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CORRUPTION UPDATES 153 Posted: January 26, 2008, Draft edition Previous Page: Page 152 All Archives Next page: Page 154 Environment Page 6 previous pages 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, master environment page Contact Us: Committeefordemocracy.org Breaking Freak Weather News: china pounded by another freak storm The Article linked below was Abstracted from the sources cited. China counts cost of snowy winter chaos reuters, Jan 28, 2008 2:05am EST By Chris Buckley and Ben Blanchard http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USPEK8382620080128 Heavy snow and sleet have hit central, eastern and southern China, regions used to milder winters. The snow struck as tens of millions of Chinese head home to celebrate the Lunar New Year, starting on February 7 this year, straining trains and planes even in normal times. At the main rail station in Guangzhou in the relatively warm commercial far south, 170,000 people crammed together waiting for trains that cannot leave because of electric trains stranded downline, Xinhua news agency reported. By the end of Monday, a backlog of 600,000 waiting for trains from the city was expected. Television showed green-uniformed anti-riot troops ready to keep order around the station. The China Meteorological Administration said the cold snap showed no signs of lifting and issued a "red alert" warning of snow storms in some central and eastern areas, including around Shanghai, the nation's commercial hub. PRICE OF WILD WEATHER Already the country is guessing the economic cost. China's main stock index sagged as traders worried about the price tag of the wild weather on top of global economic woes. "This year's snow is really very extraordinary, and investors are now beginning to worry about the possible impact on the overall economy," said an analyst at Shanghai Securities. Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sunday the weather was threatening lives and disrupting supplies of fresh food, coal, oil and electricity ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. He promised action to ensure public safety and power. But residents in central and southwest China are already complaining of shortages of fresh foods and rocketing prices for rice, vegetables and eggs. "A lot of transport has stopped, so vegetables and what have you can't be brought in," Xu Jinyun, a resident of Lujiang in snow-bound Anhui province in east China told Reuters. The sight of swathes of China struggling with brownouts, food price hikes and business shutdowns has also led some to blame government tardiness and inefficiency as well as the cold. The government has not announced deaths due to freezing in homes. But homes south of the Yangtze River generally do not receive central heating and are not built for such icy weather. World food stocks dwindling rapidly, UN warns, iht, 12-17-07 Toll Of Climate Change On World Food Supply Could Be Worse Than Thought, terra news, 12-04-07 Chinese flooding leaves 21 dead, bbc, 5-25-07 1) The Articles linked below were Abstracted from the sources cited. After the abstract there's analysis and commentary, links to related articles, and a link to the database with suggested search terms. Geophysicists Urge Steep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions The American Geophysical Union says massive reductions in greenhouse gases will be needed—and scientists should speak up about it Scientific American, January 24, 2008 http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=geophysicists-urge-steep-cuts-in-greenhouse-gases The scientists of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) warn that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be slashed in half to keep temperatures from rising 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius)—or else. "Warming greater than 2 degrees Celsius above 19th-century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity and—if sustained over centuries—melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea levels of several meters," the AGU declares in its first statement in four years on "Human Impacts on Climate." The statement, released today, is the latest—and strongest—statement from the Washington, D.C.–based scientific organization on human-induced climate change. "The record of the Earth's climate since the invention of the thermometer is much better understood now," says physicist Tim Killeen, AGU president and director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. "This detailed understanding of the climate of the 20th century gives confidence in the ability to project into the future. It is now agreed that we can't explain the detailed temperature record of the 20th century without bringing to bear human effects and GHG emissions. That, in a way, is the smoking gun, the fingerprint." That fingerprint is now clearly visible on Earth's climate, according to physicist Michael Prather of the University of California, Irvine, who chaired the AGU committee that wrote the statement. Humanity's touch has tipped the scales in favor of more of the sun's heat being trapped by the sky and sea. "Earth's energy system is out [of] balance, excess heat is being pumped into the ocean," Prather says. "That means we're on the move to someplace different." "Someplace different" will be a lot warmer; 11 of the past 12 years were warmer than any since 1850, and 2007 tied 1998 as the second-warmest since instrument-based records began, according to NASA. Global average sea level has risen by roughly 0.11 inch (3 millimeters) per year since 1993 due to a combination of water expanding as it warms and melting ice sheets. "The scales of change we are seeing is something that modern society has never experienced," Prather notes. But the AGU believes that a broader solution is needed, which is why the statement calls on members to become more involved not only in researching the problem but also spreading the word about the urgency of controlling climate change, something many scientists have been loathe to do in the past, Killeen admits. "Each scientist can do it in their own way," says NCAR senior scientist Bette Otto-Bliesner, also a member of the AGU committee that wrote the statement. "From one-on-one conversations, to giving talks to schools or communities, to going up to Congress. Climatologists No Better than Reporters: Their Models have failed: Science incapable of predicting Radical Pace of Climate Shift Climate Change has already happened: Glad the Scientists Took their Heads out of their Asses, opened the Window, and Looked outside may 1, 2007, scroll up a bit... Those of you who know me, and have talked to me for the last decade, are not surprised. 8 years ago I predicted the rate of global climate change would break all the climatologists' models, regaling scientists to the role of merely reporting. rather than predicting, climate change. This prediction has proven itself. Hear that chainsaw in the distance? That's the sound of nature coming to return all the favors we have bestowed on it. Climate Already Changed, People and Scientists Too Stupid to SEE IT For about 10 years I have been telling my buddies that the heat of summer was not retreating southward during winter. This has been increasing each year, diminishing the polar chilling, changing the timing of the onset and end of the seasons. Most important in my view is the radical changes in the direction of the winter winds. Winter Winds in the Bay Area have traditionally come from the NW. For the past 8 years the Winter winds have been shifting, coming from the West and the South West. These winds are dry in mid-winter, and keep the wet Northern Storms at bay. Then, in Spring, these Southern Winds have brought tropical-style downpours, barely offsetting our drying Winters. This year the freakish Southern Spring storms did not come and bail us out. Every Winter has become drier and warmer for the past 10 years. Fall now regularly extends into December, and spring try's to start in February. For the majority of you who are from someplace else, and don't have a clue as to what was normal for the Bay Area, this is very abnormal weather. Watching the Sierra Bears in November and December is sad. Instead of enjoying a cold sleep, they are hungrily patrolling dead, dry meadows that have no berries, grubs, or food to sustain them until the uncertain advent of Winter snows and hibernation. Watching the lowland trees this winter was disturbing: deciduous trees were dropping leaves all winter long. There was no "fall" to speak of, as in a temperature fall triggering a massive leave drop. I suspect that the increasing incidents of mountain lion attacks reflects the lions response to decreasing late-fall food supplies. In any case, these seasonal changes have had a cascading effect in ecosystems. Budding times in Spring are off, affecting birth and survival rates of all interrelated species. Increasing Summer temperature are killing off high altitude plants. Lack of Winter snowfall is drying out the land early in the Spring, affecting budding timing and density. And the cycles of life continue to decline in the thrall of our ignorance. Expect large declines in crop productions, if not outright crop failures, across the United States, and the world this year. The Climatologists will catch up with the changes, but it will be too late to preserve our predictable seasons. We do not need science to tell us we have severely damaged our climate, we needed wisdom to fundamentally change our values and the direction our country is going. Wisdom would have prevented us from blinding ourselves to the early warnings of nature, and the subsequent warnings of science. Wisdom would have prevented us from overburdening our land with people, our water with dams, and our skies with endlessly expanding pollution. The oceans contain a thin shadow of the life they held in 1600. And we desperately need wisdom now that our science cannot keep up with reporting on the damage our industrial-strength ignorance is perpetuating. We seem to have traded, or maybe sold, our wisdom for luxury, prestige, greed and power. It was a bad trade. The latter commodities are short-lived, unless balanced with wisdom. But Wisdom cannot be comodified and put on the market, so it has little contemporary value, and was let go of cheaply. I have a wise plan: Let's double California's population by 2050. Let's give everybody in the state a driver's licence and a car or two. lets put another 30 million cars on our State's streets. Let's double our water and electricity consumption. That should fix things right up. I'm glad we have such wise leaders, who represent our best interests so well. (first printed below 47-10, April 6, 2007) disaster approaches: Earth faces a grim future if global warming isn't slowed, U.N. report says, lat, April 6, 2007 scientists may have significantly underestimated global warming: Arctic Sea Ice Melting Faster, a Study Finds, NY Times, May 1, 2007 Co2 sets record in 2006, AP, 11-23 Equatorial heat dominating N. Lat weather, bbc 12-4-07 see the previous environment page, #5 all environment links Search the Corruption Database under environment Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.) 2) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. The Ocean's Biological Deserts Are Expanding By Richard A. Kerr ScienceNOW Daily News 25 January 2008 http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/125/1 The Sahara, the Gobi, the Chihuahuan--all are great deserts. But what about the South Pacific's subtropical gyre? This "biological desert" within a swirling expanse of nutrient-starved saltwater is the largest, and least productive, ecosystem of the South Pacific. Together with the subtropical gyres in other oceans, biological deserts cover 40% of Earth's surface. But their relative obscurity may be about to change. Researchers are reporting that the ocean's biological deserts have been expanding, and they are growing much faster than global warming models predict. The evidence comes from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) onboard the orbiting SeaStar spacecraft. Launched in 1997, SeaWiFS maps ocean color around the globe. The green of the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll a is a measure of the abundance of plant life, which supports the base of the food chain. In an upcoming Geophysical Research Letters paper, biological oceanographer Jeffrey Polovina of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu, Hawaii, and his colleagues describe how they charted the changing size of the central region of faintest green in the subtropical gyres of the North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, and South Indian oceans from SeaWiFS's launch through 2006. All of the biological deserts had grown, except the South Indian Ocean's. The total expansion was 6.6 million square kilometers or 15%, and it happened as the shallow waters of the gyres were warming. "We're seeing this pattern in each of the four ocean basins," says Polovina. That suggests to him that global warming could be the ultimate cause of the observed desert expansion. Gyre waters are already strongly layered, so stirring by the wind brings little of the nutrients stored in deep waters to the surface to fuel plant and ultimately animal growth. Warming further strengthens this stratification, making such nourishing mixing all the more difficult. Climate-ecosystem models predict that global warming will exacerbate ocean desert expansion, but not this quickly, Polovina notes. During the past 9 years, gyre deserts expanded 10 to 25 times faster than modeled. The trend feels solid to other scientists. "Everything seems to hold together," says SeaWiFS project scientist Charles McClain of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who was not affiliated with the study. A variety of oceanographic observations and modeling is consistent with warming driving the expansion of the gyres and their low-productivity waters, he says. A lingering question, he adds, is whether part or even all of the expansion might be just a natural variation that could reverse itself in a decade or two. "We can't rule that out," says Polovina. One thing's for sure: Given the limited lifetimes of orbiting spacecraft, SeaWiFS won't be around long enough to find out. Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., January, 2008 Seattle Times, 4-23-06, "Oceans of Waste: Waves of Junk are flowing into the food chain" Wizzard's Blog, 5-22-07, "Plastic Ocean: Our oceans are turning into plastic. Are we?" Corruption Updates 71, 9th article on the page, "Only 50 years left' for sea fish" Corruption Updates 93, 3rd article on the page, "Record Gulf of Mexico ‘Dead Zone’ Is Predicted" see the last environment page, #5 all environment links Search the Corruption Database under oceans environment Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.) 3) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. Human-Driven Planet: Time to Make It Official? By Phil Berardelli ScienceNOW Daily News 24 January 2008 http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/124/1 A group of geologists has formally proposed designating a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene, which would encompass the past 200 years or so of geologic history. The action is appropriate, say the authors, because during the past 2 centuries, human activity has become the primary driver of most of the major changes in Earth's topography and climate. Each stratigraphic layer in the geologic record reflects the conditions of the time it was deposited and offers a glimpse into Earth's past. Researchers have painstakingly pieced together this geologic history, differentiating the layers into classifications of various duration called eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages that reflect characteristic conditions. For example, the Carboniferous period, which lasted from 360 million to 300 million years ago, is known for the vast deposits of coal that formed from jungles and swamps. Indeed, even some of the longer stretches have been named based on biology, such as the Paleozoic ("old life") and the Cenozoic ("recent life"). In the February issue of GSA Today, which is published by the Geological Society of America, geologist Jan Zalasiewicz of the University of Leicester in the U.K. and colleagues argue that the International Commission on Stratigraphy should officially mark the end of the current epoch. That would be the Holocene ("entirely recent"), which started after the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. The newest and most entirely recent epoch, postmodern as that sounds, should be the Anthropocene, the group argues. As evidence, the researchers cite an assortment of trends from the beginning of the Holocene to the present. These trends show clear signs--some of which have become apparent in the geological record--of human-induced alterations. Since about 1800, lead concentrations in water and soil have increased dramatically, carbon dioxide has flooded the atmosphere, and dams have trapped untold amounts of sediment. All of these processes now vastly outpace the equivalent natural forces. "A reasonable case can be made for the Anthropocene as a valid formal unit," Zalasiewicz says. The argument has merit, says geologist Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University in State College. "In land, water, air, ice, and ecosystems, the human impact is clear, large, and growing," he says. "A geologist from the far distant future almost surely would draw a new line, and begin using a new name, where and when our impacts show up." see the previous environment page, #5 all environment links Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.) 4) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. Human Impacts on Climate American Geophysical Union http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/positions/climate_change2008.shtml Adopted by Council December 2003 Revised and Reaffirmed December 2007 The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6°C over the period 1956–2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850. The observed rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is expected to continue and lead to the disappearance of summertime ice within this century. Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities. Recent changes in many physical and biological systems are linked with this regional climate change. A sustained research effort, involving many AGU members and summarized in the 2007 assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, continues to improve our scientific understanding of the climate. During recent millennia of relatively stable climate, civilization became established and populations have grown rapidly. In the next 50 years, even the lower limit of impending climate change—an additional global mean warming of 1°C above the last decade—is far beyond the range of climate variability experienced during the past thousand years and poses global problems in planning for and adapting to it. Warming greater than 2°C above 19th century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity, and—if sustained over centuries—melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea level of several meters. If this 2°C warming is to be avoided, then our net annual emissions of CO2 must be reduced by more than 50 percent within this century. With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty, but none are known that could make the impact of climate change inconsequential. Given the uncertainty in climate projections, there can be surprises that may cause more dramatic disruptions than anticipated from the most probable model projections. With climate change, as with ozone depletion, the human footprint on Earth is apparent. The cause of disruptive climate change, unlike ozone depletion, is tied to energy use and runs through modern society. Solutions will necessarily involve all aspects of society. Mitigation strategies and adaptation responses will call for collaborations across science, technology, industry, and government. Members of the AGU, as part of the scientific community, collectively have special responsibilities: to pursue research needed to understand it; to educate the public on the causes, risks, and hazards; and to communicate clearly and objectively with those who can implement policies to shape future climate. see the previous environment page, #5 all environment links Search the Corruption Database under environment global warming Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.) 5) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. Bush sides with Navy in sonar battle He cites national security in aiming to override a judge's injunction aimed at protecting marine mammals off Southern California. An environmental group promises to fight his move. By Kenneth R. Weiss Los Angeles Times, January 17, 2008 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sonar17jan17,1,5602724.story?coll=la-headlines-california President Bush on Wednesday moved to exempt Navy sonar training missions off Southern California from complying with key environmental laws, an effort designed to free the military from court-ordered restrictions aimed at protecting whales and dolphins. The president's directive was designed to short-circuit a long-running battle in which environmental groups have won court victories that frustrated the Navy's preparations for nine training missions over the next year, the first one set to begin next week. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper in Los Angeles, who ordered the restrictions, has called the Navy's plans "grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure." By contrast, the Navy asserts that it's already doing enough to safeguard marine mammals from harmful effects of the mid-frequency active sonar it uses to hunt for quiet diesel-electric submarines now operated by Iran, North Korea and dozens of other countries. In a memo justifying his action, Bush did not address environmental concerns. He said his decision would "enable the Navy to train effectively" for activities "which are essential to national security" and "in the paramount interest of the United States." The White House directive, issued late Tuesday and released Wednesday, set off a daylong rush through federal courthouses by Justice Department attorneys and lawyers for environmental groups. "We will vigorously oppose the president's illegal waiver of federal law," said Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Bush's action was "an end-run" around the nation's environmental laws, Reynolds said. . One law, the Coastal Zone Management Act, is designed to protect coastal and marine resources, including whales and other marine mammals. It has a provision allowing the president to exempt certain federal activities from the law's limits, said Peter Douglas, executive director of the California Coastal Commission. The other law cited by environmental groups, the National Environmental Policy Act, does not give the president such unambiguous power. Neither does Bush have the legal power to overturn a federal court order. So Justice Department lawyers followed his move with legal papers asking the federal courts to remove the order, which was a preliminary injunction that imposed an array of restrictions on the use of sonar, including its shutdown when marine mammals ventured within 2,200 yards of sonar devices. The Navy indicated Wednesday that it will not proceed with its training missions unless the injunction is set aside. The Justice Department, representing the Navy, asked a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside the restrictions by Friday. Justice Department lawyer Allen M. Brabender said Cooper's order "profoundly interferes with the Navy's global management of U.S. strategic forces, its ability to conduct warfare operations, and ultimately places the lives of American sailors and Marines at risk." The appeals court responded late Wednesday by sending the case back to Cooper, saying the Navy needed to ask her first. Lawyers for the Navy plan to ask the judge to issue a decision by this afternoon. Some legal scholars Wednesday questioned what they called the administration's self-manufactured emergency, noting that it had not surfaced as a legal argument until after nearly a year of litigation. If the Navy had complied with the National Environmental Policy Act to begin with, it wouldn't be in an emergency situation, said Daniel P. Selmi, an environmental law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. At the same time, he said, he was impressed with the "full-court press" of the White House, the Pentagon and federal agencies, including the filing of a classified affidavit by Navy admirals that can be seen only by the judges. "The federal government is pitching it as a full-blown matter of national security," Selmi said. "That puts an enormous pressure on judges to defer to the government." Citing the Navy's own studies, Cooper concluded that planned exercises off Southern California "will cause widespread harm to nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five species of endangered whales and may cause permanent injury and death." Interior department manipulation puts big oil before polar bears, mcclatchy, January 17, 2008 see the previous environment page, #5 all environment links Search the Corruption Database under environment oceans Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.) 6) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. Dry, polluted, plagued by rats: the crisis in China's greatest river Ships stranded as Yangtze reaches a 142-year low Jonathan Watts in Beijing The Guardian, Thursday January 17 2008 A river bed is exposed as water levels fall along the Yangtze river near Wuhan, central China's Hubei province. Photograph: AP http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/17/drought.china/print The waters of the Yangtze have fallen to their lowest levels since 1866, disrupting drinking supplies, stranding ships and posing a threat to some of the world's most endangered species. Asia's longest river is losing volume as a result of a prolonged dry spell, the state media warned yesterday, predicting hefty economic losses and a possible plague of rats on nearby farmland. News of the drought - which is likely to worsen pollution in the river - comes amid dire reports about the impact of rapid economic growth on China's environment. The government also revealed yesterday that the country's most prosperous province, Guangdong, has just had its worst year of smog since the Communist party took power in 1949, while 56,000 square miles of coastline waters failed to meet environmental standards. But the immediate concern is the Yangtze, which supplies water to hundreds of millions of people and thousands of factories in a delta that accounts for more than 40% of China's economic output. According to the Chinese media, precipitation and water levels are at or near record lows in its middle and upper stretches. The scale of the problem was revealed by the Yangtze water resources commission in a report on the Xinhua news agency's website yesterday. It said that the Hankou hydrological centre near Wuhan city found the river's depth had fallen to its lowest level in 142 years. The measurement confirmed fears raised in recent weeks by the appearance of islands and mud flats not normally seen at this time of year. Local farmers reported far more ships than usual being trapped in unnavigable shallow waters. Jianli county is among the areas suffering water shortages. Officials say the problem has grown worse in the past decade, raising concerns of a link to climate change. "Before 1996, we were short of water for three months of the year, but now there are only three months when we can use water as normal," Wu Chunping, the vice-manager of Jianli county's water utility, was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "I heard that the water level will drop further in February." Li Lifeng, director of the freshwater programme of WWF China, said: "The major worry is for aquatic species and birds. If the water level goes too low they will lose a huge level of habitat." Among the endangered animals likely to be affected are the finless porpoise and the Chinese sturgeon, which returns to the sea at this time of year. With the Yangtze three times as crowded with traffic as the Mississippi, conservationists fear the animals will be torn up by boat propellers or contaminated by more concentrated pollution from the 9,000 chemical plants along the Yangtze. Birds such as the Siberian crane may also suffer from the impact on their wintering area. Local media have expressed concern that the drought could lead to a plague of rats similar to the one near Dongting lake last year after a drought was followed by fast-rising waters that drove the vermin to seek food in farm fields. "When the waters fall, the reeds die and the rats are driven inland in search of food," said an official in the Yueyang farming and aquatic bureau who declined to give his name. Riots and hunger feared as demand for grain sends food costs soaring, The Guardian, 12-4-07 AMERICAN GREED-CONSUMPTION FUELS MANUFACTURING (POLLUTION) IN CHINA, sf chron, March 5, 2007 U.S., China Got Climate Warnings Toned Down:Corporate Media Whitewash American S..., wp, 4-7-07 China puts economy before climate, bbc, 6-4-07 Corruption Updates 94, 8th article, US puts economy before Climate see the previous environment page, #5 all environment links Search the Corruption Database under china Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.) 7) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. Medical plants 'face extinction' Hundreds of medicinal plants are at risk of extinction, threatening the discovery of future cures for disease, according to experts. Story from BBC NEWS, 1-19-08 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/7196702.stm Over 50% of prescription drugs are derived from chemicals first identified in plants. But the Botanic Gardens Conservation International said many were at risk from over-collection and deforestation. Researchers warned the cures for things such as cancer and HIV may become "extinct before they are ever found". The group, which represents botanic gardens across 120 countries, surveyed over 600 of its members as well as leading university experts. MIRACLE CURES MOST AT RISK Yew tree - Cancer drug paclitaxel is derived from the bark, but it takes six trees to create a single dose so growers are struggling to keep up Hoodia - Plant has sparked interest for its ability to suppress appetite, but vast quantities have already been "ripped from the wild" as the search for the miracle weight drug continues Magnolia - Has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for 5,000 years as it is believed to help fight cancer, dementia and heart disease. Half the world's species threatened, mostly due to deforestation Autumn crocus - Romans and Greeks used it as poison, but now one of the most effective treatments for gout. Under threat from horticulture trade They identified 400 plants that were at risk of extinction. These included yew trees, the bark of which forms the basis for one of the world's most widely used cancer drugs, paclitaxel. Hoodia, which originally comes from Namibia and is attracting interest from drug firms looking into developing weight loss drugs, is on the verge of extinction, the report said. And half of the world's species of magnolias are also under threat. The plant contains the chemical honokiol, which has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat cancers and slow down the onset of heart disease. The report also said autumn crocus, which is a natural treatment for gout and has been linked to helping fight leukaemia, is at risk of over-harvest as it is popular with the horticultural trade because of its stunning petals. Corruption Updates 65, 1st article, "BEES: Honey, I'm Gone" Only 50 years left' for sea fish, Corruption Updates 71, 9th article Study finds huge decreases in bird populations, Corruption Updates 76, 7th article China building more power plants to supply American Consumption, Corruption Updates 80, 2nd article Record Gulf of Mexico ‘Dead Zone’ Is Predicted, Corruption Updates 93, 3rd article see the previous environment page, #5 all environment links Search the Corruption Database under environment china global warming Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.) 8) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. Tree Deaths in California’s Sierra Nevada Increase as Temperatures Rise Released: 8/8/2007 11:18:06 AM http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1716 Life is increasingly uncertain for trees in California's Sierra Nevada. A new study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports a rising death rate for trees in this mountain range, paralleling increasing summer drought due to warming temperatures. "Our findings suggest Sierran forests, and potentially other forests of dry climates, may be sensitive to temperature-driven increases in drought, making them vulnerable to extensive die-back during otherwise normal periods of reduced precipitation," said USGS scientist Dr. Phil van Mantgem, in Three Rivers, Calif., lead author of the study. The tree death rate in the Sierra Nevada has been rising over the past two decades, a trend USGS scientists found across a wide spectrum of forest types. The study appears in the online early edition of Ecology Letters. The study is the first detailed long-term analysis in which tree mortality was measured annually for more than two decades. This allowed the scientists to correlate short-term variations in tree mortality with short-term variations in climate and other potential drivers of change. After tracking the fates of over 20,000 individual trees in old-growth forests in Sequoia and Yosemite national parks in the Sierra Nevada, they found that mortality rate had increased significantly. Death rates increased not only for all trees combined, but also across most zones of elevation and for the two dominant groups of conifers, firs and pines (giant sequoias were too sparse to detect any trends). The authors emphasize that the increasing death rate has so far been occurring mostly in small trees. Large trees can survive moderate droughts as they have more extensive root systems and greater ability to store resources. "Much like people, when stresses weaken a tree it becomes more susceptible to further complications," states van Mantgem. Consequently, the effects of other forest stresses such as air pollution will likely be amplified if drought stress continues to increase. "This study is important because few studies of real forests have examined possible environmental drivers of changes, but modeling studies suggest that, over a period of decades, even small changes in mortality rates can profoundly change a forest," said USGS scientist Dr. Nate Stephenson, the study coauthor. Sierra frogs, toads dying in Sierras, sf chron, 8-7-07 see the previous environment page, #5 all environment links Search the Corruption Database under environment Please limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.) 9) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. Abrupt Climate Change: Causes and Ecosystem Responses Released: 5/11/2007 8:09:44 AM http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1665 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists who study trends in climate change will be presenting the results from new studies at a workshop held in Pacific Grove, California, May 13-16, 2007. . In the west, trees are flowering earlier in the year, affecting the animals that rely on them as a food source; there is less snow in the Sierra Nevada, and it is melting earlier in the year, leaving less water available for irrigation in the summer; and flood events and winter storms are increasing in intensity. Evidence from past rapid changes in climate is being used to project possible responses to future rapid, large-scale changes in temperature and precipitation. USGS scientists use a variety of tools to uncover evidence of abrupt climate change including tree-ring patterns, ocean and lake sediments, geochemistry, micropaleontology, and climate modeling. The ecosystem responses to these rapid changes in climate are the topic of the 23rd Pacific Climate Workshop (PACLIM) which will be held May 13-16, 2007. Organized and partially funded by the USGS, the conference brings together university, state, and federal government scientists from around the country for presentations and discussions on various aspects of climate variability, from the impact of rapid warming on the Sierra Nevada snowpack and the role of sea surface temperature in the drying of coastal California, to the record of freshwater variability over the past several thousand years in San Francisco Bay marshes and changes is vegetation distribution in the southwest and indicators of a possible warmer future in the western U.S. As noted in the schedule below, USGS scientists will be presenting the results of new analyses on the connection between sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean and precipitation in the Great Basin (Benson), the increased risk of flooding in a warmer world (Dettinger, Cayan, Florsheim, and Lundquist), changing in storm intensity and frequency in southwestern California (Miller, Mahan, McGeehin, Barron, and Owen), vegetation response to rapid climate change (Shafer, Bartlein, Edwards, and Hostetler), and the impact of climate change on the Navajo Nation (Redsteer). Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., January, 2008 see the previous environment page, #5 all environment links Search the Corruption Database under environment global warming Please limit comments or essay to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number that you are referring to. Example: (82_1.) 10) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited. No Recovery Plan for U.S. Jaguars By Erik Stokstad ScienceNOW Daily News 17 January 2008 http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/117/2 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) today announced it would not develop a recovery plan for a small population of jaguars threatened by a fence going up between the United States and Mexico. Scientists have urged FWS to create the plan, and environmentalists have sued as well. "The Bush Administration has issued a death sentence for the jaguar," Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group based in Tucson, Arizona, said in a statement. Jaguars (Panthera onca) live as far south as Argentina. Although they used to roam the southern United States from Arizona to North Carolina, they were wiped out by hunting and habitat loss. The last known female was killed in Arizona in 1963. However, four males have been spotted in Arizona and New Mexico over the last 11 years. Jaguars are listed by FWS as endangered, but the agency--citing scarce resources and higher priorities--had not created a recovery plan, as required by the Endangered Species Act. Last June, the American Society of Mammalogists adopted a resolution that called for a plan. Two months later, the Center for Biological Diversity sued FWS. Suckling speculates that FWS exempted the jaguar from recovery planning to obviate the lawsuit, as well as to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security can continue to build the border fence. Elizabeth Slown, an FWS spokesperson in Albuquerque, New Mexico, denied the charges, noting that FWS concluded late last year that the fence would not jeopardize the species, even though it could lead to the extinction of the U.S. population. Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., January, 2008 see the previous environment page, #5 all environment links Search the Corruption Database under environment Limit comments to 400 words, unless you write really well! Remember to include the Corruption Updates page number, and the article number on the page. Example: (82_1.) Extras Single brain cell's power shown BBC, 22 December 2007 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/health/7151920.stm Low-energy bulb disposal warning bbc, 1-5-08 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7172662.stm The Environment Agency has called for more information to be made available on the health and environmental risks posed by low-energy light bulbs. It says because the bulbs contain small amounts of mercury, more information about safe recycling is needed. It also wants health warnings printed on packaging on how clear up smashed bulbs in the home. Environmental scientist Dr David Spurgeon said: "Because these light bulbs contain small amounts of mercury they could cause a problem if they are disposed of in a normal waste-bin. Previous page: Page 152 Next page: Page 154 Contact Us: Committeefordemocracy.org previous environment pages 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, master environment page Today's Headlines
Environmental melt down 1] American Geophysical Union: radical slash in Co2 required now 2] Ocean dead zones expanding 3] The human epoch: The Scumocene 4] American Geophysical Union: the document. we're in real trouble 5] bush corrupts law to kill whales also see: Interior department manipulation puts big oil before polar bears 6] Yangtze almost dead 7] Medicinal plants face extinction 8] Global warming killing sierra trees 9] Scientists finally have noticed seasons have already changed (they spoke of the "future" affects as radical changes occurred) 10] Crimigrants kill american jaguar Interesting...? one cell can feel? bbc 12-22-07 low energy bulbs bad for humans? bbc, 1-5-08 |