Year: 2006

Will Forests Adapt to a Warmer World?

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, Forests, Global Issues and Perspectives, News

How is climate change affecting the world’s forests today and in the future

Copyright 2006 Renate Leahy
By Stephen Leahy

TORONTO, Nov 20 (IPS/IFEJ) – Deforestation remains the greatest current threat to the world’s forests, claiming 10 to 15 million hectares of tree-covered areas every year, but climate change may represent a bigger challenge in the long term, scientists say.

“We’re like a two-year-old playing with fire… We’re messing around with something dangerous and don’t really understand what will happen,” says William Laurance, of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Balboa, Panama, in reference to climate change and the Amazon rainforest.

Forests and other forms of life are now living on an “alien” planet where the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are higher than they have been for a million years.

These unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases are creating a new, hotter planet with weather that is much more extreme than in the past.

What does this mean for the 20 percent of the Earth’s original forests that are still standing? Some scientists believe forests will grow faster in a warmer world. Others say they are more likely to burn, or suffer from disease or die from drought.

— Full story here

Part of a series on sustainable development for IPS and IFEJ (International Federation of Environmental Journalists)

Polar Bears Go Hungry as Icy Habitat Melts Away

Stephen Alaska, CANADA, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, News, WILDLIFE

By Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Nov 17 (IPS) – The iconic animal of the frozen north, the polar bear, is starving to death because climate change is melting the Arctic Ocean sea ice.

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Polar bears hunt seals almost exclusively and do so from the sea ice. But in the past five years, summer sea ice coverage has declined by 20 percent due to warming temperatures. Although excellent swimmers, the bears are not very good at catching seals in the water, so changes in the ice are making it difficult for these giant bears to survive — several have recently been found drowned and to have died of starvation.

This week scientists announced new findings that the survival rate of polar bear cubs in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea has plummeted. In the late 1980s, 65 percent of polar bear cubs in the southern Beaufort Sea survived their first year. That has fallen to an average of 43 percent in the past five years, report scientists at the Canadian Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

“This an extremely ominous finding for polar bears,” said Kassie Siegel of the Centre for Biological Diversity, an environmental non-governmental organisation, based in Joshua Tree, California.

“We’ve observed massive melting of the sea ice in the Arctic in recent years, and they can’t survive without it,” Siegel told IPS.

— Full Story here

And here are my most recent articles on the state of the Arctic: Arctic Ice Gone in 5 Years – First Time in One Million Years

Arctic Is the Canary in the Coalmine

Burning Down Our House

Arctic Oil and Gas Rush Alarms Scientists

Arctic Meltdown Signals Long-Term Trend


Deforestation and Climate Change To Devastate Amazon Rainforest

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, developing world, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, News

Paraphrase of the Day:   We’re like a two year old playing with fire when it comes to deforestation of the Amazon and global climate change.

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We’re messing around with something dangerous and don’t really understand what will happen. — William Laurence, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Panama.

Story here

Skin Cancer and the Record-breaking Antarctic Ozone Hole

Stephen ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Health, News, ozone

Ailments Surge as Ozone Hole Widens

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The increase in skin cancer from sun exposure is alarming, scientists say. Residents of southern Chile and Argentina are advised to take extra care in protecting themselves from solar rays this spring season in the southern hemisphere.

 

 

By Stephen Leahy

TORONTO, Nov 11’06 (Tierramérica) – Skin cancer, eye lesions and other infections are on the rise, a reminder that the Antarctic ozone hole continues to be a serious problem, especially for southern Argentina and Chile, where ultraviolet radiation during the spring months increases 25 percent.

The ozone layer covers the entire planet at an altitude of between 15 and 30 kilometres, and protects living organisms from the sun’s harmful rays.

According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the dramatic thinning of the ozone layer over the Antarctic — an annual phenomenon — sprawled to an average of 29.5 million square kilometres Sep. 21 to Sep. 30.

“This year’s Antarctic ozone ‘hole’ is the largest on record,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Governments need to reduce and shut down the remaining sources of ozone-depleting chemicals,” Steiner said in a statement.

The rates of sunburn increase during the southern hemisphere springtime, when the Antarctic ozone hole is large enough to extend over the city of Punta Arenas at the southern tip of Chile, according to studies conducted by Chile’s Universidad de Magallanes.

— Fully Story here

My More Recent Ozone Articles:

2008 – Monster Ozone Hole (Again) – But your skin would fry in 3 mins without 20-yr old Ozone Treaty

2007 – Skin Cancer Rising Despite New Ozone Deal to Cut CO2 Emissions 

Ozone Hole is Back and Bigger Than Ever

Ozone Treaty Best Bet to Slow Climate Change

The Real Cost of US Strawberries

From Mosques to Mollusks, No Haven From Rising CO2

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, OCEAN

By Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Nov 10 (IPS) – Three hundred and eighty parts per million. That’s the current concentration of carbon dioxide going into your lungs with each breath. Our parents or grandparents’ first breaths at birth contained about 290 parts per million (ppm), as it was for everyone born before them.

What does it really mean when in the not so distant future our children or grandchildren will inhale 450, perhaps 500 ppm or more of carbon dioxide?

Evidently, breathing in a bit more carbon dioxide (CO2) isn’t bad for human health — oxygen at sea level is 200,000 ppm, after all — but the changing atmosphere is having profound impacts on the climate of the planet.

The changing climate has many consequences, among them the potential loss of ancient ruins in Thailand, coral reefs in Belize, 13th century mosques in the Sahara, the Cape Floral Kingdom in South Africa and other irreplaceable natural and historic sites around the world, experts reported this week.

“Climate changes are impacting on all aspects of human and natural systems, including both cultural and natural World Heritage properties, “said Koichiro Matsuura, director-general of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, which hosts the World Heritage Centre.

— Full Story here

Billions Needed to Climate-Proof Africa

Stephen Africa, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, News

By Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Nov 6 (IPS) – Climate change will devastate Africa without substantial help from the world community, according to a new report released at the opening of a major U.N. climate change conference in Nairobi, Kenya Monday.

“Africa is the least responsible for climate change but will be hit the hardest,” said Nick Nuttall, spokesperson for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

New scientific data shows that Africa is more vulnerable to the impacts than previously thought, Nuttall told IPS from Nairobi.

Seventy million people and 30 percent of Africa’s coastal infrastructure face the risk of coastal flooding by 2080 linked to rising sea levels, the report found. More than one-third of the habitats that support African wildlife could be lost. Crop yields will fall due to warmer temperatures and more intense droughts.

By 2025, some 480 million people in Africa could be living in water-scarce or water-stressed areas.

“If Africa’s weather gets any more fickle, then they are in very deep trouble,” said Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace International. Sawyer is one of 6,000 people in Nairobi attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

— Full story here

TRUTH TELLING – JOURNALISTS RISK THEIR LIVES

Stephen developing world, Global Issues and Perspectives, Media, News

“I am not afraid of being killed,” says Egyptian journalist Abeer Al-Askary

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Honouring the Best Who Cover the Worst

By Stephen Leahy

TORONTO, Nov 3 (IPS) – “I am not afraid of being killed,” says Egyptian journalist Abeer Al-Askary, who has been repeatedly threatened and beaten by Egyptian government security forces.

“The journey towards full freedom of expression is long and it is difficult,” Al-Askary told IPS.

Al-Askary was in Toronto Wednesday to receive one of this year’s three International Press Freedom Awards from the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE).

Colombian print and television journalist Hollman Morris and Pakistani writer and photographer Hayat Ullah Khan were the other award recipients.

Khan’s family will receive the 3,000-dollar award because he was abducted on Dec. 5, 2005. His body was found in North Waziristan near Afghanistan on Jun. 16 this year. He had been handcuffed and shot in the head. Pakistani intelligence services are suspected since Khan was kidnapped four days after reporting on and releasing photos about a missile attack on North Waziristan by what may have been a U.S. drone.

— complete story

*Photo Courtesy of Canadian Journalist for Free Expression

Oceans on the Brink of No Return

Stephen ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, OCEAN
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By Stephen Leahy Nov 2 ’06 (IPS) – Every single commercial fishery in the world will be wiped before 2050 and the oceans may never recover if over-fishing continues at its current rate, a four-year scientific investigation has found.

“By the time my nine-year-old son is my age, there would be no wild seafood left,” said Emmett Duffy, a scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences in the United States.

In this grim, not-to-far-off future, not only will there be no fish to eat, humans will also lose the vital services oceans provide, including processing wastes, cleaning beaches, controlling flooding and absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Continue reading →