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On May 7, 2010, a letter signed by 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences deplored attacks on both science and scientists who researched climate science or related fields. The assaults in the letter rely on two main components. First, statements contradict the preponderance of scientific evidence without a comparable body of evidence to the contrary. Second, as the size of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports grows, so does the probability of minor errors. Scientists and their organization should not have to spend the majority of their time defending their work, instead of working on their primary mission of conducting scientific research.

Over the past two decades dam removal has emerged as a viable tool for ecological restoration of riverine landscapes, partially as a result of changing societal values toward the ecological trade-offs associated with dammed rivers. Dam condition, purpose and ownership are key factors that determine the legal and political processes that lead to dam removal in most cases. In the United States removals of small, privately owned dams are most common, although the most high-profile removals are associated with large hydropower dams subject to a federal relicensing process. Scholars cite this legal process for periodic re-evaluation of hydroelectric dams as an important window of opportunity for institutionalising adaptive environmental governance toward the renegotiation of social and ecological values associated with rivers. It is clear, however, that this policy process alone is not sufficient to facilitate large-scale dam removal and larger transitions toward adaptive governance. In this paper we review several high-profile cases of dam relicensing and removal in the Pacific Northwest region of the US to better understand the combination of factors that couple with dam relicensing policy to present a window of opportunity for adaptive governance and social-ecological restoration. Examples from the Pacific Northwest reveal patterns suggesting the critical role of endangered species, Native American tribes, local politics and economics in determining the future of large hydropower dams in the United States.

During the industrialization era in the U.S., most waterways in urban areas were buried underground. Daylighting, the process of resurfacing and restoring buried aquatic systems, has grown as a planning practice. This practice can bring to communities environmental, economic, and social benefits—making cities more sustainable and livable. City Creek in Salt Lake City will be used as a case study of a future daylighting project in Euclid, a minority and low income neighborhood. In particular, this paper will highlight planning and locally-driven efforts to raise awareness among residents on the importance of conserving and restoring stream ecosystems. The article will discuss what community members involved in a visioning process would like to see in the development of a much-needed recreational trail and why it matters that City Creek becomes a vital community asset. Ultimately, this paper seeks to empower communities to plan and implement daylighting projects at the local level. UPLanD - Journal of Urban Planning, Landscape & environmental Design, Vol 2, No 3: BLUE

Development of environmentally sustainable and economically viable technologies for plant cell wall deconstruction to fermentable sugars has been impeded due to native plant cell wall recalcitrance to thermochemical and biological based processing. Lower severity alkaline-based pretreatment processes like Ammonia Fiber Expansion (AFEX™) can overcome several limitations of traditional pretreatment approaches (e.g., acidic pretreatments) to producing cellulosic biofuels and biochemicals. Here, we give an overview of chemical reactions taking place during alkaline pretreatments including reactions between ammonia and polysaccharides/lignin (e.g., ammonolysis, hydrolysis and Maillard-type reactions). AFEX™ based pretreatments enhance enzymatic digestibility and fermentability of lignocellulosic biomass through various chemical and ultra-structural modifications within the cell wall. An improved mechanistic understanding of the AFEX™ process has led to the development of novel alkaline pretreatments that are briefly discussed in this review.

2nd generation biofuels gained more importance in recent years since they enable greenhouse gas emission reductions in the transport sector on a larger scale. One promising way to produce alternative fuels is the Biomass-to-Liquid (BtL) process with the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis which produces synthetic hydrocarbons that could directly be used as liquid fuels in an existing infrastructure. One major issue of this process is the production cost. Within the European COMSYN project (Compact Gasification and Synthesis process for Transport Fuels), a new BtL process concept is developed that aims to reduce biofuel production cost up to 35 % compared to alternative routes.

A prototype ampere-class superconducting energy recovery linac (ERL) is under advanced construction at BNL. The ERL facility is comprised of a five-cell SC Linac plus a half-cell SC photo-injector RF electron gun, both operating at 703.75 MHz. The facility is designed for either a high-current mode of operation up to 0.5 A at 703.75 MHz or a high-bunch-charge mode of 5 nC at 10 MHz bunch frequency. The R facility serves a test bed for an envisioned electron-hadron collider, eRHIC. The high-current, high-charge operating parameters make effective higher-order-mode (HOM) damping mandatory, and requires to determination of HOM tolerances for a cavity upgrade. The niobium cavity has been tested at superconducting temperatures and has provided measured dipole shunt impedances for the estimate of a beam breakup instability. The facility will be assembled with a highly flexible lattice covering a vast operational parameter space for verification of the estimates and to serve as a test bed for the concepts directed at future projects. Proceedings of the 1st International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2010, Kyoto, Japan

Discussions of global environmental governance seem to have gotten nowhere in the last thirty years despite environmental problems that continue to grow in scope and magnitude. Here, the role of sustainable development in that failure is examined, particularly the constructively ambiguous nature of the paradigm. It is suggested that an emphasis on the shifting, contextualized and relative term ―needs‖ in the definition of sustainable development has led to paralysis at the international level in addressing environmental problems, particularly climate change. Contradictions that emerge when sustainable development is formalized in economic models as weak and strong sustainability are discussed. Finally, promising future pathways for environmental actions are explored. Consilience, No 5 (2011): Issue Five: 2011

Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) have a unique yearly life cycle, in which successive generations breed and move northward from the southern USA in spring to the northern US and southern Canada by late summer; they overwinter in extremely restricted areas in central Mexico and along the California coast. Mexican overwintering populations have experienced significant mortality events recently, which have been hypothesized as increasing in frequency owing to climate change. Here, we test the hypothesis of climate-change causation of these mortality events, at least in part, finding significant local weather trends toward conditions lethal for monarch survival. We use ecological niche estimates and future climate projections to estimate future overwintering distributions; results anticipate dramatic reductions in suitability of present overwintering areas, and serious implications for local human economies.La mariposa monarca (Danaus plexippus) tiene un ciclo de vida singular, en el cual generaciones sucesivas se reproducen y migran hacia el norte, empezando en el sur de los Estados Unidos en la primavera y terminando en el norte de los Estados Unidos y sur del Canadá en verano. Pasan el invierno en unas pocas zonas muy restringidas del centro de México y la costa del estado de California. En tiempos recientes, las poblaciones en México han experimentado mortalidades significativas y se ha hipotetizado que la causa puede ser el cambio climático. En este artículo probamos, al menos en parte, la hipótesis del cambio climático como causa de estos eventos de mortalidad y encontramos un desplazamiento significativo del clima local hacia condiciones que son letales para la mariposa. Utilizamos estimados de nicho ecológico y proyecciones de climas futuros para definir futuras áreas de invernación. Nuestros resultados anticipan una reducción dramática en la calidad de estas áreas actuales e implicaciones serias para las economías locales.

Globally, temperatures are rising, glaciers are melting, and sea levels are rising. All of the events will consequentially affect the reliability of global food production among other problems. However, some politicians, executives, and citizens still act surprised at these changing events and continue to emphasize the uncertainty of certain scientific hypotheses and information.