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Civilization's Last Chance: Major GHG Emission Cuts (and Even Removal) Needed Immediately (1) -
alan hill wrote:
lets all get going for mother earth NOW. we are the custodians for the o...[more]
Humans Overwhelm Climate Equilibrium (17) -
Steve Salmony wrote:
Bleak future may await our children
<a href="http://www.chapelhi...[more]
Climate Policy Solutions that Save the Planet (12) -
nicole D wrote:
well saving the planet in my eyes is quite the impresseve to me i think ...[more]
Apocalyptic Climate and Global Ecological Warnings Justified (19) -
Michael wrote:
aloha
I read the 'climate apocalyptic' info yu sent, seems so ...[more]
ALERT: Agrofuels on Stolen Lands Continue to Threaten Colombian Rainforests and Communities (2) -
Matt wrote:
I concur with that statement about it being both unethical and ecologica...[more]
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Earth Blog
Brief environmental commentary, analysis and links by Dr. Glen Barry -- highlighting severity of global ecological crises and rigorous biocentric responses
May 11, 2008
Civilization's Last Chance: Major GHG Emission Cuts (and Even Removal) Needed Immediately
Bill McKibben [search] writes in "Civilization's last chance" [ark] the best summing up of the known threats facing humanity now from climate change if major emission cuts are not pursued immediately. His latest campaign efforts highlight the number 350, which he calls "the most important number on Earth" because of scientific understanding that if carbon emissions are not stablized at 350 ppm, it will not be possible "to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed."
It has been noted here that at 383 ppm we are already well past this threshold, and thus achieving 350 ppm will require gargantuan efforts if we are to survive much less prosper. The piece is a clarion call that long predicted limits to growth have arrived and the fate of civilization depends upon urgent massive emission cuts now, tomorrow, next year and certainly for the years and decades well before 2050 as is being proposed [ark | search].
Ocean Ecosystems Collapsing, Running Out of Fish
As incredible as it may sound, the world's oceans are running out of fish [ark]. Terribly wasteful and unsustainable industrial harvest of natural, wild fisheries [search] has led to much of humanity's swollen population eating ever smaller fish from inexorably shrinking populations. "Ninety years of industrial-scale exploitation of fish has... led to 'ecological meltdown'. Whole biological food chains have been destroyed."
Remaining high quality fish stocks are being stolen by rich nations from developing countries, and neither politicians nor consumers have invested much in developing a sustainable wild fish industry. Solutions including marine reserves [search] and greatly diminished harvests, including bans on some species as they recover, are possible and needed immediately. If not pursued much of the world will have to turn elsewhere for protein, and the future is toxic farmed fish [search]. Ecological Internet is pleased to offer Ocean Conserve to inform and bring action re: collapsing oceans and fisheries.
May 9, 2008
Global Warming and Cooling, Climate Change Versus Weather
Much ado has been made [ark | more\ark] regarding a study last week in Nature which found that global warming may slow or even temporarily cool over the coming decade. This was seized upon by all sorts of climate skeptics [search] and charlatans to suggest climate change is not so important after all. I have three brief responses.
Firstly, the rise in average global temperature is only one way to characterize change in atmospheric patterns and processes. It is becoming apparent that broader extremes around temperature averages -- as demonstrated by unusual weather events, including quite possibly the cyclone in Myanmar [ark] -- may be the greater harm. This is why "climate change" has long been recognized as a better term than "global warming" to communicate these dynamics.
Continue reading "Global Warming and Cooling, Climate Change Versus Weather" »
May 6, 2008
ALERT: Agrofuels on Stolen Lands Continue to Threaten Colombian Rainforests and Communities
It is gravely unethical and ecologically devastating to expand production of biofuels by allowing land to be stolen from local Afro-Colombian communities; and at the expense of Colombia's ancient primary rainforests, food security, water resources and regional climate
TAKE ACTION! Plantation expansion for agrofuels remains a major threat to the lives, livelihoods and the environment of Afro-Colombian and other peasant communities in Chocó, Colombia. This is one of the world's most biodiverse regions, with large areas of rainforest now facing destruction. The Chocó rainforests [search] are home to 7,000 to 8,000 species, including 2,000 endemic plant species and 100 endemic bird species. Even before the current palm oil and agrofuel expansion, 66% had been destroyed. Communities and rainforests are under threat from palm oil and sugar cane expansion for agrofuels in other parts of Colombia, too, for example around Tumaco, near the border with Ecuador, in Santander and in Magdalena. If agrofuels -- growing food for fuel -- continue to expand in Colombia, food prices are bound to rise and the nation's food security erode as is happening around the world. Please ask the government to stop and reverse those policies and to protect Colombia's communities and rich environment from further destruction for agrofuels. TAKE ACTION!
May 5, 2008
Environmentalists Reject "Clean" Coal Greenwash (but not "Certified" Ancient Forest Logging)
Over 110 global environmental groups have came out against chimerical coal industry plans to bury carbon emissions [ark]. This coincides with Greenpeace's release of a new report entitled "False Hope" which correctly concludes that false promises of carbon capture and storage (CCS) [search] prolong the agony of coal dependence. CCS is revealed to be an untested myth that threatens to lock us into antiquated coal energy [search] and an obliterated atmosphere. CCS will not be ready in time (or maybe ever), wastes climate resources, is risky and undermines more rigorous approaches focused upon renewable energy.
It is pleasing to see Greenpeace join other biocentric groups in understanding ending the use of coal is essential to save the climate. Yet as with ancient forests, the question of "clean coal" splits the environmental movement. What is so mystifying is why generally rigorous environmental groups like Greenpeace -- along with so many other groups including Rainforest Action Network -- are so visionary on coal while continuing to insist that logging of ancient forests, equally antiquated and damaging to not only the climate but also biodiversity, can be certified as being environmentally acceptable. The economic dislocation caused by ending ancient forest logging [search] would be much less than ending use of coal. Centuries of both over-burning and over-cutting are the fundamental underpinnings of contemporary ecological decline.
April 30, 2008
Russia Joins World's Top Polluters Obstructing International Carbon Cuts
Russia has indicated it opposes further international efforts to negotiate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions [ark]. It joins the United States, China, and India as the top polluting nations [search] obstructing international cooperative measures to cut carbon emissions by at least 80% [ark], necessary to address climate change. What is it about these filthy, addicted to economic growth and rapidly over-developing countries that make them unable to act to avert a very serious crisis of their own making?
In the face of unprecedented global ecological crises, the nation state system of government setup under the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 has proven unwieldy and ineffective. It may well be that the necessary social change to protect against global heating, water shortages, ecosystem loss and related crises of militarism and hunger cannot be addressed under the current system. Given leading nations' failure to lead when it is needed most, saving ourselves and the Earth may require changing both our lifestyles and our governments.
April 28, 2008
Legal Logging Destroying the Earth's Biodiversity, Climate, Water and Biosphere
It is easy to rail against "illegal" logging [search], when in fact typical "legal" commercial logging is far more extensive and destructive in total to the world's biodiversity [search], climate [search], water [search] and biosphere [search]. Both liquidate life giving natural habitats, and more people are realizing they are mostly ecologically indistinguishable [ark]. Ancient primary forests industrially harvested for the first time are in fact destroyed -- in terms of being a fully intact ecological system with a unique, unimpaired evolutionary trajectory -- regardless if society considers it legal or illegal. Natural and planted secondary forest ecosystems managed industrially as tree farms become further ecologically diminished with each successive harvest including continued toxification, soil diminishment, species and genetic loss, reduced carbon and water holding potential, and so many other symptoms of ongoing biological homogenization.
Humanity's relationship with all forests must be transformed if we are to stop the hemorrhaging of lost species and halt transformation of the atmosphere. Industrial forestry [search] is incompatible with sustaining the full range of natural forest values [search] -- from species to genes, from soil microbes to local microclimates, from a forest stand to the Earth system and everything in between. Solving the biodiversity [search], climate [search] and water [search] crises requires a new forest protection paradigm that optimizes ecosystem, biodiversity and climate values while ecologically sustainably harvesting the annual growth increment (minus ecological restoration of natural capital to account in the future for past damage).
Continue reading "Legal Logging Destroying the Earth's Biodiversity, Climate, Water and Biosphere" »
April 27, 2008
Humans Overwhelm Climate Equilibrium
A new study indicates the degree to which humanity has overwhelmed the atmosphere's ancient carbon cycle [ark]. Human activities are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere 14,000 times as fast as historic natural processes. Global change [search] at this rate and scale is utterly unprecedented and devastating. Feedbacks such as mountain weathering [search] that historically removed carbon dioxide are being inundated and are unable to continue maintaining relatively constant atmospheric balances and thus climatic patterns.
As humans have become a force of nature, the Earth system's atmosphere is now entirely out of equilibrium. All this energy must go somewhere. In addition to global warming -- increases in average global temperature -- more troublingly we are set to experience spiraling chaotic climate changes. The Earth is already, and will continue, experiencing a complete break down in seasonality, extreme weather events and generally unreliable climatic patterns and oscillations. This is why "climate change" is the more accurate, powerful term to describe the forces that have been released and will impact the Earth for the rest of human history.
Continue reading "Humans Overwhelm Climate Equilibrium" »
April 26, 2008
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Soar in 2007
Last year atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increased [ ark | more\ark] by 0.6 percent or 19 billion tonnes. Methane which is twenty-five times as damaging [ark] rose by 0.5 percent or 27 million tonnes after a decade of virtually no increase. Rising carbon dioxide concentrations [search], the primary driver of anthropogenic climate change, have now gone from 280 parts per million (ppm) in 1850 to 385 ppm. As we have pointed out, this is problematic given recent indications are 350 ppm is a critical threshold beyond which impacts are permanent and not fully known. Valuable time is being lost and the lack of serious attention to the global climate change planetary emergency is most troubling.
April 25, 2008
Papua New Guinea Admits Illegal Logging
As it is prone to do when the donors come a-calling, the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government "has admitted its forestry sector is riddled with corruption" [ark] . This occurred during aid talks with the Australian government, and reflects political posturing to access donor funds on the basis of their rainforest's carbon holding potential. PNG contains the third largest expanse of tropical rainforests [search], though much diminished through years of heavy industrial mismangement.
Sadly there seems to be little acceptance by those pushing avoided deforestation [search] payments that to be effective, this will require an end to industrial logging of primary forests. Astonishingly, while Australia provided donor funds to PNG this week to protect its forests for carbon benefits, Australia continues to log their own primary forests [action]! To pay carbon monies for rainforest protection without ending barbaric first time logging of ancient forests would be meaningless in terms of both biodiversity and climate protection.
Continue reading "Papua New Guinea Admits Illegal Logging" »