Straws in the Wind: Thailand Researches Bio Fuel Options

If Thailand manages to convert agricultural waste into fuel, it will create more options for feeding a growing economy. It would also put the brakes on costly imports and greenhouse gas emissions, and avoid the controversy created by competition between biofuel and food crops.   Well over half of Thailand’s population of 65 million are engaged in farming, and converting from food to fuel is politically loaded. Yet it is imperative for Thailand to find new sources of fuel.  

Nirmal Ghosh in Straits Times and Jakarta Globe  Indonesia (28 May 2011):

Bangkok. In a research laboratory near Bangkok, Dr Vorakan Burapatana toys with a gleaming contraption full of tubes, containers, dials and electrical connections.  

The machine is used for fermenting — it breaks down vegetable matter and converts the sugar content into biofuel.  

A young researcher nearby sorts out jars of rice straw, the dry leftovers from a harvest which would otherwise be burned.  

After the fermenting machine breaks it down, scientists will test small quantities of fuel in engines and vehicles in other buildings in the sprawling PTT Research and Technology Institute belonging to Thailand’s giant state-owned PTT Corp.  

Here and in other research facilities across the country, scientists are also working on ways to convert local species of pond algae into biofuel.  

The efficient conversion of algae to fuel is still a long way off, but creating ethanol from biomass such as rice straw is closer.  

PTT plans to start building its first pilot plant by the end of this year. It will produce about 455,000 liters of ethanol a year.  

PTT is Thailand’s largest company, with interests across the energy field. Its net income for the first quarter of this year was 34.5 billion baht ($1.14 billion).  

The research at its lab is a critical part of efforts to produce ethanol from plants on a large but cost-effective scale.  

If Thailand manages to convert agricultural waste into fuel, it will create more options for feeding a growing economy. It would also put the brakes on costly imports and greenhouse gas emissions, and avoid the controversy created by competition between biofuel and food crops.  

Well over half of Thailand’s population of 65 million are engaged in farming, and converting from food to fuel is politically loaded. Yet it is imperative for Thailand to find new sources of fuel.  

Around 70 percent of Thailand’s electricity is produced from natural gas, mostly imported from Myanmar. But when it comes to transport, the country still has to import oil.  

Thailand imports around 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day, and the volume is edging up steadily, with occasional spikes in world crude prices putting a big dent in Bangkok’s budget. In February for instance, Thailand’s crude oil import bill was US$2.26 billion — up 13.5 percent over that of the same month a year earlier.  

According to a March 2009 World Bank-National Economic and Social Development Board study, the country’s transport sector swallows 73 percent of its petroleum and petroleum products.  

The study noted: “With… only a small amount coming from renewable energy, the security of Thailand’s energy supplies is highly vulnerable to possible future supply constraints or rapid price increases.”  

PTT’s chief financial officer Tevin Vongvanich told The Straits Times: “Going into the future, we need to look at technology that will produce ethanol and biodiesel from the remaining part of the plants — the cellulose, not the food part. 

“That will not compete for the food chain of people. That is something we need to work out.”  

Biofuel is a key part of Thailand’s renewable energy mix for the future. Yet a rush to grow biofuel crops — mostly sugar cane, cassava and palm oil — that will put money in the pockets of farmers can also reduce the amount of land available for food crops.  

In December last year, Thai Chamber of Commerce deputy secretary-general Pornsil Patchrintanakul warned: “Without a clear-cut policy, rice farmland will be replaced by energy crops which will… affect the country’s food security and farmers’ career security.”  

The research at PTT’s lab — and others — will be critical in heading off the clash between food and fuel.  

Stockholm Environment Institute research fellow Maria Osbeck, who has studied biofuels in South-east Asia, said in a phone interview that while transition to renewable energy sources was essential, producing feed stock for biofuels was already driving changes in land use in Thailand. 

Palm oil and sugar cane are rapidly converting land used for food crops, as well as land with high biodiversity. Research into producing biofuels from waste is crucial, to “find alternatives… that don’t require vast amounts of land,” she said.  

Tevin said: “We are in the process of learning. People in the energy industry are quite concerned, because development projects face resistance whatever you want to do.  

“Biofuel involves so many entities in government — from the Ministry of Agriculture to Energy to Commerce. It will take some time to get it right.”  

At PTT’s lab, Vorakan, who has a PhD from Vanderbilt University in the United States, said: “We waste biomass by burning millions of tons of rice straw in open fields.”  

PTT estimates that 10 million tons are burned in Thailand every year. “With the cellulose and ethanol platforms we are developing, we can now convert the sugar in the biomass to other products — not just ethanol but biodegradable plastics too.”  

The government wants to replace 20.3 percent of energy use with renewable or alternative energy by 2022, Krairit Nilkuha, director-general of the Ministry of Energy’s department of alternative energy development and efficiency, said.  

But it has to get local communities to understand and agree to new energy projects. So every month, Krairit visits far-flung provinces and islands to speak to local residents about developing such projects.   “Investors, and the government, have to involve the people,” he said.     

Source: www.thejakartaglobe.com

Australia Moves From Innovation to “a Fateful Sense of Helplessness”

After a recent visit to Australia to discuss international developments on climate change, UK climate economist Michael Grubb says three things stand out in the national debate: the extent to which virulent rhetoric is pushing out reasoned analysis; the belief that doing nothing is an option without serious cost; and the apparent loss of Australia’s confidence in itself.

Has the nation lost its confidence when it comes to carbon policy?

Michael Grubb in The Australian (6 June 2011):

AFTER a recent visit to Australia discussing international developments on climate change, I think three things stand out in the national debate: the extent to which virulent rhetoric is pushing out reasoned analysis; the belief that doing nothing is an option without serious cost; and the apparent loss of Australia’s confidence in itself.

The first is the most immediately damaging to Australia and its industry, the second is plain wrong and restoring the third holds the key. The atmosphere is finite and we are dumping more than 30 billion tonnes of CO2 each year into it. The physics by which this warms the planet’s surface is a scientific fact, not a political football. Global warming is proving robust in both theory and observation; each year traps more energy in the lower atmosphere.

Australia’s recent tragic pattern of extreme weather events has included both temperature extremes and wildfire conditions way above the historic range: does it really make sense to bet a nation’s future on hoping this to be a coincidence? Yet I was consistently told that even mentioning the probable link was considered impolite, somehow distasteful, and risked vicious abuse.

European industry faced up to the basic realities after unprecedented heatwaves in Europe. Business leaders accepted that industry’s best bet is to have a price on carbon rather than a barrage of central government interventions in individual investment and technology choices, that industry would be best served by having a seat at the table of a coherent and long-term strategy for building a low carbon economy, with carbon pricing through the EU’s emissions trading scheme at the core. All participating sectors in the EU ETS have to date profited from it. The price was at first volatile but has in the past two years stabilised as the system has matured. The next phase, out to 2020, has been adopted with the power sector co-operating with the move to end free allowances to this sector after accepting the reality that carbon costs are anyway passed on.

To argue that one of the world’s highest per-capita emitters, Australia, is too small to matter and that free-riding on the actions of others is an acceptable policy approach without consequence is delusional.

Australia’s fossil fuel emissions are close to those of Brazil, a country with some nine times the population. Brazil is leading the world in renewable energy and the state of Sao Paulo, its industrial powerhouse with about 30 million people, has adopted a fixed cap on its CO2 emissions.

South Korea’s stimulus package focuses on green technology and it plans emissions trading. India, with per-capita emissions about one-tenth of those of Australia, is introducing an efficiency-based, target-and-trading scheme across power and heavy industry. China is adopting low-carbon development zones that cover a population comparable with Australia’s and has built pilot trading schemes and a focus on key low-carbon sectors into its five-year plan.

Australian politics seems unable to keep up with the pace of developments in the emerging economies; Europe is building low-carbon collaboration with them. Within a decade, I would guess, the resulting coalition of decarbonising economies will be charging carbon on the imports of carbon-intensive commodities. Australia needs to decide which side it wants to be on.

Which brings me to the third observation. Two decades ago, when I cut my teeth in research, Australia was at the forefront of many developments in clean energy technology. Now there seems a fateful sense of helplessness. An assumption that Australia’s future is as Asia’s quarry, not a strategic partner with common cause in addressing one of the defining challenges of our era. There are so many technology options – in energy efficiency, smart grids, low-carbon steel and cement processes. Australia has contributed some key ideas but the gains will go to those countries and companies that innovate, both in response to a carbon price and with government-backed funding using some of the carbon revenues.

Instead, during my time in Australia the headlines were all about industries demanding to be exempt from the challenge and union demands that not a single job should be lost. If that’s net jobs, fine: there are plenty of opportunities for expanding employment in decarbonising economies. The most exposed sectors do have a case for assistance to help them manage the transition. But it sounds like resisting all change, never a good economic strategy. Opposing carbon pricing while Europe and Asia forge a decarbonising path looks like a Faustian bargain. Of course Australia has cheap coal, but as the recent Grattan Institute report on options for Australian electricity noted, it also has world-class resources in all of the major low-carbon electricity options as well as massive natural gas resources.

That report charted immense potential for innovation and cost reductions. To plan industrial development on coal-based power instead of its unrivalled renewable resources – to bet the economy on high-carbon exports in a world where its major consumers are moving over to a low-carbon road – risks being on a road to ruin.

It is for Australia to make its choice. Just don’t do so with earphones plying false stories and a blindfold to the consequences.

Michael Grubb is senior research associate in Cambridge University’s faculty of economics and chairman of the international research organisation Climate Strategies. He holds a number of senior advisory positions with the British government on climate change and energy policy.

Source www.theaustralian.com.au

Singapore Buildings to Plug Into Electric Car Trial

Singapore’s electric vehicle trial is expected to be plugged in this month (June), after a delay of about a year. But the initial fleet of battery-powered cars may be far smaller than planned because of supply disruptions in Japan. The first fleet of five Mitsubishi i-MiEVs has been delivered to and besides the electric vehicle trial, he said several property developers – including Australia’s Lend Lease and Singapore’s CDL Group – are also in talks with Greenlots to install about 100 chargers in 40 to 50 buildings here.

First cars have arrived, charging stations likely to be up by next month

Christopher Tan in the Straits Times (26 April 11):

THE electric vehicle trial is expected to be plugged in this month (June), after a delay of about a year.

But the initial fleet of battery-powered cars may be far smaller than planned because of supply disruptions in Japan.

The first fleet of five Mitsubishi i-MiEVs has been delivered to Singapore, a spokesman for the Energy Market Authority (EMA) told The Straits Times.

The battery-powered cars are part of a $20 million trial announced by the EMA in 2009 to test the durability and viability of electric vehicles in a tropical city.

The trial is open only to institutions, government bodies and corporations.

Of the five cars, two – owned by the the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) – have been registered for use.

Ms Low Peck Kem, divisional director of MOM’s national human resources division, said the ministry was invited to take part in the electric-vehicle trial. The ministry agreed as the cars would help ‘in our efforts in environmental protection’, she added.

The two i-MiEVs will be used mainly for site inspections, she said. Although they have been registered for a number of weeks now, they will not be put to use until June, when the charging points are up.

Under initial plans announced in 2009, 50 i-MiEVs were expected to be delivered to Singapore this year. But the figure was later halved to 25 for unknown reasons.

The Straits Times understands that only 10 might be available this year – five have arrived.

The EMA spokesman said: ‘Delivery of the next batch has yet to be confirmed in the light of production delays in Japan arising from the recent earthquake.’

Another reason, sources said, was that parties keen to buy the cars are waiting for the charging infrastructure to be up before ordering them.

One company, vehicle rental firm Smart Automobiles, has changed its mind about buying electric cars for its fleet.

‘It has taken too long to happen,’ said Smart managing director Johnny Harjantho. ‘Customers who were keen to rent these cars have lost interest.’

At the moment, buyers have only one choice: the i-MiEV. Other car-makers with electric models have yet to import them, although Renault is expected to do so by the end of the year or early next year.

The lithium-powered i-MiEV hits 100kmh in about nine seconds and has a top speed of 140kmh. Under ideal conditions, it has a range of 160km between charges.

German components maker Bosch, which clinched the deal to set up the charging network, said it is ready to roll out 25 stations by next month.

The stations will charge a vehicle fully within eight hours. There will also be a quick charging station which gives a full charge in 45 minutes. But as of last week, none of the stations had been installed. The company would not say more.

The EMA spokesman, responding to queries from The Straits Times, said preparations were under way for the first batch of six charging stations to be set up by June.

Singapore-based Greenlots, an electric vehicle charging systems company, is supplying Bosch with the tamper- and weather-proof chargers – which are made completely here.

The chargers incorporate smart features, such as controlling power supply to prevent brown-outs in the building where the chargers are installed; and storing usage history.

Mr Oliver Risse, managing director of the three-year-old company, said each charger costs around $4,000 to $5,000.

Besides the electric vehicle trial, he said several property developers – including Australia’s Lend Lease and Singapore’s CDL Group – are also in talks with Greenlots to install about 100 chargers in 40 to 50 buildings here.

One of the biggest road humps to ready adoption of this greener form of mobility is cost, observers said.

Despite being exempt from taxes and the certificate of entitlement scheme, the i-MiEVs assigned for the EMA-led trial cost around $90,000 each – approximately the cost of a Toyota Corolla sedan, a substantially bigger car.

If an individual were to buy one with the existing green vehicle rebate accorded to eco-friendly vehicles such as compressed natural gas and hybrid cars, it would easily cost more than twice that.

Tesla of America, which had hoped to be part of the test-bed, packed up and left Singapore in February after it failed to secure tax exemption for its cars.

Source: www.wildsingaporenews.blogspot.com

Committed to Sustainability Reporting & Demonstrating Change

Global company STMicroelectronics shows how it embeds sustainability into its business practices to create value for all of its stakeholders.  Key commitments and achievements include a record safety performance that puts ST among the worldwide leaders in this field and a commitment to have 100% of its products eco-designed by 2015. In the latest web-based report, Australian office supplies business Corporate Express shows significant progress in key areas such as ethical sourcing, employee engagement, health and safety, diversity, sustainable procurement, environmentally preferable products, sustainable packaging and carbon management.

Company publishes its 2010 Sustainability Report

PR Newswire Geneva, (31 May 2011:

STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, has published its annual Sustainability Report, entitled “Our Culture of Sustainable Excellence in Practice”, the report provides comprehensive details of ST’s Sustainability strategy, policies and performance during 2010.

It illustrates how ST embeds sustainability into its business practices to create value for all of its stakeholders.  Key commitments and achievements include a record safety performance that puts ST among the worldwide leaders in this field and a commitment to have 100% of ST products eco-designed by 2015.

Sustainability remained one of ST’s key priorities in 2010, as in previous years, and was integrated even more thoroughly into the overall company strategy, including a strong focus on responsible products. As a result, ST continued to be included in all of the top five sustainability indices and received awards from its customer Nokia and the European Institute of Purchasing Management for its unswerving commitment to Sustainable Development. Highlights of 2010 included record performance in safety; further extension of the corporate Health Plan, which has now provided over 260,000 medical examinations for ST employees over a four year time span, a reduction of energy consumption per production unit of 30% compared to 2009, and the introduction of a dedicated EnergyLite™ microcontroller platform designed to minimize power consumption in a wide range of applications.

“2010 has been a record year for ST also in terms of Sustainability achievements, focused on our employees, our customers, and all our stakeholders,” said Carlo Bozotti, President and Chief Executive Officer of STMicroelectronics. “This is further proof of our long-standing position that integrating sustainability and responsibility into our business activities is not a cost burden but a recipe for even greater success. We will continue to follow this path with the objective to be recognized as a world leader in innovation for sustainable development through excellence in our people, our products, the environment and the community. In this way, we are helping our customers to help make the world a better place at every level: enriching peoples’ lives, making society work better, and helping to preserve the planet.”

2010 was also an extremely successful year for the ST Foundation’s Digital Unify (DU) program, which aims to bridge the gap between those people who have access to IT technologies and those who have not by providing free computer training and access to the internet. In 2010, the DU program exceeded the symbolic threshold of 100,000 cumulative beneficiaries worldwide.

The report clearly demonstrates the scope and success of ST’s Sustainability strategy, which is designed in line with its Sustainable Excellence culture to implement ST’s determination to balance and respond to stakeholders’ expectations in the short and longer terms to make the Company ‘sustainable’ – successful now and in the future – and enable it to contribute to sustainable development at a global level. Originating as a fusion of TQM (Total Quality Management) culture and ST’s pioneering work since the early 1990s in the field of environmental responsibility, Sustainable Excellence has evolved over the years to embrace every aspect of corporate responsibility and is increasingly deeply integrated into every level of the Company’s activities.

The Sustainability report, which complies with the disclosure guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative and the United Nations Global Compact, is available on ST’s website along with further information about the ST’s sustainability approach and the previous reports covering ST’s long term commitment to sustainable development.

Highlights of the report include:

Company

•ST worked with the renowned organization Business for Social Responsibility to conduct a materiality exercise and refresh its Sustainability strategy based on this most relevant issues identification.  

Social

•ST’s Corporate Human Resources implemented numerous key programs, including People Review (a program to ensure the alignment of resources and business needs), and Development Booster, a new development tool designed to equip highly talented people to evolve in their careers.

•There was an even deeper integration of Labour Rights in ST management systems in 2010. ST decided to go beyond the minimum requirements of the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) compliance program via an internal audit program. The first audit was conducted in Shenzhen, China, in 2010.

Health & Safety

•ST achieved its best ever safety results in 2010 with a 19% decrease in recordable cases rate and a 43% decrease in severity rate, making ST one of the worldwide leaders in Health & Safety.

•The corporate Health Plan now covers 82% of ST’s employees, compared to 63% in 2009. ST’s Health Plan has now provided over 260,000 medical examinations for ST employees over a four year time span

Environment

•Building on the previous editions and the experience of over 15 years in which ST has been recognized as a pioneer, the Company finalized its fourth Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Decalogue with ambitious new EHS targets, including the objective of having all new products eco-designed by 2015.

•ST reduced its energy consumption per production unit by 30% compared to 2009, which also represents a 5.6% decrease compared to 2008 (before the crisis).  Sustainable water management and conservation are crucial issues for ST. The Company is implementing continuous improvement programs at every front-end manufacturing site to achieve its water reduction target of 5% per year. ST Agrate (Italy) has developed an innovative system that has reduced its water consumption per production unit by 47% over the past six years.

Product Responsibility

•ST is investing significantly in ultra-low power technologies and design and in 2010 it has launched a dedicated EnergyLite™ platform for microcontroller products.

•Growing needs and challenges of the health sector are increasingly addressed by ST’s innovative and complete solutions, leading edge technology, state-of-the-art products and strong commitment to quality and reliability.

•The ECOPACK® program to devise and implement environmentally friendly chip packaging now covers 92% of ST products.

Supply Chain

•The mining of certain minerals in conflict areas associated with human rights violations has been a major focus for ST’s supply chain and corporate responsibility programs since 2007. ST has continuously and consistently applied its sourcing policy to prevent illegal and unethical sourcing of minerals from conflict areas and their use in ST’s products.

•Commitments to customer service excellence were fulfilled thanks to a risk management approach integrated into ST’s key management activities. For example, in April 2010, ST was able to face the Icelandic volcano crisis and prevent any interruptions in its customers’ operations thanks to its robust Business Continuity Plan in logistics.

Source: www.st.com

From Sydney, CSR Wire (3 June 2011):

To coincide with World Environment Day, Australia’s leading office products company, Corporate Express has released its third sustainability report called Staples Soul.

Within the web-base report are simple steps for organisations to take action in their own workplace for World Environment Day and beyond. By moving to a web-based report, Corporate Express has also included a resource called ‘Take Action’ which provides simple steps to take action in the workplace. Organisations can see tips to be more sustainable, choose from over 1,500 environmentally preferable products from Corporate Express’ Go-Green Guide, access tools to learn more about third party eco labels and environmental certifications and even take a free mini-office ‘green health check’ assessment that includes an action plan of ideas to implement in the workplace.

As a company that has been at the forefront of sustainable practices for over 10 years, Jennifer Levasseur, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager says: “Staples Soul reflects our commitment to corporate social responsibility; it brings together our efforts to give back to our communities, embrace diversity, sustain the environment and practice sound ethics. We recognise the impacts our decisions have on our stakeholders and work with them to determine mutually beneficial solutions.”

Paul Hitchcock, CEO of Corporate Express said: “As well as focusing on maintaining our own environmental leadership, we’re also committed to helping our customers make environmentally preferable choices for their own businesses. Our sustainability report also acts as a one-stop-shop to help businesses start their own sustainability journey”.

In the latest web-based report, Corporate Express shows significant progress in key areas such as ethical sourcing, employee engagement, health and safety, diversity, sustainable procurement, environmentally preferable products, sustainable packaging and carbon management.

The results outlined from the 2010 financial year focus on several key areas:

•Ethics: Working with key offshore suppliers to help them achieve compliance with the Company’s Ethical Sourcing Policy.

•Community: The Company raised $46,000 to help those affected by the devastating floods that affected Queensland in early 2011.

•Environment: Corporate Express’ Environmental Management System achieved certification against the international standard ISO 14001, as well as reduced its total net greenhouse gas emissions by 17%; increased tonnes of plastic/cans/glass recycled by 97%; and increased tonnes of paper/cardboard recycled by 50%.

•Diversity: The Company increased the number of females in senior leadership roles from nine percent in 2008 to 33 per cent in 2010; launched its Reconciliation Action Plan, initiated a Supplier Diversity Program; and received external recognition for these diversity programs.

As well as featuring key achievements for 2010, the new interactive report aims to encourage and facilitate sustainable procurement for Australian businesses. Organisations can customise their own version of the report based on the information relevant for their sustainability strategy.

To view the Sustainability Report or to take action with simple steps in your organisation for World Environment Day – log onto

About Corporate Express

Corporate Express Pty Limited is one of Australia’s leading suppliers of office essentials, with a product offering including office products, IT solutions, business furniture, print management, canteen and catering supplies, promotional marketing, facility supplies and education products. Corporate Express Australia, and its wholly owned subsidiary Corporate Express New Zealand, were acquired by Staples Ltd, in September 2010.

About Staples

Staples is the world’s largest office products company and a trusted source for office solutions. The company provides products, services and expertise in office supplies, copy & print, technology, facilities and breakroom, and furniture. Staples invented the office superstore concept in 1986 and now has annual sales of $25 billion, ranking second in the world in eCommerce sales. With 90,000 associates worldwide, Staples operates in 26 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, making it easy for businesses of all sizes, and consumers. The company is headquartered outside Boston. More information about Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS) is available at www.staples.com/media.

Source: www.csrwire.com and www.ce.com.au/soul

Something Fishy Going On: Call on the DNA Barcode of Life

Fish fraud is rampant. And there are numerous problems inherent, some economic and some environmental, some health. Fraud encourages fishermen to further mine the oceans for seafood, contributing to already-depleted stocks. Is DNA Barcoding the answer? This method was first popularized by the research group at the University of Guelph and is the basis for the ‘Barcode of Life’ initiative which is attempting to generate DNA barcodes for all eukaryotic life on the planet.” It is already in use at the FDA and has led to an alert list of companies with sketchy histories of mislabeling fish.

By Tim Carman in Washington Post (26 May 2011):

Fish fraud: It can happen anywhere along the supply chain, from the source of the fish to the market where you buy it. Oceana turned its press conference yesterday at the National Press Club into a pop quiz: Organizers laid out skinless fillets of halibut next to skinless fillets of fluke, both without labels, and then asked the gathered audience to identify each fish by sight. Oceana then repeated the test for red snapper vs. hake and for farmed vs. wild salmon.

A few people got it right, said Beth Lowell, campaign director and federal policy director at Oceana. But, she added, “for the most part, everyone said, ‘We couldn’t tell’.”

A taste test between tilapia and vermilion snapper, both draped in a lemon caper sauce, produced similarly poor results from the audience.

The point was clear: It’s easy to dupe Americans on fish.

“We don’t expect people, when they’re ordering meat, to have to guess whether it’s beef or horse or whale or Grade A prime or dog grade,” noted Mike Hirshfield, chief scientist for Oceana. “And yet with fish, where there is many more choices, we do the exact opposite.”

Oceana’s press conference was to announce its new campaign to fight seafood fraud, which is rampant.

According to Oceana’s new report, “Bait and Switch,” “Consumers are frequently served the wrong fish — a completely different species than the one they paid for. Recent studies have found that seafood may be mislabeled as often as 25 to 70 percent of the time for fish like red snapper, wild salmon and Atlantic cod, disguising species that are less desirable, cheaper or more readily available (Miller and Mariani 2010, Buck 2007, Jacquet and Pauly 2008).”

“Estimates of red snapper fraud range as high as 77 percent (Marko et al. 2004),” the report adds, “or even 90 percent (Logan et al. 2008), as a proportion of DNA-tested fish.”

A nearly perfect set of conditions exist to promote fraud, Oceana believes. For starters, global consumption of seafood is on the rise, which has increased demand as well as the price for fish. Everyone along the supply side of the seafood chain wants to capitalize on the high prices, so they have incentives to both overfish the seas and mislabel their products as the more premium species, such as red snapper and tuna. The nonprofit notes that more than 80 percent of seafood is now imported, and that fish processing, which turns whole fish into fillets, makes it almost impossible for agencies to detect the fraud without DNA testing.

There are numerous problems inherent with fish fraud, some economic and some environmental, Hirshfield said. Fraud encourages fishermen to further mine the oceans for seafood, contributing to already-depleted stocks. Fraud also penalizes seafood companies that correctly label their fish and then find themselves undercut by importers that offer so-called identical fish for far less. Then there’s the health issue.

“You know you are allergic to fish, and you think you’re eating crab, and it turns out to be pollock,” Hirshfield speculated. “You could end up in anaphylactic shock.”

There is a patchwork of laws and U.S. agencies that cover seafood and seafood labeling and inspection, Hirshfield said, but it “looks like the FDA has the primary responsibility.” Oceana would like the Food and Drug Administration to do a few things: It wants the agency to implement a tracking system for fish, like the one in the European Union, which can trace seafood back to the original source. The nonprofit believes that the new Food Safety Modernization Act, which requires tracking systems for high-risk foods, practically demands one for seafood. The traceback system should be supplemented with periodic DNA testing to make sure suppliers are labeling fish correctly.

But Oceana would also like stepped-up enforcement of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004, which requires that suppliers correctly identify the species of fish for sale.

Doug Karas, a spokesman for the FDA, said that Oceana had not yet contacted the agency about its wants, but noted that the FDA is already waist-deep into new systems that will help cut down on seafood fraud.

The FDA has been working with researchers, Karas wrote via e-mail, “to validate a DNA based method to identify seafood. This method is based on a technique known as ‘DNA Barcoding’ that was first popularized by the research group at the University of Guelph and is the basis for the ‘Barcode of Life’ initiative which is attempting to generate DNA barcodes for all eukaryotic life on the planet.”

As part of this initiative, the FDA is creating a DNA seafood library at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum; these sequences, Karas allowed, will eventually be made public for anyone using the same DNA testing to help identify potentially mislabeled species.

Karas said the DNA Barcoding-based method is already in use at the FDA and has led to an alert list of companies with sketchy histories of mislabeling fish. The companies on the list must prove their fish are what they say they are, Karas noted, before authorities will allow the seafood into the United States. This pilot program will soon stretch out across the country.

“The FDA has now purchased the sequencing equipment for five FDA field laboratories and we have recently conducted training for analysts in each of these labs,” Karas wrote. “After final proficiency testing on the equipment we will be able to use this method on a routine basis in the field. That should happen by the end of 2011.”

What’s more, Karas added, the FDA bases its import testing on risk assessment. To better assess the risk of imported seafood, the agency has developed what it calls the Predict screening system, which is already covering about 50 percent of imports to the United States.

Predict “uses a variety of assessments to rank import shipments according to risk,” Karas wrote. “It considers everything from whether a product is intrinsically risky to information we have acquired from previous sample analysis, field examinations, or inspections of shippers or producers and information about the regulatory system under which the product was produced. We can even add information on factors such as floods, hot weather, or market conditions that suggest whether a particular shipment is at risk of being contaminated, spoiled, or otherwise defective. These and other factors are weighed to give a risk score in relation to other products being offered for importation. This score, along with FDA’s expertise, will allow FDA field staff to target shipments that pose the highest risk to the public health.”

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Last word from Jo Chandler: Lessons from the Ice and Feeling the Heat.

Glaciologists and climate modellers are in a race to penetrate the secrets of the dazzling ice, to anticipate what warming will do to the hidden dynamics of the great ice sheets of the Arctic and the Antarctic. The largest unknown in the myriad projections of sea-level rise over the next century is the potential for rapid collapse of ice sheets. So says Jo Chandler in an article in The Age.

In going into the field to join scientists and research the stories within my book, “Feeling The Heat”, my objective was to try to contribute to shifting the conversation on climate to a new paradigm.

Journalists, scientists and the public are in a period of transition, one where the implications for our lifestyles and our economy means we need – as a matter of urgency – to learn to reflect on how we communicate and hear one another.

The climate discussion – in parliaments, in policy, in pubs, schools, shops, street corners and in the Twitterverse – has barely begun. It will be a deeply wearisome, exhausting, exasperating conversation if it remains mired in tired, contrived news structures; round and round we will go, condemned to the eternal groundhog day argument – “is it real?”. More from Jo Chander, her observations and her book. Read More

Jo Chandler in The Age (1 June 2011):

Every now and then the magnificent, mute marble coast of Antarctica will suddenly find a voice and let out a shattering exclamation – like a gunshot. The noise travels far and wide, thundering uninterrupted across crystal space until sheer distance exhausts it.

It is the sound of an ice cliff collapsing into the ocean. Or maybe of a new iceberg cleaving itself away from the continent and setting sail. It is part of the natural soundtrack of planet history, though it is only rarely, and recently – in geological timescales – heard by humans.

In little remote scientific communities like the Australian Antarctic Division’s Casey Station, on the East Antarctic coast, a roar from the ice might briefly interrupt the labour or conversation of the scientists and tradesfolk who are resident there, working on some aspect of deciphering the climate story. For those lucky enough to be among them, to hear it, it sends a shiver of humility through your bones. You are, after all, at the mercy of this grumbling giant. The cryosphere speaks rarely but emphatically.

By definition, the cryosphere is that part of the planet which is covered in white – the ice sheets of the poles, the fields of pack ice, the glaciers, the frozen lakes and snowfields. Scientists will also tell you that it is the most confounding player in the climate puzzle.

Glaciologists and climate modellers are in a race to penetrate the secrets of the dazzling ice, to anticipate what warming will do to the hidden dynamics of the great ice sheets of the Arctic and the Antarctic. The largest unknown in the myriad projections of sea-level rise over the next century is the potential for rapid collapse of ice sheets.

In East Antarctica over the past three summers, a team of Australian, American, British and French glaciologists have flown thousands of kilometres surveying the continent aboard an aircraft fitted with specialist radar instruments capable of seeing deep inside and beneath the ancient ice. They are trying to map the shape and contours of the underlying bedrock. This information is critical to figuring out how warming will impact on the speed and flow of glaciers.

It is one narrative amongst dozens of similar stories of field science, chapters in the great, imperative news issue of our era. This is a story which would seem to have all the ingredients of an electrifying piece of journalism – adventure, adrenaline, adversity, great pictures, and the stakes could not be higher.

Antarctica and Greenland hold enough ice to raise global sea levels by some 70 metres, and the deep time geological record tells us that collapses of the ice sheets in history – in response to natural climatic triggers like volcanic eruptions or shifts in the Earth’s orbit – have caused sea level shifts of up to 20 metres over periods as brief as half a century. How they might respond to the trigger of human-induced greenhouse warming will now determine high tide on every coast of every nation.

The information collected from the ICECAP (Investigating the Cryospheric Evolution of the Central Antarctic Plate) survey flights is one piece of the puzzle. It will then be considered alongside the reams of analysis of the latest satellite data. All this is crunched through the merciless process of peer review before finding its way into publication in a scientific journal, after which it is exposed to broader debate and interrogation.

In the journal pages research teams state their arguments and expose their methodology in the amphitheatre of the scientific literature, the archive of 350 years of investigative endeavour, and wait to see what happens next. Time and the next study might validate them; it might over-rule them. This is not the ping-pong of obscure matters, it is the most important conversation on the planet. And yet much of it is invisible.

If you rely on traditional mass media for your news – the morning paper, the evening news, the midday headlines – you will likely have little sense of the dimensions of the cryosphere story or any of the other critical narratives within the climate science discussion, like the vanishing of biodiversity, or the change in the chemistry of the oceans known as “the other CO2 problem”, ocean acidification. (If you are motivated and invested enough to use the internet and new media to follow the science you have the opportunity to be better informed, although human inclination will likely sequester you in the tent which supports your beliefs.)

A headline here or there might suddenly emerge, inspired by some new piece of research. It might catch your eye by declaring something alarming. But read on, and will likely be answered within 500 words of newsprint, or a 30-second broadcast grab, by a contrary voice attached to vague but reassuringly scientific credentials insinuating that it’s really nothing to worry about.

At every level, as in so many areas of evolving climate science, shifts in the ice mass balance, in the speed of the flow of glaciers, represent a deeply complex story. It is a live, dynamic frontier of scientific argument. It is steeped in caveats and questions, every statement accompanied by carefully calculated equations of probability and possibility.

There is little scope for such equivocation within the news agenda; little room to accommodate all those baffling qualifiers within the shrinking editorial space of newspapers particularly. Editors, and readers, insist on certainty, on brevity. They are also inclined to controversy, confrontation, provocation and entertainment. Science which does not meet these criteria, for all its rigour and merit, misses out.

Add to this the wild, unscientific prevailing winds which determine the news agenda of any particular day. Whether a big science story makes the cut or not might be determined by the outcome of a particularly exciting football match, the whims and inclinations of gatekeeper duty editors; on who died that day, who got married, who was in court and on what charges.

An important scientific discovery may be obscured because it emerges on a day when other events dominate the headlines. A less significant piece of work will make the front page because it lands on a slow news day, because it supports broader political agendas, or simply because it is assessed as having more value because it swims against the prevailing tide of grim news and might make us all feel a little safer.

The late Professor Stephen Schneider – a leading American climatologist and veteran scientific street-fighter – called these paradigms “mediarology”. The science of journalism, he and his peers lamented, tends to create strange distortions in climate science, with orthodox research losing much in translation.

Scientists, he argued, are not like opponents in a court room or a parliament – they don’t assemble to vigorously fight two polar opposite ends of an argument. When questioned, they will more likely seek to canvass “a spectrum of potential outcomes, which are often accompanied by a history of scientific assessment of the relative credibility of each possibility”. Try selling that to an editor, in 500 words or less.

Journalists are reared in a culture which instructs them to get “both sides” of a story – a fine model where two sides of equal weight and gravitas are pitched at one another. But the task becomes a formidable juggling act where an issue is multi-faceted or heavily skewed. For instance, where 97 out of 100 scientists hold one position, and three say something else – proportions which reflect the positions of active, publishing climate scientists on the question of human-induced warming – is a 50-50 balance of views fair play, or is it a distortion?

Schneider argued journalists needed to replace knee-jerk models of balance with a more accurate, fairer doctrine of perspective, one which communicated not only the range of opinion, but the relative credibility of each opinion within the scientific community.

Journalists, scientists and the public are in a period of transition, one where the implications for our lifestyles and our economy means we need – as a matter of urgency – to learn to reflect on how we communicate and hear one another. One where we need to apply more sophisticated tests of rigour to the information which is brought to us. One where we all learn to speak and understand the language of science – of credibility and caveats, the plus and minus of uncertainty and probability.

In going into the field to join scientists and research the stories within my book, Feeling The Heat, my objective was to try to contribute to shifting the conversation on climate to a new paradigm. I set out to employ long-form narrative journalism to take people inside the scientific story, to feel the conditions and meet the people at the front line, to have them explain their processes, their theories, their insights, even their fears. I wanted to populate the climate narrative with real humans, as it is the most deeply challenging of human stories.

The climate discussion – in parliaments, in policy, in pubs, schools, shops, street corners and in the Twitterverse – has barely begun. It will be a deeply wearisome, exhausting, exasperating conversation if it remains mired in tired, contrived news structures; round and round we will go, condemned to the eternal groundhog day argument – “is it real?”.

It is cold comfort to reflect that if the cryosphere indeed has something powerfully contradictory to say, ultimately it will make itself heard.

To celebrate the recent launch of Jo Chandler’s book Feeling the Heat and to promote discussion about climate change issues, The Age will hosted a forum at Media House, Melbourne last week to discuss the reporting of climate change. The speakers are Professor David Karoly of Melbourne University, Professor Will Steffen of the Climate Commission and Jo Chandler. It will be moderated by Age environment reporter Adam Morton

Source: www.theage.com.au