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September 29, 2005

Arctic Ice Cap Shrinking for 4th Summer in a Row

On September 29,2005 the Star Tribune published an article about the ongoing shrinkage of the sea ice in the Arctic. According to Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times the floating cap of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, shrank this past summer to its smallest size in a century. Mark Serreze, a senior scientist at the snow and ice center and a professor at the University of Colorado said that this summer was the fourth in a row with ice cap areas sharply below long term average. Of course it was mentioned that this phenomena is hard to explain without taking into account global warming which is caused by humans. Many

experts agree now and from the outset that this trend toward less summer ice is definitely related to global warming. More open water means solar energy is absorbed, not reflected back into space by snow and ice. Ted Scambos, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center In Boulder Colorado states that "it's pretty certain a long term decline is under way. All the fears of a rise of sea level due to melting glaciers and ice sheets could be just around the corner I don't doubt it. This article mentioned that polar bears and Inuit seal hunter could be adversely affected as well. It did mention that an expansion or rise in sea level could affect some organisms favorably. For example cod and whale. I don't believe melting ice caps are the answer to saving the whales or cod. There would be more ocean. The scientists in the article said the difference between the average ice area and the area "that persisted" this summer was about 500,000 square miles. A constant comment that was present in this article as well as many articles of this nature was that it's not possible to determine how much of this change in the Arctic is caused by human behavior. How much is caused by carbon dioxide and/or other emissions and what is the role of normal climate fluctuation? Not having a definitive answer to this is quite a barrier to solid public support and lends a bit of credence to corporations that justify not wanting to change their polluting ways.

Posted by Ramona Beard at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)

Weekend at the Shack...To Bag a Mountain Lion?

Anyone famialar with the midwest knows that many look forward to automn not just for the apple cider, fall leaves and backyard football, but for the onset of hunting season. Grouse, deer, ducks and many other animals are hunted each fall during specific seasons.

Well, the people of South Dakota are preparing to add one more game species to their list, the mountain lion. The first ever mountain lion hunting season is schedualed to begin on October 1st.

Minnesota Public Radio's, Cara Hetland reported yesterday that South Dakota officials claim the growing moutain lion population is breaching more populated areas. Thus over 1,000 hunting license applications have already been submitted. The new hunting season would allow for 25 cats to be killed and five may be breeding females.

The Mountain Lion Foundation based in Souix Falls, SD warns that subjecting the cats to a hunting season would surely be enough to wipe out the 150 lion population. A species that continues to remain extinct in 35 states. The group, who is currently suing the state, scoldes South Dakota's lack of any coordination, research, and record keeping and reccomends joint conservation efforts. Lynn Sadler, president of the foundation, supports South Dakota's original policy, where mountain lions were only allowed to be killed when threatening people or livestock. A male lion requires abot 300 square miles of individual territory which the increasing number of cats have been in search of. The territorial nature of mountain lions could in fact be the best tool against a growing population, suggests Sadler, since males will fight to death over territory.

Those willing to comment from South Dakota's Game, Fish and Parks Department are confident that the 25 cat limit won't even be met due to the difficulty of hunting a mountain lion over South Dakota's rough hills. Rapid City officials explain that that is the very reason the state kept the license fee a cheap as possible. A hearing on issue will take place today where a swift judgement is expected.

It seems that South Dakota's "exploding" mountain lion population of 150 total cats is just another example of where humans must be mindful of more than just local experience, when really the big picture should be examined. Remember that Minnesota underwent a similar situtation when we became the first state to regain a small wolf population. Is it ever thought that we may have invaded the mountain lion population rather than them breeching our territory?

For more information visit mpr.org.

Posted by Brook Emerson at 10:11 AM | Comments (0)

Hypoxia in the Gulf

Hypoxia was mentioned early in the class as an environmental concern, something I had not even heard of before. It interested me, though, because with it already being a concern, and then piling on top of it the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, it seemed that the Gulf of Mexico might have a hard time recovering.

Hypoxia occurs when "dissolved oxygen concentrations are less than 2 mg/L", this situation creates an enviornment in which most organisims experience high levels of stress and some cannot live at all (mostly bottom dwellers). In order for hypoxia to occur, the water column needs to be stratified and there needs to be organic matter to consume the oxygen. The Mississippi produces both of these, making for a hypoxic zone that reached the size of New Jersey in 1999.

The Mississippi River drains a basin into the Gulf the size of approximately 41% of the United States, of which that basin contains the majority of our crop land. This is important because the Nitrogen left over from the fertilizer and the animal manure of these farms is getting washed down to the Gulf, contributing to 65-84% of the hypoxia-causing nitrogen.

For every nitrogen atom, up to 6.6 atoms of organic carbon can be produced by photosynthesis. This nitrogen can then be recycled again and again to produce even more carbon. We have seen a great increase in nitrogen flux draining from the basin, it has gone from less than 0.5 million metric tons in 1955 to reaching over 1.5 million metric tons in the 1990's.

Increased fertilizer use and increased streamflow are setting a tragic course for the Gulf of Mexico. The problem could have only been compounded by the flooding of Katrina, spilling all of those contaminants into the Gulf as well. Unfortuanately any effort we make to supress hypoxia from advancing won't produce measureable fruit for quite some time. But there is no better time to start than now.

All information/facts gathered from:

EOS, Transactions, American Geophyisical Union: Volume 81, Number 29, July 18th, 2000

Posted by Lindsey Hatz at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)

A 'New Era' of Hurricanes

Like others in the class, I am also writing about the article, “It’s a ‘New Era’ of Hurricances.” This article discusses the trend in blaming global warming for the recent strain of hurricanes and also the general abundance of hurricanes over the last ten years or so.
According to the article, there are cycles or periods during which hurricanes are more or less abundant. These cycles on depend on the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), or “changes in the ocean currents that move heat northward.” Faster currents mean that we will see more hurricanes. Data shows that these seasons change roughly every 20 to 25 years. We saw cool currents from “1900 to 1925, warm from 1926 to 1969, cool from 1970 to 1994 and warm since 1995.”

Although there is specific data of the AMO to back up the fluctuations in hurricane abundance and strength, many are not aware of this information, or they have not lived long enough to observe these cycles.
For me, this article brings up two important points. The first is my concern over the lack of knowledge and blind acceptance of the news and other forms of media. Although global warming may still play a factor in recent hurricane strengths and numbers, there is data available to suggest another reason for these hurricanes. I assume that most people are not aware of this information, but instead blindly accept the idea that global warming causes more and stronger hurricanes. I have to admit that until I read this article, I had not even questioned the connection between global warming and hurricanes; it made sense to me, so I went along with it. For me, this article stresses the importance of completely understanding an issue before taking a side. It also stresses the importance of critically thinking about mainstream media and its information.
My second concern was how the article discounted the link between global warming and the weather. I was disappointed by the “I don’t know” response of Professor William Gray over the connection between the two factors. Although the article does not make a connection between global warming and natural disasters, I had hoped that Gray and other scientists would still stress the importance of reducing its effects. I hope that reducing global warming and improving our environment is still a concern and an item of importance. Instead, Gray states, “With all the problems in the world, we shouldn’t be dealing with this one.”

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/23/hurricane.cycle/index.html

Posted by Jacquelyn Wallerius at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

Captivity vs. animal rights

Animal rights are some of the most prominent and controversial issues facing society on a daily basis. Many of these rights focus on domestic animals, however, a recent article by Discovery and ABC news has brought the rights of exotic animals to worldwide attention. According to a recent study recorded in Applied Animal Behaviour Science journal, gorillas kept in zoos have shown signs of agitation and stress as a result of being exhibited. These gorillas were noticed to have “abnormal behavior, teeth clenching, body rocking and spinning,”

according to Dr. Deborah Wells. The study indicates that gorillas are not the only primates affected by captivity and that other primates have shown similar signs of agitation and stress in zoo settings. Although some animals appear to enjoy human attention, zoos must be aware of the needs and concerns of other animals. Changes have been made to decrease the stress levels and interaction between the human viewers and the captive animals. However, improvements must continue to be made in order to further promote the happiness and quality of life of the animals humans hold captive in order to observe.

In my opinion, it is wrong to hold animals in captivity if they indeed show signs of stress and agitation around humans. Taking animals out of their natural habitat to place them in an unnatural and somewhat unwelcoming setting has proven to be significantly harmful to the animal’s emotional wellbeing. In this way, scientists and zoologists must be aware of the wellbeing of animals held in captivity and sensitive to the differences in animal emotion and character.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/enviro/EnviroRepublish_1469222.htm

Posted by Marjorie Grossman at 09:16 AM | Comments (0)

Contaminated Fuel Angers Customers

I live in the city of Oakdale, Minnesota. Recently a gas station in the area was close down due to some problems. It was later reopen by new owners. The new gas station was called Circl-C Convenience Center. During the time Circle-C station open was when gas prices was really high about four months ago. Circle-C was selling gas really cheap, at least 20-30 cents cheaper than everyone else. When you purchase a gas at Circle-C you receive fee cup or coffee and a free popcorn. They just open so I thought they were trying to get customers. The cheaper gas price got alot of peoples attention. We had people from Oakdale and people outside the city of Oakdale all buying gas there.

"Authorities and customers think that the problem with the gas may have resulted from a failure to clean out the underground storage tanks, which had been empty for months, before filling them with new fuel. The vehicle owners said that dirty watery sludge in the gas was the cause of damages." (Oakdale and Lake Elmo Review)

Most people cars were damage from the contamination of the fuel. My car was okay, but I do feel bad for those who cars are damage. This have all made me realize that some times cheapers is not always better. Your car is worth more than the few cents you save on gas. I do feel bad for the new owners because they are have a lawsuit against them, and they just open the business.

Posted by Amanda Amarteifio at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)

Minneapolis steps to the forefront of clean municiple water

An article posted in the Star Tribune on Tuesday, September 6, 2005 titled; Same taste, but cleaner water, discusses the addition of a new ultrafiltration system to the municipal water supplies of Minneapolis, Mn. Primarily implemented in surface water intake systems, the new system filters the previous municipal water output through a series of synthetic micro filtration tubes, which will put Minneapolis water standards far ahead of federal water regulations. This new system is also capable of continuously monitoring critical water data and can also pre-sense contaminated water from upstream sources to prevent contamination into the quality water supply. Bio-Terrorist weapons such as anthrax will now be able to be filtered with this new system. A second ultrafiltation system is also planned to be build a couple of miles up river and is scheduled to be finished in five years. A two day storage water supply will be held in reserve in case there is a large scale contamination in the newly opened facility. This is largely due to the possibility of a radiation leak from the Monticello Nuclear Plant. The top of the line improvements boasts Minneapolis as a water conscious metropolis.

Posted by Jason Carlson at 03:52 AM | Comments (1)

The Killer Chicken Flu!

It's very easy for us to underestimate the power of the flu. To most of us it's just a nuisance than can be solved with a few days in bed, but for some in southeast Asia it is a different story. The flu's victums have mostly been chickens and it has killed more than a hundred million of them. Robert Webster, a researcher at St. Jude Children's Hopital, said, "This virus right from scratch is probably the worst influenza virus, in terms of being highly pathogenic, that I've ever seen or worked with." When chickens catch the virus they usually die within hours, and now researchers have found that the virus can also kill mammels just as quickly.

Now, there have been several cases where humans have caught the chicken virus and of those cases half have died. The virus has been named H5N1. It is not well adapted to transfer from birds to humans, but it has been proven possible. The scary thought it if this virus has evolved to be able to transfer between species than it is very likely that other virus' could mutate and also infect humans. This isn't the first case that a flu strain has transfered from birds to humans. The last epidemic was named the Spanish flu and spread through army camps during the World War I. Doctors who examined those who died from it found that their lungs were heavy and filled with bloody fluid. Eventually, this strain infected normal civilians and over 50 million people ended up dying. Scientists are still studying the genetic make-up of that virus, they are not done with their research yet, but one conclusion they have made was that the Spanish flu virus was a strain that had been passed from an animal to humans. Victums from the chicken flu are having similar symptoms. Their lungs become filled with fluid and they seem to suffocate to death. The reason our bodies cannot fight animal virus' it because we our immune systems don't recognize them. When we catch the common flu our bodies recognize part of the virus from previous years and can trigger our immune system to fight it. Usually a chicken virus could not affect humans because it isn't able to attack human cells. However, they have now found that a transfer species can develop both a chicken virus and human virus and create a hybrid that can attack human cells. These virus' are much more detrimental to humans because our bodies do not know how to fight them. Right now the virus has not become an epidemic, but it is scary to think of what could happen if this would become out of control. The scientists who are studying it are very concerned about the eventual outcome and the people are even more terrified. Their lack of understanding about the virus has scared them into not eating as much chicken which greatly affects the local economy. As a whole, this issue brings up an even greater concern, what would we do if a virus did infect our nation and how would we fight it? Interesting to think about.

Posted by Jessica Houlihan at 12:52 AM | Comments (0)

Wisc. Govenor to veto ban on cloning

While skimming over the online edition of the Star Tribune I found an article about human cloning in Wisconsin. The Senate passed a bill that banned human cloning and the Govenor was set to veto that bill. He believes that putting a ban on cloning would hurt the research done at UW Madison. I for one will not claim myself to be an expert in the ill effects due to human cloning but I do believe that the positives do outweigh the negatives. If we allow stem cell research and cloning of cells we have a greater oppertunity to find cures for our most devistating diseases. With the amount of knowledge and technology in the science world today why put a halt to it now? I have great faith in the scientists to help find a cure for cancer and other deadly diseases within our lifetime. I can't wait to see all the innovations and successes that are going to come about because of the research being done in today's labratories. I agree with the govenor of Wisconsin to veto the bill to ban human gene cloning.

Posted by Elizabeth Spencer at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)

Slowing Population Growth

Most of us would probably agree that the high population of humans has serious negative affects on the earth's environment. With more people food and agriculture will be further stressed by a greater demand for food production. As population grows it also hurts our forests, natural resource areas, and takes away from biodiversity found in tropical regions. We can already see that energy in the form of fossil fuels is not an unlimited resource and that more people in the future means less enegy per person. Lastly our waste in the form of trash and sewage will be increased and it has to go somewhere.

So how do we deal with these problems? Can we shoot all of our problems into space? ... Well, the odds are against that happening any time soon, but I have come up with a few ways to prevent further population growth in the future.
The first suggestion I would have is that every country figure out what their own carying compacity would be or already is. The government can then make educated decisions on what to do with land space and find out wether or not they need to campaign for people to stop having as many kids. The second suggestion would be to ensure that everyone has access to family planning. Some people right now just aren't able to get contraceptives or don't know about them. A third and very simple solution woud be educate the younger generations on the issue. As we have seen in class, countries that are well established and fully industrialized have a stable or decreasing population already. Perhaps then our roll as one of the wealthier contries in the world should be to help countries that aren't as developed and ensure that in the process they don't destroy important parts of their environment. We should learn from our mistakes and help make the earth better for future generations of humans.

Posted by Peter Steensgard at 12:08 AM | Comments (1)

September 28, 2005

ANWR Technology

We all know that on the top of of energy agenda is to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. What most do not relize is that even if drilling occurs we have the technology to leave as little impact as possible in the area. The problem is that there are no environmental restrictions on what technology has to be used.
There are many things such as 3-D mapping instead of 2-D mapping which is more accurate and shows exactly where to drill. This means less drilling and more untouched area. There are many other technologies such as using new tires that are much larger, like big balloons that would not crush the surrounding area like normal tires on trucks which are called rolligons, or using coiled tubing instead of 60 meter long interlocking pieces that take more trips to bring in. Also using technology to separate the oil underground instead of having and extra building that separates the water and oil.
If you were an oil company drilling what would be the reason for spending more money to get the same product if you didn't use this technology. It would not be economical and it would seem a bit pointless for them to do. These are all great technologies but unless the government mandates them, the oil companies will shove them aside for cheaper methods. If the bill is passed there doesnt seem to be any doubt that they will use the same technology that has been used in the past. The only thing that can be done it seems is to make it public that there are these better ways of doing things which would be less impactful. I don't think that the oil industry wants video of acres of trees and animals losing their homes if people knew there was a better way. Since everybody is watching this topic so closely in these times of crisis due to such high gas prices, to get this information out doesn't seem increadibly difficult. The ideal situation would be if we would not drill at all in ANWR which would mean no evironmental impact but that might be to much to ask for, so we might have to bend a bit. But we should not let ourselves be broken due to our lack of ambition to save some of this pristine refuge.

Posted by Brian Beck at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)

water in the desert

Water is a precious resource, one that the city of Las Vegas seems to take for granted. With the fountains of the Strip, the green lawns of the residential areas, all of the swimming pools, and the golf courses, you wouldn’t even know that you were actually in the middle of the desert. Las Vegas and its vicinity get their water from Lake Mead, a lake formed because of the presence of the Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam was built to provide electricity to Las Vegas, and now it decreases the flow of the Colorado River so that it is now merely a trickle as it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. This has disrupted the natural system of life as many species depend on the river as a water source in the dry desert. Granted there are areas where the Colorado River once flows as it was naturally meant to, but in other areas, it definitely has a negative effect in other areas.
The Las Vegas area grows rapidly with each passing year, and officials have realized that eventually there will be a water problem is something is not done to stop it, especially with the unavailability of groundwater; there only water resource is Lake Mead.
Vegas is now working on a conservation program so that they can save a cumulative amount of water each year.

Posted by Miranda Kersten at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)

ANWR Discussion

So after a long day of classes and exams I returned to my dorm room to do my blog. Somehow my roommate and I got into a disagreement about drilling and the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. I found it very interesting her views on the issue because she is in going into a natural resource major, however, she is a conservative republican. I on the other hand i am a very liberal minded environmental science major so you can imagine how our debate was going. I was shocked to actually find out how much my roommate and didn't have in common on certain issues after seeing how well we have lived together this past month.

We discussed how the roads would disrupt the natural migration patterns of animals as well as sectioning off areas of wilderness removing the natural niches, top prediatros and so on as well creating inpurvious surfaces. My roommate did not see these as issues, she thought that it wouldn't cause too much of a problem. This lead to another problem, whos to say that the government would stop at this one thing. If drilling was allowed how far would they take their drilling? Would there still be high regulations in the area especially on the matter if drilling if it was allowed? Where else would the government try to go and destroy? My roommate said that the drilling would only take up a small amount of space. But would that really be true? i dont believe so. I do not see the government in it's current state taking the environment in it's priorties. Because if that was the case, they wouldn't even see drilling as being an option. However it is the option that this nation is faced with right now. I hope that there can be sence put into the minds of our politicans so that we can keep this pristine wildlife refuge maintained in it's natural beauty, not converted into a texas styled drilling factory.

Posted by Sadie Schuldt at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

Kill the hurricane before it kills us?

It was called project Stormfury. It's goal was simple; to weaken or dissapate potentially dangerous hurricanes before they could cause damage. The idea was to drop silver iodide outside of the hurricanes eyewall. The silver iodide would act as ice nuclei and new clouds would form out side of the existing eyewall. The goal was to form a new eyewall that would collapse the existing wall and spin slower. In trials conducted in the 60's and 70's Stormfury seemed to be working. Hurricanes that were seeded with the silver iodide appeared to lose up to 30% of their wind speeds.

Unfortunetly their were some gigantic holes in the method. Primarily, the fact that hurricanes fluctuate in power on their own completely negates the results of the experiment. Effective cloud seeding also requires supercooled water that is liquid even though it is below 32 degrees F. Unfortunetly hurricanes contain far less supercooled water than other storm clouds. The project was dropped after wasting hundreds of millions of dollars.

Other, even more rediculous methods of hurricane prevention have been proposed. One includes cooling tropical water with icebergs, and another involves spreading some sort of film over the water preventing storm cells from feeding off the heat of the ocean.

I don't know what others think but the whole thing seems like a pretty good example of human kinds' arrogance in the face of nature. I do not think that destroying the storm is the answer. Either way I am kinda reporting on old news.

What I think we need to focus attention on are more practical ways of preventing damage. Stronger levies, a rigid, government enforced building code, and better evacuation plans are far more practical solutions to the hurricane problem.

Posted by Zachary Nichols at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)

technology is the Key

The way I see it the main environmental problems of today can be solved with technology. The other alternative is to ask/force the world to consume less, and this is not very likely. Hydrogen in the future will provide the world with clean energy. The fusion between two hydrogen atoms is the key to electricity in the future. It meets all the criteria for a good source of power. It is clean, safe, and provides an enormous amount of energy. This is backed by www.fusion.org
“The major conclusions reached by the SEAFP team in 1995 were that fusion has very good inherent safety qualities; there are no chain reactions and no production of 'actinides'. The worst possible accident originating in a fusion power station could not breach the confinement; any releases could not approach levels at which evacuation would be considered.
The radiotoxicity of a fusion power station's waste materials decays rapidly, and they present no accumulating or long-term burden on future generations. They would not need guaranteed isolation from the environment for very long time spans. In addition to these favorable results, fusion produces no climate-changing or atmosphere-polluting emissions.”

When fusion is developed and integrated into a powerplant it will be able to provide power for generations to come.

Hydrogen will also power our cars. Most of the major car companies including Honda, Toyota, and ford are all developing hydrogen cars. A hydrogen car works by passing hydrogen atoms through a membrane which removes the electron from the hydrogen. The hydrogen then combines with oxygen which then requires more electrons so the electrons that were striped from the hydrogen move toward the oxygen mixing with the hydrogen. When the hydrogen meets the oxygen, the urge for an electron becomes greater and thus more electrons are needed keeping the cycle going and producing a current. The current is then used to power an electric motor which powers the car. When these cars are fully implemented, they will virtually reduce pollution to nothing. The only byproduct from the reaction is water. Technology is the solution to our environmental problems.

Posted by William Quinn at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)

Posted by William Quinn at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)

Shoreline Restoration

It is concerning to see our natural lakes and rivers in the area being damadged by bad land practice. With my mind on the events in New Orleans I couldn't help but think of all the soil erosion, and water pollution that we have already created upriver, and that will now be added to, by the wreckage of New Orleans. I thought of why we have so much pollution and soil erosion, and I keep coming back to the conclusion that humans are using the land and not taking care of it. For instance, farmers have drained their fields by use of drain tile, and they spread fertilizers which will eventually find its way into our waterways. We also have been building homes on shorelines, and then we destroy the natural shoreline habitat so that we can have nice beaches.
I feel that more people need to take advantage of programs that will help restore natural vegitations to the shorelines, and help protect the soil from eroding. It will also be benificial because it will improve water quality, and allow a larger biodiversity because of new habitat. To make things even easier there is funding available in some area's through local Lakeshore Associations, Private or public cost-share grants, or legislative funding.

Posted by Bryan Stramer at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

Is Cocaine Killing More Than Just Humans?

It's a fact, cocaine kills about 10 people a day around the world, but humans are not the only ones. A recent flyby of Columbian anti-drug air planes found that due to government spraying of coca plant fields in Columbia, the drug lords have taken their operations to the national parks in Columbia. This brings up a major problem for the Columbian government. Columbia is home to thousands of exotic plant and animal species, ranging from the Ande's mountains to the Sierra Macarena national park. To spray these rain forests would be devastating to plants and animals alike. However, to allow drug lords to continue the burning and cutting of these parks and forests is nonetheless destructive. I believe that instead of spraying these parks, the Columbian government needs to find a way to get the drug dealers out of them peacefully. There are dozens of species in these rain forests that are not found anywhere else in the world. With the current situation, the forests are being destroyed no matter what the plan of action is. I cant see any other resolution except to let the drug dealers run their operations on their own private land, and quit spraying their fields of coca plant. That does not end the war on drugs, but pointless destruction of these priceless rainforests does not end the war either. No matter what the outcome, thousands of acres of rain forest and who knows how many species will be destroyed. Spraying the rain forest with toxic chemicals does not stop drug dealers from finding ways to get what they want.

Posted by Tanner Kraft at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)

The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico was mentioned in both of my Environmental Science classes this semester. I had previously never heard of this issue and decided to look into it. I think this issue is interesting and important because it combines topics such as; human influence on natural earth cycles, habitat destruction, economic impact, and the debate over whom is responsible for protecting the environment. I found information on the Sierra Club website, but I am interested to see if anyone finds perspectives or opinions different from what I found on this site.
The Dead Zone is a section of the Gulf of Mexico that seasonally has extremely low levels of life supporting oxygen. This lifeless part of the ocean often grows to the size of Massachusetts, but varies depending on the time of year. However, studies have shown that the Dead Zone has been growing consistently since 1993. The size of the Dead Zone depends on the amount phosphorus and nitrogen draining into the Mississippi and reflects farming seasons. Human activities from as far away as Minnesota are producing these excess nutrients. The nutrients are used in fertilizer on farm lands to encourage plant growth. And they are doing exactly that. Enormous algae and phytoplankton blooms grow in the water from the Mississippi River that enters the Gulf. As these blooms die, they sink to ocean floor. As we learned in class, in order for organisms to decompose, they need oxygen. These decomposing plants use the oxygen, and a lot of it. The amount of oxygen in the water is often drops to less than 2 parts per million. This state of depleted oxygen in the water is known as hypoxia. This oxygen level is not able to support most marine life that would normally live in the area.

Again, this amount of nitrogen and phosphorus is not naturally occurring in the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico. The main source of these nutrients is streams that drain from farming states such as Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Minnesota, and then empty into the Mississippi and then the Gulf. 56% of the nitrogen in the Mississippi is from commercial fertilizers, 25% from animal manures, and the remaining 19% is attributed to legumes, municipal and domestic waste, and atmospheric deposition. Atmospheric deposition occurs when nutrients are released by sources such as cars and power plants into the air, and then settle into bodies of water, in this case, the Mississippi.

Beyond creating an area that no longer can support marine life, this nutrient drainage has even more negative impact. The Dead Zone threatens biodiversity, and the economy. The environmental damage of hypoxia includes; “noxious algal blooms that choke out fish, shrimp and crabs; altered coastal phytoplankton food webs—the lowest rung of the ocean food chain upon which most sea life depends; altered stream-side ecosystems.” Also important to consider is that many fish also travel upstream from the Gulf to the Mississippi to spawn, with this oxygen depleted area growing, it is easy to predict that these species will also be affected. Economically, the Dead Zone is also harmful. Fishermen on the Gulf of Mexico have to travel farther and farther from the Dead Zone in order to catch the fish that sustain their livelihoods. Additionally, The Gulf of Mexico supplies 40% of the United States’ fishing yield. If the Dead Zone continues to grow, the economic devastation will grow with it.

The Environmental Protection Agency has recognized the Dead Zone as an area that demands attention and a solution. On this website I found that it seemed that not much concrete action had been taken towards fixing this problem. Rather, is seemed to be an acknowledgement of things that needed to be changed and goals that had been set. This brings up the issue of who is responsible for stopping the growth of the Dead Zone. Though the cause of the Dead Zone can be traced back quite specifically, I don’t think there would be any sort of incentive for farmers, for examples, to stop their use of fertilizers. The use of fertilizers increases their crop production, and helps them economically. I was interested in how much farmers would suffer economically if they stopped, or significantly reduced their use of fertilizer. Is this economic strain close or equal to the one that the fishermen face in the Gulf of Mexico? An additional source of the excess nutrients is exhaust from automobiles and output into the air from power plants that burn fossil fuels. I had never thought about the impact that use of fossil fuels had on water quality, rather just the issue of the limited supply and damage it does to air quality. The Dead Zone is another example of how imperative a serious reassessment and resolution to change is.

Posted by Mary Kemp at 09:04 PM | Comments (0)

MELTDOWN!

According to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ICIA), polar bears are facing possible extinction with the increase of global warming. The ICIA has over 250 scientists from Britain and America researching such cases. If the arctic keeps melting at its present rate, the sea-ice that the polar bears hunt on will become liquid. If the polar bears hunting area diminishes the bears wont be able to build up the necessary fat to hold them through the winter months and to be able to successfully reproduce. In Canada's Hudson Bay, the sea ice is breaking around 2.5 weeks earlier than 30 years ago. Also, the polar bears in Manitoba way 55 pounds less than they did 35 years ago. If this pattern continues in about 10 years polar bears wont be able to reproduce, because they will be too thin and infertile. Computer prediction programs show the sea-ice by 2100, disappearing by 1/2. This case of global warming also affects artic seals, walruses, and local people. Chief Gary Harrison from the Arctic Athabaskan Council stated, "Our homes are threatened by storms and melting permafrost, our livelihoods are threatened by changes to the plants and animals we harvest. Even our lives are being threatened, as traditional travel routes become more dangerous." The ACIA reported that this global change will not only contribute the the extinction of polar bears and other arctic species, but it will create numerous hardships for the natives of the land.

Posted by Katherine Pike at 08:58 PM | Comments (1)

Cracking the code for hurricane forecasts

In light of the hurricane issues our country has been having, I found it appropriate to write about it. This MSNBC news article gave a little information on the tracking of hurricanes and how to read what they are telling us.
Hurricane prediction experts are saying that if you just look at the "skinny black line" when watching a predicted hurricane, it's not enough to tell you where and how hard the hurricane will hit. The National Hurricane Center has a new tool that narrow down where it is likely a hurricane will hit and how strong the winds may become. They comment that these new developments are for saving lives, no matter how scientifically interesting they may be.
Hurricane pictures show a "balloon" because it balloons outward from where the storm's position may be three to five days in the future. In order to get these predictions at all, forecasters have to take data such as wind, precipitation, temperature and pressure from air and ground resources and put all of them into computer systems in order to study them. They then come up with specific forecasts that predict a storm's certain location at a certain time. All these forecasts added together form the "skinny black line" and from there, the forecasts can add the "cone of uncertainty by mathematically computeing an error range, based on a 10-year average of prediction errors." I find it interesting that the entire hurricane is based on a computer and past errors in order to warn thousands of people their lives may be in danger. As the cone widens around the black line, it is getting further away in time because these predictions are more likely to be wrong the more in the future they are.
If you want to look at these forecasts, the National Hurricane Center has all of these tools on their webpage. Their graphics include a three day cone and a five day cone; it is historically shown that a given storm has 60 to 70 percent change of staying within the cone when looked at on a three day cone map. They are saying it's more important to focus on the balloon shaped areas rather than the black line because storms do take unexpected turns. All of the uncertainty a hurricane provides in basically a scary thing for the people who it affects. Those paying attention to the large area are more likely to be aware of a storm that could possibly hit their area at a given time, though the black line is still important. It gives a general "danger zone" and can be effective that way. This new development is able to make people aware of the storms in their area and can possibly save lives when people are paying attention to what is going on.
The black line chart is a probability chart. It shows the probability that the center of a storm will pass within 75 miles of the given point during a 72 hour period. This tool also shows strike probabilities and can give an estimate of when the storm will affect your area, using 12 to 24 time periods.
An obvious important hurricane factor is the wind. The prediction maps are a little more difficult for wind, but for a tropical storm, the service provides "three maps displaying the likelihood that sustained winds in a given area will exceed a particular level over periods of up to five days."
Though these tools are available at a national level, the areas that are in direct paths of the storm should obviously pay attention to their local weather and grasp information that way. I just feel that these tools could be very helpful for people who live in other areas and have loved ones living in storm paths. It helps us be aware of what is going on, because in the Midwest we aren't as affected as those down south. Katrina is a national problem, and in the future these new discoveries may help natural disasters be somewhat less, well, disastrous.

Posted by Keely Gerhold at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)

Feminizing Male Fish

Last year nine smallmouth bass from the Potomac River were found with developed eggs inside their sex organs. This discovery spawned a wave of concern among scientists and citizens alike who were worried about what this discovery meant. The reason for this unusual situation is believed to be brought upon by endocrine disruptors. The endocrine system in the body regulates hormones distributed from the glands, such as pituitary, pancreas, testes, ovaries, etc. One of the major possibilities is the release of estrogen from sewage; women on birth control and other hormonal medications release estrogen through their excrement, and since there are currently no restrictions on estrogen, it readily flows through the sewage-treatment plant and into our water supply, affecting fish. Since the endocrine system controls hormones, and endocrine disruptors affect the endocrine system, excess estrogen disrupts the hormonal balance, aiding in the feminization of fish. Research was done in 2003 on the smallmouth bass in South Branch to conclude why many of the fish were dying. One hundred fish were dissected, and 42 of those were found to contain eggs. Researches went back in 2004, and examined 63 smallmouth bass from South Branch, and approximately 80% of the fish had either eggs or female reproductive characteristics. Environment Canada showed that fish living near sewage plant seepage had a higher percentage of feminization. Britain researches evaluated 24 seepage sites in 8 European countries and found that some of the sites had abnormally high female populations. They hypothesized that endocrine disrupters affected the male fish so much that they probably died sooner than the females. So far England is the only country that measures and limits estrogen levels in its sewage effluent. Another problem with endocrine disrupters in fish is that it is unknown who these will affect humans that ingest them. Scientists believe the endocrine disrupters could cause effects such as neurological and thyroid system problems, and in Hardy County, where people get their drinking water from contaminated South Beach, there has been an increase in cancer of the liver, gallbladder, ovaries, and uterus. Scientists say all 4 types of cancer grow faster in presence of estrogen, or estrogen-like chemicals. After hearing about feminization of fish, I became very worried about not only the quality of water in streams, but also about the quality of drinking water and sewage seepage. I thought that in order for waste from the sewage treatment plants to be dumped, it had to be carefully examined for all possible harm. It really makes me consider how much trust we can place in the cleansing of sewage. Most people prefer to not think about where their bodily excrement is going, but this information proves that it is something we need to consider. People seem to assume that their waste is being adequately handled with, without looking into it more. While I realize that not every hormone, compound, and material can be tested for, someone should be constantly monitoring sewage seepage and the surrounding area, and should be ready to make a move when something is found. I find it amazing that the issue has to become as severe as large numbers of male fish harboring eggs before action is taken. However, it seems as though no action has yet to be taken, even after these discoveries. One of the articles I read seemed to sum up the human attitude best, stating, "Until rigorous medical research shows a direct connection between elevated estrogen levels and negative health effects in humans, public health and environmental officials are unlikely to devote significant time and money to reducing estrogen levels in fish populations." I think this seems to be the general attitude towards the environment. Unless the issue has significant negative impact on humans, and can be proven as truth, the public would rather remain in denial. The articles I read where from December 2004, and when I was searching for recent news about the development of estrogen in sewage seepage, the only thing I could find was an article from August 14, 2005 stating that male fish from the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair had been found with altered sex organs. It seems that there still has not been any legislation on this issue, not even sewage testing for hormones. Instead, just more fish have been found with altered sex organs. This is devastating for the future of these fish populations. With that high of a percentage of male fish that are now incapable of reproducing, the fish population will drastically decline. Not to mention future generations, where the males will continue to grow female reproductive parts, and the females may too become affected, inhibiting their normal reproductive cycle. I just think this issue proves how it is impossible for people to know about all the environmental problems facing the world, and how we are incapable of knowing our actions’ consequences until the effects start to show up. I know legislation and action take time and money, but this is an important, worrisome issue.

Posted by Abigail Tomasek at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)

Penguin Minesweepers

Here is an interesting and accidentally environmental protection story. In 1982, there was a small war between Argentina and Britain over the rights to the Falkland Islands. During the fight, mines were placed by the coastal regions of the island. After the dispute was over, not all of the mines were cleared out, and at the time it would have been extremely hard and expensive to clear all of them out, so they just put a fence around it. This fenced off area, therefore is now absent of all human influence, including livestock grazing. This has given the plant life time to recover, as well as creating an ideal breeding environment for penguins, which are too light to set off the landmines. So, interestingly enough, these animals have gained a protected habitat through an act of human violence. I think that this is a great situation! The humans have given a large section of land back to the environment, and it went back to the function it held before human interaction with it. However, human safety is still a concern for some, and they think that the mines should be removed. While this is an admirable idea with good intentions, some believe that well enough should be left alone. And as of now, there isn’t a big push from the locals to do so, and I couldn’t agree more. Four different species of penguins, gentoo, king, rockhopper and Magellanic can be found there. Over 1,500 of the gentoo alone! The mines haven’t even caused a single injury since 1984, and the human inhabitants haven’t have dealt with the land loss. I think that the current situation should be allowed to continue, for the benefit of humans, other animals, and the land itself.

Article = http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/09/27/falklands.penguins.reut/

Posted by John Krueger at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)

Tigers Attack? Really?

I found a pretty interesting story that happened right here in Minnesota. I just don't get people who think they can erase hundreds of thousands of years of evolution by bottle feeding and raising an animal like that as a pet. Why force an animal to conform to human society simply for their own personal entertainment? And if their claim was to help an endangered species, then why bring it into a habitat as cold as Minnesota’s? As cool as tiger’s may be, they’re out of place in our society, even if they are tamed. We all know how much Siegfried & Roy love their tigers, but look what happened to him, he was also mauled. During that attack, Roy got bit in the neck, that's right, the neck – ouch. A tiger's ecological niche belongs in the jungle, not in the backyard with a 10-year-old child.

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June 23, 2005

MINNEAPOLIS - A 10-year-old boy was attacked and critically injured by a tiger and a lion that were among a dozen large animals kept by a businessman, authorities said.

Russell LaLa of Royalton was injured Wednesday when he and his father visited Chuck Mock, who authorities say is the owner of 11 large cats and a bear. The boy was in critical condition Thursday at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Authorities said Mock opened the door of a cage and a tiger pushed its way out to attack the boy. When the owner was pulling off the tiger, a lion bit Russell, Morrison County Sheriff Michel Wetzel said.

Mock, the owner of Best Buy Auto near Little Falls, did not immediately return telephone calls to his home and office Thursday.

Wetzel said Mock has registered 12 animals with the state — 11 large cats and one bear. The sheriff said he thought Mock kept the animals as "a novelty."

"I don't think anyone should have them," Wetzel said. "Just because you're legal doesn't mean you're safe."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8334390/?GT1=6657

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SIEGRIED & ROY - Audience members said the tiger, a 7-year-old named Montecore who actually has performed in the show for years, refused a command to lie down and then clamped its jaws on Horn's right arm.

The magician repeatedly struck the animal in the head with a microphone, the sound reverberating throughout the auditorium.

The tiger then lunged at Horn, clamped its jaws around his neck and pulled him out of the audience's view, horrified tourists said after filing out of the show.

"He started beating the tiger with his microphone, and the next thing I know, Siegfried is running across the stage yelling, `No, no, no!' " said Tony Cohen, a tourist from Miami who was about 10 yards from the stage. "Then this thing, this tiger, it just took him right off the stage."

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Oct-04-Sat-2003/news/22302613.html

Posted by William Xiong at 06:53 PM | Comments (1)

A solution to global warming?

After reviewing the carbon cycle for our upcoming test, I ran across an article with a solution to curb global warming. The New York Times article reported on a new study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They proposed capturing carbon dioxide emissions from factories and power plants. Doing this could reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations by as much as 30 percent. This surprised me because many new proposals have to do with reducing CO2 emissions, rather than capturing them. This seems like a good idea; it certainly would limit the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere. But where will this trapped carbon go? Sure, we can trap it, but what happens then?
The carbon would be compressed and stored in geological formations. This includes, oil and gas fields, bedrock formations and the ocean. I do not have much knowledge on how pumping CO2 back into the earth will affect various systems and cycles, but the idea of this concerns me. Instead of solving the problem of high CO2 emissions by reducing them, we are just going to cover it up.
The article even brings up the fact that this process is expensive and requires methods of transporting and depositing the compressed CO2.
I do not understand why we continue to produce high levels of waste and then spend our money trying to get rid of it. This happens with municipal garbage, nuclear waste and now carbon dioxide. Money should be spent reducing the amount of waste produced initially.
Capturing CO2 may be a good solution to a pressing problem, but in my mind, the best long-term solution would be to reduce CO2 emissions altogether.

IPCC Special Report on Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage
http://www.ipcc.ch/activity/ccsspm.pdf

Posted by Sarah Graves at 06:32 PM | Comments (0)

Government in the Environment

I was reading the September 22 issue of Rolling Stone magazine and came across an article called “A Polluter’s Feast” (referring to our nice clean world) by Tim Dickinson. The point of the article was that this author was accusing the Bush administration of reversing environmental progress. He made the claim that the administration has “reversed more environmental progress in the last eight months then Ronald Reagan did in a full eight years.” The article states that many of the pro-environmental laws put into affect by previous presidents are being overruled and will therefore not come onto affect. It talks about the energy bill and how, with it, the Bush administration is polluting the water, logging more forests, killing fish, and “nuking the future”. I’m glad that in the process of getting the energy bill passed, the part about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was omitted, but all of these other issues seem bad as well… This article is full of sarcasm and unquestionably biased. Rolling Stone magazine, an entertainment magazine, is undoubtedly a very liberal magazine and chose to print this article to cater to, and make angry, all of its anti-Bush readers, which is probably the majority. I also think that this article was a little extreme and I am choosing not to believe EVERYTHING emphasized as “Bush’s horrible plan”. It was a well written article to make people, and not just environmentalists, angry at Bush, but also anyone in the general public who are interested in the wellbeing of humans.

Posted by Sondra Larson at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)

Ice-cap Melting Eliminating Arctic Ecosystems

I listened to an NPR story this morning, which discussed the expedition of a couple dozen biologists to the Arctic Ocean in search of "hidden oceans" between the glaciers of the North Pole. In the hidden oceans they have found, they have encountered many life-forms living in these freshwater reservoirs. For instance, they have discovered several species of insects, snails, and other bacteria that could only live in the cold, fresh-water environments of the arctic. One snail, named the clione, was compared to a butterfly in appearance and motion.
The fact that many organisms can only find survival possible within these uncommon environments poses a difficult question: what will happen when global climate change alters these environments? It is already obvious that the Earth is seeing an increase in global average temperature, and that the highest temperature increases are occurring in the polar regions. As a result, ice-caps are melting and its freshwater is being sent into the salty ocean.
The story I heard on NPR had a concerned tone when relating the details of the biologists' expedition to global climate change. What will happen to these organisms when the ice-caps melt away and they find their environments, whether once before on solid ground or in the "hidden" freshwater reservoirs between and under this ground, now melted and dispersed into the salty oceans? This question was one I had hardly considered because I often forget how much life actually does exist in the polar regions. It seems that global climate change is too rapid a process for polar bears to simply take to swimming all the time, cliones to adapt to saltwater in a snap (of an ice-wall), and so on.
Even the slowing down of global climate change could help protect as many of these arctic life-forms as possible. If--the big "if"--emissions of greenhouse gases can be reduced by any amount, perhaps these wet or furry creatures of the arctic flurries will have a home proportionally longer.

If you also wish to listen to this story, visit: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4865870

Posted by Joe Norcross at 05:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Is it worth repairing?

A new pipeline is being built in west Washington to replace an older pipeline which has ruptured twice in the past having dramatic effects on the surrounding habitat. It sounded like a great idea at first, then i looked into the details of the plan, and realized that in building a new pipeline would encroach and even damage some of washington's wetlands.
The plan is to place the new pipe line in a riverbed running in opposite directions on either side of the river, but in placing the pipeline in the riverbed many miles of vegitation that can be vital to the river ecology will be dissrupted. The dissruption caused may be so severe that some vegitation may never fully recover from the devistation. Another downfall of placing the new pipeline in a reverbed is disruption of spawning grounds for salmon. Since salmon migrate instinctivly, meaning each generation returns to the exact same spawning location as the previous generation(www.msnencarta.com) Disturbance or distruction of the spawning grounds could be detrimental to the future populations of salmon. The dangers of a rupturing pipeline also have to be considered because that would really devistate much of the river's inhabitants, and the remaining vegitation.
After taking a closer look at the possible downfalls of building a new pipeline in a riverbed it really dosent seem like all of the possible problems were considered. The company planning the new pipeline did however agree to attempt to restore all wetlands effected by the construction of the pipeline, and sponsor or construct three new wetlands along the route to make up for any unrepairable damage. So i ask again, in the end is it worth rebuilding? Personally i have to say no.

Information aquired from www.theolimpian.com, "Pipeline Firm Will Create a Wetland" by John Dodge, published Sept. 16 2005

Posted by Laura Steinlicht at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

Is a new African Pipeline a good idea?

Since the poster project I have been spending a lot of time on the Friends of the Earth website. The other day I came across an article about a new African gas pipeline that is currently under construction. (http://www.foe.org/new/releases/september2005/ghanapipeline9905.html)
The pipeline is going to go from the oil-rich region of the Niger Delta in Nigeria through Benin and Togo to Ghana. The project is expected to cost an estimated 617 million dollars and is being funded by many different companies including Shell, Chevron and the World Bank. The project is expected to displace a lot of people and the compensation that is being offered is pretty measly, only 20 USD. In addition the building of this pipeline could further escalate tensions in Nigeria concerning land disputes that the pipeline is projected to go through.

Shell and Chevron say that the gas pipeline will provide cheap energy to one of the most poverty-ridden parts of the globe. That’s interesting considering that Nigeria has been producing oil for half a century and 66% of the population still lives below the poverty level. They also say that the gas pipeline will put an end to potentially harmful gas flaring in Nigeria. I’m not exactly sure what that means. Wouldn’t that mean that they would have to tap more oil wells? According to Asume Osuoka the leader of Friends of the Earth Nigeria there are no plans to tap existing wells to get gas, which means that new oil wells will be tapped instead.

There are few countries that are lucky enough have oil reserves and it is saddening that they are the ones that are being exploited by big corporations like Chevron and Shell. The gas pipeline is a good idea for developed countries. However, no one is considering the repercussions for the people of northwest Africa. I realize that the developed world depends on gasoline to keep the economy and society running smoothing. But there should be more compensation given to the families that will be displaced. The situation needs to be analyzed a few more times before the construction gets to far.

Posted by Nicholas Saumweber at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)

Using elephant grasses for power

I recently read an article that talked about using a strain of elephant grasses to provide power to Europe. The grass grows higher than 12' and needs little fertilizer to produce high yields. The idea is that the grass would be used as a sort of biomass, where after it was grown it would be burned to produce electricity. The reason that this is such a good thing is that the amound of CO2 released into the atmosphere would be considered zero. Thats because what the plant absorbs during its life is released as it is burned. It is also a renewable energy resource and would be very useful in curbing the exponential increase of CO2 into the atmosphere. This article can be found in

I'm not sure how I feel about using biomass as an energy source. I do agree with the fact that it is much better than burning fossil fuels, but is it really a solution to the problem? With so much research going into solar, wind, and hydrogen energy sources this could serve as a transitional option. And after that it should only really be used to supplement energy supplies around the world. I don't like the idea of setting aside huge tracts of land to grow these grasses, creating a monoculture that provides little habitat to animals. I do however believe that if we were to acquire our biomass from proper forest management techniques it would kill two birds with one stone. The idea is to clear forests of superfluous and dangerous brush that causes normal fires to jump to devastating crown fires. I think that using biomass that comes from such efforts would have a very positive effect on the environment. However it may not be so realistic, and not probable due to the cost of such a venture. I guess when it comes down to it, using these grasses are a good compromise and I would support their use however I still think there are better options. Another issue is introducing this to the U.S. but thats a totally different story.

Posted by Jake Soika at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)

The Disappearing Arctic

I read an article online titled "Arctic Ice 'Disappearing Fast"' by Richard Black, and it can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4290340.stm. Basically, it states the data that has been accumulated in the arctic for the month of September, which is the time of year when there is the least amount of ice. Evidently, this is the fourth year in a row when there's been extremely low amounts of ice, and it's disappearing at a rate of 8% per decade. This is yet another piece of evidence to global warming.
The news article is liable to me because it does provide both views on this issue. For instance, the fact is mentioned that only surface ice is measured, and there could be ice pile ups deeper in the ocean that account for some of the missing ice.
As an interesting tid-bit, the arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. What are going to be the consequences of this in the near future? I'm not sure, and I would be skeptical of anyone who claimed that they knew. There are so many different factors that affect the environment, other than global warming. However, I can state from my own experience living in Alaska that the melting permafrost has a significant effect on building structures. Homes need constant maintaneance due to the shifting soil. Furthermore, the tiaga and boreal forest are creeping up on the tundra's territory. Spruce trees are rapidly spreading farther north. Therefore, based on various articles from different newspapers and my own observations, I would say the arctic is definetly disappearing and temperatures are rising.

Posted by Katherine Schake at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)

Is there a right way?

After thinking about class on Tuesday and reading a couple of posts today, I have come to the conclusion that there can be no legitimate right way to cope with population inflation. People like to think of ideas such as one or two children per family, but is that ethical, can you really make people do that? It seems to me that you can't tell peole in the United States of America how many children they can have. Obviously in countries like China and India, where the leadership is different, there can be rules made to help out. But, for some reason I don' think that the President is going to make a law stating that families will be restricted to one or two children. That does not sound like America to me.

Posted by Christopher Harrington at 12:33 PM | Comments (1)

SUV's in the Environment

I recently read an article devoted to examining the negative effects sport utility vehicles have on the environment. First off, I was a little skeptical of this arguement. When it comes to something as big and broad as the environment, or global warming, I really didn't think the simple switch from a SUV to a passenger car could make that big of a difference. However, after reading this article, reducing the amount of SUV's on the road seemed like a relativley easy way to help protect our environment.
Each SUV will emit over "ten tons more CO2 into the environment than a passenger car"(Fuel Economy Website). With fact that passenger cars and SUV's account for 20% of the US's CO2 emissions, cutting out ten tons of CO2 for each SUV would take a big chunk out of our totals.

The main environmental concern associated with CO2 emissions is global warming and the accelleration CO2 has on the greenhouse effect. Now, not driving SUV's may seem easier said than done, but the truth is that "only 5% of all SUV's are ever taken 'off-road'"(Newsweek). There are also other reasons people buy SUV's (e.g. hauling, cargo room), but in the majority of cases SUV's benefits are rather unsubstantial.
Another concern with SUV's is its role in the creation of smog. Sport utility vehicles can emit "30 percent more carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons and 75 percent more nitrogen oxides than passenger cars"(Motor Vehicle Facts). These factors contribute heavily to pollution and smog.
The obvious conclusion from all of this, as stated before, would be to stop using SUV's, which basically be impossible. Although the use of them can be reduced significantly, they will never be completely eliminated. Another possible solution would be to raise the standards of SUV's and force them to be more fuel-efficient. Automakers are capable of making SUV's with much more fuel efficiency at the cost of only around $1,000 per vehicle. The combination of lowered use of SUV's and improved standards for these vehicles can have a significant effect on the improvement of our environment without much sacrifice even needed.

Posted by Jesse Tannuzzo at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)

Global Dimming

Global Dimming was an issue I was not very familiar with and there was a well written article and www.globalissues.org that helped me understand more.

Global dimming is cause by burning fossil fuels which creates sulphur dioxide, soot, and ash. When those pollutants get released into the air the get trapped in clouds. These polluted clouds are very reflexive, which means the suns heat and energy isn’t getting to the earth like it should but rather gets reflected back into space from these clouds. This process is known as Global Dimming.

Global Dimming has had a large impact on people and their environment in the past few decades. Climatologists who have studied this issue believe that it has resulted in a massive death toll. In 70's and 80's in Northern Africa there was a major drought and famine cause by lack of rain, which lead to millions of deaths and many more people suffering and hungry. Because of global dimming the sun reflected head made the water in the northern hemisphere much cooler which resulted in lack of rain in regions of Africa.

Global Dimming is an issue people should be aware of. The only known solutions to the problem are reforestation and simply cleaning up emissions.

Posted by Jason Riemer at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)

Who owns what?

Yesterday I mentioned that it is important to know "who owns what" in order to analyze why the media may be giving you a certain slant on a story. This link allows you to browse major media corporations and their holdings. You might be surprised...

Posted by ES1051 Blog at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

September 27, 2005

what of the frogs?

I recently was viewing the Star Tribune, when I came across an article sent in by Melanie Peterson-Nafziger (a St. Paul teacher) which in all its detail, focused on her frustration with Minnesota and it's end to research on frog malformations that have been predominatly surfacing in the last 10 years. She had recently found a malformed frog and was motivated to share her findings with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

This Agency, due to legislative funding cuts, no longer researches deformed frogs. This information surprised me to say the least, due to fact that most of these frog findings have originated specifically in Minnesota. These seemingly minute creatures, small although they are, have been around for millions of years, and have survived to this day. These telltell environmental indicators, shouldn't be pushed aside as uninformative. These frogs are basically highlighting the issue regarding our disregard for what we are doing to disrupt our surrrounding environment and in fact in the long run, to our own health. Some of the conclusions from the research that was done in Minnesota as listed on the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency website where:
Something in the water due to ground-water contamination, chemicals at the sight acting as endocrine disruptors, and ulraviolet light. These malformations obviously aren't warrenting from natural causes, so why have we disregarded what could become breakthrough research. This information, should make the nation take a step back and look at what we are in fact putting into our envrionment from things discussed in class such as disruption or irregular displacement of certain cycles in our environment to the introduction of chemicals such as fertilizers and how our environment is not able to remove such entities. As Donella Meadows once stated "The indicators a society chooses to report to itself are surprisingly powerful. They reflect values and inform collective decisions."

Posted by Hannah Gruber at 10:44 PM | Comments (0)

that pigs eating my grub..

how land is being used to produce food can have emormous impacts on the enivorment and its sustainability.. and sometimes has nothing to do with the populations..

fast food restaurants such as taco bell, pizza hut, etc.. are in constant attack from major environmental groups in the US because of their environmental impact. intensive breeding of livestock and poultry for these restaurants leads to deforestation, land degradatoin, and contamination of water sources and

other natural resources.. i read an article (i dont remember which newspaper) that for every pound of red meat, poultry, eggs, and milk produced, farm fields lose about five pounds of irreplaceable top soil.. we live in a society that consume fast food.. and for some daily..
furthurmore, the water necessary for meat breeding comes to about 190 gallons per animal per day.. and i read that animal farms use nearly 40 percent of the world's total grain production and in the US nearly 70 percent of grain production is fed to livestock..

alot of the grains that is farmed are consumed by the livestocks and the land that is being farmed is becoming irreplaceable soil.. this can lead to a disastous outcome for us..

Posted by Steve Wang at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

Hurricanes and Global Warming?

In my human geography class last spring we discussed natural disasters, man-made disasters like Chernobyl, and in-between disasters, which the professor stated were hurricanes. At the time the class and myself thought that did not make sense, but the explanation was that global warming through pollution from man warmed the waters possibly increasing the frequency for hurricanes. Since I'm not a meteorologist, I thought it made sense. This is just another reason why the environment needs to be a bigger priority on the government's list.

In an article on CNN that I just saw discussed hurricanes and global warming. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, suggested that global warming is not really to blame for the increase in hurricane activity, but "natural fluctuations (and) cycles of hurricane activity driven by the Atlantic Ocean itself along with the atmosphere above it". In addition, Mayfield's colleague, Chris Landsea, stated studies linking global warming and hurricanes indicate that global warming can have a 5 % increase on hurricane winds and rainfall 100 years from now. Two other hurricane researchers, Hugh Willoughby (Florida International University) and William Gray (Colorado State University) agree with NHC. The increase in hurricane activity is associated more with the oscillation cycle in the Atlantic Ocean which causes fluctuations in ocean temperature and salinity rather than global warming, and that this activity is moving back towards "normal".
I find this very interesting. This shows misinformation in what people are told and what actually the evidence is. Many organizations claim that the environment is currently in a "crisis." Are these organizations just making a claim or is there underlying support for the crisis? Just as many feel that the increase in hurricanes is partly because of global warming, the experts on the other hand suggest that global warming is not really to blame. It could be that many are in a rush to place blame on environmental concerns before considering the research which substantiates or contradicts whether the concern is real. This is similar to the thought that global warming is evident in fluctuations in temperatures of various regions (Minnesota for example), when in actuality experts state that temperature has only increased by one or two degrees over a long, extended time period, rather than a few years like many think. What other concerns is society receiving misinformation about? It is this disparity between research and opinion that makes critically thinking so important.

Reference
O'Neill, A. (2005). It's a 'new era' of hurricanes. CNN, September 23, 2005. Retrieved 09/27/05 from http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/23/hurricane.cycle/index.html

Posted by Shannon Sellnow at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)

My feelings

While studying for the test, these past few days..I found out that by going throught the book, it took an extensive amount of time to study the book and to match the notes from the class with those from the book. I was wondering if for the next test, we could have a study guide. The sample questions were good but more study tools to help us.

Posted by Andreea Grigore Grigore at 09:11 PM | Comments (1)

Hybrid Cars

Consider this...

Jane, your average American citizen, drives an SUV to work everyday. Its 25 miles there, and 25 miles back, and she works 5 days out of every week. That means that every week, just to work, Jane drives 250 miles. Let’s say that gas is an even $3.00 a gallon, and her SUV gets an average of 17 miles per gallon.

Now let’s say that Jane decides to trade in her old car for a new hybrid car. She still drives 250 miles a week, and gas is still $3.00 a gallon, but now she gets 32 miles per gallon.

If one does the math, they find that Jane’s annual fuel cost when she owned the SUV was $2,294. And when she traded the SUV in for the hybrid? Her annual fuel cost drops to $1,218, almost halving her fuel expenses.

In this day and age, with fuel prices what they are, alternatively-fueled vehicles just make sense. Not only does the owner benefit, the environment does too: Jane’s gas-guzzling SUV would have turned out about 10 tons of greenhouse emissions per year, while the hybrid would have been much further down the scale, at only about 5 tons a year.

Just in case one needs more evidence that hybrid cars are worth the switch, consider where fuel comes from. We are incredibly dependant on countries on the other side of the globe for this very limited resource. The drilling of oil is also causing extensive environmental damage.

Of course, there are a few advantages to gasoline-powered cars. They don’t have batteries that run out and have to be charged. Car and fuel companies are against them because these industries would lose money if the hybrid car movement took off.

In my opinion our earth -and our economy- would be better off if we took steps towards ending our dependence on oil for fueling our transportation needs.

To view the fuel usage and greenhouse emissions of other cars, go to: www.fueleconomy.gov

Posted by Brianna Parry at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

HUMAN POPULATION Why not just limit each person to replacing them self?

In class on Tues we started talking about human population, and about what we thought would be the carrying capacity of the earth and if populations do stabilize how will they come about doing so. First of all I believe that we are already over the carrying capacity for humans on this earth. Our global environment is already experiencing changes such as global warming and is harmed by destruction of habitat intern causing loss of biodiversity...which we as humans depend on from anything to foods, medicines, to ecological and cultural benefits. I do not believe the amount of people on the earth right now

can be sustained long term by the earths resources without damaging the earth to a point that will bring upon our own demise. Population control, is a stick matter. Why not just tell everyone they can only replace themselves? Well...it seems if every couple had two children the earths population would stay stable, which is not the case. If you take a look at a population demographic model of a developing county (one that is shaped like a pyramid) there are much more people at a young age group. If you were to slow population to replacing itself the model would start to take the shape of a cylinder over time...(with of course it shrinking toward the top due to people dying off at old ages). But this shows that even when you bring a population to a point where each person is just replacing the next it will still have a tremendous population growth until the people newly born when the "replace yourself" move all the way up the transition model. Meaning that even if right now we could tell India that families could not have anymore than 2 children there population would still be increasing tremendously. I feel the world should be in a rush to help developing countries start to stabilize there populations before it is too late and human population overshoot will be so strong the dieback will, indeed, be the end of the human race. We can look at examples of this in such cases as Easter Island, where even animals such humans (who are higher on the trophic level, live longer,and care for their young) have experienced Malthusian growth patterns. We as humans are growing so quickly (exponentially) and will overshoot the resources we have available to us on earth. While Malthus was wrong thinking that while human population grows exponentially we will surpass the linear food supply, this is only because as humans we engineered ways to produce much more food than was expected. The human population will run into more problems as it grows in which we will not be able to fix, no matter how technologically advanced we are. So what can be done now....to help insure that our human population doesn't overshoot past our resources to a point it cannot recover from? I believe the first steps are in getting the still developing counties in the world on there way to become more developed through both better standards of living and controlling birth. I had always assumed in my mind that the amount of food in countries like India will just feed a certain number of people, and if they don't get enough food they will die...so the population really can't get that big. Wrong. I learned last year at SES (School of Environmental Studies) that low quality of life along with lack of woman's rights are causes high birth rates. It's seems strange, but makes sense. The poorer families have many more children than they can afford or even want to have to try and ensure that some will live to adulthood to support them when they are older. Even with extremely high infant mortality the population increases and increases. If we can help them get a higher standard of living, in turn causing infant mortality to decline, the families will have less children feeling confident that they will live on to be able to take care of them. Women's rights is also an important factor when looking at population because in cultures were men are superior to their wife they tend to have many more children than are wanted. The women tend to be the ones who can keep family sizes to a minimum. Introducing birth control in these high birth rate counties also helps control birth rates, but are problematic in some places like Mexico where the majority are Catholic and believe it is against Gods will for them to use birth control. To sum up my points, human population needs to start stabilizing because we have already exceeded our caring capacity. Although much much more growth is in our near future we need to look far into the future to see what we can start to control. We can't simply stop growth by telling everyone they can only replace them self, but we do need to take measues to slow the amount of growth. The first steps to human population control are to help develop counties like Asia and increase their quality of life, offer birth control, educate the public, and to get some cultures to put women in a position in which they are not inferior to men.

If anyone is interested in biodiversity and it's impacts on humans the book "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice" by Mark J. Plotkin is wonderful. It was a book I had to read last year for school to start out or Biodiversity Unit....and absolutly loved it. It explains how importand the rainforrest and it's people are to us.

Posted by Andrea Bolks at 01:48 PM | Comments (3)

Easter Island

Since we were talking about population today, and one of the questions that we were all asked was, what we thought the carrying capasity of the Earth is, that question made me think of Easter Island. For those of you that don't know Easter Island is a common example of over using resources. When people first got there, there were forests, rivers and plenty of resources, then basically more and more people went there, they cut down the trees to make homes and boats(a lot of the people were fishermen), they caught fish, they farmed the land, and then they passed the carrying capasity of the island. So the people that lived there no longer had anything, there were no fish (at least not enough fish for all the people), they killed all the animals, they had cut down all the trees and ruined the soil. The population dropped dramatically, the people that did not die and did not get off the island became cannables.
Although I dont think that this is how the world will be, I think it is an example of how things could be if we don't step in and change the way we do things.

Posted by Kacy Bobzien at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

What is credibility?

In last week's poster assignment, you were asked to critically analyze the purpose and rationale of environmental groups and reflect on their modes of operation. It is important to realize that every environmental group has an agenda and they often target a specific audience, that is, they have a strategy for recruitment and tactics that will benefit their organization.

Their overall success usually depends on the organization's credibility. I have found a few quotes regarding credibility for you to ponder. . .

Nora M. Paul, Director, University Of Minnesota (Institute For New Media). "People make judgements. How do I know I can trust an information source. Especially what a person's agenda is. Who is this person and why are they telling me this."

M.J. Bear, Consultant, mjbear.com. "Credibility is about track record and how you portray that record."

Max Cacas, Senior Online Producer, Freedom Forum. "Along with the truth, a lot of what I perceive with credibility has to do with trust. I trust washingtonpost.com, I do not trust Matt Drudge. People come to trust what they can rely on. News organizations in particular where they know the information is good."

George P. Rodrigue, Vice President, Belo Corporation (Washington Bureau). "Credibility is the personality the readers think you have. They want you to know you are looking out for them before you look out for yourself. It's the same personality you want in a good friend, someone who looks out for you as well as themselves. We have some major credibility issues from traditional media."

Danny Schecter, Executive Editor, MediaChannel.org. "Credibility has to do with having to encouraging people to become critical viewers and readers. Context and background are important."

Posted by ES1051 Blog at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)

Area under habitat conservation plans could soar

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/242272_habitat26.html

Petitions increase burden on Fish and Wildlife Service

Monday, September 26, 2005

By LISA STIFFLER AND ROBERT MCCLURE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS

Timber companies, developers, local governments and others are seeking federal permission to nearly triple the 37 million acres that fall under the nation's controversial and underfunded habitat conservation program.

Of the 433 pending plans listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, most are in the West and South, where development and timber-cutting most frequently collide with endangered species, records obtained by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer show.

In the Pacific Northwest, more than two dozen habitat plans are officially under review, according to Fish and Wildlife records released under the Freedom of Information Act.

One of the largest is a 9.1 million-acre deal in Washington that would shield much of the state's private timber industry from prosecution for harming salmon, steelhead, bull trout and 47 other kinds of fish. Approval of the 50-year "Forests and Fish" deal is expected later this year.

Other regional plans range from Port of Vancouver construction projects to irrigation water withdrawals in Eastern Washington to the Oregon coastline.

Some of the biggest in the works elsewhere: a 16 million-acre Louisiana plan that would allow logging and construction in areas populated by endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers; a 10.7 million-acre plan covering a Texas aquifer that is home to imperiled salamanders and insects; and a construction-farming strategy for 9.4 million acres inhabited by desert tortoises in California's Mojave Desert.

Habitat conservation plans are supposed to balance property rights and protection of endangered animals, often with developers restoring or setting aside some wild lands for vanishing species while bulldozing others. The deals typically offer an exemption from liability under the Endangered Species Act, effectively allowing the harming or killing of protected animals.

A P-I investigative series in May showed that many of the plans have serious shortcomings that tip the scales in favor of industry. In some cases, vast stretches of land "preserved" to supposedly offset the effects of construction already was in public ownership.

The agreements are often made with limited scientific information and rely heavily on careful monitoring of species to decide whether more or less protections are needed.

The records released recently by Fish and Wildlife show the potential for explosive growth in the program -- at a time when the agency's ability to oversee the long-term plans is eroding as taxpayer dollars and staff levels dwindle.

"That's a huge concern. That may be the jugular of the whole picture," said Dyche Kinder, wildlife committee chairman for The Mountaineers, a Seattle-based environmental and outdoor organization. Whether or not protection succeeds depends on adequate funding, he said.

Ken Berg, who oversees the federal program in Washington, described the job of continuing to work on new plans while keeping tabs on the ones already approved as "challenging."

Shrinking budgets have cut the staff working full time on the plans at the Portland-based regional office in half: from six a few years ago to three today. Laura Hill, habitat conservation coordinator for Fish and Wildlife's Western region, said further cutbacks are likely.

"Funding has always been a problem and, if anything could help the problem, that would be it -- to get more biologists on the ground working on this," Hill said. Biologists in numerous field offices also work on the plans.

A dozen plans are moving forward in Washington, but at least 16 have been abandoned, including a King County proposal seeking Endangered Species Act exemptions for wastewater-treatment facilities in a 435,200-acre service area.

"The hurdles that you have to go through ... are so incredibly difficult," said Don Theiler, the county's wastewater director.

The plan, he said, would have been too complicated because of the variety of projects it would have covered. "We decided it was easier and more efficient to work with other parts of the Endangered Species Act to get our needs met."

The Wastewater Treatment Division completed an environmental impact statement to determine what effect its actions would have on the environment and struggling species, including chinook salmon and bull trout.

Critics suspect that many of the dropouts from habitat planning simply decided to take their chances. Once approved, the habitat plans secure a government permit that gives the holder a pass on government prosecutions under the Endangered Species Act -- and a fairly formidable defense against private lawsuits by environmentalists to enforce the act.

Without such a permit, someone cutting down a forest or developing a hillside that shelters threatened species could be prosecuted.

Fish and Wildlife officials acknowledge that the agency's ability to enforce the law is limited. That's why they push so hard for companies and governments to complete the habitat plans. At least that way, the animals are getting something out of the deal, government biologists reason. They say that species benefit from the partnerships being formed, that plan holders can be genuinely committed to saving species.

And they hope that the trend toward creating larger plans will allow for more effective conservation.

One in southeastern Washington would protect ranchers, wheat growers and others in Douglas County, where the endangered pygmy rabbit is making its last stand. Agricultural operations also are fearful of what might happen if the sage grouse gains federal protection.

The habitat plan would require farmers to take steps to protect species, such as rotating cattle among pastures to make sure herds don't wear out any one piece of ground, said rancher Jim Hemmer of Del Rio. The plan has been under development for several years, he said, in part because of difficulties in securing the funds needed to complete the project.

Others are persevering.

In November, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department released a draft version of a 25-year plan to save the snowy plover. The small seabird nests, feeds and raises its chicks on sandy coastal beaches. The plan covering the coastline helps establish protected areas off-limits for public use and includes some restoration.

Work on the plan started in 2001, and officials said a final version could be completed by 2007.

"We've never done anything on this scale before," said Kathy Schutt, planning and resources manager with the department. "All of it is new. We just boldly went into it."

A similarly sweeping Washington plan covering publicly owned marine shorelines across the state, including Puget Sound, is under way. The plan would protect dozens of aquatic species and address such activities as geoduck harvests, pollution threats and installation of docks and buoys.
ABOUT THIS REPORT

The P-I requested the information on pending habitat conservation plans a year ago. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service complied after nine months, but the agency refused to divulge the names of 182 plan applicants or 74 proposed locations, claiming Freedom of Information Act exemptions protecting personal privacy.

Posted by ES1051 Blog at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2005

It pays to be environmentally friendly

The California Public Utilities Commision just approved the proposal to give consumers rebates for their energy efficient appliances. There is going to be $2 billion dollars to grant to consumers in the upcoming 3 years. This gives consumers incentives to buy energy efficient household items such as: water heaters, furnaces, and air conditioners. In the long run much money will be saved purchasing these appliances, as well as, earning their rebates up to $600.
This plan will reduce pollution in the air and spread awareness to the public about their effects on the environment. Overall, this plan should also help decrease global warming, because people will be reducing their CO2 emissions. I hope that more states adopt plans similiar to this one to help keep promoting positive environmental changes.

Posted by Katherine Pike at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)

Melting snow hastens warming in the Arctic

By DOUG O'HARRA
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: September 24, 2005)

Melting snow has triggered the warmest summers across Arctic Alaska in at least 400 years, setting in motion tree and shrub growth that will accelerate warming by two to seven times as the century unfolds.

The slow expansion of the tundra's snow-free season by about 2.5 days per decade since the 1960s explains 95 percent of the recent rise in summer temperatures, and is far more influential than changes in vegetation, sea ice, atmospheric circulation or clouds, according to a report published this week in Science Express.

Those few extra days when the sun bakes brown tundra instead of getting reflected back into space by snow produces a surprising impact, wrote University of Alaska Fairbanks ecologist Terry Chapin and 20 co-authors. They have warmed the tundra by three watts for every square meter -- as much heating as you'd get from doubling the concentration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"There's been a long-term interest in why it is that high latitude climate seems to be warming more rapidly than the rest of the world," said Chapin, a professor at the Institute of Arctic Biology and the first Alaska member of the National Academy of Sciences. "Basically, I thought that maybe vegetation would be having a large influence, but the bottom line of that paper is that snowmelt swamps the vegetation."

Even small increases in the time the landscape spends dark rather than white make a huge difference in how much solar energy gets absorbed, explained snow researcher Matthew Sturm, with the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory at Fort Wainwright.

"If you sort of think about the short summer period, there's just a certain number of days when we have that nice dark tundra exposed," he said. "If we add a couple days where we don't have snow cover, we have a big impact. Just peeling that back a couple days per decade, and there's a lot of warming."

The paper, the "Role of Land-Surface Changes in Arctic Summer Warming," arose from a project sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Coordinated by Chapin and Sturm, it drew on a decade of work by 21 ecologists and biologists, snow and ice experts, climate researchers and supercomputer jockeys. It crunched a hemisphere of data -- shifts in temperature, cloud cover, solar energy, snow cover and vegetation.

"We argue that recent changes in the length of the snow-free season have triggered a set of interlinked feedbacks that will amplify future rates of summer warming," the authors wrote.

The study is only one of several new reports describing how climate change appears to be accelerating across the Arctic. Tundra has been greening up with more shrubs that, in turn, trap more solar energy, according to new papers published by scientists at Woods Hole Research Center and the Army research lab. At the same time, Interior spruce forests have declined, under stress from drought and wildfires.

Scientists say there's no question that overall Arctic warmth has been influenced both by increases in greenhouse gas concentrations and natural cycles, though the relative contributions are still not clear.

This newest study suggests that policy-makers should take Alaska's warming climate as a spur to action, regardless of the causes, said Chapin, the lead author. That means people ought to find ways to cut back on fossil fuel consumption while preparing for big changes in the landscape.

"It's a chance for policy-makers and industry to look for innovative ways to maximize the societal benefit of the fuels that we do use," he said. "I think there's lots that can be done to reduce fossil fuels that would have modest or even positive impacts on the economy."

The study found summer warming in Arctic Alaska and western Canada sped up over time, resulting in an increase of almost three-quarters of a degree Fahrenheit per decade over the past 40 years. But explaining why was complicated.

Changes in ocean cycles influence winter temperatures and don't fully explain summer warmth. Shrinking sea ice also has the biggest impact on fall and winter conditions. More summer cloudiness tends to "dampen" the amount of sun beating down over the seasons, the scientists said.

Vegetation has spread, too, with tall shrubs advancing into the tundra and the tree line slipping north. Spring leaf-out has come 10 to 12 days earlier in Alaska over the past half century. But all these shifts, while moving faster and faster, account for only about 2 percent of the summer warming observed so far, the scientists said.

"The summer warming in Alaska is best explained by a lengthening of the snow-free season, causing sensible warming of the lower atmosphere to begin earlier," they concluded.

But as the shrubs expand in the tundra, their influence will grow -- catching more solar heat, trapping more insulating snow, enriching the soil with nutrients. Eventually vegetation will take over.

"Because of these feedbacks, there are lots of reasons to think that this warming will continue," Chapin said.

Understanding what factors are pushing the shrub expansion "would reduce the likelihood of unexpected surprises" in future summer warming, the scientists wrote.

Chapin, one of the most influential scientists in Alaska, said he hopes to begin looking into what factors might pushing climate changes in other areas of Alaska.

"I'm interested in asking similar questions for the boreal forest, where there's an increase in forest fires," he said.

Posted by ES1051 Blog at 08:56 AM | Comments (1)

September 25, 2005

Feral Cats Reek Havok on Enviroment

My neighbor who happens to be a cat lover was recently telling me about her trip to Maui. Last spring she and her husband visited the village of Kapalua. Kapalua was teeming with hungry feral cats. She observed them in the morning and at night. They would be in small gangs of cats and sometimes large colonies. They were on the Ritz Carlton property where my neighbor was staying. They were on the golf course and at the restaurants. She said there were always several cats slinking in the bushes and near the dumpsters.

Off handedly it sounded like cats might go the way of rats or cockroaches. They don’t appear to have a natural animal predator so humans start to think of unnatural ways to keep their population in check. However cockroaches are insects with bristly legs and antennae. They’re filthy pests. Rats are mammals but they’re rodents and connote someone underhanded and sneaky. Let’s think about cats. They have a long and involved relationship with people.

According to an article by Stanley A. Temple and Scott R. Craven both professors at UW Madison, cats were first domesticated in Egypt around 2000BC. They didn’t appear to get to Greece until nearly 500BC probably due to the fact that cats were worshipped in Egypt and exportation of them was not allowed. By 300AD Britain had domestic cats. European colonists introduced cats to the world.

Based on U.S. Census data, the estimated numbers of pet cats in urban and rural regions of the United States have grown from 30 million in 1970 to 60 million in 1990. In rural areas where free-ranging cats are usually not regarded as pets, approximately 60% of households have cats. In households where people claim to “own” cats 30% of households nationwide have cats. The combined total of pets and free-ranging cats in the U.S. is probably more than 100 million. In the state of Wisconsin alone with approximately 550,000 rural households rural free-ranging cats (not house pets) may be as high as 2 million (see http://wildlife.wisc/extension/catfly3.htm).
Citing the article “Cats and Wildlife a Conservation Dilemma” nationwide, rural cats probably kill over a billion small mammals and hundreds of millions of birds each year. Urban and suburban cats add to this toll. Many are native songbirds and mammals whose populations are already stressed by other factors. Worldwide, cats may have been involved in the extinction of more bird species than any other cause except habitat destruction. Cats can out number and compete with native predators and they eat many of the same animals that native predators do. When in large numbers they can reduce availability of prey for native predators like hawks and weasels.

This is an obvious problem to me and has been a problem for some time. However there is much controversy over whether there is a problem and/or how we should deal with any “perceived” problem with cats. Anna Sadler of the National Animal Interest Alliance (N.A.I.A.) states that reliable data about feral cats is sparse and difficult to obtain. She states that a few cities now regard feral cats as urban wildlife, like the squirrels and possums that share neighborhoods with humans. For some reason I don’t think that would sit with the scientific community. I also take umbrage when she said that studies of stomach contents of cats showed that the majority of their prey was rodents and lizards rather than birds. I fail to see how stomach contents can tell us how many birds a cat has killed especially when many cats are given supplemental feedings and yet continue to hunt. Many people including the N.A.I.A. support the TNR or Trap-neuter-return plan.

This is where the cats are trapped, fed, clipped at the ear after they are vaccinated for rabies and then they are neutered and returned to their managed wildlife colony. The manager sees to it that the cats are fed. After reading the suggestions from the brochure from the Office of Public Affairs U.S. Fish and Wildlife it made sense “not” to feed stray cats because that in itself would maintain high densities of cats that kill and compete with native wildlife populations. Cat colonies will form around sources of food and grow to the limits of the food supply. For these reasons keep only as many pets as you can feed and care for. Neuter your cat of course. Keep it in doors especially while birds are feeding.

Posted by Ramona Beard at 09:01 PM | Comments (1)

September 21, 2005

Global warming eye opener

In todays world with all the studies that have been done in the last decade alone global warming has been show to be true. But alot of people still don't believe it at all. Which to me totally doesn't make sense. If you look at the last hundered years alone you can see a great change on many land scapes.
For instanes all around the world glacers that have been around for thousands of years are receding at an alarming rate. Some don't even exsist any more.

What does the lose of so many glaicers mean to us? For some people that live near these glaciers, this is their main supply of fresh water. For the rest of us, you have to remember that the water has to go some where. Weither it means more rain or rising oceans it will affect us all and it has already begun. The biggest indicator when it comes to global warming, in my opinion, was the breaking of the huge ice shelve off of Antartica. I think it opened alot of peoples eyes to the true power of global warming. But yet some people still haven't accepted global warming as a reality.
Science and goverment have been working to fight back and there have been much progress. But more countries are becoming industrialized and producing more CO2. I know there are better cleaner way to produce energy and to industrialize. If we keep looking for ways to reduce CO2 while looking for new ways to make better cleaner profit, I know we as a global community will find a cleaner better world to live in.

Posted by Thomas Evers at 11:37 AM | Comments (4)

September 20, 2005

Evolutionary Adaptions of Otters

I read recently about a study done on the evolutionary qualities of otter fur. Everyone knows that otters, like other animals, enjoy being in the water, but most animals that spend a lot of time in the water have a layer of fat that helps keep them warm. Otters, however, do not! Scientists were stumped, so they decided to research into it. They used electron microscopes to look at the otters hair and found that it had a very unique adaption. The otter's cuticle surface on their underhairs have grooves that interlock with eachother and form a solid water resistance barrier. This adaptation has helped them survive very well in the cold water they love. This also showed the effectiveness of their grooming. When they groom themselves they are actually helping lock those hairs together to keep themselves more warm. I thought it was a fun unique discovery!

Posted by Jessica Houlihan at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2005

dogs and rice

All this week on the Daily Show they did a segment called evolution schmevolution.A segment that is dedicated to “Putting an end to this simple debate, once and for all.” If you don’t watch the Daily Show for some reason,

no cable, right wing zealot with no sense of humor, don’t know what it is, I’ll give you a quick explanation; it’s a fake news show that is defiantly slanted to the left but not afraid to give them as much shit as the so called president bush. They bring up the issues of the day with humor but in a way that you can’t help but see the true importance of said issue. On the Wednesday show the topic of genetic engineering was broached by saying that human’s have evolved so far along that we now can make our own genetic inventions. Recently the genome for rice has been mapped and of course as soon as it was there was a scientist waiting to modify it for the better. I have to say that I understand the logical argument against genetic modification and generally would agree that it’s something that people may be rushing, going ahead without knowing all the consequences; however I also know that we have been genetically modifying food and other things for a long time. Cross-breading is technically genetic modification it’s just not done at the genetic level. What I’m getting at is it scares me just because it seems like it will backfire but if it wasn’t for the cross-breading of corn and other vegetables for specific traits where would we be know. I know it seems weird putting feline genes into a cantaloupe but genes are genes, aren’t they?
There was also a cloning joke in which Jon Stewart says in with a straight face, “Best of all tinkering with DNA is a scientific advancement with no conceivable ethical or practical downside.” Funny but as usual, really not funny when you think about it for even a second. Apparently this month in Korea they cloned a dog for the first time, I read an article in Wired magazine along time ago that talked to a handful of the world top geneticists and all of them agreed that a human would be cloned in the near future, if it hadn’t already happened. They all said that it was not that complicated of a procedure and that there are many countries where it’s not such a hot topic as America, combine that with the fact that there are many people in the world with the knowledge to do it and it seems like a given.
Cloning and genetic engineering are potentially answers to food source problems and at the same time potential bombs ready to blow up in our faces. They will assuredly be interesting topics in the near future and for years to come; unless the super rice people and their cloned warrior dogs make the next step in evolution and finish us homo-sapiens off while making the planet one big paddy filled dog park.

Posted by Brooke Anderson at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2005

Severe Hurricanes Increasing, Study Finds

washingtonpost.com

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 16, 2005; A13

A new study concludes that rising sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes, adding fuel to an international debate over whether global warming contributed to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

The study, published today in the journal Science, is the second in six weeks to draw this conclusion, but other climatologists dispute the findings and argue that a recent spate of severe storms reflects nothing more than normal weather variability.

Katrina's destructiveness has given a sharp new edge to the ongoing debate over whether the United States should do more to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Domestic and European critics have pointed to Katrina as a reason to take action, while skeptics say climate activists are capitalizing on a national disaster to further their own agenda.

According to data gathered by researchers at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the number of major Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has nearly doubled over the past 35 years, even though the total number of hurricanes, including weaker ones, has dropped since the 1990s. Katrina was a Category 4 storm when it made landfall.

Using satellite data, the four researchers found that the average number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes -- those with winds of 131 mph or higher -- rose from 10 a year in the 1970s to 18 a year since 1990. Average tropical sea surface temperatures have increased as much as 1 degree Fahrenheit during the same period, after remaining stable between 1900 and the mid-1960s.

Georgia Tech atmospheric scientist Judith A. Curry -- co-author of the study with colleagues Peter J. Webster and Hai-Ru Chang, and NCAR's Greg J. Holland -- said in an interview that their survey, coupled with computer models and scientists' understanding of how hurricanes work, has given the researchers a better sense of how rising sea temperatures are linked to more-intense storms.

"There is increasing confidence, as the result of our study, that there's some level of greenhouse warming in what we're seeing," Curry said. "Is it the whole story? We don't know."

Higher ocean temperatures result in more water vapor in the air, which, combined with certain wind patterns, helps power stronger hurricanes, Webster said. Small increases in sea temperature, he added, can "exponentially provide more and more fuel for the hurricanes."

Other studies and computer models also have pointed to an increase in storm intensity: Massachusetts Institute of Technology atmospheric scientist Kerry A. Emanuel wrote last month in the journal Nature that the duration and maximum wind speeds of storms in the North Atlantic and North Pacific have increased about 50 percent since the mid-1970s. The storms' growing violence stemmed in part from higher ocean temperatures, he concluded.

Some researchers, however, question the connection with more severe hurricanes and cyclones. Gerry Bell, the lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the rise in strong hurricanes reflects a natural weather pattern spanning several decades. Hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean were more powerful in the 1950s and '60s, weakened in the 1970s, '80s and early '90s, and have strengthened again since 1995.

"It's not linked to global warming or anything like that," Bell said. "This is normal climate variability. It's just that this trend lasts for decades."

Florida State University meteorology and oceanography professor James O'Brien, who writes for the online free-market journal Tech Central Station, said his survey of government data on Atlantic storms between 1850 and 2005 shows that "there's no indication of an increase in intensity."

But both Emanuel and Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said today's Science paper is important because it examines worldwide hurricane patterns.

"If you look at it on the global basis, it makes that signal of global warming easier to see," Schmidt said. "You have to be extremely conservative -- with a small 'c' -- to th