[Grad-postdoc-assn] Fwd: fyi, mickey: Global Change Related News from SARCS (15 June 2006)]

Maura Hagan hagan at ucar.edu
Thu Jun 15 10:13:59 MDT 2006


Fellows-
   Attached is an announcement of an opportunity that may be of interest,
and appended is a compendium of Global Change related news; both
courtesy of Mickey Glantz. Best regards.
--Maura

>
>**Global change and sustainable development related news and information
>provided by SARCS Secretariat.**
>**
>**
>*Announcement: Fellowships for Kuroshio study at the Asia-Pacific Ocean
>Research Center, National Sun Yat-sen University*
>**
>The Asia-Pacific Ocean research Center at National SunYat-sen University
>is awarding five fellowships in 2006 in support of master and doctoral
>students for their research topics on the biodiversity and
>biogeochemistry of the Kuroshio region.
>
>Please find the attachment of the fellowships for Kuroshio study or
>visit the web page at (http://140.117.93.1/~kuroshio) for further detail.
>
>*Topic: **CO2 rise will accelerate in a warming world, research shows*
>**
>Global warming forecasts may have to be scaled up significantly to
>account for higher emissions of CO2 from ecosystems in a warmer world, a
>team of European scientists has found./ /
>
>Rising temperatures are known to further feed the rise in atmospheric
>CO2 causing the warming in the first place, as land and marine
>ecosystems emit a higher net amount of the gas, in what scientists call
>a positive feedback loop.
>
>Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in Holland and colleagues
>Victor Brovkin and Peter Cox calculated that this effect would speed up
>global warming by 15-78% - a significant increase that has so far been
>largely ignored, they say.
>
>"The essence of the problem stripped to the bare bones is that CO2
>affects global temperature, while at the same time temperature affects
>the CO2 concentration," the scientists write in the Geophysical Research
>Letters journal published this Friday.
>
>Accounting for this CO2 feedback effect sends the mid-range estimate of
>temperature rise made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
>(IPCC) from around 3 degrees up to 4.5 by the end of this century.
>/more/ <http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=11508&channel=0>...
>**
>*Topic: Cutting Energy Waste in China, India, Brazil Could Avert Climate
>Change*
>**
>Paris, France, May 30, 2006 (ENS) - The hot economies of China, India
>and Brazil will more than double their energy use and greenhouse gas
>emissions within a generation with major impacts on global energy
>markets and the global climate, unless energy efficiency efforts are
>successful, according to new research published Monday.
>
>But retrofits such as high efficiency lighting, air conditioners,
>boilers and waste heat recovery systems for commercial and public
>buildings, and industrial plants will keep costs down and provide
>profits while averting further global warming, the four year long study
>found.
>
>"Improving energy efficiency for existing buildings and other
>infrastructure could cut current energy consumption by 26 percent or
>more in India, China and Brazil, amounting to millions of tons in
>reduced greenhouse gas emissions and hundreds of millions of dollars in
>energy savings,' says Robert Taylor, a World Bank energy specialist and
>leader of the 3 Country Energy Efficiency Project (3CEE).
>
>Conclusions from the project were recorded at a conference in Paris May
>19 and 20 involving the project's public and private sector partners. An
>executive summary of those conclusions was published online Monday.
>/more/ <http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2006/2006-05-30-01.asp>...
>
>*Topic: Tropical forests unprotected, survey finds*
>
>MEXICO CITY - Almost all the world's tropical forests remain effectively
>unprotected even though two-thirds have been designated for some sort of
>preservation over the past two decades, according to a new survey.
>
>The study of tropical forest management by the International Tropical
>Timber Organization surveyed 2 billion acres - two-thirds of the world's
>tropical forests - in 33 countries.
>
>All of those forests were designated by the governments and landowners
>overseeing them as being under "sustainable management," meaning they
>were completely protected as conservation areas, or designated as sites
>where economic activities such as logging were only allowed if they
>didn't destroy the forest.
>
>However, the group said that what it called "the most extensive survey
>ever" found that less than 5 percent of these forests were managed in a
>sustainable way last year.
>
>Scientists say tropical forests serve important environmental functions
>by providing habitat to countless species of plant and animal life,
>increasing rainfall and humidity, and helping to fight global warming by
>reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
>/more/ <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12986672>...
>
>*Topic: World Ocean Day, June 8, Marks Commitment to Sustainable Oceans*
>**
>Maynard, MA, June 6, 2006 - For centuries, people have considered the
>world's oceans an inexhaustible resource. Now, most of the world's 17
>major ocean fisheries are in decline, important coastal habitats are
>disappearing at an alarming rate, and climate change and pollution are
>harming coral ecosystems possibly beyond recovery. In celebration of
>World Ocean Day, June 8, Earthwatch Institute offers people the
>opportunity to take action on behalf of the two thirds of the planet
>that is essentially one ocean.
>
>"Consider that a single molecule of seawater can and will circulate
>around the entire world ocean over the course of seven years," said Dr.
>Wallace J. Nichols, a research associate at the California Academy of
>Sciences in San Francisco. Nichols, the noted scientist, ocean advocate,
>and president-elect of the International Sea Turtle Society, is former
>principal investigator of an Earthwatch sea turtle project in Baja
>California, Mexico.
>
>Turtle hatchling, copyright Peter Dutton"That means that what we do on
>one coast does matter to the people living on another coast half a world
>away," Nichols continued. "Animals like sea turtles, elephant seals,
>bluefin tuna, and white sharks connect the ocean through their
>thousand-mile migrations. A sea turtle born in Mexico is not a Mexican
>turtle when it's grazing on a coral reef in Hawaii or plucking jellyfish
>from Indonesian seas. It's just a beautiful sea turtle."
>
>World Ocean Day was established in 1992 at the United Nations Earth
>Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, as a way for organizations and individuals
>from around the world to come together to celebrate our world ocean. It
>provides the time to reflect on the ocean's importance in our lives and
>encourages doing something good for our blue planet. Through its unique
>model of citizen science, Earthwatch offers thousands of people the
>opportunity to make a significant difference in ocean habitats around
>the world.
>
>For instance, Earthwatch volunteers are helping world-renowned cetacean
>researcher, Dr. Bernd Würsig of Texas A&M, investigate the impact of
>marine farms in New Zealand's Admiralty Bay on the local dusky dolphin
>population. "The world ocean is in trouble, and if we do not solve some
>of its myriad problems, our beloved whales and dolphins will continue to
>spiral into ever greater danger," said Würsig, principal investigator of
>Earthwatch's New Zealand Dolphins project.
>/more/
><http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-15116.html>...
>**
>*Topic: Climate Change Blamed for Pleistocene Megafauna Bust and Boom *
>**
>Around 13,000 years ago, the world's climate began to change. Seas rose,
>glaciers retreated and ecosystems began to transform. At roughly the
>same time, humans arrived in North America, perhaps attracted by
>migrating game or newly hospitable land. Over the course of the next few
>millennia a host of indigenous large-bodied mammals, such as the
>mammoth, died out. Scientists have long debated whether climate warming
>or human hunting brought about this megafauna extinction. New
>radiocarbon dating results support the environmental explanation.
>
>Arctic biologist R. Dale Guthrie of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks,
>compiled radiocarbon dates for the permafrost-preserved fossils of six
>species--mammoths, horses, bison, moose, wapiti and humans--found in
>Alaska and Yukon Territory. The former two disappeared from the
>continent around 12,000 years ago as the latter four multiplied and spread.
>
>He found that the horse /Equus ferus/ had been declining long before
>humans arrived and disappeared a full 1,000 years before mammoths. This
>knocks out the so-called keystone theory, which holds that humans hunted
>the mammoths to extinction, causing a change in vegetation that
>subsequently precipitated other extinctions. And the mammoth's
>persistence over the next 1,000 years argues against precipitous
>overhunting.
>
>A change in vegetation, however, does seem to hold the key to
>understanding this radical transformation, Guthrie argues. Prior to the
>warming, this geographic area lacked trees and provided only sparse
>forage. This would have given mammoths, horses and other related species
>a competitive advantage, because they can wrest sufficient nutrients
>from a high volume of low quality feed. But as the climate shifted, the
>so-called mammoth steppe became the environment we recognize today,
>characterized by shrubs, tundra and forests. This type of forage favors
>grazers such as bison, wapiti and moose. There are no signs of these
>species in the region before 13,000 years ago, but they appear to have
>proliferated rapidly thereafter.
>/more/
><http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=0002701E-573A-1462-96B083414B7F4945>...
>**
>*Topic: Funds Running Dry on World Environment Day -- A Guest Commentary
>*
>
>If there is one day on the calendar that is meant to stimulate worldwide
>awareness of the environment and spurn political action, it would be
>World Environment Day, which has been commemorated every year on June
>5th since its inception by the United Nations in 1972. Sadly, each year
>this day comes and goes without much fanfare, leaving the state of the
>world's environment ever more precarious. But this year, World
>Environment Day may in fact mark a retreat from international funding
>for conservation.
>
>Today, the planet is facing an unprecedented increase in global
>temperatures. The rate of deforestation continues at a rapid pace.
>Threats to species are at an all time high. Ocean fisheries are being
>pushed to their limits. And deserts and the process of desertification -
>the theme of this year's World Environment Day - is worsening.
>
>There is no doubt regarding the importance of protecting these drylands,
>which cover more than 40 per cent of the planet's surface and are home
>to one-third of the world's poorest people. But who is going to tell
>these people - and those living in other threatened ecosystems - that
>the commitments and resources to fight poverty and preserve the
>well-being of future generations are not forthcoming this day or any
>other day?
>
>As fate has it, donors to the UN-World Bank administered Global
>Environment Facility (GEF) are meeting on World Environment Day to
>discuss replenishing the very funds so desperately needed to protect the
>global environment and set the future global environmental policy agenda.
>
>The GEF - the most important international funding mechanism for
>conservation - acts as the main financial arm for international
>environmental conventions on biological diversity, climate change,
>international waters, ozone protection and desertification. It also
>ensures transparency on global resource allocation for the environment
>and creates strategic partnerships between non-governmental
>organizations, national governments, the private sector, and local
>communities working towards sustainable development. And it is highly
>leveraged - for every $1 the GEF invests, it is matched, on average, by
>$3 in co-financing from other partners.
>/more/ <http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10596>...
>//
>//
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>
>
>Vanessa Liu
>********************************************
>Vanessa Liu
>Program Associate
>SARCS Secretariat
>National Central University
>Chung-Li, Taiwan 320
>
>Tel: 886-3-426-2726
>Fax: 886-3-426-2640
>E-mail: sarcs at sarcs.org.tw <mailto:sarcs at sarcs.org.tw>
>URL: http://www.sarcs.org
>********************************************
>
>--
>Michael H. Glantz
>Center for Capacity Building (CCB)
>Societal-Environmental Research & Education Lab (SERE)
>National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
>PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80306 USA
>Tel: 303-497-8119; Fax: 303-497-8125
>------------------------------------------
>Environmental Editorials: www.fragilecologies.com
>Climate Affairs Project: www.ccb.ucar.edu/cxa
>RANET African editorials:
>www.ranetproject.net/bcastpersonality.html
>
>
>


-- 
Maura Hagan
Director, Advanced Study Program
Senior Scientist, High Altitude Observatory
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, Colorado
+1-303-497-1537
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