Farmers fall prey to rice rustlers as price of staple crop rocketsFarmers fall prey to rice rustlers as price of staple crop rockets

Knee-deep in muddy water, her face smeared with sandalwood paste and a broad-brimmed hat for protection against the broiling sun, Samniang Ketia grins broadly at her good fortune to be in the rice growing business as she replants shoots for the next harvest two months off.

The 37-year-old, who leases a small plot of land in Samblong, central Thailand, knows the price of rice has rocketed - in some cases nearly doubling in three months - and that she is about to reap the benefit when she sells what her family does not eat.

But the price rises have a downside and spawned a new phenomenon: rice rustling. One night, one of Samniang's neighbour's fields was stripped as it was about to be harvested. Local police have now banned harvesting machines from the roads at night while on the northern plains farmers are camping in their fields, shotguns at the ready.

"I've never heard of it happening before, that people have stolen rice," said Lung Choop, 68, who grows rice on his smallholding. "But it's happening now because rice is so expensive. I guess I'll have to guard my own distant fields when they're ready."

Across Asia the suddenly stratospheric rice prices have prompted countries to ban exports amid fears that shortages could provoke food riots.

While prices of wheat, corn and other agricultural commodities have surged since the end of 2006, partly because of extra demand for biofuels to offset rising oil prices, rice held fairly steady.

more from the Guardian (UK)

Companies give folks solar help to go green

For years, Bruce Crawford dreamed of putting solar panels on his one-story house to cut his power bill and "do something good for the environment." But he couldn't see past some dark clouds — the $20,000 to $30,000 purchase price.

"I wanted to do it, but I was choking on what I had to" spend, says the software engineer who lives in Pleasanton, Calif.

Then, a Silicon Valley start-up called Sun Run offered Crawford a way to go green without straining his wallet. Last month, the company installed a 3.8-kilowatt system on his pitched roof for $6,000. Crawford, 62, says he'll immediately save money on his electric bill. Sun Run monitors and maintains the system, replacing worn parts at no extra cost.

It's one of several companies upending solar's traditional business model by supplying systems to homes and businesses at minimal or no cost, owning and maintaining them, and charging customers for the power they use — much like a utility. Yet unlike a utility, these firms typically charge a bit less than standard electric rates.

The setups, called power purchase agreements (PPA), are among several initiatives that aim to overcome solar's obstacles — high upfront costs and design and maintenance hassles — and deliver systems to millions of customers. Several California cities plan to fund home systems with tax-free bonds. Now, utilities are joining in. Southern California Edison on Thursday said it will install panels on about 100 warehouses, running them as it would a power plant. Duke Energy wants to put solar panels on up to 300,000 customer rooftops in the Carolinas.

more from USA Today

Life in the 'Burbs: Heavy Costs for Families, Climate

Millions of Americans have moved to the suburbs in the past 60 years, drawn by the lure of larger houses and cheaper prices. But until recently, few were aware of the impact those choices had on the environment.

Outside metropolitan Atlanta, one of the nation's most congested cities, Michelle Carvalho's dreamhouse is 3,000 square feet. It has five bedrooms, a two-car garage and a big yard.

Her 16-month-old son's day care is 10 minutes away. But Carvalho's real commute, to her job as a cancer prevention researcher at Emory University, can take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, depending on traffic.

The tank in her Nissan Altima holds 20 gallons, and she fills up once every five days or so. So does her husband, Galileu.

When the Carvalhos lived in the city, they only had one car. But when they moved to the suburbs, they needed two. Both get a lot of use. The amount of gasoline they burn is the biggest reason the family's greenhouse gas emissions have more than doubled since they moved.

The average Atlanta resident with a job drives 66 miles every day. In fact, people here drive so much that if you added up every commute and every trip to a store or soccer practice on just one day, you'd get a number that's larger than the distance between the Earth and the sun.

more from NPR

Plan to allow sea to flood Norfolk villages

Large swathes of Norfolk, including six villages, could be flooded under a controversial plan to deal with the effects of climate change.

The proposal would see Britain effectively admit defeat in the battle to maintain coastal defences and around 16,000 acres (25 square miles) of land in the Norfolk Broads would be allowed to flood.

Six villages, hundreds of homes and thousands of acres of farmland would be wiped out over the next 20 to 50 years under the plan put forward by environmental group Natural England.

Villagers who face losing their homes have described it as "devastating" and "horrifying". The area is also one of England's favourite holiday spots.

Experts doubt that coastal defences in the area will stand up to rising sea levels caused by global warming and the plan to "realign the coast" is seen as a less expensive long term option.

The sea would be allowed to breach 15 miles of the north Norfolk coast between Eccles-on-Sea and Winterton and would flood low-lying land to create a new bay.

Seawater would destroy the villages of Eccles, Sea Palling, Waxham, Horsey, Hickling and Potter Heigham along with five fresh water lakes.

Two new "retreated" sea walls would be erected further back from the original coast line.

more from the Telegraph (UK)

Vietnam must improve sea defence in climate change fight

Vietnam will have to upgrade its sea defences to brace for rising ocean levels and stronger typhoons caused by global warming, a senior scientist has said, state media reported Thursday.

The country must spend more than 600 million dollars until 2020 to reinforce and raise sea dykes between central Quang Ngai and southern Kien Giang provinces, the water resources expert said, the official Vietnam News daily reported.

Work is needed on about 520 kilometres (320 miles) of sea dykes and over 320 kilometres of river dykes that are unable to resist flood tides and storms, said Southern Institute of Water Resources director Le Manh Hung.

Vietnam has more too lose from climate change than almost any other country, facing a risk on par with some island-states and low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.

With a 3,200-kilometre coastline and two of the largest low-lying river deltas in the world, Vietnam tops the world's developing countries in the risk it faces from climate change, the World Bank has warned.

"Scientific evidence is now overwhelming" that climate change and rising sea levels are real threats, and the impact on Vietnam would be "potentially catastrophic," the World Bank said in a report last year.

more from AFP

Warming will trigger huge exodus

A rise in sea level due to global warming is expected to affect more than 43 lakh Indians living in the coastal cities of Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata, who are then most likely to migrate to cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune. This is bound to put pressure on these cities, which are already burdened by their growing population.

While predicting this, a social scientist from IIT Madras, Sudhir Chella Rajan, has said he is trying to help prepare people for future exigencies that are likely to be extreme. Rajan notes that the sea level could rise by as much as five metres by the turn of the century.

Meteorological scientists warned that the rising sea level, triggered by climate change, will displace a whopping 125 million people — 10 times more than the human tragedy witnessed during partition in 1947.

Mumbai and Kolkata are at average elevations of 2 to 10 metres. Population from these cities and Chennai may move to big inland cities.

This means Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune and Hyderabad — which will have serious resource constraints by the middle of the century — will have to prepare and accommodate a large number of migrants from the coasts, says Rajan, a US-returned researcher on climate policy who teaches environmental and development economics at the humanities department in IIT Madras.

"Substituting cars with bicycles and improving public transport are among the solutions to prevent the impending tragedy," says Rajan, author of 'Climate Migrants in South Asia: Estimates and Solutions', a paper he has prepared for Greenpeace. The first to move out would be the wealthier and the middle class, including the merchant community.

more from the Times of India

Tonegawa flooding could kill up to 6,300

Up to 6,300 people would die during massive flooding in the Tokyo area if a dyke lining the Tonegawa river were to break, according to a report released by the government's Central Disaster Management Council.

The worst-case scenario in terms of deaths would be a breach of a dyke in Koga, southern Ibaraki Prefecture, coupled with slow evacuation of residents and improperly functioning drainage facilities.

If a dyke broke in Otone, Saitama Prefecture, on the south bank of the Tonegawa river across from Koga, wide areas in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be submerged, killing as many as 2,600 people and stranding up to 1.1 million people, according to the report.

It is the first time the government has compiled a flooding-damage assessment.

Although the death toll would vary depending on the location of flooding and the ability to respond in such a disaster, the report aims at improving countermeasures against massive flooding of urban lowland areas following the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster that swamped New Orleans and other areas on the U.S. southeastern coast.

The council's assessment is based on the assumption that a huge disaster, which would occur once every two centuries, hit the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The scale of rainfall for the scenario was based on records from Typhoon Kathleen in 1947, which left 1,930 people dead or missing. It was the worst storm to hit the metropolitan area after World War II.

If a dyke broke in Koga, water levels would reach 5 meters or higher. There are few tall structures in the area where people could evacuate to safety.

If a dyke broke in Otone, floodwater would likely reach Tokyo's Katsushika Ward in two days, leaving a combined 900 people dead in that ward and neighboring Adachi Ward.

more from the Asahi (Japan)

Isle of Eigg a model of energy self-sufficiency

On the Isle of Eigg, the arrival of the ferry always elicits a flurry of activity. Islanders crowd the pier to greet friends and family or collect letters and parcels from the mainland, some 10 miles away.

At the cozy tearoom by the jetty, kettles boil water for hot drinks and bacon sizzles on the grill.

In the old days, dealing with the sudden rush of customers required careful calculation. A limited power supply produced by the tearoom's diesel generator meant the oven couldn't be switched on at the same time as the dishwasher. The small freezer was switched off at night.

But on Feb. 1, all of Eigg, a spectacularly scenic island off the west coast of Scotland, switched on its own continuous, clean, and renewable energy supply.

Before, electric service was spotty. Residents mostly relied on noisy, expensive diesel generators or mini-hydroelectric generators. Now, the islanders, who number just over 80, enjoy luxuries of modern living that mainlanders take for granted.

"I can use the deep fry and the dishwasher at the same time – it's great!" says Stuart Fergusson, who works at the tearoom. "Before, when the power used to go, I'd have to rush up the hill to the fuse box and jiggle about with it with a half-cooked grilled sandwich on the [grill]. Things are so much better now – we might even buy another freezer!"

The island makes its electricity through a combination of solar panels, wind turbines, and a hydroelectric generator, all scattered strategically across the island and linked in a single grid. Storage batteries provide a backup. Two diesel generators stand ready to provide emergency power.

Each household is allocated a ration of electricity not to exceed a draw of 5 kilowatts (kW) at any time (the equivalent of turning on 50 100-watt light bulbs all at once). Even at the full ration, that's only about one-half to two-thirds the amount used by a household in Britain, though islanders can supplement that with a diesel generator or heat from a wood stove. If the islanders use too much electricity and trip up the system, they will have to pay £20 ($40) to be switched on again. Businesses are allowed a draw of 10 kW. All these conditions were agreed to by the residents.

more from the Christian Science Monitor

One person's sustainable is another person's tacky

Minnesota homeowners who want to install solar panels on their roofs describe the panels as "cool," "forward," "space-age." But "unsightly" is another word that crops up often when they go before neighborhood association boards, some of which ban solar panels in their covenants.

It's a conflict that can put friendly neighbors in an awkward position of public disagreement, but one that is becoming more common as high energy prices and concern about global warming prompt more residents to pursue generating heat and electricity from the sun.

In Eagan, homeowner Bruce Goff lobbied state legislators to introduce a measure that would prevent community associations from banning solar panels. The proposed law, which is unlikely to pass this session, follows the example of half a dozen similar measures enacted in states such as Arizona, New Jersey and Florida.

Goff, who ran into complications with neighbors over a new set of solar panels on his roof, isn't alone. Woodbury resident Chuck Eckberg looked into a $12,000 solar-powered system last summer to heat water in his house in Eagle Valley, a neighborhood of 500 homes, but was chagrined to discover that his community association banned solar panels.

"It was all amiable, but somewhat ironic, since I sit on the board myself, and I had no idea we had a rule against them," Eckberg said.

"I'm kind of sheepish about it."

more from Minnesota Star Tribune

China's Three Gorges Dam: An Environmental Catastrophe?

For over three decades, the Chinese government has dismissed warnings from scientists and environmentalists that its Three Gorges Dam—the world's largest—had the potential of becoming one of China's biggest environmental nightmares. But last fall, denial suddenly gave way to reluctant acceptance that the naysayers were right. Chinese officials staged a sudden about-face, acknowledging for the first time that the massive hydroelectric dam, sandwiched between breathtaking cliffs on the Yangtze River in central China, may be triggering landslides, altering entire ecosystems and causing other serious environmental problems—and, by extension, endangering the millions who live in its shadow.

Government officials have long defended the $24-billion project as a major source of renewable power for an energy-hungry nation and as a way to prevent floods downstream. When complete, the dam will generate 18,000 megawatts of power—eight times that of the U.S.'s Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. But in September, the government official in charge of the project admitted that Three Gorges held "hidden dangers" that could breed disaster. "We can't lower our guard," Wang Xiaofeng, who oversees the project for China's State Council, said during a meeting of Chinese scientists and government reps in Chongqing, an independent municipality of around 31 million abutting the dam. "We simply cannot sacrifice the environment in exchange for temporary economic gain."

The comments appeared to confirm what geologists, biologists and environmentalists had been warning about for years: building a massive hydropower dam in an area that is heavily populated, home to threatened animal and plant species, and crossed by geologic fault lines is a recipe for disaster.

Among the damage wrought: "There's been a lot less rain, a lot more drought, and the potential for increased disease," says George Davis, a tropical medicine specialist at The George Washington University (G.W.) Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who has worked in the Yangtze River Basin and neighboring provinces for 24 years. "When it comes to environmental change, the implementation of the Three Gorges dam and reservoir is the great granddaddy of all changes."

Dam Quake
When plans for the dam were first approved in 1992, human rights activists voiced concern about the people who would be forced to relocate to make room for it. Inhabited for several millennia, the Three Gorges region is now a major part of western China's development boom. To date, the government has ordered some 1.2 million people in two cities and 116 towns clustered on the banks of the Yangtze to be evacuated to other areas before construction, promising them plots of land and small stipends—in some cases as little as 50 yuan, or $7 a month—as compensation.

Chinese and foreign scientists, meanwhile, warned that the dam could endanger the area's remaining residents. Among their concerns: landslides caused by increased pressure on the surrounding land, a rise in waterborne disease, and a decline in biodiversity. But their words fell on deaf ears. Harnessing the power of the Yangtze has been a goal since Nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen first proposed the idea in 1919. Mao Zedong, the father of China's communist revolution, rhapsodized the dam in a poem. The mega- project could not be realized in his lifetime, however, because the country's resources were exhausted by the economic failures of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and then the social upheaval of the Cultural Revolution from the mid-1960s a to the early 1970s. Four decades later, the government resuscitated Mao's plans. The first of the Yangtze's famed gorges—a collection of steep bluffs at a bend in the river—was determined to be the perfect site.

more from Scientific American

Green-Collar Jobs in America's Cities

The movement to make American cities more sustainable, efficient and livable is perhaps the greatest new engine for urban economic growth, innovation and job creation in many decades.

The American Solar Energy Society estimates that in 2006 alone, renewable energy and energy efficiency were responsible for $970 billion in industry revenues and 8.5 million jobs. This number will grow exponentially if our nation commits itself in earnest to reducing carbon emissions and making economy-wide improvements in energy efficiency.

Unfortunately, America’s growing green economy faces a looming labor shortage in sectors like manufacturing, construction and installation. In a 2005 survey by the National Association of Manufacturers, 90 percent of respondents indicated a moderate to severe shortage of qualified, skilled production employees like machinists and technicians. Similarly, the National Renewable Energy Lab has identified a shortage of skills and training as a leading barrier to renewable energy and energy efficiency growth. This labor shortage is only likely to get more severe as baby-boomers skilled in current energy technologies retire; in the power sector, for example, nearly one-quarter of the current workforce will be eligible for retirement in the next five to seven years.

Clearly if America is to rise to the global energy challenge, and capture the economic opportunity it represents, we need to prepare the next generation of Americans for the important work that lies ahead. Green jobs exist, and are growing, in a range of industries and at every skill and wage level. Many are in the skilled trades: manufacturing, construction, operation and maintenance, and installation. Most are “middle-skill” jobs, requiring more education than a high school diploma, but less than a four-year degree. Some are a bridge to high-skill professional jobs or entrepreneurial opportunities; others are perfect entry level or transitional jobs for urban residents looking for a pathway out of poverty. In short, green jobs are the kind of family-supporting jobs that once anchored the American middle class, but in the industries of the future: industries like wind turbine manufacturing, solar panel installation, energy efficiency retrofits, and green building.

more information and the full report are available from The Center for American Progress"

Sycamore House

Fuel cells energizing homes in Japan

Masanori Naruse jogs every day, collects miniature cars and feeds birds in his backyard, but he's proudest of the way his home and 2,200 others in Japan get electricity and heat water — with power generated by a hydrogen fuel cell.

The technology, which draws energy from the chemical reaction when hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water, is more commonly seen in futuristic cars with tanks of hydrogen instead of gasoline, whose combustion is a key culprit in pollution and global warming.

Developers say fuel cells for homes produce one-third less of the pollution that causes global warming than conventional electricity generation does.

"I was a bit worried in the beginning whether it was going to inconvenience my family or I wouldn't be able to take a bath," said the 45-year-old businessman, who lives with his wife, Tomoko, and two children, 12 and 9. But, as head of a construction company, he was naturally interested in new technology for homes.

Tomoko Naruse, 40, initially worried the thing would explode, given all she had heard about the dangers of hydrogen.

"Actually, you forget it's even there," her husband said.

Their plain gray fuel cell is about the size of a suitcase and sits just outside their door next to a tank that turns out to be a water heater. In the process of producing electricity, the fuel cell gives off enough warmth to heat water for the home.

more from the AP

Barrier will protect London to ‘end of century’

The Thames Barrier will continue to protect London from North Sea storm surges for the rest of this century, even if global warming accelerates and sea level rises faster than expected, the Environment Agency says in a new study.

Later this spring ITV viewers will be presented with a dystopian vision of the capital submerged by a catastrophic storm surge at a cost of thousands of lives and billions of pounds in damage when the channel shows Flood, its £15m ($30m) disaster film.

However, the agency, which runs the 25-year-old barrier, says such a scenario is impossible, both now and for the foreseeable future.

Sarah Lavery, head of the agency’s Thames Estuary 2100 project, said a recent flood prediction exercise “took the most intense wind and pressure fields ever recorded in the North Sea, combined with the highest astronomical tide on the record, and could not produce a scenario that defeated the current defences”.

The TE2100 project is due to report to the government in 2009 on measures that will be needed over the next 90 years to manage flood risk in the Thames Estuary.

more from the Financial Times (UK)

A poisoned paradise: water water everywhere

In the middle of South-east Asia's largest freshwater lake – Cambodia's Tonle Sap – lives "Hot Sam". The 55-year-old fisherman crouches in his self-built home, a shack, buoyed on a bed of bamboo and anchored to the lake bed two metres beneath him.

As he bobs above the murky water, rickety motorboats full of tourists chug past taking pictures. Gazing across his ramshackle fiefdom, Hot Sam opens his mouth and flashes a brown smile of rotten teeth.

The grinning gaze takes in the remarkable scene of the floating villages of Chong Khneas, one of the highlights of the country's burgeoning tourist industry and a natural, watery spectacle of abundance. On the surface, Tonle Sap and its natural resources ought to be a rich provider for its residents. And unsurprisingly for a fisherman living in a floating village, water is at the centre of everything in life for Hot Sam and his sizeable family. Their drinking water comes straight from the lake and the fisherman describes their little precautionary ritual before they drink it. The family collects the water, they then let it settle and drink it.

This is the same water in which they freely defecate, the same water in which they wash and the same shrinking body of water upon which they depend for livelihood. The population pressure which he has helped to create – with 11 family members – is making the pollution problem worse and helping to drive down the fish stocks on which they all rely. The spectre of climate change is starting to make itself felt in the low water levels and the precariousness of life is starkly apparent – even the houses' anchor lines are shaken as they get snagged in the propellers of passing boats.

"The weather now changes every year and we have no idea what to expect," bemoans Sam. "The rainy season is much more irregular than it was 15 years ago. Our catch of fish is worse than ever. We have less to sell on once we have fed ourselves, and we have to go further to get the same amount. Everything is getting harder and harder."

The floating villages which were originally set up as a place of refuge from the genocidal madness of the Khmer Rouge find that their fate has come to reflect the less gruesome but nonetheless deadly challenges facing Cambodia now.

more from the Independent UK

Farm chemicals hard on environment, wallets

Evidence continues to mount that there is no real conflict between protecting the environment and a strong economy. A case in point is the results of Canada's oldest organic-conventional cropping study. It shows that organic farming systems that use no farm chemicals use less energy, emit less greenhouse gases and make farmers more money.

Summary results from the first eight years of the study, which started in 1992 in Glenlea, Man., show organic systems had the lowest cost of production and the highest net returns for all crop rotations, even though the organic systems were less productive.

It was also found that the conventional forage system in the study consumed approximately 2.2 times as much non-renewable energy as the organic forage system, while the conventional annual crop system used consumed approximately 2.8 times as much energy as the organic annual system.

When comparing the conventional and organic systems within rotations, the conventional forage system produced approximately twice as much CO2, the most important greenhouse gas, as the organic forage system. The conventional annual system produced approximately 2.5 times as much CO2 as the organic annual system.

more from the Saskatoon Star Phoenix

Green Buildings May Be Cheapest Way to Slow Global Warming

North American homes, offices and other buildings contribute an estimated 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year—more than one third of the continent's greenhouse gas pollution output. Simply constructing more energy-efficient buildings—and upgrading the insulation and windows in the existing ones—could save a whopping 1.7 billion tons annually, says a new report from the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), an international organization established by Canada, Mexico and the U.S. under the North American Free Trade Agreement to address continent-wide environmental issues.

"This is the cheapest, quickest, most significant way to make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions," says Jonathan Westeinde, chief executive of green developer Windmill Development Group in Ottawa, Ontario, and chair of the CEC report (who admits that green building regulations would be good for his business). But "buildings are not on the radar of any governments … despite being an industry that represents 35 percent of greenhouse gas emissions."

The report echoes the findings last year of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which identified building improvements as one way to reduce global warming pollution with "net economic benefit."

more from Scientific American

Water in Dams, Reservoirs Preventing Sea-Level Rise

Dams and reservoirs have stored so much water over the past several decades that they have masked surging sea levels, a new study says.

But dam building has slowed, meaning sea levels could rise more quickly than researchers predicted in a 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

Sea levels have been rising for decades, due mostly to global warming caused by greenhouse gases.

The oceans are on average about 6.3 inches (16 centimeters) higher now than in 1930, when they started a noticeable upward climb. Melting glaciers and ice caps, along with ocean warming—water expands as it heats up—are the main culprits behind the increase.

But the new study shows that reservoirs are also an important factor. Rather than adding to sea-level rise, however, they have counteracted it by storing more water on land.

Since 1930 the storage of water has prevented a total of about 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) of sea-level rise.

more from National Geographic

Catching the History of Key West

At the Eaton Street Seafood Market in the historic district of Key West, Fla., a long glass case displayed a who’s who of the city’s seafood scene: plump piles of pinks (the local shrimp) snuggled next to a yellowtail snapper, a mound of stone crab claws and fresh slabs of grouper. I’d come to eat my way through Key West’s delicacies, and here was my map.

But I wasn’t there just to taste. I was there to learn, to unravel a bit of the city’s history, culture and lore, using the local seafood as my guide. Good eats, with a window into the city’s past and present.

My first lesson, it turned out, would prove to be the most important. “I’m the only surviving specimen,” said Harvey Watkins, Eaton Street’s stone crab supplier, as we stood in the quiet little market, the crash and thrum of nearby Duval Street seemingly miles away. “I’m the last commercial fisherman in the old Key West harbor.”

It’s a story that Eaton Street Market’s owners, Andrea Morgan and Sean Seaman, know well — and the reason they opened their shop last year. They want to sell fresh seafood caught by local fisherman, and buck the import trend they say is killing the local fishing industry. They also want to ensure that their customers get the real deal.

“Tourists come through and say, ‘Well, I can buy grouper in Chicago,’ ” Mr. Seaman said, shaking his head. “No, you can’t. It’s probably something else.”

For travelers looking to soak up some sunshine and sample the local bounty, a bag of stone crab claws from Eaton Street could well be Shangri-La. “People come in and want to go to Mallory Square or Fort Zach and have a picnic,” Mr. Seaman said as he cracked open a crab and handed me the “lollipop,” the lump claw meat.

Dipped in a housemade mustard sauce, the result was delicious — rich and meaty, like Alaskan king crab, but with more give. Starting at around $14 a pound, the claws are expensive, but buying them to go at Eaton Street costs less than half of what you’d pay in a sit-down restaurant.

more from the NY Times

Government Reports Warn Planners on Sea-Rise Threat to U.S. Coasts

A rise in sea levels and other changes fueled by global warming threaten roads, rail lines, ports, airports and other important infrastructure, and policy makers and planners should be acting now to avoid or mitigate their effects, according to new government reports.

While increased heat and “intense precipitation events” threaten these structures, the greatest and most immediate potential impact is coastal flooding, according to one of the reports, by an expert panel convened by the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

Another study, a multiagency effort led by the Environmental Protection Agency, sounds a similar warning on infrastructure but adds that natural features like beaches, wetlands and fresh-water supplies are also threatened by encroaching saltwater.

The reports are not the first to point out that rising seas, inevitable in a warming world, are a major threat. In a report last September, the Miami-Dade County Climate Change Task Force noted that a two-foot rise by the year 2100, the prediction of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “would make life in South Florida very difficult for everyone.”

more from the NY Times

more from the National Academy of Sciences

Solar water heating an untapped resource

Solar water heating has a massive potential to reduce households' greenhouse gas emissions but red tape and uncertain grants mean this is almost entirely untapped, according to a new report.

The report, which used Government figures, found that solar water heating could provide around a quarter of the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions required from households over the next 40 years to tackle climate change.

This was the equivalent of taking nearly 4 million cars off the road, said the report, which comes as the Government is due to announce a restructuring of incentives for "micro-generation" in the Budget.

Written by Nick Radford, a former parliamentary researcher, for the West Country company Soltrac, it estimates that solar water heating – distinct from photovoltaic panels which generate electricity - can provide 60-70 per cent of the average household's hot water needs over a year.

This would give average annual financial savings of £232 a year for the average household and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 665 kg a year.

more from the Telegraph (UK)

What to do if everyone can't run for the hills?

The obvious thing to do if a tsunami comes is head for the hills -- as quickly as your feet will take you.

But what about in Bandon, where almost half the people in the area likely to be underwater are older than 65 and may not find it so easy?

What about unincorporated Clatsop County, where two child day cares and two adult care facilities are in the inundation zone?

What about coastal state parks, where thousands of people camping and swimming on any summer day may know little about tsunamis, let alone where to run?

A new analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey examines such vulnerabilities of Oregon coastal cities. It considers how much of each community's area, population and facilities are within an inundation zone, and how large a toll damage may take on each community as a whole.

It also identifies specific points that may be overlooked in standard disaster plans. Local officials say the assessment will help them design effective response plans and explain to residents why it's vital to prepare for a tsunami.

Seaside is identified as by far the most vulnerable city on the Oregon coast. That comes as no surprise to local planners who know that most residents and facilities, including popular hotels, sit on flats exposed to big tsunami waves.

Gearhart, Warrenton, Cannon Beach and Rockaway Beach come next on the list of vulnerable communities.

The makeup and exposure of such cities may have as much to do with how they weather tsunamis as the tsunami itself, said Nathan Wood, a USGS research geographer in Vancouver who completed the analysis.

For instance, many low-income families in New Orleans were exposed to the wrath of Hurricane Katrina in part because they did not have the means to escape. Evacuation plans must be tailored to local conditions, he said, so emergency crews know where and how to help people in long-term care centers, for instance.

"It's not really fair that you'd expect them to react the same way as 20-year-olds who can run for the hills," Wood said.

In the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, the proportion of fatalities was greatest among children and older adults.

more from the Oregonian

Portland's next 'green' challenge? Driving less, scholar says

Portland and Perth are birds of a feather.

Peter Newman, an environmental scientist and professor from that bustling southwest Australian city, has studied the growth patterns of both urban areas.

He notes that both are on pioneering west coasts, off the beaten path. Each had strong natural resource industries but more recently has focused on growth management and building alternative modes of transportation -- especially passenger rail systems.

"We are growing, both of us, but growing in a new way, growing in a way that can show the world that you can actually reduce fossil fuels whilst improving the quality of life," Newman said last week.

Newman visited Portland while gathering research for his next book on sustainability and urban growth. He spoke with The Oregonian before his lunchtime speech at the Metro Regional Center.

Here are excerpts, edited for length and clarity.

Most people tend to think of cities as being divorced from the natural environment. How can a city be a "sustainable" place?

We define sustainability in cities as reducing the ecological footprint whilst improving its livability. The ecological footprint is something that comes from the impact on the natural environment and the impact from the resources we consume. We're robbing from the atmosphere and the agricultural regions.

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To Feed the Birds, First Feed the Bugs

Doug Tallamy and his wife, Cindy, built their house seven years ago in the middle of 10 acres of former hayfields.

But they don’t sit inside much. Most of their spare time is spent cutting Oriental bittersweet and Japanese honeysuckle out of cherry and oak trees. They saw down thickets of autumn olive and multiflora rose and paint the cut stems with an herbicide that goes down into the roots and kills them.

The land was so thick with multiflora rose that they couldn’t walk, so Mr. Tallamy cut paths with hand loppers. They work with handsaws, not a chain saw. And they paint on the herbicide, rather than spraying it, because they don’t want to damage the treasures below: under those thorny rose bushes might be seedlings of black oak, Florida dogwood, black gum or arrowwood viburnum, which, if protected from deer, could flourish in the cleared space.

A meadow cleared of autumn olive can resprout with goldenrod, joe-pye weed, milkweed, black-eyed Susans and many other natives crucial to wildlife.

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Mental health crisis plagues New Orleans

Bernel Johnson showed all the signs.

He was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as aggressive, homeless and schizophrenic. He was kicked out of a Salvation Army homeless shelter late last year for holding a fork to a fellow resident's throat. On Jan. 4, Johnson was committed to a psychiatric facility for causing a disturbance at a bank. He was released and, a few weeks later, attacked New Orleans police Officer Nicola Cotton, 24, in a parking lot.

Johnson wrestled Cotton's service handgun from her and shot her 15 times, killing the officer, police said. Johnson remains in jail without bond, charged with first-degree murder.

New Orleans health and law enforcement officials say more cases such as this could unfold if the city's mental health crisis isn't resolved soon. Since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city 2½ years ago, the number of public mental health facilities and community outreach centers has decreased dramatically, leaving the mentally ill without medication and monitoring.

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Study: Phys ed may boost girls' academic achievement

Time spent in physical education does not detract from elementary school students' ability to excel in the classroom and may even help improve girls' academic performance, a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

School administrators say that as pressure increases for students to perform well in reading and math, time for extracurricular activities such as physical education is reduced.

The new study is unique because it confirms on a national level what some smaller, localized studies have concluded, says CDC epidemiologist Susan Carlson, the paper's first author. Published online in the Journal of American Public Health, the study indicates that trimming physical education programs may not be the best way to raise test scores in schools.

Using public data, researchers tracked the reading and math skills of more than 5,000 students between kindergarten and fifth grade as shown on a series of standardized tests. They discovered that girls who received the highest levels of physical education, or 70 to 300 minutes a week, scored consistently higher on the tests than those who spent less than 35 minutes a week.

Though they found no significant change in academic achievement for boys, Carlson speculated that a higher level of physical activity might be needed to yield the same result because boys are commonly more active than girls.

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California cows to supply renewable gas energy

California is blessed with many renewable sources of energy, from surging Sierra rivers to strong coastal winds.

Now, add another source to that list - cow manure.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will unveil its latest renewable energy project today, a system that collects methane from manure on a Fresno County dairy farm and refines it into biogas, virtually identical to natural gas. The biogas then flows into a PG&E natural gas pipeline for use in homes and power plants.

The San Francisco utility gets a new source of fuel. The farm gets a new source of income. And the methane, a potent greenhouse gas, stays out of the atmosphere.

Other farmers have tried capturing methane and burning it on site to create electricity. But those systems tend to be expensive and inefficient, said David Albers. He is both the president of the company that built the new system, BioEnergy Solutions, and a partner in Vintage Dairy, whose 5,000 cows will supply the manure.

"This makes much more sense," Albers said. "We're not generating electricity at all. PG&E's doing that."

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