Malayan Tiger under pressure by poaching

A Malaysian government plan to double its population of endangered Malayan tigers to 1,000 through tighter protection is under threat due to persistent poaching, a conservation group has said in a report. Illegal hunting, fuelled by continued demand for tiger parts remains a serious threat to the animal and other endangered wildlife, said MYCAT Tracks, an alliance of conservation groups. The Malayan tiger is a subspecies of the great cat and is found in central and southern parts of the Malayan peninsula. In 200

9, the government announces a plan to double the wild Malayan tiger population- now estimated at just 500- by the year 2020. Conservationists say factors behind the fall in numbers include poaching, declines in prey, such as deer and wild boars, and habitat loss due to agricultural development.

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Study finds out that early Earth may have been prone to deep freezes

Two University of Colorado Boulder researchers who have adapted a three-dimensional, general circulation model of Earth's climate to a time some .8 billion years ago when the sun was significantly fainter than present, think the planet may have been more prone to catastrophic glaciation than previously believed.

Then new 3-d model of the Archean Eon on Earth that lasted from about3.8 billion years to 2.5 billion years ago, incorporates interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, land, ice and hydrological cycles, said CU-Boulder doctoral student Eric Wolf of the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department. Wolf has been using the new climate model, which is based on the Community Earth System Model maintained by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, in part to solve the "faint young sun paradox" that occurred several billion years ago when the sun's output was only 70% to 80% of that today, but when geologic evidence shows the climate change was as warm or warmer than now.

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Global warming is responsible for the reason why plants are flowering faster

Plants are flowering faster than scientists predicted in response to climate change which, according to researchers, could have devastating knock-on effects for food chains and ecosystems. Global warming is having a significant impact on hundreds of plant and animal species around the world, changing some breeding, migration and feeding patterns, the experts said in a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels can affect how plants produce oxygen, while higher temperatures and variable rainfall patterns can change their behavior. "Predicting species' response to climate change is a major challenge in ecology", said researchers from the University of California San Diego and several other US institutions.

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New innovations lead to a step forward in global carbon trading

It has been pointed out that our modern world could quickly become cleaner, safer and more sustainable if only externalities, such as air pollution or carbon emissio

ns, were internalized, so that they could be captured and factored into the economic equation. Efforts to do this with greenhouse gases, so far, have had mixed results. The effectiveness of these market- driven programmes depend largely on the actual piece of carbon, which at present is very low, because of the fact that there is no uniform global carbon, trading system, only a patchwork of individuals countries. This creates fairness problems when countries that have regulations do business with countries that do not. This is so called carbon leakage will always occur to some extent until there is a truly global carbon emissions agreement. It has been announce that Australia will link up their emissions trading systems with the EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS.). It represents a major step towards the establishment of a global system. With international climate negotiation occurring in Bangkok, talks are reportedly underway with California, South Korea and Switzerland to form a similar agreement. The European Union's ETS, which began in 2005, is the biggest programme by far, operating in 30 countries and covering power stations, oil refineries, iron and steel works, cement plants and more.

source: Terra Green

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Wind power generation is not likely to substantially affect climate

Though there is enough in earth's winds to be a primary source of near-zero emission electric power for the worl

d, large-scale high altitude wind power generation is unlikely to substantially affect climate. That is the conclusion of a group of scientists who studied the geophysical limits to global wind power. "The future of wind energy is likely to be determined by economic, political and technical constraints rather than geophysical limits", said a leading scientist in the Laboratory's Programme for Climate Model Diagnosis and inter-comparison. Airborne turbines that convert steadier and faster high-altitude winds into energy could generate even more power than ground and ocean based units. The study examined the limits of the amount of power that could be harvested from winds, as well as the effects high-altitude wind power could have on the climate as whole.

source:Terra Green

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Rising seas to cause threat to the world's most beautiful mosque

One of the most important shipping lanes in the world, the Strait of Malacca, in Malaysia is pa

rticularly vulnerable to Climate change. The Malay Government has long known this. Even during colonial times, tidal stations were set up to monitor sea levels in the country. According to the Sea Level Monitoring Network, "there are 12 tidal stations along the coast of Sabah and Sarawak". But, this has not stopped such improbable developments as the Malacca Island- the first "Twin Island City Center"-0 on the southern shore of which the Malacca Straits Mosque was built. The Mosque was completed towards the end of 2009 and cost 3.3 million. Although there is nothing green about it, it would be a shame to see such a beautiful building swallowed up by water, of which there is a very strong chance.

source:Terra Green

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Dwarf plants to cut cost down and to reduce environmental footprint

Tall, waving corn field that line Midwestern roads may soon be replaced by dwarfed versions that require less water, fertilizer and other input, thanks to a fungicide commonly used on golf courses. Burkhard Schulz, a Purdue University assistant professor of plant biochemical and molecular genetics, had earlier f

ound that knocking out the steroid function in corn plants would create tiny versions that only had female sex characteristics. But brassinazole, the chemical used to inhibit the plant steroid biosynthesis, was prohibitively expensive. One gram of brassinazole could cost as much as $ 25,000, so Schulz started looking into other options. He found that propiconzole, used to treat fungal dollar spot disease on golf course, is more potent and costs about 10 cents for the same amount.

source: Terra Green

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Human activities became second in China when Power plants led to rapid glacial meltdown in China

Experts say pollution caused by humans is the second leading cause in the melting of a glacier in the Tan Shan Mountains of Xinjiang. The number one glacier in the Tianshan Mountains in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region has been retreating by more than four metres every year and its thickness has shrunk by more than

15 metres between 1958-2010, says one of the experts from the Tian Shan Mountains glacier observation station under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. However, Director of the International Center for integrated Mountain Development argues that climate change is the leading cause in the acceleration of the glacier thawing, with another major cause being Black carbon. The Black carbon refers to the particles including dust and ashes generated by incomplete combustion of carbon-containing material, such as the fossil and biomass material. Researchers at the Tian Shan Mountains glacier observation station under the Chinese Academy of Sciences said there are several power plants and building material factories, which have been operating for nearly 30 years near the glacier and the black carbon emissions from these plants have been accumulating on the surface of the glacier, and the black colour of the particles can absorb heat from the sun and intensify the thawing of the glacier. Additionally, the plants have also been polluting the water supply of the regional capital Urumqi, since the Urumqi Rive that runs through the city has originated from the glacier.

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New cars in the EU produce less CO2

New cars and vans in the European Union will produce one-third less carbon dioxide within eight years, under proposed new rules set out in Brussels. By 2020, the average emissions from new cars will have to be no more than 95g of carbon dioxide per kilometre driven, a cut of more than 40g from today's levels and of 35g/km compared with the 2015 target, if they proposed new regulations are accepted. Connie Hedegaard, climate chief of the European commission, said the goals were "ambitious but achievable" and would benefit consumers, through fuel cost savings, and help the EU's car making industry compete with overseas manufacturers. The proposals will now have to be accepted by member states and the European parliament, if they are to come into force. That process could be tricky as car companies are continuing to lobby politicians on the goals. According to the EU's estimates, as a result of the new goals the average driver of a new car in 2020 would save about 340 in the first year on fuel costs, and between about 2,900 and 3,800 over the car's average 13-year lifetime, compared with the 2015 target. This would equate to total savings of about 30bn a year in fuel costs, which could increase EU GDP by 12bn a year and create new jobs, as well as saving about 160m tonnes of imported oil.

source:Terra Green

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