The Arctic's alarmingly rapid loss of summer sea ice [search] continues. The fact the ice has not totally melted this year is no consolation, as last year summer sea ice shrank to a record low, and total loss of sea ice -- which was predicted to occur in over sixty years only a few years ago -- now seems assured by 2030 and may even be imminent. Nine polar bears were spotted swimming in open ocean [ark] off Alaska's northwest coast, up to 65 miles offshore, indicating their difficulty in finding pack ice and food. In Northern Greenland, until now thought immune from global warming, the massive Petermann glacier [search] shows a growing giant crack [ark] -- 7 miles long and half a mile wide -- and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice is breaking off.

I am not sure how many more global ecological emergencies, indicative of abrupt and deadly climate change [search], I can stomach being disregarded with assurances that "scientists don't like to attribute single events to global warming, but... events fit a pattern." The patterns being repeated over and over again in front of our eyes include collapse of major global ecosystems [search] and societal myopic denial that the end of being is nigh. The hell emerging in the Arctic is the same force ravaging Australia with drought, California with wildfires and China with toxic pollution. We are witnessing the inevitable consequences of nearly seven billion humans consuming like there is no tomorrow ensuring there soon will not be one. Only profound revolutionary personal and social transformation can save us now.

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PRESS RELEASE

Harnessing ancient primary forests for continued carbon storage requires ending industrial logging, and in Australia too

By Ecological Internet, Dr. Glen Barry, +1 (920) 776-1075

(Earth) -- Ecological Internet welcomes Australia’s expression of concern about forests and climate change, demonstrated by yesterday's release of an initial US$2 million in aid [ark] for Asia-Pacific nations to help protect forests and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But it is unfortunate these efforts to maintain forest carbon [search] are only being applied overseas, are based upon flawed science, and thus will be unlikely to make much difference.

An important new study from Australian National University researchers recently found that first-time logging of ancient primary forests results in more than a 40 percent reduction in long-term carbon compared with unlogged forests[1]. Further, untouched natural forests were found to store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated and 60 percent more than plantation forests. These findings directly contradict industry propaganda that logging old-growth is climate friendly.

Continue reading "Australia's Tepid Overseas Rainforest Aid Provides Little Climate Benefit" »

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It is time for the international community led by Europe to step up and finance large-scale Amazon rainforest preservation to protect the Earth's atmosphere, biodiversity, and life-giving ecosystems; while helping meet needs for national advancement

TAKE ACTION! The Western Amazon -- home to some of the most biodiverse and intact rainforest left on Earth, which are critical for driving regional and global ecosystems and climatic patterns necessary for life -- may soon be decimated by oil rigs and pipelines. According to a new study in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, over 180 oil and gas "blocks" – areas zoned for exploration and development – now cover the Western Amazon, which includes Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and western Brazil. These oil and gas blocks stretch over 688,000 km2 (170 million acres), a vast area nearly the size of Texas.

Yet there is hope, as Ecuador's new forward-thinking government led by President Rafael Correa announced in June 2007 the innovative Yasuní-ITT Initiative which offers to keep Ecuador's largest untapped oilfields unexploited in exchange for financial compensation from the international community. Regional governments, international donors and global citizens must decide whether every last bit of the Earth's wilderness; and intact, large ecosystems, will be sacrificed to delay having to transition now to renewable energy sources, ensuring abrupt run-away climate change in the process. Given their historical strong rhetoric on the need to protect global climate and biodiversity, please ask European aid agencies to lead the effort. TAKE ACTION!

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We learned today that birds in France are unable to migrate [ark] fast enough to keep up with their habitat. And the Arctic tundra is being invaded by trees [ark]. Humans too are animals with specific heat, moisture and food requirements. Where will we run as we lose our habitat?

Climate change -- and the host of attendant ecological crises associated with too many humans consuming too many resources at the expense of life giving ecosystems -- will together not be some minor irritant. Climate-mediated global ecological collapse [search] will be gut-wrenching biological murder as conditions where you live become unable to sustain life.

Continue reading "Climate Change and Species' Deaths (including yours)" »

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Recently climate skeptics [search] and sympathetic press have claimed there has been no global warming for a decade. New Scientist does a marvelous job of debunking [ark] this selective misreading of climate data by lay skeptics. Using a powerful yet simple analogy, they illustrate that surface temperatures are only one measure of global heat increases.

Surface temperatures only reflect what is happening to the very thin layer where air meets the land and sea. But long-term how much heat is gained or lost by the entire planet, called the "top of the atmosphere" radiation budget, is what matters. Claims that global warming is non-existent is further confounded by the fact surface temperatures in the Arctic, the place on Earth where the greatest warming is occurring, is not measured by a permanent base. And 1998 was unusually warm due to El Nino conditions.

Continue reading "Climate Skeptic Slap Down: the Earth is Demonstrably Heating" »

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Findings that oxygen-starved ocean "dead zones" have doubled every decade [ark | more\ark] since the 1960s, killing massive amounts of marine life at the base of the food chain, demonstrate just how sick the Earth has become. The new study in the journal Science found there are now some 400 ocean areas that are devoid of life with new ones popping up continuously. Ocean dead zones [search] most often result from nutrient rich river run-off -- particularly containing nitrogen from fertilizers and pesticides associated with industrial agriculture -- which cause algae blooms and low oxygen levels unable to support life. Climate change frequently exacerbates the condition.

Chaos in the planet's nitrogen cycle [search] is second perhaps only to climate change in threatening the biosphere's life support systems. The Earth's ability to provide habitat for humans and all life forms is deteriorating, as economic activities have overshot the carrying capacity of ecosystems. Dead zones show human activities can destroy all life in given area, and given continuation of current trends, the possibility of this occurring globally cannot be dismissed.

Continue reading "Ocean Dead Zones, Chaotic Nitrogen Cycling and the Earth's Survival" »

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A major challenge in production of solar and other renewable energies [search] with the optimal environmental benefit is manufacture of equipment without using fossil fuels. Indeed, there is some question whether there exists enough material and energy to construct a global renewable energy infrastructure. Scientific American reports on a new method [ark] to produce solar photovoltaics without petroleum [search] using cotton and castor beans. It is noted most cotton has been genetically modified and depends upon petroleum based fertilizers. If solar cells and wind turbines are created using large amounts of polluting energy, the entire life cycle carbon benefits of these "renewable energies" is significantly reduced. It is important that the full lifetime costs of renewable energy infrastructure are getting more attention -- other examples will include recycling of components and allowing for modular design.

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PRESS RELEASE

By Ecological Internet, http://www.ecologicalinternet.org/

(The Earth) -- Ecological Internet, the world's leading provider of environmental portals including http://www.ClimateArk.org/ and http://Forests.org/, will soon launch a new Internet e-zine entitled "New Earth Rising". The publication will be committed to biocentric thought, and promote sufficient ecological sustainability solutions to pressing global ecological crises. Today they announce they are accepting submissions for publication.

New Earth Rising will build upon years of ecological sustainability writings and actions on the web by Ecological Internet. In 1995 they introduced the world's first and longest continually running blog, and their President, Dr. Glen Barry, was the writer of the critically acclaimed and recently concluded "Earth Meanders" series of personal essays.

Continue reading "New Earth Rising: Call for Submissions of Original Green Writing " »

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Bob Watson [search], former IPCC chief and leading climate scientist, has advised the UK government to start preparing [ark] for massive 4°C in warming. While not backing away from urgent policies to limit warming to 2°C warming, the sheer momentum of warming trends makes flood protection, agriculture and coastal erosion adaptations necessary. Chances for abrupt, run-away warming [search] have traditionally been given short-thrift in politically compromised international climate negotiations. Yet, even with a comprehensive global carbon deal, it is suggested there is at least a 50% probability that temperatures would exceed 2°C and a 20% probability they would exceed 3.5°C. And if trends in failed climate policy continue, and pollution goes unchecked for decades and even centuries, we can expect much worse.

Every day of delay by governments and individuals in reducing greenhouse gas emissions makes it increasingly likely the Earth will experience rapid, scorching heat and "global weirding" [search] where climate patterns chaotically break down. By definition predictions are guesses based upon the best available information. I would not be surprised if given continued surging global population and gross consumption, the atmosphere and other key ecosystems collapse making the Earth incapable of supporting advanced life. Or that the current climate and global change ecological science is significantly wrong in still unknown manners. Yet what choice do we have but to act upon the best knowledge currently available while seeking more, and what outcome other than catastrophe can result from destruction of ecological systems which we know are a requirement for all life?

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An important new Australian study, reported upon in a new book entited "Green Carbon:The role of natural forests in carbon storage", finds that "untouched natural forests store three times more carbon dioxide [ark] than previously estimated and 60 percent more than plantation forests" and that first-time "logging resulted in more than a 40 percent reduction in long-term carbon compared with unlogged forests." They conclude that "in Australia and probably globally the carbon carrying capacity of natural forests [search] is underestimated and therefore misrepresented in economic valuations and in policy options."

This resoundingly confirms Ecological Internet's forest campaign's key principle: sustaining intact ancient primary forests, by virtue of their holding of carbon and species, is a requirement for global ecological sustainability. This Earth Action Network's shared commitment to ending ancient primary and old-growth forest logging has been validated by the emerging ecological science. And we hope this motivates you to continue taking action and to participate regularly in future email protest campaigns.

Continue reading "Untouched Natural Forests Store Three Times More Carbon" »

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Societies not recognizing their ecological foundation cannot long stand. After decades Brazil begrudgingly accepts [ark | more\ark] with outstretched cupped hand the mighty Amazon's key role in climate protection [search], yet continues with damming and other industrial development. Greenpeace heralds as news Africa's European rainforest loggers avoiding taxes [ark]. Yet similar practices were well-documented in Papua New Guinea 20 years ago, and are nearly universal in the rainforest logging industry.

The critical ecological role played by rainforests' ancient biodiversity [search] and emergent ecosystem processes [search] have been known for decades, yet gains in protection have been slow. We know it is going to take money and ending illegal activities to protect rainforests [search] and their life giving ecosystems services [search]. Progress such as it is results from years of protest by Ecological Internet and many others, yet our deep ecological message that all being is dependent upon rainforests, atmosphere and water cycling energy and nutrients continues to be viewed with suspicion. As go rainforests will go humanity.

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For the eighth time the U.S. Republican Party -- the party of big oil and climate change -- has held future green energy hostage [ark] in the Senate to an insistence upon drilling every last bit of oil in every last wildernesses' intact ecosystems first. Given an American addiction to cheap fossil fuels necessary to power climate changing conspicuous consumption [ark] as the meaning of life, the public appears willing to fall lemming like into line with the myth that the "energy crisis" can be solved by drilling. Paying the full cost of energy including upon the environment is no crisis.

This comes as MIT researchers appear to have overcome a major technological limitation to economical solar energy storage [ark], perhaps removing the last major barrier to solar energy charged fuel cells [search] handling base energy loads. Green energy advances are being made constantly, and solar and wind energy is ready for wholesale introduction, but faces market obstacles that can be offset by renewing renewable energy tax credits similar to those enjoyed by traditional fuels. It is reprehensible that realistic opportunities to produce green energy locally while saving our shared atmosphere are being treated as no more than a political football. One can only wish a special place in the coming climate hell for these bad people.

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