Plastics, nails found inside ‘butanding’

By Tina Santos, Alcuin Papa

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:53:00 10/29/2009
Filed Under: Animals, Pollution, Climate Change

MANILA, Philippines—Plastic products and nails were found in the stomach of a dead female whale shark that fishermen found early Wednesday morning near the Manila Bay breakwater just a stone’s throw from the Manila Yacht Club.These were the initial findings of a necropsy performed Wednesday afternoon on the whale shark (popularly known in the country as butanding), said Theresa Mundita Lim, director of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau. Lim said her office would conduct laboratory tests and analysis on the blood and tissue of the fish to see if it was poisoned. The results would be available in two weeks. The whale shark (Rhincodon typus), estimated to be at least 2 years old, was 17 ½-feet (5.2 meters) long and weighed more than a ton.

Eyes gouged out

Greg Yan, information officer of the World Wide Fund for Nature-Philippines (WWF-Philippines), said his group had named the whale shark “Bulag” (blind) after discovering strange injuries to both its eyes.“The eyes were virtually gouged out,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.Yan said the whale shark was the third large sea creature to have died in Manila Bay in the past three years. In December 2008, the lifeless body of a baleen whale was found floating beside a passenger ship moored in Manila Bay. In August 2007, another baleen whale carcass was found floating at the mouth of the bay.

Joggers startled

The discovery of a dying whale shark near the Cultural Center of the Philippines startled joggers who frequented the area and caused heavy traffic on the south-bound lane of Roxas Boulevard as motorists slowed. Melchor Cariño, a fisherman in the area, said he and three of his colleagues were about to go fishing when they saw the whale shark, which they initially mistook as a log. “It appeared very weak, it was already floating on its side so we decided to tie a rope around it then towed it toward the shore so rescuers can revive it. But it died on our way to the shore,” Cariño said in Filipino. He said that while he and the others were towing the whale shark, a fish which was about 2-feet long, was seen hovering around as if following them. It left eventually, Cariño said. He said it took his group almost two hours towing the whale shark to the shore near the Manila Yacht Club. “It was so heavy,” he said, adding he was surprised at his rare find. “It was my first time to see a fish as huge as that.”

Spotted couple of times

But another fisherman, Atom Hara, claimed to have seen the whale shark on the same spot a couple of times before.“I saw it in the same area last Monday. But prior to that, I saw it hovering around a docked ship, as if it was playing,” Hara said. Once on shore, Cariño said he immediately went to report the incident to a radio station located at the nearby Cultural Center of the Philippines.The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), informed of the find, towed the whale shark to their headquarters and called the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).

Pollution

Edwin Alesna, chief of the fisheries, quarantine and wildlife regulations section of BFAR, said his office was looking at pollution in the bay as one of the possible causes of death of the whale shark. “We have to conduct a necropsy to determine what really caused its death,” Alesna said. “We have to dissect its tummy to see if it was able to swallow trash, like plastics or heavy metals, which eventually caused its death,” he added. Manila Bay is considered one of the most polluted bodies of water in the country. City workers of Manila regularly haul off truckloads of refuse, consisting mostly of bamboo, wooden planks, food wrappers and drink containers, pieces of rubber and styrofoam from the bay. “Unfortunately, we are the catch basin (of garbage). Manila is low lying, and trash from other cities accumulate here,” a city official said in previous interviews. Alesna said it was also likely that the whale shark surfaced at the shallow part of Manila Bay because it was not feeling well or it was looking for food. “The presence of whale sharks could indicate the return of a strong food base. The whale shark was probably attracted to the plankton abundant in the area. They go where their food is,” the BFAR official added. Alesna said the whale shark was not a victim of a boat strike as no external injury was found on its body. “It had superficial bruises, which could have been caused by the towing, but it had no external injury,” he said. The whale shark will be buried at the bureau’s graveyard for marine animals in Dagupan, Pangasinan.

Climate change

Lim said she had been directed by Environment Secretary Lito Atienza to test the quality of water at Manila Bay. “He wants a check at the quality of water Wednesday and Thursday to determine if it or the pollution of Manila Bay had an effect on the death of the whale shark,” Lim said. “We’re also looking if its death was climate change-induced. We’re looking at trends because out-of-habitat sightings of marine animals could be an indication of the effect of the impending climate change,” she said.

More sightings

Whale sharks have been known to aggregate in Donsol, Sorsogon. But BFAR officials and the environment group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said more and more sightings of the giant fish are being reported in Batangas and Quezon. She said this was the first time a whale shark was sighted in Manila Bay. “Scenarios like beaching of whales are called out-of-habitat sightings. These are signs of climate change,” Lim said. She said changes in sea temperature and water currents could be adversely affecting marine animals, leading them to erratic behavior like beaching.

Krill, plankton

Lim said it was likely the female whale shark followed krill and plankton, its primary food, until it wandered into Manila Bay. “We have been noticing a high number of krill and plankton in Manila Tuesday and Wednesday,” Lim said. Whale sharks are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as “vulnerable” to extinction and are protected by Philippine law under Republic Act No. 8550 and Fisheries Administrative Order No. 193. Since 1998, WWF has been spearheading whale shark conservation in the Philippines, working closely with coastal communities and the local government of Donsol in an ecotourism package to protect the whale sharks.

Dead Sea Needs World Help to Stay Alive

by Ahmad Khatib Ahmad Khatib – Wed Nov 25, 12:28 pm ET

GHOR HADITHA, Jordan (AFP) – The Dead Sea may soon shrink to a lifeless pond as Middle East political strife blocks vital measures needed to halt the decay of the world's lowest and saltiest body of water, experts say.

The surface level is plunging by a metre (three feet) a year and nothing has yet been done to reverse the decline because of a lack of political cooperation as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The shoreline has receded by more than a kilometre (around a mile) in some places and the world-famous lake, a key tourism destination renowned for the beneficial effect of its minerals, could dry out by 2050, according to some calculations.

"It might be confined into a small pond. It is likely to happen and this is extremely serious. Nobody is doing anything now to save it," said water expert Dureid Mahasneh, a former Jordan Valley Authority chief.

"Saving the Dead Sea is a regional issue, and if you take the heritage, environmental and historical importance, or even the geographical importance, it is an international issue."

Landlocked between Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, the Dead Sea is rapidly vanishing because water which previously flowed into the lake is being diverted and also extracted to service industry and agriculture.

Jordan decided in September to go it alone and build a two-billion-dollar pipeline from the Red Sea to start refilling the Dead Sea without help from proposed partners Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

However, that project is controversial and Mahasneh stressed that Jordan alone is not capable of solving the Dead Sea's problems.

The degradation began in the 1960s when Israel, Jordan and Syria began to divert water from the Jordan River, the Dead Sea's main supplier.

For decades, the three neighbouring countries have taken around 95 percent of the river's flow for agricultural and industrial use. Israel alone diverts more than 60 percent of the river.

The impact on the Dead Sea has been compounded by a drop in groundwater levels as rain water from surrounding mountains dissolved salt deposits that had previously plugged access to underground caverns.

Industrial operations around the shores of the lake also contribute to its problems.

Both Israel and Jordan have set up massive evaporation pools to vaporise Dead Sea water for the production of phosphate, while five-star hotels have sprung up along its shores, where tourists flock for the curative powers of the sea mud and minerals.

The salty lake is currently 67 kilometres (42 miles) long and 18 kilometres (11 miles) wide.

The top of the water was already 395 metres (1,303 feet) under global sea level in the 1960s but the drying out has lowered the surface further to minus 422 metres (1,392 feet), according to Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME).

Mahasneh says climate change is aggravating the crisis. "Climate change affected everything," he said. "It's an umbrella for many problems, including short rainfall.

"Nothing is being seriously done to tackle climate change. Sustainable and integrated solutions are needed."

The World Bank has funded a two-year study of the plan for a pipeline from the Red Sea to replenish the Dead Sea.

The project, agreed in outline by Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan in 2005, aims to channel two billion cubic metres (70 billion cubic feet) of water a year via a 200-kilometre (120-mile) canal to produce fresh water and generate electricity as well as raise the Dead Sea.

But some environmentalists say the scheme could harm the Dead Sea further by changing its unique chemistry by introducing Red Sea water.

"We are dealing with at least two sensitive and different ecosystems: the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. We also need to keep an open mind about other possible alternatives," said Munqeth Mehyar, FoEME chair.

Mahasneh supports the plan, saying: "The Dead-Red project is like a salvage plan -- there is no other option. But it won't be an easy task for political and economic reasons."

Jordan's Environment Minister Khaled Irani said: "Let's wait and see the results of the study of the environmental impact."

"We might not go ahead with the project if it is going to create a major mess with the ecosystem, but if we can bring water to the Dead Sea and maintain the same ecological quality of the Dead Sea, why not?"

Friends of the Earth's Mehyar believes saving the Jordan River is key to the Dead Sea.

The waterway is under severe ecological strain because large amounts of raw sewage gush untreated at various locations into the relative trickle left after the diversion of most of the Jordan River.

During the past 50 years, the river's annual flow has dropped from more than 1.3 billion cubic metres (46 billion cubic feet) to around 70 million cubic metres (around 2.5 billion cubic feet), according to FoEME.

"We are working hard to push for rehabilitating the Jordan River by increasing and maintaining its flow in order to save it and save the Dead Sea," Mehyar said.

"The Dead Sea is in danger and that's for sure. I can't claim that we can prevent the level of the Dead Sea from dropping more, but I think we can control the problem and cooperation from all sides is a must."

Most of the springs in the Jordan Valley which flow directly into the Dead Sea are currently dammed, according to water experts.

Jordan, where the population of around six million is expanding by 3.5 percent a year, is a largely desert country that depends greatly on rainfall. It needs every drop of water to meet domestic, agricultural and industrial requirements.

The tiny kingdom, which forecasts it will need 1.6 billion cubic metres (56 billion cubic metres) of water a year by 2015, is one of the 10 driest countries in the world, with desert covering 92 percent of its territory.

"We need to make sure that there is always running water flowing into the Dead Sea," Irani said.

"The Dead Sea is unique in many aspects, not only for Jordan, but also for the Israelis and Palestinians."

One side effect of the lake's falling water volumes is the appearance of large sinkholes along its shores, creating serious problems for farmers and businesses.

"A sinkhole destroyed my farm 10 years ago and forced me to move and work for other farmers," said Izzat Khanazreh, 42, as he puffed on a cigarette, his face tanned by working long hours under a hot sun.

He used to grow vegetables in his farm in Ghor Haditha in the southern Jordan Valley, a bare and sun-baked area around the Dead Sea.

"Nobody compensated me for my loss. My land was full of cracks and it was impossible to do anything about it," said Khanazreh, standing beside a sinkhole about 20 metres (65 feet) wide and 40 metres (130 feet) deep.

There are an estimated 100 sinkholes in Ghor Haditha alone. They can open up at any time and swallow up everything above ground like a devastating earthquake.

"These sinkholes are time bombs. They can appear any time and eat everything up," said Fathi Huweimer, a field researcher with FoEME.

"Farmers do not feel secure and are anticipating more trouble. This problem is because of the degradation of the Dead Sea."

A factory for Dead Sea products in the area has had to relocate after a large sinkhole appeared beneath it, threatening the lives of more than 60 workers, Huweimer said.

Irani said Jordan will highlight the Dead Sea's problems at the Copenhagen summit on climate change next month.

"We will raise those issues in Copenhagen and say that Jordan is heavily affected and urge developed countries to allocate more resources to contribute to saving the Dead Sea," he said.

The Dead Sea may soon shrink to a lifeless pond as Middle East political strife blocks vital measures needed to halt the decay of the world's lowest and saltiest body of water. Environmentalists will plead for help at the Copenhagen summit on climate talks next month.

The Worst Case Scenario

In an opinion piece published in the April 30, 2009 issue of Nature, the writer
discusses what a world with 1,000 ppm of CO2 in its atmosphere might look like. In this scenario, many rare systems would probably be lost, including Arctic sea ice, mountain-top glaciers, most threatened and endangered species, coral-reef communities, and high-latitude indigenous human cultures. Asian mega-delta cities would experience increase of sea levels and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones. Infrastructures could be damaged or lost; heat waves and food shortages could happen. Current literature suggests that the outcome of a 1,000 ppm scenario would almost universally be negative and could cause a substantial loss of gross domestic product.

Visit my 4shared site to view the complete PDF file:

http://www.4shared.com/file/159595287/21dc37d1/The_Worst_Case_Scenario.html

Thoughts About the Evidentiary Value of Science in Environmental Litigations

Reading David Hunter et. al.’s Book on International Environmental Law and Policy (Foundation Press, 3rd Edition, 2007) one legal question drew my interest: Do you think that the increased certainty of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) regarding the human causation of climate change would be sufficient to satisfy the causation element in a lawsuit?

The question is relevant in that it asks lawyers and law students alike on how we can actually use findings of scientific research in concrete cases. It forces us to think about the linkage of hard sciences and the law in environmental advocacy.

Hunter's question presupposes that a court has already taken cognizance of a case (most likely a tort case or an injunction case relating to an environmental concern). Stated otherwise, the question directs our attention to the evidentiary value of findings of scientists and experts all over the world in a concrete court setting.

Relevant to this question is the definition of the Philippine Supreme Court of causation element for purposes of recovering damages (in tort cases, and maybe injunction suit to a limited extent):

“Proximate cause is that which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces injury and without which the result would not have occurred.” (Sabena Belgian Airlines vs. Court of Appeals G.R. No. 104685. March 14, 1996)

A more incisive explanation is found in another case:
“(T)he proximate legal cause is that acting first and producing the injury, either immediately or by setting other events in motion, all constituting a natural and Continuous chain of events, each having a close causal Connection with its immediate predecessor, the final event in the chain immediately affecting the injury as a natural and probable result of the cause which first acted, under such circumstances that the person responsible for the first event should, as an ordinarily prudent, and intelligent person, have reasonable ground to expect at the moment of his act or default that an injury to some person might probably result therefrom.” (Vda. de Bataclan vs. Medina, 102 Phil. 181,186)

How do you prove causation or proximate causation in order to maintain a suit? Rule 128 of the Rules of Court provides:
Section 3. Admissibility of evidence. -- Evidence is admissible when it is relevant to the issue and is not excluded by the law of these rules.

From this, it is plausible to argue that reports such as the IPCC Report on human causation of climate change, may be appreciated as relevant evidence in a concrete case. A possible objection may be based on the rule on hearsay. However, the Rules of Court itself allows a possible exception from the hearsay rule as it may be characterized as learned treatise on the subject.

Rule 140, Section 46 provides:
Section 46. Learned treatises. -- A published treatise, periodical or pamphlet on a subject of history, law, science, or art is admissible as tending to prove the truth of a matter stated therein if the court takes judicial notice, or a witness expert in the subject testifies, that the writer of the statement in the treatise, periodical or pamphlet is recognized in his profession or calling as expert in the subject. (40a)

The Rules and its application however, should not be viewed in a vacuum. The Judge or the Justice who interprets them plays a crucial role in the application of the Rules. Oposa vs. Factoran shocked the Philippine legal community when the Supreme Court hinted that a cause of action may arise from the broad principles outlined under Article II of the 1987 Constitution.

That Judges and Justices have a great role to play in their respective jurisdictions in enforcement of environmental legislation. As final arbiters of what the law means, they have the final say on the binding effect of the law and where necessary, they can compel performance of duties outlined in the law.

Policy advocates should target the Judiciary as potential partners for the advocacy. In my view, the shock triggered but Supreme Court decisions in favor of pressing environmental concerns is indicative of the ignorance or lack of knowledge of the grave consequences of prolonged disregard for the environment. Training programs or seminars for Members of the Judiciary is crucial in generating environmental consciousness and awareness that could pose positive results for the environmental movement.

This is not to undermine the role of the implementing agencies. After all, the contemporaneous construction of these agencies of environmental legislation has been respected by our courts. The doctrine of contemporaneous construction after all, finds solid support from jurisprudence here and in the United States to the effect that "findings of administrative agencies who are recognized experts in their field, when supported by substantial evidence shall not be disturbed by the courts."

Women "Bearing Brunt" of Climate Change

Bolivia. On the steep, dusty slopes of the Chacaltaya mountains, thousands of meters above sea level in the Bolivian Andes, the hardy farmers tending root crops or herding llamas have no need of scientists or climatologists to measure the impact of global warming.

For as long as anyone can remember, communities such as the village of Botijlaca have relied on melting ice flowing down from the Chacaltaya glacier as a source of drinking water, to irrigate their crops and water their animals.

Now the 18,000-year-old glacier -- once home to the world's highest ski resort -- has almost disappeared, reduced to a slither of snow and ice in the space of a few decades. Researchers say Chacaltaya has lost around 80 percent of its volume in just 20 years.

"There is less water now," says Leucadia Quispe, a 60-year-old mother, grandmother and potato farmer. Seven of her eight children have left the region, she says, because there is no way for them to make a living. Most of the men of the village have also gone, heading to the conjoined urban sprawl of nearby La Paz and El Alto in search of work, returning just once or twice a month to see their wives and families.

Each day Quispe spends hours hauling two five-litre containers of water by hand from a nearby river. "We used to be able to get water for irrigation from the streams that came down from the glacier. But the streams are no longer there, so now we supplement the water from a river further up in the valley," she explains.

Jaime Nadal, the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) representative in Bolivia, said that Quispe's situation was far from unusual. "Young people tend to leave these areas. Old women are typically left in the community having to perform harder and harder tasks to keep up the household. We already see mostly old women in many of these communities."

In a report released on Wednesday, UNFPA warns that it is women in the developing world such as Quispe who are bearing the brunt of the worsening and accelerating impact of climate change.
"Women are on the front lines of many societies buffeted by climate change -- and research indicates they tend to be more vulnerable to these impacts," said the report's lead author, Robert Engelman.

According to the report, women in poorer societies are most at risk because they make up a larger share of the agricultural workforce and have fewer income-earning opportunities. They also shoulder the burden of caring for other family members and household management, limiting their mobility and trapping them in a cycle of deprivation, poverty and inequality.

"For many people, especially poor women in poor countries, climate change is here and now," said UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid. "Poor women in poor countries are among the hardest hit by climate change even though they contributed the least to it."
Women are on the front lines of many societies buffeted by climate change.--Robert Engelman

Quispe and women like her may be at the sharp end of environmental change but they will not be suffering in isolation for long. In Bolivia, the disappearance of the glaciers -- the mountain's "white ponchos" in the words of President Evo Morales -- has profound implications for the Andean nation water and energy supplies.

Glacial melt provides 15 percent of La Paz's drinking water and 40 percent of the country's energy comes from hydroelectric sources, according to an Oxfam report released earlier this month. Yet in 2000, South America's poorest country contributed just 0.35 percent of the world's carbon emissions, Oxfam said.

"We are losing something that is a human right, a source of life -- water for drinking, for food, for the animals, for electricity," said Bolivian climate change expert Jose Gutierrez.
But if the world's poor -- and women in particular -- are already paying a disproportionate price for the vast quantities of carbon pumped into the atmosphere by industrialized societies, UNFPA argues that they can also play an important role in helping to mitigate the potentially "catastrophic" consequences of global warming.

According to the report, universal access to reproductive healthcare and family planning -- a UNFPA goal since 1994 -- in combination with improved education of girls and gender equality would lead to significant declines in fertility, stabilizing the population of the planet at a level far below estimates commonly used in scientific models of future climate change. In turn, the argument goes, carbon emissions would also fall, reducing the risk of global warming reaching a "tipping point" and running out of control.

"Helping women to make their own decisions about family size would protect their health, make their lives easier, help put their countries on a sustainable path towards development -- and ensure lower greenhouse-gas emissions in the long run," said Obaid.

But critics said that conflating population control with efforts to tackle climate change was overly simplistic. Caroline Boin, an analyst at London-based think tank International Policy Network, also said the report was patronizing to women in the developing world.

"Whatever the problem, UNFPA repeats the same old mantra -- the culprit is population and the solution is condoms," she said. "Food scarcity, water shortages, and health problems in poor countries truly are threats for women. Population and climate control policies are not the solution, and if anything, will give governments an excuse to remain complacent in addressing poverty."

But Obaid said the debate over tackling climate change needed to take into consideration "how individual behavior can undermine or contribute to the global effort to cool our warming world," especially in the run-up to December's COP15 summit in Copenhagen.

"We cannot successfully confront climate change if we neglect the needs, rights and potential of half the people on our planet," she said.

"Women should be part of any agreement on climate change -- not as an afterthought or because it's politically correct, but because it's the right thing to do. Our future as humanity depends on unleashing the full potential of all human beings, and the full capacity of women, to bring about change."

Source: CNN News, 22 Nov 2009

Koreans Make Plastics Without Fossil Fuel Chemicals

A team of South Korean scientists have produced the polymers used for everyday plastics through bioengineering, rather than through the use of fossil fuel-based chemicals.
It is believed that the technique may now allow for the production of environmentally-friendly plastic that is biodegradable and low in toxicity.

The research focused on Polylactic Acid (PLA), a bio-based polymer which holds the key to producing plastics through natural and renewable resources. Polymers are molecules found in everyday life in the form of plastics and rubbers.
"The polyesters and other polymers we use everyday are mostly derived from fossil oils made through the refinery or chemical process," Professor Sang Yup Lee, who lead the research, said in a press statement.

"The idea of producing polymers from renewable biomass has attracted much attention due to the increasing concerns of environmental problems and the limited nature of fossil resources. PLA is considered a good alternative to petroleum-based plastics, as it is both biodegradable and has a low toxicity to humans."

Until now PLA has been produced in a two-step fermentation and chemical process of polymerization, which is both complex and expensive. The team used a metabolically engineered strain of E. coli and developed a one-stage process.

"By developing a strategy which combines metabolic engineering and enzyme engineering, we've developed an efficient bio-based one-step production process for PLA and its copolymers," said Lee.

"This means that a developed E. coli strain is now capable of efficiently producing unnatural polymers, through a one-step fermentation process.

"Global warming and other environmental problems are urging us to develop sustainable processes based on renewable resources. "This new strategy should be generally useful for developing other engineered organisms capable of producing various unnatural polymers by direct fermentation from renewable resources."

The research team from KAIST University in Seoul and the Korean chemical company LG Chem published their findings in the journal "Biotechnology and Bioengineering".

Source: CNN News, 23 Nov 2009

Population Growth Data

Population growth is a major concern for environmental sustainability. As the number of persons who compete for the same scarce resources increases, the greater is its toll on the environment. As the HSZ book suggests, it is hard to determine when we would reach a tipping point for there are various and uncertain factors to take into consideration to be able to forecast that moment, event, or statistic which could be considered as “the end of the cliff.” However, it is my view that when it comes to the issue of population, we have long reached the tipping point, especially in the developing and undeveloped countries, where reproductive education is very behind or even nonexistent. This lack of education coupled with the religious stigma against population control lead to disastrous effects, as more and more people reproduce without thinking of the consequences it brings to the environment. In the Philippines for example, the Reproductive Health Bill, which is long needed by the country, is met with criticisms and outright rejection by the Catholic Church for being “immoral” and “anti-life.” The Philippines in 2008 reached the total population of 90.35 million, with the annual population growth rate of 1.82% (http://datafinder.worldbank.org/annual-population-growth-rate). The Philippine National Statistics Office estimated a growth of more that 1 million people in the past 7 years in Metro Manila alone (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20080107-110769/Metro_Manila_population). In Asia, the estimated population in mid-2009 was 4,117,435,000 (http://www.prb.org/Datafinder/Geography/MultiCompare.aspx?variables=109&regions=115), while the world population in 2008 was 6,692,030,277 with a growth rate of 1.17% (http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_grow&tdim=true&q=world+population+growth+statistics). In addition, the United Nations estimated a growth of worldwide population to 9.1 billion by 2050, which would mostly take place in less developed regions (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/pop918.doc.htm). These numbers are staggering, considering that the ecological footprint of one person alone already has an adverse and perhaps even permanent inerasable effect to the environment. We have already reached the tipping point considering the exponential growth of population and how the resources could no longer keep up with this growth. This is evidenced by the worldwide hunger and poverty and lack of the most basic needs of millions of people. Although the unequal and ineffective distribution of the world’s resources also contributes to these problems, it is undeniable that the uncontrolled growth in population is the main reason why there is simply not enough of such resources to satisfy each and every person. The issue of population should be addressed as one of the most important causes of environmental degradation. 

Jellyfish swarm northward in warming world

By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer Michael Casey, Ap Environmental Writer – 2 hrs 50 mins ago

KOKONOGI, Japan – A blood-orange blob the size of a small refrigerator emerged from the dark waters, its venomous tentacles trapped in a fishing net. Within minutes, hundreds more were being hauled up, a pulsating mass crowding out the catch of mackerel and sea bass.

The fishermen leaned into the nets, grunting and grumbling as they tossed the translucent jellyfish back into the bay, giants weighing up to 200 kilograms (450 pounds), marine invaders that are putting the men's livelihoods at risk.

The venom of the Nomura, the world's largest jellyfish, a creature up to 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter, can ruin a whole day's catch by tainting or killing fish stung when ensnared with them in the maze of nets here in northwest Japan's Wakasa Bay.

"Some fishermen have just stopped fishing," said Taiichiro Hamano, 67. "When you pull in the nets and see jellyfish, you get depressed."

This year's jellyfish swarm is one of the worst he has seen, Hamano said. Once considered a rarity occurring every 40 years, they are now an almost annual occurrence along several thousand kilometers (miles) of Japanese coast, and far beyond Japan.

Scientists believe climate change — the warming of oceans — has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes.

The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science Foundation says.

A 2008 foundation study cited research estimating that people are stung 500,000 times every year — sometimes multiple times — in Chesapeake Bay on the U.S. East Coast, and 20 to 40 die each year in the Philippines from jellyfish stings.

In 2007, a salmon farm in Northern Ireland lost its more than 100,000 fish to an attack by the mauve stinger, a jellyfish normally known for stinging bathers in warm Mediterranean waters. Scientists cite its migration to colder Irish seas as evidence of global warming.

Increasingly polluted waters — off China, for example — boost growth of the microscopic plankton that "jellies" feed upon, while overfishing has eliminated many of the jellyfish's predators and cut down on competitors for plankton feed.

"These increases in jellyfish should be a warning sign that our oceans are stressed and unhealthy," said Lucas Brotz, a University of British Columbia researcher.

Here on the rocky Echizen coast, amid floodlights and the roar of generators, fishermen at Kokonogi's bustling port made quick work of the day's catch — packaging glistening fish and squid in Styrofoam boxes for shipment to market.

In rain jackets and hip waders, they crowded around a visitor to tell how the jellyfish have upended a way of life in which men worked fishing trawlers on the high seas in their younger days and later eased toward retirement by joining one of the cooperatives operating nets set in the bay.

It was a good living, they said, until the jellyfish began inundating the bay in 2002, sometimes numbering 500 million, reducing fish catches by 30 percent and slashing prices by half over concerns about quality.

Two nets in Echizen burst last month during a typhoon because of the sheer weight of the jellyfish, and off the east coast jelly-filled nets capsized a 10-ton trawler as its crew tried to pull them up. The three fishermen were rescued.

"We have been getting rid of jellyfish. But no matter how hard we try, the jellyfish keep coming and coming," said Fumio Oma, whose crew is out of work after their net broke under the weight of thousands of jellyfish. "We need the government's help to get rid of the jellyfish."

The invasions cost the industry up to 30 billion yen ($332 million) a year, and tens of thousands of fishermen have sought government compensation, said scientist Shin-ichi Uye, Japan's leading expert on the problem.

Hearing fishermen's pleas, Uye, who had been studying zooplankton, became obsessed with the little-studied Nomura's jellyfish, scientifically known as Nemopilema nomurai, which at its biggest looks like a giant mushroom trailing dozens of noodle-like tentacles.

"No one knew their life cycle, where they came from, where they reproduced," said Uye, 59. "This jellyfish was like an alien."

He artificially bred Nomura's jellyfish in his Hiroshima University lab, learning about their life cycle, growth rates and feeding habits. He traveled by ferry between China to Japan this year to confirm they were riding currents to Japanese waters.

He concluded China's coastal waters offered a perfect breeding ground: Agricultural and sewage runoff are spurring plankton growth, and fish catches are declining. The waters of the Yellow Sea, meanwhile, have warmed as much as 1.7 degrees C (3 degrees F) over the past quarter-century.

"The jellyfish are becoming more and more dominant," said Uye, as he sliced off samples of dead jellyfish on the deck of an Echizen fishing boat. "Their growth rates are quite amazing."

The slight, bespectacled scientist is unafraid of controversy, having lobbied his government tirelessly to help the fishermen, and angered Chinese colleagues by arguing their government must help solve the problem, comparing it to the effects of acid rain that reaches Japan from China.

"The Chinese people say they will think about this after they get rich, but it might be too late by then," he said.

A U.S. marine scientist, Jennifer Purcell of Western Washington University, has found a correlation between warming and jellyfish on a much larger scale, in at least 11 locations, including the Mediterranean and North seas, and Chesapeake and Narragansett bays.

"It's hard to deny that there is an effect from warming," Purcell said. "There keeps coming up again and again examples of jellyfish populations being high when it's warmer." Some tropical species, on the other hand, appear to decline when water temperatures rise too high.

Even if populations explode, their numbers may be limited in the long term by other factors, including food and currents. In a paper last year, researchers concluded jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea — which by 2000 were 40 times higher than in 1982 — declined even as temperatures have hit record highs.

"They were still well ahead of their historic averages for that region," said co-author Lorenzo Ciannelli of Oregon State University. "But clearly jellyfish populations are not merely a function of water temperature."

Addressing the surge in jellyfish blooms in most places will require long-term fixes, such as introducing fishing quotas and pollution controls, as well as capping greenhouse gas emissions to control global warming, experts said.

In the short term, governments are left with few options other than warning bathers or bailing out cash-strapped fishermen. In Japan, the government is helping finance the purchase of newly designed nets, a layered system that snares jellyfish with one kind of net, allowing fish through to be caught in another.

Some entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are trying to cash in. One Japanese company is selling giant jellyfish ice cream, and another plans a pickled plum dip with chunks of giant jellyfish. But, though a popular delicacy, jellyfish isn't likely to replace sushi or other fish dishes on Asian menus anytime soon, in view of its time-consuming processing, heavy sodium overload and unappealing image.

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Associated Press writer Shino Yuasa contributed to this report from Tokyo.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/climate_09_jellyfish_menace

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