During South Sound’s recent period of more than 90-degree weather, I sought relief in my favorite air-conditioned coffee shop, enjoying the cool air as I read and sipped a tall iced Americano. One fellow refugee from the heat turned to me and said, “This really makes me a believer in global warming!”
July’s heat wave may or may not be a result of global warming, but it is a dramatic reminder that this community, and this planet, are experiencing shifts in weather patterns – shifts that affect the lives of our neighbors in the Boisfort Valley and along the Chehalis or Skokomish rivers, as well as the lives of our more distant neighbors in New Orleans and, paradoxically, the drought-ravaged Sudan.
The effect of human-caused climate change, especially from carbon emissions, is not only reported in anecdotal accounts, but documented in numerous scientific studies.
Increasingly, politicians as well as environmentalists are uniting to bring awareness to the climate crisis, rallying people to call on world governments to respond to the environmental and human effect of global warming.
Religious leaders also are speaking out, addressing the moral and spiritual implications of human-induced climate change. They decry the suffering of victims of drought, flooding, devastating fires, and famine. All religions follow the moral imperative: love your neighbor.
That perspective is shared by many activists working on environmental issues. Roger Gottlieb, professor of philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, put it this way: “Bringing our prophetic voices to the environmental crisis is part of what we do as religious communities. The way we treat the Earth is the way we treat each other.”
Here in South Sound, members of faith communities will come together to urge decision makers to act with urgency on the climate crisis. They will gather Saturday, Oct. 24, for the International Day of Climate Action. Inspired by the work of environmentalist Bill McKibben, the mission of this event is create and build on a sense of urgency.
The Oct. 24 events focus on the number 350, which is the carbon dioxide parts per million that scientists have identified as the upper limit for Earth’s atmosphere.
When world leaders meet in Copenhagen in December to draft a new global treaty on emission, faith traditions want their perspectives brought to the conference as well.
Many activities will focus on encouraging people to speak out on the climate crisis, and to urge adoption of the 350 parts per million carbon dioxide limit.
In Thurston County, faith activists are planning to Bike and Walk for Climate Change Awareness on Oct. 24. Organizers anticipate that at least 350 families and individuals will bike or walk a short route on the Chehalis Western Trail from Lacey’s Bush Park to the Chambers Lake trailhead, where an information fair and celebration will occur. Participating groups are: Washington State Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice, Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and Earth Care Catholics.
Adults and children from all faith communities and community groups are invited to bike and walk, as well as to participate in planning. For more information, contact Carol McKinley, 360 786-8074, coordinator@uuvoiceswa.org.
The Reverend Carol McKinley serves as coordinator of Washington State Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice, a statewide legislative advocacy organization, and is an affiliated community minister of Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation.
Perspective is coordinated by Interfaith Works in cooperation with The Olympian. The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by Interfaith Works or The Olympian
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Senate climate bill to include free permits
A climate control bill that Democratic leaders hope to move through the U.S. Senate will seek to give companies a substantial number of pollution permits, potentially worth billions of dollars, rather than sell them, an aide to a key Democratic senator said on Friday.
There will be a "significant role" for allocations -- or free permits -- in the Senate bill, similar to the approach taken by the global warming legislation recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, the aide said.
The free permits are designed to help companies during a transition period. Besides helping build business support for the legislation in Congress, it also is seen as a way of helping shield consumers from bigger price increases for energy and other goods over the next few decades.
Under the House-passed bill, about 85 percent of pollution permits that companies would be required to obtain to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases initially would be given to companies.
Shortly after Congress returns from a month-long break on September 8, Senate Democrats are expected to introduce their version of a sweeping bill to control carbon emissions from utilities and manufacturers. Those emissions have been linked to global warming.
The aide, who asked not to be identified, said that when the bill is introduced, it will not lay out the specific formula for dispensing the pollution permits, which would diminish over time as companies are allowed to emit fewer and fewer greenhouse gases.
The formula will be worked out when the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meets in September to put finishing touches on the bill, the aide added.
The pollution permits, which companies will be allowed to trade to each other, could be worth billions of dollars.
The committee, along with other Senate panels, also have to work out many other thorny issues, including possible trade protections for some domestic energy-intensive industries, such as steel, cement and paper.
Senators also might push changes to the House's overall targets for cutting carbon emissions. The House bill calls for emissions cuts from 2005 levels of 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. There are pressures to both reduce or increase those targets in the Senate.
President Barack Obama, who has made a high priority of enacting climate control legislation, initially proposed the government sale of all of the permits. But the House did not follow that path and Obama has shown flexibility, praising the House-passed bill but leaving the door open to change.
It is not clear whether the full Senate will pass a bill this year, although Democratic leaders say they will try in October.
Obama wants as much progress on climate change legislation as possible by December, when a United Nations meeting in Copenhagen will discuss new global efforts to tackle the environmental problem.
There will be a "significant role" for allocations -- or free permits -- in the Senate bill, similar to the approach taken by the global warming legislation recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, the aide said.
The free permits are designed to help companies during a transition period. Besides helping build business support for the legislation in Congress, it also is seen as a way of helping shield consumers from bigger price increases for energy and other goods over the next few decades.
Under the House-passed bill, about 85 percent of pollution permits that companies would be required to obtain to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases initially would be given to companies.
Shortly after Congress returns from a month-long break on September 8, Senate Democrats are expected to introduce their version of a sweeping bill to control carbon emissions from utilities and manufacturers. Those emissions have been linked to global warming.
The aide, who asked not to be identified, said that when the bill is introduced, it will not lay out the specific formula for dispensing the pollution permits, which would diminish over time as companies are allowed to emit fewer and fewer greenhouse gases.
The formula will be worked out when the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meets in September to put finishing touches on the bill, the aide added.
The pollution permits, which companies will be allowed to trade to each other, could be worth billions of dollars.
The committee, along with other Senate panels, also have to work out many other thorny issues, including possible trade protections for some domestic energy-intensive industries, such as steel, cement and paper.
Senators also might push changes to the House's overall targets for cutting carbon emissions. The House bill calls for emissions cuts from 2005 levels of 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. There are pressures to both reduce or increase those targets in the Senate.
President Barack Obama, who has made a high priority of enacting climate control legislation, initially proposed the government sale of all of the permits. But the House did not follow that path and Obama has shown flexibility, praising the House-passed bill but leaving the door open to change.
It is not clear whether the full Senate will pass a bill this year, although Democratic leaders say they will try in October.
Obama wants as much progress on climate change legislation as possible by December, when a United Nations meeting in Copenhagen will discuss new global efforts to tackle the environmental problem.
Gloomy Negotiators End Bonn Climate Talks
The latest round of preparatory talks for the U.N. climate conference concluded today with negotiators lamenting that the languid pace of talks could mean there won't be a deal on emissions in Copenhagen this December.
"It would be incomprehensible if this opportunity were lost," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. For any hope of a deal, he said, "the speed of the negotiations must be considerably accelerated at the [next] meeting in Bangkok."
The United States' lead climate negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, added to the warnings.
"If we don't have more movement and more consensus than we saw here, we won't have an agreement," Pershing said.
Though the problems were many, there were also glimmers of hope in the current round, such as a collective agreement on what should be done, said Anders Turesson, Sweden's lead climate negotiator and chairman of the E.U. working group.
"What we're talking about is a profound change of industrial civilization," Turesson said. "It would be surprising if there weren't stumbling blocks."
The negotiators were wrapping up a week of talks in Bonn, Germany, aimed at narrowing the number of options in the 200-page main negotiating document. This text, which will serve as the basis for negotiations for the successor to 1997's Kyoto Protocol, is currently inundated with some 2,000 bracketed statements highlighting areas of disagreement.
"We seem to be afloat on a sea of brackets," de Boer said. The document has not been significantly slimmed down in the week's discussions.
Much debate hinges on whether the U.S. Senate will pass climate legislation this fall. Pershing made it clear that the United States will use whatever domestic legislation it passes as the basis for its carbon reduction agreements.
"Our focus is not to repeat Kyoto," Pershing said, recalling the climate treaty that the United States helped negotiate but the Senate did not ratify.
The rosiest interpretations of the House's recently passed climate bill would see U.S. greenhouse gas emissions dropping by up to 13 percent from 1990 levels, de Boer said, well below commitments made by the European Union to reduce its emissions by 20 percent.
In the end, Europeans want to be on comparative terms with the Americans, Turesson said. How that will be accomplished is unclear, given the domestic limits the United States faces.
The U.S. position is that the agreement that will emerge, rather than mandating a single percentage cut that will be met by every wealthy nation, "is something [that will be] conceived country by country," Pershing said.
From developing nations, the United States is seeking not legally binding targets but legally binding actions, Pershing said. One such example would be a quantified commitment from Brazil on how it will tackle deforestation.
Developing nations have been seeking financing from developed countries if they are to limit their emissions and adapt to climate change. So far, there has not been one proposal from developed nations that would raise more than $10 billion a year for such funding, negotiators said.
Meanwhile, the commitments currently on the table from industrial countries will only reduce emissions between 10 and 16 percent from 1990 levels, according to Dessima Williams, the permanent representative of Grenada to the United Nations and chairwoman of the Alliance of Small Island States.
Unless changed, these pledges will lead to temperature change of more than 3 degrees Celsius, Williams said.
Such a temperature increase is well above the goal agreed to by the world's wealthiest nations at the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, last month. There, countries including the United States, Canada and Russia agreed to cap global warming at 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified a 25 percent to 40 percent cut in emissions from 1990 levels as necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change: heat waves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
More than 2,000 representatives met in Bonn this week. The consultation, which was characterized as "informal," is the latest in a series of meetings leading up to the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen this December. Further meetings will take place in Bangkok in late September and Barcelona, Spain, in November.
"It would be incomprehensible if this opportunity were lost," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. For any hope of a deal, he said, "the speed of the negotiations must be considerably accelerated at the [next] meeting in Bangkok."
The United States' lead climate negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, added to the warnings.
"If we don't have more movement and more consensus than we saw here, we won't have an agreement," Pershing said.
Though the problems were many, there were also glimmers of hope in the current round, such as a collective agreement on what should be done, said Anders Turesson, Sweden's lead climate negotiator and chairman of the E.U. working group.
"What we're talking about is a profound change of industrial civilization," Turesson said. "It would be surprising if there weren't stumbling blocks."
The negotiators were wrapping up a week of talks in Bonn, Germany, aimed at narrowing the number of options in the 200-page main negotiating document. This text, which will serve as the basis for negotiations for the successor to 1997's Kyoto Protocol, is currently inundated with some 2,000 bracketed statements highlighting areas of disagreement.
"We seem to be afloat on a sea of brackets," de Boer said. The document has not been significantly slimmed down in the week's discussions.
Much debate hinges on whether the U.S. Senate will pass climate legislation this fall. Pershing made it clear that the United States will use whatever domestic legislation it passes as the basis for its carbon reduction agreements.
"Our focus is not to repeat Kyoto," Pershing said, recalling the climate treaty that the United States helped negotiate but the Senate did not ratify.
The rosiest interpretations of the House's recently passed climate bill would see U.S. greenhouse gas emissions dropping by up to 13 percent from 1990 levels, de Boer said, well below commitments made by the European Union to reduce its emissions by 20 percent.
In the end, Europeans want to be on comparative terms with the Americans, Turesson said. How that will be accomplished is unclear, given the domestic limits the United States faces.
The U.S. position is that the agreement that will emerge, rather than mandating a single percentage cut that will be met by every wealthy nation, "is something [that will be] conceived country by country," Pershing said.
From developing nations, the United States is seeking not legally binding targets but legally binding actions, Pershing said. One such example would be a quantified commitment from Brazil on how it will tackle deforestation.
Developing nations have been seeking financing from developed countries if they are to limit their emissions and adapt to climate change. So far, there has not been one proposal from developed nations that would raise more than $10 billion a year for such funding, negotiators said.
Meanwhile, the commitments currently on the table from industrial countries will only reduce emissions between 10 and 16 percent from 1990 levels, according to Dessima Williams, the permanent representative of Grenada to the United Nations and chairwoman of the Alliance of Small Island States.
Unless changed, these pledges will lead to temperature change of more than 3 degrees Celsius, Williams said.
Such a temperature increase is well above the goal agreed to by the world's wealthiest nations at the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, last month. There, countries including the United States, Canada and Russia agreed to cap global warming at 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified a 25 percent to 40 percent cut in emissions from 1990 levels as necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change: heat waves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
More than 2,000 representatives met in Bonn this week. The consultation, which was characterized as "informal," is the latest in a series of meetings leading up to the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen this December. Further meetings will take place in Bangkok in late September and Barcelona, Spain, in November.
Time running short for new climate-change deal
Poor countries stepped up demands Friday on the industrial world to keep the Earth from catastrophically overheating, amid warnings that negotiations are moving too slowly to meet a December deadline for a sweeping accord on global warming.
This week delegates from 180 countries have skirmished over a draft agreement with some 2,500 paragraphs, sentences, phrases and words in dispute. They struggled to whittle down 200 pages of incomprehensible text into a workable document - but left Bonn after five days' diplomacy with much work still to do.
Government leaders are expected to discuss the key elements of a deal at a special United Nations meeting in New York next month, followed by a gathering of the world's 20 leading economies hosted by President Barack Obama in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh.
With time running short, negotiators and lobbyists are expressing fears that a deal won't be sealed this December in Copenhagen, the long-billed deadline to unveil a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
"If we continue at this rate, we're not going to make it," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.
"It would be incomprehensible if this opportunity were lost," he said, adding that only 15 days of actual negotiations remained before Copenhagen
"Delegates spent too much time arguing over procedure and technicalities. This is not the way to overcome mistrust between rich and poor nations," said Kim Carstensen, head of the Global Climate Initiative of WWF.
The world's poorest and most vulnerable countries, including tiny island states that barely break the surface of the ocean, banded together to ratchet up the pressure on the industrial countries.
"Adverse affects of climate change already are being felt," said Dessima Williams, the delegate from Grenada, who led the 80-nation coalition. She cited rising sea levels, the spread of deserts and the loss of water sources, declining biodiversity and the growing frequency and intensity of hurricanes, floods and drought.
"Some states are likely to become entirely uninhabitable" unless carbon emissions are quickly checked, she said.
Scientists say carbon, mainly from fossil fuels for transportation and power, has accumulated in the atmosphere over the last 150 years to block heat from escaping, leading to a gradual warming of the air and seas.
The bloc of poor states said climate change is outpacing the best estimates of a few years ago, when scientists warned that the maximum safe increase in the planet's average temperature was 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from preindustrial levels.
Williams said the 80-country group emphasized that every effort should be made to restrict the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). She said that would require industrial countries to slash carbon emissions by 45 percent from 1990 levels within the next decade.
Offers from wealthy countries total 15 percent to 21 percent so far, the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said this week.
To avoid failure in Copenhagen, negotiators and activists said, government leaders need to resolve three related questions: How much more can industrial countries cut emissions? How much can developing countries slow the growth of their own? And how much money does the global community need to raise to help poor countries survive the effects of climate change?
Financial estimates vary wildly. The WWF says $160 billion is needed annually. Williams said the world should dedicate 1 percent of its gross domestic product - the equivalent of $400 billion annually.
The hoped-for Copenhagen agreement would succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which bound 37 industrial countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. Kyoto placed no obligations on developing countries.
This time around, the world's wealthier nations want developing countries, particularly China and India, to share the burden and agree to slow their explosive emissions growth.
A key point of dispute remains whether developing countries would agree to be legally bound to a Copenhagen accord.
The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed a climate bill that would impose trade penalties on countries that do not accept limits on their emissions, and the Senate is considering a similar bill. President Barack Obama has opposed attaching trade issues to climate and energy legislation.
India criticized the U.S. lawmakers' approach, and proposed a clause Friday that would forbid any government from erecting trade barriers to punish a nation that refused to accept limits on its carbon emissions.
India's chief delegate, Shyam Saran, said U.S. Congress was pursuing "protectionism under a green label" and sidetracking negotiators.
Saran said trade issues are "extraneous to what we are trying to construct here, which is a collaborative response to an extraordinary global challenge."
This week delegates from 180 countries have skirmished over a draft agreement with some 2,500 paragraphs, sentences, phrases and words in dispute. They struggled to whittle down 200 pages of incomprehensible text into a workable document - but left Bonn after five days' diplomacy with much work still to do.
Government leaders are expected to discuss the key elements of a deal at a special United Nations meeting in New York next month, followed by a gathering of the world's 20 leading economies hosted by President Barack Obama in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh.
With time running short, negotiators and lobbyists are expressing fears that a deal won't be sealed this December in Copenhagen, the long-billed deadline to unveil a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
"If we continue at this rate, we're not going to make it," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.
"It would be incomprehensible if this opportunity were lost," he said, adding that only 15 days of actual negotiations remained before Copenhagen
"Delegates spent too much time arguing over procedure and technicalities. This is not the way to overcome mistrust between rich and poor nations," said Kim Carstensen, head of the Global Climate Initiative of WWF.
The world's poorest and most vulnerable countries, including tiny island states that barely break the surface of the ocean, banded together to ratchet up the pressure on the industrial countries.
"Adverse affects of climate change already are being felt," said Dessima Williams, the delegate from Grenada, who led the 80-nation coalition. She cited rising sea levels, the spread of deserts and the loss of water sources, declining biodiversity and the growing frequency and intensity of hurricanes, floods and drought.
"Some states are likely to become entirely uninhabitable" unless carbon emissions are quickly checked, she said.
Scientists say carbon, mainly from fossil fuels for transportation and power, has accumulated in the atmosphere over the last 150 years to block heat from escaping, leading to a gradual warming of the air and seas.
The bloc of poor states said climate change is outpacing the best estimates of a few years ago, when scientists warned that the maximum safe increase in the planet's average temperature was 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from preindustrial levels.
Williams said the 80-country group emphasized that every effort should be made to restrict the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). She said that would require industrial countries to slash carbon emissions by 45 percent from 1990 levels within the next decade.
Offers from wealthy countries total 15 percent to 21 percent so far, the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said this week.
To avoid failure in Copenhagen, negotiators and activists said, government leaders need to resolve three related questions: How much more can industrial countries cut emissions? How much can developing countries slow the growth of their own? And how much money does the global community need to raise to help poor countries survive the effects of climate change?
Financial estimates vary wildly. The WWF says $160 billion is needed annually. Williams said the world should dedicate 1 percent of its gross domestic product - the equivalent of $400 billion annually.
The hoped-for Copenhagen agreement would succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which bound 37 industrial countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. Kyoto placed no obligations on developing countries.
This time around, the world's wealthier nations want developing countries, particularly China and India, to share the burden and agree to slow their explosive emissions growth.
A key point of dispute remains whether developing countries would agree to be legally bound to a Copenhagen accord.
The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed a climate bill that would impose trade penalties on countries that do not accept limits on their emissions, and the Senate is considering a similar bill. President Barack Obama has opposed attaching trade issues to climate and energy legislation.
India criticized the U.S. lawmakers' approach, and proposed a clause Friday that would forbid any government from erecting trade barriers to punish a nation that refused to accept limits on its carbon emissions.
India's chief delegate, Shyam Saran, said U.S. Congress was pursuing "protectionism under a green label" and sidetracking negotiators.
Saran said trade issues are "extraneous to what we are trying to construct here, which is a collaborative response to an extraordinary global challenge."
Report: Product safety agency has no access to certain data on imported products
Despite the growing number of imports, the government's product safety agency has no access to certain customs information that could help prevent the sale of unsafe products, congressional investigators say.A report released Friday by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, looks at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is responsible for ensuring consumer products don't pose health or safety risks.Since 2002, the commission has asked the Customs and Border Protection agency for access to certain information that describes cargo coming into the country, under a 2002 agreement between the entities. That information, called "manifest data," would provide the commission with information about products in a shipment before it arrives in the U.S.The report said the information has not been provided because Customs and Border Protection believed it was not specific enough for the consumer agency's purposes. Seven years later, the agencies have not yet worked out access. The new report says both agencies have work to do to resolve the issue."That advanced notice, combined with other data that they have, would help them better identify risks before the products enter the country," said Philip Curtin, a senior analyst at the GAO. Although the information is not perfect, it would certainly be better than not having it, the congressional investigators said.In comparison, the Food and Drug Administration receives the advance shipment information from Customs, which enforces regulations for about 45 federal agencies.The product safety commission has come under pressure in the last few years over the increasing number of recalled lead-tainted products, many from China. From 1998 to 2007, the value of consumer products imported into the U.S. about doubled, according to the investigators. Products from China nearly quadrupled over that time, making up about 42 percent of all imported consumer goods.But the number of samples that the product safety commission collected for examination at ports of entry has dropped during that period. It collected 1,348 samples in 1999, but only 616 in 2006, 748 in 2007 and 1,170 last year.Congressional investigators said the commission has few staff at ports and limited analytical and laboratory support. A new law is supposed to increase the number of commission personnel assigned at ports.But investigators cited delays in implementing new powers given to the commission under the law and said the increased authority can only be effective if it's used more fully. And they said it's imperative for the problems in sharing cargo information to be worked.Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Scott Wolfson, speaking for the product safety commission, said the agency is reviewing the recommendations and "will seek to be responsive."
Will 'Energy Crops' Become the Next Kudzu?
U.S. policies are subsidizing new energy crops that are likely to spread off the farm and wreak economic and ecological havoc, a federalFor years, researchers have worked to develop "advanced" biofuel feeds from unconventional crops such as grasses and algae.
The goal is to enable a switch away from corn- and soy-based biofuel to cellulosic energy crops that don't compete on the food or feed market and have a smaller carbon footprint. A 2007 energy law, in fact, requires a total of 160 billion gallons of the plant-based cellulosic fuels by 2022 that these crops would produce.
As a result, researchers are now selecting, breeding and engineering species that demand less water, fertilizer and agricultural land and grow year-round at high yields.
But it is often exactly these traits, such as drought tolerance or pathogen resistance, that make the fuels of the future ripe to become invasive species and cause widespread damage. The issue highlights another potential complication in what has been a bumpy road in the development of the biofuels industry.
"Absent strategic mitigation efforts, there is substantial risk that some biofuel crops will escape cultivation and cause socio-economic and/or ecological harm," the white paper, adopted by the Invasive Species Advisory Committee, warns.
The group of outside experts advises a federal council tasked with coordinating invasive species policies among 13 departments and agencies. It called on the U.S. government to take major steps to combat the substantial risks from biofuels as it promotes and funds biofuels development.
Invasive species are already costly
Every year, invasive plants cost the United States a minimum of $34 billion in losses and control costs, according to one study the group's paper cites. The potential scale of biofuel cultivation, at more than 150 million acres, provides ample opportunity to add to those costs, the committee says.
Some proposed biofuel crops already are invasive species.
One of the most alarming examples is giant reed, or Arundo donax, according to Joseph DiTomaso, the University of California, Davis, weed specialist who drafted the paper.
The grass grows in dense clumps up to 20 feet tall and is classified a noxious weed in California and in Texas, as well as other areas of the South. But in Florida, researchers are looking to plant even more of it as a biofuel crop, he said.
Proposed energy crops like miscanthus and reed canary grass also are already invasive species in some areas of the world, he said. And jatropha and algae, crops that could one day supplant jet fuels used in aviation, also pose high invasion risk, according to the Global Invasive Species Programme.
Other heavily publicized biofuel crops, such as switchgrass, look to be safer bets in the United States, DiTomaso said.
The laws of unintended consequences are well-known to anyone familiar with the history of invasive species.
A field plowed with good intentions
One of the 10 worst weeds in the world, known as Johnson grass, was originally brought from the Mediterranean to the United States in 1830 as forage material for livestock. Today it's invasive in 23 states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and spreads aggressively in the South.
And kudzu -- the colorful "mile a minute" vine that has engulfed the southern United States -- was first imported from Japan to ornament gardens in the late 19th century.
The committee has made nine recommendations to avoid a more modern disaster.
It calls, for example, for long-term flexible funding for an early detection and rapid response system to monitor and respond to potential biofuel crop invasions.
But it also says that agencies need to craft proactive policies that minimize these risks in advance. It recommends evaluating each candidate biofuel crop in the region where it is proposed for cultivation and encouraging the use of low-risk species or cultivars.
Examples might be plants that are sterile or can't survive outside of the cultivated environment. Planting, harvesting, field abandonment, transport and storage practices should also be tailored to combat the threat, they said.
Selecting the right region is important, too. The committee recommended that federally supported research and demonstration projects select sites that minimize escape potential.
The issue goes beyond U.S. borders. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is also drafting guidelines on biofuels and invasive species. In Africa, it says, many governments are rushing to encourage biofuels development. But there, especially in countries lacking the resources to manage the risk of invasion, the threat has received scant attention, the group says. advisory board cautioned yesterday.
The goal is to enable a switch away from corn- and soy-based biofuel to cellulosic energy crops that don't compete on the food or feed market and have a smaller carbon footprint. A 2007 energy law, in fact, requires a total of 160 billion gallons of the plant-based cellulosic fuels by 2022 that these crops would produce.
As a result, researchers are now selecting, breeding and engineering species that demand less water, fertilizer and agricultural land and grow year-round at high yields.
But it is often exactly these traits, such as drought tolerance or pathogen resistance, that make the fuels of the future ripe to become invasive species and cause widespread damage. The issue highlights another potential complication in what has been a bumpy road in the development of the biofuels industry.
"Absent strategic mitigation efforts, there is substantial risk that some biofuel crops will escape cultivation and cause socio-economic and/or ecological harm," the white paper, adopted by the Invasive Species Advisory Committee, warns.
The group of outside experts advises a federal council tasked with coordinating invasive species policies among 13 departments and agencies. It called on the U.S. government to take major steps to combat the substantial risks from biofuels as it promotes and funds biofuels development.
Invasive species are already costly
Every year, invasive plants cost the United States a minimum of $34 billion in losses and control costs, according to one study the group's paper cites. The potential scale of biofuel cultivation, at more than 150 million acres, provides ample opportunity to add to those costs, the committee says.
Some proposed biofuel crops already are invasive species.
One of the most alarming examples is giant reed, or Arundo donax, according to Joseph DiTomaso, the University of California, Davis, weed specialist who drafted the paper.
The grass grows in dense clumps up to 20 feet tall and is classified a noxious weed in California and in Texas, as well as other areas of the South. But in Florida, researchers are looking to plant even more of it as a biofuel crop, he said.
Proposed energy crops like miscanthus and reed canary grass also are already invasive species in some areas of the world, he said. And jatropha and algae, crops that could one day supplant jet fuels used in aviation, also pose high invasion risk, according to the Global Invasive Species Programme.
Other heavily publicized biofuel crops, such as switchgrass, look to be safer bets in the United States, DiTomaso said.
The laws of unintended consequences are well-known to anyone familiar with the history of invasive species.
A field plowed with good intentions
One of the 10 worst weeds in the world, known as Johnson grass, was originally brought from the Mediterranean to the United States in 1830 as forage material for livestock. Today it's invasive in 23 states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and spreads aggressively in the South.
And kudzu -- the colorful "mile a minute" vine that has engulfed the southern United States -- was first imported from Japan to ornament gardens in the late 19th century.
The committee has made nine recommendations to avoid a more modern disaster.
It calls, for example, for long-term flexible funding for an early detection and rapid response system to monitor and respond to potential biofuel crop invasions.
But it also says that agencies need to craft proactive policies that minimize these risks in advance. It recommends evaluating each candidate biofuel crop in the region where it is proposed for cultivation and encouraging the use of low-risk species or cultivars.
Examples might be plants that are sterile or can't survive outside of the cultivated environment. Planting, harvesting, field abandonment, transport and storage practices should also be tailored to combat the threat, they said.
Selecting the right region is important, too. The committee recommended that federally supported research and demonstration projects select sites that minimize escape potential.
The issue goes beyond U.S. borders. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is also drafting guidelines on biofuels and invasive species. In Africa, it says, many governments are rushing to encourage biofuels development. But there, especially in countries lacking the resources to manage the risk of invasion, the threat has received scant attention, the group says. advisory board cautioned yesterday.
Air Pollution Travels, Kills Thousands Annually
Unseen and odorless, microscopic particles of air pollution wafting overseas and across continents kill some 380,000 people each year, according to a new study.
Exhaust from diesel engines, sulfur from coal-fired power plants, and desert dust swirl into an insidious cocktail of of tiny particles that can spend weeks airborne.
The most harmful are the smallest, less than 2.5 microns in diameter; when inhaled they can irritate the lungs or pass directly into the bloodstream and damage arteries.
Scientists and regulators know this is a major public health problem, especially in developing countries. But less clear is the effect that air pollution generated in regions like China and Southeast Asia has on far-off lands -- say, North America.
Particulate pollution born overseas that floats into Canada, Mexico and the United States accounts for 6,600 premature deaths each year, Junfeng Liu of Princeton University and a team of researchers found.
Similarly, their study, published in the journal Atmospheric Environment suggests that a dust plume from Africa and a fog of pollution from Europe converge on the Indian subcontinent, condemning nearly 200,000 people to early deaths.
Globally, the team estimates that some 380,000 people die prematurely as the result of particulates emigrating from foreign lands.
"It's clear that this is having an impact on health," said Denise Mauzerall of Princeton University, a co-author on the study. "If we want to develop a strategy to deal with anthropogenic pollution, we should consider the health aspect as well as climate implications."
Mauzerall said that regulating diesel exhaust would be particularly beneficial. Diesel engines emit both black carbon, which absorbs sunlight and warms the atmosphere and microparticles.
But Richard Derwent, an independent air pollution specialist based in Newbury in the United Kingdom questions the importance of focusing on transcontinental pollution.
Most pollution tends to stay local; The team's study shows that in all cases, less than 20 percent of a regions' total pollution comes from foreign sources.
"If I was a policymaker in Europe, and I look at this and see that 2 percent of my pollution is coming from North America, am I going to immediately start negotiations with the U.S. or Canada?" he said. "I'm not."
"Domestic emissions dominate," Mauzerall agreed. "But there is enough long range transport to have an effect -- it's small, but not negligible."
What's more, the difficulty of studying microparticles on a global scale means that the team had to treat natural dust sources as equally toxic to people as smoke from a coal-fired power plant. This is a gray area for science, as researchers are still uncertain which types of particles do the most damage.
Exhaust from diesel engines, sulfur from coal-fired power plants, and desert dust swirl into an insidious cocktail of of tiny particles that can spend weeks airborne.
The most harmful are the smallest, less than 2.5 microns in diameter; when inhaled they can irritate the lungs or pass directly into the bloodstream and damage arteries.
Scientists and regulators know this is a major public health problem, especially in developing countries. But less clear is the effect that air pollution generated in regions like China and Southeast Asia has on far-off lands -- say, North America.
Particulate pollution born overseas that floats into Canada, Mexico and the United States accounts for 6,600 premature deaths each year, Junfeng Liu of Princeton University and a team of researchers found.
Similarly, their study, published in the journal Atmospheric Environment suggests that a dust plume from Africa and a fog of pollution from Europe converge on the Indian subcontinent, condemning nearly 200,000 people to early deaths.
Globally, the team estimates that some 380,000 people die prematurely as the result of particulates emigrating from foreign lands.
"It's clear that this is having an impact on health," said Denise Mauzerall of Princeton University, a co-author on the study. "If we want to develop a strategy to deal with anthropogenic pollution, we should consider the health aspect as well as climate implications."
Mauzerall said that regulating diesel exhaust would be particularly beneficial. Diesel engines emit both black carbon, which absorbs sunlight and warms the atmosphere and microparticles.
But Richard Derwent, an independent air pollution specialist based in Newbury in the United Kingdom questions the importance of focusing on transcontinental pollution.
Most pollution tends to stay local; The team's study shows that in all cases, less than 20 percent of a regions' total pollution comes from foreign sources.
"If I was a policymaker in Europe, and I look at this and see that 2 percent of my pollution is coming from North America, am I going to immediately start negotiations with the U.S. or Canada?" he said. "I'm not."
"Domestic emissions dominate," Mauzerall agreed. "But there is enough long range transport to have an effect -- it's small, but not negligible."
What's more, the difficulty of studying microparticles on a global scale means that the team had to treat natural dust sources as equally toxic to people as smoke from a coal-fired power plant. This is a gray area for science, as researchers are still uncertain which types of particles do the most damage.
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