Planetary Ruin

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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NBC’s three-hour Live Earth primetime special, which included highlights from Saturday’s global concerts, failed to generate much enthusiasm in the ratings.

The estimated 2.7 million viewers were slightly less than the 3 million NBC would average on a normal Saturday night in the summer with repeats on what already is the least-popular night of television.

It was less successful than what MSN experienced online for Live Earth. MSN said Monday that more than 8 million users streamed 15.4 million videos of Live Earth on MSN live. That’s ahead of the 5 million people who watched 2005′s Live 8 concert via AOL.

Ratings for individual cable networks weren’t available until today, but Nielsen Media Research said Monday that 19 million people tuned in to at least six minutes of the telecasts on NBC, Bravo, Sundance or the other NBC Universal channels that were involved in Sunday’s telecast.

NBC’s telecast performed below the Live 8 concert two years ago, according to preliminary estimates by Nielsen Media Research.
 

The three-hour concert special from Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., drew a 0.9 rating/3 share in adults 18-49 — the same as a typical summer Saturday after Memorial Day.

The special on NBC also was a little less than ABC’s primetime coverage of the Live 8 concert on July 2, 2005. Live 8 averaged 2.9 million viewers and a 1.0 rating/5 share in adults 18-49.

In all, users streamed 30 million videos of Live Earth concert footage on MSN live and on-demand as of Monday morning, said Rob Bennett, GM of entertainment, video and sports at MSN.

Bennett also said that with 237,000 users logged on around midday Saturday, MSN’s Live Earth webcast broke the record for most simultaneous viewers of an online entertainment event. The previous record was 175,000 streaming users for Live 8 on AOL.

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The city opened nearly 300 cooling centers Monday as temperatures across much of the Northeast surpassed 90 degrees—the hottest in the metropolitan area since a heat wave last year that was blamed for 40 deaths.

Extra utility crews were on hand in case of power outages, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged residents to help prevent blackouts by conserving power. He urged New Yorkers not to exert themselves in the sweltering conditions.

“It is very hot,” Bloomberg said. “I don’t care how good a runner you are, I don’t care how strong you are, you should take some precautions to prevent strokes.”

The temperature in Central Park hit 90 degrees at 1 p.m. High temperatures were forecast in the 90s through Wednesday.

“This is the first heat wave this year,” said Joe Pollina, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Last year, a heat wave in late July and early August caused 40 deaths from heat stroke and contributed to the deaths of another 60 people.

On Monday, the city opened its network of 290 cooling shelters for the first time in 2007, offering people without air conditioning a break from the heat at senior centers and community buildings.

But one social worker with an senior-service agency cautioned that the cooling centers may not be enough.

“We’ve seen that the city has done a good job of publicizing the cooling centers, but it’s often hard for seniors to get there,” said Karen Fuller, director of health and nutrition services for Dorot, an agency that delivers meals and other services to homebound seniors.

The commissioner of the city’s Department for the Aging, Edwin Mendez- Santiago, urged seniors to make sure someone checks on them.

“Make sure you’re planning in advance, that you have water, that you use your air conditioner. And if you don’t have an air conditioner, seek respite at a cooling site or any other location where you can cool off,” he said.

Extra utility workers were in place to guard against blackouts like the ones that plagued the borough of Queens and suburban Westchester County in July 2006, when 174,000 people lost service or experienced low voltage.

“There will be outages in the summertime,” Consolidated Edison utility spokesman Alfonso Quiroz said. “And we’re just hoping that when they come they are short in duration and few in number.”

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America’s main coal mining union said on Monday former Vice President Al Gore’s Live Earth concert pledge to fight for a ban on new coal-fired power plants was “short-sighted.”

And the main trade group of mine operators backed the union, saying it was premature to call for an end to coal-fired electricity generation when the technology to reduce greenhouse gases is still being developed.

Gore urged fans at the concerts held around the world on July 7 to commit to a seven-point pledge to cut carbon emissions and to lobby governments and employers to do more to save the planet.

The third point on the pledge states: “To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2.”

Approximately 50 percent of current U.S. electricity is generated by coal-burning plants.

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Former US vice president Al Gore took a swipe at global warming doubters Saturday as he opened the Washington leg of the worldwide Live Earth concerts that he helped organize.
Washington was a last-minute addition to the global event months after organizers failed to find a space on the US capital’s National Mall, a sprawling green space featuring monuments including the Congress building.

Other events had reportedly already booked spaces for the same day on the Mall, while a subsequent bid by some lawmakers to bring the show to the doorsteps of the US Capitol was blocked by some Republican lawmakers.

But the National Museum of the American Indian finally offered its venue on the Mall for the show, which featured the Native American band Blues Nation and an acoustic performance from country music stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.

“Some who don’t understand what is now at stake tried to stop this event on the Mall,” the former Democratic presidential candidate said in a thinly veiled hit on members of President George W. Bush’s Republican party.

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“If you want to save the planet, I want you to start jumping up and down!” Thus Madonna revealed her plan to combat global warming. Clad in a black satin leotard, she gyrated with dancers and simulated sex with an amplifier and a guitar. Along with the Foo Fighters, the 48-year-old Queen of Pop transformed a Live Earth concert that at times had seemed earnest and slow.

Security was tight Saturday at the Wembley Stadium event, which fell on the second anniversary of the deadly terrorist attacks on London’s mass transit system and only a week after a plot to set off car bombs in the capital failed. The weather — which in recent weeks has driven thousands from their homes because of flooding — stayed fair for the afternoon.

The interspersing of musical numbers with lectures on climate change gave much of the show a staccato feel. The Black Eyed Peas were the first band to really get the crowd dancing; other early big draws were Metallica, Keane, Duran Duran and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as the crowd awaited the appearance of the headliner, Madonna.

It’s an inconvenient truth, but mixing rock with recycling is awkward. In a TV interview earlier this week, Matt Bellamy of the band Muse mocked the event as “private jets for climate change.”

John Buckley of Carbon Footprint, an organization that helps companies reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, said Saturday that Live Earth will produce about 74,500 tons of the gas.

“We would have to plant 100,000 trees to offset the effect of Live Earth,” he said, speaking by telephone. But, he added, “if you can reach 2 billion people and raise awareness, that’s pretty fantastic.”

Certainly, on the way into the show, some of the 65,000 people who’d spent $110 on a ticket appeared unaware of the seven-point pledge that Al Gore, the event’s chief impresario, had asked all spectators to make. Asked about it, they offered blank looks and said they were there for Madonna (whose annual carbon footprint, according to Buckley, is 1,018 tons — about 92 times the 11 tons an average person uses per year).

“I’m not even sure who Gore is,” said Georgie Simpson, 35, from Ipswich, in eastern England. “I saw Gore on TV,” added Sue Bourner, 38, a health service manager from Hampshire. “But frankly, I think it’s cheeky of Americans to come over here and lecture us. They are the worst polluters.”

The organizers were determined that the crowd not go away ignorant, however. Big banners asking people to “answer the call” surrounded the stage. And a series of public information films featuring celebrities such as Penelope Cruz urged people to turn thermostats down and carpool while, in between, montages of happy animals were contrasted with pollution-belching power stations.

Occasionally there was a surreal experience of, for example, listening to the reunited, veteran rock group Genesis sing “Turn It On Again” while the video images appeared to suggest it was time to Turn It Off. And singer-songwriters Damien Rice and David Gray promised everyone to make a difference — before singing that anthem to predestination, “Que Sera Sera.”

Will the event make a difference after the last burger in biodegradable packaging is eaten and the stage made of recycled oil drums is packed away? Steve Howard, CEO of the Climate Group, a partner in Live Earth, said that it would.

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Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, argues in the Financial Times that ambitious environmentalism is the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity.

Mr Klaus writes that “global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem” and the issue “is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.”

Do you agree? Or do small climate changes demand far-reaching restrictive measures? Mr Klaus will answer your questions in an online.

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The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change – and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling

Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that “the science is settled.” At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.

The fact that science is many years away from properly understanding global climate doesn’t seem to bother our leaders at all. Inviting testimony only from those who don’t question political orthodoxy on the issue, parliamentarians are charging ahead with the impossible and expensive goal of “stopping global climate change.” Liberal MP Ralph Goodale’s June 11 House of Commons assertion that Parliament should have “a real good discussion about the potential for carbon capture and sequestration in dealing with carbon dioxide, which has tremendous potential for improving the climate, not only here in Canada but around the world,” would be humorous were he, and even the current government, not deadly serious about devoting vast resources to this hopeless crusade.

Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thou-sand-year-long “Younger Dryas” cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade — 100 times faster than the past century’s 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists.

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“Where did the water go?” asks Ted Shalifor, manager of a marina and campground on Lake Superior’s Chippewa Indian Reservation.
The water on Lake Superior is so low that he couldn’t put his docks in the water this year. Where he used to see water, he now sees sandbars.

Lake Superior, the world’s largest freshwater lake, has dropped to its lowest level in 81 years. The water is 20 inches below average and a foot lower than just a year ago.

The dropping levels have had serious environmental and economic consequences. Wetlands have dried up. Power plants run at half capacity. Cargo ships carry partial loads. Boaters struggle to find a place to dock.

The changes can be seen all along the 2,800-mile shore of Lake Superior, the coldest and deepest of the Great Lakes. The water has receded, sometimes 50 feet or more, from its normal shoreline.

Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are at low levels, as well, although not quite as extreme.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere study whether Lake Superior’s low water levels are a result of global warming. The average water temperature of Lake Superior has risen 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1979.

A drought and warm weather are the immediate cause of the drop in water levels. In the past year, precipitation was 6 inches less than the average of 31 inches. The lake’s southern shore had a green Christmas in 2006. The ice and snow pack that usually cover the lake arrived late, allowing water to evaporate.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been this low, but it has happened,” says Tim Calappi, a hydraulic engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers, which tracks water levels. “We still think this is within the range of what’s normal, but we have to wait and see.”

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On the same day, NASA chief Michael Griffin commented in a US radio interview that “I am not sure that it is fair to say that (global warming) is a problem that we must wrestle with”.

NASA is an agency that knows a thing or two about climate change. As Griffin added: “We study global climate change, that is in our authorisation, we think we do it rather well.

“I’m proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote, battle climate change.”

Such a clear statement that science accomplishment should carry primacy over policy advice is both welcome and overdue.

Nonetheless, there is something worrying about one of Griffin’s other statements, which said that “I have no doubt . . . that a trend of global warming exists”.

Griffin seems to be referring to human-caused global warming, but irrespective of that his opinion is unsupported by the evidence.

The salient facts are these. First, the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this eight-year-long temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2.

Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).

Third, there are strong indications from solar studies that Earth’s current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades.

How then is it possible for Griffin to assert so boldly that human-caused global warming is happening?

Well, he is in good company for similar statements have been made recently by several Western heads of state at the G8 summit meeting. For instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel asserts climate change (i.e. global warming) “is also essentially caused by humankind”.

In fact, there is every doubt whether any global warming at all is occurring at the moment, let alone human-caused warming.

For leading politicians to be asserting to the contrary indicates something is very wrong with their chain of scientific advice, for they are clearly being deceived. That this should be the case is an international political scandal of high order which, in turn, raises the question of where their advice is coming from.

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