Stanford University Study: GW Already Causing Billions of Dollars in Losses for Global Agriculture
john fernbach
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/march21/crops-032107.html
Food crops already feel the heat as the world warms, study finds
Jeff Vanuga; USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
A Stanford study found that human-caused global warming reduced the
combined production of wheat, corn and barley-cereal grains that form
the foundation of much of the world's diet-by about 44 million tons
per year between 1981 and 2002.
--------------------------------------------------------
Chris Field
Over a span of two decades, warming temperatures caused annual losses
of roughly $5 billion for major food crops, according to a study
published March 16 in the online journal Environmental Research
Letters.
The study found that between 1981 and 2002, human-caused global
warming reduced the combined production of wheat, corn and barley-
cereal grains that form the foundation of much of the world's diet-by
about 44 million tons per year.
"Most people tend to think of climate change as something that will
impact the future," said study co-author Christopher Field, professor
of biological sciences at Stanford and director of the Carnegie
Institution's Department of Global Ecology. "But this study shows that
warming over the past two decades has already had real effects on
global food supply."
In the study, Field and co-author David Lobell of the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory compared yield figures from the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) with average
temperatures and precipitation in major growing regions.
The researchers focused on the six most widely grown crops in the world
-wheat, rice, maize (corn), soybeans, barley and sorghum, a genus that
includes about 30 grass species raised for grain. These crops occupy
more than 40 percent of the world's cropland and account for at least
55 percent of non-meat calories consumed by humans, according to FAO,
and contribute more than 70 percent of the world's animal feed.
The researchers found that, on average, global yields for some crops
responded negatively to warmer temperatures, with yields dropping
between 3 and 5 percent for every 1 degree Fahrenheit increase.
Average global temperatures increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit
during the period of the study, with larger changes in several
regions.
"Though the impacts are relatively small compared to the technological
yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate that
negative impacts are already occurring," Lobell said.
"We assumed that farmers have not yet adapted to climate change-for
example, by selecting new crop varieties to deal with climate change.
If they have been adapting-something that is very difficult to measure-
then the effects of warming may have been lower. A key moving forward
is how well cropping systems can adapt to a warmer world. Investments
in this area could potentially save billions of dollars and millions
of lives."
The study was supported by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
and the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
This article is based on a press release written by the Carnegie
Institution of Washington.
john fernbach
> Stanford Report, March 20, 2007http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/march21/crops-032107.html
Nobody has made any response to this post, and I wonder why.
Could it be that we're all afraid of the "liberals" at Stanford
University, a noticeably liberal-dominated school of learning, and are
afraid to take them on?
raylopez99
> >A key moving forward
> > is how well cropping systems can adapt to a warmer world. Investments
> > in this area could potentially save billions of dollars and millions
> > of lives."
> Nobody has made any response to this post, and I wonder why.
You're boring John.
And like the article says, 'cropping systems' will be adapted for a
warmer world after investments are made.
Life moves on, no big deal.
RL
john fernbach
I do realize that agriculture & the human food supply is a really
boring subject,
compared to the excitement and fun of oil and coal industry profits.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Farmers Complain: Not Enough Money for Weather-Emergency Relief
In House Appropriations Bill Addressing Iraq War Funding
"Tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers" have suffered weather-
related losses,
Say ag groups: $3.7 billion to Help Them Isn't Enough
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From Capital Press - The West's Ag Web Site
March 23, 2007
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=782&ArticleID=31194&TM=65652.27
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ag disaster assistance also part of war fund measure
Cookson Beecher
Capital Press Staff Writer
The House Appropriations Committee included emergency agricultural
disaster assistance, as well as a 13-month extension of the Milk
Income Loss Compensation program, in its recent version of a $123
billion supplemental spending bill.
Most of the funding in the bill is slated for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
A vote by the full House was expected March 23.
The funding in the bill for emergency agricultural disaster assistance
is $3.7 billion.
Over the past 3 years, tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers
across the country have suffered from weather-related disaster losses.
And while Congress did step up to help farmers who suffered hurricane-
related losses, that assistance does not cover other weather-related
disasters such as the drought that killed thousands of cattle in
California and the Midwest and the recent freeze that devastated fruit
crops in California and Florida.
The House Appropriations bill plugs additional weather disasters into
the equation.
Nadeam Elshami, spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.,
said the assistance in the bill will help compensate farmers and
ranchers for weather-related losses. In California, for example,
producers will be eligible to apply for crop disaster payments and
livestock compensation.
The package also includes $25 million to reimburse spinach growers and
an additional $20 million in conservation funding to assist California
citrus growers.
"Farmers in California and across the country do their part to feed
and grow our economy," said Pelosi in an e-mail sent to Capital Press.
"It's time for Congress to do its part to help those who have lost so
much because of drought and freeze."
"Washington state farmers are one step closer to getting the disaster
relief they need," said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., referring to
flooding, windstorms and hail damage that have inflicted losses on
state farmers.
On the dairy side of the ledger, Michael Marsh, CEO of Western United
Dairymen, said many California dairy farmers are disappointed that the
bill, which includes funding for feed and livestock indemnification,
doesn't include any money for the approximately $500 million in milk
production losses that dairy farmers suffered as a result of drought
and heat.
Currently, there is no permanent disaster funding in the farm bill.
During recent farm bill hearing sessions across the Northwest and in
California, a consistent theme has been that permanent emergency
disaster funding needs to be part of the 2007 Farm Bill.
"America's food producers are the best in the world, bar none, but
they cannot control the weather or damages caused by Mother Nature,"
said National Farmers Union president Tom Buis. "This disaster
assistance is a lifeline for those barely hanging on."
* * * *
Bawana
>
> Food crops already feel the heat as the world warms, study finds
Why do you doom and gloom tards polute your brains with this crap?
Don't forget:
Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened,
air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps
melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding
earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, Antarctic
grass flourishes, anxiety, algal blooms, archaeological sites
threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Asthma, atmospheric defiance,
atmospheric circulation modified, avalanches reduced, avalanches
increased, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, bet for $10,000, better
beer, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billions of
deaths, bird distributions change, birds return early, blackbirds stop
singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, boredom, Britain Siberian,
British gardens change, brothels struggle, bubonic plague, budget
increases, building collapse, building season extension, bushfires,
business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north,
cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and
opportunities, childhood insomnia, Cholera, civil unrest, cloud
increase, cloud stripping, cockroach migration, cod go south, cold
climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models,
conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow,
coral reefs shrink , cold spells, cost of trillions, crime increase,
crocodile sex, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cyclones
(Australia), damages equivalent to $200 billion, Darfur, Dengue
hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened,
desert retreat, destruction of the environment, diarrhoea,
disappearance of coastal cities, diseases move north, Dolomites
collapse, drought, drowning people, ducks and geese decline, dust
bowl in the corn belt, early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth
biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light
dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on
fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth
spinning out of control, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth
wobbling, earthquakes, El Niño intensification, erosion, emerging
infections, encephalitis, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing,
evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups,
extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly,
cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums,
gorillas, koalas, walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan,
elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice,
penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species,
less, not polar bears, barrier reef), experts muzzled, extreme changes
to California, famine, farmers go under, fever,figurehead sacked, fish
catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks decline, five million
illnesses, floods, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, food
prices rise, food security threat (SA), footpath erosion, forest
decline, forest expansion, frostbite, frosts, fungi invasion, Garden
of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed,
gingerbread houses collapse, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier
wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, Gore
omnipresence, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, Great Barrier Reef 95%
dead, Great Lakes drop, greening of the North, Gulf Stream failure,
habitat loss, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harvest increase,
harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, hazardous waste sites breached,
heat waves, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late,
hornets, high court debates, human fertility reduced, human health
improvement, human health risk, hurricanes, hydropower problems,
hyperthermia deaths, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, inclement
weather, infrastructure failure (Canada), Inuit displacement, Inuit
poisoned, Inuit suing, industry threatened, infectious diseases,
insurance premium rises, invasion of midges, island disappears,
islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens
taxed, kitten boom, krill decline, lake and stream productivity
decline, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase,
lawsuit successful, lawyers' income increased (surprise surprise!),
lightning related insurance claims, little response in the atmosphere,
Lyme disease, Malaria, malnutrition, Maple syrup shortage, marine
diseases, marine food chain decimated, marine dead zone, Meaching (end
of the world), megacryometeors, Melanoma, methane emissions from
plants, methane burps, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses,
migration, migration difficult (birds), microbes to decompose soil
carbon more rapidly, more bad air days, more research needed,
mountain (Everest) shrinking, mountains break up, mountains taller,
mortality lower, mudslides, new islands, next ice age, Nile delta
damaged, no effect in India, nuclear plants bloom, oaks move north,
ocean acidification, outdoor hockey threatened, oyster diseases,
ozone loss, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise, Pacific dead zone,
personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology
shifts, plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plankton loss, plant
viruses, plants march north, polar bears aggressive, polar bears
cannibalistic, polar bears drowning, polar bears starve, polar tours
scrapped, psychosocial disturbances, railroad tracks deformed,
rainfall increase, rainfall reduction, refugees, reindeer larger,
release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice yields
crash, riches, rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, rivers
raised, rivers dry up, rockfalls, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the
world a desert, Ross river disease, salinity reduction, salinity
increase, Salmonella, salmon stronger, sea level rise, sea level rise
faster, seals mating more, sex change, sharks booming, sharks moving
north, sheep shrink, shop closures, shrinking ponds, ski resorts
threatened, slow death, smaller brains, smog, snowfall increase,
snowfall reduction, societal collapse, songbirds change eating
habits, sour grapes, space problem, spiders invade Scotland, squid
population explosion, squirrels reproduce earlier, spectacular
orchids, stormwater drains stressed, suicide, taxes, tectonic plate
movement, terrorism, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise,
tourism increase, trade winds weakened, tree beetle attacks, tree
foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees could return to
Antarctic, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, tropics
expansion, tropopause raised, tsunamis, turtles crash, turtles lay
earlier, UK Katrina, Venice flooded, volcanic eruptions, walrus pups
orphaned, war, wars over water, water bills double, water supply
unreliability, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather
out of its mind, weather patterns awry, weeds, Western aid cancelled
out, West Nile fever, whales move north, wheat yields crushed in
Australia, white Christmas dream ends, wildfires, wind shift, wind
reduced, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage
(California), wine industry disaster (US), wine - more English, wine
-German boon, wine - no more French , winters in Britain colder,
wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World
bankruptcy, World in crisis, Yellow fever.
and all on 0.006 deg C per year!
Advice of any omissions (with sources) or broken links is welcome at
warm...@numberwatch.co.uk
Note: All links were live at time of posting. Inevitably some will
disappear, particularly from Yahoo News.
Thanks to correspondents for additional entries; especially, as
always, Our Man in Puerto Rico.
Index
Bawana
> I hope this isn't too boring for you, Ray.
You're boring as hell, ol'queenie.
A complete list of things caused by global warming
Toxic Meme Germs
Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al
Gore Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al
Gore, Al Gore Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al
Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al
Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al
Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore Al Gore, Al Gore, Al
Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore Al Gore, Al
Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore Al
Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al
Gore Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al
Gore, Al Gore Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore, Al
Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore Al Gore,
Toxic Meme Germs
Toxic Meme Germs
Toxic Meme Germs
claudi...@sbcglobal.net
> The study found that between 1981 and 2002, human-caused global
> warming reduced the combined production of wheat, corn and barley-
> cereal grains that form the foundation of much of the world's diet-by
> about 44 million tons per year.
The whole concept here is preposterous. One can only imagine the
intellectual crystal ball these stanforites (I wonder what kind of
dollars and cents are involved. You can bet these guys will soon be
sending out grant proposals to solve this imaginary problem.) assumed
to determine what "world diet" would have been if not for the "Global
Warming"
I think I know what happened here. These guys completed their,
"study," back in the days before the Mann's Hockey stick graph had yet
to be revealed as quackery. This is why this paper rings hollow.
They seem to be purposely avoiding any discussion of the fact that
statistically speaking there currently really is no global warming.
The numbers simply aren't there.
>
> "Most people tend to think of climate change as something that will
> impact the future," said study co-author Christopher Field, professor
> of biological sciences at Stanford and director of the Carnegie
> Institution's Department of Global Ecology. "But this study shows that
> warming over the past two decades has already had real effects on
> global food supply."
So, they expect us to just accept the premise that GW has occurred.
They make no effort to support this contention. It's just assumed.
(Notice how carefully these propaganda artist buried this assumption
in the body of this text?)
>
> In the study, Field and co-author David Lobell of the Lawrence
> Livermore National Laboratory compared yield figures from the United
> Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) with average
> temperatures and precipitation in major growing regions.
They did what? They compared what to what? who is FAO? Why did the
United Nations suddenly become a part of this presentation? Are
these, "yield figures," made public? References? (Or are we just
suppose to be nice and assume that since it is the UN then they must
be accurate?)
I ask again, they compared what to what? Oh, they compared these UN
based "yield figures," to "average temperatures and precipitation in
major growing regions." This is a rather obvious apples to oranges
comparison. What, exactly, are they comparing to what, exactly?
>
> The researchers focused on the six most widely grown crops in the world
> -wheat, rice, maize (corn), soybeans, barley and sorghum, a genus that
> includes about 30 grass species raised for grain. These crops occupy
> more than 40 percent of the world's cropland and account for at least
> 55 percent of non-meat calories consumed by humans, according to FAO,
> and contribute more than 70 percent of the world's animal feed.
>
> The researchers found that, on average, global yields for some crops
> responded negatively to warmer temperatures, with yields dropping
> between 3 and 5 percent for every 1 degree Fahrenheit increase.
What an amazing observation!!! Alert the farmers.
> Average global temperatures increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit
> during the period of the study, with larger changes in several
> regions.
>
> "Though the impacts are relatively small compared to the technological
> yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate
Note the propagandistic writing style of this passage? What results?
What's been demonstrated.
that
> negative impacts are already occurring," Lobell said.
Have there not been equal negative impacts on yield as a result of
unseasonal cold, frigid conditions? Could one not use similar
techniques to build a case for global cooling?
>
> "We assumed that farmers have not yet adapted to climate change-for
> example, by selecting new crop varieties to deal with climate change.
Climate change? What a bunch of whackos.
> If they have been adapting-something that is very difficult to measure-
> then the effects of warming may have been lower. A key moving forward
> is how well cropping systems can adapt to a warmer world. Investments
> in this area could potentially save billions of dollars and millions
> of lives."
Boy does this ring hollow. Certainly it was completed back when
Mann's hockey stick still was taken seriously.
Crackpot Lemmings Chow for Exxon's Tiger Teeth & Claws
"warming of the climate system is unequivocal"
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/washington/entries/2007/03/27/coal_interests.html
Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action
An organization representing companies that mine coal and burn it to
make electricity has called on its members to fight the proposed
listing of the polar bear as an endangered or threatened species.
"This will essentially declare 'open season' for environmental lawyers
to sue to block viirtually any project that involves carbon dioxide
emissions," the Western Business Roundtable said in an e-mail.
To settle a lawsuit by environmental groups, the Department of
Interior announced last month that it would take a year to consider
whether global warming and melting Arctic ice justifies declaring the
bear "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
"This seems a little unfair, pitting all those big coal companies and
power companies against the poor polar bear," sniffed Frank O'Donnell,
president of Clean Air Watch.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/27/endangered_species/?source=whitelist
Inside the secretive plan to gut the Endangered Species Act
Proposed regulatory changes, obtained by Salon, would destroy the
"safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction," say
environmentalists.
By Rebecca Clarren
Print Email Digg it Del.icio.us My Yahoo RSS Font: S / S+ / S++
story image
March 27, 2007 | The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to
fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out
in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed
changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail
the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to
enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and it
dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or
mining.
"The proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered
Species Act," says Jan Hasselman, a Seattle attorney with
Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, who helped Salon interpret
the proposal. "This is a no-holds-barred end run around one of
America's most popular environmental protections. If these regulations
stand up, the act will no longer provide a safety net for animals and
plants on the brink of extinction."
In recent months, the Fish and Wildlife Service has gone to
extraordinary efforts to keep drafts of regulatory changes from the
public. All copies of the working document were given a number
corresponding to a person, so that leaked copies could be traced to
that individual. An e-mail sent in March from an assistant regional
director at the Fish and Wildlife Service to agency staff, asking for
comments on and corrections to the first draft, underscored the
concern with secrecy: "Please Keep close hold for now. Dale [Hall,
director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] does not want this
stuff leaking out to stir up discontent based on speculation."
Many Fish and Wildlife Service employees believe the draft is not
based on "defensible science," says a federal employee who asked to
remain anonymous. Yet "there is genuine fear of retaliation for
communicating that to the media. People are afraid for their jobs."
Chris Tollefson, a spokesperson for the service, says that while it's
accurate to characterize the agency as trying to keep the draft under
wraps, the agency has every intention of communicating with the public
about the proposed changes; the draft just hasn't been ready. And, he
adds, it could still be changed as part of a forthcoming formal review
process.
Administration critics characterize the secrecy as a way to maintain
spin control, says Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for
Biological Diversity, a national environmental group. "This
administration will often release a 300-page-long document at a press
conference for a newspaper story that will go to press in two hours,
giving the media or public no opportunity to digest it and figure out
what's going on," Suckling says. "[Interior Secretary Dirk] Kempthorne
will give a feel-good quote about how the new regulations are good for
the environment, and they can win the public relations war."
In some ways, the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act
should come as no surprise. President Bush has hardly been one of its
fans. Under his reign, the administration has granted 57 species
endangered status, the action in each case being prompted by a
lawsuit. That's fewer than in any other administration in history --
and far fewer than were listed during the administrations of Reagan
(253), Clinton (521) or Bush I (234). Furthermore, during this
administration, nearly half of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
employees who work with endangered species reported that they had been
directed by their superiors to ignore scientific evidence that would
result in recommendations for the protection of species, according to
a 2005 survey of more than 1,400 service biologists, ecologists and
botanists conducted by Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, a nonprofit organization.
"We are not allowed to be honest and forthright, we are expected to
rubber stamp everything," wrote a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist
as part of the survey. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and
this is the worst it has ever been."
The agency has long seen a need to improve the act, says Tollefson.
"This is a look at what's possible," he says. "Too much of our time as
an agency is spent responding to litigation rather than working on
recovering the species that are most in need. The current way the act
is run creates disincentives for people to get involved with
recovering species."
Kempthorne, boss of the Fish and Wildlife Service, has been an
outspoken critic of the act. When he was a U.S. senator from Idaho in
the late 1990s, he championed legislation that would have allowed
government agencies to exempt their actions from Endangered Species
Act regulations, and would have required federal agents to conduct
cost-benefit analyses when considering whether to list a species as
endangered. (The legislation failed.) Last June, in his early days as
interior secretary, Kempthorne told reporters, "I really believe that
we can make improvements to the act itself."
Kempthorne is keeping good on his promise. The proposed draft is
littered with language lifted directly from both Kempthorne's 1998
legislation as well as from a contentious bill by former Rep. Richard
Pombo, R-Calif. (which was also shot down by Congress). It's "a wish
list of regulations that the administration and its industry allies
have been talking about for years," says Suckling.
Written in terse, dry legal language, the proposed draft doesn't make
for easy reading. However, the changes, often seemingly subtle,
generally serve to strip the Fish and Wildlife Service of the power to
do its stated job: to protect wildlife. Some verge on the biologically
ridiculous, say critics, while others are a clear concession to
industry and conservative Western governors who have long complained
that the act degrades the economies of their states by preventing
natural-resource extraction.
One change would significantly limit the number of species eligible
for endangered status. Currently, if a species is likely to become
extinct in "the foreseeable future" -- a species-specific timeframe
that can stretch up to 300 years -- it's a candidate for act
protections. However, the new rules scale back that timeline to mean
either 20 years or 10 generations (the agency can choose which
timeline). For certain species with long life spans, such as killer
whales, grizzly bears or wolves, two decades isn't even one
generation. So even if they might be in danger of extinction, they
would not make the endangered species list because they'd be unlikely
to die out in two decades.
"It makes absolutely no sense biologically," wrote Hasselman in an e-
mail. "One of the Act's weaknesses is that species aren't protected
until they're already in trouble and this proposal puts that flaw on
steroids."
Perhaps the most significant proposed change gives state governors the
opportunity and funding to take over virtually every aspect of the act
from the federal government. This includes not only the right to
create species-recovery plans and the power to veto the reintroduction
of endangered species within state boundaries, but even the authority
to determine what plants and animals get protection. For plants and
animals in Western states, that's bad news: State politicians
throughout the region howled in opposition to the reintroduction of
the Mexican gray wolf into Arizona and the Northern Rockies wolf into
Yellowstone National Park.
"If states are involved, the act would only get minimally enforced,"
says Bob Hallock, a recently retired 34-year veteran of the Fish and
Wildlife Service who, as an endangered species specialist, worked with
state agencies in Idaho, Washington and Montana. "States are, if
anything, closer to special economic interests. They're more
manipulated. The states have not demonstrated the will or interest in
upholding the act. It's why we created a federal law in the first
place."
Additional tweaks in the law would have a major impact. For instance,
the proposal would narrow the definition of a species' geographic
range from the landscape it inhabited historically to the land it
currently occupies. Since the main reason most plants and animals head
toward extinction is due to limited habitat, the change would strongly
hamper the government's ability to protect chunks of land and allow
for a healthy recovery in the wild.
The proposal would also allow both ongoing and planned projects by
such federal agencies as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Forest
Service to go forward, even when scientific evidence indicates that
the projects may drive a species to extinction. Under the new
regulations, as long as the dam or logging isn't hastening the
previous rate of extinction, it's approved. "This makes recovery of
species impossible," says Suckling. (You can read the entire proposal,
a PDF file, here.)
Gutting the Endangered Species Act will only thicken the pall that has
hung over the Fish and Wildlife Service for the past six years,
Hallock says. "They [the Bush administration] don't want the
regulations to be effective. People in the agency are like a bunch of
whipped dogs," he says. "I think it's just unacceptable to go around
squashing other species; they're of incalculable benefit to us. The
optimism we had when this agency started has absolutely been dashed."
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/bush-administration-rewrite-of-endangered-species-act-regulations-would-gut-protections.html
Bush Administration Rewrite of Endangered Species Act Regulations
Would Gut Protections
Hush-hush proposal "a no-holds-barred end run around one of America's
most popular laws"
Washington, DC -- A secret draft of regulations that fundamentally
rewrite the Endangered Species Act was leaked to two environmental
organizations, which provided them to the press last night An article
in Salon quotes Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman saying, "The
proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered
Species Act."
The changes are fiercely technical and complicated, but make future
listings extremely difficult, redefine key concepts to the detriment
of protected species, virtually hand over administration of the act to
hostile states, and severely restrict habitat protections.
Many of the changes -- lifted from unsuccessful legislative proposals
from then-Senator (now Interior Secretary) Dirk Kempthorne and the
recently defeated congressman Richard Pombo -- are reactions to
policies and practices established as a result of litigation filed by
environmental organizations including Earthjustice.
"After the failure of these legislative proposals in the last
Congress, the Bush administration has opted to gut the Endangered
Species Act through the only avenue left open: administrative
regulations," said Hasselman. "This end-run around the will of
Congress and the American people will not succeed."
A major change would make it more difficult for a species to gain
protection, by scaling back the "foreseeable future" timeframe in
which to consider whether a species is likely to become extinct.
Instead of looking far enough ahead to be able to reasonably determine
whether a species could be heading for extinction, the new regulations
would drastically shorten the timeframe to either 20 years or 10
generations at the agency's discretion. For species with long
generations like killer whales and grizzly bears, this truncated view
of the future isn't nearly enough time to accurately predict whether
they are at-risk now.
"These draft regulations represent a total rejection of the values
held by the vast majority Americans: that we have a responsibility to
protect imperiled species and the special places they call home," said
Kate Freund, Legislative Associate at Earthjustice.
According to several sources within the Fish and Wildlife Service
quoted by Salon, hostility to the law within the agency has never been
so intense. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and this is
the worst it has ever been," one unnamed source is quoted as saying.
In addition, the proposal would allow projects by the Forest Service
and other agencies to proceed even if scientific evidence suggests
that the projects might drive species to extinction so long as the
rate of decline doesn't accelerate owing to the project.
The Bush administration's antipathy to the law is shown by the numbers
of species it has protected, in each case as the result of litigation
-- 57. By comparison, 253 species were listed during the Reagan
administration, 521 under Clinton, and 234 under Bush I.
The administration reportedly had expected to reveal the new
regulations in a few weeks. The draft regulations must be published in
the Federal Register for public comment before they can become final,
which is likely to be at least a year off.
Contact:
Jan Hasselman, Earthjustice, (206) 343-7340, ext. 25
claudi...@sbcglobal.net
> Stanford Report, March 20, 2007http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/march21/crops-032107.html