Nitrous oxide emissions pose an increasing climate threat

The sprawling Koch fertilizer plant in Brandon, Manitoba, CA. Each month, hundreds of trucks and rail cars deliver both nitrogen and methane-based fertilizers made here, to farmers in western Canada & the US. Both nitrogen & methane are more potent as greenhouse gases than CO2, the commonest one. The plant has, for many years, been the single-biggest industrial source of GH gases in MB.
A PinP photo.

Rising nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions are jeopardizing the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, according to a major new study. The growing use of nitrogen fertilizers in farming worldwide is increasing atmospheric concentrations. N2O is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide and remains in the atmosphere for more than 100 years. Story here.

The Arctic is burning in a whole new way

ScienceDaily

"Where There's Smoke There's Fire" by Western Arctic National Parklands

Widespread wildfires in the far north aren't just bigger; they're different. Details here.

Global heating. How will it impact the world’s nature reserves?

ScienceDaily

The Athabasca glacier in Jasper National Park, Canada.
Already a shadow of its former self, many fear it will be gone altogether
within a generation. A 2020 photo by Ethan Sahagun.

Nature reserves will be affected by future climate change in very different ways - especially in the tropics. A new study drawing attention to this fact, raises even more fears for wildlife species. It's based on forecasts for more than 130,000 nature reserves worldwide. Story here.

The Bio of Larry Powell - publisher of this blog.

Larry Powell

Powell is a veteran, award-winning journalist based in Shoal Lake, Manitoba, Canada. He specialize in stories about agriculture and the environment. For decades, he worked for broadcast outlets in all four provinces in western Canada. This included a 5 years stint as Senior Editor for CBC Radio News in Saskatchewan.

He is authorized to receive embargoed news releases on important, global stories, through the Science Media Centre of Canada, the Royal Society, Nature Research and the World Weather Attribution Network. He's a member of the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada, the Canadian Association of  Journalists and a past member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 2020, Powell joined an international team of writers providing articles for the Swiss-based online journal, Focusing on Wildlife - celebrating  the biodiversity of Planet Earth.

In June, 2014, he was a panelist at a world conference in Winnipeg entitled Holding Power to Account. Investigative    Journalism, Democracy and Human Rights. A keynote speaker there was Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame.

In 1986, he received one of several awards, when the Centre for Investigative Journalism chose his radio documentary about high cancer rates among uranium miners in northern Saskatchewan as the best in the country that year. 

Since retiring as a full-time employee in the late 80s, Powell has been able to devote more time to deeply- researched articles about important issues of our time, such as climate change and industrial farming. 

In 2012, the Manitoba Community Newspapers Association awarded his story about vanishing pollinators, Plight of the Humble Bee second prize in its environmental category. 

He has reported in many media, online, print and broadcast. They include CBC Radio; CBC TV’s flagship newscast, “The National;” NACTV - Community TV, Neepawa, Manitoba; farm newspapers including The Manitoba Co-Operator and The Western Producer; the weekly newspaper, The Roblin Review in Roblin, MB; along with progressive media such as the journal Alternatives; Briarpatch; Sasquatch;  Canadian Dimension; The Dominion;  OnEarth; Planetsave; The Manitoba Eco-Journal; Earthkeeper and Outdoor Edge. 

WORK HISTORY:

• 1989-present: Freelance writer, broadcaster, photographer, and researcher – online, print and television. 

• 1979-’88: Employee of CBC Radio News in Regina, including five years as Senior Editor of CBC Radio News in Saskatchewan. 

• 1972-’78: CBC Radio/TV News, Calgary AB. 

• 1958-’71: News reporter/announcer/host at private radio stations at CFAR, Flin Flon, MB; CJGX, Yorkton, SK; CJVI, Victoria, BC; CHAB, Moose Jaw, SK and CFAC, Calgary, AB.

EDUCATION:

• High school diploma, Dauphin Collegiate Technical Institute, Dauphin, MB; typing and shorthand degree, Sprott-Shaw Business College, Victoria, BC along with various skills courses at CBC, including writing and interviewing. 

OTHER AWARDS:

• 1990: The B’Nai Brith award for human rights broadcasting as part of a team at CBC Radio, Saskatchewan. The series, "A People Apart," chronicled incidents of discrimination and abuse against indigenous people.

• 1984: Nomination for Peabody and winner of Saskatchewan Reporters’ Asn. Award for best radio documentary. 

REFERENCES & WRITING SAMPLES: On request.

INTERESTS: Blogging, reading, writing, organics, market gardening, eat-local movements, community activism, jamming with friends on my clarinet. 

PERSONAL INFORMATION:

Box 364 , Shoal Lake, Manitoba, Canada R0J1Z0

Cell: (204) 937-0205

He publishes the blog www.PlanetInPeril.ca (PinP) - "where science gets respect," and can be e-mailed at:

 PlanetWatch1@yahoo.ca

Facebook: larry.powell.9235 

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/greensenior.bsky.social

X  LarryPo54406341 

Skype

Instagram

YouTube

Plants at Risk of Extinction, New Report Finds

Common Dreams

One of several species at risk in Canada, the small white lady's slipper, (Cypripedium candidum). Photo by Mason Brock.

A grim new assessment of the world's flora and fungi has found that two-fifths of its species are at risk of extinction as humans encroach on the natural world. Details here.

     

          

Someday, even wet forests could burn due to climate change

PHYS ORG

A wet "sclerophyll" mixed forest. Might even it be vulnerable in a warming world? 

Photo by Hagasfagas.

Millions of years ago, fire swept across the planet, fuelled by an oxygen-rich atmosphere in which even wet forests burned, according to new research by CU Boulder scientists. Story here.

Unprecedented mass loss expected for the Greenland Ice Sheet

Nature

(With some minor editing by PinP.)

The edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet.  Credit: Jason Briner

Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet is predicted to be higher in this century than any time in the past 12,000 years. The simulations, published in Nature, are based on high-carbon-emission scenarios and consider the southwestern region of Greenland. The findings add to a body of evidence that suggests that reducing carbon emissions is needed to decrease the contribution of the Greenland Ice Sheet to sea-level rise.

As the Arctic warms, the Greenland Ice Sheet has been losing mass and contributing to sea-level rise. That loss rate has increased dramatically since the 1990s. But are those rates and ones projected for the future unexpected? Or, are they just related to "natural variability?" To answer that question, Jason Briner and colleagues produced high-resolution simulations based on geological observations covering southwestern Greenland for the past 12,000 years that extend continuously into the future up to 2100.

The Greenland Ice Sheet.  Credit: Jason Briner

The simulations suggest that mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet in the twenty-first century will exceed the maximum mass-loss rates from the past 12,000 years. They find the largest losses in the past (between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago) were at rates of around 6,000 billion tonnes per century. That's similar to the estimated rates of the first two decades of this century. 

However, future losses are expected to exceed those maximum rates. Projected mass losses for the rest of this century are in the range of 8,800 to 35,900 billion tonnes. Those are based on the lowest and highest greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, respectively - that is, the amount of ice losses this century could reverse 4,000 years of cumulative ice growth and exceed previous mass-loss rates by about fourfold. The authors conclude that unprecedented rates of mass loss will occur unless a low-carbon-emission scenario is followed.

Massacre on Cyprus. Researchers call for a crack down on poachers who lure millions of birds to their deaths on the Mediterranean island with recordings of their own songs.

 By Larry Powell

The Sardinian warbler (Curruca melanocephala), common to the Mediterranean region. Photo by Andreas Trepte. 

Billions of birds like the Sardinian warbler (above) and the Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) have been migrating through the region for a long time. And, each year for many years, poachers on Cyprus have been trapping and killing them illegally. The slaughter is now said to have reached "industrial levels."

Conservationists found 155 different bird species in trappers' nets in 2018. These included 82 listed as "conservation priority species;" Among them, the Cyprus warbler, a protected species which is a "short-distance" migrator but breeds only on the island.

A study just published by The Royal Society takes aim at the devious methods the poachers use. They lure their unsuspecting prey to their deaths by playing recordings of the birds' own songs. 

But it has not been widely known just how well that practise works - until now. 

The researchers set up an experiment that would emulate the poachers methods. 

(In an email, the study's lead author, Dr. Alexander N. G. Kirschel of the University of Cyprus, tells PinP how it was done. "We caught birds in mist nets, banded them and released them.")

What they found confirmed their worst fears. 

The lures worked so well, they were able to trap eleven times more of the targeted species with the birdsong recordings than without. Not only that, they attracted a higher number of "bycatch" species which the trappers would presumably not want and just throw away. And these may include species "of conservation concern."

A dish of ambelopoulia. Photo by George M. Groutas.

It's all part of a controversial, yet lucrative practise of satisfying the appetites of many Cypriots for ambelopoulia (above). It's a "traditional" food dish considered a delicacy there. It's made up of songbirds that may be grilled, fried, pickled or broiled. And it's still being served illegally, not just in private homes, but in some restaurants on the island, as well.

In the words of the study, "Targeting tape lures would be a significant step in the battle against poaching. Our study has serious implications for conservation and will aid conservation practitioners in their fight to protect migrating birds from the annual massacre in Cyprus."

‘Apocalyptic’ fires are ravaging the world’s largest tropical wetland

 Nature

Brazilian Pantanal wildfire - "burn scar" by Coordenação-Geral de Observação da Terra/INPE

Infernos in South America’s Pantanal region have burnt twice the area of California’s fires this year. Researchers fear the rare ecosystem will never recover. Story here.

Marine heatwaves are human-made

ScienceDaily

A PinP photo.

Heatwaves in the world's oceans have become over 20 times more frequent due to human influence. This is what researchers are now able to demonstrate. Marine heatwaves destroy ecosystems and damage fisheries. Story here.

Do Forests Grow Better With Our Help or Without?

YaleEnvironment360

Riding Mtn. National Park, Manitoba, Canada. A PinP photo.

Nations around the world are pledging to plant billions of trees to grow new forests. But a new study shows that the potential for natural forest regrowth to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and fight climate change is far greater than has previously been estimated. Story here.