Oilsands activity blamed for caribou decline

The Canadian Press Posted: Jun 22, 2011 10:17 AM ET

DNA in the feces suggest there were about 330 caribou in Alberta's oilsands region, more than double the government's population estimate of 150. (Canadian Press)

 

 

 

Humans, not wolves, are behind declining caribou populations in Alberta's oilsands region, an analysis of animal feces shows.
The same research also found there may be many more caribou in the region than previously thought, meaning there may still be time for industry to change how it does business without resorting to wolf culls to protect the herds.
"Nobody is denying that the trend in caribou decline is alarming," said University of Washington biologist Samuel Wasser, lead author of a paper published Wednesday in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
"While we still think we need to do something now, we think that there's a little bit more time than some people have been advocating."
Caribou in the oilsands are considered a threatened species and have been in decline for decades. Balancing oilsands development and healthy herds has proved to be a tough act for the provincial government, which is still trying to develop a caribou policy for the area.

Biologist Samuel Wasser and his team were brought in by oilsands leasee North American Oil Sands, and their research continued when the lease was sold to Norway-based Statoil. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)

Some scientists have predicted caribou will be gone within 30 years, suggesting the desperate measure of a wolf cull could be the only way to preserve them. Alberta does cull wolves to protect caribou, but not in the oilsands area.
In 2006, Wasser and his team were brought in by oilsands leasee North American Oil Sands to look for answers. Their research continued when the lease was sold to Norway-based Statoil, which has so far spent about $500,000 on Wasser's work.
Using dogs trained to sniff out caribou, wolf, moose and deer droppings, scientists eventually found about 2,000 samples and carefully marked when and where each was found. Those samples were carefully analyzed for chemicals that revealed how the animal was feeling at that moment.
Animals under stress produce hormones that show up almost right away in their feces. Feces can also reveal how well-nourished an animal is. DNA contained in the material can even identify — and count individual animals.

Population higher than thought

After four winters of sampling, the researchers concluded that there seem to be a lot more caribou than previously thought.
Government estimates put the number in the area at about 150; DNA in the feces suggest there were about 330 animals. Nor did that number change during the study period.
They also found that about 80 per cent of the wolf diet was deer, with only about 11 per cent from caribou. Wolves even seek out deer in preference to caribou.
And once they started analyzing scat for stress hormones, they found what really bugged caribou was people. Stress increased the closer the animals got to busy roads and also during times when humans were nearby.
Caribou — unlike moose and deer — are so skittish they'd rather hang out somewhere where the food isn't as plentiful if it's further from human impact, Wasser concluded.

Read full story here

Melting Northwest Passage lets Pacific species cross

The Associated Press Posted: Jun 27, 2011 9:54 AM ET

Grey whales still live in the Pacific Ocean, but were hunted to extinction in the Atlantic by the mid-1700s. The one spotted near Israel and Spain last year is believed to have entered the Atlantic Ocean through the Northwest Passage. Associated Press

When a 13-metre grey whale was spotted off the Israeli town of Herzliya last year, scientists came to a startling conclusion: it must have wandered across the normally icebound route above Canada, where warm weather had briefly opened a clear channel three years earlier.
On a microscopic level, scientists also have found plankton in the North Atlantic where it had not existed for at least 800,000 years.
The whale's odyssey and the surprising appearance of the plankton indicates a migration of species through the Northwest Passage, a worrying sign of how global warming is affecting animals and plants in the oceans as well as on land.

'It's a threshold that has been crossed.'—Philip C. Reid, Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science

"It's an indication of the speed of change that is taking place in our world in the present day because of climate change," he said in a telephone interview Friday.
Reid said the last time the world witnessed such a major incursion from the Pacific was 2 million years ago, which had "a huge impact on the North Atlantic," driving some species to extinction as the newcomers dominated the competition for food.
Reid's study of plankton and the research on the whale, co-authored by Aviad Scheinin of the Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center, are among nearly 300 scientific papers written over the last 13 years that are being synthesized and published this year by Project Clamer, a collaboration of 17 institutes on climate change and the oceans.
Changes in the oceans' chemistry and temperature could have implications for fisheries, as species migrate northward to cooler waters, said Katja Philippart, of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research who is coordinating the project funded by the European Union.
"We try to put the information on the table for people who have to make decisions. We don't say whether it's bad or good. We say there is a high potential for change," she said.

Read the full story here

Lemons and Cancer

Eating a Lemon is lot Healthier than eating an Orange ........

LEMON will clean all your INTESTINES.. Oranges do NOT….

Institute of Health Sciences
819 N L.L.C. Charles Street
Baltimore , MD 1201

This is the latest in medicine, effective for cancer!

Read carefully & you be the judge.

Lemon (Citrus ) is a miraculous product to kill cancer cells . It is 10,000 times
stronger than chemotherapy .

Why do we not know about that?   Because there are laboratories interested in making a synthetic
version that will bring them huge profits. You can now help a friend in need by letting him/her
know that lemon juice is beneficial in preventing the disease. Its taste is pleasant and it does not
produce the horrific effects of chemotherapy. How many people will die while this closely
guarded secret is kept, so as not to jeopardize the beneficial multimillionaires large corporations?
As you know, the lemon tree is known for its varieties of lemons and limes. You can eat the
fruit in different ways: you can eat the pulp, juice press, prepare drinks, sorbets, pastries, etc...
It is credited with many virtues, but the most interesting is the effect it produces on cysts and
tumors. This plant is a proven remedy against cancers of all types. Some say it is very
useful in all variants of cancer .

It is considered also as an anti microbial spectrum against bacterial infections and fungi, effective
against internal parasites and worms, it regulates blood pressure which is too high and an
antidepressant, combats stress and nervous disorders. The source of this information is fascinating: it
comes from one of the largest drug manufacturers in the world, says that after more than 20
laboratory tests since 1970, the extracts revealed that: It destroys the malignant
cells in 12 cancers , including colon, breast, prostate, lung and pancreas ... The compounds of this tree showed 10,000 times better than the product Adriamycin, a drug normally used chemotherapeutic in the world,
slowing the growth of cancer cells. And what is even more astonishing: this type of therapy with
lemon extract only destroys malignant cancer cells and it does not affect healthy cells.


Institute of Health Sciences
819 N L.L.C. Cause Street
Baltimore, MD1201

Polar Bears - On Thin Ice

Ashore on Svalbard, a male polar bear investigates a whale's backbone. Fat reserves from hunting ringed and bearded seals, and sometimes walruses, must carry bears through lean summers.  Photograph by Florian Shultz

 

 

On Thin Ice

The Arctic is warming so fast that by 2050 it may be largely ice free in summer. Without their frozen hunting platform, how will polar bears survive?

By Susan McGrath

Photograph by Florian Schulz

In August 1881 the naturalist John Muir was sailing off Alaska aboard the steamer Thomas Corwin, searching for three vessels that had gone missing in the Arctic. Off Point Barrow he spotted three polar bears, "magnificent fellows, fat and hearty, rejoicing in their strength out here in the bosom of the icy wilderness."

Were Muir to sail off Point Barrow in August today, any polar bears he'd see would not be living in a wilderness of ice but swimming through open water, burning precious fat reserves. That's because the bears' sea-ice habitat is disappearing. And it's going fast.
Polar bears ply the Arctic niche where air, ice, and water intersect. Superbly adapted to this harsh environment, most spend their entire lives on the sea ice, hunting year-round, visiting land only to build maternal birthing dens. They prey mainly on ringed and bearded seals (it's been said that they can smell a seal's breathing hole from more than a mile away) but sometimes catch walruses and even beluga whales.

Sea ice is the foundation of the Arctic marine environment. Vital organisms live underneath and within the ice itself, which is not solid but pierced with channels and tunnels large, small, and smaller. Trillions of diatoms, zooplankton, and crustaceans pepper the ice column. In spring, sunlight penetrates the ice, triggering algal blooms. The algae sink to the bottom, and in shallow continental shelf areas they sustain a food web that includes clams, sea stars, arctic cod, seals, walruses—and polar bears.
Read full story here

Solar for Dummies

By Nick Hodge | Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
The headlines say it all...
Total (NYSE: TOT) Pays $1.4 Billion for Stake in SunPower

Army/Marines Charge Critical Equipment With Solar Panels

Google Invests $280 Million in SolarCity

Solar Market Tops $70 Billion in 2010

In only a few years' time, the solar market has gone from “That stuff'll never work” to a billion-dollar acquisition target of the biggest oil companies in the world.

At the turn of the century the world only had 1.4 gigawatts (GWs) of installed solar capacity.

By the end of last year 40.7 GW had been installed – a growth of 2,752%.

Oil didn't do that. Coal didn't do that. Nuclear didn't do that.

Most of the growth has come from Europe – particularly Germany with 17 GW – which boasts over 75% of all installed solar worldwide.

Their head start can be attributed to attractive policies the U.S. failed to embrace. But falling prices, as you'll soon see, will mean the spread and mass adoption of solar in the next few years.

Failed Decontamination System Fukushima ‘again’

Overhead shot of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, Japan.

The operator of a damaged reacttor preformed another test run of a newly installed water-treatment system after its pump stopped on Tuesday.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said the pump was overburdened by excessive liquid flow, Kyodo News reported.

The system designed to decontaminate highly radioactive water stopped only five hours into full operation on Friday at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo.
The operator concluded on Monday that absorbent materials inside the decontamination equipment needed changing more frequently than previously estimated, public broadcaster NHK reported.
The company is trying to reduce radioactivity in water that has accumulated around the plant as a result of emergency measures to cool the reactor cores. Storage facilities for contaminated water were reaching capacity.

Several of the plant’s six reactors have been overheating and leaking radioactive material since it was damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The operator also said Monday night that a plant worker was found to have been exposed to radiation above the official limit, 

                            official limit? You mean the limit they recently raised or 
                                      the original so called safe limit..

bringing the number of over-exposed workers to nine, Kyodo reported.
The operator has been checking the external and internal radiation exposure of a total of more than 3,500 workers engaged in the emergency work, Kyodo said.

Reported on Visions Green Blog

Harvesting Clean Energy on Ontario Farms

Harvesting Clean Energy on Ontario Farms
June 27-30 Speaking Tour

You are invited to join the Climate Action Network Canada, Pembina Institute, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and The United Church of Canada, for the launch of a new report “Harvesting Clean Energy on Ontario Farms” to be featured on a Southern Ontario speaking tour the week of June 27-30, 2011.

The report and tour will highlight the untapped business opportunities for Ontario’s farmers that can be found in the field of renewable energy; the numerous other benefits of renewable energy, such as rural economic development and improved environmental conditions; and finally, the government policies needed to allow farmers to embrace the benefits of renewable energy.  Alongside Canadian and European clean energy experts, Hans-Detlef Feddersen, a leading German farmer, clean energy pioneer and founder of Germany’s first citizen-owned wind park will be our featured speaker.

We would be delighted if you could join us at one of our tour stops to hear the report findings give us your valuable input on this growing project.  The tour will begin in Ottawa on June 27 and will travel through Kingston, Toronto, Cambridge and surrounding areas and will end in Guelph on June 30. Please see the attached for detailed schedule and event information.  The schedule may be updated online at www.climateactionnetwork.ca.

Space at events is limited and RSVP is required for all events.  Please RSVP to Lauryn Drainie by email @ ldrainie@climateactionnetwork.ca and include your name and affiliated organization(s).

We would like to thank The United Church of Canada, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the German Government with its Transatlantic Climate Bridge for providing the funds to make this project possible.  Thank you as well to all our partner agricultural organizations that have provided feedback, time and organizational support on both the tour and report.

Climate Action Network Canada is a nation-wide coalition of more than 75 environmental, faith, labour, development, aboriginal, health, and youth organizations committed to making action on climate change a reality.

Harvesting Clean Energy on Ontario Farms
Southern-Ontario Speaking Tour

Space is limited and RSVP is required for all events. Please RSVP to Lauryn Drainie @ ldrainie@climateactionnetwork.ca and include your name and affiliated organization(s).

Monday, June 27, Ottawa Area

7:30 pm           Presentation of Report Findings with the National Farmers Union Local 362
Knox Presbyterian Church
1 St. Polycarp Street Box 192 Moose Creek ON K0C 1W0

Tuesday, June 28, Kingston Area


2:00 pm           Presentation of Report Findings with SWITCH Kingston National Farmers Union Local 316, Frontenac Federation of Agriculture, and the County of Frontenac Green Energy Task Force
                        Memorial Hall, Kingston City Hall, 216 Ontario Street, Kingston, ON

7:30 pm           Presentation of Report Findings with the National Farmers Union Local 316, Frontenac Federation of Agriculture, and the County of Frontenac Green Energy Task Force
Verona Lions’ Hall, 4504 Verona Sand Rd, Verona, ON

Wednesday, June 29 Toronto, Guelph & Cambridge

2:30 pm           Presentation of Report Findings
Room 202, Crop Science Building, Ontario Agricultural College,
50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON, http://www.uoguelph.ca/campus/map/cropscience/

7:30 pm           Public tour of the Grober Biogas Facility,
Delft Blue Veal Farms, 435 Dobbie Drive, Cambridge, ON

Thursday, June 30, Guelph

2:00 pm           Presentation of Report Findings with the National Farmers Union Local 340
                        St. Brigid’s Villa, Ignatius Jesuit Centre, 5420 Highway 6 North, Guelph ON