Ban Ki-moon: Don't wait for disaster

The Jakarta Post

Ban Ki-moon, United Nations, New York | Tue, 03/23/2010 11:48 AM | Opinion

No country can afford to ignore the lessons of the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti. We cannot stop such disasters from happening. But we can dramatically reduce their impact, if the right disaster risk reduction measures are taken in advance.

A week ago I visited Chile's earthquake zone and saw how countless lives were saved because Chile's leaders had learned the lessons of the past and heeded the warnings of crises to come.

Because stringent earthquake building codes were enforced, much worse casualties were prevented. Training and equipping first responders ahead of time meant help was there within minutes of the tremor. Embracing the spirit that governments have a responsibility for future challenges as well as current ones did more to prevent human casualties than any relief effort could.

Deaths were in the hundreds in Chile, despite the magnitude of the earthquake, at 8.8 on the Richter scale, the fifth largest since records began. In Haiti, a less intense earthquake caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. Haiti had non-existent or un-enforced building codes, and very poor preparedness.

The lessons are universally applicable. No country is immune from disaster, be it earthquakes or floods, storms or heatwaves. More and more intense natural disasters are affecting all five continents, we believe as a result of climate change. Many of the world's poorest people live in high-risk densely populated cities in flood or earthquake zones, or both.

The culture of disaster risk reduction must spread. I am encouraged that we already have a head start in this regard.

The Hyogo Framework for Action, a 10-year plan to make the world safer from disasters triggered by natural hazards, was adopted by 168 governments in 2005.

Hyogo gives national authorities a blueprint to assess and reduce risks through planning, training, and better public education. For example, making sure that schools, hospitals, and other key public infrastructure meet certain safety standards.

Based on the Hyogo Framework, the UN has made disaster risk reduction a priority. I have appointed a Special Representative for implementation of the Hyogo Framework of Action. Last year I launched the first global assessment report on disaster risk reduction in Bahrain.

There has been progress. Bangladesh lost more than 500,000 people during Cyclone Bhola in 1970. It subsequently built 2,500 cyclone shelters on elevated concrete platforms and trained more than 32,000 volunteers to help in evacuations. When Cyclone Sidr struck in 2007 with an enormous sea surge, the death toll was less than 4,000. Cyclone Nargis, a similar event in unprepared Myanmar in May 2008, cost 140,000 lives.

Cuba weathered four hurricanes in 2008. It sustained US$9 billion of physical damage but very few lives were lost.

The evidence is overwhelming. Yet the lessons of these disasters are forgotten with depressing speed. Many governments have failed to follow through on the practical measures Hyogo proposes.

Some states argue that they cannot afford to embrace the prevention model. I say no country can afford to ignore it.

We know prevention actually saves governments money in the long run. When China spent $3.15 billion on reducing the impact of floods between 1960 and 2000, it averted losses estimated at about $12 billion.

Similar savings have been recorded in Brazil, India, Vietnam and elsewhere.

Everyone has a role to play.

Governments, central and local, have to do what it takes to make communities able to cope with both continuing challenges and sudden shocks.

In flood and earthquake-prone areas, the solution is to enact and enforce building regulations. For flood prone areas, it's to move or improve squatter settlements, restore natural coastal barriers such as mangrove swamps, provide more suitable land and better infrastructure for the urban poor and install effective early warning systems.

These measures will keep many thousands of people alive who may otherwise perish. The UN is ready to help governments build preparedness at the country and regional levels.

Donor nations need to fund disaster risk reduction and preparedness measures. Adaptation to climate change in particular means investing in systems for disaster reduction, preparedness and management.

The Chile and Haiti earthquakes showed us once again why action before disasters makes all the difference. To prevent natural hazards turning into disasters, we must all act sooner and act smarter.

The writer is secretary-general of the United Nations.

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Indian state asks Coca-Cola to pay $47m compensation

BBC News, Delhi, by Sanjoy Majumder

Coca-Cola has been asked to pay $47m (£31.2m) in compensation for alleged environmental damage caused at a bottling plant in southern Indian.

The plant, one of its largest in India, was forced to close in 2005 after activists and residents protested.

The company insists the charges against it are unfounded.

But the state of Kerala's Communist-run government has accepted the findings of an investigation into the allegations about the Palakkad district plant.

It says Coca-Cola must pay up for the damage it has allegedly caused.

The company is accused of depleting the groundwater in the area, as well as damaging farmland and the local environment, by dumping waste between the years 1999 and 2004.

But a statement by Coca-Cola's office in India disputes the findings, saying that they needed to be proved in the courts.

It says that scientific investigations carried out by the government and other agencies have determined that the plant had not caused any environmental damage.

The plant was shut five years ago after massive nationwide protests against the company.

Arctic winds and not global warming 'responsible for much of record loss of sea ice'

Daily Mail, by DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 12:17 PM on 22nd March 2010

Strong winds and not global warming are to blame for much of the record-breaking loss of ice in the Arctic Ocean in recent years, new research reveals.

Ice blown out of the Arctic area by winds can explain the one-third drop of sea ice since 1979, scientists believe.

The study helps to explain the huge loss of ice in the region during the summers of 2007 and 2008, after which some commentators suggested the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free during the summertime within a decade.

Study: Strong winds and not global warming are to blame for much of the record-breaking loss of ice in the Arctic Ocean in recent years

The researchers at the Japan Agency For Marine-Earth Science And Technology do not question whether global warming is also melting the ice.

However, their study does raise doubts about claims that the melting of ice in the region has passed the 'tipping point' and will accelerate in coming years.

Scientist Masayo Ogi and her collegues looked at records of how winds have behaved since satellite measurements of sea ice began in 1979. She claimed this marks the first time the Arctic winds have been measured in this way.

The observed changes in wind patterns coincided with years where the loss of sea ice was the most acute.

Half of the variation in maximum ice loss each September is down to changes in wind patterns, the scientists found.

The research suggests that large amounts of the sea ice has been blown south through the Farm Strait, which runs between Greenland and the Norwegian islands of Svalbard, and into the north Atlantic.

Writing in a paper to be published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal, the scientists say: 'Wind-induced, year-to-year differences in the rate of flow of ice toward and through Fram Strait play an important role in modulating September sea ice extent on a year-to-year basis.

'A trend toward an increased wind-induced rate of flow has contributed to the decline in the areal coverage of Arctic summer sea ice.'

'Both winter and summer winds could blow ice out of the Arctic [through] the Fram Strait during 1979-2009,' Ms Ogi told The Guardian.

She added that other factors responsible for the ice loss included warming of the air and the ocean.

Since 1979, the Arctic ice has shrunk by around 10 per cent each decade, the equivalent of 28,000 square miles each year, according to the National Snow And Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

Wastewater “killing people”, says UN agency

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 22 March 2010 - 12:21pm

Wastewater “killing people”, says UN agency

Today is World Water Day. Organised each year by the United Nations, the theme for 2010 is ‘Clean Water for a Healthy World’, and it’s designed to highlight the growing problem of water contamination in countries grappling with water stress and fast-rising populations.

Events are taking place in North and South America, eastern and western Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

As the UN Water group points out on its website, 1,500 cubic kilometres of wastewater are produced every year worldwide. In developing countries, non-existent regulations and a lack of recycling resources result in 80 percent of all waste being discharged into rivers and lakes untreated. To make matters worse, population and industrial growth are adding new sources of pollution.

In a report released to coincide with World Water Day, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says sewage, industrial pollution, agricultural pesticides and animal waste are contaminating more than two billion tonnes of water daily.

The report, ‘Sick Water’, goes on to state that a lack of clean water kills 1.8 million children under five every year and that much of the waste comes from developing countries. The report not only recommends the construction of water recycling systems and water sewage treatment works, but also the saving of animal waste to use as fertilizer and the protection of wetlands, which act as natural waste processors.

“If the world is to... survive on a planet of six billion people heading to over nine billion by 2050,” said UNEP director Achim Steiner, “we need to get smarter about how we manage wastewater. Wastewater is quite literally killing people."

Read about the Dutch and World Water Day here.

Go to the World Water Day site.

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World Water Day: Why business needs to worry

BBC News, VIEWPOINT, by Peter Brabeck-Letmanthe, Chairman, Nestle S.A.

Global water requirements ... will be 40% greater than what can currently be sustainably supplied

Monday is World Water Day, but I suspect relatively few will have noticed.

While the world is rightly moving to address the challenges presented by climate change and depleting supplies of fossil fuels, the same awareness and consensus does not exist when it comes to addressing our usage of water. Yet the harsh fact is that we will probably run out of water long before we run out of fuel.

We need to act fast, now.

Most people equate water consumption with what they use in their homes and places of work, but the challenge facing the globe goes much, much further than that. The 2030 Water Resources Group, a collaboration between the private and social sectors to discover solutions to combat water scarcity, estimates that global water requirements will grow by over 50% over the next 20 years. Such levels of usage will be 40% greater than what can currently be sustainably supplied.

Of course this global figure is an aggregation: at a more local level the situation is far worse. For example, by 2030 one third of the global population, mainly concentrated in developing countries, will have only half the amount of naturally renewed water available they need.

More than tap

Efficiency in water usage is not improving fast enough

What most consumers might not be aware of is that agriculture accounts for 70% of global water usage today, and how the need to feed the growing population of the world will put an even greater strain on already scarce water resources.

And in recent years food and water supplies have also been significantly affected by the use of agricultural land and resources on the production of biofuels.

The 2030 Water Resources Group also predicts that industrial use of water will almost double by 2030. It currently accounts for 16% of total usage - more than half of it for energy production - and this will grow to a projected 22% by 2030 with China alone accounting for 40% of the additional demand.

The challenge facing governments, businesses and - arguably - all of us, is how to close the gap in supply in a way that is both environmentally sustainable and economically viable. At the moment we are coping by 'borrowing' water supplies from non-replenishable aquifers or from water reserved for environmental needs, an approach which is clearly not a long-term solution.

Crop per drop

Efficiency lies at the heart of debate, just as with climate change. Yet while great strides have been made around carbon, the track record of water efficiency from both agriculture and industry does not inspire confidence: between 1990 and 2004 the annual rate of efficiency improvement in both sectors was approximately only 1%.

Agricultural productivity has the potential therefore to play a fundamental role and increasing the "crop per drop" is vital, particularly in the developing world.

There are measures such as no-till farming, improved drainage and utilisation of the best seeds that may even have a positive return for farmers. The water cost curve of the 2030 Water Resources Group shown in this document provides the tools for comprehensive, cost effective strategies.

Microfinance

Within an overall strategy, the buyers of the farmers' produce can also play their part by offering their suppliers training, technical assistance and even microfinance to help them improve water efficiency. This is an approach we have taken at Nestle where, for example, we provide more than $30m worth of micro-credit loans yearly to more than 600,000 farmers worldwide.

Just as microfinance can help farmers, policymakers, financiers and the private sector can do more to ensure that those willing to improve their water footprint at the macro level are given the opportunity - and capital - to do so.

Efficiency must also be a focus for industry and those responsible for planning and managing economic development. Companies and governments are often quick to trumpet their energy efficiency achievements, but too few have taken the same approach with water.

Water shortages are more pressing than climate change

The sooner governments, industry and consumers start to see the links between energy, food and water security, and how policies in one area affect another, the more likely it is that water scarcity will get the profile it deserves and that we start acting decisively to assure the sustainability of humankind's most precious resource, water.

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Mad cyclone

The Jakarta Post, Sun, 03/21/2010 10:12 PM

Mad cyclone: Waves stirred up by Tropical Cyclone Ului batter race yacht Anaconda at Airlie Beach, Australia Sunday. About 60,000 homes are without power, trees and signs have blown over and boats have been smashed on the rocks after a massive storm with winds up to 124 miles (200 kilometers) per hour blew across the coast of northeastern Australia. AP Photo/Brian Cassey

Volcano erupts near Eyjafjallajoekull in south Iceland

BBC News

The eruption lit up the night sky just after midnight on Sunday

Several hundred people have been evacuated from their homes, as a volcano erupted in southern Iceland.

The volcano near the Eyjafjallajoekull glacier began to erupt shortly after midnight, leading to road closures in the area.

No one was in immediate danger, but 500 people were being moved from the area, a civil protection officer said.

It is almost 200 years since a volcano near Eyjafjallajoekull, 120km (75 miles) east of Reykjavik, last erupted.

"We estimate that no one is in danger in the area but we have started an evacuation plan and between 500 and 600 people are being evacuated," Sigurgeir Gudmundsson of the Icelandic civil protections department told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

There are fears that the volcano could cause flooding, as it causes ice to melt on the glacier above it.

"Ash has already begun to fall in Fljotshlid and people in the surrounding area have reported seeing bright lights emanating from the glacier," RUV public radio said on its website.

"It was a bit scary, but still amazing to see," Katrin Moller Eiriksdottir, who lives in Fljotshlid, told the BBC News website.

"The ash had started falling and we couldn't leave the car. They have now closed the road but we'll see what happens in the morning."

Three Icelandair flights, bound for Reykjavik from the United States, have been ordered to return to Boston, RUV radio reported, and much of Icelandic air space is a no-fly zone.

The last volcanic eruption in the area occurred in 1821.

Massive sandstorm turns Beijing's streets yellow

Reuters, Beijing, Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:17am EDT

Tiananmen Square is seen amid a sandstorm in Beijing March 20, 2010. (Credit: REUTERS/Grace Liang)

(Reuters) - Tons of sand from deserts in China's interior blew into Beijing Saturday, shrouding China's capital in a yellow-orange haze that authorities warned made the air quality "hazardous."

There were few people out on streets where pedestrians could taste the dust. Many of those who had ventured from their homes were wearing facemasks, and some left footprints in the yellow film that had settled on the city's streets.

Beijing's weather forecasting bureau gave the air quality a rare "5," or hazardous, rating and added that it was "not suitable for morning exercises." Parks and open spaces are usually packed from early in the day with enthusiasts doing martial arts, ballroom dancing and other activities.

The sandstorms underline the environmental degradation investors identify as one of the long-term constraints on growth in China, and concern about its impact has made a less resource-intensive model of growth a priority for Beijing.

The government has spent millions of dollars on projects to rein in the spread of deserts, planting trees and trying to protect what plant cover remains in marginal areas.

But the battle is being fought against a backdrop of rising average temperatures and increasing pressure on water resources after three decades of booming growth.

The sandstorm hit Beijing around midnight, carrying huge amounts of dust and heading south east, the official Xinhua news agency said. In northern Changping district, the wind reached speeds of up to 100 km per hour (60 mph).

The swirling clouds of dust and sand had blanketed the interior provinces of Qinghai and Gansu, and western Xinjiang region, before sweeping over the capital, Xinhua said.

(Editing by Ron Popeski)

Unilever, Nestle, Danone - 'the top 3 for sustainability'

Quest, by Ben Sillitoe

Fast moving consumer goods firms Unilever, Nestle and Danone made up the top three places in the inaugural Tomorrow’s Value Ratings list, which rates firms on social and environmental issues.

The ten largest food and beverage companies in the world have been ranked on the way they manager their social and environmental performance - and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) firms Unilever, Nestle and Danone came out on top.

Unilever, which boasts brands such as Bertolli and Lipton, led the way in the inaugural Tomorrow’s Value Rating list from international sustainability consultancy Two Tomorrows, achieving a score of 64 per cent.

The report said: “Unilever’s comprehensive sustainability strategy is based on stakeholder feedback, governed by the company’s senior leaders and underpinned by solid management systems.

“Its performance on important variables such as carbon emissions and water usage has shown marked improvements over the years.”

Meanwhile second and third-placed companies Nestle and Danone stood out for their approach to supply-chain management and efforts to reach consumers at the bottom of the pyramid respectively. Soft-drink rivals Pepsi and Coca-Cola completed the top five list.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, Kraft, Heineken, Tyson and Kirin Holdings - in that order - made up the rest of the top ten.

Environmentally Friendly Bamboo iPad Case

IPad News Tracker, March 16, 2010 by editor

Apple’s new iPad is being promoted as a green device, and it is living up very nicely to their claims. Made almost entirely from recyclable and reclaimable materials, the Apple is doing a great job being environmentally responsible, and many accessory makers are following suit- Vers Audio has recently announced that they were throwing in their (100% sustainable wool) towel into the iPad accessory arena with their eco conscious Bamboo iPad case.

This iPad case is a beautiful unique way to display Apple’s latest gem. Made from Bamboo and other hardwoods, you can’t help but ooh and aah over how slick this hand crafted iPad cover is. The cases are reinforced with steel and sealed with a clear coat to prevent moisture and UV radiation from hurting either your iPad or it’s case. There is a wooden peg that can be inserted into the back to turn the case into an iPad stand to proudly display it on your mantle.

Everything about this case is sustainable and environmentally friendly, even down to the packing materials it comes in. There’s something deeply attractive about the natural warmth and calming aura that this wood case exudes, and anybody who owns one is sure to get not a few envious stares. You can pick one up for $79.99 on the Vers Audio website once it is released shortly after the iPad comes out on April 3rd.

This tip was sent in by our friends over at iPad Accessories Review, they are your premier source for iPad accessory information and news. Check out their latest article on the Essential iPad Accessories any serious user should consider purchasing.

U.S.-born pandas adjust to new China homes

CNN, by John Vause, March 16, 2010

The life of Tai Shan, one of the 1,600 giant pandas in the world, is now much quieter in China's Sichuan province. (Wen-Chun Fan/CNN)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Tai Shan has no special diet in China as he did in Washington, officials say
• Tai Shan is one of 90 pandas at the Bifeng Gorge Center
• Cousin Mei Lan of Zoo Atlanta now at Chengdu panda base, also in Sichuan

Ya'an Bifeng Gorge Breeding Base, China (CNN) -- After years of living in the public eye, with hundreds of thousands of adoring fans, the sponsorship deals, the million-dollar home, the dozens of staff to serve his every need -- suddenly, Tai Shan, a U.S.-born panda, is finding himself in a much quieter life.

For more than four years, he was a rock star at the National Zoo in Washington. The only giant panda born there to live past infancy, Tai Shan was a huge crowd-pleaser. A video of his sneezing while he was a cub grabbed more than 51 million hits on YouTube.

But now he is away from the spotlight in Ya'an Bifeng Gorge Panda Research Center in central China's Sichuan province. He was returned to China in February, along with a three-year-old female named Mei Lan who was born in Atlanta, Georgia, as part of a longstanding agreement between China and the U.S.

"We want to ask the people of Washington to rest at ease ... we will try our utmost to take good care of Tai Shan, and we guarantee that the giant panda has a very happy and healthy life here in China," said Tang Chunxiang, the center's deputy director and chief veterinarian.

When Tai Shan was living the high life in D.C., he was regaled with birthday cakes and pears and cooked sweet potatoes. But now, the party's over. Officials here say there will be no special diet for Tai Shan --- although they insist the bamboo in China is the best.

"He seems to be in very good spirits. And he has a very good appetite. He eats 10 to 20 kilograms (22-44 pounds) of bamboo a day. He also exercises a lot," said Dong Chao, Tai Shan's trainer.

At the Bifeng Gorge Center, Tai Shan is one of 90 pandas. While there are still passing tourists, it is pretty clear that he is just another cute and fluffy face in the crowd.

"I'm amazed how laid back he looks," said Harold Gilmore, a British tourist. "He looks just the same as any of them."

It seems a lot like that scene out of the movie "Madagascar," when Alex the lion leaves a New York zoo. But Tai Shan won't go through this experience alone: In the neighboring enclosure is three-year-old Fu Long, who was born in Austria and repatriated last year. Mei Lan was taken to Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, also in Sichuan province.

"We have arranged for some other pandas of similar age to live near him, so he's not lonely," said Tang. "We want Tai Shan to choose a mate that is to his liking. So upon returning to the motherland, he can contribute to the breeding of the species."

With only 1,600 giant pandas in the world, the pressure will be on Tai Shan to become a dad. But that won't happen until he is six or seven years old. And at least he is paying his way: Within hours of arriving, he scored a sponsorship deal with a Chinese carmaker paying out one million RMB ($US150, 000) plus daily costs for food, medical care and other expenses.

All of that will no doubt ensure a trouble-free life back in his natural habitat, away from the pandarazzi of the United States.

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Taiwan Welcomes Gift of Panda Pair - Tuantuan, right, and Yuanyuan arrive at their new home and begin to eat at the Taipei City Zoo on Tuesday. (Photo: Taipei City Government/AP)

Tiger Conservation Efforts Have 'Failed': UN

Jakarta Globe, March 16, 2010

Less than 3,200 tigers remain in the wild. (AFP Photo)

Thirty-five years of efforts to save tigers in the wild have "failed miserably" and the great cat is walking ever closer to extinction, the head of the UN's wildlife trade body warned on Monday.

"If we use tiger numbers as a performance indicator, then we must admit that we have failed miserably and that we are continuing to fail," said Willem Wijnstekers, secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

"2010 is the Chinese Year of the Tiger and the International Year of Biodiversity. This must be the year in which we reverse the trend. If we don't, it will be to our everlasting shame," he said.

Delegates from nearly 150 nations have gathered in Doha, capital of Qatar, to vote on more than 40 proposals on restricting or banning trade in endangered animals and plants.

Less than a century ago, more than 100,000 tigers roamed jungles and forests, from Turkey to China and from the Russian Far East to Indonesia.

A ban on tiger parts was implemented in 1975, marking one of the very first initiatives under CITES, which regulates cross-border commerce in imperilled species.

Today, though, less than 3,200 of the great cats remain in the wild. Their range has been reduced by 93 percent through habitat loss for farming and human habitation, and several population pockets are teetering on the brink of extinction.

The animals are still poached, primarily for their skins but also for their bones and organs, used to make traditional medicines and supposed longevity potions.

"These animals don't have much time left unless we really get our act together," said John Sellar, CITES's senior enforcement officer.

"There is a real underground market going on here," he told journalists. "People are willing to pay to get the genuine articles, and so there are still practicians that are buying tiger bones, tiger meat in order to supply their specialised clients."

Sellar added: "If we lose the tiger, that in many ways is an indicator of the health of our planet. That is a terrible indictment."

AFP

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Scientists go 'gaga' to find creatures beneath 600 feet of ice

Yahoo News, by SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer – Mon Mar 15, 4:05 pm ET

AP – This video frame grab image provided by NASA, taken in Dec. 2009, shows a Lyssianasid amphipod, which …

WASHINGTON – In a surprising discovery about where higher life can thrive, scientists for the first time found a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish frolicking beneath a massive Antarctic ice sheet.

Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist.

That's why a NASA team was surprised when they lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly of an ice sheet in Antarctica. A curious shrimp-like creature came swimming by and then parked itself on the camera's cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.

"We were operating on the presumption that nothing's there," said NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler, who will be presenting the initial findings and a video at an American Geophysical Union meeting Wednesday. "It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate."

"We were just gaga over it," he said of the 3-inch-long, orange critter starring in their two-minute video. Technically, it's not a shrimp. It's a Lyssianasid amphipod, which is distantly related to shrimp.

The video is likely to inspire experts to rethink what they know about life in harsh environments. And it has scientists musing that if shrimp-like creatures can frolic below 600 feet of Antarctic ice in subfreezing dark water, what about other hostile places? What about Europa, a frozen moon of Jupiter?

"They are looking at the equivalent of a drop of water in a swimming pool that you would expect nothing to be living in and they found not one animal but two," said biologist Stacy Kim of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in California, who joined the NASA team later. "We have no idea what's going on down there."

Microbiologist Cynan Ellis-Evans of the British Antarctic Survey called the finding intriguing.

"This is a first for the sub-glacial environment with that level of sophistication," Ellis-Evans said. He said there have been findings somewhat similar, showing complex life in retreating ice shelves, but nothing quite directly under the ice like this.

Ellis-Evans said it's possible the creatures swam in from far away and don't live there permanently.

But Kim, who is a co-author of the study, doubts it. The site in West Antarctica is at least 12 miles from open seas. Bindschadler drilled an 8-inch-wide hole and was looking at a tiny amount of water. That means it's unlikely that that two critters swam from great distances and were captured randomly in that small of an area, she said.

Yet scientists were puzzled at what the food source would be for these critters. While some microbes can make their own food out of chemicals in the ocean, complex life like the amphipod can't, Kim said.

So how do they survive? That's the key question, Kim said.

"It's pretty amazing when you find a huge puzzle like that on a planet where we thought we know everything," Kim said.___

On the Web: NASA research in Antarctica: http://pigiceshelf.nasa.gov/

P&G makes "future friendly" environmental push

Procter & Gamble steps up marketing, education efforts on environmental efforts

FinanceYahoo, Dan Sewell, AP Business Writer, On Monday March 15, 2010, 9:19 am

CINCINNATI (AP) -- The world's largest consumer products company is stepping up marketing of its environmental efforts and conservation education.

Procter & Gamble Co. said Monday it will launch a major multimedia "Future Friendly" campaign late this month. Beside TV and online ads, there will be new labeling for products in stores meant to save water, energy and waste.

The maker of Tide detergent, Pampers diapers and Gillette shavers has been introducing environment-minded products such as Tide Cold Water, which P&G says also helps consumers reduce the cost of running their washers by not having to heat up the water.

The Cincinnati-based company pledges to reach 50 million U.S. households with conservation information. P&G last year increased its overall sustainability goals.

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Climate Change Adds to Bird Stress

The New York Times, by JOHN M. BRODER, March 12, 2010

Changes in the global climate are imposing additional stress on hundreds of species of migratory birds in the United States that are already threatened by other environmental factors, according to a new Interior Department report. The department’s annual State of the Birds report shows that nearly a third of the nation’s 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or suffering from population decline.

For the first time, the report adds climate change to other factors threatening bird populations, including destruction of habitat, hunting, pesticides, invasive species and loss of wetlands. The report said oceanic and shore birds were among the most vulnerable to climate change because of rapidly changing marine ecosystems and rising sea levels.

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Scarlet tanagers are more than 2% smaller today than in the 1960s. (BBC)

Haiti earthquake relief: How bamboo can help

Green Earth News, by Stacey Irwin on February 24, 2010

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude devastated the island nation of Haiti. The powerful quake collapsed over 250,000 residences, leaving roughly 1 million people homeless. The world itself shook with the impact of the relief effort. International aid agencies and private citizens responded with an outpouring of donations. The focus of the relief effort started to encompass both immediate needs such as food, water and medicine, and also the long-range planning of rebuilding Haiti from the ground up.

Bamboo, with its many uses, can play a role in the relief effort.

With commitments from INBAR (International Network of Bamboo and Rattan) and CBTC (Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre), the World Bamboo Organization and Generation Bambou are leading the way to mobilize the world of bamboo businesses and organizations with the goal of providing and promoting bamboo structures and plantations as part of the long-range relief effort focused on effective housing and economic stability.

The immediate benefit of using bamboo is found in the development of Bamboo Instant Houses. Developed in 2008 by a engineering professor in China in response to the Sichuan earthquake of that year, these modular structures can be built in less than 2 weeks and conform to United States’ building code standards for quake resistance (a huge benefit when dealing with aftershocks as high as 4.5 magnitude). The bamboo shelters are less expensive than the traditional building materials for shelters and unlike tents, they are more durable, insulated and offer a higher degree of protection from the elements.

Bamboo can also serve to build more permanent, earthquake safe structures on the island of Haiti. According to INBAR, one billion people around the world live in bamboo houses and with its tensile strength and favorable elastic qualities, buildings made from bamboo are excellent at withstanding earthquakes. When a 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit Costa Rica in 1992, all 30 bamboo houses in the epicenter survived intact.

Bamboo buildings would also introduce the concept of “green” living to the Haitian people. The highly sustainable plant grows without use of pesticides or fertilizers and can be harvested in 3-5 years versus the 10 -50 years needed for most hardwoods and softwoods to fully mature. Bamboo also has minimal impact on soil erosion as it is capable of regeneration without needing to be replanted. And because it can be grown and harvested locally and worked on with simple tools, it is also a cost-effective option for a country as poor as Haiti.

Bamboo can not only serve to put a roof over their heads, but also food on their tables. Across the globe, third world countries are using this valuable resource to bolster their economies. From housing to clothing to furniture to food, there are over a thousand ways to use bamboo to produce marketable goods. Haiti can ensure long-term viable economic growth by strategically planning for bamboo plantations on the island and placing the materials and means of production in the hands of the people who need it most. Bamboo is the potential cash crop that can put Haiti on the road to economic freedom.

The rebuilding of Haiti can be a renaissance of sustainability and economic development for the tiny island if the right steps are taken to rebuild. Using the exceptionally renewable, cost-effective and versatile bamboo plant is one step in that right direction.

For more on the global role of bamboo, visit Green Earth New’s section on Bamboo’s Worldwide Impact.

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