Climate Change

OWNING THE WEATHER VIDEO

2006-08-30T16:58:00.000+02:00

Link to quite an Interesting Video (fairly small file size so low quality video)

Cheers

Rich

http://planet.botany.uwc.ac.za/nisl/Video/owning_the_weather.rm

ASHOK BALI - NISL INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNER

2006-08-29T15:34:00.002+02:00

Hello all

My name is Ashok Bali and I am an Instructional Designer for NISL. I prepared Chapter 2 of trhe Biodiversity course. I am based at UWC and my involvement in this course was to provide you with the video narration for the videos that you have seen. I hope that the course is going well and wish you all the best.

Ashok

VULNERABILITY OF SOUTH AFRICAN ANIMAL TAXA TO CLIMATE CHANGE

2006-08-28T11:50:00.000+02:00

This is a short summary of an article by Erasmus et al. (2000) that deals with, as the title suggested, the vulnerability of South African animal taxa to climate change. Similar studies have been done to evaluate the possible effects of climate change on our flora (McDonald and Midgley 1996; Rutherford et al. 2000; Midgley et al. 2002), but this is the firsts study that deals with the possible effects of climate change on our fauna.

The authors selected 179 animal species across a wide taxonomic range, to be included in this study. 34 bird species, 19 mammals, 50 reptiles, 19 butterflies and 57 ‘other invertebrate’ species (including beetles, antlions and termites) were selected. Historic and predicted climate data (using the Hadley Centre Unified Model with no sulphates) were used which was provided by the Computing Centre for Water Research, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. The variables used in this study were the minimum of the 12 mean monthly minimum temperatures, the maximum of the 12 mean monthly maximum temperatures and the precipitation seasonality, using the February and August mean rainfall figures. The historic climate data were resampled to 15’x15’ grid cells to conform to the resolution of the species data.

Values of climate variables at known records were used to interpolate distributions and climate affected distributions were produced by using the predicted climate data. The changes in distribution patterns were then assessed by comparing the interpolated distribution with the climate affected distributions. These analyses were conducted separately for each taxonomic group, collectively across all species and also collectively for red data and vulnerable species.

The accuracy of the model was tested by comparing interpolated data with known records. Because of incomplete data for most species, only the bird data was used to evaluate the models accuracy. The Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses showed that the model was a fairly good one and could be used for predicting future distributions. Although this can only be said for the birds, this is the best model the authors could come up with, with the limited data available.

The results were quite disconcerting. 25% of all species modelled showed a more than 90% shift in their range. For red data and vulnerable species this went up as high as 40%! That is 40% of red data and vulnerable species displayed a more than 90% range shift under the changed climate conditions. Of all the invertebrates about 40% showed range contraction under the 2050 scenario. 78 % (139 species) of all species modelled showed range contraction, 17 % (30 species) expanded their range, 3% (6 species) showed no response and 2% (4 species) became extinct. Thus the overall results showed that the majority of species could experience a major decline in range size and also substantial range displacement, mostly in a west to east direction. What is really concerning is that these predictions could actually be underestimates as landscape transformation has not been explicitly factored into the model! That means many species may actually never be able to migrate to more favourable habitat because of land transformation and fragmentation.

The authors did however superimpose areas of the country where more than 50% has already been transformed by human activity (Fairbanks et al. 2000) on the post climate change species richness map. This was done to see how much ‘pristine’ land would be available to accommodate the shifts in range of species. The results highlight the potential increase in conflicts between those who want to transform land and conservation advocates. It also highlights the need to incorporate such studies in regional conservation planning, which according to the authors is not routinely done!

The authors acknowledged that the model used cannot be said to be accurate across the taxa sampled, but should be seen as an estimate of the proportion of species that have distributions determined largely by climate. It should be seen as a “first take of the likely impacts of climate change on animal distributions in South Africa” (Erasmus et al. 2000, p 686).

In conclusion this study suggests that a change in climate will have a profound impact on South African terrestrial animal species. The results should also be seen as conservative as the currents population growth rate in South Africa will result in intense landscape transformation. According to the authors “mitigation of the impacts of climate change is ultimately a function of political will to confront difficult issues such as land-use and population planning” (Erasmus et al. 2000, p 688). Actions that must be taken by conservationist and researchers to improve the situation is to substantially improve the quality of information on animal taxa in South Africa including diversity and range, making sure that this information is integrated into land-use planning, researching the links between climate and animal distributions and most important of all conveying research findings to politicians!

References:

Erasmus BFN, van Jaarsveld AS, Chown SL, Kshatriya M and Wessels KJ. 2002. Vulnerability of South African animal taxa to climate change. Global Change Biology 8: 679–693.

Fairbanks DHK et al. 2000. The South African land-cover characteristics database: a synopsis of the landscape. South African Journal of Science 96:69-82.

McDonald IAW and Midgley GF. 1996. Impacts and implications for nature conservation. In: Shackleton LY, Lennon SJ, Tosen GR editors. Global Climate Change and South Africa. Cleveland, South Africa: Environmental Scientific Association. p 83-86.

Midgley GF, Hannah L, Millar D, Rutherford MC and Powrie LW. 2002. Assessing the vulnerability of species richness to anthropogenic climate change in a biodiversity hotspot. Global Ecology & Biogeography 11:445-451.

Rutherford MC et al. 2000. Climate Change in conservation areas of South Africa and its potential impact on floristic composition: a first assessment. Diversity and Distributions 5: 253-262.

Image credit: http://www.moleplace.com/images/goldenMole01.jpg

Karen Marais
BCB Hons NISL student
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville

E-mail 2657211@uwc.ac.za

Web http://brit-journal.com/karen2006bcbnisl/

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

"HUMAN FOOTPRINTS AND FLOODS"

2006-08-27T21:23:00.000+02:00

A recent article by Jorisna Bonthuys in the Afrikaans newspaper Die Burger caught my attention. She looked at the recent floods in the Southern and Eastern Cape and asked the questions: “How far back does the memory of decision makers go when developments in floodplains and wetlands are approved? Does improper soils management influence the extent of floods? What is the effect of wetlands that have been destroyed on the surroundings? Who must be held accountable for damage to infrastructure in areas where developments should never have been allowed in the first place? ” (Bonthuys J. 2006 August 22. Mens-spoor en die vloede. Die Burger; Forum: p13.)

According to Mr Rodney February from the WWF-SA’s (World Wildlife Fund – South Africa) freshwater unit, a lot of the recent flood damage is due to poor decisions on soil management and developments that had been taken decades ago. So it is often difficult to hold the current authorities responsible. Yet, bad decisions are still being taken as pressure to develop more housing and to expand our economy builds. Neither Cape Nature, nor WWF-SA nor WESSA (Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa) in principle approve of developments below the 1:50 year flood line or even the 1:100 year flood line and of developments in wetlands or on river banks, yet we see such developments around us springing up on a far too regular basis.

Why are there properties set out in primary dune areas? Why were developers allowed to alter the river courses by filling them up with sand to “produce” more even ground for development? One feels sorry for home owners in Glentana whose entire houses were washed away in the recent floods, but then again those houses should never have been built there in the first place. And yet according to this article about 80% of the town development in areas such as Groot-Brak and Klein-Brak are below flood lines. Somehow it just doesn’t make sense.

Of course rivers have been altered as well and that has a great influence on how water is carried down that river in times of floods. According to Dr. Cecile Reed from the University of Cape Town’ s unit for freshwater ecology, rivers should be managed as a unit from source to sea. He says that almost all rivers in the southern Cape have been altered in some way or another. Rivers have been canalized, because farmers that want to make use of fertile floodplains want to get floodwaters past their properties as fast as possible, without thinking what damage this might cause further downstream. Natural vegetation has been removed along river banks with the result that the rivers’ natural buffers in times of floods have been destroyed. Wetlands also function has buffers in times of flooding, but according to Mr. Japie Buckle from SANBI’s Working for Wetlands Project, more than two-third of the southern Cape’s palmiet wetlands have already been destroyed, mostly because of bad soil management and farming practices. The Duiwenhoks- and Goukou Rivers have been altered greatly and repeated floods in the past few years have consequently damaged wetlands so badly, ripping then apart and creating great dongas through the wetlands that the water table has dropped by several meters. Restoration in such systems is essential if the wetlands are still to function, but once such extensive damage has been done it becomes extremely costly to restore. Yet almost all river systems in the southern Cape need some form of restoration to prevent even further ecosystem decay…

One wonders how this could have happened. Is it just ignorance or truly a lack of knowledge that has led to our rivers becoming sick and dysfunctional? And what lessons will have been learnt by the recent floods? Will decision makers’ memories last? According to climatologist more flash floods are on the cards as our climate becomes warmer… will we wake up in time?

Reference:

Bonthuys J. 2006 August 22. Mens-spoor en die vloede. Die Burger; Forum: p13.

Image credits:
http://www.news24.com/Images/Photos/2006080213374902_damage.jpg
http://www.news24.com/Images/Photos/2006082418283124_flood.jpg

Karen Marais
BCB Hons NISL student
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville

E-mail 2657211@uwc.ac.za

Web http://brit-journal.com/karen2006bcbnisl/

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

AMERICANS MUST LEAVE

2006-08-27T11:37:00.000+02:00

Available from: http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1988908,00.html

I think this kind of headlines will become more frequent the next decade. Lets wait and see

Chad's President Idriss Deby Itno has ordered the foreign oil firms ChevronTexaco and Petronas to leave the country for non-payment of taxes.
According to national radio reports, Deby told the firms to be out by Sunday.
"From tomorrow, representatives of Chevron and Petronas must leave Chad and close their offices for not respecting their commitment in accordance with clauses relating to the payment of taxes on the companies," said Deby in a speech to government and political leaders on Saturday.
The major United States company, ChevronTexaco, and Petronas of Malaysia are two of three members of a consortium extracting the central African country's oil resources.
Their departure would leave the US oil giant ExxonMobil and the Chadian government to tap the resources together "while waiting to find a solution with the two other partners", said Deby.
In a bid to increase Chad's own share of its oil revenue, Deby told his government on Wednesday to renegotiate the contract it signed with the US-Malaysian consortium in 1988.
A source in the oil ministry said the state would use the Chad Hydrocarbons Company to try to enter the consortium.
Deby said on Saturday that three ministers involved in the deal would cease work and go before judicial authorities "to answer for their acts".
He did not name the ministers and no further details are available.
Oil has been flowing in the Doba basin in southern Chad since 2003.
Chad, which produces less than 200 000 barrels of oil a day, saw its gross domestic product leap 40% after oil production began in 2004.

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

FIRE AS AN ECOLOGICAL TOOL

2006-08-17T10:17:00.000+02:00

It is well known and taught at any tertiary institutions that the Fynbos region or Mediterranean regions are maintained and regulated by fire intervals of approximately 10 to 20 years. The Fynbos is a rich and beautiful biome that boasts with more than 8500 floral and faunal species which are all situated in the greater part of the Western Cape. It is well known that a positive correlation exist between meteorological conditions and fires. With rapid increase of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, which subsequently warm up the Earth, Global warming may increase the risk of wildfires by warming and drying the vegetation. Giving the Western Cape’s prolonged dry, windy conditions and expected reduction in rainfall, the combination of Global warming and increase speeds of winds, may or can threaten the flora and fauna (Torn and others 1998; Piñol and others 1998). Wild-fires – particularly those that escape initial containment efforts – also pose a risk to people and property, particularly at the rapidly growing veld-urban interface (Fried and others 2004). An excellent example of this is the fire near Rooi Els of 2005, and some parts of the coastal towns in the Cape Province.

Other countries with similar climate and vegetation are the west coast of America – the chaparral – Spain and Portugal. These countries have lately been in the news because of their runaway wild fire and research centres in these countries with usage of general circulation models (GCM) have predicted atrocious results for these fire prone regions. A double-CO2 climate will lead to changes in weather-related indices of potential fire intensity and rate of spread, increases in fire ignitions and lengthening of the fire season (Fried and others 2004). More and more ecosystems will be affected by the drier conditions which favour veld fires. None is as big as the Amazon. This giant basin, hold approximately 60% of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests (Laurance and Williamson 2001) that plays a crucial part in biodiversity conservation, Carbon storage and Global climate. Due to human migration into this area, forests are cleared to make way for agriculture, which only enhance CO2 in the atmosphere. Under natural conditions, fires in the Amazon basin are few and far in between, but with the help of the El Nino Southern Oscillation causing periods of drought which exacerbated it (fires) to about every 4-7 years (Laurance and Williamson 2001). With the aid of humans fires are becoming more, which means more CO2 into the atmosphere.

If this, the Amazon basin are the lungs of the Earth, and we as humans are smoking it up – then soon we’ll have chronically lung cancer!

Reference:

Fried JS, Torn MS, Mill E. 2004. The impact of climate change on wildfire severity: A regional forecast for Northern California. Climate Change 64: 169-191.

Laurance WF & Williamson GB. 2001. Positive feedbacks among forest fragmentation, drought, and climate change in the Amazon. Conservation Biology 15 (6): 1529-1535.

Piñol J, Terradas J, Lloret F. 1998. Climate Warming, wildfire hazard and wildfire occurrence in coastal Eastern Spain. Climatic Change 38: 345–357.

Torn MS, Mills E, Fried J. 1998. Will Climate Change Spark More Wildfire Damage? Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report No. LBNL-42592. 10 p.

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

CLIMATE CURVE BALLS

2006-08-16T18:04:00.000+02:00

I have taken this heading from a presentation Guy Midgley from the Climate Research Working Group at SANBI has given at the Fynbos Forum last week. Here is a short summary of his lecture. Or at least how I understood and interpreted it.

The reason why so much research is going into detecting and predicting climate change is ultimately to influence policy, behaviour and new technology on a world wide scale. That the climate is changing is difficult to dispute and is accepted by most people in the scientific community. Can we stop climate change? No, but we could possibly slow it down or change its course somewhat.

Adaptation is the only option and the doomsday scenarios that seem to be getting a lot of attention in the media lately have got a positive side to them. They are essentially unmitigated worst case scenarios and could be used to tactically galvanize mitigation responses. A fairly recent paper by Thomas et al. (2004) was widely quoted in newspapers. But as sensation is what sells, the media usually concentrates on the worst case scenarios… and omit the mitigated scenarios. According to Thomas et al. (2004) there could be an 11% extinction rate of global biodiversity by the year 2050 even if the climate only changes minimally (minimum climate change scenarios), but this could rise to a whopping 58% extinction rate of global biodiversity for the maximum climate change scenarios. (Although the media apparently focused on the 58% and elaborated on the how great such a loss would be, I find 11% also quite shocking!!!)

Guy Midgley focused on four factors that will have a major influence on the environment as the climate changes. These are climate extremes, fire, water and carbon dioxide. For climate extremes, it is not only the mean values that are changing, but also the number of extreme climate events. These extreme events could exceed the tolerance levels of many species, especially if these events become more frequent. Should the low extremes of temperature shift just slightly towards warmer temperatures, this could also have an adverse effect on some species as some seeds need that extra cold temperature as a cue to germinate.

Although the overall average temperature increase in the Western Cape over the past century was not much, the average minimum temperature has increased by two degrees Celsius! There are also definite changes in the precipitation trends of the Western Cape over the past 50 years. Although trends are difficult to analyze, there seems to be a definite increase in extreme rainfall events. Here it is vital to understand how important institutional memory is!

As conditions are becoming hotter and drier, fires will become more frequent. These fires are likely to become very large scale fires, burning to the ground huge areas at a time. Although natural habitats in the Western Cape are fire dependent, too frequent fires could have detrimental effects on the fynbos biome. Many plant species have a relatively long juvenile period and do not set seed before they have reached a certain age, which can be up to 10 years for some Proteaceae species. Thus too frequent burns can wipe out populations, especially if these fires cover large areas! Some climate scenarios are predicting a doubling or even tripling of fire risk days in the Western Cape by 2050. This means education is paramount in achieving minimal accidental ignitions. Having a ‘braai’ in or close to fire prone vegetation should not even be an option! (And places like Table Mountain should be declared smoke-free zones… )

Water is a scarce commodity in the Western Cape, although the majority of our population hasn’t caught on to this fact yet! Capetonians know all about water restrictions, but most seem to think it was just a temporary problem (and so does the municipality apparently, for why did they abolish the water restrictions after the first good rains???). Climate modelling for precipitation has only been done at a course scale up to now and fine scale modelling needs to be done as techniques improve. Present models predict less precipitation overall, but an increase in heavy downpours. The conundrum in Cape Town is however the fast expansion of the city… so even without climate change, we are going to run out of water.

There are already possible indicators that the water table is dropping. Some fynbos species occupy water micro-niches and these will probably be affected first. Some species occur according to water table depth and already some dye back of Proteaceae species has been noted in an otherwise healthy stands. Could this be an indicator of a drop in the water table? There has also been much talk of tapping into aquifers around Cape Town (I have heard of one in the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve that has been earmarked for tapping…) to try and meet water demands of the growing city. (Again, I feel education is the starting point and not sourcing more water supplies… we could all do with using less water!)

The increase in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is acting as a fertilizer to many plants. This however apparently is not true for Mediterranean-type shrubland vegetation… According to Dr. Midgley, fynbos species do not respond to the increase in carbon dioxide available, but invasive species could very well do. It has already been proven that Acacia karoo responds very favourably to an increase in carbon dioxide as more carbon is fixed in its roots that then become more robust. If this holds true for the alien Acacias we have here in the Western Cape, they might just have an unfair advantage!!

The theory behind climate change models is still incomplete and one therefore has to look at a range of scenarios. Careful monitoring right down to species level is necessary to try and detect early signs of adverse effects to a changing climate and then compare that to scenarios to see how accurate they are.

I found the presentation truly thought provoking and I hope that I have been able to portray the main points as they were intended by Dr. Midgley. (Take note that comments in brackets are my own and were not part of the presentation.)

Have we got the will and guts to change and to adapt our lifestyles to one that is more sustainable or are we going to wait until it is too late??

Reference:

Thomas CD, Cameron A, Green RE, Bakkenes M, Beaumont LJ, Collingham YC, Erasmus BFN, Ferreira de Siqueira M, Grainger A, Hannah L, Hughes L, Huntley B, van Jaarsveld AS, Midgley GF, Miles L, Ortega-Huerta MA, Townsend Peterson A, Phillips OL and Williams SE. 2004. Extinction risk from climate change. Nature 427:145-148.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/twmlabs/29463820/

Karen Marais
BCB Hons NISL student
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville

E-mail 2657211@uwc.ac.za

Web http://brit-journal.com/karen2006bcbnisl/

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

DO WE HAVE ENOUGH FRESHWATER?

2006-08-16T10:23:00.000+02:00

The Western Cape or in particular Cape Town heavily depend on the annual winter rainfall to supply the province and city of their freshwater supply. The regular and consistent winter rainfall also regulates - as it has done it for the past 5 millions years, - this Mediterranean’s floral and faunal diversity. However with the steady rise of Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, resulting in global warming, the whole rainfall pattern is expected to change. Climate computer modelling from the Hadley Centre predicts up to a 25% decrease in the annual rainfall in this province. With a population that are booming, Cape Town is fast becoming South Africa premier city after Jozi. The demand for water in this water scarce province will soar and to rub salt to our wounds, the climate will be inconsistent and heavy, prolonged droughts can be expected. The effect of a prolonged drought will be felt across this multiracial province from the poorest of the poor, to the boere and to the rich and famous. So what are the options?

Tony Robinson looks at the economics of water from the sea and ask whether desalination would be viable in South Africa, since it is quite successful in other countries. According to him, desalination is no the panacea to South Africa’s water shortages but it will provide a security of supply in times of need. The technology is available and several other countries and islands have employ this processes since most of these countries and islands don’t have the benefits of mountainous catchment areas, rivers and dams in place to get their freshwater. According Robinson (2006) about 80 % of all salt removing processes is happening in the Middle East, where water production is coupled with the power stations. This process in Middle East involves the usages of gas, oil and nuclear power to boil the sea water, where it condensed for drinking water. The Europeans, Americans and Aussies make use of reverse osmosis, which is the application of pressure to separate the salt and the water. This method or a simple version of this method have been in place since 1881 on the island of Malta and have supplied the people and its tourist booming industry (Robinson 2006).

So why don’t we implement such programmes? The reasons according Tim Robinson is that our dam water is cheap and it provide little motivation to save water. He say that only 10 % of this water are recycled while the other 90% that are treated just run into our oceans. Only 2% are used for drinking, cooking and washing of hands purposes while approximately 35% and 20% are used on baths, showers and garden respectively.
If the government can encourage its people and industries to save more than the current percentage, and not just when there is a water crisis, this province will not be surprised when human-induced climatic conditions take its toll.

Reference:Robinson T. 2006. Sweet water from the sea. Progress Magazine. p 34 -37

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

REVIEW: CAPTURING CARBON TO SLOW GLOBAL WARMING – Jamie dePolo

2006-08-16T10:16:00.000+02:00

It started out as a far fetched scare, but now global warming has become a scientific reality. Greenhouse gases in the form of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide are the main gasses that act as a car’s window, permitting solar radiation which causes an increase in temperature. Unless the windows stay close, no heat can escape, but if the windows are lowered, heat can escape that refresh the car. The mentioned above process are a modified version of the real greenhouse – effect.

The Kyoto protocol was set up in 1997 with the intention to target greenhouse gas emissions of the developed countries. Due various economic reasons, Australia and the US did not ratify the protocol. Up till today these two countries haven’t agree to the protocol. However, in 2004 Russia approved and confirms their part in the whole global warming and greenhouse scenario. This means that the Kyoto protocol is in binding since February 2005. In the meanwhile, scientists and researchers have look for methods and management strategies that would both benefit farmers and the environment.

The two dominant greenhouse gases are carbon based: Carbon dioxide and Methane. One way of keeping carbon dioxide in the soil rather than in the atmosphere is through tillage management. No till makes soil more stable increasing water and nutrient capacity, resulting in better crop production but it doesn’t end there.
Another way to minimize Carbon concentration is by looking at wetlands.
According this article, wetlands cover about 3% of the Earth’s surface which provide services to humans and carbon sequestering is one of them. Peat lands are wetlands with a different taste. It contains layers of dead biomass that have accumulated over the decades and with as much of 50 % of Carbon stored within it. These peat lands hold approximately 30 % of soil carbon which invite managers to protect this already scarce ecosystem. Studies in Alaska, reveals that as the ice starts to melt, the plants species that are anti – decomposition perform much better and can thus extract more carbon dioxide from atmosphere. However as climate gets warmer the peat lands will get drier and will be more fire prone. The amount of CO2 released from peat lands after a fire is unknown and further studies are necessary to determine that.

To come back to the role of agriculture in carbon sequestering, it will provide a short term solution for the high levels of carbon based compounds until alternative fuel sources are available. Plants and crops use carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, but when leaves or other plant matter falls to the ground, it is either converted to CO2 or it will be part of the soil organic matter. Practises such as no tilling, mentioning earlier means that soil are not tilled each and every year, but there are time when the soil are left alone. This will allow carbon to stay longer in the soil and out of the atmosphere. There are also benefits that accompany the no tillage practises, which is mention earlier. Agriculture contributes 20 -40 % to the GHG emissions, thus tackling this problem will reduce CO2 to about 8 – 10% which are required by the Kyoto protocol.

Similar to that of peat lands, the question remain for how long will the soil hold unto the carbon and how easy will it be released when the soil are tilled. Carbon sequestering is not the solution to our problem but it will give us time, something that we don’t have!

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

CORAL REEF BLEACHING

2006-08-14T11:26:00.000+02:00

Coral reefs are one of the most industrious and sensitive ecosystems on Earth. They provide services in form of fisheries, shoreline protection, tourism and they have assisted us with medicine (Union of Concerned Scientists 2005, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs 1999). As global temperatures are expected to increase and already it is, enormous pressure is exerted on reefs as a slight increase of temperature can cause coral to lose their symbiotic algae. Corals develop effectively where the water is between 26° and 30°C (Merle 2006). Above 30°C pending on species or ecotype, corals become separated from the symbiotic algae which are the crucial partners of their survival (Buddemeier and Fautin 1993). These algae are responsible for the feeding and colour of corals. When the algae die, corals turn whitish and are said to be “bleached”. According to Buddemeier and Fautin (1993) bleaching appears to be a basic physiological attribute of many, if not all, organisms having zooxanthellae, both in response to stress and in the absence of stress. Keep in mind that this is a natural occurring event.
Since the 1970 and 1980, a strong correlation existed between the increase water temperature and coral bleaching. These data were based on the El Nino that raised the water temperature of the Pacific near Tahiti resulting in over 500 kilometres of reefs that have been bleached. Similar results were observed for the reefs near the Caribbean Islands but on a lesser scale. During the mentioned above years the El Nino-effect raised the sea surface temperature with 4°C above normal, but global warming pose are far greater problem, as the El Nino occurs approximately every ten years, while global warming will kind of give a permanent increase of temperature (Union of Concerned Scientists 2005). Thus it is possible to associate coral bleaching to increase sea surface temperature due to global warming caused by anthropogenic activities.

Global warming will provide coral reefs with plenty of stress. Apart from the increase of temperature on the surface of the sea, humans will always increase their resources due to the ever increasing human population.
Thus mass bleaching events will become more frequent and widespread. Increasing human stresses such as pollution, overfishing, soil erosion, and physical damage from boats and other recreational activities will also weaken corals (Union of Concerned Scientists 2005, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs 1999). The time for coral to regenerate take several decades and the stresses mention above, will slow down their adaptation to the most important change, that of climate change.

Coral bleaching is not just an isolated case, but it is happening all over the ocean within the suitable climatic regions (tropical, warm temperatures), and several coral reefs in 60 countries in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Mediterranean and Caribbean have been reported. It is appearing not only at shallow depth but also deeper down (Union of Concerned Scientists 2005).
Furthermore, as ocean warming coincides with sea-level rise and perhaps more frequent tropical storms and El Ninos, reefs are likely to experience greater coastal erosion, sedimentation, and turbidity, which would add to their demise.

Reference:

Union of Concerned Scientists. Climate change: Early Warning Signs- Coral Bleaching; 2005 October. [Cited 2006 Aug 10]. Available from: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/early-warning-signs-of-global-warming-coral-reef-bleaching.html

Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. Coral Bleaching, Coral Mortality, and Global Climate Change; 1999 March. [Cited 2006 Aug 10]. Available from: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/ImpactsFisheries.html

Merle J. South Pacific Climate Variability and its Impact on Low-Lying Islands;
Date Unknown; [Cited 2006 Aug 10]. Available from: http://www.unesco.org.uy/phi/libros/enso/merle.html

Buddemeier RW & Fautin DG. 1993. Coral Bleaching as an Adaptive Mechanism: A testable hypothesis. Bioscience 43 (5): 320-326.

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

REVIEW: ARE WE PUTTING OUR FISH IN HOT WATER? WWF-REPORT

2006-08-14T11:22:00.000+02:00

A topic during the Honours course (Parasitology) dealt with abilities of parasites and fishes as indicators of a system. This debate between the students showcased the best indicator for any ecosystem. The result of the debate were inconclusive, however for the purpose of this assignment, I will look at the sensitivity of various of fish species in different regions of the world, and how it try to cope at luring dangers of a rapid increase in global temperature, caused mainly by humans.
Fishes are more sensitive to temperature than any other animal on this planet. The reason why is because they can’t keep their body temperature constant and readily adopt that of the environment. Planet Earth has over 27 000 known fish species and it forms an integral part of the global biodiversity. Primarily from a human perspective, fishes are the staple food for billions with approximately 132 millions metric tons of fish that are capture and raised each year. From this millions, 75 % are directly consumed by humans.

Fishes occupies different and sometimes narrow niches, which are sometimes and most often characterize by temperature. As human has increased their usage and burning of fossil fuel (Coal, Oil and Gas) over the past 100 years, a rapid rise in global temperature is already happening. Warmer water, changes in climate, rainfall, currents and sea level are a result of global warming which are already influencing fisheries and fish biology around the world. Warmer water might be fatal, for several Artic species which depend on the cold, nutrient rich oxygenated water. Temperate fishes will now tend to move polewards, while tropical fish will enter new ecosystems due to the increase in temperature. Fishes at or near the poles has no other way to go deeper into the ocean, threatening their existance and competition will automatically increase in this system.

A study has shown that 120 000 birds died recently because these polar fishes went a bit deeper, resulting that these birds were unable to feed on them. The South Eastern Province of India, heavily rely on False Trevally where it is economically and culturally important. Due to the climatic changes, this part of India has received much less rain which meant less water running from the rivers into the sea. This caused a reduction in both nutrients and the fish population. In the poorer parts of the World, especially in Africa, fishing forms an important part in human’s purse and stomach. A study in Ghana revealed that when fish supply was low, bush meat (variety of wild animals) soared plus the poaching inclined. The indigenous people of the Artic have first hand experience of the shift and fluctuation of fish population as the global warming – effect have change the distribution and numbers of the former common fishes.

In order to conserve the global biodiversity, all of us have to take responsibility and lower our greenhouse gas emissions. It is not just the climate that will be affected but every other organism’s distribution and numbers. We as humans have to realize that we are part of web that are regulated by a sensitive climate, and already some part of the web are beginning to disappear.

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE & THE FLORA OF SOUTH AFRICA

2006-08-14T11:20:00.000+02:00

Global climate change, I believe should be and are already on top of the international agenda. With the hunger and thirst that we as humans go after fossil fuel to sustain our daily livelihoods, we actually just shaping the environment to something different that it has been the past billion years. We are rapidly increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, with some climate models predicting a rise in temperature of 1.5 – 4.5° Celsius causing the Earth to warm up(Rowlands 1996). The concentration of Carbon Dioxide is set to exceed the 500 part per million in the year 2050 which might cause great natural disasters (Midgley and other 2002).

The economy of South Africa is an exceptionally energy demanding one (Rowlands 1996). In particular, we thrive on carbon in the form of coal. The country contains one of the world largest reserves of coal and this source has provided and still contributes 90% of the electricity for the 46 million people. Coal is reasonably cheap in comparisons with other energy sources; subsequently this source makes South Africa a fair contributor to global climate change. On a list for countries contributing to global climate change, South Africa embraces the eighteenth spot with emissions per capita being above the global average (Rowlands 1996).

Mzanzi are blessed with over 21 000 unique and indigenous plants that gives us pleasure to watch, to atlas and for some they provide bread and butter (Midgley and other 2002). Information from the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in the United Kingdom forecast by the year 2050 the country will be warmer and drier than today. Based on the assumption that CO2 will increase to 550 ppm towards 2050, the temperature in January will increase mostly in the central interior and Northern Cape (2.5 - 4.5° C) and least at the coast (0.5 – 1.0° C) (Midgley and other 2002). The Western Cape is expected to lose approximately 25% of its winter rainfall with massive implication on agriculture and already water scarce province.

The vegetation types throughout South Africa are impacted by the climate. The highveld grassland are sustained by winter frosts. The two most diverse and unique floral regions, the Fynbos and Succulent Karoo Biomes originated with the help of the winter rainfall of the Western Cape/ West Coast. Just look at the difference in vegetation types between that in the Great Karoo and evergreen forests of the Southern Cape. The differences between them are regulated by the annual rainfall. By using climate predictions from the Hadley Centre the distribution patterns of seven biomes of South Africa can look like the following in 2050.

The succulent Karoo biome will the most affected as only the tougher of the succulents will be able to occupy this region. The flora of the succulent Karoo will tend to migrate southwards and the only viable region in 2050 pending on climate, will be the Agulhas Plain. The Fynbos biome are set to lose a large number of species, but the borders however will remain the relatively the same like it is today. The Fynbos biome is already restricted to the mountains of the Western Cape, which will provide refuge to some species to move up or down into different microclimates. Large portions of the Fynbos vegetation are also near the coast, meaning that warming of these areas will be much slower than the interior part of the country (Midgley and other 2002). The remaining biomes will also tend to move eastwards according the Hadley Centre which will result in competition, invasion and worst of all extinction.

Even though climate plays a pivotal role in the distribution of plants, it is not the only factor, as soil type, ecological interactions, fire, pest and grazing pressure limit the distribution of our flora (Midgley and other 2002).

Reference:

Midgley G, Ashwell A, Rutherford M, Bond W, Hannah L, Powrie L. 2002. Charting Uncertainty: Global climate change and its implications for our flora. Veld & Flora 88(2): 70-72.

Rowlands IH. 1996. South Africa and Global Climate Change. The Journal of Modern African Studies 34(1): 163-178.

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

MOVIE REVIEW: IF OIL RUNS OUT

2006-08-14T11:17:00.000+02:00

After watching this movie, it confirms the last piece that I wrote about searching for black gold and quite strange I only watched the movie after I wrote “In search of Black Gold”. In a speech of George W. Bush, he publicly admitted that Americans are addicted to oil and that the reserves are in unstable parts of the world. The two oil analysts in the movie, Matt Simmons and Paul Domjan are given the scenario about how people will cope with lower fuel supply and higher prices of almost everything in 2016. Throughout the movie one gets the feeling that the average person on the street thinks that it is their God giving right to fill up their tanks with oil. The scenario that is created is the increased fuel price of about R14 per litre in January of 2016 (current exchange rate) till it reaches R72 per litre by August 2016.

According Simmons and Domjan, we discover fewer and fewer major oil fields each year with 16 major oil fields in 2000, 9 in 2001 and only 1 in 2005. This put enormous pressure not only the big economies but also on developing countries. These developing countries and in particular Zimbabwe, where the inflation rate is just below 1000%, experience already and are in an oil crisis, don’t even to talk about 2016. These two analysts explain the addiction of the West on oil, with studies estimating that each American burns about 25 barrels of oil each year, each Briton 11 barrels and one Chinese about 2 barrels. With China and India that contribute almost 30% to the global population and their economies on the rise, one would suspect that their demand for oil will be up in 2016 and competing with the likes of America and the U.K.
Thus, nations around the world will explore their own land to look for oil and some nations will become selfish as they will use their resources for own purposes. The last piece American soil that is thought to have large quantities of oil to fuel them for decades is located with in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This remote place in Alaska will be the battlefield for a classic case where environmental preservation and oil supply will lock horns. If the government of that time will allow companies to drill there, they will admit U.S addiction to lower foreign oil by any means what so ever. Again the environment will come second best after the hunger for fossil fuel as it has done for almost two hundred years.

People around the globe and in particular in the West are beginning to accept the fact that their basic lives in terms of their ability to get around and their ability to heat their home, the fact that they have a job depend on stable geopolitics with the major oil producers. These are the words of one of the oil analysts in the movie: It is important to think today about what we can do to move away from the oil age, to build a more environmentally sustainable and a more secure economy that relies on fuel and broader variety of fuels that don’t bring with them all the political, environmental problems that oil does.

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

IN SEARCH OF BLACK GOLD

2006-08-10T12:41:00.000+02:00

We are a generation that feeds, lives and depend on fossils fuels. We are who we are because of fossil fuels, for instance the economy of the 20th century was built upon oil. For some oil brought exceptional wealth and power (Middle East especially Saudi Arabia and in particular George W. Bush) while for others it meant oppression, wars and colonialism (Nigeria). Everything that surrounds us somehow needs fossil fuel to operate.

As we have enter the 21st century nothing has changed apart from that our addiction on oil now threatens the whole globe, rich and poor. According http://www.nonewoil.org/ as oil supplies fall behind the demand the world will face more and more conflicts. Western countries especially the US and the UK are now scrambling to secure and to get their hands on the last reserves that’s left. Why do you think USA occupies Iraq and have such strong relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel? Israel is not oil exporter but this country provides a foot hole for the rest of the Arab peninsula. The Gulf War was fought because of oil thus western countries will do anything to have part of the reserve oil.
All oil regions have life cycles and this can be divided in three phases:
· Phase of continual production (Pre-peak)
· Second phase is stagnant (peak or plateau)
· Continual declining production (decline)
All or most of the western countries are demonstrating that their own oil supply is in the last phase where there is a continual declining in their production. Alaska and Texas the major oil suppliers within the USA have reach the maximum/peak 10 and 30 years ago respectively. Texas produce no more than it did in 1930. It is only in the Gulf of Mexico that production can and might be increase further on all oil/gas field in the USA are declining at an alarming rate. The production of UK based oil peak in 1999 and in 2010 it is expected to be on reserves (Zittel and Schindler 2003).
The Mecca of future oil production for global purposes is the Middle East region. The perception of many people is that this oil rich region will supply the globe for many decades to come, but already some of the larger oil fields in Saudi Arabia will shortly if not already have reached their maximum production. Thus Saudi Arabia oil production cannot be increased any more. The countries on the Arab Peninsula that can potential increase their production and who are far for their maximum is Iraq, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait (Zittel and Schindler 2003).
After the major oil exporters have reached their maximum and entering the last phase of the oil cycle, they will look for other regions and guess where they will inflict conflict and pain? You have guessed right, the 3rd world nations! Nigeria are already under British rule (BP) and currently there seems to ethnic and religious conflict among the nations due to BP. This company has already been kicked out Bolivia and Costa Rica. The president of Venezuela and Bush has already had some words to say to each other. Venezuela have the largest reserves outside the Middle East and are already a target. Other targets include Angola, Brazil, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan and many more (http://www.nonewoil.org/).
Some of these countries have been in the news lately with conflict if not with the USA than with their own people. So do be surprise if the USA starts a war like the one on South African soil with the British for our gold back in the days.

Reference:

Nonewoil contributors. Beyond oil: the oil curse and solutions for an oil-free future; 2006 October [ Cited 2006 Aug 10]. Available from http://www.nonewoil.org

Zittel W & Scindler J. International Summer School: On the Politics and Economics and Renewable Energy; 2003 July 15th, [cited 2006 Aug 10]. Available from http://www.lbst.de/

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

ARE TRANSPORT SYSTEMS RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE?

2006-08-10T11:34:00.000+02:00

There are many transport issues that are related or can be affected by climate change, a brief discussion on transport issues around climate change is provided. Man has always relied on transport systems since the period of horses to the invention of automobiles. But these transportation systems are actually a contributor of climate change. So where are we heading with old transport systems?

Countries such as the UK have already pointed out these transport problems and has started to implement certain traffic and transport regulations. For example an average UK citizen traveling has increased 10 times as appose to previous years but with their new systems they make new resources available to their public [1]. Here in South Africa we can see what effects public transportation has on our economy and how many people actually rely on this. As indicated in the UK our countries car ownerships has increased and citizens travel greater distances than they did in the past [1]. For South Africa new transport facilities are underway and the country is considered as a role model for technological sophistication and advancement for transport [2]. These include upgrading much of the old air transport, roads, railways, ports etc. [2], but are government aware of climate change?

The South Africa government agreed to the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 [3], and more studies have highlighted the problems of climate related factors in South Africa. These strategies focus on renewable energy and less carbon intensive energy economy [3] but these are all “under development” as the 2010 world cup is underway. So is climate change really of an importance in SA? To me this is not much highlighted because many people are still unaware of such climate changes as poverty and lack of education is still some of the major issues of South Africa.

Transport systems are considered as immovable infrastructures but with climate change on the horizon this may change [4]. If sea levels increase then this will lead to the relocation of most railways and roads close to coastal areas [4]. Since many roads and railways would have to be replaced because of sea level rise, can you imagine what effect it will have on harbors and many ports around coastal areas of the world? This will have a devastating affect on coastal countries that rely on import and export goods via harbors. Not only will devastated drought events occur, but countries can be stricken with excessive rain fall periods [4]. Furthermore, drought periods are followed by heavy rainfall events these roads are then easily washed away. This will cause flooding of many roads and an increase in food prices because agricultural road networks are gravel for most African countries [4]. Thus upgrading is required as well as environmental friendly technologies. Several studies have been done to point out certain areas of climate related factors but little has been done about it but for now the 2010 world cup and other environmental and political issues last.

References:

[1] Lucas R. 2006. Providing transport for social inclusion within a framework for environmental justice in the UK. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 40(10):801-809

[2] South Africa, Alive with Possibility. Doing_business/economy/infrastructure [Internet]. South Africa's transport network [cited 2006 August 10]. Available from: http://www.southafrica.info/doing_business/economy/infrastructure/transport.htm

[3] Department of Environmental affairs and Tourism. 2004. A national Climate change response strategy for South Africa. Report: 1-48.

[4] UNEP, WMO. Transport [Internet]. The Regional Impacts of Climate Change [cited 2006 August 10]. Available from: http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/regional/035.htm

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

CARBON DIOXIDE: WHAT WILL WE DO?

2006-08-08T14:01:00.000+02:00

Global warming is important, whether environmentally, politically or economically. Humans with absolutely no doubt have played and still play its part on increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere resulting in increased temperature. Approximately 6 billion tons of Carbon in the form of Carbon Dioxide is annually released, mainly from the emissions of fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas (Hare 1997). Our dependence on fossil fuels might one day lead to our extinction unless we as humans remarkably decrease our fossil fuel diet.
Since fossil fuels are one of the major contributories to greenhouse gasses, the question that we can pose is how we will counter the CO2 emissions.
According to Dr. Nyong from Nigeria in a symposium of 2005, we as humans only have two options. The first is to mitigate and the second is to adapt. To mitigate is to control the greenhouse gasses to an acceptable level while the strategy to adapt imply an adjustment to the current levels of greenhouse gasses. Easier said than done-as sea levels and global warming would continue to increase even if immediate reduction of greenhouse gasses is orchestrated. However, it will be better to be late than never, thus necessary action needs to be implemented.
Adaptation is the most feasible option for Africa to deal with the adverse impacts of climate change (Nyong 2005). Africa is not a major contributor to climate change and their dependence on fossil fuels are far less than that of the developed countries.
With the mature technologies of developed countries, mitigation can provide the answer to both the reduction of greenhouses and the potential problems associated with global warming in the poverty stricken Africa.

The movie from ex-President Al Gore, “Inconvenient Truth” showed some glimpses of how we can go about to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. All that I could remember was the large storage facilities in the oceans where Carbon Dioxide are being stored. So what is CO2 capturing and storage?
Carbon Dioxide capturing and storage (CSS) is a process according the IPCC that separate CO2 from industries and energy related sources (Metz and others 2005). These storage and captured CO2 are then transport to a location, usually somewhere in the ocean or deep down in soil where it is isolation from the atmosphere for a long period of time.
Other mitigation processes are available but due to the proportion of CO2 to global warming, CSS as the potential to reduce the total Carbon-energy budget
Like mentioning earlier, the developed countries with their large fossil fuel or biomass energy facilities, their huge Carbon dioxide emitting industries, natural gas plants and fuel based hydrogen production plants can applied CSS technology for storage.

A figure in reference illustrates the effectiveness of Carbon emission plants to reduce greenhouse gasses as the available technology that’s on the market captures approximately 85-95% of the carbon dioxide (Metz and others 2005).
Most developed countries; I believe can afford these CCS technologies and really it up to them in particular to help the globe and especially Africa. As global warming will increase and the climate deteriorates from the norm, Africa will be the hardest hit and money from western societies will be no good anymore.

References:

Hare B. 1997. Fossil Fuels and climate protection: The carbon logic. Greenpeace International.

Metz B, Davidson O, de Coninck H, Loos M, Meyer L. 2005. Carbon dioxide capture and storage: Summary for policy makers and technical summary. IPCC Special Report. ISBN 92-9169-119-4.
Available from: http://www.ipcc.ch/meet/session20/finalreport20.pdf

Nyong A. 2005. Impacts of climate change in the tropics: The African Experience. In: Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change; A scientific symposium on stabilization of Greenhouse Gases: 2005 Feb. 1-3; Met Office, Exeter, UK

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

THE HOCKEY STICK DEBACLE

2006-08-06T09:41:00.000+02:00

There is an interesting post on the following blog http://www.landshape.org/enm/ that deals with the apparent flawed science behind the hockey stick graph... have a look at it! Follow the link Some Thoughts on Disclosure and Due Diligence in Climate Science and read more about so-called peer reviewed articles. Made me think!! We really do need to question everything we read! If something is peer reviewed, it does not validate it as being the truth... Not being an expert in a field thus makes it very difficult knowing what to believe.

Karen Marais
BCB Hons NISL student
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville

E-mail 2657211@uwc.ac.za

Web http://brit-journal.com/karen2006bcbnisl/

AN ALTERNATIVE SCENARIO FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

2006-08-04T18:00:00.000+02:00

“Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change” is a video that the Friends of Science produced. Who are the “Friends of Science”? According to their website: “Friends of Science is a non-profit organization made up of active and retired engineers, earth scientists and other professionals, as well as many concerned Canadians, who believe the science behind the Kyoto Protocol is questionable. Friends of Science has assembled a scientific advisory board of esteemed climate scientists from around the world to offer a critical mass of current science on global climate and climate change to policy makers, and any interested parties. We offer critical evidence that challenges the premises of the Kyoto Protocol and present alternative causes for climate change.”

I must admit I haven’t read the Kyoto Protocol and thus do not know if Kyoto deals with carbon dioxide emissions only (as the Friends of Science claim) or with pollution as a whole. The website offers many links and has some interesting articles. I chose one and here is my take on it.

There is an alternative model to greenhouse gasses that tries to explain the drivers behind the current climate change the world is experiencing. Thus, it is not climate change itself that is disputed, but rather what is driving it! On the one hand there is the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) endorsed “greenhouse gas” model, where anthropogenic causes have increased the greenhouse gasses, in particular carbon dioxide, that are blamed for our current change in climate. On the other hand there is a model that points to the sun and in particular the cosmic ray flux, as the principal driver behind past and current climate change.

Both models use proxies from the past to try and paint the bigger picture. Cosmic nucleotides (beryllium-10, carbon-14, chlorine-36) in ancient sediments, shells and trees are used to measure past solar activities (Veizer 2005). Both models use oxygen and hydrogen isotopes to reflect past temperatures, carbon isotope levels for carbon dioxide levels and boron isotopes for the acidity of the oceans (Veizer 2005). The trends of these proxies are then analyzed and according to Veizer (2005 p.13) “may enable us to decide which one of the two alternatives was, and potentially is, primarily responsible for climate variability”.

Veizer (2005) also points out that one major difference in the two models is that the solar model is explained by empirical observations, where as the greenhouse gas model uses empirical data to create scenarios for the future through General Circulation Models (GMC’s). He further points out that empirical observations should “carry greater weight than theory” (Veizer 2005, p.25), should discrepancies arrive. I however do not quite get the point here, as both still are theories (the mere fact that there is a positive correlation between solar activity and the climate does not prove that the one causes the other) and further more both have been shown to have their weaknesses. (Ramaswamy et al. 2001; Solanki 2002; Solanki etal. 2004; Veizer 2005).

In summary, Veizer (2005, p.20) writes that “the empirical observations on all time scales point to celestial phenomena as the principle driver of climate change, with greenhouse gases acting only as potential amplifiers”. So, even if carbon dioxide is not the principle driver but could act as an amplifier, we should still reduce carbon dioxide emissions as that is something we can do something about! (And with this Veizer (2005) even seems to agree) The sun however, we have no hope to influence. Somehow, I do not understand the point the “anti-greenhouse gas camp” scientists are trying to make?? I also found the paper by Veizer (2005) quite contradictory at times. He describes the two camps as the IPCC on the one hand and “the other side” like Douglass et al. (2004) that claim that “the role of anthropogenic carbon dioxide on climate has not been proven, and that there is therefore no need for emissions quotas such as those mandated by the Kyoto Protocol” (Veizer 2005, p.14). Yet, although he is part of “the other side”, he agrees that reducing carbon dioxide emissions would be a good thing, because that would cause a collateral reduction of sulphur and nitrogen compounds…

To me the fact remains that humans have had a huge impact on our planet. We may not understand all the processes that influence our climate, but that does not free us from our responsibility to be stewards of this planet we call home. We need to find ways to reduce our environmental footprint on this planet, regardless of if it is anthropogenic factors or the sun that drives our climate. What have we got to loose anyway, should be heed to the warnings of the so called alarmist climate scientists? Yet our children could loose everything should time prove the “alarmists” right.

As Dr. Richard Sommerville in the film Too Hot Not To Handle mentioned: “The stone age people did not stop using stone tools because they ran out of stone…”

References:

Douglass DH, Pearson BD and Singer SF. 2004. Altitude dependence of atmospheric temperature trends: climate models versus observations. Geophysical Research Letters 31:10.1029

Friends of Science contributors. Friends of Science [Internet] Friends of Science: Providing insight into Climate Science; update date unknown [cited 2006 Aug 4]. Available from: http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php

Ramaswamy V, Boucher O, Haigh J, Hauglustaine D, Haywood J, Myhre G, Nakajima T, Shi GY and Solomon S. 2001. Radiative forcing of climate change. In: Houghton JT, Ding V, Griggs DJ, Nohuer M, van der Linden PJ, Dai X, Maskell K and Johnson CA (Eds.) Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. p. 340-416. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Solanki SK. 2002. Solar variability and climate change: is there a link? Astronomy & Geophysics 43:5.9-5.13.

Solanki SK, Usoskin IG, Kromer B, Schussler M and Beer J. 2004. Unusual activity of the sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11 000 years. Nature 431:1084-1087.

Veizer J. 2005. Celestial Climate Driver: A Perspective from Four Billion Years of the Carbon Cycle. Geoscience Canada 32(1):13-28.

Karen Marais
BCB Hons NISL student
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville

E-mail 2657211@uwc.ac.za

Web http://brit-journal.com/karen2006bcbnisl/

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

DAY AFTER TOMORROW

2006-08-04T09:21:00.000+02:00

A review on the movie Day after tomorrow is provided which shows the viewers the effects of global warming. The movie gives us a preview of what can actually happen if there is a change in our climate system. The world as we know it is a very busy place in terms of the economy and production activities.

In this movie a change in the weather pattern are noticed by the break off of the Larsen B shelf. The Larsen B shelf is 200 metres thick and has a surface area of 3,250 square kilometres and form part of the Antarctic ice shelf [1]. Furthermore, is the conveyor belt that is generated at the Antarctic’s by the sinking of deep water. Since the conveyor belt are responsible for temperatures for certain northern hemisphere countries. The increasing of excess precipitation river runoff or ice melt into the conveyor belt could weaken or it shut down, which can lead to freezing of these countries [2].

Thereafter scientist shows in the movie how the circulation of conveyor belt regulates the climate systems around continents. The movie mainly focused on the city of New York and Manhattan, the northern regions of the United States of America. As the conveyor belt stops then raindrops as big as soccer balls fall from the sky on regions in the northern hemisphere. The reason why these continents and cities are affected by these climatic changes are illustrated in the movie and a model that predicts what can happen shows how severe places will be affected by a slight change in temperature. But in this movie the model didn’t predict how quick a change in climate could result and the vice president actually ignore the climatologist prediction. This should not surprise the viewer because in reality governments are aware of such unstable climate events; to me this is total ignorance.

Since most northern hemisphere regions are affected by these climatic events. Cities become flooded which are followed with a drop temperature as the eye of the hurricanes moves over cities. Several people get trapped and drowned by floods and some even gets frozen. Thousands of people and objects get immediately frozen within a day if they were not kept warm. These sudden changes in temperature I think are exaggerated by the producers of the movie because I don’t think things can freeze that quickly or can they?

As a result many people died of these cold temperatures this is actually a devastated event that can happen. Since something like this was illustrated by the movie, can you imagine how such an ice age event can influence northern hemisphere countries or southern hemisphere countries? This is definitely a wake up call for us as human beings to act more responsible, if we want to continue our existence on planet earth, as Mother Nature doesn’t like to be mess around with.

I think that a change in climate is a gradual process and not as sudden like depicted by the movie. The movie is scientific enough but because it focused mostly on America and the “un educated person” takes it as another Hollywood production (fiction). It is for this reason that people don’t take climate change as a serious man extinction event.

[1] BBC News. Sci/Tech [Internet]. Antarctic ice shelf breaks apart [cited 2006 August 3]. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1880566.stm

[2] UNEP. Great Ocean Conveyor Belt [Internet]. Potential Impact of Climate change. [cited 2006 August 3]. Available from: http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/32.htm

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

Stephen Schneider: Global warming

2006-08-01T09:56:00.000+02:00

The author that was chosen from the “too hot to handle” documentary is Stephen Schneider. His research over the years mostly focused on Global warming and the factors related to it. The three papers selected are as follows, Global warming: neglecting the complexities, Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants and What is dangerous climate change?

References:

Schneider S. 2001. What is ‘dangerous’ climate change? Nature 411: 17-19

Schneider S. 2002. Global warming: neglecting the complexities. Report: 66-69
Root TL, Price JT, Hall KR, Schneider SH, Rosenzweigk C and Pounds JA. 2003. Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants. Nature 421: 57-60

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

2006-08-01T01:16:00.000+02:00

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media - funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late.

With 2005, the worst storm season ever experienced in America just behind us, it seems we may be reaching a tipping point - and Gore pulls no punches in explaining the dire situation. Interspersed with the bracing facts and future predictions is the story of Gore's personal journey: from an idealistic college student who first saw a massive environmental crisis looming; to a young Senator facing a harrowing family tragedy that altered his perspective, to the man who almost became President but instead returned to the most important cause of his life - convinced that there is still time to make a difference.

With wit, smarts and hope, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH ultimately brings home Gore's persuasive argument that we can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue - rather, it is the biggest moral challenges facing our global civilization.

Paramount Classics and Participant Productions present a film directed by Davis Guggenheim,AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Featuring Al Gore, the film is produced by Laurie David, Lawrence Bender and Scott Z. Burns. Jeff Skoll and Davis Guggenheim are the executive producers and the co-producer is Leslie Chilcott.

GENRE : Documentary
RUNTIME : 01:34:07 (169,234 fr)RATING : 8.0/10 (3,582 votes)
VIDEO : 783 kb/s 29.970FPS divx
AUDIO : 48 kb/s (24/ch, stereo) CBR mp3
RESOLUTION : 720x384 (1.88:1) [=15:8]DISCS : 1

SOME MORE DOOM AND GLOOM… A SHORT SUMMARY OF A PAPER BY MIDGLEY et al. (2002)

2006-07-29T10:17:00.000+02:00

We are privileged to live in one of only 25 global biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al. 2000) of the world. (South Africa is the only country that actually has three hotspots contained within one country!) The Cape Floristic Region is however set to change should the scenarios on climate change turn out to be true after all. Midgley et al. (2002) in “Assessing the vulnerability of species richness to anthropogenic climate change in a biodiversity hotspot” used bioclimatic modeling to produce a climate envelope for the current Fynbos Biome. They also created bioclimatic envelopes for all 330 species of the family Proteaceae. These envelopes were created using five parameters pertaining to temperature and water-availability (from Schulze 1997), which are deemed critical for plant survival.

They then used general circulation models (HadCM2 and CSM) to generate climate scenarios for 2050. In the biome-based approach, they looked at the decrease in area suitable for the Fynbos biome by 2050 and then overlayed that “lost” area with data from the Protea Atlas Project, to determine the extinction risk for the Proteacea family. In the species-based approach, this was done for each species and if there was no overlap between the current and the future projected range, the species has an almost certain extinction risk.

The results once again predict doom and gloom. A loss of range between 51% and 65% is predicted for the Fynbos biome. There would be an areal loss at all altitudinal ranges, with the northern biome limits loosing the most. This could be translated into a 10% loss of species. But if one looks at the species-based approach, one-third of all species do not have overlapping ranges between the current an projected future ranges and that could mean they could become extinct. Plants in the Fynbos biome simply would not be able to migrate fast enough, because they need fire to germinate and many are dependant on specialized dispersal agents like ants…

This paper thus clearly indicates that biome-based studies might underestimate the potential loss of species. Species-based approaches are needed to develop methods to monitor climate change impacts, monitor the accuracy of climate predictions and detect early signs of plant stress. Here it would thus be wise to monitor species in the areas predicted to be lost altogether (thus northern limits of Fynbos biome). Such scenarios should also be used as guidelines for planning future protected areas and corridors.

References:

Midgley GF, Hannah L, Millar D, Rutherford MC and Powrie LW. 2002. Assessing the vulnerability of species richness to anthropogenic climate change in a biodiversity hotspot. Global Ecology & Biogeography 11:445-451.

Myers N, Mittermeier RA, Mittermeier CG, da Fonseca GAB and Kent J. 2000. Biodiversity Hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403(6772):853-858.

Schulze RE. 1997. South African atlas of agrohydrology and climatolog. Report TT82/96. Water Research Commission, Pretoria.

Karen Marais
BCB Hons NISL student
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville

E-mail 2657211@uwc.ac.za

Web http://brit-journal.com/karen2006bcbnisl/

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

THE DOOM AND GLOOM SCENARIOS FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA

2006-07-28T15:41:00.000+02:00

An article by Michael Meadows in the June 2006 issue of Geographical Research certainly has me depressed! He has compared the climate change review by Hulme (1996) with several more recent scenarios and came to the conclusion that in most cases the more recently published studies paint an even bleaker picture!

Many General Circulation Models (GCMs) have been applied at centres all over the world to come up with future scenarios of how our climate might change and what the consequences of these changes might be. For Southern Africa a two to three degree Celsius rise of the mean annual temperature within the next 50 years is widely predicted and seems undisputed.

Precipitation is said to increase in the summer rainfall areas, but this incorporates more flooding events as more frequent heavy rains are predicted. The Western Cape’s winter rainfall region is said to become drier. Although different models come up with different scenarios, all scenarios predict more dynamic and variable conditions and that inevitably means more extreme events, if I understand it correctly.

How will these changes impact our biodiversity and ecosystems? Rutherford et al. (in DEAT 2000) based their predictions on a Hadley Centre model (HADCM2) and came up with shocking figures of an area reduction of 50% for all South African Biomes put together. According to this scenario the western, central and northern parts of the country would be most affected and could mean a total displacement of the Succulent Karoo Biome. The altered conditions might also suite invasive alien species that could rapidly expand their range (Dukes and Mooney 1999). Erasmus et al. (2002) did a study on animal taxa and came up with a substantial reduction in range in almost 80% of the 179 animal taxa included in their study.

The impacts on agriculture, rangelands and forestry depend on which scenario was used. Agriculture could be affected with losses up to 20% (Turpie et al 2002, du Toit et al. in DEAT 2000). This is a lot lower than expected if compared to the overall decline in habitat. This is due to the uncertainty of how much crops might benefit from carbon dioxide fertilization effect. Rangelands in the form of savanna grasslands might improve in the east with a positive effect on larger livestock farming areas, but in the west where sheep farming is dominant, the effect could be a substantial degradation in grazing land (Turpie et al 2002). Thomas et al. (2005) also explore the effects of climate change on the Kalahari dune system. They suggest a widespread remobilization of these sand dunes throughout the year that would have dire consequences for stock farming in the area.

According to the most recent downscaled scenarios (downscaled from General Circulation Models to Regional Climate Models) by Hewitson and Crane (2005) forestry in South Africa might be positively affected in the east as the east might become wetter and along with the carbon dioxide fertilization effect might be more favourable for forestry.

Water resources are to become scarcer as the west and central interior becomes drier. Arnell (1999) used Hadley Centre models (HADCM2 and HADCM3) to predict a reduction in runoff of up to 30% for the Limpopo basin, but only a 5% reduction for the Orange river basin (due to predicted increase in rainfall in the Drakensberg?). South Africa also has an increasing demand for potable water and this combined with the supply becoming scarcer will result in the inability to meet these demands, especially in the Western Cape, where strong population growth is adding to the conundrum (New 2002). Mukheiber and Sparks (2003) add more gloom to the picture by adding that the water quality could also reduce “unless there are significant shifts in policy vision” (Meadows 2006 p.142).

The cherry on the top of this doom and gloom cake is the influence future climate change might have on health. Van Lieshout et al. (2004) used four emission scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPPC) Third Assessment Report (2001) to predict a likely increase in malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. Although the affects of HIV/AIDS have not been assessed in the light of climate change, the overall decline in food security and water supply predicted will inadvertently affect vulnerable populations (Meadows 2006).

If this will turn out to be alarmist or true will unfold itself within the next 50 years… a scary thought for me as I will probably be around to witness it!

References:

Arnell NW. 1999. Climate change and global water resources. Global Environmental Change 9: 31–49.

Cavazos T and Hewitson BC. 2005. Performance of NCEP-NCAR reanalysis variables in statistical downscaling of daily precipitation. Climate Research 28: 95–107.

DEAT (Department of Environment Affairs and Tourism). 2000. South African Country Study on Climate Change. DEAT, Pretoria.

Dukes JS and Mooney HA. 1999. Does global change increase the success of biological invaders? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 14: 135–139.

Erasmus BFN, van Jaarsveld AS, Chown SL, Kshatriya M and Wessels KJ. 2002. Vulnerability of South African animal taxa to climate change. Global Change Biology 8: 679–693.

Hewitson B and Crane RG. 2005. Consensus Between GCM Climate Change Projections with Empirical Downscaling. Unpublished report, South African Water Research Commission Project 1430; Assessments of Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change in Multiple Regions and Sectors (AIACC) Project AF07, and EPA Cooperative Agreement Number R-830533-01-0.

Hulme M. (ed.). 1996. Climatic Change and Southern Africa. Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K.

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2001: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [J.T. Houghton, Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der Linden, X. Dai, K. Maskell, and C.A. Johnson (eds)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.

Meadows ME. 2006. Global Change and Southern Africa. Geographical Research 44(2): 135-145.

Meadows ME and Hoffman MT. 2003. Land degradation and climate change in South Africa. Geographical Journal 169: 168–177.

Mukheiber P and Sparks D. 2003. Water Resource Management and Climate Change in South Africa: Visions, Driving Factors and Sustainable Development Indicators. Report of Phase I of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Project, Energy and Development Research Centre, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

New M. 2002. Climate change and water resources in the southwestern Cape, South Africa. South African Journal of Science 98: 369–376.

Thomas DSG, Knight M and Wiggs GFS. 2005. Remobilization of southern African desert dune systems by twenty-first century global warming. Nature 435: 1218–1222.

Turpie J, Winkler H, Spalding-Flecher R and Midgley G. 2002. Economic Impacts of Climate Change in South Africa: a Preliminary Analysis of Unmitigated Damage Costs. Southern Waters Ecological Research and Consulting and Energy Development Research Centre, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

van Lieshout M, Kovats RS, Livermore MTJ. And Martens P. 2004: Climate change and malaria: analysis of the SRES climate and socio-economic scenarios. Global Environmental Change 14: 87–99.

Karen Marais
BCB Hons NISL student
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville

E-mail 2657211@uwc.ac.za

Web http://brit-journal.com/karen2006bcbnisl/

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION
1.I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the CSE/CBE convention for citation and referencing. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in this project from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced.
3. This assignment is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

Dr PAUL EPSTEIN - INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND CLIMATE CHANGE

2006-07-27T13:50:00.000+02:00

I will tackle this topic for my Power Point Assignment and have chosen Dr. P Epstein as expert scientists in this field. My references so far are listed below:

Epstein PR, Diaz HF, Elias S, Grabherr G, Graham NE, Martens WJM, Mosley-Thompson E and Susskind J. 1998. Biological and Physical Signs of Climate Change: Focus on Mosquito-borne Diseases. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 79(3):409-417

Epstein PR. 2000. Is Global Warming harmful to Health? Scientific American 283(2):50-57

Hendrickson SE, Wong T, Allen P, Ford T and Epstein PR. 2001. Marine Swimming-Related Illness: Implications for Monitoring and Environmental Policy. Environmental Health Perspectives 109(7):645-650

Rose JB, Epstein PR, Lipp EK, Sherman BH, Bernhard SM and Patz JA. 2001. Climate Variability and Change in the United States: Potential Impacts on Water- and Foodborne Diseases caused by Microbiologic Agents. Environmental Health Perspectives 109(2):211-221

Karen Marais
BCB Hons NISL student
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville

E-mail 2657211@uwc.ac.za

Web http://brit-journal.com/karen2006bcbnisl/

TOO HOT NOT TO HANDLE

2006-07-27T08:05:00.000+02:00

Climate change

Film: Status in the USA

Care about Global Warming beciuase it will remake the face of the earth

Dr. Donald Kennedy editor in chief Science

Dr. Stephen Schneider Co-director Centre for Environmental Science and Policy, Stanford University.

Accident of nature

Changes are already visible to the man in the street.

The most obvious impacts are more heat waves (Heat wave last more than four consecutive days have nearly tripled in the last 50 years).

Heat waves are greatest manifestation of Climate Change in the USA. They are responsible for more deaths of people than hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning and blizzards combined.

Dr. Laurence S Kalkstein (Climate Change Scientist, University of Delaware)

Heat Wave deaths are not as apparent as from natural diasasters such as Hurricanes, Tornados and Tsunamis, but nevertheless the die through cardiac arrest, respiratory stress and stokes. Just going back to Chicago Illinois July 1995, the population can survive one, two or even three days in a row of high temperatures, but this situation persisted for at least a week with temperatures around 40 C. Approximately 800 people died over a short period of time (a week or two) in one city during one heat wave.

Dr. Richard Sommerville Climate Research Division Scrippts Intitution of Oceanography.

The Chicago case was a very serious case illustrating the effects of Climate Change

In Europe summer of 2003 the heatwave killed tens of thousands of people. (Over 6 000 died in Germany, over 14 000 died in France and over 19 000 died in Italy).

The European heat wave got our attention by being a very rare event, but tthat will become commonplace in a few decades if we do not stop global warming. Heat waves are predicted to double by 2020 if global warming is not curbed.

What is Global Warming?

Dr. Stephen Schneider defines it as what happens when you add junk into the atmospheres mostly from the tail pipes of our cars and smoke stacks of our factories and it blocks some of the energy exchange between the earth and space trapping heat near the earth’s surface.

Prof. Daniel Schrag, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University.

To understand Global Warming you have to understand the Green House Effect. The Green House Effect works by sunlight coming through the glass of the green house and getting absorbed by the plants and the soil. The absorption of that light turns that energy from the sun into heat and the temperature inside that green house heats up. If the heat could just escape it would be very cold inside that green house but what happens is that glass insulates the green house and traps some of that heat, making the temperature significantly warmer if that glass had not been there. The same exact thing happens in our atmosphere, our atmosphere is transparent to the visible light from the sun and so the sunlight come through and gets absorbed by the surface of the earth. The surface heats up and instead of the heat just escaping back to space the green house gases, particularly Water Vapour and Carbon Dioxide traps some of that heat as it leaves the surface and is like putting a blanket on us at night.

Dr. Richard Sommerville

On the Green House effect the concern is that mankind is changing it.

Dr. Donald Kennedy

What humans are doing is to add green house to the atmosphere by processes that were never known in pre-industrial times. The dramatic change is the increase in emission of Carbon Dioxide due to industrial activity. We are adding extra Green Houss gases to the atmosphere by burning coal, oil and gas, and it is like adding more and more blankets all the time.

Human activities are thickening the Green House blanket and are threatening to make earth warmer than it has been in millions of years.

How did this happen?

Do you drive a car? Burning gasoline causes global warming.

Do you use electricity? Turning on a light switch or using air conditioning or a refrigerator uses power usually in a way that causes global warming. Almost all our use of energy leads to global warming.

Dr Stephen Schneider

One of the silliest things is when somebody points to a super heat wave and says “see global warming did it and then you get a cold wave and they say oh no Global warming is a phony. Weather is what the atmosphere is doing at this moment in every place, you should never look at what happened this week in the weather, you are going to get some really weird hot and some weird cold so you have to average statistically all around the world and when you do that Global Warming emerges as a virtual certainty.

Dr. Richard Sommerville

You know when we talk about Global Warming, we usually talk about the climate getting a little bit warmer, 1C, 3C or maybe 5C warmer and people make fun of that because they think it is not a very big number. You can die from diseases symptoms if the fever is only a few degrees above normal.

Is it all about Heat?

Dr Jonathan Patz Director, Global Environmental Health Initiative, University of Wisconsin – Madison.

It is important when you think about Global Warming to remember that it is not just temperatures creeping up its actually increases in extreme climate events and extreme weather events like storms, floods and droughts.

Extreme Weather

Global Warming is all about climate extremes.

Dr Tom Wigley Senior Scientist – National Centre for Atmospheric Research

Of course global Warming means that the average temperature of the planet will increase, but when we do that we change all aspects of the climate system, for example if you warm up the oceans that you increase the amount of evaporation, if there is more water vapour going up into the atmosphere, then its got to rain more.

Dr Kevin Trenberth Head Climate Analysis Scetion - National Centre for Atmospheric Research

What is happening across the United States is that moderate rains are decreasing slightly, an heavy rains, very heavy rains are increasing, so it rains harder when it does rain. It is the very heavy rains that is difficult to manage because they are the ones that cause local flooding, or if the continue more widespread flooding.

Dr Paul R. Epstein Associate Director Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School

And it is these heavy rainfall events that can then flush the water out of the sanitation systems into the clean water supplies, and what that will mean to our health in terms of water contamination is something that we will have to contend with.

On the whole, the atmosphere and the planet are going to get wetter due to global warming, but in many areas, in places that are already sort of dry, the climate will on the whole will get drier, because the increased heat is going to bake the moisture straight out of the soil, and in some areas drought will become more and more common and that is a very dangerous thing, because this will have a big impact not only on agriculture but on the availability of water.

Prof. Daniel Schrag, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University.

We all see different parts of the climate system and we all experience the climate differently, we do not see the full way that the climate affects our lives. The way it affects natural ecosystems, and the way it affects our air and the water that we use and everything else.

I think what is really important, when you look around on your surroundings, just look outside, is to realize how connected everything is.

Dr Jonathan Foley Director, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, University of Wisconsin – Madison.

I think a lot of people see climate change as some big theoretical thing far into the future that doesn’t connect to their everyday lives. And really don’t think that is true.

Imagine, imagine that you live in New England and I grew up in Maine for example, and seeing that the time of the leaves change colours starts to change or maybe they don’t change colour anymore. Or your favorite skiing spot no longer gets snow, or here in the upper Mid-west where I live now you cannot go ice fishing in the winter anymore, or the geese that come in the spring don’t come at the same time. All of those things that we take for granted about the pulse of the seasons, about when the Maple syrup runs in the spring and when the leaves turn in the fall, or when the snow comes for the kids, if all of those things started to change, it would really change the character of where we live in many profound ways.

Dr William Collins Climate Scientist - National Centre for Atmospheric Research

Scientists are sure that we are changing the climate for the foreseeable future, but what we are not sure about is whether we are able to live with those changes.

What kind of changes?

Water Supply

Our civilization is dependent on having water, where we want it and when we want it and in the quantities that we need it. That whole system is going to be turned upside down as the climate changes. For instance its going to change the balance between snow and rain, and that’s a big deal because of a lot of places in the west we are dependent on our ability to store water and get it from snow-pack.

Dr Kevin Trenberth Head Climate Analysis Section - National Centre for Atmospheric Research

Snow-pack is a way of nature saving water from the times when we really don’t need it in the winter time to the times when we do need it in the spring and in the summer time, when the plants are beginning to grow.

In the western states, 75% of the water supply comes from snow-pack.

Dr. Stephen Schneider Co-director Centre for Environmental Science and Policy, Stanford University.

And the predictions are that as it gets hotter and this is not a very sophisticated concept, it gets hotter you are going to get less snow.

Scott Pattee Water Supply Specialist, US Department of Agriculture

In Yakima Country, Washington May 2005 what is happening is there is no snow at the lower elevations which is no surprise for this time of year, there isn’t any snow at the mid altitude elevations which is a little bit of a surprising since there should be some snow in there, but then we get up to these elevations where there should be lots of snow and there is again virtually no snow up here. I have been doing this for twelve years and I have never seen it this bad. Normally at this location we have several feet of snow, where these roads are we would still be good for cross-country skiers.

Dr Michael Scott Scientist Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

If the weather is warm in the winter in this part of the world the precipitation that does fall, tends to fall as rain rather than snow, or if it falls as snow it tends to run off early and what that means is that the water that escapes down the rivers before we need it and this year all of the water came down the river at the wrong time of year, and we don’t have the capacity to hold that water back, the man-made storage is not large enough, so we lose the water in effect.

Dr. Richard Sommerville Climate Research Division Scripps Intitution of Oceanography

The very elaborate infrastructure that has been put together in the dams and the pumps and the canals and the reservoirs won’t work because they were designed for the climate that we had rather than the climate we are going to have.

States that rely on Snow Pack for water provide more than 75% of the USA’s fresh fruit.

Steve George, owner The George Fruit Farm, Moxee Washington

If I don’t have water, I will eventually will lose the trees and then I will have no way to generate an income. Basically what we don’t have is the snow pack that say we used to have you know forty or fifty years ago.

Since 1950, spring snow pack has declined as much as 60%.

You know the precipitation doesn’t come as snow, it only comes as rain and runs off , or if it does come as snow it melts faster, and I got no fruit, or hardly any fruit. If you have this to deal with this once every ten years you could probably absorb it, but every third to fifth year makes it very difficult, you know its not much different than going to Las Vegas. And if I don’t have water I cannot even begin to throw the dice.

Dr William Collins Climate Scientist - National Centre for Atmospheric Research

There will be aspects of global warming that will be changes in the water supply that will be stressful. As we go further up into the future there may be aspects of global warming that will fundamentally change the United States.

What else could change?

Greater or lesser extent all of our lives will be affected and most of those effects will be very unpleasant.

Forest Fires

For instance there are three things that you need to get a forest fire going, heat, drought and dead trees (vegetation), and global warming is going to give us all three of these.

Extinction

We can already see large scale damage to coral reefs. If we have a very large warming species, which literally cannot stand the heat will have to move out of where they are or if they can’t move go out of business all together.

One quarter of all plant and animal species could face extinction by the end of this century due to global warming.

Tropical diseases

Prof. Michael Oppenheimer Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University

Certain bugs that don’t do well in cold weather do very well in hot weather. So as the earth warms those bugs are going to thrive and we are going to see more and more diseases of this sort that have previously been confined to the tropics largely.

In 1999 West Nile Virus was first detected in New York City. It has now spread to 48 states in the USA.

Dr Jonathan Patz Director, Global Environmental Health Initiative, University of Wisconsin – Madison.

The mosquitoes that carry that virus are already in the United States and it only took the introduction of that virus probably from international travel for this disease to begin to take hold.

Dr Paul R. Epstein Associate Director Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School

The mosquito that carries West Nile Virus bites birds and can transmit the virus between the birds. Other mosquitoes bit the birds that are infected and pick up the virus mosquitoes and then they bite more birds and so you get a lot of virus circulating in nature. Some of these mosquitoes bite humans.

Dr William Reisen Research Entomologist – Center for Vector-borne Diseases, University of California - Davis

And the speed at which all of this happens is driven by temperature. West Nile Virus will not grow in a Mosquito below 50F. It occurs more effectively in areas above normal temperatures. So it is an aggressive invading virus that is finding virgin soil to multiply in. With the warmth here last year, we wound up have West Nile Virus around Lake Tahoe, we have never had to look for these viruses in lake Tahoe (a ski resort high up in the Sierras). As Canada warms this mosquito will move north and so will the viruses with it.

Dr Jonathan Patz Director, Global Environmental Health Initiative, University of Wisconsin – Madison.

It is important to recognize that climate variability and climate extremes really can take an immediate and a long term toll on human health.

Dr Kevin Trenberth Head Climate Analysis Section - National Centre for Atmospheric Research

The key thing is that we are adapted to the current climate that we have and it is not just humans who are adapted to the climate in particular, it is all of the ecosystems, all of the biosphere that are adapted to our current climate.

Dr. Stephen Schneider Co-director Centre for Environmental Science and Policy, Stanford University.

People say don’t you ever see anything good in climate change, yea if I were a farmer up in Northern Canada or in a high latitude I am going to get a longer growing season, and the Carbon Dioxide is a fertilizer itself of green plants so people will focus on the fact that I will see there are benefits and there will be some, but they forget that Carbon Dioxide is not just a fertilizer of the plants we like corn, wheat plants and forest but also fertilize weeds.

Pollen

Dr Lewis Ziska Plant Physiologist, Crop Systems and Global Change, US Department of Agriculture

We know that Carbon Dioxide is the principle global warming gas, but it is also the gas that makes plants grow and if you look at Ragweed and what we find is that as Carbon Dioxide increases in the atmosphere that Ragweed grows bigger and it produces a lot more pollen.

Since 1900, the amount of pollen produced by ragweed has doubled. It is predicted to double again by the end of this century if the Carbon Dioxide continues to rise at current rates.

Dr Paul R. Epstein Associate Director Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School

One of the things that have been a surprise is that this Carbon Dioxide stimulation of plants is, is that it has an affect on public health, this hyper-production of pollen can cause hay fever, conjunctivitis and can exacerbate asthma.

Dr Lewis Ziska Plant Physiologist, Crop Systems and Global Change, US Department of Agriculture

So we can look at this and ask why put up with a bigger ragweed plant, why don we, I dun no spay with more herbicide, the problem is as you increase Carbon Dioxide, and as you increase temperature it becomes much harder for a Ragweed so it becomes more resistant to the herbicide you apply. It doesn’t mean you can’t kill them using a herbicide and chemicals you just have to use more chemicals and increase the concentration and there is a cost to that, both an environmental and an economic cost.

Dr. Donald Kennedy editor in chief Science

There are many who believe that anything that you do to change the future course of global warming will be sufficiently expensive that they would rather not bear the cost . Of course that transfers the cost to their children.

Prof. Daniel Schrag, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University

If we keep adding green house gases to the atmosphere, the earth will get warmer and warmer to the point that no human has ever seen.

We may actually see the Earth without any ice at all. All of the ice at the poles will someday melt if the earth keeps getting warmer.

Melting Alaska

Susan Hassol Author Impacts of a warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment

We already see this going on in Alaska. Alaska is at the frontline of global warming because the rest of the world has warmed by about 1F, Alaska has warmed by about 5F in the last 50 years. One reason for that is that Alaska and a lot of parts of the Arctic are covered with a lot of snow and ice and that reflects away a lot of the sun’s heat. Now as that snow and ice begins to melt they reveal darker land and water surfaces and that absorbs more of the sun’s heat and that causes more melting and that causes more heating. That’s a self-reinforcing cycle that global warming feeds on itself.

Dr Bruce Molnia Research Geologist - US Geological Survey

In Alaska there are about two thousand large glaciers. More than 99%s are currently melting, retreating and shrinking. The last time that we had a complete melting of glaciers on the dunal ice-sheets was about 5000 or more years ago. So this warming period we see is extremely significant.

Glacier shown in 1941 and in 2004 when it is now a lake.

We are standing on the shoreline of Mendenhall Wake, behind me is Mendenhall Glacier. Seven years ago I would have had 150 to 200 feet of Ice above my head, but because of where I am right now would have been under the glacier and the retreat that you are seeing took place in the lifetime of my parents.

There is nothing as simple as two photographs taken from the same location, where you can see physical changes to the surface of the earth. We will make the political debate of is climate changing and how is climate changing? We can show you unequivocal visual documentation that the earth’s surface is changing.

What we are seeing is melt water. Cold melt water that has just be converted from solid ice to liquid water and each year the amount of melting is increasing. The water from the melting of this glacial ice ends up in the global ocean and sea-level rises.

If all the glaciers in Alaska were to completely melt sea-levels would go up less than one foot, but if you melt Greenland sea-levels will go up more than twenty feet, and if you were to melt all of Antarctica, total sea level rise would be more than 240 feet and you would see total inundations of coastlines around the world.

More than 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by WATER.

Prof. Michael Oppenheimer Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University

Think of the ocean as a tub of water if you took a bunch of ice cubes and threw them into the water the water level would rise, if you heated that water it would rise a little bit more, fluids like water expand a little bit when heated and the level in the tub would rise. That is what we are doing to the oceans. We are throwing all of that melting water from the glaciers and we are causing the water to expand a bit that is going to cause sea-level rise.

Dr. Richard Sommerville Climate Research Division Scrippts Intitution of Oceanography.

Sea level is rising, it has been rising for a long time, but we think the rate of sea-level rise is going to accelerate and over the 21st century it might rise by about 10 or 20 or 30 inches, those are the kinds of numbers we are talking about, that means that areas of the cost that aren’t very far above sea-level will be lost to sea-level, parts of the East Coast, parts of the West Coast and the Gulf Coast (of the USA), much of Florida for example.

Dr Harold Wanless, Professor and Chair Department of Geological Sciences, University of Miami

Hollywood Florida, 15 miles north of Miami Beach – this is typical of our beaches along the Atlantic shore and we are having gradual erosion of the shoreline, so they are starting to put more sand on the beach if you want to keep a beach in front of you. This is just a stop gap measure to try and hold sand in front of all these hotels and condominiums that have grown up along this shoreline.

Mostly they haven’t taken into account the fact that sea-level is rising and its going to rise at an accentuated rate in the coming century. There is nice (?) Condominium complex that’s on compacted sand foundations, well think about that what is compacted sand foundation – that is just jumping up and down on the sand and building a high-rise.

Steve Welsch, Resident, Hollywood Florida

The high-tides are higher the water comes down our streets more frequently you can almost catch fish or shrimp off of your porches. I am not quite sure that people are paying attention to this when they are sitting fifteen or twenty storeys up in the air but all of a sudden when they are on the ground and realizing that their swimming pool is filled with ocean water, shrimp and fish, now you maybe have a picture to put onto the issue of global warming.

Over half of all US residents live within 50 miles of the ocean.

Prof. Daniel Schrag, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University.

Storm surges are when a big storm like a hurricane is approaching a coastline and literally pushes the ocean water towards the coast. You might see in the case of a direct hit of a hurricane water rise on the coast maybe twenty or thirty feet higher than it would normally go.

Dr Kevin Trenberth Head Climate Analysis Section - National Centre for Atmospheric Research

A sea level rise of one inch or one and three-quarter inches is relatively small but if it comes on top of a storm surge and a high-tide – that is the sort of thing that can really cause things that mathematician call to go “non-linear” suddenly things break down, it’s the straw that breaks the camels back sometime.

Since 1970, the average number of CATEGORY 4 and 5 HURRICANES per year …has nearly DOUBLED.

Dr Kerry Emanuel, Professor, Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Science MIT

Hurricanes are among the most destructive natural catastrophes that we have, and their total power has gone up by almost half in the last thirty or fifty years should be cause for alarm. An average hurricane generates about a 2 trillion watts of power that is enough (energy) to light about 20 billion light bulbs. A hurricane is like a giant steam engine - there are large rotary wind systems that form over tropical oceans that converts heat energy into wind energy, the heat in the case of a hurricane comes up from the ocean, as the tropical ocean warms the intensity of hurricanes goes up.

Prof. Daniel Schrag, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University.

Hurricanes happen naturally and they will continue to happen, however there is evidence now that the gradual warming of the surface of the ocean will cause a higher intensity of hurricanes.

Dr. Richard Sommerville Climate Research Division Scrippts Intitution of Oceanography.

You can’t really say that Global Warming had this or that precise effect on hurricanes, but what you can say and its not a pointy-headed scientist bright idea, its an observed fact, but what you can say is that as the world warms, as the ocean surface waters become warmer, the average intensity of hurricanes will increase, and we have seen that happen.

The people who left New Orleans are certainly weather refuges, environmental pressures like global warming in some places make people move. If there is one lesson learnt from Hurricane Katrina is that even in a modem and highly industrialized society our ability to deal with nasty climate events is extremely limited. The thing that really worries me about this problem is not what we know but what we don’t know.

We are taking a huge gamble on our system, that we can’t really control. Everyday America should be concerned. Increase in infectious diseases.

How much stronger will hurricanes get? How much will sea-level rise. More floods, More drought, more Heat Waves and we will see dramatic changes. If this is happening in 2005, try and image what is going to happen by 2015.

From the causes of global warming through to the impacts we don’t just make the necessary connections.

We are addicted to energy, our highways, our industries, our infra-structure our very way of life, from drive-ins to Humvees (large American automobiles), it is hard for us to image a world with out that is identifiably American, its something about who we are.

Dr Terry L. Root, Senior Fellow Center for Environmental Science and Policy, Stanford University.

The United States uses more energy by far than any other country in the world.

Dr. Richard Sommerville Climate Research Division Scrippts Intitution of Oceanography.

America has about 5% of the World Population and it adds about 25% of the Carbon Dioxide into Atmosphere. When you put a molecule of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere today because it came out of your tailpipe or your chimney, it stays in the atmosphere for something like a hundred years.

Michael Oppenheimer, PhD, Professor, Geosciencesand International Affairs, Princeton University

We are already committed to a certain amount of warming, but the future lies largely in our hands, its under our control, whether we get the modest warming that we can adapt to or whether warming gets out of control. To stabilize the climate we need to cut emissions by something like 80%. But it does not have to be done overnight, we can do it gradually over the course of this century.

Johnathan Foley, PhD, Director, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, University of Wisconsin, Madison

I don’t think that Americans like ingenuity or innovation, I think we really thrive on that and given such a challenge I think we can re-invent ourselves in ways that will be really extraordinary.

Martin Hoffert, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Physics, New York University

I think it could really renew the United States’ ability to lead the world technologically.

Narrator
And by the way, the time from the Wright Brothers first flight to Neil Armstrong setting foot on the surface of the moon was only a little over 60 years

WHERE DO WE BEGIN?

Stephen Schneider, PhD, Co-Director, center for Environmental Science and Policy, Stanford University

We just have to live smart and stop trying to get away with bigger bigger bigger because you just can’t keep doing that forever without having Mother Nature bat last. When you buy a refrigerator look at the label, calculate the electric cost, if its $50 more but it saves you $20 a year, you going to get your payback so fast, you can’t get that kind of money in a bank. When you walk out of the room, do you turn the light out, do you tell the kids to turn the light out? When you buy a car, does it have to be ₤8000? How about a ₤3500 hybrid? It’s a great car, it works well. And when the gas lines come and when you get shortages, you’ll be very happy, you’ll go 500 miles on it and only have to pay $30 and not $80 for your tank of gas.

David Friedman, Research Director, Clean vehicles Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

Every year cars and trucks emit about 1.5 billion tons of CO2 pollution, of global warming pollution in the US. That’s more than most countries emit from all sources combined from electricity, from cars, from industry. If we could shift the hybrids, we could cut that in half.

HYBRIDS

Hybrid cars and trucks are blends of the best featured of an electric vehicle and the traditional gasoline vehicles everyone is driving around today.

Dave Bassage, Environmental Policy Strategist

I usually break hybrid drivers into three categories:-
The environmentally conscious people like myself
Those who are fascinated by the technology
And those who are just trying to save a few cents at the pump

When you get in a hybrid then you’re getting instantaneous feedback about what kind of fuel economy you’re getting at any given moment. At least for somebody like me, you can help but try to play with the numbers. Its like playing a video game and you start driving for high score and that automatically improves my driving.

Robert Barlow, Attorney

I’m a Conservative Republican. I am as bad a conservative as they come, but the root word of conservative is conserve. This number tells me how many miles per gallon I’ve gotten since I last got gas. I just don’t believe in wasting things, I don’t believe in wasting my own money, I don’t believe in wasting natural resources or any resources we might have.

Dave Bassage, Environmental Policy Strategist

I met these guys online, we all have a hobby of just trying to get the most we canout of our cars, the most mileage out of a gallon of gas.

HYBRID MILEAGE MARATHON AUGUST 2005

The four of us are going to be taking turns behind the wheel of this car to see how far we can go on a single tank of gas. There are some techniques that found that could really maximize the potential of this car. The holy grail is 100miles per gallon. A lot of people assume that a very fuel efficient car must for some reason be underpowered. That’s far from the case. Anytime I hit the gas it does what I ask it to do.

The US currently consumes about 10% of its fuel just idling at stop lights,stop signs and parking lots.

Dave Bassage, Environmental Policy Strategist

When you pull up at a traffic light the gas engine shuts off, therrs no need for it.

OK, how many miles was it?

Driver

113 miles

Dave Bassage, Environmental Policy Strategist

113 miles per gallon

Driver

That’s correct

Dave Bassage, Environmental Policy Strategist

1377 miles

and he’s still going

That’s great

Beyond anything anyone of us expected

Dave Bassage, Environmental Policy Strategist

If everyone switched to hybrids that would be he equivilant of taking over 100 million cars and trucks off the road.

i think you can improve your quality of life, improve your pocket book and improve the earth’s climate all at the same time.

The quality of life does not depend on you burning gasoline, it depend on your car working and getting you to your job in the morning.

ETHANOL

Have you ever heard of ethanol?

No, I haven’t.

Its alcohol fuel that’s made primarily in this country from corn. When you mix it with gasoline it helps the gasoline burn cleaner. The more we grow, the less we have to import from Saudi Arabia. Pure grain alcohol. The old farmers saying is drink the best grown grass.

VERY GALLON OF CORN ETHANOL THAT REPLACES A GALLON OF GASOLINE REDUCES GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS ABOUT 15%

Certainly theres a limit to how much ethanol you can make out of just corn. We start having not enough corn or we have to commit more acres.

Ron Lamberty, Director, Market Development, American Coalition for Ethanol

I think the most exciting prospect in the future for ethanol is we are starting to use alot more of things that aren’t corn. You can make ethanol from anything that has starch or cellulose and cellulose is things like wood chips or switchgrass or cornstower? Like the stuff you see laying on this field. Things that would otherwise be waste products that people would have to find a way to get rid of, we can pick out and turn it into fuel for vehicles.

ETHANOL MADE FROM GRASSES AND WASTE MATERIALS REDUCES GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS ABOUT 90% PER GALLON, COMPARED TO GASOLINE

BIODIESEL

Willie Nelson, Musician, founder BioWillie Diesel Fuel

My wife acme to me one day and said “I wanna buy this diesel engine car that runs on vegetable oil”. And I said it sound a little fony to me, you know, so, but if you really wanna try it…so she bought one. And it ran like a sewing machine, she got better gas mileage, the motor was cleaner. I was asking myself where have I been, you know. The guys is just not that well known. A lot of people just yelling and screaming about biodiesel.

BIODIESEL IS MADE FROM VEGETABLE OIL OR WASTE PRODUCTS

EVERY GALLON OF BIODIESEL THAT REPLACES A GALLON OF DIESL REDUCES GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS ABOUT 78%

Christopher Rowell, Truck Driver

I’ve worked with drivers, I’ve talked to some. They say their mileage has increased to a mile to two miles a gallon. That don’t seem like a whole lot, but these trucks are only averaging 6.5 now.

Kenneth Yates, President, Yates Trucking

When you’re doing this everyday like I am filling up everyday, you figure $80 or $100 everyday you’re saving.

Willie Nelson, Musician, founder BioWillie Diesel Fuel

Everyone of them has said that their engine runs better and cleaner. I know truckers and people that would pay more for biodiesel. Everyone of them is proud to spend their money for something that is going to stay here in our country and help our own folks because all of want to see this thing take off and replace our addictions to oil.

Dr. Richard Sommerville Climate Research Division Scripps Intitution of Oceanography

Its been remarked that the Stone-age ended not because we’ve run out if stones but because there were better ways to live and I think the oil age is likely to end if we are wise enough not because we’ve run out of oil but because there are better ways to supply energy.

James Gustav Speth, J.D, Dan, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University

Energy is the big issue and the biggest part of that issue is coal.

COAL

James E. Rogers, Chairman and CEO, Cinergy Corp.

Coal is critical to the generation of electricity in this country. More than 50% of the electricity comes from the burning of coal.

Daniel Schrag, PhD. Professor Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University

Coal is one of the biggest concerns for the future, because coal is very cheap and is very abundant. What that means is that it’s going to be a preferred energy source not just for the US but also for China, for India and for Russia that all have huge coal reserves.

The problem with coal is that it also produces the most CO2 for the amount of energy you get out of it. And that’s really big trouble for the climate system.

Prof. Michael Oppenheimer Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University

The technology exists to burn coal more efficiently also is a potential to bury some of the CO2 emissions before they go into he atmosphere bys trapping them as they’re emitted from power plants and burring them deep underground. But you know in the end we simply don’t know how expensive its going to be and how long the CO2 is going to stay there.

David Hawkins, Director, Climate Center, Natural Resources Defense Council

We need to find a way of harmonizing the use of that coal with protecting the planet. We can do both and if we do it we will be able to make progress.

James E. Rogers, Chairman and CEO, Cinergy Corp.

There’s some promising technology on the horizon but today in a world where your job is to provide affordable electricity at the lowest reasonable price you’re driven to the old technologies because there is no regulation that would drive you to the new technologies

James Gustav Speth, J.D, Dean, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University

I’m afraid that our government in Washington is yet to put in place any measure that is specifically designed to protect us from climate disruption. And in a way Washington is the last holdout. They really good news in our country today is that outside of Washington people are responding and in fact they are 180+ U.S. cities committed to reducing greenhouse gases.

Portland, Oregon

Tom Potter, Mayor, Portland, Oregon

What we need is the leadership at the Federal level. But you know you can do it in the community and you can do it as a public official and that to me means that you don’t have to accept things the way they are.

In 1993, the people of Portland took on the climate challenge.

What we found in Portland is that we have reduced carbon emissions by thirteen percent while increasing our workforce by sixteen percent. We give people alternative ways to get to work. We’ve also made traveling in and out of Portland easier on public transportation than private transportation. We have Flexcars where people can rent a car on the street and use it for a few hours. And most of those cars are hybrids. The city actually has a Green Building Policy if developers and builders want to use public money they’ve got to have Green Building standards or we won’t give them the money. When we do Green Building it’s not only helps our environment it helps the economy because energy efficiency is cheaper.

Horward Shapiro, Co-op Resident, Portland, Oregon

These six buildings are all sharing their heating their cooling and their excess energy one way or another. All that is wonderful in terms of the energy conservation however the bottom line is that our energy bills are remarkably remarkably low. And it has to do with the fact that we’re using recycled energy.

Norm Thompson Outfitters, Inc, Direct Marketer

John Emrick, President, Norm Thompson Outfitters, Inc

In Portland Oregon the business community stepped up to the plate. One of the first things we had to do was to say what’s the worst thing we do as it relates to the environment within our business and that is print catalogs. We knocked down trees so we can get paper to print catalogs.

Each year in the U.S., about 57 million trees are used to make catalogs.

Derek Smith, Director, Corporate Responsibility, Thompson Outfitters, Inc

We use a lot of paper. Catalogs to us are like store fronts to other retailers so we’re very concerned if we used recycled paper would it reduce our customer response rates or the amount of sales we would generate. There has been no negative impact on sales. In fact over the years now we’ve found that consumers are coming to us because of our environmental commitments. Since 2002, we have been using recycled paper and we have avoided using 30 million pounds of greenhouse gases the gases that contribute to global warming.

John Emrick, President, Norm Thompson Outfitters, Inc

There’s a lot of environmental changes we’ve made both into recycled paper and packaging. And whats happened as a result of what we’ve done is actually been a net saving that amounts to $2.5 million. I think we need kind of a revolution its really almost consumer led or citizen led that says we need more of you. And if you are doing more then we will support you. And then the whole competitive environment kicks in and says
I’d better be doing it.

David Yudkin, Owner, Hot Lips Pizza

Any business has a huge impact on the environment, be it the resources it uses, eg. when you turn on a pizza oven its burning natural gas its releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. So what we did is we’re capturing the waste heat that’s exhausted out of the oven we are taking that waste heat and we are heating our water. We haven’t had to have our electric heater on for two years we’ve been in the building. One of the things we were also concerned about is where the food is coming from and how far it travels, how much fossil fuel, how much refrigeration is used to get us our food. The average piece of food in the US travels 1500miles from the farmer o the plate. One of the strategies to reduce the amount of CO2 we put into the air is to use locally grown ingredients. What we realized about combustion engines are releasing the most CO2 when you’re making short trips which is exactly what pizza delivery is. We went out and got these great little electric cars that we’re using for pizza delivery. As far as CO2 emissions, it gets the equivalent of 80mile per gallon.

Delivery girl

They call up to order pizza and they say will you please delivery it in the electric car.

David Yudkin, Owner, Hot Lips Pizza

What changed for me I realizing that I have a responsibility to the next generation and that the world need to be left in at least as good shape as when I got in.

Tom Potter, Mayor, Portland, Oregon

We have been hearing so much bad news about global warming. Too many people think well global warming is just too big for me but you know everybody can do something.

And it makes sense, dollar cents and common sense.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE

Prof. Michael Oppenheimer Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University

We don’t need to be so dependant on fossil fuels, there are lots of alternatives. Wind power is already practical, solar power rather expensive is becoming cheaper all the time. Nuclear energy doesn’t create greenhouse gases but it has a lot of other environmental problems. Geothermal energy, tidal energy, theres a whole cornucopia of alternatives if we just focus on developing them.

Dr Jonathan Foley Director, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, University of Wisconsin – Madison.

This can be the biggest business opportunity of all time is to move away from a carbon based economy to a new economy that does not harm the earths climate.

HORSE HOLLOW WIND PROJECT, TAYLOR COUNTY TEXAS

Temple Dickson, Rancher

The companies that started building turbines on our land, the GE are that have torn apart our lives, they’re not telling you they are here to save the world. Corporations just don’t do that. If they cant make a profit, they don’t do it. It looks like its working for them and it clearly would not have done it had it been simply an environmental issue. The environment was extremely important in my family. They liked the idea of wind power. And windmills are certainly extremely clean. The first thing you will almost say compare to oil.

Greg Wortham, Executive Director, West Texas Wind Energy Consortium

I grew up at Sweetwater, Texas. We used to know we were home when we came over the hill and we could see pumpjacks as far as you could see. This entire valley was filled with pumpoiljacks. But now what you see is a ridgeline full of wind turbines. By the end of the year it will be roughly a million homes that can be powered by West Texas Wind. And it’s a real replacement its not a hobby anymore or a novelty or a fad. Its very much a real industry a real power plant. The technology of wind turbines improves everyday its like computers. So that means jobs, it means new opportunities for people in this region that they didn’t have before. And so it just gives this state of Texas a huge new source of industry. And we barely touched the surface of what potential is here.

William McDonough, FAIA, Architect, Environmentalist

We don’t need to destroy ourselves in the process to make ourselves comfortable. We already have the sun, its eight minutes away and its waterless. Energy is not free because you have to capture it, you have to move it around, you have to engage it, that’s where the costs are. But you know, the source itself is clean and free. Hey theres something attractive about that. And as soon its cheaper than bringing coal watch how fast everyone thinks it a great idea. To power the entire US it will only take a solarplector of 100 miles on each side in the Mojave Dessert, that’s all. That would cover our energy consumption, imagine that!

Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Martin Hoffert, PhD., Professor Emeritus, Physics, New York University

There is a prototype of a large solar facility in New Mexico and an even lager one is being built right now in California. We have actually doubled the amount of instilled capacity to generate solar energy.

James Gustav Speth, J.D, Dean, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University

This new technology that Southern California Edison is deploying, will in one solar power plant produce the electricity that is about he same as large scaled coal fired power plant. Its as extraordinary.

Martin Hoffert, PhD., Professor Emeritus, Physics, New York University

The sun is this big light bulb in the sky. As far as we humans are concerned it is basically going to be there indefinitely. I think we should go where the solar energy is and collect it there, in space where the sun shine 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We could in principle have a solar powered planet

Prof. Michael Oppenheimer Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University

There are many many alternatives if we just focus on developing them. With thse sorts of technologies we don’t want one answer, we want a thousand flowers to bloom.

If we are smart enough to go to the moon, to develop the internet, to cure polio I cannot believe that we are no smart enough to stop global warming. At the beginning of the industrial revolution, no one anticipated global warming. Its perfectly natural that we would have used fossil fuels as it brought us wealth and it brought us the kind of living standard that we have today. Its one thing when you don’t know the consequences but to continue that behavior when you know that’s its damaging to you and you know that its going to be really damaging to future generations, is inexcusable.

Dr. Stephen Schneider Co-director Centre for Environmental Science and Policy, Stanford University.

Its absolutely amazing some people will say well when you are sure we will do something about it will anybody ever go to the doctor and the doctor says well I don’t like your heart condition I think that you should be on a low cholesterol diet and do exercise and you will turn around to the doctor and say well tell me precisely when am I going to have the heart attack and how severe it is. That is how absurd it is when the political world tells us in the climate world well exactly how bad is it going to be and when you are sure come back and talk to us. That’s not the way it works in any other form of life. Not in business, not in health, not in security. We have pretty good ideas of what can happen but we do not have the detail picture and we are not going to for several decades. What we are doing is taking the risk with the life support system of the earth and humans have to decide if they want to try to slow that down.

James Gustav Speth, J.D, Dean, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University

We have to decide that we can deal with this issue and that we will deal with this issue.

I found a wonderful poem by Wallace Stevens. “after the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future world depends”.

Refs

http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/?p=176

An Inconvenient Truth
http://www.climatecrisis.net/blog/

LINK TO COURSE STRUCTURE

2006-07-24T09:07:00.000+02:00

Please visit this posting to get all the details of course structure and assignments.

Thanks

http://bcb724.blogspot.com/2006_05_23_bcb724_archive.html

CHAPTER LINKS AND DOCUMENTS

2006-07-22T18:51:00.000+02:00

Hi Everyone

First of all apologies, I have just realised that the links pointed to another NISL course. I have sorted that out and I have attached links to the various reading material that you will be using while doing this course.

Document 1a:Alexander1.PDF:
Up-loaded: 9/23/2005 2:29:29 PM

Description: This is part one of a piece in the Farmer's Weekly by
Will Alexander refuting claims of global warming. Prof. Alexander is Professor
Emeritus, Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of
Pretoria. This article made available by the kind permission of Famers' Weekly
Magazine.

Document 1b:Alexander2.PDF:
Up-loaded: 9/23/2005 2:32:09 PM

Description: The second part of Prof Alexander's refutation of
global warming. Also have a look at : http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/april/climate.htm
This article made available by the kind permission of Farmers' Weekly
Magazine.

Document 2:Halpin_EcoApp_1997_Management_response.PDF:
Up-loaded: 9/21/2005 12:31:10 PM

Description: Halpin, P.N., "Global Climate Change and Natural Area
Protection: Management Reponses and Research Directions", 1997, Ecological
Applications, Vol 7, No 3..................................... A paper
discussing the response options available and avenues of research that should
be pursued in order to expand the available options for conservation area
management in response to climate change. Note that some of these areas have
been explored since the paper was published, whilst others have not.

Document 3:Hoffert_2002_technological_solutions.PDF:
Up-loaded: 9/13/2005 4:25:47 PM

Description: Hoffert, M.I., et al, "Advanced Technology Paths to
Global Climate Stability: Energy for a Greenhouse Planet", 2002, Science 298,
pp 981- 987..............................This paper discusses possible
alternative methods of generating power to minimise the climate change
impacts. There is a definite focus on high technology, although not all of the
options seem too far-fetched.

Document 4:Malcolm_Markham_2000_WWF.PDF:
Up-loaded: 9/14/2005 4:51:47 PM

Description: Malcolm, J.R. and Markham, A. "Global Warming and
Terrestrial Biodiversity Decline", 2000, WWF periodical, WWF. A discussion
paper on the effects of climate change on biodiversity worldwide. Conjectures
are made on the basis on the required migration rate for species to track the
changing climate. It is interesting that the RMRs for some of the biomes
modelled are orders of magnitude higher than those observed after the last
glacial maximum.

Document 5a: Midgley_etal_Alexander_reply1.PDF: Up-loaded: 9/23/2005
2:40:00 PM

Description: The reply to Prof Alexander's refutation of climate
change from several respected scientists (also published in the Farmer's
Weekly). This article made available by the kind permission of Farmers' Weekly
Magazine.

Document 5b: Midgley_etal_Alexander_reply2.PDF: Up-loaded: 9/23/2005
2:45:31 PM

Description: The second part of the reply to Prof Alexander's
refutation of climate change. This article made available by the kind
permission of Farmers' Weekly magazine.

Document 6:Nyong2005.PDF:
Up-loaded: 9/20/2005 4:52:28 PM

Description: Nyong, A. "Impacts of Climate Change in the Tropics:
The African Experience", 2000, UK Meteorology Office's Symposium on "Avoiding
Dangerous Climate Change" in
Exeter..........................................................A discussion
of the likely effects of global climate change on Africa, including
biodiversity, health, food security and displacement issues.

Document 7:TAR01_climate_system_overview.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/27/2005 5:43:41 PM

Description: An overview of the IPCC report, and an outline of
natural and anthropogenic climate change effects. This overview provides a
broad-scale perspective on the IPCC findings

Document 8:TAR02_Observed_variability_and_change.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/27/2005 5:48:05 PM

Description: This second chapter of the IPCC report describes the
extent of the variability from previous norms, and appraises to what extent
this is the result of anthropogenic change. This is a large chapter!

Document 9: TAR03_Carbon_cycle_and_CO2.PDF: Up-loaded: 932047 8/27/2005
5:52:44 PM

Description: The third chapter of the IPCC report summarizes the
current knowledge about the carbon cycle, including the action of CO2 on the
atmosphere. It highlights the human sources and effects on atmospheric CO2,
and discusses future (and palaeo) trends in the carbon cycle.

Document 10:TAR04_Greenhouse_Gases.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/27/2005 6:27:38 PM

Description: Chapter 4 looks at the effects of greenhouse gases and
a changing atmospheric chemistry on climate change. It also looks at future
projections of outputs and their effects. There is a lot to discuss here.

Document 11:TAR05_Aerosols_Direct_effects.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/27/2005 6:09:58 PM

Description: Chapter 5 looks at the effects of aerosols on the
atmosphere, and the effects of future changes in aerosol concentration on
climate change. There is a lot still to be understood on the actions of
aerosols.

Document 12:TAR06_Radiative_Forcing.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/27/2005 6:04:32 PM

Description: Chapter 6 discusses the causes and effects of radiative
forcings in the atmosphere on time scales ranging from the solar to
anthropogenic. This paper is relatively technical, but a fair bit can be
learned from it!

Document 13:TAR07_Physical_processes_and_feedbacks.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/27/2005 6:03:32 PM

Description: Chapter 7 looks at the physical processes driving the
earth's climate (in terms of oceanic, terrestrial and atmospheric
interactions), and details some of the feedback processes that drive and limit
change. A little technical, but very interesting

Document 14:TAR08_Model_Evaluation.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/27/2005 6:33:05 PM

Description: Goes into relatively good detail about which models are
usefully applied to what scenarios, and illustrates the effectiveness (and
limitations) of the models for climate change prediction.

Document 15:TAR09_Future_projections.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/27/2005 6:31:31 PM

Description: Discusses the probable outcomes of future climate
change. Be warned - there are nearly as many projections as there are
modellers, and although the paper does a good job of making sense of this vast
volume of data, it is still a lot to go through!

Document 16:TAR10_Regional_climate_information.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/30/2005 1:26:10 PM

Description: Chapter 10 goes into the detail of regional climate
modelling, and the difficulty and processes of downscaling GCM outputs for
regions to a scale that is useful for planning. Expect a lot of tehcnical
detail on the workings of models.

Document 17:TAR11_Sea_level_changes.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/30/2005 1:32:01 PM

Description: This chapter discusses the projections of future sea
level rise, both in the near future, and overall. It analyses current trends,
and determines the likely causes of sea level rise.

Document 18:TAR12_Detection_of_change.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/30/2005 1:57:09 PM

Description: This Chapter discusses the processes involved in
detection of climate change (through measurement, modelling, and proxy data).
Particularly interesting is the process of attribution of causes of change.

Document 19:TAR13_Scenario_development.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/30/2005 1:41:29 PM

Description: This describe show the IUPCC evolved the future
emissions scenarios for standardising GCM ouputs. It describes the baselines,
regional downscaling, and the element of uncertainty in these scenarios

Document 20:TAR14_Advancing_our_understanding.PDF:
Up-loaded: 8/30/2005 1:50:27 PM

Description: This is more of a concept document than anything else,
describing those areas in which scientists need to concentrate in order to
expand our knowledge of climate change.

Image Credit

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=4392

ADDRESSING STUDENT PLAGIARISM

2006-06-25T12:23:00.000+02:00

All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/uwc2006/content/mail_disclaimer/index.htm

Hi

I received this email from our Director of ICS Prof. Derek Keats on the 06/20/06 07:50AM so I thought you should all review the article referred to.

Please note that I plagiarized this word for word....thought it might be of interest....

"Sally Brown, pro vice chancellor for assessment, learning, and teaching at Leeds Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, believes that the age of technology has not only made cheating easy but has also engendered a sense among today's students that there is nothing wrong with copying and pasting someone else's work into your own. Many students today, she said, simply do not understand what plagiarism is and why it is wrong. Of the several approaches Brown suggested for fixing the problem, the one she thinks the best is designing coursework around plagiarism. By giving assignments that require personal knowledge or that compel students to provide regular accounts of their studies, an instructor can largely avoid the issue of plagiarism, according to Brown. Other strategies include education, punishments, and changing the culture among students so that cheaters are looked down on by everyone."

BBC, 18 June 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/5093286.stm

Derek Keats

I will be putting links up on the finalized documents from the Science Faculty for your attention.

Cheers

Rich

Dr Richard Knight
Co-ordinator: National Information Society Learnerships - Ecological Informatics
Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za

Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za

Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za

PLAGIARISM PREVENTION, GRADING AND PEER-REVIEW: THE WAY FORWARD

2006-06-07T02:04:00.000+02:00

All Email originating from UWC is covered by disclaimer http://www.uwc.ac.za/portal/uwc2006/content/mail_disclaimer/index.htm

Hi Everyone

I am finalizing the contract with Turnitin so that future assignments for me (viz the NISL-EI2 courses) will require submitting to this electronic scanning service. This is not actually to scare you, rather to help you with your writing skills and get away from a dependency for lifting text from the Internet, printed text and even previous student assignments submitted (your assignments are entered into an electronic database that is used for future scanning). It works in the following way...

There will be a link on each course Blog page to Turnitin for submitting of the assignments.
You will be issued Turnitin accounts (usernames and logins) for the NISL-EI courses.
I will setup the assignment details for your submission.
In the beginning you will be required to create your student profile that will include your ClassID and Password, which I will provide you via email. You will then need to fill in your email address, provide your personal Turnitin password (a minimum of 6 letters and numbers but no special characters and at least one character must be a number), you will then be presented with a secrete password retrieval question and answer and finally to complete your profile you will provide your names (first and last name) and your Country.
The creation of your student profile is completed when you accept the user profile agreement form.
You will then get logged in and will navigate to the correct BCB course and assignment.
You will upload your assignment and you will see that it has been uploaded (you can check that it is the right document via the on screen system) and once confirmed you will get a digital receipt and a confirmation email message that the assignment was submitted and time stamped.
Late assignments will not be accepted via the electronic system.
If you are confused do not worry online training videos will be provided just prior to initiation of this process.

I have elected to go for an electronic marking as well, so your assignment will be analysed first for Plagiarism and if too high will be returned to you with a full report of where there is plagiarism and close paraphrasing. I do not know how strictly this system will apply the rules but certainly just changing a word or two in place will not fool the system and it is based on a very comprehensive database. I will then use my discretion as to whether you get zero marks or a chance to re-submit. Unfortunately the cost of the scanning service is rather expensive and we pay for both an annual subscription and a per document cost, so chances to re-submit will be restricted (each assignment will cost me about R10 to process). An electronic grading will be done and you will be sent back your marked-up scripts with the grade electronically. This system will work much better than the old way of emailing them to my gmail account which I can only access after hours. Finally some assignments will also be peer marked by yourselves using the Turnitin Peer Review system.

Hopefully this will level the playing field and be fair to everyone and was a decision not taken lightly. Until I know when our payments have been made and the Turnitin accounts been set up please hold back from submitting any assignments such as the Biodiversity due at the end of this week. The first assignment that you will be submitting will be your cumulative Biodiversity reports (all of your answers combined into one report to save scanning costs and processing time). Since you have had extensive feedback on these assignments previously it will give us the perfect opportunity to know precisely how the implementation of the system will work.

Can you please confirm that you have read and understood this posting by attaching a comment and your name. This is also an opportunity to air any issues that you have or to finally clear up any misunderstandings, I promise to respond to all of your concerns if expressed.

Good Luck

Rich

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za

Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za

PLAGIARISM DECLARATION

2006-05-25T14:41:00.000+02:00

Hi Folks

At a recent BCB departmental meeting (May 2006) it was agreed that all students will need to sign an undertaking that their assignments have not been plagiarised and are correctly referenced. At an earlier meeting in 2006 the department agreed to using the CSE/CBE style for all referencing in student assignments. It was also recommended that all electronic courses also carry such a declaration. To this end you will note that a plagiarism declaration has been added to the right hand side of the Weblog ensuring compliance and understanding of the issues of plagiarism and correct citation, quotation and referencing.

It is important that you understand these issues and to this end Gwen and Nick have put a lot of effort in helping your identify and not to commit plagiarism while undertaking the Biodiversity course. I trust that this message is now fairly comprehensively understood, nevertheless you may submit certain assignments to Nick who has agreed to check them as per the revised schedule put up by Gwen in an earlier posting on the Biodiversity Blog (See http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/05/correction-editing-times.html )

How to avoid plagiarism?

Make your own notes when revising material and keep a record of all the references you have consulted.
Organise your notes into a mind map of the assignment.
Use your notes and mind map to prepared the final assignment.
Get a classmate to look through your assignment before submitting, for both plagiarism and proper referencing.
For submitting on the Weblog and when preparing Power Point presentations, I would recommend using a number in brackets after the text. The number should be hyperlinked to the article if it is available electronically available. The numbers must be organized in ascending order and placed within square brackets [1].
Do a few checks of phrases of five words or more using a Google Search
Finally quickly read through your more important references to check that you subconsciously have not slipped in a near verbatim phrase.

Some important references to Plagiarism on the NISL Weblogs that you have participated in

PLAGIARISM: OFFICIAL RULING AND DEFINITION - SENATE UWC

http://bcb703.blogspot.com/2006/04/plagiarism-official-ruling-and.html

DEFINING PLAGIARISM

http://bcb703.blogspot.com/2006/03/defining-plagiarism.html

STANDARDISED PENALTIES FOR THE SCIENCE FACULTY

http://bcb703.blogspot.com/2006/03/standardised-penalties-for-science.html

THE HUNT IS ON FOR PLAGIARISM

http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/05/hunt-is-on-for-plagiarism.html

BIODIVERSITY TAUGHT THROUGH THE WEBLOG

http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/04/biodiversity-taught-through-weblog.html

EXTENSIONS, TESTS AND PLAGIARISM

http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/05/extensions-tests-and-plagiarism.html

Plagiarism and Referencing: Hopefully the last word

http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/05/plagiarism-and-referencing-hopefully.html

Cheers

Rich, Gwen and Nick

Team: National Information Society Learnerships - Ecological Informatics
Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za

Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za

COURSE DESCRIPTION

2006-05-23T16:06:00.000+02:00

Climate Change needs to be mainstreamed into the management of biodiversity and to inform conservation planning. This course is intended to fill a national gap in the training within this field and will provide learners with a rigorous set of analytical skills that will complement the other courses in the BCB Honours programme. This course is based on a short course entitled "Ensuring Sustainable Protection of Biodiversity in Response to Global Climatic Change using a Strategic Conservation Planning Approach" Presented at the Biodiversity and Conservation Biology Department, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, 22-25 February 2005.

The course was funded by AIACC - Assessment of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change in Multiple Regions and Sectors (AIACC) through a grant to Council for Scientific and industrial Research (CSIR), South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS).

The use of the course material is gratefully acknowledged, together with all of the presenters time to make it available via the Internet. AIACC is implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme ane executed jointly START (System for Analysis, Research and Training) and TWAS (Third World Academy of Sciences). START - is part of the IGBP programme and is an instrument to involve the national institutions and national scientists in the IGBP research framework. The funding was provided by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) with collateral funding provided by the United States Agency for International Development, the Canadian Protection Agency, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the World Bank.

The Problem:

Global warming will radically change the rainfall and temperature regimes over the entire SADC region. This is likely to have profound impact on biodiversity and wide-scale extinctions of species are predicted. The impacts will occur relatively soon and most of us will see them within our lifetimes. These extinctions can, in part, be mitigated by the use of strategic conservation planning that takes into consideration the likely impacts of climate change.

Objectives:

To conduct hands on training on how to predicting likely impacts from climatic change.To identify adaptation options to mitigate the impacts of the change on biodiversity.
To familiarise learners on the current climate change scenarios
To introduce tools for biodiversity conservation planning in a climatically changing environment.

Assignments

PowerPoint (with sound) 20%

You were shown the Video HBO video "Too hot not too Handle" and I will produce a text narration for this video. Essentially this document summarized the "IMPACT" of climate change for the North America (and specifically the USA). In this documentary, there were interviews with a number of Experts in various fields. You will need to make a search through the library databases (see BCB703 - Chapter on Library Searches) and IDENTIFY THREE pulications by that person (not necessary to be the senior author). Using this person's field of Expertise, these three papers and additional references (including what is available through our Planet download server) prepare a PowerPoint presentation. The PowerPoint must use the latest NISL-EI2 template which you can get HERE! (IE users right click and save target as... to download). Please try to get electronic copies of these publication so we can upload to the courseware server.

Contribution to the Weblog 20%

During theis course I am expecting various short articles/reviews written by yourselves dealing with the issue of Climate Change in South Africa, its assessment and adapatation. I am expecting about TEN contributions during the course and these contributions should be about 500 words each. Since not all articles lend themselves to being written so briefly you may contribute fewer but longer articles. For each article find a suitable image to insert that goes with the article and provide an image credit at the end of your posting. Finally and very importantly you must add a signature file at the end of your posting so we can search for your contributions. At the end of the course you will need to collect all of your postings into a single Word document to submit to us for formal assessment and this may not be less than 5000 words and this will be electroinically scanned for plagiarism. Finally to encourage you to comment on each others contributions your mark will be split 70% for your postings and 30% for your comments on other people's postings.

Online TESTS 20%

There will be six short tests.

TEST 1: This test is based on the paper "Global warming and terrestrial biodiversity decline", Malcolm, J.R. and Markham, A., 2000, WWF. You can find this paper in your course document folder.

TEST 2: This test is based on the paper "Impacts of Climate Change in the Tropics: The African Experience", by Anthony Nyong (as presented to the UK Meteorology Office's Symposium on "Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change" in Exeter, February 2005). You can find this paper in your course document folder.

TEST 3: This test appraises how well you have understood and remembered Chapters 4 and 5.

TEST 4: This test is based on the paper "Global Climate Change and Natural Area Protection: Management Reponses and Research Directions", Halpin,P.N., 1997, Ecological Applications, Vol 7, No 3. You can find this paper in your course document folder.

TEST 5: This test appraises how well you have understood and remembered Chapters 6 and 7. These are both relatively detailed chapters,

TEST 6: This test appraises how well you have understood and remembered Chapters 8 and 9. In addition, it may also include questions from the DEAT guidelines on Environmental Economics, which is included as an attachment to Chapter 9. You should ensure you have read this paper and understood as many of the principles as possible, with particular focus on the section regarding externalities and valuation (pages 5-12).

REMEMBER: you will be marked on the first quiz that you submit. We have received several copies of quizzes from some people, but only the first one received will be considered for appraisal.

Practical (Mini Project) 40%

You will be carrying out a GAM (General Additive Model) to determine the future distribution of a mammal species within Africa under climate change conditions. For an overview of the practical, a presentation can be viewed here:

Practical overview lecture

You will need to download and install the following three files. When prompted for an install location, just use the default location specified.

R statistical package installation (23.9Mb)
R additional modeling package (1.95Mb)
Practical data and shapefiles (5.86Mb)

These should add a folder onto your C:\ drive called "Climate Change Course Practical". All the necessary data for your practical can be found within this folder.

You will need access to access to ArcView 3.2 plus Spatial Analyst in order to carry out this exercise. Although this exercise can be done using ARC GIS 9.X we do not advice doing this unless you are very familiar with the software. Unfortunately time prevented us from develop the necessary help systems to undertake the practical.

You will be required to prepare a writeup of your model. Included in the folder are an outline of the practical writeup that will be required, and a template that you must fill out and complete. Read the instructions for these very carefully - it is essential that you fill them out accurately and with a minimum of formatting errors.These documents can also be found online:

Climate change practical questions
Climate change practical template

In order to fill in the template, you will need to prepare data for modelling, and then run a model prediction using a GAM. An HTML guide has been prepared to demonstrate how to prepare the data for modelling and run a GAM model using R. This demonstration also has a number of flash animations to describe some of the more complicated processes. However, not everything for the practical is completely described here - there are some elements of the exercise that will require to you to apply the skills you should have accumulated throughout the process.