Desdemona Despair

[Google translation] Once they were symbols of growth and prosperity, today many American shopping malls only ruins are left. For artists and amateur archaeologists are the spirits Center exciting playgrounds of morbid beauty. They document the disintegration of the American way of life.

By Iris Hellmuth

…What he saw when he first entered, took his breath away: inch by inch had decomposed nature of the substance in which they had once soft. Trees had pushed themselves through the floor of linoleum, their tops ripped holes in the roof - a forest in the interior of a dead mall, the interplay of light and shadow painted bizarre patterns on the broken walls. Grass growing out of control, in other mouldering there, because here was no light. Rowell installed his camera, and a little later, the images themselves grow together into a work of art, they held the decomposition in slow motion. "In this dead mall Life is more than in many extant," says Rowell about his work. "The best Dead Mall in America." …

Destruction of the Temple of Consumption via Dead Malls

By Martin Plaut, BBC Africa analyst

The World Food Programme (WFP) is closing 12 feeding centres for mothers and children in Somalia.

The WFP says it has simply run out of money and now has to make cuts.

The decision has been made despite the ongoing crisis in Somalia, and the WFP says the reductions are now hitting people across east Africa.

Despite the depth of the need, the WFP says the international community has failed to rally round with the funding it requires.  …

And the country is also suffering from a severe drought.

As a result the UN estimates that more than three million Somalis need food aid - half the total population.

Put another way, one child in five is acutely malnourished, yet the WFP is having to close the services on which they depend. …

WFP to shut Somalia food centres via The Oil Drum

By Craig McKune

South Africa has even less water than previously thought, a study has found.

Scientists have warned that the country, with 98 percent of its surface water allocated for use, faces tough decisions as it becomes hotter and drier.

But the Water Resources of South Africa 2005 study, the fifth of its kind, found 4 percent less surface water than had been estimated in 1995.

"With each of the national water studies carried out since the 1950s, our estimate of the country's total natural water resources has declined," project director Brian Middleton said. "If we were allocating water according to the higher estimates made in previous studies, we would find that there is simply not enough water to meet our needs."

The study, completed late last year, with its findings now being released, was commissioned in 2004 by South Africa's Water Research Commission (WRC) "after significant consultation in the water industry". …

The study found that about 10 000 million cubic metres of groundwater was available for use every year, but that this would be 25 percent less during droughts. …

Another study, reported in the SA Journal of Science this year, found that while 98 percent of surface water was allocated for use, 41 percent of the usable groundwater was also allocated. Also, the country had become 2 percent hotter and 6 percent drier since the 1970s and this would affect food security and hit poor people hardest.

Warning as study finds SA's water dwindles via  TreeHugger

By Thin Lei Win

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Developing countries will need to spend as much as $100 billion annually for the next 40 years to adapt to more extreme and severe weather changes, according to a World Bank study issued on Wednesday.

The report said poorer countries would need to invest in large-scale infrastructure projects to cope with floods, drought, heatwaves and more frequent and intense rainfall if the Earth's temperature rose by 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

"Faced with the prospect of huge additional infrastructure costs, as well as drought, disease and dramatic reductions in agricultural productivity, developing countries need to be prepared for the potential consequences of unchecked climate change," said Katherine Sierra, World Bank vice president for sustainable development. …

East Asia and the Pacific, home to some of the world's fastest-growing economies, would be the hardest hit financially, accounting for at least a quarter of total costs, mostly due to increased urbanization, especially in coastal areas, said Warren Evans, director of the Bank's environment department.

According to the study, the cost of adapting to a warmer world is on the same scale as the amount of aid developing countries currently receive. Aid agencies say it is essential that aid money is not cut to fund climate change initiatives. …

Climate change to cost poor states $100 billion a year

From Calculated Risk:

Here is a hockey stick graph …

Fannie Mae reported that the serious delinquency rate for conventional loans in its single-family guarantee business increased to 4.17 percent in July, up from 3.94 percent in June - and up from 1.45% in July 2008.

"Includes seriously delinquent conventional single-family loans as a percent of the total number of conventional single-family loans. These rates are based on conventional single-family mortgage loans and exclude reverse mortgages and non-Fannie Mae mortgage securities held in our portfolio."

Just more evidence of some shadow inventory and the next wave of foreclosures. …

Fannie Mae Serious Delinquency Rate increases Sharply

By Jenni Vincent, Journal staff writer, September 27, 2009

MARTINSBURG - It's only been three years since White-nose syndrome was discovered in bats living in caves near Albany, N.Y., but the number of bats now believed to have this fungus has grown significantly and spread to other states such as West Virginia.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials, who are working to determine the cause of this problem, are not only worried about an "unprecedented die-off of thousands of bats in the Northeast," but also are concerned about bat populations nationwide.

"We have found sick, dying and dead bats in unprecedented numbers in and around caves and mines from Vermont to Virginia. In some hibernaculum, 90 to 100 percent of the bats are dying," a Fish and Wildlife Service Web site reads.

In a cave advisory issued earlier this year, federal officials said it has not only "killed hundreds of thousands" of bats in northeastern states, but it threatens to spread to the Midwest and Southeast - home to many federally endangered bat species, as well as one of the largest bat populations in the country.

Those concerns have not gone unnoticed locally.

Bob Bennett, Tri-State Grotto vice chairman, is familiar with the Mount Aeolus cave in Dorset, Vt., which he calls the "poster child" for this mysterious malady because of how severely it has impacted bat populations there.

"The cave is a big bat hibernaculum. And at that cave alone, out of thousands and thousands of bats, none of them are left. That's the poster child because there have been a lot of pictures of all the dead bats lying on the ground and outside the cave," Bennett said. …

Southern bats now dying from fungus via Apocadocs

Hillion, France (AFP) Sept 28, 2009 - Hillion is a picture-postcard Breton town with grey stone houses, a pretty granite church and long sandy beaches.

But the seaside idyll has been ruined by mounds of rotting seaweed that have settled across swathes of France's northwestern coast, giving off a potentially deadly gas.

"It's a never-ending problem. When it's hot the smell is absolutely disgusting," said Philippe, a resident in his sixties.

"Our children breathe in the smell every day. We want to know if it's dangerous for them. Will one of us get cancer one day?," said Nathalie Baussan, who lives near a waste plant used to store algae scraped from local beaches. … many residents accuse the government of acting too slowly, with some 300 lawsuits already filed against the top state official in the Cotes d'Armor region, several accusing him of deliberately endangering lives. …

In this agricultural region, experts argue that the prime cause of algae blooms is pollution from animal farms, in particular those that use intensive methods to raise pigs and poultry.

Waste material -- essentially faeces and urine -- from these farms are spread onto fields in huge quantities.

From there, it is washed by the rain into streams and rivers and ultimately the sea where it becomes an excellent nitrate-rich fertiliser for green algae.

Resident groups have long been pressuring authorities to crack down on polluting farmers.

"They just need to apply the law. The law is perfect, but it is not applied," Denis Baulier of a group called "Urgence Marees Vertes' (SOS Green Tides) told AFP.

Baulier helped organise a protest Sunday on a beach in Hillion -- cleared of algae for the occasion -- where 1,000 locals and environmental activists turned out to demand swift state action. …

Seaweed invasion plagues France's pristine Brittany

ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2009) — Conservationists trying to prevent the extinction of Northern Bald Ibis Geronticus eremita are distraught that one of the last remaining wild birds in the Middle East has been shot by a hunter in Saudi Arabia, bringing the known wild Middle Eastern population of this Critically Endangered species to just four individuals.

Formerly, the range of this species extended across parts of southern and central Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. It even features in the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt. Following a huge population and range decline, the bulk of the wild population of 210 birds now occurs in Morocco, but a tiny population was rediscovered in 2002, in Syria.

A satellite-tracking project led by BirdLife International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in collaboration with the Desert Commission of the Syrian Government, established that the Syrian adults migrate to the Ethiopian highlands each winter, but the wintering area of younger birds remains a mystery. This migration across the deserts of the Middle East to north-east Africa puts these birds under threat from the region’s many hunters.

Researchers from BirdLife, the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK) and IUCN, trying to find out more about the movements of the young birds, fitted two birds with satellite tags, and it is one of these birds – a female – which was shot.

"We were excited that tagging a sub-adult ibis may have helped us to solve the mystery of where young ibises spend the winter, but now we may never know", said Eng. Ali Hamoud, of the Syrian Desert Commission. "The shooting of a young bird from such a tiny population is devastating news and it shows that hunting is a major threat to this species."

Dr Jeremy Lindsell, the RSPB scientist in charge of the ibis satellite-tracking project, said: "Recovery of the population from this frighteningly low level is going to be exceedingly difficult, but everyone involved in the project believes we must do everything we can to provide hope for this culturally-important icon of the Middle East. The tiny Syrian population has been breeding very well since its discovery, although it has suffered two poor years. The low rate of return of young birds to the colony shows that they are being lost somewhere on migration. We are starting to discover what the problem might be." …

Hunting: An Extinction Threat To Middle East's Most Threatened Bird

By Gerard Wynn

OXFORD, England (Reuters) - A rise of at least two meters in the world's sea levels is now almost unstoppable, experts told a climate conference at Oxford University on Tuesday.

"The crux of the sea level issue is that it starts very slowly but once it gets going it is practically unstoppable," said Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at Germany's Potsdam Institute and a widely recognized sea level expert.

"There is no way I can see to stop this rise, even if we have gone to zero emissions."

Rahmstorf said the best outcome was that after temperatures stabilized, sea levels would only rise at a steady rate "for centuries to come," and not accelerate.

Most scientists expect at least 2 degrees Celsius warming as a result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, and probably more. The world warmed 0.7-0.8 degrees last century.

Rahmstorf estimated that if the world limited warming to 1.5 degrees then it would still see two meters sea level rise over centuries, which would see some island nations disappear.

His best guess was a one meter rise this century, assuming three degrees warming, and up to five meters over the next 300 years.

"There is nothing we can do to stop this unless we manage to cool the planet. That would require extracting the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There is no way of doing this on the sufficient scale known today," he said. …

Two meter sea level rise unstoppable-experts

29 September 2009 | News - Press Release

One fifth of Mediterranean dragonflies and damselflies are threatened with extinction at the regional level as a result of increasing freshwater scarcity, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™.

Climate change and habitat degradation, due to the way land is managed, are also affecting the insects, says the report.

The assessment of 163 Mediterranean dragonflies and damselflies shows five are Critically Endangered, 13 are Endangered, another 13 are Vulnerable, 27 are Near Threatened, 96 are Least Concern and six are Data Deficient, meaning there is not enough information to classify them, but they might also be threatened.

“It is likely things will only get worse for these unique species as climate change and increased water demand take their toll,” says Jean Pierre Boudot, member of the IUCN Dragonfly Specialist Group and co-author of the report. “Lower levels of precipitation and drought will lead to degradation of the habitats where the majority of dragonflies and damselflies live.”

Four species are already listed as Extinct in the Mediterranean, including the Little Whisp (Agriocnemis exilis), the Common Pond Damsel (Ceriagrion glabrum), the Phantom Flutterer (Rhyothemis semihyalina) and the Darting Cruiser (Phyllomacromia africana).

Dragonflies are generally known for being good indicators of water quality. Major threats for 67 percent of these Mediterranean species are habitat degradation and pollution. The Spotted Darter (Sympetrum depressiusculum), which used to be common in the Mediterranean, is now listed as Vulnerable and is declining due to the intensification of agricultural practices in rice fields. …

The majority of the threatened species are concentrated in the Levant, southern Turkey and Balkans, northeast Algeria and northern Tunisia. The Glittering Demoiselle (Calopteryx exul), for example, is listed as Endangered and is in decline. It inhabits the aquatic habitats of the Maghreb, whose ecosystems are under pressure due to water-harnessing for human use, water pollution, irrigation and drought. …

Dragonflies go thirsty in the Mediterranean [pdf] via TreeHugger

The free ecosystem service that has been buying us time may not last.

Richard Betts, Mike Sanderson, Debbie Hemming, Mark New, Jason Lowe, Chris Jones, 4°C global warming: regional patterns and timing, 4 Degrees and Beyond Conference,  [pdf], p. 9

By Frank Nyakairu

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Drought for a fifth year running is driving more than 23 million east Africans in seven countries toward severe hunger and destitution, international aid agency Oxfam said on Tuesday.

Launching a 9.5 million pound appeal, it said the situation was being worsened by high food prices and conflict. The most badly hit nations are Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda.

Malnutrition is now above emergency levels in some areas and hundreds of thousands of valuable cattle are dying.

"This is the worst humanitarian crisis Oxfam has seen in east Africa for over ten years," Paul Smith Lomas, Oxfam's East Africa Director, said in a statement.

He said failed and unpredictable rains were ever more common in the region, and that broader climate change meant wet seasons were becoming shorter. Droughts have increased from once a decade to every two or three years.

"In Wajir, northern Kenya, almost 200 dead animals were recently found around one dried-up water source," Lomas said.

"People are surviving on two litres of water a day in some places -- less water than a toilet flush. The conditions have never been so harsh or so inhospitable, and people desperately need our help to survive."

Some 3.8 million Kenyans, a tenth of the population, need emergency aid, Oxfam said, partly because food prices have risen to 180 percent above average.

One in six children are acutely malnourished in Somalia, the charity said, while conflict meant people were less able to grow food and drought is ravaging areas where people have fled. Half the population -- more than 3.8 million people -- are affected. …

East Africa drought leaves millions hungry

Cameras sent down to investigate vessel appear to show human remains

By Michael Day in Milan

Pressure is growing on the Italian government to act over revelations that 30 or more ships with radioactive cargoes, deliberately sunk by the Mafia, may be polluting the Mediterranean.

The Calabrian region in the south of the country last night threatened to bypass Rome and petition the European Commission directly for help in dealing with the potential environmental disaster, while in another development investigators said that human remains may have been found on one ship – raising the possibility of a murder inquiry.

Silvestro Greco, head of the region's environment agency, lambasted the response by ministers to the apparent discovery of one of the missing toxic waste vessels, the Cunsky, 18 miles off the Calabrian coast.

"It has been 11 days since the boat was found and there has been not a single sign from the government," he said. "We do not believe this silence is normal."

Mr Greco added that "the entire Mediterranean, from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian sea and from the Strait of Sicily to the Aegean" could be threatened by sunken waste ships. "Cleaning and removing the load will be particularly complex in terms of cost, given the vast area involved," he said.

Sebastiano Venneri, vice-president of the environmental pressure group Legambiente, told The Independent there were fears that leaking radioactivity may already have been absorbed by plankton. If that is the case, there is a risk that it will make its way into the food chain. …

The possibility of a murder inquiry also arose last night after it emerged that cameras sent down to investigate the Cunsky appeared to show human remains aboard.

Bruno Giordano, the public prosecutor for the Calabrian coastal town of Paola, told The Independent: "It appeared to show what were two human skulls. Obviously this will have to be investigated as well. As will claims that there are 30 or more other vessels out there in the Mediterranean." …

Skulls found on Mafia ship laden with toxic waste

Reductions in terrestrial snow cover (blue) and sea ice (red) extent during June to August over the Northern Hemisphere since the late 1960s and 1970s, respectively. Data are from the Global Snow Lab, Rutgers University, New Jersey, and the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Eric Post, et al., Ecological Dynamics Across the Arctic Associated with Recent Climate Change, Science, 11 September 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5946, pp. 1355 - 1358 DOI: 10.1126/science.1173113

By ROBERT IMRIE (AP)

WAUSAU, Wis. — Waterways across the upper Midwest are increasingly plagued with ugly, smelly and potentially deadly blue-green algae, bloomed by drought and fertilizer runoffs from farm fields, that's killed dozens of dogs and sickened many people.

Aquatic biologists say it's a problem that falls somewhere between a human health concern and a nuisance, but will eventually lead to more human poisoning. State officials are telling people who live on algae-covered lakes to close their windows, stop taking walks along the picturesque shorelines and keep their dogs from drinking the rank water.

Peggy McAloon, 62, lives on Wisconsin's Tainter Lake and calls the algae blooms the "cockroach on the water."

"It is like living in the sewer for three weeks. You gag. You cannot go outside," she said. "We have pictures of squirrels that are dead underneath the scum and fish that are dead. ... It has gotten out of control because of the nutrient loads we as humans are adding to the waters." …

There's little anybody can do besides wait for cooler temperatures, Vennie said.

John Plaza, president of the Chetek Lakes Protection Association, which represents six lakes in northwest Wisconsin, said farm runoff, lawn fertilizers, septic systems and even ashes from leaves being burned on the shorelines are among factors contributing to the algae problems.

"I have been a user of these lakes since 1962," he said. "I have never experienced anything like this before. It's nasty. People are saying we can't live with this any more." …

What's ugly, smells, kills dogs? Blue-green algae

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2009) — Unusually high temperatures in the Arctic and heavy rains in the tropics likely drove a global increase in atmospheric methane in 2007 and 2008 after a decade of near-zero growth, according to a new study. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, albeit a distant second.

NOAA scientists and their colleagues analyzed measurements from 1983 to 2008 from air samples collected weekly at 46 surface locations around the world. Their findings will appear in the September 28 print edition of the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters and are available online now.

“At least three factors likely contributed to the methane increase,” said Ed Dlugokencky, a methane expert at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. “It was very warm in the Arctic, there was some tropical forest burning, and there was increased rain in Indonesia and the Amazon.” …

Global Increase In Atmospheric Methane Likely Caused By Unusual Arctic Warmth, Tropical Wetness

Northward expansion of insect herbivores such as the winter moth in northernmost Fennoscandia (intact mountain birch forest is shown in green, severely defoliated forest during the most recent outbreak in 2005 to 2008 is in dark brown, and tundra beyond the tree line is in white; reports of local winter moth outbreaks before the last extensive outbreak period are indicated by yellow dots and years of observation [modified from J. U. Jepsen, S. B. Hagen, R. A. Ims, N. G. Yoccoz, J. Anim. Ecol. 77, 257 (2008)].

Eric Post, et al., Ecological Dynamics Across the Arctic Associated with Recent Climate Change, Science, 11 September 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5946, pp. 1355 - 1358 DOI: 10.1126/science.1173113

An army of deadly Chinese hornets is heading north through France towards Britain after attempts to trap and poison them failed. 

By Ian Johnston
Published: 10:59AM BST 26 Sep 2009

The hornets, Vespa velutina, are thought to have arrived in Bordeaux on a container ship from China in 2004 and have been rapidly expanding their population and territory ever since.

They are blamed for slaughtering nearly a third of the bees in the Gironde department and there were also reports of summer swarms attacking a mother and baby, then chasing cyclists and other passersby in an incident in Lot-et-Garonne.

Now the hornets have been seen near Paris and experts are warning that they could cross the Channel to the south coast of England. …

Raymond Saunier, president of the bee-keeping union in Gironde, spelt out the effect of the hornets' arrival.

"We have literally been invaded. It's really a disaster," he said.

"In the past two to four years, we have lost 30% of our hives.

"All it takes is two or three hornets near your hive and you've had it."

He warned the hornets' devastation of bee colonies would have a serious impact on the important role played by bees in pollinating food crops. …

Chinese hornet army plotting invasion of UK

Change measurements are median filtered (10-km radius), spatially averaged (5-km radius) and gridded to 3 km, from intervals (Dt) of at least 365 d, over the period 2003–2007 (mean Dt is 728 d for Antarctica and 746 d for Greenland). East Antarctic data cropped to 2,500-m altitude. White dashed line (at 81.5° S) shows southern limit of radar altimetry measurements. Labels are for sites and drainage sectors (see text).

Prominent in Greenland is the strong thinning of the southeast and northwest ice-sheet margins (Supplementary Fig. 3); higher areas in the south thickened. These margins have a positive surface mass balance (SMB) and, hence, a high proportion of discharge through tidewater glaciers. Southeastern glaciers accelerated between 1996 and 2005, but those in the northwest showed little change in flow². The widespread dynamic thinning we identify in the northwest therefore implies a sustained period of dynamic imbalance. For the ice sheet as a whole, areas of fast flow¹ (>100 m yr^-1 (ref. 2)) thinned significantly more rapidly than slow-flowing areas (0.84 m yr^-1 versus 0.12 m yr^-1), a discrepancy that cannot be explained by variability in SMB (Supplementary Table 2). We find that of 111 glaciers surveyed, 81 thinned dynamically at rates greater than twice the thinning rate on nearby slow-flowing ice at the same altitude (Supplementary Tables 5 and 6). …

In Antarctica, we find significant dynamic thinning of fast-flowing ice at rates greater than plausible through interannual accumulation variability for drainage sectors¹⁹ F'G and GH (Fig. 2), with significant dynamic thickening of sector A'B (Supplementary Table 4). On the glacier scale, thinning is strongest in the Amundsen Sea embayment (ASE), where it is confirmed as being localized on the fast-flowing glaciers and their tributaries (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. 7). The area close to the Pine Island Glacier grounding line thinned in the period 2003–2007 at up to 6 m yr^-1, neighbouring Smith Glacier thinned at a rate in excess of 9 m yr^-1 and Thwaites Glacier thinned at a rate of around 4 m yr^-1. These rates are higher than those reported for the 2002–2004 period²⁰. Numerous small, independent glaciers feeding the same, rapidly thinning ice shelves, namely the Crosson and Dotson ice shelves²¹, are also thinning dynamically, which is strong evidence of a common, ocean-driven cause (Supplementary Fig. 7). Surface lowering is apparent across almost the whole area of the drainage basins of the Kohler, Smith, Pope and Haynes glaciers of the Amundsen Sea embayment, and up to the northern drainage divide of Pine Island Glacier. We calculate the mean elevation rate for sector GH to be -0.139 ± 0.07 m yr^-1 (whereas a rate of -0.092 ± 0.007 m yr^-1 was reported for 1995–2003²²), giving a volume change of -57 ± 29 km³ yr^-1. …

Hamish D. Pritchard, Robert J. Arthern, David G. Vaughan & Laura A. Edwards, Extensive dynamic thinning on the margins of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, Nature advance online publication 23 September 2009, doi:10.1038/nature08471

New Delhi (AFP) Sept 23, 2009 - India's monsoon was about 20 percent below strength just over a week before the official end of the rainy reason, putting the country on course for its worst drought since 1972, weather data showed Wednesday.

"Until September 21, for the country as a whole, the rain deficiency was 22 percent," said B.K. Bandopadhyay, a spokesman for the weather office.

"We expect the total rain deficiency will be roughly about 20 percent (at the end of the monsoon season). It depends on the rainfall, but it seems it will be around this number," he added. …

Bandopadhyay said that a rain deficit of 20 percent would be worse than previous droughts in 2002, 1987 and 1979 when the shortfall was about 19 percent.

In 1972, the deficit measured 23.9 percent, he said. …

India's weather service said recent reports showed that more than half the country was affected by the drought and the key farming areas in the north, northeast and some parts of western India were worst affected.

Rains in the northwest were 34 percent less than average, in central regions they were down by 19 percent, and the northeast had a 26-percent shortfall.

…

India heading for worst drought since 1972: weather data

Picturesque views of the snow-covered Alps may soon be relegated to picture books due to increasing climate change, a new European environmental report says. And it's not just skiers and tourism officials who are getting nervous about the fate of the continent's famous mountains.

Temperatures in the Alps are increasing at a rate more than twice the global average, according to a recent report by the European Environment Agency, "Regional climate change and adaptation: The Alps facing the challenge of changing water resources." The change has serious ramifications not only for the alpine climate itself, but also for the broad swath of Europe that relies on the water these "cherished but endangered mountains" collect and deliver.

As the changing global climate affects precipitation and snow-cover patterns in the Alps, it also impacts the amount of water these "water towers of Europe" can provide to millions of people in lowland areas. The vulnerable region is home to most of the headwaters of major rivers, including the Danube, Rhine, Po, and Rhone, and its glaciers provide 40 percent of Europe's fresh water. …

Climate Change in Alps to Leave Europe High and Dry

By Thin Lei Win

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Climate change is threatening 163 rare species discovered only last year in the Greater Mekong region, conservation group WWF said Friday.

Events such as frequent droughts and floods plus a rise in sea levels spell danger for species in what WWF called in a report "one of the world's last biological frontiers," a region spanning Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and China's Yunnan province.

"Forecasts for the Greater Mekong region show that climate change will dramatically alter ecosystems," Geoffrey Blate, WWF's regional climate change coordinator, told Reuters.

"Species most at risk are those with the least physiological tolerance to changes in temperature and precipitation, and those species with narrow or very restricted habitats." …

Climate change threatens rare species in Mekong: WWF

ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2009) — A comparison of breast milk samples from Denmark and Finland revealed a significant difference in environmental chemicals which have previously been implicated in testicular cancer or in adversely affecting development of the fetal testis in humans and animals.

This finding is published in the International Journal of Andrology.

In recent years a worldwide increase in testicular cancer has been noticed, but the cause remains unknown. In some countries, such as Denmark the prevalence of this disease and other male reproductive disorders, including poor semen quality and congenital genital abnormalities is conspicuously high; while in Finland, a similarly industrialized Nordic country, the incidences of these disorders are markedly lower. In the UK, almost 2,000 men are diagnosed with testicular cancer every year, and in the US this number is over 8,000. There is a wide variation in incidence rates of testicular cancer around the globe, and the reasons behind the observed trends are unexplained.

Environmental endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are commonly found in fatty foods, paints, plasticizers, pesticides, and the byproducts of industrial processes, and in recent studies an association has been shown between some of these agents and male reproductive problems. To investigate whether EDCs could be related to such great differences in reproductive disorders between closely related countries, Konrad Krysiak-Baltyn and colleagues from Denmark, Finland, and Germany measured levels of 121 chemicals in 68 breast milk samples from Denmark and Finland to compare exposure of mothers to EDCs. …

Environmental Chemicals Found In Breast Milk And High Incidence Of Testicular Cancer

Baghdad (UPI) Sep 23, 2009 - Iraq's water crisis is getting worse by the day, adding to the political uncertainty sweeping the country ahead of potentially incendiary parliamentary elections in January.

On top of the cutbacks in the water flow of the life-giving Tigris and Euphrates rivers by Turkey, Iraq's parched south is now threatened by encroaching tidal waters from the Gulf that are poisoning vital farmland, the result of climate change.

On Sept. 19, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that Ankara had agreed to increase the Euphrates flow to between 450 and 500 cubic meters per second until Oct. 20, after which Baghdad would have to negotiate a new deal.

But it will take much more than that to help the Iraqis, who are suffering one of the country's worst droughts in living memory.

Apart from the land around the two great rivers that rise in Turkey's Anatolia region, Iraq is largely desert. These days, its arable land is steadily drying up. Poor rains have damaged farmland even further.

Crop yields are so bad that a country once so fertile and known in antiquity as Mesopotamia - "the land between the rivers" - is now one of the largest importers of wheat in the world.

Water-short Iraq faces new peril: the sea

Demand for halt to hunting after decline in salmon stocks is blamed for bears starving to death

By Tracy McVeigh

First it was the giant panda, then the polar bear, now it seems that the grizzly bear is the latest species to face impending disaster.

A furious row has erupted in Canada with conservationists desperately lobbying the government to suspend the annual bear-hunting season following reports of a sudden drop in the numbers of wild bears spotted on salmon streams and key coastal areas where they would normally be feeding.

The government has promised to order a count of bears, but not until after this year's autumn trophy hunts have taken place. It has enraged ecology groups which say that a dearth of salmon stocks may be responsible for many bears starving in their dens during hibernation. The female grizzlies have their cubs during winter after gorging themselves in September on the fish fats that sustain them through the following months.

"I've never seen bears hungry in the fall before, but last year they were starving," said British Columbian wildlife guide and photographer Doug Neasloss. "I noticed in the spring there weren't as many bears coming out, but I felt it was premature to jump to conclusions." But now, he said, "there just aren't any bears. It's scary."

It was the same story, he said, from other guides over 16 rivers where once they would have been encountering dozens of grizzly bears. "There has been a huge drop in numbers. I've never experienced anything this bad." Reports from stream walkers, who monitor salmon streams across the vast territories, have been consistent, according to the conservation group Pacific Wild – no bears, and more worryingly, no bear cubs.

"There are just no bears out there, I'm hearing that from every side now," said Ian McAllister from Pacific Wild. He said that because a few grizzlies have been wandering close to centres of human habitation people thought there were plenty of bears around. "In fact it's the shortage of food that's driving them into town. They're starving," he explained. …

Grizzly bear decline alarms conservationists in Canada via Apocadocs

Washington/Nairobi, 24 September 2009 -The pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering predictions of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).

An analysis of the very latest, peer-reviewed science indicates that many predictions at the upper end of the IPCC's forecasts are becoming ever more likely.

Meanwhile, the newly emerging science points to some events thought likely to occur in longer-term time horizons, as already happening or set to happen far sooner than had previously been thought.

• Researchers have become increasingly concerned about ocean acidification linked with the absorption of carbon dioxide in seawater and the impact on shellfish and coral reefs. Water that can corrode a shell-making substance called aragonite is already welling up along the California coast, decades earlier than existing models predict.
• Losses from glaciers, ice-sheets and the Polar Regions appear to be happening faster than anticipated, with the Greenland ice sheet, for example, recently seeing melting some 60 percent higher than the previous record of 1998.
• Some scientists are now warning that sea levels could rise by up to two metres by 2100 and five to ten times that over following centuries.
• There is also growing concern among some scientists that thresholds or tipping points may now be reached in a matter of years or a few decades including dramatic changes to the Indian sub-continent's monsoon, the Sahara and West Africa monsoons, and climate systems affecting a critical ecosystem like the Amazon rainforest.
• The report also underlines concern by scientists that the planet is now committed to some damaging and irreversible impacts as a result of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.
• Losses of tropical and temperate mountain glaciers affecting perhaps 20 percent to 25 percent of the human population in terms of drinking water, irrigation and hydro-power.
• Shifts in the hydrological cycle resulting in the disappearance of regional climates with related losses of ecosystems, species and the spread of drylands northwards and southwards away from the equator.

Recent science suggests that it may still be possible to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. However, this will only happen if there is immediate, cohesive and decisive action to both cut emissions and assist vulnerable countries adapt. …

Impacts of Climate Change Coming Faster and Sooner: New Science Report Underlines Urgency for Governments to Seal the Deal in Copenhagen [pdf]

A wall of dust stretched from northern Queensland to the southern tip of eastern Australia on the morning of September 23, 2009, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image. The dust is thick enough that the land beneath it is not visible. The storm, the worst in 70 years, led to canceled or delayed flights, traffic problems, and health issues, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News. The concentration of particles in the air reached 15,000 micrograms per cubic meter in New South Wales during the storm, said ABC News. A normal day sees a particle concentration 10-20 micrograms per cubic meter.

Strong winds blew the dust from the interior to more populated regions along the coast. In this image, the dust rises in plumes from point sources and concentrates in a wall along the front of the storm. The large image shows that some of the point sources are agricultural fields, recognizable by their rectangular shape. Australia has suffered from a multiple-year drought, and much of the dust is coming from fields that have not been planted because of the drought, said ABC News. …

Dust over Eastern Australia

By Michael McCarthy environment editor

Melting ice is pouring off Greenland and Antarctica into the sea far faster than was previously realised because of global warming, new scientific research reveals today.

The accelerating loss from the world's two great land-based ice sheets means a rise in sea levels is likely to happen even more quickly than UN scientists suggested only two years ago, the findings by British scientists suggest.

Although floating ice, such as that in the Arctic Ocean, does not add to sea-level rise when it melts as it is already displacing its own mass in the water, melting ice from the land raises the global sea level directly. At present it is thought that land-based ice melt accounts for about 1.8mm of the current annual sea level rise of 3.2mm – the rest is coming from the fact that water expands in volume as it warms. But the new findings, published online today in the journal Nature, imply that this rate is likely to increase.

High-resolution satellite laser measurements have shown that along both the Greenland and Antarctic coastlines, the glaciers and ice streams which for thousands of years have slowly carried ice into the sea are now rapidly thinning, meaning they are speeding up in their flow. In both cases, the increased flow rate is extending back far into the ice sheets' interior.

This is happening all the way around Greenland, even at the high northern latitudes, and around much of Antarctica, especially in West Antarctica and around the Antarctic Peninsula. …

"The fact that the changes are so large is alarming, and you wonder how far they will go," Dr Pritchard said. "The thinning effect must be relatively recent, as it is so strong that it could not have been sustained previously without the glaciers melting away." …

Ancient glaciers are disappearing faster than ever

Coastal Louisiana has lost an average of 34 square miles of land, primarily marsh, per year for the last 50 years. From 1932 to 2000, coastal Louisiana lost 1,900 square miles of land, roughly an area the size of the state of Delaware. If nothing more is done to stop this land loss, Louisiana could potentially lose approximately 700 additional square miles of land, or an are about equal to the size of the greater Washington D.C.–Baltimore area, in the next 50 years.

The Land Loss between 1932-2000 is historical. The land loss between 2000-2050 is projected based on historical trending if no further action is taken.

Louisiana Coast Land Loss, Over 100 Years of Land Change for Coastal Louisiana Including Hurricane Assessments of 2005, USGS National Wetlands Research Center Lafayette and Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA) Land Change Study Group

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A huge outback dust storm swept eastern Australia and blanketed Sydney on Wednesday, disrupting transport, forcing people indoors and stripping thousands of tonnes of valuable farmland topsoil.

The dust blacked out the outback town of Broken Hill on Tuesday, forcing a zinc mine to shut down, and swept 1,167 km (725 miles) east to shroud Sydney in a red glow on Wednesday.

By noon on Wednesday the storm, carrying an estimated 5 million tonnes of dust, had spread to the southern part of Australia's tropical state of Queensland.

Dust storms in Australia are not uncommon but are usually restricted to the inland. Occasionally, during widespread drought, dust storms reach coastal areas. Australia is the driest inhabited continent and only Antarctica is drier.

Australia is battling one of its worst droughts and weather officials say an El Nino is slowly developing in the Pacific which will mean drier conditions for eastern states. …

The Bureau of Meteorology said a big cold front in New South Wales caused severe thunderstorms and gale-force winds, which whipped up the dust from the inland and spread it across Australia's most populous state. Winds of more than 100 km per hour also fanned bushfires in the state.

"This is unprecedented. We are seeing earth, wind and fire together," said Dick Whitaker from The Weather Channel. …

NSW holds its breath as dust descends

At least 250 people across New South Wales have called 000 with breathing problems after choking dust storms blanketed greater Sydney, the Hunter Valley and vast swathes of the rest of the state overnight.

Sydney has been the hardest hit, with 95 calls made since midnight, with the rest of the alerts coming from the state's west, south and north.

Doctors are warning people from vulnerable groups to stay inside until conditions ease and paramedics say they are expecting more call-outs. …

Karen from Dulwich Hill, in Sydney's inner west, says she woke up to find the red dust had covered her floors and birds had been blown out of their nests.

"It did feel like Armageddon because when I was in the kitchen looking out the skylight, there was this red, red glow coming through," she said. …

Another ABC Online contributor wrote in: "Red. Dusty. Making hard to breath... There are baby birds dead in our backyard. And our cat's gone missing."

Another listener says her lakeside vista has been replaced by a desert view. Others have commented on how birds are struggling to cope with the haze, with some "falling out of the sky".  …

Dust storm blankets Sydney as drought bites

LONDON (Reuters) - Floods, storms, drought and other climate-related natural disasters drove 20 million people from their homes last year, nearly four times as many as were displaced by conflicts, a new U.N. report said Tuesday.

The study tried to quantify for the first time the number of people forced to flee their homes because of climate change.

Global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of storms and otherwise altering weather patterns, so disasters are now "an extremely significant driver of forced displacement globally," it said.

The study said a total of 36 million people were driven from their homes by rapid-onset natural disasters in 2008. China's Sichuan earthquake accounted for 15 million of these, but climate-related disasters displaced 90 percent of the rest.

The report said many more people were probably being forced from their homes by slower-onset crises like droughts.

The report was compiled jointly by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), a body which normally tracks displacement caused by conflict. …

Natural disasters displacing millions: U.N. study

A report released by the Indonesian government shows the country is the world's third largest greenhouse gas emitter, largely as a result of the destruction of rainforests and carbon-dense peatlands. Indonesia accounts for 8 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

The 'National Council on Climate Change' report reveals that degradation and destruction of peatlands (45 percent) and forests (35 percent) account for 80 percent of Indonesia's 2.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year. It projects Indonesia's emissions will rise 57 percent to 3.6 billion tons by 2030, mostly due to continuing logging and conversion of natural ecosystems for agriculture and industrial plantations.

Last year Indonesia announced it would allow the development of more than two million hectares of peatlands for oil palm agriculture. The policy would generate billions of tons of emissions based on a 2007 study that found that producing one ton of palm oil on peatland generates 15 to 70 tons of CO2 over 25 years as a result of forest conversion, peat decomposition and emission from fires associated with land clearance.

Marcel Silvius, Programme Manager of Wetlands International, a NGO that campaigns for the protection of wetlands around the world, says that Indonesia's acknowledgment of emissions from drainage and destruction of peat swamps is a step forward, but it needs to do more to limit development of these carbon-dense lands. …

Indonesia: emissions to rise 50% by 2030, 3rd largest GHG emitter

New York (AFP) Sept 21, 2009 - As world leaders gather for key climate talks here, small island nations Monday warned they were running out of time with rising seas threatening to wipe them off the map.

Spread across the Earth's oceans, the planet's tiniest members grouped together in the Alliance of Small Islands States (AOSIS) are hoping to make their voices heard 100 days before UN-hosted climate talks in Copenhagen.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon and former British prime minister Tony Blair also urged governments around the world to publicly commit themselves to tackling global warming as they opened New York Climate Week.

"We need a commitment for a fair deal in Copenhagen," Ban said.

Climate negotiators have spent the last two years working toward a make-or-break summit in Copenhagen this December, expected to ink new targets for global emissions beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

"The will is actually there. The question is, can we find the way to match the will," added Blair at the ceremony held in the New York library.

"It is about getting a global agreement. To pass to the future generations a world that hopefully is better than the one we have today, but at least is not worse." …

Islands warn of extinction at UN climate week

Rome (AFP) Sept 21, 2009 - Drought, conflict and displacement are causing the worst humanitarian crisis in war-torn Somalia in 18 years, the UN food agency warned Monday.

Some 3.6 million people, about half the Somali population, need emergency aid including 1.3 million people displaced by fighting in the Horn of Africa country, the Food and Agriculture Organisation said in a statement.

Around 1.4 million Somali farmers face a severe drought, while some 655,000 poor urban dwellers face high prices for basic food staples, the FAO said. …

The number of people depending on food aid in the region -- currently nearly 20 million -- "may increase as the hunger season progresses, particularly among marginal farmers, pastoralists and low-income urban dwellers," the FAO said.

"Below-average rains combined with conflict and displacement are aggravating an already serious food insecurity situation in the region," it said. …

Somalia faces worst food crisis in 18 years: UN

Woodland caribou is one of the species likely to be extirpated from regions subjected to Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) development. Caribou declines across Alberta have been correlated with the level of industrial development within their ranges.43 In the past ten years, the East Side Athabasca River caribou herd, whose range overlaps much of the current SAGD development, has declined by almost 50% (Fig. 16).

Studies have shown that forests within 1 km of roads and well sites tend to be avoided by caribou44 and that roads further fragment caribou habitat by acting as barriers to movement.45 It is believed that this fragmentation concentrates woodland caribou into smaller portions of their range, where they become more susceptible to predation by wolves.46

Three separate studies predict dire consequences for caribou under the current management regime. A government-led study concluded that woodland caribou will continue to decline unless limits to development and aggressive restoration of existing disturbances are implemented.47

An industry-funded modeling study within the oil sands region determined that, due to projected industrial development, available caribou habitat will decline from 43% of the landscape to 6% over the next 20 years.48

Finally, a study at the University of Alberta concluded that caribou will be extirpated from northern Alberta in less than 40 years if linear densities exceed 1.2 km/km2 (less than half the projected linear density within SAGD developments).49

The consistent message is that, unless significant changes are made in the way we allocate and develop land for in situ oil sands production, caribou are likely to be lost from the entire oil sands region. …

Death by a Thousand Cuts: Impacts of In Situ Oil Sands Development on Alberta’s Boreal Forest [pdf]

Posted by Nate Hagens at The Oil Drum

…The liquid tailings, a by product of the oil sands mining process, contain naphthenic acids, unrecovered hydrocarbons and trace metals, making it toxic to aquatic organisms21 and mammals22.

Operators are required to store tailings waste on site in large containment dykes because the water is too toxic to be returned to the Athabasca River under water quality guidelines.

There are currently over 720 billion litres of toxic tailings on the landscape in the Athabasca oil sands area.23 These ponds cover an area of more than 130 square kilometres. By 2040 these tailings are expected to occupy 310 square kilometres, an area nearly the size of Vancouver.24 No tailings ponds have been reclaimed to date. More information on tailings and reclamation can be found in Pembina’s report Fact or Fiction: Oil Sands Reclamation.

One of the major concerns associated with tailings ponds is the migration of pollutants through the groundwater system, which can in turn leak into surrounding soil and surface water.25 There is currently a lack of publicly available information on the rate and volume of seepage from oil sands tailings ponds, despite known incidents involving tailings seepage.26 …

Environmental Impacts of Oil Sands Development in Alberta