tagged w/ Climate-Change
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Governments from the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters have met a Copenhagen summit deadline to submit their plans for cutting emissions by the year 2020.
The European Union has set an unconditional target to cut emissions by 20 per cent compared to 1990 levels and is willing to raise that to 30 per cent if other countries make an equal effort.
Australia will have a 5 per cent reduction target with no conditions applying and will only lift its target to 15 per cent or 25 per cent if countries like China, India and the United States agree to verifiable reductions.
link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/01/2806762.htm?section=justinGovernments from the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters have met a... more
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eva2
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added this
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3 years ago
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Life on planet Earth is at a crossroads, with multiple environmental crises bearing down upon us simultaneously: climate change, resource depletion, oil supply decline, ocean pollution, overpopulation, species extinction, and more. The Great Squeeze inventories and connects all of them, showing how short-sighted human behavior and decisions have resulted in a situation that threatens our lives and planet.
The film travels back in time to take us on a journey through history when past civilizations made the same mistakes -- growing too fast, depleting their natural resources and ultimately collapsing. The Anasazi society, the Mayan civilization and the Easter Island culture all provide graphic examples of peoples violating principles of sustainability and exceeding the carrying capacity of their environment. The veil of mystery surrounding the disappearance of these once-thriving cultures is peeled back to offer insights into our own modern social order seemingly bent on a similar path of self-destruction.
Instead of the usual band-aid approaches, The Great Squeeze challenges us to learn from history and transition towards a more sustainable economy that values our environment. By changing our levels of consumption, deploying new technologies, and reordering social priorities, we can still live well.
Renowned scientists, thinkers and authors, including Richard Heinberg, Edward O. Wilson, Lester Brown, Alexandra Cousteau, Jim White, Howard Kunstler and others, provide perspective and insights on our current state of affairs and how we can change course.
The Great Squeeze was selected for screening in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference, and at 14 film festivals around the world, where it won several awards, including Best Feature, Colorado Environmental Film Festival.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYzjRDtFxuo&feature=player_embeddedLife on planet Earth is at a crossroads, with multiple environmental crises bearing... more
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Get ready for more. I have told everybody all along. The government and Al Gore lied and then used HAARP to convince the sheeple that the sky was falling. Try to squirm out of this one, Big Al.Get ready for more. I have told everybody all along. The government and Al Gore lied... more
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Should businesses support the high-profile U.K. campaign to cut emissions by 10 percent during 2010? If you live in the UK and haven't heard about it, the likelihood is that you've spent the past week living in a cave, in which case your carbon footprint must already be so low that you are not really part of the target audience.Should businesses support the high-profile U.K. campaign to cut emissions by 10... more
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hbyrne
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added this
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3 years ago
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Please Sign Petition! Protect the Habitat of Endangered Beluga Whales NOW!
Target: James Balsiger, NOAA Acting Assistant Administrator
Sponsored by: Ocean River Institute
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/937474107?z00m=17355045
On October 17, NOAA's Fisheries Service determined that the Cook Inlet beluga whales would be listed under the Endangered Species Act. This is a great victory for these irreplaceable creatures!
This success is, however, bittersweet - the whales are still an endangered species, and we need to do everything we can to protect their habitat. With their numbers having fallen steadily since 1979 to only 302 whales today, the beluga is in danger of extinction throughout its range in Alaska!
These whales are in trouble the Cook Inlet beluga population was estimated at 1,293 in 1979. Since then the population has fallen steadily until there were only 302 in 2006, the most recent count.
The low numbers and shrinking population causes Cook Inlet beluga whales to be much more vulnerable to all natural sources of mortality, such as disease, predation and stranding. Limiting their range to portions of Cook Inlet, the belugas are particularly vulnerable to human caused sources of whale weakening and mortality as well. Oil drilling tailings are not regulated. Sewage insufficiently treated; non-point source and storm overflows are untreated. Heavy metals, petro-chemicals and endocrine disruptive chemicals bio-accumulate in the fat tissues of belugas and are magnified when passed from mother to calf.
Such persistent pollutants can affect the fertility and reproductive rate of whales. Meanwhile, ship traffic through Cook Inlet is increasing with Anchorage Port exceeding the projected tonnage growth rate of 2.5 percent per year.
Alaska's marine ecosystems and fisheries are particularly vulnerable to the immediate impacts of global warming temperature variations and carbon-loading of the atmosphere. A third of increased atmospheric carbon goes into the ocean causing acidification of seawater and further challenging marine invertebrates in Cook Inlet, a vital part of the beluga's food pyramid. Taking management steps to avert these problems will not only save belugas, it will benefit Alaska's economy by increasing seafood value and tourism.
Join us in urging NMFS to follow through on their proposal to designate critical habitat for the Cook Inlet beluga whale now that it is an endangered species. Only by addressing troubled waters in Cook Inlet can beluga whales recover and thrive once again.
Please Sign Petition! Protect the Habitat of Endangered Beluga Whales NOW!
Target:... more
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NEW SPECIES OF LIVING MANATEE!
'A New Species, the Dwarf Manatee, Amazon Association for the Preservation of Nature'
Discovered in AAPN Manus-Amazonas, Brazil.
Shallow clear-water adapted dwarf manatee is already on the edge of extinction due to rainforest deforestation, hunting...
THERE ARE NO LAWS TO PROTECT THIS CRITICALLY ENDANGERED DWARF MANATEE.
http://www.care2.com/news/member/785844898/889616
http://www.marcvanroosmalen.org/dwarfmanatee.htm
CRITICALLY ENDANGERED!
NEW SPECIES OF LIVING MANATEE!
'A New Species, the Dwarf Manatee, Amazon... more
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Help Us Obtain Greater Enforcement
Of Boat Speed Zones
The Issue:
Cuts in state and federal funding have resulted in fewer on-water law enforcement officers in critical areas of Florida. The Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, created to safeguard manatees, is one such area. In July, a mother manatee was horribly injured in the bay by a speeding boat and subsequently died. Very recently, another manatee was also horribly injured by a speeding boat and died. Unfortunately, this scenario will continue to be repeated many times in areas heavily used by both boats and manatees unless law enforcement efforts are increased dramatically.
Although we don’t believe in gratuitously displaying manatee photos depicting disfiguring injuries, we have decided - after much soul-searching - to post some online photos of the poor manatee mother because a picture is worth a thousand words.
Warning: These photos are very graphic.
Click here to view photos: http://www.savethemanatee.org/cr_photos.htm
Our immediate goal is to get more officers on the water during times of peak use, even if it means Save the Manatee Club pays for them. We are also increasing boater awareness with a new poster featuring the message, “Navigate With Care, Manatees Are There.” And we will advocate to eliminate dangerous high speed areas.
What You Can Do:
Take action now by sending the following letter to Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and to Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist, asking them to immediately increase their on-water law enforcement presence throughout manatee habitat. And please send this alert to your friends and family and ask them to take action, too.
Take Action! Sign this petition PLEASE!
http://www.savethemanatee.org/actionalert.cfm?id=12
Help Us Obtain Greater Enforcement
Of Boat Speed Zones
The Issue:
Cuts in... more
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As Beijing's polluted air came close to exceeding levels even the Chinese consider dangerous yesterday, one of the International Olympic Committee's most senior figures dismissed the yellow-grey haze that periodically hangs over the city as mist, and blamed the media for overstating pollution problems.
Air quality in Beijing remains a big cause for concern three days before the start of the games. Members of the US athletics team arrived in the city wearing face masks yesterday and organisers are preparing to postpone or relocate endurance events including the marathon and road cycling if smog levels reach dangerous limits.
But yesterday Arne Ljungqvist, chairman of the IOC's medical commission, said he was confident that pollution would not harm athletes or visitors, and suggested media coverage had created a false impression of pollution levels.
"The mist in the air that we see in those places, including here, is not a feature of pollution primarily but a feature of evaporation and humidity," he told the IOC's annual session. "We do have a communication problem here. Once the misconception has become sort of established in the minds of people, it's not that easy to get the right message through.
As Beijing's polluted air came close to exceeding levels even the Chinese... more
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Fish and pigs and chickens, oh my!
By Erik Hoffner, Guest Contributor
GRIST, June 27, 2008
SIX TIMES MORE FISH FED TO LIVESTOCK THAN TO HUMANS
According to the UBS Fisheries Centre in Vancouver, B.C., despite rampant over-fishing and depletion of world fish populations, globally, we are now feeding 14 MILLIOIN TONS of edible wild-caught fish to factory farm animals, like pigs and chickens, each year. That amounts to over six times the amount of fish the entire U.S. population eats annually. Wild fish fed to animals on a massive scale include perfectly edible anchovies, sardines, mackerel, and herring, which are ground into a cheap fishmeal and sold for animal feed. In other words a protein source is being fed to animals on corporate farms with a 90% energy loss. Given the global food crisis and the over-harvesting of many of the ocean's commercial fish varieties, careful analysis of resource use by the global industrial food complex is becoming a life or death imperative.
Here's a guest post from Jennifer Jacquet of the Sea Around Us Project and the UBC Fisheries Centre in Vancouver, B.C. ----- It is one thing to grind up wild fish to feed to farmed fish, but it is quite another to grind up these perfectly edible fish to feed factory-farmed pigs and poultry. After all, when is the last time you saw a chicken catch a fish?
In the not-so-distant past, pigs and chickens ate grass, some grains, and food scraps. Today, in the throes of a perverse industrial food system that favors cheap protein and quick growth (with often astonishing results such as Mad Cow disease), we now feed farm animals lots of small, tasty fish.
LOTS.
Each year we feed 14 million tons of wild-caught fish (including anchovies, sardines, mackerel, and herring) to pigs and chickens around the globe. That amounts to 17 percent of all the wild fish we catch. Pigs and chickens eat double the amount of fish that Japan consumes annually and six times more seafood than the entire U.S. population eats each year.
Is it efficient to feed these fish to pigs and chickens? Moreover, with rampant overfishing a global problem, is it ethical? This is not the same question of whether we should feed grains to cattle, which leads to an overall loss in energy but also a conversion of carbohydrates to protein. In the case of fishmeal fed to pigs and poultry, a perfectly edible (and rather scarce) protein source is being consumed and converted (with an energy loss of ~90 percent) by simply another protein source.
It's messed up.
What to do? In Peru, home to a large fishmeal industry, scientists and chefs came together to initiate a program to "discover the anchovy" and turn fishmeal into a meal of fish. But much of this program's success hinges on government action.
"We have the best oceanographer in the country at the Marine Research Institute and he insists we have to leave 5 million tonnes of anchovies in the water," explains Patricia Majluf, the architect of the Peruvian anchovy initiative. "The government also now insists on establishing the anchovy quota at the beginning of the season rather than the old way telling the fishermen when to stop, which led to lots of overfishing."
In places where government action is unlikely due to the mantra of free markets, it is more likely we would see some sort of awareness program, such as a seafood wallet card for pigs and chickens (who don't read).
"Better yet, we will tell pigs and chickens they can eat only what they catch," says Daniel Pauly, Director of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre.
Maybe we should feed pigs and poultry (literally) Michael Pollan's advice: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
And we should do the same.
Fish and pigs and chickens, oh my!
By Erik Hoffner, Guest Contributor
GRIST, June... more
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It's free & really simple:
You watch videos on Go Green Tube, and every time you do, a verified pound of carbon is offset.
You submit videos, more people go there, and more carbon gets offset.
A brilliantly easy to learn and make a difference at the same time.
http://www.greenindustryeducation.com/greentvtube/vse/index.php
Topics include recycling, organic pest-control, chemicals, computers, tools, education, landscape, preservation, lighting, gardens, environment, sustainability, water...
GO GREEN TV TUBE!It's free & really simple:
You watch videos on Go Green Tube, and every... more
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OUR OCEANS ARE AT RISK!
Oceana – Protecting the World’s Oceans: The Problem
Oceans cover 71 percent of the globe and to the naked eye, they are beautiful. However, beneath the surface, our irresponsible and shortsighted commercial fishing practices have put our oceans at risk. A 2006 report in the journal Science tells us that all of the world's current fisheries could collapse by 2048.
At risk is not just a food supply, but also a wealth of magnificent species and the livelihoods of fishing communities everywhere. But we can keep this projection from coming true — we can change how we manage them. But we must act now.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION TODAY!
To the naked eye, our oceans are beautiful. However, a 2006 report in the journal Science tells us that 29 percent of our fisheries have already collapsed. In addition, the scientists' projection of current trends shows all of the world's current fisheries collapsing by 2048. But we can keep this projection from coming true - we can change how we manage them. Indeed, we really have less than 40 years to act - if we fail to act in the next two decades, we could see the trends become irreversible.
Tell President Bush to protect our oceans so that the next generation can also enjoy their bounty. Please sign Oceana's message to President Bush.
http://takeaction.oceana.org/dia/organizationsORG/oceana/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=11378&t=support.dwtOUR OCEANS ARE AT RISK!
Oceana – Protecting the World’s Oceans: The... more
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Housing Sprawl in the Southeast - Our Vanishing Wild Places
Our window of opportunity to preserve much of what is left of our great Eastern Forests closes more with each new housing development in our forests. The interactive graphics below demonstrate the land that has been lost to housing sprawl and how much more will be lost if current practices fail to change.
We have a chance to preserve for future generations much of what is left of our great Eastern Forests—and there is a lot worth saving. But the time to do so narrows with each new housing development in our forests, so we must all work together now to save our most important lands. TWS is working to establish more Wilderness areas in the east; to increase federal and state funding to purchase priority lands or development rights from willing sellers; to prevent road building & commercial logging in Forest Service roadless areas; and to create a broad understanding of how protecting forests helps to combat climate change.
* The data for these maps were produced by R.B. Hammer and V.C. Radeloff at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with funding from the USDA Forest Service North Central Research Station.
{ http://www.wilderness.org/OurIssues/EasternForests/SprawlSE.cfm }Housing Sprawl in the Southeast - Our Vanishing Wild Places
Our window of... more
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