Biodiversity

Rage and the Economics of the Environment

Stephen 1 Must Read, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, Energy, Global Issues and Perspectives, global warming , , , , ,
Economist Tim Jackson, Copenhagen Dec 2009

[Rage does feel appropriate at times with the continuing mis-information regarding climate change and the IPCC. While some focus on looking for typos in 3000 page report, the real issue is an overwhelming need to bring our economic system in line with the reality that we have but one planet to live on. Economists like Tim Jackson, who I met in Copenhagen, and others are taking on this vitally important task but are getting little media attention. — Stephen]

Stephen Leahy interviews British economist TIM JACKSON*

Tim Jackson: “The climate treaty wasn’t the only thing that failed in Copenhagen.”

TORONTO, Canada, Jan 28, 2010 (Tierramérica)

“Rage is sometimes the appropriate response” to the failure of the world’s leaders to craft a new climate treaty at the Copenhagen summit, says British economist Tim Jackson.

The Copenhagen Accord, the outcome of the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December, not only revealed global environmental governance as a fiction, but also demonstrated a continuing blind adherence to the mantra of economic growth, says Jackson

Professor of sustainable development and director of the Research Group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment at Surrey University in Britain, Jackson also serves as British government advisor and economics commissioner for the Sustainable Development Commission.

In addition, Jackson is a professional playwright with numerous radio-writing credits for the BBC, based in London.

Tierramérica’s Stephen Leahy spoke with Jackson by phone about his new, controversial book “Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet”, the Copenhagen Accord and prospects for a real climate treaty, continuing a conversation they began last month in Copenhagen.

Q: Your book “Prosperity without Growth” argues that economic growth in developed countries is making people less happy and destroying the Earth itself.

A: It’s clear the continued pursuit of growth endangers the ecosystems on which we depend for long-term survival.

There is also ample evidence that increasing material wealth in developed countries is not making people any happier, but just the opposite in some countries. Beyond a certain level of income, there is no correlation of greater income with greater happiness.

Q: If the era of economic growth is over, what will take its place?

A: Wealth and prosperity need to be redefined along the lines of (1998 Nobel laureate in economics) Amartya Sen’s “capability for flourishing.” Flourishing is defined as having enough to eat, being part of a community, worthwhile employment, decent housing, access to education and medical services.

Continue reading →

The REAL Amazon-gate: On the Brink of Collapse Reveals Million $ Study

Stephen Agriculture/Food, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Forests, News , , , , , ,


By Stephen Leahy

PARIS, Feb 2, 2010 (Tierramérica)

The Amazon jungle “is very close to a tipping point,” and if destruction continues, it could shrink to one third of its original size in just 65 years, warns Thomas Lovejoy, world-renowned tropical biologist.

[UPDATE Sept 6’10: The Amazon River is at its lowest level in 40 years — in 2005 devastating dry spell damaged vast swaths of South American rainforest Amazon May Be Headed For Another Bad Drought]]

Climate change, deforestation and fire are the drivers of this potential Amazonian apocalypse, according to Lovejoy, biodiversity chair at the Washington DC-based Heinz Centre for Science, Economics and the Environment, and chief biodiversity adviser to the president of the World Bank.

Amazonian rainforest, upper Amazon basin, Lore...
Image via Wikipedia

Lovejoy laid out the scenario for participants at the Biodiversity Science Policy Conference in Paris last week, sponsored by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), and marking the beginning of the U.N.’s International Year of Biodiversity.

“The World Bank released a study that finally put the impacts of climate change, deforestation and fires together. The tipping point for the Amazon is 20 percent deforestation,” and that is “a scary result,” Lovejoy told Tierramérica in an interview.

The study, “Assessment of the Risk of Amazon Dieback,” released Jan. 22, drew on the expertise of several international research institutions, including Japan’s Meteorological Research Institute, Britain’s Exeter University, Brazil’s Centre for Weather Forecasting and Climate Change (CPET/INPE), Germany’s Potsdam Institute and Earth3000.

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The results and analysis were reviewed by an international blue-ribbon panel of scientists. Continue reading →

Keeping Wetlands from Becoming Wastelands

Stephen Africa, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, OCEAN , ,

By Stephen Leahy

VICTORIA, Seychelles, Feb 5, 2010 IPS

Swamps, marshes and other wetlands are beginning to be recognised as a countrys green jewels, even in a tropical paradise like Mahé Island here in the Seychelles, with its stunning beaches and dramatic granite outcrops.

“Wetlands are one of the worlds richest ecosystems on the planet,” said Joel Morgan, minister for environment, natural resources and transport, Republic of Seychelles.

“We islanders live closer to nature than many others and we have long understood the importance of wetlands and environmental services and resources they provide us with,” Morgan said at the first-ever World Wetlands Week.

Normally, World Wetlands Day is Feb. 2, but this year the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental treaty on conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources, is celebrating wetlands around the world throughout the entire week.

The Seychelles were chosen for the global launch of World Wetlands Week because they exemplified the Ramsar principle of wise use successfully balancing tourism, development, food security and biodiversity, said Anada Tiega, secretary general of the Ramsar Convention.

“The Seychelles has done a good job implementing the Ramsar Convention,” Tiega said in the opening ceremony.

The Seychelles Islands are a tropical archipelago 1,800 kilometres off the east coast of Africa with a population of just 85,000 people. They comprise 115 islands – the Inner Islands are tall and granitic and the outer low-lying comprise coralline cays, atolls and reef islands. Although generally small in size, wetlands of various kinds can be found on most islands.

For complete article please see:  Keeping Wetlands from Becoming Wastelands

What if our air was 30% more acidic like the Oceans? May be 120% more acidic by 2060

Stephen arctic, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Food, Global Issues and Perspectives, global warming, News, OCEAN, WILDLIFE , ,
Bleached coastal corals. Bantry Bay, Australia. R Leahy 2006

[2°C is a death sentence for corals scientists agree due to ocean acidification and bleaching resulting from emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. However the developed nations of the world have set 2 degrees C as the climate stabilization target not that any of them have figured out how to reach this target. It is as if the oceans don’t matter. This reflects a fundamental ignorance about life on Earth, an assumption that we can lose or seriously damage entire ecosystems without suffering any consequences.

This story shows we need to get serious about tackling emission reductions (below 2C) and preserving anything that sequesters or traps carbon because these will be tremendously valuable in a climate-changed world . — Steve

By Stephen Leahy*

COPENHAGEN, Dec 11 (IPS/TerraViva)

What would it be like if the air we breathe was 30 percent more acidic? The oceans are already 30 percent more acidic, and on their way to becoming 120 percent more acidic in 50 years at the current rates of carbon dioxide emissions.

Acidification is already affecting coral reefs, algae and plankton, the base of many marine food chains, according to a new report released here by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“In the last 10 years, the growth of coral reefs in many areas has declined 15 percent,” said Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the IUCN’s Global Marine Programme.

“That’s a dramatic shift,” Lundin told TerraViva.

The oceans absorb some carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, but the vast quantity being emitted – mainly from the burning of fossil fuels – has altered basic ocean chemistry, turning it sour. That’s also affecting shell-forming plankton and disrupting the growth rates of other species, Lundin said.

The stated goal of many countries to stabilise global temperatures within an increase of no more than 2.0 degrees C. is still “a death sentence for most coral reefs”, he said. The 2.0 C. target implies a level of CO2 in the atmosphere of 450 parts per million (ppm), well up from the historical average of 280 ppm. Continue reading →

Small Farmers Can Feed AND Cool the World – Industrial Agriculture Emits Almost 50% of Greenhouse Emissions

Stephen Africa, Agriculture/Food, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Food, News, Organic , , ,

Agriculture and Food System Change needed to combat Climate Change

Women need to part of the solution

[UPDATE: Feb 2010. Small farmers can cool and feed the world according to Via Campesina. They may be right. After all industrial food production is about making profits not feeding the world nor is it concerned about carbon emissions. Shockingly the GRAIN study in this article did NOT include methane emissions from livestock, so the impact of big ag on climate is likely greater still.

Industrial agriculture is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable — check out this three-year international scientific assessment I covered in 2008 that will revolutionize farming as we know it. The food system is broken but the only reforms I hear about from governments, agribusiness and big NGOs are the same old solutions: new seeds and hi-tech equipment, more GMOs and maybe throw in some nanotech. Small farmers can already deliver what we need if we let them. — Stephen.]

By Stephen Leahy

COPENHAGEN, Dec 12’09 (IPS/TerraViva)

Industrial agriculture may emit nearly half of climate-heating greenhouse gases, but that reality has gone unrecognised by negotiators at the climate treaty talks here, say farmers with La Via Campesina, an international movement of hundreds of millions of small-scale peasant farmers.

“Small-scale farmers use 80 percent less energy than large monocultures,” said Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian farmer with Mouvement de Paysan, through a translator.

“Peasant farmers from La Via Campesina and others can help cool the planet,” Jean-Baptiste told a press conference at the Klimaforum09, the alternative climate action talks being held here in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18.

Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian farmer with Mouvement de Paysan

Unlike the official talks, set in a remote location surrounded by police and razor wire, Klimaforum09 is being held in the city’s community centre and is free and open to the public.

“System Change for Climate Change” – that’s the phrase most often heard at the Klimaforum09 and in parts of Copenhagen.

La Via Campesina’s claim that industrial agriculture is by far the biggest source of carbon emissions is based on a recent study that looked at all emissions from the global food system.

This includes oil-dependent industrial farming, together with the expansion of the meat industry, the destruction of world’s savannahs and forests to grow agricultural commodities, the use of fossil fuel energy to transport and process food, and the extensive use of chemical fertilisers.

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The study was conducted by GRAIN, an international non-governmental organisation that promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity to support local communities. Continue reading →

“We Are a Harbinger of What Is to Come” – Global Warming is Already Affecting Millions – Video

Stephen Africa, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Indigenous People, News , , , , ,

[Those living closest to the land – small farmers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples — are already suffering from impacts of climate change. They have made a series of short videos to show people like you and me who are insulated from these impacts how our emissions of carbon are changing the world.

This is both a plea for help and a warning of what’s coming for all of us.

I found it remarkable those I spoke with are not angry. They simply want us to understand what is happening to them because if we understand, if we know what we are doing to them, then we will act. I hope they are right. — Steve]

By Stephen Leahy

COPENHAGEN, Dec 3 (IPS)

A small group of indigenous people have travelled here to the historic Copenhagen climate talks to show negotiators dramatic documentary videos they made about the immediate impacts of climate change on their homelands and way of life.

“We want to show policymakers what the three-year long drought in my country is doing to our communities,” said Stanley Selian Konini, a Maasai from Oltepesi in Kajiado district, Kenya.

“Our animals are all dead. The zebras and the monkeys are dying even in the forests,” Konini told IPS. “Leaders need to change policies to help us.”

The Kenyan video documents the impact of an intense drought hitting the Maasai community. During these extremely hard times, pastoralists have been losing their cattle – their main and sometimes only livelihood.

“It’s affecting our culture. There can be no dowry payments because we have no animals,” said Konini, one of the young Maasai who made the video.

“The elders say they have never seen anything like this drought. It is something beyond their understanding and experience of the Maasai people,” he said. Continue reading →

The simple truth: “The whole thing unravels without protecting at least half of the planet”

Stephen Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ENVIRONMENT, News, OCEAN, sustainability

Job #1. end government subsidies that drive economic activity that damages the environment

By Stephen Leahy

MÉRIDA, Mexico, Nov 17 IPS

At least half the planet must be protected if humanity is to survive the next century, declared conservationists at the conclusion of 9th World Wilderness Congress on Friday, Nov. 13.

“That is what the science said, this is what many aboriginal people say,” said Harvey Locke, the Wild Foundation's vice president of conservation strategy.

“It’s time to speak the simple truth: The whole thing unravels without protecting at least half of the planet,” said Locke.

A leading economic report released in Brussels also on Nov. 13 pegged the cost of the ongoing loss and degradation of nature’s “infrastructure” at a staggering 2.5 trillion to 4.5 trillion dollars a year.

The enormous challenges humanity faces this century – like a warming planet, freshwater shortages, pollution, declining fisheries, desertification and unsustainable food production – cannot be solved without protecting more than 50 percent of Earth’s land and oceans, Locke told IPS.

Protection doesn’t necessarily mean more national parks, but a ban on resource extraction and all forms of development.

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“We all know we aren’t sustainably managing the Earth,” he told participants at the WILD9 congress, a partnership between the WILD Foundation, an international, non-governmental non-profit based in the United States, and Unidos para la Conservación, a conservation organisation in Mexico.

“It is time for us to state clearly the scale of conservation intervention needed to make the 21st century one of hope instead of despair,” he said. Continue reading →

Plants Finally Get DNA Barcodes — Genetic profiles to fight illegal logging

Stephen Biodiversity, Food, Forests, Mexico, News, Science ,

By Stephen Leahy*

MÉRIDA, Mexico, Nov 20 (Tierramérica)

Advances made in genetic profiling could be used to fight illegal timber trading, provide authentication of herbal medicines and map entire food chains, according to experts at a conference of the Mexican Academy of Sciences.

“It’s taken four years, but the new science of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) barcoding now has the crucial 'marker' for plants,” said David Schindel, executive secretary of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL).

“Biodiversity scientists are using DNA technology to unravel mysteries, much like detectives use it to solve crimes,” Schindel told Tierramérica from Mexico City, where CBOL was co-host of the Nov. 10-12 conference of the Mexican Academy of Sciences with the Biology Institute of the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM).

“This work in Mexico and elsewhere is enormously important,” says Patricia Escalante, chair of the Institute’s zoology department.

“Barcoding is a tool to identify species faster, more cheaply, and more precisely than traditional methods,” Escalante stated in a press release. Continue reading →

Conserve Nature – Best Way We Have To Cope With Climate Change & Survive This Century

Stephen arctic, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, Forests, Indigenous People, Mexico, News, water, WILDLIFE , , ,

“….nature is sick, which threatens the survival of the human species”

“Conservation of nature is the first order strategy for climate change and carbon capture sequestration”

The only way forward is that “we must learn to live a simple life that is spiritually based”

By Stephen Leahy

MÉRIDA, Mexico, Nov 12 (IPS)

Lawrence Amos travelled from the Arctic at the top of the world to the tropical middle to recite in a soft voice the ongoing destruction of his home by climate change.

The ice is rougher and not as thick, and melts in May instead of June. There is less snow, more coastal erosion, and permafrost is melting, threatening to swallow homes, said Amos, an Inuit who lives in Sachs Harbour in Canada’s High Arctic, one of the remotest communities on the planet.

Amos was speaking here on Memorial Day at the 9th World Wilderness Congress from Nov. 6-13, where many other indigenous peoples, scientists and conservationists from more than 50 countries documented the escalating impacts of climate change on the land and in the oceans.

Like the roll call of the names of those fallen at Memorial or Remembrance Day ceremonies, Amos’ list of impacts experienced by the people of the western Arctic was tragically long.

Insects, birds and fish never seen before are now appearing in the region. “Grizzly bears are mating with polar bears… Our traditional knowledge about the land is becoming worthless,” he told IPS.

“Mother Nature does not use language. We must be aware of the signs, the changes in species, the melting of glaciers to inform us that nature is sick, which threatens the survival of the human species,” said Bittu Sahgal, founder of Sanctuary Asia, India’s leading environmental conservation magazine and book publisher.

“Nature will not talk to us, it will give us consequences,” he told more than 1,500 participants at the WILD9 congress, a partnership between the WILD Foundation, an international, non-governmental non-profit based in the United States, and Unidos para la Conservación, a conservation organisation in Mexico. Continue reading →

Amateur Biologists Join Global Bid to Catalog All the Species on the Planet – Join the Fun

Stephen Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, Forests, News, OCEAN , , ,

By Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Aug 25 (IPS)

(all images courtesy of EOL)

Save the living environment and the physical environment will automatically be saved, according to E.O. Wilson, the world’s leading biologist and father of the online Encyclopedia of Life, which plans to create a web page for every known species – all 1.8-plus million.

Climate and water are parts of the physical environment that rely on the living environment – trees, insects, animals – to keep them clean, healthy and in balance.

But that fundamental reality is not well understood by the public and little progress has been made in preventing the destruction of ecosystems and species, Wilson recently told the New Scientist magazine. That’s why Wilson came up with the idea in 2003 to create a publicly accessible, interactive Encyclopedia of Life (EOL).

Launched in 2008, the EOL is growing quickly with 170,000 entries, over 30,000 still images and video – with some provided by members of the public.

“We want to engage the public. With the EOL they can survey the species in their yard and neighbourhoods and report what they find,” said James Edwards, EOL’s executive director based at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

“We’d love to see everyone become a ‘field biologist’ and submit what they’ve found,” he said.

Societal understanding and support is crucial to slow and reverse the loss of ecosystems and species, Edwards told IPS.

“If we can’t do that, we all will be in deep trouble,” he said.

Continue reading →