RSS Feed

Authorities: Man tied lizards to chest at airport

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:57:49 +0100

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal officials say they arrested a man who strapped 15 live lizards to his chest to get through customs at Los Angeles International Airport.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday that 40-year-old Michael Plank of Lomita, Calif., was returning from Australia when U.S. Customs agents found two geckos, two monitor lizards and 11 skinks — another type of lizard — fastened to his body Tuesday.

Plank has been released on $10,000 bond and will be arraigned in federal court on Dec. 21.

Authorities say the lizards' value totals more than $8,500. All Australian reptiles are strictly regulated and Plank did not have a permit for them.

Pa. residents sue gas driller over polluted wells

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:36:15 +0100

DIMOCK, Pa. (AP) — Pat Farnelli says there's something in the water at her house. The last time she drank it, she says she vomited four times. It's made her children sick, too.

Like her neighbors in this rural community 15 miles south of the New York border, Farnelli signed a lease with a major natural gas driller to explore a potentially lucrative formation beneath her land. Now Farnelli and others are plaintiffs in a lawsuit that alleges Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. polluted their wells with methane gas and other contaminants, destroying the value of their homes and threatening their health.

A Cabot spokesman said the lawsuit, filed late Thursday in federal court in Scranton, was without merit.

At a news conference Friday to announce the suit, residents described an ordeal that began shortly after Cabot started drilling near their homes. The water that came out of their faucets suddenly became cloudy and discolored, and it smelled and tasted foul.

Then, on New Year's Day, a resident's water well exploded, prompting a state investigation that found Cabot had allowed combustible gas to escape into the region's groundwater supplies.

"They were never told that this was even a possibility," said Alan Fuchsberg, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

More than a dozen families have filed suit, asking for an environmental cleanup, medical monitoring and money damages in excess of $75,000 each.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has determined that 13 wells were polluted, signing a consent decree with Cabot earlier this month in which the company agreed to pay a $120,000 fine, take steps to improve its drilling operations and restore or replace the affected water supplies.

Pennsylvania regulators, citing three chemical spills at a single well site in Dimock, in September halted Cabot's use of a drilling technique that uses liquids to fracture rock and release natural gas. Cabot was permitted to resume hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" several weeks later after DEP said the company took steps to prevent a recurrence. The spills are cited in the residents' lawsuit.

Cabot spokesman Ken Komoroski said Friday that the company has not admitted to polluting residents' wells. He said Cabot believes the high levels of methane gas that have been detected in the wells might be naturally occurring. He said a company investigation continues.

"On one hand, if Cabot caused the methane contamination, certainly it's understandable why everyone is upset and Cabot will address that situation," he said. "But I wonder how they'll feel if at some point it's proven that Cabot didn't cause it, that all this anger and frustration has been based on a false premise. And we just don't know yet."

Cabot is among a slew of exploration companies that are drilling in the Marcellus shale, a layer of rock deep underground that experts say holds vast stores of largely untapped natural gas. The company began approaching homeowners in Dimock in 2006, promising fat royalty checks and a hassle-free, environmentally friendly operation, plaintiffs said. Instead, residents have been exposed to "combustible gases, hazardous chemicals, (and) threats of explosions and fires," the suit said.

Some residents also said the company pressured them into signing leases, telling them that all of their neighbors had already signed and that the company would be removing the gas from underneath their properties anyway.

Cabot has drilled at least 62 gas wells within a 9-square-mile tract of land in Dimock, according to the suit. Lawyers say the company has plans for at least 60 more.

Craig Sautner, 56, signed a lease with Cabot shortly after buying his house in the spring of 2008 for $150,000. He said his well has since been contaminated by methane gas and unknown pollutants that discolored his water and made it smell like a "fishy pond." He now gets his water from a large portable tank in the garage.

"You're paying a mortgage on a house that's completely worthless. I work every day, busting my hump just to pay the mortgage and I can't even sell my house," said Sautner, a father of two.

Monsanto aims to stop leaks at Idaho mine dump

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:28:36 +0100

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Monsanto Co. is installing a water management system at an Idaho phosphate mine the company depends on to make its Roundup weedkiller to stop the leakage of selenium and heavy metals into a tributary of the Blackfoot River.

The company hopes capturing runoff and underground water will remedy problems at the waste rock dump below its South Rasmussen Ridge Mine that have resulted in Clean Water Act violation notices from the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Monsanto is seeking federal approval for a new mine nearby, called Blackfoot Bridge, to supply the phosphate for Roundup; activist groups have demanded it first remedy old problems like South Rasmussen's dump.

The St. Louis-based company says this water management system would have been built regardless of its efforts to mine elsewhere in the region near the Idaho-Wyoming border.

"Our engineers have extensively studied this issue, and believe this design will work," said Dave Farnsworth, who heads Monsanto's phosphate mining operations in Soda Springs in southeastern Idaho.

Mines owned by Monsanto, the J.R. Simplot Co., and Canadian-based Agrium Inc. in Idaho's rich phosphate belt have come under increasing scrutiny since selenium pollution began killing hundreds of livestock starting in the 1990s.

None of the reported deaths have occurred at Monsanto mines, but 18 cattle died of selenium poisoning this August after eating contaminated plants near an inactive mine whose lease is controlled by Simplot.

Monsanto's water management system at its leaking dump will include shallow collection areas above the dump to capture rain- and snowmelt before it can seep into selenium-rich waste rock.

It's also adding drains at the bottom of the dump, to capture potentially contaminated groundwater before it reaches a nearby wetland and migrates further downstream.

"Water that has not been impacted by mining operations will continue to flow into the watershed," according to an e-mail from the company, which says crews are working quickly on the system so it's in place by the spring thaw.

In 2007, the EPA ordered Monsanto to stop releasing selenium- and heavy-metal tainted water from the dump into Sheep Creek, located upstream from the Blackfoot River. In May, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality added Sheep Creek to its list of waterways that exceed selenium contamination standards.

EPA officials toured the leaking dump in recent weeks to assess Monsanto's water management system.

The area's complicated geology makes addressing problems a difficult proposition, but the EPA is optimistic these latest efforts will help reduce illegal releases of selenium, cadmium, nickel and zinc.

"These are appropriate and necessary actions that Monsanto is now taking," said Dave Tomten, an EPA geologist in Boise. "I don't know how effective they'll be, but I fully expect they'll improve the situation."

Monsanto will continue testing after next spring, to assess whether more must be done, Tomten said.

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition has been among the most outspoken critics of phosphate mining in the region.

Marv Hoyt, who heads the group's Idaho Falls office, didn't have details of Monsanto's latest proposal to contain leaks at the dump but said he remains skeptical because previous remedies, including pumping water so it could be used as dust control on roads within the South Rasmussen Mine, have proven unsuccessful.

Gates: US to do its part to slow Afghan corruption

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:38:39 +0100

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — The United States will do its part to reduce corruption in Afghanistan by examining its own contracts and projects, even as it is demanding the same from the Afghan government, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.

He said the U.S. can exert the most leverage when it is signing the checks.

"The place for us to start is to deal with corruption that may be associated with contracts we're letting or work that we're having done and development projects that we are undertaking in partnership with others including with the Afghans," Gates said.

Gates spoke to reporters at the historic military fort carved into Halifax's Citadel Hill, just prior to the start of the first Halifax International Security Forum, which is exploring a broad range of issues from Afghanistan and China to Arctic and port security.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has promised to do more to head off corruption that outside analysts say is rampant. But the newly re-elected leader has also chafed under international criticism of corruption in his government. He has pointed out that the flood of development cash into his country over the past eight years has promoted some of the graft.

Standing with Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay, Gates said the U.S. military is planning for the eventual withdrawal of Canadian and Dutch troops, set for 2011 and 2010 respectively.

"I think it is sustainable," he said, adding that the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal "is planning appropriately."

President Barack Obama is expected to announce an increase of thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the coming weeks. And U.S. leaders have stressed the need for other nations to up their commitments as well.

But NATO and some allies, including Germany, have said they will wait to make any decisions until after the U.S. has made its announcement. The U.S. has a record American force of more than 68,000 in Afghanistan.

Asked about Obama's goal to not pass the conflict on to the next president, Gates declined to be specific. He would only say he hopes that "in a reasonable amount of time" the U.S. and its allies could begin transferring security to the Afghans and withdrawing U.S. forces.

"The exact timing will depend clearly on substantial measure on conditions on the ground but I think everybody's hope is that it will come sooner rather than later," Gates said.

A short time later, in a speech to the security conference, Gates called for other nations to do what they can in the eight-year-old Afghanistan war, saying it will require more commitment and sacrifice from U.S. allies.

He said allies will need to exercise more patience in the "noble and necessary campaign."

Canada currently has more than 2,800 troops deployed in Afghanistan, and has suffered one of the highest per-capita losses in the war, with as many as 130 killed in the war.

Gates — hamstrung by the secrecy surrounding Obama's ongoing troop deliberations — turned much of his speech toward other challenges faced by the international community, including America's neighbors to the north.

Pointing to the increased maritime traffic through the Northwest Passage, Gates said the U.S. and its allies must keep an eye on Russia's efforts to expand its activities in the Arctic.

"Even as the U.S. 'resets' relations with Russia, we will work with Canada to ensure that increased Russian activity in the Arctic does not lead to miscalculation or unnecessary friction," Gates said.

Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway have been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to contain as much as 25 percent of the Earth's undiscovered oil and gas. Russia, in 2007, laid claim to parts of the Arctic seabed, and last month unveiled an effort to map the region in order to justify its claims.

Gates added that the melting of the polar ice cap in the Arctic, along with the potential need for military humanitarian assistance, "calls for a greater attention to the security implications of climate change."

A senior U.S. defense official said Thursday that the U.S. and Canada are looking for ways to increase surveillance in the Arctic region as maritime traffic through the frozen north grows — spurred on by global warming and the melting ice caps.

He said that for the first time, the Pentagon's quadrennial review will examine the U.S. armed forces' ability to respond to the impact of global warming.

___

On the Net:

Halifax International Security Forum: http://www.gmfus.org/halifax/

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

Fed funding to help study wind speeds in Michigan

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:04:59 +0100

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State University will receive $83,806 to measure wind speeds in five areas around the state.

The state says in a release Thursday that the project is designed to assess Michigan's wind energy potential and encourage job growth in that industry.

Michigan State will install anemometers on public safety communications towers in Gratiot, Delta, Antrim, Mason and Hillsdale counties. The new information will help create a wind power map for Michigan, identifying and promoting areas best suited for wind power development.

Data collected in other Midwest states indicates current measurements may underestimate Michigan's wind energy potential.

The project is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Island's bison given birth control to control herd

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:32:44 +0100

AVALON, Calif. (AP) — Birth control for bison?

That's what conservationists are giving a herd on Santa Catalina Island in an attempt to reduce the population. Females over the age of 2 will be injected with a contraceptive under a five-year experimental program that begins Friday.

Some of the feral animals were corralled Thursday.

The bison, commonly called American buffalo, are descendants of 14 animals that were shipped to the island in 1924 to make a Western. They weren't used in the movie and were simply left behind.

At one point, as many as 600 of the shaggy beasts roamed the island 25 miles off the Los Angeles coast. There were about 350 in 2003 when a study found that they had poor nutrition and health.

The conservancy believes the herd should be kept at 150 to 200 to preserve the environment and the animals' health. To control the numbers, bison were shipped out for slaughter, but in recent years, the animals have instead been sent to Indian reservations for breeding.

Last month, 150 bison were deported at a cost of about $100,000, conservancy President and Chief Executive Ann M. Muscat said. The $200,000 contraception program is considered cheaper and less stressful for the animals.

The birth control vaccine, called PZP, is derived from pig eggs and must be renewed annually. It doesn't affect the animal's hormones or behavior, said Carlos de la Rosa, chief conservation and education officer for the Catalina Island Conservancy, a nonprofit group that owns much of the island.

"Bison will continue to be bison," De la Rosa said. "Males will continue to compete for females, and females will continue to go into heat. The only difference is that we can control how many calves they have."

"For bison in love, this means romance without responsibilities," he said with a laugh.

Baby gorillas to get new sanctuary in east Congo

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:13:16 +0100

GOMA, Congo (AP) — Conservationists say Congolese schoolchildren will soon be able to take a closer look at baby mountain gorillas.

Virunga National Park spokeswoman Samantha Newport says the park is building a sanctuary where schoolchildren and tourists can observe the 2½-year-old orphan gorillas from hidden platforms.

Female orphans Ndeze and Ndakasi were abandoned in 2007 and are the world's only captive baby mountain gorillas.

Because of violence in eastern Congo, the two have been living far from their natural habitat in a house in the large, traffic-choked city of Goma.

Virunga National Park is home to 200 of the world's 720 remaining mountain gorillas.

The nation's weather

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:02:48 +0100

New England was expected to see another dreary day, while the Pacific Northwest remains under wintry conditions on Friday.

A low pressure system was forecast to continue moving over British Colombia from the Pacific Ocean. As this system pushes further inland throughout the day, it was expected to create a moist cold front that could sweep through the Pacific Northwest and northern California.

This front could obtain ample moisture from the Pacific Ocean, and spread heavy precipitation over the region.

In the high elevations of the Cascades, snowfall accumulation could be between 8 and 12 inches. The Northern Rockies were expected to see up to 6 inches of snow. This strong system also could bring intense winds to the region with gusts of up to 35 mph. Winter weather and avalanche advisories have been issued.

Northern California was expected to see periods of significant rainfall on Friday with most areas seeing up to 1 1/5 inches of rain.

Meanwhile, in the Central U.S., high pressure was forecast to build over the Mississippi River Valley and bring another day of pleasant weather to most of the Plains and Valley regions.

However, a residual low pressure system in the Northeast could continue spreading light and scattered showers. Light showers was expected to leave less than a half inch of rain to stretch from New York to Maine.

To the South, an interesting trough was expected to develop and could pick up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico that could feed energy into the system. Heavy rain and strong winds over the Gulf states were expected and could bring rainfall totals of between 1 1/2 and 2 inches and wind gusts of up to 20 mph.

On Thursday, temperatures in the Lower 48 states ranged from a low of -2 degrees at Laramie, Wyo. to a high of 86 degrees at Indio, Calif.

Lebanese diva accused of singing racist song

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:36:41 +0100

CAIRO (AP) — A famous Lebanese pop singer, who normally stirs controversy for her seductive dresses and provocative dancing, has now been accused of singing a song with racist lyrics that compares black Egyptians to monkeys.

Haifa Wehbe, considered by many as one of the sexiest women in the Arab world, has the minority Nubian community in Egypt distraught over her latest children's album "Baby Haifa" and the community's activists have launched several lawsuits over the lyrics.

The Nubians took issue with a verse in the song "Where is Daddy?" in which Wehbe croons: "Where is my teddy bear and my Nubian monkey?"

The line, Nubian representatives say, infers that members of the black Egyptian minority are monkeys. In November, they slapped separate lawsuits on the singer, her record label and Wehbe's Egyptian song writer.

"It may not be intentional racism on the part of the song writer, but it is still highly racist and offensive," said Motez Isaaq, with the Committee for Nubian Issues.

Nubians come from the southernmost region of present-day Egypt, where a culture later known as Nubian first arose around 3,800 B.C. along the Nile and in northern Sudan. It was one of Africa's earliest black civilizations, complete with an independent kingdom.

Isaaq said that stereotypes of minorities are so entrenched that referring to them in popular culture media is frequently done unconsciously.

"We are one of the oldest civilizations on earth," said Isaaq. "Instead, our image is constantly perpetuated as the uneducated doorman or waiter."

Isaaq alleged that Nubians are discriminated against because of their darker skin, and stressed that the community still holds in painful memory the political oppression in the 1960s, when the Egyptian government forced tens of thousands of Nubians to leave their homes and resettle elsewhere in southern Egypt, to make way for the building of the High Dam, 425 miles (685 kilometers) south of Cairo.

Wehbe has in the past tested the limits of a conservative Middle Eastern culture for her revealing outfits, suggestive lyrics and dancing.

But this time, Isaaq said the danger of her song is that it targets children.

"Kids can soak up the lyrics so quickly," he said. "They could start calling their Nubian classmates monkeys."

Isaaq's group has held protests against the song, he said, and is also suing Egypt's culture minister and the country's state censorship board for allowing Wehbe's latest album to be on the Egyptian market.

The Nubians want a formal apology and an end to airing the song in Egypt, Isaaq said, expressing also hope that the action would change the way other Egyptians treat their Nubian fellow countrymen.

"Egyptians have to stop treating us as second class citizens," he said. "We are the original Egyptians and the country needs to remember it."

Judge keeps Yellowstone grizzly on threatened list

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:59:27 +0100

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A judge says the government must keep Yellowstone-area grizzly bears on the list of threatened and endangered species, denying an attempt by federal officials to reverse an earlier court ruling.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service two years ago said grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park had recovered from near-extermination and no longer needed protections under the Endangered Species Act.

But in September, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said climate change and lax regulations threatened to undermine the bears' recovery. After Molloy ordered the animals back onto the threatened list, government attorneys asked that he reconsider, saying the bear would thrive without sweeping federal protections.

In an order Tuesday, Molloy rejected the government's argument and confirmed his earlier ruling.

Utah auction draws few oil and gas drillers

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:35:59 +0100

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Drillers say it's getting so hard to obtain an oil-and-gas lease in the Rocky Mountains under the new administration of President Barack Obama that many aren't bothering to show up for auctions.

The criticism came after the government held an auction of public lands in Utah that was remarkable for how few parcels were offered or sold. Only five drilling leases sold Tuesday.

The Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States says the new administration is scaring away drillers, who say it's holding up leases after taking their auction money.

"Why would any company want to go through the time and expense of participating in lease sales when there's zero certainty that the leases will be issued and that there will be any return on their investment?" asked Kathleen Sgamma, the association's government-affairs director, in an interview.

In part, that's a reaction to a series of decisions by the Department of the Interior that suspended the award of 60 of 77 leases sold at a contested December 2008 auction. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar faulted the outgoing Bush administration for rushing to award leases on the doorstep of many of Utah's national parks.

The Bureau of Land Management has turned exceedingly cautious about awarding leases in Utah, where many of the battles over vast swaths of public land have been playing out.

Some operators say market conditions — low natural gas prices and tight credit — also are keeping them from auctions. Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp., a regular at Utah's lease auctions, skipped Tuesday's sale, saying it doesn't have the money to acquire more leases for exploration.

"There's also uncertainty about the regulatory situation," said Duane Zavadil, the company's vice president for government affairs. "We're not exposing any dollars to a bid."

The Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States also complained the new administration is doing little to clear a $100 million backlog of leases that were sold years ago but are being stifled by legal or bureaucratic review.

The Bureau of Land Management withheld 7,194 acres from lease auctions in March and June because they overlapped land designated by a redrock wilderness bill pending before Congress for two decades.

Before Tuesday's auction got under way, BLM dropped 13,543 acres of proposed drilling sites that were near proposed wilderness areas or state wildlife management areas, bureau spokeswoman Megan Crandall said. Those drilling sites were nominated by the oil industry for lease sale.

Researchers ask: Are caged chickens miserable?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:12:23 +0100

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Are cramped chickens crazy chickens?

Researchers are trying to answer that question through several studies that intend to take emotions out of an angry debate between animal welfare groups and producers.

At issue are small cages, typically 24 inches wide by 25½ inches deep, that can be shared by up to nine hens. About 96 percent of eggs sold in the United States come from hens who live in the so-called battery cages from the day they're born until their egg-laying days end 18 to 24 months later.

Public opinion appears to side with those who oppose the cages. Voters in California approved a proposition last year that bans cramped cages for hens. And Michigan's governor signed legislation last month requiring confined animals to have enough room to turn around and fully extend their limbs.

Peter Skewes, a Clemson University researcher, is leading one of the studies comparing how different housing affects egg-laying hens. He said there are plenty of "emotional" opinions about whether the cages are inhumane, but few are based on facts.

"Hopefully we will contribute something so decisions can be made based on science and knowledge about how we house birds and the implications for different systems," said Skewes, who is in the early stages of a three-year study funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But even as Skewes and others conduct research, some question the need to study an issue they argue was resolved long ago.

Bruce Friedrich, a spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said banning the cages is a solution to an obvious problem.

"Think about the ... effects of not moving for up to 24 months," Friedrich said. "Their bones and muscles waste away and they go insane."

Paul Shapiro, senior director of the Humane Society of the United States' Factory Farming Campaign, agreed.

"The egg industry is trying to muddy the waters by misleading people into believing that it's possible to confine birds in barren, tiny cages and have high welfare," he said.

Producers see it differently, claiming caged hens are healthier and satisfied with the only lives they've ever known. Although the chickens can't fully extend their wings, producers contend they're not stuffed so tightly that they can't move around the cage.

"Is this animal cruelty? This absolutely is not," said Bob Krouse, an egg producer based in Mentone, Ind., and president of the United Egg Producers industry group.

Or as K.Y. Hendrix, owner of Rose Acres Farms in Seymour, Ind., puts it, "We can produce a better egg, produce a healthier chicken if we keep them inside."

Producers began experimenting with hen cages in the late 1950s. By the early 1970s, cages were commonly used for egg-laying hens and are now the standard home for hens, which can lay up to 300 eggs a year.

Hens lay eggs for up to two years, then typically are used as meat for humans or animal feed.

Whether they're a delaying tactic — as animal welfare groups claim — or needed research, studies on chicken cages are proceeding.

Skewes will compare emotional and behavioral patterns of caged hens with non-caged counterparts. Part of that will including studying behaviors such as wing-stretching, perching and foraging.

"We're looking at what ... things they would still do if given the opportunity," Skewes said. "So you deprive them of that, and the welfare component is, so what? There are difficult questions."

Another study, coordinated by the University of California at Davis and Michigan State University, weighs several issues involving caged chickens, including their welfare and impact on the environment and human health as well as food quality and safety.

The study, funded by the American Egg Board, also considers the economics of egg production. In California, producers estimated the voter-backed rules would add about a penny to the cost of each egg, but Krouse put the cost at up to 50 cents per dozen eggs.

"We hope we can say ... what the effect is going to be on prices, the environment and on the welfare of hens," said Joy Mench, a UC Davis researcher.

UC Davis and Michigan State also plan another study that will include several advisers, including food companies such as McDonald's and Cargill Inc., the Department of Agriculture's Research Service, and groups such as the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Center for Food Integrity.

Mench said that study will examine egg production sustainability, hen welfare, worker safety, food safety and food quality.

Dr. Gail Golab, director of the veterinary association's Animal Welfare Division, said she hopes the studies can clarify the debate.

"A number of us that work in the animal welfare field are frustrated at efforts to say one system is all good or all bad and not being able to quantify welfare values," Golab said. "(We want to) look for the best possible solution we can for raising these animals."

California wildfire 100 percent contained

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:35:20 +0100

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters have fully surrounded a 145-acre wildfire in Southern California.

Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Greg McKeown says the fire was 100 percent contained by 6 p.m. Wednesday.

McKeown says all units have been released from the scene.

The fire, which broke out Monday, burned in a bowl-shaped valley full of dense brush about a dozen miles northeast of San Juan Capistrano. No homes are nearby.

Three injuries were reported.

McKeown says crews took advantage of ocean winds and higher humidities that slowed the spread of the fire.

USFS urged to allow night aerial firefighting

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:24:26 +0100

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service should allow helicopters to fight fires during darkness, a tactic that could have been used in the critical first hours of the summer's gigantic and deadly wildfire in the Angeles National Forest, a Los Angeles County Fire Department report found.

"Nighttime air attack is a standard," said the executive review of the department's actions during the Station Fire, which became the largest in county history as it spread over 250 square miles, killing two firefighters and destroying 89 homes.

The review was sent to the county Board of Supervisors late Tuesday and posted on its Web site.

The county review follows a Forest Service report that concluded the fire raged out of control because of inaccessible terrain and dense brush in the San Gabriel Mountains. The Forest Service report said using aircraft without ground crews to help would have been ineffective.

Area residents, especially those who lost homes, have been sharply critical of the Forest Service.

The Station Fire was ignited by arson Aug. 26 several miles north of the closest homes in the foothill suburb of La Canada Flintridge.

The Forest Service was in charge of the response before the fire's growth led to the formation of a unified command with numerous agencies.

The county review said there was a "critical time period between initial dispatch" on Aug. 26 and about 8 a.m. on Aug. 27, when county firefighting helicopters could have been used but were not.

The review said county pilots are experienced in night firefighting and could have dropped water throughout the night to control spot fires caused by embers falling down the mountain.

"Such action was not taken because the USFS policy prohibits night flying," the review said. "Would night flying have made a difference? No one can say for sure, but night flying is a policy change that is needed."

John Heil, a regional spokesman for the Forest Service, said not flying at night is a practice, not a policy.

"Generally we don't because of safety reasons," he said. Heil said an AP inquiry about the county's review would be relayed to an official in Washington, D.C., where it was after hours.

About 5,000 firefighters were needed at the height of the Station Fire, which cost about $90 million to fight. It was the 10th largest fire in California since 1933.

The county review also recommended that the Angeles National Forest require 200 feet of clearance between natural vegetation and structures instead of the 30 feet now in use.

___

On the Net:

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, http://bos.co.la.ca.us/

Forest Service says trees can slow climate change

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:35:58 +0100

WASHINGTON (AP) — National forests can be used as a carbon "sink" with vast numbers of trees absorbing carbon dioxide to help slow global warming, the Forest Service chief said Wednesday, but that goal must be balanced.

He's also concerned about the risk of catastrophic wildfires that produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide.

Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said his agency is trying to manage forests to combat climate change while still easing the risk of wildfires that have increased in frequency and intensity, in part because of global warming.

Forests now store enough carbon to offset about 16 percent of the nation's fossil fuel emissions, but that number could be reduced or even reversed if wildfires and insect infestation continue to increase, Tidwell said.

"Disturbances such as fire and insects and disease could dramatically change the role of forests, thereby emitting more carbon than currently sequestered" by tree stands across the country, Tidwell told the Senate Public Lands and Forestry Subcommittee.

Elaine O'Neil, a research scientist at the University of Washington's School of Forestry, said wildfires in California alone released emissions equivalent to that of seven million cars a year from 2001 to 2007.

The Forest Service and Interior Department spent about $2.4 billion last year fighting fires, double the average amount spent a decade ago.

Tidwell said he hopes to increase the resiliency of federal forests through projects such thinning out young trees and underbrush to control wildfires. Some fires must be allowed to cleanse and regenerate forests that are overly dense, he said.

Lawmakers are looking at the role of forests in climate change, with the goal of including national forests as a key part of a climate change bill being considered by the Senate.

"In my view, it is time to manage the nation's forests to address climate change and unlock their potential," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the panel's chairman.

Proper management can ensure healthy forests that create carbon offsets that can be used to help minimize the cost of carbon reduction in other parts of the economy, Wyden said. Use of such offsets — which now are excluded from the Senate bill — would "finally provide a way to truly account for the economic benefit that federal forests provide to our environment," Wyden said.

"We can create good-paying, green jobs while preserving our treasures and helping our climate," he said.

Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:41:57 +0100

NEW YORK (AP) — You might call him the Mickey Mouse of video games. He's reminiscent of a doughnut, round and sweet and comforting. He's also a vessel, devoid of a real personality so you can live vicariously through him.

Mario, the pot-bellied Italian plumber with a penchant for rescuing princesses, collecting golden coins and gobbling magic mushrooms, has been around for nearly three decades. And even though he hasn't changed much, the latest game he stars in, the newly released "The New Super Mario Bros. Wii" ($50), is one of the holiday season's top titles.

Created by Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario is a recognizable character even to people who don't play video games. He pops up in Halloween costumes — blue overalls, red hat, gut and all — as does his brother Luigi. Mario has been in cartoons and movies (though some were best forgotten), and he graces oodles of official and unofficial Mario merchandise.

"I like him. I like him a lot. He has a cool mustache," says Colin Gaul, 9, from Portland, Ore. "He is awesome because he is brave and he's been on a lot of adventures. And his favorite color is red and mine is too."

Colin first played a Mario game when he was 5, on Nintendo Co.'s handheld Game Boy system. On the Wii, Colin has played "Super Paper Mario" and "Super Smash Bros. Brawl," which features a cavalcade of Nintendo characters duking it out.

But Colin wasn't even born when Super Mario emerged.

First called Jumpman, the character debuted in 1981 in the arcade game "Donkey Kong," in which Jumpman had to save a damsel from a big ape. His first job was carpentry, but later he became a plumber, and in many games he travels up and down in a world of underground pipes.

In the mid-1980s, Nintendo and Mario helped save the U.S. video game industry, which was on the verge of imploding after early popularity. Terrible games — most infamously "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" — had flooded the market, and "people didn't realize that video games were a burgeoning industry," says Scott Steinberg, lead video game analyst at Digitaltrends.com. "They thought it was a fad."

It wasn't. With the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, which in the U.S. came bundled with "Super Mario Bros.," video games became a household phenomenon. Nintendo sold 60 million of the consoles, often called the NES.

In 2008, Americans spent more than $21 billion on video game systems, software and accessories, according to the NPD Group. Even with a recession and industry slump this year, the number will likely be close to that, with a good chunk of the money going to Nintendo. The company has been able to stay profitable, thanks largely to its Wii and the handheld DS being the world's top-selling gaming systems.

In all, Nintendo has sold more than 222 million games in its Super Mario franchise. There are more than 100 games, for various gaming systems, in which Mario is the primary character, and many more in which he makes appearances.

The Japanese company's creation of an Italian character is now video game folklore. In his book "Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World," David Sheff wrote that Mario was named after Nintendo's U.S. landlord, who was demanding back rent from the company's fledgling U.S. arm. Nintendo now won't confirm or deny the story.

Perhaps more important is that many of the features that define Mario came about from shortcuts that were needed in the early days of video game design, when arcade units had puny computing power and displayed few colors. He wears a hat, for example, so that his creators didn't have to render hair. His super-sized mustache easily hides facial expressions — which even now remain difficult to program into video games.

"The reason he continues to be so popular is that Mario is basically an everyman," Steinberg says. "Behind those bushy eyebrows, jolly belly, is gamers themselves. Short, balding, goofy — how many gamers does that describe?"

Miyamoto has called Mario a "convenient tool" who can be used with a range of games, whether they're racing titles such as "Mario Kart" or take place in the magical world of the Mushroom Kingdom where Mario fights to save Princess Peach.

The new game is a throwback to Mario games of the 1980s and '90s, played out in two dimensions rather than three. The characters mostly move left to right — jumping on platforms, stomping enemies and ducking through pipes into hidden areas.

Reviews have been mixed. The Associated Press, for example, found the game may disappoint fans looking for innovation but would probably "deliver plenty of newcomers to the cult of Mario."

Miyamoto says he hopes the latest installment attracts both Mario experts and people new to the game. It has a multiplayer option, a first for a Mario game, that lets four people play alongside one another, with better players helping less experienced ones.

Ian Bogost, a professor who studies video games at Georgia Tech, says Mario's enduring popularity is not merely about nostalgia for the 1980s.

"Mario is more like a brand," he says. "You drink Coke or buy a Chevrolet not simply because of nostalgia, but because it continues to represent something to you that you value."

And in Mario's case, the brand stands for good, clean fun. Colin's mother, Ninou Gaul, 33, who played Mario games as a kid, still occasionally picks up the Wii controller.

"It's timeless," she says, "and the level of violence is nothing I would object to."

Interior increases oversight of mountaintop mining

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:25:34 +0100

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Interior Department said Wednesday it will more closely monitor and review state-approved permits for mountaintop coal mining and also tighten the federal permitting process to better protect streams from mining waste.

The department said its actions are designed to serve as interim steps until a new federal regulation on mountaintop mining can be completed that will impose tighter restrictions on dumping the huge amount of generated fill dirt and waste near and in steam beds.

While America's vast coal reserves are a vital part of the country's energy mix, "we have a responsibility to ensure that development is done in a way that protects public health and safety and the environment," said Assistant Interior Secretary Wilma Lewis in a statement outlining the new actions.

In mountaintop mining, vast amounts of dirt are removed to get at the coal and it is then transported into low-lying areas and in some cases streambeds. It has been the source of heated arguments for years between mining interests and environmentalists who say it is destroying vast areas of Appalachia and contaminating streambeds and in some cases blocking water flow. The practice is widely used in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, producing 130 million tons of coal annually.

In 1983, the government barred coal companies from dumping fill dirt and waste within 100 feet of streams unless they could prove it wouldn't harm water flow or quality. The Bush administration eased that restriction last year, months before leaving office, to the applause of the coal mining industry and its unions and to the dismay of environmentalists.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, saying the Bush action "failed to pass the smell test." and he moved to restore the 1983 restrictions, but was thwarted last August when a federal judge ruled that Salazar had essentially changed the federal regulations without the required public input.

On Wednesday, the department began the formal process of revising the regulation to comply with the federal judge's ruling.

But with the regulatory change expected to take many months, the department said it was also taking "immediate actions" to strengthen the federal oversight of the mountaintop mining activities.

"Through tougher oversight and stronger enforcement ... we are putting all hands on deck to ensure that Appalachian communities are protected," said Joe Pizarchik, director of the department's Office of Surface Mining.

While states are given broad authority to regulate mountaintop mining, Pizarchik said his office would now more closely review state-issued permits, conduct independent inspections of mining companies that have been issued permits, and conduct more oversight inspections of how these activities may be impacting the environment and complying with federal clean water rules.

At the same time, the department said it was tightening the review of the federal permitting process to more closely involve other agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency to "ensure effective and coordinated compliance with provisions of the Clean Water Act."

"Until we complete the new rule we have to manage the shortcomings of the 2008 rule," said Pizarchik.

The surface mining agency said it was formally beginning the process of revising the Bush-era regulation and in compliance with the federal court ruling is asking for public comment on alternative approaches that will govern how mining companies handle the fill dirt removed from the mountaintop coal seams.

MT logging projects challenged over bears

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:29:24 +0100

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — An environmental group is seeking to stop three logging projects on several thousand acres in northwest Montana, arguing that the timber sales would harm the area's fledgling grizzly bear population.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block the projects in the Kootenai National Forest, which are designed in part to reduce fire danger and provide commercial logging opportunities.

The suit alleges that 14 miles of proposed new logging roads could ultimately wipe out the 30 to 40 grizzlies in the forest's Cabinet-Yaak area.

The lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula. It is expected to be heard sometime next year.

Kootenai Forest spokesman Willie Sykes said he could not comment on the matter. But documents submitted by the agency show that while some new roads would be built, other would be removed to improve grizzly habitat.

Atty: Non-poultry sources could have tainted water

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:28:50 +0100

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A scientist testified that runoff from fields spread with poultry manure accounted for a major portion of phosphorus pollution in a sensitive northeastern Oklahoma watershed.

But an attorney for 11 Arkansas poultry companies who do business there argued Wednesday that geochemist Roger Olsen overlooked nearly 20 other possible sources of pollution, such as coal-fired power plants, urban runoff and cattle operations.

Olsen, who is testifying as an expert witness in the state of Oklahoma's federal pollution case against the poultry companies, developed his findings after analyzing water and soil samples taken from the Illinois River watershed.

The closely watched case, which began in September and has lagged on for months, wrapped up its 24th day Wednesday.

Oklahoma sued the industry in 2005, saying the companies are to blame for polluting the watershed with tons of chicken manure. The companies say the waste is the responsibility of their contract growers, and that the state is trying to tailor science to fit its lawsuit.

During cross-examination Wednesday, Tyson Foods Inc. attorney Tom Green rattled off a list of other possible contaminants he said Olsen left out of his analysis.

Green, who is also representing company subsidiaries Tyson Poultry Inc. and Tyson Chicken Inc., said Olsen failed to take soil or edge-of-field samples near septic systems, nurseries, golf courses or areas where only commercial fertilizers had been used — suggesting such data might conflict with the state's premise that excess poultry manure is the major cause of pollution in the Illinois River watershed.

As one example, Green said arsenic, which is found in poultry manure, is also present in deposits from coal-fired power plants located within 50 miles of the 1-million-acre river valley.

Green asked Olsen if he had any way to dispute the contribution made from the plants.

"If it was a big contributor, we contend we would have found it in our reference soils," Olsen replied.

Last week, a Cargill executive testified that he didn't check to see if company farmers were following an environmental handbook he helped compile in 2002 that warned them not to spread excess chicken manure on their land because the runoff could pollute area water.

The other defendants named in the lawsuit are Cargill Inc., Cal-Maine Foods, Inc., George's Inc., Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cargill Turkey Production L.L.C., George's Farms Inc., Peterson Farms Inc. and Simmons Foods Inc.

Testimony is scheduled to continue Thursday.

UN: Fight climate change with free condoms

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:22:09 +0100

LONDON (AP) — The battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available, the U.N. Population Fund said Wednesday.

The agency did not recommend countries set limits on how many children people should have, but said: "Women with access to reproductive health services ... have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse gas emissions."

"As the growth of population, economies and consumption outpaces the Earth's capacity to adjust, climate change could become much more extreme and conceivably catastrophic," the report said.

The world's population will likely rise from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050, with most of the growth in less developed regions, according to a 2006 report by the United Nations.

The U.N. Population Fund acknowledged it had no proof of the effect that population control would have on climate change. "The linkages between population and climate change are in most cases complex and indirect," the report said.

It also said that while there is no doubt that "people cause climate change," the developing world has been responsible for a much smaller share of world's greenhouse gas emissions than developed countries.

Still, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the U.N. Population Fund's executive director, told a news conference in London on Wednesday that global warming could be catastrophic for people in poor countries, particularly women.

"We have now reached a point where humanity is approaching the brink of disaster," she said.

In three weeks, a global conference will be held in Copenhagen aimed at reaching a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial countries to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.

On Wednesday, one analyst criticized the U.N. Population Fund's pronouncements as alarmist and unhelpful.

"It requires a major leap of imagination to believe that free condoms will cool down the climate," said Caroline Boin, a policy analyst at International Policy Network, a London-based think tank.

She also questioned earlier efforts by the agency to control the world's population.

In its 1987 report, the U.N. Population Fund warned that once the global population hit 5 billion, the world "could degenerate into disaster." At the time, the agency said "more vigorous attempts to slow undue population growth" were needed in many countries.

According to Boin, "Numerous environmental indicators show that with development and economic growth we are able to preserve more natural habitats. There is no causal relationship between population density and poverty."

In this month's Bulletin, the World Health Organization's journal, two experts also warned about the dangers of linking fertility to climate change.

"Using the need to reduce climate change as a justification for curbing the fertility of individual women at best provokes controversy and at worst provides a mandate to suppress individual freedoms," wrote WHO's Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum and Manjula Lusti-Narasimhan.

____

On the Net:

www.unfpa.org

AP Poll: Sometimes it isn't easy being green

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:15:16 +0100

WASHINGTON (AP) — A solid majority of Americans recognize the need to help the environment, although there are some things — like buying a hybrid car or taking mass transit — that people often talk about, but don't necessarily act on.

That's shown in a survey of more than 1,000 adults that sought to gauge attitudes about the environment.

The telephone poll, conducted for The Associated Press and NBC Universal, found that 60 percent of those surveyed felt either a "great deal" or "a lot" of personal responsibility to protect the environment, while 37 percent rarely, if ever, even thought about the impact of their actions on the Earth's health.

Nearly 8 of 10 people who were concerned about environmental protection said they believe their actions are helping to protect the environment, according to the poll released Tuesday. It found that people have largely accepted recycling bottles and cans — about 7 in 10 people said they're likely to do it — and are inclined to find ways to cut electricity or heating costs, also to benefit the environment.

A little more than 6 of 10 said buying energy-efficient appliances, using recycled paper products and car pooling also help a lot. A little more than half said it would make a lot of difference to turn down the thermostat, reuse water bottles and take your own reusable bag when grocery shopping.

While many of the respondents said these actions would help the environment "a great deal," or at least "a lot," when asked about some specific actions, the gap widened between what they believe to be important and what they have any intention of doing.

In some cases, the inability to turn their green priorities into action reflected geography or economics.

Take the matter of car pooling or using mass transit. More than 6 in 10 people said they thought it would help the environment. Yet only 3 in 10 said they were very likely to do it, and 4 in 10 said they were not at all likely to car pool or take mass transit.

A third of those surveyed lived in rural areas where mass transit was generally not readily available and where car pooling would be less likely.

Yet, only 44 percent of urbanites and 32 percent of people living in the suburbs also said they were very likely to use mass transit or car pool.

Janice Meehl, 54, a fourth-grade teacher in the town of North East, Pa., and one of the participants in the survey, said she fervently recycles bottles and cans, keeps the thermostat down and years ago added insulation to her all-electric home, cutting her energy bill in half. It saves money but also "it's doing the right thing for the environment. They go hand in hand," she said.

While she commutes 70 miles round-trip to work each day, she says mass transit or car pooling "is not an option. If it were, would I use it? Probably."

Like Meehl, 7 in 10 people surveyed said they thought adding energy-saving insulation in their homes would be a good idea for the environment. But only half said they were very likely to do it and 1 in 5 respondents would be highly unlikely to add insulation. In some cases, respondents said the structure of their house prevents more insulation from being added easily.

About 45 percent of those surveyed embraced the idea of gas-electric hybrid cars, but only 1 in 5 would be very likely to buy such a vehicle, and half said they were "not at all likely" to buy one.

"They're too expensive right now," said Vaughan Oliver, 65, of Mount Vernon, Ky. "You would have to have one for years and years and years to make it feasible to pay for itself." Oliver, interviewed as he drove his Jeep Cherokee down Interstate 65 south of Lexington, said he might consider a hybrid "in another 10 years," when he says he'll be more secure that one would not cause him a problem.

Today, gas-electric hybrids can carry a $4,000 to $7,000 or more price premium over similar gasoline-powered vehicles.

The poll also found:

—72 percent were very likely to recycle cans and bottles.

—63 percent were very likely to turn down thermostats.

—62 percent were very likely to buy energy-efficient appliances.

—59 percent were very likely to use cold water for clothes washing.

—59 percent were very likely to buy recycled paper products.

More than half said it would help the environment if people brought their own shopping bags to stores, and 46 percent said they were very likely to do so, while 25 percent ruled it out.

NBC Universal's sponsorship of the poll was related to their "Green Is Universal" week of programming about environmental issues.

The poll was conducted Nov. 5-9 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,006 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

____

AP Polling Director Trevor Tompson and Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report.

____

On the Net:

The poll: www.ap-gfkpoll.com and www.greenisuniversal.com

SPIN METER: Feds buy green cars, auction rejects

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:14:05 +0100

If you missed out on Washington's cash incentive program to trade in your old clunker, Uncle Sam still has a deal for you: The government will sell you rejects from its own fleet, even as it makes dealers scrap all those old cars that were collected from the public.

The sale of the federal castoffs at auction is nothing new; deals for the consumer mean income for the government. But in swapping out old government cars for new models under the economic stimulus package, officials also are claiming environmental benefits that don't add up.

The General Services Administration used stimulus money to buy 17,246 new vehicles, including more than 3,000 hybrids, for an impressive 40 percent improvement in fuel efficiency over the old models, the agency says. It said that translates into a decline of 334 million pounds of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the next seven years, the difference between the emission levels of the old cars and their replacements.

There's no question the federal fleet is greener. But the environmental claim doesn't take into account that most of the old wheels still will be on the roads, driven by people who bought them at auction.

Just how that affects the environment depends on the gas mileage of the auctioned cars and whether buyers stopped driving worse clunkers when they bought government hand-me-downs. Mileage driven by new owners and government drivers also is a factor.

GSA officials said in a statement that greening the federal fleet helps the environment in any event and fulfills the agency's "mission to serve as a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars and assets."

"At a value of approximately $40 million, the government-owned replaced vehicles will not go to waste," the agency said. "They will be resold to further invest in greening the federal fleet."

The auctions differ from the Transportation Department's wildly popular, $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program that junked nearly 700,000 trade-in vehicles traded in by the public this summer. The government paid people up to $4,500 to trade in cars getting 18 miles per gallon or less.

Both the green fleet and Cash for Clunkers programs were part of the $787 billion Recovery and Reinvestment Act to stimulate the nation's economy through sales of new American cars. The Obama administration touted environmental improvement as a companion goal.

Such programs can encourage automakers to speed fuel economy improvements, environmental advocates say, but are far less potent than the anticipated impact of President Barack Obama's broader strides in regulating greenhouse emissions and hastening fuel economy improvements.

The GSA's $300 million in stimulus money replaced each older car, truck or bus with a new model offering better fuel efficiency. The agency has not yet disclosed the models and fuel efficiency details that produced the claimed 40 percent fuel efficiency improvement.

The trade-ins, from agencies as diverse as the Marine Corps and the Smithsonian museums, are still serviceable, said GSA officials who were authorized to talk to The Associated Press on condition their names not be used. As many as 8,000 vehicles have been auctioned off so far, they said.

Aside from those live auctions, GSA runs an online auction that sells 40,000 vehicles a year, from beat-up Forest Service pickups to FBI sedans.

US-China climate statement raises hopes, questions

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:49:55 +0100

BEIJING (AP) — A joint statement by the U.S. and Chinese presidents on climate change is encouraging as pressure builds in the last few weeks before a 192-nation conference in Copenhagen, but the language leaves a lot unsaid, observers in both countries said Wednesday.

The world's two largest polluters talked Tuesday of a joint desire to tackle climate change, but failed to publicly address the root problems that could unravel a deal at the Dec. 7-18 conference — mainly, how much each country can contribute to emissions cuts and how the world will pay for it.

The joint statement by President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao has positive language about aiming for a comprehensive deal, "but it leaves a lot of room for different interpretations, ranging from a real ambitious climate rescue deal to another meaningless declaration," said Ailun Yang, climate campaign manager for Greenpeace China. "The real test is still at Copenhagen."

Three weeks remain before the global conference that aims for a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial countries to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.

The Copenhagen agreement would require developing countries such as China to curb emissions growth as well.

In a joint statement, Obama and Hu said Copenhagen should produce a comprehensive agreement that would "include emission reduction targets of developed countries and nationally appropriate mitigation actions of developing countries."

Hu said nations would do their part "consistent with our respective capabilities," a reference to the now widely accepted view that developing nations like China should be required only to set goals for curbing emissions, not accept absolute targets.

Timothy Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, a charity group that promotes U.N. causes, praised the U.S.-China joint statement for saying a deal at Copenhagen should include emission reduction targets by developed countries, but he stressed the urgency of finding a final agreement.

"Reaching a deal in Copenhagen will be hard enough; leaving all the negotiations to the last minute could make it unachievable," he said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday.

Already, Obama administration officials acknowledge that the Copenhagen talks are not expected to produce a final legal agreement. White House aides said Sunday that a fully binding legal agreement would be put off until a December 2010 meeting in Mexico City.

The Kyoto pact expires at the end of 2012.

But the meeting between Obama and Hu could give important momentum to the last few weeks of negotiations before Copenhagen, observers said.

"It is important to put things in perspective and realize just how far we've come in one year, particularly that both the U.S. and China have elevated cooperation on climate change to the very highest levels of government," Barbara Finamore, China program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement Wednesday.

The U.S. still has not committed to figures for its own emissions reductions or financing, with negotiators waiting until Congress completes domestic climate legislation.

___

Associated Press Writer Michael Casey in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Obama: Rally the world for climate deal next month

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:30:21 +0100

BEIJING (AP) — President Barack Obama, with China's leader at his side, lifted his sights Tuesday for a broad interim accord at next month's climate conference that he said will lead to immediate action and "rally the world" toward a solution on global warming.

Obama and President Hu Jintao talked of a joint desire to tackle climate change, but failed to move off differing positions on an root issue that could block a deal at the 192-nation conference in Copenhagen: how much each country can contribute to curb greenhouse gases and how the world will pay the billions of dollars needed to fight rising temperatures.

Hu said nations would do their part "consistent with our respective capabilities," a reference to the firmly held view among developing nations — even energy guzzlers like China, India and Brazil — that they should be required only to set goals for reining in greenhouse-gas emissions, not accept absolute targets for reducing emissions like the industrialized countries.

Nonetheless, the symbolism of the world's two largest polluters pledging no half measures in an agreement during the Dec. 7-18 conference was an attempt to take the sting out of the admission by Obama and other leaders over the weekend that Copenhagen would be only a way station rather than the endpoint envisioned two years ago when negotiations for a new climate treaty began.

Obama administration officials acknowledge that the Copenhagen talks are not expected to produce a final legal agreement, putting that off until next year. So the administration is hurriedly looking for ways to rescue a process that has gone far off track by building hopes that a significant, though interim and nonbinding, deal will be struck and keep international talks alive. Obama said Tuesday that he wants next month's talks to produce something more than "an agreement to have an agreement" at a future date.

"We need numbers on the table in Copenhagen," said Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, speaking to the top negotiators of 44 nations meeting for informal consultations. He said the agreement should be "concrete and binding on countries committing to reach targets, to undertake actions, and to provide agreed finance."

Obama said the aim of the summit "is not a partial accord or a political declaration, but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations, and one that has immediate operational effect."

He said an all-encompassing agreement addressing all the areas for an eventual treaty "would be an important step forward in the effort to rally the world around a solution to our climate challenge."

Obama did not elaborate. But the United Nations and the European Union have called for a fund of at least $10 billion annually in the next three years to help poor countries draw up plans for moving to low-carbon economies, slow deforestation and take emergency steps against the effects of climate change.

The agreement is meant to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial countries to cut emissions an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, but which made no demands on rapidly growing economies like China's.

The Copenhagen agreement would require developing countries to curb their emissions growth, but it was unclear how their plans would be enshrined in the accord and what would happen if their promises were broken.

White House aides said Sunday that a fully binding legal agreement would be put off until a December 2010 meeting in Mexico City, even though the new agreement must be ratified and in force when the Kyoto pact expires at the end of 2012.

Together, the U.S. and China emit 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, and a new study said the recent growth of emissions during the economic downturn was almost entirely driven by China. Worldwide carbon emissions jumped 2 percent last year, said the study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Geoscience, adding urgency to efforts to rein in pollution that traps the Earth's heat.

In a joint statement, Obama and Hu said Copenhagen should produce an agreement that would "include emission reduction targets of developed countries and nationally appropriate mitigation actions of developing countries."

Obama administration officials are pushing for Copenhagen negotiators to tackle specifics on the major issues such as financing for poor nations, technology cooperation and some commitments among developing nations — though not legally binding — on emission reductions.

That is what Obama was referring to when he said in Beijing that whatever comes out of Copenhagen should have "immediate operational effect," according to administration and congressional officials with knowledge of the administration's preparation for the climate talks.

In Washington, Carol Browner, the White House adviser on energy and climate, said the United States is ready to participate in a commitment by developed countries to help poor countries deal with the impacts of climate change. Browner declined to say how much the United States might contribute, but indicated those details would be worked out in Copenhagen.

U.N. estimates say about $150 billion a year will be needed by 2020.

The summit's Danish hosts and other European leaders understood Obama's comments on his Asian tour as a signal that he will deliver specific pledges of U.S. action on carbon emissions and financing in Copenhagen — even at the risk of moving faster than Congress would let him.

U.S. negotiators have persistently resisted pressure to commit to figures for emissions reductions or financing until Congress completes domestic climate legislation.

The legislative struggle in Congress is now certain to extend into next year. One version, calling for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by mid-century, has passed the House and a similar version recently emerged from a Senate committee, despite solid Republican opposition.

The administration hopes the U.S. position in Copenhagen will be fortified by evidence of some progress in Congress on climate, along other action the White House has taken to promote clean energy and rein in carbon dioxide emissions. In turn, they believe, some additional commitment from developing countries — even in terms of specific goals — could help get a climate bill through Congress, where opponents have repeatedly argued U.S. action alone won't help solve the climate problem.

Loekke Rasmussen said he told Obama and other leaders last week at an Asia-Pacific summit they must come up with hard commitments at Copenhagen, and Obama did not object.

Anders Carlgren, the environment minister of Sweden, said U.S. pledges would likely spur greater promises from developing countries to curtail their emissions growth. Obama could then take those results back to Congress, Carlgren said.

Obama's comments in Asia signaled he is trying to balance domestic concerns with international demands and is in intense conversation with Congress in advance of the summit, said Jake Schmidt, the climate policy director for the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

He said it was possible Obama might make a conditional pledge or give a range of emissions targets.

"It's a positive shift in what the administration thinks it can bring to Copenhagen," he said.

___

Max reported from Amsterdam. Associated Press writers Jan Olsen in Copenhagen, Malin Rising in Stockholm, and H. Josef Hebert and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.

IBM takes a (feline) step toward thinking machines

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:02:49 +0100

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Scientists say they've made a breakthrough in their pursuit of computers that "think" like a living thing's brain — an effort that tests the limits of technology.

Even the world's most powerful supercomputers can't replicate basic aspects of the human mind. The machines can't imagine a wall painted a different color, for instance, or picture a person's face and connect that to an emotion.

If researchers can make computers operate more like a brain thinks — by reasoning and dealing with abstractions, among other things — they could unleash tremendous insights in such diverse fields as medicine and economics.

A computer with the power of a human brain is not yet near. But this week researchers from IBM Corp. are reporting that they've simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory — 100,000 times as much as your computer has.

The scientists had previously simulated 40 percent of a mouse's brain in 2006, a rat's full brain in 2007, and 1 percent of a human's cerebral cortex this year, using progressively bigger supercomputers.

The latest feat, being presented at a supercomputing conference in Portland, Ore., doesn't mean the computer thinks like a cat, or that it is the progenitor of a race of robo-cats.

The simulation, which runs 100 times slower than an actual cat's brain, is more about watching how thoughts are formed in the brain and how the roughly 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses in a cat's brain work together.

The researchers created a program that told the supercomputer, which is in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to behave how a brain is believed to behave. The computer was shown images of corporate logos, including IBM's, and scientists watched as different parts of the simulated brain worked together to figure out what the image was.

Dharmendra Modha, manager of cognitive computing for IBM Research and senior author of the paper, called it a "truly unprecedented scale of simulation." Researchers at Stanford University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory were also part of the project.

Modha says the research could lead to computers that rely less on "structured" data, such the input 2 plus 2 equals 4, and can handle ambiguity better, like identifying the corporate logo even if the image is blurry. Or such computers could incorporate senses like sight, touch and hearing into the decisions they make.

One reason that development would be significant to IBM: The company is selling "smarter planet" services that use digital sensors to monitor things like weather and traffic and feed that data into computers that are asked to do something with the information, like predicting a tsunami or detecting freeway accidents. Other companies could use "cognitive computing" to make better sense of large volumes of information.

Jim Olds, a neuroscientist and director of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, called the new research a "tremendous step." Olds, who was not involved in IBM's work, said neuroscientists have been amassing data about how the brain works much like "stamp collectors," without a way to tie it together.

"We've made tremendous advances in collecting data, but we don't have a collective theory yet for how this complex organ called the brain produces things like Shakespeare's sonnets and Mozart's symphonies," he said. "The holy grail for neuroscientists is to map activity from single nerve cells, which they know about, into how billions of nerve cells act in concert."

Modha says a simulation of a human cortex could come within the next decade if Moore's Law holds. That's the rule of thumb that the number of transistors on a computer chip tends to double every two years.

Yet Olds cautioned that simulating the human brain is "such a complex problem that we may not be able to get to an answer, even with supercomputing."

"There are no guarantees in this game because the sheer complexity of the problem really dwarfs anything we've tried to do," he said.