Arctic ice is disintegrating at an amazing rate, an indicator of how quickly global heating is occurring, and with grave consequences for the Arctic's absorption of heat, and the survival of polar bears [search] and humanity. One of Canada's six ancient Arctic ice shelves has cracked off [more] northern Ellesmere Island, creating an enormous 66-square-kilometre ice island and leaving a trail of icy blocks in its wake. Occurring 16 months ago, the enormity of the event is just now becoming known. The relatively rare Canadian ice shelves, located about 800 kilometers south of the North Pole, are 90 percent smaller than they were when first crossed in 1906. Meanwhile, astonishingly the melting of Arctic sea ice and precarious decline of polar bears has finally caught the attention of the Bush administration [more | more2]. The Department of the Interior has decided the iconic polar bear should be listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) because "the polar bears' habitat may literally be melting". Last week scientists predicted that the Arctic Ocean's summer sea ice could melt entirely [search] as early as 2040 and possibly sooner. Open seas absorb more heat than sea ice which largely reflects incoming solar radiation. As a society we are so far behind on developing and implementing policy to address climate change that it is sadly, shockingly frightening.

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Exponentially growing conventional energy demands can not met by harvesting biomass which is not in surplus. The benefits of corn based ethanol are marginal given energy necessary for production, oil palm [search] and soy [search] biofuel plantations are devastating rainforests, cellulosic ethanol will be yet one more massive drain upon already ravaged global forests and the productive land base available to natural ecosystems and food agriculture, and even at this early stage of adoption the use of food crops for biofuels is resulting in agricultural price increases [more | more2]. When harvests are bad as they will be shall we eat or drive? There are several simultaneous ecological crises occuring including climate change, terrestrial habitat loss, soil loss and degradation and water scarcity. Biofuels have marginal positive impacts on the former while intensifying all of the latter. Solar energy is best harvested through photovoltaics, as we can not feed ourselves, maintain life giving ecosystems and fuel the world from plant materials. Climate change will only be solved through reductions in population [search] and consumption [search], much increased energy efficiency and conservation, massive renewable energy investment, and dramatically cutting greenhouse gas emissions ASAP including leaving coal in the ground. Lets get past the easy feel good do nothing fixes and move to Sustainability Solutions.

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Arctic sea ice retreat is likely to accelerate so rapidly that the Arctic Ocean could become nearly devoid of ice during summertime as early as 2040. This is 40 years earlier than previously thought. "If nothing is done to curb man-made emissions of greenhouse gases the Arctic Basin, from Siberia and Greenland to Canada and Alaska, could be open water in summer within the lifetime of today's children." Such abrupt loss of ice in a gradually warming world is due to positive feedback from the open water which absorbs more sunlight than more highly reflective ice, thus further hastening Arctic sea ice melting [search]. Results will vary from the local including the loss of many Arctic indigeneous peoples [search] and their way of life, extinction of the polar bear [search]; and globally lead to more climate change through disruption of the North Atlantic current [search] that brings mild winters to Britain, or a more rapid loss of the Greenland ice sheet [search].The findings are part of the fourth assessment of the International Panel on Climate Change due next year, and were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. I believe this is a harbinger of abrupt climate change whose impacts fall beyond the present worst case scientific scenarios.

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A new report shows that overall ocean productivity decreases when the climate warms. Global warming is devastating the foundations of the Earth's marine food chain [more | more2] throughout huge swaths of tropical and sub-tropical seas. Microscopic plants known as phytoplankton [search] respond to rising ocean temperatures by scaling down their productivity by 30% or more - severely reducing overall marine biological productivity. "Phytoplankton are the microscopic plant life that zooplankton and other marine animals eat, essentially the grain crop of the world's oceans." Phytoplankton generate about half the world's biological productivity, removing some 100 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each day. This is but one potentially deadly positive feedback whereby global warming leads to intensified heating - others including rainforest die-back [search], melting permafrost [search] and release of ocean methane hydrates [search]. Global heating is further devastating oceans through acidification, creation of dead zones and species extinctions. This is at least the third recent major peer reviewed scientific journal article showing anticipated global warming biological side effects are already happening. Global heating is weakening and breaking down the global ecological system - Gaia if you will. We are witnessing the dismantling of human habitat and end of being.

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A new study finds old-growth forest store and continue to remove far more carbon than previously thought [more] making their preservation (strict protection with no industrial management) a higher priority in carbon trading, tackling global warming and forest conservation. The conventional scientific wisdom has long been that while old-growth forests (older than 100 years old) and primary forests (never been logged or otherwise significantly disturbed) store much carbon and are important carbon sinks [search], that they no longer remove much new carbon, so essentially their removal and release of carbon are in balance.

A new study questions this assumption with great importance for forest conservation and climate change policy adequate to ensure global ecological sustainability for the foreseeable future. The new study found that a 400-year-old forest in southern China is soaking up carbon from the atmosphere considerably faster than expected, most of which is being stored for the long term in the top levels of the soil. The results, which are still preliminary in that they have not been repeated worldwide, nonetheless show the dynamism of carbon in ancient forests, and our continued lack of knowledge regarding basic planetary ecological processes of great importance to our survival and well-being.

This finding, that ancient forests may continue to remove substantial carbon, along with recent studies showing selective logging of ancient forests releases extremely large amounts of carbon and forever damages carbon removal mechanisms, sheds grave doubts upon forest conservation strategies dependent upon “certification” of the environmental sensitivity of logging including ancient forests.

One of the great tasks of our, and all, time is protecting and aiding the expansion of all remaining old-growth forests and primary forests which for sake of simplicity I often refer to as “ancient forests”. These evolutionary shrines hold untold wisdom deep in their genes, high above us in their vibrant canopies, and deep within the darkness of their roots and soils. There loss AND diminishment must stop if there is to be any chance to sustain the planet and human society. Ecological Internet will soon launch a long-term campaign targeting the Forest Stewardship Council and their apologists that refuse to support efforts to end ancient forest logging.

Continuing to diminish through industrial “selective” logging the world’s 20% of ancient forests which have not already been lost will be a death-knell for the Earth and humanity. Solving climate change and water scarcity is intimately entwined with establishing permanent protection (with compensation for those affected) for all remaining ancient old-growth and primary forests. Attacking the troika of ancient forest loss and diminishment, climate change including dramatically reducing emissions, and protecting water systems and provision of potable water as a human right will decide whether humans have more time as a species and how they spend it.

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