Smog may speed up global warming

Ozone in smog will accentuate global warming this century as it will damage plants and trees that help soak up carbon emissions, a study says.

Its authors fear a major factor in the climate-change equation has been badly overlooked.

They say ozone at ground level is damaging the ability of plants to absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) and so limiting their ability to act as carbon sinks.

As a result, more CO2 will build in the atmosphere instead of being taken up by the land, which in turn will stoke global warming and thus worsen climate change, the researchers report today online in the journal Nature.

In the stratosphere, a thin, naturally-occurring level of ozone is a vital shield for life on earth, providing a shield against DNA-damaging ultraviolet.

But at ground level, it is a pollutant, brewed in a reaction between fossil-fuel gases and sunlight.

Ozone has long been known to be a risk to health by damaging the airways, but recent research has also highlighted its damaging effect on vegetation.

The gas enters plants through respiratory pores, called stomata, in the leaves. It then produces by-products that crimp efficiency in photosynthesis, leaving a plant that is weak and undersized.

Efforts to figure out how fast-rising levels of ozone will affect forests have been hampered by a nasty confounding factor.

The stomata factor

High levels of CO2 and ozone cause stomata to close, which means the plant takes in less of the CO2 that it needs to grow, but also less of the ozone that damages it.

The new study seeks to unravel these intertwining factors.

UK researchers built a computer model to simulate the response of carbon sinks around the world in response to ozone levels, from 1901 to 2100.

They used two scenarios, depending on whether plants were deemed to have high or low sensitivity to ozone.

This leaf has been damaged by ground-level ozone and so cannot act as efficiently as a carbon sink to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (Image: David Karnosky)

These scenarios were vetted for reliability by comparison with an experiment in which trees and shrubs in a Swiss field were exposed to artificially high levels of CO2 and ozone for seven years.

Under the 'high' plant-sensitivity scenario, ozone diminished land carbon capture by 23% over the two centuries. Under the 'low' scenario, the fall was 14%.

Lead researcher Dr Stephen Sitch of the Hadley Centre, part of the UK's Met Office, says the study does not estimate the effect of ozone for the 21st century specifically.

But he says it is clear that there would be a major contributory effect to global warming by 2100 as less airborne CO2 will be captured by the land.

"Existing calculations of the carbon cycle haven't factored in the negative effect of ozone," he says.

A rough calculation is that ozone could indirectly add "somewhere in the range of 0.5-1.25°C in warming, according to Sitch.

Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave its predictions of the impact of climate change on global temperature.

But this prediction is based on concentrations of greenhouse-gases and does not factor in the indirect effect of ozone.

Unlike CO2, which spreads around the planet's atmosphere, ground-level ozone pools nearer to its source, with North America, Europe, China and India high on the list of polluted regions.

In pre-industrial times, ozone was 17 parts per billion. Today, it is 35 parts per billion and is on course for 54 parts per billion by the end of the century, says Sitch.

Source:abc.net.au

'ORANG-UTANS' HOMES WILL BE GONE BY 2022'

Orang-tans could have nowhere left to live within a decade, a report has revealed.

New satellite images have uncovered levels of rainforest destruction in South East Asia which are 30 per cent faster than previously feared, says the United Nations.

It has repeated EIA’s recent call for countries, in particular Indonesia, to be helped in their fight against illegal logging.

“The rate of decline of the forests is the most alarming we have seen yet, anywhere in the world," said Christian Nellemann, one of the authors of the ‘Last Stand of the Orang-utan’ report.

The number of orang-utans, once common in the region has plummeted to only 7,000 in Sumatra and 45,000 in Borneo.

Burning of rainforests, often to make way for bio-fuel plantations like palm oil, is multiplying the threat – as well as adding hugely to global warming.

Orang-utans are often killed by loggers or captured and sold to foreign zoos and parks.
As the apes only breed once every seven years, it is feared their numbers could be seriously hit while their natural habitats vanish, says the report by the UN’s Environment Programme.

It had been estimated their habitats would be gone by 2032 but that date has now been put at 2022.

UNEP praised Indonesia’s recent crackdowns and arrests of illegal loggers but said it was only a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated 2.1 million hectares of forest cleared every year.

UNEP has echoed EIA’s calls for more help for Indonesia in the fight against illegal logging gangs.

Earlier this year, EIA’s report ‘The Thousand Headed Snake’ highlighted how corruption and failures in the Indonesian police, military and judicial system were letting timber barons off the hook.

The UNEP report was presented to the CITES conference on endangered species this week.

Speaking from The Hague, head of EIA’s Forest Campaigns Julian Newman said: “It’s not just up to Indonesia to solve this problem, it’s an international issue.

“A lot of the timber goes to international markets – to China, Malaysia and the EU. We need to close these loopholes and introduce a ban on importing illegal timber.”

It is thought 88 per cent of logging in Indonesia is illegal and is even being carried out in 37 of its 41 national parks, netting some £2 billion a year for logging and smuggling syndicates.

The UN has repeated EIA’s call for more resources for Indonesia to strengthen its enforcement and employ more forest wardens, alongside a global customs crackdown on illegal timber.

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Supermarket to sell wine in plastic bottles

Wine will be sold in recyclable plastic bottles instead of glass in Sainsbury's supermarkets as part of a trial, the retailer announced today.

Sainsbury's said the move will reduce carbon emissions by cutting the weight of wine packaging. A plastic bottle is one-eighth the weight of a regular 400g (14oz) glass bottle.

UK consumers buy around one billion bottles of wine every year, using around half-a-million tonnes of glass. Reducing the weight of wine packaging to 54g (2oz) by using plastic bottles could reduce carbon emissions by around 90,000 tonnes, according to the government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), which is involved in the trial.

"That's equivalent to taking 28,000 cars off the road for a year," said a Wrap spokeswoman.

Wrap will assess how successfully the plastic bottles can be recycled and will measure the environmental impact of the scheme.

Wrap said that until its environmental analysis was published next month, "it is not in a position to compare" the energy use involved in recycling a glass bottle versus a plastic bottle.

Sainbury's will initially sell an own-label New Zealand sauvignon blanc and an Australian rose in the plastic bottles. The wine will be bottled in the UK, allowing nearly twice the amount of wine to be transported in each container. Bulk shipping also reduces carbon emissions.

Barry Dick, product technologist for beers, wines and spirits at the supermarket said: "The new wine bottle looks exactly the same as a glass bottle, holds the same amount of liquid and doesn't compromise the quality of the wine in any way."

The recyclable 75cl plastic wine bottles go on sale at Sainsbury's early next month, priced at £4.99 for the sauvignon blanc and the Australian rose at £3.99.

Sainsbury's move comes after Waitrose announced last month that it will start selling milk in plastic pouches. The Waitrose announcement came following concerns that plastic milk cartons threaten the environment

Article Source: guardian.co.uk

National Trust puts 3.5m members in front line against climate change

It controls 900-square miles of land and 710 miles of coastline and has far more members than the armed services, the teaching profession, the prison population, environmental groups and political parties combined.

Now the National Trust is hoping to become a new green army. To mark membership in England, Wales and Northern Ireland reaching 3.5 million - equivalent to the population of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and Sheffield (Britain's four largest cities after London) - the trust yesterday declared that it wants to become "the largest green movement in the world".

In what the the conservation charity calls one of the most fundamental shifts in its 103-year history, the trust announced the intention to mobilise this vast public support "to drive conservation and quality of life agendas, and in particular to combat climate change".

From now on, said director-general Fiona Reynolds, the trust will advise people how to adapt their lifestyles to climate change and challenge government to be more ecologically aware. "If we think that public policy is not right, then we will say so."

In a strategy document, the trust said it was in a unique position to help counter climate change. "The biggest challenge of our time is climate change," said Ms Reynolds. "We are like a miner's canary anticipating the effects that others will feel. Our practical experience ranges from coastal erosion and 18th century drainpipes being overwhelmed by heavier rainfall, through to book collections damaged by pests now surviving warmer winters."

The trust is already confronting BAA on plans to expand Stansted airport in Essex on grounds of noise pollution, but declined to say on what else it intended to campaign. As Britain's biggest landowner it is known to want to influence agriculture to reduce damaging emissions.

"In the past we have been cautious about expressing our voice loudly. Now we recognise that we have to engage in public debate on a very wide scale. If our knowledge tells us, say, that expanding airports leads to problems, then it is right we should say so," said Peter Nixon, the trust's director of conservation. "If you have 3.5m members you can go to government with a different kind of authority."

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Texas turtles ending up in China soup pots

Growing up in East Texas, Dian Avriett loved to watch the turtles sunning on the banks of local rivers and lakes. But now she says it's rare to see them on those same waterways, and the reason is clear — China's taste for Texas turtle meat.

Hundreds of thousands have been sold to dealers who ship the animals to Asia where the meat is considered a delicacy with health benefits. Some also fetch high prices around the world as pets.

"In Texas, anyone with a $50 dollar non-game permit can take as many (turtles) as they want," said Avriett, who chairs the Piney Woods group of the Sierra Club.

Global turtle populations are at risk, but conservationists said the problem is growing acute in Texas, where there are no limits on the collection of unprotected varieties.

An average of 94,442 turtles per year are taken by dealers, mostly for export from the state, according to figures from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request showed more than 267,000 wild turtles were exported to Hong Kong from Dallas from 2002 to 2005, said Chris Jones, an environmental attorney who has lobbied for turtle protections.

Although there are no statewide statistics showing declines in Texas turtle population, Jones said abundant anecdotal evidence exists. For example in one section of the Rio Grande river that had been a trap site, an adult turtle has not been seen in 10 years.

"They are taking them so fast the scientists can't study them," Jones said.


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Ice keeps some buildings cool — and green

As the summer swelters on, skyscrapers and apartments around the city will crank up air conditioners and push the city's power grid to the limit — but some have found a cool alternative.

Some office towers and buildings are keeping their AC use to a minimum by using an energy-saving system that relies on blocks of ice to pump chilly air.

"If you take the time to look, you can find innovative ways to be energy efficient, be environmental and sustainable," said William Beck, the head of critical engineering systems for Credit Suisse, a financial services multinational corporation.

The systems save companies money and reduce strain on the electrical grid in New York, where the city consumes huge amounts of power on hot summer days.

Ice cooling also cuts down on pollution. A system in Credit Suisse's offices at the historic Metropolitan Life tower in Manhattan is equal to taking 223 cars off the streets or planting 1.9 million acres of trees to absorb carbon dioxide from electrical use for a year, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

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Dams being demolished to help fish

The largest dam removal in the Pacific Northwest in 40 years is under way, with 4,000 pounds of explosives used Tuesday to blast the top level of one structure into oblivion.

When the two dams are fully removed, one this summer and the other next summer, the Sandy River will be a free-flowing river for the first time in nearly a century — and no longer a hindrance to steelhead and salmon returning to spawn.

Eight feet of the 47-foot-tall Marmot Dam was removed Tuesday and over the next two months there will be five more blasts, along with jackhammers working daily, according to the dams' owner, Portland General Electric.

Portland General Electric, the biggest utility in Oregon, is spending $17 million to remove the two dams in coordination with 23 environmental, governmental and civic organizations.

"Today, this partnership took a great step toward restoring a breathtaking river for fish, wildlife and people," Portland General Electric CEO and President Peggy Fowler said in a statement. "We celebrate the future of a watershed that will provide unimpeded salmon and steelhead passage from the slopes of Mt. Hood to the Pacific Ocean." (General Electric is the parent company of NBC, which is a partner in the joint venture that operates MSNBC.com.)

"It's incredibly significant for the entire Sandy River Basin; it's going to breath new life into the basin and it's going to provide new recreational and fishing opportunities," added Amy Kober, a spokeswoman for American Rivers, a conservation group. "This was a region that was built by dams, but we are realizing the benefits of healthy rivers. We are getting back into balance."

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ethanol from citrus peel could result in a new Florida industry producing over 60 million gallons of fuel per year

FPL Energy, LLC, a subsidiary of FPL Group, has announced that it has signed a letter of intent with Citrus Energy, of Boca Raton, FL, to develop the first ever commercial scale citrus peel to ethanol plant. The cellulosic ethanol plant will be owned and operated by FPL Energy and is expected to produce four million gallons of ethanol per year. It will be located on the grounds of a local Florida citrus processor.

"FPL Energy is delighted to be working with Citrus Energy on this exciting new project to produce a clean, affordable, and domestically-produced biofuel utilizing Florida's existing citrus industry infrastructure and bringing new jobs to rural communities," said Mike O'Sullivan, senior vice president of development for FPL Energy.

"Citrus Energy's mission is to develop fuel ethanol that minimizes environmental impact and cost by using citrus waste and other biomass. FPL Energy, as the largest renewable energy generator in the U.S., is the ideal partner," said David Stewart, president of Citrus Energy.

FPL Energy said that ethanol from citrus peel could result in a new Florida industry producing over 60 million gallons of fuel per year, which could replace about one percent of Florida's annual gasoline consumption.

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Humans to blame for rain changes

Human activities that spur global warming are largely to blame for changes in rainfall patterns over the last century, climate researchers reported Monday.

The report was released as record rains caused severe flooding in Britain, China and Indonesia.

Human-caused climate change has been responsible for higher air temperatures and hotter seas and is widely expected to lead to more droughts, wildfires and floods, but the authors say this is the first study to specifically link it to precipitation changes.

"For the first time, climate scientists have clearly detected the human fingerprint on changing global precipitation patterns over the past century," researchers from Environment Canada, that country's environmental agency, said in a statement.

The scientists, writing in the journal Nature, found humans contributed significantly to these changes, which include more rain and snow in northern regions that include Canada, Russia and Europe, drier conditions in the northern tropics and more rainfall in the southern tropics.

Manmade climate change has had a "detectable influence" on changes in average precipitation in these areas, and it cannot be explained by normal climate variations, they wrote.

Weather experts in Britain raised the possibility that the current rains there may be related to climate change.

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China's Demand For Recycled Wastepaper: A Blessing And A Curse For The World's Forests

China's paper industry has built-up a massive recycling capacity that is shielding forests worldwide from destruction by supporting a strong international market for wastepaper as an alternative to pulpwood, according to a new report released by Forest Trends, a leading international forestry organization.

The Forest Trends report, Environmental Aspects of China's Papermaking Fiber Supply, notes that today about 60 percent of the fiber used to manufacture paper and paper board products in China is derived from wastepaper--a substantial portion of which comes from the US, Europe, and Japan. In the last ten years China's wastepaper imports increased by more than 500 percent--from 3.1 million metric tons in 1996 to 19.6 million metric tons in 2006--with most of that growth occurring between 2002 and 2006.

But the report warns that wastepaper alone is not sufficient to keep up with China's production demands, as high quality pulp and pulpwood are also being used to supply international buyers with high quality paper. The report finds that the same explosive growth that's created such a strong market for wastepaper is also boosting China's demand for pulp and pulpwood from developing countries already struggling to contain illegal and destructive logging. For example, China today buys some of its pulp and pulpwood from Indonesia and Eastern Russia where illegal, environmentally rapacious logging is widespread. And any increase in demand could exacerbate problems in those regions.

"China is by far the world's biggest consumer of wastepaper and that's a good thing because in the last four years alone, China has prevented 65 million metric tons of wastepaper from heading to landfills in the US, Japan, and Europe," said Brian Stafford, the lead author of the report and an expert on the international pulp and paper industry. "Just last year, China's use of wastepaper instead of trees to make paper products probably saved 54 million metric tons of wood from being harvested for pulp."

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Decoding Mushroom's Secrets Could Combat Carbon, Find Better Biofuels & Safer Soils

Researchers at the University of Warwick are co-ordinating a global effort to sequence the genome of one of the World’s most important mushrooms - Agaricus bisporus. The secrets of its genetic make up could assist the creation of biofuels, support the effort to manage global carbon, and help remove heavy metals from contaminated soils.

The Agaricus mushroom family are highly efficient ‘secondary decomposers’ of plant material such as leaves and litter – breaking down the material that is too tough for other fungi and bacteria to handle. How exactly it does this, particularly how it degrades tough plant material known as lignin, is not fully understood. By sequencing the full genome of the mushroom, researchers hope to uncover exactly which genes are key to this process. That information will be extremely useful to scientists and engineers looking to maximize the decomposition and transformation of plant material into bio fuels.

The mushroom also forms an important model for carbon cycling studies. Carbon is sequestered in soils as plant organic matter. Between 1–2 giga tons of carbon a year are sequestered in pools on land in the temperate and boreal regions of the earth, which represents 15–30% of annual global emissions of carbon from fossil fuels and industrial activities. Understanding the carbon cycling role of these fungi in the forests and other ecosystems is a vital component of optimizing carbon management.

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Catastrophic Flooding Changed The Course Of British History

A catastrophic megaflood separated Britain from France hundreds of thousands of years ago, changing the course of British history, according to research recently published in the journal Nature.
The study, led by Sanjeev Gupta and Jenny Collier from Imperial College London, has revealed spectacular images of a huge valley tens of kilometres wide and up to 50 metres deep carved into chalk bedrock on the floor of the English Channel.

Using high-resolution sonar waves the team captured images of a perfectly preserved submerged world in the channel basin. The maps highlight deep scour marks and landforms which were created by torrents of water rushing over the exposed channel basin.
To the north of the channel basin was a lake which formed in the area now known as the southern North Sea. It was fed by the Rhine and Thames, impounded to the north by glaciers and dammed to the south by the Weald-Artois chalk ridge which spanned the Dover Straits.
It is believed that a rise in the lake level eventually led to a breach in the Weald-Artois ridge, carving a massive valley along the English Channel, which was exposed during a glacial period.

Full story: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070718140833.htm

The deadly price of China's miracle

What is the price of economic growth? Death?

Hundreds of millions of people are being made ill every year or dying prematurely from pollution caused by China's breakneck economic growth, a leading economic thinktank has concluded following an 18-month investigation. The OECD study, prepared at China's request, draws on work by the government, World Bank and Chinese Academy of Sciences to spell out the scale of the ecological crisis now engulfing the country, poisoning its people and holding it back economically.

It says up to 300 million people are drinking contaminated water every day, and 190 million are suffering from water related illnesses each year. If air pollution is not controlled, it says, there will be 600,000 premature deaths in urban areas and 20m cases of respiratory illness a year within 15 years.
China's water quality gives the researchers greatest concern. One third of the length of all China's rivers are now "highly polluted" as are 75% of its major lakes and 25% of all its coastal waters. Nearly 30,000 children die from diarrhoea due to polluted water each year
Although China is the world's fourth largest economy, growing 10% a year and closing rapidly on the US, Japan and Germany, its environmental standards are often closer to those in some of the poorest countries in the world, says the report. More than 17,000 towns have no sewage works at all and the human waste from nearly one billion people is barely collected or treated. Nearly 70% of the rural population has no access to safe sanitation.

Read full story: http://environment.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,,2128827,00.html