Earth ChangesS

Stop

Biofuels: Promise or Threat?

Rachel Smoller and Brian Tokar
CounterPunch
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:06 UTC
In the coming weeks, the Obama administration is expected to release its plans to address the dual problems of global climate disruption and excessive dependence on foreign oil. Meanwhile, in the background, the debate among environmentalists over biofuels and their contribution to future energy needs continues to intensify. Many mainstream greens actively support biofuels as a central element in an anticipated future mix of energy sources, but voices from the global South are often far more critical. They insist that fuels such as biodiesel, bioethanol and proposed "second generation" fuels be termed "agrofuels," viewing their widespread use as a potential boon for global agribusiness corporations, with potentially devastating consequences for land-based peoples. This view is now gaining widespread support from groups in the US and Europe.

Last week, the Sierra Club and Worldwatch Institute attempted to sidestep these concerns with their new report, titled "Smart Choices for Biofuels". They appear to have never even asked the more fundamental question "Are Biofuels a Smart Choice?" To this question, a growing number of environmental and human rights organizations are responding with a clear and resounding "no."
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Frog

Belarusian scientist suggests frog breeding as anti-crisis measure


RIA Novosti
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:00 UTC
Frog
© Unknown
A Belarusian scientist has advised the country's businessmen to begin breeding edible frogs for export during the current economic crisis, Russia's Vesti TV channel said on Wednesday.

The former Soviet republic is home to three edible species of frogs - the Marsh Frog (Rana ridibunda), the Pool Frog (Rana lessonae) and the Edible Frog (Rana esculenta). All of them are considered a delicacy in various countries.
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Better Earth

US Great Lake's Sinkholes Host Exotic Ecosystems


Terra Daily - SPX
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:09 UTC
Image
© UnknownIn the oxygen-depleted water, cyanobacteria carry out photosynthesis using sulfur compounds rather than water and give off hydrogen sulfide, the gas associated with rotting eggs.

Researchers are exploring extreme conditions for life in a place not known for extremes. As little as 20 meters (66 feet) below the surface of Lake Huron, the third largest of North America's Great Lakes, peculiar geological formations--sinkholes made by water dissolving parts of an ancient underlying seabed--harbor bizarre ecosystems where the fish typical of the huge freshwater lake are rarely to be seen.Instead, brilliant purple mats of cyanobacteria--cousins of microbes found at the bottoms of permanently ice-covered lakes in Antarctica--and pallid, floating ponytails of other microbial life thrive in the dense, salty water that's hostile to most familiar, larger forms of life because it lacks oxygen.

Groundwater from beneath Lake Huron is dissolving minerals from the defunct seabed and carrying them into the lake to form these exotic, extreme environments, says Bopaiah A. Biddanda of Grand Valley State University, in Muskegon, Mich., one of the leaders of a scientific team studying the sinkhole ecosystems.

Those ecosystems are in a class not only with Antarctic lakes, but also with deep-sea, hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. "You have this pristine fresh water lake that has what amounts to materials from 400 million years ago ... being pushed out into the lake," says team co-leader Steven A. Ruberg of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
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Frog

Nutrient Pollution Chokes Marine And Freshwater Ecosystems


Terra Daily - SPX
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:04 UTC
Image
© Michael MillIn freshwater ecosystems, like lakes, phosphorus pollution causes algal blooms.

Protecting drinking water and preventing harmful coastal "dead zones", as well as eutrophication in many lakes, will require reducing both nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Because streams and rivers are conduits to the sea, management strategies should be implemented along the land-to-ocean continuum. In most cases, strategies that focus only on one nutrient will fail.

These policy recommendations were put forth by a team of distinguished scientists in the recent issue of Science. Led by Dr. Daniel J. Conley, a marine ecologist at the GeoBiosphere Science Centre in Sweden and a Visiting Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, the paper reviews weaknesses in single-nutrient management strategies.

In most cases, improving water quality and preserving coastal oceans will require a two-pronged approach.

Plant growth is tied to nitrogen and phosphorus availability. Human activities have greatly increased the abundance of these nutrients, causing the overproduction of aquatic plants and algae.
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Bizarro Earth

Study: Antarctic Glaciers Slipping Swiftly Seaward

Eliane Engeler
The Associated Press
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:42 UTC
Antarctic
© AP Photo/Charles J. Hanley
Antarctic glaciers are melting faster across a much wider area than previously thought, scientists said Wednesday - a development that could lead to an unprecedented rise in sea levels.

A report by thousands of scientists for the 2007-2008 International Polar Year concluded that the western part of the continent is warming up, not just the Antarctic Peninsula.

Previously most of the warming was thought to occur on the narrow stretch pointing toward South America, said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and a member of International Polar Year's steering committee.
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Bizarro Earth

South African fires threaten historic wine estates


Agence France-Presse
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:28 UTC
Image
© Unknown

Fires raging for days in the mountains around Cape Town are threatening historic South African wine estates, local media reported Tuesday.

The Cape Times reported firefighters suspect arson is to blame for fires burning in the Helderberg mountains, the latest in a string of blazes in the province spurred on by extreme heat and windy weather conditions.

A fire which broke out on the Lourensford Wine Estate is believed to have been started deliberately, and has spread to several other wine estates in Somerset West including the 300-year-old Vergelegen Wine Estate.

Some 300 firefighters are battling the blaze, expected to burn on for several days before it is brought under control.
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Better Earth

King of the swingers has no use for mirrors

Ewen Callaway
New Scientist
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:40 UTC
gibbon
© Emma Collier-BakerA gibbon seems to be interested in itself, but none tried to get at icing on their own faces.

Never accuse a gibbon of vanity. The apes do not recognise their own face in a mirror, a study claims.

This stands in contrast to chimpanzees, orang-utans and perhaps gorillas, which all show a glimmer of recognition when confronted with their visage.

While primatologists may bicker over the significance of such observations, the lack of self-recognition in gibbons and other lesser apes indicates that this mental capacity emerged 14 to 18 million years ago when their evolutionary lineage split from great apes.

"We can reason about the mind of an ancestor without even laying eyes on the fossil," says Thomas Suddendorf, a psychologist at the University of Queensland, Australia, who led the study.
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Bizarro Earth

Bizarre Bird Behavior Predicted by Game Theory


PhysOrg
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:00 UTC
Raven
© UnknownRaven

A team of scientists, led by the University of Exeter, has used game theory to explain the bizarre behaviour of a group of ravens. Juvenile birds from a roost in North Wales have been observed adopting the unusual strategy of foraging for food in 'gangs'. New research, published in the journal PLoS One (on Wednesday 25 February 2009), explains how this curious behaviour can be predicted by adapting models more commonly used by economists to analyse financial trends.

This is the first time game theory has been used to successfully predict novel animal behaviour in the real world. The researchers believe this analysis could also shed light on the variation in feeding strategies in different populations in other species.
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Butterfly

British Butterfly Reveals Role of Habitat for Species Responding to Climate Change


PhysOrg
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:00 UTC
Most wild species are expected to colonise northwards as the climate warms, but how are they going to get there when so many landscapes are covered in wheat fields and other crops? A study published today (Wednesday 25 February 2009) shows it is possible to predict how fast a population will spread and reveals the importance of habitat conservation in helping threatened species survive environmental change.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the research tracks the recovery of a rare British butterfly over 18 years and offers hope for the preservation of other species.

Conducted by the Universities of Exeter, York and Sheffield and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, the study could inform future conservation policy to help safeguard vulnerable species against the effects of climate change and habitat destruction.
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Magnet

Florida tests using magnets to repel crocodiles

Jane Sutton
Reuters
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 04:51 UTC
Florida wildlife managers have launched an experiment to see if they can keep crocodiles from returning to residential neighborhoods by temporarily taping magnets to their heads to disrupt their "homing" ability.

Researchers at Mexico's Crocodile Museum in Chiapas reported in a biology newsletter they had some success with the method, using it to permanently relocate 20 of the reptiles since 2004.

"We said, 'Hey, we might as well give this a try," Lindsey Hord, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's crocodile response coordinator, said on Tuesday.

Crocodiles are notoriously territorial and when biologists move them from urban areas to new homes in the wild, they often go right back to the place where they were captured, traveling up to 10 miles a week to get there.

Scientists believe they rely in part on the Earth's magnetic fields to navigate, and that taping magnets to both sides of their heads disorients them.

"They're just taped on temporarily," Hord said. "We just put the magnets on when they're captured and since they don't know where we take them, they're lost. The hope would be that they stay where we take them to."
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