Climate Change

[Extra Stout]

The extra greenhouse gas impacts of certain behaviors:

Abstinence: 0.5 ton/yr
Heterosexuality: 0.8 ton/yr
Raising children: 1.3 ton/yr (per child)
Practicing Christianity: 1.9 ton/yr
Listening to country music: 2.1 ton/yr
Espousing capitalism: 2.3 ton/yr
Voting Republican: 9.7 ton/yr

[xrayzebra]

Oh, the poor French. Now they have "killer hornets". And it more
than likely is Bush fault or the United States fault at the very least. Damn global warming. Must be all those fajitas we eat
in Texas

Hornets hit France and could reach Britain

By Peter Allen in Paris
Last Updated: 2:40am GMT 21/02/2007

Swarms of giant hornets renowned for their vicious stings and skill at massacring honeybees have settled in France.

And there are now so many of the insects that entomologists fear it will just be a matter of time before they cross to Britain.

A hornet, Asian hornet spreads to France
A hornets nest

Global warming has largely been blamed for the survival and spread of the Asian Hornet, Vespa velutina, which is thought to have arrived in France from the Far East in a consignment of Chinese pottery in late 2004.

Thousands of football-shaped hornet nests are now dotted all over the forests of Aquitaine, the south-western region of France hugely popular with British tourists.

"Their spread across French territory has been like lightning," said Jean Haxaire, the entomologist who originally identified the new arrival.

He said he had recently seen 85 nests in the 40-odd miles which separate the towns of Marmande and Podensac, in the Lot et Garonne department where the hornets were first spotted.
advertisement

The hornets can grow to up to 1.8in and, with a wingspan of 3in, are renowned for inflicting a bite which has been compared to a hot nail entering the body.

A handful can destroy a nest of 30,000 bees in just a couple of hours — a major concern among the beekeeping industry.

"The problems are not necessarily public health ones, but ecological ones. These hornets can cause immense damage to beehives," said Mr Haxaire. The hornets are renowned for feeding their young with the larvae of other social insects, including bees, whose nests they break into and ransack. The French beekeeping industry has already been decimated by pesticides and long, hot summers.

Honey production from the 1.3 million hives run by 80,000 beekeepers has been decreasing annually — down by 60 per cent in south-western France during the past decade.

A spokesman for the French National Been Surveillance Unit said the bee death rate during winter was now up to six in ten.

As a result France has to import some 25,000 tons of honey annually.

"The arrival of these hornets has made the situation considerably worse," the spokesman added. "The future of our entire industry is at stake."

Yesterday, there was concern that it may not take long before the Asian hornet makes its way to Britain.

"There's no doubt that these hornets are heading north and will probably find their way to Britain at some point," said Stuart Hine, manager of the Insect Information Service at London's Natural History Museum.

"Climate change certainly means they can cope with European summers. However, they would still have difficulty coping with our winter frosts."

While some 40 people a year die from hornet stings — mainly because of allergic reactions — Claire Villement, of France's Natural History Museum, said there was no need for a "national panic about killer wasps".

Mrs Villement said: "The legend that three bites from a hornet can kill you are totally false. People can still enjoy their picnics in the countryside."

Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright

[Sec24Row7]

GLOBAL warming will take a toll on children's health, according to a new report showing hospital admissions for fever soar as days get hotter.

The new study found that temperature rises had a significant impact on the number of pre-schoolers presenting to emergency departments for fever and gastroenteritis.


The two-year study at a major children's hospital showed that for every five-degree rise in temperature two more children under six years old were admitted with fever to that hospital.

The University of Sydney research is the first to make a solid link between climate changes and childhood illness.

"And now global warming is becoming more apparent, it is highly likely an increasing number of young children will be turning up at hospital departments with these kinds of common illnesses," said researcher Lawrence Lam, a paediatrics specialist.

"It really demonstrates the urgent need for a more thorough investigation into how exactly climate change will affect health in childhood."

Dr Lam said the results, collated from The Children's Hospital at Westmead admissions, back up beliefs that children are less able to regulate their bodies against climate change than adults.

The brain's thermal regulation mechanism is not as well developed in children, making them more susceptible to "overheating" and at risk of developing illness, he said.

"They're particularly at risk of extreme changes, much more than other people."

The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Health Research, analysed several different climate factors, including UV index, rainfall and humidity, collected from the Bureau of Meteorology in 2001 and 2002.

Temperatures were the only negative risk factor, with findings linking heat to both fever and gastro disease but not to respiratory conditions.

Surprisingly, rates of gastroenteritis were lower on days with a high UV factor probably, says Dr Lam, because the rays "sterilised" the ground, killing more germs and reducing risk.

He said it was still unclear whether the heat directly triggered the illnesses or whether other heat-related problems, like pollution, were responsible.

A longer-term study was needed add strength to the findings, Dr Lam said.

[Extra Stout]

GLOBAL warming will take a toll on children's health, according to a new report showing hospital admissions for fever soar as days get hotter.

The new study found that temperature rises had a significant impact on the number of pre-schoolers presenting to emergency departments for fever and gastroenteritis.


The two-year study at a major children's hospital showed that for every five-degree rise in temperature two more children under six years old were admitted with fever to that hospital.

The University of Sydney research is the first to make a solid link between climate changes and childhood illness.

"And now global warming is becoming more apparent, it is highly likely an increasing number of young children will be turning up at hospital departments with these kinds of common illnesses," said researcher Lawrence Lam, a paediatrics specialist.

"It really demonstrates the urgent need for a more thorough investigation into how exactly climate change will affect health in childhood."

Dr Lam said the results, collated from The Children's Hospital at Westmead admissions, back up beliefs that children are less able to regulate their bodies against climate change than adults.

The brain's thermal regulation mechanism is not as well developed in children, making them more susceptible to "overheating" and at risk of developing illness, he said.

"They're particularly at risk of extreme changes, much more than other people."

The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Health Research, analysed several different climate factors, including UV index, rainfall and humidity, collected from the Bureau of Meteorology in 2001 and 2002.

Temperatures were the only negative risk factor, with findings linking heat to both fever and gastro disease but not to respiratory conditions.

Surprisingly, rates of gastroenteritis were lower on days with a high UV factor probably, says Dr Lam, because the rays "sterilised" the ground, killing more germs and reducing risk.

He said it was still unclear whether the heat directly triggered the illnesses or whether other heat-related problems, like pollution, were responsible.

A longer-term study was needed add strength to the findings, Dr Lam said.

That article reeks of pseudoscience.

[boutons_]

Source: Stanford University
Date: February 22, 2007

Harmful Environmental Effects Of Livestock Production On The Planet 'Increasingly Serious,' Says Panel

Science Daily — The harmful environmental effects of livestock production are becoming increasingly serious at all levels--local, regional, national and global--and urgently need to be addressed, according to researchers from Stanford University, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other organizations. The researchers, representing five countries, presented their findings on Feb. 19 at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Francisco during a symposium en led, "Livestock in a Changing Landscape: Drivers, Consequences and Responses."

Large-scale livestock operations provide most of the meat and meat products consumed around the world--consumption that is growing at a record pace and is projected to double by 2050, said symposium organizer Harold A. Mooney, professor of biological sciences at Stanford. "We are seeing tremendous environmental problems with these operations, from land degradation and air and water pollution to loss of biodiversity," he said, noting that the developing world is especially vulnerable to the effects of these operations.

Intensive and extensive systems

Symposium co-organizer Henning Steinfeld of the FAO Livestock Environment and Development initiative emphasized that intensive and extensive forms of production are beset with a range of different problems. In "intensive systems," animals are contained and feed is brought to them. "Extensive systems" generally refer to grazing animals that live off the land.

"Extensive livestock production plays a critical role in land degradation, climate change, water and biodiversity loss," Steinfeld said. For example, grazing occupies 26 percent of the Earth's terrestrial surface, and feed-crop production requires about a third of all arable land, he said. Expansion of livestock grazing land is also a leading cause of deforestation, especially in Latin America, he added. In the Amazon basin alone, about 70 percent of previously forested land is used as pasture, while feed crops cover a large part of the remainder.

"We are seeing land once farmed locally being transformed to cropland for industrialized feed production, with grasslands and tropical forests being destroyed in these land use changes, with resources feeding livestock rather than the humans who previously depended on those lands," added Mooney, who co-chaired the scientific advisory panel for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Climate change

According to the FAO, when emissions from land use are factored in, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions derived from human-related activities, as well as 37 percent of methane emissions--primarily gas from the digestive system of cattle and other domesticated ruminants--and 65 percent of nitrous oxide gases, mostly from manure.

The problems surrounding livestock production cannot be considered in isolation, nor are they limited to the environmental impact, Mooney said, noting that economic, social, health and environmental perspectives "will be critical to solving some of these problems. We hope to develop a greater understanding of these complex issues so that we may encourage policies and practices to reduce the adverse effects of livestock production, while ensuring that humans are fed and natural resources are preserved, today and in the future."

The AAAS symposium was moderated by Walter Falcon, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Ins ute for International Studies and the Woods Ins ute for the Environment at Stanford. Other scheduled panelists included Pierre Gerber of the FAO; Danielle Nierenberg of the Worldwatch Ins ute; Bingsheng Ke of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture; Muhammad Ibrahim of the Center for Research and Higher Education in Costa Rica; and Cheikh Ly of the International Trypanotolerance Center in Gambia.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Stanford University.

[xrayzebra]

Source: Stanford University
Date: February 22, 2007

Harmful Environmental Effects Of Livestock Production On The Planet 'Increasingly Serious,' Says Panel

Science Daily — The harmful environmental effects of livestock production are becoming increasingly serious at all levels--local, regional, national and global--and urgently need to be addressed, according to researchers from Stanford University, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other organizations. The researchers, representing five countries, presented their findings on Feb. 19 at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Francisco during a symposium en led, "Livestock in a Changing Landscape: Drivers, Consequences and Responses."

Large-scale livestock operations provide most of the meat and meat products consumed around the world--consumption that is growing at a record pace and is projected to double by 2050, said symposium organizer Harold A. Mooney, professor of biological sciences at Stanford. "We are seeing tremendous environmental problems with these operations, from land degradation and air and water pollution to loss of biodiversity," he said, noting that the developing world is especially vulnerable to the effects of these operations.

Intensive and extensive systems

Symposium co-organizer Henning Steinfeld of the FAO Livestock Environment and Development initiative emphasized that intensive and extensive forms of production are beset with a range of different problems. In "intensive systems," animals are contained and feed is brought to them. "Extensive systems" generally refer to grazing animals that live off the land.

"Extensive livestock production plays a critical role in land degradation, climate change, water and biodiversity loss," Steinfeld said. For example, grazing occupies 26 percent of the Earth's terrestrial surface, and feed-crop production requires about a third of all arable land, he said. Expansion of livestock grazing land is also a leading cause of deforestation, especially in Latin America, he added. In the Amazon basin alone, about 70 percent of previously forested land is used as pasture, while feed crops cover a large part of the remainder.

"We are seeing land once farmed locally being transformed to cropland for industrialized feed production, with grasslands and tropical forests being destroyed in these land use changes, with resources feeding livestock rather than the humans who previously depended on those lands," added Mooney, who co-chaired the scientific advisory panel for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Climate change

According to the FAO, when emissions from land use are factored in, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions derived from human-related activities, as well as 37 percent of methane emissions--primarily gas from the digestive system of cattle and other domesticated ruminants--and 65 percent of nitrous oxide gases, mostly from manure.

The problems surrounding livestock production cannot be considered in isolation, nor are they limited to the environmental impact, Mooney said, noting that economic, social, health and environmental perspectives "will be critical to solving some of these problems. We hope to develop a greater understanding of these complex issues so that we may encourage policies and practices to reduce the adverse effects of livestock production, while ensuring that humans are fed and natural resources are preserved, today and in the future."

The AAAS symposium was moderated by Walter Falcon, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Ins ute for International Studies and the Woods Ins ute for the Environment at Stanford. Other scheduled panelists included Pierre Gerber of the FAO; Danielle Nierenberg of the Worldwatch Ins ute; Bingsheng Ke of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture; Muhammad Ibrahim of the Center for Research and Higher Education in Costa Rica; and Cheikh Ly of the International Trypanotolerance Center in Gambia.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Stanford University.

If you would take me off ignore you would have already
known this a couple of days ago. See my post number
22 this thread.

[xrayzebra]

And then you have this about global warming. How bout your
cat? And Grandmother..........and well read on.


China, India Smile as West Overpays for Climate: Andy Mukherjee

By Andy Mukherjee

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Governments in rich nations are spending billions of dollars to buy a clearer conscience over climate change. Are they getting their money's worth?

Enlightened individuals, those who stay awake at nights wondering what they can do to prevent the polar caps from melting, at least have a growing menu of choices.

Sydney-based Easy Being Green says it will mitigate your cat's flatulent contribution to global warming for A$8 ($6). The same company could also make your granny ``carbon-neutral'' at A$10 a year, according to a report in the Australian newspaper last weekend.

Then there's Carbon Planet Pty, another company cited in the article. If you are hopping on a short-haul flight between Sydney and Canberra, and feeling bad about the damage you are doing to the ecosystem, you can buy credits worth A$23, for which the Adelaide-based company will guarantee to keep 1 ton of carbon dioxide out of the air for 100 years.

By comparison, the governments that have undertaken to cut greenhouse emissions under the United Nations' Kyoto Convention on Climate Change have chosen a tougher -- and more expensive -- route to guilt reduction.

Michael Wara, formerly of Stanford University's Program in Energy and Sustainable Development and now a lawyer at Holland & Knight LLP in San Francisco, made that point in a much-publicized article in the science journal Nature this month.

Countries that must purchase emission credits to atone for their higher-than-mandated production of carbon dioxide are paying a tiny group of chemical manufacturers in China and India massive sums to reduce industrial gases and methane, which are rather inexpensive to capture and destroy, Wara says.

China and India

The improvement that can be obtained by spending just $31 million on incinerators could cost developed nations as much as 750 million euros ($986 million) through the elaborate trading mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, and even then only two-thirds of the problem would go away, Wara estimates.

China and India are getting a prize for producing lots of hydrofluorocarbon-23, one of the six greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol. One ton of it is considered the equivalent of 11,700 tons of carbon dioxide.

Six Chinese companies have consented to be paid to destroy this toxic byproduct of a gas used as a common refrigerant and a Teflon feedstock. Their total commitment is more than 43 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per annum. India, with two registered projects, is second with about 7 million tons. Thus, barely eight chemical plants in China and India control about 44 percent of the existing annual supply of emission credits.

That's a very high level of concentration, considering there are 506 projects in more than 40 nations that are currently registered under the Kyoto Protocol's trading system, known as the Clean Development Mechanism.

Kyoto Protocol

The total greenhouse reductions taking place through the trading system are expected to exceed the combined annual emissions of Canada, France, Spain and Switzerland.

All of this is making politicians optimistic.

A caucus of lawmakers from developed and developing countries agreed in Washington last week on the need to replace the Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2012. There is a good chance the U.S., which hasn't accepted a binding commitment so far, may also change its mind.

U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the Group of Eight industrialized nations has a real chance to have the outline of a new agreement in June.

A new accord will be good news if it leads to the planting of trees, commissioning of wind farms or other projects that directly make a difference to carbon-dioxide levels. That's where the developed world's money ought to go.

Reforestation, Energy Savings

So far, just one reforestation project -- in China's Pearl River basin -- has come under the ambit of emissions trading. It would cut the equivalent of 26,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. A hotel in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata has sold to the U.K. government an even more humble 3,000 units of carbon dioxide savings, derived from the replacement of electric heaters by solar-powered ones. We need thousands of such projects.

Otherwise, emission trading would continue to represent a disproportionately high subsidy from the developed to the developing world to clean up industrial byproducts. These are so harmful that they ought to be captured by chemical companies without any incentives being given to them.

Perverse Incentive

These gases have ceased to be a problem in rich nations where companies such as DuPont Co. do a good job of destroying them at their own expense, Wara says.

Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd., the first company from India to join the Clean Development Mechanism, reported earlier this month that it had tripled its revenue in the quarter ended Dec. 31 from a year earlier.

Shareholders have earned 662 percent on the stock since March 2005, when Japan, the Netherlands, Italy and the U.K. agreed to pay the company to destroy hydrofluorocarbon-23.

Italy may pay 12.8 billion euros over the next four years to buy emission credits, the newspaper Finanza & Mercati reported last week. That's about the equivalent of the annual gross domestic product of Iceland.

That kind of money may be a beginning, though it's very doubtful that we will be breathing a lot easier because of it.

(Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Andy Mukherjee in Singapore at [email protected] .
Last Updated: February 20, 2007 15:34 EST