China’s Air Pollution Causes Reduction in Rainfall

Bad air quality may be affecting China’s ability to raise crops, in addition to the health and environmental problems it causes. Air pollution in the eastern part of the country has reduced the amount of light rainfall over the past half-century, and has also decreased the number of days of light rain by 23%.

From Science Daily:

The study links for the first time high levels of pollutants in the air with conditions that prevent the light kind of rainfall critical for agriculture. Led by atmospheric scientist Yun Qian at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the study appears August 15 in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres.

“People have long wondered if there was a connection, but this is the first time we’ve observed it from long-term data,” said Qian. “Besides the health effects, acid rain and other problems that pollution creates, this work suggests that reducing air pollution might help ease the drought in north China.”

Researchers discovered that pollution’s aerosols cause smaller cloud droplets, which then have a harder time forming rain clouds. Water drops in polluted skies are up to 50% smaller than in clean skies.

Meanwhile, in Australia, drought experts have found a definite link between rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a decline in rainfall. A study confirmed that the continent’s drought is not a natural dry stretch, but a shift related to climate change.

Link [Science Daily] + [Sydney Morning Herald]
Photo credit: Flickr user robennals

Kangaroos Too Cute to Kill, Some Australians Say

Kangaroos are a novelty to us non-Aussies, but for residents of Australia, they’re a common sight. Maybe even a little too common, according to some; there are so many kangaroos in some parts of the capital city of Canberra, officials want to start shooting them. But not all Australians have hardened their hearts to these fuzzy, hopping mammals – some are protesting the proposed cull, saying the animals are just too cute to kill.

From Sky News:

More than 80% of those polled in a government survey thought the wild kangaroos should stay. Authorities have tried giving them vasectomies and oral contraceptives, but to no avail. They say trucking them off to new and distant pastures will cost too much.

The debate comes as it was revealed 17% of drivers in the district had admitted colliding with a kangaroo at least once.

Recent stories of an unwelcome pouched visitor bounding through a closed bedroom window onto a family in bed has raised calls for a urban cull.

Barry Stuart, who runs a kangaroo abattoir 220 miles north of Canberra, shoots more than 25 on most nights with a licence from the government.

“They’re a beautiful bloody animal,” said Stuart, 60.

“You don’t like to destroy them, but when the time comes, you’ve got to do it.”

Australians have even been urged to start eating kangaroos, a national icon, on an industrial scale as an alternative to livestock since there are so many of them. This would cut back on the number of factory farms in the country, which would curb greenhouse gases. And, if Australians can’t bear to eat an animal they feel sentimental about, the rest of the world will do it for them – Russians reportedly eat more kangaroo than Australians and it’s a popular dish throughout Europe.

Whatever your opinions about eating kangaroo meat, it could be a better option than just shooting them. But these majestic animals, while sometimes a nuiscance, certainly don’t pose a threat to humans aside from the possiblity of crashing into one with your car.

Australian citizens have until May 11th to voice their comments about this issue, so if you’re an Aussie, make sure you get your say.

Link [Sky News]
Photo credit: Daily Mail

Climate Change Will Bring More Whale Beachings

Don’t you just love the smell of decaying whale while you’re catching some rays on the beach on a hot summer day? Get used to it, because scientists say whale beachings will soon become much more common – particularly in Australia. The reason? Global warming is going to bring their food stock closer to shore.

From Yahoo News (AFP):

Researchers tracking the beaching of whales in the region since 1920 said strandings tended to occur in 12-year cycles which coincided with cooler, nutrient-rich ocean currents moving from the south and swelling fish stocks.

“These animals, most of the time they’re trying to find food, that’s what they do,” said the project’s Corey Bradshaw, from Adelaide University.

“With climate change it is more likely that these kinds of oscillations will be more variable so you get more extreme conditions,” he said. “We could see more and more frequent strandings simply as a function of higher frequency (of) extreme events.”

Whale rescuers are going to have a huge – literally – task ahead of them once this starts happening. What’s really sad is, successful rescues don’t happen as often as animal advocates would like. Even if rescuers manage to get them back in the water in time, many aren’t able to return to deeper waters and must be euthanized. Just another reason to put our all into fighting global warming, as if we were lacking in that department.

Link [Yahoo News]

Thousands of Cane Toads Dead After Demented ‘Toad Day Out’

“Gleeful” Australians gathered last weekend to kill thousands of poisonous cane toads, an invasive species that consumes everything in its path and evades predators by injecting them with toxic venom. The toads were massacred by hundreds of participants in Queensland’s first annual “Toad Day Out” celebration.

Revelers snacked on sausages and sipped drinks as the toads were weighed, measured and killed, and a city councilman proudly told of the look on the children’s faces as the toads were annihilated. You can’t make this stuff up.

From Yahoo News:

“To see the look on the faces of the kids as we were handling and weighing the toads and then euthanizing them was just…,” Townsville City Councilman Vern Veitch said, breaking off to let out a contented sigh. “The children really got into the character of the event.”

Queensland politician Shane Knuth, a longtime nemesis of the cane toad who came up with the Toad Day Out idea, figured the best way to combat the problem was to gather Australians en masse for a targeted hunt. With each adult female cane toad capable of producing 20,000 eggs, he said, killing even a few thousand toads could ultimately wipe out millions.

On Saturday night, participants fanned out under the cloak of darkness to hunt down the toads. On Sunday, the toads — which the rules stated must be captured alive and unharmed — were brought to collection points and examined by experts to ensure they were not harmless frogs. The creatures were then killed, either by freezing or by being placed in plastic bags filled with carbon dioxide. Some of the remains will be ground into fertilizer for sugarcane farmers.

It’s easy to understand why Queensland residents, particularly farmers, are so happy to see the toads meet an untimely end. Cane toads threaten native species and spread diseases like salmonella. And, to their credit, the organizers of Toad Day Out did choose a humane way to kill the toads that will not affect other creatures, which is always a challenge when trying to deal with invasive species.

Hey, it’s better than thwacking them with sticks. But still, there’s something terrifying about the image of children smiling gleefully as animals are killed in front of their eyes. It’s like Children of the Cane Toads.

Link [Yahoo News]

Green College Spotlight: Macquarie University

Here at EarthFirst we have covered dozens of sustainable-minded colleges and universities across Canada and the United States, but this week’s green college spotlight is a first: we’re headed all the way across the Pacific Ocean to highlight Sydney, Australia’s Macquarie University.

Macquarie University has dedicated itself to being ecologically sound, and spreading the message of sustainability across the campus and into the community. Macquarie functions as a sustainable community itself, serving as a model example for responsible consumption of water, energy, food, products and transport.

The university engages students and staff in a number of ways, including the Macquarie Enviro Collective, a group of students for sustainability who undertake educational campaigns and participate in Macquarie University committees like the Sustainability Working Group and the Sustainability Action Groups. The university’s Bike Club helps students find ‘bike buddies’ who help new riders gain confidence in traffic and learn the best ways to get around campus. Students also take part in bushwalks to experience Australia’s unique environment firsthand, and tend an organic community garden that serves as a learning opportunity and a source of chemical-free food.

Macquarie has committed to purchasing green power, with an additional purchase of 5%, which will increase by 1% annually. Macquarie University currently uses cogeneration and geothermal technology to supply energy for various areas on campus and is actively working toward lowering its carbon footprint through energy conservation efforts. As a large university with over 20,000 students, water and energy consumption is still high, but Macquarie is taking important steps to address these issues, including the implementation of innovative water-saving technology.

One of Macquarie’s most prominent green features is its large areas of natural space. The university grounds contain a number of threatened ecological vegetation communities, which are being managed responsibly to preserve them for future generations. It’s part of Macquarie’s dedication to biodiversity, which includes a Biodiversity Action Group that helps ensure that self-sustaining natural systems are maintained on campus.

Macquarie University has also infused sustainability into its ‘Learning and Teaching Plan’.  It’s now a guiding principle within which the curriculum is developed. Macquarie hopes to send graduates forth into the world who are socially and environmentally active and responsible, engaged and ethical local and global citizens who are capable of professional and personal judgment and initiative.

EarthFirst will be highlighting more international universities in the coming weeks. If you’d like to nominate a college or university for our Green College Spotlight, please contact us!

Link [Macquarie University]

Droughts, Floods, Fires & Oil Spills Plague Australia

Can Australia get a break? The people of this country have had enough. Devastating fires, droughts, floods and crocodile problems have already killed thousands of people, wiped out the livelihoods of many more and destroyed homes and businesses all over the country. Now, they’re dealing with an oil spill after a cargo ship got caught in cyclonic weather. Large slicks of oil mixed with fertilizer are washing up on beaches along the Sunshine Coast and at Moreton Island.

From Yahoo News:

As the cargo fell in huge swells caused by tropical cyclone Hamish, it punctured the ship’s hull, releasing 30 tonnes of oil into Moreton Bay, near Queensland’s state capital Brisbane.

A slick 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) long and two metres (6.6 feet) wide was washing onto popular tourist beaches as the maritime safety authority launched an investigation into what it said was the state’s worst spill in 30 years.

Watkinson said it would take more than a week to clean up the spill, with trucks and excavators removing contaminated sand from the beaches.

“(The oil) is quite heavy in some spots — I’ve just been down there for a walk myself and have come back and it’s caked all over over my thongs (flip-flops) and all over my feet,” said Marcoola beach lifeguard David McLean.

“As you walk along it sticks to the bottom of your shoe like glue.”

Even worse, experts say the fertilizer might cause algal blooms that could suffocate fish and kill natural habitats. Fertilizer seeping into the water is a major cause of ocean dead zones, vast areas of oxygen-starved water where most life can’t survive.

The spill is even bigger than first reported, and the beaches have now been declared ‘disaster zones’. National parks bore the brunt of the damage. So far, a handful of birds covered in oil are the only wildlife known to be affected, but wildlife authorities warn that it will get worse the longer the oil sits.

All this, and climate scientists warn that Australia will be among the first to see some of the most extreme effects of global warming. Scary. These are brave, hardy people, and they’ll fight to stay in their homes – but nobody could blame them if they decided to jump ship and head to another country.

Link [Yahoo News]
Photo credit: The Telegraph

Australia Gets Tanked with Tequila Biofuel

Creativity is blooming in the world of alternative energy, with people coming up with incredible ways to use what they’ve got handy. We’ve heard of New Zealand transforming pest plants into airplane fuel, Oslo buses running on the power of human waste and Scotland making fuel from whisky. Now, Australian farmers are realizing that agave, the plant used to make tequila, grows just as well in their country as it does in Mexico and has high concentrations of sugar that can be converted into ethanol.

From Treehugger:

Don Chambers, entrepreneur behind the South Australian based Ausagave company has been doing his homework on agave for the past four years. Whereas he reckons sugar cane averages a yield of 9,500L per hectare per annum, he is confident that agave’s yields are more like 10,000 to 16,000 litres of ethanol per hectare per annum.

And being a succulent, agave is tough enough to survive temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122°F), which given Australia’s rising thermometer will be a good thing indeed.

“It can grow basically in the desert,” he said. “We’ve been doing trials here in South Australia, and it doesn’t die without water, it can withstand extremes of temperature, it wouldn’t be as subject to storms like some of the crops like cane are. If you compare it with [sugar] cane and corn, it does have less operational costs and it can grow in very marginal land.”

Australia, which is suffering an intense drought, needs to focus on plants that thrive in hot, dry environments – so agave is perfect. It can be grown on bare mining lands, so it won’t take up valuable space needed for other crops. Ausagave reportedly has 10,000 plants ready for a trial.

And, who knows – maybe Australia can use this opportunity to start up their own tequila industry. Because the world can never have too much tequila.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Flickr user kretyen

Australia Wildfires Spurred Partially by Global Warming

The wildfires that have devastated a large swath of southeastern Australia were caused by arson, and spurred on – at least in part – by global warming, which has caused excessive drought and heat in the region. The wildfires are the worst in the nation’s history and have killed at least 135 people as of Monday morning.

From The Daily Green:

The wildfires have struck a region suffering through the Big Dry, a multi-year period marked by drought and heat waves that has led many Australians to a new and immediate understanding of climate change. Even before the wildfires hit this summer (it’s the height of the Southern Hemisphere summer, but the Northern Hemisphere winter has produced its own signs of global warming in the Arctic) several people had died as temperatures in and around Adelaide topped 114 degrees (F).

The NASA map below shows the land surface temperature anomaly across Australia between Jan. 25 and Feb. 1, 2009. The darkest reds and the darkest blues show a 10-degree (C) differential from normal (white).

It’s a pretty dangerous recipe: dried-out landscapes and trees weakened by insect infestations easily go up in flames with the slightest spark. If it hadn’t been caused by arson this time, it may have happened accidentally at some other point with just a tiny spark from lightning or electrical equipment. This area of Australia is already prone to wildfires – having suffered several major ones in the past century – and global warming will only continue to make it worse.

All nations that contribute significantly to global warming bear a little bit of the blame (though of course, the arsonists are ultimately responsible for what happened in this specific instance). Unfortunately, we are looking at disasters like this happening more frequently as the effects of global warming continue to proliferate around the globe.

Link [The Daily Green]
Photo credit: Andrew Brownbill/EPA

Crikey! Australians Battling Crocodiles Along with Major Floods

Australians living in the tropical state of Queensland were already dealing with an unhappy situation when they got even more bad news. More than 62% of Queensland has been declared a natural disaster due to flooding, with some towns entirely underwater – and now, sightings of crocodiles have residents even more unnerved.

The flooding started last December and has continued, fed by a series of rain depressions and cyclones. Huge crocodiles in the center of some Gulf towns have hampered rescue efforts, with large numbers seen swimming toward the mouth of the flooded Norman River.

Even worse, the stranded townspeople are about to run out of beer.

From Reuters:

“We can put up with a lot of drama, no fruit and veggies, but nobody wants a pub with no beer,” Smith told Brisbane’s Courier-Mail newspaper.

Smith said a four-meter (12 feet) crocodile had been seen stalking residents and dogs in the flooded main street.

Ingham resident David Harkin said he would evacuate after watching water run through the ground floor of his two-level home and sighting several snakes near his home.

“I keep the broom here (at the front door) to chase the snakes away,” Harkin told local media.

You know, sitting on the rooftop of your flooded house waiting to be rescued – and simultaneously watching crocodiles swim down your street – is bad enough when you’ve got a big cooler full of brewskies sitting next to you. But without beer – well, now, that’s just a travesty. Nobody should be expected to deal with that.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: AboutAustralia.com

Aborigines of Australia will Feel Global Warming Most

Australia’s Aborigines will suffer the effects of climate change more than other Australians, according to a report by the Medical Journal of Australia. Aborigines typically live in remote outback homes and due to factors like high rates of unemployment, substance abuse and domestic violence, their life expectancy is already 17 years shorter than the rest of the population.

The authors of the study warned that climate change would bring dangerously high temperatures and create ideal breeding conditions for diseases like malaria and dengue fever.

From Reuters:

“Elevated temperatures and increases in hot spells are expected to be a major problem for indigenous health in remote areas, where cardiovascular and respiratory disease are more prevalent and there are many elderly people with inadequate facilities to cope with the increased heat stress,” they wrote.

Other diseases such as bacterial diarrhoea, common in hot, dry areas like Australia’s desert interior and north, could rise by 18 percent among aboriginal communities, they said.

The report said Aborigines were also more at risk because of their close ties to traditional lands, where the health of people was often tied to the health of the environment around them.

“If the community-owned country (land) becomes “sick” through environmental degradation, climate impacts, or inability of the traditional owners to fulfill cultural obligations through ongoing management and habitation of their land, the people of that land will feel this “sickness” themselves,” it said.

Australia is already the world’s driest inhabited continent and is experiencing an accelerated form of climate change. Temperatures in the tropical north are expected to rise by 3 degrees celcius by 2050, making the already nearly unbearable summer heat even worse. The authors of the report are urging the Australian government to improve aboriginal health and housing, and broaden the focus of global warming efforts beyond western scientific methods.

Call me crazy, but I feel kind of guilty myself about the idea that the world’s poorest people are going to suffer the effects of global warming before any of the rest of us – and we’re the ones that have caused it. Sitting here in my temperature-controlled home, with an abundance of healthy food and access to medicine, I’m all too aware of how good I have it and how my comfortable American lifestyle is worsening global warming. I would imagine that a lot of other people reading this feel the same way.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Penny Tweedie via The Guardian

Removing Cats to Save Birds Causes Bird-Killing Bunny Explosion

The decision to remove feral cats from Macquarie Island, located halfway between Australia and Antarctica, has proven to be a bit of a mistake. Researchers say the attempt to protect native seabirds was well intentioned, but had an unexpected consequence: allowing the rabbit population to explode which in turn destroyed much of the vegetation the birds depend on for cover.

Removing the feral cats from Macquarie Island has caused ecological devastation that will cost Australian authorities AU $24 million (US $16 million) to fix.

From MSNBC:

“Our study shows that between 2000 and 2007, there has been widespread ecosystem devastation and decades of conservation effort compromised,” Bergstrom said in a statement.

“The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs,” Bergstrom said.

Located about halfway between Australia and Antarctica, Macquarie was designated a World Heritage site in 1997 as the world’s only island composed entirely of oceanic crust. It is known for its wind-swept landscape, and about 3.5 million seabirds and 80,000 elephant seals migrate there each year to breed.

The cats, rabbits, rats, mice and other nonnative species currently inhabiting the island were likely introduced by passing ships over the last 100 years, and researchers have long been trying to get rid of them. In 1995, the Parks and Wildlife Service of Tasmania began trapping the cats to protect threatened species of native birds.

Efforts to eradicate non-native species have been successful on other islands, but only when a more all-encompassing tactic was used. Professor Mick Clout of the University of Auckland says the Parks Service should have removed both the rabbits and cats at the same time. A spokeswoman of the Parks Service said they were aware of the risk that the rabbit population would increase but thought it was worth it to avoid further damage by the cats.

This is what happens when you mess with ecology. Unfortunately, the next step the Parks and Wildlife Service plans to take is to use poisonous bait that targets pest animals on the island. This, too, seems like it could have unintended consequences. Of course, something must be done to protect the birds, though, so we can only hope that future efforts to save them are more successful without causing further damage to the island.

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: ABC News

Australia Announces Plans to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

To the disappointment of environmentalists who had lobbied for more, Australia announced Monday that they plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 to 15% by 2020. The Australian government said the final target would depend on whether developed and developing countries like China and India could agree to binding reductions under a new UN climate treaty next year.

From The New York Times:

If the world acts together to forge deep cuts, Australia will reduce its emissions by 15 percent of its 2000 levels over 10 years starting in 2010. If there is no agreement, Australia will cut emissions by 5 percent over the same period.

No matter what the short-term target is, the government said it was committed to reducing emissions by 60 percent from 2000 levels by 2050.

“There are many obstacles to achieving a strong international agreement by the end of the next negotiating round,” the report said. “However, the least responsible path that Australia could take would be to do nothing while we wait to see how the rest of the world acts.”

The announcement drew sharp criticism from nearly all of Australia’s major environmental groups, which had been pushing for a short-term cut of at least 25 percent.

Without the (paltry) 5 to 15% cuts announced Monday, Prime Minister Rudd said Australia’s emissions would grow by about 20% by 2020. He also stated that because of Australia’s growing population, mostly from immigration, a 5% cut would represent a 27% decrease in the country’s per capita emissions from 2000 to 2020.

But, now is not the time for governments to be patting themselves on the back for deciding not to sit back and do nothing. 5% is not an acceptable target, and it is indeed extremely frustrating and disappointing to learn that they may set such a low goal. Even 15% is not good enough. We need much stronger action than this.

Link [The New York Times]

Global Warming Will Cause Malaria Epidemic in Australia and Pacific Islands

Malaria and dengue fever will spread across Australia and the Pacific Islands from south and southeast Asia as climate change allows mosquitoes to travel to areas that were once too cold for them to survive, according to a new report.

Though Australia has been free of malaria since 1962, rising temperatures could make areas as far south as Gladstone on the mid-Queensland coast hospitable for mosquitoes. Outbreaks of dengue fever could reach Rockhampton, 100 kilometers further north.

From The Telegraph:

The report, The Sting of Climate Change: Malaria and Dengue Fever in Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, predicts that in countries where the mosquito-borne diseases are already present, the situation will worsen as temperatures climb.

“Mosquitoes are very sensitive to changes in climate. Warmer conditions allow the mosquitoes and the malaria parasite itself to develop and grow more quickly, while wetter conditions let mosquitoes live longer and breed more prolifically,” it said.

“The sting of climate change is an international public health crisis being felt on Australia’s tropical doorstep. It may soon be pressing on Australia’s northern shores as well.”
Malaria is already a big problem in the lowlands of Papua New Guinea, but the research indicates that global warming will allow mosquitoes to travel into the country’s western highlands, affecting up to another two million people.

This is a serious warning; hopefully the governments of these countries will take immediate action. I’m not familiar with the Australian government’s viewpoints on global warming and whether or not they’re likely to do something about this – any Australians want to weigh in? Seeing as malaria already kills two million people – mostly children – every year, and this number will likely rise dramatically if the events we’re being warned about come to pass, there’s certainly no time to waste.

Link [The Telegraph]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Prehistoric Giant Animals May Have Been Killed by Man, Not Climate Change

Scientists have uncovered new evidence that suggests that giant prehistoric mammals like the prehistoric giant kangaroo may not have been killed by climate change after all, as has long been thought. Last week, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argued that ‘mega-fauna’ were probably hunted to death by man on the Southern island of Tasmania. The discovery that prompted the new stance is a giant kangaroo skull found in a cave in the rainforest in the northwest of Tasmania in 2000.

From BreitBart.com:

Scientists dated the find at 41,000 years old, some 2,000 years after humans first began to live in the area.

“Up until now, people thought that the Tasmanian mega-fauna had actually gone extinct before people arrived on the island,” a member of the British and Australian study, Professor Richard Roberts, told AFP Tuesday.

He said that it was likely that hunting killed off Tasmania’s mega-fauna — including the long-muzzled, 120 kilogram (264 pound) giant kangaroo, a rhinoceros-sized wombat and marsupial ‘lions’ which resembled leopards.

Roberts, from the University of Wollongong south of Sydney, said the idea that climate change could account for the death of the animals was disputed by the fact the area had a very stable climate in the critical time period.

“Things were very climatically stable in that part of Australia and yet the mega-fauna still managed to go extinct,” he said. “So it’s down to humans of one sort or another.”

Roberts said because the large animals were slow breeders, it would not have required an aggressive campaign to see them quickly die out.

Interesting theory. It wouldn’t be surprising, would it? We humans seem pretty good at messing things up.

Link [BreitBart.com]
Photo credit: Opal Fossils of South Australia