Save Our Earth

Invasive Species : Hakea

2009-05-31T01:00:00.000-07:00

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
Order: Proteales
Family: Proteaceae
Subfamily: Grevilleoideae
Genus: Hakea

Hakea (Hakea) is a genus of 149 species of shrubs and small trees in the Proteaceae, native to Australia. They are found throughout the country, with the highest species diversity being found in the south west of Western Australia.

They can reach 1-6 m in height, and have spirally arranged leaves 2-20 cm long, simple or compound, sometimes (e.g. H. suaveolens) with the leaflets thin cylindrical and rush-like. The flowers are produced in dense flowerheads of variable shape, globose to cylindrical, 3-10 cm long, with numerous small red, yellow, pink, purple, pale blue or white flowers.

Hakeas are named after Baron Christian Ludwig von Hake, the 18th century German patron of botany, following Heinrich Schrader's description of Hakea teretifolia in 1797.

It is now widely accepted that Grevillea is paraphyletic with respect to Hakea. It is likely, therefore, that Hakea will soon be transferred into Grevillea.

Classification

Hakeas are closely related to the genus Grevillea and Finschia, both members of the subfamily Grevilleoideae within the family Proteaceae. Many species have similar inflorescences, but hakeas can be distinguished by their woody seed pods.

Horticulture

Hakeas are popular ornamental plants in gardens in Australia, though not nearly as commonly seen as grevilleas and banksias. Several hybrids and cultivars have been developed. They are best grown in beds of light soil which is watered but still well drained.

Some showy western species, such as Hakea multilineata, H. francisiana and H. bucculenta, require grafting onto hardy stock such as Hakea salicifolia for growing in more humid climates, as they are sensitive to dieback.

Many species, particularly (but not always) Eastern Australian species, are notable for their hardiness, to the point they have become weedy. Hakea gibbosa, H. sericea and H. drupacea (previously H. suaveolens) have been weeds in South Africa, Hakea laurina has become naturalized around Adelaide.

Invasive Species : Eucalyptus

2009-05-24T01:00:00.000-07:00

Eucalyptus (pronounced /ˌjuːkəˈlɪptəs/ from the Greek: εὐκάλυπτος, eukályptos, meaning "well covered") is a diverse genus of flowering trees (and a few shrubs) in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia. There are more than seven hundred species of Eucalyptus, mostly native to Australia, with a very small number found in adjacent parts of New Guinea and Indonesia and one as far north as the Philippines islands. Only 15 species occur outside of Australia, and only nine do not occur in Australia. Species of Eucalyptus are cultivated throughout the tropics and subtropics including the Americas, England, Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, China and the Indian Subcontinent.

Eucalyptus is one of three similar genera that are commonly referred to as "eucalypts," the others being Corymbia and Angophora. Many, but far from all, are known as gum trees in reference to the habit of many species to exude copious sap from any break in the bark (e.g. Scribbly Gum).

Eucalyptus has attracted attention from global development researchers and environmentalists. Outside of their natural ranges eucalypts are both lauded for its beneficial economic impact on poor populations and derided for being an invasive water-sucker, leading to controversy over its total impact and future. It is a fast-growing source of wood, its oil can be used for cleaning and functions as a natural insecticide, and it is sometimes used to drain swamps and thereby reduce malaria risk.

Animal relationships

An essential oil extracted from Eucalyptus leaves contains compounds that are powerful natural disinfectants and which can be toxic in large quantities. Several marsupial herbivores, notably koalas and some possums, are relatively tolerant of it. The close correlation of these oils with other more potent toxins called formylated phloroglucinol compounds allows koalas and other marsupial species to make food choices based on the smell of the leaves. However, it is the formylated phloroglucinol compounds that are the most important factor in choice of leaves by koalas. Eucalyptus flowers produce a great abundance of nectar, providing food for many pollinators including insects, birds, bats and possums. Despite the fact that Eucalyptus trees are seemingly well-defended from herbivores by the oils and phenolic compounds they do have their share of insect pests, such as the Eucalyptus Longhorn Borer Beetle, Phoracantha semipunctuata, or the aphid-like psyllids known as "bell lerps," both of which have become established as pests throughout the world wherever eucalypts are cultivated.

Invasive Species : Eichhornia crassipes

2009-05-17T01:00:00.000-07:00

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Monocots
(unranked): Commelinids
Order: Commelinales
Family: Pontederiaceae
Genus: Eichhornia
Species: E. crassipes

Eichhornia crassipes, commonly known as Common Water Hyacinth, is an invasive species of plant, which is native of Amazon basin. This plant is also used like a medicinal plant.

Invasive status in Africa

The plant was introduced by Belgian colonists to Rwanda to beautify their holdings and then advanced by natural means to Lake Victoria where it was first sighted in 1988. There, without any natural enemies, it has become an ecological plague, suffocating the lake, diminishing the fish reservoir, and hurting the local economies. It impedes access to Kisumu and other harbors.

The Water Hyacinth has also appeared to the north in Ethiopia, where it was first reported in 1965 at the Koka Reservoir and in the Awash River, where the Ethiopian Electric Light and Power Authority has managed to bring it under moderate control at the considerable cost of human labor. Other infestations in Ethiopia include many bodies of water in the Gambela Region, the Blue Nile from just below Lake Tana into Sudan, and Lake Ellen near Alem Tena.

Ecology

Its habitat ranges from tropical desert to subtropical or warm temperate desert to rainforest zones. It tolerates annual precipitations of 8.2 dm to 27.0 dm (mean of 8 cases = 15.8 dm), annual temperatures from 21.1°C to 27.2°C (mean of 5 cases = 24.9°C), and its pH tolerance is estimated at 5.0 to 7.5. It does not tolerate water temperatures >34°C. Leaves are killed by frost and salt water, the latter trait being used to kill some of it by floating rafts of the cut weed to the sea. Water hyacinths do not grow when the average salinity is greater than 15% that of sea water. In brackish water, its leaves show epinasty and chlorosis, and eventually die.

Neochetinia eichhorniae causes "a substantial reduction in water hyacinth production" (in Louisiana); it reduces plant height, weight, root length, and makes the plant produce fewer daughter plants. Neochetinia eichhorniae was imported from Argentina to Florida in 1972.

Azotobacter chroococcum, an N-fixing bacteria, is probably concentrated around the bases of the petioles. But it doesn't fix N unless the plant is suffering extreme N-deficiency.

Fresh plants contain prickly crystals. This plant is reported to contain HCN, alkaloid, and triterpenoid, and may induce itching. Plants sprayed with 2,4-D may accumulate lethal doses of nitrates, as well as various other nocive elements in polluted environments. See further down.

Uses

Bioenergy

Because of its extremely high rate of development, Eichhornia crassipes is an excellent source of biomass. One hectare of standing crop can thus produce more than 70,000 m3 of biogas. According to Curtis and Duke, one kg of dry matter can yield 370 liters of biogas, giving a heating value of 22,000 KJ/m3 (580 Btu/ft3) compared to pure methane (895 Btu/ft3)

Wolverton and McDonald report only 0.2 m3 methane 7 per kg, indicating requirements of 350 MT biomass/ha to attain the 70,000 m3 yield projected by the National Academy of Sciences (Washington). Ueki and Kobayashi mention more than 200 MT/ha/yr. Reddy and Tucker got an experimental maximum of more than a half ton a day. Bengali farmers collect and pile up these plants to dry at the onset of the cold season; they then use the dry water hyacinths as fuel. They then use the ashes as fertilizer. In India, a ton of dried water hyacinth yield circa 50 liters ethanol and 200 kg residual fiber (7,700 Btu). Bacterial fermentation of one ton yields 26,500 cu ft gas (600 Btu) with 51.6% methane, 25.4% hydrogen, 22.1% CO₂, and 1.2% oxygen. Gasification of one ton dry matter by air and steam at high temperatures (800°) gives circa 40,000 ft3 (circa 1,100 m3) natural gas (143 Btu/cu ft?) containing 16.6% H3, 4.8% methane, 21.7% CO, 4.1% CO₂, and 52.8% N. The high moisture content of water hyacinth, adding so much to handling costs, tends to limit commercial ventures. A continuous, hydraulic production system could be designed, which would provide a better utilization of capital investments than in conventional agriculture, which is essentially a batch operation.

The labour involved in harvesting water hyacinth can be greatly reduced by locating collection sites and processors on impoundments that take advantage of prevailing winds. Wastewater treatment systems could also favourably be added to this operation. The harvested biomass would then be converted to ethanol, natural gas, hydrogen and / or gaseous nitrogen, and fertilizer. The byproduct of water and fertilizer can both be used to irrigate nearby cropland.

Phytoremediation, waste water treatment

The roots of Eichhornia crassipes naturally absorb pollutants, including lead, mercury, and strontium-90, as well as some organic compounds believed to be carcinogenic, in concentrations 10,000 times that in the surrounding water. Water hyacinths can be cultivated for waste water treatment.

Edibility

Used as a carotene-rich table vegetable in Taiwan. Javanese sometimes cook and eat the green parts and inflorescence.

Medicial use

In Kedah (Java), the flowers are used for medicating the skin of horses. The species is "tonic."

Invasive Species : Cereus repandus

2009-05-10T01:00:00.000-07:00

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
(unranked): Core eudicots
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Cactaceae
Subfamily: Cactoideae
Tribe: Cereeae
Genus: Cereus
Species: C. repandus

The Peruvian Apple Cactus, Cereus repandus, is a large, erect, thorny columnar cactus found in South America. It is also known as Giant Club Cactus, 'Hedge Cactus, cadushi, or (in Wayuunaiki) kayush.

With an often tree-like appearance, the Peruvian Apple Cactus' cylindrical gray-green to blue stems can reach 10 meters (33 ft) in height and 10-20 cm in diameter. The nocturnal flowers remain open for only one night. The fruits, known locally as "pitaya" or Peruvian Apple, are thornless and vary in skin color from violet-red to yellow. The edible flesh is white and contains small, edible, crunchy seeds.

Cereus repandus is an unresearched, under-utilized cactus, grown mostly as an ornamental plant. As noted above, it has some local culinary importance. The Wayuu from the La Guajira Peninsula of Colombia and Venezuela use the inner cane-like wood of kayush in wattle and daub construction.

Invasive Species : Chromolaena odorata

2009-05-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Tribe: Eupatorieae
Genus: Chromolaena
Species: C. odorata

Chromolaena odorata is a shrub of the sunflower family native to North America, from Florida and Texas to Mexico and the West Indies. It is an invasive weed of field crops in Africa and Asia where it has been introduced. It is now found all over tropical Asia, western Africa, and in parts of Australia. Other names for the plant include Siam weed and Christmas bush, and Common Floss Flower. It is sometimes grown as a medicinal and ornamental plant. It is used as a traditional medicine in Indonesia. The young leaves are crushed, and the resulting liquid can be used to treat skin wounds.

It was earlier taxonomically classified under the genus Eupatorium, but is now considered more closely related to other genera in the tribe Eupatorieae.

Invasive Species : Caesalpinia decapetala

2009-04-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

Caesalpinia decapetala commonly known as the Mauritius or Mysore thorn or the cat's claw is a tropical tree species originating in India.

It is as a robust, thorny, evergreen shrub 2-4 m high or climber up to 10 m or higher; often forming dense thickets; the stems are covered with minute golden-hair; the stem thorns are straight to hooked, numerous, and not in regular rows or confined to nodes. The leaves are dark green, paler beneath, not glossy, up to 300 mm long; leaflets up to 8 mm wide. The flowers are pale yellow, in elongated, erect clusters 100-400 mm long. Fruits are brown, woody pods, flattened, unsegmented, smooth, sharply beaked at apex, ± 80 mm long.

The medium-sized seeds may be dispersed by rodents and granivorous birds and running water. Trailing branches root where they touch the ground.

It has been introduced to Fiji, French Polynesia, Hawai‘i, New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Mauritius, Reunion, Rodrigues, and South Africa. Is has become a problematic invasive species in many locations.

Invasive Species : Argemone mexicana

2009-04-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

Argemone mexicana (Mexican Poppy, Mexican Prickly Poppy or Cardosanto) is a species of poppy found in Mexico and now widely naturalized in the United States, India and Ethiopia. An annual herb with bright yellow sap, it has been used by the Natives of the western US and parts of Mexico. The seed-pods secrete a pale-yellow latex substance when cut open. This argemone resin contains berberine and protopine, and is used medicinally as a sedative.

Chemical constituents

The seeds contain 22–36% of a pale yellow non-edible oil, called argemone oil or katkar oil, which contains the toxic alkaloids sanguinarine and dihydrosanguinarine.

Toxin rendering

Surprisingly, the seed oil is used to grease the cooking plate to bake the injera in Ethiopia. The seeds resemble the seeds of Brassica nigra (mustard). As a result, mustard can be adulterated by argemone seeds, rendering it poisonous. Several significant instances of katkar poisoning have been reported in India, Fiji, South Africa and other countries. The last major outbreak in India occurred in 1998. 1% adulteration of mustard oil by argemone oil has been shown to cause clinical disease.

Medicinal uses

Argemone mexicana is used by traditional healers in Mali to treat malaria. And, the seed oil itself is used medicinally to treat dropsy, jaundice and skin diseases. Katkar oil poisoning causes epidemic dropsy, with symptoms including extreme swelling, particularly of the legs.

Invasive Species : Acacia

2009-04-05T01:00:00.000-07:00

Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1773. The plants tend to be thorny and pod-bearing. The name derives from ακις (akis) which is Greek for a sharp point, due to the thorns in the type-species Acacia nilotica ("Nile Acacia") from Egypt.

Acacias are also known as thorntrees or wattles, including the yellow-fever acacia and umbrella acacias.

There are roughly 1300 species of Acacia worldwide, about 960 of them native to Australia, with the remainder spread around the tropical to warm-temperate regions of both hemispheres, including Africa, southern Asia, and the Americas.

Classification

The genus Acacia is apparently not monophyletic. This discovery has led to the breaking up of Acacia into five new genera as discussed in list of Acacia species.In common parlance the term "acacia" is occasionally misapplied to species of the genus Robinia, which also belongs in the pea family. Robinia pseudoacacia, an American species locally known as Black locust, is sometimes called "false acacia" in cultivation in the United Kingdom.

How to Pronounce

Acacia is pronounced 'UH-KAY-SEE-UH' (IPA: [ə'keɪsiɘ])

Geography

The southernmost species in the genus are Acacia dealbata (Silver Wattle), Acacia longifolia (Coast Wattle or Sydney Golden Wattle), Acacia mearnsii (Black Wattle), and Acacia melanoxylon (Blackwood), reaching 43°30' S in Tasmania, Australia, while Acacia caven (Espinillo Negro) reaches nearly as far south in northeastern Chubut Province of Argentina. Australian species are usually called wattles, while African and American species tend to be known as acacias.

Acacia albida, Acacia tortilis and Acacia iraqensis can be found growing wild in the Sinai desert and the Jordan valley. It is found in the savanna vegetation of the tropical continental climate.

Description

The leaves of acacias are compound pinnate in general. In some species, however, more especially in the Australian and Pacific islands species, the leaflets are suppressed, and the leaf-stalks (petioles) become vertically flattened, and serve the purpose of leaves. These are known as phyllodes. The vertical orientation of the phyllodes protects them from intense sunlight, as with their edges towards the sky and earth they do not intercept light so fully as horizontally placed leaves. A few species (such as Acacia glaucoptera) lack leaves or phyllodes altogether, but possess instead cladodes, modified leaf-like photosynthetic stems functioning as leaves.

The small flowers have five very small petals, almost hidden by the long stamens, and are arranged in dense globular or cylindrical clusters; they are yellow or cream-colored in most species, whitish in some, even purple (Acacia purpureapetala) or red (Acacia leprosa Scarlet Blaze). Acacia flowers can be distinguished from those of a large related genus, Albizia, by their stamens which are not joined at the base. Also, unlike individual Mimosa flowers, those of Acacia have more than 10 stamens.

The plants often bear spines, especially those species growing in arid regions. These sometimes represent branches which have become short, hard and pungent, or sometimes leaf-stipules. Acacia armata is the Kangaroo-thorn of Australia and Acacia erioloba is the Camelthorn of Africa.

Symbiosis

In the Central American Acacia sphaerocephala, Acacia cornigera, and Acacia collinsii (collectively known as the bullthorn acacias), the large thorn-like stipules are hollow and afford shelter for ants, which feed on a secretion of sap on the leaf-stalk and small, lipid-rich food-bodies at the tips of the leaflets called Beltian bodies; in return they add protection to the plant against herbivores. Some species of ants will also fight off competing plants around the acacia, cutting off the offending plant's leaves with their jaws and ultimately killing it, while other ant species will do nothing to benefit their host.

Similar mutualisms occur on Acacia trees in Africa. The Acacias provide nectar in extrafloral nectaries for their symbiotic ants. The ants protect the plant by attacking large mammalian herbivores and stem-boring beetles that damage the plant.

Pests

In Australia, Acacia species are sometimes used as food plants by the larvae of hepialid moths of the genus Aenetus including A. ligniveren. These burrow horizontally into the trunk then vertically down. Other Lepidoptera larvae which have been recorded feeding on Acacia include Brown-tail, Endoclita malabaricus and Turnip Moth. The leaf-mining larvae of some bucculatricid moths also feed on Acacia: Bucculatrix agilis feeds exclusively on Acacia horrida and Bucculatrix flexuosa feeds exclusively on Acacia nilotica.

Acacias contain a number of organic compounds that defend them from pests and grazing animals.

Uses

Food uses

Acacia seeds are often used for food and a variety of other products.

In Burma, Laos and Thailand, the feathery shoots of Acacia pennata (common name cha-om, ชะอม and su pout ywet in Burmese) are used in soups, curries, omelettes, and stir-fries.

Honey made by bees using the acacia flower as forage is considered a delicacy, appreciated for its mild flowery taste, soft running texture and glass-like appearance. Acacia honey is one of the few honeys which does not crystallize.
In Mexico the seeds are known as Guajes: Guajes or huajes are the flat, green pods of an acacia tree. The pods are sometimes light green or deep red in color -- both taste the same. Guaje seeds are about the size of a small lima bean and are eaten raw with guacamole, sometimes cooked and made into a sauce. They can also be made into fritters. The ground seeds are used to impart a slightly garlicy flavor to a mole called guaxmole (huaxmole). The dried seeds may be toasted and salted and eaten as a snack referred to as "cacalas". Purchase whole long pods fresh or dried at Mexican specialty markets.

Acacia is listed as an ingredient in Fresca, a citrus soft drink, Barq's root beer, Full Throttle Unleaded Energy Drink, Strawberry-Lemonade Powerade as well as in Läkerol pastille candies, Altoids mints,Langer's Pineapple coconut Juice and Wrigley's Eclipse chewing gum.

Gum

Various species of acacia yield gum. True gum arabic is the product of Acacia senegal, abundant in dry tropical West Africa from Senegal to northern Nigeria.

Acacia arabica is the gum-Arabic tree of India, but yields a gum inferior to the true gum-Arabic.

Medicinal uses

Many Acacia species have important uses in traditional medicine. Most all of the uses have been shown to have a scientific basis, since chemical compounds found in the various species have medicinal effects. In Ayurvedic medicine, Acacia nilotica is considered a remedy that is helpful for treating premature ejaculation. A 19th century Ethiopian medical text describes a potion made from an Ethiopian species of Acacia (known as grar) mixed with the root of the tacha, then boiled, as a cure for rabies. An astringent medicine, called catechu or cutch, is procured from several species, but more especially from Acacia catechu, by boiling down the wood and evaporating the solution so as to get an extract.

Dietary consumption

The most well known visitor to the Acacia is the known giraffe. Giraffes eat the most famous in Africa, the Acacia Tree. The Acacia tree is famous for its marvelous leaves.

Ornamental uses

A few species are widely grown as ornamentals in gardens; the most popular perhaps is Acacia dealbata (Silver Wattle), with its attractive glaucous to silvery leaves and bright yellow flowers; it is erroneously known as "mimosa" in some areas where it is cultivated, through confusion with the related genus Mimosa.

Another ornamental acacia is Acacia xanthophloea (Fever Tree). Southern European florists use Acacia baileyana, Acacia dealbata, Acacia pycnantha and Acacia retinodes as cut flowers and the common name there for them is mimosa.

Ornamental species of acacia are also used by homeowners and landscape architects for home security. The sharp thorns of some species deter unauthorized persons from entering private properties, and may prevent break-ins if planted under windows and near drainpipes. The aesthetic characteristics of acacia plants, in conjunction with their home security qualities, makes them a considerable alternative to artificial fences and walls.

Paints

The ancient Egyptians used Acacia in paints.

Perfume

Acacia farnesiana is used in the perfume industry due to its strong fragrance. The use of Acacia as a fragrance dates back centuries. In the Bible, burning of acacia wood as a form of incense is mentioned several times.

Symbolism and ritual

The Acacia is used as a symbol in Freemasonry, to represent purity and endurance of the soul, and as funerary symbolism signifying resurrection and immortality. The tree gains its importance from the description of the burial of Hiram Abiff, the builder of King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.

Several parts (mainly bark, root and resin) of Acacia are used to make incense for rituals. Acacia is used in incense mainly in India, Nepal, Tibet and China. Smoke from Acacia bark is thought to keep demons and ghosts away and to put the gods in a good mood. Roots and resin from Acacia are combined with rhododendron, acorus, cytisus, salvia and some other components of incense. Both people and elephants like an alcoholic beverage made from acacia fruit. According to Easton's Bible Dictionary, the Acacia tree may be the “burning bush” (Exodus 3:2) which Moses encountered in the desert. Also, when God gave Moses the instructions for building the Tabernacle, he said to "make an ark of acacia wood" and "make a table of acacia wood" (Exodus 25:10 & 23, Revised Standard Version)

In Russia, Italy and other countries it is customary to present women with yellow mimosas (among other flowers) on International Women's Day (March 8). These "mimosas" are actually from Acacia dealbata (Silver Wattle).

Tannin

The bark of various Australian species, known as wattles, is very rich in tannin and forms an important article of export; important species include Acacia pycnantha (Golden Wattle), Acacia decurrens (Tan Wattle), Acacia dealbata (Silver Wattle) and Acacia mearnsii (Black Wattle).

Thunderstorms

2009-03-29T01:00:00.000-07:00

A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its effect: thunder. It is usually accompanied by heavy rain and sometimes snow, hail, or no precipitation at all. Thunderstorms may line up in a series, and strong or severe thunderstorms may rotate.

Life cycle

Airflow diagrams showing three stages of a thunderstorm life cycle.

Warm air has a lower density than cool air, so warm air rises within cooler air, similar to hot air balloons. Clouds form as warm air carrying moisture rises within cooler air. As the warm air rises, it cools. The moist water vapor begins to condense. When the moisture condenses, this releases energy that keeps the air warmer than its surroundings, so that it continues to rise. If enough instability is present in the atmosphere, this process will continue long enough for cumulonimbus clouds to form, which support lightning and thunder.

All thunderstorms, regardless of type, go through three stages: the cumulus stage, the mature stage, and the dissipation stage. Depending on the conditions present in the atmosphere, these three stages can take anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours to occur.

Cumulus stage

The first stage of a thunderstorm is the cumulus stage, or developing stage. In this stage, masses of moisture are lifted upwards into the atmosphere. The trigger for this lift can be insolation heating the ground producing thermals, areas where two winds converge forcing air upwards, or where winds blow over terrain of increasing elevation. The moisture rapidly cools into liquid drops of water, which appears as cumulus clouds. As the water vapor condenses into liquid, latent heat is released which warms the air, causing it to become less dense than the surrounding dry air. The air tends to rise in an updraft through the process of convection (hence the term convective precipitation). This creates a low-pressure zone beneath the forming thunderstorm. In a typical thunderstorm, approximately 5×10⁸ kg of water vapor are lifted, and the amount of energy released when this condenses is about equal to the energy used by a city (US-2002) of 100,000 during a month.

Mature stage

In the mature stage of a thunderstorm, the warmed air continues to rise until it reaches existing air which is warmer, and the air can rise no further. Often this 'cap' is the tropopause. The air is instead forced to spread out, giving the storm a characteristic anvil shape. The resulting cloud is called cumulonimbus incus. The water droplets coalesce into heavy droplets and freeze to become ice particles. As these fall they melt to become rain. If the updraft is strong enough, the droplets are held aloft long enough to be so large that they do not melt completely and fall as hail. While updrafts are still present, the falling rain creates downdrafts as well. The simultaneous presence of both an updraft and downdrafts marks the mature stage of the storm, and during this stage considerable internal turbulence can occur in the storm system, which sometimes manifests as strong winds, severe lightning, and even tornadoes.

Typically, if there is little wind shear, the storm will rapidly enter the dissipating stage and 'rain itself out', but if there is sufficient change in wind speed and/or direction the downdraft will be separated from the updraft, and the storm may become a supercell, and the mature stage can sustain itself for several hours.

In certain cases however, even with little wind shear, if there is enough atmospheric support and instability in place for the thunderstorm to feed on, it may even maintain its mature stage a bit longer than most storms.

Dissipating stage

In the dissipation stage, the thunderstorm is dominated by the downdraft. If atmospheric conditions do not support super cellular development, this stage occurs rather quickly, approximately 20-30 minutes into the life of the thunderstorm. The downdraft will push down out of the thunderstorm, hit the ground and spread out. The cool air carried to the ground by the downdraft cuts off the inflow of the thunderstorm, the updraft disappears and the thunderstorm will dissipate.

Classification

There are four main types of thunderstorms: single cell, multicell, squall line (also called multicell line) and supercell. Which type forms depends on the instability and relative wind conditions at different layers of the atmosphere ("wind shear").

Single cell

This term technically applies to a single thunderstorm with one main updraft. Within a cluster of thunderstorms, the term "cell" refers to each separate principal updraft.

Thunderstorm cells can and do form in isolation to other cells. Such storms are rarely severe and are a result of local atmospheric instability; hence the term "air mass thunderstorm". These are the typical summer thunderstorm in many temperate locales. They also occur in the cool unstable air which often follows the passage of a cold front from the sea during winter.

While most single cell thunderstorms move, there are some unusual circumstances where they remain stationary. When this happens, catastrophic flooding is possible. In Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1972, an unusual alignment of winds at various levels of the atmosphere combined to produce a continuous, stationary cell which dropped an enormous quantity of rain, resulting in devastating flash flooding. A similar event occurred in Boscastle, England, on 16 August 2004.

Multicell cluster

Multicell storms form as clusters of storms but may then evolve into one or more squall lines. They often arise from convective updrafts in or near mountain ranges and linear weather boundaries, usually strong cold fronts or troughs of low pressure.

Multicell lines

Multicell line storms, commonly referred to as "squall lines", occur when multi-cellular storms form in a line rather than clusters. They can be hundreds of miles long, move swiftly, and be preceded by a gust front. Heavy rain, hail, lightning, very strong winds and even isolated tornadoes can occur over a large area in a squall line. Bow echoes can form within squall lines, bringing with them even higher winds.

An unusually powerful type of squall line called a derecho occurs when an intense squall line travels for several hundred miles, often leaving widespread damage over thousands of square miles.

Occasionally, squall lines also form near the outer rain band of tropical cyclones. The squall line is propelled by its own outflow, which reinforces continuous development of updrafts along the leading edge.

This kind of storm is also known as "Wind of the Stony Lake" (Traditional Chinese:石湖風, Simplified Chinese: 石湖风) in southern China.

Supercell

Supercell storms are large, severe quasi-steady-state storms which feature wind speed and direction that vary with height ("wind shear"), separate downdrafts and updrafts (i.e., precipitation is not falling through the updraft) and a strong, rotating updraft (a "mesocyclone"). These storms normally have such powerful updrafts that the top of the cloud (or anvil) can break through the troposphere and reach into the lower levels of the stratosphere and can be 15 miles (24 km) wide. These storms can produce destructive tornadoes, sometimes F3 or higher, extremely large hailstones (4 inch or 10 cm diameter), straight-line winds in excess of 80 mph (130 km/h), and flash floods. In fact, most tornadoes occur from this type of thunderstorm.

Severe thunderstorm

A severe thunderstorm is a term designating a thunderstorm that has reached a predetermined level of severity. Often, this level is determined by the storm being strong enough to inflict wind or hail damage. In most of the United States, a storm is considered severe if winds reach over 50 knots (58 mph or 93 km/h), hail is ¾ inch (2 cm) diameter or larger, or if funnel clouds and/or tornadoes are reported. In the Central Region of the United States National Weather Service, the hail threshold for a severe thunderstorm is not until it is 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter. Though a funnel cloud or tornado indicates the presence of a severe thunderstorm, a tornado warning would then be issued in place of a severe thunderstorm warning.

In Canada, a severe thunderstorm is defined as either having tornadoes, wind gusts of 90 km/h or greater, hail of 2 centimeters in diameter or greater, a rainfall rate greater than 50 millimeters in 1 hour, or 75 millimeters in 3 hours.

Severe thunderstorms can occur from any type of thunderstorm, however multicell and squall lines represent the most common forms. Supercells are often the most powerful type of severe thunderstorm.

Back-building thunderstorm

A back-building thunderstorm is a thunderstorm in which new development takes place on the upwind side (usually the west or southwest side in North America), such that the storm seems to remain stationary or propagate in a backward direction. Although the storm often appears to be stationary or even moving upwind on radar, this is actually an illusion. The storm in reality is a multi-cell storm with new, more vigorous, cells being formed on the upwind side replacing older cells which continue to drift downstream.

Mesoscale Convective System

Multicell or squall line systems may form within a meteorologically important feature known as Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) stretching for hundreds of kilometers. The Mesoscale Convective Complex is a closely related phenomenon. They are large enough to have a pronounced effect on the upper-level and surface weather pattern and may influence forecasts over a large area. MCS systems are common in the Midwestern United States and the Canadian Prairies during the summer months and produce much of the region's important agricultural rainfall. Prior to the discovery of the MCS phenomenon, the individual thunderstorms were thought of as independent entities, each being effectively impossible to predict. The MCS is amenable to forecasting, and a meteorologist can predict with high accuracy the percentage of the MCS that will be affected by thunderstorms. However, the meteorologist still cannot predict exactly where each thunderstorm will occur within the MCS.

Energy

If the quantity of water that is condensed in and subsequently precipitated from a cloud is known, then the total energy of a thunderstorm can be calculated. In an average thunderstorm, the energy released amounts to about 10,000,000 kilowatt-hours (3.6×10¹³ joule), which is equivalent to a 20-kiloton nuclear warhead. A large, severe thunderstorm might be 10 to 100 times more energetic.

Where thunderstorms occur

Thunderstorms occur throughout the world, even in the polar regions, with the greatest frequency in tropical rainforest areas, where they may occur nearly daily. Kampala and Tororo in Uganda have each been mentioned as the most thunderous places on Earth, an accolade which has also been bestowed upon Bogor on Java, Indonesia or Singapore. Thunderstorms are associated with the various monsoon seasons around the globe, and they populate the rainbands of all tropical cyclones. In temperate regions, they are most frequent in spring and summer, although they can occur along or ahead of cold fronts at any time of year. They may also occur within a cooler air mass following the passage of a cold front over a relatively warmer body of water. Thunderstorms are rare in polar regions because of cold surface temperatures.

Some of the most powerful and dangerous thunderstorms occur over the United States, particularly in the Midwest and the southern states. These storms can produce large hail and powerful tornadoes. Thunderstorms are relatively uncommon along much of the West Coast of the United States, but they occur with greater frequency in the inland areas, particularly the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys of California. Furthermore, in spring and summer, they occur nearly daily in certain areas of the Rocky Mountains. In the Northeast, storms take on similar characteristics and patterns as the Midwest, only less frequently and severely. Probably the most thunderous region outside of the Tropics is Florida. During the summer, Air-mass thunderstorms are an almost daily occurrence over central and southern parts of the state. In more contemporary times, thunderstorms have taken on the role of a curiosity. Every spring, storm chasers head to the Great Plains of the United States and the Canadian Prairies to explore the visual and scientific aspects of storms and tornadoes.

Lightning

Lightning is an electrical discharge that occurs in a thunderstorm. It can be seen in the form of a bright streak (or bolt) from the sky. Lightning occurs when an electrical charge is built up within a cloud, due to static electricity generated by supercooled water droplets colliding with ice crystals near the freezing level. When a large enough charge is built up, a large discharge will occur and can be seen as lightning. The temperature of a lightning bolt can be five times hotter than the surface of the sun. Although the lightning is extremely hot, the duration is short and 90% of strike victims survive. Contrary to the popular idea that lightning does not strike twice in the same spot, some people have been struck by lightning over three times, and skyscrapers like the Empire State Building have been struck numerous times in the same storm. The loud bang that is heard is the super heated air around the lightning bolt expanding at the speed of sound. Because sound travels slower than light the flash is seen before the bang, although both occur at the same moment. There are several types of lightning:

In-cloud lightning is the most common. It is lightning within a cloud and is sometimes called intra-cloud or sheet lightning.
Cloud to ground lightning is when a bolt of lightning from a cloud strikes the ground. This form poses the greatest threat to life and property.
Ground to cloud lightning is when a lightning bolt is induced from the ground to the cloud.
Cloud to cloud lightning is rarely seen and is when a bolt of lightning arcs from one cloud to another.
Ball lightning is extremely rare and has several hypothesized explanations. It is seen in the form of a 20 to 200 centimeter ball.
Cloud to air lightning is when lightning from a cloud hits air of a different charge.
Dry lightning is a misnomer which can refer to a thunderstorm whose precipitation does not reach the ground.

El Niño

2009-03-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO; commonly referred to as simply El Niño) is a global coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon. The Pacific ocean signatures, El Niño and La Niña are important temperature fluctuations in surface waters of the tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean. The name El Niño, from the Spanish for "the little boy", refers to the Christ child, because the phenomenon is usually noticed around Christmastime in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of South America. La Niña, similarly, means "the little girl". These effects were first described in 1923 by Sir Gilbert Thomas Walker from whom the Walker circulation, an important aspect of the Pacific ENSO phenomenon, takes its name. The atmospheric signature, the Southern Oscillation (SO) reflects the monthly or seasonal fluctuations in the air pressure difference between Tahiti and Darwin, Australia. The most recent occurrence of El Niño started in September 2006 and lasted until early 2007. From June 2007 on, data indicated a weak La Niña event, strengthening in early 2008 and weakening in late 2008, with a forecast return to neutral conditions in 2009.

ENSO is associated with floods, droughts, and other disturbances in a range of locations around the world. These effects, and the irregularity of the ENSO phenomenon, makes predicting it of high interest. Significant advances in the predictability of ENSO were contributed by Stephen Zebiak and Mark Cane. ENSO is the most prominent known source of inter-annual variability in weather and climate around the world (about 3 to 8 years), though not all areas are affected. ENSO has signatures in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

During major warm events, El Niño warming extends over much of the tropical Pacific and becomes clearly linked to the intensity of the Southern Oscillation. While ENSO effects are basically in phase between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, ENSO effects in the Atlantic Ocean lag behind those in the Pacific by 12 to 18 months. Many of the countries most affected by ENSO are developing countries that are largely dependent upon their agricultural and fishery sectors for food supply, employment, and foreign exchange.

New capabilities to predict the onset of ENSO events can have global socio-economic impacts. While ENSO is a natural part of the Earth's climate, an important concern is whether its intensity or frequency may change as a result of global warming. Low-frequency variability has been evidenced; interdecadal modulation of ENSO from the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) or the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) might exist. This could explain the so-called protracted ENSO of the early 1990s.

El Niño and La Niña

El Niño and La Niña are officially defined as sustained sea surface temperature anomalies of magnitude greater than 0.5°C across the central tropical Pacific Ocean. When the condition is met for a period of less than five months, it is classified as El Niño or La Niña conditions; if the anomaly persists for five months or longer, it is classified as an El Niño or La Niña episode. Historically, it has occurred at irregular intervals of 2-7 years and has usually lasted one or two years.

The first signs of an El Niño are:

Cats screaming, wining and aRise in air pressure over the Indian Ocean, Indonesia, and Australia
Fall in air pressure over Tahiti and the rest of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean
Trade winds in the south Pacific weaken or head east
Warm air rises near Peru, causing rain in the northern Peruvian deserts
Warm water spreads from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific. It takes the rain with it, causing extensive drought in the western Pacific and rainfall in the normally dry eastern Pacific.

El Niño's warm current of nutrient-poor tropical water, heated by its eastward passage in the Equatorial Current, replaces the cold, nutrient-rich surface water of the Humboldt Current, also known as the Peru Current, which support great populations of food fish. In most years the warming lasts only a few weeks or a month, after which the weather patterns return to normal and fishing improves. However, when El Niño conditions last for many months, more extensive ocean warming occurs and its economic impact to local fishing for an international market can be serious.

During non-El Niño conditions, the Walker circulation is seen at the surface as easterly trade winds which move water and air warmed by the sun towards the west. This also creates ocean upwelling off the coasts of Peru and Ecuador and brings nutrient-rich cold water to the surface, increasing fishing stocks. The western side of the equatorial Pacific is characterized by warm, wet low pressure weather as the collected moisture is dumped in the form of typhoons and thunderstorms. The ocean is some 60 cm higher in the western Pacific as the result of this motion.

In the Pacific, La Niña is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific, compared to El Niño, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the same area. Atlantic tropical cyclone activity is generally enhanced during La Niña. The La Niña condition often follows the El Niño, especially when the latter is strong.

Wider effects of El Niño conditions

Because El Niño's warm pool feeds thunderstorms above, it creates increased rainfall across the east-central and eastern Pacific Ocean.

The effects of El Niño in South America are direct and stronger than in North America. An El Niño is associated with warm and very wet summers (December-February) along the coasts of northern Peru and Ecuador, causing major flooding whenever the event is strong or extreme. The effects during the months of February, March and April may become critical. Southern Brazil and northern Argentina also experience wetter than normal conditions but mainly during the spring and early summer. Central Chile receives a mild winter with large rainfall, and the Peruvian-Bolivian Altiplano is sometimes exposed to unusual winter snowfall events. Drier and hotter weather occurs in parts of the Amazon River Basin, Colombia and Central America.

Direct effects of El Niño resulting in drier conditions occur in parts of Southeast Asia and Northern Australia, increasing bush fires and worsening haze and decreasing air quality dramatically. Drier than normal conditions are also generally observed in Queensland, inland Victoria, inland New South Wales and eastern Tasmania from June to August.

West of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Ross, Bellingshausen, and Amundsen Sea sectors have more sea ice during El Niño. The latter two and the Weddell Sea also become warmer and have higher atmospheric pressure.

In North America, typically, winters are warmer than normal in the upper Midwest states, the Northeast, and Canada, while central and southern California, northwest Mexico and the southwestern U.S., are wetter and cooler than normal. Summer is wetter in the intermountain regions of the U.S. The Pacific Northwest states, on the other hand, tend to experience dry but foggy winters and warm, sunny and precocious springs during an El Niño. During a La Niña, by contrast, the Midwestern U.S. tends to be drier than normal. El Niño is associated with increased wave caused coastal erosion along the US Pacific Coast and decreased hurricane activity in the Atlantic, especially south of 25º N; this reduction is largely due to stronger wind shear in the tropics.

Finally, East Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania and the White Nile basin experiences, in the long rains from March to May, wetter than normal conditions. There also are drier than normal conditions from December to February in south-central Africa, mainly in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana.

Western Hemisphere Warm Pool

Study of climate records has found that about half of the summers after an El Niño have unusual warming in the Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP). This affects weather in the area and seems to be related to the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Atlantic effect

An effect similar to El Niño sometimes takes place in the Atlantic Ocean, where water along equatorial Africa's Gulf of Guinea becomes warmer and eastern Brazil becomes cooler and drier. This is related to El Niño's effect on the Walker circulation over South America, which causes the easterly trade winds in the western Atlantic Ocean region to strengthen.

Cases of double El Niño events have been linked to severe famines related to the extended failure of monsoon rains, as in the book Late Victorian Holocausts.

Non-climate effects

Along the west coast of South America, El Niño reduces the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water that sustains large fish populations, which in turn sustain abundant sea birds, whose droppings support the fertilizer industry.

The local fishing industry along the affected coastline can suffer during long-lasting El Niño events. The world's largest fishery collapsed due to overfishing during the 1972 El Niño Peruvian anchoveta reduction. During the 1982-83 event, jack mackerel and anchoveta populations were reduced, scallops increased in warmer water, but hake followed cooler water down the continental slope, while shrimp and sardines moved southward so some catches decreased while others increased. Horse mackerel have increased in the region during warm events.

Shifting locations and types of fish due to changing conditions provide challenges for fishing industries. Peruvian sardines have moved during El Niño events to Chilean areas. Other conditions provide further complications, such as the government of Chile in 1991 creating restrictions on the fishing areas for self-employed fishermen and industrial fleets.

The ENSO variability may contribute to the great success of small fast-growing species along the Peruvian coast, as periods of low population removes predators in the area. Similar effects benefit migratory birds which travel each spring from predator-rich tropical areas to distant winter-stressed nesting areas. There is some evidence that El Niño activity is correlated with incidence of red tides off the Pacific coast of California.

It has been postulated that a strong El Niño led to the demise of the Moche and other pre-Columbian Peruvian cultures.

A recent study of El Niño patterns suggests that the French Revolution was caused in part by the poor crop yields of 1788-89 in Europe, resulting from an unusually strong El-Niño effect between 1789-93.

La Niña

La Niña is the name for the cold phase of ENSO, during which the cold pool in the eastern Pacific intensifies and the trade winds strengthen. The name La Niña originates from Spanish, meaning "the little girl", analogous to El Niño meaning "the little boy". It has also in the past been called anti-El Niño.

Effects of La Niña

La Niña causes mostly the opposite effects of El Niño, for example, El Niño would cause a wet period in the Midwestern U.S., while La Niña would typically cause a dry period in this area.

Recent occurrences

There was a strong La Niña episode during 1988-1989. La Niña also formed in 1995, and in 1999-2000. The last La Niña was a minor one, and occurred 2000-2001. Recently, there was a moderate La Niña, which began developing in mid-2007.The NOAA confirmed that a moderate La Niña developed in their November El Niño/Southern Oscillation Diagnostic Discussion, and that it will likely continue into 2008. According to NOAA, "Expected La Niña impacts during November – January include a continuation of above-average precipitation over Indonesia and below-average precipitation over the central equatorial Pacific. For the contiguous United States, potential impacts include above average precipitation in the Northern Rockies, Northern California, and in southern and eastern regions of the Pacific Northwest. Below-average precipitation is expected across the southern tier, particularly in the southwestern and southeastern states." In March 2008, La Niña caused a drop in sea surface temperatures over Southeast Asia by an amount of 2°C. It also caused heavy rains over Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

ENSO and global warming

A few years ago, attribution of recent changes (if any) in ENSO or predictions of future changes were very weak. More recent results tend to suggest that the projected tropical warming may follow a somewhat El Niño-like spatial pattern, without necessarily altering the variability about this pattern, while the ENSO cycle may be minimally shortened.

Causes of El Niño

The mechanisms that cause an El Niño event are still being investigated due to the difficulties in establishing clear patterns that allow reliable forecasts. As the phenomenon is located near the equator, events in both hemispheres may have an effect, and since weather events (made up of changeable wind directions) show some chaotic tendencies, the onset of El Niño-events reflects this. Long-range forecasts remain tentative for this reason.

Major theories

Jacob Bjerknes in 1969 suggested that an anomalously warm spot in the eastern Pacific can weaken the east-west temperature difference, causing weakening in the Walker circulation and trade wind flows, which push warm water to the west. The result is increasingly warm water toward the east.
Wyrtki in 1975 proposed that increased trade winds could build up the western bulge of warm water, and any sudden weakening in the winds would allow that warm water to surge eastward. However, there was no such buildup preceding the 1982-83 event.
Recharge oscillator: Several mechanisms have been proposed where warmth builds up in the equatorial area, then is dispersed to higher latitudes by an El Niño event. The cooler area then has to "recharge" warmth for several years before another event can take place.
Western Pacific oscillator: In the western Pacific, several weather conditions can cause westerly wind anomalies. For example, cyclones north and south of the equator force west-to-east winds between. Such wind may counteract the typical easterly flows across the Pacific and create a tendency toward continuing the eastward motion. A weakening in the westward currents at such a time may be the final trigger needed to shift into an El Niño.
Equatorial Pacific Ocean may tend to be near El Niño conditions, with several random variations affecting behavior. Weather patterns from outside the area or volcanic events may be some such factors.
The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is an important source of variability that can contribute to a more rapid evolution toward El Niño conditions through related fluctuations in low-level winds and precipitation over the western and central equatorial Pacific. Eastward-propagating oceanic Kelvin waves can be produced by MJO activity. The MJO may in turn be influenced by a developing El Niño, leading to a positive feedback.
Adams, Mann and Ammann, using statistical analysis of paleoclimatic records, that a volcanic event in the tropics tilts the climate into a state where El Niño-like conditions are favored. (This is caused by the volcano's effect on solar radiation reaching the surface, not by the heat of the eruption itself.)
Australian geologist Ian Plimer has stated that El Niño is caused by earthquake activity and volcanic activity in the mid-ocean ridges.

History of the theory

The first mention of the term "El Niño" to refer to climate occurs in 1892, when Captain Camilo Carrillo told the Geographical society congress in Lima that Peruvian sailors named the warm northerly current "El Niño" because it was most noticeable around Christmas. However, even before then the phenomenon was of interest because of its effects on biological productivity, with its effects on the guano industry.

Normal conditions along the west Peruvian coast are a cold southerly current (the Humboldt Current) with upwelling water; the upwelling nutrients lead to great oceanic productivity; the cold currents leads to very dry conditions on land. Similar conditions exist elsewhere (California Current; Benguela Current off South Africa; West Australia Current). Thus the replacement of this with warmer northerly water leads to lower biological productivity in the ocean, and more rainfall — often flooding — on land; the connection with flooding was reported in 1895 by Pezet and Eguiguren.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century there was much interest in forecasting climate anomalies (for food production) in India and Australia. Charles Todd, in 1893, suggested that droughts in India and Australia tended to occur at the same time; Norman Lockyer noted the same in 1904. In 1924 Gilbert Walker (for whom the Walker circulation is named) first coined the term "Southern Oscillation".

For most of the twentieth century, El Niño was thought of as a largely local phenomenon.

The major 1982-3 El Niño lead to an upsurge of interest from the scientific community.

The 1998 El Niño event caused an estimated 16% of the world’s reef systems to die. Since then, mass coral bleaching has become common worldwide, with all regions having suffered ‘severe bleaching’.

History of the phenomenon

ENSO conditions seem to have occurred at every two to seven years for at least the past 300 years, but most of them have been weak.

Major ENSO events have occurred in the years 1790-93, 1828, 1876-78, 1891, 1925-26, 1982-83, and 1997-98.

Also, there is evidence for strong El Niño events during the early Holocene

Recent El Niños have occurred in 1986-1987, 1991-1992, 1993, 1994, 1997-1998, 2002-2003, 2004-2005 and 2006-2007.

The El Niño of 1997-1998 was particularly strong and brought the phenomenon to worldwide attention. The event temporarily warmed air temperature by 1.5°C, compared to the usual increase of 0.25°C associated with El Niño events. The period from 1990-1994 was unusual in that El Niños have rarely occurred in such rapid succession (but were generally weak).There is some debate as to whether global warming increases the intensity and/or frequency of El Niño episodes. (see also the ENSO and Global Warming section above).

Southern Oscillation

The Southern Oscillation is an oscillation in air pressure between the tropical eastern and western Pacific Ocean waters. The strength of the Southern Oscillation is measured by the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). The SOI is a record of the monthly or seasonal fluctuations in the normalized surface air pressure difference between Tahiti and Darwin, Australia.

El Niño episodes, which are associated with negative values of the SOI, are usually accompanied by sustained warming of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, a decrease in the strength of the Pacific Trade Winds, and a reduction in rainfall over eastern and northern Australia. Conversely, La Niña episodes are associated with positive values of the SOI and are accompanied by stronger Pacific trade winds and warmer sea temperatures to the north of Australia. Waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become cooler during this time.

Abrupt Climate Change

2009-03-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

Abrupt climate change refers to an event where significant shift in climate occurs within a geologically short timescale. The archetypical event of this kind is the end of the Younger Dryas. Other, comparatively small events, such as the Little Ice Age, might also be placed in a category of rapid climate change.

Typically, the mechanisms suggested for abrupt climate change are based on changes to the ocean and atmosphere. However, it is possible to describe larger, but slower changes, such as deep ocean warming and the clathrate gun, both of which have been linked to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, as 'abrupt'.

Recent global warming has lead to fears that pre-conditions for an abrupt climate change event may arise in the foreseeable future.

Rial et al noted: "The Earth's climate system is highly nonlinear: inputs and outputs are not proportional, change is often episodic and abrupt, rather than slow and gradual, and multiple equilibria are the norm."

Definitions

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory suggests that:

There are essentially two definitions of abrupt climate change: In terms of physics, it is a transition of the climate system into a different mode on a time scale that is faster than the responsible forcing. In terms of impacts, "an abrupt change is one that takes place so rapidly and unexpectedly that human or natural systems have difficulty adapting to it".

The Committee on Abrupt Climate Change of the National Research Council offers the following definition in their book, Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises an abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to cross some threshold, triggering a transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the cause. Chaotic processes in the climate system may allow the cause of such an abrupt climate change to be undetectably small.

Current situation

Alley et al found that "it is conceivable that human forcing of climate change is increasing the probability of large, abrupt events. Were such an event to recur, the economic and ecological impacts could be large and potentially serious."

The IPCC has warned that global warming "could lead to some effects that are abrupt or irreversible". They further warn that "Partial loss of ice sheets on polar land could imply metres of sea level rise, major changes in coastlines and inundation of low-lying areas, with greatest effects in river deltas and low-lying islands. Such changes are projected to occur over millennial time scales, but more rapid sea level rise on century time scales cannot be excluded"

Ocean effects

A summary of the path of the thermohaline circulation. Blue paths represent deep-water currents, while red paths represent surface currents. Global oceans have established patterns of currents. Several potential disruptions to this system of currents have been identified as a result of global warming:

Increasing frequency of El Nino events.
Potential disruption to or shutdown of the thermohaline circulation, such as that which may have occurred during the Younger Dryas event.
Changes to the North Atlantic oscillation
The creation of marine dead zones or a widespread ocean anoxic event.

Climate feedback effects

One source of abrupt climate change effects is a feedback process, in which a warming event causes a change which leads to further warming. This can also apply to cooling. Example of such feedback processes are:

The release of methane from clathrates, known as the clathrate gun effect. Effects of this type may happen over millennium-timescales, and thus may not be regarded as 'abrupt'.
Ice-albedo feedback, where the advance or retreat of ice cover alters the 'whiteness' or the earth, and its ability to absorb the sun's energy.
The dying and burning of forests, as a result of global warming.

Prehistoric events

Several periods of abrupt climate change have been identified in the paleoclimatic record. Notable examples include:

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, timed at 55 million years ago, which may have been caused by the clathrate gun effect, although potential alternative mechanisms have been identified. This was associated with rapid ocean acidification
The Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, also known as the great dying, in which up to 95% of all species became extinct.
The Younger Dryas event, notably its sudden end. It has been suggested that: "The extreme rapidity of these changes in a variable that directly represents regional climate implies that the events at the end of the last glaciation may have been responses to some kind of threshold or trigger in the North Atlantic climate system." A model for this event based on disruption to the thermohaline circulation has been supported by other studies.

There are also abrupt climate changes with sudden onset and gradual recovery, such as the 8.2 kiloyear event associated with a meltwater pulse into the Labrador Sea^{[citation needed]}. About 25 "short-term" (by geological standards) climate shifts, called Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, have been identified in the ice core record during the glacial period over the past 100,000 years (the Wisconsin glaciation){fact}}. The last one was the Younger Dryas which began 12,900 years ago and moved back into a warm-and-wet climate regime about 11,600 years ago. The onset of the Younger Dryas and the 8.2 kiloyear event were caused by freshwater input from the Laurentide ice sheet; the Antarctic Cold Reversal, c. 14,500 years before the present (BP), was caused by a meltwater pulse from the Antarctic ice sheet.

100% Recycling - Not Just a Dream

2009-03-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

by Jonathan Campbell

Mountains of trash and garbage soaring skyward. Staten Island, Mt. Trashmore, seagulls, stench, groundwater pollution, incinerators, air pollution, toxic ash. These seem to be the sights and smells of the ‘90s. In the public media, we hear the refrain over and over again: "What are we going to do with all this trash?" The incinerator companies promote their machines, but then we discover that they are poison factories. They produce dioxin, mercury, and lead in the air, and they don’t even solve the trash problem: they leave 30% of the waste behind as toxic ash! Against this backdrop, 100% recycling seems like an impossible dream.

Yet there are towns and cities that are doing something about their trash headaches. They are instituting recycling programs that are unprecedented – some reaching 70% recycling rates (and one - Chatham, N.J., - has reached 89%!) Through community-wide education and incentive programs, they have accomplished what was considered impossible just five years ago.

Let’s look at what some of these towns are doing:

"Pay As You Throw" – it is clear that a monetary incentive, however modest, is the centerpiece of a successful recycling program. In Worcester, MA, the city sells official Worcester trash bags for 50c per bag. Non-recycled trash must be placed in these bags in order to be picked up at the curbside. There is no charge for pickup of separated recycled materials; curbside recycling bins are provided by the city. A public education program and that small "pay-per-bag" monetary incentive – which encouraged people to think about what they were throwing away – propelled Worcester to becoming a model recycling community, reaching a recycling rate of over 50%.
Material Recycling Facilities (MRFs) – some towns have built community recycling centers to provide a convenient place for drop-off and bundling of recycled goods. In Halton Hills, Ontario, a town of 40,000, residents built a MRF which quickly became a community center. In addition to materials recycling (metal, glass, plastic, etc.) their center serves as a place to bring used household items and furniture, which is then repaired (if necessary) and resold in a year-round flea market. Recycled materials are further separated into fine categories, since the highest prices are paid for pure materials. There is educational literature on household and community composting and other environmental issues. Mainly volunteers - retired people, working people who donate their time, and students - staff the facility, which the residents named WasteWise. Halton Hills recycles or reuses over 60% of their "trash."

So it is obvious that 60% recycling is easily achievable, and, as mentioned above, some communities recycle far more than that. What would it take for us to become a "recycling society" in which we recycled 100% of our trash? Why is this important? (Think for a moment about the legacy of dumping and burning of trash for the next 20 generations. What do we want to leave for our children 500 years from now?)

The answer is that it is not technically difficult to reach very close to 100% recycling, and that changes in packaging and production could bring us to 100%. There are households (such as the author’s - see note 1, below) which operate at over 95% recycling. Virtually all trash today – with a few notable exceptions – is easily reused or recycled.

Incineration Is A Hoax

Yet our government officials, who sometimes have a less-than-savory relationship with incinerator and trash hauling companies, set low or non-existent recycling goals, and rely upon landfilling and/or incineration – the dirtiest and most polluting waste technology available - for a large percentage of trash. (For instance, even in Massachusetts, where recycling is taken for granted in many cities and towns, officials of the Massachusetts Department of Environment Protection have set a goal of 46% recycling, 4% landfilling, and 50% incineration). Ordinary trash landfilling eventually causes severe environmental problems - toxic runoff, methane, and groundwater pollution. Incineration, often presented as an "alternative" to landfills, is really a hoax: as mentioned before, incineration does not even eliminate landfills. Ash landfills (called monofills) are far more dangerous and toxic than raw trash landfills.

Incinerator ash is extremely hazardous (see note 2, below), containing dioxin and heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium. Ash landfills are a legacy of poison that must be monitored for eternity. They never can become non-toxic, because most of the toxic materials in them - the heavy metals - do not bio-degrade. The air emissions from incineraters are the largest source of dioxin and mercury in the U.S. "Modern" pollution controls on these poison factories just move some of the toxic emissions from the air to the ash. Incinerators are an imminent threat to the health of our citizens.

What Can We Do?

Become acquainted with current literature on recycling. An excellent new pamphlet on recycling, called Beyond 46 Percent, was just published by the Recycling Initiative Campaign/Toxics Action Center in Massachusetts (617-292-4821). Model recycling communities are highlighted, with a description of their programs. Anti-incinerator activists Paul and Ellen Connett lead an organization called Work On Waste which publishes a pro-recycling, anti-incineration newsletter called Waste Not, and can provide technical information on recycling projects (315-379-9200); videos are available from Video-Active Productions (315-386-8797), including one about Waste Wise, the community recycling project mentioned above.

Call your state Department of Environmental Protection or send them a letter, to urge them to promote a goal of 100% recycling and oppose the use of incineration, which is a hoax - a poisonous technology that does not solve the trash problem and that cannot be made clean. Urge them to promote "pay-per-bag" systems statewide.

Send letters to the editors of the local newspapers, explaining the issues in simple language.

If your town already has a recycling center, find out more about the kinds of materials that are recycled. Encourage your friends and neighbors to recycle and to get involved in the effort.

Join or form a town environmental group to promote 100% recycling in your town. Become familiar with the local problems of trash disposal. (For example, in Massachusetts the NESWC contract binds 23 towns and cities in the state to use - and pay for - the super-polluting Wheelabrator incinerator located in North Andover). Convince your town officials that 100% recycling is achievable.

Enlist the help of the Recycling Initiative Campaign and Work On Waste for guidance in carrying out your local campaign. They will put you in touch with others who have carried out effective programs.

Notes:

1. In a four-month experiment, the author collected 70 shopping bags of recycled materials, 20 cubic feet of newspapers, and 4 shopping bags of non-recycled trash (primarily used paper towels and tissues). All food waste was composted. There are some packaging materials and composite-material products that are not designed to be conducive to recycling. This is the area that needs some work to make recycling easier - packaging and production.

2. The Supreme Court of the U.S. ruled that incinerator ash is not exempt from hazardous waste testing, which would have caused most ash to be classified as hazardous waste. The EPA then changed the rules for handling and testing of the ash so as to allow the incinerator operators to circumvent this ruling.

Poison In The Grass

2009-02-23T01:00:00.000-08:00

As the use of lawn chemicals and pesticides has grown, questions have arisen regarding safety hazards and environmental consequences. This report gives factual findings to help answer many of these concerns. Some of them may seem shocking, since the chemical pesticide industry has made every effort to keep this information from the public. Everything that follows in this report is documented and supported by the U.S. Federal Government, private agencies, and other experts.

Contrary to what lawn "care" companies would like people to believe, herbicides (weed killers) and other pesticides are not "magic bullets". They are broad spectrum biocides, and by their very nature can harm organisms other than targeted species. This includes homeowners and their families, neighbors, pets, and all other forms of life. The pesticide industry downplays this by claiming their chemicals are heavily diluted, but doesn't mention the toxins are still extremely dangerous in small amounts. They also are unwilling to mention all of what is in their mixtures. Many components are classified as "inert", which allows them to be kept hidden from the public and not listed on product labels. These are more than just fillers or solvents. "Inert" does not mean "inactive" - some, such as benzene and xylene, are more toxic than listed chemicals.(1,2)

Listed chemicals can be just as dangerous. They include components of war-time defoliants like Agent Orange, nerve-gas type insecticides, and artificial hormones. Some the Federal Government has even prohibited from use on it's own property. Many pesticides are not safe when dry. Water evaporates, but most pesticides remain and continue to release often odorless and invisible toxic vapors. In areas where lawn spraying is common, they accumulate in a toxic smog throughout the entire season. Some pesticides remain active for years after application. DDT is still showing up in higher rates in women's breast milk than the government permits in cow's milk.(4) Fat soluble pesticides accumulate over time in our bodies, then are released at potentially toxic levels when illness or stress results in our fat reserves being metabolised. A large portion of a woman's lifetime exposure to such pesticides is released in the breast milk for her firstborn child.(37)

It is a violation of U.S. Federal law to claim pesticides are "safe when used as directed" since nothing can assure safety.(2,3,5) (However, Agriculture Canada, the federal agency responsible until recently for licensing pesticides in Canada, routinely used this statement, adding for good measure that "most pesticides are safer than table salt". Fortunately, pesticides in Canada are now licensed by Health Canada.) Some pesticides labeled "bio-degradable" degrade into compounds more dangerous than the original. Examples include Mancozeb, which degrades into a substance that is an EPA-classified probable carcinogen.(6) The pesticide industry also implies that "organic" means safe and natural (for example, "Nature's Lawn"), knowing that the term legally may be applied to any compound containing carbon and hydrogen. ChemLawn and other lawn "care" companies and manufacturers have often been sued for fictitious claims.(5-14)

Many applicators are just as conniving and deceitful, using statements like "absolutely cannot harm children or pets" and "perfectly safe for the environment" to mislead the public. The New York State Attorney General’s Office sued Dow Elanco chemical company when they claimed that Dursban shows "no evidence of significant risk to the environment" when right on the label is stated "this pesticide is toxic to birds and extremely toxic to fish and aquatic organisms".(15) A few years later on May 2, 1995, the EPA fined Dow Elanco for "failing to report to the Agency information on adverse health effects (to humans) over the past decade involving a number of pesticides, including chlorpyrifos (brand name Dursban)". Most of the information came from personal injury claims against Dow Elanco which the company had hidden from the EPA. Now it is even being found that chlorpyrifos causes multiple sclerosis.(38)

Some companies have even made claims that their products better the environment. "Funk" lawn care of New York has coined the phrase "Growing A Better Environment" in order to fool consumers into believing lawn chemicals pose no ecological harm. Another states "a 50-by-50 foot lawn produces enough oxygen to sustain a family of four." But this is only true with a plot of land that has tall grass and no lawn care. Pesticides, lawnmower fumes and common lawn care practices actually create a net destruction of oxygen.(16)

The United States General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has also tried to alert the public to lawn chemical dangers. GAO's undercover team noted many fictitious claims by many in the lawn "care" industry.(35) Many included illegal claims of product safety. Others were just deceiving, such as the ChemLawn claim that a child would have to ingest ten cups of treated grass clippings to equal the toxicity of one baby aspirin. In fact, the real danger is not that people will be grazing the lawn but that most poisonings come from inhaling pesticide residues or absorbing them through the skin.(6,7,10)

Most do-it-yourselfers are just as ignorant when it comes to proper protection and safety precautions. Studies show most don't even look at the warnings on their toxins. They don't wear gloves, goggles, or protective clothing to decrease exposure. Worse, many don't keep people off the contaminated area after chemicals are applied. Homeowners commonly use up to ten times as much pesticides per acre as farmers.(7,17) A Virginia Tech study for the state legislature found that most homeowners have no idea how much nitrogen they use when fertilizing and that they apply chemicals in ways that damage water supplies.(18)

Pesticides drift and settle during application. In the Antarctic ice pack alone there are 2.4 million pounds of DDT and its metabolites from years past.(26) Pesticides engulf the home and are easily tracked inside, readily inhaled and absorbed through the skin. They do harm by attacking the central nervous system and other essential organs. Symptoms of pesticide poisoning are often deceptively simple, commonly mis-diagnosed as flu or allergies. They include, but are not limited to, headaches, nausea, fever, breathing difficulties, seizures, eye pains, vomiting, cramps, diarrhea, sore nose, tongue, or throat; burning skin, rashes, coughing, muscle pain, tissue swelling, blurred vision, numbness and tingling in hands or feet, incontinence, anxiety, irritability, sleep disorders, hyperactivity, fatigue, dizziness, irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, spontaneous bleeding, and temporary paralysis. Long-term consequences include lowered fertility, birth defects, miscarriages, blindness, liver and kidney dysfunction, neurological damage, heart trouble, stroke, immune system disorders, menstrual problems, memory loss, suicidal depression, cancer, and death. The National Academy of Sciences reports that at least one out of seven people are significantly harmed by pesticide exposure each year.(3) Increasingly, reports from many people around the country are "beginning to link feeling terrible with the fact the neighbors had the lawn sprayed the day before", notes Catherine Karr, a toxicologist for the National Coalition Against The Misuse Of Pesticides.(7) Unfortunately, except for industrial accidents, tests for pesticide poisoning are rarely performed, partially because they are expensive. Doctors also attribute them to stress, allergies, influenza, or an overactive imagination.(3)

Many Americans are developing Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a bizarre and extremely disabling condition. In 1979, the Surgeon General issued a report stating "There is virtually no major chronic disease to which environmental factors do not contribute, directly or indirectly." Indeed, people today are exposed to synthetic chemicals at levels unmatched at any time throughout human history. Washington Post staff writer Michael Weiskopf noted in a February 10, 1990 article that "hypersensitivity to low levels of toxic chemicals (MCS) is a serious and growing medical problem, threatening to cause significant economic consequences by disabling large numbers of otherwise healthy people." MCS is a result of the destruction of the body's ability to tolerate and synthesize chemicals after exposure to toxic substances. Victims develop extreme reactions now not only to lawn pesticides but also hair sprays, perfumes, soaps, formaldehyde, and many other common household products.(5,36) Many victims include former lawn pesticide applicators and users, their families, and children.

Sharon Malhorta, a registered nurse from Pittsburgh, would get so sick from lawn and tree spraying that she had to leave her home every spring. Otherwise she would suffer headaches, paralysis in her hands and feet, and muscle seizures. Repeated exposure caused blurred vision, speech difficulties, and severe stomach cramps. Her husband, a doctor, suspected early on her symptoms were the result of nerve damage from organophosphates, which are widely used nerve-gas type insecticides, like Diazinon. After questioning lawn companies about their products he was told they were "practically nontoxic", registered by the EPA, and not harmful to people or pets. He later discovered that the chemicals his wife was exposed to were in fact neurotoxins, and was shocked to discover there were surprisingly few EPA studies on their health effects.(19)

Karen James, a Michigan postal worker, successfully sued ChemLawn in 1988. While walking past one of their trucks, a hose ruptured and she was drenched with chemicals. The employee told her not to worry, that only fertilizers were in the spray. But soon after she became seriously ill, and her eyes and skin burned. When her symptoms of fatigue, vomiting, diarrhea, and reduced vision didn't clear up, her doctor called ChemLawn to find out what chemicals she had been exposed to. He was told no pesticides had been involved, but after tests on Karen s body tissue detected high levels of Dursban, ChemLawn admitted the truck contained pesticides. Many other suits against lawn companies are settled out of court. Frequently the settlement restrains the victim from talking about the incident, so the public is not informed.(19)

For the price of green lawns, children are also being poisoned. In 1985 a married couple in Sarasota, Florida, felt pressured by their neighbors to get their lawn treated. They hired a company, never thinking their 2-year-old daughter would be jeopardized. The company declared the yard would be safe about an hour after the chemicals were applied. However, soon after playing barefoot on the grass, the couple's daughter developed a rash all over her body, her urine turned dark brown, and she ran a high fever. Her doctor prescribed antibiotics, but her condition grew steadily worse. Her hands and feet swelled to twice normal size, blistered, and peeled. Her lips turned black and bled. Years later she is still permanently prone to headaches and has 40% hearing loss in her right ear.(19)

Barry and Jackie Veysey believe lawn chemicals were responsible for the death of their baby son. Barry was a professional turf master, and the chemicals he worked with may have mutated his sperm or poisoned the infant in utero. Every time Jackie washed her husband's uniforms, the chemicals may have been absorbed through her skin and permeated the placenta. The child was born with a severe and fatal type of dwarfism. Jackie held her son only once before he died due to massive failure of his underdeveloped organs.(19)

Kevin Ryan from Arlington Heights, Illinois, feels like a prisoner in his home. "I can't even play in my own yard because the neighbors spray their lawns and trees", he says. Kevin suffered routine chemical exposure as a toddler from lawn spraying, and now suffers nausea, irritability, fatigue, and loss of memory whenever pesticides are nearby. His family moves to Colorado every spring and fall, the peak spraying times of the year, to keep him safe.(19,20)

In 1986, Robin Dudek of Hamburg, New York pulled the garden hose off her lawn and used it to fill a wading pool for her daughters Amanda, 3, and Kristen, 2. Earlier her lawn had been sprayed with chemicals. When Amanda started drinking from the hose, she began to scream that the water was burning her. Then Kristen began crying and screaming as well. Robin took the children inside and noticed burn marks on both of them, as well as the smell of chemicals on Amanda's breath. The girls later suffered from fevers, swollen eyes, and blisters the size of grape clusters around their necks.(19)

Christina Locek was a professional ice skater and pianist before her health was destroyed in 1985, when a her neighbor s lawn was sprayed with pesticides. Her cat and dog died that same day, and she suffers headaches, partial paralysis, vision loss, and blood disorders.(21) Former Navy Lieutenant George Prior developed a fever, headache, and nausea after playing on a golf course treated with Daconil. It was later discovered he was suffering from toxicepidermal necrolysis, which causes skin to fall off in sheets and massive organ failure. Prior died soon after.(6,8)

According to the EPA, 95% of the pesticides used on residential lawns are possible or probable carcinogens.(3,22) In 1989 the National Cancer Institute reported children develop leukemia six times more often when pesticides are used around their homes.(3,22) The American Journal of Epidemiology found that more children with brain tumors and other cancers had been exposed to insecticides than children without.(3) Studies by the National Cancer Society and other medical researchers have discovered a definite link between fatal non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (NHL) and exposure to triazine herbicides (like Atrazine), phenoxyacetic herbicides (2,4-D), organophosphate insecticides (Diazinon), fungicides, and fumigants; all of which have uses as lawn chemicals. This may be an important contributing factor to the 50% rise in NHL over the past ten years in the American population. Studies of farmers who once used these pesticides found alarmingly high numbers of NHL, especially in those who didn't wear protective clothing. This latest finding also proves the theory that most danger from pesticides comes through dermal absorption, not ingestion.(23) A University of Iowa study of golf course superintendents found abnormally high rates of death due to cancer of the brain, large intestine, and prostate.(4) Other experts are beginning to link golfers, and non-golfers who live near fairways, with these same problems.(8,24)

Documented cases of pesticides in groundwater wells are suspect for cancer clusters showing in many towns. In 1989, drinking water in at least 38 states was known to be contaminated.(3) After the herbicide Dacthal was applied to Long Island golf courses, it was detected in drinking water wells at levels twenty times the State's safety limits. The water also contained a dioxin that is a highly toxic by-product of Dacthal(8,19). The New York State Attorney General sued the manufacturer in 1989 to investigate the contamination and develop a treatment program, since ground water is the main source of drinking water for Long Island. Twenty-two other pesticides have been found in the water so far. However, there is still no requirement or systematic program designed to test for drinking water contamination.(3,25) As Michael Surgan, Ph.D., Chief Environmental Scientist for the New York State Attorney General, and an advocate for responsible pesticide use, puts it, "If you buy the notion that we have to accept a certain amount of risk from pesticides to safeguard the food supply, that's one thing, he notes. But with lawns, people are applying carcinogens simply for the sake of aesthetics. That's got to change".(4)

Pesticides and chemical fertilisers are becoming some of the worst water pollutants in America. Discharges into San Francisco Bay from the central valley of California are estimated at almost two tons per year.(26) Phosphorous levels in some Maryland streams have doubled since 1986. And an EPA study found potentially harmful levels of nitrate from chemical fertilizers in drinking water wells nationwide. This can cause blue-baby syndrome , an oxygen-depriving condition in infants that can be fatal.(18) Environmental impacts are also devastating. Ward Stone, a DEC wildlife pathologist, has long studied bird kills from pesticides that were used according to regulation. Documented cases of owls, mourning doves, sparrows, blue birds, and many other songbirds killed by lawn chemicals are on the rise. Waterfowl like Canadian geese, mallards, wood ducks, and others have suffered even worse. In 1984 there were 700 brant found dead on a Long Island country club after it was sprayed with Diazinon.(8,27) Pesticide exposure causes shivering, excessive salivating, grand mal seizures, wild flapping, and sometimes screaming according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service volunteer Diana Conger. Ward Stone likens these birds to miners' canaries, foreshadowing serious harm to humans from chemical build-up in the environment.(28)

Most people seriously overestimate the amount of protection given them by governments regarding pesticide safety. Congress found that 90% of the pesticides on the market lack even minimal required safety screening.(3) Of the 34 most used lawn pesticides, 33 have not been fully tested for human health hazards.(4) If any tests are done, they are performed by the chemical manufacturers, not the EPA. "If a chemical company wanted to, they could start with a desired conclusion, and skew the data, and the EPA would never know", notes David Welch, an entomologist with the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs. Welch did a random sampling of 15 pesticide files and found 13 without proper reviews.(19) One third of the most commonly used lawn pesticides were illegally registered for use. Despite the fact executives of Industrial Bio- Test labs were given jail terms for faking pesticides tests, the chemicals are still on the market.(3) Shortages in funding, personnel, and interference from business has slowed re-evaluation of these chemicals.(25) Even when the EPA does refuse a pesticide registration, the manufacturer often files a lawsuit, which keeps the chemical on the market.(19) Jay Feldman, coordinator of the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, is well aware of this. "The EPA should be called the IPA- the Industry Protection Agency", he charges. The chemical industry is extremely powerful, and wraps the EPA in red tape. It is also essential to understand that by law pesticide registration in the U.S.A. is not a consumer safety program.(9) According to Congress, the EPA does not have testing and assessment guidelines specifically for lawn use.(25) EPA has admitted in court that pesticide registration does not ensure product safety. Rather, it is a balancing act of costs and risks.(1-5,7-9,15,22) Most lawn pesticides were registered before 1972, when more stringent restrictions took effect under the revised Federal Rodenticide and Fungicide Act. They were never tested for many human health hazards like carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, and environmental dangers. Most, as previously stated, have yet to be re-evaluated, yet remain on the market.

Read the labels on many lawn pesticide products, sprayed by lawn companies or sold in stores, and you will find one or more of the following: 2,4-D, Captan, Diazinon, Dursban, Dacthal, Dicamba, and Mecocrop. Each was registered without full safety screening. 2,4-D is an artificial hormone that has become a synonym for "dangerous pesticide", but dermal absorption of mecoprop is far more dangerous, and dicamba is much more persistent in the environment - a mixture of these three is usually used, not 2,4-D alone. Diazinon has been banned for use on golf courses and sod farms due to massive waterfowl deaths but is still widely used on lawns and gardens. It is an organophosphate which disables the nervous system by blocking enzymes essential for nerve impulse transmission.

People can protect themselves and their families by knowing the facts. If having grass that looks more like Astroturf than living plants still seems essential, it doesn't have to come with pesticides but is possible with products or programs that are organic and natural. This list of alternatives continues to grow, and they are safer, cheaper, and often work better than pesticides.(3,5) Ringer Corporation vice president Fred Hunt markets natural fertilizers and microbes that kill pests. "We just don't think a lot of these chemicals are necessary for aesthetic use on homeowners' lawns", he reveals.(7) Chemicals add salt to the soil and kill beneficial nitrogen-fixing microorganisms that provide necessary nutrients for grass, turning a lawn into a junkie.(29) Each quick fix of green creates a dependence for the next. Synthetic fertilizers kill earthworms and other organisms that aerate soil, causing it to compact and kill grass plants. Inorganic nitrogen-based fertilizers also promote the sprouting of weeds.(30) Compounds in chemical fertilizers also acidify the soil and aid in breeding of some insects. Lawns need a soil pH between 5.6 and 7 or else they turn pale and thin out. Additional doses of chemicals will only make matters worse.(31,32) Recycling grass clippings saves money, reduces waste, and according to Lawn Institute Director Eliot C. Roberts is equivalent to three applications of fertilizer a year without unhealthy chemicals and their side-effects. Natural fertilizers are also better because they are time released, allowing grass to grow slower and tougher, requiring much less care.

Insects have been best controlled by other insects for millions of years, and the lawn is no exception. Insecticides often kill more beneficial insects than problem ones. Once the natural balance is destroyed, continued reliance on insecticides will occur. This is also true of weed killers. When a crabgrass stand is killed with an herbicide, there will still be thousands of seeds ready to start anew.(31) In the long run, pesticides can actually help the very pests they target by also killing their predators, and their use becomes self-perpetuating. Until a natural balance is restored, more and more will have to be spent each year on chemicals, and resistant pests may also invade. Using alternative strategies will bring better results and be kinder to the environment. Integrated Pest Management gives simple, long-lasting solutions which require no chemicals, much less money, and much less time and effort. Many alternatives not explored here can be found in the books and articles listed at the end of this report.

What makes a plant a "weed" is often only a matter of opinion. For instance, it was once a sign of prestige to have clover in a lawn. Their flowers and silky green leaves were once prized by homeowners, as was their natural production of nitrogen fertiliser, and clover seed was sold by the bushels, alone or mixed with grass seed. It wasn't until a chemical company discovered a pesticide that killed clover but not always grass and launched an enormous advertising campaign that clover became no longer fashionable. As a result, people today ignore its fine qualities, even though throughout the 1950s it was "common as bluegrass".(33)

A growing list of over 9,000 Americans are participating in the National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat program. By growing tall grasses, they attract a dazzling array of wildflowers, butterflies, and birds, creating habitats that are the aesthetic match of any manicured lawn. Suggestions on what to plant to best attract wildlife can be obtained from the Fish & Game Department of any state in the country.(34)

The lawn pesticide industry is a very recent creation by chemical firms to expand the market for aging farm chemicals. These products are not necessary for use on lawns and pose serious ecological and human health risks that outweigh any benefits they offer. Integrated Pest Management strategies offer alternatives that work better and have less harmful effects. Proper legislation to protect the public regarding pesticide use is still seriously insufficient.(35) Therefore, the responsibility rests on the public to be the ultimate judge of what the acceptable levels of risk will be for their families and environment.(4)

References:

1. New York State Attorney General's Office. "The Secret Hazards Of Lawn Pesticides: Inert Ingredients." New York State Department Of Law, 1994.

2. New York State Attorney General's Office. "Pesticides In The Schools: Reducing The Risks." New York State Department Of Law, 1994.

3. "Lawn Chemical Dangers." American Defender Network, 1989.

4. Davidson, Osha Gray. "Pesticides: The Killing Fields." Woman s Day 20 September 1994.

5. The S.T.A.T.E. Foundation (Sensitive To A Toxic Environment), 4 Hazel Court, West Seneca, NY 14224.

6. Begley, Sharon & Hager, Mary. "Please Don't Eat The Daisies." Newsweek 16 May 1988.

7. Stevens, William K. "Public Said To Disregard Dangers Of Manicuring The Greensward." The New York Times 17 September 1990.

8. New York State Attorney General's Office. "Toxic Fairways: Risking Groundwater Contamination From Long Island Golf Courses." New York State Department Of Law, 1990.

9. New York State Attorney General's Office. "Lawn Care Pesticides And Safety: What You Should Know". New York State Department Of Law, 1994.

10. Meier, Barry. "Lawn Care Concern Says It Will Limit Safety Claims." The New York Times 30 June 1990.

11. United States Environmental Protection Agency Pesticide Information Network.

12. gopher@earth1. The United States Environmental Protection Agency Internet Server. EPA WAIS Gateway.

13. fedworld.gov. The United States Government Internet Database.

14. www.whitehouse.gov. The White House WWW Server. Executive Branch.

15. Raver, Anne. "Fertilizing Your Lawn? Look Before You Leap." The New York Times 24 April 1994.

16. Fischer, Aldeheid. "Grass Is Not Always Greener: Reasons Not To Love Lawns." Utne Reader September/October 1990.

17. New York State Department Of Environmental Conservation, Pest Control.

18. Cohn, D Vera. "The Chemical Quest For The Perfect Lawn: Pesticide, Fertilizer Runoff Ending Up In Area's Water Supply." The Washington Post 28 April 1991.

19. Sayan, Kathyrne. "The Pesticide Scandal." Family Circle 2 April 1991.

20. Associated Press. "Lawn Care Chemicals Raise Health Concerns: GAO Faults EPA On Commercial Regulation." The Washington Post 31 May 1990.

21. Skow, John. "Can Lawns Be Justified?" TIME Magazine 3 June 1991.

22. "Warning: The Use Of Pesticides May Be Hazardous To Your Health". American Cancer Society, Erie County Branch.

23. Zahm, Sheila and Aaron Blair. "Pesticides and Non-Hodgkin s Lymphoma." Cancer Research 1 October 1992.

24. Associated Press. "Lawn Herbicide Called Cancer Risk For Dogs." The New York Times 4 September 1991.

25. United States Congress General Accounting Office. "Lawn Care Pesticides: Reregistration Falls Further Behind and Exposure Effects Are Uncertain." GAO/RCED-93-80, Washington, DC: April 1993.

26. Rudd, Robert C. "Pesticides." Encyclopedia Americana 1990.

27. Hershenson, Roberta. "Study Finds Use of Some 'Safe' Pesticides Harmful." The New York Times 14 April 1985.

28. Levy, Claudia. "Pretty Lawns May Be Lethal For Songbirds: Pesticides Blamed For Toll On Wildlife." The Washington Post 28 April 1991.

29. Polk, Nancy. "The Perfect Lawn Isn't Always Green." The New York Times 17 October 1990.

30. Findlay, Steven & Terry Thompson. "Watch That Weed Killer." US News & World Report 16 September 1991.

31. Henkenius, Merle & Eugene Thompson. "Natural Lawn Care." Popular Mechanics July 1993.

32. "The Green Way To A Green Lawn." Consumer Reports June 1990.

33. Schultz, W. "The Chemical Free Lawn." Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1989.

34. Glastris, Kukula. "Letting The Lawn Run Wild." US News & World Report 27 August 1990.

35. United States General Accounting Office. "Lawn Care Pesticides: Risks Remain Uncertain While Prohibited Safety Claims Continue." GAO/RCED-90-134. Washington, DC: March 1990.

36. Bartle, Hazel. "Quiet Sufferers of the Silent Spring". New Scientist 18 May 1991.

37. International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes. "Selected Persistent Toxic Substances in Human Breast Milk in the Great Lakes Basin". March 1990.

38. Arch.Env.Health 48:89 (1993)

Nathan Diegelman
The S.T.A.T.E. Foundation
bl891@bfn.org

Dioxin

2009-02-16T01:00:00.000-08:00

Dioxin is the name generally given to a class of super-toxic chemicals, the chlorinated dioxins and furans, formed as a by-product of the manufacture, molding, or burning of organic chemicals and plastics that contain chlorine. It is the nastiest, most toxic man-made organic chemical; its toxicity is second only to radioactive waste. Dioxin made headlines several years ago at places such as Love Canal, where hundreds of families needed to abandon their homes due to dioxin contamination, and Times Beach, Missouri, a town that was abandoned as a result of dioxin.

Dioxin - An Unprecedented Threat

We now know that dioxin exhibits serious health effects when it reaches as little as a few parts per trillion in your body fat. Dioxin is a powerful hormone disrupting chemical. By binding to a cell's hormone receptor, it literally modifies the functioning and genetic mechanism of the cell, causing a wide range of effects, from cancer to reduced immunity to nervous system disorders to miscarriages and birth deformity. Because it literally changes the functioning of your cells, the effects can be very obvious or very subtle. Because it changes gene functions, it can cause so-called genetic diseases to appear, and can interfere with child development. There is no "threshold" dose - the tiniest amount can cause damage, and our bodies have no defense against it.

Unfortunately, according to the EPA, much of the population of the U.S. is at the dose at which there can be serious health effects. How did this happen? For about 40 years we have seen a dramatic increase in the manufacture and use of chlorinated organic chemicals and plastics. For chemicals, it was insecticides and herbicides (weed killers). For plastics, it was primarily polyvinyl chloride (PVC). From phonograph records to automobile seat covers to wire insulation to shampoo bottles to handbags to house siding to plumbing pipes to wallpaper, we are literally surrounded by PVC. When these chemicals and plastics are manufactured or burned, dioxin is produced as an unwanted (but inevitable) by-product. Dioxin is also formed in paper bleaching, so that most paper products are contaminated. This exposes people who use chlorine-bleached coffee filters (most of the products available), as well as compounding the risks of cancer of those who smoke cigarettes.

Dioxin had been a little-known threat for many years near factories that produce PVC plastic or chlorinated pesticides and herbicides, and where those pesticides and herbicides have been heavily used, such as on farms, near electric and railway lines, apple orchards, paper company forests. It became better known when Vietnam War veterans and Vietnamese civilians, exposed to dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange, became ill. It has been a hazard downstream of paper mills (where chlorine bleach combines with natural organics in wood pulp and produces dioxin).

Several towns and cities have become contaminated as a result of chemical spills or manufacturing emissions, some that needed to be evacuated. Love Canal (Niagara Falls, N.Y), Seveso (Italy), Times Beach (Missouri), Pensacola (Florida), and the entire city of Midland, Michigan have high concentrations of dioxin.

Bizarre health effects, such as cancer, spina bifida (split spine) and other birth defects, autism, liver disease, endometriosis, reduced immunity, chronic fatigue syndrome, psychological disorders, and other nerve and blood disorders have been reported.

But in the last 20 years we have begun to burn household and industrial trash and medical waste in mass-burn incinerators. The result - given that we have disposable vinyl plastic all around us - has been a dramatic increase in dioxin contamination everywhere in the U.S. Dioxin, formed during burning, is carried for hundreds of miles on tiny specks of fly-ash from the incinerators. It settles on crops, which then get eaten by cows, steers, pigs, and chickens. It contaminates lakes, streams, and the ocean. Like the pesticides such as DDT, dioxin accumulates in the fat cells of the animals, and re-appears in meat and milk. Dioxin is virtually indestructible in most environments, and is excreted by the body extremely slowly.

How To Avoid Dioxin

Do not eat beef or pork, which have some of the largest concentrations of dioxin of all food sources. Limit your intake of ocean fish; do not eat any freshwater fish. Chicken has the lowest dioxin content of all meats, but is still significant. Vegetarian meat substitutes such as tofu, beans, and rice have essentially no contamination.

If your family drinks milk, drink only skim milk, since dioxin is carried in the butterfat. Avoid all full-fat dairy products, such as butter, cheese and ice cream. Use non-fat skim-milk products or non-dairy substitutes. If you are female and are considering having children, it is essential that you eat a non-dairy, low-fat vegetarian diet for several years before you have children. Dioxin is passed from the woman's body to the infant through the placenta and in breastmilk, which contains more dioxin than any other food (in relation to an infant’s body weight) for women who consume meat and milk.[1]

Avoid all organic chemicals that have "chloro" as part of their names (such as the wood preservative pentachlorophenol, which is probably the most dioxin-contaminated household chemical). Avoid chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) and products containing it. (Use oxygen bleach instead). Use unbleached paper products.

Do not use weed killers or insecticides that contain chlorine. Especially avoid the chlorophenol weed killers, such as 2,4-D, found in most fertilizer/weed killers and used by commercial lawn services. Avoid "Permethrin" flea sprays for pets.

Avoid household or personal products and toys made of or packaged in polyvinyl chloride - PVC - labeled V or #3 plastic. Avoid using Saran Wrap and similar "cling-type" plastic wraps (unless they are clearly identified as polyethylene.).

Wash all fruits and vegetables carefully to remove chlorophenol pesticide residue. Avoid grapes and raisins unless they are clearly labeled as organic (grown without pesticides).

Avoid all products which have cottonseed oil as an ingredient (such as potato chips), since cotton is often sprayed with chlorophenol insecticides. Do not use soaps containing tallow (most soaps), as it is made from animal fat. Avoid "deodorant" soaps and deodorants containing "triclosan," a chlorophenol.

Use unbleached (brown) coffee filters, or those marked as having been bleached with non-chlorine bleach. If you smoke cigarettes (although tobacco has other cancer hazards) roll your own in unbleached paper.

What You Can Do

The way to reduce the dioxin threat is to stop burning trash and to stop producing PVC and other chlorinated chemicals. If your town sends its trash to an incinerator, tell your town officials to institute comprehensive recycling. Write to companies that use vinyl and ask them to use the known safe substitutes. Ask your supermarket and office supply stores to sell Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) products. Learn more about the dioxin threat. Read the books Dying From Dioxin by Lois Gibbs, and Our Stolen Future by Theo Colborn. Talk to your friends and neighbors about dioxin and what you can do to reduce the threat. Join a community environmental organization, or form one if there are none in your town. Call a state or national organization to get help. Download a copy of a Microsoft Word Version 6-compatible version of this document for a community information leaflet.

Genetic Engineering

2009-02-09T01:00:00.000-08:00

Genetic engineering is the science of modification of genes in cells. Genes are collections of DNA molecules that comprise the code that determines the function and reproductive pattern of cells. Together with hormones and other chemical messengers, developed and naturally recombined over millions of years, genes determine everything about an organism.

Genetic engineers modify gene patterns in cells by implanting genes or DNA from one organism into another organism. For instance, Monsanto Corporation found a gene somewhere that made a plant resistant to a Monsanto weed-killer called Roundup. Monsanto then took that gene and implanted it into soybeans, instantly creating a new species of soybean that could be sprayed with Roundup weed killer without fear of killing the soybean plant. At first glance, this sounds like a great idea, using science to help farmers grow their crops. But this technology has a very dark side.

Why is it an environmental threat?

Over millions of years, a natural order of plant species variation and interbreeding in the wild has developed that has structural boundaries. Normally, the transfer of genes from one species to another is naturally regulated. If it were not, there would be species havoc - tree seeds that would grow into something completely different, grass seed that would grow 20 feet tall (or 20 millimeters tall), 50-leaf clovers, etc. There would be no way for the many forms of life on earth to survive and regenerate.

Genetic engineering has destroyed that natural barrier. The new Monsanto soybeans, called Roundup-Ready Soybeans (RRS), now have non-soybean genes in their cell nucleus. Thus in a tiny instant of time Monsanto crossed a genetic boundary that could not be crossed naturally. We know that these new genes have cross-pollinated to non-genetically-altered crops, and to similar species. We do not know know whether these genes are easily transferrable to other plant species. What Monsanto has created, is a plant "monster" - an unnatural species - that can reproduce through its seeds.

Some scientists in the early days of genetic engineering (about 1975) worried about super-germs (the first genetic engineering was done with E. coli bacteria) and cross-species contamination, but the claim was made that new species would be carefully confined to laboratories where they would be used to generate hormones or life-saving drugs. It was assumed that this containment would prevent cross-species contamination. Agricultural genetic engineering violated that assumption. Concerned scientists and others all over the world worry that this kind of artificial genetic manipulation may indeed cause biological havoc because it exposes the new cells and genes to other plant species.

In the United States, primarily because of the influence of Monsanto and other bio-technology firms in our regulatory agencies and the media, discussion of the topic has been limited, and the labeling of seeds and products with regard to whether they are or contain genetically modified organisms was, until recently, discouraged by threat of lawsuit by Monsanto. The only way for someone in the U.S. to avoid genetically modified grain is to buy products marked organic. The Food and Drug Administration even attempted several years ago to redefine the organic label to include genetically modified organisms, but public opposition prevented this change.

In Europe, and especially in Great Britain, a movement has developed that opposes the development and use of these genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The EEU has passed a regulation requiring that grain containing genetic modifications and products containing such grain that are imported into Europe be labeled as such. Because of the strong opposition to GMOs, this makes the grain and products less saleable. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Export Agency, supporting Monsanto's commercial interests, has threatened trade sanctions against the EEU. In Great Britain, environmental activists have protested agricultural genetic engineering, and some have taken part in civil disobedience, uprooting experimental plots belonging to Monsanto and other biotech firms.

What Can You Do?

If you agree that this technology is dangerous to the environment, call the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and register your concern. Ask the FDA to require labeling of GMO products and grain. Tell your friends and neighbors about the threat. Join with them and request that your supermarket supply more organically raised food, which is currently the only way to avoid GMO products.

Genetically Altered Food

2009-02-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

During the last five years, several multinational chemical and drug companies – including Monsanto and Syngenta (formerly Novartis/Astra-Zeneca/Ciba-Geigy) – have quietly altered our food supply in an alarming way. Genes from bacteria, viruses, foreign plants and animals have been inserted into corn, soybeans, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, and papayas. These corporations plan to "genetically engineer" almost 100% of our food within a decade. Already about 40% of the soybeans, 20% of the corn, and a percentage of the potatoes grown in the U.S. and about 50% of the canola (rapeseed) plants in Canada have been genetically altered.

These companies have influenced US and Canadian regulatory agencies to allow these grains to be grown, mixed with non-altered grains, and sold without any labeling, even though they have been shown to be harmful to the environment and have not undergone even a single human health safety test. More than 60% of the packaged food items in US grocery stores contain genetically altered ingredients. We are now all experimental animals in a huge biological experiment involving the food we eat every day.

What Have They Done to Our Food?

Scientists at these companies have learned how to insert genes from plants, animals, bacteria, and viruses into any other plant or animal. For instance, Monsanto has inserted foreign genes into soybeans, corn, and canola (rapeseed) that allows farmers to spray the crops with Monsanto’s toxic Roundup weed killer without killing the plant. They have inserted a gene from an insect-killing bacterium called BT into corn so that every cell of the plant has activated BT toxin in it.

An Unprecedented Threat

In the rush to commercialize and profit from these "inventions," these companies have exposed consumers and the environment to an unprecedented threat:

The genes inserted into these grains cause the plant to create new, foreign proteins, never before seen in nature. There has never been any long-term animal or human testing to determine whether the new proteins can cause allergies or other adverse effects. Instead, the companies got FDA officials to declare them to be "substantially equivalent" to non-altered grains, even though, behind the scenes, FDA scientists disagreed. Allergy research doctors in England have seen a dramatic rise in soybean allergy, and suspect a reaction to the new foreign protein. In the case of BT corn and potatoes, European researchers have recently found that activated BT toxin, now found in genetically altered corn and potatoes, can cause cell damage in mammals.

The pollen of these plants also contains the foreign genes. Pollen is carried far and wide by wind and bees. It can pollinate and transfer its altered genes to non-altered crops and similar wild plants – biologically contaminating them – thus creating new species (nicknamed Superweeds). BT toxin in corn and potatoes and their pollen kills non-target and beneficial insects such as ladybugs, lacewings, and butterflies. A Cornell University study published in Nature showed how the new corn pollen kills Monarch butterflies.

Both Monsanto and Syngenta have developed "Terminator" genes that will create plants that sterilize their own seeds, forcing farmers to buy seeds from the companies every year. This threatens subsistence farming in developing countries, where farmers have saved and traded seeds for thousands of years. It also threatens the world's ecosystems if the genes for sterility are transferred to wild plants.

Monsanto claims that the new crops have higher yields, and that genetic engineering is the only way to feed a hungry world. But university trials of these grains show that the crop yields are no better -- and in some cases are far worse -- than ordinary seeds. The only driving force behind this technology is profit for a few multinational companies who seem willing to compromise health, safety, and the environment.

How to Avoid Genetically Altered Food

Since significant percentages of soy, corn, potatoes, and canola oil contain altered genes, and they are mixed with unaltered food, right now there is only one way to safely avoid them: seek out products that use only certified organic ingredients. Avoid eating products that have unknown origins, such as corn cereals, corn chips, and tofu (soybean curd) in restaurants unless you know for sure that they use organic ingredients.

What Can You Do?

There are many safe food advocates all over the world who are trying to stop the farming, production, and use of genetically altered food. You can join with them:

Ask your local supermarket and restaurants to supply and serve products that do not have genetically "engineered" ingredients. Show the supermarket manager this flyer. (A 2-page MS-Word version of this document is available at http://www.cqs.com/gmohazard.doc.) Many supermarket chains in Great Britain now exclude all genetically altered products from their shelves.
If you live in a farming state, call or write to your state Director of Agriculture and your state Farm Bureau to tell them that you won’t buy products that have been "genetically engineered."
Tell your neighbors and friends about it. Show them this flyer. Copy and post the flyer in public places, or hand them out to supermarket customers. Join or form a community group to oppose this dangerous technology. Convince local environmental groups of its immediate danger to health and the environment.
Find out more about the dangers of this technology and the movement against it. The Internet website page http://www.cqs.com/gmorg.htm is a list of Internet Websites with a wealth of detailed information about the many problems with genetic alteration and the people around the world who are trying to stop it.

source : cqs

Illegal Fishing Impacts

2009-01-27T01:00:00.000-08:00

Economic and environmental impacts

The most obvious economic impact of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing on developing countries is the direct loss of the value of the catches that could be taken by local fishermen if the IUU fishing was not taking place.

These losses include not only the loss to GNP, but revenue from landing fees, licence fees and taxes payable by legal fishing operators. In addition, there are indirect impacts in terms of loss of income and employment in related industries; any loss in income will also have impacts on the consumer demands of families working in the fishing industry.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing usually has a significant impact on the sustainability of both the targeted species and the ecosystem.

Fishing generally has the capacity to damage fragile marine ecosystems and vulnerable species such as coral reefs, turtles and seabirds. In fact, all eight sea turtle species are now endangered, and illegal fishing and hunting are two major reasons for their destruction. Regulating legitimate fisheries is aimed at mitigating such impacts, but IUU fishers rarely comply with regulations. This is likely to reduce productivity and biodiversity and create imbalances in the ecosystem.

This in turn may lead to reduced food security in communities heavily dependent on fish as a source of animal protein.

Certification

Mandatory product certification and catch documentation are increasingly used as a natural extension of normal monitoring and enforcement in fisheries, and as a means of excluding IUU products from consumer markets and therefore rewarding responsible fishing with protected markets. The concept is increasingly common in other markets, including those for timber and for diamonds.

The use of certification or catch document schemes is encouraged in the FAO‘s International Plan of Action on IUU Fishing. Several RFMOs include them, including CCAMLR’s Catch Documentation Scheme for Toothfish, CCSBT’s Trade Information Scheme for Southern Bluefin Tuna and ICCAT’s Bluefin Tuna Statistical Document Programme. Similar systems are applied at a national level, including the USA’s Certification of Origin of Tuna and Tuna Tracking and Verification Systems, Japan’s reporting requirements (including area of capture) for all imports or transportation of tunas into Japan by boat, and the EU’s labelling of all fish products (including area of capture).

Marine Stewardship Council The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international non-profit organization that runs a certification and ecolabelling program for traceable, sustainable seafood.

To achieve certification as sustainable a fishery must meet a standard based on three principles:

ensuring healthy fish stocks
minimal impact on the marine ecosystem
effective management (which includes ensuring the fishery operates within national and international laws).

Fisheries that meet the MSC standard for a sustainable fishery can use the blue MSC ecolabel (shown right) on their seafood products.

The second element of the program is a certification for seafood traceability. This is called MSC Chain of Custody. From the fishery, every company in the supply chain that handles the certified fish is checked to ensure the MSC label is only applied to fish products that come from a certified fishery. This requires effective record-keeping and storage procedures. This traceability element of the program helps to keep illegally fished seafood out of the supply chain by linking seafood sold in shops and restaurants to a certified sustainable fishery.

The MSC ecolabel enables consumers to easily identify sustainable seafood when shopping or dining out. As of August 2008, there are over 1,700 MSC-labelled seafood products sold in 38 countries around the world. The MSC website lists outlets selling MSC-certified seafood.

The MSC-certified South Georgia Patagonian toothfish fishery provides a good example of how good fisheries management can reverse the trend of illegal fishing. The fishery took significant steps to exclude illegal vessels from its waters:

- Strict vessel licensing system is rigorously enforced with limited landing points, controlled by the port authorities.

- No transshipment is allowed.

- Every pound of fish landed is monitored through tamper-proof satellite surveillance of on-board weighing scales and GPS locations of vessels.

- On landing, boxed product is applied with a barcode label to ensure there is no introduction of illegal fish into the supply chain.

These are just a sample of the measures taken by the fishery in order to achieve MSC certification in March 2004. Further information on the South Georgia Patagonian toothfish fishery.

Enforcement

Illegal and unreported fishing (two of the three components of IUU fishing) essentially arise from a failure adequately to enforce existing national and international laws. There are, however, many factors underlying enforcement failure, including, notably, poor levels of national governance.

There are obvious problems with enforcing fisheries regulations on the high seas, including locating and apprehending the pirate ships, but solutions are available, chiefly through improved monitoring and surveillance systems.

MSC systems are similarly of value within exclusive economic zones, including, for example, offshore patrols and licensing schemes.

Political processes

EU Action Plan

The EU played an active role in drawing up the FAO‘s international plan of action to prevent, deter and eliminate IUU fishing, endorsed by the FAO Council in June 2001.

The EU then proceeded to develop its own plan to implement the commitments agreed at international level, and the European Commission‘s action plan for the eradication of IUU fishing was published in May 2002. It is intended to be implemented at four levels:

At the EU level, more responsibility will be requested with regard to member state nationals acting under a flag of convenience. Moreover market measures concerning fisheries products caught in violation of the international agreements will be adopted. In addition, information actions addressed to the fishing industry, consumers and the public will be launched in order to raise their awareness.

In the framework of Regional Fisheries Organisations, control and inspection plans would be adopted as well as specific conservation and management measures. In addition IUU vessels would be identified and monitored and their catches would be quantified.

At the international level, concepts like genuine link would be defined, and a number of rights and obligations of the port state would be established. Moreover, the exchange of information on IUU activities and the international co-operation would be strengthened.

In partnership with developing countries, the necessary means would be provided to enable them to effectively control fishing activities undertaken in waters under their jurisdiction.

High Seas Task Force

The High Seas Task Force comprises a group of fisheries ministers and international NGOs working together to develop an action plan designed to combat IUU fishing on the high seas.

Launched in 2003, the Task Force includes fisheries ministers from Australia, Canada, Chile, Namibia, New Zealand and the UK, together with the Earth Institute, IUCN-World Conservation Union, WWF International and the Marine Stewardship Council.

The goal of the Task Force is to set priorities among a series of practical proposals for confronting the challenge of IUU fishing on the high seas. A series of expert panels have been convened to identify the legal, economic, scientific and enforcement factors which permit IUU activity to thrive and then determine the key points of leverage that can brought to bear at national, regional and global levels in order to minimise the incentives to carry out IUU fishing on the high seas. The completed action plan, published on 3 March 2006, will be placed by ministerial members of the Task Force directly in the hands of other ministers.

Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs)

Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) are affiliations of nations which co-ordinate efforts to manage fisheries in a particular region.

RFMOs may focus on certain species of fish (e.g the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna) or have a wider remit related to living marine resources in general within a region (e.g. the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)). This wide diversity of mandates and areas of application, and also effective implementation of regulations, opens up opportunities for IUU vessels. Learn more here.

UN High Seas Processes

The present system of high seas governance has evolved over a period of several hundred years, the end result being a patchwork quilt of measures in the form of binding and non-binding instruments with different geographical and legal reaches and different levels of participation.

Most legal instruments build on the foundation established by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was agreed in 1982 and entered into force in 1992.

The UN Fish Stocks Agreement, which entered into force in 2001, sets out principles for the conservation and management of fish stocks and establishes that such management must be based on the precautionary approach and the best available scientific information. The Agreement provides a framework for cooperation on conservation and management, but since only about a third of the parties to the Law of the Sea Convention have ratified it, its impact is inevitably limited.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) carries out much of the technical work on international fisheries management, and provides a forum for the negotiation of agreements and codes of conduct. In 1995 the FAO agreed its Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries to promote long-term sustainable management.

In 2001, the FAO adopted the International Plan of Action (IPOA) on IUU Fishing. The aim of this voluntary instrument is to prevent, deter and eliminate IUU fishing by providing all states with comprehensive, effective and transparent measures by which to act, including through appropriate regional fisheries management organisations established in accordance with international law.

The FAO Compliance Agreement, which entered into force in 2003, is designed to close a major loophole in international fisheries management, that of the circumvention of fisheries regulations by ‘re-flagging‘ vessels under the flags of states that are unable or unwilling to enforce such measures.

Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing

2009-01-22T01:00:00.000-08:00

Illegal fishing takes place where vessels operate in violation of the laws of a fishery. This can apply to fisheries that are under the jurisdiction of a coastal state or to high seas fisheries regulated by regional organisations.

Unreported fishing is fishing that has been unreported or misreported to the relevant national authority or regional organisation, in contravention of applicable laws and regulations.

Unregulated fishing generally refers to fishing by vessels without nationality, or vessels flying the flag of a country not party to the regional organisation governing that fishing area or species.

The drivers behind illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing are clear enough, and similar to those behind many other types of international environmental crime. Most obviously, pirate fishers have a strong economic incentive: many species of fish, particularly those which have been over-exploited and are thus in short supply, are of high value.

Such IUU activity may then show a high chance of success – i.e. a high rate of return - from the failure of governments to regulate adequately (e.g. inadequate coverage of international agreements), or to enforce national or international laws (e.g. because of lack of capacity, or poor levels of governance). A particular driver behind IUU fishing is the failure of a number of flag states to exercise any effective regulation over ships on their registers - which in turn creates an incentive for ships to register under these 'flags of convenience'.

Since no-one is reporting catches made by pirates, their level of fishing cannot be accurately quantified. However, industry observers think that IUU occurs in most fisheries, and accounts for up to 30% of total catches in some important fisheries.

Ghost Net

2009-01-17T01:00:00.000-08:00

Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been left or lost in the ocean by fishermen.

These nets, often nearly invisible in the dim light, can be left tangled on a rocky reef or drifting in the open sea. Maybe they were lost in a storm, or simply forgotten. They can entangle fish, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, dugongs, crocodiles, seabirds, crabs, and other creatures, including the occasional human diver.

Acting as designed, the nets restrict movement, causing starvation, laceration and infection, and — in those that need to return to the surface to breathe — suffocation.

Description

Some commercial fisherman use gillnets. These are anchored to the sea floor with floatation buoys along one edge. In this way they can form a vertical wall hundreds of metres long, where any fish within a certain size range can be caught. Normally these nets are collected by fisherman and the catch removed. However if this is not done the net can continue to catch fish until the weight of the catch exceeds the buoyancy of the floats. The net then sinks, and the fish are devoured by bottom-dwelling crustaceans and other fish. Then the floats pull the net up again and the cycle continues. Given the high-quality synthetics that are used today, the destruction can continue for a long time.

The problem is not just nets; old fashioned crab pots, without the required "rot-out panel", also sit on the bottom, where they become self-baiting traps that go on catching crabs year after year. Even balled-up fishing line can be deadly for a variety of creatures, including birds and marine mammals. Over time the nets become more and more tangled. In general, fish are less likely to be trapped in gear that has been down a long time.

Some claim that ghost nets have a negligible impact upon marine ecosystems, as the catch of the ghost net is simply eaten by other marine life anyway.

The French government offered a reward for ghost nets handed in to local coastguards along sections of the Normandy coast between 1980 and 1981. The project was abandoned when people vandalised nets to claim rewards, without retrieving anything at all from the shoreline or ocean.

Cyanide Fishing

2009-01-12T01:00:00.000-08:00

Cyanide fishing is an illegal form of fishing (commonly known as poaching) common in South East Asia, which usually uses the chemical compound sodium cyanide. Since 2000, increasing restrictions on illegal dynamite fishing have led to an increasing growth in this indiscriminate method – particularly as it can be used without generating noise. The use of cyanide as a fishing technique was first documented in the Philippines in 1962. More than 150,000 kg of cyanide is believed to be used in the Philippines annually by the aquarium trade and more than a million kg have been used since the 1960’s

In seawater sodium cyanide breaks down into sodium and cyanide ions. In humans, the latter blocks the oxygen-transporting protein haemoglobin; the haemoglobin in fish is closely related to that of humans, and can combine with oxygen even faster. Through the irreversible combining of cyanide ions onto the active structural domain, oxygen is prevented from reaching the cells, and an effect similar to carbon monoxide poisoning results. Coral polyps, young fish and spawn are most vulnerable; adult fish can take somewhat higher doses. The use of cyanide is known to cause mortality on laboratory corals in measured doses, however this data is very difficult to quantify in regard to wild populations. In humans ingestion or breathing in of cyanide leads to unconsciousness within a minute; asphyxiation follows. Lower doses lead to temporary or permanent disability and/or sensory failure. This is a constant danger for the fishermen; there are many local accounts of such "occupational accidents", but such incidents are not recorded in official statistics or statements.

The fishermen dive into the sea usually without artificial breathing aids, although some use illegal and highly-dangerous apparatus whereby compressed air is sent down thin breathing tubes. When they reach the coral reefs, they spray the poison between the individual layers, after which the yield is collected. Edible fish, of which a number are sold for general consumption, are first placed for ten to fourteen days in fresh water for "rinsing". Recent studies have shown that the combination of cyanide use and stress of post capture handling results in mortality of up to 75% of the organisms within less than 48 hours of capture. With such high mortality numbers, a greater number of fish must be caught in order to supplement post catch death.

Colourful, particularly eccentric, and therefore rare coral fish are packed into plastic bags; up to two thirds of these fish die during transport. They are mostly sold to aquariums in the US, Europe and Asia. In the 1990s 80% of the western trade in coral fishes alone came from the island of Palawan in the Philippines. Estimates suggest 70 to 90% of aquarium fish exported from the Philippines are caught with cyanide. Due to the post capture handling stress and the effects of the cyanide, fish are bound to have a shorter life span than usual in our aquariums. According to an interview with experienced aquarium owners, they were willing to pay more for net-caught fish because of the higher survival rate. They also said they would not trust an eco-labelling system, which can be misleading.

The basis for this illegal fishing method is, among others, the rising demand for live fish in the higher-class restaurants of the big cities, particularly in rich, nearby countries, which pay increasingly high prices. The extremely low wages of the fishermen in remote, underdeveloped areas, where there are no alternative sources of income, drive them to endure the health risks and possible prosecution.

Many fishing and diving areas across the whole of South East Asia, already severely damaged from the impact of dynamite fishing, have been ruined or totally lost through cyanide fishing. Many of the slowly growing corals, particularly the dendritic varieties, are a particularly important safe area for young fish and spawn and are now disappearing. Most legal and illegal fishing methods cannot by themselves destroy a stable ecosystem. However, through the effects of synergy, they have led to the almost total breakdown of large coastal areas which were formerly excellent fishing grounds.

How Trawls Work

2009-01-07T01:00:00.000-08:00

Fishing gear

The design requirements of a bottom trawl are relatively simple, a mechanism for keeping the mouth of the net open in horizontal and vertical dimensions, a "body" of net which guides fish inwards, and a "cod-end" of a suitable mesh size, where the fish are collected. The size and design of net used is determined by the species being targeted, the engine power and design of the fishing vessel and locally enforced regulations.

Beam trawling

The simplest method of bottom trawling, the mouth of the net is held open by a solid metal beam, attached to two "shoes", which are solid metal plates, welded to the ends of the beam, which slide over and disturb the seabed. This method is mainly used on smaller vessels, fishing for flatfish or prawns, relatively close inshore.

Otter trawling

Otter trawling derives its name from the large rectangular otter boards which are used to keep the mouth of the trawl net open. Otter boards are made of timber or steel and are positioned in such a way that the hydrodynamic forces, acting on them when the net is towed along the seabed, pushes them outwards and prevents the mouth of the net from closing. They also act like a plough, digging up to 15 cm into the seabed, creating a turbid cloud, and scaring fish towards the net mouth. The net is held open vertically on an otter trawl by floats and/or kites attached to the "headline" (the rope which runs along the upper mouth of the net), and weighted "bobbins" attached to the "foot rope" (the rope which runs along the lower mouth of the net). These bobbins vary in their design depending on the roughness of the sea bed which is being fished, varying from small rubber discs for very smooth, sandy ground, to large metal balls, up to 0.5 m in diameter for very rough ground. These bobbins can also be designed to lift the net off the seabed when they hit an obstacle. These are known as "rock-hopper" gears.

Body of the trawl

The body of the trawl is funnel-like, wide at its "mouth" and narrowing towards the codend, and usually is fitted with wings of netting at the both sides of the mouth. It is long enough to assure adequate flow of water and prevent fish from escaping the net, after having been caught. It is made of diamond-meshed netting, the size of the meshes decreasing from the front of the net towards the codend. Into the body, fish and turtle escape devices can be fitted. These can be simple structures like "square mesh panels", which are easier for smaller fish to pass through, or more complicated devices, such as bycatch grills.

Cod end

The business end of the net, the cod end is where fish are finally "caught". The size of mesh in the cod end is a determinant of the size of fish which the net catches. Consequently, regulation of mesh size is a common way of managing mortality of juvenile fishes in trawl nets.

How trawls work

The idea that fish are passively "scooped up" is commonly held, and has been since trawling was first developed, but has been revealed to be erroneous. Since the development of scuba diving equipment and cheap video cameras it has been possible to directly observe the processes that occur when a trawl is towed along the seabed.

The trawl doors disturb the sea bed, create a cloud of muddy water which hides the oncoming trawl net and generates a noise which attracts fish. The fish begin to swim in front of the net mouth, but do not seem to be distressed by it. As the trawl continues along the seabed, fish begin to tire and slip backwards into the net. Finally, the fish become exhausted and drop back, into the "cod end" and are caught. The speed that the trawl is towed at depends on the swimming speed of the species which is being targeted and the exact gear that is being used, but for most demersal species, a speed of around 4 knots (7 km/h) is appropriate.

Environmental impacts

Bottom fishing has operated for over a century on heavily fished grounds such as the North Sea and Grand Banks. Although overfishing has caused huge ecological changes to the fish community on the Grand Banks, concern has been raised recently about the damage which benthic trawling inflicts upon seabed communities. A species of particular concern is the slow growing, deep water coral Lophelia pertusa. This species is home to a diverse community of deep sea organisms, but is easily damaged by fishing gear. On November 18, 2004 the United Nations General Assembly urged nations to consider temporary bans on high seas bottom trawling.

Resuspension

Bottom trawling stirs up the sediment at the bottom of the sea. The suspended solid plumes can drift with the current for tens of kilometres from the source of the trawling. These plumes introduce a turbidity which decreases light levels at the bottom and can affect kelp reproduction.

Ocean sediments are the sink for many persistent organic pollutants, usually lipophilic pollutants like DDT, PCB and PAH. Bottom trawling mixes these pollutants into the plankton ecology where they can move back up the food chain and into our food supply.

Phosphorus is often found in high concentration in soft shallow sediments. Resuspending nutrient solids like these can introduce oxygen demand into the water column, and result in oxygen deficient dead zones.

Even in areas where the bottom sediments are ancient, bottom trawling, by reintroducing the sediment into the water column, can create harmful algae blooms. More suspended solids are introduced into the oceans from bottom trawling than any other man-made source.

Bottom Trawling

2009-01-02T20:43:00.001-08:00

Bottom trawling is trawling (towing a trawl, which is a fishing net) along the sea floor.

The scientific community divides bottom trawling into benthic trawling and demersal trawling. Benthic trawling is towing a net at the very bottom of the ocean and demersal trawling is towing a net just above the benthic zone.

Bottom trawling can be contrasted with midwater trawling (also known as pelagic trawling), where a net is towed higher in the water column. Midwater trawling catches pelagic fish such as anchovies, shrimp, tuna and mackerel, whereas bottom trawling targets both bottom living fish (groundfish) and semi-pelagic fish such as cod, squid, halibut and rockfish.

Trawling is done by a trawler, which can be a small open boat with only 30 hp or a large factory trawler with 10,000 hp (7,500 kW). Bottom trawling can be carried out by one trawler or by two trawlers fishing cooperatively (pair trawling).

History

An early reference to fishery conservation measures comes from a complaint about a form of trawling dating from the 14th century, during the reign of Edward III. A petition was presented to Parliament in 1376 calling for the prohibition of a "subtlety contrived instrument called the wondyrchoum". This was an early beam trawl with a wooden beam, and consisted of a net 6m (18 ft) long and 3m (l0 ft.) wide,

"of so small a mesh, no manner of fish, however small, entering within it can pass out and is compelled to remain therein and be taken...by means of which instrument the fishermen aforesaid take so great abundance of small fish aforesaid, that they know not what to do with them, but feed and fatten the pigs with them, to the great damage of the whole commons of the kingdom, and the destruction of the fisheries in like places, for which they pray remedy."

Another source describes the wondyrchoun as

"three fathom long and ten mens' feet wide, and that it had a beam ten feet long, at the end of which were two frames formed like a colerake, that a leaded rope weighted with a great many stones was fixed on the lower part of the net between the two frames, and that another rope was fixed with nails on the upper part of the beam, so that the fish entering the space between the beam and the lower net were caught. The net had maskes of the length and breadth of two men’s thumbs”

The response from the Crown was to "let Commission be made by qualified persons to inquire and certify on the truth of this allegation, and thereon let right be done in the Court of Chancery". Thus, already back in the Middle Ages, basic arguments about three of the most sensitive current issues surrounding trawling - the effect of trawling on the wider environment, the use of small mesh size, and of industrial fishing for animal feed - were already being raised.

Although trawl nets were used by sailing vessels up to the 19th century, it was only with the development of steam power and the diesel engine that bottom trawling became a widely used method of fishing.

English commissions in the 19th century determined that there should be no limitation on trawling. They believed that bottom trawling, like tilling of land, actually increased production. As evidence, they noted that a second trawler would often follow a first trawler, and that the second trawler would often harvest even more fish than the first. The reason for this peculiarity is that the destruction caused by the first trawl resulted in many dead and dying organisms, which temporarily attracted a large number of additional species to feed on this moribund mass.

Bottom trawling has been widely implicated in the population collapse of a variety of fish species, locally and worldwide, including orange roughy, barndoor skate, shark, and many others.

Conservation Movement

2008-12-29T01:00:00.000-08:00

The conservation movement also known as nature conservation is a political, social and, to some extent, scientific movement that seeks to protect natural resources including plant and animal species as well as their habitat for the future.

The early conservation movement included fisheries and wildlife management, water, soil conservation and sustainable forestry. The contemporary conservation movement has broadened from the early movement's emphasis on use of sustainable yield of natural resources and preservation of wilderness areas to include preservation of biodiversity. Some say the conservation movement is part of the broader and more far-reaching environmental movement, while others argue that they differ both in ideology and practice. Chiefly in the United States, conservation is seen as differing from environmentalism in that it aims to preserve natural resources expressly for their continued sustainable use by humans. In other parts of the world conservation is used more broadly to include the setting aside of natural areas and the active protection of wildlife for their inherent value, as much as for any value they may have for humans.

History

Early Worldwide Conservation Movement
The nascent conservation movement slowly developed in the 19th century, starting first in the scientific forestry methods pioneered by the Germans and the French in the 17th and 18th centuries. While continental Europe created the scientific methods later used in conservationist efforts, British India and the United States are credited with starting the conservation movement.

Foresters in India, often German, managed forests using early climate change theories (in America, see also, George Perkins Marsh) that Alexander von Humboldt developed in the mid 19th century, applied fire protection, and tried to keep the "house-hold" of nature. This was an early ecological idea, in order to preserve the growth of delicate teak trees. The same German foresters who headed the Forest Service of India, such as Dietrich Brandis and Berthold Ribbentrop, traveled back to Europe and taught at forestry schools in England (Cooper's Hill, later moved to Oxford). These men brought with them the legislative and scientific knowledge of conservationism in British India back to Europe, where they distributed it to men such as Gifford Pinchot, which in turn helped bring European and British Indian methods to the United States.

Philosophy of Early American Conservation Movement
During the nineteenth century, Americans developed a deep and abiding passion for nature. The early evolution of the Conservation movement began through both public and private recognition of the relationship between man and nature often reflected in the great literary and artistic works of the nineteenth century. Artists, such as Albert Beirstadt, painted powerful landscapes of the American West during the mid nineteenth century, which were incredibly popular images representative of the unique natural wonders of the American frontier. Likewise, in 1860, Frederic Edwin Church painted "Twilight in the Wilderness," which was an artistic masterpiece of the era that explored the growing importance of the American wilderness.

Many American writers also romanticized and focused upon nature as a subject matter. However, the most notable literary figure upon the early conservation movement proved to be Henry David Thoreau. Throughout his work, Walden, Thoreau detailed his experiences at the natural setting of Walden Pond and his deep appreciation for nature. In one instance, he described a deep grief for a tree that was cut down. Thoreau went on to bemoan the lack of reverence for the natural world: “I would that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when they came to thin, or let in the light to, a consecrated grove.” As he states in Walden, Thoreau “was interested in the preservation” of nature. In 1860, Henry David Thoreau delivered a speech to the Middlesex Agricultural Society in Massachusetts; the speech, entitled "The Succession of Forest Trees," explored forest ecology and encouraged the agricultural community to plant trees. This speech became one of Thoreau’s “most influential ecological contributions to conservationist thought.”

The early Conservation movement in the United States was also successful due to the hard work of John Muir. Muir was a former carriage worker that was nearly blinded by an accident at work. After almost losing his sight, Muir decided to see “America’s natural wonders.” Based upon his travels throughout Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Muir wrote a collection of articles for “Century” Magazine, entitled “Studies in the Sierra.” In 1892, John Muir joined forces with the editor of “Century” Magazine, Robert Underwood Johnson, to establish the Sierra Club, an organization designed to protect America’s natural resources and public parks. Early Americans recognized the importance of natural resources and the necessity of wilderness preservation for sustained yield harvesting of natural resources. In essence, the preservation of wilderness and landscapes were recognized as critical for future generations and their continued subsistence in a healthy environment. The foundation of the conservation movement is grounded during this period between 1850 and 1920. Ultimately, historical trends and cultural mind-sets were united, which influenced ideas and policy towards the early history of the Conservation Movement in the United States.

Early American Conservation Movement
America had its own Conservation Movement in the 19th century, most often characterized by George Perkins Marsh, author of Man and Nature. The expedition into northwest Wyoming in 1871 led by F.V. Hayden and accompanied by photographer William Henry Jackson provided the imagery needed to substantiate rumors about the grandeur of the Yellowstone region, and resulted in the creation of Yellowstone National Park, the world's first, in 1872. Travels by later U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt through the region around Yellowstone provided the impetus for the creation of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve in 1891. The largest section of the reserve was later renamed Shoshone National Forest, and it is the oldest National Forest in the U.S. But it was not until 1898 when German forester Dr. Carl A. Schenck, on the Biltmore Estate, and Cornell University founded the first two forestry schools, both run by Germans. Bernard Fernow, founder of the forestry schools at Cornell University and the University of Toronto, was originally from Prussia (Germany), and he honed his knowledge from Germans who pioneered forestry in India. He introduced Gifford Pinchot, the "father of American forestry," to Brandis and Ribbentrop in Europe. From these men, Pinchot learned the skills and legislative patterns he would later apply to America. Pinchot, in his memoir history Breaking New Ground, credited Brandis especially with helping to form America's conservation laws. Conservation means the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time. — Pinchot

Pinchot wrote that the principles of conservation were:

Development: "the use of the natural resources now existing on this continent for the benefit of the people who live here now. There may be just as much waste in neglecting the development and use of certain natural resources as there is in their destruction. … The development of our natural resources and the fullest use of them for the present generation is the first duty of this generation."
Preservation: "…the prevention of waste in all other directions is a simple matter of good business. The first duty of the human race is to control the earth it lives upon."
Protection of the public interests: "The natural resources must be developed and preserved for the benefit of the many, and not merely for the profit of a few."

In 1891, Congress passed the Forest Reserve Act, which allowed the President of the United States to set aside forest lands on public domain. A decade after the Forest Reserve Act, presidents Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley had transferred approximately fifty million acres into the forest reserve system. However, President Theodore Roosevelt is credited with the institutionalization of the Conservation movement in the United States.

For President Roosevelt, the Conservation Movement was not about the preservation of nature simply for nature itself. After his experiences traveling as an enthusiastic hunter, Roosevelt became convinced of “the need for measures to protect the game species from further destruction and eventual extinction.” President Roosevelt recognized the necessity of carefully managing America’s natural resources. According to Roosevelt, “We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so.” Nonetheless, Roosevelt believed that Conservation of America’s natural resources was for the successful management and continued sustain yield harvesting of these resources in the future for the benefit and enjoyment of the American people. Roosevelt took several major steps to further his conservation goals.In 1902, Roosevelt signed the National Reclamation Act, which allowed for the management and settlement of a large tract of barren land. Then, in 1905, President Roosevelt helped to create the United States Forest Service and then appointed respected forester, Gifford Pinchot, as the first head of the agency. By the end of his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt, in partnership with Gifford Pinchot, had successfully increased the number of national parks as well as add acreage to existing forest reserves.

Despite these advancements, the American conservation movement did have difficulties.In the early 1900s the Conservation movement in America was split into two main groups: conservationists, like Pinchot and Roosevelt, who were utilitarian foresters and natural rights advocates who wanted to protect forests "for the greater good for the greatest length," and preservationists, such as John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club. Important differences separated conservationists like Roosevelt and Pinchot from preservationists like Muir. As a preservationist, Muir envisioned the maintenance of pristine natural environments where any development was banned. Whereas conservationists wanted regulated use of forest lands for both public activities and commercial endeavors, preservationists wanted forest to be preserved for natural beauty, scientific study and recreation. The differences continue to the modern era, with sustainable harvest and multiple-use the major focus of the U.S. Forest Service and recreation emphasized by the National Park Service.

Arboretum

2008-12-26T01:00:00.000-08:00

An arboretum is a collection of trees. Related collections include a fruticetum (from the Latin frutex, meaning shrub), and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of primarily woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study. An arboretum specialising in growing conifers is known as a pinetum.

Invention

The term 'arboretum' was first used in an English publication by John Claudius Loudon in 1833 in The Gardener's Magazine but the concept was already long-established by then.

The first arboretum was the Arboretum Trsteno, near Dubrovnik in Croatia. The date of its founding is unknown, but it was already in existence by 1492, when a 15 m (50 ft) span aqueduct to irrigate the arboretum was constructed; this aqueduct is still in use. It was created by the prominent local Gučetić/Gozze family. It suffered two major disasters in the 1990s but its two unique and ancient Oriental Planes remained standing.

Commenting on Loddiges' famous Hackney Botanic Garden arboretum, begun in 1816, and opened free to the public for educational benefit every Sunday, Loudon wrote: "The arboretum looks better this season than it has ever done since it was planted... The more lofty trees suffered from the late high winds, but not materially. We walked round the two outer spirals of this coil of trees and shrubs; viz. from Acer to Quercus. There is no garden scene about London so interesting". A plan of Loddiges' arboretum was included in The Encyclopaedia of Gardening, 1834 edition. Leaves from Loddiges' arboretum and in some instances entire trees, were studiously drawn to illustrate Loudon's encyclopaedic book Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum published in 1838, which also incorporated drawings from other early botanic gardens and parklands throughout the United Kingdom.

The Westonbirt Arboretum, near Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England, was founded around 1828 as the private tree collection of Captain Robert Holford at the Holford estate. Holford planted in open fields and laid out rides before he rebuilt the house. Planting at Westonbirt was continued by his son, George Holford. Eventually the estate passed to the government in lieu of death duties and was opened to the public. Also the word "arbortorium" was changed to arboretum back in the early 50's.

Later examples

During part of the 18th century, Abney Park Cemetery was the largest arboretum in Europe.

Abney Park Arboretum
Shortly before the Derby Arboretum opened, a more complete arboretum was opened for free public access at Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington near London, modelled partly on Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston and designed by Loddiges nursery. It was laid out with 2,500 trees and shrubs, all labelled and arranged in an unusual alphabetical format from A for Acer (maple trees) to Z for Zanthoxylum (American toothache trees). Until Kew was enlarged and opened to the public, this remained the largest arboretum in Europe. It never achieved the recognition of the better financed early nineteenth century botanical gardens and arboreta that could afford members' events, indoor facilities and curatoral staff for those who paid accordingly. However unlike these, and even unlike the 'public' arboretum at Derby, the Abney Park arboretum always offered public access free of charge, though sometimes, by pre-arrangement; a Viewing Order was needed so as not to interefere with funeral events.

Arnold Arboretum
Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts is one of the oldest, largest, and most famous arboreta in the United States. It was established in 1872 on 107 ha (264 acres) of land in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston and was guided for many years by Charles Sprague Sargent who was appointed the Arboretum's first director in 1873 and spent the following 54 years shaping the policies. By an arrangement with the city of Boston, the Arnold Arboretum became part of the famous "Emerald Necklace", the 10 km (7 mile) long network of parks and parkways that Frederick Law Olmsted laid out for the Boston Parks Department between 1878 and 1892.

Arborétum Mlyňany
Arborétum Mlyňany is located in the area of two neighboring villages Vieska nad Žitavou and Tesárske Mlyňany near Zlaté Moravce, Slovakia. It was established in 1892 by Hungarian Count István Ambrózy-Migazzi. Today, it is governed by the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Within its 67 ha (165 acre) area, the arboretum features more than 2300 woody plant species, being one of the largest collections in Central Europe.

Batsford Arboretum
Situated one and a quarter miles west of Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, Batsford Arboretum is tucked away on a south facing escarpment of the famous Cotswold Hills.

Bedgebury Pinetum
Bedgebury Pinetum near Goudhurst, Kent is one of the world's most complete collections of conifers.

Derby Arboretum
The first public arboretum in England was Derby Arboretum, laid out by J.C. Loudon, and donated to the citizens of Derby by Joseph Strutt, on Wednesday 16 September 1840. In 1859 it was visited by Frederick Law Olmsted on his European tour of parks, and it had an influence on the planting in Central Park, New York. Loudon wrote a catalogue of the trees in Derby Arboretum in 1840. Industrial pollution killed most of the original plantings by the 1880s, but it is being renovated and replanted closer to Loudon's original layout.

Edith J. Carrier Arboretum
The Edith J. Carrier Arboretum it located at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, U.S.. Groundbreaking took place in April 1985 under direction of Dr. Norlyn Bodkin who is credited the first scientific botanical discovery along the Eastern Seaboard of Virginia since the 1940s, Trillium: Shenandoah Wake Robin, presently found at the arboretum. The only arboretum located on the campus of a Virginia state university. Exhibits include an acidic sphagnum bog supporting northern species and insectivorous plants, the only shale barren with endemic species in an arboretum, rare endangered large-flowered azaleas, 125 acres (0.51 km2) of mature Oak-Hickory Forrest including two identified century specimens, and a species on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Threatened Species list found protected and propagated at the arboretum: Betula uber, Round-Leaf Birch.

Holden Arboretum
The Holden Arboretum, in Kirtland, Ohio, USA, is one of the largest arboretums and botanical gardens in the United States, with over 3,400 acres (1,376 ha), 600 acres (243 ha) of which are devoted to collections and gardens. The Arboretum is named for Albert Fairchild Holden, a mining engineer and executive, who had considered making Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum his beneficiary. However, his sister, Roberta Holden Bole, convinced him that Cleveland deserved its own arboretum. Thus Mr. Holden established an arboretum in memory of his deceased daughter, Elizabeth Davis.

Hoyt Arboretum
Located in Portland, Oregon, United States, the Hoyt Arboretum has over 75 ha (185 acres) and close to 8,300 different species of plants.
A woodland ecosystem in the Morton Arboretum.

Jubilee Arboretum
This is located at RHS Garden, Wisley, Surrey, England.

Lincoln Arboretum, England
Affectionately referred to as "The Arb", Lincoln Arboretum is to the east of the City and retains it line of sight up the hill to the nearby Lincoln Cathedral. This was one of the original design features. It was laid out between 1870 and 1872 by Edward Milner and has been renovated since 2002.

Morton Arboretum
Located in Lisle, Illinois the Morton Arboretum was founded in 1922 by Joy Morton, founder of the Morton Salt Company and son of Arbor Day originator Julius Sterling Morton. At 687 ha (1,700 acres) the Arboretum is one of the largest in the world, and features several mature deciduous and coniferous forests, as well as collections of plant life from around the globe, in addition to ten lakes, several wetlands, and a 40 ha (100 acre) restored prairie.

Nottingham Arboretum
Affectionately referred to as "The Arb", the Nottingham Arboretum is a large park that also gives its name to the residential area - in which it lies - of the City of Nottingham, England.

Peru State College Arboretum
Peru State College’s “Campus of a Thousand Oaks,” an arboretum campus, is nestled in historic southeast Nebraska. The state’s first and fastest-growing college, Peru State was established by the Nebraska legislature in 1867 and now offers a unique mix of innovative online and traditional classroom undergraduate and graduate programs.

The Arboretum at Flagstaff
The Arboretum at Flagstaff, at 7,150 feet (2180 m) above sea level, focuses on the native plants that thrive in the high, arid environment of the Colorado Plateau. The 200-acre (0.81 km2) facility also is unique in that it offers daily raptor programs during its April - October visitor season.

The Tasmanian Arboretum
The Tasmanian Arboretum was established in 1984 on the Don River in Devonport, Tasmania, Australia. The main site is 58ha. There are over 2500 plants in the geographic and thematic collections along with riparian revegetation. Maintenance of the collections is done by volunteers.

United States National Arboretum
In 1927 the United States National Arboretum was established in Washington D.C. on 180 ha (444 acres) of land; currently it receives over half a million annual visitors. Single-genus groupings include apples, azaleas, boxwoods, dogwoods, hollies, magnolias and maples. Other major garden features include collections of herbaceous and aquatic plants, the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum, the Asian Collections, the Conifer Collections, native plant collections, the National Herb Garden and the 'National Grove' of all the designated State Trees.

University of Wisconsin Arboretum
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum in Madison, Wisconsin is a study collection devoted to ecology rather than systematics. Founded in the 1930s, it was a Civilian Conservation Corps project which restored a body of land to its presettlement state. Portions of the Walt Disney nature documentary, "The Vanishing Prairie", were filmed there, notably the prairie fire, filmed during a controlled burn at the Arboretum. The 1911 Lynn Street Aqueduct in the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle

Washington Park Arboretum
The Washington Park Arboretum at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington was established in 1934 as a public space that would agreed upon by the University of Washington and the City of Seattle. Seattle at the time had in its possession a 500+ ha (1200+ acre) park known as Washington park located in the central portion of the city, and the University was given authority to design, construct, plant, and manage an Arboretum and Botanical Garden in this park. It has been a popular destination of Seattlites ever since. In 2005, the Washington Park Arboretum, as well as the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture, Elisabeth C. Miller Library, Otis Hyde Herbarium and Union Bay Natural Area, began operating under the umbrella of the University of Washington Botanic Gardens.

West Dean, St Roches' Arboretum
The St Roche's Arboretum at West Dean College is a 2 ½ mile circuit walk that encompasses a collection of specimen trees and shrubs. Edward James made a significant contribution to its planting, specialising in exotic, pendulous, contorted and twisted trees. It is also his final resting place - he is buried beneath a massive slab of Cumbrian slate inscribed by local artist John Skelton with the simple words 'Edward James, Poet 1907 - 1984'.

Agroecology

2008-12-23T01:00:00.000-08:00

Agroecology is the science of applying ecological concepts and principles to the design, development, and management of sustainable agricultural systems. Agroecologists study the life in and around the soil to enhance yields, overcome pests, and increase overall productivity. They may measure the soil life, texture, structure, pH, moisture, and numerous other qualities. Soil life has been shown to be particularly important in the cycling of nutrients necessary for high yields. In addition to the study of the soil, agrecologists must be aware of the broad ecosystem within which a farm operates. By understanding predators and the complex interrelationships among plants and animals, agroecologists can make the environment work for rather than against farmers.

While farming methods vary, traditional manipulated "agroecosystems" generally differ from natural ecosystems in several ways. Whereas conventional farming generally involves maintenance at an early successional state, monoculture, crops generally planted in rows, simplification of biodiversity, intensive tillage, which exposes soil to erosion, use of genetically modified organisms and artificially selected crops. agroecology minimizes these practices if possible.

An agroecosystem is a key idea in agroecology - they are defined as "semi-domesticated ecosystems that fall on a gradient between ecosystems that have experienced minimal human impact, and those under maximum human control, like cities.". Thus agroecosystems are generally defined as novel ecosystems that produce food via farming under human guidance. At its most narrow, "agroecology refers to the study of purely ecological phenomena within the crop field, such as predator/prey relations, or crop/weed competition."

The agroecologist views any farming system primarily with an ecologist's eye; that is, it is not firstly economic (created for a commodity and profit), nor industrial (modeled after a factory). In fact, agroecosystems are both understood and designed following ecological principles. An example is the control of problematic pests through introduction of other species, not application of pesticides to kill that pest. A common example of this would be intercropping to attract beneficial insects within rows of a given plagued crop. The insects would balance the disturbed ecology represented by the pest, thus eliminating unsustainable practices such as increasingly intensified pesticide use.

The term itself appeared in the late 1970s. It arose from the recognition that Green Revolution-era agroecosystems were highly dependent upon inputs such as pesticides, capital-intensive machinery, and specific seed varieties engineered or bred in the global North. The impacts of such agricultural systems have tended to exacerbate the intertwined social, political, and economic problems of the developing countries, or the global South.

K.H.W. Klages is credited as one of the first to discuss ecology and agriculture.

Practitioners take a critical view of modern industrial agricultural techniques, and see the industrial model as fundamentally or radically (at its roots) unsustainable.

Some current world issues that tie into agroecology - and its coupling of agronomy with the social sciences - include food sovereignty and rural development.

An important movement which can be related to agroecology is agrarianism. Another current trend that has informed much work in agroecology is traditional agriculture or indigenous agriculture.

Latin America and Agroecology

Because of the ideological differences between industrial or mechanized agriculture and agroecology, its application has thus far been relatively limited in the U.S. (the country where industrial agriculture has been advanced the furthest). Latin America's experiences with North American Green Revolution agricultural techniques have opened space for agroecologists. Some countries where agroecological research and practice have flourished include Costa Rica, Cuba and Brazil.

Traditional or indigenous knowledge represents a wealth of possibility for agroecologists. The relationship between agronomists and traditional (often subsistence farmers) practitioners has been termed an "exchange of wisdoms." This recognizes that Western science has some solutions and innovations to offer, while local knowledge systems developed over thousands of years have just as much, if not more, to offer. This becomes more evident still when the importance and uniqueness of local ecologies are understood as underpinning agricultural systems.

Madagascar and Agroecology

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Most of the historical farming in Madagascar has been conducted by indigenous peoples. The French colonial period disturbed a very small percentage of land area, and even included some useful experiments in sustainable forestry. Slash-and-burn techniques, a component of some shifting cultivation systems have been practised by natives in Madagascar for centuries. As of 2006 some of the major agricultural products from slash-and-burn methods are wood, charcoal and grass for Zebu grazing. These practises have taken perhaps the greatest toll on land fertility since the end of French rule, mainly due to overpopulation pressures.

The Madagascar dry deciduous forests have been preserved generally better than the eastern rainforests or the high central plateau, presumably due to historically less population density and scarcity of water; moreover, the present day lack of road access further limits human access. There has been some slash-and-burn activity in the western dry forests, reducing forest cover and the soil nutrient content. Slash-and-burn is a method sometimes used by shifting cultivators to create short term yields from marginal soils. When practiced repeatedly, or without intervening fallow periods, the nutrient poor soils may be exhausted or eroded to an unproductive state. Further protection of Madagascar's forests would assist in preservation of these diverse ecosystems, which have a very high ratio of endemic organisms to total species.

A switch to slash-and-char would considerably advance preservation, while the ensuing biochar would also greatly benefit the soil if returned to it while mixed with compostable biomass such as crop residues. This would lead to the creation of terra preta, a soil among the richest on the planet and the only one known to regenerate itself (although how this happens exactly is still a mystery). The nascent carbon trading market may further bring direct economical benefits for the operators, since charcoal is a prime sequester of carbon and burying it spread in small pieces, as Terra preta requires, is a most efficient guarantee that it will remain harmless for many thousands of years.

Seedbank

2008-12-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

A seedbank stores seeds as a source for planting in case seed reserves elsewhere are destroyed. It is a type of gene bank. The seeds stored may be food crops, or those of rare species to protect biodiversity. The reasons for storing seeds may be varied. In the case of food crops, many useful plants that were developed over centuries are now no longer used for commercial agricultural production and are becoming rare. Storing seeds also guards against catastrophic events like natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, or war.

Seed dormancy

Orthodox seeds can stay dormant for decades in a cool and dry environment, with little damage to their DNA; they remain viable and are easily stored in seedbanks. By contrast, recalcitrant seeds are damaged by dryness and subzero temperature, and so must be continuously replanted to replenish seed stocks. Examples are the seeds of cocoa and rubber.

Optimal storage conditions

Seeds are dried to a moisture content of less than 6%. The seeds are then stored in freezers at -18°C or below. Because seed DNA degrades with time, the seeds need to be periodically replanted and fresh seeds collected for another round of long-term storage.

Challenges

Stored specimens have to be regularly replanted when they begin to lose viability.
Only a limited part of the world's biodiversity is stored.
It is difficult or impossible to store recalcitrant seeds.
Only 15% of all seedbanked plants are wild species; the remainder are crops.
There is a need to improve cataloging and data management. The documentation should include identity of the plant stored, location of the sampling, number of seeds stored and viability state. Other information, such as farming systems in which the crops were grown, or rotations they formed, should also be available to future farmers.
Facilities are expensive for third world countries which contain the most biodiversity.
Seed banks may be accused of biopiracy.

Alternatives

In-situ conservation of seed-producing plant species is another conservation strategy. In-situ conservation involves the creation of National Parks, National Forests, and National Wildlife Refuges as a way of preserving the natural habitat of the targeted seed-producing organisms. In-situ conservation of agricultural resources is performed on-farm. This also allows the plants to continue to evolve with their environment through natural selection. An arboretum stores trees by planting them at a protected site.

Longevity

Seeds may be viable for hundreds and even thousands of years. The oldest carbon-14-dated seed that has grown into a viable plant was a Judean date palm seed about 2,000 years old, recovered from excavations at Herod the Great's palace in Israel.

Facilities

There are about 6 million accessions, or samples of a particular population, stored as seeds in about 1,300 genebanks throughout the world as of 2006. This amount represents a small fraction of the world's biodiversity, and many regions of the world have not been fully explored.

The Svalbard International Seed Vault has been built inside a mountain in a man-made tunnel on the frozen Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. It is designed to survive catastrophes such as nuclear war and world war. It is operated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust. A tunnel has been created in a sandstone mountain on Spitsbergen, which is part of the Svalbard archipelago, about 966 kilometers (600 miles) from the North Pole. The area's permafrost will keep the vault below the freezing point of water and the seeds are protected by 1-metre thick walls of steel-reinforced concrete. There are two airlocks and two blast-proof doors. The vault accepted the first seeds on 26 February 2008.

The Wellcome Trust Millennium Building (WTMB) houses the Millennium Seed Bank Project. It is located at Wakehurst Place in West Sussex. It provides space for the storage of thousands of seed samples in an underground vault.

Nikolai Vavilov (1887-1943) was a Russian geneticist and botanist who, through botanic-agronomic expeditions, collected seeds from all over the world. He set up one of the first seedbanks, in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), which survived the 28-month Siege of Leningrad in World War II. It is now known as the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry. Several botanists starved to death rather than eating the collected seeds.

Millennium Seed Bank Project

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The Millennium Seed Bank Project is an international conservation project coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Launched in the year 2000 and housed in the Wellcome Trust Millennium Building situated in the grounds of Wakehurst Place West Sussex, its purpose is to provide an "insurance policy" against the extinction of plants in the wild by storing seeds for future use. The storage facilities consist of large underground frozen vaults preserving the world's largest collection of seeds.

In collaboration with other biodiversity projects around the world expeditions are sent to collect seeds from dryland plants. Where possible collections are kept in the country of origin with duplicates being sent to the Millennium Seed Bank Project for storage. Major partnerships exist on all the continents, enabling the countries involved to meet international objectives such as the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation and the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations Environment Programme. In April 2007 it banked its billionth seed, the Oxytenanthera abyssinica, a type of African bamboo.

Project aims

The main aims of the project are to:

collect the seeds from 24,000 species of plants by 2010, representing 10% of the worlds dryland flora.
collect seeds from all of the UK's native flora.
further research into conservation and preservation of seeds and plants.
act a as a focal point for research in this area and encourage public interest.

International partnerships

Partnerships exist in Australia, China, the Americas, Jordan, the Lebanon, and North and South Africa. Australia is particularly significant as its flora constitutes 15% of the world's total of species, with 22% of them identified as under threat of extinction.

Preservation of seeds

When the seeds arrive they need to be cleaned and their identification confirmed. They are then dried, repackaged and stored in sub-zero conditions. When seeds required for research are used up, and to check the viability and storage conditions, seeds are germinated on periodic basis. Plants from stored seeds are also grown where viability in the wild has fallen to low levels, and the resultants seeds are distributed where needed. All seeds provided to institutions are on a non-profit mutual benefit basis.

MARXAN

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MARXAN is a piece of software designed to aid systematic reserve design on conservation planning. With the use of stochastic optimisation routines (Simulated Annealing) it generates spatial reserve systems that achieve particular biodiversity representation goals with reasonable optimality.

Computationally, MARXAN provides solutions to a conservation version of the 0-1 knapsack problem, where the objects of interest are potential reserve sites with given biological attributes. The simulated annealing algorithm attempts to minimise the total cost of the reserve system, while achieving a set of conservation goals (typically that a certain percentage of each geographical/biological feature is represented by the reserve system).

History

MARXAN is a portmanteau acronym, fusing MARine, and SPEXAN, itself an acronymn for SPatially EXplicit ANnealing. It was a product of Ian Ball's PhD thesis, while he was a student at the University of Adelaide in 2000, and was supervised and funded by Hugh Possingham, who currently holds a Federation Fellowship at the University of Queensland. It was an extension of the existing SPEXAN program.

Application

MARXAN is the most widely used systematic reserve planning software in the world, and has most famously been used to create the marine reserve network on the Great Barrier Reef, in Queensland, Australia, the largest marine protected area on the planet. It has been used for many other marine reserve planning applications, including:

Florida Keys
Channel Islands of California
Gulf of Mexico
Galapagos Islands
South Australia
British Columbia
Connecticut/New York
Central Coast of California

MARXAN has been used extensively by The Nature Conservancy (e.g., their Carolinan Marine Ecosystem Assessment), and is a major part of the systematic planning tools being used in the Global Marine Initiative. The World Wildlife Fund used MARXAN to define a Global set of Marine Protected Areas, the Roadmap to Recovery, which they used to petition the UN about the creation of open ocean marine reserve networks.

The software has also been used in terrestrial applications, such as:

The North American Wildlands Project.
Selecting priority areas for Global Mammal Assemblages .
Planning the conservation of ecosystem services.
The Great Sand Hills of Saskatchewan Regional Environmental Study.

Shortcomings

One shortcoming of MARXAN is its inability to deal with issues of demographic inter-connectedness. In marine systems, the presence of a biological feature does not guarantee the persistence of that feature in the absence of the surrounding ecosystem. This is a concept generally known as "connectivity". MARXAN considers that including into a reserve system a site that contains a particular feature will ensure the persistence of that feature, even though surrounding sites may not be included in the reserve system, and may therefore be ecologically compromised. MARXAN does employ a "boundary length modifier", which attempts to minimise the boundary length to area ratio, thus increasing the continuity of the reserve systems. This ad-hoc alteration may go some way to addressing the problem.

Shark Bay Marine Park

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Shark Bay Marine Park is located at Shark Bay World Heritage Site, Western Australia, over 800 km north of Perth. It is the site of the world's largest seagrass meadows, with a total of twelve species of seagrass in the park. Shark Bay Marine Park is also home to a variety of marine life, including sea turtles, dolphins, whales, dugongs, and smaller animals such as prawns and scallops. Major reference points of its boundaries include Steep Point at the south side of Dirk Hartog Island and Cape Inscription at the north side.

Fishing Rules

The marine park comes under the Gascoyne Fishing Rules and these rules specify the waters of the Shark Bay area as such (these are also known as the Shark Bay Inner gulfs)
Eastern Gulf Zone (that is east of the Peron Peninsula and north from Cape Peron North ( 25° 30.2‘ S. 113° 30.6’ E) to a line at (25° 16.6’ S) and east to the coast of the mainland. The southern portion of this zone - the Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve has no fishing allowed.
Denham Sound also known as Western Gulf Zone south to line at Goulet Bluff ( 25° 13’ S ) which separates the Freycinet Estuary
The Fisheries department also produces a Species Identification Guide to coincide with the rules

Australian Whale Sanctuary

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The Australian Whale Sanctuary is a non-contiguous area overlapping Australian territorial waters. It was established in 1999 to protect dolphins and whales from hunting. The zone includes the country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which is the area 200 nautical miles surrounding the continent of Australia and its external dependencies such as Christmas Island (in the Indian Ocean), Cocos (Keeling) Island, Norfolk Island, Heard Island and Macdonald Island. It also includes the EEZ around the Australian Antarctic Territory, but this is not recognised by all countries.

The Sanctuary is the scene of an ongoing controversy between Australia and Japan. Australia, opposed to whaling. In 2008 the Australian Federal Court ruled it was illegal for the Japanese whaling fleet to kill whales in the Sanctuary.

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

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The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park protects a large part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef from damaging activities. Fishing and the removal of artifacts or wildlife (fish, coral, sea shells etc) is strictly regulated, and commercial shipping traffic must stick to certain specific defined shipping routes that avoid the most sensitive areas of the park.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) are the administrators of the park. They issue permits for various forms of use of the marine park, monitor usage in the park to ensure compliance with park management. The GBRMPA is funded by Commonwealth Government Appropriations that includes an environmental management charge levied on the permit-holders passengers. Currently this is AUD$4.50 per day per passenger (to a maximum of $13.50 per trip).

History

In 1975, the Government of Australia enacted the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975, which created the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and defined what acts were prohibited on the Reef. The Australian Government also has recognised the ecological significance of this Park by its inclusion in the nation's Biodiversity Action Plan. The Government of Australia manages the reef through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and in partnership with the Government of Queensland, to ensure that it is widely understood and used in a sustainable manner. A combination of zoning, management plans, permits, education and incentives (such as eco-tourism certification) are used in the effort to conserve the Great Barrier Reef.

As many species of the Great Barrier Reef are migratory, many international, national, and interstate conventions or pieces of legislation must be taken into account when strategies for conservation are made.

Some international conventions that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park must follow are: the Bonn Convention, RAMSAR (for the Bowling Green Bay National Park site), CITES, JAMBA and CAMBA. Some national legislation that the Park must follow are: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975, Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development, National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity, Australia’s Oceans Policy, National Strategy for the Conservation of Australian Species and Communities Threatened with Extinction. Some state legislation that the Park must follow are: Nature Conservation Act 1992, Marine Parks Act 1982, Fisheries Act 1994, Queensland Nature Conservation (Wildlife) Regulation 1994.

For example, the Queensland Government has enacted several plans attempting to regulate fishing. The East Coast Trawl Management Plan 1999 aimed to regulate trawling through limiting the times when trawling is permitted and restricting gear used. The Fisheries (Coral Reef Fin Fish Fishery) Management Plan 2003 aimed at reducing the annual commercial catch to 1996 levels, disallowing fishing when the fish are spawning and increasing the minimum legal size of fish.

The Great Barrier Reef was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981.Up until 1999, there were four main zones in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. They were the "Far Northern", "Cairns", "Central" and "Mackay/Capricorn" sections. These zoning sections were created between 1983-1987. Another section, the "Gumoo Woojabuddee" section was declared in 1998. Each section had its own zoning plan. The Great Barrier Marine Park Zoning Plan 2003 superseded all previous zoning plans, coming into effect on 1 July 2004.

In July 2004, a new zoning plan was brought into effect for the entire Marine Park, and has been widely acclaimed as a new global benchmark for the conservation of marine ecosystems. The rezoning was based on the application of systematic conservation planning techniques, using the MARXAN software. On 1 July 2004 the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park became the largest protected sea area in the world when the Australian Government increased the areas protected from extractive activities (such as fishing) from 4.6% to 33.3% of the park. As of 2006 the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument is the largest protected marine area in the world. The management committee draws inspiration from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's management strategies.

The current method of zoning is called the "Representative Areas Program", which chooses "typical" areas of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. They can then be protected in "Green Zones" (no-take zones). The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area has been divided into 70 bioregions, of which 30 are reef bioregions,[14] and 40 are non-reef bioregions.

In 2006, a review was undertaken of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. Some recommendations of the review are that there should be no further zoning plan changes until 2013, and that every five years, a peer-reviewed Outlook Report should be published, examining the health of the Great Barrier Reef, the management of the Reef, and environmental pressures.

In early 2007, the GBRMPA was one of three nominees for the Destination Award in the World Travel and Tourism Council’s Tourism for Tomorrow Awards.

Islands

Beanley Island
Beesley Island
Bewick Island
Blackwood Island
Clerke Island (Queensland)
Howick Island
Lady Elliot Island
Beanley Insel
Beesley Insel
Bewick Insel
Blackwood Insel
Chapman Island
Howick Insel
Lady Elliot Island

Marine Reserve

2008-12-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

A marine reserve is an area of the sea which has legal protection against fishing or development. This is to be distinguished from a marine park, but there is some overlap in usage. As of April 2008 there are no high seas marine reserves, but Greenpeace is campaigning for the "doughnut holes" of the western pacific to be declared as marine reserves. They are campaigning for 40 percent of the world’s oceans to be protected as Marine Reserves.

Marine reserves by country

Australia

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is the largest marine park, at 350,000 km² and is partially a marine reserve.
Australian Whale Sanctuary
Great Australian Bight Marine Park
Shark Bay Marine Park

New Zealand

New Zealand has over thirty marine reserves spread around the North and South Islands and two other outlying islands. These are 'no take' areas where all forms of exploitation are prohibited. Marine reserves are administered by the Department of Conservation.

Marine Park

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A marine park is a park consisting of an area of sea (or lake) sometimes protected for recreational use, but more often set aside to preserve a specific habitat and ensure the ecosystem is sustained for the organisms that exist there. Most marine parks are designated by governments, and organized like watery national parks.

Some marine parks are quite large; the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia is the largest, at 350,000 km².

Although for many uses it is sufficient to designate the boundaries of the marine park and to inform commercial fishing boats and other maritime enterprises, some parks have gone to additional effort to make their wonders accessible to visitors. These can range from glass-bottomed boats, to small submarines, to windowed undersea tubes.

In New Zealand a marine reserve is an area which has a higher degree of legal protection than marine parks for conservation purposes.

In New South Wales, there are planned marine parks which will stretch along the coastline of the entire state.

Marine parks around the globe

High seas

As of April 2008 there are no high seas marine reserves, but Greenpeace is campaigning for the "doughnut holes" of the western pacific to be declared as marine reserves.They are also campaigning for 40 percent of the world’s oceans to be protected as marine reserves.

Americas

Allan H. Treman State Marine Park, United States
Fathom Five National Marine Park, Canada
Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, United States
Fort Jefferson National Monument, United States
John Pennekamp Coral Reefs State Park
Saba Marine Park, Saba
Montego Bay Marine Park, Jamaica
Hol Chan Reserve (Belize)
Half Moon Caye Natural Monument (Belize)

Africa

Kisite-Mpunguti Marine National Park, Kenya

Oceania

Papua NG

Papua Barrier Reef

New Zealand

Mimiwhangata Marine Park
Tawharanui Marine Park
Hauraki Gulf Marine Park

Micronesia

Enipein Pah, near Pohnpei

Samoa

American Samoa National Park

Phillipines

Tubbataha reef

Australia

The Australian Government manages an estate of marine protected areas (MPA) that are Commonwealth reserves under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

Australian Whale Sanctuary
Shark Bay Marine Park
Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve
Cartier Island Marine Reserve
Cod Grounds Commonwealth Marine Reserve
Coringa-Herald National Nature Reserve and
Lihou Reef National Nature Reserve (Coral Sea Island Territory)
Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Nature Reserve
Great Australian Bight Marine Park (Commonwealth Waters)
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve
Lord Howe Island Marine Park (Commonwealth Waters)
Macquarie Island Marine Park
Mermaid Reef Marine National Nature Reserve
Ningaloo Marine Park (Commonwealth Waters)
Solitary Islands Marine Reserve (Commonwealth Waters)
South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserve Network

New South Wales

These are referred aquatic reserves declared under the Fisheries Management Act 1994

Cook Island (Tweed Heads)
Barrenjoey Head (Hawkesbury River)
Narrabeen Head
Long Reef
Cabbage Tree Bay (Manly)
North (Sydney) Harbour
Bronte-Coogee
Cape Banks (La Perouse)
Boat Harbour (Kurnell)
Towra Point (Botany Bay)
Shiprock (Port Hacking)
Bushrangers Bay (Shell Harbour)

Europe

Iroise Marine Park, Brittany, France
Marine Park Rhyl, North Wales

Freshwater

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Freshwater ecoregions are the freshwater habitats of a particular geographic area, including rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands. Freshwater ecoregions are distinct from terrestrial ecoregions, which identify biotic communities of the land, and marine ecoregions, which are biotic communities of the oceans.

WWF identifies seven major habitat types of freshwater ecoregions: Large rivers, large river headwaters, large river deltas, small rivers, large lakes, small lakes, and xeric basins.

Several freshwater ecoregions are listed in the Global 200, the WWF's priority ecoregions for conservation of biodiversity.

Marine

2008-11-23T01:00:00.000-08:00

Marine ecoregions are regions of the world's oceans, as defined by WWF to aid in conservation activities for marine ecosystems.

The WWF/Nature Conservancy scheme groups the individual ecoregions into 12 marine realms, which represent the broad latitudinal divisions of polar, temperate, and tropical seas, with subdivisions based on ocean basins (except for the southern hemisphere temperate oceans, which are based on continents). The marine realms are subdivided into 62 marine provinces, which include one or more of the 232 marine ecoregions.

The scheme used to designate and classify marine ecoregions is analogous to that used for terrestrial ecoregions. Major habitat types are identified: polar, temperate shelves and seas, temperate upwelling, tropical upwelling, tropical coral, pelagic (trades and westerlies), abyssal, and hadal (ocean trench. These correspond to the terrestrial biomes. Major biogeographic realms, analogous to the seven terrestrial ecozones, represent large regions of the ocean basins: North Temperate Atlantic, Eastern Tropical Atlantic, Western Tropical Atlantic, South Temperate Atlantic, North Temperate Indo-Pacific, Central Indo-Pacific, Eastern Indo-Pacific, Western Indo-Pacific, South Temperate Indo-Pacific, Southern Ocean, Antarctic, Arctic, and Mediterranean.

The classification of Marine ecoregions is not developed to the same level of detail and comprehensiveness as that of the terrestrial ecoregions; only the priority conservation areas of the Global 200 are listed.

See Global 200 Marine ecoregions for a full list of marine ecoregions (World Wildlife Fund).

A similar system of identifying areas of the oceans for conservation purposes is the system of large marine ecosystems (LMEs), developed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Terrestrial

2008-11-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

Terrestrial ecoregions are land ecoregions, as distinct from freshwater and marine ecoregions. In this context, terrestrial is used to mean "of land" (soil and rock), rather than the more general sense "of Earth" (which includes land and oceans).

WWF ecologists currently divide the land surface of the Earth into 8 major ecozones containing 867 smaller terrestrial ecoregions . The WWF effort is a synthesis of many previous efforts to define and classify ecoregions. Many consider this classification to be quite decisive, and some propose these as stable borders for bioregional democracy initiatives.

The eight terrestrial ecozones follow the major floral and faunal boundaries, identified by botanists and zoologists, that separate the world's major plant and animal communities. Ecozone boundaries generally follow continental boundaries, or major barriers to plant and animal distribution, like the Himalayas and the Sahara. The boundaries of ecoregions are often not as decisive or well recognized, and are subject to greater disagreement.

Ecoregions are classified by biome type, which are the major global plant communities determined by rainfall and climate. Forests, grasslands (including savanna and shrubland), and deserts (including xeric shrublands) are distinguished by climate (tropical and subtropical vs. temperate and boreal climates) and, for forests, by whether the trees are predominantly conifers (gymnosperms), or whether they are predominantly broadleaf (Angiosperms) and mixed (broadleaf and conifer). Biome types like Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and shrub, tundra, and mangroves host very distinct ecological communities, and are recognized as distinct biome types as well.

Ecoregion

2008-11-17T01:00:00.000-08:00

An ecoregion (ecological region), sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area smaller than a "realm" or "ecozone". Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural communities and species. The biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions.

beyond the new millennium. Harwood Academic Publishers: Sydney, Australia. Omernik (2004), elaborates on this by defining ecoregions as: “areas within which there is spatial coincidence in characteristics of geographical phenomena associated with differences in the quality, health, and integrity of ecosystems”. “Characteristics of geographical phenomena” may include geology, physiography, vegetation, climate, hydrology, terrestrial and aquatic fauna, and soils, and may or may not include the impacts of human activity (e.g. land use patterns, vegetation changes). There is significant, but not absolute, spatial correlation among these characteristics, making the delineation of ecoregions an imperfect science. Another complication is that environmental conditions across an ecoregion boundary may change very gradually, e.g. the prairie-forest transition in the midwestern United States, making it difficult to identify an exact dividing boundary. Such transition zones are called ecotones.

Ecoregions can be delineated using an algorithmic approach or a holistic, “weight-of-evidence” approach where the importance of various factors may vary. An example of the algorithmic approach is Robert Bailey’s work for the U.S. Forest Service, which uses a hierarchical classification that first divides land areas into very large regions based on climatic factors, and subdivides these regions, based first on dominant potential vegetation, and then by geomorphology and soil characteristics. The weight-of-evidence approach is exemplified by James Omernik’s work for the United States Environmental Protection Agency, subsequently adopted (with modification) for North America by the Commission for Environmental Co-operation.

The intended purpose of ecoregion delineation may affect the method used. For example, the WWF ecoregions were developed to aid in biodiversity conservation planning, and place a greater emphasis than the Omernik or Bailey systems on floral and faunal differences between regions. The WWF classification defines an ecoregion as:

A large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities that:

large majority of their species and ecological dynamics
share similar environmental conditions, and;
interact ecologically in ways that are critical for their long-term persistence.

According to WWF, the boundaries of an ecoregion approximate the original extent of the natural communities prior to any major recent disruptions or changes. WWF has identified 825 terrestrial ecoregions, and approximately 450 freshwater ecoregions across the Earth.
Importance

The use of the term ecoregion is an outgrowth of a surge of interest in ecosystems and their functioning. In particular, there is awareness of issues relating to spatial scale in the study and management of landscapes. It is widely recognized that interlinked ecosystems combine to form a whole that is "greater than the sum of its parts." There are many attempts to respond to ecosystems in an integrated way to achieve "multi-functional" landscapes, and various interest groups from agricultural researchers to conservationists are using the "ecoregion" as a unit of analysis.

The "Global 200" is the list of ecoregions identified by WWF as priorities for conservation.

Ecologically-based movements like bioregionalism maintain that ecoregions, rather than arbitrarily-defined political boundaries, provide a better foundation for the formation and governance of human communities, and have proposed ecoregions and watersheds as the basis for bioregional democracy initiatives.

Data Deficient

2008-11-14T01:00:00.000-08:00

Data Deficient (DD) is a category applied by the IUCN to a species when the available information is not sufficient for a proper assessment of conservation status to be made. This does not necessarily indicate that the species has not been extensively studied; but it does indicate that little or no information is available on the abundance and distribution of the species. The IUCN recommends that care be taken to avoid classing species as Data Deficient when the absence of records may actually indicate dangerously low abundance: "If the range of a taxon is suspected to be relatively circumscribed, if a considerable period of time has elapsed since the last record of the taxon, threatened status may well be justified"

Captive Breeding

2008-11-11T01:00:00.000-08:00

Captive breeding is the process of breeding rare or endangered species in human controlled environments with restricted settings, such as wildlife preserves, zoos and other conservation facilities; sometimes the process is construed to include release of individual organisms to the wild, when there is sufficient natural habitat to support new individuals or when the threat to the species in the wild is lessened.

This technique has been used with great success for many species for some time, with probably the oldest known such instances of captive breeding being attributed to menageries of European and Asian rulers, a case in point being the Pere David's Deer. The idea was popularized among modern conservationists independently by Peter Scott and Gerald Durrell in the 1950s and 1960s, founders of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and Jersey Zoo - who demonstrated considerable success with a wide variety of life forms in the 1970s ranging from birds (e.g. Pink Pigeon), mammals (e.g. Pygmy Hog), reptiles (e.g. Round Island Boa) and amphibians (e.g. Poison arrow frogs). Their ideas were independently validated by the success of Operation Oryx (under the auspices of the Fauna and Flora Preservation Society), which successfully captive bred the Arabian Oryx in 1962 and reintroduced them back into Arabia. The Przewalski's horse has recently been re-introduced to the wild in Mongolia, its native habitat.

Such techniques are usually difficult to implement for highly mobile species like some migratory birds (e.g. cranes) and fishes (e.g. Hilsa).

If the captive breeding population is too small, inbreeding may occur due to reduced gene pool, which may lead to the population lacking immunity to diseases and other problems. Over sufficient number of generations, inbred populations can regain "normal" genetic diversity.

The breeding of endangered species is coordinated by cooperative breeding programmes containing international studbooks and coordinators, who evaluate the roles of individual animals and institutions from a global or regional perspective. There are regional programmes for the conservation of endangered species:

America: Species Survival Plan SSP (American Zoo and Aquarium Association AZA, Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums CAZA)
Europe: European Endangered Species Programme EEP (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria EAZA)
Australasia: Australasian Species Management Program ASMP (Australasian Regional Association of Zoological Parks and Aquaria ARAZPA)
Africa: African Preservation Program APP (African Association of Zoological Gardens and Aquaria PAAZAB)
Japan: Conservation activities of Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums JAZA
South Asia: Conservation activities of South Asian Zoo Association for Regional Cooperation SAZARC
South East Asia: Conservation activities of South East Asian Zoo Association SEAZA

Biodiversity

2008-11-08T01:00:00.000-08:00

Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. The biodiversity found on Earth tomorrow consists of many millions of distinct biological species, which is the product of nearly 3.5 billion years of evolution.

Evolution and meaning

Biodiversity is a portmanteau word, from biology and diversity. The Science Division of The Nature Conservancy used the term "natural diversity" in a 1975 study, "The Preservation of Natural Diversity." The term biological diversity was used even before that by conservation scientists like Robert E. Jenkins and Thomas Lovejoy. The word biodiversity itself may have been coined by W.G. Rosen in 1985 while planning the National Forum on Biological Diversity organized by the National Research Council (NRC) which was to be held in 1986, and first appeared in a publication in 1988 when entomologist E. O. Wilson used it as the title of the proceedings of that forum. The word biodiversity was deemed more effective in terms of communication than biological diversity.

Since 1986 the terms and the concept have achieved widespread use among biologists, environmentalists, political leaders, and concerned citizens worldwide. It is generally used to equate to a concern for the natural environment and nature conservation. This use has coincided with the expansion of concern over extinction observed in the last decades of the 20th century.

The term "natural heritage" pre-dates "biodiversity", though it is a less scientific term and more easily comprehended in some ways by the wider audience interested in conservation. "Natural Heritage" was used when Jimmy Carter set up the Georgia Heritage Trust while he was governor of Georgia; Carter's trust dealt with both natural and cultural heritage. It would appear that Carter picked the term up from Lyndon Johnson, who used it in a 1966 Message to Congress. "Natural Heritage" was picked up by the Science Division of The Nature Conservancy when, under Jenkins, it launched in 1974 the network of State Natural Heritage Programs. When this network was extended outside the USA, the term "Conservation Data Center" was suggested by Guillermo Mann and came to be preferred.

Definitions

The most straightforward definition is "variation of life at all levels of biological organization". A second definition holds that biodiversity is a measure of the relative diversity among organisms present in different ecosystems. "Diversity" in this definition includes diversity within a species and among species, and comparative diversity among ecosystems.

A third definition that is often used by ecologists is the "totality of genes, species, and ecosystems of a region". An advantage of this definition is that it seems to describe most circumstances and present a unified view of the traditional three levels at which biodiversity has been identified:

genetic diversity
species diversity
ecosystem diversity

The 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro defined "biodiversity" as "the variability among living organisms from all sources, including, 'inter alia', terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which they are part: this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems". This is, in fact, the closest thing to a single legally accepted definition of biodiversity, since it is the definition adopted by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

If the gene is the fundamental unit of natural selection, according to E. O. Wilson, the real biodiversity is genetic diversity. For geneticists, biodiversity is the diversity of genes and organisms. They study processes such as mutations, gene exchanges, and genome dynamics that occur at the DNA level and generate evolution.

Threats to Biodiversity

During the last century, erosion of biodiversity has been increasingly observed. Some studies show that about one eighth known plant species is threatened with extinction. Some estimates put the loss at up to 140,000 species per year (based on Species-area theory) and subject to discussion. This figure indicates unsustainable ecological practices, because only a small number of species come into being each year. Almost all scientists acknowledge that the rate of species loss is greater now than at any time in human history, with extinctions occurring at rates hundreds of times higher than background extinction rates.

The factors that threaten biodiversity have been variously categorized. Jared Diamond describes an "Evil Quartet" of habitat destruction, overkill, introduced species, and secondary extensions. Edward O. Wilson prefers the acronym HIPPO, standing for Habitat destruction, Invasive species, Pollution, Human OverPopulation, and Overharvesting.

Destruction of habitat

Most of the species extinctions from 1000 AD to 2000 AD are due to human activities, in particular destruction of plant and animal habitats. Raised rates of extinction are being driven by human consumption of organic resources, especially related to tropical forest destruction. While most of the species that are becoming extinct are not food species, their biomass is converted into human food when their habitat is transformed into pasture, cropland, and orchards. It is estimated that more than a third of the Earth's biomass is tied up in only the few species that represent humans, livestock and crops. Because an ecosystem decreases in stability as its species are made extinct, these studies warn that the global ecosystem is destined for collapse if it is further reduced in complexity. Factors contributing to loss of biodiversity are: overpopulation, deforestation, pollution (air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination) and global warming or climate change, driven by human activity. These factors, while all stemming from overpopulation, produce a cumulative impact upon biodiversity.

There are systematic relationships between the area of a habitat and the number of species it can support, with greater sensitivity to reduction in habitat area for species of larger body size and for those living at lower latitudes or in forests or oceans. Some characterize loss of biodiversity not as ecosystem degradation but by conversion to trivial standardized ecosystems (e.g., monoculture following deforestation). In some countries lack of property rights or access regulation to biotic resources necessarily leads to biodiversity loss (degradation costs having to be supported by the community).

A September 14, 2007 study conducted by the National Science Foundation found that biodiversity and genetic diversity are dependent upon each other—that diversity within a species is necessary to maintain diversity among species, and vice versa. According to the lead researcher in the study, Dr. Richard Lankau, "If any one type is removed from the system, the cycle can break down, and the community becomes dominated by a single species."

At present, the most threathened ecosystems are those found in sweet water. The marking of sweet water ecosystems as the ecosystems most under threat was done by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, and was confirmed again by the project "Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment", organised by the biodiversity platform, and the French Institut de recherche pour le développement (MNHNP).

Save Our Earth Video

2008-11-05T20:27:00.000-08:00

This is some clip to save our earth :

And this is the URL, you can click here.

Biodegradation

2008-11-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

Biodegradation is the process by which organic substances are broken down by the enzymes produced by living organisms. The term is often used in relation to ecology, waste management and environmental remediation (bioremediation). Organic material can be degraded aerobically, with oxygen, or anaerobically, without oxygen. A term related to biodegradation is biomineralisation, in which organic matter is converted into minerals. Biosurfactant, an extracellular surfactant secreted by microorganism enhances the biodegradation process.

Biodegradable matter is generally organic material such as plant and animal matter and other substances originating from living organisms, or artificial materials that are similar enough to plant and animal matter to be put to use by microorganisms. Some microorganisms have the astonishing, naturally occurring, microbial catabolic diversity to degrade, transform or accumulate a huge range of compounds including hydrocarbons (e.g. oil), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), pharmaceutical substances, radionuclides and metals. Major methodological breakthroughs in microbial biodegradation have enabled detailed genomic, metagenomic, proteomic, bioinformatic and other high-throughput analyses of environmentally relevant microorganisms providing unprecedented insights into key biodegradative pathways and the ability of microorganisms to adapt to changing environmental conditions.

Anaerobic biodegradation in landfill

Biodegradable waste in landfill degrades in the absence of oxygen through the process of anaerobic digestion. The byproducts of this anaerobic biodegradation are biogas and lignin and cellulose fibres which cannot be broken down by anaerobes (anaerobic microbes)

Engineered landfills are designed with liners to prevent toxic leachate seeping into the surrounding soil and groundwater. Paper and other materials that normally degrade in a few years degrade more slowly over longer periods of time. Biogas contains methane which has approximately 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. In modern landfills this biogas can be collected and used for power generation.

Methods of measuring biodegradation

Biodegradation can be measured in a number of ways. The activity of aerobic microbes can be measured by the amount of oxygen they consume or the amount of carbon dioxide they produce. Biodegradation can be measured by anaerobic microbes and the amount of methane or alloy that they may be able to produce.

Plastics

Biodegradable plastics made with plastarch material (PSM), and polylactide (PLA) will compost in an industrial compost facility. There are other plastic materials that claim biodegradability, but are more often (and possibly more accurately) described as 'degradable' or oxi-degradable; It is claimed that this process causes more rapid breakdown of the plastic materials into CO2 and H2O.

Save Our Mother Earth

2008-10-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

Oh, No! Our earth is in trouble, and we've got to save it!

Oh, No!: Bad Facts about our earth

If you throw away 2 aluminum cans, you waste more energy than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) of the world's poorest people use a day.
Making a new can from scratch uses the uses the energy equal to half a can of gasoline.
About one third of what an average American throws out is packaging.
More than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) trees are used to make disposable diapers every year.
In one minute, 50 acres of rainforest are destroyed.
Some rain has a pH of 3 or 4. (which is pretty acidic, considering 7 is neutral, not acidic, and battery acid has a pH of 1). Some fish, such as lake trout and smallmouth bass, have trouble reproducing at a pH of 6, which is only slightly acidic. Some clams and snails can't survive at all. Most crayfish are dead at a pH of 5. You can see how bad this is for the environment.
On average, a person in the US uses energy two times more than a person in Japan or West Germany does, and 50 times more than a person in India.
About 90% of the energy used in lighting a standard (incandescent) light bulb is lost as heat.
Air conditioning uses 10 times more energy than a fan, therefore, it creates 10 times the pollutants.
It takes half the output of the Alaskan pipeline to heat the air that escapes from all the homes in the US during a year.
Cars and pick-up trucks are responsible for about 20% of the carbon dioxide released into the air.
There are about 500 million automobiles on the planet, burning an average of 2 gallons of fuel a day. Each gallon releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.
About 80% of our trash goes to landfills, 10% is incinerated, and 10% is recycled.
Since there is little oxygen underground, where we bury our garbage, to help bacteria eat the garbage, almost nothing happens to it. Scientists have dug into landfills and found ears of corn still intact after 20 years, and newspapers still readable after 30.
The average American makes about 3.5 pounds of trash a day.
In a year, the average American uses as much wood in the form of paper as the average resident of the developing world burns as fuel.

26 things we can do to help:

Turn off lights.
Turn off other electric things, like TVs, stereos, and radios when not in use.
Use rechargable batteries.
Do things manually instead of electrically, like open cans by hand.
Use fans instead of air conditioners.
In winter, wear a sweater instead of turning up your thermostat.
Insulate your home so you won't be cold in winter.
Use less hot water.
Whenever possible, use a bus or subway, or ride your bike or walk.
Try to buy organic fruits and vegetables if you're concerned about pesticides. (Organic food is grown without man-made fertilizers and/or pesticides).
Don't waste products made from forest materials.
Use recycled paper and/or recycle it. Reuse old papers.
Don't buy products that may have been made at the expense of the rainforest.
Support products that are harvested from the rainforest but have not cut down trees to get it.
Plant trees, espessially if you have cut one down.
Get other people to help you in your cause. Make and/or join an organization.
Avoid products that are used once, then thrown away.
Buy products with little or no packaging.
Encourage your grocery store sell environmentally friendly cloth bags for people to use when they shop, or bring your own.
REDUCE, REUSE, & RECYCLE.
Compost.
Buy recycled products.
Don't buy pets taken from the wild.
If you have a good zoo nearby, (if the animals are healthy and the zoo takes care of them), support it! Espessially if they help breed endangered animals.
Don't buy products if animals were killed to make it.
Cut up your six-pack rings before throwing them out.

Fireworks Safety

2008-10-24T00:53:00.000-07:00

With warm weather and family events, the Fourth of July can be a fun time with great memories. But before your family celebrates, make sure everyone knows about fireworks safety.

If not handled properly, fireworks can cause burn and eye injuries in kids and adults. In 2003, six deaths were linked to fireworks and hospital emergency departments treated 9,300 fireworks injuries.

The best way to protect your family is not to use any fireworks at home — period. Attend public fireworks displays, and leave the lighting to the professionals.

Lighting fireworks at home isn't even legal in many areas, so if you still want to use them, be sure to check with your local police department first. If they're legal where you live, keep these safety tips in mind:

Kids should never play with fireworks. Things like firecrackers, rockets, and sparklers are just too dangerous. If you give kids sparklers, make sure they keep them outside and away from the face, clothing, and hair. Sparklers can reach 1,800° Fahrenheit (982° Celsius) — hot enough to melt gold.
Buy only legal fireworks (legal fireworks have a label with the manufacturer's name and directions; illegal ones are unlabeled), and store them in a cool, dry place. Illegal fireworks usually go by the names M-80, M100, blockbuster, or quarterpounder. These explosives were banned in 1966, but still account for many fireworks injuries.
Never try to make your own fireworks.
Always use fireworks outside and have a bucket of water and a hose nearby in case of accidents.
Steer clear of others — fireworks have been known to backfire or shoot off in the wrong direction. Never throw or point fireworks at someone, even in jest.
Don't hold fireworks in your hand or have any part of your body over them while lighting. Wear some sort of eye protection, and avoid carrying fireworks in your pocket — the friction could set them off.
Point fireworks away from homes, and keep away from brush and leaves and flammable substances. The National Fire Protection Association estimates that local fire departments respond to more 50,000 fires caused by fireworks each year.
Light one firework at a time (not in glass or metal containers), and never relight a dud.
Don't allow kids to pick up pieces of fireworks after an event. Some may still be ignited and can explode at any time.
Soak all fireworks in a bucket of water before throwing them in the trash can.
Think about your pet. Animals have sensitive ears and can be extremely frightened or stressed on the Fourth of July. Keep pets indoors to reduce the risk that they'll run loose or get injured.

If a child is injured by fireworks, immediately go to a doctor or hospital. If an eye injury occurs, don't allow your child to touch or rub it, as this may cause even more damage. Also, don't flush the eye out with water or attempt to put any ointment on it. Instead, cut out the bottom of a paper cup, place it around the eye, and immediately seek medical attention — your child's eyesight may depend on it. If it's a burn, remove clothing from the burned area and run cool, not cold, water over the burn (do not use ice). Call your doctor immediately.

Fireworks are meant to be enjoyed, but you'll enjoy them much more knowing your family is safe. Take extra precautions this Fourth of July and your holiday will be a blast!

Environmental Control

2008-10-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

Families of kids with allergies should use environmental control measures that reduce exposure to the child's allergy triggers. Some require few changes in the home, while others can be costly or fairly time-consuming.

Talk with your doctor or health care provider about starting with environmental control measures that will limit those allergens and irritants causing immediate problems for a child. But know that allergies develop over time with continued exposure to allergens — dust mites may not be a trigger now, but with continued uncontrolled exposure, could become one. The doctor may suggest taking proactive steps now so your child doesn't develop new allergies.

The following are suggested environmental control measures for different allergens and irritants:

Indoor Controls

To control dust mites:

Use only synthetic polyester-fill pillows and comforters (never feather or down). Encase pillows, mattresses, and box springs in zippered dust mite-proof covers (available at allergy-supply stores and many department and discount stores). Keep covers clean by vacuuming or wiping them down once a week.
Wash sheets and blankets a child sleeps on once a week in very hot water (130° Fahrenheit or higher) to kill dust mites. Young children should never be left alone in a bathtub or near faucets when hot water heaters are set to this degree since scalding can occur. When possible, a safe alternative is to set water temperature lower at home and wash the child's bedding at a laundromat where hot water is set to 130° F.
Avoid upholstered furniture, window mini-blinds, and carpeting in a child's bedroom and playroom as much as possible. They can collect dust and harbor dust mites (especially carpets).
Use washable throw rugs on vinyl or hardwood floors, and wash rugs in hot water weekly.
Use washable curtains and vinyl window shades that can be wiped down. Wash curtains in hot water weekly.
Dust and vacuum weekly. If possible, use a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate) filter to collect and trap dust mites.
Reduce the number of dust-collecting houseplants, books, knickknacks, and non-washable stuffed animals in your home.
Remove all stuffed animals from your child's bed. Only a few washable stuffed animals should be allowed in your child's room, and these should be washed weekly. (Let your child pick which washable stuffed animals can stay.)
Avoid humidifiers when possible because moist air promotes dust mite infestation. Humidity in the air should stay below 50%. The amount of humidity in a room can be easily checked with a humidity gauge (hygrometer) that can be purchased in most hardware and home improvement stores.

To control pollens and molds:

Avoid humidifiers, since humidity promotes mold growth. If you must use a humidifier, change the water every day and clean the inside 2–3 times a week to prevent mold growth.
Ventilate bathrooms, basements, and other dark, moist places that commonly grow mold. Consider keeping a light on in closets and using a dehumidifier in basements to remove air moisture.
Use air conditioning: it removes excess air moisture, filters out pollens from the outside, and provides air circulation throughout your home. Filters should be changed once a month.
Avoid wallpaper and carpets in bathrooms, as mold can grow under them.
Use a weak bleach solution consisting of 1 cup of bleach per gallon of water to kill mold in bathrooms and other areas.
Keep windows and doors shut during pollen season.

To control irritants:

Do not smoke (or allow others to smoke) in the house — even when a child is not present (the smoke gets trapped in the upholstery and carpets).
Do not burn wood fires in fireplaces or wood stoves.
Avoid strong odors from paint, perfume, hair spray, disinfectants, chemical cleaners, air fresheners, and glues.
Some kids develop symptoms or have increased symptoms during the Christmas holidays when exposed to live Christmas trees.

To control animal dander:

If a child is allergic to a pet, discuss with your doctor the advisability of finding a new home for the animal, especially if your child has symptoms not controlled by medication alone, needs a combination of medications for symptoms, or has symptoms even when receiving allergy injections.
It may help (but not always) to wash the animal at least once a week to remove excess dander and collected pollens.
Never allow the pet into the allergic child's bedroom and keep the door closed at all times. Consider keeping the pet outdoors.
If your child has asthma and you don't own a pet, don't acquire one. Even if not allergic to animals now, kids with asthma can become allergic with continued exposure.

The use of air filters such as HEPA filters or electrostatic filters alone have not been proven to reduce indoor allergens although they might be helpful when used along with other environmental control measures. If using such filters, the appropriate size should be used to filter the entire room. Ozone air purifiers or ionizers are not effective and inhaling the ozone that they produce may be harmful.

Outdoor Controls

When mold or pollen counts are high, premedicate the child as directed by your doctor. After playing outdoors, the child should bathe and change clothes.
Drive with the car windows shut and air conditioning on during mold and pollen seasons.
Don't let a child mow the grass or rake leaves.

In some cases, the doctor may recommend allergy shots (immunotherapy) when control measures and medications are not effective. Speak with your child's doctor about these options.

Gun Safety

2008-10-17T03:27:00.000-07:00

Guns are in more than one third of all U.S. households, so they're a very real danger to children, whether you own one or not. That's why it's important to talk to kids about the potential dangers of guns, and what to do if they find one.

If you do keep a gun in the house, it's vital to keep it out of sight and out of reach of kids. The gun should be kept locked and unloaded, and the ammunition should be stored separately.

Guns and Pretend Play

Allowing kids to play with toy guns is a personal decision, as is how to respond to a child's pretend shooting action during the course of play. Remember that even if you don't allow your kids to have a toy gun, their friends may have them. So explain to your kids that real guns — unlike toy guns or those shown on TV, in movies, or in video games — can seriously injure or even kill a person.

Talking to Kids About Gun Safety

Teach kids to follow these rules from the National Rifle Association (NRA) if they come into contact with a gun:

stop
don't touch
remove yourself from the area
tell an adult

It's particularly important that children leave the area where the gun is located to avoid being harmed by someone who doesn't know not to touch it. A child as young as 3 has the finger strength to pull a trigger.

It's also important for kids to tell an adult about a gun that's been found.

If You Have a Gun in Your Home

Many kids are raised with guns in the home, particularly if hunting is a part of family recreation. If you keep a gun in the home, it's important to teach your kids to act in a safe and responsible way around it.

To ensure the safest environment for your family:

Take the ammunition out of the gun.
Lock the gun and keep it out of reach of kids.
Lock the ammunition and store it apart from the gun.
Store the keys for the gun and the ammunition in a different area from where you store household keys. Keep the keys out of reach of children.
Lock up gun-cleaning supplies, which are often poisonous.

If you own a gun or have found one in your home and want to dispose of it, call your local police station. Do not dial 911 or an emergency line. Laws differ between states, but generally, the firearm will be checked to ensure it was not part of a criminal investigation and then it will be destroyed.

Community "buy-back" or "amnesty" days are another disposal option. These programs allow people to bring unwanted guns to a designated place where they will be made unusable. To find out if your community hosts such a program, contact your local police department — but don't wait until such a program becomes available to dispose of an unwanted firearm.

Gun Safety Outside Your Home

Gun safety does not end when your child leaves your home. Kids can still come in contact with a gun at a neighbor's house, when playing with friends, or under other circumstances away from home. Discuss gun safety with other family members or the parents of friends if your child spends time in their homes. It may feel like an awkward conversation, but the person you ask will likely understand that you only have your child's safety in mind.

A Word About BB Guns

BB guns and pellet guns are not regulated by the government, but can cause serious injury. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recommends that kids under the age of 16 not use high-velocity BB guns or pellet guns. Kids who have a BB gun, or are likely to come into contact with one, must know to never point it at anyone, including themselves.

Bike Safety

2008-10-15T02:50:00.000-07:00

Bike riding is a great way to get exercise and fresh air and share time as a family. But before you and the kids rush out and start pedaling, there's an important factor that you need to consider — safety.

Helmet Basics

Bicycle helmet use should not be optional for anyone in your family, no matter where you are or how short the ride. In many states it's the law.

Here's why: Most bike accidents involve a head injury, so a crash could mean permanent brain damage or death for someone who doesn't wear one while riding. In fact, each year in the United States, about half a million kids are seriously injured in bicycle-related accidents, and most of those injuries could have been avoided if a helmet was worn.

Here are some things to keep in mind when buying a helmet:

Pick bright colors that are visible to drivers and other cyclists.
Look for a helmet that's well ventilated.
Make sure that the helmet has a CPSC or Snell sticker inside. These indicate that the helmet meets standards set by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) or the Snell Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit group that tests helmet safety.
Make sure your child's helmet fits correctly and can be adjusted.

You should be able to get help finding a well-fitting helmet and adjusting it properly at any bicycle store.

When kids wear a helmet, make sure that the straps are fastened. Also make sure they don't wear any other hat underneath it.

Be sure to replace any helmet made before 1999. If your child hits any surface hard while wearing a helmet, replace it — helmets lose their capacity to absorb shock after taking serious hits.

A few bike helmets can be used as protection for other activities, but in general, they're best suited to biking. Most helmets are made for one specific type of activity — for example, special helmets also are made for inline skating, baseball, and snowmobiling.

Kids should not wear any helmet when they're on a playground or climbing a tree — there is a risk of strangulation from the chin strap during these types of activities.

Safe Clothing

What kids wear when riding a bike is also very important for safety:

Fluorescent or bright-colored clothes will help kids be visible on the road. (Avoid dark clothes, especially during early dusk and twilight hours.)
Lightweight clothes will help them avoid becoming overheated.
Pant legs shouldn't be too loose-fitting or flared. These can get caught up in the chain while riding.
If your child wears a backpack while riding, make sure the straps are tied up and can't get tangled in the spokes of the wheels.
Choose shoes that grip the bike's pedals. Cleats, shoes with heels, or flip-flops can all create problems while riding. Kids should never ride barefoot!

Rules of the Road for Bike Riding

Here are some must-know safety tips to teach kids:

Stop at all stop signs and obey traffic lights just as cars do. Yield to pedestrians, stop at red lights, and be especially careful at intersections.
Always ride in the same direction as cars do. Never ride against traffic.
Try to use bike lanes or designated bike routes whenever you can — not the sidewalk!
Never ride at dusk or in the dark.
Always stop and check for traffic in both directions when leaving a driveway, an alley, or a curb.
Watch traffic closely for turning cars or cars leaving driveways.
Don't ride too close to parked cars — doors can open suddenly.
Always walk a bike across busy intersections using the crosswalk and following traffic signals.
When riding in a group, always ride single file on the street.
When passing other bikers or people on the street, always pass to their left and call out "On your left!" so they'll watch for you.
Never share the seat with a friend or ride on the handlebars — only one person should be on a bike at a time. It's easy to lose balance or suddenly swerve into traffic when riding with a passenger.
Never wear headphones while biking — it's essential to hear everyone else on the road at all times.
Never stand up while riding a bike.
Never hitch a ride on a moving vehicle.
Never change directions or lanes without first looking behind you, and always use the correct hand signals. Use your left arm for all hand signals:
- Left turn: After checking behind you, hold your arm straight out to the left and ride forward slowly.
- Stop: After checking behind you, bend your elbow, pointing your arm downward in an upside down "L" shape and come to a stop.
- Right turn: After checking behind you, bend your elbow, holding your arm up in an "L" shape, and ride forward slowly. Or, hold your right arm straight out from your side.

Bike Maintenance

Check your child's bike at least once each season to keep it safe and well-maintained.

Be sure to check:

tires — inflate to the pressure that's recommended on the sidewall of the tire
chain — oil it regularly and remove dirt
handlebars — adjust for height as your child grows and tighten all bolts
brakes — check for frayed cables and replace worn-out brake pads
seat — keep the seat level and adjust for height as needed

Making Safety a Family Affair

One of the best ways to help kids learn safe bike riding is to set a good example by following the rules of the road yourself. Go for bike rides with your kids so you can show them what safe riding looks like. It's also a great way to stay active as a family and get valuable together time that you'll all enjoy!

Climatology

2008-10-13T02:41:00.000-07:00

Climatology (from Greek κλίμα, klima, "region, zone"; and -λογία, -logia) is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences. Basic knowledge of climate can be used within shorter term weather forecasting using analog techniques such as the El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the Northern Annualar Mode (NAM), the Arctic oscillation (AO), the Northern Pacific (NP) Index, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). Climate models are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the weather and climate system to projections of future climate.

Differences with meteorology

In contrast to meteorology, which focuses on short term weather systems lasting up to a few weeks, climatology studies the frequency and trends of those systems. It studies the periodicity of weather events over years to millennia, as well as changes in long-term average weather patterns, in relation to atmospheric conditions. Climatologists, those who practice climatology, study both the nature of climates - local, regional or global - and the natural or human-induced factors that cause climates to change. Climatology considers the past and can help predict future climate change.

Phenomena of climatological interest include the atmospheric boundary layer, circulation patterns, heat transfer (radiative, convective and latent), interactions between the atmosphere and the oceans and land surface (particularly vegetation, land use and topography), and the chemical and physical composition of the atmosphere. Related disciplines include astrophysics, atmospheric physics, chemistry, ecology, geology, geophysics, glaciology, hydrology, oceanography, and volcanology.

History

Perhaps the earliest person to hypothesize the concept of climate change was the medieval Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (1031-1095 AD). Shen Kuo theorized that climates naturally shifted over an enormous span of time, after observing petrified bamboos found underground near Yanzhou (modern day Yan'an, Shaanxi province), a dry climate area unsuitable for the growth of bamboo trees.

Early climate researchers include Edmund Halley, who published a map of the trade winds in 1686, after a voyage to the southern hemisphere. Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century was the first to map the course of the Gulf Stream for use in sending mail overseas from the United States to Europe. Francis Galton invented the term anticyclone. Helmut Landsberg led to statistical analysis being used in climatology, which led to its evolution into a physical science.

Different approaches

Climatology is approached in a variety of ways. Paleoclimatology seeks to reconstruct past climates by examining records such as ice cores and tree rings (dendroclimatology). Paleotempestology uses these same records to help determine hurricane frequency over millennia. The study of contemporary climates incorporates meteorological data accumulated over many years, such as records of rainfall, temperature and atmospheric composition. Knowledge of the atmosphere and its dynamics is also embodied in models, either statistical or mathematical, which help by integrating different observations and testing how they fit together. Modeling is used for understanding past, present and potential future climates. Historical climatology is the study of climate as related to human history and thus focuses only on the last few thousand years.

Climate research is made difficult by the large scale, long time periods, and complex processes which govern climate. Climate is governed by physical laws that can be expressed as differential equations. These equations are coupled and nonlinear, so that approximate solutions are obtained by using numerical methods to create global climate models. Climate is sometimes modeled as a stochastic process but this is generally accepted as an approximation to processes that are otherwise too complicated to analyze.

Use in weather forecasting

A more complicated way of making a forecast, the analog technique requires remembering a previous weather event which is expected to be mimicked by an upcoming event. What makes it a difficult technique to use is that there is rarely a perfect analog for an event in the future. Some call this type of forecasting pattern recognition, which remains a useful method of observing rainfall over data voids such as oceans with knowledge of how satellite imagery relates to precipitation rates over land, as well as the forecasting of precipitation amounts and distribution in the future. A variation on this theme is used in Medium Range forecasting, which is known as teleconnections, when you use systems in other locations to help pin down the location of another system within the surrounding regime. One method of using teleconnections are by using climate indices such as ENSO-related phenomena.

Climate indices

Scientists use climate indices in their attempt to characterize and understand the various climate mechanisms that culminate in our daily weather. Much in the way the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is based on the stock prices of 30 companies, is used to represent the fluctuations in the stock market as a whole, climate indices are used to represent the essential elements of climate. Climate indices are generally devised with the twin objectives of simplicity and completeness, and each index typically represents the status and timing of the climate factor it represents. By their very nature, indices are simple, and combine many details into a generalized, overall description of the atmosphere or ocean which can be used to characterize the factors which impact the global climate system.

Love Canal

2008-10-08T02:21:00.000-07:00

Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, United States of America (USA), which became the subject of national and international attention and controversy following the discovery of 21,000 tons of toxic waste buried beneath the neighborhood. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile (400 m) to the south. The south shore of the Niagara River in this area is Grand Island.

The Niagara Falls School Board chose to construct a school on a retired toxic waste dump, and the City of Niagara Falls permitted the building of homes and rental units on this property. The development released the chemical waste, leading to a public health emergency, an urban planning scandal, and a finding of negligence by the former owner. In the words of a state health commissioner, "Among its legacies, Love Canal will likely long endure as a 'national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations."

Early history

The name Love Canal came from the last name of William T. Love, who in the early 1890s envisioned a canal connecting the two levels of the Niagara River separated by Niagara Falls. He believed it would serve the area's burgeoning industries with much needed hydroelectricity; however, the power scheme was never completed due to limitations of DC power transmission, and Tesla's introduction of alternating current or AC.

After 1892, Love's plan changed to incorporate a shipping lane that would bypass the Niagara Falls. He began to envision a perfect urban area called "Model City" and prepared a plan that called for the construction of a vast community of beautiful parks and homes. Unfortunately for Love, his plan was never realized. He was barely able to start digging the canal and build a few streets and homes before his money ran out. Only one mile (1.6 km) of the canal, about 15 feet (5 m) wide and 10 feet (3 m) deep, stretching northward from the Niagara River, was ever dug. (For one solution to the falls trans-shipment problem, see Welland Canal.)

With the project abandoned, the canal gradually filled with water. The local children swam there in the summer and skated in the winter. At some time in the 1920s, the canal became a dumping site for the municipality of Niagara Falls. By the 1940s, a company by the name of Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation began a search for a dump to store the increasing amount of chemical waste it was producing. Finding Love Canal ideal, Hooker Chemical made arrangements with the local power company, then-owner of the site, to dump its waste there. They prepared the canal for the waste by draining it and lining it with clay. Into this site, Hooker began placing fifty-five gallon metal barrels. In 1947, Hooker bought the land outright.

The Love Canal disaster

Sale of the site

At the time of the closure, Niagara Falls' population had begun to expand. The local school board was desperate for land, and attempted to purchase an area of expensive property from Hooker Chemical that had not yet been used to bury toxic waste. The corporation refused to sell on the grounds of safety, and took members of the school board to the canal and drilled several bore holes through the clay, showing that there were toxic chemicals below the surface. However, the board refused to capitulate. Eventually, faced with the property being condemned and/or expropriated, Hooker Chemical agreed to sell on the condition that the board buy the entire property for one dollar. In the agreement, Hooker included a seventeen line caveat that explained the dangers of building on the site:

“

Prior to the delivery of this instrument of conveyance, the grantee herein has been advised by the grantor that the premises above described have been filled, in whole or in part, to the present grade level thereof with waste products resulting from the manufacturing of chemicals by the grantor at its plant in the City of Niagara Falls, New York, and the grantee assumes all risk and liability incident to the use thereof. It is therefore understood and agreed that, as a part of the consideration for this conveyance and as a condition thereof, no claim, suit, action or demand of any nature whatsoever shall ever be made by the grantee, its successors or assigns, against the grantor, its successors or assigns, for injury to a person or persons, including death resulting therefrom, or loss of or damage to property caused by, in connection with or by reason of the presence of said industrial wastes. It is further agreed as a condition hereof that each subsequent conveyance of the aforesaid lands shall be made subject to the foregoing provisions and conditions.

”

Construction of the 99th Street School

Shortly thereafter, the board began construction on the 99th Street School in its originally intended location. However, the building site was forced to relocate when contractors unearthed two pits filled with chemicals. The new location was directly on top of the former landfill, and during construction of the school, contractors broke through the clay seal that Hooker had installed to contain the chemical waste.

In 1957, the City of Niagara Falls constructed sewers for a mixture of low-income and single family residences to be built on lands adjacent to the landfill site. While building the gravel sewer beds, construction efforts broke through the clay seal, again breaching the walls of the canal. Hence, the buried chemicals had a further opportunity to migrate and seep from the canal. The subsequent construction of the LaSalle Expressway restricted groundwater from flowing to the Niagara River. Following the exceptionally wet winter and spring of 1977, the elevated expressway turned the breached canal into an overflowing pool.

Health problems, activism, and site cleanup

In 1978, Lois Gibbs, a local mother and president of the Love Canal Homeowners' Association, began to wonder if her children's recurring epilepsy, asthma, and urinary tract infections were connected to their exposure to leaking chemical waste. Gibbs later discovered that her neighborhood sat on top of 21,000 tons of buried chemical waste, the now infamous Love Canal.

In the following years, Gibbs led an effort to investigate community concerns about the health of its residents; she and other residents made repeated complaints of strange odors and "substances" that surfaced in their yards. Although city officials were brought to investigate the area, they did not act to solve the problem.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1979, residents exhibited a "disturbingly high rate of miscarriages...Love Canal can now be added to a growing list of environmental disasters involving toxics, ranging from industrial workers stricken by nervous disorders and cancers to the discovery of toxic materials in the milk of nursing mothers." In one case, two out of four children in a single Love Canal family had birth defects; one girl was born deaf with a cleft palate, an extra row of teeth, and slight retardation, and a boy was born with an eye defect. A survey conducted by the Love Canal Homeowners Association found that 56% of the children born from 1974-1978 had a birth defect.

With further investigation, Gibbs discovered the chemical danger of the adjacent canal. This began her organization's three year effort to demonstrate that the toxins buried by Hooker Chemical were responsible for the health problems of local residents. Throughout the ordeal, homeowners' concerns were ignored not only by Hooker Chemical (now a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum), but also members of government. These opponents argued that the area's endemic health problems were unrelated to the toxic chemicals buried in the canal. Since the residents could not prove the chemicals on their property had come from Hooker's disposal site, they could not prove liability. Throughout the legal battle, residents were unable to sell their properties and move away.

However, when Eckhardt C. Beck (EPA Administrator for Region 2, 1977-1979) visited Love Canal in the late 1970s, he discerned the presence of toxic substances in the community:

“

I visited the canal area at that time. Corroding waste-disposal drums could be seen breaking up through the grounds of backyards. Trees and gardens were turning black and dying. One entire swimming pool had been popped up from its foundation, afloat now on a small sea of chemicals. Puddles of noxious substances were pointed out to me by the residents. Some of these puddles were in their yards, some were in their basements, others yet were on the school grounds. Everywhere the air had a faint, choking smell. Children returned from play with burns on their hands and faces."

”

The 99th Street School, on the other hand, was located within the former boundary of the Hooker Chemical landfill site. The school was closed and demolished, but both the school board and the chemical company refused to accept liability.

Cold, Ice, and Snow Safety

2008-10-07T01:00:00.000-07:00

Winter isn't a time to just stay indoors and wait for spring. There's a whole wonderland of sports out there for the entire family - sledding, snowmobiling, and snowboarding, to mention a few. Plus, someone has to shovel the snow, right?

Once outdoors, however, you may need to take extra steps to keep your family safe in the cold. In ice and snow, accidents can occur easily, and before you know it, you may be on your way to the emergency room.

There are ways to keep safe - and stay fit - during the cold months. By following a few tips, you can have a great time, no matter how much white stuff piles up outside.

Why Is It Important to Be Safe in the Cold?

Certain injuries are more common in the winter because of special cold-weather activities. Activities like ice-skating, sledding, snowboarding, and skiing lead to the most accidents and injuries in the winter, and often it's children who get hurt.

Now that snowboarding is drawing more kids out in the cold weather, emergency rooms are seeing more abdominal, head, and neck injuries in those who run into trees or large rocks while snowboarding.

It's not just winter sports that send people to the hospital or a doctor's office. Certain illnesses are more common when the seasons change. Respiratory illnesses, especially viruses like the flu, are particularly prevalent during this time of year. That's because everyone spends more time indoors in chilly weather, exposing themselves to more germs in the air.

On the Home Front

One way to stay healthy while cooped up inside is to make sure your family washes their hands. It's especially important to wash after sharing toys, coughing, and blowing a runny nose to help prevent the spread of viruses.

Otherwise, it's difficult to avoid getting sick. People who sleep and eat well may be less likely to get sick because their bodies are more resistant to viruses and other germs, including bacteria.

Decided you've had enough of the indoors and you're going to get the family outside to shovel the snow? Fine, but take care. Snow shoveling is strenuous work. It's OK for older, school-age kids to help out, but young children should not be shoveling because they can strain their muscles from lifting heavy shovels full of snow.

Younger or older, kids sometimes have a tough time knowing when to come inside from the cold. To nip frostbite in the bud, check on your kids regularly to make sure that mittens are dry and warm and noses aren't too red.

Braving the Cold

If you're going outside in the cold, stay safe - and warm. Make sure your kids have a snack before going out. The calories will give their bodies energy in the cold weather.

And protect your kids' faces with sunscreen. Even though the idea of a sunburn in January can seem odd, snow can reflect up to 85% of the sun's ultraviolet rays.

Kids should dress warmly using layers of clothes - but not before using the bathroom! If the top layer gets wet from snow or freezing rain, they can peel off some clothes down to a dry layer.

Avoid cotton clothing because it won't keep the kids very warm. Stick with wool or other fabrics. Dress them in long underwear, a turtleneck, and a sweater and coat. Add more layers depending on the temperature. Waterproof pants and jackets are great top layers because they don't let the wetness seep into the other clothing. The cold-weather ensemble wouldn't be complete without warm socks and boots to keep feet dry and a hat to top it off.

There's no set amount of time children should be allowed to stay out in the cold. However, when being cold becomes unpleasant, it's time to go inside. Sometimes, though, kids may just need some dry gloves. It helps to have an extra pair of gloves or mittens tucked into their pockets if they plan to be outdoors for a while.

If your kids decide to go sledding on their own for the day, make sure you know about the hill where they will be playing. Is it steep or covered with trees? If so, it's not a good location for sledding. Also, watch out for hills where there are rocks or those that are near busy roads.

Sledding injuries can be very serious, resulting in head trauma, neck trauma, and broken bones. In serious injuries, there often is internal bleeding and abdominal trauma, which is why it's a good idea to supervise when your kids are sledding.

Ice-skating and ice hockey are great cold-weather activities, but they require safety smarts. Make sure your children avoid sports injuries by wearing supportive and properly fitted skates. In addition, rinks are always safer than ponds for skating. If you only have access to a pond, check the thickness of the ice yourself to prevent falls through the ice and supervise your children while they skate.

Snowmobiling is more popular than ever, and the machines also go faster than ever. When snowmobiling, follow these safety steps:

Travel in groups and make sure someone knows where the snowmobilers are going.
Know your machine and its capabilities.
Respect snowmobilers and yield to those who have the right of way.
If it's necessary to snowmobile on frozen bodies of water, do so with extra caution.
When crossing a roadway, make sure the way is clear in both directions.
Operate at a reasonable and prudent speed for trail conditions.
Remember that alcohol and snowmobiles don't mix.

What to Do in an Emergency

Children are at greater risk for frostnip and frostbite than adults, and the best way to prevent it is to make sure kids are dressed warmly and that they don't spend too much time in extreme weather.

Frostnip is an early warning sign of the onset of frostbite. It leaves the skin white and numb. After bringing your child inside, remove all wet clothing because it draws heat from the body. Immerse the chilled body parts in warm (not hot) water - 104 to 108 degrees Fahrenheit (40 to 42 degrees Celsius) - until they are able to feel sensation again.

Frostbite occurs mostly on fingers, toes, ears, noses, and cheeks. The area becomes very cold and turns white or yellowish gray. If you notice frostbite, take your child immediately to the nearest hospital emergency room.

Going on a road trip over the holidays? Make sure you have a first-aid kit, extra blankets, and gloves in the car.

Soil Contamination

2008-10-06T02:37:00.000-07:00

Soil contamination is caused by the presence of man-made chemicals or other alteration in the natural soil environment. This type of contamination typically arises from the rupture of underground storage tanks, application of pesticides, percolation of contaminated surface water to subsurface strata, oil and fuel dumping, leaching of wastes from landfills or direct discharge of industrial wastes to the soil. The most common chemicals involved are petroleum hydrocarbons, solvents, pesticides, lead and other heavy metals. This occurrence of this phenomenon is correlated with the degree of industrialization and intensity of chemical usage.

The concern over soil contamination stems primarily from health risks, both of direct contact and from secondary contamination of water supplies. Mapping of contaminated soil sites and the resulting cleanup are time consuming and expensive tasks, requiring extensive amounts of geology, hydrology, chemistry and computer modeling skills.

It is in North America and Western Europe that the extent of contaminated land is most well known, with many of countries in these areas having a legal framework to identify and deal with this environmental problem; this however may well be just the tip of the iceberg with developing countries very likely to be the next generation of new soil contamination cases.

The immense and sustained growth of the People's Republic of China since the 1970s has exacted a price from the land in increased soil pollution. The State Environmental Protection Administration believes it to be a threat to the environment, to food safety and to sustainable agriculture. According to a scientific sampling, 150 million mi (100,000 square kilometres) of China’s cultivated land have been polluted, with contaminated water being used to irrigate a further 32.5 million mi (21,670 square kilometres) and another 2 million mi (1,300 square kilometres) covered or destroyed by solid waste. In total, the area accounts for one-tenth of China’s cultivatable land, and is mostly in economically developed areas. An estimated 12 million tonnes of grain are contaminated by heavy metals every year, causing direct losses of 20 billion yuan (US$2.57 billion).

The United States, while having some of the most widespread soil contamination, has actually been a leader in defining and implementing standards for cleanup. Other industrialized countries have a large number of contaminated sites, but lag the U.S. in executing remediation. Developing countries may be leading in the next generation of new soil contamination cases.

Each year in the U.S., thousands of sites complete soil contamination cleanup, some by using microbes that “eat up” toxic chemicals in soil, many others by simple excavation and others by more expensive high-tech soil vapor extraction or air stripping. At the same time, efforts proceed worldwide in creating and identifying new sites of soil contamination, particularly in industrial countries other than the U.S., and in developing countries which lack the money and the technology to adequately protect soil resources.

Health effects

The major concern is that there are many sensitive land uses where people are in direct contact with soils such as residences, parks, schools and playgrounds. Other contact mechanisms include contamination of drinking water or inhalation of soil contaminants which have vaporized.

There is a very large set of health consequences from exposure to soil contamination depending on pollutant type, pathway of attack and vulnerability of the exposed population. Chromium and obsolete pesticide formulations are carcinogenic to populations. Lead is especially hazardous to young children, in which group there is a high risk of developmental damage to the brain,while to all populations kidney damage is a risk.

Chronic exposure to at sufficient concentrations is known to be associated with higher incidence of leukemia .Obsolete pesticides such as mercury and cyclodienes are known to induce higher incidences of kidney damage, some irreversible; cyclodienes are linked to liver toxicity .Organophosphates and carbamates can induce a chain of responses leading to neuromuscular blockage.

Many chlorinated solvents induce liver changes, kidney changes and depression of the central nervous system. There is an entire spectrum of further health effects such as headache,nausea,fatigue(physical),eye irritation and skin rash for the above cited and other chemicals.

Ecosystem effects

Not unexpectedly, soil contaminants can have significant deleterious consequences for ecosystems. There are radical soil chemistry changes which can arise from the presence of many hazardous chemicals even at low concentration of the contaminant species. These changes can manifest in the alteration of metabolism of endemic microorganisms and arthropods resident in a given soil environment. The result can be virtual eradication of some of the primary food chain, which in turn have major consequences for predator or consumer species. Even if the chemical effect on lower life forms is small, the lower pyramid levels of the food chain may ingest alien chemicals, which normally become more concentrated for each consuming rung of the food chain. Many of these effects are now well known, such as the concentration of persistent DDT materials for avian consumers, leading to weakening of egg shells, increased chick mortality and potentially species extinction.

Effects occur to agricultural lands which have certain types of soil contamination. Contaminants typically alter plant metabolism, most commonly to reduce crop yields. This has a secondary effect upon soil conservation, since the languishing crops cannot shield the earth's soil mantle from erosion phenomena. Some of these chemical contaminants have long half-lives and in other cases derivative chemicals are formed from decay of primary soil contaminants.

Shark Finning

2008-10-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

Shark finning is the controversial process of removing shark fins to provide the ingredients for the popular Asian dish of shark fin soup.

According to wildlife conservationists, much of the trade in sharks' fins is derived from fins cut from living sharks; this process is called finning. Because shark meat is worth much less, the finless and often still-living sharks are thrown back into the sea to make room on board the ship for more of the valuable fins. When returned to the ocean, the finless sharks, unable to move, either die from suffocation or are consumed by other sharks or animals.

However, according to Giam Choo Hoo, the longest serving member of the CITES Animals Committee, "The perception that it is common practice to kill sharks for only their fins - and to cut them off whilst the sharks are still alive - is wrong.... The vast majority of fins in the market are taken from sharks after their death." However, this discounting of an international phenomenon is disputed by extensive examination of fin sourcing and fisheries data as reported by Dr. Shelly Clarke in Ecology Letters. The first real-data study of sharks harvested for their valuable fins estimates that between 26 million and 73 million sharks are killed each year worldwide, three times higher than was reported originally by the United Nations, according to a paper published as the cover story in the October 2006 edition of Ecology Letters.

Finning of living sharks on an industrial scale does occur and has been witnessed and photographed within the protected marine area of Costa Rica's Cocos Island National Park by the crew of the conservation vessel Ocean Warrior. The practice is featured in the documentary "Sharks: Stewards of the Reef". which contains footage from W. Australian waters and Central America and also examines the cultural, financial and ecological impacts of shark finning. This incident was also recorded by underwater photographer Richard Merritt who has witnessed finning of living sharks in Indonesia where he saw the immobile finless sharks lying still alive on the sea bed under the fishing boat. Finning has been witnessed and filmed within a protected marine area in the Raja Ampat islands of Indonesia.

Finning is vigorously opposed by animal welfare groups; both on moral grounds and also because it is listed as one of the causes for the rapid decline of global shark populations. On the IUCN red list there are 39 species of elasmobranches (sharks and rays) listed as threatened species (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable). The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) lists three sharks in Appendix II: the basking shark, the great white shark and the whale shark. Appendix II lists those species that are not in danger of extinction, but which require controls on international trade to maintain their populations. It is estimated that 10–100 million sharks are slaughtered each year for their fins, with a median figure of 38 million. The industry is valued at US$1.2 billion; because of the lucrative profits, there are allegations of links to organized crime. They also raise questions on the medical harm from the consumption of high levels of toxic mercury reportedly found in shark fins.

Numbers of some shark species have dropped as much as 80% over the last 50 years. Some organizations claim that shark fishing or bycatch (the unintentional capture of species by other fisheries) is the reason for the decline in the populations of some species and that the market for fins has very little impact – bycatch accounts for an estimated 50% of all sharks taken – others that the market for shark fin soup is the main reason for the decline. Tommy Cheung, the legislator representing Hong Kong's catering sector, said: "I don't believe sharks are an endangered species. Some species of shark may be, but not all shark's fin comes from certain species. There are a lot of species that are plentiful." Since many countries do not allow shark finning there is no reliable count for the numbers taken in the shark fin trade and thus it is hard to prove the claims on either side of the argument. Sharks are caught for their fins and meat all over the world.

According to Giam's article, "sharks are caught virtually all parts of the world. Despite the strongly declared objectives of the Fisheries Commission in Brussels, there are very few restrictions on fishing for sharks in European waters. The meat of dogfishes, smoothhounds, catsharks, skates and rays is in high demand by European consumers...The situation in Canada and the United States is similar: the blue shark is sought after as a sport fish while the porbeagle, mako and spiny dogfish are part of the commercial fishery...the truth is this: Sharks will continue to be caught and killed on a wide scale by the more organized and sophisticated fishing nations...targeting shark's fin soup will not stop this accidental catch. The fins from these catches will be thrown away or turned into animal feed and fertilizers if shark's fin soup is shunned."

Mountaintop Removal Mining

2008-09-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), often referred to in the industry as mountaintop mining/valley fills (MTM/VF), is a form of surface mining that involves an extreme topographic change to the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. It is most closely associated with coal mining in the Appalachian Mountains, located in the eastern United States. The process involves using explosives to remove up to 1,000 vertical feet of rock to get to the coal seams. The resulting debris is often scraped into the adjacent river valleys in what is called a valley fill.

Because of the physically destructive nature of the practice, MTR is controversial, and is protested by environmentalists, local residents, and others. Controversy over the practice stems from both the extreme topographical and ecological changes that the mining site undergoes, as well as from the storage of waste material generated from the mining and processing of the coal; proponents of MTR point to its efficiency, its ability to provide jobs, and the resulting increase of flat land in areas where there is often little.

History

Increased demand for coal in the United States, sparked by the 1973 and 1979 petroleum crises, created incentives for a more economical form of coal mining than the traditional underground mining methods that involving hundreds of workers, triggering the first widespread use of MTR. The mining method's prevalence expanded further in the 1990s to retrieve relatively low-sulfur coal, a cleaner burning form, which became desirable as a result of amendments to the U.S. Clean Air Act that tightened emissions limits on high-sulfur coal processing. With an increasing call for energy independence in the U.S., as well as a growing call for Coal-To-Liquids and "clean coal technologies", MTR has continued to expand into the 2000s.

Process

As no existing vegetation survives MTR, the targeted land is clear-cut and either sold for lumber or burned. Ideally, the topsoil is removed and set aside for later reclamation. Miners then use explosives to blast away the overburden, the rock and subsoil that lies above a coal seam, to expose the coal. In a March 2006 National Geographic article entitled 'When Mountains Move', John G Mitchell explained how the overburden is pushed into a nearby valley or hollow, creating a pile below called valley fill. A dragline excavator removes the coal, where it is transported to a processing plant and washed. Millions of gallons of waste from coal processing, called sludge or slurry, are often stored nearby in open pools held back by earthen dams. Once coal removal is completed, the mining operators replace the topsoil (or a topsoil substitute) on the stripped site and seed it for revegetation.

Because coal usually exists in multiple geologically stratified seams, miners can often repeat the blasting process to mine over a dozen seams on a single mountain, increasing the mine depth each time. This can result in vertical descension of hundreds of extra feet into the earth.

Sludge ponds

As with other methods of coal mining, processing of the coal mined generates waste slurry (also called coal sludge), which is usually stored in large sludge ponds impounded by an on-site dam. Many coal slurry impoundments in West Virginia exceed 500 million gallons in volume, and can be larger than 7 billion gallons. Such impoundments can be hundreds of feet high and sometimes have close proximity to schools or private residences.

The most controversial sludge dam at present sits 400 yards (400 m) above Marsh Fork Elementary School. On May 31, 2005, 16 people were arrested at Governor Manchin's office for protesting the Governor's refusal to fund the relocation of the school. The leaking (according to CorpWatch) sludge pond is permitted to hold 2.8 billion gallons of coal sludge, and is 21 times larger than the pond which killed 125 people in the Buffalo Creek Flood in 1972.

Kentucky's Martin County Sludge Spill occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000, when a coal sludge impoundment broke through into an underground mine below, propelling 306 million gallons of sludge down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River. The spill polluted hundreds of miles of waterways, contaminated the water supply for over 27,000 residents, and killed all aquatic life in Coldwater Fork and Wolf Creek.

Mutagen

2008-09-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

In biology, a mutagen (Latin, literally origin of change) is a physical or chemical agent that changes the genetic information (usually DNA) of an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level. As many mutations cause cancer, mutagens are typically also carcinogens. Not all mutations are caused by mutagens: So-called "spontaneous mutations" occur due to errors in DNA replication, repair and recombination.

Effects of mutations

The changes in nucleic acid sequences by mutations include substitution of nucleotide base-pairs and insertions and deletions of one or more nucleotides in DNA sequences. Although many of these mutations are lethal, or cause serious disease, some have minor effects, as the changes they cause in the sequence of encoded proteins are not significant. Many mutations cause no visible effects at all, either because they occur in introns or because they do not change the amino-acid sequence, due to redundancy of codons.

Genetic drift

The change in a population’s genetic material due to the accumulation of random chance is called drift, and serves as a molecular clock. In general, the more nucleotide differences between two organisms, the more time has elapsed since their last common ancestor. Though it is difficult to determine in many organisms, estimates for mutation rates have been made for both E. coli and eukaryotes. It was estimated that, in these organisms, about one nucleotide in every 10¹⁰ is changed, and continues through reproduction to future generations of cells.

Discovery of mutagenesis

In the 1920s, Hermann Muller discovered that x-rays caused mutations in fruit flies. He went on to use x-rays to create Drosophila mutants that he used in his studies of genetics. He also discovered that x-rays not only mutate genes in fruit flies but also have effects on the genetic makeup of humans.

Nature of mutagens

Mutagens are usually chemical compounds or ionizing radiation. Mutagens can be divided into different categories according to their effect on DNA replication:

Some mutagens act as base analogs and get inserted into the DNA strand during replication in place of the substrates.
Some react with DNA and cause structural changes that lead to miscopying of the template strand when the DNA is replicated.
Some work indirectly by causing the cells to synthesize chemicals that have the direct mutagenic effect.

The Ames test is one method to determine how mutagenic an agent is.

Examples

Ionizing radiation, for example Ultraviolet light, gamma rays and alpha particles
Base analogs, which can substitute for DNA bases and cause copying errors
Deaminating agents such as Nitrous acid
Intercalating agents such as Ethidium bromide
Alkylating agents such as Bromouracil
Transposons, sections of DNA that undergo autonomous fragment relocation/multiplication
Some natural plant alkaloids, such as those from Vinca species.
Bromine and some of its compounds
Sodium azide
Psoralen combined with ultraviolet radiation causes DNA crosslinking and hence chromosome breakage