Extinctions Linked to Hotter Temperatures Whenever the world's tropical seas warm several degrees, Earth has experienced mass extinctions over millions of years, according to a first-of-its-kind statistical study of fossil records. And scientists fear it may be about to happen again — but in a matter of several decades, not tens of millions of years. Four of the five major extinctions over 520 million years of Earth history have been linked to warmer tropical seas, something that indicates a warmer world overall, according to the new study published Wednesday. "We found that over the fossil record as a whole, the higher the temperatures have been, the higher the extinctions have been," said University of York ecologist Peter Mayhew, the co-author of the peer-reviewed research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British journal. Earth is on track to hit that same level of extinction-connected warming in about 100 years, unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed, according to top scientists. A second study, to be presented at a scientific convention Sunday, links high carbon dioxide levels, the chief man-made gas responsible for global warming, to past extinctions....
Global warming to blame for fires, says Harry Reid Is there a political angle to the wildfires raging through Southern California? You betcha – at least according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said global warming is at least partly responsible for the blazes. "One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming," the Nevada Democrat told reporters, emphasizing the need to pass the Democrats' comprehensive energy package. Pressed by astonished reporters on whether he really believed global warming caused the fires, he appeared to back away from his comments, saying there are many factors that contributed to the disaster....
Rush Limbaugh: 'Bring the firefighters home' Using irreverent humor to blast the politicizing of California's wildfires, radio giant Rush Limbaugh today adopted some anti-war logic to call for the firefighters to be brought home. "I think it's time to bring the firefighters home. I think it's time to bring the firefighters out of there – it's just too dangerous," Limbaugh said on his top-rated program, noting the front-line responders were in grave danger. "They're in there on a false premise anyway, that they can put out the fire. We can't win against the fire, folks, just like we can't win in Iraq. So if the liberals want to politicize this, then I ask them to be consistent and admit defeat to the fire, admit we can't beat the fire and get these brave firefighters out of there ... ." Limbaugh's comments come a day after Senate Majority Leader said global warming is at least partly responsible for the blazes....
Officials: Arson Behind Santiago Fire CBS News has learned a task force of agencies, including the FBI, ATF, the Orange County Fire Authority and the California Department of Forestry will announce shortly that the massive Santiago Canyon Fire -- which has caused an estimated $10 million in damage -- is being officially declared an arson, and a $70,000 reward is being offered to find the arsonist. Investigators have identified two separate "points of origin" where they believe the fire was set, CBS News has learned. FBI agents secured the scene to "maintain its integrity." The Santiago Fire has burned about 19,200 acres east of Irvine, officials said, and it is around 30 percent contained. Six homes and eight outbuildings have been destroyed, with another eight homes and 12 outbuildings damaged. Four firefighters have been injured fighting the blaze and about 3,000 people evacuated....
San Bernardino authorities arrest biker for alleged arson A motorcyclist who allegedly set a small fire in a rural foothill area of the San Bernardino Mountains has been booked for investigation of arson. Forty-eight-year-old John Alfred Rund of Hesperia was arrested late Tuesday after authorities followed him to an address on State Route 173. San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Beavers says it's not known if Rund is connected to any of the wildfires that have ravaged Southern California since Sunday. Witnesses allegedly spotted Rund start a fire in brush on State Route 173 south of Arrowhead Lake Road, then leave on a Honda motorcycle. A California Highway Patrol helicopter followed the motorcycle and Rund was arrested.
Arson suspect killed, another arrested Amid worries of new blazes adding to the firestorm already afflicting the region, a man in Hesperia has been arrested on suspicion of arson, and police reported shooting and killing another arson suspect after chasing him out of scrub behind Cal State San Bernardino. Law enforcement officials said today that they didn't know whether either of the men had started any of the more than a dozen large fires that have devastated Southern California in recent days, including the nearby Lake Arrowhead blaze. The brush fire in Hesperia was quickly extinguished by residents. Investigators have said that at least two of the huge wildfires, one in Orange County and the other in Temecula, were the work of arsonists. The confrontation that ended in the shooting death started about 6 p.m. Tuesday when San Bernardino university police spotted a man in a rural area of flood channels and scrub near the campus. University police tried to detain the man, but he got into his car and fled, authorities said. When he began to ram officers' vehicle, they shot him....
Smarter ways to handle fire When the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo first approached the coast of Southern California one fine but breezy October day in 1542, he noted plumes of dense smoke rising from the hills and concluded -- correctly as it turned out -- that the land was inhabited. California's Native Americans regularly set fire to the hills above what is now Los Angeles to renew the fresh vegetation they depended on, to clear the land for better hunting and to reduce the chances of being ambushed by enemies in chaparral-cloaked canyons. Once the fires were started, they sat back and watched them burn toward the sea. If Cabrillo had approached the Southern California coast this week, he would have seen the same kinds of plumes of smoke, but he would have found that the current inhabitants have a very different attitude toward fire. When the Spanish took California from its native inhabitants, they at first tried to end the practice of setting land-clearing fires. But eventually they, as well as the Mexican and American ranchers who succeeded them, found that fire filled a useful and in fact necessary role in the oak savannas and on the brushy hillsides....
NASA's Unmanned Aircraft To Aid Firefighting Efforts In Southern California In a bid to help fire fighters battling blaze across Southern California, NASA is flying an unmanned aircraft Wednesday that will provide images of fires from Lake Arrrowhead to as far south as San Diego County near the Mexican border. Equipped with sophisticated infrared imaging equipment, the Ikhana aircraft, a Predator B modified for civil science and research missions, took off from Edwards Air Force Base north of Los Angeles Wednesday morning on a 10-hour mission. Pilots at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center will remotely control the aircraft, which carries a thermal-infrared imaging system capable of seeing through thick smoke to locate fire locations. Incident commanders on the ground can view satellite-transmitted images on real time and allocate firefighting resources accordingly, according to a NASA press release....
BLM halts horse roundups; gov slams funding shift Federal spending restrictions and poor range conditions in Nevada have halted wild horse roundups in Wyoming, drawing the ire of Gov. Dave Freudenthal. The governor sent a letter to BLM officials this week blasting the decision to shift funding for wild horse roundups from Wyoming to Nevada. The BLM notified Freudenthal's office last week it needed to redirect funding from Wyoming to Nevada, as horses there were in danger because of drought and wildfires. "... (W)hile the situation in Nevada may warrant additional resource allocations for horse gathers there, I am hard pressed to see how Wyoming's funding for horse gathers must be sacrificed to address conditions in Nevada," Freudenthal wrote in his letter to Wyoming BLM Director Bob Bennett. "Clearly the 'emergency situation' in Nevada, when read together with the difficult range conditions in Wyoming, lends itself to new dollars being added to the budget instead of shuffling dollars to Nevada, which will, in turn, exacerbate problems in Wyoming."....
Utility agrees to pay rent on riverbeds A Spokane-based utility has agreed to pay Montana $4 million a year in rent to use the state-owned riverbed to generate electricity at its northwest Montana dam and reservoir — a move that narrowly avoided a trial over the matter. Avista Corp., which owns the Noxon Rapids Dam on the Clark Fork River and the Cabinet Gorge Dam just across the border in Idaho, agreed to the settlement Friday, the last business day before a trial began here Monday over the dispute. The agreement means just one company— PPL Montana, the state’s largest private owner of hydroelectric dams — remains a defendant in the ongoing trial. Another dam-owner, PacifiCorp, of Portland, Ore., earlier agreed to pay the state $50,000 in rent for its Bigfork Dam on the Swan River. At issue is whether private owners of dams should pay rent for the state-owned land underneath their hydroelectric dams and the rivers that generate electricity. Attorney General Mike McGrath has argued that utilities are no different from ranchers who use state-owned land to graze cattle. Ranchers pay the state rent for the land and so should the utilities, he has said....
Fugitive Tre Arrow loses bid for review of Canadian extradition order A Canadian appeals court has decided to return Tre Arrow, 1 of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives, to Oregon to face charges related to the firebombing of logging and cement trucks in 2001. The Canadian court determined that evidence against Arrow would convict him in Canada. However, Arrow could appeal and the date of his return is not determined. Arrow, born Michael Scarpitti, contended that guilty pleas by his accused coconspirators came through plea agreements and are unreliable. Arrow was arrested in Canada in 2004 on charges of shoplifting, assault and obstructing a police officer....
Forest Service chief: More blazes like California's on the way U.S. Forest Service chief Gail Kimbell says the nation can expect more wildfires like the ones raging through Southern California as global climate change heats up the world's forests. “Fires are burning hotter and bigger, becoming more damaging and dangerous to people and to property,” Kimbell said Wednesday. “Each year the fire season comes earlier and lasts longer.” Kimbell also warned in a speech to the Society of American Foresters of other effects of global warming on the forests. The meeting drew about 2,000 of the nation's leading natural resource managers and scientists to talk about issues such as ways to balance logging, recreation and conservation. Drier, hotter forests are more vulnerable to invasive species, such as plants like knapweed and kudzu and insects like the mountain pine beetle, Kimbell said....
Feds to hire contractor and new experts to fine-tune owl recovery The Bush administration's plan for saving the northern spotted owl from extinction, which flunked a review by independent scientists, will be turned over to an independent contractor and independent experts for fine-tuning. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that it will hire an independent contractor to handle the large volume of public comments about the draft plan, and convene three groups of experts to amend it. The team that drew up the plan has been disbanded. The Society for Conservation Biology and the American Ornithologists' Union found that the government did not consider all the best available science, a requirement of the Endangered Species Act, before making room for more logging in old-growth forests. The recovery plan is a lynchpin of plans by the U.S. Bureau of Land management to greatly increase logging in Western Oregon.
Dry days ahead, NMSU study says Researchers at New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico released a new study finding climate change will result in decreased water availability in New Mexico's Rio Grande Basin, cutting the state's water supply and hurting its economy and agriculture. The two researchers, NMSU Agricultural Economics Professor Brian Hurd and UNM Civil Engineering Professor Julie Coonrod, note a wide range of climate models predict warmer weather and a change in precipitation patterns in New Mexico, changes the new study finds will lead to a decrease in water supply ranging from a few percent to one-third in the Rio Grande Basin. Such water supply reductions will have a significant impact on New Mexico's economy. The study used a middle scenario of greenhouse gas emissions growth over the 21st century and examined a wide range of potential changes in temperature and precipitation. "Direct and indirect economic losses are projected to range from $13 million to $115 million by 2030 in the state of New Mexico, and from $21 million to over $300 million by 2080," said Hurd, who has studied climate change and its economic effects for more than a decade. "Traditional agricultural systems and rural communities are most at risk, and may need transitional assistance."....
Senate Asked To Place Moratorium On Further Premise Registration Efforts, Defund NAIS In a letter to the Senate Agriculture Committee, R-CALF USA has requested a moratorium on any further premise registration efforts, and also has requested that the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), or any other similar systems under any other name, be defunded at once. “There are just so many questions and issues that must be addressed before reasonable consideration could be given as to whether funding of NAIS should continue at all,” said R-CALF USA President/Region VI Director Max Thornsberry, a Missouri veterinarian who also chairs the group’s animal health committee. “Does USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) truly have the authority to mandate NAIS under the Animal Health Protection Act,” Thornsberry asked. “We want a thorough study on the legitimate authority and legal ramifications of the program, as well as a complete financial audit of NAIS thus far.” R-CALF USA believes that USDA has used improper and questionable tactics to garner NAIS premise registration numbers....
Schizophrenic U.S. Farm Policy With the 2007 farm bill temporarily stalled in the Senate, this is a good time to reconsider America’s schizophrenic agriculture programs and how they often work at cross-purposes. Consider government subsidies. Under the current farm bill, enacted in 2002, government payments to farmers averaged about $17.5 billion annually from 2003 to 2006. The House-passed 2007 farm bill would cost an additional $286 billion over five years, including both direct payments and other provisions. Politicians claim to be friends of the small “family farmer” but most government payments go to large farms. Half of all U.S. farms receive nothing at all because they don’t grow corn, wheat, cotton and other major crops that qualify for commodity payments. Because most payments are based on a farm’s past production history, they likely have little effect on current commodity prices. But they do cause land prices to be bid up, meaning those who own the most land receive the most benefits. Escalating land prices, in turn, raise the cost of entry into farming, hurting the little guy again. The government responds by offering subsidized farm credit, which provides $3 billion annually in ownership and operating loans to farmers and ranchers who don’t qualify for private loans. These subsidies increase the profitability of farming. This, in turn, encourages more production and results in lower crop and livestock prices....