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news20100228lat

2010-02-28 19:55:04 | Weblog
[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]

[U.S. & World > Pacific Tsunami]
From the Associated Press
February 28, 2010 | 2:32 a.m.
Pacific alert lifted as post-quake tsunami doesn't measure up

A 4-foot wave hits the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, and a 6.5-foot wave hits an island in Tonga, but no damage is reported.


TOKYO — The tsunami from Chile's deadly earthquake hit Japan's main islands and the shores of Russia on Sunday, but the smaller-than-expected waves prompted the lifting of a Pacific-wide alert. Hawaii and other Pacific islands were also spared.

In Japan, where hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from shorelines, the biggest wave following the magnitude-8.8 quake off Chile hit the northern island of Hokkaido. There were no immediate reports of damage from the 4-foot wave, though some piers were briefly flooded.

As it crossed the Pacific, the tsunami dealt populated areas -- including the U.S. state of Hawaii -- only a glancing blow.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued a warning for 53 nations and territories, but lifted it Sunday, though some countries were keeping their own watches in place as a precaution.

The tsunami raised fears the Pacific could fall victim to the type of devastating waves that killed 230,000 people in the Indian Ocean in 2004 the morning after Christmas. During that disaster, there was little-to-no warning and much confusion about the impending waves.

Officials said the opposite occurred after the Chile quake: They overstated their predictions of the size of the waves and the threat.

"We expected the waves to be bigger in Hawaii, maybe about 50 percent bigger than they actually were," said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist for the warning center. "We'll be looking at that."

Japan, fearing the tsunami could gain force as it moved closer, put all of its eastern coastline on tsunami alert and ordered hundreds of thousands of residents in low-lying areas to seek higher ground as waves generated by the Chilean earthquake raced across the Pacific at hundreds of miles per hour.

Japan is particularly sensitive to the tsunami threat.

In July 1993 a tsunami triggered by a major earthquake off Japan's northern coast killed more than 200 people on the small island of Okushiri. A stronger quake near Chile in 1960 created a tsunami that killed about 140 people in Japan.

Towns along northern coasts issued evacuation orders to 400,000 residents, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said. NHK switched to emergency mode, broadcasting a map with the areas in most danger and repeatedly urging caution.

As the wave continued its expansion across the ocean, Japan's Meteorological Agency said waves of up to 10 feet could hit the northern prefectures of Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi, but the first waves were much smaller.

People packed their families into cars, but there were no reports of panic or traffic jams. Fishermen secured their boats, and police patrolled beaches, using sirens and loudspeakers to warn people to leave the area.

Elsewhere, the tsunami passed gently.

By the time the tsunami hit Hawaii -- a full 16 hours after the quake -- officials had already spent the morning blasting emergency sirens, blaring warnings from airplanes and ordering residents to higher ground.

The islands were back to paradise by the afternoon, but residents endured a severe disruption and scare earlier in the day: Picturesque beaches were desolate, million-dollar homes were evacuated, shops in Waikiki were shut down, and residents lined up at supermarkets to stock up on food and at gas stations.

Waves hit California, but barely registered amid stormy weather. A surfing contest outside San Diego went on as planned.

In Tonga, where up to 50,000 people fled inland hours ahead of the tsunami, the National Disaster Office had reports of a wave up to 6.5 feet high hitting a small northern island, deputy director Mali'u Takai said. There were no initial indications of damage.

Nine people died in Tonga last September when the Samoa tsunami slammed the small northern island of Niuatoputapu, wiping out half of the main settlement.

In Samoa, where 183 people died in the tsunami five months ago, thousands remained Sunday morning in the hills above the coasts on the main island of Upolu, but police said there were no reports of waves or sea surges hitting the South Pacific nation.

At least 20,000 people abandoned their homes in southeastern Philippine villages and took shelter in government buildings or fled to nearby mountains overnight due to the tsunami scare. Provincial officials scrambled to alert villagers and prepare contingency plans, according to the National Disaster Coordinating Council.

Philippine navy and coast guard vessels, along with police, were ordered to stand by for possible evacuation but the alert was lifted late Sunday afternoon.

Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said there was no tsunami risk for the archipelago as it was too far from the quake's epicenter.

On New Zealand's Chatham Islands earlier Sunday, officials reported a wave measured at 6.6 feet.

Oceanographer Ken Gledhill said it was typical tsunami behavior when the sea water dropped 3 feet off North Island's east coast at Gisborne and then surged back.

Several hundred people in the North Island coastal cities of Gisborne and Napier were evacuated from their homes and from camp grounds, while residents in low-lying areas on South Island's Banks Peninsula were alerted to be ready to evacuate.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology canceled its tsunami warning Sunday evening.

"The main tsunami waves have now passed all Australian locations," the bureau said.

No damage was reported in Australia from small waves that were recorded earlier in the day in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Norfolk Island, about 1,000 miles northeast of Sydney.

New Zealand's Ministry of Civil Defense and Emergency Management downgraded its tsunami warning to an advisory status, which it planned to keep in place overnight.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

news20100228gdn

2010-02-28 14:55:17 | Weblog
[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > UK news > Weather]
Flooding alert as rain, wind and tides threaten chaos

South, east and north England at risk as Scotland hit by more snow

Tracy McVeigh
The Observer, Sunday 28 February 2010 Article history

Flooding is expected across Britain this weekend, with predictions that the torrential downpours and strong winds will intensify. The weather has already been held responsible for the death of Vanessa Robson, 53, of Beverley, east Yorkshire, whose Land Rover was washed into a narrow river and jammed beneath a bridge on the North York Moors.

Forecasters expect the east and south of England to bear the brunt of today's severe weather. The Environment Agency had four flood warnings in force – on the Went river in south Yorkshire, the upper Hull river in east Yorkshire, part of the Ouse river in north Yorkshire and Lustrum Beck in Co Durham. Forecasters said that a broad band of heavy rain accompanied by strong winds would sweep across southern England, pushing northwards. Rainfall totals in the south-east could top 30mm in some areas. High tides will make flooding more likely in coastal areas. The Environment Agency said 50-75mm of rain last week saturated land in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and raised the flood risk from swollen rivers.

Andrew Gilham, the agency's flood risk manager for the southern region, said: "The ground is now saturated and river levels have risen. Our staff are out in force working tirelessly to reduce any possible risk of flooding across the region."

In Scotland hundreds of homes were still without electricity yesterday after thick snow brought down cables in Perthshire and Aberdeenshire, initially cutting off 45,000 homes.

About 100 houses had to be evacuated in Aberdeenshire because of landslides and there was concern over residents who were refusing to leave their homes. A snow-blocked road in the north of Scotland left people stuck in their cars in freezing temperatures for more than 17 hours. As the lambing season begins, more than 1,000 barns have collapsed under the weight of snow since the Arctic conditions first swept in during December.

news20100228bbc

2010-02-28 08:56:55 | Weblog
[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Americas > Chile]
Page last updated at 13:01 GMT, Sunday, 28 February 2010
Chile counts cost of earthquake as tsunami fears ease

{Chile's coastal towns have suffered severe damage in the quake}
Chile has begun to count the cost of its deadly 8.8 magnitude earthquake as nations around the Pacific eased their fears of a devastating tsunami.


The quake, on Saturday morning, killed at least 300 people - 90% of them in their homes. It is feared the damage may cost tens of billions of dollars.

One major rescue effort is in the city of Concepcion, where dozens are feared trapped in a collapsed apartment block.

The Pacific-wide alert for a tsunami in the wake of the quake has been lifted.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said that two million people had been affected by the earthquake.

The 8.8 quake is one of the biggest ever recorded and the largest to hit Chile in 50 years.

'Catastrophe'

Many Chileans in affected areas have spent the first night since the earthquake outdoors, afraid to stay inside.

{{ AT THE SCENE}
Gideon Long, BBC News, Santiago
The streets of the capital, usually buzzing with activity on a summer weekend like this, are eerily quiet and dark. Nearly 24 hours after the quake struck, whole swathes of the city have no electricity and no running water.
Many people have packed up and left to stay with friends and relatives who are better off than they are.
The city's new buildings seemed to have survived more or less intact. But it's the old buildings that suffered. I drove past my local church - still intact but missing its dome, which crashed to the ground when the earth began to shake.
Around the city of Concepcion, whole villages have been flattened. Highways have been sliced in two and bridges have collapsed.
But help is arriving. Chile has a long history of earthquakes and the authorities here know how to deal with them. }

In Concepcion, close to the epicentre, mayor Jacqueline van Rysselberghe said dozens of people were trapped in the collapsed apartment block.

"Time is of the essence to save the people inside this building," she said.

Rescue coordinator Commander Marcelo Plaza said: "We spent the whole night working, smashing through walls to find survivors. The biggest problem is fuel, we need fuel for our machinery and water for our people."

National television showed pictures of people removing goods from supermarkets in Concepcion, Chile's second city, before police arrived to clear the crowd with tear gas and water cannon.

The situation there has been described as critical.

Ms van Rysselberghe said Concepcion had as yet received no food or other aid from Santiago and that it was urgently needed.

Strong aftershocks have continued to rock Santiago and other areas.

The epicentre of the quake was 115km (70 miles) north-east of Concepcion and 325km south-west of Santiago.

Chilean officials and ministers are still trying to come to terms with the scale of the disaster.

Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma said it was difficult to give precise figures of a "catastrophe of immense proportions".

One US risk assessor, Eqecat, put the value of the damage at between $15bn and $30bn (£9.8bn-£19.6bn) or 10-15% of gross domestic product.

About 1.5 million homes have been damaged and police patrols have been stepped up to deter looters.

Most of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures. About 90% of the historic centre of the town of Curico was destroyed. Many roads and bridges across the affected area were damaged or destroyed.

Santiago airport was damaged and remains closed.

Jose Abumohor, of Chile's national emergency centre, said efforts were already under way to restore public services.

"The aim is as soon as possible that we manage to reach a state of normality," he said.

Mr Abumohor said the metro system would soon be working in Santiago and other transport services were slowly returning to normal. Roads were passable, although with diversions.

Efforts were under way to get aid to those who needed it, with relief supplies essential for the Juan Fernandez islands, where at least five people were killed as tsunamis hit.

The coastal town of Talcahuano, badly damaged by tsunami waves, is said to be the worst affected.

Organisation of the reconstruction effort will soon pass to Chile's new president, Sebastian Pinera, who takes office in two weeks.

{{POWERFUL EARTHQUAKES}
> Haiti, 12 Jan 2010: About 230,000 people die after shallow 7.0 magnitude quake
> Sumatra, Indonesia, 26 Dec 2004: 9.2 magnitude. Triggers Asian tsunami that kills nearly 250,000 people
> Alaska, US, 28 March 1964: 9.2 magnitude; 128 people killed. Anchorage badly damaged
> Chile, south of Concepcion, 22 May 1960: 9.5 magnitude. About 1,655 deaths. Tsunami hits Hawaii and Japan
> Kamchatka, NE Russia, 4 Nov 1952: 9.0 magnitude

"It's going to be a very big task and we're going to need resources," he said.

Chile has so far not requested aid despite offers of assistance from the US, China, the EU, the UN and others.

Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez said Chile did not want aid offers to be "a distraction", adding: "Any aid that arrives without having been determined to be needed really helps very little."

Economic analysts say the quake will have a deep impact on Chile's economy, with the peso weakening in the short term and a large cost for rebuilding.

However, Chile could benefit in the long term from an economic boost in the reconstruction effort.

Alberto Ramos of Goldman Sachs told Reuters: "The Chileans fortunately have the best managed economy in the hemisphere and will be able to deal with this terrible adversity."

Evacuation orders

Meanwhile fears of a devastating tsunami across the Pacific receded on Sunday.

Japan has maintained an alert, issuing evacuation orders for 320,000 people around the coast.

However, it downgraded its alert from major to normal - meaning waves of two metres were expected rather than three.

About 50 Pacific countries and territories had issued tsunami alerts.

French Polynesia and Tahiti were among those hit by high waves, but no casualties have been reported.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center on Sunday lifted its Pacific-wide alert.

Warning systems across the Pacific have improved since the 2004 Indonesia quake sparked a tsunami that killed nearly 250,000 people.

news20100228reut

2010-02-28 05:55:22 | Weblog
[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
BEIJING
Sun Feb 28, 2010 5:34am EST
China says moving to enforce greenhouse gas goals

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Sunday it will spell out greenhouse gas emissions goals and monitoring rules for regions and sectors in its next five-year plan, with monitoring to show it is serious about curbing emissions.


The Chinese government said in November it would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from human activity, emitted to make each unit of national income by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

That goal would let China's greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, but more slowly than its rapid economic growth.

The policy was a cornerstone of Beijing's position at the Copenhagen summit on climate change late last year when governments tried with limited success to agree on a new global treaty on fighting global warming.

The United States and other powers said China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from industry and other human activities, should have offered to do more to bring its domestic "carbon intensity" goal into an international pact that would reassure other governments.

China said it and other poorer countries should not be obliged to take on internationally-binding emissions goals, and officials said Beijing would take steps to show the world it was serious about enforcing that goal.

Now the leading committee of China's national parliament has gone some way to showing how the government plans, saying officials will carry out an "inventory" of greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 and 2008, using that as a yardstick for setting emissions reductions goals across areas and sectors.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, or parliament, said the government would put in place a "statistical monitoring and assessment system to ensure greenhouse gas emissions goals are met," Xinhua reported.

Those goals will be made part of the country's next five-year development plan, starting from 2011.

"Relevant departments and regions will form action plans and medium- and long-term plans to cope with climate change and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, based on the targets and requirements set out by the State Council", or cabinet, the report said.

Scientists widely believe China has passed the United States as the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, but Beijing does not release any recent official emissions data.

China's most recent official inventory of emissions was submitted to a U.N. agency in 2004 and covered the year 1994. (Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by David Fox)

news20100227gdn1

2010-02-27 14:55:54 | Weblog
[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
UN climate heads call for consensus and urge attempts to rebuild trust

UN climate chiefs meet in Bali, admitting they face 'existential challenge' after failure of Copenhagen climate change talks

Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 February 2010 18.20 GMT Article history

Environmental officials on Friday urged industrialised and developing countries to stop bickering in climate change negotiations, as a Chinese delegate accused rich nations of reneging on commitments to fight global warming.

Officials from more than 100 countries are attending an annual UN environmental meeting on Indonesia's resort island of Bali. They said trust must be restored among nations following the failure at talks in Copenhagen in December create a binding accord on cutting CO2 emissions.

"There was a very strong message from many countries that this is actually an existential challenge," Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa told a news conference.

"One overriding sentiment" expressed by many countries "was the need to rebuild confidence, to address the question of trust deficit," he said.

At Copenhagen, nations only agreed on a voluntary plan to tackle climate change. Representatives from more than 190 nations will meet in Cancún, Mexico, in November for another attempt to reach a binding agreement.

The aim is to keep the global average temperature from rising more than 2C above pre-industrial levels.

UN scientists have said any temperature rise above that figure could lead to catastrophic sea-level rises, threatening islands and coastal cities.

Despite the call for harmony, Chinese foreign ministry official Guo Zaofeng said developed countries had not lived up to their past commitments to cut greenhouse gases, nor had they provided funds and technology to poor countries grappling with climate change.

"This way, they've broken the atmosphere of trust," Guo said. "This is why we did not get quicker progress during the negotiations."

China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has already said it would cut its "carbon intensity" – a measure of CO2 emissions per unit of production – by 40-45% by 2020, from 2005 levels.

The head of the US delegation in the Bali meeting, Kerri-Ann Jones, refused to comment on Guo's remarks. She said the Copenhagen meeting had made progress, citing a plan for aid and technological support for poor countries.

"It's a very difficult challenge that we're facing," Jones said. "We have to keep working on the positive side. I think we can advance."

UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said on Thursday it was unlikely that a binding agreement could be forged in the Cancún meetings.

"It's very close to the deadline, and that's a problem," de Boer said. He said the focus should shift toward reaching an agreement at a summit in South Africa in 2011 before the Kyoto protocol, which set emissions targets for industrial countries, expires in 2012.

De Boer, who helped kickstart the climate talks in 2007 on replacing the Kyoto protocol, last week announced he would leave the job in July, but said his decision had nothing to do with the outcome of the Copenhagen meeting.

Following talks at Copenhagen, 60 nations – including China, the United States and the 27-member European Union – last month submitted non-binding pledges to the UN for cutting emissions.

Together, the countries produce 78% of the world's greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

news20100227gdn2

2010-02-27 14:44:05 | Weblog
[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Water]
Yemen threatens to chew itself to death over thirst for narcotic qat plant

Water already causes armed conflict in the capital, but there is worse to come for a hungry country when the oilfields run dry

Hugh Macleod in Wadi Dahr and John Vidal
guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 February 2010 17.10 GMT Article history

There's something a bit different about the three Rafik brothers as they show off their fields of lanky green trees, grown from the rich and rare soils of Wadi Dahr.

Unlike three-quarters of Yemeni men on the afternoon of a day off, there are no little green flecks around the teeth of Abdullah, Nabil and Ahmed: they are not chewing qat – they are growing it.

The bitter and mildly narcotic leaf is key to Yemen's economy, and yet its enormous need for water is on course to make the capital, Sana'a, the first in the world to die of thirst. With the problem extending across the nation, the country is almost literally chewing itself to death.

From high on the scorched brown rock face that surrounds the Wadi Dahr valley, half an hour's drive north-west of Sana'a, the fertile carpet of vegetation below looks miraculous. Like most of Yemen, these northern mountains are a dry and barren land. But the irrigation needed to grow qat, coupled with an exploding population, means Sana'a's water basin is emptying out at a staggering rate: four times as much water is taken out of the basin as falls into it each year.

Most experts predict Sana'a, the fastest-growing capital in the world at 7% a year, will run out of economically viable water supplies by 2017. That is the same year the World Bank says Yemen will cease earning income from its oil, which currently accounts for three-quarters of the state's revenues.

The cost of water in some suburbs of Sana'a has tripled in the last year, and armed conflicts over water resources around the city are increasing. Shortages in the summer months leave thousands of families with taps run dry, forcing them to spend a third of their meagre incomes on buying water from trucks.

According to Mahmoud Shidiwah, chair of the Yemeni government's water and environment protection agency, 19 of the country's 21 main water aquifers are no longer being replenished after a long drought and increasing demand. He says Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, receives under 200 cubic metres a person a year, well below the international water poverty line of 1,000 cubic metres. The water basin in Taiz, one of Yemen's largest cities, has already collapsed. Neighbouring Amran is close, as is Saada in the north.

The water situation is so serious that the government has considered moving the capital, as well as desalinating seawater on the coast and pumping it 2,000 metres uphill to the capital. A third solution would be to transfer water over the mountains from another basin. Shidiwah says: "We have a very big problem. All options have been found to be unacceptable."

The best solution, everyone agrees, is to reduce qat growing, which sucks up the largest share of water use. But this is also fraught with social and political problems, says Shidiwah, because in a country where half the population earn less than $2 a day it provides many jobs.

A meeting of Yemen's Gulf Arab neighbours this weekend in Riyadh, following a conference in London in January, is expected to make pledges of development assistance to the failing state. However, the UN's appeal for $177m in humanitarian aid this year is so far only 0.4% funded, leading the World Food Programme earlier this month to cut back rations for around 1 million Yemenis. A recent WFP survey found that one out of every three Yemenis – 7.5 million people – suffer chronic hunger.

Once a vibrant farming economy, Yemen today imports up to 80% of its food needs. The residents of Rawda, one of six districts that make up the sprawling suburbs of Sana'a known as Beni al Harith, know why.

"In the 1970s this was all covered with trees. We used to grow the most delicious grapes in the republic. Now they come from outside," says Abdel Latif al Oulofi, a community leader.

"In the 1980s the population was 5,000. Now there are more than 100,000 people. We know of 1,500 illegal wells, most of them now dry. People have been drilling with oil rigs, going down 600 metres to try and find water. But the wells are so polluted we have to rely on trucks. Rawda means paradise. It was very beautiful. Now it's like hell."

A further irony is that Yemen is subsidising its own drought. Officials estimate that a billion litres of diesel were used last year just for pumping water for agriculture. As the government subsidises most of the cost of diesel, the state calculates it spent $700m on depleting its own national water resources.

Oulofi promises to set up a meeting later in the afternoon with Rawda's sheikh, or tribal leader, who will be discussing water issues with local families.

But the view over Wadi Dahr shows why little explanation for Yemen's water woes is needed: the rows and rows of green trees below do not bear fruit and vegetables, but solely the qat leaf.

"You know it's ready to harvest when you see the top stalk has two buds," says the youngest of the three Rafiks, 17-year-old Nabil Ali, as he pulls down the bendy trunk of a hamdani tree, one of Sana'a's most popular qat varieties.

Weaving along the heavily potholed track leading out of Wadi Dahr, and the phone rings. It's Oulofi with bad news. The sheikh has been laid up in the local clinic, put on a drip and told to rest for the next two days. He won't be able to discuss water with his community until at least next week. The reason for the sheikh's sudden collapse? Sunstroke and dehydration.

State of crisis

Saudi Arabia is hosting a meeting on Yemen's most urgent development and financial needs as efforts intensify to boost international support for reforms by President Ali Abdullah Salih. Yemen is often described a state in danger of failing. In addition to its acute water crisis, it is also running out of oil — its main source of revenue — and has to support a rapidly growing and young population with high rates of illiteracy, malnutrition and unemployment. International ­interest was galvanised by the abortive attempt to bomb a US airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, claimed by the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the ­Arabian Peninsula. Under US pressure, Yemeni authorties have targeted al-Qaida more aggressively.

Ian Black

news20100227nn1

2010-02-27 11:55:47 | Weblog
[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 26 February 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.97
News
A CoGeNT result in the hunt for dark matter

An underground experiment may have detected a type of dark-matter particle.

By Eric Hand

The Soudan mine hosts both the CDMSII and CoGeNT dark matter experiments.J. Davis/WikimediaDeep in the Soudan mine in Minnesota, some 700 metres below ground amid the bones of bats, sits the huge Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMSII) experiment, which at its heart contains a rack of supercooled hockey-puck-sized silicon and germanium detectors nestled within Russian-doll layers of shielding.

Two weeks ago, the CDMSII collaboration published a paper showing that two particles had penetrated its detector's defences — particles that, given the lack of any other particle activity down in the frigid quiet of the detectors, looked very much like dark matter1. Dark matter is thought to make up 85% of the mass in the Universe, but has not been detected directly — quite. The attention-grabbing claim of the CDMSII collaboration has many physicists thinking — but not yet convinced — that the team could be on to something.

Just a stone's throw from the CDMSII experiment, across the subterranean cavern, lies a far smaller box that is thickening the dark-matter plot. The box contains a single germanium hockey puck, similar to those in the CDMSII experiment but operated by the Coherent Germanium Neutrino Technology (CoGeNT) collaboration and tuned to detect incoming particles with much lower masses than the CDMSII. It began collecting data in December 2009, and, after just 56 days, the group is reporting hundreds of particle strikes that cannot be explained other than by invoking dark matter.

"If it's real, we're looking at a very beautiful dark-matter signal," says Juan Collar, a physicist at the University of Chicago and CoGeNT spokesperson. Collar presented the work today at a dark-matter conference at the University of California, Los Angeles. The results were posted on the preprint server Arxiv yesterday2.

{{“If it's real, we're looking at a very beautiful dark-matter signal.”}
Juan Collar
University of Chicago}

Confirmation of the result — and Collar is careful to say that it is still early days — would radically shift attention to experiments that are sensitive to lower energies. The CoGeNT experiment looks for a type of dark-matter particle called a WIMP, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particle. The new data point to a WIMP with a mass in the range of 7–11 billion electronvolts. Theorists have conjured up hundreds of mathematically consistent models for producing WIMPs of different masses in the early Universe, and the particles detected by CoGeNT fit well in the realm of the theoretically possible.

But the majority of models had favoured WIMP particles that are an order of magnitude heavier, and some experiments — such as the CDMSII, and those using large tanks filled with mineral oil or liquefied noble gases — were aiming for that territory. "The experiments designed to look at the heavier particles aren't going to like the CoGeNT result," says Dan Hooper, a theorist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.

Swimming in dark matter

On its own, the CoGeNT result is just yet another tentative claim in a sea of dark-matter hints. And Collar himself acknowledges that the CoGeNT detector is not shielded as well as the CDMSII experiment, so the signal he's seeing could simply be an unexplained radioactive decay process in the electronics. But the fact that the CoGeNT results mesh so well with those of the CDMSII and one other experiment is what gets the attention of Neal Weiner, a theorist at New York University. "I think this will make some noise," says Weiner. "It lines up nicely with the possible interpretation of other results."

The WIMP called for by the CoGeNT result is consistent with the two CDMSII 'hits', but because those events lay at the lower reaches of CDMSII's energy sensitivities, researchers will have a hard time sifting for more.

The second experiment that matches up with the CoGeNT result is the strange signal seen in a deep underground detector in Gran Sasso, Italy, by the DAMA/LIBRA collaboration (Dark Matter Large Sodium Iodide Bulk for Rare Processes) (see 'Italian group claims to see dark matter - again'). For a decade, the Italian team has found a periodic signal that won't go away; the effect has been put down to Earth annually passing through a steady current of dark matter in the Milky Way.

The particles seen by CoGeNT are much lower in mass than the regions of parameter space currently being investigated by space satellites such as the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics (PAMELA), which have also found dark matter hints — but for heavier particles (see 'Dark matter intrigue deepens').

But Weiner points out that whereas the CoGeNT result will raise doubts about what the space experiments are seeing, they won't undermine them completely; it's entirely possible that all of the dark matter seen indirectly in the cosmos could be comprised of both light and heavy particles. So he doesn't want the planned higher-mass detectors to be mothballed just yet. "This won't put any of the detectors out of business," says Weiner. "We should be cautious."

References
1. The CDMS II Collaboration Science advance online publication doi:10.1126/science.1186112 (2010).
2. Aalseth, C. E. et al. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.4703 (2010).

news20100227nn2

2010-02-27 11:44:03 | Weblog
[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 26 February 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.96
Corrected online: 26 February 2010
News
Carbon credits proposed for whale conservation

Stopping whale hunting could help sequester millions of tonnes of carbon.

By Richard A. Lovett

{{Whales are like trees — when it comes to carbon credits.}
Getty}

Biological oceanographer Andrew Pershing wants carbon credits for whale conservation. That's because whales, he says, are like trees. "Like any animal or plant, they are made out of carbon. And whales are so big they each store a lot of carbon," he says.

Pershing, of the University of Maine in Orono and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, Maine, calculates that even though some whale species are now recovering from the effects of factory whaling, total whale biomass today is less than one-fifth of what it was in 1900, before whaling decimated the population. Letting the whale population recover, he said on 25 February at the American Geophysical Union's 2010 Ocean Sciences meeting in Portland, Oregon, could eventually sequester 9 million tonnes of carbon in their combined biomass.

He compares it to planting trees. "In a forest, trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and accumulate that as biomass. Whales take carbon out of the system through their food, then incorporate that carbon in their tissues."

Whaling, by contrast, is like cutting down trees for firewood. "You're taking whales out of the population and putting their carbon somewhere else." In the early days of whaling, Pershing explains, that carbon was going straight into the atmosphere through the burning of whale oil in lamps, for example. More recently, he says, the carbon is released through the consumption of whale meat by humans, "but you're still taking carbon out of the whale and putting it into something that's going to respire it".

Furthermore, when whales die naturally, they usually sink to the bottom of the ocean, carrying their carbon with them. Back in 1900, when whale numbers were high, that would have totalled about 200,000 tonnes of carbon per year, Pershing estimates. Even though benthic creatures eventually eat the whale carcasses (see 'Bone-devouring worms discovered'), the carbon will remain in the depths, Pershing says, staying "out of the atmosphere for potentially hundreds of years".

Carbon consumers

By comparison, 9 million tonnes is only a small fraction of the 7 billion tonnes of carbon entering the atmosphere each year from human activities, Pershing says, but it's still a lot. It's equivalent to 11,000 square kilometres of temperate forest, or 11,000 Hummers driving for 100 years, says Pershing.

It's also comparable to the amount of carbon involved in forest-management schemes being proposed for buying and selling carbon credits, he said. "People would pay a lot to preserve an area of forest that big."

If whales increase in numbers, other species that compete for the same food might decline. But even if ocean food supplies are limited, there could still be a substantial increase in total biomass owing to the difference in size between whales and the organisms they could displace. Because large animals require less food per unit mass than smaller animals, any given food source (such as krill) can support a lot more biomass in a whale than in a small animal such as a penguin.

Rebuilding stocks
Other scientists greeted Pershing's presentation with enthusiasm. "It's exciting," says Daniel Costa, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "It means that whales are important not just because they're charismatic, but because they play an important role in the carbon cycle."

Furthermore, he says, Pershing's research may actually understate the degree to which whales could sequester carbon. The iron in whale faeces is an important micronutrient that is often in short supply in waters such as the Southern Ocean, and it can help boost algal growth — which ultimately means more food for everything, including whales. "In order to drive these large algal blooms you need iron," says Costa. In fact, he says, the indirect benefits of iron fertilization from whale faeces might remove more carbon from the atmosphere by boosting algal growth than the growth of the whales themselves.

Pershing adds that the same analysis applies to other large ocean animals whose populations have been drastically reduced, such as bluefin tuna and some species of shark. "These guys are huge," he says.

And even though all of these animals' biomass combined represents a small fraction of total human carbon emissions, they could still sequester many tonnes of carbon. "You could use carbon as one of the incentives to rebuild the stores of these large organisms," Pershing says.

Corrected:An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that letting whale biomass recover would sequester 105 million tonnes of carbon. Andrew Pershing has since recalculated this figure as 9 million tonnes of carbon.

news20100227bbc

2010-02-27 08:56:29 | Weblog
[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Ameracas > Chile]
Page last updated at 09:45 GMT, Saturday, 27 February 2010
Massive earthquake strikes Chile

A massive earthquake with a magnitude of 8.8 has struck central Chile, the country's largest in 25 years.


The quake struck at 0634 GMT about 91km (56 miles) north-east of the city of Concepcion and 317km south-west of the capital, Santiago.

Outgoing President Michelle Bachelet said that she had reports of six deaths so far and could not rule out that there might be more.

The US issued an initial tsunami warning for Chile, Peru and Ecuador.

That was later extended to Colombia, Antarctica, Panama and Costa Rica. Japan's meteorological agency warned of a potential tsunami across large areas of the Pacific.

Aftershocks

President Bachelet called on people to remain calm and contact the authorities if they needed help.

{Damage to buildings was registered in the capital Santiago}

She said: "The country has just experienced an enormous earthquake... we are in the process of finding out about the effects of the quake across the region, the state of the roads and hospitals, the damage to buildings and of course the number of those killed and injured."

Ms Bachelet, who has now gone into an emergency meeting, said that there were areas of the country where communications were down and teams were working to restore them.

Many of Chile's news websites and radio stations were not accessible.

Buildings in Santiago were reported to have shaken for between 10 and 30 seconds, with the loss of electricity and communications.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake struck at a depth of about 35km.

{{POWERFUL EARTHQUAKES}
> Haiti, 12 Jan 2010: About 230,000 people die after shallow 7.0 magnitude quake
> Sumatra, Indonesia, 26 Dec 2004: 9.2 magnitude. Triggers Asian tsunami that kills nearly 250,000 people
> Alaska, US, 28 March 1964: 9.2 magnitude; 128 people killed. Anchorage badly damaged
> Chile, south of Concepcion, 22 May 1960: 9.5 magnitude. About 1,655 deaths. Tsunami hits Hawaii and Japan
> Kamchatka, NE Russia, 4 Nov 1952: 9.0 magnitude}

It recorded a 6.2 magnitude aftershock in the same area soon after at 0652 GMT and another of 5.5 magnitude about 84km from Santiago at 0819 GMT.

The USGS said tsunami effects had been observed at Valparaiso, west of Santiago, with a wave height of 1.29m above normal sea level.

Reuters news agency later quoted the Chilean navy as saying the tsunami warning for southern Chile had been lifted.

One journalist speaking to Chilean national television from the city of Temuco, 600km south of Santiago, said many people there had left their homes, determined to spend the rest of the night outside. Some people on the streets were in tears.

Mark Winstanley, who contacted the BBC from Vina del Mar, 100km north-west of Santiago, said buildings had shaken and electricity and phone connections were cut but he could see no structural damage yet.

A university professor in Santiago, Cristian Bonacic, said that this was a massive quake but that the cities seemed to have resisted well. Internet communications were working but not mobile phones.

Chile suffered the biggest earthquake of the 20th century when a 9.5 magnitude quake struck the city of Valdivia in 1960, killing 1,655 people.

news20100227cnn

2010-02-27 06:55:28 | Weblog
[Top stories] from [CNN.com]

[Asia > Japan]
February 27, 2010 -- Updated 0400 GMT (1200 HKT)
Tsunami advisory canceled after 7.0 earthquake off Okinawa

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
> Japan's Meteorological Agency cancels tsunami advisory
> "There may be slight sea level changes from now on," agency says
> Quake centered about 6 miles deep, 53 miles east of Okinawa


(CNN) -- A tsunami advisory announced shortly after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Japan's Ryukyu Islands early Saturday has been canceled, Japan's Meteorological Agency reported.

There was no tsunami damage "though there may be slight sea level changes from now on," it said, referring to the areas affected by the advisory -- the Okinawa Islands, the Amami Islands and the Tokara Islands.

The quake was centered 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep and struck at 5:31 a.m. (3:31 p.m. ET Friday) about 85 kilometers (53 miles) from Okinawa.

The quake was felt on Okinawa, with shaking that lasted about 15 seconds, said Lt. Col. Daniel King of the U.S. Pacific Command. He told CNN that commanders in Japan and Hawaii were trying to get damage and casualty reports from U.S. military stations on Okinawa, but had heard nothing in the immediate aftermath.

About 20,000 U.S. troops -- mostly Marines, along with Navy and Air Force personnel -- are stationed on eight bases on Okinawa, he said.

Are you there? Send photos, video

iReporter Kristina Donaldson, who lives in central Okinawa, said the quake "seemed to last longer than other ones we have experienced here."

"We felt the quake pretty good this morning," she said, but life there was largely unaffected.

"I just walked down to the coastline and the kids are walking to school as they always do. No sirens, or any destruction from where we are."

Okinawa resident Eric Shepherd said his grandmother-in-law described it as the strongest quake she had felt in her 90 years on the island.

"It felt like some really bad airplane turbulence," Shepherd said, adding that one of his two children slept through what seemed like a minute-long "rumble."

"I had no problem walking to the kids' room to check on them" during the quake, he said.


[Latin America > Chile]
February 27, 2010 -- Updated 0918 GMT (1718 HKT)
Powerful earthquake rattles Chile; tsunami warning issued

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
> At least six people reported dead after magnitude 8.8 quake in Chile
> Tsunami wave as high as 9 feet has been recorded; tsunami warnings issued for Chile, Peru
> Building collapses, power outages reported throughout Santiago, Concepcion


(CNN) -- At least six people are dead after a massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck central Chile early Saturday, according to government officials.

The epicenter of the earthquake was located near the city of Concepcion, 212 miles (341 kilometers) from the capital of Santiago. The quake struck at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. ET).

Concepcion is Chile's second largest city with a population of 200,000. There are reports of collapsed buildings in Santiago. The quake was felt in several Chilean towns and in parts of Argentina as well.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for Chile and Peru. A tsunami watch has been issued for Ecuador, Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica. The center recorded a tsunami wave as high as 9 feet.

"An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicenter within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours," the National Weather Service said in a statement.

Officials hoped to learn more about the devastation in the morning.

Santiago resident Leo Perioto jumped out of his bed in his apartment at the top of a six-story building.

"The whole building was shaking," he said. "The windows were wobbling a lot. We could feel the walls moving from side to side."

Alessandro Perez, who is staying at the Santiago Marriott Hotel, reported shattered windows, but there was no structural damage. No one at the hotel was injured, he said.

Anita Herrera, who works at the Hotel Kennedy in Santiago, said electricity was knocked out at that hotel and guests were nervous.

"Our hotel is built for this," she said. "In Chile, this happens many times."

Chile holds the record for the largest earthquake in the world, according to the USGS. A magnitude 9.5 quake struck the South American country in May 1960 and killed 1,655 people.

news20100227reut

2010-02-27 05:56:45 | Weblog
[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[World > Natural Disasters]
Alonso Soto
SANTIAGO, Chile
Sat Feb 27, 2010 4:12am EST
Huge 8.8-magnitude quake hits Chile, 6 dead

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - A massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck south-central Chile early on Saturday, killing at least six people, triggering a tsunami and rattling buildings in the capital Santiago.


President Michelle Bachelet said six people were killed and that more deaths were possible. Telephone and power lines were down, making a quick assessment of the damage difficult in the early morning darkness.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck 56 miles northeast of the city of Concepcion at a depth of 22 miles at 3:34 a.m. (1:43 a.m. ET).

Local television stations said there was damage to buildings in the historic center of Santiago, which lies about 200 miles north of the epicenter.

People streamed onto the streets of the capital, hugging each other and crying, and there were blackouts in parts of the city.

An earthquake of magnitude 8 or over can cause "tremendous damage," the USGS says. The quake that devastated Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince on January 12 was rated at magnitude 7.0.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the Chile quake generated a tsunami that may have been destructive along the coast near the epicenter "and could also be a threat to more distant coasts." It issued a tsunami warning for Chile and Peru, and a tsunami watch for Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Antarctica.

According to a 2002 census, Concepcion is one of the largest cities in Chile with a population of around 670,000.

Chile's main copper producing region and some of the world's largest copper mines are in the far north of the country near its border with Peru, but there are also copper deposits near Santiago.

Chile produces about 34 percent of world supply of copper, which is used in electronics, cars and refrigerators.

In 1960, Chile was hit by the world's biggest earthquake since records dating back to 1900.

The 9.5 magnitude quake devastated the south-central city of Valdivia, killing 1,655 people and sending a tsunami which battered Easter Island 2,300 miles off Chile's Pacific seaboard and continued as far as Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

(Reporting by Alonso Soto and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Kieran Murray)

news20100227reut1

2010-02-27 05:55:00 | Weblog
[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Maximilian Heath - Analysis
BUENOS AIRES
Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:33pm EST
Argentine biodiesel exports seen firm despite law

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina is set to implement a law requiring diesel to be blended with biodiesel in the coming weeks, but the nation's key exports of the green fuel could still rise as production soars.


Argentina, a leading exporter of biodiesel and the No. 1 soyoil supplier, was due to introduce the law on January 1, but it was delayed until the government agreed to allocate supply quotas to the country's top producers, industry sources say.

"The delay was caused by the need to adjust the biofuels program to fit with the possibilities of the domestic market, overcoming the hurdle caused by the law," said Claudio Molina, chief executive of the Argentine Association of Biofuels and Hydrogen (AABH).

The law was designed to boost production by the country's small- and medium-sized distillers.

However, with smaller plants unable to meet the extra 860,000 tonnes of annual demand created by the 5 percent blend requirement, Argentina has opened this year's supply quota to big oilseed crushers such as Vicentin, Glencore, Louis Dreyfus and Molinos Rio de La Plata.

Protracted negotiations over the price of biodiesel being sold in the local market also delayed the law's introduction, said Carlos St. James, president of the Argentine Chamber of Renewable Energies (CADER).

"In April you'll start seeing it at the pumps everywhere, that your gasoil is being mixed with 5 percent biodiesel ... it's on now, it's not going to be delayed anymore," he said, adding that production would grow sharply.

"There was this silent market with installed capacity that is suddenly going to come to life," he said.

Argentina produced about 1.2 million tonnes of biodiesel in 2009 -- virtually all of which was exported -- and industry groups estimate an output of between 1.6 million and 2.2 million tonnes this year.

EXPORTS SEEN FIRM

The South American country's biodiesel industry started to take off in 2007, when it exported the fuel for the first time, shipping a modest 170,000 tonnes.

A brisk market for plant-based fuels in European Union countries has seen Argentine exports increase more than five-fold and the country is now one of the biggest global providers of biodiesel -- irking producers in Europe.

Argentina's biodiesel law is not expected to dent fast-growing exports, and some industry analysts think shipments of the fuel will rise further this year in spite of the vast new domestic market.

"Producers have enough installed capacity to meet the needs of both the internal and export markets," AABH's Molina said.

Exports should rise to about 1.4 million tonnes this year compared with last year's 1.2 million, according to CADER's St. James.

Gabriel Obrador, vice president of the Argentine Chamber of Biofuels (CARBIO), said between 300,000 and 400,000 tonnes will be diverted away from the export sector as the new law comes into effect.

Biodiesel shipments from Argentina face an export tax of 20 percent compared with 32 percent for soyoil, which could mean soyoil exports are more heavily impacted by the blending law.

Increasing global output of biodiesel will likely restrain soyoil exports this year by top suppliers the United States, Brazil and Argentina, according to the Hamburg-based oilseed analyst group Oil World.

Argentina became the world's top biodiesel supplier in 2009, according to the AABH association. CARBIO expects it to overtake the United States as the No.1 exporter this year.

"This is a very promising industry, even though it's still just starting. However, it's making solid progress because governments have decided to take action on global warming and actively reduce emissions of greenhouse gases," Obrador said.

(Additional reporting and writing by Helen Popper; Editing by Rebekah Kebede)


[Green Business]
WASHINGTON
Fri Feb 26, 2010 3:56pm EST
Ethanol output rises in December: EIA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. daily ethanol output rose in December for the third month in a row as distillers took advantage of low prices for corn and natural gas, the Energy Information Administration said.


Distillers made 787,870 barrels per day of the alternative motor fuel in December, the last month for which data was available. That was up from 786,400 barrels per day in November, and 740,000 bpd in October.

"Ethanol makers are making money again," said Matt Hartwig a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol industry group. "It's become more economical for producers to make ethanol as corn prices fall."

Most U.S. ethanol is made out of corn, while distillers use natural gas to fire their plants.

Motor fuel blenders and refiners mixed about 718,838 bpd of ethanol into gasoline in December, up from 695,900 bpd in November and 703,258 bpd in October

U.S. mandates call for increasing amounts of ethanol to be blended into gasoline to help reduce foreign oil demand. The mandate for ethanol made from corn and other grains hits a maximum of 15 billion gallons a year by 2015.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; editing by Jim Marshall)


[Green Business]
Matt Daily
NEW YORK
Fri Feb 26, 2010 3:37pm EST
Energy unit bankrolls hi tech research: director

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nanotubes that use sunlight to produce fuel, liquid metal batteries, and synthetic molecules to capture carbon dioxide may become realities under Arun Majumdar's push to revolutionize the U.S. Energy Department.


Majumdar is director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the Department of Energy's newest unit, created to invest in the development of high risk, high pay-off technologies.

Targeting innovations from battery technology to carbon capture and electricity storage, ARPA-E has reached out to scientists, universities and companies around the country to help move their projects from laboratory to market place.

"We should call them potential game changers," Majumdar said in an interview.

Rising energy prices and the potential for tighter constraints on emissions of carbon from burning fossil fuels have triggered a wave of energy research projects over the past decade.

But while energy sources such as biofuels, wind power and solar energy have made inroads into the mainstream, their contributions to energy supply remain modest, and all are dependent on government subsidies to make them economically viable.

ARPA-E was announced in 2007 and modeled after DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency credited with creating the Internet.

ARPA-E got off the ground last year when it received $400 million in funding under the U.S. Recovery Act.

ARPA-E's staff is small, with a dozen government scientists and tech sector developers.

About 3,200 response poured in after its first call for proposals, and the agency awarded $151 million to 'an early harvest' of ideas, Majumdar said.

"The first round was, 'let's see what's out there,'" he said. "Twenty to 25 percent did not satisfy the laws of science or nature." Two more rounds of funding will further narrow the field.

BACKING THE BEEST

Majumdar said ARPA-E's goal was to have an impact on society through ground-breaking advances on the scale of the polio vaccine and the airplane.

"There were non-linear inventions that led to inflection points," he said. "We need to do this very quickly."

Battery technology is a major focus of the unit's BEEST program, or Batteries for Electrical Energy Storage in Transportation.

BEEST is funding development of technologies such as metal-air ionic liquid batteries, which could be far more efficient and less costly to use in cars than current lithium ion batteries.

"The BEEST program has been designed to leap-frog over today's technology," Majumdar said.

Another focus for batteries is grid-scale power storage equipment such as all-liquid metal technology that would help distribute wind and solar energy. The technology would help overcome a major stumbling block to adoption of wind and solar power.

A wide slate of other projects target biofuels and development of cellulosic technologies that could lead the transportation industry away from corn-based ethanol.

Other projects involve using nanotubes to harness sunlight that would be used to mix carbon dioxide and water to produce fuel.

Many of these projects may be long shots, and Majumdar said ARPA-E recognizes they may not all be successful.

"We tell people you will fail at some point. Fail quickly, and learn from it," he said.

"But if one of these works out, it could potentially change the ballgame."

(Reporting by Matt Daily)

news20100227reut2

2010-02-27 05:44:45 | Weblog
[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Richard Cowan and Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON
Fri Feb 26, 2010 2:39pm EST
Senator Kerry says compromise climate bill coming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator John Kerry said a bipartisan climate change bill would emerge soon in the U.S. Senate, contradicting what he called the "conventional wisdom" that the legislation was dead this election year.


Kerry is working closely with the Obama administration and a bipartisan group of senators on a comprehensive bill to reduce U.S. carbon dioxide pollution blamed for global warming.

"We're on a short track here in terms of piecing together legislation we intend to roll out," Kerry told a climate policy forum, without giving details of his proposals.

The Massachusetts Democrat and White House officials are among the most optimistic that a bill to tackle global warming can be produced, despite strong opposition among many lawmakers and as time runs out ahead of the November midterm elections.

Kerry admitted his upbeat outlook was "completely contrary to any conventional wisdom," and indicated he still had to convince some of his own Democrats to go along with a bill.

He also hinted no decision had been made on the core of a climate bill: the mechanism for bringing about declining emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

"Every mechanism that's out there is on the table," Kerry told reporters after his speech.

In a sign that Republican input is still possible, a senior senator from the party is looking at the possibility of dealing with climate change by imposing a carbon tax, something Republicans have traditionally ruled out.

Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, told Reuters she was "investigating and researching a net zero carbon tax" as well as other proposals.

He stressed that Murkowski, from a big oil-producing state, has not drafted a carbon tax bill, but so far it is the option "she likes the most."

Dillon said the idea would be to place a tax on carbon-intensive fuels and "do it as far upstream as possible" -- meaning exploration and production stages -- while giving all the revenues from the tax back to consumers.

Congress is struggling with how to raise the price of high-polluting carbon fuels such as oil and coal so that cleaner alternative power sources such as wind and solar will become more attractive to companies.

Carol Browner, President Barack Obama's top energy and climate adviser, told the same audience at the forum sponsored by the New Republic magazine "the work that is going on up on the Hill is moving at a nice speed."

Washington's ability to produce a domestic law mandating carbon reductions on industry will have a significant impact on whether negotiations on the international track will succeed.

The U.N.-sponsored global negotiations, last held in Copenhagen in December, have been slow-moving.

Todd Stern, the Obama administration's chief climate negotiator in those talks, said the United States remained committed to the U.N. process.

But he left open the possibility of another forum gaining favor if progress stalled at the U.N. level.

"There is a point at which this probably can't wait forever," Stern said at the conference.

Without progress, "things are going to develop so countries that are largely responsible for emissions around the world have the capacity to get together and make decisions and do things," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday in Bonn, Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. climate change secretariat, said it will be "very difficult" to strike a binding deal at the next annual meeting set for Mexico November 29-December 10.

UPHILL FIGHT AHEAD OF ELECTIONS

Last June, the House of Representatives passed a cap-and-trade climate bill that aims to significantly cut carbon emissions over the next 40 years. Companies would need permits for every ton of pollution they send into the atmosphere and those permits would be traded on a market.

But legislation has stalled in the Senate, where the Democrats hold a majority but do not have the 60 seats they need to overcome Republican opposition. Nor are all Democratic Senators on board, especially with congressional elections approaching in November and Americans struggling with high unemployment and a slow economic recovery.

Many lawmakers fear voter backlash if they back an environmental bill that could raise energy prices.

Others have gotten more aggressive in questioning the quality of the science of climate change after it was revealed that the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had included predictions on Himalayan glacial melts that have since been declared too dire.

"The climate science has been cooked," Republican Senator James Inhofe said on Tuesday at a hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency's budget.

He issued a report calling for the EPA to stop moving on greenhouse gas regulation until the questions were addressed.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the overall findings of the IPCC, including that humans were causing climate change, were sound.

Recent public opinion polls also show a diminishing interest in climate change. An Ipsos poll conducted in early December found that only 43 percent of those surveyed think human activity has caused a rise in Earth's temperature over the past century.

On Monday, Senator Max Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee with oversight over parts of the climate bill, told Reuters he did not sense any momentum for passage of legislation this year and gave no hint his panel would work on it any time soon.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Philip Barbara and Simon Denyer)


[Green Business]
WASHINGTON
Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:43pm EST
House members seek to block EPA carbon limits

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior Democrats in the U.S. House filed a resolution to block the Obama administration from regulating greenhouse gases on its own if a climate change bill fails to pass Congress soon.


The resolution of disapproval, filed on Thursday, is identical to a controversial resolution by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski.

Both resolutions offer a fairly quick way to overturn Environmental Protection Agency proposals to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.

The White House has already said it opposes any moves to handcuff the EPA, which it hopes will regulate greenhouse gasses if climate legislation continues to stall in Congress.

A climate bill has passed the House but efforts to pass legislation remains doubtful in the Senate because of strong Republican opposition and with Democrats nervous about elections in November.

A 1996 law allows Congress to void federal agency rules if lawmakers pass a joint resolution within 60 legislative work days after receiving the proposed rule.

House Armed Services Committee chairman Ike Skelton said the disapproval resolution would "keep EPA from threatening Congress with its own greenhouse gas policy as we write legislation."

Skelton said he would prefer "a more scaled-back bipartisan bill" than a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gases.

"A few weeks ago, we introduced a bill to change the underlying law and today's bill is intended to stop the EPA's regulatory actions," said Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson.

Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson joined Skelton and Peterson in filing the resolution. In early February, they filed a bill to say EPA cannot use air pollution laws to regulate six gases, including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. Bills usually takes months to pass.

Murkowski, sponsor of the Senate resolution, said the House resolution showed there was bipartisan opposition to EPA acting on its own.

Murkowski may ask for a Senate vote on her resolution in mid-March, said an aide. No date was set for a vote on the House resolution.

Murkowski has 40 co-sponsors, mostly Republicans, out of the 100-member Senate.

EPA said this week it would slow a phase-in of regulations that tackle carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and factories. EPA expects to issue the new rules at the end of March.

EPA opened the way for regulation of greenhouse gases under air pollution laws two months ago when it ruled the gases were a danger to human health.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Alden Bentley)

news20100227reut3

2010-02-27 05:33:13 | Weblog
[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Christine Kearney
NEW YORK
Fri Feb 26, 2010 3:52pm EST
Dolphins, monks, migrants aided by Oscar's long arm

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Documentary filmmakers are accustomed to preaching to a choir of mostly small-sized audiences who see their issue-driven films.


But nominees for the March 7 Oscars, who don't attract the controversy of a Michael Moore or the pull of Al Gore, say their nonfiction films are still reaching new eyes and a few powerful decision makers months after hitting theaters.

Issues covered in the nonfiction films include the slaughter of dolphins in Japan in "The Cove," video journalists documenting the Myanmar 2007 street protests in "Burma VJ," and child migrants from Central America attempting to cross through Mexico into the United States in "Which Way Home."

"The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers" looks at the 1970s government whistle-blower and "Food Inc." takes on the U.S. food industry and its unhealthy impact on people and animals.

None of them may have the immediate global impact of Gore's environmental documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" or raise the ire of political foes like Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," but each is having an impact in its own arena. And the filmmakers said they hoped an Oscar win would bring more exposure.

"We are really part of an incredibly powerful growing food movement," Food Inc.'s director Robert Kenner told Reuters about the film's impact since its release. "I wasn't fully aware of how strong and robust this was but the (release of) this film has really made it clear."

"Food Inc.," which criticizes a handful of big corporations and meat companies, was screened for U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Congress is considering food safety changes highlighted in the film's tale of a mother whose 2-year-old died from E. Coli infection after he ate a hamburger.

The film made $4 million at the U.S. box offices, but DVD sales soared after Kenner and others appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

"These same corporations that wouldn't talk to us began to understand that consumers are really interested in knowing what is in their food," Kenner said.

DOLPHIN SLAUGHTER

"The Cove" shows Japanese fisherman luring dolphins into a hidden cove in Taiji, Japan, where activists say they are captured for marine amusement parks or slaughtered for food.

Initially, Japanese politicians and residents spoke out against the film, saying the hunts were a cherished tradition. But after much media attention in 2009, "The Cove" finally landed a Japanese distributor.

Director Louie Psihoyos said although the film had not helped close any dolphin shows at marine parks, there was a growing movement against using the mammals for amusement.

"After seeing 'The Cove', many people have contacted us saying they don't think marine mammal shows are educational, and for that reason, dolphins and whales should not be in captivity," he said in an e-mail.

A warrant is still out for his arrest in Japan.

"Which Way Home" director Rebecca Cammisa said she spent seven years making her film because she wanted people to be aware of what was happening in child migrants' risky journeys.

"I have told (the kids) that the film has gotten this special attention because their stories are so compelling and important to people in the United States," she said. "If our film wins, I will thank them during my acceptance speech."

Recognition by the world's top film honors has allowed several subjects to continuing speaking out.

"People in Burma are really proud of the movie and seeing it go to the Oscars," said Buddhist monk U Gawsita, who appears in "Burma VJ" alongside other monks leading the 2007 protests against the military regime in what is now Myanmar.

While he has since taken refuge in the United States, Gawsita said monks held in his country had been strengthened by the film's success. "In prison they are so proud of this...It is very important for the movement," he said.

Daniel Ellsberg, 78, subject of "The Most Dangerous Man in America," said the film had invigorated him and others to speak out about the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "That could help save untold numbers of lives," he said.

(editing by Bob Tourtellotte)


[Green Business]
Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES
Fri Feb 26, 2010 4:33pm EST
Desperate California to get more water at last

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Drought-stricken farmers and cities across California were granted a measure of relief on Friday when federal and state officials said they expected to supply significantly more water this year than last.


The announcements came as welcome news in the nation's No. 1 farm state, where dramatic cutbacks in water deliveries by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the state Water Resources Department had idled thousands of farm workers and 300,000 acres of cropland.

Shortages have also forced cities and counties to ration water, raise rates and impose strict mandatory conservation measures that turned lawns brown and left cars unwashed.

But a series of strong winter storms that could mark the end of a three-year drought has left several feet of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountain range that serves as California's principal source of surface water.

In light of that deluge, this year the Bureau of Reclamation will supply most California users with 100 percent of the water they are contracted to receive, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said.

Irrigation districts south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which represent farmers on the west side of the state's Central Valley, would get 30 percent of their allotment, or three times more than last year.

The Central Valley is one of the country's most important agricultural regions, and the state produces more than half of the fruits, vegetables and nuts grown in the United States.

Separately, California officials said they were increasing the amount of water they expected to deliver from the State Water Project this year from 5 to 15 percent of normal.

If average precipitation continues for the rest of the winter, a California Department of Water Resources spokesman said, the state's finally allocation for the year could rise to 35-45 percent of requested amounts.

NOT OUT OF THE WOODS

"This is an important step for California and San Joaquin Valley farmers," Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a written statement.

"I raised this critical issue during my meeting with President Obama this week, and am very glad to see this action from his administration...," he said. "Now we must direct our attention to the long-term improvement of our water infrastructure to avoid these year-to-year uncertainties."

Meanwhile state water officials said that California's long struggle to supply its people with water was not over.

"After three years of drought conditions and a number of mandated pumping restrictions, even a wet year won't get us out of the woods," Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin said. "We need increased conservation, a more reliable water delivery system and a comprehensive solution for California's water crisis."

The dire straits of Central Valley farmers had prompted U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein to draft legislation that would ease environmental restrictions to allow more water to be pumped out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for growers -- a plan the lawmaker said she would now drop.

"I will watch this situation very carefully and I am placing my proposed amendment on hold," Feinstein said in a statement released through her office. "However, I reserve the right to bring it back should it become necessary."

Feinstein's plan would have temporarily loosened Endangered Species Act rules designed to protect salmon and smelt and it became the latest flashpoint in California's long-running water wars -- infuriating fishing groups, environmentalists and even members of the powerful Democrat's own party.

Opponents had charged that the senator's plan could ultimately lead to the extinction of Sacramento River salmon and the collapse of the Pacific Coast fishing industry.

The state supplies more than 25 million people and over 750,000 acres of farmland with water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which is fed by rainfall and snow-melt runoff from the Sierra Nevadas.

California water officials say the series of storms that have clobbered the normally sunny state have left snowpack at above-normal levels, but they have so far stopped short of calling an official end to the drought.

(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Eric Walsh)

news20100227reut4

2010-02-27 05:22:12 | Weblog
[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Poornima Gupta
SAN FRANCISCO
Fri Feb 26, 2010 4:56pm EST
Exclusive: Google develops prototype mirror for solar energy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc has developed a prototype for a new mirror technology that could cut by half the cost of building a solar thermal plant, the company's green energy czar said on Friday.


Bill Weihl said that if development and testing go well, he could see the product being ready in one to three years.

"Things have progressed," Weihl said in an interview. "We have an internal prototype."

Google has been looking at unusual materials for the mirror's reflective surface and the substrate on which the mirror is mounted.

In solar thermal technology, the sun's energy is used to heat a substance that produces steam to run a turbine. Mirrors focus the sun's rays on the heated substance.

The Internet search engine company, which has been investing in companies and doing research of its own to produce affordable renewable energy, wants to cut the cost of making heliostats, the fields of mirrors that track the sun.

"There is a decent chance that in a small number of years, we could have a 2-X reduction in cost," he said.

Global companies are increasingly investing in green technology as the world grapples with global warming and governments strive to implement regulations that could limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Google has invested in two solar thermal companies, eSolar and BrightSource, with which it has discussed the new mirror technology, Weihl said.

He said the technology was not at a stage where it could be tested externally, but he added that both eSolar and BrightSource were interested in it.

"If it works, it would absolutely be something they would use," he said.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Toni Reinhold)