Vermont Law School Releases Inaugural Top 10 Environmental Watch List, Spotlights Policy Issues of 2010

(PR Newswire) Vermont Law School (VLS) today releases its inaugural Top 10 Environmental Watch List spotlighting the nation's most critical environmental law and policy issues of 2010 and how they may play out in 2011. Below is the Top 10 list, which is produced by the nation's top-ranked environmental law school. The full report is available at http://watchlist.vermontlaw.edu/. The report evaluates 10 judicial, regulatory, legislative and other actions that significantly affect humans and the natural world.

"We can continue our short-sighted addiction to fossil fuels or we can adopt innovative, healthier, more sustainable practices," said VLS Dean Jeff Shields. "The Environmental Watch List will help improve public understanding of how to use the law to take action on the critical issues of our time."

1. Congressional failure to enact climate change legislation: Professor Gus Speth, a pioneer of the environmental movement, explores what went wrong and whether the EPA and state and local lawmakers will step forward in 2011.

2. The nation's worst oil spill: Associate Professor Betsy Baker, an expert in the law of the sea, examines the legal and policy fallout from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

3. First U.S. greenhouse gas rules: Professor Pat Parenteau, whose expertise includes climate change, looks at whether the EPA's efforts to restrict global warming pollutants will survive judicial and political challenges.

4. Climate change in the courts: Associate Professor Martha Judy, an expert in environmental liability, delves into a Supreme Court case that would allow public nuisance lawsuits against major air polluters.

5. California's climate law dodges a bullet: Professor John Echeverria, whose expertise includes climate change, looks at what's next for the Golden State's landmark anti-global warming law that survived a challenge at the ballot box.

6. EPA clamps down on mountaintop removal coal mining: Professor Mark Latham, an expert in environmental enforcement and regulation, examines the EPA's crackdown on the coal industry's practice of tearing off mountain peaks.

7. Wind and solar projects make breakthroughs: Assistant Professor Don Kreis, an expert in energy efficiency, law and regulation, examines plans for the nation's first offshore wind projects and the largest solar energy projects on public lands.

8. Supreme Court reviews genetically modified crops: Professor Jason Czarnezki, whose expertise includes food law and agricultural policy, scrutinizes the Supreme Court's first ruling on so-called Frankenfoods.

9. EPA's water transfer exemption remains in force: Assistant Professor Laura Murphy, an expert in the Clean Water Act, explores the conflict over transferring polluted water from one water body to another.

10. U.S. military going green: Professor Stephen Dycus, an expert in national security law and environmental law, delves into the Pentagon's efforts to use more renewable energy and decrease its reliance on fossil fuels.

Bonus—The Accidental Environmentalist: Professor John Echeverria, whose expertise includes Constitutional law, reflects on the retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Fanged Frog Among 163 New Species Discovered in Mekong River Region of Southeast Asia

WWF International said a gecko with leopard-like spots on its body and a fanged frog that eats birds are among the 163 new species discovered last year in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia. Researchers working for the group have warned that the effects of climate change, plus an upsurge in droughts and floods, pose a serious threat to the diverse habitat that supports these species, as well as the traditional threats such as poaching, pollution and habitat destruction. The environmental group also said scientists discovered 100 plants, 28 fish, 18 reptiles, 14 amphibians, two mammals and one bird species in the region.

Fanged frog, or Limnonectes megastomias (WWF International)

The fanged frog, given the scientific name Limnonectes megastomias, lies in wait along streams for prey including birds and insects. Scientists believe it uses its fangs during combat with other males. According to WWF, the species has a greatly enlarged head and enlarged fangs in its mouth. Those fangs are actually growths that protrude from the jawbone.

Males of the species use fangs in male-to-male combat situations and scientists have observed frogs with missing limbs, and multiple scars. There are a number of differences between the males and females of the species. Unlike many other species of frogs, the males are larger than the females, have exceptionally large mouths and powerful jaws that appear to be out of proportion with the rest of its body.

The frog has only been found in three isolated and remote protected areas in eastern Thailand: at medium-to-high altitudes (600-1,500m) at Sakaerat Environmental Research Station (SERS); in Pang Si Da National Park and in the Phu
Luang Wildlife Sanctuary. Remarkably, the SERS area has been the subject of scientific study for more than 40 years, but this frog had escaped detection until now. Source: WWF International

The bottom line is that climate change is profoundly impacting the biodiversity of the Greater Mekong region. It has already been warmed and experienced more frequent and damaging extreme climatic events such as droughts and floods. Climate change is also have an adverse effect on the availability of freshwater, affecting the timing of migration and flowering, among other things. It threatens many of the region's unique species, including some of the ones newly discovered.

To read the entire report, CLICK HERE.

World's River Deltas Sinking Due to Human Activity: University of Colorado (Boulder) Study

According to Science Daily, a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder has indicated that most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking from human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk. Despite a 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that concluded many river deltas are at risk from sea level rise, the new study takes it a step further. It indicates other human factors are causing deltas to sink significantly. The researchers concluded the sinking of deltas from Asia and India to the Americas is exacerbated by the upstream trapping of sediments by reservoirs and dams, man-made channels and levees that whisk sediment into the oceans beyond coastal floodplains, and the accelerated compacting of floodplain sediment caused by the extraction of groundwater and natural gas.

The study concluded that 24 out of the world's 33 major deltas are sinking and that 85 percent experienced severe flooding in recent years, resulting in the temporary submergence of roughly 100,000 square miles of land. About 500 million people in the world live on river deltas.Published in the Sept. 20 issue of Nature Geoscience, the study was led by CU-Boulder Professor James Syvitski, who is directing a $4.2 million effort funded by the National Science Foundation to model large-scale global processes on Earth like erosion and flooding. Known as the Community Surface Dynamic Modeling System, or CSDMS, the effort involves hundreds of scientists from dozens of federal labs and universities around the nation.

The Nature Geoscience authors predict that global delta flooding could increase by 50 percent under current projections of about 18 inches in sea level rise by the end of the century as forecast by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The flooding will increase even more if the capture of sediments upstream from deltas by reservoirs and other water diversion projects persists and prevents the growth and buffering of the deltas, according to the study.

"We argue that the world's low-lying deltas are increasingly vulnerable to flooding, either from their feeding rivers or from ocean storms," said CU-Boulder Research Associate Albert Kettner, a co-author on the study at CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and member of the CSDMS team. "This study shows there are a host of human-induced factors that already cause deltas to sink much more rapidly than could be explained by sea level alone."

Other study co-authors include CU-Boulder's Irina Overeem, Eric Hutton and Mark Hannon, G. Robert Brakenridge of Dartmouth College, John Day of Louisiana State University, Charles Vorosmarty of City College of New York, Yoshiki Saito of the Geological Survey of Japan, Liviu Giosan of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Robert Nichols of the University of Southampton in England.

The team used satellite data from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which carried a bevy of radar instruments that swept more than 80 percent of Earth's surface during a 12-day mission of the space shuttle Endeavour in 2000. The researchers compared the SRTM data with historical maps published between 1760 and 1922.

"Every year, about 10 million people are being affected by storm surges," said CU-Boulder's Overeem, also an INSTAAR researcher and CSDMS scientist. "Hurricane Katrina may be the best example that stands out in the United States, but flooding in the Asian deltas of Irrawaddy in Myanmar and the Ganges-Brahmaputra in India and Bangladesh have recently claimed thousands of lives as well."

The study results are pretty damning and we must take steps to halt any further damage to the rive deltas.

Maldives Archipelago to Introduce Green Tax on Tourists

The Maldives archipelago will introduce a new environmental tax on all tourists who use its resorts and provide its economic lifeline. Why? The archipelago is threatened by rising sea levels due to climate change. The Maldives, which is the stomping ground of the rich and famous, has made quite a name for itself as an advocate for mitigating climate change because the rising sea levels are forecast to submerge most of its islands by 2100.

The Maldives' $850 million economy reportedly gets more than a quarter of its gross domestic product from tourists, but has not yet taxed them to help it fight climate change. President Mohammed Nasheed said an environment tax was soon to be levied on all tourists. "We have introduced a green tax. It's in the pipeline. It's a matter of parliament approving it and I hope parliament will approve it -- $3 per each tourist a day," Nasheed told reporters in Male, the capital of the Indian Ocean archipelago.

According to Reuters, based on an annual average of 700,000 tourists who spend an average of three days on the islands, that translates to about $6.3 million annually.

Study: Warmer Sea Temperatures Whet Krill Appetite, Put World's Seafood Supply at Risk

The warming oceans are causing a rise in appetites among marine life and has highlighted the risks climate change has on the world's seafood supply. According to a study published by the Public Library of Science, the milder water temperatures increase the importance of zooplankton, including krill which is eaten by whales and has put undue pressure on phytoplankton that will be less plentiful as the seas grow warmer.

Research has shown that humans rely on marine ecosystems for 16 percent of their animal protein consumption.  The study states that increased temperatures of up to four degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) have already happened in some of the world’s seas; climate models predict that sea temperatures may increase a further seven degrees over the next 100 years. The study has also said that rising consumption by larger marine animals of smaller plankton will result in a loss of biomass even with increased production with higher temperatures.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, said the world’s ocean surface temperature in June rose to 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius), the warmest since 1880, topping the record set in 2005.

Photo credit:  Antarctic krill (Euphasia superba) Green Warriors of Norway

African Officials Ask For Climate Reparations Payments at UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December

Environment ministers from Africa have called for more money and support from rich nations ahead of a landmark climate conference in Copenhagen because the continent contributes so little to global warming but suffers disproportionately from its effects. The ministers did not give a figure, but the U.N. says Africa needs at least $1 billion a year to manage the effects of climate change such as sinking islands, changing farming techniques and even relocating people from areas affected by extreme weather. In recent years, the continent has begun to experience the effects of a fast warming planet, which has stirred up a hornet's nest of woes on the poorest continent. For example, malaria, which is widespread in warm lowland areas of Africa and kills millions, has started to be recorded in the continent's cooler highland areas. Climate scientists are now predicting that some African mountains will lose all their snow cover and staple crops such as wheat, may disappear in the 2080s.

The U.S. and China are the world's largest polluters, accounting for about half the world's carbon emissions. But neither country was part of the Kyoto accord, which called on 37 countries to cut carbon emissions by a total of 5 percent below 1990 levels.The United States refused to sign Kyoto, citing the costs to the economy and lack of participation by China, India and other fast-developing countries. But some of those countries have said rich countries are not aggressive enough in cutting their own emissions. U.S. emissions now are 16 percent above what they were two decades ago.

Global temperatures have risen 0.22 degrees (0.12 degrees Celsius) since 1990, according to one U.S. government estimate. The U.N.'s chief panel on climate change estimates that the risk of increased severe weather will rise if the global average temperature increases between 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) and 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels.

Scientists attribute at least some of the past century's 1-degree rise in global temperatures to the atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, byproducts of power plants, automobiles and other fossil fuel-burning sources.

Experts project that within 11 years some African countries may see farm harvests drop by up to 50 percent because water will be scarce and the continent relies on rain for its agricultural production. In the same period, they say, between 75 million and 250 million Africans are expected to suffer increased water shortages because of climate change. Source: Huffington Post

The last thing African needs to have land on its doorstep are problems associated with global warming. I don't know if demanding reparations will help them very much, but it is a starting point in trying to combat the effects of global warming.