Best of our wild blogs: 21 Dec 09

Have you seen a wild boar in Singapore?
Rachael would like to hear from you, from wild shores of singapore

Trees that touch and inspire
from Flying Fish Friends

Upclose and intricate on Hantu’s reef
from Pulau Hantu

Clash of the Common Sandpipers
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Shrimp and prawn
from The annotated budak

upside-down jellyfish
a video clip from sgbeachbum

Sonneratia and streams on a sunny Sunday
from wild shores of singapore

Tampines Avenue 9
from Singapore Nature

Where Are Our Butterflies?
from Life's Indulgences

Ubin abandoned prawn farms
from Ubin.sgkopi

Labrador updates
from isn't it a wonder, how life came to be

Monday Morgue: 21st December 2009
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

Yellow-vented Bulbul and bananas
from Bird Ecology Study Group

New papers on Nature in Singapore

• Asthenodipsas laevis (Reptilia: Squamata: Pareatidae), a snake record for Singapore that was almost forgotten. Francis L. K. Lim.
  
• The identity of a mousedeer (Mammalia: Artiodactyla: Tragulidae) observed at Lower Peirce forest, Singapore. Celine H. S. Low, Chan Kwok Wai and Kelvin K. P. Lim.
  
• The black-naped monarch (Hypothymis azurea) in Singapore. A. F. S. L. Lok.
  
• The status and distribution in Singapore of Acriopsis liliifolia (Koenig) Ormerod (Orchidaceae). A. F. S. L. Lok, P. X. Ng, W. F. Ang and H. T. W. Tan.
  

Read more!

Left high and dry by waterway rules

Man gets conflicting advice on using his own boat in reservoir
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 21 Dec 09;

THE lure of Singapore's easily accessible reservoirs is making more people take up water sports.

But one family, keen to make kayaking a hobby, has been left high and dry due to conflicting rules on the use of waterways.

Earlier this month, Mr Jason Toh, 40, and his family took their own inflatable kayak to MacRitchie Reservoir.

But he was stopped and told that he needed a permit.

This began a 'wild goose chase', with national water agency PUB and the Singapore Canoe Federation (SCF) issuing different advice.

At the heart of the matter is whether a boat permit from PUB allows an individual to take his own boat out on the water. Before this permit is issued, however, an individual needs to get a proficiency certificate.

The SCF, based at MacRitchie Reservoir, issues the certificates for varying levels of proficiency, with the majority being for the entry-level one-star course, which takes 12 hours to complete and costs between $50 and $80.

No certification is needed to rent sit-on-top kayaks, but a one-star certificate is needed for one-seater kayaks. Between April and September, the federation issued about 10,000 such certificates.

When Mr Toh asked what was required to get afloat in the reservoirs, he was told by a PUB official 'that if I got a one-star certificate from the SCF, got my boat checked out and then submitted a form endorsed by SCF to PUB, I could get a permit'.

Ms Lyuina Lee, 24, a sports executive for SCF, offered the same advice, adding that she did not know many people who owned their own kayak.

However, in a statement issued to The Straits Times, Mr Tan Nguan Sen, PUB's director of catchment and waterways, said individuals are not allowed to take their own boats out on the water.

'As the safety of the reservoir user is paramount, only organised group activities and training conducted under the supervision and guidance from either the operators, national sports associations, schools and grassroots organisations are allowed at the reservoirs,' he said in the statement.

'It is also for safety reasons that we do not permit individuals to carry out water activities on their own currently.'

Reacting to this, Mr Toh said: 'This is turning into a wild goose chase as I anticipated...The advice is not consistent.

'I hope PUB keeps an open mind on this and not just say it is for safety reasons. What's the difference if I take out my kayak or rent one, I am still on my own in the reservoir?'

The PUB added that it has not encountered this issue before and is reviewing its policies before deciding on the best course of action.

In the meantime, Mr Toh is planning to take a one-star canoe course and seek a permit as advised by the PUB official he spoke to. Until then, his $200 kayak, bought in Bangkok, will be left to gather dust.

An application form for a non-motorised vessel permit is available on the PUB website. There is no cost for the permit.

Sorry, no water activities on one's own
Straits Times Forum 21 Dec 09;

PUB, the national water agency, thanks Mr Jason Toh for his feedback on kayaking at MacRitchie and Bedok reservoirs ('Family's kayaking dreams drifting in red tape', last Thursday).

Since 2005, PUB has actively promoted water activities at our reservoirs as part of our efforts to inject life and vibrancy into our reservoirs and encourage the public to bond with water.

We have worked with partners such as the People's Association (PA), Singapore Canoe Federation (SCF), Singapore Dragon Boat Association, Singapore Waterski and Wakeboard Federation, Singapore Sailing Federation as well as schools and grassroots associations to organise various water activities such as kayaking, dragon boating, rowing, wakeboarding and sailing at our water bodies.

The public can also enjoy walk-in recreational water activities at kayaking centres run by the SCF or PA at Bedok Reservoir, MacRitchie Reservoir, Marina Reservoir, Jurong Lake and Lower Seletar Reservoir.

PUB works closely with the operators to ensure that water activities are conducted in a safe and proper manner. For instance, safety briefings for members of the public and checks on the conditions of life vests and kayaks are conducted by the operators.

For safety reasons, we do not permit individuals to carry out water activities on their own.

We have contacted Mr Toh and apologised for the miscommunication. PUB will continue to review the procedures and improve our service quality.

Tan Nguan Sen
Director, Catchment and Waterways
PUB, the national water agency

Read more!

‘Lost World’ has potential: Maliau Basin for World Heritage site

The Star 21 Dec 09;

KOTA KINABALU: An intensive effort is underway to assess to see if Sabah’s “Lost World” has what it takes to be a World Heritage Site.

State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun has directed officers to do a thorough study on the world renowned Maliau Basin, rich in bio-diversity and popularly dubbed as “The Lost World” of Sabah.

“I hope to get this done in three months before bringing it up as a proposal to the Cabinet,” Masidi said yesterday.

The 390 sq km basin forms part of Yayasan Sabah’s timber concession area but was designated as a conservation area in 1981 for the purposes of rainforest education, research and training.

It remains Borneo Island’s untouched rainforest that is rich in flora and fauna, including over 1,800 species of pitcher plants and at least 80 kinds of orchids.

“Maliau Basin is not only unique but is famous worldwide as a centre for research,” said Masidi.

“Today, there are many scholars and researchers conducting their studies at the site and I believe that we must work hard in getting it listed as a World Heritage Site.”

Environmentalists, uneasy over the proposed 300MW coal-fired power plant in Sabah’s east coast district of Lahad Datu, have raised concerns that Maliau Basin might be a target of mining for coal if the facility materialises.

The state government has repeatedly stressed that Maliau Basin would not be touched and will remain a conservation area.

Read more!

Philippine volcano 'building up to major eruption'

Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

LEGASPI, Philippines (AFP) – The Philippine government warned Sunday that Mayon volcano could erupt violently within days following a week of spectacular flows of lava and increasing volcanic quakes.

Government volcanologists raised the alert level around Mayon to level four, meaning there could be an eruption in a matter of days.

"We raised it to level four this afternoon because there was a sudden acceleration in the activity of the volcano," said July Sabit, head of the volcano monitoring team.

Local civil defence head Raffy Alejandro said that the military and police had evacuated more than 8,600 of the 9,000 or so families living within an eight-kilometre (five-mile) danger zone declared around Mayon.

The military and police will now tighten the controls over the danger zone and ensure that no one is left there or allowed to enter, said Joey Salceda, governor of Albay province, where Mayon is located.

The officials warned that they would take forceful measures to remove villagers who did not want to leave their farms.

"We try to do the persuasive thing but if (it) gets bad, the governor has instructions to forcibly evacuate them," Alejandro added.

Despite the warnings, many villagers are reluctant to leave and may sneak back to their farms to harvest their produce or protect their livestock.

Sabit said the alert level around Mayon was raised after the number of volcanic quakes increased to 463 from 8:00 am (0000 GMT) Sunday compared with about 245 for the whole of Saturday.

The volcano was also belching more sulphur dioxide into the air and rumbling sounds were detected inside, the volcanologists said.

The government has already evacuated more than 8,600 of the 9,000 or so families living within an eight-kilometre (five mile) danger zone set up around Mayon, civil defence officials said.

Chief government volcanologist Renato Solidum told reporters that "what we are preparing for is a hazardous eruption and a quick descent of pyroclastic ashflow."

He said the ashflow would remain within six kilometres of the 2,460 metre (8,070 feet) volcano.

"But naturally, we have a buffer zone," just to make sure, he said.

Mayon could remain silent after an initial eruption before erupting yet again, said the volcanologists.

Although ash from the volcano was unlikely to threaten residents directly, there was a risk it could turn into a deadly mudflow, as happened in 2006, when hundreds of people were swept away, the officials said.

While no one was directly killed by that eruption, tons of debris that had collected on Mayon's slopes were dislodged by a typhoon three months later. The avalanche of mud and boulders crushed entire villages, leaving over 1,000 dead.

Mayon, renowned for its near-perfect cone, has erupted 48 times in recorded history. In 1814, more than 1,200 people were killed as lava buried the town of Cagsawa.

Major volcanic eruption feared in Philippines
Bullit Marquez, Associated Press Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

LEGAZPI, Philippines – The Philippines' most active volcano could have a huge eruption within days, officials warned Sunday after detecting a drastic surge in earthquakes and eerie rumbling sounds in surrounding foothills. Tens of thousands of villagers have been evacuated as a precaution.

Scientists raised the alert level for the Mayon volcano after 453 volcanic earthquakes were detected in a five-hour span Sunday, compared to just over 200 Saturday, said Renato Solidum, chief of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

The five-step warning system was raised to level four, meaning a hazardous eruption "is possible within days." Level five is when a major eruption has begun.

Army troops and police will intensify patrols to enforce a round-the-clock ban on villagers moving within a five-mile (eight-kilometer) danger zone around the 8,070-foot (2,460-meter) mountain, said Gov. Joey Salceda of Albay province, about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southeast of Manila.

More than 40,000 villagers have been moved to school buildings and other emergency shelters, but some have still been spotted checking on their farms in the prohibited zone. Salceda said about 5,000 more villagers were being evacuated away from the volcano.

The cone-shaped volcano began emitting red-hot lava and puffing columns of ash last week. It belched a plume of grayish ash half a mile (nearly a kilometer) into the sky Sunday, and lava has flowed about 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) down the mountainside, Salceda said.

A major eruption can trigger pyroclastic flows — superheated gas and volcanic debris that can race down the slopes at very high speed, vaporizing everything in their path. There can be more extensive ejections of ash, which can drift toward nearby townships.

In Mayon's major eruptions in recent years, such pyroclastic flows have reached up to four miles (six kilometers) down from the crater on the volcano's southern flank — a farming region where most residents have been evacuated, Salceda said.

Army checkpoints have been set up and patrols have been intensified to ensure residents will not sneak back to check on their homes and farms, as some have done in recent days, Salceda said.

"I have set a very high bar, which is zero casualty," Salceda told The Associated Press. "If there's a lull and you step back into the danger zone, you'll immediately be escorted out."

The evacuations were unfortunate, coming so close before Christmas, but authorities will find ways to bring holiday cheer to displaced villagers in emergency shelters, he said.

He said residents are used to playing a "cat and mouse" game with Mayon, a popular tourist attraction because of its near-perfect cone shape.

Residents who briefly returned to their homes within the danger zone Sunday morning to check on their belongings reported hearing eerie rumbling sounds. Some were seen by journalists tending to their farms within the prohibited zone near Guinobatan township.

In 1991, Mount Pinatubo exploded in the northern Philippines in one of the world's biggest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century, killing about 800 people.

Mayon last erupted in 2006, when about 30,000 people were moved. Another eruption in 1993 killed 79 people.

The first recorded eruption was in 1616 but the most destructive came in 1814, killing more than 1,200 people and burying a town in volcanic mud. The ruins of the church in Cagsawa have become an iconic tourist spot.

Read more!

Indonesia's next big quake due under Mentawais

Michael Perry, Reuters 20 Dec 09;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A massive undersea earthquake is long overdue beneath the Mentawai islands in Indonesia and could trigger another deadly tsunami, say scientists mapping one of the world's most quake-prone zones.

Unlike the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed around 226,000 people, this tsunami is expected to be smaller but may be very deadly as it would hit Sumatra's densely populated coast.

"The size of the tsunami may not be as big, but the problem is the size of the population is about three times as great as Aceh," Kerry Sieh, director of the Singapore-based Earth Observatory, told Reuters.

A major quake measuring around 8.6 magnitude is expected beneath Siberut Island, along the Sunda megathrust, where the Indo-Australian tectonic plate butts up against the Eurasian plate -- one of the world's most active fault lines.

Exactly when the big quake will strike is not known.

"We say most likely in the next few decades. Thirty seconds to 30 years, somewhere in there," said Sieh, who has studied geological records showing that for the past 700 years, major quakes have occurred along the Sunda megathrust every 200 years.

There have been three major quake cycles: the late 1300s, the 1600s, and between 1797 and 1833.

"The timing between those three sequences is about two centuries," said Sieh, adding a section of the megathrust under Siberut has not ruptured for 200 years, so it is due to slip and cause a major quake.

SUPERQUAKE CYCLES

The Sunda megathrust extends from Myanmar in the north and sweeps in a southeast arc through Sumatra, Java and toward Timor.

The northern 1,600 km (1,000 mile) section of the fault, from Myanmar to Aceh, ruptured in 2004 sending the deadly Boxing Bay tsunami out into the Indian Ocean.

"The Boxing Bay quake reset the (super earthquake) cycle for that segment of the fault," Mike Sandiford at the School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia, told Reuters.

"The fault slipped up to 20 meters (60 feet) and that is like several hundred years of plate convergence. It should take several hundred years, if not longer, to accumulate the stress in the system to rupture on that particular strand."

The Sunda megathrust is made up of three distinct sections.

In March 2005, a powerful quake hit the second section near Nias island, causing more than 11-meter (33-feet) deformations beneath the island.

In 2007, an 8.4 and a 7.8 earthquake hit the southern end of the third section, the "Mentawais Patch," but not the northern part of the "Mentawais Patch."

"Now we have another 300 km that has not yet failed. It hasn't failed since 1797," Sieh said.

The 2009 Padang earthquake on September 30, while large has not relieved any pressure beneath the Mentawais, as it resulted not from a rupture of the megathrust, but was on a deeper fault.

"It may have potentially loaded that segment that has not ruptured for long time. It may have taken us closer to the big failure," said Sandiford.

"Because that (pressure) has not been released in the Padang region, we know the stress has been building and it must eventually be released. The sort of stress which ultimately led to the big rupture at the northern end of Sumatra on Boxing Day."

QUAKE SCENARIOS

One reason the Sunda megathrust generates major quakes is because it has very long fault planes that can slip as one. But because it bends as it runs south through Indonesia, scientists believe big quakes are limited to each section of the megathrust.

Sandiford says a 30-km (18-mile) fault could generate a maximum 7 magnitude quake, a 300-km (190-mile) fault a maximum 8 magnitude, and a 1,000-km (62-mile) fault a maximum 9. The 2004 quake was over a fault some 1,600 km (1,000 mile) long.

"The Boxing Day earthquake was huge. We have only had three or four of those quakes in the last 100 years or so," he said.

Singapore's Sieh paints two scenarios for the next big quake. The first is an 8.6 quake on the northern section of the "Mentawais Patch."

"There is only one piece of data that tells us it last broke in 1797. If we are wrong, it may be that the last event was the 1680s. If that is the case, we could have a significantly greater uplift and significantly larger tsunami," he said.

Recent studies by Sieh suggest a second scenario, where another big quake could occur along the same section of the megathrust that caused the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

While the middle of this section ruptured up to 25 meters (76 feet) in 2004, the lower part only slipped 10 meters (30 feet), leaving hundreds of years of stress still to be released.

"We are wondering whether there could be another big earthquake down in the south end of the 2004 section, which could break sometime in the next few decades as well," Sieh said.

The Mentawais fault line runs under the sea and any major quake is expected to rupture the ocean floor causing a tsunami.

In 2004 the quake spread a tsunami across the Indian Ocean to India and Africa. A tsunami generated from a Mentawais quake would send a wave southwest out into the empty Indian Ocean.

But the wave would also hit Sumatra's densely populated coast between Padang and Bengkulu, although the Mentawais island chain would help dissipate the wave's energy before it hit shore.

Scientists say there is little data linking a major quake with Indonesia's super volcanoes, like Sumatra's Lake Toba, saying a volcano must be ready to erupt in the first place.

Toba erupted around 74,000 years ago in what is believed to be the largest volcanic eruption in the last 2 million years.

Some scientists suggest the mega eruption may have accelerated a glacial shift in climate, by spewing 2,800 cubic kms of debris into the atmosphere, dramatically dropping the earth's surface temperature and sparking an ice age.

(Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Read more!

Gorillas: still wild at heart

The Independent 21 Dec 09;

A pioneering project to reintroduce traumatised gorillas to their natural habitat is bringing extraordinary success. Chris Green reports on how British conservationists are achieving what few thought was possible

The two terrified baby gorillas, both female, were brought to the Lesio-Louna reserve in the Congo Basin shortly after witnessing the brutal slaughter of the rest of their family group at the hands of some poachers. They were so traumatised by what they had seen that they clung to each other in fear and bared their teeth at anything or anyone who ventured close.

At the time, few thought it possible that the two sisters, named Likendze and Matoko, would ever be successfully reintroduced into the wild. But seven years later they have been, and something even more extraordinary has happened: the two have given birth within three weeks of each other, producing the ninth and tenth babies born to "rewilded" gorillas.

The births are viewed as a milestone for the Aspinall Foundation, a British charity which for more than 20 years has managed two gorilla rescue and rehabilitation projects, one in Congo-Brazzaville and another in the neighbouring state of Gabon, where wild populations were almost hunted to extinction in the 1950s. "We are delighted by the news of the birth of Matoko's infant, and indeed Likendze's before that," said James Osborne, chairman of the Aspinall Foundation.

"A mere seven years ago, the infants were so traumatised that they refused to move. Now they have both given birth. Each birth reinforces the success of the reintroduction, and we now have three viable groups of gorillas within the Lesio-Louna reserve."

The success of the foundation has gone some way towards reversing the slide of the Western Lowland gorilla towards extinction, an assault which has seen their numbers dwindle from millions to as few as 150,000. If the decline continues at its present rate, it is likely that the animal will be extinct by 2020, zoologists say.

The fall in numbers has been fuelled by deforestation, the deadly Ebola virus and the bush meat trade, with gorillas being captured by poachers before being slaughtered and their meat sold at markets in the capital, Brazzaville – a fate which befell Likendze and Matoko's family. The sisters were rescued by local ministry officials and handed to the Aspinall Foundation's reserve.

When the project's director, Amos Courage, saw the condition of the two young gorillas, his first thought was that they would never reach the stage of being able to go back to the wild, because they were too traumatised by what they had experienced.

The two were immediately assigned a dedicated human carer each, to look after them 24 hours a day with the aim of teaching them how to trust again – a process Mr Courage describes as having been "invaluable" to their survival. "They really do respond to devoted surrogate love," he said.

"Without it, they would just die, because they go into a spiral of depression and illness. And when they get into the forest, and see other orphans who have been in a similar situation to them, they join a sort of nursery group – which forces them to interact and gets them to stop thinking about the horror of their capture."

In 2006, The Independent reported the story of Massabi and Koto after those two apes became only the second and third gorillas to produce offspring after being carefully restored to their natural habitat. Three years down the line, the charity has successfully reintroduced to the wild more than 50 gorillas, 43 of which were orphans whose parents had been killed for bush meat. The latest birth is the third in 2009.

The project initially focused on providing shelter and care to young orphans, but over the years it has grown to include rehabilitation, ecosystem management, tourism and local community development.

The Lesio-Louna Gorilla Reserve is 170,000 hectares in size and enclosed by three rivers, which are natural barriers that prevent the animals escaping the reserve and coming into contact with nearby villages. Outside the main site is a nursery area where the young orphans learn the basics of foraging. Each night they are placed in an enclosed dormitory until they start trying to break down the door – a sure sign they are ready to be reintroduced to the wild. "Inevitably they'll meet up with other reintroduced gorillas in the reserve, and there'll be a lot of swapping of females. It's a very fluid situation between the groups, and although we've been doing this for more than 20 years we're still amazed at what happens – it's like a constant soap opera every day, said Mr Courage.

"The fact that the mothers are now raising these babies is fascinating because they're all orphans – we don't know how much experience of mothering they would have remembered from their early memories."

In 2005, an international treaty outlining a strategy to save the world's great apes was signed by the 23 states that have primate populations within their borders, as well as donor countries led by Britain.

The deal, which was billed as the last chance to save humanity's nearest relatives, set the target of significantly slowing the loss of great apes and their habitat by 2010, and securing the future in the wild of all this endangered species by 2015. The birth of Likendzé and Matoko's babies has, in one small way, helped towards this goal.

Read more!

Colobine monkeys 'could be wiped out by global warming'

Species of primates including colobine monkeys are in danger of being wiped out by global warming, scientists have warned.

Matthew Moore, The Telegraph 20 Dec 09;

A new study suggests that some of mankind's evolutionary near-neighbours may not survive if temperatures around the world rise by just 2C.

Among the animals most at risk to climate change are gorillas of which there are only 50,000 left in the wild, according to research by British scientists published online in the journal Animal Behaviour.

Leaf-eating African monkey species like the colobines are on the danger list because the habitats in which they can secure food are so restricted, being confined to a narrow region of the equator.

Monkeys in South America are much less likely to be affected by a rise of 2C in average global temperature. However, they would not be spared if temperatures rose by 4C, causing their habitats to become fragmented.

The researchers coupled climate models with an analysis of behaviour, diet and group size of different primate species across the world.

Fruit-eating species such as the baboons and guenon monkeys of Africa typically have a much wider latitudinal range and could cope with more variable climatic conditions.

Professor Robin Dunbar, of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, who coauthored the study, said that more must be done to replace habitats threatened by global warming.

"We often worry about deforestation and hunting as the two main factors threatening the extinction of primate populations, but these results suggest that even if we find ways to solve these problems, it may not save some species of monkeys and apes from extinction," he said.

Read more!

Polluting pets: the devastating impact of man's best friend

Isabelle Toussaint And Jurgen Hecker Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

PARIS (AFP) – Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

But the revelation in the book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.

To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.

"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said.

Other animals aren't much better for the environment, the Vales say.

Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.

But Reha Huttin, president of France's 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says the human impact of eliminating pets would be equally devastating.

"Pets are anti-depressants, they help us cope with stress, they are good for the elderly," Huttin told AFP.

"Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don't eat meat, so why shouldn't I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?"

Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs -- the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars -- says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all.

"I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.

"I don't want a life without animals," she told AFP.

And pets' environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.

With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.

Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faeces cause high bacterial levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.

And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo -- owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.

But despite the apocalyptic visions of domesticated animals' environmental impact, solutions exist, including reducing pets' protein-rich meat intake.

"If pussy is scoffing 'Fancy Feast' -- or some other food made from choice cuts of meat -- then the relative impact is likely to be high," said Robert Vale.

"If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower."

Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areas and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals' blood.

As with buying a car, humans are also encouraged to take the environmental impact of their future possession/companion into account.

But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.

"Rabbits are good, provided you eat them," said Robert Vale.

Read more!

Oceans becoming nosier thanks to pollution: report

Yahoo News 21 Dec 09;

PARIS (AFP) – The world's oceans are becoming noisier thanks to pollution, with potentially harmful effects for whales, dolphins and other marine life, US scientists said in a study published Sunday.

Low-frequency sound in the ocean is produced by natural phenomena such as rain, waves and marine life, and by human activities such as sonar systems, shipping and construction.

The sound is absorbed mainly through the viscosity of the water and the presence of certain dissolved chemicals, said the report published in the science journal Nature.

But the concentration of chemicals that absorb sound in the oceans has declined as a result of ocean acidification, in turn caused by rising concentrations of carbon dioxide.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide come from human activity such as shipping, with the number of ships roughly doubling over the past 40 years, the scientists said.

This was in turn increasing the acidity of the ocean, shown by a lowering of its pH levels, they said.

Using model simulations, the scientists found that increases in acidity could reduce seawater sound absorption by as much as 60 percent by 2100 in high latitude oceans.

Concern about the negative effect of the sea's increased acidity had previously been concentrated on the reduced rate of calcification, such as in coral reefs.

"However, a less anticipated consequence of ocean acidification is its effect on underwater sound absorption," the authors said.

"A decrease in seawater pH lowers sound absorption in the low-frequency range and, as a result, leads to increasing sound transmission."

Future global warming due to an accumulation of greenhouse gases may further decrease the ocean's sound absorption capacity at certain frequencies, the study said.

"High levels of low-frequency sound have a number of behavioural and biological effects on marine life," it added.

This included tissue damage, mass stranding of mammals such as whales and temporary loss of hearing in dolphins associated with military tests using intense mid-frequency sonar, the report said.

Marine species had adapted to varying levels of noise but the consequences of the sea's decreased ability to absorb sound were uncertain and required further research, the scientists said.

Read more!

Global warming hike may be steeper: research

Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

PARIS (AFP) – Global temperatures could rise substantially more because of increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a new study by US and Chinese scientists released Sunday.

The researchers used a long-term model for assessing climate change, confirming a similar British study released this month that said calculations for man-made global warming may be underestimated by between 30 and 50 percent.

The new study published online by Nature Geoscience focused on a period three to five million years ago -- the most recent episode of sustained global warming with geography similar to today's, a Yale University statement said.

This was in order to look at the Earth's long-term sensitivity to climate fluctuation, including in changes to continental icesheets and vegetation cover on land.

More common estimates for climate change are based on relatively rapid feedback to increases in carbon dioxide, such as changes to sea ice and atmospheric water vapour.

Using sediment drilled from the ocean floor, the scientists' reconstruction of carbon dioxide concentrations found that "a relatively small rise in CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming 4.5 million years ago."

They also found that the global temperature was between two and three degrees Celsius (3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than today even though carbon dioxide levels were similar to the current ones, the statement said.

"This work and other ancient climate reconstructions reveal that Earth's climate is more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than is discussed in political circles," said the paper's lead author, Yale's Mark Pagani.

"Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held CO2 concentrations at the current level," he said in the statement.

The study was published on the heels of a 12-day UN conference in Copenhagen that was aimed at providing a durable solution to the greenhouse-gas problem and its disastrous consequences but was labelled a failure by critics.

The meeting set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important stepping stones -- global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 -- for getting there.

The British study released on December 6 had also researched the Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago.

Read more!

2010 preview: Automotive X Prize contestants power up

MacGregor Campbell, New Scientist 20 Dec 09;

If this is the future of green motoring, sign us up. The electric hybrid eVaro, developed in Canada by Future Vehicle Technologies of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, can accelerate to 60 miles per hour in around 5 seconds, and drives at least 165 miles on the equivalent of a US gallon of fuel.

The eVaro is one of the contenders in the Automotive X-Prize contest starting in May. At stake is a share of $10 million, to go to the best-performing cars to maintain at least 100 miles per US gallon (42.5 kilometres per litre) or the equivalent in electricity usage.

More than 40 teams from around the world are set to compete in a number of performance trials, culminating in a stage race across the US in June or July. The contestants include small custom shops, well-known start-ups such as Tesla Motors and Aptera, and the giant Indian car maker Tata. No major US or European manufacturer is competing.

The contest features two classes. Mainstream cars must carry four passengers on four wheels and have at least 10 cubic feet (280 litres) of space for groceries. Alternative entrants, of which the eVaro is one, can have fewer seats and wheels, and need not have any carrying space.

Futuristic concept cars and one-offs need not apply. The X-Prize Foundation, which is organising the competition, stipulates that the vehicles must be capable of being mass-produced at the rate of 10,000 units per year by 2014. Expect to see one coming up fast in your rear-view mirror soon.

Read more!

Off to the Races

Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times 19 Dec 09;

I’ve long believed there are two basic strategies for dealing with climate change — the “Earth Day” strategy and the “Earth Race” strategy. This Copenhagen climate summit was based on the Earth Day strategy. It was not very impressive. This conference produced a series of limited, conditional, messy compromises, which it is not at all clear will get us any closer to mitigating climate change at the speed and scale we need.

Indeed, anyone who watched the chaotic way this conference was “organized,” and the bickering by delegates with which it finished, has to ask whether this 17-year U.N. process to build a global framework to roll back global warming is broken: too many countries — 193 — and too many moving parts. I leave here feeling more strongly than ever that America needs to focus on its own Earth Race strategy instead. Let me explain.

The Earth Day strategy said that the biggest threat to mankind is climate change, and we as a global community have to hold hands and attack this problem with a collective global mechanism for codifying and verifying everyone’s carbon-dioxide emissions and reductions and to transfer billions of dollars in clean technologies to developing countries to help them take part.

But as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil told this conference, this Earth Day framework only works “if countries take responsibility to meet their targets” and if the rich nations really help the poor ones buy clean power sources.

That was never going to happen at scale in the present global economic climate. The only way it might happen is if we had “a perfect storm” — a storm big enough to finally end the global warming debate but not so big that it ended the world.

Absent such a storm that literally parts the Red Sea again and drives home to all the doubters that catastrophic climate change is a clear and present danger, the domestic pressures in every country to avoid legally binding and verifiable carbon reductions will remain very powerful.

Does that mean this whole Earth Day strategy is a waste? No. The scientific understanding about the climate that this U.N. process has generated and the general spur to action it provides is valuable. And the mechanism this conference put in place to enable developed countries and companies to offset their emissions by funding protection of tropical rain forests, if it works, would be hugely valuable.

Still, I am an Earth Race guy. I believe that averting catastrophic climate change is a huge scale issue. The only engine big enough to impact Mother Nature is Father Greed: the Market. Only a market, shaped by regulations and incentives to stimulate massive innovation in clean, emission-free power sources can make a dent in global warming. And no market can do that better than America’s.

Therefore, the goal of Earth Racers is to focus on getting the U.S. Senate to pass an energy bill, with a long-term price on carbon that will really stimulate America to become the world leader in clean-tech. If we lead by example, more people will follow us by emulation than by compulsion of some U.N. treaty.

In the cold war, we had the space race: who could be the first to put a man on the moon. Only two countries competed, and there could be only one winner. Today, we need the Earth Race: who can be the first to invent the most clean technologies so men and women can live safely here on Earth.

Maybe the best thing President Obama could have done here in Copenhagen was to make clear that America intends to win that race. All he needed to do in his speech was to look China’s prime minister in the eye and say: “I am going to get our Senate to pass an energy bill with a price on carbon so we can clean your clock in clean-tech. This is my moon shot. Game on.”

Because once we get America racing China, China racing Europe, Europe racing Japan, Japan racing Brazil, we can quickly move down the innovation-manufacturing curve and shrink the cost of electric cars, batteries, solar and wind so these are no longer luxury products for the wealthy nations but commodity items the third world can use and even produce.

If you start the conversation with “climate” you might get half of America to sign up for action. If you start the conversation with giving birth to a “whole new industry” — one that will make us more energy independent, prosperous, secure, innovative, respected and able to out-green China in the next great global industry — you get the country.

For good reason: Even if the world never warms another degree, population is projected to rise from 6.7 billion to 9 billion between now and 2050, and more and more of those people will want to live like Americans. In this world, demand for clean power and energy efficient cars and buildings will go through the roof.

An Earth Race led by America — built on markets, economic competition, national self-interest and strategic advantage — is a much more self-sustaining way to reduce carbon emissions than a festival of voluntary, nonbinding commitments at a U.N. conference. Let the Earth Race begin.

Read more!