Category: RT Newswire

USE ME! Essentially, this is a catch all for everything. This is probably the ONLY category where things that are not directly related to Rising Tide affiliates/allies should go. For example if a coal company goes out of business (and we didn’t directly cause it) it should probably only go here.

State of Alaska to Sue to Thwart Polar Bear Protection

  By

Alaska to sue to block polar bear listing
Thu May 22, 2008 10:14am EDT   By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The state of Alaska will sue the U.S. government to stop the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species, arguing the designation will slow development in the state, Gov. Sarah Palin said on Wednesday.

Palin said the state will file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington challenging U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s decision to grant Endangered Species Act protections to the polar bear.

Continue reading

Crops’ Wild Relatives Need Better Protection

  By

Crops’ wild relatives need better protection: WWF
Thu May 22, 2008 8:56am EDT

OSLO (Reuters) – Wild relatives of crops such as wheat, rice and potatoes are “dangerously vulnerable” and areas where they grow need more protection to aid world food supplies, the WWF conservation group said on Thursday.

Wild varieties often have natural characteristics that can be bred into food crops to help them resist everything from new pests or diseases to a changing climate.

“Basic food crops dangerously vulnerable,” the WWF said in a headline of a statement about a new WWF map showing that areas in which wild varieties of crops are protected often cover less than five percent of their natural ranges.

Continue reading

Biofuels & Forest Soil Carbon

  By

Biofuels & Forest Soil Carbon

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080520211441.htm

 

Using Forest Residues Reduces Soil Carbon Stock

 

ScienceDaily (May 21, 2008) – The use of harvest 

residues for energy production decreases soil 

carbon stocks. These changes in soil carbon 

stocks are remarkable compared to the other 

greenhouse gas emissions caused by the use of 

forest residues for energy. On a national scale, 

soil carbon stocks play an important role in 

forest carbon balances.

 

Changes in soil carbon stock need to be assessed 

reliably and transparently because we need more 

information on the effects of climate change and 

forest management on soil carbon. This is also 

stressed by climate conventions which have set 

practical reporting requirements for changes in 

soil carbon stock.

 

The large spatial variability of soil carbon goes 

together with relatively slow changes in stocks, 

which, in turn, hinders the assessment of soil 

carbon stocks and their changes by direct 

measurements. Models therefore widely serve to 

estimate carbon stocks and stock changes in soils.

 

A recent doctoral thesis developed and tested the 

soil carbon model YASSO for upland forest soils. 

The model was aimed to take into account the most 

important processes controlling the decomposition 

in soils, yet remain simple enough to ensure its 

practical applicability in different 

applications. The model was applied to study the 

effects of intensified biomass extraction on the 

forest carbon balance, to estimate the effects of 

soil carbon deficit on net greenhouse gas 

emissions of energy use of forest residues and to 

assess the national scale forest carbon balance 

for Finland’s forests.

 

YASSO managed to describe sufficiently the 

effects of both the variable litter and climatic 

conditions on decomposition. When combined with 

the stand models or other systems providing 

litter information, the dynamic approach of the 

model proved to be powerful for estimating 

changes in soil carbon stocks on different scales.

 

Journal reference:

 

    1. Liski, J., Palosuo, T., Peltoniemi, M. & 

Sievänen, R., 2005. Carbon and decomposition 

model Yasso for forest soils. Ecological 

Modelling 189(1-2): 168-182. 

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2005.03.005

 

———————————————————————-

 

Update: Ocean Acidification

  By

 

News release

Public release date: 21-May-2008

 

European Science Foundation

 

Ocean acidification — another undesired side effect of fossil fuel-burning

 

Up to now, the oceans have buffered climate 

change considerably by absorbing almost one third 

of the worldwide emitted carbon dioxide. The 

oceans represent a significant carbon sink, but 

the uptake of excess CO2 stemming from man’s 

burning of fossil fuels comes at a high cost: 

ocean acidification.

 

Research on ocean acidification is a newly 

emerging field and was one of the major topics at 

this year’s European Geosciences Union (EGU) 

General Assembly held in Vienna in April. The 

European Science Foundation EUROCORES (European 

Collaborative Research) programme EuroCLIMATE, 

which addresses in particular global carbon cycle 

dynamics, organized and co-sponsored several 

sessions on ocean acidification.

Continue reading