September 12, 2008
The Gulf is angry
; Stu Ostro, Senior Meteorologist
Daniel Gallegos watches as a wave crashes into the seawall as Hurricane Ike approaches the Texas coast, Friday, Sept. 12, 2008, in Galveston, Texas. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Fire destroys homes along the beach on Galveston Island, Texas as Hurricane Ike approaches. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Bobby Taylor uses a kayak to evacuate as his neighborhood was overtaken by water in Surfside Beach, Texas. Taylor had planned to remain at his home despite Hurricane Ike, but later changed his mind. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Matthew Davis and John Bennett use a bass boat to get out of their flooded neighborhood on Central Avenue in Bay St. Louis, Miss. (AP PhotO /William Colgin, Sun Herald)
As I sit here late this Friday afternoon, many thoughts are swirling through my head.
What was it like for Isaac Cline as he, without today's technology, saw the waves coming onshore on Galveston, an initial sign on that morning 108 years ago that something was really, really wrong? Were they as big as far in advance of the arrival of the center of the 1900 hurricane as they were this morning in advance of Ike?
With today's modern meteorological technology and the ability to know that the hurricane is gigantic and the water is already rising, and with hurricane warnings long since having been issued along with forecasts of an exceptionally high water rise along the coast, how many people that needed to evacuate have done so?
What about the freaky coincidence with respect to Ike and IKE? IKE is an acronym for "Integrated Kinetic Energy," which as readers noted in comments to my last blog is a measure of the overall destructive potential of a tropical cyclone, and whose values, as it turns out, have been exceptionally high for the hurricane of the same name.
Or the coincidence that on the day of the approach of a massive hurricane, The Weather Channel is sold?
Speaking of The Weather Channel, on Wednesday evening my boss walked into my office and I started exclaiming and gesticulating, and he took note of my agitated state. Don't worry, everything was cool between us. I wasn't all hot and bothered about the sale or anything else to do with TWC. What I was bouncing off walls about was that the water level had already risen quickly to two feet above normal astronomical tides at Waveland, Mississippi. Two days before the hurricane would even approach the GulfCoast. It was the "uh-oh" moment when all that stuff I wrote in my last entry about the size of Ike and model forecasts and so on suddenly became not only a stark reality but one which was the tipoff that something extraordinary and frightening was unfolding.
Waveland is very surge-prone; it was the site of the highest surge from Katrina, upwards of 28 feet with some estimates putting it at more than 30'. Then Gustav brought a surge of nearly 10 feet, and since Wednesday evening it topped out just shy of six. What's remarkable about the coastal flooding the past few days from the Florida Panhandle to Alabama and Mississippi is simply that it occurred to the degree it did when Ike was so far away and not directly headed toward there.
I hope that there is no loss of life from people not having taken Ike seriously enough despite it "only" being a Category 2. Ike is extremely dangerous whether or not there's a last-minute intensification into a higher Category, although the fact that that's what Ike is trying to do means that any hope of a substantial last-minute weakening is evaporating. The Gulf is angry and so is the atmopshere overhead.
Even if we'd be fortunate enough to have no loss of life, that won't prevent damage which is widespread and severe, and in some places catastrophic. Although some would beg to differ, I'm not prone to alarmism, in fact I've only used that "c" word in TWC's tropical cyclone "bottom line" graphics I'm responsible for once before today, and that was as Katrina was approaching the coast.
If the tide level at Waveland earlier this week was the first "uh-oh" moment, what really brought home the gravity of the situation was seeing the images on TV this morning of the inundation of portions of the upper Texas coast. The Galveston seawall so far is fending off the seething Gulf, but even there the water by sunrise was spalshing over the wall, and parts of the south end of the island, where there is no seawall, are under water. Ditto at Surfside Beach, just down the coast from Galveston. We're received reports of rescues on the Bolivar Peninsula, just up the coast, and of flooding on the shores of Galveston Bay in the Houston area. And all of this has been long before the core of the hurricane arrives.
To give you a further flavor of what's unfolding, here are reports from a little farther up the coast from as early as late this morning; I want to make sure people understand that although much of the focus has been on Texas, southwest Louisiana is also feeling the fury of Ike.
09/12/2008 1023 AM STORM SURGE SABINE PASS
E6.70 FT JEFFERSON TX
THE TIDE GAGE AT SABINE PASS IS NOW 6.7 FEET. INUNDATION IS OCCURRING THROUGH MUCH OF SOUTHERN JEFFERSON AND ORANGE COUNTIES.
09/12/2008 1016 AM STORM SURGE 10 SE PECAN ISLAND
M8.30 FT VERMILION LA
THE WATER LEVEL AT FRES WATER LOCK IS 8.3 MLLW. FLOODING NOW HAS CUT OFF BURNS AND CYPREMORT POINT. FLOODING IS ALSO COMMING INTO FRANKLIN.
09/12/2008 1029 AM STORM SURGE CAMERON
M7.50 FT CAMERON LA
THE WATER LEVEL AT THE CAMERON TIDE GAGE IS ALREADY 7.5 FEET MLLW. SIGNIFICANT INUNDATION IS OCCURRING IN CAMERON PARISH AND WATER CONTINUES TO RISE RAPIDLY.
The center of Ike is coming toward Galveston and will make landfall overnight either over the island or nearby. To some extent, the exact landfall location matters, because that will determine the precise number of feet the water rises in any given location near where the center tracks in the Houston/Galveston area. But regardless, because of Ike's size, a vast area will experience the full force of the hurricane, with the Gulf and bays surging onshore, and winds causing widespread power outages and structural damage including inland. And, if that wasn't enough, heavy rain and potential flooding will occur not only in Texas and Louisiana but even in states to the north as deep tropical moisture interacts with a non-tropical system, which, by the way, resulted in Lubbock's one-day rainfall record being broken yesterday.
This hurricane has attributes that are reminiscent of the 1900 hurricane and Carla in 1961 (not a Category 4 like those hurricanes, but similar in track to the former and size of the latter), and Katrina and Rita in 2005 ... or maybe the March 1993 Superstorm on steroids. These NOAA satellite images show that this afternoon Ike, albeit moving in a different direction (northwest not northeast), took on somewhat of a similar appearance to that infamous non-tropical system of the past which, prior to its epic blizzard, produced a serious storm surge on the other side of the Gulf as well as a tornado outbreak. The difference is that Ike has a much stronger and larger wind field.
Since Katrina was probably the biggest hurricane in terms of size up until now to make landfall in the U.S. during the era of modern observation technology, here's a NOAA analysis of the size of tropical storm force winds (starting with light blue and on in toward the center from there) and hurricane force winds (yellow) for Katrina and a recent one of Ike. The size of these two hurricanes over the Gulf has been comparable; in fact at times the maximum radius of tropical storm force winds has been bigger with Ike. For contrast, also included is the same map for Charley in 2004, which had vicious winds but a much lower and more confined surge than Ike has already had before it even makes landfall. The geographic scale of all these maps is the same.
The zone of stronger winds is approaching the coast now and with it will come the main surge of water and the destructive winds. Though landfall, defined as when the center of the eye crosses the coast, won't be till later tonight, things are about to go downhill rapidly in advance of that.
I won't be able to give the details for every single location and answer all your questions, but will provide updates with as much information and frequency as possible.
The folks on northwest Gulf Coast are in our thoughts ...
[Image source: GRLevelX]
New Orleans disaster warning as Gustav death toll reaches 68
Tropical Storm Gustav today drenched Jamaica and threatened the Cayman Islands as the US Gulf coast made preparations to be hit by a possible hurricane next week.
Gustav ripped off roofs, downed power lines and pounded rain into Jamaica, triggering landslides and flooding but no reported deaths. At least 68 people died earlier when the storm hit Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
If Gustav continues its current trajectory, the storm could hit Louisiana — perhaps as a major hurricane — by next Tuesday, although it could wind up almost anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico, the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami said today.
The storm was centred near Jamaica's western coast today, with its maximum sustained winds clocked at almost 65mph (100 kmph), the hurricane centre said.
Forecasters said Gustav could reach hurricane strength before slamming into Grand Cayman later today and into the western tip of Cuba tomorrow.
In the Cayman Islands, some hotels closed and those that remained open encouraged guests to leave. Theresa Foster, one of the owners of the Grand Caymanian Resort, said Gustav did not look as threatening as Hurricane Ivan, which destroyed 70% of Grand Cayman's buildings four years ago.
"Whatever was going to blow away has already blown away," she said.
Jamaica has evacuated low-lying areas, closed the capital's main airport and halted bus services even as people streamed into supermarkets for emergency supplies.
Fears that Gustav could hurt Gulf oil production sent oil prices soaring above $120 a barrel this week, before settling at US$115.59 yesterday. But they were creeping up again today, jumping past $116 a gallon.
The Gulf has 4,000 oil rigs and half of America's refining capacity. Hundreds of offshore workers have already been pulled out and analysts said the storm could send US gas prices back over $4 a gallon.
"You're going to see increases by 5, 10, 15 cents a gallon," said Tom Kloza, publisher of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, New Jersey. "If we have a Katrina-type event, you're talking about gas prices going up another 30%."
Meanwhile, still well out in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Hanna continued to head westward, with forecasters warning it might pose a threat to the Bahamas by the middle of next week. It had sustained winds near 50 mph (85 kmph). Little change in strength is expected today, but the hurricane centre said Hanna could become a hurricane in the next few days.
Forecasters cautioned that the path of Gustav — like that of most hurricanes — remained uncertain.
"It is simply impossible to determine exactly where and when Gustav will make final landfall," said Richard Knabb of the hurricane centre. "The chances of hurricane-force winds within the next five days are essentially the same at each individual location from the Florida Panhandle coast westward through the entire coastline of Louisiana."
But with Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary falling today, Louisiana was not taking any chances and governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency. Texas Governor Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration, and both men put 8,000 National Guard troops on standby.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he would order a mandatory evacuation of the city if forecasters predict a Category 3 strike — or even a Category 2 — within 72 hours. Both Jindal and Nagin were meeting with the US homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, later today.
John McCain's spokesman said yesterday that Republican presidential candidate might postpone his party's national convention, due to start on Monday in St Paul, Minnesota, if the Gustav hit the US Gulf coast as a hurricane.
At least 59 people died in Haiti from floods, mudslides and falling trees, including 25 around the city of Jacmel, where Gustav first struck land on Tuesday. Eight more people were buried when a cliff gave way in the Dominican Republic.
Gustav is the first serious Atlantic storm since the 2005 hurricane season to threaten New Orleans and the 4,000 US energy platforms in the Gulf.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 124 platforms and severed pipelines when they swept through the Gulf of Mexico. Katrina came ashore near New Orleans on August 29, 2005, as a Category 3 hurricane and flooded the city. It killed 1,500 people along the Gulf Coast and caused $80bn in damage.
"I'm panicking," said Evelyn Fuselier of Chalmette, whose home was submerged in 14 feet (4 meters) of Katrina's floodwaters. "I keep thinking, 'Did the Corps fix the levees?,' 'Is my house going to flood again?' (...) 'Am I going to have to go through all this again?"'
2,000 feared dead in India flood
Indian government accused of playing down Bihar flooding with an official death toll of 65
Two thousand people are now feared dead in the floods caused after a river changed course, submerging hundreds of villages in northern India and sparking claims that the Indian government is playing down the scale of the tragedy.
Although the official death toll in India's Bihar state is just 65, aid agencies claim thousands are missing in the flooded area. The Kosi river breached its banks 11 days ago on the border with Nepal, flowing through a channel 75 miles (120km) east of its natural route.
ActionAid's emergencies adviser for Asia, Dr PV Unnikrishnan, said that by omitting those feared dead the authorities could 'underplay' the need for massive relief operations in the area.
"By not counting those gone missing, the government estimates not only result in inadequate compensation and rehabilitation processes, but also underplay the need for rescue and relief," said Unnikrishnan.
India's Disaster Management Division said more than 2.6 million people in 16 districts have been affected by the flooding.
A spokesperson for Britain's Department For International Development in Delhi said, although the Indian monsoon saw heavy rains every year, this summer it devastated an area that had historically never been under water.
"Last year 20 million people were affected. This year it's far less but they are in a region that does not have the capacity to deal with floodwaters like this," said the spokesperson.
Television pictures from the region showed a woman crying and waving at her husband, who could not find a place in a boat that was evacuating villagers. Another sequence showed a man in tears as he looked in vain for the rest of his family in a camp.
One major worry is about the loss of agricultural output. Bihar is the least urbanised state in India and more than 70% of its 90 million people rely on the land. The government says almost 101,200 hectares (250,000 acres) of farmland is now under water, destroying precious wheat and rice stocks.
Yesterday, the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, announced a £115m relief package and released 125,000 tonnes of emergency grain stocks. Officials in Bihar say large parts of the state are completely cut-off and aid agencies say there is a shortage of boats.
Although 400,000 have been moved to relief camps, ActionAid says people have been forced to drink unsafe water. There are concerns about the spread of diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases.
Although the Indian army has been drafted to airlift stranded villagers, many aid agencies complained that relief efforts were inadequate. "The camps are not organised yet and we are receiving reports of diseases," said Mukesh Puri of Unicef told Reuters.
Don't hide from the truth
- Many ethical consumers excuse their leather purchases on the grounds that skins are simply a byproduct of the meat industry. The reality is not so simple, as Kate Carter reveals
Models wearing leather hats at a Giorgio Armani show. Photograph: Prestige/Getty Images
Whether or not you chose to wear leather usually depends on your stance towards meat, be it vegan, vegetarian or carnivore. The issue of whether or not you are at ease with the practices of the meat industry is one for your own conscience: this column aims merely to provide some facts in an area where there is frequent misconception.
Many people happily wear leather on the grounds that it's a byproduct of animal slaughter for meat and therefore a form of recycling - waste not, want not. But is leather really a byproduct? Yes and no. It might be more accurate to describe it as a subsidy. It's very hard to get any statistics as the big meat companies are under no obligation to release figures, but the selling of skins can certainly be very profitable for farmers (while meat is not always so). You could therefore argue that by buying leather, you are supporting the meat industry.
Farmers don't sell hides for tuppence ha'penny out of the kindness of their hearts or from a desire to minimise waste. They are in a moneymaking business and need to maximise profits, and the leather industry is worth billions, if not trillions, of dollars annually. The profit depends on the animal involved: while cows, of course, provide most of the leather we use, there's an increasing demand for more exotic varieties.
Take ostrich, for example - in South Africa, ostrich farms are a developing industry. But there, the conventional picture is reversed: the skins account for some 80% of the slaughtered bird's value, and it is the meat that is sold as a byproduct. Again, if the bird's death doesn't bother you there's no moral problem, but don't kid yourself that the leather would have gone to waste if someone didn't buy it.
Another oddity is that demand is rising for organic or free-range meats, as an increasing number (though still a tiny minority) of people try to source their food as ethically as possible. Yet many of these same people will happily buy cheap leather. This makes no sense: if you won't tuck into a steak that came from a miserable animal, why buy its skin? Given much of the leather we use comes from countries where animal welfare is firmly at the bottom of the list of priorities, don't imagine your handbag previously led a happy life.
The softest, most luxurious leather comes from the skin of newborn or even unborn calves, cut prematurely out of their mother's wombs. Sometimes it will be from the same veal calves whose lives of misery are well documented. Many committed carnivores draw the line at veal: why then wear calfskin?
As I have tried to emphasise, if none of this troubles you then buying leather goods poses no problem. Clearly it would be hypocritical to happily devour a veal escalope but balk at buying a soft leather bag. But if it makes you slightly squeamish, consider cutting down on your leather purchases. If you feel sick, cut out leather altogether. It's your choice.
You may want to consider the environmental issues before making a decision. The process of tanning leather is incredibly toxic. Most is chrome tanned, which results in carcinogenic chromium (VI) being pumped into the water table. While most factories in Europe and America can no longer get away with this practice, the same cannot be said of the vast leather industry in China, where many bags, jackets, and shoes begin life - including many bound for the luxury market. While leather can be tanned used non-toxic vegetable dyes, chrome tanning is faster and produces a flexible leather that's better for high-end bags and coats, so there's no incentive for factories to switch.
Suffocating dead zones spread across world's oceans
Critically low oxygen levels now pose as great a threat to life in the world's oceans as overfishing and habitat loss, say experts
With more than 400 oxygen-starved dead zones in global coastal waters, scientists are calling for such dead zones to be recognised as one of the world's great environmental problems
Man-made pollution is spreading a growing number of suffocating dead zones across the world's seas with disastrous consequences for marine life, scientists have warned.
The experts say the hundreds of regions of critically low oxygen now affect a combined area the size of New Zealand, and that they pose as great a threat to life in the world's oceans as overfishing and habitat loss.
The number of such seabed zones – caused when massive algal blooms feeding off pollutants such as fertiliser die and decay – has boomed in the last decade. There were some 405 recorded in coastal waters worldwide in 2007, up from 305 in 1995 and 162 in the 1980s.
Robert Diaz, an oceans expert at the US Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, at Gloucester Point, said: "Dead zones were once rare. Now they're commonplace. There are more of them in more places."
Marine bacteria feed on the algae in the blooms after it has died and sunk to the bottom, and in doing so they use up all of the oxygen dissolved in the water. The resulting 'hypoxic' seabed zones can asphyxiate swathes of bottom dwelling organisms such as clams and worms, and disrupt fish populations.
Diaz and his colleague, Rutger Rosenberg of the department of marine ecology at the University of Gothenburg, call for more careful use of fertilisers to address the problem.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers say the dead zones must be viewed as one of the "major global environmental problems". They say: "There is no other variable of such ecological importance to coastal marine ecosystems that has changed so drastically over such a short time."
The key solution, they say, is to "keep fertilisers on the land and out of the sea". Changes in the way fertilisers and other pollutants are managed on land have already "virtually eliminated" dead zones from the Mersey and Thames estuaries, they say.
Diaz says his concern is shared by farmers who are worried about the high cost of fertilisers. "They certainly don't want to see their dollars flowing off their fields. Scientists and farmers need to continue working together to minimise the transfer of nutrients from land to sea."
The number of dead zones reported has doubled each decade since the 1960s, but the scientists say they are often ignored until they provoke problems among populations of larger creatures such as fish or lobsters. By killing or stunting the growth of bottom-dwelling organisms, the lack of oxygen denies food to creatures higher up the food chain.
The Baltic Sea, site of the world's largest dead zone, has lost about 30% of its available food energy, which has led to a significant decline in its fisheries.
The lack of oxygen can also force fish into warmer waters closer to the surface, perhaps making them more susceptible to disease.
The size of marine dead zones often fluctuates with the seasons. A massive dead zone, some 8,000 square miles across, forms each summer in the Gulf of Mexico as floodwater flushes nitrogen-rich fertiliser into the Mississippi River.
Experts said it was slightly smaller than expected this year because Hurricane Dolly stirred up the water. Dead zones require the water to be separated into layers, with little or no mixing between.
As well as fertilisers rich in nitrates and phosphates, sewage discharges also contribute to the problem because they help the algal blooms to flourish.
Diaz and Rosenberg say: "We believe it would be unrealistic to return to pre-industrial levels of nutrient input [to oceans], but an appropriate management goal would be to reduce nutrient inputs to levels that occurred in the middle of the past century," before the rise in added nutrients began to spread dead zones globally.
Climate change could be adding to the problem. Many regions are expected to experience more severe periods of heavy rain, which could wash more nutrients from farmland into rivers.
In May, scientists reported that oxygen-depleted zones in tropical oceans are expanding. They analysed oxygen levels in samples of seawater and found the effect was largest in the central and eastern tropical Atlantic and the equatorial Pacific. The increase could push oxygen-starved zones closer to the surface and give marine life such as fish less room to live and look for food.
The scientists, led by Lothar Stramma from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany, say the change could be linked to warming seas. At 0C, a litre of seawater can hold about 10ml of dissolved oxygen; at 25C this falls to 4ml. Stramma said: "Whether or not these observed changes in oxygen can be attributed to global warming alone is still unresolved." The reduction could also be down to natural processes working on shorter timescales, he said.
Why bees matter
The decline of bees won't just affect honey production – they're as important as the sun and rain in making crops grow.
A colony of honeybees at the US department of agriculture's research laboratory. Photograph: Haraz Ghanbari/AP
Britain's honeybees have suffered catastrophic losses this year according to the first survey of UK beekeepers. Close on one in three hives failed to make it through this winter and spring – that's about 80,000 colonies – leaving us with a potential crisis on our hands. Fewer honeybees will, as you'd expect, mean less honey. But as British honey only accounts for around 10% of the honey we consume in the UK, we should still be able to spread the sweet stuff on our toast well after the indigenous varieties run out, albeit at a higher price, as droughts in Argentina and the conversion of land for biofuel production reduce global supply.
More worryingly, insects pollinate a third of everything we humans eat – most fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, and forage for our livestock. As we become more and more dependent on a monoculture system of growing food, we become more reliant on the honeybee to do the bulk of this work; trucked into an area for just a few days or weeks when a single crop is blossoming, they can be moved in their hives to more fertile pastures when the orchards and fields turn into a barren wasteland. Not so the bumblebees, solitary bees, moths and butterflies who have suffered a sharp decline as a result of modern farming practices.
US farmers have already warned Congress that they are being forced to reduce their acreage of crops because of a shortage of honeybees for pollination and the subsequent rising cost of renting hives. Colony collapse disorder (CCD), the term used to describe the mysterious wipeout of more than a third of US honeybees – a million this year, 800,000 the year before – has not yet been confirmed in Britain.
Wet weather, the varroa mite and inappropriate controls to reduce the parasite are being blamed for our bee decline.
Whatever the causes, how long before the yields from British apple orchards are affected?
We could just import more food, but with honeybees dying on a similar scale around the world, our global food production is far from secure. Better to find the culprit. But that entails spending more money on research, something the UK government seems loath to do as made clear by its response to a petition backing the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA) call for £8m over five years to "fund scientific research into maintaining UK bee stocks".
But measures could be put in put in place now that don't cost anything, most importantly tighter pesticide controls. EU agriculture ministers have backed proposals for more stringent safety tests on pesticides including extra safeguards to ensure chemicals are not toxic to bees. Britain was one of the few countries that abstained from agreeing to this plan despite current tests being woefully inadequate for protecting honeybee colonies. Researchers have found that widely used pesticides can interfere with honeybees' sophisticated communication systems and impair memory. They have not been ruled out as one of the factors contributing to CCD in the US. British farmers warn that tighter controls could destroy their crop production – a view not shared by their European counterparts. Although the National Farmer's Union supports the BBKA's campaign for more government funding of bee research, it would do better to throw its weight behind stricter pesticide testing. The very chemicals it wants to save could be the ones aiding the destruction of honeybees which we need as much as the sun and rain to make their crops – and our food – grow.
Climate change: Prepare for global temperature rise of 4C, warns top scientist
Defra's chief adviser says we need strategy to adapt to potential catastrophic increase
Photograph: Clay Perry/Corbis
The UK should take active steps to prepare for dangerous climate change of perhaps 4C according to one of the government's chief scientific advisers.
In policy areas such as flood protection, agriculture and coastal erosion Professor Bob Watson said the country should plan for the effects of a 4C global average rise on pre-industrial levels. The EU is committed to limiting emissions globally so that temperatures do not rise more than 2C.
"There is no doubt that we should aim to limit changes in the global mean surface temperature to 2C above pre-industrial," Watson, the chief scientific adviser to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told the Guardian. "But given this is an ambitious target, and we don't know in detail how to limit greenhouse gas emissions to realise a 2 degree target, we should be prepared to adapt to 4C."
Globally, a 4C temperature rise would have a catastrophic impact.
According to the government's 2006 Stern review on the economics of climate change, between 7 million and 300 million more people would be affected by coastal flooding each year, there would be a 30-50% reduction in water availability in Southern Africa and the Mediterranean, agricultural yields would decline 15 to 35% in Africa and 20 to 50% of animal and plant species would face extinction.
In the UK, the most significant impact would be rising sea levels and inland flooding. Climate modellers also predict there would be an increase in heavy rainfall events in winter and drier summers.
Watson's plea to prepare for the worst was backed up by the government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King. He said that even with a comprehensive global deal to keep carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere at below 450 parts per million there is a 50% probability that temperatures would exceed 2C and a 20% probability they would exceed 3.5C.
"So even if we get the best possible global agreement to reduce greenhouse gasses on any rational basis you should be preparing for a 20% risk so I think Bob Watson is quite right to put up the figure of 4 degrees," he said.
One big unknown is the stage at which dangerous tipping points would be reached that lead to further warming - for example the release of methane hydrate deposits in the Arctic. "My own feeling is that if we get to a 4 degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase," said King.
He said a two-and-half-year analysis by the government's Foresight programme on the implications for coastal defences had more impact in the corridors of power than any other research on the effects of climate change that he presented.
"No other single factor focussed the minds of the cabinet more than the analysis that I produced through that ... We begin to have to talk about ordered retreat from some areas of Britain because it becomes impossible to defend," he said. "There's no choice here between adaptation and mitigation, we have to do both."
Other experts were concerned that Watson's comments might be seen as defeatist and an admission that emissions reductions were impossible to achieve.
"At 4 degrees we are basically into a different climate regime," said Prof Neil Adger, an expert on adaptation to climate change at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich.
"I think that is a dangerous mindset to be in. Thinking through the implications of 4 degrees of warming shows that the impacts are so significant that the only real adaptation strategy is to avoid that at all cost because of the pain and suffering that is going to cost.
"There is no science on how we are going to adapt to 4 degrees warming. It is actually pretty alarming," he added.
Speaking to the Guardian, Watson, who is a former science adviser to President Clinton and ex-chief scientist at the World Bank, said the UK should take a lead in research on carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Alluding to the US effort in the 1960s to put a man on the moon he advocated an "Apollo-type programme" to introduce 10 to 20 CCS pilot projects - which work by burying carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels underground - among OECD countries to develop the technology.
"This would allow coal-fired power plants that are currently being built to be modular and capable of having carbon capture retrofitted, and would show the world that we take the issue of climate change seriously, thus demonstrating real leadership. Without this technology we have a real problem."
He also said as coal burning is cleaned up to remove harmful sulphur pollution climate change would actually get worse. The sulphur aerosols are actually preventing some warming from taking place currently.
"This offsetting effect, which is equivalent to about 100 parts per million of carbon dioxide, will largely disappear if China and India follow the lead of the US and Europe in limiting sulphur emissions, the cause of acid deposition," he said.
Climate change: US environmental agency delays emissions regulation until end of Bush term
The US environmental protection agency (EPA) announced today that no action will be taken to regulate carbon emissions while George Bush remains president.
The EPA's decision to sit on its hands comes after months of wrangling between government scientists, who pressed for action in the wake of a landmark US supreme court ruling, and White House officials dead set against regulating pollution.
The supreme court ordered the EPA in April 2007 to officially rule on whether climate change endangers public health, a finding that would give the agency authority to regulate carbon under the US Clean Air Act.
State governments and green groups have slammed the agency with lawsuits protesting its 15-month silence on the issue.
But the EPA forestalled environmental action today with a unique response. Rather than weighing in on how to regulate emissions, agency administrator Stephen Johnson extended the period for public comment on climate change until after Bush leaves office, effectively depositing the problem in the lap of the next president.
"In almost every instance, [the EPA's climate change] work has raised further questions of such importance that the scope of the task has continued to expand," Johnson told reporters.
"If our nation is truly serious about regulating greenhouse gases, the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job ... It's really at the feet of Congress to come up with good legislation that will cut through what is likely to be decades of regulation and litigation," he added.
Before today's announcement, according to the Washington Post, Bush aides pressured the EPA to use unrealistic oil price estimates in a bid to drive down estimates of the economic benefit of regulating pollution.
"The administration didn't want to show a high-dollar value for reducing carbon," one EPA official told the Post.
The new maths urged by Bush aides depressed the EPA's projections for the economic benefit America would receive from carbon regulation from $2tn by 2020 to as little as $340bn.
The feud between EPA scientists and Bush-backing opponents of carbon regulation reached a peak this week amid explosive revelations by former agency official Jason Burnett.
Burnett, who resigned from the EPA in protest last month, told Congress that vice-president Dick Cheney's office intervened to censor testimony on the public health risks of climate change by the nation's top disease-control scientist.
After the supreme court ruled in favour of 12 US states that sued the EPA seeking action against climate change, the agency first tried to respond by stating directly that climate change is occurring and that carbon emissions are a danger.
When the EPA sent a proposed finding to White House officials for analysis, however, Bush aides refused to open the message to avoid acknowledging it. Burnett said this week that he was asked to pretend the message was mistakenly sent.
US environmental advocates were dealt another major setback today by a Washington appeals court that struck down the Bush administration's rule curbing smog and soot in the air.
The air pollutants rule was challenged by the state of North Carolina and some power companies, providing a rare opportunity for common ground between the EPA and green groups.
The court disagreed with the EPA's claim that it was permitted by the Clean Air Act to regulate pollution that can travel on the wind across state lines.
Andes face glacial meltdown
Melting glaciers in the Andes pose massive threats to the region - yet governments are reluctant to intervene
Glaciers in Peru are melting so quickly that by 2015 almost all of them may have disappeared. This is not just a problem for Peru but for the whole Andean Community of Nations, including Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador. These countries generate around 73% of their electricity from hydro energy. Ironically, this renewable source of energy risks disappearing because of melting glaciers caused by climate change.
The report, Climate change knows no borders, provides a chilling reminder of the catastrophic impacts of climate change on the Andean region. The evidence predicting the rapid loss of glaciers and a fiercer, more frequent El Niño effect, where ocean temperatures rise along the coasts of Ecuador and Peru, causing droughts and floods, reveals an uncertain and potentially destructive future for the region. The El Niño of 1997/8 had a devastating impact, leaving thousands dead or homeless, crops ruined, roads and bridges left smashed. The bill ran into billions of dollars.
If this wasn't enough, climate change could lead to further losses of up to $30 billion a year by 2025 in the Andean region while the effect of melting glaciers could place 40 million people at risk of losing their water supply.
It seems ironic that the highest number of the Kyoto Protocol's clean development mechanism projects in the Andean Community relate to the resource facing the greatest threat – water. The climatic stresses causing the loss of glaciers, and in turn jeopardising what many regard as a key constituent of rural development through electrification, may result in a vicious cycle. The loss of this vital resource, combined with high prices and scant political enthusiasm for other renewable options – geothermal, wind and solar – may result in countries resorting to an increase in the use of fossil fuels.
Considering the region's minor contribution to the world's greenhouse gas emissions this would be extremely counter-productive. It might also run the risk of undermining what has so far been a progressive stance on climate change at the international policy level. In 1993, Ecuador became the first developing country to ratify the climate convention. Although scientific evidence and past experience of extreme weather conditions have provided grounds for a strong rhetorical stand on climate change at the international level, Andean governments have been reluctant to integrate climate change strategies into the fabric of development policy.
Peru did not establish a ministry for the environment until May 2008, exposing a pattern played out regionally of weak state institutions, unequal access to natural resources, a lack of political will, non-existent funding, insufficient information and deficient infrastructure. The challenge of integrating development and climate change agendas is, therefore, critical.
The Andean Community is skating on thin ice as the longevity of one of its most important sources of renewable energy is thrown into doubt. The question remains whether or not the world will act, and if the ice will remain thick enough to support Andean sustainable development for the future.
Brown calls for eight new nuclear plants
· New stations to be part of 'nuclear renaissance'
· Oil price fears and climate change push agenda
Britain must build "at least" eight new nuclear power stations during the next 15 years to replace its ageing plants and contribute to a "post-oil economy" that is cleaner and much more efficient than in the era of "cheap energy and careless pollution", Gordon Brown signalled last night. The first new reactors could feed electricity into the national grid by 2017.
Ministers want the private sector to make the running, but fear that the parallel contraction of the UK's coal and oil-fired generating capacity, on environmental grounds, will trigger a serious energy gap unless the government moves decisively.
The prime minister called for "a renaissance of nuclear power" more than 20 years after major power station crises at Three Mile Island in the US and the Soviet plant at Chernobyl put a brake on nuclear stations as a growing energy source. In doing so, he pushed the government's explicit commitment to a nuclear agenda further than he has previously done - amid growing concern about global oil prices and the need to find alternatives.
Brown said: "Britain is moving quickly to replace its ageing fleet of nuclear power stations. All around the world I see renewed interest in this technology, as countries contemplate the alternative - continued oil dependence and unchecked climate change."
Critics of nuclear power will be dismayed, but the industry may welcome an end to what some have regarded as foot-dragging since the 2003 energy white paper. Prominent figures in the climate change debate, including the government's former chief scientist, Sir David King, have endorsed the nuclear path.
Brown used a speech to President Nicolas Sarkozy's "Club Med" conference of EU and Mediterranean states in Paris to set out a five-point plan for an oil replacement strategy, involving action at personal, local, national and international level and a range of energy options, from solar and wave power to clean coal and nuclear.
The prime minister did not directly mention the need for at least eight medium-sized power stations, each generating about 1.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to replace the 10 gigawatts supplied by nine existing plants, all but one of which are due to become obsolete by 2023. But aides say that is the figure he has in mind. It caught some MPs by surprise: "We don't normally do numbers," said one. Brown believes that this year's reform of planning procedures for big projects - passing "strategic need" decisions to an independent commission - will prove crucial to a rapid return to nuclear.
A Downing Street official explained: "The industry will not make the long-term investment required to build a new nuclear power station if they think the government is not totally committed to nuclear energy. That is why the Tory vote against the planning bill was so dangerous." Brown is irritated by David Cameron's green point-scoring which, he believes, lacks substance.
Sizewell B, in Suffolk, the only plant not yet set to close, opened in 1995, 12 years after the start of a two-year public inquiry and a go-ahead in 1987, the year after Chernobyl. Until Finland recently resumed its programme, no nuclear station had been built in the US or Europe since then.
It is widely expected that the existing nuclear sites, at Hinkley Point, Sizewell, Dungeness and Bradwell will be used for new plants - possibly more than one per site. Ministers intend to confirm the government's preferred sites by 2010.
One-off ivory sale to China condemned as 'poaching smokescreen'
Ivory trade ... An African elephant herd on the move in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. Photograph: Martin Harvey/A
A controversial decision to allow China to buy stockpiles of African elephant ivory looks set to go ahead this week after monitors from the group Traffic said the country had cracked down on its illegal domestic trade.
But campaigners are vehemently opposed to the sale, saying it would provide a "smokescreen" for increased poaching.
The 108 tonnes of ivory have been collected from culls in overpopulated areas, natural deaths and seizures and are being offered for sale by Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
International trade in ivory has been illegal since 1989, but in 2006 the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), which oversees the ban, agreed a one-off sale.
Only Japan has been approved as a buyer so far and a sale date is yet to be determined. But there is consensus that the four African countries are holding out for China to be approved, a move that will lead to competition and hence higher prices.
China also has the recommendation of the Cites Secretariat which says that anti-smuggling initiatives by China, the largest blackmarket for illegal ivory, have been effective. Cites's standing committee, meeting in Geneva, will decide if China's controls on the illegal trade are stringent enough to prevent illegal ivory being laundered with stock from the sale or it being re-exported.
"In 2002, China was the principal driver of the illegal trade and made very few seizures," said Tom Milliken, director of eastern and southern African operations for Traffic, which monitors the trade and advises Cites.
"Now it has been making seizures left, right and centre. They've added 100 seizures this year alone. On the domestic front China has moved aggressively."
'Big problem'
The increase in seizures in the past six years has been dramatic. According to the Elephant Trade Information System (Etis), the world's largest database of elephant ivory seizures compiled by Traffic, China is now involved in around 63% of seizures. In 2002 the figure was 6%. Milliken said the contrast with some central African countries is stark: Nigeria has made 12 seizures in 20 years.
Milliken said that China was also cracking down on retailers and had developed systems of certification. "When we go back to stores we flagged up as having illegal ivory they aren't selling it anymore or have been closed down. Product identification cards come with items legally sold and for items over a certain amount you get a photo ID."
Dr Meng Xianlin, head of the Chinese delegation to the Cites meeting in Geneva, said China needed legal ivory to maintain ancient carving traditions. He accepted that Chinese demand for ivory presents a "big problem" for elephant conservation, but argues that "the stockpiles are a positive way to solve this problem."
He added: "There is high pressure to control the illegal trade and we have the mechanism to prohibit illegal ivory going into the legal channel." However, he conceded "we cannot guarantee 100%" effectiveness.
While those supporting approval of the sale believe that linking legal ivory supplies with China's huge demand will reduce poaching and illegal trade, wildlife conservation groups say it still stimulates demand and will have the opposite effect.
A spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) said that only a total ban on China's domestic trade would stem demand. "Any legal trade creates a smokescreen. Any allowance gives a chance for unscrupulous dealers. It's very difficult to know how old ivory is or where it comes from. [Controls] don't solve the problem," she said.
Illegal trade
Michael Wamithi, director of the global Elephants Programme at Ifaw added: "China is the single largest destination for illegal ivory and to accept them as an importer for these legal stocks will only sustain the rampant poaching that African nations are faced with today. We hope Cites puts the brakes on these sales which will undoubtedly prompt even further slaughter."
Mary Rice, head of campaigns for the Environmental Investigation Agency, which carries out undercover investigations into illegal wildlife trading, said it was admirable that China was making seizures. But she said that while the increased activity might satisfy the requirements for approval as a buyer of the stockpiled ivory, it was not enough to stop all illegal trade.
"We think [China] is making headway but it's still not sufficient," she said. "When a sweep of a market is made there are often announcements in advance. Lower end items have certificates but no pictures – there's no way of matching them to the product.
"It's open to abuse. The Secretariat say China has met all the demands but based on the market place we don't see that."
Milliken said the chances of a sale are high: "There's real motivation for this sale. Last July a nine-year rest period after the sale was agreed by Cites so the southern African countries are keen to get this done. I think a sale will go ahead within months of this decision."
Nuclear leak pollutes water
Uranium spill … the Tricastin nuclear plant in southern France.
Photo: AFP
July 13, 2008
A NUCLEAR power plant in a tourist region of southern France has been closed after a uranium leak polluted the local water supply.
France's nuclear safety authority, ASN, cited a "series of faults and human negligence that is not acceptable" when it ordered the closure of the Tricastin nuclear plant in the Vaucluse region of Provence on Friday following an inspection. During the leak on Monday night, 75kilograms of untreated liquid uranium spilled into the ground.
Residents have been told not to drink water or eat fish from nearby rivers. Swimming, water sports and irrigating crops with the contaminated water are also forbidden.
ASN said it would recommend to local councils that they keep precautionary measures in place for at least a week.
But site operator Socatri, a subsidiary of French nuclear giant Areva, said it would permanently shut down the plant as part of a previously planned upgrade.
One of France's 58 nuclear plants, Tricastin is located in Bollene, about 50kilometres from the city of Avignon, which is hosting a major theatre festival.
"We take note of the ASN's decision," Socatri spokesman Hugues Blacher said. "We will take steps to ensure that this type of incident does not happen again."
ASN has criticised Socatri's handling of the crisis. Local ASN head Charles-Antoine Louet said Socatri had been too slow to inform authorities after the incident.
A safety inspection on Friday found "security steps aimed at preventing any further pollution were not completely satisfactory", an ASN statement said.
ASN also detected a series of "irregularities" among the site's operations at the time of the incident. It has ordered Socatri to implement "a reinforced surveillance plan including analysis of the surrounding rivers and groundwater".
It said its report would be handed to the state prosecutor for possible legal action against Socatri, which was singled out by ASN in May over "repeated leaks" in the site's waste water evacuation system last year.
Last week's leakage occurred when liquid was transferred from one container to another at the Tricastin site, which has a nuclear reactor and a radioactive treatment plant.
French ecology minister Jean-Louis Borloo insisted on Thursday there was "no imminent danger" to the local population.
But ASN found abnormal levels of radiation in several rivers and lakes in the region, although these levels were found to be decreasing.
The spill ranked as a level-one incident on the seven-point scale used to rate nuclear accidents.
Bush pushes Congress to allow oil drilling. Tell Bush NO!
WASHINGTON - President Bush prodded Congress on Friday to allow oil drilling in offshore waters and in the Alaskan wildlife refuge, citing "tough economic times" for the American people.
Of course, this is more reatoric from the chief pupet for the violent, oil hungry expansionists who can not see the forest for the trees, or the potential global disaster, as yet uncounted if this behavior continues.
Bush met with his senior economic advisers at the Energy Department to discuss soaring prices for gasoline and crude oil. Bush said one answer is to increase supply in this country by tapping "the vast potential" of crude oil reserves on offshore lands and in Alaska as well as in oil shale in the western part of the United States.
With gasoline prices above $4 a gallon, Bush and his Republican allies think American's reluctance to drill in pristine waters and lands is diminishing and that there is an opportunity for oil companies to move into areas that have been off limits.
"And yet the Democratic leaders of Congress have consistently blocked opening up these lands for exploration," the president said. He said that technology has changed dramatically and that oil can be recovered in a way that protects the environment.
"The members of Congress, particularly the Democratic leadership, must address this issue before they go home" in August, Bush said. "They have a responsibility to explain to their constituents why we should not be drilling for more oil here in America to take the pressure off of gasoline prices."
"Crude oil prices are up and one reason crude oil prices are up is because demand is outstripping supply," the president said. "And therefore what can we do about it? That ought to be the question the United States Congress asks."
ask yourself this, are the two related?
OPEC Leader Issues Warning About Iran and Oil Supply
By JAMES KANTER
Published: July 11, 2008
VIENNA — The head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries warned on Thursday that oil prices would experience an “unlimited” increase in the event of a military conflict involving Iran because the group’s members would be unable to make up the lost production."
“We really cannot replace Iran’s production — it’s not feasible to replace it,” Abdalla Salem el-Badri, the OPEC secretary general, said in an interview.
Iran, the second-largest producing country in OPEC after Saudi Arabia, produces about four million barrels of oil a day out of the daily worldwide production of close to 87 million barrels.
The country has been locked in a long dispute with Western nations over its nuclear ambitions.
In recent weeks, the price of oil has risen higher on speculation that Israel could be preparing an attack on the country’s nuclear facilities. The saber rattling intensified this week with missile tests by Iran.
That has further unnerved oil markets because of concerns that any conflict with Iran could disrupt oil shipments from the gulf. In New York, crude oil climbed $5.60, to $141.65 a barrel.
“The prices would go unlimited,” Mr. Badri said during the interview, referring to the effect of a military conflict. “I can’t give you a number.”
Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes.
Mr. Badri, a former oil executive who has headed the oil industry in Libya and served as deputy prime minister of that country, called for a peaceful solution, and he hinted that an additional conflict in the Middle East besides the continuing conflict in Iraq would be severe and long-lasting.
“If something happened there, nobody would be able to solve it,” he said, referring to a war involving Iran.
He said that current geopolitical tensions were among the main reasons for the high price of oil. He said that a shortfall in refining capacity and a weak dollar were other factors, but he reiterated OPEC’s position that speculation on oil markets probably was the most important one.
He insisted that reserves of oil were plentiful and that worries about scarcity were misplaced.
Supplies from Russia and Norway and other nations outside the 13-member OPEC will keep growing, helped by technologies like turning gas and coal into liquid fuel and extracting oil from tar sands and shale, he said.
Even so, he also sought to assuage concerns about a supply shock, saying that OPEC members, which contribute about 40 percent of daily worldwide production, were already investing $160 billion in new production capacity up to 2012.
But he said investment in future capacity could be frozen, potentially sharpening a dispute with customers over whether sufficient steps were being taken to meet demand.
Steps by the European Union and in the United States to cut dependence on fossil fuels meant that OPEC had no alternative but to take a cautious approach before going ahead with plans to invest up to $540 billion in oil production up to 2020.
“If we don’t see the demand, we are not going to invest,” Mr. Badri said, adding there was doubt over how much money members would invest after 2012. OPEC members “don’t want to spend their money on something they cannot use,” he said.
Gov. Schwarzenegger Requests Additional Federal Help and Resources Urgently Needed to Support State’s Firefighting Efforts
The Garden Planet supports California and hopes the president listens....
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sent the following letter to President Bush requesting additional federal resources that California urgently needs to fight the ongoing wildfires and prepare for more lightning strikes later this week.
The request includes:
- Federal active duty forces to provide additional Type II firefighting handcrews to meet shortages;
- Additional out-of-state federal firefighters available to provide training for National Guard personnel as Type II handcrews; and
- Increasing the “Maximum Efficiency Level” (MEL) for the U.S. Forest Service to 100 percent.
Text of the letter: July 9, 2008
The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
As you know, California is in the midst of battling unprecedented wildfires that have stretched our state’s firefighting resources to their limit and placed thousands of Californians in immediate danger. On the heels of lightning storms in June that ignited more than 1,700 fires across the state, we now face extremely high temperatures and increased fuel loads that are exacerbating fire conditions and putting our communities and firefighters and other first responders at risk. With more lightning storms forecast for later this week, we sit at a critical tipping point in California that requires immediate federal help and aggressive pre-positioning of federal resources.
While significant federal support has come to California – including your federal emergency declaration of June 28 and the ongoing efforts by federal firefighters who are working heroically alongside state and local firefighters – we continue to face shortages of federal assets. It is with the greatest urgency that I bring this issue to your attention and urge your immediate action.
As of July 8, 2008 California had placed requests for the following assets with the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho: 302 hand crews; 41 helicopters; 616 fire engines; and 773 support personnel. In addition, we are calling on NIFC daily for additional air tankers that are critical to suppressing the flames. These numbers change daily based on the current fire status; I ask that you direct your federal agencies, working through the NIFC, to make all requested assets available to California.
I extend California’s thanks to the National Guard and the U.S. Department of Defense for making key aviation assets available to California. To date, I have ordered hundreds of California National Guardsmen to the firefighting front lines and anticipate calling up more. However, California’s troops can only absorb so much of this responsibility while maintaining their ability to respond to the additional requirements of the existing fire emergency and other potential missions and emergencies. Consequently, I respectfully request federal active duty forces to provide additional Type II firefighting handcrews to meet our shortages. I also request that the federal government make additional out-of-state federal firefighters available to provide training for National Guard personnel as Type II handcrews. We cannot spare the in-state firefighting resources necessary to train this key resource.
I also request that, for the current fire season, the federal government increase the “Maximum Efficiency Level” (MEL) for the U.S. Forest Service to 100 percent, and that you personally ensure that federal incident commanders can make strategic and operational decisions to protect life and property based on operational need without fiscal pressure from your Office of Management and Budget.
Of the 100 million acres in California, one third are protected by local government, one third are protected by the state and one third are protected by the federal government. As you know, this shared stewardship for California’s land brings both significant opportunity and enormous responsibility.
A high level of federal, state and local government cooperation is the key to success in battling California’s wildfires and protecting the people, property and natural resources in the Golden State. On behalf of California, I thank you for your efforts to help us protect our communities and our emergency responders.
Sincerely,
Arnold Schwarzenegger
cc: The Honorable Michael Chertoff
The Honorable Ed Schafer
General Victor E. Renuart, Jr., USAF
Members of the California Congressional Delegation
A third of reef-building corals threatened with extinction: scientists
GENEVA (AFP) - A third of reef-building corals worldwide are threatened with extinction due to climate change and water pollution, according to the first global assessment on the marine creature by 39 scientists.
Destructive fishing and the degradation of coastal habitats also posed threats, said the study published Thursday involving the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Conservation International.
"The results of this study are very disconcerting," said Kent Carpenter, lead author of the study which examined 845 coral reef species.
"When corals die off, so do the other plants and animals that depend on coral reefs for food and shelter, and this can lead to the collapse of entire ecosystems," he added.
Roger McManus from Conservation International said that reef-building corals in particular were "most vulnerable to the effects of climate change".
Sea temperature rises bleach and weaken the algae that give the underwater sea life its vibrant colour, and make it more susceptible to diseases.
As they are home to over 25 percent of marine species -- including fish stocks -- loss of reefs could also impact coastal fishing communities.
"The loss of the corals will have profound implications for millions of people who depend on coral reefs for their livelihoods," said McManus.
According to the study, the Caribbean region has the highest number of highly threatened corals.
Due to huge human populations in the region, the Indo-Malay-Philippine archipelago also has the highest proportions of vulnerable and almost threatened species in the Indo-Pacific.
"We either reduce our CO2 emission now or many corals will be lost forever," warned Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN Director General.
Another ANTARCTICA ICE SHEET Going...
PARIS (AFP) - New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday. Images taken by its Envisat remote-sensing satellite show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is "hanging by its last thread" to Charcot Island, one of the plate's key anchors to the Antarctic peninsula, ESA said in a press release.
"Since the connection to the island... helps stabilise the ice shelf, it is likely the breakup of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk," it said.
Wilkins Ice Shelf had been stable for most of the last century, covering around 16,000 square kilometres (6,000 square miles), or about the size of Northern Ireland, before it began to retreat in the 1990s.
Since then several large areas have broken away, and two big breakoffs this year left only a narrow ice bridge about 2.7 kilometres (1.7 miles) wide to connect the shelf to Charcot and nearby Latady Island.
The latest images, taken by Envisat's radar, say fractures have now opened up in this bridge and adjacent areas of the plate are disintegrating, creating large icebergs.
Scientists are puzzled and concerned by the event, ESA added.
The Antarctic peninsula -- the tongue of land that juts northward from the white continent towards South America -- has had one of the highest rates of warming anywhere in the world in recent decades.
But this latest stage of the breakup occurred during the Southern Hemisphere's winter, when atmospheric temperatures are at their lowest.
One idea is that warmer water from the Southern Ocean is reaching the underside of the ice shelf and thinning it rapidly from underneath.
"Wilkins Ice Shelf is the most recent in a long, and growing, list of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula that are responding to the rapid warming that has occurred in this area over the last fifty years," researcher David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said.
"Current events are showing that we were being too conservative, when we made the prediction in the early 1990s that Wilkins Ice Shelf would be lost within 30 years. The truth is, it is going more quickly than we guessed."
In the past three decades, six Antarctic ice shelves have collapsed completely -- Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf.
Trailer trip saves beached whale
Alert ... the whale after being taken to Takapuna Beach (left and above) is helped out to sea.
July 6, 2008
A KILLER whale beached near Auckland has been transported by road and released off the city's north shore.
The 3.4-metre female, estimated to be three years old, was reported at 3pm on Friday to have been beached at Huia.
The whale was looked after overnight by Project Jonah and Department of Conservation staff.
Department spokesman Bill Trusewich said the whale was small enough to be handled and a decision was made yesterday morning to move it by trailer to Takapuna where the water was calmer.
The 43-kilometre journey took about 90 minutes.
Mr Trusewich said it did not take long for the whale to be refloated.
"Within 10 minutes it was able to regain its stability again and move off by itself," he said.
As it made its way out to Rangitoto Channel it was being monitored to ensure it did not try to come back ashore or lose its bearings.
Source: The Sun-Herald
Wildlife extinction rates 'seriously underestimated'
Mountain gorilla in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda.Photograph: Andy Rouse/Corbis
Endangered species may become extinct 100 times faster than previously thought, scientists warned today, in a bleak re-assessment of the threat to global biodiversity.
Writing in the journal Nature, leading ecologists claim that methods used to predict when species will die out are seriously flawed, and dramatically underestimate the speed at which some plants and animals will be wiped out.
The findings suggest that animals such as the western gorilla, the Sumatran tiger and the Malayan sun bear, the smallest of the bear family, may become extinct much sooner than conservationists feared.
Ecologists Brett Melbourne at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Alan Hastings at the University of California, Davis, said conservation organisations should use updated extinction models to urgently re-evaluate the risks to wildlife.
"Some species could have months instead of years left, while other species that haven't even been identified as under threat yet should be listed as endangered," said Melbourne.
The warning has particular implications for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which compiles an annual "red list" of endangered species. Last year, the list upgraded western gorillas to critically endangered, after populations of a subspecies were found to be decimated by Ebola virus and commercial trade in bush meat. The Yangtze river dolphin was listed as critically endangered, but is possibly already extinct.
The researchers analysed mathematical models used to predict extinction risks and found that while they included some factors that are crucial to predicting a species' survival, they overlooked others. For example, models took into account that some animals might die from rare accidents, such as falling out of a tree. They also included chance environmental threats, such as sudden heatwaves or rain storms that could kill animals off.
But Melbourne and Hastings highlighted two other factors that extinction models fail to include, the first being the proportion of males to females in a population, the second the difference in reproductive success between individuals in the group. When they factored these into risk assessments for species, they found the danger of them becoming extinct rose substantially.
"The older models could be severely overestimating the time to extinction. Some species could go extinct 100 times sooner than we expect," Melbourne said.
The researchers showed that the missing factors - the number of males to females, and variations in the number of offspring - were capable of causing unexpected, large swings in the size of a population, sometimes causing it to grow, but also increasing the risk that a population could crash and become extinct.
To test the new models, Melbourne's team studied populations of beetles in the laboratory. "The results showed the old models misdiagnosed the importance of different types of randomness, much like miscalculating the odds in an unfamiliar game of cards because you didn't know the rules," he said.
For some endangered species, such as mountain gorillas, conservationists could collect data on specific individuals and plug them into models to predict their chances of survival. "For many other species, like stocks of marine fish, the best biologists can do is to measure abundances and population fluctuations," Melbourne added.
Craig Hilton-Taylor, who manages the IUCN red list in Cambridge, said extinction estimates are often inadequate. "We are certainly underestimating the number of species that are in danger of becoming extinct, because there are around 1.8 million described species and we've only been able to assess 41,000 of those," he said.
The latest study could help refine models used to decide which species are put on the red list, he said. "We are constantly looking at how we evaluate extinction risk, and it may be they have hit on something that can help us," he said.
More than 16,000 species worldwide are currently threatened with extinction, according to a 2007 report from the IUCN. One in four mammal species, one in eight bird species and one in three amphibian species are on the organisation's red list. An updated list is due to be published in October.
Next week, the IUCN is expected to highlight the dire state of the world's corals after surveying the condition of more than 1,000 species around the world.
biofuel caused food crisis
Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive
A handful of corn before it is processed. Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.
The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels.
It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a "significant" part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.
"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat."
Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation".
President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."
Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices.
Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher.
"Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate," says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period.
It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.
Other reviews of the food crisis looked at it over a much longer period, or have not linked these three factors, and so arrived at smaller estimates of the impact from biofuels. But the report author, Don Mitchell, is a senior economist at the Bank and has done a detailed, month-by-month analysis of the surge in food prices, which allows much closer examination of the link between biofuels and food supply.
The report points out biofuels derived from sugarcane, which Brazil specializes in, have not had such a dramatic impact.
Supporters of biofuels argue that they are a greener alternative to relying on oil and other fossil fuels, but even that claim has been disputed by some experts, who argue that it does not apply to US production of ethanol from plants.
"It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices," said Dr David King, the government's former chief scientific adviser, last night. "All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change."
Raging Wildfire Forces Evacuation
AP
BIG SUR, Calif. — Authorities ordered the remaining residents of this scenic coastal community to leave Wednesday because an out-of-control wildfire, one of hundreds in California, had jumped a fire line and was threatening more homes.
Flames raged in the hills above and ash fell from orange skies as evacuees in packed cars streamed north along Highway 1, the only major road out of Big Sur. Sheriff's deputies told residents they needed to leave the area by late afternoon.
"The fire is just a big raging animal right now," said Darby Marshall, spokesman for the Monterey County Office of Emergency Services.
Photos from the California firefight
The blaze near Big Sur is one of more than 1,100 wildfires, mostly ignited by lightning, that have scorched more than 770 square miles and destroyed 64 homes and buildings across northern and central California since June 20, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
New mandatory evacuation notices were issued Wednesday for a 31-mile stretch along Highway 1. Authorities have closed a total of 25 miles of the scenic roadway, blocking access to popular resorts, restaurants, shops and art galleries that attract tourists from around the world.
The blaze had destroyed 16 homes and charred about 81 square miles of forest since it was started by lightning on June 21 in the Los Padres National Forest. It was only about 3 percent contained and officials told evacuees at a public meeting Wednesday evening that they didn't expect full containment until the end of the month.
The new evacuation notice means that all of the roughly 850 residents who live along the Big Sur coast from Andrew Molera State Park to Limekiln State Park have been ordered to leave, Marshall said.
Janna Fournier, a Big Sur resident for eight years, was heading back to her house to retrieve artwork and rescue her pet tarantula.
"I feel sad for the wilderness and the people who lost their homes," Fournier said. "We chose to live in a wilderness among all this beauty, so I know there's that chance you always take."
Helicopters hauling large containers of water droned loudly overhead as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, R. David Paulison, visited Big Sur on Wednesday.
"This is a very dangerous fire right now because of the wind and because of how dry things are and how early in the year it is," Paulison said in an interview. "If people evacuate like they're told to, we shouldn't lose any lives. ... My only concern is that people don't take it seriously enough."
Federal fire managers predict an increase in severe wildfire activity in Northern California through October because of the unusually hot, dry weather and scant rain.
In Southern California, a fire in the southern extension of the Los Padres National Forest north of Santa Barbara caused mandatory evacuations of about 45 people in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains.
Officials said the fire had burned 1,200 acres of rough terrain by Wednesday evening.
About 150,000 Southern California Edison customers in Goleta and Santa Barbara were without electricity shortly after 7 p.m. when thick smoke forced the shutdown of power transmission lines, utility spokeswoman Lois Pitter Bruce said. Power has been restored to about half of the affected customers.
Santa Barbara city fire Battalion Chief Christopher Blair said the power lines were "putting a light show on the hill" as they shot sparks and lights blinked on and off.
In the Sequoia National Forest east of Bakersfield, crews struggled to contain a 13,500-acre blaze. Powerful gusts and choking smoke traveling up the steep canyons hampered their progress, and residents of neighboring towns were ordered to evacuate.
Rough terrain in the Santa Ynez area hampered firefighters, said Santa Barbara County spokesman William Boyer. "It's mostly an aerial battle," he said.
Elsewhere, a wildfire threatened 15 homes and the Okanogan tribal bingo casino near Okanogan, Wash., and some residents had been evacuated, said Ron Bowen of the state fire marshal's office. The blaze had covered 1,500 acres — just over 2 square miles — and the state sent people and equipment to help Bureau of Indian Affairs firefighters, officials said.
Firefighters near Crown King, Ariz., were hacking away at brush and trees and burning back land near the town on Wednesday to try to quell a blaze that had burned nearly 12 square miles of land.
Go sustainable to survive the crunch
Will recession force people to ditch good environmental habits? It shouldn't: going green is the best solution to a financial squeeze
All comments (14)
Over the last five years we have witnessed what I describe as a "greenrush". Businesses and consumers alike – one driven by the other – have sought to become more environmentally and socially responsible, with varying degrees of practical and perceived success.
However, today, as we sit on our forest stewardship council-certified wooden chairs, on the verge of a recession, we find ourselves asking whether this trend can survive. As the prices of many everyday items spiral out of control, are consumers now set to "dump values for value"? The answer is both yes, and no.
In the last decade, public awareness of the key sustainability issues of our generation has risen as has public perception of the power of big business. Ten years of mega-mergers, each more substantial than the next, have done little to alter this perception. The new breed of behemoth brands and businesses has been at the forefront of the greenrush; desperate to prove to consumers and regulators that big does not necessarily equate to bad. This behaviour, coupled with the invasive transparency of the digital revolution, has resulted in an unprecedented growth in public expectation of business.
By enthusiastically showing that they can be part of the solution, businesses have inadvertently opened Pandora's box. There can be no going back.
Today's consumers want more from business, and following an unprecedented period of economic growth, they have become unaccustomed to compromise. They are looking for value, but they are also looking for authenticity, transparency and responsibility. As a recession takes hold, it's true that consumers may themselves be willing to compromise, but they are unlikely to react sympathetically if businesses and brands try the same trick.
As consumers get used to questioning what they spend their hard earned money on, they will place businesses under an unprecedented level of scrutiny. Ironically, in doing so they may inadvertently find themselves making some fundamentally more sustainable choices. This is certainly true in the automotive market where consumers are currently downshifting from large 4x4s to more economical vehicles in their droves.
Throughout the recent greenrush a fundamental misunderstanding had become established in the consumer mindset – namely that buying products and services that have a lower environmental impact is costly and therefore a luxury. This is a direct result of the premium pricing strategy that many businesses have adopted, and the lack of easily accessible and credible information on environmental impact.
This misunderstanding is fundamentally wrong on a number of levels.
Firstly, there is the obvious point that in general, consuming less equates to less environmental impact. This is the paradox of environmental consumerism. And then there is the observation that products that are more environmentally friendly tend to have used (and use) fewer resources than their conventional counterparts, and should therefore be cheaper to buy or run.
Following the principles of environmental efficiency enables us to do more with less. I can't think of a better message during a downturn. Smart businesses, governments and individuals will seek out efficiency and the competitive advantage that it brings.
In the short term, there will be a number of unsavoury consequences. For example, as the oil price soars perhaps to the $200 mark within the next year, businesses like Shell and BP will seek to exploit hard-to-extract oil resources like Canada's carbon-heavy tar sands. But in the long-term this trend will be self-defeating: it will act only to stabilise oil prices at a high level, while simultaneously increasing the economic viability of alternatives. The investment that oil majors are making in unconventional reserves is only viable if the oil price remains high. Big oil will very soon have a vested interest in maintaining a price that will ultimately lead to a decisive shift towards renewable energy.
From a corporate perspective, there is no doubt that many shortsighted businesses will stop, or even reverse, investment in sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiatives. But I don't view this as a serious cause for concern – instead, I argue that it could and should be viewed as a bonus. We have all had more than enough of greenwash.
Sustainability will simply enter a new, and more robust, phase of its development. A recession is likely to foster a more genuine sustainability, removing inefficient and vacuous programmes, and leaving the most effective and authentic in their place.
Although an economic downturn will have many negative consequences, the pain won't last forever. It's my contention that those businesses that use the time to lay reputational and practical foundations for success, by working on relevant issues that matter to real people, will be those that emerge with real competitive advantage when the downturn lifts.
Operation Musashi – Designed for Controversy
Commentary by Captain Paul Watson
Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
I knew that when I chose the name for our next Antarctic campaign to defend the whales that it would be controversial. That was the point.
Some critics have suggested that I have foolishly named our next campaign to Antarctica as Operation Musashi without understanding who Musashi was.
They are wrong!
Apparently some people seem to think that I was ignorant of the legend of Miyamoto Musashi, and specifically of the famous woodcut depicting him slaying a whale with his sword.
Why would I choose a whale killer as a symbol for our campaign to protect and defend whales?
I will tell you why.
First I have read the biographies of Miyamoto Musashi and I used his Book of Five Rings, along with Sun Tzu’s Art of War in writing my book Earthforce! – The Earth Warrior’s Guide to Strategy.
Musashi may very well be depicted as slaying a whale with his sword but there is no evidence that he actually slew a whale. Musashi is the greatest legendary warrior in Japanese history and legends have a tendency to be embellished. St. Patrick did not in actual fact drive the snakes out of Ireland – they were never there to be driven out. St. George did not literally slay a dragon, and William Wallace despite Mel Gibson’s efforts never met either Robert the Bruce or the Princess of Wales.
The woodcut of Musashi killing a whale was created by the artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) over four hundred years after the death of the legendary Samurai warrior.
The work was done sometime between 1847 and 1852.
This is quite interesting because it coincides with the publication of Moby Dick by Herman Melville in 1851.
In the woodcut, Musashi appears like Ahab.
I have always felt that Ahab was the most sympathetic character in Moby Dick because he was the one man who considered the whale to be equal to man and thus his rage was directed at Moby Dick motivated by desire for revenge at the loss of his leg. Starbuck by contrast dismisses Moby Dick as a dumb beast. Ahab knew better.
That was why in 1976, the Greenpeace campaign to protect whales was named Project Ahab by Robert Hunter. I sailed on that voyage as 1st Officer and Hunter often referred to us as Ahab’s Children. Hunter understood that we had a duty to reverse the bad karma of our ancestors for killing whales by saving them in the present.
But more interesting yet is the fact that Moby Dick was based on the legend of Mocha Dick, a real whale who lived in the early part of the 19th Century and who had slain numerous whalers. His name was feared throughout the Pacific Ocean and the stories of this great warrior whale had indeed reached Japan through the trade routes with the Dutch.
It would be reasonable to assume that a Japanese artist like Kuniyoshi would have resurrected Musashi the hero to subdue this new “monster.” Legends are like modern comic book heroes and heroes are often used in a revisionist manner to entertain and to dramatize current events.
Whaling was not a part of Musashi’s reality while he lived and I highly doubt that he ever ate whale meat because he was a vegetarian.
Musashi was a man of simple tastes. He was not an eater of meat. He grew his own food and writes of his efforts to do so claiming that the challenges of farming required the discipline of a warrior.
Could Musashi have slain a whale with his sword? Not likely in a culture and a time where few were inclined nor permitted by law to venture onto the sea. Could he have jumped upon a swimming whale and stabbed it repeatedly with his sword? Again not likely and why would he have done so?
If Musashi did slay a whale then he would have done so out of compassion and such a killing would have been a mercy slaying of a beached and dying whale. From what I know of Musashi, he would have indeed allowed his sword to be used to relieve suffering.
Musashi did not kill thoughtlessly nor needlessly and he did not participate in the destruction of nature’s beauty. And the one thing that Musashi distained more than anything else were the politicians and the bureaucrats of his day.
It must be remembered that Miyamoto Musashi was an outlaw, the Robin Hood and the Jesse James of his era and his country.
As an Outlaw his approach was that of a pirate and as a man who had no use for materialism, he was a pirate warrior for truth and self awareness and his enemy was – the system. He always chose the underdog and notably he fought on the losing side – he opposed the Tokugawa dynasty. He was no lap dog to the Shogun. He was his own man.
I choose Musashi because of his specific strategy of the two-fold way of pen and sword. In other words, victory in the campaign to end Japanese whaling can be found in a combination of high seas dramatic confrontations and media exposure of these confrontations that expose the crimes of the whalers to the international public.
I also choose Musashi because he is someone most Japanese are familiar with. He is also the most anti-Japanese, Japanese hero in Japanese history. Musashi thought for himself and was an individual non-conformist in a culture of rigid conformity. He was a seeker of truth and knowledge. He rejected the position of sword-master to the Shogun of Japan because he was not a servant to any man but was a servant to both nature and to the discipline of his arts.
In choosing Musashi I selected a name that would reflect respect upon Japanese culture and thus would expose the contradictions of the bureaucrats who seek to use nationalism to justify their illegal international crimes.
Musashi represented the true characteristics of the Japanese people when not controlled by government and bureaucracy – the virtues of compassion, the search for truth, and respect for nature.
I believe that Musashi would be on our ship if he were here today just as “Yoko” was on our last campaign.
“Yoko” had come from Japan because she was repulsed by the horror of the Japanese slaughter of the whales and the dolphins. It took great courage to join our crew in our campaign against the Japanese whaling fleet. It took courage for her to speak to the Japanese media about the truth of whaling – she was a true daughter of the spirit of Musashi.
She masked her identity to protect her family from harassment in Japan and we called her Yoko Musashi.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is not anti-Japanese. We share some very similar values with the tradition of the Samurai.
Samurai means to serve. We, the warriors of Sea Shepherd serve the cause of the whales. The way of the Samurai is the resolute acceptance of death and in this there is no doubt that Sea Shepherd campaigns have seen crewmembers take awesome risks to protect marine species.
My crew demonstrates the courage of the Samurai and they respect the fact that our duty is to serve our clients first and foremost and we serve the whales in this campaign.
And in this approach we are students of Miyamoto Musashi and I believe that Musashi’s strategies are part of the key towards attaining victory over the enemies of the whale, the enemies of nature and the enemies of our future.
As the legendary Lakota warrior Crazy Horse would have said, “hoka hey.”
Operation Musashi will be the most aggressive and most effective campaign against illegal Japanese whaling ever and we intend to sink the Japanese fleet economically and we intend to save the lives of as many whales as we can and we intend to do it with the sword of compassion meaning we will cause no harm in our efforts to prevent harm.
Japan to suspend humpback hunt until 2009
Japan is expected to agree to suspend hunting humpback whales for at least another year, the head of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) says.
IWC chair Bill Hogarth said he had convinced the Japanese not to include humpbacks in their scientific whaling program until at least 2009.
Dr Hogarth said allowing the Japanese fleet to include the species in its quota would have further split an already deeply-divided IWC.
"I think Japan ... will honour that until 2009 or get to the point when we do make bargains or don't make bargains," Dr Hogarth said.
Japan had planned to include 50 humpbacks in last summer's hunt but backed down after strong condemnation from the global community.
Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett, who has arrived in Chile for the IWC meeting, plans to present a proposal to have the commission focus on the conservation of whales through non-lethal scientific research.
"What I will be emphasising is Australia's clear views on opposing the killing of whales in the Southern Ocean in the name of science and advocating a well researched proposal to modernise the IWC by introducing conservation management plans for whales, developing collaborative research partnerships and bringing about an end to so-called scientific whaling," Mr Garrett said.
Mr Garrett said the federal government would not compromise over the killing of whales for commercial or scientific purposes.
"Australia hasn't come to the whaling commission to compromise at all," Mr Garrett said.
"We are absolutely strongly of the view that we do not want to see the commercial exploitation of whale populations ... This commission needs to concentrate on the science of conservation, not on the science of killing whales, and that is the view we are taking to this meeting this week."
Mr Garrett said that in order to resolve these issues the IWC must be reformed into a legitimate scientific body.
"Australia comes to this IWC with the clearest of views and that is we need to reform an organisation which has not been able to satisfactorily resolve any of these issues in the past," he said.
"All that's happened is that we've had a sequence of arguments and acrimony and failed process.
"If we're serious about the whaling commission being a body that resolves these issues then it needs to be based in legitimate, grounded and agreed science."
AAP
Bush to Congress: Embrace energy exploration now
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - With gasoline topping $4 a gallon, President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to lift its long-standing ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, saying the United States needs to increase its energy production. Democrats quickly rejected the idea.
"There is no excuse for delay," the president said in a statement in the Rose Garden. With the presidential election just months away, Bush made a pointed attack on Democrats, accusing them of obstructing his energy proposals and blaming them for high gasoline costs. His proposal echoed a call by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to open the Continental Shelf for exploration
"Families across the country are looking to Washington for a response," Bush said.
Congressional Democrats were quick to reject the push for lifting the drilling moratorium, saying oil companies already have 68 million acres offshore waters under lease that are not being developed.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Bush's proposals "another page from (an)... energy policy that was literally written by the oil industry — give away more public resources."
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee, rejected lifting the drilling moratorium that has been supported by a succession of presidents for nearly two decades.
"This is not something that's going to give consumers short-term relief and it is not a long-term solution to our problems with fossil fuels generally and oil in particular," said Obama. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, lumping Bush with McCain, accused them of staging a "cynical campaign ploy" that won't help lower energy prices.
"Despite what President Bush, John McCain and their friends in the oil industry claim, we cannot drill our way out of this problem," Reid said. "The math is simple: America has just three percent of the world's oil reserves, but Americans use a quarter of its oil."
Bush said offshore drilling could yield up to 18 billion barrels of oil over time, although it would take years for production to start. Bush also said offshore drilling would take pressure off prices over time.
There are two prohibitions on offshore drilling, one imposed by Congress and another by executive order signed by Bush's father in 1990. Bush's brother, Jeb, fiercely opposed offshore drilling when he was governor of Florida. What the president now proposes would rescind his father's decision — but the president took the position that Congress has to act first and then he would follow behind.
Asked why Bush doesn't act first and lift the ban, Keith Hennessey, the director of the president's economic council, said: "He thinks that probably the most productive way to work with this Congress is to try to do it in tandem."
Before Bush spoke, the House Appropriations Committee postponed a vote it had scheduled for Wednesday on legislation doing the opposite of what the president asked — extending Congress' ban on offshore drilling. Lawmakers said they wanted to focus on a disaster relief bill for the battered Midwest.
Bush also proposed opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, lifting restrictions on oil shale leasing in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and easing the regulatory process to expand oil refining capacity.
With Americans deeply pessimistic about the economy, Bush tried to put on the onus on Congress. He acknowledged that his new proposals would take years to have a full effect, hardly the type of news that will help drivers at the gas stations now. The White House says no quick fix exists.
Still, Bush said Congress was obstructing progress — and directly contributing to consumers' pain at the pump.
"I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past," Bush said. "Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions."
Bush said that if congressional leaders head home for their July 4 recess without taking action, they will need to explain why "$4 a gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act. And Americans will rightly ask how high gas prices have to rise before the Democratic-controlled Congress will do something about it."
Bush said restrictions on offshore drilling have become "outdated and counterproductive."
In a nod to the environmental arguments against drilling, Bush said technology has come a long way. These days, he said, oil exploration off the coastline can be done in a way that "is out of sight, protects coral reefs and habitats, and protects against oil spills."
Congressional Democrats, joined by some GOP lawmakers from coastal states, have opposed lifting the prohibition that has barred energy companies from waters along both the
