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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D_I_R_T who wrote (5989)	3/11/2006 9:46:03 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

INTERIOR SECRETARY QUITS; CITES 'NO MORE ENVIRONMENT LEFT TO WRECK' Norton Declares Mission Accomplished Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton announced her resignation on Friday, saying that there was "no more environment left to wreck" after five years at her Cabinet-level job. Flanked by members of her Department of the Interior staff, Ms. Norton was clearly in a celebratory mood, telling reporters, "When I took this job five years ago, my goal was a simple one: to destroy as much of the environment as possible." Beaming with pride, Ms. Norton said, "I am here today to say, 'mission accomplished.'" The outgoing Interior Secretary was quick to share the credit with her staff, saying, "No one person could wreak that much damage on the environment all by herself - this was definitely a team effort." Ticking off her accomplishments, Ms. Norton took special pride in having opened up previously protected wildlife habitats to oil exploration and drilling. "Five years ago, caribou and puffins made Alaska their home," she said. "Thanks to your hard work, today we have them on the run." While insisting that the environment was for all practical purposes destroyed, she said that her successor would still face "pockets of wildlife, air and water" that would need to be eradicated. When asked about her plans for the future, Ms. Norton said that she was leaving her job to spend more time defoliating forests with her family. Elsewhere, President Bush said he was saddened by the arrest of former adviser Claude Allen on felony theft charges, telling reporters, "If he wanted to rip people off, I could have gotten him a job at Halliburton."

To: D_I_R_T who wrote (5989)	3/12/2006 7:06:54 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 36917

Back from the dead: Living fossil identified Rodent had been thought to have died out 11 million years ago ...The discovery is an example of what scientists call the "Lazarus effect," a situation when an animal known only through the fossil record is found living. Perhaps the best known example of the Lazarus effect is the coelacanth, a lobe-finned fish discovered off the coast of South Africa that scientists thought died out at least 65 million years ago. Most examples of the Lazarus effect in mammals, though, only go back 10,000 years or so. "It is an amazing discovery and it's the coelacanth of rodents," said study coauthor Mary Dawson of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. "It's the first time in the study of mammals that scientists have found a living fossil of a group that's thought to be extinct for roughly 11 million years. That's quite a gap. Previous mammals had a gap of only a few thousand to just over a million years."... msnbc.msn.com

To: D_I_R_T who wrote (5989)	3/16/2006 12:41:33 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 36917

Indian Ocean coral may die in 50 years -researcher By George Thande 28 minutes ago Rising sea temperatures caused by global warming could kill off the Indian Ocean's coral reefs in the next 50 years, threatening vital marine life, a marine researcher said on Wednesday. Vast ecosystems often called the nurseries of the sea, coral reefs are vital spawning grounds for many species of fish, help prevent coastal erosion and also draw tourist revenues. "Scientific reports are indicating we will have no corals left by 2050," Jude Bijoux, manager of the Seychelles Center for Marine Research and Technology, told Reuters. "We lost 90 percent of them in 1998 and the little that was left is recovering slowly and is apparently under frequent threat." In 1998, the El Nino weather phenomenon, which occurs when sea surface temperatures rise substantially, had devastating effects. According to researchers, 33 vast sites in the Indian Ocean where corals died in 1998 may suffer repeated damage every five years -- roughly corresponding to El Nino cycles -- by 2025 if not sooner. Many scientists believe global sea temperatures are rising because increasing fossil fuel emissions from cars, industry and other sources are trapping the earth's heat. Other threats to reefs include pollution, over-fishing, coastal development and diseases. Bijoux said there was now a global consensus that mass destruction of corals caused by bleaching as a result of rising sea temperatures was occurring more frequently compared to 20 years ago. He said serious destruction of many of the world's reefs had occurred four times in the last 23 years -- in 1983, 1998, 2002 and 2003. Scientists predict that most of the Indian Ocean's coralline islands -- islands made up of dead corals -- will disappear within 50 years, as living reefs that surround and protect them are degraded. The Seychelles archipelago of 120 islands, located off the southeast coast of Africa, has only 65 coralline islands with the remainder being granite. Maldives is made up entirely of coralline islands. "These results are not good. This will have serious impacts on coral recovery and our efforts to protect our corals," said Ronny Jumeau, Seychelles environment minister. He said efforts to protect reefs should still be made, adding that corals found in protected areas were showing some signs of recovery. Jumeau said collection of corals and activities such as fishing, which can break reefs with trapped hooks or boat anchors, should not be allowed.