Here’s an all-too-frequent out-of-office autoreply from conservationists these days:

I am currently away from the office attending a UNDP meeting. Following this I am participating in a CBD working group, an IUCN advisory committee, an NGO roundtable, then presenting at a Millennium Declaration follow-up, and attending a regional conservation forum convened by aid agencies as part of a global initiative. I expect to be back in the office towards the middle of next year.

During this time I may be able to answer emails occasionally, but will definitely not be engaging in any local conservation action or helping implement recommendations arising from these meetings.

Apologies for the delay.

Kind regards,

[Signed] Director of Conservation, Conservation Project Manager and Global Conservation Focal Point

Republic of Forty Thousand Feet

OK, so I’m being facetious, but it’s really not that far from the truth.

There are simply so many global conservation initiatives and associated meetings that, for small developing nations with only a handful of government conservation staff, you can expect to get “out of office” replies from those staff for a substantial part of each year – which is all time these people are not in their countries, getting conservation done.

So what does this “out of office” status mean for real, on-the-ground conservation?

The problem is, this condition is something of a blameless crime. Every group organizing these meetings has only the best intentions of advancing conservation and being as inclusive as possible.

We want to include representatives from small and developing nations in global conservation initiatives because we believe their voices and experiences should be heard, they are guardians of much of the world’s biodiversity, and we often perceive that they have more to gain from participation than people from large, developed countries.

The more enthusiastic and engaged in conservation someone becomes in their own country, the more we desire their participation on global agreements, initiatives, working groups and forums.

To add to the perversity of this situation, an enormous proportion of the global conservation budget is spent transporting these motivated people away from where they are working — in effect, stripping both capacity and funds from actual, on-the-ground conservation action.

The problem is also exacerbated by short funding deadlines that require holding meetings annually, if not more frequently, and by pressure within global initiatives for rapid and easily reported outcomes – workshops are a safe bet for both. Unfortunately, the reporting often stops with the meeting. Too infrequently do we try and document if and how these global meetings are an effective way of advancing on-the-ground conservation success.

Taken as a whole, the global conservation community might be doing itself a great disservice by pursuing international meetings as the modus operandi.

So what are the solutions?

Erh, perhaps we need a meeting to find out…

(Image: Qantas Airways A380 taking off from LAX. Credit: Joits/Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

1. Now here’s a question that’s been keeping millions up at night! Which is greener: Going into the refrigerator for a bottle of cold water or using the water dispenser on the fridge door? (Do those still exist?) Treehugger’s Ask Pablo says…um, why are you refrigerating your water?
2. What’s a ton of emitted carbon actually worth? The Institute for Policy Integrity consulted 144 leading economists and got…wildly disparate estimates from the pointyheads. (But 98% of them favored putting a price on the stuff to incentivize energy efficiency and innovation. Hat tip: CleanTechnica.)
3. How can you change a climate change denier’s mind? “The Psychology of Climate Change Communication,” a new report from Columbia University researchers, gives tips for advocates — don’t pile on the anxiety, and be honest about uncertainties. (The report also says people wonder why we can’t just reopen the ozone hole to release the build-up of greenhouse gases. Hat tip: Bright Green Blog.)
4. How many species have been listed as endangered by the Obama administration? Would you believe just one? That’s a much slower rate than that under President George W. Bush, reports Jeremy Hance at Mongabay.
5. 31 days to Copenhagen…what will happen? Today, the BBC’s Richard Black takes his best guess…and says get ready for some late night pizza deliveries and last-second deals. (There is good pizza in Copenhagen, isn’t there?)

As the “energy sprawl” idea has been discussed and debated in the media, I (one of the paper’s co-authors) have  grown a thick skin against criticism. Perhaps the harshest piece of invective, however, still bothers me: the criticism by Matt Wasson in the Huffington Post.

The factual criticisms Matt makes aren’t that troublesome to me, and I can understand his perspective as someone who works to minimize the impact of coal mining on the environment. Matt makes the point that an acre of coal mining is not necessarily the same biodiversity impact as an acre with wind turbines, a point we totally agree with (that’s why we made it in the original paper!). And of course our one measure of land-use can’t capture all of the myriad ways energy production affects the environment; it was never meant to.

What bothers me is the accusation that my scientific paper is “poisoning” the public debate about climate change and energy policy. Indeed, Matt advocates “burning” his post (and perhaps my paper), as if retaining memory of energy sprawl issues was morally corrupting. What does this say about the way we today regard the meaning and responsibility of science to advocacy…and the fragility of public discourse?

I suspect similar criticism will be made of the recent paper by Searchinger and others in Science, which makes the point (intellectually related to the energy sprawl issue) that if land-use change for energy production is not accounted for in climate change policy, extra carbon could be released. From a certain perspective, Searchinger’s article is inconvenient for environmental NGOs just as much as my paper is…if not more so.

But what an anemic view of democracy! As if a scientific paper which complicates the advocacy position of environmentalists is somehow morally equivalent to the myth of death panels hidden in the health care bill! Matt’s title reflects a misunderstanding of science’s relationship to the environmental movement. It is not the job of scientists to produce papers that reinforce a preconceived advocacy position. Rather, it is the job of scientists to lay the facts on the table, so those facts can inform advocacy.

To be sure, any one scientific paper can be interpreted different ways be different actors. Different environmental NGOs may have different positions on what Searchinger’s article means for their advocacy on energy policy, for example, but they can still acknowledge that there is a scientific issue there to consider.

And what an anemic view of the media! As if the political discussion about climate change is so fragile that our messaging must be simple and without nuance! I think this is a very TV-era mentality, where infrequent, carefully-worded press releases could control the public debate. While some of that phenomenon still exists, in a world where thousands of scientists and tens of thousands of activists and lobbyists work on climate change issues, it strikes me as a bit naïve.

I would rather make sure that the scientific facts are out there, and then trust in the marketplace of ideas to sort out over the long term what is important and what is not.

(Image credit: the_russians_are_here/Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

1. How are things in Barcelona (aside from the shocking underperformance of its namesake soccer team this year)? For the climate talks now underway there, Climate Feedback’s Jeff Tollefson reports there’s some optimism that the world can reach political agreement on a climate deal in Copenhagen, with a binding legal agreement following in 2010.
2. We’re #1! (in funding for geothermal R&D, that is!) EcoGeek says the United States government has announced $300 million in such spending — putting it ahead of every other country and Google.org (which is its own planet, isn’t it?)
3. Another, not so nice kind of #1 — the  2009 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is out, and Ecoworldy says Ecuador tops the list of countries with the most such imperiled fauna (2,211).
4. Great white sharks aren’t such sociopathic loners, after all — the Washington Post says they like to hook up in a spot halfway between Hawaii and California that researchers are calling “the cafe.”
5. Noah’s Ark Deux? A team of scientists is proposing an effort to sequence the genomes of 10,000 vertebrate species in an effort to aid their conservation, says a report in the Journal of Heredity. (No talk of cloning…yet. Hat tip: Journal Watch Online.)

It’s Election Day in the United States — get out and vote! Then immediately get back on your smartphone and check out the hottest in online green this morning — including what might possibly be the best green name ever…

1. Mt. Kilimanjaro’s ice cap is disappearing — but is that climate change’s fault? Two research teams are disagreeing, reports The New York Times, with one blaming a decline in moisture rather than rising temperatures. (No word on which side of this debate the band Toto — which had the 1982 smash hit song “Africa,” which in an eerie coincidence mentions both Kilimanjaro and “the rains of Africa” — comes down. We’ll keep you posted.)
2. Meanwhile, Nepal’s cabinet plans to meet on Mount Everest to show the world how global warming is melting Himalayan glaciers, reports Associated Press. (No need for oxygen tanks — they’re only going to base camp, not all the way up.)
3. The leader of Orthodox Christianity — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who calls himself “the green patriarch” — is in Washington this week, talking up the spiritual importance of environmentalism, reports the Washington Post.
4. Speaking of the Post, check out their great infographic tool that tracks total national per capita CO2 emissions since 1950. (Hat tip: Treehugger.)
5. Which societies will survive climate change best? Gaia Vince (which has to be one of the great green names in history) surveys the field at Yale Environment 360 and likes…Laos, among other places.

(Image: Mount Kilimanjaro. Credit: Picture_Taker_2/Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)

My husband returns to the same reefs every year in the Bahamas, where he has been teaching a coral reef ecology class for the last 14 years. On his 2008 trip, he noticed that the reef fish were missing. The culprits were quickly identified — and during his 2009 course, he and his students were eating them.

Lionfish.

Lionfish do not belong in the Caribbean. They are native to the South Pacific and Indian Ocean and made their way into the Caribbean through the release (the exact event is unknown) of aquarium fish. Some say they were in a tank that was destroyed in Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Others say it was a release of just 3 or 6 specimens. Whatever the case, lionfish are now spotted as far north as Rhode Island, and are popping up all over the Caribbean, from Colombia to the Virgin Islands to the Bahamas.

The Bahamas‘ marine ecosystem has already been hard hit. The people that know these reefs well are witnessing a rapid decline in reef fish thanks to these voracious predators, which have an appetite for juvenile reef fish. Their method of attack is particularly unique. Instead of an ambush attack or high-speed chase, lionfish make their presence known and confuse their prey by displaying their beautiful fins like a peacock, slowly dancing towards their prey and then rapidly sucking the prey into their mouths like a vacuum. This technique is so effective because no other predator in the Caribbean uses it — so prey are not adapted to avoid it.

Lionfish have no natural predators in Caribbean waters and are thriving on the tasty but already dwindling choice of baby reef fish. Some think that native grouper might have preyed on lionfish — but because grouper are overfished in the Caribbean (and in most parts of the world), the options beyond human predators are few.

As the distribution of lionfish in the Caribbean expands and the severity of this invasion is becoming more apparent, managers are trying to figure out what to do before the adult populations of reef fish are seriously affected. In the Bahamas, they have issued a “kill on sight” directive. The Caribbean Fisheries Management Council has even developed a Most Wanted Poster to encourage removal of these fish.

The best way to get rid of them? Put them on the menu! In Asia, lionfish are a popular menu item. That’s not yet the case in the Caribbean, so folks are working to change the culture of fear that surrounds lionfish (they have toxic spines that really hurt when they touch you) into a culture of desire for a delightful bite of this light and tasty fish. There are even websites that are collecting lionfish recipes — everything from sushi to Bahamian style fritters to smoked lionfish dip (yum!).

The hope is that people will be motivated to hunt and remove these fish, taking advantage of the existing tradition of artisanal fishing in the Caribbean and turning fishers toward this undesirable species and perhaps away from dwindling populations of grouper and snapper.

An additional approach to this problem — and one that would benefit the reef in multiple ways as well — would be to beef up protection of large predators such as grouper and sharks so that they can work to keep this ecosystem in balance and potentially keep the lionfish population in check.

My husband’s students decided to do a small research project to examine the gut contents (i.e., what is in the bellies) of lionfish they found on the Bahamian reefs, and discovered that their bellies were quite full of baby reef fish. The reward for their efforts was a yummy dinner of fried lionfish…and my husband assures me that in terms of flavor and texture, they compete with any flakey white fish you can think of or catch in the Caribbean. So…

This is probably the only time you’ll hear me advocating for people to eat fish. If you want to eat fish, I’d usually refer you to Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch — a guide that helps diners make decisions about the most sustainable and healthy options for seafood. However, when it comes to lionfish in the Caribbean, I say chow down to your heart’s content!

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[Click the individual images to see them at full size, or click the "View With PicLens" link to see a slideshow.]

Volunteer photographer Rick McEwan just finished an assignment for The Nature Conservancy, shooting wetland restoration work in the Conservancy’s Williamson River Delta Preserve in Oregon. It’s a place he just can’t bring himself to leave.

Sure: He gets cramped in the small hide while photographing birds, his boots get sucked up by mud on his way to capture the evening’s indigo night and the bugs gravitate towards his kayak as if it were made entirely of bright light and sugar. But he loves his work. And frankly, so do we.

Click on the gallery images above from Rick’s trek to see them at full size. Then read an excerpt from his journal.

1. Does your iPhone measure the speed of wind? It could with a new application designed to raise consciousness about wind power. The app is more of a marketing tactic than scientific tool, but the makers hope to ultimately develop a database of wind maps.
2. The environmental impacts of eating meat are becoming more and more well known, but a new report says those impacts have actually been underestimated. The analysis from Worldwatch Institute says 51 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from raising livestock and poultry, far more than the 18 percent found by a 2006 FAO report.
3. Cutting down trees to save monarch butterflies? A major bark beetle infestation in Mexico’s fir trees have left officials with two choices — cut the trees down or spray them with insecticides. Since the latter would kill both the beetle and the monarch, officials are racing to fell some 9,000 infected trees before the butterflies arrive in late October.
4. It’s the story of the bat versus the wind turbine… or environmentalist versus environmentalist: a West Virginia spelunker is trying to stop the development of a wind farm because of the possible threat to endangered Indiana bats living in nearby caves.
5. San Francisco already wins the award for the city that recycles the most, but the city just doesn’t want to stop there: a new ordinance mandates that all building owners — commercial and residential — must sign up for recycling and composting services. Officials say the law is already having an impact, even though it just went into effect.

1. The Financial Times (via Treehugger) claims that a new climate treaty is probably not going to happen in Copenhagen at this December’s COP 15, at least according to a top UN climate negotiator.  Well, that’s discouraging, but what does this guy know anyway?  Oh…right.
2. The world’s first underwater cabinet meeting was held in the Maldives last week, during which government officials signed a document calling on all nations to reduce carbon emissions, reports Bright Green Blog.  If the world keeps getting warmer, in a few years, ALL cabinet meetings in the Maldives might be held underwater, which is not nearly as awesome as it sounds.
3. Tony Hayward, the chief executive of BP, announced that his company’s forecasts suggest that fossil fuels will still fulfill about 80 percent of the world’s energy needs 20 years from now, explaining that “the carbon price could never be set high enough to change some aspects of consumer behavior,” says Green Inc.  Hayward’s not feeling too confident about Copenhagen either, calling it “just one step on what will be a long journey to a lower carbon world.”
4. A National Academies of Science report estimates that each year, the U.S. spends $120 billion a year in health costs as a result of pollution associated with burning fossil fuels.  According to the study, 20,000 Americans die prematurely just from the effects of these pollutants–that’s not even factoring in the impacts of climate change.  (Hat tip:  Yale e360, New York Times.)
5. Finally, some good news!  The 10 sustainable cities and counties behind Green Cities California just launched a website that will teach other communities how to go green, reports GreenBiz.  *insert relieved sigh here*  I love ending on a positive note.

1. Big snakes are becoming a big problem, says the United States Geological Survey.  The group just issued a report concluding that, should the Burmese python and other species of giant constricting snakes continue to make themselves cozy in the U.S., they could completely destabilize ecosystems and wipe out vulnerable native species.  (Hat tip:  dotEarth.)
2. The University of Maryland at College Park and Rio Salado College in Tempe, Arizona will share the title of “America’s Greenest Campus,” reports Green Inc.   In addition to bragging rights, each school gets $5,000 toward new green initiatives.
3. The state of California has legalized “gray water” systems, allowing residents to water their lawns with the runoff from showers, sinks, dishwashers and laundry machines, reports The Vine.  Technically, it’s a huge victory for water conservation, but it turns out a lot of people were already doing it anyway.
4. Does buying green products make you a bad person? According to GreenBiz, a recent report found that people feel better about justifying white lies and other minor infractions after purchasing “green” items– kind of like canceling out a bad behavior with a good one.
5. Keep your chins up, mates!  A new study found that Aussies are losing their enthusiasm for the fight against climate change, and it scarily reflects the current situation in the U.S., says Environmental Capital.