Recycling and utilization of metabolic wastes for energy production is an index of biochemical adaptation of fish under environmental pollution stress

The activity levels of lactate dehydrogenase andlactic acid were assessed in various tissues of the fishduring exposure to lethal concentration of group-IIPyrethroids (deltamethrin, cypermethrin, fenvalerate andfluvalinate) for a period of 72 hours. The results showedsteady increased levels in all the tissues (blood,muscle, brain and liver) with response patterncharacteristic of their own. The increased LDH activityand lactic acid levels indicate the shifting of aerobicglycolysis to anaerobiosis and its further utilizationfor energy production during adaptation to toxic stress.     

A regional survey of malformed frogs in Minnesota (USA) (Minnesota malformed frogs)

In late 1995, school children discovered malformedfrogs in a south central Minnesota pond. Press coverage resultedin numerous citizen reports of frog malformation across Minnesotain 1996. After some initial site investigation, 3 affected frogsites and 4 nearby reference sites were selected for moredetailed evaluation. Field biologists made 89 visits to studysites beginning spring 1997 through fall 1999 to examine thenumber and type of frog malformations. Over 5,100 Leopardfrogs (Rana pipiens) were captured and examined atall study sites. Water elevations and associated littoralinundation were recorded from 1997-2000. Results indicate thatmalformation occurred at all study sites above historicalbackground levels. Rana pipiens malformation across allsites over three seasons averaged 7.9% and ranged from 0 to 7% at reference sites and 4 to 23% at affected sites. At onenorthern Minnesota site, mink frog (Ranaseptentrionalis) malformation was 75% in 1998. A sitecharacteristic common to the most affected sites was an elasticzone of littoral inundation. Climate driven hydrologic variationlikely influenced water depth and associated breeding locations.     

Global Warming, Uncertainty and Endogenous Technical Change

What impact does ecological uncertainty have on agents' decisions concerning domestic emissions abatement, physical investments, and R&;D expenditures? How sensitive are the answers to these questions when we move from exogenous to endogenous technical change? To investigate these issues we modify the ETC-RICE model described in Buonanno et al. (2001) by embedding in it a hazard rate function as in Bosello and Moretto (1999). With this model at hand we run numerical optimisations focusing our attention on the control variables of the representative agents, i.e., domestic abatement rate, investments in physical capital, and R&;D spending, as well as on the endogenous patterns of GDP level and CO₂ emissions. Our results show that uncertainty strongly influences agents behaviour; in particular, agents slow down their emissions in order to maintain a more sustainable growth path. In addition, R&;D expenditures trigger the “engine of growth” exclusively when environmental technical change is formalized in an endogenous fashion. However, even if environmental uncertainty may stimulate technical change, long-run growth it turns out to be negatively affected by the former, as also predicted by Clarke and Reed (1994) Tsur and Zemel (1996) and Bosello and Moretto (1999).     

Options for baselines of the clean development mechanism

The Kyoto Protocol created the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to allow industrial countries to reach part of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction through projects in developing countries. To calculate the achieved emission reduction a reference scenario has to be developed – the baseline. Despite efforts to develop realistic baselines, a certain degree of uncertainty regarding actual reductions will be inevitable. It is therefore necessary to compare the costs (including transaction costs) of developing a baseline against the informational benefit it can be expected to produce. While project-related baselines are already being applied, the proponents of country-related baselines have still to show the applicability of their approach for the CDM. The possibility of quantifying indirect effects and considering market distortions and subsidies through aggregation in the country-related baselines is weighed up by the manipulability and uncertainty of the assumptions required in such a baseline. Thus project-specific baselines are recommended. In cases of severely distorted markets undergoing liberalization or subsidy phase-out, a country-related baseline can be helpful. Sectoral or programme baselines would be suited to large-scale energy and sequestration projects. Moreover it has to be considered whether emission reductions are generally achieved in the context of relocation or done in the context of global emitting capacity expansion.     

Climate Change and Local Pollution Effects – An Integrated Approach

Few studies on measures for mitigation of damage caused by man-made emissions to the environment have tried to consider all major effects. We illustrate the importance of an integrated approach by estimating costs and benefits of a proposed energy saving program for Hungary, originally designed to reduce CO2 emissions. The dominant benefit of implementing the program is likely to be reduced health damage from local pollutants. Also reduced costs of material damage and to a lesser extent vegetation damage contribute to make the net benefit considerable. Compared to the reduction in these local and regional effects, the benefits from reducing greenhouse gases are likely to be minor. Since local effects in general occur much earlier after measures have been implemented than effects of increased emissions of greenhouse gases, inclusion of local effects makes evaluation of climate policy less dependent on the choice of discount rate. In our opinion, similar results are likely for many measures originally designed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases particularly in some areas in developing countries with high local pollution levels. Main uncertainties in the analysis, e.g. in the relationships between damage and pollution level, are discussed.     

Carbon leakage: Grandfathering as an incentive device to avert firm relocation

Emission allowances are sometimes distributed for free in an early phase of a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce adverse effects on the profitability of firms. This paper investigates whether grandfathering can also be used to avert the relocation of firms to countries with lower carbon prices. We show that under certain conditions, relocation can be averted in the long run, even if the grandfathering scheme is phased out over time and immediate relocation is profitable in its absence. This requires that the permit price triggers sufficient investments into low-carbon technologies or abatement capital that create a lock-in effect which makes relocation unprofitable.     

The optimal time path of clean energy R&D policy when patents have finite lifetime

We study the optimal time path for clean energy innovation policy. In a model with emission reduction through clean energy deployment, and with R&D increasing the overall productivity of clean energy, we describe optimal R&D policies jointly with emission pricing policies. We find that while emission prices can be set at the Pigouvian level independently of innovation policy, the optimal level of R&D subsidies and patent lifetime change with the stages of the climate problem. In the early stages of clean energy development, innovators find it more difficult to capture the social value of their innovations. Thus, for a given finite patent lifetime, optimal clean energy R&D subsidies are initially high, but then fall over time. Alternatively, if research subsidies are kept constant, the optimal patent lifetime should initially be long and fall over time.     

Performances of the cotton bollworm,Heliothis armigera (Hubner) at different temperatures and relative humidities

The cotton bollworm, Heliothis armigera (Hubner) is an important insect species at-tacking many crops. Their performances have been examined at temperatures from 15℃ to 35℃ and relative humidities (RH) between 22.5% and 100%, respectively, in order to assess possible effect of climate in future on its occurrence and infestation. Durations of all developmental stages of the insect shortened with increasing temperature. The temperature favoring population growth ranged from 25℃ to 30℃.Larval duration and adult longevity decreased as relative humidity increased, but development of other stages was independent of RH. At RH of over 64%, their survival rate, egg production and oviposition rate varied a little, and all the population parameters of the insect remained at a relative constant level.     

原生态环境下广西涠洲岛近50年气候变率的分析

广西涠洲岛气象站由于其特定的地理位置,使得该站成为广西为数不多、大气观测环境50年来持续保持原有生态环境的气象台站之一。应用该岛屿气象站及与之相邻的广西北海市合浦气象站1956~2005年的气温、雨量等气象资料,分析、比较近50年来北部湾海域气候自然变化和在城镇大规模发展影响下气候变化的差异及发展趋势:用Yamamoto法和Mann-Kendall法对5年滑动平均气温、雨量等要素季和年时间序列进行突变检验,对定量地论述在全球气候变暖情况下区域性气候自然变化的响应有非常重要的意义。     

CLIGEN生成干旱半干旱地区降水相关参数的验证

选用黄河上中游地区无定河流域为中心的15个气象站1959~1999年的降水日值资料,对随机天气发生器CLIGEN在干旱半干旱地区再现降水的能力进行了验证。结果表明:CLIGEN模型较好地模拟了该区域的降水发生概率;很好地再现了年、月、日降水总量平均值,平均相对偏差分别为2.4%、2.4%和2.1%;CLIGEN再现了96.4%的日降水变率、95.9%的月降水变率和84.1%的年降水变率。对年降水变率估计稍差,表明CLIGEN在模拟降水变率方面还有改进的必要。从降水极值看,年降水最大值的平均相对偏差为11.1%,偏差最大的是干旱区的临河站（39.1%）;年降水最小值的平均相对偏差为20.5%,偏差最大的是临河站（-30.7%）;月最大降水量除两站稍低外,其它站平均偏高20.2%;日降水最大值除临河站偏低3.4%外,其余各站平均偏高43.2%。总体上讲,CLIGEN在干旱地区的模拟能力比在半干旱区稍差。鉴于CLI-GEN模拟的极大值绝大部分都偏高,因此利用CLIGEN模型生成的降水资料运行径流和土壤侵蚀模型有高估径流量和土壤侵蚀量的可能,需要进一步利用自计雨量计的资料对CLIGEN生成次降水的参数进行验证,以确保径流和土壤侵蚀预测的精度。