Marine Ecosystems Pressured from the Top and Bottom

A study published in the Feb. 23 issue of Science finds that climate change is contributing to ecosystem shifts in in the North Atlantic. Increased flows of cold, fresh water from increased melting of permafrost, snow and ice in the Arctic region are changing the abundances of phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish that live near the ocean's surface. Scientists had attributed these changes to the collapse of cod fisheries from overfishing In places like the Georges Bank off the coast of Massachussetts (shallow area in the NASA image above). The new study suggests that climate change is also playing a strong role.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that Northwest Atlantic ecosystems are being affected by climate forcing from the bottom up and overfishing from the top down," says Charles Greene, a Cornell oceanographer and lead author of the Science paper.

-- T.Y.

A Pristine Ecosystem Revealed by the Collapse of Antarctic Ice Shelves

These organisms living on the Antarctic seabed are part of an ecosystem that was all but inaccessible to scientists — until two giant ice shelves, Larsen A and B, disintegrated. Before they collapsed five and twelve years ago respectively, the ice shelves covered 10,000 kilometers of the sea bottom. Dramatic warming in this region caused the shelves to break up, giving scientists aboard the German research vessel Polarstern an opportunity to study the pristine marine ecosystem at the ocean floor. The copyrighted photos were taken by Julian Gutt of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.

For more information about this research, see here, and here.
-- T.Y.

An Excellent Article on Responding to Climate Change

Andrew Dessler, a climate expert at Texas A&M University, has written an excellent posting on the elements of an effective response to global warming over at Grist. If you cover global warming as a journalist, or you simply feel that responding to climate change is all but hopeless, you really should read this article. It compellingly describes how we could respond to climate change over the long haul, with the goal of stabilizing our impact on the climate system at a manageable level. Dessler has also written a "The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change", a book that looks like an excellent resource for any reporter who might have to cover this issue.

-- Tom Yulsman

Colorado Considers Bill to Greatly Expand Use of Renewable Energy

This guest posting by Hank Lacey considers an effort by Colorado legislators to greatly expand the use of renewable energy sources to generate electricity in the state. The legislation builds on Amendment 37, passed by voters in 2004. The amendment requires Colorado’s top utility companies to provide 10 percent of their retail electricity sales from renewable resources by the year 2015. Hank Lacey, a lawyer turned journalist who is currently covering the Colorado legislature for the Colorado Springs Gazette, describes the effort to boost the requirement to 20 percent by 2020. -- T.Y.


Coloradans may soon be getting alot more electricity generated from renewable sources such as the wind and the sun.

If a bill that expands the requirements of Amendment 37 is enacted, investor-owned utilities such as Xcel Energy and Aquila will have to produce twice as much electricity from renewable resources as Amendment 37 requires. Municipal utilities, such as Colorado Springs Utilities, and the rural electric cooperatives will be definitively brought under the umbrella of the renewable mandate for the first time.

HB 1281, which is the vehicle for these changes, passed the state House of Representatives on second reading Friday. The bill will be considered for a third and final time in the House early next week, then move on to the Senate.

The measure will require the large investor-owned utilities to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. A portion of that will have to come from solar power. It will also require the munies and the coops to generate 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020, including a portion from the sun.

Some legislators sought to weaken the bill on the House floor Friday. One amendment offered by Rep. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, would have specified that hydroelectric power would count as a renewable source. The bill's sponsors, Reps. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, and Rob Witwer, R-Golden, argued that the bill is intended to encourage development of new energy sources. Hydroelectricity has been a commercially viable energy source for
decades.

Another lengthy floor fight centered on continuing efforts by the state's largest rural electric cooperative, Intermountain Rural Electric Cooperative, to secure the right to "opt out" of the requirements. IREA successfully invoked that right under Amendment 37. Legislators killed that amendment, too, but only after Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, and Reps. David Balmer, R-Centennial, and Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, complained that HB 1281 overrides the will of IREA's customers that voted to exempt the utility from renewable energy production standards last year.

Gov. Bill Ritter said at a news conference Thursday that IREA's objection to the bill would not be a reason for him to veto it. The Colorado Rural Electric Association, an industry association of the state's rural electric cooperatives, supports the bill. So does Xcel and Colorado Springs Utilities.

HB 1281 is one of the cornerstones of the "new energy economy" promised by Ritter and the Democratic majorities in the General Assembly.

Amendment 37 was adopted by the state's voters in 2004.

-- Hank Lacey

EU Pledges Unilaterally to Reduce Carbon Emissions by 20%

Earlier this week, the European Union agreed to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by 20% within 13 years — but you might not have found out about it if you only read U.S. news sources.

In Europe, environmentalists grumbled that a 30% cut was needed if there was to be any hope of stabilizing temperatures. (I'm not sure where they got that figure. Don't we have to zero out emissions to fully stabilize temperature increases?) But EU officials said a bigger cut would be economically harmful if it was done unilaterally. So they plan to press the U.S. and China to commit to a 30% cut in a post-Kyoto agreement.

Is this credible? According to an article in the Guardian, "the EU's original 15 members are well short of reaching their 8% cut by 2012" under the Kyoto protocol. So if they can't do 8% over 1990 levels, how are they going to do 20 or 30% over current levels?

Meanwhile, here in the United States, the EU's new commitment to combat global warming was barely covered in news reports. The Washington Post relegated it to a tiny brief. And Michael Nisbet reports over at Framing Science that global warming did not make it onto the list of the 10 most heavily covered news stories since the first of the year, as indexed by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. This is despite the flurry of coverage around the release of the IPCC report.

I guess we'll have to wait for hurricane season for the next barrage of coverage.

-- T.Y.

Colorado River to Take Hit from Global Warming

Anyone who has paid close attention to water issues in the West will find much that's familiar in a new report from the National Research Council about the Colorado River. The report warns that increasing population growth in the interior West, combined with droughts made worse by global warming, will be putting increasing pressure on the Colorado.

The report notes that the Colorado River Compact, which divied up the flow between the upper and lower basin states, was signed in 1922 — right after a particularly wet period in the interior West. The average flow for the purposes of the compact was pegged at 16.4 million acre feet a year. Today, according to the report, the average flow of the river is 15 million acre feet per year. And tree-ring records show that extended droughts lasting decades or even longer are a recurrent feature of climate in the West, causing the Colorado's flow to fall significantly below average.

Now, based on many climate model simulations, "the preponderance of scientific evidence suggests that warmer future temperatures will reduce future Colorado River streamflow and water supplies," the report concludes. "Reduced streamflow would also contribute to increasing severity, frequency, and duration of future droughts."

This is occurring against the backdrop of a burgeoning population in the West. Arizona alone saw its population rise by 40 percent just since 1990. Here in Colorado, population grew by 30 percent. Although Westerners have made strides in reducing per capita water use, continued conservation will not be enough in the face of rising population and dropping availability of water, the report states.

It offers no simple solutions. Instead, it calls for continued conservation, use of innovative technology, greater cooperation between Colorado River basin states to prepare better for drought, increased communication between water managers and scientists, and, of course, more study:

"The report thus recommends a comprehensive, action-oriented study of Colorado River region urban water practices and changing patterns of demand be conducted. The study should evaluate a range of issues, including demographic projections and water demand forecasts, impacts of urban water demands on riparian ecology, and contemporary urban water policies and practices."

No surprises there, but the issues raised by the report are a reminder of the compelling need for good environmental journalism in the West. Reporters who are knowledgabe about the complexities of water in the West are desperately needed — to avoid common mistakes, such as the one made in NPR's All Things Considered broadcast on the report by Elizabeth Shogren yesterday. It wasn't a huge mistake, but it betrayed a lack of knowledge of how the reservoir system on the Colorado River works. Shogren stated that Lake Mead "keeps taps flowing in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado. The problem is that Colorado gets no water from Lake Mead.

Lake Powell, impounded behind Glen Canyon Dam, is a kind of hydrological bank for the upper basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. It helps the states meet their obligations under the Colorado River Compact to send a specified amount of water down the river to the lower basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada. When drought prevails, the upper basin states can take water out of the bank and send it downstream, meeting their compact obligations while also satisfying their own water demands. Meanwhile, Lake Mead is used by the lower basin states to store water for their own uses. According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, "Hoover Dam helps ensure a dependable water supply for municipal, industrial and other domestic uses in southern Nevada, Arizona and southern California. More than 16 million people and numerous industries in these three states receive Colorado River water that was stored by Hoover Dam."

No taps in Colorado depend on water from Lake Mead.

-- T.Y.

Environmental Journalism at its Best — Again

Ray Ring, Northern Rockies editor of High Country News, has won a prestigious Polk award for political reporting. Ray investigated the financing of referendum campaigns against land-use regulations in six Western states. "National libertarian groups are not just funneling big bucks into this campaign to protect a few property owners from eminent domain," Ray wrote. "They have their sights set on something much bigger — laying waste to land-use regulations used by state and local governments to protect the landscape, the environment and neighborhoods." After his story appeared, and word of what was going on spread, the referenda were defeated by voters in three states; and the courts knocked down or scaled back two others. Only one state out of the original six, Arizona, approved its referendum.

Congratulations to Ray for great work!