October 2008 Entries
Earlier in the month, during the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the new Red List of Threatened Species was released, showing that one fourth of all mammals are on the road to extinction. More disturbingly, one third of all amphibians worldwide are now considered threatened....Should we be worried?
Like in every environmental organization, the largest ticket item of GEF’s budget, after payroll, is travel, followed by rent, at a distant third. A conservation acquaintance of mine told me of his deep embarrassment when his daughter declared to her class, during ‘parent’s professional day’ that her dad was “saving the world by going to meetings”...
The public is most sympathetic to the plight of species when we speak of cute furry animals, large charismatic polar bears and whales, and even a few attractive plants. But there is not a lot of love going a huge portion of biodiversity – microorganisms. Indeed, many of them are bad for you.
Biotechnology will dominate venture capital interest in the next decades, not only in medicine, but in a broad range of industries. Science reports on studies being conducted to genetically engineer microbes to produce fuels not unlike petrol and other fossil fuels.
The high-tech industry has a new atmospheric footprint to worry about. Nature reports of a study by Weiss et al. showing that 5,400 tons of Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), a frequent input in microcircuits of flat-panel displays, were present in the atmosphere in 2008.
NF3 is 17,000 times more potent in its ability to trap heat than carbon dioxide, and scientists now recommend including it in climate agreements.