United Press International

Let’s get some research going on a way to harness this power, if possible. - JS

TALLAHASSEE , Fla., Aug. 11 (UPI) — Seawater rushing through an underwater mountain range in the Atlantic is generating record turbulence levels, U.S. and French researchers said.

The turbulence in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge packs an energy wallop equal to about 5 million watts, comparable to a small nuclear reactor, lead author Louis St. Laurent of Florida State University said in the journal Nature.

The report said the turbulence — located about one mile below the surface, roughly halfway between New York and Portugal — is generating much of the mixing of warm and cold water in the Atlantic Ocean.

St. Laurent said the mixing produces the overall balance of water temperatures that helps control the strength of the Gulf Stream.

“We are aware that the climate is warming, but we don-t yet fully understand how the changes will affect society,” he said. “Our work will result in better models for predicting how the ocean will affect the climate in the future and a better understanding of sea-level rise, weather patterns such as El Nino, and the impact of these events on fisheries.”

By Michael Hawthorne

Rebuffing bipartisan pressure from members of Congress, the Bush administration’s top environmental regulator on Tuesday declined to stop the BP refinery in northwest Indiana from dumping more pollution into Lake Michigan.

Stephen Johnson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said he saw nothing wrong with the permit Indiana regulators awarded in June to BP, the first company in years allowed to increase the amount of toxic chemicals pumped into the Great Lakes.

As part of a $3 billion expansion of its Whiting, Ind., refinery, the nation’s fourth largest, BP won permission to release more ammonia and suspended solids into the lake. Indiana regulators also gave BP until 2012 to meet a stringent federal standard for mercury pollution set by the EPA in 1995.

Even though the federal government has been pushing for more than three decades to eliminate pollution in the Great Lakes, the EPA did not object to the BP permit.

“We want to work collaboratively with companies, including BP and others, to do what we can to continue to improve the condition of the Great Lakes,” Johnson told the Tribune in a brief interview following a speech at the Chicago Cultural Center. “In this case, it’s my understanding that Indiana issued a permit that is fully compliant with the Clean Water Act. As an agency we need to honor that permit.”

read more HERE

By RITA BEAMISH
Associated Press Writer

Military officials should directly inform hundreds of thousands of Marine families and workers that they drank and washed in toxin-contaminated water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Sen. Elizabeth Dole said Wednesday.

Dole, R-N.C., wants to force the secretary of the Navy to locate and notify Marines and civilians who were exposed to the water up until the mid-1980s when the base shut down contaminated wells.

In a new twist, Marine officials raised the prospect Wednesday that the same contaminants may endanger residents in the form of vapors that can be inhaled. The base is testing to see if vapors are seeping through soil into homes and buildings from a groundwater plume.

Officials said the drinking water has been safe for many years. Previous monitoring from the Environmental Protection Agency showed the underground plume was “no where near any of the buildings or residential areas,” according to Maj. Nat Fahy, the base spokesman.

However, the base and EPA recently began testing when health investigators from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported that their new water model showed the plume had migrated beneath homes and a school as far back as the 1960s. The model only went up to 1994 and contained some inherent uncertainties, according to agency investigators, who are studying health effects from the past contaminated water. Some hazardous clean-up work also has occurred since then.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

by Roddy Scheer
from E/The Environment Magazine

Robert Greenwald and his company Brave New Films are fast becoming members of my personal heroes list. - JS

A grassroots coalition of environmental, religious, and activist groups launched a campaign last week targeting the Fox News Network for spreading misinformation about global warming. The campaign is urging Home Depot, which has pledged concern for the environment, to stop advertising on Fox.

Led by the Sierra Club and documentarian Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films, the campaign kick-off includes a short video-”Fox Attacks: The Environment“-and an online petition to Home Depot, both posted on the new website FoxAttacks.com.

“Fox consistently spreads misinformation about global warming and denies the problem exists,” says Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope. “We have a very real, urgent problem that scientists tell us we need to respond to immediately. The fact that Fox is ignoring widely accepted science on global warming is irresponsible and dangerous. Fox is effectively accelerating global warming by delaying efforts to solve the problem.”

Besides the Sierra Club and Brave New Films, the coalition includes Progressive Christians Uniting, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, American Family Voices, Campaign for America’s Future, Campus Progress, the California Council of Churches, the National Organization of Women, and MoveOn.org Civic Action.

Jim did an excellent interview regarding this subject with Dr. Dewey Caron on Blue Herald Radio. You can listen to it here.

WASHINGTON - Agriculture Department scientists are mobilizing to fight the puzzling and potentially catastrophic collapse of the nation’s honey bee colonies.

Citing a “perfect storm for beekeepers,” alarmed officials admitted Friday they still don’t know why bees are dying in large numbers in more than 22 states. But prodded by Congress and farmers alike, the scientists will be devoting new resources to protecting the diligent pollinators some call six-legged livestock.

“There were enough honey bees to provide pollination for U.S. agriculture this year, but beekeepers could face a serious problem next year and beyond,” Agriculture Undersecretary Gale Buchanan warned Friday.

Nationwide, honey bees pollinate more than 130 crops. They are particularly dutiful in some areas, such as California’s nearly $3 billion-a-year almond industry. Of the nation’s 2.4 million commercial bee colonies, 1.3 million pollinate almond orchards.

“The bee industry is facing difficulty meeting the demand for pollination in almonds because of bee production shortages in California,” the Agricultural Research Service noted.

Prepared with the help of scientists at North Carolina State University and Pennsylvania State University, among others, the 28-page action plan issued Friday proposes:

Spending more money. The Agricultural Research Service has a bee research budget of $7.4 million this year. Officials will redirect new funds to the cause, including an additional $1 million annually for work on honey bee health.

Conducting new surveys. Officials cautioned Friday that current colony surveys have been either “limited in scope (or) fundamentally flawed.” Agriculture Department agencies will collaborate with university researchers to obtain “an accurate picture of bee numbers,” as well as a better understanding of the pesticides, pests and environmental stresses plaguing the bees.

Finding fixes. This is particularly hard, since no one really knows why the bee colonies are collapsing. But officials say they will focus on “developing general best management practices” and distributing information through the Internet.

More at McClatchy

By MARTIN GRIFFITH
Associated Press Writer

RENO, Nev. - As a heat wave made parched terrain even drier, wildfires dotted the West on Saturday, forcing authorities to evacuate homes and close highways and wilderness areas.

Hundreds of people in Winnemucca were ordered to leave their homes Saturday night because of an 8,000-acre wildfire, one of more than a dozen blazes that charred a combined 55 square miles in northern Nevada.

A 100-mile stretch of Interstate 15 in central Utah was closed when a 160,000-acre wildfire jumped the highway, and other fires burned in California, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

The fire near Winnemucca, a town of 8,000 about 170 miles east of Reno, threatened up to eight blocks of homes and an electrical substation, said U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman Jamie Thompson.

“It’s right up to the south edge of town,” he said. “The fire definitely poses a danger to parts of the town. It’s certainly got everyone’s attention.”

The largest of the Nevada fires burned 36 square miles, or 23,000 acres, along the Idaho border, said Mike Brown, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. It was 10 percent contained Saturday, officials said. A firefighter was treated at and released from a hospital in Twin Falls, Idaho, with burns.

Another fire blackened 11 square miles, or 7,000 acres, about five miles southwest of Carlin. It burned two mobile homes and several smaller structures, and shut down a section of Interstate 80 for six hours overnight, fire information officer Tracie Winfrey said. On Saturday morning, the fire was 40 percent contained.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

By KRISTYN ECOCHARD
UPI Energy Correspondent

WASHINGTON, June 25 (UPI) — Most Americans are not satisfied with the Bush administration’s efforts on climate change and are concerned about human-caused change to Earth’s climate, according to a new UPI/Zogby Interactive poll.

More than 52 percent of respondents rated President Bush’s handling of environmental issues as poor and, in varying degrees, nearly 57 percent of people said that the United States is not doing enough to prevent climate change.

Of those polled, more than half responded that they believe there is some connection between human behavior and global climate change. But whether or not human behavior is a factor, when asked to rate their concern about global climate change 60.5 percent said they were moderately to highly concerned. Also in varying degrees, 62 percent agreed the climate issue is a legitimate problem.

The poll of 8,300 people over three days this month has a margin of error of 1 percentage point.

More than half who took part in the poll, 62 percent, thought that the United States should cooperate internationally on global climate change and should work with groups such as the United Nations or the European Union to address the issue. However, on the question of whether the United States should ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming, more people, 47.7 percent, felt signing the treaty would put the U.S. economy at a disadvantage to China and India.

Under the treaty, the United States and European countries would have to reduce emissions at a faster rate than China and India, and some have argued U.S. efforts will be in vain until developing nations contribute to the fight against emissions.

While about 50 percent of the respondents recognized that solving global climate change will require considerable economic sacrifices, there were still 26.5 percent who said they would not be willing to pay a higher rate for electricity generated from renewable sources like wind and solar.

Though 67.5 percent said they would be willing to pay more for clean, renewable energy, most of those said they would only accept a price increase of between 1 percent and 10 percent.

While lawmakers have been pushing for alternative fuel sources like biofuels or ethanol from corn, when poll respondents were asked if they would accept an increase in the cost of food due to demand for ethanol, 34.6 percent said no. Of those polled, nearly 94 percent drive their cars on a daily basis and would be impacted by the higher cost of fuel.

FROM BLOG: Hybrid Car Reviews - Hybrids are the latest rage in the auto industry. And unlike all the other alternatives, hybrid cars are available today. Find out more about how this affects you at hybridreview.blogspot.com

This is so stupid it makes my head hurt. A Honda Civic Hybrid owner is suing Honda over their mileage claims.

But the EPA is the one who mandates those fuel economy figures on the sticker.

The driver estimates he gets 32 mpg in mixed driving after 6,000 miles, even though the Civic Hybrid is rated to get 49/51.

The lawsuit may come down to a simple wording change. The EPA says mileage will vary, while Honda advertisements say mileage may vary. According to the plaintiff’s attorney, that implies it’s possible to get the mileage advertised.

That’s because it is possible to get the mileage advertised. All Honda needs to do is bring in one hypermiler to counter that claim. Put one guy or girl up on the stand who can show they get well over the mpg rating from the EPA and that argument is out the window.

“I can tell you that the 49/51 figures are EPA numbers, not Honda numbers,” Honda spokesman Sage Marie said Thursday. “Some customers achieve the EPA mpg figures and some don’t, as fuel economy performance is a function of conditions, traffic, driving style, load, etc.”

He said the “vast majority of Civic Hybrid customers are satisfied with the performance since it delivers consistently and substantially higher numbers than comparable nonhybrid vehicles in the real world. It is possible to attain the EPA estimates, and customers do all the time.”

What it comes down to (most of the time) is driving habits. Aggressive driving kills fuel economy every time. The plaintiff in this case will have to show that he consistently drives well. And how do you do that?

But what really drives me nuts about this case is it’s the EPA that rates cars, not carmakers. But suing the car company is probably more profitable.

Source: Hybrid owner sues Honda over mileage claims

By Katherine Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) - The Red Hot Chili Peppers led dozens of pop stars performing at Live Earth concerts around the world on Saturday to persuade fans and governments to go green.

Crowds poured into venues in Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg and Johannesburg to hear Linkin Park, Rihanna, Shakira, Crowded House, Kumi Koda and many others perform and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore call for action on climate change.

Genesis, Razorlight and Snow Patrol kicked off the event at London’s Wembley Stadium, leading a star’studded cast there including Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Spinal Tap, who will play before a less-then-capacity crowd of around 63,000.

Corinne Bailey Rae sang “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”, Marvin Gaye’s 1971 environment classic, and sets alternated with short videos about climate change and tips on how to slow it.

Following the model of Live Aid in 1985 and Live 8 in 2005, Live Earth hopes to reach up to two billion people through radio, television and the Internet.

“As a parent I want a decent world for my kids to grow up in and if we can draw attention to this and make people start doing the things that really count … then that will do something,” Duran Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon said in London.

Gore addressed a small event in Washington, where he outlined the seven-point pledge he wants people to take, binding them to cut carbon emissions and lobby governments and employers to do more to save the planet.

“We are excited to share this historic day with some fantastic musicians who are also deeply committed to using their voices and their talents to raise awareness about the climate crisis and how to solve it,” he said.

Gore hopes the concerts will be the start of a three- to five-year campaign to promote awareness of climate change.

read more at Reuters

from the Pew Research Center

In 34 of the 37 countries where data from the Pew 2007 Global Attitudes survey are available, the United States is named by a majority or a clear plurality as the country that is “hurting the world’s environment the most”–even a third of Americans rate their own country as the world’s biggest polluter, more than point to any other single country. (Respondents were asked to name a country from a list that included India, Germany, China, Brazil, Japan, United States and Russia.) In seven countries, majorities identify the U.S. as the world’s top polluter, including 61% in both Bangladesh and Turkey. In only three countries did respondents place more blame on a country other than the U.S. In South Korea, 56% place the most responsibility for environmental problems on China, while in India, 29% say their own country is hurting the world’s environment the most. In both cases, the United States is second on the list of countries most to blame.

By AMANDA FEHD, Associated Press Writer
from YAHOO! NEWS

MEYERS, Calif. - A wind-driven wildfire destroyed at least 165 homes and other structures and scorched 2,000 acres acres just southwest of Lake Tahoe, a spokesman for the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday.

Sheriff’s Lt. Kevin House said the fire is less than 5 percent contained and has more than 500 homes in its path, but no injuries or deaths have been reported. The cause of the fire is still unknown.

“This thing is raging out of control, and there’s no estimate as to when that may change,” House said.

The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors has issued a declaration of emergency, House said.

Kit Bailey, the agency’s fire chief for Lake Tahoe, said high winds hampered the battle against the fast-moving about five miles south of the lake. The Angora Lakes Resort and hundreds of homes in Meyers were evacuated, authorities said.

“I can’t stay on the phone. We just got a notice to evacuate,” Gloria Hildinger of the Angora Lakes Resort said. “The smoke is getting pretty thick. It’s probably two miles away, and we’re hoping it won’t reach here.”

Winds as high as 25 mph fanned the flames, and the National Weather Service called for gusts as high as 35 mph Sunday evening.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

It is no secret that the U.S. military has used the ocean as trashcan for munitions in the past. Peter discussed at the Old DSN how federal lawmakers were pressing the US Army to reveal everything it knows about a massive international program to dump chemical weapons off homeland and foreign shores. “The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.” Brian pointed me to the Daily Press’s in depth coverage of this whole issue. Registration is free and only takes a minute or two and is extremely worthwhile. Included at the site are maps of disposal sites (downloadable as pdfs), stories, descriptions of items dumped including nerve and musturd gas, and rather depressing pictures some are below the fold (all from Daily Press).

Hundreds of dolphins washed ashore in Virginia and New Jersey shorelines in 1987 with burns similar to mustard gas exposure. One marine-mammal specialist suspects Army-dumped chemical weapons killed them. (Photo courtesy of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in New Jersey)

More here

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Fish and Wildlife Service wants to replace four decades of federal protections for the American bald eagle with new rules against disturbing it.

In a push to remove the nation’s symbol from the endangered species list, the wildlife agency is writing new regulations under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act to protect the birds and their nesting, breeding and feeding areas from anything likely to cause them harm.

The law, which dates to 1940, says only that bald eagles cannot be disturbed. Since 1967, when the bald eagle was listed as an endangered species, it has benefited from much tougher protections.

The government’s new interpretation of the 1940 law, proposed Friday, would allow the birds to be moved in rare cases if their nests or breeding and feeding grounds were in the way of an airport runway or some other development. Killing or injuring them accidentally would not be punishable.

Fish and Wildlife, which is part of the Interior Department, must meet a June 29 court-ordered deadline in deciding whether to remove the bald eagle from the endangered species list.

A federal judge in Minnesota ordered the agency last year to remove the eagle from the list unless the government could prove further delays were necessary. The order came in a lawsuit brought by Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of a Minnesota landowner who wants to develop property with an active bald eagle nest.

In 1963, there were just 417 known nesting pairs left in the lower 48 states, mainly because of DDT and other pesticides that weakened the eggshells and reduced the birth rate. Outside Alaska and Canada, where tens of thousands of bald eagles live and their existence has not been in doubt, at least 9,789 known nesting pairs now exist in the wild, officials say.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

HOBART, Australia - Warner Bros. will donate money from the sale of DVDs featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck to help efforts to save the Tasmanian Devil from extinction, an Australian official said Saturday.

The Looney Tunes character Taz - a whirling, growling rival to Bugs Bunny - is based on the Australian marsupial, which is being threatened by contagious cancer in its homeland, the island state of Tasmania.

State Tourism, Arts and Environment Minister Paula Wriedt said Warner Bros. had struck a deal with the government to donate one Australian dollar - the equivalent of 82 cents - for each sale from a new series of DVDs to be released in Australia featuring the company’s cartoon characters.

Proceeds would be donated to a fund managed by the University of Tasmania to help the animals, Wriedt said in a statement.

“This partnership will go a long way to assist in raising funds, awareness and future opportunities to ensure the survival of the Tasmanian Devil,” she said.

A spokesman for Warner Bros. did not immediately return calls for comment on Saturday.

The fox-like animals with powerful jaws and a bloodcurdling growl are being wiped out by a contagious cancer that creates grotesque facial tumors.

The disease was first noticed in the mid-1990s in Tasmania’s northeast, where 90 percent of the devils have since perished. It is spreading south and west, and scientists estimate that within five years, there will be no disease-free population in Tasmania - the only place in the world where the devils exist outside zoos.

Programs to try to save them include plans to relocate breeding pairs to island sanctuaries.

from The B.B.C.

O.K. Americans! Time to bone up on the environment and the Kyoto Treaty, even though President Bush wouldn’t sign it.

Experts at a major UN climate change conference in Bangkok have reached a deal on the best ways to combat global warming, delegates say.

It follows marathon talks with strong reservations voiced by China.

Areas of dispute included language regarding the Kyoto protocol, the costs of cutting emissions and nuclear power.

The third part of this year’s assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change looks at ways to curb emissions and economic factors.

The report is due to be released in the Thai capital on Friday.

‘Action needed’

“It’s all done,” Peter Lukey, a member of the South African delegation, told the Associated Press news agency.
“Everything we wanted to see was there and more. The message is: We have to do something now.”

China repeatedly tried to tone down some elements of the draft text prepared for the start of the week-long discussions, delegates said.

It has been keen to remove references to scenarios which it fears could affect its short-term economic growth.

“Certainly one direction seems to be that there isn’t the investment going into renewable technologies and energy efficiency that’s sufficient for them to meet the potential they have to tackle this problem,” Catherine Pearce, international climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth UK, who is in Bangkok, told the BBC News website.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already this year produced the two other elements of this global assessment report - its fourth since 1990 - dealing respectively with the science of climate change and on the potential impacts.

Stable futures

The draft report assesses the likely costs to the global economy of stabilising greenhouse gases at various concentrations in the atmosphere.

Aiming for a total greenhouse gas concentration equivalent to 650 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide would reduce global GDP by about 0.2%, it says, whereas a more ambitious target of 550ppm would cost about 0.6% of global GDP, says the BBC’s environment correspondent Richard Black.

The current atmospheric concentration is about 425ppm, and many climate scientists now argue that only agreeing to keep below about 450ppm can prevent major climatic consequences.

The IPCC draft says keeping concentrations at this level could cost up to 3% of GDP.

“I can tell you that the probability for achieving 450ppm in anything approaching the world as it now is almost impossible,” commented Professor Stephen Schneider from Stanford University in California, who helped draft the IPCC’s first report this year on the science of climate change.

“But a temperature rise over 2-3C leads to potential mass extinctions, serious problems with coasts, mountain glaciers disappearing, melting ice sheets… and one has to talk about stabilization at 450-550ppm range to have a better than 20-30% chance of preventing that.”

The IPCC does not make policy recommendations, but even so China, with some other delegations, has sought to play down references to the lower stabilization levels.