Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Will Take The Stage At Disrupt SF

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo wears many hats. Not only is he helping lead Twitter into its possible future as a public company, Costolo is a master at improv from his days as a professional comedian, and is a serial entrepreneurs who has sold companies to Google (Feedburner) and others. Which is why we are thrilled to announce that Costolo will join us for a discussion at Disrupt SF. As Twitter heads down a path towards an eventual IPO, Costolo has been steering the company towards profitability via new ad products, with Twitter potentially hitting $1 billion in ad revenue in the coming year. Beyond supercharging the financials, Costolo has a unique approach to managing his fleet of over one thousand employees, and creating a distinct culture at a company that has been growing by leaps and bounds. We’re excited to have Costolo take the stage along with other notable CEOs like Marc Benioff, Marissa Mayer, and Jeff Weiner. Much has changed for both Costolo and Twitter since hespoke at TC50 in 2009. Disrupt SF takes over The San Francisco Design Concourse from September 7 to 11. Tickets are currently on sale here. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, opportunities can be found here. Dick Costolo Twitter, CEO Since October 2010, Dick has been the Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, where he is responsible for the growth and management of the overall business. Previously, as Twitter?s Chief Operating Officer, he oversaw monetization and day to day operations. Before joining Twitter, Dick was co-founder and CEO of FeedBurner, a digital content syndication platform that was acquired by Google in 2007. While at Google, Dick was Group Product Manager on the Ads team responsible for social media ads. Previously, Dick lived and worked in Chicago, where he founded and ran two digital media companies: SpyOnIt, a web page monitoring service, and Burning Door Networked Media, a web design and development consulting company. Dick was also an improv performer with the acclaimed Annoyance Theater. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Computer Science. He is @dickc on Twitter. [image Scott Beale / Laughing Squid]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/CS9EsFoTme0/

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Drama On ?Couple?s Therapy? As Flavor Flav?s Fiance Liz Is Pregnant & Ill

Drama On “Couple’s Therapy” As Flavor Flav’s Fiance Liz Is Pregnant & Ill

“Couple’s Therapy” had some crazier than normal stuff going on when Flavor Flav’s fiance Elizabeth “Liz” Trujillo discovered she was pregnant and broke down in tears. Liz was acting oddly and locked herself in the bedroom after 911 was called and EMT’s arrived on the scene. Did Liz overdose on pills? Liz was feeling overwhelmed ...

Drama On “Couple’s Therapy” As Flavor Flav’s Fiance Liz Is Pregnant & Ill Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/07/drama-on-couples-therapy-as-flavor-flavs-fiance-liz-is-pregnant-ill/

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OLPC?s New $150 Android Tablet is On Sale at Walmart

97% A Hijacking

All Critics (72) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (70) | Rotten (2)

Gripping and tightly focused.

Lindholm rations the meat and potatoes of plot to keep us captive at the bargaining table. It's a sadistic ploy that produces a real payoff.

A Hijacking is one of those perfect films that crop up every few years to prove that with true artistry, even the most exhausted genre can yield something new, rich, and strange.

Lindholm justifies his confidence in a visual approach that's refreshingly realistic.

To refuse to call A Hijacking a thriller is not to say it isn't thrilling, in a dryly cerebral way.

It's the second feature from the young writer-director Tobias Lindholm, and it showcases his gift for tightly focused stories told without an ounce of fat.

A Hijacking is more about one incident than about how it relates universally, but in thoughtfully exploring the specifics and emotions of that incident, Lindholm is able to show how modern life sometimes seems devoid of any accord.

A lean, stressful nail-biter, smart, well-written, nicely shot and wonderfully performed.

[Omar and Mikkel are] like Marcus and McTeague in Frank Norris's 1899 novel, handcuffed to each other in a struggle that could well end in mutually assured destruction.

Tobias Lindholm's slow-burning thriller makes a bid for verisimilitude that extends well beyond the use of natural light and handheld cameras.

Though the acting in "A Hijacking" is superb, the film is strictly a "follow-the-dots" offering. This is not entertainment. It is another overwhelmingly depressing foray into corporate greed.

"A Hijacking", if eligible, is an early contender for Best Foreign film at the 2014 Academy Awards.

It's an effective piece of work that will leave you longing for a shower, a nap, and a warm meal.

It's a radical departure from any thriller in stateside theaters.

A nail-biter of the highest order, A Hijacking is astonishingly emotional, gritty, and terrifying -- a genuine directorial achievement that should not be missed.

When the gut-wrenching conclusion of A Hijacking comes in the form of a single, random act, it's only then you realize how far you've been pulled into its emotional core.

A Hijacking delivers all the thrills the title suggests, but in none of the places you'd expect them.

The danger never reaches the level of chaos, but the subtext and metaphor in the slow-moving humanistic commentary on the motivations and byproducts of capitalism make for an intriguing film.

A smart movie derived out of the small moments that collectively comprise the hostage experience, rather than grandiose gestures.

Lindholm's you-are-there docudrama works as a tense thriller, but themes of negotiation and the ability to empathize provide a rich subtext.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_hijacking/

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WTS: Animal Crossing New Leaf 3DS

Today, 08:52 AM ? #1

Master Member

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Join Date: Jul 2006

Posts: 3,518

WTS: Animal Crossing New Leaf 3DS

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Going for only $35. Dealing place can be discussed.

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Australia's carbon tax ? an expensive sop to the Greens? | Watts Up ...

Guest essay by Phillip Hutchings

The main political news down-under this weekend is that Australia?s flawed Carbon Tax is going to morph into an emissions trading scheme in 2014, one year ahead of schedule. That?s not surprising, as data is emerging from the one year old Carbon Tax scheme which makes it look more and more like a complex fa?ade.

?We put a price on carbon? ? the boast from Australia?s Gillard Labor Government ever since 2011. It was a promise to the small Green party with whom Labor formed a minority Government.

Yeah, sure ? but how could that be done without destroying Australia?s open economy in the absence of similar action from our trading partners? This was the puzzle facing me as I set to picking apart Australia?s Carbon Tax. It?s been in operation for its first 12 months and we are starting to see the first hard data published.

Yes, the data comes with obfuscation, so I had to dig deep. And what I found poses some intriguing questions.

The reality around Australia?s Carbon Tax seems, well, to be quite different to what the Government had promoted. On the evidence to date, it is narrow in its scope and soft in its application. In other words, it let the Government have its cake and eat it ? promoting the slogan of ?a price on carbon? while avoiding any need for hard and expensive action.

Take for example, the Government?s claims back in April 2012 about those ?500 biggest polluters? who would pay? Well, last month, that had shrunk to ?around 370? companies. And yes, the names of approximately 370 companies were listed in a database of liable companies last month. But when you merge all the related companies in that list, the group comes down to only 185 discrete affected companies who have actually paid some carbon tax.

Moreover, many of the industrial companies on the list have been handed free Carbon Units under the so-called ?Jobs and Competitiveness Program?. And thanks to those free units, it looks like industrial companies overall will pay negligible Carbon Tax.

Today, we?ll look at these non-electricity sectors, responsible in total for about two-third of Australia?s greenhouse gas emissions.

What we will learn is that these sources are either ignored altogether, or taxed so lightly that the financial imperative to make any change is pretty marginal. It?s no wonder more companies weren?t squealing about the impact of the Carbon Tax.

We?ll see that one of our biggest cement companies talks about moving production offshore to mitigate its Carbon Tax cost ? surely a rational response, but bad for Australia and hardly likely to reduce global emissions.

And that our biggest steelmaker is so well cosseted by ?industry assistance programs? that it expects no liability from the Carbon Tax.

Yes, emissions have fallen from the electricity sector, but the evidence suggests that was due to factors other than the Carbon Tax.

So what we have is a complex system imposing a large administrative burden for no real change in industrial behaviour.

Then, in the next paper in this series, we?ll have a look at why virtually all of the Australia?s Carbon Tax is being paid for by just fifteen of our large electricity generating companies.

And in doing so, set the scene for a more fundamental look at why this policy is more spin than substance.

The Carbon Tax only affects the electricity generators and around 160 other companies

The ostensible aim of Australia?s Carbon Tax was to encourage companies to reduce CO₂ emissions. And the real aim? ? prove a sop to the handful of Green members of Parliament who rely on the global warming theorists for votes.

We know the amount of greenhouse gases which Australia produces each year, and where it comes from. It is approximately 550 Mt/yr of CO₂ equivalent. We know that because we have a small army of bureaucrats publishing our Greenhouse Accounts each quarter.

So, how did the Government go about framing a tax which would be politically acceptable?

Well, let?s have a look at one extreme ? if Government really wanted to attack CO₂ across the entire country, it would set up a Carbon Tax was all embracing. So if it covered every single tonne of greenhouse gas, it would raise $12.7 billion annually (550 Mt x $23/t). Simple, right?

Except our Government knew that would not fly politically ? it would be administratively too difficult and alienate the voters with its wide reach. So, the Government decided to make three critical exemptions.

Firstly, it decided that road transport and agriculture will not covered by the carbon tax. Politically, that made sense. After all, the car owners and farmers are vocal voters.

It?s pretty easy to see the effect that these first two exemptions had. The table below shows the sources of our greenhouse gas emissions

?
Australia?s Greenhouse Gas Emissions	Mt CO2-e in the year to Dec 2012
Sectors covered by the Carbon Tax	?	Sub-total
Electricity generation	191	191
?	?	?
Non-Electricity Industrial Sectors	?	?
Stationary energy	94	?
Fugitive emissions	42	?
Industrial processes	32	?
Waste	13	181
?	?	?
Sectors excluded from the carbon tax	?	?
Transport	92	?
Agriculture	88	180
?	?	?
Total	?	552
Source: December 2012 issue of Australian National Greenhouse Accounts

Those political exemptions meant that the addressable market for Australia?s Carbon Tax had shrunk by one third to only 370 Mt/yr of CO₂.

And, then anxious that the Carbon Tax would only capture the ?big polluters?, the Government said the Carbon Tax would only apply to larger facilities ? those with more than 25,000 t/yr of CO₂ emissions.

Now the effect of that one is a bit harder to figure out. But intuitively, it?s not hard to see that Australian industry comprises a small number of large industrial companies, and lots of small ones. Politically, that one is no-brainer. I mean, why upset every hospital or food processing factory that uses natural gas, but emits a relatively small amount of carbon dioxide?

Now fortunately for us, the bigger companies that do get caught in the Carbon Tax net are easily identifiable. You see, the Government has set up a Clean Energy Regulator to ride herd on the Carbon Tax. And each year, that body has to publish the so-called Liable Entities Public Information Database (LEPID)[i] ? the list of companies which emit enough CO₂ to have to pay the Carbon Tax.

And joy of joy, this was published only two weeks ago in a lovely Excel spreadsheet. A little bit of analysis on this data is revealing. Once you identify all the related companies (for example, there are 13 AGL and seven Origin Energy subsidiary companies on the list), you can work out that there are only about 185 discrete companies in all of Australia that so far have paid any Carbon Tax.

There are 25 discrete electricity generators included in the LEPID list. Approximately fifteen of those are large electricity generators ? a who?s-who of the electricity supply industry. There is another ten or so smaller generators as well, but their contribution is relatively low. In my assessment, it is these fifteen big players who are actually paying the vast bulk of the Carbon Tax.

Let?s leave the electricity generation sector alone for a bit. There?s plenty of interesting issues there to uncover, but that is for another day.

That leaves just approximately 160 other industrial companies. These are the ones who have an individual facility with more than 25,000 t/yr of CO₂, and who are not in the electricity generation, transport or agriculture sector.

Now ? remember what our Government said in 2012?

?Around 500 of the biggest polluters in Australia will pay for the pollution they emit, under a carbon pricing mechanism? Source: ?An overview of the Clean Energy Legislative Package?, April 2012

Well, it isn?t the 500 biggest polluters ? it is just around the electricity generators and 160 other companies.

But how much financial incentive does the Carbon Tax provide?

Good question ? and what is even more interesting is that this LEPID database shows the number of Carbon Units each company has had to pay in 2012-13. Each Carbon Unit represents 1 tonne of CO₂ emissions and cost $23 in the 2012-13 year.

And here is where it gets intriguing?.

Now, a company only has to pay 75% of its Carbon Tax obligation before the end of the financial year. The remaining 25% has to be paid by February of the following year.

Let?s look at the 160 companies in the non-electricity industrial sectors ? these are larger industrial companies in activities such as steel, cement, newsprint and alumina.

Our national Greenhouse Gas Accounts show that this sector in total emits 181 Mt of CO₂ per year. But the Carbon Tax doesn?t apply to smaller facilities under 25,000 t CO₂ per year. We don?t have enough data to work out how much the 181 Mt/yr emissions would shrink by excluding the smaller facilities.

But looking at the LEPID database, we can see that this group of industrial companies lodged 77 million Carbon Units in June 2013 for their 75% down payment. So their total obligation would be 103 million Carbon Units for the 2012-13 year. 103 compared with 181 ? that is 57% and perhaps a reasonable reconciliation when smaller facilities are excluded.

That and the numbers below are my interpretation of the LEPID information, and I?m very happy to be corrected if my reading is wrong.

That tax would cost $2.4 billion per year and rising, a powerful incentive for these companies to reduce emissions, you?d think.

$2.4 billion/year free Carbon Units to Australian non-electricity companies

But?? hang on, there?s a rub.

You see, the Government knew that a real $23/t Carbon Tax would destroy the competitiveness of our industries. So it is running the so-called ?Industry Assistance? programs. These have the effect of significantly reducing the financial incentives to reduce emissions.

The ?Jobs and Competitiveness Program? is targeted at the non-electricity sector. This is meant for the ?emissions-intensive trade-exposed? activities ? that is, companies who emit a lot of CO₂ and are exposed to imports or who trade internationally. There?s a list of 48 trade-exposed activities. It includes business such as steel making, alumina refining, cement making and so on.

And depending on whether you are ?highly? or ?moderately? emissions intensive, you get 94.5% or 66% of ?average industry carbon costs? supplied as free units. In other words, you pay only 5.5% or 34% of the face value of the $23/t Carbon Tax. The recipients of the free units are public too[ii].

Well-known companies which received significant allocations of free units include Rio Tinto (aluminium), BlueScope (steel), Woodside (LNG), Caltex (petrol refining), BHP (nickel, copper and alumina).

A good example would be Adelaide Brighton, the second largest cement supplier in Australia. Making cement is significant producer of carbon dioxide. This occurs when the limestone raw material is heated to produce lime, liberating carbon dioxide. Adelaide Brighton lodged 2.1 million Carbon Units last month, indicating an annual obligation of 2.7 million units. But it has been awarded 2.2 million free Carbon Units under the ?Jobs and Competitiveness Program?. That would suggest it has to buy 0.5 million Carbon Units at a cost of $12 million before tax.

Adelaide Brighton has said that its Carbon Tax mitigation program includes additional imports and reducing reliance on domestic manufacture. A surely logical response, but how does that reduce global emissions?

Overall in 2012-13 under the ?Jobs and Competitiveness Program?, there were 104 million free Carbon Units issued to 123 applicants in the non-electricity sector. That is just almost $2.4 billion worth!

And let?s just look at that ? remember our list of 160 non-electricity generating companies who had to lodge Carbon Units from above? Well, they had a total obligation of 103 million carbon units ? and they are getting slightly more than that (104 million) for free!

So those 160-odd companies appear to face a collective Carbon Tax bill of zero. Yes, no doubt some individual companies face a carbon cost, but overall, the cost seems to be neutered by the Government programs.

Our largest steelmaker does not expect a net cost from the Carbon Tax

Under the Clean Energy Future package, there are several other programs to soften the Carbon Tax. A good example is the Steel Transformation Plan package.

It is a $300 million package for our two steelmakers. Already payments of $164 million have been made, $100 M to BlueScope and $64 M to OneSteel.

Now, what actually is the Carbon Tax obligation of these two companies? The LEPID database indicated a 2102-13 liability for BlueScope of 6.3 million Carbon Units. Yet, it has been granted 7.5 million free Carbon Units for 2012-13 under the ?Jobs and Competitiveness Program?. If the LEPID information is correct, BlueScope is in front by 1.2 million units!

Similarly, OneSteel appears to have been awarded 2.9 million free units against an apparent obligation of 2.5 million units.

On the face of it, the ?Jobs and Competitiveness Program? together with the cash grants under the Steel Transformation Plan seems to providing a windfall gain for our two steelmakers.

What are the companies themselves saying about the Carbon Tax? Well, you have to sift through BlueScope and OneSteel?s financial reporting fairly carefully to find any mention of either the Carbon Tax or the Steel Transformation Plan.

BlueScope at least said this in February 2013 ?When funds from the Steel Transformation Plan are taken into account, the Company does not expect to face a net carbon liability over the period?.

What? ? Why have the Carbon Tax regime if there is no financial incentive?

Now, don?t get me wrong. The global steel industry is having a very tough time, too much capacity and soft prices. Our steelmakers operate against global competition, and the last thing they need is an impost (carbon tax or any other) which competitors do not bear.

Yes, the airlines get caught up, but not with a Carbon Tax

Our airlines, when they operate domestically, do not pay a Carbon Tax on emissions ? no, it is a much blunter instrument. That is just another 6 cents per litre in excise duty added to aviation fuel. To put that into context, the extra excise has added less than 1% to Qantas? costs. And Qantas has added a surcharge to ticket prices to recover it.

Yes, Qantas and Virgin are progressively upgrading their fleets with more modern aircraft that are more fuel efficient ? like every other airline. The real question is whether the extra cost of domestic fuel is a factor in that decision making.

In reality, is this just an expensive political stunt?

So, if my interpretation of the LEPID data along with the free Carbon Units information is correct, it?s hard to see many non-electricity industrial sectors that actually have any financial incentive to change under the Carbon Tax.

Moreover, this weekend?s news tells us that from 2014, the pricing of Carbon Units is set to fall substantially. That is when the scheme will probably transition to ?flexible pricing? and effectively become an Emissions Trading Scheme. Australian firms will be able to use European allowances for some of their obligation. European Union Emissions Trading permits are now trading at EUR 4.30 per tonne, or approximately $6 per tonne.

So companies within Australia?s Carbon Tax net face $23/t-plus prices for only one year and then a significant reduction.

Added to that, we have a Coalition political opposition which has consistently pledged to scrap the carbon tax if elected.

Faced with that outlook, there is far from an adequate incentive to make the long term commitment in the necessary equipment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at an industrial factory or plant in Australia.

In other words, we have the worst of all worlds ? a complex and ineffective policy imposed by a minority political party.

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[i] http://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/Carbon-Pricing-Mechanism/Liable-Entities-Public-Information-Database/Pages/default.aspx

[ii] http://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/Carbon-Pricing-Mechanism/Industry-Assistance/jobs-and-competitiveness-program/free-carbon-units/Pages/default.aspx

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Source: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/14/australias-carbon-tax-an-expensive-sop-to-the-greens/

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US Negotiates Expanded Military Role in Philippines

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Source: http://www.myantiwar.org/view/259337.html

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Islamist protests in Cairo grow, U.S. seeks Mursi release

By Maggie Fick and Tom Finn

CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamist supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Mursi protested in Cairo on Friday after a week of violence in a bitterly divided nation, and the United States called for the first time for the deposed leader to be freed.

Nine days after the army toppled Egypt's first elected leader following a wave of demonstrations against him, Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood is trying to mobilize popular support for his reinstatement, which for now looks like a lost cause.

Officials say Mursi is still being held at the Republican Guard compound in Cairo, where troops killed 53 Islamist protesters on Monday in violence that intensified anger his allies already felt at the military's decision to oust him.

Four members of the security forces were also killed in that confrontation, which the military blames on "terrorists". Mursi's supporters call it a massacre and say those who died were praying peacefully when troops opened fire.

Asked whether Washington agreed with the German Foreign Ministry's call for Mursi to be released, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: "We do agree."

She declined to say if the United States had officially conveyed its wish to Egyptian officials and the military.

At a Cairo mosque where Mursi supporters have held a vigil for more than two weeks, crowds swelled as people were bussed in from the provinces, where the Brotherhood has strongholds.

"We're here and we're not leaving," said Amer Ali, who drove the five-hour journey from the Nile city of Assiut with his wife and two young children to join tens of thousands of protesters.

"We came with our kids to support legitimacy, democracy, and our civilian president, the first freely elected president in the Arab world."

Some 2,000 people had gathered close to Cairo University on the weekly Muslim day of prayer, in the holy month of Ramadan.

The youth-led Tamarud group, which brought millions to the streets to demand Mursi resign, called for a Ramadan celebration in Tahrir Square, the cradle of the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Only a few thousand came.

Tensions in Egypt could ease if the biggest Islamist protests since the clash on Monday pass off peacefully.

SHOCK AND ANGER

Many of Egypt's 84 million people have been shocked by the shootings, graphic images of which have appeared on state and private news channels and social media. The incident occurred just three days after 35 people were killed in clashes between pro- and anti-Mursi demonstrators across the country.

The Brotherhood contends it is the victim of a military crackdown, evoking memories of its suppression under Mubarak.

But many of its opponents blame Islamists for the violence, and some have little sympathy for the demonstrators who died, underlining how deep the fissures in Egyptian society are.

Islam Ibrahim, a Brotherhood member, was shot in the knee in Monday's violence, and still does not know if his brother Nasim, a soldier in the Republican Guard, was among those firing.

"I don't like to think about it. If he was (there), I know he wouldn't fire on unarmed demonstrators," he said.

The unrest has raised fear over security in the lawless Sinai peninsula bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

Militant groups in North Sinai have promised more attacks and urged Islamists to take up arms, while the army has vowed to step up operations in the region, which is near the Suez Canal, the busy waterway linking Asia and Europe.

An Egyptian military helicopter briefly crossed into Israeli-controlled airspace over the Gaza Strip, in a possible sign of increased security jitters.

Security sources in Egypt and Israel both described the flyover as a navigational error, but it came shortly after militants killed an Egyptian policeman and wounded a second in an attack on a checkpoint in Sinai across the border from Gaza.

Egyptian military helicopters were also seen dropping flyers on a pro-Mursi rally in the town of Al Arish around 50 km (30 miles) from Israel's border, urging them to denounce violence.

VIGIL ENTERS THIRD WEEK

Outside the Rabaa Adawiya mosque in northeastern Cairo, tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters prayed and listened to speeches. Some of them have camped out in searing heat, fasting in the daytime since Ramadan began on Wednesday.

In a wooden shack erected on a side street and emblazoned with portraits of Mursi, men prepared vats of rice and lamb. Others put the food in plastic bags to distribute after sundown, when Muslims break their fast.

People squirted water from bottles to cool each other down. Others rested in the shade, dozing or reading the Koran.

The vigil began on June 28, as plans for the June 30 protests that drew millions of anti-government demonstrators to the streets gathered pace.

Since then, the camp has become the de facto base of the Brotherhood, whose leaders live under the threat of detention after prosecutors ordered their arrests earlier in the week.

Judicial sources say Mursi is likely to be charged, possibly for corruption or links to violence. Prosecutors are also looking again at an old case from 2011 when Mursi and other Brotherhood leaders escaped from prison after being detained during anti-Mubarak protests.

His son Osama told CNN that he was proud of Mursi.

"We back any decision you take. Even if you decided to leave the office. Your family, we are all proud of you, God bless you," he said in English.

The detentions and threats of arrest have drawn concern from the United States, which has walked a semantic tightrope to avoid calling Mursi's ousting a military coup.

U.S. law bars aid to countries where a democratic government is removed in a coup. Washington, which gives Egypt's military $1.3 billion in aid each year, has said it is too early to say whether Mursi's removal by the army meets that description.

The army has said it was enforcing the nation's will - meaning the huge crowds of people fed up with economic stagnation and suspicious of a Brotherhood power grab who took to the streets to demand Mursi's departure.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER NAMED

Crucial to longer-term stability will be holding parliamentary and presidential elections, which the transitional authorities are hoping to achieve in a matter of months.

Adli Mansour, the interim president named by the general who removed Mursi, has announced a temporary constitution, plans to amend it to satisfy parties' demands and a faster-than-expected schedule for parliamentary elections in about six months.

He has named liberal economist Hazem el-Beblawi as interim prime minister, and Beblawi said he had named center-left lawyer Ziad Bahaa el-Din as his deputy. Beblawi also said he expected to swear in a cabinet next week.

Negotiations are difficult, with the authorities trying to attract support from groups that range from secularists to ultra-orthodox Muslims, nearly all of whom expressed deep dissatisfaction with elements of the interim constitution.

Rich Gulf states have thrown Egypt a $12 billion lifeline in financial aid, which should help it stave off economic collapse.

More than two years of turmoil have scared away tourists and investors, shriveled hard currency reserves and threatened Cairo's ability to import food and fuel.

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning, Mike Collett-White, Peter Graff, Ali Saed, Seham el-Oraby and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-braces-more-protests-prays-calm-001543810.html

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Dock union leaders mobilise forces in key disputes

ITF translations available: Deutsch, Espa?ol, Fran?ais, Svenska

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Dock union leaders mobilise forces in key disputes

12 July 2013

Building the power of port unions across the board, campaigning globally and fighting back against union busting tactics. Those were the key commitments from delegates at the ITF dockers? section conference in Chicago, USA, this week.

A number of key disputes were highlighted by the group, which included dockers? union representatives from across the world.
One of the most prominent concerns global network terminal operator (GNT) DP World, over its reluctance to negotiate on trade union rights in London Gateway terminal, UK, and ongoing negotiations in the Port of Brisbane, Australia. Delegates resolved to organise a campaign to highlight the issue. Get more information here.
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In addition to the resolution passed on DP World, there were also emergency motions regarding support for port workers in Israel where the government has announced the establishment of two new ports, and for workers at the Port of Newcastle, Australia where the employer is attempting to weaken workers? rights through alterations to their working agreements.
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There were further calls for international solidarity over: the grain dispute on the West Coast of America, which has seen hundreds of members from ITF-affiliated union the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) locked out long term at the Ports of Vancouver and Portland; the ongoing dispute on contracting out and union busting at the Port of Auckland, New Zealand; the moves towards liberalisation of port work by the European Union; and the general rise of automation and promotion of precarious work by employers.
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In addition, support was pledged to Moroccan trade unionist Said Elhairech, who was imprisoned for charges relating to trade union activities last year. He was freed following a high profile ITF campaign and there is now a drive to get the only charge remaining against him, which regards freedom of association, dropped. Get more on the campaign here.
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Addressing delegates, ITF president Paddy Crumlin said: ?Some of the action we commit to in this room will determine labour standards including through union recognition and legitimate bargaining rights. World trade is growing exponentially and if it is to continue to do so functionally, international dockworker labour rights and decent standards need to be respected and not undermined.?
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A new HIV/AIDS resource pack was also launched during the conference aimed at helping port unions to raise awareness, tackle stigma and promote education around HIV/AIDS. View the resource pack here.

Back to current news online stories

Source: http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/9273?frmSessionLanguage=ENG

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Detroit got it right with Matthew Stafford (National Football Post)

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50-year-old assumptions about strength muscled aside

Public release date: 11-Jul-2013
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Contact: Tona Kunz
tkunz@anl.gov
630-252-5560
DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

Disease treatment could benefit from muscle mechanics discovery

LEMONT, Ill. Doctors have a new way of thinking about how to treat heart and skeletal muscle diseases. Body builders have a new way of thinking about how they maximize their power. Both owe their new insight to high-energy X-rays, a moth and cloud computing.

The understanding of how muscles get their power has been greatly expanded with new results published online July 10 in the Royal Society journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The Royal Society is the U.K.'s national academy of sciences.

The basics of how a muscle generates power remain the same: Filaments of myosin tugging on filaments of actin shorten, or contract, the muscle but the power doesn't just come from what's happening straight up and down the length of the muscle, as has been assumed for 50 years.

Instead, University of Washington-led research shows that as muscles bulge, the filaments are drawn apart from each other, the myosin tugs at sharper angles over greater distances, and it's that action that deserves credit for half the change in muscle force scientists have been measuring.

Researchers made this discovery when using computer modeling to test the geometry and physics of the 50-year-old understanding of how muscles work. The computer results of the force trends were validated through X-ray diffraction experiments on moth flight muscle, which is very similar to human cardiac muscle. The X-ray work was led by co-author Thomas Irving, an Illinois Institute of Technology professor and director of the Biophysics Collaborative Access Team (Bio-CAT) beamline at the Advanced Photon Source, which is housed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.

A previous lack of readily available access to computational power and X-ray diffraction facilities are two reasons that this is the first time these findings have been documented, speculated lead-author C. David Williams, who earned his doctorate at the UW while conducting the research, and now is a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. Currently, X-ray lightsources have a waiting list of about three researchers for every one active experiment. The APS is undergoing an upgrade that will greatly increase access and research power and expedite data collection.

The new understanding of muscle dynamics derived from this study has implications for the research and use of all muscles, including organs.

"In the heart especially, because the muscle surrounds the chambers that fill with blood, being able to account for forces that are generated in several directions during muscle contraction allows for much more accurate and realistic study of how pressure is generated to eject blood from the heart," said co-author Michael Regnier, a UW bioengineering professor. "The radial and long axis forces that are generated may be differentially compromised in cardiac diseases and these new, detailed models allow this to be studied at a molecular level for the first time. They also take us to a new level in testing therapeutic treatments targeted to contractile proteins for both cardiac and skeletal muscle diseases. "

This study gives scientists and doctors a new basis for interpreting experiments and understanding the mechanisms that regulate muscle contraction. Researchers have known for sometime that the muscle filament lattice spacing changes over the length-tension curve, but its importance in generating the steep length dependence of force has not been previously demonstrated.

"The predominant thinking of the last 50 years is that 100 percent of the muscle force comes from changes as muscles shorten and myosin and actin filaments overlap. But when we isolated the effects of filament overlap we only got about half the change in force that physiologists know muscles are capable of producing," Williams said.

The rest of the force, he said, should be credited to the lattice work of filaments as it expands outward in bulging muscle whether in a body builder's buff biceps or the calves of a sinewy marathon runner.

"One of the major discoveries that David Williams brought to light is that force is generated in multiple directions, not just along the long axis of muscle as everyone thinks, but also in the radial direction," said Thomas Daniel, UW professor of biology and co-author on the paper.

"This aspect of muscle force generation has flown under the radar for decades and is now becoming a critical feature of our understanding of normal and pathological aspects of muscle," Daniel added.

Since the 1950s scientists have had a formula the so-called length-tension curve that accurately describes the force a muscle exerts at all points from fully outstretched, when every weight lifter knows there is little strength, to the middle points that display the greatest force, to the completely shortened muscle when, again, strength is minimized.

Williams developed computer models to consider the geometry and physics at work on the filaments at all those points.

"The ability to model in three dimensions and separate the effects of changes in lattice spacing from changes in muscle length wouldn't even have been possible without the advent of cloud computing in the last 10 years, because it takes ridiculous amounts of computational resources," Williams said.

###

The work was supported with funding by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation and with cloud computer access provided by an Amazon.com grant for research. Use of the APS X-ray facility is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory is one of five national synchrotron radiation light sources supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science to carry out applied and basic research to understand, predict, and ultimately control matter and energy at the electronic, atomic, and molecular levels, provide the foundations for new energy technologies, and support DOE missions in energy, environment, and national security. To learn more about the Office of Science X-ray user facilities, visit the Office of Science website.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

---

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 11-Jul-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Tona Kunz
tkunz@anl.gov
630-252-5560
DOE/Argonne National Laboratory

Disease treatment could benefit from muscle mechanics discovery

LEMONT, Ill. Doctors have a new way of thinking about how to treat heart and skeletal muscle diseases. Body builders have a new way of thinking about how they maximize their power. Both owe their new insight to high-energy X-rays, a moth and cloud computing.

The understanding of how muscles get their power has been greatly expanded with new results published online July 10 in the Royal Society journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The Royal Society is the U.K.'s national academy of sciences.

The basics of how a muscle generates power remain the same: Filaments of myosin tugging on filaments of actin shorten, or contract, the muscle but the power doesn't just come from what's happening straight up and down the length of the muscle, as has been assumed for 50 years.

Instead, University of Washington-led research shows that as muscles bulge, the filaments are drawn apart from each other, the myosin tugs at sharper angles over greater distances, and it's that action that deserves credit for half the change in muscle force scientists have been measuring.

Researchers made this discovery when using computer modeling to test the geometry and physics of the 50-year-old understanding of how muscles work. The computer results of the force trends were validated through X-ray diffraction experiments on moth flight muscle, which is very similar to human cardiac muscle. The X-ray work was led by co-author Thomas Irving, an Illinois Institute of Technology professor and director of the Biophysics Collaborative Access Team (Bio-CAT) beamline at the Advanced Photon Source, which is housed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.

A previous lack of readily available access to computational power and X-ray diffraction facilities are two reasons that this is the first time these findings have been documented, speculated lead-author C. David Williams, who earned his doctorate at the UW while conducting the research, and now is a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. Currently, X-ray lightsources have a waiting list of about three researchers for every one active experiment. The APS is undergoing an upgrade that will greatly increase access and research power and expedite data collection.

The new understanding of muscle dynamics derived from this study has implications for the research and use of all muscles, including organs.

"In the heart especially, because the muscle surrounds the chambers that fill with blood, being able to account for forces that are generated in several directions during muscle contraction allows for much more accurate and realistic study of how pressure is generated to eject blood from the heart," said co-author Michael Regnier, a UW bioengineering professor. "The radial and long axis forces that are generated may be differentially compromised in cardiac diseases and these new, detailed models allow this to be studied at a molecular level for the first time. They also take us to a new level in testing therapeutic treatments targeted to contractile proteins for both cardiac and skeletal muscle diseases. "

This study gives scientists and doctors a new basis for interpreting experiments and understanding the mechanisms that regulate muscle contraction. Researchers have known for sometime that the muscle filament lattice spacing changes over the length-tension curve, but its importance in generating the steep length dependence of force has not been previously demonstrated.

"The predominant thinking of the last 50 years is that 100 percent of the muscle force comes from changes as muscles shorten and myosin and actin filaments overlap. But when we isolated the effects of filament overlap we only got about half the change in force that physiologists know muscles are capable of producing," Williams said.

The rest of the force, he said, should be credited to the lattice work of filaments as it expands outward in bulging muscle whether in a body builder's buff biceps or the calves of a sinewy marathon runner.

"One of the major discoveries that David Williams brought to light is that force is generated in multiple directions, not just along the long axis of muscle as everyone thinks, but also in the radial direction," said Thomas Daniel, UW professor of biology and co-author on the paper.

"This aspect of muscle force generation has flown under the radar for decades and is now becoming a critical feature of our understanding of normal and pathological aspects of muscle," Daniel added.

Since the 1950s scientists have had a formula the so-called length-tension curve that accurately describes the force a muscle exerts at all points from fully outstretched, when every weight lifter knows there is little strength, to the middle points that display the greatest force, to the completely shortened muscle when, again, strength is minimized.

Williams developed computer models to consider the geometry and physics at work on the filaments at all those points.

"The ability to model in three dimensions and separate the effects of changes in lattice spacing from changes in muscle length wouldn't even have been possible without the advent of cloud computing in the last 10 years, because it takes ridiculous amounts of computational resources," Williams said.

###

The work was supported with funding by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation and with cloud computer access provided by an Amazon.com grant for research. Use of the APS X-ray facility is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory is one of five national synchrotron radiation light sources supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science to carry out applied and basic research to understand, predict, and ultimately control matter and energy at the electronic, atomic, and molecular levels, provide the foundations for new energy technologies, and support DOE missions in energy, environment, and national security. To learn more about the Office of Science X-ray user facilities, visit the Office of Science website.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/dnl-5aa071113.php

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US senator calls for military strikes on Syria

?

Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.)

A prominent U.S. senator has called on the administration of President Barack Obama to attack Syrian ?airfields, airplanes and massed artillery.?

The influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin (D-Mich.) who has returned from a fact-finding trip to the Middle East, also expressed support for arming the militant groups fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

?Increased military pressure on Assad is the only way to achieve a negotiated settlement in Syria, which in turn is needed to restore stability to a region that certainly doesn?t need any more instability,? Levin said Wednesday during a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Levin conceded that the U.S. public opposes an increased involvement in the Syrian conflict and that there is ?no consensus? on the issue on Capitol Hill.

Senator Levin and Senator Angus King (I-Maine) spent five days in Jordan and Turkey, talking to government officials as well as U.S. diplomatic and military personnel about the conflict in Syria.

The two senators also met with militant leaders including Salim Idriss, the leader of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), and visited refugee camps along the Syrian border.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, Levin and King said the U.S. and its allies should arm and train the militants and consider ?options for limited, targeted strikes at airplanes, helicopters, missiles, tanks and artillery.?

However they said they were not calling for American troops on the ground in Syria.

The senators noted that ?doing nothing may be the worst option of all,? potentially destabilizing U.S. allies in the region, including Turkey and Jordan, and threatening Israeli interests.

In a letter last month, Sen. Levin, Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey called on President Obama to take ?more decisive military actions? against Syria.

A recent opinion poll conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that the majority of Americans, 70 percent, are against U.S. involvement in Syria?s unrest.

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Saving One Species At The Expense Of Another

• Hide caption

  Antelopes stand at alert at the presence of a human visitor in the sparsely populated Centennial Valley of Montana.

  John W. Poole/NPR

• Hide caption

  A red-tailed hawk takes flight in the wilds of Montana.

  John W. Poole/NPR

• Hide caption

  Trumpeter swans cruise a lake in Centennial Valley. Swan populations recovered in the valley years ago after ecologists dammed streams to enlarge wetland habitat.

  John W. Poole/NPR

• Hide caption

  The valley contains the Centennial Sandhills Preserve, home to the sandhill crane.

  John W. Poole/NPR

• Hide caption

  The rare long-billed curlew thrives in the Centennial Valley.

  John W. Poole/NPR

• Hide caption

  A trap set by the Fish and Wildlife Service catches all fish that pass through this stream. Biologists return the Arctic grayling trout to the waterway, while the more numerous and nonnative cutthroat trout are killed for study and later donated to a local food bank.

  John W. Poole/NPR

• Hide caption

  The cutthroat trout gets its name from the bright red streak that slices across its chin.

  John W. Poole/NPR

• Hide caption

  Glacier lilies pepper the landscape of the valley in spring.

  John W. Poole/NPR

• Hide caption

  One of the few roads through the Centennial Valley passes through the sagebrush-covered dunes of the Centennial Sandhills Preserve.

  John W. Poole/NPR

To keep America's wilderness anything like it used to be when the country was truly wild takes the help of biologists. They have to balance the needs of wildlife with those of cattle-ranching and tourism, and even weigh the value of one species against another. Ultimately, they have to pick and choose who makes it onto the ark. And, as scientists in Montana's Centennial Valley have discovered, all that choosing can be tricky.

Take the case of the valley's trumpeter swans. These are the largest waterfowl in North America. They have a 7-foot wingspan. They're ivory-white, curvaceous, and elegant ? and 80 years ago they were almost extinct. Simply put, there were too many people using the same land the swans needed. And there were too many hunters.

The flock of trumpeters I found lounging on a lake in the Centennial Valley belongs to a small population that has struggled back from the brink. In the Centennial, biologists built ponds for the birds, and fed them ? and the swans' numbers recovered.

Unfortunately, what was good for the swans was not so good for the Arctic grayling trout, another rare species in the valley.

What happened was this: To make the swan-friendly valley even more so, the biologists created ponds by damming streams. When they did that, the grayling trout lost streambeds they'd been using for egg-laying and reproduction.

The lost streams were much like Red Rock Creek, a sparkling, braided rivulet that eventually becomes the Missouri River. "This is where the majority of the Arctic grayling in the Centennial Valley spawn," explains Nathan Korb, who has brought me through tall grass along a path to the stream's edge.

Korb is a compact, athletic guy with shoulder-length blond hair and a quick smile. He lives and works in the valley most of the year and works for The Nature Conservancy. Scientists, he acknowledges, sometimes make mistakes.

"They did everything that they knew was best for those birds," Korb says, "but now we have a much broader perspective, so we are thinking about all species. There are lots of examples where we try something that sounds like a good idea, [and it] turns out not to be that good of an idea. Then [we] remedy it and ? hopefully ? never try it again."

Now scientists here are trying to fix things for the grayling in Montana.

Korb takes me to a weir that straddles the narrow stream. It's a trap to catch trout, especially the cutthroat trout, an aggressive intruder. The cutthroat appears to be pushing the grayling out.

The weir is basically a pole-and-screen fence that straddles the stream so fish can't move upstream or downstream unless they go through the one opening, and get trapped. Then biologists collect them ? unless a bear gets there first.

The cutthroat isn't native here; the grayling is. The grayling is distinctive, with its large and colorful dorsal fin. While the cutthroat is widespread and aggressive, the rarer grayling is known as the "lady of the stream." In fact, this is the only population of the lake-dwelling Arctic grayling left in the Lower 48 states. The federal government may soon add the fish to its list of endangered species.

Conservationists inadvertently depleted Arctic grayling trout populations in Montana's Centennial Valley when they dammed streams there to save habitat for the trumpeter swan.

James M. McCann/Science Source

We drive up a muddy road to see the next step in the experiment to save the grayling, at the headquarters of the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

Refuge manager Bill West is gutting and cleaning a bucketload of cutthroat trout that have come from the stream trap. "I want to pass on definitively to the next manager whether the cutthroat are part of the problem or are just benign," he says.

Figuring that out isn't easy. When it comes to managing wildlife, each situation is unique: This fish in this valley in these waters is unlike any other. One way to understand the fish better is to open it up. U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Kyle Cutting spends hours doing exactly that. "Just make one slit in the belly," he demonstrates on a metal table pooled with blood and fish guts. "You hit the spine and break it through, and we just remove the insides."

Trapped cutthroat trout are gutted at the Fish and Wildlife field station in the Centennial Valley. Their stomach contents are studied to determine their diet and whether they are outcompeting the native Arctic grayling.

John W. Poole/NPR

Trapped cutthroat trout are gutted at the Fish and Wildlife field station in the Centennial Valley. Their stomach contents are studied to determine their diet and whether they are outcompeting the native Arctic grayling.

John W. Poole/NPR

Cutting is trying to find out what the cutthroats are eating. Is it the same stuff the grayling eat? Are they pushing the grayling out? For sure, the cutthroats live up to their name. "In the spring and late fall, their stomachs were just packed full, and oftentimes these cutthroat had fish hanging out of their gills on both sides ? you know, 7-inch-long fish."

The cutthroat trout the biologists kill for examination aren't wasted ? they end up in local food banks. And the information they provide will help the wildlife managers decide the best way to help the grayling without tipping the ecological balance against yet another native species.

Biologists in Montana's Centennial Valley acknowledge they are micromanaging, and that their best efforts derive from an imperfect science. If they forget that, for even a minute, they have the Trumpeter Swan Society to remind them. The society has already warned that the new focus on trout should not jeopardize the swan's tenuous comeback.

The society's Ruth Shea says the trumpeter population in the valley is not out of danger yet and shouldn't be neglected. "Centennial Valley is the single most important breeding area for these swans in the U.S.," she says. "It's huge." Wildlife managers will have to plan carefully to keep both swan and trout in the ark.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/07/11/200788221/saving-one-species-at-the-expense-of-another?ft=1&f=1007

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Assessing impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Public release date: 10-Jul-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Lauren Rugani
news@nas.edu
202-334-2138
National Academy of Sciences

WASHINGTON -- While numerous studies are under way to determine the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico, the extent and severity of these impacts and the value of the resulting losses cannot fully be measured without considering the goods and services provided by the Gulf, says a new report from the National Research Council. The congressionally mandated report offers an approach that could establish a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts and help inform options for restoration activities.

Currently, state and federal resource managers tasked with providing timely assessments of the damage use a process called the Natural Resources Damage Assessment, which is authorized under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and measures impacts in ecological terms such as the number of fish killed or acres of wetland destroyed. As a result, restoration activities usually focus on replacing individual resources. But the impacts of environmental damage extend beyond individual resources, the report says.

The people who live and work in the Gulf region depend on ecosystems for services such as food and fuel, flood and storm protection, and tourism and recreation. Damage to natural resources could impair these services, leading to social and economic impacts that may not be apparent from an assessment of environmental damage alone. In a 2011 interim report, the authoring committee introduced the concept of an ecosystem services approach to damage assessment, which requires an understanding of the environmental impacts from a disruption, the resulting decrease in goods and services, and the cost of those losses to individual communities and society at large.

In the final report, the committee illustrated how this approach might be applied to coastal wetlands, fisheries, marine mammals, and the deep sea -- each of which provide key ecosystem services in the Gulf -- and identified substantial differences among these case studies. For example, the amount and quality of available baseline data varies significantly among these ecosystem services. The case studies also demonstrate that some services are more easily monetized than others.

Coastal wetlands. Approximately 1,100 linear miles of coastal wetland were affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In areas where roots survived the impact, little to no long-term impairment is expected. However, where the oil destroyed vegetation and root systems, sediment erosion converted the marshland to open water. Since storm mitigation is directly related to the total area of wetlands, the change in area is the most practical measurement of change in ecosystem services. The service can be valued in monetary terms by estimating the cost of storm damage that would be incurred in the absence of the wetlands.

Fisheries. Fishery closures decreased commercial production by 20 percent, which created an immediate economic hardship for fishermen. The spill also triggered public concerns regarding the safety of Gulf seafood. Productivity of the fish populations could be impacted by the spill's toxic effects on reproduction and development, which may take years or decades to determine. Although certain fisheries may experience persistent impacts, others have already shown signs of recovery. The economic value of fisheries as an ecosystem service can be calculated using data on market prices, harvest yields, and production costs.

Marine mammals. Dolphins provide scientific, cultural, and recreational services in the Gulf of Mexico. Beginning before the oil spill in February 2010 through December 2012, 817 bottlenose dolphin deaths were documented, compared with about 100 per year between 2002 and 2009. Because some dead dolphins were likely not found and not reported, these figures underestimate actual mortality. However, uncertainty regarding the abundance of dolphins and the range of environmental stressors that affect them complicate the assessment of the true impact of the oil spill on their populations and the ecosystem services they provide.

Deep sea. The deep sea is the largest yet least well-understood region of the Gulf, making it difficult to assess the full impact of the oil spill on ecosystem services. Among the services derived from the deep sea are pollution attenuation by hydrocarbon-degrading microbes, and nutrient recycling, which supports much of the marine biodiversity at all depths in the Gulf of Mexico.

In addition, the committee evaluated a suite of technologies used in the spill response. Techniques applied offshore, including burning, skimming, and chemical dispersants, reduced the volume of oil by as much as 40 percent before it reached shore, while those applied near or onshore were comparatively less effective and more expensive. But the unprecedented scale at which these techniques were applied leaves the long-term impacts on ecosystem services to be determined, the report says.

Lack of data on the ecological conditions of the Gulf before the spill and an incomplete understanding of complex ecosystem interactions make establishing the full scope of damage difficult. Capturing the entire range of impacts will also require more data on human and economic factors, as well as the development of models that can describe the complex dynamics of ecosystem interactions and better inform decision makers. The report emphasizes that many services may have enormous value despite being difficult to measure, and that such services should be given adequate consideration in evaluating restoration options.

###

The study was sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, independent nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter granted to NAS in 1863. The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. For more information, visit http://national-academies.org. A committee roster follows.

Contacts:

Lauren Rugani, Media Relations Officer
Chelsea Dickson, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu
http://national-academies.org/newsroom
Twitter: @NAS_news and @NASciences
RSS feed: http://www.nationalacademies.org/rss/index.html
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalacademyofsciences/sets

Additional resources:

Full Report
Report in Brief

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Division on Earth and Life Studies
Ocean Studies Board

Committee on the Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Mississippi Canyon-252 Oil Spill on Ecosystem Services in the Gulf of Mexico

Larry A. Mayer (chair)
Professor and Director
Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping
University of New Hampshire
Durham

Michel C. Boufadel
Professor
College of Engineering, and
Director
Center for Natural Resources Development and Protection
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark

Jorge Brenner
Gulf of Mexico Project Director
The Nature Conservancy
Corpus Christi, Texas

Robert S. Carney
Professor
Department of Oceanography and Coastal Science
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge

Cortis K. Cooper
Chevron Fellow
Chevron Energy Technology Co.
San Ramon, Calif.

Jody W. Deming*
Professor of Biological Oceanography
University of Washington
Seattle

David J. Die
Associate Professor
Division of Marine Biology and Fisheries
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
University of Miami
Miami

Josh Eagle
Associate Professor of Law
School of Law
University of South Carolina
Columbia

Joseph R. Geraci
Research Professor
University of Maryland
Baltimore

Barbara A. Knuth
Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.

Kenneth Lee
Director, Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship
Australian Resources Research Centre
Kensington, Western Australia, and
Executive Director
Centre for Offshore Oil and Gas Environmental Research
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

James T. Morris
Professor of Biological and Marine Sciences
University of South Carolina
Columbia

Stephen Polasky*
Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics
Department of Applied Economics
University of Minnesota
St. Paul

Nancy N. Rabalais
Executive Director and Professor
Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium
Chauvin

Ralph G. Stahl Jr.
Principal Consultant
DuPont
Wilmington, Del.

David W. Yoskowitz
Professor
Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies
Texas A&M University
Corpus Christi

STAFF

Kim Waddell
Study Director

* Member, National Academy of Sciences

---

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 10-Jul-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Lauren Rugani
news@nas.edu
202-334-2138
National Academy of Sciences

WASHINGTON -- While numerous studies are under way to determine the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico, the extent and severity of these impacts and the value of the resulting losses cannot fully be measured without considering the goods and services provided by the Gulf, says a new report from the National Research Council. The congressionally mandated report offers an approach that could establish a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts and help inform options for restoration activities.

Currently, state and federal resource managers tasked with providing timely assessments of the damage use a process called the Natural Resources Damage Assessment, which is authorized under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and measures impacts in ecological terms such as the number of fish killed or acres of wetland destroyed. As a result, restoration activities usually focus on replacing individual resources. But the impacts of environmental damage extend beyond individual resources, the report says.

The people who live and work in the Gulf region depend on ecosystems for services such as food and fuel, flood and storm protection, and tourism and recreation. Damage to natural resources could impair these services, leading to social and economic impacts that may not be apparent from an assessment of environmental damage alone. In a 2011 interim report, the authoring committee introduced the concept of an ecosystem services approach to damage assessment, which requires an understanding of the environmental impacts from a disruption, the resulting decrease in goods and services, and the cost of those losses to individual communities and society at large.

In the final report, the committee illustrated how this approach might be applied to coastal wetlands, fisheries, marine mammals, and the deep sea -- each of which provide key ecosystem services in the Gulf -- and identified substantial differences among these case studies. For example, the amount and quality of available baseline data varies significantly among these ecosystem services. The case studies also demonstrate that some services are more easily monetized than others.

Coastal wetlands. Approximately 1,100 linear miles of coastal wetland were affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In areas where roots survived the impact, little to no long-term impairment is expected. However, where the oil destroyed vegetation and root systems, sediment erosion converted the marshland to open water. Since storm mitigation is directly related to the total area of wetlands, the change in area is the most practical measurement of change in ecosystem services. The service can be valued in monetary terms by estimating the cost of storm damage that would be incurred in the absence of the wetlands.

Fisheries. Fishery closures decreased commercial production by 20 percent, which created an immediate economic hardship for fishermen. The spill also triggered public concerns regarding the safety of Gulf seafood. Productivity of the fish populations could be impacted by the spill's toxic effects on reproduction and development, which may take years or decades to determine. Although certain fisheries may experience persistent impacts, others have already shown signs of recovery. The economic value of fisheries as an ecosystem service can be calculated using data on market prices, harvest yields, and production costs.

Marine mammals. Dolphins provide scientific, cultural, and recreational services in the Gulf of Mexico. Beginning before the oil spill in February 2010 through December 2012, 817 bottlenose dolphin deaths were documented, compared with about 100 per year between 2002 and 2009. Because some dead dolphins were likely not found and not reported, these figures underestimate actual mortality. However, uncertainty regarding the abundance of dolphins and the range of environmental stressors that affect them complicate the assessment of the true impact of the oil spill on their populations and the ecosystem services they provide.

Deep sea. The deep sea is the largest yet least well-understood region of the Gulf, making it difficult to assess the full impact of the oil spill on ecosystem services. Among the services derived from the deep sea are pollution attenuation by hydrocarbon-degrading microbes, and nutrient recycling, which supports much of the marine biodiversity at all depths in the Gulf of Mexico.

In addition, the committee evaluated a suite of technologies used in the spill response. Techniques applied offshore, including burning, skimming, and chemical dispersants, reduced the volume of oil by as much as 40 percent before it reached shore, while those applied near or onshore were comparatively less effective and more expensive. But the unprecedented scale at which these techniques were applied leaves the long-term impacts on ecosystem services to be determined, the report says.

Lack of data on the ecological conditions of the Gulf before the spill and an incomplete understanding of complex ecosystem interactions make establishing the full scope of damage difficult. Capturing the entire range of impacts will also require more data on human and economic factors, as well as the development of models that can describe the complex dynamics of ecosystem interactions and better inform decision makers. The report emphasizes that many services may have enormous value despite being difficult to measure, and that such services should be given adequate consideration in evaluating restoration options.

###

The study was sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, independent nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter granted to NAS in 1863. The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. For more information, visit http://national-academies.org. A committee roster follows.

Contacts:

Lauren Rugani, Media Relations Officer
Chelsea Dickson, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu
http://national-academies.org/newsroom
Twitter: @NAS_news and @NASciences
RSS feed: http://www.nationalacademies.org/rss/index.html
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalacademyofsciences/sets

Additional resources:

Full Report
Report in Brief

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Division on Earth and Life Studies
Ocean Studies Board

Committee on the Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Mississippi Canyon-252 Oil Spill on Ecosystem Services in the Gulf of Mexico

Larry A. Mayer (chair)
Professor and Director
Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping
University of New Hampshire
Durham

Michel C. Boufadel
Professor
College of Engineering, and
Director
Center for Natural Resources Development and Protection
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark

Jorge Brenner
Gulf of Mexico Project Director
The Nature Conservancy
Corpus Christi, Texas

Robert S. Carney
Professor
Department of Oceanography and Coastal Science
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge

Cortis K. Cooper
Chevron Fellow
Chevron Energy Technology Co.
San Ramon, Calif.

Jody W. Deming*
Professor of Biological Oceanography
University of Washington
Seattle

David J. Die
Associate Professor
Division of Marine Biology and Fisheries
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
University of Miami
Miami

Josh Eagle
Associate Professor of Law
School of Law
University of South Carolina
Columbia

Joseph R. Geraci
Research Professor
University of Maryland
Baltimore

Barbara A. Knuth
Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.

Kenneth Lee
Director, Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship
Australian Resources Research Centre
Kensington, Western Australia, and
Executive Director
Centre for Offshore Oil and Gas Environmental Research
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

James T. Morris
Professor of Biological and Marine Sciences
University of South Carolina
Columbia

Stephen Polasky*
Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics
Department of Applied Economics
University of Minnesota
St. Paul

Nancy N. Rabalais
Executive Director and Professor
Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium
Chauvin

Ralph G. Stahl Jr.
Principal Consultant
DuPont
Wilmington, Del.

David W. Yoskowitz
Professor
Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies
Texas A&M University
Corpus Christi

STAFF

Kim Waddell
Study Director

* Member, National Academy of Sciences

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/naos-aio071013.php

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