The United Nations today appealed to donors to make up an enormous shortfall in emergency funding for relief work in Haiti, where hundreds of thousands of people are still suffering from the devastation caused by four hurricanes over the past month.
Only 2 per cent of the $108 million flash appeal has so far been donated, nine days after it was launched, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported.
OCHA stressed that the situation remains very serious in the impoverished Caribbean country, where over 320 people were killed by the storms and flooding, and 160,000 others are still living in the open, exposed to disease and malnutrition.
Some $54 million are needed for emergency food aid. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has already helped feed some 298,000 people since the start of the crisis.
OCHA is also concerned over access to those who have not yet received aid, including people in the Artibonne and Nippes regions, where continued rains might complicate relief efforts.
This article discusses a project by the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology (CHART) at the University of New Orleans.Three years after Hurricane Katrina, houses are still going up across the metropolitan area. And "up" doesn't mean new: It means, well, up.
The sight of homes being raised 3 or 4 or even 10 or 12 feet above ground has become common. But what will this do to the local architectural landscape? What is the impact on neighborhoods? Individual blocks? And how high is too high?
Early on, Laska says, the group realized that elevation conversation can be complex. The earliest house-raisings post-Katrina often looked like structures on steroids. Laska refers to them as "flood rage houses" -- residences hoisted by people who said, succinctly, "Never again."
In fact, many homeowners lifted their foundations to the level of their Katrina watermarks. Which is actually not such a bad idea, Laska said.
"That kind of reaction is based on actual flood experience. It's a good barometer of what the highest potential flood level might be."
More recent elevations, however, tend to be less severe. "The elevated house has grown on us, and people are doing a better job at it, " Laska said.
It appears that individuals' psychological response to risks has followed patterns discussed previously in academic literature on risk and mitigation. Individuals appear to assign higher probabilities to these risks immediately after the event, thus overcompensating. These people may have raised their homes more because of this experience. As the event becomes more distant in individuals memories, they do not overcompensate as much. This poses the question, will we continue to see less and less mitigating behavior as Katrina becomes a more distant memory?
Here is a link to an interactive map of New Orleans.
A new study has been published in Science concerning dead zones. From the New York Times:
A study to be published Friday in the journal Science says the number of these marine “dead zones” around the world has doubled about every 10 years since the 1960s. About 400 coastal areas now have periodically or perpetually oxygen-starved bottom waters, many of them growing in size and intensity. Combined, the zones are larger than Oregon.What are dead zones?
The most widespread, chronic environmental problem in the coastal ocean is caused by an excess of chemical nutrients. Over the past century, a wide range of human activities—the intensification of agriculture, waste disposal, coastal development, and fossil fuel use—has substantially increased the discharge of nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients into the environment. These nutrients are moved around by streams, rivers, groundwater, sewage outfalls, and the atmosphere and eventually end up in the ocean.How do dead zones impact marine life? From the NY Times:
Once they reach the ocean, nutrients stimulate the growth of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton or algae. When the concentration of nutrients is too high, this growth becomes excessive, leading to a condition called eutrophication.
What are some strategies to address dead zones?“The overwhelming response of the organisms in our coastal areas is to migrate or to die,” Dr. Diaz said. “To adapt to low oxygen water, it has to be a part of your evolutionary history. It’s not something you can develop in a 40- or 50-year time period.”
Many dead zones are cyclical, recurring each year in the summer months. But over time, they can permanently kill off entire species within the zone. They have also prevented the rebounding of species that are under protection after overfishing, like the Baltic Sea’s cod.
Low oxygen levels also kill off annelid worms and other sources of food for fish and crustaceans.
Robert W. Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell, said methods to reduce nitrogen-rich runoff existed, including the planting of winter rye or winter wheat rather than leaving fields fallow after fall harvest. Such planting would cause much fertilizer to be absorbed by the winter crops rather than being leached into waterways by spring rains.From Oceanus
There are some novel ideas as well. A project is currently underway at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to examine the feasibility of using shellfish aquaculture to reduce nutrients in the coastal ocean. The experimental shore-based aquaculture system at the National Center for Mariculture in Eilat, Israel, uses shellfish to absorb excess nutrients excreted by fish. Researchers at WHOI are trying to determine whether the same idea is feasible in the ocean. As the shellfish produced by such an enterprise have economic value, this is an example of a win-win situation.
For some species, like shrimp, croaker, and bluefish, the average price per pound in 2007 was lower than the price paid more than a decade earlier.
In 2007, shrimp averaged $1.88 per pound, compared to $2.61 in 1994.
Fishermen were paid $0.30 for bluefish in 2007, less than the $0.36 paid in 1995.
Croakers earned fishermen $0.37 per pound in 2007, but brought in $0.51 in 1990.
A direct correlation between growth of the global seafood market and downward spiraling prices for some, if not all, types of wild-caught seafood produced in NC is hard to deny.Unfortunately, as we see in many situations, opening up trade has led to winners and losers. This article does not directly mention the winners, the consumers of seafood. The consumers now have access to a less expensive product. Elsewhere in the global market, someone has a competitive advantage for many of these products.
The evidence that globalization has hurt NC fishermen is perhaps most compelling in the case of shrimp, one of the most important commercial fisheries in the state.
Spill statistics can be found here. Below is a graph of spills in the Gulf, between 1996 and 2007, which were greater than 50 bbls. Notice the higher number of spills associated with significant hurricanes. In 2005, the year Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf, 49 spills, each greater than 50 bbl, contributed roughly 15154.3 bbl.If that should happen, we should know that:
- Offshore drilling activities lead to the destruction of coastal wetlands. In Louisiana, where oil and gas development has been conducted for 50 years, close to 62 square miles of wetlands are lost each year.
- The pollution from offshore rigs causes a wide range of health and reproductive problems for fish and other marine life.
- Oil and gas operations dump more than 1 billion pounds of mercury-contaminated drilling fluids into the Gulf each year. Mercury levels in the sand around some Gulf rigs are three times higher than levels found at EPA Superfund sites where fishing is prohibited. Mercury levels in marine creatures living around these rigs are at least 25 times higher than in fish found elsewhere in the Gulf. Why then is the oil industry promoting rigs as "fish-rich oasis in the vast desert of the Gulf"? Tests of 70 coastal residents who ate Gulf-caught fish at least once a week show mercury levels of 5-10 times the EPA’s safe level for mercury in the human body. Since Gulf-caught fish are shipped all over the country, this is a health hazard of national proportions.
- "Routine" offshore drilling operations dump thousands of pounds of drilling muds into the ocean that contain toxic heavy metals such as lead, chromium and mercury.
- A single production platform, which can drill 50-100 wells, discharges over 90,000 metric tons of drilling fluid and metal cuttings into the ocean.
- A single exploratory well dumps approximately 25,000 pounds of toxic metals into the ocean.
- A single offshore rig emits the same air pollution as 7,000 cars driving 50 miles per day.
- The continued use of fossil fuels poses a particular threat to the residents of Florida. Fossil fuels increase global warming which leads in turn to the melting of the polar icecaps. In Florida, this will result in serious sea-level rise, while the higher temperatures will lead to more tropical diseases and heat-related deaths.
I look forward to reading more debate on this. I still hold the opinion that we, as a nation, need more a substantial energy policy. It seems to me that this should be a small part of this larger debate, not a central issues.Feinstein is correct. U.S. offshore oil drilling is not perfectly tidy. It's only 99.999 percent clean. Indeed, since 1980 -- as MMS figures indicate -- 101,997 barrels spilled from among the 11.855 billion barrels of American oil extracted offshore. This is a 0.001 percent pollution rate. While offshore drilling is not 100 percent spotless, this record should satisfy all but the terminally fastidious.
Ironically, in terms of oil contamination, Mother Nature is 95 times dirtier than Man. Some 620,500 barrels of oil ooze organically from North America's ocean floors each year. Compare this to the average 6,555 barrels that oil companies have spilled annually since 1998, according to MMS.
NOAA-supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium found the size of this year’s Gulf of Mexico dead zone to be 7,988 square miles, slightly smaller than the predicted record size of 8,800 square miles and similar to the area measured in 2007. Scientists think Hurricane Dolly’s wind and waves may have added oxygen to the zone to reduce its size.
It appears that different fishing interests are holding hands again. From the Cape May County Herald:
Members of the recreational, charter, and commercial fishing industries, representing over 100 fishing organizations, met with Members of Congress and congressional staff in support of bipartisan legislation which promotes healthy populations of fisheries and fishing communities.Here is a summary of the bill from the Congressional Research Service:
H.R. 5425, the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fishery Act of 2008, co-sponsored by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Henry Brown (R-SC), Barney Frank (D-MA), and Walter Jones (R-NC) would provide a measure of flexibility into the management process without compromising conservation goals.
At present, the law requires a total rebuilding of the stock of certain “overfished” species within 10 years, often requiring drastic reductions in fishing quotas and in some cases a complete or effective shut-down of the fishery.
Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2008 - Amends the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to require fishery management plans, amendments, or regulations for overfished fisheries to specify a time period for ending overfishing and rebuilding the fishery that is as short as practicable (currently, as short as possible). Modifies the exceptions to the requirement that such period not exceed ten years.Requires consideration, in evaluating progress to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks, of factors other than commercial and recreational fishing.Requires, when the Secretary of Commerce extends the period under specified provisions, that the maximum rebuilding time not exceed the sum of the initial ten-year period, the expected time to rebuild the stock absent any fishing mortality and under prevailing environmental conditions, and the mean generation time of the stock.
The commission decided to go forward with a beach renourishment project in 2009 and recover the T-groins.
In 2010, they'll hire an engineer to look at alternative plans for the area, such as a possible artificial reef.
Council members will then begin implementing those changes by 2012.
The Senate brings up another bill aimed at lowering gas prices Tuesday, as Republicans tout a new slogan: "Find more. Use less." It's a paradox because finding more oil drives the price down, which encourages consumption. And despite talk of conservation, election-year efforts by Congress to lower gas prices may actually diminish incentives to lower oil consumption.
The tubes are temporary to test out the size and T-shape. If approved by city commissioners, the county wants to replace the bags with rocks.
Pinellas County Coastal Coordinator Nicole Elko said during the two-year study 50 percent of the sand has eroded, without the tubes it would have been 80 percent.
The current project cost $1.5 million and is funded by the county and state.
Elko said the tubes would save millions of dollars down the road. It costs $6 million to pump in more sand and restore the beach. The bags cut that in half at $3 million.
From NOAA
Marine recreational anglers caught more than 468 million fish in 2007, down slightly from last year’s historic high of 475 million fish, but still the second highest recreational catch total in the last ten years.
The overall number of fish caught and kept also declined slightly, from 214 million to196 million fish, according to NOAA’s Fisheries Service.
The 2007 data demonstrates a widespread turn toward “catch and release” among recreational anglers. While anglers are catching about 27 percent more fish than a decade ago, they are also releasing more fish than they keep. Of the 468 million fish caught by anglers in 2007, 272 million or 58 percent were released alive. The percentage of fish released into the environment has increased steadily from about 51 percent in 1993.
Spotted seatrout was the most popular catch among marine recreational anglers. The species is caught in the Gulf of Mexico and the south Atlantic regions, which have the highest combined concentration of saltwater anglers in the nation. The top catches in other regions were lane snapper (Caribbean), striped bass (North Atlantic), Atlantic croaker (Mid-Atlantic), chub mackerel (Pacific), black rockfish (Pacific Northwest), and bigeye scad (Western Pacific).
AN ILLEGAL fishing ship whose captain is rumoured to have been murdered has thrown plans for the World Surfing Championship in Bali into chaos by running aground on the island's best surf break.
The Taipei Times has reported that it was caught with 60,000 kilograms of shark fins in Costa Rica in 2003.
The crew fled and, SurfingMagazine.com reported, local residents boarded the ship and helped themselves to about 500 illegally caught fish on board, including huge tuna, barracuda and shark.This is a great picture:
The researchers are predicting the area could measure a record 8,800 square miles, or roughly the size of New Jersey. In 2007, the dead zone was 7,903 square miles. The largest dead zone on record was in 2002, when it measured 8,481 square miles.
Flooding on the Mississippi River is leading to significant increases in nitrogen within the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers.
The dead zone is an area in the Gulf of Mexico where seasonal oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters. This low oxygen, or hypoxic, area is primarily caused by high nutrient levels, which stimulates an overgrowth of algae that sinks and decomposes. The decomposition process in turn depletes dissolved oxygen in the water. The dead zone is of particular concern because it threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries.
The news release also cites buildups of nutrients as a concern. High levels of nutrients may cause less desirable plant species to dominate the system.
- Land Subsidence. By some estimates, intensive agriculture has reduced the elevation of the current land twenty feet below where it was before human intervention. As a result, any released water would pool rather than flow. In the words of the Corps: “Soil subsidence in the EAA has substantially reduced the hydraulic head that would drive the southward flow of water; hence, velocities and flow rates would be greatly reduced”;
- Water Loss. The flow way would lose a tremendous amount of water to both seepage and evaporation: “By spreading the water over shallower areas (as opposed to reservoirs) and because a marsh habitat would have to be kept hydrated, the evapotranspiration loss could easily be doubled”; and
- No Steady Supply. “Perhaps the most crucial element, water flowing from the lake to the WCAs [Water Conservation Areas] is not present in dry or even normal years!...The only years where water could flow for long duration are wet periods…[and in] those years, the stages in the WCAs are already too high and additional flow from flowways would be damaging, not beneficial.”
Dole:
The solution to our energy crisis is finding more and using less. Families struggling with record high gas prices can’t afford for Congress to keep energy exploration options off the table.
Burr:
I'm pleased that the President has lifted the executive order banning deep-sea exploration for energy resources. Four dollar a gallon gasoline has affected every family in North Carolina, and it is time for the Democrat Leadership in Congress to stop blocking action and pass long-term energy legislation like The Gas Price Reduction Act, which I have cosponsored. This legislation would lift the Congressional moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf exploration by giving states the ability to opt in on energy exploration off their coasts. We need a comprehensive approach to this energy crisis that allows us to find more and use less.
First, I do think it is very humorous that the name of the legislation is "The Gas Price Reduction Act." It has been pretty well documented that there is insufficient oil to substantially impact oil or gas prices. That being said, I do agree with both senators that we need a comprehensive energy strategy. My biggest problem with this is that any additional offshore drilling will likely take 10 years to come to fruition and it will have little impact on the larger market. Conservation will have a much larger impact than drilling. I would like to see some Republican led plans that put more emphasis on conservation and the development of alternative energy sources. At this point I haven't seen a comprehensive approach. There is a lot of talk for a small return.
It appears that recreational anglers in NC are also seeing a decline.Jenkins provided the number of yellowfin tuna landed or released in Governor's Cup tournaments over the last 10 years and the data reveals a disturbing downward trend in recent years.
In 2003, 251 yellowfin tuna were either landed or released in the five Governor's Cup events. Since, the numbers have dropped to 52 in 2004, 22 in 2005, 52 in 2006 and 12 in 2007 before this year's total absence of fish through three tournaments.
The trend also has been noticed in North Carolina. In the 50th annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament on June 7-14 out of Morehead City, N.C. - during what is traditionally prime yellowfin tuna fishing time - 176 boats competed for five days and a lone yellowfin was brought to the dock.
"We've had slim years but we've never had none [caught] before, at least not in recent history," said Crystal Watters, tournament director of The Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament.
“The debate will be dominated by . . . the 'drill at any cost' crowd and the 'don't drill at any cost' crowd, and their ideological priors and political power will pre-empt any good policy discussion,” said Thomas Firey, who monitors energy issues for the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group in Washington, D.C.That sounds about right. I am generally skeptical that opening up more drilling will be beneficial, but it still deserves a reasonable debate.
The impassioned debate masks a little-known reality: About two-thirds of the recoverable oil reserves on the Outer Continental Shelf in the lower 48 states already are accessible for development.I did not realize this.
I don't disagree that it makes sense to understand what resources are available so you can make informed decisions. What types of trade-offs are we really making? This same logic enters into my argument that we need more funding for coastal and ocean research (both natural and social).Agency director Randall Luthi figures the reserves are much greater because most of the research was conducted before 1981 using less-sophisticated equipment.
It makes sense to update offshore oil estimates and gauge what it would take to tap reserves, said Firey of the Cato Institute.
The Drill now, Pay less argument is just false. It is well documented that this will not lead to lower prices. This type of political rhetoric, much like the gas tax holiday, sounds good, but is just nonsense. Why do we let politicians get away with this? A more realistic argument would be drill now, increase government revenues, create jobs. Those benefits might not outweigh other costs, but it is a more honest argument. Last,The shifting sentiment has fueled campaigns, including one by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican who heads the political advocacy group American Solutions for Winning the Future.
“Drill here. Drill now. Pay less,” is one of the group's slogans.
“The pro-drilling forces are clearly winning the sound-bite war because the concept sounds good,” said Warner Chabot, a vice president at the Ocean Conservancy in San Francisco. “Unfortunately, it doesn't work and it's not true.”
This is a good point. We need to begin to shift our thinking so that we conserve our resources more effectively.“If we fight like hell to keep oil off our coast, what happens in Africa or South America when the same companies develop oil in those places?” asked Michael McGinnis, acting director of the Ocean and Coastal Policy Center at the University of California Santa Barbara.
“We must not just think about the production of oil off our coast, but our consumption of oil,” he said. “One thing I haven't seen in the political debates is coming to grasp with real tough, tragic choices that we need to make.”
The crop is salicornia. It is nourished by seawater flowing from a man-made canal. And if you believe the American who is farming it, this incongruous swath of green has the potential to feed the world, fuel our vehicles and slow global warming.
He wants to channel the ocean into man-made "rivers" to nourish commercial aquaculture operations, mangrove forests and crops that produce food and fuel. This greening of desert coastlines, he said, could add millions of acres of productive farmland and sequester vast quantities of carbon dioxide, the primary culprit in global warming. Hodges contends that it could also neutralize sea-level rise, in part by using exhausted freshwater aquifers as gigantic natural storage tanks for ocean water.I am always skeptical of large scale engineering projects meant to address large scale environmental problems. That does not mean there haven't been tremendous successes in the past, but there are lots of examples of engineering projects that resulted in unfortunate unintended consequences. One prime example has been the engineering of the Mississippi River. For a great book on the subject, check out RISING TIDE: THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI FLOOD OF 1927 AND HOW IT CHANGED AMERICA.
Analyzing recent projections of ice melt occurring in the Antarctic and Greenland, Hodges calculates that diverting the equivalent of three Mississippi Rivers inland would do the trick. He figures that would require 50 good-sized seawater farms that could be built within a decade if the world gets cracking.
Wang said authorities had already scooped up 300,000 tonnes from local waters and would spare no expense to ensure the sailing competition went ahead smoothly.
"We have very strong support from the government and will achieve this goal at any cost," Wang said.
Corals are being covered and smothered to death by a bushy seaweed that is so tough even algae-grazing fish avoid it. It settles in the reef’s crevices that fish once called home, driving them away.It appears that numerous countries have tried to farm two types of algae.
Kappaphycus alvarezii is most desirable because of its high carrageenan content; Eucheuma denticulatum is less valuable but easier to cultivate.Carrageenan is used as a food binder and fat substitute. According to the article, carrageenan is found in products such as some types of ice cream (fat free?).
Ah, another failed development project. There are many examples of this all over the developing world. Apparent Story: Beneficent Western Government or NGO decides small impoverished country could produce a certain product to improve economic conditions. Said government/organization does not do enough research into the characteristics of the people of impoverished country. Western government/organization helps local government develop business, but the local government does a poor job running it (surprise!) and the local people are not particularly well suited for running this type of business/farming. Local government tries to increase participation by setting minimum wages for farmers and as a result, there is local production, but costs of production are greater than market prices. Business venture deemed a failure and now byproduct of this venture is degrading the local environment.This state-owned company was formed in 1991 to restart failed efforts by the fisheries ministry, advised by foreign consultants, to introduce seaweed farming in the 1980s. Today, after the algae were introduced to 10 islands in Kiribati, only one, Fanning in the Line Islands, is producing anything. So the government is giving up on the other nine and moving the seaweed company to Christmas Island, which is near Fanning Island and more than 2,000 miles from Tarawa.
“The government raised the price we pay to farmers to 60 cents a kilo so we lose 27 cents a kilo by the time we’ve shipped it to the processing plant,” which is 3,000 miles away in the Philippines, Mr. Rouatu said. “The government didn’t give us the difference last year, so we were only able to buy 100 tons, and the farmers are now stuck with 250 tons.”
We propose that an Earth Systems Science Agency (ESSA) be formed by combining NOAA and USGS and by building a strong policy, administrative, and collaborative research bridge to NASA's Earth sciences program. The agency should focus on research, monitoring, communication, and the advancement of applications, particularly decision support systems that inform policy-making and guide implementation.This discussion piece makes some very good points. As it stands, many of these scientific responsibilities are spread out among numerous different agencies. As a result, some scientific efforts seem to be duplicated while others are neglected. As it stands, these agencies are also in direct competition for resources. A single agency would have the potential to be much more efficient.
The core mission of ESSA should be to conduct and sponsor research, development, monitoring, educational, and communications activities in Earth systems science. Its portfolio should include ocean, atmospheric, terrestrial, cryosphere, freshwater, and ecological processes and the interactions among them. It should develop and communicate comprehensive information on Earth processes, including natural disasters and extreme weather events. It should generate information critical to the sustainable use of water, mineral, biomass, wind, and other resources. Also, it should provide information on the state and quality of freshwater, estuarine, and marine biological resources and nonrenewable materials resources to guide commercial and conservation activities.This discussion piece does not touch upon the political hurdles associated with developing a single agency. That is surprising, considering the authors background. There would have to be significant political will to pull this off. Does Congress really have this type of will? I am skeptical that this could really be pulled off. NOAA is in the Department of Commerce and USGS is in the Department of the Interior. There would be a pretty substantial battle for resources.
The Herald Tribune describes the situation well:The deal would partly shore up the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, a state program that sells low-cost reinsurance to property-insurance companies. Reinsurance is a type of coverage that insurers buy to help pay claims after hurricanes.
With the nation's financial markets in disarray, state officials have grown increasingly concerned the catastrophe fund would not be able to borrow enough money to meet its obligations after a Hurricane Andrew-type storm.
This move may have been necessary due to current conditions, but there needs to be a better long term policy to address this type of risk. In a previous post, I discussed private insurer's attempt to provide flood insurance (here). This would likely give more homeowners access to flood insurance.In order to attract insurers, the state-run Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund was formed after 1992's Hurricane Andrew to reimburse insurers for major claims paid to residents.
The so-called Cat Fund has $8 billion in reserves collected from assessments on insurance policies in the state. But after Crist led the charge last year to deepen the state's risk in order to lower insurance premiums, the fund is on the hook for up to $29 billion in reimbursements to insurers this year in case of catastrophic storm damage.
By mitigating existing and new homes with structural measures (e.g., better
designed roofs) one could reduce future disaster losses significantly. If all residential
homes in Florida were fully mitigated, the damage from a 100‐year hurricane would
be reduced from $84 billion to $33 billion, a decrease of 61 percent.
The soaring prices are crimping North Carolina's $82 million commercial fishing industry. Unlike recreational fishing captains, who can pass on a fuel surcharge to clients, many commercial fishermen are being squeezed by low dockside prices for catches and mounting fuel bills.As I discussed earlier, recreational fishing licenses are down and charter boats have experienced a decrease in business. In this article, we see that many commercial fishermen have reacted to rising costs by choosing not to fish. It appears that prices of shrimp and other fish have not increased enough to account for these rising operating costs.
McKeon estimated fuel costs have increased commercial fishermen's costs by 10 percent. Trucking costs for getting the catch to market also have soared, raising seafood prices in restaurants and retail fish markets. Retail prices likely will go higher, but nobody knows when the increases will make it worth leaving the dock.It seems to be a tough time to be a commercial fisherman. On a separate note, if commercial and recreational fishing is down, I am curious how this will impact overfished stocks. Can rising gas prices have any noticeable effect on any of these species?
With less than six weeks before it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the city of Qingdao has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of small boats to clean up an algae bloom that is choking large stretches of the coastline and threatening to impede the Olympic competition.You have to hand it to the Chinese, they really solve problems the old fashioned way - they order lots of people to address the problem!
This algae bloom covers more than 5,000 square miles of the Yellow Sea. It appears that, in addition to scooping the algae out, the Chinese will also attempt to wall off the algae. Walls and algae? Sounds like sailing competition will have an added level of difficulty! Now they just need some pirates!
Media reports estimate that as many as 20,000 people have either volunteered or been ordered to participate in the operation, while 1,000 boats are scooping algae out of the Yellow Sea.
Mediterranean fishermen are hurting: stocks of bluefin tuna, by far the sea's most economically important fish, are dangerously low. Although many countries share the blame, the chief culprit, say fisheries experts, is France. Its annual quota accounts for one fifth the entire legal quota of Atlantic tuna for all countries. Factor in illegal catches, and France's take climbs to about one third of all Atlantic tuna caught last season, according to Greenpeace. When it comes to bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, "France is the worst," says French biologist Daniel Pauly, director of the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia.The article goes on to state that this fishery is on the brink of commercial extinction. There are two main points I found interesting. The first factor, declines in stocks leads some fishermen to cheat.
With catches declining, many fishing operations have taken on debt, which gives them a motivation to stretch or break the rules.The second factor, there exists a nearby country, Libya, with very lenient environmental policies.
With France's tuna waters in the Gulf of Lyon fished out, and yield sharply down near the Balearic Islands, French boats headed to Libyan waters, where quotas are almost meaningless. Some vessels sell fish at sea, sidestepping port controls. Rogue boats sell tuna caught over their quotas to "reefer" freezer boats bound for Asia, or to fishing boats with unmet quotas, a trick known as laundering. Fishermen have also begun to deliver tuna live in undersea cages to nonfishing vessels, which take the fish, mostly underweight juveniles, to offshore pens, where they're fattened for sale.This creates a very difficult management scenario, since these stocks are not limited to specific political borders. The benefit of cheating far outweighs any of the risks associated with getting caught, since Libyan regulators can obviously be bought off. This makes fisheries management very difficult. This leads to an important question: What types of viable management strategies exist? Can France develop policies with large enough teeth to create a legitimate disincentive for their own fishermen? Will European governments find this issue important enough that they will pressure Libya to increase enforcement?
Thursday night, Congress approved a $162 billion war spending bill that included $5.8 billion for flood protection in the New Orleans region. But the funding for Army Corps of Engineers construction projects would be triggered only if the state agrees to a $1.8 billion match.Louisiana would have to come up with $1.1 billion of its share in 2010, when the corps' heaviest work load is expected, said Garret Graves, Jindal's director for coastal affairs.
Jindal and other state officials had urged Congress to give Louisiana 30 years to pay its share, but Congress was under pressure from President Bush to keep domestic spending under control in the war bill.
This brings up a good question, "How much of the costs should Louisiana have to cover and in what time frame?" This article states that Louisiana, while generally a poor state, has been running a $6o0 million budget surplus. Is it unreasonable for the state to cover the $1.8 billion match? I don't have a definite answer, but I do think that the state should cover its fair share - what-ever that is. There must be funding mechanisms available to cover these types of costs.
Scientists are just beginning to explore deep-water coral reefs, possibly millions of years old, that stretch from North Carolina to Florida. They form pristine oases, alive with fish, crabs and weird creatures that one researcher says “look like Dr. Seuss went crazy down there.”
The discoveries have caught the attention of the Bush administration, which is reported to be interested in protecting 25,000 square miles of reefs off the Southeast as a national monument.
244 stocks and stock complexes were reviewed for their overfishing status.
- 203 (83 percent) are not subject to overfishing, while 41 (17 percent) are.
- Seven stocks were taken off the overfishing list in 2007, the largest number
removed in a single year since NOAA has been compiling the report.190 stocks and stock complexes were reviewed for their overfished status.
- 145 (76 percent) are not overfished, while 45 (24 percent) are. A stock or
complex is considered to be overfished when its population numbers fall below a
certain level.- Four complexes are no longer overfished.
- Three complexes have fully rebuilt to target levels.
Under the plan, homeowners would buy flood coverage as part of a new type of homeowners policy. The private flood coverage would be the same price as what consumers could buy through the National Flood Insurance Program, but consumers could buy more than they can through the federal program, which limits coverage to $250,000.The article notes that this action may address some of the wind vs flood disputes that occur after large storm events such as Katrina. These companies could play a more active role in making sure clients have flood coverage.
But unlike regular homeowners policies, the new homeowners policies with flood coverage would be regulated by the federal government instead of state insurance commissioners. The flood premiums would be held in a separate account than the regular homeowners money. Insurers wouldn't profit from the flood premiums, but wouldn't be taxed on what they collect in flood premiums.
A portion of the flood premium that consumers would pay would go to the federal government to help build a reinsurance fund that would step in if a huge flood exhausted the regular flood premiums that private companies collected. The National Flood Insurance Program would continue to exist, but a flood reinsurance fund to serve the private flood policies would be created alongside it.
The idea is that enough private companies would start offering their own flood policies that the reinsurance program would be more financially viable than the flood program, which went broke after Katrina.
With this proposal, Nationwide joins other companies in trying to offer solutions to how the country finances disasters. Travelers has pitched a federally regulated coastal wind zone and Allstate is backing the notion of a national catastrophe fund.
According to U.S. Sugar Corp, the company will sell all its holdings to the state, including land, its sugar mill, refinery, citrus plant, citrus nursery, rock mines and equipment.
The land, covering Hendry, Glades and Palm Beach counties, is slightly smaller than the size of Pinellas County. The farming in the area has long been considered a hinderance to protecting the environment.
For more discussion on this topic, see WSJ:Environmental Capital.The impact on the Everglades could be substantial. The natural flow of water would be restored, and the expanse of about 292 square miles would add about a million acre-feet of water storage. That amount of water — enough to fill about 500,000 Olympic size swimming pools — could soak the southern Everglades during the dry season, protecting wildlife, preventing fires, and allowing for a redrawing of the $8 billion Everglades restoration plan approved in 2000.
It would essentially remove some of the proposed plumbing. Many of the complicated wells and pumps the plan relied on might never have to be built, water officials said, because the water could move naturally down the gradually sloping land.
Three different typhoons were spinning over the western Pacific Ocean on August 7, 2006, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this imageThis is an old image, but I thought it was pretty cool.
Substantially improving the accuracy of hurricane intensity predictions could take years and tens of millions of dollars, the National Hurricane Center's director said Tuesday.
Predicting a storm's intensity is much harder for meteorologists than estimating where it will go. Since 1990, forecasters have reduced by more than half their errors in predicting a storm's path, but over the same time the accuracy of their intensity forecasts has remained virtually unchanged.
A recent Office Depot survey found that one in four small businesses do not have a disaster recovery plan. The excuses fell into three categories: no time, no money and lack of know how, said Tom Serio, director of global business continuity for Office Depot.
BCIN will:
- Rapidly report, map and share critical up-to-the-minute information about infrastructure conditions and recovery efforts immediately following a storm by working with County Emergency Management Offices and major private infrastructure providers. BCN will localize and tailor relevant information to business managers who will use this information to better assess the hurricane's impact to their facilities, employees, suppliers and customers.
- Develop a B2B network, which will include government and NGOs, to assist businesses in obtaining disaster recovery resources, products, and services while allowing them to collaborate in recovery efforts.
- Provide a channel for businesses to report their operational status and need of assistance back to government and NGOs so that these organizations can prioritize their relief efforts.
The fire has burned 41,060 acres since a lightning strike June 1. Firefighters have contained 75 percent of the fire, but interior vegetation continues to burn, according to the most recent update issued by the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Because of the media attention focused on the giant wildfires of the West each summer, Southern wildfires can be overlooked. We discussed the prevalence of Southern forest fires via e-mail with Toddi A. Steelman, an assistant professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at N.C. State University.
Q: Is the Pocosin Lakes wildfire typical for wildfires in the South?
A: No. It is much larger than a typical fire, and it is occurring on organic soils. This means that the soil actually catches on fire and has the potential to smolder or burn for a long time.
From 1998 to 2007, North Carolina burned, on average, 26,548 acres per year.
Keep in mind that the definition of a "typical" fire is changing. Overall, we are seeing larger fires in both the South and the West.
My ultimate point is that the article has value because it highlights our screwy priorities when it comes to spending money on space. Why does almost all our $17 billion NASA budget go to getting humans in orbit and bases on the moon and Mars? We need a more Earth-centric NASA. It could be doing far more good developing enhanced Earth monitoring systems — satellite data is going to be invaluable to understanding climate change in the next century — and yes, protecting us from space debris.
The Philippine Red Cross says the death toll from Typhoon Fengshen has risen to at least 155, with the storm submerging entire communities in torrential downpours and and setting off landslides.
At least 30,000 people living in Iloilo in the central Philippines had scrambled onto rooftops fleeing the rushing water after the man-made dam overflowed, said the city's acting mayor Jed Mabilog.
The storm forced more than 200,000 people to seek temporary shelter in the eastern Bicol region, the civil defence office said.
As Arlene loomed, crew members evacuated the offshore oil and gas rigs that dot the waters off Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. After the storm passed, the crew of one Amerada Hess-owned rig returned to their platform 60 miles south of New Orleans and discovered the rig had spilled more than 550 gallons of oil.
That is a small spill - the equivalent of 45 barrels - but because the crew wasn't there to stop it, the oil flowed into the Breton National Wildlife Refuge. Within a month, 700 birds died, nearly all of them endangered brown pelicans.
