How long will fossil fuel companies 'wag the dog?'

  

Dependancy on fossil fuels doubled from 1980 to present. That is a weakening not only of the climate of Earth, but, the USA national security. By being dependant on energy supplies the USA does not control to the tune of 60%, the USA has been placed in a position of vulnerability.

Al Gore in Madrid


EU Demands Lower Limits on CO2 emissions by auto manufacturers

China to Research Global Warming

  

(AP) -- China will spend more to research global warming but lacks the money and technology to significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are worsening the problem, a government official said Tuesday.


China tightens controls on greenhouse gas emissions

Between 1991 and 2005, China reduced its consumption of standard coal for energy by 800 million tons, resulting in 1.8-billion-ton decrease in carbon dioxide emissions, Qin Dahe, director of the Central Meteorological Bureau said at a press conference at the State Council Information Office on Tuesday morning.

In response to reporters' questions about how China intends to control greenhouse gas emissions, Qin said that that the Chinese government has established a target for local energy consumption in its 11th Five-Year Plan as part of the National Economic and Social Development Program. Accordingly, local governments must reduce their energy consumption levels by 20 percent based on what they were at the end of the 10th Five-Year Plan period. China is adopting a series of measures to make sure this goal is achieved.

Indonesia: Floods in DKI Jakarta Province, updated 07 Feb 2007 Emergency Situation Report No. 4

  


Type of Emergency

Floods, triggered by heavy seasonal rain.

Background

150 mm heavy rains down poured Bogor, Depok and southern parts of Jakarta since Tuesday, 23 January, caused Ciliwung River and Pesanggrahan River to overflow. More than 70,000 houses in Jakarta, Tangerang and Bekasi were flooded. The water level ranged from 10 centimeters to 5 meters.

Caption: Floods inundated building and roads, paralyzed Jakarta for days.

The city's flood crisis centre reported that the floods affected estimated 80 districts in Jakarta. It blocked roads and railways in Jakarta and thousands of people abandoned their homes in low-lying areas as torrential downpours virtually paralyzed the Indonesian capital on Friday, 2 February 2007.

Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash-floods each year in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands, where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile plains.

Affected Areas

(Please see attached map of the flood affected areas).

Current Situation

The state-owned power firm PT PLN was forced to shutdown some power plants in Jakarta and Tangerang because of the floods. The floods have disrupted the distribution of fuel and basic commodities. Communications have also been affected as the water submerged hundreds of base transceiver stations in JABODETABEK (Jakarta-Bogor-Depok-Tangerang-Bekasi). Supply of clean water, as tap water, has been cut off in flood affected areas. In some areas, flood victims have been in need of food, clothes, and alternate accommodations, while in others flood victims remained trapped in their houses. Scarce availability of transportation vehicles has restricted food distribution to a number of flood hit areas. (OCHA Field Situation Report 2).

Within this week, as reported by local media, BMG informed that heavy rain would continue until the next few days in the areas of Jakarta – Bogor – Depok – Tangerang – Bekasi (JABODETABEK). There are also possibilities of landslides in some areas due to heavy rains.

Full_Report (pdf* format - 164.8 Kbytes)

Jakarta on health alert over floods

  

Flood waters receded in parts of Indonesia's capital on Tuesday, but huge areas remained submerged and officials were on guard for outbreaks of disease among the estimated 340,000 people displaced.
Businesses and officials were also trying to assess the economic impact of the floods, which have caused power blackouts, cut telecommunications and made many key roads impassable.

Tini Suryanti of the Jakarta health department said medical staff were trying to focus on sanitation to prevent disease.

"We must be alert over cockroaches and rats. People should clean themselves with soap."

Supplies of antibiotics were running low in the city, the Jakarta Post newspaper reported.

The floods have killed at least 36 people, Jakarta police spokesman, Ketut Untung Yoga Ana said by telephone. Most had either drowned or been electrocuted.

He said flooding in areas of the city – which together with the suburbs is estimated to have a population of 14 million – near the Ciliwung river had not improved.

"Other areas which are outside the passage of rivers are getting better," the police spokesman said.

Weather clearing

The city's downtown appeared to be relatively flood-free on Tuesday, although muddy flood water can appear and recede quickly as run-off from upland areas runs into rivers in the city.

Dian, a fitness instructor, said she was forced out of her home on the outskirts of Jakarta in the middle of the night this week by sudden floods. She is now staying with her brother.

"The water came in so fast, I kept imagining what a tsunami would be like," said the mother of a one-year-old girl, who like many Indonesians uses one name.

There was more heavy rain overnight in Jakarta, although the weather brightened on Tuesday. Massive traffic jams continued in some areas and several train stations were flooded.

Mohamad Sulistyo of the flood crisis center said flood water remained up to 3 meters (10 ft) deep in the Kampung Melayu district in the east of the capital.

"Jakarta has 44 districts and 40 are flooded," he said, without elaborating on the definition of flooded.

In some supermarkets there has been panic buying of essentials, while the US embassy advised its citizens to keep adequate supplies of food and drinking water at home.

There has been some concern the floods could fan inflation, but the central bank as expected lowered its key interest rate on Tuesday, the ninth reduction in less than a year.

The rupiah and Jakarta stocks have also been fairly steady.

Indonesia's chief economics minister Boediono told reporters on Monday that he did not see a long-term impact from the floods on Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

"This is a temporary disruption," he said.

Power black outs from the floods have caused candles and power generators to sell out in many stores.

The insurance industry may face claims in excess of 400 billion rupiah ($44.15 million) from the floods, the Jakarta Post quoted the head of Indonesia's General Insurance Association as saying. Most Indonesians do not have insurance cover.

Source: Reuters

Exxon tied to payoff to rap global warming

A think tank partly funded by Exxon Mobil offered $10,000 to U.S. scientists if they would criticize a major global-warming study's findings, a report says.
The U.N. study, released Friday, said for the first time global warming was "unequivocal" and likely caused by burning fossil fuels.

The American Enterprise Institute sent letters offering scientists $10,000, plus travel and other expenses, to highlight the shortcomings in the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change study, CNN reports.

The memo asked scientists to "highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC process, especially as it bears on potential policy responses to climate change," CNN said.

The intent of the letter seemed to be to criticize the United Nations report in the eyes of the public, outside the normal review process for scientific work, the Bulldog Reporter public-relations newsletter said Tuesday.

AEI said Exxon accounted for less than 1 percent of the think tank's annual budget. It also said a $10,000 payment for scientific work was not unusual.

But Don Wuebbles, an atmospheric-sciences professor at the University of Illinois, said: "To me this is really amazing. You never get offered that kind of money. Even if groups ask you to write things, they don't try to give you the answer beforehand."

© 2007 UPI

Group of Rare Vultures Found in Cambodia

  

In this photo released by WCS Cambodia Program, an endangered slender-billed vulture sits in its net on a tree at the forest in Stung Treng province in Cambodia Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007. Researchers working in the remote forests of Cambodia said Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2007 they have discovered the only known colony in Asia of Slender-billed vulture, which are considered one of the world's most threatened bird species. (AP Photo/WCS Program, HO)


By MICHAEL CASEY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 7, 2007; 8:33 AM

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Researchers in the remote forests of Cambodia said Wednesday they have discovered the only known colony in Southeast Asia of slender-billed vultures and scores of other endangered birds. The colony was discovered last month in the jungles east of the Mekong River in Cambodia's Stung Treng Province.

"We discovered the nests on top of a hill where two other vulture species were also found," said Song Chansocheat, manager of the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project. The government project is supported by the World Conservation Society, BirdLife International, the World Wildlife Fund, the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

"Amazingly, there were also a host of other globally threatened species of birds and primates," Song Chansocheat said in a statement. "It's a very special place."

The area was also found to be home to several other species listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union, including the white-rumped vulture, according to the New York-based WCS.

The team also spotted a red-headed vulture, giant ibis and an endangered primate called a silvered langur, or leaf monkey.

Researchers said slender-billed vultures have been found in other parts of Southeast Asia but that the only other known colony until now was in northern India. They are believed extinct in many parts of Southeast Asia, including Thailand.

Soon after the discovery, Song's team set up measures to protect against poaching and egg collecting, and are now working with local communities to ensure that they are involved in longer-term conservation measures.

"We already have a successful WCS model working in the northern plains where local people benefit from conservation activities," he said. "I think we have a good chance of making it work here if we can find the support."

The Slender-billed vulture is one of several vulture species in Asia that have been driven to the brink of extinction in the past 12 years after eating cattle carcasses tainted with diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory painkiller that's given to sick cows and is highly toxic to vultures.

Diclofenac has lead to global population declines as high as 99 percent in slender-billed and other vulture species, especially in India. Diclofenac is now being slowly phased out in South Asia, but not at a pace that assures the recovery of the vultures.

Because diclofenac is almost entirely absent from use in Cambodia, the WCS said the country remains one of the main hopes for the survival of the species. Even so, the birds face numerous other threats, including lack of food due to the over-hunting of large-bodied mammals, loss of habitat, and poaching.

___

On the Net:

The Wildlife Conservation Society: http://www.wcs.org/international/Asia/Cambodi a

Only one whooping crane chick survives Fla. storms

  

Texas has the largest surviving population of Whooping Cranes (click on). The initative in Florida was an attempt to establish a WILD population there.


By Carol J. Williams

February 7, 2007

MIAMI -- The fate of a generation of endangered migratory whooping cranes now rides on the fragile wings of a 10-month-old chick known as No. 15.
He is the sole survivor of the Class of 2006, 18 crane hatchlings that followed four costumed ultra-light aircraft from Wisconsin to Florida wintering grounds in December as part of a project to introduce a second migrating population to North America.

Conservationists with Operation Migration had originally feared all of the brood had perished in the storm that killed 20 people in central Florida on Friday and put hundreds of residents from their homes.

But No. 15, a male chick, managed to break loose from a top-netted pen Friday when deadly tornadoes struck and killed his 17 flock mates.

A bracelet-like radio transmitter attached to the crane's leg sent out signals over the weekend, said Joan Garland of the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wis.

Just before nightfall Sunday, an aerial search team of ICF volunteers spotted No. 15 safely amid a flock of sand hill and older whooping cranes in the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge on the swampy Gulf Coast, about 90 miles north of Tampa.



Generation lost
"What a bright spot he is in this sad time," said Joe Duff, a founder of Operation Migration and one of the ultralight pilots who guide each year's brood from their summer habitat at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin.
"We've lost a whole generation."

Scientists and wildlife conservationists dedicated to preserving the birds that numbered only 15 in 1940 try to stay aloof from their wards. They refrain from naming the birds to reinforce the idea that they are not pets but wild creatures, said Duff.

"Still, you get attached," he said.

No. 15 and his 2006 classmates were a story of success against all odds.

A snowstorm a year ago disrupted breeding at Maryland's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center for a month. Despite the late hatching and return of the fledglings to Wisconsin, Operation Migration managed to get a flock of 18 trained in time to trail the ultra-lights on the trip south that started in October.

Inclement weather along the migration route slowed the birds' journey to Chassahowitzka from the usual 50 days to 78, yet all 18 made it there safely.

No. 15 dropped out on the last leg of the journey but was spotted two days later and reunited with the flock.

Then Friday's tornadoes wiped out a year of work to bolster the cranes' population, which numbers fewer than 500 across North America and only 64 now in the Wisconsin-Florida flock.

Wildlife biologists aren't sure exactly how the birds were killed. They suspect a lightning strike during the ferocious weather that raged across central Florida before dawn.

Or the birds might have been drowned if trapped by the net during a storm surge brought on by 165-mph winds, Duff speculated.

The crane carcasses have been sent to the University of Florida at Gainesville for necropsies to be carried out with a grant from the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund, said Jim Kraus, the Chassahowitzka refuge manager.

He said the conservationists might rethink the practice of covering the newly arrived chicks' territory with netting.



Fight for food
Crane foundation monitors at the refuge feed the first-timers pellet food until they learn to forage for themselves. But older cranes in the refuge began harassing the younger ones to get at their food, which prompted project organizers a couple of years ago to extend netting over the youngsters until they were strong enough to be released into a larger, uncovered 5-acre pen, said Garland.
The 17 that died Friday were within a few weeks of graduating from the covered pen, which is only about 150 feet wide, she said.

Being the only survivor of his generation shouldn't affect No. 15's breeding potential, the crane advocates said.

Generally monogamous, whooping cranes don't mate until they are about 5 years old and often pair off with a bird from a previous or subsequent generation.

"He's been led on migration once, so he has an idea where he's going," Duff said of No. 15. "I expect we will see him in Wisconsin in the spring."



Carol J. Williams writes for the Los Angeles Times.
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