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Americans Buy Green To Save Money, Not the Climate

Chris Mooney — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 10:50:09 +0000

If you care about saving the climate, there's good news and bad news this week, courtesy of a voluminous new report on Americans' personal and consumer behavior in relation to global warming that's just out from the Yale and George Mason research teams on climate change communication.

First the good news: It looks like energy efficiency is really winning out with the American consumer. Not only do half of Americans now say they've purchased a kitchen appliance that's energy efficient. Looking forward, impressive majorities say that they want their next appliance or car purchase to be green. Three-quarters say as much for kitchen appliances, 71 percent for their next water heater, and 61 percent say they want their next car to do 30 miles per gallon or better.

Something similar could be said for the market penetration of energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs. Fifty-three percent of Americans now say that "most or all" of their bulbs are CFLs. By contrast, that number was just 40 percent in late 2008. (This despite the fact that among conservatives, recent research suggests energy efficiency can be a big turn-off.)

Americans want to buy *more* green stuff

Source: Yale & George Mason projects on climate change communication

So what's the bad news? Well, it comes in the area of what you might call "efficacy": Americans are buying lots of green stuff, but at the same time, they're markedly less convinced that their personal or individual actions actually make a difference for the climate.

Here, the numbers could certainly be called worrisome: They've declined noticeably since the year 2008, when 48 percent of the public said that they thought their "energy-saving actions and intended actions" would significantly reduce their contribution to global warming. That's now down to just 31 percent. Similarly, in 2008, 78 percent of the public thought that "if most people" in the country did the same, "it would reduce global warming 'a lot' or 'some.'" Now, that's down to 56 percent.

Indeed, looking forward, the study found that Americans overall will be changing their airline travel patterns less out of global warming concern in the future. Meanwhile, it also reported that since 2008, there has been no change at all in the lowly percentage of Americans (10 percent) who have contacted an elected official about global warming.

So what is up with us Americans—besides the obvious implication that the companies selling energy efficient products have done a much better job of marketing than the activists selling climate solutions? Why are they simultaneously greener, but less convinced it matters?

According to Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale, it's very unlikely that most Americans have suddenly figured out that individual energy-saving actions—while highly commendable—aren't enough on their own to fix climate change (because instead we need major policy changes). Rather, he suggests, people's sense of climate efficacy has declined largely because climate change itself fell out of the media, and public consciousness, in the wake of the economic collapse and throughout much of President Obama's first term. "I think a lot of it is because we aren't talking about this issue at all any more, so people are not being reinforced with the message: 'So, here are the things you can do.'"

Nonetheless, the findings on energy efficiency are heartening. As Leiserowitz's colleague Ed Maibach of George Mason notes, "Manufacturers of cars, home appliances, and electronic gear are doing an increasingly better job of making energy-efficient models easy, fun and popular. So, in some sense, this could be seen as a victory of market-based approaches."

If only climate policy were half as well marketed.

The World Food Prize, Brought to You by Monsanto

Alex Park — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:35:05 +0000

Update: earlier today, the 2013 World Food Prize was awarded to three scientists: Marc Van Monatgu from Belgium, Mary-Dell Chilton of the US and Robert T. Fraley, also of the US. Fraley is an executive vice president chief technology officer at Monsanto. A statement on the announcement from the World Food Prize Foundation can be found here.

Today Secretary of State John Kerry will announce the recipient of the quarter-million-dollar World Food Prize. Sometimes called "the Nobel Prize of food," the award has been handed out yearly since 1987 to "outstanding individuals who have made vital contributions to improving the quality, quantity or availability of food throughout the world," according to the website of its namesake foundation. Past winners have included agricultural scientists and presidents of developing nations who have made strides toward growing more food in their countries.

This is the 10th year that the State Department has hosted the World Food Prize's announcement ceremony; according to a Department press release, the event is intended to showcase "the administration's dedication to improving lives; counteracting suffering; and focusing on the role that science, technology and policy play in reducing hunger and under-nutrition." But while the US government's involvement might suggest that the prize is a neutral barometer of agricultural excellence, funders of the foundation which backs it have a vested interest in promoting industrialized farming around the world. In fact, many of the World Food Prize's major donors are among the biggest names in agribusiness today.

Out of 125 donors who contributed more than $500 between fiscal years 2009 and 2011 (the years for which the foundation's tax records are most readily available), 26 were either agribusiness or charities directly affiliated with agribusiness. Together, donations from these companies amounted to more than 28 percent of funds raised for that period, a Mother Jones analysis has found. The combined support of ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, and General Mills alone for this period came to more than a half million dollars.

Powerful, policy-driving charities are also among the prize's top backers. The Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, whose mutual efforts launched the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in 2006—made combined donations worth $1.93 million between 2009 and 2011.

The World Food Prize's connections to the US government also run deep. In 2004, Congress declared October 16 of that year (already known as World Food Day) "World Food Prize Day." Four years later, the US Department of Agriculture and the World Prize Foundation formalized their relationship, allowing the two organizations to "consult regularly together," according to Kenneth Quinn, a former US ambassador to Cambodia and the Foundation's president.

In recent years, many World Food Prize recipients have been champions of exactly the kind of industrial-scale agriculture that is the livelihood of the award's corporate backers. In a New York Times op-ed from 2009, Per Pinstrup-Andersen, the prize's 2001 laureate, blasted critics of industrial agriculture, writing that "[m]isguided, anti-science ideology and failure by governments to prioritize agricultural and rural development in developing countries brought us the food crisis."

The next year, Jo Luck and Pedro Sanchez, who won the prize in 2010 and 2002, respectively, began serving on a policy advisory committee for DuPont. In 2011, the ex-Ghanaian president John Kufuor was awarded the prize for implementing "major economic and educational policies that increased the quality and quantity of food to Ghanaians." Kufuor's leadership also saw consolidation of the agriculture industry and increased investment from US agribusiness.

So why would the US government want to align itself with the World Food Prize? Several reasons: Ever since the 2007-08 food price spike that saw riots in cities throughout the developing world, the Obama administration has been ramping up agricultural development as both a means of third-world poverty alleviation and a business opportunity for Americans.

By the end of 2012, through a program called Feed the Future, the US government had disbursed more than $1 billion of $3.7 billion Congress had dedicated to "food security" initiatives in developing countries. But from its conception, Feed the Future wasn't just intended to help the world's poor. As Obama himself put it in May 2012 at the official unveiling of a related initiative, the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, the idea behind this massive investment in agriculture abroad was to make poor countries—especially countries in Africa—more attractive to foreign agribusiness. African governments would "take the lead," he said, "by making tough reforms and attracting investment."

Yet as my colleague Tom Philpott has noted many times, considerable research has found that exporting America's agricultural practices to the third world may neither be the best investment in their resources, nor the path to food security.

Illinois' New Fracking Regulations Might Not Be So Tough After All

Thomas Stackpole — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:23:28 +0000

Monday afternoon Illinois governor Pat Quinn signed what the Associated Press touted as the "nation's toughest fracking regulations," creating a framework to manage hydraulic fracturing, in which chemicals are piped into rock at high pressure to release stored-up natural gas. But the new regulatory effort, which sharply divided the state’s environmental community and inspired fervor in the southern counties where drilling is most likely to take place, looks more like a tactical concession than an environmental victory.

The law, which was crafted through six months of stakeholder negotiations between the state, select environmental groups, and representatives from the oil and gas industry, includes stringent rules meant to increase public transparency, more closely monitor environmental impact, and provide avenues for recourse in case something goes wrong. But amid biting criticism from activists and advocacy groups that were excluded from the negotiations, environmental organizations involved in the process have argued that although they believe the law was a necessary foothold in the effort to control what seemed to be an inevitable boom in fracking in Illinois, this is by no means the end of the fight.

"It bothers me that the bill is being presented as a model for other states," says Ann Alexander, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council who was part of the negotiations. "It represents a floor. Yes it's strong; no, it's not adequate." What new law does provide is a baseline for measuring the actual impact of fracking and a mechanism for pushing back if something does go wrong, explains Jenny Cassel, a lawyer with the Environmental Law & Policy Center, another group that was involved in the negotiations.

Critics have attacked the law as regulatory window dressing. "These rules are arbitrary compromises based on negotiations with industry," says Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a professor at Ithaca College and a vocal anti-fracking activist who led the charge against the bill. "They guarantee neither public health nor environmental integrity."

Fracking was already legal in Illinois, although there was no fracking-specific regulation on the books, and industry interest has been growing, creating a sense that fracking was unavoidable. Illinois sits atop the New Albany shale play, an area projected to hold 3.79 trillion cubic feet of shale gas. Drilling leases have funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the coffers of counties and residents by way of fees and leases, and according to an AP investigation of state records, high-volume fracking had already begun. After it became clear the regulatory bill would become law, major drilling operations were started in Wayne County, some four and a half hours south of Chicago.

A full moratorium on fracking failed in the Illinois legislature last year, and representatives from the coalition of environmental groups that negotiated the new law have argued that compromise was better than nothing. But Steingraber believes that the lack of regulation wasn't a reason to give ground. "The industry was waiting for the rules of the road before it came in," she says. "This bill is a green light. It's a starting gun."

Are Fungus-Farming Ants the Key to Better Biofuel?

Tim McDonnell — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:30:32 +0000

"If you have ants in your house," the great Harvard ecologist EO Wilson once said, "be kind to them." Keep this in mind the next time you want to flick one off the kitchen table: The tiny critters, which collectively weigh about as much as all of humanity, could wield a big weapon in the fight against climate change.

In the United States, corn-based ethanol is a big business, consuming 40 percent of the domestic corn crop and providing roughly 10 percent of the fuel supply, which would otherwise be dirty fossil fuels. But the practice of topping your tank off with corn is fraught with problems: Some argue that the crop should be used for food; it's sensitive to drought; and the ethanol-making process might be contributing to an E. coli epidemic, to name a few. That's why the Obama administration recently announced a plan to invest $2 billion in organic fuels that rely on things other than corn, including switchgrass and gas from cattle poo.

But this weekend, a group of scientists discovered a chemical key that could revitalize corn-based ethanol by allowing it to be made from stalks, leaves, and other bits beside the cob itself. This won't help much with the drought problem (less corn is still less corn), but it could alleviate the food vs. fuel debate and the E. coli problem when more kernels are saved to go straight to livestock. Turns out, the savior of ethanol could be the South American leafcutter ant.

Leafcutter ants make some of the largest underground colonies in the world, some with as many as 7 million residents. And, as the name suggests, many of them spend their days combing the rainforest for bits of leaves, gathering half the weight of a cow per colony every year. They carry this mass back into their tunnels and use it as fertilizer for a crop of fungus, which they then eat. Ant experts ("myrmecologists," if you care to know) have long believed that the fungus acts as a kind of external stomach for the ants, breaking down sugars in the leaves that the ants aren't equipped to handle themselves. In fact, it's not the fungus itself that breaks down the leaves, but chemical enzymes within it, and Frank Aylward, a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says those same enzymes could be used to help break down corn byproducts to make fuel.

In a new study, Aylward sequenced the genome of the leafcutter ant's symbiotic fungus, and identified for the first time the exact enzymes that have evolved over millennia to efficiently break down plant material stored in the ant's underground tunnels.

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Is This Conservative Think Tank Astroturfing the EPA To Approve Pebble Mine?

Kate Sheppard — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:09:57 +0000

Are pro-mining forces trying to sway the Environmental Protection Agency on Pebble Mine?

Last month, I reported on the potential environmental threats posed by the massive proposed gold and copper mine in Alaska. The EPA conducted a watershed analysis, released in April, that showed that the mine would endanger rivers and the Bristol Bay, as well as the region's salmon fishery. The EPA extended the comment period through the end of June, allowing more time for the public to weigh in.

A number of organizations, both pro- and anti-Pebble, had circulated mass mailings asking supporters to comment. You've seen the type; they're form letters that people can sign onto via email. As of Friday, pro-mining groups had generated 118,294 comments from those mass mailings. But 117,401 of those comments—or 99.25 percent—came from a single group called Resourceful Earth. Here's a sample of one of its letters:

I am writing to voice my strong opposition to the EPA’s draft watershed assessment for the vast Bristol Bay region of Alaska because it sets a dangerous precedent, is wholly unnecessary, and relies on dubious source material from biased anti-mining organizations and scientists that recently admitted to falsifying reports submitted in legal proceedings.

Resourceful Earth is a project of the conservative think-tank Competitive Enterprise Institute. Started in 2011, the project's mission is to "promote access to natural resources and oppose special interests that abuse the regulatory process to lock up the raw materials of prosperity." CEI is generally opposed to environmental regulations, and has taken millions of dollars over the years from industry like ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and groups associated with the Koch brothers. CEI was critical of the EPA the last time the agency used the Clean Water Act to block a permit for a coal mine in West Virginia (which is what activists in Alaska are asking it to do on Pebble).

CEI President Fred Smith also signed onto a letter from conservative groups opposing the assessment of Pebble sent to the EPA on June 4. Other groups signing onto that letter include Americans for Limited Government, Americans for Prosperity, and Americans for Tax Reform.

The Save Bristol Bay coalition—which is working to block Pebble Mine—tallied all the comments from the EPA's docket. As of Friday, the agency had received 424,492 comments. The vast majority—306,198—were against the mine and in support of the EPA's evaluation of the risks. Many of those came from major environmental groups as well, including Trout Unlimited, Earthworks, and the Sierra Club.

VIDEO: "Daily Show" Investigates Ag Gag Laws

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:20:35 +0000

Last Thursday, The Daily Show did a segment on the wave of "ag gag" laws sweeping the country. The laws aim to prevent whistleblowing on animal cruelty, but supporters of the legislation claim that videos released by animal rights groups are heavily edited, often just document standard industry practice, and that the production of undercover videos is motivated by profit-seeking animal rights groups. "Animal activism is a huge business…one that's almost somewhat completely dwarfed by the US agriculture industry," says Al Madrigal during the segment.

Watch the segment here:

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And read Ted Genoways' cover story, "Gagged By Big Ag," in the July/August issue of Mother Jones.

Has Your State Outlawed Blowing the Whistle on Factory Farm Abuses?

Zaineb Mohammed — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:20:33 +0000

You've heard about things like pink slime, or contaminated slaughterhouses, cruelty on factory farms. But did you know that there's a trend to criminalize those who expose such conditions? In his MoJo cover story, Ted Genoways found that "ag gag" laws have cropped up with increasing frequency in the past few years. Outlawing things like creating recordings at animal facilities or obtaining employment under false pretenses, these laws are intended to make it more difficult for activists and journalists to investigate and report animal abuses. In 2011, five ag-gag laws were proposed and two passed. In 2013, 14 were introduced, and seven including a quick reporting provision mandating that witnesses of animal abuse at must report it within one to three days or face criminal charges themselves. The effect is to make it much harder to report systemic abuse or other dangerous conditions. The map below shows where these laws have passed, failed, or are currently pending, along with details about what specifically these bills have tried or succeeded in outlawing.

Don't Squeal

Which states have ag gag provisions?

Passed

Pending

Failed

If you see don't see a map on the first try, please reload.

Is BPA Making Girls Obese?

Maddie Oatman — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:39:49 +0000

A chemical common in food packaging—Bisphenol-A (BPA)—has for years been scrutinized for potential links to reproductive problems, heart disease, cancer, and even anxiety. And now new research suggests BPA, which leeches out from things like aluminum cans, drink straws, plastic packaging, and even cashier's receipts, could increase the risk for obesity in preteen girls.

A Kaiser Permanente study, published this week in PLOS ONE, examined obesity and BPA levels in a group of Chinese school children. While most of the kids were not significantly effected by the chemical, 9-12 year-old girls with high BPA levels in their urine were found to be twice as likely to be obese than other girls their age. In girls with especially high levels (more than 10 micrograms per liter) the risk of obesity was five times as great.

This isn't the first study to reveal BPA's particular effect on girls. My colleague Jaeah Lee explored how girls exposed to the chemical as fetuses were more likely to be anxious and depressed than boys, and another study on rhesus monkeys revealed how it messes with the reproductive system. So why are women more susceptible to the chemical?

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Maine Is Second State to Pass GMO Labeling Law

Maggie Caldwell — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:05:08 +0000

Just nine days after Connecticut passed its genetically-engineered food labeling law, Maine lawmakers approved their own legislation requiring food manufacturers to reveal genetically engineered ingredients on products' packaging. The governors in both New England states are expected to sign the bills into law soon.

Last week, Paul Towers, a spokesman for the Pesticide Action Network, described Connecticut's bill as "important" but also "cautious." Both it and the Maine bill include stipulations requiring other states—including at least one border state—to pass their own GMO labeling laws before they go into effect—so Maine's bill, for example, does nothing unless New Hampshire and a few other states pass similar bills. Still, members of the Right To Know movement consider the bills a victory—especially after last November's narrow defeat of California's GMO labeling bill Prop. 37.

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Bloomberg's Sweeping Plan To Protect New York From the Next Sandy

Maggie Severns — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:40:08 +0000

A quarter of New York City could be a flood zone by 2050, according to a new report commissioned by the Bloomberg administration. On Tuesday, Bloomberg laid out an accompanying $20 billion plan to fortify the city against future disasters brought on by climate change.

Many of the Bloomberg administration's recommendations would take years to carry out, far longer his remaining 11 months of tenure as mayor. The 440 page plan covers everything from the protecting coastline with levees to improving emergency bus routes. Neighborhood by neighborhood, it lists recommendations for the city: building dunes to help fortify the Rockaways, offshore breakwaters to temper big waves (and provide habitats for oysters) in Staten Island, and a new, above sea-level neighborhood dubbed "Seaport City" in southeast Manhattan, among others. Bloomberg estimates that $15 billion of the $20 billion in funds can come from already existing city and federal money, and said that "we'll press the Federal government to cover as much of the remaining costs as possible."

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What Is a Derecho, Anyway?

Zaineb Mohammed — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 02:57:30 +0000

You've probably heard that a massive system of storms is currently bearing down on the Midwest and expected to reach the mid-Atlantic on Thursday. Meteorologists are warning that the storms may turn into derechos, or "land hurricanes." Almost 75 million people are in the path of the storms, and forecasters believe that conditions are favorable for one or more derechos this week. So what can we expect from these intense storms?

What is a derecho? According to NOAA, a derecho is a "widespread, long-lived windstorm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms." In order for a weather event to be classified as a derecho, the wind damage zone must extend more than 240 miles and include wind gusts of at least 58 miles per hour. In "super-derechos", wind gusts can top 100 miles per hour. "You can think of a derecho as a tropical cyclone over land," NOAA research meteorologist Ken Pryor told Discovery News. "The impacts are very similar. There are damaging winds that cover a significant area." The storms are known to occur frequently at night, and they often bring hail, flooding, and tornadoes.

Is it like a tornado? Not exactly. The two types of storms can occur in the same system, but the damage of a derecho is directed along a fairly straight path and tornadoes are more isolated events. "A tornado, when it does occur, may be on the magnitude of a mile or two wide; a derecho could go for hundreds of miles producing significant damage," Jim Keeney, weather program manager at the national weather service's office in Kansas City, Mo., told CBS.

What causes it? Derechos are associated with showers and thunderstorms where there are strong outflow winds that "move preferentially in one direction," and are the products of downbursts, according to NOAA. "Imagine taking a water balloon and dropping it, where you see the balloon break and splatter on the ground. That's basically how a downburst works," Pryor told NBC News. "And you can think of a derecho as a large cluster of those downbursts all happening simultaneously."

NOAA

When and where do they usually occur? They are most common in late spring and summer with more than 75 percent occurring between April and August. Check out this handy NOAA map below to see how frequently they hit different regions:

NOAA

When was the last one? A particularly destructive derecho causing $1 billion in damage hit a 700-mile swath between the Ohio Valley and the mid-Atlantic last June. Five million people from Chicago to the mid-Atlantic coast lost power, and 22 were killed. NOAA has documented 26 noteworthy derechos since the late 1960s. Below is a diagram of one that hit Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas in 2001:

Area affected by the May 27-28, 2001 derecho (outlined in blue). Curved purple lines represent the approximate locations of the gust front at three-hourly intervals. "+" symbols indicate the locations of wind damage or wind gusts (measured or estimated) above severe limits (58 mph or greater). Red dots and lines denote tornadoes. NOAA

Is climate change involved? According to NOAA, "Some of the most intense summer derechos, especially those of the progressive type, occur on the fringes of extreme heat waves." After last year's deadly derecho, some wondered if climate change caused or intensified it:

Since climate change can boost the odds of major heat waves such as this one, and the extreme heat contributed to the severe weather, it's plausible—albeit rather speculative at this point—that climate change played some sort of role in the derecho event. However, it will require rigorous scientific analysis to determine whether this may have been the case.

Samantha Power's Climate Silence

James West — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:56:18 +0000

Samantha Power (left), a former national security staffer and the next UN ambassador, leaves the Rose Garden. Fang Zhe/Xinhua/ZUMAPRESS.com

Samantha Power, Obama's UN ambassador-in-waiting, frowned modestly as the president heaped lofty praise on her this week when he announced a major national security reshuffle.

"One of our foremost thinkers on foreign policy, she showed us that the international community has a moral responsibility and a profound interest in resolving conflicts and defending human dignity," he said. "I think she won the Pulitzer Prize at the age of 15 or 16," he joked. (Power won in 2003, in her early 30s, for A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, a rationale for American intervention in international atrocities.)

In accepting the president's nomination—the Senate still needs to approve—Power argued for a strong American role in the UN: "As the most powerful and inspiring country on this Earth, we have a critical role to play in insisting that the institution meet the necessities of our time. It can do so only with American leadership."

But will Samantha Power's brand of leadership extend to advocating climate action from her powerful position at the UN? After all, climate change is a top priority in the UN: While development has been grinding, members at the Doha climate conference last December reaffirmed a previous decision to reach a global pact to replace Kyoto by 2015; secretary general Ban Ki-moon himself has listed climate change at the very top of his 2013 "to do" list (up there with stopping the bloodshed in Syria). By contrast, there's very little evidence that climate change has motivated Samantha Power's career or featured in her public comments, leaving foreign policy experts confused as to how she might rise to the challenge. The people in the know…don't know.

"I don't think she has ever illustrated particular views one way or another on the environment," said former colleague Robert Stavins, an expert on environmental economics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

"I don't think we have any information," said Joshua W. Busby, at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. On climate change, "I didn't find anything she's ever said."

What clues we do have lie in her critique of the United Nations. She told a 2004 audience at Harvard—where she was also a professor—that the UN was as marred by international distrust and suspicion as the US was, making international relief and intervention in humanitarian disasters tricky. "The guardian of international law legitimacy is itself seen to be something of a relic," she said. What is needed, she argued, was a reinvestment in the UN. This would make the UN, once again, a body through which the US expressed foreign policy, in order to start "restoring the legitimacy of US power."

In a 2008 interview with Harry Kreisler of the University of California-Berkeley's Institute of International Studies, Power appeared to group climate change with other insanely difficult global problems like nuclear proliferation and terrorism. All, she said, require negotiations between many nations, rich and poor, that all want totally different things. The US can't simply snap its fingers and get what it wants, she argued. Collaboration is key: "What's important is to embrace the recognition that you need others by your side in order to get anything done."

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Slicing Open Stalagmites to Reveal Climate Secrets

Tim McDonnell — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 20:04:11 +0000

If you've ever visited a cave, you know the rules: Stay on the path, and keep your greasy paws off the formations. So Stacy Carolin was a bit taken aback the first time she headed into a cave not as a tourist, but as a scientist, and took a step off the beaten path. "I was a city girl back then," she recalls. "It was very muddy and slippery…and also completely pitch black." Not exactly the setting you'd expect for cutting-edge climate change research.

A few years later, Carolin, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech, is breaking ground in the field of paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climates, using an unconventional but increasingly prevalent tool: speleothems, a catch-all term for cave formations that includes stalagmites (remember the mnemonic: those that "mite" reach the ceiling from the floor) and stalactites (those that hold "tite" to the ceiling).

In a study released today in the journal Science, Carolin and her colleagues outline 100,000-year-old rainfall conditions in Borneo, mapped from chemical clues in cave formations there. Like most historic climate reconstructions, the goal is to compile real-life data against which to test predictive models; if scientists know how much rainfall there was in the tropics in the past, they can see how well their models are able to replicate those conditions, and tweak accordingly. But the most commonly-used "proxies" for ancient climates, including tree rings and ice cores, are notoriously inadequate in the tropics, leaving holes in scientists' geographic picture of the past and making it difficult to measure historic changes in tropical weather systems, like monsoons, which can themselves have major impacts on global climate.

Deep inside caves in Mexico, Southeast Asia, China, and other limestone-rich locales worldwide, scientists have found rich troves of data in speleothems. Researchers look for formations that have already fallen over or broken off, so as not to damage the cave, haul these back to the lab, slice them open ("like a hot dog," Carolin says), and study the ancient atoms within to discover how old they are and how much rainfall there was at different points in their past (speleothems form when rainwater drips through the limestone, picking up acid and minerals that pile up in the cave).

Tim McDonnell

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Grazing Reindeer Take a Bite Out of Global Warming

Julia Whitty — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:05:05 +0000

Turns out where we let reindeer dine when has a big impact on the energy balance of the planet. That's because reindeer (aka caribou) prune dark-colored Arctic vegetation, minimizing solar heat absorption.

The study was done by Finnish researchers using satellite data to compare tundra in Norway, where reindeer aren't allowed to graze in summer, with similar tundra in Finland, where they are. As you might expect, vegetation is shorter and sparser on the Finnish side. In contrast, the taller trees and shrubs of the ungrazed Norwegian side absorb more sunlight—which promotes an earlier snowmelt, increases solar absorption, and accelerates warming.

The heat difference is significant, according to the team's calculations: on the Norwegian side, solar energy absorption of up to 6 W/m2 in the snowmelt season, or up to 0.5 W/m2 to the yearly energy balance. Put another way, compared to the Finnish tundra, Norwegian energy absorption during the months of March, April, and May is enough to melt a cubic kilometer of ice. "No small matter,” Lauri Oksanen, a co-author of the paper in Remote Sensing of Environment, tells Eye on the Arctic.

Reindeer lichen: Travis at Flickr

The net result is that reindeer can delay seasonal warming and help de-couple one of the more potent positive feedback loops affecting climate in the far north. Although, Oksanen notes, that if the reindeer are allowed to overgraze their favorite food—the whitish-colored reindeer lichen—they can also remove one of the tundra's most reflective summer surfaces.

Photo credit: dration at Flickr

So, carefully managed, reindeer could be used to do what they do best: geoengineer the landscape. Selective summer grazing could be used to delay snowmelt, increase the surface albedo, and reduce ground heating.

"If wetlands and poorly growing forests could be brought back so that the forests were left sparse and the wetlands returned to a natural state, it would significantly cool the atmosphere," says Oksanen.

Conspiracy Theorists Are More Likely to Doubt Climate Science

Chris Mooney — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:00:08 +0000

In recent years, a persuasive theory of how and why people deny science and reality has emerged. It's called "motivated reasoning"—and was described at length in Mother Jones (by me) back in 2011. Here's the gist: People's emotional investments in their ideas, identities, and worldviews bias their initial reading of evidence, and do so on a level prior to conscious thought. Then, the mind organizes arguments in favor of one's beliefs—or, against attacks on one's beliefs—based on the same emotional connections. And so you proceed to argue your case—but really you're rationalizing, not reasoning objectively.

At the same time, though, other phenomena are also often invoked to explain the rejection of science on issues like climate change, evolution, and vaccinations—phenomena that may (or may not) be fully separable from motivated reasoning. One of the most prominent of these: conspiracy theorizing.

Psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky, who studies conspiracy theorists

So what's the relationship between the two? In my recent Point of Inquiry podcast interview (excerpted below) with University of Bristol psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky, it became clear that motivated reasoning and conspiracy mongering are at least in part separable, and worth keeping apart in your mind. To show as much, let's use the issue global warming as an example.

In a recent study of climate blog readers, Lewandowksy and his colleagues found that the strongest predictor of being a climate change denier is having a libertarian, free-market world view. Or as Lewandowsky put it in our interview, "The overwhelming factor that determined whether or not people rejected climate science is their worldview or their ideology." This naturally lends support to the "motivated reasoning" theory—a conservative view about the efficiency of markets impels rejection of climate science because if climate science were true, markets would very clearly have failed in an very important instance.

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The More Republicans Know About Politics, the More They Believe Conspiracy Theories

There's No Such Thing As the Liberal War on Science

But separately, the same study also found a second factor that was a weaker, but still real, predictor of climate change denial—and also of the denial of other scientific findings such as the proven link between HIV and AIDS. And that factor was conspiracy theorizing. Thus, people who think, say, that the Moon landings were staged by Hollywood, or that Lee Harvey Oswald had help, are also more likely to be climate deniers and HIV-AIDS deniers.

"Clearly, for a number of people…conspiratorial thinking determines their rejection of science," explained Lewandowsky in our interview.

Indeed, there are distinct personality or dispositional factors that have been associated with a tendency towards conspiratorial thinking—including paranoia and a sense of disgruntlement, or being unhappy with how society is treating you. Furthermore, conspiratorial beliefs tend cluster together. "If a person believes in one conspiracy theory, they're likely to believe in others as well," explained Lewandowsky on the podcast. "There's a statistical association. So people who think that MI5 killed Princess Diana, they probably also think that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act by himself when he killed JFK."

This makes conspiracy theorizing a kind of "cognitive style," one clearly associated with science denial—but not as clearly moored to ideology.

For an excerpt of the relevant part of our interview, listen below (for the full show click here):

Will Connecticut lead the way on GMO labeling?

Maggie Caldwell — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:13:44 +0000

On June 3, the Connecticut legislature passed a bipartisan GMO labeling bill, making it the first state to require food manufacturers to reveal whether their products include genetically engineered ingredients. The bill passed both chambers by a landslide, and right-to-know activists have declared it a major victory. But the bill comes with a catch. Before it goes into effect, similar legislation must be adopted in at least four other states, including one that borders Connecticut, and those states must have an aggregate population of at least 20 million residents.

In other words, the Nutmeg State will continue to do nothing on GMOs until New York, Massachusetts or Rhode Island and some combination of other states also decide to take on Big Ag and Big Biotech. This trigger clause was meant to protect Connecticut businesses from being put at a competitive disadvantage and to keep the state from "going it alone," says Paul Towers of Pesticide Action Network. Towers called it "a cautious but important step."

With a population of 3.5 million, Connecticut doesn't hold the same sway as a large population state like New York or California that, just by acting alone, could force GMO labeling nationwide. (Since so much of their product is sold in those states, if one of them passed a labeling bill, food manufacturers would most likely just label all of the products they sell in the US, for the sake of efficiency.) That's why the biotech and food industries dropped $46 million last year against California's Prop. 37, out-spending right-to-know supporters 5 to 1 and ultimately defeating the measure.

Even with Connecticut's trigger clause, advocates are optimistic. Tara Cook-Littman, the head of GMO Free CT, said her group fought against the clause throughout the legislative session. But ultimately, she said, the group felt that the integrity of the bill wasn't compromised by its inclusion. "The truth is we really think we have nothing to fear from the trigger clause," Cook-Littman told Mother Jones. "We're hoping that the clause will end up being a catalyst to encourage other states to join us."

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Democrats Call on Obama's Budget Office to Cough Up Rules

Kate Sheppard — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 19:23:51 +0000

The Senate confirmed Sylvia Matthews Burwell as the new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the end of April. Now Democrats in the House and Senate are calling on her to fix whatever's been delaying all the environmental, health, and safety rules at OMB for months (and in some cases, years).

As I've reported here before, Obama's OMB is a place where tough environmental and health rules go to die (or at least disappear for a really, really long time). On Wednesday, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Dem Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, wrote to Burwell asking her to cough up the rules that the lawmakers said had "languished" in OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under her predecessor:

Fourteen of the twenty rules submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been under review at OIRA for more than 90 days; thirteen have been delayed for more than a year. One particularly egregious example of OIRA delays is EPA's Guidance Identifying Waters Protected by the Clean Water Act. This guidance would clarify regulatory jurisdiction over U.S. waters and wetlands. It is an issue that has come before the U.S. Supreme Court three times and, until the Administration finalizes this guidance, will continue to create confusion, loopholes, and inconsistency for officials at the state and local level. Despite the clear need for regulatory guidance from this Administration, EPA’s final guidance has been under review for 470 days, since February 21, 2012.

Nine of the ten Department of Energy (DOE) rules under review at OIRA have been there for more than 120 days. Important DOE energy efficiency standards, such as those for commercial walk-in coolers and freezers, commercial refrigeration equipment, and metal halide lamp fixtures have been pending at OIRA for more than a year.

Similarly, key worker safety standards have also been delayed for far too long. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) proposed rule to protect workers from cancer-causing silica dust has been at OIRA for over two years, since February 14, 2011. OSHA’s preliminary analysis indicates that the silica rule would prevent approximately 60 deaths per year from lung cancer and silicosis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 1.7 million additional workers are exposed to dangerous levels of silica every year. These workers may also face a lifetime of serious health problems that the completion of this rule could help to prevent.

As the congressmen noted, very few laws get passed in Congress these days. That means "the public is depending on the federal agencies to protect public health and welfare," they wrote.

The 6 Weirdest Things Found in the EPA Warehouse

Kate Sheppard — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 21:42:57 +0000

The Environmental Protection Agency's Inspector General released a report on Monday on the agency's Landover, Maryland warehouse. The 70,000-square-foot facility is used to store inventory from the EPA's Washington headquarters, but what the inspectors found basically sounds like a cross between a frat house and your grandma's attic.

Here are the six weirdest things discovered in the warehouse:

multiple "unauthorized personal spaces" that were "arranged so that they were out of sight of security cameras" and included televisions, refrigerators, radios, microwaves, couches, pin ups, clothing, books, magazines and videos
two pianos
new appliances received in 2007 still in the original packaging
dirt, dust and vermin feces were "pervasive," and several items were described as "rotting and potentially hazardous"
an exercise space that included weights, machines, and other exercise equipment that, unlike most of the rest of the warehouse, "appeared to be well maintained"; the report also noted that "agency steno pads were used for recording workouts"
a big box of old passports

(h/t National Journal)

Lautenberg Leaves Legacy on Chemical Reform

Kate Sheppard — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 18:57:04 +0000

Frank Lautenberg, a five-term senator from New Jersey, died Monday at age 89. All over the internet, obituaries for the long-serving progressive note the issues he took up during his tenure, but one that often goes unnoticed is his work to overhaul chemical safety rules. For years, Lautenberg was the leading voice in the effort to reform the Toxic Substance Control Act, or TSCA, a 37-year-old law governing tens of thousands of chemicals.

Less than two weeks ago, Lautenberg unveiled a bipartisan reform bill that would have made some significant changes to the outdated—and many would say, dangerous—chemical rules. The bill was criticized by many in the environmental group as being too weak, especially as compared to bills that Lautenberg had introduced independently in the past. Still, chemical reform will be a legacy issue for Lautenberg.

"He [was] the person who really started the national conversation on reforming our chemical policies," said Andy Igrejas, executive director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a coalition public health, environment, business and labor groups working on TSCA reform. "He's been a real stalwart, a champion." Despite being in poor health, Lautenberg had continued working on the bill he released in May. "Even as late as last week he was down in DC pushing it forward, crafting it, trying to get bipartisan support," said Igrejas.

"He wasn't someone who scared easily," Igrejas continued. "A lot of politicians want to do the right thing, but in the face of a major lobbying effort by big money interests, they fold. He had the courage to really stick with big issues."

Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, also lauded his past work on chemicals: "Perhaps his most enduring achievement was to help inform and protect the public from the harm of toxic chemicals, including creating the nation’s toxic right-to-know law, establishing the US Chemical Safety Board and pushing for greater security at chemical plants."

Lautenberg is also remember for his work on other public health issues, such as alcohol and tobacco.

British Columbia Rejects West Coast Pipeline Plan

Kate Sheppard — Fri, 31 May 2013 19:49:21 +0000

While we've been having a big fight over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline down here in the US, Canada has also been debating a massive pipeline for exporting tar sands oil, the Northern Gateway. And on Friday, the government of British Columbia put the kibosh on that whole idea.

BC's environment minister said Friday that Enbridge, the company seeking to build the pipeline, had not adequately answered the government's questions about the project, and that there were still outstanding concerns about spill prevention and response. The CBC reports:

"British Columbia thoroughly reviewed all of the evidence and submissions made to the panel and asked substantive questions about the project, including its route, spill response capacity and financial structure to handle any incidents," said Environment Minister Terry Lake.

"Our questions were not satisfactorily answered during these hearings."

The Northern Gateway would run from the heart of the tar sands in Alberta, through British Columbia, and to an export terminal in Kitimat. Anti-pipeline activists in the US are cheering BC's Gateway decision as a win against tar sands development. 350.org founder Bill McKibben sent around a statement shortly after the announcement:

For years the tar sands promoters have said: ‘if we don't build Keystone XL the tar sands will get out some other way.' British Columbians just slammed the door on the most obvious other way, so now it's up to President Obama. If he approves Keystone XL he bails out the Koch Brothers and other tar sands investors; if he rejects the pipeline, then an awful lot of that crude is going to stay in the ground where it belongs.

The BC government was quick to say, however, that this "is not a rejection of heavy-oil projects" in general—keeping open the possibility for another proposed pipeline, Kinder Morgan (which we also talked about here). Nevertheless, it certainly makes plans to export tar sands oil more complicated.

CLARIFICATION: As the Globe and Mail explains, British Columbia does not have ultimate authority on the pipeline decision; the Canadian government does. But this is expected to influence its decision:

It does not have veto power over what would be a federally regulated project but its opinions carry much weight in the Joint Review Panel's deliberations, said Michal Moore, an economics professor at the University of Calgary and a former energy regulator.

"I would think that when they play a card like that, when they don't have direct control over the decision, that card is meant to be a place marker that says, ‘This issue is really important to us and we want to make sure that you take it very seriously,'" Mr. Moore said. “It’s the moral equivalent of throwing down a gauntlet, ‘that you better address our concerns in your decision, no matter what the decision is.'"

The headline on this story has been changed to reflect this clarification.

Secret Sea Turtle Feeding Grounds Discovered in BP Oil Spill Waters

Julia Whitty — Fri, 31 May 2013 10:05:31 +0000

Thirteen years of satellite of tagging, plus new statistical techniques (switching state-space modeling, or SSM, for you geeks), reveal that the favored feeding grounds of highly endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles coincide with the Gulf of Mexico waters most hammered by oil spills, commercial fishing (and overfishing), and the hypoxic zombie waters known as the dead zone.

These rarest and smallest of sea turtles live in nearshore waters of the Gulf and nest exclusively on a few sandy beaches in Mexico and Texas. Previous tracking studies showed they migrate from their north to Texas and Louisiana, with a few outliers getting as far as peninsular Florida. But before this latest research, no one knew if turtles were migrating or feeding at any given location. Now statistical modeling has pinpointed where these turtles are likely stopping to feed—which is key to identifying marine habitats critical for saving them.

Kemp's ridley turtle hatchling, Padre Island National Seashore: qnr / Terry Ross at Flickr

The feeding habitat discovery came when scientists differentiated between time spent in feeding or breeding mode from time spent migrating. Once they figured out when and where the turtles were feeding, they were also able to roughly profile what type of habitat offered the best feeding grounds for Kemp’s ridleys.

"We have a lot more to learn about how and why Kemp's ridleys use their foraging sites,” says Kristen Hart, a research ecologist for the USGS Southeast Ecological Science Center and co-author of the paper in Ecology and Evolution. "We don't know enough about individual turtles yet to draw conclusions about their behavioral responses to conditions at foraging grounds, and we are just beginning to understand differences among different sea turtles species. For example, Kemp’s ridleys appear to migrate, then feed, and then migrate to a final feeding destination. Loggerheads, in contrast, seem to head straight for feeding hotpots.”

Foraging habitat by Kemp's ridley turtles in the Gulf of Mexico. (A) Foraging habitat and environmental characteristics of foraging sites selected for N = 31 female Kemp's ridley turtles from 1998 to 2011. The grid is divided into 25 × 25 km (15.5 mile) cells, with 100-m (328-ft) isobaths as a bounding layer. (B) Bathymetry coverage; (C) Sea surface temperature (SST) coverage; (D) Net primary productivity (NPP) coverage. Donna J. Shaver, et al, Foraging area fidelity for Kemp's ridleys in the Gulf of Mexico. Ecology and Evolution (2013). DOI: 10.1002/ece3.594

As you can see in the map above, Kemp's ridleys follow follow a foraging corridor to a few foraging hotspots, mostly off the Louisiana coast. Which just happens to be smack in the middle of oil fields, the BP spill site, and the Gulf of Mexico dead zone.

Not much can survive in the waters of the dead zone when it forms up most summers (more on that here). Jellyfish might do okay. But unfortunately for Kemp's ridleys, they're not jellyfish-eating turtles, but crab-eating turtles. And lots of crabs die in the dead zone.

And obviously, if you're a sea turtle, oil spills suck pretty bad too.

Oiled Kemp's ridley sea turtle rescued from oil spill: Louisiana GOHSEP at Flickr

The good news (in a roundabout kind of way) is that a court settlement was filed yesterday requiring the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Coast Guard ensure that toxic oil-dispersing chemicals—like the Corexit that BP used in the Gulf—must not harm sea turtles, whales, and other endangered species or their habitats. This in federal waters off California. The suit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Surfrider Foundation, and Pacific Environment Conservation to force the government to determine the safety of chemical dispersants before they're use on endangered species. Not afterward, as happened during 2010’s Deepwater Horizon debacle.

"We shouldn't add insult to injury after an oil spill by using dispersants that put wildlife and people at risk," says Deirdre McDonnell of the Center for Biological Diversity. "During the BP oil spill no one knew what the long-term effects of chemical dispersants would be, and we're still learning about their harm to fish and corals. People can avoid the ocean after an oil spill, but marine animals can't. They're forced to eat, breathe, and swim in the chemicals we put in the water, whether it's oil or dispersants."

Studies have found that oil dispersed by Corexit 9527 squanders the insulating properties of seabird feathers more than untreated oil, making the birds more susceptible to hypothermia and death. Other studies found dispersed oil is toxic to fish eggs, fish larvae, and adult fish, as well as to corals, and that it harms the ability of sea turtles to breathe and digest food. Check out my other posts on these studies in the If you liked this, you might also like... section below.

Exploding Trains, Explained

Kate Sheppard — Thu, 30 May 2013 16:34:54 +0000

A train and a garbage truck collided outside of Baltimore on Tuesday evening, resulting in a large explosion that released smoke that could be seen miles away. CSX, the train's operator, confirmed that the train was carrying hazardous chemicals that caused the explosion. The Washington Post reports:

CSX spokesman Gary Sease said the sodium chlorate in a derailed car near the front of the train exploded, igniting terephthalic acid in another derailed car. Sodium chlorate is used mainly as a bleaching agent in paper production. Oklahoma State University chemist Nick Materer said it could make for a potentially explosive mixture when combined with an incompatible substance such as spilled fuel.

Another chemist, Darlene Lyudmirskiy, of Spectrum Chemical Manufacturing Corp. in Gardena, Calif., said such a mixture would be unstable and wouldn’t need even a spark to cause a reaction.

"If it's not compatible, anything could set it off," she said.

The incident could have been much worse if other chemicals had been involved—chemicals like chlorine gas or anhydrous ammonia. When a Norfolk Southern train derailed in Graniteville, South Carolina, in 2005 and released chlorine, nine people died and 5,000 had to be evacuated. While not nearly that bad, the Baltimore explosion has brought renewed attention to the hazardous chemicals that are transported by rail in the United States.

In 2012, trains carried 189 million tons of chemicals. That only represents about 20 percent of all the chemicals shipped in the US. But trains carry 64 percent of a class of chemicals known as "toxic inhalation hazards" or TIH, like chlorine, that can be deadly if inhaled. Rail is the safest, most efficient way to transport those chemicals—one rail tank can carry as much as four trucks, and trains moving along a dedicated shipping line rather than on the highways, meaning that collisions are less likely, as researchers at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government have pointed out.

Even if rail is safer than trucks, there are plenty of reasons to want to limit the amount of dangerous chemicals carried by rail. There's always a chance of an accident, as Tuesday's explosion demonstrated, and local governments and first responders don't even know what's traveling on those trains until an accident happens. Then there's also the threat of a deliberate attack on either the rails or the chemical facilities where the tankers eventually end up. The best solution, says Greenpeace legislative director Rick Hind, is getting companies to shift from a "catastrophic chemical to a noncatastrophic substance or process"—that is, using chemicals that won't explode or give off noxious fumes. These chemicals would be safer to transport, and safer to use when they reach their destinations.

Some companies and municipal water systems have already started phasing out the use of deadly chemicals like chlorine. But it would take a stronger regulatory push to make a larger switch happen. There was some effort to do so immediately after September 11, at the height of terrorism fears. But the Bush White House did not back it due to pressure from the chemical industry, recalls Bob Bostock, the homeland security adviser to the then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman. "That effort died before it really got started," he says.

Now Bostock hopes that the EPA will use its regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act to "to require facilities to at least evaluate safer technologies." "It's very feasible to do so," he says. "A lot of facilities have done it. A lot have not."

Railroad operators aren't particularly jazzed about transporting hazardous chemicals, either. But because a few companies control the majority of major railroads, they are required under federal "common carrier" rules that say they can't refuse to carry TIH or other hazardous chemicals. The Association of American Railroads, the industry trade group, has asked Congress to allow them to "decide for themselves whether to accept, and at what price they are willing to accept, such materials for transportation." AAR has also called for safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals as a means of reducing their own risk as carriers.

Press Release of the Day: Downton Abbey’s Mrs. Patmore Visits Chinese Moon Bears

Asawin Suebsaeng — Tue, 28 May 2013 20:40:35 +0000

And the winner for today's greatest press release:

English actress Lesley Nicol, star of international hit TV show Downton Abbey, has completed a visit to Animals Asia's China Bear Rescue Centre (CBRC) in Chengdu, China.

Via Animals Asia

Nicol—who plays the "highly-strung and quick-tempered" cook Mrs. Patmore—has previously tweeted her love for the Chinese bears:

Animals Asia, headquartered in Hong Kong, is an organization dedicated to protecting "moon bears" in China; here's an example of moon-bear abuse.

Lesley Nicol isn't even the first actor in the acclaimed British period drama to go rescue tortured bears in China. That honor belongs to Peter Egan, who earlier this year traveled to Chengdu, a city in southwest China, to work with Animals Asia. Egan played the Duke of Argyll in a Downton Abbey Christmas special.

On a related note, there was that one episode of Downton Abbey in which under-butler Thomas Barrow teaches kitchen maid Daisy Mason an old dance move called "the Grizzly Bear"; Mrs. Patmore shows up in that scene near the end.

So now you know.

Farewell, Froggy: The Age of Ribbit Is Nearing an End

Julia Whitty — Sat, 25 May 2013 10:05:05 +0000

Amphibians are disappearing horrifyingly fast worldwide, with a third of species imperiled. But they're disappearing even faster than believed in the US—and probably worldwide (more on that below)—according to the first ever analysis of the rate of population losses among frogs, toads, salamanders, and newts.

Eastern newt: Patrick Coin at Wikimedia Commons

Even amphibians presumed to be relatively stable and widespread are declining. With species everywhere—from the swamps of Louisiana and Florida to the high mountains of the Sierras and Rockies—all disappearing with mind blowing speed.

Toad mountain harlequin frog: Brian Gratwicke at Flickr

A team of researchers with the USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative analyzed the rate of change in the probability of 48 amphibian species occupying ponds and other moist habitats in 34 sites over a period of nine years (see map/figures below).

Gray tree frog: Robert A. Coggeshall at Wikimedia Commons

What they found: overall occupancy by amphibians declined 3.7 percent a year from 2002 to 2011. That seemingly small number adds up to particularly virulent form of extinction hunting down these species within two decades if the rate of decline remains unchanged.

California newt: jkirkhart35 at Wikimedia Commons

Much worse, species Red-listed as threatened or vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declined on average 11.6 percent a year.

Yosemite toad: Natalie McNear via Flickr

Surprisingly, declines occurred even in protected lands, like national parks and national wildlife refuges. "The declines of amphibians in these protected areas are particularly worrisome because they suggest that some stressors—such as diseases, contaminants and drought—transcend landscapes," says lead author Michael Adams.

American bullfrog: Dave Menke at Wikimedia Commons

Amphibians seem to be experiencing the worst declines documented among vertebrates, but all major groups of animals associated with freshwater are having major problems.

From the PLOS ONE paper: (A) Location of monitoring areas. (B) Distribution of species among IUCN categories. (C) Number of years monitored in each time series. (D) Mean annual estimates of probability of site occupancy and number of occupancy estimates (N). Credit: Michael J. Adams, et al. PLOS ONE. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064347.g001

While the PLOS ONE paper didn't address causes, another recent study found a multitude of natural and manmade stressors affecting amphibians, including human-induced habitat destruction, environmental contamination, invasive species, and climate change.

"An enormous rate of change has occurred in the last 100 years, and amphibians are not evolving fast enough to keep up with it," says Andrew Blaustein, author of the 2011 paper in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, and professor of zoology at Oregon State University. "With a permeable skin and exposure to both aquatic and terrestrial problems, amphibians face a double whammy. Because of this, mammals, fish and birds have not experienced population impacts as severely as amphibians—at least, not yet."â€‹

Shenandoah salamander: Brian Gratwicke at Wikimedia Commons

"Amphibians have been a constant presence in our planet's ponds, streams, lakes and rivers for 350 million years or so, surviving countless changes that caused many other groups of animals to go extinct," says USGS Director Suzette Kimball. "This is why the findings of this study are so noteworthy; they demonstrate that the pressures amphibians now face exceed the ability of many of these survivors to cope."

I've written more about climate-induced amphibian disappearances here, about problems with herbicides on farms here. And for a long read on the problems with the loss of biodiversity here.

Progess on Chemical Regulation, At Last?

Kate Sheppard — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:23:33 +0000

A bit of positive news this week may have gotten lost in the shuffle. On Wednesday, two senators announced bipartisan legislation to fix our nation's outdated and ineffective chemical regulations. New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg and Louisiana Republican David Vitter announced an agreement to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a 37-year-old law governing the use of tens of thousands of hazardous chemicals. I've written before about how the law's failures have left dangerous chemicals largely unregulated.

That these two lawmakers agreed on the new legislation, dubbed the Chemical Safety Improvement Act of 2013, is a big deal. Lautenberg has made strengthening TSCA one of his legacy issues in the Senate, from which he is retiring in 2015. Vitter is known as a industry booster how has blocked progress on chemicals in the past.

The bill would, for the first time, require the EPA review the safety of all chemicals used in products, whereas TSCA grandfathered in a lot of chemicals without testing their safety. It would also make it harder for companies to claim "confidential business information" as an excuse for not disclosing what's in their products. TSCA reform advocates will note that this latest bill is not as tough as the Safe Chemicals Act that Lautenberg had previously championed. The Environmental Working Group slammed the proposal as "unacceptably weak" and listed the areas where it falls short.

But others see the agreement as movement in the right direction. As Richard Denison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, told Energy & Environment Daily:

"I've worked for a number of years trying to improve a statute and a program that is hamstrung at every turn by that statute," Denison said. "My reference point is whether this bill improves EPA's ability to work relative to current TSCA. And there's no question that it does.

"If one measures it against an ideal, the kind of bill I'd write if I were king, then this doesn't meet all the criteria," he added. "But this bill has a higher likelihood of passing."