Heavy Snow, Winds Disrupt Flights, Power in Greece

PlanetArk 30 Jan 08;

ATHENS - Sudden heavy snowfall across much of Greece on Tuesday and gale-force winds in the Aegean sea grounded dozens of flights, forced ships to remain docked in ports and cut power in many areas, officials said.

Snow flakes even made a brief appearance over the Acropolis in central Athens with heavier snowfall causing traffic disruptions in the capital's northern suburbs.

"There is a ban on sailing at least until this afternoon from the port of Piraeus to all Aegean islands," a Merchant Marine official who requested anonymity told Reuters. "All ships including passenger ferries for the islands have been ordered to stay in the port for the second day."

The other nearby ports of Lavrio and Rafina had also banned ships from leaving apart from a ferry to the nearby island of Evia, she said.

Dozens of domestic flights from Athens to the islands including Crete, Samos and Milos were cancelled due to the strong winds.

Meteorologists said the weather would improve by Wednesday but temperatures would remain below freezing.

"The winds will continue to be strong until tonight and temperatures will drop to minus 9 Celsius mainly in northern Greece," metereologist Theodore Kolydas told broadcaster Mega TV.

Greece's power utility PPC said the winds and falling trees had caused power outages, including in the northern city of Thessaloniki. (Reporting by Athens bureau, Writing by Karolos Grohmann, Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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China weather chaos a sign of things to come: experts

Dan Martin Yahoo News 30 Jan 08;

Don't tell the thousands of Chinese stuck at railway stations or airports, but the chaos caused by a vicious cold spell afflicting much of China could be just a taste of things to come, experts say.

The inclement weather and ensuing problems merely highlight the country's increasing vulnerability to the extreme weather swings characteristic of global climate change, experts say, and is likely to be repeated in future years.

Vast areas of central and southern China have experienced the most severe winter in half a century in the past few days, coming on the heels of one of the warmest winters on record last year.

With climate change gaining pace and the planet generally warming up, the social, economic and political impact on China will rise along with the mercury, experts said.

"As a developing country where the vast majority live in poor circumstances, China is unusually vulnerable to this," said Paul Harris, a professor at Hong Kong's Lingnan University, who studies the social impact of climate change.

"But what we've clearly seen this week is the inability of the government to cope with such extreme events."

There is no way to prove climate change is to blame for the extreme cold snap, but some Chinese government scientists see no other explanation for the wild temperature swings, particularly in the areas that have become accustomed recently to mild winters.

"There is no doubt (climate change is to blame) for such weather events," Wang Qiwei, a climatologist with the China Meteorological Administration, wrote in an online forum set up to answer public questions about the cold weather.

"And it's a reminder that mankind must protect this globe of ours and pay more attention to how we impact our environment."

Although climate change is most closely associated with rising world temperatures, many scientists say it also increases the intensity of all kinds of weather.

"Snow in the south of China? Whoever would have imagined that?" said Yang Ailun, climate change campaigner for Greenpeace China.

"China will be one of the countries most affected by climate change and it is in China's best interest to do more to prepare," she adds, suggesting greater disaster-response spending.

China has a history of devastating natural disasters but the current harsh winter is the latest example of increasingly extreme weather as climate change progresses.

Average 2006 temperatures in China were the warmest in 55 years, while last year saw some of the worst regional droughts in decades, leaving huge swathes of farmland withered and rivers at record low levels.

Chinese climatologists expect more extreme weather over the years, with potentially dire effects on people and agriculture.

"Global warming incidents will be more prominent, more frequent and intense, including torrential rains, droughts, and hurricanes," wrote the meteorological administration's Wang.

China's vast numbers of poor usually suffer the most from natural disasters, raising the spectre of weather-induced social unrest, Hong Kong professor Harris said.

"The people hit hardest are the poor and powerless. Climate change will just lead to more (social unrest)," he said.

The current freezing weather has paralysed transportation just as millions of people try to head home for the annual Lunar New Year holiday.

It has also triggered a power crisis as the transport chaos has endangered shipments of coal to electric power plants just as plummeting temperatures have caused energy demand to soar.

The situation starkly illustrates how extreme weather has the potential to bring the country to its knees, said Harris.

He adds that in future China will be forced to spend more on mitigating the effects of climate change, such as efforts to ensure clean and ample water supplies in times of drought.

"China is spending on building Olympic stadiums, sending astronauts into space and building up its military instead of investing in these things," he said.

"Climate change is not a central factor in current economic planning and I think that is a problem."

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First Antarctic marine census launched

Yahoo News 29 Jan 08;

U.S., New Zealand and Italian marine scientists began a two-month voyage to Antarctica's northern coast Tuesday as part of the first-ever census of Antarctic marine biodiversity, Prime Minister Helen Clark said.

The census of Antarctic marine life is a multinational research project "involving 23 countries and 11 coordinated voyages to survey marine ecosystems and habitats in waters surrounding Antarctica," she said.

The 26 scientists on the research ship will collect samples of sea life and capture images of the sea floor down to depths of 13,000 feet in previously unexplored areas, Clark said in a statement.

The data collected by surveys of areas not previously explored will "assist decision-making on environmental issues such as climate change and its effect on Southern Ocean ecosystems," she said.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the voyage would provide essential information about the biodiversity and functioning of the Ross Sea ecosystem off the north Antarctic coast that would help safeguard its long-term ecological viability.

New assessments of ocean acidification caused by climate change and identification of new species off Antarctica's coastline are expected from the voyage, Clark said.

The work is part of International Polar Year, a global science program designed to advance knowledge of the land and sea environments of the Arctic and Antarctic. The first IPY was held in 1882.

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French beekeepers abuzz with worry over dying bees

Christian Gauvry Yahoo News 29 Jan 08;

Less than a year after France's decimated bee populations showed signs of recovery, beekeepers here are once again in a panic as their income-generating worker drones are disappearing by the tens of millions.

The banning in 2005 of two potent pesticides used on sunflower and corn crops, suspected of killing off the bees, appeared to have stemmed the massive die offs and reversed nearly a decade of declining honey harvests.

But end-of-winter mortality rates have shot up once again, with up to 60 percent of some hives missing in action.

"We don't know what is going on, and we are calling everything into question," said beekeeper and honey producer Franck Aletru, whose 2200 hives are in the Vendee region in western France.

Worries have extended across Europe, where 30 percent of bee species are threatened by an as yet poorly understood combination of factors, said Bernard Vaissiere of France's national agricultural research institute.

There are more than 1,000 bee species in France, including the domesticated honey-producing variety, and about 20,000 worldwide, he said.

The apiculture industry in the United States -- and dozens of agricultural crops, from almonds to apples to avocados, that depend of bees for pollination -- has also been devastated, though experts say the reasons, while related, may not be exactly the same.

In France, honey production in the 100 million-euro (150 million-dollar) apiculture sector dropped by half over a nine-year period to 18,000 tonnes in 2007, according to agriculture ministry statistics.

Average income for the sector's 75,000 beekeepers has dropped by 65 percent, forcing many to take on second jobs just to make ends meet.

"One of my fellow apiculturists committed suicide, and families have been torn apart," said Aletru.

But last winter, bee populations in France only shed about 10 percent of their numbers -- a normal seasonal loss.

Many scientists, and most beekeepers, attributed the first good news in a decade of decline to the banning of Regent and Gaucho, two pesticides thought to enter the hives through the pollen collected by the bees, especially from France's ubiquitous sunflowers.

The manufacturers, German chemical giants BASF and Bayer, have denied that their products are toxic for humans or bees.

"It is difficult to imagine that these insecticides had no impact," said Vaissiere. "They were in the pollen and the nectar -- I don't see how the pollinating bees could have failed to ingest them."

But a nest of other factors, experts say, have also contributed to colony collapse disorder: reduced biodiversity stemming from monoculture farming, bacterial parasites such as Varroa destructor and Nosema ceranae, and a deadly pathogen called Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV).

IAPV has struck the United States as well, and is thought to have originated in bees imported from Australia to repopulate hives, and from royal jelly, a honey-derived product manufactured in China.

Another parasite, the varroa mite, may weakens bee immune systems to the point that they become vulnerable to these diseases, experts say.

The most recent threat to bees is the Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, which probably arrived in southern France in a shipment of pottery sometime in 2004.

The hornet, which preys on honey bees, has already spread through much of southwestern France, and could eventually colonise much of the Mediterranean coastal area, experts say.

"Thirty-five percent of the worlds vegetal food resources depend on bees for pollination -- we cannot ignore this problem," said Beatrice Robrolle-Marcy, president of the association Bee Planet.

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Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler

The New York Times 27 Jan 08;

A SEA change in the consumption of a resource that Americans take for granted may be in store — something cheap, plentiful, widely enjoyed and a part of daily life. And it isn’t oil.

It’s meat.

The two commodities share a great deal: Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”

Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices.

This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.

Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.

The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.

Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough.

Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources .

What can be done? There’s no simple answer. Better waste management, for one. Eliminating subsidies would also help; the United Nations estimates that they account for 31 percent of global farm income. Improved farming practices would help, too. Mark W. Rosegrant, director of environment and production technology at the nonprofit International Food Policy Research Institute, says, “There should be investment in livestock breeding and management, to reduce the footprint needed to produce any given level of meat.”

Then there’s technology. Israel and Korea are among the countries experimenting with using animal waste to generate electricity. Some of the biggest hog operations in the United States are working, with some success, to turn manure into fuel.

Longer term, it no longer seems lunacy to believe in the possibility of “meat without feet” — meat produced in vitro, by growing animal cells in a super-rich nutrient environment before being further manipulated into burgers and steaks.

Another suggestion is a return to grazing beef, a very real alternative as long as you accept the psychologically difficult and politically unpopular notion of eating less of it. That’s because grazing could never produce as many cattle as feedlots do. Still, said Michael Pollan, author of the recent book “In Defense of Food,” “In places where you can’t grow grain, fattening cows on grass is always going to make more sense.”

But pigs and chickens, which convert grain to meat far more efficiently than beef, are increasingly the meats of choice for producers, accounting for 70 percent of total meat production, with industrialized systems producing half that pork and three-quarters of the chicken.

Once, these animals were raised locally (even many New Yorkers remember the pigs of Secaucus), reducing transportation costs and allowing their manure to be spread on nearby fields. Now hog production facilities that resemble prisons more than farms are hundreds of miles from major population centers, and their manure “lagoons” pollute streams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)

These problems originated here, but are no longer limited to the United States. While the domestic demand for meat has leveled off, the industrial production of livestock is growing more than twice as fast as land-based methods, according to the United Nations.

Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers’ becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production. “When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.,” says Professor Eshel, “nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is ‘optimal’ only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly — even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag — the entire structure of food production will change dramatically.”

Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?

Real prices of beef, pork and poultry have held steady, perhaps even decreased, for 40 years or more (in part because of grain subsidies), though we’re beginning to see them increase now. But many experts, including Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, say they don’t believe meat prices will rise high enough to affect demand in the United States.

“I just don’t think we can count on market prices to reduce our meat consumption,” he said. “There may be a temporary spike in food prices, but it will almost certainly be reversed and then some. But if all the burden is put on eaters, that’s not a tragic state of affairs.”

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

Mr. Rosegrant of the food policy research institute says he foresees “a stronger public relations campaign in the reduction of meat consumption — one like that around cigarettes — emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the poor and the planet.”

It wouldn’t surprise Professor Eshel if all of this had a real impact. “The good of people’s bodies and the good of the planet are more or less perfectly aligned,” he said.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, in its detailed 2006 study of the impact of meat consumption on the planet, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” made a similar point: “There are reasons for optimism that the conflicting demands for animal products and environmental services can be reconciled. Both demands are exerted by the same group of people ... the relatively affluent, middle- to high-income class, which is no longer confined to industrialized countries. ... This group of consumers is probably ready to use its growing voice to exert pressure for change and may be willing to absorb the inevitable price increases.”

In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendly products, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. The number of farmers’ markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years or so, and it has escaped no one’s notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality.

If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It won’t be uncommon, but just as surely as the S.U.V. will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.

Maybe that’s not such a big deal. “Who said people had to eat meat three times a day?” asked Mr. Pollan.

Mark Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column in the Dining In and Dining Out sections, is the author of “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian,” which was published last year. He is not a vegetarian.

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More than 50 sea lions massacred in Galapagos

Yahoo News 28 Jan 09;

Ecuadoran authorities are investigating the massacre of 53 sea lions that were found with crushed skulls in the Galapagos Islands, the endangered natural reserve's officials said Monday.

The dead animals were in an advanced stage of decomposition when they were discovered on the island of Pinta, scattered in a one-kilometer (half-mile) radius, said Galapagos National Park official Victor Carrion.

"The sea lions, including 13 pups, died because of a strong blow from someone. It was a massacre whose motives the prosecutor's office must clarify," Carrion told AFP.

The animals' remains did not appear to have been mutilated, and no cuts were found on their skins or limbs, he said.

The authorities found no other killed animals but they stepped up patrols of the islands, Carrion said.

The Galapagos islands are 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific ocean.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) placed the islands on its list of endangered world heritage sites last year, saying they were threatened by invasive species, growing tourism and immigration.

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India steps up culling, calls for calm as bird flu spreads

Channel NewsAsia 29 Jan 08;

KOLKATA : India's West Bengal state said on Monday that it was slaughtering chickens on a "war footing" as bird flu spread to new areas of the highly-populated province of 80 million people.

The disease has now been found in 13 of 19 districts in the eastern state, prompting fears it may reach local capital Kolkata which has a population of 13.5 million people.

The local government said it could revise the target number of birds to be culled up to three million, of some 20 million fowl counted in the state.

"We are worried the H5N1 virus was confirmed in samples from villages just 22 kilometres from Kolkata," West Bengal animal resources development minister Anisur Rahaman said.

"If it is required, culling teams will work throughout the night."

More than 1.5 million birds have been culled since the outbreak was reported a fortnight ago.

New Delhi on Monday tried to calm nerves while the price of poultry products dropped in West Bengal and in some of India's 28 other states, including New Delhi.

"Since Avian Influenza is restricted to certain parts of districts affected in West Bengal, eating properly cooked poultry and poultry products is perfectly safe in areas not affected by virus in West Bengal and rest of the country," India's agriculture ministry said in a public statement.

It added 950 government-appointed culling teams were working round the clock in West Bengal, where a fourth of its population is in the zone of possible infection.

Two states hemming West Bengal sealed their borders with the stricken districts after TV networks in separate reports said the Marxist-ruled province bordering Bangladesh was yet to offer an adequate response to the crisis.

In New Delhi, butcheries reported a steep fall in poultry sales, with some establishments warning businesses would take a hit if the situation in West Bengal was not brought under control.

West Bengal authorities raided backyard traders at night to avoid resistance from locals who, fearing financial loss, would try to hide the birds or lock up their houses to prevent the chickens from being culled.

"There was no resistance, no hostility. They swiftly culled the chickens after paying compensation," minister Rahaman said.

Poultry owners say they have been devastated by the mass cull, with the government paying only about 40 rupees (one dollar) for each dead chicken, compared with the 80 rupees they could earn on the market, excluding egg sales.

But state finance minister Asim Dasgupta has put losses to the local poultry industry at only about 10.5 million rupees.

Humans typically catch bird flu by coming into direct contact with infected poultry, but experts fear the H5N1 strain may mutate into a form easily transmissible between people. No human cases have been reported in India. - AFP/de

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China issues severe weather alert as thousands stranded

Channel NewsAsia 28 Jan 08;

BEIJING - China issued a severe weather warning Monday, fuelling fears of worsening power shortages, after the heaviest snowfalls in 50 years left hundreds of thousands stranded ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.

The warning of severe snowstorms came after Premier Wen Jiabao called late Sunday for "urgent" action to combat blackouts and transport chaos as millions of Chinese struggle to return home for the country's biggest annual holiday.

At least a dozen people died at the weekend in weather-related accidents, according to state media, with thousands more injured as they headed home for the holiday.

Wen ordered local governments to minimise the human impact, but focused his attention on the impact on China's energy situation, with several provinces already rationing electricity.

"Due to the rain, snow, and frost, plus increased winter use of coal and electricity and the peak travel season, the job of ensuring coal, electricity and oil supplies and adequate transportation has become quite severe," Wen said at a Cabinet meeting.

He ordered local governments to ensure smooth distribution and output of coal and electricity, and conserve energy.

"More heavy snow is expected. All (government) departments must prepare for this increasingly grim situation and urgently take action," Wen said, according to a Cabinet statement.

The China Meteorological Administration warned that further heavy snows or freezing rain are expected in nine provinces where freezing weather over the past two weeks has crippled transportation and caused a power supply crunch.

Icy conditions forced seven airports to shut at the weekend, and the southern city of Guangzhou has been particularly hard-hit.

State media said the number of people stuck at the city's train station could swell to 600,000 on Monday after a power failure Saturday night stranded more than 136 electric trains in neighbouring Hunan province.

Due to icy roads, long-distance bus travel was largely curtailed for much of the last week in the areas hardest hit by the snowfall.

State television showed footage of thousands of motorists and long-distance truck drivers stranded on stretches of road as heavy snow brought traffic to a standstill. - AFP/ir

Business Times - 30 Jan 2008


Wild weather hits business, farm heartland
Business Times 30 Jan 08;

Transport crippled, power cut in worst winter in 50 years

(SHANGHAI) Chaotic winter weather besieged China's business and farming heartland yesterday amid the country's worst power crisis, with one mountain-road accident blamed on snow killing 25 people ahead of the Chinese New Year holidays next week.

Icy temperatures, snow and sleet blanketing much of central, eastern and southern China have crippled thousands of trucks and trains loaded with coal, food and passengers in the most severe winter weather seen there in 50 years.

A bus plunged more than 40 metres from a snowy mountain road in the south-west province of Guizhou, Xinhua news agency said, the first known major accident caused by the freak weather.

Elsewhere, about 24 people have died in recent weather-caused accidents, including three workers killed while trying to fix iced-up power lines.

Premier Wen Jiabao visited stricken Hunan province in the south, Xinhua said. Mr Wen first flew to neighbouring Hubei province, because Hunan's main airport was iced-in.

The snow and biting cold across regions that usually have fairly temperate, snow-free winters were likely to stretch beyond yesterday, the national forecaster said on its website (www.nmc.gov.cn). Beijing remained cold but clear.

China warned residents of Shanghai and neighbouring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces - the country's commercial engine room - to stay indoors if possible. In Shanghai, some food shelves in shops emptied as people stocked up.

Analysts said the brutal weather was a short-term blow to the economy and would stoke inflation - it hit an 11-year high of 4.8 per cent last year - that already has the government worried.

'The short-term impact on the economy is big, with transport being disrupted, prices of agricultural products, in particular vegetables, rising,' said Jin Dehuan of the Shanghai Securities and Futures Institute with stock prices appearing to stabilise after huge losses on Monday.

Mr Jin said the weather chaos could jolt inflation higher in January but the broader impact would be limited.

Blocked roads and railways have also choked coal shipments, magnifying energy shortages that have brought electricity brown -outs to 17 of China's 31 provinces and province-status cities.

The country's worst power crisis has forced major industrial users like metal smelters to shut down and Beijing is urging small coal mines closed in a safety drive to restart production if they have been 'rectified'.

Fuel stockpiles at many plants have plunged to levels that cover just a few days of generation, but analysts say the power problem is caused as much by policy as weather.

Coal prices are rising but Beijing keeps a tight cap on power tariffs to fight inflation, so some plants unable to turn a profit have seized on the weather as an excuse to cut production and limit their losses.

Adding to energy woes, blocked roads and railways have disrupted fuel shipments so diesel is running out in some areas.

Paralysed roads and railways also threaten to make this year's Chinese New Year celebrations a miserable one away from families and hometowns.

On the main highway between Guangdong, the manufacturing powerhouse of the south, and neighbouring Hunan province, more than 20,000 trucks and other vehicles were stranded, Xinhua said.

Among them was a man taking 10 children by bus to Guangdong to visit their migrant-worker parents.

'Today is our fifth day on the bus,' Tan Wenming told Xinhua. 'Every day, we each get two packs of instant noodles to eat.'

Railway stations and airports remained choked with stranded passengers trying to return to families to celebrate the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, which starts on Feb 7.

In the south, more than 150,000 people crammed around the main station in Guangzhou, hoping for word of restored services - which seems unlikely soon, reported the Guangzhou Daily.

At the main Shanghai railway station, over 70,000 people were stranded by Monday night, local radio reported.

Up to 19 airports are completely shut and flights from many others are badly delayed\. \-- Reuters

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Best of our wild blogs: 29 Jan 08

Singapore's Biological Diversity
why is it important to conserve it? on the singaporean attitudes to biological conservation blog

First Hantu Dive in 2008!
Murky and mysterious but full of fascinating marine life on the the hantu blog

Save our Albizia trees!
Our birds need them, on the bird ecology blog

Introducing International Year of the Reef in Japanese!
with English translations on the ashira blog

Heartfelt comments for young bloggers
leave your comments too, to encourage our youngest nature lovers! on the flying fish friends blog

Ocean's biological deserts are growing
on the daily galaxy blog

The Anthropocene: Have Humans Created a New Epoch in the Planet's History? on the daily galaxy blog

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Conservation predicament as landscape changes with the climate

The Preservation Predicament
Cornelia Dean, The New York Times 29 Jan 08;

Conservation organizations that work to preserve biologically rich landscapes are confronting a painful realization: In an era of climate change, many of their efforts may be insufficient or beside the point.

Some scientists say efforts to re-establish or maintain salmon runs in Pacific Northwest streams will be of limited long-term benefit to the fish if warming makes the streams inhospitable. Others worry about efforts to restore the fresh water flow of the Everglades, given that much of it will be under water as sea level rises.

Some geologists say it may be advisable to abandon efforts to preserve some fragile coastal barrier islands and focus instead on allowing coastal marshes to migrate inland, as sea level rises.

And everywhere, ecologists and conservation biologists wonder how landscapes already under preservation will change with the climate.

“We have over a 100-year investment nationally in a large suite of protected areas that may no longer protect the target ecosystems for which they were formed,” said Healy Hamilton, director of the California Academy of Sciences, who attended a workshop on the subject in November in Berkeley, Calif. “New species will move in, and the target species will move out.”

As a result, more and more conservationists believe they must do more than identify biologically important landscapes and raise money to protect them. They must peer into an uncertain future, guess which sites will be important 50 or 100 years from now, and then try to balance these guesses against the pressing needs of the present.

“It’s turning conservation on its head,” said Bill Stanley, who directs the global climate change initiative at the Nature Conservancy. He said the organization has a goal to protect 10 percent of major habitat types — like grasslands, forests and freshwater systems — by 2015.

“We are not sure exactly how to treat this yet,” Mr. Stanley said. “Areas that we preserved as grasslands are going to become forests. Does this mean we are going to have to have more than enough forest and less grassland than we had before? Or does it mean we should fight it — try to keep the forest from coming into those grasslands? Or should we try to find new areas that are least likely to change, that seem to be the least susceptible to change, and prioritize those areas?”

As Dr. Hamilton put it, “Our whole strategy is going to have to shift.”

No one is suggesting that land conservation done so far has been a wasted effort. Many argue that preserved areas will contribute immensely to ecosystem resilience as the climate changes. For example, environmentally intact salmon streams will undoubtedly be useful if new species move into them. And even if much of the Everglades is lost to a rise in sea level, preserving the rest will be crucial for maintaining fresh water supplies in South Florida, said Dan Kimball, superintendent of Everglades National Park.

Mr. Kimball said that if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was right, and sea levels rose as much as two feet by the end of the century, up to 50 percent of the Everglades’s fresh water marsh “would be transformed into a salt water system.” But, he said, restoring the fresh water flow might “create a fresh water barrier, hopefully, and keep the rising seas at bay.”

The Everglades ecosystem is full of uncertainties, Mr. Kimball said, explaining that “we don’t know the rates of change.” If seas rise faster than the climate panel predicted in its report last year, which many scientists regard as likely, mangroves crucial to the health of the glades could be submerged. But “if it’s slow,” he said, “the mangroves could gather sediment and actually build landform” — something that he said happened after Hurricane Wilma washed over the vast wetland in 2005.

This kind of uncertainty is widespread. For example, Dr. Hamilton said that on the Northern California coast, fog has an influence on natural systems. But “none of our climate models can tell us what is going to happen with fog,” she said. “So we are facing profound uncertainties about how our coastal ecosystems are going to look.”

“It’s a real dilemma,” said David S. Wilcove, a conservation biologist at Princeton. “What you are trying to do is balance the urgent needs of the present — the ongoing destruction of habitats that species need now — with the urgent needs of the future — places where they may end up if they are able to move in response to changing climate.”

Mr. Stanley said that to cope, the Nature Conservancy was adopting new strategies, which include identifying for preservation potential refuges against changing climate, landscapes that have had relatively stable vegetation over thousands of years, and removing or reducing other stresses on the landscape, particularly activities by people.

Other plans are to search for resilient species or subspecies that can cope with a warming trend. For example, conservancy scientists looked at which reefs did best when Caribbean waters warmed in an El Niño event in the late 1990s.

“We said, ‘Why did they survive, and are they the ones most likely to survive in the future?’ ” Mr. Stanley said. Resilient strains could be used to restore damaged reefs. “The same approach could translate to the land,” he said. A pair of apparently contradictory strategies are to find new ways to preserve particular landscapes by, say, burning out plant species trying to move in or, the opposite, to encourage habitat alteration by creating open space “corridors” that plants and animals can use to move between protected areas.

Still others are looking for ways to encourage people who own property near protected areas to manage them so that target species will be able to move into them. For example, Dr. Hamilton said, there are vineyards with patches of forest adjacent to protected sites along the California coast near Mendocino. “We have to make sure those winegrowers are incentivized for keeping those patches of forest on their land,” she said.

Some scientists say it may be necessary one day to move plants and animals into new areas and are working to devise theoretical frameworks for deciding when, how or whether to act.

“This term ‘assisted migration’ is gaining some traction,” said Dr. Wilcove, who formerly worked with the Wilderness Society and Environmental Defense. But “it’s a tough call,” he added. “What you are basically doing is moving species to places where they do not occur but where you think they will be suitable. But we often get into trouble translocating species for all kinds of unexpected reasons that come up.”

Coastal ecosystems are likely to be the first to pose difficult conservation problems, as sea level rise inundates protected areas or makes them more vulnerable to damage in storms.

For example, Asbury H. Sallenger, an oceanographer at the United States Geological Survey and an expert on coastal hazards, said conservationists had been considering massive sand-pumping efforts in hopes of restoring a bird habitat on the Chandeleur Islands, barrier strands off the coast of Louisiana that were severely damaged in Hurricane Katrina and other storms. But with sea level rise accelerating, Dr. Sallenger said in an e-mail message, “there is reason to believe these islands may disappear much more quickly than we thought just a few years ago.”

As a result, Dr. Sallenger said, the agency was working to estimate the projected lifespan of the islands, should they be rebuilt to their configuration of the late 1990s. “In other words,” he said, “will the time gained be worth it.”

But while many realize that ocean beaches are threatened by climate-related sea level rise, they do not understand that coastal wetlands — crucial nurseries for fish and shellfish — are at least as vulnerable, much less likely to be preserved and, in many areas, penned in by development and unable to migrate inland, as they would naturally as seas rise.

“We need to be preserving upland areas to allow for the landward expansion of wetlands,” Robert S. Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, said in an e-mail message. “Sadly, this isn’t happening in any serious way.” Dr. Young said his program was beginning an effort to get this point across to the public.

Some conservationists advocate triage, accepting that some ecosystems, like coral reefs, may not survive in a warmer world, and putting their efforts elsewhere. Others, like Mr. Stanley at the Nature Conservancy, are not ready to give ground. “I don’t think those analyses take into account the resilience,” he said. “We are less focused on triage and more focused on resilience.”

Roger Kennedy, former director of the National Park Service, said Americans had been making and remaking conservation strategies since colonial days.

In that era, Mr. Kennedy said, people conserved green space, like Boston Common, close to where people lived densely. Later, he said, conservationists preserved “very special places,” like Yosemite, Grand Canyon and what became Glacier National Park — efforts encouraged by railroads, which anticipated that Americans would travel by train to see them.

It was only in the late 19th century that people began thinking of preserving vast swaths of land for plants and animals that inhabit them. He said he believed this ethic of preservation would succeed, even in a warming world.

“Over time, all systems have altered,” Mr. Kennedy said. “They are just changing more rapidly. But our means of accommodation are greater too.”

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Wildlife corridors in Malaysia

Bring back the wild
Tan Cheng Li, The Star 29 Jan 08;

Tree-covered pathways in plantations can provide that extra bit of habitat for wildlife to thrive.

WITH wild habitats dwindling by the day, every little bit of greenery counts, even if it is a mundane-looking plantation with featureless rows of oil palms.

The thing is, these estates do harbour wildlife. Thus it comes as no surprise that when researchers from nature conservation initiative Wild Asia completed a wildlife survey of Tanah Merah Estate in Negri Sembilan, they ended up with a lengthy list, which included 150 species of birds.

Though the animals – such as civet cats, owls, birds, cobras, pythons and macaques – are those commonly seen in oil palm plantations, one particular sighting got the researchers excited: that of the masked finfoot. A winter migrant, this waterbird is seen only in pristine forests and even then, rarely.

That finding left the researchers thinking: if such an uncommon bird could be found within the estate, what else might exist there?

Dr Reza Azmi, Wild Asia founder and a biologist, saw that more could be done to expand wild habitats in the estate, which would then draw in more animals. Thus the idea of a natural wild corridor in the estate was hatched.

With backing from Sime Plantations, owner of the 4,500ha estate some 6km from Sepang, Selangor, the Natural Corridor Initiative took off last November. It helps that the estate has uncultivated land that could be set aside for conservation: some 300ha consisting of a hill that is too steep for planting, waterlogged mangroves which are unsuitable for oil palm, and riparian land (between 5m and 10m of riverbanks are set aside as river reserves).

The green corridor runs along Sungai Janging which courses through the plantation, linking up Bukit Siamang in the middle of the estate with mangroves in the coast, thereby forming a forested pathway amidst the sea of oil palms.

A monoculture farm might not be the richest wildlife site but it is not lacking in conservation value either. Reza points to the need to recognise and value natural habitats outside of protected parks: “Protected areas are not enough. Beyond the endangered wild species, such as elephants, tigers or rhinos, thousands of species survive outside of protected areas. The quality of our environment, be it in urban or rural areas, is dependent on these species.”

In the case of Tanah Merah Estate, its varied landscapes – it has hill forest, riparian land and mangroves – are promising for nurturing biodiversity. This potential is not lost on Reza, who believes that with the natural corridor, the estate would be a lot richer in wildlife 10 years from now.

Re-creating the wilds

When Tanah Merah Estate first opened in the 1920s, pepper shrubs dominated the land. In later years, rubber trees were grown, followed by oil palm. Some old rubber trees still stand on the 240ha of hilly land that is Bukit Siamang. Nesting eagles seek out the tall trees found there.

Oil palm once grew on half of the 55ha of mangroves that form part of the natural corridor. Natural tidal flooding, however, choked the palms and the site had to be abandoned in the late 90s. Mangrove trees have since re-colonised the area. As these mangroves border the Lukut mangrove forest, they are crucial breeding grounds for fish, crustaceans and molluscs.

Sungai Janging, the major irrigation and drainage stream in the estate has, over the years, been transformed into a canal-like conduit. In some sections, oil palms grow right to the river edge. In others, workers spray chemicals to keep riverbanks weed-free.

“You see these neat and manicured riverbanks which are not natural and will not draw wildllife,” says Reza. To restore the natural riparian habitat, he has advised the estate management against spraying weedkillers and to leave the riverbanks wild, for natural regeneration.

Nature will get a helping hand. Since native riverine trees no longer grow there, tree-planting will be carried out along stretches of Sungai Janging. In November, Sime employees and children from the estate school planted over 50 trees on a 50m by 5m plot. Five more plots will be added by June. Estate workers will tend to the seedlings until they mature and nature takes over.

The tree species chosen are those suited to wildlife and riverine and mangrove habitats, such as mengkeb (Croton argyratus), perupok (Lepisanthes alata), kelat gelam (Syzgium cerinum) and merlimau (Suregada multiflora).

“These trees will be sources of seeds for future propagation. So we don’t have to plant throughout the length of the 14km-long stream,” says Reza.

To gauge the health of the river, Wild Asia tied up with Murdoch University to monitor the stream for pollution, fish and aquatic invertebrates.

The natural corridor initiative also includes an environmental education segment, whereby schoolchildren from the estate school and nearby communities join outings to learn about watersheds, rivers and mangroves. Reza ranks this awareness-raising as a priority.

“The natural corridor itself covers a small area and will not increase biodiversity significantly but its knock-on effect is significant since participation in tree-planting and environmental education will inform workers, corporations and communities on conservation.”

He intends the initiative at Tanah Merah to be a model for landscape conservation by the private sector.

“Tanah Merah is not where it stops. We are discussing with Sime Plantations to adopt the idea of natural corridors in its other estates. Eventually, we might be able to link up corridors in several adjacent estates.”

He asserts that the idea works only for existing estates and is not absolute restoration of wild lands. “These corridors in oil palm estates may have diversity but they are not the forest and you will not get forest species. We are not going to get back the siamang here but are creating more space for things to live in and helping to make the site richer.”

And by bringing back a bit of wilderness into plantations, who knows what animals might come and stay?

To find out how you can establish natural corridors in your land, contact Wild Asia at info@wildasia.net or go to www.wildasia.net.

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Towards a greener transport policy

Ooi Giok Ling, Straits Times 29 Jan 08;

Currently, 'economy and business first' principles underscore planning principles in Singapore and many other Asian developing countries. But the fact is, cities have been expanding at the expense of nature.

Climate change and related sustainability issues have to be faced by urban societies and their governments

MINISTER for Transport Raymond Lim hit the nail on the head when he surfaced the many areas of frustration shared by commuters who use public transport in Singapore.

The frustration has been reflected in the lashing that the media has given the Singapore public transport system in recent months. For instance, covering a recent seminar on the implications for Singapore urban planning and development following the UN conference on climate change in Bali last month, The Business Times opted to concentrate on the Singapore public transport system instead.

The post-Bali implications for cities such as Singapore got rather lost in the critique levelled at the system in terms of how it compared with other cities.

In his so-called shake-up of public transport, Minister Raymond Lim pinpointed a slough of issues ranging from long commuting times and distances lengthened by the circuitous routes that buses take in order, presumably, to maximise ridership and volume of passengers.

Visitors have told me that at times, the bus they are taking appears to be heading in the opposite direction from its desired destination, perhaps because of the complicated routes taken to pick up more passengers.

Frustration with the public transport notwithstanding, the larger picture for discussing Singapore's public transport has to include the post-Bali implications not only for transport but also urban planning.

Singapore's sustainability agenda can be made more patently visible, that is, as visible as the business environment and the conditions favouring foreign direct investment which dominate our economic development agenda. Currently, 'economy and business first' principles underscore planning principles in Singapore and many other Asian developing countries.

But the fact is, cities have been expanding at the expense of nature. Therefore, climate change and related sustainability issues have to be faced by urban societies and their governments.

Being 'urban' implies Singapore is distant, both socially and geographically, from 'nature', making sustainability a more challenging message to 'sell' to the general public. Singapore's environmental policies have been successful where they have been concerned with technology and infrastructural development. But there has been limited success with changing behaviour among Singapore consumers.

Consider the effort that has been mounted to address littering, keeping public toilets clean, waste recycling, removing sources of mosquito breeding and the use of plastic bags.

By contrast there are few interventions to remind Singapore consumers about nature, biodiversity, climate change and related issues. Most Singapore consumers learn about production and consumption at the end of the commodity chain - in supermarkets, shopping malls and restaurants, locally and in the region.

Apart from Sars and dengue fever, Singapore has been relatively free of the natural disasters and hazards happening around the world - urban flooding, bush fires, drought, avian flu, typhoons and hurricanes among others. The threat of global warming and rise in the sea level appear to be distant rather than 'real' issues.

However, a 'business as usual' scenario does not augur well, even for Singapore. Singapore's per capita income is the highest in South-east Asia and among the highest in the world, but its carbon dioxide emissions per capita are also among the highest in the world. This partly reflects the fact that Singapore's energy consumption trends have grown with economic growth and affluence.

Urban land-use and transport planning in Singapore seems to display an ambivalence about sustainability. Of course it is important that efficiency and urban compactness are considered in our urban planning process.

But prevalent land-use development is characterised more by controlled urban sprawl and expansion. In the process, transport infrastructure developments have erased some of our natural and built heritage to save car drivers minutes of commuting time.

On further planned urban growth in Singapore, the planning process needs to consider nature reserves - both land and coastal - not as 'land banks' but as part of urban biodiversity and an intrinsic element of the urban ecological system.

Merely planning a 'garden in the city' is a scenario that promises little in the future for nature and biodiversity. The territorial footprint of further urban expansion should be smaller than in the past. Within the past five decades, more than 50 per cent of the city-state's land area has been developed and 10 per cent was added through reclamation. We cannot carry on at this pace.

Certainly, with a view to improving urban mobility, there is a need to fix issues like those related to taxi fares and services. However, present policies have little to do with sustainability or climate change but are more focused on taxi drivers' incomes and taxi firms' rental charges.

Minister Raymond Lim's emphasis on the integration of public transport services would be key towards encouraging commuters to opt for the more sustainable form of urban transport and to turn their backs on cars, even when they can afford it.

In this context, we should consider cross-subsidies for public transport commuters in the midst of rising costs. In the interests of energy efficiency, there is a need to incentivise Singapore commuters - as well as consumers - to consider more sustainable consumption choices.

The author is a professor, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. The views expressed are her own

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