Palin's Wolf Slaughter Reaches Record Numbers

Aerial gunners have already killed at least 47 wolves in Alaska this winter as part of what Defenders of Wildlife calls "Governor Palin's out-of-control wolf-killing program," which is moving at a record pace. More wolves have been killed last month than in any November in the last five years.

The wildlife conservation group estimates that almost 600 additional wolves may perish by the end of the season, which is meant to increase the game population to boost the out-of-state hunting industry.

Reporter Wade Willis, writing in a December 11 story in the Anchorage Daily News, said Palin's predator control program dishonors Alaska and is "a dangerous management objective that is not supported by scientific research."

Palin has used a loophole in the federal Airborne Hunting Act to continue the aerial wolf killing program.

And, in addition to introducing legislation to make it easier to use aircraft to hunt wolves and bears, the governor even offered private citizens a $150 bounty for the freshly severed foreleg of each killed wolf.

As part of their campaign, Defenders of Wildlife has posted a video of the cruel practice on their Web site.

Wildlife conservationists have been working to have Congress reintroduce and pass the Protect America’s Wildlife Act (PAW), federal legislation to end aerial killing of wolves.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Defenders of Wildlife petition urging your representative to support Rep. George Miller's PAW Act
• Sign a Change.org petition calling for an end to Palin's wolf slaughter
  

RELATED POSTS

• Darker Days for Gray Wolves? (November 1, 2008)
• Good News for America's Wolves, Maybe (September 19, 2008)
• Conservationists Call Palin's Wolf Program "Brutal" (September 14, 2008)
• Alaska's Wolf Control Program Under Fire (August 14, 2008)
• Judge Overturns Bush's Decision to Allow Wolf Killings (July 21, 2008)
• Wolves Hunted After Protection Ends (April 21, 2008)

photo: Kamia the Wolf (Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary)

Hunt for "God Particle" Resumes This Summer

Are there other dimensions, as predicted by string theory? What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy? Why is gravity so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces? Does the elusive Higgs boson (a.k.a. "The God Particle") really exist?

The answers to these and many other questions that could provide the deepest understanding of the essence of matter may very well be found buried 600 feet underground in a tunnel 17 miles long on the French-Swiss border near Geneva.

That is the location of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's most powerful particle accelerator.

Built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the multi-billion-dollar LHC has one primary function: to get two beams of protons up to just about the speed of light, crash them together and take pictures of what happens.

In doing so, physicists hope to recreate the moment less than a billionth of a second right after the Big Bang, thus understanding the basic nature of how matter is formed.

In a December 26 Wales Online article, CERN's project leader, Dr Lyn Evans, called the LHC "a discovery machine, probably the most sophisticated instrument ever devised by humans."

The LHC was finally turned on in September -- warnings by some that it would create a black hole and suck up the planet notwithstanding -- but unfortunately it was hamstrung by a helium leak that derailed the project.

It's currently slated to be back on next summer. The Higgs boson will have to wait.

CERN particle physicist Brian Cox explains the LHC:


photo: ellengwallace

Saving Billy

Though elephants are known to live for up to 70 years, more than half of the ones who have had the misfortune of ending up at the Los Angeles Zoo have died before reaching the age of 20. Since 1975, thirteen have perished there.

Activists have been up in arms, including In Defense of Animals (IDA), a California-based animal rights organization that has been working to free Billy, a 23-year-old male Asian elephant stuck in solitary confinement at the zoo.

For long periods of time, Billy stands in one place, his head bobbing up and down, displaying symptoms of stress.

But there is hope. Los Angeles city councilmember Tony Cardenas has introduced a motion to stop the construction of a new $42 million elephant habitat that IDA says will not provide adequate space, supporting the expert testimony of Dr. Joyce Poole, one of the world's top elephant authorities who has devoted three decades to the study of free-ranging elephants.

The motion also includes moving Billy to a spacious natural-environment sanctuary, where he can live in the company of other elephants.

GET INVOLVED

• Support IDA's campaign to free Billy

RELATED POSTS

• 2,000 Elephants Missing in Chad (December 15, 2008)
• Getting Close to the Elephants of Samburu (August 19, 2008)
• Elephant Extinction Possible by 2020 (August 3, 2008)
• Future Uncertain for Thailand's Elephants (July 31, 2008)
• Listening to the Secret Lives of Elephants (July 5, 2008)
  
• South Africa to Start Elephant Culling (May 5, 2008)
• African Conservation Gets $10 Million Gift (May 1, 2008)

photo: In Defense of Animals

Overfishing: How Supermarkets Rate

Fish stocks around the world are on the verge of collapse. It is undoubtedly one of the most important crises facing not only the health of the world's oceans, but the health of big parts of the food chain, and even species moving towards extinction.

Seventy-five percent of global fisheries are in trouble from overfishing, while 90 percent of the top marine predators like sharks and tuna have already disappeared.

In September, actor Ted Danson -- a founder of Oceana, the largest international ocean protection and restoration environmental advocacy group -- wrote a story published by BBC News warning about the bluefin tuna collapse.

But the problem doesn't seem to have affected the market, with stores continuing to sell fish caught in destructive ways, and consumers willing to keep buying these fish. In the United States, seafood accounts for around $16 billion in supermarket sales every year.

According to a story by the Boston Globe, a new report by Greenpeace has ranked supermarkets according to their seafood sustainability practices. The findings are grim.

None of the supermarkets in the report -- including WalMart, Safeway, Whole Foods, Costco and Trader Joe's -- have policies against selling seafood from fisheries that are harming sea turtles, dolphins, seals, sea lions and other marine mammals.

If fishing practices change, the ocean can bounce back. "No-take zones" established in the United Kingdom have shown that marine life can recover from years of overfishing abuse.

GET INVOLVED

• Send a Greenpeace letter to Jon Basalone, Trader Joe’s Senior Vice President of Marketing urging him to support the adoption of sustainable seafood practices at Trader Joe's
  
• Sign a Greenpeace petition urging the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council to regulate factory trawlers and mandate that amount of pollock caught in 2009 must be cut in half and marine reserves must be established to protect critical habitats
• Download the Environmental Defense Fund's "Pocket Eco-Friendly Fish Selector" to make choices that help prevent overfishing
• Sign the Pew Environment Group petition urging the US National Marine Fisheries Service to stop overfishing

RELATED POSTS

• Crisis in the Bering Sea (December 3, 2008)
• Big Fish, Little Fish (November 13, 2008)
• Ted Danson's Fight to Prevent A Bluefin Tuna Collapse (September 26, 2008)
• A Six-Step Plan to Save the Oceans from An Extinction Crisis (August 17, 2008)
• Marine Life Bounces Back After Fishing Ban (July 17, 2008)
• US Backs Proposal for Destructive Fishing (June 3, 2008)

photo: snowriderguy

Ancient Water Source Key to Australia's Future

It was formed between 100 and 250 million years ago. It lies over a mile beneath the surface and is almost two miles deep. It is the size of Libya. It is Australia's Great Artesian Basin, an ancient water source that, according to an article by Reuters, is critical to the future of a country hit hard by the drought caused by climate change.

With 65 million gigaliters of water, the basin contains over 800 times the amount of surface water in Australia -- enough to submerge all the land on Earth under half a meter. Every year, the basin collects another million megaliters of rainwater that is filtered through porous sandstone.

John Hillier, a hydrogeologist who has just finished rewriting the Great Artesian Basin Resource Study, believes that the basin has enough water to sustain the country for the next 1,500 years. About half a million megaliters of the basin's water is used for the farming industry.

But the pressure that forces the water to the surface is weakening due to excessive extraction, and may one day be accessible only through drilling, which is costly not only in financial terms, but also environmentally: 330,000 tons of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere every year from basin extraction.

Since it was first tapped in 1878, an estimated 87 million megaliters have been extracted, but up to 90 percent of it has been wasted.

Current climate models for Australia predict a two- to six-degree rise in temperature by 2070. One of the most devastating effects of this increased heat will be the loss of surface water. Large swaths of Australia will become dry and parched, putting pressure on the use of water from the basin.

Earlier this month, the Australian government announced a A$17 million long-term sustainability report to ensure water security for the country's future farming, mining and environmental development.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the petition to adopt Article 31 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which will give all people the right to clean and accessible water

RELATED POSTS

• Save Kolahoi, Save Kashmir (October 28, 2008)
• Bad News for Kangaroos: Down Under's Getting Hotter (October 19, 2008)
• Got Water? Visions of Planet Earth in 2030 (October 14, 2008)
• Starbucks Wastes Water, A Lot of It (October 8, 2008)
• Future of Water Looking Murky (September 4, 2008)
• Experts Say No to Wetland Development (July 28, 2008)
• Kenya's Economy Tied to Forest Health (July 19, 2008)
• Water Experts Raise Warning Flag (July 14, 2008)
• Satellite Images Reveal Drastic Changes in Africa (June 16, 2008)
• Massachusetts Becomes First State to Protect Ocean (June 11, 2008)
• Changes in Deep Antarctic Waters Troubling (May 12, 2008)

photo: Mundoo

Bush Withholds Protections for Threatened Seal

With black skin and four white markings, ribbon seals have a distinctive look that sets them apart from other pinnipeds. They live in the waters of the Arctic, rarely coming to land, and give birth and nurse pups exclusively on sea ice, which is rapidly melting due to man-caused global warming. Of all the marine mammals, ribbon seals may be the most dependent on sea ice.

And although this solitary creature has long been threatened by the shipping and oil industries, the Bush administration decided on Tuesday that it does not need protection, denying a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity to the National Marine Fisheries Service in December last year requesting federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.

According to an Associated Press report, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration acting assistant administrator for fisheries Jim Balsiger said, "Our scientists have reviewed climate models that project that annual ice, which is critical for ribbon seal reproduction, molting and resting, will continue to form each winter in the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk where the majority of ribbon seals are located."

However, Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity characterized the Bush administration's position as a denial that ignores science as well as the law.

"If they don't change their minds in 60 days," Cummings said, "we'll see them in court."

GET INVOLVED

• Support the Center for Biological Diversity
• Sign an EarthJustice petition urging the Environmental Protection Agency to issue regulations that limit global warming pollution
• Sign a petition to the United Nations to show your support of biodiversity

photo: M.Cameron NOAA/NMML

Cover the Deserts, Cool the Earth

According to a recent report in ScienceDaily, engineers Takayuki Toyama of Avix Inc. in Kanagawa, Japan, and Alan Stainer of Middlesex University Business School, London, have published a radical solution to stem the tide of global warming: Cover parts of the world's deserts with a reflective sheeting.

The heat caused by human activity represents only 1/10,000th of the amount of heat the planet receives from the sun.

Reflective sheets placed on deserts would not only reflect some of the sun's heat back into space, but also slow down the process of desertification.

They calculate that 60,000 square kilometres covered with reflective sheet, costing around $280 billion, would be enough to create a net cooling without having to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide.

• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Join the Greenpeace "Energy [R]evolution"
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

photo: HORIZON

The Frontier of "Global Disruption"

More frequent hurricanes. The loss of rainfall. A mosquito-borne endemic. While much of the discussion about climate change has been about what will happen, many things like these are already happening.

A December 23 Scientific American Web story, "Top 10 Places Already Affected by Climate Change," features a photo slideshow describing the current climate change frontier. From northern Europe to Kiribati, from Darfur to the Great Barrier Reef (pictured), it's clear that many places around the globe are in the midst of the climate crisis.

John Holdren, professor of environmental policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (and now Barack Obama's pick for top science adviser), doesn't like the term "global warming," because temperature is only one piece of an entire climate that is transforming. He prefers calling it "global disruption."

In an interview with Democracy Now in July, Holdren said, "Most people, even most scientists, continue to underestimate how far down the path to climate catastrophe we've already traveled. We are committed, the United States and 190 other countries are committed, under the Framework Convention on Climate Change to avoid dangerous human interference in the climate system. And the fact is, it's already too late to do that. We're already experiencing dangerous interference. Floods, major floods, are up all over the world. Wildfires are up in almost every region of the world where wildfires have been a problem. Wildfires erupt fourfold in the last thirty years in the western United States."

• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Join the Greenpeace "Energy [R]evolution"
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

photo: munkeygirl

America's Dirty Little Secret

From dusty cattle drives to Custer's Last Stand, the horse is a major part of the DNA that makes up the United States. The nation, it could be argued, was built on the backs of horses. But unfortunately, so many of America's wild horses have been horribly mistreated.

An investigative story by Genesis Award-winning journalist Brad Woodard has recently aired on CBS affiliate KHOU in Houston, uncovering some disturbing facts about what has been called "America's dirty little secret": the horse slaughter industry.

Foreign companies who own horses in the US are shipping tens of thousands of them to Canada and Mexico where they are slaughtered for food for human consumption, primarily destined for the European market. The Humane Society of the United States has documented the inhumane slaughter and mistreatment of these animals and has long supported a ban on horse slaughter.

GET INVOLVED

• Buy Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West by Deanne Stillman on Amazon.com
• Sign the In Defense of Animals petition to save hundreds of wild horses at Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada
• Adopt a thoroughbred from ReRun Horse Rescue
  
• Sign a petition urging Congress to draft legislation to deter animal abuse in horse racing following this month's hearing by the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection
• Send a letter to the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority urging reforms that would end preventable suffering and cruelty in the racing industry
• Sign an ASPCA petition to stop horse fighting
  

RELATED POSTS

• America's Wild Horses in Peril (June 27, 2008)
• Thoroughbred Rescuers Face Uphill Climb (June 7, 2008)
• Horse Fighting in the Philippines (April 4, 2008)
  

photo: yimix

First Case of Dolphin Tool Use Documented

According to a recent report by the US National Science Foundation, researchers have found "the first and only clear case of tool-use in a wild dolphin or whale." After 20 years of gathering data, a team led by Professor Janet Mann of Georgetown University has discovered that bottlenose dolphins that live off the coast of western Australia use marine sponges on their beaks as tools to find food.

• Sign an Ocean Project petition to end Japan's dolphin slaughter
• Adopt a dolphin from the World Wildlife Fund

photo: CW Ye

The Common Ancestor of All Life on Earth

It lived between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years ago. And every living thing on our planet is descended from it. It is known as "LUCA" (last universal common ancestor).

According to a recent article in ScienceDaily, a group of French and Canadian evolutionary geneticists have published a groundbreaking study in Nature that provides a new, more accurate look at this grandfather of all grandfathers.

It was widely accepted that LUCA was a hypothermophilic organism -- it liked heat -- and was not unlike the bizarre creatures that currently live in the extremely hot, smoking hydrothermal vents deep in the ocean (pictured), where temperatures are close to 200 degrees Fahrenheit (90 degrees Celsius). The study's authors now believe that LUCA lived in far cooler micro-climates -- below 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) -- that were the breeding grounds critical to the development of life on Earth.

It was also believed that the genetic code of these creatures was based on DNA. But the new research -- which compared genetic information from modern organisms to define our ancient ancestor -- reveals that it was more likely that its genes were expressed through RNA.

The study marks an important step in not only reconciling differing theories about LUCA, but also in understanding the very beginning of the biggest family tree of all, the tree of life.

• Donate to support Conservation International campaigns to protect biodiversity hotspots around the globe
• Do these ten things recommended by Countdown 2010 to help stop biodiversity loss
• Sign a petition to the United Nations to show your support of biodiversity

photo: P. Rona; OAR/National Undersea Research Program (NURP); NOAA

UN Climate Talks Fail

Last week's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland, was a failure. With America focused on a presidential transition and a leadership void in the European Union, the talks were seen by many environmental groups as yet another missed opportunity.

In a press release issued by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Kim Carstensen, head of the WWF Global Climate Initiative, blamed the stymied talks on insufficient political will, saying that "industrialized countries preached sermons about the importance of climate protection...while lacking or attacking policies to make it happen at home -- a serious sign of climate hypocrisy."

However, she has hope that next year's conference in Copenhagen will be more productive. But the window of opportunity is closing fast, if it hasn't closed already.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Web site mentions the "success" of the Poznań talks in general terms, noting that "a key event at the Conference was a ministerial round table on a shared vision on long-term cooperative action on climate change. Ministers gave a resounding commitment to achieving an ambitious and comprehensive deal in Copenhagen that can be ratified by all."

A table of nodding heads is a far cry from action. When it comes to global warming, it's far too late to be looking "long-term."

• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Join the Greenpeace "Energy [R]evolution"
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

photo: oxfam international

Redford to Bush: Sale of Utah's Redrock Wilderness "Disastrous"

In an emergency environmental campaign, actor and director Robert Redford, -- a trustee for the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) -- is fighting to stop the Interior Department's rapid auctioning off of 110,000 acres of Utah's Redrock wilderness to energy developers before Inauguration Day.

In a December 17 email blast, Redford called the move "a parting gift from the Bush-Cheney Administration to their friends in the oil and gas industries."

The region, which encompasses five national parks in the southern and eastern parts of the state, contains some of the most dramatic rock formations on Earth, including the world's largest concentration of sandstone arches.

Environmental groups filed an 11th-hour lawsuit on Wednesday against the sale of the federal land, while Utah's Bureau of Land Management issued a statement saying that it is "required by law to conduct lease sales on at least a quarterly basis."

The NRDC, along with six other environmental groups, has filed a lawsuit against the auction, scheduled to happen today. On Capitol Hill, Congressmen Brian Baird (D-WA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Rush Holt (D-NJ) are also scrambling to block it.

"This sale," fumed Congressman Baird in a press release issued by the NRDC, "is an early Christmas present to the oil and gas industry from a lame duck administration with one foot already out the door."

photo: dondel

The Carbon Atlas

The Guardian has produced an excellent interactive map called the Carbon Atlas that details the carbon emissions of each country.

Unsurprisingly, China has surpassed the United States. It's now the biggest emitter, up 64 percent during the ten-year period beginning in 1996. America is up 9 percent over the same period. India is in fourth place. Kiribati? No change.

• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

The Politics of Protecting Species

According to a December 15th article written by Michael Doyle for McClatchey Newspapers, the House Natural Resources Committee released a sweeping 141-page investigation on Monday that has found evidence that former Interior Department official Julie MacDonald "frequently bullied" scientists to reduce the protections of several species.

The finding is yet another chapter in the long battle that has pitted scientists and conservationists against Bush administration policies set on eroding the protections provided by the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to favor the commercial interests of of developers, farmers and loggers.

In October of 2006, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a press release which stated, "Julie MacDonald personally reversed scientific findings, changed scientific conclusions to prevent endangered species from receiving protection, removed relevant information from a scientific document, and ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to adopt her edits. All of these actions show a blatant disregard for the Endangered Species Act provision which requires species protection decisions to be based on the best available science."

Then the Department of the Interior Inspector General Earl E. Devaney started an investigation into the allegations against MacDonald. In May of 2007, she resigned, one week before a House congressional oversight committee hearing on the investigation.

"MacDonald's zeal to foster her agenda caused significant harm to the integrity of the Endangered Species Act decision-making process," the investigators said. "Moreover, her actions resulted in the untold waste of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in unnecessary litigation."

President-elect Barack Obama will nominate Democratic Colorado Senator Ken Salazar to be his secretary of the interior.

According to The New York Times, rancher and farmer Salazar is a "staunch conservationist and an opponent of developing oil shale on public lands."

Environmentalists and conservationists have also cheered other Obama appointments, including Nobel Prize-winning experimental physicist Steven Chu as energy secretary, former Environmental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner as a coordinator of energy and climate policy, former New Jersey environmental protection commissioner Lisa Jackson as EPA director and Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

GET INVOLVED

• Donate to Defenders of Wildlife to support their fight against the Bush administration's plan to lift protections for America's wolves
• Sign a Sierra Club petition opposing the US Fish and Wildlife Service delisting of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List
• Sign Mark Udall's petition to protect federal lands on top of the Roan Plateau from massive drilling by the oil and gas industry

The Tsunami Returns, Again

On December 24, 2004, an undersea 9.2 magnitude earthquake on the Sunda fault off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia (known as the Great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake), caused a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The entire planet vibrated up to 1 cm, triggering quakes as far as Alaska.

More than 225,000 people perished, with casualties as far as South Africa. It was the single worst tsunami in history. The American Red Cross quickly established the International Response Fund and the Tsunami Disaster Response, which raised millions of dollars for emergency response and long-term support for survivors. They are currently seeking $100 million for their Disaster Relief Fund.

In 2007, an 8.4 magnitude quake from the southern portion of the Sunda shook the region. And now, scientists believe that last year's event is part of a larger "earthquake supercycle."

According to a recent Scientific American article, a new study on corals published in Science suggests that there are sets of large earthquakes that have occurred every 200 years for at least the past seven centuries.

"If previous cycles are a reliable guide," said co-author Kerry Sieh, a professor at the California Institute of Technology's Tectonics Observatory, "we can expect one or more very large west Sumatran earthquakes...within the next two decades."

• Preparedness and the Tsunami Resilient Community (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
• Top Ten Deadliest Tsunamis (Wikipedia)
  

photo: Inky Bob

2,000 Elephants Missing in Chad

Chad. One of the world's poorest nations. And one of the most corrupt. Civil unrest has wracked a country, whose current president, Idriss Déby, is faced with an armed opposition. More than half of its 10 million citizens are illiterate.

And since 2001, it has suffered from a humanitarian crisis. In addition to 170,000 internally displaced residents, Chad now hosts over 280,000 refugees from the Sudan's Darfur region and more than 55,000 from the Central African Republic.

Considering this witch's brew, conservation in Chad is understandably more difficult than in most places around the world, especially when elephants walk through the wild with ivory that is worth hefty sums on the black market. Seven tons of ivory fetched over $1 million from Chinese and Japanese bidders at a recent authorized ivory auction -- the first of its kind in a decade (the ivory stock, mostly acquired after natural death, actually raised funds for elephant conservation).

In the southern part of Chad lies Zakouma National Park, a 1,200 square-mile (3,000 square-kilometer) area surrounded completely by the Bahr Salamat Faunal Reserve. The Chadian government has nominated the park to become a UNESCO World Heritage site.

It is also the world's largest remaining concentration of wild elephants. And in 2006, Zakouma was the site of a series of poaching massacres of African elephants that took the lives of at least 100 individuals. The killings, which took place from May through August, were documented by aerial surveys.

CNN's "Planet in Peril" series recently aired an account of the dire situation in Zakouma. In 2006, there were about 3,000 elephants there. Now, there are only 1,000. The remaining 2,000 are feared lost to poachers.

A century ago, some 10 million elephants roamed sub-Saharan Africa. Today, less than ten percent of that number survive.

There have been many efforts to help the elephants' plight, including the non-profit conservation society Save the Elephants, founded in 1993 by Iain Douglas-Hamilton, one of the world's foremost authorities on the African elephant. But as Anderson Cooper reports, in the ivory wars, "we're losing."

• Donate to Save the Elephants
  
• Adopt an elephant from the World Wildlife Fund for $25
• Sign a petition urging eBay to ban all ivory sales on its site
• Join AWF's Elephant Conservation Research Project

photo: Just Chaos

Basic Chemistry of Life Found on Exoplanet

It's 63 million light years away and the size of Jupiter. It's too hot for life as we know it, but a breakthrough discovery by NASA shows that the exoplanet (that is, a planet outside of our solar system) known as HD 189733b has some of the basic elements necessary to support life.

Various recent observations of the exosolar planet by the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have found water vapor and methane. And now, using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer to study infrared light emitted from HD 189733b, Mark Swain, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has discovered carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. These compounds create a specific spectral imprint on radiation waves that reach Earth and that Hubble was able to detect.

"The carbon dioxide is the main reason for the excitement because, under the right circumstances, it could have a connection to biological activity as it does on Earth," Swain said. "The very fact we are able to detect it and estimate its abundance is significant for the long-term effort of characterizing planets to find out what they are made of and if they could be a possible host for life."

GET INFORMED

• Read "Hubble Telescope Finds Carbon Dioxide on an Extrasolar Planet" (NASA, December 9, 2008)
• Visit the Hubble Space Telescope Web site (NASA)
• Learn more about HD 189733b (Wikipedia)
  

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
  
• Donate to the American Astronomical Society
  
• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com

image of artist's impression of HD 189733b: ESA, NASA and G. Tinetti (University College London, UK & ESA)

The Masdar Initiative

With gas-guzzling cars, continuous air conditioning, energy-hogging water desalination plants and thirsty lawns, the United Arab Emirates is what the Economist calls "an offence to the atmosphere."

But if crown prince Sheikh Mohammed al-Nahyan has his way, Abu Dhabi -- the largest of the UAE's seven city-states -- will become the world's center for carbon-neutral green living. His ambitious Masdar Initiative involves the creation of an academic research institute, a global manufacturing hub for eco-friendly technologies and a walled city that has zero waste and no greenhouse-gas emissions. All this while making a profit.

With help from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Credit Suisse (which has invested $100 million), British architecture firm Foster + Partners, petroleum firm BP and mining giant Rio Tinto, Masdar city will feature recycled water, rainwater harvesting, drough-resistant plants, solar-panelled roofs and algae ponds that may one day create biofuel when science figures out how.

No cars will be allowed. Instead, the 40,000 residents will be required to walk or ride in small, individual pods that will travel through the city on tracks (Masdar will be built on a platform to give easy access to pipes and electric grids).

But will it work? Sitting on 8% of the world's known oil reserves, Abu Dhabi has no shortage of capital to fund this remarkable project (Prince Charles is also a patron). And the planners understand that it will take serious innovation to turn the funds into real sustainability for people living in such a harsh climate. They have chosen former BP chief John Browne to help choose the winner of a prize for innovation. Put those thinking caps on.

GET INFORMED

• Read "Masdar Plan" (The Economist, December 4, 2008)
• Visit the Masdar Initiative Web site
  

GET INVOLVED

• Join the Greenpeace "Energy [R]evolution"
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

photo: Imre Solt

Frozen, Canned or Fresh?

When it comes to vegetables, which is the best food choice: frozen, canned or fresh? Nutritionally-speaking, there is no better choice than fresh. However, the longer these vegetables stay on the farm stand or your grocer's shelves, the more they lose their nutritional value.

A study last year by the University of California Davis found that green peas lost over 50% of its vitamin C within 24 to 48 hours after picking.

So unless you're getting the freshest of peas, frozen peas would be a healthier choice. The freezing process right after harvesting locks in the nutrients until they're defrosted. Canned vegetables, on the other hand, lose much of their value when they are subjected to the intense heat caused by the canning process.

But when it comes to the various vegetable production and distribution systems, and their impact on the environment, the calculation gets a bit trickier. Fresh, locally-grown vegetables are a good choice for the reduction of carbon imprint. But keeping them cool at home requires refrigeration, which requires not only electricity, but also hydrofluorocarbon, the main ingredient in fridge coolant, which has a global-warming potential 3,200 times that of carbon dioxide.

Then there's the consideration of food distribution: Eating food that's out of season in your area means buying produce that has likely been flown thousands of miles to get to your dinner table.

According to Lucy Siegle, in her article "Is It Better to Buy Canned or Frozen Food?" that was published by the Guardian, the "core use" of freezing "should be to freeze local or homegrown surpluses to tide you through the winter."

She also argues the benefits of canned vegetables, noting that "tins of food will sit there happily until the apocalypse arrives." In addition to requiring zero energy to store and lasting for years, cans also benefit from an established recycling industry that puts back about 25 percent of recycled material into new products.

"In either case," Ms Siegle concludes, "I'd rather have canned or frozen than the 'chilled' goods that increasingly stock our fridges, which are chilled throughout the supply chain and sold in open chiller cabinets competing to stay cool in heated shops. These are the products that should be given the cold shoulder."

GET INFORMED

• Read "Is It Better to Buy Canned or Frozen Food?" (The Guardian, September 14, 2008)
• Download a PDF of "Nutritional comparison of fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables, Part 1, Vitamins C and B and phenolic compounds" (University of California Davis, 2007)
  

GET INVOLVED

• Download a vegetable season guide (Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture)
  
• Download the "Pocket Eco-Friendly Fish Selector" (Environmental Defense Fund)
  

photo: zaser

Wanted: Environmental Fugitives

One is a mechanic who knowingly certified faulty cabin oxygen generators for a plane that later crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 passengers and crew. One is a truck driver who dumped fuel from his tanker into a river in Ohio. One sold ozone-depleting freon that was smuggled across the border from Mexico. One discharged tons of oil-contaminated grain into the ocean from his ship.

They have evaded the law. They are on the run. But the long arm of the law has just gotten a little bit longer.

The American government has made this kind of criminal information public with the launch of the first-ever environmental crimes fugitive Web site, run by the Environmental Protection Agency.

But the EPA doesn't want the average citizen to go commando, instead inviting concerned parties to report to a US embassy or fill out an online form if they know the whereabouts of any fugitives. According to a December 10 governmental press release, "Some fugitives may be armed and dangerous, and EPA warns the public against trying to apprehend them."

GET INFORMED

• Read EPA's Most Wanted List

GET INVOLVED

• Report a fugitive's location on the EPA Web site

photo: sigma.

They Came, They Saw, They Were Affected By Climate Change

On September 4, 476, the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus, was deposed by the Germanic general Odoacer (pictured, on coin), who went on to become the first non-Roman ruler of Italy. It was the fall of the Roman Empire. The Middle Ages were born.

Almost a millennium later, on May 29, 1453, Constantinople fell, the capital of the Byzantine Empire captured by the Ottoman Empire. The Middle Ages were over.

Many theories have been offered as to the possible reasons of the decline of these great civilizations. And now, a new study suggests that climate change may have played a part.

Analyzing sections of stalagmites found in a 185,000 year-old cave near Jerusalem, a group of American and Israeli researchers led by geologists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has constructed a detailed weather record of the region from 200 B.C. to 1,100 A.D. They discovered that this period saw increasingly dry weather caused by a steep decline in precipitation.

The team is currently studying an older part of the same cave, focusing their efforts on trying to understand what happened around 19,000 years ago, at the end of the last great ice age. During that period, the entire planet warmed by up to 5 degrees Celsius. The EU Commission has proposed limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above the temperature in pre-industrial times.

As we look at global warming through a socio-cultural lens, policymakers would do well to note the significance of Odoacer's name as a few words of warning: From the Germanic Audawakrs, it means "watchful of wealth."

GET INFORMED

• Read "Decline of Roman and Byzantine Empires 1,400 Years Ago May Have Been Driven By Climate Change" (ScienceDaily, December 6, 2008)
• Read "Limiting Global Climate Change to 2 Degrees Celsius" (EU Commission, October 1, 2007)
  

GET INVOLVED

• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Join the Greenpeace "Energy [R]evolution"
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

image: portrait of Odoacer on Solidus, Roman mint, Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.

New Homes for Kenyan Wildlife

Solio Ranch in Kenya's Rift Valley has been the home of seven wildlife species, including plains zebra, impala, Thomson gazelle, oryx and the Lelwel Hartebeest, an endangered antelope native to Africa. But earlier this year, about 15,000 acres of the ranch were sold to the government as part of a plan to resettle squatters from Laikipia District.

In an effort to protect the animals from the eventual degradation of the land from human use and possible poaching for bushmeat, the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, a 62,000-acre wildlife sanctuary situated on the northern slopes of Mount Kenya, and Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a 90,000-acre wildlife sanctuary located between the mountain and the foothills of the Aberdares, worked with the Kenya Wildlife Service to translocate the animals from Solio Ranch.

Lewa, Ol Pejeta and Mugie Ranch took in 199 hartebeest, while 135 zebra were moved to Mwea National Reserve and the Aberdares National Park.

The two conservancies, along with Tusk Trust and Tusk USA, raised emergency funds for the project, which was completed during a three-week period last month involving trucks, helicopters, curtained traps and working at night.

There are still animals left on Solio Ranch and there is still time to relocate them. The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and its partners are looking for additional resources to complete this translocation.

GET INFORMED

• Read "3000 wild animals moved from solio ranch after land sale" (Kenya Wildlife Service, December 7, 2008)
• Visit the Ol Pejeta Conservancy Web site
• Visit the Lewa Conservancy Web site
  

GET INVOLVED

• Donate to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
• Donate to the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary on the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, the only place in Kenya to view these animals, all rescues
• Learn more about the Lelwel Hartebeest
  

RELATED POSTS

• Getting Close to the Elephants of Samburu (August 19, 2008)
• Wildlife Populations Look Good on Kenyan Ranch (August 2, 2008)
• Kenya's Economy Tied to Forest Health (July 19, 2008)
• Kenya's Maasai Compensated for Lion Attacks (June 18, 2008)
• African Conservation Gets $10 Million Gift (May 1, 2008)

photo: Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Singapore's Dolphin Deal with the Solomons

Once a British protectorate, the Solomon Islands has been beset in the last decade by crime, government corruption and ethnic violence. An in recent years, this South Pacific nation, a scenic orchid-rich archipelago comprising almost one thousand volcanic islands, has been involved in a controversial practice that has Australia, New Zealand and several international conservationists up in arms -- the cruel and unsustainable removal of dolphins from the wild to supply the captive dolphin entertainment industry.

In 2004, international uproar over the shipment of 28 dolphins to Mexico resulted in a stoppage of the practice (a total of around 100 wild Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins were violently removed from the waters around the islands -- several died due to the stress of capture and confinement). But the country's courts have recently re-approved the commercial export of dolphins, with most of them being shipped to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In 2007, almost 30 arrived to permanently entertain visitors at the emirate's Atlantis Palm resort.

Now, the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) has reported that Singapore's Sentosa Resort is planning to purchase live dolphins from the Solomons for a new eight-hectare marine park featuring a dolphin exhibit and a 6.5-million-gallon whale shark lagoon, due to open in 2010.

GET INFORMED

• Read "Entertainments Around Singapore Casino in Resorts World at Sentosa in 2010" (AboutSingaporeCasino.com)

GET INVOLVED

• Sign WSPA's letter urging Ambassador Chan Heng Chee at the Embassy of Singapore in the United States to request that Singapore stand firm against this cruel practice of capturing and confining wild dolphins

photo: Mike (NO captive birds) in Thailand

Famous 400-Year-Old Star Death Observed

In early November of 1572, something lit up the sky in the constellation Cassiopeia that was so bright it could be seen in the daytime. People around the world were entranced with what was thought to be a mysterious new star.

The legendary Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe was very intrigued, and studied it intensely for five months. He recorded its exact position in his book, "Stella Nova." Then, it disappeared. In fact, what people saw was not a new star, but the death of an old one -- what is known today as a supernova.

But what he found was astonishing for the time -- the star's distance was far beyond that of the Moon, a fact that refuted the reigning Aristotelian belief of the immutability of the heavens. This discovery helped to lay the foundation upon which Galileo, Newton and others built modern astronomy.

And now, we are able to finally see what Brahe and his contemporaries laid their gaze upon through a remarkable "fossil imprint" that has been traveling through space at the speed of light for the last four centuries.

At the time of the explosion, what Brahe saw was the light that sped directly towards Earth. What astronomers have been able capture today is the image created by the light of the original event that traveled in other directions and was reflected off of clouds of interstellar dust.

The composite image (pictured here) was captured by three telescopes -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (which is orbiting the sun), NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (which is orbiting the Earth) and the Calar Alto observatory in Spain.

Astronomers have captured these "light echoes" from supernova before, but Tycho Brahe's is the oldest ever seen in the Milky Way.

GET INFORMED

• Read "Ancient Supernova Mystery Solved" (BBC News, December 4, 2008)
• Learn more about the Spitzer Space Telescope
  
• Find out where the Chandra X-ray Observatory is right now
  

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
  
• Donate to the American Astronomical Society
  
• Download this month's free night sky map and calendar from Skymaps.com

RELATED POSTS

• Rare Star Explosion Could Be a Rosetta Stone (November 29, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: The Final Frontier According to Ptolemy, Kennedy, Hubble and Obama
  (November 17, 2008)
• An Eruption 165 Years Ago Signaled the Death of a Star (September 15, 2008)
• Emissions 6,500 Light-Years Away Detected (September 1, 2008)
• Death of Star Captured for First Time (June 1, 2008)

photo: MPIA/NASA/Calar Alto Observatory

EDITORIAL: Raul Grijalva Should Be the Next Secretary of the Interior

Spacious skies? Check. Amber waves of grain? Check. Purple mountain majesties? Check. Fruited plain? Check. Yes, America is well known for its beautiful landscape. And since 1849, the person in charge of managing all of this poetic scenery is the Secretary of the Interior.

Naturally, it's a big job. As the head of the Department of the Interior, this person oversees such agencies as the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Geological Survey and the National Park Service.

The outgoing Secretary, Dick Kempthorne, has been a disaster. He has consistently supported curbing protections provided by such crucial laws as the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act in order to favor commercial interests.

Since his confirmation in May of 2006, Mr Kempthorne has not placed a single plant or animal on the federal endangered species list. He recently eliminated the requirement for scientific review of federal projects that may harm endangered species.

One of the top contenders to replace Mr Kempthorne is Raul Grijalva, a Democratic Representative from Arizona. This son of a migrant worker from Mexico and current Chair of the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands would be an excellent pick for President-elect Barack Obama.

Boasting a 95% lifetime score by the League of Conservation Voters, Mr Grijalva has introduced several bills in Congress to restore and protect federal lands, and supports a permanent ban against drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

A strong animal advocate, he has spoken on behalf of wild horses on public land, supporting the expansion of the Heber wild horse territory in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest. He also supports the strengthening of laws against horse slaughter, puppy mills and animal fighting.

The Bush administration has run roughshod on the rights and protections afforded to the nation's wildlife, landscape and domesticated animals. Repairing the damage and toughening up weak laws is a daunting task. Mr Grijavla is right person for the job.

GET INFORMED

• Read about Raul Grijalva (Wikipedia.com)

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an In Defense of Animals letter to the Obama transition team expressing your support of Raul Grijalva for Interior Secretary

Battle of the Little Bighorn

The Bering land bridge that once connected present-day Siberia and Alaska is thought to have made human migration from Asia to the Americas 25,000 years ago possible. But Bighorn Sheep made that epic journey 725,000 years earlier, spreading throughout western North America as far south as Mexico. To Native Americans, these magnificent creatures had a mythological status. It is Alberta's provincial mammal and Colorado's state animal.

In the early 19th century, Bighorn Sheep were widespread, numbering around two million. But hunting (their signature curved horns, weighing up to 30 pounds, are trophies), disease and competition from domesticated sheep reduced their number to just a few thousand by 1900. Though conservation efforts (with significant help from the Arizona Boy Scouts) helped stabilize the population, a sub-species from the Black Hills in South Dakota went extinct.

In recent years, the populations in Hell's Canyon and Salmon River Canyon in Idaho have been ravaged by disease carried by domesticated sheep. The US Forest Service has been working to help this group, but they have encountered a tough opponent: the powerful sheep lobby, which has fiercely opposed proposals to relocate disease-carrying domestic sheep.

GET INFORMED

• Visit the Hell's Canyon Preservation Council Web site

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Wilderness Society petition telling the US Forest Service that you support their efforts to provide disease-free habitat for bighorn sheep in Idaho's Hells Canyon and the Salmon River canyon

photo: tkellyphoto