Future Migrations in an Environmentally Uncertain World

There are several major forces at play in today's world. Two forces involved with the migrations of people include globalization and mass exodus from the countryside to cities. Another major force, climate change, is playing an ever greater role, affecting societies with extreme droughts, floods, and other dangers. How will future migrations be affected by this force? A new report by a team of experts including Prof. David Thomas and Prof. Stefan Dercon of Oxford University believes that the challenges associated with migrations and environmental change are underestimated. The report concludes that many will emigrate from environmentally vulnerable places, but some may be trapped, and others may actually move closer to the danger.


The report states that migration can have an impact in helping communities adapt to ever more dangerous environment. For policy makers, this may be critical in order to avoid humanitarian disasters in some the hardest hit places like the deserts of Somalia and the flood plains of Bangladesh. Other vulnerable places include low-lying coastal areas which will be impacted by sea-level rise. The authors believe that of all future migrations, 75 percent will be internal, creating burdens not just for national and international authorities, but for municipalities as well.

According to the authors, millions in poorer countries will be unable to move due to costs. As the changing environment affects their livelihoods, they will have less money to spend on moving, especially over long distances. For migrants to more favorable environments, gainful employment may lead to more remittances to low-income countries, allowing remaining individuals a better quality of life

Many individuals will be moving to cities in the future, with the hope of finding higher-paying employment. However, many cities in the developing world are failing environmentally. Many lack clean drinking water, sanitary plumbing, poor air quality, inadequate housing, and lack of access to proper nutrition. Slum cities like Lagos, Nigeria will continue to rapidly grow throughout the Asia and Africa, despite worsening environmental conditions.

According to Professor David Thomas, "Future migration issues and associations with environmental change are complex: it is not simply a story of 'climate refugees'. Rather, critical concerns include the millions who will be trapped in areas prone to growing environmental risks, especially in low-income countries, and the movement of people towards areas where climate and environmental risks are going to grow in the next 50 years. Low-lying coastal zones, and the rapidly growing cities that they support, particularly in Asia and Africa, are particular issues policy makers should focus on."

The report "Migration and Global Environmental Change" has been published by the UK's Foresight Project.

For more information: http://www.bis.gov.uk/foresight

Carbon Recycling: Mining the Air for Fuel

Recycling bottles, cans, and newspapers is on any short list of simple actions for a cleaner environment. If only it were as easy to collect and reuse carbon dioxide—that greenhouse gas waste product that the world is generating in huge volume each day by burning fossil fuels.


In fact, a handful of start-up companies and researchers are aiming to do just that.

Recycling carbon dioxide is a great deal more involved than setting out separate bins for glass, aluminum, and paper. But many scientists believe that it is not only worth the effort, but a crucial endeavor. The climate change threat to the planet is now so great, they argue, that any effort to address the problem will have to include so-called "carbon negative" technologies. That means actually sucking the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere and doing something productive with it.

The idea of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal power plants or oil facilities and storing it underground has gotten plenty of attention. Several pilot projects are operating or under construction, although a major project in West Virginia was abandoned last month due to cost concerns.

There has been less focus on the idea of actually reusing or recycling CO2. But science has long known that it’s possible to recombine carbon from CO2 with hydrogen from water to make hydrocarbons—in other words, to make familiar fuels such as gasoline. The problem, ironically, has been that the process requires a lot of energy.

But pioneering researchers and entrepreneurs argue the technology is close at hand for recycling CO2 back into fuel for use in today’s engines. It might even involve technology to absorb carbon dioxide directly out of the air, instead of out of coal plant flue gas. (See related story, "Out of Thin Air: The Quest to Capture Carbon Dioxide") Instead of drilling for oil to power cars and trucks, they say, we could be pulling the ingredients to make hydrocarbons out of thin air.

"You have all this CO2—it’s nasty stuff—what are you going to do with it?" asks Byron Elton, chief executive of Carbon Sciences, a Santa Barbara, California start-up. "People are saying, ‘Compress it, hide it.’ We’re saying, ‘No, give it to us and we can turn it back into gasoline.’ "

Peter Eisenberger, a physicist who founded the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is cofounder of Global Thermostat, a company that is working on technology to capture carbon dioxide from air with the aim of recycling, not storage, in mind. "In my opinion, closing the carbon cycle and having the technology to combine CO2 and hydrogen is a wonderful future," Eisenberger says. "Imagine a future where the major inputs for fuel are water and CO2."

Energy In, Energy Out

Of course, the oil drilled and pumped from underground holds the energy of eons' worth of sunlight energy collected by plants and stored as organic matter. Over millions of years of heat and pressure, the energy in that organic matter has been further concentrated to yield hydrocarbons such as oil, natural gas, and coal.

Anyone who wants to create hydrocarbon fuel above ground will have to supply the energy to isolate the hydrogen and carbon atoms and put them together. "There’s no free lunch," says Hans Ziock, a technical staff member at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Los Alamos National Laboratory, coauthor of a white paper on carbon capture from air.

"You have to put energy in to re-create the fuel," he explains. "And because re-creation is never 100 percent efficient, you end up putting more energy in than you get out." Due to the "energy penalty" of creating hydrocarbon fuel indirectly, he says, it has always made more sense for society to use the liquid fuels made directly from crude oil as long as crude oil is available. "If nature has done this for you for free, why not use it?" says Ziock.

However, in a world that is now pumping its crude oil from ultra-deep water, squeezing it from tar sands, and looking for it beneath Arctic frontiers, the time may be ripe for alternatives. Ziock says he believes the hope for greater domestic self-sufficiency for fuel alone makes research into carbon dioxide recycling worthwhile. But he warns that as a means to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the benefits of this approach will be limited unless the energy to create the hydrocarbon fuel comes from a source other than the burning of more fossil fuel.

That’s why the focus of the "Sunshine to Petrol" project at U.S. DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California, has been on creating a high-efficiency chemical heat engine based on concentrated solar energy to power its process for making fuel.

"Hydrocarbon fuel has a lot of energy packed in," says Ellen Stechel, who manages the Sandia project. "All the energy came from the sun, and must again come from the sun—just faster and with greater efficiency." To create hydrocarbon fuel, she says it is possible to use solar energy, just as nature does. "But we need to collect it from a wide area to pack it into something very dense," she explains. "People say the sun is free, and that’s true, but the collectors to collect all that sun are not free."

The prototype solar reactor that the Sandia researchers have developed is designed to use a huge array of mirrors to collect and concentrate the sunlight into a very strong beam that is funneled onto metal oxide rings inside each reactor. The rings rotate in and out of the sunlight, heating to a temperature of more than 2,550°F (1,400°C), and then cooling to less than 2,010°F (1,100°C). These rings are then exposed either to carbon dioxide or to water. At the high temperature, the metal oxide rings release some oxygen and at the lower temperature the rings steal oxygen atoms from either the CO2 or the H2O molecules. That thermochemical reaction leaves behind carbon monoxide or hydrogen gas (the mixture is often called "syngas")—the building blocks of hydrocarbon fuel.

The Sandia prototype’s solar collector has an area of about 20 square meters (215 square feet) for a reactor the size of a beer keg, Stechel says. About 300,000 acres (121,400 hectares) of mirrors would be required to collect enough sunshine to make the equivalent of 1 million barrels of oil per day, she says. (The world currently consumes about 86 million barrels per day of petroleum and other liquid fuels, including biofuels.)

Stechel says that durability of the hardware remains an issue, and the researchers are continuing to work on making the system as efficient as possible so it can be commercially successful and used on a large scale.

Catalyst for Change

Elton’s firm, Carbon Sciences, focuses on the post-collection phase: turning carbon into fuel. It does this by combining CO2 with natural gas in the presence of a proprietary metallic catalyst it has developed and licensed. (The company says it is made of the common metals, nickel and cobalt, supported by aluminum and magnesium.)

Carbon Sciences says its test facility is successfully melding CO2 with methane (the primary constituent of natural gas) to produce a syngas that can be converted into ordinary fuels.

The process of turning syngas into transportation fuel is a well-established technology, and there are already commercial gas-to-liquids facilities in the world. But those processes rely on steam or oxidation to produce the syngas. Carbon Sciences argues that its process—CO2 reforming, or dry reforming, of natural gas—would be a game changer because it would produce fuel while using up waste CO2 that otherwise would be emitted to the atmosphere. Also, says Elton, using readily available CO2 as a reactant should make capital and operating costs significantly lower than current commercial approaches that use oxygen, since that’s expensive and capital-intensive.

"We believe our approach will be the key to cost-effective transformation of greenhouse gases to fuel on a global scale," he says.

Although there have been efforts at dry reforming in the past, Carbon Sciences says its catalyst is uniquely robust and able to stand up to the harsh industrial process of making the fuel. The catalyst also is comprised of more affordable and abundant metals than those used in earlier efforts.

Of course, because the fuel produced will be a drop-in replacement for ordinary gasoline and diesel, driving will still release CO2 to the atmosphere. But Elton says there are significant advantages in using recycled fuel. "The carbon . . . is used twice, instead of it going into the air," he says. "It also finally addresses the issue of energy security"—as the fuel can be made domestically from two abundant resources in the United States—CO2 and natural gas.

Outside scientists say the CO2 advantages of the system will depend on how it is designed, including where it gets its energy. Elton says minimizing net energy will be a high priority, with the potential for an integrated system that reuses some of the energy or fuel created in the process. He maintains that Carbon Sciences’ process for creating fuel is CO2-neutral, in contrast to the refining of ordinary crude oil into gasoline, which results in energy use that releases CO2 before the fuel even gets to the gas tank. After encouraging test results earlier this year, Elton said in July that his company is working on a demonstration project to produce samples of diesel fuel that can be used by existing diesel vehicles, like trucks and buses.

It is important to note that in the reforming process, natural gas provides some of the hydrocarbons in the fuel. Other efforts at CO2 recycling-into-fuel aim to get all of the hydrocarbons from CO2 alone.

In the United Kingdom, Air Fuel Synthesis aims to use atmospheric CO2 and wind energy to produce aviation fuels in a concept demonstration at an initial rate of 1 liter (about one-quarter gallon) per day.

Filling Up With Renewables

Although the challenges are great, the research is important, says a policy brief issued last month by the Centre for Low-Carbon Futures in England. Researchers from the University of Sheffield and the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands said that what they call "Carbon Capture and Utilization" could overcome many of the drawbacks of carbon capture and storage, including the difficulty in finding enough underground storage space, the possibility of leakage, long-term liability issues, and problems with public acceptance. Creating something of value also would help offset the costs of carbon capture, the researchers said.

And creating liquid fuels through carbon recycling could be important in the long run for a society that aims to reduce its dependence on oil. Although there’s been much excitement about electric cars, the report noted that electric batteries still can’t provide the needed range for aviation and long-haul sea and road transport. The recycling of CO2 could be the path for putting renewable energy into the fuel tanks of ordinary combustion engines, the report said.

That’s why Stechel, of Sandia, says the benefits of "reversing combustion" or "closing the cycle" on CO2 could be enormous. "We could have a technology that could produce the same fuels we get from petroleum and preserve today’s infrastructure," she says, "fuels that could go into the vehicles of today as well as the ones of tomorrow."

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/

 

Belo Monte Dam Threatens Brazilian Amazon

It is a bitter loss. The wild river that along its lengthy journey gives life to so much and so many will be tamed forever. Where I stand on the shores of the Xingu River, just a few miles from the city of Altamira, I can see the markers where the main wall of the Belo Monte dam will be built. Across the main waterway of the Xingu, 14 meters (or 46 feet) high, the dam will muzzle the flow of the river and will create a gigantic lake almost 600 square kilometers in size. When the city of New Orleans, which is roughly that size, was flooded after hurricane Katrina, the entire world shrieked in horror. As an equivalent area of Amazonian rainforest is scheduled to be flooded, barely anybody outside this area is paying attention. For over 20 years, the ploy to dam the tributaries of the Amazon has been bounced around and finally the idea of damming the Amazon's tributaries as a solution to Brazil's energy challenges has won. The walls will go up and the character of this vital ecosystem will be changed forever and we will al loose...


Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

How Hot Was It Long Ago?

The question seems simple enough: What happens to the Earth’s temperature when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increase? It has happened in the past. The answer is elusive. However, clues are hidden in the fossil record. A new study by researchers from Syracuse and Yale universities provides a much clearer picture of the Earth’s temperature approximately 50 million years ago when CO2 concentrations were higher than today. The results may shed light on what to expect in the future if CO2 levels keep rising. The study which for the first time compared multiple geochemical and temperature proxies to determine mean annual and seasonal temperatures, is published online in the journal Geology, the premier publication of the Geological Society of America, and will be published in print on August 1.

SU Alumnus Caitlin Keating-Bitonti is the corresponding author of the study. She conducted the research as an undergraduate student under the guidance of Linda Ivany, associate professor of earth sciences, and Scott Samson, professor of earth sciences, both in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences. Early results led the team to bring in Hagit Affek, assistant professor of geology and geophysics at Yale University, and Yale Ph.D. candidate Peter Douglas for collaborative study.


The Eocene epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago, is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by the emergence of the first modern mammals. The end is set at a major extinction event called Grande Coupure (the "Great Break" ), which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Siberia and in what is now Chesapeake Bay.

The temperature gradient from equator to pole was only half that of today's, and deep ocean currents were exceptionally warm. The polar regions were much warmer than today, perhaps as mild as the modern-day Pacific Northwest; temperate forests extended right to the poles, while rainy tropical climates extended as far north as 45°. The difference was greatest in the temperate latitudes; the climate in the tropics however, was probably similar to today's. The recent discovery of a giant snake in Colombia that may have lived during the Eocene suggests, on the contrary, that the tropics were much warmer than today, a conclusion in accord with numerical simulations of the climate during the Eocene.

Earth's surface temperatures generally rose from the late Palaeocene through the Early Eocene, reaching maximum Cenozoic temperatures during the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum. Superimposed on this warming were a series of "hyperthermals". These are best described as geologically brief (<200 kiloyears) events characterized by rapid warming global warming and massive carbon input to the ocean and atmosphere. The most prominent of these events was the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or Initial Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which began at the Palaeocene-Eocene Boundary. During this episode. Earth surface temperatures rose by 5-7 °C. The PETM coincided with a major mammalian turnover on, and an extinction of many species in the deep sea.

Previous studies have suggested that the polar regions (high-latitude areas) during the Eocene were very hot—greater than 30 degrees centigrade (86 degrees Fahrenheit). However, because the sun’s rays are strongest at the Earth’s equator, tropical and subtropical areas (lower latitude) will always be at least as warm as polar areas, if not hotter. Until now, temperature data for subtropical regions were limited.

The SU and Yale research team found that average Eocene water temperature along the subtropical U.S. Gulf Coast hovered around 27 degrees centigrade (80 degrees Fahrenheit), slightly cooler than earlier studies predicted. Modern temperatures in the study area average 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Additionally, the scientists discovered that, during the Eocene, temperatures in the study area did not change more than 3 to 5 degrees centigrade across seasons, whereas today, the area’s seasonal temperatures fluctuate by 12 degrees centigrade. The new results indicate that the polar and sub-polar regions, while still very warm, could not have been quite as hot as previously suggested.

The findings are based on a chemical analysis of the growth rings of the shells of fossilized bivalve mollusks and on the organic materials trapped in the sediment packed inside the shells, which was conducted by Keating-Bitonti and her colleagues. Ivany collected the fossils from sediment layers exposed along the Tombigbee River in Alabama. The mollusks lived in a near-shore marine environment during a time when the sea level was higher and the ocean flooded much of southern Alabama. The sediments that accumulated there contain one of the richest and best-preserved fossil records in the country.

"Our study shows that previous estimates of temperatures during the early Eocene were likely overestimated, especially at higher latitudes near the poles," Keating-Bitonti says. "The study does not mean elevated atmospheric CO2 levels did not produce a greenhouse effect; the Earth was clearly hotter during the early Eocene. Our results support predictions that increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 will result in a warmer climate with less seasonality across the globe."

Source: http://www.enn.com

World War II Bombing Raids Offer New Insight Into the Effects of Aviation On Climate

ScienceDaily (July 8, 2011) — Climate researchers have turned to the Allied bombing raids of the Second World War for a unique opportunity to study the effect thousands of aircraft had on the English climate at a time when civilian aviation remained rare. The study, published in the International Journal of Climatology, reveals how civilian and military records can help assess the impact of modern aviation on the climate today.

The research, led by Prof Rob MacKenzie, now at the University of Birmingham, and Prof Roger Timmis of the Environment Agency, used historical data to investigate the levels of Aircraft Induced Cloudiness (AIC) caused by the contrails of Allied bombers flying from England to targets in Europe. The team focused their research on 1943 to 1945 after the United States Army Air force (USAAF) joined the air campaign.


"Witnesses to the huge bombing formations recall that the sky was turned white by aircraft contrails," said MacKenzie. "It was apparent to us that the Allied bombing of WW2 represented an inadvertent environmental experiment on the ability of aircraft contrails to affect the energy coming into and out of the Earth at that location."

Aircraft can affect cloudiness by creating contrails, formed when the hot, aerosol-laden, air from aircraft engines mixes with the cold air of the upper troposphere. While some contrails disappear swiftly, others form widespread cirrus clouds which intercept both the energy coming into the planet as sunshine and that leaving the planet as infrared heat.
When the USAAF joined the Allied air campaign in 1943 it led to a huge increase in the number of planes based in East Anglia, the Midlands and the West Country. Civil aviation was rare in the 1940s, so USAAF combat missions provide a strong contrast between areas with busy skies and areas with little or no flight activity.


Today air travel is growing at an annual rate of 3-5 % for passenger aircraft and 7 % for cargo flights, but quantifiable data on the impact of AIC remains rare. In September 2001 United States airspace was closed to commercial aircraft following terrorist attacks, presenting scientists with a unique moment to study the effect of aircraft contrails in normally busy sky. Results from the 9/11 studies are controversial, but now MacKenzie and his colleagues have found an opportunity to study the opposite impact of contrails on the usually empty skies of the 1940s and have found that it is indeed possible to see the effects of AIC in surface weather observations, but that the signal is weak.

The study involved painstaking retrieval of historical records, both from the Meteorological office and from the military. The importance of weather conditions to the success of bombing missions meant that the Second World War prompted some of the most intensive weather observations ever undertaken but these are not all archived electronically.

To distinguish the effect of aviation more clearly, the team focused on larger raids from the many flown between 1943 and 1945. They selected raids that involved over 1000 aircraft and that were followed by raid-free days with similar weather which might be used for comparison. The resulting top 20 raids revealed 11th May 1944 as the best case study.

The team found that on the morning of the 11th 1444 aircraft took off from airfields across south east England into a clear sky with few clouds. However, the contrails from these aircraft significantly suppressed the morning temperature increase across those areas which were heavily over flown.

"This is tantalising evidence that Second World War bombing raids can be used to help us understand processes affecting contemporary climate," concluded MacKenzie. "By looking back at a time when aviation took place almost entirely in concentrated batches for military purposes, it is easier to separate the aircraft-induced factors from all the other things that affect climate."



Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com

Geoengineering: Scientists Debate Risks Of Sun-Blocking And Other Climate Tweaks To Fight Warming

To the quiet green solitude of an English country estate they retreated, to think the unthinkable.


Scientists of earth, sea and sky, scholars of law, politics and philosophy: In three intense days cloistered behind Chicheley Hall's old brick walls, four dozen thinkers pondered the planet's fate as it grows warmer, weighed the idea of reflecting the sun to cool the atmosphere and debated the question of who would make the decision to interfere with nature to try to save the planet.

The unknown risks of "geoengineering" – in this case, tweaking Earth's climate by dimming the skies – left many uneasy.

"If we could experiment with the atmosphere and literally play God, it's very tempting to a scientist," said Kenyan earth scientist Richard Odingo. "But I worry."

Arrayed against that worry is the worry that global warming – in 20 years? 50 years? – may abruptly upend the world we know, by melting much of Greenland into the sea, by shifting India's life-giving monsoon, by killing off marine life.

If climate engineering research isn't done now, climatologists say, the world will face grim choices in an emergency. "If we don't understand the implications and we reach a crisis point and deploy geoengineering with only a modicum of information, we really will be playing Russian roulette," said Steven Hamburg, a U.S. Environmental Defense Fund scientist.

The question's urgency has grown as nations have failed, in years of talks, to agree on a binding long-term deal to rein in their carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N.-sponsored science network, foresees temperatures rising as much as 6.4 degrees Celsius (11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, swelling the seas and disrupting the climate patterns that nurtured human civilization.

Science committees of the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress urged their governments last year to look at immediately undertaking climate engineering research – to have a "Plan B" ready, as the British panel put it, in case the diplomatic logjam persists.

Britain's national science academy, the Royal Society, subsequently organized the Chicheley Hall conference with Hamburg's EDF and the association of developing-world science academies. From six continents, they invited a blue-ribbon cross-section of atmospheric physicists, oceanographers, geochemists, environmentalists, international lawyers, psychologists, policy experts and others, to discuss how the world should oversee such unprecedented – and unsettling – research.

Read the full story at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/04/geoengineering-sun-blocking_n_844324.html

Greensburg - Jorney towards Green

Right after the Huricane

New Greensburg: Stronger, Better, Greener!

At 9:45 pm on May 4th, 2007 an EF5 tornado leveled the rural town of Greensburg, Kansas. Just days after the storm, the community came together and decided to rebuild sustainably, striving to become a model green town for the future.

The story of Greensburg, is one of determination and sheer will -- of residents who wouldn't and won't let their town die in the wake of a ferocious, massive tornado that laid waste to it on May 4, 2007.


The locals refuse to give up on themselves, or their community.

They are rebuilding.

As residents put the pieces of their lives, and Greensburg itself, back together, they're keeping an eye on the environment, determined to make theirs the greenest town in the land.

It's a story that deserves you attention and we should all keep up with it.


Below are some interesting links to keep you updated on their Green journey.

http://www.greensburggreentown.org/

http://www.greensburgks.org/

http://www.planetgreenpress.com/ekits/greensburg/index.php?page=press-release

http://www.nativeenergy.com/pages/greensburg/517.php

I am sure we can all learn form it.

Curso de "Ecologia e Identificação de Cetáceos"

No fim-de-semana de 7 e 8 de Maio de 2011, no âmbito de um protocolo entre o ICNB e a Natura Algarve, vai realizar-se o curso de "Ecologia e Identificação de Cetáceos" que decorrerá no Parque Natural da Ria Formosa, na Quinta de Marim. A saída de mar faz-se a partir da marina de Olhão.


A carga horária prevista é de 9 horas (6 horas de teórico-prática / 3 horas de prática) e a formação está a cargo de Sónia Manso, Inês Gomes e Sergi Perez.

Nº máximo de participantes: 10

Preço: 50 euros (40 euros estudantes)

O preço inclui: acompanhamento técnico permanente do formador / guia, manual do curso, certificado de participação, disponibilização de guias de campo, custo taxas portuárias, saída de mar em semi-rígido, seguro de acidentes pessoais por cada participante e IVA

Mais Informações: http://www.portal.icnb.pt/

Melting Ice Sheets Now Largest Contributor To Rising Sea Levels

In a time like this while we are all in awe due to what has just happened in Japan, it is good to remember a bit of all the wrong things humans are doing which in a way or another are contributing for the convulsions of our planet.

Ice sheets are now the largest contributor to rising sea levels, a new report has found. If ice sheets continue to melt at their current rates, sea levels may rise over 12 inches in the next four decades.

The study was conducted over the course of 20 years, and the results will be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The group of researchers examined monthly satellite measurements between 1992 and 2009, using climate model data. The research shows that in 2006, Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost a combined mass of 475 gigatonnes -- this ice loss can raise the global sea level by 1.3 millimeters per year.

Unfortunately, 2006 was not just a fluke occurrence. As Science Daily explains, ice sheets are melting at a steadily increasing rate. Over the course of the study, the ice sheets lost about an additional 36 gigatonnes per year, compared to each year before.

Melting ice caps have often taken the spotlight, but melting ice sheets are now dwindling at a faster rate than the ice caps and glaciers. While ice sheets extend for over 20,000 square miles, ice caps are defined as areas of less than 20,000 square miles. Though melting ice caps are certainly worthy of concern, their rate of loss has been three times smaller than the acceleration rate at which ice sheets are melting.

The report’s lead author, Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is not surprised that ice sheets will now contribute the most to sea level rise. But, Rignot remarks, “What is surprising is this increased contribution by the ice sheets is already happening. If present trends continue, sea level is likely to be significantly higher than levels projected by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007.” The trends suggest that by 2050, melting ice sheets could raise sea levels by nearly six inches -- this amount is then added to predictions for melting ice caps and ocean thermal expansion. The resulting calculations find that sea levels could rise 12.6 inches by 2050.

How would these rising sea levels affect us? Another recent study, reported in the journal Climate Change Letters, shows that rising sea levels may threaten over 1000 cities all around the globe by 2100. This study was based on projections that sea levels will rise by about three feet within the next century. Cities such as Miami, New Orleans, and Virginia Beach are expected to lose over 10 percent of their land. New York and Washington D.C. are also expected be impacted, though to a lesser degree. Other countries like The Maldives are expected to be completely erased from the face of the Earth.

U.N. reports have predicted that because of climate change, the world will have 50 million environmental refugees by 2020. That’s less than 10 years from now.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

New Report Lists 25 Most Endangered Turtle Species

A report issued on February 21, 2011, co-authored by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) working in conjunction with the Turtle Conservation Coalition, lists the 25 most endangered turtle species from around the world – some of which currently number less than five individuals.


Decimated by illegal hunting for both food and the pet trade along with habitat loss, many turtle species will go extinct in the next decade unless drastic conservation measures are taken, according to the report, which was released at a regional workshop hosted by Wildlife Reserves Singapore and WCS. Seventeen of the 25 species are found in Asia, three are from South America, three from Africa, one from Australia, and one from Central America and Mexico.

The report was authored by the Turtle Conservation Coalition, which is made up by IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group, Turtle Conservation Fund, Turtle Survival Alliance, Turtle Conservancy/Behler Chelonian Center, Chelonian Research Foundation, Conservation International, WCS, and San Diego Zoo Global.

The list of 25 includes “Lonesome George” – the only remaining Abdington Island giant tortoise. Though there is still scientific disagreement as to whether he is a recognized species or a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise, all agree that he is the last of his kind. Another species on the brink is the Yangtze giant softshell turtle with just four known individuals. Wildlife Conservation Society veterinarians have been working with Chinese officials and other partners to breed the last known male/female pair of these giant turtles, which currently reside at China’s Suzhou Zoo.

Illegal hunting for turtles in Asia for food, pets, and traditional medicines is a particular problem, the report says.

“Turtles are being unsustainably hunted throughout Asia,” said co-author Brian D. Horne of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Every tortoise and turtle species in Asia is being impacted in some manner by the international trade in turtles and turtle products. In just one market in Dhaka, Bangladesh we saw close to 100,000 turtles being butchered for consumption during a religious holiday, and we know of at least three other such markets within the city.”

Liz Bennett, Vice President of WCS Species Program, said: “Turtles are wonderfully adapted to defend themselves against predators by hiding in their shells, but this defense mechanism doesn’t work against organized, large-scale human hunting efforts. The fact is that turtles are being vacuumed up from every nook and cranny in Asia and beyond.”

The report says that better enforcement of existing trade laws, habitat protection, and captive breeding are all keys to preventing turtle species from going extinct while bolstering existing populations.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/

Coral Reef Ecosystems - Learn and Act

What is Coral?


Corals are composed of thin plates, or layers, of calcium carbonate secreted over time by hundreds of soft bodied animals called coral polyps. Polyps range in size from a pinhead to a foot in length. Each polyp lives in a symbiotic relationship with a host zooxanthellae that gives the coral its color. Zooxanthellae take in carbon dioxide, process it through photosynthesis, and give off oxygen and other important nutrients that are then used by the host polyp. As in all photosynthesizing organisms, this means that corals must be exposed to a sufficient amount of sunlight. This confines most corals to shallow waters that are clean and clear.

There are two kinds of corals: hard and soft. Hard corals (Scleractinia), such as brain, star, staghorn, elkhorn and pillar corals have rigid exoskeletons, or corallites, that protect their soft delicate bodies. Soft corals (Gorgonians), such as sea fans, sea whips, and sea rods, sway with the currents and lack an exoskeleton.


What is a coral reef?

Coral reefs are one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on earth, rivaled only by tropical rain forests. They are made up not only of hard and soft corals, but also sponges, crustaceans, mollusks, fish, sea turtles, sharks, dolphins and much more. Competition for resources such as food, space and sunlight are some of the primary factors in determining the abundances and diversity of organisms on a reef. Each component of a coral reef is dependent upon and interconnected with countless other plants, animals and organisms. This means that fluctuations in the abundance of one species can drastically alter both the diversity and abundances of others. While natural causes such as hurricanes and other large storm events can be the stimulus for such alterations, it is more commonly anthropological forces that effect these types of shifts in the ecosystem.

For example, overfishing of herbivorous fish often results in increased growth of algae and sea grasses. This generally results in an increase in other herbivorous marine life, such as sea urchins. Over time all ecosystems will naturally establish these types of balances between predators and prey and organisms in competition for similar resources. The question is how long those balances take to establish and what other reef relationships they affect.


What is the coral reef ecosystem?

The health, abundance and diversity of the organisms that make up a coral reef is directly linked to the surrounding terrestrial and marine environments. Mangrove forests and seagrass beds are two of the most important facets of the greater coral reef ecosystem. Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees that grow along tropical and sub-tropical coasts. Their complex root systems help stabilize the shore line, while filtering pollutants and producing nutrients. Their submerged roots and detritus provide nursery, breeding, and feeding grounds for invertebrates, fish, birds, and other marine life. Many of the animals raised in mangroves migrate to coral reefs for food, spawning and habitat.

Seagrasses are flowering plants that often form meadows between mangrove habitats and coral reefs. They form the foundation of many food webs, providing nutrients for everything from sea urchins and snails to sea turtles and manatees. Seagrass also provides protection and shelter for commercially valuable species such as stone crabs, snappers and lobsters. Additionally, they filter the water column, prevent seabed erosion, and release oxygen essential for most marine life.

The ecosystem services of mangroves and seagrass are vital to the long term health of coral reefs.

Source: http://reefrelief.org/


There is another very important element of the reef ecosystem that is often over looked: the land. Pollutants, nutrients and litter enter near shore waters through rivers, streams, underground seepage, waste water and storm water runnoff. Even areas hundreds of miles from the coast can effect the clarity and quality of water flowing to the reef. It does not matter how far removed a pollutant may seem, it all flows down stream and it can all impact our marine environment and our reefs.

Oysters - Here today gone tomorrow

The word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. A new, wide-ranging survey that compares the past and present condition of oyster reefs around the world finds that more than 90 percent of former reefs have been lost in most of the bays and ecoregions where the prized molluscs were formerly abundant. In many places, such as the Wadden Sea in Europe and Narragansett Bay, oysters are rated "functionally extinct," with fewer than 1 percent of their former reefs persisting. The declines are in most cases a result of over harvesting of wild populations and disease, often exacerbated by the introduction of non-native species. Oysters have fueled coastal economies for centuries, and were once astoundingly abundant in favored areas.

Some kinds of oyster are commonly consumed by humans, cooked or raw. Other kinds, such as pearl oysters, are not.


Oysters are filter feeders, drawing water in over their gills through the beating of cilia. Suspended plankton and particles are trapped in the mucus of a gill, and from there are transported to the mouth, where they are eaten, digested. Oysters feed most actively at temperatures above 50 °F. An oyster can filter up to 1.3 US gallon of water per hour. Chesapeake Bay's once flourishing oyster population historically filtered excess nutrients from the estuary's entire water volume every three to four days.

In the early 19th century, oysters were cheap and mainly eaten by the working class. Throughout the 19th century, oyster beds in New York harbor became the largest source of oysters worldwide. On any day in the late 19th century, six million oysters could be found on barges tied up along the city’s waterfront. Oysters were naturally quite popular in New York City, and helped initiate the city’s restaurant trade. New York’s oystermen became skilled cultivators of their beds, which provided employment for hundreds of workers and nutritious food for thousands. Eventually, rising demand exhausted many of the beds. To increase production, they introduced foreign species, which brought disease, when combined with effluent and increasing sedimentation from erosion, which destroyed most of the beds by the early 20th century.

Oysters’ popularity has put an ever-increasing demands on wild oyster stocks. This scarcity increased prices, converting them from their original role as working class food to their current status as an expensive delicacy.

The new survey is published in the February issue of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. It was conducted by an international team led by Michael W. Beck of The Nature Conservancy and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Beck's team examined oyster reefs across 144 bays and 44 ecoregions. It also studied historical records as well as national catch statistics. The survey suggests that about 85 percent of reefs worldwide have now been lost. The BioScience authors rate the condition of oysters as "poor" overall.

Most of the world's harvest of native oysters comes from just five ecoregions in North America, but even there, the condition of reefs is "poor" or worse, except in the Gulf of Mexico. Oyster fisheries there are "probably the last opportunity to achieve large-scale oyster reef conservation and sustainable fisheries," Beck and his coauthors write.

Oysters provide important ecosystem services, such as water filtration, as well as food for people. The survey team argues for improved mapping efforts and the removal of incentives to over-exploitation. It also recommends that harvesting and further reef destruction should not be allowed wherever oysters are at less than 10 percent of their former abundance, unless it can be shown that these activities do not substantially affect reef recovery.

Source: http://www.enn.com/

How The Environment Affects Your Health

It has been a banner week for biomedical news. The Institute of Medicine released a provocative and somewhat controversial report on calcium and vitamin D intake; the American Cancer Society announced results of an enormous study reaffirming the link between body mass index and mortality; there was at least aleatory passage of a historic food safety bill in Congress; and a long awaited update to federal policy governing child nutrition was passed and awaits the President's signature.


Ordinarily, this content would populate my public health reflections to their far horizon. But seen from just a bit of altitude; viewed through a wider angle lens than my habitual routine accords -- these headlines announce modest news about modest measures related to our singularly immodest perspective on our own health. There is far more to health than is generally dreamed of within the purview of biomedicine.

I know, because my horizons have been widened. This past week I was privileged to join an illustrious group, convened by the Wildlife Conservation Society at their headquarters on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, to address the contention that there is only one health. The "one health" concept stipulates, essentially, that the health of people will be promoted along with the health of the planet, its diverse ecosystems, and its biodiversity, or it won't be promoted at all.

What made the group illustrious? Aside from the fact that virtually everyone in the assemblage, with the exception of me, has a career devoted to protecting the native magnificence of our planet, the group was noteworthy for every aspect of its pedigree. Outstanding work, outstanding achievement, extraordinary devotion. Intelligence, passion, eloquence, fortitude, resourcefulness. Participants represented premier organizations, from the Wildlife Conservation Society, to Conservation International, to the Nature Conservancy, to World Wildlife Fund, to Harvard University, Stanford University, Columbia University, and in the case of my modest contributions, Yale University.

What was I doing there? Ah, there's the rub! Alas, this group -- to which I should simply be sending accolades -- has ostensible need of me.

The scientists at the meeting -- many of whom have spent arduous years in some of the planet's most dazzling, important, fragile and embattled ecosystems -- from the Arctic to the Amazon, from the Australian Outback to the Mongolian Steppes, from the jungles of Borneo to the jungles of Brazil, from the island of Madagascar to the islands of Fiji -- have collectively reached this fundamental conclusion: nobody really cares.

Well, I suppose that takes it a step too far. Lots of people do care about our planetary cohabitants and the places they and we call home. But not nearly enough people care, and people care not nearly enough to make the requisite differences. Not enough to stop the damage. The places and their denizens are ever more imperiled as we collectively squander every successive opportunity to rectify the trajectory of our impacts.

So the conservationists and wildlife biologists have conceded that the only way to make the case for what they do is through the lens of public health, and that's where I -- and others like me -- come in. We, from the human health community, are being asked to draw up chairs at the big table -- the "let's save the planet" table and help elucidate how saving oceans and lakes, mountains and jungles -- will help save people.

More specifically, the enterprise incubated at the meeting I attended involves the generation of specific, collaborative research projects to show the costs to human health of ecosystem-degradation-as-usual: the costs to human health of burning down rain forests; the costs to human health of cyanide fishing of coral reefs; the costs to human health of disrupting traditional food sources; the costs to human health of increased CO2 in our atmosphere.

We gathered secure in the conviction that there are such costs, that they can be measured, and that they are high. But that they need to be on the marquee is sad testimony to our world view. The global human population does not, apparently, acknowledge intrinsic value in the status of the globe. My conservation colleagues' unfortunate need of me is predicated on the sad inability of our species to see intrinsic value in any other species.

Environmental scientists can readily show on their own the cost to the rain forest of burning down the rain forest; public health counterparts are needed to help show the immediate cost to human lungs downwind of those fires. Environmental scientists can show on their own the cost to coral reefs of cyanide fishing; public health scientists are needed to help show the toll on nutritional status of coastal peoples dependent on the diversity of sea life those reefs formerly supported. Environmental scientists can show on their own the impact on biodiversity of human incursions into pristine areas; public health colleagues are needed to help demonstrate the association with emerging infectious diseases and potentially devastating outbreaks. Environmental scientists can tell us what species are being dispossessed by deforestation; public health counterparts are needed to help tally the human cases of malaria directly attributable to the enterprise.

And so I go from my routine allocation of effort to cultivating the health of humans who, in our masses, routinely abuse the planet, to offering what I can to a group trying to save the planet from those abuses. I love the people I care for, and that's why I do what I do. And what I do is important both for the immediacy of its responsiveness to human need, and its scope.

One in three American adults will have diabetes by 2050, testimony to the importance of work I and others do related to diabetes prevention. But all three of those three American adults, and their counterparts around the globe, will have need of a habitable, vital planet in 2050 and every year thereafter. So I can't help but view my invitation to the One Health table as a promotion.

For there is indeed but one health for all -- people, animals and planet -- to share. Our neglect of this imperative, our blindness to this blunt reality is at our collective peril. It is borne by either egomania, or mindlessness.

If mindlessness is our excuse, we must concede we are much like a parasite or virus that replicates at the expense of its host. And once its mindless replication toasts the host, the parasite, too, is doomed. One health, indeed. Are we that parasite, and earth the host?

If not, and sentience is our distinction, we are the more malignant for it. If we are destroying our host mindfully, there can be but one explanation: we are so ego maniacal as to think that the short term pursuit of our own profit -- however measured -- justifies the plunder of the planetary body that sustains pursuit and profit alike.

We are pillaging the planet that hosts us for short term gain. If anything ever epitomized penny-wise, pound-foolish conduct -- it is to profit in the short term at the long term expense of the source of all profit, and of life itself. Indeed, one of the objectives of the One Health initiative is to show that even in the short term, costs of environmental degradation outweigh profits; health economists were at the table to advance this agenda. In all likelihood, our plunder of the planet has established a new frontier for calamitous folly: penny-foolish and pound-foolish alike.

We have but one home. We have but one health. That we can manage to see it only through the lens of short term human impacts is testimony to the limits of our sight. But this view, too, will make the case.

Eventually the lens won't matter. Sooner, later, just in time, or tragically too late -- every view will reveal just one health, or just what's left when it's gone.


Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP


Director, Prevention Research Center


Yale University School of Medicine


http://www.davidkatzmd.com/

http://www.turnthetidefoundation.org/

How to Save the Wild Tiger

Tigers, like most big cats of the world, are in retreat. In the past, tigers were found all throughout Asia, from the Caspian Sea to Siberia and Indonesia. Now they occupy only six percent of their former range. In the last decade alone, tiger-occupied area has decreased by 41 percent. Despite decades of conservation initiatives, the number of tigers in the wild is at an all-time low. According to a new study from an international team of researchers, efforts should be concentrated on a few key sites in order to save the species from extiction.

The report was produced by a team including the University of Cambridge, Wildlife Conservation Society, and others, and is published in the journal PLoS Biology. Co-author, John Robinson, said, "The tiger is facing its last stand as a species...we are confident that the world community will come together to bring these iconic big cats back from the brink of extinction."


The report encourages conservationists to focus on 42 "source sites" as the top priority for the tiger's recovery. The price tag of doing so would be an estimated $35 million more than what is currently being spent on tiger conservation per year.

Unfortunately, the situation for the tiger is dire. Their global population is less than 3,500, of which a mere 1,000 are breeding females. Certain tiger populations have completely disappeared such as those in Cambodia, China, Vietnam, and North Korea. The remaining populations are pressured by habitat loss, killing or capture for human use, and from overhunting of their own prey. A huge factor in the recent decline of tigers is the demand for tiger body parts to be used as medicine.

The 42 source sites are defined as sites that have breeding populations and have the best chance to seed the tiger's recovery over a larger area in the future. It is akin to establishing no-fishing zones in the oceans in order to increase overall fish numbers. These sites would be safe havens for a predicted 70 percent of the global tiger population. However, they must be coupled with effective law enforcement and scientific monitoring. The result may be a rapid increase in tigers over a short span of time.

India has been singled out as the most important country for tiger conservation, with 18 source sites. Sumatra (largest island of Indonesia) also has eight, and the Russian Far East has six. The cost of this new conservation attempt would be borne mostly by the host countries but with contributions from international donors and NGOs. This fall, Russia will be hosting an international "Tiger Summit" with the hope of jump-starting this new coordinated effort.

A resurgence of the tiger population would be heartening to see. A poll conducted by the channel, Animal Planet, labeled the Tiger as the world's favorite animal, even beating out the dog. If this is the case, then people will recognize their importance and the need to ensure their survival.

Source: www.een.com

Mass Extinction Threat: Earth on Verge of Huge Reset Button?

Article by: Jeremy Hsu

LiveScience Senior Writer

Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the diversity of species found in oceans all over the world, according to a comprehensive study of fossil records. The findings suggest humans will live in a very different future if they drive animals to extinction, because the loss of each species can alter entire ecosystems.

Some scientists have speculated that effects of humans - from hunting to climate change - are fueling another great mass extinction. A few go so far as to say we are entering a new geologic epoch, leaving the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch behind and entering the Anthropocene Epoch , marked by major changes to global temperatures and ocean chemistry, increased sediment erosion, and changes in biology that range from altered flowering times to shifts in migration patterns of birds and mammals and potential die-offs of tiny organisms that support the entire marine food chain.

Scientists had once thought species diversity could help buffer a group of animals from such die-offs, either keeping them from heading toward extinction or helping them to bounce back. But having many diverse species also proved no guarantee of future success for any one group of animals, given that mass extinctions more or less wiped the slate clean, according to studies such as the latest one.

Then and now

Looking back in time, the diversity of large taxonomic groups (which include lots of species), such as snails or corals, mostly hovered around a certain equilibrium point that represented a diversity limit of species' numbers. But that diversity limit also appears to have changed spontaneously throughout Earth's history about every 200 million years.

How today's extinction crisis - species today go extinct at a rate that may range from 10 to 100 times the so-called background extinction rate - may change the face of the planet and its species goes beyond what humans can predict, the researchers say.

"The main implication is that we're really rolling the dice," said John Alroy, a paleobiologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. "We don't know which groups will suffer the most, which groups will rebound the most quickly, or which ones will end up with higher or lower long-term equilibrium diversity levels."

What seems certain is that the fate of each animal group will differ greatly, Alroy said.

His analysis, detailed in the Sept. 3 issue of the journal Science, is based on almost 100,000 fossil collections in the Paleobiology Database (PaleoDB).

The findings revealed various examples of diversity shifts, including one that took place in a group of ocean bottom-dwelling bivalves called brachiopods, which are similar to clams and oysters. They dominated the Paleozoic era from 540 million to 250 million years ago, and branched out into new species during two huge adaptive spurts of growth in diversity - each time followed by a big crash.

The brachiopods then reached a low, but steady, equilibrium over the past 250 million years in which there wasn't a surge or a crash in species' numbers, and still live on today as a rare group of marine animals.

Counting creatures better

In the past, researchers have typically counted species in the fossil record by randomly drawing a set number of samples from each time period - a method that can leave out less common species. In fact two studies using the PaleoDB used this approach.

Instead, Alroy used a new approach called shareholder sampling, in which he tracked how frequently certain groups appeared in the fossil record, and then counted enough samples until he hit a target number representative of the proportion for each group.

"In some sense the older methods are a little like the American voting system - the first-past-the-post-winner method basically makes minority views invisible," said Charles Marshall, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who did not take part in the study. "However, with proportional systems, minority views still get seats in parliament."

Marshall added that the study was the "most thorough quantitative analysis to date using global marine data ." But he added that researchers will probably debate whether the PaleoDB data represents a complete-enough picture of the fossil record.

Nothing lasts forever

The idea that rules of diversity change should not come as a surprise for most researchers, according to Marshall.

"To me, the really interesting possibility is that some groups might not yet be close enough to their caps to have those caps be manifest yet," Marshall told LiveScience. Or "evolutionary innovation" might happen so quickly that new groups emerged to increase overall diversity, even if each sub-group reached a cap on diversity.

If anything, the record of past extinctions has shown the difficulty of predicting which groups win out in the long run. "Surviving is one thing and recovering is another," said Marshall, who wrote a Perspectives piece about the study in the same issue of Science.

One of the few consistent patterns is that growth spurts in diversity can apparently happen at any time, according to Alroy. He added that the background extinction of individual species has also remained consistent - the average species lasts just a few million years.

Of course, the ongoing extinction crisis of modern times goes far beyond the background extinction rate. Alroy noted that it could not only wipe out entire branches of evolutionary history, but may also change the ecosystems shaped by each species.

That means today's species matter for environments around the world, and so humans can't simply expect replacements from the diverse species of the future.

"If we lose all the reef builders, we may not get back the physical reefs for millions of years no matter how fast we get back all the species diversity in a simple sense," Alroy said.

How Green Is Golf?

By John Barton



Illustration By Christoph Niemann


In January 1995, 81 people got together in a conference room at Pebble Beach for three days to discuss what could be done to make golf more eco-friendly. Present were representatives from all the major golfing bodies, and all the leading national and local environmental groups, too. There had never been such a meeting before. "It was really difficult getting some people to come," recalls Paul Parker, executive vice president of the Center for Resource Management, which orchestrated the meeting. "Particularly from the golf-community side, there was a lot of suspicion about who these environmental people were, and why they kept criticizing golf. They felt that the environmentalists didn't understand the game and had not made much of an effort to understand it. They saw these guys as the enemy."

"We really expected an explosive atmosphere," says Ted Horton, who at the time was vice president of resource management for Pebble Beach, with responsibility for the whole property, including all the golf courses and 17 Mile Drive. "I had the job of welcoming the group on that first morning. My heart was in my throat. I thought, We could have some real fireworks here."

But the attendees talked. And talked. And today, 15 years later, after five national conferences and dozens of smaller meetings and workshops, they're still talking. Improvements have been made, reports, guidebooks and educational videos have been published, and the effort -- which has become known as the Golf & the Environment Initiative -- has allowed the game to claim that it's cleaning up its act.

Wait, you say, hasn't golf always been green? Golf courses have trees and grass, critters; all kinds of nature and stuff, right? What's not to like? Better than a strip mall or a parking lot, surely. Yes, yes, of course. But the fact is that before the 1995 meeting, there were serious issues surrounding golf and its impact on the environment. And -- despite much self-congratulatory hyperbole from the golf industry about environmental sensitivity, sustainability and stewardship, and the obligatory eco-claims of every new golf resort -- there are still plenty of serious problems today. There are issues about where golf courses are built, about how they're built, and especially about how they're maintained. Golf could do more. As Parker says: "There's a terrific opportunity for golf and golf courses to demonstrate real environmental leadership. The attitude generally is, yeah, we need to do some things to avoid getting criticized. That's where the vision ends."

To find out more about these issues, and how serious they are, and what's being done about them, I interviewed a variety of the leading thinkers who reside at the intersection of golf and the environment: a golf-course architect, an anti-pesticide activist, an organic golf-course superintendent, a government regulator, a golf-course inspector, a turfgrass expert, an environmentalist. We talked about golf, where it has been and where it's headed. The conversations were long and at times contradictory, complicated and confusing. We spoke of water tables, endocrine function, genetically engineered grass. Salamanders. The American chestnut. President Bush. From the many hours of transcribed tapes, plus plenty of other conversations, visits to obscure corners of various libraries, and late-night sessions with Google, here are some of my conclusions about golf and the environment:

GOLF IN AMERICA WILL FACE A CRISIS OVER WATER.

There simply won't be enough to go around for golf courses to continue to do what they've been doing (one report says U.S. courses each use on average 300,000 gallons a day). Water is going to have to be increasingly carefully managed by everyone -- some have even described it as "the new oil." By 2025, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme's 2007 report, about 1.8 billion people in the world will be living in conditions of absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the planet will be subject to water stress. In America, demand for water grows while global warming has meant shrinking glaciers and mountain snow levels (and thus less snowmelt to fill our streams and rivers and reservoirs), more evaporation of freshwater reserves and lower rainfall in some areas and even unexpected droughts (not to mention rising sea levels threatening some coastal courses -- see page 207). There will be increasing financial and regulatory pressures on golf courses' use of water, especially in high-population desert areas where shortages are acute, such as Las Vegas, one of the fastest growing cities in America (the population has tripled to 1.7 million in the last 20 years, and by one estimate that figure might double by 2015). Recently the U.S. Geological Survey announced that demands on the aquifer beneath the Coachella Valley in California -- including from 126 area golf courses -- are so great that in the past nine years, large parts of the valley have sunk more than a foot.

In the short term, golf has already proved to be innovative in adapting to the challenge of conserving water. Some golf courses are using treated effluent water or wastewater instead of drinkable water, irrigating smaller areas of the property, irrigating more efficiently and with better equipment, raising mowing heights, and using new strains of grass that require dramatically less water. All of these things will continue. New courses in the desert will become rarer. The practice of overseeding fairways in the South with cool-season grasses in the winter will become harder to justify, and less common. A lot of golf courses might disappear.

THE PESTICIDES THAT GOLF COURSES USE, AND THE ONES THAT PEOPLE THROW ON THEIR LAWNS, PERHAPS ARE NOT AS SAFE AS WE BLITHELY ASSUME THEM TO BE.

To coin a phrase, there are known knowns when it comes to pesticides, but there are also an awful lot of unknown unknowns. Even if the superintendents at every one of America's 16,000 courses are rigorous in applying pesticides sparingly and with extreme caution -- and given the pressure they're often under to deliver unblemished, Augusta-like grass year-round, that's unlikely -- can we be sure these chemicals aren't harmful? There are many unanswered questions. Why are various diseases like autism, asthma and all kinds of cancers on the rise? Why are Western men and women increasingly infertile? Why did my friend's girlfriend's dog get tongue cancer and die? It's not unreasonable to think that exposure to synthetic chemicals -- some of whose residues are found in high concentrations as far away as the Arctic -- are to blame. There's a reason that, for instance, Connecticut recently banned pesticides from all school grounds (grades K through 8), and why more than 30 states have some kind of pesticide restriction on school property. There's a reason golf-course superintendents dress like Power Rangers when they spray the golf course. There's a reason the organic movement is growing.

ENVIRONMENTALISM ISN'T GOING AWAY.

As global warming increases, and common sense prevails, and the leaders of commerce and industry realize there's a buck to be made by being green-minded (or, more often, pretending to be), environmentalism is going to have large, growing and profound effects on all of our lives. What does this mean for golf? Like the fur coat and the SUV, the "Augusta look" -- freakishly green wall-to-wall grass on a life-support system of too much water and toxic chemicals, greens running at virtually unplayable speeds, ornamental flowers all over the place -- will become less admired, and even stigmatized. It works for the Masters, but that's just one week a year at an extremely wealthy private club that gets very little play (there are only 300 members, and the course is closed all summer). It doesn't work -- and isn't desirable -- at most other places. The aspiration -- obsession -- to be like Augusta has probably always had less to do with the needs and wants of golfers, who know that the game is all about taking the rough with the smooth, and more to do with the egos of golf-course owners, tournament directors and people who sit on greens committees.

As water becomes scarcer, as organic-management practices increase, as environmentalism and environmental legislation start to bite more than they have, as the economy struggles, and as we come to appreciate the aesthetics of golf courses in all their many natural, beautiful hues, the way the game looks will change. And the way it plays will change too, with firmer and faster turf demanding a return to shotmaking, creativity, the bump-and-run. It's starting to happen already: The hot courses are not dutiful apostles of Augusta; they are unique, wild and woolly-looking layouts like Bandon Dunes, Sand Hills, Chambers Bay. Americans increasingly love to visit the rugged, natural links of the British Isles, where the game began. That's where we're headed: back to the future.



Source: http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine

FOOTPRINT CALCULATOR

Worried about your impact on the environment? The way we use the planet's resources makes up our ecological footprint. Measuring yours takes less than 5 minutes and could set you on a life-changing journey...

Follow the link to find out:

http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/

Act today to reduce your footprint.

August 21 is (was) Earth Overshoot Day

Exactly what does this mean and how bad is it?

August 21st marks an unfortunate milestone: the day in which we exhaust our ecological budget for the year. Once we pass this day, humanity will have demanded all the ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing the raw materials for food – that nature can provide this year. From that point until the end of the year, we meet our ecological demand by liquidating resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.


What is Earth Overshoot Day?

Every year, Global Footprint Network calculates nature's supply in the form of biocapacity, the amount of resources the planet generates, and compares that to human demand: the amount it takes to produce all the living resources we consume and absorb our carbon dioxide emissions. Earth Overshoot Day, a concept devised by U.K.-based new economics foundation, marks the day when demand on ecological services begins to exceed the renewable supply.

What is Overshoot?

For most of human history, humanity has been able to live off of nature's interest -- consuming resources and producing carbon dioxide at a rate lower than what the planet was able to regenerate and reabsorb each year.

But approximately three decades ago, we crossed a critical threshold, and the rate of human demand for ecological services began to outpace the rate at which nature could provide them. This gap between demand and supply -- known as ecological overshoot -- has grown steadily each year. Global Footprint Network's most recent data show that it takes one year and five months to generate the ecological services (production of resources and absorption of CO2) that humanity requires in one year.

The Cost of Ecological Overspending

Of course, we only have one Earth. The fact that we are using (or “spending” natural capital) faster than it can replenish is similar to having expenditures that continually exceed income. In planetary terms, the results of our ecological overspending are becoming more clear by the day. Climate change – a result of carbon being emitted faster than it can be reabsorbed by the forests and seas – is the most obvious and arguably pressing result. But there are others as well: shrinking forests, species loss, fisheries collapse and freshwater stress to name a few.

How is Earth Overshoot Day Calculated?

Put simply, Earth Overshoot Day shows the day on which our total Ecological Footprint (measured in global hectares) is equal to the biocapacity (also measured in global hectares) that nature can regenerate in that year. For the rest of the year, we are accumulating debt by depleting our natural capital and letting waste accumulate.

The day of the year on which humanity enters into overshoot and begins adding to our ecological debt is calculated by calculating the ratio of global available biocapacity to global Ecological Footprint and multiplying by 365. From this, we find the number of days of demand that the biosphere could supply, and the number of days we operate in overshoot.

f you have further inquiries about Earth Overshoot Day, please contact http://www.footprintnetwork.org/

Mauritania plants trees to hold back desert

Mauritania has launched a tree-planting program aimed at protecting its capital from the advancing desert and coastal erosion, a project that could eventually extend thousands of kilometers across Africa.

President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz on Saturday planted the first of some 2 million trees that are meant to form a "green belt" around the capital, Nouakchott, and curb erosion elsewhere in the desert nation that straddles black and Arab Africa.

"The aim of this green belt is to stop the advancing desert and stop encroachment by the sea, which is threatening the town with floods," Ba Housseynou Hammadi, minister for the environment and sustainable development, said.

"This belt will also play an economic role. Some of the trees that have been chosen can be used for firewood. Others will produce gum acacia, which is (a natural gum) sought after for pharmaceutical products," Hammadi added.

It will take four years to plant the trees in Mauritania.

The project is part of a broader ant-desertification plan, the "Great Green Wall," launched by the African Union in 2005 to try to create a 15 km-wide wall of greenery stretching 7,000 km between Africa's east and west coasts. Image shows the planned location of the Great Green Wall across Africa.

Source: http://www.reuters.com

Design + Architecture

From Felled Tree to Dining Room Table: Furniture That's Sustainable and Unique

The team at Meyer Wells

If you've ever been upset to learn that a tree you loved either fell or had to be chopped down, you'll be glad to hear about Meyer Wells, the furniture company based out of Seattle. Operating under the motto "furniture with modern roots," Seth Meyer and John Wells take felled trees and turn them into custom wooden tables. So now you can see your beloved tree live on as a personal, unique, and super-sustainable pieces of furniture, with a history.


According to the New York Times, their business, started four years ago, bears all the markers that would seem to point toward collapse and extinction in a recessionary economy. It's founded on idealism and emotion. It's riddled with huge and unavoidable inefficiencies. And it tenders a high-end product that asks buyers to take risks and have faith.

Yet in the four years since their founding and the three since TreeHugger last checked in, business has boomed. Last year Meyer Wells' revenues reached $850,000 (668.000 Euros); this year they're on track to hit $1,000,000 (785.000 Euros). It goes to show that green businesses can thrive, if they're based on real values and people believe in them.

In a world in which wood furniture that's truly green is hard to find, Meyer Wells strives to be as sustainable as possible. They use bio-diesel vehicles and mostly hydroelectric and renewable power sources, and keep their business contained to the western US. "I think our idealism is meeting with the demand to make buildings greener," Wells told the Times.

Of course, all that personal care and attention make these products a bit more expensive than what you can find at Ikea. The above maple dining table will run you $7,500 (5.900 Euros). But if you're in the USA West coast and have the money and a taste for furniture with history, you won't do any better than Meyer Wells.