The Great Beyond

Tiny ‘crazy rasberry ants’ are staggering over Texas, eating endangered chickens, filling up swimming pools, trashing electrical equipment and generally behaving like spring break students after a few too many.

The ants don’t have a proper name yet, due to “confusion regarding the taxonomy of the genus” according to Texas A&M University’s Urban Entomology website. This has left them with the name Paratrechina sp. nr. Pubens [species near: ie a paratrechina ant something like the pubens type].

In the meantime they’re being called ‘crazy’ because they don’t walk straight and ‘rasberry’ after one of their first opponents, a pest controller called Tom Rasberry.

“They’re just running wild,” says Patsy Morphew of Pearland (Houston Chronicle). “... They crawl through the eaves of the house and go into the bathroom. You know what it’s like to sit down on the commode with crazy ants running everywhere?”

Continue reading "Crazy ants go wild in Texas!" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 15, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted for Jeff Tollefson

Following months of bad news on biofuels, a non-profit research institute is injecting a bit of optimism into the public debate by highlighting an old crop that can simultaneously provide both food and fuel: sweet sorghum (Reuters).

The timing couldn’t be better, given the ongoing global food crisis and the now ever-present worries about where our next gallon of fuel will come from. One report went so far as to suggest sweet sorghum might be the perfect bioenergy crop researchers have been looking for.

That might be going a little far, but sweet sorghum would appear to have some promising qualities, not the least of which is its ability to grow in dry climates. Mark Winslow an agronomist with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, more easily known as ICRISAT, went over some of the details this week with Nature.

Continue reading "Move over sugarcane - here comes sweet sorghum" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 14, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted for Jeff Tollefson

Republican Presidential candidate John McCain made his first major climate address on Monday, largely reaffirming a position on climate change that has long separated him from his Republican colleagues.

The speech was widely interpreted as an effort to distance himself from President George W. Bush and “woo” independent voters. McCain endorsed cap-and-trade regulation and called for a return to 2005 emissions levels by 2012, a return to 1990 levels by 2020, and a reduction of “at least” 60 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050.

That puts McCain roughly in the same neighbourhood as the leading climate legislation in the Senate, which would reduce emissions by roughly 19 percent by 2020 and 70 percent by mid-century, compared to 2005. That bill is expected to come up for a vote in June, but McCain didn’t say which way he’ll go. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both called for an 80 percent reduction by mid-century.

Some environmentalists gave McCain due credit, but others refused to cede ground. The Sierra Club said McCain’s climate policies, “like President Bush,” offer “more of the same.”

No objective analysis could bring a reasonable person to such a conclusion, of course, given that President Bush has yet to outline a plan of any kind. But perhaps facts are malleable when the White House is at stake.
At least the Climate Progress blog ignored his speech and focused on the location: a training facility for Vestas Wind Systems.

Citing McCain’s multiple votes against renewable energy legislation, the blog suggested that “Conservatives like McCain … are the main reason McCain has to go to a Danish wind turbine manufacturer to give a climate speech.”

Image: stock photo / John McCain 2008

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 13, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The birds are taking over. A crow patrol is scouring the streets of Kagoshima, Japan, according to a New York Times report. The birds' crime is not murder (the name for a group of crows) but instead causing blackouts by roosting among the power lines and reportedly “frightening away residents”. The patrol has been hired by Kyushu Electric, and tasked with looking for ways to reduce the city’s population of the noisy black birds.

Japan has apparently seen massive increases in the mythically (and to some extent experimentally) quick-witted birds, which have apparently been out-foxing the patrols by building dummy nests. (In a less quick-witted way, the blackouts happen when a peckish subject explores a high-voltage power line). This clash between Japanese city life and Corvus species parallels recent complaints by UK farmers that ravens have gone predatory on their herds; pecking lambs and calves to death in a black feathered frenzy. The Zooillogix blog gives the UK press a hard time for sexing up the story

Still the events do call to mind Alfred Hitcock’s 1963 classic The Birds, a remake of which, starring Naomi Watts, looks to be slated for 2009. Corvus species like crows, rooks, and ravens hold a special place in the scary bird category even if Hitchcock’s climax starred seagulls. Of course in the United States the only thing eerie about crows lately is their absence. Their susceptibility to west Nile virus has decimated US crow populations (Nature, sub required).

Posted by Nicola Jones on May 07, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As the death toll from the cyclone and resultant storm surge in Myanmar climbs (now some 22,000 according to the state media), aid efforts are still being hampered (LA Times).

The cyclone is being called the worst to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 died in Bangladesh (multiple sources). NASA has some satellite photos of the area taken before and after the storm, showing the extent of flooding (pictured here; NASA).

Why were things so bad? The storm was a severe one: peak wind speeds were 215 km/h (wikipedia), which makes it a category 4 storm in a scale of 1-5. But damage was exacerbated by the high density of people on the coast and the storm surge of up to 3.5 metres caused by the winds, said ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan (BBC). Storm surges of up to 5.5 metres can be typical of category 4 storms. Warnings were issued by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which named the storm in late April (history of warnings linked to in wikipedia, initially targeted at Bangladesh more than Myanmar). But commentators on BBC radio complained there was only a few hours of warning for the people affected. For the moment it’s hard to tell exactly what happened on the ground.

Pitsuwan has also blamed a destruction of natural mangroves along the coast for the excessive damage (BBC again). There don’t seem to be any supporting claims from ecologists or storm specialists as yet, though mangroves were thought responsible, in part, for limiting damage in Sri Lanka from the Asian tsunami in December 2004.

The NY Times ‘dot earth’ blog highlights the trajectory of the storm as plotted on Google Earth, and puts in a shout to maintain Earth observation satellite systems, including systems to consolidate and use the data.

Posted by Nicola Jones on May 07, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

More news in the ongoing battle between sea lions, salmon, and people: six sea lions have been found shot in Oregon, presumably as a result of annoyed fishermen blaming the animals for a lack of fish (Reuters; NY Times).

We have written about this issue before: in January, US federal officials recommended killing about 30 ‘nuisance’ sea lions a year in this river, to keep them from gobbling up salmon. Officials went ahead with that, but in the face of a lawsuit from the Humane Society they have been instead trapping animals and transporting them to nearby zoos. It looks like someone took advantage of these traps to shoot the captive animals before they could be spirited away.

The trapping programme has been entirely put on hold while the killings are "investigated by Washington, Oregon and our fish cops", National Marine Fisheries Service spokesman Brian Gorman told Reuters.

From the archive:
While sea lions in Oregon seem to be to blame for declining fish stocks, the opposite may be true in Alaska, where declines in fish seem to be have caused sea lion populations to crash (see Conservation biology: Is this any way to save a species?). Working out what-is-eating-what in this ecosystem, and how one crash causes another, can be a thorny issue (see Where have all the seals gone?).

Posted by Nicola Jones on May 06, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Lauren Young:

South Africa has lifted a 13-year ban on elephant culling, to help manage the flourishing pachyderm population.

Elephants were once close to being wiped out in many parts of the continent, but have more than doubled in number in South Africa since 1995. The Agence France-Presse says a government assessment report suggests this could lead to the “loss of crops and infrastructure” and the “infection of livestock as a result of elephants having breached veterinary fences, thus allowing the mingling of wildlife and domestic stock and direct injury or loss of human life”.

Culling, with strict provisos, has been legalized as a last resort, the government asserts. Yet some conservationists have condemned the action, warning that it may encourage ivory poachers and could threaten populations elsewhere.

The Associated Press cites the example of Congo’s Virunga National Park, in which 14 elephants have been killed since mid-April by angry residents, rebels and soldiers. Emmanuel de Merode, director of the conservation group WildlifeDirect, has described it as “part of a widespread slaughter across the Congo Basin”. He argues it is due to the “liberalisation of the ivory trade…and the increased presence of Chinese operators on the ground, who feed a massive domestic demand for ivory in their home country”.

Other ways of curbing the elephant numbers include relocation and hormone based contraception, although these are thought to be less effective.

Image: USFWS

Posted by Alex Witze on May 02, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The toxic byproducts of Canada’s massive exploitation of tar sands have hit the news in a big way. The reason: 500 dead ducks.

On Monday 28 April a flock of the birds saw what they probably thought was an inviting pond where they could spend a few peaceful hours paddling about, and maybe being fed bread by those men in hard hats. Unfortunately for the ducks, the pond was a ‘settling basin’ of the Syncrude oil company, where toxic water and by-products from its oil operations on the tar sands collect. Five made it out alive.

Propane-powered noisemakers are supposed to scare off birds from the ponds, but due to extreme weather they hadn’t been deployed, said Syncrude. “We take a lot of pride in having systems in place to prevent birds from landing on settling basins and storage ponds. So we’re very saddened and sorry that this occurred,” said Tom Katinas, President and CEO (press release).

This hasn’t been nearly enough for Canada, where existing environmental concerns about the tar sands are bubbling to the surface and Syncrude is looking like ... well ... a sitting duck.

Continue reading "Duck deaths highlight tar sands problems" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 02, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A paper in this week’s Nature predicts that, rather than warming, North Atlantic sea surface temperatures may actually decrease slightly in the next decade. What’s more, the paper suggests global surface temperatures may not actually increase either.

Has global warming stopped? Is this a nail in Al Gore’s coffin?

Well, no.

Despite headlines such as ‘Doubt is cast over global warming’ and ‘Global warming could stop NATURALLY for ten years, say scientists’ that is not what this paper is about.

Continue reading "‘Decade break’ in global warming" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 01, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Those big oil companies, they’re just not doing enough to cut carbon emissions. But don’t take my word for it.

The Rockefeller family have a bone to pick with Exxon Mobil, the company that grew out of their ancestor’s oil giant Standard Oil, over its failure to give greater backing to alternative energy. “They are fighting the last war and they're not seeing they’re facing a new war,” says Peter O’Neill, great-great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller (Chicago Tribune).

Although the Rockefellers don’t own a huge amount of Exxon, their attack is likely to cause some embarrassment to the company, given the weight that still attaches to their name. Again though, don’t take my word for it.

“Clearly this has more impact than coming from a corporate activist who owns five shares,” says Buie Seawell, chairman of the department of business ethics and legal studies at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business (Denver Post). “The name gives a lot of credibility to what they’re doing, and it’s significant that the family has a historic equity stake.”

Continue reading "Taking oil companies to task" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 01, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

If we needed proof the green was 'the new black' it was surely supplied by the recent stampede by companies to brand their various products as environmentally friendly.

But do they actually live up to true environmental ideals or are they just ‘greenwashing’? Today the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority, the body cursed with the task of enforcing truth in advertising, put out its latest annual report, detailing “record numbers of complaints about environmental claims”.

In total the ASA received 556 complaints about 408 ads last year, compared to 117 complaints about 83 ads the year before (press release, report pdf). Complaints against 24 ads were upheld.

“Claims that products and services were carbon ‘neutral’ or ‘zero’ or ‘negative’ were particularly open to challenge, as were statements about CO2 emissions or absolute claims such as ‘100% recycled’ or ‘wholly sustainable’,” says the report.

My favourite reason for upholding a complaint relates to an ad from Shell which showing chimneys emitting flowers. This was misleading, the ASA says, “because it implied that Shell used at least the majority of their waste CO2 to grow flowers, whereas the actual amount was a very small proportion when compared to the global activities of Shell”.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 30, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Asian vulture could be flapping its last, according to Indian naturalists.

Widespread use of the drug diclofenac is generally believed to be behind a massive drop in their numbers. And despite the anti-inflammatory being outlawed in livestock, widespread use continues to fell the birds, in whom it triggers kidney failure.

A new paper in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society reports that “the oriental white-backed vulture is now in dire straits with only one thousandth of the 1992 population remaining” (pdf – note this has the wrong date on it, press release).

Long-billed and slender-billed vultures are also in trouble. The survey detailed in this paper concludes that all three species could be down to just a few hundred birds across the whole of India. They could be “functionally extinct in less than a decade”, according to Vibhu Prakash, of the Bombay Natural History Society, and his colleagues.

As a number of newspapers note, following the press release, the vultures are disappearing faster than dodos did.

Continue reading "Asian vulture numbers dwindle" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 30, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted for Jeff Tollefson

Update: Gray calls the uproar a ‘non-story’

It appears that the latest flap regarding hurricane expert and noted global warming sceptic Bill Gray was a bit overblown. Several hours after we posted the original Houston Chronicle story on this blog, Gray returned a phone call from Nature and quickly sought to set the record straight about his alleged troubles at Colorado State University.

“This is a funny thing,” he began. “We had something come up last year, and it was all smoothed over. It’s a non-story.”

At issue were Gray’s well-regarded hurricane forecasts and his unequivocal opposition to the notion that greenhouse gas emissions are driving global warming. The Chronicle reported that CSU is, or at least was, threatening to cut off its media support for his hurricane forecasts due to his unpopular stand on global warming. The key piece of evidence was a year-old internal memo from Gray suggesting as much.

Gray, who has retired and now comes to work as a professor emeritus, was not quoted directly in the story, and he said he was as surprised as anybody when it came out.

Continue reading "UPDATE - Storm over global-warming sceptic hurricane man" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 30, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A coalition of 12 environmental groups is taking the US government to court in an attempt to overturn the gray wolf’s loss of protected status.

After its ‘endangered’ status was removed, management of the wolf reverted to state control. Now environmentalists are claiming some states are too carefree with culling.

“Actions by the states of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, and by individuals, since wolves were delisted demonstrate the need to resume federal safeguards for wolves until state plans are in place that ensure a sustainable wolf population in the region,” says a statement from the groups.

“For example, on the very day delisting took effect — March 28, 2008 — Idaho Governor Butch Otter signed into law a new Idaho law allowing Idaho citizens to kill wolves without a permit whenever wolves are annoying, disturbing, or “worrying” livestock or domestic animals.”

Continue reading "US states sued over wolf status" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 29, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, CSU feels all the media curfuffle around the annual predictions is taking too much staff time. Gray thinks otherwise.

“This is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the Department’s capitulation to the desires of some (in their own interest) who want to reign [sic] in my global warming and global warming-hurricane criticisms,” said Gray in a memo written when he was informed of the decision last year (read the memo).

Wikipedia has a whole section on his climate change position, which he’s also outlined in a BBC opinion piece. And as the Chronicle’s science blog notes, CSU’s excuse is slightly strange:

I contacted a handful of public relations professionals who found that excuse to be, at best, questionable. University media offices exist to get press for their schools. Gray delivered that in spades with his hurricane forecasts.

CSU denies that Gray’s views on global warming have anything to do with it. Most of the forecasting work is currently done by Gray’s former student Phil Klotzbach and CSU says it will continue to support the forecasts as long as is involved.

Continue reading "Storm over global-warming sceptic hurricane man" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 29, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

While we await a US decision on the status of the polar bear, a Canadian expert group has decided it is in trouble, but not quite enough trouble for it to be considered endangered just yet.

In America they have been dragging out making a similar decision for months, and there’s still no answer (see Nature).

Meanwhile, north of the border, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada says the bear is merely of ‘special concern’, just one step up from ‘fine and dandy’ although the government group does admit to some worries. “Although the current and projected decline is insufficient to justify a status of Threatened, considerable concern exists over the future of polar bears in Canada,” says the latest assessment.

“Based on the best available information at hand, there was insufficient reason to think that the polar bear was at imminent risk of extinction,” says panel chairman Jeff Hutchings (BBC, Reuters). “That’s not to say that it's not in trouble. A special concern species is a species at risk in Canada and requires legislative action.”

However Canada’s Environment Minister John Baird still has to decide what to do with the listing of the bear as of concern. Reuters says he pledged to take action while “standing in front of a stuffed polar bear at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa”. I can’t work out if that’s appropriate or deeply inappropriate.

But while the polar bears are getting most of the coverage there are some more tragic tales unfolding in Canada...

Continue reading "Polar bear not ‘endangered’, just ‘concerning’" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 28, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Here’s a shocking finding: messing around with our atmosphere could be a bad idea.

Some scientists have suggested that we could throw sulphate particles into the atmosphere, which could block sunlight and offset global warming. Now research by Simone Tilmes, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, suggests this would mess up the ozone layer.

“Our research indicates that trying to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects,” she says (press release). “While climate change is a major threat, more research is required before society attempts global geoengineering solutions.”

In a new paper published by Science, Tilmes and colleages write:

An injection of sulfur large enough to compensate surface warming due to the doubling of CO2 would cause a drastic increase in the extent of Arctic ozone depletion during the next century for cold winters and would cause a considerable delay, between 30 and 70 years, in the expected recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole.

Continue reading "Sulphate science won’t stop global warming" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 25, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by 0.6% last year according to NOAA. Perhaps more worryingly methane levels also rose, for the first time since 1998.

Last year, according to new figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saw the joint third highest rise in global carbon dioxide concentrations since measurements began in 1998. NOAA says 2.4 molecules of carbon dioxide were added to every million molecules in the air, totalling around 19 billion tonnes and taking concentrations to 385 parts per million (press release).

“It’s gloomy,” says NOAA’s Pieter Tans (Retuers). “With carbon dioxide emissions, we’re on the wrong track, it’s obvious. And I’m also fully convinced that we’re in actually quite a dangerous situation for climate.”

However 2.4 ppm isn’t that unusual and the agency says annual increases of 2 ppm or more have been common since 2000 (click carbon dioxide graph right for longer term trend graph). The methane figures are potentially more troubling.

Continue reading "‘Gloomy’ emissions data shows methane rising" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 24, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Jeff Tollefson:

Paleoclimate researchers are mounting a new modelling exercise to assess their skills at reconstructing not the actual climate during the last millennium, but a pseudo climate generated by current global models.

The goal of the “Paleoclimate Reconstruction Challenge”
is to get around an inherent problem: Climate reconstructions are difficult to validate because by definition nobody knows exactly what the actual climate looked like. Instrumental data only goes back about 150 years, and proxy data used to calculate temperatures is sparse beyond about 400 years.

In this case, the teams will be able to compare their reconstructions to an actual climate simulation, which will remain secret until the end. They will then be able to assess in detail where things went wrong.

Caspar Ammann, a paleoclimatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, has secured about $450,000 over three years from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the project. He says the exercise will be open to the entire paleoclimate community, including sceptics who have long questioned previous reconstructions.

Continue reading "Return of the hockey stick" »

Posted by Alex Witze on April 22, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some people are really getting into the spirit of Earth Day, the annual environmental awareness day. Some are most definitely not. It’s like A Christmas Carol, but with Al Gore as Tiny Tim and maybe Bjorn Lomborg as Scrooge.

The reoccurring theme of those giving their full backing to the day is “We don't need one Earth Day, we need 365 of them” (eg, The Montreal Gazette). A similar note is struck by the King Features comic syndication company, which has put out a whole series of strips demanding ‘earth day every day’ (news coverage). You know things are serious when Spiderman and Dennis the Menace get involved.

Actually though we are already supposed to be having Earth Day every day. This is International Year of Planet Earth – as detailed in Nature’s recent supplement.

Google has put out a special map to allow people to share Earth Day ideas. So far it seems no one in Europe has chipped in, but in the United States they’re promising to do everything from walking to work and taking the stairs to using biodegradable golf tees. Brice from Texas is taking a step that may well catch on as green trend: “I will shutdown my computer leave the work 1 hour earlier.”

Providing fuel to those who accuse environmentalists of over-hyping the problem, the Times of India declares, “it is pertinent to point out that in these years the planet has been mauled so collectively and nastily that its longevity has literally shrunk a million times.”

And here come the party poopers...

Continue reading "Earth day divides the planet" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 22, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

A turtle that was thought to have gone extinct in the wild has been discovered living in a Vietnamese river.

Researchers spent three years searching the Red River in northern Vietnam before finding the only known wild specimen of Swinhoe’s soft-shell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei, also called Yangtze giant soft-shell turtles).

“This is an incredibly important discovery because the Swinhoe’s turtle is one of the most critically endangered species of turtle in the world,” says Doug Hendrie, coordinator of the Asian Turtle Program at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, which sponsored the Vietnam survey (press release). “This species has legendary status among the people of Vietnam, so this is perhaps an opportunity for the legend to live on.”

The BBC says some are sceptical of the find as “the creature could be a member of a much more common, similar-looking species”.

Continue reading "Rare turtle found in Vietnam" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 18, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brazil’s president has defended biofuels at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s meeting in Brasilia.

Although biofuels have been criticised for driving up food prices and not actually bringing much environmental benefit, it seems President ‘Lula’ (Luiz Inacio da Silva), is a big fan. This post is quite quote-heavy because that man really knows how to give good soundbite.

“Biofuels aren’t the villain that threatens food security,” he said (various, eg WSJ).

And to the UN’s rapporteur for the right to food, who said that biofuel production is a crime against humanity, Lula responded: “The real crime against humanity would be to just cast aside biofuels and push countries struggling with food and energy shortages towards dependency and insecurity.” (English from AFP, Portuguese from Globo).

Western subsidies are actually to blame, he said. “Don’t tell me, for the love of God, that food is expensive because of biodiesel. Food is expensive because the world wasn’t prepared to see millions of Chinese, Indians, Africans, Brazilians and Latin Americans eat” (Reuters).

Lula seems to think there is enough land for food and fuel. “It is important to come here and put your feet in the mud to see how the people live, the amount of land, and the potential for production we have,” he said (O Estadao de S. Paulo).

Image: Lula / Ricardo Stuckert/PR

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 18, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Other media are taking quite a lot of interest in a Nature paper on fish stocks which suggests that a great deal of fishing policy is wrong headed

Using records of fish larvae researchers attempted to discern why fished populations fluctuate more than un-fished populations. Their conclusion: the problem is we take all the big fish.

And current fishing policies often specify a minimum size, below which things must be put back in the ocean.

“That type of regulation, which we see in many sport fisheries, is exactly wrong,” says George Sugihara, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “It’s not the young ones that should be thrown back, but the larger, older fish that should be spared.”

Continue reading "Why fished fish fluctuate" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 17, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Jeff Tollefson:

The media has been abuzz for days with speculation about whether President George W. Bush would seek to rescue his environmental legacy today by taking a bold new stance on global warming. The answer would appear to be no.

In a 20-minute speech that set the stage for the latest White House climate talks this week in Paris, the president outlined a “goal” of halting the growth in US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Notably absent was a proposal for accomplishing said goal.

Already a veritable pariah within the international climate community, Bush was quickly derided among environmentalists and Democrats for simply restating “aspirational goals” and his technology-first approach to the problem. In anticipation of the event, one Democratic blogger even revived and amended a drinking game in which a shot is taken each time Bush said the word “technology.” For today's speech, that would mean 12 shots. Adding bonus shots for each mention of the word "goal" brings that total to 26.

Continue reading "Bush waxes aspirational on climate" »

Posted by Alex Witze on April 16, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack