ECOLOGY

EVEN SLIGHT POLLUTION CHANGES SEX OF FISH

BOONSRI DICKINSON AND TODD NEFF, SCRIPPS HOWARD - In 2004, David Norris
reported that fish just below the Boulder, Colo., Wastewater Treatment
Plant's outflow pipe were changing sex. Two years later, the University
of Colorado integrative physiology professor has expanded his study,
which now involves one "Fish Exposure Mobile" research trailer in
operation and a second on the way.

Science done in the trailer has verified Norris' 2004 study and shown
that surprisingly low concentrations of treatment-plant effluent can
change male fish into females. The 2004 study showed that certain
chemicals from pharmaceuticals and personal-care products made it
through the Boulder Wastewater Treatment Plant and into Boulder Creek.
Ninety percent of the white suckers swimming downstream of the plant
were female. Upstream, there was an even split.

"What we see in the fish downstream is as if they are taking birth
control pills," Norris said.

The female fish -- both the transsexuals and the original girls -- had
smaller-than-average ovaries. The remaining males produced less sperm,
showing the water effluent also has contraceptive effects, he said.

The chemicals are believed to come from excreted birth-control hormones,
natural female hormones and detergents flushed down toilets and drains.
In the ecosystem, they are known as endocrine disrupters, settling into
cell receptors intended for hormones and garbling the body's chemical
communications. . .

"The males were feminized in seven days," Norris said. "You don't need a
Ph.D. to sex them." The males have bumps on the forehead and often
attack each other. The fish exposed to the effluent water lost their
bumps and acted like girls. It confirmed effluent to be the culprit.

Diluting the treatment plant's effluent 50 percent feminized breeding
male fish in a week to 15 days, Norris said. Some of the effects
remained evident even when the wastewater plant effluent was diluted 75
percent. "We were excited to get these results, but at the same time
we're a little bit appalled at what we've seen," Norris said.

http://www.trib.com/articles/2006/12/12/news/regional/
87a0a21fccb3d8a587257241006d1666.txt

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

CARBON CREDIT CARD PLANNED FOR BRITAIN

PATRICK WINTOUR, GUARDIAN, UK - Every citizen would be issued with a
carbon "credit card" - to be swiped every time they bought petrol, paid
an energy utility bill or booked an airline ticket - under a nationwide
carbon rationing scheme that could come into operation within five
years, according to a feasibility study commissioned by the environment
secretary, David Miliband. In an interview with the Guardian Mr Miliband
said the idea of individual carbon allowances had "a simplicity and
beauty that would reward carbon thrift". . .

Under the scheme, everybody would be given an annual allowance of the
carbon they could expend on a range of products, probably food, energy
and travel. If they wanted to use more carbon, they would be able to buy
it from somebody else. And they could sell any surplus.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1970360,00.html

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

OCEAN PLANT LIFE DAMAGED BY CLIMATE CHANGE; NEGATIVE FEEDBACK SEEN

STEVE CONNOR, INDEPENDENT, UK - Global warming has begun to change the
way microscopic plant life in the oceans absorbs carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere - a trend that could lead to a dramatic increase in the
heating power of the greenhouse effect. Satellite data gathered over the
past 10 years has shown for the first time that the growth of marine
phytoplankton - the basis of the entire ocean food chain - is being
adversely affected by rising sea temperatures. Scientists have found
that as the oceans become warmer, they are less able to support the
phytoplankton that have been an important influence on moderating
climate change.

The fear is that as sea temperatures continue to rise as a result of
global warming, the loss of phytoplankton will lead to a
positive-feedback cycle, where increases in carbon dioxide
concentrations in the atmosphere leads to warmer oceans, and warmer
oceans lead to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2054652.ece

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||