World Population Awareness

Scientists argue in Nature magazine that plastic should be treated as hazardous waste. The U.S. EPA estimates 45% of plastics are used as containers and packaging, and that only 12% of these are recycled. In 2012, 280 million metric tons of plastic were produced worldwide. These scientists project that a total of 33 billion metric tons will have been produced by 2050. Less than half of the discarded plastic ends up in the landfill; the rest ends up in the wind and sea.

According to the UN, chemical ingredients of more than 50% of plastics are hazardous. For instance, PVC can be carcinogenic. Some other plastics such as polyethylene—used to make plastic bags—are less dangerous, but can be dangerous when absorbing other pollutants such as pesticides. Scientists quote an unpublished study to argue that at least 78% of priority pollutants listed by the EPA and 61% by the European Union are "associated with plastic debris", which means they are ingredients of plastic or absorbed.

The plastics industry is largely unregulated and the situation is getting worse and governments seem unable or at least unwilling to tackle the issue.

The authors suggest using the example of the Montreal Protocol of 1989 that classifies CFCs as hazardous. Production of these refrigerants stopped within 7 years with 200 countries replacing 30 dangerous chemical groups with safer ones. A treaty focusing on just four plastics—PVC (construction, especially pipes), polystyrene (food packaging), polyurethane (furniture) and polycarbonate (electronics)—would be a "realistic first step." These plastics represent about 30% of production, are difficult to recycle and are made of potentially toxic materials.

While food or pharmaceutical industries have to prove that their products are safe, plastic producers ask governments to prove that plastic is not safe. Scientists call the biggest producers to “act now," as plastic pollution is getting worse every day and the window to deal with it effectively is closing.

The "great future in plastics" lies in changing policies to ban the worst of them; finding ways to limit consumption of them; redesigning plastics to be environmentally benign; and in developing a closed-loop production, consumption and recycling system to avoid a catastrophic accumulation of plastic in our environment.

Pesticides, which are well known to have caused spectacular declines the world over in bees, birds, and other wildlife, are also taking a heavy toll on the virility of men.

A new study found that the agricultural poisons are reducing the quality and quantity of sperm in men all over the globe, with farm workers bearing the brunt of the sexual desecration. George Washington University researchers found that 15 out of the 17 scientific studies that were published between 2007 and 2012 and reported in the journal Toxicology found "significant associations between exposure to pesticides and semen quality indicators."

Some studies record a drop by approximately 50% between 1940 and 1990, no small amount.

The French scientific research vessel Tara, which has been sailing the world's oceans for 2.5 years to investigate the impacts of climate change, has found traces of plastic waste in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. The researchers had expected levels ten times lower.

The Southern Ocean is rich in wildlife, from penguins and fish to seals and whales. Chris Bowler, scientific co-ordinator of Tara Oceans said, "We had always assumed that this was a pristine environment, very little touched by human beings. The fact that we found these plastics is a sign that the reach of human beings is truly planetary in scale."

In addition to plastic bags, bottles and other plastic items, the world's oceans also contain microscopic fragments that result from the degradation of larger items through years of exposure to seawater and sunlight. In addition, synthetic fibres, largely made up of clothing residues from washing machines, also comprised a significant portion of the plastic fragments they found.

Plastic pollution has many long-lasting and even fatal impacts on marine life. Birds, fish and other animals are known to regularly consume plastic waste, mistaking it for jellyfish or other prey, but it cannot be digested and remains in the stomach. Plastics also slowly release toxins and other chemicals, which can build up in the food chain.

Much of the waste in the Southern Ocean is thought to originate from Africa, South America or Australia.

While it is too late to do much about the plastic already circulating in our oceans, which it will take thousands of years to degrade, we can take action against future pollution by advocating the use of biodegradable materials and by changing consumer attitudes and behaviour.

Across Latin America, Asia and Africa, more and more community lands, rivers and ecosystems are being despoiled, displaced and devoured by mining activities. Over the last 10 years, iron ore production is up by 180%; cobalt by 165%; lithium by 125%, and coal by 44%.

The rights of farming and indigenous communities are increasingly ignored in the race to grab land and water. Each wave of new extractive technologies requires ever more water to wrench the material from its source. The hunger for these materials is a growing threat to the necessities for life: water, fertile soil and food. The implications are obvious, if not widely ignored by the industrial and economic powers that profit from such activities.

The Opening Pandora's Box report was spearheaded by the Gaia foundation and supported by Friends of the Earth International, Grain, Oilwatch, Navdanya in India and other groups.

The increase in prospecting has also grown exponentially, which means this massive acceleration in extraction will continue if concessions are granted as freely as they are now.

The executive summary to the report says: "if we continue in our current direction, our children will be left to clean up an increasingly barren and unstable planet, littered with toxic wastelands and a huge scarcity of water, which we would have left in our wake."

Environment editor at The Guardian, Jon Vidal added: Of the 10 biggest mining deals to be completed last year, seven were in Africa, with Anglo American earmarking $8bn (£5bn) for new platinum, diamond, iron ore and coal projects on the continent, and Brazil's Vale planning to invest more than $12bn over the next five years in Africa.

China now extracts much of the world's mineral resources: 53% of the world's cement, 47% of its iron ore, 46% of its coal and more than 40% of the world's steel, lead, zinc and aluminium and re-exports much of this in the form of finished products for world markets.

The loss of enormous quantities of soil, and the eviction of people to make way for large-scale extraction now threaten to make millions of people landless and hungry, a recipe for social problems.

Water could be the limiting factor in the extraction of minerals in future. If demand continues to grow at the same rate that it has in the last decade, industry demands for fresh water are expected to grow from 4,500bn cubic metres today to 6,900bn cubic metres in 2030. Most mining companies have said they are already experiencing shortages.

"Large-scale mining is now targeting all parts of the planet," said Gathuri Mburu, co-ordinator of the African Biodiversity Network.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

The surging population growth of cities is turning the Amazon from the world's largest remaining area of tropical forest, interspersed by remote river outposts, to a series of sprawling urban areas with air-conditioned shopping malls, gated communities and a dealerships selling Chevy pickup trucks.

Scientists are studying such developments and focusing on the demands on the resources of the Amazon - deforestation in the region already ranks among the largest contributors to global greenhouse-gas emissions.

By enforcing logging laws and carving out protected forest areas, the country has made progress in curbing deforestation; however, biologists and other climate researchers fear that the sharp increase in migration to cities in the Amazon, which now has a population approaching 25 million, could erode those gains.

In the Amazon city of Manaus the number of residents grew 22% to 1.7 million from 2000 to 2010, according to government statistics. Of the 19 Brazilian cities that the latest census indicates have doubled in population over the past decade, 10 are in the Amazon. Altogether, the region's population climbed 23% from 2000 to 2010, while Brazil as a whole grew just 12%.

Larger family sizes and high levels of poverty in the Amazon are fueling this growth. While Brazil's birthrate has fallen to 1.86 children per woman, one of the lowest in Latin America, the Amazon has Brazil's highest rate, at 2.42.

There is also an economic allure: soybean farming fueled the growth of Sinop by 50% in a decade. In other cities, it is manufacturing, logging mining or hydroelectric construction.

Some researchers suggest that the migration to cities may increase deforestation by permitting cattle ranchers, already responsible for razing big portions of forest, to acquire lands held by small cultivators.

In the Amazon there is an intensifying an urbanization that has been advancing for decades. For more than 20 years, a majority of the Brazilian Amazon's population has lived in urban areas.

"It's great that people are moving out of poverty, but one of the things we need to understand when people move out of poverty is there is a larger demand on resources," said Mitchell Aide, a University of Puerto Rico biology professor.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fishery regulators are likely to impose devastating cuts on the New England fishing fleet in the vast Gulf of Maine; however, blame for the disappearance of once-abundant cod and flounder populations is shifting from fishermen to warming waters and an evolving ocean ecosystem possibly related to man-made climate change.

Researchers acknowledge they don't know whether prized cod and flounder stocks will ever rebound and what species will take their place. John Bullard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's regional chief. "We can control overfishing -- it's hard but we can do it -- but how do you control this?" The only option is to dramatically restrict fishing to give the fish any hope of a comeback.

The New England Fishery Management Council would cut up to nearly 80% for some stocks of cod, as well as cuts to other species. To ease the pain, the New England Fishery Management Council, a governmental body made up fishermen, industry representatives, state officials, and environmentalists, will also decide whether to open more than 5,000 square miles of conservation area now closed to most fishermen.

Fishermen are struggling to comprehend how the sacrifices they made in the last decade to idle boats and catch fewer fish were for naught. Only four years ago, scientists said cod populations were healthy and growing, a rosy assessment that unraveled last year when researchers discovered serious errors in their analysis had led them to overestimate Gulf of Maine cod by nearly 300%.

Eight months into the fishing year, the entire fleet has caught just 44% of this year's cod quota. Some fisherman say that cuts may not be as drastic as they sound because so many fishermen can't catch their quota anyway.

The sea floor is recording temperatures of 50.5 degrees. "That is almost unheard of, we should be in the mid-40s," said one fisherman. There have been cycles of cooling and warming, and scientists are not sure whether the Gulf of Maine's warming is from natural cycles, climate change, or a combination of both.

NOAA research shows that about half of 36 fish stocks they analyzed in recent years, including cod, flounder, and lesser-known species, have been shifting northward or into deeper waters in the last four decades. While locally caught Atlantic cod are disappearing from restaurants and stores, other fish that thrive in warmer water, such as Atlantic croaker, could take their place. But it's unclear if fishermen will be able to make as much money from these species.

The timing of spring plankton blooms -- the foundation of the marine food web -- may also be shifting, scientists say, coming earlier in the spring, as it did this year. Plankton changes, combined with rising ocean temperatures, could affect the success of young marine life because so many species time their spawning to the spring bloom.

Predator fish that feed on cod are increasing in the area.

Chaos theory says the particulars of the breakdown of the earth's ecosystems are unpredictable. No wonder scientists were "surprised" to find that the size of individual fish in the world's oceans is likely to shrink by as much as one quarter in the coming decades.

Chaos theory asserts that - as an increasing number of essential parts of a complex system break down - such as a stock market, climate or mechanical engine - the overall system is destabilized, and its exact behavior becomes impossible to predict. This event precedes what's known as "runaway," which occurs when a critical number of those parts stop working and irreversible "tipping points" have been passed.

Applied to the ecosystems in the earth's oceans, the number of variables that bear upon that species - temperature, salt levels and the state of species nearby or across the world, for example - becomes too great to be included in any predictive model. The relationships between parts within the system become so complex and the changes occur so rapidly that scientists cannot keep up. By the time they identify a problem and propose a solution, their work becomes obsolete, their discoveries made irrelevant. This fact can make it difficult to trust their predictions.

Scientists don't want to be seen as alarmist, so most will err on the conservative side of the estimates that result from their work.

"We were surprised as we did not think the effects would be so strong and so widespread," project leader professor William Cheung of the University of British Columbia said.

Professor Callum Roberts of the University of York, who was not among the study's authors, said "Additional impacts of climate change such as the acidification of the ocean and reduction of nutrients in surface waters could decrease fish stocks even further."

1 billion people currently count fish as their primary source of animal protein, Roberts pointed out. With 9 billion people expected by 2050, that number will assuredly rise, as will the importance of our understanding of how ecological systems deteriorate.

Predictive models can remain meaningful in the short term, but over time, the growing number of variables that play a role in determining the fate of any plant or animal becomes virtually impossible to make sense of. In their efforts to understand the unraveling, scientists can only scramble to bring their models up to date as their subjects approach levels of complexity that lie beyond the power of any human to comprehend.

Aside from the unsettling fact that the systems that support human and other life are disintegrating at an increasing rate, no one can say for sure exactly what the world we're rushing into will look like.

The French scientific research vessel Tara, which has been sailing the world's oceans for 2.5 years to investigate the impacts of climate change, has found traces of plastic waste in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. The researchers had expected levels ten times lower.

The Southern Ocean is rich in wildlife, from penguins and fish to seals and whales. Chris Bowler, scientific co-ordinator of Tara Oceans said, "We had always assumed that this was a pristine environment, very little touched by human beings. The fact that we found these plastics is a sign that the reach of human beings is truly planetary in scale."

In addition to plastic bags, bottles and other plastic items, the world's oceans also contain microscopic fragments that result from the degradation of larger items through years of exposure to seawater and sunlight. In addition, synthetic fibres, largely made up of clothing residues from washing machines, also comprised a significant portion of the plastic fragments they found.

Plastic pollution has many long-lasting and even fatal impacts on marine life. Birds, fish and other animals are known to regularly consume plastic waste, mistaking it for jellyfish or other prey, but it cannot be digested and remains in the stomach. Plastics also slowly release toxins and other chemicals, which can build up in the food chain.

Much of the waste in the Southern Ocean is thought to originate from Africa, South America or Australia.

While it is too late to do much about the plastic already circulating in our oceans, which it will take thousands of years to degrade, we can take action against future pollution by advocating the use of biodegradable materials and by changing consumer attitudes and behaviour.

"Ocean acidification has happened before sometimes with large consequences for marine ecosystems. But within the last 300 million years, never has the rate of ocean acidification been comparable to the ongoing acidification," said Dr Schmidt of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences.

The most comparable event was 55 million years ago and was most likely 10 times slower than the current acidification.

"The geological record shows changes in species distribution, changes in species composition, changes in calcification and growth and in a few cases extinction," she said.

Dr Claudine Hauri, an oceanographer from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said: "The waters up and down the coast from our conference site here in Monterey Bay are particularly prone to the effects of ocean acidification. The chemistry of these waters is changing at such a rapid pace that organisms now experience conditions that are different from what they have experienced in the past. And within about 20 or 30 years, the chemistry again will be different from that of even today."

Without swift, national action to protect the ocean's vast diversity of life from acidifying waters corals, shellfish, salmon and a whole host of beautiful creatures will be lost.

We need your help to ask President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency to get working on a bold plan to curb ocean acidification.

Carbon dioxide pollution is also being absorbed by the ocean, causing its chemistry to change and become more acidic. This spells trouble for marine animals that are now having difficulty building shells, growing and sometimes even surviving in increasingly corrosive waters.

http or on the left arrow to take action. Everything from the smallest of plankton to the largest of whales has a stake in what the White House and the EPA decide to do about ocean acidification.

Carbon dioxide emissions have lowered the pH in the oceans, causing acidity to rise faster than in the past 300 million years, according to researchers at Columbia University who have been studying organisms in Antarctic waters.

The past 300 million years is a period that includes four mass extinctions, researchers have found. During those times, increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warmed the planet and made the oceans more acidic.

In the past increases in the atmosphere's carbon dioxide levels resulted from volcanoes and other natural causes, but today the increases are due to human activities, say the scientists. Lead researcher Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said: "We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out - new species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about - coral reefs, oysters, salmon."

Oceans absorb that carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, where it turns into a carbon acid. This dissolves the carbonates needed by some organisms, like corals, oysters or the tiny snails salmon eat.

The scientists review appeared March 1 in the journal Science, The closest modern parallel was about 56 millions ago in what is called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when atmospheric carbon concentrations doubled, pushing up global temperatures. Extinctions in the deep sea accompanied this shift. But today the ocean is acidifying at least 10 times faster than it did 56 million years ago, according to Hönisch.

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.

Sixty five million years ago, say geologists, a meteorite made cataclysmic contact with Earth. It was the beginning of the end of the dinosaurs, Earth's last great extinction. The next great extinction will be more fizzle than fireworks. In fact, it's already begun. Biodiversity, the very variety of life, is under attack. Paving and populating, consuming and polluting, humans are causing More is at stake than simply the spice of life. Each species takes its
secrets to the grave: potential solutions to coming crises, possible cures to medical mysteries.

Marco Musiani, a University of Calgary ecologist, concluded from a 5 year study, "Our results led us to believe that ecologists have underestimated the impact of humans on natural food chains. The data we collected shows that humans are deliberately or inadvertently engineering ecosystems regardless of whether they would be naturally pre-disposed to top-down or bottom-up effects. Even in protected areas, the influence of humans might be greater than we previously thought."

The study attempted to determine whether natural ecosystems and associated food chains are primarily regulated by predators or by the productivity of plant species, called top-down and bottom-up effects, respectively.

The research area stretched from Calgary in the northeast, through to the provincial borders with British Columbia in the west and the US-Canada border in the south. "We painstakingly monitored wolves, elk, cattle and plant species, as well as humans for five years. We evaluated how these species interacted across the landscape and ultimately found that humans dominated the ecosystem," lead author Tyler Muhly, PhD, said.

Population has doubled since Attenbourough started exploring the world's wilderness and its creatures and there is no doubt that this world is threatened.

This wonderful video is available streaming online through February 13 only.

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is home to 400 types of coral, 240 species of birds and 1,500 species of fish and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Plus it is worth A$6 billion annually to the local economy in tourism.

UNESCO warned Australia last June concerning development on the reef and said swift action must be taken to protect the reef from significant threats from industrial projects. The February deadline set by UNESCO approaches.

Existing and proposed industrialization along the Queensland coast, including the country's largest coal producer are threatening the environment near the reef. "The Australian government is committed to ensuring the best possible protection and management for the reef," a spokesman said, adding that the government had acknowledged UNESCO's recommendations.

Researchers at Yale, Texas A&M and Boston University predict that by 2030 urban areas will expand by more than 463,000 square miles, or 1.2 million square kilometers - or 20,000 American football fields per day. A brief window of opportunity exists to shape the development of cities globally before a boom in infrastructure construction transforms urban land cover. The study was in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The urban growth will include the construction of roads and buildings, water and sanitation facilities, and energy and transport systems that will transform land cover and cities globally. An estimated $25 - $30 trillion will be spent on infrastructure worldwide by 2030, with $100 billion a year in China alone. This large investment will make reversal impossible and have lasting impacts on biodiversity.

Karen Seto, lead author of the study and associate professor in the urban environment at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies said: "We have a huge opportunity to shape how cities develop and their environmental impacts."

Nearly half of the increase in urban expansion is forecasted to occur in Asia, with China and India absorbing 55% of the regional total. In China, urban expansion is expected to create a 1,100-mile coastal urban corridor from Hangzhou to Shenyang. In India, urban expansion will be clustered around seven state capital cities, with large areas of low-probability growth forecasted for the Himalaya region where many small villages and towns currently exist.

Africa's urban land cover will grow 590% from 2000 to 2030, concentrating in: the Nile River in Egypt; the coast of West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea; the northern shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya and Uganda and extending into Rwanda and Burundi; the Kano region in northern Nigeria; and greater Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In North America, 78% of the total population is already in urban areas, but urban land cover will still nearly double by 96,000 square miles by 2030.

48 of the 221 countries will experience only negligible amounts of urban expansion.

"We need to rethink conservation policies and what it means to be a sustainable city," said Burak Güneralp, the study's second author and research assistant professor at Texas A&M University. "It's not all about carbon footprint, which is what mayors and planners typically think about now, but we need to consider how urban expansion will have implications for other, nonhuman species and the value of these species for present and future generations."

Urban expansion will encroach on or destroy habitats for 139 amphibian species, 41 mammalian species and 25 bird species. The researchers estimate the aboveground, biomass carbon losses associated with land-clearing from new urban areas in the pan-tropics to be 5% of the tropical deforestation and land-use-change emissions.

"Urbanization is often considered a local issue, however our analysis shows that the direct impacts of future urban expansion on global biodiversity hotspots and carbon pools are significant," said Seto. "The world will experience an unprecedented era of urban expansion and city-building over the next few decades. The associated environmental and social challenges will be enormous, but so are the opportunities."

In a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers at Yale, Texas A&M and Boston University predict that by 2030 urban areas will expand by more than 463,000 square miles or 1.2 million square kilometers. $25 - $30 trillion will be spent on infrastructure worldwide, $100 billion a year in China alone.

75% of the urban expansion is predicted to occur in Asia, with China and India absorbing 55% of the regional total.

Africa's urban land cover will grow the fastest, at 590% above the 2000 level: concentrating along the Nile River in Egypt; the coast of West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea; the northern shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya and Uganda and extending into Rwanda and Burundi; the Kano region in northern Nigeria; and greater Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In North America, where 78% of the total population lives in urban areas, urban land cover will nearly double by 2030.

"We need to rethink conservation policies and what it means to be a sustainable city," said Burak Güneralp, the study's second author and research assistant professor at Texas A&M University. "It's not all about carbon footprint, which is what mayors and planners typically think about now, but we need to consider how urban expansion will have implications for other, nonhuman species and the value of these species for present and future generations."

A pipeline project by the Southern Nevada Water Authority that envisions unsustainably siphoning more than 37.1 billion gallons of groundwater per year from at least four valleys in central Nevada and pumping it 300 miles to the Las Vegas Valley received bad marks in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) environmental impact statement.

Rob Mrowka, a Nevada-based ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity said "It's really no exaggeration to say that the natural, cultural and social heritage of central Nevada is at grave risk from this project."

More than 137,000 acres of wildlife habitat will be permanently destroyed or changed because of the lowering of groundwater tables -- by up to 200 feet in many areas. This will drive declines in species like mule deer, Rocky Mountain elk, sage grouse and Bonneville cutthroat trout. Most at risk will be species associated with the springs and wetlands that will dry up as the water beneath them is sucked away.

Many of these species are often found in only one or two springs. As the springs are dewatered and flows are altered and eventually stopped, at least 25 species of Great Basin springsnails will be pushed to, or over, the edge of extinction. Also affected will be 14 species of desert fish such as the Moapa dace and White River springfish; frogs and toads will fare little better, with four species severely threatened by the dewatering.

The plan envisions a multilayered scheme of monitoring to detect impacts, followed by mitigation measures to reduce the impacts. This places the Water Authority in the driver's seat to do the monitoring and then faithfully report and address it Second, it assumes that any observed impacts can be successfully addressed, while sound science suggests that the lag time between pumping and observation of the impact makes this virtually impossible.

Finally, it assumes that the Water Authority will have adequate funds available to conduct the monitoring and successfully mitigate damage. Experiences from a similar situation in the Owens Valley of California reveal that tens of millions of dollars are spent annually to mitigate just one problem: dust. "Promises to mitigate the impacts are frankly laughable," Mrowka said.

The public and elected officials now have at least 30 days to provide further comment and input to the BLM before a final decision is issued.

"There's still time for the Authority to table the project and begin the much-needed dialogue with the community on better options for meeting the Las Vegas Valley's future water needs — high among them sensible growth management," said Mrowka

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."

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.

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.

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.

Dow AgroSciences specializes in the provision of "innovative crop protection, seeds, and biotechnology solutions." The reluctance of African countries to establish regulatory frameworks to guide the use of biotechnology will be one of the continent's undoings. The continent faced the risk of isolation because of its reluctance to embrace biotechnology. Biotechnology has the potential to improve biodiversity, reduce insecticide use, advance food security and transform agriculture in the next 10 years.

Africa's solution to drought and crop diseases may be in growing genetically engineered crops specifically tuned to resist weather conditions and mature quickly. This could result in saving crops from losses of harvests, which are followed by hunger and starvation. Nearly 200 million people in Africa are undernourished. The consequences are manifest in the prevalence of hunger and malnutrition. The FAO stated that 27 countries in sub-Saharan Africa were in need of urgent food assistance. They included Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Somalia and Zimbabwe.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to almost one-quarter of the developing world's food-deprived people. Surveys revealed that 33% of African children are stunted, underweight, or emaciated. The majority of African countries still do not favor GMO crops or foods due to the lack of systems to safeguard biodiversity.

This is so despite the fact that more than 35 countries have signed the Cartagena Protocol, that seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by biotechnology. Agricultural science and technology must work with local governments and scientists to make biotech available starting with capacity building and infrastructure for the approval of regulatory frameworks and adoption of the technology.

Issues that need to be addressed,include the availability of seeds to farmers at affordable prices and providing safety procedures to protect human beings and the environment during field trials. This may not be possible if the governments do not understand people's needs and how technology can solve them. We cannot underestimate the importance of establishing strong regulatory frameworks to protect the environment and the food chain. Proponents of GMO argue that Africa has serious food gaps and should embrace biotechnology farming for enhanced food production and nutrients. Since 1996 , the global planted area of biotech crops has soared 4.2 million acres in six countries to 222 million acres in 21 countries in 2005.

At present, most African countries cannot advance GM crop research because national policies or regulatory systems are not prepared to deal with safety requirements. Only South Africa and Nigeria have a specific policy for biotechnology.

South Africa began growing its first genetically modified commercial crops in 2003, with cotton farmers reporting yields improved up to 89%. It was also among the 11 developing countries where biotech crops have increased income of 7 million poor farmers.

Research is ongoing that is focusing on staple crops in many developing countries. These include rice, cassava, sweet potatoes, cowpea, banana and maize. Researches are focusing on problems such as disease resistance, drought tolerance, and pest resistance.

Farming is the most important economic activity in Africa, occupying 60% to 80% of the population and contributing 30% to 50% of the GDP in African countries. Eighty percent of farming is in the hands of small-scale farmers and remains an unattractive occupation and those involved are members of the lowest rungs in the poverty index.

Lands in developing countries, especially in Asia, are degraded due to exploitation and they must be helped to restore their soil fertility if they are to grow commercially attractive crops and compete in the global food economy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Since the 1950s, Donner Summit has been the site of roughly 800 homes. In 1971, John Slouber began purchasing land for the largest cross-country ski resort in the country, Royal Gorge. Slouber eventually owned 4,000 acres of land and leased an additional 5,000 acres of Forest Service land to operate his resort.

Slouber sold the property to Foster and Kirk Syme, in 2005. The companies proposed to build 950 housing units, a hotel, commercial spaces, and ski lifts. They have pledged to preserve 70% of their property as open space. All the property owners at Serene Lakes are against the plan.

They believe they have a responsibility to take into account the unique state of the summit, and they don't want development to destroy it.

Everybody's got to deal with development of some kind; California is growing.

Counties want new development to boost their revenues from more property tax from new homes and commercial properties.

Counties believe development will increase the tax base, but it's better to get more out of the tax base you have. "We've got a nice quiet community; putting in a hotel and timeshares, changes the nature of the community."

Some believe the project has many flaws. "We should be looking at restoring the environment and using development as a positive impact. This would include affordable housing, jobs, access to recreation, an increased tax base, and things like better water quality through upgrades. How much of the community do we give up so they can make a profit?"

"One element of a conservation community is preservation of open space, and that is an important part of our plan," Livak says. "We see nature as an amenity of this development. Without new development, the Royal Gorge ski area will lose too much money to be a viable business. Who will manage the open space? Concerns are our sewer and water, traffic, density of development, and time shares, which will change the character of the community. The quality of their water supply concerns many residents. Runoff from roads, contaminated melt water from plowed snow, and nutrients from lawns are all concerns. Many worry that traffic will become dangerous, especially on crowded winter ski days. "Condo owners won't buy into the community. They come up on one weekend and won't come back."

How to mitigate the impacts of the development will be addressed by California's extensive environmental review policy, codified as CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act). A positive impact would include affordable housing, jobs, access to recreation, an increased tax base, better water quality. Royal Gorge is the classic land use story what will the impacts of development be on the local community versus what is a reasonable return of investment for the developer?

Long Islanders may be spending more time in their cars and trains by 2030.

By 2030, every major infrastructure system in our city will be more than a century old, and pushed to its limits, The city could expect to gain about a million more residents by that time, He also predicted 750,000 new jobs and Long Islanders may be commuting in record numbers.

The infrastructure's components must work seamlessly for all of us to survive.

The Long Island Railroad began along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn in 1832.

As our population grows and our infrastructure ages, our environment will be pushed to new and possibly precarious limits. Unfortunately for Long Islanders who commute to the city daily, there will be nothing to combat the frustration of a daily commute to a city bursting at the seams.

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.

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)

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.

The more the population in the city of Nairobi and elsewhere in East Africa grows, the more the solid waste management burden grows. The problem is worsened by poor funding for urban sanitation departments and a lack of enforcement of sanitation regulations.

Nearly 100 million people in East Africa lack access to improved sanitation, says the UN.

In Nairobi, the city council's solid waste department, like those in Kampala and Dar es Salaam, is not well equipped, with transport vehicles few and often poorly serviced, despite increasing waste quantities due to rapid urbanization.

Solid waste is often dumped in abandoned quarries or similar sites In the Mathare slum area, residents live close to one such dumpsite, which exposes them to environmental and disease risks.

"Burning plastic produces very toxic fumes .. which are very harmful to human beings and the environment. Most of the uncontrolled dumpsites are some of the major sources of greenhouse gases contributing to global climate change," said Andre Dzikus, coordinator of the urban basic services section of the UN Human Settlement Programme (UN-HABITAT).

More often than not, the urban poor have to make do with living amid waste despite the health risks; child mortality in the slums is 2.5 times higher than in other areas of Nairobi, according to WHO.

In the Mathare slums, for example, the sight of children playing among plastic bags full of human excrement, referred to as "flying toilets", is common. "We use plastic bags to relieve ourselves because the few toilets that are there are too expensive," one resident said.

"If I have to choose between paying for the toilet and buying food, the choice is easily made."

"I have built toilets and bathrooms several times, but every time it rains, or there is a conflict, they are destroyed. Because of the instability, I take my time before I build a new one," said a slum property owner. "Every time some of us try to keep clean, someone defecates in front of your door."

According to WHO, open defecation was the only sanitation practice available to 33% of the population in East Africa in 2006. Diarrhea is the second biggest killer of children in developing countries, according to UNICEF.

Many slum dwellers in East African cities pay five to seven times more per litre of water than the average North American, notes WHO.

"One of the health risks women have is reproductive health because they use public toilets that are not properly maintained. Some of them have suffered from urinary infections," Edith Kalela, a communication officer at Akiba Mashinani Trust said.

Slum residents often do not own the land they live on, risking eviction.

In a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers at Yale, Texas A&M and Boston University predict that by 2030 urban areas will expand by more than 463,000 square miles or 1.2 million square kilometers. $25 - $30 trillion will be spent on infrastructure worldwide, $100 billion a year in China alone.

75% of the urban expansion is predicted to occur in Asia, with China and India absorbing 55% of the regional total.

Africa's urban land cover will grow the fastest, at 590% above the 2000 level: concentrating along the Nile River in Egypt; the coast of West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea; the northern shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya and Uganda and extending into Rwanda and Burundi; the Kano region in northern Nigeria; and greater Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In North America, where 78% of the total population lives in urban areas, urban land cover will nearly double by 2030.

"We need to rethink conservation policies and what it means to be a sustainable city," said Burak Güneralp, the study's second author and research assistant professor at Texas A&M University. "It's not all about carbon footprint, which is what mayors and planners typically think about now, but we need to consider how urban expansion will have implications for other, nonhuman species and the value of these species for present and future generations."

Teams of veterinarians and conservation biologists are in the midst of a global effort with medical doctors and epidemiologists to understand the "ecology of disease." It is part of a project called Predict, which is financed by USAID

"When we do things in an ecosystem that erode biodiversity — we chop forests into bits or replace habitat with agricultural fields — we tend to get rid of species that serve a protective role," Dr. Ostfeld said.

60% of emerging infectious diseases that affect humans originate in animals. And more than two-thirds of those originate in wildlife. More than two million people a year are killed by diseases that spread to humans from wild and domestic animals, according to the International Livestock Research Institute.

The World Bank has estimated that a severe influenza pandemic, for example, could cost the world economy $3 trillion.

An example is that of fruit bats, which carry the Nipah virus in South Asia, and the closely related Hendra virus in Australia. In 1999 in rural Malaysia the disease spread from the bats to pigs which were being cared for in a forest. The pigs amplified the disease and then it jumped to humans. Out of 276 people infected in Malaysia, 106 died, and many others suffered permanent and crippling neurological disorders. There is no cure or vaccine.

In Australia, suburbanization lured infected bats that were once forest-dwellers into backyards and pastures. If a henipah virus evolves to be transmitted readily through casual contact, it could leave the jungle and spread throughout Asia or the world. "It's a matter of time that the right strain will come along and efficiently spread among people," says Jonathan Epstein, a veterinarian with EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based organization that studies the ecological causes of disease.

"Any emerging disease in the last 30 or 40 years has come about as a result of encroachment into wild lands and changes in demography," says Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist and the president of EcoHealth.

AIDS, for example, crossed into humans from chimpanzees in the 1920s when bush-meat hunters in Africa killed and butchered them.

Emerging diseases have quadrupled in the last half-century, experts say, largely because of increasing human encroachment into habitat, especially in tropical regions. And with modern air travel and a robust market in wildlife trafficking, the potential for a serious outbreak in large population centers is enormous.

In the Amazon, for example, one study showed an increase in deforestation by 4% increased the incidence of malaria by nearly 50%, because mosquitoes, which transmit the disease, thrive in the right mix of sunlight and water in recently deforested areas.

Australia is planning to spend multimillions of dollars to understand the ecology of the Hendra virus and bats.

The West Nile virus came to the United States from Africa but spread here because one of its favored hosts is the American robin, which thrives in a world of lawns and agricultural fields. And mosquitoes, which spread the disease, find robins especially appealing.

Lyme disease, the East Coast scourge, is a result of the reduction and fragmentation of large contiguous forests which chased off predators -- wolves, foxes, owls and hawks, resulting in a fivefold increase in white-footed mice, which are great "reservoirs" for the Lyme bacteria. Babesiosis and anaplasmosi are two emerging diseases from ticks that that affect humans in the ticks he studies, and he has raised the alarm about the possibility of their spread.

Simon Anthony, a molecular virologist at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health said its about "learning how to do things sustainably. If you can get a handle on what it is that drives the emergence of a disease, then you can learn to modify environments sustainably."

"By mapping encroachment into the forest you can predict where the next disease could emerge," Dr. Daszak, EcoHealth's president, says. "So we're going to the edge of villages, we're going to places where mines have just opened up, areas where new roads are being built. We are going to talk to people who live within these zones and saying, ‘what you are doing is potentially a risk.' "

When a region's population density is growing, water-associated infectious disease outbreaks are more likely to occur, according to a new global analysis by Ohio State University scientists of economic and environmental conditions that influence the risk for these outbreaks.

About 1,428 water-associated disease outbreaks reported between 1991 and 2008 around the world were analyzed. By combining outbreak records with data on a variety of socio-environmental factors known about the affected regions, the researchers developed a model that can be used to predict risks for water-associated disease outbreaks anywhere in the world.

Of the five different categories of water-associated diseases (category depending on the disease transmission process), population density was a risk factor for all. Prolonged and excessive heat was shown to be a driver of water-related diseases that are transmitted to people by insect bites.

Western Europe, Central Africa, Northern India, Southeast Asia, Latin America and eastern Brazil were targeted as potential "hot spots" at highest risk for future water-associated disease outbreaks ranging from E. coli-related diarrhea to dengue fever.

4% of deaths worldwide - almost 2 million annually - and 5.7% of illnesses around the world are caused by infectious diseases related to unsafe water and sanitation and hygiene problems.

Understanding the socio-environmental factors that affect the risks for water-associated disease outbreaks will help guide policymakers as they prioritize the distribution of health resources around the world, the researchers say.

The model shows how global environmental changes affect outbreak risks, providing early warning and informed policy decisions which are needed because resources are limited.

Among the information included in the Ohio State database were disease-causing agents, such as bacteria or viruses, and their biological characteristics; water's role in disease transmission; disease transmission routes; and details about whether the recorded outbreak represented an emergence or re-emergence of a water-associated disease for a given region. These details were crossed with a socio-environmental database that contained data on population density, global average accumulated temperature, surface area of water bodies, average annual rainfall and per-capita gross domestic product.

Each disease tracked in the database was classified into one of five categories:

* water-borne (such as typhoid and cholera): 70.9%, caused by microorganisms that enter water through fecal contamination and cause infection when humans consume contaminated water.

* water-based (such as schistosomiasis): 2.9%, caused by parasites that spend part of their life in water

* water-related (such as malaria and trypanosomiasis): 12.2%, which need water for breeding of insects that act as vectors in transmitting disease to humans

* water-washed: 6.8%, caused by poor personal or domestic hygiene because no clean water is available; and * water-dispersed (such as Legionella): 7.3%, caused by infectious agents that thrive in water and enter the body through the respiratory tract.

Fewer water-washed diseases occurred in places with larger bodies of surface water, and areas with higher average annual rainfall had fewer outbreaks of water-borne and water-related diseases.

Economic status did not appear to influence risk for water-associated disease outbreaks, at least on a global scale.

The research appears in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, a journal published by the Public Library of Science.

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.

There's no away to throw to.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The trains from the Harlem River rail yard are filled with garbage and are part of an armada that performs a nearly constant exodus of waste from the nation's largest city. Each day, they carry 50,000 tons of trash from New York to landfills and incinerators in New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina. In 2003, nearly a quarter of all municipal trash crossed state lines for disposal Congressional Research Service. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is now pushing to extend his city's trash, putting garbage on barges that could be shipped up and down the East Coast. The plan is fueling a fresh round of debate in places that could be potential destinations. At issue is the smell and the threat to the environment. New York transports more than 1,300 tons of garbage each day to Fox Township, Pa., 130 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Living near the landfill isn't bad because it's hard to smell or see from the street. But the landfill's protective liners won't hold up forever and 50, years from now, they'll be saying, 'What were those guys thinking, allowing this to be built in this community?. New York's new disposal plan is being watched in Virginia, which imported 7.8 million tons of garbage last year, up 67% from 1997. The issue has been contentious since laws to slow the importation of trash were struck down by the courts. Officials in the Portsmouth area are considering a port that could receive up to 2,500 tons of waste a day from New York with a fee for every ton brought in, generating $1 million per year, plus $7 million more if enough went to an existing incinerator. "We're rich," executive Keller said, noting the township has bought new police cars and fire trucks with trash tipping fees. "We have millions of dollars in the bank." The risks for these communities are few, said Mickey Flood, chief executive of IESI Corp., a Fort Worth company that owns landfills throughout the eastern part of the country. Standard landfills don't accept hazardous materials and waste is also transported in sealed containers that are designed to be leak-proof. All water that touches garbage is required to be treated for pollutants. Still, problems arise. In December 2003, two schools near a landfill in Pennsylvania temporarily shut down when an overwhelming stink made it impossible for students to concentrate. Investigators blamed decaying gypsum board and made adjustments to a system that extracts vapors and burns them off. "Transporting garbage so far away means that the people that generate it don't have to deal with it, and where is their incentive to create less of it?"

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.

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.

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".

An "ecological meltdown" in the form of massive dust storms stretching for thousands of miles over Asia are threatening China. The current storm is unprecedented in both size and number. According to the Chinese Meteorological Agency, there were only 5 major storms in China during the 50s; this rose to 23 in the 1990s and to 20 during only 2001 - 2002. The Gobi desert expanded by over 20,000 miles in the last half of the 1990s and now affect 40% of China's land sharply reducing grain harvests which had previously quadrupled between 1950 and 1998. The Earth Policy Institute (EPI) attributes the desertification to "over-cultivation, overgrazing, over-cutting and over pumping". The dust represents "millions of tons of topsoil from Chinese fields and pastures ... which will take centuries to replace". It causes respiratory difficulties in millions of people and ruins thousands of acres of crops. It is evidence of decreasing cropland in the face of China's large and rising population. Lester Brown of the EPI observes that China has thus far "compensated for its falling harvests by eating stocks", but dwindling grain production will soon force the country to buy on the world's grain markets. This will rapidly raise grain prices and "impoverish more people in a shorter period of time than any event in history". For more on the China's dust bowl, see http://www.earth-policy.org/Alerts/Alert13.htm ; for more on the world's falling grain harvest, see http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update3.htm

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

A new report released at the recent UN climate change negotiations in Doha, Qatar reports that the Arctic permafrost is thawing. Ancient forests locked under ice tens of thousands of years ago are beginning to melt and rot, releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases. The report is titled Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost.

The report points out that permafrost carbon feedback had not been included in the fourth IPCC report, "Consequently, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, due for release in stages between September 2013 and October 2014, will not include the potential effects of the permafrost carbon feedback on global climate."

Large developed countries measure their greenhouse emissions in hundreds of millions of tons, while the Arctic's stores are measured in the tens of billions of tones, eventually adding more to emissions than last year's combined carbon output of the US and Europe. "The permafrost carbon feedback is irreversible on human time scales," the report says. Observations "indicate that large-scale thawing of permafrost may already have started.'' This is a "tipping point'' - where the climate becomes trapped in a vicious cycle of warming.

"Permafrost emissions could ultimately account for up to 39 per cent of total emissions,'' says the report's lead author, Kevin Schaefer, of the University of Colorado.

NASA scientist Charles Miller flies his small aircraft low over the ice fields in Alaska, his electronic sensors ready to help determine the precise rate and scale of the melt. His project is called NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment, or CARVE. When high levels of methane or carbon dioxide are detected on the plane's sensors, the aircraft maneuvers through the boundary layer to capture data. "What we can say is that methane is significantly elevated in places - about 2000 parts per billion, against a normal background of about 1850 parts per billion,'' he says. ''It's interesting because the models are predicting one thing and what we are observing is something fairly different.'' Miller said.

Methane, is created as the earth thaws and organic matter is consumed by tiny organisms. It is a potent but relatively short-lived greenhouse gas - 25 times as effective at trapping heat as carbon dioxide over a century, but about 75 times as potent over 20 years. "If the Arctic becomes warmer and drier, we will see it released as carbon dioxide, but if it is warmer and wetter it will be released as methane.''

"It had been assumed that on the timescale of the 21st century, that the effects of methane release would be relatively small compared to other effects - that's why it has been largely left out of the climate models,'' Andy Pitman, a lead author of the reports by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says. "It's happening faster than we had thought. This is not good news.''

The cost of the permafrost omission from the report could be high if measured in financial terms, says to Dr Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project. If you figure the price for of a ton of carbon emissions to be "$23 like Australia does, you are looking at an extra cost of about $35 billion for the permafrost,'' he says. ''That's on top of the hundreds of billions we already know it will cost to slow emissions to reach a 2-degree level."

"There is compelling evidence, not just that permafrost will thaw but that it is already rapidly thawing,'' says Ben Abbott, a researcher at the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. ... "a lot of permafrost is at or just below freezing. The difference between minus 1 degree Celsius and 1 degree is the difference between a fresh frozen meal and a rotten mess.'' .... '' the last time a majority of permafrost carbon was thawed and lost to the atmosphere, temperatures increased by 6 degrees Celsius." ... "Mix in the potent feedbacks from the permafrost system and it becomes clear that we need to act now.''

According to a researcher, France's 20 million cows account for 6.5% of national greenhouse-gas emissions. Each year, their belches send 26 million tonnes of gases into the atmosphere. Their faeces account for 12 million tonnes. Bovine gas comprises methane and nitrous oxide, which are 21 and 310 times more effective at trapping solar heat than CO2. Methane is to blame for a fifth of the greenhouse effect of the past 200 years. Agriculture and forestry have been identified as major factors in the greenhouse debate, but data is sparse, and has made decisions difficult. Yet scientists warned that the assumption that forests are "carbon sinks" was uncertain and possibly dangerous. France's cow population accounts for 80% of emissions from farm animals, with the rest from sheep, goats, pigs and fowl. Ideas for attenuating bovine pollutioninclude higher-protein fodder as soya can reduce the gastic fermentation, and faecal waste put in a closed silo that traps the methane, which can be burned as a biofuel. Australian scientists are trying a vaccine against three species of microbe that produce methane in sheep's stomachs.

The U.S. signed an agreement with 13 other nations that calls for investing up to $53 million in companies that will profitably control emissions of methane, mainly from landfills. They are second behind carbon dioxide for warming the earth's climate. Earlier Sen. McCain called on President Bush to do more to fight global warming. McCain had been playing down his policy differences with Bush to support the president's re-election. McCain said the study demonstrates that climate change is real but Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the environment committee, called the study yet another scare tactic. A study released says the Arctic is vulnerable to warming from greenhouse gases and projects that polar bears could become extinct, and seals, caribou, reindeer herds and the people who depend on them for food also could be threatened. The Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality said that the administration's strategy is broader than perceived and will reduce the greenhouse gas in the American economy by 18%. Research and technology programs exceed $5 billion yearly. The climate plan, unveiled in 2002, calls on industry to voluntarily reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released by 18% by 2012, or about 1.5% a year - about the same rate that has occurred over the past 12 years. Bush rejected an international climate treaty for controls on carbon dioxide and other gases. McCain has held hearings to build support for a bill he sponsored with Sen. Lieberman, to impose modest mandatory controls on U.S. greenhouse gases. The 13 other countries signing the agreement were Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, China, Colombia, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia and Ukraine.

Methane hydrates under the ocean floor and the Alaskan permafrost may be the world's next energy source, if they can be extracted safely. Ten trillion tons of carbon are trapped in the compounds which form when methane is subjected to cold and high-pressure. They can explode or release methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Extracting and processing them is six times more expensive than traditional oil and gas drilling. The DoE is paying for technological advancements that could make it cheaper. Environmentalists worry as burning methane hydrates is like opening a Pandora's box with quite probably a genocidal genie within it.

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.

Many forms of life, including 80% of some deep-sea species, suddenly
vanished 183 million years ago. In an article published in the journal target=_top href="http://www.nature.com/nature/">Nature, huge
reservoirs of methane trapped beneath the ocean floor rapidly escaped during
prehistoric volcanic-caused global warming and depleted much of the sea's
oxygen, according to new research by Stephen Hesselbo, an Oxford University
researcher. The study also raised questions about the stability of today's
sea floor reservoir of methane hydrate, which the federal government plans
to study as a possible energy source. "How easy it is to release the methane
that is there," Hesselbo said. Methane hydrate is formed beneath the sea
floor when algae from the surface dies and sinks. Beneath the ocean floor,
methane exists in an ice-like state but is susceptible to changes in
pressure and temperature. Researchers believe that during the Jurassic
period carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were spewed into the
atmosphere by massive volcanic eruptions, warming the subocean floor by deep
ocean currents, which in turn freed the methane from its suboceanic cage.
The methane then used the oxygen in the water or atmosphere to form carbon
dioxide, accelerating the global warming. The release was estimated to be
20% of the present-day 14,000 billion tons of gas hydrate on the sea floor.
The event took place over 5,000 years. Note: Other governments, including the
Japanese, are also studing this possibility. Harvesting the methane also has
a potential for releasing it into the atmosphere. But, as our huge
population uses up available petroleum, the attention of energy hogs will
turn to risky alternatives.

The Do the Math Movie is being screened at house-parties and screenings around the world. The movie tells the story of the rising movement to change the terrifying math of the climate crisis and fight the fossil fuel industry. Click on the link in the headline above to see where there are screenings or where to have a houseparty screening.

The Sahara Desert, a vast, nearly lifeless expanse of sand and rock was once a fertile grassland and bands of human hunters chased aurochs and antelope, but a wobble in Earth's orbit catalyzed ecosystem changes that caused the Sahara to go from green to brown in a matter of centuries or even decades.

A series of small modifications can push a system to a "tipping point," where it flips, quite suddenly, from one state to another. And many believe that human population dynamics are an increasingly important variable in environmental change, at local, regional, and global scales.

Volcanic eruptions, solar flares, and the clash of continents have changed the Earth, but, since the beginning of the last century, our numbers have quadrupled, reaching seven billion in 2011, resource consumption has skyrocketed, and more people are living in environmentally fragile regions, such as coastal areas, making humans responsible for the more recent changes.

More than 80% of the Earth's land is under direct human control; humans use a fifth of the planet's biomass; humans emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases which are warming the planet and acidifying the oceans. Because of all of this disruption, we are now in the midst of the biggest wave of extinctions since the end of the dinosaurs.

Environmentalists learned that environmental impact (I) is the sum of population size (P) times per capita affluence level (A) times the impact of technologies (T). Otherwise known as IPAT. But John Harte in A Pivotal Moment tells us that non-linear effects, including thresholds and feedbacks, can amplify the environmental impact of human numbers. For example, a species may depend on a certain amount of intact habitat to survive. As human settlements encroach, a threshold is eventually crossed, and the species will, sometimes quite suddenly (within a generation or two), collapse.

A classic example is the loss of "albedo": on a warming planet, there is less ice and snow to reflect heat back to space, so more sunlight is absorbed by the Earth's surface, which intensifies warming. Another example: warming accelerates the decomposition of organic matter in cultivated soil. That decomposition, in turn, releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which speeds even more warming. Because more people generally means more cultivated land, population growth affects the intensity of this feedback effect.

In 2009, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Center, and his team of scientists, identified 10 biophysical boundaries that must not be transgressed if we wish to preserve a habitable planet. Three of the boundaries - for climate change, biodiversity loss, and global nitrogen - have already been crossed.

In 2012, University of California, Berkeley, paleoecologist Anthony Barnosky and colleagues warned there may be “a reduction in biodiversity and severe impacts on much of what we depend on to sustain our quality of life, including, for example, fisheries, agriculture, forest products, and clean water. This could happen within just a few generations."

The Mato Grosso region of the Amazon rainforest may soon be “on a one-way route to becoming a dry and relatively barren savannah," according to the New Scientist. And record-breaking declines in the extent and volume of sea ice signal that an ice-free summer Arctic may be near.

Tufts University economists Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton found that “global warming is now causing unprecedentedly rapid changes in the climate conditions that affect agriculture - much faster than crops can evolve on their own, and probably too fast for the traditional processes of trial-and-error adaptation by farmers. ...Within a few decades, business as usual climate change would reach levels at which adaptation is no longer possible." This at a time when global food production must increase by 70% to keep pace with demand.

Authors of the tipping-point studies call for a range of interventions: limiting climate change, low-carbon approaches to development, better ecosystem management, and measures to voluntarily slow population growth where it is still rapid, such as encouraging girls' education and universal access to family planning and reproductive health.

While our capacity to predict the future remains imperfect, we should consider ourselves warned.

Native populations in the Brazilian Amazon are reporting shifts in precipitation patterns, humidity, river levels, temperature, and fire and agricultural cycles. These shifts, measured against celestial timing used by indigenous groups, are affecting traditional ways of life that date back thousands of years.

Steve Schwartzman, director of tropical forest policy at Environmental Defense Fund said: "Indigenous people are telling us rainfall and river levels have changed; the fires they're dealing with are different now; and the climate systems they used to depend on for growing crops have become unpredictable."

Indigenous interviewees showed concern that fires traditionally used for small-scale rotational agriculture.were more difficult to control. The fires were set based on the time of year -- determined by the position of stars in the sky -- with the expectation that the fires wouldn't spread into humid forest areas. But drier conditions today mean that savanna fires can easily move into rainforests, damaging them and reducing their capacity to withstand drought and future burning.

One Xingu tribesman said : "Until 1980, everything was fine, we set fire to the savanna and it went out by itself, since it stopped right at the edge of the savanna. Starting in 2000, the fires don't put themselves out anymore... In my village a lot of forest burned. The fire happens because of the heat. We are in a new climate."

The observations could be partly attributable to land use change in the region. Deforestation can contribute to localized drying, while water diversion for agricultural can reduce stream flows. The study area — the watershed of the Xingu river — is surrounded by large-scale clearing for cattle pasture and industrial soy farms.

Several recent studies argue that the changes are likely the result of a combination of factors, including warmer temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, fragmentation, and deforestation. Since 2005, the Amazon has experienced the two most severe droughts on record. The droughts isolated river-dependent communities, triggered large-scale forest die-off and carbon emissions, and were associated with massive forest fires.

Now a spate of dam-construction projects could worsen indigenous communities' plight by restricting river flows, flooding traditional lands, and potentially disrupting fish migration.

The good news is that the annual deforestation rate in the region, particularly in indigenous territory, has plunged by more than 80% since 2004, lending support to the argument that land management by native communities can play a key role in protecting forests and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"The sustainability of indigenous lands and protected areas also depends on sustainable sources of finance," the authors write. "REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) and payment for ecosystem services, whether from public or private sources, have often been proposed as options. A rough estimate, based on modeling of the gradual, bottom-up development of carbon markets from 2015 to 2030 suggests that the value of the Xingu indigenous lands and protected areas under a national emissions trading system might approximate $42 million per year."

Sea surface temperature for the Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem - extending from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina - reached a record high of 14 degrees Celsius (57.2°F) in 2012, exceeding the previous record high in 1951. Average SST has typically been lower than 12.4 C (54.3 F) over the past three decades according to NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC).

Both contemporary satellite remote-sensing data and long-term ship-board measurements dating back to 1854. were used. The temperature increase in 2012 was the highest jump in temperature seen in the time series and one of only five times temperature has changed by more than 1 C (1.8 F).

The spring 2013 plankton bloom and distributions of fish and shellfish on the Northeast Shelf will be affected. Black sea bass, summer flounder, longfin squid, butterfish, and American lobster have shifted northeastward while Atlantic cod and haddock have shifted southwestward.

NEFSC work reported in 2009 that found about half of the 36 fish stocks studied in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially valuable species, have been shifting northward over the past four decades.

"Changes in ocean temperatures and the timing and strength of spring and fall plankton blooms could affect the biological clocks of many marine species, which spawn at specific times of the year based on environmental cues like water temperature," Kevin Friedland, a scientist in the NEFSC Ecosystem Assessment Program, said.

Changes in agricultural practices could reduce soil emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide and the atmospheric pollutant nitric oxide, according to a new study by scientists at the University of California, Davis. It is a misconception that these greenhouse gases are only the result of combustion devices. "Agriculture is the main source of nitrous oxide globally, so this study is a starting point to help us understand how to manage and co
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