U.S. speeds up water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley farmers

Federal managers said Tuesday they are speeding up delivery of irrigation water to farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley because recent storms have boosted the state's water supply.

"Essentially we're saying we're confident enough right now that we can provide this as an assured water supply . . . and it will give them a jump- start on this year's water season," said Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes.

West-side farmers suffered the greatest irrigation cutbacks last year, largely because of the state's three-year drought. But environmental limits on pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta also played a role.

The pumping curbs have been a rallying cry for Republicans and farmers attacking Endangered Species Act protections for the delta smelt (right).

The tiny native fish has been pushed to the edge of extinction by environmental problems and the water projects that use the Northern California delta as a switching yard.

Because west-side agriculture has junior water rights in the federal irrigation system, it is the first to get hit by water shortages.

Signs bemoaning a "Congress-created dustbowl" sprouted on dusty, unplanted fields last summer.

Last week's round of storms spawned new complaints that delta flows that could have been pumped to the San Joaquin Valley were being lost to the sea because of environmental restraints.

Against that backdrop, federal officials said they were moving up water deliveries so farmers could make planting plans for the spring season.

"The Bureau of Reclamation is providing an additional 350,000 to 400,000 acre-feet of water for west-side farms by March 1," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (right). "We're doing our very best in the face of what is a very complex and very difficult controversy."

An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons.

Much of the promised delivery represents unused amounts banked from last year at the request of irrigation districts that wanted to ensure that they could begin this planting season with some supplies.

Reclamation spokesman Pete Lucero said the agency was "taking a little bit of a risk" in deciding to make the deliveries so early in the season, when the winter could still turn dry.

"We're making these decisions early based on the fact that we've had some good in-flows into our reservoirs."

Source:
Los Angelos Times, "U.S. speeds up water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley farmers", accessed January 27, 2010

Courts as Battlefields in Climate Fights

Tiny Kivalina, Alaska, does not have a hotel, a restaurant or a movie theater. But it has a very big lawsuit that might affect the way the nation deals with climate change.

Kivalina, an Inupiat Eskimo village of 400 perched on a barrier island north of the Arctic Circle, is accusing two dozen fuel and utility companies of helping to cause the climate change that it says is accelerating the island’s erosion.

Blocks of sea ice used to protect the town’s fragile coast from October on, but “we don’t have buildup right now, and it is January,” said Janet Mitchell, Kivalina’s administrator. “We live in anxiety during high-winds seasons.”

The village wants the companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, and many others, to pay the costs of relocating to the mainland, which could amount to as much as $400 million.

The case is one of three major lawsuits filed by environmental groups, private lawyers and state officials around the nation against big producers of heat-trapping gases. And though the village faces a difficult battle, the cases are gathering steam.

In recent months, two federal appeals courts reversed decisions by federal district courts to dismiss climate-change lawsuits, allowing the cases to go forward. In Connecticut, environmental lawyers joined forces with attorneys general of eight states and the City of New York seeking a court order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In Mississippi, Gulf Coast property owners claim that industry-produced emissions that contribute to climate change increased the potency of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

And although a federal judge in Oakland, Calif., dismissed the Kivalina suit in October, the village is appealing the decision.

Tracy D. Hester, who has taught a course in climate lawsuits at the University of Houston law school, said that with the issues “very much in play” in three circuits of the federal court system, “the game pieces are being set for eventual Supreme Court review.”

The cases need not even get that far to have an impact, said James E. Tierney, the director of the National State Attorneys General program at Columbia Law School. Kivalina alleged in its complaint that the industry conspired “to suppress the awareness of the link” between emissions and climate change through “front groups, fake citizens organizations and bogus scientific bodies.”

That claim echoes those in suits against the tobacco industry that ultimately led to industry settlements and increased government regulation.

If the climate-change cases even get to the discovery stage, and if the energy industry possesses embarrassing e-mail messages and memorandums similar to those that proved devastating to tobacco companies, Mr. Tierney said, “it’s a hammer” that could drive industries to the negotiating table.

The cases generally rely on the common-law doctrine of nuisance, the same concept that allows neighbors to sue one another over noises, odors and the like that interfere with the use or enjoyment of property. In the context of climate change, such cases were once derided as frivolous long shots that would be shot down quickly. Scott H. Segal, a lawyer for energy companies, joked in a 2004 article in Grist magazine that the cases brought “new meaning to the term ‘nuisance lawsuit.’ ”

No one is laughing now. In a report issued last year, Swiss Re, an insurance giant, compared the suits to those that led dozens of companies in asbestos industries to file for bankruptcy, and predicted that “climate change-related liability will develop more quickly than asbestos-related claims.”

The pressure from such suits, the report stated, “could become a significant issue within the next couple of years.”

The American Justice Partnership, a business-oriented group that is critical of the plaintiffs’ bar, argued in a 2008 report that the conspiracy accusations made the Kivalina case “the most dangerous litigation in America.”

The case could stifle debate over climate-change issues, the report stated, and increase “the threat of being named as a defendant or co-conspirator subject to invasive and costly inquiry.”

President Obama’s senior adviser for energy and climate change, Carol M. Browner, underscored the potential for the suits to affect policy in a briefing with reporters in September. Citing the Connecticut case, Ms. Browner warned that “the courts are starting to take control of this issue,” and argued that setting environmental standards “is best done through legislation.”

She suggested that the situation increased the pressure on Congress to pass legislation to curb heat-trapping gases. The Environmental Protection Agency is drafting regulations on such emissions as dangerous pollutants under the Clean Air Act, an authority confirmed by the 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. E.P.A.

A bill to curb such gases that passed the House last year has not advanced in the Senate. And the climate talks last month in Copenhagen produced little.

That sense of inaction has left a situation in which those intent on reducing gas emissions could try to make the courts “a significant battleground,” said Harold Kim, an official in the administration of President George W. Bush who is now senior vice president for reform initiatives at the United States Chamber Institute for Legal Reform.

“This is trending into an area that could be explosive — for better or for worse, depending on how you look at it,” Mr. Kim said.

Pat D. Hemlepp, a spokesman for American Electric Power, a defendant in the Connecticut case, said that he could not comment directly on the suit, but that “our view is that litigation is not the appropriate way to address climate concerns.”

The company, Mr. Hemlepp said, supports the House bill. “We are not one of those heels-dug-in, just-say-no companies on climate action,” he said.

Matthew F. Pawa, the lawyer who helped organize the Connecticut suit and the Kivalina litigation, said the cases were not about affecting public policy.

“I filed these cases because I expect and want to win in court,” Mr. Pawa said. “I’m a litigator, and that’s what I do.”

Despite the recent victories, climate lawsuits are still at a preliminary stage. Mr. Segal, the lawyer who made the “nuisance lawsuit” joke, said issues like proving climate change, its link to the companies and the further link to the damage “have not been addressed.”

If the cases go to trial, he said, “these burdens will be particularly tough in the climate context.”

A lawyer working with Mr. Pawa in the Kivalina suit, Stephen D. Susman, agreed that the road ahead was uphill.

“The legal landscape is horrible,” said Mr. Susman, of Houston. “No lawyer can say this is a way to make money.”

He also said he doubted that the cases would prompt large numbers of class-action suits, since courts would not be likely to allow the formation of a class of litigants among people with such diverse experiences.

Michael B. Gerrard, a professor at Columbia University law school and director of its Center for Climate Change Law, said the first efforts to sue tobacco companies had appeared to be weak as well.

“They lost the first cases; they kept on trying new theories,” Mr. Gerrard said, “and eventually won big.”

Source:
New York Times, "Courts as Battlefields in Climate Fights", accessed January 27, 2010

'Ranching' tuna the eco-friendly way

Tokihiko Okada has hundreds of children. Well, not literally, but you might as well call the giant bluefin tuna he cares for in the ocean tanks his "children."

Okada is the general manager at Kinki University's Fish Nursery Center. He started working with the university's researchers after leaving college more than 20 years ago.

In that time, he's seen monumental change in the attempts to farm tuna. Kinki University boasts a farming program that may help stem the steep decline of the world's bluefin population.

There are many bluefin farms around the world, known as tuna "ranching." Fish farmers capture bluefin juveniles in the wild and raise them to maturity before shipping them to market, rather than fishing for them in the open ocean.

But what's different about Kinki University's program is that it's a closed farming system, which means that the bluefin tuna raised in their ocean tanks have never been in the wild.

They're produced from hatched eggs, raised, and then fished for consumption.

It's one of the few programs on the globe to successfully raise the delicate bluefin tuna.

For three generations, Okada has helped successfully raise bluefin tuna for the world's gourmet restaurants.

"This is the first pond worldwide made in 2002 that contains completely farm-raised tuna," Okada stated, standing above the giant tank off of the western shores of Japan.

The tank is filled with 34 tuna, a group Okada feels especially close to.

"They're seven years old now. They've been breeding eggs every year for three years now. Compared to the other fish farms, we were off to a slow start. But we've been doing this closed system for three generations now, and they've been a success. We don't have to use wild tuna anymore, because we can raise our own," he said.

CNN joined Okada as we visited a dozen different tanks at the Kinki University site in Kushimoto, Japan. We stopped at a large tank filled with three-year-old tuna, where fishermen would be pulling out seven tuna on this day.

Each of the tuna has been specifically ordered by a restaurant, some as far away as the United States.

The fishing is easy. The fishermen toss a mackerel on a hook and pull out a bluefin in just minutes. The fish is beautiful; glistening blue and silver with a yellow fin on its spine. The fishermen zap the fish in the brain with an electric rod, stunning it. It only takes a few minutes to clean it and ice it.

The bluefin is prized for its buttery flesh, revered by sushi aficionados for its taste and restaurants for its high price. It's why the wild bluefin population has plummeted worldwide.

The WWF predicts Mediterranean bluefin will be wiped out by 2012 because of overfishing to sate the appetite of gourmet diners.

"We have to leave nature intact," said Okada, "because if we take too much from it, we won't be able to eat wild tuna. They'll be gone."

The Kinki University bluefin are not completely eco-friendly.

Tuna eat a massive amount, approximately 10 percent of their weight per day. The fish are fed wild mackerel by the truckload. Hardly eco-friendly, say critics. Greenpeace says a far better solution is to educate the diner and get them to stop eating bluefin tuna.

That won't work, says Okada, who points out there's a multi-billion dollar worldwide market for tuna. Okada says the university is working on a vegetable protein to feed their farmed tuna to make it a greener choice.

"I think it's very difficult for people to stop eating bluefin tuna completely. We should be balanced in our solution."

Source:
Cable Network News, "'Ranching' tuna the eco-friendly way", accessed January 26, 2010

Indochinese tigers on brink of extinction: WWF

Tigers in the Greater Mekong region are facing extinction, their numbers down more than 70 percent in slightly more than a decade due to poachers and habitat destruction, conservationists say.

A new report by wildlife group WWF says tiger populations in the region that includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam have fallen to 350 from an estimated 1,200 in 1998.

Globally, tiger populations are at an all-time low of 3,200, down from an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 some 12 years ago.

"Decisive action must be taken to ensure this iconic sub-species does not reach the point of no return," said Nick Cox, coordinator of the WWF Greater Mekong Tiger Program.

"There is a potential for tiger populations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to become locally extinct by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022, if we don't step up actions to protect them," he added in a statement.

Tigers are being killed illegally to satisfy increasing demand for their body parts, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Destruction of their forest homes has also fueled the decline, said the report, released ahead of the Chinese lunar Year of the Tiger which beings next month.

Asian countries are a hotspot for the illegal wildlife trade, which the international police organization Interpol estimates may be worth more than $20 billion a year.

Tiger skins sell as rugs and cloaks on the black market, and can fetch up to $20,000 in countries like China.

The WWF said Indochinese tigers were once found in abundance across the Greater Mekong region, but today there are no more than 30 tigers in each of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

The remaining animals are predominantly found in the Kayah Karen Tenasserim mountain border (right) between Thailand and Myanmar.

Ministers from Asian "tiger-range" countries are meeting in Thailand on Tuesday to discuss tiger conservation. The WWF's Cox said the group would ask these officials to ramp up conservation efforts, mainly through protecting tiger habitats.

The Greater Mekong region contains the largest combined tiger habitat in the world, the group said.

"This region has huge potential to increase tiger numbers, but only if there are bold and coordinated efforts across the region and of an unprecedented scale that can protect existing tigers, tiger prey and their habitat," said Cox.

Tiger range states include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The first Asian Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation, which runs from January 27-30, precedes a Tiger Summit which will be held in Russia this September.

Source:
Reuters, "Indochinese tigers on brink of extinction: WWF", accessed January 26, 2010

US loses opportunity with home energy efficiency

About 17 percent of new homes built in 2008 earned the Energy Star label, the U.S. Environmental Program's top energy ranking. The proportion – which is expected to reach 20 percent when 2009's figures are tallied – marks a five-point increase from 2007 and "indicates such incredible success," said Sam Rashkin, national director of the program's section for homes.

Home energy use accounts for 16 percent of the United States' greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite the EPA's gains, some 99 percent of American houses are "sick" – damp, drafty, dusty, noisy and expensive to heat and cool – and "could be made at least 30 percent more energy-efficient with highly cost-effective, tried-and-true energy-efficiency improvements," according to Rashkin.

The Energy Star program won't solve this. Energy Star is meant to reflect the cream of the housing stock, and thus, program officers say, will always represent a minority of American homes.

Experts say economics and regulations are the root of the problem: Mortgages are structured in ways that fail to recognize efficiency's benefits, while a patchwork of inconsistent and ill-enforced energy codes provides conflicting signals to industry.

Meanwhile consumers remain largely unaware of efficiency's advantages, advocates say, thereby bypassing an easy target for considerable cuts in national carbon emissions. Most consumers don't know the label also applys to homes.

Retrofitting older houses can drastically cut their energy use, but it's also a lost opportunity. Once a home is built, experts agree, it gets much more difficult and costly to improve energy efficiency.

That's where Energy Star comes in. Run jointly by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy, the program uses third-party inspectors to ensure that qualifying homes are 20 to 30 percent more efficient than typical houses. It has made considerable strides since its 1995 inception. The number of certified homes recently reached one million, which the EPA says indicates a savings of $1.2 billion in energy bills and 22 billion pounds of greenhouse gases kept out of the atmosphere.

Of course, the ultra-efficient heating and cooling systems, high-performance windows and other features that make the homes exceptionally comfortable also make them a bit pricier. The added cost for a new Energy Star home may only be about the price of a night at the movies on each month's mortgage payment, but it's enough to scare off many potential buyers.

"It's an incredibly smart choice," Rashkin said, since smaller utility bills more than offset the higher price. "But consumers are overwhelmed by first cost."

To get buyers over that hump, a handful of specialized mortgage options have for decades given buyers more cash up front, since they'll save on energy costs. But nobody's buying.

Before the mortgage crisis, when loans were easier to come by and energy was relatively cheap, energy-efficient mortgages weren't very enticing, experts say, and lenders didn't bother with them. Now the specialized options are more valuable, but lenders have grown accustomed to ignoring them.

"It's really unfortunate," said Jennifer Amann, buildings program director for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. "Energy-efficient mortgages have been available now for 20 years or so, but they're a really underutilized tool."

Sam Rashkin agrees. "We need a massive education of how to use energy-efficient mortgages, now that they can offer a meaningful solution," he said.

While energy-efficient mortgages are a good idea, there's a more obvious solution, according to Cliff Majersik, executive director of the Institute for Market Transformation, which advocates for energy efficiency:

Make all mortgages – not just specialized ones – account for energy use.

"The fact is that energy-efficient homes have much lower foreclosure and delinquency rates. So that's a market failure, that we're not giving homeowners credit for buying good, efficient homes," Majersik said. "The challenge is that there are processes that have been in place for a long time, and there's pretty clear evidence that they've let us down."

The House climate bill includes a handful of provisions that would reward buyers of efficient homes. For example, the Federal Housing Administration would be required to insure at least 50,000 energy-efficient mortgages over three years, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would make the kind of wholesale changes to underwriting guidelines sought by Rashkin, Majersik and others.

Advocates also say national efficiency efforts have been let down by the codes that set minimum requirements for efficiency.

"Energy codes have existed for a long time, but they haven't really done anything," said Aleisha Khan, executive director of the Building Codes Assistance Project, a coalition that helps state and local governments implement efficiency requirements.

Certification programs like Energy Star "pull the market" by spearheading efficiency efforts, "and then you've got codes, dragging up the bottom," she said. "Code is not Energy Star. Code is common sense."

Yet there is no nationwide building code. Instead, states base their own requirements on the International Energy Conservation Code, which is usually updated every three years.

A measure in the climate bill would change that by establishing a nationwide code. The bill calls for a 30 percent increase in efficiency over the 2006 IECC upon enactment, a 50 percent jump by 2014 and a 75 percent increase by 2029.

Khan and Boulin said there are other signs that more effective codes and more efficient homes are on the way. For example, Khan said the 2009 IECC is 15 to 20 percent stricter than the previous version – the biggest change so far.

"I'm confident that we're moving forward quite well," Boulin said. "We're finding these are terribly cost-effective things to do, and people shouldn't avoid them."

But further progress depends on knowledgeable consumers, Boulin and a number of other experts said.

Homebuilders say they'll build more efficient homes when buyers ask for them, but demand won't grow until more people understand the benefits of efficiency.

"Consumers really, really need more information about efficient homes," Khan said. "They just aren't getting it."

Source:
The Daily Climate, "US loses opportunity with home energy efficiency", accessed January 26, 2010

Strongest Hurricanes May Double in Frequency, Study Says

The U.S. Southeast and the Bahamas will be pounded by more very intense hurricanes in the coming decades due to global warming, a new computer model suggests.

Warmer sea surface temperatures—which fuel hurricanes—and shifting wind patterns are expected to strengthen the storms, the study says.

At the same time, rising temperatures should result in fewer weak or middling hurricanes in the western Atlantic.

The study considered what would happen if people kept emitting more greenhouse gases until about 2050 and then started cutting emissions.

"Some refer to this as a middle-of-the-road scenario" for tackling greenhouse gas emissions, said study co-author Thomas Knutson, a research meteorologist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In this scenario the world became about 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) warmer than today.

In turn, the western Atlantic Ocean—north of the Caribbean Sea up to the Carolinas—saw a doubling of category 4 and 5 storms, the most powerful kinds, by 2100. Today the Atlantic suffers an average of 14 of these intense hurricanes per decade.

Category 4 storms have sustained wind speeds of 131 to 155 miles (211 to 249 kilometers) an hour. Category 5 hurricanes have winds exceeding 155 miles (249 kilometers) an hour.

"I was quite surprised," said Morris Bender, also a NOAA research meteorologist and the lead author of the new study, to be published tomorrow in the journal Science.

"I didn't expect a doubling. I didn't expect we'd see this much response."

"Unprecedented Results"

The new model is perhaps the most sophisticated yet to predict how hurricanes will change as the world warms, study co-author Knutson said.

The researchers combined state-of-the-art global climate simulations with "the hurricane prediction models used by weather forecasters and the [U.S.] Navy," he said.

Combining three models into one tool, the scientists were able to simulate the entire Earth's climate, with realistic hurricanes of all categories romping across the Atlantic.

The modeling method is a first, according to Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the study. "This is an important paper," she said.

Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado, said there's still a lot of room for improvement in how all of today's climate simulations represent hurricanes and the oceans.

Even so, the new study does bolster an emerging consensus on how climate change will affect hurricanes, added Trenberth, who also was not involved in the research.

"The best information we have now supports the view that tropical storms will likely decrease in number," he said. "But the risk of category 4 and 5 storms could increase."

Source:
National Geographic, "Strongest Hurricanes May Double in Frequency, Study Says", accessed January 26, 2010

Glaciers in meltdown

Shoup Glacier
1938 vs. 2007

The admission that flawed glacier data found its way into the 2007 report by the U.N.'s leading climate panel has dealt another blow to the organization's credibility and to climate science.

But climate scientists remain convinced that glaciers are in retreat.

Paul Valdes, professor of physical geography at the UK's University of Bristol told CNN: "The scientific data is continuing to show a widespread decline of these [Himalayan] glaciers and this remains an area of deep

Matterhorn 1960 - 2000

concern."

The error relating to Himalayan data is particularly embarrassing because glaciers allow scientists the opportunity to illustrate their complex scientific data with simple before and after pictures showing the true extent of glacier retreat over the past century.

Many of these changes in glaciers have been recorded in the U.N.

Morteratsch Glacier Switzerland 1987 - 2005

Environmental Program study "Global Glacier Changes: facts and figures."

Others can be found in an exhibition currently touring the U.S..

In Double Exposure, images from the archive of pioneering mountain photographer Bradford Washburn have been placed alongside more recent photos taken by journalist David Arnold revealing the regression of glaciers in Alaska and Switzerland. (At right: Muir Glacier Alaska 1941 - 2004)

In 2005, Arnold was admiring Washburn's famous 1960 image of climbers on the Northeast ridge of Doldenhorn in Switzerland and started wondering what the peaks and glaciers Washburn had so expertly documented looked like now.

Gyoto Glacier 1938 - 2006

Soon enough, Arnold was off on the first of five flying expeditions to Alaska and the Swiss Alps.

Side by side Washburn's and Arnold's photos record the true extent of glacial retreat -- six and 14 miles respectively in the case of the Shoup and Guyot Glaciers in Alaska.

Arnold's painstaking attention has produced images which faithfully reproduce Washburn's

Peyote Glacier, Canadian Rockies, 1996 - 2001

angles and perspective. He even made sure he shot his photos on exactly the same day of the year, sometimes the same time as Washburn.

The pictures speak for themselves.

"I have found that pictures are powerful and I can virtually step aside from making pronouncements on global warming," Arnold told CNN.

Currently showing at the Science Museum of Oklahoma, Arnold hopes to one day publish the images in a book.

Source:
Cable Network News, "Glaciers in meltdown", accessed January 25, 2010

Bangladesh tiger plan aims to cut clashes with humans

Bangladesh launched on Monday a program to train field staff in the Sundarban forest, home to Bengal tigers, to prevent contacts between villagers and the animals that may lead to tragedy for both.

Under a Bangladesh Tiger Action Plan, forest rangers and guards will learn to use tranquilizer guns to immobilize and capture tigers that stray from their normal habitat into human areas.

Tapan Kumar Dey, a senior forestry official, told reporters human-tiger conflicts registered a rise in Bangladesh in recent years, resulting in the deaths of three tigers and 30 people in 2009.

Dey said 193 people and 23 tigers have been killed in such encounters since 2000.

Another tiger casualty was reported on Friday in the southern district of Satkhira, where villagers initially tried to scare off a five-year-old tigress but eventually captured her and beat her to death.

The animal was the first tiger killed in Bangladesh this year, forestry officials said.

The tigers of Sundarban, better known as Royal Bengal tigers, usually feed on deer and wild boars but often slip into villages on the fringe of the world's largest mangrove forest -- recently designated by the U.N. as a world heritage site -- to steal cows and goats from farmers' sheds.

According to a survey by forest authorities in 2004, the Bangladesh part of the Sundarban, part of which lies in India, had 440 tigers.

Forestry officials believe strict enforcement of anti-poaching laws and better conservation efforts helped the tiger population rise since then, although they were unable to give a specific number.

According to the Bangladesh forests department, the number of tigers worldwide has fallen from around 100,000 in 1900, but in recent years was only about 3,200, with several tiger species now extinct.

The Royal Bengals are among the biggest groups still surviving.

The tigers who enter village areas or raid farms for livestock are usually too young or too old to kill enough deer to satiate their hunger, officials said.

Source:
Reuters, "Bangladesh tiger plan aims to cut clashes with humans", accessed January 25, 2010

NASA: Last decade was warmest ever

The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest ever on Earth according to data released by scientists at NASA.

The U.S. space agency's data also revealed that 2009 was the second warmest year since temperature records began in 1880, and only narrowly cooler than 2005, the warmest year ever.

2008 was the coolest year of the decade but this was attributed to a strong La Nina which causes extensive cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.

James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) said in a statement: "There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycle. When we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated."

In the past three decades, GISS report surface temperature records show an upward trend of about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade.

In total, according to GISS, average global temperatures have increased by about 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1880.

GISS sources its data using over one thousand weather stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperatures, and research station data from Antarctica -- all of which, they say, is readily available to the public.

Source:
Cable News Network, "NASA: Last decade was warmest ever", accessed January 22, 2010

Mountain Plants Unable to Withstand Onslaught from Invasive Species

These invasive dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) are getting a foothold in mountain ecosystems such as this one in the Andes in Chile. (Credit: Anibal Pauchard)

An international research team has studied the distribution of plant species in mountainous environments. The study shows that mountain plant communities are not particularly resistant to invasion by exotic species. The scientists also warn that these may become more aggressive as global warming gets a grip.

In 2005, scientists from various science centres in Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, the United States and Chile created the Mountain Invasion Research Unit (MIREN) in order to study the distribution of exotic species in high mountain species and to design experiments to confirm the invasive capacity of certain species in high mountain environments.

"These plant communities in Alpine environments have until now not been thought particularly vulnerable to this kind of environmental disturbance," José Ramón Arévalo, one of the authors of the study and a researcher at the Department of Ecology of the University of La Laguna, said. However, the experiments show clearly "that the beliefs about this supposed protection and mountain species' resistance to invasive species is erroneous," he adds.

The study, published recently in Frontiers in Ecology and The Environment, and which is part of the work done by MIREN, has made it possible to identify the factors that make plants in these areas more vulnerable to invasion by other species.

Among other factors, the scientists stress the ease of movement of propagules (plants which can reproduce asexually in order to produce new plants) as a result of human activity and the increase in environmental disturbance, the low levels of biological resistance of invaded plant communities, the increase in transport between high mountain areas that are far apart from each other, and the risks according to climate change models, "which will make it easier for invasive plants to establish themselves and reproduce," the ecologist explains.

A work agenda to stem invasions

The work carried out over the last five years shows that "invasions may be

Global change is likely to exacerbate invasion and spread of exotic plants like leafy spurge, which already costs millions of dollars to control each year. (Credit: Image courtesy of USDA)

a factor in more extensive and serious disturbance than had ever been thought," says Arévalo. The scientists also say there is a need to establish a work agenda to evaluate "not only current invasions, but also those that could happen in the future in mountainous environments," warns the researcher.

Protecting against and above all preventing invasions could be done by means of experimental and modeling work. Arévalo says "biological invasion is not a fact, but rather a process of species overlapping within a habitat, which means prevention is much more effective and viable than eradication."

Source:
Science Daily, "Mountain Plants Unable to Withstand Onslaught from Invasive Species", accessed January 22, 2010

From the Inbox - Will Canada stop trade in polar bear parts

Urge Canada to Strengthen Polar Bear Protections! Polar bears are already struggling with global warming, oil drilling and pollution. Take action now to urge Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government to support an end to the international trade in polar bear parts. As polar bears struggle to survive, collectors in some countries can still buy polar bear skin rugs, claws, skulls and other parts to decorate their homes. Thanks to more than 43,000 Defenders supporters, the U.S. is proposing to increase protections for these iconic bears through CITES1, the powerful international agreement that regulates trade in imperiled wildlife. But this critical proposal needs the support of the Canadian government -- and you can help persuade them to support it. Please take action to urge Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government to support an end to the international commercial trade in polar bear products. Global warming is having a tremendous effect on our polar bears. Without drastic action, these arctic icons could disappear from the U.S. in a few short decades.2 With seasonal sea ice is well below average3, polar bear homes are literally melting away. Some are even drowning in their search for adequate sea ice for food. Besides their daily struggle to survive in a warming world, polar bears are also facing threats from oil drilling, poaching and pollution. Speak out for polar bears: Urge Canadian officials to support strengthened protections for these struggling arctic icons. This March, representatives from 175 nations will meet in Doha, Qatar to vote on strengthening protections for polar bears. Home to around 60 percent of the world’s polar bears,4 Canada’s support for this vital proposal would help save hundreds of polar bears each year -- and give them a chance at a lasting future. Please take action today and help end the international commercial trade in polar bear parts. Together, we can make a difference for struggling polar bears. Sincerely, Rodger Schlickeisen President Defenders of Wildlife ---------------------------------------------- 1 CITES: The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna 2 Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. U.S. Global Change Research Program. Page 86. http://www.globalchange.gov/images/cir/pdf/ecosystems.pdf 3 National Snow and Ice Data Center: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ 4 Environment Canada. Conservation of Polar Bears in Canada: http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=714D9AAE-1&news=18E4D45A-CB74-41EE-B1A4-DFCCFF4B8173