Desdemona Despair

LEETOWN, W. Va. — A distinct decline in horseshoe crab numbers has occurred that parallels climate change associated with the end of the last Ice Age, according to a study that used genomics to assess historical trends in population sizes.

The new research also indicates that horseshoe crabs numbers may continue to decline in the future because of predicted climate change, said Tim King, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and a lead author on the new study published in Molecular Ecology.

While the current decline in horseshoe crabs is attributed in great part to overharvest for fishing bait and for the pharmaceutical industry, the new research indicates that climate change also appears to have historically played a role in altering the numbers of successfully reproducing horseshoe crabs. More importantly, said King, predicted future climate change, with its accompanying sea-level rise and water temperature fluctuations, may well limit horseshoe crab distribution and interbreeding, resulting in distributional changes and localized and regional population declines, such as happened after the last Ice Age.

"Using genetic variation, we determined the trends between past and present population sizes of horseshoe crabs and found that a clear decline in the number of horseshoe crabs has occurred that parallels climate change associated with the end of the last Ice Age," said King. …

Climate change implicated in decline of horseshoe crabs

New Rochelle, NY, August 30, 2010—Anger, depression, and helplessness are the main psychological responses being seen in response to the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and they are likely to have long-lasting effects, according to an interview in Ecopsychology, a peer-reviewed, online journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The interview is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/eco

The anger being expressed in response to the recent BP oil rig explosion and resulting spill of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is "a way of masking the really unfathomable and profound despair that is just under the surface as we watch this catastrophe unfold," says Deborah Du Nann Winter, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA). In an interview published in Ecopsychology and conducted by Editorial Board member Susan Koger, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Willamette University in Salem, OR, Winter predicts a great deal of chronic depression, withdrawal, and lack of functioning among not only people directly affected by the events in the Gulf, but also people nationwide and globally who identify or empathize with their circumstances.

Describing the oil spill as "the absolutely worst 'environmental' disaster" in the history of the United States, Winter discusses her own personal attempts to deal with the negative emotions she is experiencing by focusing at times on hopeful, positive feelings related to the "tremendous self-sacrifice and generosity of spirit" among those affected by the spill and those helping to contain it and clean up the oil. …

Devastating psychological effects of BP Gulf disaster are explored in Ecopsychology journal

BBC
30 August 2010 Last updated at 02:48 ET

The Firth of Clyde in Scotland was once known for its stocks of cod, halibut and herring, but scientists have warned that it faces ecological meltdown.

The decline is echoed in many other seas around the UK that have suffered as a result of over-fishing.

Richard Bilton has been investigating what is happening to the wildlife in our waters.

Fears for wildlife in UK waters

NEW YORK (August 30, 2010) – With a simple click of the camera, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Zoological Society of London have developed a new way to accurately monitor long-term trends in rare and vanishing species over large landscapes.

Called the "Wildlife Picture Index," (WPI) the methodology collects images from remote "camera traps," which automatically photograph anything that lopes, waddles, or slinks past. These virtual photo albums – sometimes containing thousands of photos of dozens of species – are then run through a statistical analysis to produce metrics for diversity and distribution of a broad range of wildlife. …

"The Wildlife Picture Index is an effective tool in monitoring trends in wildlife diversity that previously could only be roughly estimated," said the study's lead author, Tim O'Brien of the Wildlife Conservation Society. "This new methodology will help conservationists determine where to focus their efforts to help stem the tide of biodiversity loss over broad landscapes."

The authors used the WPI to track changes in wildlife diversity over a 10-year period in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in southwest Sumatra, Indonesia. The 1,377 square-mile park contains the last remaining tracts of protected lowland forest in Sumatra – important habitat for large mammals including Sumatran tigers, rhinoceros, and Asian elephants. It is also threatened by poaching, illegal logging, and agriculture.

After running the statistical analysis of some 5,450 images of 25 mammals and one terrestrial bird species photographed throughout the park, the Wildlife Picture Index showed a net decline of 36 percent of the park's biodiversity. In addition, the analysis revealed that wildlife loss outpaced the rate of deforestation; and that large, commercially valuable wildlife such as tigers, rhinos, and elephants declined faster than small primates and deer, which are only hunted only as crop raiders or for subsistence.  …

Photo album tells story of wildlife decline

By MASAMI ITO, staff writer
Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010

Japan is known as the biggest consumer of tuna. Be it raw for sushi or sashimi or fried, broiled or canned, tuna is an important element of the food culture.

But concerns are growing because tuna is disappearing, and this is putting Japan in a difficult diplomatic position.

Conservationists warn in particular that the bluefin, known as "hon-maguro" or "kuro-maguro," faces extinction because of overfishing. ...

In 2008, the nation consumed 411,000 tons, or 24 percent of the world's total catch, according to data compiled by the Fisheries Agency.

Japan also accounted for some 70 to 80 percent of all bluefin tuna traded internationally.

Of Japan's annual consumption, bigeye accounted for the most, at 159,000 tons, followed by 140,000 tons of yellowfin and 58,000 tons of albacore. …

According to an estimate by Monaco, which advocates a ban on the international bluefin trade, Atlantic bluefin stocks plunged by about 75 percent from 1957 to 2007.

Experts blamed the disappearance on rampant fishing.

"Due to the excessive fishing of brood stock, the number of fish that can spawn has plummeted, making it difficult to reproduce resources," said Aiko Yamauchi, a fisheries official at the World Wide Fund for Nature Japan.

"There is a large possibility that in general, Atlantic bluefin tuna may become (impossible to fish)." …

There are five Tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs). They are tasked with managing fish stocks in the oceans and conserving them.

Of the five, the group managing Atlantic bluefin is called the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

But environmentalists say ICCAT is falling far short of proper management of tuna stocks.

"While the Atlantic bluefin are placed under the management of an international organization, there was no scientific-based management measures taken. Many fishing boats do not follow the rules, especially the one prohibiting use of (seine nets). It is difficult to grasp the actual situation of bluefin trade," Yamauchi said. …

Does Japan's affair with tuna mean loving it to extinction?

United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
31 Aug 2010

ISLAMABAD -- It only took a few minutes on board a helicopter scudding across the wasteland that is the Pakistan flood zone for WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran to understand the full extent of the crisis currently facing the country.

Hectare after hectare of prime farmland lay inundated, marooned villages left deserted, stretching far into the distance.

"There is a triple threat unfolding as this crisis widens and deepens," said Sheeran. "People have lost seeds, crops and their incomes leaving them vulnerable to hunger, homelessness and desperation – the situation is extremely critical. We urgently need continued and strengthened commitment to the people of Pakistan in this time of crisis."

In Kot Addu, a small town in the Muzzafargarh disctrict of Punjab, Sheeran visited a girls' school that had been turned into an impromptu camp for flood victims. Joined by UNICEF Executive Director, Anthony Lake, the two agency heads saw for themselves the scale of the current needs. Living conditions were basic in the extreme, but at the very least the families there had received - like nearly three million other flood victims - one-month food rations from WFP.

Sheeran sat for several minutes with a group of women who had lost everything. They recounted how they ran when the floodwaters arrived, taking only their children and a few belongings. A few said they turned and wept as they saw their homes and all they owned engulfed by water. One woman nursed a clearly malnourished 6-month-old daughter, whose eyesight was deteriorating – her son had been washed away by the raging waters. …

"Triple Threat" Unfolding In Pakistan, Says WFP Chief

By Will Lorimer
1 September 2010

Rising sea levels are forcing the migration of indigenous peoples and threatening the freshwater ecosystem of catfish and piranha found in the Orinoco Delta near the coast of Venezuela

The Warao are a river people. Found in the Orinoco Delta, they live between the expansive ranches ringing the upper delta and the mangrove swamps of the coast. But sea level change is becoming an ever-pressing concern, threatening their way of life and unique knowledge they hold.

The 25,000 Warao who populate the delta have lived on the Orinoco for hundreds of years. Everything in their lives comes from the jungle, shaped with techniques passed down through generations. It is knowledge derived from a particular time, a particular relationship to the land and a particular set of resources.

The plants and animals on which the Warao depend - the Moriche palm, the Orinoco catfish, the piranha - are freshwater species. But 80km from the coast there is still a tidal range of one metre. Now the balance of the delta’s salinity is shifting.

'This last dry season has been very hard,' said Maria Cabrella who lives in the delta. 'The water was transparent, because of the salt coming in from the sea. And we are now seeing mangroves in places where we have never seen them before.'

For the Warao, encroachment of salt water means a loss of drinking water. They have to search by boat to find fresh water.

If this trend continues the Warao will be forced to move, away from the water’s edge and away from the environment that has defined their culture.

Cabrella said: 'The salt water coming means the end of Warao culture.' …

Atlantic Rising: sea level rise threatens the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela via The Oil Drum

By Chris Mooney
31 August 2010

LAST September, David Barber was on board the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Amundsen (pictured), heading into the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. He was part of a team investigating ice conditions in autumn, the time when Arctic sea ice shrinks to its smallest extent before starting to grow again as winter sets in.

Barber, an environmental scientist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, went to sleep one night at midnight, just before the ship was due to reach a region of very thick sea ice. The Amundsen is only capable of breaking solid ice about a metre thick, so according to the ice forecasts for ships, the region should have been impassable.

Yet when Barber woke up early the next morning, the ship was still cruising along almost as fast as usual. Either someone had made a mistake and the ship was headed for catastrophe, or there was something very wrong with the ice, he thought, as he rushed to the bridge in his pyjamas.

On the surface, the situation in the Arctic looks dramatic enough. In September 2007, the total extent of sea with surface ice shrank further than ever recorded before - to nearly 40 per cent below the long-term average. This low has yet to be surpassed. But the extent of sea ice is not all that matters, as Barber found. Look deeper and there are even more dramatic changes. This is something everyone should be concerned about because the transformation of the Arctic will affect us all. …

Arctic ice: Less than meets the eye

By Ben Raines, Press-Register
Tuesday, August 31, 2010, 5:00 AM

Lumpy, degraded oil collected in the Mississippi Sound has tested positive for several of the main ingredients in the Corexit dispersant used in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to scientists working for a New Orleans-based lawyer.

Officials with the federal government and BP PLC have maintained throughout the oil spill that no dispersant products have been used near shorelines in Alabama or Mississippi.  …

Marco Kaltofen, part of the group of scientists who found the oil in Mississippi Sound, said it was impossible to determine when the dispersant had been applied to the oil. Results from the tests, which were conducted in a Colorado laboratory, indicated the oil was from the Deepwater Horizon well, he said.

“I consider this to be very interesting scientifically, as few samples detect dispersant, much less three of their major ingredients in the same sample,” said Kaltofen. …

Jerry Moran, a New Orleans-based photographer who accompanied the group to document the sampling effort, said that the material looked unlike anything he’d seen during months of photographing the spill.

“We saw birds diving over a patch of oil. I’d never seen it that thick before. It looked like cauliflower. I had never seen it that texture before,” Moran said. “There was a rainbow sheen around us, a really thick, colorful sheen.” …

Degraded oil in Mississippi Sound tests positive for dispersants, says lawyer

By SAMMY FRETWELL
Sunday, Aug. 22, 2010

A push by federal biologists to protect a rare fish from extinction in South Carolina could cost the Santee Cooper power company more than $100 million and delay approval of a license the company needs to operate dams at lakes Marion and Moultrie.

A federal study released last month said Santee Cooper must do more to protect the shortnose sturgeon if the federally endangered species is to survive in South Carolina, which has one of the few remaining reproducing populations in the Southeast, centered near lakes Marion and Moultrie.

It’s believed to be the first time federal officials have warned a Southeastern utility that its dam operations could contribute to the extinction of the shortnose sturgeon in the region.

Santee Cooper is seeking a new federal permit to continue operating its dams on the lakes, built in the 1940s to generate hydropower. As a condition of the new permit, the National Marine Fisheries Service wants the state-owned utility to increase the flow of water from the dams into rivers and to install fish passage devices to help sturgeon get over the dams.

Fewer than 1,000 shortnose sturgeon are estimated to live in central South Carolina’s main river basins, primarily because dams have kept them from migrating from salty coastal estuaries to inland freshwater shoals, where they spawn.

“The $100 million might be a starting point; it’s going to be expensive,’’ Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore said of the company’s estimated cost. “We haven’t taken it so far as to determine the impact on (customers’) rates. But you are talking about an amount of money that would be difficult to absorb.’’

Although Santee Cooper has proposed some changes in how it proposes to protect the shortnose sturgeon, those are not adequate, the fisheries service says.

“We have determined the proposed action (to continue operating Santee Cooper dams) is likely to appreciably reduce the likelihood of both the survival and recovery of the shortnose sturgeon in the wild,’’ according to a July 13 letter from the fisheries service to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Rarely does the service issue a report with such strong language. …

Saving rare fish could cost utility $100 million

www.mongabay.com
August 30, 2010

The decision last week by the Brazilian government to move forward on the $17 billion Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu river will set in motion a plan to build more than 100 dams across the Amazon basin, potentially turning tributaries of the world's largest river into 'an endless series of stagnant reservoirs', says a new short film released by Amazon Watch and International Rivers.

The film, narrated by Sigourney Weaver, uses a Google Earth 3-D tour to illustrate the potential impact of the dam. Belo Monte's reservoirs will flood 668 square kilometers, including parts of the city of Altamira, displacing more than 20,000 people. It will reduce the flow of the mighty Xingu to a trickle during parts of the year, reducing water supplies for downstream indigenous populations, blocking fish migration thereby disrupting local fisheries, and likely condemning several aquatic species to extinction. Flooding of forest areas will generate massive amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent that CO2, and increase the risk of malaria in surrounding areas. Furthermore, if earlier dam projects in the Amazon are any model, Belo Monte will contribute to large-scale deforestation by local people who can no longer earn income from fishing or traditional livelihoods. Electricity grids, transmission lines, and access roads will put further pressure on the rainforest.

The Belo Monte Dam would be "a disaster for the Xingu River, for the rainforest, and certainly for all the indigenous people and families living along the river," said Weaver, an actress who starred in last year's blockbuster Avatar. "Their way of life will disappear."

Belo Monte has faced fierce opposition from indigenous people, activists, and even celebrities like Weaver and James Cameron, the director of Avatar, Titanic, and the Terminator series of movies. But the project is backed by powerful interests, including the mining sector: Belo Monte is being built to supply electricity for new mines in the Amazon. The video includes a "flyover" via Google Earth showing the nearby Carajas mine, one of the largest iron ore mines on the planet. …

Google Earth animation shows Brazilian plans to turn Amazon into 'series of stagnant reservoirs'

Many locations in the United States are already undergoing water stress. The Great Lakes states are establishing an interstate compact to protect against reductions in lake levels and potential water exports. Georgia, Alabama, and Florida are in a dispute over water for drinking, recreation, farming, environmental purposes, and hydropower in the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River system.

The State Water Project in California is facing a variety of problems in the Sacramento Delta, including endangered species, saltwater intrusion, and potential loss of islands due to flood- or earthquake-caused levee failures. A dispute over endangered fish in the Rio Grande has been ongoing for many years. The Klamath River in Oregon and California has been the location of a multi-year disagreement over native fish, hydropower, and farming. The Colorado River has been the site of numerous interstate quarrels over the last century. Large, unquantified Native American water rights challenge existing uses in the West (see Southwest region). By changing the existing patterns of precipitation and runoff, climate change will add another stress to existing problems.

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States [pdf]

By THANASSIS CAMBANIS
August 24, 2010

6 OCTOBER CITY, Egypt — The highway west out of Cairo used to promise relief from the city’s chaos. Past the great pyramids of Giza and a final spasm of traffic, the open desert beckoned, 100 barren miles to the northwest to reach the Mediterranean.

That, at least, was the case until recently. Now, the microbus drivers and commuters driving from Cairo cross 20 miles of nothingness to encounter a new city suddenly springing from the sand. A distressingly familiar jam of cars and a cluster of soaring high-rises herald the metropolis that is designed to relieve pressure on the historic center of Cairo, which city planners have deemed overtaxed beyond repair.

Welcome to the new Cairo, not entirely different from the old one.

Cairo has become so crowded, congested and polluted that the Egyptian government has undertaken a construction project that might have given the Pharaohs pause: building two megacities outside Cairo from scratch. By 2020, planners expect the new satellite cities to house at least a quarter of Cairo’s 20 million residents and many of the government agencies that now have headquarters in the city.

Only a country with a seemingly endless supply of open desert land — and an authoritarian government free to ignore public opinion — could contemplate such a gargantuan undertaking. The government already has moved a few thousand of the city’s poorest residents against their will from illegal slums in central Cairo to housing projects on the periphery.

Few Egyptians seriously expect the government to demolish the makeshift neighborhoods that comprise as much as half the capital, although many critics accuse the government of transferring Cairo’s historical inequalities to the new cities.

But on one point almost everyone seems to agree: it is too late to change course.

Enormous subdivisions have sprung up in the dunes outside of Cairo, on an almost incomprehensible scale. Already a million people have moved to 6 October City, due west of Cairo, named for the date of the 1973 war between Egypt and Israel still hailed as a seminal Arab victory. A similar number have moved east of the city, to a settlement unimaginatively dubbed “New Cairo.” …

To Catch Cairo Overflow, 2 Megacities Rise in Sand

By Jeffrey Jones; editing by Rob Wilson and Janet Guttsman
Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:31pm EDT

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canada's vast oil sands operations are polluting the Athabasca River system, researchers said on Monday, in a report that is bound to fuel the environmental battle over developing the resource.

Contradicting Alberta government assertions that toxins in the watershed occur naturally, the researchers said mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium are among 13 toxins released into the Athabasca, which flows north through the oil sands operations.

The findings of the study, coauthored by University of Alberta biological scientists Erin Kelly and David Schindler, should be a signal for the Alberta provincial government to consider limits on oil sands development, Schindler said.

"I really think it's time to cut down the expansion until some of those problems and how to reduce them are solved," he said in an interview.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers the substances to be priority pollutants, or ones that are toxic in low concentrations.

The environmental impact of developing the oil sands, the biggest reserves of crude outside the Middle East, has been a topic of snowballing controversy around the world. The Alberta government has devoted millions of dollars to defend the multibillion-dollar industry.

The latest research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Schindler said the incidence of pollutants in fish is particularly worrisome, as local populations depend on the region's fishery for food.

"I don't think the concentrations alone are dangerous. I worry about some of them, like mercury, because there, parts per trillion translate into parts per million in fish," he said. …

Oil sands polluting Canadian river system: study

Antarctic cold snap kills millions of aquatic animals in the Amazon.

By Anna Petherick
27 August 2010

With high Andean peaks and a humid tropical forest, Bolivia is a country of ecological extremes. But during the Southern Hemisphere's recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of the country's tropical region hit freshwater species hard, killing an estimated 6 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins.

Scientists who have visited the affected rivers say the event is the biggest ecological disaster Bolivia has known, and, as an example of a sudden climatic change wreaking havoc on wildlife, it is unprecedented in recorded history.

"There's just a huge number of dead fish," says Michel Jégu, a researcher from the Institute for Developmental Research in Marseilles, France, who is currently working at the Noel Kempff Mercado Natural History Museum in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. "In the rivers near Santa Cruz there's about 1,000 dead fish for every 100 metres of river."

With such extreme climatic events potentially becoming more common due to climate change, scientists are hurrying to coordinate research into the impact, and how quickly the ecosystem is likely to recover.

The extraordinary quantity of decomposing fish flesh has polluted the waters of the Grande, Pirai and Ichilo rivers to the extent that local authorities have had to provide alternative sources of drinking water for towns along the rivers' banks. Many fishermen have lost their main source of income, having been banned from removing any more fish from populations that will probably struggle to recover.

The blame lies, at least indirectly, with a mass of Antarctic air that settled over the Southern Cone of South America for most of July. The prolonged cold snap has also been linked to the deaths of at least 550 penguins along the coasts of Brazil and thousands of cattle in Paraguay and Brazil, as well as hundreds of people in the region.

Water temperatures in Bolivian rivers that normally register about 15 ˚C during the day fell to as low as 4 ˚C.

Hugo Mamani, head of forecasting at Senamhi, Bolivia's national weather centre, confirms that the air temperature in the city of Santa Cruz fell to 4 ˚C this July, a low beaten only by a record of 2.5 ˚C in 1955. …

Cold empties Bolivian rivers of fish

By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
30 August 2010

WASHINGTON — Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.

More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That's up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007.

"Virtually every Medicaid director in the country would say that their current enrollment is the highest on record," says Vernon Smith of Health Management Associates, which surveys states for Kaiser Family Foundation.

The program has grown even before the new health care law adds about 16 million people, beginning in 2014. That has strained doctors. "Private physicians are already indicating that they're at their limit," says Dan Hawkins of the National Association of Community Health Centers.

More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The program has grown steadily for three years.

Caseloads have risen as more people become eligible. The economic stimulus law signed by President Obama last year also boosted benefits.

"This program has proven to be incredibly responsive and effective," says Ellin Vollinger of the Food Research and Action Center.

Close to 10 million receive unemployment insurance, nearly four times the number from 2007. Benefits have been extended by Congress eight times beyond the basic 26-week program, enabling the long-term unemployed to get up to 99 weeks of benefits. Caseloads peaked at nearly 12 million in January — "the highest numbers on record," says Christine Riordan of the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for low-wage workers.

More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18% increase during the recession. The program has grown slower than others, causing Brookings Institution expert Ron Haskins to question its effectiveness in the recession. …

Record number in government anti-poverty programs

By Ray Ring
From the August 20, 2010 issue of High Country News

Lander, Wyoming -- Ask Tom Bell, the man who founded High Country News 40 years ago, what keeps him going these days, and he rattles off a list of pills for dizziness, blood pressure and cholesterol, plus a diuretic and an antidepressant. “Don’t ever get old,” he says wryly. "It's terrible, awful."

He's made it to 86, mostly thanks to the fire in his belly. An eye patch conceals a wound from a World War II bombing mission, where German flak blew out his right eyeball. The dizzy spells -- caused by a chronic inner-ear problem -- force him to walk extra carefully, and he wears two hearing aids.

Yet Bell is pleased to show me some of the places that shaped his Western brand of environmentalism. He puts on a tan cowboy hat and a leather jacket against the chill of the late-spring snowy day. We climb into his car, a 2005 Toyota Prius that he bought used last year. He fumbles a bit with the car's computer touch-screen and the controls for the heater and windshield-washer. He gets 35 miles per gallon in town and 44 on the open road, but adds, "I'm still trying to learn all the gadgets on the darn thing."

He drives out of town through the roll of sagebrush and pastures where he has deep roots. "All these hills used to be full of grouse," he says, pointing to the draw where he flushed a great explosion of the birds more than 75 years ago -- still a vivid memory. He recalls other childhood encounters with coyotes, foxes, skunks, deer and flocks of geese feeding in the fields. …

This story is supposed to be inspirational; after all, we're celebrating HCN's 40th anniversary this year. But Tom Bell won't sugarcoat things. Out of the blue, he volunteers his view of what environmentalists have accomplished -- and what the future holds for humanity. "In my mind," he says, "we've cut our own throat." That's the message he wants to pass on. … 

He also takes comfort in his faith. He became a born-again Christian in 1974, when he walked to the front of a Lander church congregation and announced, "I'm turning my life over to Jesus." His walls are decorated with a stained-glass cross and religious sayings, such as: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change ..." Even though God has "gotten us out of many scrapes," Bell says, "God won't save us now. I think God is going to let the string run out on us. He's finally lost his patience."

A Hell of an Anniversary

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Saturday, 28 August 2010

Britain's population of urban seagulls, the source of increasing complaints about dirt, health threats, noise and attacks on people, is now rising so fast that it may reach one million birds by 2020 if concerted action is not taken to manage the problem.

The national population is likely to be "substantially over 100,000 pairs" or 200,000 individuals, according to the leading expert on urban gulls, Peter Rock, an adviser to a string of councils in the South-west which are blighted by the urban gull invasion, among them Bristol, Bath and Gloucester.

The Government, however, has long claimed that there are only about 30,000 pairs – and has just turned down funding for the first serious research project on the ecology of urban gulls, which would seek to understand why their numbers seem to be exploding.

But pressure is mounting on the Government to recognise that what in the past has been seen as little more than a joke has become a serious environmental concern.

The phenomenon of the big urban gull colony is fairly recent: populations in towns and cities began to grow noticeably only in the early 1990s, mostly of herring gulls and their close relatives, lesser black-backed gulls.

But what is not understood is why urban gulls are flourishing, while herring gulls in the wild, in colonies in the countryside, and on the coastline, are in steep decline, and have been placed on the "Red List" of threatened species. …

Graham Madge, a spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said that while urban gull populations were growing, the coastline colonies were in decline: "It is beyond doubt that the numbers of roof-nesting gulls have increased, but we believe that this rise does not offset the dramatic losses we have seen from the overall UK population, which has halved since the 1970s." …

Far from the sea, urban seagulls terrorise skies

The number of homes in the $1-million-and-up slice of the market that have become bank owned has tripled during the last three years in Los Angeles County, and the trend has shown little sign of slowing.

By Lauren Beale, Los Angeles Times
August 29, 2010

Foreclosure is blind.

After the mortgage meltdown and the plunge in home prices, record numbers of ordinary houses tumbled into foreclosure across Southern California as borrowers became unable or unwilling to pay their mortgages. But the rich aren't so different after all: Million-dollar-plus homes have reverted to lender ownership in increasing numbers — previous sales prices, prime locations and even celebrity pedigrees have provided no immunity.

Earlier this year, Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage's English Tudor joined the foreclosure fraternity. The nearly 12,000-square-foot house, once marketed at $35 million, now is listed for $11.8 million; the seller, Citibank.

The Bel-Air mansion wasn't even the most expensive lender-owned property — known in the industry as REO, or real estate owned — in Los Angeles County, according to a records search of houses on the Multiple Listing Service in the county's most posh ZIP Codes.

Higher priced still was the alleged Wells Fargo party house, which was listed nearly a year ago at $21.5 million and sold this month for $14.95 million. The beachfront house in gated Malibu Colony became the center of controversy when neighbors complained that it was being used by a Wells Fargo & Co. executive for social events; the executive was subsequently fired.

Although the pace of foreclosures has slowed in the general housing market in Southern California and much of the nation, it's still rising for upper-tier homes.

The number of homes in the $1-million-and-up slice of the market that have become bank owned has tripled in the second quarter compared with the same period three years earlier in Los Angeles County, which has the majority of Southern California's high-priced REO houses. And the trend has shown little sign of slowing, according to data from ForeclosureRadar.

By comparison, the number of homes reverting to banks in all price ranges combined peaked in the third quarter of 2008.

…

Foreclosures of million-dollar-plus homes on the rise

A dramatic rise in the surface temperature of Indonesian waters has resulted in a large-scale bleaching event that has devastated local coral populations. Following a report of a bleaching incident in May, WCS-Indonesia dispatched a “Rapid Response Unit” of marine biologists to investigate. Their initial survey revealed that over 60 percent of corals have bleached. The incident took place in the province of Aceh, on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra.

Coral “bleaching,” or whitening, occurs when algae living within coral tissues are expelled. The condition results from stress triggered by environmental factors such as sea surface temperature fluctuations. Some bleached corals may recover over time, while others die.

Subsequent monitoring conducted by marine ecologists from WCS, James Cook University in Australia, and Syiah Kuala University in Indonesia were completed in early August. The rate and extent of the coral mortality exceeds that of most other bleachings on record. The scientists found that 80 percent of some species have died since the initial assessment and more colonies are expected to die within the next few months.

Sea surface temperatures in the Andaman Sea—an area that includes the coasts of Myanmar, Thailand, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and northwestern Indonesia—have been on the rise. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Hotspots website, temperatures in the region peaked in late May, when the temperature reached 34 degrees Celsius. This represents a dramatic 4-degree rise over the long-term averages for the area.

“It’s a disappointing development, particularly in light of the fact that these same corals proved resilient to other disruptions to this ecosystem, including the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004,” said WCS-Indonesia Marine Program Director Dr. Stuart Campbell. …

Massive Coral Bleaching In Indonesia

The ~250 square km Petermann floating ice “island” has drifted into Nares St. The drift out of Petermann fjord has been slow, as tides wash in and out and the berg was jammed in the fjord 20-25 August. Prevailing winds blowing toward the south will push the berg in that direction.

Petermann Ice Island drifts into Nares St.

By Margaret Munro, Postmedia News
August 28, 2010

Canada is home to plenty of ice, but the ancient, undulating ice shelves on the north coast of Ellesmere Island are something special.

For starters, the shelves are "beautiful landscapes," says earth scientist John England, at the University of Alberta, who considers the "majestic" shelves in Canada's Arctic a national treasure.

They are also unique in the Northern Hemisphere and home to the oldest sea ice in the northern half of the planet, says England, noting the shelves are 3,000 to 5,500 years old.

And they are disintegrating. A century ago, they covered almost 10,000 square kilometres, an area one and half times the size of Prince Edward Island.

Today the shelves are a tenth that size and could soon be erased completely from Canadian maps and relegated to a footnote in the history books.

"They're really unique, intriguing aspects of our Canadian landscape," says England. "And they are disappearing." …

After thousands of years, Canada's 'majestic' ice shelves disintegrating

BBC
29 August 2010

Floodwater has submerged a town in the southern province of Sindh, and threatens another being used as a key staging post for flood relief workers.

Sujawal, a town of some 250,000 people, has been submerged while people battle to save the nearby city of Thatta, reports say.

Authorities are still trying to rebuild levees around Thatta against the raging Indus river.

But water is still advancing on the all-but-abandoned city, reports say.

"We fled so hastily that we could not even pick up our belongings," Amena Bibi, a mother of four, told the BBC.

"We are sitting in this graveyard under the blazing sun, looking for shade here and there. We have nothing to eat. The floodwater swept away our cows and buffalo." …

The massive floods have left some eight million people in need of emergency relief.

The lack of proper sanitation and cramped living conditions mean disease could spread quickly, says the BBC's Jill McGivering in Islamabad.

Four weeks since the flooding began, the scale of this humanitarian crisis is still growing. And on the ground, the amount of aid available is a long way from meeting the need, our correspondent says. …

Pakistan town submerged amid fight to rebuild levees

By Coburn Dukehart

“Telling Their Stories: The Lingering Legacy of the Hurricane Katrina Photographs” is the title of a new exhibit at the Ogden Museum in New Orleans. The exhibit is an emotional and moving retrospective of the powerful images made in the aftermath of Katrina.

The Legacy Of Hurricane Katrina

This graph shows trends in yearly dates of spring snowmelt onset in rivers throughout US West, based on U.S. Geological Survey streamgages. Reddish-brown circles indicate significant trends toward onsets more than 20 days earlier. Lighter circles indicate less advance of the onset. Blue circles indicate later onset. The changes depend on a number of factors in addition to temperature, including altitude and timing of snowfall.

Rising temperatures have also led to earlier melting of the snowpack in the western United States. Because snowpack runoff is critical to the water resources in the western United States, changes in the timing and amount of runoff can exacerbate problems with already limited water supplies in the region.

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States [pdf]

www.mongabay.com
August 27, 2010

The number of fires burning in Brazil has more than doubled compared with the same period last year. Surprisingly, the news has sparked a Twitter sensation, with more than 120,000 users "tweeting" messages with the hashtag "#chegadequeimadas" about the fires in a 48 hour window.

The phenomenon emerged after analysis of satellite data by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) revealed the number of "hot spots" between Jan 1 and Aug 26 reached 41,636 in 2010, up from 17,682 for the same period last year.

Alberto Setzer, coordinator of INPE's fire monitoring program, blamed drier and warmer conditions, as well as socio-political factors, like higher commodity prices and upcoming national elections. Afraid of alienating key supporters in the agricultural sector, Setzer told Terra Brasil that politicians are laying off environmental law enforcement until after elections. Uncertainty about the Brazilian environmental legislation - including a possible weakening of the country's strict Forest Code - might also be having an impact.

Fires in the Brazilian Amazon are generally set by developers opening logged forests, deforested scrub, and grassland for pasture and agriculture. Under dry conditions fires often "escape" into adjacent rainforest areas, casting a pall over much of Brazil and in some years affecting transportation and air quality. Fires usually burn until September or October when the rainy season resumes. This year fires are especially concentrated in the drier, but more populated, northeastern and southern parts of the country. …

Jump in fires in Brazil becomes Twitter sensation

By TIM SULLIVAN (AP)
28 August 2010

SHIKARPUR, Pakistan — Thousands of farmers have crowded this once-quiet Pakistani town. They live on the hospital's lawn, they camp on overpasses. Their fields are destroyed, covered by billions of gallons of brown soupy floodwater.

But ask those farmers about their water troubles and they'll tell you flooding is just the most recent chapter.

"There is not enough water. We don't have enough for the crops," said Zubair Ahmed, a tenant farmer who came here after floods swept through his village and destroyed his fields. "Except for this year," he added, without any irony. "This year it is different."

This country, with its network of rivers that flow into the mighty Indus, struggles daily with water issues — too little, too much, in the wrong place — and rain is important to more than just farmers.

Around here, rainfall has long been reflected in economics, politics, diplomacy and social stability — and even Pakistan admits it wasn't as prepared as it could have been for the flooding.

"We are the victims of both extremes," said Shams ul Mulk, the former head of Pakistan's Ministry of Water and Power. "We are the victims of scarcity and we are the victims of surpluses." …

Islamabad acknowledges it needs massive repairs to its enormous water irrigation network, which stretches across thousands of miles (kilometers). About 80 percent of the country's farmers are dependent on irrigation to nourish their crops.

Experts say only about one-third of the water that flows through the country's irrigation system actually reaches the crops.

"It's just dirt ditches most of the time," said Dr. Daanish Mustafa, a geographer at King's College, London who has studied Pakistan's water use and said simply lining the irrigation channels to decrease leakage could result in enormous water savings.

"It doesn't need billions of dollars, it doesn't need armies of laborers," said Mustafa. …

Pakistan floods just one of its water woes

By Zeina Khodr, AlJazeera English 
August 27, 2010

Nearly a month after Pakistan's most catastrophic deluges swept away towns and villages across the country, hundreds of thousands of people have been stranded by fresh floods in some regions.

In Sindh province - one of the worst affected areas - authorities have issued new evacuation orders for up to 700,000 people from numerous inundated towns.

But authorities are trying to divert the water flow in the region to the Arabian Sea to avoid further destruction.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports from Hyderabad City in Sindh, where floodwaters are expected to take months to recede.

Fresh Pakistan flood evacuations ordered

ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2010) — Fertilizer chemicals may pose a bigger hazard to the environment -- specifically to creatures that live in water -- than originally foreseen, according to new research from North Carolina State University toxicologists.

In a study published in the Aug. 27 edition of PLoS ONE, the NC State researchers show that water fleas take up nitrates and nitrites -- common chemicals used primarily in agriculture as fertilizers -- and convert those chemicals into nitric oxide. Nitric oxide can be toxic to many organisms.

The study shows that water fleas introduced to fertilizer chemicals in water were plagued with developmental and reproductive problems consistent with nitric oxide toxicity, even at what would be considered low concentrations.

This raises questions about the effect these chemicals may have on other organisms, says Dr. Gerald LeBlanc, professor of environmental and molecular toxicology at NC State and the corresponding author of the paper describing the results. He adds that additional research will be needed to explore those questions.

LeBlanc says that some of the study's results were surprising.

"There's only limited evidence to suggest that animals could convert nitrates and nitrites to nitric oxide, although plants can," he says. "Since animals and plants don't have the same cellular machinery for this conversion, it appears animals use different machinery for this conversion to occur."

LeBlanc was also dismayed at seeing toxic effects at low chemical concentrations.

"Nitrite concentrations in water vary across the United States, but commonly fall within 1 to 2 milligrams per liter of water," he says. "We saw negative effects to water fleas at approximately 0.3 milligrams per liter of water." …

Fertilizer chemicals linked to animal developmental woes

WASHINGTON, D.C.//August 26, 2010//Days before the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) kicks off a series of regional hearings across the United States on whether and how to regulate toxic coal ash waste from coal-fired power plants, a major new study identifies 39 additional coal-ash dump sites in 21 states that are contaminating drinking water or surface water with arsenic and other heavy metals. The report [pdf] by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Earthjustice and the Sierra Club documents the fact that state governments are not adequately monitoring the coal combustion waste (CCW) disposal sites and that the USEPA needs to enact strong new regulations to protect the public.

The new EIP/Earthjustice/Sierra Club report shows that, at every one of the coal ash dump sites equipped with groundwater monitoring wells, concentrations of heavy metals such as arsenic or lead exceed federal health-based standards for drinking water, with concentrations at Hatfield’s Ferry site in Pennsylvania reaching as high as 341 times the federal standard for arsenic. (See study highlights below.) The new report is available online at http://www.environmentalintegrity.org.

A February 2010 EIP/Earthjustice report documented 31 coal ash dump sites in 14 states. The 39 additional sites in today’s report along with the 67 already identified by the USEPA bring the total number of known toxic contamination sites from coal ash pollution to 137 in 34 states. Together, the independent reports and USEPA’s own findings make clear the growing number of waters known to be poisoned by poor management of the toxic ash left over after coal is burned for electricity. …

Jeff Stant, director, Coal Combustion Waste Initiative, Environmental Integrity Project, said: “The contamination of water supplies, threats to people, and damage to the environment documented in this report illustrate very real and dangerous harms that are prohibited by federal law but are going on in a largely unchecked fashion at today’s coal ash dump sites. Contamination of the environment and water supplies with toxic levels of arsenic, lead and other chemicals is a pervasive reality at America’s coal ash disposal sites because states are not preventing it. The case for a national regulation setting common sense safeguards for states to meet, such as liners, monitoring and cleanup standards, could not be more persuasive. The need for more direct EPA involvement is clear; leaving enforcement to the same states that have refused to do their jobs for the last 40 years is simply not a responsible course of action.” …

NEW STUDY: COAL ASH WATER-CONTAMINATION MUCH WORSE THAN PREVIOUSLY ESTIMATED, WITH 39 ADDITIONAL TOXIC SITES IDENTIFIED IN 21 STATES

By David A. Graham
24 August 2010

Chances are that by now you've heard about the Aug. 19, 2010, Pew poll that found that nearly one fifth of Americans (mistakenly) believe that President Obama is a Muslim. Perhaps you think that a terrifying outlier; or perhaps you're a believer, and then you are in good company. Either way, you're wrong: in fact, remarkably high numbers of Americans believe the most unusual things. Although the portion of poll respondents who believe Obama is a Muslim has risen recently, some of these oddball opinions contain more consistent numbers of believers. Here's a sampling of the nuttiest.

America the Ignorant