Our Exhausted Oceans

I’ve written off and on about research revealing that ocean resources today are a pale shadow of the extraordinary abundance of just a few generations ago, and I touch on this theme again in a Science Times feature this week on new maps of human impacts on the sea.

Societies tend to have “ocean amnesia,” in the words of some scientists and campaigners who’ve highlighted the recent, and largely unnoticed, vanishing of marine life. Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia coined the phrase “shifting baselines” to describe how our definition of “normal” changes over time.

Several studies of the Gulf of California have vividly illustrated the phenomenon. A 2005 paper charted changing impressions of fish abundance through three generations of Mexican fishers, finding that “old fishers named five times as many species and four times as many fishing sites as once being abundant/productive.”

For a 2006 paper in the journal Fish and Fisheries, the same team estimated marine abundance in the same region by combing diaries and other written records from the 16th to the 19th century.

“The diaries written by conquerors, pirates, missionaries and naturalists described a place in which whales were ‘innumerable,’ turtles were ‘covering the sea’ and large fish were so abundant that they could be taken by hand,” the scientists said.

When I went fishing off Long Island with the marine biologist and author Carl Safina in 2006 (video here, article here), we had no problem reeling in fluke and bluefish in the right spots. But a century earlier, the right spot could have been just about anywhere.
more from the NY Times

San Francisco weighs green-building law

A proposed green building ordinance in San Francisco would transform the construction industry across northern California, impacting everything from city paint shops and local subcontractors to suburban neighborhoods resistant to sand pits and gravel quarries.

If passed in March, the ordinance would require most new commercial and residential high-rises to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. Under LEED, developers must earn credits from a checklist of building practices that reduce the project's carbon footprint.

A number of cities and states, such as New Mexico and Washington, have adopted LEED for public buildings, but San Francisco would mandate it for the private sector as well. San Francisco officials say they want to get tough because the operation and construction of buildings account for half the city's CO2 footprint. If passed, the ordinance would be the most far-reaching in the US.

If it kicks off a national trend, it could realign the contours of the trillion-dollar construction industry. "The credits are absolutely driving the marketplace," says Marilyn Miller Farmer, a LEED architect in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

more from the CS Monitor

Watching Peru's Oceans for Cholera Cues

Before 1991, no one in Peru could remember a cholera outbreak. Then, in a single day, it hit hard up and down the coast and took off from there, eventually killing thousands. That outbreak was fueled by a change in ocean temperatures. Now some people worry that climate change could bring the scourge back to Peru.

Two scientists in Lima are trying to be ready before the disease strikes. Ana Gil and her husband Claudio Lanata, researchers at the International Institute of Nutrition, are watching out for the earliest hints of cholera. In the epidemic of the 1990s, Lanata says, people panicked.

"When cholera hit us, nobody knew what to do," he says. "They were thinking that people were going to die like flies."

Cholera causes diarrhea so bad that a person can die within a few hours. Lanata estimates that about 14 million people in Peru were infected, and 350,000 ended up in the hospital.

"It's a very nasty disease," Lanata says. "It's like you've opened a faucet in your system. Water just comes out of you in large amounts — liters and liters."

He saw it firsthand when he studied in the United States. American volunteers allowed themselves to be infected to test the efficacy of a vaccine. The vaccine didn't work well, but cholera is easily treated if resources are available — clean water for rehydration and salts to replace the salts that are lost.

more from NPR

Wild green yonder? A 747 fuelled partly by coconuts

Billionaire businessman Sir Richard Branson unveiled what he called the start of a new, cleaner, era for the airline industry Sunday: a flight partly fuelled by a clear liquid derived from coconuts and the Amazonian babassu tree.

The London-to-Amsterdam flight by a Virgin Atlantic 747 jumbo jet was powered by three tanks filled with standard jet fuel and a fourth tank carrying a blend of 80 per cent standard fuel and 20 per cent oil from the coconut and Amazon babassu nut.

The crossing – the first known commercial flight using biofuel – was billed by Sir Richard, founder and president of Virgin Atlantic, as a milestone in aviation history and a major move toward a viable alternative fuel that will help the airline sector reduce its carbon footprint.

“Today marks a vital breakthrough for the whole airline industry,” he said during a ceremony at London's Heathrow Airport.

Beatrice Olivastri, head of Friends of the Earth Canada, said in an interview that “There isn't going to be one magic bullet and biofuel is only a small part of the bigger problem. The aviation sector is not known for its leadership on climate change.”

She said numerous alternative measures are already available, such as more efficient global traffic control and the introduction of more fuel-efficient aircraft.

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Post-Katrina skyline rises along Mississippi coast

Some people in this tiny Katrina-ravaged town talk of Harry Hull's modest, vinyl-clad home as if a spaceship had landed on the bayou.

It stands out not because it is built on land only 5 feet above sea level -- scores of people have rebuilt on low land -- but because it looms 18 feet above ground. It is raised so high on wooden pilings that Hull, 70, must climb 26 steps to get to his front door.

Yet the structure could offer a glimpse into the future of his city and other low-lying coastal areas nationwide: New flood elevation standards being devised by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and pioneered in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina would require some houses on low coastal land be rebuilt 20 feet off the ground.

In Pass Christian, where only 500 of the city's 8,000 homes survived the 2005 hurricane, city officials fear that the new maps will frustrate rebuilding. The agency's highest required elevation in that city has gone up 6 to 26 feet above sea level.

More from the LA Times

New water warning: 50% chance Lakes Mead and Powell will run dry by 2021

Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which helps supply water to millions, stands a 50 percent chance of running dry by 2021 unless dramatic changes take place in how the region uses water, according to a new study.

Causes include growing population, rising demand for Colorado River water, which feeds both lakes, and global warming, according to scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., who conducted the study.

The results underscore the importance of water-conservation measures. Other studies, some dating back nearly 20 years, have projected Lake Mead could fall to virtually useless levels as climate warms, but they lacked a sense of the timing. The new results, the Scripps scientists say, represent a first attempt to answer when lakes Mead and Powell would run dry, squeezing water supplies in Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico.

more from the Christian Science Monitor

Witnesses Wait

A Living On Earth investigation has found neighbors of a plant that once produced some of the most dangerous herbicides and insecticides known to man may be being left unprotected. The State of Louisiana has cleaned up the site itself, but some neighbors say their homes should be cleaned up or purchased, and some toxicologists agree.

more from Living on Earth

Power Struggle

One of the main things to understand about Iceland is how tiny the population is and what it can be like to live here because of that. There’s the feeling that everybody on this isolated subarctic island knows just about everybody else, or at least can be associated (through family, friends, neighborhood, profession, political party, or school) by no more than one degree of separation. Imagine a country of 310,000 people, with most of them jammed in and around Reykjavík—a hip European capital known for its dimly lit coffeehouses, live music, and hard-drinking nightlife. That’s where all the good jobs are, and the chances of running into somebody you know are so high that it’s hard, as one commentator mused, to have a love affair without getting caught.

“We are,” said one bespectacled sixtysomething newspaper editor wearing a blazing white shirt, “very close-knit.” Then he clasped his hands together, as if in an embrace. Or a vise.

more from National Geographic

Welcome to the town that will make you lose weight

Towns and cities need to be radically redesigned to help to tackle the obesity epidemic, scientists were told —yesterday. Professor Philip James, chairman of the International Obesity Task Force, a London-based think-tank, called for a revolution in urban planning to encourage people to use cars less and public transport more.

He told a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston that it was naive to expect people to lose weight by making better choices about diet and exercise when their surroundings encouraged inactivity.

Urban designers had created an “obesogenic environment” by planning public spaces around the car. Transport systems that made it easier to drive than to walk, cycle or take public transport were the worst contributors to obesity.

He also blamed the rise of desk-bound office work and sedentary leisure activities such as watching television, surfing the internet and playing computer games. Lifts and escalators, and even labour-saving devices such as electric toothbrushes and can-openers added to the problem.

“Blaming individuals for their personal vulnerability to weight gain is no longer acceptable in a world where the majority is already overweight and obesity is rising everywhere,” said Professor James, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “It is naive of ill-informed politicians and food industry executives to place the onus on individuals making ‘healthier choices’ whilst the environment in which we live is the overwhelming factor amplifying the epidemic.

“It is even more naive to tell people that they just need to make a little change in their eating habits or their daily activity and suddenly the obesity problem will be remarkably easily solved.” Rather than pouring billions into creating more car-filled town centres and motorway networks, it was now necessary to curtail car use.

More from The Times Online

People breathing city air are likened to fish in an oil spill

Alarming evidence for the way air pollution damages the cardiovascular system emerged on Monday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston.

Although “clean air” legislation has cleaned up the most visible smog-like pollution in industrialised countries, Lung Chi Chen of the medical school at New York University said microscopic soot particles from vehicle exhausts killed an estimated 30,000-40,000 people a year in the US.

Breathing the air in New York City was similar to living with a smoker in terms of risk from heart disease, he said.

Several scientists said exposure to ultra-fine particles at levels found in city centres triggered heart disease in laboratory animals. Even the most modern diesel and petrol engines with efficient filters generated the most dangerous particles (less than 2.5 microns in diameter), Dr Chen said.

In addition, chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons pose a serious threat to human health according to John Incardona, researcher with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Dr Incardona said PAHs, which affected fish exposed to oil spills, were also “prime suspects for cardiovascular impacts related to air pollution”.

Even in “safe” levels, particulate air pollution added to the cardiovascular health burden. “Estimates of toxicity based solely on measurements of particles are likely to dramatically underestimate the net health impact of complex emissions,” said Matt Campen of the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico.

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For E&E, it’s great to be green

The three turkeys wandering outside the main entrance to Ecology & Environment’s vine-covered headquarters in Lancaster are the first clue that this isn’t an ordinary office building.

Inside, there’s the 300-foot-long glass atrium, which bathes the plant-lined interior corridor in natural light.

When unwanted pests attack some of the more than 1,000 plants inside the building, E&E brings in other bugs or natural predators to take care of the problem. No pesticides, here.

And, most unusual in a modern office building, the atrium opens, as do all the windows in the building, allowing fresh air in through the windows and hot air to escape through the atrium, creating a sort of natural air conditioning.

All this in a building that opened 20 years ago, long before the beginning of the “green building” movement that now is gaining momentum. “It was absolutely, unequivocally unique back then,” said Brian P. Brady, the building’s architect.

Now, E&E’s headquarters has been awarded the highest level of certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, one of only 10 existing buildings in the country and the oldest structure in the world to achieve that status.

“It means a heck of a lot,” said Gerhard J. Neumaier, E&E’s chairman and chief executive officer, and one of the company’s founders.

“We were talking [with a potential client] about buildings in Washington, and they want them to be green,” Neumaier said. “We can say we believe in this stuff. We’ve been preaching it.”

The award puts E&E in an elite group. Only 70 buildings, mostly new construction, have been granted certified platinum status under the council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating program. Buildings that achieve platinum status typically are about 50 percent more energy-efficient than conventional structures, said Linda Thomas, who spearheaded E&E’s efforts to obtain its LEED certification.

At E&E, environmentally-friendly ways are engrained as part of the daily business practices, down to using biodegradable utensils in the company’s cafeteria and its long-standing recycling and composting programs, said Kevin Neumaier, the firm’s senior vice president.

More from The Buffalo News

Climate fight must enlist biodiversity and communities

UN-led efforts to address climate change, conserve biodiversity and fight poverty could cancel each other out unless the close links between these global challenges are given more attention, says a paper published today (18 February) by the International Institute for Environment and Development.

It warns that many efforts to mitigate climate change have paid scant attention to biodiversity conservation and the world's poor.

The paper, availed to the Africa Science News Service, shows that biodiversity has a key role to play in both adapting to the impacts ahead and cutting the concentration of greenhouse gases but that, to be effective, policies must have greater input from local communities who are particularly vulnerable to climate change and have valuable local knowledge.

It comes as government parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meet in Rome this week (18-22 February) to progress talks ahead of the main CBD conference in May.

"Governments, businesses, donor agencies and individuals need to do more joined up thinking to ensure that the aims of the UN Millennium Development Goals, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are met," Hannah Reid who wrote the paper with fellow senior researcher Krystyna Swiderska told Africa Science News Service.

"Pro-poor, biodiversity-friendly ways to adapt to and mitigate climate change are clearly the way forward," says Swiderska.

"But for them to work, local communities must be involved in decisions about how biodiversity is used. Good governance and fair access to land and resources must be at the heart of these efforts."

More from Africa Science News

Taking Play Seriously

On a drizzly Tuesday night in late January, 200 people came out to hear a psychiatrist talk rhapsodically about play — not just the intense, joyous play of children, but play for all people, at all ages, at all times. (All species too; the lecture featured touching photos of a polar bear and a husky engaging playfully at a snowy outpost in northern Canada.) Stuart Brown, president of the National Institute for Play, was speaking at the New York Public Library’s main branch on 42nd Street. He created the institute in 1996, after more than 20 years of psychiatric practice and research persuaded him of the dangerous long-term consequences of play deprivation. In a sold-out talk at the library, he and Krista Tippett, host of the public-radio program ‘‘Speaking of Faith,’’ discussed the biological and spiritual underpinnings of play. Brown called play part of the ‘‘developmental sequencing of becoming a human primate. If you look at what produces learning and memory and well-being, play is as fundamental as any other aspect of life, including sleep and dreams.’’

The message seemed to resonate with audience members, who asked anxious questions about what seemed to be the loss of play in their children’s lives. Their concern came, no doubt, from the recent deluge of eulogies to play . Educators fret that school officials are hacking away at recess to make room for an increasingly crammed curriculum. Psychologists complain that overscheduled kids have no time left for the real business of childhood: idle, creative, unstructured free play. Public health officials link insufficient playtime to a rise in childhood obesity. Parents bemoan the fact that kids don’t play the way they themselves did — or think they did. And everyone seems to worry that without the chance to play stickball or hopscotch out on the street, to play with dolls on the kitchen floor or climb trees in the woods, today’s children are missing out on something essential.

More from The New York Times

Formaldehyde risks in trailers confirmed

Even though levels of formaldehyde vary widely among FEMA trailers and some trailer inhabitants are less affected by the colorless gas than others, all residents are encouraged to move into "safer housing as soon as possible," preferably before the summer, said Julie Gerberding, the director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency recently completed a study that found that "in many trailers, mobile homes and park models tested, formaldehyde levels were elevated relative to typical levels of U.S. indoor exposure."

Ventilation, the age of the trailer and the temperature affect the levels of formaldehyde, she said.

"When the temperature is warmer, the levels are higher," Gerberding said.

A summary of the study's conclusions acquired by The Times-Picayune does not elaborate on the precise health risks resulting from temporary or prolonged exposure to formaldehyde, but Gerberding noted that the "really old, the really young and those suffering from asthma" are more susceptible to its effects.

The pungent gas is released by building materials and household items -- including paint, draperies and pressed wood products -- according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

More from The Times Picayne

Living near Airport is unhealthy

Living near an airport isn't just irritating, it is also unhealthy, researchers said on Tuesday, in a study that showed loud noise instantly boosts a sleeping person's blood pressure.

The louder the noise, the higher a person's blood pressure went, a finding that suggests people who live near airports may have a greater risk of health problems, said Lars Jarup, who led the European Commission-funded study.

''Living near airports where you have exposure to night time aircraft noise is a major issue,'' Jarup, an environmental health researcher at the University of Glasgow, told.

''The reason we did airports is because there was no study that has looked at particular problems of aircraft noise.''High blood pressure can lead to stroke, heart failure, heart attack and kidney failure. It affects more than a billion adults worldwide.

The research team showed that people living for at least five years near a busy airport and under a flight path have a greater risk of developing chronic high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, than those who live in quieter areas.

That study of nearly 5,000 people found that an increase in night time airplane noise of 10 decibels increased the risk of high blood pressure by 14 percent in both men and women.

''We know that noise from air traffic can be a source of irritation, but our research shows that it can also be damaging for people's health, which is particularly significant in light of plans to expand international airports,'' Jarup said.

More from Daily News and Analysis

Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You

As a suburban environmentalist, Mike Tidwell, 45, of Takoma Park, Md., always felt like a walking contradiction.

Though he had quit his job as a journalist to work for environmental nonprofit organizations, Mr. Tidwell viewed suburbs (his own hometown is just outside of Washington) as places built “to defy nature,” he said, giving everyone “their own little kingdom of grass and space” — not to mention 3,000-square-foot houses, heated swimming pools and hulking S.U.V.’s.

For years, Mr. Tidwell led an environmental campaign, one with few followers. In 2002, he started a neighborhood cooperative to buy and distribute organically fertilized corn kernels to burn in pellet stoves (a lower-emissions alternative to traditional fuel-oil boilers). At first, the cooperative consisted of just him and three other residents.

But lately, after the release of Al Gore's “Inconvenient Truth” and last summer’s Live Earth concerts, his corn collective has ballooned to more than 70 members, some coming from more distant Maryland suburbs like Bethesda and Silver Spring. The group even built a 25-foot-tall cylindrical granary, holding 22 tons of corn, in a small lot belonging to Takoma Park.

Attitudes, Mr. Tidwell said, changed, too.

“In the American suburbs, people are suddenly literate in the language of carbon emissions and carbon footprints,” he said. “I’m hearing it in most mainstream places.”

But the problem with suburbs, many environmentalists say, is not an issue of light bulbs. In the end, the very things that make suburban life attractive — the lush lawns, spacious houses and three-car garages — also disproportionally contribute to global warming. Suburban life, these environmentalists argue, is simply not sustainable.

“The very essence of the post-Second World War America suburb militates against ‘greening,’ ” said Thomas J. Sugrue, a professor of history and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. “Given the almost complete dependency of suburbanites on the car, it’s an uphill battle.”

More from The New York Times

In Many Communities, It’s Not Easy Going Green

This urban suburb of Washington seems well-prepared for a leading role in the green revolution embraced by hundreds of the nation’s cities, counties and towns.

For decades, Arlington County’s development has been consciously clustered around its subway line. There is abundant open space to plant thousands of trees. Residents also seem eager to cut back on their own energy use.

Jose R. Fernandez, who moved here last year and works at the nearby national headquarters of the National Guard, chose to settle in Arlington because he does not need a car. “I can go anywhere on the bus,” Mr. Fernandez said, “or I can ride my bike anywhere.”

But even in Arlington, county officials are reckoning with the fact that though green is the dream, the shade of civic achievement is closer to olive drab. Constraints on budgets, legal restrictions by states, and people’s unwillingness to change sometimes put brakes on ambitious plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Emissions are stubborn things. In Arlington, emissions per capita are now 15 tons annually and rising. In Sonoma County, Calif., the figure is close to nine tons. Arlington is not alone in bumping up against obstacles.

“We have been doing things like filling potholes and reducing crime since cities began,” said David N. Cicilline, the mayor of Providence, R.I., but energy efficiency requires “a whole new infrastructure to evaluate and measure.”

When Providence officials pushed for new police cars with four cylinders instead of six, to save gasoline, there was pushback — unsuccessful — from police officers who preferred more powerful engines to pursue speeders or criminals. Cleveland’s plans to retrofit a local hot-water plant, produce new electricity and save tons of greenhouse gas emissions, molder in a file. It would cost $200 million, and there is no money — the tax base, left ragged by the loss of population and industry over the last two decades, has been hit hard again by the subprime mortgage crisis.

Nearly 1,200 miles away, in Austin, Tex., — a city that ranks high on any list of green strivers — some residents want to help but do not feel they can afford it.

More from The New York Times

Toll of Deadly Tornadoes in South Climbs Past 50

Residents in five Southern states rose Wednesday to widespread clusters of destruction caused by an unusually ferocious winter tornado system. At least 55 people were killed, and scores more were injured.

Many had spent a harrowing Tuesday night punctuated by breaking glass and warning sirens as the tornadoes tossed trailer homes into the air, collapsed the roof of a Sears store in Memphis, whittled away half a Caterpillar plant near Oxford, Miss., and shredded dorms at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., where crews rescued nine students trapped in the rubble.

Arkansas and Tennessee were the hardest hit, with Arkansas reporting 13 dead and Tennessee 31.

Here in Atkins, 50 miles northwest of Little Rock, a middle-age couple and their 11-year-old daughter were killed when their house was wiped out by a direct hit, and in northwestern Alabama the bodies of another family of three were found 50 yards from the foundation of their ruined home.

In Macon County, Tenn., a 74-year-old man whose trailer was destroyed was killed as his family waited for an ambulance to navigate debris-strewn roads.

Thirty-five injuries were reported in Gassville, a small community in Baxter County, Ark., that was almost totally leveled by the storm.

“The wrath of God is the only way I can describe it,” Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee said after a helicopter flight to survey the damage. “I’m used to seeing roofs off houses, houses blown over. These houses were down to their foundations, stripped clean.”

More from The New York Times

British bishops propose 'carbon fast'

Two senior Church of England bishops called on Tuesday for Britons to cut back on carbon, rather than the more traditional chocolate and alcohol, for the Christian period of Lent this year.

The Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, and Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, have teamed up with aid agency Tearfund to invite the public to take part in a "carbon fast" for the next 40 days.

During Lent, which starts on Wednesday and lasts until Easter, Christians are supposed to fast and pray. In the bishops' green drive, those taking part can choose how they reduce their carbon footprint on a daily basis.

"For example, on the first day, people can take out one of their light bulbs and whenever they go to turn that light on, and it doesn't work, they can remember why they are fasting from carbon - to help the poor of the world.

The bishops and Tearfund said they had launched carbon fast because of the urgent need to cut emissions and protect poor communities, who are already being affected by climate change and will be the worst hit in the future.

"There's a moral imperative on those of us who emit more than our fair share of carbon to rein in our consumption," Jones said.

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Inside Britain's happiest eco-town

It's not every day that you glimpse a vision of the future. And it's all the more surprising for this vision to consist of a group of houses made not with hi-tech steel, glass and concrete, but with an altogether more old-fashioned material: wood. As the road ahead bends and the new houses come into view, it's hard not to be thrilled at the thought that finally someone's really thinking about what an eco-village should be.

It is not simply that the design of The Wintles is a beautiful combination of local vernacular and modern aesthetics. You get the sense that there is something else special about these homes. Absent are the regimented lines of modern, soulless housing estates. Instead, about 12 houses of various shapes and sizes are clustered in a circle around a small communal green.

With me is Bob Tomlinson, the man who thought up the masterplan for this site, just outside Bishop's Castle, in Shropshire. For him, eco-thinking runs deeper than the inclusion of solar panels and windmills strapped to chimneys. For a start, there's all that wood, which isn't just there to create a groovy rustic vibe. Many eco-developments, once closely examined, prove to be little more than houses with concrete-riddled designs, higher levels of insulation than normal and a token cycle park. And that's really not in the spirit of things – the concrete industry accounts for 5 per cent of total global carbon dioxide emissions (that's even more than aviation).

But more than just selecting the right materials, a sense of healthy community is one key feature Tomlinson tried to build into The Wintles. Tomlinson feels that modern estate housing does not encourage people to put down roots and create good communities. The modern habit of moving home, on average, every seven years comes at a huge cost to the environment. Not only does it damage human relationships, but a huge amount of waste is created in the constant redecorating and refurnishing generated by this housing carousel.

"We are using this site as a test bed for a revolution in eco-building," says Tomlinson. "The old village has been around since the time of the Domesday Book, and it was the fact that it has been successful as a community for so long that inspired us to look at the reasons for its success." Tomlinson is passionate in his belief that an eco-town must not only be built using the latest low-carbon technologies but must also engender a sense of place, to be a town that will work from one generation to the next and be able to feed and clothe itself from local products.

More from The Independent