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In deep trouble
AS THE pack ice that is the bedrock of their existence melts because of global warming, polar bears are facing unprecedented environmental stress that will cause their numbers to plummet, according to a report by a panel of the world’s leading experts on the species.
In a closed meeting late last month, 40 members of the polar bear specialist group of the World Conservation Union concluded that the imposing white carnivores — the world’s largest bear — should now be classified as a “vulnerable” species based on a likely 30 per cent decline in their worldwide population over the next 35 to 50 years. There are now 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears across the Arctic.
“The principal cause of this decline is global warming and its consequent negative affects on the sea ice habitat of polar bears,” according to a statement released after the meeting. Scientists from five countries, including the United States, attended the meeting. “All of the evidence is heading in the same direction, and the trend is dramatic,” said Scott Schliebe, who led the Seattle meeting and is polar bear project leader in Alaska for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
“In a shrinking ice environment, the ability of the bears to find food, to reproduce and to survive will all be reduced.” Schliebe emphasized that he was speaking for the panel and not for the US government.
The panel’s conclusions became public as President Bush traveled to a Group of Eight meeting in Scotland, where US officials lobbied to prevent any specific targets for reducing greenhouse gases from being included in the meeting’s final communique. The United States is the only member of the G-8 that has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for reducing emissions that many scientists say are causing Earth to warm up.
The best longitudinal information on the effect of global warming on polar bears comes from the western coast of Hudson Bay, in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It shows a 17 per cent decline in the polar bear population in the past 10 years, from 1,200 to fewer than 1,000. The panel in Seattle used the Canadian research as the primary basis for its warning about the future of polar bears around the world.
“We have seen with our own eyes that global warming is causing the ice to break up earlier, and that is affecting the survival of the bears,” said Ian Stirling, a research scientist for the Canadian Wildlife Service. Ice is melting there about three weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, said Stirling, who has been studying polar bears for 35 years.
“They (the bears) are losing three weeks at the best time of the year for feeding, when seal pups are abundant and bears put on fat that they store for the four months that they have to live onshore.”
Having lost this critical hunting opportunity, polar bears in western Hudson Bay weigh about 15 per cent less than they did 30 years ago. “It is a cumulative process that is causing a steady decline in survival. It is causing the population to decline.” — Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Washington Post
Can technology alone help?
NO KYOTO-LIKE deal, insisted George Bush before heading to the recent G8 summit where climate change was to be discussed. Instead, he declared, new technologies would suffice to save the environment. But what sort of technology did he have in mind?
Worryingly, says Trevor Davies, head of the carbon reduction programme at the University of East Anglia, some of the projects favoured by the Bush administration are highly speculative, with potential applications many decades away. There are plans to change the reflectivity of the Earth, by placing giant reflective shields in orbit, or injecting shiny particles into the atmosphere. The latter option, Davies says, is particularly concerning to climate scientists. While it might reflect energy from the sun back into space, it is difficult to predict what effect it would have on the atmosphere and global climate.
Other speculative options, such as placing huge carbon extractor fans near cities, have also been proposed. Even the more plausible new technologies are not a panacea to solve climate change, says Davies.
Hydrogen fuel is promising, but must be produced from cheap and renewable sources if it is to help cut greenhouse gas emissions and is several decades away from any practical application.
Other promising developments, such as the capture of carbon from power plants and its sequestration deep underground, or improvements in the efficiency of fossil fuel power plants, are also decades away. Wave power, well suited to an island such as Britain, is a less promising option for the US, and nuclear fusion, which could offer huge amounts of energy, is perhaps half a century away.
According to Davies, all of these options should be part of our long-term fight against climate change. But we need measures to cut emissions now, he says. “It is a problem which is here with us now.”
Development of new technologies can only be a part of a comprehensive approach to climate change, Davies argues. We need to make more efficient use of current technology, to provide up to half of the 60-70 per cent reduction in emissions needed in the next few decades. More prosaically, we need to change our behaviour, too. — Dawn/The Guardian News Service
Nigerian challenge
ETHNIC COMMUNITIES from Nigeria’s Niger Delta are challenging the Nigerian government and some of the world’s biggest oil companies over the level of greenhouse gases emitted during oil production.
Communities in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of the country filed a legal action against the Nigerian government, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Shell, Exxon, Chevron, Total and Agip oil companies last month to stop gas flaring in their area, saying it violates their human rights. Flaring is the process of burning off surplus combustible vapours from a well, either as a means of disposal or as a safety measure to relieve well pressure, and is the biggest source of air emissions from offshore oil and gas installations.
Flaring has been prohibited in Nigeria since 1984 under the Associated Gas Reinjection Act. This act only allows companies to flare if they have field-specific, lawfully issued ministerial certificates. Despite requests, Friends of the Earth which is supporting the Nigerian communities in their legal battle, says none of these have ever been made public. The environmental group says more gas is flared in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world. The flares contain a cocktail of toxins that affect the health and livelihood of local communities. This has exposed Niger Delta residents to an increased risk of premature deaths, child respiratory illnesses, asthma and cancer over the past 40 years. — Dawn/The IPS News Service
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