Mounting evidence shows our kids spend too much time hypnotized by the glow of electronic devices – an average of 6.5 hours a day, according to a recent University of Michigan study. Moreover, a study of 803 moms in one professional journal found 70 percent said they had played outside daily as kids, but only 31 percent of their own kids play outside that often.

The resulting damage is widespread, say health officials. It starts with an epidemic that now finds nearly 20 percent of U.S. youth obese and expands to everything from a lack of sunshine-provided Vitamin D to less creative stimulation.

The fretting grows. But how to get the kids off gizmos and out the door? Here’s how a park, a parent and a third-grade teacher managed.

A playground goes wild

This spring, the Mecklenburg County Park and Rec system opened its first nature play area at the Reedy Creek Nature Center. The Nature Explorer Zone is based on the Natural Learning Initiative movement, pioneered by N.C. State University professor of landscape architecture Robin Moore. It eschews traditional playground gear for simpler elements that encourage creative play.

“With standard manufactured playground equipment,” says Michael Kirschman, Mecklenburg’s director of Nature Preserves and Natural Resources, “kids play on it for 10 minutes, they master it, they get bored and move on. In terms of creative play, it’s not doing the job.”

The Nature Explorer Zone includes only one “built” feature, a giant birdhouse that kids can climb in and out of.

Kirschman says kids immediately are drawn to the birdhouse, but after a few minutes gravitate to more subtle features – tree stumps (for jumping on), bamboo poles (for building forts), vines for climbing on, a log balance beam – where their imaginations take over.

“It’s been really popular,” Reedy Creek manager Jose Chavez says of the zone. Since it opened, park visitation has gone up 30 percent.

“In my 20 years,” says Kirschman, “it’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in parks.”

The good old days

Spence March is typical of many modern parents: He wants his children to have the same outdoor adventures he had growing up in the 1960s and ’70s in a rural suburb outside Philadelphia.

But when his family moved to a new subdivision in Apex last year, he and his wife were reluctant to let their 7-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son experience that same sense of adventure.

It wasn’t so much the purported “stranger danger” often cited by many parents as the reason they don’t want their kids out of eyesight. (Duke University’s 2005 Child Well-Being Index found that “violent victimization of children” had dropped by more than 38 percent since 1975).

It was the traffic.

“Mainly, we just didn’t feel that the streets were safe,” says March, 47. “At this age, kids aren’t that great at looking both ways.”

A place of their own

So March turned their backyard into an outdoor playland, including a Frisbee target and tire swing.

And the family visits local parks and takes regular bike rides on the American Tobacco Trail, a nearly completed 22-mile rails-to-trails project in Wake, Chatham and Durham counties where the kids can ride free of traffic.

“They love it,” says March. “They love the freedom.”

Play = intellectual growth

Deborah Wuertz, a third-grade teacher in Holly Springs, saw firsthand the improved focus, mental sharpness and overall curiosity that resulted from a program she conducted over Take A Child Outside Week, a celebration of exploring the outdoors held this fall.

Wuertz issued each student a “Planet Earth Celebration” journal that included homework activities the kids could do, from spending 20 minutes outside sketching to standing outside and listening to nature, to examining the differences between leaves.

The children recorded their observations in a journal, working with their parents.

The experience had the hoped-for effect of turning the kids on to the outdoors.

“They’re so much more respectful of nature,” she says. “Now, if they see a bug in the classroom they don’t want to smash it, they want to get it outside.”

It also did what the studies suggested.

“They wrote more in their journals than they’ve ever written,” Wuertz said. “These were kids who did not like to write.”

As a result of their piqued curiosity, she says the walk outside for recess can take forever. “They always want to stop and show me stuff.”

And it’s made them want to learn more. “Before when they went to the library, they always checked out fiction books. Now, they’re getting nature and other nonfiction books.”

Perhaps most telling was how it skewed the kids’ take on homework.

Despite going out every day and making observations, despite going on the Internet and researching their findings and despite writing more than they had before, Wuertz says she heard one comment over and over:

“They said it was nice to have a week off from homework.” By Joe Miller, The News & Observer

Welsh Water says the main culprits are garden sprinklers and the huge children’s paddling pools that are increasingly common in back gardens.

People are being advised to use water wisely although no restrictions are expected this summer.

Welsh Water operations director Peter Perry said reservoir levels were satisfactory at around 72% capacity.

“Demand is up. We’ve seen in some areas, in the tourist areas, an 80% increase in demand over the last few weeks,” he said.

“I think it’s a range of things. Garden watering is a big draw on us. A sprinkler in an hour uses as much water as a family of four for one day.

“The other thing is very large paddling pools that you get in people’s gardens.

“There’s lifestyle changes that have happened in recent years.”

He said no water restrictions were currently anticipated, but customers needed to be sensible.

“I think what we would ask people to do is, with sprinklers, please use them infrequently or not at all if possible,” he said.

“With those large paddling pools, the message is if people can use the sterilising equipment available with them rather than filling them too frequently.”

Welsh Water, which provides water and sanitation services to 1.2m households, said the past few months had been exceptionally dry with very little rain to replenish reservoirs.

“At the moment all our reservoirs will get through to the autumn without having to impose restrictions,” said Mr Perry.

“What could impact on that is if we don’t get substantial rainfall over the next few months.”

He added: “We’re still asking people to use water wisely because the start of the year has been incredibly dry.”

Environment Agency Wales said this week it had rescued hundreds of fish from rivers due to exceptionally low water levels.

One rescue involved 500 fish from the Melingriffith dock feeder, Cardiff, where they were struggling to survive. BBC News

In what they called a “Copenhagen Diagnosis”, updating findings in a broader 2007 U.N. climate report, 26 experts urged action to cap rising world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

“Climate change is accelerating beyond expectations,” a joint statement said, pointing to factors including a retreat of Arctic sea ice in summer and melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica.

“Accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may exceed 1 metre by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 metres considered an upper limit,” it said. Ocean levels would keep on rising after 2100 and “several metres of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.”

Many of the authors were on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 foresaw a sea level rise of 18-59 cms (7-24 inches) by 2100 but did not take account of a possible accelerating melt of Greenland and Antarctica.

Coastal cities from Buenos Aires to New York, island states such as Tuvalu in the Pacific or coasts of Bangladesh or China would be highly vulnerable to rising seas.

“This is a final scientific call for the climate negotiators from 192 countries who must embark on the climate protection train in Copenhagen,” Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in a statement.

AMAZON, MONSOON

Copenhagen will host a Dec. 7-18 meeting meant to come up with a new U.N. plan to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. But a full legal treaty seems out of reach and talks are likely to be extended into 2010.

“Delay in action risks irreversible damage,” the researchers wrote in the 64-page report, pointing to a feared runaway thaw of ice sheets or possible abrupt disruptions to the Amazon rainforest or the West African Monsoon.

The researchers said global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were almost 40 percent higher in 2008 than in 1990.

“Carbon dioxide emissions cannot be allowed to continue to rise if humanity intends to limit the risk of unacceptable climate change,” said Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California.

In a respite, the International Energy Agency has said emissions will fall by up to 3 percent in 2009 due to recession.

The report said world temperatures had been rising by an average of 0.19 Celsius a decade over the past 25 years and that the warming trend was intact, even though the hottest year since records began in the mid-19th century was 1998.

“There have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend,” it said. A strong, natural El Nino weather event in the Pacific pushed up temperatures in 1998. By Alister Doyle, The Star

The Legislature’s Fiscal Review Committee last week delayed approval for an $11 million contract to operate the University of Tennessee plant to turn switchgrass into ethanol. The Democratic governor responded that the move was “outrageous,” and could have scuttled a previously unannounced investment related to the project.

But subsequent conversations between the head of the legislative panel, Republican Sen. Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro, and the company have soothed fears over the future of the project and returned the deal into “good shape,” Bredesen told reporters Tuesday.

“When you’re a sophisticated company I think you sometimes understand how politics works,” Bredesen said. “Once we convinced them this was not some rump effort to turn Tennessee away from a commitment to solar power, but really something that was much more of a political transaction, I think it made them comfortable.”

Bredesen said he considers the switchgrass project among the state’s solar power efforts because it is made from a renewable resource grown by the sun.

“I think we’ve got this all straightened out,” said Ketron. “We see the opportunity for the citizens of Tennessee and we’ll move forward in this.”

As originally envisioned, the facility was to produce 5 million gallons of ethanol per year that could be sold to pay the operating costs of the research refinery. Under subsequent changes, the facility will now produce only about 250,000 gallons annually.

Officials say that’s enough to determine whether the process of turning switchgrass to fuel will work for a full-size refinery, but the legislative review staff said it’s not enough to pay for ongoing costs.

After a presentation from Jim White, the panel’s executive director, several lawmakers raised questions about the project and Ketron suggested future investment could fall victim to the state’s budget crunch.

Ketron on Tuesday chalked up those concerns to a lack of communication between the administration, lawmakers and White. Had they known about the potential third-party investment, “it would have changed the whole perspective,” he said.

“We just all need to be focused on working together and communicating,” Ketron said. By Erik Schelzig, Houston Chronicle

As a result, a medium-sized temperature increase this century could cause the continent-sized ice block to start melting at an alarming rate, it suggests.

“It is entirely possible that a future temperature increase of a few degrees Celsius in Greenland will result in a ice sheet mass loss and contribution to sea level rise larger than previously projected,” it warns.

Greenland contains enough water to raise sea levels by about seven metres. Even a far more modest increase would put major coastal cities under water and force hundreds of millions of people out of their homes.

Until recently, experts were confident that the planet’s two ice sheets – in Greenland and Antarctica – would remain largely stable over the coming centuries despite global warming.

But more recent studies have cast doubt on this, showing the pace at which glaciers are sliding off from both ice sheets into the oceans has picked up over recent decades.

The new paper, published in the British journal Nature, uses a new technique for measuring changes in the ice sheet over the last 10 000 years that resolves a paradox.

Earlier measurements suggested that parts of Greenland had somehow defied a trend of general warming in the northern hemisphere during a 3 000 year period that started 9 000 years ago.

The new research, led by Bo Vinther of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, demonstrates that the problem lay with how the the raw data had been interpreted.

The team examined core samples taken from four locations from the ice sheet, which reaches depths of more than three kilometres. As with earlier studies, the results were inconsistent.

But with the help of two new samples taken from two areas just beyond the ice sheet, the researchers were able to determine that the variations were due to changes in height, not because of inconsistent warming.

“The elevation itself causes different temperatures,” Vinther said in a press release. As a consequence, the ice sheet responded more uniformly – and more vigorously – to rising temperatures during this period. – AFP

Calling on medical practitioners everywhere to put pressure on politicians in advance of the meeting, the doctors say that the world’s poorest people will be hit first by the health effects of global warming, but add that “no one will be spared”.

Their stark challenge to governments follows a report in May which said climate change would represent “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”.

Malaria, dengue fever and other tropical diseases would increase, the study predicted, spelling out how rising temperatures will cause health crises in half a dozen areas: there will be increased problems with food supplies, clean water and sanitation, especially in developing countries. Meanwhile, the migration of peoples will combine with extreme weather events such as hurricanes and severe floods to make for disastrous conditions in human settlements.

The doctors make their appeal as momentum begins to build for the UN conference, which will be held in the Danish capital from 7-18 December, and which will see the world community attempt to draw up a comprehensive new climate treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol. Its crucial objective will be drastic worldwide cuts in the emissions of industrial gases such as carbon dioxide which are causing the atmosphere to warm.

On Tuesday, the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is convening a climate change summit of world leaders in New York, including Gordon Brown and President Obama, to try to give some impetus to the tortuous pre-conference negotiating process – the draft text of 200 pages already contains 2,000 “square brackets”: that is, points where the 190 countries taking part disagree.

The doctors’ challenge to politicians to sort this out comes in a letter published simultaneously in Britain’s two principal health journals, the British Medical Journal and The Lancet.

In the letter, Professor Ian Gilmore, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, joins 17 other national doctors’ leaders from the US to Australia in saying: “There is a real danger that politicians [at Copenhagen] will be indecisive, especially in such turbulent economic times as these. Should their response be weak, the results for international health could be catastrophic.”

They go on: “Doctors are still seen as respected and independent, largely trusted by their patients and the societies in which they practise … As leaders of physicians across many countries, we call on doctors to demand that their politicians listen to the clear facts that have been identified in relation to climate change and act now to implement strategies that will benefit the health of communities worldwide.”

The letter follows the report on the health effects of global warming which was launched jointly last May by The Lancet and University College London (UCL), and which squarely labelled climate change as the 21st century’s biggest global health threat.

That report’s lead author, Professor Anthony Costello, director of UCL’s Institute for Global Health, said at the time: “The big message of this report is that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation. The impacts will be felt not just in the UK, but all around the world – and not just in some distant future but in our lifetimes and those of our children.”

Today’s letter is accompanied by an editorial written by two of Britain’s most senior figures in the area of health and development: Professor Sir Michael Marmot, director of the UCL International Institute for Society and Health, and Lord Jay of Ewelme, who as Sir Michael Jay was head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and is now chair of Merlin, (Medical Emergency Relief, International), the UK charity which provides healthcare and medical relief for vulnerable people caught up in natural disasters, conflicts and major disease outbreaks.

The two men write: “A successful outcome at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen this December is vital for our future as a species, and for our civilisation.” And they echo the writers of the letter in asserting: “Failure to agree radical reductions in emissions would spell a global health catastrophe.”

They point out that there is now wide consensus that global temperatures are rising and that human actions are responsible; that there is a need to cut carbon emissions by at least 50 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change; and that the economic argument that taking action now rather than later will be cheaper has also been widely accepted since the Stern report in 2006. Furthermore, they say, the election of President Obama has shifted policy in the US from seeking to block an agreement to seeking to find one.

They go on: “So the chances of success should be good but the politics are tough. The most vocal arguments are about equity: the rich world caused the problem so why should the poor world pay to put it right? Can the rich world do enough through its own actions and through its financial and technological support for the poor to persuade the poor to join in a global agreement?” By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor, The Independent.

Now India is putting its faith in the sun in a more literal sense by revealing what experts describe as the world’s most ambitious plan to develop solar energy over the next three or four decades. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, will chair a meeting today to decide whether to approve a National Solar Mission designed to curb India’s carbon emissions and ease its crippling power shortages. It proposes boosting India’s solar power generation capacity from almost zero to 20 gigawatts (20 billion watts) by 2020, 100GW by 2030 and 200GW by 2050, according to a draft seen by The Times. The entire world can generate about 14GW of solar power today.

India’s plan also proposes reducing the price of solar power to the same level as that from fossil fuels by 2020, according to the draft, dated April 29. Solar power in India currently costs about 15 rupees (37.4 cents) per kWh, compared with an average 3.5 rupees per kWh for electricity from the national grid, which is largely produced by coal-fired thermal power plants. Other targets include forcing all government buildings to have solar panels by 2012 and developing micro-financing to encourage 20 million households to install solar lighting by 2020.

The plan also outlines a system — similar to Germany’s — of paying households for any surplus power from solar panels fed back into the grid. To achieve these and other goals, the mission proposes that the Government invest 920 billion rupees ($23bn) in developing, manufacturing and installing solar technology over the next 30 years. The mission is primarily designed to improve India’s energy security as it has abundant supplies of coal — the dirtiest of the fossil fuels — but has to import 70 per cent of its crude oil and half its natural gas. It is also meant to ease a chronic power shortage that has left 400m Indians without electricity, causes daily blackouts in cities, and represents one of the biggest obstacles to economic growth.

India now has the capacity to produce 150GW — less than a fifth of China’s — and demand outstripped supply by 9.5 per cent between 2008-09, and by 13.8 per cent during peak hours, according to the Power Ministry. Indian officials also hope that the mission will help to ease the pressure from Western governments at international talks for a new UN climate pact in December. Environmental campaigners have welcomed the plan, saying that solar energy is India’s most realistic alternative power source, as it does not have the space for large wind plants.

Siddharth Pathak, chief climate change campaigner for Greenpeace in India, said: “India’s putting a very strong argument in front of developed countries that it has huge potential for renewable energy.” However, some government officials remain sceptical about risking so much money on new technology, rather than spending it on providing all Indians with electricity from conventional sources.

If the new claim is confirmed, it would be the first mass journey by insects across the open ocean and would outstrip the famous 4,300-mile monarch butterfly migration from Mexico to Canada.

The 11,000-mile Indian Ocean migration is why millions of dragonflies appear every year in the Maldives as if from nowhere, according to research published this week.

The annual event is mystifying because the chain of islands lies between 300 and 600 miles from mainland India and has no fresh water – essential to the dragonflies’ life cycle.

Biologist Charles Anderson, based in the Maldives, said: ‘No one I have spoken to knew where they came from.’

He has amassed observations since 1996 from the islands, from the mainland and from ships at sea and says they reveal a migration from southern India which arrives in Maldives capital Male about October 21.

‘That by itself is fairly amazing, as it involves a journey of 600 to 800km across the ocean,’ says Mr Anderson.

He believes they fly at heights of at least 3,200 feet because lower down the winds blow in the wrong direction.

The dragonflies – mostly a species called globe skimmers (Pantala flavescens) – appear in surges until December but each surge only stays a few days.

Dragonflies then appear in the Seychelles – between 1,700 and 2,400 miles from India – in November and December.

Mr Anderson adds: ‘I have also deduced that they are flying all the way across the western Indian Ocean to East Africa.’

Globe skimmers appear in Tanzania and Mozambique in December and January.

In April the dragonflies reappear in the Maldives – which suggests the insects are making a round trip of up to 11,000 miles.

‘The species involved breeds in temporary rainwater pools. So it is following the rains, taking sequential advantage of the monsoon rains of India, the short rains of East Africa, the summer rains of southern Africa, the long rains of East Africa, and then back to India for the next monsoon,’ Mr Anderson told BBC Earth.

‘It may seem remarkable that such a massive migration has gone unnoticed until now. But this just illustrates how little we still know about the natural world.’

From I-70 take I-25 north to Hwy 36 west, exit 104th Avenue north and take a right at Westminster Blvd and it’s on the right.  Parking is available for RV’s and buses too and they are open every day but Christmas and New Years Day.  For complete information see www.butterflies.org

The largest one of the interactive displays is a walk through 7,000 square-foot tropical rainforest that is home to more than 1,200 live butterflies and 350 plant species from around the world. There are other places to touch the animals but do not touch the delicate butterflies.  It is so exciting to watch butterflies emerging from their chrysalis, see them being released into their rainforest habitat and then chase them around the room. The Butterfly Pavilion purchases about 500 butterfly chrysalis each week from butterfly farms located in rainforests around the globe, contributing over $80,000 annually to sustainable farming operations in endangered ecosystems!

The Butterfly Pavilion combines science education with hands-on fun to teach visitors about invertebrates, science and conservation. The interactive exhibits are geared primarily towards families with kids ages 2 to 12 years old, but people of all ages embrace the beauty and wonder of 1,200 free-flying butterflies imported from around the globe.

As pictured here you can see what is displayed through the observation window.  There are rows of brightly colored chrysalis or cocoons that look like jewels each different color and shape is a different kind of butterfly. As you watch the butterflies struggle to emerge at the end of a process of metamorphosis then hang there to dry off before they can fly.  Periodically, the care taker collects them and then at designated times they are released into the rainforest habitat.

Currently, conservation organizations across North America, including accredited zoos and aquariums, are engaged in the captive rearing and reintroduction of endangered butterflies, protection of endangered butterfly habitat, and are conducting research about their unique habitat needs. However these efforts have not been focused on all species evenly. Recovery plans exist for fewer then half of the listed endangered and threatened butterfly species in the US!

Butterflies capture our attention and imagination for countless reasons. Their beauty, unique life cycle, and long migrations inspire artists and storytellers worldwide. They have the ability to serve as sentinels announcing large-scale changes within ecosystems. Hopefully people will be inspired to take action to learn about and protect these amazing animals. It is important for us to learn as much as possible about butterflies, visit butterfly gardens and exhibits, plant a butterfly-friendly gardens/habitats and to get involved!

Thailand still has Asia’s biggest illegal elephant ivory market despite promises to crack down, the wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic said on Friday. The report said Bangkok should close “elephant-sized loopholes” in its wildlife protection laws that enable sellers to pass off illegal ivory as coming from a legal source of domesticated animals. “The illegal trade in live elephants and ivory still flourishes in Thailand,” according to Traffic’s 73-page study.

It said the number of worked ivory pieces seen on sale during its latest survey had fallen substantially but was still high at 26,000 pieces compared to 88,000 noted in a previous report in 2001. But it said there were more retail outlets dealing in ivory products than counted in 2001. “Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, a major tourist destination, has emerged as the main hub for illegal ivory activities,” it said. “Thailand has consistently been identified as one of the world’s top five countries most heavily implicated in the illicit ivory trade, but shows little sign of addressing outstanding issues,” said Tom Milliken of Traffic.

The latest data was based on surveys in 2006/07 and a follow-up in 2008. Traffic is run by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the WWF conservation group. The IUCN groups governments, scientists and environmental organizations. Traffic urged Bangkok to tighten law enforcement. It also questioned exports, saying that nine elephants had been sent to Australia and five to Germany since a 2006 proclamation prohibited such sales.

And it said Thailand illegally imported elephants for tourism from Myanmar. Traffic urged Thailand to set up a computer database, using genetic material, to track ivory from domesticated elephants to try to shut illegal ivory out of the market. Under a 1939 law, possession and sale of ivory from domesticated Thai elephants is legal — the law treats them as working animals such as cows or water buffalo. But a 1992 law bans trade in wild Thai elephants and products, and elephants from abroad.