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| Richard Leakey speaks in Nairobi, Kenya in 2007. Leakey warned that the worldwide credit crisis will be "just devastating" to scientific research in coming years, as endowment interest income drops and companies cut donations. LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — Famed scientist Richard Leakey warned that the worldwide credit crisis will be "just devastating" to scientific research in coming years, as endowment interest income drops and companies cut donations. Leakey, who once served on a government economic team in his native Kenya, said much of the support for science comes from wealthy philanthropists, foundations and companies. All those groups likely will be affected by lowered interest rates and the squeeze of credit not being available to fund their operations, he said. "With the investment portfolios being hit as hard as they've been hit in the last few weeks, particularly the last few days, I would have thought there would be a very dramatic reduction in available funds for research in all sorts of countries," Leakey told reporters Wednesday. "Unless they bring it under control, I think it's going to spread. I think it's extremely worrying for science." Leakey became famous after making a number of fossil discoveries in East Africa. His team unearthed the bones of the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found in the desolate, far northern reaches of Kenya in 1984. The effect of the credit crisis on science likely will begin to be felt as organizations begin planning their budgets for 2009, Leakey said. The paleontologist said donations will be "hugely hit," affecting what research and exploration can be done next year and into the future. "This has spread right across the world and there's quite a lot of science to be supported," Leakey said. "I think it is just devastating. "It's more worryful for people who are losing their homes, it's more worryful for people who are losing investments for their children's futures, but we're also very worried as scientists," he said. Leakey was in Little Rock to speak at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. In a new book, Leakey offers a stark warning for the planet, saying global warming could wipe out endangered species living in national parks and refuges throughout the world. He said the extinction of a few species could destroy food chains supporting many other animals — including humans. "I think the end of the Ice Age was a quite a massive change and I think this will be ... almost as big of a change in the way we live," Leakey said. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Original here | ||
Monday, October 13, 2008
Scientist warns: Financial crisis will be 'devastating' to science
A baaa-d idea? Aussie sheep made to wear gas masks so scientists can see how their breath can affect climate
Shear madness: Sheep in Australia are to be fitted with gas masks to monitor their methane emissions
It sounds like a woolly idea, but Australian sheep are to be fitted with gas masks to find out how much they are affecting the climate.
Researchers will fit the masks over the sheep for a short time to obtain a reading from their breath so it can be established how much methane gas they are emitting.
'Operation Gas Mask' will soon swing into action following a report by Australian climate adviser Ross Garnaut who said sheep helped create greenhouse gases and it would be better if farmers turned to kangaroos as a source of meat.
Sheep and cattle have been blamed for emitting the potent greenhouse gas methane from the mouth and the rear and while researchers in the past have even fitted plastic trousers on a handful of sheep to gather gas, it has been agreed that using masks is a better alternative.
Professor James Rowe, of the Sheep Co-operative Research Centre, said that in any case 98 per cent of methane emissions came from a sheep's mouth.
He explained that during the campaign selected sheep among the country's population of 90million animals would be rounded up at research stations and staff would hold a mask in place over their mouths for about a minute to collect their breath.
'It's a mask over the nostril-mouth area as the animal breathes out,' he said. 'That air is then captured into a bladder, not too different from a football bladder. The animal is not in any distress - they don't really object to it.'
In any case, he pointed out, "putting plastic trousers onto sheep is a much more difficult task than holding a mask in place for a minute or so."
It is hoped the research, with the collected gas being analysed in laboratories, will establish which breeds of sheep are genetically predisposed to emit less methane.
Scientists also believe they will be able to learn about the diet of sheep so that changes can be made to their eating habits to lessen methane emissions.
In his recent report, Professor Garnaut said greenhouse gases over Australia would be cut if people ate less beef and lamb and more kangaroo meat, as kangaroos do not belch methane.
He has suggested that while cattle and sheep numbers could be reduced, the kangaroo population could be increased to 240million.
But Professor Rowe says the kangaroo idea probably would not work, asking: 'Have you tried to muster (round up) kangaroos?'
Kangaroo meat is on sale in Australian supermarkets but few households eat it. The meat is usually purchased for pets.
Mexican marijuana cartels sully US forests, parks
By TRACIE CONE, Associated Press Writer PORTERVILLE, Calif. - National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.
The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains, as well as on federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 — and authorities say the 1,800-square-mile Sequoia National Forest is the hardest hit.
Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes.
Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending.
"What's going on on public lands is a crisis at every level," said Forest Service agent Ron Pugh. "These are America's most precious resources, and they are being devastated by an unprecedented commercial enterprise conducted by armed foreign nationals. It is a huge mess."
The first documented marijuana cartels were discovered in Sequoia National Park in 1998. Then, officials say, tighter border controls after Sept. 11, 2001, forced industrial-scale growers to move their operations into the United States.
Millions of dollars are spent every year to find and uproot marijuana-growing operations on state and federal lands, but federal officials say no money is budgeted to clean up the environmental mess left behind after helicopters carry off the plants. They are encouraged that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who last year secured funding for eradication, has inquired about the pollution problems.
In the meantime, the only cleanup is done by volunteers. On Tuesday, the nonprofit High Sierra Trail Crew, founded to improve access to public lands, plans to take 30 people deep into the Sequoia National Forest to carry out miles of drip irrigation pipe, tons of human garbage, volatile propane canisters, and bags and bottles of herbicides and pesticides.
"If the people of California knew what was going on out there, they'd be up in arms about this," said Shane Krogen, the nonprofit's executive director. "Helicopters full of dope are like body counts in the Vietnam War. What does it really mean?"
Last year, law enforcement agents uprooted nearly five million plants in California, nearly a half million in Kentucky and 276,000 in Washington state as the development of hybrid plants has expanded the range of climates marijuana can tolerate.
"People light up a joint, and they have no idea the amount of environmental damage associated with it," said Cicely Muldoon, deputy regional director of the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service.
As of Sept. 2, more than 2.2 million plants had been uprooted statewide. The largest single bust in the nation this year netted 482,000 plants in the remote Sierra of Tulare County, the forest service said.
Some popular parks also have suffered damage. In 2007, rangers found more than 20,000 plants in Yosemite National Park and 43,000 plants in Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park, where 159 grow sites have been discovered over the past 10 years.
Agent Patrick Foy of the California Department of Fish and Game estimated that 1.5 pounds of fertilizers and pesticides is used for every 11.5 plants.
"I've seen the pesticide residue on the plants," Foy said. "You ain't just smoking pot, bud. You're smoking some heavy-duty pesticides from Mexico."
Scott Wanek, the western regional chief ranger for the National Park Service, said he believes the eradication efforts have touched only a small portion of the marijuana farms and that the environmental impact is much greater than anyone knows.
"Think about Sequoia," Wanek said. "The impact goes well beyond the acreage planted. They create huge networks of trail systems, and the chemicals that get into watersheds are potentially very far-reaching — all the way to drinking water for the downstream communities. We are trying to study that now."
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