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Despite ambitious schemes from Beijing, most of China continues to sink into an environmental abyss. "2006 has been the most grim year for China's environmental situation," laments Pan Yue, a vice minister at China's state environmental agency.

More interesting, however, is the fact that Pan and other ministers are speaking up at all. Initiatives from the central government in China often produce claims of rousing success, regardless of the actual results on the ground. Senior official from President Hu Jintao on down have been making noise about halting environmental degradation for some time, but they have been unable to bring along the provincial and business leaders that could actually do something about the problem. Local bigwigs in China have far more power than is usually understood, and they know they're judged by their success in fostering economic growth and jobs, not by the number of environmental clean-ups and tree-plantings they organize.

Now, however, criticisms of the environmental costs of that approach are appearing in Communist Party newspapers, online discussion posts, and statements by senior leaders like Pan Yue. That the conflict is spilling into the public domain suggests that China has become so environmentally degraded that top Party officials see a threat to their twin obsessions: growth and stability. But it won't be until you can really get ahead in the Communist Party by going green that the central leadership will be able to do much more than complain.

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Thousands of Hindu holy men are threatening to boycott the Hindu festival of Purna Kumbh Mela on the grounds that the Ganges, India's holiest river, is too polluted to wash away the sins of the millions of pilgrims who visit during the celebration. The seven-week festival is expected to draw 70 million people to the banks of the Ganges. Indian government officials, under pressure from the holy men, are offering to pump in fresh water.

Even if you missed the WSJ's take this week about the announcement that the big fuzzy white predators will be classified as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, you can probably guess they weren't so enthusiastic. They borrowed the global warming camp's classic charge that politics wrongly trumps science in the American debate, citing a growing polar bear population over the last few decades as evidence that the threat to the "majestic" carnivore isn't real. It's all political manipulation, they cried, and it could lead us down the dangerous road to (gasp!) federally mandated reductions in greenhouse gases.

It's interesting that the WSJ took such umbrage at the possibility that a species could be considered "threatened" based on future projections of the quality (or existence) of its habitat. We're already seeing evidence that the bears' polar habitat is retreating and breaking up. To back up its claim that the bears are better off than ever, the WSJ notes that some Canadians consider the bears overabundant, a fact the rest of us may "have difficulty grasping." But that sense of overabundance likely stems from the fact that bears are pushing into areas populated by humans in order to forage for food because the ice shelves on which they hunt are rapidly retreating. 

I asked Bill Stanley, director of the Global Climate Change Initiative at the Nature Conservancy, if he had any reaction to the WSJ's argument. He had this to say:

There are generally numerous threats to species, some are more immediate and some are more chronic or farther off into the future. Even though some populations may be bouncing back now because of reduction or removal of some immediate threats, the looming threat of climate change is likely to undermine much of that progress.

This debate shouldn't just be about the size of the polar bear population. They're not the only wildlife that will be put at risk by warming temperatures. According to peer-reviewed scientific studies, fully one-fourth of Earth's species may be headed for extinction by 2050 if the emissions and associated warming continues at its current rate. Wouldn't our time and efforts be better spent debating how best to protect them -and us - from the the disastrous consequences of climate change?

Indeed.

Is China getting serious about the environment, albeit out of concern for its continued economic growth? Seed magazine (via AFP) picks up two telling stories: First, China has just released its first official report on global climate change. The report concludes that greenhouse gases from human activity are leading to climate change, and that economic growth could be hindered if global warming continued. The report warns that temperatures could rise in the Middle Kingdom by 1.3-2.1 degrees Celsius by 2020, and by as many as 6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Given that 2006 was China's hottest year in half a century and thousands died from widespread droughts, the new report no doubt reflects a concerned Beijing.

The government may also be cracking down on false reporting of pollution data. Chinese state media reported last week that although regional governments reported meeting pollution-reduction targets, the country's top environmental watchdog says pollution as increasing.  

The figures on pollution control reported by local governments dropped remarkably this year, while the real environmental situation continues to deteriorate," said the unnamed official with the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).

"The inaccurate figures were caused by insufficient supervision of the local governments and possible fabrication."

Neither story means China is going full-on green anytime soon, but the environment may finally be on the radar. On Monday, the Chinese government announced that it will "preferentially purchase environmentally-friendly products." Whatever that means, it's a start.

Wow:

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true. [...]

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

While nobody's happy about rising sea levels and temperatures in hotter parts of the world, the warming of the Arctic is a different story. The melting of the sea ice during the summer months has at last made the dream of 15th-century explorers—the Northwest Passage—a reality. The new Arctic passage will dramatically reduce shipping times. But as The Economist points out, the shipping industry is not the only one that will benefit from climate change:  

The biggest beneficiary is likely to be Russia itself, which encircles almost half the Arctic Ocean. Currently uninhabitable areas will become more hospitable; currently inaccessible energy resources will become more exploitable.

According to the United States Geological Service, about one-quarter of the world’s undiscovered energy reserves may be in the Arctic. [...]

Russia has claimed half the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole, as its territory. It submitted the claim under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but had it rejected. The convention decrees that who owns what is determined partly by the extent of a country’s continental shelf, and Russia did not have enough geological data to back up its claim. Russia is now mapping energetically, as are America, Canada, Denmark and Norway, which also border the Arctic Ocean.

Ironically, major oil producers who have invested thousands of dollars promoting "research" suggesting that global warming is a hoax are also beneficiaries of melting Arctic ice. They may find, however, that the Arctic's treasures aren't quite as rich as originally thought.

A team of scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research has developed this animated scenario of diminishing Arctic summer ice through 2049. And guess what? If greenhouse gas emissions continue to build up at the current rate, it's likely that the Arctic won't have any summer ice at all in just a few decades.  Check it out.

We love to see a guy who's pushing 7' 9" using his powers for good:

The world's tallest man has saved two dolphins by using his long arms to reach into their stomachs and pull out dangerous plastic shards.

Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishun was called in after the dolphins swallowed plastic used around their pool at an aquarium in Fushun, north-east China. [...]

The mammals had lost their appetite and were suffering depression, aquarium officials said.

The heads of the dolphins were held back and towels wrapped around their teeth so Mr Bao could not be bitten.

He then extended his 1.06m-long arm into the mammals' stomachs.

Sadly, the Chinese river dolphin is "functionally extinct" in the wild. It's not clear from the story what species these particular dolphins were, however.

Apparently humans are not the only ones who have different lifestyles in the city and country. Birds have had to adapt to urban lifestyle, too. According to the BBC,

Dutch researchers found that urban species of birds sing short, fast songs rather than the slower melodies of countryside birds. City birds also sing at a higher pitch and will try out different song types. [...]

The research focused on great tits in ten major European cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague, and compared them to forest-dwellers.

The urbanites sing faster and louder in order to assert their territory and attract mates above the sound of city noise. Or as Science Now puts it,

A bird that sang like Barry White in the forest sounded more like Michael Jackson in the big city. 

They don't have bodies, but they do leave footprints.

It was only a matter of time before someone took the avatar world to task for their environmental impact. (In case you think an avatar is a new model of Hyundai, here's a brief primer. Avatars are computer-generated, physical representations of people in virtual online games or social worlds. Think Second Life, Sims, World of Warcraft, etc.)

The virtual world of Second Life, which hit one million residents back in October, is one of the most popular online games of its kind. To even call it a game is perhaps inaccurate. It's a full-fledged virtual world, complete with crime, sex, commodities, and real-world advertising. (Don't miss BusinessWeek's journey into Second Life or its great "Old Fogey's Guide to the Online Universe.") It goes way beyond the traditional online games of old: These days, politicians like former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner hold town meetings and musicians use music streaming to stage "live" concerts in Second Life in order to be heard.

So, it's fascinating to see blogger Nick Carr (also a former exec editor at Harvard Business Review) calculate whether avatars consume more energy than their human counterparts. He found that the thousands of avatars "living" in Second Life at any given moment, given the servers and computers needed to run the virtual world, use about the same amount of electricity as a comparable number of real-life Brazilians. So, here's my question: Has anyone done any research on whether avatars are much more wasteful than their human counterparts? Say, in terms of energy: Do avatars not bother to turn off the lights? Email us.

Where do electronics go when they die? Increasingly to Africa, according to a recent article in Environmental Health Perspectives. Every month, exporters contracted by electronics recyclers send about 500 containers filled with used electronic equipment to Lagos, Nigeria, alone. The 40-foot containers can be shipped from the United States for about $5,000 and high tariffs are easily avoided when the contents, up to 75 percent of which are unsalvagable, are classified as "scrap."

Even with so much junk, Nigerian importers are able to make a quick buck because of high local demand for electronic goods—Pentium III computers sell for about $130 and a 27-inch television will set you back around $50. The remainder, equivalent to approximately 100,000 computers per month, ends up in dumps and landfills. That electronic waste (e-waste) is chock-full of pollutants like lead, cadmium and mercury that then seep into the ground and water supply. When the mounds of waste get too high, they are burned, releasing toxins from the plastic casings into the air. (For more about how we're destroying Africa with waste, check out Travis's post, The Global Village's Septic Tank.)

Although both the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, which the United States has not signed, and the U.S. Resource and Recovery Act bar the export of e-waste, both have exceptions for "recycling." Thus, they leave room for the less scrupulous. In the United States, the only companies that can be trusted to safely recycle, reuse, and dispose of electronic goods are those listed by the Environmental Protection Agency as Plug-In to eCycling Partners or by the Basel Action Network as E-Stewards. So, before you throw away your electronic goods, it might be a good idea to look into where they are headed.

In Moscow, the blue light special sells for about $20,000 on the black market. What is it? A traffic kit including a flashing blue police light, a siren, a special license plate that exempts the driver from traffic violations, and supporting documents. Its purpose is to help you fight traffic. Why would anyone pay such a high price just to avoid traffic? Well, Moscow streets are a nightmarish clog of some 3 million cars, a 12-fold increase since the end of Communism. Here's a look:

Hat tip: English Russia (Photos by Anton Nossik)

Yesterday, I put up a post urging Microsoft to force computers worldwide into a higher power savings mode in order to reduce CO2 emissions. The article was featured on Slashdot.org, and the discussion over there is very lively. We've received several great comments on the piece, so we're highlighting a few here. 

Ric L., who writes from a Microsoft.com email address, notes, as I did in my post, that Microsoft Vista runs efficiently right out of the box.

This means hundreds of millions of computers will blissfully sleep their unused hours away every day…"

Again, I applaud Microsoft for including this software in their next update, but it will be many years before hundreds of millions of computers are upgraded to Microsoft Vista. More power could be saved by updating today's machines."

Sean F., who develops software for air-traffic controllers, assures me that those systems don't run on Microsoft Windows:

You mentioned that critical systems shouldn't have this hibernation mode go into effect. I thought I'd mention for clarity, that most critical systems do not use Microsoft software. I personally like MS, I'm not bashing the company or its products. I use them all the time, including right now. But they are very buggy, and most critical systems require more reliable software and hardware.

I don't run any Unix or Unix-variant software at home, but that is what most critical systems run on. I should know, I develop software for the FAA for air traffic control centers, your prime example of a system that shouldn't go into hibernation. Just a friendly email to give you some information. I completely support your idea for MS to do some code changes, just wanted you to have more accurate data. 

Read more after the BREAK. 

Here's a memo to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer:

It is estimated there are 660 million computers in use worldwide, the majority of which run some iteration of a Microsoft operating system. Generating the electricity needed to power those computers requires hundreds of power plants that produce billions of tons of CO2 emissions. Many of those machines sit idle for 12 to 16 hours per day, burning electricity, but not doing any work, because businesses habitually leave their computers running overnight.

Microsoft has already announced that they will build aggressive, energy-saving technology into their next operating system, Vista. But that's not enough. These days, most computers are networked and can accept software upgrades over the Internet. Also, most machines already possess software that allows them to run more efficiently—to "sleep" in a low-power mode when not in use—but few people enable this feature.

So, Microsoft should issue a software upgrade to every computer running Microsoft Windows worldwide. The upgrade would adjust the machine's energy-saving settings for maximum efficiency. Of course, this upgrade would have to allow critical systems to opt out. Nobody wants air traffic control computers to suddenly go into deep hibernation. But correcting for critical systems should be very simple for a company that churns out millions of lines of code every year.

It's conservative to estimate that 100 million computers worldwide are running Microsoft software, currently running inefficiently, being used in non-critical applications, and ready to accept an upgrade. The savings in energy, outlay and emissions generated by a hypothetical software update would be staggering. Microsoft estimates that it costs $55 to $70 per year for an average business to allow one computer to sit idle. Multiply that times 100 million computers and you realize that the world spends $5 to $7 billion* dollars every year powering inactive computers. Shifting 100 million computers into low-power sleep mode for 12 hours per day could easily cut worldwide C02 production by 45 million tons per year. That is equivalent to wiping away a year's worth of CO2 produced by every household and industry in a country the size of Ireland. Dozens of power plants would no longer be needed.

After the BREAK: The numbers behind the savings.