Companies are fleeing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as though the association had the plague. PG&E, Exelon, PNM Resources, Apple - and this is all within the past two weeks. If the chamber keeps up its fierce opposition to climate change legislation, the defections should continue.
According to a statement from chamber President Thomas Donohue, the chamber supports "strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change." But the chamber vociferously opposes the Waxman-Markey climate change bill and it's challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The chamber is woefully, even cynically, undercutting its rhetoric with its actions.
And a handful of high-profile businesses have had enough of it. They figure that new legislation and regulation is coming, and it would be best to be cooperative, not contrary. In the long term, some of them may even benefit from the changes. Maybe, like Apple, they're less worried about legislation in the United States because they do much of their manufacturing overseas. And surely the defectors don't mind a bit of good press, either.
Whatever. Even if the defectors aren't leaving the chamber solely out of their environmental concern, their choice still represents a remarkable turn in the national debate. It means that public concern with climate change is finally starting to affect business practices - and hopefully, voting practices. Nike, which just resigned its place on the chamber's board of directors, said that it was concerned about how it would look to its young customers, who are passionate about addressing a threat to the planet. That's got to send shudders through Congress, as well it should. Ultimately, if the country's going to change, consumers and taxpayers are going to have to turn up the heat.
R
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
48 ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS RECEIVE 2009 TOGETHERGREEN INNOVATION GRANTS
Forty eight projects in 23 states will receive a total of $1.1 million in TogetherGreen Innovation Grants to facilitate people-powered conservation action. TogetherGreen Innovation Grants annually provide essential funding that enables environmental groups and their community partners to inspire, equip and engage people to tackle environmental problems and better their communities.
Now in the second year of the program, nearly 90 environmental projects have received Innovation Grants totaling more than $2.5 million to protect land, water, and energy resources nationwide.
Sample 2009 grantees and their projects include:
§ Houston Audubon Society will partner with groups such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Texas Forest Service to engage residents in restoring native habitat on Texas’s hurricane-ravaged Bolivar peninsula (TX);
§ Audubon New York will partner with The Nature Conservancy, the Prospect Park Alliance and the Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment High School to offer internships and nature-based experiences enabling inner city teens to learn critical life and workplace skills;
§ Palouse Audubon Society will partner with the University of Idaho Women in Science, Idaho Fish and Game, and Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute to transform land neighboring a wastewater treatment plant into a wildlife park (Moscow, ID);
§ Los Angeles Audubon Society will partner with Susan Miller Dorsey High School, Leo Politi Elementary School,and the environmental firm, Newfields, to put teens on the front line of coastal sage scrub restoration (Los Angeles, CA);
§ Montana Audubon will work with the Western Sustainability Exchange, Yellowstone River Parks Association, and Billings West High School to help educate consumers about the importance of selecting environmentally friendly beef that has been produced by ranchers who protect habitat on their properties (Billings and Helena MT)
A complete list of all 48 grants is available at www.togethergreen.org/grants.
“TogetherGreen Innovation Grants offer tremendous opportunities for environmental groups to flex their creative muscles in tackling conservation issues and building a broader, more active constituency,” said Audubon President John Flicker. “We believe this second round of funding will continue to jump start conservation success by broadening the ranks of those involved and providing support that will allow measurable results to take root.”
The 2009 Innovation Grant recipients were selected from scores of applicants across America. Funds were awarded to local Chapters or programs of Audubon’s large national network – each working in partnership with one or more outside groups. Recipients were chosen for innovation and effectiveness of projects designed to contribute to significant gains in habitat, water, and energy conservation. Many projects will work with inner-city audiences and those previously underserved or not engaged with the environmental community.
“It’s hard to inspire kids to get involved with natural resources just through the classroom, so our work with Audubon will help spark the flame so they can get their hands dirty and learn how to really tackle some real-life problems out in the field,” said Dr. Diana Doan-Crider, Research Associate, Texas A&M University, who is partnering with Audubon Texas to offer environmental internships to underrepresented ethnic groups throughout the state. “There’s nothing like a live animal or a beautiful landscape to trigger a young person’s imagination.”
Selected 2009 proposals will receive grants ranging from $5,000 - $80,000. The grants are proving especially important as non-profit groups weather the financial recession. The 2008 grant recipients leveraged an estimated $4.5 million in additional matching and in-kind support that allowed them to broaden their scope and deliver tremendous conservation potential.
“Generating one green watt of energy where it is being used will save the emissions produced by coal generation of three watts," said Bob Barnhill, President, Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum, who is partnering with Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch to reduce carbon emissions in rural communities. “We can educate our residents in conservation of resources as well as our connection to the earth “
Since launching TogetherGreen in March 2008, the five-year alliance between Audubon and Toyota has provided leadership training, conservation education and outreach, volunteer events, and grant funding to generate impressive new results. Success stories from 2008 Innovation Grants projects helped inspire a new state law requiring high-rises in Minnesota to turn off unnecessary lighting every year during spring and fall migrations; planted over 68,000 trees planted and restored more than 325 acres of land including grasslands in Missouri and Pennsylvania, wetlands in California, and forests in Vermont; reached over 6,000 people with one third of the projects targeting people of color and more than half reaching low-income communities. The progress represents crucial steps in addressing big problems – from habitat degradation to wasteful consumption – that can be solved only through concerted, long-term conservation action.
Audubon Chapters, programs, Centers, sanctuaries and even independent Audubon groups interested in receiving funding for creative, collaborative environmental projects are encouraged to apply for a 2010 TogetherGreen Innovation Grant. Applications will be available online beginning in winter 2010 at www.togethergreen.org/grants.
About Audubon
Now in its second century, Audubon connects people with birds, nature and the environment that supports us all. Our national network of community-based nature centers, chapters, scientific, education, and advocacy programs engages millions of people from all walks of life in conservation action to protect and restore the natural world. Visit Audubon online at www.audubon.org.
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE: TM) established operations in the United States in 1957 and currently operates 10 manufacturing plants. Toyota is committed to being a good corporate citizen in the communities where it does business and believes in supporting programs with long-term sustainable results. Toyota supports numerous organizations across the country, focusing on education, the environment and safety. Since 1991, Toyota has contributed more than $464 million to philanthropic programs in the U.S. For more information on Toyota's commitment to improving communities nationwide, visit www.toyota.com/community.
Now in the second year of the program, nearly 90 environmental projects have received Innovation Grants totaling more than $2.5 million to protect land, water, and energy resources nationwide.
Sample 2009 grantees and their projects include:
§ Houston Audubon Society will partner with groups such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Texas Forest Service to engage residents in restoring native habitat on Texas’s hurricane-ravaged Bolivar peninsula (TX);
§ Audubon New York will partner with The Nature Conservancy, the Prospect Park Alliance and the Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment High School to offer internships and nature-based experiences enabling inner city teens to learn critical life and workplace skills;
§ Palouse Audubon Society will partner with the University of Idaho Women in Science, Idaho Fish and Game, and Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute to transform land neighboring a wastewater treatment plant into a wildlife park (Moscow, ID);
§ Los Angeles Audubon Society will partner with Susan Miller Dorsey High School, Leo Politi Elementary School,and the environmental firm, Newfields, to put teens on the front line of coastal sage scrub restoration (Los Angeles, CA);
§ Montana Audubon will work with the Western Sustainability Exchange, Yellowstone River Parks Association, and Billings West High School to help educate consumers about the importance of selecting environmentally friendly beef that has been produced by ranchers who protect habitat on their properties (Billings and Helena MT)
A complete list of all 48 grants is available at www.togethergreen.org/grants.
“TogetherGreen Innovation Grants offer tremendous opportunities for environmental groups to flex their creative muscles in tackling conservation issues and building a broader, more active constituency,” said Audubon President John Flicker. “We believe this second round of funding will continue to jump start conservation success by broadening the ranks of those involved and providing support that will allow measurable results to take root.”
The 2009 Innovation Grant recipients were selected from scores of applicants across America. Funds were awarded to local Chapters or programs of Audubon’s large national network – each working in partnership with one or more outside groups. Recipients were chosen for innovation and effectiveness of projects designed to contribute to significant gains in habitat, water, and energy conservation. Many projects will work with inner-city audiences and those previously underserved or not engaged with the environmental community.
“It’s hard to inspire kids to get involved with natural resources just through the classroom, so our work with Audubon will help spark the flame so they can get their hands dirty and learn how to really tackle some real-life problems out in the field,” said Dr. Diana Doan-Crider, Research Associate, Texas A&M University, who is partnering with Audubon Texas to offer environmental internships to underrepresented ethnic groups throughout the state. “There’s nothing like a live animal or a beautiful landscape to trigger a young person’s imagination.”
Selected 2009 proposals will receive grants ranging from $5,000 - $80,000. The grants are proving especially important as non-profit groups weather the financial recession. The 2008 grant recipients leveraged an estimated $4.5 million in additional matching and in-kind support that allowed them to broaden their scope and deliver tremendous conservation potential.
“Generating one green watt of energy where it is being used will save the emissions produced by coal generation of three watts," said Bob Barnhill, President, Sonoita Crossroads Community Forum, who is partnering with Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch to reduce carbon emissions in rural communities. “We can educate our residents in conservation of resources as well as our connection to the earth “
Since launching TogetherGreen in March 2008, the five-year alliance between Audubon and Toyota has provided leadership training, conservation education and outreach, volunteer events, and grant funding to generate impressive new results. Success stories from 2008 Innovation Grants projects helped inspire a new state law requiring high-rises in Minnesota to turn off unnecessary lighting every year during spring and fall migrations; planted over 68,000 trees planted and restored more than 325 acres of land including grasslands in Missouri and Pennsylvania, wetlands in California, and forests in Vermont; reached over 6,000 people with one third of the projects targeting people of color and more than half reaching low-income communities. The progress represents crucial steps in addressing big problems – from habitat degradation to wasteful consumption – that can be solved only through concerted, long-term conservation action.
Audubon Chapters, programs, Centers, sanctuaries and even independent Audubon groups interested in receiving funding for creative, collaborative environmental projects are encouraged to apply for a 2010 TogetherGreen Innovation Grant. Applications will be available online beginning in winter 2010 at www.togethergreen.org/grants.
About Audubon
Now in its second century, Audubon connects people with birds, nature and the environment that supports us all. Our national network of community-based nature centers, chapters, scientific, education, and advocacy programs engages millions of people from all walks of life in conservation action to protect and restore the natural world. Visit Audubon online at www.audubon.org.
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE: TM) established operations in the United States in 1957 and currently operates 10 manufacturing plants. Toyota is committed to being a good corporate citizen in the communities where it does business and believes in supporting programs with long-term sustainable results. Toyota supports numerous organizations across the country, focusing on education, the environment and safety. Since 1991, Toyota has contributed more than $464 million to philanthropic programs in the U.S. For more information on Toyota's commitment to improving communities nationwide, visit www.toyota.com/community.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
India Steps Up Climate Change Efforts
As international climate negotiations progress this week in Bangkok, Thailand, India has shown signs of more proactive engagement on climate change issues both internationally and at home. While the Indian government continues to emphasize poverty alleviation and economic development as the country's highest priorities, recent stances on domestic emission reductions indicate that India is taking considerable steps to encourage more constructive global climate talks.
India joins a growing contingent of developing countries that "are making very significant efforts to show what they are doing to address climate change and indicate what more they are willing to do," according to U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer.
Until recently, India had repeatedly rejected calls to quantify its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the grounds that this would jeopardize national poverty alleviation goals.
"India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and over-riding priorities," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said in June.
But two weeks ago, in a surprising reversal, India agreed to quantify its efforts to mitigate climate change. Ramesh said India would reduce emissions by "a broadly indicative number," although the reductions would still not be bound by international law.
At the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in Italy in July, India joined 16 other countries in declaring that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels should not exceed 2 degrees Celsius. This goal remains somewhat controversial, however, as there is still no clear agreement on how countries will share the burden for reducing global emissions.
At the subsequent Major Economies Forum in Washington, D.C., this September, India proposed that it could submit more detailed and regular information to the international community on its domestic climate change efforts as a step toward greater transparency.
All countries that are party to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are required to submit periodic "national communications" that report on their carbon emissions and climate mitigation activities. But India, like other developing countries, has not had to submit these reports as regularly or in as much detail as industrialized countries, especially for those actions that are not internationally funded.
"We are prepared to...incorporate [self-funded actions on climate change] in our national communication [and]...to consider making the national communication more detailed and more regular," said Shyam Saran, India's Special Envoy on Climate Change, speaking to Worldwatch. But, he said, all parties to the UNFCCC would need to agree to such changes.
These recent overtures from India's government are a sign of the country's growing investment in the success of the Copenhagen climate negotiations in December, Ramesh said.
"The single most important message we need to give the world is that we are proactive, constructive, [and] we want a fair and equitable agreement in Copenhagen," he told the Indian Express.
Strengthening efforts at home
India's investment in climate change appears to be ramping up domestically as well.
Last month, the Ministry of Environment and Forests released a report listing 20 initiatives that the country is undertaking to address climate change at home. These steps come as part of India's larger National Action Plan on Climate Change.
The report mentions reforestation as a priority on India's environmental agenda. A major drive is under way nationwide to add 0.8 million hectares of forest per year, coupled with efforts to improve forest management, conservation, and regeneration and to boost local capacity and job creation for some of India's poorest communities.
These initiatives will help offset 11 percent of India's annual emissions, according to the Ministry report.
The report also touts the government's recent approval of two of the eight "missions" that comprise the National Action Plan on Climate Change: the Solar Mission and the Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency.
The Solar Mission sets a target to install 20 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity by 2020 and 200 GW by 2050. It is the most ambitious solar plan that any country has put forward so far.
The Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency contains initiatives designed to improve the efficiency of energy use across sectors. The government has said the program will include a series of mandated efficiency standards for vehicles, buildings, and appliances; a market-based mechanism to trade energy-efficiency certificates; and other mechanisms to finance efficiency efforts, such as tax exemptions and insurance funds.
The Ministry has also floated a proposal to create a National Environmental Protection Authority that would monitor and evaluate the implementation of environmental efforts in India. The proposal comes as part of a new drive from the Ministry to improve its "accountability and transparency," as outlined in a recent video that asks viewers to provide feedback on Ministry activities.
India firm on equity concerns
Despite its increasingly proactive engagement on climate issues, India has not waivered from its position that equity concerns must underlie the international climate negotiations. The government insists that, despite a common goal of global climate stabilization, each country has a different responsibility to address the problem.
"The major responsibility for bringing about [climate change] is that of the developed countries, and...they should carry out credible action in order to control emissions," said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a press conference following the recent G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsyslvania.
Topping India's agenda have been appeals for more ambitious emissions cuts from industrialized countries as well as larger commitments to provide financial and technical support to the developing world.
"Nearly 200 million [Indians] live on less than $1 a day and nearly 500 million do not have access to modern sources of energy," said External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna at a U.N. roundtable event in New York in September.
At the meeting, Krishna called on industrialized countries to cut their carbon emissions "at least 40 percent by 2020" from 1990 levels and asked them to consider changes in lifestyle patterns to achieve this shift.
"We cannot get away from the fundamental fact that unsustainable lifestyles and patterns of production and consumption in the developed world have caused climate change. This cannot continue," he said.
Krishna emphasized the importance of focusing on climate change adaptation as well as mitigation. "Developing countries must be supported financially, technologically, and with capacity-building resources so that they can cope with the immense challenges of adaptation," he said in a statement to the U.N. General Assembly.
India joins a growing contingent of developing countries that "are making very significant efforts to show what they are doing to address climate change and indicate what more they are willing to do," according to U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer.
Until recently, India had repeatedly rejected calls to quantify its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the grounds that this would jeopardize national poverty alleviation goals.
"India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and over-riding priorities," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said in June.
But two weeks ago, in a surprising reversal, India agreed to quantify its efforts to mitigate climate change. Ramesh said India would reduce emissions by "a broadly indicative number," although the reductions would still not be bound by international law.
At the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in Italy in July, India joined 16 other countries in declaring that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels should not exceed 2 degrees Celsius. This goal remains somewhat controversial, however, as there is still no clear agreement on how countries will share the burden for reducing global emissions.
At the subsequent Major Economies Forum in Washington, D.C., this September, India proposed that it could submit more detailed and regular information to the international community on its domestic climate change efforts as a step toward greater transparency.
All countries that are party to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are required to submit periodic "national communications" that report on their carbon emissions and climate mitigation activities. But India, like other developing countries, has not had to submit these reports as regularly or in as much detail as industrialized countries, especially for those actions that are not internationally funded.
"We are prepared to...incorporate [self-funded actions on climate change] in our national communication [and]...to consider making the national communication more detailed and more regular," said Shyam Saran, India's Special Envoy on Climate Change, speaking to Worldwatch. But, he said, all parties to the UNFCCC would need to agree to such changes.
These recent overtures from India's government are a sign of the country's growing investment in the success of the Copenhagen climate negotiations in December, Ramesh said.
"The single most important message we need to give the world is that we are proactive, constructive, [and] we want a fair and equitable agreement in Copenhagen," he told the Indian Express.
Strengthening efforts at home
India's investment in climate change appears to be ramping up domestically as well.
Last month, the Ministry of Environment and Forests released a report listing 20 initiatives that the country is undertaking to address climate change at home. These steps come as part of India's larger National Action Plan on Climate Change.
The report mentions reforestation as a priority on India's environmental agenda. A major drive is under way nationwide to add 0.8 million hectares of forest per year, coupled with efforts to improve forest management, conservation, and regeneration and to boost local capacity and job creation for some of India's poorest communities.
These initiatives will help offset 11 percent of India's annual emissions, according to the Ministry report.
The report also touts the government's recent approval of two of the eight "missions" that comprise the National Action Plan on Climate Change: the Solar Mission and the Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency.
The Solar Mission sets a target to install 20 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity by 2020 and 200 GW by 2050. It is the most ambitious solar plan that any country has put forward so far.
The Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency contains initiatives designed to improve the efficiency of energy use across sectors. The government has said the program will include a series of mandated efficiency standards for vehicles, buildings, and appliances; a market-based mechanism to trade energy-efficiency certificates; and other mechanisms to finance efficiency efforts, such as tax exemptions and insurance funds.
The Ministry has also floated a proposal to create a National Environmental Protection Authority that would monitor and evaluate the implementation of environmental efforts in India. The proposal comes as part of a new drive from the Ministry to improve its "accountability and transparency," as outlined in a recent video that asks viewers to provide feedback on Ministry activities.
India firm on equity concerns
Despite its increasingly proactive engagement on climate issues, India has not waivered from its position that equity concerns must underlie the international climate negotiations. The government insists that, despite a common goal of global climate stabilization, each country has a different responsibility to address the problem.
"The major responsibility for bringing about [climate change] is that of the developed countries, and...they should carry out credible action in order to control emissions," said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a press conference following the recent G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsyslvania.
Topping India's agenda have been appeals for more ambitious emissions cuts from industrialized countries as well as larger commitments to provide financial and technical support to the developing world.
"Nearly 200 million [Indians] live on less than $1 a day and nearly 500 million do not have access to modern sources of energy," said External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna at a U.N. roundtable event in New York in September.
At the meeting, Krishna called on industrialized countries to cut their carbon emissions "at least 40 percent by 2020" from 1990 levels and asked them to consider changes in lifestyle patterns to achieve this shift.
"We cannot get away from the fundamental fact that unsustainable lifestyles and patterns of production and consumption in the developed world have caused climate change. This cannot continue," he said.
Krishna emphasized the importance of focusing on climate change adaptation as well as mitigation. "Developing countries must be supported financially, technologically, and with capacity-building resources so that they can cope with the immense challenges of adaptation," he said in a statement to the U.N. General Assembly.
What are the Effects of Drought?
Drought can have serious health, social, economic and political impacts with far-reaching consequences. Water is one of the most essential commodities for human survival, second only to breathable air. So when there is a drought, which by definition means having too little water to meet current demands, conditions can become difficult or dangerous very quickly.
The consequences of drought may include:
Hunger and famine—Drought conditions often provide too little water to support food crops, through either natural precipitation or irrigation using reserve water supplies. The same problem affects grass and grain used to feed livestock and poultry. When drought undermines or destroys food sources, people go hungry. When the drought is severe and continues over a long period, famine may occur.
Thirst—All living things must have water to survive. People can live for weeks without food, but only a few days without water.
Disease—Drought often creates a lack of clean water for drinking, public sanitation and personal hygiene, which can lead to a wide range of life-threatening diseases.
Wildfires—The low moisture and precipitation that often characterize droughts can quickly create hazardous conditions in forests and across range lands, setting the stage for wildfires that may cause injuries or deaths as well as extensive damage to property and already shrinking food supplies.
Social conflict and war—When a precious commodity like water is in short supply due to drought, and the lack of water creates a corresponding lack of food, people will compete—and eventually fight and kill—to secure enough water to survive.
Migration or relocation—Faced with the other impacts of drought, many people will flee a drought-stricken area in search of a new home with a better supply of water, enough food, and without the disease and conflict that were present in the place they are leaving
The consequences of drought may include:
Hunger and famine—Drought conditions often provide too little water to support food crops, through either natural precipitation or irrigation using reserve water supplies. The same problem affects grass and grain used to feed livestock and poultry. When drought undermines or destroys food sources, people go hungry. When the drought is severe and continues over a long period, famine may occur.
Thirst—All living things must have water to survive. People can live for weeks without food, but only a few days without water.
Disease—Drought often creates a lack of clean water for drinking, public sanitation and personal hygiene, which can lead to a wide range of life-threatening diseases.
Wildfires—The low moisture and precipitation that often characterize droughts can quickly create hazardous conditions in forests and across range lands, setting the stage for wildfires that may cause injuries or deaths as well as extensive damage to property and already shrinking food supplies.
Social conflict and war—When a precious commodity like water is in short supply due to drought, and the lack of water creates a corresponding lack of food, people will compete—and eventually fight and kill—to secure enough water to survive.
Migration or relocation—Faced with the other impacts of drought, many people will flee a drought-stricken area in search of a new home with a better supply of water, enough food, and without the disease and conflict that were present in the place they are leaving
Smoking Bans Reduce Risk of Heart Attacks by Lowering Exposure to Secondhand Smoke
People who live in communities that ban smoking in public places--such as bars, restaurants, and government buildings--have fewer heart attacks, according to two new research studies recently reported by the National Institutes of Health.
In the communities researchers studied, the rate of heart attacks fell dramatically within one year after the smoking ban was put in place (17 percent in one study and 25 percent in the other), and dropped about 36 percent after three years, leading one researcher to estimate that a nationwide ban on smoking in public places in the United States would result in more than 154,000 fewer heart attacks annually.
In the communities researchers studied, the rate of heart attacks fell dramatically within one year after the smoking ban was put in place (17 percent in one study and 25 percent in the other), and dropped about 36 percent after three years, leading one researcher to estimate that a nationwide ban on smoking in public places in the United States would result in more than 154,000 fewer heart attacks annually.
Congress and the EPA Both Take Steps to Control Global Warming
The big news out of Washington, DC, this morning is about climate-change legislation and regulation.
U.S. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) yesterday introduced the long-awaited Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, a Senate bill aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. At nearly the same time, the Obama administration announced that the Environmental Protection Agency would move forward with new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and other large industrial facilities.
U.S. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) yesterday introduced the long-awaited Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, a Senate bill aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. At nearly the same time, the Obama administration announced that the Environmental Protection Agency would move forward with new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and other large industrial facilities.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Mighty caribou herds dwindle, warming blamed
Here on the endlessly rolling and tussocky terrain of northwest Canada, where man has hunted caribou since the Stone Age, the vast antlered herds are fast growing thin. And it's not just here.
Across the tundra 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the east, Canada's Beverly herd, numbering more than 200,000 a decade ago, can barely be found today.
Halfway around the world in Siberia, the biggest aggregation of these migratory animals, of the dun-colored herds whose sweep across the Arctic's white canvas is one of nature's matchless wonders, has shrunk by hundreds of thousands in a few short years.
From wildlife spectacle to wildlife mystery, the decline of the caribou — called reindeer in the Eurasian Arctic — has biologists searching for clues, and finding them.
They believe the insidious impact of climate change, its tipping of natural balances and disruption of feeding habits, is decimating a species that has long numbered in the millions and supported human life in Earth's most inhuman climate.
Many herds have lost more than half their number from the maximums of recent decades, a global survey finds. They "hover on the precipice of a major decline," it says.
The "People of the Caribou," the native Gwich'in of the Yukon and Alaska, were among the first to sense trouble, in the late 1990s, as their Porcupine herd dwindled. From 178,000 in 1989, the herd — named for the river crossing its range — is now estimated to number 100,000.
"They used to come through by the hundreds," James Firth, 56, of the Gwich'in Renewable Resources Board said as he guided two Associated Press journalists across the tundra.
Off toward distant horizons this summer afternoon, only small groups of a dozen or fewer migrating caribou could be seen grazing southward across the spongy landscape, green with a layer of grasses, mosses and lichen over the Arctic permafrost.
"I've never seen it like this before," Firth said of the sparse numbers.
More than 50 identifiable caribou herds migrate over huge wilderness tracts in a wide band circling the top of the world. They head north in the spring to ancient calving grounds, then back south through summer and fall to winter ranges closer to northern forests.
The Porcupine herd moves over a 250,000-square-kilometer (100,000-square-mile) range, calving in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, near Alaska's north coast, where proposals for oil drilling have long stirred opposition from environmentalists seeking to protect the caribou.
The global survey by researchers at the University of Alberta, published in June in the peer-reviewed journal Global Change Biology, has deepened concerns about the caribou's future.
Drawing on scores of other studies, government databases, wildlife management boards and other sources, the biologists found that 34 of 43 herds being monitored worldwide are in decline. The average falloff in numbers was 57 percent from earlier maximums, they said.
Siberia's Taimyr herd has declined from 1 million in 2000 to an estimated 750,000, as reported in the 2008 "Arctic Report Card" of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Taimyr is the world's largest herd, but Canada and Alaska have more caribou, and the Alberta study reported that 22 of 34 North American herds are shrinking. Data were insufficient to make a judgment on seven others.
In an AP interview, Liv Solveig Vors, the June report's lead author, summarized what is believed behind the caribou crash: "Climate change is changing the way they're interacting with their food, directly and indirectly."
Global warming has boosted temperatures in the Arctic twice as much as elsewhere, and Canadian researchers say the natural balance is suffering:
_Unusual freezing rains in autumn are locking lichen, the caribou's winter forage, under impenetrable ice sheets. This was the documented cause in the late 1990s of the near-extinction of the 50,000-strong Peary caribou subspecies on Canada's High Arctic islands.
_Mosquitoes, flies and insect parasites have always tormented and weakened caribou, but warmer temperatures have aggravated this summertime problem, driving the animals on crazed, debilitating runs to escape, and keeping them from foraging and fattening up for winter.
_The springtime Arctic "green-up" is occurring two weeks or more earlier. The great caribou migrations evolved over ages to catch the shrubs on the calving grounds at their freshest and most nutritious. But pregnant, migrating cows may now be arriving too late.
Vors said caribou are unlikely to adjust.
"Evolutionary changes tend to take place over longer time scales than the time scale of climate change at the moment," she said. Climatologists foresee northern temperatures rising several degrees more this century unless global greenhouse gas emissions are sharply reduced soon.
Caribou herds have gone through boom-and-bust cycles historically, but were never known to decline so uniformly worldwide.
Leading Canadian specialist Don Russell, coordinator of a new global network formed to more closely monitor what's happening to the herds, said experts are focusing on "what has changed between this decline and previous declines."
"We've seen a number of areas where climate change is playing a big role, and we see some very dramatic trends," he said in an interview in Whitehorse, the Yukon territorial capital.
In neighboring Northwest Territories, the territorial government on Sept. 24 reported results of its aerial survey of the Bathurst herd: Its population has dropped to about 32,000, from 128,000 in 2006.
"The numbers are not getting better. There's no good news, no indication of recovery," J. Michael Miltenberger, the environment and natural resources minister, said by telephone from Yellowknife, the capital.
He said "there's a huge issue" with the Beverly herd, which numbered 276,000 in 1994, ranging over the Canadian tundra 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) due north of North Dakota.
"We've been flying north to south, east to west," Miltenberger said. "By our count, with the Beverly herd, they've all but disappeared."
Climate change is piling problem upon problem on the caribou, he said, including bogging them down in thawing permafrost and lengthening the wildfire season, burning up their food.
"The cumulative impact is bringing enormous pressure on the caribou," he said.
And that puts pressure on Canada's "first nations," who for at least 8,000 years have relied on the harvest of caribou meat for the winter larder, have settled along migration routes, have built their material culture around the animal — using skin, bones and sinews for clothing, shelter, tools, thread, even their drums.
"There are probably ominous implications for communities relying on caribou," Russell said.
Such reliance is mirrored in Siberia and northern Scandinavia, where the Sami people make a hard living herding reindeer as livestock. Freezing rains there are reported to have forced Sami to buy fodder to substitute for ice-locked forage.
Here in the timeless, silent beauty of Gwich'in country, his people may face "hard decisions," Firth acknowledged, perhaps to limit their hunt to ease the pressure.
"The future of the Gwich'in and the future of the caribou are the same," the Gwich'in often say. But even more may be at stake.
On this summer day above the Arctic Circle, binoculars found a group of caribou being stalked and circled by a hungry grizzly bear, a needy predator and another link in an intricate, interdependent natural web that may be unraveling, year by year and degree by degree, on the tundra.
Across the tundra 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the east, Canada's Beverly herd, numbering more than 200,000 a decade ago, can barely be found today.
Halfway around the world in Siberia, the biggest aggregation of these migratory animals, of the dun-colored herds whose sweep across the Arctic's white canvas is one of nature's matchless wonders, has shrunk by hundreds of thousands in a few short years.
From wildlife spectacle to wildlife mystery, the decline of the caribou — called reindeer in the Eurasian Arctic — has biologists searching for clues, and finding them.
They believe the insidious impact of climate change, its tipping of natural balances and disruption of feeding habits, is decimating a species that has long numbered in the millions and supported human life in Earth's most inhuman climate.
Many herds have lost more than half their number from the maximums of recent decades, a global survey finds. They "hover on the precipice of a major decline," it says.
The "People of the Caribou," the native Gwich'in of the Yukon and Alaska, were among the first to sense trouble, in the late 1990s, as their Porcupine herd dwindled. From 178,000 in 1989, the herd — named for the river crossing its range — is now estimated to number 100,000.
"They used to come through by the hundreds," James Firth, 56, of the Gwich'in Renewable Resources Board said as he guided two Associated Press journalists across the tundra.
Off toward distant horizons this summer afternoon, only small groups of a dozen or fewer migrating caribou could be seen grazing southward across the spongy landscape, green with a layer of grasses, mosses and lichen over the Arctic permafrost.
"I've never seen it like this before," Firth said of the sparse numbers.
More than 50 identifiable caribou herds migrate over huge wilderness tracts in a wide band circling the top of the world. They head north in the spring to ancient calving grounds, then back south through summer and fall to winter ranges closer to northern forests.
The Porcupine herd moves over a 250,000-square-kilometer (100,000-square-mile) range, calving in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, near Alaska's north coast, where proposals for oil drilling have long stirred opposition from environmentalists seeking to protect the caribou.
The global survey by researchers at the University of Alberta, published in June in the peer-reviewed journal Global Change Biology, has deepened concerns about the caribou's future.
Drawing on scores of other studies, government databases, wildlife management boards and other sources, the biologists found that 34 of 43 herds being monitored worldwide are in decline. The average falloff in numbers was 57 percent from earlier maximums, they said.
Siberia's Taimyr herd has declined from 1 million in 2000 to an estimated 750,000, as reported in the 2008 "Arctic Report Card" of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Taimyr is the world's largest herd, but Canada and Alaska have more caribou, and the Alberta study reported that 22 of 34 North American herds are shrinking. Data were insufficient to make a judgment on seven others.
In an AP interview, Liv Solveig Vors, the June report's lead author, summarized what is believed behind the caribou crash: "Climate change is changing the way they're interacting with their food, directly and indirectly."
Global warming has boosted temperatures in the Arctic twice as much as elsewhere, and Canadian researchers say the natural balance is suffering:
_Unusual freezing rains in autumn are locking lichen, the caribou's winter forage, under impenetrable ice sheets. This was the documented cause in the late 1990s of the near-extinction of the 50,000-strong Peary caribou subspecies on Canada's High Arctic islands.
_Mosquitoes, flies and insect parasites have always tormented and weakened caribou, but warmer temperatures have aggravated this summertime problem, driving the animals on crazed, debilitating runs to escape, and keeping them from foraging and fattening up for winter.
_The springtime Arctic "green-up" is occurring two weeks or more earlier. The great caribou migrations evolved over ages to catch the shrubs on the calving grounds at their freshest and most nutritious. But pregnant, migrating cows may now be arriving too late.
Vors said caribou are unlikely to adjust.
"Evolutionary changes tend to take place over longer time scales than the time scale of climate change at the moment," she said. Climatologists foresee northern temperatures rising several degrees more this century unless global greenhouse gas emissions are sharply reduced soon.
Caribou herds have gone through boom-and-bust cycles historically, but were never known to decline so uniformly worldwide.
Leading Canadian specialist Don Russell, coordinator of a new global network formed to more closely monitor what's happening to the herds, said experts are focusing on "what has changed between this decline and previous declines."
"We've seen a number of areas where climate change is playing a big role, and we see some very dramatic trends," he said in an interview in Whitehorse, the Yukon territorial capital.
In neighboring Northwest Territories, the territorial government on Sept. 24 reported results of its aerial survey of the Bathurst herd: Its population has dropped to about 32,000, from 128,000 in 2006.
"The numbers are not getting better. There's no good news, no indication of recovery," J. Michael Miltenberger, the environment and natural resources minister, said by telephone from Yellowknife, the capital.
He said "there's a huge issue" with the Beverly herd, which numbered 276,000 in 1994, ranging over the Canadian tundra 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) due north of North Dakota.
"We've been flying north to south, east to west," Miltenberger said. "By our count, with the Beverly herd, they've all but disappeared."
Climate change is piling problem upon problem on the caribou, he said, including bogging them down in thawing permafrost and lengthening the wildfire season, burning up their food.
"The cumulative impact is bringing enormous pressure on the caribou," he said.
And that puts pressure on Canada's "first nations," who for at least 8,000 years have relied on the harvest of caribou meat for the winter larder, have settled along migration routes, have built their material culture around the animal — using skin, bones and sinews for clothing, shelter, tools, thread, even their drums.
"There are probably ominous implications for communities relying on caribou," Russell said.
Such reliance is mirrored in Siberia and northern Scandinavia, where the Sami people make a hard living herding reindeer as livestock. Freezing rains there are reported to have forced Sami to buy fodder to substitute for ice-locked forage.
Here in the timeless, silent beauty of Gwich'in country, his people may face "hard decisions," Firth acknowledged, perhaps to limit their hunt to ease the pressure.
"The future of the Gwich'in and the future of the caribou are the same," the Gwich'in often say. But even more may be at stake.
On this summer day above the Arctic Circle, binoculars found a group of caribou being stalked and circled by a hungry grizzly bear, a needy predator and another link in an intricate, interdependent natural web that may be unraveling, year by year and degree by degree, on the tundra.
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