iblog

Jeanne: The Arctic is one of the most inhospitable regions of the world. However, it is rich in natural resources, and with supplies of fossil fuels dwindling, a number of countries have sought to take possession of the territory in the hope that they will be able to lay claim to its vast fuel deposits.

A week ago, Russian navel crews set about mapping part of the region, which they argue belongs to their country. According to the Russians, this is because the disputed area forms part of the Russian continental shelf. In a controversial move, they placed a Russian flag over part of the disputed Arctic territory. However, Russia is not the only country to have staked an ownership claim over this cold, barren wasteland. Just a few days ago, the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, embarked on a three-day visit to the Arctic. Not surprisingly, he has been highly critical of Russia’s activities in the region:

“Canada has taken its sovereignty too lightly for too long. This government has put a big emphasis on reinforcing and strengthening our sovereignty in the Arctic.”

However, ownership of the Arctic Ocean and her surrounding icy territories is anything but clear-cut. At the moment, jurisdiction over the Arctic seabed is monitored by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is likely that ownership claims will have to be resolved through further scientific analysis of the seabed – what Russian scientists claim to have been doing during the recent incident. Unusually, the Russians have also received support some individuals within the Canadian scientific and intellectual community. Michael Byers, a professor at the University of British Colombia has commented on the matter, stating:

“The Russians are fully committed, at a political and scientific level, to filing a comprehensive scientific claim, with the United Nations. They’re perfectly entitled to do so, in fact I think we should celebrate that they’re working within the framework of international law. Politicians in Russia or Canada can never lose domestically by standing up for sovereignty in the Arctic. But underlying all of the rhetoric is the very important fact that all of the Arctic countries are working within a legal framework.”

With yesterday’s announcement from Denmark that she too would be sending an expedition to the region, matters are likely to remain quite frosty on the Arctic front for some time to come.

Rushda: At 11.50am this morning, a small earthquake rocked various parts of Greater Manchester, felt by inhabitants in not only the centre of Manchester but Reddish, Didsbury, Failsworth and Denton as well. Though the earthquake was a relatively minor one, only measuring 2.5 on the Richter Scale, many experienced the tremors. Seismologists at the British Geological Survey (BGS) are glad to note that there have been no reports of injury or damage.

BGS have explained that these earthquakes are not uncommon and there are eight or nine every year in Britain. A similar earthquake hit Manchester five years ago but it was much more severe and measured 3.9 on the Richter Scale. Witnesses to this morning’s earthquakes say that they felt the ground shake. A man who was in the city centre working at the time says:

“The ground kind of shook. It felt a bit like there was a bus parked outside but a bit stronger. Everyone just looked round at each other and was like, ‘Did you just feel that or was it just me?’ I didn’t really feel frightened, just a bit confused.”

Another witness said:

“I was working away quite happily until I felt the building shake. I felt the floor move and heard the beams creak. It started at one end of the room and went came through to where I was sitting, and the big filing cabinet next to where I was sitting was shaking. It was really quite impressive.”

Experts have reassured the public that there is nothing to be alarmed about. As Ernest Rutter, professor of structural geology at the University of Manchester, has said:

“It’s very small tremor, right on the edge of being felt, although obviously quite a lot of people did. They are fairly common in Manchester. In 2002 we had a swarm of them, which is a number of earthquakes of about the same size over a period of time - from October and extended until just after Christmas. There were about 110 - 120 during that time and about 30 of them were felt.”

The earthquake has been described as “insignificant.” What is most shocking perhaps is the fact that the earthquake which caused the Asian Tsunami on Boxing day in 2004 was actually 800 million times greater than what was experienced by many in Manchester this morning. One can only imagine how terrifying that must have been when compared.

Virgil: An 8,000 year old Stone Age village has been found submerged beneath the waters at Bouldnor Cliff, Isle of Wight. However, with the tides washing away 12 inches from the top of it every year, the race is on to discover what we can while it’s still there.

It has been known since 1980 that a prehistoric forest lay beneath the waters, but it was only when a lobster was noticed chucking pieces of worked flint from its hidey-hole that divers realised they’d stumbled on an ancient settlement.

The village is of particular interest as it dates from a period in British history of which little is known. The settlement was swamped after the northern European Ice Caps began to melt. It is for exactly this reason that so little is known about settlements from the period - they are now all mostly submerged. Garry Momber, director of the charity doing the excavations, describes the importance of the site by saying:

“This is the only site of its kind in Britain and is extremely important to our understanding of our Stone Age ancestors from the lesser-known Mesolithic period.”

More interestingly, as 8,000 years ago the whole area would have been dry:

“It reveals a time before the English Channel existed when Europe and Britain were linked. The people who lived on this site could have walked over to Calais without too much trouble.”

The excavators hope to garner more funding as they continue, otherwise the artefacts buried at the site will be washed away forever.

Anna: County Clare, in the west of Ireland, is home to a superior residence built especially for bats. The structure, constructed two years ago, cost the taxpayer 175,000 euros, roughly £120,000, and was built alongside the route of the Ennis by-pass. Conservationists hoped that it would attract a sizeable number of Lesser Horseshoe Bats, but 24 months on there isn’t a single bat to be found at the site.

The local County Council has kept the exact location of the house a secret, concerned about the prospect of disturbance to this rare species. The bat house was intended to provide more than simply a safe haven for the bat population, and this is why the scientific community is doubly disappointed. Technology, including infra-red sensors and a specially installed telephone line for data download, was intended to provide scientists with crucial data about the movements and behaviour of the protected species. The bats obviously have other ideas, spurning the house in favour of other roosting and breeding locations.

The diminutive Lesser Horseshoe Bat is a protected species under EU law. Present in the south-west of England and throughout Wales, the bat is found in the six western counties of Ireland - Clare, Cork, Galway, Kerry, Limerick and Mayo. Habitat disruption and renovation of favoured roosting spots, such as outhouses, stables and old houses, have seen a decline in numbers in recent decades. Undisturbed sites for winter hibernation are also important, but under threat. The Irish population currently stands at an estimated 9,500 bats, according to Bat Conservation Ireland, a charity concerned with the conservation of Ireland’s bats.

As is the case with all major UK infrastructure projects, the company contracted to build the Ennis by-pass (GAMA Construction), was required carry out detailed surveys of all the plant and animal species on the route. Protected species, among them the Lesser Horseshoe, require special measures. In this case, the construction of a bespoke bat-house, which conservationists believed would lessen the impact of the road on the bats. Sadly, environmental consultant Howard Williams of Inis Environmental Services, has found no proof that this is the case. Commissioned to assess the effectiveness of the mitigation, he confirmed in his recent report that there had been no sign of bats over the last year, both inside and outside the structure.

Mr Williams believed the site had great potential:

In short, the information we will be able to analyse at this location will give us the best opportunity ever of understanding the lesser Horseshoe Bat in Ireland.

He had, however, not given up hope that the bats would eventually move in to their luxury lodging. Work is nearing completion on a stretch of hedging which will connect the bat house with another known roosting location:

More bats will be searching out foraging areas and will inevitably find the Old Schoolhouse and more importantly, the New Build Bat House.

Many people will be unaware that the August Bank Holiday weekend is also European Bat Weekend 2007! Let’s hope the bats realise the occasion, and deem it a suitable moving in date…

Rushda: The idea of walking being less environmentally friendly than travelling by car sounds absurd; yet this is indeed the conclusion of Chris Goodall, who is the campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, and is also a Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford West Abingdon. The reason he says walking contributes more to global warming is that food production is so energy-intensive that we are burning more carbon walking than we would in a car on an average trip to the shops.

Apparently, the best way of benefiting the climate is if people actually ate less and did less exercise, thereby using up less energy. As Goodall explains, using examples from the government’s official fuel emission figures:

“Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles adds about 0.9 kg of CO2 to the atmosphere. If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.”

This has led Goodall to deduce the following striking conclusion:

“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”

Like others no doubt, I find myself wondering whether to take this seriously. Of course the calculations are probably correct, but personally I think that if we are making such calculations to the extent where even our food intake is being brought into question, there is something seriously wrong. I’m all for helping the environment but we must remember that in trying to save it we must not forget the lives of those we are saving it for. Nevertheless, those who are interested in reading the controversial book can find it here.

Jeanne: Six years after its first major outbreak, foot and mouth disease has returned to the United Kingdom. A ban has been imposed on the movement of livestock across the country after cattle on a Surrey farm were found to have contracted the deadly infection. The affected animals belong to a farm located near the village of Wanborough, close to Guildford. All cattle on the farm’s premises are to be culled in order to prevent further spread of the disease and a 3km-wide protective cordon has been placed around the affected farm. Investigations are currently underway to ascertain the source of the infection. According to Debbie Reynolds, Britain’s Chief Veterinary Officer:

“The government is trying to form a picture of where the infection may have come from but at the moment it’s very early stages. It is the absolute priority at the moment to prevent further spread, and piece together information about how it might have got there in the first place.”

The foot and mouth crisis is yet another test for the newly-formed Labour government led by Gordon Brown. Mr. Brown will be returning shortly to London to chair a meeting of the government’s COBRA committee. In the meantime, British farmers are all urged to examine their cattle for signs of the disease. Symptoms include fever, lameness and lesions in the mouth.

In the past, the disease has proved highly contagious for cattle. Previous outbreaks of foot and mouth in the UK led to the culling of over 7 million cattle and the loss of billions of pounds worth of revenue for the farming industry. The European Union is closely monitoring the current situation in Britain and the organisation is expected to ban all imports of British beef.

It is hoped that the current outbreak of foot and mouth will be short-lived. A speedy response is essential in order to prevent further cattle from being affected. As Hugh Pennington, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Aberdeen, noted:

Speed is of the essence here. We have got to really stop this virus spreading, obviously first of all to stamp it out in the locality where it has been identified and then see whether the virus has got anywhere else.

It is likely that the British government will want to act as swiftly as possible to meet these reccomendations.

Rushda: In the last few days, many parts of South Asia have been devastated by terrible flooding. India, Bangladesh and Nepal are the worst hit countries, where rivers have overflowed and entire villages have drowned. The current situation is desperate - there isn’t enough aid to match the colossal numbers of people who suddenly have nowhere to live and little to eat.

Almost 200 people have died as a result of these floods so far and the situation is indeed catastrophic for survivors as well: not only have families been displaced and separated, but hundreds of thousands are at risk from disease and starvation. Only a fraction of those affected are receiving aid which consists of food, clean drinking water and medical aid for those who are injured. Part of the reason for this delay is that most of the main road and train networks have been damaged by the floods.

As one of the victims of the floods, Musamat Manwara Khatoum, a mother of seven, describes:

“Everything is underwater. We’ve lost our crops, there’s nowhere to put the children down, not even a place to cook.”

Her situation is similar to thousands who are stranded in deep water with nowhere to go. For many these floods are the worst in living memory. Now like Musamat, they are on the move and trying to find higher-level ground in order to rebuild their lives.

All this when put together with the horrific fact that over a thousand people have died across South Asia since mid-June due to the annual monsoon, gives a stark image of the reality of such natural disasters. Especially considering the fact that the floods struck areas where inhabitants were already trying to deal with the horrors of poverty, we can only hope that with aid and luck the survivors can recover the best they can.

Whilst we in England are just about recovering from the floods which have disrupted lives across the country over the last few weeks, it is worth remembering the plight of those much worse off.

Anna: Stanfords is the UK’s leading specialist retailer of maps and travel books. Founded in 1853 by Edward Stanford there is, however, nothing old-fashioned about the comapny’s approach to environmental policy. Stanfords has recently announced that it will be recycling all materials from its stores in London and Bristol. In addition, company staff are entitled to an extra day of annual leave is they are taking a trip to Europe and opt to travel in a sustainable way. The policy is designed to encourage Stanfords workers to take the train or the bus, rather than relying on air travel.

Stanfords’ flagship store in Covent Garden is a delightful place to while away an afternoon, and claims to offer the world’s largest stock of maps and travel books under one roof. Natural, then, that staff should catch the travel bug and want to indulge their Wanderlust by taking foreign trips. It’s a simple idea to reward workers who make that journey in a sustainable way by providing additional annual leave, but one which is effective.

Justin Francis, co-founder of www.responsibletravel.com, spells out the stark realities of our penchant for jet-setting:

The simple fact is that aviation is the fastest growing cause of global warming. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by air travel doubled between 1990 and 2004. That is totally incompatible with the need to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050.

Yet with falling air fares, and even recent deals which saw budget operators paying taxes on behalf of customers, it has never been easier or more tempting to jet off to Europe for a short break. Sir Michael Bishop, Chairman of airline BMI, said:

“Today, air travel is a natural part of the daily lives of millions of people,” adding that “in 1986, only 75 million people travelled through Britain’s airports. Last year, more than three times that number did so. It is a simple example of the benefits of choice and competition.

And while cost is no longer a real constraint on short-haul, instead it is time which is at a premium, which further discourages the public from taking greener, but slower forms of transport to reach their destination. This is what makes the Stanfords initiative so clever. Rather than jumping on the carbon-offsetting bandwagon, Stanfords are encouraging employees to think about their impact on the environment. The company is also, crucially, stumping up the cash to pay for the extra annual leave entitlement, thus facilitating and rewarding the eco-credentials of its staff.

Anna: Thursday 8th June saw the official opening in Rwanda of a huge, green energy power station. As German President Angela Merkel persuaded EU leaders to commit to greenhouse gas cuts, a small African nation was making an environmental statement of its own. The solar power plant is the biggest on the African continent, and has been built with the help of Merkel’s compatriots. Specifically, with support from Germany’s Federal State of Rhineland Palatinate.

Inaugurated by Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, the plant is capable of producing 250 kilowatts, which boosts the landlocked nation’s electricity generating capacity to 50 megawatts. This seems like small fry compared to a plant like Drax, the UK’s biggest coal-fired power station, which has a huge output capacity of 4,000 megawatts. But Rwanda’s energy needs are also far more modest, and by building in renewable energy sources at an early stage, the country will reduce the need for fossil fuels in the future. As a small country, it’s especially important for Rwanda to avoid over-reliance on more resource-rich nations in order to safeguard long-term energy security and enable development.

“In 2004, we (Rwanda) experienced a major power crisis brought about by the falling of water levels in our water bodies and this was at a time when Rwanda had set the pace of development,” said Kagame. He also felt international co-operation on energy issues was a key priority.

The plant itself is sited at Jali hill in Gasabo District, part of central Rwanda’s Kigali Ngali province. Funding for the project came from both the Rhineland Palatinate, which has been supporting Rwandan projects for a quarter of a century, and Stadtwerke Mainz, a German energy company. Together, they ploughed around 1 million Euros into the project. The remaining 200,000 Euros needed for the plant were provided by Rwanda’s Ministry of Infrastructure.

Currently, more than 80% of Africa’s population does not have a regular electricity supply. With much of the continent lying in the equatorial zone, daylight is limited to about 12 hours per day. A lack of electricity makes simple tasks impossible after dark, with a knock-on effect on efficiency and productivity. It is perhaps only with regard to energy that Africa, after 6pm, remains a dark continent!

Achim Steiner, of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is positive about the future, pointing out that “the continent is rich in renewable resources which can benefit the majority of people within a few years.'’ However, he does warn that the continent risks being left behind in an increasingly energy-demanding world economy. Access to computers and the internet could be a key factor in Africa’s development, and corporations are queueing up to design and donate “the one hundred dollar laptop”. But without electricity, such initiatives become unsustainable gimmicks.

Yet there is little reason why Africa should lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to energy. Endowed with limitless sunshine, vast lakes and rivers, the continent could be a showcase for renewable energy generation. Rwanda’s solar power plant is hopefully the first in a long line of initiatives which harness Africa’s natural riches for the benefit of her own people.

Anna: The Southern Ocean cannot continue absorbing carbon at current rates, according to research published in the journal Science last week. The disturbing findings are the result of a four year study of the Antarctic region, conducted by scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA), British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Max Planck Institute.

Oceans are major “carbon sinks”, reservoirs of carbon dioxide which remove quantities of the harmful gas from the atmospheres. The Earth’s natural carbon sinks, oceans and plants, absorb around half of all carbon produced by human activity. The Southern Ocean alone accounts for more than 6% of the world’s ocean carbon storing capacity. Since 1981, the ocean’s ability to hold carbon has been reducing and this carbon sink now appears to be reaching capacity, resulting in a higher level of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere.

The findings follow hot on the heels of new evidence that the polar ice caps are breaking up, and revelations last year that Siberia’s immense frozen peat bogs are melting. The one million square kilometre area of permafrost is gradually thawing, releasing huge quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. The accelerated rates of carbon dioxide and methane release are interpreted by some scientists as a worrying indication of the speed of anthropogenic climate change.

The Southern Ocean research team found that increased winds over the ocean had triggered a release of stored carbon dioxide. These winds are a new phenomenon, thought to be a result of the ongoing depletion of the ozone layer in the Antarctic. Strong winds lead to increased turbulence and carbon dissolved in deep water is dredged to the surface, where it is released into the armosphere. If the trend continues, this particular carbon sink will become an increasingly ineffective counterbalance to the huge volumes of greenhouse gases being emitted each year. And as the greenhouse effect intensifies, so will the release of carbon, a negative feedback that could have catastrophic long-term consequences. Dr Corinne Le Quéré of UEA and BAS said:

This is the first time that we’ve been able to say that climate change itself is responsible for the saturation of the Southern Ocean sink.

Our planet is ‘gifted’ with around 8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide annually, thanks to human activities like energy generation and consumption, agriculture and waste disposal. This, surely is an area where the G8 leaders must take the lead. The major produceers of carbon dioxide since the industrial revolution began, the developed world is also responsible for getting emissions under control and encouraging a responsible attitude among emerging economies like China and India. With other studies suggesting that similar processes are occurring in the North Atlantic, now is the time to take action.

As Le Quéré says, serious efforts need to be made to reduce carbon emissions. It’s no good throwing our hands up and accepting that greenhouse gas levels are bound to increase as the world’s population and energy needs grow.