Environmental Graffiti

Spenser Tunick has turned his lens on climate change, enlisting 600 people from all over Europe to highlight the rapid and increasingly accelerating disappearance of Alpine Glaciers. Tunick’s signature photography of the human body versus the environment, took place on the Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland.

The project, co-organised by Greenpeace, aimed to “establish a symbolic relationship between the vulnerability of the melting glacier and the human body”. The fear is that at the current rate of disappearance the Swiss glaciers will have completely vanished by 2080 – the Aletsch Glacier itself retreated by 115 metres between 2005 and 2006.

Unfortunately, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has only given us 8 years to curb our changing climate, before the damage becomes irreversible. With the interplay of vast numbers of variables, I’m not sure who can say for sure when, and if, climate change is reversible. But regardless, the importance is that if 600 people are willing to get naked and sit on a block of ice, then the least the rest of us can do is turn off our lights and start taking responsibility.

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A scientist from the UN-affiliated World Meteorological Organisation announced today that the spread of deserts due to global warming could result in serious food shortages in the near future.

Speaking prior to a UN conference on desertification in Madrid at the beginning of September, M V K Sivakumar told a Geneva news conference that it was time to worry about land being ruined for agriculture through heat waves, floods, landslides and forest fires.

At the present time, 11% of the world’s land surface is suitable for food production. However, as climate change causes extreme weather events, and desert areas increase, this will reduce and make it harder to feed the rapidly growing global population. In Sivakumar’s words, “Will we be able to feed the 8.2 billion that we expect to populate the globe in 2020 if even less land is available for farming?”

Desertification is expected to affect sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia the hardest, but southern Europe is also at risk. This summer’s forest fires in Greece are thought to have destroyed vegetation on 268834 hectares of land. Italy has suffered four serious droughts since 1990 and is thought to have ten million hectares of land at risk of desertification, according to Francesco Ferrante, director of charity Legambiente.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that, due to climate change, agriculture dependent on rain-fall could be cut in half by 2020.

This warning comes in the same week that newspaper The Guardian voiced concern over world food supplies, as increasing commitment to biofuel crops takes agriculture away from food production. 20% of maize grown in the US is now sold for biofuel production. America is the main exporter of maize worldwide, and as a result its price has doubled in 10 months; meanwhile, the price of wheat has risen by about 50%.

Lester Brown, president of the American Worldwatch Institute thinktank, told the Guardian that in seven of the past eight years the world has actually grown less grain than it consumed.

Sivakumar concluded that it is vital for the international community to help put innovative and adaptive land-management practices into action to prevent a world food crisis in the future.

Sources include: Reuters; The Guardian; IPCC; University of Newcastle

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Japan’s Iriomote cat has been classified as critically endangered by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment and put on the Red List of threatened species.

The cat, found exclusively on the island of Iriomote in the Ryukyu archipelago between Japan and Taiwan, was only discovered 40 years ago. Like another species currently in critical danger, it is considered by biologists to be a “living fossil”, as the species has not changed much from its most primitive form.

In 1994 researchers estimated that only a few hundred cats remained, and an ongoing three year study suggests numbers have dwindled still further due to traffic accidents and habitat loss. Masako Izawa, a professor at the University of the Ryukyus, claims that it is not too late: “If we think about how to stop destruction of the cat’s habitat, prevent traffic accidents, and take other measure we can stop the extinction. The reclassification to “critically endangered” is a warning.”

The Iriomote cat is about the same size as a domestic cat, with dark brown spotted fur. It prefers to live and hunt in coastal areas of the island, which, unfortunately, are also the areas most densely populated by humans and where most roads are built.

Iriomote was largely uninhabited by humans until after World War II due to malaria. After the war, the occupying US army eradicated malaria from the island and the population has been increasing ever since, although it is still thought to be under 2,000. However, this is still too much for the native cats, and 41 road-kill deaths have been recorded since 1978.
Additionally, the popularity of the island as a tourist destination is growing rapidly, with over 350,000 visitors annually, and a new hotel has just been opened on the island, despite opposition from local environmentalists.

This is another case of conflict between preserving a natural environment and economic development. Iriomote is the poorest region of Japan, and as a result locals are reluctant to sacrifice tourist income in order to preserve the island habitat. As Maki Okamura, a scientist at the Iriomote Wildlife Conservation Center, comments, “At times the island’s development and the cat’s protection are directly opposed. We need some regulation or management by government for the development for tourism.”

Sources include: The National Geographic; Iriomote national park; The University of the Ryukyus

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A passion for aviation is the Achilles’ heel of British attempts to live more environmentally-friendly lives. An Exeter University study presented at the Royal Geographical Society’s annual conference has found that a even people living generally green lives are reluctant to fly less.

Cheap flights have become a lifestyle choice, concluded the government-funded study. Aviation is currently thought to account for about 7% of UK emissions, although activist group Plane Stupid, using data from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, ascribes15% of the UK’s contribution to climate change to aviation, because “emissions from aircraft are especially problematic because of the height at which they are emitted and the particularly noxious mix of gases, making them 2.7 times more damaging than the effect of their carbon dioxide alone.”

Britain will not be able meet its climate targets without curbing the industry’s growth. Air passenger duty was increased in February, and the European Union is preparing to include aviation in its Emissions Trading Scheme, which could increase costs further. However, the Exeter research suggests that price hikes will have little impact on our behaviour.

“Flying is quite embedded in peoples’ lifestyle choices,” said Stewart Barr from the university’s Geography Department. “It’s not people on lower incomes taking these flights, it’s middle class people taking more flights to go on city breaks, and they can afford to pay higher prices.”

The study showed that knowledge of the impact of aviation among all groups of society was confused. In July, Ryanair was ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority not to repeat advertisements claiming aviation accounted for just 2% of carbon emissions, because the company did not explain the figure was based on global rather than UK statistics.

Brenda Boardman from Oxford University commented that “I’m not at all surprised that people are confused, because you have Tony Blair saying it’s unreasonable to ask people to stop flying; until you have politicians giving us some clear messages, people will be confused.”

Thanks to the Camp for Climate Action 2007, most of the UK has heard about the plans to expand Heathrow airport. Plans are also lodged to expand many other airports including Stansted, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Liverpool and East Midlands. Globally, aviation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.

However, whilst concern for the environment will apparently not get Brits to change their lifestyles, other recent studies have shown that the inconvenience of long queues, meticulous security checks and the risk of lost baggage can deter us from flying abroad. Market research group Mintel found that more Brits were taking cycling holidays in the UK than ever before, and 13% more Brits had taken a camping or caravanning holiday in the UK this year than in 2006. Holidaying in Britain is better for the economy as well as the environment, as Brenda Boardman points out.

Globally, aviation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. It is not possible for any government to commit seriously to reducing greenhouse gas emissions while also allowing airports to expand and the aviation industry to grow.

Sources include: Royal Geographical Society; Predict and Decide: Aviation, Climate Change and UK Policy; BBC online; Plane Stupid

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Energy supplier npower announced today that preliminary work at the Radley Lakes site in Oxfordshire would commence on 10th September, but conceded that work “would be reviewed” following the results of the ongoing inquiry due in the autumn.

The site has been the focus of an extensive legal battle, which has seen the giant energy company, owned by RWE npower, illegally felling trees and resorting to hiring a private security firm to keep out local protestors. Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper commented that npower’s actions over the case have done “damage to its reputation that will last a very long time indeed.”

In January this year, RWE npower gained planning permission to use Thrupp Lake, one of the two surviving Radley Lakes, as a dump for waste fly ash from a power station at nearby Didcot. Despite the status of Radley Lakes as a County Wildlife Site, planning permission was granted by Oxfordshire County Council; a spokesperson told ITV Thames Valley Today that they gave their permission due to “fear of facing a huge compensation claim” from RWE npower, showing the power such corporations can bring to bear on the public bodies intended to regulate them.

There was local outcry at the plan, with 11,500 residents signing up to a petition appealing the decision. Locals mobilised to protest against the plans peacefully, and in response RWE npower applied for a court injunction barring them from the site – an action reminiscent of BAA’s recent attempt to ban protesters from the Heathrow Airport neighbourhood. The injunction, granted by the high court, is wide-ranging and covers anyone who protests against RWE npower’s actions at Radley Lakes. RWE npower, its lawyers and the judge that agreed the injunction seem to be at odds as to whether it applies to the media as well as to protestors; in February, Adrian Arbib, a photographer covering the story for the BBC and The Guardian, was prevented from filming the site by masked security guards.

Thrupp Lake is 30-acres in size, surrounded by mature trees and the habitat for many birds and animals, including 15 species included on the Biodiversity Action Plan we mentioned yesterday. This would be lost if RWE npower’s plans to dump waste fly ash go ahead. Campaigners have pointed out that the waste could be recycled into building materials, a more sustainable solution to the waste problem, but RWE npower have refused to comment on the possibility of recycling, claiming that there is no alternative to tipping into Thrupp Lake. Work on the site has been halted over the summer for the bird nesting season and whilst residents apply for the site to be protected as a Town Green. The court case closed on the 22nd June, and now activists are waiting for the planning inspector’s findings to be sent to Oxfordshire County Council, whose Planning & Regulation Committee will then make a final decision on the application. The decision is expected in September or October. If the site is granted Town Green status, the Campaign to Protect Rural England Oxfordshire believes all work must be cancelled: “a landowner must maintain a Town Green in a suitable condition for communities to access and enjoy.Filling Thrupp Lake with fly ash is not compatible with that obligation.”

However, environmentalists are concerned that RWE npower may begin work before the case is finished. The Save Radley Lakes group’s lawyer sought a reassurance that npower would not proceed with the work while the hearing continued, but RWE npower’s lawyer declined to give this assurance.

Sources include: CPRE Oxon; Npower; EPUK; The FT

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The annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society was rocked yesterday by the announcement by an international team of scientists that arsenic contamination in drinking water is “the largest identified man-made environmental catastrophe”. A presentation by Cambridge University researchers revealed that 60 countries over 5 continents have been affected by arsenic contamination, with South East Asia, particularly Bangladesh, as the worst off. The health of 140 million people is threatened by the presence of arsenic, mostly in developing countries.

Whilst arsenic is naturally present in groundwater in some areas, it is through human error that it has entered the food chain in such large quantities. The pollution occurs when dead organic matter in the rock layers around the groundwater decay, creating an environment without oxygen. This leads to the microbial dissolution of iron oxides, releasing the arsenic that is usually strongly bound to the iron oxides.

Despite a heavy natural arsenic presence in the Ganges Plain of India and Bangladesh, international aid agencies, including UNICEF and the World Bank, began the practice of digging down to access groundwater to avoid the surface contamination in the 1970s. The project was initially a success, with levels of diarrhea-type illnesses and infant mortality cut in half. However, concerns about arsenic contamination surfaced, and Dipankar Chakraborti brought the problem to international attention in 1995. His research found 900 villages with arsenic above the government limit, but he described this figure as “only the tip of the iceberg.”

Allan Smith of the University of California, Berkeley, commented that in the long term 1 in 10 persons with high concentrations of arsenic in their drinking water die from it. Arsenic is a carcinogen, causing many cancers, but most often affecting the lungs. Smith added “Other environmental exposures do not result in commensurable mortality risks… I don’t know of one government agency which has given this the priority it deserves.”

Contamination on a large scale has been found throughout Asia in countries such as China, Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as in South America and Africa, though it is less of a problem in North America and Europe where most water is provided by utilities. Peter Ravenscroft of Cambridge University said his team has developed a model to enable them to identify regions at high risk of contamination.

In addition to concerns about drinking water, researchers have found that arsenic could be transferred from soil to rice crops, leading to concerns for people whose diet included large amounts of rice. Andrew Meharg of Aberdeen University suggested that this could be an issue, not just for those who live in contaminated areas, but for anybody worldwide for whom rice formed a staple part of their diet.

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For the thousands of people whose homes were damaged in the widespread flooding in the UK this summer, it may seem like a joke. But scientists have announced that climate change may carry an even higher risk of flooding than was first thought.

A new model produced by the Met Office’s Hadley Centre has shown that current estimates of increases in water levels fall short, due to a failure to acknowledge the effect of carbon dioxide on vegetation. As part of the process of photosynthesis through which they make their energy, plants absorb water from the ground through their roots and exhale it into the air from their leaves as water vapour. However, higher levels of CO₂ inhibit their ability to do this, which will result in less water being transferred from the ground to the air. Soil is likely to become waterlogged and flooding exacerbated. Richard Betts, the scientist behind the research, commented that “current impact assessments will need to be reworked.” The results, published in journal Nature today, predict that climate change and its effect on plants will cause river flow to increase by 13% over the next 300 years unless CO₂ emissions are reduced.

This news comes as the UK is struggling to resume normal service after floods devastated building and businesses across the country. The Association of British Insurers has said the total bill for the UK floods in June and July could reach £2bn. Different counties are experiencing problems as they try to refurbish affected buildings and roads, house those who have been made homeless and recover from subsequent losses to tourism and the leisure industry. Gloucestershire county council, for instance, estimates that necessary repairs to damaged roads alone will cost £25m, an entire year’s highways budget.

Following the floods, the Environment Agency’s chief executive Baroness Young said that about £1bn a year was needed to improve flood defences, and in July Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged an £800 million rise in annual spending on flood protection by 2010-11. This study implies that the cost of protecting

Britain effectively may be even higher.

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It’s a huge part of the national psyche. Rumours abound that it can be seen from space (it generally can’t). Kafka wrote a short story about it. But now the Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that parts of the wall are being destroyed – not by the Mongolian hordes it was built to deter, but by sandstorms.

The Great Wall is not a continuous structure, but was built in sections, with different dynasties favouring different building methods. The section under attack is that built during the Han dynasty, composed of bricks of packed earth.

An estimated 25 miles of wall in the dry and remote Gansu province have already been eroded. Archaelogist Zhou Shengrui commented that “Frequent storms not only eroded the mud, but also cracked the wall and caused it to collapse or break down.”

The wall is also under threat from human behaviour, with partygoers and migrant workers using sections as a toilet, and tourists hunting for souvenirs. Farmers also attack the stonework to reuse it for their own buildings.

In July this year the New Scientist reported that “parts of China are suffering meteorological misery of different kinds.” Dong Wenjie, director-general of the Beijing Climate Centre, commented that “The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are increasing. Records for worst-in-a-century rainstorms, droughts and heatwaves are being broken more often. This, in fact, is closely associated with global warming.”

Chinese scholars estimate that the sections of wall left standing are now around 1,500 miles long, down from a high of 3,900 miles during the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644). Conservationists in Gansu have now formulated a plan to bury the wall to protect it, and are planting vegetation to prevent further erosion.

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It has been a difficult summer for the Mediterranean. As we reported a few weeks ago, its beaches have been plagued by swarms of jellyfish, the surge in numbers attributed to over-fishing of predators and warmer seas due to climate change. Now environmentalists have been shocked by dozens of dead dolphin corpses washing up on the Mediterranean coast recently. The deaths are ascribed to a virus which some fear will become an epidemic.

The striped dolphins of the Mediterranean are already a protected species. The dolphins, also found in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, are threatened in the overly busy waters by pollution, shipping and incidental catches in fishing nets. Experts have tried to ensure numbers by keeping the breed in captivity, but these attempts have always failed, with the animals refusing to feed and dying within a few weeks.

The rapid decrease in population numbers due to the as-yet unidentified virus is a cause for concern: “We are at the start of an epidemic,” commented Javier Pantoja, an official at the Environment Ministry.

Spain’s structure of autonomous regions has led to concern about co-operation in tackling issues like this one. However, the Environment Ministry assured reporters that a meeting on the subject will be held in September to try to co-ordinate action and slow the spread of the virus.

In other news, experts have been cheered by a confirmed sighting of the Yangtze River dolphin, presumed extinct earlier this month. The dolphin was spotted and filmed several days ago by a local. Marine biologists will attempt to capture any surviving dolphins in order to breed them in captivity.

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The Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP), a document compiled by more than 500 wildlife experts and one of the most highly respected reference sources on UK endangered wildlife, has included hedgehogs and house sparrows among species requiring protection. The number of endangered species has doubled since the first BAP was launched in 1997.

However, the latest figures show that certain species have benefited from their inclusion on the original BAP list. Numbers of ladybird spiders and lady’s slipper orchids have increased. Biodiversity Minister Joan Ruddock said the updated list and action plan would help shape the government’s conservation policy: “The new list will help us target our resources and efforts where they are needed, and demonstrates our commitment to publish new priorities, targets and plans for halting biodiversity loss by 2010.”

Mark Avery, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)’s conservation director, said that the results of the study were worrying: “The fact that the bird list now includes more than a fifth of all the UK’s regularly occurring birds is a cause for alarm.” Both starlings and sparrows, which used to be very common in the UK, now require additional protection due to decreasing populations.

A University of London study, also published on Tuesday, highlighted the decline in the UK’s hedgehog population, and listed tidier gardens and urbanisation as key factors affecting them.

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