A bright future with solar lanterns for India’s poor

Photo: Barefoot Photographers of TiloniaSolar energy could greatly improve standard of living in poor households in India; women and children benefit most

Solar energy has the potential to improve the living conditions of poor rural households in India as well as contribute to the country’s future energy security, according to professor Govindasamy Agoramoorthy from Tajen University, who is Tata-Sadguru Visiting Chair, and Dr. Minna Hsu from the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. Their study, looking at the benefits of solar lanterns on the livelihoods of village communities in Western India, as well as sustainable use of the environment, has just been published online in Springer’s journal Human Ecology.

In India, approximately 70 per cent of rural areas lack electricity and over 60 per cent of rural households use kerosene lamps for lighting. Kerosene lamps are not only expensive, they are also inefficient, potentially dangerous and a major source of greenhouse gases. Interestingly, the average number of sunny days in India ranges from 250 to 300 days a year, with a solar energy equivalent greater than the country’s total energy consumption. Energy efficiency is critical to nations such as India with large and growing populations. Solar lanterns, which make the most of the country’s natural and abundant sunshine, could be a practical and clean energy alternative to kerosene lamps in village communities.

Sadguru Foundation, a non-profit agency specializing in natural resources management in India, supplied 100 solar lanterns to socially and economically disadvantaged households in 25 villages in the Dahod District of the Gujarat State between January 2004 and December 2007. Agoramoorthy and Hsu studied the effects of using solar lanterns on energy usage, household savings in terms of kerosene and electricity costs, as well as the family’s quality of life. The women in the households were interviewed a month before and again a month after the introduction of the solar lanterns.

Overall, expenditure on kerosene and electricity dropped significantly in all households, after the solar lanterns were introduced. On average each household made important savings ranging from 150 to 250 US dollars annually. Whereas both households above and below the poverty level used a similar amount of electricity before the lanterns were introduced, after their introduction households below the poverty level used significantly less electricity than those above the poverty level.

The researchers also found that the solar lanterns particularly benefited school-aged children and women. Although 70 per cent of the villages are connected to the power grid, they do not receive power early in the morning or in the evening because the state power company redirects electricity to major towns and cities. However, with the six hours of light supplied daily by the solar lanterns, study hours increased which had a positive influence on the children’s performance at school. Women were also able to perform their routine household work both indoors and outdoors during power outages.

The authors conclude that “the use of solar energy will contribute to India’s future energy security, particularly in rural areas where the technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity offers a decentralized alternative to uncertain electricity supplies. If implemented efficiently, renewable energy projects could not only improve the quality of life for India’s rural poor but also enhance sustainable use of the environment.”

Sea mollusks taste their memories to build shells

University of California, Berkeley, graduate student Alistair Boettiger has amassed a beautiful collection of seashells, but not by combing the beach. He created them in his computer. He and George Oster, a UC Berkeley biophysicist, along with University of Pittsburgh mathematical neuroscientist Bard Ermentrout, have written a computer program that generates the complex patterns of seashells using simple principles developed to explain how the brain works and how memories are stored.

The "neural net" model explains how mollusks build their seashells based on the finding that the mollusk's tongue-like mantle, which overlaps the edge of the growing shell, senses or "tastes" the calcium carbonate layer laid down the day before in order to generate a new layer.

"The pattern on a seashell is the mollusk's memories," said Oster, a professor of environmental science, policy and management and of molecular and cell biology. "The shell is laid down in layers, so the mantle is sensing the history of the mollusk's 'thoughts' and extrapolating to the next layer, just like our brains project into the future."

The studies may help neuroscientists understand how neural networks work in the brain and throughout the body, where neural nets cover our skin and all internal organs.

The researchers' computer model, published this week in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reproduces nearly all known shell shapes, ranging from scallops to whelks, and nearly all the shell patterns that make beachcombing so popular.

"The model gives us a remarkable ability to explain much of the dramatic diversity of both shape and pattern that we see in the natural world," Boettiger said.

To build their model, the UC Berkeley scientists first studied electron microscope images of mollusk mantles in order to understand the network of neurons connecting the sensing cells in the mantle with the secretory cells that produce calcium carbonate and proteins - many of them colored pigments - incorporated into the growing shell. Different rates of calcium carbonate secretion determine the shape of the spiral, while different amounts of pigment secretion create a pattern unique to each species.

They then modeled the size of the excitatory and inhibitory regions surrounding the secretory cells and the cells' firing thresholds - nine parameters in all - as a neural network that determines how much calcium and pigment is secreted.

Based solely on these nine parameters, Boettiger, Oster and Ermentrout were able to reproduce the shapes and patterns of almost every known sea mollusk.

Interestingly, they found that all shell patterns fall into three basic classes: stripes perpendicular to the growing edge, bands parallel to the growing edge, and complex patterns created by asymmetric "traveling waves" of pigment or calcium deposition.

The basic concept behind the neural net model, which was first described by physicist Ernst Mach in 1865 to explain visual illusions, is that centers of excitation - in the retina, for example - are surrounded by areas of inhibition. Local activation/lateral inhibition applies to many types of neuronal activity and underlies the extreme sensitivity of our eyes and visual system to edges - the activation of cells at an edge inhibits neighboring cells, accentuating the discontinuity.

Famed computer scientist Alan Turing showed in 1952 how local activation/lateral inhibition could work chemically, and biologist Hans Meinhardt used this chemical model to create realistic seashell patterns in the 1970s, which he published in a 1995 book called "The algorithmic beauty of sea shells."

At that time, the neural basis of shell patterning hadn't been widely accepted, though Oster and Ermentrout published an earlier version of the neural model in the 1970s. One problem with Meinhardt's chemical model, which hypothesized reactions among chemicals diffusing through the snail shell, is that it required different chemical reactions to produce each shell pattern.

"Our real contribution is not reproducing the patterns, but showing that the nervous system can do it with one equation based on the principle discovered by Ernst Mach in the 1860s," Oster said.

Striped shells are the easiest to explain with this neural network model. A pigment-secreting cell inhibits secretion of pigment by neighboring cells but not itself, so that the same pattern is repeated day after day, yielding a stripe. Similarly, if one cell pumps up calcium carbonate secretion while depressing secretion by surrounding cells, ridges result. Interestingly, the stripes or ridges split naturally as the shell grows, a mathematical necessity because the size of the inhibition area remains the same as the shell's edge grows.

Bands parallel to the growing edge can be explained by inhibition of future activity. Pigment secreted on one day can inhibit secreting cells for a few days, resulting in an on/off pattern that produces a series of bands.

The most interesting patterns, however, are waves of activity that interfere to produce zigzags, diamonds, chevrons, arrowheads and a host of other shapes. These come about when a pigment inhibits future secretion at that site but excites secretion in surrounding cells. The pigment thus moves laterally on successive days, producing the equivalent of a traveling wave.

Ironically, most sea snails don't care a whit about their shell pattern. They are buried in the mud of the seafloor where their patterns are hidden even from potential mates.

"The pigment is a cue to get the mantle in register so it builds the right shaped shell, and is only an epiphenomenon reflecting neural activity," Oster said. "It is incidental to the snail."

"There is no strong selective pressure to drive patterns, so evolution can explore the entire parameter space" of possible shells, Boettiger added. "That was one rewarding thing about this work; it brought some nice aesthetics to the whole project."

With their success describing shell patterning, Oster plans to move on to his real interest, how cuttlefish rapidly change their patterns in response to the environment. Cuttlefish see a pattern in the environment and alter their skin pattern to blend in, he said, often flickering so rapidly that they resemble an hypnotic strobe.

The work was supported by the National Science Foundation.

Climate change to spur rapid shifts in fire hotspots

Climate change will bring about major shifts in worldwide fire patterns, and those changes are coming fast, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with scientists at Texas Tech University.

The findings are reported in the April 8 issue of PLoS ONE, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of the Public Library of Science.

Researchers used thermal-infrared sensor data obtained between 1996 and 2006 from European Space Agency satellites in their study of pyrogeography - the distribution and behavior of wildfire - on a global scale. They not only got a global view of where wildfires occur, but they determined the common environmental characteristics associated with the risk of those fires. They then incorporated those variables into projections for how future climate scenarios will impact wildfire occurrence worldwide.

The research was conducted with support from The Nature Conservancy as part of the organization's effort to integrate information about global fire regimes into planning for biodiversity conservation.

"This is the first attempt to quantitatively model why we see fire where we see it across the entire planet," said study author Max Moritz, assistant cooperative extension specialist in wildland fire at UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources and co-director of the UC Center for Fire Research & Outreach. "What is startling in these findings is the relatively rapid rate at which we're likely to see very broad-scale changes in fire activity for large parts of the planet."

Moritz said the two essential suites of variables needed for fires describe the presence of sufficient vegetation to burn and the window in time when conditions are hot and dry enough for ignition to occur.

When the researchers used those environmental relationships and future climate projections to look at how these factors might change over time, under both lower and mid-range emissions scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they found that much of the planet will incur changes in fire activity, and this includes increases as well as decreases in the likelihood of fire.

The researchers identified specific areas where wildfire occurrence was rare in the past and projected to experience large increases in fire activity in the period 2010-2039 as ecosystems at risk of fire invasion. Regions where fire was common in the past and projected to experience a large decrease were considered areas at risk of fire retreat.

These preliminary results show hotspots of fire invasion forming in parts of the western United States and the Tibetan plateau, while regions including northeast China and central Africa may become less fire-prone in the coming decades. The study authors noted that reliable predictions for specific regions would require incorporating a broader suite of climate models and accounting for specific regional factors that may influence fire in those locations, but that the overall scope of the shift will likely remain the same.

"Fire patterns are going to change, and we need to start thinking about what that means for ecosystems, and what our response should be," said the paper's lead author, Meg Krawchuk, a UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow sponsored by The Nature Conservancy and by Canada's National Sciences & Engineering Research Council. "Fire will be a major driver of change. A large decrease in fire activity is not necessarily a good thing for an ecosystem that has adapted to periodic wildfires. Some species of trees rely upon fires occurring at specific times to regenerate, for example, so changes in a fire regime have the potential to dramatically alter the landscape over time."

Previous models of fire activity have focused on specific regions, including southern California and Australia. Notably, scientists warned in 2006 that climate change could increase bushfire risk across southeast Australia. Three years later, on top of years of drought, a blistering heat wave sent temperatures soaring up to 20 degrees above average in the region. These conditions, consistent with those expected under future climate change, set the stage for the deadliest fire in the country's history.

"What Australia showed us is that things can happen faster than we think," said study co-author Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and associate professor of geosciences at Texas Tech University. "Although we cannot say whether climate change played a role in the February fires in Australia, we do know that climate change will increase the risk of conditions conducive to such devastating wildfires in the near future."

Hayhoe noted that the global-scale model used in this study can complement studies that focus on more specific regions. "What we did is comparable to a 'whole body' scan to identify hotspots that may need extra attention," she said. "It helps researchers focus in on the areas that are likely to be susceptible to the greatest changes in the near future."

The researchers said this paper is a first step towards creating a comprehensive picture of how climate change will alter fire risk around the world if drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions do not occur. Because rapid and extensive changes in fire regimes will alter many of the ecosystem services humans rely upon - affecting air and water quality, carbon stocks and habitat values - they argue that a wider range of climate models is needed to identify consistent patterns of change.

Book Review: Heatstroke

In face of global warming, can wilderness remain natural?

For those who think of nature as a wild, unspoiled Eden that preserves the natural flora and fauna free from human interference, global warming has a nasty surprise in store, according to University of California, Berkeley, biologist Anthony Barnosky.

In his new book, "Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming" (Island Press, 2009), Barnosky says that because of climate change, wilderness left to its own will no longer look like the natural areas we see today. Our conservation strategies must be rethought, he adds, because business-as-usual will not preserve all the aspects of nature we have come to know, love and respect.

Setting aside preserves, for example, puts animals and plants in a bind: As global warming makes their current habitats unsuitable, surrounding human development prevents them from moving to more hospitable places. The alternative, assisted migration, smacks of creating wild zoos - quasi-natural areas like the dinosaur wonderland portrayed in the book and movie "Jurassic Park."

"The new twist in preserving nature is that we might have to come up with a separate but equal system, where we actively set aside some tracts of land as wildlands where people can experience this feeling of 'wilderness,' but recognize that the species that live in those places and the landscape are not going to be the species and landscape we are used to," he says. "Our kids are going to see very different things in those kinds of places than we do."

Warming already altering patterns of migration

Barnosky describes in his book how global warming is already causing shifts in the ranges of animals and plants, disrupting migrations and spawning, and stressing animals confined to parks and reserves.

"We now have this conflict between saving species and saving natural ecological processes; between saving species and saving the interactions that take place between species in the absence of active management," he says. "Assisted migration, where you help species along, is great and what we need to do, but as soon as you do that, all of a sudden, nothing is wild anymore."

Barnosky is a paleoecologist who has studied and written about the rise and fall of species over the past few million years and the climatic upheavals that caused them. His book contrasts current ecosystem disruptions with past extinctions, showing, for example, how climate change coupled with human activity was the one-two punch that led to the extinctions of large animals around the globe in the past 12,000-50,000 years. Mammoths, mastodons and giant bison in North America, Irish elk and woolly rhinos in Europe, giant kangaroos and hog-size wombats in Australia all disappeared - and extinctions were most intense where global warming and human hunting coincided.

While ecosystem change and extinction are normal, Barnosky reminds us that past climate change, such as cooling at the beginning of glacial periods and warming with the onset of interglacial periods, took place over thousands of years. The current warming is happening faster, by a factor of about 10.

In the best-case scenario, he says, the temperature in 2100 will be warmer than it has been since humans first appeared. In the worst case, it will be hotter than it has been in at least 3 million years, "which is longer than basically any species you can name has been on Earth," he says, adding that animals and plants are wired to evolve to adapt to change, but not at such a rapid pace.

"If you look at how ecosystems have responded over the past hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of years to natural climate changes, and then compare that with how they are responding today and what they have to respond to in the next 100 years, we are way outside the normal baseline of what those ecosystems are adapted to," says Barnosky.

Global warming multiplies impacts of human activities

Global warming comes on top of many other environmental impacts that have been stressing the environment, Barnosky notes in his book. He wrote "Heatstroke," in part, because he "wanted to raise awareness that global warming is not just an add-on consequence as far as impacts on ecosystems and nature are concerned. We are all aware of habitat fragmentation, invasive species, growing human populations, and the tradeoff between resources needed to sustain us versus resources to sustain other species. People tend to think those are the big problems, and that global warming is going to heat things up a bit.

"In reality, global warming, as far as how it is going to change nature, is as big or bigger a problem than all of those other four, and especially when you put it together with all of the other four. There are feedbacks that make everything much more severe. It is like multiplying rather than adding everything up."

In the book, he documents how global warming is already reducing roan antelope and tsessebe populations in Africa, amphibians in Yellowstone National Park, polar bears in the Arctic and pikas in the Western United States. One common thread is that warming is targeting "keystone" species that, "although represented by relatively small numbers of individuals, have an inordinately important effect on keeping their ecosystems in functioning order," he writes. "When elephants disappear in Africa or the whitebark pine dies out in Yellowstone, the whole ecology can collapse."

Barnosky says the scientific data led him to the conclusion that "how to save the particular ecosystems we value and, in the larger scheme of things, nature itself, is the challenge we now face in the Age of Global Warming."

How do we protect both species and wilderness?

Wilderness must be protected, he says, if for no other reason than that it acts as a canary in a coal mine, "a barometer of how healthy the Earth actually is." But imperiled species must also be protected as biodiversity resources, he adds, even if this requires assisted migration of not only the endangered species, but also the plants and animals these species interact with in their ecosystem.

One alternative that some scientists have put forward is Pleistocene rewilding, a wild idea to re-establish the large "megafauna" that dominated Earth during the planet's last major bout with global climate change, the period of on-and-off glaciation that took place between 2 million and 10,000 years ago. This involves importing elephants from Africa to stand in for the extinct mammoths and mastodons, lions and cheetahs for the saber toothed cats, wild horses and camels as replacements for the grazers. This would preserve endangered animals and plants that face pressure from humans and global warming in their current habitat, but, as Barnosky points out, it could also have a long list of downsides.

Unfortunately, both assisted migration and Pleistocene rewilding would lead to managed ecosystems - the antithesis of wilderness. Just as we manage fisheries to preserve an important food source, we will have to give up some wildness in order to preserve species.

"We can't protect all three faces of nature - ecosystem services, like clean water and fisheries; species diversity; and the feeling of wilderness - without somehow separating those three different concepts of nature and working with each one of them differently," he says. "All can be complementary, but you have to do different things for each one."

"I think there are people who are quite happy to settle for one or two of those, but my personal philosophy and feeling is that we can have all three faces of nature," he says.

He foresees two types of preserves, for example: species preserves to protect a species or assemblages of species, but requiring heavy management; and wildland preserves that retain ecological interactions without the influence of humans - the feel of wilderness - but which will see changing species and even extinctions.

Barnosky says he is optimistic that scientists, politicians and "the rest of us" can hash out the details to preserve much of what we see today - but only if we act now.

"Earth is not going to die. But global warming by itself, especially with feedbacks from the other big threats on nature, is going to lead to a loss of biodiversity big-time if we don't get our act together," he says. "We are not over the brink yet. And we don't have to go over the brink unless we want to. It is decision time."

-- By Robert Sanders, University of California, Berkeley

Landfill Cover Soil Methane Oxidation Underestimated

A literature review reveals that landfill cover soils oxidize more methane than guidelines suggest.

Landfilled waste decomposes in the absence of oxygen and results in the production of methane. Landfills are classified as the second-largest human-made source of CH4 in the U.S. Additionally, landfill gas contains numerous non-methane hydrocarbons that are either volatilized directly from waste materials or produced through biochemical reactions during waste degradation.

Microbial methane oxidation reduces the emissions of methane and other volatile hydrocarbons from landfills. Determining the importance of this process is one of the major uncertainties in estimating national or global CH4 emissions from landfills. Landfill gas that is not collected passes through landfill cover soils on the way to being released to the environment. Bacteria in the soil consume methane and other volatile hydrocarbons that are produced by decomposition in the underlying waste by reacting it with oxygen.

A value of 0 to 10% oxidation has been recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories. Currently, for regulatory purposes the USEPA has recommended a default value for landfill cover CH4 oxidation of 10% due to the uncertainty involved and the lack of a standard method to determine oxidation rate.

Drs. Jeffrey Chanton, David Powelson, and Roger Green of Florida State University and Waste Management Inc. reviewed and compiled literature results from 42 determinations of the fraction of methane oxidized and 30 determinations of methane oxidation rate in a variety of soil types and landfill covers. The results were published in the March-April issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality. The means for the fraction of methane oxidized upon transit across the differing types of soil covers ranged from 22% in clayey soil to 55% in sandy soil. The overall mean fraction oxidized across all studies was 36% with a standard error of 6%. For a subset of fifteen studies conducted over an annual cycle the fraction of methane oxidized ranged from 11 to 89% with a mean value of 35 ± 6%, a value that was nearly identical to the overall mean.

The literature summarized in this paper indicates that the fraction of methane oxidized in landfill cover soils is considerably greater than the default value of 10%. Of the 42 determinations of methane oxidation only four reported values of 10% or less. One reported a value of 10%. This particular study was the first to report a well constrained value for the fraction of methane oxidized in a specific landfill, and because of this, it has received undue weight in the determination of regulations. The default value of 10% should be updated based upon technological advancements in soil engineering and state-of-the-practice applications in cover design as well as recent studies detailed journals such as Journal of Environmental Quality.

Biodiversity Protection – Beyond 2010

Photo:© MitiA two-day conference in Athens on the future of European biodiversity policy entitled "Biodiversity Protection – Beyond 2010" will open on Monday the 27th of April. Some 230 delegates from all the EU Member States, together with representatives from NGOs, European business and UN organisations will discuss current EU policy on preserving EU biodiversity identify priorities for future action. There is growing evidence that although important progress has been made - for example with the establishment of the Natura 2000 network - the decline of ecosystems and species is continuing. To meet the EU's objective of stopping biodiversity loss it will be necessary for the political and economic decision making process to take the true value of biodiversity into account.

"Ecosystems are the foundation of life on earth and they are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate" said Environment commissioner Stavros Dimas. "It is well understood that there is a moral obligation to protect nature. But biodiversity is also the basis of human wellbeing. Ecosystems ensure clean water, purify our air, regulate the climate and provide us with food. Nature provides us with raw materials and is the origin of many of our most effective medicines. Current policies to halt the alarming loss of biodiversity are having a positive effect but are not sufficient to meet the scale of the challenge. Business as usual is not sustainable and this conference aims to launch a renewed effort to halt the loss of biodiversity in Europe and beyond."

A road map for future policy

The conference will begin with an up-to-date overview of the state of biodiversity in the EU and beyond, before looking to the future. Parallel sessions will cover topics including the effects of climate change on biodiversity, the response from industry and business, possible improvements to the Natura 2000 network, the need to more effectively include biodiversity considerations in other policy areas (such as agriculture, fisheries, regional development, transport, energy, trade and development aid), and the need to ensure that the true value of biodiversity is included in economics and accounting. The conference will end with a synthesis of recommendations and a "Message from Athens" that draws together suggestions for future biodiversity policy.

An ethical and economic imperative

Biodiversity protection is about conserving the resilience and vitality of our natural ecosystems both for their intrinsic value and for the benefits that they provide to human society. Healthy ecosystems, therefore, constitute our best defence against the worst extremes of weather associated with climate change.

There is increasing recognition that the benefits that human society derives from nature have a very high value and that sustainable human development is dependent upon the continued delivery of these benefits. However, the true value of these benefits is not currently reflected either in their market price or in political decision making. Until this basic failing is addressed, biodiversity will continue to be lost.

Maasai Mara - Wildlife On The Brink

New study shows widespread and substantial declines in wildlife in Kenya's Masai Mara. Monthly surveys over 15 years link surge in human settlements near Mara Reserve with large losses of wildlife that have made Kenya popular safari destination.

Populations of major wild grazing animals that are the heart and soul of Kenya's cherished and heavily visited Masai Mara National Reserve – including giraffes, hartebeest, impala, and warthogs – have "decreased substantially" in only 15 years as they compete for survival with a growing concentration of human settlements in the region, according to a new study published today in the May 2009 issue of the British Journal of Zoology.

The study, analysed by researchers at the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and led and funded by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), is based on rigorous, monthly monitoring between 1989 and 2003 of seven "ungulate," or hoofed, species in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, which covers some 1500 square kilometers in southwestern Kenya. Scientists found that a total of six species – giraffes, hartebeest, impala, warthogs, topis and waterbuck – declined markedly and persistently throughout the reserve.

The study provides the most detailed evidence to date on declines in the ungulate populations in the Mara and how this phenomenon is linked to the rapid expansion of human populations near the boundaries of the reserve. For example, an analysis of the monthly sample counts indicates that the losses were as high as 95 percent for giraffes, 80 percent for warthogs, 76 percent for hartebeest, and 67 percent for impala. Researchers say the declines they documented are supported by previous studies that have found dramatic drops in the reserve of once abundant wildebeest, gazelles and zebras.

"The situation we documented paints a bleak picture and requires urgent and decisive action if we want to save this treasure from disaster," said Joseph Ogutu, the lead author of the study and a statistical ecologist at ILRI. "Our study offers the best evidence to date that wildlife losses in the reserve are widespread and substantial, and that these trends are likely linked to the steady increase in human settlements on lands adjacent to the reserve."

Researchers found the growing human population has diminished the wild animal population by usurping wildlife grazing territory for crop and livestock production to support their families. Some traditional farming cultures to the west and southwest of the Mara continue to hunt wildlife inside the Mara Reserve, which is illegal, for food and profit.

The Mara National Reserve is located in the northernmost section of the Mara–Serengeti ecosystem in East Africa. The reserve is bounded by Tanzania's Serengeti National Park to the south, Maasai pastoral ranches to the north and east, and crop farming to the west. The area is world-famous for its exceptional wildlife population and an annual migration of nearly two million wildebeest, zebra and other wildlife across the Serengeti and Mara plains.

Ogutu and his colleagues focused much of their attention on the rapid changes occurring in the large territories around the Mara Reserve known as the Mara ranchlands, which are home to the Maasai. Until recently, most Maasai were semi-nomadic herders – known for their warrior culture and colorful red toga-style dress – who co-existed easily with the wildlife in the region.

But over the last few decades, some Maasai have left their traditional mud-and-wattle homesteads, known as bomas, and gravitated to more permanent settlements – on the borders of the reserve. For example, Ogutu and his colleagues report that in just one of the ranchlands adjacent to the reserve – the Koyiaki ranch – the number of bomas has surged from 44 in 1950 to 368 in 2003, while the number of huts grew from 44 to 2735 in number. Their analysis found that the "abundance of all species but waterbuck and zebra decreased significantly as the number" of permanent settlements around the reserve increased.

"Wildlife are constantly moving between the reserve and surrounding ranchlands and they are increasingly competing for habitat with livestock and with large-scale crop cultivation around the human settlements," Ogutu said. "In particular, our analysis found that more and more people in the ranchlands are allowing their livestock to graze in the reserve, an illegal activity the impoverished Maasai resort to when faced with prolonged drought and other problems," he said.

In addition, the study warns that retaliatory killings of wildlife that break down fences, damage crops, degrade water supplies or threaten livestock and humans is "common and increasing" in the ranchlands. Ogutu said the various forces threatening wildlife in the ranchlands "could have grave consequences" for protecting wildlife in the reserve. That's because, given the seasonal movements of the animals in and out of the reserve, on most days, most of the wildlife in the region regularly graze outside the protected reserve, in the ranchlands.

While not covered in their analysis, the researchers involved in the study are quick to point out that the Maasai's transition to a more sedentary lifestyle has been driven partly by decades of policy neglect that left many Maasai with no choice but to abandon their more environmentally sustainable practice of grazing livestock over wide expanses of grasslands.

"The traditional livestock livelihoods of the Maasai, who rarely consume wild animals, actually helped maintain the abundance of grazing animals in East Africa, and where a pastoral approach to livestock grazing is still practiced, it continues to benefit wild populations," said Robin Reid, a co-author of the paper who is now director of the Center for Collaborative Conservation at Colorado State University in the United States. "There appears to be a 'tipping point' of human populations above which former co-existence between Maasai and wildlife begins to break down. In the villages on the border of the Mara, this point has been passed, but large areas of the Mara still have populations low enough that compatibility is still possible."

Previous research by Reid and Ogutu has shown that moderate livestock grazing in the Mara Reserve could also benefit wildlife. For example, many species of grazing wildlife avoid the reserve when the grass is tall in the wet season to avoid hiding predators and coarse, un-nutritious grass. Instead, wildlife tend to graze near traditional pastoral settlements where grass is nutritious and short because it's used to feed pastoralist herds, and predators are clearly visible.

Reid added, "These apparently contradictory findings are now being used by local Maasai communities to address the loss of wildlife. They see that wildlife are lost when settlements are too numerous, but that moderate numbers of settlements can benefit wildlife."

Maasai landowners are working together with the tourism companies to establish conservancies where they carefully manage the number of settlements and the number of livestock to achieve this balance. They also have the incentive to do so because the local community receives a share of the profits from tourism on their land.

Dickson Kaelo, a Maasai leader, works with tour companies and local communities to design these conservancies. During a recent experience at the new Olare Orok Conservancy, he found that wildlife initially flooded into the area when people removed their livestock and settlements. But soon, the grass grew tall and many wildlife left for the shorter grass near settlements beyond the conservancy.

"We know from thousands of years of history that pastoral livestock-keeping can co-exist with East Africa's renowned concentrations of big mammals. And we look to these pastoralists for solutions to the current conflicts," said Carlos Seré, Director General of ILRI. "With their help and the significant tourism revenue that the Mara wildlife generates, it is possible to invest in evidence-based approaches that can protect this region's iconic pastoral peoples, as well as its wildlife populations."

Another such initiative already under way, the Wildlife Conservation Lease Programme, is being implemented in the Kitengela rangelands adjacent to Nairobi National Park. The programme uses cash payments to encourage pastoralist families living on leased lands not to fence, develop or sell their acreage. This lease programme, which is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has been highly successful in keeping rangelands open for wildlife and livestock grazing, while also providing Maasai families with an important source of income. ILRI believes the scheme should be broadened to include more families here and should be introduced in other pastoral ecosystems and rangelands.

"We have evidence that the sharp declines of East Africa's wildlife populations in recent years can be slowed and ecosystem crashes prevented by bettering the livelihoods of the Maasai and other pastoralists who graze their livestock near the region's protected game parks," concluded Seré. "Our work demonstrates that scientists, policymakers, and local communities can work together to build the technical means and adaptive capacity needed to keep this region's pastoral ecosystems, and the people who depend on them, more resilient, even in the face of big changes."

Fire influences global warming more than previously thought

Fire's potent and pervasive effects on ecosystems and on many Earth processes, including climate change, have been underestimated, according to a new report.

"We've estimated that deforestation due to burning by humans is contributing about one-fifth of the human-caused greenhouse effect – and that percentage could become larger," said co-author Thomas W. Swetnam of The University of Arizona in Tucson.

"It's very clear that fire is a primary catalyst of global climate change," said Swetnam, director of UA's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

"The paper is a call to arms to earth scientists to investigate and better evaluate the role of fire in the Earth system," he said.

The team also reports that all fires combined release an amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere equal to 50 percent of that coming from the combustion of fossil fuels.

"Fires are obviously one of the major responses to climate change, but fires are not only a response – they feed back to warming, which feeds more fires," Swetnam said.

When vegetation burns, the resulting release of stored carbon increases global warming. The more fires, the more carbon dioxide released, the more warming – and the more warming, the more fires.

The very fine soot, known as black carbon, that is released into the atmosphere by fires also contributes to warming.

"The scary bit is that, because of the feedbacks and other uncertainties, we could be way underestimating the role of fire in driving future climate change," Swetnam said.

The report's 22 authors call for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, to recognize the overarching role of fire in global climate change and to incorporate fire better into future models and reports about climate change.

David Bowman, a lead co-author, said, "We're most concerned that fire has not been rigorously and adequately incorporated in the climate models. It's remarkable that such an integral part of the landscape has been so sidelined."

Swetnam, Bowman of the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, the other lead co-author Jennifer K. Balch of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, Calif. and their colleagues will publish their paper, "Fire in the Earth System," in the April 24 issue of the journal Science.

Because fire on Earth predates humans, its ubiquitous activity is simultaneously accepted and overlooked. Bowman says, "Fire is extraordinarily obvious, but deeply subtle."

The article ties together various threads of knowledge about fire from disparate fields including ecology, global modeling, physics, anthropology, environmental history, medicine and climatology.

A more complete understanding of how the Earth works requires recognizing how fire is intertwined with and also a driver of human history and the Earth's history, the authors write.

Balch said of the article, "This synthesis is a prerequisite for adaptation to the apparent recent intensification of fire feedbacks, which have been exacerbated by climate change, rapid land-cover transformation, and exotic species introductions."

She commented about "fires where we don't normally see fires," and pointed to the occurrence of bigger and more frequent fires from the western U.S. to the tropics.

Swetnam said that, in addition to the burning in the tropics, huge tracts of the boreal forests of Siberia, Canada and northern Europe burn each year.

"The role of fire in forests in the boreal zone is unappreciated," he said.

"Russian forests alone contain more than 50 percent of the carbon stored on land in the Northern Hemisphere," Swetnam wrote in an e-mail, adding that warming is happening fastest at high latitudes.

In some recent years, the acreage burned in the forests of Siberia exceeded the size of the U.S. state of Virginia, he said. As the world warms, more of those regions are likely to burn, accelerating the warming.

Calling for a holistic fire science, Balch said, "We don't think about fires correctly."

"Fire is as elemental as air or water. We live on a fire planet. We are a fire species. Yet, the study of fire has been very fragmented. We know lots about the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, but we know very little about the fire cycle, or how fire cycles through the biosphere."

New Hope for Biomass Fuels

Los Alamos researchers crack code for binding lignocellulosic biomass

Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have discovered a potential chink in the armor of fibers that make the cell walls of certain inedible plant materials so tough. The insight ultimately could lead to a cost-effective and energy-efficient strategy for turning biomass into alternative fuels.

In separate papers published today in Biophysical Journal and recently in an issue of Biomacromolecules, Los Alamos researchers identify potential weaknesses among sheets of cellulose molecules comprising lignocellulosic biomass, the inedible fibrous material derived from plant cell walls. The material is a potentially abundant source of sugar that can be used to brew batches of methanol or butanol, which show potential as biofuels.

Cellulose is biosynthesized in plant cells when molecules of glucose – a simple sugar – join into long chains through a process called polymerization. The plant then assembles these chains of cellulose into sheets. The sheets are held together by hydrogen bonds – an electrostatic attraction of a positive portion of a molecule to a negative portion of the same or neighboring molecule. Finally, the sheets stack atop one another, sticking to themselves by other types of attractions that are weaker than hydrogen bonds. The plant then spins these sheets into high-tensile-strength fibers of material.

Not only are the fibers incredibly strong, but they are incredibly resistant to the action of enzymes called cellulases that can crack the fibers back into their simple-sugar components. The ability to economically and easily break cellulose into sugars is desirable because the sugars can be used to create fuel alternatives. However, due to the tenacity of cellulose fibers, the United States currently lacks an energy-efficient and cost-effective method for turning inedible biomass such as switch grass or corn husks into a sweet source of biofuels.

Working with researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolécules Végétales in France, Los Alamos researcher Paul Langan used neutrons to probe the crystalline structure of highly crystalline cellulose, much like an X-ray is used to probe the hidden structures of the body. Langan and his colleagues found that although cellulose generally has a well-ordered network of hydrogen bonds holding it together, the material also displays significant amounts of disorder, creating a different type of hydrogen bond network at certain surfaces. These differences make the molecule potentially vulnerable to an attack by cellulase enzymes.

Moreover, in this month’s Biophysical Journal, Los Alamos researchers Tongye Shen and Gnana Gnanakaran describe a new lattice-based model of crystalline cellulose. The model predicts how hydrogen bonds in cellulose can shift to remain stable under a wide range of temperatures. This plasticity allows the material to swap different types of hydrogen bonds but also constrains the molecules so that they must form bonds in the weaker configuration described by Langan and his colleagues. Most important, Shen and Gnanakaran’s model identifies hydrogen bonds that can be manipulated via temperature differences to potentially make the material more susceptible to attack by enzymes that can crack the fibers into sugars for biofuel production.

“We have been able to identify a chink in the armor of a very tough and worthy adversary – the cellulose fiber,” said Gnanakaran, who leads the theoretical portion of a large, multidisciplinary biofuels project at Los Alamos.

“These results are some of the first to come from this team, and eventually could point us toward an economical and viable process for making biofuels from cellulosic biomass,” adds Langan, director of the biofuels project.

Funding for the project comes from Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD), which is the premier source of internally directed research-and-development funding at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The LDRD program invests in high-risk, potentially high-payoff projects at the discretion of the Laboratory Director. Strategic investments of the LDRD program help position Los Alamos to anticipate and prepare for emerging national security challenges.

Super reefs' fend off climate change, study says

The Wildlife Conservation Society announced today a study showing that some coral reefs off East Africa are unusually resilient to climate change due to improved fisheries management and a combination of geophysical factors. WCS announced the results of the study at the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI), which is meeting this week in Phuket, Thailand.

The study, published in the online journal Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, provides additional evidence that globally important "super reefs" exist in the triangle from Northern Madagascar across to northern Mozambique to southern Kenya and, thus, should be a high priority for future conservation action.

Authors of the study include Tim McClanahan and Nyawira Muthiga of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Joseph Maina of the Coral Reef Conservation Project, Albogast Kamukuru of the University of Dar es Salaam's Department of Fisheries Science and Aquaculture, and Saleh A.S. Yahna of the University of Dar es Salaam's Institute of Marine Sciences and Stockholm University's Department of Zoology.

The study found that Tanzania's corals recovered rapidly from the 1998 bleaching event that had wiped out up to 45 percent of the region's corals. Along with monitoring Tanzania's reefs, WCS helps coral conservation in this region through training of park staff in protected areas.

The authors attribute the recovery of Tanzania's coral reefs due in part to direct management measures, including closures to commercial fishing. Areas with fishery closures contained an abundance of fish that feed on algae that can otherwise smother corals, while the few sites without any specific management measures remain degraded; one site had experienced a population explosion of sea urchins – pests that feeds on corals.

The findings also showed that the structure of the reefs played a major factor in their resiliency. Tanzania's reefs are particularly complex and experience unusual variations in current and water temperature. These factors allow for greater survivorship of a higher diversity of coral species, including those that can quickly re-colonize after bleaching.

"Northern Tanzania's reefs have exhibited considerable resilience and in some cases improvements in reef conditions despite heavy pressure from climate change impacts and overfishing," noted Wildlife Conservation Society scientist Dr. Tim McClanahan, the study's lead author. "This gives cause for considerably more optimism that developing countries, such as Tanzania, can effectively manage their reefs in the face of climate change."

The authors suggest that reefs in Tanzania and elsewhere that exhibit similar environmental conditions have the ability to recover from large-scale climatic and human disturbances. They may, therefore, be a priority for conservation under predicted climate change scenarios where many reefs are expected to suffer further degradation.

On a broader scale, the Wildlife Conservation Society is actively conserving nearly 90 percent of the world's tropical coral reef species in priority seascapes in Belize, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Kenya and Madagascar.

DNA blueprint for healthier and more efficient cows

Ground breaking findings by an international consortium of scientists who sequenced and analysed the bovine genome, could result in more sustainable food production.

The findings, published in two reports in the journal Science, will have a profound impact on Australia’s livestock industry.

CSIRO scientists were among the 300 researchers from 25 countries involved in the six-year Bovine Genome Sequencing Project designed to sequence, annotate and analyse the genome of a female Hereford cow called L1 Dominette.

The scientists discovered that the bovine genome contains 2,870 billion DNA building blocks, encoding a minimum of 22,000 genes. Of major interest to scientists are the differences in the organisation of the genes involved in lactation, reproduction, digestion and metabolism in cows compared to other mammals.

One of the lead authors of the report on the project’s latest findings, CSIRO Livestock Industries researcher Dr Ross Tellam said the bovine genome has about 14,000 genes which are common to all mammals and these constitute the ‘engine room’ of mammalian biology.

“The team found that cows share about 80 per cent of their genes with humans, also providing us with a better understanding of the human genome,” Dr Tellam said.

“One of the surprises in the analysis was that cow and human proteins have more in common than mouse and human proteins, yet it is the mouse that is often used in medical research as a model of human disease conditions.”

Dr Tellam said the research provides an insight into the unique biology and evolution of ruminant animals and helps explain why they have been so successful as a species.

One of the major findings was that the cow has significant rearrangements in many of its immune genes and presumably an enhanced natural ability to defend itself from disease.

“This may be an evolutionary response to an increased risk of opportunistic infections at mucosal surfaces caused by the large number of bacteria and fungi carried in the rumen (the largest of the four compartments that make up the bovine stomach),” Dr Tellam said.

“The second possible explanation is that ruminants and cows are typically found in very large herds, and in these herds there is a greater propensity for disease transmission, so you need to be better equipped to withstand diseases.”

These new findings will point the way for future research that could result in more sustainable food production.

Dr Tellam said the $US53 million Bovine Genome Sequencing Project – led by the Human Genome Sequencing Centre at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM-HGSC) in Houston, Texas – is an example of major achievements that can only be realised by substantial international scientific cooperation.

Using the complete genome sequence from L1 Dominette, the female Hereford cow, scientists also undertook comparative genome sequencing for six more breeds to look for genetic changes.

The resulting bovine HapMap – a literal map of genetic diversity among different populations – is also published in today’s edition of the journal Science.

“Domestication and artificial selection appear to have left detectable signatures of selection within the cattle genome yet the current level of diversity within breeds is at least as great as that found within humans,” CSIRO Livestock Industries scientist and one of the project’s group leaders, Dr Bill Barendse, said.

The implications of the genome project for the beef and dairy industries are enormous.

“The availability of very large numbers of single nucleotide polymorphisms (DNA changes in the genetic blueprint) has allowed the development of gene chips that measure genetic variation in cattle populations and will allow the rapid selective breeding of animals with higher value commercial traits.

“This technology is quickly transforming the dairy genetics industry and has the potential to dramatically alter beef cattle industries as well,” Dr Barendse said.

These new genetic tools may provide a means to select more energy-efficient animals with a smaller environmental footprint, particularly animals that produce less greenhouse gas.

Greenland’s ‘good news’ methane finding

Air preserved for thousands of years in polar ice.
Photo by: CSIROIce core research has revealed that a vast, potential source of the potent greenhouse gas, methane, is more stable in a warming world than previously thought.Based on international research published today in Science, the finding includes Australian contributions from CSIRO and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).

Wetlands in the tropics and emerging from under receding Northern Hemisphere glaciers have been considered the primary source of rising atmospheric methane in a warming world. But scientists have known of another potential source.

Massive quantities of methane are locked away in permafrost and in the ocean floors as methane clathrate – an ice-like material which can return to gas if temperatures increase or pressures drop. Just a 10 per cent release of methane would have the equivalent impact on global warming of a ten-fold increase in carbon dioxide concentration.
So began a US, New Zealand and Australian research project to understand ice core records spanning hundreds of thousands of years, profiling periods of high-methane increase and focusing on the Younger Dryas period. The cause of the large increase in methane 12,000 years ago as the Earth warmed and the Younger Dryas ended has been a source of much debate among scientists.

“The result is a good news outcome for climate scientists monitoring greenhouse gases and investigating the likely sources of methane in a warming world,” says CSIRO’s Dr David Etheridge, from the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research who helped show how the air could be extracted from polar ice to measure past methane changes and identify their causes.

“There are vast stores of methane clathrates beneath the ocean and in permafrost and there is evidence that millions of years ago release from these storages caused significant climate change, although none in more recent times.

“The objective of the research was to determine how stable the clathrate methane stores were as the Earth warmed rapidly from its last glacial state and whether clathrates might be a source of future climate change as global temperatures rise.”

Dr Andrew Smith, from ANSTO, studied the source of methane by using a technique called accelerator mass spectrometry to detect individual radiocarbon atoms from ancient atmospheric methane samples over the Younger Dryas period.

“Radiocarbon provided the key insight to decide whether the extra methane was derived from clathrates or from wetlands,” Dr Smith says.

“A multi-disciplinary team of scientists from the US Scripps Institution of Oceanography, New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmosphere, and from Australia’s ANSTO and CSIRO combined their resources to tackle this challenging project.”

The project involved years of field-work in West Greenland where scientists accessed samples located in ’outcropping’ ice, a cross-section of ice formed over tens of thousands of years that is exposed at the surface. A tonne of ice was excavated to provide sufficient air from trapped bubbles for each measurement of the methane carbon isotopes.

Extremely sensitive analysis was required because of the low concentration of methane in air and because only about one trillionth of that methane contains radiocarbon – the carbon-14 isotope that is the key indicator of clathrate emissions. The analysis was undertaken at ANSTO in southern Sydney.

The methane isotope change accompanying the jump in concentration confirmed that the emission was not from clathrates, but from ecological sources such as wetlands.

“We know that emissions of methane are increasing now and that some sources might emit even more with warming, causing a positive climate feedback, or amplification. But this finding suggests that the clathrate source is less susceptible than recently feared,” Dr Smith says.

Yale Opens Ultra-Green Kroon Hall

Yale University has completed construction of a new ultra-green building-designed to use 50 percent less energy than a comparably sized modern building-for its School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). Kroon Hall achieves its remarkable energy savings from a host of design elements and technical strategies molded to fit the building's New England weather and climate.

“Yale’s most sustainable building to date reflects the School’s mission and the intellectual passion of its faculty and students,” said Yale President Richard C. Levin. “It is an extraordinary design, and we hope its energy-saving concepts will be emulated widely and inspire others to advance green building even further.”

Designed by Hopkins Architects of Great Britain in partnership with Connecticut-based Centerbrook Architects and Planners, the new $33.5 million home for F&ES is expected to achieve a platinum rating in the green-building certification program, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ( LEED ).

“More than a decade ago, the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies set out to achieve an unconventional—even audacious—agenda, focused on building social capital, breaking with the past, and speaking to the future of environmentalism,” said F&ES Dean Gus Speth. “We wanted a healthy place to study and work, but also wanted to bridge the gap between nature and people even in the middle of the city. We have achieved that with this very special place. Our thanks go to Deputy Dean Alan Brewster and Professor Stephen Kellert. Their inspired leadership and hard work made possible a new home for the School that expresses in physical form our best traditions, values and aspirations.”

The building, located in the area of the University known as “Science Hill,” is named for the family of benefactor and Yale College alumnus Richard Kroon. Providing 56,467 square feet of space, it is 57 feet wide and 218 feet long. With its high barrel-vaulted gable ends, simple lines, and curved rooftop, Kroon is a modernist blend of cathedral nave and Connecticut barn.

“Kroon Hall is on course to be among the greenest buildings in the United States,” said Hopkins Director Michael Taylor. “True sustainability, however, is about more than improved quantitative performance. We have striven to create a piece of contemporary architecture that belongs in the context of the historic Yale campus. We think it will encourage interaction among its occupants and stand up to several generations of intense use. Using natural materials, such as Briar Hill Stone and red oak from the University’s own sustainably harvested forests, we have tried to create a building that is warm in character, a place where the school will instantly feel at home. Seeing how the faculty, staff, and students have immediately adopted the building is very satisfying.”

The building’s tall, thin shape and east-west orientation provide most of the heating and cooling. The lowest floor is set into a hillside, with only its south side exposed, providing thermal insulation, minimizing northern exposure, and increasing the amount of natural light that enters the building from adjacent courtyards. The long south facade maximizes solar gain during the winter, and Douglas fir louvers covering glass facades on the east and west ends keep out unwanted heat and glare. The building’s shape, combined with the glass facades, enables daylight to provide much of the interior’s illumination. Light and occupancy sensors dim artificial lighting when it is not needed.

Half of Kroon Hall’s red oak paneling—15,000 board feet—came from the 7,840-acre Yale-Myers Forest in northern Connecticut, which is managed by the School and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. Kroon’s pale yellow exterior, composed of sandstone from Ohio, echoes other Yale buildings.

A 100-kilowatt rooftop array of photovoltaic panels will provide about 25 per cent of the electricity for the building. Four 1,500-foot-deep wells use the relatively constant 55-degree temperature of underground water to heat and cool the building, replacing the need for conventional boilers and air conditioning in the all-electric building. Four solar panels embedded in the southern facade provide the building with hot water. Renewable Energy Certificates will be purchased to provide the additional electricity needed for the building, reducing to zero the greenhouse gas emissions from Kroon Hall's operation. The estimate of Kroon Hall’s energy use compared to a typical modern building is based on standards set by the American Association of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

A rainwater-harvesting system channels water from the roof and grounds to a garden in the south courtyard, where aquatic plants filter out sediment and contaminants. The grey water, held in underground storage tanks, is then pumped back into Kroon for flushing toilets and is used for irrigation. The system is expected to save 500,000 gallons of potable city water annually and to reduce the burden on city sewers by lessening the amount of storm runoff. A single driveway brings all vehicle traffic into a service node beneath the south courtyard, centralizing all pickups for trash and recycling and deliveries for the southwest corner of Science Hill.

The building’s north and south courtyards add greatly to Kroon Hall’s attractive environment for work and study. Centerbrook architect Mark Simon said the courtyards are almost as important as the building itself in creating a community from disparate buildings on Science Hill. “The courtyards are quintessentially Yale,” said Simon. “We wanted to create great outdoor spaces where people want to go. For the first time in a century, people passing through the arch at Osborn Memorial Laboratories have a destination.” The south courtyard is a raised platform, with a green roof of soil one-foot deep. Olin Partnership of Philadelphia landscaped the courtyards with 25 varieties of native plantings.

President Levin directed in 2005 that Yale reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from its facilities by 43 per cent within 15 years. The University is making progress toward its goal through green construction such as Kroon Hall, campus-wide conservation measures, and renewable energy projects.

The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies is a professional and graduate school that offers master’s degrees in environmental management, environmental science, forestry, and forest science, as well as a doctoral program, and serves as a locus for research on local, regional, and global environmental issues. The school, established in 1901, provides a broad-gauged educational experience that equips its graduates to assume influential roles in government, business, nongovernmental organizations, public and international affairs, journalism, research, and education.

Mother Earth cannot be a piece of merchandise: President Morales

The primary cause of the twenty-first century should be the recognition of the rights of Mother Earth, Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma declared hours after the General Assembly passed a resolution designating 22 April as "International Mother Earth Day".

The primary cause of the twenty-first century should be the recognition of the rights of Mother Earth, Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma declared hours after the General Assembly passed a resolution designating 22 April as “International Mother Earth Day”.

“If we want to safeguard mankind, then we need to safeguard the planet,” he said, stressing that social movements, regular citizens and presidents the world over needed to understand and support the rights of Mother Earth. “That is the next major task of the United Nations”.

Speaking at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon, he said previous centuries had witnessed a permanent ongoing battle for human rights. With those human rights now secured, it was time to fight for those of the planet, including the right to life, the right to regeneration of the planet’s biodiversity, the right to a clean life free of pollution, and the right to harmony and balance among and between all things.

“Mother Earth cannot be a piece of merchandise”, he argued, stressing that it was necessary to correct humanity’s historic mistake of buying and selling the planet. Human beings could not exist without Mother Earth, but changes in climate and the environment were already beginning to threaten that existence in some places. In the Andes, mountain peaks were losing their white snow-caps, lakes were drying up, and fish were disappearing from the Orinoco.

In light of the damage traditional power plants caused to the environment and the fact that gas and oil deposits are limited, he said his Government would be reconsidering its energy policy. It would explore developing clean energy sources, especially its numerous natural opportunities for hydroelectric energy, but investment would also be needed.

He was also working to defend equality, democracy and the rule of law in Bolivia, Morales said. Moreover, he intended to defend himself as Bolivia’s constitutionally-elected President and head of a Government that had, for the first time in the Republic’s 180-year history, been elected four times in a row with over 50 per cent of the vote.

Bolivia was also moving towards the approval of a new Constitution, which was supported by some 70 per cent of the population, he said. “This is a process of great transformation and change. Unfortunately, the neoliberal groups which still exist in some regions have attempted to take over the palace, but did not succeed”.

President Morales was joined by Paul Oquist, Senior Adviser to the President of the General Assembly, who outlined the run-up to the high-level General Assembly meeting on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development, scheduled for 1 to 3 June in New York. Informal consultations had already begun, with Member States submitting proposals for the meeting’s outcome document. Those deliberations would continue until 4 May, when the President of the General Assembly would issue a draft document that would then be subject to intergovernmental negotiations ahead of the high-level meeting.

The high-level conference would, he said, allow the “G-192” of the United Nations “to give voice and participation to all the world’s countries on the most important issue of our decade and perhaps our century”. It was intended to be a forum that was legal, representative and credible, since it would take into account the interests of all those affected by the crisis.

Echoing that statement, Morales said he was looking forward to the meeting, which would be an opportunity for everyone to be heard and the economic problem collectively resolved. “We all need to shoulder the responsibility for resolving the financial crisis.”

In response to a question on whether the United States stimulus plan was good enough to bring it out of the economic doldrums, he said that the crisis of capitalism could not be solved merely by injecting money. “You cannot issue more and more money unless you increase the means of production and the real economy of countries”, he stressed, underlining how even the G-20 [Group of Twenty] disagreed on how to turn national economies, as well as the global economy, around.

To a number of questions about the global financial architecture, he pointed out that France and Germany had questioned the bureaucracy of the International Monetary Fund and he welcomed proposals by Brazil and Argentina for its radical reform. He further welcomed ongoing changes within the World Bank, which had previously urged him to privatize a number of Bolivia’s industries, to no avail.

He went on to say that the response to the financial crisis had to be more than just the provision of money by the same institutions that had contributed to its cause, such as the International Monetary Fund. In fact, a revolution within the Fund was needed, with its bureaucrats thinking about the big picture rather than “lining their own pockets”.

Asked when his Government would provide more information on what it had described as a plot to assassinate him and two other high-level members last week, he said the investigation was ongoing. [Three men were killed and two others jailed by Bolivian police last week in the eastern city of Santa Cruz.] But, it was his hope that the Bolivian justice system would pursue the case to its end.

Asked about Government efforts to end cases where the working conditions of servants among some wealthy landowners seemed tantamount to slavery, as well as initiatives to redistribute land to the poor, he said a great deal of education was needed to end such conditions. The Government hoped to do more than institute agrarian reform. Indeed, the four components of its initiatives were just redistribution of land; mechanization; increased production of organic and biological products; and just and fair trade. It was also focusing on credit for micro-enterprise.

Responding to a question about recent educational reforms, such as the right of indigenous people to be instructed in their own languages, he said those new types of universities sought to repair the damage of the last 500 years. But, radical change - as seen in the case of the new Constitution - was needed. He hoped that those universities would teach young patriotic students who were committed to their country and would eventually work for it, rather than participating in a “brain drain”.

Asked about his recent hunger strike, he noted that such methods had previously been against the military dictatorship, but were now being used against the neoliberal model. Those who subscribed to that model were frightened of democracy, because they knew they would not win.

LG Enhances Environmental Leadership With Third Generation Linear Compressor

LG Electronics ( LG ), a pioneer and leader in home appliance convergence, today launched its third generation linear compressor, furthering its global leadership in environmentally-friendly components and products, and setting another global standard in this area.

The compressor, like an automobile’s engine, is one of the most important components in a refrigerator’s operation, underlying the entire cooling system. The compressor accounts for about 80 per cent of a refrigerator’s total energy consumption. A home ice bar equipped 725-liter refrigerator with LG’s third generation linear compressor uses just 35.9 Kwh per month. This makes it the most energy efficient refrigerator in its class, even besting the same size model with LG’s second generation linear compressor by 3.6 Kwh. This efficiency not only lowers electric bills, but also carbon emissions, which average 0.5kg per kilowatt hour.

“LG is committed to the environment and energy savings. This next generation of linear compressors not only means that we are leading the industry, it also means that we are fully prepared for any upcoming environmental regulations,” said Young-ha Lee, president and CEO of LG Electronics Home Appliance Company. “LG has been an incomparable leader in linear compressor technology, and this is a strong catalyst to help us achieve our goal of becoming a global top refrigerator maker.”

While conventional reciprocating compressors turn the motor’s rotational movement into the piston’s linear movement to compress refrigerant, in LG’s linear compressors, the motor directly connected to the piston moves along a linear track to compress refrigerant, minimizing energy loss during conversion and lowering energy use by up to 30 percent.

LG, the unrivalled leader in this innovative linear technology, developed the first Korean-made compressor in 1973 and the first market-ready linear compressor in 2001. It came out with an enhanced second generation linear compressor in 2006. Since then, LG has invested KRW 12 billion to develop more advanced, next generation technological standard in compressors as well as refrigerators. LG currently owns more than 700 patents both domestically and internationally, and will form a task force to develop more innovative technology in this area.

LG’s third generation linear compressor will debut in the company’s side-by-side refrigerators in Korea starting from April of this year and expand to other markets including Europe and North America. LG also plans to provide the compressor to other refrigerator makers around the world. LG plans to see use of third generation linear compressors soar more than 10-fold to 50 percent by 2015.

As environmental regulations tighten globally, consumers are also demanding products with greater efficiency and lower energy consumption. It is expected that developed markets including Europe, North America and Korea will see the market for more eco-friendly appliances expand.

Earlier this year, LG announced its worldwide Life’s Good When It’s Green initiative to reinforce its commitment to the environment and energy savings. The initiative focuses on sustainability through Eco-Design and Eco-Products, reduction of hazardous materials, responsible electronics recycling and addressing global climate change. LG is taking proactive steps to address global climate change, pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout the entire lifespan of its products. LG intends to reduce greenhouse gases emitted over the lifetime of its products by 30 megatons by 2020, from raw materials, components such as linear compressors, logistics, product use and disposal. In addition, LG is trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing by 150 kilotons per year by 2020.

Wetlands likely source of methane from ancient warming event

Analysis of Greenland ice led by Scripps researchers could allay fears about methane 'burp' accelerating current global warming trend

An expansion of wetlands and not a large-scale melting of frozen methane deposits is the likely cause of a spike in atmospheric methane gas that took place some 11,600 years ago, according to an international research team led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

The finding is expected to come as a relief to scientists and climate watchers concerned that huge accelerations of global warming might have been touched off by methane melts in the past and could happen again now as the planet warms. By measuring the amount of carbon-14 isotopes in methane from air bubbles trapped in glacial ice, the researchers determined that the surge that took place nearly 12,000 years ago was more chemically consistent with an expansion of wetlands. Wetland regions, which produce large amounts of methane from bacterial breakdown of organic matter, are known to have spread during warming trends throughout history.

"This is good news for global warming because it suggests that methane clathrates do not respond to warming by releasing large amounts of methane into the atmosphere," said Vasilii Petrenko, a postdoctoral fellow at University of Colorado, Boulder, who led the analysis while a graduate student at Scripps.

The results appear in April 24 editions of the journal Science.

Scientists had long been concerned about the potential for present-day climate change to cause a thawing of Arctic permafrost and a warming of ocean waters great enough to trigger a huge release of methane that would send planetary warming into overdrive. Vast amounts of methane are sequestered in solid form, known as methane clathrate, in seafloor deposits and in permafrost. Cold temperatures and the intense pressure of the deep ocean stabilize the methane clathrate masses and keep methane from entering the atmosphere.

Scientists have estimated that a melting of only 10 per cent of the world's clathrate deposits would create a greenhouse effect equal to a tenfold increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For comparison, the warming trend observed in the last century has taken place with only a 30 per cent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The research team, overseen by Scripps geoscientist and study co-author Jeff Severinghaus, collected what may be the largest ice samples ever for a climate change study. The researchers cut away 15 tons of ice from a site called Pakitsoq at the western margin of the Greenland ice sheet to collect the ancient air trapped within. Methane exists in low concentrations in this air and only a trillionth of any given amount contains the carbon-14 isotope that the researchers needed to perform the analysis. Levels of carbon-14, which has a half-life of 5,730 years, were too high in the methane to have come from clathrates, the researchers concluded.

"This study is important because it confirms that wetlands and moisture availability change dramatically along with abrupt climate change," said Severinghaus. "This highlights in a general way the fact that the largest impacts of future climate change may be on water resources and drought, rather than temperature per se."

The burst of methane took place immediately after an abrupt transition between climatic periods known as the Younger Dryas and Preboreal. During this event, temperatures in Greenland rose 10° C (18° F) in 20 years. Methane levels over 150 years rose about 50 per cent, from 500 parts per billion in air to 750 parts per billion.

In addition to Petrenko and Severinghaus, researchers from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Oregon State University, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, the Technical University of Denmark and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia contributed to the report.

The work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the American Chemical Society, the ANSTO Cosmogenic Climate Archives of the Southern Hemisphere project and the New Zealand Foundation of Science and Technology.

Animals that seem identical may be completely different species

Animals that seem identical may belong to completely different species. This is the conclusion of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who have used DNA analyses to discover that one of our most common segmented worms is actually two types of worm. The result is one of many suggesting that the variety of species on the earth could be considerably larger than we thought.

"We could be talking about a large number of species that have existed undiscovered because they resemble other known species," says Professor Christer Erséus.

The segmented worms that were studied by Christer Erséus, doctoral student Daniel Gustavsson and their American colleague, are identical in appearance. From the very first time that they were described, they have been treated as the same species, and they are also found together in freshwater environments in North America, Sweden and the rest of Europe.

But when the researchers examined the worms using advanced methods for DNA analysis, they discovered that they were in fact two different species. Both species of worm differ in one of the examined genes by 17 percent, which is twice as much as the equivalent difference between humans and chimpanzees.

The research results, which are being published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, could have major consequences. For example, the worms are frequently used for laboratory testing around the world, to examine the effects of environmental toxins.

"Different species have different characteristics. If it emerged that these two species differ in terms of their tolerance towards certain toxins, then it could be difficult to make comparisons between different studies," says Christer Erséus.

And as this advanced DNA technology is tested increasingly within various animal groups, it could, according to Christer Erséus, mean that our perception of the earth's biodiversity may need to be revised.
"There could be ten times as many species in total, compared with what we previously thought," he says.

The new species of worm has not yet been given a name, since researchers have not yet decided which of the two will keep the old name, Lumbriculus variegatus.

Plants could override climate change effects on wildfires

Scientists predict that global climate change will make many regions around the world warmer and drier, a factor which, taken by itself, would seem to increase the risk of wildfires.

But a new study led by a Montana State University researcher shows that changes in the types of vegetation covering an area play a major role in determining how often that area is burned by fires and could even counteract the effects of changes in temperature and moisture.

In the study, MSU earth sciences post-doctoral researcher Philip Higuera and his colleagues show that the risk of wildfires can be either reduced or increased by changes in the distribution and abundance of plants. The study will be published in the May issue of the journal Ecological Monographs.

"Climate affects vegetation, vegetation affects fire and both fire and vegetation respond to climate change," Higuera said. "Our work emphasizes the need to consider the multiple drivers of fire regimes when we anticipate how they will respond to climate change."

Higuera and his colleagues studied fire history in northern Alaska by analyzing sediments at the bottom of lakes, some dating as far back as 15,000 years. In the samples from the lakes, the scientists measured the abundance of different preserved plant parts, such as pollen, to determine what types of vegetation dominated the region in the past. Like rings in a tree, different sediment layers represent different times in the past.

The scientists then looked at charcoal deposits in the sediments to determine how often wildfires had burned over those soils. They compared that to the kinds of vegetation that were dominant at the time and finally looked at what is known about historical climate changes in northern Alaska.

The scientists discovered that, in many cases, changes in climate were less important than changes in vegetation when it came to affecting the frequency of wildfires.

For example, 10,500 years ago, the climate in northern Alaska went from cool and dry to warm and dry. The scientists found that the vegetation changed along with the climate, from flammable shrubs to more fire-resistant deciduous trees. As a result, there was a sharp decline in the frequency of fires.

Contrast that to about 5,000 years ago, when the area became cooler and wetter again. Considered alone, that would seem to decrease the risk of wildfire, yet the scientists found evidence of more frequent fires, a pattern they attributed to the development of high flammability spruce forests in the region.

"Climate is only one control on fire regimes," Higuera said. "If you only considered climate when predicting fire under climate-change scenarios, you would have a good chance of being wrong. You wouldn't be wrong if vegetation didn't change, but the greater the probability that vegetation will change, the more important it becomes when predicting future fire regimes."

Higuera hopes his findings will help predict modern changes in large-scale wildfire patterns as the world's climate changes. While his work mostly deals with boreal forests, it still shows scientists that the effects of vegetation on wildfire is an important area for future study, he said.

"With global climate change, we're going into a period where things aren't going to be the same as what we know," he said. "By looking into the past, we see a larger set of possibilities that will help us prepare for the future."

Higuera's research stems from a work funded by a four-year, $742,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, which was awarded to the University of Washington in 2001.

Higuera's co-authors on the study include Linda Brubaker and Patricia Anderson from the University of Washington, Thomas Brown from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Feng Sheng Hu from the University of Illinois.

Plants absorb more carbon under hazy skies

Plants absorbed carbon dioxide more efficiently under the polluted skies of recent decades than they would have done in a cleaner atmosphere, according to new findings published this week in Nature.

The results of the study have important implications for efforts to combat future climate change which are likely to take place alongside attempts to lower air pollution levels.

The research team included scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the Met Office Hadley Centre, ETH Zurich and the University of Exeter.

Lead author Dr Lina Mercado, from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said, "Surprisingly, the effects of atmospheric pollution seem to have enhanced global plant productivity by as much as a quarter from 1960 to 1999. This resulted in a net 10% increase in the amount of carbon stored by the land once other effects were taken into account."

An increase in microscopic particles released into the atmosphere (known as aerosols), by human activities and changes in cloud cover, caused a decline in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface from the 1950s up to the 1980s (a phenomenon known as 'global dimming').

Although reductions in sunlight reduce photosynthesis, clouds and atmospheric particles scatter light so that the surface receives light from multiple directions (diffuse radiation) rather than coming straight from the sun. Plants are then able to convert more of the available sunlight into growth because fewer leaves are in the shade.

Scientists have known for a long time that aerosols cool climate by reflecting sunlight and making clouds brighter, but the new study is the first to use a global model to estimate the net effects on plant carbon uptake resulting from this type of atmospheric pollution.

Co-author Dr Stephen Sitch from the Met Office Hadley Centre (now at the University of Leeds) said, "Although many people believe that well-watered plants grow best on a bright sunny day, the reverse is true. Plants often thrive in hazy conditions such as those that exist during periods of increased atmospheric pollution."

The research team also considered the implications of these findings for efforts to avoid dangerous climate change. Under an environmentally friendly scenario in which sulphate aerosols decline rapidly in the 21st century, they found that by cleaning up the atmosphere even steeper cuts in global carbon dioxide emissions would be required to stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations below 450 parts per million by volume.

Co-author Professor Peter Cox of the University of Exeter summed up the consequences of the study, "As we continue to clean up the air in the lower atmosphere, which we must do for the sake of human health, the challenge of avoiding dangerous climate change through reductions in CO2 emissions will be even harder. Different climate changing pollutants have very different direct effects on plants, and these need to be taken into account if we are to make good decisions about how to deal with climate change."

Reef boom beats doom

Marine scientists say they are astonished at the spectacular recovery of certain coral reefs in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park from a devastating coral bleaching event in 2006.

That year high sea temperatures caused massive and severe coral bleaching in the Keppel Islands, in the southern part of the GBR. The damaged reefs were quickly smothered by a single species of seaweed, an event that can spell the total loss of the corals.

However, a lucky combination of rare circumstances meant the reefs were able to achieve a spectacular recovery, with abundant corals re-established in a single year, says Dr Guillermo Diaz-Pulido, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) and the Centre for Marine Studies at The University of Queensland.

Dr Diaz-Pulido explains that the rapid recovery is due to an exceptional combination of previously-underestimated ecological mechanisms.

“Three factors were critical. The first was exceptionally high re-growth of fragments of surviving coral tissue. The second was an unusual seasonal dieback in the seaweeds, and the third was the presence of a highly competitive coral species, which was able to outgrow the seaweed. But this also all happened in the context of a well-protected marine area and moderately good water quality”, said Diaz-Pulido.
“It is rare to see reports of reefs that bounce back from mass coral bleaching or other human impacts in less than a decade or two,” he adds.

“The exceptional aspect was that corals recovered by rapidly regrowing from surviving tissue. Recovery of corals is usually thought to depend on sexual reproduction and the settlement and growth of new corals arriving from other reefs. This study demonstrates that for fast-growing coral species asexual reproduction is a vital component of reef resilience” says Dr Sophie Dove, also from CoECRS and The University of Queensland.

“Coral reefs globally are increasingly being damaged by mass bleaching and climate change, and their capacity to recovery from that damage is critical to their future,” explains Prof. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of CoECRS and The University of Queensland. “Our study suggests that managing local stresses that affect reefs such as overfishing and declining water quality can have a big influence on the trajectory of reefs under rapid global change.”

“Clearly, we need to urgently deal with the problem of rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but managing reefs to reduce the impact of local factors can buy important time while we do this,” he says.

Understanding the different mechanisms of resilience is critical for reef management under climate change. “Diversity in processes may well be critical to the overall resilience and persistence of coral reef ecosystems globally,” Dr Laurence McCook, from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, says.

The research was partially funded by a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation awarded to Dr McCook, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority as well as the ARC Centre of Excellence programme.

“This combination of circumstances provided a lucky escape for the coral reefs in Keppel Islands, but is also a clear warning for the Great Barrier Reef. As climate change and other human impacts intensify, we need to do everything possible to protect the resilience of coral reefs,” he adds.

First Solar Secures Financing for 53 Megawatt Solar Power Plant in Germany

Former Military Land Being Remediated, Converted to Renewable Energy Resource

First Solar, Inc. and Juwi Holding AG has announced they have secured financing for a 53 megawatt (MW) DC photovoltaic (PV) power plant near the German city of Cottbus.

More than 80 percent of the required project capital is financed through non-recourse debt from a consortium of banks. First Solar and Juwi intend to sell the majority of the project after its completion. Construction of the project began in January 2009, and the first 15MW have been completed. The remaining 38MW are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2009.

The project is being constructed on 162 hectares of land that is part of the Soviet Army's former 26,000 hectare Lieberose training area north of Cottbus in eastern Germany. The project's low cost enables the required return to fund an attractive land lease for the State of Brandenburg. The lease, in turn, finances the environmental cleanup of this former military zone, which is littered with tons of land mines, grenades and other munitions.

Matthias Platzeck, minister president of the German state government of Brandenburg, where Lieberose is located, said the project is a model for the conversion of former military land to productive use. "This kind of project helps us heal the scars of the Cold War and meet our ambitious targets for renewable energy production at the same time," he said.

"First Solar's mission is to enable a world powered by clean, affordable solar electricity," said Stephan Hansen, managing director, First Solar GmbH. "This project alone is expected to displace approximately 35,000 tons of C02 emissions a year. But we are particularly proud of this project because it adds an additional element to 'clean.' Not only will the project produce clean electricity, but it will also result in the removal of hazardous munitions from this project site."

Upon completion, the PV power plant will consist of approximately 700,000 modules and is projected to be the largest in Germany – producing enough power to provide for the annual electricity needs of more than 14,000 homes – and the second largest worldwide.

"The sheer size of the project helps us achieve economies of scale that are a significant factor in helping PV energy become competitive with fossil fuels and to be able to provide an increasing contribution to national renewable energy targets," said Hansen.

Brandenburg Economics Minister Ulrich Junghanns said the project underlines the state's credentials as an energy producer. "The Lieberose project will shine far and wide and help Brandenburg solidify its top billing as a center of solar power production," he said.

Matthias Willenbacher, Juwi chief executive, said, "Large projects like this one demonstrate that solar power is already capable of making significant contributions to addressing climate change." With this project, Juwi, using First Solar modules, has developed the three largest PV power plants in Germany.