Tuesday, June 26, 2012

California Condors at Risk

Story first appeared in The Christian Science Monitor.
California condors, one of the world’s most endangered species, are poisoned by lead from hunters’ bullets “at epidemic levels,” and will not recover unless more is done to prevent it, a study released Monday concluded.

In the early 1980s, the number of California Condors had plummeted from decades of poaching and environmental hazards, but as Bill Whitaker reports, scientists are hard at work to save the endangered species from extinction.

A review of more than 1,154 blood samples taken from wild California condors and tested from 1997 to 2010 found that 48 percent of the birds had lead levels so high, they could have died without treatment.

Ball Screw Repair helps control the amount of airflow and related emissions of mechanical assemblies involved in aviation, aeronautics and aerospace systems.

So far, a ban on lead bullets in the birds’ habitat appears to have had little effect, the study found.

Lead poisoning is preventing the recovery of California condors. The population is not self-sustaining.

Condors — the birds with the largest wingspan in North America — are scavengers. They eat dead deer, pigs and other animals, often that hunters have shot. They ingest bullet fragments and are poisoned.

The California Gov. signed a law in 2007 to ban hunting with lead bullets, slugs or buckshot in the condors’ range, which extends from Los Angeles to San Jose, where the birds have been seen atop Mount Hamilton. But it hasn’t worked. Birds analyzed before the law took effect had blood levels the same as birds analyzed afterward.

The reason is that a condor eat 75 to 150 dead animals a year. If just one has a lead bullet fragment, that can be enough to kill the bird.

Condors once ranged from British Columbia to Mexico. But because of habitat loss, hunting and lead poisoning, the population dwindled to just 22 nationwide by 1982.

Federal biologists captured all remaining wild condors in 1987 and began breeding them in zoos. The birds’ offspring have been gradually released back to the wild.

Today the California condor population has grown to 386. Of those, 213 live in the wild at Big Sur, Pinnacles National Monument in San Benito County, Southern California, Arizona, Utah and Mexico. The other 173condors live in captivity, at places such as the Los Angeles Zoo.

Although the population growth has been impressive, it is deceptive because it is highly dependent upon human intervention, the researchers said in Monday’s study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Every free-flying condor has a radio or GPS collar to track it. Nearly all of them are captured twice a year and tested for lead. A few chicks have been born in the wild, but biologists still put out food, such as stillborn calves, for the birds to eat so their population can have a chance to grow.

Monday’s study, which also looked at lead levels in condor feathers, confirmed that lead in the birds is coming from bullets, rather than other sources such as old paint chips, by matching isotope levels of lead in bullets to lead in the condors.

Researchers were surprised by the extensive poisoning. For example, 30 percent of all condors captured every year have lead levels that, while not potentially fatal, can block reproduction and cause immune system problems.

And 20 percent of the birds captured every year have levels that could kill them if not treated with chelation, a process where condors are fed calcium-based drugs that bind to the lead and help them pass it naturally. But the process also strips nutrients, and can cause the birds to be hospitalized a month or more.

In California, the state Department of Fish and Game and some hunting and environmental groups have worked to promote the lead ban in condor habitat. Some surveys show high compliance rates. But there is little enforcement, and ranchers or hunters can still use lead bullets and shot, which are cheaper and more readily available than other types of ammunition, such as copper, with little risk of getting caught.

The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Ariz., and six other conservation groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this month to force the agency to institute controls or bans on lead ammunition.

We’ve removed toxic lead from gasoline, paint and most products exposing humans to lead poisoning, now it’s time to do the same for hunting ammunition to protect America’s wildlife.


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Rio+20 Waste of Time?

Story first appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Why is it that we share a common future, but so little common ground?

The result from Rio+20 is so lackluster, leaders and their delegates declined to bequeath it one of the grandiloquent titles normally attached to such things. It is not a Rio+20 Declaration, nor even a "roadmap." It is simply, awkwardly, uninspiringly, a "Rio+20 Outcomes Document."

The easy answer to the question of why leaders could not aim higher, is that the result reflects deep and stark divisions between developing and developed countries. And to some extent that is true.

Take the concept of the green economy, originally intended to be at the heart of Rio+20. Spearheaded by the European Union, the concept was supposed to put the world on track to place sustainability at the heart of economic decision-making.

Many developing countries saw it differently. For a start, they pointed out, money to transition to the green economy doesn't--by and large--grow on trees. And they were wary of anything that might impose rules on how they should develop.

But a simple "them and us" analysis of the failings of Rio+20 overlooks an important difference between 2012 and the time of the original Rio Earth Summit, held 20 years ago. Nor does it even do justice to the nuances of the green economy debate.

As the UNEP chief told a closing news conference, the world has changed, and consequently so too has what he termed "the arithmetic" of international negotiation, making the task of achieving consensus much harder.

Now, we live in a world where environmental leadership on various issues isn't solely the domain of developed countries, while pointing to Costa Rica's forest protection and reforestation efforts, Mexico's landmark climate law, and China's new status as the world's largest renewable energy investor.

Now we live in a world where concerns about poverty, unemployment, and economic security are also top of mind concerns for citizens in many developed nations. To complicate matters further, some of the world's new economic powerhouses--that can and should step up to the plate--are cautious about playing a leadership role in shaping global sustainable development policy.

It all means leaders, and laggards, are everywhere. North and South.

If you want proof, consider Rio+20's backing for new sustainable development goals--including themes on climate change, water and sanitation, oceans and seas, energy, and sustainable cities--ultimately lauded as a key achievement of the summit, although the conference eviscerated initial efforts to define more precisely at Rio what they should be. An expert working group was ultimately given the task of defining and quantifying the sustainable development goals and determining time frames to reach them.

The proposal originated in late 2011 not from a major developed country, but from Colombia, with the backing of Guatemala. At a Rio+20 news conference, Colombia's President recounted with pride a comment from Rio+20 Secretary-General. Colombia, while perhaps not the most important nation in the world, had given Rio+20 one of its most important ideas.

Given Rio+20's many weaknesses, is there hope? Perhaps. The summit was ultralight on big commitments, but it did encompass some big ideas. One of the most important was the need to value natural wealth. In short, Rio+20 cautiously, tentatively suggested that it is time for the international community, nations, and companies to stop cooking the planetary books and start valuing how they affect natural resources and ecosystems.

But as the world's leaders and legislators pass the baton to the world's bookkeepers, it is worth bearing in mind the thoughts of one of the giants of the international sustainability stage. She chaired the commission that produced the 1987 'our common future' report, which popularized the term 'sustainable development.' She was on a U.N. panel that prepared a report for U.N. Secretary-General --intended to inject start-up intellectual firepower to the Rio+20 talks--and she is one of three special climate change envoys appointed.

In a Rio+20 news conference, it was said that environmental concerns risked being overshadowed in the final document by the other two pillars of sustainable development: the economic and the social. Rio+20 had largely failed to acknowledge planetary boundaries and tipping points.

In other words, by all means do the math, but don't forget the science.


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EPA Greenhouse Gas Rule Upheld

Story first appeared in Reuters.

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld the first-ever U.S. proposed regulations governing heat-trapping greenhouse gases, handing a setback to major industries like coal-burning utilities and a victory to the Obama administration and environmental groups.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled that the EPA's finding that carbon dioxide is a public danger and the decision to set limits for emissions from cars and light trucks were "neither arbitrary nor capricious."

The ruling, which addresses four separate lawsuits, upholds the underpinnings of the Obama administration's push to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, and is a rebuke to a major push by heavy industries including electric utilities, coal miners and states like Texas to block the EPA's path.

In the 82-page ruling, the three-judge panel also found that the EPA's interpretation of the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide regulations is "unambiguously correct."

The court also said it lacked jurisdiction to review the timing and scope of greenhouse gas rules that affect stationary sources like new coal-burning power plants and other large industrial sources.

The ruling clears the way for the EPA to proceed with first-ever rules limiting carbon dioxide emissions from newly built power plants, and to move forward with new vehicle emission standards this summer.

These rulings clear the way for EPA to keep moving forward under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon pollution from motor vehicles, new power plants, and other big industrial sources.

The court in February heard arguments brought by state and industry challenging the EPA's authority to set carbon dioxide limits.

Industry groups said the EPA's regulations will impose burdensome regulations that will spur job cuts.

The EPA's decision to move forward with these regulations is one of the most costly, complex and burdensome regulations facing manufacturers. These regulations will harm their ability to hire, invest and grow.

The EPA's rules could affect 6 million stationary sources including 200,000 manufacturing facilities and 37,000 farms.

The Supreme Court unleashed a fury of regulation and litigation when it ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA in 2007 that greenhouse gases are an air pollutant that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA in 2009 issued an "endangerment finding" that greenhouse gases "reasonably may be anticipated to endanger public health." The agency followed with the "tailpipe rule" in May 2010 setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks. The agency is also preparing to issue first-ever standards for carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, which are likely to spur utilities to opt for cleaner natural-gas burning plants instead.


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Russia & Israel Cooperate in Energy/Space Endevors

Story first appeared in Haaretz.com

Natural gas, aerospace, oil shale and tourism are among the areas of economic cooperation that Russian President Vladimir Putin is offering Israel during his visit this week, sources told TheMarker.

The most important item raised between Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday was an offer by Russia's state-owned energy company Gazprom to join in developing Israel's offshore gas reserves. The largest extractor of natural gas in the world and Russia's biggest company, Gazprom wants to open a local subsidiary that will engage in drilling and offshore and onshore pipeline operations.

On the Israeli side, no one has rejected the Gazprom offer out of hand and officials are willing to explore the proposals, the sources said. Future international tenders in the Israeli gas sector will be open to Gazprom.

In fact, Gazprom executives have been to Israel in the past to explore cooperation in gas and won a tender to produce gasoline from oil shale in Israel's south, for which it expects to begin operations soon, the Russian delegation said. They also expressed interest in developing alternative energy projects, mainly in solar and to a lesser extent in wind.

The two countries did about $660 million of bilateral trade in the first four months of this year, with Israeli exports to Russia reaching $384 million and imports from Russia at $277 million, according to the Israel Export Institute.

Another area of interest to the Russians is nanotechnology, where the two countries have signed cooperation agreements. The sources said the Russian state-owned nanotechnology company Rusnano, which has been funded by Moscow to the tune of billions of dollars, has recently opened an Israeli unit whose task will be to identify Israeli companies for acquisition and cooperation.

Rusnano's chairman is part of the delegation accompanying Putin to Israel. The delegation also includes the incoming chairman of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos, signaling the country's interest in cooperation in aerospace as well.

Israeli and Russian capabilities in aerospace complement one another, including Russia's expertise in launching satellites, and Israel is regarded a world leader in miniature satellites and other technologies.

In agriculture, the two sides are exploring joint ventures in irrigation, hothouses and the development of seeds for increasing farm yields.

Israel expressed interest in developing tourism. Russia is the biggest source of visitors to Israel after the United States, with about half a million tourists arriving every year. They create about 20,000 jobs and bring in revenues to Israel of $1 billion annually.

The two sides also began talks about establishing a free trade area agreement, which would ease two-way trade. They also plan to sign a financial protocol that will provide guarantees on exports to Russia via the government trade insurance agency.


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Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Japan Close to Restarting Reactors

Story first appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Japan moved closer Thursday to restarting nuclear reactors for the first time since last year's earthquake and tsunami led to a nationwide shutdown after a mayor gave his support to a plan to bring two of them back online.

All 50 of Japan's workable reactors are offline because of safety concerns or for maintenance since the March 11 disaster touched off a crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Public opposition to nuclear power remains high, even though the government has been pressing for the restart of reactors because it says nuclear energy is crucial to Japan's economy.

Power companies have warned of shortages in the months ahead, as demand reaches its summer peak.

Work to restart two reactors in the western town of Ohi, which are the first ready to resume generating power, could begin as soon as this weekend now that the mayor signed off on the plan. Once the work begins, it takes about three weeks to get a reactor operating at full capacity.

The governor of Fukui, the prefecture (state) in which Ohi is located, now has to meet with Prime Minister to inform him that the local governments are willing to accept the restart plan. The prime minister has to give final approval, which Japanese media reports said will likely happen Saturday.

They want to move ahead as quickly as possible once the approval is received. If work is begun soon the plant could be up and running in time to meet the summer crunch, which is expected in mid-July or August.

The Ohi Mayor said he approved the plan because he is concerned about possible power shortages and the impact on the local economy of keeping the plant closed.

Local consent is not legally required for restarting the reactors, but the government wants the support because of the sensitivity of the issue. The public has shown great concern that government failures, such as not sharing radiation leak data, worsened the crisis at Fukushima and may recur.

Last year's massive earthquake and tsunami caused explosions and meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, which is north of Tokyo. Tens of thousands of residents were evacuated because of the radiation leaks. Although the plant's operator says it has restored some stability, it could take years to decontaminate the area and decades to safely close down Fukushima's reactors.

With the high-demand summer months looming, it was announced last week that the mayor wants to restart Ohi's reactors as soon as possible. He also said he wants to move forward with the restart of other plants as soon as their safety is confirmed.

Before last year's crisis, Japan depended on nuclear for about one-third of its electricity and was planning to expand that further. The government is now carrying out a sweeping review of that plan.

The government has taken ample measures to ensure the two reactors in Fukui prefecture would not leak radiation if an earthquake or tsunami as severe as last year's should strike them.


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