Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World's Rainforests
According to the United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organization, overall tropical deforestation rates this decade are 8.5 percent higher than during the 1990s
Pinning down exact numbers is nearly impossible, but most experts agree that we are losing upwards of 80,000 acres of tropical rainforest daily, and significantly degrading another 80,000 acres every day on top of that. Along with this loss and degradation, we are losing some 135 plant, animal and insect species every day—or some 50,000 species a year—as the forests fall.
According to researcher and writer Rhett Butler, who runs the critically acclaimed website, Mongabay.com, tropical rainforests are incredibly rich ecosystems that play a key role in the basic functioning of the planet. They help maintain the climate by regulating atmospheric gases and stabilizing rainfall, and provide many other important ecological functions.
Rainforests are also home to some 50 percent of the world’s species, Butler reports, “making them an extensive library of biological and genetic resources.” Environmentalists also point out that a quarter of our modern pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, but less than one percent of the trees and plants in the tropics have been tested for curative properties.
According to researcher and writer Rhett Butler, who runs the critically acclaimed website, Mongabay.com, tropical rainforests are incredibly rich ecosystems that play a key role in the basic functioning of the planet. They help maintain the climate by regulating atmospheric gases and stabilizing rainfall, and provide many other important ecological functions.
Rainforests are also home to some 50 percent of the world’s species, Butler reports, “making them an extensive library of biological and genetic resources.” Environmentalists also point out that a quarter of our modern pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, but less than one percent of the trees and plants in the tropics have been tested for curative properties.
Scientific American
Adapting To The Freshwater Crisis
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Astronomy
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory investigates the Sun's cycle of highs and lows
Updated: November 19, 2009
How intense will the next solar cycle be? Can we predict when a violent solar storm will blast Earth with energetic particles? Could a prolonged period of inactivity on the Sun plunge Earth into a prolonged winter? These are a few of the questions that scientists anticipate the new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will help to answer.
Scheduled to launch this winter on an Atlas V rocket, SDO will peer into the Sun's atmosphere and probe the Sun's inner workings. SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living With a Star program, which seeks to reveal how solar activity is generated and to understand the causes of solar variability and its impact on Earth.
"Contrary to popular belief, the Sun is a magnetic variable star," Says Madhulika Guhathakurta, lead program scientist for Living With a Star at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "SDO will show us just how variable the Sun really is and will reveal the underlying physics of solar variability."
To accomplish the ambitious goals of the science team, "SDO will take full-disk, high definition images of the Sun all of the time," says project manager Liz Citrin at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Previous missions could not capture images at as rapid a cadence as SDO will, nor did they have the bandwidth to transmit all of the data back to Earth for processing. "These advances will provide the data to better understand how the Sun works and will allow us to develop the tools to predict its behavior."
Where Do Magnetic Fields Come From?
The Sun's magnetic field powers all solar activity. Flows of hot, ionized gases in the Sun's convection zone — the region inside the Sun where hot gas parcels rise and transport energy toward the surface — act as electrical currents to generate the Sun's powerful magnetic fields.
SDO will examine these fields at the surface and infer from where they originate inside the Sun to where they are expressed as active regions, sunspots, and coronal loops, to when they eject particles into space as coronal mass ejections and solar flares.
The goal is to determine how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and to study how stored magnetic energy changes into kinetic energy (the energy of motion) in the form of the solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance. If solar physicists can get a better understanding of the Sun's magnetic field, they can predict how the effects of that field move into the solar system and near-Earth space to create space weather.
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US to step up control of wolf recovery program
Laura Schneberger of the Gila Livestock Growers Association said in a written statement that she hopes the settlement means the service will become stricter in its handling of problem wolves.
"It is our hope that the Fish and Wildlife Service will comply with the original recovery rule that requires removal of wolves that are defined as problem wolves under that rule. Failure to follow the rule has allowed problem wolf behavior to become pack behavior under SOP 13 management," she wrote.
Arizona Game and Fish and the Fish and Wildlife Service said the service had never given up as much control as the environmental groups argued, retaining a final say in wolf management decisions.
Said service spokesman Tom Buckley: "We will continue to examine on a case-by-case basis depredations (of cattle) and decide whether the wolf needs to be removed."
Suit challenges Utah company mining near Grand Canyon - Deseret News
A coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging a Utah company's plans to begin uranium mining operations within 10 miles of Grand Canyon National Park.
The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust claim the Bureau of Land Management is using an old environmental assessment from 1988 in allowing Denison Mines to begin operations at the "Arizona 1" mine.
"The Bureau of Land Management's refusal to redo outdated environmental reviews is as illegal as it is unethical," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It should be eager to protect the Grand Canyon and its endangered species; instead, it has chosen to shirk environmental review on behalf of the uranium industry."
The mine was partially constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s but was closed due to market conditions in 1992 without producing any uranium ore.
New conditions have driven Denison Mines Corp. to seek approval for the mining activity through various regulatory authorities, including the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, which issued an air quality permit that would allow uranium ore mining at a rate of close to 110,000 tons a year, according to the complaint.
The complaint, which also names the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, asserts "the recommencement of uranium exploration and mining operations at the Arizona 1 mine may cause environmental impacts that have never been considered," including consequences to groundwater, fish, wildlife, and threatened and endangered species.
The suit cites violations of National Environmental Policy Act provisions that require the land-management agency to consider new information regarding the hydrology, spring ecology and biodiversity of the area.
Despite the mine's location in the same area that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar placed off-limits to new mining claims and operations earlier this year, the BLM has refused to exercise renewed scrutiny of the corporation's plans.
Salazar's prohibition of new mining activity on more than 1 million acres of federal land near the park says such actions can only occur if they are the result of a valid pre-existing claim in which a "valuable mineral deposit" has been discovered, according to the complaint.
The suit contends that neither the Department of the Interior nor the BLM have bothered to "verify" the existence of mineral deposits and has repeatedly ignored the groups' requests for a new assessment.
Filed in Arizona's federal court, the suit seeks to set aside any authorizations of exploration and mining operations at the mine and a mineral examination report to verify valid existing claims.
The Center for Biological Diversity submitted condemning evidence to the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection today demonstrating that Lake Mead, Las Vegas Bay, and Las Vegas Wash are being polluted by unregulated endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The Center is requesting that the state include these waterbodies on Nevada’s list of impaired waters pursuant to section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act and establish and enforce limitations.
Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that alter the structure or function of the endocrine system, which uses hormones to regulate growth, metabolism, and tissue function. They have been shown to damage reproductive functions and offspring in animals such as birds and alligators, as well as in humans and their babies. Endocrine disruptors are entering Lake Mead’s water at costly concentrations via wastewater effluent and urban and agricultural runoff.
Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States, part of a beloved national recreation area, and the sole source of Las Vegas’ drinking water. It is also federally designated critical habitat for the razorback sucker and home to many other rare species. Unfortunately those vital waters are now being poisoned by endocrine disruptors.
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Watering a Thirsty World [Slide Show]
See how overstretched freshwater supplies will increasingly influence the way we live.
Top 10 Water Wasters: From Washing Dishes to Watering the Desert
The many ways we squander water, from unintentional leaks to outright negligence
Energy versus Water: Solving Both Crises Together
Water is needed to generate energy. Energy is needed to deliver water. Both resources are limiting the other—and both may be running short. Is there a way out?
Drink Up: Taking the Salt Out of Seawater
Removing the salt from briny water is becoming more
iStockphoto
Australia is at the forefront of a global water crisis. Some of the management lessons learned there could help bail out California and other parched regions before they meet the same fate
Tree ring expert Kevin Anchukaitis, of the tree ring lab at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, talks about the information available in tree rings. And Colin Chartres, the director general of the International Water Management Institute, talks to Lynn Peeples about water issues. Plus, we test your knowledge of some recent science in the news, specifically the November issue ofScientific Americanmagazine. Web sites related to this episode include http://snipurl.com/sciamwater; http://snipurl.com/sciamnov
NASA/Trent Schindler and Matt Rodell
A new study using satellite data suggests the region is using more groundwater than is being replenished by rainfall
As the global population grows--and freshwater supplies dwindle--ensuring that everyone has sufficient supplies of life-giving H2O has become an enormous challenge. Here's how to start.
How intense will the next solar cycle be? Can we predict when a violent solar storm will blast Earth with energetic particles? Could a prolonged period of inactivity on the Sun plunge Earth into a prolonged winter? These are a few of the questions that scientists anticipate the new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will help to answer.
Scheduled to launch this winter on an Atlas V rocket, SDO will peer into the Sun's atmosphere and probe the Sun's inner workings. SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living With a Star program, which seeks to reveal how solar activity is generated and to understand the causes of solar variability and its impact on Earth.
"Contrary to popular belief, the Sun is a magnetic variable star," Says Madhulika Guhathakurta, lead program scientist for Living With a Star at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "SDO will show us just how variable the Sun really is and will reveal the underlying physics of solar variability."
To accomplish the ambitious goals of the science team, "SDO will take full-disk, high definition images of the Sun all of the time," says project manager Liz Citrin at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Previous missions could not capture images at as rapid a cadence as SDO will, nor did they have the bandwidth to transmit all of the data back to Earth for processing. "These advances will provide the data to better understand how the Sun works and will allow us to develop the tools to predict its behavior."
Where Do Magnetic Fields Come From?
The Sun's magnetic field powers all solar activity. Flows of hot, ionized gases in the Sun's convection zone — the region inside the Sun where hot gas parcels rise and transport energy toward the surface — act as electrical currents to generate the Sun's powerful magnetic fields.
SDO will examine these fields at the surface and infer from where they originate inside the Sun to where they are expressed as active regions, sunspots, and coronal loops, to when they eject particles into space as coronal mass ejections and solar flares.
The goal is to determine how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and to study how stored magnetic energy changes into kinetic energy (the energy of motion) in the form of the solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance. If solar physicists can get a better understanding of the Sun's magnetic field, they can predict how the effects of that field move into the solar system and near-Earth space to create space weather.
| Record-breaking radio astronomy project to measure sky with extreme precision Close-up movie shows hidden details in the birth of super suns Shuttle Atlantis headed for delivery stop at International Space Station Center for Biological Diversity US to step up control of wolf recovery program Laura Schneberger of the Gila Livestock Growers Association said in a written statement that she hopes the settlement means the service will become stricter in its handling of problem wolves. "It is our hope that the Fish and Wildlife Service will comply with the original recovery rule that requires removal of wolves that are defined as problem wolves under that rule. Failure to follow the rule has allowed problem wolf behavior to become pack behavior under SOP 13 management," she wrote. Arizona Game and Fish and the Fish and Wildlife Service said the service had never given up as much control as the environmental groups argued, retaining a final say in wolf management decisions. Said service spokesman Tom Buckley: "We will continue to examine on a case-by-case basis depredations (of cattle) and decide whether the wolf needs to be removed."Suit challenges Utah company mining near Grand Canyon - Deseret News A coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging a Utah company's plans to begin uranium mining operations within 10 miles of Grand Canyon National Park. The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust claim the Bureau of Land Management is using an old environmental assessment from 1988 in allowing Denison Mines to begin operations at the "Arizona 1" mine. "The Bureau of Land Management's refusal to redo outdated environmental reviews is as illegal as it is unethical," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It should be eager to protect the Grand Canyon and its endangered species; instead, it has chosen to shirk environmental review on behalf of the uranium industry." The mine was partially constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s but was closed due to market conditions in 1992 without producing any uranium ore. New conditions have driven Denison Mines Corp. to seek approval for the mining activity through various regulatory authorities, including the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, which issued an air quality permit that would allow uranium ore mining at a rate of close to 110,000 tons a year, according to the complaint. The complaint, which also names the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, asserts "the recommencement of uranium exploration and mining operations at the Arizona 1 mine may cause environmental impacts that have never been considered," including consequences to groundwater, fish, wildlife, and threatened and endangered species. The suit cites violations of National Environmental Policy Act provisions that require the land-management agency to consider new information regarding the hydrology, spring ecology and biodiversity of the area. Despite the mine's location in the same area that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar placed off-limits to new mining claims and operations earlier this year, the BLM has refused to exercise renewed scrutiny of the corporation's plans. Salazar's prohibition of new mining activity on more than 1 million acres of federal land near the park says such actions can only occur if they are the result of a valid pre-existing claim in which a "valuable mineral deposit" has been discovered, according to the complaint. The suit contends that neither the Department of the Interior nor the BLM have bothered to "verify" the existence of mineral deposits and has repeatedly ignored the groups' requests for a new assessment. Filed in Arizona's federal court, the suit seeks to set aside any authorizations of exploration and mining operations at the mine and a mineral examination report to verify valid existing claims. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that alter the structure or function of the endocrine system, which uses hormones to regulate growth, metabolism, and tissue function. They have been shown to damage reproductive functions and offspring in animals such as birds and alligators, as well as in humans and their babies. Endocrine disruptors are entering Lake Mead’s water at costly concentrations via wastewater effluent and urban and agricultural runoff. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States, part of a beloved national recreation area, and the sole source of Las Vegas’ drinking water. It is also federally designated critical habitat for the razorback sucker and home to many other rare species. Unfortunately those vital waters are now being poisoned by endocrine disruptors. PhysOrg.com - Science Express UCSB physicists move one step closer to quantum computingResearchers discover key to vital DNA, protein interactionMap of Human Bacterial Diversity Shows Wide Interpersonal DifferencesRapid supernova could be new class of exploding starStudy uncovers key to how 'triggering event' in cancer occurs |
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