Desdemona Despair

By Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart

The financial crisis in the US has triggered a social crisis of historic dimensions. Soup kitchens are suddenly in great demand and tent cities are popping up in the shadow of glistening office towers. Even drug dealers are feeling the pinch. …

In the United States, the economic downturn has developed into a social crisis of a dimension the country has not experienced since the Great Depression early in the 20th century. In addition to bringing down stock prices and corporate earnings, the current crisis has deprived millions of people of their livelihood.

Poverty as a mass phenomenon is back. About 50 million Americans have no health insurance, and more people are added to their ranks every day. More than 32 million people receive food stamps, and 13 million are unemployed. The homeless population is growing in tandem with a rapid rise in the rate of foreclosures, which were 45 percent higher in March 2009 than they were in the same month of the previous year.

The effects of the crisis are even palpable in better neighborhoods. The streets are wide in Venice Beach, an upscale Los Angeles suburb near the ocean. But now they seem narrower than usual, because they are lined with parked campers and station wagons, the temporary homes of people whose lives have been put on hold. Many have covered the windows with cardboard to preserve a modicum of privacy. Some have put up signs that read "Come in if you dare," hoping to deter car thieves and other criminals. …

Crisis Plunges US Middle Class into Poverty

The ecosystem of the Cape Gannet, a protected bird species, has gone haywire. As a result of overfishing, the birds are no longer able to find enough food to rear their young. Pelicans, kelp gulls and seals are becoming increasing threats – the lack of fish means that these predators are attacking Cape Gannet chicks more often.

This has been revealed by research conducted by biologist Ralf Mullers. He will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 4 May 2009.

The Cape Gannet (Morus capensis) is a member of the same family as the pelican. The birds can grow to almost a metre and have a wingspan of nearly two metres. There are only six breeding colonies in the world – three in Namibia and three in South Africa. Since the 1960s, the number of breeding pairs in the colonies in Namibia has been decreasing due to overfishing of sardines and anchovies. In the last ten years, the breeding colonies on the west coast of South Africa have also been getting smaller. This is partly because the schools of anchovies and sardines have moved to the south and east coasts of South Africa. …

The decline in the colony on Malgas is due to the dangers the chicks are exposed to, Mullers discovered. Among other things, pelicans are a particular threat. These birds originally only ate fish, but due to the lack of fish they’ve become accustomed to eating other birds. They’ve also learnt to eat slaughterhouse waste, present in large amounts at neighbouring pig farms. Mullers: ‘Pelicans are originally protected birds too. Now one protected bird species needs to be protected against another one. On Malgas you can see entire colonies of gannets being destroyed by pelicans – they can even swallow chicks weighing almost two kilos.’ …

If extinction of the gannet is to be prevented, its foraging ranges must be protected. In other words, there must be a limit on the number of sardines and anchovies caught in the bird’s foraging range. Mullers: ‘There are naturally major economic interests involved. It would be great if my research could contribute to the debate on this matter.’

Ecosystem Gone Haywire: Cape Gannet Bird Threatened With Extinction

There are now 46000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world's oceans killing a million seabirds and 100000 marine mammals each year. Worse still there seems to be nothing we can do to clean it up. So how do we turn the tide?

By Richard Grant

Way out in the Pacific Ocean, in an area once known as the doldrums, an enormous, accidental monument to modern society has formed. Invisible to satellites, poorly understood by scientists and perhaps twice the size of France, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a solid mass, as is sometimes imagined, but a kind of marine soup whose main ingredient is floating plastic debris.

It was discovered in 1997 by a Californian sailor, surfer, volunteer environmentalist and early-retired furniture restorer named Charles Moore, who was heading home with his crew from a sailing race in Hawaii, at the helm of a 50ft catamaran that he had built himself.

For the hell of it, he decided to turn on the engine and take a shortcut across the edge of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a region that seafarers have long avoided. It is a perennial high pressure zone, an immense slowly spiralling vortex of warm equatorial air that pulls in winds and turns them gently until they expire. Several major sea currents also converge in the gyre and bring with them most of the flotsam from the Pacific coasts of Southeast Asia, North America, Canada and Mexico. Fifty years ago nearly all that flotsam was biodegradable. These days it is 90 per cent plastic.

'It took us a week to get across and there was always some plastic thing bobbing by,' says Moore, who speaks in a jaded, sardonic drawl that occasionally flares up into heartfelt oratory. 'Bottle caps, toothbrushes, styrofoam cups, detergent bottles, pieces of polystyrene packaging and plastic bags. Half of it was just little chips that we couldn't identify. It wasn't a revelation so much as a gradual sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong here. Two years later I went back with a fine-mesh net, and that was the real mind-boggling discovery.'

Floating beneath the surface of the water, to a depth of 10 metres, was a multitude of small plastic flecks and particles, in many colours, swirling like snowflakes or fish food. An awful thought occurred to Moore and he started measuring the weight of plastic in the water compared to that of plankton. Plastic won, and it wasn't even close. 'We found six times more plastic than plankton, and this was just colossal,' he says. 'No one had any idea this was happening, or what it might mean for marine ecosystems, or even where all this stuff was coming from.' …

'There's no such thing as a pristine sandy beach any more,' Charles Moore says. 'The ones that look pristine are usually groomed, and if you look closely you can always find plastic particles. On Kamilo Beach in Hawaii there are now more plastic particles than sand particles until you dig a foot down. On Pagan Island [between Hawaii and the Philippines] they have what they call the "shopping beach". If the islanders need a cigarette lighter, or some flip-flops, or a toy, or a ball for their kids, they go down to the shopping beach and pick it out of all the plastic trash that's washed up there from thousands of miles away.' …

Drowning in plastic: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of France

Traditional fruit orchards are vanishing from England's landscape - with serious consequences for wildlife, conservationists have warned.

The National Trust says 60% have disappeared since the 1950s, putting local varieties of apples, cherries, pears, plums and damsons under threat.

It is launching a £536,000 drive to reverse the decline of the orchards.

Their trees provide important habitats for species such as the noble chafer beetle and lesser spotted woodpecker.

The orchards - some with as few as five trees - also offer sources of pollen and nectar to bees, which are thought to be declining partly because of a lack of suitable food.

Pressure from commercial fruit growers has led many small-scale producers to develop their orchards or convert them to other uses.

The National Trust's head of nature conservation, Dr David Bullock, said traditional orchards had been "disappearing at an alarming rate over the last 60 years".

"We are in real danger of losing these unique habitats - and the wildlife, local fruit varieties and their rich heritage - and if we don't act in some cases we will not even know what local varieties of fruit have been lost," he said. …

Poul Christensen, acting chairman of Natural England, said: "Successful orchards are worth their weight in gold, not just for the valuable contribution they make to the economy but to the subsequent enhancement of these precious wildlife habitats." …

Orchard losses 'threaten species'

By Azadeh Ansari

(CNN) -- The indigenous people of Alaska have stood firm against some of the most extreme weather conditions on Earth for thousands of years. But now, flooding blamed on climate change is forcing at least one Eskimo village to move to safer ground.

Authorities have ordered about 340 residents of the tiny coastal village of Newtok to move to new homes 9 miles away, up the Ninglick River. The village, home to indigenous Yup'ik Eskimos, is the first of possibly scores of threatened Alaskan communities that could be abandoned.

Warming temperatures are melting coastal ice shelves and frozen sub-soils, which act as natural barriers to protect the village against summer deluges from ocean storm surges.

"We are seeing the erosion, flooding and sinking of our village right now," said Stanley Tom, a Yup'ik Eskimo and tribal administrator for the Newtok Traditional Council.

The crisis is unique because its devastating effects creep up on communities, eating away at their infrastructure, unlike with sudden natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes or hurricanes. …

Tom's ancestors have been living in the region for centuries, he said.

"Our land is our resource, our source of food; it's our country. We live off of it. If we go to another village or city, we will not be able to survive," Tom said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that moving Newtok could cost $130 million. Twenty-six other Alaskan villages are in immediate danger, with an additional 60 considered under threat in the next decade, according to the corps. …

 'Climate change' forces Eskimos to abandon village

Climate change robs Uru Chipaya of lifeline that had sustained them for millennia

By Rory Carroll and Andres Schipani in Santa Ana de Chipaya

Its members belong to what is thought to be the oldest surviving culture in the Andes, a tribe that has survived for 4,000 years on the barren plains of the Bolivian interior. But the Uru Chipaya, who outlasted the Inca empire and survived the Spanish conquest, are warning that they now face extinction through climate change.

The tribal chief, 62-year-old Felix Quispe, 62, says the river that has sustained them for millennia is drying up. His people cannot cope with the dramatic reduction in the Lauca, which has dwindled in recent decades amid erratic rainfall that has turned crops to dust and livestock to skin and bones.

"Over here used to be all water," he said, gesturing across an arid plain. "There were ducks, crabs, reeds growing in the water. I remember that. What are we going to do? We are water people."

The Uru Chipaya, who according to mythological origin are "water beings" rather than human beings, could soon be forced to abandon their settlements and go to the cities of Bolivia and Chile, said Quispe. "There is no pasture for animals, no rainfall. Nothing. Drought."

The tribe is renowned for surviving on the fringe of a salt desert, a harsh and eerie landscape which even the Incas avoided, by flushing the soil with river water. As the Lauca has dried, many members of the Uru Chipaya have migrated, leaving fewer than 2,000 in the village of Santa Ana and the surrounding settlements.

"We have nothing to eat. That's why our children are all leaving," said Vicenta Condori, 52, dressed in traditional skirt and shawl. She has two children in Chile. …

 Bolivia: water people of Andes face extinction

From Calculated Risk:

The graph shows New Home Sales vs. Recessions for the last 45 years. New home sales have fallen off a cliff.

Sales of new one-family houses in March 2009 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 356,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This is 0.6 percent (±19.0%)* below the revised February rate of 358,000 and is 30.6 percent (±10.7%) below the March 2008 estimate of 513,000. …

New Home Sales: 356 Thousand SAAR in March

The basin authority has launched a new website to be updated weekly with details of storage levels across parts of Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

It currently shows the dire position of Australia's major water resources as a result of the ongoing drought.

According to the latest figures storage levels across the basin are running  at just 17 per cent.

Of the total capacity of 22,621 gigalitres, the basin holds just 3,807. …

Water Minister Penny Wong said there been a constant request from the public for information on what water was available and where it was being held.

"I hope that what this information will do is to make it clear what is happening and ensure we have a good basis for discussion about the best way forward," she told reporters on Thursday.

"Let's understand the challenge we face.

"We face the levels of storages that are identified here and we face record-low inflows.

"We are facing real and substantial challenges in the Murray-Darling Basin."

The storage website can be accessed from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority website on www.mdba.gov.au/water/waterinstorage.

Water storage website doesn't paint a pretty picture

From Calculated Risk:

The graph shows weekly claims and continued claims since 1971. The four week moving average is at 646,750. Continued claims are now at 6.14 million - the all time record. …

Unemployment Claims: Continued Claims at Record

One of the world's rarest species of amphibians has been airlifted to safety from Montserrat in a last-ditch attempt to save it from extinction

See also: A billion frogs on world's plates, accelerating amphibian extinctions and Fungus devastates 'chicken' frog.

By Jessica Aldred and agencies

Conservationists have rescued a number of critically endangered "mountain chicken" frogs from the path of a fatal disease which has hit their Caribbean island home of Montserrat.

The decision to remove 50 mountain chicken frogs (leptodactylus fallax) from their natural habitat was taken in the face of the spread of the chytrid fungus, which is devastating amphibian populations worldwide.

The Zoological Society London (ZSL) and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, based in Jersey, have each provided a home for 12 of the frogs which have been removed from Montserrat. Another 26 have gone to Parken zoo in Stockholm.

The plan is to breed the rescued frogs in captivity in a bid to save the species from extinction.

Montserrat is one of only two sites where the once-common mountain chicken is found, but hundreds of the frogs - one of the world's largest species - have been killed in the last few weeks by the disease. …

Dr Andrew Cunningham, a senior ZSL scientist, said: "Chytridiomycosis has already decimated the mountain chickens on Dominica and within a few weeks of the disease being diagnosed on the neighbouring island of Montserrat, its impact has been catastrophic. The mountain chicken frog has been virtually wiped out on the island and the number of surviving frogs decreases every day." …

Rare 'mountain chicken' frogs airlifted from path of deadly fungus

WASHINGTON, DC, April 21, 2009 (ENS) - Atmospheric concentrations of two of the most potent global warming gases rose last year, according to a preliminary analysis for the annual greenhouse gas index compiled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, which tracks data from 60 sites around the world.

At the end of December 2008, researchers measured an additional 16.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, CO2, a byproduct of fossil fuel burning, and 12.2 million tons of methane in the atmosphere.

Human activities that emit methane include fossil fuel production, animal husbandry, rice cultivation, biomass burning, and waste management landfills.

These increases occurred despite the global economic downturn, which slowed many activities that depend on burning coal, oil and gas.

"Only by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and increasing energy production from renewable resources will we start to see improvements and begin to lessen the effects of climate change," said scientist Pieter Tans of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

"At NOAA we have monitored carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouses gases for decades and will continue to do so to help assess the situation and advise decision makers," he said. …

"Atmospheric CO2 growth is best reflected by the world population trend," said Hofmann. "The two have tracked each other extremely well over the past century. A break in the close relation between population growth and CO2 growth would be a clear sign of progress in the inevitable need to limit atmospheric CO2."

Greenhouse Gases Rise Despite Global Recession

Europe's Common Fisheries Policy has failed and a completely new fishing management system is needed, the European Commission has admitted.

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels

A new Brussels position paper highlighted severe problems with fisheries and urged a complete rethink of a key European Union policy.

EU officials have been forced to admit that, despite the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), 88 per cent of European fish stocks are over-fished, compared to 25 per cent elsewhere in the world.

Almost a third - 30 per cent - of managed fisheries are "outside safe biological limits, they cannot reproduce at normal because the parenting population is too depleted", said the paper.

"Yet in many fisheries we are fishing two or three more times more than what fish stocks can sustain." … 

The commission has blamed fishing fleets for over-fishing and national governments for failing to enforce catch quota limits agreed annually under the CFP. …

Struan Stevenson, a Scottish Conservative MEP and fisheries spokesman in the European Parliament, has called for fishing policy to be decentralised.

He highlighted figures showing that British fishermen have seen 60 per cent of their whitefish fleet scrapped and thousands of jobs destroyed. …

European Commission admits failure of fishing policy

SEATTLE, Washington, April 21, 2009 (ENS) - Three pesticides - carbaryl, carbofuran, and methomyl - jeopardize the existence of protected salmon and steelhead, the National Marine Fisheries Service said in a formal biological opinion released Monday.

All three of the pesticides assessed are neurotoxins. Exposure either immediately kills salmon or impairs their feeding, predator avoidance, spawning, homing, and migration capabilities.

Recent research has found that these pesticides can have "synergistic effects" on salmon, which means that exposure to mixtures of carbamates and other chemicals is more dangerous than exposure to the carbamates alone.

The 609-page document prescribes measures to keep these pesticides out of waters inhabited by salmon and steelhead in Washington, Oregon, California, and Idaho.

"Salmon runs all along the west coast are collapsing, and our rivers becoming a toxic soup of pesticides is surely one of the causes," said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. …

Three Common Pesticides Declared Toxic to Salmon

In Masai Mara, one of Africa’s most treasured parks, researchers have found significant, in some cases catastrophic, declines of wild grazing animals. In fifteen years six of seven hoofed animals—giraffes, warthogs, hartebeest, impala, topis and waterbucks—showed declines. The study published in the British Journal of Zoology confirms what has long been expected: wildlife populations in Masai Mara are plummeting due to increased competition with humans and livestock.

The Masai Mara National Reserve lies over 1500 square kilometers in southwestern Kenya where it eventually links to Serengeti park in Tanzania. Heavily visited by tourists, the park is one of the best places in the world to see the famous wildebeest migration.

Researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) conducted surveys of species every month for fifteen years, from 1989 to 2003. Giraffes fared the worse: dropping an astounding 95 percent in fifteen years. Warthog populations fell 80 percent. While hartebeest and impala dropped 76 percent and 67 percent respectively.

"The situation we documented paints a bleak picture and requires urgent and decisive action if we want to save this treasure from disaster," said Joseph Ogutu, the lead author of the study and a statistical ecologist at ILRI. "Our study offers the best evidence to date that wildlife losses in the reserve are widespread and substantial, and that these trends are likely linked to the steady increase in human settlements on lands adjacent to the reserve."…

Famous Kenyan park experiencing large declines in wildlife

BOULDER, Colorado, April 21, 2009 (ENS) - Many of the greatest rivers in some of the world's most populous regions are losing water, according to a new study of stream flow in 925 large rivers. Led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the study indicates that the reduced flows are associated with climate change and could threaten future supplies of food and water.

Several of the rivers channeling less water serve large populations, such as the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa, and the Colorado River in the southwestern United States.

By contrast, the scientists reported greater stream flow over sparsely populated areas near the Arctic Ocean, where snow and ice are rapidly melting.

"Reduced runoff is increasing the pressure on freshwater resources in much of the world, especially with more demand for water as population increases," says lead author Aiguo Dai a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. "Freshwater being a vital resource, the downward trends are a great concern."

The research team examined stream flow from 1948 to 2004 and found significant changes in about one-third of the world's largest rivers. Of those, rivers with decreased flow outnumbered those with increased flow by a ratio of about 2.5 to 1. …

They found that over the 64 years studied annual freshwater discharge into the Pacific Ocean fell by about six percent, or 526 cubic kilometers - approximately the same volume of water that flows out of the Mississippi River each year.

The annual flow into the Indian Ocean dropped by about three percent, or 140 cubic kilometers.

But annual river discharge into the Arctic Ocean rose about 10 percent, or 460 cubic kilometers.

In the United States, the Columbia River's flow declined by about 14 percent during the study period, due to reduced precipitation and higher water usage in the West. …

Climate Change Shrinks Some of the World's Largest Rivers

From Calculated Risk:

Voit released quarterly reports today for CRE in Las Vegas, San Diego and Orange County.

The reports show the vacancy rates are up, and lease rates (falling rents), net absorption, transactions and construction are all down.

It appears new construction has all but stopped. Here are a couple of graphs for Orange County and San Diego. We are seeing a similar pattern nationwide, although new construction in these areas probably slowed earlier than most of the country. …

More on Office Vacancy Rates and New Construction

During ten years surveying small mammal populations in Bolivia's cerrado, Dr. Louise Emmons with the Smithsonian Institute found that the mammals were suffering precipitous declines, even local extinctions. After ruling out the usual suspects—local fires, rainfall, and flooding—Emmons formed a novel hypothesis regarding the decline. Could a sudden lack of nighttime dew caused by the burning of the Amazon be the cause of the mammal decline?

In the cerrado—a tropical region of grasslands and dry forest—Emmons watched as the Brazilian guinea pig Cavia aperea went locally extinct, and three other rodent species declined significantly: the South American giant rat Kunsia tomentosa, the Paraguayan Bolo mouse Necromys lenguarum, and the Huanchaca mouse Juscelinomys huanchacae. Surveying two different areas in the cerrado, Emmons found a nearly 96 percent decline in small mammals, from a high point of 232 individuals surveyed to a low of ten. In 2004 guinea pigs vanished entirely from the cerrado and have not returned.

“Rodents everywhere quite normally undergo big changes in abundance, but numbers usually go up again following declines,” Emmons told Mongabay.com. “In our study, the rodents did not recover their numbers, and an important species, guinea pigs, seemingly went completely extinct. Often rodent abundances change with year-to-year changes in rainfall, but rainfall and other factors such as fire and flooding did not seem able to explain the decline that we saw.”

Another change in the ecosystem, however, caught Emmon's eye. “When the study began in 1998, we were soaked to the waist from dew on the grass, shoes squelching, each morning when checking savanna traps,” she writes in a paper published in Biotropica. “In later years the morning grass was usually dry.” …

Mysterious decline of small mammals in Bolivia may be linked to burning Amazon

By Becky Kramer, The Spokesman-Review

ROSE LAKE, Idaho — Even near death, tundra swans are graceful.

Snowy necks arch and flex as the birds — victims of lead poisoning — gasp for breath. Wings rise and fall in rhythmic sweeps, but the birds are too weak to take flight. Their cries are soft, trilling sounds.

Each spring, thousands of tundra swans stop in the marshes along the Coeur d'Alene River as they migrate north to breeding grounds in Alaska. Some never make it out of the marsh.

As they feed on roots and tubers, the swans swallow sediment polluted with heavy metals from mining waste. At high enough levels, the lead shuts down their digestive systems, causing the swans to gasp for air as food backs up into the esophagus and presses against the windpipe. The birds grow emaciated, starving to death on full bellies.

Counting dead swans is a rite of spring for Kate Healy, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. Each year, she finds about 150 carcasses. The yearly survey helps track the toll that mining pollution takes on wildlife in the Coeur d'Alene Basin.

"For me, it's like bearing witness," said Healy, an eight-year veteran of the count. "They die slow, agonizing deaths." …

Toxic marshes deadly to swans: Coeur d'Alene River laden with lead from Silver Valley mining

Low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean could expand significantly over the next century, according to marine chemists. These predictions are based on the fact that, as more and more carbon dioxide dissolves from the atmosphere into the ocean, marine animals will need more oxygen to survive.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide are increasing rapidly in the Earth's atmosphere, primarily because of human activities. About one third of the carbon dioxide that humans produce by burning fossil fuels is being absorbed by the world's oceans, gradually causing seawater to become more acidic.

However, such "ocean acidification" is not the only way that carbon dioxide can harm marine animals. In a "Perspective" published in the journal Science, Peter Brewer and Edward Peltzer combine published data on rising levels of carbon dioxide and declining levels of oxygen in the ocean in a set of new and thermodynamically rigorous calculations. They show that increases in carbon dioxide can make marine animals more susceptible to low concentrations of oxygen, and thus exacerbate the effects of low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean.

Brewer and Peltzer's calculations also show that the partial pressure of dissolved carbon dioxide gas (pCO2) in low-oxygen zones will rise much higher than previously thought. This could have significant consequences for marine life in these zones. …

Brewer provides the following analogy, "Animals facing declining oxygen levels and rising CO2 levels will suffer in much the same way that humans in a damaged submarine would suffer, once the concentrations of these gasses reach critical levels. Our work helps define those critical levels for marine animals, and will enable the emerging risk to be quantified and mapped." …

Ocean Dead Zones Likely To Expand: Increasing Carbon Dioxide And Decreasing Oxygen Make It Harder For Deep-sea Animals To Breath

Already threatened by global warming, harvesting krill to supply omega-3 oil means danger for Antarctica's penguins

By Gerry Leape

Fifty years ago, delegates from 12 nations - including the United States, Norway and Japan - gathered in Washington DC to discuss how to protect Antarctica, the only continent without a native human population. The result was a treaty system that ensures Antarctica will continue to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and not become an object of international discord.

Yet as nations gather again to celebrate the Antarctic treaty system's 50th anniversary this spring, new scientific research indicates that many species of penguins, some of the Antarctic's most iconic residents, are in deep trouble.

While the plight of the polar bear may be better known, emperor penguins are also going to be hit hard by the effects of global warming. Made famous by the documentary March of the Penguins, these flightless birds use the Antarctic's sea ice as a breeding ground and base for feeding on krill, fish and squid. But projected changes in Antarctic sea ice due to global warming will dramatically change the environment for these penguins and countless other species.

Indeed, a 2008 study by a number of leading penguin experts warned that "50% of Emperor colonies ... and 75% of Adelie colonies ... that currently exist at latitudes north of 70 degrees S are in jeopardy of marked decline or disappearance, largely because of severe decreases in pack-ice coverage."

Making matters worse, these penguins increasingly must compete with man for their principal food: a small, yet invaluable shrimp-like animal known as Antarctic krill. Measuring only five to six centimetres in size, krill comprise the largest biomass in the Southern Ocean. These tiny creatures, rich in the omega-3 oils used in health supplements, are seen by some corporations as a potential source of big profits.

The Norwegian-based firm Aker Biomarine, one of the globe's leading krill fishing companies, recently applied to have its Antarctic krill fishery certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). The council attempts to provide market-based tools to promote sustainably caught fish. To accomplish this, the MSC works with fisheries, seafood companies, scientists, conservation groups and the public to promote the best "environmental choice" in seafood. Yet while the council's mission is important, certifying the krill fishery would stymie further efforts to more effectively conserve and manage Antarctic resources. …

Plight of the penguins

Gangs of illegal rosewood loggers continue to pillage the wildlife-rich forests of northeastern Madagascar, reports a local source.

"More and more people are entering the [protected area] to cut wood," said the source, whose identity has been concealed for protection. "All the rosewood — regardless of its diameter — will disappear."

The source adds that due to fears of prosecution, local villagers are not directly participating in logging.

"Instead, they look for the good trees and then guide the logging teams to the trees."

The outbreak of logging in the rainforests of northeastern Madagascar followed rangers' abandonment of park posts during last month's military coup in Madagascar. Chinese timber traders took advantage of the opportunity, paying armed bands to raid Marojejy and Masoala National Parks — both of which are considered jewels in Madagascar's protected area system for their astounding biological richness. The loggers' primary target was rosewood, ebonies, and other hardwoods. It is unclear how much timber has been cut from protected forests since the political crisis began, but photos provided by another confidential source show substantial stockpiles of contraband wood in local towns. …

Rainforest pillage continues in Madagascar

Tory dismissal of findings angers scientists

Via Treehugger:

 

By Margaret Munro, Canwest News Service

Half of Canada's boreal caribou herds are in decline and could die off unless their habitat is better protected, says a federal report that points to logging and energy production as big threats to the reclusive creatures.

Environment Canada released the long-awaited report Thursday, more than six months after it was finalized by scientists. And the Conservative government took the extraordinary step of distancing itself from the report by slapping a preface on the 254-page document saying it is not detailed enough.

"The information provided is inadequate to enable the identification of critical habitat," says the one-page preface, which has left many incredulous.

Scientists and conservation groups say the report is the most comprehensive ever on the caribou that live in Canada's north. And they say it points to habitats that need immediate protection.

"We stand behind the report and we think there is a wealth of very useful information in the report that can be put in place for caribou conservation now," says biologist Fiona Schmiegelow, of the University of Alberta, who chaired the group of 18 experts that advised the Environment Canada team that wrote the report.

She says the advisory group is "surprised" and "disappointed" by the tone of the government's preface, and stresses the need for action.

Conservation groups go even further, saying the report shows the boreal caribou are in more trouble than previously realized, and action cannot wait for the government to do more studies and consultation. The preface says the government is now aiming to release a "recovery strategy" in 2011. …

Study Says Canada's Boreal Caribou Herds are Dying Off

From Climate Progress:

The prestigious journal Nature is publishing important new research on “Rapid sea-level rise and reef back-stepping at the close of the last interglacial highstand” (subs. req’d, abstract below).  As Nature explains in a summary and author interview (subs. req’d):

Some consequences of climate change are already unfolding. Glaciers and ice sheets are melting, and sea levels are rising as a result. However, scientists aren’t certain by how much the rate of sea-level rise might accelerate; current predictions for increases until 2100 range from 0.3 centimetres to 1.4 centimetres per year. But Paul Blanchon, a geoscientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Cancún, and his colleagues have learned that a sudden, catastrophic increase of more than 5 centimetres per year over a 50-year stretch is possible. On page 881, they describe their discovery that a sea-level jump of 2–3 metres already happened about 121,000 years ago. Blanchon tells Nature how and why it could recur [see below].

In other words, the Nature study says that during the during the last interglacial (the Eemian) evidence now suggests sea levels rose 20 inches per decade for five straight decades — a roughly 8-foot rise in a half century.

The Eemian was some 2°C warmer than current global temperatures — we will exceed that over most of the second half of this century on our current emissions path (see “Intro to global warming impacts“). …

Nature sea level rise shocker: Coral fossils suggest “catastrophic increase of more than 5 centimetres per year over a 50-year stretch is possible.” Lead author warns, “This could happen again.”

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Overfishing on Lake Victoria has seen Nile Perch stocks drop 81 percent to 370,000 metric tons in 2008 from 2 million metric tons three years ago, "annihilating" the species, Uganda said Thursday.

Fishing is one of Uganda's leading export earners. The east African nation boasts four major lakes -- Victoria, Lake Albert, Lake George and Lake Kyoga.

"We are catching immature, juvenile fish so they have no chance to reproduce," said Fred Mukisa, state minister for fisheries. "It is annihilation of the species, the situation is very bad and it must be reversed," he told journalists.

Uganda's fisheries ministry said the price of Nile Perch was rising, but earnings still dropped to $115 million last year from a record of $143 million in 2005. …

Overfishing "annihilating" Uganda's Nile Perch

By Matt Walker, Editor, Earth News

The Sidamo lark could soon be the first bird on mainland Africa to die out since modern records began, a survey shows.

A survey has found that just a few hundred of the larks survive in Ethiopia. Unless action is taken to save it, the bird will disappear.

While it may be the first recorded bird extinction on the continent, it will not be the last, warn conservationists.

The birds inhabit a very small pocket of grassland within the Liben Plain of southern Ethiopia.

"This imminent extinction reflects a wider social and political crisis that is repeated throughout Africa," said zoologist Claire Spottiswoode of the University of Cambridge. …

African lark soon to be extinct

HOR AL-HAMMAR, Iraq - A severe drought is threatening Iraq's southern marshes — the traditional site of the biblical Garden of Eden — just as the region was recovering from Saddam Hussein's draining of its lakes and swamps to punish a political rebellion.

Marshes that were coming back to life a few years ago with U.N. help are again little more than vast expanses of cracked earth. The area's thousands of inhabitants, known as Marsh Arabs, are victims of the debilitating drought that has ravaged much of Iraq and neighboring countries the last two years.

"I have no work. Our livestock have died, our children have left school because we don't have money to buy them clothes," said fisherman Yasir Razaq. He spoke in front of his wooden boat, which sat on a dried-up lake bed in the Hor al-Hammar marsh near Nasiriyah, 200 miles south of Baghdad. …

Iraq drought hits marshes in ‘Garden of Eden’

Decline of another 30 feet will trigger federal shortage declaration

By HENRY BREAN

Another below-average year on the Colorado River will soon shrink Lake Mead to a level not seen since President Lyndon Johnson unveiled his "Great Society" and the Beatles bared their "Rubber Soul."

By next month, the surface of the lake is expected to sink below 1,100 feet above sea level for the first time since May 1965, according to the latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

And the decline won't stop there. By July, the reservoir on the Nevada-Arizona border is projected to shrink more than 13 feet from its current level of 1,105 feet above sea level.

That's more than 8 feet lower than forecasters were predicting just one month ago. The news has water managers and marina operators scrambling to deal with the immediate effects and bracing for what could come next if drought conditions don't improve along the Colorado River.

"We have to hope we have a decent spring. Otherwise we're headed for uncharted territory," said J.C. Davis, spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. …

The culprit this time is an ongoing drought that has delivered below average snowfall to the Rocky Mountains and below average snowmelt to the Colorado River during eight of the past 10 years.

In four of the past eight years, the river has received little more than half of its normal runoff. In 2004, the inflow was 45 percent of average. In 2002, it was 30 percent of average, marking the river's driest year in a century.  …

The trouble is, even in an average year, less water flows into Lake Mead than flows out through Hoover Dam to fill water orders in California, Arizona and Mexico. And after almost a decade of deep drought, the only way to refill Mead and Powell is with several years of near-record runoff. …

DROUGHT LINGERS: Lake sinking near 1965 level

By Peter Ker

MELBOURNE'S dwindling water storages are on the verge of a historic low, a quarter of a century after the Thomson Dam was promised to drought-proof the city.

The nine major dams are expected to fall to 28.4 per cent of capacity today, matching the record low set in June 2007.

Despite rain being forecast for today, a new record is expected to be set within days, depending on consumption rates.

The grim statistics mean Melbourne's dams are holding enough water to supply the city for about 500 days — without further rainfall — given typical water consumption rates.

The Wonthaggi desalination plant is still about 900 days from supplying water, and while the north-south pipe will supply water from early next year, pessimistic forecasts mean it is unlikely to boost storages by more than 100 days' worth of water before the desalination plant starts in late 2011.

That means rainfall will have to boost dams by about 300 billion litres between now and late 2011 for the city to avoid running out of water. …

Dam water levels dwindling to historic low

From Calculated Risk:

How about this headline from Rex Nutting at MarketWatch: Biggest drop in industrial output since VE Day

Industrial production is down 13.3% since the recession began in December 2007, the largest percentage decline since the end of World War II. ... Factory output has fallen 15.7% during the recession, also the largest decline since 1945-1946.

Here is some serious cliff diving. Also - since capacity utilization is at a record low (the series starts in 1967), there is little reason for investment in new production facilities. …

Industrial Production Declines Sharply in March

World’s cruise industry sailing rough waters

Cruise operators are desperately trying to attract passengers for 2009, slashing prices, offering last-minute deals, two-for-one pricing, shorter cruises, family packages in which children sail free, and home port cruising which avoids the cost of an airfare to reach an exotic departure port.

Norwegian Cruise Line last month announced “BookSafe” which will give passengers a full cash reimbursement if they cancel their cruise because of job loss. U.S. cruise retailers CruiseOne and Cruises Inc have introduced “CruiseAssurance” to cover passengers in the event of them being sacked. …

Alaska faces turbulent year as cruise bookings fall

According to Anchorage Daily News, several cruise lines, including Carnival Corp., have planned to slash Alaska itineraries in 2010, with an estimated 100,000 fewer cruise passengers to spend time in Southcentral Alaska.

Ron Peck, president of the Alaska Travel Industry Association told media that the state needed to be more supportive of the cruise industry.

At a Carnival investor meeting, Chief Executive Micky Arison blamed Alaska’s cruise ship law for the decline of the industry in the region. …

Visitor arrivals in Hawaii decline by double digits

HONOLULU - The slide continues for Hawaii's tourism industry with double-digit declines in the number of tourists to Hawaii and visitor spending in February stemming from the global economic crisis. …

The islands, in particular Kauai and the Big Island, were hurt by the loss of the Pride of Aloha. The ship was taken out of Hawaii's interisland market by Norwegian Cruise Lines in May 2008 and renamed the Norwegian Sky for service in the Bahamas. …

Tahiti tourism continues decline to fall to 1996 level

The decline of tourism in French Polynesia has continued, with the latest figures showing a 30 percent drop in arrivals in February compared with the same month last year.

The 10,000 visitors last month are the lowest figure since 1996 when Tahiti was gripped by unrest which led to the closure of the international airport.

This year’s decline has hit all segments of the industry, but in particular the cruise ship sector which in February lost 60 percent over the one-year period.

International hotels have attained an occupancy rate of just 34 percent, with locals accounting for the first time for more bookings than foreign visitors.

MADRID (Reuters) - Overfishing will wipe out the breeding population of Atlantic bluefin tuna, one of the ocean's largest and fastest predators, in three years unless catches are dramatically reduced, conservation group WWF said on Tuesday.

As European fishing fleets prepare to begin the two-month Mediterranean fishing season on Wednesday, WWF said its analysis showed the bluefin tuna that spawn -- those aged four years and older -- will have disappeared by 2012 at current rates.

"For years people have been asking when the collapse of this fishery will happen, and now we have the answer," said Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean.

The fish, which can weigh over half a ton and accelerate faster than a sports car, are a favorite of sushi lovers. Demand from Japan has triggered an explosion in the size of the Mediterranean fleet over the past decade and many of those boats use illegal spotter planes to track the warm-blooded tuna.

"Mediterranean (Atlantic) bluefin tuna is collapsing as we speak and yet the fishery will kick off again tomorrow for business as usual. It is absurd and inexcusable to open a fishing season when stocks of the target species are collapsing," added Tudela. …

Overfishing to wipe out bluefin tuna in 3 years: WWF

Guardian poll reveals almost nine out of 10 climate experts do not believe current political efforts will keep warming below 2C

David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian, Tuesday 14 April 2009

Almost nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict global warming to 2C will succeed, a Guardian poll reveals today. An average rise of 4-5C by the end of this century is more likely, they say, given soaring carbon emissions and political constraints.

Such a change would disrupt food and water supplies, exterminate thousands of species of plants and animals and trigger massive sea level rises that would swamp the homes of hundreds of millions of people.

The poll of those who follow global warming most closely exposes a widening gulf between political rhetoric and scientific opinions on climate change. While policymakers and campaigners focus on the 2C target, 86% of the experts told the survey they did not think it would be achieved. A continued focus on an unrealistic 2C rise, which the EU defines as dangerous, could even undermine essential efforts to adapt to inevitable higher temperature rises in the coming decades, they warned.

The survey follows a scientific conference last month in Copenhagen, where a series of studies were presented that suggested global warming could strike harder and faster than realised.

The Guardian contacted all 1,756 people who registered to attend the conference and asked for their opinions on the likely course of global warming. Of 261 experts who responded, 200 were researchers in climate science and related fields. The rest were drawn from industry or worked in areas such as economics and social and political science.

The 261 respondents represented 26 countries and included dozens of senior figures, including laboratory directors, heads of university departments and authors of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). …

World will not meet 2C warming target, climate change experts agree

From Climate Progress:

Drought, fires, killer heat waves, wildlife extinction and mosquito-borne illness — the things that climate change models are predicting have already arrived there, [scientists] say.

That’s the subhead on a stunning L.A. Times piece, “What will global warming look like? Scientists point to Australia,” which opens starkly:

Reporting from The Murray-Darling Basin, Australia — Frank Eddy pulled off his dusty boots and slid into a chair, taking his place at the dining room table where most of the critical family issues are hashed out. Spreading hands as dry and cracked as the orchards he tends, the stout man his mates call Tank explained what damage a decade of drought has done .

“Suicide is high. Depression is huge. Families are breaking up. It’s devastation,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve got a neighbor in terrible trouble. Found him in the paddock, sitting in his [truck], crying his eyes out. Grown men — big, strong grown men. We’re holding on by the skin of our teeth. It’s desperate times.”

A result of climate change?

“You’d have to have your head in the bloody sand to think otherwise,” Eddy said.

You have to have your head stuck in the bloody sand, or just be a consumer of big media — see CNN, ABC, WashPost, AP, blow Australian wildfire, drought, heatwave “Hell (and High Water) on Earth” story — never mention climate change.

This LAT story is one of the most powerful pieces of climate change journalism to appear in a major U.S. newspaper. It is the climate story of the decade, literally — and if we don’t reverse course soon, it will be the story of the century, if not the millennium — for America and the world. …

Absolute must read: Australia today offers horrific glimpse of U.S. Southwest, much of planet, post-2040, if we don’t slash emissions soon

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Illegal poaching has escalated to such a degree in Zimbabwe that some rhinos there are now under round-the-clock armed protection, Discovery News has learned from conservationists who are attempting to defeat poachers equipped with automatic machine guns and ammunition belts.

See footage of the protected rhinos here.

"We are losing rhinos at an alarming rate," Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, said. "We have lost 15 this year alone." …

John Travers said last week that a released rhino named Cleopatra "was drugged" and "dehorned by literally scalping her...Cleopatra is now faceless."

"How cruel," Travers asked, "has man become?"

…poachers broke into the conservancy, "tied up and assaulted the guards, and proceeded to kill three rhinos in their pens." Only a young rhino named Tatenda, which weeks beforehand had its horns removed to protect it from attack, survived.

"So at just six weeks old, Tatenda was found cowering in the corner of the pen covered in his mother's blood," she said. "With the escalating poaching problems, it appears Tatenda may be facing the same fate his mother did, and her mother beforehand." …

Rhinos Under 24-Hour Armed Guard in Zimbabwe

From Climate Progress:

While Newsweek is wandering off into pseudoscientific climate denial, Time continues to do the best science-based global warming coverage of any major national magazine.

I don’t spend a lot of time on species extinction here, since so many others do such a great job on that subject.  But the cover story, “The new age of extinction” is an excellent popular overview which I highly recommend.

In 2007, the IPCC warned that as global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5°C [relative to 1980 to 1999], model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe. That is a temperature rise over pre-industrial levels of a bit more than 4.0°C.  Since we are facing a much greater warming than that (see “M.I.T. joins climate realists, doubles its projection of global warming by 2100 to 5.1°C” and “Hadley Center: “Catastrophic” 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path“), we are presumably facing extinctions beyond the high end of that range.

Time focuses on what is happening right now.  Here are some notable, quotable excerpts:

There have been five extinction waves in the planet’s history — including the Permian extinction 250 million years ago, when an estimated 70% of all terrestrial animals and 96% of all marine creatures vanished, and, most recently, the Cretaceous event 65 million years ago, which ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Though scientists have directly assessed the viability of fewer than 3% of the world’s described species, the sample polling of animal populations so far suggests that we may have entered what will be the planet’s sixth great extinction wave. And this time the cause isn’t an errant asteroid or megavolcanoes. It’s us. …

Forests razed can grow back, polluted air and water can be cleaned — but extinction is forever. And we’re not talking about losing just a few species. In fact, conservationists quietly acknowledge that we’ve entered an age of triage, when we might have to decide which species can truly be saved.  The worst-case scenarios of habitat loss and climate change — and that’s the pathway we seem to be on — show the planet losing hundreds of thousands to millions of species, many of which we haven’t even discovered yet. The result could be a virtual genocide of much of the animal world and an irreversible impoverishment of our planet. Humans would survive, but we would have doomed ourselves to what naturalist E.O. Wilson calls the Eremozoic Era — the Age of Loneliness.

So if you care about tigers and tamarins, rhinos and orangutans, if you believe Earth is more than just a home for 6.7 billion human beings and counting, then you should be scared. …

Time Magazine: How climate change is causing a new age of extinction