From: Philip Pullella, Reuters
LORETO, Italy - Pope Benedict on Saturday led the Catholic Church's first eco-friendly youth rally -- where nearly everything used was biodegradable or recyclable -- and urged his young listeners to shun "disposable love."
The 80-year-old Pope told the young people, estimated by organizers at some 300,000, to dare to change the world and search for lasting, meaningful relationships.
The two-day rally, which coincides with the Italian Catholic Church's "Day for Safeguarding Creation," saw young people sprawled on a vast hillside near the central Adriatic shrine city of Loreto.
Italy's Catholic Church, which organized the event, said it was the first environmentally friendly youth rally, a break from past gatherings that left tonnes of garbage and scars on the earth.
A participants' kit included backpacks made of recyclable material, a flashlight operated by a crank instead of batteries, and color-coded trash bags so their personal garbage could be easily recycled. Meals were served on biodegradable plates.
Tens of thousands of prayerbooks for Sunday's mass were printed on recycled paper and an adequate number of trees would be planted to compensate for the carbon produced at the event, many in areas of southern Italy devastated by recent brushfires.
In his speech to the young people, who listened to music and heard inspirational stories before the Pope arrived, Benedict told them not only to dream of a better world but build it by helping others and seeking true love.
"Discover the beauty of love, but not disposable love, that is here today and gone tomorrow, that is deceitful and prisoner of an egoistic and materialistic mentality but a love that is real and deep," he told the crowd.
"The beauty of creation is proof that God exists," he said.
The Vatican has become progressively "green." It has installed photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference on climate change.
Last month Benedict said the human race must listen to "the voice of the Earth" or risk destroying its very existence.
Loreto is famous in the Catholic world for the "holy house of the Madonna" a small stone structure purported to be where Mary grew up in the Holy Land and where she was told by an angel she would give birth to Jesus although a virgin.
According to popular legend, it was "flown" by angels from the Holy Land in the 13th century to save it from Muslim armies.
Modern scholars have said parts of the walls may have been brought in pieces from the Middle East by defeated Crusaders or that the entire structure may have been built on the site where it now stands in order to draw pilgrims to the city.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
Milk is the new oil thanks to climate change, "free" trade, and biofuels
In a growing world, milk is the new oil
By Wayne Arnold
International Herald Tribune, France
Published: August 31, 2007
HAMILTON, New Zealand: After years of saving, Geoff Irwin finally scraped up enough money to buy his parents' dairy farm near here in 2003. Now his parents have retired to a house nearby and Irwin, 45, runs the farm with its 300 cows.
It is hard work, 12 hours a day, but already it looks as though it has paid off: Just four years later, the farm is worth more than twice what he paid for it. Prices for dairy farms in New Zealand are soaring along with dairy incomes, thanks to a global milk boom.
"It feels really good," Irwin said. "It feels like we're going to be earning and be rewarded the way we should."
Driven by a combination of climate change, trade policies and competition for cattle feed from biofuel producers, global milk prices have doubled over the past two years. In parts of the United States, milk is more expensive than gasoline. There are reports of cows being stolen on Wisconsin dairy farms.
"There's a world shortage of milk," said Philip Goode, manager of international policy at Dairy Australia in Canberra.
But the biggest force driving up milk prices is the same one that has driven up prices for conventional commodities like iron ore and copper: a roaring global economy. Rising incomes, from China and India to Latin America and the Middle East, are lifting millions of people out of poverty and into the middle class.
It turns out that, along with zippy cars and flat-panel TVs, milk is the mark of new money, a significant source of protein that factors into much of any affluent person's diet. Milk goes into infant formulas, chocolates, ice cream and cheese. Most baked goods contain butter, and coffee chains like Starbucks sell more milk than coffee.
Just meeting that demand, according to Alex Duncan, an economist at Fonterra, the dominant dairy cooperative in New Zealand and the world's largest dairy-exporting company, will require the addition each year of the equivalent of New Zealand's entire annual milk output.
That is a lot of milk. New Zealand is one of the world's largest milk producers, according to IFCN Dairy Research Center in Germany, but the largest exporter of dairy products. Some dairy economists doubt the world's heifers are up to the task, and say there is a possibility that the shortage of milk now being seen in parts of the world will spread.
Others say there are plenty of places where more milk can be produced if the price is right. One thing they agree on is that milk prices are likely to stay high and rise even higher.
"No one forecast this rapid shortage of milk," said Torsten Hemme, head of the IFCN center.
This is not good if you are in the market for milk. Pizza parlors and ice cream vendors are raising their prices. Starbucks has raised the price of its drinks. Raising the price of its candy bars didn't stop milk prices from pushing Hershey's profit down 96 percent in its latest financial year. Milk is also weighing on profits at Cadbury Schweppes and at Kraft Foods' cheese unit.
What is unusual, and somewhat confusing, about the milk boom compared with other booming commodities is that milk is not like oil: You can't stick it in barrels and stockpile it. It goes sour. Even in powder form, the most commoditized version, milk has a shelf life. As a result, only about 7 percent of all the milk produced globally is traded across borders. The rest is consumed in domestic markets, which are protected by geography and just as often by tariffs or subsidies.
Big buyers like chocolate makers and grocery stores buy their milk under long-term contracts, and so can smooth out sudden spikes or dips in prices. Thus, the full impact of the global shortage varies from country to country, and not all consumers are yet suffering the full impact.
But because of the local nature of the market, there is very little spare capacity. In the past, the world could always count on the United States and Europe to fill shortages by exporting some of their subsidized stockpiles of cheese, butter and milk powder. But the United States has drawn down its butter mountain and other stockpiles; the same is true of the European Union, which started cutting dairy subsidies in 1993 and will be finished this year. Rising dairy demand in the United States and among the EU's new members, moreover, is sucking up supplies. As a result, said Hemme, "This storage capacity is empty now."
Australia, a major exporter, is suffering a multi-year drought that has devastated its milk production by killing off the grass that milk cows eat. Many in Australia worry that, far from being a temporary problem, the drought is the result of global warming and that dairies will never be the same.
At the same time, rising demand for biofuels is pushing up the price of corn and other grains, which is what farmers in the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan use to feed their cows instead of grass. Rising feed costs are therefore helping to push milk prices even higher. Production is growing in emerging markets like China, but demand there is growing even faster. The average person in China now consumes more than 25 liters, or 6 gallons, of milk a year, up from 9 liters in 2000, according to IFCN. So while China is now one of the world's top milk producers, it is also the world's largest milk importer.
In other emerging markets, rising prices have prompted governments to step in to control prices. In Argentina, for example, the government has imposed a tax on dairy exports. India, the world's largest milk producer, this year banned exports of milk powder.
Rising milk prices are contributing to accelerating inflation worldwide, from Brazil to Australia, vexing policy makers and sparking allegations that there is more behind it than supply and demand. The authorities in South Africa are investing allegations of price-fixing in the country's milk market; in Germany they are looking into the rising prices of milk and butter; and the U.S. Congress has started an inquiry into alleged price-fixing in the nation's market for cheese.
But rising milk prices have not been an unmitigated boon for producers, not even in New Zealand. Payments to farmers here are on track to rise another 24 percent this year, putting an extra $76,000 into the average farmer's pocket. But rising exports, property prices and farm incomes have all contributed to rising inflation in New Zealand, prompting the central bank to push its benchmark interest rate up last month to 8.25 percent. That has helped push the New Zealand dollar to its highest point against the U.S. dollar in 22 years. As it rises, earnings from milk sold abroad decline when converted back into local currency. New Zealand's export boom has also created a labor shortage that is pushing up the cost of hiring farm hands.
Rising costs also hurt New Zealand's ability to increase production in response to rising demand. The country's sheep farmers, for example, are trying to convert to dairy, but there is a two-year waiting list for milking sheds, according to Peter Buckley, president of the Waikato Federated Farmers, which represents farmers in New Zealand's prime dairying area. Higher land costs are also making it more expensive to buy new pastures.
As a result, experts say the growing demand for milk will have to be met in countries like China and Argentina as higher prices trigger greater investment in lifting milk yields. India has announced plans to lift its ban on milk powder exports next month.
Some see the United States as another main source of additional milk supplies. International prices have now risen above the subsidized price of milk there, making it profitable for American dairies to export their milk. "There's a real opportunity for the U.S. to export without government support or subsidies," Goode said.
Hemme at IFCN estimates that both the U.S. Midwest and Europe could multiply their milk production. But it would take one or two years and require using more costly corn and grain. So even if milk supplies keep up with demand, the price will stay high.
"Even when prices start easing back, we don't expect them to go back to where they were," said Hayley Moynihan, a dairy analyst at Rabobank in New Zealand. "The cost of production and ongoing demand is going to see prices eventually settle at higher levels than they did in the past."
By Wayne Arnold
International Herald Tribune, France
Published: August 31, 2007
HAMILTON, New Zealand: After years of saving, Geoff Irwin finally scraped up enough money to buy his parents' dairy farm near here in 2003. Now his parents have retired to a house nearby and Irwin, 45, runs the farm with its 300 cows.
It is hard work, 12 hours a day, but already it looks as though it has paid off: Just four years later, the farm is worth more than twice what he paid for it. Prices for dairy farms in New Zealand are soaring along with dairy incomes, thanks to a global milk boom.
"It feels really good," Irwin said. "It feels like we're going to be earning and be rewarded the way we should."
Driven by a combination of climate change, trade policies and competition for cattle feed from biofuel producers, global milk prices have doubled over the past two years. In parts of the United States, milk is more expensive than gasoline. There are reports of cows being stolen on Wisconsin dairy farms.
"There's a world shortage of milk," said Philip Goode, manager of international policy at Dairy Australia in Canberra.
But the biggest force driving up milk prices is the same one that has driven up prices for conventional commodities like iron ore and copper: a roaring global economy. Rising incomes, from China and India to Latin America and the Middle East, are lifting millions of people out of poverty and into the middle class.
It turns out that, along with zippy cars and flat-panel TVs, milk is the mark of new money, a significant source of protein that factors into much of any affluent person's diet. Milk goes into infant formulas, chocolates, ice cream and cheese. Most baked goods contain butter, and coffee chains like Starbucks sell more milk than coffee.
Just meeting that demand, according to Alex Duncan, an economist at Fonterra, the dominant dairy cooperative in New Zealand and the world's largest dairy-exporting company, will require the addition each year of the equivalent of New Zealand's entire annual milk output.
That is a lot of milk. New Zealand is one of the world's largest milk producers, according to IFCN Dairy Research Center in Germany, but the largest exporter of dairy products. Some dairy economists doubt the world's heifers are up to the task, and say there is a possibility that the shortage of milk now being seen in parts of the world will spread.
Others say there are plenty of places where more milk can be produced if the price is right. One thing they agree on is that milk prices are likely to stay high and rise even higher.
"No one forecast this rapid shortage of milk," said Torsten Hemme, head of the IFCN center.
This is not good if you are in the market for milk. Pizza parlors and ice cream vendors are raising their prices. Starbucks has raised the price of its drinks. Raising the price of its candy bars didn't stop milk prices from pushing Hershey's profit down 96 percent in its latest financial year. Milk is also weighing on profits at Cadbury Schweppes and at Kraft Foods' cheese unit.
What is unusual, and somewhat confusing, about the milk boom compared with other booming commodities is that milk is not like oil: You can't stick it in barrels and stockpile it. It goes sour. Even in powder form, the most commoditized version, milk has a shelf life. As a result, only about 7 percent of all the milk produced globally is traded across borders. The rest is consumed in domestic markets, which are protected by geography and just as often by tariffs or subsidies.
Big buyers like chocolate makers and grocery stores buy their milk under long-term contracts, and so can smooth out sudden spikes or dips in prices. Thus, the full impact of the global shortage varies from country to country, and not all consumers are yet suffering the full impact.
But because of the local nature of the market, there is very little spare capacity. In the past, the world could always count on the United States and Europe to fill shortages by exporting some of their subsidized stockpiles of cheese, butter and milk powder. But the United States has drawn down its butter mountain and other stockpiles; the same is true of the European Union, which started cutting dairy subsidies in 1993 and will be finished this year. Rising dairy demand in the United States and among the EU's new members, moreover, is sucking up supplies. As a result, said Hemme, "This storage capacity is empty now."
Australia, a major exporter, is suffering a multi-year drought that has devastated its milk production by killing off the grass that milk cows eat. Many in Australia worry that, far from being a temporary problem, the drought is the result of global warming and that dairies will never be the same.
At the same time, rising demand for biofuels is pushing up the price of corn and other grains, which is what farmers in the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan use to feed their cows instead of grass. Rising feed costs are therefore helping to push milk prices even higher. Production is growing in emerging markets like China, but demand there is growing even faster. The average person in China now consumes more than 25 liters, or 6 gallons, of milk a year, up from 9 liters in 2000, according to IFCN. So while China is now one of the world's top milk producers, it is also the world's largest milk importer.
In other emerging markets, rising prices have prompted governments to step in to control prices. In Argentina, for example, the government has imposed a tax on dairy exports. India, the world's largest milk producer, this year banned exports of milk powder.
Rising milk prices are contributing to accelerating inflation worldwide, from Brazil to Australia, vexing policy makers and sparking allegations that there is more behind it than supply and demand. The authorities in South Africa are investing allegations of price-fixing in the country's milk market; in Germany they are looking into the rising prices of milk and butter; and the U.S. Congress has started an inquiry into alleged price-fixing in the nation's market for cheese.
But rising milk prices have not been an unmitigated boon for producers, not even in New Zealand. Payments to farmers here are on track to rise another 24 percent this year, putting an extra $76,000 into the average farmer's pocket. But rising exports, property prices and farm incomes have all contributed to rising inflation in New Zealand, prompting the central bank to push its benchmark interest rate up last month to 8.25 percent. That has helped push the New Zealand dollar to its highest point against the U.S. dollar in 22 years. As it rises, earnings from milk sold abroad decline when converted back into local currency. New Zealand's export boom has also created a labor shortage that is pushing up the cost of hiring farm hands.
Rising costs also hurt New Zealand's ability to increase production in response to rising demand. The country's sheep farmers, for example, are trying to convert to dairy, but there is a two-year waiting list for milking sheds, according to Peter Buckley, president of the Waikato Federated Farmers, which represents farmers in New Zealand's prime dairying area. Higher land costs are also making it more expensive to buy new pastures.
As a result, experts say the growing demand for milk will have to be met in countries like China and Argentina as higher prices trigger greater investment in lifting milk yields. India has announced plans to lift its ban on milk powder exports next month.
Some see the United States as another main source of additional milk supplies. International prices have now risen above the subsidized price of milk there, making it profitable for American dairies to export their milk. "There's a real opportunity for the U.S. to export without government support or subsidies," Goode said.
Hemme at IFCN estimates that both the U.S. Midwest and Europe could multiply their milk production. But it would take one or two years and require using more costly corn and grain. So even if milk supplies keep up with demand, the price will stay high.
"Even when prices start easing back, we don't expect them to go back to where they were," said Hayley Moynihan, a dairy analyst at Rabobank in New Zealand. "The cost of production and ongoing demand is going to see prices eventually settle at higher levels than they did in the past."
Industrial Nations Agree To Look At Tough New Climate Rules
VIENNA - Industrial nations agreed on Friday to consider stiff 2020 goals for cutting greenhouse gases in a small step towards a new long-term pact to fight climate change.
About 1,000 delegates at the Aug 27-31 U.N. talks set greenhouse gas emissions cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels as a non-binding starting point for rich nations' work on a new pact to extend the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
"These conclusions...indicate what industrialized countries must do to show leadership," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, welcoming a compromise deal on the range of needed cuts.
"But more needs to be done by the global community," he told a news conference at the end of the 158-nation talks. Many countries want to broaden Kyoto to include targets for outsiders such as the United States and developing nations.
Delegates agreed that the 25-40 percent range "provides useful initial parameters for the overall level of ambition of further emissions reductions".
It fell short of calls by the European Union and developing nations for the range to be called a stronger "guide" for future work. Pacific Island states said that even stiffer cuts may be needed to avert rising seas that could wash them off the map.
Nations including Russia, Japan and Canada had objected to the idea of a "guide", reckoning it might end up binding them to make sweeping economic shifts away from fossil fuels, widely seen as a main cause of global warming.
Delegates in the Vienna conference hall applauded for 10 seconds after adopting the compromise text by consensus.
STARTING POINT
"This is a small step," Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the EU Commission delegation, told Reuters. "We wanted bigger steps. But I think the 25-40 percent will be viewed as a starting point, an anchor for further work."
The U.N.'s climate panel said in a study in May 2007 that rich nations would have to cut emissions by between 25 and 40 percent to help avert the worst impacts of climate change from droughts, storms, heatwaves and rising seas.
"The process is moving along," said Leon Charles from Grenada, who chaired the final session. "By and large we have achieved our objectives".
De Boer said that the decisions might help environment ministers who will meet in Bali, Indonesia, in December, to agree to launch formal negotiations on a new global climate treaty to be decided by the end of 2009.
"This meeting has put the Bali conference in the starting blocks," de Boer said.
Environmentalists also hailed the conclusions as a step in the right direction. "The road to Bali is clear but it's time to switch gears," said Red Constantino of Greenpeace.
"We have a clear message from most governments that they will take seriously" scientists' calls for deep cuts, said Hans Verolme, climate expert of the WWF.
Kyoto binds 36 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a first bid to contain warming.
The United States has not ratified Kyoto, rating it too costly and unfair for excluding 2012 goals for developing states, and thus was not involved in Friday's session. President George W. Bush has separately called a meeting of major emitters in Washington on September 27-28 to work out future cuts.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
About 1,000 delegates at the Aug 27-31 U.N. talks set greenhouse gas emissions cuts of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels as a non-binding starting point for rich nations' work on a new pact to extend the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
"These conclusions...indicate what industrialized countries must do to show leadership," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, welcoming a compromise deal on the range of needed cuts.
"But more needs to be done by the global community," he told a news conference at the end of the 158-nation talks. Many countries want to broaden Kyoto to include targets for outsiders such as the United States and developing nations.
Delegates agreed that the 25-40 percent range "provides useful initial parameters for the overall level of ambition of further emissions reductions".
It fell short of calls by the European Union and developing nations for the range to be called a stronger "guide" for future work. Pacific Island states said that even stiffer cuts may be needed to avert rising seas that could wash them off the map.
Nations including Russia, Japan and Canada had objected to the idea of a "guide", reckoning it might end up binding them to make sweeping economic shifts away from fossil fuels, widely seen as a main cause of global warming.
Delegates in the Vienna conference hall applauded for 10 seconds after adopting the compromise text by consensus.
STARTING POINT
"This is a small step," Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the EU Commission delegation, told Reuters. "We wanted bigger steps. But I think the 25-40 percent will be viewed as a starting point, an anchor for further work."
The U.N.'s climate panel said in a study in May 2007 that rich nations would have to cut emissions by between 25 and 40 percent to help avert the worst impacts of climate change from droughts, storms, heatwaves and rising seas.
"The process is moving along," said Leon Charles from Grenada, who chaired the final session. "By and large we have achieved our objectives".
De Boer said that the decisions might help environment ministers who will meet in Bali, Indonesia, in December, to agree to launch formal negotiations on a new global climate treaty to be decided by the end of 2009.
"This meeting has put the Bali conference in the starting blocks," de Boer said.
Environmentalists also hailed the conclusions as a step in the right direction. "The road to Bali is clear but it's time to switch gears," said Red Constantino of Greenpeace.
"We have a clear message from most governments that they will take seriously" scientists' calls for deep cuts, said Hans Verolme, climate expert of the WWF.
Kyoto binds 36 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a first bid to contain warming.
The United States has not ratified Kyoto, rating it too costly and unfair for excluding 2012 goals for developing states, and thus was not involved in Friday's session. President George W. Bush has separately called a meeting of major emitters in Washington on September 27-28 to work out future cuts.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
Death and desolation after the inferno on road from Artemida
People of the Peloponnese lost relatives, homes and livelihoods in worst disaster for decades to hit their picturesque land
Helena Smith in Athens
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
The flames rolled over the road all at once and when they came, Spyros Bilionis did instinctively what he did not want to do: he drove straight into them.
With Pandazis Chronopoulos, the mayor of Zaharo, in the passenger seat screaming not to stop he pointed his silver jeep at the inferno and closed his eyes.
Neither man is sure how long it lasted. Only that the fire, white-hot and fearless, licked at the windows of the vehicle, buckling them as if they were toffee, searing the men's feet and burning their lips dry. "We said 'Hail Mary, Hail, Hail Mary', and just drove. I couldn't see a thing, there was so much smoke, but I knew the road was straight and closed my eyes," said Mr Bilionis, recounting his experience of the deadliest fires to hit Greece since its birth as a modern state.
And then it was over. The road leading to Artemida, in the Peloponnese, was suddenly visible, a promise of life through the billowing smoke.
"I cried. I wept and said thank you, thank you, dear Mary, thank you," continued the 38-year-old, still shaking his head in disbelief.
Athanasia Paraskevopoulou and her four children were not as lucky. Minutes earlier the Athenian schoolteacher had taken the same road and gone with her instincts: when she reached the fork leading out of Artemida she decided to outrace the flames and not drive through them.
In a fraction of a second her car hurtled down the road, as others realising their terrible mistake - that the conflagration was already upon them - desperately tried to turn back.
"If she had turned right at that fork and taken the upper road out, as I did, she would have survived," said Giorgos Kosifas, her uncle. "But at such times you panic and that is what Athanasia did," said the farmer who, as Artemida's mayor, was one of the last to leave on a moped.
"She drove down that road and straight into what seems to have been a crash. Some people managed to escape, and ran into the olive groves only to die there, but when we found her she was still in the car, holding her children tight."
Today it is scorched sandals, a pair of children's shorts, a blackened piece of skirt and other tokens of death that litter a hill turned white by the flames.
More people died on the road out of Artemida - and of the 64 people killed in the fires, most died in this area - than anywhere else in the eight days that the blazes, Europe's worst in a decade, have ravaged the country.
Battle zone
When Artemida's inhabitants began to recover after the inferno streaked across their fields for 20 minutes, what they saw was a landscape that resembled a war zone. Twenty three people had died.
"We lived in the most beautiful part of Greece, you cannot imagine how green it was," said Antonis Bouroyannopoulos, 42, picking his way through the debris of the village church. "What has happened has taken our happiness away."
The Greek poet George Seferis wrote: "Wherever I go Greece wounds me." But nothing would wound him more than the sight of his beloved country today after fires that have erupted across its length and breadth and consumed thousands of hectares of forest and farmland, devastated 4m olive trees, gutted an estimated 6,000 homes, created thousands of internal refugees and wrought untold damage on an mountainous ecosystem.
Not since the second world war and the brutal civil war that followed has Greece suffered such privation.
In the Peloponnese, the peninsula worst hit by the fires, the signs of death are everywhere: in the stumps of still smouldering olive trees; the silver ash that carpets the land; the charred remains of carcasses putrefying in the summer heat; the trees tinged orange as if they are wearing wigs; and the thousands of others turned charcoal black, their baldness too awful to contemplate for those whose families have lived in these parts for centuries.
For the few tourists in the affected areas, it is as if they have encountered the "darkness visible" of Milton's Paradise Lost.
"Tell me, in God's name, how are we ever going to live in this?" cried Athanasios Karelas, one local. "How are our children and their children going to survive in land that is dead? Look, all around you, even the stones have burned!"
Yesterday, the smell of charred wood, continued to hang over Olympia, the birthplace of the ancient Olympic games, which only narrowly survived being burned to the ground on Sunday.
As tourists filed into the museum to see the pristine statute of Hermes carved by the master sculptor Praxiteles, workmen were busy clearing up debris around the site.
But with fires still raging across Arcadia - having crossed over from the adjoining province of Ilia on Thursday - there was no indication of any let-up soon.
In a region whose rustic beauty has inspired poets and painters and draws more nature lovers than any other part of Greece, vast swaths of land have been turned to ash as fires, for the first time ever, have devoured fir, olive and pine forests.
Victim trauma
"What's so dreadful is you see it coming and there's nothing, absolutely nothing, that you can do," said Athina Dalaminga, throwing her hands up in the air as she watched flames destroy the spectacular scenery beneath the historic Arcadian village of Karytaina. "We really thought we had put the fire out and then it re-erupted today with the winds."
Yesterday the first psychiatrists began to arrive in the Peloponnese. And the prognosis was not good.
"People are clearly in a state of shock because they appear unable to express anything," said Dr Giorgos Kyriazis. "But I am terribly worried that when they wake up to the reality, to the loss of relatives, homes, fields, practically everything they own, the problems of melancholy and depression will be enormous."
Already anger has set in deep with a conservative government widely believed to have done little to prevent the fires, and to have bungled a rescue operation that went from bad to worse as the scale of the damage and death gradually came to light.
With elections scheduled for September 16, Costas Karamanlis, the prime minister, has gone out of his way to offset rising anger by offering generous compensation.
But the government's insistence that the fires are the work of arsonists bent on destroying Greece has only brought more vilification, with many saying that the disaster has instead exposed a political system incapacitated by corruption and cronyism and a firefighting force headed by inexperienced conservative party appointees.
The statistics
64 The number of people who have died in the fires
8 The number of days that the fires have been raging for so far
6,000 The number of homes believed to have been destroyed in the fires
4m The number of olive trees estimated to have been burnt
Helena Smith in Athens
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian
The flames rolled over the road all at once and when they came, Spyros Bilionis did instinctively what he did not want to do: he drove straight into them.
With Pandazis Chronopoulos, the mayor of Zaharo, in the passenger seat screaming not to stop he pointed his silver jeep at the inferno and closed his eyes.
Neither man is sure how long it lasted. Only that the fire, white-hot and fearless, licked at the windows of the vehicle, buckling them as if they were toffee, searing the men's feet and burning their lips dry. "We said 'Hail Mary, Hail, Hail Mary', and just drove. I couldn't see a thing, there was so much smoke, but I knew the road was straight and closed my eyes," said Mr Bilionis, recounting his experience of the deadliest fires to hit Greece since its birth as a modern state.
And then it was over. The road leading to Artemida, in the Peloponnese, was suddenly visible, a promise of life through the billowing smoke.
"I cried. I wept and said thank you, thank you, dear Mary, thank you," continued the 38-year-old, still shaking his head in disbelief.
Athanasia Paraskevopoulou and her four children were not as lucky. Minutes earlier the Athenian schoolteacher had taken the same road and gone with her instincts: when she reached the fork leading out of Artemida she decided to outrace the flames and not drive through them.
In a fraction of a second her car hurtled down the road, as others realising their terrible mistake - that the conflagration was already upon them - desperately tried to turn back.
"If she had turned right at that fork and taken the upper road out, as I did, she would have survived," said Giorgos Kosifas, her uncle. "But at such times you panic and that is what Athanasia did," said the farmer who, as Artemida's mayor, was one of the last to leave on a moped.
"She drove down that road and straight into what seems to have been a crash. Some people managed to escape, and ran into the olive groves only to die there, but when we found her she was still in the car, holding her children tight."
Today it is scorched sandals, a pair of children's shorts, a blackened piece of skirt and other tokens of death that litter a hill turned white by the flames.
More people died on the road out of Artemida - and of the 64 people killed in the fires, most died in this area - than anywhere else in the eight days that the blazes, Europe's worst in a decade, have ravaged the country.
Battle zone
When Artemida's inhabitants began to recover after the inferno streaked across their fields for 20 minutes, what they saw was a landscape that resembled a war zone. Twenty three people had died.
"We lived in the most beautiful part of Greece, you cannot imagine how green it was," said Antonis Bouroyannopoulos, 42, picking his way through the debris of the village church. "What has happened has taken our happiness away."
The Greek poet George Seferis wrote: "Wherever I go Greece wounds me." But nothing would wound him more than the sight of his beloved country today after fires that have erupted across its length and breadth and consumed thousands of hectares of forest and farmland, devastated 4m olive trees, gutted an estimated 6,000 homes, created thousands of internal refugees and wrought untold damage on an mountainous ecosystem.
Not since the second world war and the brutal civil war that followed has Greece suffered such privation.
In the Peloponnese, the peninsula worst hit by the fires, the signs of death are everywhere: in the stumps of still smouldering olive trees; the silver ash that carpets the land; the charred remains of carcasses putrefying in the summer heat; the trees tinged orange as if they are wearing wigs; and the thousands of others turned charcoal black, their baldness too awful to contemplate for those whose families have lived in these parts for centuries.
For the few tourists in the affected areas, it is as if they have encountered the "darkness visible" of Milton's Paradise Lost.
"Tell me, in God's name, how are we ever going to live in this?" cried Athanasios Karelas, one local. "How are our children and their children going to survive in land that is dead? Look, all around you, even the stones have burned!"
Yesterday, the smell of charred wood, continued to hang over Olympia, the birthplace of the ancient Olympic games, which only narrowly survived being burned to the ground on Sunday.
As tourists filed into the museum to see the pristine statute of Hermes carved by the master sculptor Praxiteles, workmen were busy clearing up debris around the site.
But with fires still raging across Arcadia - having crossed over from the adjoining province of Ilia on Thursday - there was no indication of any let-up soon.
In a region whose rustic beauty has inspired poets and painters and draws more nature lovers than any other part of Greece, vast swaths of land have been turned to ash as fires, for the first time ever, have devoured fir, olive and pine forests.
Victim trauma
"What's so dreadful is you see it coming and there's nothing, absolutely nothing, that you can do," said Athina Dalaminga, throwing her hands up in the air as she watched flames destroy the spectacular scenery beneath the historic Arcadian village of Karytaina. "We really thought we had put the fire out and then it re-erupted today with the winds."
Yesterday the first psychiatrists began to arrive in the Peloponnese. And the prognosis was not good.
"People are clearly in a state of shock because they appear unable to express anything," said Dr Giorgos Kyriazis. "But I am terribly worried that when they wake up to the reality, to the loss of relatives, homes, fields, practically everything they own, the problems of melancholy and depression will be enormous."
Already anger has set in deep with a conservative government widely believed to have done little to prevent the fires, and to have bungled a rescue operation that went from bad to worse as the scale of the damage and death gradually came to light.
With elections scheduled for September 16, Costas Karamanlis, the prime minister, has gone out of his way to offset rising anger by offering generous compensation.
But the government's insistence that the fires are the work of arsonists bent on destroying Greece has only brought more vilification, with many saying that the disaster has instead exposed a political system incapacitated by corruption and cronyism and a firefighting force headed by inexperienced conservative party appointees.
The statistics
64 The number of people who have died in the fires
8 The number of days that the fires have been raging for so far
6,000 The number of homes believed to have been destroyed in the fires
4m The number of olive trees estimated to have been burnt
Colombia joins Countdown 2010
Colombia has become the third country in South America to join Countdown 2010, an initiative to slow the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010
Colombia, which has the highest Biodiversity National Indicator in South America and the most biodiverse region of the world, has joined the Countdown 2010 initiative.
The Minister of Environment and Territorial Development, Juan Lozano Ramirez, signed the Countdown 2010 Declaration, on Thursday, August 30, in a ceremony at the International Workshop of Ecosystems for the Millenium in Bogota.
The country has joined an active network of partners from all sectors working together to reduce the loss of biodiversity and raise public attention on the challenge to save biodiversity by 2010.
Juan Lozano Ramirez, Ministry of Environment and Territorial Development, said: “With this Declaration we want to express to Colombians and to the rest of the world that we are committed to contribute towards the reduction of loss of biodiversity with this international goal.”
Main commitments for the 2010 declaration include support to halt or significantly reduce the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. The declaration also commits signatories to increase public awareness and participation for biodiversity conservation, better integrate biodiversity considerations into all relevant sectors of public policy and economy and undertake serious efforts to adapt human activities to the needs of natural systems.
Colombia’s particular commitments include identifying a clear agenda on biodiversity research to support decisions concerned on loss of biodiversity, consolidating the Colombian National System on Environmental Information and considering the fundamental role that protected areas have in terms of the conservation of biodiversity.
Robert Hofstede, IUCN South America Regional Director ad interim, indicated that the goal to reduce the loss of biodiversity includes the work of several sectors, including an important role for the private sector.
Colombia became the third country in South America to sign the Countdown 2010 Declaration, behind Peru and Ecuador, strengthening this commitment inside Andean countries. The South American hub for Countdown 2010, hosted in the IUCN South America Office, has been promoting the initiative with IUCN members in the region and other interested partners since January of this year.
The main challenges for this regional initiative are to prepare base information on loss of biodiversity, improve the impact of communications and education on biodiversity issues and support practical experiences on the conservation of biodiversity, including the participation of local communities, governments and the private sector.
For further information please contact: Arturo Mora (arturo.moranonesur.iucn.org) and Veronica Moreno (veronica.morenononesur.iucn.org)
Colombia, which has the highest Biodiversity National Indicator in South America and the most biodiverse region of the world, has joined the Countdown 2010 initiative.
The Minister of Environment and Territorial Development, Juan Lozano Ramirez, signed the Countdown 2010 Declaration, on Thursday, August 30, in a ceremony at the International Workshop of Ecosystems for the Millenium in Bogota.
The country has joined an active network of partners from all sectors working together to reduce the loss of biodiversity and raise public attention on the challenge to save biodiversity by 2010.
Juan Lozano Ramirez, Ministry of Environment and Territorial Development, said: “With this Declaration we want to express to Colombians and to the rest of the world that we are committed to contribute towards the reduction of loss of biodiversity with this international goal.”
Main commitments for the 2010 declaration include support to halt or significantly reduce the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. The declaration also commits signatories to increase public awareness and participation for biodiversity conservation, better integrate biodiversity considerations into all relevant sectors of public policy and economy and undertake serious efforts to adapt human activities to the needs of natural systems.
Colombia’s particular commitments include identifying a clear agenda on biodiversity research to support decisions concerned on loss of biodiversity, consolidating the Colombian National System on Environmental Information and considering the fundamental role that protected areas have in terms of the conservation of biodiversity.
Robert Hofstede, IUCN South America Regional Director ad interim, indicated that the goal to reduce the loss of biodiversity includes the work of several sectors, including an important role for the private sector.
Colombia became the third country in South America to sign the Countdown 2010 Declaration, behind Peru and Ecuador, strengthening this commitment inside Andean countries. The South American hub for Countdown 2010, hosted in the IUCN South America Office, has been promoting the initiative with IUCN members in the region and other interested partners since January of this year.
The main challenges for this regional initiative are to prepare base information on loss of biodiversity, improve the impact of communications and education on biodiversity issues and support practical experiences on the conservation of biodiversity, including the participation of local communities, governments and the private sector.
For further information please contact: Arturo Mora (arturo.moranonesur.iucn.org) and Veronica Moreno (veronica.morenononesur.iucn.org)
LSU professor looks for life in and under antarctic ice
If confirmed, "immortal cells" could prove potential for life on Mars and Europa, one of Jupiter's moons
BATON ROUGE ”“ Antarctica is home to the largest body of ice on Earth. Prior to approximately 10 years ago, no one thought that life could exist beneath the Antarctic ice sheets, which can be more than two miles thick in places, because conditions were believed to be too extreme. However, Brent Christner, assistant professor of biological sciences at LSU, has spent a great deal of time in one of the world’s most hostile environments conducting research that proves otherwise.
Christner’s discoveries of viable microbes in ancient ice cores and subglacial environments coupled with the realization that large quantities of liquid water exist beneath the Antarctic ice sheet have changed the way biologists view life in Antarctica.
“More than 150 lakes have been discovered underneath nearly two-and-a-half miles of ice in Antactica,” said Christner, “and most of these bodies of water have likely been covered by ice for at least 15 million years. The environmental conditions in the deep cold biosphere are unlike anything on the Earth’s surface and this represents one of the most extreme habitats for life on the planet.”
A timeframe of up to one million years is required for microbes in the atmosphere to be transported through the ice sheet and enter an Antarctic subglacial lake. Even though cells are preserved in the ice, the question of how the DNA of these organisms remains unscathed over such long periods of apparent metabolic inactivity still remains.
According to Christner, there are two possible explanations of how these microbes could survive frozen for millenia. Firstly, the microbes may be dormant in the ice and possess “very effective repair mechanisms that are initiated when the cells are introduced to a growth situation,” he said. Given enough time, dormant cells ”“ without active DNA repair mechanisms ”“ would eventually incur a lethal level of radiation-induced damage from natural background sources in the ice.
Alternatively, Christner suggests that the microbes may stay metabolically active while entrapped in the ice, giving them the ability to repair damage as it occurs. “If this is the case, these microbes may be essentially immortal when frozen ”“ that is, if a continuous energy supply was available,” he said.
Christner’s current laboratory research has shown that glacier microbes are capable of metabolic activity when frozen down to -20 degrees Celcius. “Our experiments have revealed the potential for microbes to metabolize under frozen conditions, but we still lack the ”˜smoking gun’ which proves this occurs in nature. We are now taking what we learned in the lab at LSU and using it to design experiments that address this question in real Antarctic ice samples,” he said.
In collaboration with research colleagues from Montana State University, Christner and two members of his laboratory will deploy to Antarctica in October 2007. Shawn Doyle, LSU senior and microbiology major, will accompany Christner, staying through January 2008. “I interviewed students based on their academic record and experiences,” said Christner. “We’re looking for more than a lab rat, because, as you might imagine, Antarctica presents various challenges for doing science.” He is currently looking for a Ph.D. student to join the research team and conduct field work during the 2008-09 Antarctic season.
“The implication of our research is that the large ice sheets of Antarctica, which make up 70 percent of the planet’s fresh water reserves, may represent active biomes, substantially expanding the known boundaries for life on Earth,” said Christner. “Terrestrial glacier environments provide analogues to address questions relevant to the search for past or present microbial life in extraterrestrial ice on planets and moons in our solar system. Based on what we now know about the tenacity of life in Earth’s deep cold biosphere, microbial life surviving and persisting in ice on Mars or Europa is not that much of a stretch.”
###
For more information, contact Brent Christner at 225-578-1734, e-mail him at xner@lsu.edu or visit www.brent.xner.net.
BATON ROUGE ”“ Antarctica is home to the largest body of ice on Earth. Prior to approximately 10 years ago, no one thought that life could exist beneath the Antarctic ice sheets, which can be more than two miles thick in places, because conditions were believed to be too extreme. However, Brent Christner, assistant professor of biological sciences at LSU, has spent a great deal of time in one of the world’s most hostile environments conducting research that proves otherwise.
Christner’s discoveries of viable microbes in ancient ice cores and subglacial environments coupled with the realization that large quantities of liquid water exist beneath the Antarctic ice sheet have changed the way biologists view life in Antarctica.
“More than 150 lakes have been discovered underneath nearly two-and-a-half miles of ice in Antactica,” said Christner, “and most of these bodies of water have likely been covered by ice for at least 15 million years. The environmental conditions in the deep cold biosphere are unlike anything on the Earth’s surface and this represents one of the most extreme habitats for life on the planet.”
A timeframe of up to one million years is required for microbes in the atmosphere to be transported through the ice sheet and enter an Antarctic subglacial lake. Even though cells are preserved in the ice, the question of how the DNA of these organisms remains unscathed over such long periods of apparent metabolic inactivity still remains.
According to Christner, there are two possible explanations of how these microbes could survive frozen for millenia. Firstly, the microbes may be dormant in the ice and possess “very effective repair mechanisms that are initiated when the cells are introduced to a growth situation,” he said. Given enough time, dormant cells ”“ without active DNA repair mechanisms ”“ would eventually incur a lethal level of radiation-induced damage from natural background sources in the ice.
Alternatively, Christner suggests that the microbes may stay metabolically active while entrapped in the ice, giving them the ability to repair damage as it occurs. “If this is the case, these microbes may be essentially immortal when frozen ”“ that is, if a continuous energy supply was available,” he said.
Christner’s current laboratory research has shown that glacier microbes are capable of metabolic activity when frozen down to -20 degrees Celcius. “Our experiments have revealed the potential for microbes to metabolize under frozen conditions, but we still lack the ”˜smoking gun’ which proves this occurs in nature. We are now taking what we learned in the lab at LSU and using it to design experiments that address this question in real Antarctic ice samples,” he said.
In collaboration with research colleagues from Montana State University, Christner and two members of his laboratory will deploy to Antarctica in October 2007. Shawn Doyle, LSU senior and microbiology major, will accompany Christner, staying through January 2008. “I interviewed students based on their academic record and experiences,” said Christner. “We’re looking for more than a lab rat, because, as you might imagine, Antarctica presents various challenges for doing science.” He is currently looking for a Ph.D. student to join the research team and conduct field work during the 2008-09 Antarctic season.
“The implication of our research is that the large ice sheets of Antarctica, which make up 70 percent of the planet’s fresh water reserves, may represent active biomes, substantially expanding the known boundaries for life on Earth,” said Christner. “Terrestrial glacier environments provide analogues to address questions relevant to the search for past or present microbial life in extraterrestrial ice on planets and moons in our solar system. Based on what we now know about the tenacity of life in Earth’s deep cold biosphere, microbial life surviving and persisting in ice on Mars or Europa is not that much of a stretch.”
###
For more information, contact Brent Christner at 225-578-1734, e-mail him at xner@lsu.edu or visit www.brent.xner.net.
China says 278 cities have no sewage treatment
BEIJING (Reuters) - More than half China's 1.3 billion population, including 278 cities, live without any form of sewage treatment, state media said on Friday, quoting city planning officials.
And eight of those cities have populations of more than 500,000, Zhao Baojiang, chairman of the China association of city planning, was quoted as saying.
In its rapid development into the world's fourth-largest economy, China has been struggling to curb horrific water and air pollution.
It has become the world's top emitter of acid-rain causing sulphur dioxide and many analysts expect it to overtake the United States this year as the biggest greenhouse gas emitter.
An estimated 5,000 "administrative towns" and 20,000 smaller, market towns also had no sewage treatment facilities and a lack of clean water was especially acute in the central province of Henan, the China Daily said.
Pollution has taken on greater urgency as Beijing tries to clean up its notoriously filthy air before hosting the 2008 Olympics next August.
And eight of those cities have populations of more than 500,000, Zhao Baojiang, chairman of the China association of city planning, was quoted as saying.
In its rapid development into the world's fourth-largest economy, China has been struggling to curb horrific water and air pollution.
It has become the world's top emitter of acid-rain causing sulphur dioxide and many analysts expect it to overtake the United States this year as the biggest greenhouse gas emitter.
An estimated 5,000 "administrative towns" and 20,000 smaller, market towns also had no sewage treatment facilities and a lack of clean water was especially acute in the central province of Henan, the China Daily said.
Pollution has taken on greater urgency as Beijing tries to clean up its notoriously filthy air before hosting the 2008 Olympics next August.
Spreading deserts threaten world food supply
From: Robert Evans -Reuters
GENEVA (Reuters) - Spreading deserts and degradation of farm land due to climate change will pose a serious threat to food supplies for the world's surging population in coming years, a senior United Nations scientist warned on Friday.
M.V.K. Sivakumar of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said the crunch could come in just over a decade as all continents see more weather-related disasters like heat waves, floods, landslides and wildfires.
"Should we worry about land being degraded? Yes," Sivakumar, who leads the WMO's agricultural meteorology division, told a news conference in Geneva.
"Today we feed the present world population of 6.3 billion from the 11 per cent of the land surface that can be used for serious food production. The question is: Will we be able to feed the 8.2 billion that we expect to populate the globe in 2020 if even less land is available for farming?," he said.
Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia -- where the climate is already more extreme and arid regions are common -- will be most affected as rainfall declines and its timing becomes less predictable, making water more scarce, he said.
But Europe, particularly around the Mediterranean, would also suffer from heat waves like those that this summer have led to devastating fires in Greece.
Declining rainfall and evaporation of water supplies could also mean less was available for irrigation and for generating electricity for farm machinery, causing lower crop productivity.
Sivakumar said that in some regions the spread of deserts and the salination of once arable land was already well under way. In the future it would be most widespread in drier areas of Latin America, including in farming giant Brazil.
In Africa, increasing climate variability would create major problems for farmers, who are likely to see their growing seasons getting shorter and crop yields cut, especially in areas near already arid and semi-arid regions.
Sivakumar, speaking on the eve of a U.N. conference on desertification in Madrid from September 3-14, said it was vital for the international community to help put innovative and adaptive land-management practices into action.
These should be targeted at preserving land and water resources. But a return to mixing crops, rather than focusing on single-crop production based on intensive use of fertilizers, could also help face the challenge, he said.
GENEVA (Reuters) - Spreading deserts and degradation of farm land due to climate change will pose a serious threat to food supplies for the world's surging population in coming years, a senior United Nations scientist warned on Friday.
M.V.K. Sivakumar of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said the crunch could come in just over a decade as all continents see more weather-related disasters like heat waves, floods, landslides and wildfires.
"Should we worry about land being degraded? Yes," Sivakumar, who leads the WMO's agricultural meteorology division, told a news conference in Geneva.
"Today we feed the present world population of 6.3 billion from the 11 per cent of the land surface that can be used for serious food production. The question is: Will we be able to feed the 8.2 billion that we expect to populate the globe in 2020 if even less land is available for farming?," he said.
Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia -- where the climate is already more extreme and arid regions are common -- will be most affected as rainfall declines and its timing becomes less predictable, making water more scarce, he said.
But Europe, particularly around the Mediterranean, would also suffer from heat waves like those that this summer have led to devastating fires in Greece.
Declining rainfall and evaporation of water supplies could also mean less was available for irrigation and for generating electricity for farm machinery, causing lower crop productivity.
Sivakumar said that in some regions the spread of deserts and the salination of once arable land was already well under way. In the future it would be most widespread in drier areas of Latin America, including in farming giant Brazil.
In Africa, increasing climate variability would create major problems for farmers, who are likely to see their growing seasons getting shorter and crop yields cut, especially in areas near already arid and semi-arid regions.
Sivakumar, speaking on the eve of a U.N. conference on desertification in Madrid from September 3-14, said it was vital for the international community to help put innovative and adaptive land-management practices into action.
These should be targeted at preserving land and water resources. But a return to mixing crops, rather than focusing on single-crop production based on intensive use of fertilizers, could also help face the challenge, he said.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Ireland warming twice as fast as rest of world, report finds
The Irish Times
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Ireland is warming up at twice the rate of the rest of the world on average, according to a new climate change report compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency. Tim O'Brien reports.
The report which analysed meteorological records going back more than 100 years concluded that Ireland warmed up by 0.42 degrees per decade between 1980 and 2004, about twice the levels of increase globally.
Entitled Key Meteorological Indicators of Climate Change in Ireland, the report also warned that the rate of warming in Ireland was still accelerating.
It predicted the main effects of climate change will include more intense rainfall in the north and west, with summer drought in the south and east, fewer frosty days everywhere in winter, and serious impacts on agriculture and flood plain management.
The report also notes population trends which see people moving from the west to the east and warns that the movement is from where drinking water will continue to be naturally plentiful, to where it will not.
While summers will be dryer, the reduction in rainfall in the south and east will be less than the increase in the rainfall increase in the west and north. But the report also notes that climate change in Ireland is leading towards a longer growing season, with potential for new crops and increased production of existing cereal and grass crops.
The report was launched by Minister for Environment John Gormley who said it was further evidence that "the debate on climate change is over". He likened continuing sceptics of climate change to "flat-earthists" and said the Government's climate change "platform" to deliver a 3 per cent annual reduction in CO2 emissions was vital.
According to the report's authors Dr John Sweeney and Dr Laura McElwain of Irish Climate and Analysis Research Units (Icarus) at NUI Maynooth, the analysis means there is no longer any doubt about the cause of global warming.
"We can say with certainty that it is people not nature that is causing global warming" said Dr Sweeney, who added that Ireland was particularly lucky in having written meteorological records which dated back to the reports of 2668 BC and the Annuals of the Four Masters.
Dr McElwain said the intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall - an increase in the number of days when rain falls and an increase in the intensity of the rain - provide a cause for concern as they may have a greater impact on the environment, society and the economy.
Another aspect of climate change in Ireland is likely to be increased and more frequent storm-related flooding, with consequent implications for settlement patterns and development. The report's authors noted that climate change is now one of the key elements that need to be addressed when assessing flood relief measures in Ireland.
© 2007 The Irish Times
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Ireland is warming up at twice the rate of the rest of the world on average, according to a new climate change report compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency. Tim O'Brien reports.
The report which analysed meteorological records going back more than 100 years concluded that Ireland warmed up by 0.42 degrees per decade between 1980 and 2004, about twice the levels of increase globally.
Entitled Key Meteorological Indicators of Climate Change in Ireland, the report also warned that the rate of warming in Ireland was still accelerating.
It predicted the main effects of climate change will include more intense rainfall in the north and west, with summer drought in the south and east, fewer frosty days everywhere in winter, and serious impacts on agriculture and flood plain management.
The report also notes population trends which see people moving from the west to the east and warns that the movement is from where drinking water will continue to be naturally plentiful, to where it will not.
While summers will be dryer, the reduction in rainfall in the south and east will be less than the increase in the rainfall increase in the west and north. But the report also notes that climate change in Ireland is leading towards a longer growing season, with potential for new crops and increased production of existing cereal and grass crops.
The report was launched by Minister for Environment John Gormley who said it was further evidence that "the debate on climate change is over". He likened continuing sceptics of climate change to "flat-earthists" and said the Government's climate change "platform" to deliver a 3 per cent annual reduction in CO2 emissions was vital.
According to the report's authors Dr John Sweeney and Dr Laura McElwain of Irish Climate and Analysis Research Units (Icarus) at NUI Maynooth, the analysis means there is no longer any doubt about the cause of global warming.
"We can say with certainty that it is people not nature that is causing global warming" said Dr Sweeney, who added that Ireland was particularly lucky in having written meteorological records which dated back to the reports of 2668 BC and the Annuals of the Four Masters.
Dr McElwain said the intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall - an increase in the number of days when rain falls and an increase in the intensity of the rain - provide a cause for concern as they may have a greater impact on the environment, society and the economy.
Another aspect of climate change in Ireland is likely to be increased and more frequent storm-related flooding, with consequent implications for settlement patterns and development. The report's authors noted that climate change is now one of the key elements that need to be addressed when assessing flood relief measures in Ireland.
© 2007 The Irish Times
Plans for three resort cities
The Standard, Kenya
http://www.eastandard.net/restate/index.php?id=1143973745
By Al Abdi
The Government is planning to develop three resort cities in the next five years in a project aimed at making Kenya among the top tourist destinations in the world.
The establishment of the three resort cities-two at the Coast and the other in Isiolo is classified as tourism�s flagship project to be completed by 2012.
At the coast, one will be located at the North Coast while the second one will be at the South Coast. The third in Isiolo District will be located just on the outskirts of Isiolo town.
The move is part of the Government�s all-encompassing national development plan, Vision 2030, which is envisaged to put Kenya at par with the Asian Tiger countries like Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.
Vision 2030 is national long-term growth plan that aims at transforming Kenya into a globally competitive and prosperous nation, offering a high quality of life for all its citizens, by 2030.
Last week, a high-powered delegation led by Permanent secretaries Mr Mohamed Mahamud (Roads), Mr Zachary Mwaura (Defence) and Dr Hukka Wario (PS, East African Community) said in Isiolo the Government will make tourism as its cornerstone for development.
"Tourism will be the leading sector in achieving the goals of the vision where it is aimed that the country will be among the 10 long haul tourist destination in the world, offering a high-end, diverse and distinctive visitor experience that few of her competitors can offer,�� reads part of the policy document.
Scenery that rivals Hollywood
The Government has already opened discussions on the project with the Isiolo County Council. About 1, 000 hectares needs to be allocated for the resort project.
The Permanent Secretaries, who were accompanied by experts from the various ministries who helped develop the policy document, said Kenya aims to beat South Africa, Egypt and Morocco in tourist arrivals in the next five years.
In the Vision, the Government plans to focus on three specific areas to achieve the goals for 2012;
� to quadruple tourism�s GDP contribution to over Ksh80 billion;
� to raise international visitors from 1.8 million in 2006 to three million in 2012 while raising average spend per visitor from the current Sh40,000 to at least Sh70,000 and;
� to increase hotel beds from 40,000 to about 65,000, combined with an emphasis on high quality service.
Developed on the model of South Africa�s Sun City, each of the resort cities in Kenya will be allocated enough hectares of land to enable the facilities have casinos, golf courses, restaurants and discotheques among other features.
The delegation said Isiolo, as part of Kenya�s safari destination, was picked because of the fame acquired by Shaba Game Reserve that had attracted filmmakers from across the globe. ��It is Joy and George Adamson who made Shaba famous. As a result, many major films have been shot here. We have a scenery that rivals Hollywood right here,�� said PS Wario.
The Adamsons reared lions starting with lioness Elsa and later released them into the wild. While Joy died at Shaba, her husband was killed at neighbouring Kora National Reserve.
Movies shot at Shaba over the last two decades include Born Free, Out Of Africa, To Walk with Lions and CBS TV blockbuster series, Survivor Africa.
The Government now plans to develop the infrastructure in the northern circuit starting with the upgrading of the Isiolo-Moyale highway to bitumen standards.
Mohamud said the construction of the first 136km between Isiolo town and Merille River will start in October. The tendering process having been finalised.
"The first phase will start in about two months. We have Sh4 billion for the project and we are at the moment waiting for no-objection on tender valuation from the bank (Africa Development Bank),�� said the PS in charge of Roads.
The Permanent Secretaries reiterated the Government�s commitment to set up another international airport that also targets the tourism sector apart from transportation of miraa and horticultural products from the Mt Kenya region.
Isiolo District, measuring about 26,000 square kilometres, is sparsely populated with about 150,000 people. About 60 per cent of the population resides in Central division, an area measuring about 1, 500 sq km.
The value of land in the district has been low, but it had picked up in the last three years in Isiolo Town, where a plot measuring 50 by 100 feet goes for an average of Sh1 million.
Given its central geographical position in the country and the Government�s plan to set up a city resort on the outskirt of the town, value of land is expected to rise steadily.
Many parks dormant
Already, scramble for land especially in Central division has started in earnest with local leaders led by Isiolo North MP, Dr Mohamed Abdi Kuti, who is also the minister for Youth Affairs, appealing to the locals not to sell their land to �outsiders�.
The second flagship project will be to increase the country�s premium safari parks and the extension of facilities in other either under-utilised or dormant parks with a view to achieving higher tourist revenue yields.
The current premium parks to date include the world famous Maasai Mara National Reserve and the Kenya Wildlife managed Lake Nakuru National Park that are both becoming congested.
Under-utilised parks like Mt Marsabit and Ruma parks will benefit from improved infrastructure and better marketing here and abroad, aimed at bringing in more visitors.
"So many parks are either dormant or under-utilised. We want to revive the dormant ones and do an aggressive marketing both locally and abroad in order to attract tourists,�� said the PS.
Most idle parks are in the northern circuit that include Rahole, Kitui, Bisanadi, Sibiloi, and Kora but with abundant and rare wildlife and other attractions.
In the development of tourism plans is the business visitors� initiative that envisages to attract investors to set up of five more international class hotels in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. Isiolo will be leveraged as a new high-end tourist destination in that period.
Under the niche products initiative, the Vision 2030 States that if undertaken, it will provide about 3,000 high cost bed accommodation for tourists interested in cultural and eco-tourism cum water-based sports especially around Lake Victoria.
The other item on the menu is the certification of 1,000 home-stay sites to promote cultural tourism in Kenyan homes where locals will exhibit their traditions.
http://www.eastandard.net/restate/index.php?id=1143973745
By Al Abdi
The Government is planning to develop three resort cities in the next five years in a project aimed at making Kenya among the top tourist destinations in the world.
The establishment of the three resort cities-two at the Coast and the other in Isiolo is classified as tourism�s flagship project to be completed by 2012.
At the coast, one will be located at the North Coast while the second one will be at the South Coast. The third in Isiolo District will be located just on the outskirts of Isiolo town.
The move is part of the Government�s all-encompassing national development plan, Vision 2030, which is envisaged to put Kenya at par with the Asian Tiger countries like Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.
Vision 2030 is national long-term growth plan that aims at transforming Kenya into a globally competitive and prosperous nation, offering a high quality of life for all its citizens, by 2030.
Last week, a high-powered delegation led by Permanent secretaries Mr Mohamed Mahamud (Roads), Mr Zachary Mwaura (Defence) and Dr Hukka Wario (PS, East African Community) said in Isiolo the Government will make tourism as its cornerstone for development.
"Tourism will be the leading sector in achieving the goals of the vision where it is aimed that the country will be among the 10 long haul tourist destination in the world, offering a high-end, diverse and distinctive visitor experience that few of her competitors can offer,�� reads part of the policy document.
Scenery that rivals Hollywood
The Government has already opened discussions on the project with the Isiolo County Council. About 1, 000 hectares needs to be allocated for the resort project.
The Permanent Secretaries, who were accompanied by experts from the various ministries who helped develop the policy document, said Kenya aims to beat South Africa, Egypt and Morocco in tourist arrivals in the next five years.
In the Vision, the Government plans to focus on three specific areas to achieve the goals for 2012;
� to quadruple tourism�s GDP contribution to over Ksh80 billion;
� to raise international visitors from 1.8 million in 2006 to three million in 2012 while raising average spend per visitor from the current Sh40,000 to at least Sh70,000 and;
� to increase hotel beds from 40,000 to about 65,000, combined with an emphasis on high quality service.
Developed on the model of South Africa�s Sun City, each of the resort cities in Kenya will be allocated enough hectares of land to enable the facilities have casinos, golf courses, restaurants and discotheques among other features.
The delegation said Isiolo, as part of Kenya�s safari destination, was picked because of the fame acquired by Shaba Game Reserve that had attracted filmmakers from across the globe. ��It is Joy and George Adamson who made Shaba famous. As a result, many major films have been shot here. We have a scenery that rivals Hollywood right here,�� said PS Wario.
The Adamsons reared lions starting with lioness Elsa and later released them into the wild. While Joy died at Shaba, her husband was killed at neighbouring Kora National Reserve.
Movies shot at Shaba over the last two decades include Born Free, Out Of Africa, To Walk with Lions and CBS TV blockbuster series, Survivor Africa.
The Government now plans to develop the infrastructure in the northern circuit starting with the upgrading of the Isiolo-Moyale highway to bitumen standards.
Mohamud said the construction of the first 136km between Isiolo town and Merille River will start in October. The tendering process having been finalised.
"The first phase will start in about two months. We have Sh4 billion for the project and we are at the moment waiting for no-objection on tender valuation from the bank (Africa Development Bank),�� said the PS in charge of Roads.
The Permanent Secretaries reiterated the Government�s commitment to set up another international airport that also targets the tourism sector apart from transportation of miraa and horticultural products from the Mt Kenya region.
Isiolo District, measuring about 26,000 square kilometres, is sparsely populated with about 150,000 people. About 60 per cent of the population resides in Central division, an area measuring about 1, 500 sq km.
The value of land in the district has been low, but it had picked up in the last three years in Isiolo Town, where a plot measuring 50 by 100 feet goes for an average of Sh1 million.
Given its central geographical position in the country and the Government�s plan to set up a city resort on the outskirt of the town, value of land is expected to rise steadily.
Many parks dormant
Already, scramble for land especially in Central division has started in earnest with local leaders led by Isiolo North MP, Dr Mohamed Abdi Kuti, who is also the minister for Youth Affairs, appealing to the locals not to sell their land to �outsiders�.
The second flagship project will be to increase the country�s premium safari parks and the extension of facilities in other either under-utilised or dormant parks with a view to achieving higher tourist revenue yields.
The current premium parks to date include the world famous Maasai Mara National Reserve and the Kenya Wildlife managed Lake Nakuru National Park that are both becoming congested.
Under-utilised parks like Mt Marsabit and Ruma parks will benefit from improved infrastructure and better marketing here and abroad, aimed at bringing in more visitors.
"So many parks are either dormant or under-utilised. We want to revive the dormant ones and do an aggressive marketing both locally and abroad in order to attract tourists,�� said the PS.
Most idle parks are in the northern circuit that include Rahole, Kitui, Bisanadi, Sibiloi, and Kora but with abundant and rare wildlife and other attractions.
In the development of tourism plans is the business visitors� initiative that envisages to attract investors to set up of five more international class hotels in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. Isiolo will be leveraged as a new high-end tourist destination in that period.
Under the niche products initiative, the Vision 2030 States that if undertaken, it will provide about 3,000 high cost bed accommodation for tourists interested in cultural and eco-tourism cum water-based sports especially around Lake Victoria.
The other item on the menu is the certification of 1,000 home-stay sites to promote cultural tourism in Kenyan homes where locals will exhibit their traditions.
Kempthorne Wins 2007 Rubber Dodo Award : Protects Fewer Species Than Any Interior Secretary in History
Kempthorne Wins 2007 Rubber Dodo Award : Protects Fewer Species Than Any Interior Secretary in History
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Center for Biological Diversity presented Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne with the first annual Rubber Dodo Award on Friday.
Since his confirmation as secretary of interior on May 26, 2006, Kempthorne has not placed a single plant or animal on the federal endangered species list. The last listing (12 Hawaiian picture-wing flies) occurred on May 9, 2006 - 472 days ago. The previous recordholder was James Watt, who listed no species for 376 days between 1981 and 1982.
Watt's refusal to list species resulted in a 1982 congressional amendment to the Endangered Species Act, which established firm timelines for listing species and litigation consequences for violating the deadlines. Kempthorne's refusal prompted Ed Markey (D-MA) to introduce H.R. 3459, the "Transparent Reporting Under ESA Listing Act," on August 4, 2007. It would amend the Endangered Species Act to require the secretary to explain the scientific basis of decisions to deny Endangered Species Act protections to imperiled plants and animals.
"Kempthorne is eminently deserving of the first annual Rubber Dodo award," said Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, which administers the award. "His refusal to protect a single imperiled species in more than 15 months gives him the worst record of any interior secretary in the history of the Endangered Species Act. His policies should go the way of the dodo as soon as possible."
"Political appointees like Kempthorne come and go, but extinction is forever. No politician has the right to destroy the future of an endangered species."
2007 marks the inaugural year of the Rubber Dodo Award, which will be presented annually by the Center for Biological Diversity to a deserving individual in public or private service who has done the most to drive endangered species extinct.
Background:
In 1598, Dutch sailors landing on the uninhabited island of Mauritius discovered a flightless, three-foot tall, extraordinarily friendly bird. Its original scientific name was Didus ineptus. (Contemporary scientists use the less defamatory Raphus cucullatus.) To the rest of the world, it's the dodo - the most famous extinct species on earth. Having evolved over millions of year with no natural predators, the dodo lost the ability to fly, becoming a land-based consumer of fruits, nuts and berries. Having never known predators, it showed no fear of humans or the menagerie of animals accompanying them to Mauritius.
It trusting nature led to its rapid extinction. By 1681, the dodo was extinct, having been hunted and out-competed by humans, dogs, cats, rats, macaques, and pigs. Humans logged its forest cover and pigs uprooted and ate much of the understory vegetation.
The origin of the name dodo is unclear. It likely came from the Dutch word dodoor, meaning "sluggard," the Portuguese word doudo, meaning "fool" or "crazy," or the Dutch word dodaars meaning "plump-arse" (that nation's name for the little grebe).
The dodo's reputation as a foolish, ungainly bird derives in part from its friendly naiveté and the very plump captives that were taken on tour across Europe. The reputation was cemented with the 1865 publication of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Based on skeleton reconstructions and the discovery of early drawings, scientists now believe that the dodo was a much sleeker animal than commonly portrayed. The rotund European exhibitions were accidentally produced by overfeeding captive birds.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Center for Biological Diversity presented Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne with the first annual Rubber Dodo Award on Friday.
Since his confirmation as secretary of interior on May 26, 2006, Kempthorne has not placed a single plant or animal on the federal endangered species list. The last listing (12 Hawaiian picture-wing flies) occurred on May 9, 2006 - 472 days ago. The previous recordholder was James Watt, who listed no species for 376 days between 1981 and 1982.
Watt's refusal to list species resulted in a 1982 congressional amendment to the Endangered Species Act, which established firm timelines for listing species and litigation consequences for violating the deadlines. Kempthorne's refusal prompted Ed Markey (D-MA) to introduce H.R. 3459, the "Transparent Reporting Under ESA Listing Act," on August 4, 2007. It would amend the Endangered Species Act to require the secretary to explain the scientific basis of decisions to deny Endangered Species Act protections to imperiled plants and animals.
"Kempthorne is eminently deserving of the first annual Rubber Dodo award," said Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, which administers the award. "His refusal to protect a single imperiled species in more than 15 months gives him the worst record of any interior secretary in the history of the Endangered Species Act. His policies should go the way of the dodo as soon as possible."
"Political appointees like Kempthorne come and go, but extinction is forever. No politician has the right to destroy the future of an endangered species."
2007 marks the inaugural year of the Rubber Dodo Award, which will be presented annually by the Center for Biological Diversity to a deserving individual in public or private service who has done the most to drive endangered species extinct.
Background:
In 1598, Dutch sailors landing on the uninhabited island of Mauritius discovered a flightless, three-foot tall, extraordinarily friendly bird. Its original scientific name was Didus ineptus. (Contemporary scientists use the less defamatory Raphus cucullatus.) To the rest of the world, it's the dodo - the most famous extinct species on earth. Having evolved over millions of year with no natural predators, the dodo lost the ability to fly, becoming a land-based consumer of fruits, nuts and berries. Having never known predators, it showed no fear of humans or the menagerie of animals accompanying them to Mauritius.
It trusting nature led to its rapid extinction. By 1681, the dodo was extinct, having been hunted and out-competed by humans, dogs, cats, rats, macaques, and pigs. Humans logged its forest cover and pigs uprooted and ate much of the understory vegetation.
The origin of the name dodo is unclear. It likely came from the Dutch word dodoor, meaning "sluggard," the Portuguese word doudo, meaning "fool" or "crazy," or the Dutch word dodaars meaning "plump-arse" (that nation's name for the little grebe).
The dodo's reputation as a foolish, ungainly bird derives in part from its friendly naiveté and the very plump captives that were taken on tour across Europe. The reputation was cemented with the 1865 publication of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Based on skeleton reconstructions and the discovery of early drawings, scientists now believe that the dodo was a much sleeker animal than commonly portrayed. The rotund European exhibitions were accidentally produced by overfeeding captive birds.
Experts Say Greenhouse Gases Fueled 2006 US Heat, Not El Nino
nasa.gov
WASHINGTON - Greenhouse gas emissions -- not El Nino or other natural phenomena -- pushed U.S. temperatures for 2006 close to a record high, government climate scientists reported on Tuesday.
The annual average U.S. temperature in 2006 was 2.1 degrees F (1.16C) above the 20th century average and the ninth consecutive year of above-normal U.S. temperatures, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote.
This is in line with a global warming trend over the past century that most climate scientists attribute to human-made greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide from petroleum-fueled vehicles and coal-fired power plants, build up in the atmosphere and hold in the sun's heat like the glass walls of a greenhouse.
But other factors also play a role, and when figures for 2006 indicated a near-record-heat year for the contiguous 48 states -- the area for which there are the best statistics -- U.S. climate scientists wondered if this warmth was due to climate change or to the naturally occurring El Nino.
El Nino seemed a logical culprit, since there were active El Nino patterns of warm water in the Pacific in 2006 and in the hottest U.S. year of 1998, said Martin Hoerling of the U.S. climate administration.
IF NOT EL NINO, THEN WHAT?
Hoerling and his co-authors, writing in the September 5 edition of Geophysical Research letters, looked back through history and found that El Nino does not generally cause a rise in U.S. average annual temperatures. But if not El Nino, what was it?
To find out, they used computer simulations of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on temperature that were used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel reported, with 90 percent probability, that human activities contribute to global warming.
They compared the 18 different simulations for 2006, which included projections of greenhouse gas emissions, with the actual average temperature for the United States, and found a correlation, Hoerling said.
"What we found was a very strong footprint of the observed warming, consistent with the greenhouse gas effect," Hoerling said in a telephone interview.
Preliminary data suggested that 2006 was a record warm year for the contiguous 48 U.S. states but updated numbers showed last year was 0.08 degrees F (.04C) cooler than 1998.
For most states, 2006 ranked among the 10 hottest years since 1895. Globally, 2005 was the warmest, edging out 1998, with 2006 ranked about sixth for the world, Hoerling said.
Hoerling said the difference in U.S. average temperatures between 2006, 1998 and 1934 was minuscule.
"Those three years are so close to one another... that's not really a relevant concern," he said.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON - Greenhouse gas emissions -- not El Nino or other natural phenomena -- pushed U.S. temperatures for 2006 close to a record high, government climate scientists reported on Tuesday.
The annual average U.S. temperature in 2006 was 2.1 degrees F (1.16C) above the 20th century average and the ninth consecutive year of above-normal U.S. temperatures, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote.
This is in line with a global warming trend over the past century that most climate scientists attribute to human-made greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide from petroleum-fueled vehicles and coal-fired power plants, build up in the atmosphere and hold in the sun's heat like the glass walls of a greenhouse.
But other factors also play a role, and when figures for 2006 indicated a near-record-heat year for the contiguous 48 states -- the area for which there are the best statistics -- U.S. climate scientists wondered if this warmth was due to climate change or to the naturally occurring El Nino.
El Nino seemed a logical culprit, since there were active El Nino patterns of warm water in the Pacific in 2006 and in the hottest U.S. year of 1998, said Martin Hoerling of the U.S. climate administration.
IF NOT EL NINO, THEN WHAT?
Hoerling and his co-authors, writing in the September 5 edition of Geophysical Research letters, looked back through history and found that El Nino does not generally cause a rise in U.S. average annual temperatures. But if not El Nino, what was it?
To find out, they used computer simulations of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on temperature that were used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel reported, with 90 percent probability, that human activities contribute to global warming.
They compared the 18 different simulations for 2006, which included projections of greenhouse gas emissions, with the actual average temperature for the United States, and found a correlation, Hoerling said.
"What we found was a very strong footprint of the observed warming, consistent with the greenhouse gas effect," Hoerling said in a telephone interview.
Preliminary data suggested that 2006 was a record warm year for the contiguous 48 U.S. states but updated numbers showed last year was 0.08 degrees F (.04C) cooler than 1998.
For most states, 2006 ranked among the 10 hottest years since 1895. Globally, 2005 was the warmest, edging out 1998, with 2006 ranked about sixth for the world, Hoerling said.
Hoerling said the difference in U.S. average temperatures between 2006, 1998 and 1934 was minuscule.
"Those three years are so close to one another... that's not really a relevant concern," he said.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
