NEWS ROUNDUP

Green Activists Plan Mass Action Against 'Climate Criminals' at Heathrow Hundreds of environmental activists will descend on Heathrow Airport this week to protest climate change supposedly caused by an expanding economy. They said they want to strike a blow against the "corporate climate criminals of the world." Organizers behind the Camp For Climate Action said they intend to open up a "temporary eco-village" next to one of the world's busiest airports on Tuesday, charging that it was time for governments and corporations to get serious about global warming. Proponents say air travel is a major contributory factor. Coming at the peak of the British vacation season, the camp will monitored by scores of police officers, potentially setting the stage for internationally televised clashes between demonstrators and law enforcers. On Sunday, an advance guard of 150 activists began setting up tents, compost toilets, and kitchens in a sports ground just north of the airport perimeter fence....
Twisted Science The complexities of global warming, (renamed as climate change) should be the domain of scientific discussions. Such discussions should be held within the constraints of science, the scientific methods, the careful collection, management, and analyses of the climate data. There should include careful resolutions and explanations of conflicting data, replication, and passing the essential demands of explaining the observations of the climate data. I have never been in discussions of science and engineering issues where these values weren’t highly respected and determinant. Even competing designs, processes, and theories were lightly defended since the common understanding was that the data would determine which was superior. In contrast, falsely representing the data supporting a particular theory or design, would have been severely dealt with and career limiting. We have been told by Al Gore and others that there should be a grand debate about global warming. Yet there has been precious little debate worthy of the name....
Newsweek v. Newsweek on global warming denial This week's cover story in Newsweek reports a "denial machine," bought and paid for by big industry, is preventing critical government action to stop global warming. Meanwhile, next week's issue of Newsweek contains a scathing report by longtime contributing editor Robert J. Samuelson characterizing the previous cover story as "highly contrived" and "fundamentally misleading." "We in the news business often enlist in moral crusades," writes Samuelson in a report that will hit newsstands next week. "Global warming is among the latest. Unfortunately, self-righteous indignation can undermine good journalism. Last week's Newsweek cover story on global warming is a sobering reminder. It's an object lesson of how viewing the world as 'good guys vs. bad guys' can lead to a vast oversimplification of a messy story. Global warming has clearly occurred; the hard question is what to do about it."....
Home razing angering owners in New Orleans While Willie Ann Williams waited for federal aid to rebuild her home in the hurricane flooded 9th Ward, it was demolished — apparently by mistake. There was nothing left but bare dirt. A city official told her family the wood-frame house should not have been torn down, but no one has told them why it happened or what happens next. Williams had a building permit and wanted to fix up her house once she received money from the federally funded, state-run Road Home grant program. Now, with no house to repair, she's living in Franklinton, 70 miles away, and doesn't know whether she'll be able to come back, said Williams' daughter, Vonder McNeil. Confusion reigns with the approach of an Aug. 29 deadline — the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — for the city to tell federal authorities which properties it wants demolished. Homes that were only damaged have wound up on a list of 1,700 condemned properties. Some houses on the list have been gutted for rebuilding or are in move-in condition. Angry homeowners are besieging City Council members and camping out at city offices. "Do Not Demolish" signs are posted on porches, and some owners are hiring lawyers for a possible legal fight....
Peer reviews flunk Bush administration plans for spotted owl The Bush administration's plans for saving the northern spotted owl from extinction have flunked a peer review by scientists. Under a contract with the administration, the Society for Conservation Biology and the American Ornithologists' Union said 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 organizations reviewed a draft recovery plan that rates the invasion of the barred owl into spotted owl territory a greater threat than habitat loss, as well as a proposal to reduce critical habitat for the owl by 22 percent. The two proposals are key to plans to bring back clearcut logging in old-growth forests on U.S. Bureau of Land Management forests in Western Oregon, aimed at increasing timber production and restoring timber revenue to county governments. The reviewers of the recovery plan said there appears to be a scientific consensus that the plans would not only fail to bring back owl populations but also would result in downgrading its status from threatened to endangered....
Study Shows Pronghorn Antelope Coexisting With Gas Wells at Current Development Levels As the fastest land animal in North America, the pronghorn antelope is also proving adaptable to science-informed development, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which has just released its second annual report on the interactions of pronghorn with oil and gas development in the Upper Green River Basin in Wyoming. Similar to the first annual report published last summer, the new data suggest that the population of the pronghorn antelope herds remain strong throughout the Anticline at the current level of development. The ongoing five-year study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) utilized input from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The Upper Green River Basin in western Wyoming holds vast reserves of natural gas, including the Pinedale Anticline, which is the nation's second largest gas field. It is also home to several species of wildlife, including pronghorn antelope that rely on the Anticline for crucial wintering range. Researchers again did not detect any differences in survival rates or body mass of pronghorn captured in and among the gas fields (designated experimental animals) and those captured at sites far from petroleum activities (designated control animals)....
Teton County program introduces kids to the outdoors It's a sunny August afternoon, and 12 pre-teens are peering into running waters of the Snake River, picking out insects on their index fingers. "Which one is that?" they ask, running toward one another and a laminated index card with sketches of various bugs. Later, they will learn fly fishing techniques and raft down different portions of the famous Wyoming river. Meet "More Kids in the Woods," a program sponsored by various partners in Teton County including the Bridger-Teton National Forest. One of 24 national recipients, Bridger-Teton officials applied for the grant _ totaling $11,800, with local partners raising an additional $24,000 _ to allow kids to spend more time on public lands. "We decided that we have many kids in Jackson that may never have the chance to run the river, take a walk in the forest, etc.," said David Cernicek, river manager for the Bridger-Teton. Cernicek was responsible for applying for the "Healthy Kids, Healthy Watersheds" grant on the Bridger-Teton....
Blazes may have lasting effects on wildlife Long after the slurry bombers and helicopters go silent, the effects of this summer's explosive wildfire season on wildlife will continue to be felt for years to come. Utah's 805 wildland fires have scorched more than 689,495 acres as of Aug. 6, according to the Boise, Idaho-based National Interagency Fire Center. In the wake of the blazes, officials have begun assessing the effects on the state's wildlife as they continue planning the long-term healing process. Near Milford, high winds and temperatures pushed a wildfire across the landscape, quickly consuming everything in its path. Biologists counted dozens of dead deer and several smaller animals such as rabbits, blue grouse and turkeys on charred landscape, said Sean Kelly, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Wildlife Resources. "It burned in everything from the desert to the high peaks," said Kelly. "Most of the losses to wildlife were smaller mammals that couldn't get away." Officials expect much wildlife will be displaced to other areas where animals will likely compete for limited territory and food, Kelly said....
City reservoirs could help restore Rio Grande cutthroat Santa Fe’s reservoirs could help save New Mexico’s state fish if the city and the state Department of Game and Fish reach an agreement this fall. The state Department of Game and Fish wants to stock tagged Rio Grande cutthroat trout from the Seven Springs hatchery in the McClure and Nichols reservoirs. The two reservoirs east of Santa Fe supply up to 40 percent of the city’s drinking water and feed into the Santa Fe River. Under the plan, fisheries staff would collect the tagged trout in late spring from the reservoirs before they spawn, harvest the eggs and sperm, and grow the fish back at the hatchery, according to fisheries Director Mike Sloane. To ensure genetic purity “if we get a fish that looks like a cutthroat but isn’t tagged, we won’t collect it,” Sloane said....
Nitrogen overload On an overcast day in April, Stuart Weiss stood in the rolling hills of a Bay Area nature preserve and lifted a bag of nitrogen-based fertilizer to his shoulder. The heavy sack, the Menlo Park ecologist explained to the small crowd gathered in front of him, symbolized the unprecedented release of nitrogen into the Earth's air, land and water, and the insidious environmental changes under way globally from the potent fertilizer. At Edgewood Park in Redwood City, where he stood, nitrogen from vehicle exhaust on a nearby freeway has led to the demise of a threatened butterfly population, according to research Weiss conducted. The clear link he established between the exhaust and the butterflies' decline attracted international attention among the growing federation of scientists studying "nitrogen pollution." "I call it the biggest global change that nobody has ever heard of," Weiss said at the spring event. "The planet has never seen this much nitrogen at any time." Human activity now releases 125 million metric tons of nitrogen from agricultural activities and fossil fuel combustion a year, compared to 113 million metric tons annually from natural sources, according to a 2007 United Nations report called "Human Alteration of the Nitrogen Cycle."....
New book looks at maverick West Texan Williams Wildcatter, rancher, multimillionaire and more, West Texas businessman Clayton Williams may be best known for his run for governor in a campaign sunk by his gaffes. The 1990 governor's race was his to lose. And that's what he did, propelling liberal Democrat opponent Ann Richards to the state's top office. The Republican's outrageous remarks and multiple missteps are considered the textbook for how not to wage a political campaign. "If the Lord wanted me to be governor, he wouldn't have brought in that storm," Williams says of the comments that lost him votes and drew international attention to the race dubbed "Claytie and the Lady." A new authorized biography, "Claytie," by Texas author and former Associated Press correspondent Mike Cochran, chronicles not only Williams' brief political career, but also his highs and lows in the oil and gas industry, cattle ranching and the communications business. It portrays him as more clever and caring than his ham-handed campaign might allow....
It's All Trew: How legends are made Research recently turned up interesting facts about the parallel lives of two Panhandle men, one who became famous and the other who became lost in the annals of history. Strangely, the reason for the difference in the outcome of their lives was, believe it or not, about 500 feet in altitude. Now, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. Charles Goodnight, the famous man, and Henry W. Cresswell, the forgotten man, became acquainted when they both arrived in Pueblo, Colo. Goodnight established a ranching venture and Cresswell started a dairy and grain farm. As they prospered, they became good friends. In time, both owned and raised a lot of cattle, grazing them on open range east of Pueblo. Both became respected customers of the Thatcher Brothers Bank in Pueblo, which eventually grew into the largest financial institution in the area. As the range settled up and became over-grazed, both men sought new grass for their herds. Goodnight drove a large herd to the Canadian River in Texas with Cresswell going along to see and investigate the country. When Goodnight stopped in the Canadian breaks, Cresswell went on in a great circle to see the wide open spaces in the northern Texas Panhandle. He was convinced it would be good cattle country. Less than a year later, Cresswell brought his herd down the same trail as Goodnight traveled, settling just down the river from Adobe Walls and his friend, Goodnight....