Desdemona Despair

One third of the world's plants are threatened with extinction

By Georgina Cooper

ARDINGLY, England (Reuters) - A seed bank that is trying to collect every type of plant in the world is now under threat from the global financial crisis, its director says.

The Millennium Seed Bank Project aims to house all the 300,000 different plant species known to exist to ensure future biodiversity and protect a vital source of food and medicines, director Paul Smith said.

The project is on track to collect 10 percent of the total by 2010 but the financial crisis is drying up funding, casting serious doubts on future collections, he said.

...

Each seed costs about 2,000 pounds to collect and store.

The Millennium Seed Bank Project is the only project of its kind in the world which aims to collect and conserve all the planet's wild plant diversity, Smith said. 

...

"Thirteen million hectares of forest are cleared every year -- that's an area the size of England -- and of course the plant species which occur there are going the same way," Smith said.

Seed bank for the world threatened by financial crisis

Richard Van Noorden

Liberia prepares for second plague of caterpillar pests.

A plague of crop-eating caterpillars has struck Liberia and a second wave could spread across West Africa in the next few weeks, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's president, has declared a state of emergency and appealed for international aid.

...

The caterpillars have munched through cocoa, bananas and maize (corn), and are defecating in water supplies. So far more than 100 villages and around 500,000 people have been affected, says Arthur Tucker, of Liberia's Ministry of Agriculture.

"This is an emergency on the scale of a major locust outbreak," says the FAO's Christopher Matthews.

Many of the armyworms have now bored into the ground, FAO entomologist Winfred Hammond reported on Thursday. When they re-emerge as moths in a week to 12 days, he says, a second wave may spread into neighbouring countries such as Guinea and Sierra Leone.

...

"The Liberians are right to be worried that the next wave of outbreaks could be even worse," says Ken Wilson, of Lancaster University, UK, who works with Grzywacz. If the weather conditions continue to be good for armyworms (generally scattered showers and warm), he says, then the next wave of moths will be initiating a second generation of outbreaks in a few weeks, which could be even worse than the last one. "Of course, if they are lucky, the weather conditions may turn against the armyworms and things may gradually subside."

UPDATE: Apparently, these aren't army worms: Riddle of Liberian insect plague.

Halting the African armyworm
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:53:40 GMT

A global glacier index update
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:59:31 GMT

David. S. Battisti¹ and Rosamond L. Naylor²

Higher growing season temperatures can have dramatic impacts on agricultural productivity, farm incomes, and food security. We used observational data and output from 23 global climate models to show a high probability (>90%) that growing season temperatures in the tropics and subtropics by the end of the 21st century will exceed the most extreme seasonal temperatures recorded from 1900 to 2006. In temperate regions, the hottest seasons on record will represent the future norm in many locations. We used historical examples to illustrate the magnitude of damage to food systems caused by extreme seasonal heat and show that these short-run events could become long-term trends without sufficient investments in adaptation.

¹ Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195–1640, USA. E-mail: battisti@washington.edu
² Program on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305–6055, USA. E-mail: roz@stanford.edu

The food crisis of 2006–2008 demonstrates the fragile nature of feeding the world's human population. Rapid growth in demand for food, animal feed, and biofuels, coupled with disruptions in agricultural supplies caused by poor weather, crop disease, and export restrictions in key countries like India and Argentina, have created chaos in international markets (1). Coping with the short-run challenge of food price volatility is daunting. But the longer-term challenge of avoiding a perpetual food crisis under conditions of global warming is far more serious. History shows that extreme seasonal heat can be detrimental to regional agricultural productivity and human welfare and to international agricultural markets when policy-makers intervene to secure domestic food needs.

We calculated the difference between projected and historical seasonally averaged temperatures (2) throughout the world by using output from the 23 global climate models contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2007 scientific synthesis (3). Our results show that it is highly likely (greater than 90% chance) that growing season temperatures by the end of the 21st century will exceed even the most extreme seasonal temperatures recorded from 1900 to 2006 for most of the tropics and subtropics. Presently there are more than 3 billion people living in the tropics and subtropics, many of whom live on under $2 per day and depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihoods (4). With growing season temperatures rising beyond historical bounds, the inevitable question arises: Will people in these regions have sufficient access to food to meet population- and income-driven growth in demand in the future, and thus to achieve food security?

Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat

By Clare Baldwin

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A new survey of California winter snows on Thursday showed the most populous state is facing one of the worst droughts in its history, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said.

The state, which produces about half the United States' vegetables and fruit, is in its third year of drought and its main system supplying water to cities and farms may only be able to fulfill 15 percent of requests, scientists said.

The snowpack on California's mountains is carrying only 61 percent of the water of normal years, according to the survey by the state Department of Water Resources. Last year the snowpack held 111 percent of the normal amount of water, but spring was the driest ever recorded.

"California is headed toward one of the worst water crises in its history, underscoring the need to upgrade our water infrastructure by increasing water storage, improving conveyance, protecting the (Sacramento) Delta's ecosystem and promoting greater water conservation," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

"We may be at the start of the worst California drought in modern history," added Water Resources Director Lester Snow in a separate statement.

Schwarzenegger has pushed for new dams and reservoirs to catch melting snow which feeds rivers, although environmentalists have opposed the measures. The Sierra snowpack alone provides two thirds of California's water supply.

December through January tend to be the wettest months but thus far the Sierra has only received one third of its expected annual snowfall.

"A third of normal is devastating," said Elissa Lynn, a meteorologist with the state. "January is the biggest month for precipitation in the Sierra."

"Climate change does indicate the possibility of more frequent droughts," said Lynn, "but it's hard to tell over a short time span."

Snow study shows California faces historic drought

Weakness in the bulk commodities markets, reflecting the depth of the recession, is shown by the incredible 92% decline in the Baltic Dry Index.

...

Construction and energy-intensive manufacturing are the first sectors to slump in a recession. This has cut the demand for bulk commodity inputs, leading to the Baltic Dry Index decline.

Cargo E-Chartbook Q4 2008

By Jeremy van Loon

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Glaciers from the Andes to Alaska and across the Alps shrank as much as 3 meters (10 feet), the 18th year of retreat and twice as fast as a decade ago, as global warming threatens an important supply of the world’s water.

Alpine glaciers lost on average 0.7 meters of thickness in 2007, the most recent figures available, data published today by the University of Zurich’s World Glacier Monitoring Service showed. The melting extends an 11-meter retreat since 1980.

“One year doesn’t tell us much, it’s really these long-term trends that help us to understand what’s going on,” Michael Zemp, a researcher at the University of Zurich’s Department of Geography, said in an interview. “The main thing that we can do to stop this is reduce greenhouse gases” that are blamed for global warming.

The Alps have suffered more than other regions with half of the region’s glacier terrain having disappeared since the 1850s, Zemp said. Almost 90 percent of the glaciers in the Alps are smaller than 1 square kilometer (0.4 square mile) and some are as thin as 30 meters, he said.

...

The World Glacier Monitoring Program has measured 30 glaciers, of an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 worldwide, in nine mountain ranges since 1980. More ice has been lost than gained on average in 25 of the past 28 years with the last year of growth reported in 1989, when the Berlin Wall was dismantled and Communist regimes fell across eastern Europe.

...

The pace of the decline has doubled since the 1990s, when the average loss was about 0.3 meters compared with 0.7 meters now, he said. Glaciers at high altitudes and latitudes, such as Switzerland’s Aletsch and the Devon Ice Cap in Canada, would likely survive a global temperature increase of 3 degrees.

Some glaciers in the Alps, including Italy’s Calderone, have shrunk so much it’s becoming difficult to take accurate measurements, Zemp said. Such ice has not recovered from the 2003 European summer heat wave that melted the snow, revealing darker ice underneath which heats up faster than whiter surfaces.

World’s Glaciers Shrink for 18th Year in Alps, Andes (Update2)

From Calculated Risk:

More cliff diving ...
From the International Air Transport Association: Cargo Plummets 22.6% in December (hat tip Bob_in_MA)

In the month of December global international cargo traffic plummeted by 22.6% compared to December 2007. The same comparison for international passenger traffic showed a 4.6% drop. The international load factor stood at 73.8%.

For the full-year 2008, international cargo traffic was down 4.0%, passenger traffic showed a modest increase of 1.6%, and the international load factor stood at 75.9%.

“The 22.6% free fall in global cargo is unprecedented and shocking. There is no clearer description of the slowdown in world trade. Even in September 2001, when much of the global fleet was grounded, the decline was only 13.9%,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.” Air cargo carries 35% of the value of goods traded internationally.

...

“2009 is shaping up to be one of the toughest years ever for international aviation. The 22.6% drop in international cargo traffic in December puts us in un-charted territory and the bottom is nowhere in sight. Keep your seatbelts fastened and prepare for a bumpy ride and a hard landing,” said Bisignani.
[emphasis added]

"Unprecedented and shocking" Decline in Air Cargo
Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:54:57 GMT

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY, Jan 29 (Reuters) - A heatwave scorching southern Australia, causing transport chaos by buckling rail lines and leaving more than 10,000 homes without power, is a sign of climate change, the climate change minister said on Thursday.

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a total of six days of 40-plus Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) temperatures for southern Australia, which would equal the hottest heatwave in 100 years.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the heatwave, which started on Wednesday, was the sort of weather scientists had been warning about.

"Eleven of the hottest years in history have been in the last 12, and we also note, particularly in the southern part of Australia, we're seeing less rainfall," Wong told reporters.

"All of this is consistent with climate change, and all of this is consistent with what scientists told us would happen."

Health officials in South Australia and Victoria have advised people to stay indoors, use air conditioners, and keep their fluids up. More than 10,000 homes were without power in southern Australia as the heat took its toll on the electricity grid.

In Melbourne rail lines buckled and train services were cancelled, stranding thousands of hot and angry commuters.

...

The extreme temperatures were threatening Melbourne's parks and gardens, said Mayor Robert Doyle, in announcing an increase in water supplies to counter a 40 percent drop in soil moisture.

"The signs are there that our precious trees are struggling in this brutal weather," said Doyle.

Melbourne has 60,000 trees in its parks and streets and officials said they were most concerned about 15,000 trees growing in irrigated turf.

"Our parks staff have indicated a number of trees are defoliating and canopies are thinning. Once defoliation takes place it is very hard to save the tree," said Doyle. (Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

Australian heatwave sign of climate change

From Calculated Risk:

The Census Bureau reports, New Home Sales in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331 thousand. This is the lowest sales rate the Census Bureau has ever recorded (starting in 1963).

...This graph shows New Home Sales vs. recessions for the last 45 years. New Home Sales have fallen off a cliff.

Record Low New Homes Sales in December
Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:22:30 GMT

ABSTRACT: AMERICAN CHRONICLES about doomers and the current economic crisis. A year and a half ago, Dmitry Orlov, a forty-six-year-old software engineer from Leningrad, sold his apartment and bought a boat, on which he and his wife now live, in Boston. Orlov moved to the U.S. when he was twelve, and returned to the Soviet Union for the first time in 1989. Over the course of several visits, he observed the social effects of the Soviet economic breakdown. His 2008 book, Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects, identifies the ingredients of what he calls “superpower collapse soup”—a severe shortfall in production of crude oil, a worsening foreign-trade deficit, an oversized military budget, and massive foreign debt—and he argues that the U.S. is not only vulnerable but likely to fare worse.

...

One of Orlov’s greatest fans is the author James Howard Kunstler, who also writes a weekly blog column. His latest contribution to the doomersphere is the novel World Made by Hand, set in the post-collapse future. The writer met with Kunstler in Saratoga Springs, where he lives. In Kunstler’s view, the American economy since Second World War has essentially been one of continuous sprawl-building, and, given what we’ve built, it amounts to “the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.”

...

Jim Sinclair, a currency and commodities trader, is the king of goldbugs, an intermediate class of doomer. He posts daily commentary on his Web site, http://jsmineset.com/.

Mentions Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of the best-selling book The Black Swan, about the inevitability of unforeseeable events. Three days after the Presidential election, Kunstler addressed the audience at a Vermont Independence Convention, sponsored by the pro-secessionist group Second Vermont Republic. Mentions Gerald Celente, Kirkpatrick Sale, Chellis Glendinning, Lynette Clark, Rob Williams, Thomas Naylor, and Dennis Steele.

Ben McGrath, American Chronicles, “The Dystopians,” The New Yorker, January 26, 2009, p. 41

From Calculated Risk:

From the American Trucking Association: ATA Truck Tonnage Index Plummeted 11.1 Percent in December (hat tip Dave of SV)

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

The American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index plunged 11.1 percent in December 2008, marking the largest month-to-month reduction since April 1994, when the unionized less-than-truckload industry was in the midst of a strike. December’s drop was the third-largest single-month drop since ATA began collecting the data in 1973. In December, the seasonally adjusted tonnage index equaled just 98.3 (2000 = 100), its lowest level since December 2000. The not seasonally adjusted index edged 0.6 percent higher in December.

Compared with December 2007, the index declined 14.1 percent, the biggest year-over-year decrease since February 1996. During the fourth quarter, tonnage was down 6.0 percent from the same quarter in 2007.

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said the December reading confirms that the United States is in the thick of a recession. “Motor carrier freight is a reflection of the tangible-goods economy, and December’s numbers leave no doubt that the United States is in the worst recession in decades,” Costello said. “It is likely truck tonnage will not improve much before the third quarter of this year. The economy is expected to contract through the first half of 2009 and then only grow slightly through the end of the year.”

Truck Tonnage Index: Cliff Diving
Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:24:25 GMT

World economic growth is set to fall to just 0.5% this year, its lowest rate since World War II, warns the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In October, the IMF had predicted world output would increase by 2.2% in 2009.

It now projects the UK, which recently entered recession, will see its economy shrink by 2.8% next year, the worst contraction among advanced nations.

The IMF says financial markets remain under stress and the global economy has taken a "sharp turn for the worse".

In another gloomy view of the UK economy, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said Britain would be saddled with government debt for more than 20 years.

IFS director Robert Chote warned that spending would have to be cut or taxes raised by more than planned to allow public finances to recover.

...

"We now expect the global economy to come to a virtual halt," said IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard in a statement.

World growth 'worst for 60 years'

As many as 51 million jobs worldwide could be lost this year because of the global economic crisis, says the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The UN agency says that would push up the world's unemployment rate to 7.1% by the end of 2009, compared with 6.0% in 2008 and 5.7% in 2007.

...

"If the recession deepens in 2009, as many forecasters expect, the global jobs crisis will worsen sharply," the ILO said.

The International Monetary Fund is expected later on Wednesday to cut its forecast for world economic growth and predict a deeper than expected recession in the developed nations.

...

"We are now facing a global jobs crisis," said ILO director-general, Juan Somavia in the ILO's Global Employment Trends 2009 report.

"Many governments are aware and acting, but more decisive and coordinated international action is needed to avert a global social recession.

"Progress in poverty reduction is unravelling and middle classes worldwide are weakening."

Global job losses 'could hit 51m'

Fire is the most ubiquitous form of landscape disturbance, and has important effects on climate through the global carbon cycle and changing atmospheric chemistry. There has been a significant increase in large-scale wildfires in all regions of the world during the past decade. This has triggered an interest in knowing how fire has changed in the past, and particularly how fire regimes respond to periods of major warming.

The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,700 years ago, was an interval when the temperature of Greenland warmed by over 5°C in less than a few decades. Marlon et al. used 35 records of charcoal accumulation in lake sediments from sites across North America to see whether fire regimes across the continent showed any response to such rapid warming.

They also examined the changes during the major cooling at the beginning of the Younger Dryas, ca 12,900 years ago - because a team of scientists led by an isotope geochemist at Berkeley had suggested that a large comet exploded over North America then, triggering widespread fires as well as the cooling. Marlon et al. found no evidence for continental-scale fires. They did find clear changes in biomass burning and fire frequency whenever climate changed abruptly, but most particularly when temperatures increased at the end of the Younger Dryas cold phase.

For further information contact Prof Sandy Harrison (sandy.harrison@bristol.ac.uk)

By DEBORA REY, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Argentina's president declared an agricultural emergency Monday in the nation's breadbasket provinces, responding to a key demand by powerful farm organizations amid the worst drought in decades.

Cristina Fernandez told political and business leaders in a televised press conference that the decree will exempt thousands of farmers from paying various taxes for one year to help them confront what analysts estimate will be $5 billion in losses this year.

Argentina's farming provinces, including Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Entre Rios, Cordoba, La Pampa, Chaco and Santiago del Estero, have been hit by the worst drought since at least 1971, according to the National Weather Service.

In some areas, officials say it is the worst drought since the 1930s. Winds across the pampas are whipping up once-fertile soil that has turned to sand, quickly covering hundreds of parched cow carcasses piling up on barren swaths of land.

Argentine president declares farm emergency

by Richard Harris

All Things Considered, January 26, 2009 ·  Climate change is essentially irreversible, according to a sobering new scientific study.

As carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, the world will experience more and more long-term environmental disruption. The damage will persist even when, and if, emissions are brought under control, says study author Susan Solomon, who is among the world's top climate scientists.

"We're used to thinking about pollution problems as things that we can fix," Solomon says. "Smog, we just cut back and everything will be better later. Or haze, you know, it'll go away pretty quickly."

That's the case for some of the gases that contribute to climate change, such as methane and nitrous oxide. But as Solomon and colleagues suggest in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it is not true for the most abundant greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide. Turning off the carbon dioxide emissions won't stop global warming.

"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide that the climate would go back to normal in 100 years or 200 years. What we're showing here is that's not right. It's essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years," Solomon says.

Global Warming Is Irreversible, Study Says

From Calculated Risk:

S&P/Case-Shiller released their monthly Home Price Indices for November this morning. This includes prices for 20 individual cities, and two composite indices (10 cities and 20 cities).

This graph shows the year-over-year change in both indices. The Composite 10 is off 19.1% over the last year. The Composite 20 is off 18.2% over the last year.

These are the worst year-over-year price declines for the Composite indices since the housing bubble burst.

Case-Shiller: House Prices Fall Sharply in November
Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:27:12 GMT

A weak housing market and decreased consumer spending raised the state's jobless rate to its highest level in 14 years

By Dean Calbreath (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer

The unemployment rate in California soared to 9.3 percent last month – its highest point in 15 years – as construction firms, hotels, restaurants, casinos and amusement parks laid off workers in response to the widening recession.

Statewide, 78,200 workers lost their jobs in December, bringing the year-over-year job losses to 257,400, according to data released yesterday by the state Employment Development Department.

The jobless rate represented a major jump from 8.3 percent in November and 5.9 percent in December 2007. The national unemployment rate was 7.2 percent last month.

With job losses projected to continue into the near future, many economists, employment experts and labor leaders say it's likely California's jobless rate will hit double digits later this year, topping the recession of the early 1990s.

“We're facing a code-red economic crisis,” said Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation. “Skyrocketing joblessness is causing workers and their families to fall further into a deep, dark hole that is helping to fuel a vicious downward spiral for our state's economy.”

By TRACIE CONE and GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press Writers

Consumers may pay more for spring lettuce and summer melons in grocery stores across the country now that California farmers have started abandoning their fields in response to a crippling drought.

California's sweeping Central Valley grows most of the country's fruits and vegetables in normal years, but this winter thousands of acres are turning to dust as the state hurtles into the worst drought in nearly two decades.

Federal officials' recent announcement that the water supply they pump through the nation's largest farm state would drop further was enough to move John "Dusty" Giacone to forego growing vegetables so he can save his share to drip-irrigate 1,000 acres of almond trees.

...

Supplies for crops and cities also have been restricted by several court decisions cutting back allocations that flow through a freshwater estuary called the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the main conduit that sends water to nearly two-thirds of Californians. Environmental groups and federal scientists say the delta's massive pumps are one of the factors pushing a native fish to the brink of extinction.

...

Federal reservoirs are now at their lowest level since 1992.

...

In the meantime, the forecast appears to be worsening: Meteorologists are predicting a dry spring, and a new state survey shows the population of threatened fish is at its lowest point in 42 years, more imperiled than previously believed.

Calif farmers idle crops, veggie prices may rise

By Rex Springston

NEWPORT NEWS - The light of a cold dawn revealed an endangered species on the James River -- waterman Rodgers Green of Gloucester.

Green catches oysters the old-fashioned way, with 16-foot tongs that resemble two rakes attached like scissors.

Disease, pollution and long-ago overharvesting have sunk Virginia's oyster population to about 1 percent of a century ago. For Green, 55, thoughts of the future leave a bad taste in his mouth.

"This is about the last of it," Green said aboard his 36-foot workboat, the Donna Lisa. "I can't see nothing to encourage the younger generation to even try to get into it."

...

The oyster was once so abundant in the bay region that huge piles of them and their shells -- variously called reefs, rocks, shoals or bars -- posed hazards to boats.

...

In the late 1800s, Virginia watermen harvested between 6 million and 8 million bushels a year. Today, the annual catch totals a meager 20,000 to 80,000 bushels.

Oystering ‘a skeleton of its history’

PATANCHERU, India – When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.

And it wasn't just ciprofloxacin being detected. The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet — a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say.

Those Indian factories produce drugs for much of the world, including many Americans. The result: Some of India's poor are unwittingly consuming an array of chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.

"If you take a bath there, then you have all the antibiotics you need for treatment," said chemist Klaus Kuemmerer at the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany, an expert on drug resistance in the environment who did not participate in the research. "If you just swallow a few gasps of water, you're treated for everything. The question is for how long?"

...

As the AP reported last year, researchers are finding that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain pharmaceuticals. Some waterborne drugs also promote antibiotic-resistant germs, especially when — as in India — they are mixed with bacteria in human sewage. Even extremely diluted concentrations of drug residues harm the reproductive systems of fish, frogs and other aquatic species in the wild.

...

"Not only is there the danger of antibiotic-resistant bacteria evolving; the entire biological food web could be affected," said Stan Cox, senior scientist at the Land Institute, a nonprofit agriculture research center in Salina, Kan. Cox has studied and written about pharmaceutical pollution in Patancheru. "If Cipro is so widespread, it is likely that other drugs are out in the environment and getting into people's bodies."

World's highest drug levels entering India stream

(University of Copenhagen) Unchecked global warming would leave ocean dwellers gasping for breath. Dead zones are low-oxygen areas in the ocean where higher life forms such as fish, crabs and clams are not able to live. A team of Danish researchers have now shown that unchecked global warming would lead to a dramatic expansion of low-oxygen areas zones in the global ocean by a factor of 10 or more. The findings are published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.

Professor Gary Shaffer of the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, who is the leader of the research team at the Danish Center for Earth System Science (DCESS), explains that "such expansion would lead to increased frequency and severity of fish and shellfish mortality events, for example off the west coasts of the continents like off Oregon and Chile".

...

He adds that "if, as in many climate model simulations, the overturning circulation of the ocean would greatly weaken in response to global warming, these oxygen minimum zones would expand much more still and invade the deep ocean." Extreme events of ocean oxygen depletion leading to anoxia are thought to be prime candidates for explaining some of the large extinction events in Earth history including the largest such event at the end of the Permian 250 million years ago.

...

Nature Geoscience Advanced Online Publication: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html

Dramatic expansion of dead zones in the oceans
Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Monrovia (AFP) Jan 24, 2009 - Tens of thousands of Liberians face hunger owing to an invasion of crop-destroying caterpillars, local authorities said Saturday.

"More than 40 towns and villages have now been affected by the army worms," Joseph Urey, the commissioner of Zota district, told AFP. The previous figure was around 20.

The Zota district is in on of the three northern counties in Liberia where the army worms, as the caterpillars are called, are causing destruction contaminating water supplies and damaging food crops in the already impoverished country.

"We don't know how long it will take the international community to come in but we are worried. If it continues for another month more than 120,000 people will face hunger," the commissioner warned.

The Liberian government have already said they do not have the means to spray the army worms with insecticide from planes and has asked the international community for help.

Last week the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the invasion by tens of millions of army worms was a "national emergency" for Liberia that could spread across West Africa.

Tens of thousands face hunger amid Liberian insect plague: official
Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:59:54 GMT

Charles Perrow

GLOBAL CATASTROPHES AND TRENDS: The Next Fifty Years. Vaclav Smil. xii + 307 pp. The MIT Press, 2008. $29.95.

Prolific writer Vaclav Smil characterizes his latest book, Global Catastrophes and Trends, as “a multifaceted attempt to identify major factors that will shape the global future and to evaluate their probabilities and potential impacts.” Smil is fluent in many languages of the East and the West, and his voluminous citations demonstrate an impressive command of the literature. His two major themes are sudden, catastrophic events and unfolding trends that are catastrophic in their accumulative consequences.

The past 50 years have been exceptionally stable and unusually benign in global terms, Smil says, but this will change. The risks of what are, in his view, the two most likely cataclysmic future threats—nuclear war and pandemic influenza—can be substantially reduced, he believes. He does not see terrorism as a great risk. He also notes that mega-eruptions of volcanoes are quite rare and that the risk of a near-Earth object striking our planet is even more remote and can be handled. Instead, it is unfolding trends that worry him most and occasion the book’s most striking observations.

...

It takes Smil but a few pages to dismiss Europe as a world power and foresee its misery. At its peak in 1900, Europe accounted for about 40 percent of global economic product; by 2050, it may account for as little as 10 percent. It has had a population implosion—the fertility rate there, now 1.5 children per mother, is well below the replacement level of 2.1 children and is unlikely to rebound meaningfully.

...

Japan will fare no better than Europe. In the 1980s it was seen as an unbeatable economic titan; now its population is shrinking to the point that whole villages have been abandoned. By the middle of this century it will have become the most aged of all the aging high-income societies, with few pensions and too few workers to provide for the elderly.

As for China, Smil treats the skyrocketing of its economy with considerable irony:

What a remarkable symbiosis: a Communist government guaranteeing a docile work force that labors without rights and often in military camp conditions in Western-financed factories so that multinational companies can expand their profits, increase Western trade deficits, and shrink non-Asian manufacturing.

...

China’s population is aging rapidly (with almost no pensions), and the sex ratio is unfavorable (too few females). Income inequality is quickly increasing, and the degradation of the environment is extreme. With 20 percent of the world’s population in 2005, China had only 9 percent of the world’s farmland and 7 percent of the world’s freshwater. All of the world’s grain exports together would fill less than two-thirds of the country’s projected demand for food. It is already the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. In Smil’s analysis, it will not become a superpower in the next 50 years.

...

But humankind’s fortunes will have less to do with the economic policies and strategic moves of nations than with transformations brought about by climate change, environmental destruction and even antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Much of chapter 4, “Environmental Change,” is dauntingly technical, but this material rewards close attention. It is evident that we have a great deal of knowledge about these topics, but the complexity of the interactions between environmental factors is so great that we end up with absolutely contradictory findings in many areas.

The Worst Is Yet to Be

Up to one billion frogs are taken from the wild for human consumption each year, according to a new study.

Researchers arrived at this conclusion by analysing UN trade data, although they acknowledge there is a lot of uncertainty in the figure.

France and the US are the two biggest importers, with significant consumption in several East Asian nations.

About one-third of all amphibians are listed as threatened species, with habitat loss the biggest factor.

But hunting is acknowledged as another important driver for some species, along with climate change, pollution and disease - notably the fungal condition chytridiomycosis which has brought rapid extinctions to some amphibians.

...

"Frogs legs are on the menu at school cafeterias in Europe, market stalls and dinner tables across Asia to high end restaurants throughout the world," said Corey Bradshaw from Adelaide University in Australia.

"Amphibians are already the most threatened animal group yet assessed because of disease, habitat loss and climate change - man's massive appetite for their legs is not helping."

Exporting extinction

Indonesia emerged from Professor Bradshaw's analysis as both the largest exporter of frogs - 5,000 tonnes per year - and a major consumer.

...

"Harvesting seems to be following the same pattern for frogs as with marine fisheries - initial local collapses in Europe and North America, followed by population declines in India and Bangladesh and now potentially in Indonesia," said Professor Bradshaw.

A billion frogs on world's plates

Posted by Khebab at The Oil Drum:

Caclulated Risk has a good series of charts showing how depressed the US economy is; no wonder oil demand is collapsing:

 
Vehicle miles driven are off a record 3.7% Year-over-year (YoY); the decline in miles driven is worse than during the early '70s and 1979-1980 oil crisis:

Vehicle sales have plunged to just over a 10 million annual rate - the lowest rate since the early '80s recession.

Continued unemployment claims are now at 4.61 million, just below the high time peak of 4.71 million in 1982.

Total housing starts were at 550 thousand (SAAR) in December, by far the lowest level since the Census Bureau began tracking housing starts in 1959.

The builder confidence index was at 8 in January, a new record low.

Capacity utilization ... fell to 73.6% from 75.2%. This is the lowest level since December 2001. Industrial output fell at an 11.5% rate in the fourth quarter.

Drumbeat: January 22, 2009

Death Rates Have Doubled, Researchers Find

By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer

The death rates of trees in western U.S. forests have doubled over the past two to three decades, driven in large part by warmer temperatures and water scarcity linked to climate change, a new study spearheaded by the U.S. Geological Survey has found.

The findings, published today in the online journal Science Express, examined changes in 76 long-term forest plots in three broad regions across the West, and found similar shifts regardless of the areas' elevation, fire history, dominant species and tree sizes. It is the largest research project based on old-growth forests in North America.

Nathan L. Stephenson, one of the lead authors, said summers are getting longer and hotter in the West, subjecting trees to greater stress from droughts and attacks by insect infestations, all factors that contribute to greater tree die-offs.

"It's very likely that mortality rates will continue to rise," said Stephenson, a scientist at the Geological Survey's Western Ecological Research Center, adding that the death of older trees is rapidly exceeding the growth of new ones, akin to a town where deaths of old people are outpacing the number of babies being born. "If you saw that going on in your home town, you'd be concerned."

Trees in Western U.S. Forests Dying Due to Climate Change

By Passang Norbu, passa@kuensel.com.bt

More than 50 experts from India, Pakistan, Nepal, UK, Switzerland, Thailand and Bhutan have gathered in Paro to discuss glacial lake outburst, its threats and prevention measures. For Bhutan whose very survival depends on the stability of the lakes, officials say it is a much-needed workshop.

Bhutan has nearly 3,000 lakes of which 24 are identified as potentially dangerous, meaning it may burst in the not too distant future. Every river that runs through every dzongkhag is fed by glacial lakes. To make matters worse, the global warming has accelerated the melting of glaciers around these lakes, filling it up fast. The current melting rate, say geology of mines department, is about 30-35 metres a year.

Home minister Lyonpo Minjur Dorji in his speech to the participants here yesterday called the glacial lakes “silent tsunamis”. He said Bhutan needed to be well prepared. 

Bhutan’s glaciers retreating at 30-35 metres a year

...The fierce appetite for live reef fish across Southeast Asia — and increasingly in mainland China — is devastating populations in the Coral Triangle, a protected marine region home to the world’s richest ocean diversity, according to a recent report in the scientific journal Conservation Biology. Spawning of reef fish in this area, which supports 75 percent of all known coral species in the world, has declined 79 percent over the past 5 to 20 years, depending on location, according to the report.

Overfishing in general, and particularly of spawning aggregations that occur when certain species of reef fish gather in one place in great numbers to reproduce, may be the culprit, says Yvonne Sadovy, a biologist at the University of Hong Kong who wrote the report along with scientists from Australia, Hong Kong, Palau and the United States.

Growing Taste for Reef Fish Sends Their Numbers Sinking
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:11:29 GMT

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

WILKINS ICE SHELF, Antarctica (Reuters) - A huge Antarctic ice shelf is on the brink of collapse with just a sliver of ice holding it in place, the latest victim of global warming that is altering maps of the frozen continent.

"We've come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its final death throes," David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), told Reuters after the first -- and probably last -- plane landed near the narrowest part of the ice.

The flat-topped shelf has an area of thousands of square kilometers, jutting 20 meters (65 ft) out of the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula.

But it is held together only by an ever-thinning 40-km (25-mile) strip of ice that has eroded to an hour-glass shape just 500 meters wide at its narrowest.

In 1950, the strip was almost 100 km wide.

"It really could go at any minute," Vaughan said on slushy snow in bright sunshine beside a red Twin Otter plane that landed on skis. He added that the ice bridge could linger weeks or months.

The Wilkins once covered 16,000 sq km (6,000 sq miles). It has lost a third of its area but is still about the size of Jamaica or the U.S. state of Connecticut. Once the strip breaks up, the sea is likely to sweep away much of the remaining ice.

Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse due to warming

New research strengthens the link between water pollution and rising male fertility problems. The study shows for the first time how a group of testosterone-blocking chemicals is finding its way into UK rivers, affecting wildlife and potentially humans.

The study identified a new group of chemicals that act as ‘anti-androgens’. This means that they inhibit the function of the male hormone, testosterone, reducing male fertility. Some of these are contained in medicines, including cancer treatments, pharmaceutical treatments, and pesticides used in agriculture. The research suggests that when they get into the water system, these chemicals may play a pivotal role in causing feminising effects in male fish.

Earlier research by Brunel University and the University of Exeter has shown how female sex hormones (estrogens), and chemicals that mimic estrogens, are leading to ‘feminisation’ of male fish. Found in some industrial chemicals and the contraceptive pill, they enter rivers via sewage treatment works. This causes reproductive problems by reducing fish breeding capability and in some cases can lead to male fish changing sex.

Other studies have also suggested that there may be a link between this phenomenon and the increase in human male fertility problems caused by testicular dysgenesis syndrome. Until now, this link lacked credence because the list of suspects causing effects in fish was limited to estrogenic chemicals whilst testicular dysgenesis is known to be caused by exposure to a range of anti-androgens.

Declining Male Fertility Linked To Water Pollution
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Leakey's 'angel' says world's frenzy to 'go green' pushing orangutans to brink of extinction

By ROBIN MCDOWELL Associated Press Writer
TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia January 18, 2009 (AP)

Hoping to unravel the mysteries of human origin, anthropologist Louis Leakey sent three young women to Africa and Asia to study our closest relatives: It was chimpanzees for Jane Goodall, mountain gorillas for Dian Fossey and the elusive, solitary orangutans for Birute Mary Galdikas.

Nearly four decades later, 62-year-old Galdikas, the least famous of his "angels," is the only one still at it. And the red apes she studies in Indonesia are on the verge of extinction because forests are being clear-cut and burned to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations.

Galdikas worries many questions may never be answered. How long do orangutans live in the wild? How far do the males roam? And how many mates do they have in their lifetime?

"I try not to get depressed, I try not to get burned out," says the Canadian scientist, pulling a wide-rimmed jungle hat over her shoulder-length gray hair in Tanjung Puting National Park. She gently leans over to pick up a tiny orangutan, orphaned when his mother was caught raiding crops.

"But when you get up in the air you start gasping in horror; there's nothing but palm oil in an area that used to be plush rain forest. Elsewhere, there's burned-out land, which now extends even within the borders of the park."

Palm Oil Frenzy Threatens to Wipe out Orangutans

By Jasmin Melvin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sea levels on the United States' mid-Atlantic coast are rising faster than the global average because of global warming, threatening the future of coastal communities, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday.

Coastal waters from New York to North Carolina have crept up by an average of 2.4 to 4.4 millimeters (0.09 to 0.17 inches) a year, compared with an average global increase of 1.7 millimeters (0.07 inches) a year, the EPA said in a report.

As a result, sea levels along the East Coast rose about a foot over the past century, the EPA's report, commissioned by the Climate Change Science Program, said.

The EPA focused on the mid-Atlantic region because it "will likely see the greatest impacts due to rising waters, coastal storms, and a high concentration of population along the coastline," the agency said.

Higher sea levels threaten to erode beaches and drastically change the habitats of species in the area, often at a pace too fast for species to adapt and survive, the EPA said.

Communities in the area are at greater risk of flooding as a "higher sea level provides an elevated base for storm surges to build upon and diminishes the rate at which low-lying areas drain," the report found.

Rising sea levels threaten East Coast

By Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service

 

A major U.S. government report on Arctic climate, prepared with input from eight Canadian scientists, has concluded that the recent rapid warming of polar temperatures and shrinking of multi-year Arctic sea ice are "highly unusual compared to events from previous thousands of years."

The findings, released on Friday, counter suggestions from some skeptics that such recent events as the opening of the Northwest Passage and collapse of ice shelves in the Canadian Arctic are predictable phenomena that could be explained as part of a natural climate cycle rather than being driven by elevated carbon emissions from human activity.

A summary of the report — described as "the first comprehensive analysis of the real data we have on past climate conditions in the Arctic," by U.S. Geological Survey director Mark Myers — warns that "sustained warming of at least a few degrees" is probably enough "to cause the nearly complete, eventual disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet, which would raise sea level by several metres."

The study also sounds the alarm that "temperature change in the Arctic is happening at a greater rate than other places in the Northern Hemisphere, and this is expected to continue in the future. As a result, glacier and ice-sheet melting, sea-ice retreat, coastal erosion and sea level rise can be expected to continue."

Arctic warming pattern 'highly unusual': Report

Study estimates a million birds were lost on two key islands

 

Lovelace, the rockhopper penguin that answers life's questions in the animated film Happy Feet, probably would be just as stumped as the researchers who reported Friday that the population of his northern relatives has declined by 90 percent over the last 50 years.

The population of northern rockhopper penguins once reached into the millions, but now the largest colonies are estimated at between 32,000 to 65,000 pairs on Gough Island, and 40,000 to 50,000 pairs on Tristan da Cunha Island, according to a study in the journal Bird Conservation International.

Those two South Atlantic islands, which are British overseas territories, account for more than 80 percent of the total species population.

"Historically, we know that penguins were exploited by people, and that wild dogs and pigs probably had an impact on their numbers," Richard Cuthbert of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and lead author of the paper, said in a statement. "However, these factors cannot explain the staggering declines since the 1950s, when we have lost upwards of a million birds from Gough and Tristan."

"The declines at Gough since the 1950s are equivalent to losing 100 birds every day for the last 50 years", he added.

"With more than half the world’s penguins facing varying degrees of extinction, it is imperative that we establish the exact reason why the Northern Rockhopper Penguin is sliding towards oblivion," he said. "Understanding what's driving the decline of this bird will help us understand more about other threatened species in the Southern Ocean."

Northern rockhopper penguins near extinction

Argentina's beef industry and wheat and corn production have been devastated by the country's most severe drought since 1961- a drought which has also affected agriculture in neighbouring Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil.

REUTERS - Argentine rancher Gustavo Giailevra has seen 425 of his cattle, a quarter of his herd, die of thirst in the last year and now he watches helplessly as the survivors bellow for water at dry wells.

Argentina's beef industry and wheat and corn production have been devastated by the country's most severe drought since 1961, which has also affected agriculture in neighboring Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil.

...

"The situation is terminal," Giailevra said, surveying the stinking cow carcasses on his ranch near the town of Tostado in Santa Fe province in northern Argentina. "We are in God's hands. Our water reserves are gone."

The drought has killed 300,000 head of cattle and caused at least $600 million in farm losses in Santa Fe. Authorities are trucking in water but it is not enough and producers are demanding longer-term solutions.

...

Cows can only live seven or eight days without water before their legs give out and they can no longer get up, said Lazaro Monges, the manager of another ranch in Tostado, which translates to "Toasted" in English.

He has lost 350 head of cattle in eight months, leaving about 2,500, and says water supplies will only last a few more days.

"More death is sure to come," said the mustachioed Monges, wearing a round, gaucho-style hat and multicolored waistband.

Worst drought since 1961 devastates agriculture

Raw sewage and pollution from agricultural run-off polluted 83 percent of China's coastal waters in 2008, state media said Saturday.

China's coastal waters last year witnessed 68 red tides, or algae blooms, which feed off nutrients found in excess pollution and sap water of oxygen, killing off large amounts of sea life, Xinhua news agency said.

Administration was cited as saying the algae blooms covered 13,700 square kilometres (5,500 square miles), an increase of more than 2,100 square kilometres over 2007, the report said.

While some experts said the red tides were a result of climate change and heavy rain, environmentalists believe they were largely due to sewage and agricultural pollutant run-off, it said.

In August last year, one algae bloom caused havoc for the sailing competition of the Olympic Games when it engulfed waters surrounding the sailing venue in eastern China's Qingdao city.

Up to 10,000 soldiers and volunteers were enlisted to clean up more than one million tonnes of the foul-smelling algae as they raced to clear the waters ahead of the competition, Xinhua said.

More than 80 pct of China's coastal waters polluted: report

Researchers have marked another decline in northern fur seal pup births in the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, where most of the world's population of northern fur seals gather in the summer to rest and breed.

“We started seeing an over-all decline in the abundance of fur seals on the Pribilof Islands around 1998, but we have not been able to identify the factors responsible,” said Dr. Doug DeMaster, center director. “While the population trends were up in specific areas and certain sectors of the population, the Pribilof Island pup count is a major marker, and it was down by 4.9 percent since the 2006 count.” ...

“We have a very long, scientific record of the population of northern fur seals on the Pribilof Islands and not since 1916 have the islands produced this few seal pups,” said DeMaster. “Adult male counts began in 1909 and pup counts were initiated in 1912. At that time, the northern fur seal population was rebounding at a healthy eight percent per year, following the end of extensive at-sea seal hunting.”

With four days to go until president-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated, history is documenting George Bush's environmental record at home and abroad.

By Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk

 

..."He has undone decades if not a century of progress on the environment," said Josh Dorner, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, one of America's largest environmental groups.

"The Bush administration has introduced this pervasive rot into the federal government which has undermined the rule of law, undermined science, undermined basic competence and rendered government agencies unable to do their most basic function even if they wanted to. We're excited just to push the reset button."

...

"Certainly the most destructive part of the Bush environmental legacy is not only his failure to act on global climate change, but his administration's covert attempt to silence the science alerting us to the urgency of the problem," said Jonathan Dorn of the Earth Policy Institute (EPA) in Washington.

...

"Every effort has been made to weaken existing law and there has been no effort to advance regulatory solutions to the most important issue we face, which is climate change," said Frances Beinecke, president of the National Resources Defence Council.

A particular target of the Bush administration's project of deregulation was the Endangered Species Act. The campaign was driven in part by the administration's concern that the act – with its protections for polar bears – could be used to force limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

...

Other controversial actions included:

• Gutting key sections of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts
• Dismantling the protections of the Endangered Species Act
• Opening millions of acres of wilderness to mining, oil and gas drilling, and logging
• Defunding programmes charged with the clean-up of toxic industrial wastes such as arsenic, lead and mercury
• Reducing the enforcement effort in the Environmental Protection Agency
• Removing grizzly bears and wolves from the endangered species list
• Endorsing commercial whaling
• Approving mountain-top removal for coal mining

[To these, I would add the systematic attempts to defund NASA's Earth Sciences programs. --Jim]

The worst of times: Bush's environmental legacy examined