Indonesia disaster toll hits 377 as volcano erupts again

Indonesia's Mount Merapi (left) erupted on Thursday for the second time in a week, blasting vast plumes of ash into the sky, as the death toll from the initial eruption and a tsunami that hit remote western islands reached 377.

There were no immediate reports of new casualties after Merapi's second eruption. More than 40,000 people had fled or been evacuated from Merapi's slopes earlier in the week, but many started to return after the volcano appeared to become calmer.

Officials said the death toll from a tsunami that hit the remote western Mentawai islands (map at right) on Monday had reached at least 343. The tsunami was triggered on Monday by a 7.5 magnitude quake. A day later, Mount Merapi on the outskirts of Yogyakarta city on Java island erupted, killing at least 34.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, (left) who had been due to take part in a summit of Asian leaders in Hanoi from Thursday to Saturday, flew back to Indonesia after the twin disasters.

"The president was very moved when he met the victims of the tsunami and earthquake," Yudhoyono's spokesman, Julian Pasha, stated, adding that the president planned to return to Hanoi before Saturday.

"He has issued instructions for all aid to continue to flow in without disruption."

Parts of an early warning system installed after a huge 2004 tsunami killed more than 226,000 people had been stolen but overall the system still worked, said the head of the meteorological agency, Sri Woro Harijono (right).

"Yes, some of our sensors disappear because they are stolen, such as seismographs and solar cells," she said. "But it is just one or three sensors out of 100. The system works fine."

Local media reported that parts of the tsunami early warning system had not worked properly because they had been vandalized or removed, while Metro TV broadcast footage of villagers questioning the effectiveness of the warning system.

"This has also been reported to the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology but we also need to make sure this information is verified properly," said Pasha.

"We know that when the quake happened, within 10 minutes this enormous tsunami came. So maybe the speed with which it came meant that the early warning system didn't work."

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" (right) and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Mount Merapi killed 1,300 people in 1930.

In December 2004, a tsunami caused by an earthquake of more than 9 magnitude off Sumatra killed more than 226,000 people. It was the deadliest tsunami on record. (Left: ruins of village swept away by current tsunami)

Source:
Reuters, "Indonesia disaster toll hits 377 as volcano erupts again", accessed October 28, 2010

Navajos Hope to Shift From Coal to Wind and Sun

For decades, coal has been an economic lifeline for the Navajos, even as mining and power plant emissions dulled the blue skies and sullied the waters of their sprawling reservation. (Left: Supporters of Earl Tulley and Lynda Lovejoy at a campaign rally last month in Blue Gap, Ariz.)

But today there are stirrings of rebellion. Seeking to reverse years of environmental degradation and return to their traditional values, many Navajos are calling for a future built instead on solar farms, eco-tourism and micro-businesses.

“At some point we have to wean ourselves,” Earl Tulley, a Navajo housing official, said of coal as he sat on the dirt floor of his family’s hogan, a traditional circular dwelling.

Mr. Tulley, who is running for vice president of the Navajo Nation in the Nov. 2 election, represents a growing movement among Navajos that embraces environmental healing and greater reliance on the sun and wind, abundant resources on a 17 million-acre reservation spanning Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

“We need to look at the bigger picture of sustainable development,” said Mr. Tulley, the first environmentalist to run on a Navajo presidential ticket.

With nearly 300,000 members, the Navajo Nation is the country’s largest tribe, according to Census Bureau estimates, and it has the biggest reservation. Coal mines and coal-fired power plants on the reservation and on lands shared with the Hopi provide about 1,500 jobs and more than a third of the tribe’s annual operating budget, the largest source of revenue after government grants and taxes.

At the grass-roots level, the internal movement advocating a retreat from coal is both a reaction to the environmental damage and the health consequences of mining — water loss and contamination, smog and soot pollution — and a reconsideration of centuries-old tenets.

In Navajo culture, some spiritual guides say, digging up the earth to retrieve resources like coal and uranium (which the reservation also produced until health issues led to a ban in 2005) is tantamount to cutting skin and represents a betrayal of a duty to protect the land.

“As medicine people, we don’t extract resources,” said Anthony Lee Sr., president of the Diné Hataalii Association, a group of about 100 healers known as medicine men and women.

But the shift is also prompted by economic realities. Tribal leaders say the Navajo Nation’s income from coal has dwindled 15 percent to 20 percent in recent years as federal and state pollution regulations have imposed costly restrictions and lessened the demand for mining.

Two coal mines on the reservation have shut down in the last five years. One of them, the Black Mesa mine, ceased operations because the owners of the power plant it fed in Laughlin, Nev., chose to close the plant in 2005 rather than spend $1.2 billion on retrofitting it to meet pollution controls required by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Early this month, the E.P.A. signaled that it would require an Arizona utility to install $717 million in emission controls at another site on the reservation, the Four Corners Power Plant in New Mexico (left), describing it as the highest emitter of nitrous oxide of any power plant in the nation. It is also weighing costly new rules for the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona.

And states that rely on Navajo coal, like California, are increasingly imposing greenhouse gas emissions standards and requiring renewable energy purchases, banning or restricting the use of coal for electricity.

So even as they seek higher royalties and new markets for their vast coal reserves, tribal officials say they are working to draft the tribe’s first comprehensive energy policy and are gradually turning to casinos, renewable energy projects and other sources for income.

This year the tribal government approved a wind farm to be built west of Flagstaff, Ariz., to power up to 20,000 homes in the region. Last year, the tribal legislative council also created a Navajo Green Economy Commission to promote environmentally friendly jobs and businesses.

“We need to create our own businesses and control our destiny,” said Ben Shelly, the Navajo Nation vice president, who is now running for president against Lynda Lovejoy, a state senator in New Mexico and Mr. Tulley’s running mate.

That message is gaining traction among Navajos who have reaped few benefits from coal or who feel that their health has suffered because of it.

Curtis Yazzie, 43, for example, lives in northeastern Arizona without running water or electricity in a log cabin just a stone’s throw from the Kayenta mine.

Tribal officials, who say some families live so remotely that it would cost too much to run power lines to their homes, have begun bringing hybrid solar and wind power to some of the estimated 18,000 homes on the reservation without electricity. But Mr. Yazzie says that air and water pollution, not electricity, are his first concerns.

“Quite a few of my relatives have made a good living working for the coal mine, but a lot of them are beginning to have health problems,” he said. “I don’t know how it’s going to affect me.”

One of those relatives is Daniel Benally, 73, who says he lives with shortness of breath after working for the Black Mesa mine (left) in the same area for 35 years as a heavy equipment operator. Coal provided for his family, including 15 children from two marriages, but he said he now believed that the job was not worth the health and environmental problems.

“There’s no equity between benefit and damage,” he said in Navajo through a translator.

About 600 mine, pipeline and power plant jobs were affected when the Mohave Generating Station in Nevada and Peabody’s Black Mesa mine shut down.

But that also meant that Peabody stopped drawing water from the local aquifer for the coal slurry carried by an underground pipeline to the power plant — a victory for Navajo and national environmental groups active in the area, like the Sierra Club.

Studies have shown serious declines in the water levels of the Navajo aquifer after decades of massive pumping for coal slurry operations. And the E.P.A. has singled out the Four Corners Power Plant and the Navajo Generating Station as two of the largest air polluters in the country, affecting visibility in 27 of the area’s “most pristine and precious natural areas,” including the Grand Canyon.

The regional E.P.A. director, Jared Blumenfeld, said the plants were the nation’s No. 1 and No. 4 emitters of nitrogen oxides, which form fine particulates resulting in cases of asthma attacks, bronchitis, heart attacks and premature deaths.

Environmentalists are now advocating for a more diversified Navajo economy and trying to push power plants to invest in wind and solar projects.

“It’s a new day for the Navajo people,” said Lori Goodman, an official with Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, a group founded 22 years ago by Mr. Tulley. “We can’t be trashing the land anymore.”

Both presidential candidates in the Navajo election have made the pursuit of cleaner energy a campaign theme, but significant hurdles remain, including that Indian tribes, as sovereign entities, are not eligible for tax credits that help finance renewable energy projects elsewhere.

And replacing coal revenue would not be easy. The mining jobs that remain, which pay union wages, are still precious on a reservation where unemployment is estimated at 50 percent to 60 percent.

“Mining on Black Mesa,” Peabody officials said in a statement, “has generated $12 billion in direct and implied economic benefits over the past 40 years, created thousands of jobs, sent thousands of students to college and restored lands to a condition that is as much as 20 times more productive than native range.”

They added, “Renewables won’t come close to matching the scale of these benefits.”

But many Navajos see the waning of coal as inevitable and are already looking ahead. Some residents and communities are joining together or pairing with outside companies to pursue small-scale renewable energy projects on their own.

Wahleah Johns, a member of the new Navajo Green Economy Commission,is studying the feasibility of a small solar project on reclaimed mining lands with two associates. In the meantime, she uses solar panels as a consciousness-raising tool.

“How can we utilize reclamation lands?” she said to Mr. Yazzie during a recent visit as they held their young daughters in his living room. “Maybe we can use them for solar panels to generate electricity for Los Angeles, to transform something that’s been devastating for our land and water into something that can generate revenue for your family, for your kids.”

Mr. Yazzie, who lives with his wife, three children and two brothers, said he liked the idea. “Once Peabody takes all the coal out, it’ll be gone,” he said. “Solar would be long-term. Solar and wind, we don’t have a problem with. It’s pretty windy out here.”

Source:
New York Times, "Navajos Hope to Shift From Coal to Wind and Sun", accessed October 26, 2010

New U.S. Standards Take Aim at Truck Emissions and Fuel Economy

The federal government announced the first national emissions and fuel economy standards for heavy vehicles on Monday, one of a series of regulatory steps that the Obama administration is taking to increase energy efficiency and reduce atmospheric pollution in the absence of Congressional action on climate change.

The administration also announced approval of a major solar power installation on public land in the California desert, a step toward weaning the nation from dependence on fossil fuels. (At right: solar plant in Nevada desert). Together they represent what President Obama has called a more “bite-size” approach to global warming that he intends to pursue while efforts to pass comprehensive legislation are stalled.

The mileage proposal, which is scheduled to become final next year after a period of public comment, will apply to tractor-trailers, buses, delivery vans, heavy pickup trucks, cement mixers and many other classes of vehicles. It will cover new vehicles manufactured between 2014 and 2018.

The proposed policy would apply different standards to different vehicles, based on weight and intended use. For example, over-the-road tractor-trailers would be required to achieve a 20 percent reduction in fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 2018. Heavy-duty pickups and vans would be subject to different gasoline and diesel fuel standards, with reductions ranging from 10 to 15 percent. Other work trucks would have to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent by 2018.

Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said that the new standards were an extension of the mileage and emissions rules that the administration had already adopted for passenger cars and light trucks. She said that lower fuel costs for truckers would more than cover the costs of the technology used to meet the new standards and would create jobs in truck manufacturing and related industries.

“Over all, this program will save $41 billion and much of it will stay home in the U.S. economy rather than paying for imported oil,” she said in a briefing.

The standards draw from a study issued this year by the National Academy of Sciences, which found that existing technology — including low-rolling-resistance tires, improved aerodynamics, more efficient engines, hybrid electric drive systems and idling controls — could cut fuel use in trucks by a third to a half.

The standards proposed by the administration, after extensive consultation with manufacturers and trucking companies and a detailed review by the White House Office of Management and Budget, are significantly less ambitious to keep costs manageable, officials said.

Heavy vehicles account for more than 10 percent of the nation’s overall oil consumption and about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted by the transportation sector. Because fuel use by trucks and buses is growing faster than most other emissions that contribute to global warming, even relatively modest cuts in diesel consumption will pay large environmental benefits, Ms. Jackson said.

The new rules proposed by the E.P.A. and the Department of Transportation reflect the different patterns of use for varying types of trucks. Long-haul freight liners and buses typically travel 100,000 miles a year and can achieve large fuel savings with relatively small investments in technology. Fire trucks and cement mixers, on the other hand, travel relatively few miles annually and thus have a lower target.

The American Trucking Associations praised the approach, saying that allowing manufacturers and truck users to find ways to meet defined new mileage standards was preferable to imposing a fuel tax or a broad program for reducing carbon dioxide emissions on the entire transportation sector. The group said that it was withholding more detailed comment until it studied the proposed regulations.

Luke Tonachel, an expert on clean vehicles at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, called heavy trucks and buses the “energy hogs of America’s roadways” and said that their fuel use could be cut beyond what the administration had proposed.

“President Obama did the right thing by encouraging the creation of these standards,” Mr. Tonachel said in a statement, “but today’s proposal should be strengthened further to maximize the environmental, security and economic benefits.”

Source:
New York Times, "New U.S. Standards Take Aim at Truck Emissions and Fuel Economy", accessed October 26, 2010

NOAA: Arctic melting may point to future bad winters

Continued near-record sea-ice loss and higher-than-normal temperatures are melting the Arctic, federal researchers reported Wednesday. And the changes in the Arctic may be setting the stage for a future "climate change paradox" of more intense U.S. winters, they warn, even as the polar cap shrinks.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's "Arctic Report Card" warns that thinning sea ice around the North Pole continues a trend in effect since 2007. Among the findings cited by NOAA:

• Summer sea ice cover was the third lowest extent recorded since satellite measurement began in 1979
• Snow cover lasted the least time since record-keeping began in 1966
• Greenland felt record-setting high temperatures, ice melt and glacier loss

"To quote one of my NOAA colleagues, 'whatever is going to happen in the rest of the world happens first, and to the greatest extent, in the Arctic,'" said NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D, in a statement.

"Beyond affecting the humans and wildlife that call the area home, the Arctic's warmer temperatures and decreases in permafrost, snow cover, glaciers and sea ice also have wide-ranging consequences for the physical and biological systems in other parts of the world."

And the high temperatures in the Arctic may just be a sign of things to come, thanks to global warming flipping winter weather patterns for coming repeats of the heavy snows that hit the U.S.A. this winter.

"While individual weather extreme events cannot be directly linked to larger scale climate changes, recent data analysis and modeling suggest a link between loss of sea ice and a shift to an increased impact from the Arctic on mid-latitude climate," concludes the report.

"With future loss of sea ice, such conditions as winter 2009-2010 could happen more often. Thus we have a potential climate change paradox. Rather than a general warming everywhere, the loss of sea ice and a warmer Arctic can increase the impact of the Arctic on lower latitudes, bringing colder weather to southern locations."

Source:
USA Today, "NOAA: Arctic melting may point to future bad winters", accessed October 22, 2010

Barack Obama to review polar bears

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan (left) wants the Interior Department to clarify a decision by the administration of the former President George W. Bush that polar bears were merely threatened rather than in imminent danger of extinction.

Dirk Kempthorne, the former Interior Secretary, said in May 2008 that the bears were on the way to extinction because global warming was causing the rapid disappearance of the Arctic Sea ice upon which they depend. But he stopped short of declaring them endangered, which had it been declared would have increased protections for the bear and make oil and gas exploration more difficult

Along with the listing, Mr Kempthorne created a "special rule" stating that the Endangered Species Act would not be used to set climate policy or limit greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming and melting ice in the Arctic Ocean.

The Obama administration upheld the Bush-era policy, declaring that the endangered species law cannot be used to regulate greenhouse gases emitted by sources outside of the polar bears' habitat.

However, if the bears are found to be endangered that could over-ride that ruling.

The judge said that the administration had about 30 days to explain how it arrived at its decision.

A lawyer for an environmental group called Mr Sullivan's action "good news for the bear," adding that the popular animal's fate was now in the hands of the Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar.

"The court is not accepting the Fish and Wildlife Service argument that extinction must be imminent before the bear is listed as endangered," said Kassie Siegel, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based group that challenged the polar bear listing.

Source:
London Telegraph, "Barack Obama to review polar bears", accessed October 22, 2010

Jane Goodall and her chimps

Jane Goodall brings Lara Logan and "60 Minutes" cameras back to the forests of Tanzania, where she began her love affair with chimpanzees 50 years ago, to remind the public that chimps are endangered.

Humans share more than 98 percent of the same DNA with chimpanzees, which is probably why there has always been a fascination with them. What we know of them is mostly because of one woman, whose name has become synonymous with chimps: Jane Goodall.

She was launched to fame by National Geographic, whose stories about her life in an African forest with chimpanzees made her an iconic figure.

Goodall was the first to discover that wild chimpanzees were capable of making and using tools, a revelation that turned the scientific world upside down by challenging the convention that tool making was what made humans unique.

Fifty years later, Goodall considers her role now to be more important than ever - which is why "60 Minutes" and correspondent Lara Logan wanted to go back with her to Africa.

Jane and her Chimps

If you missed the segment on 60 minutes there are a couple of the videos here for you to look at. There are more items on the 60 minutes website including some web extras, so be sure to visit and learn more about Jane and her chimps.

Comparing raising a son to raising chimps

Source:
CBS News 60 Minutes,"Jane Goodall and her chimps", accessed October 25, 2010

Freshwater losses pose risks for food, health: U.N.

Damage to rivers, wetlands and lakes threatens to destabilize the diversity of freshwater fish species, posing risks for food security, incomes and nutrition, a Rivers and lakes are the source of 13 million metric tonnes of fish annually, which in turn provide employment to 60 million people, the study by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Fish Center showed.

Fish from inland waters is also important for nutrition, especially in Africa and parts of Asia, by supplying micronutrients such as vitamin A, calcium, iron and zinc, the report added.

It said such factors highlighted the risks to humans from the destruction of freshwater ecosystems and the urgency to protect them from pollution, climate change, overfishing and construction of dams.

The report was released on the sidelines of an Oct 18-29 U.N. meeting in Nagoya, Japan, aimed at pushing governments and businesses to do more to fight accelerating losses in animal and plant species.

While fish production had grown in Asia and Africa over the past 40 years, catch in other regions had leveled off and in some cases, fallen, with environmental damage cited as a factor, the report said.

Fisheries in the Volga River in Europe have declined because of dams, while fisheries in Lake Malawi and Lake Malombe in Africa have fallen from overfishing and environmental degradation.

"It takes a concerted effort to protect and maintain these so-to-speak 'free' ecosystem services around the world," Yumiko Kura of the World Fish Center told a news conference on the sidelines of the Nagoya meeting.

"It is important to maintain these natural ecosystem services from human destruction because it is very costly to replace these ecosystem services once they are lost."

Source:
Reuters, "Freshwater losses pose risks for food, health: U.N.", accessed October 22, 2010

Warmer Arctic probably permanent, scientists say

The signs of climate change were all over the Arctic this year -- warmer air, less sea ice, melting glaciers -- which probably means this weather-making region will not return to its former, colder state, scientists reported on Thursday.

In an international assessment of the Arctic, scientists from the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark and other countries said, "Return to previous Arctic conditions is unlikely."

Conditions in the Arctic are important because of their powerful impact on weather in the heavily populated middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

The heavy snows in the United States, northern Europe and western Asia last winter are linked to higher air temperatures over the Arctic, the scientists found.

"Winter 2009-2010 showed a new connectivity between mid-latitude extreme cold and snowy weather events and changes in the wind patterns of the Arctic, the so-called Warm Arctic-Cold Continents pattern," said the report, issued by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The scientists found evidence of widespread Arctic warming, with surface air temperatures rising above global averages twice as quickly as the rate for lower latitudes, Jackie Richter-Menge of the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.

Part of the reason for this is a process called polar amplification - where the Arctic is warms faster than the rest of the globe. Warming air melts the sun-reflecting white snow and ice of the Arctic, revealing darker, heat-absorbing water or land, spurring the effects of warming. This is further amplified by the action of the round-the-clock sunlight of Arctic summers, Richter-Menge said.

SNOWY PARADOX

Normally cold air is "bottled up" in the Arctic during winter months but in late 2009 and early 2010, powerful winds blew cold air from north to south instead of the more typical west to east pattern, said Jim Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

Overland saw this as a direct link between a warmer Arctic with less sea ice and weather in the middle latitudes, and he suggested it was likely to become more common as Arctic sea ice melts over the next 50 years.

This pattern has occurred only three times in the past 160 years, Overland said at the briefing.

"It's a bit of a paradox where you have overall global warming and warming in the atmosphere (that) actually can create some more of these winter storms," Overland said. "Global warming is not just warming everywhere. ... It creates these complexities."

Records tumbled in Greenland, where 2010 was the warmest year in 138 years in the island's capital city of Nuuk, and four big glaciers lost more than 10 square miles (25.90 sq km) each, said Jason Box of the Byrd Polar Research Center in Ohio.

At first glance Greenland is an expanse of blinding white. But if you look closer, you will see color. For miles on end, bands of blue melt-water fringe the ice sheet. Fields of white are threaded with riv­ers, etched with crevasses, and blotched with lakes.

"There's now really no doubt that glacier ice losses have not just increased but have accelerated," Box said. "Sea level rise projections for the future will again need to be revised upward."

The full report is available on the Internet here.

Source:
Reuters, "Warmer Arctic probably permanent, scientists say", accessed October 22, 2010