Planetary Ruin

In recent official statements, Washington has indicated it might be looking for a compromise during negotiations in Bali for a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But sources say the White House is discreetly searching for partners in Beijing and Dehli to derail the prospects for any binding agreements to curb emissions of greenhouse gases.

In the run-up to the Bali Climate Conference that opened Monday, the administration of US President George W. Bush established contact with representatives of the Chinese and Indian governments in an attempt to curb progress on climate protection initiatives…

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What concerns me with the US attempts to bring the other 2 largest emission contributors together in an alliance to stop protection initiatives, is that all 3 will be able to blame the other 2. And essentially, nothing will be done.

Big corporations will make more money I suppose.

And some more extinctions will occur.

And the little ball floating in space that we reply on for our survival will get a little dirtier.

The question that remains is, at what point do those extinctions that no one seems to worry about include the human species? Bet we care then.

Servicemen and firefighters were battling to protect the electricity supplies of half a million people last night as the highest flood waters in memory continued to rise.

The Government announced an independent inquiry as water levels in the Thames and the Severn exceeded those of the devastating floods of 1947 and were forecast to rise to 20ft (6m) higher than normal.

More than 10,000 families have been left homeless in the West Country and Thames Valley over the past four days and thousands of others have been told to leave their homes as a mass of water surges down river. Electricity supplies to 50,000 homes have been cut and 150,000 homes have been left without water.

The Times was told last night that the utility companies were warned by the Government seven years ago that they needed to make key facilities flood-proof to protect supplies. The Castlemeads power station near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, was shut down yesterday morning, however, leaving more than 50,000 homes without electricity. Supplies to a further 500,000 homes were under threat as a 250-strong force of military personnel and firefighters attempted to prevent rising waters overwhelming the Walham substation.

There was a glimmer of hope last night when the Environment Agency said that the Severn appeared to have peaked two inches below the level that would have overwhelmed the substation. An agency spokesman warned, however, that it was still a “dangerous situation”.

The level of the Thames in Oxford may not peak until early Wednesday. Eight severe flood warnings and 50 other flood warnings remained in place last night as further rain added to the misery. Emergency planning teams met in Cambridgeshire after a flood warning was placed on the Great Ouse and the police prepared for possible floods around St Neots.

Hundreds more troops have been put on standby to help the police and fire services to rescue trapped families and provide humanitarian aid to villages that have been cut off since Friday night. Defence sources said that regional commanders were working at police headquarters in the worst-affected areas and providing troops and equipment whenever requested.

More than 350,000 people in Gloucester were told that they would be left without water after a treatment plant was overwhelmed by the floods. The police were called to guard supplies of bottled water at supermarkets after fights between customers. Severn Trent Water said last night that the households could be without water for up to two weeks.

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Scientists on the US Pacific coast are increasingly observing emaciated gray whales in what they fear is a sign that global warming is wreaking havoc in the whales’ Bering Sea summer feeding grounds.
The scientists fear that the same phenomenon is cutting back reproduction in the Pacific whale population to the point it could be facing a new crisis, after recovering in the mid-1990s and graduating from the endangered species list.

“The gray whales are migrating later, not going as far north, and are producing fewer calves,” Steven Swartz, head researcher with the National Marine Fisheries Service told AFP.

Swartz, who with his team meticulously photograph and identify the migrating whales, estimates that at least ten percent of the population is seriously skinny.

“Instead of looking plump coming off the summer months, they have noticeable depressions behind the head, with scapulas visible through the skin, and concave sections above the tail,” he added. “This is enough to cause alarm.”

Swartz has studied the pacific whale population since 1977 and last saw a major whale die-off in 1999 when an El Nino warming cycle left traditional northern feeding grounds barren and claimed one third of the population.

He has partnered with scientists at the Autonomous University of Baja Sur, Mexico since 1996, keeping tabs on the whales’ calving and migration, the longest of any mammal.

The most recent gray whale survey in 2001 showed a decrease of thirty percent in five years. Researchers are now holding their breaths while final tabulations are completed on a current survey, and are bracing for another drop, said Swartz.

“We have yet to find any indications of disease in the population,” said Swartz. “When times are tough and there is less food out there, the whales do not reproduce. It’s possible that they are birthing somewhere else, but we have a lot of people looking, and we have not found them.”

The San Ignacio lagoon, one of four gray whale breeding grounds off the Pacific coast of Mexico, can be used as a litmus test for the reproductive rate of the species, said Swartz.

In the early 1980s, 350 calves were born in these waters every February. This past winter the number was closer to 100.

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Burping cows and sheep are being targeted by UK scientists to help bring down Britain’s soaring levels of greenhouse gas pollution. Experts at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth say the diet of farmed animals can be changed to make them produce less methane, a more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide. Farmed ruminant animals are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of “man-made” methane emissions worldwide though, contrary to common belief, most gas emerges from their front, not rear, ends.

Mike Abberton, a scientist at the institute, said farmers could help tackle climate change by growing grass varieties bred to have high sugar levels, white clover and birdsfoot trefoil, a leafy legume, for their animals to eat. The altered diet changes the way that bacteria in the stomachs of the animals break down plant material into waste gas, he said. The institute has started a new government research programme, with the universities of Wales and Reading, to investigate how this process could be improved. A similar project in New Zealand suggested that dietary changes could reduce methane emissions from sheep by up to 50%.
Dr Abberton said: “It’s very unlikely that we’ll get that sort of reduction in the UK but it could still make a significant difference. Making the animals’ diet more digestible can lower their methane emissions.” A single cow can produce between 100 and 200 litres of methane every day. Farmers regularly re-sow their fields so Dr Abberton said the switch in diet could be relatively straightforward. Birdsfoot trefoil can be difficult to grow, he said, but part of the new project is to develop more suitable varieties.

As well as helping to reduce methane production, growing legumes such as clover could help replenish soil nitrogen levels because they naturally attract bacteria and fungi that fix it from the air. In a separate project, Giles Oldroyd, a plant scientist at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, is working on ways to genetically modify other plants such as wheat so they can mimic this nitrogen-fixing ability, an advance he called the holy grail of crop research because it would dramatically cut the use of synthetic fertilisers.

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Water temperatures of up to 82 degrees killed hundreds of rainbow and brown trout on the Firehole River this past week as warm, dry weather continues to pummel the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

Officials noticed the kill after they issued a fishing advisory Friday for a number of waterways in the park, asking anglers to avoid fishing low elevation waters between noon and 6:00 p.m. The partial fishing closure is voluntary, but could become mandatory if warm conditions persist. The voluntary closure starts Saturday.

According to Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash, water temperatures in a number of waterways have exceeded 73 degrees, which can be stressful or even fatal for trout.

The fish kill in the Firehole ranged from Midway Geyser Basin downstream to Firehole Cascades. The Firehole River maintains higher temperatures than other rivers in the park because of geothermal features that heat the water.

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