ECOLOGY

SWEDEN'S TREE LINE MOVING AT FASTER RATE THAN AT TIME IN PAST 7,000
YEARS

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - Climate change over the past two decades has
caused Sweden's tree line to move north at a faster rate than at any
time in the past 7,000 years, Swedish researchers have said. "The tree
line has moved by up to 656 feet) in some places. Trees have not grown
at such high levels for around 7,000 years," Leif Kullman, a professor
at Umeaa University's department of ecology and environmental science,
told AFP Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070116/sc_afp/
swedenenvironmentclimatewarmingforests_070116152753

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STUDY FINDS POSSIBLE LINK BETWEEN REFINERY AND CHIDHOOD LEUKEMIA

REUTERS - A University of Texas study found a possible link between
childhood leukemia and living close to the city's refinery row along the
Houston Ship Channel, one of the study's co-authors said on Thursday.
The study found that living within two miles of elevated levels of
1,3-butadiene around the ship channel's petrochemical complex was
associated with a 56 percent increased incidence of childhood acute
lymphocytic leukemia compared with those living more than 10 miles away,
according to a statement from the city of Houston, which financed the
study.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyid=
2007-01-19T100438Z_01_N18199289_RTRUKOC_0_US-REFINERY-
OPERATIONS-CANCER.xml

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Climate Resets Doomsday Clock
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011707EA.shtml
Experts assessing the dangers posed to civilization have added climate change to
the prospect of nuclear annihilation as the greatest threats to humankind. As a
result, the group has moved the minute hand on its famous Doomsday Clock two
minutes closer to midnight.

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Bush Won't Budge on Greenhouse Emission Limits
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011707EB.shtml
President Bush will outline a policy on global warming next week in his State of
the Union speech but has not dropped his opposition to mandatory limits on
greenhouse-gas emissions. White House spokesman Tony Snow said media reports
suggesting that Bush would agree to mandatory emissions caps in an effort to
combat global warming are "wrong."

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MORE SUBSIDIES FOR BROCCOLI, LESS FOR CORN

TREE HUGGER - Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of New York's Blue Hill at
Stone Barns and the creative director of the Stone Barns Center for Food
and Agriculture, argues that chefs should be among the most concerned
about upcoming debates over the farm bill for one simple reason: "...the
food that we grow on 200 million acres of harvested cropland is
inedible."

"Stand in the middle of our farm belt and you'll see cornfields
extending to the horizon, but the harvest won't be dinner, not until
it's milled and processed into flours or starches, or used to fatten our
animals on feedlots. Just four crops - corn, rice, soybeans and wheat -
account for the vast majority of our harvested acreage. Not surprising,
given that these same crops account for 70 percent of the total
subsidies allotted to farmers.

"No one wants farmers to suffer, especially chefs. But if we're spending
$20 billion or so a year on farm subsidies, we ought to invest in the
foods we eat. And I mean eat, not process into something that resembles
food. That means fewer subsidies for grains like corn and soy, and more
help for growers of broccoli and tomatoes."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/ny_chef_urges_c.php

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NORWAY'S BIKE LIFT

TRAMPE, NORWAR - The inventor of the Bicycle Lift and the owner of the
company Design Management, Jarle Wanvik, is a true bicycle enthusiast.
He always finds an excuse for parking his car and using his bicycle
instead. In daily transport to and from work, to the shopping center
etc., it is uncomfortable to be too warm and sweaty. In 1992, Wanvik got
luminous visions about a bicycle lift that could carry cyclists uphill.
Inspired by the ski lift technology, he visualized a lift design by
which the cyclists could be pushed uphill without having to descend the
bicycle.

Wanvik's home town is Trondheim, the third largest city of Norway,
housing 150 000 inhabitants and 30,000 students. Trondheim is
characterized by the old town center down by the seashore with a
surrounding, terraced landscape formed back in the ice age. On the banks
of these terraces, 100-300 m above sea level, we find most of the living
areas, each of them with 20-30 000 inhabitants. On top of one of these
terraces is the University of Trondheim.

To increase the usage of bicycles in Trondheim, the Municipal of
Trondheim has through the recent years invested in building multiple,
connected bicycle roads. Due to topographical height differences,
however, there is limited bicycle commuting to and from the town center.
In job/school commuting or shopping the last thing you want to be is
sweaty, and climbing the hills to the top of the terraces in Trondheim
will guarantee copious amounts of perspiration.

After having simulated the basic principle of the new product - pushing
the cyclist by his backwardly stretched foot, the Public Roads
Administration was convinced. In November 1992, Design Management AS was
asked to deliver and install a prototype of the lift at Bakklandet,
situated close to the town center and consisting of a commonly used hill
leading to the university campus.

Normally, there are 20-30,000 trips per year. 220,000 have taken Trampe
since the installment in 1993.

http://www.trampe.no/english/history.php

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Exxon Cuts Ties to Global Warming Skeptics
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011207EB.shtml
Oil major Exxon Mobil Corp. is engaging in industry talks on possible US
greenhouse gas emissions regulations and has stopped funding groups skeptical of
global warming claims - moves that some say could indicate a change in stance
from the long-time foe of limits on heat-trapping gases.

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Idaho Governor Calls for Gray Wolf Kill
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011207EC.shtml
Idaho's governor said Thursday he will support public hunts to kill all but 100
of the state's gray wolves after the federal government strips them of
protection under the Endangered Species Act.

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Scientists Reject Chemical Rules
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011207HA.shtml
The prestigious National Research Council has determined that it's necessary to
entirely redo the Bush administration's proposed revamping of the rules by which
federal agencies decide whether chemicals and other products pose risks to human
health.

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Solar's Outlook Shines, but Hurdles Remain
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011107EB.shtml
As utilities embrace renewable energy in an effort to cut pollution and reduce
their dependence on fossil fuels, some companies are turning to a source long on
the sidelines of the US electricity market: solar power.

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European Union Proposes Cleaner, More Competitive Energy Market
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011107EC.shtml
European Union officials on Wednesday challenged governments to loosen their
grip on national energy sectors, calling for a fresh wave of competition and
investment in infrastructure and technology to ease dependence on powerful
exporters like Russia and to combat global warming.

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Opponents of Nevada Bomb Test Fault Impact Studies
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011107HA.shtml
Officials from the Department of Defense say they hope to detonate a bomb - a
$23 million experiment known as Divine Strake - sometime in the first half of
this year. Groups opposed to the test due to health hazards were successful in
filing a lawsuit that postponed the experiment indefinitely, but the Department
of Defense is attempting to follow through with its plans.

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Glen Barry | "Wacky Weather" Is Deadly Global Heating
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011107H.shtml
Glen Barry writes: "Global warming is not a slow, gentle, pleasant rise in
temperatures to be savored. It is an abrupt fundamental breakdown in the Earth
System's climate sub-system that threatens the Earth's, humanity's and your
family's ability to live."

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Democrats Want to Permanently Protect ANWR
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/010807EA.shtml
Opponents of oil drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge are going on the offense
after playing defense for a quarter of a century. They want the new Democratic
Congress to make an oft-challenged drilling ban permanent. Legislation
introduced in the House on Friday would make the oil-rich 1.2 million-acre
coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a permanently protected
wilderness and end repeated efforts to open the area east of the Prudhoe oil
field to energy companies.

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Global Warming Adds to Oil Volatility; Analysts Split
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/010807EB.shtml
Blame it on global warming. Record-breaking temperatures in the US and Europe
are reducing fuel demand and contributing to the biggest fluctuations in oil in
more than a year.

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Gore Mobilizes Global Warming Activists
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/010807EC.shtml
Hundreds of volunteers from across the country have flocked to Nashville this
fall and winter and more are here today as part of a grass-roots training effort
to spread the word on global warming. They are taking part in Al Gore's The
Climate Project, which mushroomed from his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

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