Global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could potentially cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia’s leading scientists.
Tim Flannery, a world recognized climate change scientist and Australian of the Year in 2007, said a UN international climate change report due in November will show that greenhouse gases have already reached a dangerous level.
Flannery said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will show that greenhouse gas in the atmosphere in mid-2005 had reached about 455 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent--a level not expected for another 10 years.
“We thought we’d be at that threshold within about a decade,“ Flannery told Australian television.
“We thought we had that much time. But the new data indicates that in about mid-2005 we crossed that threshold,“ he said.
“What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that could potentially cause dangerous climate change.“
Flannery, from Macquarie University and author of the climate change book “The Weather Makers“, said he had seen the raw data which will be in the IPCC Synthesis Report.
He said the measurement of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere included not just carbon dioxide, but also nitrous oxide, methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). All these gases were measured and then equated into potentially one gas to reach a general level.

Indonesia wants to be paid $US5-$US20 per hectare not to destroy its remaining forests, the environment minister says, for the first time giving an actual figure that he wants the world’s rich countries to pay.
Participants from 189 countries are expected to gather in Bali for global climate talks at a UN-led summit in December.
They will hear a report on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation (RED)--a new scheme that aims to make emission cuts from forest areas eligible for global carbon trading, reported Nz.news.yahoo.com.
But apart from carbon trading, Indonesia also wants big emitters such as the United States and the European Union to pay the country to preserve its pristine rainforests.
“We will ask for a compensation of $5-20 per hectare. It’s not fixed; it is open to negotiation,“ Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar told reporters after a cabinet meeting at the presidential palace.
With a total forest area of 91 million ha (225 million acres), Indonesia could receive as much as $US1.8 billion for preserving its forests under the proposal. Indonesia will also negotiate a fixed price for other forms of biodiversity, including coral reefs, Witoelar added.
He later said that the figure matches the amount needed for preservation efforts and to create alternative employment for the local communities.
Under the Kyoto Protocol’s first round, which runs through 2012, about 35 rich nations are obliged to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 to fight global warming.
The Bali meeting in December will initiate talks on clinching a new deal by 2009.

Some 90 percent of Madagascar's plants cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and its partner organizations have used state-of-the art remote sensing technology and methodologies to produce the first vegetation atlas of Madagascar, one of the most bio-diverse and unique countries in the world.
This comprehensive atlas is the culmination of over 20 years of conservation work led by botanical and conservation institutions in Madagascar and abroad. It is unique in Madagascar in that it provides a modern twist, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to supply information that can be used to protect and manage Madagascar’s diverse flora in a sustainable way, Allafrica reported.
Home to more than 10,000 plant species, 90 percent of Madagascar’s plants occur nowhere else in the world--their protection and survival is vital. The flora of Madagascar is extremely threatened not only by habitat destruction for agriculture, fuelwood and building materials but also, in the case of certain species, by over-collection for the horticultural trade.
This pioneering atlas warns us that only 18 percent of Madagascar’s native vegetation remains intact and that a third of Madagascar’s primary vegetation has disappeared since the 1970s. It provides an insight into which type of primary vegetation is rarest, which is currently disappearing fastest and which needs to be protected. The atlas incorporates detailed consultations with the conservation community to ensure that the information it provides is of maximum relevance and utility to conservation planners and managers.
The Madagascar Vegetation Mapping Project, which has resulted in the production of this atlas, was funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) and managed jointly by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Missouri Botanical Garden, and Conservation International’s Center for Applied Biodiversity Science.

Buzz of angry bees could provide some relief for African villagers whose crop fields are regularly pillaged by hungry elephants.
Oxford University researchers found that elephants would quickly vacate a spot after hearing recordings of bees.
The insects are able to inflict painful stings inside the animals’ trunks, and it is thought that elephants have learned to avoid them.
“We’re a bit cautious about how effective this would be on a large scale,“ lead researcher Lucy King told the BBC News website from Kenya, where she is running field trials.
“But bees may become one deterrent that farmers could use in the right situation.“
Elephants are partial to maize, the principal crop for millions of Africans. Typically the animals seek out the crops just before harvest time.
The Oxford team set up concealed loudspeakers in trees where elephants regularly came to find shade.
Elephants are smart and would work out that there are no painful beestings While the animals rested, researchers played either buzzing sounds recorded at beehives, or a control sound of white noise.
The buzzing clearly had the animals concerned. Ninety-four percent of the elephant families left the tree within 80 seconds of hearing bee sounds, nearly half of the time at a run.
White noise, by contrast, only scared away 27 percent of the families.
“So you could use sounds to deter elephants,“ noted Dr King, “but there are two major hiccups.
“Firstly, farmers don’t have money to pay for a loudspeaker and a minidisc, and on that level it’s not practical. Secondly, elephants are smart and would work out that there are no painful beestings; we don’t know if that would happen after three playbacks or 30, but it is clearly going to happen.“
It might be more practical and more desirable, she believes, to use real bees rather than their sounds.

A view of Mount Sabalan--Iran's second highest mountain at 4, 811 meters--in northwestern Ardebil province

The steppes of Inner Mongolia are arid even at the best of times, but low rainfall as world temperatures rise is turning these grasslands into sand.
“The wild grass reached up to my knees in the past,“ said Chaogula, a 40-year-old herdsman as he pointed to barren fields in this remote part of China near the Mongolian border.
“But there’s very little grass now. It hasn’t rained here in six years and we have to buy fertilizers and feed for our livestock. We never needed these before,“ he said.
Deserts make up about 27.5 percent of China’s total land area today compared to about 17.6 percent in 1994, experts say.
Many homes in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Qinghai and Gansu have been swallowed up by sand. In spring, dust storms dump sand not only on Beijing but also send dust particles as far away as Korea, Japan and even the United States.
Doctors are seeing the health effects as fine dust inhaled during increasingly frequent dust storms cause respiratory problems, especially for children and the elderly.
“Eye infections are getting more serious and common because of the sandstorms,“ Hai Mei, chief of the Xilinhot City Peoples’ Hospital in Inner Mongolia, told Reuters.
China’s “Green Great Wall,“ a 700 km (435 mile) barrier of shrubs and trees planted to hold back the advancing desert, has slowed down the desertification but hasn’t stopped it completely.
Environmentalists say the government needs to do more than just plant trees, it needs to prevent overexploitation of the land which is another cause of the expanding deserts.
“With the pursuit of more profit and lack of regulation, some grazing is done all year round, when it should be seasonal to allow the land to recover. Pastures don’t have a chance to rest and it leads to more degradation of the land,“ said Li Yan, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace in Beijing.
The problem has been compounded by agriculture projects and development such as mining, especially coal mining.

According to a government survey, two in five Japanese would accept a special tax to protect the environment as public awareness of climate change grows.
More than 92 percent of those questioned said they are interested in environmental issues, according to the latest survey by the Cabinet Office, which started running similar polls in 1998, AFP reported.
The survey reached 3,000 people from August 2-12 and received valid answers from 60 percent of the participants.
Forty percent said they would approve of the introduction of an environment tax charged on fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline.

Wildlife authorities in Indian Kashmir have begun destroying thousands of animal hides and garments made from the skins of rare animals seized in a campaign to protect the region’s wildlife, officials said.
“We destroyed nearly 10,000 hides and garments by setting them on fire...this will continue for more than a week,“ said Rashid Y. Naqash, a wildlife warden, Reuters said.
“By destroying these rare animal skins and garments we are sending a tough message to poachers and traders across the country. I am sure this will help wildlife.“
Despite poaching being illegal, rare animals are still killed. These include snow leopards, tigers, deers, jackals, foxes, wolves and jungle cats whose furs fetch lucrative prices on the international market.
Kashmir, where tens of thousands of people have been killed in over 17 years of separatist revolt, was famous for taxidermy and in making fur garments before a global ban on the trade.

Moths and butterflies are to be used by the Scottish Government as an indicator of the state of the environment.
Butterfly Conservation Scotland (BCS) said it was delighted by the decision, which it hoped would raise the profile of threatened species. BCS said the announcement came as a small heath butterfly was spotted a month later than usual, BBC reported.
While warmer weather has brought new species to Scotland, several resident ones have declined, the group said.
BCS director Paul Kirkland spotted the small heath butterfly in Stirling. It is not normally seen after September.
Kirkland said climate change had been affecting the insects over a number of years and welcomed their use as a “biodiversity indicator“.
He said: “This is recognition butterflies are useful indicators of the state of the environment.“
Dr Martin Warren, chief executive of Butterfly Conservation, said the small heath was not an isolated occurrence.
He said: “This is a phenomenon we are noticing with a lot of butterflies.
“They are coming out earlier than normal and fitting in extra generations in a year.“
Dr Warren added: “The change going on has seen new species colonizing Scotland in the last few years.
“Your are getting these lovely butterflies, such as the comma, in your garden and also peacock spreading right across the country.“
However, he said other species had suffered from a loss of habitat as a result of weather-related and human activities.
The dingy skipper has declined by 75 percent in the past 20 years.
One factor in its reduction has been the lack of livestock grazing on coastal grasslands.