NEWS ROUNDUP

Eco-warrior Trudie prefers helicopter to an 80-mile train ride It's one rule for them, and another for the rest of us. Trudie Styler, wife of Sting and self-styled eco-warrior, recently took a helicopter to travel 80 miles from Wiltshire to Devon, a journey that would have taken less than two hours by train. The actress and film producer is forever harping on about saving the environment, having set up the Rainforest Campaign in the late 1980s with her pop star husband. The Stings are known for eating only organic food, supposedly grown on their land, although one member of staff recently admitted to serving up nonorganic salad from the supermarket. So what was Styler thinking as she clambered into her gas-guzzling chopper, off to stay with friend and fellow greenie Zac Goldsmith on his organic farm in Devon?....
'Days of Our Lives' plans 'green wedding' for Sami, Lucas "Days of Our Lives" is going green. The NBC daytime serial will feature a wedding with "earth-friendly elements" in a story line that is to begin this month and end in May with the marriage of Samantha "Sami" Brady (Alison Sweeney) and Lucas Roberts (Bryan Dattilo). Ken Corday, the show's executive producer, said last month's Academy Award for the global-warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" may be an indication of "where the world is headed and how urgently we need to address the current environmental crisis." It's important for the soap opera to "fall in step in helping to raise the viewers' consciousness of certain environmental problems and solutions," Corday said in a statement Tuesday. The fictional nuptials will include pesticide-free flowers and biodegradable favors. Among those involved in the ceremony are a wedding Web site and restaurant owner Ben Ford, an organic chef and son of Harrison Ford....
Inside the evangelical war over climate change When James Dobson gets angry, people notice. And, in early March, the influential chair of Focus on the Family fired off a very angry letter to the board of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Tony Perkins of The Family Research Council signed it. So did Gary Bauer. So did 22 other conservative Christian leaders. Their complaint? It seems that Richard Cizik, NAE's vice-president for governmental affairs, had been sounding the alarm on global warming. For years now, Cizik has ruffled feathers by imploring evangelicals to pay more attention to environmental issues--"creation care," as it's called. But the foray into climate change proved a step too far; the letter-writers called it "divisive and dangerous." A no-no. Cizik's awakening came about in 2002, when Jim Ball, the executive director for the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), dragged him to a conference at Oxford. There, he heard a presentation by Sir John Houghton, an evangelical scientist and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As he listened to Houghton rattle off evidence on melting ice caps and increased droughts, Cizik quickly realized that global warming was a serious threat--an experience he has called "not unlike my conversion to Christ." Like many evangelicals now pushing for action on climate change, Cizik remains a staunch conservative, firmly opposed to abortion and gay marriage. He bristles at criticism by Dobson and Perkins that he's trying to divert attention from red-meat issues. "It's not a zero-sum game," he contends....
Back Burner ot long after George W. Bush proudly declared last year that he had no intention of watching Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, he told reporters that there was a "fundamental debate" about whether global warming was "manmade or natural." It was an ignorant statement utterly at odds with the scientific consensus. Recently, however, he tried to walk it back. "Beginning in June 2001," read a White House letter released last month, "President Bush has consistently acknowledged climate change is occurring and humans are contributing to the problem." Consider the current raft of climate-change legislation. The only piece that has a chance of surviving a GOP filibuster and Bush veto is one sponsored by New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman. His bill would implement a cap-and-trade regime, setting a national limit on carbon emissions and allowing companies to buy and sell pollution credits--a system that worked with acid-rain legislation in the 1990s. But Bingaman's proposal includes "safety valves" that give companies an out, and it doesn't reduce emissions quickly enough. Unfortunately, stronger bills--such as one sponsored by John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Barack Obama--stand almost no chance, even with the current Democratic majority. (Last time around, that bill netted only 38 votes.)....
Antarctic Glaciers' Sloughing Of Ice Has Scientists at a Loss Some of the largest glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland are moving in unusual ways and are losing increased amounts of ice to the sea, researchers said yesterday. Although the changes in Greenland appear to be related to global warming, it remains unclear what is causing the glaciers of frigid Antarctica and their "ice streams" to lose ice to the ocean in recent years, the researchers said. "In Greenland we know there is melting associated with the ice loss, but in Antarctica we don't really know why it's happening," said Duncan Wingham, an author of the review released today in Science magazine. "With so much of the world's ice captured in Antarctica, just the fact that we don't know why this is happening is a cause of some concern." The Antarctic ice loss, which Wingham said is not caused by melting but rather by the pushing of ice streams into the ocean by several glaciers in the west of the continent, has picked up speed in recent years. But Wingham said that because researchers did not have good measures of the depth of the Antarctic ice shelf until about 10 years ago, scientists do not know whether this is a natural variation or a result of human activity....
Winter Warmest on Record Worldwide This winter was the warmest on record worldwide, the government said Thursday in the latest worrisome report focusing on changing climate. The report comes just over a month after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said global warming is very likely caused by human actions and is so severe it will continue for centuries. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the combined land and ocean temperatures for December through February were 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit above average for the period since record keeping began in 1880. The report said that during the past century, global temperatures have increased at about 0.11 degrees per decade. But that increase has been three times larger since 1976, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center reported....
U.S. WINTER TEMPERATURE NEAR AVERAGE The December 2006-February 2007 winter season temperature was marked by periods of unusually warm and cold conditions in the U.S., but the overall seasonal temperature was near average, according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Precipitation was above average in much of the center of the nation while large parts of the East, Southeast, and Southwest were drier than average. The global temperature was the warmest on record for the December-February three-month period. The winter temperature for the contiguous United States (based on preliminary data) was 0.6°F (0.3°C) above the 20th century average of 33.0°F (0.6°C). Statewide temperatures were warmer than average from Florida to Maine and from Michigan to Montana. Cooler than average temperatures occurred in the southern Plains and areas of the Southwest....
Danish scientist: Global warming is a myth A Danish scientist said the idea of a "global temperature" and global warming is more political than scientific. University of Copenhagen Professor Bjarne Andresen has analyzed the topic in collaboration with Canadian Professors Christopher Essex from the University of Western Ontario and Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph. It is generally assumed the Earth's atmosphere and oceans have grown warmer during the recent 50 years because of an upward trend in the so-called global temperature, which is the result of complex calculations and averaging of air temperature measurements taken around the world. "It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth," said Andresen, an expert on thermodynamics. "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate". He says the currently used method of determining the global temperature -- and any conclusion drawn from it -- is more political than scientific.
Wolves pushing cats from Buffalo Valley Cougars may have met their match in the gray wolf when it comes to defending prime habitat in and around Buffalo Valley, according to local researchers. Craighead Beringia South researcher Howard Quigley presented information at a talk at the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance Thursday night. Quigley also presented research showing the movements of one cougar on East Gros Ventre Butte and said cougars, for some reason, have started eating more mule deer in 2006. According to Quigley, six female cougars that had established territories in the Buffalo Valley have either left or been killed by hunters in recent years. Despite a healthy population of cougars around the Jackson Hole area, no new females have moved in to claim the vacant habitat. The answer to this mystery could be wolves, said Quigley, who leads a team of biologists who track the cats using GPS collars. “One of our theories is that wolves are now pushing cougars into habitat that they used to occupy 200 years ago,” he said. “Cougars may be concentrating themselves in escape territory.” Escape territory is steeper terrain with lots of trees – land where the cats could more easily elude threats....
Wild Horse League hopes to educate public on Open Range laws Members of the Wild Horse Preservation League are launching an ambitious public education effort to inform property owners who live near open range of state law that requires home buyers to fence-out wild horses and livestock that graze or roam on adjacent open range. Speaking at the Silver Springs Advisory Board meeting, members of the WHPL announced their plans to circulate a publication entitled, "Welcome to Wild Horse County," which includes information on state laws governing range land disclosures, open range laws and a range land disclosure form. Wild-horse advocates are urging realtors and county elected officials to enforce state statutes governing range land disclosure and open range laws, which allows livestock and wild horses to roam and graze on open range. The public education campaign comes after residents primarily in the Stagecoach and Dayton areas have complained about livestock and wild horses destroying lawns and vegetation on their properties....
City to pursue ordinance making cattle owners responsible for damages The Fernley City Council had a difficult task: to consider whether to prohibit open grazing in the Fernley City limits, which encompasses 160 square miles. After hearing from residents in the Desert Bluffs subdivision, located south of Fernley High School, as well as, cattle owners, the council agreed by consensus to pursue an ordinance that would make livestock owners responsible for any property damages their animals may cause within the city limits. The Council also agreed to direct the Community Development Department to place conditions on future projects to require developers to fence their subdivisions and provide cattle guards on property that is adjacent to public land....
Home on range to home in refuge A wild bison bound for Colorado didn't see the point of being driven from an open field into a 5-foot holding pen Thursday before boarding a truck for a ride to Commerce City. The reluctant 1,500-pound bull pawed the ground, snorted, bucked its head and cocked a back leg before slamming its hoof against the metal chute. The bison is one of 16 being driven from the National Bison Range in western Montana to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, where they will be released into a 1,400-acre fenced area. "These are definitely wild critters," said Steve Kallin of the National Bison Range. "The guys have been doing everything they can not to get them aggravated. But this one ..." The bison were picked from the national herd of about 350 by their genetics, which show no indications of domestic- cow DNA....
Why the Buffalo Roam Sometimes you have to eat an animal to save it. That paradox may disturb vegetarians, but consider the bison: 500 years ago, perhaps 30 million of these enormous mammals inhabited North America. By the late 1800s, several forces--natural climate changes and Buffalo Bill--style mass killings among them--had slashed the bison population to something like 1,000. And yet today North America is home to roughly 450,000 bison, a species recovery that has a lot to do with our having developed an appetite for them. This year usda-inspected slaughterhouses will kill approximately 50,000 bison for human consumption. In 2000 the figure was just 17,674. Although bison consumption remains minuscule compared to beef eating--Americans ingest the meat of 90,000 cattle every day--bison is by far the fastest-growing sector of the meat business....
Groundwater not an endless resource, environmentalists say More than half of Utah's 2 million-plus residents are dependent on the aquifers beneath them for their drinking and irrigation water, and have been for decades. But a new study by an environmental group suggests that they - and other Westerners - shouldn't take such a resource for granted. In fact, the report released Thursday by Trout Unlimited warns that without serious reforms, the region's explosive growth, coupled with a continuing drought, could end up compromising not only its groundwater supplies, but surface water resources as well. The two are inexorably linked, according to the study, titled "Gone to the Well Once Too Often." But Melinda Kassen, director of Trout Unlimited's Ground Water Project, argues that it is a link that has gone unnoticed for far too long....
Cloud seeding hits snag There may be more questions up in the air over the Wind River Range than the silver iodide particles used in a state-sponsored cloud-seeding experiment. The project has stalled over a U.S. Forest Service-required environmental study and the question of who pays for the study. At issue is whether the cloud seeding -- tiny particles of silver iodide aerosolized into the air to allow ice crystals to form around the particles -- is compatible with the 1964 Wilderness Act or with a Forest Service regulation banning weather changes that affect wilderness areas. The Wyoming Water Development Commission has allocated $9 million for a five-year cloud-seeding research program, designed to increase the snowpack in the Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre and Wind River ranges, for the benefit of irrigators, municipalities and industry. The state has contracted with Weather Modification Inc. of Fargo, N.D., for the project. “I think this is a clear violation of the Wilderness Act and a Forest Service manual regulation,” said Jonathan Ratner, a Pinedale-based conservationist....
Firefighter Supervisors Get Protection New Mexico became the first state with a law that protects wildfire supervisors from criminal liability if a volunteer firefighter under their command dies while battling a fire. Firefighters called on to fight wildfires are supposed to be certified to national standards, but in rural communities, it is often volunteer firefighters without proper training who arrive first on the scene. House Bill 507, crafted by the State Forestry Division, was signed into law this week by Gov. Bill Richardson. The bill was spurred in part by reaction among firefighters over last year's indictment of a U.S. Forest Service boss in Washington state on involuntary manslaughter charges involving a 2001 fire there that killed four firefighters. A subsequent nationwide survey of firefighters found that 36 percent of the 3,362 respondents would make themselves less available to fight wildfires because of liability concerns, and one-fourth said they would downgrade their qualifications to refuse supervisory positions....