Wildlife & Biodiversity
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Global Movement Demands Action on Climate Change
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WSJ: "Waxman-Markey's benefits far outweigh costs"
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Tusk! Walrus May Join Polar Bear on Endangered List
Global Warming? The Writing's on the Seawall
Published November 06, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
It's getting harder and harder to ignore climate change. Now our favorite ocean creatures are confirming what we already know. As the water gets warmer, the fish are moving away, faaar away, to find cooler habitats.
Researchers at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have published a new study that reveals that half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean have shifted their ranges to the north over the last forty years, reports Science Daily. Some of the stocks, many of which are commerically fished, have all but vanished from U.S. waters.
Their research, which appears in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, illustrates how changing coastal and ocean temperatures are altering the behavior of fish species that range from North Carolina to the Canadian border. The species in question include Atlantic cod, haddock, yellowtail, winter flounder, spiny dogfish, Atlantic herring and more obscure species like blackbelly rosefish.
Developing World Stands Up To Developed Nations
Published October 16, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
I'm currently on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza in the South Pacific. We're on the Defending Our Pacific tour, which is a campaign to establish a global network of marine reserves, stop overfishing of Pacific fisheries, and support Pacific island nations efforts to stop Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in their waters.
Crewman aboard the Japanese vessel Koyu Maru 3, fishing in Cook Islands waters illegally, haul a tuna onboard. Like climate change, overfishing of the world's fisheries is threatening the livelihood of developing countries who are not contributing significantly to the source of the problem. Image © Paul Hilton/Greenpeace
Last week, we caught the Japanese ship Koyu Maru 3 fishing in Cook Islands waters without a license, which is obviously illegal. When I blogged a bout it on the Greenpeace website, I made the point that this was not just illegal but also immoral. So why is it immoral?
Last week, a new study was released by The Commonwealth that underscores the drastic need for government action on overfishing and climate change in order to stave off a collapse of global fisheries. The report warns that the oceans could soon become “deserts” and goes on to say:
The study reveals that those least responsible for the state of the oceans are most likely to suffer the consequences of poor management and climate change. Small island states in particular are vulnerable to illegal and unfair fishing by foreign fleets and to migration of fish away from warming seas.
The Esperanza has been in the Pacific region since May to support Pacific Island countries on issues ranging from climate change to fisheries collapse and marine conservation. But of course Greenpeace’s history in the Pacific Ocean goes back much further than that — all the way back to the early 1970s when we were protesting the French nuclear blasts at Moruroa. The fallout from these blasts also disproportionately affected those Pacific islanders living downwind from the blast sites — another instance of those not responsible for a problem suffering the most. While there was nothing technically illegal about these blasts, the total disregard for human health and welfare is egregious.
The industrialized commercial fishing vessels that are literally stealing fish from Pacific island nations' waters is just another example of the developed world doing as they please and disregarding the well-being of the people affected by their actions. That's why it’s very encouraging that eight Pacific island nations have come together and are standing up for their rights against these invading international commercial fishing fleets.
Pacific island states are not the only developing nations that are banding together to force the developed world to live up to their other moral obligations: “Africa will demand billions of dollars in compensation from rich polluting nations at a UN climate summit for the harm caused by global warming on the continent, African officials said Sunday.”
Lest we doubt that there is any need for this stand by African nations, even the World Bank, generally no friend to the developing world, is warning of the threats those nations are facing as the climate crisis looms: “The World Bank estimates that the developing world will suffer about 80 percent of the damage of climate change despite accounting for only around one third of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
So the real question we must be asking ourselves is: Will the developed world stand up and do the right thing in regard to these moral obligations?
Fatalistic Friday: 'We're waiting for our climate speech, Mr. President', major Arctic melt, more
Published September 11, 2009 @ 02:37PM PT
Above: Pacific walrus swimming to shore at an Alaskan beach. The Obama administration may give the species special protections under the Endangered Species Act, because it is losing critical habitat to global warming. Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Presented for your amusement: our semi-regular horse pill of bad news about climate change. Look out -- there's a signpost up ahead that reads...Fatalistic Friday.
Climate Activists Wait for an Obama Speech to Call Their Own: As President Obama delivered his health care speech this week, climate change activists said they were waiting patiently for a similar rhetorical moment. While there is broad acceptance about the president's decision to push global warming to the back burner for now, Obama needs to grant climate change equal attention on prime-time television in coming months, they say.
With less than 100 days until the Copenhagen talks begin, time is running out. "I don't have a problem with him keeping the climate powder dry for now," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, which is pushing to strengthen global warming legislation that passed the House in June. "But, ultimately, it may take a big goosing from the White House to achieve some resolution in the Congress." (ClimateWire)
Arctic ice meltdown greater than average again in 2009: The Arctic sea ice has retreated to the third-lowest level in recorded history -- the fourth time in the past five years that the annual summer meltdown has been far greater than average. The ice has already diminished this year to less than 5.3 million square kilometres, with a week or two of melting left to go. The all-time biggest retreat was recorded in 2007 at 4.13 million square kilometres, and the 2008 retreat fell just short of that record. (CanWest News Service)
Effects of Arctic warming seen as widespread: The Arctic Circle has been warming faster than other latitudes. And the impacts are showing on the region's plants, birds, animals and insects. "The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past," Eric Post, an associate professor of biology at Penn State University, said in a statement. (Associated Press)
Fatalistic Friday: Storms, heat, drought and double-dealing
Published August 21, 2009 @ 08:14PM PT
Another week's end brings us to another concentrated, hurts-less-this-way burst of the worst of the week's global warming news:
Storm Fells Hundreds of Trees in NY's Central Park: Hundreds of trees in Central Park were damaged and destroyed by severe thunderstorm winds as high as 80 mph. "I've never seen a wind of that velocity in New York City," Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said. "It looks like pictures that I've seen of war zones where artillery shells have shredded trees." (The New York Times)
In hot water: World sets ocean temperature record: The ocean is 72 degrees F in Maine, 88 in Ocean City, Maryland. And all around the world, July was the hottest the world's oceans have been in almost 130 years of keeping records. "The average water temperature worldwide was 62.6 degrees, according to the National Climatic Data Center, the branch of the U.S. government that keeps world weather records. That was 1.1 degree higher than the 20th century average." (Associated Press)
Mexico Hit By Lowest Rainfall In 68 Years: It's killing cattle, threatening millions of tons of crops, and reducing the supply of water to Mexico City. (Reuters)
ConocoPhillips works to undermine climate bill, despite pledge to support climate action: Despite being a member of the pro-business US Climate Action Partnership, ConocoPhillips is now putting its weight behind opposition to climate change legislation. (Grist)
Fatalistic Friday (Our 501st Post!): Antarctic glacier thinning at astonishing rate
Published August 14, 2009 @ 06:36PM PT
Here's the latest bad news on how global warming is changing the environment -- super concentrated into one regular weekly burst of woe:
Antarctic glacier 'thinning fast': One of the southern continent's largest glaciers is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago. The Pine Island Glacier is dropping at a rate of up to 16 meters (52 feet) a year. "Since 1994, the glacier has lowered by as much as 90m, which has serious implications for sea-level rise," reports the BBC about the research, which is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "This is unprecedented in this area of Antarctica. We've known that it's been out of balance for some time, but nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier," said co-author Andrew Shepherd of Leeds University. (BBC News)
Study looks at warming’s effect on Beartooth glaciers: When Dr. Edward Chatelain first climbed Montana's 12,604-foot Castle Mountain as a teen, in the mid-1970s, he was awed by the size of the glacier and the deep crevasses that sliced into its core. Flying over it two decades later, "We were absolutely aghast to see what was left," he said. The Castle Rock Glacier lost 60 meters (197 feet) of ice from its surface between 1952 and 2003, an average of 1.26 meters (1.434 feet) of melt per year. (The Billings Gazette)
Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat: In late July the mercury soared to almost 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada, home of 900 Inuvialuit. Kids were swimming in the ocean. "As of Thursday, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported, the polar ice cap ... shrunk an average 41,000 square miles (106,000 square kilometers) a day in July -- equivalent to one Indiana or three Belgiums daily. The rate of melt was similar to that of July 2007, the year when the ice cap dwindled to a record low minimum extent of 1.7 million square miles (4.3 million square kilometers)..." (AP)
Either way, it was really, really warm: Globally averaged land and sea surface temperatures for July were the second hottest on record, according to NASA (data set here). NOAA calls it the sixth hottest on record, with global ocean surface temperature for July 2009 was the warmest on record.
Why do the same groups oppose health care and energy reform? "Perhaps the best explanation is that great unifier, money." That is, the enormous sums a small but powerful coterie of corporations stand to lose if and when these policies are brought up to date for the conditions the 21st century America. (DeSmogBlog)
Money key stumbling block at UN climate talks: Developing countries will need billions to curb carbon pollution and cope with globl warming's effects on their vulnerable lands and populations. Who will foot the bill was a key hurdle at UN climate talks this week in Bonn. "The five-day negotiating session veered to an end with many participants expressing frustration at the lack of progress only four months ahead of the Copenhagen climate conference slated to deliver a planet-saving climate treaty." (AFP)
Related: India called developed nations' failure to implement the Kyoto Protocol the "single biggest issue" facing multilateral talks. (AFP)
As India water and power dry up, the people revolt: Could be global warming, could be natural cycles that are causing an abnormally light monsoon season this year. Not much comfort to the thousands of Indians whose farm fields are drying up, and hydro-powered electricity supply is faltering. (The Los Angeles Times)
Climate change fueling forest fires in Europe: Greenpeace has warned that climate change is fueling forest fires that have already destroyed tens of thousands of hectares in southern Europe this year. "Climate change is driving a new generation of fires with unknown social and economic consequences," said Miguel Soto, Greenpeace Spain forests campaigner. (AFP)
Intensity of Recent Hurricanes Not Matched Since Middle Ages: The Atlantic Ocean is experiencing the most intense period of hurricane activity in 1,000 years. One of the study's authors says, "We believe a substantial part of the reason for that anomalous recent warmth is in fact the human influence on climate." The research has just been published in the journal Nature. (NPR)
Emissions trading scheme defeated in Australia: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it was a ''disappointing day indeed for Australia...Today, Australia had an opportunity to embrace the future on climate change and instead we find ourselves, courtesy of the Liberal and National parties, dangerously anchored in the past,'' he told Parliament. (The Age)
Life's a bleach for Barrier Reef as climate changes: New research into the potential financial cost of climate change to the world heritage-listed wonder puts the present value of the reef at $51.4 billion - approaching $2500 for every Australian alive today - but warns that nearly four-fifths of this value would be destroyed if the coral was totally and permanently bleached. Warming global ocean temperatures are increasing coral bleaching events. (The Australian)
Related: Australia's Green (liberal) and Coalition (conservative) parties have voted down an emissions plan. It's bad news for the environment. (The Guardian)
Demanding Closure of W. Va's "Department of Encouraging Pollution"
Published August 11, 2009 @ 09:55AM PT
Related Actions:
- We Don't Need More Dirty Coal! Urge Congress to oppose the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they feature carbon capture technologies.
- Help Save The Cerulean Warbler: Support Senate Bill 696 to stop mountaintop removal coal mining
- Tell Sec. Salazar to to protect streams and rivers in Appalachia
Four protestors were arrested this morning after they chained themselves to the entrance of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), in Charleston. Saying that the state is not properly regulating mountaintop removal mining of coal in the state, they demanded the resignation of DEP secretary Randy Huffman that the agency turn control of key mining-related programs to the federal government. Reportedly dozens of people appeared at the demonstration.
As one local news outlet reports, "The WVDEP simply fails to adequately regulate the coal industry,” said Rock Creek resident Lorelei Scarbro, one of the demonstrators. “When WVDEP Secretary Randy Huffman runs off to lobby the EPA to grant illegal valley fill permits, he’s abdicated his responsibility to the people. Corporate coal influence has become so great inside the WVDEP that he has become a public relations spokesperson for the coal industry instead of an enforcer of mining laws and regulations.”
The Applalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, Coal River Mountain Watch, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, and Sierra Club have filed a petition asking that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as the US Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), take over enforcement of a crucial enviro protection rule, mandating that all mining activities leave a 100 foot buffer zone around both perennial and intermittent streams.
This rule has been in contention for over a decade. Most recently, the Bush administration essentially eliminated the buffer zone mandate, and the Obama administration moved to reverse that rule change. But the administration has yet to state firmly that it will enforce the rule, when it comes to filling nearby valleys with the waste from mountaintop removal mining operations.
According to reporter/blogger Ken Ward Jr. at The Charleston Gazette, "Of course, various administrations over at the WVDEP has always argued that the rule does not apply to valley fill footprints and, if it did, the rule would essentially end all coal mining."
The impacts of climate change and fossil fuel dependence are still abstract to many Americans. Not so in West Virginia, however, where mountaintop-removal mining of coal has created post-apocalyptic landscapes worthy of 1970s sci-fi. Protestors say there have been around a dozen protests this year alone against the destructive mining method, organized by grassroots groups like Mountain Justice, and over 90 arrests for civil disobedience.
Read more:
- Breaking: Coalfield Uprising Grows, More Sit-ins: Will Feds Take Down WVA's Embarrassing DEP? The Huffington Post
- "Protesters chain themselves to DEP building," The Charleston Gazette
- Coal Tattoo blog at The Charleston Gazette
- "Appalachian Uprising continues in fight against Mountaintop Removal," Coal is Dirty blog
- "Protestors Arrested at DEP Headquarters", The State Journal
- "Protest at DEP Ends in Four Arrests," WSAZ News Channel 3
Across the Change-i-verse
Published August 09, 2009 @ 07:12PM PT
Just a small sampling of what's been going on this past week on Change.org's blogs:
Friday Futures: Food: How might the combination of population growth, monocrop agriculture, and overfishing affect the future of food. Sustainable Food blog editor Alanna Shaikh isn't optimistic: "We'll continue to grow enough food in aggregate to support the weight of the world's population. In terms of the variety of our food, however, we're on the verge of a major contraction. Variety will shrink, and prices of food will go up enough that the even the middle class will see their food options substantially limited by price."
Also at Sustainable Food, editor Natasha Chart covers one of the major underreported natural resource stories, the growing shortage of phosphorous for fertilizer.
Twitter, Facebook Shut Down in Attempt to Silence Activist: "On Thursday and Friday millions of social media users found themselves frustrated and without access to services like Twitter and Facebook," writes Social Entrepreneurship editor Nathaniel Whittemore. "News reports soon came in that the outages were being caused by an ongoing and coordinated hacker attack. Just today, the story got even more interesting, with the New York Times reporting that the target of the attack appears to have been a single person, a 34 year old economics professor and refugee activist from the Republic of Georgia."
Fear, Sex, and Pandemic - Horrible Outcomes Don't Change Behavior: Global health equivalent of global warming's To Scare or Not To Scare? "Only a small percentage of the public will respond to the ‘useful parts' of the message and change habits," says Global Health guest blogger Carol Dunn, "All ‘call to action' messages that trigger our fear response-are not sustainable, healthy, or useful..." and several more interesting points.
Does "Cash for Clunkers" Hurt the Homeless? "In addition to stimulating the economy and promoting fuel efficiency, the "Cash for Clunkers" program may be having another unintentional effect: hurting the poor and homeless," suggests End Homelessness editor Shannon Moriarty. Vehicle donation programs, such as Mission Solano in Fairfield, California, rely on vehicle donations (in return for a tax write-off) to raise funds to serve the area's homeless."
Friday Food: Fresh and Light Pastas, Zucchini Love, Filled Pancakes, and More: Another great roundup of vegan recipes from Animal Rights editor Stephanie Ernst. And Because Sometimes We All Need a Little Bit of Adorable, she posted this cheering video as well.
Find My Happy Place (Or, Music for a Bad Day): We certainly don't have the corner on bad news here at Stop Global Warming. But it's important to re-energize. Genocide blog editor, Michelle shares a selection of music to cheer up by from her personal "Find My Happy Place" i-Pod playlist.
