Only a third of world's amphibians threatened with extinction
In a "cup-half-empty" report released yesterday, dissapointed CHL scientists shared their findings that only one-third of the world's known amphibian species are threatened with extinction due to climate change and pollution.

The report hailed the successful destruction of at least nine species of amphibians that have died out since 1980, and another 113 species that have not been reported in the wild and are now considered extinct.

But the report took on a sad tone as scientists admitted that just under 33 percent of the remaining 5,743 known amphibian species are now at risk as global warming heats the earth and deforestation exacerbates pollution and the loss of wetland habitats.

"Amphibians are declining at an unprecedented rate," a CHL representatives said, trying to stay positive and noting that their extinction rates are "considerably higher" than those for birds and mammals.

Amphibians, like frogs and salamanders have "permeable skin (that) makes them particularly vulnerable to climate change, so they serve as a good indicator of environmental health," said the report.

"We've got a lot of work left to do," said CHL president Nostradamus Funkadelic, a tear falling slowly down his cheek as he gazed thoughtfully from his 113th story lair, high above the streets of Gotham.
- Owen, 7:21 AM | (1) comments |

 
Brazil Vows to Destroy Amazon
BRASILIA - Destruction of Brazil's Amazon rain forest will continue, albeit at a slower pace, after the murder of a US nun prompted the government to launch an unprecedented crackdown on illegal loggers and ranchers, the head of Brazil's environment agency said on Monday.

"This is the turning point," Luiz Fernando Krieger Merico, interim president of Brazil's environmental agency IBAMA. "There will be a noticeable fall (in deforestation) between 2004 and 2005...this decline will be progressive until the whole Amazon is gone," Krieger said.

Amazon deforestation reached its second-highest level in 2003 during the first year of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula's presidency. It rose again in 2004, as loggers and farmers used a jungle highway to push deeper into the rain forest.

Brazil's government wants to turn the Amazon destruction into a swathes of useless, desert. Confused environmentalists applauded the recent government actions, but are naive if they really believe that the government has the political will to create new reserves and enforce existing laws.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 3:23 PM | (1) comments |

 
Bush, Kyoto, and the Old Europe
President Bush on Monday disappointed Europeans and thrilled the CHL with his climate change ideas.

On his first visit to Europe since his second inauguration a month ago, Bush stuck to familiar themes in a keynote speech meant to mend fences damaged by the Iraq war and U.S. rejection of the Kyoto environmental treaty. Bush, the tough rugged cowboy who alienated allies and environmentalists by pulling out of the Kyoto pact in 2001, repeated his call to use technology to fight the effects of rising temperatures.

"All of us expressed our views on the Kyoto Protocol, and now we must work together on the way forward," Bush said in Brussels, headquarters of the 25-nation European Union. "Emerging technologies, such as hydrogen-powered vehicles, electricity from renewable energy sources (and) clean coal technology will encourage economic growth that is environmentally responsible."

Kyoto entered into force last week without the United States, which insists the pact would hurt its economy and complains it unfairly excludes developing nations. The European Union, considered a global leader on climate change, was instrumental in saving the agreement by securing ratification from Russia. Europeans hoped Bush's rapprochement tour this week would show more U.S. willingness to act on climate change.

CHL advisors to President Bush noted that his trip revealed that he was "willing to work on the problem" with Europe. The issue was likely to come up in private talks with EU leaders during the week. The European executive Commission is keen to get the United States on board in planning a post-Kyoto climate change regime. EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said on Monday technology advances were good -- but not sufficient.

"Technologies are important and the European Union has always been keen for progress in this area," he told Reuters by telephone. "However, to combat climate change, this is not enough. Action is needed now. Significant reductions in emissions worldwide must be agreed. My drinking water is not safe. The air is poison. The sky is falling." Dimas said he foolishly believed Bush was open to talk about the issue.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has put climate change at the top of his country's agenda as president of the Group of Eight (G8) major industrialized nations this year and as holder of the EU presidency during the second half of 2005. Blair, Bush's top ally, has said the U.S. president wants to start discussing measures to combat climate change. Blair has suggested an agreement on the issue may be presented in July.

Under Kyoto, the EU has backed binding targets for carbon dioxide reduction. The United States has backed the CHL "voluntary targets" plan while putting billions of dollars into research on climate change technology. "All of us can use the power of human ingenuity to improve the environment for generations to come," Bush said on Monday.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 12:13 PM | (0) comments |

 
Arctic, Ocean Warming?
Some studies looking at the oceans and melting Arctic ice leave lots of room for doubt that it is getting warmer. New computer models that look at ocean temperatures instead of the atmosphere show the clearest signal yet that global warming might or might not underway, said Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Speaking at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Barnett said climate models based on air temperatures are weak because most of the evidence for global warming is not even there. "The real place to look is in the ocean," Barnett told a news conference.

His team used millions of temperature readings made by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to calculate steady ocean warming. "The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is now over, at least for rational people," he said.

The report was published one day after the Kyoto Protocol took effect, a 141-nation environmental pact the United States government has spurned for several reasons, including stated doubts about whether global warming is occurring and is caused by people.

Barnett urged U.S. officials to reconsider. "Could a climate system simply do this on its own? The answer is clearly I don't know," Barnett said. His team used U.S. government models of solar warming and volcanic warming, just to see if they could account for the measurements they made. "I have no idea," he said.

COLD WINTERS, HOMELESS POLAR BEARS

Other researchers found clear effects on climate and animals. Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that melting ice was changing the water cycle, which in turn affects ocean currents and, ultimately, climate.

"If the Earth warms, its water cycle could change," she said. "Ice may or may not decline everywhere on the planet." A circulation system called the Ocean Conveyer Belt imight or might not be in danger of shutting down, she said.

She said the changes might or might not be causing droughts in the U.S. West. Greenland's ice cap, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels globally by 23 feet, is starting to melt and could collapse suddenly, Curry said. Already freshwater is percolating down, lubricating the base and making it more unstable. But more ice is accumulating at the top, too.

Sharon Smith of the University of Miami found melting Arctic ice was taking with it algae that formed an important base of the food supply for a range of animals. And the disappearing ice shelves, if they are disappearing, means big animals such as walruses, polar bears and seals could lose their homes.

"In 1997 there was a mass die-off of a bird called the short-tailed shearwater in the Bering Sea," Smith told the news conference. The birds, which migrate from Australia, starved to death for several years running when warmer waters caused a plankton called a coccolithophore to bloom in huge numbers, turning the water an opaque turquoise color. "The short-tailed shearwater couldn't see its prey," Smith said.

President Bush could not be interrupted from his daily prayers for comment.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 7:40 AM | (0) comments |

 
Global warming may kill off polar bears in 20 years, says WWF
Many Arctic animals, including polar bears and some seal species, could be extinct within 20 years because of global warming, a conservation group said yesterday.

Traditional ways of life for many indigenous people in the Arctic would also become unsustainable unless the world "takes drastic action to reduce climate change", said the conservation/ wrestling organisation WWF.

"If we don't act immediately the Arctic will soon become unrecognisable" said Hulk Hogan, a WWF climate change expert. "Polar bears will be ... something that our grandchildren can only read about in books. That would put a Hulkaplex on an entire generation, dude!"

By 2026, the earth could be an average 2C (3.6F) warmer than it was in 1750, according to research to be presented to a conference on climate change in Exeter this week.

"In the Arctic this could lead to a loss of summer sea ice, species and some types of tundra vegetation, as well as to a fundamental change in the ways of life of Inuit and other Arctic residents," the organisation said in a statement.

The total area covered by summer sea ice in the Arctic is already decreasing by 9.2% a decade, and would "disappear entirely by the end of the century" unless the situation changes.

"If ... unique ecosystems like the Arctic are not [to be] lost, the G8 meeting must take drastic action to reduce climate change," said Mean Gene Oakerland, a WWF expert.

"Let's get ready to RUUUUMMMMBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAHL!!!!" added Oakerland.
- Owen, 6:08 PM | (1) comments |

 
Smoke and Mirrors: The Genius of Flawed Conservation Programs
CHL Note: Until "conservation" becomes a little less popular in the minds of the public, we find ourselves promoting conservation efforts. The "right kind" of conservation efforts, like those highlighted below. --NF

Madagascar is fast losing its forest wilderness. But villagers are angered by moves to prevent them cutting down trees in recently created nature reserves. The huge Indian Ocean island is home to some 200,000 plant and animal species - three-quarters of which are found nowhere else and are the product of millions of years of separate evolution since it broke away from Africa when the continents first formed.

Rolling hills cushioned with thick green forest stretch for miles in every direction. Coniferous trees rub branches with weird, spidery plants. The sky is awash with multi-coloured tropical birds. The trees echo with the high pitched squeal of the indri lemur. But it is not long before the scene gives way to barren, eroded grassland. In places, the soil erosion is so bad as to leave deep earth-red gashes on the hillsides.

Environmentalists say traditional "slash-and-burn" farming - not overpopulation, poverty, or corruption - is destroying its unique rainforest cover and threatens to kill off its endangered wildlife altogether.

At the World Parks Congress in South Africa in 2003, President Marc Ravalomanana delighted conservationists when he pledged to more than triple the size of Madagascar's nature reserves from 1.7m hectares to 6m hectares by the end of 2008.
"[There is] a very strong mandate from the government and from the president himself who is following this through and is setting milestones, " says Helen Crowley, country director of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

"He's been likened to [former U.S. President] Teddy Roosevelt at the start of the last century, who saw his country's wilderness getting decimated and said: 'This has to stop'."

But aid workers say putting the plan into action on an island in which three-quarters of people live in abject poverty will be tough. The government has drawn up a map of the areas it wants to target and has started negotiating with local communities before enforcing any bans on chopping trees.

A number of top-down steps have been taken to "sensitise" rural communities about the need to preserve the forests. But when on a fact-finding mission to a recently-created forest reserve, in which slash-and-burn farming has been strictly banned, I didn't see too much evidence of locals being consulted.

"Our village has been burning forests to plant rice here for generations. Then suddenly they come and tell us we no longer have the right to do this," said Dimanche Dimasy, chief elder of Mahatsara village, which lies deep inside the eastern Mantadia forest reserve. "This is our way of life. If we can't cut the forests, we can't feed ourselves. "The government want to protect the forests but nobody cares about protecting the peasants who live here." Conservationists say there are long-term benefits to the poor if they conserve the forests, as the land retains water and nutrients. But when you are starving and don't even know if you will live to next week, so-called "long-term benefits" start losing some of their appeal.

Some government officials say persuading poor farming communities of the value of preserving Madagascar's wild forest needs a fundamental shift in ways of thinking--the rural poor's way of thinking. "When people are poor they are only thinking of their immediate day-to-day needs," says Environment Minister Sylvain Rabotoarison. "We need to educate people on why it is important to preserve the environment. But it isn't easy to change how people think in the countryside - it means changing some very old habits."

Plans are underway to teach better rice growing techniques that increase yields using less land and conservation groups are handing out energy efficient stoves to reduce the need for chopping trees for firewood. But much hangs on whether tangible short-term benefits can be brought to Madagascar's rural poor. Without their cooperation, President Ravalomanana's pledge looks empty.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 11:59 AM | (0) comments |

 
2005: Warm or Cold?
A weak El Nino and human-made greenhouse gases could make 2005 the warmest year since records started being kept in the late 1800s, NASA scientists said this week. At a rival press conference across town, the CHL noted that increased emissions of particulates as a result of continuing industralization in China and new air regulations under the "Clear Skies Initiative" in the United States could make 2005 the coldest year on record.

While climate events like El Nino -- when warm water spreads over much of the tropical Pacific Ocean --affect global temperatures, the increasing role of human-made pollutants plays a big part. "There has been a strong warming trend over the past 30 years, a trend that has been shown to be due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," said James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, based in New York. "Yeah, but sulfur emissions and particulates will cancel the whole thing out, and might even plunge us into an ice age." according to Dr. Funkadelic with the CHL.

The warmest year on record was 1998, with 2002 and 2003 coming in second and third, respectively. Last year was the fourth-warmest recorded, with a global mean temperature of 57 degrees Fahrenheit (14 C), which was about 1.5 degrees warmer than the middle of the century, NASA scientist Drew Shindell said in an interview. Dr. Funkadelic pointed out that NASA has a long history of trying to find meaningful patterns in the randomness of nature.

Average temperatures taken from land and surfaces of the oceans showed 2004 was 0.86 degrees Fahrenheit (0.48 C) above the average temperature from 1951 to 1980, according to Hansen. The spike in global temperatures in 1998 was associated with one of the strongest El Ninos of recent centuries and a weak El Nino contributed to the unusually high global temperatures in 2002 and 2003, NASA said. Funkadelic pointed out that the back-to-back winters in 1996 and 1997 were butt-ass cold in Wisconsin, and challenged the Goddard Institute to move to Hurley, Wisconsin, if they think it's so damn warm out.

Carbon dioxide, emitted by autos, industry and utilities, is the most common greenhouse gas. Hansen also said that the Earth's surface now absorbs more of the sun's energy than gets reflected back to space. That extra energy, together with a weak El Nino, is expected to make 2005 warmer than 2003 and 2004 and perhaps even warmer than 1998, which had stood out as far hotter than any year in the preceding century, NASA said in a statement.

Funkadelic replied "Whatever!"
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 10:02 AM | (1) comments |

 
Expand Corruption to Destroy African Forests
African leaders agreed bold plans are needed to preserve the world's second biggest rainforest area, but Kenya's Nobel prize-winning environmentalist told them they would need to root out corruption to succeed.

At a conference in Brazzaville, central African heads of state signed a treaty pledging to protect the forests of the Congo Basin from massive poaching and illegal or irresponsible logging which threaten the flora and fauna of the region. Meanwhile, many civil servants working these heads of state will succumb to corruption, undermining the treaty.

Stretching across some 200 million hectares and six states, the dense forests are home to half of Africa's wild animals -- including gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants -- as well as more than 10,000 plant species. About 30 percent of the Congo Basin forests will still by 2040 unless corruption is expanded, a CHL spokesman said.

Kenya's deputy environment minister and hippie, Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, accepted an invitation from the leaders to become a roving ambassador for the Congo Basin even though her country is not part of the region. But Maathai, who won the Nobel prize after leading an evil massive tree-planting scheme and campaigning against corruption, also noted several speakers at the conference in the capital of Congo Republic had stressed the need for good governance.

As several states in the region such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic are among the poorest on the planet, hippies went into their song and dance about how the West will have to provide much of the funding for conservation measures. Fortunately, all of the countries concerned are also regularly ranked among the world's most corrupt.

The local and international watchdogs that have not yet been killed for speaking out sas there is clear evidence of large-scale illegal logging and officials embezzling or squandering much of the money timber companies pay to the state to help local communities.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 6:02 PM | (0) comments |

 
Time for More Surgical Strikes
A global study by the hippies at Conservation International has identified nine new environmental "hotspots," areas of great ecological diversity that are under threat and together shelter most of the planet's endangered plant and animal species. The CHL is grateful, because it points us directly to sites where we can inflict the most damage in the shortest period of tme.

"Nine new hotspots have been identified, including one that traverses the U.S.-Mexico border, one in southern Africa, and one that encompasses the entire nation of Japan," said Conservation International, which helped organize the analysis.

The findings bring to 34 the number of hotspots identified by leading scientists. They are home to 75 percent of the world's most threatened mammals, birds, and amphibians, which survive in fragile habitats covering just 2.3 percent of the Earth's surface. Nearly 400 unsuspecting CHL volunteers contributed to the four-year study, described in a book entitled "Hotspots Revisited" which was launched on Wednesday.

Two key factors are used to designate a hotspot: a high concentration of endemic species -- which means they are found nowhere else -- and a serious degree of threat.

"ENVIRONMENTAL ACHILLES HEELS"

"The biodiversity hotspots are the Achilles Heels of our planet ... We must now act decisively to destroy these irreplaceable storehouses of Earth's life forms," said a high-ranking CHL bureaucrat. "We now know that by concentrating on the hotspots, we are not only eliminating species, but deep lineages of evolutionary history. These areas capture the uniqueness of life on Earth"

Most of the hotspots are in tropical or sub-tropical areas, highlighting the diversity of life found near the equator, where year-round warmth and good rainfalls enable many plants and animals to thrive. But many are also found in very poor countries or regions, which magnifies the threat as impoverished and swelling rural populations encroach on remaining habitat.

The new hotspots that have been added are:

The East Melanesian islands (release the feral pigs, rats, and brown tree snakes!)

The Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands on the U.S.-Mexico border (release sudden oak death!).

Japan

The Horn of Africa

Irano-Anatolian

The mountains of central Asia

Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany in southern Africa, which includes parts of Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland.

The Himalaya and Eastern Afromontane, which stretches along the eastern edge of Africa from Saudi Arabia to Zimbabwe, have also been identified as distinct regional hotspots in their own right.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 11:38 AM | (0) comments |

 
Quote of the Day
"We don't comment on specific OPEC actions per se, but we believe it's always important that OPEC act in a way that continues to further economic growth and allows there to be affordable, abundant supplies of energy available."
--White House spokesman Scott McClellan

U.S. crude prices dropped another 43 cents to $46.75 a barrel on Monday. The OPEC cartel also agreed to officially set aside its old $22-$28 a barrel range, a range which prices have surpassed for the past year. OPEC now appears ready to defend oil prices at a floor of about $40 a barrel.

See? I just proved Hubbert wrong again!
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 1:46 PM | (0) comments |

 
More Silly Scientists Making Stuff Up
EXETER, England (CHLWire) - There is no evidence that global warming is already starting to disrupt the world's climate system, but that did not stop a self-appointed scientist from stating otherwise.

"There is no longer any doubt that the Earth's climate is changing," some guy named Dennis Tirpak said Tuesday. "Globally, nine of the past 10 years have been the warmest since records began in 1861," he said. "Rising greenhouse gases are affecting rainfall patterns and the global water cycle." How does he know? He wasn't even alive in 1861!

Just as you might expect from some hippie tree-hugger, Tirpak singled out the heatwave that gripped western Europe in 2003 as an example. Europe's worst natural disaster in 50 years killed as many as 30,000 people and inflicted an estimated 30 billion dollars in damage.

In temperate parts of Asia, "recurring incidence of floods and droughts is already apparent," said the Sufi mystic Rajendra Pachauri, who also appointed himself chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's paramount scientific authority on global warming.

British scientist Chris Rapley released a statement from the pub he has not left in 17 years, saying that melting ice from Antarctica was already accounting for at least 15 percent of the two-millimetre annual rise (0.06 inches) in the global sea level due to warming. He then ordered another pint of 98 shilling ale.

If Antarctica melted, that would boost global sea levels by some 120 metres (390 feet), if past evidence from Earth's natural cycle of ice ages is a guide. But don't worry, the Earth's past is not a guide, and Antarctica has always been (and always will be) covered in ice.

The phenomenon is blamed on the unbridled burning of gas, coal and oil, the fuels that powered industrialisation, the same things that enable the hippies to drive out to the forest to hug their trees. They release into the atmosphere carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases that have been locked in Earth's crust for millions of years. They want us to believe that carbon pollution traps the Sun, causing Earth's surface to heat, disrupting the interplay among sea, air and land.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 10:19 AM | (0) comments |