Ecotricity, a UK green energy company,  is developing a radical Wave power device called Searaser – which it believes can address two of the biggest barriers to the deployment of renewable energy on the scale that Britain needs – the issues of cost and intermittent output.

Searaser is the brainchild of British engineer Alvin Smith; it harnesses the power of ocean swells to create electricity. Ecotricity founder Dale Vince said: “Our vision is for Britain’s electricity needs to be met entirely from the big three renewable energy sources – the Wind, the Sun and the Sea.

Until now, the Sea has been the least viable of those three energy sources and we believe that Searaser will change all of that. Indeed we believe Searaser has the potential to produce electricity at a lower cost than any other type energy, not just other forms of renewable energy but all ‘conventional’ forms of energy too.”

Inventor Alvin Smith said the main barrier to making wave-power efficient and therefore cost-effective – was resilience against the hostile ocean environment.

“Most existing wave technologies seek to generate electricity in the sea itself. But as we know water and electricity don’t mix – and seawater is particularly corrosive – so most other devices are very expensive to manufacture and maintain.

“But Searaser doesn’t generate the electricity out at sea. It simply uses the motion of the ocean swell to pump seawater through an onshore generator.”

Searaser pumps seawater using a vertical piston between two buoys – one on the surface of the water, the other suspended underwater and tethered to a weight on the seabed. As the ocean swell moves the buoys up-and-down the piston pumps volumes of pressurised seawater through a pipe to an onshore turbine to produce electricity.

This opens up the additional option for Searaser units to be used to supply energy on-demand. By pumping seawater into coastal storage reservoir, it can be released through a generator as required – thus making not just energy from the Sea but energy that can be turned on and off as required. Such a system will go a long way to solving the problem of renewable energy’s naturally intermittent output on Britain’s electricity grid.

Ecotricity’s move into wave power comes as the Government and the Crown Estate make changes that they hope will encourage more development of wave-power in Britain.

From January 2012, the Crown Estate – which owns the seabed surrounding the UK – has reduced the burden of financial guarantees it requires from wave and tidal developers to obtain a lease option from £25 million to £5 million.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said: “Marine Energy is a real priority for the coalition government.

“It’s great news that Ecotricity are now making waves in marine power with their plans for Searaser. The UK leads the world in developing marine energy technology and it’s vital that the sector continues to bring forward innovative new technologies.

“Marine energy is becoming an increasingly attractive investment for businesses, not least because we are proposing more than a doubling of financial support to the sector through the ROCs scheme.”

Vince said Ecotricity’s investment will drive the next phase of Searasers’ development, by having a commercial scale Searaser in the Sea within 12 months and 200 Searaser units around the British coastline within five years.  Vince said: “The potential is enormous. This is a British invention that could transform the energy market not just here in Britain but around the world. Our plan is to develop the technology and make them here in Britain, bringing green jobs as well as green energy to our country.”

NOAA Photo

Isaac Held, Ph.D., a senior research scientist with the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., will receive the prestigious BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for his contributions to improved understanding of climate change and atmospheric circulation systems. He will accept the award at a ceremony in Madrid, Spain, in June.

In his 34-year career with NOAA, he has enhanced the scientific community’s understanding of the atmosphere’s structure and circulation. His studies on atmospheric water vapor have led to a greater understanding of how it affects atmospheric warming. This research has earned him an international reputation for his unique contributions to the field. The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards recognize scientific and cultural contributions that address some of the world’s most pressing challenges in science, technology, society, and economics.

Held, who was born in a German refugee camp in 1948 and immigrated to the United States at age 4, says that reading one of the first scientific assessments on climate change in 1972 inspired him to become a climate researcher.

“I was completely surprised by this award when I received the call from the selection committee,” said Held. “The committee emphasized studies of atmospheric water vapor and climate change, partly, I think, because of the importance of projections for the drying of the subtropics, including the Mediterranean area, a subject on which I have written. There are many excellent researchers pursuing similar studies, and I am just happy to be considered a productive member of this group.”

BBVA jury chairman Bjorn Stevens said that while climate change research often focuses on rising temperatures, Held has opened up new avenues of interest that examine the essential role of water, both by studying its movement in the atmosphere and by investigating how water vapor influences the greenhouse effect.

Held’s research on water vapor and atmospheric circulation has helped reveal the processes behind the existence of geographic climate zones. His work also helps predict how climate zones will change as the atmosphere warms.

“Isaac Held’s choice to investigate the role of water vapor in atmospheric warming was, in the 1970s, a turn down Frost’s ‘road less traveled’,” said NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D. “His brilliant research and tenacious pursuit of knowledge have given us a better ability to predict future changes in climate that will result from a warming atmosphere. I am very proud to have researchers of his caliber working for NOAA.”

Held is the first U.S. government scientist to receive the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge in the climate change category. The foundation has also given the climate change category award to British scientist Nicholas Stern, German physicist and mathematician Klaus Hasselmann, and Wallace Broecker of Columbia University who receives funding through NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Climate Applications and Research.

Held’s initial academic interest was in physics, and he earned a master’s degree in physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1971. However, reading about the effects of greenhouse gases drew his interest in another direction. He continued his studies at Princeton University, earning a doctorate in atmospheric and oceanic sciences in 1976. After a research fellowship at Harvard University, he joined NOAA in 1978. He is also an associate faculty member at Princeton University.

He is a fellow of both the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. He received the U.S. Commerce Department gold medal in 1999 for world leadership in studies of climate dynamics.

NOAA Photo

NOAA has announced  the designation of additional critical habitat to provide protection for endangered leatherback sea turtles along the U.S. West Coast. NOAA is designating 41,914 square miles of marine habitat in the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington.

This designation will not directly affect recreational fishing, boating and other private activities in critical habitat. Critical habitat designations only affect federal projects that have the potential to adversely modify or destroy critical habitat. Critical habitat designations aid the recovery of endangered and threatened species by protecting habitat that the species rely on.

NOAA and FWS have already designated critical habitat for leatherback turtles along Sandy Point Beach at the western end of the island of St. Croix, U.S.V.I., and in adjacent Atlantic coastal waters. NOAA is designating this additional critical habitat in the Pacific Ocean as a result of a petition to revise the existing critical habitat for leatherbacks to include important habitat off the U.S. West Coast. Once an Endangered Species Act petition is received, NOAA Fisheries must evaluate the petition and scientific information provided to determine if the petitioned action is warranted. If it is, the agency must make a determination on how to move forward.

The newly designated critical habitat is made up of two sections of marine habitat where leatherbacks are known to travel great distances across the Pacific to feed on jellyfish. The southern portion stretches along the California coast from Point Arena to Point Arguello east of the 3,000-meter depth contour, while the northern portion stretches from Cape Flattery, Wash. to Cape Blanco, Ore., east of the 2,000-meter depth contour.

The leatherback sea turtle, the largest marine turtle in the world, has been listed as endangered since 1970. Leatherbacks have the largest range of any living reptile and occur throughout the oceans of the world. They feed primarily on jellyfish and lay their eggs on tropical and subtropical beaches. Although very little is known about their lifespan, biologists estimate leatherbacks can live for 45 years or more. Leatherbacks face many dangers both in the marine environment and on land, including bycatch in fishing gear, habitat destruction and the harvest of eggs and adults on nesting beaches.

WHOI Chart

British Researchers have published a new study  indicating that an expanding pool of freshwater in the Arctic ocean may impact the Atlantic ocean currents which gives Europe a considerably milder climate than other countries at a similar latitude.

Using satellites to measure sea surface height from 1995 to 2010, scientists from University College London and Britain’s National Oceanography Centre have detected a bulge in the western Arctic’s sea surface, which has risen by about 150mm since 2002.  The volume of fresh water has increased by at least 8 000km³, or about 10% of all the fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. The fresh water comes from melting ice and river run-off.

The rise could be due to strong Arctic winds increasing an ocean current called the Beaufort Gyre, making the sea surface bulge upwards.  The Beaufort Gyre (“rotating pattern”) slowly swirls the surface waters of the Arctic basin, turning the Polar Ice Cap along with it. It makes one complete rotation about every 4 years.  Very little is known about the circulation patterns  in Arctic and there are several research projects working on modeling the climate impacts of changes such as wind direction and intensity as well as the salinity of the water.

If the wind changes direction, which happened between the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, the pool of fresh water could spill out into the rest of the Arctic Ocean and even into the north Atlantic Ocean, the study said.  Scientists are concerned that that this might disturb the Atlantic currents that have such a great influence on European weather patterns. These currents draw warm waters up from the tropics, maintaining milder temperatures in winter than would ordinarily be expected at northern European latitudes.   The European countries that would be most affected by such a shift in currents are Ireland, Great Britain and parts of northern mainland Europe such as The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.

The team lead by Katherine Giles at University College London’s Centre for Polar Observations and Modelling, plans to investigate further the relationship between sea-ice cover and wind changes.  Their current study can be found in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Visualization of an AWS-III wave farm

Alstom and the leading Scottish marine developer SSE Renewables have signed a new joint venture agreement to develop the Costa Head Wave Project, an up to 200 Megawatts (MW) wave energy site located north of mainland Orkney, in The Crown Estate’s Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Strategic Area.

Alstom and SSE Renewables will work together to obtain the necessary permits and intend to populate the site with AWS-III wave energy converters, a technology currently under development by AWS Ocean Energy Ltd, in which Alstom acquired a 40% equity share in June 2011.

The Costa Head site is located in water depths of 60 – 75m approximately 5km to the north of Orkney Mainland. SSE Renewables and Alstom propose to carry out detailed site surveys and an environmental impact assessment (EIA),to develop the site with an initial phase of around 10MW, before moving on to install the full site capacity.

Established in 2004, AWS Ocean Energy is focused on the development and delivery of its AWS-III wave energy converter, a floating device with a rated power output of 2.5 MW. A 1:9 scale model of the AWS-III was tested in Loch Ness in 2010. Full scale component testing will commence in 2012 with the support of the Scottish Enterprise-administered WATERS fund (Wave and Tidal Energy: Research, Development and Demonstration Support), with a full-scale prototype planned for deployment at the European Marine Energy Centre in 2014.

Wave energy is a widely distributed renewable resource worldwide, with an estimated potential market of 200 to 300 Gigawatts(GW). Its proximity to densely populated regions of Europe and North America makes it an attractive new source of renewable energy. The AWS-III technology consists of a multi-cell array of flexible membrane absorbers which convert wave power to pneumatic power through compression of air within cells that are inter-connected. Turbine-generator sets are provided to convert the pneumatic power to electricity.

A typical AWS-III device will comprise an array of 12 cells, each measuring around 16m wide by 8m deep, arranged around a structure with overall beam of up to 60m. Such a device has a capacity of 2.5 MW whilst having a structural steel weight of less than 1300 tonne. The AWS-III will be slack moored in water depths of 65 to 150m using standard mooring spreads. Devices will be arranged in arrays or ‘farms’ of up to several hundred MW total rating. Each AWS-III will be connected to a central offshore substation via a high-voltage umbilical link. “The selection of the AWS-III system for this exciting and ground-breaking project is a significant endorsement of our technology and team. We firmly believe that the AWS-III will become the established choice for utility scale offshore ALSTOM – 3 avenue André Malraux – 92309 Levallois Perret Cedex 2 wave power generation. We look forward to working with Alstom and SSE to deliver Costa Head” said Simon Grey, Chief Executive of AWS Ocean Energy Ltd.

Source: Alstom press release

Pelamis Wave Power, a leading ocean power company based in Leith, UK has placed itself on the market according to several British newspapers.  The company is hoping to attract the interest of a  UK buyer such as BAE Systems or Rolls Royce if possible, that has the approximately U.S. $31 million required to bring their technology to the fruition.  The level of investment required over the next few years may mean that other companies such as Siemens of Germany, Caterpillar of the US, Swiss firm ABB and Alstom of France may have  to be courted as well.

Pelamis chief executive Per Hornung Pedersen said: “We have reached the stage where it makes most sense to look for financial support from a large engineering company rather than to seek further investment from venture capital groups.

In partnership with state, tribal, and federal agency partners, the ObamaAdministration today released the first draft national strategy to help decision makers andresource managers prepare for and help reduce the impacts of climate change on species, ecosystems, and the people and economies that depend on them. The draft National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy, available for public review and comment through March 5, 2012, can be found onthe web at www.wildlifeadaptationstrategy.gov

The strategy represents a draft framework for unified action to safeguard fish, wildlife and plants, as well as the important benefits and services the natural world provides the nation every day, including jobs, food, clean water, clean air, building materials, storm protection, and recreation. “The impacts of climate change are already here and those who manage our landscapes are already dealing with them,” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes. “The reality is that rising sea levels, warmer temperatures, loss of sea ice and changing precipitation patterns –trends scientists have definitively connected to climate change – are already affecting the species we care about, the services we value, and the places we call home. A national strategy will help us prepare and adapt.”


Congress called for a national, government-wide strategy in 2010, directing the President’s Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of the Interior to develop it. CEQ and Interior responded by assembling an unprecedented partnership of federal, state and tribal fish and wildlife conservation agencies to draft the strategy. More than 100 diverse researchers and managers from across the country participated in the drafting for the partnership.

The partnership is co-led by Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, representing state fish and wildlife agencies.

The strategy will guide the nation’s efforts during the next five years to respond to current and future climate change impacts such as changing species distributions and migration patterns, the spread of wildlife diseases and invasive species, the inundation of coastal habitats with rising sea levels, and changes in freshwater availability with shifting precipitation and habitat types. The strategy does not prescribe mandatory activities that agencies must take nor suggest regulatory actions; rather, it provides a roadmap for decision makers and resource managers to use in considering climate change implications to their ongoing wildlife and habitat management activities.

Elements of the draft strategy include:

•  Descriptions of current and projected impacts of climate change on the eight major ecosystems of the United States, the fish, wildlife and plant species those ecosystems support and the vital ecosystem services they provide;
•  Goals, strategies, and actions to reduce the vulnerability and increase the resilience of fish, wildlife, plants and the communities that depend on them in the face of climate change;
• Collaborative strategies and actions that agriculture, energy, transportation and
• Collaborative strategies and actions that agriculture, energy, transportation and other sectors can take to promote adaptation of fish, wildlife and plants, and utilize the adaptive benefits of natural resources in their climate adaptation efforts; and
• A framework for coordinated implementation of the strategy among government and non-governmental entities from national to local scales.

“For more than a century, state fish and wildlife agencies have been entrusted by the public to be good stewards of their natural resources. To do that, we constantly are called upon to address threats to our natural resources,” said Patricia Riexinger, Director of the Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. “Today’s pressures on fish and wildlife and their habitats are exacerbated by climate change and together they emphasize the need for increased conservation and sciencebased management. The strategy is our nation’s insurance for managing healthy and robust ecosystems in uncertain future conditions.”

“This strategy provides a framework for safeguarding America’s fish, wildlife and plant resources and the valuable services they provide over the long-term,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.  “NOAA is committed to working with federal, state, tribal and local government agencies, nongovernment organizations and the public in this process because we all have important roles to play in preparing all regions of our nation in a changing climate.”

Leading the development of the strategy is a Steering Committee that includes government representatives from 16 federal agencies, five state fish and wildlife agencies and two inter-tribal commissions. The Steering Committee includes representatives from the California, Washington, Wisconsin, New York and North Carolina fish and wildlife agencies to ensure that all 50 states’ fish and wildlife concerns are considered. The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies is providing staff support for developing the strategy.

Public comments can be submitted online through the strategy website via a special link. Written comments may be submitted via the U.S. mail to:

Office of the Science Advisor, Attn: National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 4401 N. Fairfax Drive Suite 222, Arlington, VA 22203.

In addition, there will be five public information sessions in various locations around the country and two webinars to provide details and encourage dialogue on the strategy and its development. To register for these meetings and for more information on the public comment process, visit http://www.wildlifeadaptationstrategy.gov/public-comments.php

Source: NOAA press release

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Assembly, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 15 January, 2012:

I am pleased to be with you for this Assembly at the beginning of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All.

Abu Dhabi, home to IRENA and host of the World Future Energy Summit, is providing commendable leadership on this core issue of sustainable development. The rapid growth in IRENA’s membership since its founding just three years ago is clear evidence that countries want a clean energy future.

IRENA members recognize that renewable energy can boost competitiveness and growth while combating climate change. They see the potential for universal energy access, cleaner air and better public health. They understand that we can no longer burn our way to global prosperity.

I welcome IRENA’s work to transform the global energy system. Your efforts complement those of the United Nations. Together, we can make progress on the twin challenges of sustainable growth and climate change while striking a blow against extreme poverty. This is the objective of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative that I launched last year.

Your Director-General, Mr. Adnan Amin, is a member of my High-level Group. It is developing an Action Plan and building a network of Governments, companies, investors and civil society organizations that are making commitments that will be unveiled at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in June this year. The Group will focus on how to achieve the three complementary objectives I have set, all to be achieved by 2030. First, to provide universal access to modern energy services; second, to double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and third, to double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

IRENA’s contribution will be invaluable. You can provide timely analysis on renewable energy technologies. You can suggest policy frameworks that can unleash innovation and investment, and on strategies needed to scale up successful models.

Doubling the share of renewables is ambitious but achievable. And the benefits far outweigh the costs — which include growing energy insecurity and accelerating climate change. Renewable energy can also address inequity and advance universal energy access. Hydro, wind and other renewable energy technologies — large and small, on-grid and off — are expanding opportunity in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. This is a triple win for communities around the world — for economic growth, and for the planet.

Now, more than ever, the world needs bold leadership to make the promise of renewable energy a reality. We meet here at the start of the global launch of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. It is also 20 years since the Rio Earth Summit laid a blueprint for sustainable development. Two decades ago, we were just glimpsing the emerging challenges of climate change, desertification, land degradation and the loss of species. Today many of those concerns have become urgent. Sustainable energy will figure prominently at Rio+20. I count on IRENA’s contribution to making Sustainable Energy for All a success, and to creating the future we want.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today released two nationwide resource assessments showing that waves and tidal currents off the nation’s coasts could contribute significantly to the United States’ total annual electricity production, further diversify the nation’s energy portfolio, and provide clean, renewable energy to coastal cities and communities. These new wave and tidal resource assessments, combined with ongoing analyses of the technologies and other resource assessments, show that water power, including conventional hydropower and wave, tidal, and other water power resources, can potentially provide 15% of our nation’s electricity by 2030. Today’s reports represent the most rigorous analysis undertaken to date to accurately define the magnitude and location of America’s ocean energy resources. The information in these resource assessments can help to further develop the country’s significant ocean energy resources, create new industries and new jobs in America, and secure U.S. leadership in an emerging global market.

The United States uses about 4,000 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year. DOE estimates that the maximum theoretical electric generation that could be produced from waves and tidal currents is approximately 1,420 TWh per year, approximately one-third of the nation’s total annual electricity usage. Although not all of the resource potential identified in these assessments can realistically be developed, the results still represent major opportunities for new water power development in the United States, highlighting specific opportunities to expand on the 6% of the nation’s electricity already generated from renewable hydropower resources.

The two reports—”Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource” and “Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States”—calculate the maximum kinetic energy available from waves and tides off U.S. coasts that could be used for future energy production, and which represent largely untapped opportunities for renewable energy development in the United States.

The West Coast, including Alaska and Hawaii, has especially high potential for wave energy development, while significant opportunities for wave energy also exist along the East Coast. Additionally, parts of both the West and East Coasts have strong tides that could be tapped to produce energy.

Earlier this year, DOE announced the availability of its national tidal resource database, which maps the maximum theoretically available energy in the nation’s tidal streams. This database contributed to the “Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States” report, prepared by Georgia Tech.

The wave energy assessment report, titled “Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource,” was prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), with support and data validation from researchers at Virginia Tech and DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The report describes the methods used to produce geospatial data and to map the average annual and monthly significant wave height, wave energy period, mean direction, and wave power density in the coastal United States. NREL incorporated the data into a new marine and hydrokinetic energy section in their U.S. Renewable Resource atlas.

In addition to the wave and tidal resource assessments released today, DOE plans to release additional resource assessments for ocean current, ocean thermal gradients, and new hydropower resources in 2012. To support the development of technologies that can tap into these vast water power resources, DOE’s Water Power Program is undertaking a detailed technical and economic assessment of a wide range of water power technologies in order to more accurately predict the opportunities and costs of developing and deploying these innovative technologies. The Program is currently sponsoring over 40 demonstration projects that will advance the commercial readiness of these systems, provide first-of-a-kind, in-water performance data that will validate cost-of-energy predictions, and identify pathways for large cost reductions.

These resource assessments, techno-economic assessments, and technology demonstration projects are critical elements of DOE’s strategy to capture the very real opportunities associated with water power development, and to further define the path to supplying 15% of the nation’s electricity through water power technologies.

A female dolphin and her calf are transported by a team from the International Fund for Animal Welfare and the New England Aquarium before being released back into Cape Cod Bay, south of Boston in this Jan. 14, 2012 photo. REUTERS/Julia Cumes

In a massive rescue effort, IFAW’s (International Fund for Animal Welfare – www.ifaw.org) Marine Mammal Rescue and Research Team has been able to rescue and release 19 of the 27 Common dolphins that stranded alive on Cape Cod shores during the past few days including a dolphin calf and a pregnant mother. Approximately 32 additional animals stranded, but were found dead most likely due to injuries sustained from stranding.

“I’ve been doing this for 15 years and this is only the second season I’ve seen it like this,” said Katie Moore IFAW’s Marine Mammal Rescue and Research Manager. “These types of lingering mass strandings seem to be unique to our area.”

“No one knows for sure why animals strand, but mass strandings of whales and dolphins have happened on Cape Cod for hundreds of years,” said Moore. “The topography of the Cape is likely a factor, with its hook-like shape, gently sloping beaches and extensive sand and mud flats. Animals may become disoriented and trapped by the complex inlets. Dolphins are also very social animals and stick together for better or worse,” said Moore.

One dolphin stranded in Wellfleet on Thursday afternoon kicking off a series of additional strandings straight through Monday. Approximately 40 dolphins stranded on Saturday alone in five towns from Dennis to Wellfleet. A response of this scale would not be possible without the help of dozens of trained volunteers in addition to IFAW staff.

“The scale of this mass stranding is unique. We’ve responded to dolphins along 25 miles of coastline during the past few days,” said Brian Sharp IFAW Stranding Coordinator. “We were able to affix satellite tags to the dorsal fins of five rescued dolphins, which will allow us to find out how they’re doing after release. We’re hoping to see that the location coordinates are grouped together, which will show that they’ve rejoined a pod.”

Along with sites in Australia and New Zealand, Cape Cod is one of the top three stranding hotspots in the world. Mass strandings of multiple marine mammals often occur in this area between January and April. If you see a live or dead stranded marine mammal south of Plymouth through Rhode Island, please report it to the IFAW emergency hotline at 508-743-9548.

About IFAW (the International Fund for Animal Welfare)

Founded in 1969, IFAW saves animals in crisis around the world. With projects in more than 40 countries, IFAW rescues individual animals, works to prevent cruelty to animals, and advocates for the protection of wildlife and habitats.

SOURCE International Fund for Animal Welfare press release

About IODPThe Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international research program dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of the Earth through drilling, coring, and monitoring the subseafloor. The JOIDES Resolution is a scientific research vessel managed by the U.S. Implementing Organization of IODP (USIO). Together, Texas A&M University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership comprise the USIO. IODP is supported by two lead agencies: the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. Additional program support comes from the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD), the Australia-New Zealand IODP Consortium (ANZIC), India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences, the People’s Republic of China (Ministry of Science and Technology), and the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources.

Useful Websites:

For more information about IODP Expedition 336 – Mid-Atlantic Ridge Microbiology, visit http://iodp.tamu.edu/scienceops/expeditions/midatlantic_ridge_microbio.html.

For more information about the JOIDES Resolution, visit www.joidesresolution.org.

Source: Consortium for Ocean Leadership press release

Louisiana Coastal Wetlands-NOAA Photo

Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost land the size of Delaware—about 1880 square miles. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, if this trend continues, Louisiana will lose a wetland area larger than the size of Manhattan every year. These losses are a disaster not just for citizens who are seeing their land wash away, but for businesses, industry, and communities nation-wide.

Land loss in Louisiana is caused by many different factors. Dams and levees have made it possible for two million people to live in south Louisiana and for the state’s ports and navigation routes to support global commerce. But these water control structures have also channeled the Mississippi River and its tributaries into the Gulf of Mexico, depriving the wetlands of the fresh water and sediment they need. Dredging of canals for oil and gas exploration and pipelines provided our nation with critical energy supplies, but it also took a toll on the landscape, weakening marshes. Sea level rise and subsidence add further stress. Given the rapid pace of change, it is not possible to turn back the clock and return the coast to 20th Century conditions. New ways to live, work, and play in and around the Louisiana coast must be found.

To address this crisis the Louisiana Legislature passed Act 8 in 2006, which created the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA)  and required it to develop a coastal master plan every five years. The first master plan was approved by the legislature in 2007. The new master plan, now under public review, will be submitted to the legislature for approval this spring.

The CPRA’s Draft 2012 Coastal Master Plan is based on a two year analysis involving some of the state’s best scientists as well as national and international specialists. The state used this analysis to select 145 high performing projects that could deliver measurable benefits to our communities and coastal ecosystem over the coming decades. The plan shows that if these projects were fully funded, at a pricetag of $50 billion, we could substantially increase flood protection for communities and create a sustainable coast.

Public meetings are scheduled for January 23rd – 25th to citizens a chance to speak with the CPRA  face to face about the plan. At these meetings,  formal comments can be placed into the public record. After the public comment period ends, the CPRA will incorporate what was learned and finalize the plan in time to submit it to the Louisiana Legislature in early April.  If stakeholders are unable to attend a public meeting, there is a comment form available on the CPRA’s website.