By Belinda Goldsmith
Reuters

Think your family going green won't make a difference? Wrong, says a U.S. study released on Thursday that shows one household ditching paper statements for Web transactions would save 24 square feet of forest a year.

The PayItGreen Alliance said it believed this was the first detailed study commissioned to determine the impact of one individual household on the environment and it hoped to get across the message that every green step counted.

The study found the average U.S. household receives about 19 bills and statements from credit card companies and banks every month and makes about seven payments by paper each month.

By switching to electronic bills, statements and payments, the average American household would save 6.6 pounds of paper a year, save 0.08 trees, and not produce 171 pounds of greenhouse gases -- the equivalent of driving 169 miles.

The survey, whose results were vetted by the Environmental Protection Agency, said it would also mean avoiding the deforestation of 24 square feet of forest, the release of 63 gallons of wastewater into the environment, and save 4.5 gallons of gasoline used for mailing.

"Individuals who think they are only one person and can't really have an impact should re-evaluate their position. Even small contributions can have a impact when aggregated," said Craig Vaream, a member of the PayItGreen Alliance and JPMorgan Chase.

JPMorgan Chase is one of about 16 members of the alliance which is made up of financial services companies and also includes Bank of America and the Federal Reserve Banks.

The alliance is lead by NACHA, the non-profit electronics payment association, that represents more than 11,000 financial institutions who are encouraging customers to conduct more transactions online.

The group was set up in 2007 to promote the positive environmental impact of choosing electronic payments, bills, and statements instead of paper.

It found that Americans each year mail 26 billion bills and statements and 9 billion payments in paper form with the related production and transportation consuming 755 million pounds of paper, 9 million trees, and 512 million gallons of gasoline.

The survey found that if 10 percent of U.S. households, or about 11.4 million households, gave up paper bills and statements the results would be significant.

It would save 75,469,808 pounds of paper, 905,638 trees, avoid producing 1.96 million pounds of greenhouse gases which was the equivalent of taking 162,861 cars off the road.

It would also preserve 6,202 acres of forest from deforestation, avoid creating 719,800,685 gallons of wastewater which is enough to fill 1,090 Olympic-size swimming pools, and avoid filling 3,071 garbage trucks with waste.

Mar. 26 - A large chunk of ice has started to break away from Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf.

Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula to be threatened so far.

Satellite images show the collapse began on February 28 as a massive iceberg fell away from the ice shelf's southwestern front.

This lead to a runaway disintegration of the shelf interior.

Ice chunk was about seven times the size of Manhattan

Associated Press

A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan has suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said.

Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 415 square kilometre chunk in western Antarctica, which started on February 28. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years.

This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan.

Because scientists noticed satellite images within hours, they diverted satellite cameras and even flew an airplane over the ongoing collapse for rare pictures and video.

"It's an event we don't get to see very often," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. "The cracks fill with water and slice off and topple... That gets to be a runaway situation."

While icebergs naturally break away from the mainland, collapses like this are unusual but are happening more frequently in recent decades, Vaughan said. The collapse is similar to what happens to hardened glass when it is smashed with a hammer, he said.

The rest of the Wilkins ice shelf, which is about the size of Connecticut, is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice. Scientists worry that it too may collapse. Larger, more dramatic ice collapses occurred in 2002 and 1995.

Vaughan had predicted the Wilkins shelf would collapse about 15 years from now.

Scientists said they are not concerned about a rise in sea level from the latest event, but say it's a sign of worsening global warming.

Such occurrences are "more indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system," said Sarah Das, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

By Deborah Zabarenko
Reuters Environment Correspondent

The thickest, oldest and toughest sea ice around the North Pole is melting, a bad sign for the future of the Arctic ice cap, NASA satellite data showed on Tuesday.

"Thickness is an indicator of long-term health of sea ice, and that's not looking good at the moment," Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center told reporters in a telephone briefing.

This adds to the litany of disturbing news about Arctic sea ice, which has been retreating over the last three decades, especially last year, when it ebbed to its lowest level.

Scientists have said the trend is spurred by human-generated climate change.

Melting Arctic ice does not raise sea levels as the melting of glaciers on Greenland or Antarctica could, but it does contribute to global warming when reflective white ice is replaced by dark water that absorbs the sun's heat.

Using satellites that measure how much ice covers water in the Arctic and Antarctic, Meier and other climate scientists found a steep drop in the amount of perennial ice -- the hardy, thick ice that is over a year old -- in the north.

The oldest Arctic ice that has survived six years or more is the toughest, and even that shrank dramatically, Meier and the other scientists said.

OLD ICE "TOUGH AS NAILS"

Some 965,300 square miles of perennial ice have been lost -- about one and a half times the area of Alaska -- a 50 percent decrease between February 2007 and February 2008, Meier said.

The oldest "tough as nails" perennial ice has decreased by about 75 percent this year, losing 579,200 square miles (1.5 million sq kms, or about twice the area of Texas), he said.

This doesn't mean the Arctic is open water during the winter, but it does mean that in many areas, the stronger perennial ice is being replaced by younger, frailer new ice that is more easily disturbed by wind and warm sea temperatures.

"It's like looking at a Hollywood set," Meier said of an Arctic largely covered with younger ice. "It may look OK but if you could see behind you'd see ... it's just empty. And what we're seeing with the ice cover is it's becoming more and more empty underneath the ice cover."

Perennial ice is also vulnerable to a recurring pattern of swirling winds and currents known as the Arctic oscillation, which ejects the old ice out of the zone around the pole and aims it south where warmer waters will melt it.

The scientists also analyzed satellite data for Antarctica but found less dramatic change there.

This was attributed to the difference in the two polar regions. The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land while the Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean.

However, the scientists noted sharp warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches northward from the southern continent toward South America.

By Adrian Bathgate
Reuters

WELLINGTON - The case of two stranded whales saved by a dolphin off the coast of New Zealand could be the first such case in the world, a conservation worker said on Thursday.

Moko the dolphin, a regular visitor to the coast of Mahia on the east Coast of New Zealand's North Island, became an instant hero after leading two pygmy whales that had repeatedly stranded into deep water on Monday.

"As far as I know it's the only documented instance of this happening," said local Department of Conservation officer Malcolm Smith, adding he had checked with whale stranding specialists who were also unaware of any similar dolphin rescues.

Moko, who had been visiting the beach at Mahia on and off over the summer, arrived at the beach in the nick of time, Smith said.

The disoriented mother and calf had resisted attempts to herd them out to sea, and kept restranding on the beach, to the point where Smith said the pair would likely have to be killed.

Then Moko appeared, and came right up to the whales before leading them out to sea.

"Quite clearly the attitude of the whales changed when the dolphin arrived on the scene. They responded virtually straight away," Smith said.

"The dolphin managed in a couple of minutes what we had failed to do in an hour and a half."

Smith said the whales had not been sighted again in the area.

However Moko had returned and was continuing to play with swimmers near the shore, as she has down for about the past six months.

According to Department of Conservation figures about 700 whales strand on New Zealand beaches every year.

The exact reasons why are not known, but theories include sickness, and sloping sandy beaches interfering with whales' sense of direction.

"Dispose of prescription drugs properly and help keep them out of our waterways. Don't flush them down the toilet." - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The Associated Press released a series of articles that show public water supplies in many cities throughout the U.S. contain traces of prescription drugs. One way that drugs get into the water supplies is from people disposing of them by flushing them down the toilet.

Federal Guidelines:

• Take unused, unneeded, or expired prescription drugs out of their original containers and throw them in the trash.

• Mixing prescription drugs with an undesirable substance, such as used coffee grounds or kitty litter, and putting them in impermeable, non-descript containers, such as empty cans or sealable bags, will further ensure the drugs are not diverted.

• Flush prescription drugs down the toilet only if the label or accompanying patient information specifically instructs doing so.

• Take advantage of community pharmaceutical take-back programs that allow the public to bring unused drugs to a central location for proper disposal. Some communities have pharmaceutical take-back programs or community solid-waste programs that allow the public to bring unused drugs to a central location for proper disposal. Where these exist, they are a good way to dispose of unused pharmaceuticals.

The FDA advises that the following drugs be flushed down the toilet instead of thrown in the trash:

Actiq (fentanyl citrate)

Daytrana Transdermal Patch (methylphenidate)

Duragesic Transdermal System (fentanyl)

OxyContin Tablets (oxycodone)

Avinza Capsules (morphine sulfate)

Baraclude Tablets (entecavir)

Reyataz Capsules (atazanavir sulfate)

Tequin Tablets (gatifloxacin)

Zerit for Oral Solution (stavudine)

Meperidine HCl Tablets

Percocet (Oxycodone and Acetaminophen)

Xyrem (Sodium Oxybate)

Fentora (fentanyl buccal tablet)

Note: Patients should always refer to printed material accompanying their medication for specific instructions.