Environmental News

WASHINGTON, DC, November 14, 2008 (ENS) - The end of the Bush administration can't come soon enough for U.S. conservation groups, who believe that the election of Barack Obama has ushered in a "new era of hope" for the environment.

"Eight dismal years of environmental abuse and neglect are now coming to an end," said Betsy Loyless, the National Audubon Society's senior vice president for policy.

Loyless joined other conservation leaders in a telephone briefing with reporters on Thursday, outlining their commitment to press President-elect Obama to quickly reverse some of the Bush administration's controversial environmental policies.

The conservation groups urged Obama to swiftly change current federal drilling policies, tackle climate change and strengthen protections for endangered species and public lands.

The Bush administration's drilling policies "have been slanted dramatically toward the oil industry," said Mike Daulton, the National Audubon Society's legislative director.

Daulton criticized President George W. Bush for withdrawing an 18-year executive ban on drilling for oil and natural gas along the outer continental shelf.

Bush lifted the ban in July and also pledged to veto any legislation aimed at reinstating the restrictions. As a result, oil companies may be permitted to drill as close as three miles offshore.

"We now have a policy for our coasts that is unacceptable - a policy of zero protection for our beaches and coastal economies," Daulton said.
Drought and dam have ruined this land in Oklahoma (Photo by Clinton Steeds)

In addition to restoring the offshore moratorium, conservationists are keen to see a more measured approach to energy production on public lands, said Ann Morgan, vice president of public lands program at The Wilderness Society.

Millions of acres have been leased for oil and gas drilling in the past eight years in sensitive habitats across the nation, she said, and drilling has emerged as "the dominant use of public lands."

"The Bush agenda for development has trumped land managers' ability to protect air, water, and wildlife," Morgan told reporters. "We need reforms that will restore that balance."

The conservation groups urged Obama to aggressively tackle climate change and to address the impacts of a warming world on wildlife and public lands.

"The natural resources we treasure and rely on for survival are in trouble," said Robert Dewey, vice president of government relations for Defenders of Wildlife. "Any plan to address global warming must include steps to protect the natural systems that sustain us all."

Addressing climate change must be a "top priority" of federal natural resource agencies, Dewey said, and the government needs to bolster interagency cooperation and scientific capacity to aid implementation of climate change programs and policies.

Additional money must be found to implement efforts to limit the affects of climate change on natural resources, Dewey added, suggesting the money could come from revenues from a federal greenhouse gas emissions cap and trade program.

"We have to act now before irreversible damage is done," Dewey told reporters.

Conservationists are also hoping for a renewed effort to protect endangered species - they contend the administration has slashed funding and undermined protections for imperiled plants and animals.

"Safeguarding wildlife must be a top priority for both the Obama administration and the new Congress," said John Kostyack, National Wildlife Federation's executive director. "We need to start recovering species, not simply slowing their extinction."

The Bush administration has shown "overt hostility" toward the Endangered Species Act, Kostyack said.

"The first step is to reverse those damaging policies," he said. "But beyond … we need policies to get ahead of the extinction curve."

Kostyack urged new investments in state management plans along with a renewed focus on science-based judgments and on protections for entire ecosystems.

The issue of climate change must also be a key part of the effort to protect endangered species, he stressed.

"We can no longer ignore the elephant in the room - global warming is already having an impact on wildlife," Kostyack said.

He pointed out that the latest report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued in 2007 estimates that nearly one-third of all plant and animal species are at high risk of extinction from climate change.

"We can't assume that the future climate will be identical to the past climate," he said. "That has unfortunately been the case in recent years."

By J.R. Pegg

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SAN DIEGO, California, November 14, 2008 (ENS) - Human consumption of red meat and milk products can contribute to the increased risk of cancerous tumors, according to a National Cancer Institute-backed study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A husband-and-wife team of physician-scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has newly demonstrated a mechanism for how this increase in risk occurs.

A non-human, cellular molecule absorbed into human tissues as a result of eating red meat and milk products could promote tumor growth, according to the team led by Ajit Varki, M.D. and his wife, Nissi Varki, M.D.

The molecule, called N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), is a type of glycan, or sugar molecule, that humans do not naturally produce, but that can be incorporated into human tissues as a result of eating red meat.

Not produced in humans, Neu5Gc occurs naturally in lamb, pork and beef, with the highest levels found in beef and beef fat. Levels are very low or undetectable in fruits, vegetables, eggs, poultry and fish.

When foods containing Neu5Gc are eaten, the body then develops anti-Neu5Gc antibodies - an immune response that could potentially lead to chronic inflammation, as first suggested in a 2003 paper by Aji Varki also published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Varkis' research suggests that inflammation resulting from this molecule could promote tumor growth.

"We've shown that tumor tissues contain much more Neu5Gc than is usually found in normal human tissues," said Ajit Varki. "We therefore surmised that Neu5Gc must somehow benefit tumors."

It has been recognized by scientists for some time that chronic inflammation can actually stimulate cancer, he explained. So the researchers wondered if this was why tumors containing the non-human molecule grew even in the presence of Neu5Gc antibodies.

"The paradox of Neu5Gc accumulating in human tumors in the face of circulating antibodies suggested that a low-grade, chronic inflammation actually facilitated the tumor growth, so we set out to study that hypothesis," said Nissi Varki M.D., UCSD professor of pathology.

Using specially bred mice that lacked the Neu5Gc molecule - mimicking humans before the molecule is absorbed into the body through ingesting red meat - the researchers induced tumors containing Neu5Gc, and then administered anti-Neu5Gc antibodies to half of the mice.

In mice that were given antibodies, inflammation was induced, and the tumors grew faster.

In the control mice that were not treated with antibodies, the tumors were less aggressive.

Other scientists have previously shown that humans who take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have a reduced risk of cancer. So, the mice with cancerous tumors facilitated by anti-Neu5Gc antibodies were treated with an NSAID.

In these animals, the anti-inflammatory treatment blocked the effect of the Neu5Gc antibodies and the tumors were reduced in size.

"Taken together, our data indicate that chronic inflammation results from interaction of Neu5Gc accumulated in our bodies from eating red meat with the antibodies that circulate as an immune response to this non-human molecule - and this may contribute to cancer risk," said Ajit Varki.

Additional contributors to the paper are Maria Hedlund and Vered Padler-Karavani, UCSD Departments of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Medicine. The study was funded in part by a grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

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LAWRENCE, Kansas, November 14, 2008 (ENS) - Over the next century, climate change will bring more hot, dry weather, more insects and more storms to Kansas - and eastern and western Kansas will be affected in different ways, according to research published at the University of Kansas on Tuesday.

University of Kansas scientists Nathaniel Brunsell and Johannes Feddema show that if emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases continue to increase as projected in the middle of the road scenario outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, then by 2100 temperatures in Kansas will rise in all seasons, in all parts of the state.

"If we continue on as we're going, these are the conditions we're likely to face," said Brunsel. "We need to decide as a society how we want to meet these conditions."

Western Kansas will become warmer and drier, say Brunsell and Feddema. Soil moisture will decrease, putting more pressure on irrigation. During the summer, water need will increase as much as eight inches.

Eastern Kansas will become warmer and wetter. But the higher temperatures will offset any increases in precipitation, due to the increase in evaporation rates. The result could actually be an overall drying effect. Less water will be available for rivers and reservoirs in winter, and plant stress will increase in summer.

"What’s important to remember - these are projections. They are not predictions. If we change how we use energy and if we reduce our emisions, then we stil have the power to alter these outcomes," said Feddema at the K-State Extension Conference in October.

Right now drought patterns are already intensifying across the state, the scientists said, with the greatest decrease in winter moisture is taking place in western Kansas.

The greatest increase in spring moisture is occurring in eastern Kansas.

As the century progresses, Southwest Kansas could see increases as high as eight degrees Fahrenheit, and higher summer temperatures will create more heat waves, the scientists predict.

The number of days that people run their air conditioning will increase by about 50 percent. Higher summer nighttime temperatures will stress livestock and crops.

Freezing days will decrease during the winter. By 2060, winter temperatures will mostly stay above freezing. The number of days that people run their heaters will decrease by about 25 percent.

The lack of hard freezes means that insects will thrive and diseases will increase among plants, animals, and humans, they said.

The weather will become more variable. Yearly precipitation totals will stay about the same, but precipitation patterns will shift, becoming less predictable and less frequent, broken up by longer periods of dry weather.

There will be fewer snow events. Individual rainstorms will become more intense when they occur, likely leading to more flooding.

Temperatures will rise and evaporation rates will increase, but yearly precipitation will not increase to meet the need for additional water.

Brunsell and Feddema conducted the report for the Climate Change and Energy Project, which was established in 2007 by the Land Institute based in Salina, Kansas.

Nancy Jackson, executive director of the Climate and Energy Project, said, "When people talk about climate change, too often they ignore the costs of not dealing with it. They also ignore the economic opportunities for Kansas in shifting to a clean energy economy."

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