As she put the finishing touch to a watercolour outside the gated community of Oyster Harbours, Nancy Walton wrinkled her nose at the thought of America's first offshore wind farm popping up on the horizon of Nantucket Sound. "I believe in wind power," she said, "but these will be higher than the Statue of Liberty. There are so precious few places on earth as unspoilt as this. Why can't they just put them somewhere else?" Oyster Harbours is ground zero in a very uncivil war in which some of the wealthiest and most famous people in the country have joined forces with one of America's dirtiest businesses - the coal industry - to block an ambitious clean-energy project. As Hyannis filled up with traffic ahead of the Independence Day holiday today, there was a whiff of cordite rather than fireworks in the air as both sides blasted away at each other. So far, the opponents have spent more than $20m trying to kill off the project, which is known as Cape Wind and is planned for a location widely deemed ideal for offshore wind turbines.
As she put the finishing touch to a watercolour outside the gated community of Oyster Harbours, Nancy Walton wrinkled her nose at the thought of America's first offshore wind farm popping up on the horizon of Nantucket Sound. "I believe in wind power," she said, "but these will be higher than the Statue of Liberty. There are so precious few places on earth as unspoilt as this. Why can't they just put them somewhere else?"
Oyster Harbours is ground zero in a very uncivil war in which some of the wealthiest and most famous people in the country have joined forces with one of America's dirtiest businesses - the coal industry - to block an ambitious clean-energy project.
As Hyannis filled up with traffic ahead of the Independence Day holiday today, there was a whiff of cordite rather than fireworks in the air as both sides blasted away at each other.
So far, the opponents have spent more than $20m trying to kill off the project, which is known as Cape Wind and is planned for a location widely deemed ideal for offshore wind turbines.
Look at the Copenhagune offshore wind farm (Middlegrunden):
The most noticeable bit is that it is in front of the various factories of the Copenhaguen harbour. And it's the same pretty much everywhere. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Unspoilt? It's just off U.S route 6.
The Spanish port of Cadiz is waging war on gulls that have taken command of the skies around Spain's south-western tip. An emergency plan adopted by the Andalusian regional government has seen the destruction of 15,000 gulls' eggs, removal of nests and shooting the troublesome invaders where necessary. The thousands of yellow-legged gulls, whose numbers have risen sharply in the past five years, damage buildings and dive-bomb people on beaches and in food markets, officials say. Although it is the most common southern European gull, the yellow-legged variety (Larus michahellis) was rare along the Cadiz coast until recently. However, its strong survival instinct has enabled it to colonise a new habitat. The voracious bird eats almost anything, finding its food on the marshy shores of the Bay of Cadiz Natural Park, around fishing ports and at two rubbish disposal plants. It preys on other birds such as stilts, avocets and terns, and destroys the nests of others. It carries microbes, damages vegetation and poisons water. This, officials claim, justifies their extreme eradication measures.
The Spanish port of Cadiz is waging war on gulls that have taken command of the skies around Spain's south-western tip. An emergency plan adopted by the Andalusian regional government has seen the destruction of 15,000 gulls' eggs, removal of nests and shooting the troublesome invaders where necessary.
The thousands of yellow-legged gulls, whose numbers have risen sharply in the past five years, damage buildings and dive-bomb people on beaches and in food markets, officials say.
Although it is the most common southern European gull, the yellow-legged variety (Larus michahellis) was rare along the Cadiz coast until recently. However, its strong survival instinct has enabled it to colonise a new habitat. The voracious bird eats almost anything, finding its food on the marshy shores of the Bay of Cadiz Natural Park, around fishing ports and at two rubbish disposal plants. It preys on other birds such as stilts, avocets and terns, and destroys the nests of others. It carries microbes, damages vegetation and poisons water. This, officials claim, justifies their extreme eradication measures.
One of the most vivid symbols of global warming is the torrents of melt water that drain from the lakes that form each summer on Greenland's ice sheet. Recent studies have shown that this water, which flows deep into the ice through natural drainpipes called moulins, allows the ice to slide faster over bedrock toward the ocean. And the faster the ice flows, the faster sea levels rise. But a Dutch study using 17 years of satellite measurements in western Greenland suggests that the movement associated with the meltwater is not as rapid as had been feared. The acceleration appears to be a transient summer phenomenon, the researchers said, with the yearly movement actually dropping slightly in some places. "The positive-feedback mechanism between melt rate and ice velocity," says the report, published Friday in the journal Science, "appears to be a seasonal process that may have only a limited effect on the response of the ice sheet to climate warming over the next decades." Greenland is still losing more ice through melting than it gains through snowfall, other measurements show.
One of the most vivid symbols of global warming is the torrents of melt water that drain from the lakes that form each summer on Greenland's ice sheet.
Recent studies have shown that this water, which flows deep into the ice through natural drainpipes called moulins, allows the ice to slide faster over bedrock toward the ocean. And the faster the ice flows, the faster sea levels rise. But a Dutch study using 17 years of satellite measurements in western Greenland suggests that the movement associated with the meltwater is not as rapid as had been feared. The acceleration appears to be a transient summer phenomenon, the researchers said, with the yearly movement actually dropping slightly in some places.
"The positive-feedback mechanism between melt rate and ice velocity," says the report, published Friday in the journal Science, "appears to be a seasonal process that may have only a limited effect on the response of the ice sheet to climate warming over the next decades."
Greenland is still losing more ice through melting than it gains through snowfall, other measurements show.
Clothing made from seal fur is to be banned throughout the European Union. Although white pelts from baby seals were banned in 1986, fashion houses still use skins from older animals to make boots, coats, gloves and accessories. Stavros Dimas, the EU's environment commissioner, told national ministers in France yesterday that an import embargo will be drawn up within weeks.
Clothing made from seal fur is to be banned throughout the European Union.
Although white pelts from baby seals were banned in 1986, fashion houses still use skins from older animals to make boots, coats, gloves and accessories.
Stavros Dimas, the EU's environment commissioner, told national ministers in France yesterday that an import embargo will be drawn up within weeks.
Paris - Some endangered species may face an extinction risk that is up to a hundred times greater than previously thought, according to a study released on Wednesday. By overlooking random differences between individuals in a given population, researchers may have badly underestimated the perils confronting threatened wildlife, it said. "Many larger populations previously considered relatively safe would actually be at risk," Brett Melbourne, a professor at the University of Colorado and the study's lead author, told AFP. There are more than 16 000 species worldwide threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). One in four mammals, one in eight birds and one in three amphibians are on the IUCN's endangered species "Red List". In a study released on Wednesday by the journal Nature, Melbourne said the current models used draw up such lists typically look only at two risk factors. One is the individual deaths within a small population, such as Indian tigers or rare whales. When a species dwindles beyond a certain point, even the loss of a handful of individuals can have devastating long-term consequences, Melbourne explained. There are less than 400 specimens of several species of whale, for example, and probably no more than 4 000 tigers roaming in the wild.
Paris - Some endangered species may face an extinction risk that is up to a hundred times greater than previously thought, according to a study released on Wednesday.
By overlooking random differences between individuals in a given population, researchers may have badly underestimated the perils confronting threatened wildlife, it said.
"Many larger populations previously considered relatively safe would actually be at risk," Brett Melbourne, a professor at the University of Colorado and the study's lead author, told AFP.
There are more than 16 000 species worldwide threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
One in four mammals, one in eight birds and one in three amphibians are on the IUCN's endangered species "Red List".
In a study released on Wednesday by the journal Nature, Melbourne said the current models used draw up such lists typically look only at two risk factors.
One is the individual deaths within a small population, such as Indian tigers or rare whales.
When a species dwindles beyond a certain point, even the loss of a handful of individuals can have devastating long-term consequences, Melbourne explained.
There are less than 400 specimens of several species of whale, for example, and probably no more than 4 000 tigers roaming in the wild.
