Tuesday, 26 Sep 2006

Bird Mentality

New sightings of ivory-billed woodpecker in Florida

Bird researchers have spotted ivory-billed woodpeckers 14 times in the past 18 months in a remote area of the Florida panhandle -- on some occasions, two at the same time -- according to a report in the Canadian online journal Avian Conservation and Ecology. The team of scientists also made some 300 sound recordings of the woodpeckers, found a number of tree-nesting cavities that might have been used by them, and identified dozens of the birds' unique chisel marks on tree bark. They did not, however, manage to photograph an ivory-bill, so the researchers acknowledge that their evidence is not conclusive. The ivory-billed woodpecker was thought to be extinct until last year when ornithologists announced sightings in Arkansas; since then, controversy has roiled over whether ivory-bills are really still around. Now, birders may start flocking to Florida to help confirm the new sightings. In less inspiring woodpecker news, residents of Boiling Spring Lakes, N.C., have been rapidly chopping down stands of longleaf pines to keep the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker from moving in, hoping to prevent the feds from designating their neighborhoods as protected woodpecker habitat.


What to do when your compressed wheatgrass paneling requires toxic glue? Or when your straw-bale insulation won't work with reclaimed wood? Or when the county government won't let you reuse your own wastewater unless you install a water-treatment plant and a second set of plumbing? Daniel A. Shaw ran up against these dilemmas and many others while trying to build a green home in Colorado, and in the process discovered that green has many shades.

An Accident Waiting to Aspen

Aspens are dying mysteriously in the Western U.S.

Aspens, the most widely distributed trees in North America, are rapidly dying in some Western states -- and no one knows why. The culprit may be insects, or climatic stress, or overgrazing. Or all of those. Or none of them. It may be a lack of recent avalanches and fires, because aspens thrive in the aftermath of disaster. Or the aspen die-off may have been triggered by a recurrent drought that started in 1996. "There's no real pattern," says U.S. Forest Service researcher Wayne Shepperd. Younger groves of aspen seem to be healthier than mature groves, but it remains to be seen whether they will sprout. "Quite honestly, we just don't have any answers," says Shepperd. Whatever the cause, USFS aspen ecologist Dale Bartos predicts that 10 percent of aspens in the West could die within several years if the trend continues -- and some of his colleagues think that may be a conservative estimate.

Anyone Got an Extra PFD?

Earth nearing warmest point in a million years, may see rougher El Niños

The earth is the warmest it has been in the last 12,000 years and is within 1.8 degrees of its highest average temperature in the past million years, scientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The global surface temperature has increased 0.36 degrees each of the last three decades, more rapidly than during the century up to 1975. "If further global warming reaches [3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit], we will likely see changes that make earth a different planet than the one we know," said NASA's James Hansen, lead author of the study. "The last time it was that warm was ... about 3 million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about [80 feet] higher than today." Hansen and his colleagues are also concerned that warming of the Pacific Ocean could lead to stronger and more destructive El Niño weather patterns; they say global warming affects El Niños much as it does tropical storms. We'll batten down the hatches.

The Little Engine That Could

Honda develops "superclean" diesel engine for passenger cars

Honda Motor Co. is aiming to clean up diesel's dirty image with a new diesel engine for passenger cars that runs as cleanly as the most advanced gasoline-powered engines. In 2009, the company plans to start selling a sedan, probably a Honda Accord, powered by its new "superclean," four-cylinder diesel system; the car will be the first diesel model to meet strict air-quality standards that will come into effect in California in 2009. Diesel engines get about 30 percent better fuel economy than gasoline cars, but Americans have long avoided them because of their dirty emissions -- a problem Honda says it's now solved. Honda is also working on a six-cylinder diesel system for use in larger vehicles like SUVs. And the company has just unveiled a small, light, and powerful fuel-cell electric system that it plans to use in a hydrogen-powered, fuel-cell electric sports car that will go on sale in 2008.

Hummer Bummer

Correction: Schwarzenegger didn't really sell off his Hummers

News reports published last week and cited here in Daily Grist claimed that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) had, in a fit of green consciousness, sold his fleet of Hummers. Turns out that was poppycock. A media representative in the Governator's office said Monday that Schwarzenegger still owns four of the hulking gas-guzzlers. "But the governor does not drive them anymore, mostly for security reasons," the rep said. Is that like not inhaling?