- Greenpeace is demanding that Unilever publicly calls for an end to the expansion of palm oil into forest and peatland areas and stops trading with suppliers that continue to destroy rainforests.
- Greenpeace is calling upon the palm oil industry to declare an immediate moratorium on conversion of peatland and forests with the following as minimum criteria:

1. No new plantations within mapped forest areas

2. No plantations resulting in the degradation of peatlands

3. No plantations or expansion post-November 2005 resulting from deforestation or degradation of High Conservation Value areas

4. No plantations or plantation expansion established on indigenous peoples’ and
other forest dependent community land without their free, prior and informed consent
5. Establish full supply chain traceability and segregation systems which exclude palm oil from groups that fail to meet these criteria

By BRENDA GOODMAN

 

 

 

Guiyu is one of the most graphic examples of digital dumps but similar places can be found across Asia and in certain locations in Africa. With amounts of e-waste growing rapidly each year urgent solutions are required.While the waste continues to flow into digital dumps like Guiyu there are measures that can help stem the toxic tide of e-waste.

Major electronics firms should remove the worst chemicals to make their products safer and easier to recycle. All companies must take full responsibility for their products and, once they reach the end of their useful life, take their goods back for re-use, safe recycling or disposal. We are pressuring major electronic makers to reduce the toxicity and amount of e-waste being dumped every year.

You can also do your part by supporting companies that make are making an effort to clean up their act by checking our Guide to Greener Electronics. Think twice before buying whether you really need a new device and return your old equipment to the manufacturer if possible.

Nuclear Waste:

 A Mountain of Questions and problems  

Calendar of a few of the Nuclear Accidents worldwide:

http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/chernob/rep02.html

By Matt Gaffney



Clean, renewable energy. Reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. Lowering greenhouse gas emissions and curbing global warming. These are the selling points, say nuclear advocates, for a “nuclear renaissance” in this country. The Bush Administration, federal lawmakers, industry lobbyists and numerous utility companies want the country to consider the nuclear option as a solution for our future energy needs. In addition to the 103 nuclear power plants that currently supply the nation with 20 percent of its electricity, as many as 30 new nuclear power plants are now being considered by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Yucca Mountain: Will it ever hold nuclear waste?

The fact that nuclear waste is the most toxic substance on the planet may be lost on those who vehemently call for the country to pour its resources into creating more plants. And the U.S. currently has no viable near-term storage options for nuclear waste which continues to pollute for generations.

President Bush has long been a staunch supporter of nuclear power, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks gave him and fellow Republicans the power and leverage to finally allow the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to apply for a construction authorization license from the NRC to build a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. June 30, 2008 now looms as the much-anticipated date when the DOE will submit its license application (LA) to the NRC for construction authorization. Despite the new Democratic majority Senate leadership, the date is not expected to change.

The licensing proceeding is expected to last three to four years, so a final decision on the repository is still years away. The DOE has spent over 20 years and approximately $7 billion for research at Yucca Mountain, and the cost of repository construction is expected to exceed $60 billion. Whatever NRC’s decision, it will certainly have far-reaching implications for energy policy, national security and environmental protection. It may be the most important land-use decision ever made by the U.S. Government.

There are two main reasons why Yucca Mountain projects have languished since 1987, the year Congress mandated that it be the only site in the nation considered for deep geological disposal: lack of a coherent and comprehensive transportation plan, and potential impacts to regional groundwater resources.

Getting it There

From the beginning, a general vagueness and an unwillingness to work cooperatively with state and local agencies and other stakeholders have all plagued DOE’s transportation plan for moving waste to Yucca Mountain. If authorization to construct the depository is granted, it will impact almost every state in the West because of the nationwide transportation of high-level nuclear waste from U.S. Department of Defense weapons-making and research facilities, and commercial nuclear power plants.

The DOE prefers a “mostly rail” method of transporting waste to Yucca Mountain. Under this scenario, 9,000 to 10,000 railcars would carry waste on the nationwide rail network for a period of 24 years. There is, however, no rail line to the site, so DOE is considering two rail corridor options.

The Caliente Rail Corridor would enter Nevada from the east, and would cost more than $2 billion. The bill is stratospheric because the rail line would have to cut through incredibly demanding terrain on its way to Yucca Mountain. The 319-mile route would cross seven different north-south mountain ranges with steep grades, as well as numerous areas subject to flash flooding and potential washouts. The DOE has stated that this route would have the fewest land-use conflicts. Nevertheless, the route will conflict with recreation, the movement of both wildlife and water, and mineral extraction. Many local ranchers would also lose access to traditional grazing lands and watering holes.

Federal lands in southern Nevada

The Caliente Corridor could also impact the Railroad Valley Springfish, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the endangered desert tortoise, and three other species classified as sensitive by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This corridor could also impact springs and riparian areas in the area, 97 identified Native-American archeological sites, three BLM Wilderness Study Areas and eight BLM designated wild horse or wild burro herd management areas.

The DOE did not consult with local residents about the routing process of the rail corridor, and has admitted that the route is not “clearly environmentally preferable.” Most of the corridor is on federal land managed by the BLM, but this does not guarantee fewer land-use conflicts. Rarely does land ownership correlate with land use in the state because more than 85 percent of Nevada is federally owned, but most is open to the public.

The second option is the Shurz-Mina Rail Corridor, which would travel approximately 250 miles in a north-south direction in western Nevada, with a cost of $1.5 billion. The Walker River Paiute Tribe, which owns a crucial piece of land within the corridor, was previously against waste being transported through its reservation. This route is now on the table because the tribe has since allowed DOE to conduct a feasibility study.

This second route may require a 3,000-foot long bridge over the Walker River, and several intersections with Nevada Highway 95. The area is home to several endangered species under the ESA, including the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. It offers wintering grounds for the bald eagle, and houses one plant species classified as critically endangered by the State of Nevada. Impacts to wetlands along the Walker River Corridor may also require special permits under the Clean Water Act. Other land-use conflicts for the route include condemnation of private land, interference of mineral extraction and processing facilities, and disruption to utility corridors. Native American cultural resources also exist in the Shurz-Mina Corridor.

If the DOE is unable to resolve costs, legal impediments, and land use conflicts in relation to a rail shipping campaign, then a “mostly truck" alternative may be the most feasible way of transporting nuclear waste. In this event, the DOE would most likely use the interstate highway system. The most attractive routes for the DOE to transport waste would be I-5, I-10, I-15, I-40, I-70 and I-80. The DOE anticipates that 53,000 truck shipments over a period of 24 years would be needed to transport nuclear waste from 131 interim storage facilities nationwide to Yucca Mountain. Another critical issue the DOE must resolve is Clark County, Nevada’s steadfast opposition to the transportation of nuclear waste through Las Vegas. If a “mostly truck” scenario becomes a reality, the DOE could transport all nuclear waste from the southern U.S. through Las Vegas because of its location and proximity to Yucca Mountain. The Mayor of Las Vegas, Clark County, the State of Nevada, and Nevada’s federal lawmakers oppose the shipment of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain through the tourist-dominated city.

Groundwater Issues

The repository could also have significant groundwater impacts in both Nevada and California due to escaping radionuclides from waste packages in the repository. The DOE discovered several faults and many more fissures when excavating exploratory tunnels at the site, indicating a geologically complex and active site. The Ghost Dance Fault, the Soltario Fault, the Sundance Fault and the Drill Hole Wash Fault would run beneath or very near the proposed repository boundaries. An earthquake at Little Skull Mountain in 1992, with a magnitude of 5.4, was centered less than 12 miles from the repository site. The DOE surface facilities at Yucca Mountain suffered minor structural damage from the earthquake. The DOE maintains that seismic shaking on the Earth’s surface is more intense than in the consolidated rock matrix at Yucca Mountain, and that even a strong earthquake in the region would have little impact on a deep geologic repository.

Another concern for the DOE is that hydrologic analysis conducted in the mid 1990s showed water may move from the surface through the rock at Yucca much quicker than first predicted. The repository will be located approximately 950 feet below the surface and 950 feet above the water table. Currently, critical uncertainties remain with regard to water flow through “fast pathways” in the rock fractures at Yucca Mountain. The DOE claims that surface processes, such as evaporation and plant transpiration, will remove 95 percent of water entering from the surface into the Yucca Mountain. The DOE believes that any remaining water entering the repository through fractures will evaporate due to heat output from highly radioactive waste packages, or simply drain around the waste packages into a cooler area via fractures in the rock. Where the water goes from here, and how long that will take, is still unknown. Movement of radionuclides from corroded or failed waste packages is yet another uncertainty.

Initially, the DOE wanted to rely primarily on the geologic features of the site to isolate and contain radionuclides. However, a complex and robust waste package system was conceived in response to the hydrologic and geologic conditions discovered at Yucca Mountain. The DOE is now relying primarily on engineered barriers to contain and isolate radionuclides within the repository. The waste package will consist of an inner stainless-steel package, a nickel alloy outer covering, and a titanium “drip shield” to prevent corrosion. If the DOE believes that geologic features will play a very small role in containing radioactivity from waste packages, the site ceases to be effective or distinctive for deep geologic disposal. The DOE may be better served by beginning to study other sites where the geologic features can be more adequately utilized to contain escaping radionuclides.

The DOE uses intricate computer modeling programs to evaluate groundwater flows and predict how the repository will perform over time. Such modeling is the most effective form known for making predictions, but is it reliable? Can computer modeling based on the assumptions of the DOE scientists be relied upon to predict repository performance and groundwater movement 10,000 years in the future? Since 1988, the U.S. General Accountability Office has issued eight reports criticizing the DOE’s Quality Assurance and model validation programs. These programs ensure the accuracy of all the DOE’s methods and results from its myriad of modeling programs, and provide a foundation for all scientific research conducted at Yucca Mountain. Will the DOE ever reduce the numerous uncertainties in the modeling process to an acceptable level? It will ultimately be up to the NRC to decide.

Groundwater contamination from escaping radionuclides in Nye County, Nevada, where the repository will be located, and Inyo County, California, are significant not only because of the disastrous environmental consequences on groundwater resources, but because of several other regional factors.

Groundwater contamination from Yucca Mountain could affect the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Refuge at Ash Meadows, Nevada. Groundwater from the Lower Carbonate Aquifer, which underlies the repository site, reaches the surface at numerous spots in Ash Meadows to provide a haven for rare fish, plants, snails and insects. Ash Meadows provides habitat for at least 24 endemic plants and animals. Four different types of fish, including the famous Devil’s Hole Pupfish, and one plant species found at Ash Meadows are currently listed as endangered species under the ESA. Six other species of plants found at the refuge are listed as threatened. Ash Meadows holds the greatest concentration of endemic life in the U.S. and the second greatest in all of North America.

• Sites storing spent nuclear fuel, high-level radioactive waste, and/or surplus plutonium destined for geologic disposition.

Many communities in Southern Nevada and Eastern California, soon to be complemented by proposed residential developments, depend on large amounts of pumped groundwater to sustain their needs. A number of organic farms and dairies in the Amargosa Valley, Nevada are located down-gradient from the repository, and they rely on groundwater for irrigation and farming operations. Groundwater resources in Death Valley National Park could possibly be threatened by escaping radionuclides. Park employees and the 1.5 million people who visit the Park annually rely on pumped groundwater as the only source of potable water in the region. Finally, the historic tribal lands of the Timbisha Shoshone would be threatened due to any release of radionuclides from Yucca Mountain.

What the Future Holds

If Yucca Mountain is licensed, it will be the first-ever deep geologic disposal site for high-level nuclear waste in the U.S., and only the second planned deep geologic disposal site for high-level waste in the world. If the NRC turns the plan down, the U.S. Government will have to scramble to find new solutions for the long-term storage of nuclear waste. In fact, if Yucca Mountain does not go forward, the DOE may be forced to look at several interim regional storage sites in the West while a longer-term search continues. The West might again be targeted as a site for deep geologic disposal because of an abundance of federal lands, huge tracts of remote and unpopulated areas, and a generally arid climate, which minimizes surface water intrusion into a potential repository.

Many have argued that the DOE was the wrong agency to be given the task of constructing a repository in the first place, and that a new, separate federal agency should have been created to build a national repository. Since its inception, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which was later reorganized into the DOE, operated covertly, focusing almost exclusively on weapons-making activities. The DOE may be ill-equipped to handle the construction of a geologic storage facility under the intense microscope of public and governmental oversight.

One of the chief reasons the DOE wants Yucca Mountain to become a reality is the U.S. Government’s liability to utility companies, which presently store used fuel onsite in aboveground casks. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), the federal government became legally obligated to take title and possession of waste generated by utility companies in early 1998. The date came and went, and now close to $300 million has been paid by the U.S. Treasury to compensate utility companies. This amount will grow substantially, and may eventually exceed $1 billion as more utility companies file suit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims for breach of contract claims under the NWPA. The big loser is the American taxpayer, who foots the bill for missteps by Congress and the DOE in implementing our nation’s nuclear waste policy.

MATT GAFFNEY is the Project Associate of Inyo County’s Yucca Mountain Repository Assessment Office.

Poison ice

As the sea ice melts, a toxic stew of mercury and synthetic chemicals is seeping into the Arctic food web, harming the area's people. We may be next.



Measuring sea ice

Elizabeth Grossman

Matthew Asplin, Jesse Carrie and Dustin Isleifson take a measurement of Beaufort Sea ice, alongside the scientific research vessel and icebreaker the CCGS Amundsen.

April 30, 2008 | ARCTIC OCEAN -- Over 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle, in the polar dark of a December morning, University of Manitoba Ph.D. student Jesse Carrie is out on the frozen Beaufort Sea, collecting ice samples to measure for mercury and pesticides. Lowered by crane from the deck of the icebreaking research vessel the CCGS Amundsen, and accompanied by a rifle bearer who keeps watch for polar bears, Carrie extracts ice cores and vials of frigid water. Carrie is part of a $40 million International Polar Year scientific expedition, the first ever to spend the winter moving through sea ice north of the Arctic Circle. The expedition's labor-intensive work is essential to understanding the impacts of global warming.

As the Amundsen cuts through ice across the top of the globe, Carrie and his fellow researchers are uncovering evidence of a disturbing fallout of climate change. They are finding toxic contaminants, some at remarkably high levels, accumulating in this remote and visually pristine environment. Although there are no industrial sources in the Arctic, residents of the Far North have some of the world's highest levels of mercury exposure, some well above what the World Health Organization considers safe. High levels of mercury -- a powerful neurotoxin -- are being found in Arctic marine wildlife, including ringed seals and beluga whales, both staples of the traditional Northern diet. Levels in Arctic beluga have increased markedly in recent years.

When coal is burned in power plants in the U.S., China and elsewhere, mercury is released into the atmosphere. Airborne, mercury can travel great distances before settling to the ground, or into lakes, rivers and oceans. Air and ocean currents, propelled by weather patterns and storm systems, sweep the mercury north. But the recent increases in Arctic mercury outpace and cannot be explained by smokestack emissions alone, says Gary A. Stern, a senior scientist with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, professor at the University of Manitoba and co-leader of the Amundsen expedition. Rather, signs point to global warming and other disruptive impacts of climate change.

As temperatures rise, causing sea ice, permafrost and snow to melt, the mercury that had been frozen in place is now being released, causing exposure up and down the food web. "Climate change alters exposure in the north and increases the system's vulnerability," says Robie Macdonald, a research scientist with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Yet the Arctic researchers are routinely recording a lot more than mercury. They are seeing synthetic chemicals such as the brominated flame retardants known as PBDE's (used in upholstery, textiles and plastics), as well as perfluorinated and chlorine compounds. And while long banned in many countries, lingering amounts of DDT and PCBs continue to turn up in people and animals in the Far North. Of concern due to their persistence and ability to accumulate in plant and animal tissue -- particularly the fat prevalent in Arctic animals -- these chemicals are also known to disrupt the endocrine hormones that regulate reproduction and metabolism. Some are considered carcinogens.

Alaskan polar bears, for instance, have some of the highest levels yet found in Arctic mammals of hexachlorohexane (HCH), a pesticide used to kill fungi on food crops. Carrie's ice samples, collected hundreds of miles from any agricultural sites, contain HCH. Polar bears also have some of the highest recorded levels of perfluorinated compounds, chemicals used in waterproofing and in fire and stain retardants. Indigenous people in both the Canadian and Greenland Arctic have some of the world's highest exposures to these persistent pollutants.

In the summer of 2007, Arctic sea ice reached a record low. Scientists monitoring the 2008 winter ice pack suspect this year's summer ice may also be remarkably low. As David Barber, Canada Research Chair in Arctic system science at the University of Manitoba, puts it, "Well over a million years of all ecosystems evolved to take advantage of this ice cover." With markedly less substantial sea ice cover, the hemispheric system is being thrown off balance, prompting changes that are increasing the load of contaminants in the Arctic.

As Stern explains, increased snowmelt, runoff and erosion in the Mackenzie River Basin are also now washing naturally occurring mercury into the Beaufort Sea. At the same time, disappearing sea ice leaves more water exposed to sunlight, increasing the growth of marine microorganisms and tiny plants like algae. This accelerates the process that turns mercury into its highly toxic form called methylmercury, which accumulates in marine mammals and fish traditionally eaten by residents of the Arctic. "These changes are happening much faster than anticipated," Stern says one morning on the Amundsen.

Decreasing sea ice is changing other dynamics of the Arctic ecosystem. Seasonal climate changes are pushing some animals farther to find food and prompting some to alter what and when they eat. "With climate shift changing availability of ocean nutrients, some birds that used to fly 50 miles to eat now have to fly 100," says Macdonald. "This means storing more fat, magnifying -- or concentrating -- the contents of the fat, resulting in stress to both birds and their chicks." Because fat cells serve as a reservoir for many contaminants, when broken down to release energy, the toxics are also released, exposing animals from within.

In addition, says Macdonald, "Migrating fish bring with them the contaminants they've hoovered up in the ocean. When the fish spawn, they release the contaminants." Similarly, fish-eating birds can take up these pollutants that they then excrete. It's possible, he says, that animals themselves might be adding to the transport of contaminants.

"The food web is quite important in terms of where contaminants are found," says Derek Muir, a senior scientist in aquatic ecosystems research with Environment Canada. Warmer temperatures and shorter ice seasons -- in lakes as well as the Arctic Ocean -- could alter what happens at the bottom of the food web in ways that affect how contaminants move up the food ladder, he explains. "Warming," says Muir, "could deliver more contaminants up the food chain to top predators, and result in high levels of contaminants in very remote areas."

Because top predators are important traditional food for Arctic people, humans are at the top of the food web. "There is absolutely no doubt of exposure of pollutants with harmful effects to some groups," says Eric Dewailly, professor of social and preventive medicine at Laval University, who works with the International Network for Circumpolar Health Research. There are local sources for some metals and pollutants, but most of the persistent organic pollutants in the Arctic come "100 percent from the outside," he says. Dewailly notes that because people are exposed to mixtures of contaminants, it's hard to isolate the precise impact of a single one. However, studies are now being conducted in Canadian Arctic communities to investigate links between contaminants and cardiovascular, neurological, reproductive and immune system problems.

Climate change is having another hazardous effect on indigenous people. Warming temperatures have caused changes in ice conditions and migration patterns that determine where people hunt and fish. In some northern communities, these changes have begun to push people toward greater dependence on supermarket food, which in remote Arctic villages can be extremely limited.

Research by Grace Egeland, Canada Research Chair in nutrition and health at McGill University, shows that traditional Arctic foods tend to provide more protein, vitamins and minerals than typically available local market food, which is usually higher in carbohydrates, fat and sugar. "These people are feeling so many pressures of transition that they're now at risk," says Egeland of the Arctic's indigenous communities. "There's a human right to food without elevated contaminants," says Egeland. "Based on what we know now, why wait to count the adverse events. Why wait until it's too late?"

But what kind of action should be taken? Can the brakes be put on the cascading impacts of climate change? "If we could slow it down we would," says Barber of the shrinking sea ice. "But we can't do that now; there's too much inertia in the system."

Can we reduce the impact of the pollutants? "We can control persistent organic pollutants," says Muir. It's well documented that when hazardous chemicals -- including mercury -- are taken out of use, environmental levels decrease. And if affected populations are sufficiently healthy, they will recover.

Yet the key to controlling these pollutants, says Muir, is knowing which are persistent, toxic, likely to climb the food web and travel long distances. Muir explains that of the 30,000 or so chemicals now in wide commercial use, only about 4 percent are routinely monitored. Environmental and health impacts of about 75 percent of them have not been studied at all. Meanwhile, these invisible substances are moving to and through the Arctic. And what happens in the Far North, says Stern, may well presage what's to come farther south. "It's the canary in the coal mine," he says.



             POPULATION GROWTH
Solving the Biggest Issue Facing the Planet Today

by B Nelson, Mar 15, 2008
Who will decide your fate, or the fate of your children when our population reaches a certain point? This point is just around the corner... will you be ready?

We control the growth of pretty much every other species on the planet and yet allow human population to grow at an alarming rate. We help people, through medicine, to have more kids.

Most countries of the third world recognize the problem and are trying to control population growth. In the developed nations, however, growth is a seldom talked about problem. After all, if you can afford to have kids, shouldn't you be able to have as many as you want? Nobody seems to notice the vast amounts of farm land being consumed by Urban sprawl or the increases of pollution and stress brought on simply by our growing numbers. How long will it be before we run out of trees to use for paper to wipe our bums?

One problem is we are living longer, and trying to find ways to live longer. We are curing diseases and seeing once sterile people give birth to quadruplets. When will it end, and how?

If we do not address the overpopulation problem soon, we will have a mess on our hands. Animal shelters euthanize surplus numbers of pets, what will we do with excess people?
Actual Suggested Fixes

    * In Logan's Run, a 1976 film, the population was controlled by killing everyone who reached the age of 30 years.
    * In the 1973 film, Soylent Green, people are encouraged to enter "Euthanasia" chambers and drink poison.
    * In many fictional films, books, and television shows, they have used a "Lottery" system to determine whose turn it is to be put to death.
    * Many movies and shows suggest that people deal with overpopulation by inhabiting other planets. This may or may not be possible, but is certainly the option most people would like to see as opposed to the others.
    * Mandatory birth control be put in place for people who have had more than 1 child.
    * Death sentences for people who have had more than two children.
    * Allowing people to pick and choose how long they live. If they select to have no children they are allowed to live their full lifespan. If they select to have one child, they are allowed to live to the age of 60, if they have two children they are killed at 50 and so on.
    * War. Killing off everyone you can, to make more space for the remaining people. War happens now, but often for control of a specific region, rather than simply for population controls.
    * Some countries have passed laws on the number of children a family can have, and fine people who have more, China is one such country.
    * Offering cash for men who have vasectomies or women who have tubal ligations.
    * Some films and conspiracy theory fans have suggested that AIDS and other health issues where Government made population control measures.
    * Stopping support payments (eg. Welfare) for people with more than one child.

I want to note that Genocide, the selective killing of a group of people based on race, is NOT a form of population control, it is an excuse to execute people based on hatred, most wars also fall into this category.
In Reality...

A lot of people deny that we will ever reach the stage where we need to enact or enforce any kind of population control on humans. Many do not even see a problem, insisting that there is still inhabitable land in Montana, for example. If we squish people onto every inhabitable square foot of land, where will we grow food? Where will we dispose of our waste. Will we allow any wild spaces?

If we continue to try to find ways to live longer, and at the same time insist on having kids, how soon until the scales are tipped and the government is forced to act? What control measure will they take? This is not about being politically correct, and allowing people their "Rights" to have kids, if it goes past a point, there will be no "Rights" involved.

Even one child is growth, because unless a parent dies during child birth - the family is now larger. You cannot count your childs' birth as a replacement for your parents death, YOU were that replacement long time ago.

There is a real problem, even the United Nations has warned that barring Nuclear Threat, the number one concern should be world overpopulation. We need to act today, ourselves, BEFORE the Government will decide our fates, or the fates of our children.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even the Antarctic winter cannot protect Wilkins Ice Shelf
Wilkins Ice Shelf
 
13 June 2008
Wilkins Ice Shelf has experienced further break-up with an area of about 160 km² breaking off from 30 May to 31 May 2008. ESA’s Envisat satellite captured the event – the first ever-documented episode to occur in winter.
 
Wilkins Ice Shelf, a broad plate of floating ice south of South America on the Antarctic Peninsula, is connected to two islands, Charcot and Latady. In February 2008, an area of about 400 km² broke off from the ice shelf, narrowing the connection down to a 6 km strip; this latest event in May has further reduced the strip to just 2.7 km.

Wilkins Ice Shelf has experienced further break-up with an area of about 160 km² breaking off. This animation, comprised of images acquired by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) between 30 May and 9 June 2008, highlights the rapidly dwindling strip of ice that is protecting thousands of kilometres of the ice shelf from further break-up. This is the first ever-documented episode to occur in winter.



This animation, comprised of images acquired by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) between 30 May and 9 June, highlights the rapidly dwindling strip of ice that is protecting thousands of kilometres of the ice shelf from further break-up.

According to Dr Matthias Braun from the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces, Bonn University, and Dr Angelika Humbert from the Institute of Geophysics, Münster University, who have been investigating the dynamics of Wilkins Ice Shelf for months, this break-up has not yet finished. 
 
"The remaining plate has an arched fracture at its narrowest position, making it very likely that the connection will break completely in the coming days," Braun and Humbert said.

Braun and Humbert are monitoring the ice sheet daily via Envisat acquisitions as part of their contribution to the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008, a large worldwide science programme focused on the Arctic and Antarctic.
 
 
The ASAR images used to compile these animations were acquired as part of ESA’s support to IPY. ESA is helping scientists during IPY to collect an increasing amount of satellite information, particularly to understand recent and current distributions and variations in snow and ice and changes in the global ice sheets.

ESA is also co-leading a large IPY project – the Global Interagency IPY Polar Snapshot Year (GIIPSY) – with the Byrd Polar Research Centre. The goal of GIIPSY is to make the most efficient use of Earth-observing satellites to capture essential snapshots that will serve as benchmarks for gauging past and future changes in the environment of the polar regions.

ASAR is extremely useful for tracking changes in ice sheets because it is able to see through clouds and darkness – conditions often found in polar regions.
 
 
Long-term satellite monitoring over Antarctica is important because it provides authoritative evidence of trends and allows scientists to make predictions. Ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula are important indicators for on-going climate change because they are sandwiched by extraordinarily raising surface air temperatures and a warming ocean.
The Antarctic Peninsula has experienced extraordinary warming in the past 50 years of 2.5°C, Braun and Humbert explained. In the past 20 years, seven ice shelves along the peninsula have retreated or disintegrated, including the most spectacular break-up of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002, which Envisat captured within days of its launch.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A deluge waiting to happen

Nature will do as nature does, but humans are to blame for the deadly Midwestern floods.

By Katharine Mieszkowski

July 3, 2008 | The floodwaters are starting to ebb in the swollen Mississippi, which in the past few weeks has seen its worst flooding in 15 years. Since May, at least 24 people have died from the torrential rains and flooding, more than 38,000 people have evacuated their homes and an estimated 5 million acres of corn and soybean have been waterlogged. But as the great mop-up begins, some scientists contend this is one natural disaster that is by no means just natural: It is the dramatic result of more than 100 years of narrowing and constricting the river.

"There is a widespread pattern of flood levels getting higher and flooding becoming more frequent," says Nicholas Pinter, a geologist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Pinter and colleagues charge that structures built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to aid the shipping industry are contributing to the flooding. They're calling for the National Academy of Sciences to have oversight over Army Corps river projects, and for the federal agency to refrain from building structures that exacerbate the floods.

"The Army Corps of Engineers certifies its own projects. It's kind of like children giving themselves their own grades," says Robert Criss, professor of geology at Washington University in St. Louis. "There's a definite conflict of interest there." Pinter was in Washington, D.C., last week lobbying Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, among other members of Congress, about how the government's own actions have contributed to the horrific flooding. Criss, Pinter and other geologists are also organizing a conference on the issue for this fall.

Even before the recent deluge, scientists sounded the alarm. Back in March, weeks before the floods occurred, Criss, Pinter and professor Timothy Kusky of St. Louis University sent a letter to the commander for the St. Louis district of the Army Corps of Engineers, critiquing the new structures that the agency puts into the Mississippi and Missouri to make it easier for large barges to navigate the area. "These structures are loaded cannons pointing at St. Louis and East St. Louis, waiting to go off during the next large flood," wrote the scientists.

That warning went unheeded, as did similar warnings after the last great floods in 1993, which caused $20 billion in damages and killed almost 50 people. In fact, way back in 1933, one observer noted "flood magnification" caused by "dikes and revetments used in shaping and controlling the stream for modern barge transportation." In 1975, a milestone paper by the late Charles Belt of St. Louis University found a record flood level in St. Louis in 1973, but not a record flood flow of water. In other words, less water was causing higher water.

"He was complaining that the channel was obviously changed in St. Louis Harbor and elsewhere," says Criss. "It was clearly a reflection of the constriction of the river."

The dramatic reengineering of the Mississippi through levees and other structures has been going on for over 100 years. Way back in 1837 when then-Lt. Robert E. Lee of the Army Corps of Engineers mapped the Mississippi at St. Louis, it was almost 4,000 feet wide. Today it's just 1,500 feet wide at St. Louis. The Missouri river has also been drastically shrunk. "The lower Missouri for hundreds of miles is only half the width that it was historically," explains Criss.

Levees, which are essentially piles of mud, dirt, clay and gravel, permit farming and development on the historical flood plain, yet greatly narrow the river's course. "Where levees are added to the flood plain, they take away the capacity of the flood plain to both store and take away water," says Pinter. Revetments, which line the river banks with boulders and concrete, prevent the river from meandering, which protects valuable land on the flood plain and makes the river straighter for shipping.

Now that the river can't naturally spread out on its flood plain or meander, the extra water under flooding conditions has nowhere to go. "If floodwaters can't spread out as they would in a natural flood plain environment, they can only go up," explains Criss. Other structures placed in the rivers' waters have made the problem worse.

Katharine Mieszkowski continued

Next page: Building more levees is the wrong way to the future

Related Stories

Why New Orleans is sunk
A geologist explains how Mother Nature has wrought revenge on an area where humans walled off the river and drained the marshlands. And by the way, California, you're next.
By Katharine Mieszkowski

The next New Orleans
The author who predicted Katrina now forecasts watery catastrophe for New York, Houston and Miami in "The Ravaging Tide."
By Katharine Mieszkowski

"No one can say they didn't see it coming"
In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.
By Sidney Blumenthal

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How we made the Sahara

The End of the Green Sahara

 

The Sahara Desert gives us a rough image of how our planet would look if we managed to destroy all life. The most common landscape in the Sahara is of glistening rock, from one horizon to the next. The rarer sand dunes provide a softening touch, with their comforting resemblance to living soil. But of course they too are just sparkling bits of inorganic stone, ground into fragments by the wind. These vistas of rock and sand are so vast as to seem a permanent feature of the natural universe, perhaps unchanged since the world began. But the present desert formed and spread within the span of human history, and some of our ancestors helped it happen.

Those who go digging in the Sahara often find bands of sediment, oscillating between light-colored sand and the darker remains of fossil forests.[i] So often have the lands in these latitudes switched from desert to forest, and back. The sediments show that between 40,000 and 23,000 BCE, North Africa was a green country, populated by Old Stone Age tribes. The land was littered with ostrich eggs, and the bones of elephant, waterbuck, hippopotamus, rhinoceros and giraffe. Then the desert returned to drive the humans out, and polish their abandoned stone tools in blowing sand.[ii] The most recent green phase of the Sahara lasted from around 12,000 to 4,000 BCE. Soil samples from that period often hold enough organic matter to suggest 300 to 400 mm of rain per year. Some of the same locations today receive 10 mm.[iii] In the wetter climate of the green Sahara, rivers flowed across North Africa from the highlands of Adrar, Aïr, and Ahaggar. The waters of Lake Chad were 320 meters higher than their present level, and stretched 400 miles north of the modern shoreline.[iv]

By 9000 BCE, North Africa was the very portrait of a happy hunting ground. New Stone Age tribes settled on the blossoming frontiers of southern Algeria and Libya.[v] While much of Europe was still encased in ice, ancestors of the Europeans thrived in the green Sahara. From the hilltops they surveyed panoramas of grazing antelopes and sleeping big cats. The savannas probably resembled the national parks of Kenya today. And perhaps the popularity of Kenya’s game parks among Europeans represents a kind of collective memory, which vaguely recognizes the beauty of an ancient homeland.

By the time of Old Kingdom Egypt (after 3000 BCE), a return of arid conditions forced another exodus from North Africa. The great herds of animals moved east, west, north, and south. In villages of southwest Libya, grinding stones fell from use as the harvest grew hopeless.[vi] Hunting grew more difficult and dangerous, especially in the dry-seasons, when travelers could go for days without finding water. When they killed an animal, the thirsty hunters sometimes squeezed blood and water from its stomach to drink.[vii] As the wild animals grew scarce, the locals learned to keep herds of the slowest beasts. At first they kept cows. Later, as the vegetation grew too sparse for cattle, they increasingly relied on goats and fat-tailed sheep.

The Factors of Human Error

Till this point, the people of North Africa were little more than spectators to climatic change. Then pastoralism made them a force in the country, capable of either slowly healing the land, or pushing it over the brink to ruin. Under natural conditions, herds of grazing animals can stimulate plant growth with their cropping, saliva and manure. Wild herbivores generally avoid overgrazed areas, and roam in patterns covering hundreds of miles. So, many herders in the Sahel today still claim to simply follow their cows. Even some modern ranchers manage animals in ways that improve the land. But wherever the ancient herding tribes made conflicting claims to grasslands or water points, the animal’s movements were constrained. For non-natural reasons the herds could be kept in areas missed by the rains. The hungry animals might then destroy plant cover beyond hope of short-term recovery. During the Roman Empire, for example, many Berbers in North Africa were driven from their coastal lands, and pushed out into the pre-Sahara. There they had to graze their animals on the desert’s edge year-round, in both damp and dry seasons, till the desert claimed their outer grasslands. Such overgrazing may not be inevitable, but it has been the prevailing trend in North African history. Perhaps assuming that pastoralism can do no better, David Attenborough says, “Once goats are established, the land stands little chance of recovering its trees and regenerating its topsoil. The goats consume every seedling that sprouts and every leaf that unfurls.”[viii]

The plant life of arid savannas is commonly called “fire climax” vegetation. In such powder-dry country, conflagration is a regular feature of nature, and humans tend to increase the incidence of fire. In the drier seasons, sparks from cooking fires can easily ignite the bush and burn for miles. The ancient hunters also set fires deliberately to flush out animals. Later, it was more often cattle herders who burned the range—after their cows had grazed it repeatedly, till little save inedible thorn bushes remained. The pastoralists would then set the country aflame, destroying the bush and turning back the cycle of growth to point zero. Many regions of Africa were swept by such range fires perhaps every 50 years, for thousands of years. The trade-winds often fanned range fires toward the forested regions. So in 1986, uncontrolled brush fires from the Sahel burned into the forests of the Ivory Coast, destroying perhaps two-thirds of the nation’s cacao plantations.

A natural rhythm of fire re-cycles nutrients to the soil, and vitalizes plant growth. But regular natural fires plus regular man-made fires can prove too much. All fires kill some of the soil’s humus, and its nitrogen-fixing bacteria. A hot fire can melt organic compounds into a sticky water-proof coating over each particle of soil, making the earth less able to absorb moisture. The burning of shrubs and trees may also destroy the countryside’s last islands of shade, in which many species of plants survived during previous drought years. Finally, frequent fires strip the earth bare to the sky, leaving the topsoil to blow in the wind, or to harden in the sun like unfired brick.[ix]

The border-lines between forest and arid grassland can be sharp, even where the climate has no such boundary. So in northern California, Mansanubu Fukuoka described viewing hills of redwood forest to his right, and pale mountainsides of dry grass to his left: “Here, under identical climatic conditions, was an expanse of green on one side and a desert on the other. Why?”[x] Fukuoka claims the increased reflection of sunlight from cleared and overgrazed ground drives up the local temperature: “If the temperature is thirty degrees C. (86 F.), the heat reflected from this ground surface raises it to forty degrees (104 F.).”[xi] The hot air over such land rises in an updraft, nudging aside most drifting rain clouds. If such conditions kill the grass, things get worse. In the Sahara, whole regions of bare rock or sand reflect about 90 percent of the sun’s radiation, so than travelers often find themselves sunburned from below.[xii]

As most of North Africa slowly turned to an almost treeless range, the living pumps for recycling water between earth and sky disappeared. We now know that in most inland regions of the world roughly half the local rainfall comes from water transpired by local plants. This can be measured, because where the local forests are cut today in Brazil or Ethiopia, local rainfall generally declines by half.[xiii]

In such ways and others, the most recent green phase of North Africa was probably cut short by human predation on the land. The current dry phase, which is now about 6,000 years old, could also be prolonged by human intervention. By this point, the Saharan moonscape is so harsh that only the ice-fields of Antarctica are more hostile to life. And in recent years the desert seems to be getting worse. A resident of Adrar, Algeria, told William Langewische, “It’s raining less. And every year it’s hotter. Nomads can no longer survive in this climate.”[xiv] Yet after 6,000 withering years of desertification, some creatures of the old green Sahara still cling to life. Certain isolated gullies or highlands still support clusters of Laperrine’s olive, Duprey cyprus, or oleander. At least down to 1900 (CE) there were desert crocodiles. In that year the myth of crocodiles in the desert was rendered fact, because a French soldier shot one of the last survivors.[xv] Little islands of forest in the Atlas range still hold groves of cedar a hundred feet tall, maritime pine, evergreen oak, walnut, holly and ivy.[xvi] Such remnants offer an occasional glimpse of how Morocco and Algeria looked under slightly better conditions. Similar holdouts of Mediterranean or African trees are found in the Ahaggar mountains in the desert’s core.[xvii] Like benchmarks, these groves of trees show how far the surrounding country has fallen. As survivors, they suggest that life can endure this trial, and may again prevail someday.

The Burden of Hope

The human survivors adjusted to worsening conditions as best they could. Most of them retreated to the perennial water points or river banks. As various groups converged on these places, they often fought over wells or bits of irrigated land. Often it was the losers who turned back to the parched wilderness, and tried to find their living there. Naturally, they wondered what they had done to deserve their hardship. Speaking for such people in a land near the Sahara, the book of Isaiah says,

Behold, the Lord will lay waste the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; … as with the buyer, so with the seller … The earth shall be utterly laid waste and utterly despoiled; for the Lord has spoken this word.

The earth mourns and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their gu