January, 2004

Bikes a Bust in China
Westerners are amazed by television footage of hundreds of thousands of bicycles clogging the streets of Shanghai, but the Chinese are just plain annoyed with the two-wheeled menaces. With 9 million of the 20 million residents riding bicycles, the environmentally-friendly transportation is getting in the way of the Volkswagens, GM compacts and Buick sedans now finding favor with Shanghai’s citizens. Many city officials aren’t happy with automobiles and are raising registration fees and restricting access to the city center, but policeman Chen Yuango favors cars. "Bicycles put great pressure on the city’s troubled traffic situation," said Chen.

It’s Just a Little Gas
Scientists once thought that global warming began when factories came into use, but analysis of air bubbles trapped in a core sample of Antarctic ice show that greenhouse gases started affecting the atmosphere 8,000 years ago. This time frame coincides with ancient peoples’ razing of forests and development of crop lands. The scientists also discovered that 5,000 years ago, there was a rise in methane levels, corresponding to increasing herds of livestock.

Not All Disasters Affect Trailer Parks
The Finance Initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced that natural disasters cost the world over $60 billion in 2003, up from $55 billion a year ago. UNEP officials blame global warming for the disasters, which include flooding along the Huai and Yangtze Rivers in China, and a European heat wave that led to the deaths of 20,000 people. Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP, said, "Climate change in not a prognosis, it is a reality that is, and will increasingly, bring human suffering and economc hardship."

Endangered Fish in d’Nile
In a move that is hoped to kill mosquitoes as well as increase numbers of endangered fish, Arizona wildlife officials will use fish to fight the mosquito-borne West Nile virus. The plan is to place several nearly extinct species, including Gila topminnow, Yaqui topminnow, desert pupfish and Quitobaquito pupfish, in areas where they can eat mosquitoes and larvae, carriers of the deadly virus.

The Fox and the Eagle No Aesop Fable
In the continuing saga of California’s Channel Islands (see The Best of The Leaf-let, "Population Control on Santa Cruz Island: This Little Piggy’s Days are Numbered," http://albrightseed.com/pigs_on_santa_cruz.htm), Golden Eagles may be the next to go. The eagles are preying on island foxes, an endangered subspecies. While the Golden Eagles also eat rapidly reproducing feral pigs, federal officials are concerned that the birds—relative newcomers to the island—will wipe out what remains of the fox population, now numbering 65. The feds captured nearly all the eagles and moved them to the mainland, but several pairs of nesting eagles remain. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it will try everything before its final resort—killing the eagles.