Scientists weigh downside of palm oil
[ about bleedin' time ...]
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Only a few years ago, oil from palm trees was viewed as an ideal biofuel: a cheap, renewable alternative to petroleum that would fight global warming. Energy companies began converting generators and production soared.
Now, it's increasingly seen as an example of how well-meaning efforts to limit climate-changing carbon emissions may backfire.
Marcel Silvius, a climate expert at Wetlands International in the Netherlands, led a team that compared the benefits of palm oil to the ecological harm from destroying virgin Asian rain forests to develop lucrative new plantations.
His conclusion: "As a biofuel, it's a failure."
Scientists and policymakers from more than 100 countries are meeting in Brussels, Belgium, starting Monday to report on the impact of global warming, including storms, flooding and the extinction of plants and animals.
Then in May, the group intends to issue recommendations on how best to fight it, through new technologies and possible use of alternatives. The lessons of palm oil are sure to figure into their discussion.
Long a primary ingredient in food and cosmetics, palm oil derivatives caught on about five years ago as a source of renewable energy, spurred by subsidies in many
European Union' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> European Union countries. Imports have risen 65 percent since 2002.
Palm oil is attractive because it is relatively abundant, cheap at about $550 per ton, and requires few or no modifications to existing power stations.
Unlike carbon-rich fossil fuels, palm oil is considered carbon-neutral, meaning the carbon emitted from burning it is the same as what is absorbed during growth.
But the result of intensified farming has been to unleash far more greenhouse gases than will be saved at power stations.
The report issued late last year by Wetlands International, Delft Hydraulics and the Alterra Research Center of Wageningen University in Holland studied the carbon released from peat swamps in Indonesia and Malaysia that had been drained and burned to plant palm oil trees. About 85 percent of the world's palm oil comes from the two countries, and about one-quarter of Indonesia's plantations are on drained peat bogs, the report said.
The four-year study found that 600 million tons of carbon dioxide seep into the air each year from the drained swamps. Another 1.4 billion tons go up in smoke from fires lit to clear rain forest for plantations — smoke that often shrouds Singapore and Malaysia in an impenetrable haze for weeks at a time.
Together, those 2 billion tons of CO2 account for 8 percent of the world's fossil fuel emissions, the report said.
Friends of the Earth, another environmental group, called the report "astonishing," and said it shows that harvesting palm oil for fuel is counterproductive. "It undermines the whole project," said a climate specialist for the group, Anne van Schaik.
The study was not independently verified by the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, Germany, or by the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C., the two leading monitoring groups. But experts said the research appeared credible. It is due to be published for peer review later this year.
Deforestation is the No. 2 cause of greenhouse gas emissions after the burning of fossil fuels, said Jeffrey Dukes, a biologist at the University of Massachusetts who was not part of the research. He said clearing peat swamps for plantations is "a double whammy."
It not only releases carbon trapped over many millennia, but destroys the most efficient ecosystem on the planet for sucking carbon from the atmosphere, Dukes said.
Expanding production of palm oil is "a terrible decision. Whether or not it's consciously made, it's society going in reverse," he said.
Major power companies are divided on whether to continue or pursue palm oil generation.
Leon Flexman, of RWE npower, Britain's largest electricity supplier, said his company decided against palm oil after a year of study because it could not verify its supplies would be free of the taint of destroyed rain forest or peat bogs, he said.
The Dutch power company Essent announced in December it had stopped burning until it can trace and verify the sources.
Biox, a Dutch startup, said it plans careful scrutiny of palm oil sources but will proceed with construction of three 50 megawatt power stations that burn palm oil byproducts exclusively. That's enough electricity to light all the homes in Amsterdam.
"From the start, we knew we can't stay in business if we can't prove that production is sustainable," said Biox executive Arjen Brinkmann. "Until this report came out, peat lands was not an issue because we hadn't heard of it. Nobody had heard," he said, adding that it will now be a factor in the company's sustainability criteria.
So far, the reservations about palm oil do not seem to have affected the market. Production rose 6.6 percent last year and will increase another 5.5 percent this year to 37 million tons, according to Fortis Bank. Prices have risen 35 percent in the last year and are still rising, it said.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Climate change could carry huge, hidden costs: UN report
PARIS (AFP) - Climate change will inflict steadily rising costs that could become astronomical if greenhouse gas emissions rise unabated and countries delay preparations for the likely impacts, UN experts will say next week.
Their vast report will shed light on the costs from heightened water stress, tropical storms, floods, droughts, species loss and human disease this century as a result of global warming.
"(The) vulnerabilities could be considerable," warns the 1,400-page document on the impact of climate change.
The report is due to be issued in Brussels on Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), gathering top specialists in climate science, economics, biology and other disciplines under the UN banner.
They will meet for four days to finalise the document, marking the second out of three volumes in the IPCC's massive update of knowledge about climate change. It is the first such review since 2001.
The bill for climate change will depend on atmospheric levels of greenhouse gas, which is principally caused by burning fossil fuels, and on the effort to adapt to its effects, according to a draft seen by AFP.
Experts disagree widely as to the ultimate dollar figure, as the calculation has many variables.
The equation changes, for instance, if one estimates the impact over the short or the long term, factors in the cost of biodiversity loss or not or attributes damage from extreme weather events to man-made global warming or to a natural phenomenon.
"Depending on the assumptions used... total economic impacts are typically estimated to be in the range of a few percent of global product for a few degrees (Celsius) of warming," it says.
But there are also many unknowns, it adds.
Climate change can have a knock-on effect in many areas and there are also poorly-understood triggers that scientists fear could dramatically accelerate the warming.
To give an indication, estimates range from a benefit of three dollars per tonne of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere -- mainly because warming would open up frozen lands in the northern hemisphere to agriculture -- to a cost of more than 400 dollars per tonne.
In 2005, around 7.9 billion tonnes of CO2, the principal greenhouse gas, were released into the atmosphere, according to the Global Carbon Project, a research organisation.
In the first volume of its report, issued in February, the IPCC predicted a temperature rise in the likely range of 1.8-4.0 C (3.2-7.2 F) by the end of the century.
The upcoming report makes these points:
-- As the temperature rises, so will the "social costs," or the OVERALL ECONOMIC BILL caused by every tonne of CO2.
"It is virtually certain the real social cost of carbon and other greenhouse gases will rise over time; it is very likely that the rate of increase will be two to four percent per year," says the report.
Depending on the scenario of CO2 concentrations, "by 2080, it is likely that 1.1 to 3.2 billion people will be experiencing water scarcity; 200 to 600 million hunger; two to seven million more per year, coastal flooding."
-- A modest rise could open up huge areas of land for AGRICULTURE in North America, Northern Europe and Russia. But sub-Saharan Africa would lose farmland because of less rainfall while yields for wheat in South Asia and for rain-fed rice production in China would also be badly hit.
A very high increase (5.5 C, or 9.9 F) would widely damage crop and livestock production. Global cereal prices would rise by 30 percent, according to one study.
-- The biggest potential costs will come from EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS, such as storms, droughts and floods, which are "very likely" -- a 90 percent certitude -- to become more powerful and possibly more frequent too.
Their impact will be amplified by a rise in the world's population, which is projected to reach between 8.7 and 9.3 billion by 2030, of which two billion could be slum dwellers whose homes are typically at risk from inundation and landslide.
"Costs of major (weather) events can range from several percent of annual regional GDP" for large economies to "more than 25 percent in smaller areas that are affected by the events," says the report.
It notes that Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, inflicted total economic costs of more than 100 billion dollars. A British assessment in 2005 suggested that annual weather-related damages to land use and property in Britain could increase by three to nine times by the 2080s.
-- A big rise in SEA LEVELS would be very costly, as it would swamp low-lying coastal regions and deltas and threaten small island states, but is considered a low probability.
A rise of one metre (3.25 feet) would cost 944 billion dollars, almost half of it in Asia, according to the study. In February, the IPCC said the global sea level would rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.2 inches), but could be boosted if icesheets melt faster.
-- REDUCING carbon emissions would help to brake the warming, and PREPARING for the effects will reduce the costs.
For instance, if sea levels rose by 65 cms (26 inches), an exceptional tide would cause damage of 5.2 billion dollars in China's booming Pearl River delta; flood defences and other preparations, though, would cost only 400 million -- a saving of 4.8 billion dollars.
Up to the middle of the century, a mix of mitigation and adaptation will be effective, "but even a combination of aggressive mitigation and significant investment in adaptive capacity could be overwhelmed by the end of the century."
PARIS (AFP) - Climate change will inflict steadily rising costs that could become astronomical if greenhouse gas emissions rise unabated and countries delay preparations for the likely impacts, UN experts will say next week.
Their vast report will shed light on the costs from heightened water stress, tropical storms, floods, droughts, species loss and human disease this century as a result of global warming.
"(The) vulnerabilities could be considerable," warns the 1,400-page document on the impact of climate change.
The report is due to be issued in Brussels on Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), gathering top specialists in climate science, economics, biology and other disciplines under the UN banner.
They will meet for four days to finalise the document, marking the second out of three volumes in the IPCC's massive update of knowledge about climate change. It is the first such review since 2001.
The bill for climate change will depend on atmospheric levels of greenhouse gas, which is principally caused by burning fossil fuels, and on the effort to adapt to its effects, according to a draft seen by AFP.
Experts disagree widely as to the ultimate dollar figure, as the calculation has many variables.
The equation changes, for instance, if one estimates the impact over the short or the long term, factors in the cost of biodiversity loss or not or attributes damage from extreme weather events to man-made global warming or to a natural phenomenon.
"Depending on the assumptions used... total economic impacts are typically estimated to be in the range of a few percent of global product for a few degrees (Celsius) of warming," it says.
But there are also many unknowns, it adds.
Climate change can have a knock-on effect in many areas and there are also poorly-understood triggers that scientists fear could dramatically accelerate the warming.
To give an indication, estimates range from a benefit of three dollars per tonne of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere -- mainly because warming would open up frozen lands in the northern hemisphere to agriculture -- to a cost of more than 400 dollars per tonne.
In 2005, around 7.9 billion tonnes of CO2, the principal greenhouse gas, were released into the atmosphere, according to the Global Carbon Project, a research organisation.
In the first volume of its report, issued in February, the IPCC predicted a temperature rise in the likely range of 1.8-4.0 C (3.2-7.2 F) by the end of the century.
The upcoming report makes these points:
-- As the temperature rises, so will the "social costs," or the OVERALL ECONOMIC BILL caused by every tonne of CO2.
"It is virtually certain the real social cost of carbon and other greenhouse gases will rise over time; it is very likely that the rate of increase will be two to four percent per year," says the report.
Depending on the scenario of CO2 concentrations, "by 2080, it is likely that 1.1 to 3.2 billion people will be experiencing water scarcity; 200 to 600 million hunger; two to seven million more per year, coastal flooding."
-- A modest rise could open up huge areas of land for AGRICULTURE in North America, Northern Europe and Russia. But sub-Saharan Africa would lose farmland because of less rainfall while yields for wheat in South Asia and for rain-fed rice production in China would also be badly hit.
A very high increase (5.5 C, or 9.9 F) would widely damage crop and livestock production. Global cereal prices would rise by 30 percent, according to one study.
-- The biggest potential costs will come from EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS, such as storms, droughts and floods, which are "very likely" -- a 90 percent certitude -- to become more powerful and possibly more frequent too.
Their impact will be amplified by a rise in the world's population, which is projected to reach between 8.7 and 9.3 billion by 2030, of which two billion could be slum dwellers whose homes are typically at risk from inundation and landslide.
"Costs of major (weather) events can range from several percent of annual regional GDP" for large economies to "more than 25 percent in smaller areas that are affected by the events," says the report.
It notes that Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, inflicted total economic costs of more than 100 billion dollars. A British assessment in 2005 suggested that annual weather-related damages to land use and property in Britain could increase by three to nine times by the 2080s.
-- A big rise in SEA LEVELS would be very costly, as it would swamp low-lying coastal regions and deltas and threaten small island states, but is considered a low probability.
A rise of one metre (3.25 feet) would cost 944 billion dollars, almost half of it in Asia, according to the study. In February, the IPCC said the global sea level would rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.2 inches), but could be boosted if icesheets melt faster.
-- REDUCING carbon emissions would help to brake the warming, and PREPARING for the effects will reduce the costs.
For instance, if sea levels rose by 65 cms (26 inches), an exceptional tide would cause damage of 5.2 billion dollars in China's booming Pearl River delta; flood defences and other preparations, though, would cost only 400 million -- a saving of 4.8 billion dollars.
Up to the middle of the century, a mix of mitigation and adaptation will be effective, "but even a combination of aggressive mitigation and significant investment in adaptive capacity could be overwhelmed by the end of the century."
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Sydney blacks out for global warming
[did they turn the lights off on the ferries out as well -- as a tribute to the missing skater ... ?! ]
[ttSYDNEY, Australia - The Sydney Opera House's gleaming white-shelled roof was darkened Saturday night along with much of the rest of Australia's largest city, which switched off the lights to register concern about global warming.
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Mayor Clover Moore, whose officials shut down all nonessential lights on city-owned buildings, said Sydney was "asking people to think about what action they can take to fight global warming."
Restaurants throughout the city held candlelit dinners, and families gathered in public places to take part in a countdown to lights out, sending up a cheer as lights started blinking off at 7:30 p.m.
Buildings went dark one by one. Some floors in city skyscrapers remained lit, and security and street lights, those at commercial port operations and at a sports stadium, stayed on.
"It's an hour of active, thoughtful darkness, a celebration of our awakening to climate change action," said Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, who attended a harborside function to watch the event.
While downtown was significantly darker than normal, the overall effect, as seen in television footage from overhead helicopters, was that the city's patchwork of millions of tiny lights had thinned, not disappeared.
"We were expecting a big difference straight away, but it was just a little bit," said Sonja Schollen, who took sons Harry and James to a park to watch the skyline, joining dozens of other families. Children waved glo-sticks and sparklers while parents picnicked and sipped wine.
"It was quite sweet, actually, because the kids started chanting `turn them out, turn them out.' You can see now the city's a bit dimmer," she said toward the end of the hour.
Organizers hope Saturday's event — which about 2,000 businesses and more than 60,000 individuals signed up for online — will get people to think about regularly switching off nonessential lights, powering down computers and other simple measures they say could cut Sydney's greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent this year.
The amount of power saved by Saturday's event was not immediately known. But Greg Bourne, chief executive of World Wildlife Fund Australia and one of the architects of the event, said Sydney's power supplier Energy Australia had estimated it could be 5 percent of normal usage on a night of similar conditions.
"It's absolutely fantastic, there's a mood of enthusiasm and hopefulness and action," Bourne said. "I have never seen Sydney's skyline look so dark."
Research by the University of New South Wales published last week found Sydney residents have bad energy conservation habits, often leaving heaters and air conditioners running in empty rooms.
Leaked excerpts published in Australian media last week said average temperatures in the country could rise 6.7 degrees by 2080, making worse wildfires, floods, drought and storms. The Great Barrier Reef is already under threat from increased coral bleaching, the report says.
Australia, a nation of around 21 million people, is ranked as the world's worst greenhouse gas emitter per capita, largely because of its heavy reliance on coal-fired power stations.
Global warming has emerged this year as a mainstream political issue in Australia, and Prime Minister John Howard's government has announced initiatives such as the phased withdrawal from sale of energy-inefficient incandescent bulbs to blunt criticism of his refusal to sign the
Kyoto protocol.Sydney is not the first place to cut the lights for conservation. In February, Paris and other parts of France dimmed the lights for five minutes in a similar gesture, which also took hold in Rome and Athens.
____ On the NClimate draft charts extinctions
[schlock horror .... global catastrophe ---- more food and it will be cheaper ...?! ]
WASHINGTON - A key element of the second major report on climate change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the effects of global warming, most of them bad, with every degree of temperature rise.
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the world.
However, the number of species going extinct rises with the heat, as does the number of people who may starve, or face water shortages, or floods, according to the projections in the draft report obtained by The Associated Press
Some scientists are calling this degree-by-degree projection a "highway to extinction."
It's likely to be the source of sharp closed-door debate, some scientists say, along with a multitude of other issues in the 20-chapter draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While the wording in the draft is almost guaranteed to change at this week's meeting in Brussels, several scientists say the focus won't.
The final document will be the product of a SEARCH
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Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist with the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said the chart of results from various temperature levels is "a highway to extinction, but on this highway there are many turnoffs. This is showing you where the road is heading. The road is heading toward extinction."
Weaver is one of the lead authors of the first report, issued in February.
While humanity will survive, hundreds of millions, maybe billions of people may not, according to the chart — if the worst scenarios happen.
The report says global warming has already degraded conditions for many species, coastal areas and poor people. With a more than 90 percent level of confidence, the scientists in the draft report say man-made global warming "over the last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems."
But as the world's average temperature warms from 1990 levels, the projections get more dire. Add 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit — 1 degree Celsius is the calculation scientists use — and between 400 million and 1.7 billion extra people can't get enough water, some infectious diseases and allergenic pollens rise, and some amphibians go extinct. But the world's food supply, especially in northern areas, could increase. That's the likely outcome around 2020, according to the draft.
Add another 1.8 degrees and as many as 2 billion people could be without water and about 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's species near extinction. Also, more people start dying because of malnutrition, disease, heat waves, floods and droughts — all caused by global warming. That would happen around 2050, depending on the level of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.
At the extreme end of the projections, a 7- to 9-degree average temperature increase, the chart predicts: "Up to one-fifth of the world population affected by increased flood events ... "1.1 to 3.2 billion people with increased water scarcity" ..."major extinctions around the globe."
Despite that dire outlook, several scientists involved in the process say they are optimistic that such a drastic temperature rise won't happen because people will reduce carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.
"The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can't be that stupid," said Harvard University oceanographer James McCarthy, who was a top author of the 2001 version of this report. "Not that I think the projections aren't that good, but because we can't be that stupid."
Campaigns save energy with hybrid cars
[ what a bunch of wackers (dweebs) -- don't they know that a small diesel car is just as economical and produces less carbon per mile as the Toyota MUTANT ( sorry PRIUS) - check the figures against a Peugeot 307 Hdi ... oh so sorry ... they are French ?!?! ]
WASHINGTON - This year's presidential candidates are trying to get good mileage out of getting good mileage. The candidates, who do a lot of talking about the need for greater energy efficiency, are not just asking who walks the walk but also, who drives the hybrid?name="context" value="Democratic candidate John Edwards makes a point of telling people that after years of driving a regular sport utility vehicle, he and his wife bought a hybrid model to shuttle their kids, strollers, toys, luggage and other stuff between Washington, D.C., and North Carolina." type="hidden">
John Edwards makes a point of telling people that after years of driving a regular sport utility vehicle, he and his wife bought a hybrid model to shuttle their kids, strollers, toys, luggage and other stuff between Washington, D.C., and North Carolina.This month, Edwards announced his campaign would be "carbon-neutral," meaning it will do what it can to limit energy consumption and then buy "carbon offsets" to counterbalance the emissions produced by the energy it does use.
Edwards is not the only White House hopeful trying to make his own energy use part of the political equation this year.
Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., says he usually drives a flex-fuel vehicle, which can run on gasoline or a cleaner-burning blend of ethanol and gasoline. But he acknowledges that sometimes it is not practical to fill up with the ethanol blend, known as E85.
"My campaign leases a flex-fuel vehicle," he said in January, "but I'll be honest with you, a lot of times you're ... 30 miles from the closest E85 pump. It's going to cost you more to drive there and fill up than just filling up with regular gasoline."
Republican Mitt Romney, the son of a former Detroit auto executive, announced his candidacy while standing in front of a hybrid Ford Escape, which averages 36 miles per gallon in the city, and an old Rambler from American Motors Corp.
Romney said his father, George, who once headed AMC, championed the small, practical Rambler as "the first American car designed and marketed for economy and mileage. He dubbed it a compact car that would slay the gas-guzzling dinosaurs. It transformed the industry."
There still is plenty of transforming yet to be done, though — both nationally and by the politicians themselves.
Republican Rudolph Giuliani gave an energy policy speech in New York last summer that included a pitch for greater use of hybrid cars. Idling outside for him was a Cadillac Escalade. He did, however, opt to walk to his next destination rather than ride in the SUV, which averages 13 mpg according to the government's fuel economy guide. His campaign refused to say what he is driving these days.
Arizona Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), a Republican candidate for president, drives a Cadillac CTS, which gets city mileage in the 15-17 mpg range, the guide says.
Romney drives a 2005 Ford Mustang and his wife a Cadillac SRX SUV. The Mustang gets 17-19 mpg in city driving; an SRX about 16.
Romney campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said the campaign usually rents vehicles when on the road, adding that a flex-fuel vehicle was used on a recent swing through Iowa, where alternative fuels are popular.
Democratic candidate Bill Richardson, the New Mexico governor and former U.S. energy secretary, made a big show in 2005 of giving up his gas guzzling SUV Lincoln Navigator for a hybrid Escape, proclaiming, "I believe I should lead by example."
A few months later, the 6-foot-2 governor ditched the hybrid for a flex-fuel Chevy Tahoe LTZ after deciding the Escape was too small for him and his entourage, including a security detail.
"I can't fit in it," Richardson joked. "It goes about 20 mph." The Tahoe averages 11 mpg in the city when using the E85 blend, and 15 when running on gasoline.
Aides said that whenever possible, Richardson uses the cleaner-burning ethanol blend, which is known for getting fewer miles to the gallon but generating lower exhaust emissions.
Currently less than half of 1 percent of all gasoline stations offer E85.
Democrat SEARCH
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Edwards, happy to promote his energy-efficient Escape, also still owns a 2004 Chrysler Pacifica midsize SUV and a 1994 GMC truck, according to state vehicle registration records.
Campaign spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said the Edwardses, who have two small children, use the Pacifica when they need more than two seat belts in the back, and the truck when they need to move furniture or haul something.
Regardless of the candidates' personal vehicles, the whole adventure of running for president traditionally has been one colossal exercise in energy consumption, as candidates jet from state to state and then convoy from event to event in gas-hungry SUVS and vans.
The NRDC Action Fund, an affiliate of the Natural Resources Defense Council, estimates the leading candidates in the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns flew a million miles each.
The fund sent letters to 20 declared or potential candidates in February urging them to make this the first "carbon-neutral presidential campaign," by using hybrid or flex-vehicles, compact fluorescent light bulbs, recycling paper and materials and offsetting carbon dioxide emissions by purchasing credits, which are sold by those who have reduced their emissions of carbon dioxide.
NRDC spokeswoman Julia Bovey welcomed Edwards' announcement, saying, "Anyone running for president who claims they're going to be able to lead this country out of the energy and climate crisis needs to show they can do it in their campaign."
David Friedman, research director for the vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, declined to comment on the specific steps taken by the candidates. But he said driving a hybrid vehicle can cut global warming pollution by about one-third compared with driving a nonhybrid of a similar model.
He said driving a flex-fuel vehicle, operating on ethanol made from corn, can reduce pollution by 10 percent to 30 percent. Also, carbon offsets, if properly verified and certified, can help support the use of renewable energy technologies that reduce pollution.
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Panel: Warming will end some species
[ what a pity plankton aren't as cute as polar bears ... ]
From the micro to the macro, from plankton in the oceans to polar bears in the far north and seals in the far south, global warming has begun changing life on Earth, international scientists will report next Friday.
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In February the panel declared it "very likely" most global warming has been caused by manmade emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Animal and plant life in the Arctic and Antarctic is undergoing substantial change, scientists say. Rising sea levels elsewhere are damaging coastal wetlands. Warmer waters are bleaching and killing coral reefs, pushing marine species toward the poles, reducing fish populations in African lakes, research finds.
"Hundreds of species have already changed their ranges, and ecosystems are being disrupted," said University of Michigan ecologist Rosina Bierbaum, former head of the U.S. IPCC delegation. "It is clear that a number of species are going to be lost."
The IPCC draft estimates that if temperatures rise approximately 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit more, one-third of species will be lost from their current range, either moved elsewhere or vanished.
From Associated Press bureaus around the world, here are snapshots of animals and plants the IPCC will identify as already affected by climate change:
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The frogs went silent in the night
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Back in the Puerto Rican rain forest for the first time in five years, biologist Rafael Joglar sensed something was wrong. He wasn't hearing the frogs whose nocturnal calls he had long recorded in the misty highlands.
It was as if a small orchestra had lost key players, he recalled.
After that discovery in 1981, Joglar and wife Patricia Burrowes, a fellow University of Puerto Rico amphibian specialist, found that other populations of frogs in the genus Eleutherodactylus — known locally as coquis for the distinctive co-kee sound made by two species — were also mysteriously absent. Similar reports trickled in from frog specialists worldwide, particularly in Central and South America.
Working their way through such suspected culprits as pollution and habitat loss, researchers here eventually zeroed in on climate change. The average minimum temperature had risen from 1970 to 2000 by 2 degrees Fahrenheit, a significant rise for climate-sensitive amphibians.
Scientists believe higher temperatures lead to more dry periods and a chain reaction, at higher elevations, that leaves the frogs vulnerable to a devastating fungus, Burrowes said.
In Puerto Rico and nearby islands, experts believe three of 17 known Eleutherodactylus species are extinct and seven or eight are declining. Loss of the frogs, scientists warn, could have disastrous consequences, depriving birds and other predators of a food source, eliminating a consumer of insects and disrupting the ecosystem in ways impossible to guess.
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Fragile, sensitive coral sounds the alarm
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — The rainbow world of the Great Barrier Reef may fade away.
Scientists say rising sea temperatures worldwide are causing more coral bleaching — the draining of color when the fragile animals that form reefs become stressed and spew out the algae that give coral its color and energy to build massive reef structures.
Oceans are also absorbing more carbon dioxide, increasing their acidity and eroding coral's ability to build reef skeletons.
Because just a 2-degree-Fahrenheit shift can trigger a major bleaching event, the behavior of corals is an early sign that global warming is already changing our world, experts say.
"We've got about 20 years to turn (greenhouse gas emissions) around or it's going to cost the world a lot environmentally but also economically," said Terry Hughes, a leading Australian coral specialist.
The 1,250-mile-long Great Barrier Reef, off Australia's northeast coast, produces $4 billion a year in tourism revenues. Forecasts vary, but many experts say ocean temperature rises projected for the next 50 years could strip this natural wonder of most of its color. The changes will affect countless millions of fish and other marine organisms that depend on the reef.
Many reefs worldwide will fare worse, since they don't have the protection against pollution and overfishing provided by the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
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Ticks move north, carrying diseases with them
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — A bloodthirsty parasite is popping up in parts of Sweden where deep winter chills used to make survival difficult, if not impossible.
Ticks are spreading north along the Scandinavian country's shorelines, pestering pets and spreading infectious diseases to humans.
"It probably has to do with the greenhouse effect," said Thomas Jaenson, professor in medical entomology at Uppsala University. "The fact that we've seen ticks in January indicates that there has been a major change."
Swedish studies have shown that ticks have multiplied countrywide in recent decades, spreading north from traditional breeding grounds in the Stockholm archipelago. The pinhead-sized arachnids have even turned up near the Arctic Circle.
"There are more of them now. And they show up earlier in the year," said Marja Lodin, 69, who has a summer house near the northern city of Umea. Two years ago she was infected with Lyme disease, which causes fever, headache, fatigue and skin rash, from a tick lodged in her navel.
Sweden's disease control agency doesn't keep records on Lyme disease, but said the potentially deadly tick-borne encephalitis virus, known as TBE, is on the rise. Reported annual cases more than doubled from 60 in the late 1990s to 131 in the 2001-2005 period. In 2006, there were 155 cases, two of which turned fatal.
"It is possible that these people would be alive if we had had a more stable climate," Jaenson said.
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White giants face future of too much water, too little ice
TORONTO (AP) — Inuit hunters in Canada's Arctic say they have seen polar bears moving farther north as the polar ice cap recedes, or farther south in search of new sources of food.
The northern people who have hunted these majestic marine mammals for thousands of years say they haven't seen a dramatic decline yet in their numbers. But scientists worry that the polar bear will be pushed steadily toward extinction by 2050, to be found only in zoos, as Arctic waters grow warmer.
The bears depend on sea ice for survival. They have their pups and they hunt seal and walrus on ice floes. But the summer ice cap is about 20 percent smaller today than in 1978, the U.N. climate panel reported in February. And as sea ice shrinks, bears are forced to hunt and to fast for longer periods.
Biologists believe 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears roam the frozen Arctic, about 60 percent in Canada. The research group Polar Bears International says one polar bear population, in Canada's western Hudson Bay, has dropped 22 percent since the 1980s, about the time Inuit hunters started noticing dramatic changes in wind and weather patterns.
The trends are so troubling that the U.S. government has proposed listing polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
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Changing climate, vanishing plankton threaten cod
LONDON (AP) — Overfishing has cut deeply into the North Sea's cod population in recent decades, and scientists now say this important food fish faces a second challenge — climate change.
North Sea water temperatures have climbed 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years, and that has shifted currents, carrying a major food source, plankton, away from the cod, said scientist Chris Reid of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans in Plymouth, England.
"The only way that these increases can be explained is by greenhouse gas emissions," Reid said. In their larval stage, the cod feed on the minute plants and animals known as plankton. Chances of survival without them are slim. North Sea cod that do survive today are smaller and less successful at mating and reproducing, Reid explained. In addition, warmer temperatures increase cod metabolism and the larvae's need for nutrition, he and other marine scientists noted in a 2003 research paper.
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The dimb's demise tells of African climate change
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — It's getting harder for villagers in the north of this dry West African country to find a favored ingredient for a traditional couscous dish — the fruit of the dimb tree.
The once-prevalent tree with its meaty fruit has disappeared from all but one village in an area the size of Connecticut, as shifting rainfall patterns have made northern Senegal drier and hotter, research has found.
Many tree species like the dimb are retreating from the Sahel, the arid region south of the Sahara Desert, losing ground to more arid species. In the zone that climate change scientist Patrick Gonzalez studied, the dimb's range decreased 96 percent between 1945 and 1994 — from 27 villages to one.
Gonzalez said he looked at many factors, including population shifts and tree cutting, but "precipitation and temperature explained most of the variance in the data."
The greenhouse effect has warmed the southern Atlantic Ocean, source of the African monsoon, causing more rain to fall over the sea and less over the Sahel, said the Nature Conservancy's Gonzalez, who did the research while with the
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Fig and firewood species also are dying, forcing women gatherers to range farther and spend more time hunting firewood. "Once you don't have that, people start burning cow dung. And that's when environmentally the area is in great trouble," Gonzalez said.
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This report was written by AP correspondents Charles J. Hanley, New York; Ben Fox, San Juan; Rohan Sullivan, Sydney; Karl Ritter, Stockholm; Beth Duff-Brown, Toronto; Courtney French, London; and Heidi Vogt, Dakar.
Gas lines shut off, roads blocked near Indonesian 'mud volcano'
[ drilling mud takes on a whole new meaning ...?!?]
AKARTA (AFP) - Indonesia's state oil and gas company Pertamina said Saturday it had shut off gas lines near a "mud volcano" for safety reasons, as railways and roads were again flooded with toxic sludge.
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pipes," company spokesman Toharso said in a statement, announcing that the pipes had been shut down from 5:00 pm Friday.
The steaming crater, located near Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya in East Java, first began spewing mud in May after exploratory gas drilling at the site by a local firm, PT Lapindo Brantas.
The sludge has inundated some 600 hectares (1,500 acres), including many homes and factories, leaving thousands of people homeless and jobless.
The mud also threatens to swamp a key railway, which is to be rerouted away from the danger zone.
One of the main tracks -- still being used by trains passing through the area -- is now covered in three centimetres (two inches) of mud, police said Saturday.
Late Friday, workers frantically piled sandbags along the main road connecting Surabaya to the city of Porong to hold back the oozing sludge, but traffic had to be diverted on Saturday, causing major disruptions.
"Mud flooding on the tracks and Porong road is worse than yesterday and traffic has to be diverted to an alternative road," officer Andi Yudiyanto said on ElShinta radio.
East Java governor Imam Utomo visited the affected area on Saturday and ordered redoubled efforts to reopen the road and clear the railway line.
Indonesian experts are trying to slow the flow by dropping chains of heavy concrete balls into the funnel, a bold plan some say will not work.
However, the work has been suspended, prompting efforts to stop the mud from spilling over the dykes that have been holding the sludge build-up.
"We are concentrating to stop the mud from spilling to the roads and railtracks," government team spokesman Rudi Novrianto was quoted by Detikcom news portal as saying.
Meanwhile, dozens of residents from nearby Siring village tried to prevent workers from building dykes along the inundated railtracks, because they claim they have not been compensated for their submerged houses.
National Planning Minister Paskah Suzetta has said the cost of managing a series of natural disasters like the "mud volcano" is likely to send Indonesia's budget deficit spiralling upwards.
Email StMalaysia's Petronas to search for oil off Myanmar
[ this proves Bumis will do a deal with anyone -- even those sleazy SLORCs ..!?! ]
YANGON (AFP) - Malaysia's state energy firm Petronas will launch an oil exploration survey off the southern coast of Myanmar, state media said Saturday, amid growing foreign demand for the country's vast resources.
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Petronas will join hands with the state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise to survey offshore blocks, the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said, adding the survey would start early next month.
Petronas Chartikari Myanma Oil, a joint venture between Petronas and Myanmar's energy enterprise, have already explored for oil and gas in seven offshore fields in the Andaman Sea, according to official figures.
Military-run Myanmar has awarded a raft of foreign contracts over the past months for oil and gas exploration following discoveries by SEARCH
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According to 2006 official figures, 13 foreign oil companies are working on 33 energy projects in military-run Myanmar.
The natural gas wealth has become an increasingly important source of desperately needed foreign currency for Myanmar, one of the world's poorest nations, and its military rulers.
The Southeast Asian nation is under a series of US and European economic sanctions imposed over the junta's rights abuses and the house arrest of 61-year-old democracy icon and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
But the impact of the sanctions has been weakened as energy-hungry neighbours such as China, India and Thailand are spending billions of dollars for a share of Myanmar's vast energy resources to solve their power problems.
Only in Sydney could "no lights" be a spectacular sight -- perhaps Black is the new Green ..?!?] Last Update: Saturday, March 31, 2007. 7:32pm (AEST)
Sydneysiders plunged into darkness for 'Earth Hour'Sydneysiders are enjoying a spectacular sight as the city is plunged into darkness for "Earth Hour". Over 2,000 companies and 70,000 individuals and households have signed up to the event organised by WWF Australia, to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and highlight the problems of climate change. The Harbour Bridge, Opera House and many of Sydney's skyscrapers have switched their lights off for an hour, with many people attending events and parties along the Harbour foreshore. But Greg Bourne from WWF says others are reflecting on what they can do for the environment at home with family and friends. "Many, many people I've spoken to are just going to do things at home with their families - talk about it and whether it's the kids telling their mums and dads that they need to be turning the lights off or whether it's the other way around because your kids are teenagers," Mr Bourne said. "There's lots of things just privately at home or with your friends and neighbours." Mr Bourne says he hopes tonight's campaign will become a worldwide event. "Everyone really now knows in Australia that climate change is the most important challenge facing us environmentally, socially and indeed economically, and (they) just want to get on and do things," he said. "So to my mind this is the opportunity for people to say 'lets all do stuff together'."
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Sydney lights up after global warming gesture
Sydney's skyline has lit up once again, after lights throughout the city were switched off in a symbolic gesture to highlight the problems of global warming.
Prominent landmarks such as the Harbour Bridge and Opera House were plunged into darkness as part of the "Earth Hour" campaign organised by WWF Australia.
Over 2,000 companies and 70,000 individuals and households signed up to the event.
Greg Bourne from WWF says the organisation is hoping tonight's campaign will become a worldwide event.
"Everyone really now knows in Australia that climate change is the most important challenge facing us environmentally, socially and indeed economically, and (they) just want to get on and do things," he said.
"So to my mind this is the opportunity for people to say 'lets all do stuff together'."
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Labor's climate change approach fanatical: Turnbull
[ no bull ... from Turnbull ?!? ]
The federal Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has accused the Opposition of taking a fanatical and religious approach to climate change.
At Labor's climate change summit yesterday, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd called for an Australian global warming audit, similar to the influential report recently prepared by economist Sir Nicholas Stern for the British Government.
The Opposition has also set a target of reducing emissions by 60 per cent by 2050.
But Mr Turnbull has told Channel Ten that Labor's policy is over the top.
"For Labor it's a religious issue - see Labor is verging on becoming fanatical about this issue," he said.
"In a sense that they do not care how poor we have to become as long as we become pure - I think religion is a very poor guide to public policy, I have to tell you.
"The thing that Labor misses, the thing they completely miss - they do not understand climate change, is that it's a global problem."
Prime Minister John Howard says it does not make sense for Labor to call for a new Stern-style review when Mr Rudd has already adopted a target on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
But Labor's environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, has told Channel Nine it is not a case of putting the cart before the horse.
"I think any prudent government or alternative government ought to have a decent amount of information in front of it that's based on what we're hearing from the scientists about climate change," he said.
"But surely you do that before arriving at a solution - I think the point about a target is you've got to aspire to what the scientists are telling us."
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Australians want action on climate change: Rudd
[ Our Kev the Action Man ? Go Tin Tin ?!! woof woof ?!? ]
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has dismissed the Federal Government's criticism of his plan to address climate change.
Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull says Labor is being religious and fanatical about the issue, while the Government is taking a productive global approach.
Mr Rudd disagrees.
"When it comes to climate change, what the Australian people want is action not words," he said.
"The Australian people are saying this: time is running out and we need a practical plan of action for Australia and the region and the world to deal with this problem.
"Mr Turnbull can use whatever extravagant language he wants; the Australian people want action."
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Australians want action on climate change: Rudd
[ Our Kev the Action Man ? Go Tin Tin ?!! woof woof ?!? ]
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has dismissed the Federal Government's criticism of his plan to address climate change.
Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull says Labor is being religious and fanatical about the issue, while the Government is taking a productive global approach.
Mr Rudd disagrees.
"When it comes to climate change, what the Australian people want is action not words," he said.
"The Australian people are saying this: time is running out and we need a practical plan of action for Australia and the region and the world to deal with this problem.
"Mr Turnbull can use whatever extravagant language he wants; the Australian people want action."
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