Are there any conservation efforts focused on animal species endemic to islands likely to be submerged by rising sea levels? — H. Wyeth, Anahola, HI

Islands are indeed likely to be the areas hardest hit by our warming climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of leading climate scientists from around the world convened by the United Nations to assess the ongoing risk of global warming, predicts a global average sea level rise of between 3.5 and 34.6 inches over the next century. And the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a coalition of 42 small island and low-lying coastal countries that have banded together to lobby United Nations policymakers, reports that warming-induced sea level rises could threaten the very existence of some island nations including the Maldives, Kiribati and parts of the Bahamas.

Those low-lying nations that do manage to hang onto some land will contend with not only continuously rising seas and stronger more frequent storms, but also declines in the productivity of their agriculture and fisheries. Salt water intrusion will limit the amount of freshwater available for crops and in some cases undermine the integrity of the soil itself. And as coral reefs die off, the abundant marine life that once congregated around them will disappear.

As for wildlife, its unclear just how much certain endemic species will be affected by rising sea levels and other environmental hazards exacerbated by global warming. Clearly the biggest threat is habitat loss: Land forms that once sustained certain animals may no longer be above water or otherwise suitable for some species. Those fortunate enough to be on big continents may be able to move away from shore to neighboring areas that can provide the resources needed for survival. But animals on islands may be hard pressed to find places better to go to where they can keep on keeping on.

The IPCC lists a few examples among thousands of endemic island dwellers facing likely extinction unless we can get a handle on greenhouse gas emissions in short order: the Tuamotu sandpiper of Tuamotu Island, the Bristle-thighed Curlew of French Polynesia, the Manus fantail of Papua New Guinea, the lorikeet and rail of New Caledonia, the moorhen and Savaii of Samoa, the Santo Mountain starling on Espiritu Santo, penguins in the Galapagos, petrels in Bermuda and seabird colonies from the Kerguelen, Crozet and outer Hawaiian islands, among others. The IPCC adds that endemic flora may fare even worse, which will in turn drive more animal extinctions.

What can be done to stem this rising tide of endemic species loss? According to the IPCC, the establishment of terrestrial, marine or coastal reserves has been found to be a “useful management option.” Results from existing model reserves on islands across the Caribbean (including Dominica, Bonaire, the Grenadines and St. Lucia) have shown promise. Groups including Conservation International, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Nature Conservancy and others, are working to create more such reserves in other biodiversity hotspots, including many non-threatened islands around the globe.

CONTACTS: IPCC, www.ipcc.ch; AOSIS, www.sidsnet.org/aosis; Conservation International, www.conservation.org; Wildlife Conservation Society, www.wcs.org; Nature Conservancy, www.nature.org.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com.

Gore has admitted that going vegan helps save the environment. And the official handbook for Live Earth-the concert series that Gore himself helped organize-states that not eating meat is the “single most effective thing you can do” to curb climate change. So why hasn’t he taken Peta’s effortless Pledge to Be Veg yet? Apparently, the simple, delicious truth is just too inconvenient.

By Adria Vasil

Maybe it’s the half-Greek in me, but there’s nothing that makes me giddier then the sight of a table full of food (well, other than actually eating the food). Trouble is most of what we stack onto our plates isn’t just weighing on our hips, hearts and cells, it’s also bloating the planet with packaging, pesticides and climate-changing gases. How can you get your fill without, er, tipping the ecological scales?

Just follow Ecoholic’s 5 earth- and body-friendly tips.

1. Eat Close To Home: And by that I don’t mean ordering takeout from your local pizza joint! Search for produce grown in your own county/state. If you can’t find homegrown garlic/greens/grapes at the grocery store, don’t be shy, ask the produce manager for more local options and trove farmers’ markets for freshly picked goodies. Not only does buying locally translate into fewer dirty fossil fuels trucking or shipping that food to you, it also means you’re helping to preserve nearby farmlands and valuable green spaces. Plus, betchya didn’t know that the vitamin content of a just-picked tomato is higher than in one plucked before it was ripe then carted 2500 miles. It tastes a hell of a lot better, too. To track down the greenest local food sources near you, punch in your zip code at localharvest.org.

2. Try Tofu Tuesdays. Eating fewer meaty meals isn’t just good for your cholesterol count, your waistline and your pocketbook — it’s also one of the top moves you can make for the planet. Gassy livestock literally burp and, um, expel more of the world’s greenhouse gases than cars, trains and planes combined! In fact, one University of Chicago study found that eating 20% fewer animal products every week reduces your greenhouse gas footprint as much as switching from a sedan to an ultra efficient Prius! And since, despite what your mom told you, there won’t always be more fish in the sea, pick your seafood choices wisely with the help of a pocket-size guide from seafoodwatch.org. Smaller fish like sardines aren’t only more sustainable than big daddies like tuna, they’re also way lighter in pollutants like mercury.

3. Get It Fair and Square: Quick, pick three things that get you through the day and I’ll bet you twenty bucks that coffee, chocolate and sugar make the list. Since none of the above grow on U.S. soil (well other than beet sugar), you want to be sure you buy the kind with a Fair Trade Certified label on the package. Why? Well, the workers that pick those ingredients are generally paid so poorly they’d have to work 3 days just to afford a Starbucks grande latte! Fair trade certified farms, on the other hand, pay farmhands in developing countries a decent wage, give their families access to health care and education and forbid the use of ultra toxic pesticides (which makes them better for your health, too). Bonus: your sugar-/caffeine-/chocolate-rush blissfully guilt-free.

4. Pass on packaging (especially the plastic kind): What goes into a Ding Dong is one thing; what’s wrapped around it is a whole other ball of plastic. Just stop emptying your kitchen’s trash bin for a week and you’ll find yourself knee deep in the food packaging (think milk cartons, cereal boxes, frozen food trays and all the double to triple layers of wrap around cookies, crackers, you name it). No wonder nearly a third of all the garbage we toss every year is packaging! Avoid the whole landfill bound mess by buying in bulk and bringing your own storage sacs shopping (you’ll find some at reusablebags.com). Choose loose lettuce instead of the boxed stuff. Buy concentrated ingredients like broth in dry form instead of bulkier watered-down cartons. And when you have a choice, pick the jam/juice/soup that comes in glass (it doesn’t leach dodgy toxins like tin cans and some plastics can).

5. Fork out for the right organics: In my dream Ecoholicland, everything in the grocery stores would be deliciously organic and we could all afford to eat chemical-free 365 days a year. But in the real world, most of us have to budget our pesticide-free picks. If you have young children, look at what they eat the most of (like milk or grapes) and switch those items to organic first. And though, yes, 73% of the fruits and veg checked by the FDA tested positive for pesticide residues, to be fair, some are worse then others. Spend your money on certified organic peaches, peppers and spinach before buying, say, organic broccoli (since conventional broccoli is quite low in residues). For a guide to the 12 worst and best produce items you can print or download to your phone, head to foodnews.org. Of course the cheapest (and tastiest) organics are the ones you grow yourself in your backyard. Okay, fine, so it’s a little late to start tomatoes, but you’re right on time to plant spinach, kale, lettuce and more. Money can’t buy greener greens.

Smart2BeGreen presented author, lecturer and strategist on energy and the environment Terry Tamminen with a Green Hero of the Year award this week.

Tamminen, a life-long advocate of environment responsibility, was chosen by the website as one of the Green Heroes of the Year as an example of how to build a greener future for our world. He has spent much of his life devoted to environmental causes and challenges such as assisting the African nation of Nigeria with the creation of their first solid waste recycling program.

As environmental adviser to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tamminen encouraged the Governor get greener, passing environmental laws and putting pressure on polluting industries. According to reports, the United States has plans in place to cut emissions by 25% by 2020.

“Im honored to accept the Green Hero award,” said Tamminen. “Challenges like climate change seem so huge that most of us are discouraged.” He added: “anyone can be a Green Hero and make a real difference.”

Terry lectures and provides private consulting services to several Governors and Canadian Premiers on climate and energy policy. His latest book, Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction, examines our dependence on oil and offers strategies to evolve to more sustainable energy sources.

More information about Terry Tamminen see www.terrytamminen.com. For further information about Smart2begreen see www.smart2begreen.com.

Dont some scientists point to sunspots and solar wind as having more impact on climate change than human industrial activity? — David Noss, California, MD

Sunspots are storms on the suns surface that are marked by intense magnetic activity and play host to solar flares and hot gassy ejections from the suns corona. Scientists believe that the number of spots on the sun cycles over time, reaching a peak-the so-called Solar Maximum-every 11 years or so. Some studies indicate that sunspot activity overall has doubled in the last century. The apparent result down here on Earth is that the sun glows brighter by about 0.1 percent now than it did 100 years ago.

Solar wind, according to NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, consists of magnetized plasma flares and in some cases is linked to sunspots. It emanates from the sun and influences galactic rays that may in turn affect atmospheric phenomena on Earth, such as cloud cover. But scientists are the first to admit that they have a lot to learn about phenomena like sunspots and solar wind, some of which is visible to humans on Earth in the form of Aurora Borealis and other far flung interplanetary light shows.

Some skeptics of human-induced climate change blame global warming on natural variations in the suns output due to sunspots and/or solar wind. They say its no coincidence that an increase in sunspot activity and a run-up of global temperatures on Earth are happening concurrently, and view regulation of carbon emissions as folly with negative ramifications for our economy and tried-and-true energy infrastructure.

“[V]ariations in solar energy output have far more effect on Earths climate than soccer moms driving SUVs,” Southwestern Law School professor Joerg Knipprath, writes in his €˜Token Conservative blog. “A rational thinker would understand that, especially if he or she has some understanding of the limits of human influence. But the global warming boosters have this unbounded hubris that it is humans who control nature, and that human activity can terminally despoil the planet as well as cause its salvation.”

Many climate scientists agree that sunspots and solar wind could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minimal and attribute Earths warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity-and they have thousands of peer-reviewed studies available to back up that claim.

Peter Foukal of the Massachusetts-based firm Heliophysics, Inc., who has tracked sunspot intensities from different spots around the globe dating back four centuries, also concludes that such solar disturbances have little or no impact on global warming. Nevertheless, he adds, most up-to-date climate models-including those used by the United Nations prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)-incorporate the effects of the suns variable degree of brightness in their overall calculations.

Ironically, the only way to really find out if phenomena like sunspots and solar wind are playing a larger role in climate change than most scientists now believe would be to significantly reduce our carbon emissions. Only in the absence of that potential driver will researchers be able to tell for sure how much impact natural influences have on the Earths climate.

CONTACTS: NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, www.solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov; Token Conservative Blog, www.tokenconservative.com; IPCC, www.ipcc.ch.

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From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com.

Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that the loss of the worlds peatlands is a major factor in the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If so, what can be done about it? — Larissa S., Las Vegas, NV

Peatlands are wetland ecosystems that accumulate plant material to form layers of peat soil up to 60 feet thick. They can store, on average, 10 times more carbon dioxide (CO2), the leading greenhouse gas, than other ecosystems. As such, the worlds peat bogs represent an important “carbon sink”-a place where CO2 is stored below ground and cant escape into the atmosphere and exacerbate global warming. When drained or burned, however, peat decomposes and the stored carbon gets released into the atmosphere.

A 2007 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) study of the role peatlands play in human-induced climate change found that the worlds estimated 988 million acres of peatland (which represent about three percent of the worlds land and freshwater surface) are capable of storing some two trillion tons of CO2-equivalent to about 100 years worth of fossil fuel emissions.

As such, the widespread conversion of peat bogs into commercial uses around the world is serious cause for alarm. In Finland, Scotland and Ireland, peat is harvested on an industrial scale for use in power stations and for heating, cooking and use in domestic fireplaces.

But the problem is most urgent in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, where economic hardships force people to drain peatlands to create farms and plantations. Marcel Silvius of the Dutch non-profit Wetlands International says that “annual peatland emissions from Southeast Asia far exceed fossil fuel contributions from major polluting countries.” He adds that Indonesia, now ranked 21st in the world in greenhouse gas emissions, would move to third place (behind the U.S. and China) if peatland losses were factored in.

Wetlands International estimates that CO2 emissions from drained or burnt Indonesian peatlands alone total some two billion tons annually, equal to about 10 percent of the emissions resulting from burning coal, oil and natural gas. Similar amounts of CO2 are likely coming out of Malaysian peatlands as well.

The problem has worsened in recent years as surging global demand for timber, pulp and biofuel speeds up the conversion of otherwise-ignored peatlands to intensively managed tree farms and palm oil plantations. Silvius says that a ton of palm oil-Indonesias top export and the key ingredient in biodiesel fuel-grown on drained peatlands emits 20 times more CO2 than a ton of gasoline. Yet, he says, protection of peatlands may actually be one of the least costly ways to mitigate global warming, as it would cost less than seven cents ($US) per ton of avoided CO2.

“Just like a global phase out of old, energy guzzling light bulbs or a switch to hybrid cars,” says UNEP head Achim Steiner. “Protecting and restoring peatlands is perhaps another key €˜low hanging fruit and among the most cost-effective options for climate change mitigation.” For its part, UNEP is stressing that countries should be allowed to count protecting peatlands as among their creditable efforts to reduce their carbon footprints as the world braces for global warming.

CONTACTS: UNEP, www.unep.org; Wetlands International, www.wetlands.org.

Dear EarthTalk: Has anyone been tracking whether climate change is causing more loss of human life as it gets more pronounced? – Gordon Gould, Compton, CA

Researchers believe that global warming is already responsible for some 150,000 deaths each year around the world, and fear that the number may well double by 2030 even if we start getting serious about emissions reductions today.

A team of health and climate scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of Wisconsin at Madison published these findings last year in the prestigious, peer-reviewed science journal Nature. Besides killing people, global warming also contributes to some five million human illnesses every year, the researchers found. Some of the ways global warming negatively affects human health-especially in developing nations-include: speeding the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever; creating conditions that lead to potentially fatal malnutrition and diarrhea; and increasing the frequency and severity of heat waves, floods and other weather-related disasters.

Backing up WHOs findings is a study by Stanford civil and environmental engineer, Mark Jacobson, showing a direct link between rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and increased human mortality. He found that the added air pollution caused by each degree Celsius increase in temperature caused by CO2 leads to about 1,000 additional deaths in the U.S. and many more cases of respiratory illness and asthma. Jacobson estimates as many as 20,000 air-pollution related deaths may occur worldwide each year with each one degree Celsius increase.

“This is a cause and effect relationship, not just a correlation,” relates Jacobson. “The study was the first to specifically isolate CO2s effect from that of other global-warming agents and to find quantitatively that chemical and meteorological changes due to CO2 itself increase mortality due to increased ozone, particles and carcinogens in the air.”

For their part, though, global warming skeptics such as atmospheric physicist Fred Singer maintain that cold weather snaps are responsible for more human deaths than warm temperatures and heat waves. “The elderly die in inadequately heated homes. People get skull fractures from falls on the ice. Men die of heart attacks while shoveling snow. People get colds, flu, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases. Infectious diseases proliferate. Hospital admissions rise.” Singer, founder of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, concludes that since global warming would raise maximum summer temperatures modestly while raising winter minimum temperatures significantly, it “should help reduce human death rates.”

A team of Harvard researchers found otherwise. Their July 2007 study, published in the peer-reviewed Occupational and Environment Medicine, found that global warming is likely to cause more deaths in summer because of higher temperatures, but not fewer deaths in milder winters. In analyzing weather data related to the deaths of 6.5 million people in 50 American cities between 1989 and 2000, the researchers found that during two-day cold snaps there was a 1.59 percent increase in deaths because of the extreme temperatures. But in similar periods of extremely hot weather, mortality rates increased 5.74 percent.

CONTACTS: WHO, www.who.int; Science and Environmental Policy Project, www.sepp.org.

EarthTalkTM
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook

Each week on The Green Dove, EarthTalk features questions submitted by readers on a wide range of environmental topics – from recycling to rainforests; and from the global village to your backyard.