Desdemona Despair

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) - Switzerland
28 Sep 2010 09:30:00 GMT

Security concerns, isolation and restrictions on the movement of staff in Balochistan region further aggravate the prevailing dire needs for food, water, shelter and medicines. As floodwaters slowly recede, an estimated 600,000 displaced flood victims are preparing to return to what is left of their homes. The ICRC and the Pakistan Red Crescent Society stand ready.

Pakistan floods: Balochistan in dire need – VIDEO

Adjusted human water security threat is contrasted against incident biodiversity threat. Much of the developed world faces the challenge of reducing biodiversity threat and protecting biodiversity, while maintaining established water services. The developing world shows tandem threats to human water security and biodiversity, posing an arguably more significant challenge. Large, contiguous areas of low threat to biodiversity and human water security remain where dense population and agriculture are absent. These contrasts help to identify target regions and investment strategies to enhance water stewardship and biodiversity protection^{34, 45}. In this Figure, a breakpoint of 0.5 delineates low from high threat.

C. J. Vörösmarty, et al, Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity, Nature, Volume: 467, Pages:555–561, 30 September 2010, DOI:doi:10.1038/nature09440

Thousands of walruses gathered together in a dangerous "haul out" on the coast of Alaska earlier this month. Scientists say the walruses came ashore in such large numbers because their normal habitats, Arctic ice floes, are melting.

Walruses Swarm Beaches as Ice Melts

By Laura Zuckerman, with additional reporting by Amy Linn in Missoula, Montana; editing by Steve Gorman, Jonathan Oatis and Sandra Maler
Wed Sep 29, 2010 6:53pm EDT

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - A shortage of berries and other foods that hungry bears normally rely on to bulk up before hibernation has sent conflicts with humans spiraling to unprecedented levels in the Rocky Mountain West.

Wildlife officials in parts of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming say they are experiencing a record year for so-called problem bears, which wander from the wilds into civilization -- and into trouble.

State and federal bear biologists say they are overrun this season with reports about errant grizzly and black bears foraging in everything from garbage cans to garages, in every place from golf courses to city centers.

"I've had as many as 20 calls a day," said Tim Manley, a grizzly bear management specialist with the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department.

Scientists say bears this year are wrestling with challenging conditions. For starters, the mild winter meant bears emerging from their dens in the spring encountered fewer weakened or winter-killed wildlife like elk to prey on.

And late spring snows, which blanketed the high country and pushed bears to lower elevations earlier, delayed or even destroyed the crop of fruit-producing shrubs bears favor, such as huckleberries and hawthorns.

Conflicts between wildlife and humans almost always center on food, and when supplies of nourishment are low in the mountains, bears congregate closer to the valleys, where people live and livestock is conveniently located. …

The trend for grizzlies -- outsize, hump-shouldered bears listed as a threatened species in and around Yellowstone National Park -- is compounded this year by a decline of the whitebark pine, a high-elevation tree whose nuts make up a crucial part of the grizzly diet. …

"We're seeing an unusual amount of bear activity this year," said Bret Stansberry, wildlife biologist with the Idaho Fish and Game office in Salmon. … 

Hungry bears spell trouble for humans in Rockies

By David DeFranza
September 30, 2010

"A good photograph," Ansel Adams said, "is knowing where to stand." For photographer Michael Kenna, that has meant standing in front of icons of industrial society: The power stations that supply electricity to factories and homes, offices and shopping centers.

Though his eerie photos capture a sense of nostalgia, his subjects are completely contemporary.

Coal, which is used to produce nearly half of the United States electricity, is also a major source of greenhouse gases.

According to the Pew Center on Climate Change, burning coal is responsible for 20 percent of global GHG emissions.

Without dramatic changes, this number will only increase. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (an organization with a clear interest in the expanded use of coal) says fossil fuel accounted for 25 percent of world energy use in 2003 and is expected to reach 28 percent by 2030.

This indicates that the world would meet part of its expected 57 percent growth in energy demand with coal, which would be catastrophic for the atmosphere. …

Eerie Photos of Power Plants Show Dark, Coal-Dependent Future

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
Wed Sep 29, 2010 3:50pm EDT

OSLO (Reuters) - The world's rivers are in crisis including in North America and Europe where governments have invested trillions of dollars to clean up freshwater supplies, a study showed Wednesday.

"Threats to human water security and biological diversity are pandemic," Charles Vorosmarty of the City University of New York, co-lead author of the report in the journal Nature, told Reuters.

The international team of scientists estimated that almost 80 percent of the world's population -- or about 5 billion people -- lived in areas with high levels of threat to water security, caused mainly by river mismanagement and pollution.

"Rivers in Crisis," Nature said on its front cover.

A map showed high levels of threat, in red, for much of the United States including the Mississippi basin, along with almost all of Europe. India, including the Ganges basin, and eastern China with the Yangtze River were also shown in red.

Rising wealth often meant worsening threats, for instance from badly sited dams or rising pollution from fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals. Rich nations then covered up mismanagement by installing costly treatment plants.

The authors urged a re-think to safeguard rivers, especially those now less affected in developing nations. The world population is on track to reach 9 billion by 2050 from 6.8 billion now.

The study said it was first to examine in detail a twin set of threats -- to clean water supplies for people and to the biological diversity of life in rivers, from fish to crocodiles.

"Given escalating trends in species extinction, human population, climate change, water use and development pressures, freshwater systems will remain under threat well into the future," they wrote. …

World's rivers in crisis, study says

29 Sept 2010

Protestors across Europe have taken to the streets to demonstrate against austerity measures imposed by governments as a result of the debt crisis and recession.

Governments are planning measures that include public pay freezes, tax raises, increases in retirement age and possible pension cuts. In 13 European capital cities, general strikes and other demonstrations against public spending cuts have been organized by trade unions and work groups, causing congestion, public disorder and even violence.

Europe Protests in Pictures

BBC
29 September 2010

Tens of thousands of people from around Europe have marched across Brussels in a protest against spending cuts by some EU governments.

Spain has held a general strike, with protesters in Barcelona clashing with police and torching a police car.

Other protests against austerity measures have been held in Greece, Italy, the Irish Republic and Latvia.

Trade unions say EU workers may become the biggest victims of a financial crisis set off by bankers and traders.

Many governments across the 27-member bloc have imposed punishing cuts in wages, pensions and employment to deal with spiralling debts.

On Wednesday night, Portugal's minority government announced proposals to cut civil servants' pay and state spending while raising taxes in an attempt to lower the country's debt levels.

In Greece and the Irish Republic, unemployment figures are at their highest level in 10 years, while Spain's unemployment has doubled in just three years.

In Britain the government is planning to slash spending by up to 25% in some areas, while France has seen angry protests against a planned increase in the minimum retirement age.

Police sealed off the EU headquarters and barricaded banks and shops ahead of the protest in Brussels. It was described by unions as a day of action under the slogan "No to austerity, priority to jobs and growth".

Tens of thousands of demonstrators, many carrying large red and green balloons and banners, headed towards EU institution buildings in the Belgian capital. …

Video: European cities hit by anti-austerity protests

Sapa
September 29, 2010

By 2015, 80 percent of South Africa’s fresh water resources will be so badly polluted that no process of purification available in the country will be able to make it fit for consumption.

If we do not find a completely new source of water altogether in about two years, most of Gauteng will be without safe health drinking water.

The Environment and Conservation Association said in a statement on Tuesday that it was estimated that in five years, almost 80 percent of the country’s fresh water resources would be so badly polluted that no process of purification available in the country would be able to clean it sufficiently to make it fit for human or animal consumption.

“If we do not find a completely new source of water altogether in about two years, most of Gauteng will be without safe health drinking water.”

The impending disaster that would be created by acid mine drainage as well as sewerage and industrial pollution had on many occasions been brought to the attention of the government, however with no positive results, the association said.

The association would embark on a massive water monitoring project where it would roll out water testing and monitoring in the six major water catchments in Gauteng and Limpopo, to produce independent and accurate results of exactly how bad the country’s water was.

Those results would be released to the public and the media, both locally and internationally.

“We will need approximately R 1 million for this project. It is time that big business, especially those that rely on water for the production of their products like Coca Cola, SAB Miller, Windhoek Beer, all soft drink manufacturers and food producers, get involved and make a substantial contribution towards organisations like ours so we can save South Africa’s water.”

Water preservation and conservation was not just an environmental issue, but an economic issue.

“Almost 56 percent of the products we consume rely directly on the supply of clean healthy water, and if this water is not available, those products cannot be produced.

“Water affects every single part of our daily lives and without it we cannot survive. We cannot eat and we will be left in a country made barren by pollution.”

Water crisis mounting

Dipl.-Ing. Margarete Pauls, Communications Department
Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung
27.09.2010 11:16

Conference: More than 200 scientists from all over Europe discuss increasing ocean acidification For four days the topic of ocean acidification will be the focus of marine and polar research. The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Hemholtz Association is hosting the conference and expects more than 200 scientists from all over Europe at the Conference Center Bremerhaven.

The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide not only leads to global climate warming, but also to increasing acidification of the oceans. Next week scientists will discuss the most recent results on ocean acidification at the first joint meeting of the three large coordinated projects, EPOCA (European Project on Ocean Acidification), the German project BIOACID (Biological Impacts of Ocean ACIDification) and UK project UKOARP (UK Ocean Acidification Research Program).

The oceans take up about a third of the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by the combustion of fossil fuel every year. When carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, carbonic acid forms and the acidity (pH value) of the water decreases. Since the beginning of industrialisation the CO2 absorbed by the sea has led to an increase in surface ocean acidity by 30 percent. As a consequence, the concentration of carbonate ions in seawater is declining. Many marine organisms such as calcareous algae, mussels and snails have difficulties in forming their shells or skeletons. As a result of this, entire ecosystems such as coral reefs may be affected. …

“Those who understand the language of sediments will be able to examine the evolution of the environment and climate conditions in the Earth’s history there,” says Prof. Jelle Bijma, marine biogeoscientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute. Ocean acidification events have left their “fingerprints” in the sediment at different places in the Earth’s history, such as during the transition from the Permian to the Triassic period 251 million years and during the Palaeocene/Eocene transition 55 million years ago. However, acidification in the past was always triggered by natural events. “Nowadays it is caused by the immense release of carbon dioxide due to human activity and the sea is less and less able to buffer these disruptions,” states Bijma. Furthermore, he adds, we have to realise that acidification events are almost always accompanied by global warming, increased stratification of the oceans and a reduction in the oxygen concentration of the deep sea.

“It is not the first time in the history of the Earth that the oceans have acidified, but a disturbing aspect now is that it is occurring much faster than ever before. As a consequence, not only the pH value drops, but the saturation state of the oceans with respect to carbonate falls as well. Times are tough, especially for calcifying organisms,” Bijma claims. Scientists will continue to investigate how various calcium carbonate-producing marine organisms react to acidification and why their reactions vary and discuss their thoughts on this topic at the conference in Bremerhaven. …

Oceans acidify much faster than ever before in Earth’s history via Ocean Acidification

By FELICITY BARRINGER
September 27, 2010

LAKE MEAD NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Nev. — A once-unthinkable day is looming on the Colorado River.

Barring a sudden end to the Southwest’s 11-year drought, the distribution of the river’s dwindling bounty is likely to be reordered as early as next year because the flow of water cannot keep pace with the region’s demands.

For the first time, federal estimates issued in August indicate that Lake Mead, the heart of the lower Colorado basin’s water system — irrigating lettuce, onions and wheat in reclaimed corners of the Sonoran Desert, and lawns and golf courses from Las Vegas to Los Angeles — could drop below a crucial demarcation line of 1,075 feet.

If it does, that will set in motion a temporary distribution plan approved in 2007 by the seven states with claims to the river and by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, and water deliveries to Arizona and Nevada would be reduced.

This could mean more dry lawns, shorter showers and fallow fields in those states, although conservation efforts might help them adjust to the cutbacks. California, which has first call on the Colorado River flows in the lower basin, would not be affected. …

Nonetheless, said Terry Fulp, the bureau’s deputy regional director for the Lower Colorado Region, it is the first time ever that the bureau has judged a critical shortage to be remotely possible in the near future.

“We’re approaching the magical line that would trigger shortage,” Mr. Fulp said. “We have the lowest 11-year average in the 100-year-plus recorded history of flows on the basin.”

The reservoir is now less than 15 inches above the all-time low of 1,083.2 feet set in 1956.

But back then, while the demand from California farmland was similar, if not greater, the population was far smaller. Perhaps 9.5 million people in the three states in the lower Colorado River basin depended on the supply in the late 1950s; today more than 28 million people do.

The impact of the declining water level is visible in the alkaline bathtub rings on the reservoir’s walls and the warning lights for mariners high on its rocky outcroppings. National Park Service employees have repeatedly moved marinas, chasing the receding waterline. …

Water Use in Southwest Heads for a Day of Reckoning

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent
Sep 29, 2010 6:43am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - One in five of the world's 380,000 plant species is threatened with extinction and human activity is doing most of the damage, according to a global study published on Wednesday.

Scientists from Britain's Botanic Gardens at Kew, London's Natural History Museum and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), found that more than 22 percent of species were endangered, critically endangered or vulnerable.

"The single greatest threat is conversion of natural habitats to agricultural use, directly impacting 33 percent of threatened species," the report said.

The findings were released ahead of a United Nations summit scheduled for mid-October in Nagoya, Japan where governments are due to set new targets for trying to conserve more of the world's plants and animals.

"We cannot sit back and watch plant species disappear -- plants are the basis of all life on earth, providing clean air, water, food and fuel. All animal and bird life depends on them and so do we," said Stephen Hopper, Kew's director. …

"The diversity of plants underpins all life on earth, so it is sobering that our own species is threatening the survival of many thousands of plant species," said Neil Brummitt, a botanical diversity researcher at the Natural History Museum.

"We've set the baseline. Now we need to all work together to safeguard not only the future of plants but the future of ourselves." …

Fifth of world's plants endangered: global study 

By Andy Coghlan
29 September 2010

They're not as photogenic as pandas, nor as captivating as tigers: among conservationists, plants have tended to attract rather less attention than animals. That could start to change with the publication this week of the first list of extinction risks for the world's plants.

The Sampled Red List Index for Plants indicates that 22 per cent of all wild plant species face extinction, comparable to the figure for mammals (21 per cent) and higher than that for birds (12 per cent). Of the threatened plant species, 63 per cent are found in tropical rainforest areas which could soon be cleared.

The aim is to provide a baseline for future assessments, and to put plants firmly on the conservation agenda.

"If all the plants vanish, so will all animals and birds," says Eimear Nic Lughadha of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, who led the project. The UK Natural History Museum and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature were also involved. …

Of these groups, the conifers and cycads are most threatened, with 36 per cent facing extinction.

"It's not a question of picking out ‘star' plants, but saying plants are integral to human and animal health," says Lughadha. "We do not know which plants underpin which particular ecosystems.

"At the moment we're throwing away species that we don't fully understand."

A fifth of all wild plant species face extinction

SAN FRANCISCO— The Interior Department announced Tuesday that the African penguin, the only nesting penguin on the African continent, will be listed as an endangered species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The decision responds to a 2006 Center for Biological Diversity petition to protect 12 penguin species under the Act as well as a legal settlement with the Center and Turtle Island Restoration Network concerning delays in protecting the penguin.

“African penguins are sliding toward extinction with no signs of stopping,” said Catherine Kilduff, a Center attorney. “Climate change, oil spills, overfishing and habitat destruction are among the many threats that the Endangered Species Act must begin to address.”

African penguin populations, which breed in Namibia and South Africa, have declined by 95 percent since preindustrial times. Commercial fisheries have forced penguins to feed on less nutritious prey and swim miles farther to find food, even as climate change and ocean warming are making the penguins’ prey more scarce. The birds live along the major global oil transport route, so spills oil them often. In addition, guano harvests eliminated their preferred nesting substrate, leaving them exposed to predators, heat stress, flooding and sea-level rise. Today’s listing will raise awareness of their plight, increase research and conservation funds, and offer additional oversight of U.S.-government-approved activities that could harm penguins.

“Industrial fisheries and ocean warming are starving the penguins. Longlines and other destructive fishing gear entangle and drown them,” said Todd Steiner, biologist and executive director of TIRN. “Finally the government is throwing penguins a lifeline to recovery by protecting them under the Endangered Species Act.”

By mid-century, if greenhouse gas emissions remain on their current trajectory, climate change will commit one-third of the entire world’s species to extinction. The endangered African penguin joins five other penguins with new protected status, the Humboldt penguin of Chile and Peru and four New Zealand penguins (the yellow-eyed, white-flippered, Fiordland crested and erect-crested). The Center and TIRN plan to file suit against Interior for denying listing to emperor and northern rockhopper penguins despite scientific evidence that they are jeopardized by climate change and commercial fisheries.

For more information on penguins, please see: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/birds/penguins/index.html.

Vanishing African Penguin, Threatened by Climate Change and Fishing, Wins Protections

The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 28, 2010, 9:52 AM

A Gallup survey released Tuesday of almost 2,600 Gulf Coast residents showed that depression cases are up more than 25 percent since an oil rig explosion killed 11 people and unleashed a three-month oil spill into the Gulf in April that ruined many livelihoods. The conclusions were consistent with trends seen in smaller studies and witnessed by mental health workers.

Before the BP oil spill, the Gulf Coast was a place of abundant shrimping, tourist-filled beaches and a happy if humble lifestyle. Now, it's home to depression, worry and sadness for many.

People just aren't as happy as they used to be despite palm trees and warm weather. A "well-being index" included in the Gallup study said many coastal residents are stressed out, worried and sad more often than people living inland, an indication that the spill's emotional toll lingers even if most of the oil has vanished from view. …

The Gallup survey was conducted in 25 Gulf-front counties from Texas east to Florida over eight months before and after the spill, ending Aug. 6. People reported 25.6 percent more depression diagnoses after then spill than before it, although the study didn't conclude the additional cases were tied directly to the oil.

The survey said people along the Gulf reported feeling sad, worried and stressed after the spill, while people living inland reported less over the same period. More than 40 percent of people in coastal areas reported feeling stress after the BP geyser blew, a 15 percent increase from before. …

Depression up 25 percent on Gulf Coast after oil spill, Gallup poll reveals

ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2010) — The acidification of the Earth's oceans due to rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) may be contributing to a global decline of clams, scallops and other shellfish by interfering with the development of shellfish larvae, according to two Stony Brook University scientists, whose findings are published online and in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Professor Christopher J. Gobler, Ph.D., and Ph.D. candidate Stephanie C. Talmage of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook conducted experiments to evaluate the impacts of past, present and future ocean acidification on the larvae of two commercially valuable shellfish: the Northern quahog, or hard clam, and the Atlantic bay scallop. The ability of both to produce shells partly depends on ocean water pH. Previous studies have shown that increases in atmospheric CO₂ levels can lower the ocean's pH level, causing it to become more acidic. …

The researchers reported that larvae grown at approximately pre-industrial CO₂ concentrations of 250 ppm had higher survival rates, grew faster and had thicker and more robust shells than those grown at the modern concentration of about 390 ppm. In addition, larvae that were grown at CO₂ concentrations projected to occur later this century developed malformed and eroded shells. The findings may provide insight into future evolutionary pressures of ocean acidification on marine species that form calcium carbonate shells, the authors wrote. …

In their experiments with the Northern quahog, Mercenaria mercenaria, and the Atlantic bay scallop, Argopecten irradians, the scientists introduced different levels of CO₂ gas to filtered seawater taken from Shinnecock Bay, NY, USA. Shellfish larvae grown under near preindustrial levels of CO₂ (250 ppm) displayed the highest rates of metamorphosis, growth, and survival, they found. Those grown under higher levels developed thinner shells. The high CO₂ "severely altered the development of the hinge structure of early stage bivalves. As CO₂ levels increased from approximately 250 to 1,500 ppm, there were dramatic declines in the size, integrity, and connectedness of the hinge." That can impact the ability of the shellfish to feed, they wrote. This research was conducted on the Southampton campus of Stony Brook.

"Our findings regarding the effects of future CO₂ levels on larval shellfish are consistent with recent investigations of ocean acidification demonstrating that calcifying organisms will experience declines in survival and growth, as well as malformed CaCO₃ shells and hard parts," they wrote. …

Acidification of oceans may contribute to global declines of shellfish

Two images from the Thematic Mapper on the Landsat 5 satellite show some of the stark changes on the eastern end of Lake Mead since 1985.

22 August 1985

11 August 2010

Caption by Michael Carlowicz
September 23, 2010

In August 2010, Lake Mead reached its lowest level since 1956. The largest reservoir in the United States was straining from persistent drought and increasing human demand.

Two images from the Thematic Mapper on the Landsat 5 satellite show some of the stark changes on the eastern end of the lake since 1985. Badger Cove, Driftwood Cove, and Grand Wash Bay have receded to become valleys and channels of the Colorado River, which flows in from the east (image right). The shores around the lake display the “bathtub ring” effect, with a chalky white outline marking new shoreline where sediments had previously accumulated below the water.

Located on the Colorado River, east of Las Vegas and west of the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead provides power and water for human activities in Nevada, Arizona, southern California, and northern Mexico. The reservoir grew up behind the Hoover Dam when it was built in the 1930s, and it can hold the equivalent of the entire flow of the Colorado River for two years. …

Lake Mead reached its August 2010 low after decades of population growth in the American Southwest and 12 years of persistent drought. According to the U.S. National Park Service, the amount of water flowing out of and evaporating from Lake Mead has consistently exceeded the amount of incoming water in recent years. …

Water Level Changes in Lake Mead

By Rina Saeed Khan, AlertNet correspondent
28 Sep 2010 12:29:00 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AlertNet) - As Pakistan struggles to recover from recent devastating floods, it is pushing for recognition in U.N. climate negotiations as one of those nations judged to be most vulnerable to climate change and in need of funding to cope.

This summer's flooding, caused by unprecedented monsoon rainfall, has drawn international attention to the damaging effects of climate change in the region, with the United Nations describing it as the world's worst humanitarian disaster in recent years.

"Climate change, with all its severity and unpredictability, has become a reality for 170 million Pakistanis. The present situation in Pakistan reconfirms our extreme vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change," Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureishi told the U.N. General Assembly in September.

He said the crisis strengthened the case for "a fair and equitable outcome" from talks on a new deal to tackle global warming, inching along under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Within that process, pressure is growing for a wider definition of countries that are regarded as "particularly vulnerable" to climate change - currently confined to the world's least developed nations, small island developing states threatened by rising sea levels, and African countries affected by floods and droughts.

This excludes a number of developing countries like Pakistan, which are proposing a redefinition on the grounds they are also likely to be hit hard by global warming. …

Flood-hit Pakistan seeks priority access to climate change aid

Japan seeks to improve energy security by drilling for frozen methane but environmentalists fear a leak of the greenhouse gas, which is 21 times as damaging as carbon dioxide

By Michael Fitzpatrick, www.guardian.co.uk
Monday 27 September 2010 09.22 BST

In a bid to shore up its precarious energy security Japan is to start commercial test drilling for controversial frozen methane gas along its coast next year.

The gas is methane hydrate, a sherbet-like substance consisting of methane trapped in water ice – sometimes called "fire ice" or MH – that is locked deep underwater or under permafrost by the cold and under pressure 23 times that of normal atmosphere.

A consortium led by the Japanese government and the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (Jogmec) will be sinking several wells off the south-eastern coast of Japan to assess the commercial viability of extracting gas from frozen methane deep beneath local waters. Surveys suggest Japan has enough methane hydrate for 100 years at the current rate of usage.

Lying hundreds of metres below the sea and deeper still below sediments, fire ice is exceedingly difficult to extract. Japan is claiming successful tests using a method that gently depressurises the frozen gas.

Tokyo plans to start commercial output of methane hydrates by 2018. At present, Japan imports nearly all its gas – about 58.6m tonnes of liquified gas annually – and is heavily dependent on oil imports. In a desperate attempt to secure more oil, for example, Japan recently did a deal with the United Arab Emirates. In exchange for using Japan as a base for Asian oil trading, Japan now has priority to purchase rights to up to 4m barrels of immediately accessible crude. …

Environmentalists, however, are concerned about the burning of more earth-locked hydrocarbons. Methane may be a cleaner-burning fossil fuel than coal or oil but will still release many tons of CO2. Jogmec acknowledges the problems, admitting mining of methane ice could lead to landslides and the devastation of marine life in the mining areas. "There are many other technological problems to overcome," says the Jogmec website. "Not least that when you drill you create heat, which turns the frozen methane into gas, which could then leak uncontrollably through the sea to our atmosphere." …

Japan to drill for controversial 'fire ice'

The NAWQA trends assessment for nutrients in streams reflects periodic measurements of concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus from 1993 to 2003 (yellow vertical shaded area). This was a period of relatively small changes in nitrogen fertilizer use, which followed a more than 10-fold increase in fertilizer use between about 1950 and the early 1980s. There also has been a more than three-fold increase in population in the Nation since 1900. These increases in nitrogen sources are reflected in the large increases in concentrations of nitrate in streams as disparate as the Blackstone River in urbanized Massachusetts and the San Joaquin River in the agricultural Central Valley of California.

Dubrovsky, N.M., and Hamilton, P.A., 2010, Nutrients in the Nation’s streams and groundwater: National Findings and Implications: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2010-3078, 6 p. [pdf]

Elevated Nitrogen and Phosphorus Still Widespread in Much of the Nation’s Streams and Groundwater

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
September 27, 2010

A new study in the open access journal of Tropical Conservation Science finds that the Kasagala forest reserve in central Uganda is losing important tree species and suffering from low diversity of species. Researchers believe that forest degradation for charcoal and firewood has put heavy pressure on this ecosystem.

The Kasagala forest reserve, according to the authors, was "previously set aside to provide ecosystem services and offer catchment protection to Lake Kyoga, an inland water body that is gradually drying up due to loss of surrounding vegetation cover," adding that "this forest is of immense ecological value" and is vital for local populations as Lake Kyoga provides water to over 100,000 people.

Both the overall forest area and the protected area are being squeezed. The authors write that "steep growth in human populations and a corresponding demand for agricultural land […] has reduced the buffer zone area of the forest," while local demand for fuel wood has degraded the Kasagala forest itself.

In studying the diversity of tree and shrub species, researchers found that the forest had largely been stripped of its Combretum trees, leading to a wholesale change in species dominance. The researchers also found low species diversity in areas where humans had clearly been fragmenting the forest. …

Ugandan forest being stripped for fuel wood

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
September 27, 2010

Customs officials found 16 pieces of cut ivory on searching a 62-year-old Malaysian man at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Thailand in August. Recently released information shows that the traveler was carrying nearly 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of ivory in four suitcases after arriving from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

"The Thai Royal Customs is committed to taking strong measures to ensure that proper legal import and export procedures under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora is adhered to at every check-point across the country especially Suvarnabhumi Airport," Mr. Ekalarp Rattanarut, Director of Suvarnabhumi Airport Passenger Control Customs Bureau said in a statement.

Customs officials at Suvarnabhumi International Airport have made a startling number of seizures of ivory this year, totaling almost 2 tonnes of illegal ivory.

"The customs officers responsible for this ivory seizure in Thailand are to be commended, although the fact this trade continues illustrates that Thailand’s domestic ivory market remains a serious issue," Chris R. Shepherd, Deputy Regional Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia said in a press release. "Unless Thailand starts making ivory seizures in the marketplace, we fear its ivory trade will continue."

Thailand is among the top three countries—also including Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo—in the illegal ivory trade, according to Elephant Trade Information Systems (ETIS) a database managed by TRAFFIC. …

Traveler caught with 200 pounds of elephant ivory in four suitcases

ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2010) — Tile drainage in the Mississippi Basin is one of the great advances of the 19th and 20th centuries, allowing highly productive agriculture in what was once land too wet to farm. In fact, installation of new tile systems continues every year, because it leads to increased crop yields. But a recent study shows that the most heavily tile-drained areas of North America are also the largest contributing source of nitrate to the Gulf of Mexico, leading to seasonal hypoxia. In the summer of 2010 this dead zone in the Gulf spanned over 7,000 square miles.

Scientists from the U of I and Cornell University compiled information on each county in the Mississippi River basin including crop acreage and yields, fertilizer inputs, atmospheric deposition, number of people, and livestock to calculate all nitrogen inputs and outputs from 1997 to 2006. For 153 watersheds in the basin, they also used measurements of nitrate concentration and flow in streams, which allowed them to develop a statistical model that explained 83 percent of the variation in springtime nitrate flow in the monitored streams. The greatest nitrate loss to streams corresponded to the highly productive, tile-drained cornbelt from southwest Minnesota across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

This area of the basin has extensive row cropping of fertilized corn and soybeans, a flat landscape with tile drainage, and channelized ditches and streams to facilitate drainage.

"Farmers are not to blame," said University of Illinois researcher Mark David. "They are using the same amount of nitrogen as they were 30 years ago and getting much higher corn yields, but we have created a very leaky agricultural system. This allows nitrate to move quickly from fields into ditches and on to the Gulf of Mexico. We need policies that reward farmers to help correct the problem."

David is a biogeochemist who has been studying the issue since 1993. "We've had data from smaller watersheds for some time, but this new study includes data from the entire Mississippi Basin. It shows clearly where across the entire basin the sources of nitrate are.

"A lot of people just want to blame fertilizer, but it's not that simple," David said. "It's fertilizer on intensive corn and soybean agricultural rotations in heavily tile-drained areas. There is also an additional source of nitrogen from sewage effluent from people, although that is a small contribution. It's all of these factors together." …

Cause of dead zone in Gulf: Tile drainage directly related to nitrate loss

IRIN
27 September 2010

QUETTA - Inside their tent at a camp on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, Meraj Sindhu helps his wife wrap their six-month-old son and two-year-old daughter in thin cloths widely used in Sindh Province as head scarves or turbans. Sindhu’s wife, Sassui Bibi, tells IRIN: “The children cry with cold through the night.”

She, her husband, and her elderly mother-in-law huddle inside their tent trying to keep warm.

Night-time temperatures in Quetta have dropped to around 12 degrees Celsius, according to the Pakistan Met Office, and dip to below freezing in mid-winter.

“We are used to hot weather through most of the year, and besides we have none of the warm clothes we use during the winter,” said Sindhu, from Jacobabad District, Sindh. “It was blisteringly hot when we fled [the floods] in early August and we came away with just the light clothes on our backs,” he said.

Sindhu and other displaced persons from Sindh say the wind that has begun blowing across Quetta as winter begins to set in, “adds to the feeling of bitter cold”.

“We are used to extremes. In winters it is freezing, summers are hot and the cold, dry winds of winter have started here. Usually by October we need warm clothes and heating in rooms,” said Sadiq Jan, 60, a watchman engaged at the camp. “These unfortunate people are just not used to the conditions,” he said.

Doctors are concerned about the health impact: “I have been receiving more patients - often those from Sindh - suffering upper respiratory tract infections, which may be linked to the change in weather,” Yusuf Khan, a general practitioner who works at a charitable clinic near a makeshift camp, told IRIN.

“Cold weather, and the crowding which results, is associated with more opportunities for person-to-person transmission of respiratory pathogens. So although cold weather doesn't in itself cause disease, it can increase the risk of transmission of certain communicable diseases such as ARIs, meningitis, measles, etc”, Paul Garwood, the World Health Organization’s communications officer, told IRIN. …

PAKISTAN: Colder weather, disease, threaten displaced

By Amulya Nagaraj
September 22, 2010 8:14 AM EDT

2010 has been a year for extremes. Pakistan saw one of the worst floods in its history that affected over 21 million people, while Central Europe and the Baltics witnessed severe flash floods early in August that killed at least 15.

And the small Indian town of Ladakh, situated on a plateau around 3,500 meters above sea level, was destroyed almost overnight as flash floods hammered the region which usually receives very little rainfall.

About 80 percent of the town's infrastructure was destroyed. Farming, one of the staple sources of income in the region, was also wiped out in the floods.

Aid poured into the region from the Indian governments as well as the state governments and private and non-governmental organizations.

Camps have been set up offering food and medicines to people dislodged from their homes. The Indian Prime Minister, the President and several other dignitaries have visited the region and promised more aid.

But more than a month after the disaster occurred, reconstruction and rehabilitation are yet to begin in the region. …

There is no money for removing debris as most of the funds are directed towards construction and solatium. About 60 percent of the land is still covered with debris, according to Jorgyes.

The irrigation channels have been washed away and they need to be reconstructed, he added.

Around 30,000 canals of agricultural land are under the debris, according to an initial report by Gyurja-TISS. …

Ladakh reconstruction remains sluggish as winter approaches

Ideal breeding conditions for grasshoppers are expected to cost farmers billions 

By Paul Rodgers
Sunday, 26 September 2010

Australia's Darling river is running with water again after a drought in the middle of the decade reduced it to a trickle. But the rains feeding the continent's fourth-longest river are not the undiluted good news you might expect. For the cloudbursts also create ideal conditions for an unwelcome pest – the Australian plague locust.

The warm, wet weather that prevailed last summer meant that three generations of locusts were born, each one up to 150 times larger than the previous generation. After over-wintering beneath the ground, the first generation of 2010 is already hatching. And following the wettest August in seven years, the climate is again perfect. The juveniles will spend 20 to 25 days eating and growing, shedding their exoskeletons five times before emerging as adults, when population pressure will force them to swarm.

It is impossible to say how many billions of bugs will take wing, but many experts fear this year's infestation could be the worst since records began – 75 years ago. All that one locust expert, Greg Sword, an associate professor at the University of Sydney, would say was: "South Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria are all going to get hammered."

A one-kilometre wide swarm of locusts can chomp through 10 tons of crops – a third of their combined body weight – in a day. The New South Wales Farmers Association said an area the size of Spain was affected and the Government of Victoria alone forecasts A$2bn (£1.2bn) of damage.

Though locusts move slowly when the sun's up, at night they can fly high and fast, sometimes travelling hundreds of kilometres. "A farmer can go to bed at night not having seen a grasshopper all year and wake up in the morning to find his fields full of them," said Professor Sword. …

Australia faces worst plague of locusts in 75 years

By Staff Writers
Gish Abay, Ethiopia (AFP) Sept 26, 2010

Here in the shadow of Mount Gish, the spring water that forms the Blue Nile is believed to have healing powers, but Ethiopians say that is the only benefit they get from the mighty river.

"These waters are sacred, they perform miracles for the sick," Berhanu Melak, an elderly farmer, told AFP as he filled a metal trough with water for the throngs of white-cloaked men and women who have been queuing since the early hours in this town 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Addis Ababa.

The sparkling stream in Gish Abay spills first into Lake Tana then makes its way towards Sudan as the Blue Nile. There, the river joins the White Nile in Khartoum before draining into Egypt's Mediterranean coast, spanning in all nearly 6,000 kilometres.

"But look around you, there is nothing here. The big river doesn't feed us," Berhanu says, his voice almost drowned out by the nearby bathers.

It is a sentiment that has echoed for centuries in Ethiopia: while the land where the Nile originates is constantly ravaged by drought, downstream countries get the full benefit of its water. …

In an attempt to change this state of affairs, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, all upstream -- and poorer -- countries, signed a new pact this year which they say will ensure equitable use.

Under the treaty, Addis Ababa intends to tap its water resources to build dams and export power to neighboring countries, while also setting up irrigation projects to curb famine.

But Egypt and Sudan, both almost completely dependent on the Nile, say upstream projects would drastically reduce the river's flow and have refused to give up a drop of water. …

Ethiopians want more from sacred Nile waters

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
September 27, 2010

Spreading over three central African nations—Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Republic of Congo—the Sangha tri-national landscape is home to a variety of actors: over 150,000 Bantu people and nearly 20,000 pygmies; endangered species including forest elephants and gorillas; and, not least, the Congo rainforest ecosystem itself, which here remains largely intact. Given its interplay of species-richness, primary rainforest, and people—many of whom are among the poorest in the world—the landscape became internationally important in 2002 when under the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) conservation groups and development agencies agreed to work together to preserve the ecosystems while providing development in the region.

However, a new study in mongabay.com's open access journal Tropical Conservation Science finds that the situation remained largely stable, but not greatly improved, until the end of 2008 when the financial crisis spread all the way to central Africa, culling the few jobs available and threatening the forests and species of the Sangha tri-national landscape.

"The aim was to investigate the relationship between the global public goods values of the forests and the livelihoods of local people," the researchers write of their study.

In examining the efforts of conservation organizations—including the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)—the study found them wanting in effectively promoting development.

"The activities of conservation organizations did little to improve local livelihoods, and by restricting access to forest resources they may even have had a negative impact on local people. The main determinant of progress in almost all the livelihood indicators was access to employment in logging and timber processing," the researchers write.

With the financial crisis the situation, which had been largely stable, took a turn for the worse.

"In 2009 the global financial crisis led to a reduction in logging activity and hence of industrial employment and to a neglect of investments in water supplies and roads. Prices of basic products increased markedly in 2009 in all three countries."

Logging operations laid off workers and cut hours leading to many locals resorting to "poaching and collecting non-timber products to survive". At the same time organized poaching of forest elephants began to rise, adding an additional threat to the area's wildlife; and the resulting political instability further affected people and wildlife in the Sangha tri-national landscape.

"The economic downturn therefore had a negative impact on both conservation and development," the authors conclude starkly.  …

Financial crisis pummels wildlife and people in the Congo rainforest

Baby fish show up in big numbers despite spill

By Ben Raines, Press-Register
Sunday, September 26, 2010, 5:00 AM

Baby snapper are everywhere.

So are baby trout, grouper and grunt. Early results from an annual count of juvenile fish in grass beds scattered around the northern Gulf of Mexico suggest that the larvae of some species survived the oil spill in large numbers, according to the scientists involved.

“My preliminary assessment, it looks good, it looks like we dodged a bullet. In terms of the numbers of baby snapper and other species present in the grass beds, things look right,” said Joel Fodrie, a researcher with the University of North Carolina’s Institute of Marine Science who has been studying seagrass meadows along the coast for five years.

His group has sampled aquatic life in grass beds in Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle. The group will sample around Louisiana’s Chandeleur Islands this fall.

At the height of the spill, when millions of gallons of oil were floating on the surface, scientists said that one of the critical questions for the health of the Gulf was whether the trillions of larvae hatched offshore each spring could survive the pollution.

The larvae are the young of most everything that swims in the Gulf, from crabs and shrimp to fishes great and small.

The tiny creatures drift on ocean currents for weeks before settling in various habitats — including seagrass meadows, oysters reefs and fields of floating sargassum far offshore — depending on the species.

Fodrie’s survey provides one of the first measures of how many larvae survived, although his findings apply only to the species that settle in grass beds.

“Grand Bay looks like Grand Bay in terms of the number of juvenile fish,” he said. “Petit Bois Island looks like Petit Bois looks every year. The Dauphin Island grass beds look like Dauphin Island. The most unusual thing we are seeing are the incredible numbers of young speckled trout.” …

“We can only talk about the young fish that colonize the grass beds,” he said, “but those species look like they are in good shape.”

Fodrie said, “We’ve seen more speckled trout in Grand Bay than we’ve ever seen anywhere else along the coast. There are literally millions of speckled trout in the water. The ones we’ve cut open have been eating a ton of shrimp. The snapper have been eating little worms, crustaceans, shrimp and even really small fish.” …

Baby fish show up in big numbers despite Gulf of Mexico oil spill (with video, photos)