Fourteen Arrested as Community & Climate Activists March in St. Louis

Fourteen Arrested as Community & Climate Activists March in St. Louis

Posted 15 August 2011, by Sparki,  It’s Getting Hot In Here, itsgettinghotinhere.org

Today, hundreds marched and saw fourteen community and climate activists arrested as the Midwest Rising! Convergencetook the streets of St. Louis to protest Bank of America and Peabody Coal.

The arrest action occurred in the intersection connecting Bank of America’s St. Louis offices and Peabody’s national headquarters.

Peabody is the world’s largest coal company and mines states like Wyoming and Montana for coal bound for coal plants in the U.S. and overseas markets. They are currently trying to build coal export terminals along the Washington coast for coal bound for Asia. Peabody has also recently taken a $61 million tax credit from the city of St. Louis, $2 million of that cash will be taken from St. Louis schools.

Bank of America is the largest forecloser in the nation and the largest funder of coal. Bank of America execs have taken over $35 million in bonuses and compensation even as the troubled financial institution took government bailouts.

Midwest Rising was made up of 400 people from 50 different organizations, including a cross-section of labor, community and climate organizations and convened in St. Louis on August 11 – 15. Organizations represented include: Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, Rising Tide, Climate Action STL, St. Louis Instead of War Coalition, Organization for Black Struggle, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Coal Country, Mountain Justice/United Mountain Defense, Greening Detroit, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), North County Neighbors, The Rainforest Action Network: Chicago Chapter, and Pick Up America.

Here’s the press advisory, post-action press release out soon:

Activists to March on Peabody, BofA in Unique Blend of
Community, Climate Concerns

(St Louis, MO) — “Corporations need to respect both people and the earth,” says Chelsea Ritter-Soronen, a St. Louis resident. “No one should lose their home, their livelihood or, at worst, die from bad business practices, but that happens all the time. That’s why we’re demanding that Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal producer, and Bank of America, one of its financial partners, be better corporate citizens,” says Ritter-Soronen. “Simply put: greed kills, and we won’t stand by and let that happen.”

On Monday at noon, Ritter-Sorononen will join over a hundred activists from St. Louis and around the country to march through downtown St. Louis in a creative direct action to spotlight Peabody Energy and Bankof America’s records of environmental and human exploitation. The group, coming together under the heading of Midwest Rising, demands that:

1.  Peabody Energy return the $61 million in recent tax breaks to the city, especially $2 million from the St. Louis Public Schools system, so that money can fund education and other social services

2. Peabody Energy halt its plan to build an export terminal in Washington state for the export of coal to China. Coal is a dirty fuel that worsens global warming at home and abroad; 3. Bank of America stops financing for companies engaged in mountaintop removal coal mining and companies pursuing coal export infrastructure

4. Peabody Energy end coal extraction and switch completely to renewable, sustainable energy. Bank of America shift its investment dollars away from coal and toward clean, green renewable energy.

With high levels of unemployment, increasing environmental fragility, endless wars, tax breaks for corporations, bailouts for the banks and an erosion of the social safety net that knit communities together, people find a common bond in the social justice movement. “The great support for Midwest Rising shows that people want to heal and reclaim our values of peace, justice, health, environmentalism and prosperity for all of us,” says Johnathan McFarland, organizer with Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment. “We are united against the common opponent of corporate greed run amok.”

Also planned for Monday are five delegations to corporations and public offices in support of good jobs, peace, healthy food, good schools and a healthy environment. The delegations will be visiting Monsanto headquarters, Arch Coal headquarters, the St. Louis Board of Education, the office  of Congressman Russ Carnahan (D-3, MO) and a local Verizon office. Each visit represents a spoke in the wheel of social justice, from demanding that Arch Coal protect Blair Mountain in West Virginia from mountaintop removal to supporting the 45,000 workers who are currently on strike at Verizon to protect their workplace benefits.

At Arch Coal, the country’s second largest coal producer, citizens will ask the company to end the damaging practice of mountaintop removal for coal extraction; and, in the immediate future, spare the historic Blair Mountain from destruction. Peace activists will visit the district office of Russ Carnahan (D-3 MO), who is currently on a trip to Israel on an AIPAC-affiliated junket. Peace activists are seeking Carnhahan’s support for Palestinian rights and a just and peaceful resolution of the conflict for everyone involved. At the Board of Education, community members will demand that corporations, like Peabody Energy, give back the tax breaks that divert funds from local schools. In St. Louis, funding for schools is needed to restore librarians and parent support specialists. In support of the ongoing strike by Verizon workers, Midwest Rising activists will join a local picket to show support for protecting good jobs over greed. At Monsanto, activists will demand that the corporation label  ts genetically modified food and stop disabling indigenous ways of agriculture.

Sparki

Sparki
Scott Parkin is a Senior Organizer with Rainforest Action Network and organizes with Rising Tide North America. He has worked on a variety of campaigns around climate change, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mountaintop removal, labor issues and anti-corporate globalization. Originally from Texas, he now lives in San Francisco.

(Ed Note: please visit the original site for photographs associated with this article.)

http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2011/08/15/fourteen-arrested-as-community-climate-activists-march-in-st-louis/

Ecocide – v – Living Planet

 

The Trial

The Supreme Court, London

30 September 2011

 

Posted 15 August 2011, by Ecocide is a Crime, Ecocide is a Crime (Facebook), facebook.com/Ecocide

 

“Once upon a time people did grievous harm to the environment without fully understanding the consequences of their actions. That defence is no longer available, and that sure knowledge we now have entails equally sure moral obligations. In this context, the idea of establishing the crime of ‘Ecocide’ is both timely and compelling.”

Jonathon Porritt, former Chair Sustainable Development Commission

 

On September 30th 2011 a mock trial will take place at the UK’s Supreme Court in London. The trial will last just one day. A judge, jury and barristers will test the crime of Ecocide as if it is already law.

 

Michael Mansfield QC, the prosecuting barrister, and Nigel Lickley QC, the defence barrister together with supporting legal teams, will lead the case for and against a fictional Mr X, CEO of a major corporation. Before the case is heard, legal argument will be put as to whether Ecocide and the Earth Right to Life should be applied to the charge against Mr X. Mr X will be played by an actor and has been charged with a number of ecocides – which one will be tried will be determined on the day. It could be:

Deforestation of the Amazon

Arctic drilling

Fracking for shale gas in Nigeria

Major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Bauxite mining of the Niyamgiri mountain

Unconventional tar sands extraction in Canada

Deep sea mining of the Central and Eastern Manus Basin

 

The trial will examine how the crime of Ecocide protects the Earth Right to Life and will be tried as though the proposed crime of Ecocide has been adopted by the UN.

What will happen is not pre-scripted; it is ultimately for the jury to determine whether the crime of Ecocide is made out and whether the Earth Right to Life is breached.

 

ABOUT

 

The Supreme Court: The Hamilton Group is using the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in London as the venue. This in no way implies endorsement by the Supreme Court of the opinions raised in the trial or the verdict reached by the trial jury.

 

The Hamilton Group: The Hamilton Group (www.thehamiltongroup.org.uk) which is organising the Trial, is a not-for-profit organisation encouraging businesses, organisations and communities to bring responsibility for the world to the forefront of their decision-making. Contact Simon Hamilton: simon@thehamiltongroup.org.uk +44(0) 7931 382275; Fiona Hayes, fiona@thehamiltongroup.org.uk +44(0) 7590425621

 

Polly Higgins: barrister and international environmental lawyer who proposed Ecocide as the law to protect the Earth Right to Life to the United Nations. Her book, Eradicating Ecocide, Laws and Governance to Prevent the Destruction of our Planet, sets out the law of Ecocide and she is campaigning for the Law of Ecocide to be made the 5th Crime Against Peace.

www.eradicatingecocide.com www.pollyhiggins.com

 

Please contact Simon Hamilton simon@thehamiltongroup.org.uk

or

Fiona Hayes fiona@thehamiltongroup.org.uk

 

 Sponsorship Opportunities:

Contact Simon Hamilton: simon@thehamiltongroup.org.uk

Fiona Hayes, fiona@thehamiltongroup.org.uk

 

http://www.facebook.com/notes/ecocide-is-a-crime/ecocide-v-living-planet-the-trial-information/262880183723587

Censored in Indian country: Ecocide and destruction of Peaks

 

Posted 11 August 2011, by Brenda Norrell, The Narcosphere, narcosphere.narconews.com

 

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The week of action to halt the desecration of sacred San Francisco Peaks by the Snowbowl ski resort in Flagstaff, and the exposure of environmental ecocide in Indian country, as revealed at the Protecting Mother Earth Gathering in North Dakota, are now the top censored issues in Indian country media.

With 17 arrests of Native Americans and supporters since Friday, the Protect the Peaks movement in Flagstaff, Arizona, is more resolute than ever. In North Dakota, the Protecting Mother Earth Gathering of the Indigenous Environmental Network brought Indigenous Peoples from the US, Canada, Mexico and Guatemala, together in the movement to halt environmental racism and destruction. The Maya Keeper of the Calendar spoke on ceremonies in preparation for 2012, while Indigenous Peoples discussed what the future holds if humanity does not halt mass consumerism, mining, reliance on fossil fuels, and other devastating industries.

The oil and gas drilling industry continues its raid on Indian country, while coal-fired power plants continue to poison the air, land and water. Coal-fired power plants are a primary causes of the melting of the Arctic, as Native villages crash into the ocean and polar bears and other wildlife dies from the loss of habitat. Meanwhile, the Obama administration proceeds with oil and gas drilling in the Arctic.

With the growing movements for action, those opposing the dirty tar sands in Alberta are organizing civil disobedience in Washington DC. The action is to send a message to President Obama about the proposed XL Pipeline to carry dirty oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

While newspapers collapse, the media fails in its final breaths to carry out its ethical duty to report the facts in a timely manner. Here are the top stories censored in Indian country during August 2011. The list includes the original breaking news story from Destini Vaile, Blackfeet, on the Cut Bank oil spill and its destruction, which the mainstream media is now attempting to cover up by putting a positive spin on cleanup:

Police attack and arrest Protect the Peaks marchers:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/flagstaff-police-attack-and-arrest-save.html

Oil spill into the Cut Bank River, Blackfeet Nation Montana
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/07/oil-spill-into-cutback-river-blackfeet.html

Photos Peaks supporters blockade Snowbowl Road to protect sacred mountain
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/photos-peaks-supporters-blockade.html

Chief Arvol Looking Horse speaks at Protecting Mother Earth Gathering
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/07/chief-looking-horse-speaks-at.html

Snowbowl protesters lockdown for a second time
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/snowbowl-protesters-lockdown-for-second.html

San Francisco Peaks defenders continue actions after arrests
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/san-francisco-peaks-defenders-continue.html

Censored News Series: 16th Annual Protecting Mother Earth Gathering

Chief Arvol Looking Horse speaks at Protecting Mother Earth Gathering
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/07/chief-looking-horse-speaks-at.html

Natives in Alaska and Louisiana devastated by nation’s largest oil spills
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/natives-in-alaska-and-louisiana.html

Greenwashing: orporations target Indian country with scams
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/greenwashing-corporations-target-indian.html

Indigenous Peoples: Civil disobedience to halt dirty tar sands pipeline in US
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/indigenous-peoples-civil-disobedience.html

Mayan in Guatemala: Seeds, ceremonies and the Year 2012
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/07/maya-in-guatemala-seeds-ceremonies-and.html

Also on Censored News Blogtalk Radio:

Listen to Chief Arvol Looking Horse; Wixirika fighting silver mining; Anishinabe Water Walker Josephine Mandamin and the Media Workshop, with Clayton Thomas Muller, Cree, and Nikke Alex, Navajo:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/brenda-norrell

About Brenda Norrell

Biography:

Brenda Norrell has been a news reporter in Indian country for 29 years. She is publisher of Censored News, focusing on Indigenous Peoples, human rights and the US border. Now censored by the mainstream media, she previously was a staff reporter at numerous American Indian newspapers and a stringer for AP, USA Today and others. She lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years, and then traveled with the Zapatistas. She covered the climate summits in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Cancun, Mexico, in 2010.

Personal Website: http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

View full user profile

Read Brenda Norrell’s latest blog entries

• Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2011/08/censored-indian-country-ecocide-and-destruction-peaks

Seven lessons from ‘queen’ Dee

 

 

Posted 12 August 2011, by Virginia Winder, Taranaki Daily News (Fairfax Media), stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/

 

Dee Turner adjusts the temp in her "plastic house"

Dee Turner hates weeding. In fact, the permaculture queen and organic gardener simply won’t do it. But banish any thoughts of a messy, overgrown, weed-invaded garden.

Korito Organics, on the lower slopes of Mt Taranaki, is an exceptionally orderly place that evokes words like “tidy, pristine and immaculate”.

“One of the things that people tend to think about permaculture and organics is that it has to be a mess, but it doesn’t have to be,” Dee says. “Untidiness comes from disorganisation.”

Even the woofers (workers on organic farms) who come to stay on the four- hectare organically certified, off-the-grid property are amazed at Dee’s planning.

“My woofers say this is the most organised place they have stayed at.”

They also say: “We work hard, but we also learn a lot.”

That’s her main philosophy. Even though the gardens produce a bounty of fruit and vegetables, Dee is reluctant to sell produce.

“I would rather teach people how to grow stuff or set up productive gardens for them.”

She would also prefer to sell them productive perennial plants.

“I would rather empower them to grow it for themselves.”

Her operation is run to a seven- step doctrine:

zLesson 1: How to avoid weeding.

“I hate weeding, so I just mulch everything with grass [clippings].”

This works incredibly well and there are barely any unwanted plants on the self-sustaining property that Dee and partner Dave Carnahan bought seven years ago. If there’s a new section of the garden she wants to prepare for planting, the 48-year-old sets the chickens on it.

Dee has built a dome-shaped chicken home that can be moved from place to place and fits perfectly over circular beds in her mandala garden systems.

zLesson 2: Planting for pleasure.

“Straight outside your front door is where you want your herbs, so you don’t have to go too far.” In this case, Dee has put in a garden that looks like a series of keyholes and enables easy access to fresh pickings.

Also close to the back door should be a lemon tree. Hers is hiding behind a curved brush fence and sits alongside guavas, a kaffir lime tree grown for its fragrant leaves, another lime tree and a grapevine.

Nearby are the two fire baths, which overlook a pond and regenerating bush.

“In winter, we light the fires at 4pm and come down about 9pm when it’s dark and the lights are out. We can lie there and listen to the frogs in the lake.”

Dee and Dave added the human- made water feature five years ago and were amazed when it became populated.

“Eels came across the land and we were just like this,” she says, opening her eyes and mouth in mock surprise. “And they just went plop, plop, plop.” Then the croaking amphibians moved in. “It needs to be amazingly clean for frogs to turn up.”

The top tyres of a retaining wall close by are planted with strawberries, so in summer the woman from Wales and man from New York can sit in their baths and eat sweet treats.

“It’s entertaining with permaculture, because you are surrounding yourself with things that you eat.”

zLesson 3: Gardening on the cheap.

Dee leads the way on a whirlwind garden tour and we come to a spot behind the house planted with spring bulbs, native flaxes, grasses and cabbage trees.

“I call this my Trade Me garden,” she says. “Everything has been bought from Trade Me, Friday bargains [in the Taranaki Daily News] or garage sales on a Saturday morning.”

The plants, bricks, rope, pots, pavers and broken concrete are all cheap finds – even the cabbage trees. These were popped in this “holding bed” five years ago and are now tall, shaggy-headed specimens that suit this spot and whose fallen fronds provide fine kindling for the fire.

zLesson 4: The bee’s knees.

Dee leads on, passing New Zealand and English lavenders, which are good for bringing in the bees year round.

Not only are bees wonderful pollinators, but the Korito Rd property is also home to hives.

One of the best specimens to attract these honey-making insects is tagasaste or tree lucerne.

“I have about 300 of them planted on the property and they flower in June, July and August, so it gets the bees through the lean times and feeds the wood pigeons.”

Cows also love tree lucerne.

zLesson 5: Under-cover gardening.

A potting and cutting structure covered with shade cloth is bristling with baby hebes, griselinia, Chilean guavas, ake ake, tagasastes, herbs, Chatham Island forget-me-nots, olives, feijoas and plums. Many of these plants are grown from cuttings and then put in PV3 bags.

Dee sells a lot of these plants, but she also enjoys giving them to friends as gifts. “I will just take half a dozen trees around and say, ‘Here you go, here’s a hedge’.”

Further on, we enter the tropics. In the “plastic house”, the brassicas are going strong. Preferring to eat with the seasons, Dee and Dave are now eating stews and casseroles cooked atop their woodburner and plumped out with red and green cabbage and kale, korabi and broccoli di ciccio. “They are little ones and they keep coming and coming,” she says.

It’s 28 degrees Celsius in the plastic house during the garden tour. She regulates the temperate of this hot, humid place by opening the door and windows to allow air to circulate.

It is a bit empty now, apart from the brassicas and a bush laden with scarlet chillies. “In another three months you won’t be able to move in this place.”

zLesson 6: Circles of life.

Outside the plastic house is a wash area, where the vegetables are cleaned. Instead of washing all the soil away, they collect it and put back on the land.

“We are organically certified on this property. That’s why we look at different ways to keep our fertility,” she says, opening the lid of a barrel to reveal a comfrey brew that will feed the garden.

As we walk over this lush land, with Mt Taranaki at our backs, the Tasman Sea twinkling way below us and Mt Tongariro, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe clearly visible to the east, Dee talks of bartering.

While they raise beef, pigs and sheep “to put in the freezer”, Dee and Dave exchange vegetables, fruit and plants for milk and berries for fish. “The strawberries we grow here are sweeter than anything in the shops,” she says.

It all goes around in this neighbourhood.

We move on to the mandalas, which are a permaculture growing system. Here you need to picture a cartoon flower with a circle middle surrounded by six petals the same size. “These maximise the growing space and minimise the pathways. The last thing you want is to weed pathways,” Dee says. The idea of a mandala bed is that it is easy to tend. Your arm should be able to reach the middle so you don’t overstretch.

These circles are also ideal for crop rotation and are the perfect shape for the chook tractor.

zLesson 7: Anything is possible.

This orderly property is growing. A new house is nearly finished, food forests are being planted and a series of garden rooms planned to represent the different-sized Kiwi gardens.

“This whole property is moving towards showing other people what they can do,” Dee says. “If I can do it, in very challenging weather conditions, anyone can.”

– Taranaki Daily News

 

(Ed Note: Please visit the original site for a picture gallery associated with this article.)

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/life-style/5433738/Seven-lessons-from-queen-Dee

Mongolia Energy Riches Attract Neighbors and Outside Interests

Pity poor Mongolia, bereft of fiscal resources, caught between the ambitions of its superpower neighbors, Russia and China.

Ulaan Bator’s situation is akin to interwar Poland, dexterously attempting to reconcile its foreign policy between the USSR’s hammer and Nazi Germany’s hard place.

 

Posted 14 August 2011, by John C.K. Daly (OilPrice.com), M.A.D. Investment Solutions, mad-mongolia.com

 

Who will ultimately benefit is anyone’s guess, but the country’s nascent energy and mineralogical riches  have opened the land of Genghis Khan to a fierce bidding war those ultimate outcome is unclear at best.

The nation is essentially empty, its 2.8 million citizens producing an average population density of just over 1 person per sq. km.

That said, the country’s mineralogical riches are more than impressive. More importantly for global mining interests, Mongolia was a Soviet satrapy from 1924 until the 1991 implosion of the USSR and those reserves remained offline.

Until now.

Whaddya looking for?  Mongolia’s mining sector has some of the world’s richest deposits of gold and copper, uranium, coal, fluorspar as well as (rare earth elements) RREs such as tantalum, niobium, thorium, yttrium and zircon. According to a 2009 estimation by the U.S. Geological Survey, Mongolia has 31million tons of rare earth reserves, or 16.77 percent of the world’s total, exceeded only by China.

Oh, and coal.

Erdenes, a state firm is overseeing the Tavan Tolgoi (“Five Hills”) massive coal deposit located in the east Tsankhi area of Mongolia’s Gobi desert, estimated to hold over 7.5 billion metric tons of coking coal, essential for making steel, and the currently world’s biggest untapped deposit.

Where’s it gonna go?

Potential suitors include Russian, Chinese, Japanese and South Korean firms, while representatives from 20 global investment banks jetted into sunny Ulaan Bator to make their pitches.

While Mongolia’s economy was traditionally based on herding and agriculture, neighboring China’s rising demand for minerals has underpinned its current mining boom, and Beijing would undoubtedly happily buy virtually all of Tavan Tolgoi’s output.

But, business, is business, and Mongolia is currently weighing all offers.

In 2006 Mongolia’s Mineral Law was amended to increase government royalties and licensing fees, reduce tax incentives, set duration terms for exploration licenses, and provide for up to 50 percent government ownership of strategically important resources when jointly funded by the state and private investors. On 25 August 2009 the Ulsyn Ikh Khural (State Great Hural, or Parliament) finally repealed the 68 percent windfall profit tax, effective from January 1, 2011, setting the stage of massive foreign investment.

Since April 2010 Mongolia’s benchmark MSE Top 20 Index has been the world’s best performer and its currency, the tugrik, the fifth-biggest gainer against the dollar. The International Monetary Fund says that Mongolia’s economic growth may surge to 23 percent in 2013, more than twice the forecast expansion in China.

In June the Mongolian government gave each citizen 538 shares in the upcoming Erdenes-Tavan Tolgoi IPO. If the IPO hits its anticipated $10 billion, each Mongolian shares would be worth about $360.

The local populace will be watching the Tavan Tolgoi negotiations closely, as Mongolia is a country where the CIA estimates that more that 36 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, with an annual per capita income of $2,900. After all, in a democracy, a 2.8 millionth share in a site estimated to be worth more than $48 billion is nothing to sneeze at, and is cheaper than mounting the pony and replaying the campaigns of Genghis Khan to secure booty.

Source : By. John C.K. Daly of OilPrice.com

 

http://www.mad-mongolia.com/news/mongolia-news/mongolia-energy-riches-attract-neighbors-and-outside-interests-6245/

 

 

 

Increased tropical forest growth could release carbon from the soil

 

 

Posted 14 August 2011, By Barnaby Smith (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology) , EurekAlert (American Association for the Advancement of Science), eurekalert.org

 

A new study shows that as climate change enhances tree growth in tropical forests, the resulting increase in litterfall could stimulate soil micro-organisms leading to a release of stored soil carbon.

The research was led by scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the University of Cambridge, UK. The results are published online today (14 August 2011) in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change.

The researchers used results from a six-year experiment in a rainforest at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, Central America, to study how increases in litterfall – dead plant material such as leaves, bark and twigs which fall to the ground – might affect carbon storage in the soil. Their results show that extra litterfall triggers an effect called ‘priming’ where fresh carbon from plant litter provides much-needed energy to micro-organisms, which then stimulates the decomposition of carbon stored in the soil.

Lead author Dr Emma Sayer from the UK’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said, “Most estimates of the carbon sequestration capacity of tropical forests are based on measurements of tree growth. Our study demonstrates that interactions between plants and soil can have a massive impact on carbon cycling. Models of climate change must take these feedbacks into account to predict future atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.”

The study concludes that a large proportion of the carbon sequestered by greater tree growth in tropical forests could be lost from the soil. The researchers estimate that a 30% increase in litterfall could release about 0.6 tonnes of carbon per hectare from lowland tropical forest soils each year. This amount of carbon is greater than estimates of the climate-induced increase in forest biomass carbon in Amazonia over recent decades. Given the vast land surface area covered by tropical forests and the large amount of carbon stored in the soil, this could affect the global carbon balance.

Tropical forests play an essential role in regulating the global carbon balance. Human activities have caused carbon dioxide levels to rise but it was thought that trees would respond to this by increasing their growth and taking up larger amounts of carbon. However, enhanced tree growth leads to more dead plant matter, especially leaf litter, returning to the forest floor and it is unclear what effect this has on the carbon cycle.

Dr Sayer added, “Soils are thought to be a long-term store for carbon but we have shown that these stores could be diminished if elevated carbon dioxide levels and nitrogen deposition boost plant growth.”

Co-author Dr Edmund Tanner, from the University of Cambridge, said, “This priming effect essentially means that older, relatively stable soil carbon is being replaced by fresh carbon from dead plant matter, which is easily decomposed. We still don’t know what consequences this will have for carbon cycling in the long term.”

Contact: Barnaby Smith at bpgs@ceh.ac.uk

 

(Ed Note: Please visit the original site for photographs and associated content to this article.)

 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-08/cfe-itf081211.php

Cornell to lead national environmental education program

Posted 14 August 2011, by Staff, The Ithaca Journal (Gannett), theithacajournal.com

CAMPUS WATCH EXCERPT

Cornell University’s Civic Ecology Lab has been selected to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental education professional development program.

The funding is around $2 million per year for five years, according to the university. The project focuses on natural environments while teaching in schools, nature centers and outdoor education centers, while also working on community development, environmental restoration and social justice.

Through a series of workshops, the project, EECapacity, will bring together educators from traditional and nontraditional urban backgrounds to exchange ideas and resources, according to the university. A research component will test the notion that diverse groups of educators will develop innovative environmental education practices.

Cornell’s incoming class diverse

Cornell University’s entering freshman class will be one of the most diverse ones yet, according to the university.

The number of international students has increased to 349, 24 percent more than last year’s freshman class. International students make up 10 percent of the incoming class and represent 45 countries.

More than 36 percent of the class identify themselves as students of color, while 41 percent of the class identify themselves as Caucasian, down from 46 percent last year.

Almost 30 percent of students are from New York state, followed by 21 percent from the Mid-Atlantic region, 12 percent from Western states, 11 percent from New England and 8 percent from the Midwest.

Just over half of all incoming freshmen qualified for need-based financial aid, and the university awarded grants to 49 percent of the class, according to the university. The gender split remains nearly even, as was the case in 2010.

For more information, visit dpb.cornell.edu/F_Undergraduate_Admissions.htm.

(Ed Note: Please visit the original site for the full Campus Watch article.)

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20110814/NEWS01/108140337/Campus-Watch-Cornell-lead-national-environmental-education-program?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

BDA could kill grassland

 

 

Posted 14 August 2011, by Jayashree Nandi (TNN), The Times of India (Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd), articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

 

BANGALORE: One of the few open spaces which gives you a view of the horizon is a grassland patch of Hesaraghatta. It’s a bird-watcher’s paradise and wintering grounds for migratory birds of prey from Central Asia. But this may soon be lost, thanks to the greening efforts of Bangalore Development Authority which is planting various trees there.

A walk on the 340-acre patch gives you a quick glimpse of colourful birds, including the vibrant Red Muniya. But JCBs and BDA-appointed labourers are in place to plant tree saplings. They’ve already made about 20,000 pits and the plan is to cover the entire area. Furious wildlife photographers and ecologists are frantically trying to tell the BDA that it has chosen the wrong site and could end up killing a biodiversity-rich zone in Bangalore.

“I visit this grassland many times a year, specially in winter, to catch the Harrier which comes from Central Asia. I’ve shot some of my best bird photographs here. There is hardly any understanding of grassland ecology in India. It’s often mistaken for wasteland. That’s how we lost the Great Indian Bustard, a grassland bird. In Gujarat too, acres of grassland have been given to industries. We cannot let BDA destroy the grasslands of Hesaraghatta, it’s too precious,” said Ramki Sreenivasan, a Bangalore-based wildlife photographer.

Mahesh Bhat, a resident of Hessaraghatta who lives very close to the grassland, has been trying to fight tree planting by calling BDA commissioner Bharat Lal Meena but couldn’t reach him. He has sent a detailed report on grassland ecology and birds and animals specific to the Hesaraghatta grassland.

Mahesh told STOI: “It’s very strange they don’t plant trees where it is required but plant them where it can ruin the ecology. From what we have gathered, it’s a Rs 100-crore project to plant 1 crore saplings around the city. It’s ridiculous they’re spending Rs 100 per sapling and half these saplings die. Apart from being a waste of resources, they are also killing a very rare habitat here in Hesaraghatta.” Mahesh is a photographer who has an organic farm next to the grassland. He added that he has noticed Slender Lorises on trees surrounding the grassland as well as peacocks and partridges on the grassland.

“It should be declared a sensitive zone or projects like the BDA tree-planting project will ruin it,” Mahesh said.

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http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-08-14/bangalore/29886313_1_grassland-bda-commissioner-saplings