ECOLOGY

CLIMATE CHANGE ENDANGERS NATIONAL PARKS

REUTERS - Global warming puts 12 of the most famous U.S. national parks
at risk, environmentalists said on Tuesday, conjuring up visions of
Glacier National Park without glaciers and Yellowstone Park without
grizzly bears. All 12 parks are located in the American West, where
temperatures have risen twice as fast as in the rest of the United
States over the last 50 years, said Theo Spencer of the Natural
Resources Defense Council.

"Rising temperatures, drought, wildfires and diminished snowfalls
endanger wildlife and threaten hiking, fishing and other recreational
activities" in the parks, Spencer said in a telephone news conference.
"Imagine Glacier Park without glaciers or Yellowstone without any
grizzly bears."

http://www.rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Freuters.
myway.com%2Farticle%2F20060725%2F2006-07-25T195143Z_01_N25190619
_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-ENVIRONMENT-PARKS-DC.html


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VENEZUELA TO PLANT 100 MILLION TREES

HUMBERTO MARQUEZ, INTER PRESS SERVICE - Venezuela has launched a
five-year reforestation project for Orinoco headwaters and tributary
rivers in which more than 900 conservation committees and students from
more than 100 schools will help plant 100 million trees in a
150,000-hectare area. "Campesinos who used to clear land for crops or
cow pasture are now turning to agro-forestry, which is more profitable
and better for the local environment," Miguel Rodriguez, vice minister
of environmental conservation, told Tierramerica.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34123

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SOLAR POWERED TRASH COMPACTORS

MATT VISER, BOSTON GLOBE - They're boxy and green and, at first glance,
don't even look like garbage cans; as Mayor Thomas M. Menino
demonstrated their use yesterday, some people downtown mistook them for
mail drops or traffic-light switch boxes. They are Menino's latest idea
for keeping the city litter-free: solar-powered, self-compacting trash
receptacles. Delivering a rant about overstuffed trash cans, while
trying to scrape gum off the bottom of his shoe at a Downtown Crossing
unveiling, Menino described the virtues of the new devices. They need
emptying only once or twice a day, not the 15 or more sanitation worker
visits required by some downtown trash cans. They don't spill. They
smell less. And, they hold some 150 gallons of trash, about five times
more than a standard city receptacle. Developed by a Jamaica Plain
inventor, they are powered by photoelectric panels, which supply power
to motor-driven compactors inside. Workers extract neat, 40-pound trash
bricks instead of trying to manhandle the messy contents of an
overflowing can. The city has placed 50 of the $4,300 machines in
neighborhoods and hopes to buy more as it gauges how much it can save in
labor costs.

The 4-foot-tall containers announce "TRASH" in four places and feature
several images of a person tossing an item into a can. Even so, some
passersby cast quizzical looks yesterday at the machines, which could
easily be mistaken for drop boxes for library books or postal packages.

"We don't want people putting their tax forms in there," joked Timothy
McCarthy, an aide to the commissioner of public works.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/07/26/
solar_power_compactors_press_the_mess_in_boston/

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NORMALLY REGIONAL HEAT WAVE & DROUGHT NOW GLOBAL

TIMES, UK - Hot, arid weather is afflicting millions in America and in
dozens of countries across Europe and parts of east Asia. The phenomenon
has surprised meteorologists who are used to seeing drought as a
regional, not global, problem. This weekend they said early analysis of
the hot weather, together with the size of the areas affected, suggested
it was linked to global climate change.

"Greenhouse gas emissions raise the likelihood of heatwaves like this
one," said Dave Griggs, a Met Office representative on the Joint
Scientific Committee for the World Climate Research Programme. "By 2040
this will be just an average summer and by 2060 it will be a relatively
cool one." . . .

In California the temperature in Death Valley reached 56.5C and in many
west coast towns it exceeded 40C. An estimated 130 people have been
killed by the heat and demand for power to run air-conditioning
overloaded power stations, leaving some areas without electricity for up
to three days. In South America, mid-winter temperatures in Uruguay,
Argentina, Chile and Brazil are up to 7C higher than average. The
accompanying drought has reduced the giant Iguazu falls on the
Brazil-Argentina border to a trickle.

Temperatures are averaging 7C higher than usual across southern England
and Scotland. Casualties are expected: a similar hot spell in August
2003 caused 2,071 deaths, according to estimates by the Office for
National Statistics.

Even Mediterranean countries were caught unawares. Last week Spain and
France, hit by temperatures 7-9C above average, had to shut down nuclear
power stations as the rivers supplying water for cooling became too
warm.

Pakistan, Bangladesh and southern India hit 3C above normal and much of
central China was up by 5C. A drought, the worst for 60 years, is
affecting the Chongqing region, leaving 2m short of water.

The most comfortable places, at least in terms of temperature, were
western Russia, North Korea, Siberia and Japan, which were 3C cooler
than usual.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2291760,00.html

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AMAZON RAINFOREST ON BRINK OF BECOMING DESERT; WOULD BE A GLOBAL
DISASTER

INDEPENDENT, UK - The vast Amazon rainforest is on the brink of being
turned into desert, with catastrophic consequences for the world's
climate, alarming research suggests. And the process, which would be
irreversible, could begin as early as next year. Studies by the
blue-chip Woods Hole Research Centre, carried out in Amazonia, have
concluded that the forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive
years of drought without breaking down.

Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern
hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global
warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of control, a
process that might end in the world becoming uninhabitable.

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=6016&method=full

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60% OF NATION SUFFERS FROM DROUGHT

JAMES MACPHERSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS - More than 60 percent of the United
States now has abnormally dry or drought conditions, stretching from
Georgia to Arizona and across the north through the Dakotas, Minnesota,
Montana and Wisconsin, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the
National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at
Lincoln

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060729/ap_on_re_us/northern_plains_drought;_ylt=
AmllFxv6d185TVxrY4zMZzADW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBhZDhxNDFzBHNlYwNtZW5ld3M

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DROUGHT REVEALS WEAKNESS OF NUCLEAR POWER

JULIO GODOY, ONE WORLD NET - The extreme hot summer in Europe is
restricting nuclear energy generation and showing up the limits of
nuclear power, leading environmental activists and scientists say. The
heat wave since mid-June has led authorities in France, Germany, Spain
and elsewhere in Europe to override their own environmental norms on the
maximum temperature of water drained from the plants' cooling systems.
The French government announced July 24 that nuclear power plants
situated along rivers will be allowed to drain hot water into rivers at
higher temperature. The measure is intended "to guarantee the provision
of electricity for the country," according to an official note. France
has 58 nuclear power plants, which produce almost 80 percent of
electricity generated in the country. Of these, 37 are situated near
rivers, and use them as outlet for water from their cooling systems. The
drought accompanying the hot summer has reduced the volume of water in
the rivers, and might force some power plants to shut down.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0728-06.htm

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TAX DOLLARS BEING USED TO FUND ANTI-ECOLOGY PROPAGANDA

PROGRESS REPORT - Corporations from a variety of industries are funding
a coordinated propaganda blitz attacking global warming science. Some of
the details were revealed in a memo by the Intermountain Rural Electric
Association, a small electric cooperative in Colorado that purchases
electricity from coal-based power plants, distributed "to the more than
900 fellow members of the National Rural Electric Cooperative
Association." The memo, written by IREA general manager Stanley
Lewandowski, expresses fear that government action on global warming
could hurt the profitability of coal-based power generation. In
response, Lewandowski says it is necessary to "support the scientific
community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists." (Such
people are also referred to in the memo as those "whose true motivation
is to stop growth, develop renewable resources [and] discontinue the use
of fossil fuels, especially coal.")

The memo acknowledges that almost all the doubters have no "involvement
in climatology." Their solution is to lavish money on the one
climatologist who they are confident will do their bidding: Pat
Michaels. The memo reveals that the small Colorado cooperative has paid
Michaels $100,000 this year and is aggressively seeking more donations
for Michaels from other electric cooperatives.

Pat Michaels is a climate scientist based at the University of Virgina.
John P. Holdren, a Harvard scientist, told the Senate Republican Policy
Committee that Michaels has "published little if anything of distinction
in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed
pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of
mainstream climate science." In 2003, Michaels "proved" that global
warming was mostly hype by mixing up degrees and radians. In 2004,
Michaels told Business Week, "We know how much the planet is going to
warm. It is a small amount, and we can't do anything about it." This
year, Michaels completely misrepresented a study by University of
Missouri Professor Curt Davis to falsely claim that Antarctica has been
gaining ice in recent years.

Michaels' views about climate change are at odds with the conclusion of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a rigorously
peer-reviewed report that involved thousands of scientists from over 100
countries, which concluded, "There is new and stronger evidence that
most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to
human activities" and that, absent aggressive mitigation efforts, future
warming will be significant and dangerous.

Tax dollars are paying for this propaganda attacking global warming
science. The Intermountain Rural Electric Association, like all electric
cooperatives, is federally-subsidized. So when the IREA gives $100,000
to Pat Michaels, some of that comes from federal taxpayers.

In his memo, Lewandowski also described larger efforts to distort global
warming science. According to Lewandowski, "Koch Industries is working
with other large corporations including AEP and the Southern Company on
possibly financing a film that would counteract An Inconvenient Truth."
According to the memo, Koch Industries will also finance a coalition
attacking global warming science "administered by the National
Association of Manufactures."

The memo also stresses the importance of the Competitive Enterprise
Institute, an anti-global warming science "think tank" heavily funded by
Exxon Mobil and other corporations, in these efforts. Lewandowski notes
that Michaels, CEI, and Koch meet regularly to "discuss their
activities."

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=
klLWJcP7H&b=1331575&ct=2846581