Biology
Breach
March 17, 2011, from Twin Falls Times-News
BOISE -- An Idaho House committee supported Wednesday a move to seal off more data related to confined-animal feeding operations from the public eye, making it harder for the public to tell if state regulations are enforced.
A bill proposed by Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, would put all dairy nutrient management plans -- and related proprietary business information -- out of the public's eye.
The plans essentially detail what becomes of animal waste produced at the dairies, which if not properly disposed of can pollute groundwater and soils.
March 17, 2009, from Reuters
Heavy air pollution can have immediate effects on the heart and blood vessels, but a simple facemask may offer some protection, new research suggests.
In one study, researchers found that when young men were exposed to air polluted with diesel exhaust, their arteries temporarily stiffened.
Meanwhile, a second study showed that healthy adults had higher blood pressure and a less healthy heart-rate pattern when they walked through the streets of Beijing without a facemask.
The good news, the study found, was that the cardiovascular effects were diminished when volunteers donned a facemask like those worn by construction workers to keep from breathing dust.
March 17, 2009, from Montreal Gazette
An international group of scientists is calling on Canada and other countries to bring in tougher safety standards for cellphone use after a Swedish team found a fivefold elevated risk of malignant brain tumours in children who begin using mobile phones before the age of 20.
The plea — and the science underlying it — is published in the forthcoming edition of Pathophysiology, devoted to peer-reviewed research about the biological effects of the global explosion of wireless technologies and devices like cellphones, cordless phones, wireless Internet and cell towers.
The findings of 15 studies from health researchers in six different countries, looking at the effects of electromagnetic fields and radio frequency radiation on living cells and on the health of humans, should jolt government agencies into action as a precautionary measure, Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health & the Environment at the University at Albany, and one of the co-authors, said in an interview.
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Climate
Chaos
March 17, 2011, from Greenwire
The Christian Coalition of America came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, not to proselytize or discuss issues like abortion or gay marriage, but to talk about the United States' energy policy and the need to end the country's dependence on foreign oil....Announcing the event, the coalition said in a statement, "We believe that there needs to be a conservative discussion on a national energy policy that speaks to the values of energy independence, national security, prosperity, family and stewardship. That is why we are sponsoring this discussion."... Other speakers who addressed the group were C. Boyden Gray...Gray said, "The United States is drowning in substitutes for oil."
He said the country must become more reliant on natural gas, which is plentiful in the United States, to become less dependent on oil.
March 17, 2011, from Scientific American
Congress has finally acted on global warming--by denying it exists. It's in the grand lawmaking tradition of the Indiana state legislature's 1897 attempt to redefine the value of pi.
The Republican-led House of Representatives is currently working on the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, which would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate climate change.
In the House Energy and Commerce Committee, California Democrat Henry Waxman had proposed an amendment calling on Congress to at least acknowledge that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," just as abundant scientific evidence confirms.
But on Tuesday, March 15, all the committee's Republicans voted down that amendment, as well as two others acknowledging the threat of climate change to public well-being.
March 17, 2011, from CBC
Coastal communities along P.E.I.'s North Shore need to prepare themselves for the impacts from climate change, a watershed management group was told Tuesday night.
About two dozen residents gathered at the North Rustico Lions Club to hear a panel of experts discuss how climate change will hit North Shore communities.
Flooding from storm surges, a combination of high tides and water driven on shore by strong winds, was a major focus of the meeting.
"We're going to see bigger storm surges and they're going to occur more frequently," said Erin Taylor, climate change coordinator for the provincial Department of Environment.
Taylor said storm surges like the one the North Shore saw on Dec. 21, in the 3.6-metre range, currently come about once every 20 years. By the 2050s, they are expected to happen once every two years.
March 17, 2009, from Associated Press
Eight Senate Democrats are opposing speedy action on President Barack Obama's bill to combat global warming, complicating prospects for the legislation and creating problems for their party's leaders.
The eight Democrats disapprove of using the annual budget debate to pass Obama's "cap and trade" bill to fight greenhouse gas emissions, a measure that divides lawmakers, environmentalists and businesses. The lawmakers' opposition makes it more difficult for Democratic leaders to move the bill without a threat of a Republican filibuster.
The budget debate is the only way to circumvent Senate rules that allow a unified GOP to stop a bill through filibusters.
March 17, 2009, from PNAS, via Mongabay
The probability of Earth's climate passing a "tipping point" that could result in large impacts within the next two centuries is greater than 50 percent, according to research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.... [T]he authors calculate a 16 percent chance that climate change will trigger at least one of the events for a 2-4 degree C rise in temperature, and a 56 percent change for a 4 degree C or higher rise.... Of the events, the experts pegged melting of the Greenland ice sheet as the most likely to occur (60 percent for a 4-8 degree C rise in temperature). An ice-free Greenland would raise sea levels by more than 23 feet (7 meters).
The likelihood of a permanent el Nino -- which would trigger changes in rainfall and temperature around the global -- or a catastrophic die-off (more than 50 percent) of the Amazon rainforest was estimated at about 50 percent under a high warming scenario.
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Resource
Depletion
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Recovery
March 17, 2009, from BBC
Green guru James Lovelock claims that the only hope of mitigating catastrophic climate change is through biochar -- biomass "cooked" by pyrolysis.
It produces gas for energy generation, and charcoal -- a stable form of carbon.
The charcoal is then buried in the ground, making the process "carbon negative".
Researchers say biochar can also improve farm productivity and cut demand for carbon-intensive fertilisers.
There's a flurry of worldwide interest in the technology, but is the hype justified?...Proponents of the technology say it is so effective at storing carbon that it should be included in the next global climate agreement.
March 17, 2009, from Globe and Mail (Canada)
Although negative views about fish consumption are almost never expressed, a group of medical and fisheries experts is making an argument against eating the seafood in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
In an analysis being released Tuesday, they say that the purported benefits of fish for such things as cardiovascular health have been overstated, while the growing demand among health aficionados for the food is destroying global fish stocks.... "The demand for fish is higher than what oceans can supply," said Rashid Sumaila, acting director of the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Centre, who predicted that many of the world's most important fisheries are going the way of Newfoundland's exhausted cod stocks.
March 17, 2009, from SciDev.net
Renewable energy could play a much larger role in supplying the world's energy needs than previously estimated — but it won't come cheap, according to a new study.
The research, presented at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, this week (11 March) says that renewable energy could supply 40 per cent of the world's energy needs by 2050.... If renewable technologies were given the same government attention and financial backing as nuclear energy was in the 1970s and 80s wind energy and solar power would cost the same as traditional electricity generation by 2020–2025 and 2030 respectively, said Lund. But such ambitious targets require substantial financial investment, Lund warned. The technologies would require global support of US$12.8 billion to US$25.5 billion per year and without this backing wind and solar energy would contribute less than 15 per cent of the world's energy output.
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