66 Million U.S. Households are Making a Difference by Buying SC Johnson Products

By using alternative energy to make its products, SC Johnson cuts greenhouse gas emissions associated with products like Pledge(R) and Scrubbing Bubbles(R) that are found in nearly 57 percent of U.S. households 

Last update: 12:34 p.m. EDT Oct. 17, 2008 

RACINE, Wis., Oct 17, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Innovation isn't just the hallmark of SC Johnson's products, it's also fundamental to how its products are made. That's why when consumers reach for a can of Pledge(R) furniture polish produced with green energy, or a Ziploc(R) bag made with wind power, they can feel good knowing their purchase is from a company that's doing what's right for people and the planet. 

In fact, one in every two U.S. households(1) is making a difference by using an SC Johnson product around their home, such as Windex(R), Pledge(R), Ziploc(R), Glade(R), Raid(R) or Scrubbing Bubbles(R), all of which are made using renewable energy. That's nearly 57 percent of U.S. households -- or 66.2 million families -- making a difference when they buy SC Johnson products.

 

This important point of difference is highlighted in a new advertisement from SC Johnson, featuring company Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson. The ad highlights the company's innovative use of clean and efficient alternative energy sources at its manufacturing operations in Michigan and Wisconsin, and in Medan, Indonesia. "We're reducing greenhouse gases all over the world," Johnson says in the 30-second television spot airing in the United States. "So when you reach for Windex(R), Pledge(R), or any SC Johnson product, you can feel good about it."

 

Among the alternative energy innovations highlighted in the ad are:

 

• SC Johnson's use of wind power electricity for its Bay City, Michigan factory that produces Ziploc(R) brand products, a move that replaces almost half the factory's annual purchase of coal-fired electricity and helps keep 29,500 tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere annually.
  
  
• Its use of cogeneration turbines to produce green energy utilizing methane piped in from a local public landfill as well as natural gas. SC Johnson's cogeneration turbines generate the entire average daily base-load electrical demand of its largest global plant, in Racine, Wisconsin.
  
  
• The company's construction in Medan, Indonesia of an innovative burner/boiler system that runs on palm shells, the remaining waste of the palm oil industry. By transferring this former waste product into a fuel source, the system has cut greenhouse gas emissions at the Medan factory by more than 15 percent and reduced use of diesel fuel by 60 percent.
  

 

As reported in the company's 2008 Public Report, available at http://www.scjohnson.com, these are just some of SC Johnson's efforts in support of its 2011 environmental objectives, which include sourcing 40 percent of global electricity from renewable energy and cutting greenhouse gas emissions from all worldwide factories by 12 percent versus 2000 -- a goal already achieved in 2008.

For more details and a historical snapshot of SC Johnson's environmental legacy, visit http://www.scjohnson.com

 

About SC Johnson: SC Johnson is a family-owned and managed business dedicated to innovative, high-quality products, excellence in the workplace and a long-term commitment to the environment and the communities in which it operates. Based in the USA, the company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of household cleaning products and products for home storage, air care, personal care and insect control. It markets such well-known brands as EDGE(R), GLADE(R), OFF!(R), PLEDGE(R), RAID(R), SCRUBBING BUBBLES(R), SHOUT(R), WINDEX(R) and ZIPLOC(R) in the U.S. and beyond, with brands marketed outside the U.S. including AUTAN(R), BAYGON(R), BRISE(R), ECHO(R), KABIKILLER(R), KLEAR(R), and MR. MUSCLE(R). The 122-year old company, with more than $8 billion in sales, employs approximately 12,000 people globally and sells products in more than 110 countries. Learn more at http://www.scjohnson.com

 

(1) Source: Nielsen Homescan Panel, Total U.S., 7/1.07 - 6/28/08

SOURCE SC Johnson  http://www.scjohnson.com

One-metre sea-level rise this century, scientists say

Berlin (ANTARA News) - Global warming calculations have been too optimistic, and the sea level round the globe is likely to rise a full metre this century, two senior German scientists warned Wednesday.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who heads the Potsdam Institute for Research on Global Warming Effects and Jochem Marotzke, a leading meteorologist, said UN-backed data on climate change, predicting a rise of 18 to 59 centimetres, was out of date.

"We now have to expect that the sea level will rise by a metre this century," Schellnhuber was quoted by DPA as saying in Berlin.

He said international plans to limit the rise in average global temperatures to just 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, mainly by limiting growth in carbon dioxide emissions, were only achievable with enormous effort.

Schnellnhuber, who is official adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate-change issues, said the new findings employed data unavailable to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for its most recent global warming report.

The two experts said the IPCC report had been based on data up to 2005 only, but since then ice loss in the Arctic had doubled or tripled.

Schnellhuber charged that 20 per cent of the loss of the ice sheet on Greenland could be directly linked to the added carbon dioxide emissions from new Chinese coal-fired power stations.

Google whips out $4.4 trillion clean-energy plan

Atlanta Business Chronicle 

Google.org, the philanthropic unit of search giant Google Inc., publicized a $4.4 trillion plan to wean the United States off fossil fuels by 2030. 

Giant Google’s curiosity, which seems as boundless as the Internet its algorithms search, extends into nearly every area of human endeavor. Though it makes most of its money from advertising it is interested in nearly every subject, and presented this proposal as a straw-man, meant to stimulate policy debate. 

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), based in Mountain View, Calif., calls in the proposal for a 38-percent cut in oil used for vehicle fuel. “Technologies and know-how to accomplish this are either available today or are under development,” the proposal, by Jeffery Greenblatt, says. 

It also urges greater use of nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal sources of power. 

According to Google, the plan would cost about $4.4 trillion but over 22 years would save a net of about $1 trillion while creating new jobs. 

The details of the plan call for: 

• Improved electrical energy efficiency, which will counteract growth in demand and also the expected demand from plug-in electric cars.
  
• Replacing all electrical power generation that uses coal and oil for fuel. About half of electrical generation from natural gas would also be replaced, all with renewable sources like wind — both on and offshore — solar and geothermal.
  
• Raising standard car fuel efficiency from 31 mpg to 45 mpg.
  
• Increasing use of plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars.
  
• Replacing cars in business fleets faster.
  

To achieve these goals, Greenblatt says, the country will have to improve electrical transmission capacity and invest in research to make renewable energy cheap and ubiquitous. Mileage standards for cars will have to be raised, and infrastructure like charging stations for electric vehicles will have to be encouraged and built.

 

Google’s proposal assumes that electricity demand can be kept flat at the 2008 level, rather than growing by a quarter by 2030. The proposal claims “ample proof” that this is possible, citing research studies and the experience of states, plus a McKinsey & Co. report — Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost, published last December.

 

 

Donors pledge $6.1 billion to climate change funds

Washington (ANTARA News/Reuters) - Industrialized countries pledged more than $6.1 billion on Friday to international investment funds aimed at helping developing countries adopt cleaner technologies and mitigate growth in greenhouse gas emissions, the World Bank said.

 

The first projects to benefit from grants, highly concessional loans and loan guarantee instruments from the Climate Investment Funds are expected to be announced in early 2009, the World Bank said.

 

Representatives of 10 countries -- Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland Britain and the United States -- attended a donor conference hosted by the bank on Friday.

 

The United States has pledged $2 billion over three years, while Britain announced a commitment of 800 million pounds ($1.47 billion). Japan pledged up to $1.2 billion.

 

"These funds are all about demonstrating that low-carbon development and climate resilient development can happen," Andrew Steer, director general at Britain's Department for International Development, said in a statement. "They will allow us to get on with helping developing countries with their efforts on climate action."

 

Two trust funds are being created under the Climate Investment Funds, which will be administered by the World Bank and by multilateral development banks.

 

The Clean Technology Fund will invest in projects and programs in developing countries that contribute to the demonstration, deployment, and transfer of low-carbon technologies. The projects or programs must have a significant potential for long-term greenhouse gas savings.

 

The idea behind this fund, promoted heavily by U.S.

 

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, was to bridge the cost gap between newer, cleaner technologies, such as wind farms in the power sector, and cheaper, but older and dirtier technologies, such as coal-fired power plants.

 

The second fund, the Strategic Climate Fund, will be broader and more flexible in scope. It will serve as an overarching fund for various programs to test innovative approaches to climate change.

 

The first program under the strategic fund will work with several developing countries to study and develop strategies for dealing with the current effects of climate change, such as drought, tidal surges and agricultural problems. The research will help these countries better prepare for climate change in their future development, the World Bank said.

Call to Arms for an American-Led Green Revolution

Fernando Ariza/The New York Times 

When the Soviet Union chucked Sputnik into space in 1957, it galvanized America to come from behind and win the space race. The federal government opened its checkbook to finance an array of projects. Students shifted to new subjects like astronautical engineering and Russian studies to help the United States understand and eclipse the Soviet Union. The moon shot inspired a patriotic nation and produced useful commercial technologies along the way. The space race was expensive, but it worked. 

Thomas L. Friedman’s latest book is a plea for a new Sputnik moment. His breezy tour of America’s energy policy documents a nation that has become dangerously dependent on fossil fuels. The bulging bank accounts of oil exporters like Russia, Iran and Venezuela give them the swagger and ability to cause lots of mischief. 

Even more worrisome is all the carbon dioxide that comes from burning fossil fuels, not just oil but also coal and, to a lesser degree, natural gas. Since carbon dioxide pollution accumulates in the atmosphere, humans are recklessly changing the climate. The United States’ record is particularly poor because we are, per capita, among the biggest gulpers of oil and belchers of carbon dioxide. The need for American leadership has never been greater. 

And if all that’s not bad enough, Mr. Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, shows that the economic opportunities created by a technology-driven world where the economic playing field has been leveled are making these trends a lot worse. The stunning growth of Asia’s tiger economies, especially China’s, has been a miracle for the world’s industrial output but a horror for the environment.

Read More ....

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Life in the Balance: Coral Reefs Are Declining

Government Report Says Pollution and Climate Changes Threaten Coral Reefs

ABC News, CLAYTON SANDELL, July 7, 2008

Coral reefs — a key element in ocean ecosystems that provide not only coastline protection but billions of dollars in benefits from tourism, as well as ingredients used in cutting-edge medicines — are increasingly threatened from the effects of global warming and other hazards, according to a new U.S. government report.

The report estimates that nearly half of the coral reefs in areas from the Caribbean to the Pacific "are not in good condition and are continuing steadily on a long-term decline."

A gov't report estimates that nearly half of the coral reefs in areas from the Caribbean to the Pacific are threatened by climate change, pollution and tropical storms. (Getty Images)

"It's a pretty alarming situation," said Jeannette Waddell, the report's co-editor and a marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Ocean Service. "Coral reefs around the world are confronted by the same types of threats. In some places it is worse. In some places, it's slightly better.

 

But we're finding that even remote reefs are showing signs of decline," she told ABC News. The NOAA report looked at the health of coral reefs in 15 areas under the jurisdiction of the United States and a group of countries called the Pacific Freely Associated States, which include Palau, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.

 

First, warmer ocean temperatures cause corals to expel the colorful living algae in their tissues, leaving them with a "bleached" white look.

 

"It really stresses out the coral and makes them more susceptible to things like disease," Waddell said.

 

A major bleaching and disease event in 2005 devastated coral reefs across the Caribbean. In the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, scientists say an average of 50 percent of the coral was lost. Some areas lost 90 percent of their coral.

 

Another problem for corals is that human-induced climate change is altering the chemistry of the oceans, making them more acidic. It happens as fossil fuels are burned, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Much of that carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, which becomes more corrosive.

 

"If the ocean continues to acidify, it's possible that it would preclude corals from growing, because they won't be able to draw the nutrients and elements out of the water that they need to create the structures that they produce as coral colonies," Waddell said. "It's also possible that ocean acidification may become so extreme that it may begin to dissolve the corals that already exist, which would spell disaster for costal communities."

 

A 1997 report in the science journal Nature estimated that the resources and economic benefits derived from coral reefs are worth $375 billion a year.

 

"Coral reefs only cover about one percent of the world's surface, but they are a very diverse and important environment or ecosystem," said Mark Monaco, a marine biologist with NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science.

 

"They provide us fisheries, they provide us culture from the cultural resources, they provide us pharmaceuticals, and they provide us protection from storm events," he told ABC News.

 

In areas that have been hit by severe tsunamis, experts point out that damage is usually less severe in places with intact coral reefs just offshore.

 

Some corals have recently gotten better protections from the federal government. In 2006, two coral species were designated as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.

 

Climate change isn't the only threat to coral reefs. Tropical storms, coastal pollution, even boats and their anchors are serious concerns.

 

"The declining conditions that we're seeing is exacerbated by having a number of threats work together to cause the decline," Waddell said.

 

The report — the work of 270 contributors — is being presented today at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

 

"I think if we don't change the way we're going with these reef ecosystems we can't expect them to get better," Monaco says. "So we're going to have to make some hard choices — society-wise, political-wise, economic-wise — to protect these ecosystems."

 

The Time Is Now, Climate Experts Warn

Jessica Marshall, Discovery News

 

June 27, 2008 -- Earlier this week, renowned NASA climate scientist James Hansen warned Congress of the dangers of climate change, exactly 20 years after he did so for the first time.

 

The message he delivered was almost the same as it was in 1988, but there was one key difference: "The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb," he said.

 

Hansen's message painted a stark and urgent picture of a world already past the point where significant damage would occur. Discovery News wanted to know if other scientists shared his view. Are we really in for it and at what point? What are our options for avoiding the worst?

 

Earth's Carbon Budget

 

Hansen argued this week that the "safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million), and it may be less." This recommended level is less than the amount currently in the atmosphere -- 385 ppm. It may also be less than the commonly discussed stabilization target of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) of temperature increase, which probably corresponds to an atmospheric CO2 concentration of about 350-400 ppm.

 

Already, he argued, arid lands are expanding, glaciers are receding, and Arctic sea ice is shrinking, driven by cycles of positive feedback, where melting leads to more warming of the exposed dark ocean water, which leads to more melting.

"As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases, the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer," Hansen said.

 

To forest ecologist Lee Frelich at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Hansen's argument that a lower stabilization target is safer makes sense.

 

"If you look at the paleological record, in the last interglacial period 110,000 to 120,000 years ago, the world was thought to have a climate that was two degrees warmer than today," Frelich said. "The oceans were 20 to 25 feet higher, but CO2 was only 290 ppm. I've always thought that if a CO2 content of 290 could cause that, why won't it do it now? Maybe there's just a lag time."

 

"I'm sympathetic to a more aggressive goal," said glaciologist Jay Zwally of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The goal that people have adopted of keeping it to a total of two degrees [Celsius] rise since the preindustrial is still going to allow enough warming that we'll have an even more significant impact than we've already seen," he said.

 

While other scientists agree that 350 ppm is a safer target that increases the likelihood we will avoid many of the negative effects of climate change, some also think it's unrealistic.

 

"Three hundred and fifty is impossible," said climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. "We're going to overshoot 350 and 450 and probably 550, though I sure hope not."

 

Schneider's hope is that while it might still be 20 years before actions to reduce CO2 emissions really have an effect, innovations over the next two decades will make it possible to dramatically reduce emissions.

 

"My cynical scenario is that there will be more Katrinas, massive fires, melting of the Arctic, and people will say, 'Oh my God, what have we done. We'd better undo this,'" he said. Such catastrophes could finally spark the dramatic change that's needed, he suggests, if we don't take action sooner of our own accord.

Read More ....

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Honda to mass produce and lease FCX Clarity fuel-cell car

June 16th, 2008 by Peter, Product Reviews

 

Honda have announced that they are to mass produce their FCX Clarity fuel-cell car, they hope to be able to do this within the next ten years. Honda, who are Japans second largest automaker after Toyota, are looking for ways to meet public demand for more fuel efficient car models, and they might just have the answer with the Honda FCX Clarity.

Honda President Takeo Fukui, has said “If we can bring costs down by a certain amount, I think we can start mass-production.” Honda have now started production of these more environmentally friendly cars today, and hope to be able to lease at least 200 of these FCX Clarity’s vehicles in the US and Japan over the next three years. Honda already have five customers for these new vehicles in the US.

According to Bloomberg, the Honda FCX Clarity will be available in California, US, in the beginning of July as they already have plans for a range of hydrogen fueling stations across the state. This new Honda has a top speed of 105 miles per hours, which is more than fast enough, well we are not meant to drive that fast anyway.

 

Honda along with a number of other major automakers are now adding a number of new low-pollution models to their car range, like fuel-cell and gasoline-electric hybrids. These hybrids had a slow start as the public did not know much about this new kind of technology. However; as the price of oil is increasing almost every day, hybrid cars is a technology that is growing fast and this technology will only get better.

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RI`s first lady gets UN Award for Promoting Tree Planting Movement

New York (ANTARA News) - Indonesian First Lady Ani Yudhoyono got an award from the United Nations for promoting the planting of millions of trees in Indonesia as part of the Billion Tree Planting Campaign spearheaded by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agro-forestry Center (ICRAF).

In addition to the First Lady, UNEP also awarded the Indonesian forestry minister for supporting the global tree planting activities

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner presented certificates of appreciation called "Certificate of Global Leadership" to the First Lady and the forestry minister, who were represented by Dana Kartakusuma, Staff Expert of the Environmental Affairs Minister, at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

"The award from UNEP is encouragement for Indonesia to work harder and intensify tree planting activities to prevent natural disasters such as floods, erosion, and landslides which often hit the country," Dana told ANTARA News.

Indonesia has at least planted 86 million trees as part of the global campaign to fight climate change.

The Billion Tree Planting Campaign, a unique worldwide tree planting initiative, aimed at empowering citizens to corporations and people up to presidents to embrace the climate change challenge, has now set its sights on planting seven billion trees.

UNEP reported that the Billion Tree Campaign has in just 18 months catalyzed the planting of two billion trees, double its original target.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, said "When the Billion Tree Campaign was launched at the Climate Convention meeting in Nairobi in 2006, no one could have imagined it could have flowered so fast and so far. But it has given expression to the frustrations but also the hopes of millions of people around the world".

"Having exceeded every target that has been set for the campaign, we are now calling on individuals, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments to evolve this initiative onto a new and even higher level by the crucial climate change conference in Copenhagen in late 2009," he said.

"In 2006 we wondered if a billion tree target was too ambitious; it was not. The goal of two billion trees has also proven to be an underestimate. The goal of planting seven billion trees - equivalent to just over a tree per person alive on the planet `must therefore also be do-able given the campaign`s extraordinary track record and the self-evident worldwide support," he added.

The Billion Tree Campaign has become a practical expression of private and public concern over global warming.

Heads of state including the presidents of Indonesia, the Maldives, Mexico, Turkey and Turkmenistan as well as businesses; cities; faith, youth and community groups have enthusiastically taken part. Individuals have accounted for over half of all participants.

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Sinking without trace: Australia's climate change victims

Like Kiribati and Tuvalu, the islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged. But unlike their Pacific neighbours, the plight of their inhabitants is being overlooked.

The Independent, KATHY MARKS, Monday, 5 May 2008

Ron and Maria Passi, who operate Murray Island's only taxi, were out driving the night the king tide struck. Neighbours flagged them down, asking for help, and so it was not until some time later that they saw their own grandchildren standing in the road. "They were shouting 'Granddad, stop the car, the water is coming in the house'," says Ron. "I just slammed on the brakes."

Masig Island, one of the low-lying islands of the Torres Strait - Kathy Marks

The couple's son, Sonny, was outside his fibro shack with his five children, watching the monster surf, lashed by north-west winds, rise ever higher. In the commotion, everyone had forgotten that Sedoi, the baby, was still inside. They heard her crying and found her in her cot, covered in sand. Water had surged in after a wave picked up a big wooden pallet and flung it through the front wall.

No one on Murray had ever seen such a high tide before. Other islands in the Torres Strait, which lies between the far north-eastern tip of the Australian mainland and Papua New Guinea, have witnessed similar scenes in recent years. Houses, roads and graveyards have been flooded, and the locals believe they know the reason: climate change.

The low-lying islands that dot the sparkling waters of this region are facing similar challenges to South Pacific nations such as Kiribati and Tuvalu. But while the plight of those countries is well known and is regularly discussed in the international arena, few people outside Australia have even heard of the Torres Strait. Even Australians would have difficulty locating it on the map, and the remote islands – accessible only by light plane – receive few visitors.

Read More ....

Long-awaited electric sports car rolls out

CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- It's safe to say Jeremy Snyder gets a charge out of the two-seat Tesla Roadster whenever he pulls one off the lot, and not because it's equipped with an all-electric engine.

 

As he pulled one of the sleek new automobiles down a side street Thursday and put the pedal to the metal, its lithium-ion battery-powered engine didn't give off sparks. It just emitted a powerful hum, like a much quieter version of a jet taking off.

 

"Accelerate pretty good?" asked Snyder, head of client services for Tesla, who knew the answer.

 

"I call it a turbine sound," he said of the sound. "Because it's an electric motor, it's got 100 percent torque all the time. So it just pulls you like when you're taking off in an airplane."

After several years of development, the Roadster -- with sleek lines like a Ferrari or Porsche and a sticker price of $109,000 -- moves from the drawing boards to the market next week when Tesla's first store opens. It's near the University of California, Los Angeles, in the city's tony Westwood neighborhood, where Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood practically intersect.

 

"Because it's Hollywood and glamorous, this is the flagship store," Snyder said.

 

The next store is to open in a couple months near Tesla's headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of San Carlos, where the car was developed with venture capital of more than $40 million from such investors as Google Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. More stores are planned for Chicago, New York and other cities by early next year.

 

Although a fully loaded model can set a buyer back as much as $124,000, that's still cheap compared with a high-end Ferrari. And its 6,831-cell lithium-ion battery pack gives off no emissions.

 

The car goes from 0 to 60 mph in just under four seconds and tops out at 125 mph. It goes 225 miles on one charge and can be fully recharged in 3½ hours, which Tesla officials say should allow most people to drive it to work and back and recharge it at night like a cell phone.

 

Driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, however, would require stopping in, say, Fresno and plugging its adapter cord into a motel room wall socket.

 

Some critics have expressed concerns about the durability and safety of the lithium-ion battery, which weighs about 1,000 pounds, more than a third of the entire weight of the 2,700-pound Roadster, whose body is made up of carbon fiber materials. Tesla officials respond that the car has passed all required safety tests. They say the battery should last for about 100,000 miles of driving.

 

The company, formed in 2003, is named for inventor Nikola Tesla, a pioneer in the field of electricity. The people buying its cars so far, said national sales manager Doreen Allen, are celebrities, early adopters, wealthy people and environmentalists.

 

Tesla officials say Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, actors George Clooney and Kelsey Grammer and musicians Will.i.am and Flea have ordered Roadsters.

 

It will be a while before anyone can walk in and drive a Tesla home off a lot, however.

 

"Delivery is running about 15 months," Allen said, adding that the company was surprised by the demand.

 

Tesla began taking orders last year for the 600 Roadsters it planned to produce in 2008 and had sold all of them by October, Allen said. The first ones began rolling off the production line six weeks ago, and Allen said all of the 2008 models should be delivered to their owners by March. The first ones should begin going out the door this month.

 

Meanwhile, orders are being taken for 2009 models, with plans calling for production of about 1,500 cars.

 

Eventually Tesla also plans to produce cheaper family vehicles.

 

"There's a model in the works right now, a five-passenger sedan that will be styled comparable to the roadster but a lot roomier to accommodate families, and that is slated for 2010," Snyder said.

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Global warming could starve oceans of oxygen: study

Thu May 1, 2008 2:31pm EDT

 

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

 

OSLO (Reuters) - Global warming could gradually starve parts of the tropical oceans of oxygen, damaging fisheries and coastal economies, a study showed on Thursday.

 

Areas of the eastern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with low amounts of dissolved oxygen have expanded in the past 50 years, apparently in line with rising temperatures, according to the scientists based in Germany and the United States.

 

And models of global warming indicate the trend will continue because oxygen in the air mixes less readily with warmer water. Large fish such as tuna or swordfish avoid, or are unable to survive, in regions starved of oxygen.

 

"Reduced oxygen levels may have dramatic consequences for ecosystems and coastal economies," according to the scientists writing in the journal Science.

 

The north of the Indian Ocean, along with the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, is also oxygen-low but the available data showed no substantial change in the size of the oxygen-minimum zone in recent decades.

 

Lothar Stramma, lead author at IFM-GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany, said there were signs the oxygen-low bands between 300 and 700 meters depths were getting wider and moving into shallower coastal waters.

 

"The expansion of the oxygen-minimum zones is reaching more to the continental shelf areas," he told Reuters. "It's not just the open ocean." That could disrupt ever more fisheries.

 

Problems of lower oxygen supply add to woes for the oceans led by over-fishing as the world struggles to feed an expanding population. A U.N. conference in 2002 set a goal of trying to reverse declines in fish stocks by 2015.

 

The scientists said levels of dissolved oxygen in the oceans had varied widely in the past and more study was needed. "We are far from knowing exactly what will happen," Stramma said.

 

In the most extreme case, at the end of the Permian period about 250 million years ago, there were mass extinctions on land and at sea linked to high levels of carbon dioxide and extremely low oxygen levels in the waters.

 

The U.N. Climate Panel said last year that global warming, stoked by human use of fossil fuels, would push up temperatures and bring more droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels. More and more species would be at risk of extinction.

 

Thursday's study showed that a swathe of the eastern Pacific from Chile to the United States and a smaller part of the eastern Atlantic, centered off Angola, were low in oxygen.

 

Stramma said the oxygen-poor regions were away from major ocean currents that help absorb oxygen from the air. And warmer water is less dense and so floats more easily -- that makes it less prone to mix with the deeper levels of the oceans.

 

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:

 

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/

 

(Editing by Matthew Jones)