The California Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would ban the trade, sale and possession of shark fins, rejecting arguments that the conservation measure discriminates against Asians who consume shark’s fin soup . If Gov. Jerry Brown signs the measure, California will be the fourth state in the U.S. to ban shark fin imports. Hawaii, Oregon and Washington already have done so. Activists have begun pushing for shark fin bans across the U.S. in an effort to combat the global shark fin trade , which scientists estimate kills between 26 million and 73 million sharks a year. Read full article > >

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California adopts shark fin ban

When spring comes early to the Arctic, will migrating birds arrive too late?

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Scientist at Work: Spring Is Early in the Arctic

One of the hallmarks of the 20th century was the increasing availability and decreasing cost of travel. People could get more places more easily, and so they did. Each year people drove more. Now, there’s a new study in Miller-McCune that purports to show that that trend has stopped in eight industrialized nations. A study of eight industrialized countries, including the United States, shows that seemingly inexorable trends — ever more people, more cars and more driving — came to a halt in the early years of the 21st century, well before the recent escalation in fuel prices. It could be a sign, researchers said, that the demand for travel and the demand for car ownership in those countries has reached a saturation point… The peak travel study runs counter to government models predicting steady growth in travel demand well beyond 2030. Schipper and Millard-Ball say that their own findings are “suggestive rather than conclusive.” They speculate that highway gridlock, parking problems, high prices at the gas pump and an aging population that doesn’t commute may be contributing to peak travel. People already spend an average 1.1 hours per day traveling from one place to another, and driving speeds can’t get much faster. This highlights two interesting things for me. One, most experts find it exceedingly difficult to predict when a long-running trend will stop or reverse. It was true of the electric utility forecasts in the 1970s and media company models in the 1990s. Real change, though we know it happens, rarely allows itself to be extrapolated out by Excel based on past data. Two, a friend of mine once pointed out that the easier it was to travel somewhere, the less exciting that place became. He called this principle “the conservation of distance to the exotic.” This idea always made me a bit sad. What conservatism! Technology couldn’t really change anything, it implied. But maybe in a world where we can no longer inject massive amounts of fossil fuels into our lives, the principle becomes a reason for optimism. Your kids may drive less than you have. They may see less of the total globe than you did. But that doesn’t mean they’ll lead less meaningful lives. At least I hope not. Update: This post originally misnamed my friend’s principle as “the preservation of distance to the exotic.” Via Marginal Revolution .

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Life After Peak Travel

Shepard Fairey teams up with Surfrider to promote coastal preservation To celebrate their 25th year working in coastal conservation, The Surfrider Foundation selected Shepard Fairey as one of 25 artists commissioned to illustrate the world’s most notorious surf breaks through art pieces. Working with photographer Tom Servais , the two produced a fine art illustration of the Jaws wave, a big wave break found in Maui, HI. Appropriately nicknamed, waves can reach heights up to120 feet with speeds as fast as 30mph. While the original artwork was auctioned during Surfrider’s Art for the Ocean Anniversary Gala , you can still donate to the Surfrider Foundation through the Obey Awareness program, an effort created by Obey to promote the Surfrider Foundation’s efforts towards coastal preservation. Obey Awareness will also carry Shepard’s “Jaws” t-shirt, featuring the wave illustration on 100% organic cotton. All proceeds will go directly to the Surfrider Foundation. Available in black, white and grey, the tee sells for $32-$35 on the Obey site .

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Obey Awareness

More than a third of freshwater turtle species are now threatened with extinction, Conservation International says.

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Freshwater turtles ‘in decline’

This article titled “Should we abandon Britain’s crumbling coast?” was written by James Meikle, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 18th August 2008 09.51 UTC

A house stands near the edge of a cliff at Beach Road, Happisburgh, north-east Norfolk. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

Plans for a wide-scale evacuation of Britain’s eroding coastline have been revealed by the Independent in an interview with the new head of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith of Finsbury.

Parts of the east and south coast will not be protected from erosion for much longer, he predicted.

“We will begin to talk with communities where we think defence is not a viable option”, he said.

Smith’s remarks will not surprise many living on the Norfolk coast, where the debate about whether the sea should be left to its own devices is already live and lively.

But the former cabinet minister, who now chairs both the Environment Agency and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), was pretty blunt in disclosing the agency’s projections of where sea erosion will do most damage over the next five, 25, 50 and 100 years.

Do you think he’s right to take such precautions? If you live in a threatened coastal area, is it something you worry about? Have you tried to sell your property or are you happy to let nature take its course?

While promising to do his “level best” to try to defend communities where “there are significant numbers of properties under threat and where it’s possible to find engineering solutions”, Smith warns: “We are almost certainly not going to be able to defend absolutely every bit of coast – it would simply be an impossible task both in financial terms and engineering terms.”

Next year, the agency will publish details of the work done on specific coastal threats, he said.

Meanwhile, as the ASA boss, Smith tells MediaGuardian about concerns over a sharp rise in environmental claims made for goods and services.

“The raison d’etre for the ASA is that companies can make the best possible claims for their product, but not mislead people. I absolutely don’t want to discourage them from doing so – the more that companies think seriously about the environmental impact of their products the better. But what they mustn’t do is pretend a product is greener than it is.”

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This article titled “Hunting the Humpbacks” was written by Matthew Weaver, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 19th November 2007 12.13 UTC

Japan’s decision to go after humpback whales prompts the British press to go after the Japanese.

Despite an international moratorium, a whaling fleet is heading for the Antarctic to catch a quota of 50 humpbacks under the guise of “scientific research”.

The Independent describes this excuse as a “risible fiction believed by no one outside of Japan, as the meat from the kills is sold on the open market”. The paper reminds us that the humpback was saved from extinction in 1963.

The Indy predicts new clashes at sea between conservationists and Japanese whalers of the kind not seen since the 1970s and 80s. The environment editor Michael McCarthy makes it clear which side he is on: “The fact that Japanese whalers now want to fire explosive harpoons into one of the world’s most wonderful animals strikes me as barbaric in the extreme.”

Under the headline “Save the Whale, Again”, the front of the paper carries a picture of a humpback leaping out of the water. McCarthy describes witnessing such a leap on a holiday in Cape Cod. “It was an unforgettable spectacle from an unforgettable creature,” he says.

The Times covers the same story in a more traditional, balanced way, which seems po faced compared to the Independent’s tone. “The whaling debate consistently places Japan on the receiving end of emotional condemnation,” it says.

Putting the other side of the argument, it says: “Japan, which defends whaling as a cultural tradition, argues that stocks can survive the size of cull it is planning”. It reckons Japanese support for whaling stems from “a horror of being dictated to by the outside world”.

The irony, for the Independent, is that “as Japan’s dwindling band of whalemeat eaters will tell you, humpback doesn’t even taste very good”.

This is an edited extract from the Wrap, our digest of the daily papers.

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