Desdemona Despair

By PAUL AMES, Wintam, Belgium

…They may be slimy, snakelike and a distinct turn-off for many people, but eels have formed an integral part of European cuisine since the time of the ancient Greeks. Yet without urgent action, scientists fear this mysterious beast could disappear from the continent's waterways and dinner tables for good.

European eel stocks have fallen to below 10% of 1970s levels, according to the International Council for the Exploitation of the Sea in Copenhagen. In parts of the Baltic and Mediterranean 99% of the stocks are believed to have vanished.

The eel's precipitous decline has been blamed on river pollution, hydro-electric dams, global warming, changes in ocean currents and deadly parasitic worms, but many experts say overfishing is the biggest problem. …

Pollution in the River Scheldt means any eels that survive are unfit for human consumption, and commercial fishing has been banned for decades. These days, Belgians are forced to import their eels, mostly from Denmark, Sweden or Ireland. …

From 1995 to 2005, the European Union estimates an average of half a billion live baby eels were exported every year to East Asia. As their numbers shrank, the price rose almost tenfold during the decade, reaching over €700 per kilo in 2005, according to EU statistics. In 2007, the European eel was classified as a protected species by CITES, the international convention governing trade in wildlife. Exporters must now apply for government authorization to sell eels abroad. The Dutch government wants to go further, urging the EU to ban exports. But France and Spain especially are unwilling to cut off a trade that was worth around €30 million last year for hard-pressed fishermen around the Bay of Biscay.

"There is very big money in that business, really big money and the French and Spanish just keep selling to the Chinese," says Belgian eel importer Frans Borremans. "I hope it will change and governments will say it must come to an end and that we keep our eels in Europe." ...

Eels Slip Away From Europe's Dishes  via Apocadocs

By Standard Team

Flooding has claimed three lives, displaced hundreds and cut off towns following heavy rainfall, even as meteorologists warn it would get worse.

The most affected areas are Coast and North Eastern provinces, which have seen a sudden increase in rainfall in line with the Meteorological Department’s forecast in August that flooding, would affect several parts of the country with the advent of El Nino rains.

Four hundred families have been displaced at Kurwa and Kanagoni areas in Magarini.

River, more than 70 lorries and public service vehicles were stranded after flash floods.

A team of Kenyan and US military personnel has been dispatched to Kanagoni Bridge that was damaged, cutting off the road link between Malindi and Lamu towns. … 

The Metrological Department warns the weather outlook remains bleak, as more rains are expected, exacerbating flooding and landslides. …

"When water levels reach one foot people should start taking precautions. Already by today (on Thursday) Lamu in Coast province received 99.2mm in a day.

This is twice the amount the area normally receive in a month during rainy seasons," Peter Ambenje, daily forecast deputy director Metrological Department told The Standard. …

After drought comes deluge of floods and destruction

Since the animals were first listed as endangered, the human population of Florida has more than tripled, and efforts to help the Florida's state animal recover have had limited success

By The Editors   

One of more than 20 subspecies of cougar and native to the southeastern United States, the Florida Panther is most certainly still highly endangered. Biologists estimate that less than 100 of the animals are alive in the wild today, hanging on in the southern tip of Florida below the Caloosahatchee River. Their current range represents less than five percent of where they originally roamed across Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and parts of Tennessee and South Carolina.

Perceived as a threat to humans, livestock and game animals, the Florida Panther was persecuted and hunted to near extinction by the mid-1950s. Today, primary threats are habitat loss and fragmentation as a result of human development. According to Defenders of Wildlife, the main culprits in the decline of the animals’ numbers are: urban sprawl; the conversion of once diversified agricultural lands into intensified industrial farming uses; and the loss of farmland to commercial development. Other factors include collisions with automobiles, territorial disputes with other panthers as habitat shrinks, and inbreeding resulting from their isolated population. Additional threats include mercury poisoning from the fallout of coal-fired power plants, parasites, and diseases such as feline leukemia and feline distemper.

Efforts to help the Florida Panther recover have had limited success. Many public agencies and nonprofit groups have worked together to try to bring back the panther—Florida’s state animal—since it was first listed as endangered by the federal government back in 1967. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), panthers require large areas of contiguous habitat: Each breeding unit of one male and two to five females requires some 200 square miles of territory to thrive. Biologists report that a population of 240 panthers requires between 8,000 and 12,000 square miles of habitat and sufficient genetic diversity in order to avoid inbreeding as a result of small population size. The introduction of eight female cougars from a closely related Texas population in 1995 helped mitigate inbreeding problems, but most analysts fear that the effort was too little, too late for the threatened cats. …

Tenuous Times for the Endangered Florida Panther

From Calculated Risk:

Here is the monthly Fannie Mae hockey stick graph.

Fannie Mae reported today that the rate of serious delinquencies - at least 90 days behind - for conventional loans in its single-family guarantee business increased to 4.45% in August, up from 4.17% in July - and up from 1.57% in August 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." …

Fannie Mae: Delinquencies Increase Sharply in August

By DARREN CARTWRIGHT, November 1, 2009

NEW Queensland Government planning laws to protect dwindling koala numbers in the state's south-east are laughable, the Australian Koala Foundation says.

Climate Change and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones yesterday announced measures to protect the marsupials' habitats.

The measures include spending $15 million to buy new habitats or rehabilitate existing sites, compulsory acquisition powers for koala habitats outside the urban footprint, land swaps and banning dogs in new developments.

''You really can't take anything this Government does seriously,'' Australian Koala Foundation chief executive Deborah Tabart said yesterday.

''Fifteen million dollars would buy about five hectares and that's enough land to house one koala. …

Ms Tabart said it was estimated that by the end of 2010 no koalas would inhabit the Koala Coast region - 375 square kilometres of land starting 20 kilometres south-east of Brisbane.

Strategy to save koalas 'laughable'

By Channel 4 News , Updated on 23 October 2009

The West Atlas oil rig continues to leak crude oil into the ocean off the coast of Australia following a rupture nine weeks ago. Julian Rush reports. [Video]

 

It is thought the West Atlas oil platform leak could be a lot worse than originally thought.

 

Millions of litres have now escaped into the Timor Sea and already the long-term damage is being compared to the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989.

The rupture occurred on 21 August, and the last three attempts to stop the flow from escaping have failed. …

 

Marine disaster unfolds in Timor Sea

By Rebecca Lindsey, NASA’s Earth Observatory

More than two months after a blowout at a newly dug oil well, crude oil and gas condensate continued to leak into the Timor Sea, between northwest Australia and Indonesia. According to news reports, the company responsible for the leaking well has tried to cap it three times without success.

This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite shows the Timor Sea on October 28, 2009. The top image shows a regional view of the area around the damaged oil platform (location indicated by a small circle), and the bottom image shows a close-up view of the oil slick. The oil slick appears as patches and streaks of dark blue compared to the surrounding ocean, which is a washed-out blue. …

Oil Slick in the Timor Sea

By MARIAN WILKINSON ENVIRONMENT EDITOR, October 31, 2009

LARGE numbers of whales, dolphins, turtles and sea birds are feeding in waters polluted by the massive oil spill off the West Australian coast and are likely to be at ''immediate risk'', a new report released by the federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, reveals.

A leading ecologist, James Watson, was commissioned by Mr Garrett's department to spend days surveying the marine life in the waters surrounding the oil lease - owned by the Thai company PTTEP - which has been leaking in the Timor Sea for nine weeks. Dr Watson's report says ''the presence of dying birds and dead sea snakes suggest that there is an immediate risk to species utilising the water that has been affected by the oil slick''.

Dr Watson and his team spent three days surveying waters covered by oil seeing thousands of birds, hundreds of dolphins and whales and many more animals feeding there. ''Some animals are unable to survive due to this oil slick.'' he said yesterday. ''In a rapid survey, we were able to come across dying animals.''

Dr Watson said on nearby Ashmore Reef, a marine reserve, his team found 17 dead birds, some with large amounts of oil on them.

After seeing the scale of the oil slick, which is spread over 4223 square kilometres, Dr Watson told the Herald: ''I am amazed at how little Australia really cares about this. This is a huge oil slick.''

The well in the Montara oil field has been leaking 400 barrels of oil a day, by the company's estimate, since August 21 after an accident at the site. The leak is now entering its 10th week and the company conceded on Thursday it was unlikely to be contained for several more weeks.

Dr Watson said the presence of marine life in the oil spill area was extraordinary. ''There were more birds, more whales, more sea snakes in areas that contained oil than in areas that didn't. There needs to be a lot more monitoring done before we know the full extent of this oil slick because it's enormous.'' …

Toll rises as sea life feed at oil spill

By Phil Mercer, Sydney, 20 October 2009

Australia's worst oil slick since the mid-1980s is now tainting Indonesian waters. Fishermen in West Timor say contaminated fish are making villagers ill.

Oil began leaking two months ago, following an accident on the West Atlas drilling platform, which lies about 200 kilometers off the coast of Western Australia.

Since then, the millions of liters of oil have poured into the water, prompting concerns for the health of endangered turtles as well as whales and dolphins.

Indonesian fishermen say the slick has killed of thousands of fish and is causing illness among villagers who have eaten tainted seafood.

Three attempts to plug the leak on the rig, which is owned by a Thailand company, have failed.

The Conservative opposition's environment spokesman Greg Hunt says the accident has been a calamity for the fishing industry and the fragile marine ecosystem.

"This is a deep ocean tragedy. It is affecting marine life," Hunt said. "There can be no doubt that that is the case and what we are hearing from reports from the fishing community both in Australia and overseas is that there are real effects on marine life." …

Australia Oil Spill Spreads Contamination to Indonesia

A ship carrying toxic waste sunk off the coast of Madagascar, and thousands of tons of refuse were emptied into the rich marine ecosystem. The wreck has had devastating effects on the sea life and the health of people who live inland--causing whales to mysteriously beach in greater numbers, and afflicting the locals with grave respiratory and skin diseases.

The Gulser Ana, a Turkish shipping vessel, ran aground in the southernmost point of Madagascar. It then slowly leaked its load--39,000 tons of raw phosphates, 568 tons of fuel, and 66 tons of diesel--into the Indian Ocean.

It just so happened that the spot where the accident occurred was a whale reproduction and migratory corridor zone, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. …

Toxic Shipwreck in Madagascar Kills Whales, Makes Locals Sick

Changes in surface ocean pH relative to pre-industrial values for different atmospheric CO2 stabilization levels, 380 ppm and 650 ppm plotted over existing shallow-water coral reef locations (shown as magenta dots). Results are obtained by adding model-predicted perturbations in geochemical fields to modern observations, except for the Arctic Ocean where results are model simulations only due to a lack of observations (Cao and Caldeira 2008).

Further physical changes in the world’s oceans can be attributed to mounting concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. While increases in water temperature and fluctuations between fresh and saline water affect circulation at the surface and with vertical exchange, the repercussions from increasing concentrations of CO2 in the oceans introduce a separate but related threat. The ocean’s role in absorbing anthropogenic CO2 released into the atmosphere has been underway for over two centuries. This has altered the chemistry of the global ocean fundamentally, by acidifying the top 2,000 metre layer of the oceans’ waters and thus shrinking the total amount of ocean habitat where organisms that incorporate calcium carbonate (CaCO3) into their shells and skeletons can thrive (Caldeira and Wickett 2003, Sabine et al. 2004, Orr et al. 2005, Denman et al. 2007, Feely et al. 2008, Ilyina et al. 2009, Silverman et al. 2009).

UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 [pdf]

Farmland birds like skylarks and grey partridges have declined by more than half in the last 30 years according to new Government statistics.  

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM GMT 30 Oct 2009

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) English farmland bird index, which covers 19 birds including yellowhammer and woodpigeon, showed a continued trend in declining numbers.

Populations of species in the index, which acts as an indicator of the health of birds living on agricultural land, were 52 per cent below what they were when records began in 1970. …

Farmland birds continue to decline

HONG KONG, Oct 29 (AFP) Oct 29, 2009

The live fish facing death in the glass tanks in Hong Kong's famous seafood restaurants tell a strange and haunting tale of a looming global tragedy.

At the heart of their story is the bizarre fact that there are more fine fish swimming in the tiny tanks than there are in the surrounding sea.

Having overfished and polluted its own waters to the point where they are home mainly to great ghosts of the past, Hong Kong now imports up to 90 percent of its seafood.

The problem with that, scientists say, is that Hong Kong is a microcosm of a marine disaster in which wild fish are being eaten out of existence worldwide.

"It is a sign of what is happening in most of the fisheries in the world," says Guillermo Moreno, head of global environment group WWF's marine programme in Hong Kong. "It's a scary panorama." …

"The average size of fish now caught in these bottom trawls is about 10 grammes" -- about one third of an ounce or the weight of a small coin -- Professor Yvonne Sadovy of Hong Kong University told AFP.

"To put this into some kind of context, Hong Kong was a famous fishing centre in the past and we had incredibly productive and species-rich ground fisheries."

WWF says that "Hong Kong waters were incredibly rich just decades ago with manta rays, hammerhead sharks, giant grouper and croakers taller than a man. In less than a lifetime Hong Kong has lost them all." …

Hong Kong's ghostly seas warn of looming global tragedy via Apocadocs

18. There are over 100 chemical plants in Jiangsu province coastal industry district. (江苏滨海头罾沿海化工园区) Some of them discharge wastewater into the ocean; some heavily contaminated sewage is stored in 5 “Sewage Temporary Pools”. During the 2 high tides in every month, the sewage then gets discharged into the ocean with the tides. June 20, 2008.

[QQ] October 14, 2009, the 30th annual awards ceremony of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund took place at the Asia Society in New York City. Lu Guang (卢广) from People’s Republic of China won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his documentary project Pollution in China. …

Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China

By Brandon Keim, October 28, 2009 

Fueled by previously unappreciated links between climate and ecology, the North Sea has undergone a radical ecological shift in the last half-century, say scientists.

The very shape of the food web has changed, from plankton on up to the cod and flatfish that once dominated the icy waters, supporting rich commercial fisheries. They’ve been largely replaced by jellyfish and crabs.

The full scope of the change has gone relatively unnoticed, and could foreshadow changes in waters around the world.

“Climate-driven changes in the biology of the sea are largely hidden from view,” said Richard Kirby, a University of Plymouth marine biologist and Royal Society Research Fellow. “If similar changes occurred in a temperate forest, we would be shocked.”

In a study published in the upcoming December Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Kirby and Gregory Beaugrand, an oceanologist at the Lille University of Science and Technology, analyze decades of climate and ecosystem data gathered in the North Sea, a pocket of ocean bordered by the United Kingdom and Scandinavia.

Though relatively small, the North Sea has historically been a fabulously fertile fishing ground. Even now, it provides about five percent of the global fish harvest — but that’s barely a third of what it yielded just a century ago.

Declining stocks have been blamed almost entirely on overfishing. However, though fishing pressures have indeed been intense, some scientists have suspected that water temperatures are also a factor.

Over the last quarter-century, the North Sea’s upper layers have warmed by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. That seems like little, but in the North Sea, summer and winter water temperatures differ by just a few degrees. Even a few degrees of change is relatively profound, and enough to disrupt aquatic organisms accustomed to functioning in a very narrow thermal range. …

“The effect of climate on the marine food web, the way small changes can be amplified through the web, that’s the moral of the story here,” said Kirby. “And food webs everywhere will be affected in a similar way.” …

Climate Change Caused Radical North Sea Shift

The image, from the state climatologist's report, shows 24-month precipitation surplus/deficit expressed as standard deviations at the peak of the drought. Darkest red shows 3 standard deviations, and corresponds to the areas of record-setting drought. At that moment, (late August) San Antonio had received less than two feet of rain over the preceding two years. In addition to the rainfall deficit, this drought was exacerbated by unusual heat. …

Texas Drought Abates

By Staff Writers, Buffalo NY (SPX) Oct 29, 2009

The possibility that climate change might simply be a natural variation like others that have occurred throughout geologic time is dimming, according to evidence in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper.

The research reveals that sediments retrieved by University at Buffalo geologists from a remote Arctic lake are unlike those seen during previous warming episodes.

The UB researchers and their international colleagues were able to pinpoint that dramatic changes began occurring in unprecedented ways after the midpoint of the twentieth century.

"The sediments from the mid-20th century were not all that different from previous warming intervals," said Jason P. Briner, PhD, assistant professor of geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. "But after that things really changed. And the change is unprecedented." …

"There are periods of time reflected in this sediment core that demonstrate that the climate was as warm as today," said Briner, "but that was due to natural causes, having to do with well-understood patterns of the Earth's orbit around the sun. The whole ecosystem has now shifted and the ecosystem we see during just the last few decades is different from those seen during any of the past warm intervals."

Yarrow Axford, a research associate at the University of Colorado, and the paper's lead author, noted: "The 20th century is the only period during the past 200 millennia in which aquatic indicators reflect increased warming, despite the declining effect of slow changes in the tilt of the Earth's axis which, under natural conditions, would lead to climatic cooling." …

Arctic Sediments Show 20th Century Warming Is An Unnatural Variation

By Burton Frierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Twelve of the worst pollution problems in the developing world are being cleaned up, demonstrating that tens of thousands of others also could be improved, according to a report [pdf] released on Wednesday.

The clean-up sites, ranging from Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear disaster area to the polluted streets of Delhi, were in the fourth annual World's Worst Polluted Places Report issued by the New York-based Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland.

In contrast to previous years' reports [pdf], which highlighted contaminated sites or specific pollution problems, the 2009 edition focused on clean-ups and solutions.

"Tens of thousands of polluted sites contaminate local populations -- as many as 500 million people are poisoned each day in the developing world," the report said.

"Only a few of these problems have been fixed. But it's a start and worth recognizing."

The group's initial search for potential success stories yielded just 45 candidates. Making the final list were the only 12 cases that appeared to provide verifiable and credible evidence of success.

"Here we are talking about successes but there's only 12 of them," Richard Fuller, president of Blacksmith Institute, told a teleconference of journalists.

"We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars in the West cleaning up our pollution problems here and at the same time we've shifted all our industry overseas and what we've done is ended up poisoning all these people in all these places overseas." …

Global pollution-fighters find scant success

By John Platt

More than half of the U.K.'s rarest birds have seen recent population increases, according to the 10th annual "State of the U.K.'s Birds" report (pdf) . 

Published by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in association with several local conservation groups, the report assesses the status of 210 bird species.

Of the 63 rarest U.K. bird species (those with fewer than 1,000 breeding pairs), nearly 60 percent have seen population increases. They include the osprey, corncrake, avocet, cirl bunting and stone-curlew, all of which have enjoyed the benefits of focused conservation programs.

At the same time, 28 percent of the rare birds have seen population drops. The common scoter, for example, is down to just 52 breeding pairs, and could go extinct in the U.K. in 10 years, according to the RSPB. …

Britain's rare birds get more common, as common birds get rarer

By Kathy Marks in Sydney

Many people believe the budgerigar's natural habitat is a pet shop. In fact, the bird is a native of the Australian outback, and locals there are saying they have rarely seen flocks of the size that are descending on Queensland this year. Some are calling it a "beautiful plague".

The far west of the state received drenching rains earlier this year, which created perfect breeding conditions for the budgies, and abundant quantities of food. Now flocks of up to 3,000 birds are congregating to feed on grass and wheat seeds, and the dramatic spectacle is attracting twitchers from near and far.

The budgies – which in the wild are vivid green and yellow, with none of the colour variations of bred captive birds – have been seen in and around the remote town of Boulia. Mayor Rick Britton said there were five or six of the mammoth flocks in the area.

"When you look out on the horizon, you'd think that it was smoke coming off a fire," he said. "The horizon will just be moving with this black mass of birds." Mr Britton's wife, Ann, told ABC radio: "From a distance they just look like a huge black wave rolling up on the beach." She recalled quite large flocks sighted in 1997 – but nothing as impressive as this. …

'Beautiful plague' of budgies descends on Outback

 

We have been following events since the catastrophic fly ash spill that took place last December in Tennessee in which an unimaginable 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic coal sludge was dumped into the Emory and Clinch rivers and the 300 acres surrounding the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Kingston plant. Now, an emerging Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report states that some “potentially toxic pollutants,” such as mercury and arsenic, which are found in coal ash, could present serious problems.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, we wrote about how information pointing to “significantly higher cancer risks” for those living near coal-fired power plant ash dumps was allegedly covered up by the recent Bush Administration, citing a report by EnvironmentalIntegrity.org. The historic TVA spill’s involved over one billion gallons of toxic coal sludge and The spill ravaged the environment, the economy, and the lives and health of the families, wildlife, and aquatic life living in the area. KnoxNews previously noted that the toxic sludge destroyed three homes and damaged about two-dozen others.

The new report states that the pollutants can converge in considerable quantities, which are released into waterways or groundwater, said the Tennessean. The report is in excess of 230 pages and has been met with positive responses from environmentalists who are hoping this will pave the way for improved regulations, added the Tennessean.

“We applaud the EPA for addressing coal’s toxic legacy head on, for delving deeper and completing this long overdue investigation,” said Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, in an emailed statement, quoted the Tennessean. Hitt added that she is hoping that the EPA will institute “strong federal regulations in place for coal ash” and removal of sludge.

Numerous studies have concluded that coal dumps leach dangerous toxins into the environment that can cause cancer, birth defects, and other serious health outcomes in water and wildlife populations, including frightening guarantees of developing cancer from drinking contaminated water and suffering damage to the liver, kidney, lungs and other organs from toxic metal exposure, such as cadmium, cobalt, lead, and other pollutants far above levels that are considered safe,” said Environmental Integrity, previously. The group also noted that the danger to wildlife and ecosystems is “off the charts, with one contaminant—boron—expected to leach into the environment at levels two thousand times thresholds generally considered to be safe.” …

EPA Report Details Coal Ash Threat

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Tigers could become extinct in the wild in two decades unless the world ramps up conservation efforts to halt the decline in their population, wildlife experts said on Wednesday.

Barely 3,500 tigers are estimated to be roaming in the wild in 12 Asian countries and Russia compared with about 100,000 a century ago, experts and conservationists said.

Tigers are being illegally killed for their body parts and Asia is a hotspot for the illegal wildlife trade which the international police organization Interpol estimates may be worth more than $20 billion a year.

Skins sell as rugs and cloaks on the black market, where a skin can fetch up to $20,000 in countries like China.

Habitat destruction and depletion of prey base were other perils facing the "Asian heritage", conservationists said.

"A business as usual approach in tiger conservation will doom the tiger population in the next 15 to 20 years," Mahendra Shrestha, program director of the Washington-based Save the Tiger Fund told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference on tiger conservation. …

World's tigers seen facing potential extinction

On this site, you’ll find 350 animals and plants that could vanish due to global warming. If we can sufficiently curb greenhouse gas emissions, many of them will still have a chance to survive and recover — but we have to act now. And we have to act decisively, with a firm goal of cutting the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere to 350 ppm (parts per million).

With a click of your mouse, read about polar bears in Alaska, monk seals in Hawaii, sea otters in California; bone up on Atlantic salmon in the Northeast, sea turtles in Florida, or corals throughout the world — and hundreds of other species around the globe, big and small, iconic and unknown — that we’re hurting through our lethal addiction to fossil fuels. You can even read about one species that stands to be tragically impoverished by the effects of broader species loss: ourselves, Homo sapiens sapiens.

And find out exactly how climate change is putting species’ very existence at risk. Each brief profile will give a snapshot of what mechanisms are being triggered to make food webs collapse or habitats become less livable for particular animals or plants.

Read species’ descriptions and look at photos through an interactive regional map or a taxonomic portal.

Atmospheric CO2 currently stands at about 387 parts per million. Scientists, including the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Jim Hansen, formerly of NASA, have called on world leaders to reduce that level to 350 parts per million. Doing so will require the United States to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent or more below 1990 levels by 2020. …

350 Reasons we need to get to 350: 350 Species Threatened by Global Warming

By Heather Sharp, BBC News, Gaza

Gaza's aquifer and only natural freshwater source is "in danger of collapse," the UN is warning.

Engineers have long been battling to keep the densely populated strip's water and sewage system limping along.

But in September the UN Environment Programme warned that damage to the underground aquifer - due to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade, conflict, and years of overuse and underinvestment - could take centuries to reverse if it is not halted now. …

Lagoons designed to allow treated clean water to infiltrate through Gaza's sandy soil back down into the aquifer are instead funnelling sewage straight back into the groundwater.

In addition, with several years of drought and the digging of hundreds of illegal, unregulated wells, the UN Environmental Programme says at least three times more water is extracted than is replenished each year.

As the level is dropping in the aquifer, sea water is invading.

With nitrates from the sewage and salt from the sea, only 5-10% of the water in Gaza's wells - and therefore its taps - now meets World Health Organization guidelines, even after it has been chlorinated.

The aquifer has been in decline for years. But Oxfam's Mark Buttle, who co-ordinates international organisations working in the water sector, says the pressures are adding up.

Gaza faces a "pending environmental disaster" he warns. …

Gaza thirsts as sewage crisis mounts via Apocadocs

From Calculated Risk:

The American Trucking Associations’ advance seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index decreased 0.3 percent in September, after increasing 2.1 percent in both July and August. The latest decline lowered the SA index to 103.9 (2000=100). …

Compared with September 2008, SA tonnage fell 7.3 percent, which was the best year-over-year showing since November 2008. In August, the index was down 7.5 percent from a year earlier.

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said that the latest reading fits with the premise that the recovery will be moderate and choppy. “The trucking industry should not be alarmed by the very small decrease in September,” Costello noted. “We took two steps forward in July and August and this was a miniscule step backward.” He added that the industry should be prepared for ups and downs in the months ahead, but the general trend should be modest improvement. …

ATA Truck Tonnage Index Declines in September

A new kind of refugee has arrived: Those forced from their home regions not by war or persecution, but by the climate. A Kenyan camp is bursting with the displaced, some of whom share their stories.

By EDMUND SANDERS, October 27, 2009

DADAAB, Kenya: For centuries, Adam Abdi Ibrahim's ancestors herded cattle and goats in an unforgiving landscape in southern Somalia where few others were hearty enough to survive.

This year, Ibrahim became the first in his clan to abandon his land then walked for a week to bring his family to this overcrowded refugee camp in Kenya.

He is not fleeing warlords, Islamist insurgents or Somalia's 18-year civil war. He is fleeing the weather.

''I give up,'' said the father of five as he queued to register at the camp. After four years of drought and the death of his last 20 animals, Ibrahim, 28, said he had no plans to return.

Africa is already home to one-third of the 42 million people worldwide uprooted by ethnic slaughter, despots and war. But experts say climate change is quietly driving Africa's displacement crisis to new heights.

Ibrahim is one of an estimated 10 million people worldwide who have been driven out of their homes by rising seas, failing rain, desertification or other climate-driven factors.

Norman Myers, an Oxford University professor and one of the first scholars to draw attention to the problem, estimated there would be more than 25 million climate refugees by 2050, replacing war and persecution as the main cause of global displacement. Africa would be heaviest hit because so many people's livelihoods depended on farming and livestock. …

Fleeing drought in the Horn of Africa

By Ben Cubby, October 27, 2009

AUSTRALIA must create a new, expanded network of protected wetlands around its coastline or see many bird, animal and plant species become extinct as sea levels rise, the House of Representatives report says.

It recommended that the Government should urgently assess the vulnerability of Kakadu National Park to the intrusion of salt water into its fresh water wetlands. Up to 80 per cent of the freshwater wetlands in the park could be lost, and replaced with salty mud flats, as global average temperatures rise between two and three degrees this century.

Many existing wetlands should also have their conservation status upgraded. The report said this had implications for many activities like land clearing, building canal-style housing developments and driving vehicles along beaches.

The unavoidable sea level rises, which are already thought to be locked in by current greenhouse gas emission levels, are expected to devastate water bird populations, according to advice from Birds Australia.

Migratory birds like the black-tailed godwit, the grey plover and Latham's snipe can be regarded as the ''canaries in the coalmine'' for climate change, said Dr Eric Woehler of Birds Australia, who gave evidence to the parliamentary committee.

''Many of these birds breed only a few centimetres above the high-water mark,'' Dr Woehler said. ''They cannot just go somewhere else to breed … the development and construction of coastal infrastructure such as roads and houses will stop that inward migration of the coastline.

''So, as the sea level rises, essentially what you are going to end up with is a sea wall rather than the capacity for the coastline to find its new line inland of where it is now.'' …

Coalmine canaries face extinction in fatal trap

By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent

Lush tropical rainforest once covered almost all of Indonesia's 17,000 islands between the Indian and Pacific oceans. And just half a century ago, 80 per cent remained. But since then, rampant logging and burning has destroyed nearly half that cover, and made the country the world's third largest emitter of greenhouses gases after the US and China.

Indonesia still has one-tenth of the world's remaining rainforests, a treasure trove of rare plant and animal species, including critically endangered tigers, elephants and orangutans. However, it is destroying its forests faster than any other country, according to the Guinness Book of Records, with an average two million hectares disappearing every year, double the annual loss in the 1980s.

It is that frenzied rate of deforestation that has propelled Indonesia, home to 237 million people, into its top-three spot in the global league table of climate change villains. According to a government report released last month, the destruction of forests and carbon-rich peatlands accounts for 80 per cent of the 2.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted in the country annually.

The situation is partly a legacy of the 32-year rule of the dictator Suharto, during which Indonesia's forests were regarded purely as a source of revenue to be exploited for economic gain. Suharto, who stepped down in 1998, handed out logging concessions covering more than half the total forest area, many of them to his relatives and political allies.

Although the current Indonesian government, under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is committed to reducing deforestation and CO2 emissions, not much has changed on the ground. Poor land management is compounded by lawlessness and corruption, and illegal logging is widespread. According to one official estimate, the latter is responsible for the loss of 10 million hectares of forest.

Legal logging, too, is conducted at unsustainable levels, thanks to soaring demand from a rapidly expanding pulp and paper industry, in a country struggling with high levels of poverty.

The recent government report forecast that carbon emissions, which have risen from 1.6 billion tons in 1990, will increase to 3.6 billion by 2030, a leap of 57 per cent from today's level. The main reason is logging and clearing of forests for agriculture and industrial plantations, including oil palms. The government granted permission last year for two million hectares of peatland to be cleared for oil palms. …

Illegal logging responsible for loss of 10 million hectares in Indonesia via TreeHugger

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia needs to adopt a national policy to combat rising sea levels, which may see people forced to abandon coastal homes and banned from building beachside homes, said a parliamentary climate change committee.

The committee's report said that A$150 billion ($137 billion) worth of property was at risk from rising sea levels and more frequent storms.

Australia is an island continent with 80 percent of its 21 million people living on the coast. Authorities are split on adopting a policy of retreat or defense against rising seas.

The country's current coastal management policy is fragmented and authorities need to adopt a national policy to coordinate new coastal building codes, and relocation and evacuation plans, said "Managing Our Coastal Zone in a Changing Climate" report.

Australia must examine the legal liability and insurance cover associated with property loss and damage due to climate change, improved early warning systems for extreme seas, and work to prevent the spread of tropical diseases such as dengue fever.

"The key message that emerged from the inquiry is the need for national leadership in managing Australia's coastal zone in the context of climate change," Jennie George, a government MP and committee chair, said in launching the report on Tuesday.

"This is an issue of national significance."

The report said thousands of kilometers of coast around Australia was at risk from rising sea levels and extreme weather events caused by climate change.

An estimated 711,000 homes were within 3 km (2 miles) of the coast and less than 6 meters (yards) above sea level. …

Australia needs national plan for rising seas

Relatively minor increases in ocean acidity brought about by high levels of carbon dioxide have significant detrimental effects on the growth, development, and survival of hard clams, bay scallops, and Eastern oysters, according to researchers at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. In one of the first studies looking at the effect of ocean acidification on shellfish, Stephanie Talmage, PhD candidate, and Professor Chris Gobler showed that the larval stages of these shellfish species are extremely sensitive to enhanced levels of carbon dioxide in seawater. Their work will be published in the November issue of the journal Limnology and Oceanography and is now online at http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_54/issue_6/index.html.

“In recent decades, we have seen our oceans threatened by overfishing, harmful algal blooms, and warming. Our findings suggest ocean acidification poses an equally serious risk to our ocean resources,” said Gobler.

During the past century the oceans absorbed nearly half of atmospheric carbon dioxide derived from human activities such as burning fossil fuels. As the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide it becomes more acidic and has a lower concentration of carbonate, which shell-making organisms use to produce their calcium carbonate structures, such as the shells of shellfish.

In lab experiments, Talmage and Gobler examined the growth and survivorship of larvae from three species of commercially and ecologically valuable shellfish. They raised the larvae in containers bubbled with different levels of carbon dioxide in the range of concentrations that are projected to occur in the oceans during the 21st century and beyond.

Under carbon dioxide concentrations estimated to occur later this century, clam and scallop larvae showed a more than 50% decline in survival. These larvae were also smaller and took longer to develop into the juvenile stage. Oysters also grew more slowly at this level of carbon dioxide, but their survival was only diminished at carbon dioxide levels expected next century. …

Ocean acidification may contribute to global shellfish decline via Ocean Acidification

Jakobshavn Glacier in western Greenland has been rapidly losing ice from its terminus for more than a decade due to warm water currents reaching up the fjord. The arrow indicates direction of discharge, while the glacier retreats back towards the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Another study focused on western Greenland’s Jakobshavn Isbrae responsible for draining 7 per cent of the ice sheet’s area, which switched from slow thickening to rapid thinning in 1997 and suddenly doubled its velocity. Here, the change in glacier dynamics is also attributed to destabilization of the glacier terminus, but the researchers are able to attribute that to warmer ocean water delivered to the fjord. However, these researchers were also able to detect short-term and less significant fluctuations in Jakobshavn Isbrae’s behaviour that could be attributed to meltwater drainage events (Holland et al. 2008).

They present hydrographic data documenting a sudden increase in subsurface ocean temperature along the entire west coast of Greenland in the 1990s that reached Jakobshavn Isbrae’s fjord in 1997. The researchers trace the warm flow back to the east of Greenland where the subpolar gyre that rotates counter clockwise south of Iceland scoops warmer water from an extension of the Gulf Stream and directs it back west and south around the tip of southern Greenland. In the early 1990s the North Atlantic Oscillation atmospheric pattern switched phase and drove the subpolar gyre closer to the Greenland shore, accelerating the flow of the warm water around the tip and up the western shore, where it eventually reached the Jakobshavn Isbrae fjord (Holland et al. 2008). The delivery of warm water to the base of Jakobshavn Isbrae’s fjord persisted through 2007 and the retreat continued at least through 2008, with shorter term fluctuations affected by surface melt permeating through the ice mass (Holland et al. 2008, Box et al. 2009). Whether this pulse of warm water from the subpolar gyre also affected Helheim and other marine outlet glaciers in Greenland will have to be investigated.

UNEP Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 [pdf]

A global campaign will make young people aware of the danger the illicit drug trade represents to hundreds of species in Colombia's rainforests

By Jamie Doward, The Observer, Sunday 25 October 2009

Until recently, the Gorgeted Puffleg was rather obscure – in fact, until four years ago it did not officially exist.

But although the tiny hummingbird was discovered only in 2005, in a small and remote region of rainforest in south-western Colombia, it is about to take centre stage in the war on drugs as governments around the globe alert the younger generation to the dangers of cocaine.

Experts fear the bird is one of several hundred species that will become extinct within decades if Colombia's rainforests continue to be razed for the purposes of coca cultivation. Other animals under threat – and that appear in information packs distributed to European schoolchildren – include the harpy eagle, titi monkey, golden poison frog, tapir, spectacled bear and gorgona blue lizard.

Colombia, one of the largest environmental hubs in the planet, with a territory of more than 1 million square kilometres, has been warning about the dangers of "ecocide" caused by the country's drug cartels for several years. As one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, it is home to 50,000 plant species and 18% of the world's bird species. But now it is attempting to make children aware that the threats facing its rainforests are a global issue that will have an impact on climatic stability.

The move represents a tacit admission that the past strategy of highlighting the cocaine trade's links to violence and kidnappings has struggled to leave much of an impression on the drug's users. "The environment is an issue that is important to everyone," said the Colombian minister for the environment, Carlos Costa Posada. "We are tired of using images of violence. It is all people think about when they think about Colombia – people don't want to come here for tourism. We are not saying this issue [cocaine's role in the destruction of the rainforests] is the most important issue, but it is something people can identify with."

Cultivation of illicit crops has led to destruction of 2.2 million hectares of tropical forest in Colombia, an area slightly larger than Wales. For every hectare of coca grown, three of forest are cut down. This means that for each gram of cocaine used, four square metres of rainforest are cleared.

The gorgeted puffleg, only 90 millimetres long, is particularly vulnerable. Its habitat consists of only 1,200 hectares of rainforest, 100 of which are disappearing every year because of coca cultivation. "We have around 400 species that are facing extinction," Costa Posada said. "Violence is a local issue, but biodiversity is a world issue – deforestation is a major contributor to climate change." …

Colombia's endangered species at the mercy of jungle drug cartels via Endangered Species

By Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT (Reuters) - In a crowded ballroom next to a bankrupt casino, what remains of the Detroit property market was being picked over by speculators and mostly discarded.

After five hours of calling out a drumbeat of "no bid" for properties listed in an auction book as thick as a city phone directory, the energy of the county auctioneer began to flag.

"OK," he said. "We only have 300 more pages to go."

There was tired laughter from investors ready to roll the dice on a city that has become a symbol of the collapse of the U.S. auto industry, pressures on the industrial middle-class and intractable problems for the urban poor.

On the auction block in Detroit: almost 9,000 homes and lots in various states of abandonment and decay from the tidy owner-occupied to the burned-out shell claimed by squatters.

Taken together, the properties seized by tax collectors for arrears and put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York's Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area almost the size of Boston, according to a Detroit Free Press estimate. …

Despite a minimum bid of $500, less than a fifth of the Detroit land was sold after four days. …

Detroit house auction flops for urban wasteland via The Oil Drum

By Shaun McKinnon - Oct. 25, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

YUMA - Along its final miles, the Colorado River snakes through a dizzying series of dams, canals, siphons and ditches, diverted to hundreds of users in Arizona and California until barely a trickle remains.

What flows through this watery Grand Central Station could fill the needs of all the homes and offices in Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas and much of Southern California.

But it doesn't.

The water, more than a billion gallons a day, irrigates vast fields of wheat, alfalfa, cotton, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, melons and a produce aisle of other fruits and vegetables, feeding an industry tilled from the desert more than a century ago.

In Arizona, the crops yield about 1 percent of the state's annual economic output, yet the fields soak up 70 percent of the water supply. That outsize allotment has painted a target on the farms as urban water managers search for the next bucket of water to meet future demands.

Because so much of what farmers use flows from renewable surface supplies, such as the Colorado River, agricultural water seems like a good pool to tap. Using that water would reduce the pressure on the state's vanishing groundwater resources and reduce the need to pay for expensive alternatives, such as desalinated seawater. …

Water-demanding farms looked at as resources vanish via The Oil Drum