Global Warming Is Real But I Didn’t Do It

01/06/200707/08/2007 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, Pollution and Toxics, sustainability

CLIMATE CHANGE:
Overcoming the Ostrich Effect
By Stephen Leahy

May 30 (IPS) – The vast majority of North Americans now declare that they want action on climate change. But whether people are truly willing to embrace “carbon-neutral” lifestyles — including giving up their gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles — remains an open question, say experts.

This article is part two of a three-part series published by IPS on natural capital and how future global prosperity and equity can be achieved through the preservation of ecosystems. See Part One: Like Enron, Earth Inc. Sliding Into Bankruptcy and Part Three: How to Kick-Start the 21st Century Eco-Economy

Scientists have made a strong case that the only way to stave off the worst impacts of climate change — floods, storms, wildfires, disease epidemics and sundry other unpleasant events — is by slashing greenhouse gas emissions a whopping 80 percent from the 1990 baseline by 2050. European policy-makers are already putting plans in place to meet that target.
North Americans, whose region is by far the worst polluter, are beginning to talk about reductions, but few understand the sweeping breadth of the changes needed to reach the 80 percent target.

“The American public’s awareness about global warming is extremely high, but that doesn’t mean very much,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Strategic Initiatives at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

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Like Enron, Earth Inc. Sliding Into Bankruptcy

30/05/200707/08/2007 Stephen economics, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, sustainability

Earth Inc. Sliding Into Bankruptcy
By Stephen Leahy

Credit:WWF-Canon / Hartmut

Mangrove destruction for shrimp farming in Thailand.

May 29 (IPS) – Build a shrimp farm in Thailand by cutting down mangrove forests and you will net about 8,000 dollars per hectare. Meanwhile, the destruction of the forest and pollution from the farm will result in a loss of ecosystems worth 35,000 dollars/ha per year.

This article is part one of a three-part series on natural capital and how future global prosperity and equity can be achieved through the preservation of ecosystems. See Part Two: Global Warming is Real But I didn’t Do It Part Three: How to Kick-Start the 21st Century Eco-Economy

Many leading development institutions and policy-makers still fail to understand that this ruthless exploitation for short-term profits could trigger an Enron-like collapse of “Earth, Inc.”, experts say.

For example, the World Bank and other economic development agencies would happily loan a shrimp farmer 100,000 dollars to clear more mangroves. Continue reading →

We are Undermining Life on Earth — World Biodiversity Day (May 22)

22/05/200722/05/2007 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, News, WILDLIFE

Putting a Human Face on Biodiversity
By Stephen Leahy

Credit:Courtesy of CBD

Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

May 21 (Tierramérica) – Biodiversity is what sustains life on Earth, but we are on the verge of the sixth mass extinction of species in the planet’s history, Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, told Tierramérica.

On the eve of World Biodiversity Day, May 22, Djoghlaf underscored that climate change is creating conditions to which plant and animal life cannot react to quickly enough. In turn, the loss of species will aggravate global warming, creating a vicious cycle.

TIERRAMÉRICA: What is the link between climate change and biodiversity?

AHMED DJOGHLAF: Species cannot respond fast enough to changing climatic conditions. The warming oceans are having a tremendous impact on coral reefs and plankton, crucial to marine biodiversity. And combined with over-fishing, this means fish stocks will be effectively wiped out by 2048, recent research shows. That will affect the livelihoods of many millions of people. Continue reading →

No More Lions, Tigers or Bears in a Warmer World (and two steps to keep that from happening)

22/05/200722/05/2007 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, WILDLIFE

“The really awful predications about rapid, massive extinction appear to be true” — Jeremy Kerr, University of Ottawa

“Unless we do something there will be no tigers, lions or bears left in the wild for my grandchildren” — Stuart Pimm, Duke University

Scientists Foresee Extinction Domino Effect
By Stephen Leahy

Credit:morgueFile

Sri Lankan monkey with its young.

May 17 (IPS) – Climate change is accelerating species extinctions and unraveling the intricate web of life, experts fear.

Birds, animals, insects and even plants are on the move around the Earth, trying to flee new and increasingly inhospitable local weather conditions. For some, including alpine species and polar bears, there is nowhere to go. And many others, like plants, lack the mobility to stay ahead of changing climatic conditions.

“We’re already seeing species moving, but they’re not moving fast enough to avoid potential extinction,” says Jeremy Kerr, an ecologist at the University of Ottawa in Canada.

“The really awful predications about rapid, massive extinction appear to be true, according to the early evidence,” Kerr told IPS.

One of those predictions came last year from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), an unprecedented international four-year research effort. The MA warned that up to 30 percent of all species on Earth could vanish by 2050 due to unsustainable human activities. Continue reading →

Ocean No Longer Taking As Much CO2 (and why that’s bad news)

21/05/2007 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, News

Southern Ocean Nears CO2 Saturation Point
By Stephen Leahy

May 17 (IPS) – Climate change has arrested the Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, researchers announced Thursday.

That will make it more difficult to stabilise carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere and to reduce the risks of extreme forms of global warming.

The Southern Ocean has been absorbing less CO2 from the atmosphere since 1981, even though levels have increased 40 percent due to burning of fossil fuels. Oceans absorb half of all human carbon emissions, but the Southern Ocean is taking up less and less and is reaching its saturation point, reported an international research team in the journal Science.

This is the first evidence of the long-feared positive feedbacks that could rapidly accelerate the rate of climate change, pushing impacts to the extreme end of the scale.

“This is serious. All climate models predict that this kind of feedback will continue and intensify during this century,” said Corinne Le Quere of Britain’s University of East Anglia and the paper’s lead author. Continue reading →

US Generals Say Warming Poses Major Security Threat

19/05/200719/05/2007 Stephen Africa, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, News

US Military Panel Calls Warming a Major Threat
By Stephen Leahy

May 15 (IPS) – Senior retired military officers in the United States are urging immediate action on climate change to avoid a massive upsurge in regional and global instability that could threaten their country’s security.

Climate change is a “threat multiplier”, said 11 retired three- and four-star U.S. generals and admirals who make up a military advisory board put together by the non-profit CNA Corporation. They warned Monday that many Asian, African and Middle Eastern nations could fail, opening the door for terrorists and drawing the U.S. into a variety of new conflicts.
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Destroying Canada’s Forests for America’s Oil

14/05/200702/01/2013 Stephen CANADA, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, Forests, News, Pollution and Toxics, sustainability Alberta, Boreal Forest, Canada, Energy, Oil and Gas, oil sands, Taiga, tar sands

“Nowhere else in the world where this much money is being invested”

**REVISED** Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest:

The Environmental Cost of Canada’s Oil Sands

An eBook by Stephen Leahy

Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest is a 30-page eBook presenting a factual overview of the environmental impacts of pumping more than 1.1 million barrels of oil — 175 million litres (50 million gallons) — each day to thirsty US markets.

Based on a 4-part investigative journalism series, leading scientific and environmental experts along with industry officials are interviewed.

Recipe for making a make a gallon of gasoline from the oil sands:

burn 1500 cubic feet of natural gas
use up 700 litres of water
dig up two tonnes of earth and rock
dump 948 litres (250 gallons) of mine tailings

And that’s just the beginning – now the crude has to be processed.

Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest includes pictures of the destruction of virgin boreal forest, links to access additional information, and a peek at a new economic study that shows oil company profits are subsidized by not having to pay for their pollution.

Download your copy of the updated 2009 version 2.1 today for only $3.75
Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest: The Environmental Cost of Canada’s Oil Sands 2.1
eBook -Version 2.1 (2009) – full-color, 8 1/2 x 11″, 30 pages (14 mb pdf download)

Learn more about the author

Can Capitalism Be Green?

07/05/200725/09/2007 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, economics, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, Multilingual Versions, News, sustainability , captialism, ecological footprint, green economics

Can Capitalism Be Green?

By Stephen Leahy

Experts say continuous economic growth, intrinsic to capitalism, is not viable on a planet with increasingly scarce natural resources.

May 7 (IPS/IFEJ) – Capitalism has proven to be environmentally and socially unsustainable, so future prosperity will have to come from a new economic model, say some experts. Just what this new model will look like is the subject of intense debate.

One current states that continuous growth can be environmentally compatible if clean and efficient technologies are adopted, and if economies stop producing material goods and move towards services. This is known as sustainable prosperity.

International agreements to fight global problems, like the thinning of the atmosphere’s ozone layer and climate change, used market principles to achieve compliance by the private sector.

But the problem is, “We are consuming 25 percent more than the Earth can give us each year,” says William Rees, of the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.

Continue reading →

Just Published: Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest

08/04/2007 Stephen CANADA, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ENVIRONMENT, News, Pollution and Toxics

Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest:
The Environmental Cost of Canada’s Oil Sands

A New eBook Available Here

Canada’s oil sands are the world’s largest industrial project easily visible from space. Some of the environmental impacts can also be seen from space but many more are invisible and unacknowledged in their entirety until now.

Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest offers a fast, factual overview of the environmental impacts of pumping more than 1.1 million barrels of oil — 175 million litres/50 million gallons — each day to thirsty US markets. Leading scientific and environmental experts along with industry officials are interviewed to provide the full story.

Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest includes pictures of the environmental destruction, hyperlinks for additional information, a bonus chart on The Real Cost of Tank of Oil Sands Gas and a new economic study that shows Oil Company profits are based on no-cost pollution.

Written by independent journalist Stephen Leahy who has been published in New Scientist, The London Sunday Times, Maclean’s Magazine, The Toronto Star, Wired News, Audubon, BBC Wildlife, and Canadian Geographic. Leahy is the science and environment correspondent for Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), a wire service headquartered in Rome that covers global issues, and its Latin American affiliate,Tierramérica, located in Mexico City.

Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest – eBook – full-color, 8 1/2 x 11″, 28 page pdf (1.2 mb download) Special publication price $6.00

Passion Needed to Meet Climate Challenge

07/04/200709/04/2007 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ENVIRONMENT, News

Climate Change: The Challenge of the Century?

By Stephen Leahy

Apr 6 (IPS) – Climate change is already altering the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, small islands and Asia’s river deltas, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported Friday in Brussels.

And these observed impacts will only increase and widen in the years to come, along with some nasty surprises as the human race’s global climate-altering experiment rapidly gains momentum.

Scientists and environmental activists say the overarching question — and the challenge of the century — is what will we do about it?

“The irritating thing is that we have all the tools at hand to limit climate change and save the world from the worst impacts,” said Lara Hansen, chief scientist of the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Climate Change Programme.

Continue reading →