Year: 2010

Tackling Climate Change Only Way to Halt Species Extinction Crisis and Declines

Stephen 1 Must Read, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, developing world, ECOLOGY, Forests, Global Issues and Perspectives, News , , , , ,

An IPCC for Species Needed

By Stephen Leahy

NAGOYA, Japan, Oct 26, 2010 (IPS)

A major change in the direction of economic development is essential to avoid the catastrophic unraveling of Earth’s ecosystems that support all life, a new global analysis published in the journal Science revealed Tuesday.

Climate change, pollution, deforestation and other forms of land use change are pushing species into extinction, reducing their abundance and home ranges.

“Human societies and infrastructures have evolved with and rely on particular sets of species and ecosystems and now these are being reshuffled,” said Paul Leadley of the University Paris-Sud in France who led the study.

“Even optimistic scenarios for this century consistently predict extinctions and shrinking populations of many species,” Leadley told IPS by telephone from France.

The goal of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2020 is under intense negotiation this week in Nagoya at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, based on five recent global environmental assessments, Leadley says that ending biodiversity loss by 2020 is sadly “unrealistic”.

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Geoengineering on a Desperate Planet — UN Declares Global Moratorium

Stephen 1 Must Read, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Forests, global warming, Health, News, OCEAN, Science/Tech, sustainability, water , , , ,

By Stephen Leahy

NAGOYA, Japan, Oct 25, 2010 (Tierramérica)

[Update 30 October 2 am. Global moratorium passes.]

Delegates to the world summit on biodiversity here are calling for a moratorium on climate engineering research, like the idea of putting huge mirrors in outer space to reflect some of the sun’s heating rays away from the planet.

Climate engineering or geoengineering refers to any large-scale, human- made effort to manipulate the planet to adapt to climate change.

Representatives from Africa and Asia expressed concern about the negative impacts of geoengineering during the opening week of the 10th Conference of Parties (COP 10) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Oct. 18-29. They were joined by civil society organisations in calling for a moratorium on geoengineering experiments.

The geoengineering proposals include installing giant vertical pipes in the ocean to bring cold water to the surface, pumping vast amounts of sulphates into the stratosphere to block sunlight, or blowing ocean salt spray into clouds to increase their reflectivity.

The geoengineering proposals include installing giant vertical pipes in the ocean to bring cold water to the surface, pumping vast amounts of sulphates into the stratosphere to block sunlight, or blowing ocean salt spray into clouds to increase their reflectivity.

Broadly speaking, there are two main geoengineering approaches: solar radiation management and carbon sequestration, in other words, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to reduce the concentration of this greenhouse-effect gas.

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To manage the sun’s rays, there are ideas like releasing sulphates into the atmosphere or placing giant mirrors in outer space. For absorbing carbon, the possible approaches include ocean fertilisation, in which iron or nitrogen is added to seawater to stimulate the growth of phytoplankton to sequester the carbon deep in the ocean.

“Some of the proponents of these technologies think it’s easier to ‘manage the sun’ than get people to take a bus” to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, said Pat Mooney, executive director of the ETC Group, an international environmental organisation headquartered in Canada. [etc “Geopiracy” report]

“Politicians in rich countries see geoengineering as ‘Plan B’ so they don’t have to make the hard choices of reducing emissions causing climate change,” Mooney told Tierramérica.

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Palau Announces Massive Marine Sanctuary to Protect Whales, Dolphins, Sharks

Stephen 1 Must Read, Biodiversity, ENVIRONMENT, News, OCEAN, sustainability, WILDLIFE , , , ,

By Stephen Leahy

NAGOYA, Japan, Oct 25, 2010 (IPS)

One of Japan’s closest allies declared over the weekend that all of its oceans – more than 600,000 square kilometres – would be a sanctuary for whales, dolphins, dugongs, sharks and other species.

“There will be no hunting or harassment of marine mammals and other species in our waters,” said the Honourable Harry Fritz, minister of the environment, natural resources and tourism of the Republic of Palau.

“We urge other nations to join our efforts to protect whales, dolphins and other marine animals,” Fritz said at a press conference during Oceans Day at the meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan.

Japan has long sought to overturn the global ban on commercial whaling and has actively solicited and received Palau’s support for many years. Japan is its second largest source of development aid after the United States. Japanese tourists frequent the islands since many people speak some Japanese.

“Palau now supports conserving marine mammals, along with sharks and other species,” said Susan Lieberman, director of international policy for the Pew Environment Group, a large U.S. NGO.

“This is a very significant announcement,” Lieberman told IPS.

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Dams Come At a Price of Hi-Quality Food — Hard to Put a Price-tag on Healthy Rivers

Stephen 1 Must Read, Africa, Agriculture/Food, developing world, Energy, Food, Global Issues and Perspectives, Indigenous People, Pollution and Toxics, water, WILDLIFE , ,

By Stephen Leahy

NAGOYA, Japan, Oct 22, 2010 (IPS)

Damming a river may bring electric power, but it often comes at the price of high-quality food fisheries, experts say. When dams are proposed for power, flood control or irrigation, the often devastating impacts on fisheries in rivers and lakes are ignored or discounted.

“It is very difficult to put a dollar value on what inland fisheries represent because it is much more than the landed value of the fish at the dock,” says Yumiko Kura of the WorldFish Center office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Kura is co-author of a new report, “Blue Harvest: Inland Fisheries as an Ecosystem Service”, which highlights the wide-ranging importance of inland fisheries in diets, especially among children, and not just in terms of protein but in supplying micronutrients, notably vitamin A, calcium, iron and zinc.

“Detailed studies in Bangladesh for example have shown that daily consumption of small fish contributes 40 percent of the total daily household requirement of vitamin A and 31 percent of calcium,” according the report released Friday at a side event at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

In addition, it notes there are more than 60 million full- and part-time jobs in fishing and other activities such as processing, with over half these jobs carried out by women.

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Blame Canada: Seeks to Drop Native Peoples from New Biodiversity Pact

Stephen 1 Must Read, Food, Forests, Global Issues and Perspectives, Indigenous People, Media, News, sustainability, WILDLIFE ,

Awarding Winner Poster - CBD COP 10 Nagoya - Copyright Stephen Leahy

By Stephen Leahy

NAGOYA, Japan, Oct 21, 2010 (IPS)

Blame Canada if countries fail to agree to a new binding treaty to curb the rapid loss of plant, animal and species that form the intricate web of life that sustains humanity.

That is the view of indigenous representatives from Canada in response to a late night move by the Canadian delegation to strike a reference to indigenous peoples’ rights at the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) members’ conference here.

“Canada is stalling progress here, weakening our rights and fighting against a legally-binding protocol on access and benefit sharing,” said Armand MacKenzie, executive director of the Innu Council of Nitassinan, the indigenous inhabitants in northeastern Canada.

“Their opposition threatens global biodiversity… people need to speak out,” MacKenzie told IPS.

A protocol on access and benefit sharing (ABS) without a guarantee of the rights of indigenous people and local communities “would be totally void”, said Paulino Franco de Carvalho, head of the Brazilian delegation.

“Brazil will not accept any agreement on biodiversity without a fair ABS protocol…. We are not bluffing on that, I must be very clear,” Franco de Carvalho said in a press conference.

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North-South Divide Again Clouds Biodiversity Talks

Stephen 1 Must Read, Biodiversity, Culture, developing world, ECOLOGY, Food, Forests, Global Issues and Perspectives, Indigenous People , , , , ,


By Stephen Leahy

NAGOYA, Japan, Oct 19, 2010 (IPS)

The accelerating destruction of natural habitats will take millions of years to recover from, scientists have warned.

This may be the last chance to apply the brakes, Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, reminded delegates representing the 193 member countries of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

“This meeting is being held to address a very simple fact: we are destroying life on this Earth,” Steiner said at the opening plenary meeting Monday. “It is absolutely essential that nations work together here.”

Ryu Matsumoto, Japan’s environment minister, warned that the world was about to reach a threshold where the loss of biodiversity would become irreversible.

“We’re now close to a tipping point on biodiversity,” he said. “We may cross that in the next 10 years.”

With 16,000 participants, the Oct. 18-29 gathering is by far the biggest international meeting on biodiversity. The term biodiversity refers to the variety of plants, animals and other species that provide a wide range of services to humanity.

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Biodiversity at the Cliff’s Edge – Nature’s ‘Free Services’ In Sharp Decline

Stephen 1 Must Read, developing world, Forests, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, Science, WILDLIFE , , ,

By Stephen Leahy*

NAGOYA, Japan, Oct 18, 2010 (Tierramérica)

What nature gives us is often taken for granted, but if its basic elements disappear, human life on Earth would not be possible. The mission of the biodiversity summit under way in Nagoya is to reverse the headlong rush towards the precipice.

The 10th Conference of Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Oct. 18-29 in this southern Japanese city, seeks to create a new set of international agreements to halve the rate of loss of natural habitat, end overfishing, achieve zero net deforestation, eliminate harmful subsidies, and ensure that agriculture is sustainable by 2020, among other goals.

Without a successful meeting in Nagoya, achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be impossible, Janez Potočnik, of the European Union’s Commission for the Environment, told a high-level UN meeting last month in New York.

“Biodiversity” is term used to describe the wide variety of the living things that comprise the planet’s biological infrastructure and provide us with health, wealth, food, water, fuel and other vital services.

Many people fail to understand how dependent humanity is on the many natural services provided by nature, says Hal Mooney, an environmental biologist at Stanford University, in California.

“Those services are considered ‘free’ and not valued under the current economic structures,” Mooney told Tierramérica.

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via Biodiversity at the Cliff’s Edge – IPS ipsnews.net.

‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ Canada Sees Global Warming “Prosperity” Instead of Calamity

Stephen 1 Must Read, arctic, CANADA, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Energy, Global Issues and Perspectives, global warming, Media, News, Science , , , ,

By Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Oct 8, 2010 (IPS)

The first comprehensive look at the expected impacts of climate change on Canada offers an embarrassing and misleading “don’t worry, be happy” vision, citing more golf days and better access to northern deposits of oil and gas courtesy of global warming, critics say.

“The chart needs to be withdrawn,” said climate scientist Danny Harvey of the University of Toronto. “It is full of bad science and utterly downplays the serious impacts of climate change.”

The chart Harvey referred to is the “Degrees of Change” interactive diagram released this week as part of a national educational initiative called “Climate Prosperity” by the prestigious Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE).

“How can we (Canada) talk about profiting from climate change when most of the world will suffer devastating impacts, in part because of our emissions?” Harvey said.

“It is disgusting.”

In a release about the Climate Prosperity initiative, David McLaughlin, NRTEE president and CEO, said, “Adapt and prosper will be increasingly central to Canadian governments, communities, and businesses as these effects become more and more evident.”

NRTEE officials did not respond to IPS requests for an interview.

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Rich Countries Trash Their River Systems and Make Things Worse With Expensive Engineering Fixes — Global Study in Nature

Stephen 1 Must Read, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Energy, global warming, News, OCEAN, Science

Jaw-dropping fact: Rivers in US and Europe in Worst Shape

By Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE Canada, Oct 5, 2010 (IPS)

Failure to protect and invest in nature has left the world’s rivers in crisis, threatening the water supply of more than five billion people according to a new study.

Pollution, dam building, agricultural runoff, conversion of wetlands, and water-works engineering have severely impacting global river systems, the first- ever health assessment of the planet’s riverine ecosystems reported in Nature last week (subscription req’d).

“What made our jaws drop is that some of the highest threat levels in the world are in the United States and Europe,” says Peter McIntyre, a co-author of the report who is a zoologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S.

“Our study reveals, that on average, the richer the country the greater the threat to river systems,” McIntyre told IPS.

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Expensive water-works engineering to control freshwater quality and quantity in rich countries decimate rivers’ natural abilities to control and clean water the Nature study found. River systems provide an estimated six to seven trillion dollars in services to humanity every year, but the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on engineering systems impairs those services for short-term gain, says co-author Charles Vörösmarty of the City University of New York, an expert on global water resources.

“We need to take another approach, to join hands with nature and work together,” Vörösmarty said in an interview. “If we do humanity will get a far better payback in the future.” Continue reading →

Post Climatic Stress Disorder – Climate Psychology on Radio Ecoshock

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Energy, News , , , ,

Vancouver, Canada’s Alex Smith has an excellent podcast program on the psychology of why we are not dealing with climate change. Perhaps it is a crisis in slow motion — too slow for us to get excited about some think. Let’s hope not.  – Stephen

From his Sept 29 show Alex begins:

“Friends did a month of rain that fall last night? Did rivers flood in the Fall? Did you know 214 all-time heat records were set in the U.S. September 24th? It was 30 degrees in Toronto, feeling like 37 with the humidity – the heat of the human body. And just lately, Los Angeles hit an all-time high of 113 degrees – in late September!

Worried about your kids? You might have Post Climatic Stress Disorder. PCSD is a serious condition. But don’t worry, professional help is on the way….

Post Climatic Stress Disorder on Radio Ecoshock