Carbon Footprint | News & Views

Elephants know when they need a helping trunk

Elephants can work cooperatively if that is the only way to reach food. This kind of coordinated behaviour was once thought to be unique to our nearest primate relatives.

Joshua Plotnik of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and his colleagues have previously shown that elephants seem to recognise themselves in a mirror. To test the animals’ understanding of cooperation, Plotnik and his colleagues have developed an elephant version of an experiment originally run with chimps.

In this experiment, a pair of animals can bring a platform bearing food within their grasp if both simultaneously pull on the ends of a rope threaded through it. If only one pulls the rope, it unthreads from the platform, leaving the food out of reach.

The Thai elephants the researchers studied learned to tug in unison with their trunks. In experiments in which one animal was held back by up to 45 seconds, its partner would wait for it to turn up before starting to pull. Most strikingly, in trials in which one end of the rope was curled up and out of reach, both animals backed away from the apparatus, making no attempt to pull on the rope.

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Deloitte survey points to long wait for mass adoption of electric cars

Reposted from The Independent Online

A Europe-wide survey conducted by the consulting firm Deloitte points to widespread interest in electric vehicles (EVs), but also suggests that only a minority think that they may be in the first wave of customers for the technology themselves.

Deloitte asked 4,760 consumers whether they would be prepared to consider EVs as an option, and 31 per cent of respondents said they were not likely to consider such a vehicle, while at the other end of the scale, 16 per cent, were “potential first movers”. The majority, 53 per cent, were open-minded about the subject and said they “might be willing to consider” an EV. Deloitte believes that only one or two per cent, drawn from the latter two groups, will actually take the plunge and buy an electric car; these it classifies as the early adopters.

Deloitte also probed the participants about their attitudes to important factors in the decision to lease or buy an EV such as range and charging time, and found that customers’ expectations were at odds with the capabilities of today’s generation of cars. For example, 74 per cent would expect an EV to have a range of 480km, or about 300 miles, before they would consider switching, but the best of the electric cars coming on to the market, the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV are only capable of travelling about a third of that distance before they need charging. The big manufacturers say that the mileages that most motorists cover in a typical day fall well within the capability of current EVs, but range anxiety remains a problem. Peugeot, for example, offers a so-called mobility programme, Mu, which among other services, provides drivers of electric cars with access to other vehicles for long journeys. Some 67 per cent of Deloitte’s respondents also said that they would expect battery charging to take no longer than two hours, whereas most current vehicles need to be plugged in overnight for a full charge – although fast chargers, which at present are too expensive for domestic use for most customers, would meet the requirement.

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Polar ice loss quickens, raising seas

Reposted from The BBC News Online

From satellite data and climate models, scientists calculate that the two polar ice sheets are losing enough ice to raise sea levels by 1.3mm each year.

Overall, sea levels are rising by about 3mm (0.12 inches) per year.

Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, the team says ice loss here is speeding up faster than models predict.

If present trends continue, sea level is likely to be significantly higher than levels projected by the IPCC”

They add their voices to several other studies that have concluded sea levels will rise faster than projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its landmark 2007 assessment.

By 2006, the Greenland and Antarctic sheets were losing a combined mass of 475Gt (gigatonnes – billion tonnes) of ice per year.

On average, loss from the Greenland sheet is increasing by nearly 22Gt per year, while the much larger and colder Antarctic sheet is shedding an additional 14.5Gt each year.

If these increases persist, water from the two polar ice sheets could have added 15cm (5.9 inches) to the average global sea level by 2050.

A rise of similar size is projected to come from a combination of melt water from mountain glaciers and thermal expansion of seawater.

“That ice sheets will dominate future sea level rise is not surprising – they hold a lot more ice mass than mountain glaciers,” said lead author Eric Rignot from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

“What is surprising is this increased contribution by the ice sheets is already happening.”

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Climate change ‘will wreak havoc on Britain’s coastline by 2050′

Reposted from The Guardian

On Benbecula, they know all too well that rising tides threaten the UK’s coastline. For the 1,200 inhabitants of the small, low-lying island in the Outer Hebrides, the sea’s encroachment is becoming a serious problem, especially on its western shores.

Impacts of Climate Change on Disadvantaged UK Coastal Communities, a report to be published tomorrow by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an influential thinktank, records how local people have seen the coastline retreat before their eyes in just a few years.

The threat posed by erosion has been exacerbated by the fact that the sea has taken material from the island’s beaches that is normally used for constructing roads and buildings. But Benbecula is not alone: the report claims that rising sea levels are likely to have a “severe impact” on much of the UK’s coastline by 2080.

The authors note that “the total rise in sea levels off the UK coast may exceed one metre, and could potentially reach two metres”. They warn that “the frequency of intense storm events is expected to increase and, along with the rise in sea level, to lead to more coastal flooding”.

As a result, many of the 30 million people living near the UK’s coastline – which has 291 inhabited islands – will need to anticipate how climate change will affect them. “We haven’t devoted enough time to debating these issues,” said Jeremy Richardson, director of the engineering consultancy URS-Scott Wilson, who co-authored the report.

“Because we’re talking about what happens in 2050 to 2080, people tend not to talk about this, but the coast is going to be at the forefront of these climate change impacts. We’re not just talking about flooding or drought, but also rising sea levels and an increase in storminess; it will affect a lot of towns, many of which are especially vulnerable because they are isolated geographically.”

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Businesses express concerns over Electricity Market Reform

Reposted from Low Carbon Economy

Businesses have expressed concerns that the government’s proposed Electricity Market Reform (EMR) will be both “complex and unwieldy”.

Research conducted by npower found more than half of businesses believe the plans will lead to a rise in energy costs, with the carbon floor price being named as a major concern.

Some 57 percent of those who took part in the study said they were worried about the impact imposing a minimum price on carbon would have on their bills.

There were also concerns raised that the EMR could damage the competitiveness of UK companies as it is too ‘nationally’ focussed.

David Cockshott, director of industrial and commercial markets at npower, said companies have “very real concerns regarding the proposals in the EMR, particularly while the UK economy is still so fragile”.

He added: “At the moment, many of our customers see the proposals as a ’stick, not a carrot’.”

A consultation into the EMR, which the government claims will enable a secure supply of low carbon power, was launched in December and closes today (March 10th). A White Paper on the reforms is due to be published in late spring.

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Boeing launches ‘greener’ 747

Taken from: Low Carbon Economy

Boeing has announced the release of a more environmentally-friendly 747 and claims it has already received orders from a number of major airlines.

The 747-8 Intercontinental offers both improved financial and environmental performance, according to the manufacturer, which released its Dreamliner last year.

Boeing claims the Intercontinental has 16 percent better fuel economy and 16 percent less CO2 emissions than its predecessor, the 747-400. It also has a 30 percent smaller noise footprint.

Jim Albaugh, Boeing Commercial Airplanes president and chief executive officer, said: “The new 747-8 Intercontinental features the latest in innovative technologies – applying many of the breakthroughs also found on the 787 Dreamliner.”

Korean Air and Lufthansa are among those which have already placed orders, with the aircraft due to be delivered in the fourth quarter of the year.

Researchers at the German Aerospace Centre recently created an electric nose wheel, which would mean pilots would not have to use a craft’s main engine to travel around the airport, significantly cutting CO2 emissions.

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Climate change raises flood risk

Taken from: The BBC online

Greenhouse gas emissions are making extreme rainfall events more common, scientists say – and in the UK, have increased the risk of flooding.

Two research groups present their findings in the journal Nature.

Using real-world data and computer models, one team says it has proven the link between greenhouse emissions and the observed increase in extreme rains in the Northern Hemisphere.

The other says greenhouse warming made the UK floods of 2000 more likely.

That autumn saw the highest rains in England and Wales since records began in 1766.

The Hampshire village of Hambledon was underwater for six weeks, and insurers put the final cost to the country at more than £1bn.

A research team led from Oxford University ran computer models of the atmosphere as it actually was, and parallel models of the atmosphere as it would have been without the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that had accumulated from humanity’s emissions.

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Eat more anchovies, herring and sardines to save the ocean’s fish stocks

Taken from: The Guardian

Cut back on tuna and salmon and load your plate instead with herring and sardines if you want to help save the world’s fish. So says the scientist who led the most comprehensive analysis ever carried out of fish stocks in the world’s oceans and how they have changed over the past century.

The study by Villy Christensen of the University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Centre confirmed some previous indications that populations of predator fish at the top of the food chain, such as cod, tuna and groupers, have suffered huge declines, shrinking by around two-thirds in the past 100 years. More than half that decline occurred in the past 40 years.

Christensen found that the total stock of “forage fish”, such as sardines, anchovy and capelin, has more than doubled over the past century. These are fish that are normally eaten by the top predators. “You remove the predator, you get more prey fish,” said Christensen. “That has not been demonstrated before because people don’t measure the number, they don’t go out and count them.”

His call for consumers to shift their attention down the marine food chain from predators like tuna and cod to more unusual fish echoes that by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who suggests we should eat more coley, mackerel, dab, pouting, herring and sardines.

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UN forest protection plans failing because of land scarcity and demand for food

Taken from The Ecologist Online

REDD-type forest agreements ignore indigenous populations and are seeing a scramble for forest ‘carbon credits’ by governments and individuals, warns study

Schemes that pay countries to protect their forests are failing to stop deforestation because they ignore economic drivers such as land scarcity, demand for food, and biofuels, according to a study published this week.

At the UN climate talks in Mexico last December the international community agreed to provide money to less industrialised countries for projects that protect their rainforests (projects loosely termed as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD)). Over the next decade it has been estimated as much as $35 billion could be provided to such schemes every year to reduce deforestation.

However, this has resulted in a growing number of land grabs by governments and individuals who are motivated by a desire to take advantage of forest-based carbon credits, says a study by the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO).

The authors say the UN-led forest protection plan to transform forests into storehouses for carbon, or for biodiversity or some other narrow purpose, will fail. Instead, they say, REDD-type projects should focus more on supporting regional and national efforts to tackle the economic and local factors driving deforestation.

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Frogs re-evolved lost lower teeth

Taken from BBC Online

Tree-dwelling Gastrotheca guentheri are the only frogs with teeth on both their upper and lower jaw. The reappearance of these lower teeth after such a long time fuels debate about whether complex traits are lost in evolution or if they can resurface. Scientists suggest this new evidence identifies a “loophole” in previous theories.

The Gastrotheca genus of frogs carry eggs on their backs
Commonly known as “marsupial frogs”, the Gastrotheca genus carry their eggs in pouches. Unlike marsupial mammals such as kangaroos however, the frogs’ pouches are on their backs. The species Gastrotheca guentheri is even more unusual, being the only known frog to have teeth on its lower jaw.

Dr John Wiens led a team of scientists from Stony Brook University, New York to investigate this exceptional feature. Their findings are reported in the journal Evolution.

“I combined data from fossils and DNA sequences with new statistical methods and showed that frogs lost their teeth on the lower jaw more than 230 million years ago, but that they re-appeared in G. guentheri within the past 20 million years,” explains Dr Wiens.

In the past, scientists have argued that traits “lost” in evolution cannot return, an assertion known as Dollo’s law. The return of lower jaw (mandible) teeth in G. guentheri after more than 200 million years could make evolutionary biologists reconsider this law.

“The loss of mandibular teeth in the ancestor of modern frogs and their re-appearance in G. guentheri provides very strong evidence for the controversial idea that complex anatomical traits that are evolutionarily lost can re-evolve, even after being absent for hundreds of millions of years,” Dr Wiens says.

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