Feds let stand Bush ruling on polar bears
WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) -- A federal refusal to use the U.S. Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gases further endangers polar bears, environmental activists said.
The Interior Department Friday let stand a Bush administration rule barring the federal government from considering the effects of global warming on polar bears and other protected species, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Acknowledging the deadly effect of the emissions, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the Endangered Species Act "is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue."
Environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, vowed to sue.
"The impacts of global warming are already being felt in the arctic," said Andrew Wetzler, a council spokesman. "The rule endorsed today is illegal, and we will continue to fight it in court."
Oil and gas companies, however, cheered Salazar's decision, saying a comprehensive strategy is needed address the complexities of global climate change.
Scientists working to cut cow gas
EDMONTON, Alberta, May 8 (UPI) -- Methane from cattle can be reduced by as much as 25 percent by balancing starch, cellulose, fat and other elements of feed, scientists in Canada said.
Cattle account for 72 percent of Canada's methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that threatens the environment, said Stephen Moore, a professor of agricultural and nutritional science at the University of Alberta.
Moore and his research team have developed a formula to cut methane from cattle by balancing elements found in their feed, including ash, fat and sugar, a release issued by the university Friday said.
"That's good news for the environment," Moore said. "By identifying factors such as diet or genetics that can reduce emissions, we hope to give beef farmers a way to lessen the environmental footprint of their cattle production."
The study was conducted with the universities of Guelph and Manitoba, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Austria.
Oxygen spike may have caused ice age
COLLEGE PARK, Md., May 8 (UPI) -- Earth's earliest ice age could have been caused by an atmospheric rise in oxygen reacting with methane, a greenhouse gas, a geologist in Maryland said.
"This singular event had a profound effect on the climate, and also on life," said Alan J. Kaufman, a geology professor at the University of Maryland.
Kaufman and a team of international scientists found evidence the oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere coincided with the first widespread ice age on the planet 2 1/2 billion years ago.
They theorize the earliest ice age was created from oxygen escaping from developing oceans and filling up the atmosphere, where there had been no oxygen. The oxygen then reacted with methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to form carbon dioxide, which is 62 times less effective at warming the surface of the planet.
"With less warming potential, surface temperatures may have plummeted, resulting in globe-encompassing glaciers and sea ice" Kaufman said.
Basking sharks farther south than thought
WOODS HOLE, Mass., May 8 (UPI) -- Basking sharks spend their winters much farther south in the Atlantic than originally believed, U.S. scientists concluded.
The plankton-feeding sharks hide out for nearly half the year, disappearing from surface waters at the end of autumn, said Gregory Skomal of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries.
Scientists once debated whether the sharks hibernated on the ocean floor in winter, but satellite technology recently tracked tagged basking sharks to tropical waters in the western Atlantic, in the vicinity of the Caribbean and Bahamas, Skomal said.
This was a surprise because basking sharks were always believed to be cool-water sharks, restricted to temperate regions, he said.
Data from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution show basking sharks in winter travel at depths of 600 feet to a mile, staying at those depths for weeks and even months.
"In doing so, they have completely avoided detection by humans for millennia," Skomal said.
The sharks grow to more than 33 feet in length and weigh as much as 7 tons.
