World Population Awareness

Plastic Takes Over the Ocean

Protect Our Waterways From Pesticides

Pesticides in our waters are linked to higher cancer rates, hormone disruption and other serious health effects in people. Fish and amphibian populations have been devastated by these toxics, which can be the last straw for endangered species already in crisis.

Right now chemical and agribusiness lobbyists are pushing a radical revision of our clean-water laws - H.R. 872 - that has already passed in the right-wing-dominated House of Representatives but we may be able to stop this disastrous polluter bill from passing in the Senate.

Our water supply is too precious to poison. Please take five minutes to call your senators and tell them to protect the Clean Water Act. Senate Bill 718 is a hazard to all life in the United States, and should be rejected, along with any companion bill to House Resolution 872, proposed by Sen. Pat Roberts. Tell them to support the EPA's safeguards against pesticides through the "pesticide general permit" process. This protects our environment and public health.

Click here to find the number for your senator: http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/getLocal.jsp Let us know you were able to get through by clicking here: http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=6391

NASA Scientist Hansen Arrested at Tar Sands Protest - a Grim Sign of the Times

In the 1970s, the "blue marble" photo of Earth from space taken by Apollo 17 - suggesting how fragile and precious our planet really is - galvanized the environmental movement. Today the image of the world's best known and most outspoken climate scientist, James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, handcuffed and hauled off to jail is a potent symbol of our times.

Hansen was taking part in a civil disobedience action at the White House organized to halt the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will bring dirty oil from the Canadian tar sands down to US refineries in the Gulf. Nearly 1000 protesters have been arrested in this action began on August 20.

Hansen said of President Obama: "If he chooses the dirty needle it is game over [for the earth's climate] because it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians with no real intention of solving the addiction," ... "Canada is going to sell its dope, if it can find a buyer. So if the United States is buying the dirtiest stuff, it also surely will be going after oil in the deepest ocean, the Arctic, and shale deposits; and harvesting coal via mountaintop removal and long-wall mining. Obama will have decided he is a hopeless addict."

The photo tells you everything you need to know about why, more than 30 years after Hansen first warned us that burning fossil fuels is heating up the planet, we have essentially done nothing to change our ways.

Japan's Food Chain Threat Multiplies as Radiation Spreads

Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan's food chain. 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed hay containing radioactive cesium before being shipped to meat markets. 4,108 kilograms of beef suspected of being contaminated was inadvertantly put on sale at 174 stores across Japan

The government on July 19 banned cattle shipments from Fukushima prefecture, though not before some had been slaughtered and shipped to supermarkets. A ban on shiitake mushrooms from another part of Fukushima was introduced on July 23 because of cesium levels, the health ministry said.

Seafood is another concern after cesium-134 in seawater near the Fukushima plant climbed to levels 30 times the allowed safety standards last week,

Tetsuo Ito, the head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University in central Japan, said "It's possible that contaminated groundwater leaked from the plant."

Japan has no centralized system to check for radiation contamination of food, leaving local authorities and farmers conducting voluntary tests. Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers from Dai-Ichi.

On June 6, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the plant released about 770,000 tera becquerels of radioactive material into the air between March 11 and March 16, doubling an earlier estimate.

That's about 14% of the radiation emitted in the Chernobyl disaster in modern-day Ukraine. About 2 million people in Ukraine are under permanent medical monitoring, 25 years after the accident, according to the nation's embassy in Tokyo.

Cases of thyroid cancer in Belarus, which neighbors Ukraine, increased for at least 10 years after 1986 in children younger than 14 and for almost 20 years among 20-24 year olds, according to research by Shunichi Yamashita of Nagasaki University.

U.S.: Save the Frogs

April 29 was Save the Frogs Day, and we would like your help to protect frogs from one of the biggest threats to their survival. Please ask the Environmental Protection Agency to ban a widely-used weed killer called atrazine that is threatening frog populations.

Frogs are especially sensitive to chemicals in their surrounding environment. Their numbers have been plummeting around the world, and one of the major causes is the widespread use of pesticides like atrazine. Frogs act as an indicator species for the overall health of the environment.

In agricultural areas, as much as 75% of all waterways contain some level of atrazine. Atrazine in our environment isn't good for us either. The European Union has already phased out its use entirely.

Toxic Water Rising Below Johannesburg

The water from the spring about 20 miles northwest of Johannesburg flows blood red. It is toxic, highly acidic and full of heavy metals, so nasty that newly weaned impala and other animals in the Krugersdorp Game Reserve downstream can't or refuse to drink the water - and some of them die of thirst. Not one living organism survives in the poisoned water.

Millions of gallons of the same kind of toxic water lie underneath Johannesburg, a city of nearly 4 million people. The water is rising 50 feet a month. If nothing is done, subterranean parking garages will fill with the toxic red water in about two years' time. Tunnels for electrical cables and underground railway stations will flood. And unnatural crimson streams will spring from the ground across the suburbs to the east of Johannesburg as the rising water escapes.

The city of Johannesburg exploded in a gold rush after the metal was discovered in 1886. Gold mines operated along a 25-mile strip from Roodepoort to the west of Johannesburg to Boksburg to the east, as hundreds of mining companies gouged out a gigantic hole under the city and its suburbs.

When rain falls, water runs off the hills and much of it is absorbed by the earth. The water turns toxic when it reacts with heavy metals underground.

When the mines were functioning, pumps siphoned the water away. But one by one the gold mines under Johannesburg were shut down as the gold ran out. The last one - which was pumping all the water from "the void" - was East Rand Proprietary Mines, which stopped pumping in 2008.

"The government has had acid mine drainage on its urgent agenda since 2009 but has yet to act," said University of the Witwatersrand geology professor Terry McCarthy, who released a study on the problem Thursday in Johannesburg.

McCarthy warned that current mining operations in other parts of South Africa were doing even more damage, and would eventually pollute some of Johannesburg's main drinking water sources, the Vaal dam and Vaal River, posing greater costs for future generations.

Some of the toxic water from the mines is polluted with uranium. Stephan du Toit, an environmental specialist with the Mogale municipality near the Krugersdorp Game Reserve, said that the water flowing through the reserve had extremely high sulfate concentrates. rw

U.S.: NOAA Forecast Predicts Large "Dead Zone" for Gulf of Mexico This Summer

The "dead zone" off the coast of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico this summer could be one of the largest on record. In the dead zone seasonal oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters. Dead zones are caused by nutrient runoff, principally from agricultural activity, which stimulates an overgrowth of algae that sinks, decomposes, and consumes most of the life-giving oxygen supply in the water.

Scientists are predicting the area could measure between 7,450 and 8,456 square miles, or an area roughly the size of New Jersey.

This hypoxic, or low-to-no oxygen area, is of particular concern because it threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries by destroying critical habitat.

"The high water volume flows coupled with nearly triple the nitrogen concentrations in these rivers over the past 50 years from human activities has led to a dramatic increase in the size of the dead zone," said Gene Turner, Ph.D., a lead forecast modeler from Louisiana State University.

US Maryland: Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Criticized; Oversight Change Urged

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation wants the voluntary effort to clean up the bay replaced by a governing body to create and enforce laws and levy taxes in six states and the District to pay for cleanup. They concluded that the regional Chesapeake Executive Council, formed to oversee the reduction of bay pollutants, had failed because the scientific data suggests the bay is not improving. This was a misstatement, claimed the executive director of the Council that adopted a plan for improving the water quality by 2010, when the Council hopes the bay will be removed from the list of threatened waterways. The most ambitious goal was to take voluntary steps to reduce runoff from animal manure and wastewater plants by one-third. 40% of the bay is starved of oxygen and fish and plant life have difficulty surviving. The regional council has been making progress and less nitrogen is flowing into the bay than in the mid-1980s. Underwater bay grasses, an indicator of a healthy waterway, have increased since 1984, but must more than double in the next seven years. It will involve farmers and require homeowners to upgrade septic tanks and better storm water management. The bay's watershed includes 16 million people in parts of New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and the District. Any new oversight body would need to levy taxes to raise part of the $12 billion that is needed to reduce pollutants. The governors on the council said they are willing to consider reinvigorating restoration efforts. rw

6 States Aiming to Reduce Dead Zone

Six states that feed water to the Mississippi agreed to experiment to reduce nutrients that cause a "dead zone" that can be 10 to 120 feet deep along the coast of Louisiana and Texas and is bigger than the state of Massachusetts. This occurs when nutrient-rich freshwater forms a layer over saltier Gulf of Mexico water in the spring and summer, causing huge blooms of algae that use up oxygen as they decompose. Shrimp, crabs and fish avoid the low-oxygen water, and bottom-dwelling organisms are killed. Oxygen returns after tropical storms or frontal systems mix the layers. The nutrients are fertilizer and sewage from the 42 states and parts of Canada that drain into the Mississippi. 7% come from Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas, the states represented at the first meeting, in New Orleans, of the Committee on Hypoxia. An official said a federal-state plan to reduce nutrients is 18 months behind schedule. A plan adopted in 2000 called for reducing the dead zone to 2,000 square miles by 2015 by cutting nitrogen entering the river by 30%. Researchers have focused on determining the areas responsible, and how to reduce them. The projects would be similar to one in Louisiana in which farmers are told how best to manage nitrogen use, and provided with detailed instruction. rw

Tests Find Nitrogen is Choking Earth

Plant species replaced, 'dead zones' in water more prevalent. - If farmers continue to depend heavily on nitrogen fertilizer, the agricultural landscape could turn ugly within 50 years, says a University of Minnesota ecologist. David Tilman found, in a two decade study, that, as the amount of nitrogen doubles, species diversity declines by 25%. And as nitrogen levels continue to increase, species are lost at a greater, though less dramatic, rate, leveling off at declines of 40% to 70%. The species that do survive are usually less-desirable, non-native ones such as quack grass, which needs high doses of nitrogen to thrive. Oxygen-starved "dead zones," such as the one now in the Gulf of Mexico, will become increasingly prevalent and many plants will die off, while fewer - and less desirable ones - will take over, he said. To get world food production to double over the past 35 years, farmers have had to use seven times as much nitrogen as they used to, effectively doubling the amount that already comes in from the atmosphere. By 2050, the use of nitrogen may quadruple with the projected increase in the world population by almost 50%, and if it becomes increasingly affluent with a buying power 2.4 times that of today's population and producing a demand for twice as much food. Tilman recommends timing applications of fertilizer better and doing a better job of removing it from sewage. kgp

Fertilizer Levels Safe for Humans, Deadly to Frogs

An Oregon State University study says that fertilizer levels the EPA says are safe for human drinking water can kill some species of frogs and toads. With even low nitrate levels in fertilizer runoffs, the amphibians ate less, developed physical abnormalities, suffered paralysis and eventually died. Also, the nitrates encouraged the growth of algae that feeds tiny parasitic flatworms called trematodes which cause deformities. Other explanations for the decline in amphibian population include water pollution and increased ultraviolet radiation from the sun because of a thinning ozone layer around the Earth.

Humans have more than doubled the amount of available nitrogen in the environment because of excess fertiliser use and burning of fossil fuel. There are now also 50 "dead zones" containing little or no oxygen in coastal waters. The largest one in the Western Hemisphere is in the Gulf of Mexico, caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus flowing down the Mississippi river.

A Special Moment in History

by Bill McKibben Natural cycles of nitrogen production (through algae, soil bacteria and lighting) produce "90-150 million metric tons of nitrogen a year. Now human activity adds 130-150 million more tons...As a result, coastal waters and estuaries bloom with toxic algae while oxygen concentrations dwindle, killing fish; as a result, nitrous oxide traps solar heat, and it stays there for a century or more."

Philippines: Surging Population, Rising Troubles

The Catholic Bishops Conference warned 23 years ago of Nuestro perdido Eden - our imperiled Eden, echoing the country's national hero, Dr Jose Rizal. Today his words have proved prophetic.

Rapid population growth, unchecked and unequal access to natural resources and their subsequent over-exploitation, uncontrolled logging, waste disposal and mining and the pollution of rivers, lakes and sea are the root causes of the environmental destruction and degradation both in coastal and upland areas, states a report released by the German Technical Cooperation agency (GTZ).

All this destruction and its consequences can be curbed only if the population stops growing, now at about 100 million - and projected to reach 140 million by 2050. But Catholic priests and anti-reproductive health bill activists say "No way."

Metro Manila went from 10 million people in 1992 to 16 million. Population growth that is too fast does not leave time to provide public services and the stresses from rapid urbanization harm the environment and the people living in it, according to Gregory C. Ira, who has worked with the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction.

Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 saw forests blanketing 95% of the country. A WWF study showed that more than 119,000 hectares of forest cover disappears yearly, all likely to disappear in 10 years.

"Approximately two-thirds of the country's original mangroves have been lost," reported Kathleen Mogelgaard, of Population Action International (PAI). "The productivity of the country's agricultural lands and fisheries is declining as these areas become increasingly degraded and pushed beyond their capacity to produce." .. "Rapid forest loss has eliminated habitat for unique and threatened plant and animal species," she added.

Fires, slash-and-burn farmers and commercial loggers are mostly to blame. In the past, forest resources helped fuel the economy. In the 1970s, the country was tops among world timber exporters. Urbanization is also to blame.

75% of the over 30 million poor live in the rural areas where poverty has forced many of them to invade the forest.

Deforestation has altered the climatic condition in the country. Periods of drought have become more common and extensive in the dry season while floods have prevailed in the rainy months.

The removal of forest cover has increased soil erosion in the uplands. And siltation, caused by erosion, shortens the productive life spans of dams and reservoirs, reducing the life span of the Magat reservoir, for example, from a probable life span of 100 years to 25 years, and the Ambuklao reservoir from 60 to 32 years.

Deforestation has also reduced the volume of groundwater available for domestic purposes. Cebu, having lost all forest cover, is 99% dependent on groundwater and more than half of its towns and cities, excluding Metro Cebu, have no access to potable water. The country has lost 30% to 50% of its water resources in 20 years.

Soil erosion also affects agriculture, which contributes 20% to the country's gross domestic product and employs nearly one-third of the country's total labor force. Nutrients are lost from the soil, reducing crop yields and leading to expanded use of chemical fertilizers, which in turn, pollutes water sources. The eroded soil is carried by the rivers to the coasts, where it interferes with fish nursery areas.

Rapid population growth and the increasing human pressure on coastal resources have resulted in the massive degradation of the coral reefs, which are some of the world's most ecologically-fragile ecosystems, each reef supporting as many as 3,000 species of marine life. In the Philippines, an estimated 10-15% of the total fisheries come from coral reefs.

Gandhi once said: "There is sufficiency for man's needs, but not for man's greed." Nor, it seems, for ill-judged dogmas and short-term planning.

Amazon Drought Caused Huge Carbon Emissions

The 2010 1.16 million square-mile drought in the Amazon rain forest was worse than a "100-year" dry spell in 2005, according to a study conducted by a collaboration between scientists at the University of Leeds and the University of Sheffield in Britain and Brazil's Amazon Environmental Research Institute

More frequent severe droughts like those in 2005 and 2010 risk turning the world's largest rain forest from a sponge that absorbs carbon emissions into a source of the gases, accelerating global warming. Trees and other vegetation in the world's forests soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide as they grow, helping cool the planet, but release it when they die and rot. The 2010 drought was a tree killer and dried up major rivers in the Amazon and isolated thousands of people who depend on boat transportation, shocking climate scientists who had billed the 2005 drought as a once-in-a-century event.

The study predicted the Amazon forest would not absorb its usual 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in both 2010 and 2011. In addition, the dead and dying trees would release 5 billion metric tons of the gas in the coming years, making a total impact of about 8 billion metric tons, according to the study.

In comparison, the United States emitted 5.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use in 2009.

If the droughts are driven by global warming, a vicious cycle of warmer temperatures and droughts could conceivably lead to a large-scale transformation of the forest over a period of decades and large parts of the forest could turn into a savannah-like ecosystem by the middle of the century with much lower levels of animal and plant biodiversity.

World's Last Great Forest Under Threat: New Study

In a paper called "Urgent preservation of boreal carbon stocks and biodiversity", the pristine boreal forest across large stretches of Russia, Canada, Alaska and Scandinavia, is under threat. The paper is the result of a study by researchers from the University of Adelaide in Australia, Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada and the National University of Singapore, who are calling for their urgent preservation to secure biodiversity and prevent the loss of this major global carbon sink.

This forest comprises about 1/3 of the world's forested area and 1/3 of the world's stored carbon.

While there has been typically sparse human populations in these regions, the researchers say "now the boreal forest is poised to become the next Amazon."

"Human disturbances caused by logging, mining and urban development have increased in these forests during recent years, with extensive forest loss for some regions and others facing heavy fragmentation and exploitation."

Findings include:

* Fire is the main driver and increased human activity is leading to more fires. Climate change may be increasing the frequency and possibly the extent of fires in the boreal zone. * Fragmentation is increasing with only about 40% of the total forested area remaining "intact". * Russian boreal forest is the most degraded and least "intact. * Except for Sweden, less than 10% of the boreal forests are protected from timber exploitation.

Nature Loss Dwarfs Bank Crisis

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the banking crisis. The annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion, from adding the value of providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

Some conservationists see it as a way of persuading policymakers to fund nature protection.

Wall Street has to date lost $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year.

Forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP.

As forests decline, nature stops providing free services and human economy has to provide them through building reservoirs, facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.

The cost falls disproportionately on the poor. The greatest cost to western nations would come through losing a natural absorber of greenhouse gas.

A number of nations are beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon trade. The counter-argument is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing for the worth of nature have not worked.

By 2010, governments are committed under the Convention of Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity loss. rw

Brazil to Increase Monitors in Rain Forest as Illegal Clearing Spreads

Brazil said it would send additional federal police to the Amazon following an announcement that illegal clearing of the rain forest had jumped last year.

Authorities will also monitor areas where the deforestation occurred in an attempt to prevent anyone from trying to plant crops or raise cattle there. The clearing of Brazil's Amazon rain forest jumped in 2007, spurred by high prices for corn, soy and cattle. Officials will try to fine people or businesses that buy anything produced on the deforested land. The plan means a 25% increase in the police force assigned to the region. If the plan doesn't work, Brazil will have an environmental and economic loss.

As many as 2,700 square miles of rain forest had been cleared from August through December, and Brazil could lose 5,791 square miles of jungle by this August. That would be a 34% increase from the 4,334 square miles of forest that was cut down and burned from August 2006 through July of last year.

Although preliminary calculations prove only that 1,287 square miles of rain forest were cleared from August through December, officials were still analyzing satellite imagery and working under the assumption that the higher amount of jungle had been cleared. rw

Brazil: Amazon Deforestation Seen Surging

Deforestation of the Amazon has surged in recent months. The rise raises questions over Brazil's assertion that its environmental policies are effectively protecting the world's biggest rain forest. Nobre, whose government agency monitors the Amazon, said that 2,300 square miles of forest had been lost in the past four months.

That compares with an estimated 3,700 square miles in the 12 months ended July 31, which Brazil officials hailed as the lowest deforestation rate since the 1970s.

Policies such as more controls on illegal logging and better certification of land ownership were reducing the deforestation. But environmental groups warned that rising global commodity prices are likely to fuel more clearing of land for farms.

Nobre said the major drivers of deforestation were illegal logging and land clearing for cattle farming that remained intact, despite the recent annual declines in forest clearing.

The three years of reduced deforestation did not bring a cure for illegal deforestation.

Destruction of forests produces about 20% of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. But the government has struggled to stem deforestation, partly due to strong global demand that has made Brazil one of the world's biggest food suppliers. Infrastructure is associated with aggressive and progressive land use change. Continued high oil prices were likely to result in a surge in demand for Amazon land to produce ethanol. rw

Food for 9 Billion: Turning the Population Tide in the Philippines

This story also appeared on PBS NEWSHOUR. A related story can be found on American Public Media's Marketplace.

Fishing villages near the Danajon Double Barrier Reef off of Bohol Island in the southern Philippines are embracing birth control for the first time, not just as a means to plan their families but as a path to long-term food security, ensuring that future generations enjoy the same abundance of fish. The area is one of the richest marine biodiversity hot spots in the world. More than a million people depend on these fishing grounds for their main source of protein and livelihoods. As the population of this area has nearly tripled in the last three decades, the effect on the reef has been devastating.

Illegal fishing has become rampant. Many use dynamite or cyanide, indiscriminately killing everything within their reach.

The shift to smaller families in the rural fishing village Humayhumay is already paying dividends. Fishermen have created a marine preserve to help revive fish stocks. With smaller families, thinking about future generations is a luxury fishermen can afford.

Every year the Philippines, now with 100 million people, adds about 2 million more mouths to feed and isn't expected to stabilize its population until 2080, at 200 million. The country is already beyond its carrying capacity.

Jason Bostero: Family planning is helpful because if you control the number of your children, you don't need as many fish to support your family. If you have many children, it's difficult to support them." .. "My income is just right to feed us three times a day. It's really, really different when you have a small family."

Crisna Bostero: "In my case, we were really hard up before. Sometimes, we would only eat once a day because we were so poor. We couldn't go to school. I did not finish my school because there were just so many of us."

A community-based family planning programs has made birth control options like the pill accessible and affordable - at about 70 cents a month. Distributors are able to sell pills and condoms anytime. They are as easy as buying soft drinks or matches.

PATH Foundation Philippines, a group funded mostly through USAID, has made this possible, placing its emphasis on local partners and bringing access to the people. In just six years since the program was first established here, family sizes have dropped from as many as 12 children to a maximum of about four today.

The program shows how closely tied family planning is with environmental conservation and putting food on the table.

Jason and Crisna Bostero, both practicing Catholics, don't see a conflict between their religious beliefs and family planning. For them, it's about something much more immediate, like what kind of future they're going to pass on to their two children. " I don't want them to be like us, just to fish the sea, just to farm the land. This is not an easy way to earn a living."

Outside of Humayhumay, where birth control remains largely out of reach, the struggle to put food on the table from one day to the next dominates life. People have to collect government assistance checks for food.

Countries like Thailand and Indonesia have largely avoided this scene, thanks to state-sponsored family planning programs. But Congressman Walden Bello says in the Philippines, any efforts to do the same have faced stiff resistance.

The country is 80% Catholic and the Catholic church leadership opposes any form of artificial contraception and has rallied for a decade against a reproductive health bill in Congress that would guarantee universal access to birth control. Recently, it even threatened the president with excommunication for supporting the bill.

Filipino Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz says "if you have more mouths to feed, then produce more food to eat! Not the other way around."

But trying to produce more food tests the limits of ecosystems, both on land and sea. Today, the Philippines imports more rice than any other nation on the planet. And according to the World Bank, every major species of fish here shows signs of severe overfishing.

Technological advances to boost the food supply have not kept pace with the Philippine's surging population growth.

More than half of all pregnancies in the Philippines are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Instititute.

The future of the people in the Philippines could easily be overwhelmed by outside forces, in a world that's projected to have 9 billion mouths to feed by the middle of the century.

Tragedy of the Commons

By Richard Grossman - First published in the Durango Herald

"In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation…." Great Law of the Iroquois

"They know that they shouldn't fish closer than 500 meters from the coast, but I've seen these boats with their nets out just 200 or 300 meters offshore. The officials don't enforce the laws."

We were visiting the Greek island of Mykonos while on tour with the Durango Choral Society. We walked along the harbor with our guide, David, admiring the many small fishing boats. He explained facets of the failing Greek economy as well as the ancient and modern sites on this beautiful island. The Aegean Sea around Mykonos was so overfished, David said, that there were few fish left to catch.

We found proof that David was correct when we sat down to eat. Restaurants, even those overlooking the beautiful blue Aegean, had menus that listed few seafood dishes. Any seafood was prohibitively expensive since it had been caught in distant seas.

The situation that we encountered in Greece is a good illustration of the "tragedy of the commons". That tragedy can occur when a limited resource is open to uncontrolled use by many people. Any one user may think he can benefit from taking as much of the resource as possible. This behavior is rational only in the narrow sense of self-interest. Regrettably, unbridled use of a resource is likely to lead to its depletion.

The term "commons" referred to pastureland that was available for everyone to graze his sheep in old England. Now it includes many different vital resources such as the air we breathe, the water we drink and the fish in the Aegean.

Most of us learned to share in kindergarten. Unfortunately, some adults never mastered that lesson or have forgotten it. When there are many people using the same resource, any person who takes more than his share may deprive others of their fair share. Even worse, selfish people can deplete the resource, so eventually no one benefits from it.

In the case of fishing off Mykonos, there had been plenty of seafood for centuries. In the past the boats and fishing techniques only allowed small, sustainable catches, so the small proportion of sea life that ended up in nets was quickly replaced. Now, with more fishermen and more effective fishing techniques and many more mouths to feed, the fish supply has been exhausted. The Greek government has tried to prevent depletion by having a "no fish" zone, with poor results. People don't seem to pay attention to the law, or the reason that it is needed.

Human population growth is one factor leading to the tragedy of the commons: more people using the same resource means less for all.

Ironically, some of the pollutants we have unintentionally added to drinking water may serve as a feedback mechanism to slow human population growth. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that have unintended hormonal effects. They are found in much of our country's drinking water. Some come from insecticides and other agricultural chemicals. Many plastics contain BPA, which has undesirable effects. Another source is the waste of women taking hormones. These chemicals have been shown to produce fish and other animals with sexual aberrations. It is possible that endocrine disruptors will lead to decreased human fertility.

The amount of fresh water on the planet is limited and, in some cases, is very slow to be replenished. The Ogallala aquifer is an example of a resource that is being used in an unsustainable manner. Much of the food grown in our country's midwestern breadbasket depends on water from this aquifer. Tragically, there are some places in eastern Colorado (and in other states) that rely on the Ogallala where the water table has dropped 40 feet in just 15 years!

As our human population has grown, the apparent size of the commons has shrunk. Although the first few wells in the Ogallala made little difference to the water table, now we seem to be sucking it dry. Dumping waste into a river or the atmosphere made little difference with few people and fewer factories, but these resources have become toxic in our populous, industrialized nation. We are learning the problems that can be caused by abusing the commons. The people who will suffer the most may be those who come after us, the "seventh generation" in the Iroquois law. Unless we think and plan ahead, our progeny will not have the use of many of the resources that we have enjoyed.

Oceans 'Dying Very Quickly'

Derek Hatfield competes in a solo round-the-world ocean race, this year finishing in third place. Having undertaken long sea voyages since the early 1990s, he has noticed disturbing changes in the ocean wildlife in the last few years.

"You don't see the fish, you don't see the turtles, you don't see the birds," Hatfield said.

"Along the coast you will see the odd humpback whale but it is getting more and more rare. Last year I did a transatlantic race and I didn't see one whale in the whole 15 days of racing across the North Atlantic. Not one whale! . . . The oceans are dying and they're dying very quickly."

Hatfield always used to stop what he was doing when dolphins showed up to race beside the bow of the boat or follow behind. But dolphins have stopped showing. "It is much lonelier without them," he says. "They're such an intelligent animal and such great company, especially when you're out there by yourself. Now it's a rare sight."

Around the world, people who live, work and play on the water are reporting significant changes in marine ecosystems, including fewer fish and shorebirds, growing blooms of algae to shrinking amounts of seaweed, the result of of climate change, pollution and overfishing.

A recent report presented to the United Nations last week warned of looming mass extinctions. "We now face losing marine species and entire marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, within a single generation," the international panel of marine experts state in the report.

Alex Rogers of Oxford University, scientific director of the International Program on the State of the Ocean, said the state of the oceans is declining far more rapidly than even the most pessimistic anticipated.

"The rate of carbon dioxide emissions is huge compared to the past. The closest comparison we have to our present time is about 55 million years ago and at the moment we're pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at about 10 times the rate at which it was entering the atmosphere during that period, which was associated with a major extinction."

Rogers says global warming, ocean acidification and lack of water oxygen are the greatest peril to ocean life.They are common factors which researchers have found to be linked within all known mass extinctions. Global warming builds up carbon dioxide which is then absorbed into the oceans, which causes acidification, while run-off of fertilizers and pollution chokes off oxygen in the water column.

Rogers says he was flabbergasted when he found that the upcoming Rio earth summit, " although they spoke about terrestrial environments and freshwater, the oceans (90% of the living space for life on the planet) weren't even mentioned in much of the documentation for that meeting."

Peter Wells, a marine scientist formerly with Environment Canada and now a professor at Dalhousie University, says "Fishing has created more change over the last few hundred years than any other stress. That's the removal of biomass, that's the removal of species and knocking down populations and in some cases so hard they don't recover, such as the northern cod."

Indonesia: Overpopulation Puts Java at Risk of Water Shortage

Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said a population overload has put Java at risk of suffering a water shortage.

Java has around 128 million people, which is equal to 59% of Indonesia's population.­ More and more forests have been converted into farming areas. The environmental carrying capacity based on the ecological footprint method shows that the environmental carrying capacity has been surpassed," Nugroho said.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has predicted that the average rainfall in the 2010-2020 period would be less than the 1978-2007 period.

It's About the Carbon; What's Worse Than the Gulf Oil Leak?

by Bill McKibben British Petroleum for a while engaged in a public relations campaign to restyle itself as Beyond Petroleum, but perhaps it would be better called Bigtime Pollution. Barack Obama has been careful at every turn not to offend the big oil and coal companies. Just recently he announced that he was suspending a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling, saying that "we are going to need vital energy sources to maintain our economic growth and our security." Judging by the way Americans scream every time the price of oil begins to rise, you would think that maybe the needle BP stuck into the bottom of the sea flows straight into our veins.

If the oil, instead of polluting the Gulf, had made its way up through the drilling pipe, onto the platform, off the gulf into some refinery and thence into the gas tank of a car, or if that West Virginia mine hadn't collapsed on the miners and instead the coal had proceeded smoothly down some rail line to some coal-fired plant, the result would be more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A gallon of gas, which weighs a little more than seven pounds, results in about 22 pounds of CO2. The average American car driven the average American distance releases its own weight in CO2 annually. This CO2 traps heat near the atmosphere that would otherwise radiate back out to space.

The trapping of heat causes everything frozen on the planet to slowly melt; the warm air holds more water vapor than cold, not only putting out more drenching rain storms, but causing more drought in arid areas; with the the extra carbon the oceans have absorbed from the in the atmosphere, they've turned 30% more acidic in recent decades, causing problems forming shells and reproducing for creatures at the bottom of the marine food chain. Coral reef researchers think that the entire ecosystem may be extinct by mid-century. Forget the slick in the gulf; think of the invisible acid slick now covering all seven seas.

Before the century is out, if we don't get off fossil fuel, then the climatologists have made the prognosis clear: five or six more degrees.

This is the ultimate teachable moment, the place where we can insist that our leaders start to take serious action-not just, or even mainly, to make sure that we don't have oil well blowouts in the future, but to make sure that we get off dirty energy.

The Obama administration has been more involved than its predecessors (5,000 hybrid cars for the federal fleet! Tanks running on biofuels!), but compared to the scale of the problem, those actions are like tossing a roll of Charmin into the gulf to soak up the oil.

Certain Senators have devised a weak climate "plan" essentially dictated by oil companies and electric utilities, which would reduce America's carbon emissions only 4% from 1990 levels. They couldn't do much more because Obama wouldn't push harder because he didn't see political gain involved-he already has the environmental vote. There is no movement giving him the push to take the issue to the next level.

We push by becoming politically engaged. On the tenth of October, 350.org is coordinating a Global Work Party, a follow-up to the Global Day of Action last October, which sparked 5,200 rallies in 181 countries. We need to spread the word that 350 parts per million CO2 is the most we can safely have in the atmosphere.

At the Copenhagen climate summit, 117 nations signed on to that 350 ppm concentration target. But they the poor nations. The rich and addicted weren't yet ready to face the truth. On October 10, people around the world will be putting up solar panels and harvesting community gardens and laying out bike paths because they want to send a serious, pointed message to our leaders: If we can get to work, you can get to work.

Last year in Copenhagen, Desmond Tutu preached a service at the city's great cathedral. When he was done, the cathedral bell range 350 times, and then 3,000 churches across Europe did the same thing. It sent a message: what we're doing to the Earth is not only stupid, it's evil. rw

Blue Fin Tuna Decline and Fall

The Atlantic blue fin tuna are delicious and may be on the brink of extinction due to overfishing. The European Union agreed to propose protecting them as an endangered species. Blue fin tuna have been eaten for centuries, but in the 1970s, demand and prices soared, particularly in Japan. As a result, stocks, especially of large, breeding age fish, have plummeted, and international conservation concerns have increased.

This tuna is one of the most highly prized fish used in Japanese raw fish dishes. In January 2009, a 440 pounds (200 kg) blue fin sold for $173,000. Prices were highest in the late 1970s and 1980s. The practice of tuna farming has brought down prices.

Atlantic blue fin populations decline became precipitous after the 1970's.

The EU agreement came ahead of a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) that will take place from March 13 to March 25 to consider a number of species, including blue fin tuna, elephants and polar bears.

The ambassadors attached a number of conditions, including a one year delay to the ban on fishing, and an opt out for fishermen using small boats to supply local markets.

Malta voted against the proposed ban while Sweden and Austria abstained. Environmental groups said the EU had not done enough to reduce over sized blue fin tuna fishing fleets. Over eight years the EU blue fin tuna fishing industry received subsidies totaling 34.5 million euros. Of this, 33.5 million euros was for the construction and modernization of vessels. Several Arab countries joined Japan in arguing it would hurt poor fishing nations and was not supported by sound science.

Supporters of the ban, including the European Union and the United States, say it is necessary this is a migratory species that swims from the western Atlantic to the Mediterranean. There is also a growing threat from illegal fishing fleets and the failure of existing measures to keep the population sustainable. rw

We're Killing the Oceans

Undersea photojournalist Brian Skerry sees the oceans in crisis: destructive overfishing, endangered "big game" fish, dying coral reefs, and subtle but potentially catastrophic shifts that are almost certainly due to climate change.

North Atlantic right whales, once so plentiful that "a man could almost walk across Cape Cod Bay upon their backs," now number 400 on the planet.

Atlantic cod - at one time teemed so thick in Boston Harbor one could simply toss a net into the water and pull up a silvery haul - have now been fished down to the last 10% of its population, and that those stocks may never be restored. Much of this has taken place since mechanized fishing.

Daniel Pauly, leader of the Sea Around Us Project at the University of British Columbia, reports that, humans have "reduced the populations of large commercial fish . . . by a staggering 90%," in the last 50 years.

The documentary End of the Line says: change the way we fish or the seas will be barren of seafood by 2048.

Skerry has photographed underwater around the world. In Mexico he found that the reefs were anemic. They were highly overfished. They consisted of a lot of dead coral, from warming and bleaching. They'd also sustained heavy hurricane damage. In New England he noticed that the huge schools of herring and pollock that he saw in the '70s and early '80s weren't there anymore.

Skerry has witnessed excessive and destructive fishing like catching shrimp. "You take a net, and you scrape it along the bottom to catch shrimp. In the process, everything else - all the little stuff that lives on the bottom, the sponges and the coral and all the habitat for baby animals - you wipe all that out. To catch one pound of shrimp, we might kill 12 pounds of other animals that get thrown back into the sea as by-catch."

The giant bluefin tuna continue to grow their entire life. "If we weren't so good at catching them, there would be 30-year-old bluefin that weigh a ton." But, "we're way too good at catching them. So their stocks have plummeted over 90 percent in just the last 30 years."

The industry has been struggling - severely curtailing fishing quotas and limiting time at sea in order to help replenish those decimated species. Some have been rebuilt: "Hake, monkfish, mackerel, herring, bluefish. There have been quite a few success stories." But, "some of the slower-growing species are not scheduled to be rebuilt until 2025 or sometimes as late as 2050."

"As the bounty of coastal waters dropped, fisheries moved further offshore, to deeper waters," he writes. "And, finally, as the larger fish began to disappear, boats began to catch fish that were smaller and uglier - fish never before considered fit for human consumption. Many were renamed so that they could be marketed: the suspicious slimehead became the delicious orange roughy."

Yet even as America struggles to manage its depleted stocks - and those independent fishermen are subjected to ever more draconian regulations - corporate overfishing continues at alarming rates in places such as the European Union and Asia, with governments showing little inclination to rein it in.

"we're importing 80 percent of our fish," says Vanasse. "We're being extremely cautious and conservative in what we allow our fishermen to take out of the water, but then we supplement our consumption from countries that are known to be non-compliant."

Another problem, says Skerry - is ocean acidification. That's when an excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, soaked up by the ocean, leads to a decrease in the water's pH level, stripping the sea of carbonate ions, which are crucial for calcification.

The result, says Skerry, is that it "wipes out things like coral reefs - anything with a calcium structure, including shellfish and these little mollusks that are consumed by a lot of other animals."

"If you wipe them out, the whole floor of the oceanic food chain collapses," says Whitehouse. "And we don't know what happens after that."

Meanwhile, Annala is noticing other changes. "The Gulf of Maine receives a lot of water from the Labrador Current system," he says, "and depending on the strength of the Gulf Stream, varying amounts of this colder Labrador Current water is entrained into the gulf. That's becoming fresher and cooler as the Greenland ice cap melts."

Rothschild says that that "puddle of fresh water" floating atop the briny Atlantic "prevents the typical overturn of nutrients going up and down and recycling to make phytoplankton and zooplankton. If this is a recurring phenomena, it's going to change the productivity of the northwest Atlantic in ways that we don't know yet."

Skerry says the Obama administration's gestures and rhetoric so far have been encouraging. "They get it," he says. "They understand. But the unfortunate reality is there's so much on their plate right now. People's retirement money is vanished and they're losing their jobs and we're gonna send another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan and there's terrorism . . . where do fish fall on that level of importance?"

Biodiversity: Next Steps: More of Us = Fewer of Them

As the world's population counter keeps ticking higher, more and more species are being driven toward extinction.

Just as we reached 7 billion the Vietnamese Javan rhino, the last mainland Asian rhino, was declared extinct. And this past week, its related western black rhino species in Africa was also declared extinct. Like so many rare species, these rhinos simply ran out of places to live. More humans meant fewer of them, until the last of their kind vanished.

We recently posted a new report on 10 U.S. plants and animals threatened by the effects of overpopulation: loss of habitat, freshwater scarcity, pesticide bombing and an ever-expanding network of roads that keep the threats traveling: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/overpopulation/7_billion_and_counting/species.html . Find out about imperiled species near you with our online Species Finder: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/overpopulation/T_and_E_map/index.html.

We're also hashing it out and keeping you updated on a new Twitter feed, @EndSpcsCondoms.

U.S.: Don't Let Nevada Water Hogs Drain the Great Basin

The Great Basin ecosystem in Nevada and Utah is under attack by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which is trying to export groundwater via a 300-mile pipeline to Las Vegas -- a city hoping to expand in the driest desert in North America.

This is obviously a bad bet, and we need to say so right away.

The proposal would cut the lifeline of a wild area the size of Vermont. Species that are dependent on the Great Basin ecosystem, like the imperiled greater sage grouse (pictured here), would be hurt, while some fish and springsnails that live nowhere else on Earth could die off completely.

Please ask the Nevada state water engineer to deny the Southern Nevada Water Authority's applications.

There are better options for securing water for Las Vegas than laying waste to the heart of the Great Basin.

Click on the link in the headline to see more and to take action.

Top 10 U.S. Endangered Species Threatened by Overpopulation; as Global Population Hits 7 Billion, Panthers, Polar Bears, Sea Turtles Being Crowded Off Planet

As the human population grows and rich countries continue to consume resources at voracious rates, we are crowding out, poisoning and eating all other species into extinction. The Center for Biological Diversity has released a list of the top 10 plants and animals in the United States facing extinction from pressure caused by overpopulation.

Some, like the Florida panther and Mississippi gopher frog, are rapidly losing habitat as the human population expands. Others are seeing their habitat dangerously altered — like the small flowering sandplain gerardia in New England — or, like the bluefin tuna, are buckling under the weight of massive overfishing. Still others, like the polar bear, are facing extinction because of fossil fuels driving catastrophic global warming.

"Human overpopulation and overconsumption are simply taking away the land, air and water other creatures need to survive," Harwood said. "The world population is expected to hit 10 billion by the end of this century. Left unchecked, this massive population growth will have a disastrous effect on biodiversity around the globe — biodiversity we need to maintain the web of life we've always depended on."

The Center launched its 7 Billion and Counting campaign last month to raise awareness of global population growth and its connection to the accelerating extinction of species. As part of the campaign, the Center is giving out 100,000 of its hugely popular Endangered Species Condoms this year to more than 1,200 volunteer distributors around the country.

Click on the link in the headline to see a description of all 10 threatened plants and animals.

Warming Planet Pushing Species Out of Habitats Quicker Than Expected

In a study of regions across the globe, it was found that far more than 2,000 species of plants and animals had strayed from their native habitats. They were moving toward the poles, at an average rate of 11 miles (17.6 km) per decade. They were also moving upward at an average rate of about 40 feet (12.2 meters) per decade. These estimates are about three times farther than previous measures.

In the areas of greatest temperature increases, species were moving farther and faster, researchers found.

"There wasn't any clear overall pattern that different types of species were responding more than others," said study researcher Chris Thomas, of the University of York in the United Kingdom. "The amount of change we are seeing is greater in the regions that have warmed the most, the link to climate change is clear." . Within groups there may a wide range of behavior. For examples, in the avian population, the Cetti's warbler has moved to the north by more than 90 miles (150 km) while another bird, the Cirl bunting, moved south by 75 miles (120 km) because agriculture has disrupted its habitat.

Habitat fragmentation and changing ranges of predators, prey and pollinators (for plants) also influence species' ability to survive in any specific habitat. If a species can't reach the next bit of livable habitat, they would be stuck where they are until climate changes led to their extinction.

Moving to a new habitat is just one response to climate change. Many species are undertaking evolutionary changes in response to climate," Thomas said. "You don't have to just adapt with the physical conditions, but you need to compete with these new species" that have since moved into their newly warmed digs."

Predator Loss Can Start Food-Chain Reaction

A paper by two dozen scientists in six countries, published in a recent edition of the journal Science suggests that humans' destruction of top predators is causing reverberations worldwide in ways not apparent even a decade ago.

The loss of species at the top of the food chain has been happening either because humans believed they harmed livestock, competed for wild game or because ecosystems had become too fragmented.

Overfishing led to declines of sea lions, the preferred food of killer whales, and they began eating sea otters, whose populations in Alaska's Aleutian Island s declined 90% from the late 1980s to 2005, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Worldwide, tigers have lost 93% of their historic range, says the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In the past three decades, numbers of African lions have fallen 48.5% to fewer than 40,000, says Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The destruction of lions in Africa resulted in an explosion in the baboon population. These primates carry diseases that crossed over and began infecting nearby humans.

Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park to bring down elk and deer populations, allowing creekside willows to rebound, making a more fruitful environment for species living in and near the water.

When whale populations crashed because of industrial whaling, there were less nutrients from their feces in the southern oceans and many ocean areas become much less able to support the simple animals and plankton on which the entire ecosystem was based.

Wildebeest were almost wiped out by a human-introduced disease, rinderpest, in parts of Africa, which in turn led to a build-up of woody vegetation, resulting in devastating wildfires.

U.S.: Feds: BP Could Spill 92 Million Gallons in Arctic

The Department of the Interior just released a report concluding that drilling by BP, Shell or ConocoPhillips could spill up to 92 million gallons of oil into the Arctic Ocean.

This would destroy more wildlife habitat in Alaska, putting polar bears, seals, whales and walruses at risk of extinction.

In 2008 the Bush administration approved the sale of 2.8 million acres of offshore oil drilling leases to BP, Shell and other oil companies, but the Center for Biological Diversity, native groups and other conservationists joined in a lawsuit to stop the drilling, and won, requiring the Interior Department to reconsider its reckless decision.

The Obama administration was tasked to complete the environmental review, as a result of the lawsuit -- and last week determined that up to 92 million gallons of oil could be spilled in a major environmental and wildlife catastrophe such as what happened in the Gulf of Mexico just a year ago.

Despite the huge risks to Arctic wildlife, Interior is still planning to approve the dangerous Bush oil leases. In fact, Interior wants to speed through even more oil drilling by also opening the 24-million-acre NPRA reserve to the west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

We have expert lawyers and scientists who can stop BP and Shell from trashing the fragile Arctic wilderness, but only with your help.

Contribute to the Center for Biological Diversity's Endangered Species Protection Fund today. Endangered Arctic wildlife and wilderness need your support.

New Report Reveals Dramatic Rise in Pesticide Use on Genetically Engineered (GE) Crops Due to the Spread of Resistant Weeds

GE crops of corn, soybeans and cotton have increased use of weed-killing herbicides by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008; 46% of the total increase occurred in 2007 and 2008. However, GE corn and cotton have reduced insecticide use by 64 million pounds, resulting in an overall increase of 318 million pounds of pesticides over the first 13 years of commercial use.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report links the increase in pesticide use on GE, "herbicide-tolerant" (HT) crops to the emergence and spread of herbicide-resistant weeds. Farmers are already critical of GE crops because of drastically rising biotech seed prices.

The agricultural biotechnology industry claims that the higher costs of GE seeds are justified by the decreased spending on pesticides. But the need to make additional herbicide applications in an effort to keep up with resistant weeds is also increasing cash production costs. Corn farmers planting GE hybrids in 2010 will spend around $124 per acre for seed, almost three times the cost of conventional corn seed. A new-generation "Roundup Ready" (RR) 2 soybean seed will cost 42% more than the original RR seeds they are displacing.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, is now being resisted by weeds which are starting to infest millions of acres; farmers face rising costs coupled with sometimes major yield losses.

A UCS report claims that engineered crops have largely failed to increase crop yields, despite the industry's consistent claims to the contrary. Dr. Margaret Mellon, food and environment program director for the Union of Concerned Scientists. said that "growth in pesticide use has important implications for farmers' bottom lines, public health and the health of the environment."

"The most common type of genetically engineered crops promotes increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of resistant weeds, and more chemical residues in our foods. This may be profitable for the biotech/pesticide companies, but it's bad news for farmers, human health and the environment."

Global Temps Set Record for Warmest Winter; NASA Also Reports That Earth Has Lost Some Aerosol 'Sunscreen'

This winter was the warmest on record worldwide and the report comes after the IPCC said global warming is very likely caused by human actions. A NASA study report found that an important counter-balance to warming, sunlight blocked by pollution and other aerosol particles, appears to have weakened.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the combined land and ocean temperatures for December through February were 1.3 degrees F above average for the period since 1880.

During the past century, global temperatures have increased at about 0.11 degrees per decade. But that increase has been three times larger since 1976. Most scientists attribute the rising temperatures to greenhouse gases that build up in the atmosphere and trap heat somewhat like a greenhouse.

Also contributing to this winter's record warmth was an El Nino. It was particularly strong in January, but the ocean surface has since begun to cool.

In the N. Hemisphere the combined land and water temperature was the warmest ever at 1.64 degrees above average. In the Southern Hemisphere, the temperature was 0.88 degree above average and the fourth warmest. rw

USDA Backs Production of Rice With Human Genes

The Agriculture Department has given preliminary approval for the commercial production of a food crop containing human genes.

The plan calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds.

The proteins are to be extracted for use as an anti-diarrhea medicine and might be added to yogurt and granola bars.

The idea is to help children with diarrhea get better faster. Protection should keep the engineered plants and their seeds from escaping.

Critics say gene-altered plants migrate out of their home plots and could result in pharmacologically active proteins in the food of unsuspecting consumers.

Als there would be little control over the doses people might get exposed to. Other companies grow such plants in vats and it is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors.

Consumer advocacy groups also opposed the plans. Ventria has developed three varieties of rice, each with a different human gene that makes the plants produce one of three human proteins. Two are bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva.

A study concluded that children with severe diarrhea recovered a day and a half faster if the fluids they were prescribed were spiked with the proteins.

Production in plants is cheaper.

The company is talking to the FDA about putting the proteins into health foods. Its third variety of rice makes a blood protein used in medical therapies.

Ventria sought permission to grow its rice commercially on as many as 3,200 acres in Geary County, Kan. A previous plan to grow the rice in southern Missouri was dropped when Anheuser-Busch, the nation's largest rice buyer, threatened to stop buying rice from the state if the deal went through.

Because no other rice is grown in Kansas the risk of escape or cross-fertilization is nil, the company said. It will mill seeds on site to minimize the risk of seeds getting mistakenly released or sold.

The Agriculture Department concluded that the project posed no undue risks. The public can comment until March 30.

The agency revealed that a type of rice seed in Arkansas had become contaminated with a different variety of genetically engineered rice, that was never released for marketing. The error was discovered in the investigation into the contamination of U.S. rice by another gene-altered variety, LL601, which has seriously disrupted rice exports.

Those problems, along with the previous discovery of unapproved, gene-altered StarLink corn in food and the accidental release of crops that had been engineered to make a vaccine for pig diarrhea, undermine the USDA's credibility. rw

This Crop Revolution May Succeed Where GM Failed

New technologies have made gene splicing and transgenic crops obsolete. The new technology is called marker-assisted selection (MAS) and offers a method to accelerate classical breeding. A growing number of scientists believe MAS will eventually replace GM food. Environmental organisations are guardedly supportive of MAS technology.

Instead of using molecular splicing to transfer a gene, scientists are now using MAS to locate desired traits in other varieties or wild relatives of a particular crop, then crossbreeding those plants with the existing varieties. This reduces the risk of environmental harm. Using MAS, researchers can upgrade classical breeding, and cut the time needed to develop new plant varieties.

Researchers at the US department of agriculture have used MAS to develop a strain of rice that is soft on the outside but remains firm on the inside after processing. Most of the transgenic crops introduced into the fields express only two traits, resistance to pests and compatibility with herbicides. There is still much work to be done in understanding the factors which interact to affect the development of the plant. Also, MAS is of value when used as part of an approach to farming that integrates new crop introductions with a proper regard for all factors that together determine the sustainability of farming.

The continued introduction of GM crops could contaminate existing plant varieties. MAS technology is being looked at with interest within the EU. The struggle between a younger generation of sustainable-agriculture enthusiasts and entrenched scientists determined to maintain control over the world's seed stocks is likely to be hard-fought. MAS technology could be the right technology at the right time in history. rw

Rush for Land a Wake-up Call for Poorer Countries, Report Says

More than 200m hectares of land in the global south - over eight times the size of the UK - have been sold or leased between 2000 and 2010, according to a study published by the International Land Coalition.

Population growth, the increasing consumption of a global elite, and an international legal system skewed in favour of large scale investors are fuelling a worldwide rush for land that is unfolding faster than previously thought and is likely to continue.

The food price crisis of 2007-08 may have triggered a boom in international land deals, however "a much broader set of factors - linked to population growth and the rise of emerging economies - is raising the prospect of "a new era in the struggle for, and control over, land in many areas of the global south", the study argues.

The large land acquisitions may marginalise rural communities and jeopardise the future of family farming in favour of big industrial projects. Enthusiasm for industrial-scale agriculture continues to sideline small farmers.

Suprises uncovered by the study: rich national investors play a much larger role than previously thought, food is not the main focus of these deals, and African governments are not the only ones signing away large tracts of land.

Overall, about 40% of land acquired over the last decade is for biofuel production, 25% is for food crops and another 27% for mining, tourism, industry and forestry.

However, in Africa, 66% of land deals are intended for biofuel production, compared with 15% for food crops.

in south-east Asia, 75% of reported land deals have been struck by regional players, while in Africa, South African investors have acquired an estimated 40.7m hectares since 2009.

The IMF, the World Bank and a number of government aid agencies are pressuring developing countries to attract and legally protect foreign investment in agriculture and extractive industries,and to set up sophisticated specialised agencies to promote investment opportunities and offering benefits such as tax breaks and low prices, said the report.

USAID is hosting an international conference to promote foreign investment in South Sudan. Almost 9% of South Sudan's land had already been leased or bought by investors prior to the country's independence in July this year.

There are few effective international mechanisms exist to safeguard the rights of the rural poor. Meanwhile, the common lack of formal, legal titles to land is heightening the vulnerability of rural communities.

Lorenzo Cotula, of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development said that " poor communities need to have "stronger rights over the land they have lived on for generations."

The G20 summit in Seoul last year encouraged all countries and companies to uphold a set of principles for responsible agricultural investment, developed by the UN and the World Bank But such agreements are little more than window-dressing.

Residents of Mukaya Payam, in South Sudan's Central Equatoria state, launched a campaign in August against what would have been the country's largest land deal - a 49-year lease of 600,000 hectares by an American company. In Selingue, in southern Mali, hundreds of smallholder farmers and civil society activists came together for the first international farmers' conference to tackle the global rush for land.

Europe Bridles at WTO View on National Biotech Bans

European countries bristled at a world trade ruling that touches on sovereignty over genetically modified (GMO) foods, with some saying they would do their level best to keep farming GMO-free. Europe's consumers are well known for their hostility to GMO crops, often dubbed as "Frankenstein foods." The biotech industry insists its products are perfectly safe, however, and no different to conventional foods. A WTO panel ruled that various EU countries had broken international rules by imposing national bans on specific GMOs. Some reacted angrily saying they would defend their legal right to block EU-approved products if they wanted. EU law dictates that bans must be scientifically justified. Austria has banned imports of three GMO maize types and is considering a ban on growing a GMO rapeseed and said they will be as restrictive as possible. Greece is against genetically modified foods. All prefectures have declared their area GMO-free and need to discuss with Brussels and scientists safeguards before lifting the ban. Last June, EU governments rebuffed attempts to order the five countries to lift their national GMO bans. The Commission did not think the bans justified, nor did the WTO. It also said the EU's de facto GMO moratorium between 1999 and 2003 broke world trade rules. France has a long-standing consumer opposition to biotech food and bans two types of GMO rapeseed but has allowed some small-scale growing of GMO maize. French consumer and farming groups deplored the WTO ruling, insisting that a majority of consumers opposed GMOs. A poll in France this week showed that 78% would like a temporary ban to evaluate their health and environmental impact. Green groups said consumer resistance has increased in Europe since the three major GMO growers filed their WTO complaint. U.S. officials regretted there was a level of misinformation in Europe about the benefits of biotech crops but hoped that the WTO ruling would let the EU open its doors more to GMO imports. In Argentina, officials said it was too early to contemplate seeking some kind of economic compensation from the EU. rw

Bionic Growth For Biotech Crops; Gene-Altered Agriculture Trending Global

Since genetically modified crops were planted a decade ago, the acreage worldwide has been growing, last year jumping 11% to 222 million acres. The crops are gaining in countries such as China, India and Brazil, with small cotton farmers embracing a technology that allows them to grow more cotton while reducing the use of pesticides. Rice could be on the verge of a transformation. Iran has commercialized gene-altered rice and China is ready to do so. Widespread acceptance could put crop biotechnology into the hands of the millions of small rice farmers who grow nearly half the calories eaten by the human race. Commercialization of rice that has been genetically altered to resist insects has implications for alleving poverty, hunger and malnutrition for all biotech crops and their acceptance on a global basis. Proponents welcomed the findings saying it demonstrates their usefulness for farmers and society. But two groups attacked the new report disputing the impact of gene-altered crops noting that the technology is concentrated in a handful of countries, with the US, Argentina, Canada and Brazil accounting for 90% of the world's biotech acreage. The technology is used in mainly cotton, corn, soy and canola. Industry claims that the technology would alleviate poverty in Africa have proven illusory, a point echoed by a report from environmental group Friends of the Earth. Growing biotech crops can hurt farmers' export markets in countries that are skeptical of the technology. Even after a decade, biotech crops are grown on under 1% of the world's arable land. But by 2005 farmers were planting them on 222 million acres in 21 countries. Almost a third of the agricultural land in the US is planted in gene-altered crops, and more than half in Argentina and Paraguay. Brazilian farmers had been illegally planting biotech crops for years, but that country has now legalized them and the acreage there is growing rapidly. 2,000 scientists in China are working on gene-modified crops. Bacterial genes give some plants the ability to resist worms, and others gain the ability to survive heavy applications of herbicides that kill nearby weeds. But a controversy in Europe in the late 1990s had advocacy groups saying the crops posed unnecessary environmental risks. The US has been trying to open the European market, with some success. Five of 25 European countries are now growing at least small quantities of biotech crops. The US filed a complaint against Europe over the issue with the WTO and a ruling is expected soon. The European Commission ordered Greece to permit a variety of gene-altered corn. rw

The Fake Environmentalists and Their Pretend-Game

Regional planners, under the direction of their political overlords---the proxies of developers - are trying to shove tens of thousands more people into the North Vancouver Island region. And they don't want people to grasp the full implications of their devious plans. What is transpiring here is transpiring across Canada and the continent of North America--and elsewhere. New subdivisions are sprouting up all over the map in place of greenbelts, woodlands and marshes and the people have little say in the matter.

The most frustrating thing is that fake environmentalists are able to pose as resisting this imposition. But their issue is not with population growth, but with "sprawl"---even though at least half of sprawl is driven by population growth and not by poor land-use planning. They want to 'manage' growth and steer it away from farmland, while packing the unending stream of newcomers into tighter and denser lots alongside existing residents, who are encouraged to surrender their living space in the interests of food security and the environment.

Thus people are presented with a false antithesis. Either accept growth with sprawl or so-called 'smart' growth without it. The local NDP (New Democratic Party), Greens and environmentalists tell people that population growth is something not in their jurisdiction, that immigration (or child benefits) policy is a federal matter and that nothing can prevent inter-provincial migration as guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, growth out of their hands.

Yet which political parties receive top marks from the Sierra Club? The federal Greens and the federal NDP. And what is their immigration policy? To increase the absurdly high immigration intake quota of the Harper Government by 25%, while matching or besting its pro-natalist programs.

This is the pretend-game that environmental NGOs play. Either population growth is not controllable, or even if it is, they have nothing to do with it--- and in any case, it has little bearing on environmental degradation, whether farmland or species loss, or GHG emissions. "It's not whether we grow", they argue, "but how we grow". Just squeeze tighter in the sardine can so that incoming migrants can snuggle up to you. And above all, feel guilty about having extra space in the backyard for your son to play in or a nature trail at the end of your block to take your dog. If it is nature that you want, well, you can get that on the Outdoor Living Channel, can't you?

Let me confess that, whether it is the white-flight "Freedom 55s" from Alberta or California, or people from across the world, I've never felt lonely enough to want them living under my nose, and neither do most of us who chose our 'low-density" lifestyle. Some may call that selfish, I call it a human right. Is it my demand for space that is unreasonable, or the demand that I accept as reasonable a human population level that is 250% higher now than when I was born? Why are we being forced to accept population growth? Because population growth is thought to be a necessary agent of economic growth, our Great God.

The myth that continued economic growth is necessary, desirable, inevitable or even possible remains our major stumbling block, the first domino of misconceptions that must fall before we can reclaim any semblance of the quality of life that we once enjoyed. We are in a foot race with Mother Nature. If we don't stop growth, she will stop us. Time is almost up. Don't let the Pied Pipers of Fake Environmentalism lead you down a futile path. Fight growth, not the symptoms of growth. rw

Uganda: Will Mother Nature Survive Population Pressure?

According to the UN Habitat report 2009, the population density in Kampala is so high, about 12 families occupy a single plot of land, and about 1.5 million people live in slums in Kampala. The wetlands and swamps have now been turned into residential areas because of the increase in population.

This has caused environmental damage. In Kampala, damage to wetlands and swamps has resulted in floods, especially in Kalerwe, Bwaise, Kawempe, Zana, Ndeeba, Bwaise and Kanyanya. In the east and north east of Uganda, mudslides and floods are becoming common.

The 20-year stability and improvement in livelihood and child mortality, coupled with a high fertility rate have contributed to a population growth rate of 3.3% compared to the global average of 1.1%. This makes Uganda one of the countries with the fastest growing populations in the world.

80% of the Ugandan population relies on resources like land and lakes for livelihood. 99% uses firewood and charcoal for cooking, putting a strain on forests, wetlands and causing a shortage of agricultural land. Kampala has swallowed up the greenery that once covered the empty hills and valleys.

More wetlands in Kampala have been cleared for human settlement and industries.

When the floods hit Kampala early this year, the former minister of environment, Dr. Kezimbira Miyingo, issued a directive that all houses in wetlands be demolished. However, owners opposed the directive, claiming they did not know they were building on wetlands.

The problem of flooding is so severe in the Kampala suburbs of Kalerwe, Kisenyi and Bwaise that tenants shift to other areas to escape the floods. Latrines are built above water streams.

During rainy seasons, the area residents often open a hole to release faeces from the latrines. The rain then washes the faeces into streams, from where they fetch water. Many people have no toilets and incidents of people using polythene papers as toilets is common.

In May this year, KCC received money from the World Bank to boost the fight against flooding in Kampala suburbs. The money was for reconstruction and rehabilitation of high risk areas, starting with a 3.6km drainage channel in Bwaise. Part of the channel was constructed, but it has not been helpful in controlling floods.

According to the 2002 population census, 12% of Uganda's population lived in the urban areas. The United Nations indicated that by 2007, 3.7 million Ugandans lived in urban areas.

According to Uganda National Bureau of Statistics, Kampala's population in 2010 is about 1.6 million people.

It is possible for sparsely populated areas to be overpopulated as such areas may have a meagre or non-existent capability to sustain human life. Already this is beginning to show in Uganda. Although access to water has improved, (67% of the population has access to an improved water source), it takes an average Ugandan over 30 minutes to collect water.

Rural households are also increasingly spending more time looking for firewood. Overpopulated places compete for the basic life-sustaining resources, hence a diminished quality of life. Increase in time for collecting water or fuel impacts on women more. Girls cannot complete their education, thus early marriage and childbearing which starts a cycle of poverty.

Despite the increase in population density in world cities, the UN Habitat says in its report that urbanisation may be the best solution to managing the rising global population.

Cities concentrate human activity within specified areas, limiting the extent of environmental damage. But this mitigating influence can only be achieved if urban planning is significantly improved. rw

Organizations like the AVRDC and DISC, by inspiring our future farmers, working with current farmers and reigniting an interest and appetite for indigenous crop varieties, are helping to improve diets, livelihoods and local ecosystems around the world.

Staple crops can't do it alone. Luckily for us, creating a sustainable agriculture system and fighting hunger takes all kinds of crops, for a more delicious and sustainable, well-nourished future. rw

Australia: Survey Unveils Coast Future No-One Wants

This year, the Sunshine Coast Daily, Seven Local News, Thedaily.com.au and the University of the Sunshine Coast joined forces to present a survey to guage what matters to you on the eve of a new era for our region. The Your Coast Your Say Survey attracted 1582 entries and three clear messages emerged. * We do not want high rises. * We do not want to be another Gold Coast. * We don't want our environment and lifestyle ruined by overpopulation.

The biggest the question was whether population growth was a concern, to which 77% said yes and only 13% answered no.

The Sunshine Coast's influential players met to discuss the formation of a committee for the Sunshine Coast.

The bipartisan committee consisting of members from community groups, business and development sectors and environmental agencies, would develop innovative and practical ideas. The state predicts an extra 180,000 people will move here in the next 20 years. The South-East Queensland Plan has allocated $13.2 billion to Sunshine Coast projects.

The plan includes 11 new schools for $437 million, the Kawana hospital at $940 million, the $1.7 billion Traveston Crossing Dam and $564 million Northern Pipeline Interconnector.

The government is planning a multi-modal transport corridor to cope with growth. Each council has drafted a Strategy to cater for proposed growth, but have not been signed off at a state level.

Caloundra's LGMS predicts the population will grow by another 70,000 people in the next 20 years. Maroochy's LGMS projects 53,000 new homes.

Only one in five think these plans will contribute to a better Sunshine Coast by 2020.

Look at the Gold Coast and you look at the Sunshine Coast and we're 10 years behind. To stop that from happening, maybe the new regional council might be able to have a whole of region approach, where some of the good things that have happened up in Noosa can be applied around the region.

Dr White believes public transport will be the major issue in the near future.

Public transport needs to be improved dramatically, and certainly that is on the cards, but we're spending huge amounts of money to make it easier for people to drive cars. It would be good to see light rail across the Coast, tram systems and buses that run on gas rather than diesel.

Only 20% chose public transport as their preferred mode of transport for the future. Recycled water is the most preferred option to address the coming water crisis, whereas, the Traveston Dam has lost support since last year's survey from 12% approval to 8%.

In last year's survey, the biggest crime concern was drink-driving. This year, 67% were listed street violence as the most significant problem. Daylight saving gained more support with 61% for it, compared to less than half last year. rw

California Seal Pups Beat Kids in Battle Over Beach

This week San Diego officials roped off a prime stretch of the La Jolla shoreline to keep people from disturbing the harbor seals who have taken up residence.

Any move can spook the animals to flee into the ocean and abandon their newborn babies, violating federal marine mammal protection laws.

Seals need adequate sun and sand time in order to maintain good health. The city was urged to act after receiving an increase in complaints that angry residents were harassing the marine mammals.The council voted to erect the barrier each year from January 1 through May 1. Federal officials have installed 24-hour surveillance cameras to watch for people deliberately swimming, kayaking or sunbathing in the area.

Many residents said they were undeterred as it's the only place around with a lifeguard station and bathrooms. A steady stream of tourists and environmental activists clusters around the roped area, unfazed by the stench. The cove has been a popular La Jolla spot since the early 1930s. Nobody knows why the animals began flocking to the shore in the late 1990s but about 200 seals live there. The rope barrier is also meant as a warning to stay away from seal fecal matter and birth byproducts.

A California judge ordered the city to dredge and clean up the beach but the decision has been tied up in litigation and a foul fishy stench remains.

San Diego Council president Scott Peters said he did not feel there was evidence of seal harassment. "The issue isn't so much that people can't get along with seals, it's that people can't get along with people," Peters said. rw

Why is an overpopulation group interested in Aids?

Answer: AIDS is prevalent in Africa, where some of the world's biggest population growth is
taking place. In Sub-Sahara Africa, it often the norm for unmarried females
to have children to prove fertility so that they can be eligible for
marriage. So, with the high promiscuity rate, the resulting high growth
rate, and the high concentration of AIDS, there is the possibility that AIDS
will mutate into a disease that is airborne (think: "Black Death", the
Bubonic plague)

New, Muscular Microbes Emerge as Planet Warms

Climate change, tropical deforestation, poverty, education levels, trends in
agriculture and international trade, have bearings on disease.
Microbes are configured to respond amazingly quickly to environmental
changes. Urban migrations spread diseases. Infectious diseases happen with
inadequate sanitation, air pollution, poverty, malnutrition, and the misuse
of antibiotics. The body's defenses may be overwhelmed by toxins in the air,
water, and diet. Transport of humans and food products by air spread
diseases quickly. The sheer volume of urban growth, by political upheaval,
economic turmoil, or corruption is overwhelming health initiatives. Free
markets mean lack of controls.

Swine Flu - Dependent on Large Population

The major deadly infectious diseases of humanity through history - smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera - evolved from animals. Such diseases need a numerous and densely packed human population to sustain themselves lest they wane from lack of new nearby victims who have not had time to develop resistence.

Growing by 82 million a year, and on our way to 9 billion by 2050, and with jet travel, how can we be surprised that infectious diseases easily sweep across the planet with fearful speed?

Most scientists and ecologists say that Earth is over-populated by billions and that the carrying capacity of the United States will support far less than our current 306 million.

Looming catastrophes of climate instability, ecological impoverishment and resource shortages like oil, food, and fresh water are happening on that same population battle ground as Swine Flu.

If we don't get a handle on our population, death and disease will become more the norm than the exception.

Family Planning Hits Culture Gap in Rural Nepal

Mrs. Chepang, 42, has conceived 26 children during the last 30 years. Her husband promised to feed her and the children and if she dies in the process, will take care of her cremation.

She was married at age 12 and believed that frequent births were natural.

Only two of her infants are alive today. "Some died in the womb, some within a few days of their birth and some after six months," she said. She often had no help during labor.

After her 23rd child, she suffered from uterine prolapse, which caused regular bleeding, dizziness and pain. But she continued to give birth. Eventually, her ability to move became limited to dragging herself to the toilet.

Nepal's fertility rate fell from 6.3 in 1976 to 3.1 in 2006, and the contraceptive prevalancy rose from 26% in 1996 to 44% in 2006 thanks to family planning promotion, but "There is a dearth of family planning services, methods and devices at the health posts" in rural, remote and socially backward societies of Nepal, says Aswini Rana, a counsellor with the Family Planning Association of Nepal.

Mrs. Chepang's husband once had to carry her for more than an hour to reach a health post.

"We have started to promote appropriate methods of family planning targeted towards those who do not understand and are hence averse to surgical measures of family planning," Kiran Regmi, director of the Family Health Division under the Department of Health Services. He said family planning awareness is increasing in Nepal.

The government says radio is the most popular way to transmit family planning messages in rural areas, but women may be too shy and embarrassed to go to the local health post to obtain contraceptives, even if they do learned about them on the radio. Mrs. Chapang's husband told her that showing her private parts to others was shameful.

But then Kiran Gautam, assistant inspector general of the police, heard Chepang's story on the radio and offered to pay for the operation. She said: "Seeing a woman, who is barely 50, in such a state and knowing how she was compelled to lead this life of pain, I realized that the status of women in Nepal is still very lamentable."

Mrs. Chepang's uterus was surgically removed last year and she now promotes family planning and advised her daughter-in-law "not to have more than two children."

China Faces Challenges in Grain Production Despite Bumper Summer Harvest

Although China is likely to see a rise in summer grain output this year, it still faces challenges in grain production, Ma Xiaohe, deputy head of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning body, said recently.

With continued rising prices of producer goods, farmers' profit margins have been squeezed and dampened their enthusiasm for production. Labor costs have also risen meaning that farmers may abandon grain production to look for other jobs to earn more money.

The loss of arable land due to urbanization and the country's antiquated agricultural infrastructure also threaten grain security.

Ma said the government should increase financial support for agricultural production and take more measures, such as developing a commodity futures market, to ensure grain security.

Canada: Climate Change Ticks Ever Closer

At the foot of Leslie St., a spit of land fans out into Lake Ontario. The peninsula, built with rubble from Toronto construction sites, has grown into a home to butterflies, birds, rabbits and coyote.

The park is popular with migratory birds many coming from as far away as South America.

But among these birds and animals are ticks that can carry Lyme disease.

Every morning the co-ordinator of the Bird Research Station in Tommy Thompson Park organizes a group of volunteers who track the birds. It is part of the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network sites across southern Canada and the northern United States that monitor the population trends of northern breeding birds.

From March to June, volunteers plucked ticks from migrating birds and mailed them to scientists who are trying to gain a better understanding of how birds and climate change might increase the spread of Lyme disease through Canada.

Since the 1970s, parts of the US have suffered an epidemic of Lyme disease, mostly within the northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and north-central states.

In the US, approximately 20,000 new cases are reported each year. The disease is rarely reported in Canada, but ranks among the top bug-borne diseases in the United States.

Ten years ago, eastern Canada had only two known populations of blacklegged tick. Today, there are 13 or 14. They tend to settle in migratory bird landfalls. Leslie St. Spit, the Toronto Islands and the Toronto lakeshore are popular resting spots for migrants.

Toronto has always been on the migration highways, there are lots of green spaces where the birds can drop in and rest. The birds may be bringing ticks into Canada after passing through the northeastern and north-central states, where they're abundant.

All the stations from western Ontario to Nova Scotia captured migratory birds with ticks on them.

Canada's cooler climate offered protection from the diseases of warmer regions. But as climate change brings milder winters, scientists worry that the ticks may move farther north.

The warmer air temperature can make it easier for the insect to survive the Canadian winter. Should greenhouse gas emissions remain high, average summer temperatures in southern Ontario are expected to be 4 to 5C warmer and average winter temperatures about 6C warmer before the end of the century. rw

Kerala: a State in India with a Difference

by Carl Haub

Kerala, a narrow strip of territory along India's southwest coast, has long been one of India's most educated and progressive States. Its total fertility rate (TFR) is only 1.7 children per woman, a distinction it shares with its neighbor Tamil Nadu and a TFR lower than the U.S. and many European countries.

The state has a population of 33.4 million, and has grown by only 1.5 million since the 2001 Census. Kerala labor unions, unusual in India, largely due to the ruling Communist Party of India. As a result, few companies wish to locate there so many workers opt to leave to work in the Gulf and send remittances home.

Wasted Food, Wasted Energy: the Embedded Energy in Food Waste in the United States

Food is not only a form of energy but also a consumer of fossil energy in its production, transportation, and preparation.

A study calculated the energy intensity of food production from agriculture, transportation, processing, food sales, storage, and preparation for 2007 as 8080 ± 760 trillion BTU. In 1995, approximately 27% of edible food was wasted (according to the USDA), and the study concluded from this that 2030 ± 160 trillion BTU of energy were embedded in the 2007 wasted food. This represents approximately 2% of annual energy consumption in the United States, which is substantial when compared to other energy conservation and production proposals.

Recent food shortages, blamed in part on the growth of the biofuels industry, have created a new awareness of the relationship between food and energy.

Over last 50 years we have seen increased agricultural productivity thanks to the adoption of new technologies and inputs, which are largely based on fossil fuels. The increase in the energy intensity of agriculture has brought with it unprecedented yields with minimal human labor.

Mechanization of the agriculture sector, improved fertilizers, more resilient crops, and the development of pesticides, all of which rely on fossil fuels, are the reasons for the increased productivity.

The 27% food waste figure does not include food wasted on the farm, in fisheries, and during processing and relies on outdated food consumption and waste data, some of which is from the 1970s.

Because of economic and population growth, the total amount of food production and consumption has grown since the latest food loss study for 1995, and the portion of income Americans spend on food has dropped. From this, the researchers hypothesized that the current amount of food wasted to be higher compared to the USDA's 1995 estimates. If this is true, addressing food waste represents an opportunity for avoided energy consumption.

Follow the link in the headline to read the complete report.

African Deaths Highlight Illegal Toxic-waste Trade

Activists campaigned against the dumping of toxic waste while regulations adopted in Basel in 1989 attempted to restrain the business.

The worst practices are back, but instead of toxic waste, the developed world is dumping old ships, and electronic goods on poorer countries ill-equipped to deal with them.

Trafigura Beheer BV, which chartered the tanker that offloaded the waste in Ivory Coast, rejects claims that the waste was high in poisonous hydrogen sulphide, but activists say the export of hazardous waste is widespread. The tanker concerned was Korean-built, Greek-managed, Panamanian-flagged and Dutch-chartered.

The chemical sludge it unloaded in Abidjan was dumped around the city in August, causing a foul stench and prompting tens of thousands of people to seek medical attention. Recyclers promise to find homes for the ever larger mountain of discarded electronic gadgets in the developing world.

A U.S. group campaigning for a crack-down on hazardous waste, said last year 500 containers of computers were being shipped into Lagos every month.

Seventy five per cent ended up being dumped and burned, releasing hazardous fumes. The UN estimates that 20 to 50 million tonnes of electronic waste is produced every year, and 48% of EU waste exports were illegal. rw

Sanitation in Ghana; a Far Cry From Millennium Development Goals

According to Mr Demedeme, the sanitation condition is "an indictment to Ghanaians" considering the magnitude of resources that have been disbursed towards containing the situation. In the 1990s, huge sums of money went into sanitation, but as of this day the condition is still deplorable. He blamed ignorance and indiscipline for the litter and disposal of waste, compounded by an obsolete legal regime. Seventy per cent of the diseases treated at health institutions are sanitation related and bring pressure on the National Health Insurance Scheme.

District Assemblies are directed to undertake updating by-laws and embark on aggressive marketing of construction and use of domestic latrines, and enforcing laws on provision of sanitation facilities by landlords.

As a solution to the problem, Mr Demedeme called for the streamlining of the fragmented approaches to the tackling of sanitation and urged that all efforts must be made to increase the collection of waste from its current 60% to 90%. The most critical problem facing Ghana currently is that of solid waste management and environmental sanitation. Waste generation, is estimated to grow at 2.7% in developing countries to the year 2010. Ghana's current population growth is estimated at 2.6%. One of the major factors is the rise in per capita incomes plus the rural to urban migration drift.

Accra, with an estimated population of four million, generates about 2000 metric tons of solid waste a day out of which it is able to collect 1500 tons. Constraints are inadequate resources, irregular payment of contracts, weak capacity for expansion, and serious negative impact on health delivery system. rw

Mexico: The Green Line: Tourism and Water Issues Require Full Participation

With tourism the world's largest industry, a coalition of 18 conservation groups in Mexico is trying to bring sustainability to this economic sector. The coalition is Alcosta, the Alliance for the Sustainability of the Northwest Mexican Coast. Its preliminary study based on monitoring 48 coastal tourist developments, provides an unprecedented starting point from which to gauge efforts to protect opportunities for future generations.

The monitoring is a stepping stone towards creating region-wide control for natural resource management in the Gulf of California states. This must provide information for expanding protected areas, improving their operation, and saving the ecosystems. Alcosta is also outlining the best practices for sustainable tourism. The monitoring, reveals that 66% of the gulf's tourist development is in the form of hotel or condominium building associated with golf courses and marinas. Gulfwide, 17% of the development is in places where some tourism already existed, and 48% in spots with none.. The growth areas coincide with those pinpointed by the federal Tourism Secretariat's megaproject called "Sea of Cortes". With 34,000 hotel and condominium units operating or under construction, including 45 golf courses, the demands on the natural resources are overwhelming. The influx of workers and their families signifies a population boom that the region is in not prepared to absorb.

For these ventures to be sustainable they must not exceed the available water supply or contaminate it, and they must be able to handle the waste their visitors and workers generate. This is a challenge, as all the communities face water shortages even before further development, none have adequate sanitary landfill facilities, only 6% have sewage treatment, precipitation in the gulf region is among the lowest in the country, 17% of the underground water tables are over exploited and 10% have salt water intrusion.

People who depend on farming and fishing in the same communities where tourism development is booming find competition for the resources a threat to their livelihoods. What Alcosta advises is to involve the social groups in tourism promotion and create networks of small businesses that can take part in it.

But much of the development is powered by foreign investors. Not a single hotel-condominium has involved local people nor has any initiative emerged strengthen small business.

It's clear from the preliminary results what needs to be done. There's no time like the present to get started. Mexico's commitment to Agenda 21 transcends political administrations. rw

Pakistan: Unsung Heroines Bring Health Care to Villages

The lady health worker (LHW) wears a black gown that shows only her eyes, she is shod in comfortable slippers and lugs a large black bag. She visits the city's poorest communities, visiting as many as 10 homes everyday, helping to raise awareness and improve maternal and child health.

She carries an assortment of medical supplies: oral rehydration salts, bandages, condoms, contraceptive pills, iron and folic acid tablets, and so on.

Employed by the government?s National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health Care, she may be the sole breadwinner in her family.

Launched in 1994, the programme now has 100,000 LHWs covering 60% of the population - the biggest outreach intervention in South Asia.

These women range from congested cities to far-flung and underdeveloped rural areas. Their work includes campaigns like administering polio drops to children, plus neonatal tetanus, measles, tuberculosis, and malaria control.

Their work is particularly important in the rural areas where 75% of Pakistan's population live, and a hike of a couple of hours to as much as a day may be required to reach a health clinic. Often customs prevent women from seeking health services without being chaperoned by a male family member.

Plastic Bottles Pile Up as Mountains of Waste

The biggest growth in bottled beverages is water. The recycling rate of plastic water bottles is extremely low yet the demand from recyclers is high. The recycling system hasn't kept up with consumption especially when it comes to water. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over the last decade, from 10.5 gallons in 1993 to 22.6 in 2003. The number of water bottles sold has risen from 3.3 billion in 1997 to 15 billion in 2002. But most bottled water is consumed in areas where there's usually no recycling. rw

Despite Massive Clean-up, Mount Everest Remains Under Threat

Mount Everest may have lost its nickname as the world's highest garbage dump, but the growing number of climbers still pose a threat. The once untouched mountain is littered with evidence - tons of garbage and some of the bodies of the 172 people who failed to reach the peak. But the mountain is being restored to its former state. There is no more garbage at the south col, and there are no bodies on the route. 50 tons of plastic, glass and metal have been dumped on Everest; in 1993 the government began imposing fines on climbers failing to bring back oxygen bottles and gas cartridges. The kingdom also forbade the cutting of trees in the valley leading to Everest. The government and private sector have financed clean-up expeditions, the last collected 2.4 tons of garbage and cleared the mountain of oxygen bottles. The main source of pollution now is human excrement, particularly at high levels. Climbing teams have reduced their garbage and the world's highest mountain has become much more tidy. But the main problem is that there are more expeditions. rw

The Policy Drought on Climate Change

In an editorial in Science, Donald Kennedy, its chief editor, called the current administrations plan for climate change, as outlined in the US Global Change Research Program and the Climate Change Research Initiative, a "wait and see document" which "merely urges more study on the role of anthropogenic sources in global warming". He underscored its failure to analyze trade-offs involved in improving fuel efficiency in autos, to submit a plan to reduce CO2 emissions and to study sequestration technologies. He calls the evidence for global warming "now beyond doubt", citing "one careful study after another" which have proven the "role of anthropogenic sources of ... greenhouse gases in global warming", shown the effect of "climate change on marine and terrestrial ecosystems" and "measured rates of glacial melting in the Arctic, the Antarctic, and on the tops of low-latitude mountains." Nevertheless, he finds some encouragement in the fact that certain oil companies, British Petroleum in particular, and electric power companies are already voluntarily responding to the threat of climate change and that hybrid vehicles are slowly becoming available. He notes that Congress may be slowly recognizing the potential political popularity of US energy independence and that some states, particularly California, are ahead of the federal government in initiating carbon emissions standards despite opposition from auto manufacturers. Particularly important is an upcoming "independent review of the administration’s plan by a National Research Council panel" which hopefully will reveal to this government "what is missing from the report". He notes that the "nonparticipation of the US in the global effort on climate change is more than a national embarrassment. It’s dangerous".

Bangladesh: Filtering Water Can Halve Cholera Cases

Using a filter made from old saris can reduce cholera by about half, according to a study in Bangladesh and the sari filters may also reduce other gastrointestinal illness. Sari cloth is cheaper and more effective than nylon mesh. In laboratory studies, most of the cholera bacteria in standing water was attached to or in the gut of a copepod, a type of zooplankton. When people drink unfiltered water, they swallow the copepods and introduce cholera bacteria into their system. Filtering the copepod reduced the cholera rate by at least half. There also was evidence that other types of germs were removed because with sari-filtered water, there was less diarrhea and other problems. Cholera is easily controlled, but the untreated disease kills 50% to 80% of those infected. The Bangladesh villages where the system was tested are hours of travel from medical care. It is estimated that there are a million cases of cholera in Bangladesh annually and thousands of deaths. Old sari cloth filtered better than new cloth. As the sari is washed the spaces between threads narrow and trap finer particles. Folded eight times it filters particles as small as 20 microns.

rw

Hong Kong Veiled by Smog

Hong Kong was covered in smog and the government warned people with respiratory and heart diseases to stay away from heavily polluted areas. Levels were highest in Causeway Bay reaching 140, in Central at 111 and in Mong Kok at 118. Everyone is advised to stay indoors if the figure of 200 is reached. Hong Kong has been plagued by smog, due to high levels of nitrogen dioxide which cannot be disperse because of calm weather. The government has various measures to tackle the problem including reducing motor vehicle emissions, and requiring taxis to run on cleaner liquefied petroleum gas. Last year there were more than 4,000 deaths in 2000 due to cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, arising from persistent air pollution. There were also 17,555 hospital admissions in 2000 as a result of cardiovascular and respiratory problems. rw

Salmon Kill Blamed on Water Sent to Farmers

In the largest die-off of adult salmon ever recorded in the West, 33,000 dead salmon stacked up along the Klamath River in Northern California, the result of the administration's decision to divert water from the river to farming interests, say California biologists. 25% of the river's fall chinook run died from overcrowding. There is also risk of more kills if the divertion to farmers continues. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it would conduct its own investigation. rw

U.S.: FDA Policies for Gene-Altered Foods Faulted in Report

Genetically modified food could contain dangerous compounds because of the failure to regulate the production of such foods. The Food and Drug Administration made errors in reviewing GM crops, and the agency will not ensure the safety of food as more companies market transgenic foods. Experts fear "anti-nutrients," or harmful compounds, could appear in higher concentrations in genetically altered crops. These are common in miniscule amounts, the amount could increase when plants are genetically altered. The FDA has not established guidelines for testing in GM foods. rw

Organo Failure California Study Suggests Link Between Autism and Pesticide Exposure

California found that exposure to two pesticides may make women more likely to give birth to children with autism. But the scientists cautioned that their finding is preliminary because of the small number of women and children involved.

Very preliminary data suggests there may be an association. The two pesticides are compounds developed in the 1950s and used to kill mites, primarily on cotton as well as some vegetables and other crops. Scientists determined that the Central Valley women lived within 500 meters, or 547 yards, of fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides during their first trimester of pregnancy. Eight of them had children with autism, six times greater than for mothers who did not live near the fields. This is a sixfold risk factor in comparison to someone who is not exposed. The findings suggest that 7% of autism cases in the Central Valley during 1996 through 1998 might have been connected to exposure to the insecticides drifting off fields into residential areas. Scientists have been exploring various environmental factors, including children's vaccines and chemical pollutants.

Scientists collected records of nearly 300,000 children born in the 19 counties of the Sacramento and San Joaquin river valleys, 465 had autism. They compared the addresses during pregnancy to records that detailed the location of fields sprayed with pesticides.

For most pesticides, no unusual numbers of autism cases were found, but the exception was a class of compounds called organochlorines. Most, including DDT, were banned in the US several decades ago, only dicofol and endosulfan remain.

The autism rate was highest for children of mothers who lived the closest to the fields. The scientists concluded that the possibility of a connection requires further study.

A July report said endosulfan can spread far from fields via the air. The agency is likely to designate endosulfan as a toxic air contaminant, and dicofol could follow. That triggers a review to see whether steps should be taken to minimize the chemicals drifting off fields.

More work on the potential link is needed before it can carry much weight in assessments of the chemicals' risks.

The two insecticides are used much less than in the years in which the possible connection to autism was found. Insects have built up resistance and cotton farmers have switched to new compounds.

The chemicals are used most extensively in Fresno, Kings, Imperial and Tulare counties. Dicofol is used on cotton, oranges, beans and walnuts. Endosulfan is used in tomato processing and on lettuce, alfalfa and cotton crops. rw

Pollution Leaves Women at Greater Risk for Heart Disease, Death

The most rigorous study to link pollution and heart disease has found that women are at much greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. Women living in cities with the highest levels of air particles, such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York, were 76% more likely to die from a heart attack or stroke than women breathing cleaner air. "The magnitude of the findings are higher than what's been seen in prior research. The study monitored the health of more than 65,000 post-menopausal women for up to nine years.

It used pollution meters to measure the amount of particles in the air. The EPA compiled the results.

The findings were consistent regardless of a woman's weight, smoking history, blood pressure or cholesterol levels.

The particles affect the lining of the blood vessels, which makes it easier for cholesterol plaque to form, and also makes the blood stickier so clots are more likely to form. Women may be more vulnerable, in part, because they have smaller coronary arteries. rw

China Fails Environment Targets

Only Beijing and five other provinces or municipalities improved energy efficiency by 4% and cut emissions by 2% in the first six months of 2006.

These targets are part of the 2006-10 Five Year Plan, and call for energy consumption per unit of GDP to be cut by 20%, while pollution emissions should fall 10%.

National Development and Reform Commission Minister Ma Kai said "it is extremely hard to achieve this year's goal".

Much of China's airborne pollution comes from coal-burning power stations and car exhaust fumes, neither can be reduced quickly.

Many factories also ignore the law and pump toxic waste into rivers and lakes.

There is little sign that things are going to get better any time soon. Senior officials said the situation was worse than ever.

2006 has been the most grim year for China's environmental situation, vice-minister Pan Yue said on the Web site of the State Environmental Protection Administration (Sepa). rw

House That Can ‘Eat’ Pollution

Coating buildings and roads in Europe and Japan with a "smog-eating" titanium dioxide cleans surfaces and nearby air. It can reduce some pollutants by 20% to 70%. A breakthrough by a British company can create buildings that absorb pollution. The technique involves applying titanium dioxide as a spray coating to the surface of buildings or as an ingredient in plastics, fabrics and ceramic tiles. It acts as a catalyst to break down the pollutants from vehicle exhausts.The material could be applied to the outside of existing buildings or be incorporated in new ones. In addition to keeping walls clean, it has the potential to cut breathing problems by cleaning the air around buildings.

Trials are under way in the City. Titanium dioxide has been used as a whitener in products such as toothpaste, but its ability to soak up pollution has been recognised only recently.

The titanium dioxide allows the pollutants in the air to react with the oxygen in the air and coverts it to a form which then falls onto the ground and is washed away by the rain. rw

U.S.;: Engineers Gone Wild

General Motors Corp., BMW AG and DaimlerChrysler AG plan to invest over US $1 billion in the development of a new hybrid transmission and related systems. They have about 500 engineers who have been working on the development of the next-generation hybrid engine technology. An onboard computer determines when and at what speeds the two motors will be used and how the battery will be recharged.

Development of the transmission is expected to cost about US$300. The remainder of the investment represents the cost of integrating the new hybrid system. The hybrid engine will be available in two rear-wheel drive configurations or a front-wheel drive system. It can be adjusted to provide either improved value or high performance.

DaimlerChrysler plans to use the new system in its 2008 Dodge Durango.

GM will use the hybrid in versions of the Tahoe and Yukon SUVs. BMW has said it will make vehicles available with the system over the next 3 to 5 years.

A collaborative development effort on an expensive emerging technology will become increasingly common in the auto industry.

GM is considering an alliance with Renault-Nissan that could include shared development efforts. rw

U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas

American cars and pickups are responsible for nearly half of the greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles globally. Cars in the U.S. are driven more miles, face lower fuel economy standards and use fuel with more carbon than in many other countries. It is hoped a report's findings will bolster efforts to raise fuel economy standards and set a mandatory cap on greenhouse gases from all sources. Small cars emitted more carbon dioxide than SUVs, because there are more older small vehicles with higher emissions in service. SUVs get worse fuel economy but there's twice as many small cars. That will change in a few years with SUVs bought taking the lead. The study concludes that vehicles manufactured by General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler produce the most emissions, with Toyota fourth.

GM said it was committed to cutting emissions through research and development of alternative fuels and technologies. The company would like to see greenhouse gases eliminated with the development of hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles. The study was designed to show the amount of carbon dioxide released by American cars and to stimulate passage of tougher laws aimed at reducing it.

Auto industry companies have fought efforts to pass tougher federal fuel economy standards and is suing California and several other states to block state-by-state tailpipe emission laws. rw

Asian Pollution May Harm Washington Air

Most pollution in Washington state is produced locally, but some, like mercury in lake fish, or the haze that rings Mount Rainier, could have Asian connections.

A team of researchers recently received two state-of-the-art planes as part of the first concerted federal effort to decipher how air from Asia carries pollutants to America.

The added pollution could push parts of the country over clean-air thresholds, or erase gains made from costly efforts to cut local pollution.

In 2003 the EPA struck a deal to help Chinese officials to monitor air-pollution levels and cut emissions.

More sensitive equipment to track the pollution and a growing Asian industry has created greater awareness that Asia is a source of U.S. air pollution.

The team uses computer models to search for pollution associated with industrial activity. 1997, near the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula, was found higher-than-expected levels of CO2 and a chemical that helps create ozone when the winds were blowing from Asia.

Dust from Asian dust storms made up more than half the small-particulate pollution in Seattle during one week. In 2003, ozone that had pushed Seattle-area levels above federal air-quality limits could be traced to Siberian forest fires.

Mercury in the air around the summit of Mount Bachelor had originated in Asia, where coal burning is a major source of atmospheric mercury.

A modified C-130 cargo and a DC-8 jet from NASA was added to help their efforts.

Both planes will spend next month over the Pacific Ocean, taking samples from plumes of pollution from Asia as part of a project spearheaded by NASA. rw

Philippines Women's Groups Call for Legalised Abortions

More and more women would die from unsafe abortions in the Philippines, warned the country's women's groups. According to the Centre for Reproductive Rights, more than half a million Filipino women undergo illegal abortions every year. Of these, an estimated 90,000 women suffer complications with about 1,000 dying eventually.

The women's groups said it is time for the predominantly Roman Catholic country to allow for safe and legal abortion, to save thousands of women from undergoing crude and unsafe procedures. "The criminalisation of abortion has not prevented the procedure, but made it unsafe. In all cases, the ban leads to one frightening direction - that of painful risky and potentially fatal methods of pregnancy termination," Centre for Reproductive Rights Melissa Upreti said. Although abortion is illegal in the Philippines, government hospitals are mandated to provide post-abortion care treatment to women.

In the Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital for instance, more than half of the women who seek treatment are for complications arising from illegal and unsafe abortions.

Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital Dr Emmanel Ganal said most abortion cases were due to unwanted pregnancy.

"Those that are induced are usually unwanted pregnancies. It's either they don't want the pregnancy, or they have reasons like they want to go abroad so they induced it. They take some medications to remove the pregnancy," he said. For now, women's rights groups are hoping that the new Congress would be able to pass a controversial Reproductive Health bill, that the influential Catholic Church opposed last year.

That piece of legislation would uphold the use of artificial contraceptives and institutionalise sex education in schools.

That would hopefully help prevent more cases of unsafe abortion in the country. rw

Is Fracking An Answer? to What?

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking), combined with horizontal drilling, promises to expand gas and oil production and technological optimists see it as the answer to fears of a decline in world fossil energy production. In fact, it is still largely an unknown.

Fracking is the process of opening fissures in tight rock by injecting water at very high pressure. The water is thickened with chemicals so that it can carry sand or ceramic fragments that lodge deep in the fissures and prop them open for the gas or oil to enter when the water is withdrawn. Fracking and horizontal drilling, and the rising price of oil and gas, made it worthwhile to explore formations that had not heretofore been economically interesting.

After the technique was shown to work in the Barnett shale in Texas, the industry took off. U.S. shale gas production was negligible in 2000, then grew 48% per year from 2006 to 2010. It now provides 23% of current U.S. gas production.

There was enough gas to provide a gas boom - and then a glut. The winter price of gas futures dropped from $11.92 per million BTU in 2005-2006 to the present $3.86, the lowest price in a decade. Proponents of growth are claiming that fears of a fossil energy crisis were a myth but a closer look suggests a different current scenario. Shale gas is replacing traditional sources more than it is driving production up. Total U.S. gas production rose less than 5% from 2008-2010.

Shale oil production is taking place in the Bakken formation in North Dakota. The state's oil production has soared from negligible in 2002 to 445,000 barrels per day in August 2011, 8% of total U.S. crude oil output, making North Dakota the fourth largest oil producing state. The Bakken formation has helped to arrest the decline in U.S. production, at least for the time being. This activity has not visibly affected oil prices, because, unlike gas, oil is traded on a world market, the role of fracking is much smaller, and the price of oil depends on multiple factors. The U.S. leads in shale gas and oil production, but foreign producers are buying into U.S. gas drillers to learn the technique. Companies in Poland, Spain, France and the U.K. have all been looking at world shale deposits.

Fracking uses around five million gallons of water per well, in an era of growing water scarcities.The chemicals in the fracking fluids can cause water pollution. The EPA has just confirmed that fracking has been responsible for specific groundwater pollution in Pavillion, WY. The shale wells and the new techniques themselves release methane, which is dangerously combustible and is a potent source of climate warming if it escapes into the atmosphere. There are reports of methane in the water from faucets in nearby houses catching fire.

Minor earthquakes near Fort Worth were widely attributed to fracking in the Barnett shale, and a U.K. firm has acknowledged that "it is highly probable" that tremors near Blackpool, England, were triggered by its fracking activities, which led to a temporary injunction against fracking in the U.K. All the earthquakes so far have been very small tremors, but what calamity might happen in a major earthquake zone such as the Monterey basin in California, close to the San Andreas fault, which is the most promising potential source of shale oil in the U.S.

The EPA on June 23rd announced a major study of the impact of fracking on groundwater pollution. The uneasiness has led to bans in many places, including at least France, Germany, the U.K., Australia, South Africa, Quebec, and several U.S. states.

We really don't know how the future of shale gas and oil will turn out. But by pushing down the price of gas, the shale revolution is making solar and wind energy projects unviable. That in turn is pushing the development of post-carbon energy sources into a more distant future.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates proven U.S. gas reserves at 265 tcf - a new high, 61 tcf of which is shale gas reserves. Total proven gas reserves are expected to rise 19% by 2035. EIA expects shale gas production to treble in that period, supplanting conventional sources, but admits to a "high degree of uncertainty". "Proven reserves" are often not proven until the operators need to validate their presence for operational planning.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates the total mean undiscovered, recoverable U.S. gas resources at 1025 tcf, nearly twice the estimate made in 1950. Of that, 336 tcf consists of shale gas. EIA, on the other hand, cites 750 tcf for shale gas resources, 86% of which are in the Northeast, with 55% in the Marcellus formation mostly in New York, Pennsylvania and perhaps West Virginia. However, exploration of these fields is just at the beginning, and much remains unknown about their extent or quality.

The World Energy Council (WEC) estimates the recoverable world shale gas resources at 6744 tcf - 2.44 times “conventional gas", two-thirds of them in North America and the former Soviet Union area. The recoverable North American shale gas resources are estimated at 1778 tcf. While that includes Canada, it still it puts recoverable U.S. shale gas resources far higher than the USGS estimate.

The USGS figure for all U.S. oil resources, including shale oil, is 35 billion barrels, which is less than half its 1950 estimate. The EIA estimates recoverable shale oil in the U.S. of 24 billion barrels, which, in terms of energy, is only 20% of its figure for shale gas, and which would replace just 2.6 years of U.S. crude oil imports, if it all was recovered.

Most of it is thought to be in the Monterey formation in California, with the Bakken field second. These estimates will change as drilling progresses. The Texas driller Anadarko has claimed a discovery of “up to one billion barrels" of recoverable oil in Colorado. Maybe.

Because of the multitude of gas sources and the difficulty of predicting how much is recoverable, estimates of the date of peak world gas production have always been uncertain. However, so far the U.S. experience suggests that gas shale will move the peak back some years or decades. It will replace oil and probably coal in many uses.

Peak world crude oil production from conventional sources may have been reached in 2005, and subsequent production has been on a fluctuating plateau. Shale oil will extend that plateau by an unpredictable period and may lead to another peak. Production from existing fields is declining about 6.3% per year, worldwide. New fields must be found to supply 73% of current production by 2030. Shale oil production will have to grow dramatically just to fill that growing gap, and it takes time to find and develop new fields.

Shale oil and gas will put off the transition to a post-fossil energy world. As long as gas and oil are available at competitive prices, the development of alternative energy on which we will eventually have to depend will be held back. Shale oil and gas will increase carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Recent evidence has already raised the estimates of the rate at which climate warming is changing the weather. We are witnessing melting glaciers, more erratic stream flows, more intense storms, more torrents and fewer gentle rains, the loss of lowlands to the sea, desertification, droughts and hotter temperatures. These changes are reducing the Earth's ability to support us and other species.

Water shortages are caused both by rising demand and climate change, and fracking competes for that water. About 70% of the human use of fresh water is for irrigation. It takes about 1000 tons of water to raise a ton of corn. Desalination and water recycling in greenhouses are possible for specialty crops, but not for most agriculture.

Fossil fuels are used to capture nitrogen and make nitrogen fertilizers; thus they are central to modern food yields World and U.S. populations have grown to their present levels only because agriculture produced enough food to feed them. Only half or less of the present U.S. population; 25% to 40% of world population will survive if we have to revert to earlier ways of capturing nitrogen.

Here is where we still have a choice. We can simply use the shale discoveries to support present consumption patterns and the consequent damage. That choice - which is the one we are now taking - will mean more people overloading an already overloaded and deteriorating system, when eventually fossil energy does wind down. Or we can use the prolongation of the fossil fuel window to give us more time to bring human populations into better alignment with resources.

We live in an interdependent world, from microorganisms to the climate. We may later come to realize that the major consequence of the capitalist era and of fossil energy has been to dramatically accelerate the rate at which mankind has taken minerals from the deep lithosphere and injected them into the biosphere and atmosphere. This causes a fundamental reordering of life processes. Human intervention in Earth processes is not simply limited to the climate. It affects the entire biosphere of which we are a part.

Demand is the product of population X consumption. Consumption will probably pretty much take care of itself, as eroding incomes face rising prices.

Population is another matter. Human fertility has been halved in the past five decades. That is a remarkable achievement, but the last mile is the hardest. The great benefit of additional fossil energy could be to provide some more time to turn world population growth around before food production plummets.

After 200 Years of Growth, Level of Methane Stabilizes

After a 200-year rise, levels of methane have stopped growing - which shows that curbing emissions could slow global warming. Methane contributes to the formation of ozone, an ingredient of smog. Methane remains in the atmosphere for only 8 to 10 years; carbon dioxide can last a century. Human actions appear to be the cause, specifically the shutdown of oil and gas extraction after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Old production methods released gas from leaking pipelines, uncapped wells and the like. Less leaky methods are being adopted now. Emissions of methane are more controllable than carbon dioxide, but this is the first time that scientists have found a sustained plateau in methane concentrations. Methane has many sources, about 70% from fossil-fuel extraction, but also from cattle and termites, wetlands, rice paddies and garbage dumps. There was a drop in emissions in 1991 and 1992 in a region dominated by Russia and Canada and evidence pointed to Russia. The drop in methane levels have compensated for a rise in emissions from Asia. Some scientists note that the estimates of emissions from nonindustrial sources like rice cultivation, are extremely rough. Flares on oil rigs destroy only a portion of the methane and could reveal overall activity and leakage. Will methane resume the climb? Now that natural gas has become a valuable commodity, there are economic incentives to stop leaks. rw

The World is Locking Itself Into An Unsustainable Energy Future Which Would Have Far-Reaching Consequences, IEA Warns in Its Latest World Energy Outlook

In the 2011 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO), the International Energy Agency warned that, without a bold change of policy direction, the world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system. There is still time to act, but the window of opportunity is closing.

"Growth, prosperity and rising population will inevitably push up energy needs over the coming decades. But we cannot continue to rely on insecure and environmentally unsustainable uses of energy," said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. "Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies. The Fukushima nuclear accident, the turmoil in parts of the Middle East and North Africa and a sharp rebound in energy demand in 2010 which pushed CO2 emissions to a record high, highlight the urgency and the scale of the challenge."

Oil demand would rise from 87 million barrels per day in 2010 to 99 in 2035, according to the report.

Assuming recent government commitments are implemented in a cautious manner (dubbed the New Policies Scenario), primary energy demand increases by one-third between 2010 and 2035, with 90% of the growth in non-OECD economies; China consumes nearly 70% more energy than the United States by 2035, even though, by then, per capita demand in China is still less than half the level in the United States; the share of fossil fuels in global primary energy consumption falls from around 81% today to 75% in 2035; renewables increase from 13% of the mix today to 18% in 2035; the growth in renewables is underpinned by subsidies that rise from $64 billion in 2010 to $250 billion in 2035, support that in some cases cannot be taken for granted in this age of fiscal austerity. By contrast, subsidies for fossil fuels amounted to $409 billion in 2010.

The economic slowdown and the expected return of Libyan supply are expected to ease pressures on oil markets in the short-term, with oil price remaining high, approaching $120/barrel (in year-2010 dollars) in 2035.

Over 90% of the required growth in world oil output to 2035 will come from from Middle East and North Africa (MENA). If, between 2011 and 2015, investment in the MENA region runs one-third lower than the $100 billion per year required, consumers could face a near-term rise in the oil price to $150/barrel.

The use of coal - which met almost half of the increase in global energy demand over the last decade - rises 65% by 2035. China today accounts for almost half of global demand.

In the New Policies Scenario, nuclear output rises by over 70% by 2035, only slightly less than projected last year, as most countries with nuclear programmes have reaffirmed their commitment to them.

The future for natural gas is more certain: its share in the energy mix rises and gas use almost catches up with coal consumption.

In the New Policies Scenario, cumulative CO2 emissions over the next 25 years amount to three-quarters of the total from the past 110 years, leading to a long-term average temperature rise of 3.5°C. China's per-capita emissions match the OECD average in 2035. Were the new policies not implemented, we are on an even more dangerous track, to an increase of 6°C.

Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is an autonomous organisation which works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for its 28 member countries and beyond.

Children of the Corn: the Renewable Fuels Disaster; How government policy can push more than 100 million people below the extreme poverty line

The ethanol tax credit has expired, a reason to celebrate, one might think, considering that the tax credit gave $0.45 ethanol producers for every gallon they produced and cost taxpayers $6 billion in 2011. However, now we have the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which creates government-guaranteed demand that keeps corn prices high and generates massive farm profits. Removing the tax credit but keeping the RFS is like scraping a little frosting from the ethanol-boondoggle cake.

At least 37% of the 2011-12 corn crop must be converted to ethanol and blended with the gasoline that powers our cars, under RFS, causing corn demand to outstrip supply by more and more each year, such that even the slightest production disturbance will have devastating consequences for the world's poor.

It is time for the federal government to stop requiring cars to burn food. The RFS mandate requires a massive quantity of corn to be converted to ethanol each year regardless of available supply or what the market price would be without it.

Starting in 2005, ethanol mandates prompted the construction of ethanol plants across the country. By the end of 2005, 4.3 billion gallons of ethanol-producing capacity existed and one year later, capacity under construction had tripled and represented more production than existed at the time. A record number of corn acres were planted in 2007 but production has been unable to keep up with demand, driving prices up to almost triple the pre-mandate level. Ethanol consumes about 16% of the total U.S. supply of corn.

Returning 16% of the supply to the food system would reduce corn prices by about 32%. (See the entire article for details). A decline in corn prices would also stimulate declines in prices of other food commodities such as wheat, rice, and soybeans, which are substitutes for corn on both the supply and demand side. Michael Roberts of North Carolina State University and Wolfram Schlenker of Columbia University estimate that reducing corn ethanol production to zero would lower the price of calories from corn, soybeans, wheat, or rice by 20%.

Corn price increases have relatively small effects on grocery prices in the United States, which are dominated by processing and marketing costs. However, consumers in the poorest parts of the world spend a high proportion of their budget on food commodities such as corn. World Bank researchers estimated that the ethanol-induced price spike between June and December 2010 forced 44 million people below the extreme poverty line of $1.25 per day and that price increases from 2005-08 forced 105 million people below the extreme poverty line.

The difference in corn price between the tax credit spurred corn production and the mandate spurred production would drop prices by only 3.4%. If the 2012 crop is even slightly smaller than expected, then prices will rise even further and plunge millions more people into extreme poverty. If they were unconstrained by mandates, ethanol producers would reduce their use of corn in response to high prices.

Legislation has been introduced that would allow the mandate to be reduced when corn stockpiles are low. This is not enough. Mandates should be remove completely, letting the ethanol industry stand on its own feet.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Soar

Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by 49% in the last two decades, indicates a joint study from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Global Carbon project.

In addition, the International Energy Agency (IEA), in its annual World Energy Outlook, warned that without change of policy direction, the world will lock itself into "an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system." 80% of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permitted to 2035 in the IEA's "450 Scenario" are already locked-in by the existing capital stock of power stations, buildings and factories. Without further action by 2017, "the energy-related infrastructure then in place would generate all the CO2 emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035."

EPA Silently Continues Support for Corn Ethanol, Bumping Target for 2012

Under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the power to push alternative fuel targets, with a hard target of reaching 36 billion gallons of production by 2022.

The target for corn ethanol was increased 3.39%, cellulosic biofuel (derived from woody plant waste) 31.06%, biomass-based diesel (e.g. refined spent cooking oil) 25%, and advanced biofuel (sugarcane ethanol, algal oil, etc.) 48.15%. Total renewable fuel 8.96% (after adjustment for volume.

Click on the headline above for the article, a descriptive chart and infographic.

The corn ethanol increase was disappointing for those pushing for oil independence and lowered emissions. It's broadly known that corn ethanol both increases greenhouse gas emissions and increases food prices. The EPA appears to be in the minority of remaining federal supporters. Congress recently finalized the cut to corn ethanol's tax subsidy.

Since the EPA now has the right to force importers and refiners to use a certain amount of corn ethanol, regardless of how expensive it is, the corn ethanol industry will likely push the issue by simply raising prices to recoup their lost subsidy.

The cellulosic ethanol figure was orders of magnitude smaller than the original EISA proposal - cellulosic ethanol startup companies like Coskata seemed promising, but difficulty in establishing a solid food-chain to deliver biomass stock and finding the funding to scale laboratory work to production-scale designs has led to the great cellulosic ethanol fizzle. However, there is still hope for this novel technology, which turns non-viable biomaterial (woody waste) into fuel. In 2012 the EPA is increasing the cellulosic ethanol target from the prior year - possibly a signal that the industry is making progress.

The U.S. Navy's deep investment in algal fuel cut costs from $424/gallon last year to $26.67 this year, which would account for the steep rise in advanced biofuel.

From the comments at the bottom of the article 'm15' said that, to provide enough corn ethanol to fulfill our needs for vehicle fuel would require more (1.7 to 6 times) than the total agricultural land area available in the US. Corn ethanol uses almost as much energy to produce the fuel as the fuel itself contains.

Corn ethanol uses an extensive amount of water and intensive tilling, which causes top soil loss. 1 inch of topsoil is lost every 5-10 years and takes 500 years to replace. We are sacrificing our future food growing farmland to make biofuels now.

Skeptical Science: Getting Skeptical About Global Warming Skepticism

Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to improve their understanding. Yet this isn't what happens with climate change denial. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet embrace any argument, op-ed, blog or study that refutes global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say?

The Population/Climate Change Connection - Unique Carbon Offsets Scheme Helps Africans Put Their Case

Population Matters have given a grant from their carbon offsets scheme ‘PopOffsets' to fund a website for the Population and Climate Change African Forum (PACCAF). PopOffsets (www.popffsets.com) is unique among such schemes in supporting family planning in developing countries and the UK, thereby helping to prevent unwanted pregnancies and thus reduce the number of future carbon emitters and climate change victims (as well as improving women's and children's health and sustainable development prospects).

Previous grants have funded contraceptive services in a marine conservation and family planning project in Madagascar, and contraceptive advice by the Brook Institute in the UK.

PACCAF was formed at an East African regional conference in Kampala a year ago, bringing together climate and health NGOs from nine regional countries, and now attracting interest from across the continent. Its strongly worded Joint Position Statement (attached) appeals for more understanding in Africa (including the Global South) and the West of the crisis of rapid population growth in its members' countries, which worsens all their problems of adaptation to climate change as well as increasing their own carbon emissions (eg firewood, reducing forest cover). It rejects the "false argument" that prioritising family planning is "blaming the victims" of climate change.

PACCAF is hosted by the Ecological Christian Organisation (www.ecouganda.org)in Kampala, and Climate Action Network East Africa is part of it. As its own network expands, it needs a modern website to inform members and others of its initiatives, notably in lobbying at the UN Climate Talks for its "demand" that the population multiplier be included in UN climate programmes, and funding for family planning and women's empowerment projects be increased.

PACCAF Director Isaac Kabongo said: “Population is the ‘elephant in the room' at the climate talks. As Kofi Annan said, ‘Population stabilization should be a priority for sustainable development". Until population growth in rich and poor countries alike is recognized as a key driver of rising carbon emissions and of our intractable adaptation problems, there is no hope of real success at the climate talks. Climate stabilization without population stabilization is impossible; and we hope our draft text acknowledging this* is adopted at the Durban climate conference this December. We are very grateful to Population Matters for helping us get this very crucial message across".

Population Matters Chair Roger Martin said: “We greatly admire PACCAF's initiative in campaigning for realism across the continent worst affected by both soaring populations and climate change. Of course the main climate driver is excessive emissions by rich Western countries, which is why we also campaign for non-coercive population stabilisation policies in all countries, alongside radical reductions in emissions in developed countries. This applies notably in the UK, where the ten million more people we are projected to have in the next 22 years would have the carbon footprint of eg 220 million more Malawians - we estimate an additional billion tonnes. But globally and nationally, it's no use reducing your carbon footprint if you keep increasing the number of feet".