Talk about surprise! China has made very strong noises about signing up to Kyoto. Meaning to say they are at least willing to cut their industrial profile as 'major polluter'. Which leaves another major polluter - USA - following room. Though, of course, wouldn't its lead be preferable. Hunan province in China has a million people and soldiers mobilised against likely flooding from a big lake overspill there. Radio news carried a beeb reporter at the site Friday saying the rain had stopped and skies were blue. Trouble was inflow rivers still had something more to do. Let us PRAY with humble hearts that things hold and abate. Drowned is an awful fate. President Carduso of Brazil signed a decree making Tumucumaque Mountains a National Park. The world's largest tropical terrain and virginal rainforest. Great! And WOW! are we pleased Norway scrapped its experiment to dump liquid carbon dioxide on deep ocean seafloors. A Long Island utility is into wind farm energy platforms at sea. Lettus hope it remains nice to sit beside the seaside for folks there :-). President Bush felt enabled to speak of his neighbours in a radio clip and without the slightest hint of hypocrisy convey a belief that thinning saplings and scarifying undergrowth was a good way to go on the environment. Pity he didn't think of this before the forest fires! And the Wall Street Journal is resplendent with a headline behind the US Admin's call to Africans acceptance of biotech food--else how can one believe they are starving! Do they have to be starving before eating it? The US National Association of Sciences(NAS) has come out with its 'negative review' on biotech animals R&D--this required they scrutinise the risks not benefits--and resulted in a "mild to moderate" overall risk level. Which, they sensibly say, will require a precautionary approach to the accumulation of knowledge. Meanwhile from Switzerland news of the WHO is that risk is unlikely from gene-altered foods. Last word for now: that a firm call exists at Earth Summit II to address poverty. Agreed despite Worldbank worries that social and environmental considerations will impede economic growth.
Obit: We mourn with http://www.earthjustice.org the loss of brilliant wildlife photographers Galen Rowell and his wife Barbara. Take a moment to remember them and their exquisite work: http://ga0.org/ct/qpzK2JY1jPJ2/
Week's choice Link:http://www.xanga.com/home.asp?user=poirosplanet
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A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall.
Last week we recorded how a rise in temperature would increase microbial decomposition in peaty(acid) soil forest floors and carbon dioxide emissions from it.
This week work undertaken by Manfred Boelter, Institute for Polar Ecology at the University of Kiel in Germany, explores the very significant Arctic Tundra region and its central role in global ecology over the next decade.
The region is 5.7 million sq.kms, over fifty per cent of it in Siberia. 98 per cent of this ecosystem is locked up in its soil. Mainly peat bogs. Presently a carbon sink, the 1.5 degrees C average increase in temperature predicted would increase permafrost loss and turn this into a net emitter of GHG. In turn, this would raise the temp more and with it metabolic activity of microfauna.
Boelter's specialty research is in deep-layer microbial activity. Until his work only estimates existed. Alarm bells will likely ring if he is ignored. Why? Answer: because he has proven that D-L microbes produce ten times more carbon per sq.m per day than earlier estimates told. What's more the tundra soil acts as a trap (or sink) to retain this until mosses slowly release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in their life cycle.
Warm and dry here, he says, will have little added effect. The big danger - and do we know what else water has been doing around the place this past wee while - is waterlogged. Instead of carbon dioxide the GHG emitted will be worse. Methane.
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