Save Planet Earth

Japan pledges a total of 15 billion US dollars for climate aid for developing countries up to 2012, Japan’s delegation announced at the UN climate conference late Wednesday. Of the 15 billion dollars, 11 billion dollars will be public money, according to a press release from the delegation.

The Japanese pledge is more generous than EU’s promise to fund 7.2 billion euro (9.39 billion dollars) for the same purposes over the next three years.

The Japanese funding is given on the condition that a successful political accord is achieved at the climate conference in Copenhagen.

“Upon the establishment of a new framework, Japan will with this assistance support a broad range of developing countries which are taking measures of mitigation, as well as those which are vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change,” the press release states.

16/12/2009 22:40 - Marianne Bom - http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=3031

Yet again, Chris Jordan has created another amazing piece of art named Gyre.

This 8×11 feet large image depicts the famous Japanese painting, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Hokusai. Comprised of 2.4 Million pieces of plastic – (the estimated number of pounds of plastic that enter the world’s ocean’s every hour!)

Gyre was inspired by the Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a large collection of rubbish including plastics and other waste product, collected there by the Oceans Gyres, namely the North Pacific Gyre. (A Gyre is a larger circular area of ocean currents, like that of a giant whirlpool.) This pile of rubbish is estimated to be twice the size of Texas, if not larger. Despite its shear size, this mass is not visible from Satellite imagery.

More info on the Pacific Garbage Patch: Here

The pieces of plastic used were actually collected from the Pacific Ocean.

Gyre is just one part of a larger series of Eco Art, created to help raise the public’s awareness to an otherwise unreported problem.

[View with PicLens]

Definition of the word Earthlings: “an inhabitant of earth; mortal.”
(Not just human life but all life that resides on this Earth. What gives us the right to treat other Earthlings with such disregard? We all have our place!)

EARTHLINGS is an award-winning documentary film about the suffering of animals for food, fashion, pets, entertainment and medical research. Considered the most persuasive documentary ever made, EARTHLINGS is nicknamed “the Vegan maker” for its sensitive footage shot at animal shelters, pet stores, puppy mills, factory farms, slaughterhouses, the leather and fur trades, sporting events, circuses and research labs. The film is narrated by Academy Award® nominee Joaquin Phoenix and features music by platinum-selling recording artist Moby. Initially ignored by distributors, today EARTHLINGS is considered the definitive animal rights film by organizations around the world. “Of all the films I have ever made, this is the one that gets people talking the most,” said Phoenix. “For every one person who sees EARTHLINGS, they will tell three.”

In 1999, writer/producer/director Shaun Monson began work on a series of PSAs about spaying and neutering pets. The footage he shot at animal shelters around Los Angeles affected him so profoundly that the project soon evolved into EARTHLINGS. The film would take another six years to complete because of the difficulty in obtaining footage within these profitable industries. Though the film was initially ignored by distributors, who told Monson that the film would “never see the light of day and should be swept under the rug,” today EARTHLINGS is considered the definitive animal rights film by organizations around the world.

If you believe that this documentary is worthy of being viewed then share it with your friends and family.

If we wish to bring about change then we all need to become more informed. It all starts with us..!

The information above is from the official Earthlings website located here: http://www.earthlings.com/

Last week, Australia found itself officially perched at the top of the world’s worst polluters league.

Dirtier than China, dirtier than all of Europe, dirtier than even the good ol’ US of A. We are #1: the undisputed heavyweight polluter of the world.

Time to take a look in the mirror perhaps? Not likely.

The reaction from Mitch Hooke, Chief Executive of the Australian Minerals Council, was typical. “Even if the Australian economy was shut down,” he stated on ABC, “it would only contribute to a lessening of global emissions by 2%.”

In other words, ‘all the other folk are doing it, let’s go hell for leather!’

Unfortunately, the Rudd Government seems to concur. Instead of taking real action on emissions reduction, Kevin Rudd seems to have adopted a policy of ’shock and bore.’ That is, stun people with fine sounding rhetoric, then cloak ineffective policies in layers of soul-sapping complexity.

The CPRS is a case in point. Less well known are the tactics for this December’s world climate summit in Copenhagen, where the dark arts of creative accountancy are the order of the day.

Through a mixture of international offsets and changes to the arcane land use and forestry rules, known as LULUCF, Australian negotiators are aiming to conjure a 13% emissions reduction by doing nothing at all. Changes to the land-use rules laid down by Kyoto alone would account for an 8% cut.

This means that we can actually get even dirtier while looking like we are taking action. Every aspect of the Government’s climate plans seems designed to unearth new ways to ensure that we can keep on polluting. No matter how far-fetched the scheme, the Rudd government will back it to the hilt.

The white elephant that is carbon capture and storage springs to mind. It is frankly bizarre that our pollution reduction plans are reliant on a technology which does not exist and is unlikely to for at least 20 years, if at all.

ABC’s Four Corners last week supplied the latest in a litany of comprehensive demolition jobs on ‘clean coal’, yet it still remains a central plank of Australia’s energy policy.

Also seated comfortably at the Mad Hatter’s tea party is the policy of offsetting – the premise that increased emissions in Australia can be counterbalanced – or offset – by emissions reductions elsewhere.

This doesn’t mean that if we open a coal-fired power station, somebody else has to close one. Nothing so transparent. In fact, a new coal-fired power station in Australia could also be offset by the protection of a forest in Papua New Guinea. Reducing emissions this way is far cheaper and more politically palatable.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work.

The premise itself doesn’t stand up to even the most cursory examination because the reduction from protecting forests isn’t actually a reduction at all.

Instead, it is a projection, a figure derived by creating a ‘business as usual scenario’ then predicting how much carbon has been saved by avoiding this scenario.

Confused? Good. That’s the idea. The less you understand, the less you can object.

But why bother with all this chicanery?

For the answer, we need to return to the realms of reality. In New South Wales, more new coal and gas-fired power stations are on the table now than at any time since the 1970s, not to mention a massive new coal plant under construction in Western Australia and more planned for Queensland and Victoria.

Under the reign of Rudd, Australia has also cemented another No.1 spot, this time as the world’s largest coal exporter. Plans are afoot to double our export capacity.

At a time when the rest of the world is shifting to a low-carbon future, Australia is more addicted to coal than ever.

Since Kevin Rudd was elected in large part to deal with climate change, this puts him in a quandary. But rather than real action, his response has been to try to cheat his way out.

And the impact is far worse than ‘winning’ the occasional unwelcome epithet; because Australia is shooting itself in the foot both economically and environmentally.

Just to take one example, the Great Barrier Reef is being irreversibly damaged by our current climate trajectory. Not only is this a tragedy on an environmental level, the reef brings in around $5 billion every year and more than 60,000 jobs depend on its survival.

The frustrating part is that Australia has vast potential for the development of renewable energy. But renewables need real investment and genuine government backing. Urgently switching away from fossil fuels is essential for the environment and – as study after study shows – would boost the economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

But the longer we wait, the further we will fall behind the rest of the world.

Copenhagen is the big test for Kevin Rudd. His choice is simple: show some leadership and start to honestly live up to his own climate promises, or carry on doing the dirty. If he chooses the latter, we can expect to remain lodged as the world’s biggest carbon polluter for many years to come.

16 September 2009, 11:30 – Trish Harrup - http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2686834.htm

This report was written by Gary W. Harding and is quite concerning to say the least.

Gary wrote this report over ten years ago and this begs the questions: Why are we as a species not heeding these warnings and not taking any responsibility for our actions?

I highly recommend that you read this report.

By Gary W. Harding

In recent years, some prominent economists have argued that there is no upper limit to human population growth, that finiteness in resources is meaningless, and that prosperity can be had by all. Biologists have predicted for decades that a population crash is inevitable a few generations after the ecosystem’s carrying capacity for humans is exceeded (1). Some believe that we may have already exceeded it. Although this carrying capacity is unknown, it is undeniable that non-renewable resources will eventually be used up; that renewable resources have been and will continue to be plundered until they no longer exist; that pollution will take its toll; and that population growth cannot reach a state where there is a mass of humans expanding out from Earth at the speed of light.

Economists verses Biologists

Economists point to past dire predictions from the biologists that didn’t come true to justify their position. Eventually, they say, “market forces” will determine how big the population gets. We have run out of resources in the past and have always found something else to replace them. However, economists ignore the quality of life issue; biologists usually discuss this topic in terms of significant diminution.

We live in a complex world, both economically and biologically; too complex to comprehend with our current knowledge. Neither economists nor biologists understand it. Thus, both the economist’s belief in perpetual growth and the biologist’s predictions of doom lack credibility.

We Live in a World Determined by Human Need

Having appeared on the scene, homo sapiens is as much a part of the natural processes of nature as any other animal. Compared to most, the species has been remarkably successful. Recent economic systems have played a significant roll in this success. At the same time, unanticipated interactions among the members of the ever increasing human population make economic predictions unreliable. However, without getting embroiled in controversy about details, there are some general economic principles that we do understand.

Economics is Driven by Short-Term Self Interest

Humans are torn between self interests and group interests. If we define the ultimate group interests as those of society as a whole, then there is clearly a conflict between the two. The focus of this conflict rests with the pursuit of short-term personal gain, which is opposed by the requirement for long-term group survival. The net balance between these two factors determines the nature of economic (and political) systems.

Current economic systems provide a basis for many more humans to live than could possibly be supported in a subsistence way of life. That is, current population levels depend upon non-renewable, as well as renewable, resources for their existence. However, these systems also provide an opportunity for a few individuals to pursue self interest at the expense of the many. To avoid anarchy and subsequent collapse, society lays down both personal and economic rules for acceptable conduct. Over time, these rules change as the acquisition of wealth and power by the few feeds upon itself. The many pay the price not only economically and socially, but environmentally as well.

We all understand the concept behind the laws of supply and demand. Most have failed to notice, however, that recent economic innovations have repealed these laws. Supply, demand and price can be economically manipulated in the short term, with no concern about the long term consequences (e.g. chromium). Increased demand can be artificially created by economic forces which appeal to the population’s short-term interests (e.g. advertising). Resources which are in fact scarce, particularly considering long-term need, can be made to appear abundant (e.g. oil), at least in the short term.

The “short” in short-term is getting shorter. Among the population, instant gratification is the rule of the day. Easy credit has played a significant role in the dominance of this attitude in some societies. Thus, “buy now – pay later” has contributed to a substantial decline in societal group interests. The result has been a proliferation of subgroups, each competing with the others to satisfy its own self interests. As the number of these subgroups increases even more rapidly than the population, the societal group becomes paralyzed as it attempts to solve its problems.

We Live in a Biological World

It is true that humans are animals and therefore, subject to the laws of nature like any other animal. These laws involve intertwining of uncountable closed-loop feedback systems. If we mess with one, unexpected feedback consequences pop up in others. Without getting embroiled in controversy about details, however, there are some general biological principles that we do understand.

Mass Extinction and Evolution

Mass extinctions, in which from 40% to 95% of all plant and animal species died out, have occurred several times in the distant past. One occurred about 225 million years ago which ushered in the age of reptiles. Another, about 65 million years ago, spelled the end of reptile dominance and led to the age of mammals. The cause of these past events is hotly debated, but the proposed explanations all have geologic (volcanoes), cosmic (asteroids), climatic (hot verses cold), and pathogenic (diseases) bases.

Following each mass extinction, there was a rapid radiation of new species. Once in existence, most species remained relatively unchanged for millions of years until they, in turn, scummed to extinction. Other species were molded, in a Darwinian sense, by adaptation to minor fluctuations in the ecosystem. Some animals, like the horse, also got much bigger.

Extinction does not require that every member of a species disappear within a short period of time. All that is needed is a decline to a level where population maintenance is no longer viable. Such a species may hang on for thousands of years on the road to extinction.

What is different about the current rash of extinctions is that its cause is the massive and widespread impact on the ecosystem of a single animal. The generation of new species requires enough time for adaptation to take place. The rate of ecosystem change is now so rapid that the species which might otherwise have survived a mass extinction may not be able to adapt to the new world.

In nature, the rule for survival of species (in warm climates) has always been “small is good – big is bad”. The opposite holds true only in very cold environments, where larger animals fare better. Small animals are the ones that survive mass extinctions; big ones generally do not. There were never very many of the largest animals that ever lived (some dinosaurs, elephants, rhinoceroses and whales) and those who made a living as predators were indeed rare. At various times in the past, vast herds of large herbivores roamed the savannas of Africa and the plains of North America. However, 80 million wildebeest and 60 million bison don’t even come close to the vast number of humans.

Human Population

An astonishing fact was reported in the news recently. “With the possible exception of the rat, humans are now the most numerous mammal on earth”! Few have recognized the significance of this statement. Something like this has never happened in the nearly 600 million year history of life on our planet. The population of a large animal has never before reached such dominance in the ecosystem.

How did human population manage to grow so large in spite of the natural forces against large animals that should have prevented it? One can point to the development of his large brain and erect posture which freed his hands. But, there is more to it than that. At the end of a severe ice age, about 65,000 years ago, it has been argued that there were only about 10,000 individuals who managed to make it through the tough times. By 50,000 years ago, as a result of good climates and fortuitous migrations, the survivors had precipitated population mini-explosions all around the planet (2).

Population Growth Surges

Many of us have seen graphs of human population growth with its enormous acceleration in the last 200 years. However, if one plots human population on a log-log scale, it is apparent that this population growth occurred in three surges (3). The first coincided with the use of tools, fire and the cultural revolution that homo sapiens brought through the ice ages. The second occurred with the agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago. The last matches the rise of the industrial (and medical) revolution a mere 200 years ago. It is the latter which has produced the enormous spurt we have recently experienced. The most significant aspect of this graph is that the time between surges has shortened dramatically. If past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, we are soon due for another surge.

The relation between innovation and population growth is embedded in the log-log population graph. There was rapid growth at the start of each surge. Then, growth rate slowed as people adapted to the precipitating innovations. Each surge increased the population more than 10 fold. We may be nearing the end of the present surge; growth rates are starting to decline. After the initial spurt, subsequent innovations did not maintained the growth rate. The only significant innovations were those that produced the next surge. Surge-subsequent innovations may have played a role in the decline of population growth rate as the surge came to a close. If those innovations enhanced overall standards of living and longevity for some, average family size may have gone down. An example would be the demographic transition during the present surge as some countries have industrialized and applied medical technology. However, most innovations have not reach a majority of the population. If they had, they might have been significant enough to precipitate another surge.

The activities of 5.7 billion humans, with many more to come, portend ominous consequences for the future of life as we know it. Already, there has been a significant increase in green-house gases, particularly carbon dioxide associated with fossil fuel burning. The predicted impacts of global warming upon climate, if true, are very disturbing. If the ozone layer is really being depleted (recent measurements do not reflect a natural fluctuation), the detrimental impact of increased ultraviolet light on plants and animals could be devastating. Potable water is hard to come by and getting harder. Plants and animals are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. It is this last item that may forebode the worst consequences for humans.

Frogs are Dying

All around the Earth, populations of most species of frogs and toads are declining. Not only are the adults dying, but a majority of their eggs are not hatching and most of the few hatched polliwogs are dying as well. A number of species of frogs and toads have already become extinct; more than would be expected at previous rates of species loss over the past few centuries. Meanwhile, a very few species of frogs and toads are thriving. Scientists are scrambling to find the reasons why.

WHO CARES!!, you say. We all should! This is why. The frog is the “miner’s canary” for our environment. Frogs and toads have passed through numerous mass extinctions for nearly 300 million years. What has made them such robust survivors is their remarkable skin. It is permeable to water and air borne substances such as oxygen. Frog skin is a complex chemical factory as well. It produces a protective coating to prevent desiccation. The skin of several species of frogs and toads produces potent antibiotics and predator repelling toxins.

Frog skin is vulnerable to ultraviolet light. Frogs may, therefore, be the first casualty of ozone-layer depletion. Because its skin is so permeable, the frog is also sensitive to air, water, and soil pollutants. Dying frogs may indicate that the worldwide concentration of pollutants has reached a lethal level for them. If frogs go, can we be far behind?

Can the Merry-Go-Round Go Round and Round

What will be the basis for another human population growth surge? One can think of several possibilities including: a global economy, an information revolution, and an energy revolution. Whatever it is, it must have a major impact upon survival and reproductive success. A significant element in past surges has been innovations in energy use (fire, beasts of burden, fossil fuels). Thus, the development of an abundant and inexpensive energy source would have a profound effect. On the other hand, could the ecosystem survive such a development and the consequential surge in the number of humans?

Mother Nature May Have a Nasty Surprise in Store for Us

Biologists have long argued that the human population would eventually have to decline, due to significant increases in the death rate. In addition to mass starvation, they predicted that a lethal pathogen could evolve and be spread around the world in a matter of hours through our transportation system. What they had in mind was something like a killer-flu. What occurred was even worse than they could possibly have imagined – a virus which is close to 100% fatal, takes ten years to kill it’s victims, and has that much time to be transmitted to new hosts in every corner of the Earth as well as evolve new forms. An effective vaccine is 5-10 years away, if it can be produced at all.

Evidence is now accumulating that, among vertebrates, male fertility is declining. This could be part of the reason for the loss of frogs. Sperm counts have dropped to nearly zero in some populations of alligators and, in a few areas, as many as 20% of human males are functionally sterile. In alligators, a likely cause has been found and the same problem has been verified in humans. It turns out that some of the chemicals released into the environment by humans are estrogen-like when ingested or absorbed into the body. A small excess of estrogen in males, significantly reduces sperm counts and this is extremely difficult to counteract.

Consider the implications of this phenomenon. At the very least, mother nature has provided a self-limiting mechanism for the human population by not only increasing the death rate, but also by ultimately decreasing the birth rate. At the very worst, if nearly all human males become sterile due to self-generated environmental pollution, we could be on the road to extinction in short order. After all, the ultimate cause of extinction for any species is: failure to reproduce. Hopefully, the irony here will not escape us.

References
1 “The Population Question Revisited”, George Moffet, Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 28, Summer 1994, pgs. 54-79.

2 “Pleistocene Population Explosions”, Ann Gibbons, Science, Vol. 262, 1 October 1963, pgs. 27-28.

3 “The Human Population”, Edward S. Deevey, Jr., Scientific American, Vol. 203, September 1960, pgs. 195-204.

Postscripts

For further information, these books which comprehensively examine the topic of mass extinction are recommended:

THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE by Edward O. Wilson, Norton 1992

THE END OF EVOLUTION by Peter Ward, Bantam 1994

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: PATTERNS OF LIFE AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANKIND by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, Doubleday 1995

A new book has just been published which succinctly and eloquently summarizes the books recommended above and corroborates the material presented therein and here.

LIFE IN THE BALANCE: HUMANITY AND THE BIODIVERSITY CRISIS by Niles Eldredge, Princeton 1998
“… a single biological species, our species, Homo sapiens, is disrupting ecosystems and driving species to extinction in the new wave of mass extinction. Why not just let the Sixth Extinction run its course? After all, evolution ultimately creates new species that become the players in newly rebuilt ecosystems. The answer is simple: New species evolve, and ecosystems are reassembled, only after the cause of disruption and extinction is removed or stabilized. In other words, Homo sapiens will have to cease acting as the cause of the Sixth Extinction – whether through our own demise, or, preferably, through determined action, before evolutionary/ecological recovery can begin. Our fate is inextricably linked to the fate of Earth’s species and ecosystems.” (pg. 66)

Copyright © 1995, 1998 by Gary W. Harding – http://oto2.wustl.edu/bbears/trajcom/endspcs.htm

Did anyone watch 4 Corners about carbon capture and storage? My worst fears have been realised. There are none working in the world, there won’t be for at least 7 or so years, and they wont be ‘economically’ viable until at least 2030. The coal companies do not have to pay for their emissions and have no incentive to clean up their act. In fact, they are doing all they can to stall it because of the massive costs required to actually create these plants. It is all a massive crock of shit. George Bush and John Howard were supposed to make the first one in America (under NextGen) and after years, it fell through. This was investigated and it turned out to be a massive PR ploy to make it LOOK like they were doing something about global warming, but in fact they did not believe it and had no intention of going through with it.

Even if they did make these plants (and they would need to make hundreds all over the world – something not possible til at least around 2050 or later) they would need to store the equivilent amount of CO2 as the oil we are taking OUT of the earth. This is probably not possible in itself. So what does this all boil down to? It is all about money, and money in politics. It is means we are doomed because of it. Of course, if the Greens were voted in, this could change – a most unlikely scenario because HUMANS ARE STUPID ASS HOLES! All anyone cares about is the bloody economy, something which will also be destroyed anyway!

Yes, it is fare to say that the program infuriated me. It seems all so clear, but very few of us will do anything about it. I honestly think we have no hope, other than a massive global disaster or something which would destroy society as we know it.

Until a few months ago, government targets for cutting greenhouse gases at least had the virtue of being wrong. They were the wrong targets, by the wrong dates, and they bore no relationship to the stated aim of preventing more than 2C of global warming. But they used a methodology that even their sternest critics (myself included) believed could be improved until it delivered the right results: the cuts just needed to be raised and accelerated.

Three papers released earlier this year changed all that. The first, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February, showed that the climate change we cause today will be “largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop”. About 40% of the carbon dioxide produced by humans this century will remain in the atmosphere until at least the year 3000. Moreover, thanks to the peculiar ways in which the oceans absorb heat from the atmosphere, global average temperatures are likely to “remain approximately constant … until the end of the millennium despite zero further emissions”.

In other words, governments’ hopes about the trajectory of temperature change are ill-founded. Most, including the UK’s, are working on the assumption that we can overshoot the desired targets for temperature and atmospheric concentrations of CO2, then watch them settle back later. What this paper shows is that, wherever temperatures peak, that is more or less where they will stay. There is no going back.

The other two papers were published by Nature in April. While governments and the United Nations set targets for cuts by a certain date, these papers measured something quite different: the total volume of carbon dioxide we can produce and still stand a good chance of avoiding more than 2C of warming. One paper, from a team led by Myles Allen, shows that preventing more than 2C means producing a maximum of half a trillion tonnes of carbon (1,830bn tonnes of carbon dioxide) between now and 2500 – and probably much less. The other paper, written by a team led by Malte Meinshausen, proposes that producing 1,000bn tonnes of CO2 between 2000 and 2050 would give a 25% chance of exceeding 2C of warming.

If you want an idea of what this means, take a look at the global carbon clock at www.know-the-number.com. The level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is rising at the rate of 2bn tonnes a month (CO2 equivalent). The Allen paper suggests that the world can produce only the equivalent of between 63 and 75 years of current emissions between now and 2500 if we want to avoid more than 2C of warming.

Writing elsewhere, the two teams gave us an idea of what this means. At current rates of use, we will burn the ration that Allen set aside for the next 500 years in four decades. Meinshausen’s carbon budget between now and 2050 will have been exhausted before 2030.

The World Energy Council (WEC) publishes figures for global reserves of fossil fuels – the minerals that have been identified and quantified, and which it is cost-effective to exploit. The WEC says 848bn tonnes of coal, 177,000bn cubic metres of natural gas and 162bn tonnes of crude oil are good to go. We know roughly how much carbon a tonne of coal, a cubic metre of gas and a barrel of oil contain. The calculations and references are on my website: the result suggests that official reserves of coal, gas and oil amount to 818bn tonnes of carbon.

The molecular weight of carbon dioxide is 3.667 times that of carbon. This means that current reserves of fossil fuel, even when we ignore unconventional sources such as tar sands and oil shale, would produce 3,000bn tonnes of carbon dioxide if they were burnt. So, in order not to exceed 2C of global warming, we can burn, according to Allen’s paper, a maximum of 60% of current fossil fuel reserves by 2500. Meinshausen says we’ve already used one-third of his 2050 budget since 2000, which suggests that we can afford to burn only 22% of current reserves between now and 2050. If you counted unconventional sources (the carbon content is much harder to calculate), the proportion would be even smaller.

There are some obvious conclusions from these three papers. The trajectory of cuts is more important than the final destination. An 80% cut by 2050, for instance, could produce very different outcomes. If most of the cut were made towards the beginning of the period, the total emissions entering the atmosphere would be much smaller than if it were made at the end of the period. The peak atmospheric concentration must be as low as possible and come as soon as possible, which means making most of the reductions right now. Ensuring that we don’t exceed the cumulative emissions discussed in the Nature papers means setting an absolute limit on the amount of fossil fuel we can burn, which, as my rough sums show, is likely to be much smaller than the reserves already identified. It means a global moratorium on prospecting and developing new fields.

None of this is on the table. The targets and methodology being used by governments and the United Nations – which will form the basis of their negotiations at Copenhagen – are irrelevant. Unless there is a radical change of plan between now and December, world leaders will not only be discussing the alignment of deckchairs on the Titanic, but disputing whose deckchairs they really are and who is responsible for moving them. Fascinating as this argument may be, it does nothing to alter the course of the liner.

But someone, at least, has a radical new plan. This afternoon the team that made the film The Age of Stupid is launching the 10:10 campaign, which aims for a 10% cut in the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions during 2010. This seems to be roughly the trajectory needed to deliver a good chance of averting 2C of warming. By encouraging people and businesses and institutions to sign up, the campaign hopes to shame the UK government into adopting this as its national target. This would give the government the moral leverage to demand immediate sharp cuts from other nations, based on current science rather than political convenience.

I don’t agree with everything the campaign proposes. It allows businesses to claim reductions in carbon intensity as if they were real cuts: in other words, they can measure their reductions relative to turnover rather than in absolute terms. There’s an uncomfortable precedent for this: cutting carbon intensity was George Bush’s proposal for tackling climate change. As economic growth is the major cause of rising emissions, this looks like a cop-out. The cuts will not be independently audited, which might undermine their credibility with the government.

But these are quibbles. 10:10 is the best shot we have left. It may not be enough, it may not work, but at least it’s relevant. I take the pledge. Will you?

(01-Sep-2009 George Monbiot – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/01/global-warming-emissions-fossil-fuels)

Message from the President of the Maldives from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

Full Story:

An island nation in the Indian Ocean threatened by rising water levels has pledged to become the world’s first carbon-neutral country within the next 10 years.

Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, announced his country’s plan Sunday after a special screening of The Age of Stupid, a new British film about climate change. The screening at Theemuge, the presidential palace in the country’s capital, Male, was attended by numerous government officials including the nation’s vice president, ministers and members of parliament.

“Climate change isn’t a vague and abstract danger but a real threat to our survival,” Nasheed had written in a letter published earlier in the day in Britain’s Observer newspaper. “Going green might cost a lot but refusing to act now will cost us the Earth.”

The government has been working with international climate energy experts to draw up a plan that will allow the country to achieve its goal, said a government news release Sunday. The plan will involve a “radical shift” from fossil fuel to renewable energy production.

The nation hopes the transition will attract environmentally conscious tourists, the release said. Tourists already generate a billion dollars a year for its economy.

Much of country could be submerged by 2100

President Mohamed Nasheed predicted that changes to make his country carbon neutral will bring prosperity. (President’s office/Republic of Maldives)Nasheed predicted the changes that will be made as a result of the plan will bring his country prosperity.

The Maldives consist of 1,192 coral islands near the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka, including about 250 that are inhabited by a total of around 400,000 people. Much of the archipelago is 1.5 metres or less above sea level.

Scientists at a meeting in Copenhagen last week predicted that glaciers and ice sheets melting as a result of global warming could boost the level of the world’s oceans by as much as a metre by the end of the century.

In his letter in the Observer, Nasheed criticized other nations’ response to the threat of climate change.

“Many politicians’ response to the looming catastrophe…beggars belief. Playing a reckless game of chicken with Mother Nature, they prefer to deny, squabble and procrastinate rather than heed the words of those who know best.”

In November, a month after Nasheed won the presidential election, he announced that the country would begin saving to buy a new homeland in case the nation becomes submerged, saying it was “an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome.” That land might be in India, Sri Lanka or Australia, he said.

(March 16, 2009 – CBC News – http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/03/16/tech-090316-maldives-carbon-neutral.html)

It’s much, much later than you think

This really isn’t about polar bears any more. At this very moment, the fate of civilization itself hangs in the balance.

It turns out that the way we have been calculating the future impacts of climate change up to now has been missing a really important piece of the picture. It seems we are now dangerously close to the tipping point in the world’s climate system; this is the point of no return, after which truly catastrophic changes become inevitable.

Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip is a short, animated film about climate change by Leo Murray.

Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

Life on Earth is in the throes of a new wave of mass extinction, unlike anything since the demise of the dinosaurs. In the last 500 years, 844 species – like the passenger pigeon, auk, thylacine, and quagga – are known to have died out, and up to 16,000 others are now known to be threatened. Two thirds of turtles could be gone by the 2025, great apes have recently declined by over 50% in parts of Africa, half of marsupials and one in three amphibians are in jeopardy, and a staggering 40% of Asia’s plants and animals could soon be lost.

But this may only be a fraction of the true number facing extinction. Though only 1.5 million species have been described, there could be between 5 to 30 million in total. Of these, some experts predict that one could be falling extinct every 20 minutes – or 27,000 a year.

Conservationists argue that humans have an ethical obligation to protect other species, that diversity and natural beauty are highly prized by mankind, and that biodiversity is a vital resource: we rely on ecosystems to provide food, oxygen and natural resources, recycle wastes and fertilise soils for agriculture. The total value of services provided to man by nature has been estimated at $33 trillion annually.

Plants and animals are also an essential source of new foods and medicines – up to 20,000 plants are used in medicines worldwide. Preserving species could help protect us from disease.

Sixth wave

Natural disasters and processes were behind the five major mass extinctions in geological history, but the current “sixth extinction” is caused by success of one species – humans. The six billion (and counting) people crowding the Earth, are driving out biodiversity in a variety of ways.

Species form and die out naturally as a part of evolution. However, many experts argue the current extinction rate is as much as 100 or 1000 times higher than the “background” rate. Bird extinctions were the first to hint at this, but in 2004, studies of declining butterflies and plants confirmed it.

Humans began to destroy ecosystems in a major way about 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture. But within the last 100,000 years, the hunting and burning practices of Palaeolithic people, along with climate change, drove many large mammals and birds to extinction. North- and South America and Australia lost up to 86% of large mammals soon after humans arrived – species such as giant wombats, killer ducks, ground sloths, mammoths, sabre-tooth cats and moas.

Habitat losses

The most common reason for extinction is habitat loss. Ecosystems from wetlands to prairies and cloud forests to coral reefs are being cleared or degraded for crops, cattle, roads and development. Even fragmenting habitats with roads or dams can make species more vulnerable. Fragmentation reduces population size and increases inbreeding, increases disease and opens access for poachers.

The Amazonian rainforest is today being cleared at rate of 24,000 km2 per year – equivalent to New York City’s Central Park being destroyed every hour. Worldwide, 90,000 km2 of forest is cleared annually.

In East Africa deforestation is destroying game parks, Singapore has lost 95% of its tropical forests, South East Asia may lose 74% by 2100. More than quarter of Earth’s land is under cultivation and in 54 countries 90% of forests have been felled.
Alien invaders

Some endangered species also have to contend with exotic invaders – the second biggest threat to rare species. Introduced species prey on them, eat their food, infect them or otherwise disrupt them. Human seafarers have spread cats, dogs, rats, foxes, rabbits and weasels to new places, contributing to the McDonaldisation of Earth’s biota.

In Australia, rabbits and foxes are driving native marsupials to extinction; In New Zealand, weasels have been pushing the flightless Kakapo parrot to its doom; In North America, tiny European zebra mussels arrived in the 1980s with shipping, and clog waterways; In the US, once-ubiquitous chestnuts were decimated by an introduced blight. In Kenya’s Lake Victoria, the Nile perch has miraculously managed to eat its way through 200 cichlid fish species since 1959.And in Maryland, US, the voracious south-east Asian snakehead fish has been chomping its way through native fish and waterfowl since 2002.

Often exotic species, such as the cane toad, have even been introduced intentionally, to control other species with disastrous consequences. One unusual way to eradicate invaders could be for people to eat them.
Exploitation

Exploitation – hunting, collecting, fishing or trading – is another factor driving extinctions. American bison were hunted down from a population of 30 million before Europeans arrived, to just 750 animals in 1890. Whales were exploited so fiercely that the International Whaling Commission voted in 1986 to place a moratorium on most whaling. Blue whales, for example, were hunted down from a population of perhaps 300,000 to just a few thousand by the 1960s.

Today we continue to rape the oceans through overfishing. The UN claims that 15 of the top 17 fisheries are in decline. Exploited species include: the tuna, swordfish, red snapper, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic cod, sharks and lobsters. Now, overfishing of the smaller species that fleets have switched to may inhibit the recovery of the more-prized species that prey on them.

Canada’s Atlantic cod fishery was closed in 1992 following its collapse. Better management and stock modelling may help reverse the trend, but others argue that many fisheries are already doomed.

Other species are unintentionally killed as bycatch, by drift nets, longlines and deep-sea trawlers. Surveys reveal that 300,000 dolphins and small whales and as many as half of all remaining turtles are snared as bycatch each year. Overfishing could even put a strain on terrestrial wildlife.

Another significant challenge to conservation is the international trade in rare species. Second only to the illegal drug trade, it is thought to be worth more than illegal arms, and may net $10 billion a year. Tropical fish, birds (particularly parrots), and other animals are captured and sold as pets. Some – like turtles, whales and sharks – are prized as delicacies.

Others – such as tigers, rhinos and saiga – are killed to supply bones, gall bladders, horns and other body parts for traditional medicine. Horns, feathers, eggs and other trophies are smuggled to unscrupulous collectors. Trade in elephant ivory was banned in 1990, but despite the ban 4000 are still killed illegally each year.

The UN’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) was set up in 1975 to stem the flow. Another body, TRAFFIC, monitors trade in rare species. One US forensics lab is dedicated to uncovering the illegal trade. Detection kits for bear tissue and different kinds of fur may help uncover illegal imports. However, some experts argue that we must allow limited trade of species in order to save them.

Pollution

Pollution is another serious issue. If it does not kill animals outright, pollution can affect reproduction, mess with sexual development and trigger bizarre behaviour.

Mercury, dioxins, flame retardants, synthetic hormone, pesticides and other hydrocarbons such as DDT and PCBs are ubiquitous and carried far and wide. Carcinogenic pollutants are behind cancers in Canadian beluga whales. Sewage is ravaging Caribbean corals, while acid rain is killing fish and trees in Europe. Radioactive waste is found throughout oceans and ecosystems.

Oil spills continue to kill seabirds, marine and coastal life in regions such as Spain, Pakistan and the Galapagos islands. Between 1993 and 2002, 580,000 tonnes of oil spilt into the sea in 470 separate accidents.
Conservation measures

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) publishes the Red List – an annual index of threatened species. The IUCN, governments and conservationists try to protect these species by fencing them off and educating local people.

In 1872 Yellowstone National Park, in the US, became the world’s first modern reserve. During the last century 44,000 protected areas were designated, covering 10% of Earth’s land. Marine reserves only cover 1% of oceans, and more are needed.

The identification of biodiversity hotspots may help focus resources. Ecotourism may also be part of the solution, but could be part of the problem too. Returning the stewardship of forest reserves and other habitats to their indigenous inhabitants could help.

In Africa, 2 million km2 is designated as protected: reserves such as Aberdare, Tsavo and the Masai Mara in Kenya; Quiçama in Angola; Kruger in South Africa; Garamba and Virunga in Congo; Queen Elizabeth in Uganda and the Serengeti in Tanzania. In 2002 Brazil created the vast Tumucumaque National Park, the largest tropical forest reserve in the world, the same year that Australia created the world’s largest marine reserve.

Reintroducing species such as golden tamarin moneys, wolves and condors, has been a success. Some researchers even advocate reintroducing large animals such as lions and elephants to the US and wolves to the UK.

Failing these methods, if we collect genetic material now, we may be able to reincarnate extinct species by cloning them in the future.

(11:49 04 September 2006 by John Pickrell – http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9961-instant-expert-endangered-species.html?full=true)