Designed to never stop running – something you would almost imagine to be a vital necessity on a train – Peng’s talent for invention has awarded him a bronze medal at the Nuremburg International Inventors Exhibition in Germany, as well as a silver medal at the Taipei International Inventors Exhibition; so he can’t be too far off the track (sorry), can he?

In fact, there is a lot more to his design than just a train that doesn’t stop. The design was inspired by the Hsinchu-Miaoli Light Rail Transit.

His invention, which saw him using toy trains and tracks to come up with his idea, consists of a “train” racing through a station, at its top velocity of 85 kilometers per hour; a speed, mind you, that it rarely averages. That number is much closer to 35 kilometers per hour.

But instead of a well timed leap or the use of specially trained train pushers, passengers will only need to enter a “boarding” car, which is put in motion ahead of the train’s arrival. After the rear of the traveling train catches up, the boarding car attaches itself to the rest of the boarding cars. To get off, a passenger need only move to the correct boarding car which is designated to slip off the traveling train to reach their specific destination.

Similar to the issues that drivers have with fuel consumption in their cars, continually stopping and starting – especially during peak traffic hours – this will be a huge saving on energy, as well as equipment. And while we will always focus on the immediate energy consumption of, well, anything, Peng is also looking at the longer environmental footprint of the equipment used in the construction of a train. The longer that it lasts, the longer it will stay out of a scrap heap.

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Ship By Rail, Reduce Annual Greenhouse Gas Emissions By More Than 12 Million Tons

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credit: Poagao at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Governor Jon Huntsman, a first-term Republican, has introduced the change, which will affect the majority of state employees, in an attempt to reduce the state’s carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide workers more flexibility. “The reaction (from the public) has been very much a willingness to give this a go,” he says.

The four day work week is not as uncommon as I first thought, with forms of it popping up all across the US. The USA Today article notes that “The four-day work week is fairly common among city and county governments…” and it continues:

Jacqueline Byers, director of research at the National Association of Counties, says the four-day work week is gaining in popularity among county governments. Marion County, Fla., has a mandatory four-day work week for employees; Oconee County, S.C., and Walworth County, Wis., have it for road work crews, while Will County, Ill., has it for the auditor’s office. Oakland County, Mich., is seeking volunteers for a four-day work week, and Miami-Dade County, Fla., and Suffolk County, N.Y., are moving toward it, she says

It is a rather drastic measure, cutting an entire day out of a work week, but one that is sure to make a big impact. While in the months to come – the new system is set to go into effect on August 4 – I’m sure we’ll see statistics explaining what the cutback has done specifically for the environment, but there is more. Such a measure, already seen to be working throughout smaller counties and cities, is another example of how local and individual changes are having large impacts.

There will obviously be some immediate negative impacts. “One thing that has to be changed is the level of expectation from taxpayers, because they’ve always wanted five-day access,” Byers says. “They have to adjust to offices that are open longer on weekdays, but closed on Fridays.”

In addition, longer work days will create problems for those dealing with public transport and childcare, but the Utah government is looking to have these issues ironed out before the August 4^th start date.

In fact, Rex Facer, an assistant professor at Brigham Young University whose research team is studying the four-day work week concept, believes that such a change will have impacts on the work-life balance as well. “More and more young workers are entering the work force,” Facer says. “They’re looking for ways to enhance their work-life balance. Alternative work schedules offer more of this work-life balance than do traditional work schedules.”

So all in all, I can hardly see where this can go wrong!

credit: Bree D. at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Signed in to law by Governor Linda Lingle (there’s a name for you), a republican, the bill requires that the energy savers be part of the new home landscape starting 2010. It prohibits issuing a permit for building a single-family home without a solar water heater, and for a state that relied on imported fossil fuels more than any other American state, this can only be a good thing.

Hawaii manages to import about 90% of its energy from foreign countries, according to state data.

The measure was first introduced some five years ago, by state Senator Gary Hooser, also vice chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee. It was first introduced when a barrel of oil was said to cost only $40 dollars. Needless to say, times have changed since then.

“It’s abundantly clear that we need to take some serious action to protect Hawaii because we’re so dependent on oil,” Hooser said. “I’m very pleased the governor is recognizing the importance of this bill and the huge public benefits that come out of it.”

The measure allows for certain exceptions, such as for those houses being built in forested areas where the level of sunshine is not the same.

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Some near 10 months later, Dr. Serreze has predicted that, unless weather and ocean conditions change, it does not look like there will be any summer ice in the Arctic this year.

“A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice,” Serreze said. “That’s the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it’s thin,” and thus, doesn’t have the strength to stand up to the increased temperatures. And so far, the preliminary evidence from a NASA satellite is showing that the ice surrounding the North Pole is “considerably thinner” than scientists have seen previously. This, according to NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally, who believes there is slightly less than a 50/50 chance that the North Pole will be ice free.

We know that last year was a record year for ice melt across the entirety of the Arctic, and as such, the young ice that sprung up between the end of 07’s summer and 08’s summer will be young, and more susceptible to melting.

With a more conservative estimate, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington puts the odds of an Arctic without ice at 1 in 4. However, even though this is half what Serreze is predicting, it is still much worse than many climate models had been predicting, which was 1 in 70 sometime in the next decade.

Though there is nothing scientifically significant about the North Pole being ice free, it does hold a symbolic significance. It caused such massive controversy last year when the Northwest Passage opened up that people begun to pay closer attention to it. And, as Seth Borenstein of the AP notes, it is where Santa Claus lives.

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credit: lemoncat1 at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

This particular dead zone has formed, in part, thanks to farm runoff that has made its way down the Mississippi River, all the way from Iowa and Wisconsin. Chemicals used on the farms are washed in to local waterways, which all eventually end in the Mississippi which thus makes its way down and out past New Orleans in to the Gulf of Mexico.

Subsequently, the increased levels of chemicals in the water have more and more robbed the water of oxygen, making it a deadly place for any creatures or plants.

A new threat has arisen however, a threat that could possibly increase an already far gone situation.

Many of you will already be aware of the great damage done by the floods through the Midwest of America; some of you might even have been directly affected. The tragic loss of lives, the devastating loss of crops and livestock; at some point the negatives pile up too far to care about any more.

But, akin to the Mississippi flood in 1993, these floods are going to cause havoc in the Gulf, with all the excess chemicals washed in to the Mississippi. “It’s going to be a very interesting summer out there just because of this,” said Steven DiMarco, a professor of oceanography at Texas A&M University. “The last time something like this happened, we did see a huge difference” in the size of the dead zone from one year to the next.

So in addition to the continued rise of fertilizer use due to an increased need for ethanol produced by corn, these tragic Midwest floods have added their own weight to a continuing ecological problem.

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Image credit: eagle102.net at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

This most recent spate of reviling the human race was sparked by an opinion piece by Elizabeth R. Sawin from the Sustainability Institute. Her title was enough to make me smile: “$4.00 per Gallon Gasoline and Climate Change Both Call for the Same Solution: Collective Investment in Clean Energy.” I smiled again when she opened with a question she was recently asked: “What do you have to say about global warming to the whole segment of Americans who are just waking up to energy issues with $4.00 per gallon gasoline?”

Needless to say, my revulsion of the human species, or at least a vast majority of them (I have a variety of revulsions, this one is environmentally based), seem to have only just realized that maybe, just maybe, it might be a good idea to have a look for something other than fossil fuels to power our transportation.

And the terms “climate change” or “global warming” do not even register.

I must admit to a certain measure of childish glee, when I see petrol prices rising as they are. You see, I do not drive a car, and at 24, I have no real desire to drive one either. No doubt by the end of 2008 my peer group will have bullied me in to getting my license, but apart from the sporadic 3am drive to the supermarket for a chicken, my feet and my bike are all I need (and maybe the occasional bus/train ticket).

So at a time when petrol prices are skyrocketing and the US Senate defeating the Climate Security Act, people are suitably concerned. But as I mentioned, it isn’t because of any fear of melting ice-caps or drowning polar bears – although I like to think that many at least feel they should care about such things, even if they don’t actively do so.

Now Sawin quickly antagonizes a great magnitude of people out there by using the term “scientific consensus” to describe what is happening to our environment; it’s never a good move. But I don’t even want to discuss that. The point I want to make is this: how come with fuel prices getting higher than Willie Nelson, people don’t want a cheaper alternative?

It would seem to me that, even though you may be 100% against the idea that man has decided to pollute Earth in to oblivion (guess where I stand), surely you would like to be paying a little less to get to work in the morning? (Another gleeful admission: I work from home!) Wouldn’t you like to pay a little less to keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer? (I got nothing for those two! I’m sufferin’ like the rest of you!)

So if there ever comes a time where there is a vote to be cast, calls to be made and politicians to be swayed, make sure you do your part: vote to bring in alternative energies, call your local whatever and let him know! Because even if you don’t feel the environment needs the helping hand, I can sure bet that your hip-pocket wouldn’t mind one.

The American political season is now in full swing, and with Barack Obama finally securing the nomination for Democratic Presidential nominee, the games can really begin to heat up. One of the big topics – alongside or just underneath the economy – will be the environment, and how to best preserve it (or resurrect it after George W. Bush is finished with it).

And, not surprisingly, a lot of the end results being pitched by Senator Obama and Senator John McSame McCain are looking mighty similar. However how they want to get there are bipolar at best.

Stephan Power at the Wall Street Journal took the time to take a look at what the two Senators differences were when it came to the environment. For those of us looking to make a change in the world, it is no surprise that Senator McCain is definitely living up to his reputation as the next model (or previous model) of George W. Bush.

The senator from Arizona has a voting record that is in stark contrast to that of Obama, despite saying he wants to reduce a dependency on foreign oil. McCain wants to back the government involvement off; way off. He believes that “when government jumps in and distorts the market, then there’s unintended consequences as well as intended.” McCain has voted time and time again against policies such as tax credits that attempt to push a higher reliance upon alternative and energy efficient technologies.

Without a doubt I’m not a fan of McCain or his policies. He is, from my far away view, exactly the same as George W. Bush in his methods. McCain believes that providing benefits for alternative energies is nothing more than subsidies for special interests. Well of course they are! But by labeling them “special interests” he attempts to blacken the name of alternative energies. It’s a crude and crass way of sliding in under the radar.

Senator Obama on the other hand, despite a somewhat hypocritical voting record, is fully intent on using the government to make changes to the countries energy and climate change policies. He believes rightly that the US doesn’t do enough to help create clean energy technologies, a point which is proven by the US’s flagging position behind European nations flying ahead with wind and hydro solutions.

If he manages to claim the Presidential office, Obama would invest $150 billion over the next decade into alternative fuels, and push for the US to acquire at least 25% of its electricity from renewable sources. Stephan Power quotes Obama from a meeting in Portland, Oregon, last month: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees [Fahrenheit] at all times and then just expect that every other country’s going to say OK. That’s not — that’s not leadership.”

Senators McCain and Obama differ on a lot of aspects. McCain wants to reduce emissions by 60% from the 1990 levels, whereas Obama wants to reduce them by 80%, a number that a vast number of scientists agree with. Senator McCain wants to temporarily kill the federal gasoline tax, a move that, along with Senator Obama, some conservatives oppose.

On a last note, I will say this personally. I realize that fuel prices are heading up and up the world over, but seriously people, have you heard of walking? Fuel prices should not be an issue in a world where fuel is causing the destruction of our planet.

And, if your like me and not living in the US, or even if you are, head along to the Green Options Mock US Election in the forums, located here.

Many of you will be familiar with VPN as the way that you log on to your office network when you’re not at your office. A VPN provides secure access to all those documents and emails that you desperately need when you’re out visiting a client or, more likely, having lunch.

But how can something like this, which is essentially just a glorified application, be environmentally friendly?

We have to take a step back, to just what is happening when, for example, you log on to your VPN using your Blackberry or whatever device you are friendlier with. Consider when you buy your device, one of the things you look for is battery life. For example, the new iPhone 3G has 300 hours of standby time, 24 hours of audio time, and something like 7 hours of talk time.

Making a device such as this environmentally friendly is a two part solution; a) make it out of nice environmentally friendly materials and b) make it so that the battery won’t die out on you really quickly, because when the battery dies, there goes a battery in to the waste.

So Columbitech has combined these points and will now be providing a VPN solution that does all you need a VPN to do, as well as make minimal stresses on the battery.

Columbitech’s mobile VPN requires 40% less battery power than your traditional VPN, thus enabling your device to run for a much longer time. Not only will this expand the life of your battery, but it will increase the length of time you will have to recharge, also making it more energy efficient.

“Columbitech is strongly committed to improving the quality of our environment,” said Lars Resenius, CEO of Columbitech. “Our mobile VPN offers a win-win solution for companies looking to go green with their IT needs. It benefits both the environment and a business’ bottom line – conserving an incredible amount of energy in the day-to-day IT needs while guaranteeing full security and improving overall efficiency.”

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credit: dewitt at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Toyota Motor Corporation has announced that the Toyota FCHV-adv will be powered by a new fuel-cell hybrid system, which is powered by hydrogen and electricity. This improves the models cruising range to a maximum of 516 miles, or 830 kilometers for the rest of the world who decided to go metric. This compares favorably to the previous fuel cell model, which only provided for a 205 mile (330 km) range.

News of this new fuel-cell system came only days after the FCHV-adv was awarded with vehicle-type certification Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) on Tuesday. The car will be available for leasing in Japan later this year, though pricing and other details are not available at the moment.

The “hybrid” nature of the FCHV-adv sees it switch between its fuel cell – which is powered by a chemical reaction when the hydrogen stored in its tank combines with oxygen in the air to produce water – and an electric motor. This in comparison to Toyota’s Prius, which switches between an electric motor and a standard gasoline/fuel engine.

Engineers at the world’s second biggest automaker were tasked with working on the basic problem of how to stop the internally produced water from interfering with electrical generation at low temperatures. Now, the Membrane Electrode Assembly has been redesigned so that it can operate in cold regions, with temperatures dropping as low as -30 degrees Celsius.

In addition, fuel efficiency was improved by 25% as a result of improving the fuel cell unit performance, enhancing a regenerative brake system, and reducing the energy that is consumed by auxiliary systems on board the FCHV-adv.

A Toyota FCHV-adv is to be provided as a test-ride vehicle at the Environmental Showcase within the International Media Center during the July 7-9 Hokkaido Toyako Summit.

See More Posts on Car Technology at Gas 2.0:

• Company Unveils Hydrogen Hybrid Supercar: Available Fall 2008
• An Electric Car With Muscle: The 175 MPGe X1 Prototype by Wrightspeed Inc.
• Want to Test Drive a Hydrogen Powered Car? GM’s “Project Driveway” Looking For Drivers

Image Courtesy of Toyota Motor Corporation

But turn our eyes away from the mainstream and western face of this planet, and we see that Africa is already on the renewable energy bandwagon.

According to a report at Bloomberg.com, Uganda has just announced that they will start building the 200-megawatt Karuma hydropower plant sometime in the first quarter of 2009. President Yoweri Museveni said that this is a chance to tackle the national electricity shortage.

Museveni told parliament on Thursday that the government had already allocated $200 million for the project, of a predicted $500 million total cost. Ugand is in talks with Norway’s Norpak Power Ltd. over developing the plant. But even without the involvement of Norpak, Uganda is intent on going through with this project. “We are working with the Norwegians, but in case they delay we shall continue alone,” Museveni said.

But Karuma is not the only hydropower plant in Uganda, and was in fact delayed in favor of the construction of the 250-megawatt Bujagali power project. Currently, Uganda has a demand of 380-megawatts, but provides a total of 245-megawatts via hydro and thermal power.

credit: Jonathan Assink at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

One of those effects that have fallen by the wayside is the massive political and sociological effect taking place in Africa. Sadly, issues of this import falling by the wayside in Africa are not a new phenomenon. Too often the individual lives of Africans are overlooked and ignored.

However a two-day Climate Change Summit, that took place earlier this week, and hosted by the City of Johannesburg in partnership with the SA Local Government Association, endeavored to seek out solutions to one of these problems; forced migration.

The theme for the summit was “All hands on deck: towards a low carbon economy,” and the issue of forced migration was only one of the issues on the table. But some may see it as the most important to be dealt with at the moment.

In a joint statement released at the beginning of the conference, the City and SALGA said;

“The issue of the link between the way climate change will impact on Africa and the political implications thereof is a burning one. The ongoing xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals in South Africa have prompted even further need for the urgency of this special session to look at climate change and forced migration.”

With an increase of floods, drought, famine and the like in much of the middle band of Africa, many people are heading south to find a better way of life. It is not just, as the news has so often painted it, an escape from political instability, but an escape from the raging climate.

“One of the actions taken by the city to deal with the influx [people from other countries] is the establishment of a migrant helpdesk to provide legal migrants and asylum seekers with information on basic services such as housing, education and healthcare in the city,” SALGA Chairperson and Executive Mayor of Johannesburg, Councillor Amos Masondo told the summit at the Nasrec exhibition centre.

For a full report of what took place, make sure to head on over to the City of Johannesburg’s report here.

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Photo courtesy of The City of Johannesburg

New research from Mediamark Research and Intelligence has released the results of a study, based on interviews conducted with approximately 26,000 US adults, that suggests those 2% of people who are self-described “Green Advocates” are also among the most tech savvy.

Over the past few years, as the environmental movement has grown online, so has a new wave of “journalism”. I quote that word because there are some journalists out there who will resent the opinion that they are lobbed in a group with, say, me. However there are, at the moment, three groups of people that are, sadly, often misrepresented as only two; and this is where the problem occurs.

In fact, in time, it will once again revert back to two groups, but for the moment we have traditional journalists, web journalists, and bloggers. We at Green Options are not bloggers, we are web journalists, but we often get tagged as bloggers, those 13 year old boys in their parents basement decrying to the world that their parents don’t understand them.

My point is though that with this revolution in reporting, thanks to the internet, coupled with a group of people who are technologically savvy, the environmental movement has grown.

“Although they tend to be a relatively older group, Green Advocates are more likely to embrace technology than the other Green consumer segments, as well as than the adult population as a whole,” said Anne Marie Kelly, Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Planning at MRI. “They are opinion leaders who research and read product reviews before buying new technology. And they are 65% more likely to give technology product advice about what they’ve learned to others.”

Sadly, hidden beneath this wonderful linkage between technology and environmental advocacy, is the fact that according to the MRI study, 46.4% of Americans are “UnGreen”, while another 10.6% are only “Green at the Supermarket” and 18.2% “Green in Theory”.

For the report in PDF form, click here.

This hypocritical posturing by a man, who is now less than a lame-duck president, comes in response to a bill that will be up for debate much of this week in the US Senate. The bill calls for legislation that will cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by approximately 70% by 2050, from power plants, refineries and transportation.

And though no one really expects the bill to look the same by the end of this week, compared to its introductory stage, both Democrats and Republicans are eager to debate the issue of climate change.

Not surprisingly, outside opposition is already stirring, with news agencies once again looking to the petition created by the late Frederick Seitz in response to the Kyoto Protocol, and reissued in 2007 by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

So far, according to the petition’s website, there are over 31,000 American scientists that have signed the petition. They are agreeing to the statement that ‘The proposed limits on greenhouse gases [proposed by the Kyoto protocol] would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.’

It goes on to state;

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.

Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.’

This petition always creates a lot of news, based on the amount of people that have signed the petition. However we have already seen in the past that not everyone who is listed as having signed a petition has actually done so. Nor can we validate the signees, what their specialty is or anything. For all we know there could be a group of dentists who dislike global warming.

Either way, anyone who claims that there is a consensus of opinion or information on humans creating the current warming climate, is definitely pushing an agenda.

The Center for Biological Conservation was the group who filed a petition on February 17, 2005, asking that the polar bear be listed under the ESA. They have followed the landmark decision approving this petition by adding the three seals for consideration as species under threat. The “landmark” aspect of these decisions is that the polar bear was the first animal to be recognized as threatened as a direct result of climate change.

“While the polar bear may be the first Arctic species listed under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming, it will, unfortunately, not be the last,” says Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Scientists from the Center for Biological Conservation believe that tens of thousands more Arctic species will soon need to be listed as endangered, and other conservationists argue that all species that call the Arctic home for a part of their life cycle be admitted to the ESA.

“Arctic sea ice is melting so rapidly in the face of global warming that every ice-dependent marine mammal is imperilled and needs the protections of the Endangered Species Act,” says Wolf.

However, as with much in the world of environmental news, it is very America biased. This is especially true when it comes to placing the polar bear under the ESA, considering that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) placed the polar bear on its Red List of endangered species back in 2006. Subsequently, they are working up a set of guidelines that nations can use to properly assess the threat posed by climate change to individual species.

The guidelines will cover existing methods such as the using climate models to decipher where the animal will need to travel too to enjoy conditions necessary for its continued existence. However these methods do not include other threats like poaching or deforestation. Subsequently, any one species could suffer much more than predicted by the IUCN’s current program.

“So you might expect that an animal’s environmental niche will be much reduced but if it’s in 50 years and it’s something like a mouse [with a short generation time] then it couldn’t be red listed under current criteria,” says Lera Miles, senior programme officer at the UN Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

Wendy Foden of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature agreed. “The current system won’t fail it, but it won’t catch it as early on its decline as we’d like.”

Thankfully Foden and her colleagues are working on a second way of assessing the future threat to individual species at the hands of climate change. “We are working with life history traits –if a species has very specific requirements, how will those be affected by climate change?” says Foden.

But as much as providing these guidelines will help, there then arises the question of just what can be done to help these species, because as much as we’d like to think it was as easy as banning poaching or hunting, banning climate change is just not a feasible method (though maybe something to look in to).

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credit: scubadive67 at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Take the most recent research funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). According to their report, published in this week’s latest issue of the journal Nature, there was an abrupt release of methane at the end of the Cryogenian period, some 635 million years ago, a period which some believe included a snowball Earth period.

Authors of the study posit that the snowball ice age – a theory that sees the entirety of our planet covered by ice – was slowly receding, but when large pockets of methane from clathrates – methane ice that forms and stabilizes beneath the surface of the ice – begun to escape, the warming abruptly sped up.

“Our findings document an abrupt and catastrophic global warming that led from a very cold, seemingly stable climate state to a very warm, also stable, climate state–with no pause in between,” said geologist Martin Kennedy of the University of California at Riverside (UCR), who led the research team.

“What we now need to know is the sensitivity of the trigger,” he said. “How much forcing does it take to move from one stable state to the other–and are we approaching something like that today with current carbon dioxide warming.”

This latter comment shines a light in to the fears of many environmental and climate scientists. Because the fact of the matter is that we simply do not know what is happening, what will happen, and at what point everything will just tip over and go to hell in a handbasket.

The transition “…from ’snowball Earth’ into a warmer period shows the compelling need for research on abrupt climate change in Earth’s history,” said H. Richard Lane, program director in NSF’s Division of Earth Sciences. “These changes have much to tell us about the modern human-induced threat of rapid climate change.”

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Photo Credit: NASA

The US Climate Change Science Program is a US governmental body set up to coordinate, not surprisingly, climate change research. The program has subsequently brought together 38 scientists from government, academia and conservation groups, and has spent the past 2 years reviewing available data in an attempt to pinpoint the effects of climate change on the US.

Their conclusion is that the US is not adequately prepared to measure the changes as they are occurring, and subsequently land managers are having a harder time mounting a reasonable and effective response.

“The fact is, we’re seeing lots of effects and impacts right now. These effects appear to be happening faster than expected, and the magnitude is bigger than expected. That’s a surprise,” says Anthony Janetos, an ecologist who directs the Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Maryland, and one of the lead authors on the report.

Much has been made over the past six to twelve months about the early arrival of the spring growing season, timing of bird migrations, and the warmer conditions resulting in many plants and animals moving northward. In addition, with climate change altering precipitation patterns, much of the eastern US has become wetter, while the west has had the opposite effect.

According to Janetos, the main problem is that scientists gather ecological information from left right and center. For example, data on forest growth, weather patterns, and changing land use all come from different sources. This makes it increasingly difficult for biologists and land managers to identify the most critical of problems, and whether any of their efforts towards change are even working.

According to Janetos, “we need [integrated ecological monitoring systems] as soon as possible.”

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credit: woodleywonderworks at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

And while the mark we leave upon the environment by adding to it, through our increased carbon emissions, is increasingly important and, sadly, dire, what we take away from the environment is just as crucial.

So thanks to KeepGreenGoing, “a blog developed for anyone who wants to become more environmentally friendly,” I was pointed to the “individual water footprint” calculator at WaterFootprint.org.

Similar to the carbon footprint, ones water footprint is made up of the water that is required to produce the goods and services that one consumes. The calculator asks you to measure statistics such as how much cereal or meat you use, how many cups of coffee or tea you have per day, how many showers you have each day, and many more.

How much meat you use may seem like an incongruous question to ask though, when you’re dealing with water. Sure there is the water that the cows or chickens drink, but beyond that…? Well according to the stats, a kilogram of beef requires 16,000 liters of water, whereas to produce 1 cup of coffee, 140 liters of water is needed.

So head along to WaterFootPrint.org to take your own water footprint test, and see how much water you are taking away from the planet.

credit: PoppyW at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

The Canadian military recently made what it called a “sovereignty patrol” of its Arctic territory. Joined by scientists, they found major new fractures far in to Canada’s claimed Arctic region. The team found a network of cracks that stretch for more than 10 miles on Ward Hunt, the region’s largest ice-shelf.

“I was astonished to see these new cracks.It means the ice shelf is disintegrating, the pieces are pinned together like a jigsaw but could float away,” Dr Derek Mueller of Trent University, Ontario, explained.

The future of these giant ice-shelves is seen as key indicators of climate change.

Dr Luke Copland of the University of Ottawa agrees, noting that the new cracks fit in to a continuing pattern of change in the Arctic. “We’re seeing very dramatic changes,” he said, “from the retreat of the glaciers, to the melting of the sea ice. We had 23% less (sea ice) last year than we’ve ever had, and what’s happening to the ice shelves is part of that picture.”

Not surprisingly, this new discovery will take a backseat to the more publically popular sea-ice extent, which last summer saw the full opening of the Northwest Passage. And though the maximum extent of the sea-ice this winter just passed was greater than the year before, it was still well below the long-term average. In addition, it has left behind very young ice, ice that is not going to withstand much in the way of temperature battering.

Photo credit: dsearls at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

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In reality, climatologists and scientists alike are all unanimous in reiterating their number one rule; single events do not prove anything.

However single events aside, it has appeared that over the past decades hurricanes in the North Atlantic have been growing stronger and more frequent. The majority of researchers agree that since the 1950’s hurricanes have increased over the Atlantic and since the 80’s they have subsequently become stronger.

Those attempting to link global warming to hurricanes via the increase in ocean surface temperature – a key factor in hurricanes – have failed to explain, however, why this seems only to be occurring in the North Atlantic, and not in any other ocean basins.

Now, a new study by way of Tom Knutson and colleagues at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, US, has turned conventional theory on its head.

Knutson built a computer model to simulate the formation of storms and hurricanes in the North Atlantic, based on sea-surface temperatures and atmospheric conditions from the past 25 years. The model followed pretty closely the patterns observed over the time period the information had been gathered from, predicting 162 storms as opposed to the official 143 recorded.

However when it came time to plugging in predictions of how the surface temperature will rise, the model simulated fewer tropical storms and fewer hurricanes. By 2100 the computer model predicted that the Atlantic would see a drop of 27% in tropical storms and a drop of 18% in hurricanes.

“This study does not support the idea there is a large increasing trend [in hurricanes] due to greenhouse warming,” says Knutson.

The model also predicted that in the fewer hurricanes that do emerge, their intensity will increase on average. But Knutson is suitably cautions about his findings. “We don’t want to take it quantitatively too seriously because it’s not simulating stronger storms very well,” he says. Nonetheless, he adds, “it gives more support to the idea that in the tropics in general, hurricanes will be slightly more intense and have more rainfall.”

A rather large flaw however has emerged in the findings, which has led many to have major issues with Knutson’s findings. In the predicted 162 storms and in storms for the future century, not a single one was categorized over 3. When considering that we have seen many very strong storms lash the Atlantic these past decades, it seems hard to take the rest of Knutson’s work with any validity.

Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, US, describes this as “a major shortcoming.” “In this study there is a suggestion that the strongest storms increase, but the model never simulates them in the first place,” Trenberth says. “It could be grossly in error for the strongest storms, which are the ones that do most damage.”

Source

Image: view of the eyewall of Hurricane Katrina taken on Aug. 28, 2005, as seen from a NOAA P-3 hurricane hunter aircraft before the storm made landfall on the United States Gulf Coast. (Source: NOAA) via Flickr

Added to the ESA list on Wednesday, the polar bears will finally receive a measure of official attention and protection, albeit a little late. However, joining the environmental awareness last Wednesday, South Florida water managers agreed to spend a year looking at how the melting ice that is doing in the polar bear, may be a similarly dangerous problem for South Florida.

The South Florida Water Management District once had anticipated for a maximum sea level rise of only 1 foot by 2100. However more recent projections have greatly increased that, by up to 5 times.

Back in late April the Miami-Dade County Climate Change Task Force presented a report that suggested a three-foot rise in sea level could send a high tide well in to downtown Miami, whereas a five-foot rise would swallow up much of the Everglades.

But the problem isn’t consigned to flooding, with the possibility that a sea level rise could infiltrate the states drinking water. This, according to Jayantha Obeysekera, who will lead the district’s global warming review. “We cannot put up walls and stop the sea level,” Obeysekera said. “Let’s start looking at it [and] see what our vulnerabilities are.”

Carol Ann Wehle, executive director of the agency noted that a rise of only 2 feet could cause problems for the system of drainage canals that rely heavily upon gravity to keep South Florida dry.

Needless to say, a sea level rise of any magnitude is not going to make for a happy South Florida.

Image courtesy of US EPA