Category: RT Newswire

Do you eat shrimp imported from Asia? Do you vacation there?
Lance
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“… large-scale conversion of mangroves into
shrimp and fish farms were among the main
destructive drivers.

“Other pressures included new development to
accommodate the growth in the tourism sector and
rising populations.”
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BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7385315.stm

Published: 2008/05/06 17:30:25 GMT

Mangrove loss ‘left Burma exposed’
By Mark Kinver
Science and nature reporter, BBC News

Destruction of mangrove forests in Burma left
coastal areas exposed to the devastating force of
the weekend’s cyclone, a top politician suggests.

ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said
coastal developments had resulted in mangroves,
which act as a natural defence against storms,
being lost.

At least 22,000 people have died in the disaster, say state officials.

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There is more to the climate-forest relationship than carbon.

ASW

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“The plain truth is that eucalypt forests are periodic emitters of
carbon and excluding fire from our forested landscape is neither
realistic nor ecologically justifiable. Factoring eucalypt forests
into the carbon economy is not for the faint-hearted.”
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The Australian
May 07, 2008

End the forest wars
David Bowman, Peter Kanowski and Rod Keenan

THE bushfire smoke that blanketed the sky above Hobart late last
month graphically marked an abrupt turn in the public debate about
forest management.

Environmentalists were quick to make the link between forest
regeneration burns and carbon emissions, and to argue that old growth
should be saved to serve as carbon stores.

Indeed, this debate was anticipated in February at a conference in
Hobart on management of the world’s old forests; by co-incidence that
week Government adviser Ross Garnaut released his interim report on
Australia’s possible response to global change.

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By 1990, there was evidence that rising CO2
levels reduce nutrients in plants. So, even while
elevated CO2 levels can speed growth of plants,
the plant-eaters have had to eat more plant
tissue to gain the same nutrition.

This effect is independent of CO2’s capacity to
retain heat that would have escaped into space,
but the combined two effects will plausibly be
greater than either one alone.

The research on CO2 and nutritional content of
plants has continued for these past 18 years, and
now includes implications for domestic livestock,
humans, and wildlife. Evidence based on koala
research is just the latest finding in a
longstanding topic of interest.
Lance

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“This change will mean eucalypt species with high protein content will become
unbeneficial to the koala as the so-called
“anti-nutrients” such as tannins bind
the protein making it unusable.”
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The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia)
  May 6, 2008 – 11:49PM

climate change threatens koalas: expert
The koala is under threat from climate change,
according to new research which shows rising
carbon dioxide levels are killing nutrients in
the plants they eat.

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Climate Wire www.eenews.net 5/5/08
 
WATER: Climate-related water concerns heat up (05/05/2008)
Christa Marshall, ClimateWire reporter

Eighteen million Southern Californians may be rationing water this summer for the first time in years. The region’s water distributor is preparing to ask customers to stop using water supplies outdoors one day a week for activities such as washing the car and running sprinklers.

Meanwhile, the impact of carbon capture and sequestration of CO2 from coal-fired power plants on water supplies soon will be studied by a leading drinking water research foundation. It wants to determine whether storing the gas in underground geological formations could unleash dangerous runoff by dissolving rock.

“We have to be careful we don’t create a problem by trying to solve a problem,” said Robert Renner, executive director of the Awwa Research Foundation, the study’s instigator and sponsor of a Friday briefing on Capitol Hill on the global impact of climate change on drinking water.

Appearing with Renner were three Australian, British and American experts who described how rising temperatures have dried up rivers and reservoirs, increased costs and raised the likelihood of pathogens and salt water creeping into drinking water sources.

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