Desdemona Despair

By Michael Smith and Adriana Brasileiro

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- For four decades, Edimar Bentes and his family have survived by farming tiny clearings in the jungle near their dirt-floor shack in the state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon.

On this April afternoon, Bentes, 56, squats in the driving rain and dips a glass into what just four years ago was a crystal-clear stream that provided drinking and bathing water. He frowns as the glass fills with brown silt. A thin man with short-cropped dark hair and a tanned, deeply wrinkled forehead, Bentes gazes around his land.

There are no signs of the deer, armadillos and pacas he used to hunt to feed his wife and 10 children.

For Bentes and thousands of others in the Juruti region of Para whose livelihood depends on wildlife and plants, everything changed in 2006. That’s when New York-based Alcoa Inc., the world’s second-largest primary aluminum producer, started to bulldoze a 56-kilometer (35-mile) swath of the rain forest across hundreds of families’ properties to build a railway.

This cleared corridor, 100 meters (109 yards) wide, will lead to a mine that will chew up 10,500 hectares (25,900 acres) of virgin jungle over three decades.

More than half of the mine will lie inside a forest that by Brazilian federal law is supposed to be preserved unharmed forever for local residents. By year’s end, Alcoa says, the railway will transport 7,000 tons a day of bauxite, the dark red ore that’s used to make aluminum, from the mine to a port on the Amazon River.

“It makes you want to cry when you see this stream,” says Bentes, his bare feet sinking into the mud. He views a wasteland of uprooted trees and brown rivulets seeping into the water. “It reminds me of everything bad that Alcoa did to our land.” … 

Alcoa Razes Rain Forest in Court Case Led by Brazil Prosecutors

Even in areas with no flooding history, flood related insurance payments are up 15 percent

By Andrew Donoghue, BusinessGreen,

Businesses that may already be struggling to comprehend and comply with climate-related legislation will soon face another environmental burden – rising buildings insurance.

That is the conclusion of the latest quarterly study from the AA British Insurance Premium Index released this week. Although the survey only tracks home insurance providers, its findings are likely to be mirrored in the commercial sector, which is similarly prone to the increased incidence of flood and storm damage that the study identifies as the main driver behind rising prices.

The report reveals that the average quoted premium for an annual building insurance policy has risen for the sixth successive quarter. It now stands at £223.92, a 2.5 per cent rise over the past quarter and 10.1 per cent over the past year, according to the AA.

Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, said insurers are beginning to reflect concerns about climate change in their pricing. "The industry is expecting rising cost and frequency of claims for flooding, subsidence and storm damage," he said.

He added that it is not only high-risk areas which are facing increasing premiums due to the threat of flooding. "Compared to the first six months of 2008, there has been a 15 per cent rise in the number and cost of payments for buildings damaged by flash floods and storms in areas with little or no previous record of such claims," he explained. …

Insurers blame climate change for rising costs

Under GOP plan, government would pay to lease back most of the sites

By Matthew Benson and JJ Hensley, The Arizona Republic

Call it a sign of desperate times: Legislators are considering selling the House and Senate buildings where they've conducted state business for more than 50 years.

Dozens of other state properties also may be sold as the state government faces its worst financial crisis in a generation, if not ever. The plan isn't to liquidate state assets, though.

Instead, officials hope to sell the properties and then lease them back over several years before assuming ownership again. The complex financial transaction would allow government services to continue without interruption while giving the state a fast infusion of as much as $735 million, according to Capitol projections.

For investors, the arrangement means long-term lease payments from a stable source.

Once any deals are approved, money could begin flowing into state coffers in as little as 90 days.

The plan has bipartisan backing, but that doesn't make the prospect of paying rent for buildings once owned free and clear by taxpayers any easier to swallow.

"We've mortgaged the legislative halls," said an exasperated state Rep. Steve Yarbrough, a Chandler Republican. "That just tells you how extraordinary the times are.

"To me, it's something we're going to have to do no matter how much we find it undesirable." …

Desperate state may sell Capitol buildings, others via The Oil Drum

WASHINGTON, DC, July 29, 2009 (ENS) – Polluted water at American beaches jeopardized the health of swimmers last year and climate change is making conditions worse, according to the 19th annual beachwater quality report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Climate change is expected to further increase the presence of pathogens that cause stomach flu, diarrhea and neurological problems in America's beachwater.

The number of closing and advisory days at ocean, bay and Great Lakes beaches reached more than 20,000 for the fourth consecutive year, finds the report, which is based on data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

NRDC's report, "Testing the Waters: A Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches," confirms that nationally seven percent of U.S. beachwaters are contaminated with human and animal waste that can make people sick. The highest level of contamination was found in the Great Lakes, where 13 percent of beachwater samples violated public health standards.

"Pollution from dirty stormwater runoff and sewage overflows continues to make its way to our beaches. This not only makes swimmers sick – it hurts coastal economies," said Nancy Stoner, NRDC Water Program co-director.

For the first time this year, the effects of climate change were factored into the beachwater quality report. "The combined effects of temperature increases, and more frequent and intense rainstorms, will lead to increased stormwater runoff, sewer pollution and disease-causing pathogens in nearby waterways," the report states.

Beachwater pollution makes swimmers vulnerable to waterborne illnesses such as stomach flu, skin rashes, pinkeye, ear, nose and throat problems, dysentery, hepatitis, respiratory ailments, and neurological disorders. "For senior citizens, small children and people with weak immune systems, the results can be fatal," the report states.

"Nobody wants their trip to the beach to send them to the bathroom or, worse, the emergency room," said Stoner. "It is vitally important to remember that if it has recently rained – or you see or smell a pipe discharging onto the beach – keep your head above water or avoid swimming altogether." …

Climate Change Worsens U.S. Beachwater Pollution, NRDC Reports

By Art Chimes, Washington, D.C.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are a major contributor to climate change, and now a new study has confirmed that atmospheric CO2 is also affecting the ocean chemistry, potentially threatening marine life.

Montana State University scientist Robert Dore has been taking samples of water in the Pacific Ocean for almost two decades.

“We’re sailing out of Honolulu harbor. We’re in the harbor right now and just about to break away from the dock.”

I reached Prof. Dore on board the research vessel Kilo Moana, about to leave for a point in the Pacific known as Station Aloha, where he has been studying the ocean water since the late 1980s.

“We’ve been going to the same spot in the Pacific Ocean, and we’ve been measuring a whole suite of different chemical, biological, physical measurements to try and characterize long-term change in the open ocean environment. And one of the key things that we measure is CO2. …

“It’s important to realize that acidification of the oceans is really happening. And it can have negative impacts on a whole variety of marine life from fisheries to coral reefs. It’s potentially catastrophic.”

Montana State University environmental scientist John Dore’s paper appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Oceans Becoming More Acidic, Endangering Sea Life via Ocean Acidification

By Gloria Maender
October 2003

The rapid removal of at least half a million great whales from the North Pacific Ocean by intensive industrial whaling more than 50 years ago may have unleashed a complex ecological chain reaction that has since rippled resoundingly from ocean to coastal ecosystems, according to a team of eight scientists, including Jim Estes, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research ecologist and adjunct professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The team’s paper on this subject, which prompted articles in newspapers around the country, was published in October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientists believe that when great whales became scarce, their foremost natural predators, killer whales, turned to other marine mammals as primary sources of food, causing sequential declines in southwest Alaska during the 1960s and 1970s of first the harbor seals, followed by northern fur seals, Steller sea lions, and finally, in the 1990s, sea otters, as killer whales “fished down” the food web.

“During three decades of research in the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean, I watched other scientists struggle to understand the precipitous population declines of northern fur seals, harbor seals, and Steller sea lions, never imagining that my area of research—sea otters and kelp forests—might be affected by these changes,” said Estes.

It was the decades of sea-otter research by Estes and colleagues that ultimately shed light on the pinniped declines. In about 1990, the Aleutian sea-otter population Estes studied plummeted, from an estimated 55,000-100,000 individuals in the 1980s to 6,000 individuals in 2000.

“By the late 1990s, sea otters occurred at such a low density throughout the archipelago that sea urchins were overgrazing the kelp forest,” said Estes. …

Collapsing Populations of Marine Mammals—the North Pacific’s Whaling Legacy? [pdf]

More than 75 million people living on Pacific islands will have to relocate by 2050 because of the effects of climate change, Oxfam has warned.

By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney

A report by the charity said Pacific Islanders were already feeling the effects of global warming, including food and water shortages, rising cases of malaria and more frequent flooding and storms. Some had already been forced from their homes and the number of displaced people was rising, it warned.

"The Future is Here: Climate Change in the Pacific" predicted that many Pacific Islanders would not be able to relocate within their own countries and would become international refugees.

It urged neighbouring wealthy countries to take urgent action to curb their carbon emissions to prevent a large-scale crisis.

Half of the population of the Pacific live less than 1.5km from the coast and are incredibly vulnerable to sea-level rise and extreme weather. But as well as moving out, the report found that some countries had started adapting to the changing climate.

Fiji is attempting to "climate-proof" its villages by testing salt-resistant varieties of staple foods, planting mangroves and native grasses to halt coastal erosion in order to protect wells from salt water intrusion, and moving homes and community buildings away from vulnerable coastlines.

In the Solomon Islands officials are looking for land to resettle people from low-lying outer atolls, and those living in the outer atolls of the Federated States of Micronesia were also moving to higher ground. The tiny nation of Tuvalu also recently pledged to become carbon neutral by 2020. …

Climate change to force 75 million Pacific Islanders from their homes.

By Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York

Researchers have a dire forecast for the next six months in the western US: it'll be exceptionally hot, very dry, and 3.66 million acres will be scorched by fires.

Apologies for the End of Days-y language, but the truth is that the researchers who compile the national drought and fire forecast are concerned that the rest of the year will see hotter, drier weather, and a higher concentration of fires in the West than usual. From Greenwire:

Higher-than-normal fire levels are expected in most of Texas, the Southwest, California and the Pacific Northwest this year compared to a base period of 1971 to 2000, they said, with huge fires projected for much of Northern California and the Sierra Nevada range. …

Frightening Forecast for US: Hot, Dry, and 3.66 Million Acres Will Burn Over Next 6 Months

The Earth is in the throes of its "sixth great extinction event" and Australia and the Pacific are becoming the worst regions for the destruction of animals and plants, a study has found.

By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney

Land clearing and overlogging of forests have been highlighted as the greatest threats to land-based flora and fauna in the Oceania region, according to a review of 24,000 scientific papers.

Ecosystems in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia need urgent and effective conservation policies, or the region's already poor record on extinctions will worsen significantly, it said.

The study, published in the journal Conservation Biology, said that since records began, Australian agriculture had changed or destroyed half the woodlands and forests of the country. More than two-thirds of the remaining forest has been degraded by logging.

Throughout Oceania more than 1200 bird species have become extinct and climate change is threatening to worsen the crisis, it warns.

''Our region has the notorious distinction of having possibly the worst extinction record on Earth,'' said Richard Kingsford, professor of environmental science at the University of NSW and one of the 14 authors of the study.

''This is predicted to continue without serious changes to the way we conserve our environment,'' he said, noting that half of Australia's mammal extinctions were directly or indirectly caused by humans.

The report identifies six causes driving species to extinction, almost all linked in some way to human activity. It pinpoints destruction and degradation of ecosystems as the main threat, with loss of habitats being linked to 80 per cent of threatened species. …

Australia and the Pacific 'becoming extinction hotspots'

Via The Oil Drum:

Today's chart provides some perspective on the current earnings environment by focusing on 12-month, as reported S&P 500 earnings. Today's chart illustrates how earnings are expected (38% of S&P 500 companies have reported for Q2 2009) to have declined over 98% since peaking in Q3 2007, making this by far the largest decline on record (the data goes back to 1936). In fact, real earnings have dropped to a record low and if current estimates hold, Q3 2009 will see the first 12-month period during which S&P 500 earnings are negative.

Chart of the Day

By Christopher Joyce

When wildlife biologists visited a remote spot in Canada called Banks Island in the spring of 2004, they discovered thousands upon thousands of dead musk oxen. It took years to determine the cause. They called it "rain-on-snow" — the worst case of it ever documented.

"Long story short, about 20,000 musk oxen starved to death because of this event," says geologist Jaakko Putkonen. It was a "humongous event" that took place in the fall of 2003.

Putkonen, who is a professor at the University of North Dakota, has since discovered a few anecdotal accounts of big rain-on-snow events that killed reindeer in the Arctic and Scandinavia.

What happens is this: unusually warm weather drops rain on top of snowpack. The rain either pools at the surface or trickles down to the soil below the snowpack, then freezes into a sheet of ice. Musk oxen, which are shaggy, cow-sized animals that weigh hundreds of pounds, can't break through the ice to browse on plants underneath the snow. Sooner or later, they starve. …

"If the climate warms up, it doesn't just grow palm trees in sunny Fairbanks, Alaska," says Tom Grenfell, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington. "It creates more storms and mixes up the atmosphere a lot more." That could mean more rain-on-snow events, he says. …

When rain falls on snow, Arctic animals may starve.

Scientists confirm computer model predictions that oxygen-depleted zones in tropical oceans are expanding, possibly because of climate change

Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego
MAY 1, 2008

An international team of physical oceanographers including a researcher from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered that oxygen-poor regions of tropical oceans are expanding as the oceans warm, limiting the areas in which predatory fishes and other marine organisms can live or enter in search of food.

The new study is led by Lothar Stramma from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Kiel, Germany, and is co-authored by Janet Sprintall, a physical oceanographer at Scripps Oceanography and others. The researchers found through analysis of a database of ocean oxygen measurements that levels in tropical oceans at a depth of 300 to 700 meters (985 to 2,300 feet) have declined during the past 50 years. The ecological impacts of this increase could have substantial biological and economical consequences.

"We found the largest reduction in a depth of 300 to 700 meters (985 to 2,300 feet) in the tropical northeast Atlantic, whereas the changes in the eastern Indian Ocean were much less pronounced," said Stramma. "Whether or not these observed changes in oxygen can be attributed to global warming alone is still unresolved. The reduction in oxygen may also be caused by natural processes on shorter time scales."

Sprintall said the oxygen-poor areas have the potential to move into coastal areas via currents that flow from the mid-depth tropical oceans, where the oxygen changes were observed, and along the west coast of continents.

"The width of the low-oxygen zone is expanding deeper but also shoaling toward the ocean surface," said Sprintall, a specialist in observing changes of fluxes in ocean properties such as heat distribution. …

Oxygen Depletion: A New Form of Ocean Habitat Loss

British woodlands are less biologically distinctive than they were 70 years ago, says a team of UK researchers.

The use of fertilisers in farming had increased soil fertility, while tree canopies had grown thicker and cut light levels, they explained.

As a result, the woodlands were becoming home to the same species, resulting in the unique characteristics of individual sites being lost.

The findings appear online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The research was carried out by scientists from Bournemouth University, Natural England and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH).

"This study shows that increased pollution and poor countryside management have led to increasing homogenisation of biodiversity in British woodlands," said co-author Professor James Bullock, an ecologist from CEH.

"These two issues must be addressed in future if we wish to restore the diverse woodland communities of the past." …

Woodlands 'losing biodiversity'

By Matt Walker, Editor, Earth News

Two thirds of all species of freshwater crab maybe at risk of going extinct, with one in six species particularly vulnerable, according to a new survey.

That makes freshwater crabs among the most threatened of all groups of animals assessed so far.

The study is the first global assessment of the extinction risk for any group of freshwater invertebrates.

Crab species in southeast Asia are the most at risk, from habitat destruction, pollution and drainage.

Scientists from the Zoological Society of London and Northern Michigan University led the survey, which produced the first World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List assessment of the 1280 known species of freshwater crab.

Of those, the survey found that 227 species should be considered as near threatened, vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered.

For another 628 species, not enough data exists to adequately assess their future, says the survey published in the journal Biological Conservation.

However, while the most optimistic scenario is that 16% of all species are at risk, the worst case scenario suggests the figure could be as high as 65%, or two-thirds of all species. …

Freshwater crabs 'feel the pinch'

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, an area choked by low oxygen levels that threatens marine life, is smaller than expected this year but more deadly, the government said on Monday.

The zone, caused by a runoff of agricultural chemicals from farms along the Mississippi River, measured about 3,000 square miles or about 1.5 times the size of the state of Delaware, compared with estimates that it would measure up to nearly 8,500 square miles, scientists said.

"Clearly the flow of excess nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fields in the Mississippi drainage basin continues to wreak havoc with life in the Gulf," said Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told reporters in a teleconference.

Unusually strong winds and currents stirred the waters and brought oxygen back in, making the zone smaller than anticipated.

But Nancy Rabalais, a scientist from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, who helped measure the zone during a week-long expedition, said it was more severe because the low oxygen levels are closer to the surface than in recent years. …

Now marine life that normally feed close to the sea bottom, including eels and certain kinds of shrimp and crabs, are being found closer to the surface. …

The average size of the dead zone during the past five years has been about 6,000 square miles, or nearly the size of the state of Connecticut. …

U.S. "dead zone" smaller but more severe: NOAA

ScienceDaily (July 28, 2009) — Kathmandu, Nepal – The first ever overall nation-wide estimate of the tiger population brought a positive ray of hope among conservationists. The figures announced by the Nepal Government's Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) shows the presence of 121 (100 – 194) breeding tigers in the wild within the four protected areas of Nepal. The 2008 tiger population estimate was jointly implemented by the DNPWC, Department of Forests (DOF), WWF, National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) with support from Save The Tiger Fund (STF), WWF-US, WWF-UK, WWF International and US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

The 2008 nation-wide tiger population was initiated on 15 November 2009 in the Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) of Nepal both inside and outside the protected areas of Nepal. [TAL encompasses the Terai region of Nepal and into tiger range states across the border into India.] …

According to WWF Global Tiger Network Initiative, the wild tiger population is at a tipping point. Tigers are experiencing a range collapse, occupying 40 per cent less habitat than was estimated just one decade ago. The estimated number of tigers in important range countries is frighteningly low, with a recent government census suggesting there may be as few as 1,300 tigers left in India, the species' stronghold. And tigers are facing an epidemic of poaching and habitat loss across their range. …

121 Breeding Tigers Estimated To Be Found In Nepal

ScienceDaily (July 28, 2009) — When the magnitude 8 Sichuan earthquake struck southern China in May 2008, it left more than 69,000 people dead and 4.3 million homeless. Now ecologists have added to these losses an assessment of the earthquake's impact on biodiversity. Researchers show that more than 23 percent of the pandas' habitat in the study area was destroyed, and fragmentation of remaining habitat could hinder panda reproduction.

The Sichuan region is designated as one of 25 global hotspots for biodiversity conservation, according to a 2000 study. Home to more than 12,000 species of plants and 1122 species of vertebrates, the area includes more than half of the habitat for the Earth's wild giant panda population, says study lead author Weihua Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

"We estimate that above 60 percent of the wild giant panda population was affected to some extent by the earthquake," says Xu. …

"It is probable that habitat fragmentation has separated the giant panda population inhabiting this region, which could be as low as 35 individuals," says Xu. "This kind of isolation increases their risk of extinction in the wild, due in part to a higher likelihood of inbreeding." …

Sichuan Earthquake Destroyed Nearly A Quarter Of Panda Habitat Near Quake's Epicenter

Britain's ancient trees, including Newton's apple tree, are in danger of dying out due to pollution, development and climate change, the National Trust has warned.

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

The UK has some of the most famous ancient trees in the world around country houses, in historic parkland and castle grounds.

However the National Trust fear that chemicals used in modern agricultural practices, erosion caused by ploughing, pollution from towns and, in the long term, climate change, could kill the ancient trees unless action is taken.

The charity, which owns the most land in the UK after the Government, is to survey some 40,000 trees on its stately homes and farms in the next three years.

Among the most well known trees are the 300-year-old apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire where Isaac Newton developed his theory of gravity after watching an apple fall in 1665; the 2,000-year-old Ankerwycke Yew in Berkshire where the Magna Carta was signed in 1215; and the sycamore tree in Dorset where the Tolpuddle Martyrs met in the 1830s.

The Trust has also appointed its first national tree adviser to ensure trees can survive by protecting the surrounding environment and planting new trees where the historic trees are in danger of dying out.

Brian Muelaner, the new Ancient Tree Advisor, said all the famous trees are in danger from pesticides and fertilisers that degrade the surrounding environment, pollution from growing airports or roads and even human activity eroding land around the tree.

He explained that ancient trees are not only historically valuable but create a unique biodiversity for certain species of lichen, birds and insects that could not survive anywhere else.

"There are individual and collections of very significant trees that are in danger - mostly through agricultural practices but also pollution, insidious development and in the long term climate change," he said. …

Ancient trees in danger of dying out says National Trust

By Fred Pearce

Diverting water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to supply agriculture, alongside a warming climate, means the once-bountiful region is becoming desert

Is it the final curtain for the Fertile Crescent? This summer, as Turkish dams reduce the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a trickle, farmers abandon their desiccated fields across Iraq and Syria, and efforts to revive the Mesopotamian marshes appear to be abandoned, climate modellers are warning that the current drought is likely to become permanent. The Mesopotamian cradle of civilisation seems to be returning to desert.

Last week, Iraqi ministers called for urgent talks with upstream neighbours Turkey and Syria, after the combination of a second year of drought and dams in those countries cut flow on the Euphrates as it enters Iraq to below 250 cubic metres a second. That is less than a quarter the flow needed to maintain Iraqi agriculture.

Tensions have been growing since May, when the Iraqi parliament refused to approve a new much-needed trade deal with Turkey unless it contained binding clauses on river flows. But Turkey appears in no mood to compromise. In July, it announced the final go-ahead for yet another dam, the Ilisu on the Tigris.

Meanwhile, according to Hassan Partow at the UN Environment Programme, Iraq's hydrological misery is compounded by Iran, which is also building new dams on tributaries of the Tigris. "Some of these rivers have run completely dry," he told New Scientist. And Iraq itself is set to worsen the problem with its own dam building, he says. This year construction is set to begin on another Tigris tributary at Bekhme Gorge in Iraq's northern province of Kurdistan. At 230 metres it will be one of the world's tallest dams. …

Fertile Crescent 'will disappear this century'

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

SHAIZAR CASTLE, Syria (Reuters) - Only a few decades ago, fish were plentiful in the Orontes river which for thousands of years has provided water to the lush Syrian plains, at the crossroads of the ancient world.

These days the Orontes's 12th century norias, enormous water wheels famous for their distinctive creak, barely turn in the weak tides. Algae covers the river's surface and the desert has been closing in.

"The river has become so polluted. The quality of our produce has suffered and there is barely enough now to feed my family," said 80-year-old farmer Mohammad al-Hamdo.

Syria's worst drought in decades has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and raised calls for a coordinated water policy for the Middle East as the region faces a dryer climate and water supplies depleted by damming and water well drilling.

Yet whether a coordinated water policy is even possible is in doubt in a region riven by tensions and rivalry and where water politics is often seen as a zero-sum game.

The Euphrates River, which flows from Turkey through Syria and Iraq, is polluted and salinized. Damming by Turkey and demands for water by ballooning populations have drastically reduced its flow.

Mohammed Okla is among an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Syrian farmers and their families who in the past three years have been forced to abandon their land due to drought, according to a recent United Nations study.

"I lost two-third of my cattle after the water wells dried up," said Okla, who fled the badly-hit eastern Hasaka province five months ago and now lives in a tent with his two wives and 15 children next to the main garbage dump in Damascus.

Okla's family have turned from wheat and cattle farmers into virtual refugees. Flies cover the faces of his barefooted children who play among scraps of metal and trash pulled from the dump as substitute toys

"We can hardly buy bread and tea to feed ourselves. No government official sees us. We received no help," he said.

Farmers from areas as close as 30 km (19 miles) to Damascus have deserted their land for tents, or shantytowns. … 

"Olive oil, which we export to Europe, is becoming more sour every year. The rivers are growing weaker and more and more sewage is being dumped into them. The government seems helpless," said Kurdish farmer Hassan Siwa. …

Water crisis uproots Syrian farmers

By Jasper Copping

Aggressive Australian and over here - black swans are spreading across the UK and threatening to force out their native cousins conservationists have warned.

The birds, which originate in Australia and have escaped from private collections in Britain, are now breeding at dozens of sites across the country.

The number of locations at which the birds are found has more than doubled in the past five years, while the number of breeding sites has more than tripled, new research from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has found.

Because they are more aggressive than other species, there are fears they may "out compete" white – or mute – swans for food and habitat in many areas. They could also breed with mutes – a hybrid has been created in captivity called a blute swan. Black swans are also thought to be more aggressive to humans than other species.

The research suggests that black swan numbers have increased at such a rate that they may now be added to the authoritative "British List" of birds found in the UK. Until now, the black swan population has not been considered large enough to be self-sustaining. …

Australian black swan threat to native cousins

ScienceDaily (July 25, 2009) — Scientists say conditions are favorable for significant coral bleaching and infectious coral disease outbreaks in the Caribbean, especially in the Lesser Antilles. Similar conditions may develop in Gulf of Mexico and Central Pacific. The forecast is based on the July NOAA Coral Reef Watch outlook, which expects continued high water temperatures through October 2009.

Scientists are concerned that bleaching may reach the same levels or exceed those recorded in 2005, the worst coral bleaching and disease year in Caribbean history. In parts of the eastern Caribbean, as much as 90 percent of corals bleached and over half of those died during that event."

“Just like any climate forecast, local conditions and weather events can influence actual temperatures. However, we are quite concerned that high temperatures may threaten the health of coral reefs in the Caribbean this year,” said C. Mark Eakin, Ph.D., coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch.

Prolonged coral bleaching of more than a week can lead to coral death and the subsequent loss of coral reef habitats for a range of marine life. It also affects local economies and tourism.

“By providing local officials with advance warning that a bleaching event is about to occur, some steps can be taken to protect the corals,” said Eakin. “Possible responses include mobilizing monitoring resources to measure extent and impact of bleaching, and establishing temporary restrictions on other reef uses like diving, boating and recreational fishing, to keep these activities from adding to the stress of higher sea temperatures already affecting the coral reefs.” …

Coral Bleaching Likely In Caribbean

By Jennifer Hattam, Istanbul, Turkey

"The sea back in the 1960s, '70s and '80s was thick with fish and we were the envy of the town. My pockets were always full and I traveled a lot," says Mustapha Shaalan, 68. Now, like other Lebanese fishermen, he is lucky to make $200 a month, as daily hauls have plunged from 40 kilograms of fish to just one or two.

"Over-fishing, pollution and dynamite fishing have all but wiped out marine life in the Mediterranean waters off the 220-kilometer-long Lebanese coast, leaving many of the country's estimated 8,000 fishermen destitute," Agence France-Presse reports.

Political turmoil, unsustainable fishing practices, industrial pollution, and lack of government oversight have all played a role in the decline of the country's fisheries -- and the plight of its once-flush fishermen. According to AFP, red mullet, grouper, and small barracudas are among the species facing extinction in Lebanon.

Imad Saoud, an aquatic scientist at American University of Beirut, blames the fishermen themselves, for utilizing destructive practices like dynamite fishing and blowing air into holes on the ocean floor to flush fish out. "We are destroying our sea, completely and totally," he says. "And the problem is that the people who benefit the most from the sea -- the fishermen -- are the people destroying it the most."

But curbs on fishing won't stop heavy-metal-laden factory sewage from flowing into the water, nor speculators from overdeveloping the coastline. …

Fortunes Fade for Fishermen, Marine Life in Lebanon

100 Abandoned Houses: Photographs of Detroit

Paul Kedrosky crunches numbers from Bloomberg and makes them far more astounding:

According to the latest data, the number of vacant U.S. homes touched 18.7-million in the second quarter. That is a daunting figure, of course, but it is more fun to put it in context. Assuming four people per household, the U.S. currently has enough surplus housing to put the entire population of the U.K., with room left over for Israel.

Stat of the Day: US Has Enough Empty Houses to Hold All of Britain

By Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic News

Attacking from nests as big as pickup-truck beds, invasive western yellowjacket wasps in Hawaii are munching their way through an "astonishing diversity" of creatures, from caterpillars to pheasants, a new study says.

Adult yellowjackets consume only nectar. But they kill or scavenge prey to deliver needed protein to their growing broods.

"They basically just carry it in their mandibles—you see them flying with their balls of meat," said lead study author Erin Wilson, who just finished her Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego.

In their native habitat in the western U.S., the wasps die off in winter. But in Hawaii the wasps survive the winter, possibly due to mild year-round temperatures or subtle genetic changes.

A longer life-span gives the insects more time to build up their nests. So what would normally be a basketball-size nest can become, at the extreme, several feet long—big enough to fill the back of a pickup truck, Wilson said.

The extra room allows a colony of 50,000 workers to explode to 500,000 or more. Larger colonies mean that the insects deplete more prey than in areas where the wasps die off in winter. …

Alien-Wasp Swarms Devouring Birds, Bugs in Hawaii via Apocadocs

SPECIAL REPORT BY XINHUA CORRESPONDENT DANIEL OOKO

NAIROBI, (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan government on Wednesday raised an alarm of severe food, water and energy shortages facing the east African nation.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga told Parliament that over 10 million people are in urgent need of food assistance, noting that a very worrying situation and forecasts in food, water and energy are grim, blaming it on destruction of environment.

"We are paying the price of decades of wanton destruction of our environment, which has seen our forest cover decline from 12 percent at independence to about 1.2 percent today. We have consistently abused our water towers, slashed and burnt our forests and farmed in our river basins," he told lawmakers.

According to Odinga, all of the country’s water towers are seriously threatened by human encroachment.

"We are reaping what we have been sowing and it is a bitter harvest," he said.

Odinga said the east African nation expects to harvest only 20 million bags (90kg/ bag) of maize, the country’s staple food, against an annual consumption of 33 million bags as the country seeks to avert to food crisis caused by the post-election violence.

The prime minister told the legislators that the severity of the food situation will be fully felt in August, even though many families across the country are already starving. … 

Delivering his weekly address to Parliament, Odinga also blamed the severe shortage on failed rains, which he said has so demoralized farmers that only 1.2 million hectares is under cultivation instead of the usual 1.4 million hectares.

He described food, water and energy situation in the country as "worrying" and forecasts as "grim", warning that 1.2 million school going children who depend on the school feeding program are also in danger of starving due to the food crisis.

"In some places, schools have the money but there is no food to buy. This is the fifth straight season in which the country has experienced inadequate rainfall and if the short rains also fail, we could have a catastrophe," he warned. …

The prime minister said pastoralists are crossing into neighboring countries like Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda in search of pastures and water.

He said livestock are dying in Arid and Semi-Arid (ASAL) areas, and scavenging for pastures in game parks where they are pushing wild animals out.

This, Odinga said, could develop into a full-scale wildlife-human conflict and a massive environmental degradation, adding that up to 130,000 livestock have died mostly in ASAL areas.

"The media have reported cases of famine related death.  But the relevant ministries say none of these deaths have been directly linked to hunger or lack of water. I have asked the Ministries of Special Programs and Health Services for a full investigation and a detailed report presented to my office on this," he said. …

To avert severe water shortage that has gripped many parts of the country due to destruction of water catchments areas, Odinga said the ministry of water has embarked on drilling boreholes across the country. …

National alarm over continuing and severe food and water shortages via The Oil Drum

This graph presents only seafood caught by fisheries. Overall per capita seafood (or aquatic products, including freshwater fishes and invertebrates) therefore, will be maintained only if aquaculture picks up the slack.

Pauly, D., Lectures to the 2003 class of the United Nations University Fisheries Training Program, Institute of Marine Research, Reykjavik, December 15-19, 2002

From Climate Progress:

The best evidence is that the climate is now being driven by amplifying feedbacks (see Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius”), most notably:

• The defrosting of the permafrost
• The drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires).
• The destruction of the tropical wetlands
• Decelerating growth in tropical forest trees — thanks to accelerating carbon dioxide
• Wildfires and Climate-Driven forest destruction by pests
• The desertification-global warming feedback
• The saturation of the ocean carbon sink

In spite of all evidence to the contrary, the deniers/delayers/inactivists, led by MIT’s Richard Lindzen, have argued that negative feedbacks dominate the climate system.  In particular, they have asserted that clouds are a negative feedback.  A major new study in Science from  “Observational and Model Evidence for Positive Low-Level Cloud Feedback” (subs. req’d) is thus a potentially huge — and worrisome — piece of research.

I’m in an all-day meeting, so I’m mainly going to reprint the study abstract, the accompanying Science news story, “Clouds Appear to Be Big, Bad Player in Global Warming” (subs. req’d), and the press release from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, who led the study (with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, my old stomping ground snorkeling reef).

It is worth noting that the one climate model the researchers found was “particularly realistic” in modeling the cloud feedback, the Hadley Center’s HadGEM1, finds, “When carbon dioxide is doubled, the model warms the world by 4.4°C; the median of the models for a doubling is 3.1°C.”  Considering that we are headed toward more than a tripling of CO2 concentrations this century, that is very, very worrisome. …

Science stunner: “Clouds Appear to Be Big, Bad Player in Global Warming” — an amplifying feedback (sorry Lindzen and fellow deniers)

By Matt Walker, Editor, Earth News

Lions in Cameroon are having their kills stolen from under their noses by hungry villagers, say conservationists.

Incidences of such kleptoparasitism, the stealing of food from another, usually occur between top predators such as lion, hyena and cheetah.

But people are increasingly getting in on the act, conservationists say.

They suspect the practice may be much more common than thought, and are concerned that it could threaten the dwindling numbers of lions in Cameroon.

An account of one particular incident where local villagers were caught stealing meat from a lion kill has been published in the African Journal of Ecology. … 

"Marjolein Schoe was involved in fieldwork and she actually made this field observation. She was surprised and angry actually that people had chased off the lions," says colleague Hans de Iongh of Leiden University, who is also a member of the World Conservation Union's Cat Specialist Group and the African Lion Working Group. …

"We believe that the impact of this kind of behaviour might be significant on lion populations, since lions have to spend an enormous energy effort to capture the same amount of prey, if their prey gets stolen," says de Iongh. "This may have a serious impact on a lion population which is already under serious stress by human encroachment and may eventually contribute to more rapid extinction." …

People steal meat from wild lions

By Missy Ryan

YUSUFIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - What was known as history's fertile crescent, where lush farmland and abundant water gave rise to civilization, is today a dusty desert where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers crawl sluggishly toward the sea.

Vast tracts of Iraqi farmland are cracked and barren, precious marshes have dried up and sandstorms blot out the sun.

Even "Saddam River," the flagship drainage system Saddam Hussein launched in the 1980s to restore Iraq to its ancient agriculture glory, has turned into a sickly green stream flowing far below its high-water mark.

Such are the symptoms of a worsening water shortage that threatens to undermine Iraq's efforts to rebuild its economy after six years of war unleashed by the 2003 invasion. …

"This is not a new crisis for Iraq, but this time it's more serious than ever before," said Amro Hashim, an economic expert at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University. …

"It's everything going on at once. It's the urbanization, it's the climate change, short-term variability in climate, increased demand for food," said David Molden, deputy head of the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka. …

Iraq is now in the second year of a major drought, and last year's use of reserves has made for the worst water shortage in a decade, U.S. officials in Baghdad say. …

Drought takes toll on Iraq revival efforts

'On left: microscopic photo of the spring diatom bloom with large organisms dominating. On right: warming of six degrees with smaller flagellates dominating.' Image credit:IFM-GEOMAR, via PhysOrg.com

I want to be careful not to exaggerate the significance of this work. That said, I find it disturbing to learn that a warming ocean selects for smaller aquatic organisms over a human time scale. One implication is that, in a few human generations, climate change could turn the specialized plankton feeding behaviors of fishes, selected for over many thousands of years, into an evolutionary disadvantage. Entire ecosystems could be altered. PhysOrg reports on research confirming this effect in "Climate change influences the size of marine organisms." They note that researchers found this tendency in bacteria, algae, zooplankton and fishes in the North and Baltic Sea and in French rivers. …

Honey We Shrunk The Plankton, Climate Change Making Aquatic Organisms Smaller

By Peter Lord

A new study by researchers at Brown University finds that climate change is reducing the diversity of plants in New England salt marshes by causing a decline in small, flowering plants and allowing the spread of salt marsh grasses such as Spartina patens.

The study, called "Experimental warming causes rapid loss of plant diversity in New England salt marshes," was published in the latest edition of the journal Ecology Letters and has been widely distributed on academic Web sites.

The three years of research focused on salt marshes at Nag Creek on Prudence Island, and Little River and Drake`s Island in Maine.

The paper featured two words that are much more popular with biologists than the public -- forbs and pannes.

Forbs are herbaceous, flowering plants. Some examples are bachelor`s buttons, clover and milkweed. Pannes are waterlogged depressions in salt marshes. ...

Gedan concluded that warming "had dramatic effects on plant composition in New England salt marshes. The decline in cover of all forb panne species, regardless of species identity, was remarkably uniform, indicating that this diverse assemblage responds to temperature change as a zone, rather than according to species-specific climate preferences."

What`s more, she said, the decline in forb panne cover in control plots shows that climate change is already reducing panne habitat in southern New England. ...

Salt marshes losing diversity

Dhaka (AFP) July 21, 2009 - A delay to Bangladesh's monsoon season is posing a severe risk of drought in the impoverished nation and threatening food supplies, officials warned Tuesday.

Monsoon rains normally sweep Bangladesh from June to September and the South Asian country gets more than 75 percent of its annual rainfall during this period but a lack of rain is hampering crop potential.

"For weeks there have been no rains in the northern and central districts, the country's main food belt. Tens of millions of farmers could not sow summer rice as their farmlands have dried up," said Ruhul Amin, the government's food planning chief.

"If no rain comes in the next couple of weeks, it will be a severe drought," he added. …

"What rains we've had since June were mainly concentrated in the northeastern and southeastern hilly areas, triggering flash floods there while causing drought-like situation in the plain lands," she said.…

Drought threat for Bangladesh as monsoon fails

ScienceDaily (July 22, 2009) — Winter chill, a vital climatic trigger for many tree crops, is likely to decrease by more than 50 percent during this century as global climate warms, making California no longer suitable for growing many fruit and nut crops, according to a team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, and the University of Washington.

In some parts of California's agriculturally rich Central Valley, winter chill has already declined by nearly 30 percent, the researchers found.

"Depending on the pace of winter chill decline, the consequences for California's fruit and nut industries could be devastating," said Minghua Zhang, a professor of environmental and resource science at UC Davis.

Also collaborating on the study were Eike Luedeling, a postdoctoral fellow in UC Davis' Department of Plant Sciences and UC Davis graduate Evan H. Girvetz, who is now a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Washington, Seattle. Their study will appear July 22 in the online journal PLoS One.

The study is the first to map winter chill projections for all of California, which is home to nearly 3 million acres of fruit and nut trees that require chilling. The combined production value of these crops was $7.8 billion in 2007, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

"Our findings suggest that California's fruit and nut industry will need to develop new tree cultivars with reduced chilling requirements and new management strategies for breaking dormancy in years of insufficient winter chill," Luedeling said. …

Warming Climate Threatens California Fruit And Nut Production

The Sea Around Us Project investigates the impact of fisheries on the world's marine ecosystems. This is achieved by using a Geographic Information System (GIS) to map global fisheries catches from 1950 to the present, under explicit consideration of major critical habitats of fish, marine invertebrates, marine mammals and other components of marine biodiversity.

North Atlantic trends

The weak economy is taking its toll, with an increasing number of bodies in Los Angeles County being cremated at taxpayers' expense.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske

The poor economy is taking a toll even on the dead, with an increasing number of bodies in Los Angeles County going unclaimed by families who cannot afford to bury or cremate their loved ones.

At the county coroner's office -- which handles homicides and other suspicious deaths -- 36% more cremations were done at taxpayers' expense in the last fiscal year over the previous year, from 525 to 712.

The county morgue, which is responsible for the indigent and others who go unclaimed, saw a 25% increase in cremations in the first half of this year over the same period a year ago, rising to 680 from 545.

The demands on the county crematorium have been so high that earlier this year, officials there stopped accepting bodies from the coroner. The coroner's office since has contracted with two private crematories for $135,000 to handle the overflow.

"It's a pretty dramatic increase," said Lt. David Smith, a coroner's investigator. "The families just tell us flat-out they don't have the money to do a funeral." …

Coroners and funeral directors around the country say they are seeing the same trend as cash-strapped families cope with funeral costs. Just claiming a body from the L.A. County coroner costs $200. Once a body is claimed, private cremations usually run close to $1,000, Smith said. Funeral homes charge an average of $7,300 to transport and bury a body in a simple grave, according to the National Funeral Home Directors Assn.

"No one is immune from this," said Bob Achermann, executive director of the California Funeral Directors Assn. in Sacramento. "The economic malaise we're in is affecting everybody." …

Smith said that in his dozen years at the coroner's office, he cannot remember seeing such a high number of families unable to afford the cost of claiming a body. …

More bodies go unclaimed as families can't afford funeral costs

By Roland Buerk, Tokyo correspondent, BBC News, Choshi

Few industries have been immune to the worldwide collapse in demand, and the fishing industry in Choshi in Japan has been no exception.

The high price of fuel drove some boats out of business.

Then with the downturn, came a decline in the exports of fish. …

Down on the quayside men of the Ishidamaru No 56, a large trawler, were unloading their catch.

Using huge net scoops on the end of the boat's cranes, they reached down into the hold and winched the fish up before dropping them into the back of a truck.

Unwanted jellyfish were scattered on the ground, even a hammerhead shark was hauled up on to the quay.

"Although oil prices were higher last year, because demand was high and fish prices were higher we didn't do that badly," said Morio Boshu, the first mate. "This year, since January - although oil prices were not that high compared to last year - because of the poor catch and low overseas demand due to the high yen, the business has been bad. We're in the red. We're losing money." …

Masanobu Sakamoto of the fishermen's union has already seen boats go out of business and does not see things getting better soon.

"In the last one or two months the price of fuel has increased again," he said. "So we worry about the future, more fishermen will give up their jobs. I worry about that. The consumers will not pay such a high price to cover the increase of fuel cost."

And with fewer boats out fishing, there are fewer fish to buy. …

Bleak outlook for Japan's fishermen