Goodbye Ulysses

One of the most successful and longest missions in outer space comes to an end

On October 6, 1990, the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched a robotic spacecraft called Ulysses, named after the Latin translation of Homer's legendary hero Odysseus. Its joint NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) mission: to chart the unknown regions of space above the poles of the Sun. NASA has called it an "epic science adventure."

Indeed, its name recalls Dante's description of Ulysses' desire to explore the world "beyond the Sun" in The Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy.

According to a NASA statement, Ulysses' final command will be sent from Earth on June 29, its 18-year mission coming to an end. After shut-off, Ulysses will continue to orbit the Sun.

"Among many other ground-breaking results, the hugely successful mission showed that the Sun's magnetic field is carried into the Solar System in a more complicated manner than previously believed," according to a ScienceDaily.com article. "Particles expelled by the Sun from low latitudes can climb up to high latitudes and vice versa, even unexpectedly finding their way down to planets."

"Whenever any of us look up in the years to come, Ulysses will be there, silently orbiting our star, which it studied so successfully during its long and active life," said Richard Marsden, ESA's Ulysses Project Scientist and Mission Manager.

"O my brothers, who have reached the west, through a thousand dangers, do not deny the brief vigil, your senses have left to them, experience of the unpopulated world beyond the Sun," Ulysses said in Dante's Inferno.

"Consider your origin: You were not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge."

GET INVOLVED

• See the Ulysses image gallery
  
• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
• See what's in the sky tonight
• Download Google Earth 5.0, which has an interactive map of the entire surface of Mars
• Buy a beginner telescope from the Discovery Channel store ($99.00)

RELATED POSTS

• It's the End of the World As We Know It (June 12, 2009)
• Getting Closer to the Beginning of Time (May 16, 2009)
• Sizing Up the "King of the World" (March 31, 2009)

image: artist's concept of Ulysses moving towards the Sun (credit: NASA)

Gone in 75 Years: Polar Bears

Polar bears have been around for 200,000 years. Today their end seems frighteningly near

According to "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States," a recent -- and chilling -- report issued on June 16 by the Obama administration, "It is projected that there will be no wild polar bears left in Alaska in 75 years."

Polar bears rely on sea ice, large sheets of ice floating near or attached to the coast, which is where they hunt their primary prey, ringed seals. As the sea ice is rapidly melting due to anthropogenic global warming, many starve to death. Others swim miles from the shore searching for food, only to drown, unable to make the long distance back to safe ground.

And the sea ice is melting faster than ever. An area of sea ice almost the size of Virginia melts every single day.

Illegal hunting of the bears in Russia is also a problem, according to a recent Reuters article.

And then there are those who want to open up a main polar bear habitat, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) -- which was established to protect arctic wildlife -- to oil and gas exploration.

Republican senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has introduced a new bill, the rather innocuous sounding "Clean, Affordable, Reliable Energy Act" (CARE), according to a press release issued by his office on June 24. It contains provisions to open up ANWR to oil and gas exploration.

"The chances for the continued survival of this icon of the Arctic will be greatly diminished if its remaining critical habitat is turned into a vast oil and gas field," said Margaret Williams, managing director of the World Wildlife Fund's Kamchatka and Bering Sea Program, according to ScienceDaily.com.

Between melting sea ice, poaching and drilling, the future of Ursus maritimus is bleak -- and getting bleaker by the day.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), there are between 20,000 and 25,000 wild polar bears left worldwide.

Average daily attendance at Yankee Stadium so far this month: 42,000.

Price to adopt a polar bear from Defenders of Wildlife: $20.

Average price of a ticket to Yankees Stadium: $72.97.

GET INVOLVED

• Adopt a polar bear for $20 from Defenders of Wildlife to help in their efforts to get Congress to pass the Udall-Eisenhower Wilderness Act which would permanently protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
  
• Sign a Defenders of Wildlife letter urging Congress to permanently protect the Arctic refuge (US citizens only)
• Sign the Polar Bear Central petition to curb global warming (open to all)
  
• Sign a Defenders of Wildlife letter urging your representative to take just 5% of the anticipated revenue from new global warming cap-and-trade legislation to safeguard wildlife and ecosystems from the effects of global warming (US citizens only)
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

RELATED POSTS

• Congress Tackles Climate Change (June 24, 2009)
• Salazar to Decide Polar Bear Fate Today (May 8, 2009)
• Ashley Judd to Congress: Commit Some Cap and Trade Revenue to Help Wildlife (April 25, 2009)
• Fate of Polar Bears in Salazar's Hands (April 22, 2009)
• Farewell to the Polar Bears (January 14, 2009)
• Using Art to Tell the Sad Tale of Polar Bears (September 29, 2008)
• Polar Bears Swimming Miles from Coast Cause Concern (August 23, 2008)
• North Pole May Be Ice-Free in Five Years (August 12, 2008)

image: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

How Green Is Your Meal?

Our food costs a lot more than the money we pay to eat it. Punching your numbers into an online calculator will likely yield some surprising results

How much do you eat in a week? That's the question you have to answer in the Eating Green Calculator to find out what your consumption really costs -- namely the effects of your diet on your health and the health of the environment.

The calculator is a free online application created by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The center is a non-profit consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1971 to inform the public about "nutrition, food safety, health and other issues during a boom of consumer and environmental protection awareness," according to their Web site.

Here's one result: If you ate 3.5 ounces of chicken and one egg last week, you also used 2.7 pounds of fertilizer and created 91 pounds of manure.

Now that's food for thought.

GET INVOLVED

• Find out how green your diet is with the Eating Green Calculator
• Sign the MakeOurFoodSafe.org petition urging the US Congress to pass strong food safety legislation (US citizens only)
  

RELATED POSTS

• Rogue Honey (June 22, 2009)
• Another Inconvenient Truth: Overfishing (June 18, 2009)
• Dying for a Diet Drink (May 29, 2009)
  
• No Bees, No Food (March 11, 2009)
• Eat Healthy and Save the World, Simultaneously (January 23, 2009)
• Getting Smaller: Our Food (January 21, 2009)
• Pick up the Fish Phone (January 20, 2009)
• Coffee Made in the Shade? It's for the Birds (January 2, 2009)
• Overfishing: How Supermarkets Rate (December 28, 2008)
• Frozen, Canned or Fresh? (December 12, 2008)
• The Ones That Got Away: "Organic" Fish (November 9, 2008)
• Big Fish, Little Fish (November 13, 2008)
• If We Really Are What We Eat, Most of Us Are A Bit Disturbing (October 17, 2008)
• Goodbye, Fish and Chips (October 12, 2008)
• Twice As Nice: Organic Wine (August 31, 2008)

image: a square meal (credit: katiew)

The Answer Is Blowin' in the Wind

A new study has found that all the energy we need -- and much more -- can be found in the wind

New research into wind-generated energy has produced a striking conclusion: Harnessing all available wind power would provide more than 40 times the power of the current global electricity consumption.

The study, carried out by Xi Lu from Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Science , James MacElroy from Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Juha Kiviluoma from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Science of the United States. It excluded "forested, urban, permanently ice covered and inland water regions."

"It's important to emphasize that this isn't being presented as a realistic plan to achieve a renewable energy nirvana; it's simply an attempt to provide a sense of what's possible," writes John Timmer in an Ars Technica article.

"In the end, though, the study does make clear that supplying a lot of our energy via wind is possible, and that finding should inform debates about the degree to which it makes sense to do so and the adjustments we'll need to make to our existing energy systems in order to make it happen."

"He who sows the wind, reaps a typhoon," goes an old Filipino proverb. If we can harness this energy properly, it may be a typhoon well worth experiencing.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Power of Wind petition urging your senators and representative to support a national renewable electricity standard (US citizens only)
  
• Take the Public Agenda quiz and find out how much you know about energy
  
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change

RELATED POSTS

• Congress Tackles Climate Change (June 24, 2009)
• In the Dark (June 21, 2009)
• What Is Clean Coal? (February 28, 2009)
• How Much is $787 Billion? (February 16, 2009)
• Gore: "Shake Off Complacency" (January 29, 2009)
  
• Wind Energy Not So Great for Bats (August 18, 2008)

image: wind turbine (credit: Wagner Christian)

Bighorns' Last Stand

One-hundred and thirty-three years ago this week Custer made his famous last stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn. It's a fine time to remember not only the battle, but also the animal that gave the place its name

This week in 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and 267 of his troops in the United States 7th Cavalry Regiment died in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Between 36 and 136 members of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, led by Sitting Bull, were also killed.

A remarkable victory for the native American tribes, the battle is the most famous chapter of the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.

The Little Bighorn River was named after the bighorn sheep, an American and Siberian species of sheep known for their large curved horns. The males are known for their head-to-head combat, putting on fierce displays of butting horns that can weigh up to 30 pounds.

Both the Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis sierrae), a unique subspecies and Peninsular Bighorn Sheep, a distinct population segment of Desert Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni), are endangered.

This iconic animal has been in decline mainly because of the farming of domestic sheep, which graze over lands historically used by the bighorn. Mining, water depletion, homesteading and hunting haven't helped these dwindling populations either.

If legislators don't step in to create protections of these animals, they will soon be facing their own last stand.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) letter urging Forest Supervisor Edward Monnig and Acting BLM California State Director James W. Abbot to close high elevation domestic sheep grazing in the eastern Sierra Nevada to protect Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep

RELATED POSTS

• Dreaming of Sheep (May 12, 2009)
• Battle of the Little Bighorn (December 5, 2008)

image: male bighorn sheep, near Jasper, Alberta (credit: Alan D. Wilson)

Congress Tackles Climate Change

American lawmakers gear up for a contentious vote tomorrow on a sprawling energy bill meant to address climate change. Unsurprisingly imperfect, its passage would still mark a huge and necessary step forward

Tomorrow, the United States House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a historic bill -- the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454).

Sponsored by Representatives Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markley (D-Mass.), this is a landmark comprehensive energy bill, and it includes a cap-and-trade global warming reduction plan designed to reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020.

According to the World Resource Institute, the United States has emitted more global-warming greenhouse gas than any other nation in the world in the last 150 years, accounting for 29 percent of the planet’s total since the mid-19th century. The polar bear is just one of many species that are disappearing due to man-caused global warming.

The bill's many provisions include requirements for utilities regarding renewable energy, studies and incentives for new carbon capture and sequestration technologies, home- and building-based energy efficiency incentives and grants for green jobs.

Speaking at a White House news conference on Tuesday, President Obama said:

"This legislation will spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet.

"This energy bill will create a set of incentives that will spur the development of new sources of energy, including wind, solar, and geothermal power. It will also spur new energy savings, like efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer.

"These incentives will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy. And that will lead to the development of new technologies that lead to new industries that could create millions of new jobs in America, jobs that can't be shipped overseas.

"At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe. It also provides assistance to businesses and communities as they make the gradual transition to clean energy technologies."

According to the New York Times, "there is no certainty that they will assemble enough votes to pass it on Friday over near-unanimous Republican opposition," which is based on a belief that "it would effectively impose a national energy tax that would destroy jobs and cause large price increases for all forms of energy." The climate change bill has been referred to by the GOP as the "Democrats' Energy Tax."

According to Reuters, Republican lawmakers working together as the Rural American Solutions Group said the bill will "make it more expensive for rural Americans to fertilize the crops, put fuel in the tractor and food on the table."

They showed a map to the press that they claimed revealed the impact of the cap-and-trade system, which they said would benefit New York, New Jersey and California, while harming most southern, southwestern and midwestern states. The GOP representatives failed to mention that the map came from the National Mining Association, the mining industry's main Washington lobbying group, and only considered the cost of the legislation while disregarding the benefits.

Now a divided House moves towards a vote on the heels of the Obama administration's June 16 release of "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States," the first major report on the subject since 2000. Federal law requires that the government issue a comprehensive report on the effects of climate change every four years. The Bush administration, which resisted releasing a climate report, was finally forced to release a draft last year due to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity.

The report's key findings are:

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.
3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase. 4. Climate change will stress water resources.
5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
7. Risks to human health will increase.
8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.
10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

According to Care2.com, the report -- which was a collaboration of 13 federal agencies as part of the United States Global Change Research Program -- "makes clear that global warming is not an opinion to be debated, but rather scientific fact to be addressed."

"The legislation now on the table isn't the bill we'd ideally want, but it's the bill we can get," writes New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, "and it’s vastly better than no bill at all." He notes a "serious objection to Waxman-Markey is that it sets up a system under which many polluters wouldn’t have to pay for the right to emit greenhouse gases -- they'd get their permits free. In particular, in the first years of the program’s operation more than a third of the allocation of emission permits would be handed over at no charge to the power industry," pointing out that "handing out emission permits does, in effect, transfer wealth from taxpayers to industry."

"After all the years of denial, after all the years of inaction, we finally have a chance to do something major about climate change. Waxman-Markey is imperfect, it's disappointing in some respects, but it's action we can take now," says Krugman. "And the planet won’t wait."

Neither will the polar bears.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an Oxfam America letter to Congress showing your support of the bill (US citizens only)
• Sign an Environmental Defense Action Fund letter to Congress showing your support of the bill (US citizens only)
  
• Call your representative at 877-973-7693, say "Vote 'yes' on American Clean Energy and Security Act," then report your call to Repower America, a campaign of Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection (US citizens only)
• Take the Public Agenda quiz and find out how much you know about energy
  
• Sign the "We Can Solve It" petition for a global treaty on climate change

RELATED POSTS

• In the Dark (June 21, 2009)
• The True Cost of Megamalls (June 2, 2009)
• Sittin' on Top of the World (April 29, 2009)
• Ashley Judd to Congress: Commit Some Cap and Trade Revenue to Help Wildlife (April 25, 2009)
• Appalachian Mountains Get A Breather (April 12, 2009)
  
• Burning the Midnight Oil, But No One's There (April 1, 2009)
• Polar Transcendentalism (May 11, 2009)
• Selling the Arctic's Future to the Oil Industry (March 9, 2009)
• What Is Clean Coal? (February 28, 2009)
  
• Gore: "Shake Off Complacency" (January 29, 2009)
• Farewell to the Polar Bears (January 14, 2009)
• Creating Jobs, Saving Wildlife, Protecting Public Land (January 8, 2009)

image: polar bear mural, Sea World, San Diego (credit: San Diego Shooter)

South Africa's Shark Tale

Sharks have been swimming the seas unchallenged for 420 million years. But on a long stretch of South African coast, they have finally met their match -- tourists

It is the home of the Zulu Nation. It borders three countries -- Mozambique, Swaziland, and Lesotho -- and has a long shoreline along the Indian Ocean. It is KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa's "garden province."

KwaZulu-Natal is also known for having healthy shark populations, but that could be changing, as "untold numbers of harmless sharks, turtles, dolphins and rays meet an untimely and senseless death each year by entanglement in the approximately 28 kilometres of 'shark' nets that are installed just off the beaches," according a recent Wildlife Extra report.

These nets are part of a "bather protection" program, a destructive practice in which sharks get entangled in nets, struggle and the usually die of suffocation.

In the last three decades, according to Wildlife Extra, these nets have killed 33,000 sharks. In the same time period, several other species not intended to be ensnared have also been killed, including 2,000 turtles, 8,000 rays and 2,000 dolphins.

Legally, sharks in South Africa are a protected species. Indeed, the nation became the first in the world to offer sharks complete protection, in 1991. However, programs meant to keep tourists safe run by the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board are exempt from this important conservation measure.

Though the nets are meant to protect tourists, the negative press generated by this practice is not helping the region's tourism industry. Certainly, live sharks are worth a lot more than dead ones. In Gansbaai, a fishing village on the Western Cape, cage diving within the area's dense population of Great White Sharks is the main tourist attraction. South Africa generates $1.6 million in eco-tourism.

South Africa has been a pioneer in shark conservation -- they have banned the killing of sharks within 320km of their coastline. And while it is necessary to protect tourists, shark attacks are rare.

We don't own the oceans -- and we certainly didn't get there first. It's called "shark territory" for a reason.

There will always be danger when humans enter the sea. So as conservationists and politicians debate this ongoing issue, it is worth recalling an old Zulu proverb: "Follow the customs or flee the country."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Shark Angels Alliance petition urging the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board to work on a plan to abolish the nets and work on a zero-kill plan
• Sign the Shark Trust petition supporting an EU Plan of Action for the protection of sharks

RELATED POSTS

• Ghosts in the Water (May 10, 2009)
• 13.7 BILLION YEARS EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Philip Renaud, Executive Director, Living Oceans Foundation (March 16, 2009)
• Singapore's Dolphin Deal with the Solomons (December 8, 2008)
• Sharks Get a New Best Friend in Galapagos (October 23, 2008)
  

image credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Denmark: Humpback Whales Are Tasty

They are slow. They are easy to hunt. Their populations are just rebuilding. And now Denmark wants to kill them

Few creatures inspire such awe and admiration as the humpback whale. A type of baleen whale, they can grow up to 50 feet long and weigh as much as 40 tons (that's about 20 automobiles).

They are usually solitary, but sometimes gather together to feed cooperatively. But rare long-term relationships lasting for years have been recorded. "Super-pods" of up to 40 males have been identified. And they have been seen in the Hawaiian waters playing with bottlenose dolphin calves. In fact, Hawaii's state mammal is the whale.

But perhaps the most famous trait of the humpback is its complex song. These songs are regular, predictable and rather intricate compositions lasting 10 minutes or more that have been compared to human music. Scientists believe that these songs are used in mate selection.

Denmark has requested the right for Greenland to hunt these whales under controversial proposals being voted on this week by the International Whaling Commission during their annual meeting in Madeira, Portugal. Specifically, they want to kill fifty individuals from the Northeast Atlantic stock. Sweden has supported their request. Although there has been a worldwide ban on commercial whaling since 1966, whale meat is available in markets in Scandinavia and Japan.

"[Denmark] will try to say 'We take less of other whales' so they can have the humpback," said Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) spokesman Nicolas Entrup in a Times UK article.

"They argue there is a specific taste they like, and they are easier to hunt than other whales. We cannot start talking about ending a quota for endangered species because something tastes good."

GET INVOLVED

• Email the Danish prime minister (stm@stm.dk) the following note: "I protest in the strongest terms Denmark's support of the slaughter of fifty humpbacks from the Northeast Atlantic stock. Humpbacks are loved and respected by many around the world. When making travel plans I shall remember your efforts to kill these highly intelligent, social and endangered animals."
  
• Listen to humpback whale songs recorded by the Ocean Mammal Institute
  
• Sign the Humane Society petition to create a global whale sanctuary
  
• Sign the Greenpeace letter to Iceland's prime minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir urging her to cancel Iceland's five-year commercial whaling quota and ensure that Iceland's representative at this year's International Whaling Commission meeting votes for whale conservation
• Sign a Care2 petition urging Iceland's minister of fisheries Jon Bjarnason, Minister of Fisheries to reduce this year's whale hunt quotas immediately -- and to ban whaling forever
  
• Sign the Whale's Revenge petition urging the International Whaling Commission to close the loophole that allows whaling in the name of so-called "scientific research"
  

RELATED POSTS

• The Future of Whaling (June 14, 2008)
• Silencing Whale Songs (May 31, 2009)
• Illegal Whale Meat Still on Japanese Menus (April 14, 2009)
• Bloody Waters in the Faroe Islands (February 19 , 2009)
• Gray Whales, Meet Big Oil (November 22, 2008)
• Palin Rebuffed As Unique Alaskan Whales Score Major Victory (October 18, 2008)
• Whales Get New Sanctuary in Chile (September 30, 2008)
• First-Ever Whale Songs Heard in New York Waters (September 20, 2008)
• Greenland's Request to Kill Humpback Whales Denied (July 1, 2008)
• Greenpeace Activists Jailed in Tokyo (June 22, 2008)
• US Condemns Iceland's Whale Hunt (May 26, 2008)

image: Sanctuary Collection Location: Hawaiian islands humpback whale (credit: National Marine Sanctuary photographer Dr. Louis M. Herman)

Rogue Honey

Though beekeeping is illegal in New York, intrepid urban apiarists thrive

"I can’t think of anything more relaxing than sitting in front of my beehive, drinking a beer, smoking a cigar, letting the bees fly," said Patrick Gannon in a recent New York Times article about urban beekeeping. "And the smell. It’s the most beautiful smell."

But that beautiful smell -- and the critical crop pollination that accompanies it -- has been fading in the face of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a strange phenomenon that has primarily afflicted North American hives since 2006. CCD causes large numbers of worker bees to suddenly die off. While there are several theories -- viruses, malnutrition, pesticides and "change-related" stress among them -- the actual cause is still unknown.

In the winter of 2008, a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study found that 36% of American beehives were lost to CCD. Considering that a full third of our food is pollinated by bees, the scope of this issue is large indeed.

Last month, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) led a group of 20 senators in a letter urging the Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee to allocate $20 million to research CCD.

"Beekeepers find themselves on the defensive and say they must educate members of Congress about the importance of their industry," according to a recent Miami Herald article. "They're doing it with the help of lobbyists. Yes, bee lobbyists."

"Ninety percent of the nation's existing hives are predicted to be needed to pollinate California's 2012 almond crop alone," according to Senator Boxer's letter. "In other states, farmers who produce apples, berries, peaches, squash and many other fruits and vegetables depend on healthy pollinators."

Until CCD is fully understood and solved, public beekeeping -- even the sub rosa kind -- is one way to help keep bees alive.

GET INVOLVED

• Support these companies and organizations helping honeybees
• Sign a joint Pesticide Action Network and National Resources Defense Council letter to the EPA urging them to conduct a thorough registration review of the pesticide imidacloprid that properly assesses risks to honey bees and other pollinators
• Join the Global Healing Center's boycott of the world's eight biggest pesticide companies

RELATED POSTS

• No Bees, No Food (March 11, 2009)
• Getting Closer to Understanding Bee Deaths (September 9, 2008)
  
• PA Sued Over Pesticide That May Kill Bees (August 21, 2008)
• Germany Bans Pesticide Blamed for Bee Deaths (June 30, 2008)
• Bee Colony Collapse Affecting US Food Supply (April 26, 2008)
• Banned Pesticides Killing Birds (April 10, 2008)

image: a bee gathering pollen at the botanic park of Bern, Switzerland (credit: Stephane Magnenat)

In the Dark

When it comes to energy, Americans don't know nearly enough

A new study has found that 4 in 10 Americans cannot name a fossil fuel. Half cannot name a renewable fuel source.

Issued by the non-profit, non-partisan organization Public Agenda and entitled "The Energy Learning Curve," the study also found that Americans see high energy prices and a dependence on foreign oil as problems, while climate change is less of a concern.

The report was conducted in association with "Planet Forward," a primetime viewer-driven PBS program (now on the Web) that investigates the future of fossil fuels.

Founded in 1975 by social scientist Daniel Yankelovich and Cyrus Vance, who was the United States secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter, Public Agenda provides (according to their Web site) "unbiased and unparalleled research that bridges the gap between American leaders and what the public really thinks about issues."

If they're right, Americans have more than a little bit to learn about what keeps the lights on.

GET INVOLVED

• Take the Public Agenda energy quiz and find out how much you know
• Sign the Environmental Defense Fund letter urging the American Congress to vote for the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act, HR 2454, a bill that will curb our global warming emissions and lower foreign oil dependency
  
• 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

RELATED POSTS

• The True Cost of Megamalls
• The Masdar Initiative
• Burning the Midnight Oil, But No One's There
• Tata vs. Turtles
• What Is Clean Coal?
• How Much is $787 Billion?
• Gore: "Shake Off Complacency"
• Walk This Way
• A Former Banker's Battle for the Greening of Europe

image: . SantiMB . (uninspired)

An Old Lake on the Red Planet

The idea that life once existed on Mars just got a big boost

The first definitive evidence of an ancient lake on Mars has been discovered by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The evidence: shorelines that indicate the past presence of a large body of water.

"This is the first unambiguous evidence of shorelines on the surface of Mars," said CU-Boulder research associate and study leader Gaetano Di Achille in a statement. "The identification of the shorelines and accompanying geological evidence allows us to calculate the size and volume of the lake, which appears to have formed about 3.4 billion years ago."

Though there is a great amount of solid water in the planet's cryosphere in the form of permafrost and polar caps, water in liquid form is not possible due to low surface temperatures and pressure. But the idea of liquid water on Mars sometime during the planet's past has driven much speculation that it may have once harbored life.

"On Earth, deltas and lakes are excellent collectors and preservers of signs of past life," said Di Achille. "If life ever arose on Mars, deltas may be the key to unlocking Mars' biological past."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
• See what's in the sky tonight
• Download Google Earth 5.0, which has an interactive map of the entire surface of Mars
• Buy a beginner telescope from the Discovery Channel store ($99.00)

RELATED POSTS

• It's the End of the World As We Know It (June 12, 2009)
• Hubble's Last Stand (May 24, 2009)
• Getting Closer to the Beginning of Time (May 16, 2009)
• Strange, New Worlds (May 9, 2009)
• Ol' Lightnin' (May 3, 2009)
  
• A Possible New World Fit for Life (April 28, 2009)
• Blast From the Past (March 28, 2009)
• Captured on Film: The Personification of Dread (March 13, 2009)
• Martian Soil Appears to Support Life, Scientists "Flabbergasted" (June 28, 2008)
  

image: reconstructed landscape showing the Shalbatana lake on Mars as it may have looked roughly 3.4 billion years ago. Data used in reconstruction are from NASA and the European Space Agency. (image credit: Gaetano Di Achille/University of Colorado)

Goodbye Rudolph

Human activity has caused a dramatic decline in one of the world's most iconic creatures

In just the last 30 years, global reindeer and caribou populations have decreased by almost 60%, according to the first-ever comprehensive census study of the species, performed by the University of Alberta.

"Global warming and industrial development are responsible for driving this dramatic decline in caribou and reindeer numbers around the world," according to a statement by the university. "The decline raises serious concerns, not only for the animals, but also for people living in northern latitudes who depend on the animals for their livelihood."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition urging the Canadian government to protect the habitat of the threatened Woodland caribou under the Species at Risk Act
• Sign a Defenders of Wildlife letter urging Congress to support the the Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act (H.R. 39) which will permanently protect the Arctic refuge (US citizens)
• Protect an acre of forest for $15 to combat climate change

RELATED POSTS

• Polar Transcendentalism (May 11, 2009)
• Test Drive: Syncing 'Planet Earth' and 'Ágætis Byrjun' (April 24, 2009)
• Ancient Forests Not Something to Sneeze At (September 18, 2009)
• Canada Takes Big Step in Forest Protection (August 1, 2008)
• Bush Wants Oil Exploration in Arctic Refuge (June 19, 2008)
• Plant-Eating Animals Struggle for Food (June 4, 2008)

image: adult male reindeer (Jon Nickles, United States Fish and Wildlife Service)

Another Inconvenient Truth: Overfishing

A new film investigates where all the tuna have gone

The Economist described it as "the inconvenient truth about the impact of overfishing on the oceans." It is "The End of the Line," the first major documentary feature about this dire situation.

Based on a book by Charles Clover, environment editor for The Daily Telegraph, and supported by National Geographic, Greenpeace and the Waitt Family Foundation, "The End of the Line" is narrated by actor Ted Danson, who is a founding member of Oceana, the world's largest international organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation. It is directed by Sundance Film Festival veteran Rupert Murray.

"The inconvenient truth about the sea, which covers 70 per cent of the Earth," writes Clover, "is that arguably the worst impact upon it so far -- if you study the latest scientific assessments -- has been caused by the mundane pursuit of human food and not by global warming or acidification."

What's a spicy tuna sushi lover to do? According to the National Resources Defense Council's Sustainable Seafood Guide, the Atlantic mackerel would be a much better choice.

GET INVOLVED

• Watch a trailer for "The End of the Line"
  
• Find a screening of "The End of the Line" at a theater near you or make a request to have your local theater screen the film
  
• Download the Environmental Defense Fund's "Pocket Eco-Friendly Fish Selector" to make choices that help prevent overfishing

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• Slip Slidin' Away (June 9, 2009)
• The End of An Odyssey Draws Near (May 25, 2009)
• 13.7 BILLION YEARS EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Philip Renaud, Executive Director, Living Oceans Foundation (Part 1 of 5) (March 15, 2009)
• Pick up the Fish Phone (January 20, 2009)
  
• Overfishing: How Supermarkets Rate (December 28, 2008)
• Crisis in the Bering Sea (December 3, 2008)
• Big Fish, Little Fish (November 13, 2008)
• Goodbye, Fish and Chips (October 12, 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)

image: bluefin tuna (credit: Advanced Tuna Ranching Technologies)

Over 30,000 Dogs Slaughtered in China

The bodies of tens of thousands of dead dogs litter the streets of a city in central China. Their pointless deaths were ordered by the government

More than 30,000 dogs have been brutally slaughtered in Hanzhong, China, where a few cases of rabies deaths has led to a government-sanctioned mass killing, with organized squads hunting down dogs in the streets -- including family pets -- and beating them to death with rocks and sticks.

"Some of the pictures from culls like these are so horrifying that I can't even show them to you," said International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) president Fred O'Regan in an official statement on Tuesday.

"In one series of pictures, several small and fluffy white dogs...are trapped in a makeshift cage. One by one, the dogs are pulled out with a pair of long metal tongs, and brutally beaten with a stick. And then -- even though it appears that some of the dogs may still be alive -- they're tossed into a pit to be burned."

It doesn't have to be this way. A much more humane and very successful method of reducing incidents of rabies is a "capture, neuter, vaccinate and release" program. One such program in Chennai, India, has resulted in a 95% reduction of rabies cases.

"A number of Asian countries, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, have successfully eradicated rabies through animal control and immunization programs," said Dr. Bernard Unti, a senior policy adviser for the Humane Society of the United States. "And the evidence favoring vaccination strategies continues to grow."

Hopefully, China will catch up with their neighbors and stop this barbaric practice.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an IFAW letter urging China to stop mass dog slaughters like the one in Hanzhong City
• Sign a Humane Society letter to Chinese president Hu Jintao expressing your concern about the mass dog killings

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• A Real Killer: The World's Toughest Dog Race (April 19, 2009)
• Thousands of Dogs Poisoned to Death in Bali (March 9, 2009)
• How Much Is That Doggie in the Window? (November 20, 2008)
• Where Man's Best Friend Is on the Menu (October 24, 2008)
• South Korea Pushes to Legalize Dog Meat (July 18, 2008)
• Breeder Offers Greyhounds to Medical Research (June 2, 2008)
• Neutering Stems India's Stray Animal Population (May 31, 2008)
• Farm Bill Combats Puppy Mills, Dog Fighting and Animal Abuse (May 27, 2008)
• For Dog's Death Used As Art, No Law Broken (March 15, 2008)
• Dog Used as Art, Tied Up, Starved to Death (March 14, 2008)

image: Hangzhong dog killing squad (credit: IFAW)

Chimp Apocalypse Now

Six million years ago, we shared a common ancestor. Now, our chimp relatives are struggling to stay alive

The DNA of humans and chimpanzees is about 95% identical. Evolutionarily speaking, they are our closest living relative.

But things have been hard on our kin. Disease, predation, mining and agriculture have all taken a deadly toll.

Just a few years ago, there were about 10,000 chimpanzees in Tanzania. According to a recent report issued by the Tanzania National Parks Authority, there are just 700 left.

Scientific American has dubbed it a "chimpanzee apocalypse."

Primatologist Jane Goodall, famed for her 45-year study of chimpanzees, once said:

"I do not want to discuss evolution in such depth, however, only touch on it from my own perspective: From the moment when I stood on the Serengeti plains holding the fossilized bones of ancient creatures in my hands to the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back. You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the Project R&R petition to end chimpanzee research in the United States
  
• Support the Jane Goodall Institute
  
• Sign a petition to stop the bushmeat trade and hunting of primates

RELATED POSTS

• Killing Congo's Chimps (March 29, 2009)
  
• Tracking Our Second-Closest Relatives (March 24, 2009)
• Mountain Gorilla Conservation Pact Begins (July 2, 2008)
• Satellite Images Reveal Drastic Changes in Africa (June 16, 2008)
• Congo Ranger Arrested for Killing Gorillas (March 19, 2008)

image credit: Lanier67

Note to Obama: Protect Endangered Seals

When it comes to protecting endangered seals, the Obama administration is dragging its heels

Ringed, bearded and spotted are three kinds of seals whose lives depend on Arctic sea ice, sheets of frozen ocean water that is the only place where they breed and nurse their pups. And they are endangered.

Due to man-caused global warming, this critical sea ice is retreating. In recent months, it's melting faster than ever.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the long-term average (1979-2000) rate of sea ice decline for May is 18,000 square miles per day. But last month, the ice melted at the rate of 21,000 square miles per day. That's the equivalent of losing a land mass the size of Croatia every 24 hours.

"The Arctic is in crisis due to global warming," said Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) attorney Rebecca Noblin in an official statement. "An entire ecosystem is rapidly melting away, and we risk losing not only the polar bear but the ice seals and other ice-dependent species if we do not take immediate action to address global warming."

The CBD filed a petition in May 2008 to protect these seals under the Endangered Species Act. In September, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that the seals may deserve protection but neglected to make a final decision. Earlier this month, the CBD notified NOAA of its intent to file suit for the delay in protecting the seals.

"With rapid action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, combined with a moratorium on new oil and gas development in the Arctic, we can still save the ice seals and other Arctic wildlife," Noblin said. "If the ice seals are to survive, we need to protect their habitat, rather than converting it into a polluted industrial zone."

GET INVOLVED

• Support the efforts of the Center for Biological Diversity to get ESA protection for ribbon, bearded and spotted seals
  
• Sign a Humane Society pledge to boycott Canadian seafood until Canada's barbaric seal hunt is stopped for good

RELATED POSTS

• Europe to Canada: Stop Killing Seals (May 6, 2009)
  
• Canadian Seal Hunt Protesters Arrested (April 9, 2008)
• Senators Stand Up for Seals (April 5, 2009)
• Death Row Baby Seals Find A Friend in Canada's Senate (March 15, 2009)
• Bush Withholds Protections for Threatened Seal (December 26, 2008)
• Seal's Extinction Caused by Humans (June 13, 2008)

image: bearded Seal pup (Erignathus barbatus), National Marine Mammal Laboratory (credit: Lew Consiglieri, National Marine Mammal Laboratory - Pinniped Photo Gallery)

The Future of Whaling

The world's whaling commissioners meet next week. Hopefully they will be able to stop this unnecessary and barbaric activity

The Madeira archipelago of Portugal boasts a remarkably biodiverse ecosystem, featuring more than 250 species of land molluscs, Europe's biggest tarantula and an extremely rare butterfly known as the Madeiran Large White.

This stunning locale will provide the setting for the 61st annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The week-long conference begins on Monday.

In 1986, the IWC banned commercial whaling. However, due to the rules of the 1946 IWC Convention, countries have the option to disregard any conservation measure. In addition, there is a loophole in the regulation allowing the killing of whales for "scientific research" -- a loophole that has been used by Japan, Norway and Iceland to continue whaling. Indeed, whale meat is currently for sale in markets and restaurants in these nations.

Unfortunately, the IWC does not have the ability to enforce the moratorium on whaling and individual governments have so far neglected to do so. This has left the enforcement to non-profit conservation groups like Sea Shepherd, which is the focus of the popular Discovery Channel television series "Whale Wars."

"There is no excuse for continuing to allow this barbaric and outdated practice, especially as other threats to whales such as pollution and climate change increase," according to a statement by the Humane Society of the United States. "It is time to declare a global whale sanctuary and make all the seas safe for whales...no exceptions."

Perhaps the biodiverse setting of Madeira will inspire the officials of IWC member countries to make the 1986 whaling ban permanent by creating a worldwide sanctuary for all whales in all waters.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the Humane Society petition to create a global whale sanctuary
  
• Sign the Greenpeace letter to Iceland's prime minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir urging her to cancel Iceland's five-year commercial whaling quota and ensure that Iceland's representative at this year's International Whaling Commission meeting votes for whale conservation
• Sign a Care2 petition urging Iceland's minister of fisheries Jon Bjarnason, Minister of Fisheries to reduce this year's whale hunt quotas immediately – and to ban whaling forever
  
• Sign the Whale's Revenge petition urging the International Whaling Commission to close the loophole that allows whaling in the name of so-called "scientific research"
  

RELATED POSTS

• Silencing Whale Songs (May 31, 2009)
• Illegal Whale Meat Still on Japanese Menus (April 14, 2009)
• Bloody Waters in the Faroe Islands (February 19 , 2009)
• Gray Whales, Meet Big Oil (November 22, 2008)
• Palin Rebuffed As Unique Alaskan Whales Score Major Victory (October 18, 2008)
• Whales Get New Sanctuary in Chile (September 30, 2008)
• First-Ever Whale Songs Heard in New York Waters (September 20, 2008)
• Greenland's Request to Kill Humpback Whales Denied (July 1, 2008)
• Greenpeace Activists Jailed in Tokyo (June 22, 2008)
• US Condemns Iceland's Whale Hunt (May 26, 2008)

image: Southern right whale, Peninsula Valdés, Patagonia, Argentina (credit: Michaël Catanzariti)

The Rare Animals of the Amazon

Images of rarely seen animals of the Amazon have been released. Some of them are strange indeed

Born about 10 million years ago and now covering half a million square miles of the Amazon basin, the Amazon rainforest represents half of the world's remaining rainforests. Sixty percent of it lies in Brazil, with the rest covering parts of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. It is most biodiverse tropical rainforest on Earth.

Many of the animals that live there have rarely been seen, but thanks to 23 hidden cameras set up in remote areas of the rainforest in Peru by the Smithsonian's Peruvian Amazon Biodiversity Project, we can now view some of these little-known creatures.

National Georgraphic has posted a story on their Web site featuring some of these remarkable photos, like this giant armadillo.

But the days of these and many other plants and animals are numbered due to human activity like deforestation due to logging, human development and agriculture, as well as oil and gas exploration.

GET INVOLVED

• Do these ten things recommended by Countdown 2010 to help stop biodiversity loss
• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Donate to the Rainforest Action Network
• Take these seven steps to help save the Amazon rainforest
• Support Survival International's campaigns to help the tribes of the Amazon

RELATED POSTS

• Hey You, Get Off of My Cloud (May 30, 2009)
• Blowing Noses Into Dead, Ancient Trees (February 29, 2009)
  
• Dismembering the Earth's Heart and Lungs (January 25, 2009)
• Reading List: How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth (December 1, 2008)
• Amazon Threatened By Oil and Gas Exploration (August 15, 2008)

image: giant armadillo (credit: Peruvian Amazon Biodiversity Project)