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Global warming will be the death of us all, a slow and painful death caused by the terminal boredom evoked by politicians disagreeing on the fine print of carbon emissions trading.

Much more interesting news is that Canadian scientists are trying to breed a new type of cow that burps less.

As cows are responsible for nearly three-quarters of global methane emissions, and as bovine burps produce a gas about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide greenhouse gas, this gives the planet hope.

The Canadians, led by Professor Stephen Moore, at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, are examining the genes responsible for methane produced from the stomachs of a cow (all four of them) in order to breed more efficient, environmentally friendly animals.

Some tests, using traditional techniques to breed efficient cows, have already been completed with resulting cows producing 25 per cent less methane than less efficient animals. More work has to be done before any long-term impact and implications can be predicted.

Moore's study was published in early 2009 in the Journal of Animal Science.
news.com.au; image: www.digitalworldtokyo.com

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Environment

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Would Christ have wept?

March 22nd 2009 20:48

The spectacled eider duck

Mary Colwell is a Catholic lay activist and environmentalist. About 15 years ago she went deep into the Arctic to film the spectacled eider duck, a rare species which lives all year round above the Arctic Circle. While other birds fly south for winter, it spends the dark months, as Colwell describes it, "sitting in the middle of the frozen Baring Sea".

It is an inspiring creature.

In filming the spectacled eider, Colwell stayed on a remote Arctic island favoured as a breeding ground. She captured images of a female brood with her clutch of eggs, and later filmed the ducklings waddling into the Arctic Ocean, the start of an isolated life free of some of the more disturbing influences of the planet, such as humans.

A few years later, Colwell telephoned the man who owned the island to ask how the ducks were doing, and was deeply shaken by his terrible response. During a check on the four females that regularly nest on his island, he had found all four had been shot sitting on the nest. The bodies had not been taken for food; neither had feathers or eggs been removed. The mothers, sitting on their eggs, had been shot for sport.

Colwell writes, "I put the phone down and wept, not just for the wickedness of the people who had carried out this callous act of violence but for the senseless loss of magnificent creatures."

Since then, Mary Colwell has been posing a question to everyone from lay Catholics to Church leaders. The question is this, "If Christ had been walking over that island and found those dead ducks, would he have wept? Not just for the people who had killed animals, but for the loss of the ducks themselves?"

Overwhelmingly, she says, the answer to that question from the lay community is “yes”, but the hierarchy is split, with many saying, “No, Christ wouldn’t weep over that which is not human.”

. o O o .

This story is a small part of an article about broader environmental issues generally and, particularly, the World Social Forum highlighting the Amazon’s diversity, held in Brazil on January 27 to February 1 this year. The full article can be read here.

Image: www.ducks.org and www.garykramer.net

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Animals, Environment, Religion

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We support emissions trading! Whatever that means

July 30th 2008 09:39

Picture: graphico.free.fr/hfr/pollution.jpg

According to two recent polls, most Australians favour an emissions trading scheme, but at the same time most don't know what it means.

So let's first look at what it is. Emissions trading is a tool in the fight against pollution. It aims to encourage the reduction of emissions by offering incentives to do so. Different emissions trading schemes can be set up for different pollutants: greenhouse gases, carbon etc.

In practice, a government or regulatory authority sets a cap on the total carbon, say, that can be emitted in an area such as a state or a country in one year. Based on that total, companies and other producers of pollution are allocated individual annual allowances. Any company which plans to produce less emissions than its allocation can sell the excess. Any company which needs to produce more emissions than its allocation needs to buy more allocations.

The buying and selling is done on an exchange, like the stockmarket.

Such a scheme is thought to have advantages over alternative methods of controlling emissions, such as a direct tax, because, in theory, those that can easily reduce emissions most cheaply will do so, achieving the pollution reduction at the lowest possible cost to society.

So what is to stop Australia pushing ahead with these positive plans?

Firstly, emissions trading has its detractors, with arguments especially about complexity of such schemes and about goals and caps. Secondly, the issue is politically sensitive, with the government wary of a backlash from some voters who are happy to support a good cause until it starts to hit them in the wallet, and from other voters who know nothing about it at all.

That mix can be seen in two Australian polls conducted in July. When asked in general if they supported an emission trading scheme to fight global warming, respondents to a Newspoll replied 61 per cent in favour; when asked if they’d pay to support it, approval dropped to 56 per cent; and when asked if petrol should be exempt, even if it pushed up other prices, opinion was almost evenly divided. Meanwhile, a poll in Melbourne's The Age suggested half the Australian population had either never heard of emissions trading or did not know what it was; and just 7% claimed to know a lot about it.

While action is desperately needed, and while the Australian government has committed to action within two years, this confusion and lack of understanding will make the politicians wary and may compromise the government's stated commitment. One has only to look back to the recent outcry when petrol prices surged. Our elected decision makers, so sensitive to polls of a different kind, will be moving warily.

Which is fair enough, so long as they have the courage to keep moving forward.

Research sources: news.com.au, wikipedia, The Age

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia/NZ/Pacific, Australia, Environment

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Changing Fortune 500

July 12th 2008 10:21

Goodbye Nike, hello China

Hello China indeed. Our heading summarises the 2008 Fortune 500 list, released last Thursday. The iconic sports shoe maker and eight other American companies fell off the list of the world's top 500 companies measured by revenue, cutting the American presence from 162 in 2007 to 153

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Asia, China, Economics, Environment

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Panda tale of survival

July 7th 2008 03:03

Proud mother: Chinese earthquake survivor Guo Guo carries in her mouth one of two giant panda cubs born on July 6

Picture: Xinhua

The first giant panda cubs to be born in captivity in the world so far this year were delivered safely yesterday (Sunday, July 6) in Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, China. The birth of the twins, a happy enough event in its own right, is in fact the end of a dramatic story which could have been tragic.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Asia, China, Environment, Happy Spot

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G8 chatfest under way

July 7th 2008 00:38

Protestors welcome the G8 leaders to this year's meeting

Picture: Reuters

And here is the main news item being reported around the world three days from now: G8 leaders have just concluded a landmark meeting in Japan by signing a series of initiatives which are being hailed as a breakthrough in international willingness to confront climate change.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Asia, Japan, Environment, Leadership

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