Plastic fantastic

(Source: Sydney Morning herald)

In the midst of the northern Pacific Ocean is a liquid desert, a vast floating garbage dump, devoid of complex ocean life, prone to doldrums, seldom visited by fishing vessels, away from main shipping lines, and thus rarely seen by visitors.

It offers, by all accounts, a disturbing vision. Anyone sailing through this liquid dump will encounter, from horizon to horizon, concentrations of bobbing rubbish, in every direction, for day after day. Most of what is floating is not even visible, because it is plastic which has broken down into microparticles.

This degenerating soup is much larger than NSW and Victoria combined. It is about the same size as Britain, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. It has been created by a giant spiral of clockwise ocean currents, known as the North Pacific Gyre, which carries human-created garbage that is slowly collected and consolidated by wind and currents.

The phenomenon has a name: the Eastern Garbage Patch. It was first properly documented, quite recently, by a Californian sailor and ocean researcher, Charles Moore, after he took a shortcut by motoring his yacht through the doldrums on his way back from the 1997 Trans-Pacific Yacht Race. A second giant floating mass, created by the same gyre, has been discovered thousands of kilometres away between Hawaii and Japan. Together they are commonly referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Dolphin species found intact

(Source: BBC) Conservationists have expressed their amazement that thousands of rare dolphins have been found in Bangladeshi waters when previously they were thought to be endangered or dead.   Nearly 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins were discovered in freshwater regions of Bangladesh's Sundarbans mangrove forest and the nearby waters of the Bay of Bengal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7981772.stm

Antarctic ice shelf breaks up

(Source: News.com.au)

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,25292212-1702,00.html

AN ice bridge which had apparently held a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place during recorded history shattered yesterday and could herald a wider collapse linked to global warming, a leading scientist said.

"It's amazing how the ice has ruptured. Two days ago it was intact," David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, said of a satellite image of the Wilkins Ice Shelfon the Antarctic Peninsula.

EARTH HOUR

We marked Earth Hour last night.

Peak Oil to arrive sooner ?

(Source: Independent) Scientists challenge major review of global reserves and warn that supplies will start to run out in four years' time

Scientists have criticised a major review of the world's remaining oil reserves, warning that the end of oil is coming sooner than governments and oil companies are prepared to admit. BP's Statistical Review of World Energy, published yesterday, appears to show that the world still has enough "proven" reserves to provide 40 years of consumption at current rates. The assessment, based on officially reported figures, has once again pushed back the estimate of when the world will run dry.

However, scientists led by the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, say that global production of oil is set to peak in the next four years before entering a steepening decline which will have massive consequences for the world economy and the way that we live our lives. According to "peak oil" theory our consumption of oil will catch, then outstrip our discovery of new reserves and we will begin to deplete known reserves.

Colin Campbell, the head of the depletion centre, said: "It's quite a simple theory and one that any beer drinker understands. The glass starts full and ends empty and the faster you drink it the quicker it's gone." Dr Campbell, is a former chief geologist and vice-president at a string of oil majors including BP, Shell, Fina, Exxon and ChevronTexaco. He explains that the peak of regular oil - the cheap and easy to extract stuff - has already come and gone in 2005. Even when you factor in the more difficult to extract heavy oil, deep sea reserves, polar regions and liquid taken from gas, the peak will come as soon as 2011, he says.

This scenario is flatly denied by BP, whose chief economist Peter Davies has dismissed the arguments of "peak oil" theorists.

(UK): EasyJet unveils 'eco-jet'

(Source: Guardian) EasyJet has urged plane manufacturers to produce greener planes after unveiling the prototype for an aircraft that could slash carbon dioxide emissions by half. The low-budget carrier said its design, cobbled together from existing technology, would produce 50% less CO2 than its existing fleet and could be ready to fly by 2015. EasyJet said it was in discussions with Boeing and Airbus – the world's largest plane manufacturers.

The EasyJet 'ecoJet', crafted by two qualified aeronautical engineers employed by the airline, features "open rotor" engines that will produce 25% less carbon dioxide per passenger kilometre flown than the airline's current Airbus planes. It will cut fuel burn by a further 15% with wings and fuselage constructed from lighter aluminium composite material. A further 10% will be saved by slower inflight speed and, in a development not linked to the aircraft, changes to air traffic control across Europe.– and engine maker Rolls-Royce about producing a next generation of green aircraft.

The big dry

(Source: The Economist) Long but well-written article about the water shortage in Australia - which is having a profound effect on that country. (click on title above for full article)

Australia is struggling to cope with the consequences of a devastating drought. As the world warms up, other countries should pay heed. John Howard, Australia's prime minister, arrived here in February and urged the four states through which the Murray-Darling flows to hand their authority over the river to the federal government. After seven years of drought, and many more years of over-exploitation and pollution, he argued that the only hope of restoring the river to health lies in a complete overhaul of how it is managed. As the states weigh the merits of Mr Howard's scheme, the river is degenerating further. Every month hydrologists announce that its flow has fallen to a new record low (see chart). In April Mr Howard warned that farmers would not be allowed to irrigate their crops at all next year without unexpectedly heavy rain in the next few months. A region that accounts for 40% of Australia's agriculture, and 85% of its irrigation, is on the verge of ruin.

World is running out of water

(Source: The Guardian) The world is running out of water and needs a radical plan to tackle shortages that threaten the ability of humanity to feed itself, according to Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN's Millennium Project.

Professor Sachs, who is credited with sparking pop star Bono's crusade for African development, told an environment conference in Delhi that the world simply had "no more rivers to take water from". The breadbaskets of India and China were facing severe water shortages and neither Asian giant could use the same strategies for increasing food production that has fed millions in the last few decades.