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The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft is expected to discover its 1,000TH comet this summer.
The SOHO spacecraft is a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency. It has accounted for approximately one-half of all comet discoveries with computed orbits in the history of astronomy.
"Before SOHO was launched, only 16 sun grazing comets had been discovered by space observatories. Based on that experience, who could have predicted SOHO would discover more than 60 times that number, and in only nine years," said Dr. Chris St. Cyr. He is senior project scientist for NASA's Living With a Star program at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "This is truly a remarkable achievement!"
About 85 percent of the comets SOHO discovered belongs to the Kreutz group of sun grazing comets, so named because their orbits take them very close to Earth's star. The Kreutz sun grazers pass within 500,000 miles of the star's visible surface. Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, is about 36 million miles from the solar surface.
SOHO has also been used to discover three other well-populated comet groups: the Meyer, with at least 55 members; Marsden, with at least 21 members; and the Kracht, with 24 members. These groups are named after the astronomers who suggested the comets are related, because they have similar orbits.
Many comet discoveries were made by amateurs using SOHO images on the Internet. SOHO comet hunters come from all over the world. The United States, United Kingdom, China, Japan, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany, and Lithuania are among the many countries whose citizens have used SOHO to chase comets.
Almost all of SOHO's comets are discovered using images from its Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument. LASCO is used to observe the faint, multimillion-degree outer atmosphere of the sun, called the corona. A disk in the instrument is used to make an artificial eclipse, blocking direct light from the sun, so the much fainter corona can be seen. Sun grazing comets are discovered when they enter LASCO's field of view as they pass close by the star.
"Building coronagraphs like LASCO is still more art than science, because the light we are trying to detect is very faint," said Dr. Joe Gurman, U.S. project scientist for SOHO at Goddard. "Any imperfections in the optics or dust in the instrument will scatter the light, making the images too noisy to be useful. Discovering almost 1,000 comets since SOHO's launch on December 2, 1995 is a testament to the skill of the LASCO team."
SOHO successfully completed its primary mission in April 1998. It has enough fuel to remain on station to keep hunting comets for decades if the LASCO continues to function.
For information about SOHO on the Internet, visit:
Explore further: Long-term warming, short-term variability: Why climate change is still an issue
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- Yes, this is a good time to plant native grass seed in the ground. You may have to supplement with irrigation if the rains stop before the seeds have germinated and made good root growth.
- Which grasses should I plant? The wonderful thing about California is that we have so many different ecosystems; the challenging thing about California is that we have so many different ecosystems. It’s impossible for us to know definitively which particular bunchgrasses used to grow or may still grow at your particular site, but to make the best guesses possible, we recommend the following:
- Bestcase scenario is to have bunchgrasses already on the site that you can augment through proper mowing or grazing techniques.
- Next best is to have a nearby site with native bunchgrasses and similar elevation, aspect, and soils, that you can use as a model.
- After that, go to sources such as our pamphlet Distribution of Native Grasses of California, by Alan Beetle, $7.50.
- Also reference local floras of your area, available through the California Native Plant Society.
Container growing: We grow seedlings in pots throughout the season, but ideal planning for growing your own plants in pots is to sow six months before you want to put them in the ground. Though restorationists frequently use plugs and liners (long narrow containers), and they may be required for large areas, we prefer growing them the horticultural way: first in flats, then transplanting into 4" pots, and when they are sturdy little plants, into the ground. Our thinking is that since they are not tap-rooted but fibrous-rooted (one of their main advantages as far as deep erosion control is concerned) square 4" pots suit them, and so far our experiences have borne this out.
In future newsletters, we will be reporting on the experiences and opinions of Marin ranchers Peggy Rathmann and John Wick, who are working with UC Berkeley researcher Wendy Silver on a study of carbon sequestration and bunchgrasses. So far, it’s very promising. But more on that later. For now, I’ll end with a quote from Peggy, who grows, eats, nurtures, lives, and sleeps bunchgrasses, for the health of their land and the benefit of their cows.
“It takes a while. But it’s so worth it.”
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When he shot President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth was 26 years old, and one of the nation’s most famous actors. (Charles DeForest Fredericks/National Portrait Gallery)
John Wilkes Booth, a Maryland native, spent the war performing in theatrical productions. But the conflict was never far from his mind. In a letter to his mother, he expressed chagrin that he hadn’t joined the Confederate army, writing, “I have … begun to deem myself a coward, and to despise my own existence.” He was outraged by the reelection of Lincoln, whom he viewed as the instigator of all the country’s woes. The month after the inauguration, Booth learned that Lincoln would be attending a performance at Ford’s Theatre on April 14. That night, he crept into Lincoln’s theater box and shot him in the back of the head. It was the first time a president had been murdered. “Wanted” posters were issued for Booth, and on April 26, he was cornered in a tobacco barn and shot by a federal sergeant, acting against orders to bring him in alive.
Several months later, Charles Creighton Hazewell, a frequent contributor, sought to make sense of the assassination—speculating that the plot may have been hatched in Canada (where a number of secessionist schemes had originated) and hinting at evidence that the plan had been endorsed at the highest levels of the Confederate government.—Sage Stossel
The assassination of President Lincoln threw a whole nation into mourning … Of all our Presidents since Washington, Mr. Lincoln had excited the smallest amount of that feeling which places its object in personal danger. He was a man who made a singularly favorable impression on those who approached him, resembling in that respect President Jackson, who often made warm friends of bitter foes, when circumstances had forced them to seek his presence; and it is probable, that, if he and the honest chiefs of the Rebels could have been brought face to face, there never would have been civil war,—at least, any contest of grand proportions; for he would not have failed to convince them that all that they had any right to claim, and therefore all that they could expect their fellow-citizens to fight for, would be more secure under his government than it had been under the governments of such men as Pierce and Buchanan, who made use of sectionalism and slavery to promote the selfish interests of themselves and their party … Ignorance was the parent of the civil war, as it has been the parent of many other evils,—ignorance of the character and purpose of the man who was chosen President in 1860–61, and who entered upon official life with less animosity toward his opponents than ever before or since had been felt by a man elected to a great place after a bitter and exciting contest …
That one of the most insignificant of [the secessionists’] number should have murdered the man whose election they declared to be cause for war is nothing strange, being in perfect keeping with their whole course. The wretch who shot the chief magistrate of the Republic is of hardly more account than was the weapon which he used. The real murderers of Mr. Lincoln are the men whose action brought about the civil war. Booth’s deed was a logical proceeding, following strictly from the principles avowed by the Rebels, and in harmony with their course during the last five years. The fall of a public man by the hand of an assassin always affects the mind more strongly than it is affected by the fall of thousands of men in battle; but in strictness, Booth, vile as his deed was, can be held to have been no worse, morally, than was that old gentleman who insisted upon being allowed the privilege of firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. Ruffin’s act is not so disgusting as Booth’s; but of the two men, Booth exhibited the greater courage,—courage of the basest kind, indeed, but sure to be attended with the heaviest risks, as the hand of every man would be directed against its exhibitor. Had the Rebels succeeded, Ruffin would have been honored by his fellows; but even a successful Southern Confederacy would have been too hot a country for the abode of a wilful murderer. Such a man would have been no more pleasantly situated even in South Carolina than was Benedict Arnold in England. And as he chose to become an assassin after the event of the war had been decided, and when his victim was bent upon sparing Southern feeling so far as it could be spared without injustice being done to the country, Booth must have expected to find his act condemned by every rational Southern man as a worse than useless crime, as a blunder of the very first magnitude. Had he succeeded in getting abroad, Secession exiles would have shunned him, and have treated him as one who had brought an ineffaceable stain on their cause, and also had rendered their restoration to their homes impossible. The pistol-shot of Sergeant Corbett saved him from the gallows, and it saved him also from the denunciations of the men whom he thought to serve. He exhibited, therefore, a species of courage that is by no means common; for he not only risked his life, and rendered it impossible for honorable men to sympathize with him, but he ran the hazard of being denounced and cast off by his own party … All Secessionists who retain any self-respect must rejoice that one whose doings brought additional ignominy on a cause that could not well bear it has passed away and gone to his account. It would have been more satisfactory to loyal men, if he had been reserved for the gallows; but even they must admit that it is a terrible trial to any people who get possession of an odious criminal, because they may be led so to act as to disgrace themselves, and to turn sympathy in the direction of the evil-doer … Therefore the shot of Sergeant Corbett is not to be regretted, save that it gave too honorable a form of death to one who had earned all that there is of disgraceful in that mode of dying to which a peculiar stigma is attached by the common consent of mankind.
Whether Booth was the agent of a band of conspirators, or was one of a few vile men who sought an odious immortality, it is impossible to say. We have the authority of a high Government official for the statement that “the President’s murder was organized in Canada and approved at Richmond”; but the evidence in support of this extraordinary announcement is, doubtless for the best of reasons, withheld at the time we write. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that the assassination plot was formed in Canada, as some of the vilest miscreants of the Secession side have been allowed to live in that country … But it is not probable that British subjects had anything to do with any conspiracy of this kind. The Canadian error was in allowing the scum of Secession to abuse the “right of hospitality” through the pursuit of hostile action against us from the territory of a neutral …
That a plan to murder President Lincoln should have been approved at Richmond is nothing strange; and though such approval would have been supremely foolish, what but supreme folly is the chief characteristic of the whole Southern movement? If the seal of Richmond’s approval was placed on a plan formed in Canada, something more than the murder of Mr. Lincoln was intended. It must have been meant to kill every man who could legally take his place, either as President or as President pro tempore. The only persons who had any title to step into the Presidency on Mr. Lincoln’s death were Mr. Johnson, who became President on the 15th of April, and Mr. Foster, one of the Connecticut Senators, who is President of the Senate … It does not appear that any attempt was made on the life of Mr. Foster, though Mr. Johnson was on the list of those doomed by the assassins; and the savage attack made on Mr. Seward shows what those assassins were capable of. But had all the members of the Administration been struck down at the same time, it is not at all probable that “anarchy” would have been the effect, though to produce that must have been the object aimed at by the conspirators. Anarchy is not so easily brought about as persons of an anarchical turn of mind suppose. The training we have gone through since the close of 1860 has fitted us to bear many rude assaults on order without our becoming disorderly. Our conviction is, that, if every man who held high office at Washington had been killed on the 14th of April, things would have gone pretty much as we have seen them go, and that thus the American people would have vindicated their right to be considered a self-governing race. It would not be a very flattering thought, that the peace of the country is at the command of any dozen of hardened ruffians who should have the capacity to form an assassination plot, the discretion to keep silent respecting their purpose, and the boldness and the skill requisite to carry it out to its most minute details: for the neglect of one of those details might be fatal to the whole project. Society does not exist in such peril as that.
john wilkes booth, a Maryland native, spent the war performing in theatrical productions. But the conflict was never far from his mind. In a letter to his mother, he expressed chagrin that he hadn’t joined the Confederate army, writing, “I have … begun to deem myself a coward, and to despise my own existence.” He was outraged by the reelection of Lincoln, whom he viewed as the instigator of all the country’s woes.
The month after the inauguration, Booth learned that Lincoln would be attending a performance at Ford’s Theatre on April 14. That night, he crept into Lincoln’s theater box and shot him in the back of the head. It was the first time a president had been murdered. “Wanted” posters were issued for Booth, and on April 26, he was cornered in a tobacco barn and shot by a federal sergeant, who acted against orders to bring him in alive.
Several months later, Charles Creighton Hazewell, a frequent Atlantic contributor, sought to make sense of the assassination—speculating that the plot may have been hatched in Canada (where a number of secessionist schemes had originated) and hinting at evidence that the plan had been endorsed at the highest levels of the Confederate government.
Read the full text of this article here.
This article available online at:
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by Piter Kehoma Boll
Let’s expand the universe of Friday Fellow by presenting a plant for the first time! And what could be a better choice to start than the famous Grandidier’s Baobab? Belonging to the species Adansonia grandidieri, this tree is one of the trademarks of Madagascar, being the biggest species of this genus found in the island.
Reaching up to 30 m in height and having a massive trunk only branched at the very top, it has a unique look and is found only at southwestern Madagascar. However, despite being so attractive and famous, it is classified as an endangered species by IUCN Red List, with a declining population threatened by agriculture expansion.
This tree is also heavily exploited, having vitamin C-rich fruits which can be consumed fresh and seeds used to extract oil. Its bark can also be used to make ropes and many trees are found with scars due to the extraction of part of the bark.
Having a fibrous trunk, baoabs are able to deal with drought by apparently storaging water inside them. There are no seed dispersors, which can be due to the extiction of the original dispersor by human activities.
Originally occuring close to temporary water bodies in the dry deciduous forest, today many large trees are found in always dry terrains. This probably is due to human impact that changed the local ecosystem, letting it to become drier than it was. Those areas have no or very poor ability to regenerate and probably will never go back to what they were and, once the old trees die, there will be no more baobabs there.
- – -
Baum, D. A. (1995). A Systematic Revision of Adansonia (Bombacaceae) Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 82, 440-470 DOI: 10.2307/2399893
Wikipedia. Adamsonia grandidieri. Available online at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia_grandidieri>. Access on October 02, 2012.
World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1998. Adansonia grandidieri. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.1. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Access on October 02, 2012.
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Ki Tisa (Mitzvot)
For more teachings on this portion, see the archives to this blog, below at March 2006.
This week’s parasha is best known for the dramatic and richly meaningful story of the Golden Calf and the Divine anger, of Moses’ pleading on behalf of Israel, and the eventual reconciliation in the mysterious meeting of Moses with God in the Cleft of the Rock—subjects about which I’ve written at length, from various aspects, in previous years. Yet the first third of the reading (Exod 30:11-31:17) is concerned with various practical mitzvot, mostly focused on the ritual worship conducted in the Temple, which tend to be skimmed over in light of the intense interest of the Calf story. As this year we are concerned specifically with the mitzvot in each parasha, I shall focus on this section.
These include: the giving by each Israelite [male] of a half-shekel to the Temple; the making of the laver, from which the priests wash their hands and feet before engaging in Divine service; the compounding of the incense and of the anointing oil; and the Shabbat. I shall focus here upon the washing of the hands.
Hand-washing is a familiar Jewish ritual: it is, in fact, the first act performed by pious Jews upon awakening in the morning (some people even keep a cup of water next to their beds, so that they may wash their hands before taking even a single step); one performs a ritual washing of the hands before eating bread; before each of the daily prayers; etc. The section here dealing with the laver in the Temple (Exod 30:17-21) is also one of the four portions from the Torah recited by many each morning, as part of the section of the liturgy known as korbanot, chapters of Written and Oral Torah reminiscent of the ancient sacrificial system, that precede Pesukei de-Zimra.
Sefer ha-Hinukh, at §106, explains the washing of hands as an offshoot of the honor due to the Temple and its service—one of many laws intended to honor, magnify, and glorify the Temple. Even if the priest was pure and clean, he must wash (literally, “sanctify”) his hands before engaging in avodah. This simple gesture of purification served as a kind of separation between the Divine service and everyday life. It added a feeling of solemnity, of seriousness, a sense that one was engaged in something higher, in some way separate from the mundane activities of regular life. (One hand-washing by kohanim, in the morning, was sufficient, unless they left the Temple grounds or otherwise lost the continuity of their sacred activity.) Our own netilat yadaim, whether before prayer or breaking bread, may be seen as a kind of halakhic carryover from the Temple service, albeit on the level of Rabbinic injunction.
What is the symbolism of purifying one’s hands? Water, as a flowing element, as a solvent that washes away many of the things with which it comes in contact, is at once a natural symbol of both purity, and of the renewal of life. Mayim Hayyim—living waters—is an age old association. Torah is compared to water; water, constantly flowing, is constantly returning to its source. At the End of Days, “the land will be filled with knowledge of the Lord, like waters going down to the sea.” A small part of this is hinted in this simple, everyday gesture.
“See that this nation is Your people”
But I cannot pass over Ki Tisa without some comment on the incident of the Golden Calf and its ramifications. This week, reading through the words of the parasha in preparation for a shiur (what Ruth Calderon, founder of Alma, a secularist-oriented center for the study of Judaism in Tel Aviv, called “barefoot reading”—that is, naïve, without preconceptions), I discovered something utterly simple that I had never noticed before in quite the same way.
At the beginning of the Calf incident, God tells Moses, who has been up on the mountain with Him, “Go down, for your people have spoiled” (32:7). A few verses later, when God asks leave of Moses (!) to destroy them, Moses begs for mercy on behalf of the people with the words “Why should Your anger burn so fiercely against Your people…” (v. 11). That is, God calls them Moses’ people, while Moses refers to them as God’s people. Subsequent to this exchange, each of them refers to them repeatedly in the third person, as “the people” or “this people” (העם; העם הזה). Neither of them refers to them, as God did in the initial revelation to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:7 and passim) as “my people,” or with the dignified title, “the children of Israel”—as if both felt a certain alienation, of distance from this tumultuous, capricious bunch. Only towards the end, after God agrees not to destroy them, but still states “I will not go up with them,” but instead promises to send an angel, does Moses says “See, that this nation is Your people” (וראה כי עמך הגוי הזה; 33:13).
What does all this signify? Reading the peshat carefully, there is one inevitable conclusion: that God wished to nullify His covenant with the people Israel. It is in this that there lies the true gravity, and uniqueness, of the Golden Calf incident. We are not speaking here, as we read elsewhere in the Bible—for example, in the two great Imprecations (tokhahot) in Lev 26 and Deut 28, or in the words of the prophets during the First Temple—merely of threats of punishment, however harsh, such as drought, famine, pestilence, enemy attacks, or even exile and slavery. There, the implicit message is that, after a period of punishment, a kind of moral purgation through suffering, things will be restored as they were. Here, the very covenant itself, the very existence of an intimate connection with God, hangs in the balance. God tells Moses, “I shall make of you a people,” i.e., instead of them.
This, it seems to me, is the point of the second phase of this story. Moses breaks the tablets; he and his fellow Levites go through the camp killing all those most directly implicated in worshipping the Calf; God recants and agrees not to destroy the people. However, “My angel will go before them” but “I will not go up in your midst” (33:2, 3). This should have been of some comfort; yet this tiding is called “this bad thing,” the people mourn, and remove the ornaments they had been wearing until then. Evidently, they understood the absence of God’s presence or “face” as a grave step; His being with them was everything. That is the true importance of the Sanctuary in the desert and the Tent of Meeting, where Moses speaks with God in the pillar of cloud (33:10). God was present with them there in a tangible way, in a certain way continuing the epiphany at Sinai. All that was threatened by this new declaration.
Moses second round of appeals to God, in Exod 33:12-23, focuses on bringing God, as it were, to a full reconciliation with the people. This is the significance of the Thirteen Qualities of Mercy, of what I have called the Covenant in the Cleft of the Rock, the “faith of Yom Kippur” as opposed to that of Shavuot (see HY I: Ki Tisa; and note Prof. Jacob Milgrom’s observation that this chapter stands in the exact center, in a literary sense, of the unit known as the Hextateuch—Torah plus the Book of Joshua).
But I would add two important points. One, that this is the first place in the Torah where we read about sin followed by reconciliation. After Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Garden, they were punished without hope of reprieve; indeed, their “punishment “ reads very much like a description of some basic aspects of the human condition itself. Cain, after murdering Abel, was banished, made to wander the face of the earth. The sin of the brothers in selling Joseph, and their own sense of guilt, is a central factor in their family dynamic from then on, but there is nary a word of God’s response or intervention. It would appear that God’s initial expectation in the covenant at Sinai was one of total loyalty and fidelity. The act of idolatry was an unforgivable breach of the covenant—much as adultery is generally perceived as a fundamental violation of the marital bond.
Moses, in persuading God to recant of His jealousy and anger, to give the faithless people another chance, is thus introducing a new concept: of a covenant that includes the possibility of even the most serious transgressions being forgiven; of the knowledge that human beings are fallible, and that teshuvah and forgiveness are essential components of any economy of men living before a demanding God.
The second, truly astonishing point is the role played by Moses in all this. Moshe Rabbenu, “the man of God,” is not only the great teacher of Israel, the channel through which they learn the Divine Torah, but also, as it were, one who teaches God Himself. It is God who “reveals His Qualities of Mercy” at the Cleft of the Rock; but without Moses cajoling, arguing, persuading (and note the numerous midrashim around this theme), “were it not for my servant Moses who stood in the breach,” all this would not have happened. It was Moses who elicited this response and who, so to speak, pushed God Himself to this new stage in his relation with Israel—to give up His expectations of perfection from His covenanted people, and to understand that living within a covenant means, not rigid adherence to a set of laws, but a living relationship with real people, taking the bad with the good. (Again, the parallel to human relationships is obvious)
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“A remote Indian village is responding to global warming-induced water shortages by creating large masses of ice, or “artificial glaciers,” to get through the dry spring months. (See a map of the region.)
Located on the western edge of the Tibetan plateau, the village of Skara in the Ladakh region of India is not a common tourist destination.
“It’s beautiful, but really remote and difficult to get to,” said Amy Higgins, a graduate student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies who worked on the artificial glacier project.
“A lot of people, when I met them in Delhi and I said I was going to Ladakh, they looked at me like I was going to the moon,” said Higgins, who is also a National Geographic grantee.
People in Skara and surrounding villages survive by growing crops such as barley for their own consumption and for sale in neighboring towns. In the past, water for the crops came from meltwater originating in glaciers high in the Himalaya.”
Read more: National Geographic
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America's oil and natural gas industry is committed to protecting the environment and to continuously improving its hurricane preparation and response plans. After any hurricane or tropical storm, the goal is to return to full operations as quickly and as safely as possible. For the 2012 hurricane season, the industry continues to build upon critical lessons learned from 2008's major hurricanes, Gustav and Ike, as well as other powerful storms, such as 2005's Katrina and Rita and 2004's Ivan.
API plays two primary roles for the industry in preparing for hurricanes. First, it helps the industry gain a better understanding of the environmental conditions in and around the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane or tropical storm activity and then assists industry in using that knowledge to make offshore and onshore facilities less vulnerable. Second, API collaborates with member companies, other industries and with federal, state and local governments to prepare for hurricanes and return operations as quickly and as safely as possible.
API member companies also independently work to improve preparedness for hurricanes and other natural or manmade disasters. They have, for example, reviewed and updated emergency response plans, established redundant communication paths and made pre-arrangements with suppliers to help ensure they have adequate resources during an emergency.
The API Subcommittee on Offshore Stuctures, the International Association of Drilling Contractors, and the Offshore Operators Committee, serve as a liaison to regulatory agencies, coordinate industry review of critical design standards and provide a forum for sharing lessons learned from previous hurricanes.
These combined efforts are critical since the Gulf of Mexico accounted for about 23 percent of the oil and 8 percent of total natural gas produced in the United States (approximately 82 percent of the oil supply comes from deepwater facilities), and the Gulf Coast region is home to almost half of the U.S. refining capacity.
Upstream (Exploration and Production)
During the major 2005 hurricanes, waves were higher and winds were stronger than anticipated in deeper parts of the Gulf so the industry moved away from viewing it as a uniform body of water. Evaluating the effects of those and other storms, helped scientists discover that the Central Gulf of Mexico was more prone to hurricanes because it acts as a gathering spot for warm currents that can strengthen a storm.
The revised wind, wave and water current measurements ("metocean" data) prompted API to reassess its recommended practices (RPs) for industry operations in the region.
- The upstream segment continues to integrate the updated environmental (metocean) data on how powerful storms affect conditions in the Gulf of Mexico into its offshore structure design standards. This effort led to the publication in 2008 of an update to RP 2SK, Design and Analysis of Stationkeeping Systems for Floating Structures, that provides guidance for design and operation of Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU) mooring systems in the Gulf of Mexico during the hurricane season. API RP 95J, Gulf of Mexico Jack-up Operations for Hurricane Season, which recommends locating jack-up rigs on more stable areas of the sea floor, and positioning platform decks higher above the sea surface, was also updated.
API publications are available at our (Search and Order
API in the past six years also has issued a number of bulletins to help better prepare for and bring production back online after Gulf hurricanes. These include:
Production and Hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)
- Bulletin 2TD, Guidelines for Tie-downs on Offshore Production Facilities for Hurricane Season, which is aimed at better-securing separate platform equipment.
- Bulletin 2INT-MET, Interim Guidance on Hurricane Conditions in the Gulf of Mexico, which provides updated metocean data for four regions of the Gulf, including wind velocities, deepwater wave conditions, ocean current information, and surge and tidal data.
- Bulletin 2INT-DG, Interim Guidance for Design of Offshore Structures for Hurricane Conditions, which explains how to apply the updated metocean data during design.
- Bulletin 2INT-EX, Interim Guidance for Assessment of Existing Offshore Structures for Hurricane Conditions, which assists owners/operators and engineers with existing facilities.
- Bulletin 2HINS, Guidance on Post-hurricane Structural Inspection of Offshore Structures, which provides guidance on determining if a structure sustained hurricane-induced damage that affects the safety of personnel, the primary structural integrity, or its ability to perform the purpose for which it was intended.
Refineries and Pipelines
- Days in advance of a tropical storm or hurricane moving toward or near their drilling and production operations, companies will evacuate all non-essential personnel and begin the process of shutting down production.
- As the storm gets closer, all personnel will be evacuated from the drilling rigs and platforms, and production is shut down. Drillships may relocate to a safe location. Operations in areas not forecast to take a direct hit from the storm often will be shut down as well because storms can change direction with little notice.
- After a storm has passed and it is safe to fly, operators will initiate "flyovers" of onshore and offshore facilities to evaluate damage from the air. For onshore facilities, these "flyovers" can identify flooding, facility damage, road or other infrastructure problems, and spills. Offshore "flyovers" look for damaged drilling rigs, platform damage, spills, and possible pipeline damage.
- Many offshore drilling rigs are equipped with GPS locator systems, which allow federal officials and drilling contractors to remotely monitor the rigs' location before, during and after a hurricane. If a rig is pulled offsite by the storm, locator systems allow crews to find and recover the rig as quickly and as safely as possible.
- Once safety concerns are addressed, operators will send assessment crews to offshore facilities to physically assess the facilities for damage.
- If facilities are undamaged, and ancillary facilities, like pipelines that carry the oil and natural gas, are undamaged and ready to accept shipments, operators will begin restarting production. Drilling rigs will commence operations.
Despite sustaining unprecedented damage and supply outages during the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes, the industry quickly and safely brought refining and pipeline operations back online, delivering to consumers near-record levels of gasoline and record levels of distillate (diesel and heating oil) in 2008. The oil and oil-product pipelines operating on or near the Gulf of Mexico continue to review their assets and operations to minimize the potential impacts of storms and shorten the time it takes to recover. While there have been some shortages caused by hurricanes, supply disruptions have been temporary despite extensive damage to supporting infrastructure, such as electric power generation and distribution, production shut-ins and refinery shutdowns. Pipelines need a steady supply of crude oil or refined products to keep product flowing to its intended destinations.
To prepare for future severe storms, refiners and pipeline companies have
Refineries and hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)
- Worked with utilities to clarify priorities for electric power restoration critical to restarting operations and to help minimize significant disruptions to fuel distribution and delivery.
- Secured backup power generation equipment and worked with federal, state and local governments to ensure that pipelines and refineries are considered "critical" infrastructure for back-up power purposes.
- Established redundant communications systems to support continuity of operations and locate employees.
- Worked with vendors to pre-position food, water and transportation, and updated emergency plans to secure other emergency supplies and services.
- Provided additional training for employees who have participated in various exercises and drills.
- Reexamined and improved emergency response and business continuity plans.
- Strengthened onshore buildings and elevated equipment where appropriate to minimize potential flood damage.
- Worked with the states and local emergency management officials to provide documentation and credentials for employees who need access to disaster sites where access is restricted during an emergency.
- Participated in industry conferences to share best practices and improvement opportunities.
Pipelines and hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)
- Refiners, in the hours before a large storm makes landfall, will usually evacuate all non-essential personnel and begin shutting down or reducing operations.
- Operations in areas not forecast to take a direct hit from the storm often are shut down or curtailed as a precaution because storms can change direction with little notice.
- Once safe, teams come in to assess damage. If damage or flooding has occurred, it must be repaired and dealt with before the refinery can be brought back on-line.
- Other factors that can cause delays in restarting refineries include the availability of crude oil, electricity to run the plant and water used for cooling the process units.
- Refineries are complex. It takes more than a flip of a switch to get a refinery back up and running. Once a decision has been made that it is safe to restart, it can take several days before the facility is back to full operating levels. This is because the process units and associated equipment must be returned to operation in a staged manner to ensure a safe and successful startup.
- If facilities are undamaged or necessary repairs have been made, and ancillary facilities - like pipelines that carry the oil and natural gas - are undamaged and ready to accept shipments, operators will begin restarting production.
- Pipeline operations can be impacted by storms, primarily through power outages, but also by direct damage.
- Offshore pipelines damaged require the hiring of divers, repairs and safety inspections before supplies can flow. Damaged onshore pipelines must be assessed, repaired and inspected before resuming operations.
- Without power, crude oil and petroleum products cannot be moved through pipelines. Operators routinely hold or lease back-up generators but need time to get them onsite.
- If there is no product put into pipelines because Gulf Coast/Gulf of Mexico crude or natural gas production has been curtailed, or because of refinery shutdowns, the crude and products already in the pipelines cannot be pushed out the other end.
- Wind damage to above ground tanks at storage terminals can also impact supplies into the pipeline.
: The 2008 hurricane season was very active, with 16 named storms, of which eight became hurricanes and five of those were major hurricanes. For the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, the two most serious storms of 2008 were Hurricane Ike, which made landfall in mid-September near Baytown, Texas, and Hurricane Gustav, which made landfall on September 1 in Louisiana.
Hurricane Gustav, a strong Category 2 storm, kept off-line oil and natural gas delivery systems and production platforms that had not yet been fully restored from a smaller storm two weeks earlier, and brought significant flooding as far north as Baton Rouge. Hurricane Ike, another strong Category 2 hurricane, caused significant portions of the production, processing, and pipeline infrastructure along the Gulf Coast in East Texas and Louisiana to shut down. Ike caused significant destruction to electric transmission and distribution lines, and these damages delayed the restart of major processing plants, pipelines, and refineries. As many as 3.7 million customers were without electric power following the storm, with about 2.5 million in Texas alone.
At the peak of disruptions, more than 20 percent of total U.S. refinery capacity was idled. The Minerals Management Service - now called Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE)
estimated that 2,127 of the 3,800 total oil and natural gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were exposed to hurricane conditions, with winds greater than 74 miles per hour, from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. A total of 60 platforms were destroyed as a result of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Some platforms which had been previously reported as having extensive damage were reassessed and determined to be destroyed. The destroyed platforms produced 13,657 barrels of oil and 96.5 million cubic feet of natural gas daily or 1.05 percent of the oil and 1.3 percent of the natural gas produced daily in the Gulf of Mexico.
: The 2005 hurricane season was the most active in recorded history, shattering previous records. According to the Department of Energy, refineries in the path of hurricanes Katrina and Rita accounting for about 29 percent of U.S. refining capacity were shut down at the peak of disruptions. Offshore, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimated 22,000 of the 33,000 miles of pipelines and 3,050 of the 4,000 platforms in the Gulf were in the direct paths of the two Category 5 storms. Together the storms destroyed 115 platforms and damaged 52 others.
Even so, there was no loss of life among industry workers and contractors. An MMS report found "no accounts of spills from facilities on the federal Outer Continental Shelf that reached the shoreline; oiled birds or mammals; or involved any discoveries of oil to be collected or cleaned up".
: Hurricane Ivan was the strongest hurricane of the 2004 season and among one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record. It moved across the Gulf of Mexico to make landfall in Alabama. Ivan then looped across Florida and back into the Gulf, regenerating into a new tropical system, which moved into Louisiana and Texas.
The MMS estimated approximately 150 offshore facilities and 10,000 miles of pipelines were in the direct path of Ivan. Seven platforms were destroyed and 24 others damaged. The oil and natural gas industry submitted numerous damage reports to MMS, including for mobile drilling rigs, offshore platforms, producing wells, topside systems including wellheads and production and processing equipment, risers, and pipeline systems that transport oil and gas ashore from offshore facilities.
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• Incubation: 18-20 days
• Clutch Size: 4 eggs
• Young Fledge: 16-21 days after hatching
• Typical Foods: insects, aquatic invertebrates and seeds
Female red phalaropes are stunning -- they are a rich chestnut color with a dark crown and white face. However, virtually all Ohio birds are in drab non-breeding plumage.
Habitat and Habits
This species prefers the open waters of Lake Erie. It is most typically found along stone jetties and breakwalls in sheltered harbors. The flight call is similar to that of the red-necked phalarope, but generally higher pitched.
Reproduction and Care of the Young
Breeding takes place in Alaska and northern Canada. Nests are hollows in the ground of marshy tundra. The male raises the young.
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Since 1993, RAN’s Protect-an-Acre program (PAA) has distributed more than one million dollars in grants to more than 150 frontline communities, Indigenous-led organizations, and allies, helping their efforts to secure protection for millions of acres of traditional territory in forests around the world.
Rainforest Action Network believes that Indigenous peoples are the best stewards of the world’s rainforests and that frontline communities organizing against the extraction and burning of dirty fossil fuels deserve the strongest support we can offer. RAN established the Protect-an-Acre program to protect the world’s forests and the rights of their inhabitants by providing financial aid to traditionally under-funded organizations and communities in forest regions.
Indigenous and frontline communities suffer disproportionate impacts to their health, livelihood and culture from extractive industry mega-projects and the effects of global climate change. That’s why Protect-an-Acre provides small grants to community-based organizations, Indigenous federations and small NGOs that are fighting to protect millions of acres of forest and keep millions of tons of CO2 in the ground.
Our grants support organizations and communities that are working to regain control of and sustainably manage their traditional territories through land title initiatives, community education, development of sustainable economic alternatives, and grassroots resistance to destructive industrial activities.
PAA is an alternative to “buy-an-acre” programs that seek to provide rainforest protection by buying tracts of land, but which often fail to address the needs or rights of local Indigenous peoples. Uninhabited forest areas often go unprotected, even if purchased through a buy-an-acre program. It is not uncommon for loggers, oil and gas companies, cattle ranchers, and miners to illegally extract resources from so-called “protected” areas.
Traditional forest communities are often the best stewards of the land because their way of life depends upon the health of their environment. A number of recent studies add to the growing body of evidence that Indigenous peoples are better protectors of their forests than governments or industry.
Based on the success of Protect-an-Acre, RAN launched The Climate Action Fund (CAF) in 2009 as a way to direct further resources and support to frontline communities and Indigenous peoples challenging the fossil fuel industry.
Additionally, RAN has been a Global Advisor to Global Greengrants Fund (GGF) since 1995, identifying recipients for small grants to mobilize resources for global environmental sustainability and social justice using the same priority and criteria as we use for PAA and CAF.
Through these three programs each year we support grassroots projects that result in at least:
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Per Square Meter
Warm-up: Relationships in Ecosystems (10 minutes)
1. Begin this lesson by presenting the powerpoint, “Per Square Meter”.
2. After the presentation, ask students to think of animal relationships that correspond to each of the following types; Competition, Predation, Parasitism, and Mutualism
a. For example, two animals that compete for food are lions and cheetahs (they compete for zebras and antelopes)
3. Record the different types of relationships on the board.
Activity One: My Own Square Meter (30 minutes)
1. Have students go outside and pick a small area (about a square meter each) to explore. It is preferable that this area be grassy or ‘natural’. The school playground might be a good spot.
2. Each student should keep a list of both the living organisms and man-made products found in their area (i.e grass, birds, insects, flowers, sidewalk etc.) Students are allowed to collect a few specimens from this area to show to the class. If students do not have jars, they can draw their observations. *See Reproducible #1
Activity Two: Who lives in our playground? (10 minutes)
1. After listing, collecting, and drawing specimens, students should return to the classroom and present their findings.
a. Have the students sit in a circle. Each student should read his or her list of findings out loud. If they collected specimens or drew observations, have them present them to the class.
2. Make a list of these findings on the board. Only write repeated findings once (to avoid writing grass as many times as there are students). Keep one list of living organisms and one list of man-made products.
3. For now, focus on the list of living organisms. As a class, help students name possible relationships between the organisms. See if they can find one of each type of relationship. For example, a bee on a flower is an example of mutualism because the nectar from the flower nourishes the bee and in return, the bee pollinates the flower.
Activity Three: Humans and the Environment: Human Effect on one Square Meter (15 minutes)
1. Now that students have focused on the animal relationships of their square meter, it is time to examine the effect of humans on the natural environment. Focus on the human-made product list. Ask students to consider the possible relationships between the human-made products and the environment. Prompt a brief class discussion on the effects of man-made products on the environment. Use the following questions as guidelines.
a. What is the effect of an empty drink bottle (or any other piece of trash) in a grassy field? Will it decompose? Will it be used by an animal as a habitat or food?
Answer: Trash is an invasive man-made product. Most trash is non-bio degradable and is harmful to the environment and to eco-system relations.Therefore, it is a harmful addition to the square meter.
b. Who left the bottle there? Do you think they are still thinking about it? Did they leave it there on purpose? Why did they leave it there?
Answer: Most people litter thoughtlessly. They are not thinking about their actions and how they may effect the environment or eco-systems. It is important that people recognize that litter has a major effect on the environment.
c. What about a bench? Does a park bench have the same effect on the environment as a piece of trash?
Answer: A park bench can be considered as a positive human-made product. A park bench has little negative effect on the environment and even helps humans further appreciate eco-systems. The Park Bench may even provide shelter or a perch for the eco-systems living organisms.
d. Is there a difference between positive human-made products and negative ones? What are some examples of each?
Answer: Yes, there is a difference between positive and negative human-made products. Positive products have minimal effect on the functioning of eco systems whereas negative products have major effects on eco systems. An example of a positive human-made product would be a solar powered house. An example of a negative human-made product would be a car that produces a lot of pollution.
Wrap Up: Our Classroom Eco-Web (20-30 minutes)
1. Have students create classroom artwork by illustrating the relationships between their eco-systems.
2. Each student should draw at least two components of his or her square meter.
3. After everyone has finished their illustrations, create a web relating the illustrations. Draw arrows between illustrated components with written indications of the type of relationship exemplified.
4. Post the finished product in the classroom so that students can see the interconnectedness of the earth’s eco-systems.
Extension: Exploring Aquatic Eco-Systems (On-going Activity)
Students can explore another type of eco-system by creating a classroom aquarium or terrarium. The supplies for both of these mini eco-systems can be found at your local pet store. Students should help set up and maintain the aquarium or terrarium throughout the year. Periodically, students should observe how the mini-ecosystem is progressing, note changes, and assess the relationships between the organisms of the eco-system. This way, students are able to directly participate in the functioning of a natural system.
Another related activity might be to take your students on a field trip to a different eco-system from that of your school. If you live near a river, lake, or ocean take them there to explore different ecological relations. If you live in a city, examples of diverse eco-systems can be found at the local zoo or aquarium.
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|Freshwater Mussels of the Upper Mississippi River System|
Mussel Conservation Activities
2005 Highlights: Possible fish predation of subadult Higgins eye was observed in the Upper Mississippi River, Pools 2 and 4.
Subadult Higgins eye pearlymussels (Lampsilis higginsii) from the Upper Mississippi River, Pools 2 and 4. Shell damage may be due to predation by fish (i.e. common carp or freshwater drum). Top photo by Mike Davis, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; bottom photo by Gary Wege, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Species Identification and Location • Threatened and Endangered Mussels • Life History • Ecology • Mussel Harvest on the River • Current Threats • Mussel Conservation Activities • Ongoing Studies and Projects • Multimedia • Teacher Resources • Frequently Asked Questions • Glossary • References • Links to Other Mussel Sites
Privacy • FOIA • FirstGov • Contact
Department of the Interior • U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service • U.S. Geological Survey
|Last updated on
December 21, 2006
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Karuk Tribe: Learning from the First Californians for the Next California
Editor's Note: This is part of series, Facing the Climate Gap, which looks at grassroots efforts in California low-income communities of color to address climate change and promote climate justice.
This article was published in collaboration with GlobalPossibilities.org.
The three sovereign entities in the United States are the federal government, the states and indigenous tribes, but according to Bill Tripp, a member of the Karuk Tribe in Northern California, many people are unaware of both the sovereign nature of tribes and the wisdom they possess when it comes to issues of climate change and natural resource management.
“A lot of people don’t realize that tribes even exist in California, but we are stakeholders too, with the rights of indigenous peoples,” says Tripp.
Tripp is an Eco-Cultural Restoration specialist at the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources. In 2010, the tribe drafted an Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan, which aims to manage and restore “balanced ecological processes utilizing Traditional Ecological Knowledge supported by Western Science.” The plan addresses environmental issues that affect the health and culture of the Karuk tribe and outlines ways in which tribal practices can contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change.
Before climate change became a hot topic in the media, many indigenous and agrarian communities, because of their dependence upon and close relationship to the land, began to notice troubling shifts in the environment such as intense drought, frequent wildfires, scarcer fish flows and erratic rainfall.
There are over 100 government recognized tribes in California, which represent more than 700,000 people. The Karuk is the second largest Native American tribe in California and has over 3,200 members. Their tribal lands include over 1.48 million acres within and around the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forests in Northwest California.
Tribes like the Karuk are among the hardest hit by the effects of climate change, despite their traditionally low-carbon lifestyles. The Karuk, in particular have experienced dramatic environmental changes in their forestlands and fisheries as a result of both climate change and misguided Federal and regional policies.
The Karuk have long depended upon the forest to support their livelihood, cultural practices and nourishment. While wildfires have always been a natural aspect of the landscape, recent studies have shown that fires in northwestern California forests have risen dramatically in frequency and size due to climate related and human influences. According to the California Natural Resources Agency, fires in California are expected to increase 100 percent due to increased temperatures and longer dry seasons associated with climate change.
Some of the other most damaging human influences to the Karuk include logging activities, which have depleted old growth forests, and fire suppression policies created by the U.S. Forest Service in the 1930s that have limited cultural burning practices. Tripp says these policies have been detrimental to tribal traditions and the forest environment.
“It has been huge to just try to adapt to the past 100 years of policies that have led us to where we are today. We have already been forced to modify our traditional practices to fit the contemporary political context,” says Tripp.
Further, the construction of dams along the Klamath River by PacifiCorp (a utility company) has impeded access to salmon and other fish that are central to the Karuk diet. Fishing regulations have also had a negative impact.
Though the Karuk’s dependence on the land has left them vulnerable to the projected effects of climate change, it has also given them and other indigenous groups incredible knowledge to impart to western climate science. Historically, though, tribes have been largely left out of policy processes and decisions. The Karuk decided to challenge this historical pattern of marginalization by formulating their own Eco-Cultural Resources Management Plan.
The Plan provides over twenty “Cultural Environmental Management Practices” that are based on traditional ecological knowledge and the “World Renewal” philosophy, which emphasizes the interconnectedness of humans and the environment. Tripp says the Plan was created in the hopes that knowledge passed down from previous generations will help strengthen Karuk culture and teach the broader community to live in a more ecologically sound way.
“It is designed to be a living document…We are building a process of comparative learning, based on the principals and practices of traditional ecological knowledge to revitalize culturally relevant information as passed through oral transmission and intergenerational observations,” says Tripp.
One of the highlights of the plan is to re-establish traditional burning practices in order to decrease fuel loads and the risk for more severe wildfires when they do happen. Traditional burning was used by the Karuk to burn off specific types of vegetation and promote continued diversity in the landscape. Tripp notes that these practices are an example of how humans can play a positive role in maintaining a sound ecological cycle in the forests.
“The practice of utilizing fire to manage resources in a traditional way not only improves the use quality of forest resources, it also builds and maintains resiliency in the ecological process of entire landscapes” explains Tripp.
Another crucial aspect of the Plan is the life cycle of fish, like salmon, that are central to Karuk food traditions and ecosystem health. Traditionally, the Karuk regulated fishing schedules to allow the first salmon to pass, ensuring that those most likely to survive made it to prime spawning grounds. There were also designated fishing periods and locations to promote successful reproduction. Tripp says regulatory agencies have established practices that are harmful this cycle.
“Today, regulatory agencies permit the harvest of fish that would otherwise be protected under traditional harvest management principles and close the harvest season when the fish least likely to reach the very upper river reaches are passing through,” says Tripp.
The Karuk tribe is now working closely with researchers from universities such as University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Davis as well as public agencies so that this traditional knowledge can one day be accepted by mainstream and academic circles dealing with climate change mitigation and adaptation practices.
According to the Plan, these land management practices are more cost effective than those currently practiced by public agencies; and, if implemented, they will greatly reduce taxpayer cost burdens and create employment. The Karuk hope to create a workforce development program that will hire tribal members to implement the plan’s goals, such as multi-site cultural burning practices.
The Plan has a long way to full realization and Federal recognition. According to the National Indian Forest Resources Management Act and the National Environmental Protection Act, it must go through a formal review process. Besides that, the Karuk Tribe is still solidifying funding to pursue its goals.
The work of California’s environmental stewards will always be in demand, and the Karuk are taking the lead in showing how community wisdom can be used to generate an integrated approach to climate change. Such integrated and community engaged policy approaches are rare throughout the state but are emerging in other areas. In Oakland, for example, the Oakland Climate Action Coalition engaged community members and a diverse group of social justice, labor, environmental, and business organizations to develop an Energy and Climate Action Plan that outlines specific ways for the City to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create a sustainable economy.
In the end, Tripp hopes the Karuk Plan will not only inspire others and address the global environmental plight, but also help to maintain the very core of his people. In his words: “Being adaptable to climate change is part of that, but primarily it is about enabling us to maintain our identity and the people in this place in perpetuity.”
Dr. Manuel Pastor is Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California where he also directs the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity and co-directs USC’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. His most recent books include Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Regions (Routledge 2012; co-authored with Chris Benner) Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future (W.W. Norton 2010; co-authored with Angela Glover Blackwell and Stewart Kwoh), and This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity are Transforming Metropolitan America (Cornell 2009; co-authored with Chris Benner and Martha Matsuoka).
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John Langley Howard was a revolutionary regionalist painter known for depicting labor and industry in California as well as his reverence for the natural world. Howard took a strong stance on social and environmental issues and used his art to communicate his strong emotional response toward each of his subjects.
Table of Contents
John Langley Howard was born in 1902 into a respected family of artists and architects. His father, John Galen Howard relocated the family to California in 1904 to become campus architect of the University of California, Berkeley. It was only after attending the very same campus his father helped to create, that Howard suddenly decided he wanted to pursue a career as an artist and not an engineer as previously planned. Following this decision, Howard enrolled in the California Guild of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and then transferred to the Arts Students’ League in New York City.
At the school, he met Kenneth Hayes Miller who supported Howard’s attitude because the “taught the bare rudiments of painting and composition, and stressed the cultivation of the ultra-sensitive, intuitive approach” (Hailey 56). After saving his money, Howard travelled to Paris for six months to seek out his own artistic philosophy. However, it quickly became apparent to Howard that he placed more value on pure talent than professional training. In 1924, Howard left art school to pursue his career and marry his first wife, Adeline Day. He had his first one-person exhibition at the Modern Gallery in San Francisco in 1927. Shortly after, he attempted portraiture.
Following the start of the Depression, Howard found himself appalled by the social conditions and began to follow “his own brand of Marxism.” Howard and his wife began to attend meetings of the Monterey John Reed Club, discussing politics and social concerns. Soon, the artist became determined to communicate society’s needs for the betterment of the future. His landscapes began to include industry and its effects to the surrounding region. In 1934, Howard was hired through the New Deal Public Works Art Project to create a mural for the inside of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco depicting California industry. The project called for twenty-seven artists to be hired to paint frescos inside the newly erected monument funded by philanthropist Lillie Hitchcock Coit. Each artist was to depict a scene central to California living, including industry, agriculture, law, and street scenes of San Francisco.
Howard’s completed fresco drew notorious attention for showing an unemployed worker reading Marxist materials, a gathered group of unemployed workers, and a man panning for gold while watching a wealthy couple outside of their limousine. In a nearby mural by Bernard Zakheim (1896-1985), Howard himself was used as a model. He is shown crumpling a newspaper and grabbing a Marxist book from a library shelf. This soon led to the artists being linked to a local group of striking dock workers. They were accused of attempting to lead a Communist revolution. Howard’s murals as well as the work of Clifford Wight (1900-1960) and Zakheim became highly scrutinized, and the uproar over the works led to a delay in opening Coit Tower. In order to protect their work from being defaced or completely destroyed, the muralists chose to sleep outside the tower. The SF Art Commission ultimately cancelled the opening of Coit Tower as a result of the controversy and did not open it until months later.
During this time, Howard relocated his family to Santa Fe, New Mexico citing his son’s health concerns for almost two years before returning to Monterey in 1940. Following the onset of World War II, he had a renewed interest in landscape and soon ceased to include social commentary within his work, thus removing the human figure from his paintings. The artist divorced his first wife in 1949. In 1951, Howard’s art took another turn when the artist painted The Rape of the Earth which rallied against the destruction of nature by technology, making Howard one of the first “eco-artists.” During the same year he also married sculptor Blanche Phillips (1908-1976). He began illustrating for Scientific American Magazine and used this medium to refine his technique.
Howard’s landscapes began turning to “magic realism” or “poetic realism” as Howard preferred to call it. This method is described as the use of naturalistic images and forms “to suggest relationships that cannot always be directly described in words” (Aldrich 184). His aim was to communicate a poetic and spiritual connection with the landscape depicted. Overall, Howard lived in more than 20 different locations during his career.
In 1997, Howard attended the dedication of Pioneer Park at Coit Tower and was the only surviving member of the twenty-seven muralists included in the original project. The murals were restored by the City of San Francisco in 1990 after water damage and age dictated the need for restoration. Howard died at the age of 97 in his sleep at his Potrero Hill home in 1999.
II. AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK
“I think of painting as poetry and I think of myself as a representational poet. I want to describe my subject minutely, but I also way to describe my emotional response to it…what I’m doing is making a self-portrait in a peculiar kind of way.” – John Langley Howard
John Langley Howard was widely considered a wanderer and a free spirit. While Howard did receive academic training from the California Guild of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and the Arts Students’ League in New York City, he chose to align himself with instructors whose opinions of art education matched his predetermined beliefs. These teachers included Kenneth Hayes Miller (1876-1952) who valued an analytical, bare bones approach to art instruction and supported greater personal development of intuitive talent. Howard expressed this viewpoint stating that:
“I want everything to be meaningful in a descriptive way. I want expression and at the same time I want to control it down to a gnat’s eyebrow. I identify with my subject. I empathize with my subject” (Moss 62).
In the 1920s, Howard became known as a Cezanne-influenced landscape artist and portraitist. Tempera, oil, and etching became his primary media while his subject matter turned to poetic and often spiritually infused imagery which would resurface later in his career. Earth tones and very small brushstrokes were utilized, allowing Howard to refine his images.
Howard exhibited frequently with his brothers Charles Howard (1899-1978) and Robert Howard (1896-1983). Critic Jehanne Bietry wrote of their joint Galerie Beaux Arts show that: “of (the Howard brothers), John Langley is the poet, the mystic and the most complex…there predominates in his work a certain quality, an element of sentiment that escapes definition but is the unmistakable trait by which one recognizes deeper art” (Hailey 60). It is significant that a critic would accurately take note of Howard artistic aims at such an early stage because what Bietry describes ultimately became the primary focus of Howard’s career.
Howard experienced a dramatic change in medium when he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Coit Tower WPA project in 1934. The project was Howard’s first and only mural and provided the artist with an outlet for his newly discovered Marxist social beliefs. While Howard supported a political agenda rather explicitly in his image, his focus on deeper subject matter permeates throughout the work. Most important to Howard is “the idea of human conflict that [he] pictorializes and deplores – man’s tragic flaw manifest again in this particular situation” (Nash 79). Howard’s work had progressed steadily into the realm of social realism until the backlash against the Coit Tower murals led him in a new direction.
Howard abandoned explicit statements of social commentary and returned to his roots as a landscape painter. However, this did not prevent the artist from illustrating important issues because he then became one of the first “eco-artists.” Through his painting, Howard investigated the role of technology on the environment and used the San Francisco Bay Area as well as Monterey to demonstrate his point of view. He continued following his original artistic tendencies by delving into “magic realism” or “poetic realism” which utilized the spiritual connection that Howard sought to find within his work. Art critic Henrietta Shore recognized the balance that Howard achieved within his work, stating that he “is modern in that he is progressive, yet his work proves that he does not discard the traditions from which all fine art has grown” (Hailey 65). Overall, Howard’s career presents a unique portrait of individual expression and spiritual exploration.
1902 Born in Montclair, New Jersey
1920 Enrolls as an Engineering major at UC Berkeley
1922 Realizes he wants to be an artist
1923-24 Attends Art Students’ League in New York
1924 Leaves art school
1924 Marries first wife, Adeline Day
1927 First one-person exhibition held at The Modern Gallery, San Francisco
1928 First child, Samuel born
1930 Daughter Anne born
1934 Commissioned to Paint Coit Tower mural, San Francisco
1940 Studies ship drafting and worked as a ship drafter during World War II
1942 Serves as air raid warden in Mill Valley, CA
1949 Divorces his first wife
1950 Teaches at California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco
1951 Marries second wife, sculptor Blanche Phillips
1951 Moves to Mexico
1951 Paints The Rape of the Earth communicating his eco-friendly stance
1953-1965 Illustrates for Scientific American magazine
1958 Teaches at Pratt Institute Art School, Brooklyn, NY
1965 Moves to Hydra, Greece
1967 Moves to London
1970 Returns to California
1979 Blanche Phillips dies
1980 Marries Mary McMahon Williams
1999 Died in his sleep at home San Francisco, California
California Palace of the Legion of Honor, CA
City of San Francisco, CA
IBM Building, New York, NY
The Oakland Museum, CA
The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
Security Pacific National Bank Headquarters, Los Angeles, CA
Springfield Museum of Fine Arts
University of Utah, UT
1927 Modern Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1928 Beaux Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1928 East-West Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1928-51 San Franciso Art Association, CA
1935 Paul Elder Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1936 Cincinnati Art Museum, OH
1936 Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, Department of Fine Arts, Treasure Island, CA
1939 Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1941 Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
1943 Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C.
1943 M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
1946-47 Whitney Museum, NY
1947 Rotunda Gallery, City of Paris, San Francisco, CA
1952 Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
1956 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA
1973 Capricorn Asunder Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1974 Lawson Galleries, San Francisco, CA
1976 de Saisset Art Gallery and Museum, CA
1982 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Rental Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1983 California Academy of Sciences, CA
1983 Monterey Museum of Art, CA
1986 Charles Campbell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1987 Martina Hamilton Gallery, NY
1988 Oakland Museum, CA
1989 Tobey C. Moss Gallery, CA
1991 M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
1992 Tobey C. Moss Gallery, CA
1993 Tobey C. Moss Gallery, CA
California Society of Mural Painters’ and Writers’ and Artists’ Union
Carmel Art Association
Club Beaux Arts
San Francisco Art Association
Society of Mural Painters
Marin Society of Artists
Monterey John Reed Club
Anne Bremer Memorial Award for Painting, San Francisco Art Association
First Prize, Pepsi-Cola Annual “Portrait of America”
First Prize, San Francisco Art Association
Award, City of San Francisco Art Festival
Citation for Merit, Society of Illustrators, New York
- 1. Aldrich, Linda. “John Langley Howard.” American Scene Painting: California, 1930s and 1940s. Irvine, Westphal Publishing: 1991.
- 2. Hailey, Gene. “John Langley Howard…Biography and Works.” California Art Research Monographs, v. 17, p.54-92. San Francisco: Works Progress Administration: 1936-1937.
- 3. Moss, Stacey. The Howards, First Family of Bay Area Modernism. Oakland Museum: 1988.
- 4. Nash, Steven A. Facing Eden: 100 Years of Landscape Art in Bay Area. University of California Press: 1995.
IX. WORKS FOR SALE BY THIS ARTIST
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A new tool to identify the calls of bat species could help conservation efforts.
Because bats are nocturnal and difficult to observe or catch, the most effective way to study them is to monitor their echolocation calls. These sounds are emitted in order to hear the echo bouncing back from surfaces around the bats, allowing them to navigate, hunt and communicate.
Many different measurements can be taken from each call, such as its minimum and maximum frequency, or how quickly the frequency changes during the call, and these measurements are used to help identify the species of bat.
However, a paper by an international team of researchers, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, asserts that poor standardisation of acoustic monitoring limits scientists’ ability to collate data.
Kate Jones, chairwoman of the UK-based Bat Conservation Trust
told the BBC that “without using the same identification methods everywhere, we cannot form reliable conclusions about how bat populations are doing and whether their distribution is changing.
"Because many bats migrate between different European countries, we need to monitor bats at a European - as well as country - scale.”
The team selected 1,350 calls from 34 different European bat species from EchoBank, a global echolocation library containing more than 200,000 bat call recordings. This raw data has allowed them to develop the identification tool, iBatsID
, which can identify 34 out of 45 species of bats.
This free online tool works anywhere in Europe, and its creators claim can identify most species correctly more than 80% of the time.
There are 18 species of bat residing in the UK, including the common pipistrelle and greater horseshoe bat.
Monitoring bats is vital not just to this species, but also to the whole ecosystem. Bats are extremely sensitive to changes in their environment, so if bat populations are declining, it can be an indication that other species might be affected in the future.
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What Is Air Pollution?
in its great magnitude has existed in the 20th century from the
coal burning industries of the early century to the fossil burning technology in
the new century. The problems of
air pollution are a major problem for highly developed nations whose large
industrial bases and highly developed infrastructures generate much of the air
Every year, billions of tonnes of pollutants are released into the
atmosphere; the sources include power plants burning fossil fuels to the effects
of sunlight on certain natural materials. But
the air pollutants released from natural materials pose very little health
threat, only the natural radioactive gas radon poses any threat to health.
So much of the air pollutants being released into the atmosphere are all
results of man’s activities.
In the United Kingdom, traffic
is the major cause of air pollution in British cities. Eighty six percent of families own either one or two
vehicles. Because of the
high-density population of cities and towns, the number of people exposed to air
pollutants is great. This had led
to the increased number of people getting chronic diseases over these past years
since the car ownership in the UK has nearly trebled. These include asthma and respiratory complaints ranging
through the population demographic from children to elderly people who are most
at risk. Certainly those who are
suffering from asthma will notice the effects more greatly if living in the
inner city areas or industrial areas or even near by major roads.
Asthma is already the fourth biggest killer, after heart diseases and
cancers in the UK and currently, it affects more than three point four million
In the past, severe pollution in London during 1952 added with low winds
and high-pressure air had taken more than four thousand lives and another seven
hundred in 1962, in what was called the ‘Dark Years’ because of the dense
dark polluted air.
is also causing devastation for the environment; many of these causes are by man
made gases like sulphur dioxide that results from electric plants burning fossil
fuels. In the UK, industries and
utilities that use tall smokestacks by means of removing air pollutants only
boost them higher into the atmosphere, thereby only reducing the concentration
at their site.
These pollutants are often transported over the North Sea and produce
adverse effects in western Scandinavia, where sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide
from UK and central Europe are generating acid rain, especially in Norway and
Sweden. The pH level, or relative
acidity of many of Scandinavian fresh water lakes has been altered dramatically
by acid rain causing the destruction of entire fish populations.
In the UK, acid rain formed by subsequent sulphur dioxide atmospheric
emissions has lead to acidic erosion in limestone in North Western Scotland and
marble in Northern England.
In 1998, the
London Metropolitan Police launched the ‘Emissions Controlled Reduction’
scheme where by traffic police would monitor the amount of pollutants being
released into the air by vehicle exhausts.
The plan was for traffic police to stop vehicles randomly on roads
leading into the city of London, the officer would then measure the amounts of
air pollutants being released using a CO2 measuring reader fixed in
the owner's vehicle's exhaust. If the
exhaust exceeded the legal amount (based on micrograms of pollutants) the driver
would be fined at around twenty-five pounds.
The scheme proved unpopular with drivers, especially with those driving
to work and did little to help improve the city air quality.
In Edinburgh, the main causes of bad air quality were from the vast
number of vehicles going through the city centre from west to east.
In 1990, the Edinburgh council developed the city by-pass at a cost of
nearly seventy five million pounds. The
by-pass was ringed around the outskirts of the city where its main aim was to
limit the number of vehicles going through the city centre and divert vehicles
to use the by-pass in order to reach their destination without going through the
city centre. This released much of
the congestion within the city but did little very little in solving the
city’s overall air quality.
To further decrease the number of vehicles on the roads, the government
promoted public transport. Over two
hundred million pounds was devoted in developing the country's public transport
network. Much of which included the development of more bus lanes in
the city of London, which increased the pace of bus services.
Introduction of gas and electric powered buses took place in Birmingham
in order to decrease air pollutants emissions around the centre of the city.
Because children and the elderly are at most risk to chronic diseases,
such as asthma, major diversion roads were build in order to divert the vehicles
away from residential areas, schools and elderly institutions.
In some councils, trees were planted along the sides of the road in order
to decrease the amount of carbon monoxide emissions.
Other ways of improving the air quality included the restriction on the
amounts of air pollutants being released into the atmosphere by industries;
tough regulations were placed whereby if the air quality dropped below a certain
level around the industries area, a heavy penalty would be wavered against them.
© Copyright 2000, Andrew Wan.
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The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Ecological and Economic Foundations
Human well-being relies critically on ecosystem services provided by nature. Examples include water and air quality regulation, nutrient cycling and decomposition, plant pollination and flood control, all of which are dependent on biodiversity. They are predominantly public goods with limited or no markets and do not command any price in the conventional economic system, so their loss is often not detected and continues unaddressed and unabated. This in turn not only impacts human well-being, but also seriously undermines the sustainability of the economic system.
It is against this background that TEEB: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project was set up in 2007 and led by the United Nations Environment Programme to provide a comprehensive global assessment of economic aspects of these issues. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, written by a team of international experts, represents the scientific state of the art, providing a comprehensive assessment of the fundamental ecological and economic principles of measuring and valuing ecosystem services and biodiversity, and showing how these can be mainstreamed into public policies. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity and subsequent TEEB outputs will provide the authoritative knowledge and guidance to drive forward the biodiversity conservation agenda for the next decade.
1. Integrating the Ecological and Economic Dimensions in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Valuation
2. Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services
3. Measuring Biophysical Quantities and the Use of Indicators
4. The Socio-cultural Context of Ecosystem and Biodiversity Valuation
5. The Economics of Valuing Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity
6. Discounting, Ethics, and Options for Maintaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Integrity
7. Lessons Learned and Linkages with National Policies
Appendix 1: How the TEEB Framework Can be Applied: The Amazon Case
Appendix 2: Matrix Tables for Wetland and Forest Ecosystems
Appendix 3: Estimates of Monetary Values of Ecosystem Services
"A landmark study on one of the most pressing problems facing society, balancing economic growth and ecological protection to achieve a sustainable future."
- Simon Levin, Moffett Professor of Biology, Department of Ecology and Evolution Behaviour, Princeton University, USA
"TEEB brings a rigorous economic focus to bear on the problems of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss, and on their impacts on human welfare. TEEB is a very timely and useful study not only of the economic and social dimensions of the problem, but also of a set of practical solutions which deserve the attention of policy-makers around the world."
- Nicholas Stern, I.G. Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics and Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
"The [TEEB] project should show us all how expensive the global destruction of the natural world has become and – it is hoped – persuade us to slow down.' The Guardian 'Biodiversity is the living fabric of this planet – the quantum and the variability of all its ecosystems, species, and genes. And yet, modern economies remain largely blind to the huge value of the abundance and diversity of this web of life, and the crucial and valuable roles it plays in human health, nutrition, habitation and indeed in the health and functioning of our economies. Humanity has instead fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity, or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world. The truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of six billion heading to over nine billion people by 2050. This volume of 'TEEB' explores the challenges involved in addressing the economic invisibility of biodiversity, and organises the science and economics in a way decision makers would find it hard to ignore."
- Achim Steiner, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme
This volume is an output of TEEB: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study and has been edited by Pushpam Kumar, Reader in Environmental Economics, University of Liverpool, UK. TEEB is hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UENP) and supported by the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU) and the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), recently joined by Norway's Ministry for Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands' Ministry of Housing (VROM), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and also the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The study leader is Pavan Sukhdev, who is also Special Adviser – Green Economy Initiative, UNEP.
View other products from the same publisher
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Scaevola taccada is a dense, spreading shrub that generally grows up to 3 meter in height. The light green leaves are somewhat succulent with a waxy covering and are alternately arranged along the stem.
The blades are elongated and rounded at the tips, 5 to 20 cm long and 5 to 7 cm wide and the edges are often curled downward. The flowers are white or cream colored, often with purple streaks, 8 - 12 mm long, and have a pleasant fragrance. They have an irregular shape with all five petals on one side of the flower making it appear to have been torn in half. The flowers grow in small clusters from the leaf axils near the ends of the stems. The fruits of Scaevola taccada are fleshy berries. They are white, oblong, and about 1 cm long. The seeds are beige, corky and ridged. The inside of the fruit is spongy or corky and the fruits are buoyant. They can float for months in the ocean and still germinate after having been in salt water for up to a year. One study showed that the seeds germinated best after 250 days in salt water.
(National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG). 1994. Naupaka. In Native Hawaiian plant information sheets. Lawai, Kauai: Hawaii Plant Conservation Center. National Tropical Botanical Garden. Unpublished internal papers.)
(Rauch, Fred D., Heidi L. Bornhorst, and David L. Hensley. 1997. Beach Naupaka, Ornamentals and Flowers.)
(Wagner, Warren L., Darrel R. Herbst, and S. H. Sohmer. 1990. Manual of the flowering plants of Hawai'i.)
(Bornhorst, Heidi L. 1996. Growing native Hawaiian plants: a how-to guide for the gardener.)
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When the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) was first founded in 1973 there were only 1.5 million wild turkeys across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Today, it is estimated there are more than 5.6 million wild turkeys.
In Utah, wild turkey restoration efforts continue to be the most aggressive in the nation. Over 2,800 wild turkeys have been relocated to suitable habitat areas in Utah since the winter of 1999. As a result, wild turkey permits have increased 20 percent for the spring 2002 season.
However, this program will not be complete until over 200,000 wild turkeys roam the cottonwood river bottoms, pinyon/juniper, and ponderosa pine forests of the state. Whether you pursue wild turkeys as a hunter, or simply enjoy watching these magnificent birds in their natural surroundings, the time to view wild turkeys in Utah has never been better.
At the forefront of this dramatic return in Utah, has been the Federation's volunteers, working side-by-side with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
Now, with most restoration efforts completed in the East, all eyes have shifted to the West, where the wild turkey continues to redefine it's own idea of suitable habitat. While the release of a wild turkey into western habitat remains one of the federation's most enduring symbols, it is just one brick in a foundation of good works that are impacting people's lives and the environment in many positive ways.
Since 1977, the NWTF has spent over 144 million dollars on over 16,000 projects nationwide. The federation helps fund transplants, research projects, habitat acquisition, education, and the equipment needed to successfully accomplish these tasks. Through the Federation's regional habitat programs, volunteers have helped improve hundreds of thousands of acres by planting trees, crops, winter food sources and grasses that provide food and shelter for not only the wild turkey, but many others species of wildlife as well. Also improved in many areas, particularly in the west, has been water quality. Projects occurring right here in southeastern Utah include a San Rafael Desert guzzler, Knolls Ranch habitat improvement, and numerous other projects on the La Sal Mountains, Blue Mountains and Book Cliffs areas.
This month the Price River chapter of the NWTF will be hosting it's annual Wild Turkey Banquet on January 26. For more information, please call (435) 259-9453.
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DENVER – Put on your poodle skirts and tune in Elvis on the transistor radio, because it’s starting to look a lot like the 1950s.
Unfortunately, this won’t be the nostalgic ’50s of big cars and pop music.
The 1950s that could be on the way to Colorado is the decade of drought.
So says Brian Bledsoe, a Colorado Springs meteorologist who studies the history of ocean currents and uses what he learns to make long-term weather forecasts.
“I think we’re reliving the ’50s, bottom line,” Bledsoe said Friday morning at the annual meeting of the Colorado Water Congress.
Bledsoe studies the famous El Niño and La Niña ocean currents. But he also looks at other, less well-known cycles, including long-term temperature cycles in the oceans.
In the 1950s, water in the Pacific Ocean was colder than normal, but it was warmer than usual in the Atlantic. That combination caused a drought in Colorado that was just as bad as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
The ocean currents slipped back into their 1950s pattern in the last five years, Bledsoe said. The cycles can last a decade or more, meaning bad news for farmers, ranchers, skiers and forest residents.
“Drought feeds on drought. The longer it goes, the harder it is to break,” Bledsoe said.
The outlook is worst for Eastern Colorado, where Bledsoe grew up and his parents still own a ranch. They recently had to sell half their herd when their pasture couldn’t provide enough feed.
“They’ve spent the last 15 years grooming that herd for organic beef stock,” he said.
Bledsoe looks for monsoon rains to return to the Four Corners and Western Slope in July. But there’s still a danger in the mountains in the summer.
“Initially, dry lightning could be a concern, so obviously, the fire season is looking not so great right now,” he said.
Weather data showed the last year’s conditions were extreme.
Nolan Doesken, Colorado’s state climatologist, said the summer of 2012 was the hottest on record in Colorado. And it was the fifth-driest winter since record-keeping began more than 100 years ago.
Despite recent storms in the San Juan Mountains, this winter hasn’t been much better.
“We’ve had a wimpy winter so far,” Doesken said. “The past week has been a good week for Colorado precipitation.”
However, the next week’s forecast shows dryness returning to much of the state.
Reservoir levels are higher than they were in 2002 – the driest year since Coloradans started keeping track of moisture – but the state is entering 2013 with reservoirs that were depleted last year.
“You don’t want to start a year at this level if you’re about to head into another drought,” Doesken said.
It was hard to find good news in Friday morning’s presentations, but Bledsoe is happy that technology helps forecasters understand the weather better than they did during past droughts. That allows people to plan for what’s on the way.
“I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy,” he said.
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The “presidi” translates as “garrisons” (from the French word, “to equip”), as protectors of traditional food production practices
Monday, March 23, 2009
The “presidi” translates as “garrisons” (from the French word, “to equip”), as protectors of traditional food production practices
This past year, I have had rewarding opportunities to observe traditional food cultures in varied regions of the world. These are:
Athabascan Indian in the interior of Alaska (the traditional Tanana Chiefs Conference tribal lands) in July, 2008 (for more, read below);
Swahili coastal tribes in the area of Munje village (population about 300), near Msambweni, close to the Tanzania border in December, 2008-January, 2009 (for more, read below); and,Laikipia region of Kenya (January, 2009), a German canton of Switzerland (March, 2009), and the Piemonte-Toscana region of northern/central Italy (images only, February-March, 2009).
In Fort Yukon, Alaska, salmon is a mainstay of the diet. Yet, among the Athabascan Indians, threats to subsistence foods and stresses on household economics abound. In particular, high prices for external energy sources (as of July, 2008, almost $8 for a gallon of gasoline and $6.50 for a gallon of diesel, which is essential for home heating), as well as low Chinook salmon runs for information click here, and moose numbers.
Additional resource management issues pose threats to sustaining village life – for example, stream bank erosion along the Yukon River, as well as uneven management in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. People are worried about ever-rising prices for fuels and store-bought staples, and fewer and fewer sources of wage income. The result? Villagers are moving out from outlying areas into “hub” communities like Fort Yukon -- or another example, Bethel in Southwest Alaska – even when offered additional subsidies, such as for home heating. But, in reality, “hubs” often offer neither much employment nor relief from high prices.
In Munje village in Kenya, the Digo, a Bantu-speaking, mostly Islamic tribe in the southern coastal area of Kenya, enjoy the possibilities of a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and fish/oils.
Breakfast in the village typically consists of mandazi (a fried bread similar to a doughnut), and tea with sugar. Lunch and dinner is typically ugali and samaki (fish), maybe with some dried cassava or chickpeas.
On individual shambas (small farms), tomatoes, cassava, maize, cowpeas, bananas, mangos, and coconut are typically grown. Ugali is consumed every day, as are cassava, beans, oil, fish -- and rice, coconut, and chicken, depending on availability.
Even with their own crops, villagers today want very much to enter the market economy and will sell products from their shambas to buy staples and the flour needed to make mandazis, which they in turn sell. Sales of mandazis (and mango and coconut, to a lesser extent) bring in some cash for villagers.
A treasured food is, in fact, the coconut. This set of pictures show how coconut is used in the village. True, coconut oil now is reserved only for frying mandazi. But it also is used as a hair conditioner, and the coconut meat is eaten between meals. I noted also that dental hygiene and health were good in the village. Perhaps the coconut and fish oils influence this (as per the work of Dr. Weston A. Price).
Photos L-R: Using a traditional conical basket (kikatu), coconut milk is pressed from the grated meat; Straining coconut milk from the grated meat, which is then heated to make oil; Common breakfast food (and the main source of cash income), the mandazi, is still cooked in coconut oil
Note: All photos were taken by G. Berardi
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Despite maize in the fields, it is widely known that farmers are hoarding stocks in many districts. Farmers are refusing the NCPB/government price of Sh1,950 per 90-kg bag. They are waiting to be offered at least the same amount of money as that which was being assigned to imports (Bii, 2009b). “The country will continue to experience food shortages unless the Government addresses the high cost of farm inputs to motivate farmers to increase production,” said Mr. Jonathan Bii of Uasin Gish (Bartoo & Lucheli, 2009; Bii, 2009a, 2009b; Bungee, 2009).
Pride and politics, racism and corruption are to blame for food deficits (Kihara & Marete, 2009; KNA, 2009; Muluka, 2009; Siele, 2009). Clearly, what are needed in Kenya are food system planning, disaster management planning, and protection and development of agricultural and rural economies.
Click here for the full text.
Photos taken by G. Berardi
Cabbage, an imported food (originally), and susceptible to much pest damage.
Camps still remain for Kenya’s Internally Displaced Persons resulting from post-election violence forced migrations. Food security is poor.
Lack of sustained recent short rains have resulted in failed maize harvests.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Today I went to a lunch time discussion of sustainability. This concept promoted development with an equitable eye to the triple bottom line - financial, social, and ecological costs. We discussed the how it seemed relatively easier to discuss the connections between financial and ecological costs, than between social costs and other costs. Sustainable development often comes down to "green" designs that consider environmental impacts or critiques of the capitalist model of financing.
As I thought about sustainable development, or sustainable community management if you are a bit queasy with the feasibility of continuous expansion, I considered its corollaries in the field of disaster risk reduction. It struck me again that it is somewhat easier to focus on some components of the triple bottom line in relation to disasters.
The vulnerability approach to disasters has rightly brought into focus the fact that not all people are equally exposed to or impacted by disasters. Rather, it is often the poor or socially marginalized most at risk and least able to recover. This approach certainly brings into focus the social aspects of disasters.
The disaster trap theory, likewise, brings into focus the financial bottom line. This perspective is most often discussed in international development and disaster reduction circles. It argues that disasters destroy development gains and cause communities to de-develop unless both disaster reduction and development occur in tandem. Building a cheaper, non-earthquake resistant school in an earthquake zone, may make short-term financial sense. However,over the long term, this approach is likely to result in loss of physical infrastructure, human life, and learning opportunities when an earthquake does occur.
What seems least developed to me, though I would enjoy being rebutted, is the ecological bottom line of disasters. Perhaps it is an oxymoron to discuss the ecological costs of disasters, given that many disasters are triggered natural ecological processes like cyclones, forest fires, and floods. It might also be an oxymoron simply because a natural hazard disaster is really looking at an ecological event from an almost exclusively human perspective. Its not a disaster if it doesn't destroy human lives and human infrastructure. But, the lunch-time discussion made me wonder if there wasn't something of an ecological bottom line to disasters in there somewhere. Perhaps it is in the difference between an ecological process heavily or lightly impacted by human ecological modification. Is a forest fire in a heavily managed forest different from that in an unmanaged forest? Certainly logging can heighten the impacts of heavy rains by inducing landslides, resulting in a landscape heavily rather than lightly impacted by the rains. Similar processes might also be true in the case of heavily managed floodplains. Flooding is concentrated and increased in areas outside of levee systems. What does that mean for the ecology of these locations? Does a marsh manage just as well in low as high flooding? My guess would be no.
And of course, there is the big, looming disaster of climate change. This is a human-induced change that may prove quite disasterous to many an ecological system, everything from our pine forests here, to arctic wildlife, and tropical coral reefs.
Perhaps, we disaster researchers, need to also consider a triple bottom line when making arguments for the benefits of disaster risk reduction.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
This past week the Northwest experienced a severe barrage of weather systems back to back. Everyone seemed to be affected. Folks were re-routed on detours, got soaked, slipped on ice, or had to spend money to stay a little warmer. In Whatcom and Skagit Counties, there are hundreds to thousands of people currently in the process of recovering and cleaning-up after the floods. These people live in the rural areas throughout the county, with fewer people knowing about their devastation and having greater vulnerability to flood hazards.
Luckily, there are local agencies and non-profits who are ready at a moment’s call to help anyone in need. The primary organization that came to the aid of the flood victims was the American Red Cross.
The last week I began interning and volunteering with one of these non-profits, the Mt. Baker American Red Cross (ARC) Chapter. While I am still in the process of getting screened and officially trained, I received first-hand experience and saw how important this organization is to the community.
With the flood waters rising throughout the week, people were flooded out of their homes and rescued from the overflowing rivers and creeks. As the needs for help increased, hundreds of ARC volunteers were called to service. Throughout the floods there have been several shelters opened to accommodate the needs of these flood victims. On Saturday I was asked to help staff one of these shelters overnight in Ferndale.
While I talked with parents and children, I became more aware of the stark reality of how these people have to recover from having all their possessions covered in sewage and mud and damaged by flood waters. In the meantime, these flood victims have all their privacy exposed to others in a public shelter, while they work to find stability in the middle of all the traumas of the events. As I sat talking and playing with the children, another thought struck me. Children are young and resilient, but it must be very difficult when they connect with a volunteer and then lose that connection soon after. Sharing a shelter with the folks over the weekend showed a higher degree of reality and humanity to the situation than the news coverage ever could.
I posted this bit about my volunteer experience because it made me realize something about my education and degree track in disaster reduction and emergency planning. We look at ways to create a more sustainable community, and we need to remember that community service is an important part of creating this ideal. Underlying sustainable development is the triple bottom line (social, economy, and environment). Volunteers and non-profits are a major part of this social line of sustainability. Organizations like the American Red Cross only exist because of volunteers. So embrace President-elect Obama’s call for a culture of civil service this coming week and make a commitment to the organization of your choice with your actions or even your pocketbook. Know that sustainable development cannot exist with out social responsibility.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Its been two days now that schools have been closed in Whatcom County, not for snow, but for rain and flooding. This unusual event coincides with record flooding throughout Western Washington, just a year after record flooding closed I5 for three days and Lewis County businesses experienced what they then called an unprecedented 500 year flood. I guess not.
There are many strange things about flood risk notation, and this idea that a 500 year flood often trips people up. They often believe a flood of that size will happen only once in 500 years. On a probabilistic level, this is inaccurate. A 500 year flood simply has a .2% probability of happening each year. A more useful analogy might be to tell people they are rolling a 500 sided die every year and hoping that it doesn’t come up with a 1. Next year they’ll be forced to roll again.
But, this focus on misunderstandings of probability often hides an even larger societal misunderstanding . Flood risk changes when we change the environment in which it occurs. If a flood map tells you that you are not in the flood plain, better check the date of the map. Most maps are utterly out of date and many vastly underestimate present flood risk. There are several reasons this happens. Urban development, especially development with a lot of parking lots and buildings that don’t let water seep into the ground, will cause rainwater to move quickly into rivers rather than seep into the ground and slowly release. Developers might complain that they are required to create runoff catchment wetlands when they do build. They do, but these requirements may very well be based upon outdated data on flood risk. Thus, each new development never fully compensates for its runoff, a small problem for each site but a mammoth problem when compounded downstream.
Deforesting can have the same effect, with the added potential for house-crushing and river-clogging mudslides. Timber harvesting is certainly an important industry in our neck of the woods. Not only is commercial logging an important source of jobs for many rural and small towns, logging on state Department of Natural Resource land is the major source of funding for K-12 education. Yet, commercial logging, like other industries, suffers from a problem of cost externalization. When massive mudslides occurred during last year’s storm, Weyerhaeuser complained that it wasn’t it’s logging practices, but the fact that it was an unprecedented, out of the blue, 500 year storm that caused it. While it is doubtful the slides would have occurred uncut land, that isn’t the only fallacy. When the slide did occur, the costs of repairing roads, treatment plants, and bridges went to the county and often was passed on to the nation’s tax payers through state and federal recovery grants. Thus, what should have been paid by Weyerhaeuser, 500 year probability or not, was paid by someone else.
Finally, there is local government. Various folks within local governments set regulations for zoning, deciding what will be built and where. Here is the real crux of the problem. Local government also gets an increase in revenue in the form of property, sales, and business income taxes. Suppress the updating of flood plain maps, and you get a short term profit and often, a steady supply of happy voters. You might think these local governments will have to pay when the next big flood comes, but often that can be avoided. Certainly, they must comply with federal regulations on flood plain management to be part of the National Flood Insurance program, but that plan has significant leeway and little monitoring. Like the commercial logging, disaster-stricken local governments can often push the recovery costs off to individual homeowners through the FEMA homeowner’s assistance program, and off to state and federal agencies by receiving disaster recovery and community development grants and loans. Certainly, some communities are so regularly devastated, and are so few resources, that disasters simply knock them down before they can given stand up again. But others have found loopholes and can profit by continuing to use old food maps and failing to aggressively control flood plain development.
What is it going to take to really change this system and make it unprofitable to profit from bad land use management?
Here’s a good in-depth article on last year’s landslides in Lewis County. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008048848_logging13m.html
An interesting article on the failure of best management practices in development catchment basins can be found here: Hur, J. et al (2008) Does current management of storm water runoff adequately protect water resources in developing catchments? Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 63 (2) pp. 77-90.
Monday, December 29, 2008
It’s difficult to imagine a more colorful book, celebrating locally-grown and –marketed foods, than David Westerlund’s Simone Goes to the Market: A Children’s Book of Colors Connecting Face and Food. This book is aimed at families and the foods they eat. Who doesn’t want to know where their food is coming from – the terroir, the kind of microclimate it’s produced in, as well as who’s selling it? Gretchen sells her pole beans (purple), Maria her Serrano peppers (green), Dana and Matt sell their freshly-roasted coffee (black), Katie her carrots (orange), a blue poem from Matthew, brown potatoes from Roslyn, yellow patty pan squash from Jed, red tomatoes (soft and ripe) from Diana, and golden honey from Bill (and his bees). This is a book perfect for children of any age who want to connect to and with the food systems that sustain community. Order from [email protected].
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Identifying time lags in the restoration of grassland butterfly communities: a multi-site assessment
Woodcock, B.A.; Bullock, J.M.; Mortimer, S.R.; Brereton, T.; Redhead, J.W.; Thomas, J.A.; Pywell, R.F.. 2012 Identifying time lags in the restoration of grassland butterfly communities: a multi-site assessment. Biological Conservation, 155. 50-58. 10.1016/j.biocon.2012.05.013Full text not available from this repository.
Although grasslands are crucial habitats for European butterflies, large-scale declines in quality and area have devastated many species. Grasslandrestoration can contribute to the recovery of butterfly populations, although there is a paucity of information on the long-term effects of management. Using eight UK data sets (9–21 years), we investigate changes in restoration success for (1) arable reversion sites, were grassland was established on bare ground using seed mixtures, and (2) grassland enhancement sites, where degraded grasslands are restored by scrub removal followed by the re-instigation of cutting/grazing. We also assessed the importance of individual butterfly traits and ecological characteristics in determining colonisation times. Consistent increases in restoration success over time were seen for arable reversion sites, with the most rapid rates of increase in restoration success seen over the first 10 years. For grasslands enhancement there were no consistent increases in restoration success over time. Butterfly colonisation times were fastest for species with widespread host plants or where host plants established well during restoration. Low mobility butterfly species took longer to colonise. We show that arable reversion is an effective tool for the management of butterflycommunities. We suggest that as restoration takes time to achieve, its use as a mitigation tool against future environmental change (i.e. by decreasing isolation in fragmented landscapes) needs to take into account such time lags.
|Programmes:||CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 onwards > Biodiversity|
|CEH Sections:||CEH fellows
|Additional Keywords:||arable reversion, calcareous, grassland enhancement, mesotrophic, functional traits, recreation|
|NORA Subject Terms:||Ecology and Environment|
|Date made live:||12 Sep 2012 15:38|
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Buried inside Robert Bryce’s relatively new book entitled Power Hungry is a call to “aggressively pursue taxes or caps on the emissions of neurotoxins, particularly those that come from burning coal” to generate electricity such as mercury and lead. This is notable not because Bryce agrees with many environmental and human health experts, but also because the book credibly debunks the move to tax or cap carbon dioxide emissions both from technical and political perspectives.
The word “neurotoxic” literally translates as “nerve poison”. Broadly described, a neurotoxicant is any chemical substance which adversely acts on the structure or function of the human nervous system.
As its subtitle signals, Power Hungry also declares policies subsidizing renewable sources of electricity, biofuels and electric vehicles as too costly and impractical to make a significant difference in making the U.S. power and transportation systems more sustainable.
So why take aim at mercury and lead, which is certain to drive up the cost of coal-fired electricity just as a carbon cap or tax would? Because, Bryce asserts, “arguing against heavy metal contaminants with known neurotoxicity will be far easier than arguing against carbon dioxide emissions. Cutting the output of mercury and the other heavy metals may, in the long run, turn out to have far greater benefits for the environmental and human health.” Bryce draws a parallel to the U.S. government ordering oil refiners to remove lead from gasoline starting in the 1970s.
In the book, which has has received predominantly good reviews on Amazon.com, Bryce makes some valid points about the carbon density of our energy sources. Among his overarching messages is that the carbon density of the world’s major economies is actually declining (see graph below). Not to be missed: his attack on carbon sequestration, pp. 160-165. His case about the threat of neurotoxins begins on p. 167.
There’s a lot more to this challenge of reducing America’s reliance on coal-fired power plants than this. But considering the failure by the U.S. Congress to agree on a carbon tax or cap, his idea has serious merit and deserves a broad discussion, especially as Congress reassess its budget priorities. This includes billions of dollars of tax breaks and incentives for oil and other fossil fuels.
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Deaths in Moscow have doubled to an average of 700 people a day as the Russian capital is engulfed by poisonous smog from wildfires and a sweltering heat wave, a top health official said today, according to the Associated Press.
The Russian newspaper Pravda reported: “Moscow is suffocating. Thick toxic smog has been covering the sky above the city for days. The sun in Moscow looks like the moon during the day: it’s not that bright and yellow, but pale and orange with misty outlines against the smoky sky. Muscovites have to experience both the smog and sweltering heat at once.”
“Russia has recently seen the longest unprecedented heat wave for at least one thousand years, the head of the Russian Meteorological Center,” the news site Ria Novosti reported.
Various news sites report that foreign embassies have reduced activities or shut down, with many staff leaving Moscow to escape the toxic atmosphere.
Russian heatwave: This NASA map released today shows areas of Russia experiencing above-average temperatures this summer (orange and red). The map was released on NASA’s Earth Obervatory website.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, based on MODIS land surface temperature data available through the NASA Earth Observations (NEO) Website. Caption by Michon Scott.
According to NASA:
In the summer of 2010, the Russian Federation had to contend with multiple natural hazards: drought in the southern part of the country, and raging fires in western Russia and eastern Siberia. The events all occurred against the backdrop of unusual warmth. Bloomberg reported that temperatures in parts of the country soared to 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit), and the Wall Street Journal reported that fire- and drought-inducing heat was expected to continue until at least August 12.
This map shows temperature anomalies for the Russian Federation from July 20-27, 2010, compared to temperatures for the same dates from 2000 to 2008. The anomalies are based on land surface temperatures observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Areas with above-average temperatures appear in red and orange, and areas with below-average temperatures appear in shades of blue. Oceans and lakes appear in gray.
Not all parts of the Russian Federation experienced unusual warmth on July 20-27, 2010. A large expanse of northern central Russia, for instance, exhibits below-average temperatures. Areas of atypical warmth, however, predominate in the east and west. Orange- and red-tinged areas extend from eastern Siberia toward the southwest, but the most obvious area of unusual warmth occurs north and northwest of the Caspian Sea. These warm areas in eastern and western Russia continue a pattern noticeable earlier in July, and correspond to areas of intense drought and wildfire activity.
Bloomberg reported that 558 active fires covering 179,596 hectares (693 square miles) were burning across the Russian Federation as of August 6, 2010. Voice of America reported that smoke from forest fires around the Russian capital forced flight restrictions at Moscow airports on August 6, just as health officials warned Moscow residents to take precautions against the smoke inhalation.
Posted by David Braun
Earlier related post: Russia burns in hottest summer on record (July 28, 2010)
Talk about tough: These guys throw themselves out of 50-year-old aircraft into burning Siberian forests. (National Geographic Magazine feature, February 2008)
Photo by Mark Thiessen
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Habitat Affects Escape Behavior of Birds
It seems birds of the same species raised in diverse settings behave differently in the face of a threat. Birds raised in an urban environment react differently than country-bred birds when faced with a predator.
A study undertaken by Diego Ibanez-Alamo, researcher at the University of Granada (UGR) and Anders Pape Moller from Paris-Sud University, highlights the fact that urbanization plays an influential role in a bird's survival strategies.
They analyzed the escape techniques of 1,132 birds belonging to 15 species in different rural and urban areas.
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The study showed that city birds have changed their behavior to adapt to new threats like cats, which are their main enemies in an urban habitat, instead of their more traditional enemies in the countryside, such as the sparrow hawk.
"When they are captured, city birds are less aggressive, they produce alarm calls more frequently, they remain more paralyzed when attacked by their predator and they lose more feathers than their countryside counterparts," explained by Juan Diego Ibanez-Alamo.
They were surprised to see that urbanization was directly linked with these differences. This finding gives rise to the concept that escape strategies evolve alongside the expansion of cities.
"It is crucial to discover how birds adapt to transformations in their habitat so that we can decrease their effects," said Ibanez-Alamo..
"Predation change caused by city growth is serious," outlined Ibanez-Alamo.
As the scientist indicates, tactics against their hunters are "crucial" so that birds can adapt to their new environment: "Birds should modify their behavior to be able to survive in cities because if not, they will become extinct at the mercy of urban growth."
These results appear in the journal, Animal Behavior.
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NINE BANDED ARMADILLO
Photo Credit: U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Dasypus novemcinctus
OTHER NAMES: Armadillo, Common Long-Nosed Armadillo
DESCRIPTION: The nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) cannot easily be confused with any other North American wild mammal. The armadillo’s body is covered with an armored carapace or shell. The carapace is a double layer of horn and bone, segmented into three main divisions: an anterior scapular shield covering the shoulder; a posterior pelvic shield covering the hip region; and a middle section comprised of a series of bands connected by soft, infolded skin between the bands. The head and legs are covered with thick scales, and the tail is encased in a series of bony rings. Coloration of nine-banded armadillos is generally grayish brown, with yellowish-white scales along the side of the carapace. The armadillo has a long, pointed snout, small eyes, and large, cylindrical ears. The armadillo’s pointed snout, short, stout legs, and heavy claws are well suited for digging and burrowing. Armadillos have a limited number of vocalizations: a low, wheezy grunt associated with digging and rooting; a wheezy grunt uttered by recently captured individuals; an audible buzzing noise given when highly alarmed or fleeing, a pig-like squeal given by frightened individuals; and a weak purring given by young attempting to nurse from an unrelated female. Total length ranges from 24 to 31 inches and weights vary from 8 to 15 pounds. There are six subspecies of Dasypus novemcinctus in Central and South America, but only one subspecies, D. n. mexicanus occurs in North America.
DISTRIBUTION: Dasypus novemcinctus mexicanus’ original distribution was from the lower Rio Grande Valley between Mexico and Texas, southward through Mexico and Central America to northwestern Peru on the west side of the Andes, and all of South America to northern Argentina east of the Andes, including the islands of Grenada, Trinidad, Tobago, and Margarita. The range of the nine-banded armadillo has undergone rapid expansion into the southern United States since the late 1800s. The recent rapid expansion of the armadillo’s range was facilitated by a number of factors: reduction in the number of large carnivores; climatic and biotic changes; and accidental and deliberate relocations of animals to unoccupied areas. Armadillos now occur throughout the southern and southeastern U.S., as far north as Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska. These animals are common throughout most of Alabama, but less common in several northeastern counties.
HABITAT: The armadillo is very adaptable and does well in most habitat types found in Alabama. They generally avoid or are scarce in very wet or very dry habitats. Habitat suitability likely depends more on the characteristics of the substrate or soils, rather than vegetation type due to the armadillo’s feeding and burrowing behavior.
FEEDING HABITS: A major portion of the armadillo’s time spent outside its burrow is devoted to feeding. They typically start foraging as they emerge from their burrow and move at a slow pace following an often erratic course. Prey is apparently detected by smell, although sound also may play a role. Typical foraging behavior involves quickly probing with the nose and occasionally pausing to dig for prey. Armadillos are opportunistic feeders and consume a wide variety of food items. Invertebrates, primarily insects, make up roughly 90 percent of their diet. Small vertebrates and plant material make up the remainder of their diet. Researchers also have seen evidence of armadillos feeding on small reptiles and amphibians, the eggs of ground-nesting birds, and carrion.
LIFE HISTORY AND ECOLOGY: Armadillos seem to exhibit a polygynous mating system, with most females paired with a single male and most males paired with more than one female. Den burrows have an enlarged nest chamber and are more complicated than a burrow dug for other purposes. The nest is a bulky mass of dried plant debris crammed into the nest chamber without any obvious structure. Armadillos in areas with poorly drained soils will construct above ground nests of dry plant material. Most breeding among armadillos occurs during the summer (June-August). The normal gestation period is 8 to 9 months, with most young born between February and May. The armadillo exhibits monozygotic polyembryony in which a single fertilized egg normally gives rise to four separate embryos at the blastula stage of development. This results in a litter of four genetically identical haploid clone offspring. Dasypus is the only genus of vertebrates in which this reproductive phenomenon occurs. The offspring are precocial and begin accompanying the female outside of the burrow at about 2 to 3 months of age. By 3 to 4 months, the young are self-sufficient. Most males reach sexual maturity between 6 to 12 months of age, but females do not become sexually mature until they are 1 to 2 years old.
REFERENCES: Author: Chris Cook, Wildlife Biologist, June 2005
Armstrong, J. Controlling Armadillo Ddamage in Alabama. ANR-773. Alabama Cooperative Extension System. 2pp.
Layne, J. N. 2003. Armadillo. Pages 75-97 in G. A. Feldhamer, B. C. Thompson, and J. A. Chapman, eds. Wild Mammals of North America: Biology, Management, and Conservation. Second edition. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD and London, U.K.
Nowak, R. M. 1999. Walker’s Mammals of the World, sixth edition, volume one. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD and London, U.K. 903 pp.
Outdoor Alabama Magazine Article, Nine-banded Armadillo
Watchable Wildlife Article
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Time to think big
Did the designation of 2010 as the first-ever International Year of Biodiversity mean anything at all? Is it just a publicity stunt, with no engagement on the real, practical issues of conservation, asks Simon Stuart, Chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission.
Eight years ago 183 of the world’s governments committed themselves “to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth”. This was hardly visionary—the focus was not on stopping extinctions or loss of key habitats, but simply on slowing their rate of loss—but it was, at least, the first time the nations of the world had pledged themselves to any form of concerted attempt to face up to the ongoing degradation of nature.
Now the results of all the analyses of conservation progress since 2002 are coming in, and there is a unanimous finding: the world has spectacularly failed to meet the 2010 Biodiversity Target, as it is called. Instead species extinctions, habitat loss and the degradation of ecosystems are all accelerating. To give a few examples: declines and extinctions of amphibians due to disease and habitat loss are getting worse; bleaching of coral reefs is growing; and large animals in South-East Asia are moving rapidly towards extinction, especially from over-hunting and degradation of habitats.
|This month the world’s governments will convene in Nagoya, Japan, for the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Conference of the Parties. Many of us hope for agreement there on new, much more ambitious biodiversity targets for the future. The first test of whether or not the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity means anything will be whether or not the international community can commit itself to a truly ambitious conservation agenda.|
The early signs are promising. Negotiating sessions around the world have produced 20 new draft targets for 2020. Collectively these are nearly as strong as many of us hoped, and certainly much stronger than the 2010 Biodiversity Target. They include: halving the loss and degradation of forests and other natural habitats; eliminating overfishing and destructive fishing practices; sustainably managing all areas under agriculture, aquaculture and forestry; bringing pollution from excess nutrients and other sources below critical ecosystem loads; controlling pathways introducing and establishing invasive alien species; managing multiple pressures on coral reefs and other vulnerable ecosystems affected by climate change and ocean acidification; effectively protecting at least 15 per cent of land and sea, including the areas of particular importance for biodiversity; and preventing the extinction of known threatened species. We now have to keep up the pressure to prevent these from becoming diluted.
We at IUCN are pushing for urgent action to stop biodiversity loss once and for all. The well-being of the entire planet—and of people—depends on our committing to maintain healthy ecosystems and strong wildlife populations. We are therefore proposing, as a mission for 2020, “to have put in place by 2020 all the necessary policies and actions to prevent further biodiversity loss”. Examples include removing government subsidies which damage biodiversity (as many agricultural ones do), establishing new nature reserves in important areas for threatened species, requiring fisheries authorities to follow the advice of their scientists to ensure the sustainability of catches, and dramatically cutting carbon dioxide emissions worldwide to reduce the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification.
If the world makes a commitment along these lines, then the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity will have been about more than platitudes. But it will still only be a start: the commitment needs to be implemented. We need to look for signs this year of a real change from governments and society over the priority accorded to biodiversity.
|One important sign will be the amount of funding that governments pledge this year for replenishing the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the world’s largest donor for biodiversity conservation in developing countries. Between 1991 and 2006, it provided approximately $2.2 billion in grants to support more than 750 biodiversity projects in 155 countries. If the GEF is replenished at much the same level as over the last decade we shall know that the governments are still in “business as usual” mode. But if it is doubled or tripled in size, then we shall know that they are starting to get serious.|
IUCN estimates that even a tripling of funding would still fall far short of what is needed to halt biodiversity loss. Some conservationists have suggested that developed countries need to contribute 0.2 per cent of gross national income in overseas biodiversity assistance to achieve this. That would work out at roughly $120 billion a year—though of course this would need to come through a number of sources, not just the GEF. It is tempting to think that this figure is unrealistically high, but it is small change compared to the expenditures governments have committed to defence and bank bail outs.
It is time for the conservation movement to think big. We are addressing problems that are hugely important for the future of this planet and its people, and they will not be solved without a huge increase in funds.
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Following Oceana’s newly released report on the harmful impacts of illegal fishing, one of the questions that I as Oceana's Northeast representative was asked most often was, “Where is this happening?” The short answer: Illegal fishing happens everywhere, from the most distant waters near Antarctica to just off the U.S. coast.
This week brought great news for shark populations that are dwindling both in U.S. waters and worldwide. Today, the Delaware House of Representatives introduced a bill prohibiting the possession, trade, sale and distribution of shark fins within the state. If passed, House Bill 41 would make Delaware the first East Coast state to pass a ban on the shark fin trade, following in the footsteps of Oregon, Washington, California, Hawaii and Illinois.
Current federal law prohibits shark finning in U.S. waters, requiring that sharks be brought into port with their fins still attached. However, this law does not prohibit the sale and trade of processed fins that are imported into the country from other regions that could have weak or even nonexistent shark protections in place.
This unsustainable catch is driven by the demand for shark fins, often used as an ingredient in shark fin soup, and kills millions of sharks every year. Delaware’s bill would close the loopholes that fuel the trade and demand for fins, and ensure that the state is not a gateway for shark products to enter into other U.S. state markets.
Not only was there great news coming out of the U.S., international shark lovers have reason to celebrate as well. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), voted this week to place stricter regulations on the trade of manta rays, three species of hammerheads, oceanic whitetip and porbeagle sharks, acknowledging that these species are in dire need of protection. When countries export these species, they are required to possess special permits that prove these species were harvested sustainably. This decision will greatly curb illegal overfishing and reduce the numbers of endangered sharks killed globally.
History was made today in Bangkok, when Parties to CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna) voted to protect five species of sharks and two species of manta rays. The seven protected species are: oceanic whitetip (Carcharhinus longimanus), porbeagle (Lamna nasus), scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini), great hammerhead (S. mokarran), smooth hammerhead (S. zygaena), oceanic manta ray (Manta birostris) and reef manta ray (M. alfredi).
All seven species are considered threatened by international trade – the sharks for their fins, and the manta rays for their gills, which are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. CITES protection is an important complement to fisheries management measures, which, for these species, have failed to safeguard their survival.
The vote was to list the animals for protection under Appendix II which does not entail a ban on the trade, but instead means that trade must be regulated. Exporting countries are required to issue export permits, and can only do so if they can ensure that they have been legally caught, and that their trade is not detrimental to the species’ survival.
All of the proposals received the two-thirds majority needed to be accepted – but the listing is not yet final. Decisions can be overturned with another vote during the final plenary session of the meeting, which wraps up on Thursday. This is what happened with porbeagle sharks in the 2010 CITES meeting in Qatar – an Appendix II listing approved by the Committee evaporated with another vote in plenary. As a result, at that meeting, none of the proposed shark species were granted protection. Now, three years later, we’re hopeful that the international community finally sees the importance of regulating the trade that puts these animals at risk.
Keep your fingers crossed!
Happy Friday, everyone.
It's been a rough few weeks for the oceans at CITES, but now it's time to pick up the pieces. If CITES taught us anything, it's that the work of the ocean conservation community is more important than ever.
This week in ocean news,
....Rick at Malaria, Bed bugs, Sea Lice and Sunsets discussed one of the more shady aspects of CITES: the secret ballots, which were invoked for votes on bluefin tuna, sharks, polar bears, and deep water corals.
…The Washington Post reported that Maryland is cracking down on watermen who catch oysters in protected sanctuaries or with banned equipment. Once a principal source of oysters, the Chesapeake now provides less than 5 percent of the annual U.S. harvest.
…For the first time, scientists were able to use videos to observe octupuses’ behavioral responses. The result? The octupuses had no consistent reaction to one film -- in other words, they had no “personality.” Curiously, other cephalopods display consistent personalities for most of their lives.
…The New York Times wondered if the 700,000 saltwater home aquariums in the United States and the associated trade in reef invertebrates are threatening real reef ecosystems.
This is the ninth in a series of dispatches from the CITES meeting in Doha, Qatar.
As Oceana marine scientist Elizabeth Griffin put it: “This meeting was a flop.”
CITES has been a complete failure for the oceans. The one success -- the listing of the porbeagle shark under Appendix II -- was overturned yesterday in the plenary session.
“It appears that money can buy you anything, just ask Japan,” said Dave Allison, senior campaign director. “Under the crushing weight of the vast sums of money gained by unmanaged trade and exploitation of endangered marine species by Japan, China, other major trading countries and the fishing industry, the very foundation of CITES is threatened with collapse.”
Maybe next time -- if these species are still around to be protected.
The failure of CITES means that Oceana’s work – and your support and activism – is more important than ever. You can start by supporting our campaign work to protect these creatures.
Here's Oceana's Gaia Angelini on the conclusion of CITES:
This is the eighth in a series of dispatches from the CITES conference in Doha, Qatar.
More difficult news out of Doha today.
While seven of the eight proposed shark species (including several species of hammerheads, oceanic whitetip and spiny dogfish) were not included in Appendix II, the one bright spot was for the porbeagle shark, which is threatened by widespread consumption in Europe.
The porbeagle’s Appendix II listing is a huge improvement because it requires the use of export permits to ensure that the species are caught by a legal and sustainably managed fishery.
And there is a slight chance that the other shark decisions could be reversed during the plenary session in the final two days.
Here are Oceana scientists Elizabeth Griffin and Rebecca Greenberg reflecting on the shark decisions:
This is the seventh in a series of posts from CITES. Check out the rest of the dispatches from Doha here.
Eight shark species have been proposed for listing to Appendix II of CITES, including the oceanic whitetip, scalloped hammerhead, dusky, sandbar, smooth hammerhead, great hammerhead, porbeagle and spiny dogfish.
Listing these species, which are threatened by shark finning, is necessary to ensure international trade does not drive these shark species to extinction.
Here's Oceana's Ann Schroeer from our Brussels office with an optimistic outlook on the upcoming shark proposals at CITES.
This is the latest in a series of posts from CITES. See the rest of the dispatches here.
Over the weekend, CITES failed to include 31 species of red and pink coral in Appendix II, trade protections that were promised during the last CITES Conference more than two and a half years ago.
These corals are harvested to meet the growing demand for jewelry and souvenirs. The unregulated and virtually unmanaged collection and trade of these species is driving them to extinction.
Many of the corals are long-lived, reaching more than 100 years of age, and grow slowly, usually less than one millimeter in thickness per year. These colonies are fragile and extremely vulnerable to exploitation and destruction, and their biological characteristics severely limit their ability to recover.
Oceana campaign director Dave Allison had this to say about the corals decision (first video), as well as the failure of CITES to protect marine species in general (second video.)
Happy Friday, ocean fans. It's almost spring, and a surfing alpaca exists in the world. Things are looking up.
Before we get to the week's best marine tidbits, an important announcement: Oceana board member Ted Danson will be answering questions live on CNN.com on April 1, so send your ocean queries in, stat!
Also, don't forget that today is the last day to take the Ocean IQ quiz for a chance to win prizes, including a trip with SEE Turtles.
This week in ocean news,
…Yes, CITES failed to deliver on bluefin tuna yesterday, but as Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Julie Packard pointed out, at least the conversation is changing. Bluefin is now in the same rhetorical realm as endangered land creatures such as tigers and elephants.
…Deep Sea News wrote a requiem for a robot -- the Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE) that was lost at sea last week during a research expedition to the Chilean Subduction Zone. On a recent dive, ABE had detected evidence of hydrothermal vents. At the time of its loss, ABE had just begun a second dive to home into a vent site and photograph it.
This is the fifth in a series of dispatches from CITES. You can read the other dispatches here.
Although there were repeated calls from delegates from the E.U., U.S. and Monaco to allow time for parties to meet and arrive at a compromise position, a Libya delegate forced a preemptory vote on the E.U. proposal, which resulted in a 43 to 72 vote, with 14 abstaining.
Campaign director Dave Allison called the defeat "a clear win by short-term economic interest over the long-term health of the ocean and the rebuilding of Atlantic bluefin tuna populations."
The decision could spell the beginning of the end for the tigers of the sea.
Here's Oceana's Maria Jose Cornax on the decision:
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