tagged w/ Current Environmental News
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Some of the world's major agri-biotech companies are applying for hundreds of patents on genetically engineered 'climate crops', carrying out what amounts to an "intellectual property grab" in the lucrative market, according to a recent report.
BASF, Monsanto and Syngenta have applied for patents to control almost two-thirds of gene families resistant to environmental stresses that will increase with climate change, according to the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC) Group, a Canada-based civil society organisation.
About 530 patents have been applied for worldwide, with a few dozen granted and hundreds pending. They include traits such as drought, flooding, high salt level, high temperatures and ultraviolet radiation — all of which endanger food security.
The report says that this move could hinder farmers in the developing world. Patents demand that farmers purchase new seeds every year, rather than saving seeds for subsequent re-plantation.
Control of the seed industry by only a few multinationals may undermine publicly- funded creation of freely available crop varieties, the report says, as well as using the dominance of the crops to tap into previously resistant markets.
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These large agri companies need to be taken down. They are intent on now using climate change to control the survival of millions of people! There is nothing else to say but that this is evil to the core. People will starve to death if this is allowed to happen because farmers in the developing world already committing suicide because of poverty and loans they cannot repay will not be able to afford purchasing seeds every year. Especially with the effects of climate change already being felt in these regions.Some of the world's major agri-biotech companies are applying for hundreds of... more
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A top official at the US Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that the agency denied strong carbon emissions limits proposed by California after the White House intervened, it emerged today.
But the official, who resigned from the agency earlier this month, told congressional investigators that he was instructed not to reveal whether George Bush or other White House officials played a personal role in the controversial blockage of California's pollution rules.
The EPA associate deputy administrator, 31-year-old Jason Burnett, told the oversight committee of the House of Representatives that agency chief Stephen Johnson was prepared to approve a waiver allowing California to set strong limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Trained staff members at the EPA had unanimously advised Johnson that US clean air laws supported California's plan and that the Bush administration should support it.
Burnett agreed, according to an interview summary the oversight panel released today. He told Congress that "all EPA recommendations that I am aware of … were either supporting granting the full waiver or granting partial waiver".
However, Johnson shifted from support for at least a partial waiver in the autumn of last year to a denial of California's request in December. The state would have required a 30% reduction in tailpipe emissions from cars by 2016, dealing a blow to auto industry profits.
When asked whether Johnson spoke with the White House before his position changed, Burnett said: "I believe the answer is yes." Bush aides also had "input into the rationale" for the December denial, according to Burnett.
California has sued the Bush administration to force an acceptance of its environmental standards, with 16 other states waiting in the wings to join in the new emissions limits.
A top official at the US Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that the agency... more
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Climate change is "significantly amplifying" the threats facing the world's bird populations, a global assessment has concluded.
The 2008 IUCN Bird Red List warns that long-term droughts and extreme weather puts additional stress on key habitats.
The assessment lists 1,226 species as threatened with extinction - one-in-eight of all bird species.
The list, reviewed every four years, is compiled by conservation charity BirdLife International.
"It is very hard to precisely attribute particular changes in specific species to climate change," said Stuart Butchart, BirdLife's global research and indicators co-ordinator.
"But there is now a whole suite of species that are clearly becoming threatened by extreme weather events and droughts."
In the revised Red List, eight species have been added to the "critically endangered" category.
CRITICALLY ENDANGERED - NEW ADDITIONS
Tristan albatross
Spoon-billed sandpiper
Tachira antpitta
Reunion cuckooshrike
Mariana crow
Floreana mockingbird
Akekee
Gough bunting
(Source: Bird Red List 2008 update)
One of these was the Floreana mockingbird (Nesomimus trifasciatus), which is confined to two islets in the Galapagos Islands.
From an estimated maximum of 150 in the mid-1960s, the population has fallen to fewer than 60.
Conservationists listed the mockingbird as Critically Endangered because it experienced a high rate of adult mortality during dry years that have been linked to La Nina events.
Dry years have become more frequent in recent years, and have been blamed as the main driver of the current decline.
"Another threat for small island species, such as the Floreana mockingbird, is the threat from invasive species, in particular mammals and plants," Dr Butchart told BBC News.
"They are having a devastating effect on habitats. For example, goats and donkeys on Floreana are changing the ecological structure.
"Eliminating or controlling invasive species is a very tractable conservation action that can help these birds hang on in the face of these additional pressures from climate change.
Climate change is "significantly amplifying" the threats facing the... more
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Google Earth has teamed up with the U.K. government to produce a new layer that shows vividly how the Earth will change this century due to global warming.
Over the course of the century, you can watch the earth heat up in an animation that ultimately leaves the Arctic nearly 20 degrees (C) warmer than in 1999. Most areas across the United States appear somewhere between 4 and 10 degrees warmer.
Specific predicted impacts are shown, such as extreme summer heat waves and choking air pollution in Northeastern cities, decreasing water supply in California and increasing wildfire risk across the West.
These projections represent a middle-path scenario. They assume that something is done to curtail emissions of greenhouse gases, but not as much as the scientific community and United Nations has said is necessary.
“Climate change is redrawing the maps of the world. Its impacts will be felt everywhere, as sea levels rise, crops fail, extreme weather increases and more areas are at risk of drought and flooding," said U.K. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn. "This project shows people the reality of climate change using only moderate estimates – both the change of the average temperature where they live, and the impacts it will have on people’s lives all over the world – including here in Britain. Only by enabling people to understand what climate change means for them and for the world can we mobilize the action we need to avoid the worst effects of a changing climate."
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And as stated, this is only a moderate estimate placing faith in the human race to get its act together in time.Google Earth has teamed up with the U.K. government to produce a new layer that shows... more
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The renewed push for legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions could falter over an old debate: whether nuclear power should play a role in any federal attack on climate change.Congress, with added impetus from a Supreme Court ruling last week, appears more likely to pass comprehensive energy legislation. But nuclear power sharply divides lawmakers who agree on mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. And it has pitted some on Capitol Hill against their usual allies, environmentalists, who largely oppose any expansion of nuclear power.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Barbara Boxer - Bay Area Democrats with similar political views - are on opposite sides.
Pelosi used to be an ardent foe of nuclear power but now holds a different view. “I think it has to be on the table,” she said.
Boxer, head of the Senate committee that will take the lead in writing global warming legislation, said that turning from fossil fuels to nuclear power was “trading one problem for another.”
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) - all presidential candidates - support legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions and provide incentives to power companies to build more nuclear plants.
Opponents of nuclear power say that because a terrorist attack on a plant could be catastrophic, it makes no sense to build more potential targets. And radioactive waste still has no permanent burial site, they say, despite officials’ three decades of trying to find one.
But attitudes toward nuclear power may be shifting as a consensus emerges that greenhouse gases are causing the world to heat up.
The Supreme Court added its voice, criticizing the Bush administration for not acting to control greenhouse gases.
Max Schulz, a former Energy Department staff member who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said the ruling could help “spur the revival of nuclear power.”
The renewed push for legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions could falter over an... more
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This is heartbreaking. Not only because this is happening to children, but because it is totally preventable. There are no longer any words to express my outrage at what is going on in this world. I cannot fathom the total lack of tolerance, intelligence, and planning on the part of governments. I cannot tolerate the absolute disregard for human beings by other human beings, and the conditions we exacerbate still knowing full well what is causing them with the ability to stop them. How does one who cares so deeply for the children of this world read something like this and not feel helpless?
These poor people are kept in total poverty for the benefit of organizations like The World Bank, and yes, even the UN, and I find it appalling. For all of the talk we hear year after year after year about eradicating poverty, famine, and water scarcity and pollution which are causing the diseases plaguing the developing world, we get little to no results in addressing it. For all of the money thrown at it we get little to no results.
This is simply so pervasive and so overwhelming in scope that it is beyond human comprehension. We as a species will never be able to live down what we have done to despoil not only this planet but our own species and those that have no voice. And the children... the innocent children who have known nothing but hunger, disease, and despair. What of them? Where is their hope? Where is their food? Where is their water? Where is the education to show them how to plant and build a life for themselves instead of depending on The World Bank and other bloodsucking organizations that loan them money they can never repay back thus keeping the cycle of poverty and inequality going round? Are they to now only be the focus of the media just to get ratings?
All I can say is, thanks to organizations like Doctors Without Borders these children will at least have a chance to get proper medical care and food. I have come to conclusion however, that governments around this world for all their talk are simply too corrupt, selfish, and inadequate to address the crises we face adequately with the moral fortitude necessary to conquer them.
NO CHILD IN THIS WORLD SHOULD GO HUNGRY OR THIRSTY. And to think we have all we need to make sure that doesn't happen but yet it still does is a shameful reflection on all of us.
More at http://water-is-life.blogspot.com
WATER IS LIFE.This is heartbreaking. Not only because this is happening to children, but because it... more
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World Water Day on March 22 reminds us of the 1 billion people on Earth who lack access to the water most of us take for granted. Global climate change is making that struggle worse, as we see in this report from the rugged region of southern Ethiopia, where drought is drying up wells, threatening an ancient way of life and fueling conflict.
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The most crucial environmental crisis future generations will face.World Water Day on March 22 reminds us of the 1 billion people on Earth who lack... more
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Many physical and ecological systems are being affected by the world's warming climate, researchers say.
Scientists from across the world applied statistical models to published data on changes in 829 physical systems and around 28,800 plant and animal systems —on both global and continental scales — some with data going back to 1970.
Their analysis, published in Nature last week (15 May), looked at whether these changes were related to temperature increase, other factors such as land use change, or simply natural variability.
Around 95 per cent of the physical systems studied responded to the world's warming trend. The analysis found that glaciers in every continent have been shrinking, permafrost is melting, the peak of river levels in spring is shifting, and lake and river temperatures are rising.
And 90 per cent of the changes in plants and animals were consistent with responses to temperature rise, including earlier blooming and leaf unfolding.
The authors found little evidence that natural variability or other environmental factors were significant, and conclude that climate change is affecting these systems.
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It's time to stop debating this and get down to work. Otherwise, we will have nothing to debate over. It will be gone.Many physical and ecological systems are being affected by the world's warming... more
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And once again we are seeing the truth about human nature which knows no nationality, race, creed, or political persuasion: We don't understand the urgency of the situation we are creating by our behavior until it begins to affect our lives. Are we then truly incapable as human beings of conserving freshwater? Of doing the right thing for our future? Of caring for those who live a world away? Has our society worldwide become so consumptive, selfish, and greedy, that even in the face of repercussions that threaten our very lives we will not change?
We are wasting the very substance that sustains our lives as if it will always be there. It won't. And if we as a species are going to ever survive this challenge, we must wake up to the reality surrounding our behavior that is contributing to the global water crisis.
And it will require:
Education. Education. Education.
Moral strength.
Moral will.
Moral conviction.
Then after that:
Global cooperation with water scarcity and waste being one of the main issues covered in any new global climate treaty that also prohibits making water a commodity to be sold at the expense of the right of humans to access to it. To commoditize it will only exacerbate inequality in its distribution which will lead to war.
Finally considering population in the developing world as one of the chief factors in any water policy and looking to educate people about family planning.
Effective water management being mandatory and enforced with particular emphasis on water footprints of nations being used to determine policy much like carbon caps.
Effective water catchement and conservation techniques being taught to people in countries experiencing the worst droughts.
Agricultural methods such as drip irrigation that allow for the least amount of water to be used to grow crops without waste, with an emphasis on less water intensive crops being planted in areas with more severe conditions so that at least those who farm will still have an income to rely on.
Standing up to corporations that continue to privatize water for a profit, especially in poor countries in Africa, South America, and Asia.
Mandatory clean up of rivers and other waterways required with penalties assessed for those who do not comply. *Corporations must be made accountable for their actions.* Willfully polluting a river or other freshwater resource to save money knowing that such resources sustain humans and other species should be seen as an act of negligence punishable by law.
***All of us coming together to mitigate the amount of greenhouse gases we spew into the atmosphere that are making the conditions that cause drought.***
Declaring access to potable water a human right that is not to be commoditized at the expense of the weak and the poor, with an emphasis on holding companies like Coca Cola, Nestle, and private companies like Thames Water, American Water, Suez , Vivendi and other companies being held to stringent standards regarding price and quality. There must also be the threat of penalty for gouging customers or using the climate crisis as a vehicle to raise prices beyond what is needed to maintain water infrastructure.
However, can we do this? Are we capable as a species of coming together to do what needs to be done to ensure our continued survival? Is greed truly an overriding quality of human nature that cannot be overcome for the good of us and this planet?
Only through education and action will we know the answer to those questions and they must be answered because time is running out while we continue to look the other way while taking our most precious resource for granted.
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Read the news story about the Drought in Spain and more information on the global water crisis at:
http://water-is-life.blogspot.com
Water Is Life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~And once again we are seeing the truth about human nature which knows no nationality,... more
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Day to Day, July 2, 2007 · New York City is filled with culture, excitement... and noise. But now that a revised noise code is in effect, the jackhammers, cabs and dogs will all have to quiet down or face some stiff fines.Day to Day, July 2, 2007 · New York City is filled with culture, excitement...... more
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It's the one environmental crime that no US politician will confront – the destruction of Kentucky's mountains. Leonard Doyle visits the Appalachian peaks being blasted by Big Coal.
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The road slicing through the thickly forested hills of eastern Kentucky used to be called the Daniel Boone Parkway. It was named for the controversial American folk hero who fought his way across Indian country to settle a state where many of his descendants still live.
That was before the coal industry began blowing up the Appalachian Mountains as a cheap way of getting at the black stuff below, behaviour decried by the environmental group Appalachian Voices as "one of the greatest human rights and environmental tragedies in America's recent history".
Daniel Boone's road is now the Hal Rogers Parkway, named after one of the Kentucky coal industry's closest friends in Washington, a Republican Congressman of 34 years. It passes through a mountain range older than the Himalayas and is blanketed in broadleaf forests rivalled only by the Amazon basin in its biodiversity.
But the canopy of trees which lines the parkway as it rises from the bluegrass horse country to the mountains is a trompe l'oeil. The lush forest gives way to scraggly trees along the ridge-line, and behind those trees is evidence of unspeakable ecological violence. In a process known as mountaintop removal an upland moonscape is being created, which is incapable of regenerating trees. As far as the eye can see, the land is grey and pockmarked with huge black lakes, filled with toxic coal slurry.
This has come about because of America's insatiable appetite for cheap coal to generate electricity, a process enthusiastically backed by the Bush administration as it tries to displace the consumption of imported oil. And the Democrats are little better. They control Kentucky and neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton have dared to challenge "King Coal" while campaigning.
The devastation being wrought on Appalachia is best appreciated from the air. An organisation called Southwinds offers people an eagle-eye view of the carnage, not readily appreciated from the road. Another way to see what's going on behind the ridge-line is to take a Google Earth virtual tour of an online memorial to the 470 mountains blown up and levelled in recent years.
It's the one environmental crime that no US politician will confront – the... more
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In Kenya's massive shanty town of Kibera water is often unhealthy and far more expensive than in more affluent neighborhoods. An effort to put distribution and purification in the hands of local women is producing sparkling results.
NAIROBI, Kenya (WOMENSENEWS)--The long rainy season in Kenya has begun and sudden storms regularly burst over Nairobi. Many welcome the downpours, which signal the end of another dry summer and wash the steamy crowded capital clean each morning.
In Kibera, a massive slum of rusty tin roofs and makeshift homes spreading out from the southwest of the city, the rain is turning the twisting dirt roads and alleyways to thick red mud.
Here in one of largest slums in the world--a flashpoint for violence stemming from Kenya's parliamentary elections in December--the rain is causing open sewers to swell and uncollected garbage to rush in rivers of tattered plastic and human waste through backyards.
Potable water is one of the hardest resources to secure in Kibera and the torrents now being unleashed will offer no relief to the estimated 1 million people here who must use their meager wages--usually less than a dollar a day--to buy water for drinking and cleaning.
On a good day, 20 liters (5.5 gallons) of water in Kibera costs 5 cents, far more than what piped water costs in Nairobi's wealthy areas. But when water is rationed, or when vendors block pipes to manufacture shortages, prices can skyrocket to five times the usual cost and an impossible price for most residents here. Much of this water has been contaminated with sewage.
Now, a Nairobi-based group working to bring affordable clean water to Kibera, the Kenya Water for Health Organization, is trying to replace water vendors with women's groups who are accountable to each other to keep price gouging at bay. This informal system relies on the belief that community-driven women's collectives will handle this precious resource fairly because of their shared hardships.
"There is inadequate water supply, no toilets, no access roads, no lighting and no drainage," says Paul Ochieng, assistant project officer for Kenya Water for Health Organization. "These people need water, clean and safe water."In Kenya's massive shanty town of Kibera water is often unhealthy and far more... more
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Uranium is not just an emotional issue for Raymond-Whish, but for the tribe as a whole. The legacy of mining the element on the 27,000-square-mile reservation is so deeply and collectively felt that the Navajo Nation banned it altogether in 2005 in the face of globally rising ore prices. During the ’40s and the Cold War period, the U.S. government used yellow cake - or milled and concentrated uranium ore - to build nuclear weapons. The government stopped buying the ore for weapons in 1971, but the commercial nuclear energy market picked up the slack until the early 1980s. Only about a quarter of all U.S. uranium miners were Native American - Laguna, Hopi, Zuni and Ute as well as Navajo. But Native Americans have been disproportionately affected: Their tribal lands are still contaminated, and former miners suffer illnesses and deaths for which many families are still awaiting compensation.
Despite the tribal ban, at least five companies are seeking state permits in New Mexico to mine lands just off the reservation, including on tribal allotment land. In Arizona, 700 individual mining claims were filed in 2005. The prehistoric sea and river beds that run underground from Naturita, Colo., to Grants, N.M., and across to Moab, Utah, still hold an estimated 600 million pounds of low-grade ore. But for every 4 pounds of uranium extracted, 996 pounds of slightly radioactive waste is left over, in piles, in pits and eventually in the soil, arroyos and underground aquifers.
Some Western tailings piles, like those outside of Monticello, Utah, or Grand Junction, Colo., have been cleaned up. But those on tribal lands have fallen through yawning bureaucratic and regulatory gaps. It’s estimated that up to 25 percent of unregulated water sources on the Navajo Reservation exceed federal drinking water standards for uranium. And many families still haul water from these wells, despite warnings by health providers and advocacy groups.
end of excerpt.
Uranium is not just an emotional issue for Raymond-Whish, but for the tribe as a... more
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Some strains of bird flu are coming ever closer to developing the traits they need to cause a human pandemic, a study released Monday said.
Researchers who analysed samples of recent avian flu viruses found that a few H7 strains of the virus that have caused minor, untransmissible infections in people in North America between 2002 and 2004 have increased their affinity for the sugars found on human tracheal cells.
Subsequent tests in ferrets suggested that these viral strains were not readily transmissible.
But one strain of the H7N2 virus, a low pathogenic avian flu strain isolated from a man in New York in 2003, replicated in the ferret's respiratory tract and was passed between infected and uninfected ferrets suggesting it could be transmissible in humans.
The investigators said the evidence suggests that the virus could be evolving toward the same strong sugar-binding properties of the three worldwide viral pandemics in 1918, 1957 and 1968.
"These findings suggest that the H7 class of viruses are partially adapted to recognize the receptors that are preferred by the human influenza virus," said Terrence Tumpey, a senior microbiologist with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The authors said that if the viruses continue to evolve in this direction, the avian flu viruses could travel more easily between other animals and humans. They called for strict surveillance of avian flu viruses and continuing federal preparations for a possible future pandemic.
The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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At this point I don't consider it a question of "if" a pandemic will strike the world, but "when." Especially now with the current state of our environment. China being one example of what environmental factors (climate change) can do to exacerbate strains like Avian flu. It seems that historically a pandemic strikes us globally about every 100 or so years. The Spanish Flu that hit us in North America in 1918 wiped out millions... Are we due? After all the hype about Avian Flu in 2003 it has died down now and you don't hear anything about it. I think it is something we need to keep in our minds, especially considering how easy it would be to spread such a virus if it got into the wrong hands.Some strains of bird flu are coming ever closer to developing the traits they need to... more
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Shocked by rising food prices? Get used to it -- and be ready for water shortages, too, says a sweeping new scientific report rounding up likely effects of climate change on the United States' land, water and farms over the next half-century.
Some effects already can be felt, says the report released Tuesday, which synthesizes results of more than 1,000 individual studies.
And it's not just humans' food that's at risk, said witnesses at a congressional field hearing in Seattle on Tuesday. An intense and sudden acidification of the Pacific resulting from climate change presages a possible breakdown in the marine food web, experts said at the hearing, headed by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
"This is not a problem of tomorrow but a problem for today," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., noting that nearly 10 percent of protein in the human diet is from the oceans. "It just scares the heck out of me."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture report cataloged effects thought by scientists to be likely over the next 25 to 50 years on agriculture, land and water.
Even if greenhouse gas production stopped now, climate change already has been set in motion, said the review by 38 scientists, mostly from the federal government and universities. The panel included some of the nation's leading climate researchers.
"We have already observed the consequences," said David Schimel of the National Ecological Observatory Network, one of three lead authors. "We have a very clearly observed trend toward earlier snowmelt and more winter rain, both of which greatly complicate water management."
Shocked by rising food prices? Get used to it -- and be ready for water shortages,... more
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Five Arctic powers are holding a summit in Greenland on Wednesday to forestall a confrontation over the Polar region’s mineral resources and discuss how to protect its fragile environment.
When Russia planted its flag on the seabed 4km under the North Pole last August it raised fears of a rush to grab the Arctic’s mineral resources, particularly its oil and gas deposits, which could total up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered reserves.
In the future, rising global temperatures could leave much of the Arctic ice-free in the summer, enabling easier exploration and opening up the North-west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Soaring oil prices and improved technology also make exploration more viable.
Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark (through the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland) are all collecting evidence to show their continental shelves extend towards the Arctic and that therefore their territorial waters should be extended beyond 200 miles offshore. The US has not signed the UN convention, making it impossible for it to even lodge a claim.
“I hope the meeting will send a clear political signal that the Law of the Sea is sufficient to sort out all the legal issues in play,” said Peter Taksoe-Jensen, undersecretary for legal affairs at the Danish foreign ministry.
Commercial interest in exploiting the Arctic is hotting up. Denmark recently attracted the likes of ExxonMobil and Chevron, the two biggest US energy groups, along with several smaller players, to explore off its western coast. Alaska, meanwhile, garnered aggressive bidding by Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest energy group, which earlier this year won the right to explore the remote part of the state’s Arctic North Slope.
Russia has promoted the development of its Arctic resources by appointing Total, the French oil major, as its partner for the giant Shtokman gas field. And on Tuesday the country’s lawmakers moved forward a bill that would cut exploration taxes for companies venturing into risky areas, including its Arctic regions of Yamal and Timan-Pechora.
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And there you have it. Waiting for the Earth to melt to carve up the spoils for themselves... Only, how irresponsible are they? Once the ice in the Arctic is gone we will enter an irreversible series of environmental consequences that will make their gold bars look pale in comparison. The fact that greed has now blinded so many to the potential consequences of this melting ice is a stark example of humanity as it stands now. Instead of countries working on signing a global pact to stop this now, they continue it to take it for themselves. Despicable.Five Arctic powers are holding a summit in Greenland on Wednesday to forestall a... more
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Changes to the Antarctic ice shelf are causing seals to fight for air and penguins to give up on their young.
These are the findings of a new study, which illustrates the direct impact climate change is having on the physiology, behaviour and survival of Antarctic species.
In 1998, ecologist and evolutionary biologist Associate Professor Terrie Williams of the University of California at Santa Cruz and her team began a study on Weddell seals in Antarctica.
Three years later, an enormous iceberg detached near Antarctica's McMurdo Sound. According to Williams and her colleagues, the event was caused by global warming, which has likely been melting and weakening ice at the poles.
The 10,900 square kilometre iceberg, named B-15, drifted westward and lodged on nearby Ross Island.
The impact upon the animals of the region was immediate.
"Our first clue that there was a problem was that the seals were not returning to their usual pupping areas, and that there were fewer seals even later in the season," says Williams.
She and her colleagues noticed that the ice around Ross Island did not experience its usual "break-out" that year.
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But we shouldn't care about what our actions are doing to other species,right? Afterall, humans are omnipotent over all the Earth... the evidence of that starkly seen based on its decay.
Changes to the Antarctic ice shelf are causing seals to fight for air and penguins to... more
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