Thu 1 Sep 2005

Climate change blamed as birds fail to breed

JAMES REYNOLDS
ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT

SEABIRDS have suffered an appalling breeding season around much of
Scotland's coast, research from three of the country's leading
conservation organisations has shown.

Drastic reductions in the number of sand eels, the staple food source
of many birds, has caused major failures of certain species.

Experts on reserves run by the Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds (RSPB), National Trust for Scotland (NTS) and Scottish Wildlife
Trust say the problem has spread this year to western reserves such
as those on Tiree, St Kilda and Canna.

Guillemots, razorbills and Arctic tern have been hard hit, with the
most recent survey on Tiree showing only four guillemot chicks at
Ceann a' Mhara, from a total of 2,173 birds. In a normal year, there
would be about 1,500 chicks in this colony.

On St Kilda, owned and run by the NTS, there was a spectacular
breeding failure for puffins, with only 26 per cent of burrows
producing chicks, compared with a normal figure of 71 per cent.
The kittiwake colony on Canna was another notable casualty, with
barely five chicks fledged out of a population of 1,000 pairs.
For the first time, conservation groups believe climate change may be
a significant factor in the lack of breeding success, as it has a
major influence on Scotland's sea systems and, consequently, on the
birds' prey.

In broad terms, it seems the species that nest early, such as certain
types of gull, fared best, and those that breed later, such as
kittiwakes, Arctic terns, guillemots, razorbills and puffins, fared
worst. This year the shortage of sand eels has forced some species to
find alternative food sources, including juvenile white fish, such as
pollock, which are less nutritious for chicks.

Stuart Housden, the director of RSPB Scotland, said: "We need to
monitor closely their feeding habits to see what effect this has on
their breeding success in future. This is the first time the west has
been affected and we can only speculate as to why, but climate change
must be considered as a factor."

He went on: "Seabirds are excellent barometers of the state of the
marine environment, and we must do all we can to conserve these
iconic species."

Richard Luxmoore, the head of nature conservation at the NTS,
said: "Scotland has around 45 per cent of all the seabirds in the EU
nesting on its coasts and we have an international responsibility to
care for them."

This article:

http://www.scotsman.com/?id=1873032005

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
As many as 10 major airports may be forced to shut down if fuel supply pipelines
are not repaired according to USA Today
Link: 
http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztravel/2005-08-31-katrina-jetfuel-usat_x.htm

U.S. Motorists urged to cut down on driving especially in Midwest and Eastern
U.S.

Link:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20050901/bs_usatoday/motorists\
urgedtodrivelessasgassuppliesdrop

They won't be able to get the flood water out of the bowl, not with more rain
and runoff to come in the weeks and months ahead. Big oil interests are adding
fuel to the development of more powerful hurricanes and the destruction of life
on Earth. Getting the heavy doses of CO2 out of the atmosphere will take
thousands of years, and will be dependent on additional inputs and global
warming feedbacks.

THE WORLD IS IN CRISIS DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING!

Pat N
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/

--- In fuelcell-energy@yahoogroups.com, Tim Jones <deforest@a...>
wrote:
Industry sees 'significant and protracted' storm impact
<http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/Backissues/090105bn/090105bn.htm#2>
GREENWIRE
OIL AND GAS
Thursday, September 1, 2005 -- UPDATED 3:35 PM
Daniel Cusick and Ben Geman, Greenwire reporters

Confirming the offshore oil and gas industry's worst fears, the
Coast
Guard reported yesterday the loss during Hurricane Katrina of at
least 20 platforms or drilling rigs from production sites in the
Gulf
of Mexico -- a fact that shook energy markets already reeling from
supply and distribution problems.

"They just aren't there, so that means they are either off station
or
they are underwater," said Petty Officer Bobby Nash, a Coast Guard
spokesman in Alexandria, La. The tally of lost platforms and rigs is
based on fly-overs by the Navy, Coast Guard reserve, commercial
pilots and offshore firms.

Officials this morning said reconnaissance aircraft would continue
to
fly over the eastern and central gulf to assess damage to oil and
gas
infrastructure, which another Coast Guard spokesman described as
"extensive."

Meanwhile, the Minerals Management Service reported that 92 percent
of the Gulf of Mexico's 1.5 million barrels of daily oil output
remained shut in as of yesterday as crews continued to re-man
platforms and inventory damage.

In addition to platforms that sank or simply floated away,
potentially hundreds of structures could be rendered inoperable due
to topside damage, structural instability, or the severing of
subsurface pipelines.

The missing and damaged platforms are but one element of broader
infrastructure damage and power outages that together make the storm
the greatest challenge the sector has faced, American Petroleum
Institute officials said at a briefing yesterday. A key concern,
officials said, is the shutdown of refineries.

Worries about shuttered refineries fueled a fourth consecutive day
of
surging gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices
have risen 25 percent this week, with unleaded gas for October
delivery trading this morning at $2.42 per gallon, an increase of
more than 16 cents. Gas is now selling at well above $3 a gallon at
the pump in most parts of the country.

Traders were less worried about lost production platforms in the
gulf. Oil prices fell today for the second day in a row, with Nymex
crude futures down 39 cents to $68.55 a barrel.

BP reports seven lost platforms

Of the 20 lost platforms, seven belonged to BP, company spokeswoman
Ayana McIntosh-Lee said. Virtually all of BP's lost platforms were
in
the shallow gulf just east of Grand Isle, La., and only five were
producing oil and gas. Two other BP platforms were found be listing
after the storm.

McIntosh-Lee described the missing fixed-leg platforms as "toppled"
and not visible from the air. "Until we get crews out there and
divers in the water, we can't say exactly what happened," she said.
"We just know that when we conducted our overflights, they weren't
where they were supposed to be."

But even with the five lost production units, BP was breathing
easier
after learning that all of its deepwater units, including the
Thunder
Horse platform which was listing badly in July after Hurricane
Dennis, came through the storm with relatively little damage.

BP's deepwater production accounts for roughly 350,000 barrels per
day equivalent of oil, out of a total 400,000 bpd that the company
moves fromthe Gulf of Mexico.

The missing shallow-water platforms account for about 1,000 bpd of
oi
land 2.4 million cubic feet of gas per day, she said. The listing
platforms produce about 1,050 bpd of oil and 5 million cubic feet of
gas daily.

Shell yesterday described its Mars oil and gas production platform,
one of the largest in the shallow gulf, as "significantly damaged."
Other Shell production sites with confirmed damage include West
Delta
143 and Cognac.

Other major gulf producers, including ExxonMobil and Chevron,
withheld information about damage until further assessments could be
made.

"It is becoming increasingly evident that that the impact of this
devastating storm on oil and natural gas operations will be
significant and protracted," said API President Red Cavaney.

'Lasting impact' on refineries and distribution system?

While news about the condition of offshore facilities was bleak, the
industry's onshore operations began to see some recovery. Shell said
its Geismar Chemical plant in Louisiana started two units, while
power had been restored to one of two refineries shut down by the
storm. The Motiva Convent Refinery, with a capacity of 235,000
barrels per day of production, was operating, officials said, while
the 227,000-bpd Motiva refinery remained closed.

Valero's St. Charles refinery continued without power yesterday as
workers pumped a remaining 18 inches water from the facility. While
Valero had not requested oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,
it
said the release of SPR crude, combined with an easing of U.S. EPA
standards for air emissions (See related story), would aid in
recovery.

The storm has knocked roughly 11 percent of the nation's refining
capacity offline, API economist John Felmy said, with another eight
percent running at reduced capacity. Refiners with reduced runs
include ExxonMobil's 493,500 barrel-per-day refinery in Baton Rouge,
according to a
<http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/Backissues/images/090105gwr2.pdf>Dep
artment
of Energy update. The storm shut down nine refineries and several
others are affected by crude supply disruptions.

"Unlike 2004's Hurricane Ivan, which affected oil production
facilities and had a lasting impact on crude oil production in the
Gulf of Mexico, it appears that Hurricane Katrina may have a more
lasting impact on refinery production and the distribution system,"
DOE's Energy Information Administration said yesterday in a report
on
the storm.

"However, that the news is varied, with some refineries likely able
to restart their operations within the next 1 to 2 weeks, while
others will likely be down for a more extended period, possibly
several months," EIA added.

Refineries have struggled with flooding and power outages from the
massive storm, and cannot simply re-start them by flipping a switch.

There was one bit of encouraging news today: Marathon Oil announced
its 245,000-barrel a day refinery in Garyville, La., could resume
fuel production in three to five days.

Another key piece of infrastructure, the Louisiana Offshore Oil
Terminal sustained no major structural damage from Katrina, and the
primary pipeline used to carry oil from the terminal to onshore
refineries was re-powered yesterday, said Tommy Martinez, executive
director of the Louisiana Offshore Terminal Authority. A second
pipeline that routes oil between the LOOP facility and underground
salt domes for storage remains without power.

"We should be back on line when we get some energy to that line,"
Martinez said this morning. "I pray for the day, but hopefully it
will be tomorrow."

Shell's Capline, a key crude oil pipeline in the region, has resumed
operations at a reduced rate, the company said yesterday. "This is
the most significant impact a storm has ever had on a pipeline
system," said a spokesman for the Association of Oil Pipelines.

The Colonial Pipeline, a main artery for refined products, said
yesterday it is restarting two main lines to provide up to 35
percent
of capacity, and will continue installing distributed generation
equipment. But the power outages will continue hindering the
pipeline
-- interim measures will allow only up to 60 percent of capacity,
the
company said.

Industry, lawmaker call for wider access

Storm damage prompted calls from industry and Rep. Joe Barton
(R-Texas) for production from restricted areas (see related story).

"If we ever needed a lesson in understating our energy policy
activity is not complete, we need only look at the circumstances
here," Cavaney said in an interview yesterday. "Shouldn't we maybe
look at diversifying supply here in the continental U.S.?"

He said it is important to look at wider outer continental shelf
access, citing interest by Virginia officials in winning authority
to
"opt-out" of the federal offshore leasing bans. He also cited the
need to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Cavaney said in the briefing he was pleased with the decision to
release oil from the SPR. He also praised other federal steps,
citing
EPA decision to waive certain environmental standards for gasoline
and diesel. EPA yesterday called the waivers needed to "ensure that
fuel is available throughout the country to address public health
issues and emergency vehicle supply needs."


Want more stories like this every day? Sign up for a free trial and
get the best environmental and energy policy coverage available.
Go to <http://www.eenews.net/subscriptioninfo/trialform.html>
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energy policy makers.
Go to <http://www.eande.tv>


Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC
E&E DAILY -- GREENWIRE -- LAND LETTER -- E&ETV
Phone: 202-628-6500
Copyright 2005 <http://www.eenews.net>

Posted by Tim
AustinTex
--
<http://www.groundtruthinvestigations.com/>
--- End forwarded message ---

Shifting federal budget erodes protection from levees;
Because of cuts, hurricane risk grows

The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

June 8, 2004 Tuesday

SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1073 words

HEADLINE: Shifting federal budget erodes protection from levees;
Because of cuts, hurricane risk grows

BYLINE: By Sheila Grissett, East Jefferson bureau

BODY:

For the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but
stopped major work on the New Orleans area's east bank hurricane
levees, a complex network of concrete walls, metal gates and giant
earthen berms that won't be finished for at least another decade.

"I guess people look around and think there's a complete system in
place, that we're just out here trying to put icing on the cake,"
said Mervin Morehiser, who manages the "Lake Pontchartrain and
vicinity" levee project for the Army Corps of Engineers. "And we
aren't saying that the sky is falling, but people should know that
this is a work in progress, and there's more important work yet to
do before there is a complete system in place."

In reality, levee building is a long-term undertaking. Section by
section, earth is piled into walls as high as 20 feet to protect
land on the east bank of the Mississippi River from water that a
slow-moving Category 3 hurricane could shove out of Lake
Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne. But the levees gradually settle into
southeast Louisiana's mucky subsoil, and every few years, the corps
comes back, section by section, to pile on more dirt in what
insiders call a "lift."

"It has always been part of our long-range plan to raise each
section of the levee four or even five times," said Al Naomi, the
corps' senior project manager. "After that, we think the levee might
have stabilized and not need further raisings."

Time for next lift

It's time now for the next lifts in a number of places that have
sunk 2 to 4 feet from their design elevations. These include in
Kenner west of the Pontchartrain Center, Metairie between Causeway
Boulevard and Clearview Parkway, Norco and St. Rose in St. Charles
Parish, the Bayou Sauvage area of eastern New Orleans, and remote
marshland areas of eastern St. Bernard Parish.

The subsidence is expected.

What's new, said Morehiser and Naomi, is that the agency has run out
of money for the next round of lifts. Naomi said this is the first
time a lack of money has stopped major corps work on the levees
since the project began in 1967.

"I can't tell you exactly what that could mean this hurricane season
if we get a major storm," Naomi said. "It would depend on the path
and speed of the storm, the angle that it hits us.

"But I can tell you that we would be better off if the levees were
raised, . . . and I think it's important and only fair that those
people who live behind the levee know the status of these projects."

Levees on the east bank of New Orleans, as well as some in eastern
St. Bernard Parish, are among the area's oldest and have had several
lifts. Corps engineers said the next lift might be the last they
need.

But the levees on the east bank of St. Charles and Jefferson
parishes are much younger, and most stretches have had only one or
two lifts.

"This project isn't expected to end for another 13 to 15 years,"
Morehiser said. "They aren't really finished levees at this point.
We don't even turn them over to their local sponsors until we
consider them stable, which is years from now."

The levees are designed to handle a storm surge of 11 feet, and
every additional foot of levee above that is intended to contain
waves that otherwise would top the levee. The height of individual
levee segments vary.

"When levees are below grade, as ours are in many spots right now,
they're more vulnerable to waves pouring over them and degrading
them," Naomi said. "We're not below storm-surge elevation yet, but
we will be if we stop raising our levees as they subside."

Bush budget falls short

The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only
$3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely
will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the
administration's $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.

"I needed $11 million this year, and I got $5.5 million," Naomi
said. "I need $22.5 million next year to do everything that needs
doing, and the first $4.5 million of that will go to pay four
contractors who couldn't get paid this year."

Naomi said the corps already owes four contractors more than $2
million for hurricane protection work they've done this year without
pay, and he expects the figure to climb to about $4.5 million by
Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.

The challenge now, said emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri
in Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans, is for
southeast Louisiana somehow to persuade those who control federal
spending that protection from major storms and flooding are matters
of homeland security.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget
to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose
that's the price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy
that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we
can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Tullier said, "There is no magic bullet or single key for us. It
takes all the keys that we have, and our system of protection is
only as strong as its weakest link.

"For us, this levee is part and parcel of homeland security because
it helps protect us 365 days a year."

Weak links elsewhere

Levee-raising is only part of the flood-related work that has
stopped since the federal government began reducing Corps of
Engineers appropriations in 2001, as more money was diverted to
homeland security, the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq.

Naomi said the local corps district has no money to close gaps in
the hurricane levee on St. Charles Parish's east bank. That levee is
designed to protect St. Rose, Destrehan, New Sarpy and Norco, as
well as keep floodwater from closing Airline Drive, a major
evacuation route.

Nor does the corps have money to floodproof the Robert E. Lee Bridge
over the London Canal in New Orleans, nor to build the concrete
walls and gates to protect pump stations Nos. 3 and 7 from storm
surges on the New Orleans lakefront.

All of these projects, along with periodic levee lifts, are part of
the corps' long-term $745 million hurricane protection project.

"The big danger here is that if we don't get the money to award
these contracts that are ready to go, the backlog will only increase
as the levees continue to settle," Naomi said. "We'll end up so far
behind that we can't catch up. And the further behind we get, the
more critical the safety of the city becomes."

-----------

Our nation will never be the same after the images being shot across
the country today. Let's channel the outrage where it belongs..
(Please forward widely.)  [Fw is from Luke at dc indymedia]

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget
to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose
that's the price we pay,"

- Emergency Management Chief Walter Maestri, Jefferson Parish, LA,
June 8, 2004.

Copyright 2004

--

Pat N

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

A new entry titled 'Hurricanes and Global Warming - Is There a Connection?' has
been posted to RealClimate.org.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=181

---------------------------------------

Unnatural Disaster: The Lessons of Katrina

September 02, 2005
UNNATURAL DISASTER: THE LESSONS OF KATRINA
Worldwatch Projects Catastrophe Will Be Most Costly Weather-Related Disaster in
History

Washington, D.C. –  The overwhelming human and financial impacts of Hurricane
Katrina are powerful evidence that political and economic decisions made in the
United States and other countries have failed to account for our dependence on a
healthy resource base, according to an assessment released today by the
Worldwatch Institute.

Alteration of the Mississippi River and the destruction of wetlands at its mouth
have left the area around New Orleans abnormally vulnerable to the forces of
nature. According to many scientists, the early results of global warming—90
degree Fahrenheit water temperatures in the Gulf and rising sea levels—may have
exacerbated the destructive power of Katrina.

“The catastrophe now unfolding along the U.S. Gulf Coast is a wake-up call for
decision makers around the globe,” says Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin.
“If the world continues on its current course—massively altering the natural
world and further increasing fossil fuel consumption—future generations may face
a chain of disasters that make Katrina-scale catastrophes a common feature of
life in the 21st century.”

“The appalling images from New Orleans demonstrate that the world’s richest
country is not immune from the need to respect natural systems and to invest in
their protection,” continued Flavin. "This will likely be the most expensive
weather-related disaster the world has ever faced."

According to an assessment by Worldwatch researchers, the long-term lessons of
Katrina include:

Maintaining the integrity of natural ecosystems should be a priority:
Indiscriminate economic development and ecologically destructive policies have
left many communities more vulnerable to disasters than they realize. This,
together with rapid population growth in vulnerable areas, has contributed to
worldwide economic losses from weather-related catastrophes totaling $567
billion over the last 10 years, exceeding the combined losses from 1950 through
1989. Losses in 2004 exceeded $100 billion for the second time ever, and a new
record will almost certainly be set this year once Katrina’s damages are
totaled.
Short-term thinking is a dangerous approach to policy: During the past few
years, the U.S government has diverted funding from disaster preparedness to
help finance the Iraq War, and has reduced protections for wetlands in order to
spur economic development. Both decisions are now exacting costs that far exceed
the money saved. Natural ecosystems such as wetlands and forests are often more
valuable when left intact so as to protect communities from floods, landslides,
drought, and other natural occurrences. Failure to protect ecosystems
contributed to the massive loss of life when the tsunamis swept across the
Indian Ocean last year and when Hurricane Mitch killed 10,000 people in Central
America in 1998.
The links between climate change and weather-related catastrophes need to be
addressed by decision makers: Although no specific storm can be definitively
link to climate change, scientists agree that warm water is the fuel that
increases the intensity of such storms and that tropical seas have increased in
temperature by up to 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century. (Katrina
transformed rapidly from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane when it passed
from the Atlantic Ocean to the much warmer Gulf of Mexico.) In the next few
decades, water temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise, greatly
increasing the vulnerability of many communities. Global warming and its
anticipated effects on the hydrological cycle will make some areas more
vulnerable as storms, floods, and droughts increase in frequency and intensity.
There is an urgent need to diversify energy supplies: The national and global
economic impact of Hurricane Katrina is growing by the day, with consumers
around the world now paying significantly more for energy than they were a week
ago. Decades of failure to invest in new energy options has left the world
dependent on oil and natural gas that are concentrated in some of the world’s
most vulnerable regions—the U.S. Gulf Coast, the Persian Gulf, and the Niger
Delta in Africa. Biofuels and other renewable resources now represent viable
alternatives to fossil fuels, which are not only vulnerable to natural disasters
but could have a big impact on the severity of future disasters.
- END -


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interviews: The following experts are available for interviews in these areas:
(Worldwatch Institute Press Contact Information)

Christopher Flavin, Worldwatch Institute President:

The links between climate change and weather-related disasters
Economic effects of skyrocketing fuel prices
The potential for renewable energy sources to diversify energy supplies
Michael Renner, Worldwatch Institute Senior Researcher and Director, Global
Security Project

The need for a broadened understanding of security, including the repercussions
of environmental change
The need for a shift in global funding priorities to support disaster prevention
and mitigation policies
Sandra Postel, Director, Global Water Policy Project and Worldwatch Institute
Senior Fellow

How the destruction of wetlands and engineering of rivers increases the risk of
catastrophic loss
Why protecting and restoring freshwater ecosystems can help mitigate disasters
How global warming is likely to alter the hydrological cycle

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HURRICANE KATRINA

Worldwatch Background Fact Sheet

► In 2004, weather-related disasters caused $104 billion in economic
losses, almost twice the total in 2003. Hurricane Katrina alone is expected to
cause more than $100 billion in economic losses, according to Risk Management
Solutions, Inc.

► An estimated1 2,000 weather-related disasters since 1980 have caused
618,200 fatalities and cost a total of $1.3 trillion. Average annual economic
losses from weather-related disasters rose from $26 billion in the 1980s to $67
billion in the last decade.

► Average annual fatalities due to weather-related disasters jumped from
22,000 in the 1980s to 33,000 in the 1990s.

► Since the early 1900s, the average global temperature has risen 0.6
degrees Celsius. The rate of increase since 1976 is triple that for the century
as a whole.

► In 2004, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 377
parts per million, 16 percent higher than in 1960.

► Oil is responsible for 42 percent of all emissions of carbon dioxide,
the principal human-caused greenhouse gas.

► In 2004, approximately 30 million people worldwide were environmental
refugees. The UN Development Programme projects that number to climb to 50
million by 2010 and 150 million by 2050.

► Since 2001, the Bush Administration has frozen spending on the Corps of
Engineers, responsible for protecting the country’s coastlines and waterways, at
around $4.7 billion.

► More than 20 oil rigs were reported missing in the Gulf, and the
region's oil output was down nearly 95 percent after Hurricane Katrina.

► 25 percent of U.S. oil production comes from the Gulf of Mexico and 60
percent of U.S. oil imports come through ports located along the Gulf Coast. 10
percent of U.S. refining capacity is located in that region.

► Fossil fuels provide over 90 percent of world commercial energy use.

► Over the past decade, the energy produced from wind, solar, and,
biofuels has doubled. These new energy sources are now growing at over 10 times
the rate of world oil production.


Read the full statement online.
http://www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2005/09/02

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resourse-1766-2005.36.\
pdf

-----Original Message-----
From: ClimateConcern@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:ClimateConcern@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Ross Mayhew
Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2005 9:01 AM
To: ClimateConcern@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CCG] Good example of an "accessable" article

Here is a good example which illustrates the kind of article which
almost anyone can understand - no heavy-duty stats, no complicated
analyses, and an emphasis upon how people's lives are being affected
by  clear evidence of climate change:


Retreating Glaciers and Melting Permafrost Threaten Traditional
Lifestyles of Arctic People

September 02, 2005 - By Jan M. Olsen, Associated Press

ILULISSAT, Greenland - Watching the gargantuan chunks of ice break
off
the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier and thunder into an Arctic fjord is a
spectacular sight.

To Greenland's Inuit population, it is also deeply worrisome. The
frequency and size of the crumbling blocks are a powerful reminder
that the ice sheet covering the world's largest island is thinning,
which scientists say is one of the most glaring examples of global
warming.

"In the past we could walk on the ice in the fjord between the
icebergs for a six-month period during the winter, drill holes and
fish," said Joern Kristensen, a local fisherman. "We can only do that
for a month or two now. It has become more difficult to drive dogs
sleds because the ice between the icebergs isn't solid anymore."

In 2002-2003, a 10-kilometer (six-mile) stretch of the Sermeq
Kujalleq
glacier broke off and drifted silently out of the fjord near
Ilulissat, Greenland's third largest town, 250 kilometers (155 miles)
north of the Arctic Circle.

Although Greenland is the prime example, scientists say the effects
of
climate change are noticeable throughout the Arctic region, from the
northward spread of spruce beetles in Canada to melting permafrost in
Alaska and northern Russia.

Indigenous people who for centuries have adapted their lives to the
cold, fear that the changes, however small and gradual, could have a
profound impact.

"We can see a trend that the fall is getting longer and wetter," said
Lars-Anders Baer, a political leader for Sweden's indigenous Sami, a
once-nomadic people with a long tradition of reindeer herding.

"If the climate gets warmer, it is probably bad for the reindeer. New
species (of plants) come in and suffocate other plants that are the
main food for the reindeer," he said.

Rising temperatures are also a concern in the Yamalo-Nenets region in
Western Siberia, said Alexandr Navyukhov, 49. He is an ethnic nenet,
a
group that mostly lives off hunting, fishing and deer breeding.

"We now have breams in our river, which we didn't have in the past
because that fish is typical for warmer regions," he said. "On the
one
hand it may look like good news, but breams are predatory fish that
prey upon fish eggs, often of rare kinds of fish."

Melting permafrost has damaged hundreds of buildings, railway lines,
airport runways and gas pipelines in Russia, according to the Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment, a report commissioned by the Arctic
Council
and released in 2004.

Research has also shown that populations of turbot, Atlantic cod and
snow crab are no longer found in some parts of the Bering Sea, an
important fishing zone between Alaska and Russia, and that flooding
along the Lena River, one of Siberia's biggest, has increased with
warming temperatures.

In Greenland, Anthon Utuaq, a 68-year-old retired hunter, said he is
worried a warmer climate will make it more difficult for his son to
continue the family trade.

"Maybe it will be difficult for him to find the seals," Utuaq said,
resting on a bench in the east coast town of Kulusuk. "They will head
north to colder places if it gets warmer."

Arctic sea ice has decreased by approximately 8 percent, or nearly 1
million square kilometers (386,1000 square miles) over the past 30
years.

In Sisimiut, Greenland's second-largest town, lakes have doubled in
size in the last decade.

"Greenland was perceived as this huge solid place that would never
melt," said Robert Corell of the American Meteorological
Society. "The
evidence is now so strong that the scientific community is convinced
that global warming is the cause."

Climate change has been a hotly discussed issue for decades, but
efforts to fight it have moved slowly. There is not even unanimity on
how much of the problem is a result of human activity, notably the
burning of fossil fuels, and how much of it can be attributed to
natural processes.

"We know that temperatures have gone up and it's partly caused by
man.
But let's hold our horses because it's not everywhere that the ice is
melting. In the Antarctic, only 1 percent is melting," said Bjoern
Lomborg, a Danish researcher who claims the threat of global warming
has been exaggerated.

What is clear is that the average ocean temperature off Greenland's
west coast has risen in recent years -- from 3.5 C (38.3 F) to 4.8 C
(40.6 F) and glaciers have begun to retreat, said Carl Egede
Boeggild,
a glaciologist with Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, a
government agency.

The Sermilik glacier in southern Greenland has retreated 11
kilometers
(6.84 miles), and the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier near Ilulissat also is
moving at a faster pace, said Henrik Hoejmark Thomsen of the
geological survey.

In 1967, satellite imagery measured it moving at 7 kilometers (4.3
miles) per year. In 2003, it was twice that -- 13 kilometers (8.1
miles) per year.

"What exactly happened, we don't know but it appears to be the effect
of climate change," said Hoejmark Thomsen.

Last month, U.S. scientists issued a report saying the rate of ice
melting in the Arctic is increasing and within a century could lead
to
summertime ice-free ocean conditions not seen in the area in a
million
years.

With warmer temperatures, some bacteria, plants and animals could
disappear, while others will grow and thrive. Polar bears and other
animals that depend on sea ice to breed and forage are at risk,
scientists say. There are fears that polar bears and some seal
species
could face extinction in just decades because of global warming.

The thinning of the sea ice presents a danger to both humans and
polar
bears, said Peter Ewins, director of Arctic conservations for the
World Wildlife Fund Canada.

"The polar bears need to be there to catch enough seals to see them
through the summer in open warm water systems. Equally, the Inuit
need
to be out there on the ice catching seals and are less and less able
to do that because the ice is more unstable, thinner," he said.

When NASA started taking satellite images of the Arctic region in the
late 1970s and computer technology improved, scientists noted
alarming
patterns and theorized they were caused by the emission of so-called
greenhouse gases, emitted by industries and internal combustion
engines, that create a heat-trapping layer in the atmosphere.

Inuit leaders, like Sheila Watt-Cloutier whose efforts won her the
2005 Sophie environment prize in Norway earlier this year, are trying
to draw attention to the impact of climate change and pollution on
the
traditional lifestyles of the Arctic's indigenous people.

"When I was a child, the weather used to be more stable, it worries
me
to see and hear all this," Greenland Premier Hans Enoksen said on the
sidelines of an environmental officials' meeting in Ilulissat last
month. The meeting ended with statements of concern, sincere calls
for
measure to address the problem -- and no action.

The Kyoto Protocol that took effect in February aims to reduce global
greenhouse gas emissions. But the 140 nations that have signed the
pact don't include the United States, which produces one-quarter of
the gases.

U.S. President George W. Bush's administration says participating in
the pact would severely damage the U.S. economy. Many scientists say
that position undermines the whole planet and they point to Greenland
as the leading edge of what the globe could suffer.

"Greenland is the canary in a mine shaft alerting us," said Corell,
the American meteorologist. "In the U.S., global warming is a
tomorrow
issue. ... For us working here, it hits you like a ton of bricks when
you see it."

------

AP writers Maria Danilova and Jim Heintz in Moscow, Karl Ritter in
Stockholm, Sweden, and Beth Duff-Brown in Toronto contributed to this
report.

Source: Associated Press
--- End forwarded message ---

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Global Warming Fuels Hurricanes
<http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050903/NEWS/509030341/103\
6>
By BRENDA EKWURZEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers, The Ledger, Lakeland Florida
Published Saturday, September 3, 2005

In the course of a few days, Hurricane Katrina transformed itself
from a mild tropical storm into one of the most devastating
hurricanes on record.

Because rising global temperatures have warmed the oceans, and warm
oceans fuel hurricanes, many people have asked whether global warming
is at work.

It is impossible to blame any one weather event -- be it a hurricane
or a heat wave or a blizzard -- on global warming. That's because
weather is not climate. Climate represents average conditions over
multiple seasons or decades. A longer perspective is essential to see
climate shifts above the natural variation.

Atmospheric scientists compared data over the past half century and
found there is a link between global warming and the power -- not
frequency -- of hurricanes.

Recent research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows
that the duration and intensity of hurricanes has doubled over the
last 30 years. This trend corresponds to increases in average ocean
surface temperatures over the period.

Most of the strongest hurricanes on record have occurred during the
past 10 years, when ocean surface temperatures reached record levels.
And climate scientists around the world are certain that rising ocean
temperatures are a result of global warming.

Burning fossil fuels in cars and power plants releases carbon dioxide
that blankets the Earth and traps heat. Oceans cover the majority of
the Earth's surface, and they absorb most of this excess heat.
Temperatures have already risen dramatically in recent decades, and
because global warming pollution can stay in the atmosphere for a
hundred or more years, temperatures will only continue to increase.

This is a serious problem.

A warmer planet means more droughts, extreme heat with serious impact
on air quality and human health, more intense rain storms and rising
sea level that threaten people living on the coasts.

If state and federal governments ignore global warming, hurricane
damage will likely escalate.

In 2004, hurricanes caused more than $45 billion in damages. The cost
of Katrina alone may surpass that. To protect the lives of coastal
residents and reduce property damage, we need to start addressing
global warming today.

And the United States should take the lead. With only 4 percent of
the world's population, the United States emits 25 percent of the
world's global-warming pollution.

Unfortunately, President Bush has failed to act on global warming. In
fact, his administration has misrepresented the work of climate
scientists. This failure is discouraging U.S. companies from
producing and selling the most efficient cars and trucks, appliances
and renewable energy systems here and in Europe, Japan, China and
India. This will put the U.S. economy at a disadvantage.

For economic and environmental reasons, and above all to save human
lives, we must take action to reduce heat-trapping emissions. Too
much is at stake to ignore Katrina's warning signs.

Brenda Ekwurzel is a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned
Scientists, an independent nonprofit alliance of scientists.
<http://www.ucsusa.org/news/experts.cfm?newsID=438>

Posted by Tim
AustinTex
--
<http://www.groundtruthinvestigations.com/>








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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Hurricane season yet to peak
<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-sintense04sep03,0,4551101.st\
ory?coll=sfla-news-broward>
Four more predicted this month alone
   By Ken Kaye
Staff Writer
September 3, 2005

It's far from over.

The peak of hurricane season doesn't officially
arrive for another week, yet 13 named storms
already have emerged. In a normal six-month
season, 10 storms form, and on average the last
one doesn't arrive until the end of October.

Another seven to eight named systems are expected
to form over the next three months, atmospheric
conditions are conducive to supercharging them
and steering patterns could drive some toward the
U.S. shoreline, experts say.

On Friday, storm prognosticator William Gray
predicted that this month alone, four more
hurricanes, two intense, would develop.

"It's a sad thing to say, but we're not done,"
said Stanley Goldenberg, meteorologist with the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Hurricane Research Division.

There already have been four hurricanes -- in the
normal season, the fourth develops on average
Sept. 24 -- and three of those, Dennis, Emily and
Katrina, were intense, with winds greater than
110 mph. Historically, only two major systems
form per year.

If the tropical hyperactivity continues, "there
is a legitimate possibility that this could be
the most active season on record," said Phil
Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado
State University. "We are definitely full
throttle."

Experts say the Atlantic basin has entered an era
of hurricane intensity, the result of a natural
cycle of warm water shifting to the region where
storms are spawned and grow. The era began in
1995 and could last another 10 to 30 years.

From 1995 to 2004, there have been 141 named
storms, including 78 hurricanes, 38 intense, the
most active period in Atlantic tropical history.

By comparison, during the first 10 years of the
previous era of intensity, from 1944 to 1966,
there were 103 named storms and 64 hurricanes, of
which 35 were intense.

If there is some good news, the last few tropical
systems that formed in the Atlantic have had
difficulty strengthening. On Friday, Tropical
Storm Maria rose in the Central Atlantic and was
forecast to aim north, without threatening land.

However, as evidenced by Katrina, storms can fade
and come back much stronger in the extremely warm
waters of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
Katrina started as Tropical Depression No. 10
before dissipating into a wave -- which
regenerated near the Bahamas.

Forecasters predict a total of up to 21 named
systems this year, enough to exhaust the list of
standard hurricane names. The most storms ever
recorded in a season: 21 in 1933.

How many will make landfall and where is unknown.
But so far, steering currents have aimed four
systems toward the north Gulf Coast, including
tropical storms Arlene and Cindy and hurricanes
Dennis and Katrina -- much as the Bermuda High,
an area of high pressure in the Eastern Atlantic,
pushed storm after storm toward Florida last year.

Some scientists blame global warming for the
surge in tropical activity. Notably, Kerry
Emanuel, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology
professor and meteorologist, found that the
strength and duration of storms have increased by
50 percent since the 1970s. He found a high
correlation between hurricane power and
sea-surface temperatures.

Many in the hurricane-forecasting community dispute that.

"If global warming were to blame, one would
expect tropical cyclones in all basins -- that
is, West Pacific, East Pacific, Indian, Southern
Hemisphere -- to increase," Klotzbach said.
"However, global tropical cyclones have actually
decreased over the past 10 years."

(??? Tim)

He and others point to additional factors that
have promoted storm formation this year,
including low vertical wind shear, above average
rainfall in West Africa during June and July, and
intense heat waves that have resulted in
record-breaking temperatures across the United
States.

"We don't know why, but it appears that might be
associated with conditions that produce the
really, really intense hurricanes," Goldenberg
said.

For example, at their strongest points, Hurricane
Dennis spun up to 150 mph before hitting near
Pensacola as a Category 3; Hurricane Emily, 155
mph before striking the Yucatan as a Category 3
and Hurricane Katrina, 175 mph, before slamming
New Orleans, and Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., as a
Category 4.

Hurricane authorities urge residents not to be
caught up in numbers, but rather be prepared.

"What it comes down to is, are you ready for the
rest of this year?" Goldenberg said. "Have a
party with your supplies when the season's over."

Ken Kaye can be reached at kkaye@... ore 954-385-7911.
Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Posted by Tim
AustinTex
--
<http://www.groundtruthinvestigations.com/>








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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
  From : john@...

UPDATE: UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO THE AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE KATRINA

Air Transport Association and Department of Transportation launch “Operation
Air Care�
11 top priority hospitals in the New Orleans area fully evacuated
Amtrak makes its first successful run out of New Orleans to evacuate citizens
American Red Cross launches “Family Links Registry� Web site

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff traveled with President Bush on
Friday to tour the Gulf Coast states devastated by Hurricane Katrina. President
Bush and Secretary Chertoff saw firsthand the destruction throughout the region,
and reaffirmed the commitment of federal government to save lives and help
rebuild the affected communities. While much work remains, important progress is
being made.

More than 30,000 response, rescue, recovery and law enforcement personnel are
working around the clock to bring critical aid and support to the areas.

The United States Coast Guard saved more than 9,500 lives in the wake of
Katrina, nearly double the total number of lives saved by the Coast Guard in all
of 2003.

The scope of this disaster is unlike any natural disaster in our nation’s
history. High flood waters caused major damage to critical transportation
infrastructure. Crews have worked to repair bridges and re-open roads in order
to expedite the flow of supplies and evacuation efforts.

More than 22,000 people have been evacuated from Louisiana. Additional personnel
and resources have helped speed this process. For example, the Air Transport
Association and the Department of Transportation launched today “Operation Air
Care� to provide emergency airlift to stranded New Orleans residents. The
federal government and participating airlines are executing this unprecedented
civilian relocation program.

All patients and staff from the 11 top priority hospitals in the New Orleans
area have been fully evacuated. Three other hospitals in the area are fully
functioning with fuel and power and have no need to evacuate.

The Department of Transportation announced that Amtrak began evacuating
residents from New Orleans to Dallas and other nearby states. Amtrak made its
first successful run out of New Orleans earlier this morning and will return
twice more today to evacuate more citizens to Dallas and other nearby states.
Amtrak will have two trains in place by Monday, allowing for a total of four
trips that day, and trains will continue operating for as long as necessary.

The American Red Cross launched a “Family Links Registry� Web site to assist
family members who are seeking information about their loved ones affected by
Hurricane Katrina.  Individuals can register and find a missing relative or view
the existing list of registrants by visiting www.redcross.org.

Key Statistics as of 10 a.m. Saturday for the Gulf Region Response:

Lives Saved
11,500
Citizens Evacuated
25,000
Water distributed by FEMA
6.7 million liters
MREs distributed by FEMA
1.9 million
U.S. Coast Guard
4,000
National Guard
22,000
FEMA Responders
5,000









Department of Homeland Security

Principal Federal Official (PFO).  Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) continues to act as the Principal Federal Official.
Designated by Secretary Chertoff, the PFO leads the deployment and coordination
of all federal response resources and forces in the Gulf Coast region.  This
role, established under the NRP, streamlines leadership and gives state and
local leaders one point for delivery of critical Federal aid and support.

Jones Act Waiver.  Secretary Chertoff signed a waiver of the Jones Act allowing
foreign flagged vessels to transport cargo from one U.S. Port to another U.S.
Port.

National Communications System (NCS). National Communications System coordinated
the arrival of mobile communications vans, and arranged the delivery of
satellite phones, as well as wireless phones programmed for Wireless Priority
Service to state and local government leaders and emergency responders.  The NCS
coordinated equipment delivery from other telecommunications companies and
firms.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

FEMA will deploy every resource available to treat wounds, aid the suffering and
protect and preserve lives. And, will not rest until every need is met.

FEMA continues to push out critical commodities to the impacted areas, including
meals ready to eat, water, ice, medical supplies and generators.

FEMA has more than 200 shelters; temporarily housing more than 50,000 people.

15,000 evacuations have been made from the New Orleans Superdome to the
Astrodome in Houston and are continuing today to San Antonio.

Seven National Disaster Medical Service Disaster Medical Assistance Teams
(DMATs) and three strike teams are supporting New Orleans medical facilities and
hospitals not fully operational and setting up MASH-style tents.

Five DMATs and three strike teams are working in medical facilities and
hospitals in Gulfport, Biloxi and other areas of Mississippi.

FEMA continues to work with nearly 500 U.S. Corps of Engineers civilians and
soldiers who are working on the New Orleans levee breach and coordinating the
transport of ice and water.

U.S. Coast Guard

Coast Guard assets and personnel from all over the country have been deployed to
the area.  Many were in place before the storm hit, and more are on their way.
Fifty-two aircraft from  ten air stations are on scene, including aircraft from
as far away as Kodiak, Alaska

The Coast Guard's primary focus along the Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana
coast will remain search and rescue as long as necessary. The Coast Guard has
set up a Web site where people, who are still in need of rescue or know of
someone in need, can submit information at http://homeport.uscg.mil. People
should also contact their state emergency operation centers are (225) 925-7707
or 7709 or 3511 or 7412.

Ports and waterways are beginning to open, although with restrictions.
Coast Guard air operations rescued 1,245 people and conducted 385 sorties
yesterday. The Coast Guard has rescued over 9,500 people so far and will be
focusing its operations on the evacuation of people from the New Orleans
Convention Center today.

The Lower Mississippi River has been opened to deep draft vessels with a 35-foot
draft or less for one way daylight traffic only.

Only the Port of Gulfport, Miss., remains closed to all traffic. Pascagoula,
Miss., is open to vessels with 12-foot draft or less. Mobile is open to barge
traffic only. Pensacola, Fla., and Destin and Panama City, Fla., are open to
vessels with a 31-foot draft or less.

Coast Guard personnel and assets from all over the country continue to deploy to
the area. Twenty-nine Coast Guard cutters, 52 aircraft, and many response and
incident management teams are in the Gulf area. The Coast Guard has recalled 550
reservists to active duty and has the authorization to recall up to 800
reservists.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP)

CBP is currently providing air and marine support to FEMA and several state
agencies in an effort to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In addition to the aircraft, more than 200 CBP agents and officers are deployed
to the affected area to provide security and law enforcement support.

CBP field offices in Tampa and Miami staged relief teams of 30 support
personnel, complete with equipment and supplies, to assist with the aftermath.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement  (ICE)

Nearly 120 ICE Federal Protective Service (FPS) officers are deployed to provide
physical security in connection with the disaster and the recovery efforts. ICE
FPS officers have been directly involved in providing security support for the
Superdome evacuation, in crowd control and in other sensitive law enforcement
missions in the area.

Three ICE Special Response Teams have been deployed from Miami, San Antonio, and
Chicago and are en route to Gulfport, Mississippi to provide security support to
the affected areas. These teams come from ICE Office of Investigations and ICE
Detention and Removal Operations.

ICE has deployed three Mobile Command Centers with communications equipment and
uplink capabilities to locations in Louisiana and Alabama to assist in the
exchange of information in areas without communications.

ICE anticipates deploying hundreds of additional law enforcement personnel to
the affected areas in the next few days.

National Guard

Almost 22,000 National Guard members are in place providing security, assisting
with food and water distribution, and conducting search and rescue missions in
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Over the next few days, that
number will rise to nearly 30,000 as we continue to deploy personnel and
critical equipment to the hardest hit areas

6,500 National Guard troops poured into the greater New Orleans area to help
restore order and continue relief operations.

Guardsmen are trained professionals and bring great expertise and sensitivity to
their mission in support of local law enforcement.

National Guard helicopters have evacuated hundreds of sick and injured persons
out of the devastated greater New Orleans area.

Department of Defense (DOD)

The DOD is ordering the USS Harry S. Truman and dock landing ship USS Whidbey
Island to areas off the U.S. Gulf Coast in support of relief operations.

The USS Grapple is en route with 31 divers aboard to assist with maritime and
underwater survey and salvage operations.

NORTHCOM established Joint Task Force (JTF) Katrina to act as the military’s
on-scene command in support of FEMA.  Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of the
First Army in Fort Gillem, Ga., is the JTF-Commander.  JTF Katrina will be based
out of Camp Shelby, Miss.

Joint Forces Command is providing Department of Defense leased property at the
former England AFB in Louisiana as an intermediate staging base to support
hurricane response in the state of Louisiana. This will serve as a staging point
for National Guard personnel arriving from other states to support the Louisiana
relief efforts.

Department of Education

DOE is working with states and school districts across the country as they
welcome displaced children into their schools as quickly as possible. The
department is in ongoing contact with state and local education officials to
determine student- and school-related needs and coordinate and deploy resources
as applicable.

The department is convening a nationwide conference call with state directors of
homeless student programs and a meeting of national education leaders to
coordinate and deploy resources.

The department will be flexible on a case-by-case basis with provisions of the
“No Child Left Behind Act� for affected states.


Department of the Interior

Approximately 400 employees from Interior agencies have been mobilized and
dispatched to the Gulf area as part of the interagency response.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is assisting the six federally recognized
tribes in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi affected by the hurricane. BIA’s
Eastern Regional Office and Choctaw Agency are coordinating recovery efforts
with the Mississippi Choctaw tribal government, whose facilities were severely
damaged. The efforts include getting fresh water to the tribe, clearing debris
from roadways, finding ways to bring in supplies of ice, fuel and food and
assigning law enforcement personnel to protect lives and property.

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced today that he
is instructing all FHA-approved lenders to provide foreclosure relief to
FHA-insured families who are affected by Hurricane Katrina.  The relief includes
a special 90-day moratorium on all foreclosures of FHA-insured properties in the
Presidentially declared disaster areas. Jackson is also encouraging lenders to
undertake actions such as mortgage modification, refinancing, and waiver of late
charges.

Department of Justice (DOJ)

The USMS Justice and Prisoner Alien Transportation System (JPATS) launched two
Boeing 737 aircraft to evacuate displaced persons to Houston upon request from
FEMA, and will continuously shuttle between Houston and New Orleans during
daylight hours.

§         DOJ has begun work on a task force to deter, investigate, and
prosecute disaster-related crimes such as insurance fraud, and charity fraud,
and to ensure that fuel and other prices remain at competitive levels.

§         DOJ agencies and personnel are securing federal law enforcement
facilities and are working on-site and from relocation sites in Shreveport and
Baton Rouge to continue enforcing Federal laws.

§         DOJ components are drawing upon longstanding close relations with
state and local law enforcement to assist them to the maximum extent possible. 
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the
United States Marshals Service (USMS), and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) are
responding to requests from state and local agencies for communications, air
support, HAZMAT, medical, and other assistance.  DEA is coordinating with Texas
and Arkansas Pharmacy Boards to provide assistance with emergency prescription
refill procedures due to requests that have started to come from Louisiana
residents.

§         USMS personnel have been deployed to assist with the transport and
security of stockpile supplies.  The Bureau of Justice Assistance will also be
making millions of dollars of grant money immediately available to state and
local law enforcement entities in the affected areas.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

EPA began collecting and analyzing flood water samples today in Louisiana for
biological and chemical contaminants.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has also
requested EPA provide 50 personnel to perform environmental assessments of
construction sites for temporary housing efforts.

To alleviate possible fuel shortages across the United States and to help meet
emergency demand in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, EPA will
temporarily allow refiners, importers, distributors, carriers and retail outlets
to supply gasoline and diesel fuels that do not meet standards for emissions.
This waiver is effective immediately and will continue through Sept. 15, 2005.

EPA teams are currently assessing, evaluating, and supporting drinking water and
wastewater facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi.

EPA personnel are overseeing and offering technical assistance in the disposal
of hazardous waste and other debris left behind by the storm.  Teams are working
closely with the Coast Guard to conduct assessments of potential oil spills and
chemical releases caused by the hurricane.

EPA has mobilized 12 environmental emergency response teams to the affected
areas in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  These teams are providing
assistance with overall “search and recovery� efforts and are conducting
initial assessments of the environmental impacts of Hurricane Katrina, including
potential impacts from chemical facilities, oil refineries and water treatment
plants.

EPA sent 39 of its watercraft to assist in the current rescue efforts.

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

HHS is working with DOD to set up 10 Federal Medical Shelters, each with a 250
bed capacity. The Federal Medical Shelters will be located at Fort Polk, La. (4
Federal Medical Shelters); Elgin Air Force Base, Fla. (2 Federal Medical
Shelters); Meridian Naval Air Station, Miss. (2 Federal Medical Shelters); and
Jackson National Air Guard Facility, Miss. (2 Federal Medical Shelters). Five
hundred US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers arrived Saturday
morning to staff the medical shelters.  Each shelter will require three large
semi-trucks of equipment and supplies. HHS, DOD, the Department of Veterans'
Affairs, and the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) will staff the shelters
with the necessary healthcare and support personnel. Each shelter requires a
staff of 150.

HHS' National Institutes of Health is setting up a telemedicine consultation and
triage facility on the NIH campus that will serve as a medical specialty service
to all 40 Federal Medical Shelters on the ground. This will focus on the sickest
of the sick and link to expertise and care at NIH and 125 medical centers
throughout the country.

Since last weekend HHS has shipped and is distributing nearly 100 tons of vital
medications and supplies, including 100,000 doses of antibiotics such as
Ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, amoxicillin; 30,000 doses of tetanus vaccine; and
maintenance medications for chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease,
anxiety and other conditions.

The federal medical shelter on the Louisiana State University campus in Baton
Rouge has filled more than 1,000 prescriptions with medicines from the Strategic
National Stockpile yesterday.

Department of Energy

§         The president yesterday temporarily waived restrictions on foreign
flagged vessels to ship fuels between U.S. ports.  Gasoline shipments from
Houston to East Coast ports are anticipated.

The Department of Energy has entered into three separate agreements to loan oil
from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

§         The first agreement, between the Department of Energy and ExxonMobil
Corp. is for a loan of three million barrels of “sweet� crude and three
million barrels of “sour� crude oil, and is larger than the 5.4 million
barrels loaned during Hurricane Ivan.

§         The second, an agreement between the Department of Energy and Placid
Refining is for one million barrels of sweet crude oil.

§         The third is for 1.5 million barrels of sweet crude to Valero.

§         The crude oil will be loaned from the SPR under short-term
contractual agreements and returned to the reserve once supply conditions return
to normal.  The Department of Energy is working to finalize other loan
agreements to loan oil.

Department of Transportation (DOT)

The following airlift operations have occurred from the Louis Armstrong New
Orleans International Airport:
42 civil relief missions
34 military relief missions
3,400 passengers on civil flights
1,900 passengers on military flights

U.S. Commerce Department

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) office of Coast
Survey is working in partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Army Corp
of Engineers, and local port management to assess the damages in New Orleans and
Mobile, two of the nation’s major commercial ports.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is sending experienced emergency response
personnel to assist in incident response coordination.  To date, the Forest
Service has assigned 13 management and logistical teams and 35 crews of 20
people each to the affected areas and host communities.  These resources are
intended to assist in setting up logistics staging areas, the distribution of
food products, and debris removal.

§         USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is providing food at shelters
and mass feeding sites, issuing emergency food stamps and infant formula, and
distributing food packages directly to needy households. 80,000 pounds of
USDA-donated commodities which consist of mixed meats, cheese, peanut butter,
and pudding, arrived in Baton Rouge, La. today.  Additionally, four trucks of
baby food products were ordered for immediate shipment.  One truck of infant
formula will arrive in Baton Rouge today. The other three trucks of baby food
products are on the way.

§         FNS will provide waivers to food stamp recipients to enable them to
use funds to purchase hot meals and will be expediting deliver of September
benefits. Two truckloads of commodities have been dispatched to New Orleans with
more to follow as requested.

§         USDA Rural Development will provide a six-month moratorium on
payments for 50,000 low-income residents in the affected areas. USDA will also
be taking an inventory of vacant USDA housing to help accommodate displaced
residents.


Department of Labor

The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a National Emergency Grant of up to
$50 million to establish approximately 10,000 temporary jobs for eligible
dislocated workers to help in the recovery and clean-up efforts underway in
Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Approximately $16.6 million in
grant funds will be released immediately.

§         OSHA Region VI deployed its eight member Emergency Response Team to
Baton Rouge to assess the situation and provide technical assistance to recovery
workers and utility employers engaged in power restoration.

§         OSHA has identified all Lowes and Home Depot stores in Louisiana and
will be distributing safety and health fact sheets and materials to these
locations.

Department of State

§         The Department of State advises concerned family members of foreign
nationals residing or traveling in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina to try to
reach their family members by phone, email, or other available means.

§         If family member cannot be reached, the State Department recommends
they contact their embassy in Washington, D.C. for assistance.  Reports from the
region indicate that some phone lines are working but experiencing heavy call
volume, so family members are encouraged to keep trying if lines are busy.

Treasury Department

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that "dyed diesel fuel" is now
permitted for road use.  Dyed diesel fuel ordinarily is not subject to federal
excise taxes because it is intended for off-road use in farm equipment or in
certain government vehicles such as school buses.  The fuel is dyed to
distinguish it from diesel fuel intended for road use. The relief will remain in
effect through September 15, 2005.

The IRS announced special relief for taxpayers in the Presidential Disaster
Areas struck by the hurricane.  These taxpayers generally will have until
October 31 to file tax returns and submit tax payments.  The IRS will stop
interest and any late filing or late payment penalties that would otherwise
apply.  This relief includes the September 15 due date for estimated taxes and
for calendar-year corporate returns with automatic extensions.



General Services Administration (GSA)

GSA is filling requests for 20 million MREs, two 1,000 person camps with
feeding, sleeping, laundry, sanitation, showers and toilets; refrigerators large
enough to store 4000 doses of medication; modular office trailers to support
fire, police, and rescue; fuel; recreational vehicles to sleep command staff;
storage trucks, forklifts and pallets to support FEMA staging areas;
refrigerated trucks; office furniture and supplies such as chairs, tables;
climate control trailers; radios and satellite phones; rental vehicles; and
portable toilets and showers.

American Red Cross

Shelters –More than 250 American Red Cross shelters are open in nine states: 
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida and
Georgia, with more on standby.

Evacuees – More than 100,000 evacuees are being sheltered, not including the
operation to transition evacuees from the Superdome in New Orleans to the
Astrodome in Houston.

Emergency Vehicles – More than 100,000 Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicles
(ERVs) and more than 1,000 support vehicles are now in Louisiana, Mississippi
and Alabama, to conduct food distribution.

Relief Workers – More than 3,300 Red Cross staff and volunteers across the
country and from every part of the organization have deployed to the affected
area are working around the clock to serve the public need.

Feeding – The Red Cross served more than 500,000 meals working closely with
several partners, including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Adventists and
Second Harvest to provide emergency food to survivors and responders. In
coordination with the Southern Baptists, preparations are underway to serve
nearly 500,000 hot meals each day.

Houston Astrodome Shelter – The Red Cross is supporting government officials
in the relocation of more than 23,000 hurricane survivors from the Superdome in
New Orleans to the Astrodome in Houston. The organization is mobilizing to
provide blankets, cots and food for the evacuees.

Health & Preventative Care – The Red Cross is working with government and
health services partners to develop health strategies and preventative measures
to help the public and relief workers cope with the serious public health
emergency.

The Red Cross relies on donations of the American people to do its work.
Citizens can help by calling 1-800-HELP-NOW (1-800-435-7669) or by making an
online contribution to the Disaster Relief Fund at www.redcross.org.

Because of logistical issues, the Red Cross cannot accept donations of food or
clothing.

--- In fuelcell-energy@yahoogroups.com, "janson2997"
<janson1997@y...> wrote:
White House feels heat on warming after storm

Elisabeth Rosenthal

International Herald Tribune

As politicians and commentators around the world took in pictures of
the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, many seized the
opportunity to blame the fierce storm, at least in part, on the Bush
administration's environmental policy.

The United States is one of the few nations that have not signed the
Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit global warming by reducing the
levels of industrial emissions that most scientists now believe
promote climate change.

"Katrina Should Be a Lesson to the U.S. on Global Warming," read a
headline on the Web site of the German magazine Der Spiegel.

"The Bush government rejects international climate protection goals
by insisting that imposing them would negatively impact the U.S.
economy," wrote Jurgen Tritten, Germany's environment minister and a
Greens Party member.

"The American president is closing his eyes to the economic and
human
costs his land and the world economy are suffering under natural
catastrophes like Katrina," Tritten charged.

While it is impossible to link Katrina specifically to warming,
scientists said, most now concur that global warming does tend to
increase the intensity of hurricanes, if not their frequency.

"There is new research that shows there may well be an increase in
the destructive power of hurricanes because of global warming," said
Wayne Elliott, a meteorologist with the British weather service.

But the experts add that it was scientifically unfair to blame any
one hurricane on the warming trend.

"We would expect hurricanes on average should be getting more
intense
because of global warming," said Jay Gulledge, senior research
fellow
at the Pew Institute for Climate Change, "but it's hard to make the
connection in any one event, like Katrina."

The United States has experienced Category 5 hurricanes like Katrina
before the warming of the last decades, he pointed out.

But the connection between global warming and Katrina was made
prominently in many media outlets in European countries, all of
which
have signed the Kyoto accord and in which Bush administration
environmental policies are widely unpopular.

In Italy, the Legambiente, a powerful national environment lobby,
called Katrina "a dramatic event on par with Sept. 11," referring to
the terrorist attacks of 2001, and demanded change from the U.S.
government.

The strength of a hurricane is connected to sea surface temperature,
which is slowly rising with global temperatures. In the last
century,
global temperatures have risen more than 0.7 degree Celsius (1.26
degree Fahrenheit) and sea temperatures about 0.6 degree Celsius
(1.08 degree Fahrenheit), and the pace of change is accelerating,
according to the European Environment Agency.

September 4, 2005

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?
Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=1925&topicId=100002042&docId=l:3
0
7686119&start=11

http://tinyurl.com/ceha5

j2997
--- End forwarded message ---

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
CO2 not certain to counter climate change
By Clive Cookson, Science Editor
Published: September 6 2005 03:00 | Last updated: September 6 2005
03:00

The world cannot count on the "fertilising" effects of carbon dioxide
to counteract the adverse impact of global warming on crop yields,
according to a paper presented to the British Association Science
Festival.


To make matters worse, crop yields are very vulnerable to the
increasing low-level ozone pollution expect-ed to accompany climate
change.

Scientists have simulated in open fields the effects of the
atmospheric changes expected to take place over the next 50 years -
and discovered the benefits predicted from greenhouse experiments do
not materialise. Steve Long, a crop scientist at the University of
Illinois, told the festival in Dublin: "Current projections of global
food supply under climatic and atmospheric change are likely to be
very optimistic."

Maize, the world's most extensively grown grain, did not benefit at
all when carbon dioxide was pumped into large open fields in
Illinois, using computer-controlled discharge rings that maintain
steady high levels of CO2 whatever the wind direction. Other
important crops such as wheat and soya beans showed just half the
fertilising effect of increasing CO2 that research in closed
greenhouses had suggested.

In addition, Prof Long said, an experiment with soya beans, the most
important leguminous crop, would yield 20 per cent less by 2050, as a
result of increasing ozone, a pollutant related to photochemical smog.

Martin Parry of the UK Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre said
research sponsored by the government suggested climate change over
the next 50 years would by itself add 50m to the 500m in the world
who do not have enough to eat. Three-quarters of these would be in
Africa.

Prof Parry said current calculations of the impact of global warming
on agriculture assumed a significant boost to crop yields from
atmospheric changes, to counteract partially the adverse climatic
impacts of higher temperatures and lower rainfall. But the Free-Air
Concentration Enrichment (Face) experiments described by Prof Long
threw that into doubt.

"We were imagining a 10 to 20 per cent positive effect from
additional CO2 for the UK," Prof Parry said. "We were expecting to
see yield reductions [as a result of global warming] of 2.5 to 5 per
cent in Africa - without the CO2 effect, that could be a 5 to 10 per
cent reduction."

The Face experiments take place in large round plots within huge open
fields. Each ring is bristling with sensors that detect gas
concentrations and wind direction inside the crop, so gases can be
discharged at the right points to simulate atmospheric pollution.

"Evidence for crops' response to CO2 and ozone are based largely on
studies within chambers and glasshouses at small scales," said Prof
Long. "Such facilities would be considered unacceptable for standard
agricultural trials of agrochemicals or new crop varieties. Yet the
world community is basing its predictions of the globe's food
supplies on such inadequate information."

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a4d00658-1e73-11da-a470-00000e2511c8.html
http://tinyurl.com/9boyd

j2997
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fuelcell-energy/

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Two Storms, Ample Warning

By William Raspberry
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; A25



Last week brought us one big story -- and one almost incomprehensibly
huge one. The huge story, of course, is the still-unfolding
devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The merely big one was a report out
of the Census Bureau that the number of Americans falling into
poverty has increased again, for the fourth straight year.

If the two stories have anything in common it is the willingness of
Americans -- the political majority, the politicians and the media --
to ignore clear portents, right up to the point when disaster strikes.

Back in June 2004, Walter Maestri, chief of emergency management for
Jefferson Parish, La., was lamenting in the New Orleans Times-
Picayune that the president's budget was transferring money meant for
reinforcing the levees that were keeping the waters of Lake
Pontchartrain out of downtown New Orleans to homeland security and
the war in Iraq.

The Institute for Public Accuracy found at least nine articles in the
Times-Picayune about the unavailability of federal money for
hurricane and flood control projects -- including a five-part 2002
series on the threat of a major hurricane. It was titled "Washing
Away."

That is to say, while no one could have predicted the ferocity of
Katrina -- a storm of unprecedented fury -- it was known that New
Orleans was in jeopardy from deteriorating levees.

And back in 1998, former senator Fred Harris and Alan Curtis,
president of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, the private-sector
continuation of the 1968 Kerner Commission, were warning of resurgent
poverty.

"If anything, the numbers out of the Census Bureau underestimate the
problem of poverty in America," Curtis said in an interview last
week. "The bureau's definition of the poverty threshold is $19,300 a
year for a family of four. But a lot depends on where you happen to
live. By one scale I'm familiar with, that family of four -- if they
lived in Baltimore -- would cross the poverty threshold at $44,000 a
year.

"But the major mistake is to take the census report as a one-year
phenomenon. This is the fourth straight year of increasing poverty,
following a seven-year decline, from 1993 to 2000. Shouldn't wise
journalists be asking why?"

But the why may not be as simple as Curtis's comment implies. He said
his foundation has identified programs that demonstrably reduce
poverty -- from Head Start ("the most cost-effective poverty-
reduction program we've ever devised'') and full-service community
schools to the Delancey Street Foundation for ex-offenders and job
training programs. The trouble, he says, is that we don't fund these
efforts at a level sufficient to meet the problem. And so another
million people have slipped into poverty.

Peter Goldmark, director of climate and air at Environmental Defense
and a former president of the Rockefeller Foundation, offers a
similar explanation for the potential devastation of global warming,
which, according to many scientists, accounts for the increasing
frequency and intensity of hurricanes -- though he warns against
concluding that Katrina (or any particular hurricane) is the result
of global warming.

"We know the chief sources of the warming -- fossil fuels and, in the
tropics, the burning of trees for cooking -- but we haven't moved to
stop it," Goldmark said. "It really isn't that difficult to begin
reducing carbon emissions, as Europe and Japan are doing already. We
could certainly put a cap on the quantity of greenhouse gases
industry can emit."

The easy thing is to blame the politicians -- as both Curtis and
Goldmark implicitly are doing.

But politicians like being reelected. And the one sure bet is that
the politician who proposes that we sacrifice our personal
convenience and pay higher taxes in the long-term interest of society
will be turned out of office.

To put it another way, the politicians do what the voters want done.

It occurs to me that a real-time video of the inundation of New
Orleans -- not of the hurricane itself, but of the disappearing
barrier islands, misapplied engineering and political inattention --
might, if played back very slowly, provide a visual approximation of
the potential effects of global warming on the lower-lying coastal
areas of the world.

And maybe if we could videotape the growing chasm between rich and
poor and the persistent increases in our nation's poverty and play
that back at high speed, we might be shocked into doing something
sensible about reducing poverty and inequality in America.

willrasp@...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501382_pf.html

http://tinyurl.com/cnyuo

j2997
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fuelcell-energy/

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Hi Pat,

I am quoting the article you sent below:

>To put it another way, the politicians do what the voters want done.
>

In fact there are very few voters in the US and few of any consequence
in Australia because the
populations have been organised so that only a small sector of them
votes or so that only a very narrow
range of issues is canvassed.

Is this the fault of the politicians?

I don't think so. I think it is the fault of the mainstream media, for
the media controls the politicians and what we get
to vote for.

I think it  is getting near the time when the rich and cruel people who
have made billions out of manipulating journalists
and politicians into defrauding and neglecting the rest of us should be
dragged out into the street and torn to pieces.


Sheila N




Pat N self only wrote:

>
>
>
>---------- Forwarded Message ----------
>Two Storms, Ample Warning
>
>By William Raspberry
>Tuesday, September 6, 2005; A25
>
>
>
>Last week brought us one big story -- and one almost incomprehensibly
>huge one. The huge story, of course, is the still-unfolding
>devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The merely big one was a report out
>of the Census Bureau that the number of Americans falling into
>poverty has increased again, for the fourth straight year.
>
>If the two stories have anything in common it is the willingness of
>Americans -- the political majority, the politicians and the media --
>to ignore clear portents, right up to the point when disaster strikes.
>
>Back in June 2004, Walter Maestri, chief of emergency management for
>Jefferson Parish, La., was lamenting in the New Orleans Times-
>Picayune that the president's budget was transferring money meant for
>reinforcing the levees that were keeping the waters of Lake
>Pontchartrain out of downtown New Orleans to homeland security and
>the war in Iraq.
>
>The Institute for Public Accuracy found at least nine articles in the
>Times-Picayune about the unavailability of federal money for
>hurricane and flood control projects -- including a five-part 2002
>series on the threat of a major hurricane. It was titled "Washing
>Away."
>
>That is to say, while no one could have predicted the ferocity of
>Katrina -- a storm of unprecedented fury -- it was known that New
>Orleans was in jeopardy from deteriorating levees.
>
>And back in 1998, former senator Fred Harris and Alan Curtis,
>president of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, the private-sector
>continuation of the 1968 Kerner Commission, were warning of resurgent
>poverty.
>
>"If anything, the numbers out of the Census Bureau underestimate the
>problem of poverty in America," Curtis said in an interview last
>week. "The bureau's definition of the poverty threshold is $19,300 a
>year for a family of four. But a lot depends on where you happen to
>live. By one scale I'm familiar with, that family of four -- if they
>lived in Baltimore -- would cross the poverty threshold at $44,000 a
>year.
>
>"But the major mistake is to take the census report as a one-year
>phenomenon. This is the fourth straight year of increasing poverty,
>following a seven-year decline, from 1993 to 2000. Shouldn't wise
>journalists be asking why?"
>
>But the why may not be as simple as Curtis's comment implies. He said
>his foundation has identified programs that demonstrably reduce
>poverty -- from Head Start ("the most cost-effective poverty-
>reduction program we've ever devised'') and full-service community
>schools to the Delancey Street Foundation for ex-offenders and job
>training programs. The trouble, he says, is that we don't fund these
>efforts at a level sufficient to meet the problem. And so another
>million people have slipped into poverty.
>
>Peter Goldmark, director of climate and air at Environmental Defense
>and a former president of the Rockefeller Foundation, offers a
>similar explanation for the potential devastation of global warming,
>which, according to many scientists, accounts for the increasing
>frequency and intensity of hurricanes -- though he warns against
>concluding that Katrina (or any particular hurricane) is the result
>of global warming.
>
>"We know the chief sources of the warming -- fossil fuels and, in the
>tropics, the burning of trees for cooking -- but we haven't moved to
>stop it," Goldmark said. "It really isn't that difficult to begin
>reducing carbon emissions, as Europe and Japan are doing already. We
>could certainly put a cap on the quantity of greenhouse gases
>industry can emit."
>
>The easy thing is to blame the politicians -- as both Curtis and
>Goldmark implicitly are doing.
>
>But politicians like being reelected. And the one sure bet is that
>the politician who proposes that we sacrifice our personal
>convenience and pay higher taxes in the long-term interest of society
>will be turned out of office.
>
>To put it another way, the politicians do what the voters want done.
>
>It occurs to me that a real-time video of the inundation of New
>Orleans -- not of the hurricane itself, but of the disappearing
>barrier islands, misapplied engineering and political inattention --
>might, if played back very slowly, provide a visual approximation of
>the potential effects of global warming on the lower-lying coastal
>areas of the world.
>
>And maybe if we could videotape the growing chasm between rich and
>poor and the persistent increases in our nation's poverty and play
>that back at high speed, we might be shocked into doing something
>sensible about reducing poverty and inequality in America.
>
>willrasp@...
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
>dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501382_pf.html
>
>http://tinyurl.com/cnyuo
>
>j2997
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fuelcell-energy/
>
>
>
>---
>
>THE WORLD IS IN CRISIS DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING!
>
>---
>
>Support - Financial incentives to conserve fuel and reduce greenhous gas
emissions - ConserveNow!
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/229
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

may want to use P&C for discussion on this

Please note: forwarded message

   I disagree here. The politicians do what the corporations want done.
Corporations have usurped our rights under the constitution and have the vast
wealth to enforce that....buying politicians, controlling the media, suppressing
or attacking global warming reports and scientists. Read anything by the Program
on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) or, as I'm sure many have,the global
warming books by Ross Gelbspan.

Jeanne



The easy thing is to blame the politicians -- as both Curtis and
>Goldmark implicitly are doing.
>
>But politicians like being reelected. And the one sure bet is that
>the politician who proposes that we sacrifice our personal
>convenience and pay higher taxes in the long-term interest of society
>will be turned out of office.
>
>To put it another way, the politicians do what the voters want done.



---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Hi Pat,

I am quoting the article you sent below:

>To put it another way, the politicians do what the voters want done.
>

In fact there are very few voters in the US and few of any consequence
in Australia because the
populations have been organised so that only a small sector of them
votes or so that only a very narrow
range of issues is canvassed.

Is this the fault of the politicians?

I don't think so. I think it is the fault of the mainstream media, for
the media controls the politicians and what we get
to vote for.

I think it  is getting near the time when the rich and cruel people who
have made billions out of manipulating journalists
and politicians into defrauding and neglecting the rest of us should be
dragged out into the street and torn to pieces.


Sheila N




Pat N self only wrote:

>
>
>
>---------- Forwarded Message ----------
>Two Storms, Ample Warning
>
>By William Raspberry
>Tuesday, September 6, 2005; A25
>
>
>
>Last week brought us one big story -- and one almost incomprehensibly
>huge one. The huge story, of course, is the still-unfolding
>devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The merely big one was a report out
>of the Census Bureau that the number of Americans falling into
>poverty has increased again, for the fourth straight year.
>
>If the two stories have anything in common it is the willingness of
>Americans -- the political majority, the politicians and the media --
>to ignore clear portents, right up to the point when disaster strikes.
>
>Back in June 2004, Walter Maestri, chief of emergency management for
>Jefferson Parish, La., was lamenting in the New Orleans Times-
>Picayune that the president's budget was transferring money meant for
>reinforcing the levees that were keeping the waters of Lake
>Pontchartrain out of downtown New Orleans to homeland security and
>the war in Iraq.
>
>The Institute for Public Accuracy found at least nine articles in the
>Times-Picayune about the unavailability of federal money for
>hurricane and flood control projects -- including a five-part 2002
>series on the threat of a major hurricane. It was titled "Washing
>Away."
>
>That is to say, while no one could have predicted the ferocity of
>Katrina -- a storm of unprecedented fury -- it was known that New
>Orleans was in jeopardy from deteriorating levees.
>
>And back in 1998, former senator Fred Harris and Alan Curtis,
>president of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, the private-sector
>continuation of the 1968 Kerner Commission, were warning of resurgent
>poverty.
>
>"If anything, the numbers out of the Census Bureau underestimate the
>problem of poverty in America," Curtis said in an interview last
>week. "The bureau's definition of the poverty threshold is $19,300 a
>year for a family of four. But a lot depends on where you happen to
>live. By one scale I'm familiar with, that family of four -- if they
>lived in Baltimore -- would cross the poverty threshold at $44,000 a
>year.
>
>"But the major mistake is to take the census report as a one-year
>phenomenon. This is the fourth straight year of increasing poverty,
>following a seven-year decline, from 1993 to 2000. Shouldn't wise
>journalists be asking why?"
>
>But the why may not be as simple as Curtis's comment implies. He said
>his foundation has identified programs that demonstrably reduce
>poverty -- from Head Start ("the most cost-effective poverty-
>reduction program we've ever devised'') and full-service community
>schools to the Delancey Street Foundation for ex-offenders and job
>training programs. The trouble, he says, is that we don't fund these
>efforts at a level sufficient to meet the problem. And so another
>million people have slipped into poverty.
>
>Peter Goldmark, director of climate and air at Environmental Defense
>and a former president of the Rockefeller Foundation, offers a
>similar explanation for the potential devastation of global warming,
>which, according to many scientists, accounts for the increasing
>frequency and intensity of hurricanes -- though he warns against
>concluding that Katrina (or any particular hurricane) is the result
>of global warming.
>
>"We know the chief sources of the warming -- fossil fuels and, in the
>tropics, the burning of trees for cooking -- but we haven't moved to
>stop it," Goldmark said. "It really isn't that difficult to begin
>reducing carbon emissions, as Europe and Japan are doing already. We
>could certainly put a cap on the quantity of greenhouse gases
>industry can emit."
>
>The easy thing is to blame the politicians -- as both Curtis and
>Goldmark implicitly are doing.
>
>But politicians like being reelected. And the one sure bet is that
>the politician who proposes that we sacrifice our personal
>convenience and pay higher taxes in the long-term interest of society
>will be turned out of office.
>
>To put it another way, the politicians do what the voters want done.
>
>It occurs to me that a real-time video of the inundation of New
>Orleans -- not of the hurricane itself, but of the disappearing
>barrier islands, misapplied engineering and political inattention --
>might, if played back very slowly, provide a visual approximation of
>the potential effects of global warming on the lower-lying coastal
>areas of the world.
>
>And maybe if we could videotape the growing chasm between rich and
>poor and the persistent increases in our nation's poverty and play
>that back at high speed, we might be shocked into doing something
>sensible about reducing poverty and inequality in America.
>
>willrasp@...
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
>dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501382_pf.html
>
> http://tinyurl.com/cnyuo
>
>j2997
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fuelcell-energy/
>
>
>
>---
>
>THE WORLD IS IN CRISIS DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING!
>
>---
>
>Support - Financial incentives to conserve fuel and reduce greenhous gas
emissions - ConserveNow!
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/229
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>




rded message attached

As you can see below, I sent the previous post on this subject to
P&C, at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paleontology_and_Climate/


I blame corporate greed, media, politicions, managers of goverment
agencies and government workers who follow their chain of command
without question or conscience. Did I leave anyone out?

Pat


--- In Paleontology_and_Climate@yahoogroups.com, "Pat Neuman"
<npat1@j...> wrote:
--- In ClimateArchive@yahoogroups.com,

  "Pat N self only" <npat1@j...> wrote:
may want to use P&C for discussion on this

Please note: forwarded message

   I disagree here. The politicians do what the corporations want
done. Corporations have usurped our rights under the constitution
and have the vast wealth to enforce that....buying politicians,
controlling the media, suppressing or attacking global warming
reports and scientists. Read anything by the Program on
Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) or, as I'm sure many
have,the global warming books by Ross Gelbspan.

Jeanne



The easy thing is to blame the politicians -- as both Curtis and
>Goldmark implicitly are doing.
>
>But politicians like being reelected. And the one sure bet is that
>the politician who proposes that we sacrifice our personal
>convenience and pay higher taxes in the long-term interest of
society
>will be turned out of office.
>
>To put it another way, the politicians do what the voters want done.



---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Hi Pat,

I am quoting the article you sent below:

>To put it another way, the politicians do what the voters want done.
>

In fact there are very few voters in the US and few of any
consequence
in Australia because the
populations have been organised so that only a small sector of them
votes or so that only a very narrow
range of issues is canvassed.

Is this the fault of the politicians?

I don't think so. I think it is the fault of the mainstream media,
for
the media controls the politicians and what we get
to vote for.

I think it  is getting near the time when the rich and cruel people
who
have made billions out of manipulating journalists
and politicians into defrauding and neglecting the rest of us should
be
dragged out into the street and torn to pieces.


Sheila N




Pat N self only wrote:

>
>
>
>---------- Forwarded Message ----------
>Two Storms, Ample Warning
>
>By William Raspberry
>Tuesday, September 6, 2005; A25
>
>
>
>Last week brought us one big story -- and one almost
incomprehensibly
>huge one. The huge story, of course, is the still-unfolding
>devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The merely big one was a report
out
>of the Census Bureau that the number of Americans falling into
>poverty has increased again, for the fourth straight year.
>
>If the two stories have anything in common it is the willingness of
>Americans -- the political majority, the politicians and the media -
-
>to ignore clear portents, right up to the point when disaster
strikes.
>
>Back in June 2004, Walter Maestri, chief of emergency management
for
>Jefferson Parish, La., was lamenting in the New Orleans Times-
>Picayune that the president's budget was transferring money meant
for
>reinforcing the levees that were keeping the waters of Lake
>Pontchartrain out of downtown New Orleans to homeland security and
>the war in Iraq.
>
>The Institute for Public Accuracy found at least nine articles in
the
>Times-Picayune about the unavailability of federal money for
>hurricane and flood control projects -- including a five-part 2002
>series on the threat of a major hurricane. It was titled "Washing
>Away."
>
>That is to say, while no one could have predicted the ferocity of
>Katrina -- a storm of unprecedented fury -- it was known that New
>Orleans was in jeopardy from deteriorating levees.
>
>And back in 1998, former senator Fred Harris and Alan Curtis,
>president of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, the private-
sector
>continuation of the 1968 Kerner Commission, were warning of
resurgent
>poverty.
>
>"If anything, the numbers out of the Census Bureau underestimate
the
>problem of poverty in America," Curtis said in an interview last
>week. "The bureau's definition of the poverty threshold is $19,300
a
>year for a family of four. But a lot depends on where you happen to
>live. By one scale I'm familiar with, that family of four -- if
they
>lived in Baltimore -- would cross the poverty threshold at $44,000
a
>year.
>
>"But the major mistake is to take the census report as a one-year
>phenomenon. This is the fourth straight year of increasing poverty,
>following a seven-year decline, from 1993 to 2000. Shouldn't wise
>journalists be asking why?"
>
>But the why may not be as simple as Curtis's comment implies. He
said
>his foundation has identified programs that demonstrably reduce
>poverty -- from Head Start ("the most cost-effective poverty-
>reduction program we've ever devised'') and full-service community
>schools to the Delancey Street Foundation for ex-offenders and job
>training programs. The trouble, he says, is that we don't fund
these
>efforts at a level sufficient to meet the problem. And so another
>million people have slipped into poverty.
>
>Peter Goldmark, director of climate and air at Environmental
Defense
>and a former president of the Rockefeller Foundation, offers a
>similar explanation for the potential devastation of global
warming,
>which, according to many scientists, accounts for the increasing
>frequency and intensity of hurricanes -- though he warns against
>concluding that Katrina (or any particular hurricane) is the result
>of global warming.
>
>"We know the chief sources of the warming -- fossil fuels and, in
the
>tropics, the burning of trees for cooking -- but we haven't moved
to
>stop it," Goldmark said. "It really isn't that difficult to begin
>reducing carbon emissions, as Europe and Japan are doing already.
We
>could certainly put a cap on the quantity of greenhouse gases
>industry can emit."
>
>The easy thing is to blame the politicians -- as both Curtis and
>Goldmark implicitly are doing.
>
>But politicians like being reelected. And the one sure bet is that
>the politician who proposes that we sacrifice our personal
>convenience and pay higher taxes in the long-term interest of
society
>will be turned out of office.
>
>To put it another way, the politicians do what the voters want done.
>
>It occurs to me that a real-time video of the inundation of New
>Orleans -- not of the hurricane itself, but of the disappearing
>barrier islands, misapplied engineering and political inattention --

>might, if played back very slowly, provide a visual approximation
of
>the potential effects of global warming on the lower-lying coastal
>areas of the world.
>
>And maybe if we could videotape the growing chasm between rich and
>poor and the persistent increases in our nation's poverty and play
>that back at high speed, we might be shocked into doing something
>sensible about reducing poverty and inequality in America.
>
>willrasp@w...
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
>dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501382_pf.html
>
> http://tinyurl.com/cnyuo
>
>j2997
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fuelcell-energy/
>
>
>
>---
>
>THE WORLD IS IN CRISIS DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING!
>
>---
>
>Support - Financial incentives to conserve fuel and reduce
greenhous gas
emissions - ConserveNow!
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/229
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>




rded message attached
--- End forwarded message ---
--- End forwarded message ---

GRIST
China may boost use of renewables, efforts to fight climate change

Recent developments show China making concerted efforts to boost its use of
clean energy and engage the world community in efforts to battle global warming.
Late last week, China and the European Union announced a deal that would have
the formidable economic powers sharing technology and techniques to mitigate
carbon-dioxide emissions. And Monday, the director of renewable energy for a
Beijing policy commission said that Chinese leadership is considering boosting
its clean-energy targets by 50 percent, from a goal of 10 percent by 2020 to 15
percent (to greens' chagrin, that target includes environmentally controversial
hydropower). Though China likely wishes to be seen as a good global citizen on
environmental issues, it has plenty of direct incentives to adopt clean energy,
including the high cost of fossil-fuel imports, notoriously filthy air,
widespread acid rain, and the likely impacts of global warming.

straight to the source: Reuters, Emma Graham-Harrison, 05 Sep 2005
straight to the source: SciDev.net, Mike Shanahan, 06 Sep 2005

NOW IN GRIST

EXPERTS TO WARN GLOBAL WARMING LIKELY TO CONTINUE SPURRING MORE OUTBREAKS OF
INTENSE HURRICANE ACTIVITY

Problem Tied to Rising Sea Temperatures From Trapped Greenhouse Gases; Trend
Portends More Storm Damage Costs for FL, AL, LA, TX, NC and SC.

WASHINGTON, D.C.//October 21, 2004///With four hurricanes and tropical storms
hitting the United States in a recent five-week period, 2004 already is being
called "The Year of the Hurricane." But this year's unusually intense period of
destructive weather activity could be a harbinger of what is to come as the
effects of global warming become even more pronounced in future years, according
to leading experts who participated today in a Center for Health and the Global
Environment at Harvard Medical School briefing.

The recent onslaught of four major tropical weather disturbances - Charley,
Frances, Ivan and Jeanne - that did so much damage in the United States and
nearby Haiti have spurred new questions about the relationship between
hurricanes and global warming. While experts can't say that climate change will
result in more hurricanes in the future, there is growing evidence and concern
that the tropical storms that do happen will be more intense than in the past.
Fueling concerns about the link between global warming and hurricanes is a new
study on hurricane intensity published on September 28, 2004 in "The Journal of
Climate." The study used extensive computer modeling to analyze 1,300 future
hurricanes and projected major increase in the intensity and rainfall of
hurricanes in coming decades.

"Global warming may well be causing bigger and more powerful hurricanes," said
James J. McCarthy, a biological oceanographer at Harvard University and lead
author of the climate change impacts portion of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change's (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (2001). "Warmer seas fuel the
large storms forming over the Atlantic and Pacific, and greater evaporation
generates heavy downpours. With warmer, saltier tropical seas, the IPCC has
projected larger storms, heavier rainfalls and higher peak winds."

Paul R. Epstein, M.D., associate director of the Center for Health and the
Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, said: "Scientists cannot say at
present whether more or fewer hurricanes will occur in the future. However, even
if the number of storms remained constant, more powerful hurricanes with
stronger winds, higher storm surges, and heavier downpours would have an even
greater potential for damage, including increased risks to human life and public
health, more floods and mudslides, increased coastal erosion and damage to
coastal buildings and infrastructure. This is the pattern that we already may be
seeing related to the overall increase in extremes."

Precipitation from hurricanes also is seen as being likely to increase,
leading to flooding and mudslides. In addition, hurricane storm surges could be
larger due to sea-level rise from melting ice and snow and the thermal expansion
of ocean waters. In the U.S., the areas at greatest risk of larger storm surges
are low-lying coastal areas along the Gulf Coast, such as Florida's Panhandle,
Alabama's Gulf Shores and southern Louisiana. More intense hurricane activity
also poses a risk to such vulnerable sections of the United States as North
Carolina and South Carolina.

How would global warming increase the intensity of hurricanes?

One of the consequences of global warming appears to be not only an increase in
sea surface temperature, but a rising of the overall energy flux at the tropical
ocean surface. Some experts think that this increased surface disequilibrium may
lead to more intense tropical storms. In the Pacific, a large ocean water area
two degrees warmer than average spawned 20 typhoons this season. Eight hit Japan
and meteorologists there have openly attributed that nation's battering to
global warming.

"Human activities are changing the composition of the atmosphere and global
warming is happening as a result," says Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate
Analysis Section at NCAR and a convening lead author of the 2007 IPCC report for
the chapter on observed changes. "Global warming is manifested in many ways,
some unexpected. Sea level has risen 1.25 inches in the past 10 years as a
result of warming of the oceans and glacier melting. The environment in which
hurricanes form is changing. The result was a hurricane in late March 2004 in
the South Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil: the first and only such hurricane
in that region. Several factors go into forming hurricanes and where they track.
But the evidence strongly suggests more intense storms and risk of greater
flooding events, so that the North Atlantic hurricane season of 2004 may well be
a harbinger of the future."

The insurance industry already is reading the signals. From the 1980s
through the 1990s, damages from catastrophes (primarily weather extremes) rose
exponentially - from $4 to $40 billion annually (when calculated in 1999
dollars) with about one quarter of that amount insured. In the 1990s, Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) payouts for disasters quadrupled. Estimates
of insured losses from this year's hurricanes range from $20 to $40 billion.

With the possibility of more problems to come, weather-related property and
casualty costs from extreme events are projected by the UN to reach $150 billion
worldwide this decade. In the US some companies already have withdrawn coverage
from Cape Cod and the southern coast of Massachusetts. After this brutal
hurricane season in Florida, homes and businesses are likely to face higher
deductibles and part of the burden will fall on taxpayers.

Matthias Weber, senior vice president and chief property underwriter of the US
Direct Americas division of Swiss Re, said: "Not since 1886 have four hurricanes
hit one state in a single season. This year, 22 percent of Floridians were
affected and two million claims generated by hurricanes and tropical storms. In
2005, we expect the demand for catastrophe reinsurance to continue to rise. Over
the last 10 years demand has increased about 10 percent per year."

http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge/hurricanespress.html

The Snowball Effect of Global Warming
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 06 September 2005
09:46 am ET

In a twist to the proverbial snowball effect, warmer Arctic
temperatures are stimulating plant growth, which darkens the
landscape and causes more sunlight to be absorbed rather than
reflected.

The result: Winter heating could increase by 70 percent, according to
a new study.

The study examined western Alaska during the winters of 2000 through
2002. Shrubs and other vegetation became more abundant, the
researchers found. Because the plants are darker than the tundra that
typically covers the region, the surface gets darker. The
study "presents the first evidence that shrub growth could alter the
winter energy balance of the Arctic and subarctic tundra in a
substantial way," the scientists announced today.

The study will be detailed Sept. 7 in the first issue of the Journal
of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, published by the American
Geophysical Union.

In areas where shrubs were exposed in mid-winter, melting began
several weeks earlier in the spring compared to snow-covered terrain.
Yet the shrubs' branches produced shade that slowed the rate of
melting, so that the snow melt finished at approximately the same
time for all the sites examined.

Matthew Sturm, leader of the study, said warming in the region seems
to have stimulated shrub growth, which further
warms the area and creates a feedback effect that can promote higher
temperatures and even more growth. This feedback could, in turn,
accelerate increases in the shrubs' range and size, he said.

The Alaskan tundra covers some 1.5 million square miles (4 million
square kilometers). "Basically, if tundra is converted to shrubland,
more solar energy will be absorbed in the winter than before," Sturm
said. And while previous research has shown that warmer temperatures
during the Arctic summer enhance shrub growth, "our study is
important because it suggests that the winter processes could also
contribute to and amplify the rate of the [growth]."
http://www.livescience.com/environment/050906_arctic_shrubs.html

If you thought the appalling images coming out of New Orleans last week didn't
"look like America," brace yourself, says Bill McKibben -- you're getting a
preview of the America of the future. The scandalous lack of planning that
contributed to such devastation along the Gulf Coast hardly compares to the
scandalous lack of planning that has kept the U.S. from even beginning to
address climate change. McKibben reflects on environmental disasters in the wake
of Hurricane Katrina.

GRIST
Hurricane Katrina brings a foretaste of environmental disasters to come

http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/09/07/mckibben/index.html?source=dail\
y

Asian peat fires add to warming



The destruction of tropical peatlands is contributing significantly to
global warming, according to a study. Peatlands in South-East Asia are
being burnt in fires started with the intention to clear forest, but in
dry periods they can rage out of control.



This can free vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Dr
Susan Page of Leicester University, UK, said. The peatlands, which
contain up to 21% of global land-based stores of carbon, could be
destroyed by 2040, she added.



It has been calculated that in 1997, 2.67 billion tonnes of the
greenhouse gas carbon dioxide were released through burning of these
peatlands. This is equivalent to 40% of one year's global fossil fuel
combustion, Dr Page says. That year was unusually high, however; the
intermediate estimate is one billion tonnes, about 15% of fossil  fuel
combustion for a year.




Source: Paul Rincon/ BBC News

Clean Energy NEWS

Vol. 5, Number 39, 06 September 2005

U.S. States Fight EPA on Greenhouse Gases



A group of U.S. states Tuesday challenged a July court ruling upholding
the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to regulate greenhouse gas
emission, a factor in global warming.



Led by Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly, the five states and the
District of Columbia filed a petition asking the full U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia to review the July decision by a
panel of the court, which Reilly said "allowed (the EPA) to continue on
its path of inaction." "This case deals with one of the most serious
environmental threats of our time," Reilly said in a statement. "Surely
it warrants a decision by the full court."



The group, which includes the attorneys general of Maine, New Mexico,
Oregon, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia, said the EPA could not
refuse to regulate greenhouse gases "simply because it opposes such
regulation on policy grounds."

Last month, however, two judges on a panel of three upheld the EPA's
refusal to do so, ruling the agency did not abuse its discretion. EPA
officials did not immediately return a call seeking comment.



In 1999, environmental groups filed a petition asking the agency to set
emission standards for greenhouse gases including carbon monoxide, a
factor in global warming, but the EPA denied the petition four years
later.



President Bush, who had made campaign promises to regulate greenhouse gas
emissions, in 2001 said they were not air pollutants that could be
regulated under the Clean Air Act. He also eschewed the Kyoto Protocol,
the greenhouse gas reduction plan adopted by more than 150 countries.


Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island are three of nine Northeastern
states currently working on a plan to reduce the level of greenhouse gas
emissions from power plants by capping carbon dioxide emissions.

Source: Reuters, 31 August 2005

Clean Energy NEWS

Vol. 5, Number 39, 06 September 2005

Ozone Layer Has Stopped Shrinking, U.S. Study Finds



The ozone layer has stopped shrinking but it will take decades to start
recovering, U.S. scientists reported Tuesday. They said an international
agreement to limit production of ozone-depleting chemicals has apparently
worked, but the damage to ozone has not been halted completely.



An analysis of satellite records and surface monitoring instruments shows
the ozone layer has grown a bit thicker in some parts of the world, but
is still well below normal levels, the scientists report in Wednesday's
issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Elsewhere, the decline in ozone levels has stabilized, said Betsy
Weatherhead, a researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder and
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "The observed
changes may be evidence of ozone improvement in the atmosphere," she said
in a statement.



The experts credited, at least in part, the 1987 Montreal Protocol which
was ratified by more than 180 nations and set legally binding controls
for on the production and consumption of ozone-depleting gases containing
chlorine and bromine.



The prime suspects in ozone destruction are chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs,
once commonly used in refrigeration, air conditioning and industrial
cleaning. "These early signs indicate one of the strongest success
stories of international cooperation in the face of an environmental
threat," said NOAA administrator Conrad Lautenbacher.

Weather head noted that methane levels, water vapor and air temperatures
will continue to affect future ozone levels. "Even after all chlorine
compounds are out of the system, it is unlikely that ozone levels will
stabilize at the same levels," she said.

"Chemicals pumped into Earth's atmosphere decades ago still are affecting
ozone levels today," said Sherwood Roland of the University of California
Irvine. "This problem was a long time in the making, and because of the
persistence of these chlorine compounds, there is no short-term fix."



The ozone layer remains so thin that cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation
is still getting through. "This study provides some very encouraging
news," said Mike Repacholi of the World Health Organization. "But the
major cause of skin cancer is still human behavior, including tanning and
sunburns that result from a lack of proper skin protection."



Source: Reuters, 31 August 2005

Clean Energy NEWS

Vol. 5, Number 39, 06 September 2005

On the Levees of New Orleans
8/29/2005
http://solomon2.blogspot.com/2005/09/on-levees-of-new-orleans.html
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/41/3464/640/Lakechart2.jpg

Climate Change Will Affect Carbon Sequestration In Oceans, Model Shows

"Through a number of physical and chemical interactive mechanisms, the ocean
circulation could change and affect the retention time of carbon dioxide
injected into the deep ocean, thereby indirectly altering oceanic carbon storage
and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration," said Atul Jain, a professor of
atmospheric sciences.
Champaign IL (SPX) Sep 08, 2005
An Earth System model developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign indicates that the best location to store carbon dioxide in the
deep ocean will change with climate change.
The direct injection of carbon dioxide deep into the ocean has been suggested as
one method to help control rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and
mitigate the effects of global warming. But, because the atmosphere interacts
with the oceans, the net uptake of carbon dioxide and the oceans' sequestration
capacity could be affected by climate change.

"Through a number of physical and chemical interactive mechanisms, the ocean
circulation could change and affect the retention time of carbon dioxide
injected into the deep ocean, thereby indirectly altering oceanic carbon storage
and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration," said Atul Jain, a professor of
atmospheric sciences. "Where the carbon dioxide is injected turns out to be a
very important issue."

Developed by Jain and graduate student Long Cao, the Integrated Science
Assessment Model is a coupled climate-ocean-terrestrial biosphere-carbon cycle
model that allows extensive exploration of key physical and chemical
interactions among individual components of the Earth system, as well as among
carbon cycle, climate change and ocean circulation.

"A good understanding of climate change, ocean circulation, the ocean carbon
cycle and feedback mechanisms is crucial for a reliable projection of
atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and resultant climate change," Jain
said. The model is described in the September issue of the Journal of
Geophysical Research -- Oceans.

Using the model, Jain and Cao studied the effectiveness of oceanic carbon
sequestration by the direct injection of carbon dioxide at different locations
and depths.

They found that climate change has a big impact on the oceans' ability to store
carbon dioxide. The effect was most pronounced in the Atlantic Ocean. The
researchers presented their findings in the May issue of the journal Geophysical
Research Letters.

"When we ran the model without the climate feedback mechanisms, the Pacific
Ocean held more carbon dioxide for a longer time," Cao said. "When we added the
feedback mechanisms, however, the retention time in the Atlantic Ocean proved
far superior. Injecting carbon dioxide into the Atlantic Ocean would be more
effective than injecting it at the same depth in either the Pacific Ocean or the
Indian Ocean."

Future climate change could affect both the uptake of carbon dioxide in the
ocean basins and the ocean circulation patterns themselves, Jain said. As
sea-surface temperatures increase, the density of the water decreases and thus
slows the ocean thermohaline circulation, so the ocean's ability to absorb
carbon dioxide also decreases. This leaves more carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, exacerbating the problem.

"At the same time, the reduced ocean circulation will decrease the ocean mixing,
which decreases the ventilation to the atmosphere of carbon injected into the
deep ocean," Jain said. "Our model results show that this effect is more
dramatic in the Atlantic Ocean."

Sequestering carbon in the deep ocean is not a permanent solution for reducing
the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the researchers report. "Carbon
dioxide dumped in the oceans won't stay there forever," Jain said. "Eventually
it will percolate to the surface and into the atmosphere."
http://www.terradaily.com/news/climate-05zzzzq.html
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
------------------------------------------------
TERRADAILY EXPRESS - September 8, 2005
http://www.terradaily.com
24/7 Coverage Of News About Earth
------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------
FREE TO SUBSCRIBE : FREE TO READ : FREE TO DELETE
-------------------------------------------------
TERRADAILY.COM - keyword news baskets...
http://www.terradaily.com/
http://www.terradaily.com/2005/environment-briefs.html
http://www.terradaily.com/2005/naturaldisasters-briefs.html
http://www.terradaily.com/2005/health-briefs.html
-------------------------------------------------

---------------

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Letter
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7051/edsumm/e050804-11.html>

Nature 436, 686-688 (4 August 2005) | doi: 10.1038/nature03906

Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years
Kerry Emanuel1

(Abstract)

Theory and modelling predict that hurricane intensity should increase
with increasing global mean temperatures, but work on the detection
of trends in hurricane activity has focused mostly on their frequency
and shows no trend. Here I define an index of the potential
destructiveness of hurricanes based on the total dissipation of
power, integrated over the lifetime of the cyclone, and show that
this index has increased markedly since the mid-1970s. This trend is
due to both longer storm lifetimes and greater storm intensities. I
find that the record of net hurricane power dissipation is highly
correlated with tropical sea surface temperature, reflecting
well-documented climate signals, including multi-decadal oscillations
in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and global warming. My
results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in
tropical cyclone destructive potential, and-taking into account an
increasing coastal population-a substantial increase in
hurricane-related losses in the twenty-first century.

1.Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

Correspondence to: Kerry Emanuel1
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to the author at
Email: emanuel@....

Received 28 January 2005; Accepted 3 June 2005

Posted by Tim
AustinTex
--
<http://www.groundtruthinvestigations.com/>








Yahoo! Groups Links

http://madison.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/26152

The following article has been sent to you by mtneuman@....

------------------------------------------------------------
Katrina's Power Shows It's Time to Take Global Warming Seriously
------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 08 September 2005
by Michael T. Neuman
Email: mtneuman@...


Summary: The decimation Hurricane Katrina has brought to Louisiana,
Mississippi and parts of Alabama has sparked increasing scientific
concerns about the threat of global warming. According to the National
Climate Data System, Hurricane Katrina was one of the strongest storms to
impact the coast of the United States during the last 100 years.

Less than a month before Katrina reached the top level of the
Saffir-Simpson scale (Category 5), the prestigious British journal
"Nature" published an article by a professor of atmospheric science at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, showing evidence
that hurricanes and typhoons have intensified in the recent years as
global warming has continued. But as renown and respected author Bill
McKibbens writes, "so far the U.S. has done exactly nothing even to try
to slow the progress of climate change". Maybe it's time to take another
look at this picture?

Hurricane Katrina developed initially as a tropical depression in the
southeastern Bahamas on August 23rd and strengthened into Tropical Storm
Katrina the next day. As the storm moved southwest across the tip of the
Florida peninsula, Katrina's winds decreased slightly before regaining
hurricane strength in the Gulf of Mexico. As it traveled over the warmer
than usual waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it developed into a much
stronger and larger storm, ultimately reaching "Category 5" strength
before moving landward as a Category 4 hurricane and settling over
southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi and parts of Alabama.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/katrina.html

Katrina's had sustained winds during landfall of 140 mph and 902 mb
minimum central pressure - the 4th lowest on record for an Atlantic storm
- but its unusually large size, with widespread and heavy rain, that most
likely led to the breaching of the levees that had protected New Orleans
for so many years.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/nexradviewer/katrina/klix-landfall-ani
m_slow.gif

Hurricane Katrina brings a foretaste of environmental disasters to come,
according to environmental author Bill McKibben. "Almost no one is
addressing the much larger problems: the scandalous lack of planning that
has kept us from even beginning to address climate change, and the sad
fact that global warming means the future will be full of just this kind
of horror", McKibben warns.

He continues: "we're emitting far more carbon than we were in 1988, when
scientists issued their first prescient global-warming warnings. Even if,
at that moment, we'd started doing all that we could to overhaul our
energy economy, we'd probably still be stuck with the 1 degree Fahrenheit
increase in global average temperature that's already driving our current
disruptions. Now scientists predict that without truly dramatic change in
the very near future, we're likely to see the planet's mercury rise 5
degrees before this century is out".
http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/09/07/mckibben/index.html?sour
ce=daily

Worldwide temperature data clearly show globally averaged temperatures
have been increasing sharply since the late 1970s.
http://madison.indymedia.org/media/climate/display/7032/index.php

The temperature data continues to be validated in real world conditions
including thawing of the massive permafrost region, retreat of mountain
glaciers, pole ward movement of seasonal snowlines, extended growing
seasons, reductions in lake ice cover periods in winter and deadlier heat
waves in summer (vice versa in Southern Hemisphere).

The melting of the permafrost region is of particular concern since it
covers roughly 1/5 of the Earth's surface, exists at varying depth levels
and releases methane gas following its thawing and decay. When the winter
freezing is of shorter duration, owing to climate warming, the spring and
summer thaw runs deeper and extends into the more ancient permafrost. The
active layer -- the layer that freezes and thaws annually -- has been
extending deeper and deeper into the permafrost each year.

Because of the lack of federal initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, considered by the vast majority of scientists to be the
underlying cause of global warming, a number of U.S. states are looking
at establishing their own programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas
emissions.

Nine northeastern states - Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont - are
developing a plan to cap and then reduce the level of greenhouse gas
emissions from power plants. Under the plan, New York, New Jersey,
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island
and Vermont would cap carbon dioxide emissions at 150 million tons a year
-- roughly equal to the average emissions in the highest three years
between 2000 and 2004. Starting in 2015, the cap would be lowered, and
emissions would be cut by 10 percent in 2020.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/25/states.emissions.reut/

A group of U.S. states on Tuesday challenged a July court ruling
upholding the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to regulate
greenhouse gas emission, a factor in global warming.

The group, which includes the attorneys general of Maine, New Mexico,
Oregon, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia, said the EPA could not
refuse to regulate greenhouse gases "simply because it opposes such
regulation on policy grounds."

Meanwhile, California, Washington and Oregon are considering a similar
pact, while the California Air Resources Board has also ordered
automakers to reduce their global-warming emissions by 30 percent,
starting in 2009.

Other states are challenging the federal government to comply with laws
that require more energy efficient product standards. Yesterday, a
coalition of 14 states and the City of New York reportedly sued the U.S.
Department of Energy for failing to adopt stronger energy-saving
standards mandated by Congress for twenty-two common appliances that use
large amounts of electricity,
natural gas and oil. Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said
in announcing the lawsuit that the efficiency standards sought by the
lawsuit would generate substantial savings for consumers and reduce air
pollution and global warming emissions from power plants.

Within the State of Wisconsin, however, the Wisconsin Legislature and the
governor have not seen fit to neither establish nor implement any set of
policies or program measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from
Wisconsin sources, despite their receiving a statewide level petition on
Earth Day this past spring with several hundred signatures of
Wisconsinites requesting the state to take the threat of climate change
and how it will impact Wisconsin more seriously than they have in the
past.

The "Wisconsin Climate Change Legislation Petition" requested the State
of Wisconsin create climate change legislation and programs aimed at
reducing greenhouse gas emission sources in Wisconsin and ensure optimal
governmental response to the climate change problems in Wisconsin.

Specifically, the petition requested the Wisconsin Legislature to: (1)
"give the creation and enactment of greenhouse gas reduction and global
warming preparedness legislation the highest possible priority ... so
Wisconsin joins the fight against accelerating global warming in a timely
manner"; and to: (2) "develop and establish a statewide program that
reduces greenhouse gases emissions from transportation, electric power
producing plants and household furnaces and appliances by offering
financial incentives to Wisconsin citizens to drive less, fly less and
use less energy in households on an annual basis".
http://www.madison.indymedia.org/feature/display/23424/index.php
http://madison.indymedia.org/newswire/display/24947/index.php

However, the 2005 State of Wisconsin Biennial Budget, as passed by the
Legislature in July and signed by Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, contains
neither policies nor programs aimed achieving meaningful levels of
greenhouse gas emission reductions in the state, nor does it require any
specific preparedness planning for the scientifically predicted negative
outcomes that global warming is projected to bring to Wisconsin (such as
increasing drought, more flash floods, reduction in snow and ice based
tourism, agricultural industry losses, increased potential for deadly
heat waves).
http://www.ucsusa.org/greatlakes

As a matter of fact, the Legislature cut in half the funding level for
the state's existing "Focus on Energy" (public benefits) program again.
Public benefits is a program that encourages conservation and improved
energy efficiency in buildings and achieves demonstrated returns of
nearly $6 in benefits to state residents and businesses for every dollar
spent on energy conservation and efficiency measures.

Furthermore, the Governor's highly touted and recently publicized
"Conserve Wisconsin" agenda will do little to preserve Wisconsin's air
quality, waters, wildlife, vegetation and human resources in the long run
(50-100 years), because the plan is not aggressive enough in controling
greenhouse gas emissions necessary for maintaining environmental
sustainability.

For example, how can a plan that advocates conserving Wisconsin's
resources come even close to doing that without addressing the constantly
increasing emissions from cars, trucks, airplanes, trains and buses? The
state needs to develop a plan for reducing the number of miles driven in
the state, rather than continuing to build wider and larger capacity
roads which only serve to encourage even more driving and more fuel
burning.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation reported last month that the
number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on the Wisconsin Highway System in
2004 reached an all time high of 60.4 billion motor vehicle miles
traveled. Assuming an average of fuel efficiency of 20 miles per gallon
of fuel and a emissions at 22 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted per gallon
of fuel burned, there were 30 million additional tons of carbon dioxide
emitted to the atmosphere from motor vehicle driving in Wisconsin in just
2004 alone.

Since the life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeds 100 years, the
volumes of it emitted yearly are additive from year to year, which makes
the blanket of CO2 in the atmosphere thicker and thicker, which makes the
atmosphere itself more effective at retaining the heat that bounces off
the earth's surface (after the sun's rays strike the earth's surface),
resulting in warming of the atmosphere.
http://danenet.danenet.org/bcp/dnrshp.pdf

The United States is the leading producer of greenhouse gases to the
environment of all the world's countries, with emissions of 25% of the
total quantities of greenhouse gases from human activities. The
transportation sector in the U.S. emits 33% of the country's total
contribution of greenhouse gases, with highway travel responsible for 85%
of U.S. transportation sector's total greenhouse gas emissions. By
expanding the capacity of the state's highway system, the Wisconsin
Department of Transportation encourages even more motorized vehicular
travel on Wisconsin's highway system and the nation as a whole.

Reducing fuel burning in transportation, energy production, heating and
recreation should be number one on the U.S. and Wisconsin agenda. If the
tragedy of Katrina is to have any positive results in Wisconsin and
elsewhere, it should be to wake people up to the reality of what things
could be like in the future if we don't start to greatless reducing our
energy use in conserve energy. A proposal plan to reduce future
environmental threats associated with global warming is offered in the
link that follows.

Support - Financial incentives to conserve fuel and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions - ConserveNow!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/229

For a printable copy of this document, please send a request to the
author.
Madison IMC: http://madison.indymedia.org/

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Katrina fuels global warming storm
Fri Sep 9, 2005 1:42 PM BST

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Hurricane Katrina has spurred debate about global
warming worldwide with some environmentalists sniping at President
George W. Bush for pulling out of the main U.N. plan for braking
climate change.

Experts agree it is impossible to say any one storm is caused by
rising temperatures. Numbers of tropical cyclones like hurricanes
worldwide are stable at about 90 a year although recent U.S. research
shows they may be becoming more intense.

Still, the European Commission, the World Bank, some
environmentalists, Australia's Greens and even Sweden's king said the
disaster, feared to have killed thousands of people in the United
States, could be a portent of worse to come.

"As climate change is happening, we know that the frequency of these
disasters will increase as well as the scope," European Commission
spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said.

"If we let climate change continue like it is continuing, we will
have to deal with disasters like that," she said. She said it was
wrong to say Katrina was caused by global warming widely blamed on
emissions from cars, power plants and factories.

Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf told reporters he was deeply shaken by
the damage and suffering of millions of people.

"It is quite clear that the world's climate is changing and we should
take note," he said. "The hurricane catastrophe in the United States
should be a wake-up call for all of us."

Climate change policies sharply divide Bush from most of his allies
which have signed up for caps on emissions of greenhouse gases under
the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying
it was too expensive and wrongly excluded developing nations from a
first round of caps to 2012.

In July this year, Bush launched a six-nation plan to combat climate
change with Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea focused on
a shift to cleaner energy technology. Unlike Kyoto, it stops short of
setting caps on emissions.

SEA LEVEL RISE

U.N. studies say a build-up of greenhouse gases is likely to cause
more storms, floods and desertification and could raise sea levels by
up to a meter by 2100.

Sea level rise could expose coasts vulnerable to storms because
levees would be swamped more easily. Some scientists dispute the
forecasts and the United States is investing more heavily than any
other nation on climate research.

In Australia, the opposition Greens party said Katrina was aggravated
by global warming and criticized Bush for pulling out of Kyoto. The
United States, the world's biggest polluter, and Australia are the
only rich nations outside Kyoto.

"It demonstrates the massive economic, as well as environmental and
social penalties, of George Bush's policies," Greens leader Bob Brown
told Reuters. He did not believe Bush would shift to embrace Kyoto-
style caps on emissions.

Concerns were also voiced in Germany.

"The U.S. must be more involved," Gerda Hasselfeldt, a leading German
candidate to become environment minister if the conservative
opposition wins the September 18 election, told n-tv television.

In the United States, the focus has been far more on tackling the
human disaster than on links to climate change.

"People are still reeling from the tragedy," said Katie Mandes, a
director at the Washington-based Pew Center, a climate change think-
tank. "Politically it's too early to tell what it will mean for
Americans' views."

Ian Johnson, the World Bank's top environmental official, said
Katrina could also be a wake-up call for developing nations, many of
which are vulnerable.

An opinion survey published this week showed that 79 percent of
Americans feel global warming poses an "important" or "very
important" threat to their country in the next 10 years. Worries
among Europeans were even higher.

Taken before Katrina in June, the Transatlantic Trends survey showed
that Americans felt more threatened than Europeans by terrorism,
Islamic extremism, weapons of mass destruction and economic downturn.

Some individual climatic disasters in the past have changed
perceptions about climate change. Steve Sawyer, climate change
director at Greenpeace, said that ice storms in Canada in the late
1990s had dramatically raised public concerns.

Greenpeace called Katrina a "wake-up call about the dangers of
continued global fossil fuel dependency."

Recent research by Kerry Emanuel, a leading U.S. hurricane
researcher, shows the intensity of hurricanes -- the wind speeds and
the duration -- seems to have risen by about 70 percent in the past
30 years.

"Globally a new signal may be emerging in rising intensity," said Tom
Knutson, a research meteorologist at the U.S. National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. Higher water temperatures in future may
lead to more storms. Hurricanes need temperatures of about 26.5 C
(80F) to form.

(Additional reporting by Michael Perry in Sydney, Elaine Lies in
Tokyo, Jeff Mason and Paul Taylor in Brussels, Iain Rogers in Berlin,
Timothy Gardner in New York)

http://today.reuters.co.uk/News/NewsArticle.aspx?
type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-09-
09T124313Z_01_MCC945372_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-DC.XML

http://tinyurl.com/8yp5v

j2997
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fuelcell-energy/