeling to determine the number of trees killed by the storm. By linking satellite data to field observations, the researchers were able to take into account smaller tree blowdowns (less than 10 trees) that otherwise cannot be detected through satellite images.

Looking at satellite images for the area of Manaus from before and after the storm, the researchers detected changes in the reflectivity of the forest that they suspected are indicative of tree losses. Undisturbed forest patches appear as closed, green canopy in satellite images. When trees die and fall, a clearing opens, exposing wood, dead vegetation, and surface litter. This so-called "woody signal" only lasts for about a year in the Amazon; the time it takes for vegetation to re-grow and cover the exposed wood and soil. Thus, the signal is a good indicator of recent tree deaths.

After seeing disturbances in the satellite images, the researchers established five field sites in one of the blowdown areas, and counted the number of trees that had been killed by the storm–researchers can usually tell what killed a tree from looking at it.

"If a tree dies from a drought, it generally dies standing. It looks very different from trees that die snapped by a storm," Chambers says.

In the most affected plots, near the centers of large blowdowns (contiguous patches of wind-toppled trees), up to 80 percent of the trees had been killed by the storm.

By comparing their field data and the satellite observations, the researchers determined that the satellite images were accurately pinpointing areas of tree death, and they calculated that the storm had killed between 300,000 and 500,000 trees in the area of Manaus. The number of trees killed by the 2005 storm is equivalent to 30 percent of the annual deforestation in that same year for the Manaus region, which experiences relatively low rates of deforestation.

The team then extrapolated the results to the whole Amazon basin.

"We know that the storm was intense and went across the basin," Chambers says. "To quantify the potential basin-wide impact, we assumed that the whole area impacted by the storm had a similar level of tree mortality as the mortality observed in Manaus."

The researchers estimate that between 441 and 663 million trees were destroyed across the whole basin. This represents a loss equivalent to 23 percent of the estimated mean annual carbon accumulation of the Amazon forest.

Squall lines that move from southwest to northeast of the forest, like the one in January 2005, are relatively rare and poorly studied, says Robinson Negrón-Juárez, an atmospheric scientist at Tulane University, in New Orleans, and lead author of the study. Storms that are similarly destructive but advance in the opposite direction (from the northeast coast of South America to the interior of the continent) occur up to four times per month. They can also generate large forest blowdowns, although it's infrequent that either of these two types of storms crosses the whole Amazon.

"We need to start measuring the forest perturbation caused by both types of squall lines, not only by the ones coming from the south," Negrón-Juárez says. "We need that data to estimate total biomass loss from these natural events, which has never been quantified."

Chambers says that authors of previous studies on tree mortality in the Amazon have diligently collected dead-tree tolls, but information on exactly what killed the trees is often lacking, or not reported

"It's very important that when we collect data in the field we do forensics on tree mortality," says Chambers, who has been studying forest ecology and carbon cycling in Amazon since 1993. "Under a changing climate, some forecasts say that storms will increase in intensity. If we start seeing increases in tree mortality, we need to be able to say what's killing the trees."

###

This work was funded by NASA and Tulane University.

Amazon Storm Killed Half a Billion Trees
Livescience.com Yahoo News 13 Jul 10;

A violent storm ripped through the Amazon forest in 2005 and single-handedly killed half a billion trees, a new study reveals.

The study is the first to produce an actual tree body count after an Amazon storm.

An estimated 441 million to 663 million trees were destroyed across the whole Amazon basin during the 2005 storm, a much greater number than previously suspected.

In some areas of the forest, up to 80 percent of the trees were killed by the storm. A severe drought was previously blamed for the region's tree loss in 2005.

"We can't attribute [the increased] mortality to just drought in certain parts of the basin - we have solid evidence that there was a strong storm that killed a lot of trees over a large part of the Amazon," said forest ecologist and study researcher Jeffrey Chambers of Tulane University in New Orleans, La.

From Jan. 16 to Jan. 18, 2005, a squall line - a long line of severe thunderstorms - 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) long and 124 miles (200 km) wide crossed the whole Amazon basin. The storm's strong winds, with speeds of up to 90 mph (145 kph), uprooted or snapped trees in half.

When trees die, they release their stored carbon into the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change. In a vicious cycle, these storms could become more frequent in the future due to climate change.

To calculate the number of trees killed by the storm, the researchers used satellite images, field studies and computer models. They looked for patches of wind-toppled trees, which allowed them to distinguish from trees killed by the drought.

"If a tree dies from a drought, it generally dies standing. It looks very different from trees that die snapped by a storm," Chambers said.

The storm wiped out between 300,000 and 500,000 trees in the area of Manaus, Brazil, alone. The number of trees killed by the 2005 storm was equal to 30 percent of the total human-caused deforestation in that same year for the Manaus region. The researchers used the tree loss in Manaus to estimate the tree loss across the entire Amazon basin.

"It's very important that when we collect data in the field we do forensics on tree mortality," Chambers said. "Under a changing climate, some forecasts say that storms will increase in intensity. If we start seeing increases in tree mortality, we need to be able to say what's killing the trees."

The study, funded by NASA and Tulane University, will be detailed in a future edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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Ecosystem damage to show true cost of Gulf spill: expert

Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 12 Jul 10;

PARIS (AFP) – The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is likely to cost far more than cleanup and compensation for lost income once damage to ecosystems is factored in, a top expert said Tuesday.

In an interview coinciding with a UN-sponsored report on the link between business and biodiversity, economist Pavan Sukhdev said the BP debacle underscores the need for a sea change in how the "natural capital" upon which human wellbeing depends is measured and valued.

"The economic invisibility of ecosystem services and biodiversity -- clean air, fresh water, healthy oceans, fertile soil, stable climates -- must be addressed with urgency," he said from London by phone.

"We have to move into a society where both public and private wealth are recognized as important. But today, how many people understand 'natural capital' as compared to financial capital?"

Part of the problem is not knowing how to quantify things that have long been assumed to exist in unlimited quantities.

"We cannot manage what we do not measure, and we are not measuring either the value of nature's benefits or the costs of their loss," said Sukhdev, lead author of the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) for Business report.

A growing number of CEOs understand that they can no longer take for granted these "free" services, he said.

But industrialisation and a global population headed toward nine billion people by mid-century have created terrible strains.

Each year, the world's 3,000 largest companies are causing 2.2 trillion dollars (1.75 trillion euros) worth of environmental damage, said Sukhdev, citing a soon-to-published companion report prepared by Britain-based consultancy TruCost.

"It is not the individual CEOs or the companies that are to blame. They are following the path that was created for them, where corporations can externalise all these costs to society," he said.

The BP oil spill, which has been dumping an estimated 60,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico every day, has emerged as a case study of how not to protect nature's precious assets.

Had government required a "holistic economic assessment" before drilling was allowed, the potential liability might have pushed BP to take more stringent safety measures, he argued.

As things stand, "we only think about them after there is a problem, and then scurry about and chase our tails for a bit," said Sukhdev, pointing to the aftermath of the Valdez Exxon, the supertanker that fouled Alaska's once pristine Prince William Sound with some 11 million gallons of oil.

The BP gusher has been spewing an equivalent amount every four or five days since April 20, according to a US government estimate.

Putting a price tag on the value of affected ecosystems also changes the estimate of losses.

BP has put forward a figure of 20 billion dollars for cleanup and compensation.

"But what about the cost to the economy of lost utility -- eco-tourism loss, fisheries stocks that represent future losses to industry, the inability to fish in the area," Sukhdev said.

The oil could also kill hundreds of square kilometres of coastal mangrove forests that are nurseries for commercial marine species and a bulkhead against hurricane damage.

Even thousands of yacht owners could have a legitimate claim.

"People have invested in yatchs, including a license fee to moor it, people to caretake it. When the time comes to use or rent it, they can't -- that's lost utility. Is anyone putting a number on that?"

The crisis of collapsing ecosystems will only be addressed when the value of nature's services are fully reflected in political and business decision making, Sukhdev said.

"We are about half way there in terms of developing the toolkit. For people understanding that the toolkit exists and should be used, we are at three-to-five on a scale of 10," he said.

"As for actual implementation -- between zero and two."

The TEEB report, supported by the UN Environment Programme, was launched by the European Commission in 2007 after G8 and major emerging economies called for a global study on the economics of biodiversity.

The full study will be unveiled later this year at the Convention on Biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan.

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Top China miner pollutes river: report

Yahoo News 12 Jul 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – Pollution from a mine owned by a top gold producer has severely contaminated a river in southeastern China, leading to a massive fish kill, the government and state media said Monday.

Seepage from a mining waste pond owned by the Zijinshan Copper Mine has contaminated the Ding River and a reservoir in Fujian, the province's environmental protection bureau said in a statement.

The leak was first detected on July 3, prompting the bureau to issue an emergency order to begin monitoring it, the statement said.

Xinhua news agency said the mine is owned by the Hong Kong-listed Zijin Mining Group Co, China's largest gold producer.

Pollution from the sludge pond has killed or poisoned 1.89 million kilogrammes (4.2 million pounds) of fish on the Ding River and in the Mianhuatan reservoir, the report said.

The smell of dead fish was discernible 10 kilometres (six miles) from the reservoir, it added.

"The county government has issued a circular asking residents to turn in poisoned fish for collective disposal," the report quoted local villagers as saying, adding that villagers would be compensated for the fish they collect.

One villager said he lost 25,000 kilogrammes of fish that he was raising on his fish farm, it said.

Neither the government statement nor Xinhua made mention of any possible impact the spill was having on local drinking and irrigation water.

Years of unbridled economic growth have left most of China's lakes and rivers heavily polluted. More than 200 million Chinese currently do not have access to safe drinking water, according to government data.

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Scientists Quantify Global Warming's Threat to Public Health

From heat stress to sewage overflows, climate change promises to bring extreme weather that will challenge the ill-prepared U.S. public health infrastructure
Douglas Fischer and The Daily Climate Scientific American 12 Jul 10;

Extreme weather induced by climate change has dire public health consequences, as heat waves threaten the vulnerable, storm runoff overwhelms city sewage systems and hotter summer days bake more pollution into asthma-inducing smog, scientists say.

The United States – to say nothing of the developed world – is unprepared for such conditions predicted by myriad climate models and already being seen today, warn climate researchers and public health officials.

"Climate change as it's projected will impact almost every aspect of public health, both in the developed world and – more importantly – in the developing world," said Michael McGeehin, director of the Environmental Hazards and Health Effects division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"A flood is a major public health disaster," he added. "A flood takes us back to the 1890s as far as the public health system is concerned."

Last week, as the East Coast stewed its way through the first heat wave of the summer, researchers at Stanford University published a study suggesting exceptionally long heat waves and extreme temperatures could be commonplace in the United States within 30 years – sooner than expected.

"I did not expect to see anything this large within the next three decades," Noah Diffenbaugh, assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford and lead author of the study, said in a statement. "It was definitely a surprise."

The report was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Using some of the highest-resolution computer models to date, Diffenbaugh and Moetasim Ashfaq, a former Stanford postdoctoral researcher now at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, were able to simulate daily temperatures across small sections of the country.

They found an intense heat wave – equal to the longest on record from 1951 to 1999 – could hit western and central United States as many as five times between 2020 and 2029.

The study buttresses other recent findings concluding that the heat scorching the eastern United States last week – or that killed tens of thousands in Europe in 2003 – is likely to be the new norm.

"The current state of heatwaves could be the harbinger of things to come," said David Easterling, a climatologist with the National Climatic Data Center.
And it's not just heat.

Easterling and McGeehin spoke at a briefing last week arranged by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Climate disruption, they said, is also bringing more floods and drought.

"A flood is a major public health disaster," McGeehin said. "A flood takes us back to the 1890s as far as the public health system is concerned."

There is, however, a silver lining: Tackling global warming is also a public health opportunity, said Jonathan Patz, director of global environmental health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who also participated in the UCS briefing.

Avoiding the worst of the heat waves, sewage overflows and droughts has obvious benefit, Patz said. But many climate mitigation efforts also bring health benefits: Using less fuel improves air quality; walking or biking to work reduces obesity.

Patz is in the process of quantifying those savings, but preliminary results suggest that if Americans could reduce their car travel by 20 percent – essentially not driving one day a week – the largest cities across the Midwest could save hundreds of lives, avoid hundreds of thousands of hospital admissions and trim several billion dollars from health care spending, he said.

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Global population study launched by Royal Society

BBC News 12 Jul 10;

The UK's Royal Society is launching a major study into human population growth and how it may affect social and economic development in coming decades.

The world's population has risen from two billion in 1930 to 6.8 billion now, with nine billion projected by 2050.

The society acknowledges it is delving into a hugely controversial area, but says a comprehensive and scientific review of the evidence is needed.

It is led by Nobel laureate Sir John Sulston of Human Genome Project fame.

"This is a topic that has gone to and fro in the last few decades, and appears to be moving back up the political agenda now," he told BBC News.

"So it seems a good moment for the Royal Society to launch a study that looks objectively at the scientific basis for changes in population, for the different regional and cultural factors that may affect that, and at the effects that population changes will have on our future in term of sustainable development."

The burgeoning human population is acknowledged as one of the underlying causes of environmental issues such as climate change, deforestation, depletion of water resources and loss of biodiversity.

The working group includes experts on the environment, agriculture, economics, law and theology drawn from a mix of rich and poor countries including the UK, China, Brazil and the US.
Green growth

In the 1970s, with disastrous food shortages routine in regions of Asia and Africa, the world's apparently dwindling capacity to feed its rapidly growing population was an issue high on the political agenda.

New crops developed during the Green Revolution and other advances in agriculture, combined with economic progress, seemed to allay these fears in subsequent decades.

In addition, some people in developing countries argued that western nations raised the issue as a means of distracting attention from the rising and unsustainable consumption in the west.

Recently, however, population has started to re-emerge as an issue of discussion among people working on environment and development issues.

High-profile champions such as Sir David Attenborough have spoken of its importance and the threats it may pose.

However, some economists and policymakers consider population growth a good thing, as it produces a swelling workforce capable of producing more goods and continued economic growth.

Jonathon Porritt, founder and director of the UK think tank Forum for the Future and a member of the Royal Society's working group, suggested the review could shed some objective light on the issues under dispute.

"What it can do is shed some light on the different interpretations that people draw from the underlying trends," he said.

"Why do some people say it doesn't matter and is all welcome, while others such as me say it is likely to have a greater impact on the future of humanity than some of the other issues we are talking a lot about?"

Policymakers needed such objective studies, he said, in order to make effective choices - for example, deciding whether and how to support family planning policies in the developing world.

The Royal Society's study is launched on World Population Day, and is expected to conclude in early 2012.

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La Nina To Form In July As Storm, Drought Fears Flare

Rene Pastor PlanetArk 12 Jul 10;

A La Nina weather anomaly, the opposite number of its more infamous cousin El Nino, will ramp up in the equatorial Pacific in July and August, the Climate Prediction Center forecast on Thursday.

La Nina would boost hurricane formation in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico and pose a threat to crops in the U.S. Midwest and in countries like agricultural powerhouses Brazil, Argentina and India.

"La Nina conditions are likely to develop during July-August 2010," the CPC, an office under the U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), stated in its monthly update.

"The majority of (computer) models now predict La Nina conditions ... to develop during June-August and to continue through early 2011," the Center explained.

La Nina spawns colder-than-normal waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. In contrast, El Nino is an abnormal warming of those waters. Both wreak havoc in the weather from the U.S. to India and occur every three to four years.

El Nino means "little boy" in Spanish and was named after the Christ child because it was first noticed by anchovy fishermen in Latin America one Christmastime in the 19th Century.

The moderately strong El Nino of 2009 has just wound down and this La Nina is kicking up hard on its heels.

OIL RIGS IN GULF A TARGET

The emergence of a La Nina is of particular concern to the oil industry in the Gulf, already reeling from the massive oil spill caused by a leaking BP well.

Several forecasters have said the number of hurricanes striking the United States increases sharply during La Nina years and shrinks when El Nino hits.

Increased wind shear in an El Nino tends to rip apart embryonic storms in the Atlantic basin and Caribbean Sea. But those winds are limited in a La Nina year, allowing storms to flourish.

Last May, NOAA predicted this Atlantic storm season could be the worst since the record-breaking 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, Hurricane Wilma slammed into Florida's citrus groves, and Hurricane Rita hit hard the oil rigs in the Gulf and refineries along the Gulf Coast.

NOAA forecast up to 23 named storms, of which 14 could power up to hurricanes. A record 15 hurricanes struck in 2005. June has already produced the first hurricane in 15 years, Alex, which dissipated in Mexico last weekend.

Storms are a particular concern in the Gulf, which holds about 27 percent of the U.S.'s oil and 15 percent of its natural gas, according to the federal Department of Energy.

U.S. FARMERS FRET OVER DRY WEATHER

For American farmers, La Nina increases the chance of a dry spell in the Corn Belt, especially during the critical pollination stage of the crop in July.

Rain is vital in this month for corn yields. And those showers are also needed in August for soybeans when they go into pod setting, which contains the beans and affects the yield of the crop.

The United States is the world's largest producer and exporter of corn and soybeans, and any production problem could lead to higher feed prices across the globe.

Worldwide, the effect of a La Nina would spread into countries like Brazil, one of the world's top agricultural powers, and India, a major producer and consumer of everything from sugar to oilseeds.

In a La Nina, CPC said drier-than-normal weather can occur from southern Brazil all the way to central Argentina during their winter.

Aside from sugar cane, that may also affect coffee production in Brazil, the world's top producer. The Latin American country is the world's second biggest exporter of soybeans. Argentina is the biggest exporter of soymeal and soyoil.

For Brazil, heavy rains during an El Nino in 2009 hampered the harvesting of its sugar cane. But this could turn into a prolonged dry spell as La Nina strengthens.

CPC said the Indian monsoon, which weakened in 2009 to its worst level in more than 30 years, tends to be greater than normal especially in the northwestern part of the country in a La Nina year.

In between, a La Nina tends to increase rainfall over Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and northern Australia. All these countries suffer from severe drought when an El Nino hits.

(Editing by John Picinich)

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Big Chunk of Ice Breaks Off of Greenland Glacier

Livescience.com Yahoo News 12 Jul 10;

A huge chunk of ice about one-eighth the size of Manhattan has broken off of Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, NASA scientists report.

A 2.7-square-mile (7-square-kilometer) section of the glacier broke up on July 6 and 7 and was spotted in NASA satellite images.

Greenland's ice sheet, which is 2 miles (3.2 km) thick and covers an area about the size of Mexico, has been losing ice mass at an accelerating rate over the last decade. The ice sheet discharges much of its ice through fast moving glaciers that flow into the sea, with large chunks breaking off into the ocean.

The breakup last week pushed the calving front - where the ice sheet meets the ocean - back nearly a mile (1.5 km) in one day. The front is now farther inland than at any time previously observed.

Research teams led by Ian Howat of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University and Paul Morin, director of the Antarctic Geospatial Information Center at the University of Minnesota have been monitoring satellite images for changes in the Greenland ice sheet and its outlet glaciers.

While the recent breakup itself is not unusual, Howat noted, detecting it within hours and at such fine detail is a new phenomenon for scientists.

The breakup could be connected to global warming as climate change has resulted in warmer Arctic Ocean waters.

"While there have been ice breakouts of this magnitude from Jakobshavn and other glaciers in the past, this event is unusual because it occurs on the heels of a warm winter that saw no sea ice form in the surrounding bay," said Thomas Wagner, cryospheric program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. "While the exact relationship between these events is being determined, it lends credence to the theory that warming of the oceans is responsible for the ice loss observed throughout Greenland and Antarctica."

Jakobshavn Isbrae is located on the west coast of Greenland at 69 degrees north latitude and has retreated more than 27 miles (45 km) over the past 160 years - 6 miles (10 km) in just the past decade. As the glacier has retreated, it has broken into a northern and southern branch. The breakup this week occurred in the north branch. Scientists estimate that as much as 10 percent of all ice lost from Greenland is coming from Jakobshavn, which is also believed to be the single largest contributor to sea level rise in the Northern Hemisphere.

Scientists are more concerned about losses from the south branch of the Jakobshavn, as the topography is flatter and lower than in the northern branch.

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India Climate Meet Ahead Of Mexico To Push Tech Deal

Krittivas Mukherjee PlanetArk 13 Jul 10;

India will try to push climate talks forward at a two-day ministerial meeting in November by focusing on winning agreement on sharing clean technologies, a sticky issue that divides rich and poor countries.

The Nov 8-9 talks are aimed at clarifying rules on sharing future innovations and existing technologies involving contentious intellectual property rights (IPR) issues.

The talks will come just weeks before a major U.N. climate meeting in Mexico and are an attempt to breathe new life into global climate negotiations after last December's Copenhagen summit fell short of agreeing a treaty.

Brazil, South Africa, India and China -- dubbed the BASIC group -- were among more than 120 nations that agreed a non-binding deal in Copenhagen to limit a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.

But the accord lacked details of how to reach this goal.

Several poor countries said the rich industrialized world was not offering to cut emissions enough and they expressed fears they would not receive sufficient technology and funding to deal with global warming.

Indian officials said Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh made the offer to host the November talks at a meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) countries in Rome last month.

The MEF, which helped nudge big emitters to support a goal of limiting global warming to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels, groups 17 nations that account for roughly 80 percent of the world's emissions.

"We want a common position on technology transfer through partnerships in which poor countries are given access to technology and that they can get help with applying it as well," a senior Indian government official said.

The BASIC countries say countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United States should immediately provide countries like China and India technology to store carbon dioxide emissions underground.

U.N. climate talks are said to have made progress on sharing green technologies, but differences remain.

Developing nations want new technology and billions of dollars in aid to help them move away from fossil fuels, the main source of mankind's planet-warming greenhouse gases, as part of a deal at the year-end U.N. talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun.

"There is probably no problems with future technologies, but it is the sharing of existing technologies that involves looking at issues of IPR," said K. Srinivas, a New Delhi-based independent climate change expert.

"The Delhi meet will aim at having some progress in ironing out the differences over the IPR issues I think."

(Editing by David Fogarty)

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Best of our wild blogs: 12 Jul 10

Hawksbill Turtle @ Big Sisters Island
from colourful clouds

The Dark Side of Cyrene
from wild shores of singapore and Singapore Nature

七月华语导游 Mandarin guide walk @SBWR, July
from PurpleMangrove

Upper Seletar
from Singapore Nature

Birds and a packet of cooked rice
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Sun Bear BOLEH series: “Sun bear can climb!” Part III
from Bornean Sun Bear Conservation

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Marina Barrage helped prevent a bigger disaster

Ng Jing Yng Today Online 12 Jul 10;

The Marina Barrage reservoir did help in preventing a bigger disaster during the recent flash floods, said Dr Amy Khor, who was present at yesterday's event in Bukit Gombak.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, said that six out of the seven gates at the barrage were left open to manage the amount of rainfall during the heavy thunderstorms last month.

Dr Khor, also Member of Parliament for Hong Kah GRC, added that since the 1970s, the number of flood-prone areas had been reduced from 3,200 hectares to 66 hectares.

The Government has spent at least $2 billion to improve the drainage system and will continue to review the current system, she said.

As for the impact of climate change on rainfall patterns, Dr Khor said that the Government had undertaken a vulnerability study but rainfall patterns were difficult to predict and there was a need to wait for new inputs on improving forecasting methods. Ng Jing Yng

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Giant monitor lizard causes stir in HDB estate

Satish Cheney Channel NewsAsia 11 Jul 10;

SINGAPORE : A giant monitor lizard caused a stir in Rivervale in Sengkang estate on Sunday afternoon.

The lizard, which was about two metres long, was tied up by residents.

Rescuers from the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) removed the rope and tape.

A spokesman from ACRES said the creature appeared to be very tired and upset.

They have released it to a suitable habitat that is approved by the National Parks Board.

ACRES said the monitor lizard could have used the drain to get to the housing estate after a heavy downpour. - CNA/ms

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Pulau Ubin to the letter

The postman always stops to say 'hello' on the rustic, random route order of shacks on Pulau Ubin
john lui Straits Times 12 Jul 10;

The slightly wilted piece of spa junk mail ('50 PER CENT OFF IF YOU SIGN UP NOW!') in my sweaty, mosquito-bitten hands has been on Singapore's most tortuous delivery route.

Mailed the day before, it has been processed today at the Singapore Post sorting centre off Loyang Avenue at 9am, put into a bag, taken across the water off Changi Point by a grumpy, leathery bumboat ferryman at noon, put on a van with me and now, two hours later, it has reached its end point: Mr Lee's rusty red letterbox, its hinges hanging on for dear life by bits of wire.

Mr Lee, like any resident of Singapore, is owed his spa deal, no matter where he lives, even if his home is on Pulau Ubin, home to about 90 households and falling.

Helping me, the rookie postman, is 70-year-old Harun Jomahat, who has been lugging bank statements, CPF announcements and mobile phone bills to the island, 10 minutes off the mainland's north-east corner, since 1997. He is now a part-timer, a returning retiree who serves only Pulau Ubin.

Mr Harun is the postal equivalent of a time traveller. He is the last of his kind in that he essentially serves one kampung, albeit one spread across the island's 10 sq km. His route is filled with familiar faces. They nod at him, he nods back. He does not carry a mobile phone because, if there is an emergency, he says he can rely on the residents for help.

One family invites him to share a haul of durians taken from a nearby patch. He declines but I take a bite. Some old-timers are alarmed at seeing me, togged out in my striped blue SingPost full-time worker's smock, but I reassure them that Mr Harun is not being replaced.

My day on Ubin started at 10am at the Singapore Post's Loyang Delivery Base, when I meet Mr Harun, one of SingPost's 1,040 postmen and women. He has picked up his daily stack of about 70 or so letters, a mere 0.0025 per cent trickle of the 2.8 million-piece flood that is processed each day.

The Ubin load does not vary much by season. The residents, it seems, are not deluged with Chinese New Year or Hari Raya cards. Many are elderly, with children living and working on the mainland.

The addresses could not be simpler. There are road names on the island but no one uses them. So a typical address is 32, Pulau Ubin, Singapore 508419.

From the Changi Point Ferry Terminal, I wait with Mr Harun. We travel like everyone else and hop on the bumboat only when there is a 12-person minimum.

On the island, he retrieves his scooter, probably the only one on the island. When it comes time for its annual Land Transport Authority inspection, it has to be wrestled onto a bumboat and taken to the mainland.

I follow in a rented van, the mail in my hands, arranged by route order.

House numbers were, perhaps, once based on a system but now, as tracks are overgrown and wooden shacks melt into mouldy piles in the tropical undergrowth, the numbers take on the random logic of thrown dice.

You need to know by heart that Mr Tan at 32H lives next to Mrs Lim at 412.

It is durian season now and, along the way, we pass groups of fruit hunters. They, along with the visitors to the Chek Jawa nature reserve, hikers and the mountain-bikers, now provide the only source of commerce for the island's coffee shops and bike-rental kiosks.

At 70, Mr Harun can still move his two-wheeler adeptly around puddles.

But I have to get off the van and walk to a few homes at the end of muddy tracks only a jeep or Mr Harun's scooter can traverse. At one place, a hut policed by two sleepy dogs, an elderly Chinese woman sitting outside cleaning vegetables asks me what I am giving her.

'Er, a letter,' I say, then walk off. What an odd question, I thought.

It is explained to me later that Mr Harun, if he can afford the time, can read mail for the illiterate, translating from English to pidgin Malay, or at least let the resident know that one of their children should take a closer look at a certain CPF Board announcement.

It is a forehead-slapper of a revelation for me. I hope Mr Harun can repair the damage to public relations I have wrought.

Now, at about 1.30pm, with Mr Lee's spa offer safely in his letterbox, I ask Mr Harun how long he can keep on delivering mail on Ubin.

'For as long as they want me to,' he says. For many postmen, Mr Harun's beat is about as rustic and old-fashioned - and therefore desirable - as it gets.

A postman delivers an average of 3,000 letters a day around a Housing Board estate and might not speak to a single home owner. Mr Harun delivers 70 pieces and will chat with as many people as he has the time for.

But as more homes become abandoned on Ubin, could Singapore's only ferryhandled postal route be dropped one day? Not likely.

As long as there is an address on Ubin and someone else needs to get a letter sent to that address, the route will stay, says Mr Harun. It is a public trust.

'They paid for that stamp,' he says. �

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